Fortunately there was “a barrier state” in London between the Governor-General and the Directors in the person of the President of the Board of Control, the said Board consisting of Cabinet Ministers. This position had been occupied since July 1802 by Lord Castlereagh, who, on taking office, found that Wellesley had come to the conclusion that resignation was better than humiliation. He did much to smooth over the difficulties, and from that time until Wellesley’s return to England Castlereagh loyally supported the Viceroy on every possible occasion. For instance, when the reduction of the Indian establishment to 10,000 troops was seriously mooted by the Directors and the Cabinet at home, notwithstanding the threatening attitude of the Marhattá confederacy, it was largely due to Castlereagh’s support of Lord Wellesley’s demands that so absurd a policy was prevented.
The President of the Board of Control never interfered in the matter of patronage, knowing full well that the Governor-General on the spot was better able to recognize merit for the special requirements of the service than a man thousands of miles away. This brings us back to our proper subject.
We have noted how Lord Mornington discerned the opportunity awaiting his brother in India, and how that brother reciprocated when the former was diffident in the matter of accepting the chief official post there. It is true that Wellesley was made Governor of Seringapatam over the head of Baird, his senior officer, but whether this appointment was due to the fact that Mornington influenced General Harris in the matter of his choice is not sufficiently evident. There is a strong suspicion that it was,20 because Arthur Wellesley had only served as commander of the reserve, whereas Baird was the leader of the assault, and as such military tradition unquestionably favoured his appointment.
Again, in the matter of the Batavian expedition, the Governor-General offered Wellesley the appointment as military commander: “The King has given me the power of selecting the persons who are to conduct this expedition; … and a conscientious sense of duty induces me to think that you are the most fit person to be selected for that service, provided you can safely be spared from Mysore for the period of the expedition....” In Mornington’s opinion, “the expedition will be very advantageous to the naval and military commanders.” On the other hand, we know that when the project was abandoned for a diversion on the coasts of the Red Sea, he superseded his brother. One wonders what would have happened when Wellesley set off for Bombay without instructions, had he not been closely related to the Governor-General. The Marquis certainly did not minimize Arthur’s successes to those at home. Writing to Addington, then Speaker of the House of Commons, in October 1800, he says, “My brother Arthur has distinguished himself most brilliantly in an expedition against an insurgent, who had collected a great force of predatory cavalry—the wreck of Tippú’s army.” Three years later, when Addington was Prime Minister, he again drew attention to his brother’s achievements, as follows:—
“My public duty will not permit me to be silent respecting Major-General Wellesley. His march from Mysore to Poona, his able conduct of the measures adopted for restoring the Peishwah, for conciliating the feudatory Mahratta chiefs who maintained their allegiance to the Peishwah, for preserving the dominions of the Nizám, and our interests at Hyderabad, combined with his sieges of Ahmednuggur, Burrampur, and Asseerghur, his glorious and splendid victories at Assaye and on the plains of Argaum, with the entire ruin of Sindhia’s French troops and powerful artillery in the Deccan, must place the name of General Wellesley among the most bright and distinguished characters that have adorned the military history of the British power in India. He is now employed in reducing the main fortress of Perar, and in negotiating, with the utmost judgment and skill, the conditions of peace. I leave his merits to your justice, and to the judgment of his King and country. The pride and honour of being allied by the nearest ties of blood to such an officer cannot absolve me from the obligations of my public station, as the representative of the supreme civil and military authority in India; and I cannot, therefore, omit this testimony to the merits of General Wellesley without a positive violation of my duty.”21
Whatever may be thought of such glowing praise from a brother on the score of good taste, it evidently achieved its purpose, for before he left India, Arthur Wellesley was appointed an extra Knight Companion of the Bath and received the thanks of the King and Parliament.
Earl Roberts,22 in summing up this phase of the future Duke’s career, remarks: “On his arrival in India he found himself in a country where in almost every matter the power and influence of the Governor-General were supreme, and the Governor-General being his brother, he was quickly placed in a position of responsibility, which gave him the opportunity of developing his talents as a soldier and statesman in the best of all schools—the school of practice. It cannot be denied that in early life Wellington owed much to family influence,23 and to a system of promotion which would now be stigmatized as jobbery. On the other hand, he took full advantage of every chance that was thrown in his way, and by his industry and capacity fully justified the exceptional favour with which he was treated.”
With this conclusion the present writer heartily agrees; whatever Sir Arthur gained from his relative’s assistance was amply repaid in his achievements. British India owes much to the brothers Wellesley.
CHAPTER VI
Service in England, Ireland, and Denmark
(1805–7)
“I am not afraid of responsibility, God knows, and I am ready to incur any personal risk for the public service.”
Wellington.
When, in 1803, the short-lived Peace of Amiens came to an end, and Great Britain and France again resorted to the sword, Napoleon’s first feat of arms was the conquest of Hanover. Thus, at the very beginning of the second phase of the Great War, George III found himself not only minus his hereditary continental possessions, but deprived of a very useful base for those futile military excursions so beloved of the British Government.
That His Majesty received the tidings of his loss “with great magnanimity, and a real kingliness of mind,” may or may not be true. His ministers asserted that such was the case; considerations of policy would have precluded them from saying otherwise.
However this may be, two months after Sir Arthur Wellesley landed in England, that is to say, in November 1805, he was given the command of a brigade in an expedition to Hanover about to be undertaken by Lord Cathcart. The object was to rout the comparatively few French troops left to garrison the country, and to co-operate with Russian, Swedish, and Danish troops in ridding Germany of the common enemy. The surrender of Mack at Ulm, and Napoleon’s wonderful victory at Austerlitz, although it followed within a few weeks of Nelson’s signal triumph at Trafalgar,24 completely shattered this desirable object, just as the negotiations that followed put an end to the ambitious hopes of the Third Coalition. The recall of the troops before they had been able to carry out any of the objects of the diversion, beyond gaining some thousands of adherents to the rank and file, therefore became imperative, and was duly effected.
Sir Arthur Wellesley now spent a short time in command of his brigade at Hastings, and he was gazetted colonel of the famous 33rd Regiment, which post had become vacant on the death of the venerable Marquis Cornwallis, his brother’s successor in India. The next important event in his life, if not in his career, was his marriage to the Hon. Catherine Pakenham, thus consummating a romance begun many years before,25 and his single ambition apart from the Army. The ceremony was performed in Dublin on the 10th April 1806, the bridegroom being nearly thirty-seven years of age. One wishes it were possible to add that “they lived happy ever after.” Biography, the twin sister of History, tells us that it was not so, and Gleig suggests that a broken engagement with a second suitor, of which Wellesley was not informed on his return from India, was partly the cause.26 Two days after the wedding Wellesley was elected Member of Parliament for Rye, his main object in seeking political distinction being that he might defend his brother’s administration in India, where his system of making recalcitrant States subsidiary to England, whilst retaining their own rulers, was the subject of an embittered attack. The “high crimes and misdemeanours” alleged against Lord Wellesley were referred to from time to time, but on the 17th March 1808, the following motion was carried by 182 votes against 31: “That it appears to this House that the Marquis Wellesley, in his arrangements in the province of Oude, was actuated by an ardent zeal for the service of his country, and an anxious desire to promote the safety, interests, and prosperity of the British Empire in India.” This did not altogether end the unsavoury affair, for another unsuccessful attempt to incriminate the statesman was made some time later.
Sir Arthur was by this time Chief Secretary for Ireland, having been appointed in the previous year. Once again we see two members of this distinguished family holding prominent appointments, for Henry Wellesley became one of the Secretaries to the Treasury in the newly-appointed Portland ministry.
Barrington, whose acquaintance we have already made, relates an interesting anecdote of the soldier at this time. He met Lord Castlereagh, accompanied by a gentleman, in the Strand. “His lordship stopped me,” he writes, “whereat I was rather surprised, as we had not met for some time; he spoke very kindly, smiled, and asked if I had forgotten my old friend, Sir Arthur Wellesley? whom I discovered in his companion, but looking so sallow and wan, and with every mark of what is called a worn-out man, that I was truly concerned at his appearance. But he soon recovered his health and looks, and went as the Duke of Richmond’s27 secretary to Ireland, where he was in all material traits still Sir Arthur Wellesley, but it was Sir Arthur Wellesley judiciously improved. He had not forgotten his friends, nor did he forget himself. He said that he had accepted the office of secretary only on the terms that it should not impede or interfere with his military pursuits; and what he said proved true....”
Obviously his duties in Ireland bear no comparison with those he so successfully undertook in India, but following his own maxim, “to do the business of the day in the day,” he got through a vast amount of routine labour, frequently important, sometimes trivial. Under the former head we must put his investigation of the military defences of the island. It must not be forgotten that although the invasion of the United Kingdom by Napoleon was no longer a standing menace, there was always a likelihood of its resurrection, and Ireland was the danger zone.
The Peace of Tilsit, signed between France and Russia on the 7th July 1807, and between France and Prussia on the 9th of the same month, was a most serious blow to British interests. By a secret treaty the Emperor Alexander undertook to aid Napoleon against England if that Power refused to make peace within a certain period, to recognize the equality of all nations at sea, and to hand back the conquests made by her since 1805. As a bait—it really savoured of insult—Great Britain was to be offered Hanover. Should she refuse these terms the Autocrats of France and of Russia agreed to compel Denmark, Sweden, and Portugal to join them in a vast naval confederacy against Great Britain, and to close their ports against her. In addition, the reigning monarchs of Spain and Portugal were to be deposed in favour of the Bonaparte family. For his connivance in the matter Alexander was to be handsomely compensated in the Ottoman Empire and by territorial acquisitions in Western Europe.
Fortunately, or otherwise, according to the point of view, the British Cabinet was put in possession of certain facts regarding these plans. Canning, who was Minister for Foreign Affairs, realizing the responsibilities of his unenviable position, as also of that of his country, determined to forestall the plotters. He felt that some kind of arrangement with Denmark was essential, especially as the Prince Regent of Portugal had communicated news to the effect that Napoleon purposed to invade England with the Portuguese and Danish fleets. Canning suggested to Denmark that her fleet should be put in the safe custody of England until peace was restored. In addition, he promised a subsidy of £100,000, and the assistance of troops should Denmark be attacked. Mr F. J. Jackson was sent to open negotiations; the Prince Royal promptly vetoed them. “I stated plainly,” says Jackson, “that I was ordered to demand the junction of the Danish fleet with that of England, and that in case of refusal it was the determination of His Majesty to enforce it.”
Lord Cathcart was put in command of an army of 27,000 troops, the naval portion of the expedition being placed in the hands of Admiral Gambier. No sooner had Sir Arthur Wellesley heard of the project than he communicated with Castlereagh, then at the War Office and ever his staunch supporter, for an opportunity to take part. He was given charge of a division. On the 3rd August a formidable array of twenty-five sail-of-the-line and over fifty gunboats and transports appeared off Elsinore. Gambier and Cathcart were told by Jackson “that it now rested with them to carry out the measure prescribed by the British Government.” In a letter to his brother the diplomatist adds, “The Danes must, I think, soon surrender, for they are without any hopes of succour, are unfurnished with any effectual means of resistance, and are almost in total want of the necessaries of life, as far as I could learn or was able to see for myself during my few hours’ stay there.28 There were no droves of cattle or flocks of sheep; no provisions of any sort being sent in the direction of the city. No troops marching towards the town; no guns mounted on the ramparts; no embrasures cut, in fact, no preparations of any sort. What the Danes chiefly rely on is the defence by water. They brought out this morning several praams29 and floating batteries, and cut away one or two of the buoys.
“The garrison of Copenhagen does not amount to more than four thousand regular troops. The landwehr is a mere rabble, as indeed all levées en masse must be.
“The people are said to be anxious to capitulate before a conflagration takes place, which must happen soon after a bombardment begins, when, not improbably, the fleet as well as the city will become a prey to the flames.”
Jackson’s prophecy came true, but against his statement that the army disembarked at Veldbeck “in grand style,” we must set that of Captain Napier: “I never saw any fair in Ireland so confused as the landing; had the enemy opposed us, the remains of the army would have been on their way to England.”30 Wellesley’s first affray—it can scarcely be termed a battle—took place at Roskilde. Like almost everything connected with the expedition, Jackson has something to say about it, and that “something” in this particular instance is anything but complimentary. “Sir Arthur Wellesley,” he tells his wife, “has had an affair which you will probably see blazoned forth in an extraordinary Gazette. With about four thousand men he attacked a Danish corps of armed peasantry, and killed and wounded about nine hundred men, besides taking upwards of fifteen hundred prisoners, amongst whom were sixty officers. One was a General officer. I spoke to him this morning, for he and his officers are let off on their parole. The men are on board prison ships, and miserable wretches they are, fit for nothing but following the plough. They wear red and green striped woollen jackets, and wooden sabots. Their long lank hair hangs over their shoulders, and gives to their rugged features a wild expression. The knowing ones say that after the first fire they threw away their arms, hoping, without them, to escape the pursuit of our troops. In fact, the battle was not a very glorious one, but this you will keep for yourself.”31
Wellesley himself afterwards referred to the event as “the little battle at Kiöge,” and mentioned that “the Danes had made but a poor resistance; indeed, I believe they were only new raised men—militia.”32
The bombardment of Copenhagen began on the 2nd September 1807, and concluded three days later, when an armistice was granted in order that terms might be discussed. On the 7th, Copenhagen capitulated. The conditions imposed by Sir Arthur Wellesley, Sir Home Popham, and Lieutenant-Colonel Murray were that the British should occupy the citadel and dockyards for six weeks, and take possession of the ships and naval stores. Their troops would then evacuate Zealand. “I might have carried our terms higher … had not our troops been needed at home,” Wellesley writes to Canning. The various clauses were carried out, and fifteen sail-of-the-line, fifteen frigates, and thirty-one smaller vessels of the Danish fleet, as well as 20,000 tons of naval stores, were escorted to England. “That the attack was necessary,” says a recent historian, “no one will now deny. England was fighting for her existence; and, however disagreeable was the task of striking a weak neutral, she risked her own safety if she left in Napoleon’s hand a fleet of such proportions. In Count Vandal’s words, she ‘merely broke, before he had seized it, the weapon which Napoleon had determined to make his own.’”33 Dr J. Holland Rose disapproves, and points out that “In one respect our action was unpardonable: it was not the last desperate effort of a long period of struggle: it came after a time of selfish torpor fatal alike to our reputation and the interests of our allies. After protesting their inability to help them, Ministers belied their own words by the energy with which they acted against a small State.”34
Canning’s hope for an alliance with Sweden, in order to keep open the Baltic, was destined never to be fulfilled. Sir John Moore was sent to assist Gustavus in his efforts to resist the attacks of Russia, but the nation deserted the King, deposed him, and joined Napoleon. War speedily broke out between Sweden and Denmark, and also between the latter and Great Britain. The Czar’s overtures to England on behalf of France, as arranged at Tilsit, came to nothing. He was not anxious for them to have any other ending, so enraptured was he with Napoleon’s grandiloquent schemes. Enraptured? Yes, but only for a few short years.
CHAPTER VII
The First Battles of the Peninsular War
(1808)
“In war men are nothing: it is a man who is everything.”
Napoleon.
On his return from Copenhagen, Wellesley, never happy unless his mind was fully occupied, resumed his duties as Chief Secretary for Ireland. Special mention of the services he had rendered to his country was made in the House of Commons, and there was some talk of a second period in India, where affairs were far from settled. Before long, however, it became increasingly evident that his knowledge and ability would be required nearer home.
WELLINGTON’S PENINSULAR CAMPAIGNS.
Portugal, our old ally, had been forced by Napoleon to declare war against Great Britain on the 20th October 1807. Bent on pursuing the rigid restrictions on trade imposed by his Continental System, he had also peremptorily ordered the confiscation of the property of the British merchants. Fortunately for those most concerned, the Prince Regent remembered past friendship and may have discerned future possibilities. He temporized, and this enabled many of the English residents to settle their affairs and sail for home before the Dictator could enforce obedience. The sequel was the overrunning of the kingdom by French troops under the intrepid Junot, who met with no resistance, and the desertion of their subjects by the Royal Family, who sailed for Brazil.
Although this plan was carried out at the earnest request of the British Government, as represented by Lord Strangford, the Ambassador at the Portuguese Capital, it cannot be regarded as a pleasing example of patriotism on the part of the House of Braganza.
In October 1807, Junot, in command of the French Army, and strengthened by a few regiments of the Spanish corps placed at Napoleon’s disposal for the dismemberment of the western portion of the Iberian Peninsula, began his march on Lisbon. He concluded it on the 30th November with only 1500 troops, the remainder following slowly by reason of the terrible sufferings they had endured during a forced march made at Napoleon’s urgent behest.
Here it should be mentioned that the presence of the Spanish troops was due to the infamous Treaty of Fontainebleau, signed the previous October. In this arrangement the Emperor had promised Godoy, the real ruler of Spain and an intensely ambitious man, a large slice of territory in the country about to be conquered in return for favours rendered. It is more than probable that Napoleon never intended this particular clause to be taken seriously by anyone but his dupe; the gift was so much dust thrown in the eyes of the favourite for the purpose of securing the entry of French troops into Spain.35 In this he was pre-eminently successful. Once in Lisbon Junot speedily removed any fear of the national army by breaking up many of the regiments and sending the remainder on service outside the kingdom. The flames of rebellion were not yet kindled. So far so good.
Unhappily the chief prizes which the Emperor had hoped to secure at Lisbon were beyond his reach. Even the squadron which was to have seized the Portuguese and British shipping in the harbour was held in check by the hated English.
Napoleon, pretending to be the friend of Spain, was in reality her worst enemy. He merely used her as a useful tool to pick Portuguese locks, and then pursued the same course with his friend’s lockers. He began his unwelcome attentions by seizing the important frontier fortresses of Pampeluna, Barcelona, San Sebastian, and Figueras, and invading the country by a force which speedily numbered 116,000 men, mostly conscripts, for he thought the country easy prey. Murat entered Madrid as Junot had entered Lisbon. By the most unscrupulous methods, namely, the enforced abdication of Charles IV and his son Ferdinand, the Emperor secured the throne, permanently as he fondly imagined, for his brother Joseph, King of Naples.
In July 1808 the eldest Bonaparte was proclaimed King, and entered his capital. Within a month he found it desirable to retire behind the Ebro; his subjects had not only broken into open revolt, but a French army of over 17,000 troops under Dupont had been forced to capitulate at Baylen, in Andalusia. Riots, assassinations, and massacres made it evident that the Spanish temper was considerably more dangerous than that of the Portuguese; it soon became obvious, moreover, that the people had employed some of their time in organizing, on a necessarily rough and ready principle, such forces as they possessed.
The inhabitants of the Asturias, in the north, were the first of the provincials to apply the torch to the tinder of revolt, after a riot in Madrid on the 2nd May 1808, and its Junta General called into being a levy of 18,000 men to protect the principality. It sent two deputies to England for assistance, which was readily given in money and military stores. Other provinces likewise selected Juntas, and Galicia also dispatched representatives to plead its cause in London. Galicia, adjoining the Asturias on the west, lost little time in following the warlike example of its neighbours, and the arsenals of Coruña and Ferrol, made memorable by the Trafalgar campaign, threw in their lot against Napoleon and contributed no fewer than thirty-two battalions of regulars and militia to the general forces. Leon and Old Castile also rose in rebellion, though with less energy. There were too many French in the Basque Provinces and Navarre for much to be attempted there. Coming still farther to the east, Catalonia sheltered 16,000 regulars and many irregular levies, but Aragon, Valencia, and Murcia were very weak. Andalusia, in the extreme south of the country, was almost as fortunately placed with regard to troops as Galicia, and the remains of the French fleet which had escaped Nelson and Collingwood were taken as they rode in Cadiz harbour.
There was nothing approaching united action, provinces and towns often vieing in more or less friendly rivalry. They did not understand, or if they understood they did not realize, that patriotic cliques do not make for strength. They fought for themselves rather than for the nation as a whole. Throughout the struggle we find a lack of cohesion.
When we come to look at the earliest available statistics36 of the various Spanish armies which formed the front line, we find that their total strength in regulars, militia battalions, and newly-raised corps was 151,248. They were divided into five chief armies, namely, of Galicia, Aragon, Estremadura, the Centre, and Catalonia, under Generals Blake, Palafox, Galluzzo, Castaños, and Vives respectively. The troops of the second line numbered about 65,000, and included the Army of Granada, under Reding, the Army of Reserve of Madrid, commanded by San Juan, the Galician, Asturian, Estremaduran, Andalusian, Murcian and Valencian reserves, and the 3000 odd men in garrison in the Balearic Isles.
The gross total of the French Army of Spain at this period dwarfs the above figures for all their brave show; it reached 314,612. From this must be deducted 32,643 detached troops and 37,844 in hospital or missing, making the “effective” no fewer than 244,125. Of the eight corps, Victor commanded the 1st, Bessières37 the 2nd, Moncey the 3rd, Lefebvre the 4th, Mortier the 5th, Ney the 6th, St Cyr the 7th, and Junot the 8th. There were also Reserve Cavalry and Infantry, the Imperial Guard, troops marching from Germany, and National Guards inside the French frontier.38
When we consider that on the 31st May 1808 Napoleon had only 116,000 men in Spain and that within six months he had found it necessary to more than double that number, the desperate nature of the undertaking becomes plain.
To enter fully into the doings of the various armies throughout the war would deflect us far out of our proper course, but we shall hear of them whenever Wellesley was involved.
If you would know the ferocious spirit of the patriots, the hate they cherished for Napoleon and the French, you have only to turn to any one of the many Memoirs of men who fought in the Peninsular War. Captain, later Sir Harry, Smith, who was with Sir John Moore in 1808 and remained with Wellesley until March 1814, gives many instances in his vivacious “Autobiography,”39 but the following must suffice. Smith’s guide happened to be the owner of the house in which his wife and baggage were quartered in the village of Offala:
“After I had dressed myself,” he relates, “he came to me and said, ‘When you dine, I have some capital wine, as much as you and your servants like; but,’ he says, ‘come down and look at my cellar.’ The fellow had been so civil, I did not like to refuse him. We descended by a stone staircase, he carrying a light. He had upon his countenance a most sinister expression. I saw something exceedingly excited him: his look became fiend-like. He and I were alone, but such confidence had we Englishmen in a Spaniard, and with the best reason, that I apprehended no personal evil. Still his appearance was very singular. When we got to the cellar-door, he opened it, and held the light so as to show the cellar; when, in a voice of thunder, and with an expression of demoniacal hatred and antipathy, pointing to the floor, he exclaimed, ‘There lie four of the devils who thought to subjugate Spain! I am a Navarrese. I was born free from all foreign invasion, and this right hand shall plunge this stiletto in my own heart as it did into theirs, ere I and my countrymen are subjugated!’ brandishing his weapon like a demon. I see the excited patriot as I write. Horror-struck as I was, the instinct of self-preservation induced me to admire the deed exceedingly, while my very frame quivered and my blood was frozen, to see the noble science of war and the honour and chivalry of arms reduced to the practices of midnight assassins. Upon the expression of my admiration, he cooled, and while he was deliberately drawing wine for my dinner, which, however strange it may be, I drank with the gusto its flavour merited, I examined the four bodies. They were Dragoons—four athletic, healthy-looking fellows. As we ascended, he had perfectly recovered the equilibrium of his vivacity and naturally good humour. I asked him how he, single-handed, had perpetrated this deed on four armed men (for their swords were by their sides). ‘Oh, easily enough. I pretended to love a Frenchman’ (or, in his words, ‘I was an Afrancesado’), ‘and I proposed, after giving them a good dinner, we should drink to the extermination of the English.’ He then looked at me and ground his teeth. ‘The French rascals, they little guessed what I contemplated. Well, we got into the cellar, and drank away until I made them so drunk, they fell, and my purpose was easily, and as joyfully, effected.’ He again brandished his dagger, and said, ‘Thus die all enemies to Spain.’ Their horses were in his stable. When the French Regiment marched off, he gave these to some guerrillas in the neighbourhood. It is not difficult to reconcile with truth the assertion of the historian who puts down the loss of the French army, during the Spanish war, as 400,000 men, for more men fell in this midnight manner than by the broad-day sword, or the pestilence of climate, which in Spain, in the autumn, is excessive.”