Loe raamatut: «The Story of Wellington», lehekülg 9
“The enemy then retired, having lost in this affair a howitzer, and I should think not less than 1000 men.
“Our loss is much less than one would have supposed possible, scarcely 200 men. The 43rd have 73 killed and wounded. But really these attacks in columns63 against our lines are very contemptible.
“The contest was latterly entirely for the howitzer, which was taken and retaken twice, and at last remained in our hands. Our cavalry, which ought to have crossed the Coa on the right of the Light division, crossed at the same ford, and therefore could be of no use to them. Besides they went too far to the right.
“In short, these combinations for engagements do not answer, unless one is upon the spot to direct every trifling movement. I was upon a hill on the left of the Coa, immediately above the town, till the 3rd and 5th divisions crossed, whence I could see every movement on both sides, and could communicate with ease with everybody; but that was not near enough.
“We took 6 Officers, and between 200 and 300 prisoners, and Soult’s64 and Loison’s baggage.”
Two days after this affair on the banks of the Coa Masséna crossed the frontier, having been literally driven out of Portugal. Within a few hours we find Wellington urging on Beresford the necessity for a strict blockade of Badajoz preparatory to besieging it. Masséna fell back upon Salamanca, while Wellington busied himself with the investment of Almeida, where a French garrison had been left. With Ciudad Rodrigo, the second and remaining place occupied by the Marshal’s troops, he felt he could do little at the moment beyond intercepting supplies. These two forts, which are within comparatively easy distance and almost parallel, the one in Portugal and the other in Spain, were extremely important, and commanded the north-eastern frontier of the former country.
Incidentally, the British Commander-in-Chief also took the opportunity to publish a lengthy Proclamation to the Portuguese nation, of which the following is a brief synopsis. He informs the inhabitants that they are now “at liberty to return to their occupations,” that nearly four years have elapsed since “the tyrant of Europe” invaded the country, the object being “the insatiable desire of plunder, the wish to disturb the tranquillity, and to enjoy the riches of a people who had passed nearly half a century in peace.” He then strikes a deeper note and adds a few words of advice as to the future:
“The Marshal General, however, considers it his duty, in announcing the intelligence of the result of the last invasion, to warn the people of Portugal, that, although the danger is removed, it is not entirely gone by. They have something to lose, and the tyrant will endeavor to plunder them: they are happy under the mild government of a beneficent Sovereign; and he will endeavor to destroy their happiness: they have successfully resisted him, and he will endeavor to force them to submit to his iron yoke. They should be unremitting in their preparations for decided and steady resistance; those capable of bearing arms should learn the use of them; or those whose age or sex renders them unfit to bear arms should fix upon places of security and concealment, and should make all the arrangements for their easy removal to them when the moment of danger shall approach. Valuable property, which tempts the avarice of the tyrant and his followers, and is the great object of their invasion, should be carefully buried beforehand, each individual concealing his own, and thus not trusting to the weakness of others to keep a secret in which they may not be interested.
“Measures should be taken to conceal or destroy provisions which cannot be removed, and everything which can tend to facilitate the enemy’s progress; for this may be depended upon, that the enemy’s troops seize upon everything, and leave nothing for the owner.
“By these measures, whatever may be the superiority of numbers with which the desire of plunder and of revenge may induce, and his power may enable, the tyrant again to invade this country, the result will be certain; and the independence of Portugal, and the happiness of its inhabitants, will be finally established to their eternal honor.”65
However “beneficent” the Sovereign—who was a lunatic and out of the country—might be, Wellington had little that was good to say of its present rulers. He told them that he would inform the home Cabinet “that they cannot with propriety continue to risk a British army in this country unsupported by any exertion of any description on the part of the Portuguese Government.” The army was lamentably deficient “in that essential arm, its cavalry,” and the commissariat arrangements remained hopelessly deficient.
The blockade of Almeida being “a simple operation, which I do not think the enemy have the means or inclination to interrupt,” Wellington left it in the hands of Lieut.-General Sir Brent Spencer in the middle of April, and set out from Villa Fermosa for Alemtejo to discuss his future projects with Castaños and also to visit Beresford. He knew that the French at Almeida would be forced to withdraw or surrender owing to the scarcity of provisions, but at Ciudad Rodrigo “there is a good garrison, and we certainly shall not get that place without a siege; for which God knows if we shall have time before the enemy will be reinforced. The first object is certainly Badajoz, and, as soon as I know whether any or what part of our train is required for the attack of that place, I shall send the remainder to Oporto, and make all the arrangements for the eventual attack of Ciudad Rodrigo.”
As Soult was then busily occupied in fortifying Seville, to the south of Badajoz, the siege of the latter city became imperative, and without unnecessary delay. Soult might attempt to relieve Badajoz; certainly his presence at Seville precluded the likelihood of the garrison being deceived by any feint or actual attack made on that place by the allies with the object of distracting their attention.
Although Wellington did not meet Castaños personally during his visit to the south, he sent him a plan of operations, to be undertaken with Blake and Ballasteros in co-operation with Beresford, and got through an immense amount of work in connection with the siege. “The continued and increasing inefficiency of the Portuguese regiments with this army,” gave him much cause for concern. On the 30th April 1811, four days after Parliament had thanked him for the liberation of Portugal, he tells Beresford that “if some effectual steps are not taken, the Portuguese force with this part of the army (i.e. Wellington’s) will be annihilated.” He concludes by saying that he must report the matter to the home authorities, which he did. “The Ministers and the English public believe that we have 30,000 men for whom we pay, and half as many more supported by the Portuguese Government. I do not believe that I have here 11,000, or that you have 5000, and of the number many are not fit for service.”
Masséna was not the type of man who easily acknowledges defeat. He had been busily engaged at Salamanca in getting what remained of his army into working order. He had lost at least 25,000 of the 70,000 men who had entered Portugal, but when he decided to go to the assistance of Almeida he could with difficulty muster only 39,000, some 5000 more than Wellington could put into the field. Having relieved Ciudad Rodrigo, Masséna crossed the Agueda, with the fixed intention of raising the blockade of Almeida. On the 3rd May he was in sight of the British army, now arrayed at Fuentes de Oñoro.
The Commander-in-Chief had returned from his travels on the 28th of the previous month, after having been informed by Spencer of the gathering of the enemy. “I’ll venture to say,” remarks Kincaid, “that there was not a heart in the army that did not beat more lightly when we heard the joyful news of his arrival the day before the enemy’s advance.” On the 3rd May the British were “warmly but partially engaged,” and “made no progress in raising the blockade.”
The real battle began on the 5th, and was, in Alison’s opinion, “the most critical in which Lord Wellington was engaged in the whole war, and in which the chances of irreparable defeat were most against the British army.” He then gives some of Sir Charles Stewart’s reflections on the fight, which help us to appreciate its difficulties from the point of view of an actual eye-witness who took a leading part in the battle. “Masséna’s superiority to us,” he notes, “both in cavalry and artillery, was very great; whilst the thick woods in our front afforded the most convenient plateau which he could have desired for the distribution of his columns unseen, and therefore disregarded. Had he rightly availed himself of this advantage, he might have poured the mass of his force upon any single point, and perhaps made an impression before we could have had time to support it. Had he commenced his attack with a violent cannonade, it must have produced some havoc, and probably considerable confusion, in our line. He might then have moved forward his cavalry en masse, supporting it by strong columns of infantry; and had either the one or the other succeeded in piercing through, our situation would have been by no means an enviable one.... Had he thrown his cavalry round our right flank—a movement which we should have found it no easy matter to prevent—crossed the Coa, advanced upon our lines of communication, and stopped our supplies, at the moment when, with his infantry, he threatened to turn us; then pushed upon Sabugal and the places near, he might have compelled us to pass the Coa with all our artillery at the most disadvantageous places, and cut us off from our best and safest retreat. There was, indeed, a time during the affair of the 5th, when his design of acting in this manner was seriously apprehended; and Lord Wellington was in consequence reduced to the necessity of deciding whether he should relinquish the Sabugal road or raise the blockade of Almeida. But Lord Wellington’s presence of mind never for a moment forsook him. He felt no distrust in his troops; to retain his hold over a secure and accessible line of retreat was therefore to him a consideration of less moment than to continue an operation of which the ultimate success could now be neither doubtful nor remote; and he at once determined to expose Sabugal rather than throw open a communication with Almeida. It was a bold measure, but it was not adopted without due consideration, and it received an ample reward in the successful termination of this hard-fought battle.”
Wellington’s line was extended on a table-land between the rivers Turones and Dos Casas. It reached several miles, namely, from Fort Conception, which covered Almeida (opposite the village of that name he disposed his centre), to beyond Nava d’Aver, his right being at Fuentes de Oñoro. Poço Velho, between the latter place and Nava d’Aver, was also occupied by the left wing of the 7th Division, commanded by General Houstoun.
Masséna’s first movement was to attack the Spanish irregulars, under Don Julian Sanchez, stationed on the hill of Nava d’Aver, which was neither a lengthy nor a difficult process.
Major-General Houstoun scarcely fared better, two of his battalions being routed. The immediate consequence was that Captain Norman Ramsay’s battery of Horse Artillery, which were supporting Houstoun, were soon fighting against fearful odds. By means of a magnificent charge, while the attention of part of the French force was detracted by the dragoons under Sir Stapleton Cotton, Ramsay made good his escape with every gun.
The situation was extremely critical when the squares of the 7th and Light Divisions were attacked by the enemy’s cavalry, but Wellington did not hesitate for a moment as to the best course to pursue. He abandoned Nava d’Aver and closed in his line by a complete change of front, withdrawing some of his divisions to the heights, and Houstoun’s men behind the Turones, to a position near Freneda, which became the British right and Fuentes de Oñoro the left.
“Montbrun’s cavalry,” we are told, “merely hovered about Craufurd’s squares, the plain was soon cleared, the cavalry took post behind the centre, and the Light Division formed a reserve to the right of the 1st Division, sending the riflemen among the rocks to connect it with the 7th Division, which had arrived at Freneda, and was there joined by Julian Sanchez. At the sight of this new front, so deeply lined with troops, the French stopped short, and commenced a heavy cannonade, which did great execution, from the closeness of the allied masses; but twelve British guns replied with vigour, and the violence of the enemy’s fire abated; their cavalry then drew out of range, and a body of French infantry, attempting to glide down the ravine of the Turones, was repulsed by the riflemen and light companies of the Guards.”
Meanwhile a fierce conflict was taking place in the village of Fuentes. It continued see-saw fashion until the evening, both sides bringing up reserves and contesting every inch of the ground. Three regiments were driven from the lower parts of the village, but reinforcements were at hand, and the higher streets were never abandoned, although a chapel held by the troops in that quarter was evacuated. At nightfall the French crossed the river, leaving 400 of their dead in the village. Wellington averred that the battle “was the most difficult I was ever concerned in, and against the greatest odds. We had very nearly three to one against us engaged; about four to one of cavalry; and, moreover, our cavalry had not a gallop in them, while some of that of the enemy was fresh, and in excellent order. If Bony had been there we should have been beaten.”
As a battle the engagement scarcely could be called a victory for the Allies, but Masséna had failed to relieve Almeida, while Wellington had succeeded in covering its blockade. The total casualties of the British, Spanish, and Portuguese on the 3rd and 5th reached 1800, of the French nearly 3000, and 210 were taken prisoners. On the morning of the 8th May the last of the enemy left the field, but three days later the Commander-in-Chief received bad news. On the previous night the garrison of Almeida blew up part of the fortress and escaped, although the force sent by Wellington to blockade it was “four times more numerous than the garrison.” He characterized it as “the most disgraceful event that has yet occurred to us.” His correspondence at this period teems with references to it.
Masséna was no longer “the favoured child of victory” or Napoleon’s “right arm,” as the Emperor had called him, and he was recalled, to be succeeded by Marmont, an excellent artillery officer then not quite thirty-seven years of age, whereas Masséna was fifty-three and deemed “too old” by his autocratic sovereign.
Marmont speedily came to the conclusion when he took up his new post that without rest the so-called army of Portugal could not possibly expect to meet Wellington with any likelihood of success. He accordingly moved his troops to the province of Salamanca, where we will leave them for a little while to watch the course of the war elsewhere.
Beresford had now invested Badajoz, and engaged the enemy in several sorties, on one occasion suffering severe loss owing to the imprudence of his troops. Receiving news to the effect that Soult was rapidly approaching with the determined object of relieving it, he raised the siege and posted his army on the ridge of Albuera to stop the French advance. The British Commander had nearly 32,000 men at his disposal. Of these no fewer than 24,000 were foreigners, including the Spanish forces of Blake, Castaños, Ballasteros, and Don Carlos d’España, which had formed a junction with him. The enemy had 23,000 troops.
As Wellington was not present a detailed description of the battle, which took place on the 16th May, does not come within the province of this volume. It was one of the most fiercely contested of the entire war. So much so that Beresford used up his entire reserves and lost 4100 British troops, in addition to 1400 Portuguese and Spanish killed and wounded. The French losses were over 6000, and 500 were taken prisoners. Had it not been for Colonel Hardinge, Beresford would have retreated. Following his colleague’s advice he remained and was victorious. It was at Albuera that the 57th Foot (now the 1st Middlesex Regiment) won the well-deserved name of “Die Hards” from the fact that Colonel Inglis shouted to his troops, “Die hard, my men; die hard!”66 “It was observed,” writes Beresford to Wellington, “that our dead, particularly the 57th regiment, were lying, as they had fought, in ranks, and that every wound was in front.”
On the 19th Wellington, with two divisions, arrived at Elvas, and on the 21st he rode to Albuera and surveyed the site of the contest. “The fighting was desperate,” he writes, “and the loss of the British has been very severe; but, adverting to the nature of the contest, and the manner in which they held their ground against all the efforts the whole French army could make against them, notwithstanding all the losses which they had sustained, I think this action one of the most glorious and honourable to the character of the troops of any that has been fought during the war.”
Surely a more noble tribute to the “common” soldier was never penned!
CHAPTER XIV
The Siege of Ciudad Rodrigo
(1811–12)
“The great object in all sieges is to gain time.”
Wellington.
The exacting nature of the campaign was beginning to tell on Wellington. “I certainly feel, every day,” he had written to the Earl of Liverpool on the 15th May 1811, “more and more the difficulty of the situation in which I am placed. I am obliged to go everywhere, and if absent from any operation, something goes wrong.” “Another such battle” as Albuera, he informs his brother Henry on the 22nd, “would ruin us,” and he proceeds to compare the Spanish and Portuguese troops, to the disadvantage of the former. They often held their ground too well, there was no moving them in a battle. On the other hand, “We do what we please now with the Portuguese troops; we manœuvre them under fire equally with our own, and have some dependence on them; but these Spaniards can do nothing, but stand still, and we consider ourselves fortunate if they do not run away.” In his report of the battle Beresford mentions the Spanish cavalry as having behaved “extremely well.”
Some idea of the enormous amount of labour involved may be gained from the fact that on the day mentioned Wellington either wrote or dictated at least eighteen dispatches, including two dealing with the loss of an officer for whose widow and child he was endeavouring to obtain “favour and protection” at the hands of the home authorities. At the same time he was actively preparing for the renewed siege of Badajoz: “The late action has made a terrible hole in our ranks; but I am working hard to set all to rights again.” He appeared “destined to pass his life in the harness,” to use his own phrase, and had “a monstrous quantity of business to settle of different descriptions.”
Referring to the difference of opinion held by his officers regarding his policy, he says, “I believe nothing but something worse than firmness could have carried me through.... To this add that people in England were changing their opinions almost with the wind, and you will see that I had not much to look to excepting myself.” The words are almost those of a broken-hearted man.
Badajoz was again invested on the 25th May, and the batteries opened fire on the 3rd of the following month in an attempt to breach the fort of San Christoval and the castle. Wellington had then made his headquarters at Quinta de Granicha, from whence he writes, on the 6th to the Earl of Liverpool, to the effect that if he cannot prevent the enemy from receiving provisions he will not risk an action because he has not the means, and out of fairness to his soldiers he cannot “make them endure the labours of another siege at this advanced season. Notwithstanding that we have carried on our operations with such celerity,” he concludes “we have had great difficulties to contend with, and have been much delayed by the use of the old ordnance and equipments of Elvas, and of the Portuguese artillery, in this siege; some of the guns from which we fire are above 150 years old.” The majority of them were supposed to be 24-pounders, but they proved to be larger, with the result that their fire was very uncertain. Two attempts were made to storm the outwork of San Christoval without success, many brave fellows perishing in the vain effort to escalade the walls.
Three weeks had not elapsed before it became eminently necessary to retire from this scene of activity. During this short time nearly 500 officers and men had been reported as killed, wounded, or missing, and fifty-two of the Chasseurs Britanniques had deserted. “I have a great objection to foreigners in this army,” he informs a colleague a little later, “as they desert terribly; and they not only give the enemy intelligence which he would find it difficult to get in any other manner, but by their accounts and stories of the mode in which deserters from the French army are treated by us, some of them well founded, they have almost put an end to desertion.” The reason for the latter belief was the legend “that the deserters from the enemy are sent to the West India Islands, and have no chance of ever returning to Europe.”
Marmont, having united his scattered units, was about to join forces with Soult, which meant that when they marched on Badajoz, as undoubtedly they would do, the French army might number between 50,000 and 60,000 troops. Wellington had been of opinion that it was possible to reduce the place before the end of the second week of June. An intercepted dispatch from Soult to Marmont made it abundantly evident that the enemy were to concentrate in Estremadura, and other intelligence clearly proved that the destination of the French army was “to the southward.” Elvas, where supplies were running low, had first to be replenished, so that it might be in a condition of defence should the enemy cross the frontiers. Leaving a comparatively small number of men to blockade Badajoz, and having made arrangements for the strengthening of Elvas, he marched from that place to Quinta de St João, where he remained for a considerable period. For nearly a fortnight the French threatened to attack, and had they done so it is scarcely possible that Wellington could have held his own in the field. Soult was the first to withdraw, the immediate cause being the threatening of Seville by Blake, who retired when Soult approached. Marmont, feeling unequal to fight alone, marched to the valley of the Tagus and cantoned his army between Talavera and Plasencia. During the crisis the two marshals mustered 62,000 troops, Wellington about 48,000.
The heat and other considerations prevented Wellington from besieging Badajoz; to relieve Cadiz was out of the question because the forces of Soult and Marmont would be almost certain to come to the assistance of the force before the great southern port. He therefore decided to besiege Ciudad Rodrigo, for four reasons stated in a letter to the Earl of Liverpool dated the 18th July, namely: “We can derive some assistance from our militia in the north in carrying it into execution, and the climate in which the operation is to be carried on is not unfavorable at this season. If it should not succeed, the attempt will remove the war to the strongest frontier of Portugal; and, if obliged to resume the defensive, the strength of our army will be centrically situated, while the enemy’s armies of the north and of the south will be disunited.” Shortly after the above dispatch was written he heard that Suchet had captured Tarragona, which made the proposed operation “less favorable.” “However,” he tells Beresford on the 20th of the same month, “we shall have a very fine army of little less than 60,000 men,67 including artillery, in the course of about a fortnight; and I do not see what I can do with it, to improve the situation of the allies, during the period in which it is probable that, the enemy’s attention being taken up with the affairs of the north of Europe,68 we shall be more nearly on a par of strength with him, excepting we undertake this operation.”
Lieutenant-General Hill was entrusted with the duty of watching the enemy in Alemtejo,69 and two divisions were left in Estremadura. The Commander-in-Chief, with some 40,000 men, hastened towards Ciudad Rodrigo, unaware at the moment that the garrison had been reinforced and that Napoleon was sending more men to the Peninsula. When these important facts reached him he contented himself with blockading the place, and prepared to retire behind the Agueda should necessity warrant. Marmont sent for Dorsenne, who had taken the command in Galicia from Bessières, and with 60,000 troops set out toward the end of September to relieve Ciudad Rodrigo. Wellington then occupied El Bodon, on the left bank of the Agueda. “The object of taking a position so near to the enemy,” he says, “was to force them to show their army. This was an object, because the people of the country, as usual, believed and reported that the enemy were not so strong as we knew them to be; and if they had not seen the enemy’s strength, they would have entertained a very unfavorable opinion of the British army, which it was desirable to avoid. This object was accomplished by the operations at the close of September.”
Early on the morning of the 25th the Marshal drove in the outposts of Wellington’s left wing, and turned the heights occupied by the right centre, thereby placing the British Commander in a dangerous position, from which he extricated himself by hurling his cavalry at the horsemen and artillery now endeavouring to scale the heights. Two British guns were captured and retaken at the point of the bayonet. When the French infantry were brought into action Wellington gradually withdrew in the direction of Fuente Guinaldo, pursued by the enemy’s cavalry, which were received by solid British squares and repelled as six miles were traversed. Marmont again advanced on the 26th, but did not attack. Wellington retreated until he reached a strong position in front of Sabugal on the 28th.
A rear-guard action had been fought on the previous day at Aldea da Ponte, but Marmont withdrew without offering battle, and, after supplying much needed necessaries to Ciudad Rodrigo, proceeded to the Tagus valley and Dorsenne to Salamanca. Wellington renewed the blockade “in order,” as he says, “to keep a large force of the enemy employed to observe our operations, and to prevent them from undertaking any operation elsewhere.” Placing his army in cantonments on the banks of the Coa, the Commander-in-Chief made his headquarters at Freneda.
While in their winter quarters both officers and men were able to recuperate after their previous arduous campaign. Sports, theatricals and other amusements helped to pass away the time and to cheer up the army. Even more important was the opportunity thus afforded the many semi-invalids to recover their health. “We are really almost an army of convalescents.” Wellington himself rode to hounds occasionally, and applauded the amateur histrionic efforts of his soldiers, when time and circumstances permitted him to attend their performances. He was able to re-establish Almeida as a military post, where he kept his battering-train to deceive the enemy, to blockade Ciudad Rodrigo, and to prepare for its investment.
Meanwhile the guerillas were “increasing in numbers and boldness throughout the Peninsula,” constantly annoying the French commanders. “It was their indomitable spirit of resistance,” says Professor Oman,70 “which enabled Wellington, with his small Anglo-Portuguese army, to keep the field against such largely superior numbers. No sooner had the French concentrated, and abandoned a district, than there sprang up in it a local Junta and a ragged apology for an army. Even where the invaders lay thickest, along the route from Bayonne to Madrid, guerilla bands maintained themselves in the mountains, cut off couriers and escorts, and often isolated one French army from another for weeks at a time. The greater partisan chiefs, such as Mina in Navarre, Julian Sanchez in Leon, and Porlier in the Cantabrian hills, kept whole brigades of the French in constant employment. Often beaten, they were never destroyed, and always reappeared to strike some daring blow at the point where they were least expected. Half the French army was always employed in the fruitless task of guerilla-hunting. This was the secret which explains the fact that, with 300,000 men under arms, the invaders could never concentrate more than 70,000 to deal with Wellington.”
In the autumn and winter of 1811 the enemy accomplished nothing of importance in eastern and southern Spain. In the south-east Suchet defeated Blake on the 25th October at the battle of Sagunto, “the last pitched battle of the war,” remarks the above authority, “in which a Spanish army, unaided by British troops, attempted to face the French.” Forced into the city of Valencia with part of his motley array, Blake made a gallant attempt to rid himself of his besieger, an almost impossible task considering that Suchet had been reinforced while the unfortunate Spanish commander had been considerably reduced. On the 9th January 1812 his 16,000 followers laid down their weapons.
The investment of Ciudad Rodrigo by Wellington had been delayed owing to a complexity of causes. All the carting had to be performed by Portuguese and Spanish, and their slowness and the inclement weather combined precluded the Commander-in-Chief from pushing forward his operations with any celerity of movement. Empty carts took two days to go ten miles on a good road. Wellington confessed that he had to appear satisfied, otherwise the drivers would have deserted. If he succeeded in his designs he hoped to “make a fine campaign in the spring”; if he did not, “I shall bring back towards this frontier the whole [French] army which had marched towards Valencia and Aragon. By these means I hope to save Valencia.”
