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A BOY IN THE PENINSULAR WAR
A BOY IN THE PENINSULAR WAR
THE SERVICES, ADVENTURES, AND EXPERIENCES
OF
ROBERT BLAKENEY
SUBALTERN IN THE 28TH REGIMENT
AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY
EDITED BY
JULIAN STURGIS
AUTHOR OF “JOHN A DREAMS,” “COMEDY OF A COUNTRY HOUSE,” ETC.
_WITH A MAP_
SECOND IMPRESSION
LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET
1899
TO HIS WIFE
THE EDITOR DEDICATES THESE MEMOIRS OF HER
MOTHER’S FATHER,
FOR WHOSE ACQUAINTANCE HE IS GLAD TO
OWN YET ONE MORE DEBT OF
GRATITUDE TO HER.
INTRODUCTION.
Othello, confessing that he cannot grace his cause with studied
eloquence, pleads that at the tender age of seven years he gave himself
to the grim labours of the tented field. Compared with this dark
heroic babe, young Blakeney, joining the 28th Regiment as a boy of
fifteen, must seem a hardy veteran. Yet he too pleads, as excuse for
lack of style in the Memoirs which he left behind him, that soldiering
and fighting began so early in his life as to leave scant time for
acquisition of the literary airs and graces. And in the same apologetic
vein he says that he wrote his Memoirs in an island where were no
libraries and no books of reference in which he might verify the dates
and facts of his plain unvarnished tale.
It may be that to some more literary penman the idea of writing memoirs
in the Island of Zante, one of those Grecian isles which toward sunset
show form so delicate and colour so exquisite that one would think
them rather the kingdom of Oberon than the haunt of a retired warrior
of the Peninsula--to sit at ease in that enchanted air and summon from
the past the gallant deeds of heroes and the kind looks of friends--may
seem no despicable recompense for the sad want of all the books of
reference.
With groaning shelves and ponderous catalogues in easy reach,
conscience makes cowards of us poor followers of literature; we are
chilled in mid career, and our happy freedom of statement is checked
by intrusive doubt of the date of this battle or of the name of that
general. Even the irresponsible purveyor of fiction must tramp the
street or fly on the handy bicycle, to make sure that he has not
plunged his hero into the midst of a revolution two years before it
took place, or shown his tender heroine in tears over the song of an
eminent composer ere yet the moving song-writer was breeched.
How deep was the regret which the author of these Memoirs felt for
the premature end of his lessons and for the want of invaluable books
of reference, I am unable to say; but I have ventured to suppress his
brief preface of apology because frankly I claim for him not pardon nor
tolerance, but gratitude and even affection.
As in that island of dreams he recalled his stirring boyhood, his
friendships formed and joyous under the shadow of death, his zeal and
admiration for the great leaders under whom he served, his personal
adventures and historic battles, his marches, bivouacs and careless
jests, his pen became again like the pen of a boy who describes
his house football match or the exploits of the favourite hero of
the school. Like a boy too, he had his more important moments--his
fine attempts at eloquence, grandiloquence; he became literary,
self-conscious, innocently pompous, like a boy. The pen in his hand
grew great as he proclaimed the valour of the brave, the pageant of
plumed troops, the pomp of glorious war. And indeed the pen, grown
mightier than the sword, executed at times cuts and flourishes so
intricate that the modest editor has had to bring it to the scabbard,
or, in his own language of the ink-pot, to contribute once or twice
the necessary fullstop. But these tempestuous passages, these patches
which aim at the purple, are few; and it should be said at once that
they are never concerned with the author’s own exploits. It is the
noble character of Sir John Moore that starts the rhapsody, or General
Graham, or Paget, or Hill, or the great Wellington himself; and, above
all, it is the indomitable valour of the British soldier--of the
British soldier who is so often Irish.
There may be some who think that Captain Blakeney should have
apologised for being Irish; and indeed, though I protest against any
shadow of apology, the Irish nature of our author, whose ancestors came
out of Norfolk, may be mentioned as an explanation of the frank and
flowing statement of his hopes and fears, his joys and sorrows, his
moving accidents and hairbreadth escapes. Our Anglo-Saxon ideal of the
young soldier becomes more and more the youth who is a hero and won’t
mention it. He is a most engaging person too. Ask him of the deed which
filled the daily papers and the mouths of men, and he blushes, mutters,
and escapes to his club. If you bring all your power of persuasion to
bear upon him in his most yielding hour, you may draw from him some
such statement as this: “Well, I cut the Johnny down and I brought
the Tommy off. It was all rot, and there was nothing in it; any chap
would have done it.” That is fine. Perhaps it is the fine flower of a
race more eminent in action than in art. But if we care for memoirs,
let us be thankful for the Frenchman or the Irishman who will do his
deeds of daring and not be ashamed to describe them for our profit and
our pleasure. Nor is it fair to infer that there is more vanity in
the one than in the other. In the case of Blakeney, at least, I shall
be disappointed indeed if any reader suspect him of braggadocio. When
he relates his own adventures, his own acts in battle, his language
is simple, direct, vivid; he states plain facts. When he recalls the
exploits of others--of veteran generals, of boys like himself, of
private soldiers and especially of his own beloved 28th Regiment, then
he cries out a little gloriously perhaps, but with a frankness, a
generosity, an honest ardour of admiration which surely may win pardon
from the most severe of critics.
In truth it is a gallant and charming young soldier who calls to us
from the beginning of the century which is now so near its close. He
has waited long for friendly recognition from any but the generals who
saw him fight and the young comrades who drank with him at mess and
marched with him to battle. The young comrades, like the old generals,
have marched the common road; and it is to a generation who knew not
the author that these Memoirs modestly, but with a certain confidence,
make their appeal.
The ardent boy joined his regiment in 1804, at the age of fifteen; and
in the next ten years he had had fighting enough to content most men
for a lifetime. It is the record of these years which has lain so long
in dust, and which I now offer to the reader; and I would ask him to
bear in mind, as he reads, the looks and nature of the young soldier
whose fortunes he will follow. He was of middle height and lightly
made, but active healthy and handsome. He was eager for friendship and
for fight, quick and confident in action, observing with keen accurate
eyes, and so clever at languages that he picked them up on the march
and conversed with the natives of Spain and Portugal and France with
equal audacity and success. Perhaps more than all one finds in him that
natural gaiety of heart which neither danger nor fatigue could dull,
neither the want of wealth and honours nor sight of the appalling
horrors of war. His young eyes beheld some deeds done at Badajoz of
which the mere description has seemed to me too horrible for print. It
will be held by the most bloodthirsty of readers that enough remains.
We are all most warlike now--even the peaceful guardians of the public
purse and gentle editors who would not hurt a fly; and perhaps it is
no bad thing to recall the horrors of a captured town, lest we take
all war to be but glory and gaiety and something to read about in
the papers. Modern governments offer to the people the alarums and
excursions of little wars, as the masters of ancient Rome amused their
citizens with the grim combats of the circus; and we read the daily
papers in the same spirit in which the Roman crowd followed the fights
of favourite gladiators or the young Britons of to-day make holiday in
looking on at football matches instead of playing on more modest fields
themselves. War is a bad thing at the best. Even our hero, for all
his gladness and prowess, was disappointed in the end; nor have many
men that abounding gift of gaiety which carried him, one may be sure,
through the peaceful years of later life, happy in spite of a recurring
sense of injury. If he was neither rich nor famous, he could sing, like
the traveller with the empty pockets, in the presence of the robber
or of the War Office. And he found pleasure too in the preparation of
these Memoirs; one feels it as one reads. He is in an amiable mood. He
expresses the hope that he will hurt the feelings of no man, and all
his pages are proof of his sincerity. Except for one or two Spanish
generals, whom he cannot endure for the empty pomp and pride which
marred the simple valour of their men, he has abundant admiration for
friend and foe. He would have you know too, that when he treats of
movements and of battles already described, he makes no claim to draw
them better. He puts down what he saw with his own eyes, what he heard
with his own ears,--that is the value of his work. To me at least he
seems to give the very air of the battlefield. He is in the midst of
the fight; he makes us see it from inside, breathe the smoke, and hear
the hoarse word of command answered by the groan of the wounded.
It may be of interest to some to know that this young soldier was of
the Blakeney family of Abbert in County Galway, where they were granted
lands in the time of Queen Elizabeth. They came thither out of Norfolk,
where, I am told, there is a Blakeney Harbour, which was called after
them.
The Robert Blakeney of these Memoirs was born in Galway in 1789, joined
the army in 1804, and left it in 1828. Not long before his resignation
he married Maria Giulia Balbi, the last of her ancient family whose
name is in the Libro d’Oro of Venice; for between her birth and that of
her brother the Venetian Republic had come to an end. The little Maria
was brought by her parents to Corfu. In that most lovely island of the
world she grew to womanhood, and there she loved and married Robert
Blakeney, whose fighting days were done.
Successive Lords High Commissioners were Blakeney’s friends, and found
him work to do. Under Lord Nugent he was Inspector of Police in Corfu;
under Sir Howard Douglas he was Inspector of Health in the Island of
Zante; and later, under Lord Seaton, he became Resident of the Island
of Paxo. This office he held for twenty-one years, until he died in
1858 in his seventieth year.
So there came to him, when he was still young, a life of peace passed
in a land of dreams. But the thoughts of the old soldier turned often
to the more misty island of his birth, and to that famous peninsula
made sacred to his memory by the blood of gallant comrades. His heart
grew warm again as he summoned from the past the battles, sieges,
fortunes of his adventurous boyhood, the happy days of youth, of
friendship and of war.
JULIAN STURGIS.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
I JOIN THE ARMY AND MAKE ACQUAINTANCE WITH THE PERILS OF THE SEA 1
CHAPTER II.
I SERVE IN A DANISH CAMPAIGN WITH SMALL GLORY 7
CHAPTER III.
WE LAND IN THE PENINSULA 14
CHAPTER IV.
WITH THE ADVANCE OF SIR JOHN MOORE 22
CHAPTER V.
WE RETREAT WITH SIR JOHN MOORE 31
CHAPTER VI.
WITH THE REARGUARD OF THE RETREATING ARMY 40
CHAPTER VII.
THE RETREAT CONTINUED 52
CHAPTER VIII.
THE RETREAT CONTINUED 66
CHAPTER IX.
THE RETREAT CONTINUED 82
CHAPTER X.
THE RETREAT CONTINUED 94
CHAPTER XI.
AT THE BATTLE OF CORUNNA 108
CHAPTER XII.
WE AFFECT THE SENTIMENTAL BRITISH PUBLIC, AND GAIN BUT LITTLE
GLORY IN HOLLAND 124
CHAPTER XIII.
WE RETURN TO THE PENINSULA 133
CHAPTER XIV.
A LITTLE CAMPAIGN FROM TARIFA 152
CHAPTER XV.
WE ENTERTAIN RIGHT ROYALLY AT TARIFA 167
CHAPTER XVI.
FROM TARIFA TO BAROSSA 177
CHAPTER XVII.
IN THE BATTLE OF BAROSSA 189
CHAPTER XVIII.
WE RETURN TO TARIFA AND THENCE TO LISBON 201
CHAPTER XIX.
WE AGAIN ADVANCE INTO SPAIN 213
CHAPTER XX.
IN THE BATTLE OF ARROYO MOLINOS 224
CHAPTER XXI.
I AM MADE BEAR-LEADER 233
CHAPTER XXII.
I CONTINUE TO PLAY THE GAOLER 244
CHAPTER XXIII.
I GET MY COMPANY AND PROCEED TO BADAJOZ 255
CHAPTER XXIV.
AT BADAJOZ 266
CHAPTER XXV.
AFTER SOME ADVENTURES BY SEA AND LAND I JOIN MY NEW REGIMENT IN
THE PYRENEES 281
CHAPTER XXVI.
FIGHTING IN THE PYRENEES 296
CHAPTER XXVII.
IN THE BATTLE OF NIVELLE 308
CHAPTER XXVIII.
I RETURN WOUNDED TO IRELAND, AND TRAVEL IN A COACH OF THAT
COUNTRY 322
CHAPTER XXIX.
AT THE GRAND REVIEW IN PARIS 333
CHAPTER XXX.
AT BRUSSELS WITH DUKE D’ARENBERG 345
CHAPTER XXXI.
I MAKE MY BOW 359
INDEX 371
ROBERT BLAKENEY.
CHAPTER I.
I JOIN THE ARMY AND MAKE ACQUAINTANCE WITH THE PERILS OF THE SEA.
In the _Gazette_ of July 1804 it appeared that Robert Blakeney,
gentleman, was appointed to an ensigncy in the 28th Regiment of
infantry. Relying on the delusive promise that zeal would meet certain
reward, I immediately joined my regiment near Cork, where they lay
encamped, forming part of a corps under command of Sir Eyre Coote. On
the second day after my joining, the whole of the troops marched to
Kinsale, and having taken up a position on some high ground looking
down on the bay, the men commenced firing ball with as much anxiety as
if the whole French flotilla, filled with ruthless invaders and headed
by Napoleon in person, were attempting a landing underneath. Some
seagulls were seen to fall, and it was confidently reported that many
others were wounded. As soon as the fight was over, the men sat down to
dine with all those proud feelings which soldiers are wont to entertain
after a victory. Never shall I forget the thrilling emotion which
agitated my whole frame at seeing the blood fall from the hand of one
of the soldiers, wounded through the clumsy manner in which he fixed
his flint. I eyed each precious drop that fell with glowing sensations
such as would blaze in the breast of a Napoleon on beholding an old
dynasty diadem, or inflame the heart of a Scot in contemplating a new
place in the Treasury.
I now became on the effective strength of the 1st Battalion, which I
joined the next year. Both battalions of the regiment were removed to
Parsonstown, and thence proceeded to the Curragh of Kildare, where
twenty thousand men were encamped under the command of Lord Cathcart.
Second lieutenants were now given to all first battalion companies,
so that immediately on our arrival here the three senior ensigns of
the regiment, Robert Johnson, Robert Blakeney and Charles Cadell, were
promoted; and thus I again joined the 2nd Battalion in camp. On the
breaking up of this encampment, the two battalions of the regiment were
separated. The 1st proceeded to Mallow and thence to Monkstown, where
they shortly after embarked for Germany in the expedition commanded by
the above-mentioned nobleman. The 2nd Battalion, to which I now again
belonged, were ordered to do garrison duty in Dublin.
[Sidenote: A USEFUL CAPTAIN.]
In the December of this year, being ordered to proceed to Exeter
on the recruiting service, I embarked on board the mercantile brig
_Britannia_, Captain Burrows, bound from Dublin to Bristol; and a more
ignorant drunken lubber never commanded a vessel. The wind, which
might be considered a fresh breeze at leaving the port, blew hard as
we entered the Bristol Channel, when our ignorant master nearly ran us
foul of Lundy Island, which more through good luck than able seamanship
we fortunately weathered. As we proceeded the gale became tremendous;
the billows rolled in majestic, yet horrific, grandeur over our heads,
sweeping everything off deck; and then the master, far from encouraging
the crew and by good example inspiring them with a due sense of the
duty which they had to perform, added to their terror and dispirited
all by his degrading and worse than useless lamentation, calling
aloud on his wife and children, then in Bristol. An attempt was made
to run the vessel into the small port of Ilfracombe, but this failed
through the ignorance and terror of the master. Still impetuously
driven forward, we approached the small village of Combemartin, when
a loud crash was heard, caused, if I recollect right, by striking
against a sandbank; and then the captain, in his usual consolatory
language, cried out that all was lost and every soul on board must
perish. A gentleman passenger now came down to the cabin, and, vainly
endeavouring to restrain his unwilling yet manly tears, embraced his
wife and two young children, who lay helpless in one of the berths.
The innocent little babes clung round his neck, beseeching him to take
their mamma and them on shore. He endeavoured to soothe their grief;
but that which he considered it to be his painful duty to impart was
most heartrending. He recommended them and his wife to remain tranquil
in their berths, saying that it was totally useless to attempt going
on deck, for all hope was lost, and that they should turn all their
thoughts to Heaven alone. The scene was excessively affecting, and
acted, I confess, more powerfully on my feelings than all the dangers
with which we were surrounded; for although I had lain the whole time
in my berth so overpowered with sea-sickness as to be incapable of
any exertion, I now started up and hurried on deck just as the brutal
drunken skipper was knocked down by a blow from the tiller whilst
trying to direct it. Urged by the impulse of the moment, I seized
the abandoned tiller, and moved it in the direction which I saw the
late occupant attempt. At this critical moment we descried a person
on horseback making signals. This gentleman, having witnessed our
failure to enter Ilfracombe, and foreseeing our inevitable destruction
should we be driven past Combemartin, rode at full speed along the
shore, waving his hat sometimes in one direction, sometimes in
another. Assisted by one of the passengers--I think a Mr. Bunbury (all
the sailors were now drunk)--I moved the tiller in conformity with
the signals made by the gentleman on shore, and in a short time we
succeeded in guiding the vessel through a very intricate and narrow
passage between rocks and banks, and finally ran her aground on a shoal
of sand. The storm still continuing to blow furiously, the vessel beat
violently from side to side against the sandbanks; but some men having
contrived to come off from the village, to which we were now close, and
fastening ropes to the mast, bound her fast down on one side, when the
whole crew got safe to land. We subsequently learned that eight vessels
were that morning wrecked in the Bristol Channel.
It must be allowed that much credit was due to the fishermen of
Combemartin for the alacrity they showed in giving us their assistance;
but it must also be confessed that while we remained for a few hours
in the village they appeared to be the rudest and most uncouth people
I ever met with in Great Britain. Every man in the village claimed to
be the first who came to assist us, and as such demanded a suitable
reward. Much of our luggage disappeared in being removed from the
vessel to the shore, and was heard of no more. The greater part of my
own goods, through my own ignorance of voyaging and the carelessness
and inattention of the master being left exposed on deck, was washed
away during the storm; but what money I possessed was luckily hoarded
up in my trousers pocket; and in truth my trousers were the only part
of my dress I had on during the whole time I was on deck assuming
the functions of pilot and captain, the skipper being in a state of
torpidity from fright and drunkenness. As soon as we could procure
means of transport, which took some hours, we proceeded to Ilfracombe;
for Combemartin was incapable of affording accommodation for so large a
party.
Credit was given to me for having saved the crew, but I took none to
myself. It was the first time I had ever been on board of any vessel
larger than an open fishing-boat, and I was consequently as ignorant of
steering a ship as of training an elephant. Any part I took, therefore,
was perfectly mechanical, and the inventive and true merit was solely
due to the gentleman on shore, by whose directions I was guided. Being
subservient to the will of another, I could have as little claim to
credit for judgment or plan, principle or reflection, as could a
wine-wagged billy-punch or a tail-voter in the House.
[Sidenote: A LESSON IN CHIVALRY.]
Next morning I proceeded to Exeter, but previous to my departure my
attention was called to two Dublin ladies, fellow passengers, who,
being bound direct for Bristol, were not prepared to meet the expenses
of a land journey thither. They appeared much distressed in mind, and
declared they would rather die than leave any part of their luggage in
pledge. I lent them a few guineas out of my own small stock, upon which
they took my address, promising to remit the money as soon as they
arrived at Bristol; but, gaining experience as I advanced, I found that
I should have taken their address, for I never after heard of or from
them.
After having remained some months in Devonshire on the recruiting
service, I was ordered to join the 1st Battalion of the regiment,
then quartered at Colchester, after their return from the fruitless
expedition into Germany. We did not long remain here. On July 24th of
the next year the regiment marched from Colchester to Harwich, and
there embarked to join a second expedition, commanded by Lord Cathcart.
So profoundly was our destination kept secret, and so ignorant were we
all of the object in view, that we could not even conjecture whither we
were going, until on August 8th we arrived in the Sound, and anchored
late that night close under Elsinore Castle, during the loudest storm
of thunder, accompanied by the most brilliant lightning, I ever
witnessed. At intervals the immense fleet, consisting of men-of-war,
transports and merchantmen, the islands of Zealand, the extent of the
Sound, together with the opposite Swedish coast, as if suddenly emerged
from darkest chaos, instantly became more visible than if lighted by
the noonday sun in all his splendour. These astonishing elemental
crashes and dazzling shows were as suddenly succeeded by deathlike
silence and darkness so impenetrable that not an individual could be
distinguished even by those who stood nearest on deck. Yet, although
the ground of the night was perfectly dark, still, guided by the vivid
flashes with which it was relieved, every vessel of this apparently
unwieldy fleet fell into her proper berth, and, duly measuring the
appropriate length of cable, swung securely to her anchor; and, strange
to say, not a single casualty took place through the whole. The scene
altogether was excessively grand, and truly presented what in hackneyed
poetic phrase is termed sublime. The jarring elements seemed to portend
evil to the descendants of Odin, nor were there wanting some with evil
eye who foreboded something rotten in the state of Denmark.