We withdraw from Badajoz—Dislike of the British soldier for
siege-work—Affair of El Bodon—Gallant conduct of the 5th and 77th
Regiments—Narrow escape of the 88th from being made
prisoners—Picton’s conduct on the retreat of Guinaldo.
At eleven o’clock at night, on the 9th of June 1811, the siege of
Badajoz virtually ceased. From the moment the second attack against San
Christoval was repulsed, Lord Wellington resolved to make the best of a
bad business, and he converted the siege into a blockade. On the 10th,
the battering train and stores were removed from the trenches, and by
the 13th our works were clear. The town was closely blockaded until the
17th, on which day we broke up from before the place, and crossing the
Guadiana by the ford above San Christoval, reached the banks of the
Caya, in the neighbourhood of Aronches, a little after noon.
It appeared from the different reports of our spies that the whole
disposable force, not only of Soult’s army of the South, but also of
that of Portugal, were in march against us; and Lord Wellington
accordingly took up a defensive position near Elvas, with his vanguard
at Campo Mayor, consisting of the 3rd and 7th Divisions of infantry. The
Dukes of Dalmatia and Ragusa formed their junction at Badajoz on the
28th, and the two Marshals dined there together on that day. Great
praise was bestowed upon General Phillipon for his fine defence of the
place, and, as a matter of course, much bombastic stuff was trumpeted
forth in the papers about the valour displayed by the Imperial soldiers
on the occasion. Our losses were rated at more than four times their
real amount; and though no blame was attached by the enemy to our
troops, the Engineers were attacked with a severity that I have reason
to think was unjust. One writer speaking on the subject says:—
“Had the Engineers followed the rules of fortification with as much
ability as his lordship displayed in the application of the principles
of the higher branches of tactics, Badajoz would, no doubt, have
surrendered about the 14th or 15th of June. It scarcely would be
believed, were it not expressly mentioned in the official reports, that
in the beginning of the nineteenth century, troops should have been sent
to the assault with ladders after the breach had been judged
practicable.”
I shall leave it to the gentlemen of the Engineers to answer these
remarks; but as far as I have been able to collect the facts, and I have
received my information from good, I might say the best, authority, our
defeat before San Christoval arose from three causes: first, the want of
knowledge displayed by the officer commanding the first attack of the
real situation of the breach, owing to the unfortunate circumstance of
the engineer being killed at the onset; secondly, the shortness of the
ladders, and the smallness of the storming party each night; and
thirdly, the conduct of the men who were entrusted with the charge of
the ladders—a foreign corps, it is true;[17] but why employ troops of
this description upon a service so desperate?
-----
Footnote 17:
The battalion of Brunswick Oels, largely composed of German deserters
from the French army.
There is no duty which a British soldier performs before an enemy that
he does with so much reluctance—a retreat always excepted—as working in
trenches. Although essentially necessary to the accomplishment of the
most gallant achievement a soldier can aspire to—the storming a
breach—it is an inglorious calling; one full of danger, attended with
great labour, and, what is even worse, with a deal of annoyance; and for
this reason, that the soldiers are not only taken quite out of their
natural line of action, but they are, if not entirely, at least
partially, commanded by officers, those of the Engineers, whose habits
are totally different from what they have been accustomed to.
No two animals ever differed more completely in their propensities than
the British engineer and the British infantry soldier. The latter
delights in an open field, and a fair “stand-up fight,” where he meets
his man or men (for numbers, when it comes to a hand-to-hand business,
are of little weight with the British soldier); if he falls there, he
does so, in the opinion of his comrades, with credit to himself; but a
life lost in the trenches is looked upon as one thrown away and lost
ingloriously. The engineer, on the contrary, braves all the dangers of a
siege with a cheerful countenance; he even courts them, and no mole ever
took greater delight in burrowing through a sandhill than an engineer
does in mining a covered way, or blowing up a counterscarp. Not so with
the infantry soldier, who is obliged to stand to be shot at, with a
pick-axe or shovel in his hand instead of his firelock and bayonet. If,
then, this is a trying situation, as it unquestionably is for a soldier,
where death by round-shot and shell in the works is comparatively less
than it is at the moment of the assault of a breach, how much more care
should there be taken in the selection of the ladder men than appears to
have been the case at San Christoval?
On the 22nd of June, the two French Marshals moved a large body of
troops towards Elvas and Campo Mayor, in order to cover their
_reconnoissance_ of our position. Our army at this time counted about
sixty-six thousand men, of which number only six thousand were cavalry.
The combined French army exceeded us by about ten thousand, and in the
arm of horse they were upwards of three thousand our superiors.
Notwithstanding this disproportion of force, Lord Wellington had made
able dispositions to beat the French Marshals in detail, and there is
little or no doubt but that he would have succeeded, had Marmont been
acting in concert with a man as presumptuous as himself; but Soult was
too good a judge not to see the sort of adversary he was opposed to, and
it was not possible to entrap him. Albuera taught him a lesson.
After the _reconnoissance_ of the 22nd, and after supplies had been
thrown into Badajoz, the enemy took up the quarters he had occupied
previous to the junction of the armies of Portugal and the South—the
army of Soult in the neighbourhood of Seville, that of Marmont at
Placentia. The 7th and 3rd Divisions of our army occupied Campo Mayor:
and having got ourselves and our appointments into good order, we began
to have all the annoyances of garrison duty, which was not lessened by
the presence of three or four general officers. The mounting of guard,
the salute, and all the minutiæ of our profession, were attended to with
a painful particularity; and poor old General Sontag was near falling a
sacrifice to his zeal on this particular point of duty. This officer was
by birth either a German or Prussian, I don’t know which, but, from his
costume, I should myself say that he was a disciple of the Grand
Frederick; he was a great Martinet, and had all the appearance of one
brought up in the school of that celebrated warrior, and might have
passed, and deservedly so, for aught I know to the contrary, for one who
had served in the “Seven Years' War.” His dress was singular, though
plain; he usually wore a cocked hat and jacket, tight blue pantaloons,
and brown top hunting-boots.
One day, when it came to my tour of duty, General Sontag was the senior
officer on the parade. Mounted on a spirited horse, he took his station
in front to receive the “salute,” when the band of my regiment, much
more celebrated for its harshness and noise than its sweetness, struck
up as discordant a jumble of sounds as ever proceeded from the same
number of wind instruments. The animal, a German horse, and no doubt
with a good ear for music, took fright, and standing upright on his
hinder legs, commenced pawing and snorting in a manner that astounded
every one present, the old General alone excepted; he continued
immovably steady in his saddle, from which a less skilful or an
inexperienced rider must inevitably have been flung, and sawed his
horse’s mouth with such effect as to compel him to resume his former and
more natural position. But, unfortunately, at this moment the
drum-major, who justly estimated the cause of the refractory movements
of the brute, made a flourish with his mace as a token for the
band—music I can’t call it—to desist, and so terrified the animal that
he made a sudden plunge to get away, but was so firmly held by the grip
of his rider, that his feet came from under him, and both the General
and his charger were prostrate on the ground in a second.
It was an alarming, as well as a ludicrous exhibition. For a moment the
General was unable to disentangle his foot from one of the stirrups, and
when he got rid, after much exertion, of this encumbrance, he lost not
only his hat but his wig also; providentially he sustained no injury,
and every one was glad of it. He was a man much esteemed in his brigade,
and had, perhaps, the largest nose in the world! He was humorously
styled by some Marshal (Nez) Ney! His nose hung in two huge flaps under
his cheek-bone, and their colour and size were like two red mogul plums.
Joe Kelly said that he would be a capital _gardener_, “because he always
had his fruit under his eye”!
A few weeks terminated our sojourn here, and the day of our leaving it
was a delightful one to us all. We marched to the northern frontier,
which we considered as our own natural element; for in Estremadura we
witnessed nothing but reverses, and our division had no opportunity of
keeping up its established name. The country between the river Coa and
the Agueda was filled with troops. The 3rd Division occupied Aldea de
Ponte, Albergaria, and the neighbouring villages. Gallegos, Espeja,
Carpio, El Bodon, and Pastores, were likewise occupied; and Ciudad
Rodrigo might be said to be invested; the garrison were, at all events,
much circumscribed in the extent of country for their foragers, but,
nevertheless, they made some successful excursions to the nearest
villages, such as Pastores and El Bodon. The 11th Light Dragoons,
stationed at the latter, were considerably annoyed by the nocturnal
visits of the garrison. A regiment of infantry was, therefore, thought
necessary to co-operate with the cavalry, and mine (the 88th) was the
one selected. General Picton, no matter what his other faults might be
(and who is there amongst us without one?), knew well what he was about
when he sent “the Rangers of Connaught” to support the 11th; he was
aware that before many hours after their arrival in their quarters they
would be tolerably well acquainted with the resources of the country
about them; and that though now and then, perhaps, in a case of
emergency, they might enlist an odd sheep or goat into their own corps,
they would not allow the French to do it. The General was right, and
thought it better that a few sheep should be lost than an entire pen of
them carried off in triumph, and our dragoons (the worst of it!) bearded
to the edge (almost) of their sabres.
We were not long unemployed. On the tenth night after our arrival the
enemy made a formidable attack on our outposts at the village of
Pastores. The advanced sentry, Jack Walsh, passed the word to the next,
who communicated with the picket, and in an instant every man was on his
legs. Walsh waited quietly until the French officer who headed the
advance approached to within a few paces of where he was standing, when
he deliberately took aim at him, and shot him dead. The remainder
retired for a moment, panic-struck, no doubt, at the fate of their
leader; they, however, rallied—for they were not only brave, but, what
is almost as great a stimulus, hungry—and they forced our advance to
give way; but Colonel Alexander Wallace, placing himself at the head of
his men, drove back this band of cormorants, and they never molested us
afterwards.
Notwithstanding that we were thus placed with respect to Rodrigo, the
army of Portugal maintained its position; the army of the North,
commanded by Count Dorsenne, remained in its cantonments on the Douro,
and Rodrigo was thus abandoned to its own resources.
Lord Wellington was not an idle spectator of this supineness on the part
of the two French generals. As early as the month of August he directed
that a large number of the tradesmen[18] of our army, with a proportion
of officers, should be attached to the Engineers, in which branch we
were deficient in point of numbers; and these men in less than six weeks
gained much useful information, and besides, made a quantity of fascines
and gabions sufficient for the intended operations. By the 5th of
September the town of Ciudad Rodrigo was completely blockaded, and we
were employed in making arrangements for its siege when the two
generals, Dorsenne and Marmont, made theirs to drive us back on
Portugal.
-----
Footnote 18:
_I.e._ the men who in civil life had been smiths, carpenters, joiners,
etc.
-----
On the 22nd of September they formed their junction at Tamames, which is
about three leagues distant from Rodrigo. Their united force amounted to
sixty thousand men, including six thousand horse; ours to not quite
fifty thousand, including the force necessary to observe the garrison.
We could not, therefore—taking it for granted, as a matter of course,
that we wished to maintain the blockade—have brought forty thousand
bayonets and sabres into the field, with an inferiority, too, in cavalry
of two thousand! This, in a country so well calculated for the
operations of that arm, at once decided Lord Wellington, and he raised
the blockade on the 24th.
Early on the morning of the 25th the French army were in motion; the
cavalry, under General Montbrun, supported by several battalions of
infantry, advanced upon the position held by our 3rd Division; but the
over-zeal of Montbrun, and the impetuosity of his cavalry, would not
allow them to keep pace with the infantry, who were in consequence
completely distanced at the onset, and never regained their place during
the day.
The ground occupied by the 3rd Division was of considerable extent, and
might, to an ordinary observer, appear to be such as to place that corps
in some peril of being defeated in detail: for instance, the 5th
Regiment, supported by the 77th, two weak battalions, barely reckoning
seven hundred men, were considerably to the left, and in advance of El
Bodon, and were distant upwards of one mile from the 45th, 74th, and
88th; while the 83rd and 94th British, and the 9th and 21st Portuguese
were little, if anything, closer to those two battalions. Some squadrons
of the 1st German Hussars and 11th Light Dragoons supported the advance,
and a brigade of nine-pounders, drawn by mules, and served by Portuguese
gunners, under the command of a German major, named Arentschildt,
crowned the causeway occupied by the 5th and 77th.
These dispositions were barely completed when Montbrun, at the head of
his veteran host, came thundering over the plain at a sweeping pace; ten
of his squadrons dashed across the ravine that separated them from
Arentschildt’s battery, which opened a frightful fire of grape and
canister at point blank distance. But although the havoc made by those
guns was great, it in no way damped the ardour of the French horse; they
panted for glory, and nothing of this kind could check their
impetuosity; once fairly over the ravine, they speedily mounted the face
of the causeway, and desperately, but heroically, charged the battery.
Nothing could resist the torrent—the battery was captured and the
cannoniers massacred at their guns.
In an instant the 5th, commanded by the gallant Major Ridge, formed
line, threw in an effective running fire, steadily ascended the height,
charged the astonished French Dragoons, and having repulsed and poured a
volley into the latter, as they rushed down the opposite face of the
hill, recaptured the guns, with which, joined by the 77th, they
deliberately retired across the open plain after a long and determined
stand against the enemy’s cavalry and artillery, and only retreating
when the approach of a strong body of French infantry rendered such a
movement imperative.
Flushed with his first success, Montbrun, at the head of his victorious
squadrons, now thought to ride through the 5th and 77th, but this
handful of heroes threw themselves into square, and received the attack
with unflinching steadiness. Nothing but the greatest discipline, the
most undaunted bravery, and a firm reliance on their officers, could
have saved these devoted soldiers from total annihilation; they were
attacked with a fury unexampled on three faces of the square. The French
horsemen rode upon their bayonets, but, unshaken by the desperate
position in which they were placed, they poured in their fire with such
quickness and precision that the cavalry retired in disorder.
While this was taking place on the left, the regiments of the right
brigade were posted on a height parallel to that occupied by the 5th and
77th. We had a clear and painful view of all that was passing, and we
shuddered for our companions; the glittering of the countless sabres
that were about to assail them, and the blaze of light which the
reflection of the sun threw across the brazen helmets of the French
horsemen, might be likened to the flash of lightning that preceded the
thunder of Arentschildt’s artillery—but we could do nothing. A few
seconds passed away; we saw the smoke of the musketry—it did not recede,
and we were assured that the attack had failed; in a moment or two more
we could discern the brave 5th and 77th following their beaten
adversaries, and a spontaneous shout of joy burst from the brigade. What
would we have given at that moment to have been near them? They were not
only our companions in arms, but our intimate friends (I mean the 5th,
for the 77th had but just joined the army, and were, comparatively,
strangers to us). But we were now menaced ourselves. From the great
space that intervened between the regiments that had been engaged and
those that had hitherto been unoccupied, it was not easy, taking into
account the mass of French cavalry that covered the plain, to reunite
the 3rd Division. Lord Wellington, it is true, was on the spot, but the
_spot_ was a large one, with but few troops to cover it, and had the
French cavalry done their duty on that day, I doubt much if the 3rd
Division would not have ceased to exist! Meanwhile the time was passing
away without the enemy undertaking anything serious; but the 5th and
77th, and the other troops under General Colville, seeing the danger of
their position, and profiting by the inaction of the French troopers,
who seemed to be paralysed after their failure, made one of the most
memorable retreats on record, across the plain, surrounded by three
times their own number of horse, and exposed to the fire of a battery of
eight-pounders. But the 45th, 74th, and 88th had not yet been able to
disentangle themselves from the rugged ground and vineyards to the rear
of El Bodon, and their junction with the remainder of the division might
be said to be at this moment (three o’clock) rather problematical,
because the French Light Horse and Polish Lancers, not meeting with a
force of our cavalry sufficient to stop their progress, spread
themselves over the face of the country, capturing our baggage and
stores, and threatening to prevent the junction of the right brigade
with the other two.
While the French might be said to have the undisputed possession of the
entire field of battle, over which they were pouring an immense mass of
dragoons, followed by infantry and artillery, the regiments of our
division which were in column continued their retrograde movement upon
Fuente-Guinaldo. The 45th and 74th had by this time cleared the rugged
ground and enclosures, and were in march to join the remainder of the
column; but the 88th were most unaccountably left in a vineyard, which
was enclosed by a loose stone wall. In the hurry of the moment they
might, and I believe would, have been forgotten, had not the soldiers,
who became impatient upon hearing the clashing of weapons outside the
enclosure, burst down several openings in the wall, by which means they
not only saw the danger of the position in which their comrades were
placed, but also the hopelessness of their own, if they did not speedily
break down the walls that incarcerated them; for our 1st Hussars and
11th Light Dragoons were giving way before the overpowering weight of
the enemy’s horse, while the bulk of the 3rd Division were marching in a
line parallel to the enclosure occupied by the 88th; so it was manifest
that if this regiment did not at the instant break from its prison, a
few moments would have decided its fate, and left the 3rd Division
_minus_ the Connaught Rangers.
Each moment that we remained was of consequence, and the delay of five
minutes would have been fatal; we were without orders, and were at a
loss how to act; but nothing tends more to bring the energies of men
into action than their seeing clearly the danger that they are placed
in, and the consciousness that their only means of escaping it depends
upon their firm reliance on themselves. Some officers called out to have
the wall broken down, and in a second several openings were made in it.
Every officer made the greatest efforts to supply, by his own particular
dispositions, such as were on the whole necessary; but an operation of
so delicate a nature, made in the face of a powerful antagonist, could
not be performed with as much order and regularity as was desirable.
From the great coolness of the men, and the intelligence and gallantry
of the officers, the regiment was at last extricated from its dangerous
position, but it was far, very far, from being safe yet; and had the
French dragoons, at the close of the day, shown the same determination
they did at its commencement, not one man of the 88th would have
escaped.
We had scarcely cleared the enclosure when we witnessed a series of
petty combats between our horse and that of the enemy, some of whom had
posted themselves directly between us and our entrenched camp at
Fuente-Guinaldo. Immediately in our front, some of Lord Wellington’s
staff were personally engaged with the French troopers; and one of them,
either Captain Burgh or the young Prince of Orange, owed his life to the
excellence of his horse. Lieutenant King, of the 11th Dragoons, lost one
arm by a sabre cut; Prior, of the same regiment, had all his front teeth
knocked out by a musket shot, and Mrs. Howley, the black cymbal-man’s
wife, of the 88th, was captured by a lancer. The fate of the officers I
have mentioned was deplored, but the loss of Mrs. Howley was a source of
grief to the entire division. The officers so maimed might be replaced
by others, but perhaps in the entire army such another woman, take her
for all and all, as Mrs. Howley could not be found. The 88th at length
took its place in the column at quarter distance, and the 3rd Division
continued its retrograde movement.
Montbrun, at the head of fifteen squadrons of light horse, pressed
closely on our right flank, and made every demonstration of attacking us
with the view of engaging our attention until the arrival of his
infantry and artillery, of which latter only one battery was in the
field; but General Picton saw the critical situation in which he was
placed, and that nothing but the most rapid, and at the same time most
regular, movement upon Guinaldo could save his division from being cut
off to a man. For six miles across a perfect flat, without the slightest
protection from any incident of ground, without artillery, and I might
say without cavalry (for what were four or five squadrons to twenty or
thirty?) did the 3rd Division continue its march. During the whole time
the enemy’s cavalry never quitted them; a park of six guns advanced with
the cavalry, and taking the 3rd Division in flank and rear, poured in a
frightful fire of round-shot, grape, and canister. Many men fell in this
way, and those whose wounds rendered them unable to march were obliged
to be abandoned to the enemy.
This was a trying and pitiable situation for troops to be placed in, but
it in no way shook the courage or confidence of the soldiers; so far
from being dispirited or cast down, the men were cheerful and gay, the
soldiers of my corps (the 88th) telling their officers that if the
French dared to charge, every officer should have a _nate_ horse to ride
upon.
General Picton conducted himself with his accustomed coolness; he
remained on the left flank of the column, and repeatedly cautioned the
different battalions to mind the quarter distance and the “tellings
off.” “Your safety,” added he, “my credit, and the honour of the army,
is at stake: all rests with you at this moment.” We had reached to
within a mile of our entrenched camp, when Montbrun, impatient lest we
should escape from his grasp, ordered his troopers to bring up their
right shoulders and incline towards our column: the movement was not
exactly bringing his squadrons into line, but it was the next thing to
it, and at this time they were within half pistol-shot of us. Picton
took off his hat, and holding it over his eyes as a shade from the sun,
looked sternly, but anxiously at the French. The clatter of the horses
and the clanking of the scabbards were so great when the right half
squadron moved up, that many thought it the forerunner of a general
charge; some mounted officer called out, “Had we not better form
square?”—“No,” replied Picton; “it is but a _ruse_ to frighten us, but
it won’t do.”
At this moment a cloud of dust was discernible in the direction of
Guinaldo; it was a cheering sight; it covered the 3rd Dragoon Guards,
who came up at a slinging trot to our relief. When this fine regiment
approached to within a short distance of us they dismounted, tightened
their girths, and prepared for battle; but the French horse slackened
their pace, and in half an hour more we were safe within our lines. The
Light Division, which were also critically circumstanced on this
memorable day, joined us in the morning, and thus the whole army was
re-united.