THE REFORM OF THE ARMY.
After such brilliant work as was done by Abercromby's army in Egypt
in 1801, it may seem strange that any one should have questioned the
ability of the British army to meet and defeat any numerically equal
force in Europe. Fortunately for England, however, there were in the
army officers whose deep study of their profession told them that
the tactics of fighting were moving towards a change, and that old
methods before long would have to pass away. Fortunately, again, such
officers were not carried away by the glamour of the recent victories
in Egypt, and the fact that they themselves participated in those
victories added considerably to the weight of their counsels. It has
always been the case that campaigns, however successful they may have
been, have been followed by reforms in the army; for it is only from
experience gained in actual warfare that it is possible to discover
the shortcomings of a force, or how to set matters to rights. There
was, therefore, nothing peculiar in the move which was made in 1802
towards overhauling the affairs of the army, and the prime mover in
the reforms was the Commander-in-Chief, H.R.H. the Duke of York.
As was mentioned in an earlier chapter, it was common knowledge, as
far back as 1792, that a long immunity from European warfare was
beginning to tell on the wellbeing of the British army, and that the
officers were in a measure losing touch with their profession. Still,
no immediate action was taken, and the good work done in India, the
West Indies, and elsewhere led the authorities to believe that there
was nothing very much amiss. In 1802, however, came the opportunity.
The peace patched up in that year brought about extensive reductions
in the establishment of the British army, and it became necessary
to place a great many officers on half pay. Moore, who, after much
foreign service, was then commanding the Canterbury district, and
who, as we have previously shown, had great ideas on the subject of
good officers, seized the opportunity offered by these reductions
to weed out such officers as he deemed undesirable. The matter of
seniority was nothing to him, and he applied, at any rate to the
regiments under his immediate command, the hitherto unheard-of
principle--selection, pure and simple, and made by himself. His
methods were somewhat severe, and he did not confine his operations
to the junior officers, as is evident from his correspondence with
the Adjutant-General of the Army. "Some commanding officers," he
wrote in 1803, "the state of whose regiments justify it, must be told
to retire from the service, the duties of which they are unequal to.
The command must not be allowed to devolve upon their majors, who may
be equally incapable, but be given to officers of approved talents.
One or two measures of this sort generally known would excite an
exertion which at present is much wanted."[40]
Moore was ably supported, not only by the Commander-in-Chief,
but also by his old commanding officer of Corsican days, General
David Dundas, who, in these early years of reform, first was
Quartermaster-General of the Army, and afterwards was in command
of the Southern District--and so again Moore's commanding officer.
Moore's suggestions carried immense weight with the authorities,
and a great number of officers who had failed to take their
profession seriously found themselves retired on half pay. The
result, though disastrous to the officers concerned, put new life
into the commissioned ranks, and opened the way for the remodelling
of the whole organisation of the army. The question of the officers
having been settled, and their zeal and efficiency having been
assured, Moore's work was simplified, and it was on Moore--only a
major-general commanding a comparatively small district--that the
military authorities leaned in carrying out their scheme for the
reorganisation of the army. This was, of course, natural enough, for
Moore himself, if not the originator of the scheme, was at any rate
the chosen mouthpiece of General Dundas, whose views concerning the
training of troops were held in high esteem. But what is not easy
to understand is the absence of opposition on the part of the older
conservative officers, senior to Moore. The fact, however, remains
that he was given a free hand, and when, in 1803, he determined to
reform the discipline and training of the army on lines which he had
been working out for many years, principally during active service in
the West Indies, Holland, and Egypt, he was given the command of a
special brigade of selected regiments, with which he was permitted to
experiment to his heart's content.
The sole purpose of his system was to convert the British army into
a thoroughly sound and reliable fighting machine, suitable to the
times. He had observed that Napoleon was adopting new tactics; he
foresaw that the times were changing; and he realised the fact that
the experiences of fighting in India, in the West Indies, in Holland,
and in Egypt would be of small value to troops pitted against
Napoleon's trained veterans in Europe, unless such experiences were
thoroughly examined, with a view to discovering if the army had
learned anything worth learning, or if it was still behind the times.
Moore was perfectly convinced that in tactical formations in the
attack and the defence the methods of the infantry of the army were
out of date; but he knew, also, that the men of the British army were
made of sound stuff, and that under efficient officers they could
be trained to do anything. It is worthy of note, however, that the
changes which Moore introduced did not arise, as is usually the case,
from any improvement in firearms, but rather from a careful study
of recent campaigns in various parts of the world. In short, Moore
saw what was wrong, and endeavoured to set matters right, with what
result will presently be shown.
In order to understand how it came about that the British infantry
within a few years proved more than a match for the French in the
Peninsular War, it is necessary to have some knowledge of the methods
of fighting previously adopted by the armies of the two nations, and
then to see how Moore altered these methods, by assimilating the
good and by eliminating the bad, by pruning and by inducing fresh
growth. We shall see that, in the new system of training, everything
depended on the regimental officer; and we shall see that, when war
came, it was the regimental officer who made the British army almost
invincible.
Without entering too deeply into the history of tactics, we may
say that up to the middle of the eighteenth century the fighting
formation of infantry, whether in attack or defence, consisted
generally of solid bodies of troops, which marched up in two massive
columns, and then deployed, in the face of the opposing force,
into two lines each composed of three ranks. Skirmishers were then
unknown; and very great attention was paid to drill. About 1757 we
find the Austrians using light troops (Croats) to harass Frederick
the Great's army on the march; but these do not appear to have been
properly organised, and, though always annoying, they seldom acted
with real judgment. In 1774 Mesnil Durand invented a system in which
skirmishers played a considerable part. Battalions were to move
in double company columns at deploying intervals, two of the ten
companies of each battalion acting as skirmishers to cover the whole
front of the line of columns. It was held that in this way the fire
of the skirmishers would make itself felt to such an extent that it
would only remain for the heavy columns behind to push in and crush
the enemy by sheer weight. This was to a certain extent the system
adopted by the French in 1793, and employed by the French generals
in the Peninsular War, and by Napoleon until his final defeat at
Waterloo, except that the columns of attack were deep and solid, and
not merely single battalion columns or lines of battalion columns.
It may therefore be said that skirmishers first took their place in
the organisation of Continental armies about 1774, but years before
that the question of their employment had been freely discussed. As
early as 1754 Comte Lancelot Turpin de Crissé had published a work
on the Art of War, in which he dealt with the uses of light troops
at some length, and the British army had had its bodies of trained
light infantrymen certainly before 1758.[41] In all probability they
originated about the year 1757, when the British generals, fighting
against the French in America, found that the latter's Red Indian
allies perpetually annoyed them on the march and on other occasions,
and determined to meet them in their own methods of fighting.
Consequently, every regiment in America was ordered to select "the
most enterprising officers and the most active of the privates with
the appellation of _Rangers_." Lord Howe, then commanding the 55th
Regiment, but in 1758 raised to the command of the army in the
field, was immensely impressed by the Red Indian methods of warfare,
and was supported by several commanding officers, who realised the
absurdities of tight clothes and movements in solid formation, when
engaging the enemy in the rough forest country of the New World. The
success which attended the experiment of the _Rangers_ led to the
formation of a light company in every regiment, and the valuable
services which these companies performed during the next few years
fully justified their existence. And the matter was carried still
further, for, in 1758, a whole regiment was equipped for light work,
and named Gage's Light Infantry.[42] In that year, however, while
leading a desperate attack on the French, Howe was shot dead, at the
head of the _Rangers_, in the hour of victory.
At the peace of 1763 all the light companies of regiments were
reduced, and the lessons learned in America for the time being were
forgotten. In 1770, however, some one remembered the value of light
troops, and the light companies were established afresh. In all
probability that some one was Lord Howe's brother, General William
Howe, who had distinguished himself as a leader of light infantry in
Wolfe's Quebec campaign of 1759, for in 1774 he was allowed to take
the light companies of seven regiments to Salisbury, and exercise
them as a battalion in certain manœuvres which he had invented. There
was apparently little similarity between Howe's formations and those
of Mesnil Durand mentioned above, for whereas the latter's flank
companies were employed with their own battalion, as part and parcel
of it in the fight, Howe's idea was to take these companies away from
their regiments, and form them into separate battalions, for distinct
and special work. In this way Sir William Howe, in chief command
of the British forces, employed the flank companies of regiments
during the War of American Independence, the most important and most
hazardous duties being performed by battalions composed of them.
Both Viscount Howe and his brother, Sir William, gained their first
knowledge of light troops from the Red Indians, and it may perhaps
be remarked that, in 1880-1881, irregular warfare with the Boers
gave us the idea of mounted infantry. There is a striking analogy
between the old light infantry and the modern mounted infantry:
each was the outcome of a desire for greater mobility than ordinary
infantry soldiers were capable of; each began in the same way; the
light company and the mounted infantry company contained the picked
men of the battalion, and, in war, these companies of the best men
were taken away from their regiments to work, with similar companies
of other regiments, as separate battalions, the merits or demerits of
which it is not necessary to enter into here.
To return to the development of light troops in the British army. In
1782 the light companies of nine regiments were assembled in camp at
Coxheath, Kent, and, together with two battalions of infantry and two
regiments of light dragoons, were practised in what was termed the
"Dundas Exercises," which were being tried for the first time. A year
or two later, Dundas visited the Prussian manœuvres, obtained some
fresh ideas, and then published his monumental work, which eventually
became the first drill-book authorised to be used in the British
army. Dundas, however, had very little new to say about light troops,
and his exercises were practically on the Continental model. In 1794
Sir Thomas Graham[43] (afterwards Lord Lynedoch) raised a regiment
(which was numbered the 90th), and had it equipped and drilled as a
light infantry corps, though it was not recognised officially as such
for another eleven years. It was in the above year that Moore was
working with Corsican troops in the field, and he always considered
the Corsicans the best light infantrymen in the world, although he
acknowledged that they lacked the discipline necessary for holding
their own against highly-trained troops. In 1798 Howe[44] again came
to the front, and superintended the training of a brigade of all
arms, assembled on the Essex coast, in his light drill. Lastly, in
1800, H.R.H. the Commander-in-Chief ordered the assembly at Horsham
of a temporary corps, for the purpose of training a body of men in
the use of the rifle, fourteen regiments being called upon to furnish
thirty privates and a proportion of officers and non-commissioned
officers. After the summer training, these men were moved to
Blatchington, and were then formed into the Rifle Corps (95th),[45]
for whom Colonel Coote Manningham and Lieutenant-Colonel the Hon.
W. Stewart drew up the famous 'Regulations for the Rifle Corps,'
published in 1801. The methods of training these riflemen were very
similar to those employed in training temporary light infantry corps
composed of the light companies of regiments, except in so far as the
superior range and accuracy of the rifle over the flintlock musket
altered the conditions of the attack and defence.
By this time it had been discovered that Napoleon had developed the
use of his _voltigeurs_ enormously, and that his victories were being
secured by the judicious employment of these light troops; so English
books dealing with the systematic training of light troops now began
to appear. The earliest of these was one based on a translation of
a work by a "German officer of distinction and of much military
experience," which, first produced in 1798 (reprinted in 1801 and
1803), under the title of 'Regulations for the Exercise of Riflemen
and Light Infantry, and Instructions for their Conduct in the Field,'
was ordered to be studied by all officers of the army. Who that
German officer was is never made clear, and in 1803 there appeared
another and a far more valuable work, entitled 'A Treatise upon the
Duties of Light Troops,' translated from the German of Colonel Von
Ehwald, but there is nothing in this book to lead one to believe that
Von Ehwald was the author of the earlier work. The gallant Colonel
had served in the Seven Years' War, commanded a corps of Hessian
jägers, in British pay, during the American War of Independence, and
subsequently commanded a light corps of the Danish army, and his
book contains a mass of useful information on the training of light
troops, as well as examples of their work in the field during several
campaigns.
Judging by the contents of this treatise, it is more than probable
that Sir John Moore had studied it in the original, for Von Ehwald's
ideas on discipline and training were identical with those upon which
Moore subsequently set to work. Both Von Ehwald and Moore held the
opinion that an army which could place in the field large numbers of
light troops, so highly trained and disciplined as to be capable of
working intelligently in extended order in more or less independent
small parties, would be able to outflank, outmanœuvre, and defeat an
enemy of superior strength who adhered to close formations. Rapidity
of movement, however, and the ability to make good use of ground as
well as of their firearms, were essential to the success of light
troops, and Moore knew that unless there could be produced a higher
standard of discipline than was yet known in the British army, it
would be impossible to create light troops of any value. And Moore's
ideas of discipline differed somewhat from those of most officers of
the time, in that he did not believe in the "mechanical discipline"
which made a mere automaton of the soldier, but rather in that
"intelligent discipline, best illustrated, perhaps, by a pack of
well-trained hounds, running in no order, but, without a straggler,
each making good use of his instinct, and following the same object
with the same relentless perseverance."[46] In his determination
to establish this new form of discipline lay Moore's success, and
he always maintained that by no other means than by inculcating
the strictest habits of intelligent discipline in all ranks could
self-reliance and initiative come natural to a body of troops.
Whether he discovered this for himself, or whether he learned it
from Von Ehwald, or whether, again, both of them were following the
lead of Napoleon, whose skirmishers had already made their mark in
European warfare, the fact remains that Sir John Moore was the first
person to attempt to apply it to a large number of British soldiers,
and he was the first person to succeed.
In the summer of 1803, therefore, Moore commenced work with his
famous brigade at Shorncliffe Camp, and he decided to train his
brigade as light troops, not in the usual way by extemporising
battalions out of light companies detached from various regiments,
but by employing whole regiments. For this purpose the 52nd and
the 43rd were, in 1803, formed into light infantry regiments, and,
together with the newly raised Rifle Corps (95th), handed over to
Moore to train. He began at the beginning, and thoroughly overhauled
the existing regimental systems; he went deeply into interior
economy, and instituted many reforms--so far-reaching and excellent
that they have remained almost unaltered to the present day. He
insisted that discipline could only be maintained by the officers of
all ranks always being in touch with their men, and ever having their
welfare at heart. A hard worker himself, he saw that all the officers
of his brigade worked hard also; and during the training seasons
at Shorncliffe the officers were seldom off duty on week-days, and
had to brush up for the General's inspection on Sundays, for Moore
did not recognise any necessity for recreation. On one occasion
the father of a young officer wrote to the General to say that he
proposed to send his son a horse. Moore's reply was characteristic:
"that he should be very pleased that the horse should be sent, but
that it would be necessary for the father to send with it some one to
ride it, for his son would have no time to do so."[47] His first care
was to have efficient officers; he watched them carefully, and he
got rid of those whom he deemed useless for his purpose, thus laying
the foundation-stone of the future building. With good and reliable
officers, establishing a chain of responsibility from highest to
lowest, with a thorough organisation of battalions on the company
system, with non-commissioned officers and men no longer ruled with
a rod of iron, but respecting and relying on their officers, Moore
began to see his way clear.
His next step was to practise, for a considerable time, drill and
movements in close formation--a proof that he was thorough, as well
as patient. An ordinary man with a new hobby to ride might have been
inclined to slur over, if not scoff at, things which he considered
old-fashioned. But Moore had a use for them, because he intended to
make his brigade absolutely perfect, and an example to be followed
by every other brigade in the British army. His brigade was to be
steadier on parade and better drilled than any other, and until
he was sure that it was so, he restrained himself from taking the
regiments on to their training as light troops. And he had other
reasons, for he felt that square drill, practised as a means to
an end, was the best discipline for men who were presently to act
independently and work out things for themselves. Moreover, he knew
that light troops alone would not win a battle, but that they must
be supported by well-disciplined bodies of men, moving in close
formation and maintaining strict order, until the moment arrived for
them to be thrown into the fight.
Sir David Dundas took the greatest interest in all that Moore was
doing, and often visited his camp. His drill-book was still the
official manual, and, as the first of its kind, was of the greatest
value. "There was, however, so much that was rigid, formal, and
unnecessary in Dundas's drill that it gained for him the nickname of
'Old Pivot'; while he also made the fatal mistake of distributing the
whole science of military evolution into eighteen manœuvres, which
were a sad stumbling-block to slow-witted officers. 'General,' said
Sir John Moore to him in 1804, 'that book of yours has done a great
deal of good, and would be of great value if it were not for those
damned eighteen manœuvres.' 'Why--ay,' answered Dundas slowly in
broad Scots, 'blockheads don't understand.'"[48] Yet Moore struggled
manfully with the eighteen manœuvres, and tried new methods of
performing them, before passing on to lighter movements--extended
order formations, advanced-guards, rear-guards, and outposts.
Undoubtedly, Moore's opportunity was unique, for his brigade had
its place in the defence of England, and it was thought that the
French intended to land somewhere near Shorncliffe. Consequently,
the brigade was considered to be on active service, and at the same
time was being trained for war, a state of affairs which naturally
tended to make all ranks keen to acquire military knowledge. There
was none of the make-believe of peace training; only a few miles of
sea lay between the brigade and the enemy, and on any dark night the
French might attempt to effect a landing between the Martello Towers
which studded the coast-line. At night, therefore, these towers and
three neighbouring forts were fully manned, and outposts covered the
camp on the heights above, the sentries being provided with ball
ammunition. By day, while a look-out was still maintained by the
guards, the brigade was drilled and practised at manœuvring over the
country inland; and now and again the order was given to strike camp
and march, when, within an hour, the whole brigade loaded up and
moved off--with everything complete and ready for active service in
any quarter of the globe. All this resulted from the discipline which
the General instilled into his regiments, and for three continuous
years he had them in his care. So that when, in 1806, he was called
away for service in Sicily, he left his brigade in the highest
state of discipline, and as light troops certainly superior to any
in Europe. The proof of this Moore did not live to see, but his
three regiments a few years later formed the Light Division, which
throughout the Peninsular War carried all before it.
Moore developed light movements enormously, producing a marvellous
elasticity in comparatively large bodies of troops, and under his
training whole regiments became as mobile and rapid in manœuvre as
previously no company of a regiment had been. To swiftly reach a
given point, and there bring as many rifles or muskets as possible
into the firing line; to make every officer and man use his own
intelligence in carrying out movements; and to impress upon them
the necessity for mutual support,--were the chief aims of Moore's
training; and he it was who originated for the British army that
self-dependent Thin Red Line which so soon was to become the
destroyer of Napoleon's deep and massive columns. For it was proved
over and over again in the long war which followed, that, with
opposing forces of equal numbers, the line two-deep, every man of
which was so disciplined as to stand firm, and every man of which
had the opportunity of using his rifle or musket, could make short
work of the more condensed three-deep line, or of the column which
presented a large target, and which at the same time could return
the fire only from the muskets of two ranks at the contracted head
of the column. It is interesting to note that Colonel Von Ehwald
was a strong advocate of the two-deep line both in attack and in
defence, for purposes of firing as well as for using the bayonet. "In
an attack with charged bayonets," he says, "I am convinced that, if
the corps drawn up in two ranks advances resolutely upon the other in
three, it will not be worse off for that rank less, as the pressure
of one upon the other, of which the French tacticians speak, exists
only in the imagination."
Now, the outcome of all this training of light troops was a new
fighting formation for the British army. In the first place, Moore
had proved that whole regiments could become intelligent and reliable
skirmishers, if properly taught; and he had proved, also, that
companies, or smaller bodies, of skirmishers, acting independently
though at the same time working towards the consummation of a
"general idea," were of the highest value when the commanders
of skirmishing units were allowed a free hand. Next, Moore had
discovered that, with these highly trained bodies of skirmishers
out in front, harassing the enemy in every direction, keeping down
his fire, and shattering his _moral_, massive bodies of troops in
rear were no longer required. So he instituted the attack formation
as follows:--First, the skirmishers in some strength; second, a
two-deep line in close order; third, a similar line; and it was with
these two lines, always kept in hand, that the _coup-de-grâce_--in
the shape of a withering volley, followed by a bayonet charge--was
given, at the moment when the enemy had begun to feel the effects
of the bickerings of the skirmishers. But the secret of success in
the employment of these shadowy lines against the enemy's columns
lay not only in the efficiency of the skirmishers, but also in the
superior discipline of the troops behind, who were brought up in
line of quarter-columns to within effective range of the position,
and then deployed into shoulder to shoulder lines of two ranks. It
was for these reasons that Moore drilled his regiments to become
equally proficient in close order movements as in skirmishing. Simple
as all this may appear nowadays, it was a revolution in fighting
methods, and necessitated a vast amount of preliminary training and
disciplining; but Moore's system had been carefully watched by the
authorities, and so satisfied were they of its soundness, that it
was applied as far as possible to all regiments of the army. It took
time, but the ultimate result was good, and it was soon found that a
new spirit was gradually passing into all ranks.
To sum up the nature of the reforms introduced into the army
between 1802 and 1807: we find, to begin with, a marked improvement
in the zeal and efficiency of the officers, produced not only by
getting rid of the useless ones, but also by the introduction of
new regulations relating to the grant of first commissions and
subsequent promotion. Thus the minimum age for an ensign was fixed
at sixteen,[49] and an officer was required to have served at least
three years for promotion to the rank of captain, and seven years
to that of major. Next we find the establishment of a new and high
code of discipline, as well as of morals, among both officers and
men, from which followed a closer union between the one and the
other, and a greater regard for the welfare of the soldier on the
part of the officer. Again, one uniform system of drill and manœuvre
was laid down and rigidly enforced for each arm of the service, for
hitherto such matters had been left to the commanding officers of
corps. "Such changes," wrote Lord Londonderry,[50] "together with the
establishment of hospitals for the wounded and disabled soldiers, and
for the education of children whose parents had fallen in the defence
of their country, could not fail of producing the most beneficial
effect upon the _moral_ of the British army, which, from being an
object of something like abhorrence to its own countrymen, and of
contempt to the troops of other nations, rose to command, as well as
to deserve, the esteem of the former, and the respect and admiration
of the latter."
The above is an outline of the somewhat startling ideas connected
with military reform which were thrust upon the officers of the 51st
on arriving home from Ceylon in the autumn of 1807, and they were
not slow to appreciate the situation. Their men were all new to them,
as they had brought few back to England, and they realised at once
that it would require strenuous efforts on their part to make up the
leeway. It speaks well for them that they were not found wanting,
and they were fortunate in having a commanding officer[51] capable
of rising to the occasion. The necessity of getting into fighting
trim with all speed was apparent to every one; for the cloud over
Europe still hung low and black, and the British expedition sent to
Copenhagen was at the moment destroying the Danish fleet--an act
which, it was well known, would increase Napoleon's hatred of England
tenfold. And so it proved, for before the end of the year a French
army invaded Portugal and entered Lisbon, and Napoleon thus fulfilled
his promise of humbling England's ancient ally.
The difficulties encountered by the regiment in learning its new
work were increased by constant changes of station; first it was
quartered at Chatham, then at Chichester, while early in 1808
it moved to Gosport, and in the spring to Guernsey. There is no
doubt that the regimental officers had plenty to do, with parades
morning and evening, and with a considerable amount of routine work
connected with interior economy. They were up early, as a subaltern
of each company had to call the company roll and inspect the rooms
immediately after reveille, and they were kept busy until they had
seen the men have their dinners at 1 P.M. At three o'clock the
officers dined, and turned out for parade afterwards; so they had
very little leisure for recreation, though what form of recreation
officers and men indulged in at this period is never made very clear.
Some of the officers hunted and shot, but outdoor games, as we know
them now, had not come into fashion. Cricket and football were in
their infancy, and had not reached the army; nor were there any
organised athletic sports; and, in all probability, the only games
played by the men were skittles, and a kind of "fives" in what was
termed the "ball alley." Only by marching were the soldiers kept in
good condition, for it had not yet been discovered that there was a
value in wholesome recreation.
By the spring of 1808 the 51st was a regiment again, but in the
matter of dress quite a different regiment to that which left
Lisbon for India ten years before; for the uniform of the army had
undergone alterations, and the mode of dressing the hair had changed.
The "queue," which had taken the place of the "club" in 1799, and
which was at first ten inches in length, was now shortened to seven
inches, and was tied, a little below the upper part of the collar of
the coat, with a black bow,[52] so that one inch of hair remained
free at the end; the men's coiffure, however, being no longer
powdered white. The officers still wore powdered hair and cocked
hats of considerable size, sometimes putting them on even with
the shoulders, at other times fore and aft; but for the men a new
head-dress had been devised, and this took the form of a cylindrical
shako, with a brass plate in front and above it a red and white tuft
coming out of a black cockade. The red coat had changed its shape,
and was buttoned up tight to the waist, the lapels, in the case of
the officers' coats, reaching right down, and being so made that they
could be buttoned across to form a double-breasted coat, or thrown
back to show the lining of facing cloth--something after the fashion
of the front of the present lancer tunic. The officers also wore very
high and roomy collars, to admit the large black neckcloth, which
was now much affected. And thus turned out, the whole regiment was
undoubtedly as smart as could be,--but what was better, the officers
and men were efficient soldiers.
In the meanwhile, events on the Continent had gone from bad to worse,
and Napoleon, not content with the occupation of Portugal, had thrown
off his alliance with Spain, marched on Madrid, and transferred his
brother Joseph from the throne of Naples to that of Spain. England at
once rose to the occasion, decided to free Portugal and Spain from
the French yoke, and forthwith launched an expedition of about 25,000
men for the purpose. The 51st, having so recently returned from
foreign service, was not included in the expeditionary force, which
landed, on the 1st August (1808), on the Portuguese coast, near the
mouth of the Mondego river, and commenced the advance on Lisbon. On
the 16th the French were first encountered at Obidos, where a slight
skirmish took place, and on the following day Sir Arthur Wellesley
fought and won the battle of Roliça.[53] Without entering into the
details of this the first campaign of the Peninsular War, we may
mention that the British and Portuguese routed the French at Vimiera
on the 21st August, and before the end of the month the enemy, by the
Convention of Cintra, agreed to evacuate Portugal. After this the
British army occupied Lisbon, and prepared for operations against the
French in Spain.
While these events were in progress, the 51st, chafing at having been
left behind, were moved from Guernsey to Chichester, and before long
had the satisfaction of receiving their orders for active service.