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.”
Alas, for human ambition! The capital of the province fell three days
after the above dispatch was written.
On the 8th January 1812 a start was made, and Ciudad Rodrigo invested.
During the night the palisaded redoubt on the hill of San Francisco,
which the French had recently constructed, was stormed and carried,
but Wellington at once perceived that the enemy had made good use
of their time by strengthening their works and fortifying three
convents in the suburbs. “The success of this operation,” he writes,
“enabled us immediately to break ground within 600 yards of the place,
notwithstanding that the enemy still hold the fortified convents; and
the enemy’s work has been turned into a part of our first parallel,
and a good communication made with it.” Wellington encamped his men on
the southern bank, which necessitated their fording the narrow stream,
although he had built a bridge lower down the Agueda for munitions.
It was no child’s play for the soldiers. Through icy cold water,
across ground covered with snow and frost, and amidst a rain of shot
and shell, these brave fellows went to their work, each division in
succession. Some of them returned, others did not, for “The path of
glory leads but to the grave.”
The convent of Santa Cruz was captured on the night of the 13th,
followed on the 14th by the fall of the convent of San Francisco and
other fortified posts in the suburbs. By this time batteries were
within 180 yards of the walls. “We proceeded at Ciudad Rodrigo,” he
tells the Duke of Richmond, “on quite a new principle in sieges. The
whole object of our fire was to lay open the walls. We had not one
mortar; nor a howitzer, excepting to prevent the enemy from clearing
the breaches, and for that purpose we had only two; and we fired upon
the flanks and defences only when we wished to get the better of them,
with a view to protect those who were to storm. This shows the kind of
place we had to attack....” Matters now became urgent, for advice had
been received that Marmont was stirring. By the 19th the breaches made
in the ramparts by the artillery were declared practicable. Wellington
had already summoned the Governor to surrender. His reply was that “he
and the brave garrison which he commanded were prepared rather to bury
themselves in the ruins of a place entrusted to them by their Emperor.”
The troops, consisting of the regiments of the 3rd and Light Divisions
and some Portuguese caçadores, marched to the assault in five columns.
“Rangers of Connaught,” cried General Picton to the “Fighting 3rd,” who
were charged with the centre attack, “it is not my intention to expend
any powder this evening; we’ll do this business with the cold iron.”
It was the task of Picton and his men to assault the great breach,
while the 52nd, the 43rd, and the 95th regiments, assisted by two
battalions of caçadores, assaulted the other. At the same time a
brigade of Portuguese under General Pack was to make a feint at the
Santiago gate, at the southern end of the town, and the light company
of the 83rd regiment with another body of native soldiers were to scale
the castle walls. As the columns advanced the moon, then in its first
quarter, revealed their black outline to the enemy. They at once opened
fire. No reply was vouchsafed by the Allies, who marched with fixed
bayonets and unloaded muskets. It was not part of their plan to return
a greeting made by men who were behind ramparts.
The Portuguese under Colonel O’Toole were the first to attack, closely
followed by the 5th, 94th, and 77th regiments, the last supposed to act
as a reserve. The Light Division, impatient of delay and not wishing to
be rivalled in prowess, hurled themselves at the small breach without
waiting for the bags of hay which were to be thrown in the ditch to
assist them in crossing. Many of the attacking force literally passed
over the shot-riddled bodies of the vanguard as they attempted to
get through. Major George Napier, while leading his men, had his arm
shattered, but still continued to encourage them; Robert Craufurd,
the intrepid and cantankerous commander of the Light Division, fell
mortally wounded; Major-General Mackinnon was blown up by the explosion
of a magazine. Nine officers and eleven non-commissioned officers and
drummers gave up their lives for their country during the siege and
in the assault from the 8th to the 19th, the total loss in killed and
injured being nearly 1000. The hand-to-hand fighting continued in the
streets, and the town caught fire.
At dawn 1700 of the enemy surrendered, including the Governor.
Marmont’s battering train, scores of field guns, and a plentiful supply
of ammunition fell into the hands of the victors. Wellington had
“great pleasure” in reporting “the uniform good conduct, and spirit of
enterprise, and patience, and perseverance in the performance of great
labor” on the part of the troops who had been engaged. As for the men
themselves, they got drunk and sacked the place.
Wellington’s rewards for the capture of Ciudad Rodrigo were numerous.
He became an Earl in Great Britain, a Duke in Spain, and a Marquis in
Portugal. In addition he was granted an extra annual pension of £2000
by Parliament. Financial offers were also forthcoming from the two
Peninsula Powers, but he declined them. “He had only done his duty to
his country, and to his country alone he would look for his reward.”
Marmont was in ignorance of the siege until the 15th January. He
then began to make preparations, but when he was ready the fortress
had fallen, and he moved his army to Valladolid, to the north-east.
Napoleon then sent orders to the Marshal that if he could not regain
Ciudad Rodrigo he was to return to Salamanca, cross the frontier, and
advance on Almeida. He foresaw that perhaps Wellington might turn his
attention to Badajoz, which, in the Emperor’s opinion, would be a
“mistake,” and that of necessity he would have to return to succour
the Portuguese fortress: “You will soon bring him back again.” The
British Commander also surmised that another attack on Ciudad was quite
possible. Before setting out on his next bold enterprise he therefore
put the fortifications in thorough repair, and brought up a reserve
supply of 50,000 rations in case it should be besieged. Satisfied that
the place could now offer a bold resistance to the enemy, and having
also repaired the works of Almeida, he marched the greater part of his
army to the valley of the Guadiana, and invested Badajoz, which is on
the left side of that river, on the 16th March 1812.
Wellington fully appreciated the immense value of time, and if he did
not actually work with his eyes on the clock, he always endeavoured to
fix a definite date for his operations. Thus as early as the preceding
January he had written to his brother from Gallegos, a little to the
north of Ciudad, that it was probable he would be in readiness to
invest the place “in the second week in March.” “We shall have great
advantages in making the attack so early if the weather will allow of
it,” he tells another correspondent. “First, all the torrents in this
part of the country are then full, so that we may assemble nearly our
whole army on the Guadiana, without risk to anything valuable here.[71]
Secondly, it will be convenient to assemble our army at an early period
in Estremadura, for the sake of the green forage, which comes in
earlier to the south than here. Thirdly, we shall have advantages, in
point of subsistence, over the enemy, at that season, which we should
not have at a later period. Fourthly, their operations will necessarily
be confined by the swelling of the rivers in that part as well as
here.” In order to deceive the enemy he remained behind with the 5th
Division as long as possible and gave instructions for a report to be
circulated to the effect that he was going to hunt on the banks of the
Huelbra and Yeltes.