THE SIEGE OF BADAJOZ.
1812.
The town of Badajoz contained a population of about 16,000, and, within
the space of thirteen months, experienced the miseries attendant upon
a state of siege three several times. The first was undertaken by Lord
Beresford, towards the end of April, 1811, who was obliged to abandon
operations by Soult advancing to its relief, and which led to the
battle of Albuera on the 16th of May.
The second siege was by Lord Wellington in person, who, after the
battle of Fuentes d’Onoro, directed his steps towards the south with
a portion of the allied army. Operations commenced on the 30th of
May, and continued till the 10th of June, when the siege was again
abandoned, Soult having a second time advanced in combined operation
with the army of Marmont from the north. The allies continued the
blockade of the town till the 17th, when they recrossed the Guadiana,
and took up a position on the Caya.
The secrecy and despatch with which Lord Wellington had formed or
collected all necessary _matériel_ for besieging this formidable place
on whose reduction he had determined, was astonishing. The heavy guns
had been brought by sea from Lisbon, transhipped into craft of easy
draught of water, and thus conveyed up the river until they reached
the banks of the Guadiana. Gabions and fascines[4] were prepared
in the surrounding woods, intrenching tools provided, the pontoon
bridge brought up from Abrantez, and the battering train, comprising
sixteen 24 and twenty 18-pounders, with sixteen 24-pound howitzers,
were forwarded from Almeida, and parked upon the glacis of Elvas, in
readiness for the opening of the siege.
[4] _Fascines_ are small branches of trees bound together. They are
used for filling ditches, masking batteries, &c., &c.
Though not entirely aware of the extent of these hostile preparations,
Philippon, the governor of Badajoz, had apprised Marshal Soult that the
fortress was threatened, and demanded a supply of shells and gunpowder.
This requisition, though immediately complied with, was not obtained,
for Sir Rowland Hill, with his characteristic activity, prevented the
convoy from reaching its destination.
Indeed, nothing which could secure the place had been forgotten or
neglected by its governor. The forts of San Christoval and Pardelaras
had been considerably strengthened and enlarged, the former by a
lunette,[5] magazine and bomb-proof, and the latter by a general
repair. Badajoz was provisioned for five weeks, the garrison was
numerous and well appointed, and, confident in his own resources and
skill, Philippon, after two successful defences, resolutely prepared
himself for a third, and with a perfect conviction that, like the
others, it, too, would prove successful.
[5] A work on either side of a ravelin, with one perpendicular face.
They are also sometimes thrown up beyond the second ditch, opposite the
places of arms.
Badajoz is easily described. Round one portion of the town, the
rivulets Calamon and Rivellas sweep, and unite with the Guadiana,
which flows in the face of the works, and in front of the heights of
San Christoval. The castle stands above the union of these rivers.
The fortifications are exceedingly strong, the bastions and curtains
regular, while formidable outworks, the forts of Pardelaras, Picarina,
and San Christoval, complete the exterior defences.
A close reconnaissance at once convinced Lord Wellington that the
defences had been amazingly improved--and, as time pressed, and the
means of regular investment were but indifferent, he determined that
the bastion of La Trinidad, from its unfinished counterguard,[6] should
be battered. To effect this, the Picarina redoubt, forming nearly an
angle with the bastion, and the lunette of San Rocque, must necessarily
be carried.
[6] _Counterguards_ are small ramparts, with parapets and ditches,
erected in front of a bastion or ravelin, to secure the opposite flanks
from being open to the covert-way.
The night of the 16th March was bad enough to mask any daring essay,
and rain, darkness, and storm favoured the bold attempt. Ground was
accordingly broken, and though but one hundred and seventy yards from
the covered way, the working parties were neither heard nor molested.
The 17th and 18th were similarly employed, but under a heavy fire from
the Picarina fort, and such of the guns upon the works as could be
turned by the garrison on the approaches.
The evening of the 18th, however, produced a very different scene,
for the enemy became assailant, and a sortie was made with fifteen
hundred men, accompanied by some forty cavalry. To the works, this
sudden assault occasioned but little mischief. The gabions[7] were
overturned, some intrenching tools captured, and great confusion
caused among the working parties; but the French were speedily driven
back, after causing much alarm, and a loss of one hundred and fifty in
killed and wounded. Colonel Fletcher, the chief of the engineers, was
unfortunately among the latter.
[7] _Gabions_ are large circular baskets, filled with earth or sand,
and used for forming parapets, covering working parties, &c., &c.
The weather was in every way unfavourable for prosecuting the siege,
and elemental influences seemed to have united with Philippon against
the allied commander. The rain fell in torrents, the river rose far
beyond its customary height, the pontoons swamped at their moorings,
and all were swept away. From the violence of the current, the flying
bridges worked but slowly, and serious apprehensions were entertained
lest the communications should be interrupted with the other side,
and, of necessity, that the siege must be raised. To forward the works
required incredible fatigue; the ground was soaked with moisture, the
trenches more than knee-deep with mud and rain, the revêtements[8]
of the batteries crumbled away under any pressure, and it was almost
impossible to lay platforms for the guns. Indeed, had the works been
ready for their reception, the task of transporting heavy artillery
across a surface, rendered a perfect swamp by the incessant torrents
which had fallen for days without any intermission, would have been a
most laborious duty.
[8] _Revêtement_ of a battery is the exterior front, formed of masonry
or fascines, which keeps the bank of the work from falling.
Fortunately, the weather changed, the ground dried partially, and
the works were carried on with additional spirit. By employing teams
of oxen, assisted by numerous fatigue parties, the guns were brought
forward, and the batteries armed, and on the 25th they opened on the
Picarina and the place itself, with excellent effect, while Philippon
returned the fire from every gun upon the ramparts that could be
brought to bear.
Perceiving the true object of the besiegers, and certain that the
Picarina would be assailed, ample measures were taken for its defence.
The ditch was deepened, the gorge secured by an additional palisade;
under the angles of the glacis fougasses[9] were placed, and shells and
grenades laid along the parapet, to roll down upon the storming party
at the moment of attack. The ditch was exposed to a flanking fire, and
two hundred spare muskets were ranged along the banquet. Every means,
in short, were adopted that could insure a vigorous and successful
resistance.
[9] _The glacis_ is the part beyond the covert-way to which it forms
the parapet.
_Fougasse_ is a small mine, six or seven feet under ground, generally
formed in the glacis or dry ditch.
That night, at ten o’clock, the fort was attacked and carried by five
hundred men of the third division, under Major-general Kempt. One
party was directed to attempt the gorge, another prevented the place
from being succoured from the city, and at the same time cut off the
garrison from retreat; and a third were to distract the attention of
the French, and assist their comrades by making a front attack.
The first detachment reached the gorge undiscovered, but failed in
forcing the palisades, from the heavy fire of musketry poured on them
by the garrison. Retiring from a place where success was hopeless, the
storming party moved round the left flank, and escaladed and won the
parapet; while another forced the salient angle simultaneously. The
French retreated to a guardhouse, which they barricaded and defended
most obstinately.
Alarmed by a false report that a large body of the besieged had sallied
from the town to relieve the fort, the troops were about to abandon
these advantages, and quit a place their bravery had already won; but
General Kempt dispelled the panic, led them forward, and attacked the
garrison again, who fought to the very last; and, with the exception
of some seventy, perished while desperately resisting. The taking of
Picarina was gallantly effected, but it cost the British dear, the
casualties in killed and wounded, being nineteen officers and upwards
of three hundred men.
The capture of the fort enabled the second parallel to be pushed on,
and breaching batteries to be completed. The guns maintained a heavy
fire on the bastion of La Trinidad; and the sappers directed their
efforts against the lunette of San Rocque. The progress of the siege
was slow; and though two breaches were made, the certainty that both
were retrenched[10] and secured by interior defences, rendered an
assault too hazardous an experiment to be ventured.
[10] _Retrench_, in fortification, means the isolating of a breach by
forming inner defences.
Lord Wellington was critically circumstanced, as Marmont had made
some forward movements in front of Beira, and Soult was advancing,
determined to relieve the place. His light troops were already at
Larena; the covering army under Hill had been obliged to retreat; and
after blowing up two arches of the bridge of Merida, had taken post in
front of Talavera.
In consequence, the fifth division was ordered to advance, leaving the
observation of San Christoval to the Portuguese cavalry; the British
general having decided on leaving a corps of ten thousand men to
protect the trenches, and with the remainder of his force bring Soult
to action.
At noon, on the 5th April, the breaches were reconnoitred and declared
practicable; but the assault was deferred for another day to allow the
artillery time to batter down the curtain, connecting the bastion with
an unfinished ravelin. The concentrated fire of the British batteries
fell upon the old wall with irresistible force; it was breached in
a single day, and thus three points for assault were thrown open.
The report of the engineers was encouraging; the main breach was
sufficiently wide, and the ascent to all three easy enough for troops
to mount.
Ten o’clock on the night of the 6th was appointed for the assault to be
attempted, and the necessary orders were issued accordingly. The castle
was to be attacked by the third division, the bastion of La Trinidad
by the fourth, that of Santa Maria by the light division, the lunette
of San Rocque by a party from the trenches; while the fifth should
distract the garrison by a false attack on the Pardelaras, and the
works contiguous to San Vicente.
Philippon, well aware that an assault might be expected, had employed
every resource that skill and ingenuity could devise to render the
attempt a failure. As Lord Wellington had neither time nor means to
destroy the counterscarps, the French were enabled to raise the most
formidable obstructions at their foot, and insulate the breaches
effectually. At night, the rubbish was removed, retrenchments formed,
and the battered parapets repaired by sand-bags, casks, and woolpacks.
Powder-barrels and grenades were laid along the trenches, and at
the foot of the breach sixty fourteen-inch shells, communicating
with hoses and bedded in earth, were placed ready for explosion. A
chevaux-de-frieze[11] was stretched across the rampart, and planks
studded with spikes covered the slopes of the breaches. Every species
of combustible was employed, and a cartridge specially prepared for the
musketry, formed of buck-shot and slugs; and when the distance was so
close, nothing would prove more mischievous.
[11] _Chevaux-de-frieze_ are wooden spars, spiked at one end, and set
into a piece of timber. They were originally used as a defence against
cavalry, but are now commonly employed in strengthening outworks and
stopping breaches.
The day was remarkably fine, and the troops, in high spirits, heard
the orders for the assault, and proceeded to clean their appointments,
as if a dress parade only was intended. Evening came, darkness shut
distant objects out, the regiments formed, the roll was called in an
under voice, the forlorn hope stepped out, the storming party was told
off, all were in readiness and eager for the fray.
Shortly before ten, a beautiful firework rose from the town, and showed
the outline of Badajoz and every object that lay within several hundred
yards of the works. The flame of the carcase died gradually away, and
darkness, apparently more dense, succeeded this short and brilliant
illumination.
The word was given, the forlorn hope moved forward, the storming
parties succeeded, and the divisions, in columns, closed the whole. Of
these splendid troops, now all life and daring, how many were living in
an hour?
At that moment the deep bell of the cathedral of St. John struck ten;
the most perfect silence reigned around, and except the softened
footsteps of the storming parties, as they fell upon the turf with
military precision, not a movement was audible. A terrible suspense, a
horrible stillness, darkness, a compression of the breathing, the dull
and ill-defined outline of the town, the knowledge that similar and
simultaneous movements were making on other points, the certainty that
two or three minutes would probably involve the forlorn hope in ruin,
or make it the beacon-light to conquest--all these made the heart throb
quicker and long for the bursting of the storm, when victory should
crown daring with success, or hope and life should end together.
On went the storming parties; one solitary musket was discharged beside
the breach, but none answered it. The light division moved forward,
rapidly closing up in columns at quarter distance. The ditch was
gained, the ladders were lowered, on rushed the forlorn hope, with the
storming party close behind them. The divisions were now on the brink
of the sheer descent, when a gun boomed from the parapet. The earth
trembled, a mine was fired, an explosion, and an infernal hissing
from lighted fusees succeeded, and, like the rising of a curtain on
the stage, in the hellish glare that suddenly burst out around the
breaches, the French lining the ramparts in crowds, and the British
descending the ditch, were placed as distinctly visible to each other
as if the hour were noontide!
A tremendous fire from the guns, a number of which had been laid
upon the approaches to the breach, followed the explosion; but, all
undaunted, the storming party cheered, and undauntedly the French
answered it. A murderous scene ensued, for the breach was utterly
impassable. Notwithstanding the withering fire of musketry from the
parapets, with light artillery directed immediately on the breach, and
grape from every gun upon the works that could play upon the assailants
and the supporting columns, the British mounted. Hundreds were thrown
back, and hundreds as promptly succeeded them.
Almost unharmed themselves, the French dealt death around; and secure
within defences, that even in daylight and to a force unopposed, proved
afterwards nearly insurmountable, they ridiculed the mad attempt; and
while they viewed from the parapets a thousand victims writhing in the
ditch, they called in derision to the broken columns, and invited them
to come on.
While the assaults upon the breaches were thus fatally unsuccessful,
the third and fifth divisions had moved to their respective points of
attack. Picton’s, to whom the citadel was assigned, found difficulties
nearly equal to those encountered at the breaches. Thither Philippon
had determined to retire, if the assault upon the other defences should
succeed, and, in that event, hold the castle and San Christoval to the
last. To render the place more secure, he had caused the gates to be
built up, and the ramparts were lined with shells, cart-wheels, stones,
and every destructive missile.
Fireballs betrayed the movements of the assailants; and, for a time,
every attempt at escalade failed with prodigious loss. At last one
ladder was planted, a few daring spirits gained the ramparts, crowds
followed them, and in an incredibly short time the castle was won.
Philippon heard of the disaster too late to redeem its loss. The troops
despatched from the breaches and elsewhere were unable to recover it,
a British jacket waved from the flag-staff, and in the first dawn of
morning announced the downfall of Badajoz.
The fifth division were equally successful; though General Leith had to
delay his attack till eleven o’clock, from the party who had charge of
the ladders losing their way.
The attempt on San Vicente succeeded, notwithstanding every preparation
had been made for its defence; Major-general Walker overcame all
opposition, and established himself securely in the place.
And yet it is astonishing, even in the spring-tide of success, how the
most trivial circumstances will damp the courage of the bravest, and
check the most desperate in their career. The storming party of the
fifth had escaladed a wall of thirty feet with wretched ladders, forced
an uninjured palisade, descended a deep counterscarp, crossed the
lunette behind it, and this was effected under a converging fire from
the bastions, and a well-sustained fusilade, while but a few of the
assailants could force their way together, and form on the rampart when
they got up. But the leading sections persevered until the brigade was
completely lodged within the parapet; and now united, and supported by
the division who followed fast, what could withstand their advance?
They were sweeping forward with the bayonet, the French were broken and
dispersed, when at this moment of brilliant success, a port-fire, which
a retreating gunner had flung upon the rampart was casually discovered.
A vague alarm seized the leading files, they fancied some mischief was
intended, and imagined the success, which their own desperate gallantry
had achieved, was but a ruse of the enemy to lure them to destruction.
“It is a mine, and they are springing it!” shouted a soldier.
Instantly the leaders of the storming party turned, and it was
impossible for their officers to undeceive them. The French perceived
the panic, rallied and pursued, and friends and foes came rushing back
tumultuously upon a supporting regiment (the 38th) that was fortunately
formed in reserve upon the ramparts. This momentary success of the
besieged was dearly purchased; a volley was thrown closely in, a
bayonet rush succeeded, and the French were scattered before the fresh
assailants, never to form again.
The fifth division rushed on; everything gave way that opposed it,
the cheering rose above the firing, the bugles sounded an advance,
the enemy became distracted and disheartened, and again the light and
fourth divisions, or, alas! their skeletons, assisted by Hay’s brigade,
advanced to the breaches. No opposition was made; they entered, and
Badajoz was their own! Philippon, finding that all was lost, retired
across the river to San Christoval; and early next day, surrendered
unconditionally.
The loss sustained by the allies in the reduction of this well-defended
fortress was awful. In the assault alone, the British casualties were
fifty-nine officers and seven hundred and forty-four men killed. Two
hundred and fifty-eight officers, and two thousand six hundred men
wounded!
Lord Wellington had stationed himself on the high ground behind San
Christoval, to view the progress of the assault. During a contest so
doubtful and protracted, his anxiety was painfully acute. What a period
of dreadful suspense must have ensued, from the time the striking of
the town clock announced the marching of the divisions, until the
thunder of artillery told the British leader that the conflict had
begun! For a minute the fireworks thrown from the place showed the
columns at the breaches. Darkness followed, stillness more horrible
yet, and then the sudden burst of light, as shells and mines exploded.
The main breach was literally in a blaze--sheets of fire mounted to
the sky, accompanied by a continued roaring of hellish noises, as
every villainous combustible was ignited to discover or destroy the
assailants.
The wounded came fast to the rear, but they could tell little how
matters were progressing. At last a mounted officer rode up. He was
the bearer of evil tidings; the attack upon the breaches had failed,
the majority of the officers had fallen, the men, left without
leaders to direct them, were straggling about the ditch, and unless
instant assistance was sent, the assault must fail entirely. Pale but
collected, the British general heard the disastrous communication, and
issued orders to send forward a fresh brigade (Hay’s) to the breaches.
Half an hour passed, and another officer appeared. He came from Picton
to say the castle had been escaladed, and that the third division was
actually in the town.
Instantly staff officers were despatched to the castle with orders that
it should be retained, and that the divisions, or rather their relics,
should be withdrawn from the breaches.
Though the regular assaults had been sanguinary failures, the detached
attacks upon the castle and San Vicente were brilliantly successful,
and either of them must have next day produced the fall of Badajoz. In
fact, the city was doubly won; and had Leith’s division obtained their
ladders in proper order, the place would have fallen in half the time,
and a frightful loss of life have been consequently avoided.
It may be readily imagined that such a fierce resistance as that made
by the French would provoke a desperate retaliation from the victors.
For a day and two nights the city presented a fearful scene of rapine
and riot. The streets were heaped with the drunken and the dead, and
very many of the conquerors, who had escaped uninjured in the storm,
fell by the bayonets of their comrades.
No language can depict the horrors which succeed a storm. A few hours
made a frightful change in the condition and temper of the soldiery.
In the morning they were obedient to their officers, and preserved
the semblance of subordination; now they were in a state of furious
intoxication--discipline was forgotten, and the splendid troops of
yesterday had become a fierce and sanguinary rabble, dead to every
touch of human feeling, and filled with every demoniac passion that can
brutalise the man. The town was in terrible confusion, and on every
side frightful tokens of military license met the eye.
Streets were almost choked up with broken furniture, for the houses had
been gutted from the cellar to the garret, the partitions torn down,
and even the beds ripped and scattered to the winds, in the hope that
gold might be found concealed. Brandy and wine casks were rolled out
before the stores; some were full, some half drunk, but more staved in
mere wantonness, and the liquors running through the kennel. All within
that devoted city was at the disposal of an infuriated army, over whom
for the time control was lost, aided by an infamous collection of camp
followers, who were, if possible, more sanguinary and pitiless even
than those who had survived the storm! It is useless to dwell upon a
scene from which the heart revolts.
Strict measures were taken on the second day by Lord Wellington to
repress these desperate excesses and save the infuriated soldiery from
the fatal consequences their own debauchery produced. A Portuguese
brigade was brought from the rear, and sent into the town, accompanied
by the provost marshal and the gallows. This demonstration had its due
effect, and one rope carried terror to rioters whom the bayonets of a
whole regiment could not appal.