The Duke of Friedland insisted on having the Te Deum sung in honour of a victory in the churches, but this deceived no one. It was no victory, but a defeat from which he never recovered. While at Leipzig he accused his officers of cowardice, and after a court-martial had several of the bravest of them disgraced or shot. But neither this nor a few inconsequent successes were sufficient to restore the prestige that Wallenstein had lost at Lutzen.
Nearly one hundred thousand corpses remained unburied on the field, and the plain all around was covered with wounded and dying.
It was not until the next day that the Swedes were able to find the body of their king; it was almost unrecognisable with blood and wounds, trampled by horses’ hoofs, and naked. A huge stone was rolled by the soldiers as near as they could to the place where the royal corpse was found; it still rests where they left it, and is known as “The Stone of the Swede.” The Imperialists had stripped the body in their eagerness to preserve relics of the great Gustavus. Piccolomini sent his buff waistcoat to the emperor. His rings, spurs, and gold chain are still in possession of various families. A famous turquoise is supposed to have passed into the hands of a Roman Catholic bishop who desired a trophy of “Anti-Christ,” as Gustavus was called by the Catholics.
The body was carried from the field in solemn state amid a procession of the whole army. It was taken to Weissenfels, and from thence to Sweden. There the whole nation mourned, knowing well that they should not have another monarch like Gustavus Adolphus.
Nothing has ever transpired to change the world’s opinion of him as one of the world’s greatest and best. Although the Thirty Years’ War was not concluded for several years after his death, yet he was, nevertheless, the cause of its cessation. Through his agency alone the cause of the Protestant belief triumphed, and the effects of the great upheaval of the Reformation were not allowed to be obliterated in Germany.
Professor Smyth said of him: “It is fortunate when the high courage and activity of which the human character is capable are tempered with a sense of justice, wisdom, and benevolence; when he who leads thousands to the field has sensibility enough to feel the responsibility of his awful trust, and wisdom enough to take care that he directs against its proper objects alone the afflicting storm of human devastation. It is not always that the great and high endowments of courage and sagacity are so united with other high qualities as to present to the historian at once a Christian, a soldier, and a statesman. Yet such was Gustavus Adolphus, a hero deserving of the name, perfectly distinguishable from those who have assumed the honours that belong to it — the mere military executioners with whom every age has been infested.”
Cust says: “Gustavus Adolphus is thought to have been the first sovereign who set the example of a standing army. The feudal association of barons with their retainers had given way in the previous century to a set of military adventurers, who made war a profession to gratify their license and their acquisitiveness, and who were commissioned by kings and leaders to collect together the assassins of Europe.
“These constituted at the very time of the Thirty Years’ War the unprincipled and insatiate legions who harried Germany, who, without much discipline, were continually dissipated by the first disaster and collected together again, as it were from the four winds of heaven, to cover the face of the land again and again with terror, devastation, and confusion.
“Gustavus, who had witnessed this from afar, or experienced it in his Polish wars, had in him that spirit of organisation and order which signally distinguished him above every great leader who preceded him. He saw that a well-disciplined force of men to be commanded by a superior class of officers of high honour and intelligence, and who should constitute an armed body that might obtain the dignity of a profession of arms, would be more efficient and a cheaper defence of nations than the haphazard assembling of mere bloodhounds, and he first executed the project of having a force of eighty thousand men, part in activity and part in reserve, who should be constantly maintained well-armed, well-clothed, well-fed, and well-disciplined.”
THE STORMING OF BADAJOZ
IN studying the campaign in the Peninsula, one must remember first of all that the man who was made Earl of Wellington for the victory at Ciudad Rodrigo was not the great potentiality who, as the Duke of Wellington, influenced England after Waterloo. During the Peninsula campaign Wellington was afflicted at all times by a bitter and suspicious Parliament at home. They had no faith in him, and they strenuously objected to furnishing him with money and supplies. Wellington worked with his hands tied behind him against the eager and confident armies of France. We ourselves can read in our more frank annals how a disgruntled part of Congress was for ever wishing to turn Washington out of his position as head of the colonial forces.
Parliament doled supplies to Wellington with so niggardly a hand that again and again he was forced to stop operations for the want of provisions and arms. At one time he actually had been told to send home the transports in order to save the expense of keeping them at Lisbon. The warfare in Parliament was not deadly, but it was more acrimonious than the warfare in the Peninsula. Moreover, the assistance to his arms from Portugal was so wavering, uncertain, and dubious that he could place no faith in it. The French marshals, Soult and Marmont, had a force of nearly one hundred thousand men.
Wellington held Lisbon, but if he wished to move in Portugal there always frowned upon him the fortified city of Badajoz. But finally there came his chance to take it, if it could be taken in a rush, while Soult and Marmont were widely separated and Badajoz was left in a very confident isolation.
Badajoz lies in Spain, five miles from the Portuguese frontier. It was the key of a situation. Wellington’s chance was to strike at Badajoz before the two French marshals could combine and crush him. His task was both in front of him and behind him. He lacked transport; he lacked food for the men; the soldiers were eating cassava root instead of bread; the bullocks were weak and emaciated. All this was the doings of the Parliament at home. But Wellington knew that the moment to strike had come, and he seems to have hesitated very little. Placing no faith in the tongues of the Portuguese, he made his plans with all possible secrecy. The guns for the siege were loaded on board the transports at Lisbon and consigned to a fictitious address. But in the river Sadao they were placed upon smaller vessels, and finally they were again landed and drawn by bullocks to Eloas, à post in the possession of the allies. Having stationed two-thirds of his force under General Graham and General Hill to prevent a most probable interference by Soult and Marmont, Wellington advanced, reaching Eloas on the nth of March 1812. He had made the most incredible exertions. The stupidity of the Portuguese had vied with the stupidity of thegovernment at home. Wellington had been carrying the preparation for the campaign upon his own shoulders. If he was to win Badajoz, he was to win it with no help save that from gallant and trustworthy subordinates. He was ill with it. Even his strangely steel-like nature had bent beneath the trouble of preparation amid such indifference. But on March 16 Beresford with three divisions crossed the Guadiana on pontoons and flying bridges, drove in the enemy’s outposts, and invested Badajoz.
At the time of the investment the garrison was composed of five thousand French, Hessians, and Spaniards. Spain had always considered this city a most important barrier against any attack through Portugal. A Moorish castle stood three hundred feet above the level of the plain. Bastions and fortresses enwrapped the town. Even the Cathedral was bombproof. The Guadiana was crossed by a magnificent bridge, and on the farther shore the head of this bridge was strongly fortified.
Wellington’s troops encamped to the east of the town. It was finally decided first to attack the bastion of Trinidad. The French commander had strengthened all his defences, and by damming a stream had seriously obstructed Wellington’s operations. Parts of his force were confronted by an artificial lake two hundred yards in width.
The red coats of the English soldiers were now faded to the yellow brown of fox
fur. All the military finery of the beginning of the century was tarnished and torn. But it was an exceedingly hardbitten army, certain of its leaders, despising the enemy, full of ferocious desire for battle.
Perhaps the bastion of Trinidad was chosen because it was the nearest to the entrenchments of the allies. In those days the frontal attack was possible of success. On the night of the 17th of March the British broke ground within one hundred and sixty yards of Fort Picerina. The sound of the digging was muffled by the roar of a great equinoctial storm. The French were only made wise by the daylight, but in the meantime the allies had completed a trench six hundred yards long and three feet deep, and with a communication four thousand feet in length. The French announced their discovery by a rattle of musketry, but the allies kept on with their digging, while general officers wrapped in their long cloaks paced to and fro directing the work.
The situation did not please the French general at all. He knew that something must be done to counteract the activity of the besiegers. He was in command of a very spirited garrison. On the night of the 19th a sortie was made from the Talavera Gate by both cavalry and infantry. The infantry began to demolish the trench of the allies. The cavalry divided itself into two parts and went through a form of sham fight, which in the darkness was deceptive. When challenged by the pickets, they answered in Portuguese, and thus succeeded in galloping a long way behind the trenches, where they cut down a number of men before their identity was discovered and they were beaten back. General Phillipon, the French commander, had offered a reward for every captured entrenching tool. Thus the French infantry of the sortie devoted itself largely to making a collection of picks and spades. Men must have risked themselves with great audacity for this reward, since they left three hundred dead on the field, but succeeded in carrying off a great number of the entrenching tools.
Great rain-storms now began to complicate the work of the besiegers. The trenches became mere ditches half full of discoloured water. This condition was partly improved by throwing in bags of sand. On the French side a curious device had been employed as a means of communication between the gate of the Trinidad bastion and Fort San Roque. The French soldiers had begun to dig, but had grown tired, so they finished by hanging up a brown cloth. This to the besiegers’ eyes was precisely like the fresh earth of a parallel, and behind it the French soldiers passed in safety.
Storm followed storm. The Guadiana, swollen past all tradition by these furious downpours, swept away the flying bridges, sinking twelve pontoons. For several days the army of the allies was entirely without food, but they stuck doggedly to their trenches, and when communication was at last restored it was never again broken. The weather cleared, and the army turned grimly with renewed resolution to the business of taking Badajoz. This was in the days of the forlorn hope. There was no question of anything but a desperate and deadly frontal attack. The command of the assault of Fort Picerina was given to General Kempt. He had five hundred men, including engineers, sappers, and miners, and fifty men who carried axes. At nine o’clock they marched. The night was very dark. The fort remained silent until the assailants were close. Then a great fire blazed out at them. For a time it was impossible for the men to make any progress. The palisades seemed insurmountable, and the determined soldiers of England were falling on all sides. In the meantime there suddenly sounded the loud, wild notes of the alarm-bells in the besieged city, and the guns of Badajoz awakened and gave back thunder for thunder to the batteries of the allies. The confusion was worse than in the mad nights on the heath in King Lear, but amid the thundering and the death, Kempt’s fifty men with axes walked deliberately around Fort Picerina until they found the entrance gate. They beat it down and rushed in. The infantry with their bayonets followed closely. Lieutenant Nixon of the Fifty-second Foot (now the Second Battalion of the Oxfordshire Light Infantry) fell almost on the threshold, but his men ran on. The interior of the fort became the scene of a terrible hand-to-hand fight. All of the English did not come in through the gate. Some of Kempt’s men now succeeded in establishing ladders against the rampart, and swarmed over to the help of their comrades. The struggle did not cease until more than half of the little garrison were killed. Then the commandant, Gasper Thiery, surrendered a little remnant of eighty-six men. Others who had not been killed by the British had rushed out and been drowned in the waters of that inundation which had so troubled Wellington and so pleased the French general. Phillipon had estimated that the Picerina would endure for five days, but it had been taken in an hour, albeit one of the bloodiest hours in the annals of a modern army.
Wellington was greatly pleased. He was now able to advance his earthworks close to the eastern part of the town, while his batteries played continually on the front of Fort San Roque and the two northern bastions, Trinidad and Santa Maria.
But at the last of the month Wellington was confronted by his chief fear. News came to him that Marshal Soult was advancing rapidly from Cordova. It was now a simple question of pushing the siege with every ounce of energy contained in his army. Forty-eight guns were made to fire incessantly, and although the French reply was destructive, the English guns were gradually wearing away the three great defences. By the 2nd of April Trinidad was seriously damaged, and one flank of Santa Maria was so far gone that Phillipon set his men at work on an inner defence to cut the last-named bastion off from the city. On the night of the 2nd an attack was made on the dam of the inundation. Two British officers and some sappers succeeded in gagging and binding the sentinel guarding the dam, and having piled barrels of gunpowder against it, they lighted a slow-match and made off. But before the spark could reach the powder the French arrived under the shelter of the comic brown cloth communication. The explosion did not occur, and the inundation still remained to hinder Wellington’s progress. On the 6th it was thought that three breaches were practicable for assault, and the resolute English general ordered the attack to be made at once. To Picton, destined to attach his name to the imperishable fame of Waterloo, was given an arduous task. He was to attack on the right and scale the walls of the castle of Badajoz, which were from eighteen to twenty-four feet high. On the left General Walker, marching to the south, was to make a false attack on Port Pardaleras, but a real one on San Vincente, a bastion on the extreme west of the town. In the centre the Fourth Division and Wellington’s favourite Light Division were to march against the breaches. The Fourth was to move against Trinidad, and the Light Division against Santa Maria. The columns were divided into storming and firing parties. The former were to enter the ditch while the latter fired over them at the enemy. Just before the assault was to be sounded a French deserter brought the intelligence that there was but one communication from the castle to the town, and Wellington decided to send against it an entire division. Brigadier-General Power with his semi-useless Portuguese brigade was directed to attack the head of the bridge and the other works on the right of the Guadiana.
The army had now waited only for the night. When it had come, thick mists from the river increased the darkness. At 10 o’clock Major Wilson, of the Forty-eighth Foot (now the First Battalion of the Northamptonshire regiment), led a party against Fort San Roque so suddenly and so tempestuously that the work capitulated almost immediately. At the castle, General Picton’s men had placed their ladders and swarmed up them in the face of showers of heavy stones, logs of wood, and crashing bullets, while at the same time they were under a heavy fire from the left flank. The foremost were bayoneted when they reached the top, and the besieged Frenchmen grasped the ladders and tumbled them over with their load of men. The air was full of wild screams as the English fell towards the stones below. Presently every ladder was thrown back, and for the moment the assailants had to run for shelter against a rain of flying missiles.
In this moment of uncertainty one man, Lieutenant Ridge, rushed out, rallying his company. Seizing one of the abandoned ladders, he planted it where the wall was lower. His ladder was followed by other ladders, and the troop
s scrambled with revived courage after this new and intrepid leader. The British gained a strong foothold on the ramparts of the castle, and every moment added to their strength as Picton’s men came swarming. They drove the French through the castle and out of the gates. They met a heavy reinforcement of the French, but after a severe engagement they were finally and triumphantly in possession of the castle. Lieutenant Ridge had been killed.
But at about the same time the men of the Fourth Division and of the Light Division had played a great and tragic part in the storming of Badajoz. They moved against the great breach in stealthy silence. All was dark and quiet as they reached the glacis. They hurled bags full of hay in the ditch, placed their ladders, and the storming parties of the Light Division, five hundred men in all, hurried to this desperate attack.
But the French general had perfectly understood that the main attacks would be made at his three breaches, and he had made the great breach the most impregnable part of his line. The English troops, certain that they had surprised the enemy, were suddenly exposed by dozens of brilliant lights. Above them they could see the ramparts crowded with the French. These fire-balls made such a vivid picture that the besieged and besiegers could gaze upon one another’s faces at distances which amounted to nothing. There was a moment of this brilliance, and then a terrific explosion shattered the air. Hundreds of shells and powder-barrels went off together, and the English already in the ditch were literally blown to pieces. Still their comrades crowded after them with no definite hesitation. The French commander had taken the precaution to fill part of the ditch with water from the inundation, and in it one hundred fusiliers, men of Albuera, were drowned.
Complete Works of Stephen Crane Page 176
