Wellington
Page 13
The imposing spectacle affected even Hill, causing him to swear, one of the two occasions on which he ever did so: ‘Damn their filing: let them come on anyhow.’10 As the columns advanced, Wellesley’s infantry moved over the crest and stood ready to meet them. The northernmost column, containing troops who had attacked the previous night, advanced onto unoccupied ground just north of the Medellín and was not seriously engaged; the other two met the British line and were driven back by its volleys. The British followed up, taking prisoners, but some of them pushed too far across the Portina and were checked by fresh French units on the far side.
There followed a long pause, during which French and British infantry went down to the Portina to get water – in one of those unofficial truces that were so common in the Peninsula – for it was already a very hot day. Sergeant Anthony Hamilton of the 43rd Light Infantry saw how both sides took the opportunity to get their wounded away to the rear and then, ‘shaking hands, they mutually expressed admiration of the gallantry displayed by their opponents’.11 Wellesley used the lull to adjust his position, for he could see that a more general attack would come next. He moved some guns, a British cavalry brigade, Bassecourt’s Spanish infantry division, and a Spanish cavalry division to the northern end of his line, between the Medellín and the mountains. French artillery recommenced fire at about 1pm, 80 guns now pounding the line between the Pajar and the Medellín, and about 30,000 infantry then came on in thick columns.
As they met the line, it was the same story as the morning’s battle, with disciplined British firepower breaking the French columns as they tried to deploy into line. Yet the ending was different: as the columns melted back, Sherbrooke’s division, in the front line just north of the Pajar, went forward in pursuit. One of its brigades, Campbell’s, re-formed just east of the Portina, but the other three – including the Guards – carried on. Fugitives from the French first line passed through the second, comprising most of the uncommitted French infantry, which immediately counterattacked. Many of the British had not reloaded their muskets and were in disorder after the advance; they had little chance. Even so, they fought back hard. The Guards lost a quarter of their strength, but there was not one unwounded prisoner. Campbell’s brigade, which might have stood, found its field of fire masked by retreating British and it too was swept away. The French saw their chance, and perhaps 10,000 infantry in columns, accompanied by dragoons and artillery, began to move up to exploit the huge gap in Wellesley’s line.
When he saw Sherbrooke’s men advance, Wellesley – who described the move as ‘nearly fatal to us’ – began to shift troops to fill the space behind them. He dared not take much from the Cascajal, but chose a single battalion, 1/48th, the biggest in the army, to close the gap. He ordered a cavalry brigade to move up from the rear, and directed Mackenzie’s division, down by the Pajar, to edge northwards. Wellesley had chosen his instrument well. The 48th, gallantly led by Lieutenant Colonel Charles Donnellan, who still dressed in the style of the eighteenth century, with tricorne hat and white buckskin breeches, first swung its companies back like gates on their hinges to allow fugitives to pass through, and the line was re-established. As the British survivors passed through, they rallied with a cheer, and the new line stopped the French attack with yet another demonstration of those terrible volleys. Donnellan was mortally hit, but handed over command with old-fashioned courtesy: ‘Major Middlemore, you will have the honour of leading the 48th to the charge.’ The infantry pushed forward to the line of the brook, and Cotton’s cavalry brigade charged the southernmost French column, which broke.
When Sir Walter Scott later asked Wellesley to have a history of Talavera written, he replied that ‘it would be as easy to write the account of a ball as of a Battle! Who was the Partner of Who? Who footed to each other? Who danced down all the couples?’12 Most historians write that the battle had now passed its crisis, and what followed was a cavalry charge which further diminished the standing of British horsemen in Wellesley’s eyes. Wellesley, however, thought that the charge took place before the first attack of the afternoon was repulsed and Sherbrooke’s advance. Whatever the precise timing, the events were clear enough. French columns had advanced north of the Medellín. They were composed of men who had fought the previous night and that morning, and were now past their best, so Wellesley decided to use his cavalry to check them.
The first line of horsemen, the 23rd Light Dragoons and the 1st Hussars KGL, charged the French infantry, who formed squares as they approached. The light dragoons, already travelling at speed, found a dry watercourse, visible only at the last moment, in their path. Some jumped it, but others came to grief. The survivors re-formed, charged the squares alongside the German hussars, and then went on to attack fresh French cavalry to the rear. The 23rd lost almost half its officers and men in the action. However, Wellesley wrote approvingly of the charge in his dispatch, arguing that it ‘had the effect of preventing the execution of that part of the enemy’s plan …’13
By late afternoon, it was apparent that the French plan had indeed failed, and that night Joseph’s army withdrew across the Alberche ‘in the most regular order’, though it left twenty guns behind. Wellesley acknowledged ‘the great loss we have sustained of valuable Officers and soldiers in this long and hard fought action fought with more than double our numbers’. He had lost 5,365 men, over a quarter of his entire force, and although the French had suffered over 7,000 casualties, it was a far smaller proportion of their army. The battle had reinforced his conviction that his personal supervision was essential if things were to go well, and that only the firmest discipline could hold the army together in the face of a numerous and aggressive enemy. The 48th set a clear example: not only was it mentioned twice in Wellesley’s dispatch, but he also did his best to ensure the promotion of Major Middlemore despite predictable unhelpfulness from Horse Guards.
Although Talavera was unquestionably a victory, it was not one which could be exploited. At first Wellesley thought, ‘We shall certainly move towards Madrid, unless we are interrupted by some accident on our flank.’ That accident materialised in the form of a thrust from the north by a powerful French army under Soult, and early August saw brisk manoeuvring in the valley of the Tagus before Wellesley began a long retreat to Badajoz. The alliance was under even more pressure, with Wellesley writing furiously to Castlereagh on 8 August that the ‘disgrace’ of the loss of the hospital at Talavera, with all its wounded, should be laid squarely at Cuesta’s door.
Richard, Marquess Wellesley, had just replaced John Hookham Frere as envoy to the central junta, and Arthur lost no opportunity to warn him that supplies were still not forthcoming, and ‘the army will be useless in Spain, and will be entirely lost, if this treatment is to continue …’14 ‘A starving army is worse than none,’ he warned. ‘The soldiers lose their discipline and their spirit. They plunder even in the presence of their officers.’15 On 4 September 1809, a General Order warned against plundering, but with so little effect that a sterner version, three days later, reiterated threats of punishment and told officers that their lack of attention contributed to the ‘disgraceful and unmilitary practices of the soldiers’.16 The Spanish armies suffered two serious defeats in September, confirming Wellesley’s belief that he could not hope to remain there. He advised his brother to warn the junta against calling a parliament, because the Cortes, ‘a new popular assembly’, could do nothing but harm. At this stage Spain needed ‘men of common capacity’, not another talking-shop.
As he fulminated against plundering and ordered the commandant of Elvas to ensure that all men sent forward up the long line of communication had two good shirts and two pairs of shoes, Wellesley received some good news. He was to be given a viscounty for Talavera, but there had been no time to consult him over the title, so his brother William had made the decision for him. He wrote:
After ransacking the Peerage and examining the map, I at last determined upon Viscount Wellington of Talavera and Wellington, a
nd Baron Douro of Welleslie in the county of Somerset – Wellington is a town not far from Welleslie … I trust that you will not think that there is anything unpleasant or trifling in the name of Wellington …
Arthur told him that he had chosen ‘exactly right’, but Kitty was not pleased, confiding to her diary that ‘I do not like it for it recalls nothing’, and it was small compensation for her agonies of worry. ‘Surely heaven will protect the good, brave man,’ she wrote later, ‘… with all my soul I wish he was at home.’ The title was gazetted on 4 September 1809, and on the 16th Arthur signed a letter about ‘biscuits and cash balances’ to John Villiers, ambassador in Lisbon, as Wellington, adding: ‘This is the first time I have signed my new name.’17
Wellington, as we may now call him, at last, was not to fight another battle for more than a year. In the interim, he was busy both politically and militarily. Firstly, he set about securing Portugal. In a memorandum of 20 October 1809, he told Lieutenant Colonel Richard Fletcher, his chief engineer, that, while the French could not attack him at the moment, they would do so when reinforced. He knew that Napoleon had beaten the Austrians, and was now free to concentrate on the Peninsula. Lisbon and the Tagus were crucial to the defence of Portugal, and their possession would also permit the British army to be re-embarked if all else failed. Fletcher was ordered to carry out wide-ranging surveys-Wellington listed twenty-one specific tasks – with a view to the construction of three lines of fortification covering the segment of Portugal between the Tagus and the sea. Rivers were dammed and roads broken up to disrupt the French advance, while forts, so close that their fields of fire could interlock, were built on high ground, with lengths of trench and rampart between them. The first line ran twenty-nine miles from Alhandra on the Tagus, through the town of Torres Vedras, to the coast just south of the Ziandre estuary. The second was some six miles further south, and the third, which was centred on Fort St Julian on the Tagus, covered an embarkation beach. Next, Wellington redoubled his efforts to increase the value of the Portuguese army, beginning the process of incorporating a Portuguese brigade in each of his divisions, and ensuring that the Portuguese ordenanza, the militia, was properly organised, and was prepared to destroy crops, food stocks, mills and ovens when the French advanced.
Thirdly, he had to deal with the backwash of British politics. Lord Portland’s government, weakened by the failure of an expedition sent to the disease-ridden island of Walcheren off the coast of Holland, fell in 1809 amidst such recrimination that Castlereagh fought a duel with George Canning. Neither found themselves in the new Tory administration headed by Spencer Perceval. Lord Liverpool took over from Castlereagh as secretary of state for war, and Richard Wellesley replaced Canning at the foreign office. William Wellesley-Pole went off to be chief secretary of Ireland, and Henry Wellesley (unhappily denying that he was the father of his wife’s latest child), took over as British representative to the central junta. Wellington suspected that the new government would not last for long, but had decided that he would serve under ‘any administration that may employ me’, and opined that ‘the Spirit of Party in England’ was to blame for ‘all the misfortunes of the present reign’.18 He was more right than he knew, for in the opposition’s eyes, he was simply part of the hated clan jobbing in Spain as they had in India, and as one hostile politician observed, ‘the Wellesleys will now be beat if they are attacked properly…’
Wellington was not helped by the fact that the opposition was well represented in the army. His second-in-command, Sir Brent Spencer, a great favourite at court, was drawn into indiscretions at the royal dinner parties he attended when on leave. His adjutant-general, Charles Stewart, was ‘a sad brouillon and a mischief-maker’. Even the redoubtable Robert Craufurd of the Light Division, who had been forgiven by Wellington for receiving a well-merited rebuff by the French up on the River Coa, was a notable ‘croaker’, complaining about the conduct of the campaign. There was no censorship of mail, and officers of all ranks wrote frank letters home. Some could not understand why they had not gone on to Madrid and ended the war, and others resented the long period of inactivity. Wellington was exasperated by it all: ‘as soon as an accident happens, every man who can write, and has a friend who can read, sits down to write his account of what he does not know …’19
Whatever might happen in Westminster, it was in Portugal that Wellington expected the next blow. Portuguese peasants toiled under the supervision of his engineers to embellish the landscape with the bastions and ravelins, tenailles and fausse-brayes beloved of classical fortification. The sheer scale of their achievement is striking even today. Above the town of Torres Vedras one of the forts has been well restored, and from its ramparts one can see similar works on the neighbouring hillsides; the term field fortifications somehow does not catch the scope of it all. Much of the army was less onerously employed, and Wellington maintained his unrelenting efforts to make of it the instrument he sought. The commandant of Lisbon was urged not to allow British officers to sit, with their hats on, on the stage at theatres. Lieutenant William Pearse of the 45th had been ‘honourably acquitted’ of ungentlemanly conduct in a brawl in a brothel, and the court was bidden to reword its verdict as Wellington was sure that there was ‘no officer upon the General Court Martial who wishes to connect the term Honour with the act of going to a Brothel’.20 An officer was told that ‘I cannot give leave to any officer whose health does not require his return to England, or who has business to transact which cannot be done by another, or which cannot be delayed’, and Wellington trusted ‘that I shall be spared the pain of again refusing you’.21
Although Wellington was never on quite the same terms with Liverpool that he had been with Castlereagh, they had been friends in private life, which undoubtedly helped, and the formal ‘My Lord’ which opened Wellington’s first letters – like that of 21 November 1809, lamenting that English newspapers contained accurate reports of the strength and disposition of his army – was soon the more comfortable ‘My dear Lord’. In January 1810 he reported that his men were ‘a better army than they were some months ago’, though he feared that ‘they will slip through my fingers … when I shall be involved in any nice operation with a powerful enemy to my front’.22
That powerful enemy materialised in the spring of 1810. Marshal André Massena, with a total of 138,000 men, perhaps half of them in his field army, had been ordered to retake Portugal. He began by seizing the Spanish fortress of Ciudad Rodrigo, which commanded the northern route into Portugal, on 10 July, and followed on to take its Portuguese counterpart, Almeida, on 28 August after a mortar bomb ignited a train of powder from a damaged keg and blew the main magazine sky-high. Then he advanced into Portugal down the Mondega valley harassed by the ordenanza as he went. Wellington knew the ground well, and on 26 September blocked the French advance in formidably strong position, a long steep-sided ridge running from the village of Busaco to the Mondego. Busaco is a formidable position: it is hard simply to keep one’s feet on parts of the ridge, and toiling up it, even in the cooler days of September, with musket and pack, must have been almost unbearable. The two armies were roughly equal at about 48,000 apiece, and Massena sought to gain local superiority by concentrating his attack, launched early on a foggy morning, on a narrow axis, with Reynier’s corps assaulting south of Busaco and Marshal Ney’s making for the village itself. He had a brief glimmer of hope when the capable General Foy broke through part of 1/45th and three Portuguese battalions to reach the crest, but Wellington had already ordered a British division to move up and Foy’s men were dispatched back down the hill.
Wellington, galloping along the long, straight road that runs through the trees along the top of the ridge, was always ready to direct counter-thrusts, but his divisional commanders had things well in hand. Major General Craufurd of the Light Division launched his own counter-attack with a great shout of: ‘Fifty-Second, avenge Moore!’ The French lost over 4,500 men to Wellington’s 1,252, and did not resume the attack, bu
t slipped past the ridge, through defiles which, owing to a misunderstanding, the Portuguese militia were not watching.
Wellington had to fall back to avoid being cut off from his base, but he was not sorry to do so because, as he wrote to Liverpool on 30 September 1810:
This movement has afforded me a favourable opportunity of showing the enemy the description of troops of which this army is composed; it has brought the Portuguese levies into action with the enemy for the first time in an advantageous situation; and they have proved that the trouble which has been taken with them has not been thrown away, and that they are worthy of contending in the same ranks with British troops …23
The French entered the undefended city of Coimbra on 1 October and continued to follow Wellington, only to have the garrison of Coimbra and the sick in the hospitals there captured in a well-timed raid by the bibulous Colonel Nicholas Trant and his Portuguese. Had Massena but known it, this was a foretaste of what was to come. The weather broke on 7 October, and Wellington’s army began to enter the lines of Torres Vedras the following day. The forts were held by Portuguese militia, a corps of Spanish regulars, and 2,500 British marines and gunners, leaving Wellington’s field army free to meet any French attempt to break through. Massena stayed up at Sobral for ten days, and then fell back onto a position between Santarem and Rio Major, where his men, skilled at living off the country and with no regard for the plight of the Portuguese, astonished Wellington by somehow finding enough to eat. He told Liverpool that it was ‘an extraordinary instance of what a French army can do … I could not maintain one division in the district where they have maintained not less than 60,000 men and 20,000 animals for more than 2 months.’24