Years of Victory 1802 - 1812

by Arthur Bryant

  His opportunity to remodel the Army arose out of the need for iight infantry. The French had won their battles with a horde of highly individualised skirmishers and sharpshooters going ahead

  1 Moore, I, 281.

  2 Lady Cham wood, An Autograph Collection, 115.

  3 "A stranger contemplating his countenance," wrote Lord Scaton, who forty years after his death could not speak of his old commander without tears, " would have said, That man it is impossible to alarm." Moore, II, 89.

  of their dense half-disciplined columns and firing from every side into the rigid Teuton lines whose only reply were machine-like volleys, imposing on the parade ground but ineffective against such invisible and fast-moving targets. By the nine the columns came into range or the cavalry charged, the defenders were already demoralised, and the rather sketchy discipline of the former— strengthened by successive victories—was seldom tested. An antidote for the tirailleur had had to be found. At the outset the British, being almost without light infantry, had relied on hired German Jagers who were little more than armed gamekeepers and foresters. The exigencies of West Indian warfare, like those of American warfare two decades before, caused General Grey and his successors, Abercromby and Moore, to train special companies as protective and reconnaissance screens. The need for more of these being acutely felt during the brief invasion of the Continent in 1799, the Duke of York had ordered the formation of an Experimental Rifle Corps at Horsham to which fifteen regiments were ordered to send officers and men for courses of instruction. Trained in Windsor Forest by two brilliant leaders, Colonel Coote Manningham and Lieutenant-Colonel William Stewart, these took part in the landing at Ferrol in October, 1800, fought by Nelson's side at Copenhagen and were formed in the spring of 1801 into the 95th Regiment of the Line— a Rifle Corps with distinctive green uniform and dark buttons and accoutrements. Disbanded at the end of the Revolutionary War, they were re-formed when the war clouds regathered, armed with the new Baker rifle—a weapon of high precision compared with the smoothbore musket of the heavy infantry—and in October, 1802, consigned to Shorncliffe Camp for special training under Sir John Moore. Here, facing across the Channel towards Napoleon's cantonments, they formed with the 14th Light Dragoons and the 52nd and 43rd Regiments—both reconstituted as light infantry—the spearhead of the force designed to repel invasion. For the next three years, until they passed overseas, they were trained by Moore in an amalgam of disciplined team-work and individual initiative unmatched since the days of imperial Rome. With the archers of Agincourt and the Brigade of Guards, they formed England's peculiar contribution to the art of land warfare.

  Quite early in the Camp's history Philip Hammond of the Blues told Farington that General Moore's brigade was "thought the finest in respect of discipline that ever was formed in England."1 The 95th, 52nd and 43rd—the last entering the Camp in a very low state of morale—became models not only for light infantry but for

  1 Farington, IT, 565.

  the whole Army. "It is evident," wrote Moore after an inspection of the 52nd, "that not only the soldiers but that each individual soldier knows what he has to do. Discipline is carried on without severity, the officers are attached to the men and the men to the officers."

  The foundation of Moore's system was to treat soldiers as human beings capable of constant self-improvement. Experience had taught him to regard war as an activity demanding the highest physical, moral and intellectual qualities. Mechanical goose-stepping and the unthinking obedience which left men brutalised automata were not sufficient to make first-class soldiers. "The discipline of modern times," he wrote, " which consists of parades, firelock exercise, etc., is easy to the officer, as it takes up but an hour or two in the day. The discipline of the ancients consisted in bodily exercise, running, marching, etc., terminated by bathing. The military character of sobriety and patience would completely answer in this country; but officers and men in following them would be completely occupied with their profession and could pursue-no other object." It was this whole-hearted, craftsman's conception of a soldier's training that Moore instilled into the Light Brigade at Shorncliffe. "There," wrote William Napier the historian, then a subaltern in the 43rd, "officers were formed for command and soldiers acquired such discipline as to become an example to the Army and proud of their profession."

  The goal was the "thinking fighting man." In the reconstituted 52nd—Moore's own regiment—officers, themselves taught their drill in the ranks, were encouraged to get to know their men as individuals, to study their particular aptitudes, to bring out the best of which each man was capable and teach him to think for himself. Wherever possible, he was to be shown the why and wherefore of things; to comprehend his duty instead of merely obeying it blindly out of fear or mechanical routine. Punishment, particularly of the "curse, hang and flog" kind that robbed a man of dignity, was discouraged. Its place was taken by a discipline of example and encouragement. Its object was the prevention rather than the punishment of crime. Medals and distinguishing badges were instituted for merit and good behaviour: self-respect, pride, comradeship, the desire to shine were enlisted to fit men for their duties. Physical fitness was held up as the hall-mark of a good soldier; instead of competing, as in other regiments, as to who could drink the largest number of bumpers, Moore's officers were made to race their commander up the hill from Sandgate to Shorncliffe, while the men were encouraged to leave the pothouse and dice-box for swimming and bathing, music, dancing and ball-playing, cricket and quoits. In an Army notorious for inability to fend for itself in the field,1 every man of the Light Brigade—taking a leaf from the book of the self-reliant French—was taught to cook and tailor and to take pride in living sparely against the day when he would have to depend solely on himself. Troops were trained for war under war conditions; when they marched, they bivouacked by the roadside instead of in town or village. The formal brass, leather and pipeclay review so dear to military pedants was abandoned for the field-day— an exercise in which war conditions were reproduced as closely as possible.2 Everything was made to serve the one-great end of reality: the defeat of Napoleon's invincibles.

  In all this Moore worked with nature instead of against it. In the quick march which he and his assistants devised for the light infantryman, the constrained and rigid movements of the Prussian march were abandoned for a free and natural rhythm whose object was the maximum of speed with the minimum of fatigue. "To bring down the feet easily without shaking the upper part of the body," ran the Regulations of the Rifle Corps, "is the grand principle of marching." By being taught to move quickly men became habituated to thinking quickly. In the same way the art of fire was taught, not as an automatic contribution to a blind mechanical volley, but as a highly individualised application of the qualities of judgment, observation, vision and skill. Its object, Moore's pupils were told, was "to inflict death upon the enemy rather than to confound, astonish and intimidate." Armed with a rifle capable of great accuracy up to 300 or even—in the hands of a master—500 yards, the rifleman was taught, first at the butts and then in the field, to judge and use cover and varied ground, to fire always to kill and never to waste a shot. He was trained not as a machine but as a craftsman, the consciousness of whose skill—the best guarantee for his survival on the battlefield—gave him courage and self-confidence. So also the care of the rifle was strictly inculcated, and distinguishing green and white cockades awarded for marksmanship.

  Above all, Moore's men were schooled in that art which, though repeatedly forgotten under the shock of successive inventions and weapons, is in all ages the ultimate arbiter of war: the combination of fire and movement. The essence of light infantry work was move-

  1 The German Commissary, Schaumann, -wrote of the difficulty of victualling a British army: "the men, together with their officers, are like young ravens—they only know how to open their mouths to be fed." Schaumann, 38.

  2 For mere parade sartorial smartness Moore had a great impatience. "I recollect poor Si
r John Moore getting into a scrape once," said Lord Seaton, "for saying, when asked if the hussars were to wear their pelisses, 1 Oh, yes, and their muffs, tool' " Seaton, 219.

  merit, whether in search of information or in the protection of the heavy infantry of the Line. And fire was taught as the concomitant of movement, so that at all times and in all places movement—with its manifold dangers—should be covered by accurate, well-timed and economical fire. A rifleman in battle was the instrument of an orchestra in which every change of position, whether of individual or unit, was, wherever possible, protected by co-ordinated fire, directed at the precise spot from which any interference with that movement might come. The Light Brigade's special system of drill was directed to this end. Taught to the recruit by word of mouth in close order on the parade ground, it was subsequently carried out in extended order by bugle, horn and whistle. It aimed at combining the action of highly individualised and rapidly-moving men and units, working together to destroy or outwit the enemy.

  At the back of every rifleman's mind Moore" instilled the principle that the enemy was always at hand ready to strike. Whether on reconnaissance or protective duty, he was taught to be wary and on guard: to explore country, gather information, watch and question travellers and inhabitants, investigate and map-out roads, paths, fords and bridges. It was the pride of a light infantryman never to be caught napping; of a light infantry regiment or company never to have an outpost or piquet surprised. When attacked the latter were taught how to fall back without giving away the position of their main body; rules carefully devised, but always elastic and capable of infinite adjustment, were laid down for setting and relieving sentry lines and patrols by day and night, for defending approaches to villages, bridges and road junctions, for utilising hedges, woods and orchards and every inclination of the ground for cover and fire. The British army of the future was to be encompassed at all times and places by an invisible screen of marksmen, watching the enemy from behind every bush and stone, each one an alert and intelligent individual acting in close but invisible concert with his comrades.1

  Before the Peninsular War the leaven of Moore's training had only begun to permeate the heavy, unthinking mass of the old Army. His own regiments were still recruited from the national rag-tag-and-bobtail; penniless, drunken Irish peasants, village bad characters,

  1 The principal sources for Moore's system of training are J. F. C. Fuller, Sir John Moore's System of Training (1925); Robert Jackson, A Systematic View of the Formation, Discipline and Economy of Armies, 1804; J. C. Moore, The Life of Lieut.-General Sir John Moore, 1834; The Diary of Sir John Moore (ed. J. F. Maurice); Sir H. Bunbury, Narrative of Some Passages in the Great War with France, 1854; Sir W. Napier, The Life and Opinions of Sir Charles Napier; Coote Manningham, Regulations for the Rife Corps, 1800; Military Lectures delivered to the officers of the 95M Regt., 1803; Fortescue, IV, 352, 917-18; Passages in the Early Military Life of General Sir George Napier, 1884,

  slum bullies and pimps, balloted ploughboys with a penchant for drink and roving. Of such was the chimney-sweep who, in the taproom of the Red Lion at Rye, told the recruiting sergeant of the 95th that he was able to lick the best man in the room and that the only thing against his being a-soldier was his black face; him the sergeant scoured with water and filled with rum and, seeing that he looked a slippery customer, handcuffed to one of his men to make sure he should not think better of his bargain in the night.1 Everything came as grist to the mill; if the material had anything in it, the Light Brigade would sooner or later turn out a smart, well-trained, independent fighting man with a craftsman's self-respect and skill. The rest of the Army wondered at Moore's regiments, yet scarcely understood how their efficiency had been achieved. "The 52nd is at this moment," wrote Lieut.-Colonel Wilson, " indisputably one of the first corps in the Service in every respect. The cat-o'-ninetails is never used, and yet discipline is there seen in the highest state of perfection. In other corps continual punishments are taking place in the fruitless attempt of rivalling the 52nd, whereas the very means employed for ever prevent the possibility of their attaining even mediocrity." 2

  It was with an army still in transition from old to new that Wellesley set sail from Cork in the broiling July of 1808. The men in the crowded transports were in the highest spirits; in the prevailing national mood they almost felt they were going to a crusade. Spain, wrote an officer, was about to import a whole family of Don Quixotes. A private described with pride how on that July 12th the armada's sails were given to the wind and with what majesty, amid the cheers of all, it sailed out of the Cove of Cork for the hostile shores.

  Wellesley went ahead in a fast frigate to consult with the Junta of Galicia. His orders were to make the utmost possible diversion for Spain in Portugal and, if possible, to expel Junot. Being a methodical man who believed in doing everything possible to achieve success, he spent the voyage learning Spanish from a prayer-book. But when on July 20th he landed at Corunna he found that more than a knowledge of the language was needed to discover what was happening in Spain. He was welcomed with many stately, old-world ceremonies and by applauding mobs. But no one seemed to have any idea of what was going on in the rest of the Peninsula or

  1 " Hang your black face," said the sergeant-major, " the Rifles can't be too dark; you're a strong rascal and if you mean it, we'll take you to the doctor to-morrow and make a giniril of you the next day." Harris, 164.

  2 Enquiry into the Present State of the Military Forces of the British Empire.

  even in Galicia itself.1 All that Wellesley could gather for certain was that the northern Spanish armies had been defeated a week before by Marshal Bessieres at Medina del Rioseco, two hundred miles to the south-east. Even this information was hard to come by: at first the Spaniards said that their General, Blake, had gained a great victory but had failed to follow it up, then that he had gained a victory but had thought it better to withdraw, and finally that he had suffered a slight check. " It is impossible," wrote Wellesley, " to learn the truth."

  Though things were plainly not going well for the Spaniards, their chief anxiety seemed to be to keep their allies' troops away from their soil. They particularly wanted Wellesley to employ his army in Portugal, not Spain. Money and arms, they explained, they could not have enough of, but fighting men were needless, for they had plenty of their own.2 Remembering the behaviour of their French allies and all they had suffered at British hands in the past, their attitude was perhaps natural. But it bore no relation to their military position. Dupont, advancing southwards with 15,000 troops, had just taken Cordoba, while Moncey had routed Cuesta at Cabezon and occupied Valladollid. On the very day that Wellesley landed at Corunna, Joseph Bonaparte was entering Madrid with 4000 Italian troops to take possession of his kingdom. Only at Saragossa, where the townsmen had barricaded the streets against a French army, and in the villages behind the advancing columns, where sullen peasants hid their food and abandoned the harvest to cheat the invader, did Spanish deeds match Spanish words.

  Yet while Wellesley, after two fruitless days, was taking ship for Portugal, and Napoleon was travelling triumphantly from Bayonne to St. Cloud, the tide in the Peninsula again turned. To all appearance the resistance of Spain was ridiculous: an affair of high-sounding, empty eloquence, of fabulous armies with Don Quixote in the saddle and Sancho Panza in .the ranks, of remote provincial Juntas fantastically ignorant of one or other's activities and vainly boasting of imaginary victories,3 of peasant mobs masquerading as regiments, and monks and romantic professors brandishing the rusty arms of '

  1 Major-General Leith, who visited Santander on a special mission, found the same ignorance; the authorities did not even know whether there was a Spanish force between the town and the nearest French army. Leith Hay, I, 6.

  2 Unknown to Wellesley, Spencer was having the same difficulty with the local Junta at Cadiz. He had been fobbed off with excuses and sent off to a lonely spot on the Portuguese border. "I do not believe," wrote one observe
r, "there is a point at which they wish an English soldier to land." Plumer Ward, 188.

  3 "Let Spain be the grave of Napoleon," ran one proclamation, "let his mad ambition · find here an ignominous grave! Let the burial place of the mules and asses at Madrid receive into its bosom the putrified bones of the worthless Muratl" An. Reg., 1808, 257

  the Middle Ages while Napoleon's legions tramped unopposed along the highways. Yet beneath the unreality of the Spanish surface burnt the fires of Spanish pride and patriotism. So long as the hated enemy was far away—in the next province or even, in that land of natural barriers, in the next mountain valley—the average Spaniard persisted in his age-long complacency and his habit of putting off till to-morrow what should be done to-day. But once the tramp of alien feet sounded down his own rocky streets, he went out to kill. As Dupont's blue-coats pressed on beyond pillaged Cordoba, a grimly angry countryside rose in their rear. Unnerved by the stark hostility of the land and people, Dupont fell back towards the Sierra Morena. As he did so the patriots and the ragged army of Andalusia closed in on him. On July 23rd, faced by famine, he lost his head and capitulated to General Castanos. Such a thing had not happened to a French army for nearly a decade.

  On the following day Wellesley landed at Oporto. Here he found the Bishop in control, an insurgent Junta, a few hundred ragged Portuguese regulars and a crowd of peasants with pitchforks. It appeared that the whole country north of the Tagus, enraged by robbery, sacrilege and oppression, was in insurrection, and that the French were confined to the immediate neighbourhood of Lisbon and a few fortresses east of the river. Ordering his transports to Mondego Bay, where a party of British marines had secured the fort of Figueira, Wellesley went ahead to consult with Sir Charles Cotton, the Admiral blockading the Tagus. From him he learnt that all the beaches near the capital were strongly held and that any landing on that exposed coast would be liable to interruption from westerly gales. He therefore decided to put his troops ashore in Mondego Bay —the nearest point at which he could secure an uncontested landing —and march the-intervening eighty miles to Lisbon. Summoning Spencer from the mouth of the Guadiana, he returned to his transports in Mondego Bay. Here he met with significant news.