Salamanca 1812- Wellington’s Year of Victories

by Peter Edwards

  The 3rd Division had mounted to the terre-plein with facility, but when on the rampart, they were fired on in front and both flanks as described. In this small space they suffered a tremendous loss of nearly 500 heroic officers and soldiers. During the fighting, their dead and wounded were piled one on top of the other. The wounded cried out in agony as they were trampled upon, or they impeded the progress of others exerting themselves in vain amongst such havoc to carry the traverses. The moment the wooden magazine blew up, all firing had nearly ceased, for the enemy had literally jumped over the right entrenchment onto the terre-plein of the breach to save themselves from the bayonets of the Light Division.

  About the same time that morning-after, as Cooke stood contemplating the scene at the main breach,

  a great explosion took place a few yards to the right of the small breach, blowing up the terre-plein of the rampart, four yards in breadth and ten in length. The fatal explosion was accidental: some sparks of fire ignited barrels of gunpowder in a casement. It happened while the French garrison were marching out of the city by the small breach. This had become so hard owing to the numbers of soldiers walking up and down it, that ascent was nearly impracticable. The French, as well as the British soldiers, were carried up into the air, or were jammed sticking out of the earth. I saw one of the unfortunate soldiers in a blanket with his face, head, and body as black as a coal; he was cased in a black substance like a shell, his features no longer distinguishable, and all the hair singed from off his head. The unfortunate man was still alive. How long he lived in this horrible situation I cannot say.

  A tall athletic soldier of the 52nd lay on his back amongst the dead at the foot of the breach, his arms and legs at their full extent. The top of his head, from the forehead to the back part of his skull, was split in twain, and the cavity entirely emptied of the brains. It was as if a hand grenade had exploded within, expanding the skull and forcing it into a separation. The parts were ragged like a saw with a gaping aperture nine inches in length, and four in breadth. For a considerable time I looked on this horrible fracture, to define by what missile or instrument so wonderful a wound could have been inflicted, but without being able to come to any conclusion.

  Cooke moved on to see a wounded friend, said to be at the San Francisco convent:

  The interior was crowded with wounded soldiers lying on the hard pavement. A soldier of the 3rd Division was sitting against a pillar, his head bent forward, his chin resting on his breast, his eyes open and an agreeable smile on his face. I stopped with surprise to observe him sitting in so contended a posture, surrounded by the groans on his companions. At length I addressed him. No answer being returned I called a doctor, under the impression that the man was delirious – on the contrary, we found he was quite dead.

  Towards noon, when the evacuation of the town by the assault divisions was completed, Grattan of the 88th also went sightseeing:

  The breaches presented a horrid spectacle. The one forced by the Light Division was narrower than the other, and the dead, lying in a smaller compass, looked more numerous than they really were. I walked along the ramparts towards the grand breach, and was examining the effects our fire had produced on the different defences and the buildings in their immediate vicinity, but I had not proceeded far when I was shocked at beholding about a hundred and thirty or forty wounded Frenchmen, lying under one of the bastions and some short distance up a narrow street adjoining it. I descended, and learned that these men had been performing some particular duty in the magazine which blew up and killed General Mackinnon and so many of the 3rd Division. These miserable beings were so burnt that I fear, notwithstanding the considerate attention which was paid to them by our medical officers, none of their lives were preserved. Their uniforms were barely distinguishable, and their swollen heads and limbs gave them a gigantic appearance that was truly terrific; added to this, the gunpowder had so blackened their faces that they looked more like a number of huge negroes than soldiers of a European army. Many of our men hastened to the spot, and with that compassion which truly brave men always feel, rendered them every assistance in their power; some were carried on doors, others in blankets, to the hospitals, and these poor creatures showed by their gestures, for they could not articulate, how truly they appreciated our tender care of them.

  I next turned to the captured gun, so chivalrously taken by the three men of the 88th. The five canonniers lying across the carriage, or between the spokes of the wheels, showed how bravely they had defended it; yet they lay like men whose death had not been caused by violence; they were naked and bloodless, and the puncture of the bayonet left so small a mark over their hearts, it was discernible only to those who examined the bodies closely.

  I turned away from the breach, and scrambled over its rugged face, and the dead which covered it. On reaching the bivouac we had occupied the preceding evening, I learned, with surprise, that our women had been engaged in a contest, if not as dangerous as ours, at least one of no trivial sort. The men left as a guard over the baggage, on hearing the first shot at the trenches, could not withstand the inclination they felt to join their companions; and although this act was creditable to the bravery of the individuals that composed the baggage-guard, it was nigh being fatal to those who survived, or, at least, to such as had anything to lose except their lives, for the wretches that infested our camp attempted to plunder it of all that it possessed, but the women, with a bravery that would not have disgraced those of ancient Rome, defended the post with such valour that those miscreants were obliged to desist, and our baggage was saved in consequence.

  We were about to resume our arms when General Picton approached us. Some of the soldiers, who were more than usually elevated in spirits, on his passing them, called out, ‘Well, General, we gave you a cheer last night; it’s your turn now!’ The General, smiling, took off his hat, and said, ‘Here, then, you drunken set of brave rascals, hurrah! We’ll soon be at Badajoz!’ A shout of confidence followed; we slung our firelocks, the bands played, and we commenced our march for the village of Atalaya in the highest spirits, and in a short time lost sight of a place the capture of which appeared to us like a dream.

  Kincaid says that when the 95th marched out ‘most of their swords were fixed on the rifles and stuck full of hams, tongues, and loaves of bread, and not a few were carrying birdcages.’

  One of his riflemen, Costello, also noted how they left the town:

  As we marched over the bridge dressed in all varieties imaginable, some with jack boots on, others with white French trousers, others in frock coats with epaulettes, some even with monkeys on their shoulders, we met the 5th Division on their way to repair the breaches. They immediately formed upon the left of the road, presented arms, and cheered us. I was afterwards told that Lord Wellington, who saw us pass, inquired of his staff ‘Who the devil are those fellows?’

  The 5th and the Light were again to pass one another a few days later, when Lord Wellington buried Robert Crauford at the foot of the Lesser Breach, near the spot where he fell. He was borne by six sergeant majors, with six dismounted field officers as pall-bearers, ‘in a plain coffin with a sheet over it’ (Captain John Ewart, 52nd), preceded by bands playing mournful music and, immediately, by a chaplain; followed by Wellington, Castanos, Beresford, Stewart and all the staff and general officers, and the regiments of the division with arms reversed. They passed through a double rank of the 5th Division’s men, also with reversed arms. It was said that the clergyman’s voice – the only sound to be heard – faltered over the words ‘I am the Resurrection and the Life’.

  A far different planting six feet under is told by Harry Smith of the Rifles, touching on the botched execution of the Light Division’s deserters:

  After the siege we had a few weeks holiday, with the exception of shooting some rascals who had deserted to the enemy. Eleven knelt on one grave at Ituero. It was an awful ceremony, a military execution. I was Major of Brigade of the day. The Provo-Marshall had not told the
firing off, so that a certain number of men should shoot one culprit, and so on, but at his signal the whole party fired a volley. Some prisoners were fortunate enough to be killed, others were only wounded, some untouched. I galloped up. An unfortunate Rifleman called to me by name – he was awfully wounded – ‘Oh Mr Smith put me out of my misery,’ and I literally ordered the firing party, when reloaded, to run up and shoot the poor wretches. It was an awful scene.

  On the same subject, Grattan tells us that earlier ‘Lord Wellington had extended mercy to everyone who could procure anything like a good character from his officers.’

  We will close this chapter on a more cheerful note, with Grattan’s picture of the 88th’s auction of their loot, quite plainly an authorised activity, and which rather therefore questions the value of Wyndham Madden’s search party at the main breach.

  The soldiers busied themselves in arranging their different articles of plunder; many of them clad in the robes of some priest, while others wore gowns of the most costly silk velvet; others, again, nearly naked; some without pantaloons, having been plundered while drunk, of so essential a part of their dress; but all, or almost all, were occupied in laying out for sale their different articles of plunder, in that order which was essential to their being disposed of to the crowds of Spaniards who had already assembled to be the purchasers; and if one could judge by their look, they most unquestionably committed a breach in their creed by ‘coveting their neighbour’s good’. And had the scene which now presented itself to our sight been one caused by an event the most joyous, much less by the calamity that had befallen the unfortunate inhabitants of Rodrigo, to say nothing of the human blood that had been spilt ere that even had taken place, the scene could not have been more gay. Brawny-shouldered Castilians carrying pig-skins of wine on their backs, which they sold to our soldiers for a trifling sum; Bolero-dancers, rattling their castanets like the clappers of so many mills; our fellows drinking like fishes, while their less fortunate companions at Rodrigo – either hastily flung into an ill-formed grave, writhing under the knife of the surgeon, or in the agonies of death – were unthought of, or unfelt for. Sick transit Gloria Monday! The soldiers were allowed three days congé for the disposal of their booty; but long before the time had expired, they had scarcely a rag to dispose of, or a real of the produce in their pockets.

  For modern minds, the auction seems like a drunken car boot sale set to music, all goods being offered for sale without legal title by the vendors, and doubtless in some cases, actually sold back to those from whom they had been forcibly acquired.

  That day of the 88th’s auction, news reached Marmont of Rodrigo’s capture – a mere week after he had first heard of its encirclement. During that week he had sought as best he could to concentrate his reduced Army of Portugal on Salamanca (four days’ march from Rodrigo). But his divisions were still widely dispersed. He – and Napoleon – had been caught out by supposing the British sick list would hobble Wellington; that the time of year was inappropriate for active operations; and – a failing common enough among military men – disregarding fresh intelligence that did not fit his interpretation of a situation for which he had already deployed. He lost thereby the essential base for possible future operations by the Emperor into Portugal, a base moreover that would now function in reverse for his enemy; and ironically he had lost within it the very item necessary to its re-capture – his siege train.

  The day after he heard Rodrigo was lost, Marmont wrote to Berthier, ‘On the 16th the English batteries opened their fire at a great distance. On the 19th the place was taken by storm and fell into the power of the enemy. There is something so incomprehensible in this event that I allow myself no observation.’ He was indeed speechless. But not so the Peer’s employers: he received a Spanish dukedom from the grateful Cortes, a marquisate from Portugal, an earldom from the Prince Regent, and an annuity of £2,000 from Parliament.

  For at quite the wrong time of year, on rocky ground and in incessant rains, with ill-trained amateur sappers, with forethought, secret planning and speedy execution, while no-one was looking he leapt on this great frontier fortress with its vast magazines of warlike stores, gateway to the future; and he seized it in eleven days flat, start to finish. It had been a brilliant operation, soundly conceived and timed and swiftly executed.

  CHAPTER 2

  Part I – Badajoz Setting the Scene

  Within three or four days of the fall of Rodrigo, the new Earl of Wellington and Ducque de Ciudad Rodrigo had turned actively to his next task. Having arranged for the breaches to be cleared, the trenches filled, two new redoubts to be traced out on the Tesons, and for a Spanish garrison of 3,000 men, on 25 January 1812 (the same day Craufurd was buried at the foot of the Lesser Breach) he instructed Captain Dickson to commence the move of powder, shot and stores back the way they had so laboriously come, by road, river and sea via Oporto to Setubal, below Lisbon, and thence by road to Elvas, convenient for Badajoz. Sixteen heavy 24-pounder howitzers would travel overland. By 8 March a battering train of fifty-two pieces (including twenty additional Russian 18-pounders cheatingly provided by the Navy) and sixteen 24-pounders in transports in the Tagus, had come together at Elvas. His seven infantry divisions gradually slipped south from behind the Agueda and the Coa, except for the 5th and the KGL Hussars who, together with his Lordship, his Lordship’s pack of hounds and his Headquarters, remained ostentatiously in the shop window. The 5th left on 9 March, and Headquarters three days earlier. By the second week of March some 60,000 men had been concentrated west of Elvas, the garrison of which had long been employed making gabions and fascines for the coming siege.

  Wellington’s two reliable lieutenants, Hill and Graham, were detached north-east to Merida and south to Llerena, with 14,000 and 19,000 men respectively, to hold Marmont and Soult should either approach individually or seek to combine. Beresford was given the 3rd, 4th and Light Divisions (some 11,000 men) to invest Badajoz, an operation which now commenced on 16 March.

  As for the French, all was muddle and counter-order. Whereas in January Marmont had been scrambling to concentrate on Salamanca, in February he was scrambling to shift south, getting three divisions on the Tagus, from which an attempt to relieve Badajoz (a siege he now saw coming), could be launched; but in the middle of that month Napoleon intervened from 700 miles distance, to insist upon the concentration around Salamanca, from whence Marmont was improbably to threaten Portugal, the Douro, Almeida and the Asturias and thus force Wellington to leave Badajoz, to protect his bases.

  I suppose you consider the English mad, for you believe them capable of marching against Badajoz when you are at Salamanca, i.e. of allowing you to march to Lisbon before they can get back. They will only go southward if you, by your ill-designed schemes, keep two or three divisions detached from the Tagus: that reassures them, and tells them that you have no offensive projects against them.

  Marshal Marmont, Duke of Ragusa, and understandably irate, now fired off to Paris a series of letters protesting at the detailed (and largely irrelevant) instructions being received, and which he knew were not only strategically wrong but administratively impractical, due if only to his desperate lack of supplies. Finally, in a reply from Napoleon’s Chief of Staff, Berthier, which arrived with Marmont eleven days after Badajoz was invested, he was given a conditional freedom to aid Badajoz, but far too late. So the French were running to catch up, and not very successfully. In brief, Lord Wellington had space to tackle Badajoz, not entirely at his leisure but with a fair window of opportunity.

  The fortress shared common features with Rodrigo. Both were sited on slight hills adjacent to substantial bridges over major rivers; and both contained castles, of sorts. The scale of Badajoz however dwarfed Rodrigo by the order of two or three: 5,000 yards of ramparts not two; three times the acreage; the river twice as wide; four outworks to one; walls to forty-six feet not thirty feet; 140 guns on the ramparts to 109; nine huge bastions to none; seven garrison battalions (two being
German) to two, and so on, to say nothing of the relative resource and energy of the respective Governors.

  So the 3rd and Light Divisions, with their experiences at Rodrigo, and now the main part of the force earmarked to take Badajoz, on 16 March looked at their new objective through narrowed eyes. They too could multiply the Rodrigo figure. They were right to go quiet, since the relative human costs were indeed to be in the same order as the physical: the capture of Rodrigo saw 1,100 killed and wounded, Badajoz would see 4,700. In both cases, about a fifth of those knocked over were never to rise again, the same proportion as at the bloodbath of Albuera. And there the officers killed were some four per cent of the British dead; at Badajoz it would be eight per cent.

  And those who had been present in 1811 at the first and second sieges would now see that the fortress had in their absence been further strengthened. For in addition to the nine massive four-sided bastions (see map and photographs) stretching from the Guadiana river in the west, round beneath the southern walls to the Castle in the north, six triangular ravelins lay out front of the old town curtain walls, between the bastions, which themselves were over a hundred paces across. Three of these ravelins were much improved, and in front of that between the Trinidad and Santa Maria bastions a small but deep ditch had been dug and flooded, in the ditch itself. The water came from a huge inundation, up to 200 wide and 1,000 yards long, created along the east front of the town, by damming the bridge in the rear of the San Roque Lunette. Fort San Cristobal on the northern heights beyond the Guadiana, and which in 1811 formed Wellington’s preferred route, had had the ditches deepened, the glacis raised and the rear secured; 200 to 300 yards away up the slope, where the 1811 breaching batteries stood, there was now a formidable redoubt with ditches blasted into the rock three-men deep – the Verlé Lunette.