Salamanca 1812- Wellington’s Year of Victories

by Peter Edwards

  Our illustrious chief [Wellington], who was generally to be found where danger was most apparent, saw us come puffing and blowing up to our column and called out to us in a cheering voice: ‘Be cool, my lads; don’t be in a hurry!’ But, in faith, with all possible respect for his Lordship, we were in no greater haste that the occasion demanded, as the French were upon us. We were obliged to dash down the sides of the hill, where we halted for a moment – and his Lordship also – and then forded a river. The stream was much swollen by the late rains, and while we were crossing, a round-shot from the enemy, who were now peppering away at us, took off the head of Sergeant Fotheringham, of our battalion, and smashed the thigh of another man. On gaining the other side of the stream we turned to give a salute in return, but owing to the wet, our rifles were unserviceable.

  And George Simmons again:

  On getting through this ford we faced about and formed columns of battalions. The French tried to cross after them but met opposition from the Rifles and from some men of the 52nd, who were posted on picquet at that point. Not a Frenchman got across. That night, the Light Division bivouacked amid the cork trees on the steep bank of the river in miserable weather. The rain that had held off all day, started to fall heavily again after dark. Beef was served out, but there was no biscuit.

  Then Johnny Kincaid, not his normal irrepressible self:

  We received the usual order ‘to make ourselves comfortable for the night’, and I never remember an instance in which we had so much difficulty in obeying it, for the ground we occupied was a perfect flat, flooded more than ankle deep with water, excepting here and there where the higher ground around the roots of trees presented circles of a few feet of visible earth, upon which we grouped ourselves. Some few fires were kindled, at which we roasted some bits of raw beef on the points of our swords, and eat them by way of a dinner.

  That night by way of a last-hurrah, the French horse batteries shelled the bivouacs, and 18 November brought welcome daylight again but marred by heavy rain. Gradually the shelling ceased and the sun burst through the thinning cloud. George Simmons can have the last word:

  The day was very fine, but the road extremely bad, and we were obliged to wade for miles in slush and water, which made the feet extremely tender. Also, not being able to see where to place them, made one hit the stumps of small trees, which gave great pain. I do not know when I suffered so much from a day’s march, which was a very long one. Bivouacked upon the side of a mountain near Sancti-Spiritus ... The enemy followed us on the 19th. Most of us walking barefooted, my shoes also having no bottoms, as well as my friends’. My legs and feet much frostbitten so could hardly crawl. Halted near Ciudad Rodrigo. Three days’ bread served to us upon the spot.

  The night of 18 November saw near-mutinous disregard of Wellington’s orders by three of his divisional commanders. This extraordinary happening might be seen as a unique token at the top end, comparable to pig-shooting at the bottom; that is, of the desperate situation all were confronting. Wellington had ordered Stewart, Oswald and Dalhousie’s 1st, 5th and 7th Divisions in the centre column to cross a flooded stream over various fords, rather than by the only bridge, which he allocated to the Spaniards. They demurred and took their divisions to the bridge, where needless to say, a colossal traffic jam ensued involving five divisions – the Light also being in the queue, which at one stage was said to have involved a single file passage across a fallen tree. Wellington is reported to have later told FitzRoy Somerset ‘By God, it was too serious to say anything’ although to the three generals he managed a quiet, ‘You see, gentlemen, I know my own business best.’ It was a week later, after the French had given up and gone away, that all his generals received the Memorandum so nicely described by Captain Jonathon Leach, 95th, (The Memorandum had quickly become known to the entire army, and thence as quickly back into the English newspapers,) ‘as difficult to digest as the acorns in the woods of San Munoz.’

  The Memorandum, which is attached at Appendix 3, was obviously born of ill temper, caused no doubt by some immediate if minor irritant in Headquarters, following reflection on certain episodes of the journey back from Burgos: the drunkenness, straggling, the pig shoot, the robbing of store wagons, the apparent slackness in cooking, the ransacking of villages for food, the tossing aside of spare ammunition, and the general lack of cheerfulness amongst the ranks. But castigating all captains and subalterns for allowing such random indisciplines was only in order for certain ill-led regiments. While those guilty might be the first to so plead, for many others the criticisms were quite misplaced, and thus unfair. If there is one thing the British soldier hates more than going backwards (and digging holes), it is to be dealt with unfairly. Kipling put it nicely in his ‘Norman and Saxon AD 1100’ when the Norman baron offered his son some good advice:

  The Saxon is not like us Normans. His manners are not so polite,

  But he never means anything serious, ’til he talks about Justice and Right.

  When he stands like an ox in the furrow, with his sullen eyes set on your own,

  And grumbles, ‘This isn’t fair dealing’, my son — leave the Saxon alone.

  A mild example of the sullen Saxon is in the Journal kept by Lieutenant Edward Close, 48th, one of their few officer survivors of Soult’s Polish Lancers at Albuera:

  We had only three-quarters of a pound of bread served out in seven days, yet we were severely reprehended by an order about this time for some irregularity that took place in search of food, and told we suffered no privations ... (whereas) the deprivations we suffered were severe; without bread or spirits, in cold rainy weather, the men, bare-footed, toiled along the road dispirited and discontented.

  Wellington compounded the reaction, of course, by making light of the conditions, and by not acknowledging the failure of the commissaries and of his own staff, which led to most of the army receiving no rations for three or more days. The Memorandum was three pages long. In this it contrasted with the two sentence General Order expressing his thanks to the troops after the gloriously successful battle at Salamanca, the second sentence of which merely re-iterated that such success depends on the troops obeying their orders, and preserving their formation when in action. Verily, the man did not believe in spoiling the soldiery! The Memorandum was altogether a thoroughly ill-considered rant, rounding off an ill-considered venture – the Burgos outing was not our hero’s finest hour, and for weeks afterwards Saxon sullenness continued: ‘Lieutenant Wallis, 52nd regiment, refused this day after dinner to drink Ld. Wellington’s health – I find he (Ld. W) is very much disliked by all the officers who have come from the army.’ (letter home in early February 1813 from newly joined Lieutenant George Woodberry, 18th Hussars)

  We should, however, temper criticism of the retreat itself by making two points that are easily overlooked. Firstly, it did actually succeed in removing the alliance’s only joint Army from the closing jaws of a superior enemy; and, secondly, the remembered rigours were largely caused by the astonishingly bad weather, a mishap beyond Wellington’s control. That said, of course, he was immensely aided by the ultracaution of Soult’s slug-like pursuit, and would have been deeply in trouble had that not been the case; further, that the other ingredient in his soldiers’ bitter recollections – the starvation – while the fault of the Commissariat’s instructions from his QMG, would not have occurred without a lack of his own personal supervision. Coming from a man renowned for detailed micro-management, he seemed not to be aware that the planned supply route was to go via Ledesma, El Villar and San Felices or, if he knew, it is a puzzle that it was not promptly brought south. It is said that Gordon, like Espana over the withdrawal of the Alba garrison, refrained from telling him. That would be in character for Gordon. It was all a public relations disaster, both at home in London and to a lesser degree amongst his men, whose widespread admiration and belief in their illustrious Commander had thereby somewhat diminished.

  At least the enemy could take no satisfaction in th
eir role, and should have been ashamed that a joint force of 100,000 men belatedly got together for the sole purpose of catching and defeating their invader, had managed merely to chase him out. He would live to fight another day and they had missed the best chance in years – probably since Soult so nearly caught Wellington in the Tagus valley after Talavera.

  Anyway, all were now mightily relieved to be well out of it, as the winter closed upon them. The immediate concerns on both sides were for solid shelter, solid food, new shoes, no mud, and horses with a bit of fat on them. The Army moved back into their familiar cantonments along the Portuguese border, and the French likewise dispersed in search of shelter and food. The year’s campaigning was over.

  The material achievements of the whole 1812 campaign are readily listed: some 20,000 prisoners of war taken and despatched to England (7,000 from Salamanca, 4,000 from Badajoz, 2,000 from Madrid, 2,000 from the various affairs on the Douro, the Guarena, via Hill in Estremadura, 1,300 from Astorga, 600 from the Salamanca Forts, 300 from those at Almaraz etc.), and (Oman calculates) nearly 3,000 guns from Rodrigo, Badajoz, Madrid Cadiz, Seville and many others taken in the field. The arsenals in these places, and the destruction of the contents of the storehouses, magazines and fortifications – where not usefully transferred to new ownership – was an immense loss to the French. And talking of losses, it has been calculated that the Armies of Portugal, of the Centre and of the South were 30,000 weaker at the end of the campaign than at the beginning, notwithstanding drafts totalling some 10,000. Napoleon’s armies in Spain arguably now needed substantial reinforcements, but what of the snows of Russia? Of the 450,000 men in the Grande Armée who had marched east in June, nearer Christmas Ney’s rearguard could barely muster a thousand, and the Armée itself under 40,000. There were no men for Spain, and certainly no conquering Emperor to give Wellington pause. What else? Just the liberation of Galicia, the Asturias, of Andalucia, of Granada, of Estremadura, of Seville and Cadiz and (briefly) Madrid, and in the withdrawal of their garrisons giving guerrillas elsewhere hope, reason and confidence to persevere.

  But perhaps the greatest of all the material achievements of the year is that the removal of French forces from the south of Spain meant his Lordship could now at last turn his back on that direction. Hills’ Corps no longer need be detached, at such a distance that it had become a separate army: separate outposts, supply lines, stores depots, reserve deployments and all the rest of it. The potential for the 1813 campaign was thereby immensely improved because simplified, and would allow the Commander’s mind to consider much more ambitious projects.

  The year’s achievements also included aspects not so easily measured, but huge in everyone’s mind. First amongst these for the French was the obvious: Wellington’s fifth campaign is now over and he still has not been beaten on the field of battle. Burgos was a failure, not a defeat, and France had not a single marshal or general who would readily tangle with him. His perceived superiority was now a psychological factor the French had to overcome. Things have come to a pretty pass when an admiring French general can write things like:

  Wellington goes off unbeaten, with the glory of his laurels of the Arapiles untarnished, after having restored to the Spaniards all the lands south of the Tagus, after having forced us to destroy our own magazines and fortifications, and deprived us of all the resources that resulted from our former conquests. (Foy)

  So French prestige was shattered, and the confidence that ought to run through an Army’s nervous system, connecting the head and the hands, was greatly lessened. The men in blue coats had marched prodigious distances – just look at the map of Spain! Soult’s men marched from Seville and Cadiz via Valencia to Madrid and Salamanca. That is the equivalent of marching from Inverness to London via Bristol and then back up to Liverpool! And they too suffered the same starvation, and the same weather, yet they could not seem to bring a smaller enemy to a stand and beat him. For the other concern was the discovery that the British army could manoeuvre and could attack. After four years repeatedly being repulsed by a volley-cheer-charge coming from two red ranks out of a reverse slope, Salamanca had shown that their enemy’s foot and horse could now not only defend a hill but could climb one, and destroy them both ways. So the French had to fear Wellington’s men’s fighting qualities as well as his Generalship.

  The latter survived the year with a few lapses. Given the careful preparations for capturing Rodrigo, for example, the expensive losses of time and men at the Salamanca Forts and at Burgos Castle, caused by the lack of siege guns (and which could have been got forward), were regrettable. The former possibly was justified as a lure to draw Marmont to battle; the latter had no strategic value apparent to us today, although one hesitates to call it a vanity project, coming so soon after the glory that was Salamanca. Further, at these two later sieges, it was noteworthy how few men he threw at the walls in the various escalades etc., and this self-defeating use of ‘penny packets’ can surely be a response to the Badajoz losses. A similar caution may have been involved at San Cristoval, during that brief period of numerical and ground superiority over Marmont, for which missed opportunity he has been much criticised. But, being convinced as he was that Marmont was about to attack, and knowing a defensive victory is always cheaper than victory through attack, only hindsight says he made the wrong choice. Ironically, it was the reverse sin – a lack of caution – that so nearly saw Wellington blot his copy book next to the Arapiles – saved by Beresford – who caused him to abort the 1st Division’s attack on Bonnet. Bearing in mind the drubbing Bonnet later gave the 4th Division and Pack (with help by Clausel), the attack may well have stalled, had it begun. Preceding as it did Wellington’s brilliant concept of battle starting with Pakenham’s 3rd Division, it was hard to see what was in his mind here, beyond feeling better after the endless frustrations of parallel marching and, of course, the temporary joy of giving Marmont a passing bloody nose. That would have been fair justice, however, for what Marmont did to him the previous week up at Toro, and the crossings at Tordesillas. It may be Marmont could have better developed his feint and forward movement from the Douro, but for Wellington it involved a fair degree of nip and tuck by his standards, and rather too many hand to mouth moments under pressure.

  There were two occasions when one might perhaps question Wellington’s choice of troops for particular tasks. He had with him at Burgos the 5th Division, who had successfully escaladed Badajoz, and who had gained experience there in the trenches; yet he sent them forward as part of the covering force whereas, as we have seen, their expertise might have been preferably employed in the attempts on the castle. Secondly, in the breach at Badajoz the Light and 4th Divisions suffered appalling losses in their junior command positions. When at Salamanca he ordered Cole to attack Clausel, the companies were largely under an untried second eleven management of just three months standing. In this regard another division (he had the choice of three more) might have held Clausel a little more firmly.

  Perhaps the final question we should fairly raise is the stupendous losses in the breach at Badajoz. His later tears were eloquent and the memory shaped future actions. But was it a mistake to launch two full divisions at three holes in a wall? Would he have done the same, ever again? Our difficulty in not being critical of this plan is not only that it did not work, but that not one but two of the escalade subsidiary attempts did work. It is therefore with hindsight extremely hard not to pontificate: serious false attacks on Trinidad and Santa Maria, the breaches of which would be so properly made to be thought entirely practicable, must have deserved the same response from the garrison, to the detriment of their deployment along the walls elsewhere, allowing Picton and Leith to escalade, as they did. Indeed, one of the great tragic errors of the night was undoubtedly the hour’s delay in getting Leith his ladders. Had he been up and over by 11pm and not midnight, much would have been different, including the casualty lists.

  It is in the nature of armchair generals like your author –
and probably you, dear reader – to scratch around for such blemishes like those in the foregoing paragraphs, on the skin of their hero. It makes us feel less like the pygmies we undoubtedly are beside such a man, whose many qualities have appeared in these pages. His determination, foresight, energy, sagacity, patience, intelligence and sense of duty, can be seen repeatedly demonstrated in this campaign. As Commander of the Forces his leadership had long since established a respect, and Salamanca, in particular, now demanded the same of the wider world. It is true the affection felt for him by the men seemed to have about it a tinge of slight apprehension; it is remarkable to the modern soldier, bearing in mind the fearsome orders he had occasion to issue, that any hesitancy on their part was never more than in the mind. One can recall only those few days at Burgos, when the men came close to any collective obstinacy. Their complete willingness to do his bidding flowed naturally from the years of successful generalship behind him and them, and the usual embellished talk around the camp fires. They would not have missed, for example, his ready liking for the coup-de-main, an operation which has always appealed to the British soldier, especially where it both makes their enemy look silly, and short-cuts any need for more costly alternatives. The immediate seizure of the Renault Redoubt at Rodrigo, the capture of Fort Picurina at Badajoz, and the bridge at Almaraz, were all to their liking. Less high in their admiration (because unseen) would be his unrelenting attention to forward planning: the timely yet secret concentration under Dickson of the siege train for Rodrigo; the very careful analysis after Badajoz of the courses open and the prudent choice of Marmont and Salamanca rather than Soult and the south; the elaborate and detailed schemes then to occupy the French generally in Granada, Valencia, Catalonia, Galicia and the Cantabrian mountains, the involvement of the various Spanish forces, Lord Bentinck, and the partisans, were all designed to place Marmont in temporary isolation. While not all these Machiavellian schemes came to fruition, and some tardily so, enough did, to have the desired effect. There was also the wider achievement that came from this direction of the efforts of so many: it showed quite clearly the British controlling hand in these affairs, and at last brought some measure of co-operation to the many individual forces – so often squabbling – in the Peninsula.