Rifles: Six Years With Wellington's Legendary Sharpshooters

by Mark Urban

  Around the 95th’s dinner table, a lively conversation about the next campaign followed the end of each day’s training. They knew from the English newspapers that Napoleon, having suffered a complete disaster in Russia, which of course delighted them, was preparing to fight in Germany. The wiser ones anticipated some weakening of the French Army in Spain in order to succour the Emperor in the north. However, each report of a movement by some French division across the frontier was considered highly unreliable. Officers would offer up the latest theory with an ‘on dit’ or ‘it is said’ in order to distance themselves somewhat from it: ‘on dit a corps of fifty thousand Russian auxiliaries is daily expected to disembark at Lisbon’. Percolating absurd reports and obvious ones down to their essence, one captain wrote to England, ‘Rumour says that we are about to retrace our steps and that we shall not stop until we have driven the French out of Spain … however I am totally in the dark upon the points which enable us beings of an inferior description to form any opinion at all.’

  They did know one thing, though, and that was that the long winter’s repose would soon be over. Every soldier or officer, appreciating the comforts he would require on the marches ahead, set about finding them. ‘We now only require that the canteens of each Company’s mess should be well supplied before we begin the campaign with tea and sugar, a pigskin full of wine – a keg of spirits – lots of segars – and some spare horse shoes and nails to be carried with us in case of losing a shoe on the march,’ wrote Leach.

  The division which assembled for Wellington that 17 May had been made up to more than 5,400 men by drafts and the acquisition of a further Portuguese regiment. In battle, the general dressed informally, but when reviewing his troops he adopted his red coat, riband of the Bath and numerous other decorations. His staff, following behind, were equally splendidly attired. As the general rode down lines of troops he knew that the Light Division was composed largely of the veterans of four or five campaigns. This spectacle, accompanied by the music of the division’s bands, was reserved only for its participants. One officer of the 43rd wrote home, ‘Such a review in England would have been attended by crowds and here, tho’ in great measure their prosperity depends upon it and there are several towns within 2 or 3 miles, not a single Spaniard or Portuguese came as a spectator.’ There was indeed a vital Spanish stake in what was going on, for within days, Wellington would fling the Light Division and the rest of his army at the French with the aim of finally breaking their hold over Iberia.

  Andrew Barnard had taken over as the commander of the 1st/95th. He was thirsting for the step to colonel, but this fact, far from distracting him from the command of the battalion, made him bring to it a drive and energy that had been conspicuously lacking under Cameron. Barnard also did his best to restore harmony, dispensing, for example, with Kincaid’s services as adjudant. The new commanding officer was searching for any opportunity to demonstrate his skills, an impulse that would launch the Rifles into their last great adventure of the Peninsular War.

  TWENTY

  Vitoria

  May–June 1813

  The scene which greeted the marchers on 23 May 1813 was familiar enough. It was the same bit of godforsaken ridge overlooking the Huebra where they had reached their lowest ebb in the driving rain the previous November. It was very different now, though. The sun was shining and every man’s countenance had that well-fed look. ‘We encamped today in a most heavenly May morning with a very luxuriant vegetation all around on the very identical spot where the Light Division passed the dreary dismal night of 17th November last,’ wrote one officer.

  Many of the riflemen felt glad to be campaigning again. There would be privations of course, but the months on the Beira frontier had dragged terribly. They did not see the point in sitting about while the job of kicking Johnny François out of Spain remained to be done. They trusted their luck in battle and hoped that the coming campaign would deliver plenty of plunder as well as some hard fighting.

  The Light Division made its way down the slope to the Huebra ford, a long snake of marching men that stretched for a mile. At the rear were dozens of mules and other pack animals, the Portuguese boys who looked after the officers’ personal beasts of burden, and the ‘wives’ who had been acquired that winter. Riding at the head of the 43rd, Lieutenant Colonel William Napier, refreshed by a leave in London, found it hard to believe that the campaign of 1813 would see the French thrown out of Spain. They had already been trying for years and there were plenty of naysayers in England who felt that Wellington had been too cautious a general. Napier turned to one of his friends in the 95th and said, ‘Well, here we go again. We shall go so far and then have our arses kicked and come back again.’

  Wellington’s successes had been such, though, that the ministry had poured additional troops into his army. The war band marching forward that May consisted of 81,000 troops, over 52,000 of whom were British, the remainder Portuguese.

  Once this force was striking out to the north-east, heading for the French defensive line on the Duero, the Rifles were able to catch sight of the various battalions who were old campaigners and those who were the Johnny Newcomes. The 95th had become soldiers for whom personal appearance or regulation dress counted far less than prowess in combat. They were very struck, therefore, to see the two smart brigades of cavalry sent out to Wellington shortly before the campaign: one of hussars, three fine regiments of more than five hundred sabres each, the men resplendent in their pelisses and tall hats; the other new brigade of heavy Household Cavalry. The hussars had not seen any action since early 1809, when they had covered the retreat to Corunna skilfully. As for the Blues and Life Guards of the Household Cavalry, they had not campaigned for fifteen years. The contempt of the old sweats for these parade-ground soldiers showed itself in Leach’s private journal:

  We cannot allow these gentry who have during the last five years been luxuriating in London to come under the head of ‘old Peninsular soldiers’ nor can we either consider the Dandy Hussar Regiments just arrived from campaigning at Brighton, Hampton Court, Weymouth and those places ever since the month of January 1809 (a period of four years and four months) to be entitled ‘old Peninsular men’. I dare venture nevertheless to prognosticate that any of us who may be so fated as to live to revisit England and to see the termination of this protracted war in the Peninsula [will] hear these gentry newly arrived talk louder and with greater self-sufficiency than the troops who have been through the whole business.

  The Army moved ahead in three great columns, forcing back the French in a great movement across the north of Spain towards the Ebro and the Pyrenean frontier. Three times the French, trying desperately to regroup their forces, attempted to block the British on a river line in their path, but three times the right of the French line was turned by Wellington, sending his men through inhospitable mountain country which many had thought impracticable for an advance. During one of these outflanking movements the hussars distinguished themselves in a combat with the enemy rearguard and this was enough to silence most of the Light Bobs. As for the Household regiments, they continued to excite the contempt and, it must be said, the envy of the veterans, if for no other reason than because of the absurdly well-fed appearance of their huge mounts, the average Rifles officer having become used to his $40 nag with its scrawny neck and sagging back.

  On 7 June, in Palencia, matters reached the point of open abuse. Here, the Household Cavalry enjoyed the acclamations and cheering of the liberated populace so much that they held up the rest of the Army. ‘The Household Troops’, wrote George Hennell of the 43rd, ‘paraded the streets such as they did Piccadilly for they went up one, down another, up again, so whether it was a mistake or not I do not know, but this I know, they kept our baggage an hour in the streets and we were waiting for breakfast all the time very impatiently.’

  The Army of 1813 was very different to that of 1809. It was not just that the soi-disant elite had finally deigned to join the fray, but the doctrines
of using light troops and riflemen extensively for every type of demanding task had gained supremacy. When Craufurd disembarked his brigade four years before, his reinforcement meant the Army had two battalions of riflemen (the 1st of the 95th as well as the 5th/60th) and two of light infantry. The reinforcements sought by Wellington over the years meant that in May 1813, it had three battalions of 95th, three of foreign riflemen, six battalions of light infantry, and eleven of Portuguese Cacadores (most of whom carried rifles). Although Wellington remained a military conservative in many respects, his experience in command of the 95th since the Baltic expedition of 1807 and Portuguese campaign of 1808 had convinced him of the intrepidity and fighting qualities of such forces.

  With its phalanxes of light troops (infantry and cavalry) the British Army moved across northern Spain with unparalleled speed. The French had derided them, in the spring of 1811 and at other times, for timidity or slowness, but by mid-June 1813 they were being pursued back, harassed all the way, to a defensive line which would mark their final chance to hold any part of Iberia.

  On 18 June, the Light Division, having outmarched the French stragglers, emerged into a deeply incised valley – a gorge almost – called San Millan. The terrain nearly formed a ‘Y’, with the British and French on the converging forks. A small river, the Boveda, was bridged just after the valleys’ junction. As the first men at the head of the British column came over a rise and saw San Millan and the Boveda, they realised that several French battalions were standing about near the village without having posted pickets or seeming at all on their mettle. Wellington, wrote one company commander, ‘suddenly appeared amongst us and directed the first and third battalions of the 95th riflemen instantly to make an attack on the French infantry brigade which was in Millan and who, to judge from appearances did not dream that that a British soldier was within a day’s march of them’.

  Four companies trotted up the road and began extending into skirmish order. The alarm had been given among the French now and they tried to get some of their battalions moving while others sent out skirmishers to meet the British. The French began firing ineffectively, but the Rifle company commanders knew their business well enough to ignore them and keep pressing forward until they were very close: ‘The 1st Batt 95th extended over their flanks within pistol shot of them, rattling away as fast as they could.’ Two Rifle companies kept going for the French centre and one around each flank. The French, seeing riflemen streaming past them on the slopes of the hills on each side, began running, fearing their retreat would be cut off. George Simmons, who had been with the 7th Company – turning one of the French flanks – watched his brother Joseph in action for the first time and saw that he acquitted himself well.

  There was panic now in the narrow main street of San Millan, drivers fleeing their wagons and men running back through the village and out its other side. There the French commander managed to form one battalion in line, ready to check the advance of the British skirmishers as they issued from the San Millan. The British would get a crashing volley of musketry and that would buy him time to try to turn the situation. For the French general Antoine-Louis Maucune knew something that the riflemen jogging through San Millan did not: that his division’s second brigade was somewhere further back on the same road, cut off by the British surprise attack.

  Wellington had by now ridden into the village – with the very spearhead of his Army – and was no further than a couple of hundred yards from that one formed French battalion. One of the 95th’s captains recorded, ‘Lord Wellington ordered four of the companies of our first battalion to attack.’ The riflemen came running towards the French firing line, dropping to one knee or to a prone position to squeeze off a shot now and then, but hardly slackening their pace. A few hundred skirmishers were not meant to be able to drive off a similar number of men in a formed line, but the French were already shaken and as the 95th came straight towards them, their volleys, aimed at men who were partially dispersed with some in cover, had no appreciable effect. The 95th maintained its progress and the French ranks broke and began fleeing before the British bayonets connected.

  The riflemen did not let up, even as they reached Val Puesta, the next village along the road. Many enemy soldiers, winded or bewildered, were now running off in all directions or giving themselves up. In the next little hamlet, Villa Nueva, the bugles sounded the recall and Colonel Barnard rallied his men before they dispersed too far. By this time they could hear the heavy firing behind them that announced that Vandeleur’s 2nd or Left Brigade of the Light Division had discovered Maucune’s lagging formation, and was giving it the same treatment. There the French troops had the choice of fighting to the death or fleeing up the steep hillsides: most opted for the latter course, leaving fourgons and caissons behind them.

  Some three hundred French prisoners were taken, along with many wagons and baggage animals. The Rifles and some Portuguese Cacadores soon set about breaking open the trunks and boxes, helping themselves to the plunder. The 43rd, who had been left behind by the rapidity of the attack, were miffed to miss out on the spoils: ‘Our men became outrageous, swearing they were never employed when there was anything to be got by it.’

  On occasions like this, it was first come, first served for food, drink and anything else easily portable in the baggage. The victorious regiments, however, would auction the animals, wagons and other large items, with the prize money being divided among the soldiers. The sale took place two days later, with those officers who still had a little money in their pockets able to pick up various bargains. There had been many ladies’ dresses in the baggage, intended presumably as gifts for the French officers’ sweethearts or mothers and now destined to serve the same purpose for the British: ‘They were purchased by some of the officers either as momentos of the fight … or very possibly intended as presents to their fair friends in England should the purchasers be fated to survive [emphasis in original].’

  As for Lord Wellington, he was already preoccupied that day with formulating a battle plan for a general action against the French on the plain of Vitoria. He intended to fall upon the combined armies of King Joseph, Napoleon’s brother, the following day, 21 June.

  At daybreak on the 21st the Light Division marched almost due north through a narrow gorge, emerging into an open valley surrounded by peaks. They followed the line of the River Zadorra for about two miles, keeping to its left bank, and then allowed the curve of the river and hill spur they were marching along to bring them around until they were facing due east. The entire French deployment of 57,000 troops was laid out in front of them. To the Rifles’ right, on a great ridge called the Heights of Puebla, action had already been joined by General Hill’s 2nd Division and one of Spanish troops. Smoke, musket fire, drumbeats and perhaps even the odd bagpipe announced that the battle for this lofty eminence had begun an hour or two earlier. It was Wellington’s aim to draw off French reserves to Puebla while he hit them in the centre and on the other flank.

  Looking from the riflemen’s vantage point, the centre of the French deployment was an impressive array of infantry and cannon in two lines. Not all of it was visible, since there were vineyards, orchards and undulations of the ground. On the British left of this position, the Zadorra snaked around the plain, along the flanks of the main French deployment. A right-angled bend in this stream meant that it marked not only the front of the enemy position (where the Rifles were) but its right flank too. Further to the British left of that stream were the mountains that marked the northern limit of the Vitoria plain, through which were several passes. Wellington had sent other columns on a wide-flanking march through the valleys, with the idea that they should burst out of these defiles, into the French flank and rear.

  Downhill in front of the 95th was a small village, Villodas, and its bridge across the Zadorra. This would be the objective for the Light Division’s 1st Brigade, but Wellington did not want to throw them forward too soon. He was just by the 1st Battalion of Rifles, looking no
w and then up and to his right, then over to the left, squinting into the distance for any sign that his columns were coming through the mountains. The French would have to be hit at several key points simultaneously, or the British general’s men would be defeated in turn.

  One officer of the 43rd looked down at Villodas, seeing its defenders, and said, ‘I do not like the idea of forcing the bridge. How the grape will rattle around us!’ Others thought the Rifles would soon be able to pick off the French gunners. Second Lieutenant Hennell looked along the line to see how the soldiers were dealing with this waiting game and was struck by their calm: ‘More jokes pass then than at a halt on a wet day and when we move forward every officer is more on the alert than usual. The men wipe their pans and see that the flint and steel are right as coolly as you would go shooting sparrows.’

  Seeing the British on the high ground behind Villodas, the local French commander did not intend to sit passively. He sent some companies of voltigeurs across the bridge and into the village, from where they opened fire. Since French balls began whistling around the ears of Wellington and his staff, Colonel Barnard led several companies of riflemen down to flush them out. Half an hour later the little French sally was over and they retired back across the stream.

  Wellington looked off to the left again and asked Lieutenant Simmons whether he could see anything. Simmons replied, ‘Yes my Lord, I see smoke and dust in that direction.’ It was time. Wellington looked across to the Rifles’ commanding officer and said, ‘All right; get along Barnard.’

  Riflemen moved down towards the old bridge but then, in one of those chances of war, Barnard met a local peasant who told them that a crossing further up the Zadorra was unguarded. The Rifles’ commander had been itching for a chance to distinguish himself and it could not have been offered more plainly to him. Barnard and his riflemen followed their guide to the left, up the river bank, as the slope became steeper and steeper. This little path, clinging to the craggy rock face, led them around the right-angled bend in the river and over one of the little bridges at a village appropriately named Tres Puentes. There, the riflemen, followed by the 43rd, crossed unopposed and went up a great hillock, the site of an ancient earthwork, from where they could see a few dozen French light roops by Tres Puentes’ main crossing, and Picton’s 3rd Division coming down from the north towards it. There were just a few French voltigeurs and dragoons guarding this point and Barnard resolved instantly to attack them with rifle fire, driving them away. A few dozen rounds sufficed to throw back the enemy. The Rifles’ unexpected appearance in this quarter earned them a few cannon shot from British guns on the opposite bank, and several men were cut down by their own side’s artillery before the firing could be halted. ‘The 3rd Division, at a run, crossed the bridge of Trespuentes, cheering but unopposed.’ Barnard’s gamble in bypassing the bridge at Villodas had succeeded beautifully. Realising they might soon be cut off by British troops who were almost behind them, the French defenders quit that point on the river bank, allowing the Light Division’s 2nd Brigade to cross at Villodas unopposed.