Wellington’s Engineers: Military Engineering on the Peninsular War 1808-1814

by Mark S. Thomson

  The number of engineer officers was so small that they often worked alone and this required a great deal of self-confidence in their professional capacity and in dealing with authority. There was no one to ask if you did not know what to do. There is some evidence that this was true up to the highest levels. One example is Captain Henry Anderson, the commanding engineer on Madeira, who in April 1808 complained he had not received any correspondence or orders for eight months! Communication between Richard Fletcher and the Board of Ordnance was also decidedly one-way. Engineer officers were literally on their own for most decisions. The engineers felt they were the elite in the armed forces and even within the Ordnance the top students almost always elected for the Royal Engineers in preference to the Royal Artillery. The army, for its part, had mixed views about engineer officers. Words like arrogant, distant, aloof, stand-offish and serious were typical descriptions. There is no doubt that some were arrogant and opinionated. Their unusual roles and responsibilities meant they behaved differently and were treated differently.

  In August 1808, when Captain Howard Elphinstone stepped ashore in Mondego Bay, he was the first engineer to command in the Peninsular War. He was the first of four officers who held the position of Commanding Royal Engineer (CRE) with the Allied army during the war (see Appendix 1). The CRE with the Allied army had another daunting challenge; his commander was Sir Arthur Wellesley, who was not known to be an easy person to work for. He was also not well known for taking advice from others, which was going to be an unavoidable role for the senior engineer. The CRE was part of Wellington’s management team that included the Quarter Master-General, the Commissary General and the Commander of the Royal Artillery. Typically, when on campaign these officers would meet with Wellington every day. The person who held the unenviable role of CRE for most of the war was Richard Fletcher, a lowly captain in 1808 and probably the most junior person by rank on Wellesley’s staff. We will come back to him later.

  Because the number of engineers was so small, this book can talk about the engineer officers as individuals. It means we can examine their hopes and aspirations, their arguments and their friendships, their roles and what they thought of them. George Landmann, who was officially attached to the Gibraltar garrison, managed to spend most of the war being in places where he was not supposed to be, sometimes with great value and sometimes not. Reading Rice Jones’ diary there seems to be a relationship between his health when he was ordered on services which looked interesting, and his illnesses when they looked less so. Howard Elphinstone arrived with a reputation of being difficult and did his best to live up to it. But aside from my cynicism, there were some deep friendships formed between engineers and senior officers in the army. This was often based on previous service together, John Squire and Sir John Moore and John Burgoyne and Sir Thomas Picton being examples.

  The main thing the engineer officer brought was flexibility – staff officer; liaison officer; builder of roads and bridges, destroyer of them too; siege master; builder of defences both static and field; surveyor; well-digger; and negotiator. Also, whilst it was not their primary role, engineers, like their fellow officers in the army, wanted to be on active service in preference to being ‘stuck’ working on fortifications or lines of communication. An engineer officer would never miss an opportunity to be present at a battle.

  The Ordnance and the Army

  As mentioned above, the provision of military services to the British government came from a number of different sources. The main source of soldiers came from the army, centred on the Commander-in-Chief at Horse Guards. The army provided infantry and cavalry, but had no control over where they were used, their funding or their movement. These responsibilities were firmly held by the government. Completion of the martial forces came from the Board of Ordnance who provided the artillery and engineers. The Board of Ordnance had immense responsibilities, being responsible for the upkeep of military establishments worldwide, e.g. the major facilities at Plymouth, Portsmouth and Chatham were all under their control. The Board of Ordnance was also responsible for the supply of guns and ammunition to the army and the navy, both at home and overseas. The other main difference between the Army and the Board of Ordnance was in their representation in government. The army had none, whilst the Master-General of the Ordnance was a member of the Cabinet and consequently had a greater opportunity to influence policy.

  The presence of two different military hierarchies led to a number of difficulties. The first and most obvious was that the general commanding the army did not have direct command over Ordnance officers. Operationally, this did not usually present problems as they expected to get their day-to-day instructions through the army hierarchy. It was more of a problem for the bigger decisions. A general could not influence the appointment of specific officers or the number of them on service. Such requests had to be made to the Board of Ordnance for their consideration. At the start of the war there was a level of concern at the Board of Ordnance, mainly around Wellington not officially recognising (through his Dispatches) the contribution of the Ordnance officers. Later on, as Wellington’s successes grew, there was a greater willingness to meet his needs.

  The second area that caused problems was the award of brevet ranks. Brevet rank was awarded to army officers for exceptional service, usually in the field. A frequent way to obtain a brevet promotion was to be mentioned in dispatches. A brevet rank entitled the officer to use the rank in terms of seniority, but without the associated pay. Ordnance officers were entitled to be awarded brevet ranks, but these were army ranks only and did not count in the Ordnance. So, a Royal Engineer captain awarded a brevet majority would not outrank his fellow Ordnance captains on the basis of his brevet rank, but he would outrank an army captain. The engineer officers serving in the field had greater opportunity to obtain brevet ranks and this caused great resentment amongst the home based officers. This was particularly true in 1812 where a small number of engineer officers gained two brevet promotions in the year for their efforts in the great sieges at Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz. There were also a number of occasions in the Peninsula when an engineer officer tried to claim seniority over his fellow engineers by use of his brevet rank. Everyone knew that this was not acceptable but it did not stop them trying. Apart from the kudos of being in command, engineer officers received substantial command pay.

  Brevet ranks also caused friction in one other area. The Board of Ordnance had slightly different ranks to the army. The main difference was the rank of Second Captain (junior to a captain) in the Ordnance. This rank was not entitled to brevet promotions. As the war progressed there were more and more occasions when Second Captains were overlooked when their fellow officers gained brevet rank. Following a plea to Wellington in 1813 the ruling was changed.

  A Brief History of the Royal Engineers from its Inception

  The Corps of Royal Engineers was formed in 1717 to provide trained specialists for the British military. Prior to this time, the Board of Ordnance kept a small number of officers to advise on engineering matters, but generally when the British Army went on campaign it hired foreign specialists to provide these services. When first formed, the Corps had twenty-eight officers. This number grew slowly until the start of the Napoleonic Wars when there was a large increase in numbers to keep up with the demand from across the world.

  With the exception of India, where the East India Company appointed its own engineers, the Royal Engineers served as far afield as the Indian Ocean, the West Indies, the Cape and North America. Unlike their peers in the army, an officer in the Ordnance had to undergo professional training and pass examinations before they were commissioned. The commissioned Ordnance officers would then choose or be assigned to the artillery or the engineers. The best students typically chose the engineers. Engineer and artillery cadets received the same training and this was not just about fortifications and guns. The syllabus included chemistry, physics, military engineering, languages, fencing and dancing. These last two were
often seen as interchangeable: fencing was dancing with more serious consequences if you got the steps wrong.

  Unlike the army, commissions could not be purchased. Entry was by application to the Master-General and subsequent promotion was strictly by seniority. Ordnance officers were also not able to sell their commissions and this led to stagnation in the senior posts as there were limited opportunities to obtain a pension. The oldest officer in post (until he died) was eighty-four! Whilst the common view is that promotion by seniority was much slower than by purchase, an analysis of promotions in the Royal Engineers during this period does not support this view. What did change was that the rapid increase in the size of the Corps of Royal Engineers and the promotion opportunities caused by casualties meant that engineer officers gained promotion much faster than their predecessors.

  The Royal Military Artificers and Royal Sappers and Miners

  One of the anomalies of the Corps of Royal Engineers at this time was that it was an officer-only organisation. There were no rank and file. Manual labour and tradesmen were provided from the infantry regiments whilst on campaign and by local civilians for static establishments. The first steps to redress this omission were taken at the garrison in Gibraltar in 1770 when the senior Royal Engineer suggested that skilled tradesmen should be transferred from the garrison regiments there and formed into a permanent body to carry out military engineering work. A Royal Warrant was issued in 1772, to raise a ‘Company of Soldier Artificers’ to serve only at Gibraltar.3 In 1786, a second company was raised.4 As tensions grew in Europe, and the need to defend the shores of Great Britain became more apparent, a further six companies were raised in 1787, under the title of the ‘Corps of Royal Military Artificers’ (RMA). They were to serve at Woolwich, Chatham, Portsmouth, Gosport, Plymouth and the Channel Islands. Again, each company was destined to serve only in the one location. A further four companies were added in 1806 to serve at Dover, Cork, in Nova Scotia and in the West Indies.

  The intention behind the formation of the RMA was to provide skilled workmen at the main Ordnance facilities around Britain, Europe and eventually the globe. There was never any intention that these troops would be mobile and available to travel in significant numbers with an army. The lack of their own officers meant that they were never properly managed and they were allowed levels of freedom that should never have been tolerated in any military organisation. Captain Charles William Pasley RE commented on the soldiers ‘going grey’ in the corps, while stagnating in the same location, for life. He also commented on the effects of receiving volunteers from the line regiments, which allowed units to get rid of their worst men.5

  The Formation of the Royal Staff Corps

  Friction between the Army and the Board of Ordnance about the supply of officers and equipment was not unusual, the campaigns in the Low Countries in the 1790s being a low point in the relationship. The Duke of York, who commanded one of these unsuccessful campaigns, felt that he was let down badly by the Ordnance and took steps to ensure it never happened again. In 1800, the Royal Staff Corps (RSC) was formed to provide the same services that historically had been provided by the Royal Engineers. This small corps contained both officers and artificers and initially was a single company strong, although it did later grow to battalion size. Both officers and artificers had to have training either at a military school or through an apprenticeship. A number of officers, including Henry Sturgeon, transferred in from the Ordnance, but subsequently they provided their own officers.

  The RSC was not meant to be a direct replacement for the Royal Engineers, but was designed to work alongside them. In theory the Royal Engineers focussed on static defences (sieges and fortifications) and the RSC concentrated on operational work (reconnaissance, mapping, bridging and field works), but in practice the line between them became blurred very quickly. The formation of the RSC was to ensure that the Army had some engineering expertise under its direct control.

  The Contribution of the Portuguese Engineers

  One area that remains overlooked and needs further research is the contribution of the Portuguese engineers to the Peninsular War. They tend to make fleeting appearances in English works but clearly played a larger role. Some senior Portuguese engineer officers were appointed as military governors in various towns and they had a constant presence in most Portuguese fortresses. The defences around the city of Lisbon were under their control throughout the war. Their involvement in the design and construction of the Lines of Torres Vedras remains a little controversial. They clearly had more involvement than they have been given credit for. The name of Neves Costa was virtually unknown outside of Portugal until recently, but his contribution to the Lines is now better understood.

  The Portuguese engineer service was also complete in the way that the British was not, They had both officers and artificers and these were deployed with some Portuguese army brigades. This was something that Wellington could not even consider until late 1813. When Wellington advanced towards the French border in 1813, Portuguese engineers went with him. The English pontoon trains were actually operated by Portuguese seamen. The Corps of Guides, formed in Portugal in September 1808 by George Scovell, appears to have been mainly Portuguese and some of them were certainly involved in mapping over the coming years.

  There is an absence of significant recent work on the engineering services supporting the British army. The relevant volume of the history of the Corps was written over 100 years ago. The history of the Royal Sappers and Miners is even older. There is almost nothing in print on the Royal Staff Corps. The situation is no better in Portugal. Sepluveda’s work on the Portuguese engineers is also 100 years old. It is time for a re-evaluation. This book tells the same story of the Peninsular War, but from a different perspective. This is not about the detail of the major battles or sieges, it is about the unseen and little-understood work that went on around the major events and contributed to their success.

  Chapter 1

  1808 – Success, Controversy and Disaster

  The first campaign in the Iberian Peninsula saw the piecemeal arrival of British troops from all over Europe. Various fleets converged on Mondego Bay in July and August 1808 from England, Ireland, Sweden and the Mediterranean. The first engineers to arrive from Cork with Sir Arthur Wellesley were Captain Howard Elphinstone with Second Captain Patton and Lieutenants Williams, Boteler, Wells and English. Captain George Landmann with Lieutenants Mulcaster and Mercer arrived from Gibraltar with Sir Brent Spencer. Captain Richard Fletcher with Captains Squire and Burgoyne, Lieutenants Smith, Forster and Stanway arrived with Sir Harry Burrard and Sir John Moore.

  Elphinstone had recently returned from the ill-fated South American expedition to the Rio de la Plata and was assigned to Sir Arthur Wellesley’s new South American task force. Following requests for support from the Spanish provinces that had risen against Napoleon, the task force was rapidly diverted to the new Iberian adventure. In the early euphoria following the French surrender at Bailén on 19 July 1808, the Spanish were keen to get assistance in the form of arms and money but were reluctant to allow British troops on their soil. Wellesley’s original plan was to land his troops at Corunna but the Spanish suggested he would be better employed supporting the Portuguese. Wellesley accordingly moved south to Oporto and then on to Lisbon for talks with the Portuguese authorities.

  Elphinstone wrote frequently to his wife and provides entertaining although not always accurate commentary on what was going on. As the senior engineer present he became, by default, the Commanding Royal Engineer with the army. Writing home to his wife on 27 July 1808, he expressed his initial impressions and hopes for the campaign.

  We anchored in this bay [Mondego Bay] yesterday morning and are to land in the course of a day or two. The inhabitants are friendly to us and there is no danger in landing … Junot has but a small force in Lisbon such as I think will surrender upon our appearance … I am only afraid that the opposition will be so trifling that I shall not get a Majority
[i.e. promotion] from the French rogue.1

  He also noted that he dined with Sir Arthur Wellesley on his first night ashore and said ‘from what I can perceive at present everything will go on alright with him’.2 His first intention was to get transport for himself, but, as the whole army was discovering, horses were in very short supply and his demands on the commissariat fell on deaf ears. As Elphinstone was riding a mule at the first battle, his high hopes of securing a thoroughbred were obviously dashed. Having said that, you should not confuse an Iberian mule with a British seaside donkey, these were big, powerful brutes! He noted he paid 94 dollars for his ‘neddy’.

  In the days following Elphinstone’s landing, other engineers started arriving including Captain George Landmann, whose father was Professor of Fortifications at the Royal Military Academy. Landmann had powerful delusions of grandeur and soon would get his brief moment of glory. But first, like Elphinstone, he needed personal transport and bought a pony without a personal inspection. You can hear Landmann making fun of himself as he described the first ride on his new pony on 10 August 1808:

  … at the sounding of the bugle next morning, I jumped up and ordered my famous pony to be accoutred with my handsome new Mameluke saddle, holsters and ornamented bridle etc; then swinging over my left shoulder, my spy glass … and my haversack … over my right shoulder, I mounted [and found that whatever encouragement was applied] my pony advanced no faster than a walk.3

  Landmann’s movements in these early days of the war are fairly well known through his self-publicising two-volume memoirs.4 But he does also tell us what Wellesley and Elphinstone were doing.

  Beginning a trend that continued throughout the war, engineers were assigned to each infantry brigade and would report directly to the unit commander. Landmann was appointed to General Fane’s brigade. Elphinstone as CRE would have remained with Wellesley at his headquarters.