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

by Mark S. Thomson

  and again on 20 June 1810:

  Your friend Colonel Murray seems to like to keep us useless gentleman as far from the army as possible. The armies are contending on a frontier where certainly fortresses have some influence. Twenty of us are kept here making useless works and one Captain [Burgoyne] is with the army fortifying alone a fort which may perhaps be disputed.

  Burgoyne commented in a letter to Pasley on 26 March 1810 that he did not think Wellington could hold the Lines, although he did admit that he did not know much about them because of the secrecy. He surmised that Wellington was not confident about the strength of the defences due to him demanding sufficient transports to carry off the army. Burgoyne cynically suggested that Wellington’s reason was – I will show them I can do anything Sir John Moore could, i.e. fight a battle before withdrawing by sea.

  As the campaign progressed and the size of Masséna’s army fell in the imagination of the British officers, there was a growing confidence that perhaps the French could be stopped short of the British transports. In a more positive mood, Squire wrote to Henry Bunbury on 10 October 1810:

  When I told you in one of the letters written soon after my arrival in Portugal that the lines in front of Lisbon neither could nor ought to be defended I calculated that the enemy would not have committed the unpardonable error of invading this country with an army inferior in numbers to those who defend it.56

  Even after the Allied troops had entered the Lines there was no praise for the Lines or Wellington’s strategy, only criticism of the French.

  Was Masséna Starved Out?

  An essential part of Wellington’s strategy was the ‘scorched earth’ policy that would lead to the rapid starvation of the advancing French army. Despite his best efforts, several proclamations and threats of punishment for people who did not destroy usable goods, there is no doubt that there were still substantial supplies available when the French arrived in front of the Lines. Schaumann records in his diary that he was often sent out with foraging parties to find and remove stores ‘hidden’ by the Portuguese, using the same techniques that the French were well practised in. The Allied cavalry were also engaged in disrupting French foraging. The abandoned mills, which were supposed to have been completely disabled, were in many cases quickly back in action again. Whilst Wellington was very unhappy that the Portuguese civilians had not followed exactly their instructions to destroy everything of value, it is not surprising that they did not. They were being asked to destroy everything they owned with no promises that they would receive any help to replace their possessions. Many Portuguese civilians starved to death on the streets of their capital city during that terrible winter.

  There were a number of engineer officers who commented on the supply situation whilst Masséna was in front of the Lines. Soon after the French arrived, Burgoyne wrote:

  The country they are now occupying is a very fertile one and the harvest was got in entirely when they arrived. No measures were taken for driving the country … Even at Villa Franca a town … only one league in front of our line, a very large quantity of grain was left. Therefore all things considered the idea of starving the enemy out of their ground is out of the question.57

  A few days later, on 6 November 1810, John Squire wrote to Bunbury:

  Do not my dear friend believe that the enemy are in want of provisions. As they arrived just at the conclusion of the harvest I believe they are most amply supplied … their granaries were left full of corn and their cellars filled with the wine of the recent vintage. Large herds of cattle also remained for the enemy and while lately on the opposite side, on the left bank of the Tagus I saw an abundance of stacks of straw, Indian Corn etc. untouched, which convinced me that their supplies were by no means exhausted.58

  Whilst this meant that the French had adequate supplies for a few weeks, as the winter progressed the foraging parties had to cover larger areas, the brutality of their methods of extraction increased and ultimately the success of the foraging decreased. But even into 1811, there were still reports of the French having food. Fletcher wrote on 2 February: ‘They are said still to find an abundance of cattle’; Squire also commented on 1 March: ‘They display on their side of the Tagus a great abundance of sheep and cattle and are in no greater danger of starvation than ourselves.’

  In the end Masséna had no choice but to retreat as his force had steadily diminished throughout the winter to a point where it was no longer strong enough in numbers or in health to attack the Allied positions. It is likely that Masséna also knew that Allied reinforcements had arrived in the first days of March. It may have been that this, combined with no possibility of substantial reinforcements of his own, was the trigger for his decision to retreat. In the end Masséna did not even try to take the Lines. I will leave the final comment on the Lines to John Jones: ‘[This was the] first and only instance of a military enterprise planned and matured by Napoleon … being defeated by the … superior foresight of an opponent.’59

  Chapter 4

  1810 – A Year of Waiting

  With the recall of all engineer officers to Lisbon to work on the Lines in October 1809, there was little engineering activity further afield. Burgoyne and Emmett, who were based at Badajoz, continued surveying work in southern Spain. Emmett carried out a survey of the Guadiana south of Badajoz including the crossing-point at Jerumenha which would be of importance in 1811. Burgoyne surveyed the towns in the area including Campo Mayor which he described as a fortified town ‘but the ground is favourable for its approach and attack’. He also commented that it had very few guns, ‘all the places on the frontier having been dismantled to supply Elvas’.1 Royal Staff Corps officers were carrying out similar tasks, for example Alexander Todd surveying of the ground between Castello Branco and Punhete.2

  The end of 1809 saw the army moving from Badajoz back into Portugal, and in January 1810, Wellington moved his headquarters to Viseu with Craufurd’s light troops being pushed forward to the Spanish frontier. Apart from a feint by the French in February, when they advanced on Ciudad Rodrigo and summoned the fortress without having any guns to undertake a siege, things remained quiet until the end of April when Ciudad Rodrigo was properly invested. Despite pleas from Herasti, the governor, for Wellington to lift the blockade, no action was taken. A second summons was made on 12 May and Herasti again refused. The French now settled down to conduct a regular siege.

  Whilst the Allied army monitored the siege at Ciudad Rodrigo, surveying work continued, including Henry Goldfinch being ordered to survey the Bayonne islands off the Spanish coast near Vigo. Like the Berlingas islands off Peniche, these islands could become strongpoints if the Allied army was forced to evacuate the mainland. At the end of May, Burgoyne was ordered to repair the fort of La Conception near Almeida. Three days later, realising that they could not risk the repaired fort falling into French hands, Burgoyne was tasked with preparing mines to destroy the fort even as he carried out the repairs. On 18 June Burgoyne reported the breaches were repaired and the mine shaft was ready to be filled with gunpowder.

  Wellington knew he was going to retreat, whilst the French did not. His planning included surveying the routes for his retreat and identifying choke points where the French could be delayed. Burgoyne had surveyed Wellington’s probable line of retreat several months earlier. In January 1810, Wellington had ordered Burgoyne to

  survey the course of the Cris and to ascertain its course, by how many bridges and fords it is crossed, where the roads crossing it head to; whether it fills in winter, and how long it remains full; and whether the destruction of the bridge between Mortagua and Sao Comabadao [sic] and the destruction of the road leading from the bridge on the right of the river would be a serious impediment to the use of the road from Vizeu to Coimbra by Mortagua and Mealhada. Let him calculate the means of destroying that bridge and road. I would wish to have the same information regarding the Dão which joins the Cris immediately below Sao Combadao.3

  The siege of Ciudad R
odrigo dragged on for two months until 10 July, Herasti surrendering just before the French launched an assault on the breach. The French had lost ten weeks before the fortress.

  Fletcher joined the army from Lisbon in early July 1810, leaving John Jones in command of completion of the Lines of Torres Vedras. He was corresponding almost daily with Jones on the progress towards finishing the works. It is clear that Fletcher’s role was to manage the range of very different tasks carried out by his officers, each of which had a part to play in Wellington’s overall strategy. Fletcher was commanding individuals spread over hundreds of miles in the Peninsula where, signal stations excepted, news travelled at the speed of a horse, or more often a mule! One of Fletcher’s first tasks when he arrived at headquarters was to visit Almeida on 16 July and discuss its defence with the governor, Brigadier-General Cox. Fletcher, Chapman and Rice Jones also visited Fort Conception to see the preparations carried out by Burgoyne.

  Further delays now occurred as the French replenished their supplies before moving on Almeida, although a strong reconnaissance by the French had caused the fort of La Conception, near Almeida, to be blown up on 21 July. Mulcaster described the event in his diary:

  Burgoyne rode to show me the picquet and returned – going on with them through the village of Barquilla they encountered the enemy’s advance and a skirmish commenced against superior numbers; about 5 o’clock the picquet retired and I rode by desire of Major Hervey [Major Felton Hervey, 14th Light Dragoons] to tell Gos [Burgoyne] to lose no time in setting fire to the mines – Finding nobody there I was riding up the ramp when I heard the burning of the portfire and saw the smoke issuing from the gallery – I therefore rode with all possible speed out of the fort to the dragoons who were continuing to skirmish – the fort exploded about ¼ of an hour after I left it and the mines appeared to answer fully all the flanks, one face and the outworks being breached.

  Burgoyne also noted in his diary that:

  Captain Mulcaster went up to warn me to light them [the mines], but it was already done; the dragoons I had sent down to give everyone they met notice; neglected to tell him, and he was going up to the ramparts to look for me, when, smelling powder strong, he looked into one of the passages and saw the portfire burning. Of course he made off as fast as he could.4

  Brotherton of the 14th Light Dragoons noted that his skirmishing troopers were so close to Fort Conception that he ‘lost several horses and men by the explosion’. He also noted with regret that he saw the body of his Colonel who had been buried on the glacis at Fort Conception a few days before ‘blown into the air’.5

  Going back to Mulcaster’s diary:

  General Craufurd came up at Val de la Mula in front of which the enemy paraded for near an hour – they appeared to have 3 regiments of infantry and a battalion of light troops – The 14th [Light Dragoons] continued to retire very slowly and finally halted about 2 miles in front of Almeida at 11 o’clock – the enemy who had been extremely shy all day drawing off all but a small picquet – only 2 or 3 men and 6 or 8 horses wounded – At Almeida they have reformed the parapets and made some traverses in the most exposed fronts and are mounting a gun on a windmill about 900 yards from the covered way and entrenching it.

  Burgoyne had recorded in his diary on 30 June that he had been sent for by General Cox to ‘consult on a project of Lord Wellington’s’ to fortify the windmill and entrench the ground as far as a convent about 1,500 yards to the right of the mill. The purpose of the fortification was to preserve communications with the bridge over the Coa.6 Clearly this plan did not work, as the French advanced again on 24 July and gave the Light Division a bloody nose through Craufurd completely misreading the situation. It was forced to rapidly retreat across the Coa over the single small bridge. The engineers were very active over the next few days, riding round the outposts and reporting on the activities of the French, Fletcher riding out most days with Chapman and Rice Jones.7 Rice Jones also noted in his diary that Burgoyne and Thomson had been ordered to mine the Ponte de Murcella which was one of the major crossing-points on the river Mondego near Coimbra. The beginning of August saw a lull in French activity as they settled before Almeida.

  Wellington, to make sure he was fully aware of the movements of the French, stationed troops well forward of his main positions. This included numerous cavalry patrols led by some of the more enterprising officers under his command like Cocks and Krauchenburg. Wellington also ordered Rice Jones and Mulcaster to construct a number of telegraphs to allow communication between Almeida, Celorico and Guarda. Stations were also built at Freixadas and Alverca, Mulcaster noting on 8 August that he had been ordered to ‘construct a telegraph on the Lisbon principle’. The following day he said that the Portuguese telegraph was coming from headquarters.8 This would suggest that the army was carrying telegraph masts with them for such an eventuality. On 15 August, Rice Jones reported that ‘Captain Ross of the artillery rode to Linhares, from whence he distinguished the signals made by the Portuguese Telegraph with one arm, fixed upon the castle here [Celorico]’.9 The distance being about ten miles, they were having better success than their fellow engineers on the Lines of Torres Vedras.

  The French opened their trenches in front of Almeida on 15 August and the batteries were ready ten days later. Then came the disastrous explosion in the main magazine that led to the surrender on the 27th. Engineers remained active at the front, erecting further telegraphs and monitoring the activities of the French. Following a period of reorganisation the French army began their advance which led them to the ridge of Bussaco, where, on 27 September, Wellington repulsed the French attempts to dislodge him. Part of Wellington’s meticulous planning for his retreat included preparing the defences at Bussaco in case he decided to make a stand. Engineer officers were on the site several days before the battle, constructing a lateral road behind the Allied position to allow rapid redeployment of troops. Mulcaster also noted on 23 September ‘at work all night on a fleche [an earthwork with an open rear] … to secure a picquet from a cannonade’. Prior to the battle, Wellington had also began the destruction in his rear. Mulcaster was sent on 19 September to destroy the bridges over the Dão and Cris rivers near Santa Comba Dão which was completed on the 20th and 21st respectively.10

  The French now turned Wellington’s position, Fletcher reporting he ‘was sent forward yesterday to reconnoitre the enemy and finding that his movements threatened our left, Lord Wellington has this day ordered the … Army to cross the Mondego’11 and continue his retreat towards Coimbra. Wellington also ordered Burgoyne to conduct a last-minute survey of the river below Coimbra to identify how many crossing-points there were and to decide if it was necessary to blow the main bridge in the city.12 Burgoyne reported that there were numerous crossing places and blowing the bridge would be pointless. He also noted with some exasperation that he sent five copies of his letter before he received an acknowledgement.

  When the French reached the city they embarked on an orgy of looting that delayed their advance for a few days and gave Wellington’s troops an opportunity to retreat in a more leisurely fashion. As Wellington withdrew before the advancing French, another element in his defensive plan was initiated. Using the traditional Portuguese principle of calling the population to arms, the countryside over which the French advanced was abandoned with the people fleeing and all supplies (supposedly) being destroyed. This meant that the French advanced into a wasteland where there was insufficient food for the troops. When the French eventually came up to the Lines, they would find themselves with a formidable obstacle in front and limited means to stay or even retreat.

  The weather in the final days of the retreat was awful, Boutflower describing it as ‘the most uncomfortable day of my life without exception … It blew and rained with the most dreadful violence, and in a very short time rendered the roads nearly impassable’.13 The poor weather was probably more of an advantage to the Allied cause than the pursuing French. The first British troops arrived at the Line
s on 9 October, with the forts already being occupied by militia. John Squire, writing to Henry Bunbury on 10 October, described the defences at Alhandra as follows:

  General Hill’s division occupies the position of Alhandra, which is now by dint of excessive labour become almost unassailable. It consists of a ridge of heights, which commences about 600 yards from the Tagus and extends about 2½ miles in a westerly direction, where the country becomes less difficult of access. The interval between the heights of Alhandra and the Tagus is occupied by low marshy ground, across which is an entrenchment having a double ditch and since our arrival I have added an impenetrable abatis, so that I consider our right as secure as if we were in the fortifications of Malta.14

  When the Allied army entered the Lines in October 1810, engineering officers were assigned to each district with responsibility to continue construction work and repairs. This continued throughout the winter. Wellington was very pleased with the effort of the engineers, writing to Liverpool:

  It is but justice to Lieutenant Colonel Fletcher, and the officers of the Royal Engineers, to draw your Lordship’s attention to the ability and diligence with which they have executed the works, by which these positions have been strengthened to such a degree as to render any attack on that line occupied by the allied army very doubtful, if not entirely hopeless.15

  Fletcher had also recorded praise for the efforts of John Jones in the final months. Writing home he reported the ‘works are directed by Captain Jones with a degree of zeal and ability that no language of mine can do justice to’.16

  Occupation of the Lines, October 1810 to March 1811

  Wellington’s general strategy, which seems to have been missed by many of the ‘moaning’ Allied officers at the time, was for the forts to be occupied by second-line troops, that is Militia and Ordanenza, leaving the regular troops to remain mobile to move to any threatened point using the roads that had been constructed or repaired for this purpose. The troops were initially concentrated at three main points, Alhandra, Monte Agraça and between Torres Vedras and Monte Agraça.17