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

by Mark S. Thomson

  Following the investment of the fortress on the south side of the river Guadiana on 4 May, the guns at Olivenza were moved up and placed in the park behind the Cerro del Vinto on the 6th. The carriages were then sent off to Elvas to be available to bring up the next batch of guns. The guns for the attack on San Christobal had been available since 5 May, and were only waiting for the north side of the river to be invested. Dickson recorded that it would take two trips (that is, two days) to transfer the eight guns required for the north side. In the same letter he mentioned he was still waiting for two companies of Portuguese artillery, who were essential to progress the siege on the south side of the river.52

  Dickson expressed his confusion on 1 May, and again on 7 May, as to why the siege had not commenced.53 Similarly, there were a number of comments from engineer officers, the earliest being 25 April.54 The engineers believed that arrangements had been made for the right bank of the river Guadiana to be invested on 4 May. They moved stores and pontoons up and had to make rapid arrangements for their protection when no troops arrived on the right bank. Jones commented on 8 May that the stores for the attack on San Christobal had been waiting on carts for two days.55

  There appears to have been a change of plan around this time. Jones’ diary recorded that the plan of attack was put ‘on paper’ on 5 May, and agreed by Beresford on the 7th. Wellington’s earlier memorandum had not specified exactly how the attack was to be carried out, noting that after taking the three outworks, Beresford was to decide where to attack the castle. Although Wellington had suggested the south side of the fortress, he had not ordered it. The engineers had a clear preference under the time constraints for an attack on the castle, rather than the south side. It may have been the lack of trained sappers and miners that influenced the decision to attack San Christobal and breach the walls from a distance, as such an attack would require fewer sappers and miners. Based on the comments at the time from the engineers, it is probable that the plan Fletcher presented to Beresford on 7 May included a proposal to start the attack on the castle before San Christobal was taken. It was necessary to attack the Picurina outwork to do this; but it was not necessary to take the Pardaleras outwork. This was earlier than had been proposed in Fletcher’s original plan as documented in Jones’ Journal. Fletcher would have been looking for quicker ways to take the fortress to mitigate the impact of the additional delays since the original plan had been agreed. It was now two weeks since Wellington had sent his memorandum to the Spanish generals (and eight weeks since the French took Badajoz) and as yet, there had been no answer from them. That there was a change in the plan is indicated by the numerous comments from engineer officers which refer to attacks on San Christobal and Picurina and false attacks on Pardaleras. These include:

  It had however been previously decided to attack the castle at the east extremity of the town … the intention was to breach the castle, while batteries were established on the right bank of the Guadiana to take in flank and reverse. With this view it was necessary to take Fort Christobal … The whole was intended to be a simultaneous operation, so as to have divided the attention of the enemy. If we had had sufficient tools it was also proposed to make a fake attack to the westward by re-opening the trenches of the enemy.56

  On the 8th … we broke ground on this side against Fort Christobal in earnest and they in joke opened the old French parallels on the other side.57

  The project was to commence a parallel embracing the castle having its right on the river, and to attack that part, the castle being like most others on a hill accessible and the wall not covered; at the same time attacks were to be carried on against the fort of San Christobal on the opposite side of the Guadiana.58

  The attacks to be directed against the castle and Fort Christobal.59

  On the same day that Beresford approved the plan (7 May), Jones recorded that a working party was preparing materials near the spot where it was intended to start the battery against Fort Picurina.60 This would suggest the plan to attack the castle had been accepted. Significantly, Jones also noted that Lieutenant Forster RE was employed that night to cross the Rivellas stream and ascend the height to the castle wall to determine the feasibility of British troops approaching the walls. It is difficult to think of any reason to carry out such a dangerous reconnaissance unless the plan was to attack the castle at this point. It is probable that the actual plan followed by the engineers was what had been agreed with Beresford, but it has not subsequently been recorded in that way. It is inconceivable that the engineers would have been allowed to alter Wellington’s plans without his or Beresford’s agreement.

  Fletcher was marking out the positions for the trenches against the Picurina during the day on 8 May and Squire was doing the same on the other side of the river against San Christobal. The trenches were started against all three outworks on the night of 8 May. Jones started marking out the ground for the attack on the castle the following morning with the expectation that the trenches would be started that night. However, Beresford ‘forbade’ any work to start. Jones then wrote that the noon reliefs on 10 May for the attacks against the Picurina and Pardaleras were ‘nominal’ to make a ‘show of work’. Beresford agreed to start the attack on the castle on that day, but on hearing news of the French plan to move against him, he deferred the work again.61 At the evening relief on 10 May, because ‘Beresford was still forbidding’ work against the castle, ‘it became necessary to devise some means to amuse the enemy’,62 and further trenches were dug against the Picurina and Pardaleras. Jones again mentioned small parties working against the two outworks the next day.63

  The delay in starting the attack against the castle also had a major impact on the attack against San Christobal in that the fire from Badajoz was almost wholly directed against the attack on that fort. On the morning of 10 May, the French made a sortie against the works around San Christobal. They briefly took control of the trenches. They only did minor damage before they were repulsed, but the British covering party rashly chased them up to the very walls of the fort and suffered 400 needless casualties. Squire, who was commander of the attack on San Christobal, reported:

  I have the honour to report to you that at 7am the enemy made a sortie from Fort Christobal and from the line between that place and the bridge – They gained the [?] of our battery, but were immediately repulsed – our loss I believe has been rather severe – Lt Reid [RE] was in the battery at the time and he has received a slight contusion but is not incapacitated from doing his duty – it gives me the greatest pleasure to report to you the very handsome manner in which Col. Harcourt and all the officers of the covering party speak of the gallantry and zeal of that officer.64

  The delays caused by Beresford not allowing work to start against the castle was causing some frustration amongst the engineers:

  Still we were urged on … with the reason … that we were to take the fire off the main attack … by attracting it to ourselves!!!!!! … The daylight of each succeeding day however affording us the mortification of seeing that our promised support from the main attack had been withheld … Marshal Beresford not allowing the original plan to go on.65

  The project was to commence a parallel embracing the castle … at the same time attacks were to be carried on against the fort of San Christobal … This latter one however only was commenced, Marshal Beresford, who commanded saying he would take that first, the consequence was that the small attack [on San Christobal] … had to support for three days the whole fire and efforts of the place and fort.66

  On the evening of 10 May, Beresford finally gave permission for work to start against the castle on the following evening but insisted that it must not start until Fletcher could guarantee that the workmen would be fully protected from French fire by the morning. To achieve this the tools ordered from Lisbon were needed, and these were expected to arrive until the next day. The batteries finally opened against San Christobal on the morning of the 11th. D’Urban and Oman both suggested that the battery
at San Christobal started too early67 and took all the return fire from Badajoz. Ross, one of the engineers working at San Christobal, wrote clearly that ‘on the 11th by order, our battery of three 24-pounders and two 8-inch howitzers opened upon San Christobal having [the whole of] Badajoz opposed to it’.68

  The battery against the Picurina had been ready since 9 a.m. on the 10th. There is no specific information on when this battery opened fire, but Jones commented that the Picurina battery fired 160 rounds on 11 May, hitting the target only four times.69 This would strongly suggest that the battery had been firing for most of the day.

  Dickson said that his and Fletcher’s wish ‘was not to begin the fire from any one battery until the whole attack should be more advanced’.70 Their view was that the Picurina battery was not sufficiently far forward to support San Christobal. The effect of the two batteries fire was negligible due to the inexperience of the artillerymen and the faults in the guns. The battery against San Christobal was overwhelmed by fire, with four of the five guns being disabled by mid-afternoon. It was decided to build another battery next to the one that had been badly damaged, and this was started on the night of 11/12 May. This battery did not open fire before the siege was raised.

  At 5 p.m. on the 11th, Fletcher received news that the tools required to begin the attack against the castle would not arrive that night. He complained to Squire that the tools they had were so defective as to be almost unusable and told Beresford that the works against the castle could not start until the following night. When the new tools finally arrived, the trenches were started against the castle on the night of 12 May. Good progress was being made when at 1 a.m. an order was received from Beresford for the work to stop immediately and for the troops to be withdrawn.

  Activities over the next 48 hours became very confused, with most of 13 May being spent removing stores. However, work was still continuing against the forts of San Christobal and Pardaleras. According to Jones, at 6 a.m. on the 14th, Beresford wrote to Fletcher and suggested that the attack could continue against San Christobal, as he believed the French were only manoeuvring. Fletcher had started recalling the stores when he was informed that orders had been issued to the army to raise the siege and he then had to countermand his orders. On the night of 14 May, the batteries were dismantled and any remaining stores that could not be removed were burnt. Beresford, who had advanced to meet Soult, was very concerned about his rear as the temporary crossing-point over the Caya river had been dismantled and floated down to Jerumenha, leaving the bridge at Jerumenha as his only point of retreat if his army was beaten. He would have been very aware that these crossing-points had twice been made impassable in the last few weeks. He wrote to Fletcher asking him to make sure it was secure ‘as the ultimate safety of the army might depend upon it’.71 Fletcher personally inspected the bridges on the evening of 15 April ‘on his way to join the army’. The final covering forces did not leave Badajoz until the night of 15/16 May and marched straight to the battlefield at Albuera. Thus ended the first siege of Badajoz.

  Oman’s account of the siege is flawed in a number of places. He claimed that Wellington’s orders were for the siege of Badajoz to begin the moment that the guns and material were ready.72 This is not true. Wellington had told Beresford not to start the siege until the Spanish generals had agreed to his memorandum of operations. This did not happen until 8 May. The evidence shows that the siege was ready to start before that date. Oman states that the south side was invested on the 6th and the north side on the 7th.73 He also wrote that Beresford only invested the south side after Fletcher and Dickson said all the stores were ready on the 5th.74 These dates should in fact be 4 and 8 May, respectively. Wellington’s only comment on the investment dates are in a letter to Liverpool on 15 May, where he said both sides were invested on the 8th. Beresford, writing to Wellington on 3 May, stated that he intended to invest Badajoz on the 4th, but this did not happen.75

  Oman’s summary of the strategy accurately reports Wellington’s memorandum of 23 April 1811. He goes on to say that none of the attacks were to be false attacks and that the engineers had given Wellington ‘bad counsel as they certainly did to Beresford during the subsequent weeks’.76 He then concluded by saying that planning three attacks when the engineers knew they had limited resources was inexcusable. Oman’s criticisms are based on the premise that the engineers were following the plan described by Wellington on 23 April, but the diaries of the engineers show that they were not. A more plausible explanation is that the engineers were operating to a plan based on that originally proposed by Fletcher, but with a change to bring forward the attack on the Picurina and castle to make up some of the additional lost time and this is what was agreed with Beresford on 7 May.

  Without even looking at the actual work undertaken during this first siege, the timescale for its completion was unrealistic. The whole operation started too late and was too hurried. Wellington was desperate to recover Badajoz, as his whole strategy was dependent on it being in Allied hands. Wellington pressured the engineers to come up with a plan to meet his tight schedule. The plan was risky, but could have worked. The strength of San Christobal was certainly underestimated but at the time both the engineer and artillery commanders believed it was possible to take the fort in a few days.

  There was real confusion both at the time and amongst later writers about which plan was being followed. The plan Wellington wrote up was not that proposed by Fletcher. The plan implemented was not that proposed by Fletcher either, but was much closer to it. The engineers believed they were working to a plan that Beresford would not let them implement fully, after he had approved it. Their frustration comes through clearly in several of their letters.

  The resources required were not available, either in terms of guns or siege materials. The siege train was too small and ineffective. Although thirty-two guns were available for the siege, only thirteen of these made it into the batteries. Five guns77 opened against San Christobal on 11 May, four of which were damaged the same day and were not replaced before the siege was raised, although a new battery for four guns was started. The eight guns for the attacks on the two outworks on the south side were too far away to cause any significant damage. During the whole siege there were only five siege guns firing to make a breach from 7 a.m. to around noon on 11 May. The stores in terms of tools, shot and powder were insufficient and had to be shipped in from Lisbon. Even the reduced stores ordered from Lisbon did not arrive until the 12th.

  There were too many delays in starting the siege. It appears that the decision to besiege Badajoz had developed a level of momentum and rather than stop it, each problem just delayed the start, with no-one re-evaluating the costs and benefits of continuing with the siege. Most of the delays were not the fault of the engineers. These included the problems with the bridging across the Guadiana, getting the stores to Badajoz and getting the agreement of the Spanish commanders to Wellington’s operational plan. The loss of a week between 24 April and 1 May, due to the river rising, was the last in a series of delays that severely affected the plan to attack Badajoz. Wellington’s correspondence shows that the deciding factor for starting the siege was the agreement of the Spanish commanders to his memorandum. Beresford did not want to commit to starting the siege until he knew he would have their full support. Neither Oman, Fortescue or later historians pick up on this.

  Beresford knew on 10 May that Soult was advancing to relieve Badajoz. He was in a difficult situation. There was no way that there would be sufficient time to complete the siege before Soult arrived. But if Soult was just making a demonstration, or decided that his force was not strong enough and retired, Beresford would be criticised for raising the siege too early.

  The engineers all wanted to start the attack on the castle on 9 May, but Beresford would not allow them. From the 11th, Beresford was trying to protect the siege materials and conduct the siege at the same time. The result was that neither was done successfully. The siege was half-hearted in
its application and many stores had to be destroyed when the siege was raised. A better strategy would probably have been to suspend the siege and keep a tight blockade around Badajoz until Soult’s intentions were clear and then restart with all the materials and resources immediately at hand. In the end there was no way that the siege could have succeeded. There were only five days between the investment of the fortress and the raising the siege. It was impossible to take the fortress in that time. It should be remembered that the French took forty-two days to take Badajoz and that was through surrender. It would have taken them longer to take the fortress by storm.

  One impact of the first siege of Badajoz was the effect it had on Beresford’s reputation. There was a growing lack of confidence in his leadership that had started with the action at Campo Mayor. Gordon, Wellington’s ADC, had very little good to say about Beresford before they rode down to sort out the problems. Squire described the leadership as all ‘doubt and indecision’.78 Boutflower, the surgeon of the 40th Foot, complained that they were ‘victims of some shameful mismanagement’.79 Following the Battle of Albuera, there were many more officers complaining about Beresford’s leadership.

  The first siege resulted in nearly 750 casualties with no visible benefit, although the bulk of the casualties were caused by the reckless pursuit of the French sortie on 10 May. Of the twenty-one engineers present, two were killed and three wounded, all in the attack on San Christobal.80 The troops were despondent, and after the bloodbath at Albuera they were to come straight back to Badajoz to try again.