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

by Mark S. Thomson

  The Allied battery opened for the first time on 25 September. Dickson commented at the end of the first day that ‘it being found from the want of precision in the [24-pounder] howitzers with round shot, a greater expenditure of ammunition would be required … than the limited means … could afford’.20 Ten per cent of the available round shot were used in one day to discover that the guns were highly inaccurate! Dickson recorded that the soldiers were offered a bounty for every roundshot they could recover for re-use and so as not to discourage them, even roundshot of calibres which were of no use were paid for. Wellington wrote to both the Royal Navy and the nearest fortresses for additional supplies. On the same day, a mine was started to run a shaft through to the ditch. On the 29th, the a mine was declared ready and the assault planned for that night. Like the previous attempt, the assault party was small, only 300 men. The mine exploded, but the assault failed due to the forlorn hope losing their way in the dark and missing the breach. There was no engineer officer available to accompany the assault party and this probably was a contributing factor to the soldiers losing their way.21 Jones noted that the effect of 1,000 pounds of powder in the mine did not have the impact he would have expected and this may have been because the mine was placed against old foundations rather than against the current wall.22

  Work progressed on a second mine and a new battery close to the wall on the west side of the fortress. The French detected it before the battery had opened fire and they pounded it mercilessly, damaging two of the three guns that Wellington possessed. On the orders of Wellington, the two damaged guns were mounted on temporary carriages and fired with reduced charges (and reduced effect) for the remainder of the siege. The second mine was successfully blown on 4 October, and finally the outer wall was taken by a battalion of the 24th Foot. Casualties during the assault amounted to thirty-seven killed and 213 wounded. Among the wounded was John Jones, reducing the number of engineer officers present to three. His injuries forced him to return home, although this did give him the spare time to publish in 1814 the first edition of his comprehensive work on the British sieges of the Peninsular War. Jones’ autobiography described the circumstances:

  Lord Wellington desired Colonel Jones to proceed into the trenches … adding however that he should not fire the [mine] till after he [Jones] had taken off his hat and the signal had been acknowledged by a similar lifting of his Lordship’s beaver … a little after sunset Colonel Jones … stepped out of the parallel … and made the arranged signal … by holding up his hat; no acknowledgement followed, again and again the hat was held up … on the signal being … repeated … there was speedily a line of musketeers firing at him … at length one took effect, knocked him over and with difficulty he rolled himself over into the parallel.

  Wellington later explained that Jones was not making the signal at the agreed spot, as he was trying to stay out of sight of the French garrison when he realised the agreed spot was out in the open. Eventually he moved to the agreed spot to make the signal and was shot by the defenders. Jones was upset that he was not mentioned in dispatches, Wellington remarking that he would not give praise to any officer who unnecessarily exposed himself. Jones’ painful injury required his removal to Lisbon and he recorded that Wellington gave him the only sprung waggon with the army and all his remaining claret.23 There is a touch of theatre to Jones’ descriptions of events in his Autobiography. It is unlikely that he would have been mentioned in dispatches for the third time in 1812. The previous two times had resulted in brevet promotion and this had already caused resentment amongst his peers.

  For the next sixteen days the siege staggered on. The Allies had neither the guns nor ammunition to make progress and the defenders had plenty of both. The situation reached its worst point on 2 October, when the whole of the working party for the night, with the exception of the Guards regiments, did not turn up. This led to a stinging rebuke from Wellington and some officers being arrested for neglect of duty. The French launched two sorties on 5 and 8 October, causing some damage but Wellington’s troops had just lost heart. A third mine was started on the 10th, under the church of St Roman. Sturgeon suggested that a gallery could be run from the trenches to the castle, a distance of about 100 yards using the town fire engine to pump air, but Burgoyne thought this was not possible ‘and the idea was dropped’.24 The mine was blown with the final assault on 18 October, when 400 troops assaulted the second line. The defenders stood firm and the attack was repulsed with the loss of 160 men. After this, the siege just petered out and it was raised by Wellington two days later as the French armies finally started to threaten his position.

  Analysis of the Siege

  There was clearly a serious underestimation of the resources required for the siege. Burgos was not a strong place and even the smallest siege train would have caused severe damage in very little time. Jones described Burgos ‘as a very insignificant fortress’.25 Wellington must have believed that it would put up no defence and once the siege started he would not accept that there were insufficient resources to take it. According to Fortescue, Wellington had ‘snatched away more than one Indian fortress by escalade, he hoped to do the like with Burgos’.26 Fortescue summed up the result: ‘At Burgos … he fulfilled his threat and tried East Indian methods with disastrous results’.27

  The three attempts to assault the castle were all made by small groups of men who were heavily outnumbered by the defenders.28 Whether this was due to Wellington’s guilt about the casualties at earlier sieges is not clear, but launching troops against defences that had not been seriously weakened could have no result other than high casualties. The effort of the troops and officers was not up to the usual standard and Burgoyne particularly singled out the Portuguese units for their lack of effort. But it must have been obvious to all the troops that the resources available were insufficient. Perhaps the troops were getting sick of being used as cannon fodder? Two thousand were injured at Burgos with nothing to show for it. The retreat that followed finished 1812 with a real blow after the successes earlier in the year.

  In his dispatch after the siege had been raised, Wellington made it clear that he did not hold the artillery or engineer officers to have been at fault,29 a fairer statement than those he made after the successful siege of Badajoz. Considering the resources that they had to work with, it is difficult to see what else could have been achieved. The engineer resources were minimal. From the eighth day of the thirty-five day siege, they were down to four engineers when Captain Williams was killed and three engineers from the eighteenth day when Jones was incapacitated. Burgoyne was lucky to be alive and the two engineer lieutenants, Reid and Pitts, were also sick for part of the time. Of the ten assistant engineers, six were killed or wounded.

  Three mines were dug and exploded without any trained miners being present. There were also no miners’ tools and normal pickaxes had to be used.30 Jones stated that the reason for the unplanned assault on the outer wall on 22 September was because Wellington was doubtful that the mining could succeed without trained miners.31 Jones continued that because the second assault failed, a further five days were lost whilst the second mine was dug. The mines had varying success. The first did not do the damage expected, possibly due to encountering old foundations. The second made a large breach in the wall as expected, while the third caused extensive damage to the terrace in front of the breach but did not bring down the church, which it had been expected to do. However, the purpose of the third mine was to provide access to the upper level and this was achieved by destroying the terrace.

  Overall, Jones was much more critical of the engineering effort than Wellington, although the principal thrust of his criticism was still the lack of trained sappers and miners, believing that if sufficient had been present, much more progress would have been made. The decision to mine the defences was probably made to remedy the deficiency of ordnance. The walls, as even the limited ordnance available showed, were not very strong. A proper siege train would have remove
d any need for mining. Jones, who became a trusted advisor to Wellington in post-Waterloo Europe, still blamed him personally for his injuries and Burgoyne, who was also well thought of by Wellington, was no less critical. Burgoyne, writing privately to Fletcher, was highly critical of the efforts of the troops and of Wellington’s decision to assault with small numbers of men. Like Jones, he believed that Burgos could have been taken with the resources available. One of Burgoyne’s final comments, which Wrottesley32 did not print in his biography, was ‘the last assault failed entirely due to the small number of the storming parties against a fort having 1,500 men in it – they carried the works easy but could not hold them’.33 As on a number of other occasions, Wrottesley adjusted Burgoyne’s quotes when they were especially critical of Wellington. Burgoyne’s final paragraph in his private letter to Fletcher, in the version published by Wrottesley stated: ‘I have heard a hint that Lord Wellington said that the engineers told him “the fort might be taken without guns”. This I do not believe; first, because it is not like him to say that he went by other people’s advice … although he occasionally listened to some project or other.’34

  Burgoyne actually wrote:

  I have heard a hint that Lord Wellington said that the engineers told him ‘the fort might be taken without guns’. This I do not believe because it is not like him, as I believe he never pays anyone the compliment to insinuate that he took their advice, though he may perhaps in a case of failure … and although he occasionally listened to some foolish project or other.35

  His personal view was not new. A year earlier, he had written:

  There is an account current that his Lordship says ‘if he undertakes another siege, he will be his own engineer.’ Whatever faults were committed at Badajoz [in 1811], I suspect he was not aware of them, and I think it is very doubtful whether he knows them now. This is a consequence [?] of his system of insinuating blame … whether deserved or not.

  The final sentence in italics is the portion of the letter criticising Wellington that Wrottesley also ‘forgot’ to include in his biography of Burgoyne.

  There is an interesting parallel between the French attitude to the Lines of Torres Vedras and the Allied failures in front of the forts of Salamanca and at Burgos. Both forces had been told about the situation in front of them, but both chose to ignore the warnings until it was too late, with terrible results.

  The engineers did what they could with very limited resources and for once the British army did not pull a victory from the jaws of defeat in spite their general’s failings. Burgos was probably the biggest failure under Wellington’s command in the Peninsula. Wellington seemed to go out of his way to exonerate his engineer and artillery officers from any blame, which is probably as close as he ever came to admitting a mistake. The Allied failure in front of Burgos was now to become even worse.

  The Retreat from Burgos

  Although Porter, the historian of the Royal Engineers, unbelievably described the retreat as ‘leisurely’, it was anything of the kind, being the nearest Wellington came during the war to losing his army.36 On 20 October, the troops started their withdrawal, with the siege guns going the following night. Dickson, finding the roads too poor to move the heavy guns, destroyed them. The Allied army, with the French in close pursuit, retired towards Valladolid. On the 24th, Wellington tried to make a stand at the Carrion river near Palencia. Later that day, Burgoyne was ordered to destroy four bridges in the area at Dueñas, Tariego, Villa Muriel and Palencia. Having only two engineers with him, Lieutenants Pitts and Reid, Burgoyne also used two Assistant Engineers, Major Thomson and Lieutenant Barney. Pitts was sent to Tariego but was incorrectly told by the Allied outposts that the French already had taken the bridge. Realising the mistake in the morning, Pitts went to the village but the French arrived before the bridge could be destroyed. Similarly at Palencia, Reid could not destroy the bridge before the French entered the town. Major Thompson succeeded in blowing one arch at Villa Muriel and Lieutenant Barney succeeded in partially destroying an arch at Dueñas with advice from Burgoyne.

  Several miles to the south-west, Burgoyne blew the bridge over the Pisuerga at Cabezon. He recounted a rare difference of opinion between the engineering services where Wellington had asked Sturgeon of the Royal Staff Corps to blow the bridge and to his surprise, Sturgeon reported he needed thirty-six hours to do it. When Burgoyne was asked for an opinion he said he could do it much quicker and completed the task in five hours.37 The command of the engineers changed on that day, with Burgoyne simply noting ‘Sir Richard Fletcher arrived from Badajoz’. Every available engineer was being used to destroy bridges on the retreat to delay the French pursuit. Two bridges over the Pisuerga were put out of action near Valladolid and, further west, bridges over the Douro at Tordesillas and Toro were mined. On 29 October, bridges were mined at Zamora and Tudela. Wellington now tried to hold the French at Tordesillas and redoubts and batteries were built over the next four days. On 8 November Wellington retreated to Salamanca, building redoubts on the heights of San Christobal. Lieutenant Harry Jones RE (brother of John Jones) noted in his diary ‘building three breastworks at Aldeaseca and Vilanes’.38

  Lieutenants Pitts and Barney (Assistant Engineer) were sent to mine two more bridges over the Tormes at Congosta and Barco de Avila. Wellington managed to stay there for a week but superior French forces were concentrating before him and managed to cross the Tormes on 15 November, forcing him to retire once again towards Ciudad Rodrigo. Burgoyne noted in his diary on 16 November that he was ordered to ride for the fortress, Wellington having received information that the recently-repaired walls ‘had fallen in’. Burgoyne noted with surprise that the repairs designed by Fletcher had ‘not fallen in, but menacing it strongly, and [were] propped up with beams’.39

  One can imagine that Wellington would have been very unhappy with his engineers. Having had ten months to complete the repairs, they failed just as he was in desperate need of a secure base. With a superior French army approaching, there was a very real chance that Ciudad Rodrigo could be lost again. Fortunately, the French did not press their pursuit any further and were not aware of the opportunity they had missed. Bizarrely, there did not appear to be any real urgency to correct the fault. Lieutenant Reid reporting on 17 December that he could not get enough workmen and he expected that the repairs would not be complete until mid-February 1813. It is difficult to believe that the Allies thought the fortress would be safe through the winter when it was less than a year since Wellington had taken it in exactly those circumstances.

  The precipitate retreat from Burgos had led to a breakdown in order in the Allied army and many troops were lost to sickness and the French. Wellington lost 5,000 men and it would be some time before the army was re-organised and the huge numbers of sick reduced. The casualties could have been much worse or he could have even suffered a major defeat without the efforts of the engineer officers to disrupt the enemy’s pursuit.

  Other Engineer Activity in 1812

  As with previous years, the main events, the three sieges and the Battle of Salamanca, attract most attention, but the engineer officers continued to provide more everyday but nonetheless vital services to the Allied cause. Near Lisbon, work continued on both sides of the river Tagus to maintain and improve the defences. Little new work was carried out north of Lisbon but work continued all year to complete and improve the defences south of the Tagus around Almada, and a number of engineer officers were involved through the whole period. The common problem of delays due to the slow response from the Portuguese authorities was still evident. Captain Rhodes wrote to Fletcher asking if he or Wellington would press the authorities on his request to be allowed to cut wood from the royal forests south of the Tagus.40

  Repair of the damage to Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz was of vital importance to Wellington. The loss of either would again cripple his strategy and work continued on both to the end of the year. The importance Wellington put on holding these fortresses can be seen in him
leaving Fletcher at Badajoz for six months to ensure the repairs were completed properly. There was also regular correspondence between the two where the details of the works were discussed and Wellington was able to give directions on the work he wanted. Similarly improvement to the defences at Abrantes continued, with Captain Wedekind from the King’s German Legion engineers taking over after Captain Patton was killed at the siege of Badajoz.

  In late September 1812, Lieutenant Pringle arrived at Merida to repair the broken arch on the bridge. Having inspected the bridge he proposed a temporary repair using wood. His plans were initially delayed by the lack of tools and material. The Allies had also built a crossing at Almaraz, Wellington wanting good lines of communication between himself and Hill. Lieutenant Piper RE had put a pontoon bridge across the river and had remained there as it needed constant attention due to the changing height of the river and the damage caused by the constant heavy commissary traffic. As winter approached, keeping it open became even more difficult.41 To resolve this problem, Wellington ordered Sturgeon to repair the bridge at Almaraz using the same technique that had been used at Alcantara in June.42 Alexander Todd RSC was sent to carry out this work. The importance of this bridge to Wellington can be seen in the numerous mentions in his dispatches in November and December 1812. He was anxious that it would be available for the movements of Allied troops but also that it could be removed if the French threatened it. As early as 10 October, Wellington was warning Hill that he might be retiring from Burgos and the bridge at Almaraz may need to be removed. One of the most ingenious aspects of Sturgeon’s bridge design was that it could be removed and replaced as the needs of the service changed.