Victoria’s Scottish Lion

by Greenwood, Adrian; Haythornthwaite, Philip;

  By now it was eight o’clock and the light failing. Campbell’s men had been marching or fighting since 3 a.m. and they were dead on their feet, their mouths black from biting cartridges. Ensign Sanders and nine men lay dead, with a further fifteen wounded,57 remarkably light casualties given the ferocity of the fighting, and a tiny fraction of those incurred at Barrosa. They stopped for the night in a bean field. Flour pilfered from the village of Zurbano, the beef ration in their haversacks and the beanfeast around them made supper, enhanced by the timely arrival of the commissary with the wine ration. As a tired James Hale recalled, ‘We laid ourselves down on the turf, under the branches of the trees, as comfortable as all the birds in the wood.’58

  While the 1/9th rested, in Vitoria all hell was breaking loose. Crammed with French plunder, the town offered spoils ‘such as no European army had ever laid hands on before, since Alexander’s Macedonians plundered the camp of the Persian king after the battle of Issus’.59 ‘Well, they have always abused me for want of trophies. I hope we have enough today!’ exclaimed Wellington.60 Army pay was ‘a retaining fee against the day of prize money’, as one historian put it.61 Plunder was the real pay-off. It was supposed to be audited, sold and the proceeds distributed by army prize agents, so that all got a fair share, but when the loot passed into official hands it not only fell prey to an ever-lengthening queue of claimants demanding its restitution, it also dwindled mysteriously in size. ‘A great deal of it will never see the light, except in England’, complained one ensign. ‘Commissaries and their clerks have smuggled fine sums.’62 He was proved right: the subalterns who relied on the prize agents at Vitoria eventually received slightly less than £20 each, six years after the end of hostilities.63 ‘Our Division received more Iron and Lead than Gold or Silver’, complained Lieutenant Le Mesurier.64 The experienced soldier knew the best policy was quietly to fill one’s boots* and deny everything.

  So far the only spoils for Campbell had been a large Irish stew, but by noon the next day the camp was, in his words, ‘filled with plunder’.65 Some men walked away from the battlefield set up for life, but not Campbell. Vitoria set the pattern for him for the next fifty years. Though desperate for the independence that wealth promised, he lacked the ruthless single-mindedness to get it. There were troops at Vitoria who risked court martial and death, knowing a good day’s spoils could buy a nice little estate in the country or promotion to lieutenant-colonel. Vitoria was the first of many towns Campbell saw scavenged, but every time he stood aloof. In China, nearly thirty years later, he explained his reluctance to his sister:

  Although I visited many private dwellings of rich people, full of costly and curious things, I did not take anything … Not that the desire to possess was not upon me as with others, but that I foresaw the certainty of being called upon to punish others for the same proceeding if the war had continued, and I wished to stand right with my own conscience.66

  Having routed the French, Wellington wanted to keep them on the run. The 9th Foot set out from Vitoria on the afternoon of 22 June as part of the force assigned to find the French army under Marshal Clausel, heading for Vitoria. The rest of the allied troops would march for Tudela to catch King Joseph. However, a few days’ chase convinced Wellington that his enemy had too great a head start and on the 29th he called off the pursuit, leaving Clausel and Joseph to escape over the Pyrenees.

  Vitoria had knocked the heart out of Joseph’s army, but Napoleon’s soldiers still held several key Spanish towns, while tens of thousands more troops lay in wait over the French border. Wellington, his supply lines from Portugal now dangerously extended, decided his first priority was to clear north-eastern Spain of the lingering enemy garrisons at San Sebastian and Pampeluna. The port of San Sebastian would be of particular benefit, lying near to the French border, and offering a convenient supply base for the advancing allied army as it headed east. It was named in honour of a Praetorian guardsman who, having converted to Christianity, survived a hail of arrows only to be beaten to death on the orders of the Emperor Diocletian. To besiege a town named after a military martyr looked like tempting providence.

  By 28 June the Spanish had the shore approaches to the port blockaded. On 6 July Wellington dispatched Graham to appraise the French defences and formulate a plan of attack. Graham was still recovering from being hit in the groin by a spent cannonball, but nevertheless threw himself into the task with his customary vim. He reasoned that to have any chance of carrying the place he needed more troops, so the 5th Division (including the 1/9th) were sent to help. Campbell’s company arrived exhausted outside San Sebastian on 10 July. The thrill of victory at Vitoria had given way to dismay at the fruitless pursuit of Clausel. The weather didn’t help. Rain had ‘made the roads so deep that the Troops are almost without shoes’,wrote Le Mesurier.67

  The men pitched their white tents in hollows on the high ground a couple of miles south of the town, to hide them from the French garrison. From here Campbell had a superb view of this scenic but tough little port. San Sebastian sat on a spit of land jutting north into the Bay of Biscay, ending in a tall rocky outcrop called Mount Orgullo with a castle and a lighthouse on top. Houses and shops occupied the middle of the isthmus south of Orgullo, enjoying the protection of the sea on both sides, which lapped the walls at high tide. Amphibious assault from the north was rendered near impossible by the natural rock fortress of Mount Orgullo. However, though imposing, this headland was so vertiginous that its guns could not lower their elevation enough to fire on the town below in the event that it was overrun.68

  To the south, San Sebastian was guarded by an elaborate ‘hornwork’, a high curtain wall more than 350ft long, dominated by a massive bastion in the centre, and protected by a ditch and glacis. At each corner was a further demi-bastion providing a line of fire on troops attacking overland from the south, or from the seaward fronts. South-west of the town were the Heights of Ayete and at the foot of these hills, where the isthmus met the mainland, stood the convent of San Bartolomé, now occupied and fortified by the French. To the south and east of San Sebastian lay the estuary of the River Urumea, and across this channel the Chofres Heights (see Plates 4 and 5).

  Given its formidable natural defences, Wellington’s best chance was to batter down the hornwork and the walls on either side, and storm the town. Having surveyed the town, Major Charles Smith of the engineers advised a thunderous barrage from the hills overlooking the town to the east of the estuary,* to pummel the east wall to dust and leave a breach through which the British could pour.

  The first objective was the convent at the foot of the isthmus, commanding the ground south of the hornwork. ‘For many years the asylum of all the females of noble family … who took the veil’,69 it was rather grander than average. By 13 July Graham had his heavy guns in position. Everything from 8in howitzers to 68-pounder carronades** drew a bead on the convent, but after a two-day cannonade the walls were still obstinately perpendicular.70 Graham was sure the enemy inside must be on the brink of surrender, but an assault by the Portuguese on the 15th was beaten back convincingly, although according to Campbell it was only ever an attempt to ‘ascertain what number the enemy kept in his works’.71 The guns resumed firing the next day and this time the convent caught fire.

  Graham scheduled a full-scale attack for noon on 17 July. Major-General Hay’s column would take the fortified graveyard, lunette*** redoubt and ancillary buildings to the right. In the vanguard would be the 4th Caçadores, an elite Portuguese light infantry unit, followed by men of the 1st Portuguese Infantry. In support would be three companies from the 1/9th led by Lieutenant-Colonel Crawfurd, including Campbell’s light company. Behind them, in reserve, would be three companies of the Royals Scots. A second column, commanded by Major-General Bradford, would bear down on the main convent building. The 5th Caçadores and the 13th Portuguese Infantry would spearhead this attack. Behind them would be the grenadier and two ordinary companies from the 1/9th, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel
Cameron, with the rest of the 1/9th in reserve.72

  Having fired 2,998 rounds into the convent, the allied artillery fell silent and the infantry prepared for the assault. At the last minute the Portuguese were removed from the vanguard of the second column. Instead, wrote Cameron, ‘General Bradford, no doubt for the best reasons in the world, ordered my three Companies to make the assault.’ Cameron ran into French artillery, but managed to return fire with two 6-pounders of his own. He had been ordered ‘to halt under cover of a stone wall within fifty yards of the Convent until a signal should be observed from the right attack’, but he could see Frenchmen running from the earthworks, and without waiting for the order, ‘sprang over the wall and moved rapidly against a strong body of the enemy posted outside the Convent’.73

  Hay’s offensive ‘was begun by the Portuguese on the redoubt in very good style’, reported Le Mesurier, ‘however they went no further than a hedge under the Redoubt, when our people were obliged to show them the way’. ‘Notwithstanding the very praiseworthy actions of Major Bennett Snodgrass to animate the Detachments of Portuguese Troops which he commanded on this occasion,’ explained Cameron, ‘the honour of leading the attack on that side also was necessarily yielded to the Companies of the 9th British Regiment.’

  Crawfurd’s men ran into heavy fire from the lunette. The only other way in, through the remains of the outbuildings pulverised by the artillery, was blocked by smouldering debris too hot to cross. But then suddenly the lunette ahead was abruptly deserted, as the enemy wilted under the force of Cameron’s assault on the main building. At the head of the light company, foremost of Crawfurd’s three companies, ‘Campbell led in fine style through the hedge, over the Ditch and into the Redoubt which the French abandoned’, explained Le Mesurier.74

  Meanwhile, Cameron was chivvying the last Frenchmen from their defences. ‘The enemy escaping by the windows and other outlets, joined those that had been at that moment driven by the Grenadiers from the Convent, retreating through the suburb of San Martin, continuing their fire upon the 9th, whose numbers were now much reduced’, he recalled. The French took cover but, explained Cameron, ‘the remaining Companies of the Regt. having been sent for by their Lieut. Colonel, arrived in time to assist in dislodging the enemy from the ruins of San Martin’,75

  Crawfurd had been ordered to limit his assault to the convent and nearby buildings, but Cameron was already charging on towards the hornwork. Further down the isthmus was another redoubt with a distinctive parapet made from earth-filled casks. Campbell’s blood was up and, perhaps with an eye to being named in dispatches, he rushed down the hill, sword in hand, his company just behind. Leading his men inside the redoubt, he swiftly subdued the enemy and seized the position, but French muskets on the hornwork targeted them, and a detachment from the garrison launched a sortie to recapture this outwork.76 Outgunned, the light company fell back. Storming the convent cost seventy casualties. Campbell made it back unscathed. Graham noted in his dispatch that his ‘gallantry was most conspicuous’. Campbell recorded the assault in his journal with modest concision: ‘Convent taken’.77

  Four days later the British had a rare stroke of luck. While cutting a parallel across the isthmus, Lieutenant Reid’s party discovered a large drain nearly 4ft wide. Reid headed down the tunnel and found a door, plumb under the hornwork itself. It was a ready-made mine. The engineers soon had thirty barrels of powder lodged at the end, primed to blow.78 By 23 July the artillery had knocked a hole 100ft wide in the east wall of the town, as well as a second, smaller breach further north. Everything was ready for the allied assault.

  The estuary was only traversable when the tide was out, so the attack was arranged for the 24th, when low tide coincided with daybreak. The Royal Scots were to advance first and head for the larger of the two breaches, with the 9th in support. The 38th Foot behind them would take the second breach. Campbell was given the most treacherous and prestigious job of all, command of the ‘forlorn hope’. His task was to lead a storming party of picked men and secure the breach for the men behind. Responsibility for the success of the enterprise rested with him. ‘I was placed in the centre of the Royals with twenty men of our light company, having the light company of the Royals as my immediate support and under my orders’, explained Campbell. ‘I was accompanied also by a party with ladders, under Lieutenant Machel of the Engineers, with orders, on reaching the crest of the breach, to turn to and gain the ramparts on the left.’79

  Leading a forlorn hope was perilous, but if you survived it was the surest route to promotion. Wellington was notoriously reluctant to promote officers for merit or valour, but this was one instance when he was prepared to make an exception.* For Campbell it was his best chance for a captaincy without purchase. It was obvious the war was approaching its denouement, after which the army would shrink drastically. There were twenty-five lieutenants senior to him in the 9th. In peacetime it would be years, perhaps decades, before he got to the top of the list. Leading a forlorn hope was the only way to jump the queue without paying. When asked how he felt before the assault, Campbell replied, ‘Very much, sir, as if I should get my company if I succeeded.’

  By 3 a.m. the troops were ready in the forward trenches but across the estuary Campbell noticed the French ‘feeding the fire near the breach which had been made in the eastern flank wall’.80 Leading troops into that furnace was asking too much, so Graham rescheduled the attack for the next morning, leaving Campbell to endure another day’s wait.

  Finally the assault began at 4.30 a.m. on the 25th, signalled by the explosion of the mine lodged in the drain. A small force of Portuguese soldiers rushed towards the hornwork to distract the French. Up ahead, in the gloom, Campbell could make out the leading British troops, the Royal Scots, climbing out of the trenches towards the breach. Unfortunately, the parallels that had been dug were so narrow they allowed only a few men out at a time. The French immediately opened fire.

  The walls of San Sebastian were sturdily built and particularly well mortared, so rather than atomise the walls, the allied barrage had left great chunks of masonry scattered across the sands. ‘The space we had to traverse between this opening and the breach – some three hundred yards – was very rough, and broken by large pieces of rock, which the falling tide had left wet and exceedingly slippery’, explained Campbell.81 With the only light coming from the houses still burning in town, he and his men began to pick their way across the estuary, the stones and debris underfoot getting thicker as they approached the breach. The towers either side of the gap had been damaged by the bombardment, but still offered the enemy valuable cover from which to pick off the British.

  The Royal Scots made it across first and as they neared the foot of the breach the fire from the enemy slackened encouragingly. In the lead were Major Frazer and Lieutenant Harry Jones of the Royal Engineers. They scrambled up the rubble pile but at the top found a sheer drop of nearly 15ft behind. The French had removed the steps up to the wall. ‘Follow me, my lads!’ shouted Frazer, and was promptly killed by a French musket ball. A handful of the Royals followed his lead but most stopped near the demi-bastion to return fire, taking cover among the debris.82

  ‘The whole distance to the breach, a space of some 300 yards, was so broken by rocks and stones covered with seaweed, and by deep pools of water, as to render it quite impossible in the dark for the men to preserve anything like the regularity of formation, exposed as they were at the time to heavy fire from the defences’, complained Cameron.83 The advance, according to Campbell, looked ‘more like one of individuals than that of a well-organised and disciplined military body’. Unless Campbell could maintain forward impetus, his men would be picked off where they were stood. He spurred them on as best he could, but as enemy rounds ricocheted off the boulders and kicked up the sand, the soldiers preferred to stay put. Meanwhile, troops were debouching from the British trenches, adding to the crowd huddled on the sands. Lieutenant Machel, the engineer accompanying the forlorn hope, already
lay dead, so Campbell found Lieutenant Clarke, commander of the Royals’ light company, and suggested that together they might lead their men past the growing mob of petrified soldiers towards the breach, in the hope it might inspire them to follow. The words had scarcely left his mouth when Clarke fell dead in front of him.

  Campbell collected up as many of his own men as he could find, along with Clarke’s company, and started forward, dodging the grenades hurled by the enemy, towards the breach. A handful of officers and men had reached this far only to be shot down. Campbell raced up the broken masonry towards the opening, but as he made it to the top he took a musket ball in the hip. Caught off balance, he tumbled back down.

  Campbell tried moving his leg and to his relief found he could still walk. Nearby he noticed two officers of the Royals girding their men for another attempt. Campbell stood up gingerly, and hobbled over. The Royal Scots were glad of any extra officers they could find. As the blood poured from his hip, Campbell once again began to climb up the face of the breach.

  This time the musket ball hit him on the inside of his left thigh.

  At the foot of the breach Captain Archimbeau of the Royals urged his men on, ‘cheering and encouraging them forward in a very brave manner through all the interruptions’, but behind the bravado he knew the day was lost. The enemy showed no sign of flagging. On the contrary, they poured forth musket balls and grenades as ferociously as ever. Archimbeau reluctantly decided to pull back. As if in confirmation of the wisdom of his decision, a bullet hit him in the arm.