[129] See Wellington to Hill, Dec. 18th, Dispatches, ix. pp. 465-6.
[130] But the last-named officer was absent.
[131] One Portuguese infantry and one Portuguese cavalry brigade.
[132] Napier (iv. 49) wrongly puts the combat of Navas de Membrillo on the 28th of December, not the 29th. The diaries of Stoltzenberg of the 2nd K.G.L. Hussars and Cadell of the 28th prove that the second date is correct. No force could have marched from Albuquerque to Navas in one day.
[133] Hill’s dispatch has a handsome but ungrammatical testimony to the enemy: ‘the intrepid and admirable way in which the French retreated, the infantry formed in square, and favoured as he was by the nature of the country, of which he knew how to take the fullest advantage, prevented the cavalry alone from effecting anything against him.’
[134] Apparently two killed and nine wounded.
[136] Napier (iv. p. 50) overrates the damage that Morillo suffered. He was not ‘completely defeated’ by Treillard, because he absconded without fighting. In his elaborate dispatch he gives his whole loss as two killed and nine wounded. See his life by Rodriguez Villa, appendices to vol. ii, for an almost daily series of letters describing his march.
[138] For all this scheme see the Memoirs of Miot de Melito, iii. pp. 215-16, beside the Emperor’s own dispatches. Note especially the instructions which the French ambassador, Laforest, was to set before Joseph.
[139] See vol. iv. p. 215.
[140] Toreno, iii. p. 100.
[141] See vol. ii. p. 168.
[142] Toreno says that the mistress of the Duke of Infantado was implicated in the negotiation, after he had become a regent, but that he himself had no treasonable intentions, being a staunch supporter of Ferdinand.
[143] See Villa Urrutia, i. p. 13 and ii. pp. 355-9.
[144] The best and most recent account of all this, explaining many contradictions and some insincere suppression of fact in Toreno’s great history, is to be found in chapter ix of vol. ii of Señor Villa Urrutia’s Relaciones entre España y Inglaterra 1808-14.
[145] See vol. iv. p. 240.
[146] Early in 1812, however, Wellington once more spoke of requiring Souza’s retirement from office. Dispatches, ix. p. 88.
[147] Wellington to Charles Stuart, April 9, 1812. Dispatches, ix. p. 48.
[148] Napier (iv. p. 212) says that Portugal raised 25,000,000 cruzados this year. I cannot understand this, comparing it with Soriano de Luz, iii. p. 523, which quotes 12,000,000 cruzados as the total receipt of taxes for 1811. Does Napier include loans, and the inconvertible paper issued by the government?
[149] See complaints of the Conde de Redondo, the Portuguese finance minister, in Soriano de Luz, iii. p. 520.
[150] See tables on pp. 324-5 of Halliday’s Present State of Portugal, published in 1812.
[151] Halliday’s Present State of Portugal, p. 320.
[152] The deductions were—sick, 7,500; untrained recruits, 4,000; dismounted cavalry, 3,000; regiment at Cadiz, 1,500; garrisons (infantry and artillery) and men on detachment, 10,000; leaving some 33,000 for the field. By May the gross total had gone down to 56,674.
[153] Set forth in detail, and with a sample bond for 1,000 dollars added, in Dispatches, ix. pp. 104-5.
[155] For these phrases and much more abuse, see Napier, iv. p. 199, a most venomous and unjust passage.
[156] Fortescue’s British Statesmen, pp. 277-8.
[157] Per contra five depleted second battalions went home.
[158] Printed in Wellington’s Supplementary Dispatches, vii. pp. 257-88.
[159] Wellington to Wellesley, camp before Badajoz, Supplementary Dispatches, vii. p. 307.
[160] Liverpool to Wellington, Supplementary Dispatches, vii. p. 257.
[161] For this date see Marmont to Berthier, from Valladolid, Feb. 6, 1812.
[162] For details, see chapter iii of section xxx above.
[163] Dispatches, viii. p. 516.
[164] Wellington to Lord Liverpool, Dec. 28.
[165] For details of this operation see Thiébault’s Mémoires, iv. pp. 538-43, corroborated by Wellington’s Dispatches, viii. pp. 373-5 and 385-6.
[166] See vol. iv. p. 549.
[167] Dispatches, viii, Report of Dec. 28 to Lord Liverpool on the late campaign.
[168] Wellington to Hill, Dispatches, viii. p. 482, compare Wellington to Liverpool, viii. pp. 485-6, of the next morning.
[169] See Dispatches, viii. p. 520. See the Dickson MSS., edited by Major Leslie, for letter from Almeida in December.
[170] Wellington to Lord Liverpool, Jan. 1, Dispatches, viii. p. 524.
[171] See Wellington to Graham, Dec. 26, Dispatches, viii. p. 521.
[172] Wellington to Lord Liverpool, Dispatches, viii. p. 524.
[173] Another extract from the explanatory dispatch to Lord Liverpool, written on Jan. 1st, 1812.
[174] For details of this see Thiébault’s Mémoires, iv. p. 537, where Barrié’s frank dismay at his appointment, and the arguments used to overcome it, are described at length.
[175] Wellington to Liverpool, Dispatches, viii. p. 536, Jan. 7th, 1812, ‘I can scarcely venture to calculate the time that this operation will take, but I should think not less than twenty-four or twenty-five days.’
[176] Kincaid, Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, p. 104.
[177] I take Colborne’s own account (see letter in his life by Moore Smith, p. 166). There were two companies each from the 1/43rd, 1/52nd, 2/52nd, and 95th, and one from each Caçador battalion. Jones wrongly says (p. 116) three companies of the 52nd only, Napier (as usual) omits all mention of the Portuguese. Cf. Harry Smith’s Autobiography, i. p. 55.
[178] In Moorsom’s History of the 52nd it is stated that a sergeant of the French artillery, while in the act of throwing a live shell, was shot dead: the shell fell back within the parapet, and was kicked away by one of the garrison, on which it rolled down into the gorge, was stopped by the gate, and then exploded and blew it open (p. 152).
[179] So Belmas, iv. p. 266. Barrié’s report says that there were 60 infantry and 13 gunners inside altogether. It is an accurate and very modest narrative, in which there is nothing to correct.
[180] Mein and Woodgate of the 52nd, and Hawkesley of the 95th. The last named died of his wounds.
[181] This mistake is acknowledged in Jones’s Sieges, i. p. 120, and much commented on by Burgoyne [Life and Correspondence, i. p. 161], who complains that an immense amount of work was wasted, two nights’ digging put in, the terre-plain levelled, and even some platforms laid, before the error was detected.
[182] Burgoyne, i. p. 162.
[183] See Schwertfeger’s History of the German Legion, i. p. 353. Jones (Sieges, i. p. 125) is quite wrong in saying that the convent was carried ‘with no loss.’
[184] See Dickson Papers, Jan. 1812.
[185] See vol. iii. p. 239. The illustration of Rodrigo on the morning after the storm, inserted to face page 186 of this volume, shows the facts excellently.
[186] See Barrié’s report in appendix to Belmas, iv. p. 299.
[187] Jones’s Sieges, i. p. 137.
[188] For a lively account of this exploit see Grattan’s With the Connaught Rangers, p. 154.
[189] Many narratives speak of General Mackinnon as being killed by the first explosion, and others (including Wellington’s dispatch) call the second explosion that of an expense magazine fired by accident. Barrié’s report, however, settles the fact that it was a regular mine: and for Mackinnon’s death after the storming of the cuts I follow the narrative by an eye-witness appended at the end of the general’s diary.
[190] Several narrators accuse them of shirking, but Geo. Napier writes (Life, p. 215), ‘Neither Elder nor his excellent regiment were likely to neglect any duty, and I am sure the blame rested elsewhere, for George Elder was always ready for any service.’ Compare George Simmons’s autobiography—possibly he put things out by ordering the Portuguese company to carry the ladders, which he clearly was not authorized to do. [A British Rifleman, p. 221.]
[191] Some narrators say a low ravelin, but the best authority is in favour of its having been a traverse.
[192] The point has often been raised as to whether it was not the success of the Light Division at the lesser breach which enabled the 3rd Division to break through at the greater. Some Light Division diarists (e.g. Harry Smith) actually state that it was their attack on the rear of the defenders which made them flinch from a position which they had hitherto maintained. I think that the case is decided in favour of the 3rd Division by Belmas’s statement that the French fired the mine at the great breach only when the 3rd Division had got through, combined with the fact that the leading men of the Light Division reached the back of the great breach just in time to suffer from the explosion, which killed Captain Uniacke of the 95th and a few others. Apparently, therefore, the breach was forced before the head of the Light Division stormers had come up, but only just before.
[193] There is considerable controversy as to what officer received Barrié’s surrender. For the Gurwood-Mackie dispute see note in Appendix.
[194] See his Life and Letters, p. 396.
[195] Kincaid, Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, p. 117.
[196] Leach’s Sketches in the Life of an Old Soldier, p. 250. For an amusing story about a plundering Connaught Ranger who came down a chimney, see Grattan, p. 162. He tried to propitiate the officer who found him by presenting him with a case of surgical instruments. Kincaid speaks of worse than plunder—armed violence and some cases of rape.
[197] So Napier and most other authorities. John Jones, however, says that the explosion was not accidental, but deliberate—some English deserters had hidden themselves in a small magazine under the rampart. ‘These desperate men, on seeing an officer approach, deeming discovery and capture inevitable, and assured that an ignominious death would follow, blew themselves up in the magazine. The explosion first found vent through the door, and shot the refugees up into the street, some alive, but so mutilated, blackened, and distorted, as to be painful to behold.’
[198] Costello (a Light Division narrator), pp. 151-2.
[199] See vol. iii. pp. 233-7.
[200] Londonderry’s Peninsular War, ii. p. 268.
[201] See Thiébault’s Mémoires, iv. pp. 551-2. Extracts from two of his letters are printed in Marmont’s Mémoires, iv. pp. 280-1, and bear out all that he says in his own book.
[202] Marmont to Berthier, Valladolid, Jan. 13, 1812.
[203] Printed in full in Marmont’s Mémoires, iv. pp. 271-6.
[204] See vol. iv. p. 586.
[205] 34th Léger, 113th Line, 4th Vistula, Neuchâtel.
[206] Also two cavalry regiments, the 1st Hussars and 31st Chasseurs.
[207] Marmont, Correspondance, book xv bis, p. 287.
[208] Ibid., p. 291.
[209] Berthier to Marmont, Dec. 13, as above.
[210] Peninsular War, iv. p. 134.
[211] Correspondence in King Joseph’s Letters, viii. pp. 306-7.
[212] See Marmont’s letter acknowledging its receipt in his Correspondance, iv. pp. 342-3.
[213] Mémoires, iv. p. 554.
[214] Mémoires, iv. p. 184.
[215] Napier says Jan. 29. But Jones, then employed in repairing Rodrigo, gives Feb. 2 in his diary of the work.
[216] Dorsenne to Marmont, from Valladolid, Feb. 24.
[217] Same to same, from Valladolid, Feb. 27.
[218] Marmont to Berthier, Valladolid, Feb. 6. Not in Marmont’s Mémoires, but printed in King Joseph’s Correspondance, viii. p. 301.
[219] I must confess that all Napier’s comment on Marmont’s doings (vol. iv. pp. 94-5) seems to me to be vitiated by a wish to vindicate Napoleon at all costs, and to throw all possible blame on his lieutenant. His statements contain what I cannot but call a suggestio falsi, when he says that ‘Bonnet quitted the Asturias, Montbrun hastened back from Valencia, Dorsenne sent a detachment in aid, and on Jan. 25 six divisions of infantry and one of cavalry, 45,000 men in all, were assembled at Salamanca, from whence to Ciudad is only four marches.’ This misses the facts that (1) Marmont had only four divisions (Souham, Clausel, Maucune, and the weak division of Thiébault); (2) that Bonnet had not arrived, nor could for some days; (3) that Dorsenne sent nothing, and on Jan. 27 announced that nothing would be forthcoming; (4) that Montbrun (who was at Alicante on Jan. 16) was still far away on the borders of Murcia. With 22,000 men only in hand Marmont was naturally cautious.
[220] See Dispatches, viii. p. 547.
[221] I fancy that Wellington’s erroneous statement that Marmont had six divisions collected at Salamanca on the 23rd-24th [misprinted by Gurwood, Dispatches, viii. p. 577, as ‘the 6th Division!’] was Napier’s source for stating that such a force was assembled, which it certainly was not, Wellington reckoned that Marmont had Souham, Clausel, Maucune, Thiébault, and two divisions from the East, which last had not really come up—and never were to do so.
[222] Wellington to Hill, Jan. 22, Dispatches, viii. p. 566.
[223] Dickson Papers, ii. p. 571.
[224] Wellington, Dispatches, viii. pp. 568-9.
[225] Dickson Papers, ii. p. 576.
[226] Wellington to Hill, Dispatches, viii. p. 571.
[227] Wellington to Sir Howard Douglas, Jan. 22, Dispatches, viii. p. 568.
[228] Wellington to Hill, Dispatches, viii. p. 567, same day as last.
[229] Wellington to Hill, Jan. 28, Dispatches, viii. pp. 571-2 and 586-7.
[230] Wellington to Hill, Feb. 12, Dispatches. viii. p. 603.
[231] The ‘third division’ practically represented Thiébault’s old division of the Army of the North, which had long held the Salamanca district. This division was to be deprived of its Polish regiment (recalled to France with all other Poles) and to be given instead the 130th, then at Santander. But the 130th really belonged to the Army of Portugal (Sarrut’s division), though separated from it at the moment. So Marmont was being deprived of one regiment more.
[232] Dorsenne to Marmont, from Uñas, Feb. 5.
[233] Napoleon to Berthier, Jan. 27.
[234] Wellington to Douglas, Dispatches, viii. p. 568.
[235] An exaggeration, but hay was actually brought to Lisbon and Coimbra, and used for the English cavalry brigades, which had been sent to the rear and cantoned on the Lower Mondego.
[236] Marmont to Berthier, Valladolid, Feb. 26. Marmont’s Mémoires, iv. pp. 344-5.
[237] Marmont’s ‘Observations on the Imperial Correspondence of Feb. 1812,’ Mémoires, iv. p. 512.
[238] To be exact, it was on May 10 that Marmont took over the command from Masséna, and Almeida was evacuated by Brennier that same night.
[239] I extract these various paragraphs from Marmont’s vast dispatch of March 2, omitting much more that is interesting and apposite.
[240] Marmont writes the Army of the Centre, evidently in confusion for the Army of the North. The nearest posts of the Army of the Centre were 150 miles away from the Esla, while the Army of the North at Burgos was much closer. Moreover, the Army of the Centre had not two infantry divisions, but only one—d’Armagnac’s—and some Juramentado regiments.
[241] See chapter vii of book iv, Peninsular War, iv. pp. 138-40.
[242] Why omit the 30,000 men of Graham and Hill?
[243] This was the case with G. Anson’s brigade and Bradford’s Portuguese infantry. Pack went by Coimbra, Slade’s cavalry brigade by Covilhão, and the horse artillery of Bull and McDonald with it.
[244] Nothing is rarer, as all students of the Peninsular War know to their cost, than a table of the exact movements of Wellington’s army on any march. For this particular movement the whole of the detailed orders happen to have been preserved in the D’Urban Papers. The starting-places of the units were:—
1st Division—Gallegos, Carpio, Fuentes de Oñoro.
3rd Division—Zamorra (by the Upper Agueda).
4th Division—San Felices and Sesmiro.
5th Division—Ciudad Rodrigo.
6th Division—Albergaria (near Fuente Guinaldo).
7th Division—Payo (in the Sierra de Gata).
Light Division—Fuente Guinaldo.
Bradford’s Portuguese—Barba del Puerco.
Pack’s Portuguese—Campillo and Ituero.
The marches were so arranged that the 7th Division passed through Castello Branco on Feb. 26, the 6th Division on Feb. 29, the Light Division on March 3, the 4th Division on March 5. All these were up to Portalegre, Villa Viçosa, or Castello de Vide, in touch with Elvas, by March 8. The 1st Division, coming by way of Abrantes, joined on March 10. Pack and Bradford, who had very circuitous routes, the one by Coimbra, the other by Thomar, were not up till several days later (16th). The 5th Division did not leave Rodrigo till March 9.
[245] The other regiment of V. Alten’s brigade (11th Light Dragoons) was on March 12 at Ponte de Sor, on its way to the South.
[246] Which lay at Arronches and Santa Olaya.
[247] 1st and 2nd Heavy Dragoons K.G.L.
[248] 3rd Dragoons, 4th and 5th Dragoon Guards. They had been lying during the winter in the direction of Castello Branco.
[249] Dated Feb. 24 and 27, Dispatches, viii. pp. 629 and 638.
[250] These figures are those of January, taken from the ‘morning state’ in Los Ejércitos españoles, the invaluable book of 1822 published by the Spanish Staff.
[251] For details see Jones, Sieges of the Peninsula, Appendix in vol. i. pp. 421-5, and the Dickson Papers, ed. Leslie, for Feb. 1812.
[252] For details see Duncan’s History of the Royal Artillery, ii. pp. 318-19.
[253] Wellington, Dispatches, viii. p. 601.
[254] For Wellington’s speculations (fairly correct) as to Marmont’s distribution of his troops, see Dispatches, viii. p. 618, Feb. 19, to Graham.
[255] Wellington to Victor Alten, March 5, Dispatches, viii. p. 649, makes a special point of ‘the difficulties which the enemy experiences in getting intelligence’ as a means of gaining time for himself.
[256] Napier (iv. p. 98) tries to make out that Wellington’s siege began ten days later than he wished and hoped, by the fault of the Portuguese Regency. I cannot see how Badajoz could have been invested on the 6th of March, when (as the route-directions show) the head of the marching column from the Agueda only reached Portalegre on the 8th. The movement of the army was not delayed, so far as I can see, by the slackness of Portuguese management at Lisbon or Elvas. But Wellington certainly grumbled. Did he intend that Hill alone should invest Badajoz, before the rest of the army arrived?
[257] D’Urban’s diary, Feb. 7-16: he accompanied Beresford, being his Chief-of-the-Staff.
[258] I spare the reader the question of Portuguese paper money and English exchequer bills, which will be found treated at great length in Napier, iv. pp. 97-9. Napier always appears to think that cash could be had by asking for it at London, in despite of the dreadful disappearance of the metallic currency and spread of irredeemable bank-notes which prevailed in 1812.
[259] The Conde had 1,114 horse and 3,638 foot on Jan. 1, not including two of Morillo’s battalions then absent. The total force used for the raid was probably as above.