The position which Wellington had won himself by five years of successful campaigning in the Peninsula was such as no British commander since Marlborough had enjoyed. His reputation was now European; his views, not merely on the Spanish struggle but on the general politics of the Continent, had to be taken into consideration by the Ministry. He was no longer an officer to whom orders could be sent, to be carried out whether he liked them or not. He had become a political personage, whose views must be ascertained before any wide-reaching decision as to the struggle with Napoleon was taken. In 1813 it is not too much to say that he exercised a determining influence not only on the military policy of Britain, but on the whole course of the Great War: as we shall presently see, the triumph of Vittoria had the most marked and direct effect on the action of Russia, Prussia, and Austria. But even before Vittoria he had asserted his will in many ways—he had stopped some projects and approved others. The factious resignation of his brother Lord Wellesley from the Perceval Cabinet had not impaired his position, nor had the coming into office of Lord Liverpool, when Perceval perished by the bullet of a crazy assassin a month after the fall of Badajoz. Wellington’s correspondence with the War Minister, Lord Bathurst, in 1813, is as confidential and amicable on both sides as had been the case when the domineering Wellesley had been in power: with the new Prime Minister, Liverpool, there is no trace of any friction whatever—rather every sign of reciprocal respect.

But the position which Wellington had achieved had its drawbacks as well as its advantages. Since it had become habitual for the Cabinet to ask his opinion on high military matters not connected with the Peninsula, an endless vista of troubles was opened up before him, for (as always happens in times of exceptional crisis) the Ministry at home was being plagued with all manner of solicitations from every quarter of Europe, to which answers were required.

While Wellington had been trailing back reluctantly from Burgos to Ciudad Rodrigo, Napoleon had been conducting a retreat of a very different kind from Moscow to the Berezina, a retreat whose character and consequences were not known in London or in Spain for some weeks later. He had left Moscow on October 19th, had dictated the famous 29th Bulletin, acknowledging the wreck of his project and the ruin of his army, at Molodetchno on December 3rd, and had started on his headlong flight to Paris on December 5th, leaving the small remnant of his host to perish in the snow. He reached the Tuileries on the night of December 18th, on the heels of the disastrous bulletin, which his ministers had only received thirty-six hours before, on the preceding day[301]. In London the fact that the Russian expedition had failed was well known by the end of November, but the extent of the failure was only realized when the 29th Bulletin got to Lord Liverpool’s hands, by the usual smugglers’ route, on December 21st, rather less than five days after its arrival in Paris[302].

The Prime Minister sat down next morning to communicate the fact to Wellington, and to consult him upon the logical consequences. ‘There has been,’ he wrote, ‘no example within the last twenty years, among all the extraordinary events of the French Revolution, of such a change of fortune as Bonaparte has experienced during the last five months. The most formidable army ever collected by Bonaparte has been substantially destroyed. It only remains to be ascertained whether he will succeed in escaping himself—and with what remnant of an army.... Under these circumstances the question naturally occurs whether he will leave the French army in Spain? We have a report that he has already ordered 40,000 men from that country to rejoin him—but it is only a report. I am inclined, however, to be of opinion that he will withdraw the greater part of his forces from Spain. The only efficient French Army at the present moment in existence is that under Soult: and whatever it may cost Bonaparte to abandon Spain, I think he will prefer that alternative to the loss of Germany. I may be wrong in this speculation, but give you my reasons, and I am particularly desirous of calling your attention to this view of the subject, in order that you may take the necessary means for obtaining early information of the movements of any French divisions toward the frontier, and that you may consider what measures may be proper to be adopted if my conjecture should be realized[303].’

Thus on the first day after the arrival of the epoch-making bulletin, and before it was known that Napoleon himself had reached Paris, the great strategical question of the winter of 1812-13 was formulated, and put before Wellington. Will the French evacuate Spain? and, if so, what should be done with the British Army in the Peninsula? There were three possible contingencies—(1) the Emperor might abandon Spain altogether, in order to have the nucleus of an army ready for the campaign of 1813 in Germany, or (2) he might not evacuate Spain altogether, but might cut down his forces there, and order them to stand on the defensive only, or (3) he might value his prestige so highly that he would take little or nothing in the way of troops from the Peninsula, and endeavour to make head against the Russians with whatever remnant of an army might be left him in the North, with the conscripts of 1813, and the levies of the German States—if the latter should remain obedient to him[304].

At first it seemed as if the third and least likely of these three hypotheses was the correct one. For strange as it might appear, considering what had happened in Russia, Wellington could detect no signs of any great body of French troops being moved towards the Pyrenees. So far was this from being the case, that the cantonments adopted by the enemy in December were so widely spread to the South, that the only possible deduction that could be made was that the whole of the armies of 1812 were being kept in Spain. We now know that the reason for this was that the communications between Madrid and Paris were so bad, that Napoleon’s orders to his brother to draw in towards the North, and send large drafts and detachments to France, only reached their destination in February. For many weeks Wellington could report no such movements as Lord Liverpool had expected.

It was not till March 10th that the much-desired news began to come to hand[305], time having elapsed sufficient to allow of King Joseph beginning to carry out the Emperor’s orders. On that day Wellington was able to send Lord Bathurst intelligence which seemed to prove that the second hypothesis, not the third, was going to prove the correct one: i. e. there was about to be a certain deduction from the French armies in Spain, which would make it unlikely that they would take the offensive, but nevertheless the main body of them was still to be left in the Peninsula. Though the enemy had made no move of importance, it was certain that Soult and Caffarelli had been recalled to France—the latter taking with him the troops of the Imperial Guard, which had hitherto formed part of the Army of the North. To replace the latter Palombini’s division had been moved from near Madrid to Biscay. A large draft of artillery had been sent back to France, and twelve (it was really twenty-five) picked men for the Imperial Guard from each battalion of the Army of Spain. On the other hand, a body of 4,000 men—probably convalescents or conscripts—had come down from Bayonne to Burgos[306]. Seven days later a more important general move could be detected: not only had Soult gone towards France with a heavy column of drafts, but the French had evacuated La Mancha, the troops formerly there having retired north to the province of Avila[307]. Again, a week later, on March 24th, it became known[308] that the Army of the Centre had moved up towards the Douro, and that King Joseph and his Court were about to quit Madrid. A little later this move was found to have taken place: the enemy had evacuated a broad stretch of territory, and ‘concentrated very much toward the Douro[309].’ On the same day an intercepted letter, from General Lucotte at Paris to King Joseph, let Wellington into the main secrets of the enemy: the General reported to his master that the Emperor’s affairs were in a bad way, that there would be no men and very little money for Spain, and that he must make the best of what resources he had. His Imperial Majesty was in a captious and petulant mood, blaming everything done by everybody beyond the Pyrenees, but more especially his brother’s neglect to keep open the communication with France and to hunt down the northern insurgents[310].

This useful glimpse into the mentality of the enemy made it abundantly clear that Lord Liverpool’s original theory, that Napoleon would withdraw his whole army from Spain in order to hold down Germany, was perfectly erroneous. At the same time, Lucotte’s report coincided with all the other indications, in showing that the enemy had been perceptibly weakened, could count on no further reinforcements, and must stand on the defensive during the campaign that was to come.

But while it was still thought in Whitehall that the Emperor might evacuate Spain altogether, various projects for turning the Russian débâcle to account began to be laid before Wellington. The first was a scheme for fostering a possible insurrection in Holland, where grave discontent was said to be brewing. Would it be wise for the Prince of Orange, now serving as an aide-de-camp on the head-quarters staff, to be sent home, so that he might put himself at the head of a rising? Wellington replied that he no more believed in an immediate insurrection in Holland than in one in France. ‘Unless I should hear of an insurrection in France or in Holland, or should receive an order to send him, I shall say nothing on the subject to the Prince[311].’ He was undoubtedly right in his decision: the Dutch required the news of Leipzig, still nine months ahead, to make them stir: an expedition to Holland in the early spring would have been hopelessly premature.

A little later came a much more plausible proposition, which met with an equally strong negative from Wellington. The ever-loyal Electorate of Hanover was prepared to rise: to start the movement it would be only necessary to land a nucleus of British-German troops somewhere on the Frisian coast. Could Wellington spare the three cavalry regiments, five infantry battalions, and one battery of the King’s German Legion which were serving with him? After Tettenborn’s March raid to Hamburg the insurrection actually broke out, and Bathurst suggested[312] that the time had come to throw a considerable force ashore in the electorate. He asked whether the Hanoverian officers in Spain were beginning to chafe at being kept so far from their homes at the critical moment. Again Wellington put in a strong negative. He had been to consult General Charles Alten, ‘by far the best of the Hanoverian officers,’ as to the expedience of sending the Legion to Germany. Alten held that ‘the best thing for England, for Germany, and the world, is to make the greatest possible effort here:’ the services of a few thousand veteran troops would be important in the narrower field in Spain—they would be lost in the multitudes assembling on the Elbe. If a large body of loyal levies were collected in Hanover it might ultimately be well to send a part of the Legion thither: but not at present[313]. This was the policy which the Ministry followed: in the spring they dispatched to North Germany only cadres from the dépôts of the Legion at Bexhill—500 men in all, including some experienced cavalry and artillery officers. In July the 3rd Hussars went across to Stralsund, in August two batteries of Horse Artillery, all from England[314]. But no deduction of units was made from Wellington’s Spanish army—only a few officers were permitted to sail, at their own request. The senior of them, General Bock of the Heavy Dragoons, unfortunately perished by shipwreck with his three aides-de-camp off the coast of Brittany in the winter that followed Vittoria.

Bathurst was so far right that many of the Hanoverian officers regretted their stay in the Peninsula: on the other hand, Wellington was not merely trying to keep his own army strong, when he refused to listen to the suggestions made him. It was perfectly true that 4,000 good soldiers were an appreciable unit in a Spanish battle—while they would be ‘entirely thrown away,’ as he put it, in Germany. The margin of strength was so narrow in the Peninsular Army that it was not safe to decrease it.

The same question that arose about the King’s German Legion also came up during the spring of 1813 with regard to the Brunswickers. Many officers of the Brunswick-Oels battalion in the 7th Division were fired with the idea of liberating Germany—they wrote to their duke, then in England, begging him to have the battalion ordered home. He replied that he had tried to get the War Office to let him go to the Elbe, even with a small cadre, a few hundred men, but had been refused[315]. It is much more surprising that this corps was not spared from the Peninsula: Wellington had a bad mark against it, for its terrible propensity to desertion, and a worse for the behaviour of one of its companies at Tordesillas in the recent campaign. Probably he thought that, if he surrendered the Brunswickers, he would have to give up the German Legion also.

It is odd to find that among Wellington’s troubles were not only the proposed subtraction of troops whom he did not want to lose, but the proposed addition of troops whom he was not at all anxious to see in the Peninsula. The story is one which illustrates the casual methods of Russian officers. In February there came to Freneda a well-known British secret agent, Mackenzie, the man who had organized the successful evasion of La Romana’s Spaniards from Denmark in 1808[316]. He brought letters from Admiral Greig, commanding the Russian Black Sea fleet, to the effect that there was a surplus of troops from Tchitchagoff’s Army of the Danube, which could not be utilized in Germany for want of transport and supplies. There were 15,000 men who could be collected at Odessa and shipped to Spain, to be placed in the Allied Army, if Wellington would accept them. The memory of Russian co-operation in Holland in 1799 was not a very happy one: but it seemed unwise to offend the Tsar, on whose goodwill the future of Europe now depended. Wherefore the answer given was that they might come if the British Cabinet approved, and if the Spanish and Portuguese governments saw no objection. ‘One would think that the Emperor had demands enough for his men,’ wrote Wellington to Charles Stuart, ‘but Mackenzie says that they have more men than they can support in the field, which is not improbable. The admission of Russians into the Peninsula, however, is quite a new feature of the war: and it is absolutely necessary that the allied Governments should consent to the measure[317].’ The correspondence with Cadiz and London ended in the most tiresome and ridiculous fashion—the Spanish Regency was at the moment in a state of diplomatic tension with Russia, on some questions of precedence and courtesy. It answered in the most downright fashion that the presence of Russian troops in Spain would be neither helpful nor welcome. The British ambassador at Cadiz was shocked at the language used, which would be most offensive to the Tsar[318]. But the whole project suddenly collapsed on news received from London. Count Lieven, the Russian representative at the Court of St. James’s, declared that he had never heard of the offer, that he was sure that no such scheme would be approved by the Tsar, and that there was certainly no Russian corps now available for service in the Mediterranean. Admiral Greig had once communicated to him a scheme for a Russian auxiliary force to be used in Italy—but this was a plan completely out of date, when the whole Russian army was wanted for Germany[319]. Wellington had therefore to explain to the Spanish and Portuguese Governments that his proposals to them had been made under a complete misapprehension: his amour-propre was naturally hurt—Greig and Mackenzie had put him in an absurd position.

Prince Lieven’s mention of Italy takes us to another of Wellington’s worries. It has been mentioned in the preceding volume that Lord William Bentinck, commanding the British Army in Sicily, had already in 1812 been planning descents on Italy, where he rightly thought the French military strength was low, after the departure of the whole of the Viceroy’s contingent for the Russian War, and of many of Murat’s Neapolitans also. So set had he been on expeditions to Calabria or Tuscany, that he had made great difficulties when ordered to send out the Alicante expedition to favour Wellington’s Salamanca campaign[320]. The news of the Russian disaster had filled Bentinck’s mind with new Italian schemes—the conditions were even more favourable than in 1812. He was now dreaming of invading Italy with all the men he could muster, and proposed on February 24th to the British War Minister that he should be allowed to withdraw all or some of the Anglo-Sicilian troops from Alicante. He had also seen Admiral Greig, and put in a claim for the hypothetical 15,000 Russians who had caused Wellington so much trouble. Knowing how much importance the latter attached to the Alicante Army, as the real nucleus of resistance to Suchet in Eastern Spain, he had the grace to send copies of his February dispatch to Freneda.

This was a most irritating interruption to Wellington’s arrangements for the next campaign: the Alicante force was a valuable piece in the great game which he was working out. To see it taken off the board would disarrange all his plan. Accordingly he made the strongest protest to Lord Bathurst against the Italian expedition being permitted. To make any head in Italy, he said, at least 30,000 or 40,000 men would be needed. No doubt many Italians were discontented with the Napoleonic régime, but they would not commit themselves to rebellion unless a very large force came to their help. If only a small army were landed, they would show passive or even active loyalty to their existing government. They might prefer a British to a French or an Austrian domination in their peninsula, because it would be more liberal and less extortionate. But they would want everything found for them—arms, equipment, a subsidy. Unless the Government were prepared to start a new war on a very large scale, to raise, clothe, and equip a great mass of Italian troops, and to persevere to the last in a venture as big as that in Spain, the plan would fail, and any landing force would be compelled to re-embark with loss and disgrace[321].

On the whole Wellington’s protest proved successful: Lord William was forced to leave a large body of his Anglo-Sicilians in Spain, though he withdrew 2,000 men from Alicante early in April, when it was most needful that the Allied force on the East Coast should be strong. The remainder, despite (as we shall see) of very bad handling by Sir John Murray, proved sufficient to keep Suchet employed. No Italian expedition was permitted during the campaigning season of 1813, though Lord William sent out a small foreign expeditionary force for a raid on Tuscany, which much terrified the Grand Duchess Eliza[322]. Next year only, when the whole Napoleonic system was crumbling, did he collect a heterogeneous army of doubtful value, invade Liguria, and capture Genoa from a skeleton enemy. But by that time the French were out of Spain, and Wellington’s plans could not be ruined by the distraction of troops on such an escapade. In May 1813 the Italian expedition, if permitted, might have wrecked the whole campaign of Vittoria, by leaving Suchet free to join the main French army. How it would have fared may be judged from the fact that the Viceroy Eugène made head all through the autumn against 80,000 men of the Austrian Army of Italy.

So much may suffice to explain Wellington’s dealings during the winter and spring of 1813 with the British Cabinet. His advice, as we have seen, was always asked, and generally settled the problem in the way that he desired. So much cannot be said for his dealings with the Commander-in-Chief at the Horse Guards: the Duke of York seems to have been the last person in Whitehall to recognize the commanding intellect of the great general. Though he always wrote with perfect courtesy, he evidently considered that his own views on the organization, personnel, and management of the British Army were far more important than those of the victor of Salamanca. The correspondence of Wellington with the Duke and his Military Secretary, Colonel Henry Torrens, occupies an enormous number of pages in the volumes of Dispatches and Supplementary Dispatches. Torrens, an obliging man, seems to have tried to make himself a buffer between the two contending wills, and Wellington was conscious of the fact that he was no enemy. The subjects of contention were many.

One of the most important was patronage. Now that he had reached the fifth year of his command in the Peninsula, Wellington considered that he had won the right to choose his own chief subordinates. But still he could not get officers of tried incapacity removed from the front, nor prevent others, against whom he had a bad mark, from being sent out to him. When he asked for removals, he was told of ‘the difficulty of setting aside general officers who have creditably risen to high rank’ on the mere ground that they have been proved incapable, and unfit for their situations. But it was far worse that when he had requested that certain generals should not be sent out, they came to him nevertheless, despite of his definite protest; and then, when he requested that they might be removed, he was told that he would incur odium and responsibility for their removal. ‘What a situation then is mine! It is impossible to prevent incapable men from being sent to the army; and then when I complain that they have been sent, I am to be responsible! Surely the “odium” ought not to attach to the person who officially represents that they are not capable of filling their situations’—but (the aposiopesis may be filled up) to the Horse Guards for sending them out. Yet Wellington’s pen did not add the words which are necessary to complete the sense.

The most tiresome case in 1812-13 was that of Colonel James Willoughby Gordon, who had come out as Quartermaster-General in 1812, when Wellington’s first and most trusted quarter-master, George Murray, was removed (quite without his desire) to a post in Ireland. Gordon was sent by the Duke of York’s personal choice[323], without any previous consultation with the Commander-in-Chief in Spain as to whether he would be acceptable. The atrocity of this appointment was not only that Gordon was incapable, but that he was a political intriguer, who was in close touch with the Whig Opposition at home, and before he went out had promised to send confidential letters on the campaign to Lord Grey. This he actually did: the malicious Creevey had a privileged peep at them, and found that ‘his accounts are of the most desponding cast. He considers our ultimate discomfiture as a question purely of time, and that it may happen any day, however early: and that our pecuniary resources are utterly exhausted. The skill of the French in recovering from their difficulties is inexhaustible: Lord W. himself owns that the resurrection of Marmont’s broken troops after Salamanca was an absolute miracle of war. In short, Gordon considers that Lord W. is in very considerable danger[324].’ The writer was holding the most important post on Wellington’s staff, and using the information that he obtained for the benefit of the Parliamentary Opposition; he should have been court-martialled for the abuse of his position for personal ends. Wellington at last detected his mischief-making, by the appearance in the Whig papers of definite facts that could only have been known to three people—Wellington himself, his secretary Fitzroy Somerset, and the Quartermaster-General. ‘I showed him,’ writes Wellington to Bathurst, ‘my dispatch to your Lordship of August 3, as the shortest way of making him acquainted with the state of affairs.... The topics of this dispatch find their way into the Morning Chronicle, distorted into arguments against the Government. I am quite certain that the arguments in the Morning Chronicle are drawn from a perusal of my dispatches, and that no one saw them here excepting the Quartermaster-General and Lord Fitzroy. Even your Lordship had not yet received this dispatch, when the topics it contained were used against the Government in the newspapers.... For the future he shall not see what I write—it would be no great loss to the Army if he were recalled to England. I cypher part of this letter in the cypher you sent me to be used for General Maitland[325].’

It was four months before this traitor was got rid of, though Lord Bathurst had been shocked by the news, and corroborated it by his own observation: he had seen mischievous letters from Gordon to the Horse Guards, and if he wrote such stuff to the Duke it was easy to guess what he might write to Lord Grey or Whitbread. Certain of the newspaper paragraphs must have come ‘from some intelligent person with you[326].’ The strange way in which the removal was accomplished was not by a demand for his degradation for misuse of his office[327], but by a formal report to the Horse Guards that ‘Colonel Gordon does not turn his mind to the duties to be performed by the Quartermaster-General of an Army such as this, actively employed in the field: notwithstanding his zeal and acknowledged talent, he has never performed them, and I do not believe he ever will or can perform them. I give this opinion with regret, and I hope His Royal Highness will believe that I have not formed it hastily of an officer respecting whose talents I, equally with His Royal Highness, had entertained a favourable opinion[328].’ Three weeks later the Military Secretary at the Horse Guards writes that Wellington shall have back his old Quartermaster-General George Murray—and Gordon is recalled[329]. But why had Gordon ever been sent? The Duke of York alone could say. The impression which he had left as a soldier upon men at the front, who knew nothing of his political intrigues, was exceedingly poor[330].

This was the worst trick which was played on Wellington from the Horse Guards. Another was the refusal to relieve him of the gallant but muddle-headed and disobedient William Stewart, who despite of his awful error at Albuera was allowed to come out to the Peninsula again in 1812, and committed other terrible blunders: it was he who got the three divisions into a marshy deadlock on the retreat from Salamanca, by deliberate and wilful neglect of directions[331]. ‘With the utmost zeal and good intentions he cannot obey an order,’ wrote Wellington on December 6, 1812—yet Stewart was still commanding the Second Division in 1814[332]. In letters sent to the Horse Guards in December 1812 the Commander-in-Chief in Spain petitioned for the departure of five out of his seven cavalry generals—which seems a large clearance—and of ten infantry divisional and brigade commanders. About half of them were ultimately brought home, but several were left with him for another campaign. He had also asked that he might have no more generals who were new to the Peninsula inflicted upon him, because their arrival blocked promotion for deserving colonels, to whom he was anxious to give brigades. ‘I hope I shall have no more new Generals: they really do but little good, and they take the places of officers who would be of real use. And then they are all desirous of returning to England[333].’ The appeal was in vain—several raw major-generals were sent out for the spring campaign of 1813, and we have letters of Wellington making apologies to Peninsula veterans, to whom he had promised promotion, for the fact that the commands which he had been intending for them had been filled up against his wishes by the nominees of the Horse Guards. Things went a little better after Vittoria, when several undesired officers went home, and several deferred promotions took place—the news of that victory had had its effect even in Whitehall.

It is more difficult to sympathize with Wellington’s judgement—though not with his grievance—in another matter of high debate during this winter. Like most men he disliked talking about his own coffin, i. e. making elaborate arrangements for what was to happen in the event of his becoming a casualty, like Sir John Moore. He loathed the idea of ‘seconds in command’, arguing that they were either useless or tiresome. He did not want an officer at his elbow who would have a sort of right to be consulted, as in the bad old days of ‘councils of war’; nor did he wish to have to find a separate command for such a person to keep him employed[334]. It was true that he often trusted Hill with an independent corps in Estremadura; but frequently he called in Hill’s column and it became part of the main army—as on the Caya in 1811, in the Salamanca retreat in 1812, and at Vittoria in 1813. In the winter of 1812-13 a point which might have been of high importance was raised: who would be his successor in case of a regrettable accident? Wellington decided that Beresford was the proper choice—despite of Albuera. ‘All that I can tell you is that the ablest man I have yet seen with the army, and the one having the largest views, is Beresford. They tell me that, when I am not present, he wants decision: and he certainly embarrassed me a little with his doubts when he commanded in Estremadura: but I am quite certain that he is the only person capable of conducting a large concern[335].’ He also held that Beresford’s position as a marshal in the Portuguese Army gave him a seniority in the Allied Army over British lieutenant-generals.

This judgement of Wellington’s is surprising: Beresford was courageous, a good organizer, a terror to shirkers and jobbers, and accustomed to command. Yet one would have thought that his record of 1811, when he displayed almost every possible fault alike of strategy and of morale in Estremadura, would have ruled him out. Wellington thought, as it would appear, that he had a better conception of the war as a whole—‘the large concern’—than any of the other generals in the Peninsula, and had every opportunity of knowing. On this most critical point Wellington and the Duke of York fell out at once: it was not that the Duke wanted to rule out Beresford because he was undecided in the field, unpopular with his colleagues, self-assertive or arrogant. He had a simple Horse Guards rule which in his view excluded Beresford from consideration at once. ‘According to the general received opinion of the Service no officer in the British Army above the rank of lieutenant-colonel is ever expected to serve under an officer junior to himself, even though he may possess a superior local commission.’ He then proceeded to recall the fact that in 1794, when Lord Moira came to Flanders with the local rank of general, Sir Ralph Abercrombie, and a number of other general officers with commissions of senior date, refused to serve under him: in consequence of which Lord Moira had to resign and to return to England. There were many similar examples in the past. The right of officers to refuse to serve under a junior being established, it could not be argued that higher rank acquired by that junior in a foreign service had any weight. Beresford might be a Portuguese field-marshal, but from the British point of view he was junior to Sir Thomas Graham, Sir Stapleton Cotton, and Sir Rowland Hill. If by some deplorable accident Lord Wellington were incapacitated from command at the present moment, Sir Thomas Graham, if with the Army, would succeed. If Sir Thomas were on sick leave, Sir Stapleton Cotton would be the senior officer in the Peninsula, and the command of the Army would automatically devolve on him: if Sir Stapleton were also on leave, it would go to General Hill.

‘It appears impossible to expect that British generals senior to Marshal Beresford will submit to serve under him. It appears to the Commander-in-Chief, therefore, that there remains but one of two alternatives—the one to recall Marshal Beresford from the Peninsula in case he should persist in his claim; the other, in case Lord Wellington still prefers that officer as his second in command, to recall all the British lieutenant-generals senior to him in our own Army[336].’

This was a maddening reply, for though Wellington liked Stapleton Cotton he had no delusions about his intellectual capacity. The best he could say about him during the controversy was that ‘he commands our cavalry very well; I am certain much better than many who might be sent out to us, and who might be supposed much cleverer than he is.’ As a matter of fact, Graham was on sick leave, with an affliction of eyesight, which was supposed to be likely to result in permanent incapacity. Cotton was also on short leave to England on ‘urgent personal affairs[337],’ but expected back shortly. Therefore the Duke’s letter was a proposal to consign the fate of the British Army in the Peninsula to a gallant officer with the mental capacity of a cavalry brigadier, who had never commanded a force of all arms, and who was the cause of much quiet amusement to his comrades, from his ostentatious dress and unconcealed admiration for his own perfections.

Lord Bathurst tried to smooth matters, by asking Graham whether he felt inclined to surrender any claim to take over the Peninsular Army on account of his bad health. Sir Thomas replied that he should decline the responsibility for that reason: that he hoped to cause no difficulties, but that he could not agree that Beresford had any claim, ‘his obligation to the service bound him not to sacrifice the rights of British officers from a purely personal spirit of accommodation.’ To which Bathurst replied that if he waived his rights as a consequence of his ill health, while making no concession on grounds of principle, perhaps Hill and Cotton might do the same. To this the victor of Barrosa answered that he might consent, on the distinct understanding that no precedent was created, and that the arrangement was temporary[338].

His compliance proved useful: Stapleton Cotton arrived in London shortly after and ‘expressed himself decidedly against Sir William Beresford’s claims, and with some warmth.’ Lord Bathurst explained to him that Graham’s consent to the ‘temporary arrangement’ must govern his own, and tried to put him off the idea that he himself would undoubtedly become Wellington’s destined successor, if Graham refused the post, by hinting that after all Graham might recover his eyesight, and be able to take over the command. After showing much soreness, Cotton reluctantly acquiesced. The War Minister, writing an account of the interview to Wellington, ends with ‘I think it necessary to have this explained beforehand, that you might not have any doubt whether you were, after what has passed, to consider Sir Thomas Graham or Sir Stapleton Cotton as the person who was to exercise the command in case of your personal indisposition[339].’ So Beresford’s nomination was passed, as Wellington desired, and contrary to the Duke of York’s views as to the inevitable power of old precedent. But it was only passed by the consent of the other parties concerned, however reluctantly given. Fortunately Wellington preserved his usual splendid health, and the experiment of trusting the whole Allied Army in the Peninsula to the victor of Albuera was never made.

On another great controversy which (since Wellington never went off duty for a day) was of more practical importance than that of the right of succession, the Duke of York was partly successful in discomfiting the Commander-in-Chief in Spain. This was a question on which there had been much argument at the end of each Peninsular campaign, but never so much as in 1812-13. The exceptionally heavy casualty lists of the storming of Badajoz, the battle of Salamanca, and the retreat from Burgos had brought a great number of units, both cavalry and infantry, to very low figures. There were (as has been mentioned in a previous chapter) twelve battalions which had at the end of the retreat less than 300 bayonets effective, thirteen which had more sick than men present with the colours. For some of these the difficulty was only a momentary one—there was a large draft on the way to reinforce the unit, or at least a good number of trained recruits in Great Britain ready to be sent out. But this was not the case with all of them: the reason of this was to be sought in the organization of the Army in 1812: the majority of infantry regiments had two battalions; if the second unit was on home service, it regularly found drafts for the one at the front. But if the regiment was a single-battalion corps (and there were seven such with Wellington[340]), or if it chanced to have both units abroad and none at home (as was the case with fifteen other corps[341]), there was only a dépôt in Great Britain, and this had to feed two battalions both on active service overseas, and often could not discharge the double task effectively. There were of course regiments so popular, or recruited with such zeal and efficiency, that they succeeded in keeping two units abroad with adequate numbers: but this was exceptional.

What was to be done if a Peninsular battalion had got very low in numbers, had no sister-unit at home to feed it, and had few or no recruits at its British dépôt ready to be sent out? This was the case in December 1812 with twelve good old battalions of the Peninsular Army[342]. The Duke of York maintained that since they all showed under 350 effectives present (one was as low as 149 rank and file), and since there was no immediate prospect of working them up to even a low battalion strength of 450 or 500 men, they must come home at once, and take a long turn of British service, in which they could be brought up gradually to their proper establishment. He had carried out this plan in earlier years with some very fine but wasted battalions, such as the 29th and 97th. To replace the depleted veteran corps, there should come out new battalions from home, recently brought up to full strength. The same ought to be done with four or five cavalry regiments, which could show only about 250 horses effective.

But Wellington had other views, and had begun to carry them out on his own responsibility. He held that a well-tried battalion acclimatized to Peninsular service was such a precious thing, and a raw battalion such a comparatively worthless one, that it would be best to combine the wasted units in pairs as ‘Provisional Battalions’ of 600 or 700 bayonets, each sending home the cadres of four or five companies to its dépôt, and keeping six or five at the front. The returning cadres would work up to full strength by degrees, and could then come out again to join the service companies. On December 6th, 1812, he issued orders to constitute three Provisional Battalions[343]: he intended to carry out the same system for several more pairs of battalions[344], and it was put into practice for the 2/31st and 2/66th as from December 20. So with the cavalry, he intended to reduce four regiments to a two-squadron establishment, sending home the cadres of their other squadrons to be filled up at leisure.

On January 13th the Duke of York sent out a memorandum entirely disapproving of the system. He regretted to differ in principle from the Commander-in-Chief in Spain, but could not possibly concur in the arrangement. All depleted battalions for which no drafts could be found must come home at once. ‘Experience has shown that a skeleton battalion composed of officers, non-commissioned officers, and a certain foundation of old and experienced soldiers can be re-formed for any service in a short time: but if a corps reduced in numbers be broken up by the division of its establishment, such an interruption is occasioned in its interior economy and esprit de corps, that its speedy recompletion and reorganization for foreign service is effectually prevented. The experiment now suggested has once been tried, and has resulted in a degree of irregularity, contention, and indiscipline in the regiment concerned, which had made necessary the strongest measures.’ (Many court martials, and the removal of the whole of the officers into other battalions.) It was justly urged that seasoned men are more valuable than men fresh from England, but for the sake of a present and comparatively trifling advantage the general efficiency of the whole British Army must not be impaired. All the depleted battalions should be sent home at once[345].

Wellington was deeply vexed at this decision. He replied that orders, if definitely given, would of course be obeyed; but if left to act on his own responsibility, he could only say that the service in America or Sicily or at home was not his concern, and that he was bound to state what was best for the Peninsular Army. One old soldier who has served two years in Spain was more effective than two, or even three, who had not. Raw battalions fill the hospitals, straggle, maraud, and starve. He never would part with the Provisional Battalions as long as it was left to his discretion: and the same with cavalry. He had four depleted cavalry regiments much under-horsed: he would like to have the horses of the four hussar regiments which were being sent to him from England to give to his old Peninsula troopers, rather than the regiments themselves. But orders are orders and must be obeyed[346].

The Duke replied that for his part he had to take into consideration not only the Peninsula but the British service all over the world. Drafting of one corps into another was hurtful to the service and depressed the spirits of corps: it was even deemed illegal. Though the last person in the world to wish to diminish the Army in Spain or cripple its general’s exertions, he was compelled to persevere in his direction from necessity[347].

On March 13th Wellington reluctantly carried out the orders from the Horse Guards as regards his depleted cavalry regiments: the 4th Dragoon Guards, 9th and 11th Light Dragoons, and 2nd Hussars of the German Legion were ordered to make over their effective horses to other regiments, and to prepare to embark at Lisbon. A paragraph in the General Orders expressed Wellington’s regret at losing any of his brave old troops, and his hope that he might yet see them again at the front[348].

As to the infantry, the Duke repeating his general precept that depleted battalions must come home, but not giving definite orders for them by name and number, a curious compromise took place. Wellington sent back to England the two weakest units, which were still in April well under 300 bayonets apiece[349]: he had already drafted a third into the senior battalion of its own regiment, which was also in the Peninsula. Four more of the war-worn battalions had been worked up to about 400 of all ranks, by the return of convalescents and the arrival of small drafts—Wellington ventured to keep them, and to report them as efficient battalions, if small ones[350]. The challenge to Home authority lay with the remaining six[351]: though five of them were well under 400 strong he nevertheless stuck to his original plan and formed three provisional battalions out of them. If the Duke of York wanted them, he must ask for them by name: he did not, and they kept the field till the end of the war, and were repeatedly mentioned by Wellington as among the most efficient units that he owned. Presumably Vittoria put his arrangements beyond criticism—at any rate, the controversy was dropped at the Duke’s end. The net result was that Wellington lost three depleted infantry units and four depleted cavalry units of the old stock—about 2,000 veteran sabres and bayonets. In return he received before or during the campaign of 1813 four new cavalry regiments—all hussars[352]—and six new infantry battalions[353] all much stronger than the units they replaced, and making up about 1,600 sabres and 3,000 bayonets. He would probably have said that his real strength was not appreciably changed by getting 4,500 new hands instead of 2,000 old ones. Certainly, considering the effort that was required from the Peninsula Army in 1813, it is sufficiently surprising that its strength was, on balance, only four infantry units to the good—the cavalry regiments remaining the same in number as in 1812.

There were plenty of small administrative problems to be settled during the winter-rest of 1812-13, which worried Wellington but need not worry the modern student of history, being in themselves trivial. It is well, however, to note that in the spring of 1813 his old complaint about the impossibility of extracting hard cash from the Government, instead of the bank-notes and bills which the Spanish and Portuguese peasantry refused to regard as real money, came practically to an end. By heroic exertions the Chancellor of the Exchequer was scraping together gold enough to send £100,000 a month to Lisbon. A large sum in pagodas had been brought all the way from Madras, and the Mint was busy all the year in melting them down and recoining them as guineas. It was the first time since the ‘Suspension of Cash Payments Act’ of 1797 that any gold of this size had been struck and issued. As the whole output went straight to the Peninsula for the Army, the new coin was generally known as the ‘military guinea.’ Considering that gold was so much sought for in England at the time that a guinea could command 27s. in paper, it was no small feat to procure the Indian gold, and to see that the much wanted commodity went abroad without diminution. Wellington could have done with much more gold—six times as much he once observed—but at least he was no longer in the state of absolute bankruptcy in which he had opened the campaign of the preceding year—nor obliged to depend for a few thousand dollars on profits to be made on Egyptian corn which he sold in Lisbon, or impositions of doubtful legality made upon speculators in Commissariat Bonds. The Portuguese troops had their pay still in arrears—but that was not Wellington’s responsibility. The muleteers of the transport train were suffering from being paid in vales, which they sold to Lisbon sharks, rather than in the cruzados novos or Pillar Dollars which they craved, and sometimes deserted in not unnatural disgust. But, at the worst, it could not be denied that finance looked a good deal more promising than it had in 1812[354].

There had been much reorganization since the end of the Burgos retreat. In uniforms especially the change was greater than in any other year of the war: this was the first campaign in which the British heavy cavalry showed the new brass helmet, discarding the antiquated cocked hat—the light dragoons had gone into shakos, relinquishing the black japanned leather helmet with bearskin crest. Infantry officers for the first time appeared in shakos resembling those of the rank and file—the unwise custom by which they had up till now worn cocked hats, which made them easy marks for the enemy’s snipers, being at last officially condemned. Another much needed improvement was the substitution of small tin camp kettles, to be carried by the men, for the large iron Flanders cooking-pots, four to each company and carried on mules, which had hitherto been employed. They had always been a nuisance; partly because the mules could never be relied upon to keep up with the unit, partly because their capacity was so large that it took much firewood and a long space of time to cook their contents. Nothing is more common in personal diaries of 1808-12 than complaints about rations that had to be eaten half-cooked, or were not eaten at all, because the order to move on arrived before the cauldrons had even begun to get warm.

A more doubtful expedient was that of putting the great-coats of the whole of the infantry into store before the march began. Wellington opined that the weight of coat and blanket combined was more than the soldier could be expected to carry. One or other must be abandoned, and after much consideration it was concluded that the blanket was more essential. ‘Soldiers while in exercise during the day seldom wear their great-coats, which are worn by them only at night, together with the blanket: but as the Commander of the forces has now caused the army to be provided with tents, the necessity for the great-coat for night use is superseded[355].’ And tents, as a matter of fact, were provided for the first time during this campaign. The expedient worked well enough during the summer and autumn, when the weather was usually fine, in spite of some spells of rainy weather in June. But in the Pyrenees, from October onward, the tents proved inadequate protection both from sudden hurricanes and from continuous snowfall. And bad though the plight of men huddled in tents frozen stiff by the north wind might be, it was nothing to that of the sentry on some mountain defile, trying to keep a blanket round his shoulders in December blizzards. Yet the tents, with all their defects, were a decided boon—it would have been impossible indeed to hold the Pyrenean passes at all, if some shelter had not been provided for the battalions of the front line. Villages available for billeting were few and always in the hollows to the rear, not on the crests where the line of defence lay. It would seem that the experiment of dispensing with the great-coats was dropped, and that they were brought round by sea to Pasages or St. Sebastian, for personal diaries mention them as in use again, in at least some regiments, by December. Oddly enough, there appears to be no official record of the revocation of the order given in May.

Another innovation of the period was the introduction of a new unit into the British Army—called (after the idiotic system of nomenclature used at the Horse Guards) the ‘Staff Corps Cavalry.’ They were really military mounted police, picked from the best and steadiest men in the cavalry regiments, and placed under the command of Major Scovell, the cypher-secretary on Wellington’s head-quarters staff, of whose activities much has been said in the last volume. There were two troops of them, soon raised to four, with a total strength of about 300 of all ranks[356]. The object of the creation of the corps was to make more effectual the restraint on marauding, and other crimes with which the Provost-Marshal and his assistants were too few to deal. Wellington had railed with almost exaggerated emphasis on the straggling, disorder, and looting which had distinguished the Burgos retreat, and the Duke of York had licensed the formation of this police-cavalry as the best remedy for the disease. They had plenty to do after Vittoria, when the British Army had the greatest orgy of plunder that ever fell to its lot during the war. Wellington’s own view was that the slackness of discipline in certain regiments, rather than privations or casual opportunity, was the main source of all evil. But he welcomed any machinery that would deal with the symptoms of indiscipline, even if it did not strike at the roots of the disease. Over-leniency by courts martial was another cause of misconduct according to his theory—with this he strove to cope by getting from home a civilian Judge-Advocate-General, whose task was to revise the proceedings of such bodies, and disallow illegal proceedings and decisions. The first and only holder of this office, Francis Larpent, has left an interesting and not always discreet account of his busy life at Head-Quarters, which included a strange episode of captivity in the French lines on the Bidassoa[357].