[270] See vol. ii, pp. 465-6.
[271] For text see Toreno, iii. p. 149.
[272] Wellington Dispatches, ix. p. 467.
[273] Ibid., pp. 474-5, October 5.
[274] Bathurst to Wellington, October 21. Supplementary Dispatches, vii. p. 462.
[276] Roughly correct: the joint force of the Castilian and Estremaduran divisions in October 1812 was 8,000 men with the colours—there were some 7,000 men in dépôts and garrisons.
[277] In November the 3rd Army had about 5,000 men with the colours, 3,000 in dépôt: the 2nd, 7,000, excluding the guerrilleros of the Empecinado and Duran.
[278] Two days later Wellington sent Carvajal a definite instance of this friction. The Civil Intendant of Old Castile had collected a magazine for the benefit of the garrison of Rodrigo. The Captain-General had seized it, and used it to support his own staff. Dispatches, ix. p. 623.
[279] Wellington to Carvajal. Dispatches, ix. pp. 604-5.
[280] For the exact text of the reply see the Spanish Minister of War’s letter. Supplementary Dispatches, xiv. pp. 170-1.
[281] See Supplementary Dispatches, vii. pp. 529-30 and 546.
[282] Wellesley to Castlereagh. Supplementary Dispatches, vii. p. 530.
[283] They were the Duke of Infantado, Admiral Villaviciencio, and Señors Ignacio Rivas, Mosquera, and Villamil. The last two were reputed very anti-British.
[284] This Act had been a great demonstration of the ‘Liberales’, and they were desirous of punishing certain canons and bishops who had refused to read it publicly in their cathedrals; an odd parallel to the case of James II and the Seven Bishops in English history.
[285] Including the presentation of a thundering letter from the British Prince-Regent: see H. Wellesley to Wellington, July 28, Supplementary Dispatches, viii. p. 160 and ibid., p. 188.
[286] See especially below the difficulties with the Galician army as to ammunition, and the Andalusian reserve as to transport and magazines.
[287] Dispatches, x. pp. 211-12.
[288] See Dispatches, x. p. 181, when Wellington writes in March: ‘There is not a single battalion or squadron fit to take the field, not in the whole kingdom of Spain a dépôt of provisions that would keep one battalion for one day—not a shilling of money in any military chest.’
[289] Wellington Dispatches, x. p. 199.
[290] See above, vol. iii. pp. 193, 415-17, and iv. p. 71. The best sketch of the personalities of the Portuguese regency is that in Lord Wellesley’s Memorandum respecting Portugal, in Wellington Dispatches, Suppl., vii. pp. 199-204, a very interesting document.
[291] Now Marquis de Borba by his father’s death in 1812.
[292] See e. g. Wellington Dispatches, x. pp. 37 and 106-7.
[293] See e. g. the cases dealt with in Wellington Dispatches, Suppl., vii. pp. 240 and 316.
[294] e. g. Wellington Dispatches, x. p. 129, and another case accompanied by the murder of a soldier, x. p. 117.
[295] See Wellington Dispatches, x. pp. 131, 191, and 201.
[296] See Wellington Dispatches, x. p. 88 and ix. p. 615.
[297] See Wellington to Forjaz, Dispatches, ix. p. 353.
[298] See Wellington to Bathurst, ibid., ix. pp. 461-2.
[299] Wellington to the Prince-Regent of Portugal, Dispatches, x. pp. 284-7.
[300] Wellington to Stuart, ibid., x. pp. 342, &c.
[301] See Meneval’s Mémoires, iii. p. 317.
[302] It was generally known in London next day. See Sir G. Jackson’s Memoirs, iii. p. 447.
[303] Liverpool to Wellington. Supplementary Dispatches, vii. pp. 502-3.
[304] Lord Liverpool doubted whether Prussia or Austria would move. Prussia might stir, if only she was sure that Austria would support her. But ‘the councils of Vienna at this time are abject.’
[305] Though on February 17 Wellington heard of the departure northward of the 7th (Polish) Lancers, and some squadrons of Gendarmerie belonging to the Army of the North. But this was too small a move to serve as the base of a deduction. Dispatches, x. p. 125.
[306] Wellington to Bathurst. Dispatches, x. p. 177.
[307] Ibid., p. 207, March 17.
[308] By an intercepted letter from the King to Reille, dated March 14, now in the ‘Scovell Cyphers,’ which mentions both facts.
[309] Wellington to Graham, April 7. Dispatches, x. p. 270.
[310] In the ‘Scovell Cyphers,’ like the dispatch quoted above.
[311] Wellington to Bathurst, January 26. Dispatches, x. p. 39; cf. ibid., p. 256.
[312] Supplementary Dispatches, vii. pp. 601-2, April 7.
[313] Wellington to Bathurst. Dispatches, x. p. 307.
[314] For details see Schwertfeger’s History of the K.G.L., vol. i, pp. 500-50.
[315] See letters in von Wacholz’s Diary, pp. 311-12. It is doubtful if the men, largely waifs and prisoners of all nations, felt the same zeal as the officers.
[316] See vol. i, pp. 371, &c.
[317] Supplementary Dispatches, vii. pp. 449-50.
[318] Henry Wellesley to Wellington. Supplementary Dispatches, x, pp. 571-3.
[319] Bathurst to Wellington, Supplementary Dispatches, vii. 577, and Castlereagh to Sir Charles Stuart, ibid., p. 586, March 3, 1813.
[320] See above, vol. v, pp. 342-7.
[321] Wellington to Bathurst. Dispatches, x. pp. 384-5.
[322] For this forgotten raid in December 1813, see Études Napoléoniennes, 1914, p. 191. For the Genoa affair see C. T. Atkinson in the R.U.S.I. Journal, 1915.
[323] See Wellington to Torrens, May 28, 1812. Dispatches, ix. p. 182. Yet Wellington, unconsulted though he had been, expresses his thanks to the Duke for fixing upon a successor to Murray.
[324] Creevey Papers, i. p. 173.
[325] Supplementary Dispatches, vii. pp. 427-8.
[326] Supplementary Dispatches, vii. p, 457.
[327] Oddly enough, Wellington wanted the Duke of York to take the initiative and odium, by appointing Gordon to a home post. The Duke refused, holding that Wellington must take the responsibility.
[328] Supplementary Dispatches, vii. p. 499.
[329] Ibid., p. 527.
[332] See Wellington to Torrens, Supplementary Dispatches, vii. pp. 494-5.
[333] Ibid., p. 486.
[334] Wellington Dispatches, ix. p. 592.
[335] Wellington to Bathurst, Supplementary Dispatches, vii. p. 484.
[336] Duke of York to Bathurst, Supplementary Dispatches, vii. pp. 516-17.
[337] He was bothering Lord Bathurst for a peerage, which he was not yet destined to obtain. Supplementary Dispatches, vii. p. 515. He was put off with the colonelcy of a cavalry regiment.
[338] Bathurst to Wellington, Supplementary Dispatches, vii. pp. 538-9.
[339] Ibid., vii. pp. 577-8.
[340] The 2nd, 20th, 51st, 68th, 74th, 77th, 94th Regiments.
[341] The 9th, 11th, 24th, 27th, 30th, 34th, 39th, 44th, 47th, 53rd, 58th, 66th, 81st, 83rd, 87th, as also Chasseurs Britanniques and Brunswick-Oels.
[342] 2nd, 2/24th, 2/30th, 2/31st, 2/44th, 51st, 2/53rd, 2/58th, 2/66th, 68th, 2/83rd, 94th.
[343] 1st Prov. Batt. = 2/31st and 2/66th; 2nd = 2nd and 2/53rd; 3rd = 2/24th and 2/58th; 4th = 2/30th and 2/44th.
[344] e.g. the 51st and 68th. Wellington Dispatches, ix. p. 609.
[345] The Duke to Wellington, Supplementary Dispatches, vii. pp. 524-5.
[346] Wellington to Torrens, Dispatches, x. pp. 77-8.
[347] The Duke to Wellington, Supplementary Dispatches, vii. p. 553, February 17.
[348] Ibid., vii. pp. 581-3.
[349] The 2/30th and 2/44th.
[350] The 51st, 68th, 2/83rd, and 94th.
[351] 2nd, 2/24th, 2/31st, 2/53rd, 2/58th, 2/66th.
[352] 7th, 10th, 15th, 18th Hussars.
[353] 2/59th (from Cadiz), 2/62nd, 76th, 77th (from Lisbon garrison), 2/84th, 85th.
[354] On all this the reader interested in military finance will find excellent commentaries in chap. i of vol. ix of Mr. Fortescue’s History of the British Army, which appeared three months after this chapter of mine was written.
[355] See Supplementary Dispatches, xiv. p. 212.
[356] Ibid., vii. pp. 539-41.
[357] He was captured by a raiding party, while watching the enemy from too short a distance, on August 31.
[358] So Clarke to the King, Corresp. du Roi Joseph, vol. ix. p. 189.
[359] Jourdan, Mémoires, p. 452.
[360] See Corresp. du Roi Joseph, ix. p. 187.
[361] See account in the Memoirs of Patterson of the 50th, pp. 303-5.
[362] See dispatch in Girod’s Vie militaire du Général Foy, pp. 386-7. The whole is written in a boastful and unconvincing style, unworthy of such a good soldier. Colonel Harrison’s report is singularly vague and short. He only says that the enemy made off, leaving their dead behind.
[363] Desprez to Joseph, from Paris, January 3, Corresp. R. J. ix. pp. 180-2.
[364] Nap. Corresp. xxiv, no. 19411.
[365] See vol. v. pp. 538-9.
[366] Miot de Melito, iii. pp. 263-4.
[368] Two regiments which had only two battalions in February 1813 got cut down to one apiece.
[369] A brigade not a division, since the Hessian regiment perished at Badajoz.
[370] He had also later to give up the 22nd, a weak one-battalion regiment of 700 bayonets.
[372] Even the 2nd Dragoons, the first regiment scheduled, though it started in March, shows casualties at Vittoria, so did not get away.
[373] See Joseph to Suchet, Correspondance, ix. p. 200.
[374] See Mémoires du Roi Joseph, ix. p. 134.
[375] Clarke to Joseph, Correspondance, ix. p. 193 (February 2).
[376] Ibid. (February 12), pp. 194-5.
[377] Clarke to Joseph, February 12. Ibid., pp. 197-9.
[379] Correspondance du Roi Joseph, ix. p. 290, written just before Clarke got news of Wellington’s start.
[381] Dispatch of February 26, Correspondance du Roi Joseph, ix. p. 206.
[382] See vol. iv. p. 472.
[383] Mémoires, iv. p. 202.
[384] ‘Au lieu de les poursuivre, de les inquiéter, d’aller au devant de leurs entreprises, on attendait la nouvelle de leurs tentatives sur un point pour s’y porter soi-même: on agissait toujours après l’événement.’ Clarke to Clausel, Correspondance du Roi Joseph, ix. p. 210.
[385] Clarke to Clausel, March 9, Correspondance du Roi Joseph, ix. 209-12—a very long and interesting dispatch, of which this is only a short précis.
[386] For a long account of the Combat of Poza, see Vacani, vol. vi. pp. 228-33.
[387] Martinien’s lists show casualties in the 3rd, 52nd, and 105th Line and 10th Léger of Abbé’s division on this day, so he had clearly gone out in force.
[388] The interesting dispatch of Leguia, the captor of Fuenterrabia, will be found in the Appendix to Arteche, vol. xiii.
[389] Mina’s claim to have annihilated these unfortunate troops is sustained by Martinien’s lists, which show 8 officers killed and 23 wounded in the 25th Léger and 27th Line, at Lerin, March 31. There would not be more than 40 or 45 officers present with two battalions.
[390] Expressed at some length in the great guerrillero’s Memoirs.
[391] Who has a long and interesting narrative of the expedition in his vol. vi. pp. 240-50.
[392] Vacani’s statement that the Italian division lost this day only 110 men, is made absurd by the lists in Martinien, which show that the 4th, 6th, and 2nd Ligeros lost that day 3 officers killed and 16 wounded—which implies a total casualty list of at least 350.
[393] In Martinien’s lists there are five officer-casualties given for this fight, but they do not include all the names of officers mentioned as killed by Vacani in his narrative.
[394] Not the 24th as in Vacani and Belmas. See Girod de l’Ain’s Life of Foy, p. 260.
[395] Figures in Belmas are (in detail) Foy’s own division (10 battalions) 5,513 men, Palombini’s (5 battalions) 2,474, artillery 409, Sarrut’s division about 4,500. Foy left behind Aussenac’s brigade about 1,500, and the garrison of Bilbao about 2,000.
[396] For horrid details of mishandlings of both sexes see Marcel (of the 6th Léger) in his Campagnes d’Espagne, pp. 193-4. Marcel is a raconteur, but Belmas bears him out (iv. p. 566).
[397] Napier says the Spanish loss was 180—which seems more probable. The British ships lost one officer and sixteen men wounded, by Bloye’s report. As to the French loss, we have the names of 3 officers killed and 6 wounded during the operation—which looks like 150 to 180 casualties.
[398] See above, vol. ii. p. 341.
[399] 1/10th, 1/27th, 1/58th, 1/81st, and 2/27th which came in time for Castalla, also a battalion of grenadier companies of units in Sicily.
[400] 4th and 6th Line battalions, and a light battalion composed of the light companies of 3rd, 4th, 6th, 7th, 8th, and of De Roll and Dillon.
[401] Three companies of De Roll and four of Dillon—the whole making up a battalion 800 bayonets and the Calabrese Free Corps.
[402] 1st and 2nd Italian Levy, and two battalions of Sicilian Estero Regiment.
[403] Those of Villacampa, Mijares, and Sarsfield.
[404] For details see letter of February 22nd in Sir Samuel Whittingham’s Memoirs, pp. 172-4. He says that Colonel Grant, commanding the 2nd Italian Levy, had made himself cordially detested by his men by ‘employing the minute worry of the old British School,’ and that Bourke of the 1st Italian Levy had much more control over his men.
[405] Murray to Wellington. Supplementary Dispatches, xiv. p. 191.
[406] See his letter of March 19th, written after the skirmish: ‘Our army is concentrating itself, and a few days I hope will bring on a general action, in which I hope to play my part’ (Memoirs, p. 188).
[407] Murray to Wellington. Supplementary Dispatches, xiv. p. 200.
[408] Napier blames the British Government for having got things into such a position of double command that Bentinck could withdraw from Spain troops which he had sent there, and which had passed under Wellington’s authority (v. p. 54). Wellington seems to have made no objection to this particular recall (Dispatches, vii. p. 260), thinking (I suppose) that the risk of losing Sicily was much more serious than the deduction of 2,000 men from the Alicante side-show. He wrote at any rate to Murray to send them off at once, if he had not done so already. The fault, of course, lay with Bentinck, for denuding Sicily before he was sure of the stability of the new Constitution.
[409] Murray to Wellington, April 2. Supplementary Dispatches, vii. p. 605. The 6th K.G.L. was present at Castalla on April 13th.
[410] Wellington, Dispatches, x. p. 162.
[411] The best account of all this from the Spanish point of view is a dispatch written by Colonel Potons y Moxica, Elio’s chief of the staff, in the Record Office, ‘East Coast of Spain’ file. It is equally valuable for the battle of Castalla.
[412] Consisting of 2/27th British, Calabrese Free Corps, 1st Italian Levy, and the rifle companies of 3rd and 8th K.G.L.
[413] Two squadrons 20th Light Dragoons, the troop of Foreign Hussars, and some of Whittingham’s Spaniards, two squadrons of Olivenza.
[414] I do not know who was commanding this division (3rd of the Murcian army) in April: its divisional general, Sarsfield, was absent. It included Bailen, Badajoz, America, Alpujarras, Corona, and Guadix: O’Ronan had it in the preceding autumn.
[415] Potons y Moxica’s dispatch says that ‘la entrega del castillo provino de una especie de sedicion en la tropa de Velez Malaga,’ which is conclusive. Why Napier (v. 57) calls Velez Malaga ‘the finest regiment in the Spanish army’ I cannot conceive. It was one of O’Donnell’s old regiments, cut to pieces at Castalla in the preceding July, and hastily filled up with drafts. I suspect that Napier is paraphrasing Suchet’s description of this corps as ‘mille hommes de belles troupes.’ Except that they had been recently re-clothed from the British subsidy, there was nothing ‘fine’ about them.
[416] In his own narrative he says that he sent in the 1st and 3rd Léger, 14th, 114th, and 121st Line—a big deployment of forces.
[417] The best account of the combat of Biar is that of the anonymous officer of the 2/27th, quoted at length by Trimble in his History of the Inniskilling Regiment, pp. 61-2. See also the less trustworthy Landsheit (of the ‘Foreign Hussars’), ii. pp. 86-9.
[418] De Roll-Dillon, 81st, and one of Whittingham’s Spanish battalions. They had some casualties—the Spaniards 29, De Roll-Dillon probably 25: its total casualty list for the days April 12-13 of 34 cannot be divided between the two actions.
[419] It is impossible to disentangle the losses of Adam’s brigade on April 12 and April 13, given together in Murray’s report. But on the second day the 2/27th regiment was the only unit seriously engaged. The total for both days was killed 1 officer and 56 men, wounded 10 officers and 231 men, missing 32 men: or a total of 330. If we deduct 40 for assumed losses of the 2/27th on the second day, and 30 more for casual losses of the other units on April 13—they were engaged but not seriously—and add 29 for losses in Whittingham’s battalion (he gives the figure himself) and 25 (including 9 missing) for those in De Roll-Dillon (which was barely under fire on the second day and lost 34 altogether), we must conclude that the total was very close to 300.
[420] The light company 7th K.G.L., two newly arrived squadrons of Brunswick Hussars, and two batteries.