The Times Great Military Lives: Leadership and Courage – from Waterloo to the Falklands in Obituaries. Ian Brunskill
had devoted his whole genius to the organization of the parks and trains which attend the march of an army in the field, the British troops had only the most imperfect resources on which to rely. The Engineer corps, though admirable in quality, was so deficient in numbers that commissions were placed at the free disposal of Cambridge mathematicians. The siege trains were weak and worthless against the solid ramparts of Peninsular strongholds, the intrenching tools were so ill made that they snapped in the hands of the workmen, and the art of sapping and mining was so little known that this branch of the siege duties was carried on by draughts from the regiments of the line, imperfectly and hastily instructed for the purpose. Unhappily, these results can only be obviated by long foresight, patient training, and costly provision; it was not in the power of a single mind, however capacious, to effect an instantaneous reform, and Wellington was compelled to supply the deficiencies by the best blood of his troops.
The command of the force commissioned to recover Badajoz had been intrusted to Marshal Beresford until Lord Wellington could repair in person to the scene, and it was against Soult, who was marching rapidly from the south to the relief of the place, that the glorious but sanguinary battle of Albuera was fought on the 16th of May. Having checked the enemy by this bloody defeat Beresford resumed the duties of the siege until he was superseded by the Commander-in-Chief. But all the efforts of Wellington and his troops were vain, for the present, against this celebrated fortress; two assaults were repulsed, and the British general determined on relinquishing the attempt, and returning to the northern frontier of Portugal for more favourable opportunities of action. He had now by his extraordinary genius so far changed the character of the war, that the British, heretofore fighting with desperate tenacity for a footing at Lisbon or Cadiz, were now openly assuming the offensive, and Napoleon had been actually compelled to direct defensive preparations along the road leading through Vittoria to Bayonne – that very road which Wellington in spite of these defences was soon to traverse in triumph. Meantime fresh troops were poured over the Pyrenees into Spain, and a new plan of operations was dictated by the Emperor himself. One powerful army in the north was to guard Castile and Leon, and watch the road by which Wellington might be expected to advance; another, under Soult, strongly reinforced, was to maintain French interests in Andalusia and menace Portugal from the south; while Marmont, who had succeeded Massena, took post with 30,000 men in the valley of the Tagus, resting on Toledo and Madrid, and prepared to concert movements with either of his colleagues as occasion might arise. To encounter these antagonists, who could rapidly concentrate 90,000 splendid troops against him, Wellington could barely bring 50,000 into the field; and though this disparity of numbers was afterwards somewhat lessened, yet it is scarcely in reason to expect that even the genius of Wellington or the value of his troops could have ultimately prevailed against such odds but for circumstances which favoured the designs of the British and rendered the contest less unequal. In the first place, the jealousies of the French marshals, when unrepressed by the Emperor’s presence, were so inveterate as to disconcert the best operations, being sometimes little less suicidal than those of the Princes of India. Next, although the Spanish armies had ceased to offer regular resistance to the invaders, yet the guerilla system of warfare, aided by interminable insurrections, acted to the incessant embarrassment of the French, whose duties, perils, and fatigues were doubled by the restless activity of these daring enemies. But the most important of Wellington’s advantages was that of position. With an impregnable retreat at Lisbon, with free water carriage in his rear, and with the great arteries of the Douro and the Tagus for conducting his supplies, he could operate at will from his central fastness towards the north, east, or south. If the northern provinces were temporarily disengaged from the enemy’s presence, he could issue by Almeida and Salamanca upon the great line of communication between the Pyrenees and Madrid; if the valley of the Tagus were left unguarded, he could march directly upon the capital by the well-known route of Talavera; while if Soult, by any of these demonstrations, was tempted to cross the Guadiana, he could carry his arms into Andalusia by Elvas and Badajoz. Relying, too, on the excellence of his troops, he confidently accounted himself a match for any single army of the enemy, – while he was well aware, from the exhausted state of the country and the difficulties of procuring subsistence, no concentration of the French forces could be maintained for many days together. In this way, availing himself of the far superior intelligence which he enjoyed through the agency of the guerillas, and of his own exclusive facilities for commanding supplies, he succeeded in paralysing the enormous hosts of Napoleon, by constant alarms and well-directed blows, till at length when the time of action came he advanced from cantonments and drove King Joseph and all his marshals headlong across the Pyrenees.
The position taken up by Wellington when he transferred his operations from the south to the north frontier of Portugal was at Fuente Guinaldo, a locality possessing some advantageous features in the neighbourhood of Ciudad Rodrigo. His thoughts being still occupied by the means of gaining the border fortresses, he had promptly turned to Rodrigo from Badajoz, and had arranged his plans with a double prospect of success. Knowing that the place was inadequately provisioned he conceived hopes of blockading it into submission from his post at Fuente Guinaldo, since in the presence of this force no supplies could be thrown into the town unless escorted by a convoy equal to the army under his command. Either, therefore, the French marshal must abandon Rodrigo to its fate, or he must go through the difficult operation of concentrating all his forces to form the convoy required. Marmont chose the latter alternative, and uniting his army with that of Dorsenne advanced to the relief of Rodrigo with an immense train of stores and 60,000 fighting men. By this extraordinary effort not only was the place provisioned, but Wellington himself was brought into a situation of some peril, for after successfully repulsing an attempt of the French in the memorable combat of El Bodon he found himself the next day, with only 15,000 men actually at his disposal, exposed to the attack of the entire French army. Fortunately Marmont was unaware of the chance thus offered him, and while he was occupying himself in evolutions and displays Wellington collected his troops and stood once more in security on his position. This movement, however, of the French commander destroyed all hopes of reducing Rodrigo by blockade, and the British general recurred accordingly to the alternative he nad been contemplating of an assault by force.
To comprehend the difficulties of this enterprise, it must be remembered that the superiority of strength was indisputably with the French whenever they concentrated their forces, and that it was certain such concentration would be attempted, at any risk, to save such a place as Rodrigo. Wellington, therefore, had to prepare, with such secrecy as to elude the suspicions of his enemy, the enormous mass of materials required for such a siege as that he projected. As the town stood on the opposite or Spanish bank of the river Agueda, and as the approaches were commanded by the guns of the garrison, it became necessary to construct a temporary bridge. Moreover, the heavy battering train, which alone required 5,000 bullocks to draw it, had to be brought up secretly to the spot, though it was a work almost of impossibility to get a score of cattle together. But these difficulties were surmounted by the inventive genius of the British commander. Preparing his battering train at Lisbon, he shipped it at that port as if for Cadiz, transshipped it into smaller craft at sea, and then brought it up the stream of the Douro. In the next place, he succeeded, beyond the hopes of his engineers, in rendering the Douro navigable for a space of 40 miles beyond the limit previously presumed, and at length he collected the whole necessary materials in the rear of his army without any knowledge on the part of his antagonist. He was now to reap the reward of his precaution and skill. Towards the close of the year the French armies having – conformably to directions of the Emperor, framed entirely on the supposition that Wellington had no heavy artillery – been dispersed in cantonments, the British general suddenly threw his bridge across the Agueda, and besieged Ciudad Rodrigo in force. Ten days only elapsed between the investment and the storm. On the 8th of January, 1812, the Agueda was crossed, and on the 19th the British were in the city. The loss of life greatly exceeded the limit assigned to such expenditure in the scientific calculations of military engineers; but the enterprise was undertaken in the face of a superior force, which could at once have defeated it by appearing on the scene of action; and so effectually was Marmont baffled by the vigour of the British that the place had fallen before his army was collected for its relief. The repetition of such a stroke at Badajoz, which was now Wellington’s aim, presented still greater difficulties, for the vigilance of the French was alarmed, the garrison of the place had been reconstituted by equal draughts from the various armies