XXIV. CHAP. I
Napoleon recalls several divisions of infantry and cavalry from Soult’s army—Embarrassments of that marshal—Mr. Batbedat a banker of Bayonne offers to aid the allies secretly with money and provisions—La Roche Jacquelin and other Bourbon partizans arrive at the allies’ head-quarter—The duke of Angoulême arrives there—Lord Wellington’s political views—General reflections—Soult embarrassed by the hostility of the French people—Lord Wellington embarrassed by the hostility of the Spaniards—Soult’s remarkable project for the defence of France—Napoleon’s reasons for neglecting it put hypothetically—Lord Wellington’s situation suddenly ameliorated—His wise policy, foresight, and diligence—Resolves to throw a bridge over the Adour below Bayonne, and to drive Soult from that river—Soult’s system of defence—Numbers of the contending armies—Passage of the Gaves—Combat of Garris—Lord Wellington forces the line of the Bidouze and Gave of Mauleon—Soult takes the line of the Gave de Oleron and resolves to change his system of operation 505
CHAP. II.
Lord Wellington arrests his movements and returns in person to St. Jean de Luz to throw his bridge over the Adour—Is prevented by bad weather and returns to the Gave of Mauleon—Passage of the Adour by sir John Hope—Difficulty of the operation—The flotilla passes the bar and enters the river—The French sally from Bayonne but are repulsed and the stupendous bridge is cast—Citadel invested after a severe action—Lord Wellington passes the Gave of Oleron and invests Navarrens—Soult concentrates his army at Orthes—Beresford passes the Gave de Pau near Pereyhorade—Battle of Orthes—Soult changes his line of operations—Combat of Aire—Observations 536
CHAP. III.
Soult’s perilous situation—He falls back to Tarbes—Napoleon sends him a plan of operations—His reply and views stated—Lord Wellington’s embarrassments—Soult’s proclamation—Observations upon it—Lord Wellington calls up Freyre’s Gallicians and detaches Beresford against Bordeaux—The mayor of that city revolts from Napoleon—Beresford enters Bordeaux and is followed by the duke of Angoulême—Fears of a reaction—The mayor issues a false proclamation—Lord Wellington expresses his indignation—Rebukes the duke of Angoulême—Recalls Beresford but leaves lord Dalhousie with the seventh division and some cavalry—Decaen commences the organization of the army of the Gironde—Admiral Penrose enters the Garonne—Remarkable exploit of the commissary Ogilvie—Lord Dalhousie passes the Garonne and the Dordogne and defeats L’Huillier at Etauliers—Admiral Penrose destroys the French flotilla—The French set fire to their ships of war—The British seamen and marines land and destroy all the French batteries from Blaye to the mouth of the Garonne 580
CHAP. IV.
Wellington’s and Soult’s situations and forces described—Folly of the English ministers—Freyre’s Gallicians and Ponsonby’s heavy cavalry join lord Wellington—He orders Giron’s Andalusians and Del Parque’s army to enter France—Soult suddenly takes the offensive—Combats of cavalry—Partizan expedition of Captain Dania—Wellington menaces the peasantry with fire and sword if they take up arms—Soult retires—Lord Wellington advances—Combat of Vic Bigorre—Death and character of colonel Henry Sturgeon—Daring exploit of captain William Light[1]—Combat of Tarbes—Soult retreats by forced marches to Toulouse—Wellington follows more slowly—Cavalry combat at St. Gaudens—The allies arrive in front of Toulouse—Reflections 603
CHAP. V.
Views of the commanders on each side—Wellington designs to throw a bridge over the Garonne at Portet above Toulouse, but below the confluence of the Arriege and Garonne—The river is found too wide for the pontoons—He changes his design—Cavalry action at St. Martyn de Touch—General Hill passes the Garonne at Pensaguel above the confluence of the Arriege—Marches upon Cintegabelle—Crosses the Arriege—Finds the country too deep for his artillery and returns to Pensaguel—Recrosses the Garonne—Soult fortifies Toulouse and the Mont Rave—Lord Wellington sends his pontoons down the Garonne—Passes that river at Grenade fifteen miles below Toulouse with twenty thousand men—The river floods and his bridge is taken up—The waters subside—The bridge is again laid—The Spaniards pass—Lord Wellington advances up the right bank to Fenouilhet—Combat of cavalry—The eighteenth hussars win the bridge of Croix d’Orade—Lord Wellington resolves to attack Soult on the 9th of April—Orders the pontoons to be taken up and relaid higher up the Garonne at Seilth in the night of the 8th—Time is lost in the execution and the attack is deferred—The light division cross at Seilth on the morning of the 10th—Battle of Toulouse 624
CHAP. VI.
General observations and reflections 657
LIST OF APPENDIX.
No. I.
Lord William Bentinck’s correspondence with sir Edward Pellew and lord Wellington about Sicily 691
No. II.
General Nugent’s and Mr. King’s correspondence with lord William Bentinck about Italy 693
No. III.
Extracts from the correspondence of sir H. Wellesley, Mr. Vaughan, and Mr. Stuart upon Spanish and Portuguese affairs 699
No. IV.
Justificatory pieces relating to the combats of Maya and Roncesvalles 701
No. V.
Ditto ditto of Ordal 703
No. VI.
Official States of the allied army in Catalonia 704
No. VII.
Ditto of the Anglo-Portuguese at different epochs 705
No. VIII.
Ditto of the French armies at different epochs 707
No. IX.
Extract from lord Wellington’s order of movements for the battle of Toulouse 709
No. X.
Note and morning state of the Anglo-Portuguese on the 10th of April, 1814 710
PLATES.
No. 1. Explanatory of the Catalonian Operations and plan of Position at Cape Salud.
2. Explanatory of Soult’s Operations to relieve Pampeluna.
3. Combats of Maya and Roncesvalles.
4. Explanatory Sketch of the Assault of St. Sebastian.
5. Explanatory Sketch of Soult’s and lord Wellington’s Passage of the Bidassoa.
6. Explanatory Sketch of the Battle of the Nivelle.
7. Explanatory Sketch of the Operations round Bayonne, and of the Battle.
8. Explanatory Sketch of the Battle of the Nive, and Battle of St. Pierre.
9. Explanatory Sketch of the Battle of Orthes, and the Retreat of Soult to Aire.
10. Explanatory Sketch of the Operations against Tarbes, and the Battle of Toulouse.
To follow Page 689.
NOTICE.
This volume was nearly printed when my attention was called to a passage in an article upon the duke of Wellington’s despatches, published in the last number of the “British and Foreign Quarterly Review.”
After describing colonel Gurwood’s proceedings to procure the publication of the despatches the reviewer says,
“We here distinctly state, that no other person ever had access to any documents of the duke, by his grace’s permission, for any historical or other purpose, and that all inferential pretensions to such privilege are not founded in fact.”
This assertion, which if not wholly directed against my history certainly includes it with others, I distinctly state to be untrue.
For firstly, the duke of Wellington gave me access to the original morning states of his army for the use of my history; he permitted me to take them into my possession, and I still have possession of them.
Secondly. The duke of Wellington voluntarily directed me to apply to sir George Murray for the “orders of movements.” That is to say the orders of battle issued by him to the different generals previous to every great action. Sir George Murray thought proper, as the reader will see in the justificatory pieces of this volume, to deny all knowledge of these “orders of movements.” I have since obtained some of them from others, but the permission to get them all was given to me at Strathfieldsaye, in the presence of lord Fitzroy Somerset, who was at the same time directed to give me the morning states and he did do so. These were documents of no ordinary importance for a history of the war.
Thirdly. Lord Fitzroy Somerset, with the consent of the duke of Wellington, put into my hands king Joseph’s portfolio, taken at Vittoria and containing that monarch’s correspondence with the emperor, with the French minister of war, and with the marshals and generals who at different periods were employed in the Peninsula. These also were documents of no slight importance for a history of the war, and they are still in my possession.
When I first resolved to write this History, I applied verbally to the duke of Wellington to give me papers in aid of my undertaking. His answer in substance was, that he had arranged all his own papers with a view to publication himself—that he had not decided in what form they should be given to the world, or when, probably not during his lifetime, but he thought his plan would be to “write a plain didactic history” to be published after his death—that he was resolved never to publish anything unless he could tell the whole truth, but at that time he could not tell the whole truth without wounding the feelings of many worthy men, without doing mischief: adding in a laughing way “I should do as much mischief as Buonaparte.” Then expatiating upon the subject he related to me many anecdotes illustrative of this observation, shewing errors committed by generals and others acting with him, or under him, especially at Waterloo; errors so materially affecting his operations that he could not do justice to himself if he suppressed them, and yet by giving them publicity he would ungraciously affect the fame of many worthy men whose only fault was dulness.
For these reasons he would not, he said, give me his own private papers, but he gave me the documents I have already noticed, and told me he would then, and always, answer any questions as to facts which I might in the course of my work think necessary to put. And he has fulfilled that promise rigidly, for I did then put many questions to him verbally and took notes of his answers, and many of the facts in my History which have been most cavilled at and denied by my critics have been related by me solely upon his authority. Moreover I have since at various times sent to the duke a number of questions in writing, and always they have been fully and carefully answered without delay, though often put when his mind must have been harassed and his attention deeply occupied by momentous affairs.
But though the duke of Wellington denied me access to his own peculiar documents, the greatest part of those documents existed in duplicate; they were in other persons’ hands, and in two instances were voluntarily transferred with other interesting papers to mine. Of this truth the reader may easily satisfy himself by referring to my five first volumes, some of which were published years before colonel Gurwood’s compilation appeared. He will find in those volumes frequent allusions to the substance of the duke’s private communications with the governments he served; and in the Appendix a number of his letters, printed precisely as they have since been given by colonel Gurwood. I could have greatly augmented the number if I had been disposed so to swell my work. Another proof will be found in the Justificatory Pieces of this volume, where I have restored the whole reading of a remarkable letter of the duke’s which has been garbled in colonel Gurwood’s compilation, and this not from any unworthy desire to promulgate what the duke of Wellington desired to suppress, but that having long before attributed, on the strength of that passage, certain strong opinions to his grace, I was bound in defence of my own probity as an historian to reproduce my authority.
W. F. P. NAPIER.
March 28th, 1840.
JUSTIFICATORY NOTES.
Having in my former volumes printed several controversial papers relating to this History, I now complete them, thus giving the reader all that I think necessary to offer in the way of answer to those who have assailed me. The Letter to marshal Beresford and the continuation of my Reply to the Quarterly Review have been published before, the first as a pamphlet, the second in the London and Westminster Review. And the former is here reproduced, not with any design to provoke the renewal of a controversy which has been at rest for some years, but to complete the justification of a work which, written honestly and in good faith from excellent materials, has cost me sixteen years of incessant labour. The other papers being new shall be placed first in order and must speak for themselves.
ALISON.
Some extracts from Alison’s History of the French Revolution reflecting upon the conduct of sir John Moore have been shewn to me by a friend. In one of them I find, in reference to the magazines at Lugo, a false quotation from my own work, not from carelessness but to sustain a miserable censure of that great man. This requires no further notice, but the following specimen of disingenuous writing shall not pass with impunity.
Speaking of the prevalent opinion that England was unable to succeed in military operations on the continent, Mr. Alison says:—
“In sir John Moore’s case this universal and perhaps unavoidable error was greatly enhanced by his connection with the opposition party, by whom the military strength of England had been always underrated, the system of continental operations uniformly decried, and the power and capacity of the French emperor, great as they were, unworthily magnified.”
Mr. Alison here proves himself to be one of those enemies to sir John Moore who draw upon their imaginations for facts and upon their malice for conclusions.
Sir John Moore never had any connection with any political party, but during the short time he was in parliament he voted with the government. He may in society have met with some of the leading men of opposition thus grossly assailed by Mr. Alison, yet it is doubtful if he ever conversed with any of them, unless perhaps Mr. Wyndham, with whom, when the latter was secretary at war, he had a dispute upon a military subject. He was however the intimate friend of Mr. Pitt and of Mr. Pitt’s family. It is untrue that sir John Moore entertained or even leaned towards exaggerated notions of French prowess; his experience and his natural spirit and greatness of mind swayed him the other way. How indeed could the man who stormed the forts of Fiorenza and the breach of Calvi in Corsica, he who led the disembarkation at Aboukir Bay, the advance to Alexandria on the 13th, and defended the ruins of the camp of Cæsar on the 21st of March, he who had never been personally foiled in any military exploit feel otherwise than confident in arms? Mr. Alison may calumniate but he cannot hurt sir John Moore.
SIR WALTER SCOTT.
In the last volume of sir Walter Scott’s life by Mr. Lockhart, page 143, the following passage from sir Walter’s diary occurs:—
“He (Napier) has however given a bad sample of accuracy in the case of lord Strangford, where his pointed affirmation has been as pointedly repelled.”
This peremptory decision is false in respect of grammar, of logic, and of fact.
[Sidenote: Vide Times, Morning Chronicle, Sun, &c. 1828.]
Of grammar because where, an adverb of place, has no proper antecedent. Of logic, because a truth may be pointedly repelled without ceasing to be a truth. Of fact because lord Strangford did not repel but admitted the essential parts of my affirmation, namely, that he had falsified the date and place of writing his dispatch, and attributed to himself the chief merit of causing the royal emigration from Lisbon. Lord Strangford indeed, published two pamphlets to prove that the merit really attached to him, but the hollowness of his pretensions was exposed in my reply to his first pamphlet; the accuracy of my statement was supported by the testimony of disinterested persons, and moreover many writers, professing to know the facts, did, at the time, in the newspapers, contradict lord Strangford’s statements.
The chief point of his second pamphlet, was the reiterated assertion that he accompanied the prince regent over the bar of Lisbon.
To this I could have replied, 1º. That I had seen a letter, written at the time by Mr. Smith the naval officer commanding the boat which conveyed lord Strangford from Lisbon to the prince’s ship, and in that letter it was distinctly stated, that they did not reach that vessel until after she had passed the bar. 2º. That I possessed letters from other persons present at the emigration of the same tenor, and that between the writers of those letters and the writer of the Bruton-street dispatch, to decide which were the better testimony, offered no difficulty.
Why did I not so reply? For a reason twice before published, namely, that Mr. Justice Bailey had done it for me. Sir Walter takes no notice of the judge’s answer, neither does Mr. Lockhart; and yet it was the most important point of the case. Let the reader judge.
[Sidenote: Vide Sun newspaper 28th Nov. 1828.]
The editor of the Sun newspaper after quoting an article from the Times upon the subject of my controversy with lord Strangford, remarked, that his lordship “would hardly be believed upon his oath, certainly not upon his honour at the Old Bailey.”
Lord Strangford obtained a rule to shew cause why a criminal information should not be filed against the editor for a libel. The present lord Brougham appeared for the defence and justified the offensive passage by references to lord Strangford’s own admissions in his controversy with me. The judges thinking the justification good, discharged the rule by the mouth of lord Tenterden.
[Sidenote: Report in the Sun newspaper]
During the proceedings in court the attorney-general, on the part of lord Strangford, referring to that nobleman’s dispatch which, though purporting to be written on the 29th November from H.M.S. Hibernia off the Tagus was really written the 29th of December in Bruton-street, said, “Every body knew that in diplomacy there were two copies prepared of all documents, No. 1 for the minister’s inspection, No. 2 for the public.”
Mr. Justice Bayley shook his head in disapprobation.
Attorney-general—“Well, my lord, it is the practice of these departments and may be justified by necessity.”
Mr. Justice Bayley—“I like honesty in all places, Mr. Attorney.”
And so do I, wherefore I recommend this pointed repeller to Mr. Lockhart when he publishes another edition of his father-in-law’s life.
COLONEL GURWOOD.
In the eighth volume of the Duke of Wellington’s Despatches page 531, colonel Gurwood has inserted the following note:—
“Lieutenant Gurwood fifty-second regiment led the “forlorn hope” of the light division in the assault of the lesser breach. He afterwards took the French governor general Barrié in the citadel; and from the hands of lord Wellington on the breach by which he had entered, he received the sword of his prisoner. The permission accorded by the duke of Wellington to compile this work has doubtless been one of the distinguished consequences resulting from this service, and lieutenant Gurwood feels pride as a soldier of fortune in here offering himself as an encouraging example to the subaltern in future wars.”—“The detail of the assault of Ciudad Rodrigo by the lesser breach is of too little importance except to those who served in it to become a matter of history. The compiler however takes this opportunity of observing that colonel William Napier has been misinformed respecting the conduct of the “forlorn hope,” in the account given of it by him as it appears in the Appendix of the fourth volume of his History of the Peninsular War. A correct statement and proofs of it have been since furnished to colonel William Napier for any future edition of his book which will render any further notice of it here unnecessary.”
My account is not to be disposed of in this summary manner, and this note, though put forth as it were with the weight of the duke of Wellington’s name by being inserted amongst his Despatches, shall have an answer.
Colonel Gurwood sent me what in the above note he calls “a correct statement and proofs of it.” I know of no proofs, and the correctness of his statement depends on his own recollections which the wound he received in the head at this time seems to have rendered extremely confused, at least the following recollections of other officers are directly at variance with his. Colonel Gurwood in his “correct statement” says, “When I first went up the breach there were still some of the enemy in it, it was very steep and on my arrival at the top of it under the gun I was knocked down either by a shot or stone thrown at me. I can assure you that not a lock was snapped as you describe, but finding it impossible that the breach from its steepness and narrowness could be carried by the bayonet I ordered the men to load, certainly before the arrival of the storming party, and having placed some of the men on each side of the breach I went up the middle with the remainder, and when in the act of climbing over the disabled gun at the top of the breach which you describe, I was wounded in the head by a musquet shot fired so close to me that it blew my cap to pieces, and I was tumbled over senseless from the top to the bottom of the breach. When I recovered my senses I found myself close to George,[2] who was sitting on a stone with his arm broken, I asked him how the thing was going on, &c. &c.”
Now to the above statement I oppose the following letters from the authors of the statements given in the Appendix to my fourth volume.
Major-General Sir GEORGE NAPIER to Colonel WILLIAM NAPIER.
“I am sorry our gallant friend Gurwood is not satisfied with and disputes the accuracy of your account of the assault of the lesser breach at Ciudad Rodrigo as detailed in your fourth volume. I can only say, that account was principally, if not wholly taken from colonel Fergusson’s, he being one of my storming captains, and my own narrative of that transaction up to the period when we were each of us wounded. I adhere to the correctness of all I stated to you, and beg further to say that my friend colonel Mitchell, who was also one of my captains in the storming party, told me the last time I saw him at the commander-in-chief’s levee, that my statement was “perfectly correct.” And both he and colonel Fergusson recollected the circumstance of my not permitting the party to load, and also that upon being checked, when nearly two-thirds up the breach, by the enemy’s fire, the men forgetting their pieces were not loaded snapped them off, but I called to them and reminded them of my orders to force their way with the bayonet alone! It was at that moment I was wounded and fell, and I never either spoke to or saw Gurwood afterwards during that night, as he rushed on with the other officers of the party to the top of the breach. Upon looking over a small manuscript of the various events of my life as a soldier, written many years ago, I find all I stated to you corroborated in every particular. Of course as colonel Gurwood tells you he was twice at the top of the breach, before any of the storming party entered it, I cannot take upon myself to contradict him, but I certainly do not conceive how it was possible, as he and myself jumped into the ditch together, I saw him wounded, and spoke to him after having mounted the faussbraye with him, and before we rushed up the breach in the body of the place. I never saw him or spoke to him after I was struck down, the whole affair did not last above twenty-five or thirty minutes, but as I fell when about two-thirds up the breach I can only answer for the correctness of my account to that period, as soon after I was assisted to get down the breach by the Prince of Orange (who kindly gave his sash to tie up my shattered arm and which sash is now in my possession) by the present duke of Richmond and lord Fitzroy Somerset, all three of whom I believe were actively engaged in the assault. Our friend Gurwood did his duty like a gallant and active soldier, but I cannot admit of his having been twice in the breach before the other officers of the storming party and myself!
“I believe yourself and every man in the army with whom I have the honor to be acquainted will acquit me of any wish or intention to deprive a gallant comrade and brother-officer of the credit and honor due to his bravery, more particularly one with whom I have long been on terms of intimate friendship, and whose abilities I admire as much as I respect and esteem his conduct as a soldier; therefore this statement can or ought only to be attributed to my sense of what is due to the other gallant officers and soldiers who were under my command in the assault of the lesser breach of Ciudad Rodrigo, and not to any wish or intention on my part to detract from the distinguished services of, or the laurels gained by colonel Gurwood on that occasion. Of course you are at liberty to refer to me if necessary and to make what use you please of this letter privately or publicly either now or at any future period, as I steadily adhere to all I have ever stated to you or any one else and I am &c. &c.
“GEORGE NAPIER.”
Extract of a letter from colonel JAMES FERGUSSON, fifty-second regiment (formerly a captain of the forty-third and one of the storming party.) Addressed to Sir GEORGE NAPIER.
“I send you a memorandum I made some time back from memory and in consequence of having seen various accounts respecting our assault. You are perfectly correct as to Gurwood and your description of the way we carried the breach is accurate; and now I have seen your memorandum I recollect the circumstance of the men’s arms not being loaded and the snapping of the firelocks.”—“I was not certain when you were wounded but your description of the scene on the breach and the way in which it was carried is perfectly accurate.”
Extract of a letter from colonel FERGUSSON to colonel WILLIAM NAPIER.
“I think the account you give in your fourth volume of the attack of the little breach at Ciudad Rodrigo is as favorable to Gurwood as he has any right to expect, and agrees perfectly both with your brother George’s recollections of that attack and with mine. Our late friend Alexander Steele who was one of my officers declared he was with Gurwood the whole of the time, for a great part of the storming party of the forty-third joined Gurwood’s party who were placing the ladders against the work, and it was the engineer officer calling out that they were wrong and pointing out the way to the breach in the fausse braye that directed our attention to it. Jonathan Wyld[3] of the forty-third was the first man that run up the fausse braye, and we made directly for the little breach which was defended exactly as you describe. We were on the breach some little time and when we collected about thirty men (some of the third battalion rifle brigade in the number) we made a simultaneous rush, cheered, and run in, so that positively no claim could be made as to the first who entered the breach. I do not want to dispute with Gurwood but I again say (in which your brother agrees) that some of the storming party were before the forlorn hope. I do not dispute that Gurwood and some of his party were among the number that rushed in at the breach, but as to his having twice mounted the breach before us, I cannot understand it, and Steele always positively denied it.”
Having thus justified myself from the charge of writing upon bad information about the assault of the little breach I shall add something about that of the great breach.
Colonel Gurwood offers himself as an encouraging example for the subalterns of the British army in future wars; but the following extract from a statement of the late major Mackie, so well known for his bravery worth and modesty, and who as a subaltern led the forlorn hope at the great breach of Ciudad Rodrigo, denies colonel Gurwood’s claim to the particular merit upon which he seems inclined to found his good fortune in after life.
Extracts from a memoir addressed by the late Major MACKIE to Colonel NAPIER. October 1838.
“The troops being immediately ordered to advance were soon across the ditch, and upon the breach at the same instant with the ninety-fourth who had advanced along the ditch. To mount under the fire of the defenders was the work of a moment, but when there difficulties of a formidable nature presented themselves; on each flank a deep trench was cut across the rampart isolating the breach, which was enfiladed with cannon and musquetry, while in front, from the rampart into the streets of the town, was a perpendicular fall of ten or twelve feet; the whole preventing the soldiers from making that bold and rapid onset so effective in facilitating the success of such an enterprize. The great body of the fire of defence being from the houses and from an open space in front of the breach, in the first impulse of the moment I dropt from the rampart into the town. Finding myself here quite alone and no one following, I discovered that the trench upon the right of the breach was cut across the whole length of the rampart, thereby opening a free access to our troops and rendering what was intended by the enemy as a defence completely the reverse. By this opening I again mounted to the top of the breach and led the men down into the town. The enemy’s fire which I have stated had been, after we gained the summit of the wall, confined to the houses and open space alluded to, now began to slacken, and ultimately they abandoned the defence. Being at this time in advance of the whole of the third division, I led what men I could collect along the street, leading in a direct line from the great breach into the centre of the town, by which street the great body of the enemy were precipitately retiring. Having advanced considerably and passed across a street running to the left, a body of the enemy came suddenly from that street, rushed through our ranks and escaped. In pursuit of this body, which after passing us held their course to the right, I urged the party forwards in that direction until we reached the citadel, where the governor and garrison had taken refuge. The outer gate of the enclosure being open, I entered at the head of the party composed of men of different regiments who by this time had joined the advance. Immediately on entering I was hailed by a French officer asking for an English general to whom they might surrender. Pointing to my epaulets in token of their security, the door of the keep or stronghold of the place was opened and a sword presented to me in token of surrender, which sword I accordingly received. This I had scarcely done when two of their officers laid hold of me for protection, one on each arm, and it was while I was thus situated that lieutenant Gurwood came up and obtained the sword of the governor.
“In this way, the governor, with lieutenant Gurwood and the two officers I have mentioned still clinging to my arms, the whole party moved towards the rampart. Having found when there, that in the confusion incident to such a scene I had lost as it were by accident that prize which was actually within my reach, and which I had justly considered as my own, in the chagrin of the moment I turned upon my heel and left the spot. The following day, in company with captain Lindsay of the eighty-eighth regiment I waited upon colonel Pakenham, then assistant adjutant-general to the third division, to know if my name had been mentioned by general Picton as having led the advance of the right brigade. He told me that it had and I therefore took no further notice of the circumstance, feeling assured that I should be mentioned in the way of which all officers in similar circumstances must be so ambitious. My chagrin and disappointment may be easily imagined when lord Wellington’s dispatches reached the army from England to find my name altogether omitted, and the right brigade deprived of their just meed of praise.”—“Sir, it is evident that the tendency of this note” (colonel Gurwood’s note quoted from the Despatches) “is unavoidably, though I do him the justice to believe by no means intentionally upon colonel Gurwood’s part, to impress the public with the belief that he was himself the first British officer that entered the citadel of Ciudad Rodrigo, consequently the one to whom its garrison surrendered. This impression the language he employs is the more likely to convey, inasmuch as to his exertions and good fortune in this particular instance he refers the whole of his professional success, to which he points the attention of the future aspirant as a pledge of the rewards to be expected from similar efforts to deserve them. To obviate this impression and in bare justice to the right brigade of the third division and, as a member of it, to myself, I feel called on to declare that though I do not claim for that brigade exclusively the credit of forcing the defences of the great breach, the left brigade having joined in it contrary to the intention of lord Wellington under the circumstances stated, yet I do declare on the word of a man of honour, that I was the first individual who effected the descent from the main breach into the streets of the town, that I preceded the advance into the body of the place, that I was the first who entered the citadel, and that the enemy there assembled had surrendered to myself and party before lieutenant Gurwood came up. Referring to the inference which colonel Gurwood has been pleased to draw from his own good fortune as to the certainty and value of the rewards awaiting the exertions of the British soldier, permit me, sir, in bare justice to myself to say that at the time I volunteered the forlorn hope on this occasion, I was senior lieutenant of my own regiment consequently the first for promotion. Having as such succeeded so immediately after to a company, I could scarcely expect nor did I ask further promotion at the time, but after many years of additional service, I did still conceive and do still maintain, that I was entitled to bring forward my services on that day as a ground for asking that step of rank which every officer leading a forlorn hope had received with the exception of myself.
“May I, sir, appeal to your sense of justice in lending me your aid to prevent my being deprived of the only reward I had hitherto enjoyed, in the satisfaction of thinking that the services which I am now compelled most reluctantly to bring in some way to the notice of the public, had during the period that has since elapsed, never once been called in question. It was certainly hard enough that a service of this nature should have been productive of no advantage to me in my military life. I feel it however infinitely more annoying that I should now find myself in danger of being stript of any credit to which it might entitle me, by the looseness of the manner in which colonel Gurwood words his statement. I need not say that this danger is only the more imminent from his statement appearing in a work which as being published under the auspices of the duke of Wellington as well as of the Horse Guards, has at least the appearance of coming in the guise of an official authority,” “I agree most cordially with colonel Gurwood in the opinion he has expressed in his note, that he is himself an instance where reward and merit have gone hand in hand. I feel compelled however, for the reasons given to differ from him materially as to the precise ground on which he considers the honours and advantages that have followed his deserts to be not only the distinguished but the just and natural consequences of his achievements on that day. I allude to the claim advanced by colonel Gurwood to be considered the individual by whom the governor of Ciudad Rodrigo was made prisoner of war. It could scarcely be expected that at such a moment I could be aware that the sword which I received was not the governor’s being in fact that of one of his aide-de-camps. I repeat however that before lieutenant Gurwood and his party came up, the enemy had expressed their wish to surrender, that a sword was presented by them in token of submission and received by me as a pledge, on the honour of a British officer, that according to the laws of war, I held myself responsible for their safety as prisoners under the protection of the British arms. Not a shadow of resistance was afterwards made and I appeal to every impartial mind in the least degree acquainted with the rules of modern warfare, if under these circumstances I am not justified in asserting that before, and at the time lieutenant Gurwood arrived, the whole of the enemy’s garrison within the walls of the citadel, governor included, were both de jure and de facto prisoners to myself. In so far, therefore, as he being the individual who made its owner captive, could give either of us a claim to receive that sword to which colonel Gurwood ascribes such magic influence in the furthering of his after fortunes, I do maintain that at the time it became de facto his, it was de jure mine.”
Something still remains to set colonel Gurwood right upon matters which he has apparently touched upon without due consideration. In a note appended to that part of the duke of Wellington’s Despatches which relate to the storming of Ciudad Rodrigo he says that the late captain Dobbs of the fifty-second at Sabugal “recovered the howitzer, taken by the forty-third regiment but retaken by the enemy.” This is totally incorrect. The howitzer was taken by the forty-third and retained by the forty-third. The fifty-second regiment never even knew of its capture until the action was over. Captain Dobbs was a brave officer and a very generous-minded man, he was more likely to keep his own just claims to distinction in the back-ground than to appropriate the merit of others to himself. I am therefore quite at a loss to know upon what authority colonel Gurwood has stated a fact inaccurate itself and unsupported by the duke of Wellington’s dispatch about the battle of Sabugal, which distinctly says the howitzer was taken by the forty-third regiment, as in truth it was, and it was kept by that regiment also.
While upon the subject of colonel Gurwood’s compilation I must observe that in my fifth volume, when treating of general Hill’s enterprise against the French forts at Almaraz I make lord Wellington complain to the ministers that his generals were so fearful of responsibility the slightest movements of the enemy deprived them of their judgment. Trusting that the despatches then in progress of publication would bear me out, I did not give my authority at large in the Appendix; since then, the letter on which I relied has indeed been published by colonel Gurwood in the Despatches, but purged of the passage to which I allude and without any indication of its being so garbled. This omission might hereafter give a handle to accuse me of bad faith, wherefore I now give the letter in full, the Italics marking the restored passage:—
From lord Wellington to the Earl of Liverpool.
Fuente Guinaldo, May 28th, 1812.
MY DEAR LORD,
You will be as well pleased as I am at general Hill’s success, which certainly would have been still more satisfactory if he had taken the garrison of Mirabete; which he would have done if general Chowne had got on a little better in the night of the 16th, and if sir William Erskine had not very unnecessarily alarmed him, by informing him that Soult’s whole army were in movement, and in Estremadura. Sir Rowland therefore according to his instructions came back on the 21st, whereas if he had staid a day or two he would have brought his heavy howitzers to bear on the castle and he would either have stormed it under his fire or the garrison would have surrendered. But notwithstanding all that has passed I cannot prevail upon the general officers to feel a little confidence in their situation. They take alarm at the least movement of the enemy and then spread the alarm, and interrupt every thing, and the extraordinary circumstance is, that if they are not in command they are as stout as any private soldiers in the army. Your lordship will observe that I have marked some passages in Hill’s report not to be published. My opinion is that the enemy must evacuate the tower of Mirabete and indeed it is useless to keep that post, unless they have another bridge which I doubt. But if they see that we entertain a favourable opinion of the strength of Mirabete, they will keep their garrison there, which might be inconvenient to us hereafter, if we should wish to establish there our own bridge. I enclose a Madrid Gazette in which you will see a curious description of the state of king Joseph’s authority and his affairs in general, from the most authentic sources.
Ever, my dear lord, &c. &c. WELLINGTON.
VILLA MURIEL.
The following statement of the operations of the fifth division at the combat of Muriel 25th October, 1812, is inserted at the desire of sir John Oswald. It proves that I have erroneously attributed to him the first and as it appeared to me unskilful disposition of the troops; but with respect to the other portions of his statement, without denying or admitting the accuracy of his recollections, I shall give the authority I chiefly followed, first printing his statement.
Affair of Villa Muriel.
On the morning 25th of October 1812 major-general Oswald joined and assumed the command of the fifth division at Villa Muriel on the Carion. Major-general Pringle had already posted the troops, and the greater portion of the division were admirably disposed of about the village as also in the dry bed of a canal running in its rear, in some places parallel to the Carion. Certain of the corps were formed in columns of attack supported by reserves, ready to fall upon the enemy if in consequence of the mine failing he should venture to push a column along the narrow bridge. The river had at some points been reported fordable, but these were said to be at all times difficult and in the then rise of water as they proved hardly practicable. As the enemy closed towards the bridge, he opened a heavy fire of artillery on the village. At that moment lord Wellington entered it and passed the formed columns well sheltered both from fire and observation. His lordship approved of the manner the post was occupied and of the advantage taken of the canal and village to mask the troops. The French supported by a heavy and superior fire rushed gallantly on the bridge, the mine not exploding and destroying the arch till the leading section had almost reached the spot. Shortly after, the main body retired, leaving only a few light troops. Immediately previous to this an orderly officer announced to lord Wellington that Palencia and its bridges were gained by the foe. He ordered the main body of the division immediately to ascend the heights in its rear, and along the plateau to move towards Palencia in order to meet an attack from that quarter. Whilst the division was in the act of ascending, a report was made by major Hill of the eighth caçadores that the ford had been won, passed by a body of cavalry causing the caçadores to fall back on the broken ground. The enemy, it appears, were from the first, acquainted with these fords, for his push to them was nearly simultaneous with his assault on the bridge. The division moved on the heights towards Palencia, it had not however proceeded far, before an order came directing it to retire and form on the right of the Spaniards, and when collected to remain on the heights till further orders. About this time the cavalry repassed the river, nor had either infantry or artillery passed by the ford to aid in the attack, but in consequence of the troops being withdrawn from the village and canal a partial repair was given to the bridge, and small bodies of infantry were passed over skirmishing with the Spaniards whose post on the heights was directly in front of Villa Muriel. No serious attack from that quarter was to be apprehended until an advance from Palencia. It was on that point therefore that attention was fixed. Day was closing when lord Wellington came upon the heights and said all was quiet at Palencia and that the enemy must now be driven from the right bank. General Oswald enquired if after clearing the village the division was to remain there for the night. His lordship replied, the village was to be occupied in force and held by the division till it was withdrawn, which would probably be very early in the morning. He directed the first brigade under brigadier-general Barnes to attack the enemy’s flank, the second under Pringle to advance in support extending to the left so as to succour the Spaniards who were unsuccessfully contending with the enemy in their front. The casualties in the division were not numerous especially when the fire it was exposed to is considered. The enemy sustained a comparative heavy loss. The troops were by a rapid advance of the first brigade cut off from the bridge and forced into the river where many were drowned. The allies fell back in the morning unmolested.
JOHN OSWALD, &c. &c. &c.
Memoir on the combat of Muriel by captain Hopkins, fourth regiment.
As we approached Villa Muriel the face of the country upon our left flank as we were then retrograding appeared open, in our front ran the river Carrion, and immediately on the opposite side of the river and parallel to it there was a broad deep dry canal. On our passing the bridge at Villa Muriel we had that village on our left, from the margin of the canal the ground sloped gradually up into heights, the summit forming a fine plateau. Villa Muriel was occupied by the brigadier Pringle with a small detachment of infantry but at the time we considered that it required a larger force, as its maintenance appeared of the utmost importance to the army, we were aware that the enemy had passed the Carrion with cavalry and also that Hill’s caçadores had given way at another part of the river. Our engineers had partly destroyed the bridge of Villa Muriel, the enemy attacked the village, at the time the brigadier and his staff were there,[4] passing the ruins of the bridge by means of ladders, &c. The enemy in driving the detachment from the village made some prisoners. We retired to the plateau of the heights, under a fire of musquetry and artillery, where we halted in close column; the enemy strengthened the village.
Lord Wellington arrived with his staff on the plateau, and immediately reconnoitred the enemy whose reinforcements had arrived and were forming strong columns on the other side of the river. Lord Wellington immediately ordered some artillery to be opened on the enemy. I happened to be close to the head-quarter staff and heard lord Wellington say to an aide-de-camp, “Tell Oswald I want him.” On sir John Oswald arriving he said, “Oswald, you will get the division under arms and drive the enemy from the village and retain possession of it.” He replied, “My lord, if the village should be taken I do not consider it as tenable.” Wellington then said, “It is my orders, general.” Oswald replied, “My lord as it is your orders they shall be obeyed.” Wellington then gave orders to him “that he should take the second brigade of the division and attack in line, that the first brigade should in column first descend the heights on the right of the second, enter the canal and assist in clearing it of the enemy,” and saying, “I will tell you what I will do, Oswald. I will give you the Spaniards and Alava into the bargain, headed by a company of the ninth regiment upon your left.” The attack was made accordingly, the second battalion of the fourth regiment being left in reserve in column on the slope of the hill exposed to a severe cannonade which for a short time caused them some confusion. The enemy were driven from the canal and village, and the prisoners which they made in the morning were retaken. The enemy lost some men in this affair, but general Alava was wounded, the officer commanding the company of Brunswickers killed, and several of the division killed and wounded. During the attack lord Wellington sent the prince of Orange under a heavy fire for the purpose of preventing the troops exposing themselves at the canal, two companies defended the bridge with a detachment just arrived from England. The possession of the village proved of the utmost importance, as the retrograde movement we made that night could not have been effected with safety had the enemy been on our side of the river, as it was we were enabled to pass along the river with all arms in the most perfect security.
A LETTER TO GENERAL LORD VISCOUNT BERESFORD, BEING An Answer to his Lordships Assumed Refutation OF COL. NAPIER’S JUSTIFICATION OF HIS THIRD VOLUME.
MY LORD,
You have at last appeared in print without any disguise. Had you done so at first it might have spared us both some trouble. I should have paid more deference to your argument and would willingly have corrected any error fairly pointed out. Now having virtually acknowledged yourself the author of the two publications entitled “Strictures” and “Further Strictures,” &c. I will not suffer you to have the advantage of using two kinds of weapons, without making you also feel their inconvenience. I will treat your present publication as a mere continuation of your former two, and then my lord, how will you stand in this controversy?
Starting anonymously you wrote with all the scurrility that bad taste and mortified vanity could suggest to damage an opponent, because in the fair exercise of his judgement he had ventured to deny your claim to the title of a great commander: and you coupled this with such fulsome adulation of yourself that even in a dependent’s mouth it would have been sickening. Now when you have suffered defeat, when all the errors misquotations and misrepresentations of your anonymous publications have been detected and exposed, you come forward in your own name as if a new and unexceptionable party had appeared, and you expect to be allowed all the advantage of fresh statements and arguments and fresh assertions, without the least reference to your former damaged evidence. You expect that I should have that deference for you, which your age, your rank, your services, and your authority under other circumstances might have fairly claimed at my hands; that I should acknowledge by my silence how much I was in error, or that I should defend myself by another tedious dissection and exposition of your production. My lord, you will be disappointed. I have neither time nor inclination to enter for the third time upon such a task; and yet I will not suffer you to claim a victory which you have not gained. I deny the strength of your arguments, I will expose some prominent inconsistencies, and as an answer to those which I do not notice I will refer to your former publications to show, that in this controversy, I am now entitled to disregard any thing you may choose to advance, and that I am in justice exonerated from the necessity of producing any more proofs.
You have published above six hundred pages at three different periods, and you have taken above a year to digest and arrange the arguments and evidence contained in your present work; a few lines will suffice for the answer. The object of your literary labours is to convince the world that at Campo Mayor you proved yourself an excellent general, and that at Albuera you were superlatively great! Greater even than Cæsar! My lord, the duke of Wellington did not take a much longer time to establish his European reputation by driving the French from the Peninsula; and methinks if your exploits vouch not for themselves your writings will scarcely do it for them. At all events, a plain simple statement at first, having your name affixed, would have been more effectual with the public, and would certainly have been more dignified than the anonymous publications with which you endeavoured to feel your way. Why should not all the main points contained in the laboured pleadings of your Further Strictures, and the still more laboured pleadings of your present work, have been condensed and published at once with your name? if indeed it was necessary to publish at all! Was it that by anonymous abuse of your opponent and anonymous praise of yourself you hoped to create a favourable impression on the public before you appeared in person? This, my lord, seems very like a consciousness of weakness. And then how is it that so few of the arguments and evidences now adduced should have been thought of before? It is a strange thing that in the first defence of your generalship, for one short campaign, you should have neglected proofs and arguments sufficient to form a second defence of two hundred pages.
You tell us, that you disdained to notice my “Reply to various Opponents,” because you knew the good sense of the public would never be misled by a production containing such numerous contradictions and palpable inconsistencies, and that your friends’ advice confirmed you in this view of the matter. There were nevertheless some things in that work which required an answer even though the greatest part of it had been weak; and it is a pity your friends did not tell you that an affected contempt for an adversary who has hit hard only makes the bystanders laugh. Having condescended to an anonymous attack it would have been wiser to refute the proofs offered of your own inaccuracy than to shrink with mock grandeur from a contest which you had yourself provoked. My friends, my lord, gave me the same advice with respect to your anonymous publications, and with more reason, because they were anonymous; but I had the proofs of your weakness in my hands, I preferred writing an answer, and if you had been provided in the same manner you would like me have neglected your friends’ advice.
My lord, I shall now proceed with my task in the manner I have before alluded to. You have indeed left me no room for that refined courtesy with which I could have wished to soften the asperities of this controversy, but I must request of you to be assured, and I say it in all sincerity, that I attribute the errors to which I must revert, not to any wilful perversion or wilful suppression of facts, but entirely to a natural weakness of memory, and the irritation of a mind confused by the working of wounded vanity. I acknowledge that it is a hard trial to have long-settled habits of self satisfaction suddenly disturbed,—
“Cursed be my harp and broke be every chord, If I forget thy worth, victorious Beresford.”
It was thus the flattering muse of poetry lulled you with her sweet strains into a happy dream of glory, and none can wonder at your irritation when the muse of history awakened you with the solemn clangour of her trumpet to the painful reality that you were only an ordinary person. My lord, it would have been wiser to have preserved your equanimity, there would have been some greatness in that.
In your first Strictures you began by asserting that I knew nothing whatever of you or your services; and that I was actuated entirely by vulgar political rancour when I denied your talents as a general. To this I replied that I was not ignorant of your exploits. That I knew something of your proceedings at Buenos Ayres, at Madeira, and at Coruña; and in proof thereof I offered to enter into the details of the first, if you desired it. To this I have received no answer.
You affirmed that your perfect knowledge of the Portuguese language was one of your principal claims to be commander of the Portuguese army. In reply I quoted from your own letter to lord Wellington, your confession, that, such was your ignorance of that language at the time you could not even read the communication from the regency, relative to your own appointment.
You asserted that no officer, save sir John Murray, objected at the first moment to your sudden elevation of rank. In answer I published sir John Sherbroke’s letter to sir J. Cradock complaining of it.
You said the stores (which the Cabildo of Ciudad Rodrigo refused to let you have in 1809) had not been formed by lord Wellington. In reply I published lord Wellington’s declaration that they had been formed by him.
You denied that you had ever written a letter to the junta of Badajos, and this not doubtfully or hastily, but positively and accompanied with much scorn and ridicule of my assertion to that effect. You harped upon the new and surprising information I had obtained relative to your actions, and were, in truth, very facetious upon the subject. In answer I published your own letter to that junta! So much for your first Strictures.
In your second publication (page 42) you asserted that colonel Colborne was not near the scene of action at Campo Mayor; and now in your third publication (page 48) you show very clearly that he took an active part in those operations.
You called the distance from Campo Mayor to Merida two marches, and now you say it is four marches.
Again, in your first “Strictures,” you declared that the extent of the intrigues against you in Portugal were exaggerated by me; and you were very indignant that I should have supposed you either needed, or had the support and protection of the duke of Wellington while in command of the Portuguese army. In my third and fourth volumes, published since, I have shown what the extent of those intrigues was: and I have still something in reserve to add when time shall be fitting. Meanwhile I will stay your lordship’s appetite by two extracts bearing upon this subject, and upon the support which you derived from the duke of Wellington.
1º. Mr. Stuart, writing to lord Wellesley, in 1810, after noticing the violence of the Souza faction relative to the fall of Almeida, says,—“I could have borne all this with patience if not accompanied by a direct proposal that the fleet and transports should quit the Tagus, and that the regency should send an order to marshal Beresford to dismiss his quarter-master-general and military secretary; followed by reflections on the persons composing the family of that officer, and by hints to the same purport respecting the Portuguese who are attached to lord Wellington.”
2º. Extract from a letter written at Moimenta de Beira by marshal Beresford, and dated 6th September, 1810.—“However, as I mentioned, I have no great desire to hold my situation beyond the period lord Wellington retains his situation, or after active operations have ceased in this country, even should things turn out favourably, of which I really at this instant have better hopes than I ever had though I have been usually sanguine. But in regard to myself, though I do not pretend to say the situation I hold is not at all times desirable to hold, yet I am fully persuaded that if tranquillity is ever restored to this country under its legal government, that I should be too much vexed and thwarted by intrigues of all sorts to reconcile either my temper or my conscience to what would then be my situation.”
For the further exposition of the other numerous errors and failures of your two first publications, I must refer the reader to my “Reply” and “Justification,” but the points above noticed it was necessary to fix attention upon, because they give me the right to call upon the public to disregard your present work. And this right I cannot relinquish. I happened fortunately to have the means of repelling your reckless assaults in the instances above mentioned, but I cannot always be provided with your own letters to disprove your own assertions. The combat is not equal my lord, I cannot contend with such odds and must therefore, although reluctantly, use the advantages which by the detection of such errors I have already obtained.
These then are strong proofs of an unsound memory upon essential points, and they deprive your present work of all weight as an authority in this controversy. Yet the strangest part of your new book (see page 135) is, that you avow an admiration for what you call the generous principle which leads French authors to misstate facts for the honour of their country; and not only you do this but sneer at me very openly for not doing the same! you sneer at me, my lord, for not falsifying facts to pander to the morbid vanity of my countrymen, and at the same time, with a preposterous inconsistency you condemn me for being an inaccurate historian! My lord, I have indeed yet to learn that the honour of my country either requires to be or can be supported by deliberate historical falsehoods. Your lordship’s personal experience in the field may perhaps have led you to a different conclusion but I will not be your historian: and coupling this, your expressed sentiment, with your forgetfulness on the points which I have before noticed, I am undoubtedly entitled to laugh at your mode of attacking others. What, my lord? like Banquo’s ghost you rise, “with twenty mortal murthers on your crown to push us from our stools.” You have indeed a most awful and ghost-like way of arguing: all your oracular sentences are to be implicitly believed, and all my witnesses to facts sound and substantial, are to be discarded for your airy nothings.
Captain Squire! heed him not, he was a dissatisfied, talking, self-sufficient, ignorant officer.
The officer of dragoons who charged at Campo Mayor! He is nameless, his narrative teems with misrepresentations, he cannot tell whether he charged or not.
Colonel Light! spunge him out, he was only a subaltern.
Captain Gregory! believe him not, his statement cannot be correct, he is too minute, and has no diffidence.
Sir Julius Hartman, Colonel Wildman, Colonel Leighton! Oh! very honourable men, but they know nothing of the fact they speak of, all their evidence put together is worth nothing! But, my lord, it is very exactly corroborated by additional evidence contained in Mr. Long’s publication. Aye! aye! all are wrong; their eyes, their ears, their recollections, all deceived them. They were not competent to judge. But they speak to single facts! no matter!
Well, then, my lord, I push to you your own despatch! Away with it! It is worthless, bad evidence, not to be trusted! Nothing more likely, my lord, but what then, and who is to be trusted? Nobody who contradicts me: every body who coincides with me, nay, the same person is to be believed or disbelieved exactly as he supports or opposes my assertion; even those French authors, whose generous principles lead them to write falsehoods for the honour of their country. Such, my lord, after a year’s labour of cogitation, is nearly the extent of your “Refutation.”
In your first publication you said that I should have excluded all hearsay evidence, and have confined myself to what could be proved in a court of justice; and now when I bring you testimony which no court of justice could refuse, with a lawyer’s coolness you tell the jury that none of it is worthy of credit; that my witnesses, being generally of a low rank in the army, are not to be regarded, that they were not competent to judge. My lord, this is a little too much: there would be some shew of reason if these subalterns’ opinions had been given upon the general dispositions of the campaign, but they are all witnesses to facts which came under their personal observation. What! hath not a subaltern eyes? Hath he not ears? Hath he not understanding? You were once a subaltern yourself, and you cannot blind the world by such arrogant pride of station, such overweening contempt for men’s capacity because they happen to be of lower rank than yourself. Long habits of imperious command may have so vitiated your mind that you cannot dispossess yourself of such injurious feelings, yet, believe me it would be much more dignified to avoid this indecent display of them.
I shall now, my lord, proceed to remark upon such parts of your new publication as I think necessary for the further support of my history, that is, where new proofs, or apparent proofs, are brought forward. For I am, as I have already shewn, exonerated by your former inaccuracies from noticing any part of your “Refutation” save where new evidence is brought forward; and that only in deference to those gentlemen who, being unmixed with your former works, have a right either to my acquiescence in the weight of their testimony, or my reasons for declining to accept it. I have however on my hands a much more important labour than contending with your lordship, and I shall therefore leave the greatest part of your book to those who choose to take the trouble to compare your pretended Refutation with my original Justification in combination with this letter, being satisfied that in so doing I shall suffer nothing by their award.
1st. With respect to the death of the lieutenant-governor of Almeida, you still harp upon my phrase that it was the only evidence. The expression is common amongst persons when speaking of trials; it is said the prisoner was condemned by such or such a person’s evidence, never meaning that there was no other testimony, but that in default of that particular evidence he would not have been condemned. Now you say that there was other evidence, yet you do not venture to affirm that Cox’s letter was not the testimony upon which the lieutenant-governor was condemned, while the extract from lord Stuart’s letter, quoted by me, says it was. And, my lord, his lordship’s letter to you, in answer to your enquiry, neither contradicts nor is intended to contradict my statement; nor yet does it in any manner deny the authenticity of my extracts, which indeed were copied verbatim from his letter to lord Castlereagh.
Lord Stuart says, that extract is the only thing bearing on the question which he can find. Were there nothing more it would be quite sufficient, but his papers are very voluminous, more than fifty large volumes, and he would naturally only have looked for his letter of the 25th July, 1812, to which you drew his attention. However, in my notes and extracts taken from his documents, I find, under the date of August, 1812, the following passage:—
“The lieutenant-governor of Almeida was executed by Beresford’s order, he, Beresford, having full powers, and the government none, to interfere. Great interest was made to save him, but in vain. The sentence and trial were published before being carried into execution and were much criticized. Both the evidence and the choice of officers were blamed; and moreover the time chosen was one of triumph just after the battle of Salamanca, and the place Lisbon.”
This passage I have not marked in my book of notes as being lord Stuart’s words; it must therefore be only taken as an abstract of the contents of one of his papers; but comparing it with the former passage, and with the facts that your lordship’s words are still very vague and uncertain as to the main point in question, namely, the evidence on which this man was really condemned, I see no reason to doubt the substantial accuracy of the statement in my first edition, nor the perfect accuracy of it as amended in the second edition of my third volume, published many months ago. You will find that I have there expunged the word “only,” and made the sentence exactly to accord with the extract from lord Stuart’s letter. You will also observe, my lord, that I never did do more than mention the simple fact, for which I had such good authority; and that so far from imputing blame to you for the execution of the sentence I expressly stated that the man richly deserved death.
Passing now to the subject of the eighth Portuguese regiment, I will first observe, that when I said the eighth Portuguese regiment was broken to pieces I imputed no blame to it. No regiment in the world could have stemmed the first fury of that French column which attacked the mountain where the eighth was posted. If the eighth was not broken by it, as sir James Douglas’s letter would seem to imply, what was it doing while the enemy by their flank movement gained the crest of the position in such numbers as to make it a most daring exploit of the ninth British regiment to attack them there. It is a strange thing that a heavy column of French who were resolute to gain the crest of such a position should have made “a flank movement,” to avoid one wing of a regiment of Portuguese conscripts. I should rather imagine, with all deference, that it was the conscripts who made the flank movement, and that some optical deception had taken place, like that which induces children while travelling in a carriage to think the trees and rocks are moving instead of themselves. However, with this I have nothing to do, I have given my authority, namely, the statement of major Waller, a staff-officer present, and the statement of colonel Taylor (for he is my nameless eye-witness) of the ninth, the very regiment to which sir James Douglas appeals for support of his account. These are my authorities, and if their recollections are irreconcilable with that of sir James Douglas it only shows how vain it is to expect perfect accuracy of detail. I knew not of sir James Douglas’s negative testimony, but I had two positive testimonies to my statement, and as I have still two to one, I am within the rules of the courts of justice to which your lordship would refer all matter of history; moreover, some grains of allowance must be made for the natural partiality of every officer for his own regiment. The following extract from sir James Leith’s report on the occasion is also good circumstantial evidence in favour of my side of the question.
“The face of affairs in this quarter now wore a different aspect, for the enemy who had been the assailant, having dispersed or driven every thing there opposed to him, was in possession of the rocky eminence of the sierra at this part of major-general Picton’s position without a shot being fired at him. Not a moment was to be lost. Major-general Leith resolved instantly to attack the enemy with the bayonet. He therefore ordered the ninth British regiment, which had been hitherto moving rapidly by its left in columns in order to gain the most advantageous ground for checking the enemy, to form the line, which they did with the greatest promptitude accuracy and coolness under the fire of the enemy, who had just appeared formed on that part of the rocky eminence which overlooks the back of the ridge, and who had then for the first time also perceived the British brigade under him. Major general Leith had intended that the thirty-eighth, second battalion, should have moved on in the rear and to the left of the ninth regiment, to have turned the enemy beyond the rocky eminence which was quite inaccessible towards the rear of the sierra, while the ninth should have gained the ridge on the right of the rocky height, the royals to have been posted (as they were) in reserve; but the enemy having driven every thing before them in that quarter, afforded him the advantage of gaining the top of the rocky ridge, which is accessible in front, before it was possible for the British brigade to have reached that position, although not a moment had been lost in marching to support the point attacked, and for that purpose it had made a rapid movement of more than two miles without halting and frequently in double quick time.”
Here we have nothing of flank movements to avoid a wing of Portuguese conscripts, but the plain and distinct assertion twice over, that every thing in front was dispersed or driven away—and that not even a shot was fired at the enemy. Where then was the eighth Portuguese? Did the French column turn aside merely at the menacing looks of these conscripts? If so, what a pity the latter had not been placed to keep the crest of the position. There is also another difficulty. Sir James Douglas says he was with the royals in the attack, and sir James Leith says that the royals were held in reserve while the ninth drove away the enemy; besides which, the eighth Portuguese might have been broke by the enemy when the latter were mounting the hill and yet have rallied and joined in the pursuit when the ninth had broken the French. Moreover, my lord, as you affirm that both yourself and the duke of Wellington saw all the operations of the eighth Portuguese on this occasion, I will extend my former extract from colonel Taylor’s letter, wherein you will perceive something which may perhaps lead you to doubt the accuracy of your recollection on that head.
“No doubt general Leith’s letter to the duke was intended to describe the aspect of affairs in so critical a situation, and where the duke himself could not possibly have made his observations; and also Leith wished to have due credit given to his brigade, which was not done in the despatches. On the contrary, their exertions were made light of, and the eighth Portuguese regiment was extolled, which I know gave way to a man, save their commanding officer and ten or a dozen men at the outside; but he and they were amongst the very foremost ranks of the ninth British.”—“General Leith’s correspondence would be an interesting document to colonel Napier, as throwing considerable light upon the operations at Busaco, between Picton and Hill’s corps, a very considerable extent of position which could not of possibility be overlooked from any other part of the field.”
Charge of the nineteenth Portuguese. Your lordship has here gained an advantage; I cannot indeed understand some of general M‘Bean’s expressions, but it is impossible for me to doubt his positive statement; I believe therefore that he was in front of the convent wall and that he charged some body of the enemy. It is however necessary to restore the question at issue between your lordship and myself to its true bearing. You accused me of a desire to damage the reputation of the Portuguese army, and you asked why I did not speak of a particular charge made by the nineteenth Portuguese regiment at Busaco. This charge you described as being against one of Ney’s attacking columns, which had, you said, gained the ascent of the position, and then forming advanced on the plain above before it was charged by the nineteenth regiment. As this description was certainly wrong I treated the whole as a magniloquent allusion to an advance which I had observed to have been made by a Portuguese regiment posted on the mountain to the right. (General M‘Bean is mistaken when he quotes me as saying that his line was never nearer to the enemy’s lines than a hundred yards. I spoke of a Portuguese regiment, which might possibly be the nineteenth.) I never denied that any charge had been made, but that a charge such as described by you had taken place, and in fact general M‘Bean’s letter while it confirms the truth of your general description, by implication denies the accuracy of the particulars. Certainly Ney’s columns never passed the front of the light division nor advanced on the plain behind it.
The difficulty I have to reconcile general M‘Bean’s statement with my own recollections and with the ground and position of the light division, may perhaps arise from the general’s meaning to use certain terms in a less precise sense than I take them. Thus he says he was posted in front of the convent-wall, and also on the right of the light division; but the light division was half a mile in front of the convent-wall, and hence I suppose he does not mean as his words might imply immediately under the wall. He speaks also of the light division as being to his left, but unless he speaks of the line of battle with reference to the sinuosities of the ground, the light division was with respect to the enemy and the convent in his front; and if he does speak with regard to those sinuosities, his front would have been nearly at right angles to the front of the fifty-second and forty-third, which I suppose to be really the case. Again he says that he charged and drove the French from their position down to the bottom of the ravine; but the enemy’s position, properly so called, was on the opposite side of the great ravine, and as all his artillery and cavalry, all the eighth corps and the reserves of the sixth corps, were in order of battle there, ten regiments, much less one, dared not to have crossed the ravine which was of such depth that it was difficult to distinguish troops at the bottom. I conclude therefore, general M‘Bean here means by the word position some accidental ground on which the enemy had formed. Taking this to be so, I will now endeavour to reconcile general M‘Bean’s statement with my own recollection; because certainly I do still hold my description of the action at that part to be accurate as to all the main points.
The edge of the table-land or tongue on which the light division stood was very abrupt, and formed a salient angle, behind the apex of which the forty-third and fifty-second were drawn up in a line, the right of the one and the left of the other resting on the very edges; the artillery was at the apex looking down the descent, and far below the Caçadores and the ninety-fifth were spread on the mountain side as skirmishers. Ney employed only two columns of attack. The one came straight against the light division; the head of it striking the right company of the fifty-second and the left company of the forty-third was broken as against a wall; and at the same time the wings of those regiments reinforced by the skirmishers of the ninety-fifth, who had retired on the right of the forty-third, advanced and lapped over the broken column on both sides. No other troops fought with them at that point. In this I cannot be mistaken, because my company was in the right wing of the forty-third, we followed the enemy down to the first village which was several hundred yards below the edge, and we returned leisurely; the ground was open to the view on the right and on the left, we saw no other column, and heard of none save that which we were pursuing.
When we returned from this pursuit the light division had been reformed on the little plain above, and some time after several German battalions, coming from under the convent wall, passed through our ranks and commenced skirmishing with Ney’s reserve in the woods below.
General M‘Bean says he saw no German infantry, and hence it is clear that it was not at this point his charge had place. But it is also certain Ney had only two columns of attack. Now his second, under the command of general Marchand, moved up the hollow curve of the great mountain to the right of the light division, and having reached a pine-wood, which however was far below the height on which the light division stood, he sent skirmishers out against Pack’s brigade which was in his front. A part of Ross’s troops of artillery under the direction of lieutenant, now colonel M‘Donald, played very sharply upon this column in the pine-wood. I was standing in company with captain Loyd of my own regiment, close to the guns watching their effect, and it was then I saw the advance of the Portuguese regiment to which I have alluded; but general M‘Bean again assures me that the nineteenth regiment was not there. Two suppositions therefore present themselves. The enemy’s skirmishers from this column were very numerous. Some of them might have passed the left flank of Pack’s skirmishers, and gathering in a body have reached the edge of the hill on which the light division were posted, and then rising behind it have been attacked by general M‘Bean; or, what is more likely, the skirmishers, or a small flanking detachment from the column which attacked the light division, might have passed under the edge of the descent on the right of the light division, and gathering in a like manner have risen under general M‘Bean’s line.
Either of these suppositions, and especially the last, would render the matter clear to me in all points save that of attacking the enemy’s position, which as I have before observed, may be only a loose expression of the general’s to denote the ground which the French opposed to him had attained on our position. This second supposition seems also to be confirmed by a fact mentioned by general M‘Bean, namely, that the enemy’s guns opened on him immediately after his charge. The French guns did open also on that part of the light division which followed the enemy down the hill to the first village, thus the time that the nineteenth charged seems marked, and as I was one of those who went to the village, it also accounts for my not seeing that charge. However considering all things, I must admit that I was so far in error that I really did not, nor do I now possess any clear recollection of this exploit of the nineteenth regiment; and in proof of the difficulty of attaining strict accuracy on such occasions, I can here adduce the observation of general M‘Bean viz. that he saw no Germans save the artillery; yet there was a whole brigade of that nation near the convent wall, and they advanced and skirmished sharply with the enemy soon after the charge of the nineteenth would appear to have taken place. Very often also, things appear greater to those who perform them than to the bye-standers, and I would therefore ask how many men the nineteenth lost in the charge, how many prisoners it took, and how many French were opposed to it? for I still maintain that neither by the nineteenth Portuguese, nor by any other regiment, save those of the light division, was any charge made which called for particular notice on my part as a general historian. I am not bound to relate all the minor occurrences of a great battle; “those things belong to the history of regiments,” is the just observation of Napoleon. Yet general M‘Bean may be assured that no desire to underrate either his services or the gallantry of the Portuguese soldiers ever actuated me, and to prove it, if my third volume should ever come to a third edition, I will take his letter as my ground for noticing this charge, although I will not promise to make it appear so prominent as your lordship would have me to do.
Your lordship closes this subject by the following observation. “As colonel Napier represents himself as having been an eye-witness of a gallant movement made by a certain Portuguese regiment,—which regiment he does not profess to know,—but which movement took place a mile distant from the position given to the nineteenth regiment, it is evident he could not also have been an eye-witness of what was passing a mile to the left. Nor can he therefore negative what is said to have occurred there. It is extraordinary that the historian should not have perceived the predicament in which he has placed himself.” Now your lordship does not say that the two events occurred at the same time, wherefore your conclusion is what the renowned Partridge calls a “non sequitur;” and as general M‘Bean expressly affirms his charge to have taken place on the right of the light division, it was not absolutely necessary that I should look to the left in order to see the said charge. Hence the predicament in which I am placed, is that of being obliged to remark your lordship’s inability to reason upon your own materials.
Your next subject is captain Squire, but I will pass over that matter as having been I think sufficiently discussed before, and I am well assured that the memory of that very gallant and able officer will never suffer from your lordship’s angry epithets. Campo Mayor follows. In your “Further Strictures” you said that colonel Colborne was not near the scene of action; you now show in detail that he was actively engaged in it. You denied also that he was in support of the advanced guard, and yet quote his own report explaining how he happened to be separated from the advanced guard just before the action, thus proving that he was marching in support of it. You refuse any credit to the statements of captain Gregory and colonel Light; and you endeavour to discredit and trample upon the evidence of the officer of the thirteenth dragoons who was an actor in the charge of that regiment, but with respect to him a few remarks are necessary.
1º. The accuracy of that gentleman’s narrative concerns my Justification very little, except in one part. I published it whole as he gave it to me, because I thought it threw light upon the subject. I think so still, and I see nothing in your lordship’s observation to make me doubt its general correctness. But it was only the part which I printed in italics that concerned me. I had described a remarkable combat of cavalry, wherein the hostile squadrons had twice passed through each other, and then the British put the French to flight. Your lordship ridiculed this as a nursery tale; you called my description of it a “country dance,” and you still call it my “scenic effect.” Did the hostile masses meet twice, and did the British then put their opponents to flight? These were the real questions. The unusual fact of two cavalry bodies charging through each other, was the point in dispute; it is scenic, but is it true? Now my first authority, whom I have designated as an “eye-witness,” was colonel Colborne; my second authority colonel Dogherty of the thirteenth dragoons, an actor; and when your lordship so coolly says the latter’s statement does not afford “the slightest support to my scenic description,” I must take the liberty of laughing at you. Why, my lord, you really seem disposed to treat common sense as if it were a subaltern. Colonel Dogherty bears me out even to the letter; for as the second charge took place with the same violence that the third did, if the hostile bodies had not passed through to their original position, the French must have fled towards the allied army; but they fled towards Badajos. The English must therefore have passed through and turned, and it was then that in the personal conflict with the sabre which followed the second charge the thirteenth dragoons defeated the French.
My lord, you will never by such special pleading, I know of no other term by which I can properly designate your argument, you will never, I say, by such special pleading, hide your bad generalship at Campo Mayor. The proofs of your errors there are too many and too clear; the errors themselves too glaring too gross to leave you the least hope; the same confusion of head which prevented you from seizing the advantages then offered to you seems to prevail in your writing; and yet while impeaching every person’s credit where their statements militate against your object, you demand the most implicit confidence in your own contradictory assertions and preposterous arguments. My lord, you only fatigue yourself and your readers by your unwieldy floundering, you are heavy and throw much mud about; like one of those fine Andalusian horses so much admired in the Peninsula, you prance and curvet and foam and labour in your paces but you never get on. At Campo Mayor you had an enormous superiority of troops, the enemy were taken by surprize, they were in a plain, their cavalry were beaten, their artillery-drivers cut down, their infantry, hemmed in by your horsemen and under the play of your guns, were ready to surrender; yet you suffered them to escape and to carry off their captured artillery and then you blamed your gallant troops. The enemy escaped from you, my lord, but you cannot escape from the opinion of the world by denying the truth of all statements which militate against you.
The march by Merida. If you had said at once that the duke of Wellington forbade you to go by Merida, there would have been an end of all my arguments against your skill; yet it by no means follows that these arguments would be futile in themselves, though not applicable to you personally. New combinations were presented, and the duke of Wellington might very probably have changed his instructions had he been present on the spot. But, why was this your justification withheld until now? why was so plain, so clear, so decisive a defence of yourself never thought of before? and why is it now smothered with such a heap of arguments as you have added, to prove that you ought not to have gone by Merida? Have you found out that I am not such a bad reasoner upon military affairs as you were pleased to style me in your former publication? Have you found out that pleading high rank is not a sufficient answer to plain and well supported statements? It is good however that you have at last condescended to adopt a different mode of proceeding. I applaud you for it, and with the exception of two points I will leave you in the full enjoyment of any triumph which the force of your arguments may procure you; always, however, retaining my right to assume that your lordship’s memory with respect to the duke of Wellington’s negative, may have been as treacherous as it was about your own letter to the junta of Badajos.
I have therefore nothing to add to the arguments I have already used in my Justification, and in my History, in favour of the march to Merida; if I am wrong the world will so judge me. But the two points I have reserved are, 1º. That you assert now, in direct contradiction to your former avowal, that the march to Merida would have been one of four days instead of two; and that the road by Albuquerque was the only one which you could use. In answer to this last part I observe, that the French before, and the Spaniards then, marched by the road of Montigo; and that a year after, when lord Hill’s expedition against Almaraz took place, the whole of his battering and pontoon train, with all the ammunition belonging to it, moved with great facility in three days from Elvas, by this very road of Montigo, to Merida; and Elvas as your Lordship knows is rather further than Campo Mayor from Merida.
The second point is that mode of conducting a controversy which I have so often had occasion to expose in your former publications, viz. mis-stating my arguments to suit your own reasoning. I never said that you should have attempted, or could have succeeded in a “coup de main” against Badajos; I never even said you should have commenced the siege immediately. What I did say was, that by the march through Merida you could have placed your army at once between Badajos and the French army, and so have thrown the former upon its own resources at a most inconvenient time; that in this situation you could have more readily thrown your bridge at Jerumenha, and proceeded at your convenience.
Further than this I do not think it necessary to dissect and expose your new fallacies and contradictions; it requires too much time. You have written upwards of six hundred pages, four hundred of them I have before demolished; but my own volumes are rather thick and to me at least much more important than yours; your lordship must therefore spare me the other two hundred, or at least permit me to treat them lightly. I will leave the whole siege of Badajos to you, it is matter of opinion and I will not follow your example in overloading what is already clear by superfluity of argument. I will only expose one error into which you have been led by colonel La Marre’s work. On his authority you say the garrison on the 10th of April had three months’ provisions; but the following extract from a letter of marshal Soult’s to the prince of Wagram will prove that La Marre is wrong:—
“Seville, 18th April.
“From the 11th of this month the place was provisioned, according to the report of general Phillipon, for two months and some days as to subsistence; and there are 100 milliers of powder,” &c. &c.
Let us now come to the battle of Albuera.
You still doubt that the position as I explained it is four miles long, and you rest upon the superior accuracy of major Mitchell’s plan, on which you have measured the distance with your compasses. I also am in possession of one of major Mitchell’s plans, and I find by the aid of my pair of compasses, that even from the left of the Portuguese infantry (without noticing Otway’s squadron of cavalry) to the right of the Spanish line, as placed at the termination of the battle, is exactly four miles; and every body knows that a line over the actual ground will from the latter’s rises and falls exceed the line on paper. Wherefore as my measurement does not coincide with your lordship’s, and as we are both Irishmen, I conclude that either your compasses are too short or that mine are too long.
Your grand cheval de bataille is, however, the numbers of the armies on each side. Thirty-eight long pages you give us, to prove what cannot be proved, namely, that my estimate is wrong and yours right; and at the end you are just where you began. All is uncertain, there are no returns, no proof! the whole matter is one of guess upon probabilities as to the allies, and until lately was so also with respect to the French.
Mine was a very plain statement. I named a certain number as the nearest approximation I could make, and when my estimate was questioned by you I explained as briefly as possible the foundation of that estimate. You give in refutation thirty-eight pages of most confused calculations, and what is the result? why that the numbers of the allies on your own shewing still remain uncertain; and your estimate of the French, as I will shew by the bye, is quite erroneous.
I said in my History, you had more than two thousand cavalry in the field, and in my Justification I gave reasons for believing you had nearly three thousand; you now acknowledge two thousand; my history then is not far wrong. But your lordship does not seem to know the composition of your own divisions. General Long’s morning states, now before me, do not include general Madden’s cavalry. That officer’s regiments were the fifth and eighth, and if I mistake not the sixth and ninth also were under him; those in general Long’s division are the first and seventh. I find from general Madden’s own account of his services, given in the Military Calendar, that a part of his brigade, namely, the eighth regiment, under colonel Windham, was in the battle of Albuera. Now taking the eighth to be between two hundred and seventy and two hundred and eighty-one troopers, which were the respective strengths of the first and seventh regiments in Long’s Division on the 29th of May, I have above eighteen hundred troopers, namely, fifteen hundred and eighty-seven in Long’s division, and two hundred and seventy-five in the eighth regiment, and to these I add about two hundred and fifty officers and sergeants, making in all more than two thousand sabres. In general Long’s states of the 8th of May, those two Portuguese regiments had indeed fewer under arms than on the 29th, but then six hundred and eighty-nine men and forty-four serjeants and trumpeters were on command, of which more than four hundred belonged to those two Portuguese regiments. Many of these men must surely have joined before the battle, because such an unusual number on command could only be temporary. Again I find in the state of the 29th of May, one hundred and fifteen serjeants trumpeters and troopers returned as prisoners of war; and when the killed and wounded in the battle are added, we may fairly call the British and Portuguese cavalry above two thousand. Your lordship admits the Spaniards to have had seven hundred and fifty; but I will for clearness place this in a tabular form:
GENERAL LONG’S STATES.
8th May. Serjeants, trumpeters, and troopers.
Present under arms 1576 On command 733 Prisoners of war 115 ———— 2424 29th May.
Present 1739 Command 522 Prisoners of war 127 ———— 2388 ————
Median estimate for the 16th of May.
Present 8th May 1576 Ditto 29th May 1739 ———— 2)3315 ———— 1657½ 270 8th Portuguese regt. ———— 1927 127 Prisoners of war. ———— 2054 750 Spaniards. ———— 2804
Deduct prisoners on the 8th 115 ———— Total 2689 ————
To which are to be added the killed and wounded of the Anglo-Portuguese, and the men rejoined from command.
Thus, the statements in my History and in my Justification are both borne out; for the numbers are above two thousand as set down in the first, and nearly three thousand as stated in the last. Moreover, a general historian is not blameable for small inaccuracies. If he has reasonably good authority for any fact he cannot be justly censured for stating that fact, and you should make a distinction between that which is stated in my History and that which is stated in my controversial writings. All mistakes in the latter however trifling are fair; but to cavil at trifles in the former rather hurts yourself. Now with respect to the artillery there is an example of this cavilling, and also an illustration of your lordship’s mode of raising a very confused argument on a very plain fact. I said there were so many guns in the field, and that so many were nine-pounders; you accused me of arbitrarily deciding upon their calibre. In reply I shewed you that I took the number on the report of colonel Dickson, the commanding officer of artillery, the calibre upon the authority of your own witness and quarter-master-general, sir Benjamin D’Urban. The latter was wrong and there the matter should have ended. Your lordship, however, requires me, as a mark of ingenuousness, to acknowledge as my mistake that which is the mistake of sir Benjamin D’Urban, and you give a grand table, with the gross number of pounds of iron as if the affair had been between two ships. You set down in your columns the statements of the writer of a note upon your Strictures, the statement of the Strictures themselves, and my statement; and then come on with your own observations as if there were three witnesses on your side. But the author of the note is again your witness D’Urban, who thus shews himself incorrect both as to number and weight; and the author of the Strictures is yourself. This is not an ingenuous, though it is an ingenious mode of multiplying testimony. In your Further Strictures also you first called in sir B. D’Urban in person, you then used his original memoir, you also caused him to write anonymously a running commentary upon yours and his own statements, and now you comment in your own name upon your own anonymous statements, thus making five testimonies out of two.
The answer is simple and plain. When I took sir Benjamin D’Urban as a guide he led me wrong; and you instead of visiting his error upon his own head visit it upon mine, and require me and your readers to follow him implicitly upon all points while to do so avails for your defence, but not when they contradict it. From sir B. D’Urban I took the calibre of the allies’ guns employed in the battle of Albuera, and he was wrong! From him, if I had not possessed sir A. Dickson’s official return, I should also have taken the number of guns, and I should have been wrong, because he calls them thirty-four instead of thirty-eight. He also (see page 26 of the Appendix to your Further Strictures) says that the Spaniards had six guns, whereas Dickson says, they had but four; and if his six guns were reckoned there would have been forty pieces of artillery, which he however reduced to thirty-four by another error, namely, leaving out a whole brigade of German artillery. On sir Benjamin’s authority I called major Dickson the commander of the artillery, and this also was wrong. From sir Benjamin D’Urban’s Memoir, I took the statement that the fourth division arrived on the field of battle at six o’clock in the morning, and yet I am assured that they did not arrive until nine o’clock, and after the action had commenced. And this last is a very serious error because it gives the appearance of skill to your lordship’s combinations for battle and to sir Benjamin’s arrangements for the execution, which they do not merit, if, as I now believe, that division arrived at nine o’clock. But the latter hour would be quite in keeping with the story of the cavalry going to forage, and both together would confirm another report very current, namely, that your lordship did not anticipate any battle on the 16th of May. Setting this however aside, I know not why, in the face of all these glaring errors and a multitude of smaller ones, I am to take sir Benjamin D’Urban’s authority upon any disputed point.
I will now, my lord, admit one complete triumph which you have attained in your dissertation upon the numbers of the troops. I did say that from the 20th of March to the 16th of May, was only twenty days, and though the oversight is so palpably one that could not be meant to deceive, I will not deny your right to ridicule and to laugh at it. I have laughed at so many of your lordship’s oversights that it would be unfair to deny you this opportunity for retaliation, which I also admit you have used moderately.
I have since I wrote my Justification procured some proofs about the French numbers, you will find them in the following extracts from the duke of Dalmatia’s correspondence of that time. They are worth your attention. They throw some light upon the numbers of the allies, and one of them shows unquestionably that my estimate of the French numbers was, as I have before said, too high instead of too low. I give the translations to avoid the trouble and expense of printing in two languages, and I beg your lordship to observe that these extracts are not liable to the praise of that generous patriotism which you alluded to in speaking of French authors, because they were written before the action and for the emperor’s information, and because it was the then interest of the writer rather to exaggerate than to lessen his own numbers, in order to give his sovereign an idea of his activity and zeal.
Extract of a letter from MARSHAL SOULT to the PRINCE of WAGRAM.
Seville, 22d April, 1811.
“General Latour Maubourg announces to me that general Beresford commanding the Anglo-Portuguese army, and the Spanish generals Castaños and Ballesteros with the remains of the corps of their nation are united at Zafra, and I am assured that the whole of their forces is twenty-five thousand men, of which three thousand are cavalry.”
“Colonel Quennot of the ninth regiment of dragoons, who commands upon the line of the Tinto and observes the movements on that side as far as Ayamonte, informs me that on the 18th and 19th, general Blake disembarked ten thousand infantry and seven hundred cavalry between the mouths of the Piedra and the Guadiana. These troops come from Cadiz, they have cannon, and Blake can unite in that part fifteen thousand men.”
Ditto to Ditto.
“May 4th, 1811.
“Cordova is menaced by a corps of English Portuguese and Spaniards, many troops are concentrated in Estremadura, Badajos is invested, Blake has united on the Odiel an army of fifteen to sixteen thousand men.” “I depart in four days with twenty thousand men, three thousand horses, and thirty pieces of cannon to drive across the Guadiana the enemy’s corps which are spread in Estremadura, to disengage Badajos and to facilitate the arrival of count D’Erlon. If the troops which that general brings can unite with mine, and if the troops coming from the armies of the north and centre, and which I have already in part arranged, arrive in time, I shall have in Estremadura, thirty-five thousand men five thousand horses and forty pieces of artillery.”
Now, my lord, I find by the imperial returns that count D’Erlon marched towards Andalusia with twelve thousand men present under arms, and that he did not arrive until the 14th June. There remain three thousand men as coming from the armies of the north and centre, to make up the thirty-five thousand men mentioned by Soult, and I find the following passage in his letter to the prince of Wagram, dated the 9th of May.
“The 12th, I shall be at Fuente Cantos, general Bron commands there, he brings with him the first reinforcement coming from the armies of the north and centre, and I shall employ him in the expedition.”
Hence, if we take the first reinforcement at half of the whole number expected, we add one thousand five hundred men and five guns to the twenty thousand, making a total for the battle of Albuera of twenty-one thousand five hundred men of all arms, and thirty-five guns. From these must be deducted the detachments left at Villalba, stragglers on the march, and some hussars sent to scout on the flanks, for I find in general Madden’s narrative of his services, that he was watched by part of the enemy’s cavalry on the day of the battle.
I have now, my lord, given you positive and undeniable testimony that the French numbers were overrated instead of being underrated by me, and I have given you corroborative evidence, that the number of the allies was as great as I have stated it to be; for we find in the above extracts Soult giving Blake fifteen thousand men, of which, at least, seven hundred are cavalry, before the battle, and twenty-five thousand, of which three thousand are cavalry, to your lordship, Castaños, &c. We find the French general’s information, taking into consideration the troops which joined Blake in the Niebla, not differing essentially from Mr. Henry Wellesley’s report of the numbers of Blake’s army, namely twelve thousand, of which one thousand one hundred were cavalry; and we find both in some manner confirmed by lord Wellington’s repeated statements of the forces of Blake’s army after the battle, that is to say, making a reasonable allowance for the numbers lost in the action. Soult and Mr. Wellesley also agree in making out the Spanish cavalry more numerous than your lordship will admit of. Blake alone had from seven to eleven hundred cavalry, following the statement of these persons, and there was in addition the corps of Penne Villemur, which, as I have said in my Justification, was not less than five hundred.
In closing your calculation of numbers you exultingly observe that it is the first time you ever heard of a general’s being censured for keeping one-third of his force in reserve and beating the enemy with the other two. Aye—but this involves the very pith of the question. At Albuera the general did not beat the enemy. My lord, you have bestowed great pains on your argument about the battle of Albuera, and far be it from me to endeavour to deprive you of any addition to your reputation which you may thus obtain. I have no desire to rob you of any well-earned laurels, my observations were directed against what appeared to me your bad generalship; if I have not succeeded in pointing that out to the satisfaction of the public I have nothing further to offer in fairness and certainly will not by any vile sophistry endeavour to damage your fame. But do not think that I acknowledge the force of your present arguments. If I do not take the trouble to dissect them for reasons before mentioned, be assured it is not from any want of points to fasten upon; indeed, my lord, your book is very weak, there are many failures in it, and a few more I will touch upon that you may estimate my forbearance at its proper value. I will begin with your observations on captain Gregory’s testimony, not in defence of that gentleman’s credit, for in truth, as his and the other officers’ evidence is given to facts of which they were personally cognizant I cannot pay the slightest regard to your confused arguments in opposition to their honour. I am aware that you do not mean to impeach anything but their memory; but if I were to attempt to defend them from your observations it would appear as if I thought otherwise. My lord, you have missed captain Gregory, but you have hit yourself very hard.
Behold the proof.
At page 167 you say, “I will now point out the gross and palpable errors of captain Gregory’s narrative.”—“He says, that on receiving the intelligence from an orderly of the thirteenth dragoons who came in from a picquet on the right with intelligence that the enemy was crossing the river, general Long galloped off.” I conclude to the right, “and found half the army across,” and to the right. Why, every other authority has stated that the enemy’s first movement was from the wood along the right bank of the Albuera upon our left; and that we were not at all aware of their intention to cross above our right and there make an attack, till after their first movement was considerably advanced and the action had actually commenced with Godinot’s corps on the opposite side of the river to our left. It is quite surprising that colonel Napier should have overlooked a blunder so gross as to destroy the value of the whole of his friend’s testimony.
Now, my lord, compare the passage marked by italics (pardon me the italics) in the above, with the following extract from your own despatch.
“The enemy on the 16th did not long delay his attack: at eight o’clock” (the very time mentioned by captain Gregory,) “he was observed to be in movement, and his cavalry were seen passing the rivulet of Albuera considerably above our right, and shortly after, he marched, out of the wood opposite to us, a strong force of cavalry and two heavy columns of infantry, posting them to our front, as if to attack the village and bridge of Albuera. During this time he was filing the principal body of his infantry over the river beyond our right, and it was not long before his intention appeared to be to turn us by that flank.” Your lordship has, indeed in another part discarded the authority of your despatch, as appears most necessary in treating of this battle, but is rather hard measure to attack me so fiercely for having had some faith in it.
With respect to sir Wm. Lumley’s letter I cannot but admire his remembrance of the exact numbers of the British cavalry. A recollection of twenty-three years, founded on a few hasty words spoken on a field of battle is certainly a rare thing; yet I was not quite unprepared for such precision, for if I do not greatly mistake, sir William was the general, who at Santarem edified the head-quarters by a report, that “the enemy were certainly going to move either to their right or to their left, to their front or to their rear.” One would suppose that so exact a person could never be in error; and yet the following extract from general Harvey’s journal would lead me to suppose that his memory was not quite so clear and powerful as he imagines. Sir William Lumley says, that to the best of his recollection he was not aware of the advance of the fuzileers and Harvey’s brigade until they had passed his left flank; that they then came under his eye; that as the rain and smoke cleared away he saw them as one body moving to engage, and although they had become so oblique, relative to the point where he stood, that he could not well speak as to their actual distance from one another, there did not appear any improper interval between them.
Now hear general Harvey!
“The twenty-third and one battalion of the seventh fuzileers were in line. The other battalion at quarter distance, forming square, at every halt to cover the right which the cavalry continued to menace. Major-general Lumley, with the British cavalry, was also in column of half squadrons in rear of our right and moved with us, being too weak to advance against the enemy’s cavalry.”
There, my lord, you see that generals as well as doctors differ. Sir W. Lumley, twenty-three years after the event, recollects seeing the fuzileers and Harvey’s brigade at such a distance, and so obliquely, that he could not speak to their actual distance from one another. General Harvey writing the day after the event, says, sir William Lumley had his cavalry in half squadrons close in rear of these very brigades, and was moving with them! This should convince your lordship that it is not wise to cry out and cavil at every step in the detail of a battle.
As to the term gap, I used the word without the mark of quotation, because it was my own and it expressed mine and your meaning very well. You feared that the cavalry of the French would overpower ours, and break in on your rear and flank when the support of the fuzileers was taken away. I told you that general Cole had placed Harvey’s brigade in the gap, that is, in such a situation that the French could not break in. I knew very well that Harvey’s brigade followed in support of the attack of the fuzileers because he says so in his journal; but he also says, that both ours and the enemy’s cavalry made a corresponding movement. Thus the fear of the latter breaking in was chimerical, especially as during the march Harvey halted, formed, received and beat off a charge of the French horsemen.
But I have not yet done with sir W. Lumley’s numbers. How curious it is that brigade-major Holmes’s verbal report on the field of battle, as recollected by sir William, should give the third dragoon guards and the fourth dragoons, forming the heavy brigade, the exact number of five hundred and sixty men, when the same brigade-major Holmes in his written morning state of the 8th of May, one week before the battle, gives to those regiments seven hundred and fifty-two troopers present under arms, and one hundred and eighty-three on command. What became of the others in the interval? Again, on the 29th of May, thirteen days after the battle, he writes down these regiments six hundred and ninety-five troopers present under arms, one hundred and eighty-two on command, and thirty-two prisoners of war. In both cases also the sergeants, trumpeters, &c. are to be added; and I mark this circumstance, because in the French returns all persons from the highest officer to the conductors of carriages are included in the strength of men. I imagine neither of the distinguished regiments alluded to will be willing to admit that their ranks were full before and after, but empty on the day of battle. It is contrary to the English custom. Your lordship, also, in a parenthesis (page 125) says that the thirteenth dragoons had not three hundred men at this time to produce; but this perverse brigade-major Holmes writes that regiment down also on the 8th of May, at three hundred and fifty-seven troopers present under arms, and sixty-three on command; and on the 29th of May, three hundred and forty-one present seventy-nine on command, eighty-two prisoners-of-war. Staff-officers are notoriously troublesome people.
One point more, and I have done.
You accuse me of having placed sir A. Dickson in a position where he never was, and you give a letter from that officer to prove the fact. You also deny the correctness of sir Julius Hartman’s statement, and you observe that even were it accurate, he does not speak of an order to retreat, but an order to cover a retreat. Now to say that I place Dickson in a wrong position is scarcely fair, because I only use sir Julius Hartman’s words, and that in my Justification; whereas in my History, I have placed colonel Dickson’s guns exactly in the position where he himself says they were. If your lordship refers to my work you will see that it is so; and surely it is something akin to quibbling, to deny, that artillery posted to defend a bridge was not at the bridge because its long range enabled it to effect its object from a distance.
You tell me also that I had your quarter-master general’s evidence to counteract sir Julius Hartman’s relative to this retreat. But sir Benjamin D’Urban had already misled me more than once; and why, my lord, did you garble sir A Dickson’s communication? I will answer for you. It contained positive evidence that a retreat was ordered. Your lordship may ask how I know this. I will tell you that also. Sir Alexander Dickson at my request sent me the substance of his communication to you at the same time. You are now I hope, convinced that it is not weakness which induces me to neglect a complete analysis of your work. I do assure you it is very weak in every part.
My lord, you have mentioned several other letters which you have received from different officers, colonel Arbuthnot, colonel Colborne, &c. as confirming your statements, but you have not, as in the cases of sir James Douglas and general M‘Bean, where they were wholly on your own side, given these letters in full; wherefore, seeing the gloss you have put upon lord Stuart’s communication, and this garbling of sir A. Dickson’s letter, I have a right to suppose that the others do not bear up your case very strongly,—probably they contradict it on some points as sir Alexander Dickson’s does. I shall now give the latter entire.
“The Portuguese artillery under my command (twelve guns) attached to general Hamilton’s division was posted on favourable ground about 750 or 800 yards from the bridge, and at least 700 yards S. W. of the village of Albuera, their fire bore effectually upon the bridge and the road from it to the bridge, and I received my orders to take this position from lord Beresford when the enemy threatened their main attack at the bridge. At a certain period of the day, I should judge it to have been about the time the fourth division moved to attack, I received a verbal order in English from Don Jose Luiz de Souza (now Conde de Villa Real, an aid-de-camp of lord Beresford) to retire by the Valverde road, or upon the Valverde road, I am not sure which; to this I strongly expressed words of doubt, and he then rode off towards Albuera; as, however, I could see no reason for falling back, and the infantry my guns belonged to being at hand, I continued in action, and though I believe I limbered up once or twice previous to the receipt of this message and moved a little to improve my position, I never did so to retire. Soon after Don Jose left me, seeing lord Beresford and some of his staff to my right, I rode across to satisfy myself that I was acting correctly, but perceiving that the French were giving way I did not mention the order I had received, and as soon as lord Beresford saw me, he asked what state my guns were in, and then ordered me to proceed as quickly as I could with my nine-pounders to the right, which I did in time to bring them into action against the retiring masses of the enemy. The foregoing is the substance of an explanation given to lord Beresford which he lately requested.”
Thus you have the whole of what sir Alexander Dickson (as he tells me) wrote to you; and here therefore I might stop, my lord, to enjoy your confusion. I might harp upon this fact, as being so formidable a bar to your lordship’s argument, that rather than give it publicity, you garbled your own correspondent’s letter. But my object is not to gain a triumph over you, it is to establish the truth, and I will not follow your example by suppressing what may tend to serve your argument and weaken mine. It is of no consequence to me whether you gave orders for a retreat or not. I said in my History that you did not do so, thinking the weight of testimony to be on that side, and it was only when your anonymous publications called forth new evidence that I began to doubt the correctness of my first statement.[5] But if the following observation in sir Alexander Dickson’s letter can serve your argument, you are welcome to it, although it is not contained in the substance of what he wrote to you; and here also I beg of you to remember that this letter of sir Alexander’s was written to me after my Justification was printed.
“I had never mentioned the matter to any one, except to Hartman, with whom I was on the greatest habits of intimacy, and indeed I was from the first induced to attribute Souza’s message to some mistake, as neither in my conversation with lord Beresford was there any allusion to it, nor did any thing occur to indicate to me that he was aware of my having received such an order.”
Your lordship will no doubt deny that the Count of Villa Real had any authority from you to order this retreat, so be it; but then you call upon me and others to accept this Count of Villa Real’s evidence upon other points, and you attempt to discredit some of my witnesses, because their testimony is opposed to the testimony of the Count of Villa Real; if you deny him at Albuera, you cannot have him at Campo Mayor. And behold, my lord, another difficulty you thus fall into. Your publications are intended to prove your talent as a general, and yet we find you acknowledging, that in the most critical period of this great and awful battle of Albuera, your own staff had so little confidence in your ability, that sir Henry Hardinge took upon himself to win it for you, while the Conde de Villa Real took upon himself to lose it; the one ordering an advance, which gained the day; the other ordering a retreat, which would have ruined all. My lord, be assured that such liberties are never taken by the staff of great commanders.
In ancient times it was reckoned a worthy action to hold the mirror of truth up to men placed in high stations, when the partiality of friends, the flattery of dependents, and their own human vanity had given them too exalted notions of their importance. You, my lord, are a man in a high station, and you have evidently made a false estimate of your importance, or you would not treat men of inferior rank with so much disdain as you have expressed in these your publications; wherefore it may be useful, and certainly will be just, to let you know the judgment which others have formed of your talents. The following character was sketched about two months after the battle of Albuera. The author was a man of great ability, used to public affairs, experienced in the study of mankind, opposed to you by no personal interest, and withal had excellent opportunities of observing your disposition; and surely his acuteness will not be denied by those who have read your three publications in this controversy.
“Marshal Beresford appears to possess a great deal of information upon all subjects connected with the military establishments of the kingdom, the departments attached to the army, and the resources of the country. But nothing appears to be well arranged and digested in his head; he never fixes upon a point, but deviates from his subject, and overwhelms a very slender thread of argument by a profusion of illustrations, stories, and anecdotes, most of which relate to himself. He is captious and obstinate, and difficult to be pleased. He appears to grasp at every thing for his own party, without considering what it would be fair, and reasonable, and decent to expect from the other party.”
I now take leave of you, my lord, and notwithstanding all that has passed, I take leave of you with respect, because I think you to be a brave soldier, and even an able organizer of an army. I know that you have served your country long, I firmly believe to the utmost of your ability, and I admit that ability to have been very considerable; but history, my lord, deals with very great men, and you sink in the comparison. She will speak of you as a general far above mediocrity, as one who has done much and a great deal of it well, yet when she looks at Campo Mayor and Albuera she will not rank you amongst great commanders, and if she should ever cast her penetrating eyes upon this your present publication, she will not class you amongst great writers.
REPLY TO THE Third Article in the Quarterly Review ON COL. NAPIER’S HISTORY OF THE PENINSULAR WAR.
‘Now there are two of them; and one has been called Crawley, and the other is Honest Iago.’—OLD PLAY.
This article is the third of its family, and like its predecessors is only remarkable for malignant imbecility and systematic violation of truth. The malice is apparent to all; it remains to show the imbecility and falseness.
The writer complains of my ill-breeding, and with that valour which belongs to the incognito menaces me with his literary vengeance for my former comments. His vengeance! Bah! The ass’ ears peep too far beyond the lion’s hide. He shall now learn that I always adapt my manners to the level of the person I am addressing; and though his petty industry indicates a mind utterly incapable of taking an enlarged view of any subject he shall feel that chastisement awaits his malevolence. And first with respect to the small sketches in my work which he pronounces to be the very worst plans possible. It is expressly stated on the face of each that they are only ‘Explanatory Sketches,’ his observations therefore are a mere ebullition of contemptible spleen; but I will now show my readers why they are only sketches and not accurate plans.
When I first commenced my work, amongst the many persons from whom I sought information was sir George Murray, and this in consequence of a message from him, delivered to me by sir John Colborne, to the effect, that if I would call upon him he would answer any question I put to him on the subject of the Peninsular War. The interview took place, but sir George Murray, far from giving me information seemed intent upon persuading me to abandon my design; repeating continually that it was his intention to write the History of the War himself. He appeared also desirous of learning what sources of information I had access to. I took occasion to tell him that the duke of Wellington had desired me to ask him particularly for the ‘Order of Movements,’ as essentially necessary to a right understanding of the campaign and the saving of trouble; because otherwise I should have to search out the different movements through a variety of documents. Sir George replied that he knew of no such orders, that he did not understand me. To this I could only reply that I spoke as the duke had desired me, and knew no more.[6] I then asked his permission to have reduced plans made from captain Mitchell’s fine drawings, informing him that officer was desirous so to assist me. His reply was uncourteously vehement—‘No! certainly not!’ I proposed to be allowed to inspect those drawings if I were at any time at a loss about ground. The answer was still ‘No!’ And as sir George then intimated to me that my work could only be a momentary affair for the booksellers and would not require plans I took my leave. I afterwards discovered that he had immediately caused captain Mitchell’s drawings to be locked up and sealed.
I afterwards waited on sir Willoughby Gordon, the quarter-master-general, who treated me with great kindness, and sent me to the chief of the plan department in his office with an order to have access to everything which might be useful. From that officer I received every attention; but he told me that sir George Murray had been there the day before to borrow all the best plans relating to the Peninsular War, and that consequently little help could be given to me. Now Captain Mitchell’s drawings were made by him after the war, by order of the government, and at the public expense. He remained in the Peninsula for more than two years with pay as a staff-officer, his extra expenses were also paid:[7] he was attended constantly by two Spanish dragoons as a protection and the whole mission was costly. Never was money better laid out, for I believe no topographical drawings, whether they be considered for accuracy of detail, perfection of manner, or beauty of execution, ever exceeded Mitchell’s. But those drawings belong to the public and were merely placed in sir George Murray’s official keeping. I believe they are still in his possession and it would be well if some member of parliament were to ask why they are thus made the property of a private man?[8]
Here I cannot refrain from observing that, in the course of my labours, I have asked information of many persons of various nations, even of Spaniards, after my first volume was published, and when the unfavourable view I took of their exertions was known. And from Spaniards, Portuguese, English, French, and Germans, whether of high or low rank, I have invariably met with the greatest kindness, and found an eager desire to aid me. Sir George Murray only has thrown obstacles in my way; and if I am rightly informed of the following circumstance, his opposition has not been confined to what I have stated above. Mr. Murray, the bookseller, purchased my first volume with the right of refusal for the second volume. When the latter was nearly ready a friend informed me that he did not think Murray would purchase, because he had heard him say that sir George Murray had declared it was not ‘The Book.’ He did not point out any particular error; but it was not ‘The Book;’ meaning doubtless that his own production, when it appeared, would be ‘The Book.’ My friend’s prognostic was good. I was offered just half of the sum given for the first volume. I declined it, and published on my own account; and certainly I have had no reason to regret that Mr. Murray waited for ‘The Book:’ indeed he has since told me very frankly that he had mistaken his own interest. Now whether three articles in ‘The Quarterly,’ and a promise of more,[9] be a tribute paid to the importance of ‘My Book,’ or whether they be the puff preliminary to ‘The Book,’ I know not; but I am equally bound to Mr. Editor Lockhart for the distinction, and only wish he had not hired such a stumbling sore-backed hackney for the work. Quitting this digression, I return to the Review.
My topographical ignorance is a favourite point with the writer, and he mentions three remarkable examples on the present occasion:—1. That I have said Oporto is built in a hollow; 2. That I have placed the Barca de Avintas only three miles from the Serra Convent, instead of nine miles; 3. That I have described a ridge of land near Medellin where no such ridge exists.
These assertions are all hazarded in the hope that they will pass current with those who know no better, and will be unnoticed by those who do. But first a town may be on a hill and yet in a hollow. If the reader will look at lieutenant Godwin’s Atlas,[10] or at Gage’s Plan of Oporto, or at Avlis’ Plan of that city—all three published by Mr. Wylde of Charing Cross—he will find that Oporto, which by the way is situated very much like the hot-wells at Bristol, is built partly on the slopes of certain heights partly on the banks of the river; that it is surrounded on every side by superior heights; and that consequently my description of it, having relation to the Bishop’s lines of defence and the attack of the French army, is militarily correct. Again, if the reader will take his compasses and any or all of the three maps above-mentioned, he will find that the Barca de Avintas is, as I have said, just three miles from the Serra Convent, and not nine miles as the reviewer asserts. Lord Wellington’s despatch called it four miles from Oporto, but there is a bend in the river which makes the distance greater on that side.
Such being the accuracy of this very correct topographical critic upon two or three examples, let us see how he stands with respect to the third.
Extracts from marshal Victors Official Report and Register of the Battle of Medellin.
‘Medellin is situated upon the left bank of the Guadiana. To arrive there, a handsome stone-bridge is passed. On the left of the town is a very high hill (mamelon tres elévé), which commands all the plain; on the right is a ridge or steppe (rideau), which forms the basin of the Guadiana. Two roads or openings (débouchés) present themselves on quitting Medellin; the one conducts to Mingrabil, the other to Don Benito. They traverse a vast plain, bounded by a ridge (rideau), which, from the right of the Ortigosa, is prolonged in the direction of Don Benito, and Villa Neuva de la Serena.’... ‘The ridge which confines the plain of Medellin has many rises and falls (movemens de terrain) more or less apparent. It completely commands (domine parfaitement) the valley of the Guadiana; and it was at the foot of this ridge the enemy’s cavalry was posted. Not an infantry man was to be seen; but the presence of the cavalry made us believe that the enemy’s army was masked behind this ridge of Don Benito.’... ‘Favoured by this ridge, he could manœuvre his troops, and carry them upon any point of the line he pleased without being seen by us.’
Now ‘rideau’ can only be rendered, with respect to ground, a steppe or a ridge; but, in this case, it could not mean a steppe, since the Spanish army was hidden behind it, and on a steppe it would have been seen. Again, it must have been a high ridge, because it not only perfectly commanded the basin of the Guadiana, overlooking the steppe which formed that basin, but was itself not overlooked by the very high hill on the left of Medellin. What is my description of the ground?—‘The plain on the side of Don Benito was bounded by a high ridge of land, mark, reader, not a mountain ridge, behind which Cuesta kept the Spanish infantry concealed, showing only his cavalry and guns in advance.’ Here then we have another measure of value for the reviewer’s topographical pretensions.
The reference to French military reports and registers has not been so far, much to the advantage of the reviewer; and yet he rests the main part of his criticisms upon such documents. Thus, having got hold of the divisional register of general Heudelet, which register was taken, very much mutilated, in the pursuit of Soult from Oporto, he is so elated with his acquisition that he hisses and cackles over it like a goose with a single gosling. But I have in my possession the general report and register of Soult’s army, which enables me to show what a very little callow bird his treasure is. And first, as he accuses me of painting the wretched state of Soult’s army at St. Jago, previous to the invasion of Portugal, for the sole purpose of giving a false colouring to the campaign, I will extract Soult’s own account, and the account of Le Noble, historian of the campaign, and ordonnateur en chef or comptroller of the civil administration of the army.
Extract from Soult’s Official Journal of the Expedition to Portugal, dated Lugo, 30th May, 1809.
‘Under these circumstances the enterprise was one of the most difficult, considering the nature of the obstacles to be surmounted, the shattered and exhausted state (“delabrement et epuisement”) of the “corps d’armée,” and the insufficiency of the means of which it could dispose. But the order was positive; it was necessary to obey.’... ‘The march was directed upon St. Jago, where the troops took the first repose it had been possible to give them since they quitted the Carion River in Castile.’... ‘Marshal Soult rested six days at St. Jago, during which he distributed some shoes, had the artillery carriages repaired and the horses shod; the parc which since the Carion had not been seen now came up, and with it some ammunition (which had been prepared at Coruña), together with various detachments that the previous hardships and the exhaustion of the men had caused to remain behind. He would have prolonged his stay until the end of February because he could not hide from himself that his troops had the most urgent need of it; but his operations were connected with the duke of Belluno’s, &c. &c., and he thought it his duty to go on without regard to time or difficulties.’
Extract from Le Noble’s History.
‘The army was without money, without provision, without clothing, without equipages, and the men (personnel) belonging to the latter, not even ordinarily complete, when they should have been doubled to profit from the feeble resources of the country.’
Who now is the false colourist? But what can be expected from a writer so shameless in his statements as this reviewer? Let the reader look to the effrontery with which he asserts that I have celebrated marshal Soult for the reduction of two fortresses, Ferrol and Coruña, which were not even defended, whereas my whole passage is a censure upon the Spaniards for not defending them, and without one word of praise towards the French marshal.
To return to general Heudelet’s register. The first notable discovery from this document is, that it makes no mention of an action described by me as happening on the 17th of February at Ribadavia; and therefore the reviewer says no such action happened, though I have been so particular as to mention the strength of the Spaniards’ position, their probable numbers, and the curious fact that twenty priests were killed, with many other circumstances, all of which he contradicts. Now this is only the old story of ‘the big book which contains all that sir George does not know.’ For, first, Heudelet’s register, being only divisional, would not, as a matter of course, take notice of an action in which other troops were also engaged, and where the commander-in-chief was present. But that the action did take place, as I have described it, and on the 17th February, the following extracts will prove, and also the futility of the reviewer’s other objections. And I request the reader, both now and always, to look at the passages quoted from my work, in the work itself, and not trust the garbled extracts of the reviewer, or he will have a very false notion of my meaning.
Extract from Soult’s General Report.
‘The French army found each day greater difficulty to subsist, and the Spanish insurrection feeling itself sustained by the approach of La Romana’s corps, organized itself in the province of Orense.
‘The insurrection of the province of Orense, directed by the monks and by officers, became each day more enterprising, and extended itself to the quarters of general La Houssaye at Salvaterra. It was said the corps of Romana was at Orense (on disait le corps de Romana à Orense), and his advanced guard at Ribadavia.
‘The 16th of February the troops commenced their march upon Ribadavia.
‘The left column, under general Heudelet, found the route intercepted by barricades on the bridges between Franquiera and Canizar; and defended besides by a party of insurgents eight hundred strong. The brigade Graindorge, arriving in the night, overthrew them in the morning of the 17th, and pursued them to the heights of Ribadavia, where they united themselves with a body far more numerous. General Heudelet having come up with the rest of his division, and being sustained by Maransin’s brigade of dragoons, overthrew the enemy and killed many. Twenty monks at the least perished, and the town was entered fighting.
‘The 18th, general Heudelet scoured all the valley of the Avia, where three or four thousand insurgents had thrown themselves, Maransin followed the route of Rosamunde chasing all that was before him.’
The reviewer further says that, with my habitual inaccuracy as to dates, I have concentrated all Soult’s division at Orense on the 20th. But Soult himself says, ‘The 19th, Franceschi and Heudelet marched upon Orense, and seized the bridge. The 20th, the other divisions followed the movement upon Orense.’ Here then, besides increasing the bulk of the book, containing what sir George does not know, the reviewer has only proved his own habitual want of truth.
In the above extracts nothing is said of the ‘eight or ten thousand Spaniards;’ nothing of the ‘strong rugged hill’ on which they were posted; nothing of ‘Soult’s presence in the action.’ But the reader will find all these particulars in the Appendix to the ‘Victoires et Conquêtes des Français,’ and in ‘Le Noble’s History of Soult’s Campaign.’ The writers in each work were present, and the latter, notwithstanding the reviewer’s sneers, and what is of more consequence, notwithstanding many serious errors as to the projects and numbers of his enemies, is highly esteemed by his countrymen, and therefore good authority for those operations on his own side which he witnessed. Well, Le Noble says there were 15,000 or 20,000 insurgents and some regular troops in position, and he describes that position as very rugged and strong, which I can confirm, having marched over it only a few weeks before. Nevertheless, as this estimate was not borne out by Soult’s report, I set the Spaniards down at 8,000 or 10,000, grounding my estimate on the following data: 1st. Soult says that 800 men fell back on a body far more numerous. 2d. It required a considerable body of troops and several combinations to dislodge them from an extensive position. 3d. ‘Three or four thousand fugitives went off by one road only.’ Finally, the expression eight or ten thousand showed that I had doubts.
Let us proceed with Heudelet’s register. In my history it is said that Soult softened the people’s feelings by kindness and by enforcing strict discipline. To disprove this the reviewer quotes, from Heudelet’s register, statements of certain excesses, committed principally by the light cavalry, and while in actual pursuit of the enemy—excesses, however, which he admits that count Heudelet blamed and rigorously repressed, thus proving the truth of my statement instead of his own, for verily the slow-worm is strong within him. Yet I will not rely upon this curious stupidity of the reviewer. I will give absolute authority for the fact that Soult succeeded in soothing the people’s feelings, begging the reader to observe that both Heudelet and my history speak of Soult’s stay at Orense immediately after the action at Ribadavia.
Extract from Soult’s General Report.
‘At this period the prisoners of Romana’s corps (note, the reviewer says none of Romana’s corps were there) had all demanded to take the oath of fidelity, and to serve king Joseph. The Spanish general himself was far off (fort éloigné). The inhabitants of the province of Orense were returning to their houses, breaking their arms, and cursing the excitement and the revolt which Romana had fomented. The priests even encouraged their submission, and offered themselves as sureties. These circumstances appeared favourable for the invasion of Portugal.’
Animated by a disgraceful anxiety which has always distinguished the Quarterly Review to pander to the bad feelings of mankind by making the vituperation of an enemy the test of patriotism, this critic accuses me of an unnatural bias, and an inclination to do injustice to the Spaniards, because I have not made the report of some outrages, committed by Soult’s cavalry, the ground of a false and infamous charge against the whole French army and French nation. Those outrages he admits himself were vigorously repressed, and they were committed by troops in a country where all the inhabitants were in arms, where no soldier could straggle without meeting death by torture and mutilation, and, finally, where the army lived from day to day on what they could take in the country. I shall now put this sort of logic to a severe test, and leave the Reviewer’s patriots to settle the matter as they can. That is, I shall give from lord Wellington’s despatches, through a series of years, extracts touching the conduct of British officers and soldiers in this same Peninsula, where they were dealt with, not as enemies, not mutilated, tortured, and assassinated, but well provided and kindly treated.
Sir A. Wellesley to Mr. Villiers.
Extract, May 1, 1809.—‘I have long been of opinion that a British army could bear neither success nor failure, and I have had manifest proofs of the truth of this opinion in the first of its branches in the recent conduct of the soldiers of this army. They have plundered the country most terribly.’—‘They have plundered the people of bullocks, amongst other property, for what reason I am sure I do not know, except it be, as I understand is their practice, to sell them to the people again.’
Sir Arthur Wellesley to lord Castlereagh, May 31, 1809.
‘The army behave terribly ill. They are a rabble who cannot bear success more than sir John Moore’s army could bear failure. I am endeavouring to tame them but if I should not succeed I shall make an official complaint of them and send one or two corps home in disgrace; they plunder in all directions.’
Sir Arthur Wellesley to Mr. Villiers, June 13, 1809.
‘It is obvious that one of the private soldiers has been wounded; it is probable that all three have been put to death by the peasantry of Martede; I am sorry to say that from the conduct of the soldiers of the army in general, I apprehend that the peasants may have had some provocation for their animosity against the soldiers; but it must be obvious to you and the general, that these effects of their animosity must be discouraged and even punished, otherwise it may lead to consequences fatal to the peasantry of the country in general as well as to the army.’
Sir Arthur Wellesley to colonel Donkin, June, 1809.
‘I trouble you now upon a subject which has given me the greatest pain, I mean the accounts which I receive from all quarters of the disorders committed by, and the general irregularity of the —— and —— regiments.’
Sir Arthur Wellesley to lord Castlereagh, June, 1809.
‘It is impossible to describe to you the irregularities and outrages committed by the troops. They are never out of the sight of their officers, I may almost say never out of the sight of the commanding officers of the regiments and the general officers of the army, that outrages are not committed.’... ‘Not a post or a courier comes in, not an officer arrives from the rear of the army, that does not bring me accounts of outrages committed by the soldiers who have been left behind on the march. There is not an outrage of any description which has not been committed on a people who have uniformly received us as friends, by soldiers who never yet for one moment suffered the slightest want or the smallest privation.’... ‘It is most difficult to convict any prisoner before a regimental court-martial, for I am sorry to say that soldiers have little regard to the oath administered to them; and the officers who are sworn, “well and truly to try and determine according to evidence, the matter before them,” have too much regard to the strict letter of that administered to them.’... ‘There ought to be in the British army a regular provost establishment.’... ‘All the foreign armies have such an establishment. The French gendarmerie nationale to the amount of forty or fifty with each corps. The Spaniards have their police militia to a still larger amount. While we who require such an aid more, I am sorry to say, than any other nation of Europe, have nothing of the kind.’
‘We all know that the discipline and regularity of all armies must depend upon the diligence of regimental officers, particularly subalterns. I may order what I please, but if they do not execute what I order, or if they execute with negligence, I cannot expect that British soldiers will be orderly or regular.’... ‘I believe I should find it very difficult to convict any officer of doing this description of duty with negligence, more particularly as he is to be tried by others probably guilty of the same offence,’... ‘We are an excellent army on parade, an excellent one to fight, but we are worse than an enemy in a country, and take my word for it that either defeat or success would dissolve us.’
Sir Arthur Wellesley to Mr. Villiers, July, 1809.
‘We must have some general rule of proceeding in cases of criminal outrages of British officers and soldiers.’... ‘As matters are now conducted, the government and myself stand complimenting each other while no notice is taken of the murderer.’
Sir Arthur to lord Wellesley, August, 1809.
‘But a starving army is actually worse than none. The soldiers lose their discipline and spirit; they plunder even in the presence of their officers. The officers are discontented and are almost as bad as the men.’
Sir Arthur Wellesley to Mr. Villiers, September, 1809.
‘In respect to the complaints you have sent me of the conduct of detachments, they are only a repetition of others which I receive every day from all quarters of Spain and Portugal and I can only lament my inability to apply any remedy. In the first place, our law is not what it ought to be and I cannot prevail upon Government even to look at a remedy; secondly, our military courts having been established solely for the purpose of maintaining military discipline, and with the same wisdom which has marked all our proceedings of late years we have obliged the officers to swear to decide according to the evidence brought before them, and we have obliged the witnesses to give their evidence upon oath, the witnesses being in almost every instance common soldiers whose conduct this tribunal was constituted to controul; the consequence is, that perjury is almost as common an offence as drunkenness and plunder.’
Lord Wellington to lord Liverpool, January, 1810.
‘I am concerned to tell you, that notwithstanding the pains taken by the general and other officers of the army the conduct of the soldiers is infamous.’... ‘At this moment there are three general courts-martial sitting in Portugal for the trial of soldiers guilty of wanton murders, (no less than four people have been killed by them since we returned to Portugal), robberies, thefts, robbing convoys under their charge, &c. &c. Perjury is as common as robbery and murder.’
Lord Wellington to the adjutant-general of the forces, 1810.
‘It is proper I should inform the commander-in-chief that desertion is not the only crime of which the soldiers of the army have been guilty to an extraordinary degree. A detachment seldom marches, particularly if under the command of a non-commissioned officer (which rarely happens,) that a murder or a highway robbery, or some act of outrage, is not committed by the British soldiers composing it: they have killed eight people since the army returned to Portugal.’
Lord Wellington to lord Liverpool, 1810.
‘Several soldiers have lately been convicted before a general court-martial and have been executed.’... ‘I am still apprehensive of the consequence of trying them in any nice operation before the enemy, for they really forget everything when plunder or wine is within reach.’
Lord Wellington to sir S. Cotton, 1810.
‘I have read complaints from different quarters of the conduct of the hussars towards the inhabitants of the country.’... ‘It has gone so far, that they (the people) have inquired whether they might kill the Germans in our service as well as in the service of the French.’
Lord Wellington to lord Liverpool, May, 1812.
‘The outrages committed by the British soldiers have been so enormous, and they have produced an effect on the minds of the people of the country so injurious to the cause, and likely to be so injurious to the army itself, that I request your Lordship’s early attention to the subject.’
Many more extracts I could give, but let us now see what was the conduct of the French towards men who did not murder and mutilate prisoners:—
Lord Wellington to sir H. Wellesley, August, 1810.
‘Since I have commanded the troops in this country I have always treated the French officers and soldiers who have been made prisoners with the utmost humanity and attention; and in numerous instances I have saved their lives. The only motive which I have had for this conduct has been, that they might treat our officers and soldiers well who might fall into their hands; and I must do the French the justice to say that they have been universally well treated, and in recent instances the wounded prisoners of the British army have been taken care of before the wounded of the French army.’
Lord Wellington to admiral Berkeley, October, 1810.
‘I confess, however, that as the French treat well the prisoners whom they take from us and the Portuguese treat their prisoners exceedingly ill, particularly in point of food, I should prefer an arrangement, by which prisoners who have once come into the hands of the provost marshal of the British army should avoid falling under the care of any officer of the Portuguese government.’
Having thus displayed the conduct of the British army, as described by its own general through a series of years; and having also from the same authority, shown the humane treatment English officers and soldiers, when they happened to be made prisoners, experienced from the French, I demand of any man with a particle of honour, truth or conscience in his composition,—of any man, in fine, who is not at once knave and fool, whether these outrages perpetrated by British troops upon a friendly people can be suppressed, and the outrages of French soldiers against implacable enemies enlarged upon with justice? Whether it is right and decent to impute relentless ferocity, atrocious villainy, to the whole French army, and stigmatize the whole French nation for the excesses of some bad soldiers, prating at the same time of the virtue of England and the excellent conduct of her troops; and this too in the face of Wellington’s testimony to the kindness with which they treated our men, and in the face also of his express declaration (see letter to Lord Wellesley, 26th January, 1811), that the majority of the French soldiers were ‘sober, well disposed, amenable to order, and in some degree educated.’ But what intolerable injustice it would be to stigmatise either nation for military excesses which are common to all armies and to all wars; and when I know that the general characteristic of the British and French troops alike, is generosity, bravery, humanity, and honour.
And am I to be accused of an unnatural bias against the Spaniards because I do not laud them for running away in battle; because I do not express my admiration of their honour in assassinating men whom they dared not face in fight; because I do not commend their humanity for mutilating, torturing, and murdering their prisoners. I have indeed heard of a British staff-officer, high in rank, who, after the battle of Talavera, looked on with apparent satisfaction at a Spaniard beating a wounded Frenchman’s brains out with a stone, and even sneered at the indignant emotion and instant interference of my informant. Such an adventure I have heard of, yet there are few such cold-blooded men in the British army. But what have I said to the disparagement of the Spaniards in my history without sustaining it by irrefragable testimony? Nothing, absolutely nothing! I have quoted the deliberate judgment of every person of note, French and English, who had to deal with them; nay, I have in some instances supported my opinion by the declaration even of Spanish generals. I have brought forward the testimony of sir Hew Dalrymple, of sir John Moore, of sir John Craddock, of Mr. Stuart, of Mr. Frere, of general Graham, of lord William Bentinck, of sir Edward Pellew, of lord Collingwood, of sir Edward Codrington, and of Mr. Sydenham, and a crowd of officers of inferior rank. Lastly, I have produced the testimony of the duke of Wellington; and I will now add more proofs that his opinion of the Spanish character coincides with that expressed in my history.
Extracts from lord Wellington’s Correspondence, 1809.
‘I come now to another topic, which is one of serious consideration.’... ‘That is the frequent, I ought to say constant and shameful misbehaviour of the Spanish troops before the enemy: we in England never hear of their defeats and flights, but I have heard of Spanish officers telling of nineteen and twenty actions of the description of that at the bridge of Arzobispo.’... ‘In the battle of Talavera, in which the Spanish army with very trifling exceptions was not engaged, whole corps threw away their arms and ran off in my presence when they were neither attacked nor threatened with an attack, but frightened I believe by their own fire.’... ‘I have found, upon inquiry, and from experience, the instances of the misbehaviour of the Spanish troops to be so numerous and those of their good behaviour to be so few, that I must conclude that they are troops by no means to be depended upon.’
‘The Spanish cavalry are I believe nearly entirely without discipline; they are in general well clothed armed and accoutred, and remarkably well mounted, and their horses are in good condition; but I never heard anybody pretend that in one instance they have behaved as soldiers ought to do in the presence of an enemy.’... ‘In respect to that great body of all armies—I mean the infantry—it is lamentable to see how bad that of the Spaniards is.’... ‘It is said that sometimes they behave well; though I acknowledge I have never seen them behave otherwise than ill.’... ‘Nothing can be worse than the officers of the Spanish army; and it is extraordinary that when a nation has devoted itself to war, as this nation has by the measures it has adopted in the last two years, so little progress has been made in any one branch of the military profession by any individual.’... ‘I cannot say that they do anything as it ought to be done, with the exception of running away and assembling again in a state of nature.’
‘The Spaniards have neither numbers, efficiency, discipline, bravery or arrangement to carry on the contest.’
Extracts, 1810.
‘The misfortune throughout the war has been that the Spaniards are of a disposition too sanguine; they have invariably expected only success in objects for the attainment of which they had adopted no measures; they have never looked to or prepared for a lengthened contest; and all those, or nearly all who have had anything to do with them, have imbibed the same spirit and the same sentiments.’
‘Those who see the difficulties attending all communications with Spaniards and Portuguese, and are aware how little dependence can be placed upon them, and that they depend entirely upon us for everything, will be astonished that with so small a force as I have I should have been able to maintain myself so long in this country.’
‘The character of the Spaniards has been the same throughout the war; they have never been equal to the adoption of any solid plan, or to the execution of any system of steady resistance to the enemy by which their situation might be gradually improved. The leading people amongst them have invariably deceived the lower orders; and instead of making them acquainted with their real situation, and calling upon them to make the exertions and sacrifices which were necessary even for their defence, they have amused them with idle stories of imaginary successes, with visionary plans of offensive operations which those who offer them for consideration know that they have not the means of executing, and with hopes of driving the French out of the Peninsula by some unlooked-for good. The consequence is, that no event is provided for in time, every misfortune is doubly felt, and the people will at last become fatigued with the succession of their disasters which common prudence and foresight in their leaders would have prevented.’
Wellington to sir H. Wellesley, 1810.
‘In order to show you how the Spanish armies are going on, I enclose you a report which sir William Beresford has received from general Madden the officer commanding the brigade of Portuguese cavalry in Estremadura. I am convinced that there is not one word in this letter that is not true. Yet these are the soldiers who are to beat the French out of the Peninsula!!!!
‘There is no remedy for these evils excepting a vigorous system of government, by which a revenue of some kind or other can be raised to pay and find resources for an army in which discipline can be established. It is nonsense to talk of rooting out the French, or of carrying on the war in any other manner. Indeed, if the destruction occasioned by the Guerillas and by the Spanish armies, and the expense incurred by maintaining the French armies, are calculated, it will be obvious that it will be much cheaper for the country to maintain 80,000 or 100,000 regular troops in the field.
‘But the Spanish nation will not sit down soberly and work to produce an effect at a future period. Their courage, and even their activity is of a passive nature, it must be forced upon them by the necessity of their circumstances and is never a matter of choice nor of foresight.’
Wellington to lord Wellesley, 1810.
‘There is neither subordination nor discipline in the army either amongst officers or soldiers; and it is not even attempted (as, indeed, it would be in vain to attempt) to establish either. It has in my opinion been the cause of the dastardly conduct which we have so frequently witnessed in Spanish troops, and they have become odious to the country. The peaceable inhabitants, much as they detest and suffer from the French, almost wish for the establishment of Joseph’s government to be protected from the outrages of their own troops.’
Wellington to sir H. Wellesley, Dec. 1810.
‘I am afraid that the Spaniards will bring us all to shame yet. It is scandalous that in the third year of the war, and having been more than a year in a state of tranquillity, and having sustained no loss of importance since the battle of Ocaña, they should now be depending for the safety of Cadiz—the seat of their government—upon having one or two, more or less, British regiments; and that after having been shut in for ten months, they have not prepared the works necessary for their defence, notwithstanding the repeated remonstrances of general Graham and the British officers on the danger of omitting them.
‘The Cortes appear to suffer under the national disease in as great a degree as the other authorities—that is, boasting of the strength and power of the Spanish nation till they are seriously convinced they are in no danger, and then sitting down quietly and indulging their national indolence.’
Wellington to general Graham, 1811.
‘The conduct of the Spaniards throughout this expedition (Barrosa) is precisely the same as I have ever observed it to be. They march the troops night and day without provisions or rest, and abuse everybody who proposes a moment’s delay to afford either to the famished and fatigued soldiers. They reach the enemy in such a state as to be unable to make any exertion or to execute any plan, even if any plan had been formed; and thus, when the moment of action arrives they are totally incapable of movement, and they stand by to see their allies destroyed, and afterwards abuse them because they do not continue, unsupported, exertions to which human nature is not equal.’[11]
So much for Wellington’s opinion of the Spanish soldiers and statesmen; let us now hear him as to the Spanish generals:—
1809. ‘Although the Duque de Albuquerque is proné by many, amongst others by Whittingham and Frere, you will find him out. I think the marquis de la Romana the best I have seen of the Spaniards. I doubt his talents at the head of an army, but he is certainly a sensible man and has seen much of the world.’
Now reader, the following is the character given to Romana in my history; compare it with the above:—
‘Romana was a man of talent, quickness, and information, but disqualified by nature for military command.’ And again, speaking of his death, I say, ‘He was a worthy man and of quick parts, although deficient in military talent. His death was a great loss.’ If the expressions are more positive than Wellington’s, it is because this was the duke’s first notion of the marquis; he was more positive afterwards, and previous circumstances unknown to him, and after circumstances known to him, gave me a right to be more decided. The following additional proofs, joined to those already given in my former reply, must suffice for the present. Sir John Moore, in one of his letters, says, ‘I am sorry to find that Romana is a shuffler.’ And Mr. Stuart, the British envoy, writing about the same period to general Doyle to urge the advance of Palafox and Infantado, says, ‘I know that Romana has not supported the British as he ought to have done, and has left our army to act alone when he might have supported it with a tolerably efficient force.’
In 1812, during the siege of Burgos, Mr. Sydenham, expressing lord Wellington’s opinions, after saying that Wellington declared he had never met with a really able man in Spain, while in Portugal he had found several, proceeds thus—
‘It is indeed clear to any person who is acquainted with the present state of Spain, that the Spaniards are incapable of forming either a good government or a good army.’... ‘With respect to the army there are certainly in Spain abundant materials for good common soldiers. But where is one general of even moderate skill and talents? I know nothing of Lacy and Sarzfield, but assuredly a good general is not to be found amongst Castaños, Ballesteros, Palacios, Mendizabal, Santocildes, Abadia, Duque del Parque, La Pena, Elio, Mahy, or Joseph O’Donnel.’... ‘You cannot make good officers in Spain.’
If to this the reader will add what I have set forth in my history about Vives, Imas, Contreras, Campo Verde, Cuesta, and Areyasaga, and that he is not yet satisfied, I can still administer to his craving. In 1809 Wellington speaks with dread of ‘Romana’s cormorants flying into Portugal,’ and says, ‘that foolish fellow the Duque del Parque has been endeavouring to get his corps destroyed on the frontier.’ Again—
‘The Duque del Parque has advanced, because, whatever may be the consequences, the Spaniards always think it necessary to advance when their front is clear of an enemy.’
‘There never was anything like the madness, the imprudence, and the presumption of the Spanish officers in the way they risk their corps, knowing that the national vanity will prevent them from withdrawing them from a situation of danger, and that if attacked they must be totally destroyed. A retreat is the only chance of safety for the Duque del Parque’s corps; but instead of making it he calls upon you for cavalry.’... ‘I have ordered magazines to be prepared on the Douro and Mondego to assist in providing these vagabonds if they should retire into Portugal, which I hope they will do as their only chance of salvation.’
Again in 1811, defending himself from an accusation, made by the Spaniards, that he had caused the loss of Valencia, he says, ‘the misfortunes of Valencia are to be attributed to Blake’s ignorance of his profession and to Mahy’s cowardice and treachery.’
Now if any passage in my history can be pointed out more disparaging to the Spaniards than the expressions of lord Wellington and the other persons quoted above, I am content to be charged with an ‘unnatural bias’ against that people. But if this cannot be done, it is clear that the reviewer has proved, not my unnatural bias to the French but his own natural bias to calumny. He has indeed a wonderful aversion to truth, for close under his eye, in my second volume which he was then reviewing, was the following passage; and there are many of a like tendency in my work relative to the Spaniards which he leaves unnoticed.
‘Under such a system it was impossible that the peasantry could be rendered energetic soldiers, and they certainly were not active supporters of their country’s cause; but with a wonderful constancy they suffered for it, enduring fatigue and sickness, nakedness and famine with patience, and displaying in all their actions and in all their sentiments a distinct and powerful national character. This constancy and the iniquity of the usurpation, hallowed their efforts in despite of their ferocity and merits respect, though the vices and folly of the juntas and the leading men rendered the effects nugatory.’—History, vol. ii. chap. 1.
I would stop here, but the interests of truth and justice, and the interests of society require that I should thoroughly expose this reviewer. Let the reader therefore mark his reasoning upon Soult’s government of Oporto and the intrigue of the Anti-Braganza party. Let him however look first at the whole statement of these matters in my book, and not trust the garbled extracts made by the reviewer. Let him observe how Heudelet’s expedition to Tuy is by this shameless writer, at one time made to appear as if it took place after Soult had received the deputations and addresses calling for a change of dynasty; and this to show that no beneficial effect had been produced in the temper of the people, as I had asserted, and of which I shall presently give ample proof. How at another time this same expedition of Heudelet is used as happening before the arrival of the addresses and deputations, with a view to show that Soult had laboured to procure those addresses, a fact which, far from denying, I had carefully noticed. Let him mark how an expression in my history, namely, that Soult was unprepared for one effect of his own vigorous conduct, has been perverted, for the purpose of deceit; and all this with a spirit at once so malignant and stupid, that the reviewer is unable to see that the garbled extracts he gives from Heudelet’s and Riccard’s Registers, not only do not contradict but absolutely confirm the essential point of my statement.
Certainly Soult was not unprepared for the submission of the Portuguese to the French arms because it was the object and bent of his invasion to make them so submit. But there is a great difference between that submission of which Heudelet and Riccard speak, and the proposal coming from the Portuguese for the establishment of a new and independent dynasty; a still greater difference between that and offering the crown to Soult himself; and it was this last which the word unprepared referred to in my history. So far from thinking or saying that Soult was unprepared for the deputations and addresses, I have expressly said, that he ‘encouraged the design,’ that he ‘acted with great dexterity,’ and I called the whole affair an ‘intrigue.’ But if I had said that he was unprepared for the whole affair it would have been correct in one sense. He was unprepared to accede to the extent of the Anti-Braganza party’s views. He had only received authority from his sovereign to conquer Portugal, not to establish a new and independent dynasty, placing a French prince upon the throne; still less to accept that throne for himself. These were dangerous matters to meddle with under such a monarch as Napoleon; but the weakness of Soult’s military position made it absolutely necessary to catch at every aid, and it would have been a proof that the duke of Dalmatia was only a common man and unsuited for the great affairs confided to his charge if he had rejected such a powerful auxiliary to his military operations: wisely, therefore, and even magnanimously did he encourage the Anti-Braganza party, drawing all the military benefit possible from it, and trusting to Napoleon’s sagacity and grandeur of soul for his justification. Nor was he mistaken in either. Yet I am ready to admit that all this must appear very strange to Quarterly Reviewers and parasites, whose knowledge of the human mind is confined to an accurate measure of the sentiments of patrons, rich and powerful, but equally with themselves incapable of true greatness and therefore always ready to ridicule it.
The facts then stand thus. Heudelet’s expedition through the Entre Minho e Douro took place between the 5th of April and the 27th of that month, and the country people being then in a state of exasperation opposed him vehemently; in my history the combats he sustained are mentioned, and it is said that previous to the Anti-Braganza intrigue the horrible warfare of assassinations had been carried on with infinite activity. But the intrigue of the malcontents was not completed until the end of April, and the good effect of it on the military operations was not apparent until May, consequently could not have been felt by Heudelet in the beginning of April. In my history the difference of time in these two affairs is expressly marked, inasmuch as I say that in treating of the intrigue I have anticipated the chronological order of events. Truly if Mr. Lockhart has paid for this part of the Review as criticism Mr. Murray should disallow the unfair charge in his accounts.
I shall now give two extracts from Soult’s general report, before quoted, in confimation of my statements:—
‘Marshal Soult was led by necessity to favour the party of the malcontents, which he found already formed in Portugal when he arrived. He encouraged them, and soon that party thought itself strong enough in the province of Entre Minho e Douro, to propose to the marshal to approve of the people declaring for the deposition of the house of Braganza, and that the emperor of the French should be asked to name a prince of his family to reign in Portugal. In a political view, marshal Soult could not without express authority, permit such a proceeding, and he could not ask for such authority having lost his own communication with France, and being without news of the operations of any of the other corps which were to aid him; but considered in a military point of view the proposition took another character. Marshal Soult there saw the means of escaping from his embarrassments, and he seized them eagerly, certain that whatever irregularity there was in his proceedings ultimate justice would be done to him.’
‘These dispositions produced a remarkable change, tranquillity was re-established, and the confidence was such, that in the province (Entre Minho e Douro) all the inhabitants returned to their labours, supplied the markets and familiarized themselves with the idea of an approaching change.’... ‘Marshal Soult received numerous deputations of the clergy to thank him for the attentions he paid them, and for the order which he had restored. Before this no Frenchman could straggle without being mutilated and killed. The Portuguese, believing that it was glorious and grateful to God to do all the mischief possible to the army, had perpetrated the most dreadful horrors on the wretched soldiers who fell into their hands.’
It would be too tedious and unprofitable to the reader to continue thus following the reviewer step by step. Wherefore, neglecting his farrago about the principles of war, and his application of them to show how I am wrong in my statement, that, in a strategic point of view it was better to attack Victor, but that especial circumstances led sir Arthur to fall upon Soult, I hold it sufficient to place sir Arthur’s own statement before the reader and leave him to compare it with mine.
‘Lisbon, April 24, 1809.
‘I intend to move towards Soult and attack him, if I should be able to make any arrangement in the neighbourhood of Abrantes which can give me any security for the safety of this place during my absence to the northward.
‘I am not quite certain, however, that I should not do more good to the general cause by combining with general Cuesta in an operation against Victor; and I believe I should prefer the last if Soult was not in possession of a part of this country very fertile in resources, and of the town of Oporto, and if to concert the operations with Cuesta would not take time which might be profitably employed in operations against Soult. I think it probable, however, that Soult will not remain in Portugal when I shall pass the Mondego. If he does I shall attack him. If he should retire, I am convinced that it would be most advantageous for the common cause that we should remain upon the defensive in the north of Portugal, and act vigorously in co-operation with Cuesta against Victor.
‘An operation against Victor is attended by these advantages—if successful it effectually relieves Seville and Lisbon, and in case affairs should take such a turn as to enable the King’s ministers to make another great effort for the relief of Spain, the corps under my command in Portugal will not be removed to such a distance from the scene of operation as to render its co-operation impossible; and we may hope to see the effect of a great effort made by a combined and concentrated force.’
The assertion of the reviewer that I have underrated Cuesta’s force, inasmuch as it was only 19,000 infantry and 1,500 cavalry, instead of 30,000 infantry and 6,000 cavalry, as I have stated it to be, and that consequently the greatest numbers could not be brought to bear on Victor, is one of those curious examples of elaborate misrepresentation in which this writer abounds. For first, admitting that Cuesta had only 20,000 men, sir Arthur would have brought 24,000 to aid him, and Victor had only 30,000. The allies would then have had double the number opposed to Soult. But the pith of the misrepresentation lies in this, that the reviewer has taken Cuesta’s account of his actual force on the 23d of April, and suppresses the facts, that reinforcements were continually pouring into him at that time, and that he actually did advance against Victor with rather greater numbers than those stated by me.
PROOFS.
Sir Arthur to lord Castlereagh, April 24, 1809.
‘Cuesta is at Llerena, collecting a force again, which it is said will soon be 25,000 infantry and 6,000 cavalry.’
To general Mackenzie, May 1, 1809.
‘They (Victor’s troops) have in their front a Spanish army with general Cuesta at Llerena, which army was defeated in the month of March, and has since been reinforced to the amount of twenty thousand men.’... ‘They will be attacked by Cuesta, who is receiving reinforcements.’
Mr. Frere to sir Arthur Wellesley, Seville, May 4.
‘We have here 3,000 cavalry, considered as part of the army of Estremadura (under Cuesta). Cuesta has with him 4,000 cavalry.’
Sir Arthur Wellesley to lord Castlereagh, June 17, 1809.
‘We had every reason to believe that the French army consisted of about 27,000, of which 7,000 were cavalry; and the combined British and Portuguese force which I was in hopes I should have enabled to march upon this expedition would have amounted to about 24,000 men.’
To lord Wellesley, August 8, 1809.
‘The army of Cuesta, which crossed the Tagus thirty-six or thirty-eight thousand strong, does not now consist of 30,000.’
Extract from a Memoir by sir A. Wellesley, 1809.
‘The Spanish army under General Cuesta had been reinforced with cavalry and infantry, and had been refitted with extraordinary celerity after the action of Medellin.’
All the reviewer’s remarks about Cuesta’s numbers, and about the unfordable nature of the Tagus, are a reproduction of misrepresentations and objections before exposed and refuted by me in my controversy with marshal Beresford; but as it is now attempted to support them by garbled extracts from better authorities, I will again and completely expose and crush them. This will however be more conveniently done farther on. Meanwhile I repeat, that the Tagus is only unfordable during the winter, and not then if there is a few days dry weather; that six months of the year it is always fordable in many places, and as low down as Salvaterra near Lisbon; finally, that my expression, ‘a river fordable at almost every season,’ is strictly correct, and is indeed not mine but lord Wellington’s expression. To proceed with the rest:—
Without offering any proof beyond his own assertion, the reviewer charges me with having exaggerated the importance of D’Argenton’s conspiracy for the sole purpose of excusing Soult’s remissness in guarding the Douro. But my account of that conspiracy was compiled from the duke of Wellington’s letters—some public, some private addressed to me; and from a narrative of the conspiracy written expressly for my guidance by major-general sir James Douglas, who was the officer employed to meet and conduct D’Argenton to and from the English army;—from Soult’s own official report; from Le Noble’s history; and from secret information which I received from a French officer who was himself one of the principal movers—not of that particular conspiracy—but of a general one of which the one at Oporto was but a branch.
Again, the reviewer denies that I am correct in saying, that Soult thought Hill’s division had been disembarked from the ocean; that he expected the vessels would come to the mouth of the Douro; and that considering that river secure above the town his personal attention was directed to the line below Oporto. Let Soult and Le Noble answer this.
Extract from Soult’s General Report.
‘In the night of the 9th and 10th the enemy made a considerable disembarkation at Aveiro, and another at Ovar. The 10th, at daybreak, they attacked the right flank of general Franceschi, while the column coming from Lisbon by Coimbra attacked him in front.’
Extract from Le Noble.
‘The house occupied by the general-in-chief was situated beyond the town on the road to the sea. The site was very high, and from thence he could observe the left bank of the Douro from the convent to the sea. His orders, given on the 8th, to scour the left bank of the river, those which he had expedited in the morning, and the position of his troops, rendered him confident that no passage would take place above Oporto; he believed that the enemy, master of the sea, would try a disembarkation near the mouth of the Douro.’
Such is the value of this carping disingenuous critic’s observations on this point; and I shall now demolish his other misstatements about the passage of the Douro.
1st. The poor barber’s share in the transaction is quite true; my authority is major-general sir John Waters who was the companion of the barber in the daring exploit of bringing over the boats. And if Waters had recollected his name, it is not the despicable aristocratic sneer of the reviewer about the ‘Plebeian’ that would have prevented me from giving it. 2d. The Barca de Avintas, where sir John Murray crossed, has already been shown by a reference to the maps and to lord Wellington’s despatch, to be not nine miles from the Serra Convent as the reviewer says, but three miles as I have stated: moreover, two Portuguese leagues would not make nine English miles. But to quit these minor points, the reviewer asks, ‘Why colonel Napier departed from the account of the events given in the despatch of sir Arthur Wellesley?’ This is the only decent passage in the whole review, and it shall have a satisfactory answer.
Public despatches, written in the hurry of the moment, immediately after the events and before accurate information can be obtained, are very subject to errors of detail, and are certainly not what a judicious historian would rely upon for details without endeavouring to obtain other information. In this case I discovered several discrepancies between the despatch and the accounts of eye-witnesses and actors written long afterwards and deliberately. I knew also, that the passage of the Douro, though apparently a very rash action and little considered in England, was a very remarkable exploit, prudent skilful and daring. Anxious to know the true secret of the success, I wrote to the duke of Wellington, putting a variety of questions relative to the whole expeditions. In return I received from him distinct answers, with a small diagram of the seminary and ground about it to render the explanation clear. Being thus put in possession of all the leading points relative to the passage of the Douro by the commanders on each side, for I had before got Soult’s, I turned to the written and printed statements of several officers engaged in the action for those details which the generals had not touched upon.
Now the principal objections of the reviewer to my statement are,—1st. That I have given too many troops to sir John Murray. 2d. That I have unjustly accused him of want of military hardihood. 3d. That I have erroneously described the cause of the loss sustained by the fourteenth dragoons in retiring from their charge. In reply I quote my authorities; and first, as to the numbers with Murray.
Extract from lord Wellington’s answers to colonel Napier’s questions.
‘The right of the troops which passed over to the seminary, which in fact made an admirable tête de pont, was protected by the passage of the Douro higher up by lieut.-general sir John Murray and the king’s German legion, supported by other troops.’
Armed with this authority, I did set aside the despatch, because, though it said that Murray was sent with a battalion and a squadron, it did not say that he was not followed by others. And in lord Londonderry’s narrative I found the following passage:—
‘General Murray, too, who had been detached with his division to a ferry higher up, was fortunate enough to gain possession of as many boats as enabled him to pass over with two battalions of Germans and two squadrons of the fourteenth dragoons.’
And his lordship, further on, says, that he himself charged several times and with advantage at the head of those squadrons. His expression is ‘the dragoons from Murray’s corps.’
With respect to the loss of the dragoons sustained by having to fight their way back again, I find the following account in the narrative of sir James Douglas, written, as I have before said, expressly for my guidance:—
‘Young soldiers like young greyhounds run headlong on their prey; while experience makes old dogs of all sorts run cunning. Here two squadrons actually rode over the whole rear French guard, which laid down upon the road; and was, to use their own terms, passé sur le ventre: but no support to the dragoons being at hand no great execution was done; and the two squadrons themselves suffered severely in getting back again through the infantry.’
Thus, even in this small matter, the reviewer is not right. And now with the above facts fixed I shall proceed to rebut the charge of having calumniated sir John Murray.
First, the reviewers assertion, that Murray’s troops were never within several miles of the seminary, and that they would have been crushed by Soult if they had attacked the enemy, is evidently false from the following facts. Lord Wellington expressly says, in his answer to my questions quoted before,—That the right of the troops in the seminary was protected by the troops under Murray; which could not be if the latter were several miles off. Again, if the dragoons of Murray’s corps could charge repeatedly with advantage, the infantry and guns of that corps might have followed up the attack without danger upon a confused, flying, panic-stricken body of men who had been surprised and were at the same time taken both in flank and rear. But if Murray dared not with any prudence even approach the enemy,—if it were absolutely necessary for him to retire as he did,—what brought him there at all? Is the duke of Wellington a general to throw his troops wantonly into such a situation,—and on ground which his elevated post at the Serra Convent enabled him to command perfectly, and where the men and movements of both sides were as much beneath his eye as the men and movements on a chess-board? Bah!
But the fact is that a part of the Germans under Murray, aye!—a very small part! did actually engage the enemy with success. Major Beamish, in his ‘History of the German Legion,’ on the authority of one of the German officers’ journals, writes thus:—
‘The skirmishers of the first line under lieutenant Von Hölle, and two companies of the same regiment under ensign Hodenberg, were alone brought into fire. The skirmishers made several prisoners, and one rifleman (Henry Hauer) was lucky enough to capture a French lieutenant-colonel. Seven of the legion were wounded.’
Murray wanted hardihood. And it is no answer to say lord Wellington did not take notice of his conduct. A commander-in-chief is guided by many circumstances distinct from the mere military facts, and it might be, that, on this occasion he did not choose to judge rashly or harshly a man, who had other good qualities, for an error into which, perhaps, a very bold and able man might have fallen by accident. And neither would I have thus judged sir John Murray from this fact alone, although the whole army were disgusted at the time by his want of daring and openly expressed an unfavourable opinion of his military vigour. But when I find that the same want of hardihood was again apparent in him at Castalla, as I have shown in my fifth volume, and still more glaringly displayed by him at Taragona, as I shall show in my sixth volume, the matter became quite different, and the duty of the historian is to speak the truth even of a general, strange as that may and I have no doubt does appear to this reviewer.
Having disposed of this matter, I shall now set down some passages evincing the babbling shallowness and self-conceit of the critic, and beneath them my authorities, whereby it will appear that the big book containing all sir George does not know is increasing in bulk:—
‘Sir Arthur Wellesley was detained at Oporto neither by the instructions of the English Cabinet nor by his own want of generalship, but simply by the want of provisions.’—Review.
Indeed! Reader, mark the following question to, and answer from the duke of Wellington.
Question to the duke of Wellington by colonel Napier.
Why did the duke halt the next day after the passage of the Douro?
Answer.—‘The halt was made next day,—first, because the whole army had not crossed the Douro and none of its supplies and baggage had crossed. Secondly, on account of the great exertion and fatigue of the preceding days particularly the last. Thirdly, because we had no account of lord Beresford being in possession of Amarante, or even across the Douro; we having, in fact, out-marched everything. Fourthly, the horses and animals required a day’s rest as well as the men.’
And, in the answer to another question, the following observation occurs:—‘The relative numbers and the nature of the troops must be considered in all these things; and this fact moreover, that excepting to attain a very great object we could not risk the loss of a corps.’
I pass over the reviewer’s comments upon my description of Soult’s retreat, because a simple reference to my work will at once show their folly and falseness; but I beg to inform this acute and profound historical critic that the first field-marshal captured by an English general was marshal Tallard, and that the English general who captured him was called John, duke of Marlborough. And, with respect to his sneers about the ‘little river of Ruivaens;’ ‘Soult’s theatrical speech;’ ‘the use of the twenty-five horsemen;’ ‘the non-repairs of the Ponte Nova;’ and the ‘Romance composed by colonel Napier and Le Noble;’ I shall, in answer, only offer the following authorities, none of which, the reader will observe, are taken from Le Noble.
Extract from Soult’s General Report.
‘The 15th, in the morning, the enemy appeared one league from Braga; our column was entangled in the defile; the rain came down in torrents; and the wind was frightful. On reaching Salamanca we learned that the bridge of Ruivaens, over the little river (ruisseau) of that name was cut, and the passage guarded by 1,200 men with cannon. It was known also that the Ponte Nova on the route of Montelegre, which they had begun to destroy, was feebly guarded; and the marshal gave to major Dulong the command of 100 brave men, of his own choice, to carry it. The valiant Dulong under cover of the night reached the bridge, passed it notwithstanding the cuts in it, surprised the guard, and put to the sword those who could not escape. In four hours the bridge was repaired; general Loison passed it and marched upon the bridge of Misserella, near Villa da Ponte, where 800 Portuguese well retrenched defended the passage. A battalion and some brave men, again led by the intrepid Dulong, forced the abbatis entered the entrenchments and seized the bridge.’
Extract from the ‘Victoires et Conquêtes des Français’.
‘The marshal held a council, at the end of which he called major Dulong. It was nine o’clock in the evening. “I have selected you from the army, he said to that brave officer, to seize the bridge of Ponte Nova which the enemy are now cutting: you must endeavour to surprise them. The time is favourable. Attack, vigorously with the bayonet you will succeed or you will die. I want no news save that of your success, send me no other report, your silence will be sufficient in a contrary case. Take a hundred men at your choice; they will be sufficient; add twenty-five dragoons, and kill their horses to make a rampart, if it be necessary, on the middle of the bridge to sustain yourself and remain master of the passage.”’
‘The major departed with determined soldiers and a Portuguese guide who was tied with the leather slings of the muskets. Arrived within pistol-shot of the bridge he saw the enemy cutting the last beam. It was then one o’clock the rain fell heavily and the enemy’s labourers being fatigued thought they might take some repose before they finished their work. The torrents descending from the mountains and the cavado itself made such a noise that the march of the French was not heard, the sentinel at the bridge was killed without giving any alarm, and Dulong with twenty-five grenadiers passed crawling on the beam, one of them fell into the cavado but happily his fall produced no effect. The enemy’s advanced post of twenty-four men was destroyed, &c. &c. The marshal, informed of this happy event, came up in haste with the first troops he could find to defend the bridge and accelerate the passage of the army; but the repairing was neither sufficiently prompt or solid to prevent many brave soldiers perishing. The marshal embraced major Dulong, saying to him, “I thank you in the name of France brave major; you have saved the army.”’
Then follows a detailed account of the Misserella bridge, or Saltador, and its abbatis and other obstacles; of Dulong’s attack; of his being twice repulsed; and of his carrying of the bridge, the Leaper as it was called, at the third assault, falling dreadfully wounded at the moment of victory; finally, of the care and devotion with which his soldiers carried him on their shoulders during the rest of the retreat. And the reader will observe that this account is not a mere description in the body of the work, but a separate paper in the Appendix, written by some officer evidently well acquainted with all the facts, perhaps Dulong himself, and for the express purpose of correcting the errors of detail in the body of that work. Theatrical to the critic, and even ridiculous it may likely enough appear. The noble courage and self-devotion of such a soldier as Dulong is a subject which no person will ever expect a Quarterly viewer to understand.
In the foregoing comments I have followed the stream of my own thoughts, rather than the order of the reviewer’s criticisms; I must therefore retrace my steps to notice some points which have been passed over. His observations about Zaragoza have been already disposed of in my reply to his first articles published in my fifth volume, but his comments upon Catalonian affairs shall now be noticed.
The assertion that lord Collingwood was incapable of judging of the efforts of the Catalans, although he was in daily intercourse with their chiefs, co-operating with their armies and supplying them with arms and stores, because he was a seaman, is certainly ingenious. It has just so much of pertness in it as an Admiralty clerk of the Melville school might be supposed to acquire by a long habit of official insolence to naval officers, whose want of parliamentary interest exposed them to the mortification of having intercourse with him. And it has just so much of cunning wisdom as to place it upon a par with that which dictated the inquiry which we have heard was sent out to sir John Warren during the late American war, namely, “whether light—very light frigates, could not sail up the St. Lawrence to Lake Ontario?” And with that surprising providence, which did send out birch-brooms and tanks to hold fresh water for the use of the ships on the said lake of Ontario. But quitting these matters, the reviewer insinuates what is absolutely untrue, namely, that I have only quoted lord Collingwood as authority for my statements about Catalonia. The readers of my work know that I have adduced in testimony the Spanish generals themselves, namely, Contreras, Lacy, and Rovira; the testimony of sir Edward Codrington, of sir Edward Pellew, of colonel Doyle, and of other Englishmen. That I have referred to St. Cyr, Suchet, Lafaille, and other French writers; that I have quoted Vacani and Cabane’s Histories, the first an Italian serving with the French army in Catalonia, the last a Spaniard and chief of the staff to the Catalan army: and now, to complete the reviewer’s discomfiture, I will add the duke of Wellington, who is a landsman and therefore according to this reviewer’s doctrine, entitled to judge:—
Letter to lord Liverpool, 19th Dec. 1809.
‘In Catalonia the resistance is more general and regular; but still the people are of a description with which your armies could not co-operate with any prospect of success, or even of safety. You see what Burghersh says of the Somatenes; and it is notorious that the Catalans have at all times been the most irregular, and the least to be depended upon of any of the Spaniards.’
So much for light frigates, birch-brooms, fresh-water tanks, and Collingwood’s incapacity to judge of the Catalans, because he was a seaman; and as for Reding’s complaints of the Spaniards when dying, they must go to sir George’s big book with this marginal note, that St. Cyr is not the authority. But for the grand flourish, the threat to prove at another time, ‘from Wellington’s despatches,’ that the Spaniards gave excellent intelligence and made no false reports, let the reader take the following testimony in anticipation:—
Extracts from lord Wellington’s Correspondence, 1809.
‘At present I have no intelligence whatever, excepting the nonsense I receive occasionally from ——; as the Spaniards have defeated all my attempts to obtain any by stopping those whom I sent out to make inquiries.’
‘I do not doubt that the force left in Estremadura does not exceed 8,000 infantry and 900 cavalry; and you have been made acquainted with the exact extent of it, because, the Duque del Albuquerque, who is appointed to command it, is interested in making known the truth; but they have lied about the cavalry ordered to the Duque del Parque.’
‘It might be advisable, however, to frighten the gentlemen at Seville with their own false intelligence.’
‘It is most difficult to obtain any information respecting roads, or any local circumstances, which must be considered in the decisions to be formed respecting the march of troops.’
1810. ‘We are sadly deficient in good information, and all the efforts which I have made to obtain it have failed; and all that we know is the movement of troops at the moment, or probably after it is made.’
‘I have had accounts from the marquis de la Romana: he tells me that the siege of Cadiz was raised on the 23d, which cannot be true.’
‘I believe there was no truth in the stories of the insurrection at Madrid.’
‘There is so far a foundation for the report of O’Donnel’s action, as that it appears that Suchet’s advanced guard was at Lerida on the 11th of April. It is doubtful, however, according to my experience of Spanish reports, whether O’Donnel was beaten or gained a victory.’
‘I recommend to you, however, to proceed with great caution in respect to intelligence transmitted to you by the marquis de la Romana, and all the Spanish officers. It is obvious there is nothing they wish for so much as to involve our troops in their operations. This is evident both from the letters of the marquis himself, and from the false reports made to lieutenant Heathcote of the firing heard from Badajos at Albuquerque.’
Wellington to lord Liverpool, 1810. Cartaxo.
‘The circumstances which I have related above will show your Lordship that the military system of the Spanish nation is not much improved, and that it is not very easy to combine or regulate operations with a corps so ill-organised, in possession of so little intelligence, and upon whose actions no reliance can be placed. It will scarcely be credited that the first intelligence which general Mendizabal received of the assembling of the enemy’s troops at Seville was from hence.’
Wellington to sir H. Wellesley, 1810.
‘Mendizabal, &c. &c., have sent us so many false reports that I cannot make out what the French are doing.’
‘This is a part of the system on which all the Spanish authorities have been acting, to induce us to take a part in the desultory operations which they are carrying on. False reports and deceptions of every description are tried, and then popular insults, to show us what the general opinion is of our conduct.’
‘The Spaniards take such bad care of their posts, and have so little intelligence, that it is difficult to say by what troops the blow has been struck.’
‘It is strange that the governor of Ciudad Rodrigo should have no intelligence of the enemy’s movements near his garrison, of which we have received so many accounts.’
‘We hear also a great deal of Blake’s army in the Alpujarras, and of a corps from Valencia operating upon the enemy’s communications with Madrid; but I conclude that there is as little foundation for this intelligence as for that relating to the insurrection of Ronda.’
‘I enclose a letter from General Carrera, in which I have requested him to communicate with you. I beg you to observe, however, that very little reliance can be placed on the report made to you by any Spanish general at the head of a body of troops. They generally exaggerate on one side or the other; and make no scruple of communicating supposed intelligence, in order to induce those to whom they communicate it to adopt a certain line of conduct.’
The reader must be now somewhat tired of quotations; let us therefore turn for relaxation to the reviewer’s observations about light troops,—of which he seems indeed to know as much as the wise gentleman of the Admiralty did about the facility of sailing up the St. Lawrence to Lake Ontario; but though that wise gentleman did not know much about sailing-craft, the reviewer knows something of another kind of craft, namely misrepresentation. Thus he quotes a passage from captain Kincaid’s amusing and clever work as if it told in his favour; whereas it in no manner supports his foolish insinuation—namely, that the 43d and 52d regiments of the light division were not light troops, never acted as such, and never skirmished! Were he to say as much to the lowest bugler of these corps, he would give him the fittest answer for his folly—that is to say, laugh in his face.
‘There are but two kinds of soldiers in the world’ said Napoleon, ‘the good and the bad.’
Now, the light division were not only good but, I will say it fearlessly, the best soldiers in the world. The three British regiments composing it had been formed by sir John Moore precisely upon the same system. There was no difference save in the colour of the riflemen’s jackets and the weapons which they carried. Captain Kincaid’s observation, quoted by the reviewer, merely says, what is quite true, that the riflemen fought in skirmishing order more frequently than the 43d and 52d did. Certainly they did, and for this very sufficient reason—their arms, the rifle and sword, did not suit any other formation; it is a defect in the weapon, which is inferior to the musket and bayonet, fitted alike for close or open order. Napoleon knew this so well that he had no riflemen in his army, strange as it may appear to those persons who have read so much about French riflemen. The riflemen of the light division could form line, columns, and squares—could move as a heavy body—could do, and did do everything that the best soldiers in the world ought to do; and in like manner the 52d and 43d regiments skirmished and performed all the duties of light troops with the same facility as the riflemen; but the difference of the weapon made it advisable to use the latter nearly always in open order: I do not, indeed, remember ever to have seen them act against the enemy either in line or square. Captain Kincaid is too sensible and too good a soldier, and far too honest a man, to serve the purpose of this snarling blockhead, who dogmatizes in defiance of facts and with a plenitude of pompous absurdity that would raise the bile of an alderman. Thus, after quoting from my work the numbers of the French army, he thus proceeds:—
‘Notwithstanding that this enormous force was pressing upon the now unaided Spanish people with all its weight, and acting against them with its utmost energy, it proved wholly unable to put down resistance.’—Review, page 497.
Now this relates to the period following sir John Moore’s death, which was on the 16th of January. That general’s fine movement upon Sahagun, and his subsequent retreat, had drawn the great bulk of the French forces towards Gallicia, and had paralyzed many corps. The war with Austria had drawn Napoleon himself and the imperial guards away from the Peninsula. Joseph was establishing his court at Madrid; Victor remained very inactive in Estremadura; Soult marched into Portugal;—in fine, this was precisely the period of the whole war in which the French army were most insert. Napoleon has fixed upon the four months of February, March, April, and May, 1809, as the period in which the King let the Peninsula slip from his feeble hands.
Let us see then what the Spaniards did during that time. And first it is false to say that they were unaided. They were aided against Victor by the vicinity of sir John Craddock’s troops; they were aided on the Gallician coast by an English squadron; they were aided on the Beira frontier, against Lapisse, by the Portuguese troops under sir Robert Wilson; they were aided on the Catalonian coast by lord Collingwood’s fleet; they were aided at Cadiz by the presence of general M‘Kenzie’s troops, sent from Lisbon; and they were aided everywhere by enormous supplies of money arms and ammunition sent from England. Finally, they were aided, and most powerfully so, by sir John Moore’s generalship, which had enabled them to rally and keep several considerable armies on foot in the southern parts of the country. What did these armies—these invincible Spaniards—do? They lost Zaragoza, Monzon, and Jaca, in the east; the fortresses of Ferrol and Coruña, and their fleet, in the north; they lost Estremadura, La Mancha, Aragon, the Asturias, and Gallicia; they lost the battles of Ucles and of Valls; the battle of Monterrey, that of Ciudid Real, and the battle of Medellin. They won nothing! they did not save themselves, it was the British army and the indolence and errors of the French that saved them.
Extract from Napoleon’s Memoirs.
‘After the embarkation of the English army, the king of Spain did nothing; he lost four months; he ought to have marched upon Cadiz, upon Valencia, upon Lisbon; political means would have done the rest.’
Extracts from lord Wellington’s Correspondence. 1809.
‘It is obvious that the longer, and the more intimately we become acquainted with the affairs of Spain, the less prospect do they hold out of anything like a glorious result. The great extent of the country, the natural difficulties which it opposes to an enemy, and the enmity of the people towards the French may spin out the war into length, and at last the French may find it impossible to establish a government in the country; but there is no prospect of a glorious termination to the contest.’
‘After the perusal of these details, and of Soult’s letters, can any one doubt that the evacuation of Gallicia was occasioned by the operations of the British troops in Portugal?’
‘The fact is, that the British army has saved Spain and Portugal during this year.’
The reviewer is not only a great critic, he is a great general also. He has discovered that there are no positions in the mountains of Portugal; nay, he will scarcely allow that there are mountains at all; and he insists that they offer no defence against an invader, but that the rivers do—that the Douro defends the eastern frontier of Beira, and that the frontier of Portugal generally is very compact and strong for defence, and well suited for a weak army to fight superior numbers;—that the weak army cannot be turned and cut off from Lisbon, and the strong army must invade in mass and by one line.
Now, first, it so happened, unluckily for this lucid military notion of Portugal, that in Massena’s invasion lord Wellington stopped to fight on the mountain of Busaco, and stopped Massena altogether at the mountains of Alhandra, Aruda, Sobral, and Torres Vedras—in other words at the lines, and that he did not once stop him or attempt to stop him by defending a river. That Massena, in his retreat, stopped lord Wellington on the mountain of Santarem, attempted to stop him on the mountains of Cazal Nova, Moita, and Guarda, but never attempted to stop him by defending a river, save at Sabugal, and then he was instantly beaten. Oh, certainly, ’tis a most noble general, and a very acute critic! Nevertheless, I must support my own opinions about the frontier of Portugal, the non-necessity of invading this country in one mass, and the unfordable nature of the Tagus, by the testimony of two generals as distinguished as honest Iago.
Extract of a letter from sir John Moore.
‘I am not prepared at this moment to answer minutely your lordship’s question respecting the defence of Portugal; but I can say generally that the frontier of Portugal is not defensible against a superior force. It is an open frontier, all equally rugged, but all equally to be penetrated.’
Extracts from lord Wellington’s Correspondence.
‘In whatever season the enemy may enter Portugal, he will probably make his attack by two distinct lines, the one north the other south of the Tagus; and the system of defence must be founded upon this general basis. In the summer season, however, the Tagus being fordable, &c. &c., care must be taken that the enemy does not by his attack directed from the south of the Tagus and by the passage of that river, cut off from Lisbon the British army engaged in operations to the north of the Tagus.’
‘The line of frontier to Portugal is so long in proportion to the extent and means of the country, and the Tagus and the mountains separate the parts of it so effectually from each other, and it is so open in many parts, that it would be impossible for an army acting upon the defensive to carry on its operations upon the frontier without being cut off from the capital.’
‘In the summer it is probable as I have before stated that the enemy will make his attacks in two principal corps, and that he will also push on through the mountains between Castello Branco and Abrantes. His object will be by means of his corps, south of the Tagus, to turn the positions which might be taken in his front on the north of that river; to cut off from Lisbon the corps opposed to him; and to destroy it by an attack in front and rear at the same time. This can be avoided only by the retreat of the right centre and left of the allies, and their junction at a point, at which from the state of the river they cannot be turned by the passage of the Tagus by the enemy’s left. The first point of defence which presents itself below that at which the Tagus ceases to be fordable, is the river Castenheira close to the lines.’
In the above extracts, the fordable nature of the Tagus has been pretty clearly shown, but I will continue my proofs upon that fact to satiety.
Lord Wellington to Charles Stuart, Esq.
‘The line of operations which we are obliged to adopt for the defence of Lisbon and for our own embarkation necessarily throws us back as far as below Salvaterra on the Tagus, to which place, and I believe lower, the Tagus is fordable during the summer; and we should be liable to be turned or cut off from Lisbon and the Tagus if we were to take our line of defence higher upon the river.’
Lord Wellington to general Hill, August.
‘I had already considered the possibility that Regnier might move across the fords of the Tagus at Vilha Velha and thus turn your right.’
Lord Wellington to general Hill, October.
‘If there are no boats, send them (the sick and encumbrances) across the Tagus by the ford (at Santarem).’
Sir Arthur Wellesley to general Hill.
‘I have desired Murray to send you the copy of a plan we have, with some of the fords of the Tagus marked upon it, but I believe the whole river from Barquina to Santarem is fordable.’
Sir Arthur Wellesley to marshal Beresford.
‘I enclose a letter which colonel Fletcher has given me, which affords but a bad prospect of a defence for the Tagus. I think that if captain Chapman’s facts are true his arguments are unanswerable, and that it is very doubtful whether any heavy ordnance should be placed in the batteries on the upper Tagus.’
Sir Arthur Wellesley to admiral Berkeley.
‘But if the invasion should be made in summer, when the Tagus is fordable in many places.’... ‘In the event of the attack being made between the months of June and November, when the Tagus is fordable, at least as low down as Salvaterra (near the lines).’
Sir John Craddock to lord Castlereagh, April.
‘There is a ferry at Salvaterra, near Alcantara, and another up the left bank of the Tagus in the Alemtejo, where there is also a ford, and the river may be easily passed.’
Extract from a Memoir by sir B. D’Urban, quarter-master-general to Beresford’s army:—‘The Tagus, between Golegao and Rio Moinhos was known to offer several fords after a few days’ dry weather.’[12]
Thus we see that, in nearly every month in the year, this unfordable Tagus of the reviewer is fordable in many places, and that in fact it is no barrier except in very heavy rains. But to render this still clearer I will here give one more and conclusive proof. In an elaborate manuscript memoir upon the defence of Portugal, drawn up by the celebrated general Dumourier for the duke of Wellington, that officer argues like this reviewer, that the Tagus is unfordable and a strong barrier. But a marginal note in Wellington’s hand-writing runs thus:—‘He (Dumourier) does not seem to be aware of the real state of the Tagus at any season.’
What can I say more? Nothing upon this head, but much upon others. I can call upon the reader to trace the deceitful mode in which the reviewer perverts or falsifies my expressions throughout. How he represents the Spaniards at one moment so formidable as to resist successfully the utmost efforts of more than 300,000 soldiers, the next breath calls them a poor unarmed horde of peasants incapable of making any resistance at all. How he quotes me as stating that the ministers had unbounded confidence in the success of the struggle in Spain; whereas my words are, that the ministers professed unbounded confidence. How he represents me as saying, the Cabinet were too much dazzled to analyse the real causes of the Spanish Revolution; whereas it was the nation not the Cabinet of which I spoke. And this could not be mistaken, because I had described the ministers as only anxious to pursue a warlike system necessary to their own existence, and that they were actuated by a personal hatred of Napoleon. Again, how he misrepresents me as wishing the British to seize Cadiz, and speaks of a mob in that city, when I have spoken only of the people (oh, true Tory!); and never proposed to seize Cadiz at all, and have also given the unexceptionable authority of Mr. Stuart, general M‘Kenzie, and sir George Smith, for my statement. And here I will notice a fine specimen of this reviewer’s mode of getting up a case. Having undertaken to prove that every river in Portugal is a barrier, except the Zezere which I had fixed upon as being an important line, he gives an extract of a letter from lord Wellington to a general Smith, to the effect that, as the Zezere might be turned at that season in so many ways, he did not wish to construct works to defend it then. Now, first, it is necessary to inform the reader that there is no letter to general Smith. The letter in question was to general Leith, and the mistake was not without its object, namely, to prevent any curious person from discovering that the very next sentence is as follows:—‘If, however, this work can be performed, either by the peasantry or by the troops, without any great inconvenience, the line of the Zezere may, hereafter, become of very great importance.’
All this is very pitiful, and looks like extreme soreness in the reviewer; but the effrontery with which he perverts my statements about the Austrian war surpasses all his other efforts in that line, and deserves a more elaborate exposure.
In my history it is stated, that some obscure intrigues of the princess of Tour and Taxis, and the secret societies on the continent, emanating from patrician sources, excited the sympathy, and nourished certain distempered feelings in the English ministers, which feeling made them see only weakness and disaffection in France. This I stated, because I knew that those intrigues were, in fact, a conspiracy concocted, with Talleyrand’s connivance, for the dethronement of Napoleon; and the English ministers neglected Spain and every other part of their foreign affairs for the moment, so intent were they upon this foolish scheme and so sanguine of success. These facts are not known to many, but they are true.
In the same paragraph of my history it is said, the warlike preparations of Austria, and the reputation of the archduke Charles, whose talents were foolishly said to exceed Napoleon’s, had awakened the dormant spirit of coalitions; meaning, as would be evident to any persons not wilfully blind, had awakened that dormant spirit in the English ministers.
Now reader, mark the candour and simplicity of the reviewer. He says that I condemned these ministers, ‘for nourishing their distempered feelings by combining the efforts of a German monarch in favour of national independence.’ As if it were the Austrian war, and not the obscure intrigues for dethroning Napoleon that the expression of distempered feelings applied to. As if the awakening the dormant spirit of coalitions, instead of being a reference to the sentiments of the English ministers, meant the exciting the Austrians and other nations to war, and the forming of a vast plan of action by those ministers! And for fear any mistake on that head should arise, it is so asserted in another part of the review in the following terms:—
‘To have “awakened the dormant spirit” of coalitions, is another of the crimes which the British ministers are charged with, as if it would have been a proof of wisdom to have abstained from forming a combination of those states of Europe which still retained some degree of independence and magnanimity to resist a conqueror,’ &c. &c.—Review.
The Quarterly’s attention to Spanish affairs seems to have rendered it very intimate with the works of Ferdinand Mendez Pinto. But since it has thus claimed the Austrian war as the work of its former patrons, the ministers of 1809, I will throw some new light upon the history of that period, which, though they should prove little satisfactory to the Quarterly, may, as the details are really curious, in some measure repay the reader for his patience in wading through the tedious exposition of this silly and unscrupulous writer’s misrepresentations.
After the conference of Erfurth, the Austrian count Stadion, a man of ability and energy, either believing, or affecting to believe, that Napoleon was determined to destroy Austria and only waited until Spain was conquered, resolved to employ the whole force of the German empire against the French monarch in a war of destruction for one or other of the contending states. With this view his first efforts were directed to change the opinions of the archduke Charles and those immediately about him who were averse to a war; and though he was long and vigorously resisted by general Grün, an able man and the archduke’s confidant, he finally succeeded. Some time before this France had insisted upon a reduction of the Austrian forces, and being asked if she would do the same for the sake of peace, replied that she would maintain no more troops in Germany than should be found necessary; but the army of the Confederation must be kept up as a constitutional force, and it was impossible during the war with England to reduce the French troops in other quarters. To this succeeded an attempt at a triple treaty, by which the territories of Austria, Russia, and France, were to be mutually guaranteed. Champagny and Romanzow suggested this plan, but the Austrian minister did not conceive Russia strong enough to guarantee Austria against France. Stadion’s project was more agreeable, and a note of a declaration of war was sent to Metternich, then at Paris, to deliver to the French government. The archduke Charles set off for the army, and was followed by the emperor.
When the war was thus resolved upon, it remained to settle whether it should be carried on for the sole benefit of Austria, or in such a manner as to interest other nations. Contrary to her usual policy Austria decided for the latter, and contrary to her usual parsimony she was extremely liberal to her general officers and spies. It was determined that the war should be one of restitution, and in that view secret agents had gone to Italy, and were said to have made great progress in exciting the people; officers had been also sent to Sicily and Sardinia to urge those courts to attempt their own restoration to the continental thrones. The complete restoration of Naples, of Tuscany, and the Pope’s dominions, and large additions to the old kingdom of Piedmont were proposed, and Austria herself only demanded a secure frontier, namely, the Tyrol, the river Po, and the Chiusa, which was not much more than the peace of Campo Formio had left her.
Such were her views in the south where kings were to be her coadjutors, but in the north she was intent upon a different plan. There she expected help from the people, who were discontented at being parcelled out by Napoleon. Treaties were entered into with the elector of Hesse, the dukes of Brunswick and Oels, and it was understood that the people there and in the provinces taken from Prussia, were ready to rise on the first appearance of an Austrian soldier. Hanover was to be restored to England; but Austria was so discontented with the Prussian king, that the restoration of the Prussian provinces, especially the duchy of Warsaw, was to depend upon his conduct in the war.
The means of effecting this mighty project were the great resources which Stadion had found or created; they were greater than Austria had ever before produced and the enthusiasm of her people was in proportion. The landwehr levy had been calculated at only 150 battalions; it produced 300 battalions, besides the Hungarian insurrection. The regular army was complete in everything, and the cavalry good, though not equal to what it had been in former wars. There were nine ‘corps d’armée.’ The archduke Ferdinand with one was to strike a blow in the duchy of Warsaw. The archduke Charles commanded in chief. Marching with six corps, containing 160,000 regular troops besides the landwehr attached to them, he was to cross the frontier and fall on the French army, supposed to be only 40,000. That is to say, the first corps, under Belgarde and Klenau, were to march by Peterwalde and Dresden against Bernadotte who was in that quarter. The second corps, under Kollowrath and Brady, were to march by Eger upon Bareith and Wurzburg, to prevent the union of Davoust and Bernadotte. The third corps, under prince Rosenberg, was to move by Waldmunchen, in the Upper Palatinate, and after beating Wrede at Straubingen, to join the archduke Charles near Munich. The archduke himself was to proceed against that city with the reserves of prince John of Lichtenstein, Hiller’s corps, Stipchitz, and those of Hohenzollern’s, and the archduke Louis’. The archduke John was to attack Italy; and the different corps, exclusive of landwehr, amounted to not less than 260,000 men.
The project was gigantic, the force prodigious, and though the quarter-master-general Meyer, seeing the vice of the military plan, resigned his situation, and that Meerfelt quarrelled with the archduke Charles, the general feeling was high and sanguine; and the princes of the empire were, with the exception of Wirtemberg and Westphalia, thought to be rather favourable towards the Austrians. But all the contributions were in kind; Austria had only a depreciated paper currency which would not serve her beyond her own frontiers; wherefore England, at that time the paymaster of all Europe, was looked to. England, however, had no ambassador, no regular accredited agent at Vienna; all this mighty armament and plan were carried on without her aid, almost without her knowledge; and a despatch from the Foreign Office, dated the 8th of December, but which only arrived the 10th of March, refused all aid whatsoever! and even endeavoured to prove that Austria could not want, and England was not in a situation to grant. Yet this was the period in which such lavish grants had been made to Spain without any condition—so lavish, that, in Cadiz, nearly four hundred thousand pounds, received from England, was lying untouched by the Spaniards. They were absolutely glutted with specie, for they had, at that moment, of their own money, and lying idle in their treasury, fourteen millions of dollars, and ten millions more were on the way from Vera Cruz and Buenes Ayres. Such was the wisdom, such the providence of the English ministers! heaping money upon money at Cadiz, where it was not wanted, and if it had been wanted, ill bestowed; but refusing it to Austria to forward the explosion of the enormous mine prepared against Napoleon in Germany and Italy. Their agent, Mr. Frere, absolutely refused even to ask for a loan of some of this money from the Spaniards. This is what the reviewer, wilfully perverting my expression, namely, ‘awakened the dormant spirit of coalitions,’ calls ‘the forming a combination of the states of Europe!’ The English ministers were treated as mere purse-bearers, to be bullied or cajoled as the case might be; and in these two instances, not without reason, for they neither know how to give nor how to refuse in the right time or place. Nor were their military dispositions better arranged, as we shall presently see.
To proceed with our narrative. Stadion, to prevent the mischief which this despatch from England might have produced, by encouraging the peace-party at the court, and discouraging the others, only imparted it to the emperor and his secret council, but hid it from those members of the cabinet who were wavering. Even this was like to have cost him his place; and some members of the council actually proposed to reduce one-third of the army. In fine, a cry was arising against the war, but the emperor declared himself on Stadion’s side, and the cabinet awaited the result of count Walmoden’s mission to London. That nobleman had been despatched with full powers to conclude a treaty of alliance and subsidy with England, and to learn the feeling of the English cabinet upon an extraordinary measure which Austria had resorted to; for being utterly unable to pay her way at the outset, and trusting to the importance of the crisis, and not a little to the known facility with which the English ministers lavished their subsidies, she had resolved to raise, through the principal bankers in Vienna, £150,000 a month, by making drafts through Holland upon their correspondents in London, to be repaid from the subsidy TO BE granted by England! Prince Staremberg was sent at the same time with a special mission to London, to arrange a definite treaty for money, and a convention regulating the future object and conduct of the war—a very curious proceeding—because Staremberg had been recalled before for conduct offensive to the English cabinet; but he was well acquainted with London, and the emperor wished to get him away lest he should put himself at the head of the peace-party in Vienna. Thus the English ministers continued so to conduct their affairs, that, while they gave their money to Spain and their advice to Austria, and both unprofitably, they only excited the contempt of both countries.
From the conference of Erfurth, France had been earnest with Russia to take an active part, according to treaty, against Austria; and Romanzow, who was an enemy of England, increased Alexander’s asperity toward that country, but nothing was done against Austria; and when Caulaincourt, the French ambassador at Petersburg, became clamorous, Alexander pretended to take the Austrian ambassador Swartzenberg to task for the measures of his court, but really gave him encouragement, by repairing immediately afterwards to Finland without inviting Caulaincourt. A contemporaneous official note, from Romanzow to Austria, was indeed couched in terms to render the intention of Alexander apparently doubtful, but this was only a blind for Napoleon. There was no doubt of the favourable wishes and feelings of the court, the Russian troops in Poland did not stir, and Stadion, far from having any dread of them, calculated upon their assistance in case of any marked success in the outset. The emperor Alexander was, however, far from inattentive to his own interests, for he sent general Hitroff at this time to Turkey to demand Moldavia and Wallachia as the price of a treaty, hoping thus to snatch these countries during the general commotion. He was foiled by the Austrian cabinet, which secretly directed the Turks sent to meet Hitroff, to assume a high tone and agree to no negociation in which England was not a party: hence, when the Russians demanded the dismissal of Mr. Adair from Constantinople Hitroff was himself sent away.
While the affairs with Russia were in this state, the present king of Holland arrived, incognito, at Vienna, to offer his services either as heir to the stadtholdership, as a prince of the German empire, or as a near and confidential connection of the house of Brandenberg; but it was only in the latter view he could be useful, and it was evident he expected the Austrian court would make their policy in the north coincide with that of the Prussian court. He said the secret voyage of the royal family to Petersburg had exposed them to mortifications and slights which had changed the sentiments of both the king and queen towards France, and the queen, bowed down by misfortune, dreaded new reverses and depressed the spirit of the king. They stood alone in their court, ministers and officers alike openly maintained opinions diametrically opposed to the sovereign, and at a grand council held in Koningsberg every minister had voted for war with Napoleon. The king assented, but the next day the queen induced him to retract. However, the voice of the people and of the army was for war, and any order to join the troops to those of the Rhenish confederation was sure to produce an explosion. There were between 30,000 and 40,000 regular troops under arms, and Austria was assured, that if any Austrian force approached the frontier, the Prussian soldiers would, bag and baggage, join it, despite of king or queen.
In this state of affairs, and when a quarrel had arisen between Bernadotte and the Saxon king (for the people of that country were ill-disposed towards the French), it is evident that a large English army appearing in the north of Germany would have gathered around it all the people and armies of the north, and accordingly Stadion proposed a landing in the Weser and the Elbe. Now England had at that time the great armament which went to Walcheren, the army under Wellington in the Peninsula, and that under sir John Stuart in Sicily, that is to say, she had about 80,000 or 90,000 men disposable; and yet so contriving were the ministers, that they kept Wellington too weak in Spain, Stuart too strong in Sicily; and instead of acting in the north of Germany where such a great combination awaited them, they sent their most powerful force to perish in the marshes of Walcheren, where the only diversion they caused was the bringing together a few thousand national guards from the nearest French departments. And this the reviewer calls ‘the forming a combination of those states in Europe which still retained some degree of independence and magnanimity to resist the ambition of a conqueror.’ What a profound, modest, and, to use a Morning Post compound, not-at-all-a-flagitious writer this reviewer is.
Well, notwithstanding this grand ‘combination,’ things did not turn out well. The Austrians changed their first plan of campaign in several particulars. Napoleon suddenly and unexpectedly appeared at the head of his army, which, greatly inferior in number, and composed principally of German contingents, was not very well disposed towards him; and yet, such was the stupendous power of this man’s genius and bravery, he in a few days by a series of movements unequalled in skill by any movement known in military records, broke through the Austrian power, separated her armies, drove them in disorder before him, and seized Vienna; and but for an accident, one of those minor accidents so frequent in war, which enabled the archduke Charles to escape over the Danube at Ratisbon, he would have terminated this gigantic contest in ten days. The failure there led to the battle of Esling, where the sudden swell of the Danube again baffled him and produced another crisis, which might have been turned to his hurt if the English army had been in the north of Germany; but it was then perishing amongst the stagnant ditches of Walcheren, and the only combination of the English ministers to be discovered was a combination of folly, arrogance, and conceit. I have now done with the review. Had all the objections contained in it been true, it would have evinced the petty industry of a malicious mind more than any just or generous interest in the cause of truth; but being, as I have demonstrated, false even in the minutest particular, I justly stigmatise it as remarkable only for malignant imbecility and systematic violation of truth.
* * * * *
The reviewers having asserted that I picked out of Foy’s history the charge against lord Melville of saying “the worst men made the best soldiers,” I replied that I drew for it on my own clear recollection of the fact.
Since then a friend has sent me the report of lord Melville’s speech, extracted from the Annual Register (Baldwin’s) 1808, p. 112, and the following passage extracted from his lordship’s speech bears out my assertion and proves the effrontery with which the reviewers deny facts.
“What was meant by a better sort of men? Was it that they should be taller or shorter, broader or thinner? This might be intelligible, but it was not the fact. The men that had hitherto formed the British armies were men of stout hearts and habits; men of spirit and courage; lovers of bold enterprize. These were the materials of which an army must be composed. Give him such men though not of the better description. The worse men were the fittest for soldiers. Keep the better sort at home.”
HISTORY
OF THE
WAR IN THE PENINSULA.
HISTORY
OF THE
PENINSULAR WAR.