PREFACE
In this volume Wellington’s campaigning in 1812 is followed no further than the day (August 31st) on which he set out from Madrid to drive back Clausel from the Douro. Reasons of space make it impossible to include the siege of Burgos and the retreat which followed. I had written the narrative of them, but found it impossible to add six long chapters to the 620 pages already in print. The fact is that, from the point of view of Wellington’s army, the year 1812 was much more tightly packed with military events than any which had gone before. In 1809 there was nothing important to chronicle after August: in 1810 the Anglo-Portuguese did not come into the forefront of the war till July, when Masséna had crossed the frontier and laid siege to Almeida. In 1811 the year opened with a deadlock, which was only ended by the commencement of Masséna’s retreat on March 9th, and concluded with a similar deadlock which endured from July to December—interrupted only by the short campaign of El Bodon and Aldea da Ponte, and this covered only a week [Sept. 22-9]. In 1812 the great strategical operations began on the first day of the year with the concentration for the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo, and did not end till the last week of November—which saw Wellington once more encamped under the walls of that fortress. For eleven months on end he had been on the move, with only a brief rest in cantonments between April 24th, the day when he gave up his pursuit of Marmont in Northern Portugal, and the end of May, when his divisions began to assemble again for the projected march on Salamanca. But for this short break his operations were continuous, and the narrative of them must of necessity be lengthy.
The campaign of 1812 cannot be called the greatest exhibition of military genius in Wellington’s career: that distinction must be given to the campaign of 1813. But it included the battle of Salamanca, the most skilfully fought and the most decisive of all his victories, ‘the beating of forty thousand men in forty minutes.’ And its earlier episodes, the two sudden strokes which ended in the storming of Ciudad Rodrigo and of Badajoz, deserve the closest attention, as showing a marvellous power of utilizing opportunities, and solving time-problems of the most complicated sort. We shall see how Wellington, in face of an enemy whose whole force was far superior to his own, so conducted his operations that he had success in his hands before the French armies could concentrate to overwhelm him. He would have been victorious in 1812 even without the assistance that was given him during the early months of the year by Napoleon’s misguided orders from Paris, and in the summer by Soult’s repeated and deliberate refusal to co-operate with King Joseph and Marmont for the general welfare of the French cause in Spain. The limits of his success were largely extended by those adventitious circumstances, but even without them he must have achieved great things by force of the combinations which he had prepared.
The reader will find that I have devoted a good deal of space to the precise working out of the effect of Napoleon’s successive dispatches to Marmont, with reference to the time at which each was received, and the influence which it had on the Marshal’s movements. I am bound to say that careful study has convinced me that Marmont’s justification of his own actions from January to May, written in the fourth volume of his Mémoires, is in the main fair and sensible, and that his criticism of his master’s orders is as sound as it is lucid. Napier held the reverse opinion, but his arguments in support of it are unconvincing: he is set on proving his idol infallible at all costs, in this as in so many other cases.
I find myself equally at variance with Napier’s estimate of the relative share of responsibility that falls on Soult upon the one side and King Joseph and Jourdan on the other, for the disasters of the summer of 1812. Jourdan’s plan of campaign, set out in his ‘May Mémoire’ [see [pp. 303-11]], is a most clear-headed and practicable scheme; the adoption of it would have reduced the effect of Wellington’s strategy, and have set a limit to his successes. Soult wrecked the whole scheme by wilful disobedience, which sinned as much against military discipline as against common sense. The counter-projects which he kept sending to Jourdan and the King were founded on his own personal desires, not on a consideration of the general situation in the Peninsula. Soult had been kind and courteous to Napier while the historian was working at the French archives, and had placed his own private papers at his disposition. I think that the obligation was repaid by the mildness of the censures passed on the Marshal’s strange behaviour in the summer of 1812.
A smaller proportion of the pages of this volume than of its predecessors is occupied by the tale of those campaigns in the Peninsula in which the British took no part. The year 1812 commences with the surrender of Blake and the occupation of Valencia by the French. When that great city and the army that had been driven into it succumbed before Suchet’s attack, there was no longer any large Spanish force in the field, and the operations of Lacy, Ballasteros, and the Galicians are of only secondary importance and require no great attention. Indeed the most effective service done against the French in 1812 was that of the guerrilleros of Aragon, Cantabria, and Navarre, whose obstinate resistance immobilized such a large portion of the 230,000 imperial troops that lay in Spain. It will be noted that I have had to devote a considerable number of pages to a much-neglected episode of the summer of 1812—the campaigns against Caffarelli of the irregular bands of the North, assisted by the fleet of Sir Home Popham. It cannot be too often repeated that by immobilizing the 35,000 men of the French Army of the North, they co-operated in the most effective way with Wellington, and had their share in making the Salamanca campaign a success for the allies.
I trust that I may have succeeded in making the topographical details clear at Ciudad Rodrigo, Badajoz, and more especially Salamanca, all of which I have visited. I spent many hours going over the ground at the Arapiles, and found that no mere map could have enabled one to grasp the situation in a satisfactory fashion.
I have once more to express my indebtedness to the owners of two great files of Peninsular War documents, who were good enough to place them at my disposition and to allow me to bring them to Oxford. The D’Urban papers, lent to me by Mr. W. S. M. D’Urban, of Newport House, near Exeter, the grandson of Sir Benjamin D’Urban, Beresford’s Chief-of-the-Staff, continue to be of immense value all through 1812. In the first half of the year Sir Benjamin was still at the Portuguese head-quarters, and his diary and correspondence give the views of those who had the best opportunity of knowing Wellington’s plans from the inside. In June he was appointed to another post, that of commanding the detached Portuguese cavalry brigade which covered Wellington’s left flank in the Salamanca campaign; his notes as to his operations are of extreme interest throughout June, July, and August; the narratives which he drew up concerning his own fortunes at the battle of Salamanca, and at the unfortunate combat of Majalahonda, have cleared up several obscure problems, which no published material could have enabled me to solve.
The papers of Sir George Scovell, lent me by his great-nephew, Mr. G. Scovell, of Hove, had already begun to be of use to me in the chronicle of 1811. But in 1812 they are of far greater importance, since it was early in that year that Scovell was placed by Wellington in charge of the toilsome duty of studying and decoding all French captured dispatches written in cipher. The originals were left in his hands, and only the interpretations, written out in full, were made over to the Commander-in-Chief. These originals, often scraps of the smallest dimensions made to be concealed in secret places about the person of the bearer, are historical antiquities of the highest interest. Their importance is so great that I have thought it necessary to give in [Appendix XV] a detailed account of them, of the characteristics of the ‘Great Paris Cipher’—as Scovell called it—and of the contents of each document.
I must mention, as in previous volumes, much kind help given to me from abroad. The authorities of the Paris War Office have continued to facilitate my researches among their bulky cartons. I have to notice with sincere regret the death of my old friend, M. Martinien, who did so much for me while I was compiling volumes III and IV of this work. I much missed his guidance while working over the material of 1812 during the last two autumns. Colonel Juan Arzadun, of the Madrid Artillery Museum, has continued to send me occasional information, and I am specially obliged to Don Rafael Farias for procuring for me, and making me a present of, that very rare document the 1822 ‘Estados de los ejércitos españoles durante la guerra contra Bonaparte,’ a collection of morning-states and tables of organization on which I had in vain tried to lay hands during three successive visits to Madrid. Another gift of the highest value was the complete set of Beresford’s Ordens do Dia for the Portuguese army, ranging over the whole war. This most useful series was presented to me by my friend Mr. Rafael Reynolds, the companion of my last Portuguese tour, who found a copy of this almost unprocurable file at Lisbon. I owe the two views of the field of Salamanca to the camera of Mr. C. J. Armstrong, who sent them to me along with many other interesting Peninsular photographs.
Three friends in England have continued to give me help of the most invaluable kind. Mr. C. T. Atkinson, Fellow of Exeter College, has looked through the whole of my proofs, and furnished me with innumerable notes, which enabled me to add to the accuracy of my narrative. He has also written me an appendix, [No. XIV], concerning the English troops which in 1812 operated on the East coast of Spain—and the others which formed the garrisons of Gibraltar, Cadiz, and Tarifa. The Hon. John Fortescue, the historian of the British army, has not only answered at length my queries on many obscure problems, but has lent me the file of his transcripts of French dispatches for 1812, a good many of which, and those of high importance, were unknown to me. They were especially valuable for Soult’s operations. Our narratives of the campaigns of 1812 will appear almost simultaneously, and I think it will be found that all our main opinions are in agreement. Major J. H. Leslie, R.A., has once more contributed to this volume an ‘[Artillery Appendix]’ on the same lines as those for 1810 and 1811 in vols. III and IV. His researches have always proved exhaustive and invaluable for the history of his old Corps.
Lastly, the compiler of the Index, a task executed this summer under very trying conditions, must receive, for the fifth time, my heartfelt thanks for her labour of love.
As in previous volumes, the critic may find some slight discrepancies between the figures given with regard to strengths of regiments or losses in action in the text and in the Appendices. This results from the fact that many official documents contain incorrect arithmetic, which was only discovered by the indefatigable proof-readers of the Clarendon Press, who have tested all the figures, and found not infrequent (if minute) errors. The text was printed off before the Appendices were finally dealt with: where the numbers differ those in the Appendices are, of course, to be preferred. But the worst discrepancies do not get beyond units and tens.
C. OMAN.
Oxford:
July 27, 1914.
Note.—When every page of the text, appendices, and index of this volume has been printed off, and the final proofs of the preface are passing through my hands, comes the news that Great Britain is most unexpectedly involved in a war to which there can be no parallel named save the struggle that ended just a hundred years ago. May her strength be used as effectively against military despotism in the twentieth as it was in the nineteenth century.
Aug. 5, 1914.