PREFACE
It is seldom that the last chapter of a volume is written seven years after the first has been finished; and when this does happen, the author is generally to blame. I must ask, however, for complete acquittal on the charge of dilatoriness or want of energy. I was writing the story of the Burgos Campaign in July 1914: in August the Great War broke out: and like every one else I applied for service in any capacity in which a man of fifty-four could be useful. By September 4th I was hard at work in Whitehall, and by a queer chance was the person who on September 12th drafted from very inadequate material the long communiqué concerning the battle of the Marne. For four years and six months I was busy in one office and another, and ended up my service by writing the narrative of the Outbreak of the War, which was published by the Foreign Office in February 1919. My toils at the desk had just finished when it happened that I was sent to the House of Commons, as Burgess representing the University of Oxford, after a by-election caused by the elevation of my predecessor, Rowland Prothero, to the Upper Chamber. Two long official tours in the Rhineland and in France combined with parliamentary work to prevent me writing a word in 1919. But in the recess of 1920 I was able to find time to recommence Peninsular War studies, and this volume was finished in the autumn and winter of 1921 and sent to the press in January 1922.
It was fortunate that in the years immediately preceding the Great War I had been taking repeated turns round the Iberian Peninsula, so that the topography of very nearly all the campaigns with which this volume deals was familiar to me. I had marvelled at the smallness of the citadel of Burgos, and the monotony of the plains across which Wellington’s retreat of 1812 was conducted. I had watched the rapid flow of the Zadorra beside Vittoria, marked the narrowness of the front of attack at St. Sebastian, and admired the bold scenery of the lower Bidassoa. Moreover, on the East Coast I had stood on the ramparts of Tarragona, and wondered at the preposterous operations against them which Sir John Murray directed. But there are two sections of this volume in which I cannot speak as one who has seen the land. My travels had never taken me to the Alicante country, or the scene of the isolated and obscure battle of Castalla. And—what is more important—I have never tramped over Soult’s route from Roncesvalles to the gates of Pampeluna, or from Sorauren to Echalar. Such an excursion I had planned in company with my good friend Foster Cunliffe, our All Souls Reader in Military History, who fell on the Somme in 1916, and I had no great desire to think of making it without him. Moreover, the leisure of the times before 1914 is now denied me. So for the greater part of the ten-days’ Campaign of the Pyrenees I have been dependent for topography on the observations of others—which I regret. But it would have been absurd to delay the publication of this volume for another year or more, on the chance of being able to go over the ground in some uncovenanted scrap of holiday.
I have, as in previous cases, to make due acknowledgement of much kind help from friends in the completion of this piece of work. First and foremost my thanks are due to my Oxford colleague in the History School, Mr. C. T. Atkinson of Exeter College, who found time during some particularly busy weeks to go over my proofs with his accustomed accuracy. His criticism was always valuable, and I made numerous changes in the text in deference to his suggestions. As usual, his wonderful knowledge of British regimental history enabled me to correct many slips and solecisms, and to make many statements clearer by an alteration of words and phrases. I am filled with gratitude when I think how he exerted himself to help me in the midst his own absorbing duties.
In the preceding volumes of this work I had not the advantage of being able to read the parts of the Hon. John Fortescue’s History of the British Army which referred to the campaigns with which I was dealing. For down to 1914 I was some way ahead of him in the tale of years. But his volumes of 1921 took him past me, even as far as Waterloo, so that I had the opportunity of reading his accounts of Vittoria and the Pyrenees while I was writing my own version. This was always profitable—I am glad to think that we agree on all that is essential, though we may sometimes differ on matters of detail. But this is not the most important part of the aid that I owe to Mr. Fortescue. He was good enough to lend me the whole of his transcripts from the French Archives dealing with the Campaign of 1813, whereby I was saved a visit to Paris and much tedious copying of statistics and excerpting from dispatches. My own work at the Archives Nationales and the Ministry of War had only taken me down to the end of 1812. This was a most friendly act, and saved me many hours of transcription. There are few authors who are so liberal and thoughtful for the benefit of their colleagues in study. It will be noted in the Appendix that quite a large proportion of my statistics come from papers lent me by Mr. Fortescue.
As to other sources now first utilized in print, I have to thank Mr. W. S. D’Urban of Newport House for the loan of the diary of his ancestor Sir Benjamin D’Urban—most valuable for the Burgos retreat, especially for the operations of Hill’s column. Another diary and correspondence, which was all-important for my last volume, runs dry as a source after the first months of 1813. These were the papers of Sir George Scovell, Wellington’s cypher-secretary, from which so many quotations may be found in volume V. But after he left head-quarters and took charge of the newly formed Military Police [‘Staff Corps Cavalry’] in the spring before Vittoria, he lost touch with the lines of information on which he had hitherto been so valuable. I owe the very useful reports of the Spanish Fourth Army, and the Marching Orders of General Giron, to the kindness of Colonel Juan Arzadun, who caused them to be typed and sent to me from Madrid. By their aid I was able to fill up all the daily étapes of the Galician corps, and to throw some new light on its operations in Biscay.
To Mr. Leonard Atkinson, M.C., of the Record Office, I must give a special word of acknowledgement, which I repeat on page 753, for discovering the long-lost ‘morning states’ of Wellington’s army in 1813, which his thorough acquaintance with the shelves of his department enabled him to find for me, after they had been divorced for at least three generations from the dispatches to which they had originally belonged. Tied up unbound between two pieces of cardboard, they had eluded all previous seekers. We can at last give accurately the strength of every British and Portuguese brigade at Vittoria and in the Pyrenees.
I could have wished that the times permitted authors to be as liberal with maps as they were before the advent of post-war prices. I would gladly have added detailed plans of the combats of Venta del Pozo and Tolosa to my illustrations. And I am sorry that for maps of Tarragona, and Catalonia generally, I must refer readers back to my fourth volume. But books of research have now to be equipped with the lowest possible minimum of plates, or their price becomes prohibitive. I do not think that anything really essential for the understanding of localities has been left out. I ought perhaps to mention that my reconstructions of the topography of Maya and Roncesvalles owe much to the sketch-maps in General Beatson’s Wellington in the Pyrenees, the only modern plans which have any value.
To conclude, I must express, now for the sixth time, to the compiler of the Index my heartfelt gratitude for a laborious task executed with her usual untiring patience and thoroughness.
CHARLES OMAN.
Oxford,
June 1922.