BATTLE OF WATERLOO.
Morning of the 18th.—Armies in each other’s presence.—Opening, progress, and close of the battle.—Losses sustained.—Subsequent operations.—Conclusion.
Morning broke—the rain still continued, but with less severity than during the preceding night; the wind fell, but the day lowered, and the dawn of the 18th[299] was gloomy and foreboding. The British soldiers recovered from the chill cast over them by the inclemency of the weather; and, from the ridge of their position, calmly observed the enemy’s masses coming up in long succession, and forming their numerous columns on the heights in front of La Belle Alliance.
The bearing of the French was very opposite to the steady and cool determination of the British soldiery. With the former, all was exultation and arrogant display; while, with characteristic vanity, they boasted of an imaginary success at Quatre Bras, and claimed a decisive victory at Ligny!
Although, in point of fact, beaten by the British on the 16th, Napoleon tortured the retrograde movement of the Duke on Waterloo into a defeat; and the winning a field from Blucher, attended with no advantage beyond the capture of a few disabled guns, afforded a pretext to declare in his dispatches that the Prussian army was routed and disorganized, without a prospect of being rallied.
The morning passed in mutual dispositions for battle—and the French attack commenced soon after eleven o’clock. The first corps, under Count D’Erlon, was in position opposite La Haye Sainte, its right extending towards Frichemont, and its left leaning on the road to Brussels. The second corps, uniting its right with D’Erlon’s left, extended to Hougomont, with the wood in its front.
The cavalry reserve (the cuirassiers) were immediately in the rear of these corps; and the Imperial Guard, forming the grand reserve, were posted on the heights of La Belle Alliance. Count Lobau, with the sixth corps, and D’Aumont’s cavalry, were placed in the rear of the extreme right, to check the Prussians, should they advance from Wavre, and approach by the defiles of Saint Lambert. Napoleon’s arrangements were completed about half-past eleven, and immediately the order to attack was given.
The place from which Buonaparte viewed the field, was a gentle rising ground[300] beside the farm-house of La Belle Alliance. There he remained for a considerable part of the day, dismounted, pacing to and fro with his hands behind him, receiving communications from his aides-de-camp, and issuing orders to his officers. As the battle became more doubtful, he approached nearer the scene of action, and betrayed increased impatience to his staff by violent gesticulation, and using immense quantities of snuff. At three o’clock he was on horseback in front of La Belle Alliance; and in the evening, just before he made his last attempt with the Guard, he had reached a hollow close to La Haye Sainte. Wellington, at the opening of the engagement, stood upon a ridge immediately behind La Haye, but as the conflict thickened, where difficulties arose and danger threatened, there the duke was found. He traversed the field exposed to a storm of balls, and passed from point to point uninjured—and on more than one occasion, when the French cavalry charged the British squares the duke was there for shelter.
A slight skirmishing between the French tirailleurs and English light troops had continued throughout the morning, but the advance of a division of the second corps, under Jerome Buonaparte, against the post of Hougomont, was the signal for the British artillery to open, and was, in fact, the commencement of the battle of Waterloo. The first gun fired on the 18th was directed by Sir George Wood upon Jerome’s advancing column; the last was a French howitzer, at eight o’clock in the evening, turned by a British officer against the routed remains of that splendid army with which Napoleon had begun the battle.
Hougomont[301] was the key of the duke’s position, a post naturally of considerable strength, and care had been taken to increase it. It was garrisoned by the light companies of the Coldstream and 1st and 3rd Guards;[302] while a detachment from General Byng’s brigade was formed on an eminence behind, to support the troops defending the house and the wood[303] on its left. Three hundred Nassau riflemen were stationed in the wood and garden; but the first attack of the enemy dispersed them.
To carry Hougomont, the efforts of the second corps were principally directed throughout the day. This fine corps, thirty thousand strong, comprised three divisions; and each of these, in quick succession, attacked the well-defended farm-house. The advance of the assailants was covered by a tremendous cross-fire of nearly one hundred pieces, while the British guns in battery on the heights above, returned the cannonade, and made fearful havoc in the dense columns of the enemy as they advanced or retired from the attack. Although the French frequently occupied the wood, it afforded them indifferent shelter from the musketry of the troops defending the house and garden; for the trees were but slight, and planted far asunder. Foy’s division passed entirely through and gained the heights in the rear; but it was driven back with immense loss by part of the Coldstream and 3rd Guards.[304]
At last, despairing of success, the French artillery opened with shells upon the house; the old tower of Hougomont was quickly in a blaze; the fire reached the chapel, and many of the wounded, both assailants and defenders, perished miserably there. But still, though the flames raged above, shells burst around, and shot ploughed through the shattered walls and windows, the Guards nobly held the place, and Hougomont remained untaken.[305] It was computed that Napoleon’s repeated and desperate attacks upon this post cost him eight thousand men. The British lost fourteen hundred.
The advance of Jerome on the right was followed by a general onset upon the British line—three hundred pieces of artillery opening their cannonade, and the French columns in different points advancing to the attack. Charges of cavalry and infantry, sometimes separately and sometimes with united force, were made in vain. The British regiments were disposed, individually, in squares, with triple files, each placed sufficiently apart to allow it to deploy when requisite. The squares were mostly parallel, but a few were judiciously thrown back; and this disposition, when the French cavalry had passed the advanced regiments, exposed them to a flanking fire from the squares behind. The English cavalry were in the rear of the infantry, and the artillery in battery over the line. The fight of Waterloo may be easily comprehended by simply stating, that for ten hours it was a continued succession of attacks of the French columns on the squares; the British artillery playing upon them as they advanced, and the cavalry charging when they receded.
“But no situation could be more trying to the unyielding courage of the British army than this disposition in squares at Waterloo. There is an excited feeling in an attacking body that stimulates the coldest and blunts the thoughts of danger. The tumultuous enthusiasm of the assault spreads from man to man, and duller spirits catch a gallant frenzy from the brave around them. But the enduring and devoted courage which pervaded the British squares when, hour after hour, mowed down by a murderous artillery, and wearied by furious and frequent onsets of lancers and cuirassiers; when the constant order, “Close up!—close up!” marked the quick succession of slaughter that thinned their diminished ranks; and when the day wore later, when the remnants of two, and even three regiments were necessary to complete the square, which one of them had formed in the morning—to support this with firmness, and ‘feed death,’ inactive and unmoved, exhibited that calm and desperate bravery which elicited the admiration of Napoleon himself.”[306]
At times the temper of the troops had nearly failed; and, particularly among the Irish regiments, the reiterated question of—“When shall we get at them?” showed how ardent the wish was to avoid inactive slaughter, and, plunging into the columns of the assailants, to avenge the death of their companions. But the “Be cool, my boys!” from their officers was sufficient to restrain this impatience—and, cumbering the ground with their dead, they waited with desperate intrepidity for the hour to arrive when victory and vengeance should be their own!
Painted by Sir T. Lawrence, P.R.A.
Engraved by P. Lightfoot.
Anglesey
While the second corps was engaged at Hougomont, the first was directed by Napoleon to penetrate the left centre. Had this attempt succeeded, the British must have been defeated, as it would have been severed and surrounded. Picton’s division was now severely engaged. Its position stretched from La Haye Sainte to Ter la Haye; in front there was an irregular hedge; but being broken and pervious to cavalry, it afforded but partial protection. The Belgian infantry, who were extended in front of the fifth division, gave way as the leading columns of D’Erlon’s corps approached—the French came boldly to the fence—and Picton, with Kempt’s brigade, as gallantly advanced to meet them.
A tremendous combat ensued. The French and British closed; for the cuirassiers had been already received in squares and repulsed with immense loss. Instantly Picton deployed the division into line; and pressing forward to the hedge, received and returned the volley of D’Erlon’s infantry, and then crossing the fence, drove back the enemy at the point of the bayonet. The French retreated in close column, while the fifth mowed them down with musketry, and slaughtered them in heaps with their bayonets. Lord Anglesea seized on the moment, and charging with the Royals, Greys, and Enniskilleners, burst through every thing that opposed him. Vainly the mailed cuirassier and formidable lancer attempted to withstand this splendid body of heavy cavalry: they were overwhelmed; and the French infantry, already broken and disorganized by the gallant fifth, fell in hundreds beneath the swords of the English dragoons. The eagles of the 45th and 105th regiments, and upwards of two thousand prisoners, were the trophies of this brilliant charge.[307]
But, alas! like most military triumphs, this had its misfortune to alloy it. “Picton fell! But where could the famed commander of the old ‘Fighting Third’ meet with death so gloriously? He was at the head of the division as it pressed forward with the bayonet; he saw the best troops of Napoleon repulsed; the ball struck him, and he fell from his horse; he heard the Highland lament answered by the deep execration of Erin; and while the Scotch slogan was returned by the Irish hurrah, his fading sight saw his excited division rush on with irresistible fury. The French column was annihilated—and two thousand dead enemies told how desperately he had been avenged. This was, probably, the bloodiest struggle of the day. When the attack commenced—and it lasted not an hour—the fifth division exceeded five thousand men; and when it ended, it scarcely reckoned eighteen hundred bayonets!”[308]
While Picton’s division and the heavy cavalry had repulsed D’Erlon’s effort against the left, the battle was raging at La Haye Sainte, a post in front of the left centre. This was a rude farm-house and barn, defended by five hundred German riflemen; and here the attack was fierce and constant, and the defence gallant and protracted. While a number of guns played on it with shot and shells, it was assailed by a strong column of infantry. Thrice they were repulsed; but the barn caught fire, and the number of the garrison decreasing, it was found impossible, from its exposed situation, to supply the loss, and throw in reinforcements. Still worse, the ammunition of the rifle corps failed—and reduced to a few cartridges, their fire had almost ceased.
Encouraged by this casualty, the French, at the fourth attempt, turned the position. Though the doors were burst in, still the gallant Germans held the house with their bayonets; but, having ascended the walls and roof, the French fired on them from above, and, now reduced to a handful, the post was carried. No quarter was given—and the remnant of the brave riflemen were bayoneted on the spot.
This was, however, the only point where, during this long and sanguinary conflict, Buonaparte succeeded. He became master of a dilapidated dwelling, its roof destroyed by shells, and its walls perforated by a thousand shot-holes; and when obtained, an incessant torrent of grape and shrapnels from the British artillery on the heights above, rendered its acquisition useless for future operations, and made his persistance in maintaining it, a wanton and unnecessary sacrifice of human life.
There was a terrible sameness in the battle of the 18th of June, which distinguished it in the history of modern slaughter. Although designated by Napoleon “a day of false manœuvres,” in reality, there was less display of military tactics at Waterloo, than in any general action we have on record. Buonaparte’s favourite plan, to turn a wing, or separate a corps, was the constant effort of the French leader. Both were tried—at Hougomont to turn the right, and at La Haye Sainte to break through the left centre.[309] Hence, the French operations were confined to fierce and incessant onsets with masses of cavalry and infantry, generally supported by a numerous and destructive artillery. Knowing, that to repel these desperate and sustained attacks, a tremendous sacrifice of human life must occur, Napoleon, in defiance of their acknowledged bravery, calculated on wearying the British into defeat. But when he saw his columns driven back in confusion—when his cavalry receded from the squares they could not penetrate—when battalions were reduced to companies by the fire of his cannon, and still that “feeble few” shewed a perfect front,[310] and held the ground they had originally taken—no wonder his admiration was expressed to Soult—“How beautifully these English fight! but they must give way!”[311]
And well did British bravery merit that proud encomium, which their enduring courage elicited from Napoleon. For hours, with uniform and unflinching gallantry, they repulsed the attacks of troops who had already proved their superiority over the soldiers of every other nation in Europe. When the artillery united its fire, and poured exterminating volleys on some devoted regiment, the square, prostrate on the earth, allowed the storm to pass over them. When the battery ceased, to permit their cavalry to charge and complete the work of destruction, the square was again upon their feet—no face unformed—no chasm to allow the horsemen entrance—but a serried line of impassable bayonets was before them, while the rear ranks threw in a reserved fire with murderous precision. The cuirass was too near the musket then to avert death from the wearer—men and horses went down in heaps—each attempt ended in defeat—and the cavalry at last retired, leaving their best and boldest before a square, which, to them, had proved impenetrable.
When the close column of infantry came on, the square had deployed into line. The French were received with a destructive volley, and next moment the wild cheer which accompanies the bayonet charge, announced that England advanced with the weapon she had always found irresistible. The French never crossed bayonets fairly with the British; for when an attempt was made to stand, a terrible slaughter attested England’s superiority.
But the situation of Wellington momentarily became more critical. Masses of the enemy had fallen, but thousands came on anew. With desperate attachment, the French army passed forward at Napoleon’s command—and although each advance terminated in defeat and slaughter, fresh battalions crossed the valley, and mounting the ridge with cries of “Vive l’Empereur!” exhibited a devotion which never had been surpassed. Wellington’s reserves had been gradually brought into action—and the left, though but partially engaged, could not be weakened to send assistance to the right and centre. Many battalions were miserably reduced; and the fifth division, already cut up at Quatre Bras on the evening of the 16th, presented but a skeleton of what these beautiful brigades had been when they left Brussels two days before. The loss of individual regiments was prodigious. The 27th had four hundred men mowed down in square without drawing a trigger; it lost all its superior officers; and a solitary subaltern who remained, commanded it for half the day. Another, the 92nd regiment, when not two hundred were left, rushed at a French column and routed it with the bayonet; and a third, the 33rd, when nearly annihilated, sent to require support—none could be given; and the commanding officer was told that he must “stand or fall where he was!”[312]
Any other save Wellington would have despaired; but he calculated, and justly, that he had an army which would perish where it stood. But when he saw the devastation caused by the incessant attacks of an enemy who appeared determined to succeed, is it surprising that his watch was frequently consulted, and that he prayed for night or Blucher? When evening came on, no doubt Buonaparte began to question the accuracy of his “military arithmetic,”—a phrase happily applied to this meting out death by the hour. Half the day had been consumed in a sanguinary and indecisive conflict; all his disposable troops but the Guard had been employed, and still his efforts were foiled; and the British, with diminished numbers, shewed the same bold front they had presented at the commencement of the battle. He determined, therefore, on another desperate attempt upon the whole British line; and while issuing orders to effect it, a distant cannonade announced that a fresh force was approaching to share the action. Napoleon, concluding that Grouchy was coming up, conveyed the glad tidings to his disheartened columns. But an aide-de-camp quickly removed the mistake—and the Emperor received the unwelcome intelligence that the strange force now distinctly observed debouching from the woods of Saint Lambert, was the advanced guard of a Prussian corps. Buonaparte appeared, or affected to appear, incredulous; but the fatal truth was ascertained too soon.
While the delusive hope of immediate relief was industriously circulated among his troops, Napoleon despatched Count Lobau, with the sixth corps, to employ the Prussians, while in person, he should direct a general attack upon the British Line.
Meanwhile the Prussian advance had debouched from the wood of Frichermont, and the operations of the old marshal, in the rear of Napoleon’s right flank became alarming. If Blucher established himself there in force, unless success against the British in his front was rapid and decisive, or that Grouchy came promptly to his relief, Buonaparte knew well that his situation must be hopeless. Accordingly, he directed the first and second corps and all his cavalry reserves against the duke,—the French mounted the heights once more—and the British were attacked from right to left.
A dreadful and protracted encounter followed; for an hour the contest was sustained, and, like the preceding ones, it was a sanguinary succession of determined attack and obstinate resistance. The impetuosity of the French onset at first obtained a temporary success. The English light cavalry were driven back,—and for a time a number of the guns were in the enemy’s possession,—but the British rallied again—the French forced across the ridge, retired to their original ground, without effecting any permanent impression.
It was now five o’clock; the Prussian reserve cavalry under Prince William was warmly engaged with Count Lobau—Bulow’s corps, with the second, under Pirch, were approaching rapidly through the passes of Saint Lambert; and the first Prussian corps, advancing by Ohain, had already begun to operate on Napoleon’s right.[313] Bulow pushed forward towards Aywire, and, opening his fire on the French, succeeded in driving them from the opposite heights.
The Prussian left, acting separately, advanced upon the village of Planchenoit, and attacked Napoleon’s rear. The French maintaining their position with great gallantry, and the Prussians, being equally obstinate in their attempts to force the village, produced a bloody and prolonged combat. Napoleon’s right had begun to recede before the first Prussian corps, and his officers, generally, anticipated a disastrous issue, that nothing but immediate success against the British, or instant relief from Grouchy, could remedy. The Imperial Guard, his last and best resource, were consequently ordered up. Formed in close column, Buonaparte in person advanced to lead them on; but dissuaded by his staff, he paused near the bottom of the hill, and to Ney, that “spoiled child of victory,” the conduct of this redoubted body was intrusted. In the interim, as the French right fell back, the British moved gradually forward; and converging from the extreme points of Merke Braine and Braine la Leud, compressed their extent of line, and nearly assumed the form of a crescent. The Guards were considerably advanced, and having deployed behind the crest of the hill, lay down to avoid the cannonade with which Napoleon covered the onset of his best troops. Ney, with his proverbial gallantry, led on the Middle Guard; and Wellington, putting himself at the head of some wavering regiments, in person brought them forward, and restored their confidence.
As the Imperial Guard approached the crest where the household troops were couching, the British artillery, which had gradually converged upon the chaussée, opened with canister-shot. The distance was so short,[314] and the range so accurate, that each discharge fell with deadly precision into the column as it breasted the hill. Ney, with his customary heroism, directed the attack; and when his horse was killed—on foot, and sword in hand, he headed the veterans whom he had so often led to victory. Although the leading files of the Guard were swept off by the exterminating fire of the English batteries, still their undaunted intrepidity carried them forward, and they gallantly crossed the ridge.
Then came the hour of British triumph. The magic word was spoken—“Up, Guards, and at them!” In a moment the household brigade were on their feet: then waiting till the French closed, they delivered a murderous volley, cheered, and rushed forward with the bayonet, Wellington in person directing the attack.
With the 42nd and 95th, the British leader threw himself on Ney’s flank, and rout and destruction succeeded. In vain their gallant chief attempted to rally the recoiling Guard; but driven down the hill, the Middle were intermingled with the Old Guard, who had formed at the bottom in reserve.
In this unfortunate mêlée, the British cavalry seized on the moment of confusion, and plunging into the mass, cut down and disorganized the regiments which had hitherto been unbroken. The British artillery ceased firing—and those who had escaped the iron shower of the guns, fell beneath sabre and bayonet.
The unremediable disorder consequent on this decisive repulse, and the confusion in the French rear, where Bulow had fiercely attacked them, did not escape the eagle glance of Wellington. “The hour is come!” he is said to have exclaimed, as, closing his telescope, he commanded the whole line to advance. The order was exultingly obeyed; and, forming four deep, on came the British. Wounds, and fatigue, and hunger, were all forgotten, as with their customary steadiness they crossed the ridge; but when they saw the French, and began to move down the hill, a cheer that seemed to rend the heavens pealed from their proud array, as with levelled bayonets they pressed on to meet the enemy.
But, panic-struck and disorganized, the French resistance was short and feeble. The Prussian cannon thundered in their rear—the British bayonet was flashing in their front—and unable to stand the terror of the charge, they broke and fled. A dreadful and indiscriminate carnage ensued. The great road was choked with equipages, and cumbered with the dead and dying; while the fields, as far as the eye could reach, were covered with a host of helpless fugitives.[315] Courage and discipline were forgotten; and Napoleon’s army of yesterday was now a splendid wreck—a terror-stricken multitude! His own words best describe it—“It was a total rout!”
Never had France sent a finer army to the field—and never had any been so signally defeated. Complete as the déroute at Vittoria had appeared, it fell infinitely short of that sustained at Waterloo. Tired of slaughtering unresisting foes, the British, early in the night, abandoned the pursuit of the broken battalions and halted. But the Prussians, untamed by previous exertion, continued to follow the fugitives with increased activity, and nothing could surpass the unrelenting animosity of their pursuit. Plunder was sacrificed to revenge—and the memory of former defeat and past oppression produced a dreadful retaliation, and deadened every impulse of humanity. The væ victis was pronounced—and thousands, besides those who perished in the field, fell that night by Prussian lance and sabre.
What Napoleon’s feelings were when he witnessed the overthrow of his guard—the failure of his last hope—the death-blow to his political existence, cannot be described, but may be easily imagined. Turning to an aide-de-camp, with a face livid with rage and despair, he muttered in a tremulous voice—“A présent c’est fini!—sauvons nous;” and turning his horse, he rode hastily off towards Charleroi, attended by his guide and staff.
* * * * *
In whatever point of view Waterloo is considered, whether as a battle, a victory, or an event, in all these, every occurrence of the last century yields, and more particularly in the magnitude of results. No doubt the successes of Wellington in Spain were, in a great degree, primary causes of Napoleon’s downfal; but still the victory of Waterloo consummated efforts made for years before in vain to achieve the freedom of the Continent—and wrought the final ruin of him, through whose unhallowed ambition a world had been so long convulsed.
As a battle, the merits of the field of Waterloo have been freely examined, and very indifferently adjudicated.[316] Those who were best competent to decide, have pronounced this battle as that upon which Wellington might securely rest his fame—while others, admitting the extent of the victory, ascribe the result rather to fortunate accident than military skill.[317]
Never was a falser statement hazarded. The success attendant on the day of Waterloo can be referred only to the admirable system of resistance in the general, and an enduring valour, rarely equalled and never surpassed, in the soldiers whom he commanded. Chance, at Waterloo, had no effect upon results;—Wellington’s surest game was to act only on the defensive—his arrangements with Blucher, for mutual support, being thoroughly matured, he knew that before night the Prussians must be upon the field. Bad weather and bad roads, with the conflagration of a town in the line of march, which, to save the Prussian tumbrils from explosion, required a circuitous movement—all these, while they protracted the struggle for several hours beyond what might have been reasonably computed, only go to prove that Wellington, in accepting battle, under a well-founded belief that he should be supported in four hours—when single-handed he maintained the combat and resolutely held his ground during a space of eight, had left nothing dependent upon accident, but, providing for the worst contingencies, had formed his calculations with admirable skill.
The apologists for Napoleon lay much stress on Ney’s dilatory march on Quatre Bras, and Grouchy’s unprofitable movements on the Dyle. The failure of Ney upon the 16th will be best accounted for by that marshal’s simple statement. His reserve was withdrawn by Napoleon—and when the Prince of Moskwa required and ordered it forward, to make a grand effort on the wearied English, the corps “was idly parading” between Quatre Bras and Ligny; and during the arduous struggle at both places, that splendid division had never faced an enemy or discharged a musket. Ney’s failure in his attack was therefore attributable to Napoleon altogether—for had his reserve been at hand, who can suppose that the exhausted battalions of the allies, after a march of two-and-twenty miles, and a long and bloody combat, must not have yielded to fresh troops in overpowering masses, and fallen back from a position tenable no longer? To Grouchy’s imputed errors, also, the loss of Waterloo has been mainly ascribed both by Napoleon and his admirers. But that marshal’s conduct was not obnoxious to the censure so unsparingly bestowed upon it—for, had he disobeyed orders, and acceded to the proposition of his second in command, would a movement by his left have effected any thing beyond the delay of Napoleon’s overthrow for a night? By following Girard’s advice, and marching direct on Waterloo, the day would have ended, probably, in a drawn battle—or even Wellington might have been obliged to retire into the wood of Soignies. But in a few hours Blucher would have been up—in the morning the Anglo-Prussian army would have become assailant—and with numbers far superior, who will pretend to say that Napoleon’s defeat upon the 19th, would not have been as certain and as signal as his déroute at Waterloo, upon the fatal evening that closed upon a fallen empire and a last field?
The allied loss[318] was enormous, but it fell infinitely short of that sustained by Napoleon’s army. Of the latter nothing like an accurate return was ever made—but from the most correct estimates by French and British officers, upwards of five-and-twenty thousand men were rendered hors de combat; while multitudes were sabred in the flight, or perished on the roads from sheer fatigue, and in deserted villages for want of sustenance and surgical relief.
On the 19th the Duke of Wellington was again in motion, and having crossed the frontier, he marched upon the French capital by Binch, Malplaquet, and Château Cambresis. Colville’s division, composed of part of the sixth British and sixth Hanoverians, took the advance of the army, and carried Cambray by assault on the evening of the 24th. Peronne la Pucelle was on the following day stormed by the Guards—and on the 30th, the Duke of Wellington’s light cavalry were close to the walls of Paris.
Grouchy’s corps d’armée, amounting to forty thousand men, when detached on the 17th by Napoleon to prevent a junction of the Prussians with the British, reached Gembloux immediately after Blucher’s rear-guard had quitted that place on its route to Wavre. At Baraque, early next morning, the French cavalry overtook the Prussians, attacked, and drove them back. At one o’clock a heavy cannonade was distinctly heard—and Girard urged Grouchy to leave a corps of observation in front of the Prussians, and march direct on Waterloo, while Vandamme, on the contrary, pressed the marshal to move at once on Brussels. Grouchy, however, was determined to obey the strict letter of his instructions, and made every effort to bring the Prussians to action. At six in the evening, one of many officers, despatched by Napoleon to order Grouchy to march to his assistance, succeeded in finding the marshal and delivered the order of the emperor. It was now six o’clock—and the marshal crossed the Dyle and moved rapidly towards Waterloo—but all there was lost; and at daybreak, on learning the fatal news, Grouchy abandoned his line of march, repassed the Dyle in four divisions, and joined the cavalry of Excelmans at Namur on the following morning. The marshal, for a time, held that town; while his rear-guard, commanded by Vandamme,[319] checked the Prussians—and then retiring by Dinant, he brought his corps safely to Paris after a march of eight days, and by a retreat that his enemies admitted to be conducted with admirable skill.
Meanwhile, Blucher, having masked the fortresses of Maubuge, Landrecy, and Phillipville, took possession of St. Quentin, while Zeithen advanced to Guise. On the 29th, he halted in front of the French position between St. Denis and Vincennes—having succeeded in gaining a day’s march on his indefatigable ally the Duke of Wellington.
On that evening Napoleon quitted the capital never to enter it again. Hostilities ceased immediately—the Bourbons were recalled, and placed upon the throne—and Europe, after years of anarchy and bloodshed, at last obtained repose—while he, “alike its wonder and its scourge,” was removed to a scene far distant from that which had witnessed his triumphs and his reverses—and within the narrow limits of a paltry island, that haughty spirit, for whom half Europe was too small, dragged out a gloomy existence, until death loosened the chain, and the grave closed upon the Captive of Saint Helena.
THE LATE INDIAN CAMPAIGNS
AGAINST
THE AFFGHANS, THE BILUCHIS,
AND
THE SIKHS.
1838 to 1846.
[THE
LATE INDIAN CAMPAIGNS],
&c.
PRELIMINARY REMARKS.[320]
Condition of Europe after the battle of Waterloo.—Necessity for peace.
A period of undisturbed repose succeeded that fearful interval in European history, extending from the murder of a weak and worthless monarch, to the deposition of the master spirit of the age, who had founded a blood-cemented throne on the ruins of a corrupt and licentious dynasty. From the revolutionary outbreak to the peace of Paris, the annals of these stormy times are but a continuous record of violence and slaughter—for the brief cessation of hostilities in 1801, was employed, on both sides, in active preparations to recommence a deadlier struggle—and France and England, like angry and exhausted duellists, rested only for the moment, until, with recruited strength, they might renew the game of death more furiously. As “time and the hour run through the longest day,” so national resources at last must find a limit—for if war be a sanguinary, it is also a most expensive pursuit. Save those of Britain and France, the European exchequers were exhausted—one country finding her marvellous resources in the honest supplies which flowed in from possessions on which a sun never sets[321]—the other, by adopting a nefarious policy of making war support war—or, in plain language, obliging the aggressed to find all for the aggressor that he might require. War cripples trade—and “the nation of shopkeepers,” as Napoleon contemptuously designated England, felt the monetary pressure heavily—and John Bull, when called upon again and again, growled as he unclosed his purse-strings—but he always came forward when money was required. The enormity of these demands, appeared only to elicit the boundless extent of the means upon which England could fall back—for in one year[322] the naval and military expenditure of the country exceeded the almost incredible total of forty-two millions sterling, without including immense subsidiatory outlays to friendly powers and foreign mercenaries.[323]
On the continent, the conscriptive system then in operation was virtually the same, although under different provisions and modifications. The greater European powers could always bring a force to the field numerically imposing—but that all-important requisite to carry out war—namely, the métallique, was wanting. Men without money are mere automatons—they have no motive capability,—and before a continental brigade could make an opening march, England had to furnish them with what is figuratively, but correctly called—“the sinews.”
Did France escape the iron pressure of the times that all besides upon the continent felt so sensibly? Her trade had been for years annihilated—and, unscrupulous as the means resorted to were by which her empty coffers might be filled, the end now could not be realized. Plunder, territorial or fiscal—the annexation of a state, or the imposition of a forced loan—all these from a too frequent repetition, had failed at last. Her neighbours, who formerly had been her El Dorado, were neither in temper nor situation to be longer made available to meet her necessities. Schoolmen say “ex nihilo nihil fit,”—Napoleon found the truth of that admitted adage,—and “beautiful France” was required to look to her fair self for her resources.
But however, and by what means, money might have been procured, to meet exigencies which towards the end of the war daily became more stringent, a more fearful difficulty occurred, because it was not remediable—not only the wealth, but the physique of the country was exhausted—and the eternal drains made upon the French population shewed the natural consequences which all must have foreseen. Thousands after thousands of her best and bravest had crossed the frontier never to return—and anticipated conscriptions produced in a levy of raw youth but indifferent food for powder. When addressing the council of state on his return from his disastrous campaign in Germany, this fatal truth escaped,—and on this occasion Napoleon, descending from his former affectation of Roman dignity, betrayed the exhaustion of the country. His language was common-place and passionate, and his disjointed harangue hurried from his dangers to his designs. “Wellington,” said he, “is in the south—the Russians threaten the northern frontier—Austria the south-eastern,—yet, shame to speak it, the nation has not risen in mass to repel them! Every ally has abandoned me: the Bavarians have betrayed me!—Peace? no peace till Munich is in flames! I demand of you 300,000 men; I will form a camp at Bordeaux of 100,000, another at Lyons, a third at Metz: with the remnant of my former levies, I shall have 1,000,000 of men in arms. But it is men whom I demand,—full-grown men; not these miserable striplings who choke my hospitals with sick, and my highways with carcases. Give up Holland? rather let it sink into the sea! Peace, it seems, is talked of when all around ought to re-echo with the cry of war!”
No wonder, therefore, when after his most singular and successful evasion from Elba, that all save those nameless men, on whom war bestows an evanescent consequence, sincerely desired the state of tranquillity which followed so quick upon the hundred days’ émeute. Europe, as Napoleon used to say, when “peace was on his lips and deadly intents raging in his bosom”—required repose. All felt the necessity and admitted it—and for more than a quarter of a century, the external relations of the continental powers have since continued amicable.
There were times, however, when this peaceful state of things was threatened with interruption—but happily the temperate policy of the prudent countervailed the rashness of those desperate men, who, in a settled order of things, have no position in society. Occasionally, the thunder grumbled—but the gathering clouds dispersed again. A revolution was effected—and not a bloodless one—and yet the rest of Europe looked calmly on. As at Algiers, Navarino, and elsewhere, the great powers found it necessary sometimes to put forth their strength—but generally, these operations were in connection. France has carried on a petty and inglorious contest in Polynesia, and a more unprofitable one in Africa;—and Russia, with neither credit nor success, made vain attempts upon the Circassian mountaineers—England the while looked calmly on; her attitude was dignified—the lion couched—but woe betide any who provoked his spring! The absurd and unjust demands of her transatlantic neighbours—“a little more than kin, and less than kind”—were temperately but emphatically negatived. The idle threats of a feeble power—feeble from conflicting interests, and inert from its overgrowth, were heard with full contempt—Yankee orators thundered her delenda—but England smiled, and merely asked them to pay their debts—for she well knew that, like stubble fired, a demagogue’s fury blazes, scintillates, and becomes smoke.
And did Britain thus remain unmoved in the abundant conviction of her own security?—No—she despised impotent threatenings, as strongly as she repudiated impudent demands. She knew that to America, war would produce annihilation. The thunderbolt was lying at her foot—and the hand was ready to launch it. The first angry shot discharged would have covered the ocean with her fleets—and in a few brief months, nothing under stars and stripes would have been seen upon the Atlantic—a ruined trade and servile war must have resulted—and the States would have been as a consequence partitioned.
A radical’s course of action, in or out of Parliament, is the same. His business is not to see what is right, but if possible to discover what is wrong—and if he can’t find it, he must fancy it. No one can deny that the Admiralty—Whig and Tory, without distinction, are blundering eternally—but as the resources of England seem illimitable, failures are rendered nugatory—and errors, when remediable, heedless of the expense uselessly occasioned, are corrected. Every candid and unprejudiced officer will admit that Britain had never a navy before, to be compared with that which she now possesses—and on careful examination, it will be found that her military establishment is still more perfect.
Never did a great power spring from military insignificance to acknowledged superiority, so rapidly as Great Britain. In 1805, she was a by-word among nations—in 1815, her martial character was first in European estimation, although ten brief years before it had held the lowest place.[324] Like ore unsought for, talent, as gold when in the mine, often continues for centuries in abeyance, until circumstances evoke it. As in individuals, so also national capabilities may be accidentally developed—and what England was ignorant of possessing, the Peninsula was first fated to disclose.
* * * * *
To a far more limited extent than that which had been felt in France—England found that the deteriorating effects of twenty years’ war were making themselves apparent upon her own population. The necessity of dragging beardless boys from home to fill her hospitals did not exist—but an immense bounty, and a lowered standard in recruiting, proved that the Moloch of the battle-field made demands which with difficulty could be answered.[325] In her militia she had an admirable reserve to fall back upon—their élite volunteered freely for the line—and hence, the strength of regiments in the field was maintained by constant drafts of disciplined soldiers. As the war progressed, the efficiency of the Peninsular divisions as steadily advanced—until Wellington might say, as he did, with truth, that the army with which he crossed the Pyrenees was “the most perfect machine that ever had been constructed, and one with which he could do any thing and go anywhere.”—Glorious be the memory of these matchless soldiers!
Peace came—and the military establishment of Britain was of necessity reduced. With a few exceptions, the regiments of the line lost their additional battalions—every man not thoroughly serviceable was discharged—and the militias were disbanded. But England had at last found where her hidden strength had so long lain dormant. Formerly her sole dependence rested on her wooden walls—her dominion over ocean was undisputed—there was not a sea on which her proud ensign did not float—nor a corner of the earth unvisited by her trading vessels. The Peninsula, however, had given her another arm—she had proved its power, and determined that the integrity of its strength should be preserved—and, while in number her army was reduced, in efficiency it was augmented. No longer drained of the flower of her youth, and obliged to fill up the casualties incident to siege and battle-field with levies from her population, physically inferior, she now only recruited picked men. To the experience of the past, the improvements of modern science were united—and under the chief-commandership of the honoured and lamented Hill, the organization of the British army became perfect. Sacred be that great and good man’s memory! Living—he was easy of access, bland in his manner, and honest in his purpose—and dead, he bequeathed to the soldier the example of a well-earned fame—and to his country, an army—as far as numbers go—unmatched, unmatchable—in Europe.
CHAPTER I.
THE AFFGHANISTAN CAMPAIGNS.[326]
The Shah invades Affghanistan.—Sir John Keane advances on Candahar.—Reduction of Ghuznee.—Surrender of Dost Mahomed.—Retreat of Monson.—Bailey’s surrender.
Twenty years elapsed—and so far as England was concerned, Europe continued tranquil. If the British sword did not rust, it rested quietly in the sheath—and the East ere long was destined to prove, that during that period of inactivity, its temper had remained unaltered.
Throughout this work European politics have been carefully eschewed—and the complications, falsity, and foul character of Eastern diplomacy, would be irrelevant, and disgust but not interest. In 1836, the aggressive acts of Persia, influenced by Russian gold, were sufficiently alarming, but all doubt was removed, when the Shah invaded Affghanistan, and laid siege to Herat. Although that city held strongly out, and finally repulsed the Persians, the country generally was anxious for their alliance,[327] and to check an influence that might prove truly dangerous hereafter, the Indian government decided on an armed intervention, and the restoration of Shah Shoojah was made the apology for a hostile demonstration.
The entrance of an invading army into Affghanistan was heralded by the Simla declaration,[328] and a strong force, termed “the army of the Indus,” in due time penetrated this mountain country by the route of the Bolan Pass.[329]
The occupation of Affghanistan was disastrous from the first. The troops were severely harassed and half-starved—and the blunders of the political agents, want of cordiality in the commanders, dissension between the contingents of Bengal and Bombay, all gave little promise of ultimate success. Early in April, Sir John Keane joined and took the chief command, and on the 7th he advanced on Candahar. The march was extremely oppressive. Intense heat, want of water, desultory attacks, all made the movement a distressing one, but Candahar was at last reached, and Shah Shoojah restored to the Musnad.
Sir John’s next operation was the reduction of Ghuznee,[330] and it would appear rather unaccountable that with this strong fortress before him, he should have left his siege-train at Candahar.
Sir John, however, seemed to hold Peninsular practice in fortunate recollection, for he repeated at Ghuznee,[331] what Brochard, a French engineer, had tried so successfully at Amarante,[332] blew down a barricade, and carried the place by storm. Khelat[333] was subsequently taken by assault, and the army of the Indus soon after broken up,—the Bombay contingent retiring to cantonments, and the Bengal retaining military occupation of Cabool.
Dost Mahomed, who had escaped, immediately appeared in arms, and the tribes between the Oxus and Hindoo Koosh broke out into open insurrection. Dennie defeated the Affghan chief in front of Bameean, and Sale took Tootundurrah, Jugla, and Rahderrah. With exhausted resources, the Dost found that to continue a contest would be hopeless,—and on the 3rd of November, he surrendered to the envoy, the unfortunate Sir William MacNaughten.[334]
The next epoch in Indian history is painfully unfortunate, and the military occupation of Affghanistan forms a fearful pendant to Monson’s retreat[335] and Bailey’s surrender. The resistance of Bailey was most glorious,[336] but the retreats from Hindustan and Cabool were consequences of indecision and want of daring. By the latter many a commander has been saved, even though that daring should have bordered upon rashness. In Monson’s affair, Holkar might have been arrested on the Chumbul,—and bold measures, promptly carried out, have proved successful in Affghanistan; but Monson retreated when he should have held his ground, and Burnes and MacNaughten temporized when they should have acted. A brief notice will best sum up the disastrous finale of the Affghanistan invasion. Burnes, in false security, was murdered—and MacNaughten placed himself in the power of a treacherous ruffian, and paid the penalty of his folly with his life. The rest is a tale of perfidy, disgrace, and slaughter.
But yet gloomy as that miserable history is, brilliant scintillations of British heroism were not wanting. The forcing of the mountain passes was most creditable to Dennie, as the defence of Jellalabad was to Sale. Both since have filled a soldier’s grave—and braver spirits never breathed their last upon a battle-field.
CHAPTER II.
BILUCHI CAMPAIGN.[337]
Jealousy of the Scinde chieftains.—Proceedings of Sir Charles Napier.—Defeat of the Bilúchis.
For a time, affairs in Scinde, after the Cabool disasters, looked peaceable; but the conditions proposed by new treaties to the Amirs, in the infringements upon their game preserves, and the abolition of transit duties, occasioned much discontent. Gradually, this jealousy of the Scinde chieftains ripened into hatred; and while evasive policy was resorted to by the Amirs, a corps, under Sir Charles Napier, advanced to support the British representative, Major Outram. The agency had been attacked—gallantly defended—and Outram effected an honourable retreat; while the Amirs, collecting in great force at Fulali, Sir Charles, with his small force, determined to attack them. An extract from his own despatch will best describe this daring and most brilliant affair:—
“On the 16th I marched to Muttaree, having there ascertained that the Amirs were in position at Míani (ten miles’ distance), to the number of 22,000 men, and well knowing that a delay for reinforcements would both strengthen their confidence and add to their numbers, already seven times that which I commanded, I resolved to attack them, and we marched at 4 A.M. on the morning of the 17th; at eight o’clock the advanced guard discovered their camp; at nine o’clock we formed in order of battle, about 2,800 men of all arms, and twelve pieces of artillery. We were now within range of the enemy’s guns, and fifteen pieces of artillery opened upon us, and were answered by our cannon. The enemy were very strongly posted, woods were on their flanks, which I did not think could be turned. These two woods were joined by the dry bed of the river Falláli, which had a high bank. The bed of the river was nearly straight, and about 1,200 yards in length. Behind this and in both woods were the enemy posted. In front of their extreme right, and on the edge of the wood, was a village. Having made the best examination of their position which so short a time permitted, the artillery was posted on the right of the line, and some skirmishers of infantry, with the Scinde irregular horse, were sent in front to try and make the enemy shew his force more distinctly; we then advanced from the right in echellon of battalions, refusing the left to save it from the fire of the village. The 9th Bengal light cavalry formed the reserve in rear of the left wing; and the Poona horse, together with four companies of infantry, guarded the baggage. In this order of battle we advanced as at a review across a fine plain swept by the cannon of the enemy. The artillery and H. M.’s 22nd regiment in line, formed the leading echellon, the 25th N.I. the second, the 12th N.I. the third, and the 1st grenadier N.I. the fourth.
“The enemy was 1,100 yards from our line, which soon traversed the intervening space. Our fire of musketry opened at about 100 yards from the bank in reply to that of the enemy; and in a few minutes the engagement became general along the bank of the river, on which the combatants fought for about three hours or more with great fury, man to man. Then, my lord, was seen the superiority of the musket and bayonet over the sword and shield and matchlock. The brave Bilúchis first discharging their matchlocks and pistols, dashed over the bank with desperate resolution; but down went these bold and skilful swordsmen under the superior power of the musket and bayonet. At one time, my lord, the courage and numbers of the enemy against the 22nd, the 25th, and the 12th regiments bore heavily in that part of the battle. There was no time to be lost, and I sent orders to the cavalry to force the right of the enemy’s line. This order was very gallantly executed by the 9th Bengal cavalry and the Scinde horse; the details of which shall be afterwards stated to your lordship, for the struggle on our right and centre was at that moment so fierce, that I could not go to the left.
“In this charge the 9th light cavalry took a standard, and several pieces of artillery, and the Scinde horse took the enemy’s camp, from which a vast body of their cavalry slowly retired fighting. Lieutenant Fitzgerald gallantly pursued them for two miles, and, I understand, slew three of the enemy in single combat. The brilliant conduct of these two cavalry regiments decided in my opinion the crisis of the action, for from the moment the cavalry were seen in rear of their right flank, the resistance of our opponents slackened; the 22nd regiment forced the bank, the 25th and 12th did the same, the latter regiment capturing several guns, and the victory was decided. The artillery made great havoc among the dense masses of the enemy, and dismounted several of their guns. The whole of the enemy’s artillery, ammunition, standards, and camp, with considerable stores and some treasure, were taken.”
War was now regularly proclaimed—and on the 22nd of March, the Sikhs recommenced hostilities at Mattari—Sir Charles Napier, in the meanwhile, having effected a junction with his reinforcements. Halting at the village of Duppa, on the 23rd, he decided on attacking the Bilúchis on the 24th. The enemy were in a strong position, numbering 20,000 men. The Anglo-Indian army might amount in round numbers to 5,000, all arms included. Thus runs the despatch:—
“The forces under my command marched from Hyderabad this morning at daybreak. About half-past 8 o’clock we discovered and attacked the army under the personal command of the Meer Shere Mahomed, consisting of twenty thousand men of all arms, strongly posted behind one of those large nullahs by which this country is intersected in all directions. After a combat of about three hours, the enemy was wholly defeated with considerable slaughter, and the loss of all his standards and cannon.
“His position was nearly a straight line; the nullah was formed by two deep parallel ditches, one 20 feet wide and 8 feet deep, the other 42 feet wide and 17 deep, which had been for a long distance freshly scarped, and a banquet made behind the bank expressly for the occasion.
“To ascertain the strength of his line was extremely difficult, as his left did not appear to be satisfactorily defined; but he began moving to his right when he perceived that the British force outflanked him in that direction. Believing that this movement had drawn him from that part of the nullah which had been prepared for defence, I hoped to attack his right with less difficulty, and Major Leslie’s troop of horse artillery was ordered to move forward and endeavour to rake the nullah. The 9th light cavalry and Poona horse advancing in line, on the left of the artillery, which was supported on the right by her Majesty’s 22nd regiment, the latter being, however, at first considerably retired to admit of the oblique fire of Leslie’s troop. The whole of the artillery now opened upon the enemy’s position, and the British line advanced in echellons from the left, H. M.’s 22nd regiment leading the attack.
“The enemy was now perceived to move from his centre in considerable bodies to his left, apparently retreating, unable to sustain the cross-fire of the British artillery; on seeing which Major Stack, at the head of the 3rd cavalry, under command of Captain Delamain, and the Sindh horse, under command of Captain Jacob, made a brilliant charge upon the enemy’s left flank, crossing the nullah and cutting down the retreating enemy for several miles. While this was passing on the right, H. M.’s 22nd regiment, gallantly led by Major Poole, who commanded the brigade, and Captain George, who commanded the corps, attacked the nullah on the left with great gallantry, and I regret to add, with considerable loss. This brave battalion marched up to the nullah under a heavy fire of matchlocks, without returning a shot till within forty paces of the intrenchment, and then stormed it like British soldiers. The intrepid Lieutenant Coote first mounted the rampart, seized one of the enemy’s standards, and was severely wounded while waving it and cheering on his men.
“Meanwhile the Poona horse, under Captain Tait, and the 9th cavalry, under Major Story, turned the enemy’s right flank pursuing and cutting down the fugitives for several miles. H. M.’s 22nd regiment was well supported by the batteries commanded by Captains Willoughby and Hutt, which crossed their fire with that of Major Leslie. Then came the 2nd brigade under command of Major Woodburn, bearing down into action with excellent coolness. It consisted of the 25th, 21st, and 12th regiments, under the command of Captains Jackson, Stevens, and Fisher, respectively; these regiments were strongly sustained by the fire of Captain Whitley’s battery, on the right of which were the 8th and 1st regiments, under Majors Browne and Clibborne; these two corps advanced with the regularity of a review up to the intrenchments, their commanders, with considerable exertion, stopping their fire, on seeing that a portion of the Sindh horse and 3rd cavalry in charging the enemy had got in front of the brigade. The battle was decided by the troop of horse artillery and H. M.’s 22nd regiment.”
CHAPTER III.
THE SIKH CAMPAIGNS.[338]
State of the Punjaub.—Sir Henry Hardinge appointed governor.—Strength and organization of the Sikh army.—Moodkee.—Ferozepore.—Defeat of the Sikhs.—Battle of Aliwal.—Its consequences.—Sobraon.—Conclusion.
The fatal dénouement of the retreat from Cabool was still in vivid colouring before the British public, when tidings from the East announced that it might be considered only as the forerunner of still more alarming demonstrations, and these from a power fully as unfriendly, and far mere formidable to English interests than the Ghiljies and fanatic tribes of Affghanistan. The Punjaub[339] for years had been internally convulsed. The musnud in turn was occupied by women whose debaucheries were disgusting, and men who had reached it by the foulest murders. The country was frightfully disorganized—one bond of union alone existed among the Sikhs—and that was the most deadly hostility to the British.
The state of things beyond the Sutlej alarmed the Indian government, and Lord Ellenborough acted with energy and good judgment—Scinde and Gwalior must be deprived of the power of being mischievous—and while the former was annexed in form to the possessions of the Company, Gwalior was being prepared for undergoing a similar change. To give effect to these important measures, an army of observation marched upon the Sutlej—but long before any results from his policy could be developed, Lord Ellenborough was recalled, and Sir Henry Hardinge appointed to succeed him. In the spring of 1844, the new governor reached Calcutta.
The Cabool disasters had rendered the very thought of Eastern war most unpopular at home—and Sir Henry assumed the chief command, with a full determination to avoid a rupture with the Sikhs—could such be avoidable; but that, as events proved, was impossible—and pacific policy was tried and found wanting.
“The summer of 1845 was marked by frightful excesses in Lahore. Murder and debauchery went hand-in-hand together; and the Ranee herself, as well as her chief adviser, Jowar Singh, no longer disguised their purpose of coming to blows with the English. On the part of Jowar Singh, this was but the prosecution of a policy which had long been in favour with him; and as he was heartily detested by the rest of the sirdars, they made it a pretext for conspiring against him and putting him to death. But the Ranee was swayed by different motives. From day to day her army became more unmanageable; and she desired, above all things, to get rid of the nuisance, even if her deliverance should come with a victorious British force to Lahore. Accordingly, after having long withstood the clamours of her officers, she gave a hearty, yet a reluctant, consent to the proposed invasion of the protected states; and a plan of operations was drawn up, which indicated no slight knowledge of the art of war on the part of those from whom it emanated.”[340]
As yet Sir Henry had avoided every appearance of angry demonstration. Loodiana and Ferozepore were well garrisoned. The former place was weak—the latter better calculated for resistance. A magazine to supply both places had been judiciously established where the Umballa road touches that of Kurnaul—for Busseean was equally accessible to the garrisons which were threatened.
Coming events had not been disregarded by the chief in command—and in June, Sir Henry in person proceeded to the western provinces. Approaching hostilities had in the autumn become too evident—the Sikhs were advancing to the Sutlej—and instead of having, as formerly reported, 15,000 men in and about Lahore, they had actually seven divisions, which might fairly average, each with the other, 8,000 men. One of these was to remain to garrison the capital—the remainder were disposable—and, as it was believed, destined to attack Loodiana, Kurrachee, Ferozepore, Scinde, and Attock.
Before the subsequent transactions are described, a detail of the strength, organization, and matériel of the Sikh army will be interesting—and an officer,[341] whose brief but lucid account of the Punjaub, is admirably perspicuous and judiciously condensed, thus pictures the construction of a military force, whose local position and efficiency rendered the repression of its formidable power imperative upon the Indian executive.
“This force, consisting of about 110,000 men, is divided into regulars and irregulars; the former of whom, about 70,000 strong, are drilled and appointed according to the European system. The cavalry branch of the disciplined force amounts to nearly 13,000, and the infantry and artillery to 60,000 more. The irregulars, variously armed and equipped, are nearly 40,000 strong, of which number upwards of 20,000 are cavalry, the remainder consisting of infantry and matchlock-men, while the contingents, which the sirdars or chiefs are obliged to parade on the requisition of the sovereign, amount to considerably above 30,000 more. The artillery consisted in Runjeet’s time of 376 guns, and 370 swivels mounted on camels or on light carriages adapted to their size. There is no distinct corps of artillery as in other services, but there are 4,000 or 5,000 men, under a daroga, trained to the duty of gunners, and these are distributed with the ordnance throughout the regular army. The costume of the regular infantry is scarlet, with different coloured facings, to distinguish regiments, as in the British service. The trousers are of blue linen; the head-dress is a blue turban, with one end loose, and spread so as to entirely cover the head, back of the neck, and shoulders; the belts are of black leather; the arms a musket and bayonet, the manufacture of Lahore. The cavalry wear helmets or steel caps, round which shawls or scarfs are folded. The irregulars, in their dress and appointments, fully justify the appellation which their habits and mode of making war obtained for them. Cotton, silk, or broad cloth tunics of various colours, with the addition of shawls, cloaks, breastplates, or coats of mail, with turban or helmets, ad libitum, impart to them a motley but picturesque appearance. They are all badly mounted, and, indeed, little can be said even of the regular cavalry in this respect. The Punjaub breed of horses is far from good, and they do not import stock from other countries to improve their own cattle. The pay of the sepoys of the regular army of the Punjaub is higher than that of the same class in the army of the East-India Company, each common soldier receiving ten rupees per mensem. The troops of the irregulars receive twenty-five rupees each, out of which they provide their arms and clothing, and feed their horse, putting the government to no other expense whatever for their services.
“Enlistment in the regular army of the Punjaub is quite voluntary, and the service is so popular that the army could upon an emergency be increased to almost any amount. The soldiery are exceedingly apt in acquiring a knowledge of their military duties; but they are so averse to control that instances of insubordination are common; latterly, indeed, open mutiny has frequently characterized the relations of officer and soldier. Insubordination is punished—when punishment is practicable—with confinement, loss of pay, or extra duty. But in the present state of military disorganization no means of chastising rebellion are available.
“No pensions were, or are, assigned to the soldiery for long service, nor is there any provision for the widows and families of those who die, or are killed in the service of the state. Promotions, instead of being the right of the good soldier in order of seniority, or the reward of merit in the various grades, is frequently effected by bribery. In the higher ranks, advancement is obtained by the judicious application of douceurs to the palm of the favourites at court, or the military chieftains about the person of the sovereign. In the event of the government of the Punjaub falling into the hands of the British, some time would probably elapse before the dissolute rabble which now composes the army could be brought under a state of as perfect discipline as that which exists in the Anglo-Indian army; but there is no doubt that ultimately the result of a system, strict and severe from the commencement, when supported by a stern and absolute monarchy, would display itself, and render the Sikh troops as devoted a body as the regular native army of Hindostan. Only twenty-three years have elapsed since the military force in the Punjaub consisted of a large and undisciplined horde. In 1822, the first European officers presented themselves (according to Prinsep) at Runjeet Singh’s durbar, seeking military service and entertainment. These were Messrs. Allard and Ventura, who had served in the French army until the annihilation of Napoleon Buonaparte deprived them of employment. At first, Runjeet Singh, with the suspicion common to a native Indian prince, received them coldly; and his distrust of their purposes was heightened by the Punjaubee chieftains, who were naturally jealous of the introduction of Europeans into the military service; but a submissive and judicious letter from these officers removed the apprehensions of the Maharajah, and he, with the spirit and originality of a man of genius, admitted them into his service; appointing them instructors of his troops in the European system of drill and warfare. The good conduct and wise management of these gentlemen speedily removed Runjeet Singh’s prejudices against Europeans; and the door to employment being thrown open, several military men entered the service of the Maharajah, and at the close of his reign there were not less than a dozen receiving his pay, and, to use an Indian expression, ‘eating his salt.’ The successors of Runjeet Singh, however, did not look with an eye of favour upon men who were not to be bought, and whose sense of personal dignity revolted at the treatment to which the unbridled Sikh chieftains were inclined to subject them. The greater part accordingly resigned their commissions; some of them retiring with ample fortunes, and others seeking honourable employment elsewhere.
“The Sikh army, until lately, was considered by many British officers, who had the opportunity of seeing it, to have been in a fair state of discipline. They form very correct lines, but in manœuvring their movements are too slow, and they would, in consequence, be in danger, from a body of British cavalry, of being successfully charged during a change of position. They would also run the risk of having their flanks turned by their inability to follow the motion of an European enemy with equal rapidity.[342]
“The arms, that is to say, the muskets, are of very inferior stamp, incapable of throwing a ball to any distance, and on quick and repeated discharges liable to burst. Their firing is bad, owing to the very small quantity of practice ammunition allowed by the government; not more than ten balls out of a hundred, at the distance of as many paces, would probably tell upon an enemy’s ranks. They still preserve the old system of three ranks, the front one kneeling when firing and then rising to load, a method in action liable to create confusion.
“In person, the infantry soldiers are tall and thin, with good features and full beards; their superior height is owing to the extraordinary length of their lower limbs. They are capable of enduring the fatigue of long marches for several days in succession (the author having on one occasion marched with his regiment a distance of 300 miles within twelve days), and are, generally speaking, so hardy that exposure to oppressive heats or heavy rains has little effect upon them. In a great measure this is the result of custom. Excepting in the vicinity of Lahore and Peshawur, there are few regular quarters or cantonments; the men occupy small tents or caravanserais.
“The drum and fife and bugle are in general use in the Sikh infantry regiments, and in some of the favourite royal corps of Runjeet Singh an attempt was made to introduce a band of music, but a graft of European melody upon Punjaubee discord did not produce, as may be imagined, a very harmonious result.
“The cavalry of the Sikh army is very inferior in every respect to the infantry. While the latter are carefully picked from large bodies of candidates for service, the former are composed of men of all sorts and sizes and ages, who get appointed solely through the interests of the different sirdars. They are mean-looking, ill-dressed, and, as already stated, wretchedly mounted. Their horse trappings are of leather of the worst quality, and their saddles are of the same miserable material, and badly constructed. When the horse is in motion, the legs and arms of the rider wave backwards and forwards, right and left, by way, as it were, of keeping time with the pace of the animal bestridden. The horses are small, meagre, and ill-shaped, with the aquiline nose which so peculiarly proclaims inferiority of breed. In the field, the conduct of Sikh cavalry has generally corresponded with their appearance and efficiency. They are totally deficient of firmness in the hour of struggle, and only charge the foe when a vast superiority of numerical force gives them a sort of warranty of success.”
Undeceived touching the supposed weakness of the Sikh army, Sir Henry Hardinge, in conjunction with his gallant superior in command, Sir Hugh Gough, concentrated his troops, called for reinforcements from the interior, added largely to his commissariate—and what in Eastern warfare is altogether indispensable, largely increased his beasts of burden and means of transport. Then taking a central position, he waited calmly and prudently until the Sikh designs should be more clearly developed.
November came—the storm had been gathering—remonstrances from the governor-general had failed—and on the 4th, the Sikh vakeel was formally dismissed. Still immediate hostilities were not anticipated—when suddenly, news arrived on the 13th, that the enemy had crossed the Sutlej, and Ferozepore was invested. The British commander hurried by forced marches to its relief—and on the 18th, after a seven leagues’ march, at noon the Anglo-Indian array reached the village of Moodkee.[343] A movement of twenty miles under an eastern sun is most distressing—and the wearied troops having bivouacked, ignorant of the proximity of an enemy, cut wood, lighted fires, and commenced cooking. Strange as it may appear, although in the immediate presence of the Sikh army, no vidette had seen it, and the booming of the enemy’s guns first gave note of preparation.
“The army was in a state of great exhaustion, principally from the want of water, which was not procurable on the road, when about three P. M., information was received that the Sikh army was advancing; and the troops had scarcely time to get under arms and move to their positions, when that fact was ascertained.
“I immediately,” says Lord Gough, “pushed forward the horse artillery and cavalry, directing the infantry, accompanied by the field batteries, to move forward in support. We had not proceeded beyond two miles, when we found the enemy in position. They were said to consist of from 15,000 to 20,000 infantry, about the same force of cavalry, and forty guns. They evidently had either just taken up this position, or were advancing in order of battle against us.
“To resist their attack, and to cover the formation of the infantry, I advanced the cavalry under Brigadiers White, Gough, and Mactier, rapidly to the front, in columns of squadrons, and occupied the plain. They were speedily followed by the five troops of horse artillery, under Brigadier Brooke, who took up a forward position, having the cavalry then on his flanks.
“The country is a dead flat, covered at short intervals with a low, but in some places, thick jhow jungle and dotted with sandy hillocks. The enemy screened their infantry and artillery behind this jungle and such undulations as the ground afforded; and, whilst our twelve battalions formed from echellon of brigade into line, opened a very severe cannonade upon our advancing troops, which was vigorously replied to by the battery of horse artillery under Brigadier Brooke, which was soon joined by the two light field batteries. The rapid and well-directed fire of our artillery appeared soon to paralyze that of the enemy; and, as it was necessary to complete our infantry dispositions without advancing the artillery too near to the jungle, I directed the cavalry under Brigadiers White and Gough to make a flank movement on the enemy’s left, with a view of threatening and turning that flank, if possible. With praiseworthy gallantry, the 3rd light dragoons, with the 2nd brigade of cavalry, consisting of the body-guard and fifth light cavalry, with a portion of the 4th lancers, turned the left of the Sikh army, and, sweeping along the whole rear of its infantry and guns, silenced for a time the latter, and put their numerous cavalry to flight. Whilst this movement was taking place on the enemy’s left, I directed the remainder of the 4th lancers, the 9th irregular cavalry, under Brigadier Mactier, with a light field battery, to threaten their right. This manœuvre was also successful. Had not the infantry and guns of the enemy been screened by the jungle, these brilliant charges of the cavalry would have been productive of greater effect.
“When the infantry advanced to the attack. Brigadier Brooke rapidly pushed on his horse artillery close to the jungle, and the cannonade was resumed on both sides. The infantry, under Major-Generals Sir Harry Smith, Gilbert, and Sir John M’Caskill, attacked in echellon of lines the enemy’s infantry, almost invisible amongst the wood and the approaching darkness of night. The opposition of the enemy was such as might have been expected from troops who had every thing at stake, and who had long vaunted of being irresistible. Their ample and extended line, from their great superiority of numbers, far outflanked ours; but this was counteracted by the flank movements of our cavalry. The attack of the infantry now commenced; and the roll of fire from this powerful arm soon convinced the Sikh army that they had met with a foe they little expected; and their whole force was driven from position after position with great slaughter, and the loss of seventeen pieces of artillery, some of them of heavy calibre; our infantry using that never-failing weapon, the bayonet, whenever the enemy stood. Night only saved them from worse disaster, for this stout conflict was maintained during an hour and a half of dim starlight, amidst a cloud of dust from the sandy plain, which yet more obscured every object.
“I regret to say, this gallant and successful attack was attended with considerable loss; the force bivouacked upon the field for some hours, and only returned to its encampment after ascertaining that it had no enemy before it, and that night prevented the possibility of a regular advance in pursuit.”[344]
In this brilliant and sanguinary battle, the British loss was necessarily heavy. Sir Robert Sale, and Sir John M’Caskill were killed—and Brigadiers Bolton and Mactier, with Colonels Byrne and Bunbury, wounded. The total casualties amounted to 872 of all arms.
Nothing could have been more fortunate than the prestige which Moodkee gave to the campaign. One damning fault of the Spanish generals on the Peninsula, was that they literally overmarched their troops until they came to a dead stand-still—and this the British commanders most judiciously avoided.[345] A little delay in active operations was, under circumstances, particularly politic—for while the Sikhs were shaken in confidence, and marvelling at their discomfiture, the British lion was gathering strength to make another and a deadlier spring.
On the morning of the 21st, the Anglo-Indian army again took the offensive, and marched against the intrenched position of the enemy—and the details of the succeeding events of that bloody and glorious day are thus lucidly and modestly given.
“Instead of advancing to the direct attack of their formidable works, our force manœuvred to their right; the second and fourth divisions of infantry, in front, supported by the first division and cavalry in second line, continued to defile for some time out of cannon-shot between the Sikhs and Ferozepore. The desired effect was not long delayed, a cloud of dust was seen on our left, and according to the instructions sent him on the preceding evening, Major-General Sir John Littler, with his division, availing himself of the offered opportunity, was discovered in full march to unite his force with mine. The junction was soon effected, and thus was accomplished one of the great objects of all our harassing marches and privations, in the relief of this division of our army from the blockade of the numerous forces by which it was surrounded.
“Dispositions were now made for a united attack on the enemy’s intrenched camp. We found it to be a parallelogram of about a mile in length and half a mile in breadth, including within its area the strong village of Ferozeshah; the shorter sides looking towards the Sutlej and Moodkee, and the longer towards Ferozepore and the open country. We moved against the last-named face, the ground in front of which was, like the Sikh position in Moodkee, covered with low jungle.
“The divisions of Major-General Sir John Littler, Brigadier Wallace (who had succeeded Major-General Sir John M’Caskill), and Major-General Gilbert, deployed into line, having in the centre our whole force of artillery, with the exception of three troops of horse artillery, one on either flank, and one in support, to be moved as occasion required. Major-General Sir Harry Smith’s division, and our small cavalry force, moved in second line, having a brigade in reserve to cover each wing.
“I should here observe, that I committed the charge and direction of the left wing to Lieut.-Gen. Sir Henry Hardinge, while I personally conducted the right.
“A very heavy cannonade was opened by the enemy, who had dispersed over their position upwards of 100 guns, more than 40 of which were of battering calibre; these kept up a heavy and well-directed fire, which the practice of our far less numerous artillery, of much lighter metal, checked in some degree, but could not silence; finally, in the face of a storm of shot and shell, our infantry advanced and carried these formidable intrenchments; they threw themselves upon the guns, and with matchless gallantry wrested them from the enemy; but, when the batteries were partially within our grasp, our soldiery had to face such a fire of musketry from the Sikh infantry, arrayed behind their guns, that, in spite of the most heroic efforts, a portion only of the intrenchment could be carried. Night fell while the conflict was everywhere raging.
“Although I now brought up Major-General Sir Harry Smith’s division, and he captured and long retained another point of the position, and her Majesty’s 3rd light dragoons charged and took some of the most formidable batteries, yet the enemy remained in possession of a considerable portion of the great quadrangle, whilst our troops, intermingled with theirs, kept possession of the remainder, and finally bivouacked upon it, exhausted by their gallant efforts, greatly reduced in numbers, and suffering extremely from thirst, yet animated by an indomitable spirit. In this state of things the long night wore away.
“Near the middle of it one of their heavy guns was advanced, and played with deadly effect upon our troops. Lieutenant-General Sir Henry Hardinge immediately formed her Majesty’s 80th foot and the 1st European light infantry. They were led to the attack by their commanding officers, and animated in their exertions by Lieut.-Colonel Wood (aide-de-camp to the lieut.-general), who was wounded in the onset. The 80th captured the gun, and the enemy, dismayed by this counter-check, did not venture to press on further. During the whole night, however, they continued to harass our troops by fire of artillery, wherever moonlight discovered our position.
“But with daylight of the 22nd came retribution. Our infantry formed line, supported on both flanks by horse artillery, whilst a fire was opened from our centre by such of our heavy guns as remained effective, aided by a flight of rockets. A masked battery played with great effect upon this point, dismounting our pieces, and blowing up our tumbrils. At this moment, Lieut.-General Sir Henry Hardinge placed himself at the head of the left, whilst I rode at the head of the right wing.
“Our line advanced, and, unchecked by the enemy’s fire, drove them rapidly out of the village of Ferozeshah and their encampment; then, changing front to its left, on its centre, our force continued to sweep the camp, bearing down all opposition, and dislodged the enemy from their whole position. The line then halted, as if on a day of manœuvre, receiving its two leaders as they rode along its front with a gratifying cheer, and displaying the captured standards of the Khalsa army. We had taken upwards of seventy-three pieces of cannon, and were masters of the whole field.
“The force assumed a position on the ground which it had won, but even here its labours were not to cease. In the course of two hours, Sirdar Tej Singh, who had commanded in the last great battle, brought up from the vicinity of Ferozepore fresh battalions and a large field of artillery, supported by 30,000 Ghorepurras, hitherto encamped near the river.[346] He drove in our cavalry parties, and made strenuous efforts to regain the position at Ferozeshah; this attempt was defeated; but its failure had scarcely become manifest, when the sirdar renewed the contest with more troops and a large artillery. He commenced by a combination against our left flank; and when this was frustrated, made such a demonstration against the captured villages as compelled us to change our whole front to the right. His guns during this manœuvre maintained an incessant fire, whilst our artillery ammunition being completely expended in these protracted combats, we were unable to answer him with a single shot.
“I now directed our almost exhausted cavalry to threaten both flanks at once, preparing the infantry to advance in support, which apparently caused him suddenly to cease his fire, and abandon the field.
“For twenty-four hours not a Sikh has appeared in our front. The remains of the Khalsa army are said to be in full retreat across the Sutlej, at Nuggurputhur and Tella, or marching up its left bank towards Hurreekeeputhur, in the greatest confusion and dismay. Of their chiefs, Bahadur Singh is killed; Lal Singh said to be wounded; Mehtab Singh, Adjoodhia Pershad, and Tej Singh, the late governor of Peshawur, have fled with precipitation. Their camp is the scene of the most awful carnage, and they have abandoned large stores of grain, camp equipage, and ammunition.
“Thus has apparently terminated this unprovoked and criminal invasion of the peaceful provinces under British protection.
“On the conclusion of such a narrative as I have given, it is surely superfluous in me to say, that I am, and shall be to the last moment of my existence, proud of the army which I had to command on the 21st and 22nd instant. To their gallant exertions I owe the satisfaction of seeing such a victory achieved, and the glory of having my own name associated with it.
“The loss of this army has been heavy;[347] how could a hope be formed that it should be otherwise? Within thirty hours this force stormed an intrenched camp, fought a general action, and sustained two considerable combats with the enemy. Within four days it has dislodged from their positions, on the left bank of the Sutlej, 60,000 Sikh soldiers, supported by upwards of 150 pieces of cannon, 108 of which the enemy acknowledge to have lost, and 91 of which are in our possession.
“In addition to our losses in the battle, the captured camp was found to be everywhere protected by charged mines, by the successive springing of which many brave officers and men have been destroyed.”[348]
These glorious battles were within a month followed up by that of Aliwal—as sanguinary an affair as either of its predecessors, and, in a military point of view, decidedly more scientific in arrangement and execution. In one operation, it seemed a pendant to the beautiful movement on the retreat from Burgos, when Wellington carried his army bodily round Souham’s, and placed the French general in the afternoon, in the same unfavourable position in which he, Wellington, had found himself that morning. The action had not been expected—for the service required had been effected without resistance.
“Though the treaty which held the English and Sikh governments in amity provided that the Sikhs should send no troops across the Sutlej, they were permitted to retain certain jaghires, or feudal possessions, on the left bank, one of which comprised the town and fort of Dheerrumcote. Here the enemy had established a magazine of grain; and a small garrison, consisting of mercenaries, chiefly Rohillas and Affghans, were thrown into the place for its protection. But besides that the grain was needed in the British lines, the presence of a hostile garrison on his own side of the stream was an eyesore and an annoyance to the British general,—and Major-General Sir Harry Smith was directed, with a brigade of infantry and a few guns, to reduce it. He accomplished the service on the 18th of January without loss, or, indeed, sustaining a serious resistance; and was on his way back to camp, when tidings reached the commander-in-chief of a nature not to be dealt lightly with, far less neglected. It was ascertained that the enemy had detached 20,000 men from their camp at Sobraon against Loodiana. Their objects were represented to be, not only the seizure of that place, but the interruption of the British communications with the rear, and, perhaps, the capture of the battering train, which was advancing by Busseean; and Sir Harry Smith, being reinforced to the amount of 8,000 men, received instructions to counterwork the project. His business was to form a junction with Colonel Godby, who, with one regiment of cavalry and four of infantry, occupied Loodiana; and then, and not till then, to push the Sikhs, and drive them, if possible, back upon their own country.”[349]
Here, again, the school in which he had been taught his trade was evidenced in the conduct of the commander, who proved in his hour of trial that Peninsular instruction had not been thrown away. The Sikhs had already shut the garrison of Loodiana in—burned a new barrack, and ravaged the surrounding country—a creeping commander now would have been found wanting—but Smith was a man of different metal—and, pushing rapidly on, a clean march brought him within twenty-five miles of Loodiana—and with the réveil—he resumed his movement next morning.
At Buddewal the enemy shewed himself, occupying a connected line of villages in front, and covered by a powerful artillery. To gain his object, and reach Loodiana, it was necessary for Sir Harry Smith to change his order of march—and while the Sikhs, who had already outflanked him, opened a fire of forty guns on the advancing columns, Smith massed his weak artillery, and under its concentrated and well-directed cannonade, broke into échelons, and threatened the Sikh front, the while making a flank movement by his right, protected en échelon by the cavalry. Nothing could be more beautifully and successfully executed than this delicate manœuvre. Sir Harry carried his guns and baggage round the enemy—a small portion only of the latter passing into the temporary possession of the Sikhs.
“Colonel Godby, who commanded the invested garrison, having seen the cloud of dust, moved from Loodiana; and marching parallel to the direction which it seemed to take, found himself in due time connected by his patrols with Smith’s advanced guard. Both corps upon this placed themselves with Loodiana in their rear, and the enemy before them; the latter being so circumstanced, that the British army lay, as it were, upon one of its flanks. But Smith, though he had thus relieved the town, was unwilling to strike a blow till he could make it decisive. He, therefore, encamped in an attitude of watchfulness, waiting till another brigade should arrive, which, under the command of Colonel Wheeler, was marching from head-quarters to reinforce him.”
Colonel Wheeler’s march seems to have been conducted with equal diligence and care. He heard of the encounter of the 21st, and of its results; whereupon he abandoned the direct road to Loodiana, and following a circuitous route, went round the enemy’s position, without once coming under fire. He reached Sir Harry Smith’s camp in safety; and, on the 26th, Smith made his preparations to fight a great battle. But it was found, ere the columns were put in motion, that the enemy had abandoned their position at Buddewal, and were withdrawn to an intrenched camp nearer to the river, of which the village of Aliwal was the key, covering the ford by which they had crossed, and on which they depended, in the event of a reverse, as a line of retreat. Operations were accordingly suspended, and such further arrangements set going as the altered state of affairs seemed to require.
On the 27th, Runjoor Singh having been reinforced by Avitabile’s brigade, 4,000 Sikh regulars, some cavalry and twelve guns, found himself, as he had reason to believe, in a condition to deliver battle—and to intercept the Anglo-Indian communications, he advanced towards Ingraon—where early on the 28th, Sir Harry Smith found him in position. His right rested on a height, his left on a field intrenchment, while his centre held ground in the immediate front of the village of Aliwal (or Ulleéwal). The Anglo-Indian army amounted to some 12,000 men of all arms—the Sikhs doubled them in numerical strength, and that too was composed of the flower of their army.
The subsequent details of this glorious action may be rapidly described. Smith boldly advanced against the Sikh position, under a heavy cannonade, while the right brigades were getting into line. The advance was splendid—the British cavalry driving the Sikh horsemen on their infantry, forced the left back, capturing several guns, while on the left of the British line, the Ayeen brigade (Avitabile’s) were deforced—and the village of Bhoondi, where the right of the Sikhs endeavoured to make a stand, was carried with the bayonet. A general rout ensued—the enemy pressing in confused masses towards the ford, while every attempt they made to rally was anticipated by a charge, and the destruction of the flower of the Sikh army was completed.
“The firing began about ten in the morning; by one o’clock in the day the Sikh army was broken and routed, the ground covered with its wreck, and the Sutlej choked with the dead and the dying. The whole of the artillery, fifty-seven guns, fell into the hands of the victors, and the booty was immense; but the victors had neither time nor inclination to dwell upon their triumphs. There was no further danger to be apprehended here. Of the 24,000 men who, in the morning, threatened Loodiana, scarcely as many hundreds held together; and these, after a brief show of rally on the opposite bank, melted away and disappeared entirely. Having bivouacked that night, therefore, on the field which he had won, and sent in the wounded, with the captured guns, under sufficient escort, to Loodiana, Sir Harry Smith, with the bulk of his division, took the road to head-quarters; and, in the afternoon of the 8th of February, came into position on the right of the main army, which was his established post.”[350]
In this most glorious battle, the Anglo-Indian army had 151 men killed, 413 wounded, and 25 missing,—a loss comparatively small.
The immediate consequences of the victory of Aliwal, was the evacuation of the left bank of the Sutlej by the enemy. The Sikhs had sustained three terrible defeats; they had lost an enormous quantity of military matériel, 150 guns, and none could presume to estimate the number of their best and bravest troops who had been placed hors de combat. In hundreds, the slaughtered and drowned victims at Aliwal floated to Sobraon with the stream; but still with a tête de pont to secure their bridge-communications with the right bank and the reserve there, formidable intrenchments, armed with seventy heavy guns, and 30,000 of their best troops (the Khalsa), they determined to defend them, boldly held their ground, and dared another battle.
On being rejoined by Sir Harry Smith’s division, and having received his siege-train and a supply of ammunition from Delhi, the commander-in-chief and the governor-general determined to force the Sikh position. Unopposed, they gained possession of Little Sobraon and Kodeewalla—and both the field batteries and heavy guns were planted to throw a concentrated fire upon the intrenchments occupied by the enemy. Close to the river bank, Dick’s division was stationed to assault the Sikh right—while another brigade was held in reserve behind the village of Kodeewalla. In the centre, Gilbert’s division was formed, either for attack or support, its right flank appuied on the village of Little Sobraon. Smith’s division took ground near the village of Guttah, with its right inclining towards the Sutlej—Cureton’s brigade observed the ford at Hurree, and held Lai Singh’s horsemen in check—the remainder of the cavalry, under Major-General Thackwell, acting in reserve. The British batteries opened a lively cannonade soon after sunrise—but guns, in field position, have little chance of silencing artillery covered by strong redoubts. At nine, the attack commenced by Stacy’s brigade of Dick’s division, advancing against the enemy’s intrenchments. The crushing fire of the Sikh guns would have arrested the advance of any but most daring regiments—but the brigadier pressed gallantly on—and while the British bayonet met the Mussulman sabre, the camp was carried. The sappers broke openings in the intrenching mounds, through which, although in single files, the cavalry pushed, reformed, and charged. The Sikh gunners were sabred in their batteries—while the entire of the infantry, and every disposal gun—were promptly brought into action by Sir Hugh Gough. The Sikh fire became more feeble—their best battalions unsteady—and the British pressed boldly on. Wavering troops rarely withstand a struggle, when the bayonet comes into play—and the Khalsas broke entirely, and hurried from the field to the river and bridge. But the hour of retributive vengeance had arrived—and the waters of the Sutlej offered small protection to the fugitives. The stream had risen—the fords were unsafe—and flying from the fire of the horse-artillery, which had opened on the mobbed fugitives with grape shot, hundreds fell under this murderous cannonade, while thousands found a grave in the no longer friendly waters of their native river—until it almost excited the compassion of an irritated enemy.[351]
At Sobraon, the final blow which extinguished the military power of the Sikhs, was delivered. Sixty-seven pieces of artillery, two hundred camel-guns, standards, tumbrils, ammunition, camp equipage—in a word, all that forms the matériel of an army in the field, fell into the hands of the victors. In native armies, no regular returns of the killed and wounded are made out—but the Sikh losses were computed at 8,000 men—and the amount was not exaggerated.
On the bloody height of Sobraon, the Sikh war virtually terminated—for, on that evening, the Anglo-Indian army commenced their march upon Lahore. Frightfully defeated, and humbled to the dust, the once haughty chiefs sent vakeels to implore mercy from the conqueror. The ambassadors, however, were refused an audience—and it was intimated that the British generals would condescend to treat with none except the maha-rajah in person. Trembling for his capital, which nothing but abject submission now could save, the youthful monarch, attended by Rajah Goolab Singh, repaired to the British camp. Stringent terms were most justly exacted—and while the rich district between the Sutlej and the Beeas, and what were termed “the Protected States,” were ceded for ever to Britain, a million and a half sterling was agreed to by the Sikh durbar, as compensation for the expenditure of the war, while the Punjaub should remain in military occupation, until the full amount should be discharged.
Even the Peninsular campaigns did not open under gloomier auspices and close more gloriously, than that beyond the Indus—and Maienee, Dubba, Moodkee, Ferozepore, Aliwal, and Sobraon, were destined to close for the present the glorious roll of—British Victories.
APPENDIX.
No. I.
STORMING OF SAN SEBASTIAN.
The engineer officer[352] who led the column to assault the breach was badly wounded; and after witnessing the retreat of the assailants, thus describes the subsequent events:—
“My attention,” he says, “a short time afterwards, was aroused by an exclamation from the soldier lying next to me,—‘Oh, they are murdering us all!’ Upon looking up, I perceived a number of French grenadiers, under a heavy fire of grape, sword in hand, stepping over the dead, and stabbing the wounded; my companion was treated in the same manner; the sword withdrawn from his body, and reeking with his blood, was raised to give me the coup de grace, when fortunately the uplifted arm was arrested by a smart little man, a serjeant, who cried out, ‘Oh, mon Colonel, êtes-vous blessé!’ and immediately ordered some of his men to remove me into the town. They raised me in their arms, and carried me, without the slightest difficulty, up the breach on to the ramparts of the right flanking tower; here we were stopped by a captain of the grenadiers, who asked some questions, then kissed me, and desired the party to proceed to the hospital. On passing the embrasures of the high curtain, we were exposed to a very sharp musketry fire from the trenches; and here it was that we met the governor and his staff in full-dress uniforms, hurrying to the breach. He asked me if I was badly wounded, and directed that proper care should be taken of me.”
A fortunate mistake thus saved the gallant subaltern,—and a blue uniform and gold bullion epaulette, indirectly became the means of his preservation.
Treated coarsely by a drunken officer, who tore his sword and belt away, Colonel Jones was carried to the hospital. A French soldier was instantly turned out of bed to accommodate the prisoner. He was dressed skilfully by the surgeons, visited by the governor, and received generally the kindest treatment. His wounds were speedily convalescent, and in a few days he was enabled to move into the gallery running round the court-yard of the hospital, which was a house of considerable size, built in the usual Spanish style, having a court-yard in the centre, with a large entrance-door from the street—galleries from each story running round it, into which all the doors and windows of the rooms respectively opened, excepting on the side of the street.
From the height of the buildings the prospect was almost limited to the sky,—while within, the convalescent had scenes presented which generally are not obtruded on those who have themselves been sufferers.
“One day, whilst sitting in the gallery, I observed a table placed in the one below me, and on the opposite side of the court-yard; immediately afterwards, an unfortunate French gunner was laid upon it, and both his arms amputated, his hands having been blown off by an accident in one of the batteries. In the course of the morning, whilst conversing with the surgeon who had performed the operation, he told me that he acted contrary to his instructions, which were, never to amputate, but to cure if possible. And upon asking the reason for such an inhuman order having been issued, his reply was the emperor did not wish that numbers of mutilated men should be sent back to France, as it would make a bad impression upon the people. I replied, ‘You must be a bold man to act in opposition to this order.’ He said, ‘Affairs are beginning to change, and, moreover, circumstances make it necessary that the soldiers should know they will be taken proper care of in the event of being wounded, and not left to die like dogs; we send as many as we can at night to Bayonne by the boats—thus we clear out the hospitals, and are relieved from a great deal of labour.’”
In the course of Colonel Jones’s conversation with French officers, many facts which transpired shewed the terrific outrages on moral principle involved in Napoleon’s theory of making “war support war.” One example illustrates the practice.
“In discoursing about the expeditions that detachments of their troops frequently made from the great stations, for a period of eighteen or twenty days, I inquired how they managed to provision them for so long a time. The answer was, ‘Our biscuits are made with a hole in the centre, and each biscuit is the ration for a day; sometimes twenty are delivered to each individual, who is given to understand that he has no claims upon the commissariat for the number of days corresponding with the number of biscuits he receives.’ I observed it was not possible for the soldier to carry them. ‘We know that very well; but then he has no claim upon the government for that period, and we do not inquire how he lives in the interim!’”
Now mark the consequences of this infernal system, as it was gathered from the same authorities. “They detailed acts committed by their soldiers in Spain, so revolting to human nature, that I dare not commit them to paper; the reader would be disgusted with the recital, and my veracity impeached; and equally incredulous should I have been, had not the narrators declared they had witnessed the scenes which they had described.”
It is certain that during the conduct of the Peninsular campaign, the espionage employed on both sides was most extensive,—and like melo-dramatic farce, occasionally diversified the more serious business of the piece enacting. In the humblest individuals the most effective agents were sometimes found. A barber and a priest enabled Lord Wellington to cross the Douro; and as humble an individual might have opened the entrance into San Sebastian, sealed as it was against a victorious army and means never exceeded by any general who had ever sat down before a fortress,—had fortune only permitted another barber’s agency to have been carried into effect. “From my first entrance into the hospital, I had been attended by a Spanish barber, in whose house a French officer was billeted. As I could speak Spanish fluently, we had a great deal of conversation. He used to communicate to me all he heard and saw of what was passing both inside and outside the fortress. When he learnt that I was an engineer, he offered to bring me a plan of all the under-ground drains and aqueducts for bringing water into the town. Monsieur Joliffe, our attendant, although a good-natured man, kept a sharp eye on the barber; and in consequence, it was difficult for him to give me any thing without being detected. At last, one morning, when preparing for the operation of shaving me, he succeeded in shoving a plan under the bedclothes. I anxiously seized the earliest opportunity of examining it; and, from the knowledge I had previously acquired of the place, soon became acquainted with the directions of the drains, &c. From that moment my whole attention was fixed on the means of making my escape. I knew that the hospital was situated in the principal street, the ends of which terminated upon the fortifications bounding the harbour or the sea. If once I could gain the street, I had only to turn to the right or left to gain the ramparts, and to make my escape from the town in the best manner I could. One evening just at dusk, when the medical men took leave of us for the night, one of them left his cocked hat on my bed. As soon as I made the discovery, I put it on my head, hurried down stairs, and made direct for the great door. I found it so completely blocked up by the guard, that unless by pushing them aside, it was not possible to pass without being discovered; I therefore retreated up stairs in despair, and threw the hat down on the bed. Scarcely had I done so, when in rushed the doctor, inquiring for his lost chapeau.”
As I have alluded to the unscrupulous means resorted to to obtain information, I may apprize you here, that it was a matter of surprise to all who were not aware of the extensive espionage employed on both sides, how accurately Lord Wellington and the French marshals to whom he was opposed were acquainted with the objects and the capabilities of each other. At Lisbon, many persons in immediate connection with the Regency were more than suspected of holding a correspondence with the French; and their treachery was encouraged by the culpable misconduct of the Portuguese government in not punishing criminals whose treasons had been established beyond a question. The English newspapers were regularly transmitted from Paris by Napoleon; and they teemed with intelligence mischievously correct, and that too, from the head-quarters of the Allied army;—and though a circumstance of rare occurrence—if an intimation of what he intended to attempt escaped from Lord Wellington’s lips to the Spaniards with whom he was in communication, through the indiscretion of these individuals it was sure to reach the enemy. He says, writing to his brother,—“I apprized —— of my intention and plan for attacking Ciudad Rodrigo, and him alone, the success of which depends principally upon the length of time during which I can keep it concealed from the enemy. Some Spanish women at Portalegre were apprized of the plan by him, and it must reach the enemy!!! Yet —— is one of the best of them.”
Through the correspondence intercepted by the guerillas, Lord Wellington constantly obtained the most valuable information. This was generally contained in letters from the French generals themselves, intended to direct the movements of their colleagues. Although their despatches were written in cipher, the Allied leader generally contrived to find out the key which unveiled their contents; and his own secret espionage was even more extensive than the enemy’s. “He had a number of spies amongst the Spaniards who were living within the French lines; a British officer in disguise constantly visited the French armies in the field; a Spanish state-counsellor, living at the head-quarters of the first corps, gave intelligence from that side; and a guitar-player of celebrity, named Fuentes, repeatedly making his way to Madrid, brought advice from thence. Mr. Stuart, under cover of vessels licensed to fetch corn from France, kept chasse-marées constantly plying along the Biscay coast, by which he not only acquired direct information, but facilitated the transmission of intelligence from the land spies, amongst whom the most remarkable was a cobbler, living in a little hutch at the end of the bridge of Irun. This man, while plying his trade, continued for years, without being suspected, to count every French soldier that passed in or out of Spain by that passage, and transmitted their numbers by the chasse-marées to Lisbon.”[353]
But to return to Colonel Jones’s interesting recollections:—
“It appeared that there was a very great difference in the accuracy of firing by the troops in the trenches. The chief of the staff, Monsieur Songeon, inquired what description of troops we had that fired so well. He said, ‘Some days I can look over the parapets without the slightest molestation; on other days it is not possible to shew my nose, without the certainty of being shot.’”
The extensive preparations for opening the Allied fire upon the place naturally caused much uneasiness to the garrison.
“One morning, a captain of artillery, whom I had never before seen, came into the ward, and commenced conversing about the siege, addressing himself particularly to me; he observed that the whole second parallel was one entire battery; and if there were as many guns as there were embrasures, he said, ‘we shall be terribly mauled.’ My reply was, ‘Most assuredly you will; depend upon it there are as many guns as embrasures, it is not our fashion to make batteries, and stick logs of wood into them in the hopes of frightening an enemy. He made a grimace, and with a shrug of his shoulders walked out of the ward. The following morning the surgeon came, as usual, to dress our wounds; this was about half-past seven; all was still, and he joyously exclaimed, as he entered, ‘So we have another day’s reprieve!’ In about half an hour afterwards, and whilst I was under his hands, the first salvo from the breaching batteries was fired; several shots rattled through the hospital, and disturbed the tranquillity of the inmates; the instrument dropped from the surgeon’s hands, and he exclaimed, Le jeu sera bientôt fini! and then very composedly went on with his work.
“After the breaching batteries had opened their fire, I was asked by a French officer whether I thought that the prisoners would remain quiet when an assault of the breach should take place; and he added, if they were to make any attempts, they would all be shot. I replied, ‘You may depend upon it that, if any opportunity offers, they will not be backward in taking advantage of it; do not fancy you have a flock of sheep penned within these walls; and happen what may, shoot us or not, you will be required to give a satisfactory account of us when the castle is taken.’” On the morning of the storm (the 21st of August), the roll of musketry announced that the trial had begun,—and the intermediate space of time, until the fall of San Sebastian had been ascertained, was one of painful solicitude to the prisoners in the keep.
“From the commencement of the assault, until the rush into the castle upon the capture of the town, not the slightest information could we obtain as to the state of affairs at the breach. The period that intervened was one of the most anxious and painful suspense: at last the tale was told, and who can describe the spectacle the interior of the hospital presented. In an instant the ward was crowded with the wounded and maimed; the amputation-table again brought into play; and until nearly daylight the following morning, the surgeons were unceasingly at work. To have such a scene passing at the foot of my bed, was sufficiently painful; added to this, the agonizing shrieks and groans, and the appearance of the grenadiers and sappers, who had been blown up by the explosion of the breach—their uniforms nearly burnt off, and their skins blackened and scorched by gunpowder—was truly appalling, the recollection of which can never be effaced from the memories of those whose ill fate compelled them to witness it. The appearance of these men resembled anything but human beings: death soon put an end to their sufferings, and relieved us from these most distressing sights. Of all wounds, whether of fractured limbs or otherwise, those occasioned by burns from gunpowder appeared to be accompanied with the most excruciating pain and constant suffering.”
Nor did the sufferings of the wounded end with their removal from the breach; for one sad visitation of war followed fast upon the other.
“After the capture of the town, a heavy bombardment of the castle took place, by salvos of shells from upwards of sixty pieces of artillery; the short interval of time which elapsed between the report of the discharge of the guns and mortars, and the noise of the descent of the shells, was that of a few seconds only. The effect of these salvos by day, terrific and destructive as they proved, was little heeded in comparison with the nightly discharges. Those of the wounded and mutilated who were fortunate enough to have found temporary relief from their sufferings by sleep, were awakened to all the horrors and misery of their situation by the crash of ten or a dozen shells falling upon and around the building, and whose fuzes threw a lurid light into the interior of the ward; the silence within, unbroken save by the hissing of the burning composition; the agonizing feelings of the wounded during these few moments of suspense are not to be described. No one could feel assured of escaping the destruction which was a certain attendant upon the explosion, to be immediately succeeded by the cries and groans of those who were again wounded.
“Many an unfortunate soldier was brought to the amputation-table to undergo a second operation; and in the discharge of this painful duty the medical men were engaged nearly the entire night. As to rest, none could be obtained or expected with such scenes passing around a person’s bed. The legs and arms, as soon as amputated, were carried out, and thrown away on the rocks. It was a novel, and by no means an agreeable sight, but one which I was daily compelled to witness.”
The tremendous effects produced by the British projectiles are vividly described, and it is hard to decide whether the shrapnel or common shell was most destructive.
“The effects of the vertical fire in the interior of the castle immediately after the capture of the town were so destructive and annoying, that, had it been continued six hours longer, the garrison, I have no doubt, would have surrendered at discretion. The officers were loud in their complaints at the obstinacy of the governor, as they said, in uselessly sacrificing the lives of the soldiers. They had lost all hope, or nearly so, that Soult could make any successful attempt for their relief. During this period everybody sought shelter where best he could among the rocks; still no nook or corner appeared to be a protection from the shrapnel-shells. A sergeant of the Royals, standing at the foot of my bedstead, was killed by a ball from a shrapnel-shell, and fell dead upon me. An Italian soldier, who had been appointed to attend upon the wounded prisoners, whilst endeavouring, close to the hospital door, to prepare some bouillon for our dinner, was, with his marmite, blown into the air; and so ended, for the day, all hopes of obtaining a little nourishment. Life and bustle had disappeared; scarcely an individual was to be seen moving about.
* * * * *
“The shriek of the bullets from the shrapnel-shell is very different from the whistle of a musket-ball; and oft repeated was the exclamation, Ah! ces sacrés boulets creux!
“It may not be unworthy of remark, that the bullets discharged from a shrapnel-shell assume the form of a polygonal prism. A French officer showed me one that had just been extracted from a wounded man; he anxiously inquired whether they were of that form when put into the shell. I afterwards observed the same in many others, which, at my request, were handed to me by the operating surgeons.
“The excellence of the British artillery is well known. Nothing could surpass the precision with which the shells were thrown, and the accuracy with which the fuzes were cut. It is only those who have had the opportunity of witnessing their fire, and comparing it with that of the French, that can speak of its superiority. During the siege, we little heeded the lazy French shells thrown into the batteries or trenches. From the length of the fuzes, sufficient time was almost always allowed, before bursting, to put ourselves under cover; and, when they did burst, the splinters flew lazily around. On the contrary, when the sound of an English shell was heard in the castle, or when the man stationed in the donjon cried, Garde la bombe, everybody was on the alert. The velocity of its flight far exceeded that of the French. Touching the ground and bursting were almost simultaneous; and then the havoc and destruction caused by the splinters were tremendous.
“None but those who have been exposed to the effects of shrapnel-shells can fully appreciate the advantages of possessing such a terrific and destructive missile. It appeared to be of little avail where a man placed himself for protection. No place was secure from them; and many a soldier was wounded without having been aware that any shell had exploded in his neighbourhood.”
With an episode in which the fair sex are introduced, and where French gallantry does not appear advantageously, I shall close my observations on the sieges—
“There were,” says Colonel Jones, “three French ladies in the garrison—the widow and two daughters of a French commissary-general who had died in Spain: they were on their way to France when the investment took place. These ladies were permitted to enter the hospital, and were allowed a small place at one end of the wooden bedstead, where they remained for several days and nights; the only water they could obtain to wash since the island of Santa Clare had been in the possession of the besiegers, was the same that we had,—sea-water, which the attendants contrived to procure by descending the rocks at the back of the castle. The small quantity of fresh water obtained from the tank during the night was reserved for cookery or drinking, which was greatly needed by the troops during the fatigue and heat to which they were exposed at this very hot season of the year. As the number of the wounded increased, so the accommodation in the hospital became more restricted. Some of the officers who were lying upon the floor were loud in their complaints, that Madame and her daughters were occupying the space which properly belonged to them; they succeeded in getting the ladies turned out to find shelter from shot and shell where they best could! The day the castle capitulated, I went in search of my fair companions, and found them nearly smoke-dried, under a small projecting rock. One of the young ladies was extremely pretty, and shortly after the siege was married to the English commissary appointed to attend on the garrison until they embarked for England. The change from the hospital to the naked rock, however, relieved them from witnessing many a painful scene, as the amputating-table was placed at the bottom of the bedstead in that part of the room allotted to their use.”
APPENDIX
No. II.
NARRATIVE OF NAPOLEON’S ADVENTURES, FROM HIS ESCAPE FROM ELBA UNTIL HIS ARRIVAL AT THE TUILLERIES.
(Abridged from the Moniteur of the 26th of March, 1815.)
On the 26th of February, at five in the evening, he embarked on board a brig, carrying 26 guns, with 400 men of his guard. Three other vessels which happened to be in the port, and which were seized, received 200 infantry, 100 Polish light horse, and the battalion of flankers of 200 men. The wind was south, and appeared favourable; Captain Chaubard was in hopes that before break of day the isle of Capraia would be doubled, and that he should be out of the track of the French and English cruisers who watched the coast. This hope was disappointed. He had scarcely doubled Cape St. Andre, in the isle of Elba, when the wind fell, and the sea became calm; at break of day he had only made six leagues, and was still between the isle of Capraia and the isle of Elba, in sight of the cruisers.—The peril appeared imminent; several of the mariners were for returning to Porto Ferrajo. The Emperor ordered the voyage to be continued, having for a resource, in the last resort, to seize the French cruisers. They consisted of two frigates and a brig, but all that was known of the attachment of the crews to the national glory would not admit of a doubt that they would have hoisted the tri-coloured flag and ranged themselves on our side. Towards noon the wind freshened a little. At four in the afternoon we were off the heights of Leghorn; a frigate appeared five leagues to windward, another was on the coast of Corsica, and farther off a vessel of war was coming right before the wind, in the track of the brig. At six o’clock in the evening, the brig, which had on board the Emperor, met with a brig which was recognised to be Le Zéphir, commanded by Captain Andrieux, an officer distinguished as much by his talents as by his true patriotism. It was proposed to speak the brig, and cause it to hoist the tri-coloured flag. The Emperor, however, gave orders to the soldiers of the guard to take off their caps, and conceal themselves on the deck, preferring to pass the brig without being recognised, and reserving to himself the measure of causing the flag to be changed, if obliged to have recourse to it. The two brigs passed side by side. The Lieutenant de Vaisseau Taillade, an officer of the French marine, was well acquainted with Captain Andrieux, and from this circumstance was disposed to speak him. He asked Captain Andrieux if he had any commissions for Genoa; some pleasantries were exchanged, and the two brigs going contrary ways, were soon out of sight of each other, without Captain Andrieux having the least knowledge of who was on board this frail vessel.
During the night between the 27th and 28th, the wind continued fresh. At break of day we observed a 74-gun ship, which seemed to be making for Saint Florent or Sardinia. We did not fail to perceive that this vessel took no notice of the brig.
The 28th, at seven in the morning, we discovered the coast of Noli; at noon, Antibes; at three on the 1st of March we entered the Gulf of Juan. The Emperor ordered that a captain of the guard, with twenty-five men, should disembark before the troops in the brig, to secure the battery on the coast, if any one was there. This captain took into his head the idea of causing to be changed the cockade of the battalion which was at Antibes. He imprudently threw himself into the place; the officer who commanded for the king caused the drawbridges to be drawn up, and shut the gates; his troops took arms, but they respected these old soldiers, and the cockade which they cherished. The operation, however, of the captain failed, and his men remained prisoners at Antibes. At five in the afternoon the disembarkation in the Gulf of Juan was effected. We established a bivouac on the seashore until the moon rose.
At eleven at night the Emperor placed himself at the head of his handful of brave men, to whose fate were attached such high destinies. He proceeded to Cannes, from thence to Grasse, and by Saint Vallier; he arrived on the evening of the 2nd at the village of Cerenon, having advanced twenty leagues in the course of the first day. The people of Cannes received the Emperor with sentiments which were the first presage of the success of the enterprise.
The 3rd the Emperor slept at Bareme; the 4th he dined at Digue. From Castellane to Digue, and throughout the department of the Lower Alps, the peasants, informed of the march of the Emperor, assembled from all sides on the route, and manifested their sentiments with an energy that left no longer any doubt. The 5th, General Cambronne, with an advanced guard of forty grenadiers, seized the bridge and the fortress of Sisteron. The same day, the Emperor slept at Gap, with ten men on horseback and forty grenadiers. The enthusiasm which the presence of the Emperor inspired amongst the inhabitants of the Lower Alps, the hatred which they evinced to the noblesse, sufficiently proved what was the general wish of the province of Dauphine.—At two in the afternoon of the 6th the Emperor set out from Gap, accompanied by the whole population of the town. At Saint Bonnet the inhabitants, seeing the small number of his troop, had fears, and proposed to the Emperor to sound the tocsin to assemble the villages, and accompany him en masse:—“No,” said the Emperor, “your sentiments convince me that I am not deceived. They are to me a sure guarantee of the sentiments of my soldiers. Those whom I shall meet will range themselves on my side; the more there is of them the more my success will be secured. Remain, therefore, tranquil at home.”—At Gap were printed several thousand proclamations, addressed by the Emperor to the army and to the people, and from the soldiers of the Guards to their comrades. These proclamations were spread with the rapidity of lightning throughout Dauphine.
The same day the Emperor came to sleep at Gorp. The forty men of the advanced guard of General Cambronne went to sleep at Mure. They fell in with the advanced guard of a division of 6,000 men, troops of the line, who had come from Grenoble to arrest their march. General Cambronne wished to speak with the advanced posts. He was answered that they were prohibited from communicating with him. This advanced guard, however, of the division of Grenoble, fell back three leagues, and took a position between the lakes at the village of ——.
The Emperor, being informed of this circumstance, went to the place, and found there a battalion of the 5th of the line; a company of sappers, a company of miners; in all from seven to eight hundred men. He sent an officer of ordnance, the chef d’escadron Roul, to make known to these troops the intelligence of his arrival; but that officer could not obtain a hearing, the prohibition being still urged against having any communication. The Emperor alighted and went to the right of the battalion, followed by the guard with their arms reversed. He made himself known, and said that the first soldier who wished to kill his Emperor might do it: an unanimous cry of Vive l’Empereur was their answer. This brave regiment had been under the orders of the Emperor from his first campaign in Italy. The guard and the soldiers embraced. The soldiers of the 5th immediately tore off their cockade, and requested, with enthusiasm and tears in their eyes, the tri-coloured cockade. When they were arranged in order of battle, the Emperor said to them—“I come with a handful of brave men, because I reckon on the people and on you—the throne of the Bourbons is illegitimate, because it has not been raised by the nation; it is contrary to the national will, because it is contrary to the interests of our country, and exists only for the interests of a few families. Ask your fathers, ask all the inhabitants who arrive here from the environs, and you will learn from their own mouths the true situation of affairs; they are menaced with the return of tithes, of privileges, of feudal rights, and of all the abuses from which your successes had delivered them. Is it not true, peasants?”—“Yes, Sire,” answered all of them with an unanimous cry, “they wish to chain us to the soil—you come as the angel of the Lord to save us!”
The brave soldiers of the battalion of the 5th demanded to march the foremost in the division that covered Grenoble. They commenced their march in the midst of a crowd of inhabitants, which augmented every moment. Vizille distinguished itself by its enthusiasm. “It was here that the Revolution was born,” said these brave people. “It was we who were the first that ventured to claim the privileges of men; it is again here that French liberty is resuscitated, and that France recovers her honour and her independence.”
Fatigued as the Emperor was, he wished to enter Grenoble the same evening. Between Vizille and Grenoble, the young adjutant-major of the 7th of the line, came to announce that Colonel Labedoyere, deeply disgusted with the dishonour which covered France, and actuated by the noblest sentiments, had detached himself from the division of Grenoble, and had come with the regiment, by a forced march, to meet the Emperor. Half an hour afterwards this brave regiment doubled the force of the imperial troops. At nine o’clock in the evening, the Emperor made his entry into the Faubourg de——.
The troops had re-entered Grenoble, and the gates of the city were shut. The ramparts which defended the city were covered by the 3rd regiment of engineers; consisting of 2,000 sappers, all old soldiers covered with honourable wounds; by the 4th of artillery of the line, the same regiment in which, twenty-five years before, the Emperor had been a captain; by the two other battalions of the 5th of the line, by the 11th of the line, and the faithful hussars of the 4th.—The national guard and the whole population of Grenoble were placed in the rear of the garrison, and made all the air ring with shouts of Vive l’Empereur. They opened the gates, and at ten at night the Emperor entered Grenoble, in the midst of an army and a people animated by the most lively enthusiasm.
The next day the Emperor was addressed by the municipality and all the departmental authorities. The military chiefs and the magistrates were unanimous in their sentiments. All said that princes imposed by a foreign force were not legitimate princes, and that they were not bound by any engagement to princes for whom the nation had no wish. At two the Emperor reviewed the troops, in the midst of the population of the whole department, shouting A bas les Bourbons! A bas les ennemis du peuple! Vive l’Empereur, et un gouvernement de notre choix. The garrison of Grenoble immediately afterwards put itself in a forced march to advance upon Lyons. It is a remark that has not escaped observers, that every one of these 6,000 men were provided with a national cockade, and each with an old and used cockade, for, in discontinuing their tri-coloured cockade, they had hidden it at the bottom of their knapsacks; not one was purchased, at least in Grenoble. It is the same, said they in passing before the Emperor, it is the same that we wore at Austerlitz. This, said the others, we had at Marengo.
The 9th the Emperor slept at Bourgoin. The crowd, and the enthusiasm with it, if possible increased. “We have expected you a long time,” said these brave people to the Emperor; “you have at length arrived to deliver France from the insolence of the noblesse, the pretensions of the priests, and the shame of a foreign yoke.” From Grenoble to Lyons the march of the Emperor was nothing but a triumph. The Emperor, fatigued, was in his carriage, going at a slow pace, surrounded by a crowd of peasants, singing songs which expressed to all the noblesse the sentiments of the brave Dauphinois. “Ah,” said the Emperor, “I find here the sentiments which for twenty years induced me to greet France with the name of the Grand Nation; yes, you are still the Grand Nation, and you shall always be so.”
The Count d’Artois, the Duc d’Orléans, and several marshals, had arrived at Lyons. Money had been distributed to the troops, and promises to the officers. They wished to break down the bridge de la Guillotière and the bridge Moraud. The Emperor smiled at these ridiculous preparations. He could have no doubt of the disposition of the Lyonnois, still less of the disposition of the soldiers. He gave orders, however, to General Bertrand to assemble the boats at Misbel, with the intention of passing in the night, and intercepting the roads of Moulins and of Macon to the prince who wished to prevent him from passing the Rhone. At four a reconnaissance of the 4th hussars arrived at la Guillotière, and were received with shouts of Vive l’Empereur! by the immense population of a faubourg which is still distinguished by its attachment to the country. The passage of Misbel was countermanded, and the Emperor advanced at a gallop upon Lyons, at the head of the troops which were to have defended it against him. The Count d’Artois had done everything to secure the troops. He was ignorant that nothing is possible in France to an agent of a foreign power, and one who is not on the side of national honour and the cause of the people. Passing in front of the 13th regiment of dragoons, he said to a brave soldier covered with scars, and decorated with three chevrons, “Let us march, comrade; shout, therefore, Vive le Roi!” “No, monsieur,” replied this brave dragoon, “no soldier will fight against his father. I can only answer you by crying Vive l’Empereur!” The Count d’Artois mounted his carriage and quitted Lyons, escorted by a single gendarme. At nine o’clock at night the Emperor traversed the Guillotière almost alone, but surrounded by an immense population.
The following day, the 11th, he reviewed the whole division of Lyons, and the brave General Brayer, at their head, put them in march to advance upon the capital. The sentiments which the inhabitants of this great city and the peasants of the vicinity, during the space of two hours, evinced towards the Emperor, so touched him, that it was impossible for him to express his feelings otherwise than by saying, “People of Lyons, I love you.” This was the second time that the acclamations of this city had been the presage of new destinies reserved for France.
On the 13th, at three in the afternoon, the Emperor arrived at Villefranche, a little town of 4,000 souls, which included at that moment more than 60,000. He stopped at the hôtel de ville. A great number of wounded soldiers were presented to him. He entered Macon at seven o’clock in the evening, always surrounded by the people of the neighbouring districts. He expressed his astonishment to the natives of Macon at the slight efforts they made in the last war to defend themselves against the enemy, and support the honour of Burgundy.—“Sire, why did you appoint a bad mayor?”
At Tournies the Emperor had only praises to bestow upon the inhabitants, for their excellent behaviour and patriotism, which under the same circumstances have distinguished Tournies, Chalons, and St. Jean-de-Lone. At Chalons, which during forty days resisted the force of the enemy, and defended the passage of the Saone, the Emperor took notice of all the instances of valour; and not being able to visit St. Jean-de-Lone, he sent the decoration of the Legion of Honour to the worthy mayor of that city. On that occasion the Emperor exclaimed, “It is for you, brave people, that I have instituted the Legion of Honour, and not for emigrants pensioned by our enemies.”
The Emperor received at Chalons the deputation of the town of Dijon, who came to drive from among them the prefect and the wicked mayor, who, during the last campaign, had dishonoured Dijon and its inhabitants. The Emperor removed this mayor and appointed another, confiding the command of the division to the brave General Devaux.
On the 15th the Emperor slept at Autun, and from Autun he went to Avallon, and slept there on the night of the 16th. He found upon this road the same sentiments as among the mountains of Dauphiny. He re-established in their office all the functionaries who had been deprived for having united to defend their country against foreigners. The inhabitants of Chiffey had been peculiarly the object of persecution by an upstart sub-prefect at Semur, for having taken up arms against the enemies of our country. The Emperor gave orders to a brigadier of gendarmerie to arrest this sub-prefect, and to conduct him to the prison of Avallon.
On the 17th, the Emperor breakfasted at Vermanton, and went to Auxerre, where the prefect remained faithful to his post. The noble 14th had trampled under foot the white cockade. The Emperor likewise heard that the 6th regiment of lancers had likewise mounted the tri-coloured cockade, and was gone to Montereau to protect that point against a detachment of the body-guard who wished to pass it. The young men of this body-guard, unaccustomed to the effects of lancers, took flight on the first appearance of this corps, which made two prisoners. At Auxerre, Count Bertrand, major-general, gave orders to collect all the boats to embark the army, which was already four divisions strong, and to convey them the same night to Fossard, so that they would be able to arrive at one o’clock in the morning at Fontainbleau. Before he left Auxerre the Emperor was rejoined by the Prince of Moskwa. This marshal had mounted the tri-coloured cockade among all the troops under his command.
The Emperor reached Fontainbleau on the 20th, at four o’clock in the morning. At seven o’clock he learned that the Bourbons had left Paris, and that the capital was free. He immediately set off thither, and at nine o’clock at night he entered the Tuilleries, at the moment when he was least expected.
APPENDIX
No. III.
GENERAL FOY’S OBSERVATIONS ON THE CHARACTER AND COMPOSITION OF THE FRENCH, BRITISH, AND SPANISH ARMIES.
War, considered as a technical science, has made constant but slow advances, from the first employment of gunpowder to the revival of the equal step in marching, and to the improved system of firing of the Prussian armies. It will now, probably, remain stationary till some capital discovery shall produce a revolution in the arts. In fact, twenty-four years of battles fought by the French with nearly the whole world, have not suggested any alteration in the principal weapon of the moderns,—the musket provided with the bayonet; and the science of tactics has not materially advanced beyond the combinations devised by the great Frederick.
The Imperial army of France was more scientifically regulated, more plentifully supplied with money, clothing, arms, and ammunition, than the armies of the Republic had ever been.
After the Revolution the general officers of the French army exchanged the vague denomination of lieutenant-general, and maréchal de camp, for those of general of division and general of brigade, as more precise and significant. Bodies of infantry, consisting of three battalions, were then called demi-brigades; but Napoleon afterwards restored the name of regiment, and gave the rank of colonel to its chief. A regiment usually consisted of three battalions (though in the Peninsular war they were formed into five battalions of six companies each), and possessed but one eagle, which usually accompanied the first battalion. The battalion of infantry consisted of nine companies, including one of grenadiers. Napoleon subsequently added a picked company called voltigeurs, composed of men of small stature, but intelligent and active.
These voltigeurs constituted the light infantry of the French armies, and habitually performed the service of tirailleurs. An action always commenced with swarms of tirailleurs on foot and on horseback: this species of fighting favoured the development of individual faculties, and was eminently suited to the restless spirit and courage in attack peculiar to the French. This mode of combat was an innovation upon the old system of tactics, and foreigners ascribed the first successes of the French armies to the prodigal use of light troops. The tirailleurs harassed the enemy, escaped from his masses by their velocity, and from his artillery by their dispersion. No army has its flanks wholly impregnable; there will always be found gaps that favour the assailant—into these the tirailleurs rushed by inspiration; a weak point once discovered, all vied in their efforts against it. The flying artillery—another innovation upon the old school, dashed up at a gallop, and discharged their pieces in the very teeth of the enemy. The main army moved in the direction thus pointed out to it; the infantry in columns; the cavalry interposed by regiments or in squadrons, ready for every emergency that the battle might present. To withstand the shock of French troops thus brought into action, the German armies, apathetic in the cause for which they were contending, and commanded by sexagenarian generals, were manifestly inefficient. It satisfied their ideas of the art of war if the flanks were turned: or merely passed; their cumbrous masses, drawn up laboriously in right lines, then quickly broke. The French foot-soldiers of five feet high brought in the giants of Germany and Croatia as prisoners by hundreds; the horse-chasseurs made themselves masters of the enemies’ guns and their ill-appointed trains; and the fugitives owed their safety to the firmness of their heavy cavalry, which was at first superior to the French. The regulations for the infantry manœuvres were constantly varied in their practical application by the most intelligent commanders, to suit the exigencies of modern warfare. In this manner was adopted the practice of facing and fighting with the third rank as well as the first; movements were also frequently made upon two ranks to shew that the third is only a reserve intended to support the other two; the square, which the Arabs had taught the French to adopt in Egypt, became a fundamental formation for infantry. The successive firing by ranks was found the most suitable to employ against cavalry, from its not having the defenceless intervals of the battalion fire, and also from its not interfering so much with the use of the bayonet.
Cavalry cannot be organized upon the same plan of uniformity as infantry; it requires different arms, equipments, and horses, according to the peculiar purposes for which they are required. Napoleon endeavoured to render the varied character of the cavalry more distinct. The heavy cavalry (cuirassiers) was reduced to the number indispensable for its employment in pitched battles. The dragoons, an amphibious creation of an age when fire-arms were not brought to perfection, were nearly disorganized preparatory to the intended expedition to England: part of them were dismounted; this change furnished, instead of good cavalry, a small increase of indifferent and expensive infantry. When afterwards remounted, they supplied almost exclusively the whole service of the cavalry in the Peninsular war. During the latter years of the Imperial Government, several regiments of dragoons were converted into lancers. Montecuculli calls the lance, “la reine des armes blanches:” this weapon, from its reaching farther than any other, is indeed the most formidable employed by cavalry.
The horse-chasseurs and the hussars, who differ only in certain modifications of their uniform, were the easiest to mount, recruit, and train, and were found to be of the most service in war; Napoleon, accordingly, increased their number. The cavalry of the line consisted, in 1807, of two regiments of carabineers, twelve of cuirassiers, thirty of dragoons, twenty-four of chasseurs, and ten of hussars, making a total of seventy-eight regiments.
The cavalry retained the monarchical physiognomy longer than the infantry. The Revolution had not improved their quality; during the first campaigns they could, therefore, scarcely cope with the German cuirassiers, the Walloon dragoons, and the Hungarian hussars. Large bodies of French cavalry were then seldom employed together, and when brought into the field in masses were most frequently worsted. The French are not naturally good horsemen, a great part of the soil being cultivated with the aid of oxen; and, from the restless vivacity of the national character, they find it difficult to identify themselves with the horse.
With these defects, it was to be apprehended that the cavalry would decline. The contrary happened eventually, and may be partly accounted for by the facilities that conquest afforded in furnishing remounts, and in introducing finer breeds of horses. The horse-soldiers, moreover, sustained less loss than the infantry, and the old regiments, by means of provisional augmentation, constantly adding to their force, acquired an abundance of veteran soldiers. Young men of family, mostly impatient of the austere discipline of the infantry, readily furnished active, ardent, and well-mounted horsemen. The principal cause of the unhoped-for improvement in the French cavalry, however, must be ascribed to the system adopted by Napoleon for the conduct of that arm in war.
It was no sooner better instructed and better mounted than it became more terrible to its adversaries, and its employment was not confined, as it used to be, to the completion of the victory. It entered the lists against unbroken masses of infantry and cavalry, and its ardour sometimes decided the fate of battles.
Officers of cavalry, like the Neys and the Richepanses, were thinly strewed in the armies of the Republic. But at the head of the Imperial squadrons were seen Murat, Lasalle, Kellermann, Montbrun, and other men, who excelled in the art of regulating and directing vast “hurricanes of cavalry.” The decision so requisite in a commander-in-chief should also be possessed by the general of cavalry. With a coup d’œil, as rapid as lightning, he must combine the vigour of youth, a powerful voice, and the agility and address of a centaur. Above all, it is requisite that he should be prodigally endowed with that precious faculty which no other can replace, and which is more rare than is generally supposed,—unflinching bravery.
The French artillery, previously to the Revolution, had the reputation of being the first in Europe. It was in the regiment of La Fère, the first of that arm, that Buonaparte commenced his military career. The artillery participated in the enthusiasm of the Revolution, but its discipline scarcely suffered. It took an active part in the defence of the country, and in the offensive movements of the armies in 1792 and 1793. At that time great numbers of cannon were employed in battle. The four-pounders were attached to battalions of infantry; the howitzers, the eight, the twelve, and even the sixteen-pounders, particularly appropriated to sieges, then formed batteries of six to twelve guns, called batteries of position. An improvement suited to French impetuosity had recently been borrowed from the Prussians, for the field-service. It consisted in mounting on horseback a certain number of gunners, who, by that means, arrived on the ground as quickly as the best-horsed pieces, were always at hand to work them, and could readily avoid being attacked. This kind of artillery kept up the cannonade longer and closer. The horse artillery was composed, on its first formation, of the nimblest artillery-men, and was afterwards recruited with the élite of the grenadiers, and performed prodigies of valour and service. In the campaigns in Germany, mere captains of that arm were seen to acquire the reputation of generals. It was not long before the generals would not have any other artillery, as from being more moveable and more efficient, less of it was required, and the columns of the train were lightened in proportion.
It was frequently proposed to Napoleon to unite the artillery and the engineers; he had not the imprudence to try the experiment, but he collected the pupils of both arms in an institution, to which the Polytechnic School served as a nursery. This school, after having been a focus of light to France and Europe, was re-constructed on a narrower and less liberal plan. The profession of arms took the preference of all others in the mind of Napoleon. He transformed a nursery of savans into a seminary for warriors.
In the rear of the corps d’armée of Napoleon marched a reserve, which never had its equal. The Imperial Guard represented the glory of the army, and the majesty of the empire. Its officers and men were selected from among those whom the brave had designated as the bravest; all of them were covered with scars. Bred amid dangers, they had lived much in a few years; and the name of The Old Guard was appropriately given to a corps, the oldest members of which had not reached the age of forty. Though loaded with favours by the Emperor, yet their recompense was always inferior to their service. Carried to fields of battle on foot by forced marches, in boats, or in carriages, the news of their arrival on the scene of action always struck terror into the hearts of their enemies. By successive augmentations the Emperor raised the effective of his guard to sixty-eight battalions, thirty-one squadrons, and eighty pieces of artillery. In the days of his prosperity he employed it only in detached portions; fifteen years it remained standing amidst the vicissitudes of the empire, solid as a pillar of granite. One day it succumbed: on the tombs of these heroes our descendants will inscribe these words, which were uttered during the heat of that fatal conflict:—“The Guards may perish, but will never surrender!”
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The English were looked upon by the French as sea-wolves, unskilful, perplexed, and powerless, the moment they set their foot on land. If their national pride appealed to the victories of Cressy, Poitiers, and Agincourt, they were reminded that the armies of Edward III. and of Henry V. were composed of Normans, of the people of Poitou, and of Gascons. There were, for all that, among the conquerors, a goodly number of native Englishmen, and certainly, the blows which they dealt were not the weakest. The Black Prince and Talbot were born in Albion. Nearer our own times, Marlborough and his twelve thousand soldiers were not the least formidable enemies of Louis XIV. The celebrated column of British infantry at Fontenoy had suggested to a second Bossuet the image of a tower repairing its own breaches.
Even since the éclat of French glory had thrown into shade both ancient and modern history, there had been remarked in the British troops employed in Flanders, and in Holland, though feebly commanded, repeated instances of vigour and audacity. The French soldiers, who had returned from Egypt, talked to their comrades of the indomitable valour of the English; moreover, it was easy to suppose that enterprise, capacity, and courage render the possessors fit for other purposes than the duties of the sea service. Their skill and intrepidity in braving the dangers of the ocean have always been unrivalled. Their restless disposition, and fondness for travelling fit them for the wandering life of the soldier; and they possess that most valuable of all qualities in the field of battle—coolness in their strife.
The glory of the British army is based principally upon its excellent discipline, and upon the cool and sturdy courage of the people. Indeed we know of no other troops so well disciplined. The principal cause of their pre-eminence in this respect, would, if applied to the French army, most likely produce an effect diametrically opposite. Varieties of character and condition, require the employment of different means to obtain the same end.
The English non-commissioned officers are excellent; but their courage and their talent are not encouraged by promotion to higher grades. They are nominated by the commander of the regiment, and cannot be broke but by the sentence of a court-martial. Their authority is extensive, comprehending the minute details of inspection, of discipline, and of daily instruction,—duties which, in other armies, would not be committed to them.
In the British army will not be found either the strong sympathy between the leaders and the soldiers, the paternal care of the captains, the simple manners of the subalterns, nor the affectionate fellow-feeling in danger and suffering which constituted the strength of the revolutionary armies of France; but unshaken patriotism, and tried and steady bravery, are to be met with everywhere amongst them.
The infantry, when in active service, is distributed into brigades of two, three, and even four regiments, according to the number and strength of the battalions. The grenadiers are not distinguished among the other soldiers for the éclat and pre-eminence so striking in the French and Hungarian grenadiers; and it is not customary to unite them into separate corps, in order to attempt bold strokes. The light companies of different regiments are sometimes formed into provisional battalions,—a practice directly in opposition to the purpose for which that species of troops was originally instituted.
Several regiments of the line, such as the forty-third, the fifty-first, the fifty-second &c., are called light infantry regiments. These corps, as well as the light companies of the battalions, have nothing light about them but the name; for they are armed, and, with the exception of some slight change in the decorations, clothed like the rest of the infantry. It was considered that the English soldier did not possess sufficient intelligence and address to combine with the regular duty of the line the service of inspiration of the sharp-shooter. When the necessity of a special light infantry began to be felt, the best marksmen of different corps were at first selected; but it was afterwards found expedient to devote exclusively to the office of sharpshooters the eight battalions of the sixtieth, the three of the ninety-fifth, and some of the foreign corps. These troops are armed with the rifle. During the last war, companies of these riflemen were always attached to the different brigades. The echoing sound of their horns answered the twofold purpose, of directing their own movements, and of communicating such manœuvres of the enemy as would otherwise be unobserved by the general in command.
The English, the Scotch, and the Irish are usually mixed together in the regiments. Ireland supplies more soldiers, in proportion to its population, than the other two kingdoms. It might be supposed that the general character which we have attributed to the English troops would be altered by this mixture; but the English discipline is like the bed of Procrustes to all who come within its sphere,—the minds as well as the bodies of their fellow-subjects obey their law as the ruling people. Four Highland regiments, consisting of nine battalions, are, however, recruited almost exclusively from the mountains of Scotland, and their officers are selected in preference from natives of that country. The Highlanders wear their national kilt instead of smallclothes; this neither harmonizes with the rest of their dress nor is it convenient for war; but this is of little moment compared with the moral advantages gained by adopting the national costume; a distinction which has its source in popular feeling and custom, generally imposes the performance of additional duty: there are no troops in the British service more steady in battle than the Scotch regiments.
The infantry is the best portion of the British army. It is the robur peditum,—the expression applied by the Romans to the triarii of their legions. The English do not scale mountains, or scour the plain, with the suppleness and rapidity of the French; but they are more silent, more orderly, and more obedient, and for these reasons their fire is better directed, and more destructive. Though not so resigned under a heavy fire as the Russians, they draw together with less confusion, and preserve their original formation better. Their composition exhibits something of the German mechanism, combined with more activity and energy. The system of manœuvres which they have adopted since the year 1798, is borrowed from the Prussians. The infantry, although on system formed three deep, like the other armies of Europe, is more frequently drawn up in two ranks; but when making or receiving a charge, it is frequently formed four deep. Sometimes it has made offensive movements, and even charged columns, when in open order. In a retreat it stands firm, and commences its fire by volleys from the battalions, followed by a well-supported file-firing. It turns round coolly to check the enemy hanging on its rear; and while marching, it fires without separating.
The English infantry does not hesitate to charge with the bayonet; the leader, however, who would wish to employ British infantry to advantage, should move it seldom and cautiously, and reckon more upon its fire than upon its manœuvres.
The pains bestowed by the English on their horses, and the superior qualities of their native breeds, at first gave a more favourable idea of their cavalry than the experience of war has justified. The horses are badly trained for fighting. They have narrow shoulders and a hard mouth, and neither know how to turn or to halt. Cropping their tails is a serious inconvenience in hot climates. The luxurious attentions which are lavished upon them, render them quite unfit to support fatigue, scarcity of food, or the exposure of the bivouac. The men are, however, excellent grooms.
The heaviest English cavalry is far from possessing the uniformity and the firm seat of the French and Austrian cuirassiers; and their light-horse is still more inferior in intelligence and activity to the Hungarian hussar and the Cossack. They have no idea of the artifices of partisan warfare, and they know as little how to charge en masse. When the fray commences, you see them equally vulnerable and offensive, cutting instead of thrusting, and chopping with more fury than effect at the faces of their enemies.
During the war in the Peninsula, the French soldiers were so struck with the elegant dresses of the light dragoons, their shining helmets, and the graceful shapes of the men and horses, that they gave them the name of Lindors. In 1813, this dress, which was peculiar to the British troops, was exchanged for the head-dress and jacket of the German light cavalry. The Polish lances at Albuera, and the French cuirasses at Waterloo, have induced the English to add these modes of arming and equipment to their cavalry.
In cavalry service it is not sufficient for the soldiers to be brave, and the horses good; there must also be science and unity. More than once, in the Peninsular war, weak detachments of British cavalry have charged French battalions through and through, but in disorder; the squadrons could not be again re-formed; there were no others at hand to finish the work; thus the bold stroke passed away, without producing any advantage.
The artillery holds the first rank in the army; it is better paid, its recruits are more carefully selected, and its period of enlistment is limited to twelve years. The gunners are distinguished from other soldiers by their excellent spirit. In battle they display judicious activity, a perfect coup d’œil, and stoical bravery.
The English got the start of the French in the formation of the artillery-train: the first trials of it were made in 1793, under the auspices of the Duke of Richmond, then Master-general of the Ordnance. The corps of Royal Artillery Drivers is organized as soldiers. Very high prices are paid for the horses employed to draw the guns, and they are, consequently, extremely good. The harness is as good as that used in French carriages. No nation can rival the English in the equipments and the speed of their conveyances.
English troops take few pieces into the field with them; the most that Lord Wellington ever had in the Peninsula, barely amounted to two for every thousand men. Frames, caissons, barrels, and bullets, powder, and every part of the equipage, are remarkable for the goodness of the materials, as well as excellent workmanship. In battles, the artillery made most copious and effective use of a kind of hollow bullet, called Shrapnell’s spherical case-shot, from the name of the inventor.
In conclusion it may be said, that the English army surpasses other armies in discipline, and in some particulars of internal management; it proceeds slowly in the career of improvement, but it never retrogrades; and no limits can be affixed to the power of organization to which a free and intelligent people may attain.
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The military profession is quite in accordance with the contemplative character and innate indolence of the Spaniards; yet they manifested an extreme repugnance to military service, and especially to that of the infantry. Voluntary enlistment was almost entirely confined to the towns, and was supplied from the vicious and reckless portion of society. A long peace, the insulated position of the country, and the lethargy of the Government, had almost extinguished the old warlike spirit of Spain. While the din of arms resounded throughout the rest of Europe, even the shadow of war was rarely to be seen in Spain. The sovereign never appeared in the garb of a soldier; the nobility had forgotten at what price their grandeur and titles had been purchased by their ancestors; arms had scarcely the dignity of a profession. There were no camps for the performance of manœuvres, none of those large garrisons, in which regiments learn to know each other and to act together. In the neglected state of the Spanish army, even the sacredness of the point of honour had fallen into a state of relaxation.
Nature has endowed the Spaniard with most of the qualities required to form a good soldier. He is religious, calm, and attached to order and justice, he is naturally disposed to subordination, and is capable of great devotion to an able leader. His patience is inexhaustible, he is always sober, and so temperate that he can live upon a pilchard, or a bit of bread rubbed with garlic; a bed is a superfluity to him, as he is accustomed to sleep in the open air. Next to the French, the Spaniards are the best for long marches, and climbing mountains. The Spanish soldier is less intelligent than the French, but more so than the German and English soldier. He ardently loves his country, and has but one anti-military fault, a disregard of cleanliness, and indolent habits,—a frequent source of disease and inefficiency. The Spanish army was deficient in discipline; its non-commissioned officers were but little respected; one-third of the officers were taken from among them: the remaining two-thirds were filled up from the cadets.
The Spanish infantry consisted of thirty-nine regiments, of three battalions each, including four foreign regiments. Several of these corps were established prior to the accession of the Bourbons; some of them were even raised by Charles V.; the oldest of all bore the name of Immemorial del Rey, from the remote antiquity of its creation. Twelve battalions of light infantry, armed like the infantry of the line, differed from it only in the colour of the jacket, which was blue, while that of the national infantry was white. Most of these battalions were raised subsequently to the French Revolution. Each regiment of infantry of the line had a colonel, a lieutenant-colonel, a commandant, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel, and a major (sarjento-mayor). Each battalion of light infantry had only two superior officers, a commandant, and a major. The battalions of the line were of four companies, two companies of the first battalion being grenadiers.
In war time, forty-two regiments of militia formed a body of infantry, more national, more brave, more calculated for great things than the regular infantry. The State armed, clothed, and equipped them, and allowed pay to the officers. In time of peace they were called out only for one month in the year, when they received pay. These militia regiments consisted of only one battalion, commanded by a colonel,—a man of consideration in the country, and a major—generally a superior officer of the regular army. There were but two companies in the battalion, one of grenadiers, and one of chasseurs. In war time, the companies of grenadiers and of chasseurs of the same province, were united. In this manner were formed the four divisions of provincial grenadiers of old and new Castile, Andalusia, and Galicia—the best soldiers in the nation, preferable even to the household regiments. History has consecrated the plains of Rocroi as the grave of the Spanish infantry.
The cavalry preserved its ancient renown till the close of the war of the Succession; it has lost it since then. Spain, which in the time of Charles V. could supply a hundred thousand horses for war, now has breeding establishments in only one of her provinces. The Andalusian horses, though mettlesome, docile, and finely-formed, have something of the rodomontade of that province, which is the Gascony of Spain. They want the bottom, and the muscular power which are requisite for the charging shock of heavy cavalry, and have not the robustness and capacity for enduring fatigue, which is necessary for the light cavalry service. The multiplication of mules has probably caused the degeneracy of the Spanish horses.
The whole cavalry of Spain amounted to twelve thousand men, in twenty-four regiments, each of five squadrons, which were never complete. Each regiment is commanded by a colonel, a lieutenant-colonel, and a major. The cavalry was composed of dragoons, chasseurs, and hussars; but distinguished from each other rather by the colour of their uniform than by the mode in which they were armed and equipped. The carabineers, which formed part of the King’s household, consisted of six squadrons, four of heavy, and two of light horse, and numbered about six hundred men. They were recruited from the whole of the cavalry, among the old soldiers, and those of the best character; they enlisted for life, and renounced marriage: this was the finest body of horse in Spain. The Spanish cavalry was badly trained, and was very inferior to the infantry.
Philip V. employed La Valliere, the most distinguished French officer of artillery of his time, to organize the Spanish artillery on the same footing as that of Louis XIV. It has since followed the changes and improvements adopted by the French. Its force consisted of four regiments, of ten companies each; out of these forty companies, six were of horse artillery. Besides these, there were sixty-four companies of militia cannoneers without officers or serjeants, being merely supplementary to the regular artillery. There was no artillery train organized in a military manner; in time of war, it was supplied by contracts with the muleteers, or by requisitions of oxen. Godoy organized the engineer corps in 1803, on a similar plan to the artillery, based upon the regulations of the French service, and instituted a school of engineering at Alcala de Henares.