CHAPTER I.
1812. May. In the foregoing book, the political state of the belligerents, and those great chains, which bound the war in the Peninsula to the policy of the American as well as to the European nations, have been shewn; the minor events of the war have also been narrated, and the point where the decisive struggle was to be made has been indicated; thus nought remains to tell, save the particular preparations of each adverse general ere the noble armies were dashed together in the shock of battle.
Nearly three hundred thousand French still trampled upon Spain, above two hundred and forty thousand were with the eagles, and so successful had the plan of raising native soldiers proved, that forty thousand Spaniards well organized marched under the king’s banners.
In May the distribution of this immense army, which however according to the French custom included officers and persons of all kinds attached to the forces, was as follows:—
[ Appendix, No. 18.] Seventy-six thousand, of which sixty thousand were with the eagles, composed the armies of Catalonia and Aragon, under Suchet, and they occupied Valencia, and the provinces whose name they bore.
Forty-nine thousand men, of which thirty-eight thousand were with the eagles, composed the army of the north, under Caffarelli, and were distributed on the grand line of communication, from St. Sebastian to Burgos; but of this army two divisions of infantry and one of cavalry with artillery, were destined to reinforce Marmont.
Nineteen thousand, of which seventeen thousand were with the eagles, composed the army of the centre, occupying a variety of posts in a circle round the capital, and having a division in La Mancha.
Sixty-three thousand, of which fifty-six thousand were with the eagles, composed the army of the south, under Soult, occupying Andalusia and a part of Estremadura; but some of these troops were detained in distant governments by other generals.
The army of Portugal, under Marmont, consisted of seventy thousand men, fifty-two thousand being with the eagles, and a reinforcement of twelve thousand men were in march to join this army from France. Marmont occupied Leon, part of Old Castile, and the Asturias, having his front upon the Tormes, and a division watching Gallicia.
The numerous Spanish juramentados were principally employed in Andalusia and with the army of the centre, and the experience of Ocaña, of Badajos, and many other places, proved that for the intrusive monarch, they fought with more vigour than their countrymen did against him.
In March Joseph had been appointed commander-in-chief of all the French armies, but the generals, as usual, resisted his authority. Dorsenne denied it altogether, Caffarelli, who succeeded Dorsenne, disputed even his civil power in the governments of the north, Suchet evaded his orders, Marmont neglected them, and Soult firmly opposed his injudicious military plans. The king was distressed forThe King’s correspondence captured at Vittoria. money, and he complained that Marmont’s army had consumed or plundered in three months, the whole resources of the province of Toledo and the district of Talavera, whereby Madrid and the army of the centre were famished. Marmont retorted by complaints of the wasteful extravagance of the king’s military administration in the capital. Thus dissensions were generated when the most absolute union was required.
After the fall of Badajos Joseph judged that the allies would soon move, either against Marmont in Castile, against himself by the valley of the Tagus, or against Soult in Andalusia. In the first case heKing’s correspondence, MSS. designed to aid Marmont, with the divisions of the north, with the army of the centre, and with fifteen thousand men to be drawn from the army of the south. In the second case to draw the army of Portugal and a portion of the army of the south into the valley of the Tagus, while the divisions from the army of the north entered Leon. In the third case, the half of Marmont’s army reinforced by a division of the army of the centre, was to pass the Tagus at Arzobispo and follow the allies. But the army of the centre was not ready to take the field, and Wellington knew it, Marmont’s complaint was just; waste and confusion prevailed at Madrid, and there was so little military vigour that the Empecinado, with other partida chiefs, pushed their excursions to the very gates of that capital.
Joseph finally ordered Suchet to reinforce the army of the centre, and then calling up the Italian division of Palombini from the army of the Ebro, directed Soult to keep Drouet, with one-third of the army of the south, so far advanced in Estremadura as to have direct communication with general Trielhard in the valley of the Tagus; and he especially ordered that Drouet should pass that river if Hill passed it. It was necessary, he said, to follow the English army, and fight it with advantage of numbers, to do which required a strict co-operation of the three armies Drouet’s corps being the pivot. Meanwhile Marmont and Soult being each convinced, that the English general would invade their separate provinces, desired that the king would so view the coming contest, and oblige the other to regulate his movements thereby. The former complained, that having to observe the Gallicians, and occupy the Asturias, his forces were disseminated, and he asked for reinforcements to chase the partidas, who impeded the gathering of provisions in Castile and Leon. But the king, who over-rated the importance of Madrid, designed rather to draw more troops round the capital; and he entirely disapproved of Soult besieging Tarifa and Carthagena, arguing that if Drouet was not ready to pass the Tagus, the whole of the allies could unite on the right bank, and penetrate without opposition to the capital, or that lord Wellington would concentrate to overwhelm Marmont.
The duke of Dalmatia would not suffer Drouet to stir, and Joseph, whose jealousy had been excited by the marshal’s power in Andalusia, threatened to deprive him of his command. The inflexible dukeJoseph’s correspondence captured at Vittoria, MSS. replied that the king had already virtually done so by sending orders direct to Drouet, that he was ready to resign, but he would not commit a gross military error. Drouet could scarcely arrive in time to help Marmont, and would be too weak for the protection of Madrid, but his absence would ruin Andalusia, because the allies whose force in Estremadura was very considerable could in five marches reach Seville and take it on the sixth; then communicating with the fleets at Cadiz they would change their line of operations without loss, and unite with thirty thousand other troops, British and Spanish, who were at Gibraltar, in the Isla, in the Niebla, on the side of Murcia, and under Ballesteros in the Ronda. A new army might also come from the ocean, and Drouet, once beyond the Tagus could not return to Andalusia in less than twelve days; Marmont could scarcely come there in a month; the force under his own immediate command was spread all over Andalusia, if collected it would not furnish thirty thousand sabres and bayonets, exclusive of Drouet, and the evacuation of the province would be unavoidable.
The French misfortunes, he said, had invariably arisen from not acting in large masses, and the army of Portugal, by spreading too much to its right, would ruin this campaign as it had ruined the preceding one. “Marmont should leave one or two divisions on the Tormes, and place the rest of his army in position, on both sides of the pass of Baños, the left near Placentia, and the right, extending towards Somosierra, which could be occupied by a detachment. Lord Wellington could not then advance by the valley of the Tagus without lending his left flank; nor to the Tormes without lending his right flank. Neither could he attack Marmont with effect, because the latter could easily concentrate, and according to the nature of the attack secure his retreat by the valley of the Tagus, or by the province of Avila, while the two divisions on the Tormes reinforced by two others from the army of the north would act on the allies’ flank.” For these reasons Soult would not permit Drouet to quit Estremadura, yet he promised to reinforce him and so to press Hill, that Graham whom he supposed still at Portalegre, should be obliged to bring up the first and sixth divisions. In fine he promised that a powerful body of the allies should be forced to remain in Estremadura, or Hill would be defeated and Badajos invested. This dispute raged during May and the beginning of June, and meanwhile the English general well acquainted from the intercepted letters with these dissensions, made his arrangements, so as to confirm each general in his own peculiar views.
Soult was the more easily deceived, because he had obtained a Gibraltar newspaper, in which, so negligent was the Portuguese government, lord Wellington’s secret despatches to Forjas containing an account of his army and of his first designs against the south were printed, and it must be remembered that the plan of invading Andalusia was only relinquished about the middle of May. Hill’s exploit at Almaraz menaced the north and south alike, but that general had adroitly spread a report, that his object was to gain time for the invasion of Andalusia, and all Wellington’s demonstrations were calculated to aid this artifice and impose upon Soult. Graham indeed returned to Beira with the first and sixth divisions and Cotton’s cavalry; but as Hill was at the same time reinforced, and Graham’s march sudden and secret, the enemy were again deceived in all quarters. For Marmont and the king, reckoning the number of divisions, thought the bulk of the allies was in the north, and did not discover that Hill’s corps had been nearly doubled in numbers though his division seemed the same, while Soult not immediately aware of Graham’s departure, found Hill more than a match for Drouet, and still expected the allies in Andalusia.
Drouet willing rather to obey the king than Soult, drew towards Medellin in June, but Soult, as we have seen, sent the reinforcements from Seville, by the road of Monasterio, and thus obliged him to come back. Then followed those movements and counter-movements in Estremadura, which have been already related, each side being desirous of keeping a great number of their adversaries in that province. Soult’s judgment was thus made manifest, for Drouet could only have crossed the Tagus with peril to Andalusia, whereas, without endangering that province, he now made such a powerful diversion for Marmont, that Wellington’s army in the north was reduced below the army of Portugal, and much below what the latter could be raised to, by detachments from the armies of the north, and of the centre. However in the beginning of June, while the French generals were still disputing, lord Wellington’s dispositions were completed, he had established at last an extensive system of gaining intelligence all over Spain, and as his campaign was one which posterity will delight to study, it is fitting to shew very exactly the foundation on which the operations rested.
His political and military reasons for seeking a battle have been before shewn, but this design was always conditional; he would fight on advantage, but he would risk nothing beyond the usual chances of combat. While Portugal was his, every movement, which obliged the enemy to concentrate was an advantage, and his operations were ever in subservience to this vital condition. His whole force amounted to nearly ninety thousand men, of which about six thousand were in Cadiz, but the Walcheren expedition was still to be atoned for: the sick were so numerous amongst the regiments which had served there, that only thirty-two thousand or a little more than half of the British soldiers, were under arms. This number, with twenty-four thousand Portuguese, made fifty-six thousand sabres and bayonets in the field; and it is to be remembered that now and at all times the Portuguese infantry were mixed with the British either by brigades or regiments; wherefore in speaking of English divisions in battle the Portuguese battalions are always included, and it is to their praise, that their fighting was such as to justify the use of the general term.
The troops were organized in the following manner.
Two thousand cavalry and fifteen thousand infantry, with twenty-four guns, were under Hill, who had also the aid of four garrison Portuguese regiments, and of the fifth Spanish army. Twelve hundred Portuguese cavalry were in the Tras Os Montes, under general D’Urban, and about three thousand five hundred British cavalry and thirty-six thousand infantry, with fifty-four guns, were under Wellington’s immediate command, which was now enlarged by three thousand five hundred Spaniards, infantry and cavalry, under Carlos D’España and Julian Sanchez.
The bridge of Almaraz had been destroyed to lengthen the French lateral communications, and Wellington now ordered the bridge of Alcantara to be repaired to shorten his own. The breach in that stupendous structure was ninety feet wide, and one hundred and fifty feet above the water line. Yet the fertile genius of colonel Sturgeon furnished the means of passing this chasm, with heavy artillery, and without the enemy being aware of the preparations made until the moment of execution. In the arsenal of Elvas he secretly prepared a net-work of strong ropes, after a fashion which permitted it to be carried in parts, and with the beams, planking, and other materials it was transported to Alcantara on seventeen carriages. Straining beams were then fixed in the masonry, on each side of the broken arch, cables were stretched across the chasm, the net-work was drawn over, tarpaulin blinds were placed at each side, and the heaviest guns passed in safety. This remarkable feat procured a new, and short, internal line of communication, along good roads, while the enemy, by the destruction of the bridge at Almaraz, was thrown upon a long external line, and very bad roads.
Hill’s corps was thus suddenly brought a fortnight’s march nearer to Wellington, than Drouet was to Marmont, if both marched as armies with artillery; but there was still a heavy drag upon the English general’s operations. He had drawn so largely upon Portugal for means of transport, that agriculture was seriously embarrassed, and yet his subsistence was not secured for more than a few marches beyond the Agueda. To remedy this he set sailors and workmen to remove obstructions in the Douro and the Tagus; the latter, which in Philip the Second’s time had been navigable from Toledo to Lisbon, was opened to Malpica, not far from Alcantara, and the Douro was opened as high as Barca de Alba, below which it ceases to be a Spanish river. The whole land transport of the interior of Portugal was thus relieved; the magazines were brought up the Tagus, close to the new line of communication by Alcantara, on one side; on the other, the country vessels conveyed povisions to the mouth of the Douro, and that river then served to within a short distance of Almeida, Ciudad Rodrigo, and Salamanca. Still danger was to be apprehended from the American privateers along the coast, which the Admiralty neglected; and the navigation of the Douro was suddenly suspended by the overheated zeal of a commissary, who being thwarted by the delays of the boatmen, issued, of his own authority, an edict, establishing regulations, and pronouncing pains and penalties upon all those who did not conform to them. The river was immediately abandoned by the craft, and the government endeavoured by a formal protest, to give political importance to this affair, which was peculiarly vexatious, inasmuch as the boatmen were already so averse to passing the old points of navigation, that very severe measures were necessary to oblige them to do so.
When this matter was arranged, Wellington had still to dread that if his operations led him far into Spain, the subsistence of his army would be insecure; for there were many objects of absolute necessity, especially meat, which could not be procured except with ready money, and not only was he unfurnished of specie, but his hopes of obtaining it were nearly extinguished, by the sweep lord William Bentinck had made in the Mediterranean money-market: moreover the English ministers chose this period of difficulty to interfere, and in an ignorant and injurious manner, with his mode of issuing bills to supply his necessities. His resolution to advance could not be shaken, yet before crossing the Agueda, having described his plan of campaign to lord Liverpool, he finished in these remarkable words.
“I am not insensible to losses and risks, nor am I blind to the disadvantages under which I undertake this operation. My friends in Castile, and I believe no officer ever had better, assure me that we shall not want provisions even before the harvest will be reaped; that there exist concealed granaries which shall be opened to us, and that if we can pay for a part, credit will be given to us for the remainder, and they have long given me hopes that we should be able to borrow money in Castile upon British securities. In case we should be able to maintain ourselves in Castile, the general action and its results being delayed by the enemy’s manœuvres, which I think not improbable, I have in contemplation other resources for drawing supplies from the country, and I shall have at all events our own magazines at Almeida and Ciudad Rodrigo. But with all these prospects I cannot reflect without shuddering upon the probability that we shall be distressed; nor upon the consequences which may result from our wanting money in the interior of Spain.”
In the contemplated operations lord Wellington did not fail to look both to his own and to his enemy’s flanks. His right was secured by the destruction of the forts, the stores, and boats at Almaraz; for the valley of the Tagus was exhausted of provisions, and full of cross rivers which required a pontoon train to pass if the French should menace Portugal seriously in that line: moreover he caused the fortress of Monte Santos, which covered the Portuguese frontier between the Tagus and Ciudad Rodrigo to be put into a state of defence, and the restoration of Alcantara gave Hill the power of quickly interfering. On the other side if Marmont, strengthened by Caffarelli’s division, should operate strongly against the allies’ left, a retreat was open either upon Ciudad Rodrigo, or across the mountains into the valley of the Tagus. Such were his arrangements for his own interior line of operations, and to menace his enemy’s flanks his measures embraced the whole Peninsula.
1º. He directed Silveira and D’Urban, who were on the frontier of Tras os Montes, to file along the Douro, menace the enemy’s right flank and rear, and form a link of connection with the Gallician army, with which Castaños promised to besiege Astorga, as soon as the Anglo-Portuguese should appear on the Tormes. Meanwhile sir Home Popham’s expedition was to commence its operations, in concert with the seventh Spanish army, on the coast of Biscay and so draw Caffarelli’s divisions from the succour of Marmont.
2º. To hinder Suchet from reinforcing the king, or making a movement towards Andalusia, the Sicilian expedition was to menace Catalonia and Valencia, in concert with the Murcian army.
3º. To prevent Soult overwhelming Hill, Wellington trusted, 1º. to the garrison of Gibraltar, and to the Anglo-Portuguese and Spanish troops, in the Isla de Leon; 2º. to insurrections in the kingdom of Cordoba, where Echevaria going from Cadiz, by the way of Ayamonte, with three hundred officers, was to organize the Partidas of that district, as Mendizabel had done those of the northern parts; 3º. to Ballesteros’s army, but he ever dreaded the rashness of this general, who might be crushed in a moment, which would have endangered Hill and rendered any success in the north nugatory.
It was this fear of Ballesteros’s rashness that caused Wellington to keep so strong a corps in Estremadura, and hence Soult’s resolution to prevent Drouet from quitting Estremadura, even though Hill should cross the Tagus, was wise and military. For though Drouet would undoubtedly have given the king and Marmont a vast superiority in Castile, the general advantage would have remained with Wellington. Hill could at any time have misled Drouet by crossing the bridge of Alcantara, and returning again, when Drouet had passed the bridge of Toledo or Arzobispo. The French general’s march would then have led to nothing, for either Hill could have joined Wellington, by a shorter line, and Soult, wanting numbers, could not have taken advantage of his absence from Estremadura; or Wellington could have retired within the Portuguese frontier, rendering Drouet’s movement to Castile a pure loss; or reinforcing Hill by the bridge of Alcantara, he could have gained a fortnight’s march and overwhelmed Soult in Andalusia. The great error of the king’s plan was that it depended upon exact co-operation amongst persons who jealous of each other were far from obedient to himself, and whose marches it was scarcely possible to time justly; because the armies were separated by a great extent of country and their lines of communication were external long and difficult, while their enemy was acting on internal short and easy lines. Moreover the French correspondence, continually intercepted by the Partidas, was brought to Wellington, and the knowledge thus gained by one side and lost by the other caused the timely reinforcing of Hill in Estremadura, and the keeping of Palombini’s Italian division from Madrid for three weeks; an event which in the sequel proved of vital consequence, inasmuch as it prevented the army of the centre moving until after the crisis of the campaign had passed.
Hill’s exploit at Almaraz, and the disorderly state of the army of the centre, having in a manner isolated the army of Portugal, the importance of Gallicia and the Asturias, with respect to the projected operations of lord Wellington, was greatly increased. For the Gallicians could either act in Castile upon the rear of Marmont, and so weaken the line of defence on the Douro; or, marching through the Asturias, spread insurrection along the coast to the Montaña de Santander and there join the seventh army. Hence the necessity of keeping Bonet in the Asturias, and watching the Gallician passes, was become imperative, and Marmont, following Napoleon’s instructions, had fortified the different posts in Castile, but his army was too widely spread, and, as Soult observed, was extended to its right instead of concentrating on the left near Baños.
The duke of Ragusa had resolved to adopt the Tormes and Douro, as his lines of defence, and never doubting that he was the object of attack, watched the augmentation of Wellington’s forces and magazines with the utmost anxiety. He had collected considerable magazines himself, and the king had formed others for him at Talavera and Segovia, yet he did not approach the Agueda, but continued to occupy a vast extent of country for the convenience of feeding them until June. When he heard of the restoration of the bridge of Alcantara, and of magazines being formed at Caceres, he observed that the latter would be on the left of the Guadiana if Andalusia were the object; and although not well placed for an army acting against himself, were admirably placed for an army which having fought in Castile should afterwards operate against Madrid, because they could be transported at once to the right of the Tagus by Alcantara, and could be secured by removing the temporary restorations. Wherefore, judging that Hill would immediately rejoin Wellington, to aid in the battle, that, with a prophetic feeling he observed, would be fought near the Tormes, he desired Caffarelli to put the divisions of the army of the north in movement; and he prayed the king to have guns, and a pontoon train sent from Madrid that Drouet might pass at Almaraz and join him by the Puerto Pico.
Joseph immediately renewed his orders to Soult, and to Caffarelli, but he only sent two small boats to Almaraz; and Marmont, seeing the allied army suddenly concentrated on the Agueda, recalled Foy from the valley of the Tagus, and Bonet from the Asturias. His first design was to assemble the armySee [Plan, No. 3.] at Medina del Campo, Valladolid, Valdesillas, Toro, Zamora, and Salamanca, leaving two battalions and a brigade of dragoons at Benavente to observe the Gallicians. Thus the bulk of the troops would line the Duero, while two divisions formed an advanced guard, on the Tormes, and the whole could be concentrated in five days. His ultimate object was to hold the Tormes until Wellington’s whole army was on that river, then to assemble his own troops on the Duero, and act so as to favour the defence of the forts at Salamanca until reinforcements from the north should enable him to drive the allies again within the Portuguese frontier; and he warned Caffarelli that the forts could not hold out more than fifteen days after they should be abandoned by the French army.
Marmont was a man to be feared. He possessed quickness of apprehension and courage, moral and physical, scientific acquirements, experience of war, and great facility in the moving of troops; he was strong of body, in the flower of life, eager for glory, and although neither a great nor a fortunate commander, such a one as might bear the test of fire. His army was weak in cavalry but admirably organized, for he had laboured with successful diligence, to restore that discipline which had been so much shaken by the misfortunes of Massena’s campaign, and by the unceasing operations from the battle of Fuentes Onoro to the last retreat from Beira. Upon this subject a digression must be allowed, because it has been often affirmed, that the bad conduct of the French in the Peninsula, was encouraged by their leaders, was unmatched in wickedness, and peculiar to the nation. Such assertions springing from morbid national antipathies it is the duty of the historian to correct. All troops will behave ill, when ill-governed, but the best commanders cannot at times prevent the perpetration of the most frightful mischief; and this truth, so important to the welfare of nations, may be proved with respect to the Peninsular war, by the avowal of the generals on either side, and by their endeavours to arrest the evils which they deplored. When Dorsenne returned from his expedition against Gallicia, in the latter end of 1811, he reproached his soldiers in the following terms. “TheIntercepted French papers, MSS. fields have been devastated and houses have been burned; these excesses are unworthy of the French soldier, they pierce the hearts of the most devoted and friendly of the Spaniards, they are revolting to honest men, and embarrass the provisioning of the army. The general-in-chief sees them with sorrow, and orders; that besides a permanent court-martial, there shall be at the head-quarters of each division, of every arm, a military commission which shall try the following crimes, and on conviction, sentence to death, without appeal; execution to be done on the spot, in presence of the troops.
“1º. Quitting a post to pillage. 2º. Desertion of all kinds. 3º. Disobedience in face of the enemy. 4º. Insubordination of all kinds. 5º. Marauding of all kinds. 6º. Pillage of all kinds.
“All persons military or others, shall be considered as pillagers, who quit their post or their ranks to enter houses, &c. or who use violence to obtain from the inhabitants more than they are legally entitled to.
“All persons shall be considered deserters who shall be found without a passport beyond the advanced posts, and frequent patroles day and night shall be sent to arrest all persons beyond the outposts.
“Before the enemy when in camp or cantonments roll-calls shall take place every hour, and all persons absent without leave twice running shall be counted deserters and judged as such. The servants and sutlers of the camp are amenable to this as well as the soldier.”
This order Marmont, after reproaching his troops for like excesses, renewed with the following additions.
“Considering that the disorders of the army have arrived at the highest degree, and require the most vigorous measures of repression, it is ordered,
“1º. All non-commissioned officers and soldiers found a quarter of a league from their quarters, camp, or post without leave, shall be judged pillagers and tried by the military commission.
“2º. The gens-d’armes shall examine the baggage of all sutlers and followers and shall seize all effects that appear to be pillaged, and shall burn what will burn, and bring the gold and silver to the paymaster-general under a ‘procès verbal,’ and all persons whose effects have been seized as pillage to the amount of one hundred livres shall be sent to the military commission, and on conviction suffer death.
“3º. All officers who shall not take proper measures to repress disorders under their command shall be sent in arrest to head-quarters there to be judged.”
Then appointing the number of baggage animals to each company, upon a scale which coincides in a remarkable manner with the allowances in the British army, Marmont directed the overplus to be seized and delivered, under a legal process, to the nearest villages, ordering the provost-general to look to the execution each day, and report thereon. Finally, he clothed the provost-general with all the powers of the military commissions; and proof was soon given that his orders were not mere threats, for two captains were arrested for trial, and a soldier of the twenty-sixth regiment was condemned to death by one of the provisional commissions for stealing church vessels.
Such was the conduct of the French, and touching the conduct of the English, lord Wellington, in the same month, wrote thus to lord Liverpool.
“The outrages committed by the British soldiers, belonging to this army, have become so enormous, and they have produced an effect on the minds of the people of the country, so injurious to the cause, and likely to be so dangerous to the army itself, that I request your Lordship’s early attention to the subject. I am sensible that the best measures to be adopted on this subject are those of prevention, and I believe there are few officers who have paid more attention to the subject than I have done, and I have been so far successful, as that few outrages are committed by the soldiers who are with their regiments, after the regiments have been a short time in this country.”
“But in the extended system on which we are acting, small detachments of soldiers must be marched long distances, through the country, either as escorts, or returning from being escorts to prisoners, or coming from hospitals, &c. and notwithstanding that these detachments are never allowed to march, excepting under the command of an officer or more, in proportion to its size, and that every precaution is taken to provide for the regularity of their subsistence, there is no instance of the march of one of these detachments that outrages of every description are not committed, and I am sorry to say with impunity.”
“The guard-rooms are therefore crowded with prisoners, and the offences of which they have been guilty remain unpunished, to the destruction of the discipline of the army, and to the injury of the reputation of the country for justice. I have thought it proper to lay these circumstances before your lordship. I am about to move the army further forward into Spain, and I assure your lordship, that I have not a friend in that country, who has not written to me in dread of the consequences, which must result to the army, and to the cause from a continuance of these disgraceful irregularities, which I declare I have it not in my power to prevent.”
To this should have been added, the insubordination, and the evil passions, awakened by the unchecked plunder of Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajos. But long had the English general complained of the bad discipline of his army, and the following extracts, from a letter dated a few months later, shew that his distrust at the present time was not ill-founded. After observing that the constitutions of the soldiers were so much shaken from disorders acquired by their service at Walcheren, or by their own irregularities, that a British army was almost a moving hospital, more than one-third or about twenty thousand men being sick, or attending upon the sick, he thus describes their conduct.
“The disorders which these soldiers have, are of a very trifling description, they are considered to render them incapable of serving with their regiments, but they certainly do not incapacitate them from committing outrages of all descriptions on their passage through the country, and in the last movements of the hospitals the soldiers have not only plundered the inhabitants of their property, but the hospital stores which moved with the hospitals, and have sold the plunder. And all these outrages are committed with impunity, no proof can be brought on oath before a court-martial that any individual has committed an outrage, and the soldiers of the army are becoming little better than a band of robbers.” “I have carried the establishment and authority of the provost-marshal as far as either will go; there are at this moment not less than one provost-marshal, and nineteen assistant provost-marshals, attached to the several divisions of cavalry and infantry and to the hospital stations, to preserve order, but this establishment is not sufficient, and I have not the means of increasing it.”
The principal remedies he proposed, were the admitting less rigorous proof of guilt, before courts martial; the forming a military police, such as the French, and other armies possessed; the enforcing more attention on the part of the officers to their duties; the increasing the pay and responsibility of the non-commissioned officers, and the throwing upon them the chief care of the discipline. But in treating this part of the subject he broached an opinion which can scarcely be sustained even by his authority. Assuming, somewhat unjustly, that the officers of his army were, from consciousness of like demerit, generally too lenient in their sentences on each other for neglect of duty, he says, “I am inclined to entertain the opinion that in the British army duties of inspection and control over the conduct and habits of the soldiers, the performance of which by somebody is the only effectual check to disorder and all its consequences, are imposed upon the subaltern officers of regiments, which duties British officers, being of the class of gentlemen in society, and being required to appear as such, have never performed and which they will never perform. It is very necessary, however, that the duties should be performed by somebody, and for this reason, and having observed the advantage derived in the guards, from the respectable body of non-commissioned officers in those regiments, who perform all the duties required from subalterns in the marching regiments, I had suggested to your lordship the expediency of increasing the pay of the non-commissioned officers in the army.”
Now it is a strange assumption, that a gentleman necessarily neglects his duty to his country. When well taught, which was not always the case, gentlemen by birth generally performed their duties in the Peninsula more conscientiously than others, and the experience of every commanding officer will bear out the assertion. If the non-commissioned officers could do all the duties of subaltern officers, why should the country bear the useless expense of the latter? But in truth the system of the guards produced rather a medium goodness, than a superior excellence; the system of sir John Moore, founded upon the principle, that the officers should thoroughly know, and be responsible for the discipline of their soldiers, better bore the test of experience. All the British regiments of the light division were formed in the camps of Shorn-Cliff by that most accomplished commander; very many of the other acknowledged good regiments of the army had been instructed by him in Sicily; and wherever an officer, formed under Moore, obtained a regiment, whether British or Portuguese, that regiment was distinguished in this war for its discipline and enduring qualities; courage was common to all.