I am still occasionally using notes of 1811 made from two collections of unpublished letters, of which I had occasion to speak in my last preface, those of General Le Marchant, now in the hands of Sir Henry Le Marchant of Chobham, and those of General John Wilson belonging to Commander Bertram Chambers R.N. To both of the courteous possessors of these files of correspondence I owe my best thanks.
I must mention, as in previous volumes, much kind help given me by those connected with the military archives of Paris, Madrid, and Lisbon. Once more I must acknowledge the unfailing kindness of M. Martinien at the French War Ministry, who did so much to make easy for me endless searches through the overflowing cartons of its Library. At Madrid Commandant Juan Arzadun of the Artillery Museum placed much suggestive material at my disposal, and found me one or two scarce books, while Major Emilio Figueras at the War Ministry searched out and copied for me a number of unpublished ‘morning states’ of the various Spanish Armies. I must also recur to the name of Captain Teixeira Botelho of the Portuguese Artillery, my companion on the line of Masséna’s retreat, who furnished me with a rich mine of information in his unpublished subsidios para a historia da Artilheria Portugueza.
Among my English helpers I must give a special word of thanks to Major John Leslie, R.A., to whose researches I owe all that I know about the British artillery in the Peninsular War. His ‘Dickson Papers’ are always at my elbow, and I owe him particular gratitude for the Artillery Appendix XXIV, which he has been good enough to compile for me. To the Hon. John Fortescue, the historian of the British Army, whom we were proud to welcome at Oxford as Ford Lecturer this year, I am deeply indebted for his answers to my queries on many dark points, and most especially for his notes as to several suppressed parts of the Wellington Correspondence. Mr. Rafael Reynolds of Barreiro, who shared in my September tour of last year, has obtained for me in Lisbon a number of rare Portuguese volumes, most especially a complete set of Marshal Beresford’s Ordens do Dia for the whole Peninsular War—an almost unprocurable collection, containing every general order, report of a court martial, list of promotions, and statistical paper, which was issued to the Portuguese Army. It is absolutely invaluable for identifying names and dates, and settling questions of organization. The Rev. Alexander Craufurd, grandson of the famous commander of the Light Division, has continued, as in previous years, to place his store of information concerning the campaigns of that hard fighting unit at my disposal.
Lastly, the compiler of the index, a weary task executed under many difficulties, must receive my heartfelt thanks for much loving labour.
I must apologize to readers for some occasional discrepancies in spelling which may be discovered in the text and maps. They are mainly due to the fact that all along the Portuguese-Spanish frontier every town and village is spelt differently by its own inhabitants and by its close neighbours of the other nationality. I find it impossible to avoid the occasional intrusion of a Portuguese spelling of a Spanish locality, and vice versa. Matters are made still more hard by the fact that the spelling of local names in Portugal (less so in Spain) seems to have been much changed since 1811. It is difficult to avoid occasionally an archaic, or on the other hand a too-modern, form for a name. These slight errors, or discrepancies between names as spelled in the text and in the maps, were nearly all caused by alterations between the received spelling of 1811, followed in the maps I used, and that of 1911. I do not think that they will cause any difficulty to the reader, who will not e. g. find it hard to recognize that Foz do Arouce is the same as Foz de Arouce or Casal Novo as Cazal Novo.
In a few cases the critic may find a slight difference in the numbers of troops, or of killed and wounded, which are given in the text and in the appendices. In almost all cases this results from the fact that the official totals quoted in the text turned out not to work out in exact agreement with the detailed list of items in the ‘morning states’ or the complete casualty lists. These errors, always trifling, could not be discovered till the arithmetic of the appendices had been verified, sometimes when the text had already been printed off. The most frequent discrepancies were found in comparing Wellington’s totals of Portuguese strengths or casualties with the detailed official figures. In all instances the differences are small, but the Appendices must be taken to give the more exact numbers.
C. OMAN.
Oxford:
July 1, 1911.