A history of the Peninsular War, Vol. 5, Oct. 1811-Aug. 31, 1812

by Charles Oman

The reason why the main assault failed was purely and simply that Phillipon and his garrison put into the defence of the breaches not only the most devoted courage, but such an accumulation of ingenious devices as had never before been seen in a siege of that generation—apparently Phillipon must share the credit with his commanding engineer, Lamare, the historian of the siege. The normal precaution of cutting off the breaches by retrenchments on both sides, and of throwing up parapets of earth, sandbags, and wool-packs behind them, was the least part of the work done. What turned out more effective was a series of mines and explosive barrels planted at the foot of the counterscarp, and connected with the ramparts by covered trains. This was on the near side of the ditch, where there was dead ground unsearched by the besiegers’ artillery. In the bottom of it, and at the foot of the breaches, had been placed or thrown all manner of large cumbrous obstacles, carts and barrows turned upside down, several large damaged boats, some rope entanglements, and piles of broken gabions and fascines. The slopes of the breaches had been strewn with crowsfeet, and were covered with beams studded with nails, not fixed, but hung by ropes from the lip of the breach; in some places harrows, and doors studded with long spikes, were set upon the slope. At the top of each breach was a device never forgotten by any observer, the chevaux de frise, formed of cavalry sword-blades[268] set in foot-square beams, and chained down at their ends. For the defence of the three breaches Phillipon had told off 700 men, composed of the light and grenadier companies of each of his battalions, plus the four fusilier companies of the 103rd Line—about 1,200 men in all. A battalion of the 88th was in the cathedral square behind, as general reserve. The two Hessian battalions were on the left, holding the Castle, the lunette of San Roque, and the San Pedro bastion. The three other French battalions occupied the long range of bastions from San Juan to San Vincente. As there had been many casualties, the total of the available men had sunk to about 4,000, and since nearly half of them were concentrated at or behind the breaches, the guard was rather thin at other points—especially (as Picton had calculated) at the Castle, which, though its front was long, was held by only 250 men, mostly Hessians.

It was a most unfortunate thing that the time of the assault, originally fixed for 7.30, was put off till 10—and that the siege-batteries slacked down after dark. For the two hours thus granted to the besieged were well spent in repairing and strengthening all their devices for defence. An earlier assault would have found the preparations incomplete, especially in the matter of the combustibles placed in the ditch.

It would be useless, in the narrative of the doings of this bloody night, to make any attempt to vie with those paragraphs of lurid description which make Napier’s account of the storm of Badajoz perhaps the most striking section of one of the most eloquent books in the English language. All that will be here attempted is to give a clear and concise note of what happened between ten and one o’clock on the night of April 6, 1812, so far as it is possible to secure a coherent tale from the diaries and memoirs of a number of eye-witnesses. Burgoyne and Jones of the Royal Engineers, Dickson the commander of the Artillery, Grattan and McCarthy from the 3rd Division, Leith Hay of the 5th, and Kincaid, Simmons, and Harry Smith of the Light Division, along with many more less well-known authorities, must serve as our instructors, each for the part of the storm in which he was himself concerned.

It had been intended, as was said above, that all the columns should converge simultaneously on their points of attack, and for that reason the distances between the starting-point of each division and its objective had been calculated with care. But, as a matter of fact, the hour of 10 p.m. was not quite accurately kept. On the right Picton’s division was descried by the French in the Castle as it was lining the first parallel, and was heavily fired upon at 9.45, whereupon the general, seeing that his men were discovered, ordered the advance to begin at once—the 3rd Division was fording the Rivillas under a blaze of fire from the Castle and the San Pedro bastion before 10 struck on the cathedral clock. On the other hand, at the western flank, the officer in charge of the ladder and hay-bag party which was to lead the 5th Division, lost his way along the bank of the Guadiana, while coming up from the Park to take his place at the head of Leith’s men. The column had to wait for the ladders, and was more than an hour late in starting. Only the central attack, on the three breaches, was delivered with exact punctuality.

It is perhaps best to deal with this unhappy assault first—it was a horrible affair, and fully two-thirds of the losses that night were incurred in it. The two divisions, as ordered, came down the ravine to the left of the Pardaleras hill without being discovered: the line of vision from the town was in their favour till they were actually on the glacis, and heavy firing against Picton’s column was heard as they came forward. The 4th Division was turning to the right, the Light Division to the left, just as they drew near the ditch, when suddenly they were descried, and the French, who were well prepared and had long been waiting for the expected assault, opened on them with musketry from all the breaches, and with artillery from the unruined flanking bastions. The storm began as unhappily as it was to end. The advance of the 4th Division bearing to the right, came on a part of the ditch into which the inundation had been admitted—not knowing its depth, nor that the French had made a six-foot cutting at the foot of the counterscarp. Many men, not waiting for the ladders, sprang down into the water, thinking it to be a mere puddle. The leading files nearly all perished—the regimental record of the Welsh Fusiliers shows twenty men drowned—that of the Portuguese regiment which was behind the Fusiliers as many as thirty. Finding the ditch impassable here, the rest of the 4th Division storming-party swerved to the left, and, getting beyond the inundation, planted their ladders there: some came down in this way, more by simply taking a fourteen-foot leap on to the hay-bags, which they duly cast down. At the same moment the advance of the Light Division descended in a similar fashion into the ditch farther to the left, towards Santa Maria. Many men were already at the bottom, the rest crowded on the edge, where the French engineers fired the series of fougasses, mines, and powder-barrels which had been laid in the ditch. They worked perfectly, and the result was appalling—the 500 volunteers who formed the advance of each division were almost all slain, scorched, or disabled. Every one of the engineer officers set to guide the column was killed or wounded, and the want of direction, caused by the absence of any one who knew the topography of the breaches, had the most serious effect during the rest of the storm. Of the Light Division officers with the advance only two escaped unhurt.

There was a horrible check for a minute or two, and then the heads of the main column of each division reached the edge of the ditch, and began to leap down, or to make use of those of the ladders which had not been broken. The gulf below was all ablaze, for the explosions had set fire to the carts, boats, broken gabions, &c., which the French had set in the ditch, and they were burning furiously—every man as he descended was clearly visible to the enemy entrenched on the top of the breaches. The troops suffered severely as they dribbled over the edge of the counterscarp, and began to accumulate in the ditch. From the first there was great confusion—the two divisions got mixed, because the 4th had been forced to swerve to its left to avoid the inundation, and so was on ground originally intended for the Light. Many men mistook an unfinished ravelin in the bottom of the ditch for the foot of the central breach, and climbed it, only to find themselves on a mass of earth divided by a wide sunken space from the point they were aiming at. To get to the foot of the largest breach, that in the Trinidad bastion, it was necessary to push some way along the blazing bottom of the ditch, so as to turn and get round the end of the inundation. The main thrust of the attack, however, went this way, only part of the Light Division making for the Santa Maria breach, on which it had been intended that all should concentrate. As to the central breach in the curtain, it seems that few or none made their way[269] thither: the disappointment on reaching the top of the ravelin in front of it, made all who got alive to that point turn right or left, instead of descending and pushing straight on. Jones records that next morning there was hardly a single body of an English soldier on the central breach, while the slopes and foot of each of the two flank breaches were heaped with hundreds of corpses. This was a misfortune, as the curtain breach was the easiest of the three, and having been made only that afternoon was not retrenched like the others.

From ten to twelve the surviving men in the ditch, fed by the coming up of the rear battalions of each division, and finally by the reserve, delivered a series of desperate but disorderly attacks on the Trinidad and Santa Maria breaches. It is said that on no occasion did more than the equivalent of a company storm at once—each officer as he struggled to the front with those of his men who stuck to him, tried the breach opposite him, and was shot down nearer or farther from its foot. Very few ever arrived at the top, with its chevaux de frise of sword-blades. The footing among the beams and spikes was uncertain, and the French fire absolutely deadly—every man was armed with three muskets. Next morning observers say that they noted only one corpse impaled on the chevaux de frise of the Trinidad breach, and a few more under it, as if men had tried to crawl below, and had had their heads beaten in or blown to pieces. But the lower parts of the ascent were absolutely carpeted with the dead, lying one on another.

More than two hours were spent in these desperate but vain attempts to carry the breaches: it is said that as many as forty separate assaults were made, but all to no effect—the fire concentrated on the attacked front was too heavy for any man to face. At last the assaults ceased: the survivors stood—unable to get forward, unwilling to retreat—vainly answering the volleys of the French on the walls above them by an ineffective fire of musketry. Just after twelve, Wellington, who had been waiting on the hill above, receiving from time to time reports of the progress of the assault, sent down orders for the recall of the two divisions. They retired, most unwillingly, and formed up again, in sadly diminished numbers, not far from the glacis. The only benefit obtained from their dreadful exertions was that the attention of the French had been concentrated on the breaches for two hours—and meanwhile (without their knowledge) the game had been settled elsewhere.

The losses had been frightful—over one man in four of those engaged: the Light Division had 68 officers and 861 men killed and wounded out of about 3,000 present: the 4th Division 84 officers and 841 men out of 3,500. The Portuguese battalions which served with them had lost 400 men more—altogether 2,200 of the best troops in Wellington’s army had fallen—and all to no result.

But while the main stroke failed, each of the subsidiary attacks, under Picton and Leith, had met with complete success, and despite of the disaster on the breaches, Badajoz was at Wellington’s mercy by midnight. The success of either escalade by itself would have been enough to settle the game.