Two short quotations from eye-witnesses may serve to show the kind of scenes that prevailed in Badajoz from the early hours of the morning on April 7th down to the following night.
‘Unfortunate Badajoz,’ writes one narrator[286], ‘met with the usual fate of places taken at the point of the bayonet. In less than an hour after it fell into our possession it looked as if centuries had gradually completed its destruction. The surviving soldier, after storming a town, considers it as his indisputable property, and thinks himself at liberty to commit any enormity by way of indemnifying himself for the risking of his life. The bloody strife has made him insensible to every better feeling: his lips are parched by the extraordinary exertions that he has made, and from necessity, as well as inclination, his first search is for liquor. This once obtained, every trace of human nature vanishes, and no brutal outrage can be named which he does not commit. The town was not only plundered of every article that could be carried off, but whatever was useless or too heavy to move was wantonly destroyed. Whenever an officer appeared in the streets the wretched inhabitants flocked round him with terror and despair, embraced his knees and supplicated his protection. But it was vain to oppose the soldiers: there were 10,000 of them crowding the streets, the greater part drunk and discharging their pieces in all directions—it was difficult to escape them unhurt. A couple of hundred of their women from the camp poured also into the place, when it was barely taken, to have their share of the plunder. They were, if possible, worse than the men. Gracious God! such tigresses in the shape of women! I sickened when I saw them coolly step over the dying, indifferent to their cries for a drop of water, and deliberately search the pockets of the dead for money, or even divest them of their bloody coats. But no more of these scenes of horror. I went deliberately into the town to harden myself to the sight of human misery—and I have had enough of it: my blood has been frozen with the outrages I witnessed.’
Another eye-witness gives a passing glimpse of horrors. ‘Duty being over, I chanced to meet my servant, who seemed to have his haversack already well filled with plunder. I asked him where the regiment was: he answered that he did not know, but that he had better conduct me to the camp, as I appeared to be wounded. I certainly was hit in the head, but in the excitement of the escalade had not minded it, nor had I felt a slight wound in my leg: but, as I began to be rather weak, I took his advice, and he assisted me on. In passing what appeared to be a religious house I saw two soldiers dragging out an unfortunate nun, her clothes all torn: in her agony she knelt and held up a cross. Remorse seized one of the men, who appeared more sober than the other, and he swore she should not be outraged. The other soldier drew back a step and shot his comrade dead. At this moment we found ourselves surrounded by several Portuguese: they ordered us to halt, and presented their muskets at us. I said to my servant, “throw them some of your plunder:” he instantly took off his haversack and threw it among them: some dollars and other silver coin rolled out. They then let us pass—had he not done so they would have shot us—as they did several others. We got safe to the bastion, and my servant carried me on his back to the camp, where I got a draught of water, fell asleep instantly, and did not waken till after midday[287].’
‘In justice to the army’—we quote from another authority[288]—’I must say that the outrages were not general: in many cases they were perpetrated by cold-blooded villains who had been backward enough in the attack. Many risked their lives in defending helpless women, and, though it was rather a dangerous moment for an officer to interfere, I saw many of them running as much risk to prevent inhumanity as they did in the preceding night while storming the town.’ The best-known incident of the kind is the story of Harry Smith of the 95th, who saved a young Spanish lady in the tumult, and married her two days later, in the presence of the Commander-in-Chief himself, who gave away the bride. This hastily-wedded spouse, Juana de Leon, was the Lady Smith who was the faithful companion of her husband through so many campaigns in Spain, Belgium, and South Africa, and gave her name to the town in Natal which, nearly ninety years after the siege of Badajoz, was to be the scene of the sternest leaguer that British troops have endured in our own generation. Harry Smith’s narrative of the Odyssey of himself and his young wife in 1812-14, as told in his autobiography, is one of the most romantic tales of love and war that have ever been set down on paper.
It was not till late in the afternoon of the 7th that Wellington, as has been already mentioned, came to the rather tardy conclusion that ‘it was now full time that the plunder of Badajoz should cease.’ He sent in Power’s Portuguese brigade to clear out those of the plunderers who had not already gone back exhausted to their camps, and erected a gallows in the cathedral square, for the hanging of any criminals who might be detected lingering on for further outrages. Authorities differ as to whether the Provost Marshal did, or did not, put his power in action: the balance of evidence seems to show that the mere threat sufficed to bring the sack to an end. The men were completely exhausted: Napier remarks that ‘the tumult rather subsided than was quelled.’
SECTION XXXII: CHAPTER V
OPERATIONS OF THE FRENCH DURING THE SIEGE OF BADAJOZ
Before proceeding to demonstrate the wide-spreading results of the fall of the great Estremaduran fortress, it is necessary to follow the movements of the French armies which had been responsible for its safety.
Soult had been before Cadiz when, on March 11, he received news from Drouet that troops were arriving at Elvas from the North, and on March 20 the more definite information that Wellington had moved out in force on the 14th, and invested Badajoz on the 16th. The Marshal’s long absence from his head-quarters at Seville at this moment, when he had every reason to suspect that the enemy’s next stroke would be in his own direction, is curious. Apparently his comparative freedom from anxiety had two causes. The first was his confidence that Badajoz, with its excellent governor and its picked garrison, could be relied upon to make a very long defence. The second was that he was fully persuaded that when the time of danger arrived he could count on Marmont’s help—as he had in June 1811. On February 7 he wrote to his colleague[289] that he had just heard of the fall of Rodrigo, that Wellington’s next movement would naturally be against Badajoz, and that he was glad to learn that Montbrun’s divisions, on their return from Alicante, were being placed in the valley of the Tagus. ‘I see with pleasure that your excellency has given him orders to get in touch with the Army of the South. As long as this communication shall exist, the enemy will not dare to make a push against Badajoz, because at his first movement we can join our forces and march against him for a battle. I hope that it may enter into your plans to leave a corps between the Tagus and the Guadiana, the Truxillo road, and the Sierra de Guadalupe, where it can feed, and keep in touch with the troops which I keep in the Serena [the district about Medellin, Don Benito, and Zalamea, where Daricau was cantoned]. I am persuaded that, when the campaigning season begins, the enemy will do all he can to seize Badajoz, because he dare attempt nothing in Castille so long as that place offers us a base from which to invade Portugal and fall upon his line of communications.... I am bound, therefore, to make a pressing demand that your left wing may be kept in a position which makes the communication between our armies sure, so that we may be able, by uniting our disposable forces, to go out against the enemy with the assurance of success.’