A history of the Peninsular War, Vol. 6, September 1, 1812-August 5, 1813

by Charles Oman

The next order issued was that the solitary intact 18-pounder and the other gun with the split lip—which had been mounted on a new carriage—should be hauled back to the hill of San Miguel and put into their original place, battery No. 1. The night during which they were to be removed was one of torrential rain, and the working parties charged with the duty gradually dropped aside and sought shelter, with the exception of those detailed from the Guards’ brigade and the artillery. At dawn on October 3 the guns had not reached their destination, and had to be shunted beside the salient of the hornwork, to hide them from the enemy during the day. Wellington, justly vexed with the shirking, ordered the defaulters to be put on for extra duty, and the names of their officers to be formally noted. This day was lost for all work except that of the mine, which advanced steadily but slowly, long intervals of rest having to be given in order to allow for the evaporation of foul air in its inner depths (October 3). On the following night, however, the 18-pounders were got into battery No. 1, and about the same time the engineer officers reported that the mine (now eighty-three feet long) had got well under the wall of the outer enceinte. The 4th of October was therefore destined to be an eventful day.

At dawn, battery No. 1 opened on the wall, where it had been damaged by the first mine on September 29th, using the two 18-pounders and three howitzers. The effect was much better than could have been expected: the 18 lb. round-shot (of which about 350 were used) had good penetrating power, and the already shaken wall crumbled rapidly, so that by four in the afternoon there was a practicable breach sixty feet long.

Wellington at once arranged for a third assault on the outer enceinte, telling off for it not details from many regiments, as on the previous occasion, but—what was much better—a single compact battalion, the 2/24th. Only the supports were mixed parties. At 5 p.m. the mine was fired, with excellent effect, throwing down nearly 100 feet of the rampart, and killing many of the French. Before the dust had cleared away, the men of the 2/24th dashed forward toward both breaches, with great spirit, and carried them with ease, and with no excessive loss, driving the French within the second or middle enceinte. The total loss that day was 224, of which the assault cost about 190, the other casualties being in the batteries on San Miguel and in the trenches. But the curious point of the figures is that the 2/24th, forming the actual storming-column, lost only 68 killed and wounded; the supports, and the workmen who were employed to form a lodgement within the conquered space, suffered far more heavily. Dubreton reports the casualties of the garrison at 27 killed and 42 wounded [October 4].

In the night after the storm the British, after entrenching the two breaches, began to make preparations to sap forward to the second enceinte, which being ditchless and not faced with masonry, looked less formidable than that which had already been carried, though it was protected by a solid row of palisades. Meanwhile the artillery officers proposed that battery No. 2 on San Miguel should be turned against a new objective, the point where the walls of the second and the inner lines met, immediately in front of the hornwork, in the re-entering angle marked III in the map. Battery No. 1 was meanwhile to play on the palisades of the second enceinte. This it did with some success. At 5 o’clock in the evening, however, there was an unexpected tumult in the newly-gained ground. Dubreton, misliking the look of the approaches which the assailants were beginning to run out from the breaches, ordered a sortie of 300 men, who dashed out most unexpectedly against the lodgements in front of the northern breach (No. I), and drove away the workmen with heavy loss, seizing most of their tools, overthrowing the gabions, and shovelling earth into the trench. They gave way when the covering party came up, and retired, having done immense mischief and disabled 142 of the besiegers, while their own loss was only 17 killed and 21 wounded. This was an unpleasant surprise, as showing the high spirit and resolution of the garrison; but the damage was not so great but that one good night’s work sufficed to repair it: the loss of tools was the most serious matter—the French had carried off 200 picks and shovels which could not be replaced, the stock (as usual in Peninsular sieges) being very low[42].

On the 6th and 7th the besiegers again began to sap forward towards the second enceinte, with the object of establishing a second parallel on its glacis, but with no great success. There was little or no effective fire from the batteries on San Miguel to keep down the artillery of the besieged, and the work at the sap-head was so deadly that the engineers could hardly expect the men to do much: however, the trench was driven forward to within thirty yards of the palisades. So useless were the howitzers in No. 2 battery that two of them were removed, and replaced by two French field-pieces from those captured in the hornwork on September 20; these, despite of their small calibre, worked decidedly better. The heavy guns in the Napoleon Battery devoted themselves to keeping down the fire of the two surviving 18-pounders in battery No. 2, and on the 7th knocked one from its carriage and broke off one of its trunnions. This left only one heavy piece in working order! But the artisans of the artillery park, doing their best, rigged up both the gun injured on this day and that disabled on October 1 upon block carriages, with a sort of cradle arrangement to hold them up on the side where a trunnion was gone; and it was found that they could be fired, if a very reduced charge was used. When anything like the full amount of powder was employed, they jumped off their carriages, as was natural, considering that they were only properly attached to them on one side. Of course, their battering power was hopelessly reduced by the small charge. The artillery diarists of the siege call them ‘the two lame guns’ during the last fortnight of their employment.

On October 8 Dubreton, growing once more anxious at the sight of the advance of the trenches toward the second enceinte, ordered another sally, which was executed by 400 men three hours after midnight. It was almost as successful as that of October 5. The working party of Pack’s Portuguese and the covering party from the K.G.L. brigade of the 1st Division were taken quite unawares, and driven out of the advanced works with very heavy loss. The trench was completely levelled, and many tools carried away, before the supports in reserve, under Somers Cocks of the 1/79th—the hero of the assault on the Hornwork—came up and drove the French back to their palisades. Cocks himself was killed—he was an officer of the highest promise who would have gone far if fate had spared him, and was the centre of a large circle of friends who have left enthusiastic appreciations of his greatness of spirit and ready wit[43]. The besiegers lost 184 men in this unhappy business, of whom 133 belonged to the German Legion: 18 of them were prisoners carried off into the Castle[44]. The French casualties were no more than 11 killed and 22 wounded—only a sixth part of those of the Allies.

We have now (October 8) arrived at the most depressing part of the chronicle of a siege which had been from the first a series of disappointments. After the storm of the lower enceinte on October 4, the British made no further progress. The main cause of failure was undoubtedly the weakness of their artillery, which repeatedly opened again from one or other of the two San Miguel batteries, only to be silenced after an hour or two of conflict with the heavy guns on the Donjon. But it was not only the small number of the 18-pounders which was fatal to success—they had run out of powder and shot; a great deal of the firing was done with second-hand missiles—French 16 lb. shot picked out of the works into which they had fallen. The infantry were offered a bonus for each one brought to the artillery park, and 426 were paid for. More than 2,000 French 8 lb. and 4 lb. shot were also bought from the men, though these were less useful, being only available for field-guns, which were of little use for battering. But in order not to discourage the hunting propensities of the soldiers, everything brought in was duly purchased. Shot of sorts never wholly failed, but lack of powder was a far more serious problem—it cannot be picked up second-hand. There would have been an absolute deficiency but for a stock got from a most unexpected quarter. Sir Home Popham and his ships were still on the Cantabrian coast, assisting the operations of Longa and Mendizabal against the Army of the North. The squadron had made its head-quarters at Santander, the chief port recovered from the French, and communications with it had been opened up through the mountains by the way of Reynosa. On September 26 Wellington had written to Popham[45] to inquire whether powder could not be brought from Santander to Burgos, by means of mule trains to be hired at the port. The Commodore, always helpful, fell in with the idea at once, and succeeded in procuring the mules. On October 5th 40 barrels of 90 lb. weight each were brought into camp: considering the distance, the badness of the roads, and the disturbed state of the country, it cannot be denied that Popham did very well in delivering it only ten days after Wellington had written his request, and eight days after he had received it. Other convoys from Santander came later. It is a pity that Wellington did not think of asking for heavy ship guns at the same time. But he had written to the Commodore on October 2 that ‘the means of transport required to move a train either from the coast or from Madrid (where we have plenty) are so extensive that the attempt would be impracticable[46].’

The idea of requisitioning ship guns had been started on the very first day of the siege (September 20) by Sir Howard Douglas, who had lately come from Popham’s side, and maintained that by the use of draught oxen, supplemented by man-handling in difficult places, the thing could be done. But Wellington would hear nothing of it, maintaining that matters would be settled one way or another before the guns could possibly arrive. After the disaster to batteries 3 and 4 on October 2nd he—too late—altered his opinion, and consented that an appeal should be made to Popham. The Commodore rose to the occasion, and started off two 24-pounders on October 9th, which by immense exertions were dragged as far as Reynosa, only 50 miles from Burgos, by October 18th, and had passed the worst part of the road. But at Reynosa they were turned back, for Wellington was just raising the siege and preparing to retire on Valladolid. It is clear that if they had been asked for on September 20 instead of October 3rd—as Howard Douglas had suggested—they and no doubt another heavy gun or so, could have been brought forward in time for the last bombardment, and might have turned it into a success. But guns might also have come from Madrid: Wellington did not think it wholly impossible to move artillery from the Retiro arsenal. For, ere he left it on August 31, he had instructed Carlos de España that the best guns there should be evacuated on to Ciudad Rodrigo, if ever Soult and King Joseph should draw too close in[47]. It is true that he observed that the transport would be a difficult matter, and that much would have to be destroyed, and not carried off. But it is clear that he thought that some cannon could be moved. The strangest part of the story is that his own brother-in-law, Pakenham, wrote to him from Madrid offering to send him twelve heavy guns over the Somosierra, pledging himself to manage the transport by means of oxen got in the Madrid district. His offer was rejected[48]. It seems that the conviction that the Castle of Burgos would be a hard nut to crack came too late to Wellington. And when he did realize its strength, he did not reconsider the matter of siege artillery at once, but proceeded to try the methods of Badajoz and Almaraz, mere force majeure applied by escalade, instead of thinking of bringing up more guns. He judged—wrongly as it chanced—that he would either take the place by sheer assault, or else that the French field army would interfere before October was far advanced. Neither hypothesis turned out correct, and so he had the opportunity of a full month’s siege, and failed in it for want of means that might have been procured, if only he had made another resolve on August 31st, or even on September 20. But even the greatest generals cannot be infallible prophets concerning what they will require a month ahead. The mistake is explicable, and the critic who censures it over-much would be presumptuous and unreasonable[49].

But to return to the chronicle of the unlucky days between October 8th and October 21st. The working forward by sap from the third enceinte towards the second practically stood still, after the second destructive sally of the French against the new approaches. This is largely accounted for by the steepness of the ground, which made it necessary to dig trenches of extraordinary depth, and by the setting in after October 7 of very rainy weather, which made the trenches muddy rivers, and the steep banks of earth and breaches so slippery that it was with great difficulty that parties could find their way about and move to their posts[50]. But the unchecked power of the French artillery fire counted for even more, and not least of the hindrances was the growing sulkiness of the troops. ‘Siege business was new to them, and they wanted confidence; sometimes they would tell you that you were taking them to be butchered. The loss, to be sure, was sometimes heavy, but it was chiefly occasioned by the confused and spiritless way in which the men set about their work, added to the great depth we were obliged to excavate in the trenches, to obtain cover from the commanding fire of the enemy[51].’

Meanwhile the batteries on San Miguel, when they had ammunition, and when they could put in a few hours’ work before being silenced by the fire from the Donjon, continued to pound away at the re-entering angle in the second enceinte (III in the map), and with more effect than might have been expected, for this section of the defences turned out to have been built with bad material, and crumbled even under such feeble shooting as that of Wellington’s ‘lame’ 18-pounders. The French on several days had first to silence the English battery, and then to rebuild the wall with sandbags and earth under a musketry fire from the trenches (a-a in the map) upon San Miguel, from which they could not drive the sharp-shooters of the besiegers. It was thought later—an ex post facto judgement—that the best chance of the Allies would have been to attempt a storm on this breach when first it became more or less practicable. The delay enabled the besieged to execute repairs, to scarp down the broken front, and to cut off the damaged corner by interior retrenchments.