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

by Charles Oman

On the side of the main attack the Royal Scots led out of the parallel immediately that the explosion was heard, and pushed forward in almost complete darkness on to the strand. It was found to consist in many places of hard rock overgrown with slippery seaweed, and interspersed with deep pools. The men stumbled over, and into, many traps which might have been avoided by daylight, and all order was lost. But for the first few minutes there was little fire bearing on them, and the platoons at the head of the column reached the main breach. The conducting engineer, Lieutenant Harry Jones, and Major Fraser, commanding the wing of the Royal Scots, had actually got to the lip of the breach, with the leading men of the storming party, before the enemy really opened. That the crowning of the breach was not followed by a rush into the town was due to Rey’s precautions—there was a sudden drop of twenty feet between the top of the wall and the street below, and no means to descend, as all stairs and ramps had been cut away. There were some ladders with the column, but not at its head—they were being carried in the rear of the right wing of the Royal Scots. As the leading company came to a halt the French began to shoot hard from behind traverses on the rampart-walk, barricades, and loopholed houses, and the guns in the two flanking towers played on the breach with grape. The head of the column began to wither away; Fraser and Jones were both wounded—the former mortally—and so was every man who had reached the summit. The survivors on the breach threw themselves down among the stones and began to return the enemy’s fire—the first impetus being lost, and any chance of success with it.

But it was only about the equivalent of a company which had advanced so far; the rear of the right wing of the Royal Scots were still passing along the flank of the hornwork, in a straggling file, when the enemy’s fire began to be serious. It came most fiercely from an entrenchment which Rey had thrown up across the main ditch between the hornwork and the high front of the demi-bastion behind it. It seems, from the narrative of an officer who took a prominent part in the storm—Colin Campbell of the 1/9th, who was with the ladder party—that many of the Royal Scots, arriving in the darkness at this opening into the main ditch, mistook it for a passage by which they might force their way into the place, or even for the great breach itself. At any rate they turned in toward it, and on meeting with strenuous resistance began to fire upon the enemy. The men following gathered in upon the first comers, and a crowd accumulated at this point, which checked the ladder party and the left wing of the Royal Scots as they came up. Hardly any one pressed on to join the head of the column on the slope of the breach. Meanwhile the tail of the column was blocked, as it tried to press on past the hornwork. The French, standing above, rolled down the shells which had been laid ready upon the British below, and kept up a vigorous discharge of musketry. With great exertions individual company officers succeeded in collecting parties of their own men, and leading them out of the crowd, so as to pass on to the great breach. But the attack there had already come to nothing: the stones all up the slope were strewn with dead and wounded—a few survivors were keeping up an ineffectual return fire upon the well-concealed enemy. Three or perhaps four attempts to mount again were made by small parties of the rear companies of the Royal Scots, but there were never more than 80 or 90 men acting together, and the officers and leading men were always shot down on the crest. At last the senior captain surviving, seeing the impossibility of getting forward, ordered the stormers to retire, which they did—only half an hour or less after the assault commenced—though the time had seemed much longer, as was natural, to those involved in the bloody business. The larger body of men engaged farther back, opposite the main ditch and under the demi-bastion of St. Juan, gave way also when the head of the column fell back among them: they had themselves suffered heavily, and of course had made no progress. Just as the whole body rolled back along the beach they came into collision with the front of the 1/38th, who had only just finished filing out of the parallel, so slow was the process of emerging from its narrow exit. Their commanding officer, Colonel Greville, had halted them for a short time to let their rear close up, and to prevent them from dribbling forward in a thin string of small parties, as the Royal Scots had done. Just as they came parallel with the north end of the hornwork the broken mass of men from the front ran in upon them; all order was lost at once, and after some vain attempts to get forward the 38th fell back along with the rest over the slippery shore[817]. The disordered crowd suffered heavily from the French grape and musketry—they were a mark impossible to miss, and strewed the rocks and pools with dead. The 1/9th, who were just beginning to file out of the parallel, were of course ordered back at once—‘but had lost almost as many heads as they showed[818].’

So quickly was the whole affair over that the artillerymen, standing by their guns on the opposite side of the Urumea, ready to co-operate as soon as dawn should come, believed at first that there had been a feint or a false attack. It was only when the growing light showed them the breach strewn from lip to foot with red coats, and the strand below thickly dotted with them also, that they realized that the assault had been made and had failed[819], without their being given the chance to intervene as they had promised.

The loss had, of course, been very heavy—out of 571 casualties of all ranks[820] more than 330 belonged to the unfortunate Royal Scots, whose right wing companies were almost exterminated. Six officers and 118 men, almost all wounded, fell into the hands of the enemy. It should be remembered to the credit of the garrison that, the moment that the storm was over, they collected from the foot of the breach and the neighbouring strand many officers and men who would otherwise have been drowned by the returning tide[821]. When it was seen that this was the task of the French who were seen busy on the beach, a flag of truce was hoisted, and all firing ceased for an hour. The prisoners, one of whom, the engineer Harry Jones, has left an interesting account of his experiences during the next six weeks[822], were very well treated. The extremely moderate loss of the garrison was 18 killed and 49 wounded—all by musketry fire, since by the abominable misarrangement of the assault the British artillery had no chance of acting.

Two comments by eye-witnesses on this woeful business are worth giving. Colin Campbell wrote:

‘One main cause of failure was the narrow front and consequent length and thinness of the column in which we advanced. This necessarily became more loosened and disjointed by the difficult nature of the ground it had to pass over in the dark. It reached the breach in driblets and never in such body or number as to give the mind of the soldier anything like confidence in success. If some means had been devised of starting the Royals in one big honest lump, which might have been contrived without much difficulty or danger, so that they could have started in some dense form, with the 38th well packed up in a front of fours in readiness to start immediately behind after them, the stoppage at the demi-bastion would never have occurred, and some 200 men at least of the Royals would have reached the breach in a compact body. Such a number would have forced bodily through all opposition. Even under all the disadvantages of bad arrangements, I firmly believe that if we had moved forward by daylight, when an officer could have seen, and been seen by, his men, when the example of the former would have animated the exertions of the latter, the Royals would have gone over the breach on July 25th[823].’

Campbell’s blame, therefore, would fall mainly on Oswald, who, though he had protested against the points chosen for attack, had actually arranged the troops, and failed to remember that men should go ‘over the top’ on a broad front, and on Graham, who fixed the ‘Zero’ point half an hour before dawn. Gomm, of the 1/9th, also a most distinguished and capable officer, goes for other game—the officers of the scientific services:

‘I am afraid our success at Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz, owing to the almost miraculous efforts of the troops, has stopped the progress of science among our engineers, and perhaps done more; for it seems to have inspired them with a contempt for so much of it as they had attained before. Our soldiers have on all occasions stood fire so well that our artillery have become as summary in their processes as our engineers. Provided that they have made a hole in the wall, by which we can claw up, they care not about destroying defences. In fact, we have been called upon hitherto to ensure the success of our sieges by the sacrifice of lives. Our Chief Engineers and Commandants of Artillery remind me of Burke’s “Revolutionary Philosophers” and their “dispositions which make them indifferent to the cause of humanity; they think no more of men than of mice in an air pump”. We came before the place well equipped with all the means necessary for attacking it en règle, and I saw no reason for attacking it otherwise. I may dwell longer than I ought to do on this subject. But it is, at least, pardonable in us, who are most nearly concerned, to become tedious in passing our censure upon the methods of those whom we cannot but consider as the authors of our calamity; which, as it was foreseen by others, and might have been by them, could have been avoided.’

The narrative of the assault seems to show that both Campbell and Gomm had reason for their complaints, though they chose different points to criticize. But of the various errors made, undoubtedly the most fatal of all was attempting to storm breaches that could only be approached by a long defile along the flank of the hornwork, which was intact and well garrisoned. And for this the engineers have to take the responsibility. Camp rumour very cruelly put the blame on the troops[824], alleging that there had been a panic: this was a monstrous injustice. Everything that mismanagement could accomplish had been done to discourage them; but it was not poor spirit, but physical incapacity to finish a task impossible under the conditions set, that caused them to retire.