Some Reckless Cavalry Charges
This seems a very hard judgment, when we examine in detail the cavalry annals of the Peninsular War. There were cases, no doubt, where English regiments threw away their chances by their blind fury in charging, and either got cut up from pursuing an original advantage to a reckless length, or at any rate missed an opportunity by over-great dispersion or riding off the field. The earliest case was seen at Vimeiro just after Wellington’s first landing in the Peninsula, when two squadrons of the 20th Light Dragoons, after successfully cutting up a beaten column of infantry, pushed on for half a mile in great disorder, to charge Junot’s cavalry reserves, and were horribly maltreated—losing about one man in four. An equally irrational exploit took place at Talavera, where the 23rd Light Dragoons, beaten off in a charge against a square which they had been ordered to attack, rushed on beyond it, against three successive lines of French cavalry, pierced the first, were stopped by the second, and had to cut their way back with a loss of 105 prisoners and 102 killed and wounded—nearly half their strength. An equally headlong business was the charge of the 13th Light Dragoons at Campo Mayor on March 25, 1811, when that regiment, having beaten in fair fight the French 26th Dragoons, and captured eighteen siege-guns which were retreating on the road, galloped on for more than six miles, sabring the scattered fugitives, till they were actually brought up by the fire of the fortress of Badajoz, on to whose very glacis they had made their way. The captured guns, meanwhile, were picked up by the French infantry who had been retreating along the high-road behind their routed cavalry, and brought off in safety—the 13th not having left a single man to secure them. Here, at any rate, not much loss was suffered, though a great capture was missed, but similar galloping tactics on June 11, 1812, at the combat of Maguilla, led to a complete disaster. Slade’s heavy brigade (1st Royals and 3rd Dragoon Guards) fell in with L’Allemand’s French brigade, the 17th and 27th Dragoons. Each drew up, but L’Allemand had placed one squadron in reserve far beyond the sky line, and out of sight. Slade charged, beat the five squadrons immediately opposed to him, and then (without reforming or setting aside any supports) galloped after the broken French brigade in complete disorder for a mile, till he came parallel to the unperceived reserve squadron, which charged him in flank and rear: the rest of the French halted and turned; Slade could not stand, and was routed, having 40 casualties and 118 prisoners. Wellington wrote about this to Hill: “I have never been more annoyed than by Slade’s affair. Our officers of cavalry have acquired a trick of galloping at everything. They never consider the situation, never think of manœuvring before an enemy, and never keep back or provide for a reserve. All cavalry should charge in two lines, and at least one-third should be ordered beforehand to pull up and reform, as soon as the charge has been delivered, and the enemy been broken.”[100]
In the first three of the cases mentioned above, the discredit of the rash and inconsiderate pressing on of the charge falls on the regimental officers—in the last on the brigadier, Slade. It must be confessed that Wellington was not very happy in his senior cavalry officers—Erskine, Long, and Slade have all some bad marks against them—especially the last-named, whose proceedings seem nearly to have broken the heart of the lively and intelligent diarist Tomkinson, of the 16th Light Dragoons, who had the misfortune to serve long under him. Stapleton Cotton, the commander of the whole cavalry, was but a mediocrity; every one will remember his old chief’s uncomplimentary remarks about him àpropos of the siege of Bhurtpore. The man who ought to have been in charge of the British horse during the whole war was Lord Paget, who had handled Sir John Moore’s five cavalry regiments with such admirable skill and daring during the Corunna campaign: his two little fights of Sahagun and Benevente were models in their way. But he was unhappily never employed again till Waterloo—where his doings, under his new name of Lord Uxbridge, are sufficiently well known. But a question of seniority, and an unhappy family quarrel with the Wellesleys (having absconded with the wife of Wellington’s brother Henry, he fought a duel with her brother in consequence) prevented him from seeing service under the Duke in the eventful years 1809–14. Of the cavalry generals who took part in the great campaigns, after Paget the most successful was Lumley, who has two very fine achievements to his credit—the containing of Soult’s superior cavalry during the crisis of the battle of Albuera, and the combat of Usagre, of May 25, 1811, noted above. This was considered such an admirable piece of work by the enemy, that it is related at great length in Picard’s Histoire de la Cavalerie, alone among all British successes of the Peninsular War.
Lumley’s Victory at Usagre
It needs a word of notice, as it is hardly mentioned in the Wellington dispatches, and very briefly by Napier. Latour-Maubourg had been sent by Soult to push back Beresford’s advanced posts, and discover his position. He had a very large force—two brigades of dragoons and four regiments of light cavalry, in all 3500 sabres. Lumley, who was screening Beresford’s movements, had only three British regiments (3rd Dragoon Guards, 4th Dragoons, 13th Light Dragoons), 980 sabres, and Madden’s and Otway’s Portuguese brigades, 1000 sabres, with 300 of Penne Villemur’s Spanish horse. Wishing to contain the French advance as long as possible, he took up a position behind the bridge and village of Usagre, a defile through which the French must pass in order to reach him. Latour-Maubourg, relying on the immense superiority of numbers which he possessed, was reckless in his tactics. After sending off a brigade of light horse to turn Lumley’s position, by a very long detour and distant fords, he pushed his other three brigades into the village, with orders to cross the bridge and press the enemy in front. Lumley was showing nothing but a line of Portuguese vedettes, having withdrawn his squadrons behind the sky line. He was apprised of the turning movement, but, knowing the ground better than the French, was aware that it would take a very much longer time than the enemy expected, so resolved to hold his position to the last moment. He allowed the two leading regiments of Bron’s dragoons to pass the bridge and form on the nearer side, and then, while the third regiment was crossing the river, and the second brigade was entering the long village, charged suddenly in upon the first brigade, with six English squadrons in front and six Portuguese squadrons on the right flank. The two deployed French regiments were thrown back on the third, which was jammed on the bridge. Hence they could not get away to reform and rally, the road behind them being entirely blocked, while the second brigade in the village could not get to the front to give assistance. All that Latour-Maubourg could do was to dismount its leading regiment and occupy with it the houses on each side of the bridge, from which they kept back the victorious British by their carbine fire. Lumley, meanwhile, dealt with the three routed regiments at his leisure, killing or wounding 250 men and capturing 80 prisoners before the disordered wrecks succeeded in re-crossing the river. Latour-Maubourg, warned by this bloody check, showed for the future no anxiety to press in upon Beresford’s cavalry screen.
How not to deal with an exactly similar situation, it may be remarked, was shown on the 23rd October of the following year, 1812, by two British brigadiers, who, charged with the covering of the retreat of Wellington’s army from Burgos, were holding a position behind the bridge of Venta del Pozo or Villadrigo, when the part of the French cavalry immediately opposed to them, the brigade of Faverot, ten squadrons strong, came down to the defile. Faverot, like Latour-Maubourg at Usagre, took the hazardous step of ordering his leading regiment to pass the bridge at a trot, and form on the other side. This Bock, the senior British brigadier, allowed it to do, and was right in so doing, for the proper moment to strike was when the enemy should have half or three-quarters of his men across the bridge, and the rest jammed upon it. But Bock allowed the psychological moment to pass, and did not charge till the French brigade had almost entirely crossed, and could put very nearly equal numbers in line against him. Then, moving too late, with some squadrons of Anson’s brigade in support, he came to a desperate standing fight with the enemy, in which both suffered very heavily. But when all the British and German Legion regiments were already engaged, the rearmost squadrons of the French, which had crossed the bridge under cover of the fighting line, fell upon Bock from the flank, and turned one of his wings; the British cavalry had to give way and retreat, till it was covered by the infantry of the 7th Division. If Bock had charged five minutes earlier, he would have nipped the French column in the middle, and probably have destroyed the leading regiments. The French brigade, as it was, lost 18 officers and 116 men, Anson and Bock about 200, among whom were four officers and 70 men prisoners.
Surprise of Arroyo Dos Molinos
On the whole, I am inclined to think that Wellington was a little hard on his cavalry. There was, of course, considerable justification for his criticisms. There was a want of decision and intelligence among some of his brigadiers, and a tendency to headlong and reckless charging straight ahead among many of his regimental officers. But looking dispassionately at the cavalry work on both sides, it is impossible to say that the French marshals were any better served. There is no striking instance in the annals of the British campaigns of 1809–14 of the army, or even a division, being surprised for want of vigilance on the part of its cavalry screen, while several such can be quoted on the French side—especially Ney’s surprise at Foz d’Arouce on March 15, 1811—caused by his light cavalry under Lamotte having completely failed to watch the roads, or the better-known rout of Girard at Arroyo dos Molinos later in the same year. On that occasion an infantry division, accompanied by no less than two brigades of light cavalry, was attacked at dawn and dispersed with heavy loss, owing to the fact that the cavalry brigadiers, Bron and Briche, had taken no precautions whatever to feel for the enemy. They, like the infantry, were completely surprised, being caught with the horses unsaddled, and the men dispersed among houses; hence the chasseurs were taken prisoners in large numbers by Hill’s sudden rush, one of the brigadiers and a cavalry colonel being among the 2000 unwounded prisoners taken. There is no such large-scale surprise as this among all the records of the British cavalry. The worst that I know were those of a squadron of the 13th Light Dragoons on April 6, 1811, near Elvas, and a very similar one of the 11th Light Dragoons two months later, not far from the same place. In the last case the disaster is said to have happened because the regiment had only just landed from England after long home-service, and the captain in command lost his head from sheer inexperience. With regard to this I may quote the following pregnant sentence, from the Diary of Tomkinson, who wrote far the best detailed account of the life of a cavalry regiment during those eventful years. “To attempt giving men or officers any idea in England of outpost duty was considered absurd, and when they came abroad they had all to learn. The fact was that there was no one to teach them. Sir Stapleton Cotton (who afterwards commanded the cavalry in Spain) once tried an experiment with the 14th and 16th Light Dragoons near Woodbridge in Suffolk. In the end he got the supposed enemy’s vedettes and his own all facing the same way. In England I never saw nor heard of cavalry taught to charge, disperse, and reform, which of all things, before an enemy, is most essential. Inclining in line right or left is very useful, and that was scarcely ever practised.” He adds in 1819: “On return to English duty, after the peace, we all continued the old system, each regiment estimating its merit by mere celerity of movement. Not one idea suggested by our war experience was remembered, and after five years we shall have to commence all over again, if we are sent abroad.”
In short, the proper work of cavalry, apart from mere charging, had to be learnt on Spanish soil when any regiment landed. But it was in the end picked up by the better corps, and on the whole the outpost and reconnaissance work of the Peninsular Army seem to have been well done, though some regiments had a better reputation than others. Much of the work of this kind speaks for itself. The most admirable achievement during the war was undoubtedly that of the 1st Hussars of the K.G.L., who, assisted afterwards by the 14th and 16th Light Dragoons, kept for four months (March to May, 1810) the line of the Agueda and Azava, 40 miles long, against a fourfold strength of French cavalry, without once letting a hostile reconnaissance through, losing a picket or even a vedette, or sending a piece of false information back to General Craufurd, whose front they were covering.
Wellington’s Cavalry Tactics