There can be no doubt that siege-work was loathed by the rank and file, not so much for its danger—there was never any lack of volunteers for a forlorn hope—but for its discomfort. There was a sort of underlying feeling that entrenching was not soldier’s but navvy’s work; the long hiding under cover in cramped positions, which was absolutely necessary, was looked upon as a sort of skulking. With an unwise disregard for their personal safety, which had a touch of bravado and more than a touch of sulkiness in it, the men exposed themselves far more than was necessary. I fancy that on some occasions, notably at the early sieges of Badajoz and at Burgos, there was a general feeling that matters were not being scientifically or adequately conducted, and that too much was being asked of the rank and file, when they were made to attempt a hard task without the proper means. It must have been clear to them that there were too few engineer officers, not enough artillery, and no proper provision of tools. Hence came a spirit of anger and discontent.
At Ciudad Rodrigo, and at the third and last leaguer of Badajoz, the weather was so abominable that the siege-work was long looked back on as a perfect nightmare. At Rodrigo, in the high upland of Leon, the month of January was a combination of frost and rain; the water accumulated in the trenches and there often froze, so that the men were standing ankle-deep in a mixture of ice and mud, and since they could not move about, because of the enemy’s incessant fire, suffered horribly from cold. At Badajoz there was no frost: but incessant chilling rain was almost as bad during the early weeks of the siege; the trenches were often two feet deep in water, and the work of the spade was almost useless, since the liquid mud that was shovelled up ran away in streams out of the gabions into which it was cast, and refused to pile up into parapets for the trenches, spreading out instead into mere broad accumulations of slime, which gave no cover, and had no resisting power against the round shot of the garrison. I imagine that the desperate and dirty toil in those operations, protracted over many days of abominable discomfort as well as danger, accounts in great measure for the ferocious spirit shown by the victors both at Rodrigo and Badajoz. The men were in a blind rage at the misery which they had been enduring, and it found vent, after the storm was over, in misconduct far surpassing that which would have followed a pitched battle where the losses had been equally great. One observer writes: “The spirit of the soldiers rose to a frightful height—I say frightful because it was not of that sort which denoted exultation at the prospect of achieving an exploit which was about to hold them up to the admiration of the world; there was a certain something in their bearing which told plainly that they had suffered fatigues of which they had not complained, and seen their comrades and officers slain around them without repining, but that they had smarted under the one and felt acutely for the other. They smothered both, so long as body and mind were employed, but now, before the storm, they had a momentary licence to think, and every fine feeling vanished—plunder and revenge took their place.... A quiet but desperate calm replaced their usual buoyant spirits, and nothing was observable in their manner but a tiger-like expression of anxiety to seize upon their prey.”[292]
Waiting for the Storm
Preparation for the storm affected different men in different ways: some tried to make up old quarrels and exchanged words of forgiveness; a good many wrote letters home, which were to be delivered only in the case of their falling. “Each arranged himself for the combat in such manner as his fancy would admit of: some by lowering their cartridge-boxes, others by turning them to the front for more convenient use; others unclasped their stocks or opened their shirt collars; others oiled their bayonets. Those who had them took leave of their wives and children—an affecting sight, but not so much so as might have been expected, because the women, from long habit, were accustomed to such scenes of danger.”[293]
One intelligent sergeant speaks of the moment of waiting for the order to storm as full of a stress that nothing else could produce: “We felt a dead weight hanging on our minds; had we been brought hurriedly into action, it would have been quite different, but it is inconsistent with the nature of man not to feel as I have described. The long warning, the dark and silent night, the known strength of the fortress, the imminent danger of the attack, all conspired to produce this feeling. It was not the result of want of courage, as was shown by the calm intrepidity of the advance when we came in range of the French cannon.”[294] That the revulsion from the long waiting took the shape of frenzied violence, when the men were at last let loose, was not unnatural. A certain amount of the horrors which took place at Badajoz and San Sebastian may be ascribed to mere frenzy, if the rest was due to more deliberate wickedness on the part of the baser spirits of the army.
CHAPTER XVIII
UNIFORMS AND WEAPONS
Without going into the niceties of regimental detail, which were fully developed by 1809, it is necessary to give a certain attention to the dress of the army—we might almost add, to its occasional want of dress.
Concerning Head-Gear
The Peninsular Army was fortunate in having started just late enough to be rid of the worst of the unpractical clothing—the legacy of the eighteenth century—which had afflicted the troops of the earlier years of the war. The odd hat, shaped something like a civilian beaver, with a shaving-brush at the side, which had been worn in Holland and Egypt, had just been superseded for the rank and file by a light felt shako, with brass plate in front,[295] and a woollen tuft with the regimental colours (worn sometimes in front, sometimes at the side), and ornamented with white loops and tassels.[296] This was a light head-dress, compared with what had gone before, and no less with the heavy, bell-topped leather shakos that were to come after. Wellington protested against an early attempt to introduce these, saying that he always knew his own troops at a distance, even when great-coated, by the fact that their shakos were narrower at the crown than the base, while the French headgear was always bell-topped, swelling out from the bottom to the crown, and the distinction was useful. The felt shako had a peak to protect the eyes from the sun, and a chin-strap. It was a serviceable head-dress, whose only fault was that, after long wear, and exposure to much rain, the felt became soft and might crease or bulge, and then dry into unsightly and lop-sided shapes.[297]