The rank and file of the Royal Sappers and Miners carried muskets and bayonets like infantry of the line, and their sergeants the regulation halberd. Horse artillery gunners had sabres of the light dragoon type; but field artillery only very short curved swords, like those of the rifle regiments. The drivers, who were organized as a separate corps, had no weapons at all, in order that their attention might not be distracted from their horses. This seems to have been a very doubtful expedient, leaving them absolutely helpless if attacked by hostile cavalry. It may have originated from the fact that the driver, far into the eighteenth century, had not been a soldier at all, but a “waggoner,” a civilian without uniform or arms. It was only in 1794 that the corps of Artillery Drivers was formed upon this rather unpromising basis.
Regimental Colours
This is probably the place in which mention should be made of the standards under which the army fought.[313] Cavalry banners or guidons had just gone out—if used at all in the Peninsular War, it was only in its first year. Reports from the later years show that all regiments had left them either at their depôt in England, or in some cases at Lisbon. But infantry regiments, with few exceptions, took their flags into the field, as was the custom with their successors down to the last generation. It was only in the 1880’s that they finally ceased to be displayed on active service. The Rifles, always destined to fight in extended order, never had colours, and the regimental annals of some Light Infantry corps (the 68th and 71st) show that for similar reasons they had left their standards behind in England. But this was not the case with all Light Infantry: the famous 43rd and 52nd carried them all through the war.
Of the two battalion colours the one or “King’s Colour” was a large Union Jack, with the regiment’s number on a shield or medallion, often encompassed with a wreath, and sometimes also with the badge of the corps, when such existed. The second or Regimental colour was of the same hue as the facings of the corps, and only had a small Union Jack in its upper left corner, next the pole. On the plain silk of the main surface of the flag were disposed the number of the regiment, often in a wreath, and its badges and battle-honours, where such existed. Since facings had many hues, the main effect of the two flags was very different, the large Union Jack of the King’s Colour being contrasted with the yellow, green, crimson, or white, etc., of the Regimental Colour.
The colours were borne in battle by the two junior ensigns of the battalion, who had assigned to them for protection several colour-sergeants. It was the duty of these non-commissioned officers to take charge of the flag if the proper bearer were slain or hurt, and in many battles both colours came out of action in sergeants’ hands. The post of colour-sergeant was honourable but dangerous, for the enemy’s fire always beat hardest about the standards in the centre of the battalion line. Sergeant Lawrence of the 40th notes, in his simple diary, that at Waterloo he was ordered to the colours late in the day, because both the ensigns and all the colour-sergeants had been hit. “Though used to warfare as any one, this was a job I did not like. There had been before me that day fourteen sergeants already killed or wounded around them, and both staff and colours were almost cut to pieces.”[314] This was, of course, very exceptional carnage; but the posts of junior ensign and colour-sergeant were always exceptionally dangerous.
CHAPTER XIX
THE COMMISSARIAT
As I have already had occasion to remark, when dealing with the central organization of the Peninsular Army, of all the departments which had their representatives at Head Quarters that which was under the charge of the Commissary-General was the most important.[315] It is not too much to say that, when the long struggle began, the whole future of the war depended on whether the hastily organized and inexperienced Commissariat Department could enable Wellington to keep his army concentrated, and to move it freely in any direction.
Spain and Portugal are countries where large armies cannot be supplied from local resources, except in a few favoured districts. Any attempt to live on requisitions was bound to fail in the end, as the French realized to their sorrow, after a long series of endeavours to subsist on the countryside in the Peninsula, as they were wont to do in Italy or Germany. Wellington from the first forbade it, and resolved that the main dependence of the troops must be on regular stores brought up from the base of operations. Requisitions were only a subsidiary resource; they could only be made by an authorized commissary, and must be paid for at once. It was his misfortune that specie was often not forthcoming, and the payments had to be made by Treasury orders or other paper, which the peasants who received them found hard to negotiate. But payment in some form was always made.
All-Importance of Convoys