Of the Royal Artillery, small in numbers, the casualties were very great in proportion. Fifteen men were killed, and forty wounded, during the siege, and in the operations immediately attending or succeeding it. The officers who were wounded were Colonel Robe, Captains Dansey and Power, Lieutenants Elgee and Johnstone.
After severe loss, a hornwork in front of the castle had been carried by assault on the night of the 19th September, and on the following night a battery for five guns was commenced. This battery was armed on the night of the 22nd with two 18-pounders and three 24-pounder howitzers, in readiness to open on the inner lines, in the event of an assault, which had been determined on for that evening on the outer line, proving successful. At the same time, a second battery for six guns was commenced to fire against the keep of the castle. The assault, which was premature, failed; and its leader was killed. On the night of the 24th, the two 18-pounders were taken out of No. 1 Battery, and drawn along a trench, part of the way towards No. 2, being replaced in the former by howitzers. On the 25th, the five howitzers in No. 1 Battery opened a fire to destroy some palisades, which were used to flank the works of the castle. The fire was not successful; the howitzers were found to be very deficient in precision when firing round shot; and the result was inadequate to the expenditure of ammunition,—141 rounds,—a consideration of some importance under the existing circumstances.[38] Lord Wellington, conscious of the deficiency of his guns, worked now by means of mining; and on the night of the 29th September, a mine was sprung which threw down part of the outer wall. An assault was immediately ordered; but from the darkness of the night the detachment missed its way, and those who were leading—having gained the top of the breach—were driven down again for want of support. The whole, therefore, returned to the trenches.
On the 30th September, the howitzers in No. 1 Battery were of essential service. About 10 A.M. they opened fire, with the addition of a French 6-pounder gun, taken in the hornwork, to demolish a stockade upon the top of a tower in the outer line a little to the enemy’s right of the breach, from which the French with musketry annoyed the English in the sap,—the fire being so close that every man, who exposed himself in the slightest degree, was sure to be hit. The stockade was strengthened by sand-bags, &c., but, after three hours’ firing, it was utterly destroyed. The ammunition expended for this purpose was 136 rounds;—90 24-pounder shot, 40 6-pounder French shot, and 6 5½-inch common shell. It was on this day that Captain Dansey, who had volunteered for service in the trenches, was wounded.
The next episode in the Artillery portion of the siege was the moving the three 18-pounders into a breaching battery so close to the outer wall, that the guns of the upper work could not bear on them. The French commander, Dubreton, lost no time, however, in bringing down a howitzer and a light gun from the upper work, followed by others as quickly as he could; and as the breaching battery was very slight, Napier, and ‘Memoir of Sir Hew Ross.’ the result was serious. “The defences of the battery were quite demolished, two of the gun-carriages were disabled, a trunnion was knocked off one of the 18-pounders, and the muzzle of another was split.” A second, stronger, breaching battery was then formed, but the plunging fire from the castle was too severe; the guns which were yet serviceable were therefore removed back to No. 1 Battery, on the hill of San Michael. From this position, on the morning of the 4th October, they opened again on the old breach; and a mine having been exploded with great effect in the same evening, another assault took place,—the fourth during the siege. This was more successful, and a lodgment was effected; but on the following evening, a large body of the enemy charged down upon the guards and workmen, and got possession of the old breach, besides killing and wounding 150 Napier. men, and destroying their works. On the 7th, the besiegers, who had continued their advance, and were now close to the wall, were again charged with fatal effect by the garrison; and the guns from San Michael, although effecting a great breach in the second line, suffered severely from the artillery fire of the enemy,—another 18-pounder losing a trunnion. Guns were, however, too few and too valuable to be considered unserviceable, even after so serious an injury as this; and the ingenuity of Colonel Dickson produced a species of carriage, from which the damaged ordnance could fire with reduced charges. Between the 7th and the 10th October, the San Michael guns continued to make breaches in the works; on the 10th, some ammunition arrived from Santander; on the 18th, another breach was pronounced practicable, and Wellington ordered a fifth assault. This also was unsuccessful; the Allies lost 200 men killed and wounded; and the siege was at length raised—on the 20th—by Lord Wellington, who had received alarming intelligence of the approach of a French army to relieve Burgos, and of the movements of Soult.
The siege of Burgos is a blot on the military reputation of the Duke of Wellington; and revealed an ignorance of what artillery could and could not do, which every now and then Sir Hew Ross to Sir Hew Dalrymple, dated Madrid, 18 Oct. 1812. manifested itself in his military operations. If Sir Hew Ross was correctly informed, the error made by Lord Wellington was almost criminal, as there was no necessity for attempting such a siege with so inadequate a siege-train. “Why he should have undertaken the siege of such a place,” wrote Major Ross from Madrid, “with means so very inadequate appears very extraordinary, especially as there was little or no difficulty in augmenting it to any extent, either from the guns and ammunition found here, or the ships at St. Andero.” That Sir Hew wrote with reason seems all the more probable from the fact that, while the last assault was actually taking place, two 24-pounders sent from Santander by Sir Home Popham had passed Reynosa on Napier. their way to Burgos. But it may be urged that the responsibility of undertaking a siege with insufficient Artillery lay not with the General, but with the Artillery commander. Those who are familiar with the character of the Duke of Wellington, as shown in the various narratives of the Peninsular War, will not make use of this argument. It was not his wont to allow his plans to be altered by the representations of his subordinates, nor was he addicted to the habit of consulting them. Besides, in this particular instance, he officially relieved the Artillery and Engineer officers of the responsibility. “The officers,” he wrote, “at To Lord Bathurst dated Cabeçon, 26 Oct. 1812. the head of the Artillery and Engineer departments, Lieut.-Colonel Robe and Lieut.-Colonel Burgoyne, and Lieut.-Colonel Dickson, who commands the reserve Artillery, rendered me every assistance; and the failure of success is not to be attributed to them.” The Duke of Wellington believed in the bayonet beyond any other weapon; and if a legitimate belief became occasionally credulity, it is hardly to be wondered at, when one reflects on the gallantry of the Infantry which it was the Duke’s good fortune to command. What seemed to be impossibilities, when ordered by him, were proved possible in the result; and the consequently increased belief in the power of the bayonet seems but natural. But his creed was supported at a terrible cost. When we find Napier himself,—Wellington’s idolater,—pronouncing his sieges a succession of butcheries, the criticism of a more temperate student may be excused. Doubtless, the want of adequate ordnance was often severely felt by the Duke of Wellington, and compelled him to an exaggerated use of the other arms; but this fact was hardly an excuse for neglecting its employment, when available in sufficient quantities, and obtainable with moderate exertions.
Nor was the fact that he—as he justly complained—never had a proper amount of Artillery with his armies any excuse for his making occasionally but an indifferent use of that which he had. Fortunately, the Duke of Wellington had merely to encounter Napoleon’s Marshals in Spain: had he had to meet their master, it is probable that the creed which he believed and practised might have received some rude assaults. If one could free oneself of all but purely professional considerations, one would wish, for the sake of the student in the art of war, that Napoleon, instead of Marmont and Clausel, had faced Wellington in the campaign of 1812. The result would, doubtless, have been the same; but the ways and means would have been very different. As it happened, Wellington’s sole encounter with Napoleon took place on ground chosen by himself, and under circumstances which yet further assisted his military creed, by testing yet again that which he had so often extravagantly proved, the marvellous endurance, discipline, and courage of the British Infantry.
The results of the mistaken siege of Burgos are curtly described by Sir J. T. Jones, in his ‘Journal of the Sieges in the Peninsula.’ “By its means,” he writes, “a beaten enemy gained time to recruit his forces, concentrate his scattered armies, and regain the ascendancy.” The same author writes, with regard to the service of the Royal Artillery during the siege: “It is a pleasing act of justice to the Artillery officers, employed in this attack, to state that they vied with each other in their exertions and expedients to meet the hourly difficulties they encountered, and that no set of men could possibly have drawn more service than they did from the limited means at their command.”
CHAPTER XX.
Vittoria and San Sebastian.
The threatening appearance of the various French armies in Spain, which compelled Lord Wellington to raise the siege of Burgos, compelled him ultimately to withdraw into Despatch to Lord Bathurst, dated 26 Oct. 1812. Portugal for winter quarters. In leaving Burgos he found the activity of the commanding officers of Artillery very beneficial. It enabled him to carry off all his serviceable guns and stores in a single night; but the absence of cattle prevented his removing the few French guns which he had captured in the storming of the hornwork. During the retreat, the services of the Horse Artillery, under Major Downman, were of a high order, and called forth the commendation of Lord Wellington. The troop which most distinguished itself was Major Bull’s, commanded by Captain Norman Ramsay, Major Bull having been twice wounded,—on one occasion so severely,—when in advance with the Cavalry at Torquemada on the night of the 12th September, 1812,—that he was obliged to be invalided. He does not reappear in the story of his gallant troop until the battle of Waterloo.
The retreat terminated on the 24th November, and the troops went into cantonments, the head-quarters being stationed at Frenada, and the Artillery at Malhada Sourda, three miles distant.