If a body of troops is under fire, and so placed as to be unable to return it, the officer commanding should make it a rule to keep them constantly on the move, no matter if it is but two side steps to the right or one to the front, it always makes them believe they are doing something, and prevents the mind from brooding over a situation which is the most trying of any.
The coolness of an officer in action, if even shewn in trifles, goes a great way towards maintaining the steadiness of the men. At the battle of Waterloo, I heard Sir John Lambert call one of his commanding officers to order for repeating his (the general's) word of command, reminding him that when the regiments were in contiguous close columns, they ought to take it from himself! As the brigade was under a terrific fire at the time, the notice of such a trifling breach of rule shewed, at all events, that the gallant general was at home!
In the course of the five days' fighting which took place near Bayonne, in December, 1813, a singular change of fate, with its consequent interchange of civilities, took place between the commanding officer of a French regiment and one of ours; I forget whether it was the 4th or 9th, but I think it was one of the regiments of that brigade—it had been posted amongst some enclosures which left both its flanks at the mercy of others.
The fighting at that place had been very severe, with various success, and while the regiment alluded to was hotly engaged in front, a French corps succeeded in getting in their rear; when the enemy's commandant advancing to the English one, apologised for troubling him, but begged to point out that he was surrounded, and must consider himself his prisoner! While the British colonel was listening to the mortifying intelligence, and glancing around to see if no hope of escape was left, he observed another body of English in the act of compassing the very corps by which he had been caught; and, returning the Frenchman's salute, begged his pardon for presuming to differ with him in opinion, but that he was labouring under a mistake, for he (the Frenchman) was, on the contrary, his prisoner, pointing in his turn to the movement that had taken place while they had been disputing the point. As the fact did not admit of a doubt, the Frenchman giving a shrug of the shoulders, and uttering a lament over the fickleness of the war-goddess, quietly surrendered.
[CHAP. XII.]
Shewing rough visitors receiving a rough reception. Some living and moving specimens thereof. Tailors not such fractions of humanity as is generally believed. Gentle visitors receiving a gentle reception, which ends by shewing that two shakes joined together sound more melodiously on the heart-strings than two hands which shake of their own accord.
Pass we on to Badajos—to that last, that direful, but glorious night—the 6th of April—"so fiercely fought, so terribly won, so dreadful in all its circumstances, that posterity can scarcely be expected to credit the tale."
Any one who has taken the trouble to read and digest what Napier has said in vindication of the measures adopted by Lord Wellington for the subjugation of those fortresses in the manner in which it was done, must feel satisfied that their propriety admits of no dispute. But as the want of time rendered it necessary to set the arts and sciences at defiance—and that, if carried at all, it must have been done with an extra sacrifice of human life, it will for ever remain a matter of opinion at what period of the siege the assault should have been made with the best prospect of success, and with the least probable loss—and such being the case it must be free to every writer to offer his own ideas.
Lord Wellington, as is well known, waited on each occasion for open breaches, and was each time successful—so far he did well, and they may do better who can. Colonel Lamarre would have attacked Badajos the first night of the siege with better hopes of success than on the last, as the garrison, he says, would have been less prepared, and the defences not so complete. But I differ from him on both positions, for, depend upon it, that every garrison is excessively alive for the first few days after they have been invested. And as to defensive preparations, I have reason to think that few after ones of consequence took place, but those of counteracting the effects of our battering guns.