There was now some appearance that an action might be brought on; the men were sufficiently eager for this, they longed to revenge themselves upon the French for the privations and sufferings of their retreat; they made no doubt of beating them, and they anticipated with hungry eagerness the pleasure of taking their supplies. As Lord Wellington came to pass the column in review, the word, “here he comes,” passed along, and carried with it sure confidence to every heart, ... that confidence which before the works at Burgos could not be felt, being given in the field as fully as it was deserved. But the French also knew that the British commander and his troops might justly rely upon each other, and they would not hazard a battle. The cannonade was continued on both sides till evening closed. The men bivouacked as usual on the wet ground, their cloaks and blankets soaked with rain; but the rain had ceased, it was a moonlight night, and they had the satisfaction of knowing that another day’s march would bring them to Ciudad Rodrigo, beyond which the enemy could not follow them, and where their privations would be at an end. Between three and four in the morning they moved from their bivouack; the enemy followed them that day only with their cavalry. Lord Wellington’s head-quarters were in Ciudad Rodrigo that night, and on the 19th and 20th the army entered the Portugueze frontier, crossing the Agueda. The loss during this retreat of about 240 miles amounted to 196 killed, 663 wounded, 421 missing, and 280 horses; many of the men who had been returned as missing afterwards came in; but others, among whom were some valuable officers, died in consequence of the fatigues and hardships which they had endured.
♦The French retire to the Tormes.♦
The enemy retired as soon as the allies had reached Ciudad Rodrigo, and they withdrew from the Tormes also as soon as the castle of Alba was surrendered. The Spanish Governor Don José de Miranda held out there with great gallantry, and made more than a hundred prisoners in some well-directed ♦Castle of Alba de Tormes evacuated.♦ sallies. Some characteristic correspondence passed between him and the French; they required him to surrender and rely upon their generosity, otherwise he must expect to be treated with the utmost rigour; he in reply spoke of his duties as a soldier, and boasted of his brilliant garrison. The French allowed him an hour for returning a second answer, and bade him tremble if it were a refusal; in his reply he bade them do their duty as he should perform his, and told them that if the fortune of war should be in their favour, his numerous prisoners, who had been treated in the best manner, would be the victims. In this strain, but in letters which increased in length, and became more and more courteous, the correspondence was continued from the 14th of November till the 24th, on the night of which Miranda left the fortress in the hands of Lieutenant D. Nicolas Soler, with 20 men, the prisoners and the sick; and informing the French commander, in his last communication, that this officer was instructed to deliver up the place, he with the remainder of the garrison effected their escape, making their way through many dangers, but with little loss, to the Puerto del Pico.
As soon as it was ascertained that the enemy had withdrawn from the Tormes, Lord Wellington distributed the troops in winter cantonments, the left being retired to Lamego, and the right thrown forward as ♦Lord Wellington’s circular letter to the commanding officers.♦ far as Baños and Bejar, to hold the passes. He then addressed a circular letter to the commanding officers of battalions, for the purpose of drawing their attention in a very particular manner to the state of discipline of the troops. “The discipline of every army,” he said, “after a long and active campaign, becomes in some degree relaxed, and requires the utmost attention on the part of the generals and other officers to bring it back to the state in which it ought to be for service; but I am concerned to have to observe, that the army under my command has fallen off in this respect in the last campaign in a greater degree than any army with which I have ever served, or of which I have ever read. Yet this army has met with no disaster; it has suffered no privations which but trifling attention on the part of the officers could have prevented, and for which there existed no reason whatever in the nature of the service; nor has it suffered any hardships excepting those resulting from the inclemencies of the weather at a time when they were most severe. It must be obvious, however, to every officer that from the time the troops commenced their retreat from the neighbourhood of Burgos on one hand, and from Madrid on the other, the officers lost all command over their men. Irregularities and outrages of all descriptions were committed with impunity, and losses have been sustained which ought never to have occurred. Yet, the necessity for retreat existing, none was ever made in which the troops made such short marches; none on which they made such long and repeated halts; and none on which the retreating armies were so little pressed in the rear by the enemy. We must look therefore to some cause besides those resulting from the operations in which we have been engaged. I have no hesitation in attributing these evils to the habitual inattention of the officers of the regiments to their duty as prescribed by the standing regulations of the service, and by the orders of this army.
“I am far from questioning the zeal, still less the gallantry and spirit of the officers; and I am quite certain that as their minds can be convinced of the necessity of minute and constant attention, to understand, recollect, and carry into execution the orders which have been issued for the performance of their duty, and that the strict performance of their duty is necessary to enable the army to serve the country as it ought to be served, they will in future fix their attention to these points. Unfortunately the inexperience of the officers has induced many to conceive that the period during which an army is on service is one of relaxation from all rule, instead of being, as it is, the period during which, of all others, every rule for the regulation and control of the conduct of the soldier, for the inspection and care of his arms, ammunition, accoutrements, necessaries and field equipments, and his horse and horse appointments, for the receipt and issue, and care of his provisions, and the regulation of all that belongs to his food and the forage for his horse, must be most strictly attended to by the officer of his company or troop, if it is intended that an army, a British army in particular, shall be brought into the field of battle in a state of efficiency to meet the enemy on the day of trial.
“These are the points then to which I most earnestly entreat you to turn your attention, and the attention of the officers under your command, Portugueze as well as English, during the period in which it may be in my power to leave the troops in their cantonments. The commanding officers of regiments must enforce the orders of the army regarding the constant inspection and superintendence of the officers over the conduct of the men of their companies in their cantonments; and they must endeavour to inspire the non-commissioned officers with a sense of their situation and authority; and the non-commissioned officers must be forced to do their duty, by being constantly under the view and superintendence of the officers. By these means the frequent and discreditable recourse to the authority of the provost, and to punishments by the sentence of courts-martial will be prevented, and the soldiers will not dare to commit the offences and outrages of which there are too many complaints, when they know that their officers, and their non-commissioned officers, have their eyes and attention turned towards them. The commanding officers of regiments must likewise enforce the orders of the army regarding the constant, real inspection of the soldiers’ arms, ammunition, accoutrements and necessaries, in order to prevent at all times the shameful waste of ammunition, and the sale of that article, and of the soldiers’ necessaries. With this view both should be inspected daily.”
He proceeded to say that he had frequently observed during the late campaign with how much more ease and celerity the French soldiers cooked their food than the British. This disadvantage on our part, he said, must be ascribed to the same cause as the other evils which he lamented, “the want of attention in the officers to the orders of the army and to the conduct of their men, and the consequent want of authority over their conduct. Certain men of each company should be appointed to cut and bring in wood, others to fetch water, and others to get the meat, &c. to be cooked: and it would soon be found if this practice were duly enforced, and a particular hour for serving the dinners, and for the men dining, named, as it ought to be, equally as for the parade, that cooking would no longer require the inconvenient length of time which it had lately been found to take, and that the soldiers would not be exposed to the privation of their food at the moment when the army may be engaged in operations with the enemy.” He concluded by repeating that the great object of the general and field officers must be to get the captains and subalterns of the regiments to understand, and to perform the duties required from them, as the only mode by which the discipline and efficiency of the army could be restored and maintained during the next campaign.
This letter excited no little surprise in the nation, mortifying and disgraceful as the faults were which were thus openly and manfully exposed. But it was not more severe than the occasion called for. No retreat had ever been conducted with greater military skill; and nothing but that skill, and the reputation which the British troops had established for themselves under its direction, could have saved the army from the consequences of the ignorance or neglect of duty in many of the officers, and the insubordination of the men, which was a consequence of such neglect or ignorance. The circumstances of that retreat justified the whole severity of Lord Wellington’s remarks, and would more evidently have done so, if the sufferings of the army had been more broadly stated; for though the marches had indeed been short, and the halts long and frequent, no army which was not flying from an enemy, but retreating before it, in strength, ever suffered so much from exposure, and hunger, and exhaustion. Nothing could be more judicious than his orders during the whole retreat, and nothing more irregular than the way in which they were carried into effect; and this, though in part owing to casual and unavoidable obstructions on the way, arose in a far greater degree from negligence and incapacity. Sometimes divisions were moved too soon, more frequently too late, and kept standing on wet ground, in the rain, for two hours, perishing with cold, waiting the order to move. Their clothes were seldom dry for six hours together, and during the latter part of the retreat continually wet; sometimes they were bivouacked in a swamp, when better ground was near: they lay down upon the wet ground, fell asleep from mere exhaustion, were roused to receive their meat, and had then no means of dressing it, ... the camp-kettles had been sent on, or by some error were some miles in the rear, or the mules which carried them had foundered on the way; and no fire could be kindled on wet ground, with wet materials, and under a heavy rain. The subalterns threw the blame upon their superiors, and these again upon theirs, all complaining of incompetence in some of the general officers, and carelessness or supercilious neglect in some of the staff. But the intended effect was produced. That something was deficient in the equipments of the army was perceived, and in part remedied. Alas! no one observed that there was an utter want of that discipline by virtue of which Cromwell conquered, which rendered the Swedes invincible under their great Gustavus, and to which the Prince of Parma owed little less than to his own military genius, admirable as that was.