The battle of Albuera was fought on the 16th May, 1811, eleven days after the battle of Fuentes de Onoro. At Albuera the personal gallantry of Marshal Beresford was more conspicuous than the generalship. Our loss in killed and wounded here was greater than in any other action during the Peninsular War. Wellington arrived on the field the third day after the battle. For several days before it the Spaniards had been reduced to horse-flesh for a subsistence! Yet on the whole they fought well. It was the terrific charge and indomitable valour of the Fusiliers that gained the day. Never was British infantry seen to greater advantage. “The terrible balance hung for two hours, and twice trembling to the sinister side, only yielded at last to the superlative vigour of the fusiliers.” (Napier, Hist. War in the Penins. book xii. chap. 7.)
The assault of Ciudad Rodrigo took place on the 19th January, 1812. The success was the result of desperate valour, time not permitting the regular approaches of scientific skill, as it was hourly expected that Marmont would arrive to succour the town. “Wellington resolved to storm the place without blowing in the counterscarp; in other words, to overstep the rules of science, and sacrifice life rather than time, for such was the capricious nature of the Agueda that in one night a flood might enable a small French force to relieve the place.” (Napier, Hist. War in the Penins. book xvi. chap. 3.) “The storming party went straight to the breach, which was so contracted that a gun placed lengthwise across the top nearly blocked up the opening. * * The audacious manner in which Wellington stormed the redoubt of Francisco, and broke ground on the first night of the investment; the more audacious manner in which he assaulted the place before the fire of the defence had been in any manner lessened, * * were the true causes of the sudden fall of the place. * * When the general terminated his order for the assault with this sentence, ‘Ciudad Rodrigo must be stormed this evening,’ he knew well that it would be nobly understood.” (Ibid.) The vital contest lasted only a few minutes, but cost the gallant Crawfurd’s life. “Throwing off the restraints of discipline, the troops committed frightful excesses. The town was fired in three or four places, the soldiers menaced their officers, and shot each other; many were killed in the market-place, intoxication soon increased the tumult, disorder everywhere prevailed, and at last, the fury rising to an absolute madness, a fire was wilfully lighted in the middle of the great magazine, when the town and all in it would have been blown to atoms, but for the energetic courage of some officers and a few soldiers who still preserved their senses.” (Ibid.) It is fit that the glories of War should have hung up by their side this pendent picture of its Hellish atrocities and horrors. The “frightful excesses” are here but imperfectly detailed. Neither age nor sex was spared from any description of outrage; and it was against the Spanish people unarmed, helpless, and allies, that these villanies of unbridled passion were committed. Warlike ambition contains within it the germs of every crime; and War itself, unless purely defensive and inevitable, is the concentration of all malignity.
The approach to Badajoz from the side of Elvas is exceedingly interesting. The Portuguese fortress of Elvas is perched on a lofty hill, with the valley at its foot which separates it at the distance of three leagues from Badajoz and the mountains of the Spanish frontier. I was struck by the contrast between the warm and cultivated quintas on the Elvas side, and the bleakness on that of Badajoz. The sun had just risen over the hills of Spanish Estremadura, which clad in the deepest purple were boldly yet delicately limned along the sky. The road was covered with numberless screeching carros, and the whistling contrabandists and sturdy almocrebes conducting their mules in listless silence formed a wonderful contrast with my thoughts, which were full of the ‘pride, pomp, and circumstance’ of War. When I entered Badajoz, which I did from the side of Madrid, I could not help shuddering at the sight of those walls which, little more than thirty years back, witnessed so terrible a conflict—“a combat,” says Napier “so fiercely fought, so terribly won, so dreadful in all its circumstances, that posterity can scarcely be expected to credit the tale; but many are still alive who know that it is true.” (Hist. War in the Penins. book xvi. chap. 5.) The courage of Philippon and the garrison was of the highest order. The assault combined escalade and storm, and took place in the night of the 6th April, 1812. For a detailed description of this wonderful and terrific scene I must refer to Napier’s History, whose magnificent narrative it is impossible to abridge. “The ramparts crowded with dark figures and glittering arms were seen on the one side, and on the other the red columns of the British, deep and broad, were coming on like streams of burning lava; * * a crash of thunder followed, and with incredible violence the storming parties were dashed to pieces by the explosion of hundreds of shells and powder-barrels.” (Napier, ibid.) “Now a multitude bounded up the great breach as if driven by a whirlwind, but across the top glittered a range of sword-blades, sharp-pointed, keen-edged on both sides, and firmly fixed in ponderous beams, which were chained together and set deep in the ruins; and fourteen feet in front, the ascent was covered with loose planks, studded with sharp iron points, on which the feet of the foremost being set the planks moved, and the unhappy soldiers, falling forward on the spikes, rolled down upon the ranks behind.” (Ibid.) “Two hours spent in these vain efforts convinced the soldiers that the breach of the Trinidad was impregnable. * * Gathering in dark groups, and leaning on their muskets, they looked up with sullen desperation, while the enemy stepping out on the ramparts, and aiming their shot by the light of the fire-balls which they threw over, asked, as their victims fell, Why they did not come into Badajoz?” (Ibid.) Five thousand men fell during the siege, of whom 3,500 were struck during the assault. Five generals were wounded. More than 2,000 men fell at the breaches! Philippon surrendered early next morning. To the heroic Picton and his “fighting third” division the success was chiefly attributable. “Now commenced that wild and desperate wickedness, which tarnished the lustre of the soldier’s heroism. All indeed were not alike, for hundreds risked and many lost their lives in striving to stop the violence, but the madness generally prevailed, and as the worst men were leaders here, all the dreadful passions of human nature were displayed. Shameless rapacity, brutal intemperance, savage lust, cruelty, and murder, shrieks and piteous lamentations, groans, shouts, imprecations, the hissing of fires bursting from the houses, the crashing of doors and windows, and the reports of muskets used in violence, resounded for two days and nights in the streets of Badajoz! on the third, when the city was sacked, when the soldiers were exhausted by their own excesses, the tumult rather subsided than was quelled. The wounded men were then looked to, the dead disposed of.” (Ibid.) Let this scene be for ever engraven on our minds—let its horrors be a response to the insane clamour for war. And, notwithstanding the glories of our Peninsular campaigns, let us resolve that a sword we will never draw but in defence of our own soil!
The ever memorable battle of Salamanca took place in the same month of July in which three years before had been fought the equally glorious battle of Talavera—and even in still more sultry weather, so much so that before the engagement at Salamanca, on one occasion when the French, pressing upon our rear, were scattered by the bayonet, some of our men fainted with the heat. On the eve of the battle, a terrific thunder-storm came on just as the enemy were taking up their position. The sky was kindled with incessant lightnings, and through the heavy rain which subsequently fell, the French fires could be seen along their entire line. It is a remarkable fact that nearly every one of our chief battles in the Peninsula was heralded by a storm, as if Nature sympathized in the contest. That of Salamanca was fought upon a plain surrounded by ranges of hills—one of the few open and level tracts upon which the rival armies met in the Peninsula, which seemed peculiarly adapted for such a struggle, bearing at opposite and distant points two striking rocky eminences, steep and rugged, called the Arapiles (cut out, as it were, for rival generals) on which the left of the French and the right of the Allies were posted. The battle of Salamanca lasted only forty minutes. It originated in an error of Marmont’s, which Wellington seized as thus described by Napier: “Starting up, he repaired to the high ground, and observed their movements for some time, with a stern contentment, for their left wing was entirely separated from the centre. The fault was flagrant, and he fixed it with the stroke of a thunder-bolt.” (Hist. War in the Penins. book xviii. chap. 3.)
The battle of Vitoria was fought on the 21st June, 1813. The weather was rainy, and a thick curtain of vapour overspread both armies till noon. The utter rout which the French sustained was in great part the result of a complication of enormous faults and errors on the part of King Joseph. The basin of Vitoria, into which he poured not only his troops, but his parks, baggage, convoys, stores and encumbrances of every description—is unequally divided by the winding Zadora, and nearly ten miles long by an average breadth of eight miles. The stream which intersects it is narrow, and the banks very steep in parts and uniformly rugged. Here he was utterly exposed, and to the last moment undecided even as to a line of retreat. The line of the Ebro had been admirably turned by Wellington, and of the strength of the country about that river the French were by most judicious movements deprived. Their position was liable to be taken in flank, and this advantage was mercilessly seized. My emotion here was little short of that which I experienced on the plain of Waterloo; for though the contest here was immeasurably more brief, the blow was struck with matchless vigour, and likewise on a noble battle ground. The stress of the action lay about the heights of La Puebla. This important point by which the river was passed and the village of Subijana de Alava having been successively carried by the allies, as well as the bridges of Tres Puentes, Mendoza, and Arriaga, the French hotly pressed on all sides were forced to retire on Vitoria, when the rout ensued which was one of the most complete in history. “It was the wreck of a nation.” (Napier, Hist. War in the Penins. book xx. chap. 8.) An officer who was present well expressed it thus: “The French were beaten before the town, and in the town, and through the town, and out of the town, and behind the town, and all round about the town;” and Gazan, a French officer’s account was that “they lost all their equipages, all their guns, all their treasure, all their stores, and all their papers, so that no man could prove how much pay was due to him.” From the total wreck even king Joseph with difficulty escaped, a pistol-shot having been fired into his carriage. “The trophies were innumerable,” (Napier, ibid.) The spoils resembled those of an Oriental rather than an European army; for Joseph had all his luxuries and treasures with him. Five millions and a half of dollars were stated by the French accounts to have been in the money-chests. Our troops had abundant spoil, for “not one dollar,” says Napier, “came to the public.” A profusion was found of the choicest wines and delicacies, the baggage was rifled, and our soldiers attired themselves in the gala dresses of the enemy. Marshal Jourdan’s bâton was taken by the 87th regiment. “The Duke”’s despatch is excellent.
Minute details of the several battles of the Pyrenees, and of those fought upon the soil of France up to the gates of Toulouse, will be found in the last volume of Napier’s History.
With regard to the Lines of Torres Vedras, the testimony of Colonel (since General) Jones, an eminent engineer officer, whose writings are of the plainest and most practical character, and who evidently had little imagination to incite him to enthusiasm, is as follows:—“The lines in front of Lisbon are a triumph to the British nation. They are without doubt the finest specimen of a fortified position ever effected. From their peninsular situation there is no possibility of manœuvring on the flanks, cutting off the supplies, or getting in the rear of them: in the details of the work there is no pedantry of science; nor long lines of fortification for show without strength; mountains themselves are made the prominent points; the gorges alone derive their total strength from retrenchments. The quantity of labour bestowed on them is incredible, but in no part has the engineer done more than his duty; assisted nature, assisted the general, and assisted the troops, and for each arm has procured a favourable field of action.” (Journals of the Sieges undertaken by the Allies in Spain, note 1.) I have frequently witnessed at Lisbon the excitement of French military travellers about these works. Their first rush from Lisbon is to Torres Vedras and the neighbourhood to see them; and their admiration, although a little bitterly, is always freely expressed. The testimony of a distinguished French general is equally explicit:—“Ce monument remarquable de l’industrie de nos ennemis, les lignes construites en 1810 pour la defence de Lisbonne.” (Foy, Hist. Guerre. Pénins. liv. ii.)
The modes of warfare and the structure of society have undergone such an utter change that it appears delusive to seek any parallel for the achievements of Wellington in the records of ancient history. The naked fact that he had to contend against the incomparable military genius of Napoléon, and without any exaggeration became “le vainqueur du vainqueur du monde” attests in the severe sobriety of History more than the most fulsome adulation. All the great conquerors of the ancient world—Sesostris, Alexander, Hannibal, Cæsar—were invaders: Wellington’s battles were nearly all defensive of human rights and liberty. In Roman annals he may be most fittingly compared to Scipio Africanus, the conqueror of Hannibal—the more especially for the purity of both their characters. In Grecian history he might be likened to Themistocles, who also maintained a glorious defensive war, but that the English, unlike the Greek hero, was incorruptible. His character is a compound of the two great joint rulers of Athens—of the military conduct of Themistocles and the inflexible justice of Aristides. The admirable strokes of policy by which Themistocles circumvented Xerxes might be paralleled in several parts of Wellington’s career, who like Themistocles could lead his foes astray as well as rout them at Salamis. There is one part of the Athenian’s character, his venality, over which the Englishman towers with transcendent superiority. There is another, and curious particular, in which the comparison is likewise to his advantage. Themistocles was unskilled in music, and therefore by his contemporaries (who prized that art so highly) twitted with ignorance, as Cicero informs us. (Tusc. Quest. lib. i.) Plutarch, (lib. i.) and Athenæus (lib. xiv.) mention that those who were unskilled in the harp were forced jocosely to sing to the accompaniment of a branch of laurel or myrtle held in a cithara-like form, as we sometimes now-a-days see a wag perform a tune with poker and bellows. The ancients in their banquets were in the habit of sending round the lyre to each of the guests in succession, an event of which kind caused Themistocles to be found wanting, from whence Quintilian (lib. i. cap. 16) takes occasion to inculcate on his pupils the necessity of learning music. The same practice prevailed amongst our Anglo-Saxon ancestors, at whose feasts the harp was sent round in a precisely similar manner. (Bede, Hist. Eccles. Anglor. iv. 24.) The Duke of Wellington’s love of music is inherited from his accomplished father, the Earl of Mornington, and his Directorship of the Ancient Concerts proves that he is not more devoted to Mars than to Apollo.