“But in the extended system on which we are acting, small detachments of soldiers must be marched long distances, through the country, either as escorts, or returning from being escorts to prisoners, or coming from hospitals, &c. and notwithstanding that these detachments are never allowed to march, excepting under the command of an officer or more, in proportion to its size, and that every precaution is taken to provide for the regularity of their subsistence, there is no instance of the march of one of these detachments that outrages of every description are not committed, and I am sorry to say with impunity.”
“The guard-rooms are therefore crowded with prisoners, and the offences of which they have been guilty remain unpunished, to the destruction of the discipline of the army, and to the injury of the reputation of the country for justice. I have thought it proper to lay these circumstances before your lordship. I am about to move the army further forward into Spain, and I assure your lordship, that I have not a friend in that country, who has not written to me in dread of the consequences, which must result to the army, and to the cause from a continuance of these disgraceful irregularities, which I declare I have it not in my power to prevent.”
To this should have been added, the insubordination, and the evil passions, awakened by the unchecked plunder of Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajos. But long had the English general complained of the bad discipline of his army, and the following extracts, from a letter dated a few months later, shew that his distrust at the present time was not ill-founded. After observing that the constitutions of the soldiers were so much shaken from disorders acquired by their service at Walcheren, or by their own irregularities, that a British army was almost a moving hospital, more than one-third or about twenty thousand men being sick, or attending upon the sick, he thus describes their conduct.
“The disorders which these soldiers have, are of a very trifling description, they are considered to render them incapable of serving with their regiments, but they certainly do not incapacitate them from committing outrages of all descriptions on their passage through the country, and in the last movements of the hospitals the soldiers have not only plundered the inhabitants of their property, but the hospital stores which moved with the hospitals, and have sold the plunder. And all these outrages are committed with impunity, no proof can be brought on oath before a court-martial that any individual has committed an outrage, and the soldiers of the army are becoming little better than a band of robbers.” “I have carried the establishment and authority of the provost-marshal as far as either will go; there are at this moment not less than one provost-marshal, and nineteen assistant provost-marshals, attached to the several divisions of cavalry and infantry and to the hospital stations, to preserve order, but this establishment is not sufficient, and I have not the means of increasing it.”
The principal remedies he proposed, were the admitting less rigorous proof of guilt, before courts martial; the forming a military police, such as the French, and other armies possessed; the enforcing more attention on the part of the officers to their duties; the increasing the pay and responsibility of the non-commissioned officers, and the throwing upon them the chief care of the discipline. But in treating this part of the subject he broached an opinion which can scarcely be sustained even by his authority. Assuming, somewhat unjustly, that the officers of his army were, from consciousness of like demerit, generally too lenient in their sentences on each other for neglect of duty, he says, “I am inclined to entertain the opinion that in the British army duties of inspection and control over the conduct and habits of the soldiers, the performance of which by somebody is the only effectual check to disorder and all its consequences, are imposed upon the subaltern officers of regiments, which duties British officers, being of the class of gentlemen in society, and being required to appear as such, have never performed and which they will never perform. It is very necessary, however, that the duties should be performed by somebody, and for this reason, and having observed the advantage derived in the guards, from the respectable body of non-commissioned officers in those regiments, who perform all the duties required from subalterns in the marching regiments, I had suggested to your lordship the expediency of increasing the pay of the non-commissioned officers in the army.”
Now it is a strange assumption, that a gentleman necessarily neglects his duty to his country. When well taught, which was not always the case, gentlemen by birth generally performed their duties in the Peninsula more conscientiously than others, and the experience of every commanding officer will bear out the assertion. If the non-commissioned officers could do all the duties of subaltern officers, why should the country bear the useless expense of the latter? But in truth the system of the guards produced rather a medium goodness, than a superior excellence; the system of sir John Moore, founded upon the principle, that the officers should thoroughly know, and be responsible for the discipline of their soldiers, better bore the test of experience. All the British regiments of the light division were formed in the camps of Shorn-Cliff by that most accomplished commander; very many of the other acknowledged good regiments of the army had been instructed by him in Sicily; and wherever an officer, formed under Moore, obtained a regiment, whether British or Portuguese, that regiment was distinguished in this war for its discipline and enduring qualities; courage was common to all.
CHAPTER II.
CAMPAIGN OF 1812.
1812. June. On the 13th of June, the periodic rains having ceased, and the field magazines being completed, Wellington passed the Agueda and marched towards the Tormes in four columns, one of which was composed of the Spanish troops. The 16th he reached the Valmusa stream, within six miles of Salamanca, and drove a French detachment across the Tormes. All the bridges, save that of Salamanca which was defended by the forts, had been destroyed, and there was a garrison in the castle of Alba de Tormes, but the 17th the allies passed the river above and below the town, by the deep fords of Santa Marta and Los Cantos, and general Henry Clinton invested the forts the same day with the sixth division. Marmont, with two divisions, and some cavalry, retired to Fuente el Sauco, on the road of Toro, followed by an advanced guard of the allies; SalamancaSee [Plan, No. 2.] instantly became a scene of rejoicing, the houses were illuminated, and the people shouting, singing, and weeping for joy, gave Wellington their welcome while his army took a position on the mountain of San Cristoval about five miles in advance.