3º. As the faults leading to failure in the first part of the siege were repeated in the second, while the enemy’s resources had increased by the gain of time, and because his intercourse with France by sea never was cut off, it follows that there was no reasonable security for success; not even to make a lodgement on the breach, since no artificial materials were prepared and the workmen failed to effect that object. But the first arrangement and the change adopted in the council of war, the option given to general Bradford, the remarkable fact, that the simultaneous attack on the horn-work was only thought of when the first efforts against the breach had failed, all prove, that the enemy’s defensive means were underrated, and the extent of the success exceeded the preparations to obtain it.
The place was won by accident. For first the explosion of the great mine under the tower of Los Hornos, was only prevented by a happy shot which cut the sausage of the train during the fight, and this was followed by the ignition of the French powder-barrels and shells along the high curtain, which alone opened the way into the town. Sir Thomas Graham’s firmness and perseverance in the assault, and the judicious usage of his artillery against the high curtain during the action, an operation however which only belonged to daylight, were no mean helps to the victory. It was on such sudden occasions that his prompt genius shone conspicuously, yet it was nothing wonderful that heavy guns at short distances, the range being perfectly known, should strike with certainty along a line of rampart more than twenty-seven feet above the heads of the troops. Such practice was to be expected from British artillery, and Graham’s genius was more evinced by the promptness of the thought and the trust he put in the valour of his soldiers. It was far more extraordinary that the stormers did not relinquish their attack when thus exposed to their own guns, for it is a mistake to say that no mischief occurred; a serjeant of the ninth regiment was killed by the batteries close to his commanding officer, and it is probable that other casualties also had place.
4º. The explosion on the ramparts is generally supposed to have been caused by the cannonade from the Chofre batteries, yet a cool and careful observer, whose account I have adopted, because he was aCaptain Cooke, forty-third regiment. Vide his Memoirs. spectator in perfect safety and undisturbed by having to give or receive orders, affirms that the cannonade ceased before colonel Snodgrass forded the river, whereas the great explosion did not happen until half an hour after that event. By some persons that intrepid exploit of the Portuguese was thought one of the principal causes of success, and it appears certain that an entrance was made at the small breach by several soldiers, British and Portuguese, many of the former having wandered from the great breach and got mixed with the latter, before the explosion happened on the high curtain. Whether those men would have been followed by greater numbers is doubtful, but the lodgement made by the light division volunteers within the great breach was solid and could have been maintained. The French call the Portuguese attack a feint. SirBellas. Thomas Graham certainly did not found much upon it. He gave general Bradford the option to attack or remain tranquil, and colonel M‘Bean actually received counter-orders when his column was already in the river and too far advanced to be withdrawn.
5º. When the destruction of San Sebastian became known, it was used by the anti-British party at Cadiz to excite the people against England. The political chief of Guipuscoa publicly accused sir Thomas Graham, “that he sacked and burned the place because it had formerly traded entirely with France,” his generals were said to have excited the furious soldiers to the horrid work, and his inferior officers to have boasted of it afterwards. A newspaper, edited by an agent of the Spanish government, repeating these accusations, called upon the people to avenge the injury upon the British army, and the Spanish minister of war, designated by lord Wellington as the abettor and even the writer of this and other malignant libels published at Cadiz, officially demanded explanations.
Lord Wellington addressed a letter of indignant denial and remonstrance to sir Henry Wellesley. “It was absurd,” he said, “to suppose the officers of the army would have risked the loss of all their labours and gallantry, by encouraging the dispersion of the men while the enemy still held the castle. To him the town was of the utmost value as a secure place for magazines and hospitals. He had refused to bombard it when advised to do so, as he had previously refused to bombard Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajos, because the injury would fall on the inhabitants and not upon the enemy; yet nothing could have been more easy, or less suspicious than this method of destroying the town if he had been so minded. It was the enemy who set fire to the houses, it was part of the defence; the British officers strove to extinguish the flames, some in doing so lost their lives by the French musquetry from the castle, and the difficulty of communicating and working through the fire was so great, that he had been on the point of withdrawing the troops altogether. He admitted the plunder, observing, that he knew not whether that or the libels made him most angry; he had taken measures to stop it, but when two-thirds of the officers had been killed or wounded in the action, and when many of the inhabitants taking part with the enemy fired upon the troops, to prevent it was impossible. Moreover he was for several days unable from other circumstances to send fresh men to replace the stormers.”
This was a solid reply to the scandalous libels circulated, but the broad facts remained. San Sebastian was a heap of smoking ruins, and atrocities degrading to human nature had been perpetrated by the troops. Of these crimes, the municipal and ecclesiastic bodies the consuls and principal persons of San Sebastian, afterwards published a detailed statement, solemnly affirming the truth of each case; and if Spanish declarations on this occasion are not to be heeded, four-fifths of the excesses attributed to the French armies must be effaced as resting on a like foundation. That the town was first set on fire behind the breaches during the operations, and that it spread in the tumult following the assault is undoubted; yet it is not improbable that plunderers, to forward their own views increased it, and certainly the great destruction did not befall until long after the town was in possession of the allies. I have been assured by a surgeon, that he was lodged the third day after the assault at a house well furnished, and in a street then untouched by fire or plunderers, but house and street were afterwards plundered and burned. The inhabitants could only have fired upon the allies the first day, and it might well have been in self-defence for they were barbarously treated. The abhorrent case alluded to was notorious, so were many others. I have myself heard around the picquet fires, when soldiers as every experienced officer knows, speak without reserve of their past deeds and feelings, the abominable actions mentioned by the municipality related with little variation long before that narrative was published; told however with sorrow for the sufferers and indignation against the perpetrators, for these last were not so numerous as might be supposed from the extent of the calamities they inflicted.
It is a common but shallow and mischievous notion, that a villain makes never the worse soldier for an assault, because the appetite for plunder supplies the place of honour; as if the compatability of vice and bravery rendered the union of virtue and courage unnecessary in warlike matters. In all the host which stormed San Sebastian there was not a man who being sane would for plunder only have encountered the danger of that assault, yet under the spell of discipline all rushed eagerly to meet it. Discipline however has its root in patriotism, or how could armed men be controuled at all, and it would be wise and far from difficult to graft moderation and humanity upon such a noble stock. The modern soldier is not necessarily the stern bloody-handed man the ancient soldier was, there is as much difference between them as between the sportsman and the butcher; the ancient warrior, fighting with the sword and reaping his harvest of death when the enemy was in flight, became habituated to the act of slaying. The modern soldier seldom uses his bayonet, sees not his peculiar victim fall, and exults not over mangled limbs as proofs of personal prowess. Hence preserving his original feelings, his natural abhorrence of murder and crimes of violence, he differs not from other men unless often engaged in the assault of towns, where rapacity, lust, and inebriety, unchecked by the restraints of discipline, are excited by temptation. It is said that no soldier can be restrained after storming a town, and a British soldier least of all, because he is brutish and insensible to honor! Shame on such calumnies! What makes the British soldier fight as no other soldier ever fights? His pay! Soldiers of all nations receive pay. At the period of this assault, a serjeant of the twenty-eighth regiment, namedColonel Cadell’s Memoirs. Ball, had been sent with a party to the coast from Roncesvalles, to make purchases for his officers. He placed the money he was entrusted with, two thousand dollars, in the hands of a commissary and having secured a receipt persuaded his party to join in the storm. He survived, reclaimed the money, made his purchases, and returned to his regiment. And these are the men, these the spirits who are called too brutish to work upon except by fear. It is precisely fear to which they are most insensible.
Undoubtedly if soldiers hear and read, that it is impossible to restrain their violence they will not be restrained. But let the plunder of a town after an assault, be expressly made criminal by the articles of war, with a due punishment attached; let it be constantly impressed upon the troops that such conduct is as much opposed to military honour and discipline as it is to morality; let a select permanent body of men receiving higher pay form a part of the army, and be charged to follow storming columns to aid in preserving order, and with power to inflict instantaneous punishment, death if it be necessary. Finally, as reward for extraordinary valour should keep pace with chastisement for crimes committed under such temptation, it would be fitting that money, apportioned to the danger and importance of the service, should be insured to the successful troops and always paid without delay. This money might be taken as ransom from enemies, but if the inhabitants are friends, or too poor, government should furnish the amount. With such regulations the storming of towns would not produce more military disorders than the gaining of battles in the field.