The Times Great Military Lives: Leadership and Courage – from Waterloo to the Falklands in Obituaries

Nor were these misgivings, though often pretended for the purposes of faction, without a certain warrant of truth; indeed, few can read the history of this struggle without perceiving that the single point which concluded it in our favour was the genius of that great man who has just expired. It has been attempted to show that the military forces of France and England at this period were not in reality so disproportioned as they appeared to be, but we confess our own inability to discover the balance alleged. It is beyond doubt that the national spirit remained unchanged, and that the individual excellence of the British soldier was unimpeachable. Much, too, had been done in the way of organization by the measures consequent on the protracted menace of invasion, and much in the way of encouragement by the successes in Egypt and Portugal no less than the triumphs in India. But in war numerical force must needs tell with enormous effect, and on this point England’s colonial requirements left her little to show against the myriads of the continent. It was calculated at the time that 60,000 British soldiers might have been made disposable for the Peninsular service, but at no period of the war was such a force ever actually collected under the standards of Wellington, while Napoleon could maintain his 300,000 warriors in Spain, without disabling the arms of the Empire on the Danube or the Rhine. We had allies, it is true, in the troops of the country; but these at first were little better than refractory recruits, requiring all the accessories of discipline, equipment, and organization; jealous of all foreigners even as friends, and not unreasonably suspicious of supporters who could always find in their ships a refuge which was denied to themselves. But above all these difficulties was that arising from the inexperience of the Government in continental warfare. Habituated to expeditions reducible to the compass of a few transports, unaccustomed to the contingencies of regular war, and harassed by a vigilant and not always conscientious Opposition, the Ministry had to consume half its strength at home; and the commander of the army, in justifying his most skilful dispositions, or procuring needful supplies for the troops under his charge, was driven to the very extremities of expostulation and remonstrance.

When, however, with these ambiguous prospects, the Government did at length resolve on the systematic prosecution of the Peninsular war, the eyes of the nation were at once instinctively turned on Sir Arthur Wellesley as the general to conduct it. Independently of the proofs he had already given of his quality at Roliça and Vimiera this enterprising and sagacious soldier stood almost alone in his confidence respecting the undertaking on hand. Arguing from the military position of Portugal, as flanking the long territory of Spain, from the natural features of the country (which he had already studied), and from the means of reinforcement and retreat securely provided by the sea, he stoutly declared his opinion that Portugal was tenable against the Fench, even if actual possessors of Spain, and that it offered ample opportunities of influencing the great result of the war. With these views he recommended that the Portuguese army should be organized at its full strength; that it should be in part taken into British pay and under the direction of British officers, and that a force of not less than 30,000 English troops should be despatched to keep this army together. So provided, he undertook the management of the war, and such were his resources, his tenacity, and his skill, that though 280,000 French soldiers were closing round Portugal as he landed at Lisbon, and though difficulties of the most arduous kind awaited him in his task, he neither flinched nor failed until he had led his little army in triumph, not only from the Tagus to the Ebro, but across the Pyrenees into France, and returned himself by Calais to England after witnessing the downfall of the French capital.

Yet, so perilous was the conjuncture when the weight of affairs was thus thrown upon his shoulders that a few weeks’ more delay must have destroyed every prospect of success. Not only was Soult, as we stated, collecting himself for a swoop on the towers of Lisbon, but the Portuguese themselves were distrustful of our support, and the English troops while daily preparing for embarkation, were compelled to assume a defensive attitude against those whose cause they were maintaining. But such was the prestige already attached to Wellesley’s name that his arrival in the Tagus changed every feature of the scene. No longer suspicious of our intentions, the Portuguese Government gave prompt effect to the suggestions of the English commander; levies were decreed and organized, provisions collected, depôts established, and a spirit of confidence again pervaded the country, which was unqualified on this occasion by that jealous distrust which had formerly neutralized its effects. The command in chief of the native army was intrusted to an English officer of great distinction, General Beresford, and no time was lost in once more testing the efficacy of the British arms.

Our description of the positions relatively occupied by the contending parties at this juncture will, perhaps, be remembered. Soult, having left Ney to control the north, was at Oporto with 24,000 men, preparing to cross the Douro and descend upon Lisbon, while Victor and Lapisse, with 30,000 more, were to co-operate in the attack from the contiguous provinces of Estremadura and Leon. Of the Spanish armies we need only say that they had been repeatedly routed with more or less disgrace, though Cuesta still held a certain force together in the valley of the Tagus. There were therefore two courses open to the British commander – either to repel the menaced advance of Soult by marching on Oporto or to effect a junction with Cuesta, and try the result of a demonstration upon Madrid. The latter of these plans was wisely postponed for the moment, and, preference having been decisively given to the former, the troops at once commenced their march upon the Douro. The British force under Sir Arthur Wellesley’s command amounted at this time to about 20,000 men, to which about 15,000 Portuguese in a respectable state of organization were added by the exertions of Beresford. Of these about 24,000 were now led against Soult, who, though not inferior in strength, no sooner ascertained the advance of the English commander than he arranged for a retreat by detaching Loison with 6,000 men to dislodge a Portuguese post in his left rear. Sir Arthur’s intention was to envelop, if possible, the French corps by pushing forward a strong force upon its left, and then intercepting its retreat towards Ney’s position, while the main body assaulted Soult in his quarters at Oporto. The former of these operations he intrusted to Beresford, the latter he directed in person. On the 12th of May the troops reached the southern bank of the Douro; the waters of which, 300 yards in width, rolled between them and their adversaries. In anticipation of the attack Soult had destroyed the floating-bridge, had collected all the boats on the opposite side, and there, with his forces well in hand for action or retreat, was looking from the window of his lodging, enjoying the presumed discomfiture of his opponent. To attempt such a passage as this in face of one of the ablest marshals of France was, indeed, an audacious stroke, but it was not beyond the daring of that genius which M. Thiers describes as calculated only for the stolid operations of defensive war. Availing himself of a point where the river by a bend in its course was not easily visible from the town, Sir Arthur determined on transporting, if possible, a few troops to the northern bank, and occupying an unfinished stone building, which he perceived was capable of affording temporary cover. The means were soon supplied by the activity of Colonel Waters – an officer whose habitual audacity rendered him one of the heroes of this memorable war. Crossing in a skiff to the opposite bank, he returned with two or three boats, and in a few minutes a company of the Buffs was established in the building. Reinforcements quickly followed, but not without discovery. The alarm was given, and presently the edifice was enveloped by the eager battalions of the French. The British, however, held their ground; a passage was effected at other points during the struggle; the French, after an ineffectual resistance, were fain to abandon the city in precipitation, and Sir Arthur, after his unexampled feat of arms, sat down that evening to the dinner which had been prepared for Soult. Nor did the disasters of the French marshal terminate here, for, though the designs of the British commander had been partially frustrated by the intelligence gained by the enemy, yet the French communications were so far intercepted, that Soult only joined Ney after losses and privations little short of those which had been experienced by Sir John Moore.

This brilliant operation being effected, Sir Arthur was now at liberty to turn to the main project of the campaign – that to which, in fact, the attack upon Soult had been subsidiary – the defeat of Victor in Estremadura; and, as the force under this marshal’s command was not greater than that which had been so decisively defeated at Oporto, some confidence might naturally be entertained in calculating upon the result. But at this time the various difficulties of the English commander began to disclose themselves. Though his losses had been extremely small in the recent actions, considering the importance of their results, the troops were suffering severely from sickness, at least 4,000 being in hospital, while supplies of all kinds were miserably deficient through the imperfections of the commissariat. The soldiers were nearly barefooted, their pay was largely in arrear, and the military chest was empty. In addition to this, although the real weakness of the Spanish armies was not yet fully known, it was clearly discernible that the character of their commanders would preclude any effective concert in the joint operations of the allied force. Cuesta would take no advice, and insisted on the adoption of his own schemes with such obstinacy that Sir Arthur was compelled to frame his plans accordingly. Instead, therefore, of circumventing Victor as he had intended, he advanced into Spain at the beginning of July, to effect a junction with Cuesta and feel his way towards Madrid. The armies, when united, formed a mass of 78,000 combatants, but of these 56,000 were Spanish, and for the brunt of war Sir Arthur could only reckon on his 22,000 British troops, Beresford’s Portuguese having been despatched to the north of Portugal. On the other side, Victor’s force had been strengthened by the succours which Joseph Bonaparte, alarmed for the safety of Madrid, had hastily concentrated at Toledo; and when the two armies at length confronted each other at Talavera it was found that 55,000 excellent French troops were arrayed against Sir Arthur and his ally, while nearly as many more were descending from the north on the line of the British communications along the valley of the Tagus. On the 28th of July the British Commander, after making the best dispositions in his power, received the attack of the French, directed by Joseph Bonaparte in person, with Victor and Jourdan at his side, and after an engagement of great severity, in which the Spaniards were virtually inactive, he remained master of the field against double his numbers, having repulsed the enemy at all points with heavy loss, and having captured several hundred prisoners and 17 pieces of cannon in this the first great pitched battle between the French and English in the Peninsula.

In this well fought field of Talavera the French had thrown, for the first time, their whole disposable force upon the British army without success, and Sir Arthur Wellesley inferred with a justifiable confidence that the relative superiority of his troops to those of the Emperor was practically decided. Jomini, the French military historian, confesses almost as much, and the opinions of Napoleon himself, as visible in his correspondence, underwent from that moment a serious change. Yet at home the people, wholly unaccustomed to the contingencies of a real war, and the Opposition, unscrupulously employing the delusions of the people, combined in decrying the victory, denouncing the successful general, and despairing of the whole enterprise. The city of London even recorded on a petition its discontent with the ‘rashness, ostentation, and useless valour’ of that commander whom M. Thiers depicts as endowed solely with the sluggish and phlegmatic tenacity of his countrymen; and, though Ministers succeeded in procuring an acknowledgment of the services performed, and a warrant for persisting in the effort, both they and the British General were sadly cramped in the means of action. Sir Arthur Wellesley became, indeed, ‘Baron Douro, of Wellesley, and Viscount Wellington of Talavera, and of Wellington, in the county of Somerset,’ but the Government was afraid to maintain his effective means even at the moderate amount for which he had stipulated, and they gave him plainly to understand that the responsibility of the war must rest upon his own shoulders. He accepted it, and, in full reliance on his own resources and the tried valour of his troops, awaited the shock which was at hand. The battle of Talavera acted on the Emperor Napoleon exactly like the battle of Vimiera. His best soldiers had failed against those led by the ‘Sepoy General,’ and he became seriously alarmed for his conquest of Spain. After Vimiera he rushed, at the head of his guards, through Somosierra to Madrid; and now, after Talavera, he prepared a still more redoubtable invasion. Relieved from his continental liabilities by the campaigns of Aspern and Wagram, and from nearer apprehensions by the discomfiture of our expedition to Walcheren, he poured his now disposable legions in extraordinary numbers through the passes of the Pyrenees. Nine powerful corps, mustering fully 280,000 effective men, under Marshals Victor, Ney, Soult, Mortier, and Massena, with a crowd of aspiring generals besides, represented the force definitely charged with the final subjugation of the Peninsula. To meet the shock of this stupendous array Wellington had the 20,000 troops of Talavera augmented, besides other reinforcements, by that memorable brigade which, under the name of the Light Division, became afterwards the admiration of both armies. In addition, he had Beresford’s Portuguese levies, now 30,000 strong, well disciplined, and capable, as events showed, of becoming first-rate soldiers, making a total of some 55,000 disposable troops, independent of garrisons and detachments. All hopes of effectual co-operation from Spain had now vanished. Disregarding, the sage advice of Wellington, the Spanish generals had consigned themselves and their armies to inevitable destruction, and of the whole kingdom, Gibraltar and Cadiz alone had escaped the swoop of the victorious French. The Provisional Administration displayed neither resolution nor sincerity, the British forces were suffered absolutely to starve, and Wellington was unable to extort from the leaders around him the smallest assistance for that army which was the last support of Spanish freedom. It was under such circumstances, with forces full of spirit, but numerically weak, without any assurance of sympathy at home, without money or supplies on the spot, and in the face of Napoleon’s best marshal, with 80,000 troops in line, and 40,000 in reserve, that Wellington entered on the campaign of 1810 – a campaign pronounced by military critics to be inferior to none in his whole career.

Withdrawing, after the victory of Talavera, from the concentrating forces of the enemy attracted by his advance, he had at first taken post on the Guadiana, until, wearied out by Spanish insincerity and perverseness, he moved his army to the Mondego, preparatory to those encounters which he foresaw the defence of Portugal must presently bring to pass. Already had he divined by his own sagacity the character and necessities of the coming campaign. Massena, as the best representative of the Emperor himself, having under his orders Ney, Regnier, and Junot, was gathering his forces on the north-eastern frontier of Portugal to fulfil his master’s commands by ‘sweeping the English leopard into the sea.’ Against such hosts as he brought to the assault a defensive attitude was all that could be maintained, and Wellington’s eye had detected the true mode of operation. He proposed to make the immediate district of Lisbon perform that service for Portugal which Portugal itself performed for the Peninsula at large, by furnishing an impregnable fastness and a secure retreat. By carrying lines of fortification from the Atlantic coast, through Torres Vedras, to the bank of the Tagus a little above Lisbon, he succeeded in constructing an artificial stronghold within which his retiring forces would be inaccessible, and from which, as opportunities invited, he might issue at will. These provisions silently and unobtrusively made, he calmly took post on the Coa, and awaited the assault. Hesitating or undecided, from some motive or other, Massena for weeks delayed the blow, till at length, after feeling the mettle of the Light Division on the Coa, he put his army in motion after the British commander, who slowly retired to his defences. Deeming, however, that a passage of arms would tend both to inspirit his own troops in what seemed like a retreat, and to teach Massena the true quality of the antagonist before him, he deliberately halted at Busaco and offered battle. Unable to refuse the challenge, the French marshal directed his bravest troops against the British position, but they were foiled with immense loss at every point of the attack, and Wellington proved, by one of his most brilliant victories, that his retreat partook neither of discomfiture nor fear. Rapidly recovering himself, however, Massena followed on his formidable foe, and was dreaming of little less than a second evacuation of Portugal, when, to his astonishment and dismay, he found himself abruptly arrested in his course by the tremendous lines of Torres Vedras.

These prodigious intrenchments comprised a triple line of fortifications one within the other, the innermost being intended to cover the embarcation of the troops in the last resort. The main strength of the works had been thrown on the second line, at which it had been intended to make the final stand, but even the outer barrier was found in effect to be so formidable as to deter the enemy from all hopes of a successful assault. Thus checked in mid career, the French marshal chafed and fumed in front of these impregnable lines, afraid to attack, yet unwilling to retire. For a whole month did he lie here inactive, tenacious of his purpose, though aware of his defeat, and eagerly watching for the first advantage which the chances of war or the mistakes of the British general might offer him. Meantime, however, while Wellington’s concentrated forces were enjoying, through his sage provisions, the utmost comfort and abundance within their lines, the French army was gradually reduced to the last extremities of destitution and disease, and Massena at length broke up in despair, to commence a retreat which was never afterwards exchanged for an advance. Confident in hope and spirit, and overjoyed to see retiring before them one of those real Imperial armies which had swept the continent from the Rhine to the Vistula, the British troops issued from their works in hot pursuit, and, though the extraordinary genius of the French commander preserved his forces from what in ordinary cases would have been the ruin of a rout, yet his sufferings were so extreme and his losses so heavy that he carried to the frontier scarcely one-half of the force with which he had plunged blindly into Portugal. Following up his wary enemy with a caution which no success was permitted to disturb, Wellington presently availed himself of his position to attempt the recovery of Almeida, a fortress which, with Ciudad Rodrigo, forms the key of north-eastern Portugal, and which had been taken by Massena in his advance. Anxious to preserve this important place, the French marshal turned with his whole force upon the foe, but Wellington met him at Fuentes d’Onoro, repulsed his attempts in a sanguinary engagement, and Almeida fell.

As at this point the tide of French conquest had been actually turned, and the British army, so lightly held by Napoleon, was now manifestly chasing his eagles from the field, it might have been presumed that popularity and support would have rewarded the unexampled successes of the English general. Yet it was not so. The reverses experienced during the same period in Spain were loudly appealed to as neutralizing the triumphs in Portugal, and at no moment was there a more vehement denunciation of the whole Peninsular war. Though Cadiz resolutely held out, and Graham, indeed, on the heights of Barossa, had emulated the glories of Busaco, yet even the strong fortress of Badajoz had now fallen before the vigorous audacity of Soult; and Suchet, a rising general of extraordinary abilities, was effecting by the reduction of hitherto impregnable strongholds the complete conquest of Catalonia and Valencia. Eagerly turning these disasters to account, and inspirited by the accession of the Prince Regent to power, the Opposition in the British Parliament so pressed the Ministry, that at the very moment when Wellington, after his unrivalled strategy, was on the track of his retreating foe, he could scarcely count for common support on the Government he was serving. He was represented in England, as his letters show us, to be ‘in a scrape,’ and he fought with the consciousness that all his reverses would be magnified and all his successes denied. Yet he failed neither in heart nor hand. He had verified all his own assertions respecting the defensibility of Portugal. His army had become a perfect model in discipline and daring, he was driving before him 80,000 of the best troops of the Empire, and he relied on the resources of his own genius for compensating those disadvantages to which he foresaw he must be still exposed. Such was the campaign of 1810, better conceived and worse appreciated than any which we shall have to record.

As the maintenance of Portugal was subsidiary to the great object of the war, the deliverance of the Peninsula from French domination – Wellington of course proceeded, after successfully repulsing the invaders from Portuguese soil, to assume the offensive, by carrying his arms into Spain. Thus, after defeating Junot, he had been induced to try the battle of Talavera; and now, after expelling Massena, he betook himself to similar designs, with this difference that instead of operating by the valley of the Tagus against Madrid, he now moved to the valley of the Guadiana for the purpose of recovering Badajoz, a fortress, like that of Ciudad Rodrigo, so critically situated on the frontier, that with these two places in the enemy’s hands, as they now were, it became hazardous either to quit Portugal or to penetrate into Spain. At this point, therefore, were now to commence the famous sieges of the Peninsula – sieges which will always reflect immortal honour on the troops engaged, and which will always attract the interest of the English reader; but which must, nevertheless, be appealed to as illustrations of the straits to which an army may be led by want of military experience in the Government at home. By this time the repeated victories of Wellington and his colleagues had raised the renown of British soldiers to at least an equality with that of Napoleon’s veterans, and the incomparable efficiency, in particular, of the light division was acknowledged to be without a parallel in any European service. But in those departments of the army where excellence is less the result of intuitive ability, the forces under Wellington were still greatly surpassed by the trained legions of the Emperor. While Napoleon had devoted his whole genius to the organization of the parks and trains which attend the march of an army in the field, the British troops had only the most imperfect resources on which to rely. The Engineer corps, though admirable in quality, was so deficient in numbers that commissions were placed at the free disposal of Cambridge mathematicians. The siege trains were weak and worthless against the solid ramparts of Peninsular strongholds, the intrenching tools were so ill made that they snapped in the hands of the workmen, and the art of sapping and mining was so little known that this branch of the siege duties was carried on by draughts from the regiments of the line, imperfectly and hastily instructed for the purpose. Unhappily, these results can only be obviated by long foresight, patient training, and costly provision; it was not in the power of a single mind, however capacious, to effect an instantaneous reform, and Wellington was compelled to supply the deficiencies by the best blood of his troops.