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

The command of the force commissioned to recover Badajoz had been intrusted to Marshal Beresford until Lord Wellington could repair in person to the scene, and it was against Soult, who was marching rapidly from the south to the relief of the place, that the glorious but sanguinary battle of Albuera was fought on the 16th of May. Having checked the enemy by this bloody defeat Beresford resumed the duties of the siege until he was superseded by the Commander-in-Chief. But all the efforts of Wellington and his troops were vain, for the present, against this celebrated fortress; two assaults were repulsed, and the British general determined on relinquishing the attempt, and returning to the northern frontier of Portugal for more favourable opportunities of action. He had now by his extraordinary genius so far changed the character of the war, that the British, heretofore fighting with desperate tenacity for a footing at Lisbon or Cadiz, were now openly assuming the offensive, and Napoleon had been actually compelled to direct defensive preparations along the road leading through Vittoria to Bayonne – that very road which Wellington in spite of these defences was soon to traverse in triumph. Meantime fresh troops were poured over the Pyrenees into Spain, and a new plan of operations was dictated by the Emperor himself. One powerful army in the north was to guard Castile and Leon, and watch the road by which Wellington might be expected to advance; another, under Soult, strongly reinforced, was to maintain French interests in Andalusia and menace Portugal from the south; while Marmont, who had succeeded Massena, took post with 30,000 men in the valley of the Tagus, resting on Toledo and Madrid, and prepared to concert movements with either of his colleagues as occasion might arise. To encounter these antagonists, who could rapidly concentrate 90,000 splendid troops against him, Wellington could barely bring 50,000 into the field; and though this disparity of numbers was afterwards somewhat lessened, yet it is scarcely in reason to expect that even the genius of Wellington or the value of his troops could have ultimately prevailed against such odds but for circumstances which favoured the designs of the British and rendered the contest less unequal. In the first place, the jealousies of the French marshals, when unrepressed by the Emperor’s presence, were so inveterate as to disconcert the best operations, being sometimes little less suicidal than those of the Princes of India. Next, although the Spanish armies had ceased to offer regular resistance to the invaders, yet the guerilla system of warfare, aided by interminable insurrections, acted to the incessant embarrassment of the French, whose duties, perils, and fatigues were doubled by the restless activity of these daring enemies. But the most important of Wellington’s advantages was that of position. With an impregnable retreat at Lisbon, with free water carriage in his rear, and with the great arteries of the Douro and the Tagus for conducting his supplies, he could operate at will from his central fastness towards the north, east, or south. If the northern provinces were temporarily disengaged from the enemy’s presence, he could issue by Almeida and Salamanca upon the great line of communication between the Pyrenees and Madrid; if the valley of the Tagus were left unguarded, he could march directly upon the capital by the well-known route of Talavera; while if Soult, by any of these demonstrations, was tempted to cross the Guadiana, he could carry his arms into Andalusia by Elvas and Badajoz. Relying, too, on the excellence of his troops, he confidently accounted himself a match for any single army of the enemy, – while he was well aware, from the exhausted state of the country and the difficulties of procuring subsistence, no concentration of the French forces could be maintained for many days together. In this way, availing himself of the far superior intelligence which he enjoyed through the agency of the guerillas, and of his own exclusive facilities for commanding supplies, he succeeded in paralysing the enormous hosts of Napoleon, by constant alarms and well-directed blows, till at length when the time of action came he advanced from cantonments and drove King Joseph and all his marshals headlong across the Pyrenees.

The position taken up by Wellington when he transferred his operations from the south to the north frontier of Portugal was at Fuente Guinaldo, a locality possessing some advantageous features in the neighbourhood of Ciudad Rodrigo. His thoughts being still occupied by the means of gaining the border fortresses, he had promptly turned to Rodrigo from Badajoz, and had arranged his plans with a double prospect of success. Knowing that the place was inadequately provisioned he conceived hopes of blockading it into submission from his post at Fuente Guinaldo, since in the presence of this force no supplies could be thrown into the town unless escorted by a convoy equal to the army under his command. Either, therefore, the French marshal must abandon Rodrigo to its fate, or he must go through the difficult operation of concentrating all his forces to form the convoy required. Marmont chose the latter alternative, and uniting his army with that of Dorsenne advanced to the relief of Rodrigo with an immense train of stores and 60,000 fighting men. By this extraordinary effort not only was the place provisioned, but Wellington himself was brought into a situation of some peril, for after successfully repulsing an attempt of the French in the memorable combat of El Bodon he found himself the next day, with only 15,000 men actually at his disposal, exposed to the attack of the entire French army. Fortunately Marmont was unaware of the chance thus offered him, and while he was occupying himself in evolutions and displays Wellington collected his troops and stood once more in security on his position. This movement, however, of the French commander destroyed all hopes of reducing Rodrigo by blockade, and the British general recurred accordingly to the alternative he nad been contemplating of an assault by force.

To comprehend the difficulties of this enterprise, it must be remembered that the superiority of strength was indisputably with the French whenever they concentrated their forces, and that it was certain such concentration would be attempted, at any risk, to save such a place as Rodrigo. Wellington, therefore, had to prepare, with such secrecy as to elude the suspicions of his enemy, the enormous mass of materials required for such a siege as that he projected. As the town stood on the opposite or Spanish bank of the river Agueda, and as the approaches were commanded by the guns of the garrison, it became necessary to construct a temporary bridge. Moreover, the heavy battering train, which alone required 5,000 bullocks to draw it, had to be brought up secretly to the spot, though it was a work almost of impossibility to get a score of cattle together. But these difficulties were surmounted by the inventive genius of the British commander. Preparing his battering train at Lisbon, he shipped it at that port as if for Cadiz, transshipped it into smaller craft at sea, and then brought it up the stream of the Douro. In the next place, he succeeded, beyond the hopes of his engineers, in rendering the Douro navigable for a space of 40 miles beyond the limit previously presumed, and at length he collected the whole necessary materials in the rear of his army without any knowledge on the part of his antagonist. He was now to reap the reward of his precaution and skill. Towards the close of the year the French armies having – conformably to directions of the Emperor, framed entirely on the supposition that Wellington had no heavy artillery – been dispersed in cantonments, the British general suddenly threw his bridge across the Agueda, and besieged Ciudad Rodrigo in force. Ten days only elapsed between the investment and the storm. On the 8th of January, 1812, the Agueda was crossed, and on the 19th the British were in the city. The loss of life greatly exceeded the limit assigned to such expenditure in the scientific calculations of military engineers; but the enterprise was undertaken in the face of a superior force, which could at once have defeated it by appearing on the scene of action; and so effectually was Marmont baffled by the vigour of the British that the place had fallen before his army was collected for its relief. The repetition of such a stroke at Badajoz, which was now Wellington’s aim, presented still greater difficulties, for the vigilance of the French was alarmed, the garrison of the place had been reconstituted by equal draughts from the various armies in order to interest each marshal personally in its relief, and Soult in Andalusia, like Marmont in Castile, possessed a force competent to overwhelm any covering army which Wellington could detach. Yet on the 7th of April Badajoz likewise fell, and after opening a new campaign with these famous demonstrations of his own sagacity and the courage of his troops, he prepared for a third time to advance definitely from Portugal into Spain.

Though the forces of Napoleon in the Peninsula were presently to be somewhat weakened by the requirements of the Russian war, yet at the moment when these strongholds were wrenched from their grasp the ascendancy of the Emperor was yet uncontested, and from the Niemen to the Atlantic there was literally no resistance to his universal dominion save by this army, which was clinging with invincible tenacity to the rocks of Portugal, at the western extremity of Europe. From these well defended lines, however, they were now to emerge, and while Hill, by his surprise of Gerard at Arroyo Molinos and his brilliant capture of the forts at the bridge of Almaraz, was alarming the French for the safety of Andalusia, Wellington began his march to the Pyrenees. On this occasion he was at first unimpeded. So established was the reputation of the troops and their general that Marmont retired as he advanced, and Salamanca, after four years of oppressive occupation, was evacuated before the liberating army. But the hosts into which Wellington had thus boldly plunged with 40,000 troops still numbered fully 270,000 soldiers, and though these forces were divided by distance and jealousies, Marmont had no difficulty in collecting an army numerically superior to that of his antagonist. Returning, therefore, to the contest, and hovering about the English general for the opportunity of pouncing at an advantage upon his troops, he gave promise of a decisive battle, and, after some days of elaborate manoeuvring, the opposing armies found themselves confronted, on the 22d of July, in the vicinity of Salamanica. It was a trial of strategy, but in strategy as well as vigour the French marshal was surpassed by his redoubtable adversary. Seizing with intuitive genius an occasion which Marmont offered, Wellington fell upon his army and routed it so completely that half of its effective force was destroyed in the engagement. So decisively had the blow been dealt, and so skilfully had it been directed, that, as Napoleon had long fortold of such an event, it paralysed the entire French force in Spain, and reduced it to the relative position so long maintained by the English – that of tenacious defence. The only two considerable armies now remaining were those of Suchet in the east, and Soult in the south. Suchet, on hearing of Marmont’s defeat, proposed that the French should make a Portugal of their own in Catalonia, and defend themselves in its fastnesses till aid could arrive from the Pyrenees; while Soult advocated with equal warmth a retirement into Andalusia and a concentration behind the Guadiana. There was little time for deliberation, for Wellington was hot upon his prey, but as King Joseph decamped from his capital he sent orders to Soult to evacuate Andalusia; and the victorious army of the British, after thus, by a single blow, clearing half Spain of its invaders, made its triumphant entry into Madrid.

Wellington was now in possession of the capital of Spain. He had succeeded in delivering that blow which had so long been meditated, and had signalized the crowing ascendancy of his army by the total defeat of his chief opponent in open field. But his work was far from finished, and while all around was rejoicing and triumph, his forecast was anxiously revolving the imminent contingencies of the war. In one sense, indeed, the recent victory had increased rather than lessened the dangers of his position, for it had driven his adversaries by force of common peril into a temporary concert, and Wellington well knew that any such concert would reduce him again to the defensive. Marshal Soult, it was true, had evacuated Andalusia, and King Joseph Madrid; but their forces had been carried to Suchet’s quarters in Valencia, where they would thus form an overpowering concentration of strength; and in like manner, though Marmont’s army had been shorn of half its numbers, it was rapidly recovering itself under Clauzel by the absorption of all the detachments which had been operating in the north. Wellington saw, therefore, that he must prepare himself for a still more decisive struggle, if not for another retreat; and conceiving it most important to disembarrass his rear, he turned round upon Clauzel with the intention of crushing him before he could be fully reinforced, and thus establishing himself securely on the line of the Douro to wait the advance of King Joseph from the east.

With these views, after leaving a strong garrison at Madrid, he put his army in motion, drove Clauzel before him from Valladolid, and on the 18th of September appeared before Burgos. This place, though not a fortification of the first rank, had been recently strengthened by the orders of Napoleon, whose sagacity had divined the use to which its defences might possibly be turned. It lay in the great road to Bayonne, and was now one of the chief depôts retained by the French in the Peninsula, for the campaign had stripped them of Rodrigo, Badajoz, Madrid, Salamanca, and Seville. It became, there fore, of great importance to effect its reduction, and Wellington sat down before it with a force which, although theoretically unequal to the work, might, perhaps, from past recollections, have warranted some expectations of success. But our Peninsular sieges supply, as we have said, rather. warnings than examples. Badajoz and Rodrigo were only won by a profuse expenditure of life, and Burgos, though attacked with equal intrepidity, was not won at all. After consuming no less than five weeks before its walls Wellington gave reluctant orders for raising the siege and retiring. It was, indeed, true for the Northern army, now under the command of Souham, mustered 44,000 men in his rear, and Soult and Joseph were advancing with fully 70,000 more upon the Tagus. To oppose these forces Wellington had only 33,000 troops, Spaniards included, under his immediate command, while Hill, with the garrison of Madrid, could only muster some 20,000 to resist the advance of Soult. The British commander determined, therefore, on recalling Hill from Madrid and resuming his former position on the Agueda – a resolution which he successfully executed in the face of the difficulties around him, though the suffering and discour-agement of the troops during this unwelcome retreat were extremely severe. A detailed criticism of these operations would be beyond our province. It is enough to say that the French made a successful defence, and we have no occasion to begrudge them the single achievement against the English arms which could be contributed to the historic gallery of Versailles by the whole Peninsular War.

Such, however, was in those times the incredulity or perverseness of party spirit in England that, while no successes were rated at their true import, every incomplete operation was magnified into a disaster and describe as a warning. The retreat from Burgos was cited, like the retreat from Talavera, as a proof of the mismanagement of the war, and occasion was taken in Parliament to compare even the victory of Salamanca with the battles of Marlborough to the disparagement of Wellington and his army. Nor did any great enlightenment yet prevail on the subject of military operations; for a considerable force destined to act on the eastern coast of Spain was diverted by Lord William Bentinck to Sicily at a moment when its appearance in Valencia would have disconcerted all the plans of the French, and by providing occupation for Joseph and his marshals have relieved Wellington from that concentration of his enemies before which he was compelled to retire. But neither the wilfulness of faction nor the tenacity of folly could do more than obstruct events which were now steadily in course. Even the inherent obstinacy of Spanish character had at length yielded to the visible genius of Wellington, and the whole military force of the country was now at length, in the fifth year of the war, placed under his paramount command. But these powers were little more than nominal, and, in order to derive an effective support from the favourable dispositions of the Spanish Government, the British general availed himself of the winter season to repair in person to Cadiz.

It will be remembered that when, after the battle of Talavera and the retirement of Wellington to Portugal, the French poured their accumulated legions into Andalusia, Cadiz alone had been preserved from the deluge. Since that time the troops of Soult had environed it in vain. Secured by a British garrison, strongly fortified by nature and well supplied from the sea, it was in little danger of capture; and it discharged, indeed, a substantial service by detaining a large detachment from the general operations of the war. In fact, the French could scarcely be described as besieging it, for, though they maintained their guard with unceasing vigilance, it was at so respectful a distance that the great mortar which now stands in St. James’ Park was cast especially for this extraordinary length of range, and their own position was intrenched with an anxiety sufficiently indicative of their anticipation. Exempted in this manner from many of the troubles of war while cooped in the narrow space of a single town, the Spanish patriots enjoyed ample liberty of political discussion, and the fermentation of spirits was proportionate to the occasion. It was here that the affairs of the war, as regarded the Spanish critics, were regulated by a popular assembly under the control of a licentious mob; and it was here that those democratic principles of government were first promulgated which in later times so intimately affected the fortunes of the Peninsular monarchies. ‘The Cortes,’ wrote Wellington, ‘have framed a Constitution very much on the principle that a painter paints a picture – viz., to be looked at. I have not met any person of any description who considers that Spain either is or can be governed by such a system.’ From this body, however, the British commander succeeded in temporarily obtaining the power he desired, and he returned to Portugal prepared to open with invigorated spirit and confidence the campaign of 1813.

Several circumstances now combined to promise a decisive turn in the operations of the war. The initiative, once taken by Wellington, had been never lost, and although he had retrogaded from Burgos, it was without any discomfiture at the hands of the enemy. The reinforcements despatched from England, though proportioned neither to the needs of the war nor the resources of the country, were considerable, and the effective strength of the army – a term which excludes the Spanish contingents – reached to full 70,000 men. On the other hand, the reverses of Napoleon in the Russian campaign had not only reduced his forces in the Peninsula, but had rendered it improbable that they could be succoured on any emergency with the same promptitude as before. Above all, Wellington himself was now unfettered in his command, for if the direction in chief of the Spanish armies brought but little direct accession of strength, it at any rate relieved him from the necessity of concerting operations with generals on whose discretion he had found it impossible to rely. These considerations, coupled with an instinctive confidence in his dispositions for the campaign, and an irresistible prestige of the success which at length awaited his patience, so inspirited the British commander that, on putting his troops once more in motion for Spain, he rose in his stirrups as the frontier was passed, and waving his hat exclaimed prophetically, ‘Farewell Portugal!’ Events soon verified the finality of this adieu, for a few short months carried the ‘Sepoy General’ in triumph to Paris.

At the commencement of the famous campaign of 1813 the material superiority still lay apparently with the French, for King Joseph disposed of a force little short of 200,000 men – a strength exceeding that of the army under Wellington’s command- even if all denominations of troops are included in the calculation. But the British general reasonably concluded that he had by this time experienced the worst of what the enemy could do. He knew that the difficulties of subsistence, no less than the jealousies of the several commanders, would render any large or permanent concentration impossible, and he had satisfactorily measured the power of his own army against any likely to be brought into the field against him. He confidently calculated, therefore, on making an end of the war; his troops were in the highest spirits, and the lessons of the retreat from Burgos had been turned to seasonable advantage. In comparison with his previous restrictions all might now be said to be in his own hands, and the result of the change was soon made conclusively manifest.

Hitherto, as we have seen, the offensive movements of Wellington from his Portuguese stronghold had been usually directed against Madrid by one of the two great roads of Salamanca or Talavera, and the French had been studiously led to anticipate similar dispositions on the present occasion. Under such impressions they collected their main strength on the north bank of the Douro, to defend that river to the last, intending, as Wellington moved upon Salamanca, to fall on his left flank by the bridges of Toro and Zamora. The British general, however, had conceived a very different plan of operations. Availing himself of preparations carefully made and information anxiously collected, he moved the left wing of his army through a province hitherto untraversed to the north bank of the Douro, and then, after demonstrations at Salamanca, suddenly joining it with the remainder of the army, he took the French defences in reverse, and showed himself in irresistible force on the line of their communications. The effect was decisive. Constantly menaced by the British left, which was kept steadily in advance, Joseph evacuated one position after another without hazarding an engagement, blew up the castle of Burgos in the precipitancy of his retreat, and only took post at Vittoria to experience the most conclusive defeat ever sustained by the French arms since the battle of Blenheim. His entire army was routed, with inconsiderable slaughter, but with irrecoverable discomfiture. All the plunder of the Peninsula fell into the hands of the victors. Jourdan’s baton and Joseph’s travelling carriage became the trophies of the British general, and the walls of Apsley-house display to this hour in their most precious ornaments the spoils of this memorable battle. The occasion was improved as skillfully as it had been created. Pressing on his retiring foe, Wellington drove him into the recesses of the Pyrenees, and, surrounding the frontier fortresses of St. Sebastian and Pampluna, prepared to maintain the mountain passes against a renewed invasion. His anticipations of the future proved correct. Detaching what force he could spare from his own emergencies, Napoleon sent Soult again with plenary powers to retrieve the credit and fortunes of the army. Impressed with the peril of the crisis, and not disguising the abilities of the commander opposed to him, this able ‘Lieutenant of the Emperor’ collected his whole strength, and suddenly poured with impetuous valour through the passes of The Pyrenees on the isolated posts of his antagonist. But at Maya and Sorauven the French were once more repulsed by the vigorous determination of the British; St. Sebastian, after a sanguinary siege, was carried by storm, and on the 9th of November, four months after the battle of Vittoria, Wellington slept, for the last time during the war, on the territory of the Peninsula. The Bidassoa and the Nivelle were successfully crossed in despite of all the resistance which Soult could oppose, and the British army, which five years before, amid the menacing hosts of the enemy and the ill-boding omens of its friends, had maintained a precarious footing on the crags of Portugal, now bivouacked in uncontested triumph on the soil of France! With these strokes the mighty gains had at length been won, for though Soult clung with convulsive tenacity to every defensible point of ground, and though at Toulouse he drew such vigour from despair as suggested an equivocal claim to the honours of the combat, yet the result of the struggle was now beyond the reach of fortune. Not only was Wellington advancing in irresistible strength, but Napoleon himself had succumbed to his more immediate antagonists; and the French marshals, discovering themselves without authority or support, desisted from hostilities which had become both gratuitous and hopeless.