Sickness, Suffering, and the Sword
Page 1
CAMPAIGNS AND COMMANDERS
GENERAL EDITOR
Gregory J. W. Urwin, Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
ADVISORY BOARD
Lawrence E. Babits, East Carolina University, Greenville
James C. Bradford, Texas A&M University, College Station
Robert M. Epstein, U.S. Army School of Advanced Military Studies, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas
David M. Glantz, Carlisle, Pennsylvania
Jerome A. Greene, Denver, Colorado
Victor Davis Hanson, California State University, Fresno
Herman Hattaway, University of Missouri, Kansas City
J. A. Houlding, Rückersdorf, Germany
Eugenia C. Kiesling, U.S. Military Academy, West Point, New York
Timothy K. Nenninger, National Archives, Washington, D. C.
Bruce Vandervort, Virginia Military Institute, Lexington
Sickness, Suffering, and the Sword
The British Regiment on Campaign, 1808–1815
Andrew Bamford
Foreword by Donald E. Graves
University of Oklahoma Press
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Sickness, Suffering, and the Sword: The British Regiment on Campaign, 1808–1815 is Volume 37 in the Campaigns and Commanders series.
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Contents
List of Illustrations
List of Tables
Foreword, by Donald E. Graves
Preface and Acknowledgments
Introduction
List of Abbreviations
1. The British Army and Its Campaigns
2. Regimental Identity and Leadership
3. The Regimental System in Practice
4. The Limits of the System
5. Beyond the Regiment
6. Strategic Consumption
7. Beasts of Burden
Conclusion: A System Reassessed
Appendix 1. Details of Data Sample
Appendix 2. Men Returned as Sick after the Corunna Campaign
Appendix 3. Sample of Returned Deserters in the Peninsula
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Illustrations
1. Campaign Manpower in the 1/40th
2. Campaign Manpower in the 29th
3. Campaign Manpower in the 2/83rd
4. Campaign Manpower in the 1/88th
5. Campaign Manpower in the 16th Light Dragoons
6. Campaign Manpower in the 2/87th
7. Deaths on Active Service, 1808–1815
8. Sickness and Death Rates in the Peninsula
9. Peninsular Horse Strength by Month and Arm of Service
10. Peninsular Horse Deaths by Month and Arm of Service
Tables
1. Total Manpower Commitments, 1808–1815
2. The Battalions of Detachments
3. The Corps of Embodied Detachments
4. Battalions Deployed to the Peninsula, 1810–1813
5. Peninsular Provisional Battalions
6. Battalions Sent from Britain to the Netherlands, December 1813
7. York’s Provisional Battalion Scheme
8. Average Unit Experience (Months) of Peninsular Divisions
9. Sickness and Death Rates by Theater
10. Average Desertion Rates by Theater
11. Desertions on Active Service, 1808–1815
12. Comparative Equine Mortality in the Peninsula
13. Peninsular Equine Mortality Rates by Regiment
Foreword
In the long and proud history of the British Army, one of the most prominent chapters is its participation in the conflict waged with revolutionary and imperial France from 1793 to 1815. Known for nearly a century afterward as the “Great War with France,” this epic struggle cost the lives of nearly five million people in Europe and the Middle East. Britain’s fatal casualties alone were, per capita, as severe as they were during the First World War and were only ameliorated by the fact they were suffered over a period of two decades, rather than in four years. Unchallenged on the oceans after Nelson’s victory at Trafalgar in 1805, Britain’s main effort in the latter years of the conflict was the campaigns of its land forces in the Iberian Peninsula, most notably those conducted by the Duke of Wellington. From 1808 to 1814, these forces were rarely defeated but, instead, won a series of victories whose lyrical names—Albuera, Badajoz, Barrosa, Bussaco, Ciudad Rodrigo, Corruna, Fuentes D’Onor, Nive, Nivelle, Orthes, the Pyrenees, Roleia, St. Sebastian, Salamanca, Talavera, Toulouse, Tarifa, Vimiera, Vittoria, to use the Battle Honours spellings—are emblazoned on the Colours of most modern British regiments.
Those nineteenth-century campaigns in Portugal and Spain have been a great source of regimental tradition, lore, and mythology that is proudly commemorated to this day. An example from the 1811 battle of Albuera—the bloodiest single engagement of the Peninsular War—will suffice. During that engagement, the Fusilier Brigade (7th and 23rd Regiments of Foot, Royal Fusiliers, and Royal Welch Fusiliers respectively) mounted an attack on Marshal Soult’s army that decided the battle. This attack was immortalized in the magnificent prose of William Napier. “Nothing,” Napier wrote in his History of the War in the Peninsula, “could stop that astonishing infantry. No sudden burst of undisciplined valour, no nervous enthusiasm, weakened the stability of their order; their flashing eyes were bent on the dark columns in their front, their measured tread shook the ground, their dreadful volleys swept away the head of every formation, their deafening shouts overpowered the dissonant cries that broke from all parts of the tumultuous crowd, as slowly and with horrid carnage, it was pushed by the incessant vigour of the attack to the farthest edge of the height.” Stirring stuff, to be sure, and it will come as no surprise that the title of one of the many regimental histories of the Royal Welch Fusiliers is That Astonishing Infantry.
Unfortunately, the truth of that attack is somewhat more prosaic as I found when I wrote my 2010 book, Dragon Rampant, a history of the 23rd Foot during the Great War with France. First, the battle did not take place quite as neatly as Napier described it—but then real action never does. Second, the casualties on both sides were horrendous (52 percent of the Fusilier Brigade was killed or wounded). Third, Napier does not mention that five battalions of Portuguese infantry were present to help out the fusiliers. Nonetheless, the attack of the Fusilier Brigade at Albuera in 1811 was a great feat of arms, and I so described it in Dragon Rampant.
But it was the only major battle that the 23rd Foot participated in between the time it landed in Lisbon in the last days of October 181
0 until it went into winter quarters during the first days of November 1811. During that year, this unit, or parts of it, only came under enemy fire on ten days, yet the records reveal that it lost nearly five hundred men from all causes—“sickness, suffering, and the sword,” in the words of Captain Moyle Sherer of the 34th Foot, which the author has aptly taken as the title of the book that follows. It required constant efforts to keep regiments like the 23rd Foot up to strength in the peninsula. In Sickness, Suffering, and the Sword: The British Regiment on Campaign, 1808–1815, Andrew Bamford has set himself the rather difficult task of explaining how the regimental system of the British Army functioned during the latter years of the Great War with France.
In my opinion the author has very successfully accomplished that task. Bamford begins with a detailed description of the evolution and organization of the regimental system. He analyzes the important changes made to the system when the Duke of York became commander in chief of the British Army in the 1790s and how this influenced its operation in 1808–15, his period of emphasis. He then discusses the important matter of unit identity and cohesion, stressing that leadership was all-important as many a bad unit was transformed by a good commander while many a fine unit was damaged by a poor one. In that respect, Lt. General Sir Brian Horrocks perhaps said it best when he commented that “one good commanding officer is worth a ton of tradition with mould on it.”
Bamford continues with a detailed discussion of the regimental system in practice, its strengths, weaknesses, problems, and extemporized solutions, the continual draining away of strength by noncombat losses. He does not, however, neglect higher organizations and presents a history of the divisional system within Wellington’s army, which is extremely useful. Personally, I found the chapter on “Beasts of Burden” to be fascinating as, in no uncertain terms and with a great deal of factual data, it demonstrates the importance of the grain-fuelled prime mover of the time to military operations. “Data” is the operative word here because Bamford backs up all his analyses and statements with statistical information from War Office and other departmental records that he has mined with impressive industry.
The result is that Sickness, Suffering, and the Sword is a historical study that not only reflects a very high level of scholarship but constitutes a most welcome and useful addition to the literature on the British Army in the latter years of the Napoleonic period. I only wish that I had had it on my desk when I was working on my history of a peninsular regiment, and I am certain that it is destined to become a standard source for all serious students of not only the British Army of 1808–15 in particular, but Napoleonic armies in general.
Donald E. Graves
“Maple Cottage”
Valley of the Mississippi, Upper Canada
Victoria Day, 2012
Preface and Acknowledgments
This work began life some years ago under a different name and in a rather different form. Having returned to academia as a postgraduate, I became increasingly interested in how Napoleonic armies functioned on campaign—that is to say, not in combat but during the weeks and months of marching, countermarching, winter quarters, and minor skirmishes that made up the bulk of early nineteenth-century warfare. First, I was able to explore these ideas through a master’s dissertation looking at the British Army in the first six months of the Peninsular War. This study helped me develop a statistical methodology, which, after long hours in the National Archives at Kew, enabled me to do the same for the period of 1808–15, forming the focus first of my doctoral thesis and now of this book.
My initial title was “The British Army on Campaign,” and it was as such that my thesis saw the light of day. But it strikes me now that such a focus was misleading. It is easy enough to talk of the British Army as a single entity, but even today it remains in many ways a collection of regiments. This situation was all the more apparent in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and one only has to consult some of the excellent new wave of regimental histories covering the period to see how varied the regimental experience of the Napoleonic Wars could be. As I began to develop my research, it seemed increasingly apparent that what I was really addressing—what much of my thesis had in any case been arguing for—was the effectiveness not of the British Army but of Britain’s regimental system. It is, therefore, the question of how well that system stood up to the Napoleonic Wars that forms the backbone of this book.
The organization of the British Army of the Napoleonic era was complex, as was the nomenclature used to differentiate its units, outlined in more detail in chapter 1. A few explanatory notes are necessary, however. Regiments were generally numbered, although the Royal Horse Guards were not, and the second regiment of Foot Guards is never referred to as such—since this would imply subordination to the 1st Foot Guards—having always been the Coldstream Guards. Most infantry regiments also had titles, either geographic or linking them to the royal family, and cavalry regiments were further distinguished by type: dragoon guards (with their own numbering sequence), dragoons, light dragoons, and hussars. Thus, being formal, we might speak of the 3rd (Prince of Wales’s) Dragoon Guards, the 6th (Inniskilling) Dragoons, or the 84th (York and Lancaster) Regiment of Foot. In general, I have used the numbers only. Infantry regiments frequently had multiple battalions—as many as eight in one special case—and in the text these are given before the regimental number so that, for example, 2/44th signifies the second battalion of the 44th Foot and 4/1st signifies the fourth battalion of the 1st Foot. Where regiments fielded only a single battalion, I have used the number alone: thus 20th, 51st, 104th.
On the subject of names, two points need clarifying. Firstly, this narrative is thematic rather than chronological, whereas names and ranks changed over time as individuals rose through the military hierarchy and also, for the few who reached high rank, into and through the peerage as well. I have used the titles appropriate to the period being discussed, thus the narrative alternates between Wellesley and Wellington as we move back and forth across time. Similarly, John Spencer Cooper is variously private, lance corporal, and sergeant; William Tomkinson variously lieutenant and captain. The other variable concerns place names; in many cases the present name and the name used in 1808 are not the same, whilst the attempts made by British writers of the time frequently differ both from established forms and from each other. When a place name appears in a direct quote, I have retained the original spelling but otherwise have used the modern place names: thus Vitoria rather than Vittoria, Merksem rather than Mercxem. The only exception is those places where we British, in our ignorance or arrogance, have long since rechristened a major town or city to suit our tongues: thus, Lisbon rather than Lisboa; Oporto rather than Porto; Brussels rather than Bruxelles. Like all compromises, this will doubtless offend someone somewhere, but that was not the intention.
I must finally thank the many individuals whose involvement, interest, and support have helped make this book possible. Since it began life as an academic project, I must begin with my supervisors at the University of Leeds, Kevin Linch and Edward Spiers, as well as John Childs, John Gooch, and Alan Forrest, who were all involved in the examination of my thesis and many of whose suggestions have subsequently been incorporated into this revised work. The other great source of scholarly support has been the Napoleon Series website and the many contributors to its discussion forum; I must in particular name Bob Burnham, David Buttery, Anthony Gray, Ron McGuigan, and Howie Muir as amongst those whose contributions have been of particular help, and most of all Don Graves, who has provided continued support for this project and has most generously furnished it with a foreword.
There are countless other friends and colleagues, also deserving of a mention, who have provided help and encouragement over the last six years. Some have helped with sources, others have provided specialist advice in areas where my own research could never match theirs, and others have read and commented on sections of the manuscript. A big thank you therefore goes out to Dave Beckf
ord (who stepped in to create the graphs when it became clear that my own IT skills were not up to the job), Dave Brown, Andy Burbidge, Ed Coss, Mick Crumplin, Carole Divall, Vic James (“You Know He Makes Tents”), Rory Muir, Ian Robertson, and John White. I must also thank Mike Galer at the 9th/12th Royal Lancers Museum; Linda, Monty, and the team at the Prince Consort’s Military Library; and the staff at the National Archives. In bringing the project together, Chuck Rankin, Greg Urwin, Emily Jerman, and Emmy Ezzell at the University of Oklahoma Press treated my queries, questions, and quibbles with far more patience than I likely deserved.
Lastly, this book would never have been possible without the help, encouragement, and patience of my family. Within that, special thanks go to my father, Mick Bamford, who must surely now regret ever getting me interested in history now that he has read and reread thousands of words of manuscript as my indefatigable proofreader, and my fiancée, Lucy, whose love and support has sustained me throughout this project.
Introduction
During the winter of 1816–17, whilst on garrison duty in Ireland, Captain Moyle Sherer of the 34th Regiment of Foot sought to relieve the tedium of home service by beginning to compose his memoirs of active service during the Peninsular War. He would be one of the first of many British officers—and a rather smaller number from amongst the British Army’s rank and file—to put his experiences down on paper, but, unlike many who came after him, Sherer was writing of events that were still in recent memory and was doing so alongside some of those who had gone through the same experiences with him. Sherer was then serving, as he had in Spain and Portugal, in the second battalion of his regiment; now, in the inevitable reductions of peacetime, the battalion was being run down and would soon be disbanded. Whether or not this played any part in Sherer’s decision to start writing is unclear, but it certainly gave him cause to reflect on the fate of those who had gone to war with him seven years before: “One thousand and seventy bayonets, all fine sized, efficient men, then mustered under our colours. My regiment has never been very roughly handled in the field, although it has borne handsome share of honourable peril. But, alas! What between sickness, suffering, and the sword, few, very few of those men are now in existence. We had yearly supplies of men from the depôt; they too have for the most part disappeared.”1