Sickness, Suffering, and the Sword

by Andrew Bamford

  The General Order of July 10, 1811, explains the mechanics of how such an amalgamation was administered:

  3. All the Private men belonging to the 2d Batt. 88th regt. in Portugal & Spain, are to be drafted into the 1st batt., and are to be distributed into companies of the 1st batt., with the exception of boys deemed at present unfit for service in the field.

  4. All men missing from the 2d batt. Are to continue on the strength of the 2d batt.

  5. The transfer is to be made as soon as convenient, and the officers commanding companies in the 2d batt. are to draw pay for their men up to the 24th inst., and are to account in the usual manner with the officers commanding companies in the 2d batt. to whose companies their men will be transferred under this order.

  6. When the transfer shall be completed, the officers, non-commissioned officers, and staff of the 2d batt. are to proceed to Lisbon preparatory for their embarkation for England.32

  Although Wellington concluded his order with the hope that he would see the battalion back, “in renewed strength,” the need to keep the 1/88th supplied with reinforcements meant that such a return was never a realistic possibility. In apparent recognition of this, the 2/88th was amalgamated with the regiment’s depot in June 1812, thereafter being used purely to process drafts to go to Spain. Only in October 1813 was a serious attempt made to recruit the second battalion up to strength in its own right, with the rump of the 2/88th being posted to Ireland to facilitate the incorporation of Militia drafts. Strength was rapidly boosted from eighty-eight men to in excess of eight hundred, but the war was over before there was any hope of turning this mass of manpower into an effective unit, and the battalion was disbanded in 1816 without seeing any further foreign service.33

  Whilst sending the 2/88th home took a battalion out of Wellington’s order of battle, it also facilitated the continued service of the 1/88th, as can be seen from the graph in figure 4. Immediately obvious is the huge increase in total manpower as a result of the drafting off of the 2/88th in July 1811, although the proportional increase in effective manpower is by no means as great. This influx of younger, less acclimatized, men from the 2/88th kept the sickness ratio in the 1/88th notably higher than previously, and this remained the case for the rest of the war. Also obvious is the draft of men joining in November 1814, sent out by the second battalion to bring the 1/88th up to strength for its new deployment to Canada. This was the same draft that took the 2/88th down to its nadir of eighty-eight men, indicating that, despite the active employment of many other second battalions at this time, the dictates of the system were still being followed in some cases and the role of the 2/88th as a feeder unit maintained.

  After the successful integration of the two battalions of the 7th, 48th, and 88th, the practice of keeping battalions of the same regiment together was implemented on a more widespread level, with the army’s brigading being manipulated to facilitate this. Beginning with the 2/52nd in March 1811, newly arrived battalions were placed not only in the same division but in the same brigade as their regimental counterparts, and steps were also taken to bring together the two battalions of the 7th.34 The 48th and 88th remained as they were, with both battalions serving in different brigades of the same division, but this was evidently acceptable whereas the dispersal of the 7th, which had previously had one battalion in the Sixth Division and one in the Fourth, was not. As the war continued and regiments that had their second battalion in the peninsula sent their first out to join it, the two battalions were brigaded together for a time, and then, once the new unit was acclimatized and reasonably fit, the second battalions were drafted into the first as was done with the 88th. This took place with the 1/5th, 1/38th, and 1/42nd, all recovered from Walcheren, and also applied when the 1/28th and 1/39th joined from the Mediterranean, although in these two later cases the weakness of the relevant second battalions after Albuera meant that the period when both were in the field was brief.35 In all these cases, once the second battalions had drafted off their effective manpower they returned home and, as with the 2/88th, saw out the remainder of the war in a purely depot role.

  Figure 4. Campaign Manpower in the 1/88th. Data from Monthly Returns, TNA, WO17/2464–2465, 2467–2476, 1516–1519. The gaps toward the end of the run of data represent passage to and from North America.

  The utility of this system, in enabling the effective exchange of manpower, meant that it was also applied to the forces serving in Flanders in 1815. Even before Waterloo, the 1/52nd had joined the same brigade in which the badly understrength 2/52nd was already serving, rapidly absorbing the effective manpower of the junior unit and leaving it as a cadre to be sent home.36 Reorganization post-Waterloo also placed multiple battalions of the 1st and 27th in the same brigades, although the unusual size of these regiments paired the third and fourth battalions of the 1st and the first and third battalions of the 27th. In either case, however, the option still existed to draft the junior battalion into the senior if the campaign had gone on long enough, and unit strengths fallen low enough, to warrant it.37 All this showed that it was possible, to an extent, to work with the system so far as the infantry was concerned. At the same time, such measures did not eliminate all the system’s flaws, and other steps were required to make the best of things. Before moving on to look at these, however, it is necessary to consider the organization of the cavalry, where rather more flexibility was built into the system from the outset.

  Unlike the infantry, Britain’s cavalry organization made a greater number of subregimental units available for deployment. The cavalry squadron was not the direct equivalent of the infantry battalion, being far smaller and lacking anything in the way of a staff. Furthermore, squadrons were not permanent entities, but were put together by pairing the mounted equivalent of the infantry company: the cavalry troop. For most of this period, the British cavalry was established with ten troops per regiment, identified by letter designations, although this number was cut back to eight after the peace of 1814. Until the reduction, this provided for five squadrons, of which one was retained at home in the depot role, leaving four available for service, although there were exceptions to this structure and practice. The 1st Dragoon Guards, as the senior line cavalry regiment, always maintained an additional squadron starting the war with twelve troops and six squadrons, and dropping to ten and five upon the 1814 reduction; alone of the heavies, it thereby mustered four squadrons at Waterloo. The four hussar regiments were also increased to twelve troops in December 1813, but were cut back to eight along with the rest of the light cavalry after the peace. Regiments serving in India also had different establishments, and the organization of the KGL cavalry was different again, with the regiments generally being stronger than their British counterparts.38

  In contrast to the dispersal of infantry battalions, most cavalry regiments deployed overseas with all their active squadrons serving together. Only on a few occasions did circumstances require a regiment to retain more than a single depot squadron at home. The 20th Light Dragoons began the period with two squadrons in Sicily and the rest at home, with two of the home squadrons then going to Portugal before finally being reunited with the rest of the regiment after Oporto.39 Also, only one of the hussar regiments—the 7th—was able to take advantage of the 1813 increment and deploy with five active squadrons, the other three regiments keeping four in the field and two at home.40 Although squadrons had no permanent existence and thus no permanent designation, they were named in accordance with the seniority of their commander, which in turn dictated their position when the regiment was drawn up in line. Thus, the senior active squadron would be denominated as the Right Squadron, the next as the Left, and the junior as the Centre; for regiments with more than three active squadrons the designations Centre-Right and Centre-Left were also used.

  This structure, however, relates only to the cavalry of the line, since the three regiments of the Household Cavalry were on a different organization again, and represent the most significant exception to the norm
. These units had a lower establishment than the line, with the two regiments of Life Guards particularly weak with only six troops. Only toward the end of the period, when they were being readied for active service, were the household units brought up to a strength more akin to the line regiments, gaining an extra two troops apiece to give the Life Guards eight and the Royal Horse Guards ten. The Royal Horse Guards lost its additional troops after the peace, but the 1st and 2nd Life Guards both kept theirs.41 These regiments were twice called upon to form a Household Brigade for active service—for the peninsula in 1812, and for Flanders in 1815—but on both occasions did so with each regiment taking only two squadrons apiece. The need for the household regiments to maintain their ceremonial and bodyguard functions around the royal family meant that there was a legitimate reason for this weaker-than-normal deployment, but it served to place the Household Brigade, particularly in the peninsula, as something of an organizational anomaly. It is nevertheless going rather far to say, as Oman does, that the 1812 deployment represented the equivalent only of “a large composite regiment,”42 for their squadron strengths were sufficiently strong as to render all three household regiments viable in their own right, with at least as much effective manpower as many veteran line regiments. What was more, the presence of so great a proportion of each household regiment at home meant that replacement manpower was readily available, keeping the active element strong throughout its campaign service. Since, in addition, they were worked in the peninsula as a brigade of three regiments whilst most of the remaining cavalry brigades were down to two regiments each by the end of 1813, and those regiments down to three squadrons, the number of squadrons in a brigade generally equalized out at six either way. It was only in 1815, with the organization of the cavalry into larger brigades of nine or ten squadrons apiece, that the 1st Dragoon Guards had to be attached in order to raise the Household Brigade to the same standard.43

  What was notable about the cavalry was the level of organizational flexibility allowed by having so many subregimental units deployed together at once. For all its organizational impermanence, the squadron remained the basic tactical unit, and so a regiment that was numerically understrength could redistribute its effective manpower to create three workable squadrons out of four weak ones, sending home the cadres of the two superfluous troops. If the regiment in question was later able to raise additional manpower, a whole squadron could potentially be redeployed as a reinforcement; indeed, within a two-squadron depot it was possible to prioritize one squadron for a potential return to service whilst the other remained in a pure training role.44 In 1814 it was envisaged that the 10th and 15th Hussars and all three household regiments would each send an additional squadron out to the peninsula, although in this case the squadrons were ones that had been left at home at the time of the initial deployment.45 This level of flexibility was furthered by the fact that a squadron could easily be commanded by its senior troop commander, so the availability or otherwise of field officers did not influence the process.

  Due to the shrunken size of his mounted regiments, Wellington authorized a general reduction to three active squadrons for peninsular cavalry regiments as of October 1811.46 Indeed, he would ideally have gone further and worked his four most reduced regiments at the outset of the 1813 campaign on a two-squadron establishment, rather than sending them home as he was ultimately forced to do.47 All the above evidence tends toward the view that Wellington’s priority was one of ensuring that his brigades contained a sufficient number of effective squadrons, irrespective, within reason, of how many regiments these came from. The case of the Household Brigade clearly demonstrates that two-squadron regiments were a viable and effective option on campaign even if this did potentially involve forming brigades comprising squadrons from four or more regiments.

  The mechanics of restructuring a cavalry regiment on campaign are best understood through William Tomkinson’s memoir of his service in the 16th Light Dragoons, one of the longest-serving peninsular cavalry regiments. The 16th went to Portugal in 1809 with eight troops organized into four squadrons; with 671 rank and file, this worked out to 168 per squadron.48 C and H Troops were left at home to form a depot squadron. In October 1811, as a result of the order to reorganize into three active squadrons, A and I Troops were sent home, raising average squadron strength from 130 to 173, although this is a little deceptive as the effective strength was still only 339 for the regiment, or 113 as an average for each squadron.49 The lack of demanding cavalry service during the last eighteen months of the war allowed the regiment’s ratio of effective manpower to improve, and by April 1814 the average effective squadron strength had actually risen to 151. However, peacetime reductions meant that although the 16th could still field three squadrons for the Waterloo campaign, these squadrons averaged only 115 effectives.50 The strength of the regiment is tracked in figure 5, which also shows how the number of horses was generally maintained at the same level—or ideally higher—as that of effective manpower. This practice was part of a deliberate policy of not sending drafts of cavalrymen to the front unless they could be mounted, and of controlling the regiments to which remounts were assigned, and there were accordingly only two short periods when the regiment could not mount all its fit men.51

  The squadron echelon was not just important as a battlefield unit, but also had an importance so far as logistics were concerned. This can particularly be seen in the need to spread a cavalry regiment around billets in several villages in order not to exhaust supplies of forage.52 Thus, squadrons could frequently be called upon to serve in a semi-independent role, on and off the battlefield. This imperative, and the changing composition of the officers present with a cavalry regiment, meant that reorganizations were occasionally necessary to ensure that the most senior troop commanders were commanding squadrons. By all the standards of military precedence, it would not be the done thing for the senior captain to command a troop as part of a squadron led by a field officer, at the same time as a more junior captain might be commanding a squadron.

  As with most organizational changes, such alterations to the internal organization of cavalry regiments were made, where possible, outside of the campaigning season. Thus, on January 16, 1812, D and F Troops of the 16th Light Dragoons exchanged places due to the arrival of a new captain for the latter.53 The newly joined Captain George Murray was second in regimental seniority amongst the five captains then present with the regiment, notwithstanding that one of them, the noted intelligence officer the Hon. Edward Somers Cocks, had brevet rank as a major. Murray’s and Cocks’s troops originally formed the Left Squadron of the regiment, but since Cocks was third in seniority amongst the regiment’s captains, he was still entitled to command a squadron, which he could not do if his troop remained where it was. Thus, the regiment’s six troops had to be shuffled such that both Murray’s and Cocks’s were paired with one commanded by a junior officer, allowing the senior man to command the resulting squadron. By shuffling the troops in this manner, Cocks became senior captain in the Centre Squadron and Murray likewise senior captain in the Left Squadron, whilst the Right Squadron remained unchanged in composition under James Hay of K Troop, who had been a captain longer than any of them. Since the important thing here was regimental seniority, Cocks’s brevet rank had no bearing on matters although Tomkinson’s notes confuse matters by consistently listing him as Major Cocks.

  Figure 5. Campaign Manpower in the 16th Light Dragoons. Data from Monthly Returns, TNA, WO17/2464–2465, 2467–2476, 1760. The gap in data is the period during which the regiment was in Britain during the peace.

  Because cavalry regiments contained more squadrons than infantry regiments did battalions, the greater amount of flexibility available as a result enabled a far more effective and efficient utilization of available manpower. In that the active elements of cavalry regiments almost always served together, and that it was possible to shuffle the component troops around within the squadron structure, a cavalry regiment could make more
effective use of manpower than an infantry regiment. Even if the latter possessed three or four battalions—which few regiments did—there was still no guarantee that the subunits would all be in the same place to facilitate a similarly rapid redistribution of resources.

  Making the System Work

  With only a finite amount of manpower available, in a finite number of units, it was an inevitable and accepted part of the regimental system that these units would be moved around in order to maximize their effectiveness. As far back as the 1750s, a global policy of unit rotation had been successfully developed and implemented in order to prevent regiments potentially spending decades in one garrison.54 Naturally, a large-scale war meant that peacetime policies had to be shelved, causing some units to again serve lengthy stints in India or in some of the remoter colonial outposts. Equally, the demands of war also forced commanders to implement a more localized form of unit rotation, within the confines of a single theater of operations. This was most pronounced in the peninsula, but it is also evident in North America and, to a lesser extent, during the Hundred Days; in other theaters, numbers simply did not permit this sort of luxury. Conversely, in the peninsula, the numbers involved meant that a more complex system could be developed. Not only were units rotated between front line or reserve formations within the main command, but a degree of fusion between intra-theater rotation and the wider, global, system was also possible. In its eventual form, this fusion enabled the movement of forces between Wellington’s field army on the one hand, and the garrisons of Lisbon, Gibraltar, and Cadiz on the other, in order to make the best use of each and every unit.