The Commander of the Forces cannot avoid to express his regret upon losing the services of the two battalions of detachments, which are about to join their corps in England. He will not flatter them by saying that he has not had, upon several occasions to be dissatisfied with their conduct, in their quarters, in their camps, and on their marches; but they have uniformly sustained, in an exemplary manner, the character of the regiments to which they belong, and of British soldiers, in the field against the enemy; and he trusts that the few, of whose conduct he cannot but complain, even upon this occasion, will discontinue and forget their bad practices and habits, upon their return to their regiments; and that they will endeavour to become an example of orderly and regular conduct in their quarters, as they must ever be of gallantry and discipline in the field.9
The element of admonition does at least partially justify Stewart’s distrust of the two battalions of detachments, but, considering that much worse than this was said by Wellington of battalions forming part of the regular line, his commendation of these two temporary units is worth more than just the formalities expressed in the opening lines.
What is more, comparative statistics indicate that the two battalions were surprisingly effective units, with a ratio of strategic consumption hardly short of the averages for the peninsular army as a whole, as demonstrated in table 2. The numbers of sick are considerably higher for the battalions of detachments, but this is scarcely to be wondered at with formations containing convalescents from the Lisbon hospitals. However, this is balanced out in terms of its effect on the total effective strength due to the very small number of men returned “On Command.” Self-evidently, detaching men from a unit that existed primarily to absorb detachments would be a counterproductive process. Differing death rates can be accounted for largely by differing exposure to combat at Talavera, but there is no obvious reason why the Second Battalion of Detachments should have been so free of desertion in this period. In terms of the regiments from which it drew its manpower, the Second Battalion of Detachments was marginally more homogenous in its composition than the First, which may have contributed to creating stronger interpersonal bonds at a company level, but this is sheer speculation. Indicating levels of effectiveness similar to the norm, the statistics reinforce the view that these battalions were a useful, if temporary, means of extracting good service from men who would have otherwise remained a drain on resources whilst they awaited shipment home.
Table 2. The Battalions of Detachments
Source: Data from Monthly Returns February to August 1809, TNA, WO17/2464, averaged over the seven months.
However, the retention of these men in the peninsula did not sit well with Horse Guards. It was one thing for Cradock to form temporary battalions as a means of ensuring that stragglers and convalescents were clothed, fed, and paid, but it was quite another thing for Wellesley to retain them as combat troops. With his attentions firmly set on assembling the Walcheren expedition, Dundas wanted the men back in Britain where they could rejoin their parent units, and told Castlereagh so in fairly blunt terms:
I have the honour to represent to your Lordship that in consequence of the great delay which has taken place in the return of the two Corps of Detachments now serving with the army in Portugal, they have suffered greatly for want of clothing, their discipline as must be the case with corps similarly constituted may naturally be supposed to have relaxed, and much inconvenience has been occasioned to the Regiments to which these men belong, as most of them now being under orders for Foreign Service require the presence of all their effective men.
Under all these circumstances, I have to request your Lordship will be pleased to direct that immediate measures may be taken to order these Detachments home.10
That Dundas sought to clear these operational matters with his political master serves in itself to give some idea of the relationship between the two men. With Wellesley already committed to the Talavera campaign, it was by this stage too late for Dundas or Castlereagh to do much to expedite the return of the battalions, but this first occasion of a clash of opinions between Arthur Wellesley and his commander in chief over the constraints of the regimental system, prefiguring far more significant disagreements with York in the coming years.
The two battalions of detachments were not the only provisional units existing during this first, organizationally confused, phase of the peninsular army, and one other in particular would go on to have a quite lengthy existence. This was the provisional light infantry detachment formed from the men left behind by the two KGL Light Battalions from Moore’s army, which was attached to the 1st KGL Line Battalion.11 Even when the battalions of detachments were broken up, this KGL contingent remained until reabsorbed into its parent battalions when they returned in 1811. The detachment’s formation and initial retention for the Oporto and Talavera campaigns likely had more to do with Wellesley’s shortage of light troops than anything else, but its continued existence implies a tacit approval from higher authority. Also independent whilst it remained in the peninsula was a squadron-sized detachment of the 3rd KGL Hussars, which formed part of Cotton’s Brigade during the Oporto campaign and went home thereafter.12 Since there were enough light infantrymen and hussars to form viable independent units, it was not necessary in either case to incorporate KGL manpower with detachments from regular British regiments. In a similar fashion to the attachment of the KGL Light Infantry to the 1st KGL Line, the substantial body of men left in Portugal by the 1/9th were attached to that regiment’s second battalion rather than being put into either battalion of detachments. Forming a useful addition to the strength of an otherwise weak unit, these men remained with the 2/9th until it left the theater after Oporto, at which point they were finally detached and shipped home to rejoin their proper battalion.13
Although Dundas was slow to reclaim manpower from the peninsula, he made up for this by thorough and detailed use of all available returns in order to comb the British Isles for troops that could go to Walcheren.14 Dundas did not lose sight of other priorities, producing a “Return of the effective strength of the corps of infantry serving in Portugal” that showed these battalions’ deficiencies in manpower and how these could be made up by men from home,15 and proposing the establishment of extra recruiting companies for regiments serving in the colonies.16 Nevertheless, Walcheren was clearly the priority, and by the end of June Dundas was able to produce details not only of the forces that were to go but also of those that would be left behind in Britain and Ireland.17 His investigations also revealed the existence of 3,102 men at the Army Depot on the Isle of Wight, mostly awaiting transport to go out as drafts to regiments overseas. As trained soldiers, these men could be a valuable addition to the Grand Expedition, but the restrictions of the regimental system prevented their being assigned to it. However, with Castlereagh keen to achieve success in the Netherlands through the application of overwhelming force, Dundas elected to bend the rules and take at least a portion of these men for immediate service.
In order to do so, Dundas authorized the creation of the unit sometimes known as the Battalion of Detachments, but more commonly as the Corps of Embodied Detachments. The decision to create this unit was clearly taken after the initial proposals for Chatham’s command, with the battalion not making its first official appearance until July when Castlereagh was informed of “a Corps of Eight Hundred Rank and File with a proper proportion of officers and non commissioned officers, having been embodied from the Detachments at the Army Depot, for the purpose of embarking with the troops under order for service.”18 The officer placed in command was Lt. Colonel the Hon. Basil Cochrane of the 36th Foot, and his officers were drawn from regiments either serving with Chatham’s forces, or from those that had supplied drafts to the unit, with the exception of the paymaster, William Armstrong, from the 2nd KGL Dragoons. The men were organized into ten companies on the standard model, but these do not seem to have included flank companies.
By July 7, the Corps of Embodied
Detachments had been assigned to Picton’s Brigade of Mackenzie Fraser’s Third Division, with which it served for the duration of the campaign on Walcheren Island itself.19 On August 25, 1809, the battalion had a rank-and-file strength of exactly 800 men, of whom 711 were fit for service, 5 present but sick, and 84 sick in hospital, equating to a sickness rate of 11 percent as compared with 7 percent for the force as a whole.20 Both this higher level of sickness, and the corps’s status as a provisional formation, would seem to be collectively responsible for the fact that the Corps of Embodied Detachments did not remain with the smaller force retained on Walcheren after the departure of the main body. Returning to England, the corps went first to Porchester barracks, and then back to the Army Depot, where it was disbanded, although by then many of the men were absent in various hospitals.21
No records have been found detailing the composition of the Corps of Embodied Detachments prior to its embarkation for Walcheren, but the battalion completed standard monthly returns for October and November 1809, and filed with these are breakdowns by parent-unit of the officers and men present after the battalion’s return to England. The data for October is reproduced in table 3, and, whilst it cannot tell us the origin of those men who had already become casualties, it does give a reasonable idea of the composition of the battalion. The 12th, 19th, 22nd, 33rd, 53rd, and 78th Regiments all had a battalion in India, and between them account for to a considerable majority of the Corps of Embodied Detachments: 515 out of 712 rank and file, and 637 out of 793 overall, or 72 percent and 80 percent respectively. Of the remaining contributor regiments, the 41st had a battalion on long-term service in North America and the 15th and 64th were both in the West Indies, leaving only a handful of men contributed by regiments serving at home or in Europe.22
Although there was a subsequent proposal to create something similar in 1814, never again was the Army Depot plundered for manpower in this fashion. The bulk of the men drawn upon were from drafts due to go out and join their regiments in the colonies, and for battalions in India, where the dispatch of a single yearly draft was the norm, this diversion of manpower badly dislocated the usual system. More than half the total manpower came from two regiments, the 33rd and 78th, with battalions on the subcontinent; the redirection of the planned reinforcing drafts could only have had a detrimental effect on those battalions. The 78th had its first battalion in India and its second in the process of returning from active service in the Mediterranean, leaving the 1/78th wholly reliant on the home depot for its reinforcements; however, these were diverted in their entirety to the Corps of Embodied Detachments. Whereas 400 men had gone out to India in 1808, 1809 saw the 320 available diverted to Walcheren and no draft sailed east at all; accordingly, in 1810, the 2/78th had to be stripped of every fit man in order to keep the senior battalion up to strength, thus itself becoming unfit for service for the next three years.23 Inasmuch as the 78th supplied some two-fifths of the total men assigned to the Corps of Embodied Detachments, not all contributing regiments would have suffered to the same degree. However, the example of this regiment does confirm that this policy of robbing of Peter to pay Paul could ultimately have only a deleterious effect on the British Army as a whole, far outweighing the initial gain to be had from a single 800-man battalion as reinforcement for an expedition numbering over 30,000. That Dundas was prepared to countenance such a step can only be understood in the context of the political pressure that the British Army was under to provide a maximum amount of manpower as part of an attempt—albeit inspired by the hope of a final settlement—to throw every man into the field with little thought for the future.24
Table 3. The Corps of Embodied Detachments
Source: “Return showing the different Regiments which the officers, noncommissioned officers and rank and file belong who are serving with the Corps of Embodied Detachments,” October 24,1809, TNA, WO17/234.
The problem, of course, was that the allied campaigns of 1809—in the Netherlands, in the peninsula, and on the Danube—did not bring about the collapse of Napoleonic France. This in turn meant that the British Army was forced to plan again for a longer haul, with a manpower system that was badly dislocated both by the maximum effort of 1809 and by the illness that the Walcheren regiments brought back with them. Under these circumstances, even the far more modest manpower demands of 1810 would require a continued flexible response—the more so when at least some politicians were beginning to question the value of the huge sums invested in the armed services.25 In order to meet part of this demand—for troops to help hold Cadiz against the French—Dundas oversaw the creation of another major provisional formation. This time, however, there was a rather more measured response, and advantage was taken of a more flexible model to manpower distribution than was normally available.
This flexibility was possible since the troops in question came from the Foot Guards. As of 1804, the seven battalions had been formed into three semipermanent brigades. The First Guards Brigade, comprising the first and third battalions of the 1st Foot Guards, served with Moore and subsequently went to Walcheren, and the Second Guards Brigade, composed of the first battalions of the Coldstream and 3rd Foot Guards, had been part of the peninsular army since March 1809. Whilst these two brigades were intended for active service, the Third Guards Brigade was, by contrast, designed to fulfill domestic ceremonial obligations and to serve as a depot for the two active brigades, being composed of the second battalions of all three regiments.26 Despite its depot status, the Third Guards Brigade did not entirely escape Dundas’s 1809 manpower hunt and was called upon to send its flank companies to Walcheren, where they were combined with those of the First Guards Brigade to form a battalion apiece of light infantry and grenadiers.27 Now, in response to the need for reinforcements for Cadiz, the brigade was called upon again—this time not for a few companies but to provide a whole composite field force for service at Cadiz. Accordingly, a total of eleven companies were made ready to go overseas. Although the 2/1st Foot Guards did go out as a battalion, it was an understrength one of only six companies, whilst the 2/Coldstream Guards and 2/3rd Foot Guards sent two and three companies respectively, which were combined to form a single Detachment Battalion.28 Whilst this organization would have been an unusual measure for the times if adopted by regiments of the line, such sub-battalion organizations had precedent in the Foot Guards, as when a composite regiment was sent to fight the rebellion in North America and again when detachments were drawn off for the 1798 raid on Ostend.29
The Foot Guards contingent at Cadiz formed the First Brigade of Graham’s little force, under the command of Brigadier General William Dilkes, whose inspection of his units that summer reveals an interesting choice in the men assigned to this service:
The men of [2/1st Foot Guards] look older than appears by the return, nearly 60 have served 18 years and upwards and above 200 have been transferred or exempt from service in the 1st Brigade as not being fit for active service, or on account of having large families, the return of wives and children is considerable, all left in England. . . . The Detachment Battalion is composed of 224 rank and file of the Coldstream Regt. formed into two, and 342 of the 3rd Guards formed into three companies; of the former 100 have been transferred from or exempted service in the 1st battn. of the Regiment as being unfit for active service, or on account of having large families, of the last three companies only 48 exempted or transferred.30
The returns show far more men in their twenties and thirties than typical for line units, and with longer service. Such an organization could be implemented thanks to the more flexible system historically enjoyed by the Foot Guards, in which the company rather than the battalion maintained greater significance and autonomy, combined with the organization of the seven battalions into three standing brigades to add a higher organizational echelon than was available for the line. Taken together, this organization permitted a three-tier system to maximize effective use of the available manpower, with the best men going to the First and Secon
d Guards Brigades for active service, whilst the better men from the Third Guards Brigade undertook less arduous duty in an overseas garrison and the rump of that formation held the unfit, processed recruits, and generally served the role of depot for the remainder.
The provisional Foot Guards units served for a year as part of the Cadiz garrison, before being replaced on the station by a single full-strength battalion, 3/1st Foot Guards, after taking fairly substantial losses at Barrosa. Upon its arrival, the 3/1st Foot Guards absorbed the bulk of the effective rank and file of the 2/1st Foot Guards, whilst the effectives of the other regiments went home.31 The fact that, at Barrosa, the two elements of the Detachment Battalion divided and fought on different parts of the field is often taken by some historians to imply that the contingents of 2/Coldstream and 2/3rd Foot Guards were in fact independent units, but this is hardly conclusive since the 2/67th also inadvertently broke into wings during the confusion of Graham’s deployment. Indeed, Oman’s explanation of how the two companies of 2/Coldstream split off from the rest of the brigade in order to provide cover for the British artillery actually confirms that, though ultimately ending up on the left of the whole army, these companies had initially formed the right, senior, wing of the Detachment Battalion.32 In qualification of Oman’s stance that the detachments were independent units in his casualty figures, it should be noted that they are likewise represented in the monthly returns for Cadiz; however, this relates to the internal economy of the detachments, not their tactical use.33
The flexibility engendered in the Foot Guards by a greater reliance on the company echelon paid off in a similar fashion in the 95th Rifles. A full-strength rifle company was a valuable combat asset in its own right, leading to the regiment frequently having detached companies serving in a variety of locations. In October 1810, to take a rather extreme example, there were eight companies of the first battalion with the Light Division of Wellington’s army, along with a single company from the second battalion; a further company, from the third battalion, was part of Erskine’s Brigade of the First Division. Meanwhile, a further seven companies were with Graham at Cadiz—two from the second battalion and five from the third.34 Rather than allow its companies to shrink in proportion to wastage suffered on active service, the 1/95th reduced the number of subunits present in the field, sending the company cadres back to the regimental depot. The 1/95th accordingly dropped from ten companies in the field to eight in early 1810, and then to six after further losses in the 1812 sieges. Conversely, the 2/95th and 3/95th deployed by odd wings and companies, and each was only able to concentrate a battalion’s worth of manpower in one place relatively late in the war.35
Sickness, Suffering, and the Sword Page 17