But if Steuart’s attention to detail was thorough, it was also unusual, and not all regiments were able to maintain the high standards that he set for the 12th Light Dragoons. The fact that other regiments were obliged at times to make do with what they could get is emphasized by the bizarre situation that was revealed when the whole of Wellington’s cavalry was inspected during the winter of 1812–13. It was then found not only that several of the heavy cavalry regiments were mounted on horses of altogether too light a description but also that certain of the light dragoon regiments were struggling with weighty mounts better suited to the heavy cavalry service. The 4th Dragoons was particularly noted as falling into the former category, and the 11th Light Dragoons, the latter, whilst the unfortunate 13th Light Dragoons was left with a batch of remounts that touched the other extreme and were of a size barely even sufficient for light cavalry work. Other regiments had received replacement horses that were nearly as bad—in several cases insufficiently trained to the service—but, again by contrast, the 5th Dragoon Guards and 16th Light Dragoons had both received remounts of such a quality that they represented a marked improvement on the existing horses.47 It was a decidedly mixed situation, and one of the few comforts that Wellington was able to take in York’s having recalled four of his cavalry regiments during the following spring was that their departure enabled him to make provision to redress the situation by redistributing their horses. Not only were suitable mounts drafted off from the departing regiments, but a double transfer was instituted so that, for example, the 1st KGL Hussars received forty-three picked light cavalry horses from the departing 2nd KGL Hussars, which in turn enabled it to send an equivalent number of unsuitable heavier mounts to be redistributed amongst those regiments of dragoons and dragoon guards that were to remain in the peninsula.48
Even when assigned to regiments appropriate to their size and strength, the larger, more powerful, horses needed for heavy cavalry service posed other problems, not least that they required more in the way of forage to keep them in good condition. Wellington’s discussion of the provision of remounts for the 1811 campaign highlights the problems inherent in maintaining the larger horses needed for an effectively mounted heavy cavalry arm, although, as ever with Wellington, the pragmatic desire not to deprive himself of a single experienced man if it could be avoided is also apparent: “As the appointments of the Heavy cavalry are so much more weighty than those of the Light Dragoons, and the larger horses of the former are with difficulty kept in condition, it would have been desirable to have a larger proportion of the Light Dragoons or Hussars with this Army; but as the officers, the men and their horses are now accustomed to the food they receive and to the climate, I do not recommend that the regiments should be changed, or that any additional regiments be sent out, excepting possibly the remaining two squadrons of the 3rd [sic, 2nd] Hussars, of which two Squadrons are already at Cadiz.”49 The dislike for heavy cavalry at that moment, and the desire that no further regiments be sent, is a reflection of the strategic situation at the time of writing rather than lasting prejudice against the heavy cavalry arm. As the theater of war shifted, the requirements for specific types of cavalry, and, indeed, more cavalry or less, changed. Thus, in 1810 and again during the fighting in the Pyrenees, Wellington had more cavalry than he could usefully employ—or, indeed, easily feed.
The year 1812 saw a new demand for heavy cavalry to operate with effect on the open plains of central Spain, and for the rest of the time light cavalry was of the greatest utility due to the almost constant need for a secure system of outposts. These preferences can be tracked by Wellington’s comments at various junctures in the course of his correspondence with London.50 Yet wastage amongst the light and heavy regiments is by no means as clear-cut as Wellington’s 1811 letter might suggest. Similarly, as has been noted, preconceptions regarding the British soldier as a horseman generally, in particular when compared with his KGL counterpart, are also not as pronounced as might be assumed. All in all, when one moves from the big picture down to the regimental level, the situation is by no means straightforward.
A Vast Super-excellence?
In attempting to make some sense of the situation with regard to strategic consumption of horses at a regimental level, we first need to establish an overall average against which such an analysis can be made. Since the orthodoxy has it that the horses of the KGL were far better cared for than those of British units, figures for cavalry and artillery horses are given for British and German units separately in table 12, alongside an average for the whole. Figures for the horses of the Wagon Train, where mortality was inevitably higher due both to the nature of the work and the use of worn-out animals in this role, have also been presented separately so as not to skew any analysis. Whilst the average loss rate for the train horses is appreciably higher than it is for the other arms of service, there is little appreciable difference between losses for cavalry and artillery, or between British and German units. Indeed, for the cavalry, the difference is down to a matter of one-third of a percentage point; to all intents and purposes, there is no difference to be found between British and KGL regiments. For the artillery, the distinction is somewhat more pronounced, but it should be noted that the bulk of the KGL artillery in the peninsula was eventually assigned to garrison duty, with only a single battery present in the field after 1811.51 Even then, the figure for both the British and German artillery is within one percent of the overall average for artillery horses.
Such results, however, fly directly in the face of much of our understanding of the relative merits of the British and KGL, and the validity of the assumption that KGL troops took better care of their animals is valid. This latter issue has, in particular, become an oft-repeated truism regarding the peninsular army, with Ian Fletcher commenting in his study of Wellington’s cavalry that the Germans “are universally regarded as being far better at the job [of horse care].”52 Fletcher’s use of the present tense is in this case largely valid, for it is hard to find the matter discussed without a similar conclusion being drawn, even if other sources, unlike Fletcher who relies rather heavily on the partisan August Schaumann as his main authority, are not quite so insistent.53 At the same time, if Schaumann is the most outspoken contemporary source for KGL superiority, he is by no means the only one. All this then begs the question, if the statistics show no appreciable distinction, why do contemporary accounts, and the histories that draw on them, perpetuate what would seem to be a complete fallacy?
Table 12. Comparative Equine Mortality in the Peninsula
Source: Data derived from Monthly Returns, TNA, WO17/2464, 2465, 2467–2476. Note that totals are over all figures and not cumulative totals.
The answer only begins to become apparent when cavalry losses are compared on a regiment-by-regiment basis in table 13, which ranks the twenty-six peninsular cavalry regiments in accordance with their average monthly figure for horse deaths. However, the results are slightly skewed by the presence of the Household and Hussar Brigades, which arrived only in time for the Vitoria campaign and thus spent very little time on service in the field. Understandably, these units have the best survival rates and fill the first seven lines of the table. Similarly, at the other end of the scale are the 23rd Light Dragoons and the 3rd KGL Hussars, neither of which served very long in the theater before being sent home. For the 23rd, this was because of extremely heavy losses of horses and men at Talavera, whilst in the case of the 3rd Hussars the data relates to the detachment left behind when the rest of the regiment marched with Moore, composed of those horses and men unfit for active service. Like the seven late arrivals, these units need to be set aside, accordingly leaving us with a central block of seventeen regiments that served in the theater for a reasonable length of time to form the basis for a further analysis.
When we look at this central block, one of the first things that becomes apparent is the marked divide between heavy and light cavalry. Almost without exception, the former constitute the top portion
of the block, with better survival rates, and the latter form the lower. Only a single anomaly each way breaks the distinction, which reflects the differing roles played by these two subdivisions of the mounted arm. Whilst the tactical distinction between lights and heavies in the British service was not as pronounced as in many continental armies—particularly early in the war, when brigades often contained a mixture of both types—there was still a doctrinal reluctance to employ heavy cavalry in outpost work.54 Similarly, the preference for light cavalry for reconnaissance and picket duties meant that there were times when these regiments, or some of them, were retained with the main army whilst the remainder of the cavalry remained in the rear, as with the defense of the Portuguese frontier or the final advance through southern France.
Finally, whilst one would expect lighter casualties for the heavies during campaigning to be canceled out by higher battlefield losses, the doctrinal tendency to use both arms for the mounted charge negates this expectation.55 Even in the figures for July 1812, which one would expect to be heavily skewed by the losses of Le Marchant’s Brigade at Salamanca and of Bock’s Brigade at Garcia Hernandez, the five heavy regiments, representing half the total engaged in the Salamanca campaign, still only account for two-thirds of the cavalry’s losses.56 A similar situation can be seen with most peninsular battles, with the heavies generally taking more losses than the lights but not to an overwhelming degree. Only at Waterloo, where the two heavy brigades not only suffered during their own famous charge but also continued to play a role throughout the day, is the ratio hugely distorted toward the heavy arm.57 Whilst good heavy cavalry mounts were harder to come by, the very fact that their selection was more exacting, along with a smaller requirement due to the greater prevalence of light regiments, may also have ensured a better quality of remount being sent to these units. There are certainly fewer such complaints to be seen, relative to those for the light dragoons, when one looks at the inspection reports on heavy cavalry units. A combination of better remounts and less attrition through strategic consumption can therefore be seen to have more than compensated for a higher battlefield loss rate to ensure that equine mortality in the heavy cavalry was lower than it was in the lights.
Table 13. Peninsular Equine Mortality Rates by Regiment
Source: Data derived from Monthly Returns, TNA, WO17/2464, 2465, 2467–2476.
But what of the alleged superiority of the KGL as horsemen? Whilst the 2nd KGL Dragoons comes second in the ranking of the eight heavy regiments in the main block of data, its sister regiment comes in sixth. However, the two remaining KGL Hussar regiments both appear extremely high up in the listing of the light cavalry, taking first and third place respectively. It is perhaps unwise to draw too much from the high ranking of the 2nd KGL Hussars, since this regiment spent most of its time with the 2nd Cavalry Division in the southern theater and saw far less arduous service than those regiments serving with the main army in the north; the fact that the 13th Light Dragoons has the best survival record of any British light cavalry regiment may also be attributed to this cause. On the other hand, there is no denying the fact that the 1st KGL Hussars has an equine survival rate far better than any other light cavalry regiment and, indeed, better than many heavy regiments too. But whilst it is undoubtedly creditable, the high position of this one regiment in fact goes a long way to explaining the distortion of the record in favor of the KGL cavalry as a whole and stands as a warning against overreliance on the few core memoirs from which so many myths and half-truths originate.
When the memoir sources for the favorable view of the KGL are considered, two things swiftly become apparent. Firstly, these sources largely refer to this one regiment, and, secondly, they almost all stem from the early years of the war when the 1st KGL Hussars served alongside that hotbed of future memoirists, the Light Division. So far as the good reputation of the other KGL regiments is concerned, that of the dragoons is based largely on their heroics at Garcia Hernandez, whilst the 2nd KGL Hussars was in fact numbered amongst the four ineffective regiments sent home after the 1812 campaign. Furthermore, many of these complementary accounts refer only to the regiment in general terms, or as excellent outpost soldiers, rather than specifically noting their superiority as horse masters.58 Still, if we add this general praise for one exceptional regiment to Schaumann’s lauding of the KGL cavalrymen and denigration of their British counterparts, it is easy to see how the myth began to evolve.
However laudable his motives in singing the praises of the 1st KGL Hussars, to which he was attached between October 1810 and January 1812, Schaumann was first and foremost a consummate storyteller, and his exploits—military and romantic—are inevitably told with himself as the hero. Furthermore, although Schaumann relates other tales that display the British cavalry and its leaders in a less-than-flattering light, many of his most stinging indictments come from the time of his new posting, after some time spent on leave, to the 9th Light Dragoons. The 9th was not in good shape when Schaumann joined it, and, indeed, would shortly be ordered home as a result. Schaumann found little positive to say about the regiment, and was equally scathing about the newly arrived 18th Hussars to which he was then assigned. But the 18th, as we have seen, was another one of Wellington’s problem regiments, and when Schaumann joined the regiment it was still adapting to the return to active service.59 So, from serving with a regiment that was indisputably one of the best in the theater, Schaumann went on to successively serve with two of the worst—hardly surprising, then, that his comparisons were not the most flattering.
All this, though, simply serves to demonstrate that Schaumann had distaste of what he perceived to be the aristocratic disdain of British cavalry officers toward a foreigner. It still does nothing to answer the specifics of his case against the British cavalrymen as horse masters, to the consequent credit of their KGL counterparts, made earlier in his memoirs. Even that complaint, though, is tainted with a clear bitterness that the omissions of British officers were giving him extra work that kept him from the arms of the “exquisite child called Joaquina Cavaleira,” his current mistress. Schaumann relates how despite his diligent efforts, the horses of the 4th Dragoons, to which regiment he was then attached, remained in poor condition. It took a tip-off from the local Portuguese magistrate to reveal that the dragoon troopers were trading their corn in exchange for brandy, which led to new orders to ensure that feeding was always to be supervised by an officer. Nevertheless, although Schaumann claims that his intervention solved the problem, he remained critical of the British trooper, writing, “The English cavalry soldier looks upon his horse as a machine, as an incubus, which is the cause of all his exertions and punishments. He ill treats it. And even when forage lies within his reach, he will not, of his own accord, lift a finger to get it. The commissary must procure everything, and actually hold the food to his own and his horse’s mouth. . . . How different things are in the German cavalry regiments of the legion!”60 Yet even Schaumann, however partisan and however determined to tell a good tale, could not but concede that the 14th and 16th Light Dragoons must be omitted from this castigation of the British cavalry.
Schaumann’s story took place in 1809, yet his characterization of the British trooper seems to have become attached to the whole era. However, thanks to the abstracts of Regimental Courts Martial included with most mid- and late-war inspection returns, it is possible to test the validity of this assumption. Using the records for the year 1812, when a large and mixed contingent of British and German cavalry was deployed to the peninsula, the regimental returns of courts-martial were checked, firstly for soldiers tried for stealing and selling their horses’ corn and secondly for more general crimes relating to mistreatment of animals. There are certain flaws in this methodology, firstly that such records only tell us of those soldiers unfortunate enough to be caught in the act, and secondly that a significant number of sentences were awarded under the catchall term, “unsoldierlike conduct,” which may cover a multitude of crimes includin
g some of relevance here. There is also a problem in that records of the first half-yearly inspections are rather patchy, with the only case of a British soldier recorded as being tried for stealing forage being that of a private in the 4th Dragoons, who was acquitted; other crimes may be hidden by the fact that the relevant records are missing. Within the two KGL dragoon regiments, a total of seven men were brought to trial during the first half of the year, six being found guilty, although there were no cases in either regiment of hussars.61
For the second round of inspections, all sixteen cavalry regiments then with Wellington—which included four KGL units—were put through a full inspection, and here the situation is rather different. In the twelve British regiments, three men were tried for stealing corn, two from the 9th Light Dragoons of whom one was acquitted and one found guilty but “forgiven”; only one man, a private of the 14th Light Dragoons, was actually punished.62 In the German regiments, by contrast, only one case of theft of forage was reported, although since the enterprising individual in question, a Private Schäfer of the 1st KGL Hussars, was implicated in the theft not only of two cartloads of long forage but also the carts themselves, getting 260 lashes for his pains, this may be considered as to some extent redressing the imbalance.63 Schäfer’s crime cannot be considered as amounting to cruelty as such, since he was not stealing directly from either his own horse or, indeed, any one specific animal, and with this in mind a comparison of more generic cases of cruelty to, or neglect of, animals is also instructive. In the same set of sixteen regiments, there are three relevant courts-martial amongst the British: two being for leaving a horse unattended, resulting in one case in the loss of the animal, and the last being the case of Private McKean’s mule with which we began the chapter. A similar case represents the only direct cruelty trial from the KGL cavalry, and here, again, there was an element of wider insubordination involved, the case being that of Private Henry Bork of the 1st KGL Dragoons, sentenced to three hundred lashes on December 13 after being found guilty on two counts:
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