The Man Who Broke Napoleon's Codes

by Mark Urban

The French cavalry were accompanied by a powerful company of horse artillery, armed with sixteen cannon. These men, who rode on their limbers or on horses, so that they could keep up with the cavalry, were soon bringing their guns into action against some squadrons that General Cotton had drawn up in their way. Tomkinson fell back in front of the French, only to find a troop of the 16th Light Dragoons (with which he had been serving until a few weeks before) standing ready to charge. The effects of the French artillery were immediate. Trooper Stone, whose mount stood in line with the squadron, was hit, and ‘the shot, round shot, hit him on the belly, and sent pieces of his inside all over the troop – a piece was on Lieutenant Lloyd’s shoulder, the first time he was ever in action,’ Tomkinson later recalled. Within an hour, Lieutenant Lloyd, who had only joined the regiment the previous day, was dead too. A desperate cavalry battle was joined as Cotton’s brigades protected the rearguard of the Army.

  Marmont had begun the march south on 18 July with the intention of repeating his previous day’s feat; moving down towards Salamanca so quickly that he would oblige the British to do the same. Since he knew the celebrated marching power of the French fantassin, he was confident that he would either outstrip the British, threatening their line back to Portugal, or cause them to become disordered by these efforts. He had not, however, reckoned on the hunger for battle among his subordinates at Castrejon. The commander of the column nearest the British, General Clausel, saw an opportunity to attack.

  Fairly soon, the French onslaught had forced the British cavalry back. A troop of Royal Horse Artillery came under attack as it retreated; the French horsemen tried to slash at the reins and traces of the teams pulling the guns, but failed to stop them. For ten miles the British brigades fell back, with Clausel’s troops trying to catch up with them. The heat was oppressive and the dust thrown up by these desperate manoeuvres began clogging the mouths of horses and men alike, making them desperately thirsty. On crossing the half-dry bed of the Guarena, many threw themselves down on their bellies to lap up the tepid, dirty water.

  At last, British infantry of the 4th and Light Divisions drew itself up and prepared to meet the onslaught. At this point the French cavalry did not press its advance, since it had little chance of riding down these veterans. Instead they busied themselves with a continued bombardment from their horse batteries and called up a division of infantry. The French moved forward, beating the pas de charge,* but were repulsed by the 4th Division, who gave them a volley and then advanced with bayonets fixed. The light was failing after several hours of continuous manoeuvring; Clausel knew his time, like his force, was exhausted.

  During the fighting on 18 July, more than 500 men of the British and allied armies were killed and wounded. The French lost even more. At the end of it, Wellington knew that he would have to fall back again. The French were showing considerable aggression and a desire to bring on a decisive encounter. Wellington could not see any suitable killing ground on the flat land between where that day’s action had been fought and where he had stood on 20–21 June, at San Christoval, a few miles north of the River Tormes. On the 19 July, therefore, the British continued to march south, relinquishing the remainder of the territory they had occupied for the previous month.

  With each side’s infantry marching across the parched Leon plains, the two armies sent dust billowing into the skies. Their paths moved closer and closer until they were marching along beside one another at a distance of only 500 or 600 yards. The British looked over their left shoulders at the French, who looked back over their right. Each side watched its opponent marching along all day, waiting for the least irregularity in its formation or drill to open an opportunity for attack. Major Warre wrote to his father, ‘there never was a more interesting or beautiful sight than that of two hostile armies of upwards of 35,000 men each moving parallel within a mile and a half of each other and often within cannon range’. One young Guards officer said in his letter home, ‘we have amused ourselves with plenty of marching lately, very little fighting but a good deal of chess playing with the enemy’.

  This contest was testing the mettle of every player. Wellington and Marmont knew that any slight mistake on their part might precipitate an onslaught that would break their army and their reputation in one hideous battle. For the superior officers, there was a sense that every order from their chiefs had to be attended to swiftly and properly or they might be held responsible for disaster. Those lower down, in the ranks, wondered about their own fate: would the campaign end without the engagement they had expected for the past month or might there still be some great fight that would claim their lives?

  Riding along, Captain Tomkinson turned from watching the parallel march of the French and looked aloft. Vultures and other birds of prey were circling. The blood and suffering of the previous day’s combat were fresh in Tomkinson’s mind. Watching the birds as they awaited their carrion, he was unable to stop himself thinking about ‘the horror of being wounded without the power to keep them off’.

  During the two days since the march had begun, Scovell had been riding with the Army trying to snatch moments to decipher Joseph’s message to Marmont on 9 July. It began:

  I received your letter of – July: it is unfortunate that you were not able to attack 1214. 609. 656. 803. occupied 58. 850. 112. 1168. 13. 1388. 1153. 820. I have received a letter 1030. 1252. 989. 1241. 112. 56. 1019. 315. 10. He has countermanded 752. 722. 890. 44. 566. 134. who he told you 929. 858. 490. 631. 670. 313. 285. 413. 51. 1178. 1196. 518. 473. and of some bands. I am very 835. 531. 1178. 673. 891. 1095. 649. 1016. 304. 274. 139. 498. 561. 666. He has done very little to look 13. 521. 110. 874. 761. 409. feints 164. 413. 549. 1089. partial, wanted to 521. 512. 890. 1178. 577. 238. 2. 1105. 858.

  Inserting what he knew, Scovell could decipher this to a considerable extent:

  I received your letter of –– July: it is unfortunate that you were not able to attack the English army while they were occupied with the siege 1168 of Salamanca. I have received a letter from General Caffarelli in Burgos of the twenty 1019 of 315. He has countermanded the march of the troops who he told you would help 490. 631. 670. on the movements of the English army and of some bands. I am very far from happy with the change of orders he has issued. He has done very little to look for the enemy, who, by feints and partial attacks wanted to prevent him sending you help.

  This deciphering is not without fault, although the error was not particularly significant: 1241, General Caffarelli’s location, was not Burgos, as Scovell thought, but Vitoria, somewhat further north, in the Basque country. Joseph went on to explain how Marshal Soult and General Count D’Erlon had overestimated the strength of allied forces in front of them (and of the guerrillas) to justify their own failure to act in support of Marmont: nothing could be expected of them either. For Wellington, this was definitive proof that there was nothing further to be feared from the Army of the North. Joseph’s dispatch also provided that uniquely satisfying species of intelligence: that a strategy of his own, namely the use of the Spanish to tie down troops north and south of Marmont, had worked.

  The real nub of the letter came towards its end. Wellington had been aware for many days that units of the Army of the Centre were leaving their usual positions and concentrating. He was unsure, however, where they were heading. It might be that their concentration was purely defensive, in case he pushed towards Madrid. It might be that they were meant to join D’Erlon in an offensive against his exposed right or the central Portuguese frontier. While allowing for the possibility that he might have to fall back in defence of his capital, Joseph expressed his wishes for the coming days as follows:

  I really would like to be able 643. 1148. 398. 112. 858. above all since I learned that you could no longer count 285. 846. 544. 1238. so I have given the order to General Treillard 1178. 7. the valley 112. 1383. 906. 86. 942. 323. 69. 708. 1377. 13. 1265. 1003. 1269. 164. 989. 670. 1148. 398. 31? (pour). 1016. remainder 285. 981. 1070. 86. 794. prior to marching 498. 642
.

  This became:

  I would really like to be able to support you, above all since I learned that you could no longer count on the support of the Army of the North. So I have given the order to General Treillard to evacuate the valley of the Tagus only leaving 708 regiment of cavalry in 1269 and to move with the rest to Naval 1070 nero prior to marching towards you.

  Thus, Wellington had the confirmation that much of the Army of the Centre was marching to unite with Marmont. The phrase ‘Naval 1070 nero’ was obviously Naval Carnero, which gave the British a good sense of Treillard’s route of march. Joseph then described how he had removed his troops from different centres around the capital. This information allowed Wellington and the Staff to conclude various factors central to their strategy for the coming days: the plan that the Army of the Centre should unite with Marmont; its strength (adding the figures they already knew of its composition and subtracting those of the various detachments referred to by Joseph); and its likely route of march.

  This was intelligence of the highest order, especially since Wellington was a general who defined so much of what he did do by setting out the limits of what he would not do. He would not fight Marmont once he had made his junction with Joseph, that was clear. As of 20 July, spies’ reports (two days old) suggested the Army of the Centre was not yet moving. He could therefore calculate that he must bring on a general action in the next four days or else give up the game. Wellington also knew from the 9 July letter that he could seek this battle without worrying about the French armies north and south of him.

  There was one small reinforcement that might reach the marshal at any moment, but Wellington knew it would not be large enough to alter radically the balance of forces. An unciphered dispatch hidden in a Spaniard’s clothing and dated 12 July showed him that the only hopes still entertained by Marmont of a reinforcement by the Army of the North were that a column of cavalry with one battery of guns (less than 1,000 men and six cannon) might still get through. In his uncoded missive to the commander of that column, Marmont, however, had revealed a certain desperation: ‘the valour of the army and the glory of French arms do not allow you to spare a single day in setting out’.

  After a tiring day, with the two armies completing their parallel march down to the line of the River Tormes and Salamanca, Wellington wrote to Earl Bathurst in London: ‘I am quite certain that Marshal Marmont’s army is to be joined by the King’s, which will be 10,000 or 12,000 men, with a large proportion of cavalry.’ The general was therefore confirmed in his resolution ‘to cross the Tormes, if the enemy should; to cover Salamanca as long as I can; and above all, not to give up our communication with Ciudad Rodrigo; and not to fight an action, unless under very advantageous circumstances, or it should become absolutely necessary’.

  The commander of forces did allude to one advantage he enjoyed over Marmont, namely in the matter of communications, telling the secretary of war, ‘the Army of Portugal has been surrounded for the last six weeks, and scarcely even a letter reaches its commander’. Given the effectiveness of the guerrilla screen, it was quite likely that the marshal was unaware of Joseph’s letter of 9 July (and indeed, it became clear several days later that none of the copies sent by His Catholic Majesty had got through to Marmont). So Wellington understood more about the situation of the French armies than did the marshal himself. There were obvious dangers for Marmont: if he was unaware that the king was marching to his help, he might seek precipitate action against his retreating enemy, fearing they would escape him, rather than wait for this substantial reinforcement.

  British Headquarters had evidently been impressed by the aggressive spirit shown by the French during their crossing of the Duero and attack on the Castrejon line on 18 July. Wellington therefore had every reason to believe that Marmont would try to bring on a battle between 21 and 24 July. He had already chosen two suitable defensive positions where the British might fight such an engagement. One was the familiar ridge of San Christoval, a few miles north of the city. The other was south of the Tormes, near the village of Arapiles, where the topography would allow him to observe the approach of an enemy force while concealing the bulk of his own.

  Early on 21 July, Wellington drew up his army in battle array on the San Christoval ridge. Marmont chose, as he had chosen one month before, not to oblige him by assaulting this formidable position. Instead, the French advanced guard went to the south and east, finding fords across the Tormes that would allow them to continue their march and perhaps, by veering west after they had crossed, draw a great arc around the south of Salamanca, cutting Wellington off from his route back to Portugal.

  With reports of Marmont’s crossing coming in during the afternoon, Wellington realized that his first chosen battle position was becoming useless and he would have to order his army to cross the river and take up the second. Since the distance upriver to the British fords was less than that to the French ones, his divisions were able to make up for the lost time of occupying their morning position and begin assembling south of the Tormes during the afternoon.

  Wellington had already had the opportunity of looking over the ground on that side of the river during his advance through Salamanca several weeks before. The geography there was particularly favourable to his purposes. Any army heading back to the Portuguese frontier would have to travel south-west from the Spanish town. Two chains of features would help the general cover that movement. One ran south from the Tormes, a gully a couple of hundred feet deep carved by a tributary of that river. As night fell on 21 July, Wellington’s Army occupied this line, presenting a barrier several miles in length, running south from the Tormes. Ahead of it was a screen of light cavalry, observing the French divisions as they formed up after their own crossing and went into their bivouacs. The other salient natural position was a ridge running more or less westwards from the first. At the ‘elbow’ of these two chains of high ground were a pair of rocky tors, the Greater and Lesser Arapil hills.

  That night, the open plains south and west of Salamanca were studded with the fires that soldiers of both sides built to dry their clothes and cook supper. Most of the troops were exhausted and famished after marching fifty miles in a few days. Their officers had played their parts as pawns in Wellington and Marmont’s gigantic game of chess and were suffering from a profound mental as well as physical fatigue. There was still a sense of expectation that action might be joined. These listless feelings of nervous excitement charged conversations in the bivouacs just as the heat and dust had charged the atmosphere above.

  Long after most men had fallen into a deep sleep on the dusty earth, the pealing of thunder announced a torrential downpour. Many a soldier’s blanket was soon awash with rain and mud. Lightning bolts plunged from the sky, cavalry horses reared, neighed, broke their tethering and careered about, trampling somnolent dragoons under hoof. It was not the rest that these tired men would have hoped for. What was more, for thousands of them, this disturbed, crazy night was to be their last.

  NOTES

  1 ‘young Guards officers took advantage of the hiatus’: according to a letter from Charles Cocks (Edward’s brother), who was serving with them. It is reprinted in Julia Page’s book.

  2 ‘One British major wrote home grumpily’: William Warre, whom I will quote a good deal on the Salamanca campaign since his description of these events is both insightful and often funny, unlike some of his earlier ramblings.

  – ‘The Staff were perplexed that he had not given battle on the San Christoval position’: all of our usual informants in the British officer corps (Warre, Tomkinson, Cocks, Scovell himself) commented in their journals on how puzzled they were that Wellington had not given battle. In their polite, understated way, it is clear that many of them thought their commander had missed his golden opportunity.

  3 ‘he did not care one jot for their opinions’: the operative quote from Wellington being, ‘the staff officers of the army are attached to me to enable me to communicate my orders to my
inferiors, and otherwise to assist me in the performance of my duty’, Dispatches, 14 October 1812.

  4 ‘The most interesting of the dispatches was written on a tiny sliver of paper’: it resides in WO37/1.

  5 ‘Scovell reflected on the events of the 17th with little sentimentality’: in his journal, WO37/7b.

  6 ‘A troop of Royal Horse Artillery came under attack as it retreated’: several interesting details in this account of Castrejon come from Lieutenant John Cook of the 43rd Light Infantry.

  7 ‘One young Guards officer said in his letter’: this is Charles Cocks again.

  8 ‘After a tiring day, with the two armies completing their parallel march down to the line of the River Tormes and Salamanca, Wellington wrote to Earl Bathurst in London’: this letter is actually from 21 July, Dispatches.

  * ‘Charge pace’, a faster march used when approaching the target of an assault.

  1. DONT. 1082. 365. EVE. WE. WE. 669. EV. 398. R. DECEIVED. 481. THE. 985. 186. T. 843. 688. AND. COLONEL. 536. 174. V. 1024 … IS. T. 980. 854. ER 536. ON. W. 171. MADE. THEM. 131. T.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The Battle of Salamanca, 22 July 1812

  It was still morning on 22 July when Pakenham’s division went splashing through the ford at Cabrerizos. The previous night’s rain had brought it up above its usual July depth and many of the men found the cold water soaking them all the way up to the chest. They held their muskets above their heads, anxious to keep their weapons dry and ready for action.

  By one of Wellington’s characteristic fiats, Deputy Adjutant-General Edward Pakenham (who was his brother-in-law) had been placed in command of the 3rd Division. Its usual commander, Picton, had gone sick. The chosen man, for Pakenham was most decidedly among those forming the inner circle of the Staff, had thus found himself leading one of the most formidable formations in the Army, nearly 6,000 veterans who rejoiced under the nickname of the ‘Fighting Division’. With them was the small Portuguese cavalry brigade under D’Urban that had been detached on intelligence-gathering duties earlier in the campaign. As their horses came dripping out of the Tormes, the last allied presence north of that river had been called in.