by David Rooney
No warfare is entirely without humour and the Peninsula was no exception. Harry and his Colonel were standing, talking, in their camp when it began to rain heavily. As they watched, a rifleman knocked out the end of a large wine barrel and crept inside to shelter. But he had not secured it properly and it took off, rolling down the hill with the man inside. The soldier was unhurt but Beckwith and Harry could hardly control their mirth as the shaken individual emerged.
As Colonel Beckwith was required in Lisbon, it seemed a good opportunity for Harry to go with him and have his wound treated. The ball was still in his ankle and had ‘sloughed’ – or in other words, unsurprisingly, it had started to go septic. There was then a certain amount of indecision amongst the surgeons as to whether they should take the ball out or cut his leg off. One of them, Brownrigg, said, ‘If it were my leg, out should come the ball.’ Harry enthusiastically agreed, lifted his leg up and said, ‘There it is; slash away.’ One can imagine the pain with no anaesthetic, of course. The ball was jagged and heavily embedded in the leg, to such an extent the forceps the doctors were using broke. Harry’s great friend, George Simmons, who was also wounded, was watching. When the surgeons needed some swabs and bandages, Harry invited George to tear up one of his shirts. George took one look at it and refused as it was ‘a pity; it is a good shirt’. Harry was not pleased as his leg was aching and ‘smoking’ from a wound four or five inches long. Nevertheless, he appears to have recovered rapidly and, before the wound was even healed, had rejoined his Colonel on 6 March 1811.
On arrival, Harry found one of the company commanders had fallen sick and so he implored the Colonel to be allowed to command the company. Although lame and in considerable pain Harry was given command, despite having to remain, uncomfortably, in the saddle for some considerable time. There was much fighting and considerable losses were sustained: Jack Stewart, a friend of Harry’s, was shot through the lungs; another was shot off his horse and a lieutenant was killed when actually talking to Harry. Later, to his astonishment, Harry was appointed Brigade Major of the 2nd Light Brigade, effectively the executive officer of a brigade of three or more battalions. The Brigade was commanded by a lazy old Guardsman, Drummond, who clearly had his priorities right – when Harry asked for orders he said, ‘It is your duty to post the picquets, and mine to have a damned good dinner for you every day.’
The British gradually pushed the French over the border into Spain and eventually into the well-fortified town of Ciudad Rodrigo. Sadly, Wellington’s generals were not all of the stamp of Moore, Craufurd and Tom Picton. There were those such as Brent Spencer who were, at best, indecisive, who allowed the French to escape from Almeida after Wellington’s success at Fuentes de Onoro; and others, like Erskine, who eventually committed suicide in Lisbon, who were merely drunk and incompetent.
In the winter of 1811, Harry and the rest of the army found themselves on the frontier, keeping Ciudad Rodrigo under observation. One evening Harry was chatting to General Craufurd and another of his friends, Tom Bell, when a Dragoon rode up with a request from General Lowry Cole for an officer who knew the roads to guide his Division to their next position at dusk. Harry, with his intimate knowledge of the area, was detailed to go. On arrival at Cole’s headquarters, the General asked him if he knew the way. Harry sarcastically retorted, ‘I suppose I should not have been sent if I had not.’ He was actually not that confident in the dark, with masses of soldiers milling about, and it did not help having the anxious Cole continually enquiring whether they were on the right track. Harry said, ‘General Cole, if you will let me alone, I will conduct your Division; if you thus attract my attention, I cannot.’ It was a nasty moment, particularly as Harry had to gallop ahead to verify he did actually have the right road. To his relief, he found it and as the head of the column reached it, he did not hang about. With a ‘Good night, General’ he galloped off into the night with Cole’s shouts to come back sounding in his ears. (It did, however, have a happy ending: Harry became the General’s AQMG – chief divisional administrative officer – after Waterloo, then, much later served under him in the Cape when Cole was Governor.)
On 8 January 1812, a fresh chapter was opened in the Peninsula War with the start of the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo. The four Divisions (1st, 3rd, 4th and Light) took it in turns to be on duty besieging the town. It was cold, unpleasant and hazardous work involving, every fourth day, a 9-mile march in to the objective, crossing the River Agueda, and a return march out the following day. The vital hill overlooking the town initially fell to the Allies and on 16 January the lesser intervening high ground was taken. With guns blasting two main breaches on the 19th, the citadel was taken that night with fierce fighting. By so doing, Wellington secured his northern route and essential lines of communication into Spain, and could turn his attention to Badajoz.
Harry, as Senior Subaltern of the 95th, volunteered himself as commander of the Forlorn Hope. He was swiftly rebuffed by Craufurd who told him in no uncertain terms that he was a Brigade Major – and by implication he should get on with his proper job – and leave that sort of thing to younger officers. To Harry’s disgust another subaltern, Lieutenant Gurwood, was given the job. Gurwood was knocked unconscious in the assault and, coming to later, managed to find the French Governor of the town and relieve him of his sword. Harry was nevertheless in the thick of it and, hatless and with his clothes singed, was taken for a Frenchman by an enormous Grenadier of the 88th (later the Connaught Rangers). He was grabbed by the throat but just had enough breath to swear at him roundly in unmistakable English, thus saving his life.
Sadly, Harry’s heroes, General Craufurd, Colonel Colborne and Colonel Mackinnon, were not so lucky. Craufurd was hit in the spine and died in great pain. After his burial in the breach where he fell, his soldiers marched back to camp straight through a large freezing pond in silent tribute to their beloved leader, who, as one of his ‘severities’ during training, would roar ‘Sit down in it, Sir, sit down in it’ if a soldier stepped over a puddle. Mackinnon, Commanding Officer of the 88th, who had led his men with the words ‘Rangers of Connaught! It is not my intention to spend any powder this evening. We’ll do this business with the cold iron’, was blown up near Harry. (Dan Mackinnon was a very popular leader and well known throughout the Army as a practical joker. He once impersonated the Duke of York at a banquet and dived headlong into a bowl of punch. Another time, when Wellington was visiting a convent, he impersonated a nun.) Colborne was hit in the right shoulder and though he was operated on, the ball remained in his arm. Months later he complained of a pain four inches from where the ball had entered. The surgeons again opened up his arm and removed the ball, which had embedded itself in the bone. The operation was so painful that Colborne put his watch beside him on the operating table and only allowed the doctors to work for five minutes at a time. It was three or four days before they finally completed the operation. Nevertheless, in three weeks, Colborne was back commanding his Regiment in the Pyrenees, merely complaining that he only had use of his arm below the elbow.
For Harry, the gloomy aftermath of this sort of major battle was the execution of deserters. As Brigade Major, Harry had a supervisory role, but the detail was the Provost Marshal’s, who had not organized the execution well and whose orders were unclear. Out of the eleven deserters kneeling by a mass grave, some were killed immediately but a few only wounded. Harry had to take charge, order the firing party to reload and dispatch the unfortunate individuals.
On 28 February 1812, Harry was promoted captain. Now Wellington could turn his attention to Badajoz where Harry and Juana would meet.
Chapter 3
Peninsula
April 1812 to April 1814
We now return to the smoking devastation of Badajoz, the fall of which had such a dramatic effect on both commanders.
Wellington openly wept at the loss of the cream of his army – 5,000 casualties – and Napoleon, in a fury at the French defeat, turned his concentration almost exclusively
to his campaign in Russia. During the siege, Wellington had realized that the French under Marmont were approaching, and as he moved north towards Ciudad Rodrigo and Salamanca, the rival armies moved in fairly close parallel, with just occasional skirmishes. As the armies approached Salamanca during June 1812, Wellington made several feints to lure the French into battle, but Marmont refused because reinforcements from their southern armies were on the way. Indeed, Wellington even considered abandoning Salamanca and retiring towards Portugal. At this time the two armies were evenly matched – 48,000 Allies to 50,000 French, and with a similar balance in heavy guns. On 22 July, Wellington, with most of his army lying in dead ground and unseen by the enemy, ordered two of his commanders, Pakenham and D’Urban, to move their units to his left flank. Marmont saw the dust clouds which this movement created and assumed that the Allies were retreating. He therefore wheeled his army round intending to attack the retreating enemy, unaware that in reality he was crossing in front of their main force. Wellington, realizing Marmont’s mistake, immediately gave orders to attack, and in forty minutes the main French army was routed. Wellington’s quip ‘40,000 French in forty minutes’, did not tell the whole story and there were hard-fought battles during the rest of the day before the French were finally defeated. Wellington’s quick decision when he was on the spot at a crucial moment in the battle secured the victory, as it had, and for the same reasons, as the timeless victory of Alexander the Great at Gaugamela.
Harry suffered severely from boils during this period and described the agony he went through when he was riding. When Salamanca fell, he had eleven excruciating boils and the army surgeon ordered him to stay in Salamanca for two weeks until they improved. Harry’s brother Tom, who also served in the Headquarters, took over his duties, while Harry and Juana spent ‘fourteen days of love and excitement’ in Salamanca. The story of the boils is well known, but one wonders whether it was a kind gesture by the authorities to give the popular young couple a break from the rigours of campaigning. Almost immediately after their marriage, Juana had faced a serious problem. She had only ever ridden a donkey on a religious pilgrimage and now urgently needed to ride a horse. Harry, who always kept a number of horses and greyhounds, had a side-saddle made for his lovely new wife and allotted her a large but placid Portuguese horse. Juana, with her haughty Spanish attitude, and already prepared to clash with ‘her Enrique’, despised everything Portuguese and this horse in particular. During the march north towards Salamanca that August, she was crossing a river in a thunderstorm when the horse panicked, putting her in serious danger. She instantly refused to ride it again and demanded to ride a spirited Spanish thoroughbred called Tiny. To the delight of all the troops who watched admiringly, she quickly controlled Tiny and rode him thereafter. Harry wrote in his autobiography: ‘It is difficult to say who was the proudest that morning … horse, wife or Enrique (as I was always called), as she caracoled him about among the soldiers to their delight.’ Her occasional flare-ups with Harry were always concluded with laughter and passionate embraces, and often they would lie in each other’s arms under the stars.
Harry, as Brigade Major – a fairly senior staff officer – realized that he would have to leave Juana alone for long periods and entrusted her to the care of ‘his trusty old groom West’, who cared for her devotedly and slept nearby when Harry was away. She seems to have gained the affection and respect of both officers and men and there is no record of her being or feeling threatened. Harry wrote: ‘The soldiers of the whole division loved her … and she would laugh and talk with all, which a soldier loves. Blackguards as many of the poor fellows were, there was not a man who would not have laid down his life to defend her.’ Before a battle, West would take Juana to the rear – often against her strong protests. One night when he had cut green wheat to make her a mattress, and when she had to hold Tiny’s rein all night, she found in the morning that the horse had eaten all her bed, ‘to her juvenile amusement, for a creature so gay and vivacious, with all her sound sense, the earth never produced’.
It was a welcome rest but they were so short of money that they could not even afford to buy coffee. After fourteen days they had to ride ‘some terrible distances for three or four days’ and they caught up with the Division at the Guadarama Pass. This pass, the key to Madrid through centuries of war and civil war, was quickly overcome and the triumphal Allies marched unopposed into the city. Madrid, particularly, had resented Napoleon’s arrogance in deposing their king, and the whole population turned out to give the British forces a joyful and ecstatic welcome. Soldiers and officers alike were showered with gifts, with flowers and with wine. Women in their eagerness to kiss the conquering heroes nearly pulled them off their horses, and even Spanish men grabbed the soldiers and kissed them – to the disgust of the British troops. What a contrast to their entry to Badajoz!
After the severe privations of the march, Harry and Juana were able to live well in luxurious accommodation near the city centre and even afford new clothes. In the evenings they enjoyed walking down the elegant Prado where Harry thought ‘his Estramenha’ outshone all the Spanish beauties. The celebrations continued for several weeks with the capital lit up every night, and Harry escorted his lovely young wife to dinners, dances and bullfights. With their fluent Spanish they were in great demand, both socially and professionally as interpreters.
After this all too brief interlude of joy and relaxation, the Light Division was left in Madrid, while Wellington, with three other divisions, marched north to attack Burgos. He laid siege to the town on 19 September 1812, but it was resolutely defended. He was short of siege artillery and once again heavy rain hampered operations. By the middle of October, French reinforcements were assembling to the north of the city and on 18 October 1812, Wellington decided to give up the siege and retreat to the west, claiming, correctly, that a good commander knew when to attack and when to retreat. Back in Madrid, rumours of retreat began to circulate. One night General Vandeleur, the Divisional Commander, despite Harry’s fierce protestations, called out the whole Division, only to find that the majority of men were drunk. Morale fell, resentment increased, and men longed for the firm and confident hand of Wellington.
Wellington’s previous experience of command in India proved to be a sound preparation for his task in the Peninsula. Although he was later renowned as a consummate politician and coalition leader, he honed those skills in the Peninsula with his prickly and demanding Portuguese allies, and the frequently uncooperative Spanish. After Salamanca and the occupation of Madrid, he was given command of the Spanish armies despite the antagonism of the Cortes, the Spanish Government.
In the face of a substantial French threat, all the Allied divisions joined up and began a long and wretched retreat back towards Ciudad Rodrigo, during which the Light Division fought a prolonged rearguard action. In Madrid, the Smiths had become friendly with a Spanish priest and when the retreat began, he begged for protection. Harry agreed, and soon his entourage included the usual horses and dogs as well as the padre – nicknamed Harry’s Confessor. The padre proved useful and during the retreat, when the whole army suffered from cold, sickness and near starvation, he always seemed able to obtain little extras and luxuries. After the comfort of Madrid they soon had to put up with the severe privations of the march – one officer recording that he did not have his boots off for six days. Harry vividly described their sufferings and their desperate shortage of money. He had sold a horse for the substantial price of three Spanish doubloons – a small fortune – which Juana packed among his clothes in a portmanteau. But the doubloons were lost on the journey with the motion of the mule. Juana was distraught: ‘Her horror, poor girl, is not to be described.’ After the misery of several nights of wet clothes, ‘out tumbled three doubloons … Oh, such joy and such laughing. We were so rich. We could buy bread and chocolate and sausages and eggs, and our little fortune carried us through to Ciudad Rodrigo, where money was paid to us.’
As the Allied divis
ions trudged doggedly on through the wet and the cold, Marshal Soult, an outstanding French commander, with nearly twice as many troops as Wellington, came close enough to threaten the retreat, and the Light Division had to fight some serious delaying actions. During one of these, at the crossing of a swollen river, Juana’s spirited Spanish horse saved her by leaping up the bank. In contrast, the poor padre fell off his pony, which was drowned, but he was saved by the air trapped in his Spanish cloak. As he emerged, Harry joked that he might have been drawn for ‘the Knight of the Woeful Countenance’. In this encounter Harry had sent Juana and the padre to the 52nd Regiment, who were not expected to be involved in the fighting. But with a sudden turn – typical of that sort of warfare – Juana found herself in the thick of a major action. This ‘young and delicate creature’ faced danger, cold, hunger and every privation, but she only once complained. This was when they were sleeping in the open, Harry fell asleep and cut her off from the warmth of the fire. He was well known for his entourage of horses, dogs and greyhounds – and the padre – but he also took on a few locals whom he could use as guides. One morning his friend, Charles Beckwith, came to borrow one, because the neighbouring 1st Division could not move off without a guide. It was this ability to cope with every situation which made Harry such a widely respected officer throughout the Peninsula forces. With the help of his guide, the Division quickly moved off and the French were unable to follow, so the Light Division had a long, unmolested march. Harry added, ‘Yesterday the soldiers’ life was one of misery, today all joy and elasticity.’
The soldiers always called Harry ‘Mr Smith’ and as the unit moved off after a skirmish, a wounded soldier called out, ‘Mr Smith, do not leave me here.’ The poor man had been wounded by a cannon shot and could not move. Harry knew him as a gallant soldier and immediately arranged for a tumbrel – a wagon for carrying a heavy gun – and the soldier was taken on. Sadly, he died shortly afterwards.