Rifles: Six Years With Wellington's Legendary Sharpshooters

by Mark Urban

  The Light Division was fortunate at this time in having some exceptional commanding officers and these men did much to adapt its tactics during this final phase of the Peninsular War. Colonel John Colborne, recovered from his Ciudad Rodrigo wounds, was back at the head of the 52nd (often conspiring with Harry Smith to do things their own way rather than Skerrett’s), and Andrew Barnard enjoyed a high reputation after his shrewd handling of the 1st/95th at Vitoria.

  Barnard had that inner confidence, arising from education, wealth and political connections, that Alexander Cameron had clearly lacked when in command of the battalion. At forty, Barnard was no youngster, and had entered the 95th only three years earlier after a long career in the line infantry. The Rifles officers were very hard to impress, being convinced they knew their business best, but Barnard succeeded by becoming an enthusiastic apostle of light troops and the rifle. As a representative of a significant Anglo-Irish family, he also had a familiar relationship with Wellington (often the prickliest of customers), which in turn made him the kind of advocate the regiment needed.

  Late in July, Soult attacked in the direction of Pampluna, surprising British brigades in several places and forcing Wellington back. After the initial setbacks, the British commander rallied his divisions and began pressing in on the French. Following days of hard fighting, with both sides having little food, Marshal Soult resolved to head back into France by a different route to the pass he had entered by. He turned his forces northwards and sent them towards a village called Yanzi.

  The Light Division had not been involved in the early stages of this, but was sent to try to intercept the French withdrawal. The last two days of July and 1 August were thus ones of hideous marching for General Alten’s men. The retreat of an enemy down a narrow mountain valley could not be overtaken and intercepted by moving along an equally easy path: it required the Light Division to haul themselves up precipitous ridges and across deep valleys in what was still high summer. In short, the terrain forced the pursuers to work twice as hard as the pursued. This was to prove a death march for several Light Division soldiers, who succumbed to exhaustion, dying by the sides of dusty shepherds’ tracks. After an infernally hot march of thirty miles across the peaks, scouts sighted the French at Yanzi, and Alten urged his 1st Brigade to make one last effort to reach them. They came upon the French in faltering light, across a river, and evidently just as hungry and exhausted as they were. Some of the riflemen began shooting – and it was very easy shooting, for the French were hemmed in by a rock face, crowded along the banks of a fast-flowing mountain river. There was utter panic in their ranks: litters bearing injured soldiers were dropped by their porters; men were trampled underfoot; others, tipped into the river by the scrum, disappeared under its waters. It was every man for himself, one Rifles officer being shocked to observe that some French dragoons ‘actually flogged the infantry with their sabres to drive them before the rearguard’. ‘Happily, and to the honour of the British soldiers,’ wrote Costello, ‘many of our men, knowing that the French suffered from what they had themselves endured, declined firing, and called out to the others to spare them, as it was little better than murder.’

  The following day, after hundreds of French prisoners were taken, their divisions were escorted through the pass of Vera, back onto their side of the border. The Rifles were involved in a brief but sharp skirmish to retake one of the heights dominating the Spanish side of that gateway. This mountain, the Santa Barbera, became their home for some weeks.

  A quiet interlude for the Light Division then followed as Wellington and Soult’s attention switched to the coast, where the besieged imperial garrison in San Sebastian was holding out stubbornly. The British meanwhile advanced their batteries and trenches around the fortresses, just as they had at Rodrigo and Badajoz.

  On 20 August, an appeal reached the Light Division for 250 volunteers to take part in a storming party. This was to prove an interesting test of the men’s moral state and the degree to which the wounds of Badajoz had healed. When faced with the possible storms of some redoubts in Salamanca, in June 1812 (ten weeks after Badajoz), the Light Division’s officers had been obliged to nominate men, since it was clear there would be virtually no volunteering. Thirteen months later there had been some change, but for the great majority of those survivors who had sailed in May 1809, there was no desire to go, or need to prove themselves.

  Sergeant Robert Fairfoot, having volunteered four times in 1812 for these desperate duties, did not go to San Sebastian, the livid crater on his forehead testifying to the closeness of his brush with death at Badajoz. It was only in one or two cases, such as that ‘wild untamable animal’ Private James Burke – who saw the chance for rape and plunder – that there was a strong desire to repeat the Badajoz experience. With officers it was a little different, the requirement of honour dictating that they aspire in principle at least to this most dangerous of duties. As George Simmons wrote, ‘It is a melancholy thing to be a junior lieutenant in such times as these, because the senior claims the first offer. Whenever a party is detached upon such an occasion, our boys are so proud of it that, according to seniority, they would not think of letting it pass them.’ In truth, though, neither of the officers who went from the 95th were original members of the battalion.

  The division’s stay at Vera allowed dozens of officers to sit down to dinner together on 25 August, celebrated as the 95th’s founding day. The feast took place in a field, with trenches cut to form benches and the ground itself forming a natural table. The bands played, songs were sung and vast quantities of wine drunk.

  Those last days of the summer of 1813 were marked by the frequent echoing of the battering guns at San Sebastian through the peaks. Everyone was aware that, for the time being, the outcome of the siege would determine when they would move forward, attacking the Bidassoa line of defences that stared them in the face. Marshal Soult, though, was determined to try one last effort in favour of the besieged garrison, just as he had at Pampluna in July. A series of battles thus raged on the lower Bidassoa, close to the sea, at the end of August. One French division, having struck into Spain and finding its line of retreat blocked, was forced to attempt a different route back to safety: it approached the Vera pass late on 31 August.

  General Skerrett had left two companies of Rifles, under Captain Cadoux of the 2nd Battalion, down at the bridge to secure it, and it was against these hundred or so defenders that General Lubin-Martin Vandermaesen flung thousands of troops on the night of 31 August. The French, several battalions of whom approached the bridge through driving rain at 2 a.m., knew that the defenders were all that stood between them and captivity. The riflemen, however, managed to hold their positions in barricaded houses at the bridgehead as Vandermaesen led his men in one attack after another.

  The gunfire woke the remainder of the Light Division, who were on higher ground. Despite the remonstrations of his staff, General Skerrett refused to send any reinforcement to the bridge. The chance to cut off thousands of French was lost, along with the Rifle company commander and sixteen of his men. The French finally forced their way across, but paid a heavy price of around two hundred troops, including Vandermaesen himself, who was at the head of his troops when shot dead by a British rifleman. This affair caused lasting rancour between the Rifles and Skerrett, whom they blamed for utter incompetence in failing to reinforce Cadoux.

  The battles of July and August had taught Marshal Soult a lesson too. His experience of the British Army during the Peninsular War had been limited before the late summer of 1813. But when fighting it in the Pyrenees, he was deeply shocked by the effect that accurate rifle and skirmisher fire had in blunting the success of his attacks. The quality of the British marksmen – not just the 95th, for such weapons and tactics had been adopted in various parts of the Army by this point – had shown Soult that his divisions would be decapitated almost as soon as their officers tried to lead them into battle. Soult told the Minister of War in Paris about the British l
ight troops:

  They are expressly told to fire first at officers and in particular commanders and generals … this way of making war and harming the enemy is most disadvantageous to us; the losses in officers that we have suffered are so heavy, that in two battles they are usually all out of action … you will understand that if we start having these losses again, it will be very difficult to be able to replace the officers.

  Soult’s lesson in the new ways of war was not over yet, though. Just as the Light Division had pioneered new levels of marksmanship, so its style of movement under fire would prove an important ingredient in the battle for the Bidassoa line. The French in San Sebastian had finally surrendered on 8 September, after weeks of heroic resistance. Wellington was now ready to breach Soult’s defences and enter France. This would require some preparation, and on 7 October the Light Division was given a mission vital to the opening of the Vera pass. They would have to storm some of the French lines at the mouth of this natural gateway, positions that dominated Santa Barbera, their resting place of the previous weeks.

  Early in the morning the Light Division columns began moving out of Vera and up the slopes to the left of the feature towering above them, La Rhune. Right Brigade, including the 1st and 3rd of the 95th, the 43rd and some Portuguese rangers, all under Kempt, would attack a ridge on the right of La Rhune. Left Brigade, appropriately enough, would hit, to the left of them, a stone-built redoubt called Saint Benoit which dominated the narrow road up into the pass. Colonel Colborne had taken over acting command of this brigade, Skerrett having gone away sick.

  The layout of the French defences assumed that an attacker would try to force them in the formed columns or battle lines of regular tactics, for the French officers thought that it was only by standing shoulder to shoulder with his comrades that a soldier could maintain the courage to storm such a strongpoint. Those who skirmished and hid among the rocks would surely never want to quit these safe places once the metal was flying – or so they reasoned.

  Kempt’s attack, however, was ordered almost entirely in skirmish order. Having climbed a couple of thousand feet to a point close to the French trenches, the British troops were rested so they could regain their breath. The 3rd Battalion of Rifles, accompanied by some of the 1st and Portuguese, then went forward to hit the French trenches, swords fixed to their rifles. The Rifles officers knew it was important not to allow their men to get into a shooting match with the well-entrenched defenders. One observer described their advance:

  The 95th moved regularly (I do not mean in a line) up the hill within fifty yards of the top without firing and then, by way of breathing, gave them a volley, loaded and advanced to the top, the support close behind them. The French did not attempt to defend it but moved to their left, not without music, in quick time.

  With the French soldiers fleeing, the attackers quickly used their newly won position to get around the flanks of some trenches behind it. Their mission was complete and the loss trifling. Hennell of the 43rd had watched it all with pride and admiration – his own battalion had been in reserve and was not even required to fight. In a letter home, he told his brothers, ‘I firmly believe there are no better troops in the world than the 95th. They take things so coolly and deliberately and seem to know their business so well. You have no idea with what glee we saw them and how readily we fell in to advance.’

  Across to the left, Colborne led the 2nd Battalion of Rifles and his own 52nd Light Infantry to a tougher objective. Like Kempt, Colborne intended to make his attack with skirmishers, using his red-coated regiment as their support or reserve. But the French in the Saint Benoit redoubt did not behave entirely as expected. Like the other defenders, they fired off some ineffective volleys which all went too high – having not been trained properly in shooting, they did not realise that those aiming down at attackers from a lofty height need to shoot much lower than feels natural, aiming almost at the feet. Colborne’s attack was upset, though, by the actions of the fort’s commander, who led a party of his men out of the redoubt to charge the riflemen as they reloaded. This they did with some success, bayoneting some and getting close enough (perhaps ten or twenty feet) to hit others with their fire. The 2nd Battalion of Rifles was repulsed with dozens of casualties. Colborne had no choice but to order forward his own battalion (the 52nd) and the Saint Benoit was then carried.

  Colborne went to reconnoitre ahead, accompanied only by Captain Smith and a handful of riflemen. To their consternation, a battalion of three hundred French light infantry appeared, right in front of them, moving up the valley towards their position. ‘The only way was to put a brave face on the matter,’ Colborne said later, ‘so I went up to them, desiring them to surrender.’ This extraordinary bluff worked. The colonel ordered the French to deposit their arms in a pile, in case they realised just who ought to be taking whom prisoner, while someone was sent with all haste to bring up some more troops. And with this gamble, the battle was effectively over for the Light Division.

  The troops found themselves encamped on the wind-blasted Rhune mountain for the next few weeks, as the seasons turned and they contemplated getting to grips with the next belt of French defences. ‘We remained a whole month idle spectators of their preparations, and dearly longing for the day that should afford us an opportunity of penetrating into the more hospitable-looking low country beyond them,’ wrote Kincaid, ‘for the weather had become excessively cold and our camp stood exposed to the utmost fury of the almost nightly tempest.’

  Once in the Pyrenees, the Rifles found themselves again in close quarters with the French outposts. After the hard marching of previous weeks, six men of the 1st Battalion took the opportunity to desert during late September and October. This sort of loss had not happened since Almond and the others decamped two years before. However, this time there were no executions, even when men were repeatedly caught trying to flee. One soldier of the 3rd Battalion, 95th, for example, was sentenced to be transported for life after being court-martialled for attempting desertion three times in the space of a few weeks.

  With the weather deteriorating, officers were urged to keep a close eye on the men, in case others were tempted to flee the hardships of their mountain station. Riflemen of the 1st Battalion had bivouacked by a small hermitage near the summit of La Rhune, others having slightly more sheltered spots lower down its slopes. They had tents, unlike in previous campaigns, issued just before they left winter quarters; the mules that had spent four years carrying the useless cast-iron camp kettles around Iberia were at last given a load that might be of some value to the regiment. While these get-ups kept the men alive on the top of this mountain, they did not make them comfortable. Leach wrote in his journal: ‘Whether in or outside our tents, whether asleep or awake we were never dry, never warm nor comfortable. Our chief employment was when not on picket to cut out all kinds of trenches and drains to endeavour to turn the springs of water which sprung up inside and outside our canvas habitation.’

  Finding some slightly sheltered spot to get out of the wind, they would read letters from home – sometimes even newspapers enclosed by relatives – and learn of the Emperor Napoleon’s worsening fortunes in Germany. Lieutenant John FitzMaurice got one from a family friend which, referring to Bonaparte’s difficult situation at the end of August, continued, ‘The successes in Germany are most exhilarating. The Tyrant seems almost hemmed in, and his personal escape very doubtful … All this promises at least a speedy peace upon the terms of Bonaparte falling within the Rhine, the Alps and the Pyrenees, or possibly a revolution and the extinction of this scourge of the human race.’

  For many officers, the sense of resignation to the apparently endless nature of the Peninsular conflict had given way, since Vitoria, to an anxiety about what might happen after Napoleon fell. They all expected the Army to contract in such a case: third and perhaps even second battalions would go – maybe the 95th would disappear altogether, as previous regiments bearing this number had thirty years earlier, after the A
merican wars and again in 1796. A young sub or captain might then be cast out with half-pay, or worse. One officer of the 43rd told his family in a letter, ‘Peace is now I think fairly beyond doubt and it is likely to be speedy and soon. The half-pay monster is staring some of us lieutenants in the face again. However, I heartily wish for it.’ These concerns, along with a desire to know whether Wellington’s Army or some other would have the honour of penetrating deep into France first, fuelled a great thirst for information. One Light Division officer, expressing thanks for a month-old copy of The Times, told his family the soldiers were ‘gaping for news like trout on a summer evening’.

  Many of the officers thought that the arrival of heavy frosts and snows would freeze the armies into winter quarters somewhere along the Pyrenean chain. George Simmons had experienced enough of campaigning and being truly wet and cold to yearn for a trip home. ‘I have been thinking of visiting you this winter after the campaign is over and we go into winter quarters … I could have leave when I chose,’ he told his parents. The only obstacle was money. While he felt he might afford the passage on a packet boat, he realised he only owned what he was wearing: ‘There is another consideration – plain clothes, which are very expensive, and I have nothing but military attire, which would make people gaze at me as upon a dancing bear.’

  Simmons’s plans, alas, were arrested, and his curiosity about how the English public might react to the sight of a fighting Green Jacket on their streets was not to be satisfied. Early in November it became apparent that Wellington was preparing to force the Bidassoa line proper. For the Light Division, this would mean assaulting the slightly smaller mountain in front of theirs – named La Petite Rhune, appropriately enough – and its system of defences.