by Rory Muir
Sir Thomas Graham has been compelled from ill health to quit the Army, and is gone home to the great regret of everybody: conjecture says he will be succeeded by Sir Edw. Paget, a very deservedly popular Officer. The present second in command is Sir Stapleton Cotton, an officer who has some knowledge of Cavalry Movements, but who is entirely inexperienced in all the detail necessary to make a good Commander in Chief. It would indeed be dreadful, were anything now to happen to Lord W.; to say the least of it, the safety of the army would be endangered.32
However, it is only fair to add that another officer, writing of the campaign as a whole just after the battle, said, ‘Our Cavalry in particular were very alert, and Sir S. Cotton has profited much by his service in this Country.’33
The army suffered not only the loss of Graham, but also Picton, who was still recovering from a wound received at Badajoz, and Craufurd, who had been killed at Ciudad Rodrigo; while Colville, who had temporarily commanded the Fourth Division and was ready for a division of his own, was also absent owing to a Badajoz wound. Of the seven Anglo-Portuguese infantry divisions, only two were under their accustomed commanders: Lowry Cole's Fourth and James Leith's Fifth Division. Cole himself had only recently rejoined the army after six months in England. He was ‘a pleasant, sensible, agreeable man’, popular with all ranks, although he had a hot temper.34 He looked after the welfare of his troops, and was supposed to give the best dinners in the army. His initiative at Albuera saved the battle, and the general consensus is that he was a capable, dependable divisional commander, although Alexander Gordon, Wellington's ADC, rejected this view, asserting that Cole was a man of ‘very, very moderate talents indeed’ and ‘quite lost and confused in the field’; but perhaps this isolated comment should not be taken too seriously.35
At forty-nine, James Leith was the oldest divisional commander in the army, and his military career dated back as far as 1780. He had commanded a brigade in the Coruña campaign and again at Walcheren, and he had been given the Fifth Division when it was formed in August 1810, leading it at Busaco. He was one of the few generals sent out to the Peninsula at Wellington's explicit request.36 A recurrence of Walcheren fever forced him home in 1811 and he did not rejoin the army until after the fall of Ciudad Rodrigo. He was fortunate in his staff, for his nephew and ADC Andrew Leith Hay, wrote one of the best first-hand accounts of the battle, which illuminates the role played by the Fifth Division, while William Maynard Gomm describes Leith thus in a letter home: ‘I am living with a most excellent man, General Leith, and a higher gentleman or a better soldier I believe is not to be found among us. I am very much indebted to him, and fortunately I find him every day more and more worthy of the respect which I am inclined to pay him on this account.’37
The youngest divisional commander was the 34-year-old Edward Pakenham, Wellington's brother-in-law, who had been given command of the Third Division at Picton's request, when that tough old soldier found that his wound had not yet sufficiently recovered for him to take the field. Pakenham had experience both of commanding the Fusilier Brigade in the field and of acting as Adjutant-General and, like most officers, he preferred the active command. George Napier praised him as ‘one of the most candid, generous, honourable, active and intelligent general officers in the service’, while Edward Costello, a private in the 95th Rifles, says that he was ‘beloved by us all’ for his consideration of the men. Wellington wrote with uncharacteristic warmth to Colonel Torrens after the battle: ‘Pakenham may not be the brightest genius, but my partiality for him does not lead me astray when I tell you that he is one of the best we have.’ And, ‘he made the manoeuvre which led to our success in the battle of the 22nd, with a celerity and accuracy of which I doubt that many are capable.’38
Wellington had no such partiality for Sir Henry Clinton, the commander of the Sixth Division. Indeed, he had successfully prevented both Clinton and his brother William receiving commands in the Peninsula before 1812, when the loss of senior officers left him the choice of either openly admitting his veto or quietly withdrawing it, and he preferred the latter course.39 When Clinton joined the army in February, Wellington made the best of him; and during the halt at the Duero he corresponded with him in a more confidential tone than with his other subordinates.40 Later in the campaign he entrusted him with a detached command. Clinton was not popular with his division: his strict discipline and insistence on formality were deeply resented, moving one officer to describe him as ‘one of the greatest fools I ever met with … he makes no allowance for weather, fatigue or any other cause.’41 But this is not the whole story, for Clinton repeatedly urged the commanders of his regiments to be more sparing in the use of the lash, and was scathing in his official criticism of the 2nd or Queen's Regiment – a most unhappy unit at that time – where floggings were heavy and frequent.42
The other senior officers in the army figure less prominently in the course of the battle. Major-General Charles Alten, perhaps the best of the Hanoverian officers, commanded the Light Division and met with the approval of that opinionated, self-regarding force.43 Major-General John Hope commanded the Seventh Division – this was not the John Hope who had served with Moore in Sweden and Spain, and who would join Wellington in 1813, but a second cousin and exact contemporary. He had served in the Low Countries, 1793–5, the Cape of Good Hope and the West Indies, and on Lord Cathcart's staff on the expeditions to Hanover in 1805 and Copenhagen in 1807. He did not spend long in the Peninsula, although Wellington was – officially at least – sorry to see him go, ‘as he is very attentive to his duty’.44 Finally, Graham's place at the head of the First Division had been taken by Major-General Henry Campbell, a Guardsman, who had already seen much service in the Peninsula, notably at Talavera.45
Only one of the brigadiers needs to be noticed here: John Gaspard Le Marchant, the commander of the brigade of British heavy dragoons. Le Marchant had served in Flanders in 1793–4 and devised a new system of sword exercise. A concern for the training of officers led to some years at the head of the precursor of Sandhurst. He arrived in the Peninsula in August 1811 and gained a satisfying small victory at Villa Garcia in April 1812. There seems, however, to have been some tension between him and Cotton, and not all his officers were convinced of his merits. One wrote in October 1811: ‘General Le Marchant marched part of the Way hither with our Squadron and regularly treated us with dinners. He is a pleasant Man, highly accomplished and a great Theoretical Warrior, but I greatly fear we shall in him experience how very much Practise exceeds Theory.’ Five months later the same officer was still sceptical:
Genl. Le Marchant has his whole Brigade within reach of him and has therefore begun playing Soldiers in order to prove the efficiency of some miserable awkward Manoeuvres which he has himself been coining. I have no doubt they all occurred to Sir David [Dundas] but were rejected for others infinitely superior. Be that as it may, our Schoolmaster had the three Regts. out yesterday and would I have no doubt treat us with more Field Days should opportunities offer themselves.46
Both these letters, to be fair, were written before Villa Garcia, but a private soldier in the 5th Dragoon Guards was more perceptive, even if his spelling was less orthodox:
Wee have the Genl. that is to command The Brigade of the 5th Dn Guards, 3rd or King's own 3rd Dragoon Guards & Oathers his Name is Le March a French Genrl a Brave warlike Man about 39 years of Age [actually forty-six] a weather Beatten face & can look you Strait without Being Abashed in the least. Old Cathcart cold Not look you Better without Blushing.47
This is not the portrait of a desk soldier or a ‘Theoretical Warrior’; but then, desk soldiers were not common in either army.
Commentary
It is impossible to calculate the precise strength of either army on the morning of the battle, but an explanation may be given here of the round figures used in the text, and of some of the problems which lie behind them: further information, and the detailed figures, are given in Appendices II and III.
The
French army's strength is based on a return of 15 July which gives its total strength as 49,647 officers and men. But from this we may follow Oman in deducting the 768 officers and men of the Equipages Militaires, because they were non-combatants; and go one step further than Oman by also deducting the Gendarmerie (135 all ranks) and the Engineers and Sappers (349 all ranks). These were not actually non-combatants, but they do not appear to have been engaged at all during the campaign: they suffered almost no casualties. We must also make allowance for losses incurred in the week before the battle, both from the fighting on the 18th and from fatigue: Oman puts this at almost 1,200 men, which seems a very reasonable estimate.48 Finally, French sources agree that one battalion of the 22nd Ligne from Taupin's division was detached on the morning of the battle and took no part in the fighting, and this too should be deducted, for Oman does not count the 12th Portuguese Dragoons, who were similarly detached, in his calculation of the allied total.49 On the other hand, the battalion of the 27th Ligne (Clausel's division), which garrisoned Alba de Tormes overnight rejoined its division during the day and so must be included. This produces the following results:
French strength on 15 July 49,647
deduct Equipages Militaires, Engineers and Sappers, and Gendarmerie 1,252
48,395
deduct losses on campaign approx. 1,195
47,200
deduct one battalion 22nd Ligne approx. 500
46,700
However, this total is still only a rough approximation and includes a number of men who ensured that they did not come within range of the enemy.
Similar calculations can also be made for the allied army, deducting the waggon train, the Staff Corps (a unit similar to the Sappers) and the Engineers. Oman puts the allied losses during the campaign at about a thousand men, reflecting their lower casualties on 18 July (542 killed, wounded and missing, compared with just over eight hundred French).50 But as the allies were retreating and the French following in their wake, it seems reasonable to suppose that allied stragglers were more likely to be captured by the French than vice versa and that this would offset the allied advantage on the 18th. It has therefore been assumed that they too lost about 1,200 men during the campaign.
Allied strength on 15 July 51,937
deduct waggon train, Staff Corps, Engineers 246
51,691
deduct losses in campaign approx. 1,191
50,500
On the basis of these figures, Wellington's army was about 3,800 men stronger than Marmont's, although, of course, this figure is only a rough estimate. Such an advantage was useful without being particularly significant: opposing armies are never exactly equal in strength, and the difference at Salamanca was less than in most battles of the period. It was rather more than the strength of the Spanish contingent, but much less than the combination of the Spaniards and Bradford's independent Portuguese brigade, and it is difficult to imagine that the campaign or the battle would have been any different without these units on the allied side. What mattered far more was the quality of the troops and the skill of their generals. Nonetheless, it would be absurd to pretend that Wellington gained no advantage from this numerical superiority, or that he would not have been disadvantaged if it had been reversed.
Many older sources state that the armies at Salamanca were both in the low forty thousands. This seems to derive from Napier's statement that Marmont had 42,000 ‘sabres and bayonets’ and Wellington ‘above forty-six thousand’. But these are estimates of rank and file, not the total strength of the army. Oman's comment on such calculations still holds good: ‘Why any sane person should deduct officers, sergeants, and artillerymen from a fighting total I am unable to conceive, though contemporary British [and French] writers, including Wellington himself, often did so.’51
One striking difference which emerges from a comparison of the armies is in their artillery. The French required 3,437 men for 78 guns, or 44 men per gun; while the Anglo-Portuguese needed only 1,300 men for their 54 guns (excluding the Spanish), or 24 men per gun. Looking at the French figures more closely, we see that each infantry division had, on average, 5 officers and 213 men of the artillery attached to it. This would represent an eight-gun battery of foot artillery, including both gunners and drivers (who were organized separately), at an average of just over 27 men per gun. A battery of horse artillery was attached to the cavalry: 3 officers and 193 men, manning and driving six guns (average of 32 men per gun). This accounts for 70 of the 78 French guns, leaving one battery in reserve. However, the ‘Artillery Reserve, Park etc’ of Marmont's army on 15 July 1812 amounted to 50 officers and 1,450 men.52 Of these 1,500 men, two or three hundred might have been needed by the battery of artillery held in reserve – perhaps even a few more if, as seems likely, it was the battery of 12-pounders. But this still leaves about 1,200 men whose function is unclear. Marmont's army was very short of horses; it certainly did not have a pontoon train or a long procession of heavy transport trailing in its rear. Some men would have been needed for the army's reserve ammunition, and for the spare carriages, mobile forges and other impedimenta needed by the artillery, but it seems highly unlikely that their numbers approached 1,200 – or more than one-third of the total artillery in the army. Yet there is no obvious alternative explanation of the anomaly. It is possible that the return of artillery, unlike that of the rest of the army, includes sick, garrisons and other troops not with the field army; but this seems improbable, especially as it is sufficiently detailed to give the strength of the batteries attached to each division.
There are also problems on the other side of the ledger with the allied artillery. The figures for the Anglo-Portuguese artillery, unlike the rest of the army, are not securely based on an original return in the PRO; rather they reproduce statistics given by Oman, and it is not clear what his source was, although he may have seen a return in the Ordnance Papers which is now missing. The weekly state of the army on 15 July in the PRO gives much higher figures for the British and German (excluding Portuguese as well as Spanish) artillery: 121 officers and 2,327 men, or 2,448 all ranks. This is more than double Oman's figure of 58 officers and 1,128 men, 1,186 all ranks.53 However, this return certainly includes the artillery serving with Hill's corps in Estremadura, and the company of artillery which manned the 18-pounders that had been used against the Salamanca forts and that Wellington sent to the rear before the battle began, which Oman excludes. It may also include other British and German companies of artillery in Portugal, although in general the return only includes troops serving at the front, and there is a large number (over 1,000) of artillerymen listed as detached or ‘on command’ who are not included in the 2,448. So it seems at least possible that Oman's figure is an underestimate, and that the difference in strength between French and allied artillery was less than the figures given in the text would suggest.54
The French army included six regiments of light infantry: one each in the divisions of Foy, Clausel, Ferey and Taupin, and two in Sarrut's division. These regiments appear to have behaved no differently from the line regiments in the army, which supports the commonly held view that the distinction between light and line regiments in the French army was almost entirely nominal at this time. In general, the performance of the French skirmishers was disappointing, and it is noteworthy that they made their greatest impact in their attack on the village of Arapiles – conducted by Maucune's division, which consisted entirely of line infantry. However, too many aspects of the French performance in the battle remain obscure for this conclusion to be regarded as definitive.
None of the regiments in Marmont's army had been part of his corps in 1805.
Sarramon gives some interesting figures on the distribution of the horses Marmont gained from his infantry officers and the convoy destined for Soult:
The 3rd Hussars received 68 horses
The 22nd Chasseurs received 71 horses
The 26th Chasseurs received 106 horses
The 13th Chasseurs received
156 horses
The 14th Chasseurs received 134 horses
The 15th Dragoons received 17 horses
The 25th Dragoons received 18 horses
570 horses
The total number of horses gained was 669, leaving 99 unaccounted for in these figures. However, a comparison of the returns of 1 and 15 July strongly suggests that most of this surplus went to the 15th and 25th Dragoons, which show a total increase of 124 officers and men, 89 more than are acknowledged in Sarramon's figures. The inclusion of such large numbers of untrained horses – amounting to more than a quarter of each brigade of light cavalry and almost one-fifth of the second brigade of dragoons – goes a long way to explain their poor performance in the campaign.55
In the return of 15 July, Curto's division of light cavalry includes an ‘Escadron de Marche’ of 11 officers and 141 men. This does not appear in the previous return, or in Lamartinière's table of casualties. The most probable explanation is that this squadron consisted of reinforcements for the regiments in Curto's division, and that the men were sent to their respective regiments soon after 15 July, their casualties therefore appearing under their regiments.