by Rory Muir
Formation of Leith's division (advancing south, towards bottom of the page).
Having issued his orders, Wellington rode on, leaving the Fifth Division to wait for Pakenham and D'Urban to get into position and begin their attack. Leith rode up and down the line, encouraging his troops and watching how they endured the bombardment. Most were old soldiers, but the 1/38th in Greville's brigade had only joined the army the previous day and, although it had a core of veterans who had served at Coruña and Walcheren, its ranks were swollen with new recruits, for it was a strong unit with eight hundred officers and men. The 2/4th in Pringle's brigade were also newcomers, having joined Leith's division in May from garrison duty in Ceuta. They too had been at Walcheren, although not at Coruña, and so would have had little experience of battle. The rest of the British troops in the division had been in the Peninsula for at least eighteen months and had seen action a number of times, most recently at the storming of Badajoz. Spry's Portuguese had had less fighting. They suffered few if any losses at Busaco, Fuentes or Badajoz, although they had taken part in all of these campaigns and had probably developed some cohesion, as the composition and command of the brigade had been unchanged since March 1811.
As Leith rode along the line, he chatted to the officers and conspicuously disregarded the French cannonade. He also addressed each regiment in turn, letting them know that they would soon have the chance to advance: ‘Genl. Leith came up waving his hat and shouting, “Now my lads this is the day for England. They would play at long ball with us from morning until night, but we will soon give them something else!” ’ An ensign in the 38th records him saying, ‘As for you, 38th, I have only to say, behave as you have always done.’ And a soldier in the Royal Scots recalls:
The cannonading at this time was terrible. Addressing the Regiment he says, ‘Royals,’ on which we all sprang up. ‘Lie down men,’ said he, though he sat on horseback, exposed to the fire as calm as possible. ‘This shall be a glorious day for Old England, if these bragadocian rascals dare but stand their ground, we will display the point of the British bayonet, and where it is properly displayed no power is able to withstand it. All I request of you is to be steady and obey your officers.’5
At last Pakenham's attack began and Wellington sent a staff officer, Captain Philip Bainbrigge, to give Leith the word to commence his advance:
I galloped up to General Sir James Leith, who was riding backwards and forwards along the front of his men, with two or three staff officers; the round shot were ricocheting into and over his line, and as I was about to deliver the order, a shot knocked up the earth close to his horse's nose. He took off his hat to it, and said, ‘I will allow you to pass, Sir!’ The men heard him, and said, ‘Hurra for the General.’ They were at ordered arms, standing at ease. I delivered my order, and the General replied, ‘Thank you, Sir! That is the best news I have heard today,’ and turning to his men he said, taking off his hat and waving it in the air in a theatrical manner, and in a tone of voice which was grand in the extreme, said, ‘Now boys! we'll at them.’6
It was not mere bravado which made Leith welcome the signal to advance, for almost everyone preferred the excitement and risks of close action to the agony of waiting helplessly under fire. Indeed, part of Leith's purpose in addressing his men was to keep them entertained and give them something to think about other than the round shot whistling by their heads and the ordeal that was to come. Humour released some of the accumulating tension, while inspiring words and appeals to regimental pride and patriotism bolstered morale. But what Leith said mattered less than the confidence which he showed and the example which he set: riding along the ranks, fully exposed to the French fire, ignoring the danger or joking about it, while the ordinary soldiers lay under some cover at least.
As it happens, two of these ordinary soldiers in the Fifth Division have left records of their feelings on that day which reveal something of the strain felt by men in the ranks, and the way their religion affected them. First, John Douglas of the Royal Scots:
I cannot say, as I have heard some say, that they were no more concerned going into action than a common field day, but I am fully persuaded that the man possessed of a belief that there is a God … will have a kind of terror over him for which he cannot account, owing to the reflection that the next moment he may be numbered with the dead. For it is an awful thing to fall (particularly unprepared) into the hands of the living God. I am far, very far, from thinking, or wish it to be understood, that it is cowardice. No, but show me the man who knows he has an immortal soul, and advancing under the destructive fire of the enemy, but will in his inmost soul offer up the prayer of the publican. [‘God be merciful unto me a sinner.’]7
The anonymous soldier in the 1/38th also derived rather mixed comfort from scripture:
Although the scene was dreadfully Awful, I never was in a more composed and comfortable frame than on that day, for in all that I saw, I saw that I had cause to be truly thankful; not that I had any certainty of Life more than others, but I felt confident that I was under the care and protection of almighty God, and my life was in his hands, and nothing could happen without his divine permission. But I was powerfully struck at the commencement of the action with this passage of Scripture, ‘For all they that take the Sword shall Perish with the Sword.’ But in my situation I knew I was bound by the law to do my duty as a soldier, besides, I knew that if I did not, my own life was liable to pay for it. And I thought that as providence had placed me in that situation it was my duty to be resigned to his will and prayed that whether it ended in life or in death, it might be for his Glory and my everlasting welfare.8
Long before the attack began, Leith's light infantry had been skirmishing with the French voltigeurs in the valley between the main forces. The Fifth Division had a powerful force of light infantry: two companies of Brunswick Oels, the light companies from eight British battalions and the whole caçador battalion, amounting to perhaps a thousand men. They covered the front of the division (about nine hundred yards) and extended beyond it to the right, preventing the French skirmishers approaching or harassing the main allied line. They do not seem to have pressed the combat until the division was ready to advance – as unsupported light infantry, they were vulnerable to enemy cavalry who might be concealed behind the skyline of the Monte de Azan. But when Leith began his advance, he sent Andrew Leith Hay with orders for the allied skirmishers to drive back their French opponents and, if possible, to seize some of their cannon. The French skirmishers gave way – it was not their role to attempt to halt the advance of a whole division – and the guns were safely withdrawn and re-deployed in the intervals between the French battalions. Nonetheless, this gained a welcome respite for the allied troops, for the French infantry was deployed beyond the skyline and the guns in their rear could not fire at an enemy they could not see. In executing these orders, Leith Hay's horse was killed under him, and the young man calmly waited for the main body of allied troops to approach before securing a fresh horse from one of the General's orderly dragoons.9
As the Fifth Division advanced, its left wing, including the 9th Regiment and probably part of the 38th, had to pass through the western end of the village of Los Arapiles, but it quickly re-formed and regained its place in the line. The division then continued its advance in excellent order.10 John Douglas writes: ‘Captain Stewart of our company, stepping out of the ranks to the front, lays hold of Captain Glover and cries, “Glover did you ever see such a line?” I am pretty confident that in the Regiments which composed our lines there was not a man 6 inches out of his place.’ And Leith Hay adds: ‘A blank was no sooner made by the Enemy's fire but it was closed up as if nothing had happened, and as much attention was paid to dressing the Line, as if it had been a common Field day.’11
This good order was not achieved without effort. The troops were impatient to press forward and had to be restrained. Before the advance began Leith had sent two of his aides, Captains Belshes and Dowson, to different p
arts of the line to help curb the pace, while he himself rode in front of the Colours of the 1/38th, in the very centre of the line. Leith's prominent position served several purposes: he was conspicuous, continuing to set his men an unmistakable example of courage; he was a prominent marker, determining the pace and direction of the advance of the whole line; and he was clear of the dust raised by the troops, able to see any sudden threat from the enemy or any irregularity of the ground.
It was vital for the success of the attack that good order be preserved. It was not easy for a line of men nine hundred yards long to maintain its order as it advanced for about a mile under enemy fire. Once the village had been passed, the ground was generally open, but even open ground contains many minor obstacles which can easily cause delay and confusion. One part of the line might press forward, another could fall behind; if the advance was too fast the men would become breathless and flurried, if too slow, the attack would lose momentum. And once disorder began, it would spread very rapidly, sapping the confidence of the troops and preventing them from being able to respond quickly to any sudden threat. It was much easier for infantry to advance in a line of independent columns, which could move more rapidly and worry less about their alignment, than to advance deployed in line. But then, the infantry would either have to fight in column and stake everything on an immediate charge, which would often fail against good troops, or attempt to deploy into line when they approached the enemy, which worked better in theory than in practice.
Leith's division was advancing up the slopes of the Monte de Azan, and the French skirmishers probably still controlled the crest. Beyond lay Maucune's division, which – except for its light troops – was untouched by the day's fighting. And, for all Leith knew, Maucune might be supported by a second French division, or by Curto's cavalry. If the allies became disordered, the French might not wait to be attacked, but instead sweep forward in unknown force and without warning.
Leith's division itself was well supported. Cole was on his left, although Cole's division seems to have advanced rather later than Leith. Bradford's Portuguese brigade should have been on Leith's right, but it had not arrived when the order came to advance, and it trailed behind and was never seriously engaged; its total loss in the whole day was only seventeen casualties, presumably from long-range artillery fire and stray shots; but it would still have been in good position to support Leith if his attack had faltered. Further back, Wellington moved the Seventh Division into the position vacated by the Fifth, so that powerful reserves were available if needed. More immediately relevant, however, was the advance of Le Marchant's brigade beyond Leith's right and Pakenham's division, which was now visibly pushing along the plateau, although the two divisions were still a considerable distance apart.
Unfortunately, we know very little about what was happening in Maucune's division as the allies advanced upon it and the French artillery and skirmishers withdrew back to the main body. It seems to have been formed on a slightly shorter front than Leith's division, for the units at each end of the allied line suffered relatively few casualties, suggesting that they were largely unopposed. Almost certainly the French were not in line. Leith Hay, writing to his father two days after the battle, refers to ‘columns & squares of Infantry’; Captain Gomm says ‘solid columns’; while John Douglas, whose battalion was towards the right or western end of the line, states that the French were in confusion and attempting to form square. The most probable explanation is that they were originally formed in column and that, just before the allied infantry appeared, the French commander on the left caught sight of Le Marchant's advancing cavalry and ordered his men into square, but that there was no time to complete this change of formation before the British infantry attacked.12
The French may have deployed in a single line of nine battalion columns, but it seems much more likely that they were in two lines of columns, with five in the first line and four in the second. The first brigade (15th and 66th Ligne, five battalions) were probably at the western end of the line, with the second brigade (82nd and 86th Ligne, four battalions) on their right. The division may have looked something like this:
As the British line approached the crest, the allied skirmishers fell back or to the flanks; some were reluctant to go and kept firing at the French despite the risk of being caught between two fires. John Douglas relates a story which, if true, suggests that everything was not quite as calm and orderly as other accounts imply:
At this moment a French officer mounted on a white horse seemed to be very busy endeavouring to keep his men to their work, when a Corporal of the name of Joffrey and I got leave to try if he was ball proof; and running out a few yards in front, kneeled down and fired together, but which of us struck him must still remain a mystery, but down he went. Poor Joffrey, while in the act of rising off his knee, received a ball in the breast which numbered him with the dead also.13
Just before the British line marched over the crest, Leith and the mounted officers of his staff had a momentary glimpse of the French infantry waiting for them, perhaps only thirty yards away. Leith Hay, in the centre of the line, writes that the French were
drawn up in contiguous columns,14 the front rank kneeling, and prepared to fire when the drum beat for its commencement. All was still and quiet in these columns; – not a musket was discharged until the whole opened. Nearly at the same moment General Leith ordered the line to fire, and charge: the roll of musketry was succeeded by that proud cheer that has become habitual to British soldiers on similar occasions – that to an enemy tremendous sound, which may without doubt be termed the note of victory. At this moment, the last thing I saw through the smoke was the plunge of Colonel Greville's horse, who, shot through the head, reared, and fell back on his rider. In an instant every individual present was enveloped in smoke and obscurity. No struggle for ascendancy now took place; resistance was in vain; the French squares were penetrated, broken, and discomfited; the victorious division pressed forward, not against troops opposed, but a mass of disorganised men, overpowered and flying in all directions.15
Captain Gomm, who was also with Leith in the centre, gives a similar, if more highly coloured description:
the spirit of our people rose in proportion [as they advanced], and when they reached the enemy's solid columns, which opened a fire like a volcano upon them, there was not a moment's hesitation; no check along the whole line, but a general shout of exultation was echoed from all quarters. The enemy wavered, retired from height to height; till at length it was impossible to withstand the ardour of our soldiers, which seemed to increase with every fresh assault, and complete rout ensued.16
The accounts of ordinary soldiers are less clear, partly because they wrote less well, but also because their impressions were inevitably more confused as they saw the battle from the jostling ranks amid the smoke and noise of musketry, while Leith Hay and Gomm were mounted and riding a little ahead of the line. The anonymous voice from the ranks of the 1/38th records:
the French were in a … square not more than 200 yards from us. As soon as we saw them we gave a shout, opened a tremendous fire and ran into them directly, so that that line was in a few minutes killed and taken prisoner. We then attacked their rear lines and after we had engaged them some time, we were charging them [when] I received a [musket] ball in my right foot.17
This still reflects what was happening in the centre of the line; James Hale of the 9th Foot was on the left, where resistance was weaker:
Though their thundering cannon roared tremendously, yet Lord Wellington was determined on victory; therefore we did not fail to let them hear the thunder of our cannon; and as our regiment formed part of the first line, we did not forget to let them hear and feel the effects of our small arms, and according to English custom, as soon as we could make it convenient, we showed them the point of the bayonet, and gave them a grand charge, by which we obliged them to leave three pieces of cannon in our possession in a short time: this part of the enemy's line continued
retreating for some considerable distance, and we continued firing advancing, till it was thought necessary for us to halt, which accordingly we did, and remained on our ground for some time, expecting they would advance again; but however, they did not advance on that part of the line any more, so that our division came off rather favourably.18
On the right the British infantry were strongly supported by the nearest regiment of Le Marchant's cavalry, which charged the French in the flank, although not – according to John Douglas – before the allied infantry had already had some success: