Salamanca, 1812
Page 37
G. Anson's Brigade 1,004 5 0.5%
V. Alten's Brigade 746 31 4.2%
Bock's Brigade 771 – –
D'Urban's Brigade 482 46 9.5%
Sánchez's Brigade 950 – –
Artillery 1,300 15 1.2%
Miscellaneous 246 11 4.5%
Allow for rounding of Portuguese casualties 2
Total 5,937 5,220 10.0%
* Oman, History, vol. 5, pp. 595–9. Oman correctly gives the 5th Dragoon Guards as having 22 officers and 313 men, but due to a misprint gives a total of 325 instead of 335. This misprint goes uncorrected in Fortescue, Young and Lawford, and Sarramon, who all copy their figures for the allied army from Oman, even though the correct total is used later in calculating the full strength of the allied army.
The other minor errors in Oman's figures are:
2nd Line Battalion KGL should be 606 men, not 601
1/7th Foot should be 463 men not 471
2/4th Foot should be 647 men not 627
Brunswick Company in Pringle's brigade of the 5th Division should have 2 officers, not 3
1/36th Foot should have 410 men, not 400
1/43rd Light Infantry should have 708 men, not 718
The net effect is a reduction of one in the number of officers and an addition of seventeen men to the strength of the army.
† The variations from the figures given in Oman are as follows:
Oman says that Stubbs's brigade had 137 officers, but the return says 127
Oman says that Collins's brigade had 132 officers, but the return says 122
Oman says that Pack's brigade had 85 officers, but the return says 87
A net reduction of 18 in the number of Portuguese officers; the figures for men agree exactly.
I have also followed S. G. P. Ward in preference to Oman on the composition of Bradford's brigade (the 24th Line, not the 14th). Ward, ‘The Portguese Infantry Brigades, 1809–1814’, JSAHR, vol. 53 (1975), pp. 110–11.
* Dickson Manuscripts, vol. 4, pp. 685–7; WO 55/1195, pp. 355–8 contains a report on the battle which mentions the return, but it is not present.
* See chapter 2, commentary, pp. 43–4 for discussion of this point.
† The 2/38th should not have any missing (Oman says one man), so their total loss should be 51 not 52.
The 1/11th should have 15 officers wounded, not 14, and so their total loss should be 341 not 340.
The 1/36th should have 4 officers wounded, not 5, and so their total loss should be 98 not 99.
And the 14th Light Dragoons should have 7 men wounded, not 2, and so their total loss should be 8 not 3.
This represents a net increase in the army's casualties of 4.
‡ Oman, History, vol. 5, pp. 470–1.
* Becerra, Hazañas de Unos Lanceros, p. 107.
Appendix III
French Strength and Losses
The figures given below for the strength of the French army are based on a return dated 15 July 1812 and printed by Oman. Fortescue also prints this return in rather more detail – he gives the strength of each individual battalion rather than each regiment; a few slight differences between the two versions are noted. Sarramon prints a return dated 1 July, and while there are naturally some changes, this confirms the general picture given by Oman and Fortescue. After allowing for casualties suffered on 18 July, and for men falling out from fatigue caused by Marmont's long marches, Oman estimates the strength of Marmont's army on 22 July at 48,500. However, the fighting strength of the army on the 22nd, when non-combatants and detached troops are deducted, would have been rather lower: about 46,700. This figure does not include the thousands of men employed in garrisons as far afield as Astorga, or left in depots at Valladolid, or sick – these last alone amounted to between eight and nine thousand men.*
The losses of the French army pose much greater difficulties and cannot be determined with any certainty, although a rough approximation can be attempted. There are two main sources of information, but neither is complete. First, there is Martinien's valuable list of French officers killed and wounded between 1805 and 1815: not only the original 824-page book published in 1899 and reprinted c. 1980, but the much rarer and less well-known 196-page Supplement of 1909, which adds a further twenty-six officer casualties for the campaign. Oman uses both works extensively, but characteristically fails to give a precise reference – causing great confusion for anyone working on his figures who does not know of the Supplement's existence. Martinien's work is highly accurate, but it does not include officers who, although unwounded, were taken prisoner, while a few officers who were wounded or even killed appear to have escaped his researches.
The second source of information is the official return of French casualties between 18 July and 8 August prepared by General Lamartinière, chief of staff of Marmont's army. This acknowledges total losses of 12,435 officers and men, made up as follows:
killed or captured 162 officers + 7,529 men = 7,691
wounded 232 officers + 3,867 men = 4,099
missing - 645 men = 645
394 officers + 12,041 men = 12,435
The original return is in the French military archives at Vincennes (C7–15). Oman knew of it, but regarded it as worthless and ignored it in his calculation of French casualties. Fortunately, Sarramon recognized its significance and printed it (albeit with a few trifling inaccuracies).* It certainly is incomplete, as a few examples will show:
– Lamartinière lists 14 officer casualties from the staff: 5 killed or captured and 9 wounded; but Martinien names 23 staff officers casualties: one killed, three mortally wounded and 19 wounded (21 in the battle, 2 in other engagements in the campaign).
– In the 13th Chasseurs, Lamartinière shows the loss of 60 men killed or taken, 19 wounded and 4 missing, or 83 in all from 496 rank and file, but not one of its twenty officers; Martinien, however, lists 7 officer casualties, all wounded.
– The 69th Ligne in Foy's division is almost as bad. According to Lamartinière, it had 120 men killed or taken, 81 wounded and 4 missing, but only 3 officer casualties (all three being listed as killed or taken). Martinien names two officers who were mortally wounded and 8 other wounded officers.
Many other examples could be given, although these are among the most glaring; and there is every reason to suppose that this understatement of losses extended to the rank and file as well as to the officers, although there is no independent check for the former of the kind Martinien provides for the latter.
Nonetheless, Lamartinière's return was not a cynical whitewash designed to conceal the scale of the defeat. It acknowledged the loss of over 12,000 casualties in a short campaign, including more than 7,500 men listed as ‘killed or captured’, and so permanently lost to the army. Clearly it was not designed to support Marmont's claim to have suffered only 6,000 casualties in the battle. It seems likely that it minimized French losses in the same way as the Portuguese return discussed in Appendix II, by disregarding slightly wounded officers and men who had returned to the ranks (or never left them) by the time it was prepared, about 8 August. This might account for the fact that the difference between Lamartinière's return and Martinien's list is greatest for the cavalry (especially the light cavalry) and the staff: many minor wounds were inflicted in cavalry melees, and it is reasonable to suppose that cavalry and staff officers might be eager to have such wounds recorded on their service record even if they did not force them to leave their unit. (Lamartinière records ten officer casualties in Curto's division of light cavalry compared to the thirty listed by Martinien.) This explanation of slight wounds does not cover every case, and it may be that some fudging went on, either by Lamartinière or by the responsible officer in some regiments. Alternatively some figures may have been distorted when the army picked up small garrisons and men from its depots in its retreat: if these accessions were not conscientiously deducted they would take the place in the figures of men who had been killed, wounded or captured in the campaign. But with all its
problems, Lamartinière's return provides by far the most detailed and useful insight into the losses of Marmont's army in the campaign.*
Altogether Martinien lists 447 French officer casualties for the campaign, Lamartinière 394. However, comparing the figures for each unit shows that there are 94 officers listed by Martinien but not included by Lamartinière, most of whom were, presumably, slightly wounded; while a further 41 officers are listed by Lamartinière but not by Martinien, these largely being unwounded prisoners. This gives a total of 488 French officer casualties, but this is certainly still an underestimate, for there must have been many occasions when the true figure was greater than that given by either authority. For example, a unit which had seven wounded officers, plus three more slightly wounded, plus three unwounded prisoners: both Martinien and Lamartinière would show this unit as having lost ten officer casualties, although the true result is thirteen. There is no way of accurately calculating the scale of this problem, but if we make a moderate guess and add a further 32 casualties to allow for it, and for those occasions when Lamartinière's figures were subject to fudging or some other distortion, we are left with a total of 520 French officer casualties for the campaign as a whole. Obviously this figure is far from precise, but it seems quite plausible.
If we accept the figure of 520 officer casualties, at least as a working hypothesis, it means that Lamartinière's 394 understates the ‘correct’ figure by one-quarter. Applying this to Lamartinière's figure for rank-and-file losses would give a total of 520 officers and 16,055 men, or 16,575 casualties suffered in the campaign.† However, it seems probable that this figure is too high, and that Lamartinière's figures are somewhat more accurate for rank and file than for officers. Certainly officers appear underrepresented in his table of casualties: there is barely one officer for every 31 men, while in the army there was one officer for every 25 men. It was most unusual for officers to suffer casualties at a lower rate than their men, although this may be because of the thousands of prisoners included in the figures (officers where normally underrepresented among prisoners). It is also easy to imagine that slightly wounded officers would be more likely to stay with their unit than similarly wounded men, especially in the aftermath of a defeat. It therefore seems reasonable to increase Lamartinière's figure for rank and file by a rather lower proportion than the figure for officers. Again there is no reliable guide, but an increase of 20 per cent (compared to 33 per cent for the officers) seems a reasonable compromise. This produces the following French losses for the campaign:
officers 520
men 14,449
total 14,969
From here it is relatively simple to calculate French losses in the actual battle, by simply deducting losses in the lesser actions between 18 July and 8 August (the period covered by Lamartinière's return). Two methods are used. Foy's division was little engaged in the battle, but lost very heavily on the following day at Garcia Hernandez, and unfortunately Martinien combines the losses for both actions. Therefore an arbitrary figure of 200 casualties is supposed to cover its losses on 22 July in the skirmishing around Nuestra Señora de la Peña in the morning and late in the day in the course of its retreat. The remainder of its losses are assumed to have occurred at Garcia Hernandez or at other points in the campaign. For other units, the casualties given by Lamartinière are divided in the same proportion as the officer casualties given by Martinien. Thus, if Martinien says that a unit lost three officer casualties on the 18th and seven on the 22nd, 30 per cent of its total losses are assumed to have occurred on the 18th and 70 per cent in the battle. Clearly the small number of officer casualties in individual units will produce distortions, but these are likely to cancel each other out. The result of these calculations (adjusted to allow for Lamartinière's understatement in the same way as the figures for the campaign as a whole) is that the lesser actions of the campaign cost the French army 91 officers and 2,403 men, or 2,494 in all.
Losses in the whole campaign 14,969
deduct losses in lesser actions 2,494
leaves losses in the battle 12,475
No one who has followed these calculations will believe that this figure is anything more than a rough approximation: it rests on too many untestable assumptions, although a figure of between twelve and thirteen thousand seems about right, given the very large number of prisoners taken in the battle. It is reassuring that Sir Charles Oman comes to a fairly similar figure by a quite different route. He bases his calculations on a combination of extrapolating from French officer casualties as given by Martinien, and the figures given in some French regimental histories. He concludes that Marmont's army lost some 14,000 men in the campaign, which, when his estimates of losses on the Guarena, on the march and at Garcia Hernandez are deducted, leaves losses in the battle at 11,700.*
In the following table the first column identifies the unit, the next three give its strength on 15 July (officers, men, total). The next column gives the total number of officer casualties for the campaign as recorded by Martinien. Then follow figures from Lamartinière's return:
– officers listed as killed or taken
– officers listed as wounded
– men listed as killed or taken
– men listed as wounded
– men listed as missing
– total according to Lamartinière.
Finally, there are the losses according to Lamartinière as a percentage of the unit's total strength on 15 July.
* Oman, History, vol. 5, pp. 600–3 estimates the garrisons at about 4,200; the depots had been 3,300 but were now ‘much less’; and the sick probably ‘a trifle more’ than 8,300, suggesting a total of approximately 14,000 or 15,000 men under Marmont's command but unable to join the field army. Fortescue, History of the British Army, vol. 8, pp. 632–6: the totals given for each division are evidently those in the original return and are often inaccurate. The net difference between Oman's and Fortescue's figures is that Oman gives Marmont's army 10 more officers (mostly in one unit) and 43 fewer men. The one instance where I have followed Fortescue rather than Oman is in giving 3rd Hussars two squadrons not three: this is supported by Sarramon's return and is more consistent with the strength of the squadrons in the other regiments of light cavalry. Sarramon, La Bataille des Arapiles, pp. 409–12. See chapter 2, commentary, p. 43 for the calculations employed to produce the fighting strength.
* I must thank Général Bach and Chef de Bataillon Porchet of the Service Historique de l'Armée de Terre, Château de Vincennes, for sending me a photocopy of the original return. Sarramon's table (La Bataille des Arapiles, pp. 423–5) contains the following minor errors:
4th Division 2nd Léger should have 43 not 42 men killed or captured total 154
4th Léger should have 52 not 53 men killed or captured total 87
8th Division 118th Ligne should have 12 not 13 officers wounded total casualties 407
Cavalry 28th Chasseurs should have 6 not 7 men wounded total casualties 12
15th Dragoons should have 39 not 40 men killed or captured total 40
Artillery should have 5 officers and 51 men wounded not 4 and 52 total 160
Etat-Major should have 5 officers killed or taken, not 4; and 9 wounded, not 7 total 14.
The net effect is an increase of one officer killed or captured and two wounded and a decrease of one man killed or captured and two wounded; so that the total of casualties overall remains unchanged.
Oman and Fortescue both refer to this return and give a summary of its totals which is quite wrong in one important respect, for they confuse the number of wounded men with the number ‘killed or captured’. They think that,
162 officers and 3,867 men were killed or taken, and
232 officers and 7,529 men were wounded
whereas the correct figures are:
162 officers and 7,529 men killed or taken, and
232 officers and 3,867 men wounded.
As it is most unlikely that both these fine historians mis
read the original return in the same way, it seems probable that one copied the other. Oman's volume was published three years before Fortescue's, but in his preface he thanks Fortescue for the loan of copies of documents from the French archives, and this return may have been among them. The mistake leads Fortescue to doubt Wellington's statement that he had captured 137 officers and between six and seven thousand men, while the correct figure fits neatly with these totals. Oman, History, vol. 5, pp. ix, 469n; Fortescue, History of the British Army, vol. 8, p. 504n; Sarramon, La Bataille des Arapiles, pp. 423–5; Wellington's Dispatches, vol. 5, p. 756.
* There is one well-documented case where the ‘slightly wounded’ explanation will not work, which helps to explain Oman's distrust of Lamartinière's return. At Garcia Hernandez, one battalion of the 76th Ligne was caught by Bock's cavalry and suffered severely. Martinien records 8 officer casualties (one killed and seven wounded); Lamartinière records 16 (eleven killed or taken, five more wounded). But Oman's painstaking search through official British prisoner rolls produced the names of sixteen officers of the regiment who were captured on the occasion, only two of whom appear in Martinien's list. When the remaining six officers whom Martinien names are added, the total losses of the 76th rise to 22 officers. This example certainly warns us against trusting too much to the combination of our two authorities, but if it damages Lamartinière's credibility (17 officers were captured or killed, not the 11 he gives), it counts even more heavily against any attempt to calculate French losses purely by extrapolating from Martinien's record of officer casualties, for Martinien, of course, only counts the eight officers who were killed or wounded.
† To make up for the lost quarter, one needs to add one-third of the lower figure: one-third of three-quarters is one-quarter.
* Oman does not always make it clear that the figure of 14,000 is for the campaign as a whole, not just the battle; indeed, on page 469 he implies the opposite, but the truth emerges unmistakably from a close study of his calculations which are based on officer casualties covering the whole campaign. Oman, History, vol. 5, pp. 600–6.