To War with Wellington

by Peter Snow

  On the other side of the field Marshal Marmont had spotted the sudden weakness of his army on the left. He saw Thomières marching off west, way beyond Maucune’s division, and rode off to attempt to correct the mistake. But he was unlucky. As he rode down the side of the Greater Arapil and headed west, a British shell landed right by him and severely wounded him in the arm and chest. A rumour quickly flew around that he was dead.

  With the French commander incapacitated, no one warned Thomières of the impending danger. Pakenham’s 3rd Division managed to approach completely unseen. The French were moving from left to right across the front of Pakenham’s advancing troops. There was a gap of a few hundred yards of open ground between the marching French columns and the trees which provided cover for Pakenham’s advance. First the cavalry burst out and charged across the gap, then Pakenham’s three infantry brigades emerged from the trees rapidly forming into lines to bring every musket to bear as they approached. The French, taken terrifyingly by surprise, reacted quickly. They managed to shoot down a few of the charging horsemen, and Thomières shouted for his guns to move forward and hit the British infantry before they could close the gap. Joseph Donaldson, advancing with the 94th Scots, said the French ‘shot and shell were now making dreadful havoc. A Portuguese cadet who was attached to our regiment received a shell in the centre of his body, which bursting at the same instant, literally blew him to pieces. Another poor fellow receiving a grape shot across his belly, his bowels protruded, and he was obliged to apply both hands to the wound to keep them in. I shall never forget the expression of agony depicted in his countenance.’

  For a few moments the French fire took a heavy toll of Pakenham’s advancing lines, but then the gap closed. The Connaught Rangers, the 88th, were in the front line of Pakenham’s attack. Their commanding officer, Alexander Wallace, had been promoted to lead all three regiments in the front brigade, and Pakenham was beside him in the first line as they advanced. The French were on the brow of a hill and when Pakenham, Wallace and their men reached the top, ‘the entire French division, with drums beating and uttering loud shouts, ran forward to meet them, and belching forth a torrent of bullets from five thousand muskets brought down almost the whole of Wallace’s front rank and more than half of his officers.’ But Wallace was still standing, and he urged his men on. When a French officer stepped forward and killed Major Murphy, who was leading the 88th’s charge, the troops’ usual drive and passion turned to fury. ‘Murphy, dead and bleeding, with one foot hanging in the stirrup-iron, was dragged by his affrighted horse along the front of his regiment. The soldiers became exasperated and asked to be let forward … Pakenham called out to Wallace “to let them loose”.’ Pakenham himself was right at the front shouting, ‘There they are, my lads. Let them feel the temper of your bayonets.’ Such was the force of their charge that the French collapsed. Wallace’s men rampaged through the French ranks, and within minutes all of Pakenham’s battalions were inflicting dreadful carnage on Thomières’ division. As the French turned and ran, the cavalry hacked their way in among them and completed the destruction. One regiment of 1,100 men suffered 800 casualties, another 1,500 out of 1,750. Thomières himself was one of the dead. Wellington was delighted by his brother-in-law’s success: ‘Pakenham may not be the brightest genius … but he’s one of the best we have,’ he wrote after the battle.

  Wellington had by this time already ordered an attack on two other French divisions strung across the allied front behind Thomières. The next division along was General Maucune’s. He made the mistake of forming his men into squares, as he saw Le Marchant’s heavy cavalry preparing to advance towards him in support of Leith’s infantry division. But the infantry arrived first in two long lines, and their volleys made havoc of Maucune’s squares. John Douglas was one of Leith’s soldiers and heard him shout: ‘Royals … this shall be a glorious day for old England. If these bragadocian [sic] 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. Stand up, men!’

  The squares, which might have been effective in resisting horsemen, could do little in face of the destructive power of muskets in lines. And when the cavalry did arrive, they found the French reeling back under the weight of Leith’s attack. Le Marchant’s dragoons were soon causing carnage with their fearsome heavy broadswords. And so great was the impact of Le Marchant’s attack that it swept through much of the next French division, Brennier’s, which was moving in to attempt to rescue Maucune. This division too soon crumpled before the momentum of the British assault, and Wellington, by around five o’clock, was able to watch the complete annihilation of the French left flank. The only setback was that Le Marchant himself was killed by a lucky French musket shot. Le Marchant’s charge had been a spectacular success, but Wellington had been robbed of a very promising young cavalry commander. William Ponsonby, a cousin of Fred’s, took over command from Le Marchant, and for once Wellington was moved to praise his cavalry. He rode up to his cavalry chief, Sir Stapleton Cotton, a thirty-eight-year-old lieutenant general who was more used to his men’s efforts being disparaged. ‘My God, Cotton!’ shouted Wellington. ‘I never saw anything so beautiful in all my life. The day is yours!’* Grattan, over with Pakenham’s 3rd Division, watched ‘such [Frenchmen] as got away from the sabres of the horsemen’ running ‘to us for protection – like men who having escaped the first shock of a wreck, will cling to any broken spar, no matter how little to be depended upon. Hundreds of beings frightfully disfigured … black with dust, worn down with fatigue and covered with sabre cuts and blood – threw themselves amongst us for safety.’ The Anglo-Portuguese army took thousands of prisoners.

  But the battle wasn’t all going Wellington’s way. Fifteen minutes after he had set Leith moving forward against Maucune, he launched General Cole’s 4th Division against the French centre. On a slope ahead of them was General Clausel’s division supported by a force on its right flank commanded by General Bonnet. Bonnet had taken over command of the army from the wounded Marmont. His troops were on the northern slopes of the Greater Arapil alongside Clausel’s and between them they faced the assault from Cole’s division and a Portuguese brigade commanded by General Pack. Pack saw that Cole would be exposed to attack from Bonnet, and he moved up to protect Cole’s flank by pushing Bonnet’s men off the Greater Arapil. Both these attacks ran into trouble. Pack failed to gain the top of the hill: his men hit a rocky ledge near the top and had to drop their muskets to climb over it. They ran into a devastating fire from Bonnet’s men at the top and had to retire. Grattan, who reckoned no other unit matched up to the Connaught Rangers, least of all the Portuguese, wrote, ‘These men totally failed in their effort.’ Their retreat exposed Cole’s left flank to attack from Bonnet, and Clausel’s men successfully held off the thrust of Cole’s main attack. Cole himself was wounded and his men, like Pack’s, were forced to withdraw.

  Suddenly Wellington’s centre was wide open. Clausel, assuming overall command from Bonnet, who had also been severely wounded, ordered his men forward. It was after five o’clock. Clausel had his own division and Bonnet’s men, who had thrown back the Portuguese. He also had three fresh cavalry regiments. He could see the chaos being wreaked by Leith and Pakenham over his left shoulder. He thought he had an opportunity to turn the battle round by plunging straight ahead after the fleeing British and Portuguese. But Wellington had more resources to commit to the struggle. The 5,500 men of General Clinton’s 6th Division were in reserve, right in the path of Clausel’s jubilant troops. Wellington ordered them to stop Clausel, and Beresford led one of the Portuguese brigades against Clausel’s left flank. The day began to fade. The flashes of the guns, the blazing musketry and the great swathes of burning grass lit up the surface of the hill, which the British were now attacking, with a sheet of flame. The 1st Division under General Campbell was ordered to attack Clausel’s other f
lank and a decisive struggle followed. The French in their desperation to survive fought hard. But as night fell Clausel was pushed back, Campbell captured the Greater Arapil, and Wellington still had fresh forces to throw into the battle. Fred Ponsonby’s 12th Light Dragoons had heard, with some envy, of the triumph of their heavy-brigade colleagues under Le Marchant. Now Ponsonby was told to pursue the retreating French. He led one attack on a large body of 450 French infantry who lay down as his men charged over them and then rose up and loosed off their muskets at the passing horsemen. Ponsonby’s sword was shattered at the hilt and his horse was wounded by several bayonet thrusts. But the battle was won. The entire French army withdrew into the forest to the south-east of the battlefield and across the River Tormes. Some fought an impressive rearguard action, most fled in panicky disorder.

  Wellington decided not to order his troops to complete their victory by pursuing the French into the forest. He knew his men were exhausted. Moreover he believed that the bridge over the Tormes and the fortress of Alba beyond were held by Spanish forces. He had posted them there before the battle to deny the French any chance of crossing the river. But the Spanish were no longer there. Their commander had decided his mission was too risky and abandoned Alba without telling Wellington. Fearing Wellington’s angry counter-order, he preferred to move first and explain later. Wellington was incensed hours later when he heard that the remnant of the French army had escaped across the bridge and nearby fords. But the French had suffered a decisive defeat. The battle cost the British and their allies just over 5,000 casualties, and the French as many as 14,000. ‘I never saw an army get such a beating in so short a time,’ Wellington wrote to his brother William. ‘What havoc in little more than four hours.’

  Salamanca was Wellington’s masterpiece. It vindicated more than any other battle so far his grasp of the importance of terrain and his obsession with personal control. If he had his moment of hesitation in the morning, by the afternoon he was in total command of the field, delegating to no one, galloping from unit to unit, insisting on delivering his orders personally. He told no one what was going through his head until he decided what to do. Even then he told only those he needed to. He always appeared calm and confident, never under apparent strain. He took risks in riding too near the front line on many occasions, but he escaped being hit so often that he believed he had divine protection. By the end of his military career and after a number of narrow escapes, Wellington could be counted among the luckiest generals in history. Salamanca was the first major battle in the Peninsula War in which he initiated the attack. It did much to dispel the accusation made by his critics that he was prolonging the war by being too defensive and cautious. A French general at Salamanca, Maximilien Foy, one of Napoleon’s most experienced soldiers, praised Wellington’s victory: ‘It raises Wellington’s reputation almost to the level of Marlborough: he showed himself a great and able master of manoeuvres … kept his dispositions concealed for almost the whole day … a battle in the style of Frederick the Great.’

  11

  One step forward, two steps back

  Madrid and Burgos, 1812

  WELLINGTON’S VICTORY at Salamanca was a huge blow to French morale. By the time Napoleon heard he was too preoccupied with the launching of his invasion of Russia to allow himself to be distracted. But this was a severe setback. Wellington had humiliated yet another French marshal and proved that he could attack as well as defend. The remains of Marmont’s army, under the command of Clausel, anxious to avoid being forced into another battle, put on all speed and escaped across the Duero. Fred Ponsonby and other light dragoons chased after the French rearguard, but Wellington did not press his infantry into any hard pursuit. ‘The vigorous following of a beaten enemy’, William Napier wrote, ‘was never a prominent characteristic of Lord Wellington’s campaigns in the Peninsula.’ Even in victory Wellington was reluctant to trust his cavalry and was cautious about over-extending his infantry. Anyway the enemy were retiring, leaving Wellington scope for an orderly advance into northern Spain.

  Ponsonby and forty of his best riders followed in Clausel’s wake, crossed the Duero and escorted Wellington into the city of Valladolid on 30 July 1812. Ponsonby wrote to his mother that they were met everywhere by people carrying streamers, trophies and wreaths of flowers: ‘women of all ranks bringing refreshments even to the privates walking by the side of our horses! – on every side were heard exclamations of “Viva el gran capitan, Viva los heros ingleses los salvadores.”’

  Wellington now had to decide what to do with the opportunity presented by his victory. He made, as usual, a cool calculation of the strategic balance of power. However humiliated Napoleon’s marshals were, the French still had at least three times the number of troops in the Peninsula that he had. But they were continually being harassed and depleted by attacks, ambushes and raids by Spanish guerrillas. And incompetent though Spain’s regular forces tended to be, they pinned down tens of thousands of French troops, who would otherwise have been free to confront Wellington. If the separate French armies could link up, they could still force him to fight a battle against overwhelming odds. The trick was to keep the French forces divided and look for a chance to destroy them separately.

  Wellington looked at the map. Soult and the French army of the south were fully preoccupied in the siege of Cadiz. The ever reliable General ‘Daddy’ Hill, with a strong force way off to the south-west, could keep an eye on them. Clausel was retreating northwards where he could hope for reinforcement from other French forces. Joseph, Napoleon’s brother, was between Wellington and Madrid but with just 22,000 troops. Wellington took only a short time to decide to make Madrid his target. If he went north, he risked allowing Soult and Joseph to unite and threaten his rear. If he headed for Madrid, Joseph would be unlikely to risk a battle and would retreat to the east. Besides, the occupation of the Spanish capital would be a spectacular political coup.

  It took Wellington’s army a week to reach the gates of Madrid. On 12 August the Anglo-Portuguese army marched in to an ecstatic welcome from the population, who were cheering, laughing, singing, many of them in tears. People played on guitars and tambourines. Windows, decked with colourful embroidery, were full of women waving their handkerchiefs. Wellington wrote home that it was ‘impossible to describe the joy manifested by the inhabitants’. George Simmons watched women throwing down their shawls and veils for Wellington’s horse to walk over. ‘They got hold of his legs as he sat on horseback and kissed them.’ Charles Cocks said he was ‘never kissed by so many pretty girls in one day in all my life’. William Wheeler was delighted by it all too. But he did draw the line at being kissed by men. ‘Their breath was so highly seasoned with garlick, their huge moustaches well stiffened with sweat, dust and snuff, it was like having a hair broom pushed into one’s face that had been daubed in a dirty gutter.’ William Grattan and the Connaught Rangers were also mobbed by women. The officers were nearly forced from their horses, and one old friend of Grattan’s, ‘a remarkably plain-looking personage, was nearly suffocated in the embraces of half a dozen fair Castilians. When he recovered himself and was able to speak, he turned to me and said “How infernally fond these Madrid women must be of kissing, when they have nearly hugged to death such an ill-looking fellow as me.”’

  Madrid’s hospitality knew no bounds, and there was entertainment for all. The liberating army was treated to free bullfights, which even some of the seasoned veterans found too bloody for their taste. Huntsmen like Jonathan Leach were soon taking pot shots at the pheasants which littered the park that Joseph Bonaparte had laid out beside his palace. There were parties and dances all over the city: Leach was given every opportunity of feasting his eyes ‘on Castilian beauty which shone most resplendently’. Fred Ponsonby was in his element too. He wrote to his mother, Lady Bessborough: ‘We had a grand ball … and what is better an excellent supper. In waltzing after supper I got a tumble by sticking my spurs into a lady’s gown, and brought half Madrid down w
ith me.’ Ponsonby’s mother was constantly fretting about his safety and well-being and was glad to hear that he had survived the Battle of Salamanca. She declared how delighted she was that her son ‘had the advantage of being directed by the greatest general that ever lived, and the glory of being admired by him’. Harriet Bessborough had another reason to be relieved. Her daughter Caroline Lamb had just ended her torrid affair with Lord Byron. She had herself emerged from a long affair with a high-flying diplomat, Lord Granville Leveson-Gower, a liaison that had presented Fred and Caroline with a half-brother and half-sisters.

  Another of Wellington’s aides, Alexander Gordon, managed to get enough time off from his staff duties at Wellington’s headquarters to visit some of the Old Master paintings on display in Madrid. He wrote enthusiastically to his brother Lord Aberdeen that he particularly admired some paintings he had seen by Anton Mengs, the German neo-classical portrait painter. ‘I certainly think him the best of the painters of his day.’ George Aberdeen was now embarking very grandly, at the age of twenty-eight, on a diplomatic career which would eventually see him prime minister. He had a rather haughty way of writing to his younger brother, who had not been to university as he had: ‘Your observations are pretty judicious for so inexperienced a person with the exception of what you say about Mengs who is the most miserable dauber possible. A cartload of his works would sell for nothing in England.’ If Alexander was hurt, he didn’t show it. He might be looked down on by his brother, but he was now widely recognised as Wellington’s favourite ADC.