Salamanca, 1812
Salamanca 1812
Rory Muir
YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS
NEW HAVEN AND LONDON
Copyright © 2001 by Rory Muir
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Set in Ehrhardt by Fakenham Photosetting Limited, Norfolk Printed in Great Britain by St Edmundsbury Press, Suffolk
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Muir, Rory, 1962–
Salamanca 1812/by Rory Muir.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0–300–08719–5 (cloth)
1. Salamanca (Spain), Battle of, 1812. 2. Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, Duke of, 1769–1852.
DC233.S2 M85 2001
940.2'7—dc21 2001026883
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
List of Maps and Plans
Abbreviations
Preface
1. The Campaign
2. Armies and Generals
3. Preliminary Manoeuvres and Skirmishing: Morning and Early Afternoon
4. Pakenham and Thomières
5. Leith and Maucune
6. Le Marchant and the Destruction of the French Left
7. Collapse and Recovery in the Centre
8. Pack's Attack on the Greater Arapile
9. Ferey and the French Last Stand
10. Foy and the French Retreat
11. The Victory
12. The Aftermath
13. Consequences
Appendix I Casualties Suffered on 18 July 1812
Appendix II Allied Strength and Losses
Appendix III French Strength and Losses
Appendix IV Letter Describing the Battle, Possibly Written by Major-General Henry Campbell
Appendix V The Battlefield Today
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Maps and Plans
The Salamanca campaign
The battlefield of Salamanca
Early morning, 22 July 1812
Map of the battle from Jean Sarramon, La Bataille des Arapiles, 1978
Mid-afternoon, 22 July 1812
Detail from Fortescue's map of the battle from the Hon. J. W. Fortescue, Maps and Plans Illustrating Fortescue's History of the British Army, 1917
Map of the battle from Sir Charles Oman, A History of the Peninsular War, 1902–30 (photograph: Greenhill Books, London)
Formation of Pakenham's division in its advance
Plan of Pakenham's attack
Hand-drawn map of the battle by Andrew Leith Hay (National Archives of Scotland [RHP44684]; photograph: reproduced with the permission of the National Trust for Scotland)
Alternative interpretation of Pakenham's attack
Formation of Leith's division
Formation of Maucune's division
Plan of Le Marchant's charge
State of the battle when Le Marchant charges
Anonymous hand-drawn map of the battle from the Ashworth Papers (reproduced courtesy of the Director, National Army Museum, London)
The French counter-attack
Formation of Pack's brigade
Ferey's rear-guard
Maps and plans on pages 8, 49, 53, 63, 89, 99, 125, 127 and 150 drawn by Chris Crothers at the Department of Geographical and Environmental Studies of the University of Adelaide.
Abbreviations
AAG Assistant Adjutant-General
BL British Library
DAAG Deputy Assistant Adjutant-General
DAQMG Deputy Assistant Quartermaster-General
JSAHR Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research
KGL King's German Legion
Lamartinière Official French casualty return for the period 18 July to 8 August 1812 by Général Lamartinière, Chef d'Etat-Major de l'Armée du Portugal in French archives (AHG C7–15: see Appendix III and Bibliography)
Martinien A. Martinien, Tableaux par Corps et par Batailles des Officiers Tués et Blessés pendant les Guerres de l'Empire (1805–1815) (Paris, Editions Militaires Européenes, nd [1980s], first published 1899) and the Supplément (Paris, Fournier, 1909)
NAM National Army Museum, Chelsea
NAS National Archives of Scotland, Edinburgh
NLS National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh
Ordnance map Cartografia Militar de España, Mapa General Serie L, Salamanca 13–19 (478) E. 1:50,000 (1993)
PRO Public Record Office, Kew
USJ United Service Journal (variations on the title include Colburn's United Service Journal and United Service Magazine)
Wyld's Atlas Maps and Plans Showing the Principal Movements, Battles and Sieges in Which the British Army Was Engaged during the War from 1808 to 1814 in the Spanish Peninsula and the South of France (London, James Wyld, 1841) (Maps surveyed by Sir Thomas Mitchell in the years after the war)
Preface
The battle of Salamanca was Wellington's finest victory. It lacks the fame and the awful grandeur of the bloody slog on the slopes of Mont St Jean, but technically it was far superior. Of all Napoleon's victories, only Austerlitz, Friedland and possibly Rivoli can be compared to its daring conception and skilful execution. After four days of careful, patient manoeuvring in which any mistake could easily have been fatal, Wellington recognized a fleeting opportunity and was able to grasp it. For the first time in the Peninsular War the allied army attacked in the open field, and the French were routed with enormous losses. A French officer described the result as ‘the beating of forty thousand men in forty minutes’, and although this is an exaggeration – making the action appear less hard-fought than was the case – it captures the enormous shock suffered by French pride and morale. Never again would the French offer Wellington battle in the Peninsula with such confidence, and this was as significant as the liberation of Madrid, the raising of the siege of Cadiz and the French evacuation of Andalusia, all of which resulted from the victory.
Despite its importance, Salamanca has received surprisingly little attention. In almost two hundred years only three slight books, all aimed at a popular or uncritical audience, have appeared describing the campaign and the battle. These works are rightly overshadowed by the famous histories of the war in the Peninsula as a whole, beginning with Napier and including Fortescue's History of the British Army and Sarramon's more recent work. The best of these for Salamanca is Sir Charles Oman's History of the Peninsular War. Oman's description of the battle is well written, fair and perceptive, illustrated with lively quotations and supported by two invaluable appendices of statistics. It advanced our knowledge far beyond previous accounts and remains the starting point for any new study of the battle. Nonetheless, Oman's account occupies just two chapters out of the twenty-four in a fat volume which covers many other operations, including the sieges of Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz and campaigns in Valencia, Andalusia and other parts of Spain. As a result Oman lacks the space to explore fully all the issues raised by the battle. Furthermore, it is almost ninety years since his account was first published, and in that time many new sources have come to light which greatly enrich our understanding of the battle.
The purpose of the present wo
rk is to give a detailed account of what happened on 22 July 1812. This apparently simple objective has proved surprisingly difficult to achieve in practice. There is no shortage of sources: scores of officers and men wrote accounts of their experiences either in diaries or letters soon afterwards, or in reminiscences years later, and these personal narratives can be tested against casualty statistics of varying reliability and by visiting the battlefield, which remains today substantially as it was in 1812. But while the sources are plentiful, they do not always fit neatly together; indeed, they are riddled with contradictions, inconsistencies, gaps and uncertainty. Sometimes the only account of an important incident comes from a dubious source; and sometimes two apparently reliable sources flatly contradict each other. The sources are numerous, but not evenly distributed: a great number of British soldiers published their recollections of the battle; far fewer Frenchmen wished to recall their defeat; while Portuguese voices – except for British officers serving in Portuguese units – have proved elusive.
Normally the historian deals privately with these problems, occasionally drawing attention to a particularly thorny issue in the text – perhaps when a novel interpretation is advanced – while alluding briefly to some other difficulties in the notes. This method is inescapable in addressing a large, sweeping subject if the narrative is not to lose its momentum and the reader to miss the thread of the argument. However, it can also mislead the reader by suggesting that our understanding is far more securely based than is the case. Most casual readers of Oman's account of Salamanca probably come away with the impression that there are only a few outstanding difficulties, and that these would be solved easily if fresh evidence came to light.
In fact, almost every aspect of the battle has its complexities, if not its contradictions. I want to explore these problems and examine the various gradations between what we know as surely as we know anything about the past (that a battle was fought a few miles south of Salamanca on 22 July 1812 in which the French were defeated), through what is debatable (the formation of Pakenham's division in its advance, or who gave the order for Pack's attack on the Greater Arapile), to the point where the evidence fails completely. In other words I want to show the reader the historian's building site before the scaffolding has been taken down, the tools put away and the debris swept out of sight. Thus, at one level the subject of the book is the battle of Salamanca; at another, it is a case study of the problems encountered in answering even the comparatively simple historical question of what happened at a particular place on a particular day. Not that I wish to venture into the theoretical or philosophical issues underpinning the writing of history: my objective is much more modest – to show how a simple empirical study is constructed, and how source problems are addressed.
There is a danger that these two goals may conflict. Many readers will only want to know ‘what happened’ and will have no wish to have problems with the sources paraded before them, feeling that it is the author's task to resolve such questions as best he can. In deference to such readers, and in order to keep the book readable, I have divided the text into a main narrative, which tells the story of the battle as fully as possible, and which includes a discussion of the most important or controversial problems, and a commentary which runs in parallel to the narrative, and which allows for an extended discussion of other problems and the inclusion of supplementary material that would overburden the narrative. Some readers will, no doubt, ignore the commentary completely; others will consult it only for particular points of special interest to them; while a few may, perhaps, find it even more interesting than the narrative.
In writing the history of the battle, I have quoted extensively from the many first-hand accounts which are our principal source for what happened. These are often well written, giving a vivid insight into the author's feelings as well as the actions of his unit. As such, they are an important reminder that the battle was fought by living men, not anonymous, unfeeling cogs in a machine. Many of their experiences were common to soldiers in any battle of the period, not just Salamanca, and thereby give a broader relevance to the work.
I have benefited greatly from two visits to the battlefield, in 1993 and for three days in the summer of 2000. Walking the terrain is an invaluable tool in understanding any battle: some doubtful points immediately become clear, while new, unexpected problems arise. The credibility of some first-hand accounts is confirmed by the accuracy of their description of the ground, while others are cast into doubt. Nonetheless, visiting a battlefield is a supplement to, not a substitute for, hours spent in the library and archives. It is all too easy for the visitor, enjoying the tramp through dry grass under a hot sun, with a head full of images of far-off days, to believe that he or she knows ‘what must have happened’. But in the end our knowledge of the battle depends on the testimony of those who were there, for events did not always unfold in the most logical or plausible way.
On the vexed issue of place and personal names I have generally preferred the form made familiar by previous accounts of the battle; for example, the Greater and Lesser Arapiles, rather than the Arapil Grande and the Arapil Chico. Some names are particularly uncertain: Oman spells the French divisional commander General Bonnet with two ‘n’s, many other sources, including Martinien and Sarramon use only one – Bonet – but ‘Bonnet’ is the form used in the manuscript of the return of casualties prepared by General Lamartinière, the chief of staff of the French army. Colonel Arentschildt of the King's German Legion is spelt thus by Oman, but without the final ‘t’ by Fortescue and Beamish, while Michael A. Taenzer informs me that he actually signed his name ‘von Arentsschildt’ (double s and dt). After some reflection I have decided to ignore the double s and follow Oman, for introducing a third form of the name into common use would not eliminate the other spellings and would only increase the confusion. Similarly I have preferred the comfortable if illogical ‘1st Ligne’ for French regiments to the pedantically correct ‘1e Ligne’.
I am grateful to a number of individuals and institutions for permission to quote unpublished material, and for the good wishes and encouragement which so often accompanied the formal permission. Mr G. Hope allowed me to quote from the Hope of Luffness papers deposited at the National Archives of Scotland, including the full text of a letter from ‘H.C.’ printed and discussed in Appendix IV. Mrs J. N. Tomes permitted me to quote from the letters of Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Alexander Gordon in her possession. And the National Army Museum, the National Archives of Scotland, the National Library of Scotland and the Public Record Office all gave me permission to quote material which they hold, as well as making it possible for me to see the original papers.
This book was written while I was a long-term Visiting Research Fellow at the Department of History, University of Adelaide (a position I still hold). The facilities, encouragement and resources provided by the department, and by the Barr Smith Library, were immensely useful in bringing the project to fruition. I should particularly mention Professor Trevor Wilson who has explored diverse approaches to military history, matching form to subject with exemplary success. I must also thank the staff of many other libraries and archives for their assistance: the State Library of South Australia and the State Library of Victoria; the British Library, the Public Record Office and the National Army Museum in London; the Scottish Record Office and the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh; the Brighton Public Library, Sussex; and numerous regimental museums across Britain that replied to my enquiries – in particular, Major Hugo White of the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry Museum. Finally, Général Bach and Chef de Bataillon Porchet of the Service Historique de I'Armée de Terre, at Vincennes, for sending me a photocopy of Lamartinière's original casualty return.
When the book was in its final stages I was fortunate enough to spend a month at the University of Southampton as a Fellow of the Hartley Institute. Although the primary focus of my research was on another subject, I was able to devote a couple of productive days to work
on Salamanca, including a more detailed examination of the plan of the battle in Wyld's Atlas, looking through the unpublished letters of Sir Denis Pack and consulting Oman's own copy of the first edition of Andrew Leith Hay's A Narrative of the Peninsular War. I am grateful to the staff of the special collections for making my visit so pleasant, and in particular to Dr Christopher Woolgar for his hospitality, friendship and good advice, not only on this occasion, but over many years.
Mr S. G. P. Ward kindly answered many queries and shared his immense knowledge of Wellington's army in a most enjoyable correspondence. His magnificent gift of books and papers to the University of Southampton has ensured that his collection – including many rare and even unique items – will be both expertly preserved and made readily available to scholars working in the field.
Mr Mark Urban kindly sent me the draft of his fascinating book on Colonel Scovell The Man who Broke Napoleon's Codes, as well as copies of several unpublished letters describing the battle from the Le Marchant and other private collections. I have also greatly benefited from his comments on a late draft of chapter six, and from a stimulating and encouraging correspondence with him. Lieutenant-Colonel R. E. R. Robinson generously gave me copies of his notes of the 61st Regiment digest, a manuscript source that I was unable to see for myself. Mark Romans drew on his detailed research into Wellington's intelligence-gathering to answer my queries on that aspect of the campaign. Ian Robertson used his experience in describing terrain and his knowledge of the battlefield to save me from several infelicities in Appendix V. Mrs Alison Thomas translated Wachholtz's journal from the German for me, and John Emerson checked my reading of some doubtful passages in the French sources. Mr Victor Sutcliffe provided me with some important bibliographical information. Señor Pedro Vicente Morales lent me invaluable assistance when I was visiting the battlefield. Mr David Elder read the script, shed light on a number of doubtful points and gave me much encouragement. Dr Paddy Griffith and an anonymous reader for Yale University Press both also read the script and made a number of stimulating suggestions, although they must not be held responsible for any errors or eccentricities that remain. Mrs Chris Crothers of the Department of Geographical and Environmental Studies of the University of Adelaide converted my rough sketches into stylish maps and then accepted innumerable amendments with great good humour.