Salamanca, 1812 Read online

  I have derived great pleasure and benefit from contact with many enthusiasts for the period through the Napoleonic Discussion Forum on the internet (www.napoleon-series.org). Steven Smith of California displayed both his dedication and his bibliographical skills not only in tracking down Oman's vague citation ‘Wachholtz’ to its source in a century-old German military periodical, but also in obtaining and sending me a photocopy of the article. Bernabe Saiz Martínez de Pisón answered many questions about the Spanish forces at the battle, and generously sent me copies of the maps of the campaign and battle from Arteche's history. Bob Burnham shared his knowledge of British memoirs of the Peninsular War, filling gaps in my collection and answering bibliographical queries. Others have been equally kind. To mention only a few: Tom Holmberg, Bruno Nackaerts, Ron McGuigan, Robert Markley, Michael A. Taenzer, John Cook and George Nafziger have all helped, often repeatedly, both in points of detail and with stimulating ideas.

  I must single out for special thanks Howie Muir, another friend made through the internet, whose fascination with the subject, immense enthusiasm and detailed knowledge of the terrain forced me to re-think many casual assumptions and greatly enriched the final work.

  My publisher, Dr Robert Baldock of Yale University Press, showed great faith in the proposed work despite its narrow focus, while my editor, Candida Brazil, saw the work through the press with great patience and skill, calmly resolving problems posed by a rather complicated script.

  Dr Charles Esdaile is an old and excellent friend whom I have thanked on similar occasions in the past. As always I have enjoyed our correspondence and am grateful for the perceptive comments he made, both in reading the script and elsewhere.

  Finally, I must thank my mother, the best of travelling companions, critics and scholarly exemplars rolled into one.

  Chapter One

  The Campaign

  By the end of 1811 the Peninsular War had lasted for three and a half years, and no end was in sight. Napoleon's lightning campaign in late 1808 had driven the Spanish armies from the Ebro in disarray and led to the capture of Madrid, but it had not broken the Spanish will to resist: the war continued and more than 200,000 – at times more than 300,000 – French troops were tied up south of the Pyrenees. Unlike in central Europe, conquered provinces required large permanent garrisons to prevent them bursting into insurrection, while in the more remote regions, which had not yet been overrun, new armies continued to be collected to oppose the French. By removing the Bourbons and placing his brother Joseph on the Spanish throne, Napoleon had made a compromise peace difficult, if not impossible; while the presence of the French armies in Spain, their requisitions, the misdeeds of their soldiers and their punitive atrocities gave constant incitement to resistance. Then there were the British, who provided arms, supplies and money to the patriot forces, especially at the beginning of the war, and whose army had made several interventions in the conflict. In 1808 Sir John Moore had diverted Napoleon from the conquest of Andalusia and dragged his forces into the remote, barren and strategically unimportant north-west corner of Spain. In 1809 Sir Arthur Wellesley had consolidated the British position in Portugal and then attempted to exploit the lopsided distribution of French forces in Spain. His campaign failed only because Soult and Ney had fortuitously evacuated Galicia, and so were able to threaten his lines of communication and force him to retreat, thus making fruitless the allied victory at Talavera. In 1810 a large part of the vast French reinforcements sent to the Peninsula after the defeat of Austria were employed in an attempt to drive the British from Portugal, but Wellington (as Wellesley now was) had made ample preparations to check the long-threatened invasion. Masséna's army received a bloody check at Busaco, where the re-trained Portuguese army showed that it would fight. Turning Wellington's flank, the French resumed their advance, only to grind to a halt before the almost impregnable Lines of Torres Vedras which protected the whole Lisbon Peninsula. Masséna wisely refused to attack such a formidable obstacle and referred the problem to Napoleon, maintaining his position throughout the winter despite severe shortages of food and the ravages of disease. By the spring he could wait no longer. Napoleon had proved unable to send worthwhile help and Masséna's army was now dangerously weak compared to the allies, who had been fed well and reinforced over the winter. Masséna retreated back to the frontier: his invasion of Portugal had cost the French army some fifteen thousand men, most of whom had died from sickness and lack of food.

  In Spain, however, the French armies appeared to be making progress. Soult had successfully invaded and occupied Andalusia at the beginning of 1810, although he failed to capture Cadiz, which became the capital of the independent Spanish government. A year later, in another winter campaign, he defeated the Spanish Army of Estremadura and captured the great fortress of Badajoz on the Portuguese frontier. Meanwhile, in eastern Spain, Suchet was having similar successes, capturing Tortosa in January 1811, Tarragona in June, then advancing into the rich province of Valencia and capturing its capital, the city of Valencia, in January 1812. The loss of Andalusia and Valencia threatened to cripple the Spanish resistance, for it left only a few poor, isolated provinces under the control of the government of Cadiz, and they had neither the population nor the wealth to raise regular armies powerful enough to drive back the French.

  But equally the French forces in the Peninsula – some 320,000 men at the beginning of 1812 – were now fully stretched, without a significant central reserve or the capacity to meet any sudden disaster. Nor could they look to Napoleon for assistance, for ever since the middle of 1811 he had been turning his attention to the likelihood of a new war in eastern Europe. The steady stream of French reinforcements had dwindled almost to nothing, and selected units, mostly very good troops such as the Imperial Guard and the Polish regiments, were withdrawn. So the French could expect to achieve little in Spain in 1812 other than to consolidate their hold over their new conquests, while the loss of Andalusia and Valencia might undermine the Spanish regular forces and the guerrillas might weary of a hopeless struggle. Looking further ahead, if Napoleon's war with Russia was successful – and there was little reason to doubt that it would be – his victory might be followed by heavy reinforcements to Spain, as had happened after the defeat of Austria in 1809; and such forces might be sufficient to overwhelm the allies and subdue the guerrillas, and so eventually bring this difficult and unpopular war to a victorious conclusion.

  Wellington's Anglo-Portuguese army was the greatest threat to these hopes, for it was by far the largest and most efficient allied force left in the Peninsula and it had a secure base in Portugal. But in late 1811 French optimists, including Napoleon, did not regard it as posing too serious a danger. Wellington's efforts at exploiting Masséna's defeat had not been very successful. He had defeated a French attempt to relieve the blockade of the fortress of Almeida in the Battle of Fuentes de Oñoro, but the garrison had escaped through his lines after sabotaging the fortifications. Two sieges of Badajoz had failed, despite Beresford's bloody victory at Albuera, when the French armies of Soult and Marmont (who had replaced Masséna) combined and forced Wellington to withdraw before them. The second half of 1811 was less costly but even less productive as a blockade of Ciudad Rodrigo proved ineffective. Wellington retained the initiative, for the French had no thought of taking the offensive against him or attempting a serious invasion of Portugal, but it seemed that he could be safely contained on the frontier. Napoleon went even further, however, for he concluded that the allied army was incapable of undertaking substantial operations in the midst of winter, and instructed Marmont to detach some of his forces to assist Suchet in Valencia. Marmont saw no danger in obeying these orders and, with a spirit of co-operation rare among the French marshals in Spain, sent even more men than Napoleon had suggested. But Wellington had learnt from his mistakes in 1811 and made meticulous preparations for his next attempt. This time he moved rapidly and with an ample siege train that he had managed to bring forward in secret.
Ciudad Rodrigo was besieged on 8 January 1812 and fell eleven days later. Even without the diversion of Marmont's troops it could not have been saved: the attack was too sudden, too rapid and too well prepared to allow the French time to collect their forces and intervene.

  Having captured Ciudad Rodrigo, Wellington's next objective would clearly be Badajoz, the more southerly of the great fortresses on the Spanish side of the frontier. Again he made meticulous preparations, although this time he could not hope to surprise the French. The fortress was much stronger than Ciudad Rodrigo, with an excellent garrison which had withstood two sieges in 1811 and so was full of confidence. Wellington expected Marmont and Soult to combine to march to its relief and, while he had some hopes of taking Badajoz before they could intervene, he had made up his mind that, unless the odds were very unfavourable, he would fight their combined forces rather than give up the siege. A victory in such a battle would not only precipitate the fall of Badajoz, it would also open the road to Seville, lift the siege of Cadiz and probably force the French to evacuate all of Andalusia, all before midsummer. But again Napoleon intervened, ordering Marmont not to march to aid Badajoz but instead to invade northern Portugal, which, he believed, would force Wellington to give up the siege in order to protect his bases. Marmont had no faith in the plan, and executed it with little enthusiasm. It was never likely to succeed in its primary object, although it is just possible that with more enterprise it might have gained the consolation prize of re-capturing Ciudad Rodrigo or even Almeida; but in the event it achieved little, despite causing Wellington some uneasiness. Without Marmont's support Soult was too weak to intervene in the siege of Badajoz, and on the night of 6 April British troops stormed the fortress. They met with courageous and ingenious resistance; the attacks on the main breaches failed, and success only came when a diversionary attempt to escalade the castle gained a foothold because most of the garrison was concentrated at the breaches. The cost was very high: 3,713 casualties in the storm alone; 4,670 in the siege as a whole; and the horror of the night was succeeded by days of drunken pillaging, murder and other atrocities before the soldiers could be brought under control again.

  In barely three months Wellington had broken the deadlock of 1811, and it was still only April, with the full campaigning season before him. He was tempted to advance into Andalusia and attack Soult directly, but Marmont's incursion into northern Portugal and the vulnerability of Almeida and Ciudad Rodrigo alarmed him. Also, Marmont commanded the most mobile of the French armies in Spain and, if Wellington advanced into Andalusia, Marmont might follow him with most of his forces. But if Wellington moved directly against Marmont, it was most unlikely that Soult would send him any significant aid, both because Soult's resources were already fully committed occupying his vast vice-royalty and because he was generally more inclined to seek than to provide co-operation.

  If Marmont received help, it was more likely to be from some of the other French forces in Spain. General Caffarelli commanded the Army of the North, which guarded French lines of communication from Bayonne through Burgos towards Madrid. It was a thankless task which had brought little credit to his predecessors, for their forces always looked substantial on paper but were overextended on the ground, and they were constantly harassed by guerrillas whom they could never subdue. Nonetheless, the Army of the North was under orders to support Marmont if Wellington advanced against him, just as it had supported Masséna at Fuentes de Oñoro, and Marmont when he forced the blockade of Ciudad Rodrigo in 1811. Another possible source of assistance was King Joseph's Army of the Centre, although this was really only strong enough to hold Madrid and the adjacent provinces. Joseph and Marshal Jourdan, his principal military adviser, both saw the need to reinforce Marmont in order to contain Wellington, but were naturally reluctant to withdraw their garrisons from the few areas that recognized royal authority. Theoretically Joseph was, by Napoleon's decree, commander-in-chief of all the French forces in Spain, and he sent the marshals many orders mixed with pleas which generally displayed a fair grasp of the state of the war in the Peninsula as a whole. Sometimes the marshals replied with promises, sometimes with excuses and sometimes they did not reply at all, but Joseph's authority was weak and they seldom, if ever, acted simply in obedience to his orders. The third possible source of reinforcements for Marmont was Marshal Suchet, who now commanded all the French forces in Aragon, Catalonia and Valencia. Wellington feared that Suchet might return the assistance which Marmont had given him at the beginning of the year, especially as he had seen intercepted copies of orders from Joseph which he took more seriously than did Suchet. But Catalonia and Aragon were always very uneasy possessions for the French, and Suchet had more than enough employment for his men without looking to the western half of the Peninsula.

  Wellington took some trouble to help distract the French marshals and to give them an excuse not to reinforce Marmont. Through the Spanish government, he asked General Ballesteros, who commanded a small Spanish army in southern Andalusia near Gibraltar, to make a show of activity. Ballesteros did so and, despite suffering a limited defeat at the beginning of June, caused Soult some concern. Wellington also hoped for the co-operation of the Spanish army based in Galicia, which could besiege the French garrison in Astorga and, when it fell (it was not a regular fortress), advance and threaten Marmont's flank. He asked the Spanish forces in the north – notably Porlier in Cantabria and Longa in the mountains above Santander – to make trouble for Caffarelli, which they did with considerable success. They were much assisted by a British naval squadron, complete with two battalions of marines, under Sir Home Popham, which operated on the north coast of Spain throughout the summer, and with its great mobility caused Caffarelli immense problems. Wellington had not asked for this amphibious force, but it complemented his plans perfectly. Equally unlooked-for but welcome was a proposal from Lord William Bentinck, commander of the British forces in Sicily, to mount an expedition to the east coast of Spain. Wellington made optimistic plans for this force, urging that, rather than land in safety in southern Valencia, it should directly attack Tarragona or even Barcelona. He arranged Spanish co-operation, despatched a siege-train from Lisbon and clearly felt that the expedition had a good chance of success; while even if it failed it would achieve his main objective by distracting Suchet.

  Wellington's own army was divided, for while he had brought the bulk of it north, he had left a substantial force under his trusted subordinate Lieutenant-General Sir Rowland Hill to guard his southern flank. Hill had some 18,000 men, compared to about 45,000 in the main army, although Hill's force included a higher proportion of Portuguese. His immediate opponent was Drouet's corps of Soult's army, and he had received instructions that, if Drouet were to march north to join Marmont (as King Joseph demanded), he should hasten to join Wellington and so preserve the balance of forces. In a straightforward race between these two corps Drouet might be expected to arrive first, for the French were great marchers and had less far to go, at least as the crow flies. But Wellington had long had his eye on the French bridge at Almaraz, their only crossing of the Tagus for many miles. He gave Hill his orders and, in a beautifully executed operation in the middle of May, Hill seized and destroyed the bridge with only light losses, despite its strong defences. This ensured that any northward movement by Drouet would have to take a lengthy detour as far east as Toledo to cross the Tagus; while at the same time the allied route was shortened by restoring the broken bridge at Alcantara. It is hard to see what more Wellington could have done to ensure Marmont's isolation in the campaign.1

  Wellington began his advance on 13 June, but it was not until the 16th that the advanced guard first encountered French outposts, only a few miles from Salamanca. These withdrew before the allied troops, and Wellington entered the ancient university city on the 17 June amidst scenes of great rejoicing. Marmont's army had been widely scattered in cantonments, mainly for logistical reasons, but he had left eight hundred men in three makeshift forts – convert
ed convents – inside Salamanca, and he hoped that these would delay Wellington until he could collect his forces and seek help from the other French armies. Wellington knew of these forts and had even been sent sketches of them, for he had excellent sources of intelligence in Salamanca; but they were stronger than he expected. He had brought forward four iron 18-pounder siege guns and a limited supply of ammunition, but both soon proved to be inadequate. Still, it is not really surprising that embarking on a campaign in open country, with nothing more to worry about than a few fortified convents, he had not encumbered his army with a large, slow-moving siege-train, especially as there were many other pressing demands on his limited transport. But if the initial mistake is understandable, it was soon compounded by others. It was not until 20 June that Wellington sent orders to Almeida to send forward further supplies of ammunition, while the choice of the Sixth Division, which had little or no experience of sieges, to conduct the operation also proved unfortunate. Consequently the attack on the forts made slow, uncertain and costly progress, although its final outcome was never in doubt, unless the garrisons could be saved by outside intervention.

  Marmont had not been idle, and he had no intention of sacrificing the garrisons if there was any reasonable chance of saving them. By 19 June he had collected five of his eight infantry divisions, and two more were rapidly approaching. The last division, under General Bonnet, was far away in Asturias; Marmont had summoned it, but could not expect it to arrive until the beginning of July. He had also sent urgent messages to Caffarelli and King Joseph. Caffarelli had already promised, before news of Wellington's advance reached him, that if Marmont was attacked he would send him a substantial force of about eight thousand men, including a brigade of light cavalry and twenty-two guns. Joseph was less encouraging, for Soult was claiming that Wellington was about to attack Andalusia, but if Bonnet and Caffarelli's forces arrived on schedule, Marmont could expect to outnumber Wellington's army within a fortnight. However, the forts were unlikely to hold out this long and, with the bulk of his army near at hand, Marmont decided to advance and see if he could outmanoeuvre Wellington, and either relieve the forts, or at least force the allies to suspend their siege operations.