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least 30,000 or 40,000 men would be needed. No doubt many
Italians were discontented with the Napoleonic régime, but they
would not commit themselves to rebellion unless a very large force
came to their help. If only a small army were landed, they would
show passive or even active loyalty to their existing government.
They might prefer a British to a French or an Austrian domination in
their peninsula, because it would be more liberal and less
extortionate. But they would want everything found for them—arms,
equipment, a subsidy. Unless the Government were prepared to start
a new war on a very large scale, to raise, clothe, and equip a great
mass of Italian troops, and to persevere to the last in a venture as
big as that in Spain, the plan would fail, and any landing force would
be compelled to re-embark with loss and disgrace[321].
On the whole Wellington’s protest proved successful: Lord
William was forced to leave a large body of his Anglo-Sicilians in
Spain, though he withdrew 2,000 men from Alicante early in April,
when it was most needful that the Allied force on the East Coast
should be strong. The remainder, despite (as we shall see) of very
bad handling by Sir John Murray, proved sufficient to keep Suchet
employed. No Italian expedition was permitted during the
campaigning season of 1813, though Lord William sent out a small
foreign expeditionary force for a raid on Tuscany, which much
terrified the Grand Duchess Eliza[322]. Next year only, when the whole
Napoleonic system was crumbling, did he collect a heterogeneous
army of doubtful value, invade Liguria, and capture Genoa from a
skeleton enemy. But by that time the French were out of Spain, and
Wellington’s plans could not be ruined by the distraction of troops on
such an escapade. In May 1813 the Italian expedition, if permitted,
might have wrecked the whole campaign of Vittoria, by leaving
Suchet free to join the main French army. How it would have fared
may be judged from the fact that the Viceroy Eugène made head all
through the autumn against 80,000 men of the Austrian Army of Italy.
So much may suffice to explain Wellington’s dealings during the
winter and spring of 1813 with the British Cabinet. His advice, as we
have seen, was always asked, and generally settled the problem in
the way that he desired. So much cannot be said for his dealings
with the Commander-in-Chief at the Horse Guards: the Duke of York
seems to have been the last person in Whitehall to recognize the
commanding intellect of the great general. Though he always wrote
with perfect courtesy, he evidently considered that his own views on
the organization, personnel, and management of the British Army
were far more important than those of the victor of Salamanca. The
correspondence of Wellington with the Duke and his Military
Secretary, Colonel Henry Torrens, occupies an enormous number of
pages in the volumes of Dispatches and Supplementary Dispatches.
Torrens, an obliging man, seems to have tried to make himself a
buffer between the two contending wills, and Wellington was
conscious of the fact that he was no enemy. The subjects of
contention were many.
One of the most important was patronage. Now that he had
reached the fifth year of his command in the Peninsula, Wellington
considered that he had won the right to choose his own chief
subordinates. But still he could not get officers of tried incapacity
removed from the front, nor prevent others, against whom he had a
bad mark, from being sent out to him. When he asked for removals,
he was told of ‘the difficulty of setting aside general officers who
have creditably risen to high rank’ on the mere ground that they have
been proved incapable, and unfit for their situations. But it was far
worse that when he had requested that certain generals should not
be sent out, they came to him nevertheless, despite of his definite
protest; and then, when he requested that they might be removed,
he was told that he would incur odium and responsibility for their
removal. ‘What a situation then is mine! It is impossible to prevent
incapable men from being sent to the army; and then when I
complain that they have been sent, I am to be responsible! Surely
the “odium” ought not to attach to the person who officially
represents that they are not capable of filling their situations’—but
(the aposiopesis may be filled up) to the Horse Guards for sending
them out. Yet Wellington’s pen did not add the words which are
necessary to complete the sense.
The most tiresome case in 1812-13 was that of Colonel James
Willoughby Gordon, who had come out as Quartermaster-General in
1812, when Wellington’s first and most trusted quarter-master,
George Murray, was removed (quite without his desire) to a post in
Ireland. Gordon was sent by the Duke of York’s personal choice[323],
without any previous consultation with the Commander-in-Chief in
Spain as to whether he would be acceptable. The atrocity of this
appointment was not only that Gordon was incapable, but that he
was a political intriguer, who was in close touch with the Whig
Opposition at home, and before he went out had promised to send
confidential letters on the campaign to Lord Grey. This he actually
did: the malicious Creevey had a privileged peep at them, and found
that ‘his accounts are of the most desponding cast. He considers our
ultimate discomfiture as a question purely of time, and that it may
happen any day, however early: and that our pecuniary resources
are utterly exhausted. The skill of the French in recovering from their
difficulties is inexhaustible: Lord W. himself owns that the
resurrection of Marmont’s broken troops after Salamanca was an
absolute miracle of war. In short, Gordon considers that Lord W. is in
very considerable danger[324].’ The writer was holding the most
important post on Wellington’s staff, and using the information that
he obtained for the benefit of the Parliamentary Opposition; he
should have been court-martialled for the abuse of his position for
personal ends. Wellington at last detected his mischief-making, by
the appearance in the Whig papers of definite facts that could only
have been known to three people—Wellington himself, his secretary
Fitzroy Somerset, and the Quartermaster-General. ‘I showed him,’
writes Wellington to Bathurst, ‘my dispatch to your Lordship of
August 3, as the shortest way of making him acquainted with the
state of affairs.... The topics of this dispatch find their way into the
Morning Chronicle, distorted into arguments against the
Government. I am quite certain that the arguments in the Morning
Chronicle are drawn from a perusal of my dispatches, and that no
one saw them here excepting the Quartermaster-General and Lord
Fitzroy. Even your Lordship had not yet received this dispatch, when
the topics it contained were used against the Government in the
newspapers.... For the future he shall not see what I write—it would
be no great loss to the Army if he were recalled to England. I cypher
part of this letter in the cypher you sent me to be used for General
Maitland[325].’
 It was four months before this traitor was got rid of, though Lord
Bathurst had been shocked by the news, and corroborated it by his
own observation: he had seen mischievous letters from Gordon to
the Horse Guards, and if he wrote such stuff to the Duke it was easy
to guess what he might write to Lord Grey or Whitbread. Certain of
the newspaper paragraphs must have come ‘from some intelligent
person with you[326].’ The strange way in which the removal was
accomplished was not by a demand for his degradation for misuse of
his office[327], but by a formal report to the Horse Guards that ‘Colonel
Gordon does not turn his mind to the duties to be performed by the
Quartermaster-General of an Army such as this, actively employed
in the field: notwithstanding his zeal and acknowledged talent, he
has never performed them, and I do not believe he ever will or can
perform them. I give this opinion with regret, and I hope His Royal
Highness will believe that I have not formed it hastily of an officer
respecting whose talents I, equally with His Royal Highness, had
entertained a favourable opinion[328].’ Three weeks later the Military
Secretary at the Horse Guards writes that Wellington shall have back
his old Quartermaster-General George Murray—and Gordon is
recalled[329]. But why had Gordon ever been sent? The Duke of York
alone could say. The impression which he had left as a soldier upon
men at the front, who knew nothing of his political intrigues, was
exceedingly poor[330].
This was the worst trick which was played on Wellington from the
Horse Guards. Another was the refusal to relieve him of the gallant
but muddle-headed and disobedient William Stewart, who despite of
his awful error at Albuera was allowed to come out to the Peninsula
again in 1812, and committed other terrible blunders: it was he who
got the three divisions into a marshy deadlock on the retreat from
Salamanca, by deliberate and wilful neglect of directions[331]. ‘With
the utmost zeal and good intentions he cannot obey an order,’ wrote
Wellington on December 6, 1812—yet Stewart was still commanding
the Second Division in 1814[332]. In letters sent to the Horse Guards
in December 1812 the Commander-in-Chief in Spain petitioned for
the departure of five out of his seven cavalry generals—which seems
a large clearance—and of ten infantry divisional and brigade
commanders. About half of them were ultimately brought home, but
several were left with him for another campaign. He had also asked
that he might have no more generals who were new to the Peninsula
inflicted upon him, because their arrival blocked promotion for
deserving colonels, to whom he was anxious to give brigades. ‘I
hope I shall have no more new Generals: they really do but little
good, and they take the places of officers who would be of real use.
And then they are all desirous of returning to England[333].’ The
appeal was in vain—several raw major-generals were sent out for
the spring campaign of 1813, and we have letters of Wellington
making apologies to Peninsula veterans, to whom he had promised
promotion, for the fact that the commands which he had been
intending for them had been filled up against his wishes by the
nominees of the Horse Guards. Things went a little better after
Vittoria, when several undesired officers went home, and several
deferred promotions took place—the news of that victory had had its
effect even in Whitehall.
It is more difficult to sympathize with Wellington’s judgement—
though not with his grievance—in another matter of high debate
during this winter. Like most men he disliked talking about his own
coffin, i. e. making elaborate arrangements for what was to happen
in the event of his becoming a casualty, like Sir John Moore. He
loathed the idea of ‘seconds in command’, arguing that they were
either useless or tiresome. He did not want an officer at his elbow
who would have a sort of right to be consulted, as in the bad old
days of ‘councils of war’; nor did he wish to have to find a separate
command for such a person to keep him employed[334]. It was true
that he often trusted Hill with an independent corps in Estremadura;
but frequently he called in Hill’s column and it became part of the
main army—as on the Caya in 1811, in the Salamanca retreat in
1812, and at Vittoria in 1813. In the winter of 1812-13 a point which
might have been of high importance was raised: who would be his
successor in case of a regrettable accident? Wellington decided that
Beresford was the proper choice—despite of Albuera. ‘All that I can
tell you is that the ablest man I have yet seen with the army, and the
one having the largest views, is Beresford. They tell me that, when I
am not present, he wants decision: and he certainly embarrassed
me a little with his doubts when he commanded in Estremadura: but
I am quite certain that he is the only person capable of conducting a
large concern[335].’ He also held that Beresford’s position as a
marshal in the Portuguese Army gave him a seniority in the Allied
Army over British lieutenant-generals.
This judgement of Wellington’s is surprising: Beresford was
courageous, a good organizer, a terror to shirkers and jobbers, and
accustomed to command. Yet one would have thought that his
record of 1811, when he displayed almost every possible fault alike
of strategy and of morale in Estremadura, would have ruled him out.
Wellington thought, as it would appear, that he had a better
conception of the war as a whole—‘the large concern’—than any of
the other generals in the Peninsula, and had every opportunity of
knowing. On this most critical point Wellington and the Duke of York
fell out at once: it was not that the Duke wanted to rule out Beresford
because he was undecided in the field, unpopular with his
colleagues, self-assertive or arrogant. He had a simple Horse
Guards rule which in his view excluded Beresford from consideration
at once. ‘According to the general received opinion of the Service no
officer in the British Army above the rank of lieutenant-colonel is ever
expected to serve under an officer junior to himself, even though he
may possess a superior local commission.’ He then proceeded to
recall the fact that in 1794, when Lord Moira came to Flanders with
the local rank of general, Sir Ralph Abercrombie, and a number of
other general officers with commissions of senior date, refused to
serve under him: in consequence of which Lord Moira had to resign
and to return to England. There were many similar examples in the
past. The right of officers to refuse to serve under a junior being
established, it could not be argued that higher rank acquired by that
junior in a foreign service had any weight. Beresford might be a
Portuguese field-marshal, but from the British point of view he was
junior to Sir Thomas Graham, Sir Stapleton Cotton, and Sir Rowland
Hill. If by some deplorable accident Lord Wellington were
incapacitated from command at the present moment, Sir Thomas
Graham, if with the Army, would succeed. If Sir Thomas were on sick
leave, Sir Stapleton Cotton would be the senior officer in the
Peninsula, and the command of the Army would automatically
devolve on him: if Sir Stapleton were also on leave, it would go to
General Hill.
‘It appears impossible to expect that British generals senior to
Marshal Beresford will submit to serve under him. It appears to the
Commander-in-Chief, therefore, that there remains but one of two
alternatives—the one to recall Marshal Beresford from the Peninsula
in case he should persist in his claim; the other, in case Lord
Wellington still prefers that officer as his second in command, to
recall all the British lieutenant-generals senior to him in our own
Army[336].’
This was a maddening reply, for though Wellington liked
Stapleton Cotton he had no delusions about his intellectual capacity.
The best he could say about him during the controversy was that ‘he
commands our cavalry very well; I am certain much better than many
who might be sent out to us, and who might be supposed much
cleverer than he is.’ As a matter of fact, Graham was on sick leave,
with an affliction of eyesight, which was supposed to be likely to
result in permanent incapacity. Cotton was also on short leave to
England on ‘urgent personal affairs[337],’ but expected back shortly.
Therefore the Duke’s letter was a proposal to consign the fate of the
British Army in the Peninsula to a gallant officer with the mental
capacity of a cavalry brigadier, who had never commanded a force of
all arms, and who was the cause of much quiet amusement to his
comrades, from his ostentatious dress and unconcealed admiration
for his own perfections.
Lord Bathurst tried to smooth matters, by asking Graham whether
he felt inclined to surrender any claim to take over the Peninsular
Army on account of his bad health. Sir Thomas replied that he
should decline the responsibility for that reason: that he hoped to
cause no difficulties, but that he could not agree that Beresford had
any claim, ‘his obligation to the service bound him not to sacrifice the
rights of British officers from a purely personal spirit of
accommodation.’ To which Bathurst replied that if he waived his
rights as a consequence of his ill health, while making no concession
on grounds of principle, perhaps Hill and Cotton might do the same.
To this the victor of Barrosa answered that he might consent, on the
distinct understanding that no precedent was created, and that the
arrangement was temporary[338].
His compliance proved useful: Stapleton Cotton arrived in
London shortly after and ‘expressed himself decidedly against Sir
William Beresford’s claims, and with some warmth.’ Lord Bathurst
explained to him that Graham’s consent to the ‘temporary
arrangement’ must govern his own, and tried to put him off the idea
that he himself would undoubtedly become Wellington’s destined
successor, if Graham refused the post, by hinting that after all
Graham might recover his eyesight, and be able to take over the
command. After showing much soreness, Cotton reluctantly
acquiesced. The War Minister, writing an account of the interview to
Wellington, ends with ‘I think it necessary to have this explained
beforehand, that you might not have any doubt whether you were,
after what has passed, to consider Sir Thomas Graham or Sir
Stapleton Cotton as the person who was to exercise the command in
case of your personal indisposition[339].’ So Beresford’s nomination
was passed, as Wellington desired, and contrary to the Duke of
York’s views as to the inevitable power of old precedent. But it was
only passed by the consent of the other parties concerned, however
reluctantly given. Fortunately Wellington preserved his usual
splendid health, and the experiment of trusting the whole Allied Army
in the Peninsula to the victor of Albuera was never made.
On another great controversy which (since Wellington never went
off duty for a day) was of more practical importance than that of the
right of succession, the Duke of York was partly successful in
discomfiting the Commander-in-Chief in Spain. This was a question
on which there had been much argument at the end of each
Peninsular campaign, but never so much as in 1812-13. The
exceptionally heavy casualty lists of the storming of Badajoz, the
battle of Salamanca, and the retreat from Burgos had brought a
great number of units, both cavalry and infantry, to very low figures.
There were (as has been mentioned in a previous chapter) twelve
battalions which had at the end of the retreat less than 300 bayonets
effective, thirteen which had more sick than men present with the
colours. For some of these the difficulty was only a momentary one
—there was a large draft on the way to reinforce the unit, or at least
a good number of trained recruits in Great Britain ready to be sent
out. But this was not the case with all of them: the reason of this was
to be sought in the organization of the Army in 1812: the majority of
infantry regiments had two battalions; if the second unit was on
home service, it regularly found drafts for the one at the front. But if
the regiment was a single-battalion corps (and there were seven
such with Wellington[340]), or if it chanced to have both units abroad
and none at home (as was the case with fifteen other corps[341]),
there was only a dépôt in Great Britain, and this had to feed two
battalions both on active service overseas, and often could not
discharge the double task effectively. There were of course
regiments so popular, or recruited with such zeal and efficiency, that
they succeeded in keeping two units abroad with adequate numbers:
but this was exceptional.
What was to be done if a Peninsular battalion had got very low in
numbers, had no sister-unit at home to feed it, and had few or no
recruits at its British dépôt ready to be sent out? This was the case in
December 1812 with twelve good old battalions of the Peninsular
Army[342]. The Duke of York maintained that since they all showed
under 350 effectives present (one was as low as 149 rank and file),
and since there was no immediate prospect of working them up to
even a low battalion strength of 450 or 500 men, they must come
home at once, and take a long turn of British service, in which they
could be brought up gradually to their proper establishment. He had
carried out this plan in earlier years with some very fine but wasted
battalions, such as the 29th and 97th. To replace the depleted
veteran corps, there should come out new battalions from home,
recently brought up to full strength. The same ought to be done with
four or five cavalry regiments, which could show only about 250
horses effective.
But Wellington had other views, and had begun to carry them out
on his own responsibility. He held that a well-tried battalion
acclimatized to Peninsular service was such a precious thing, and a
raw battalion such a comparatively worthless one, that it would be
best to combine the wasted units in pairs as ‘Provisional Battalions’
of 600 or 700 bayonets, each sending home the cadres of four or
five companies to its dépôt, and keeping six or five at the front. The
returning cadres would work up to full strength by degrees, and
could then come out again to join the service companies. On
December 6th, 1812, he issued orders to constitute three Provisional
Battalions[343]: he intended to carry out the same system for several
more pairs of battalions[344], and it was put into practice for the 2/31st
and 2/66th as from December 20. So with the cavalry, he intended to
reduce four regiments to a two-squadron establishment, sending
home the cadres of their other squadrons to be filled up at leisure.
On January 13th the Duke of York sent out a memorandum
entirely disapproving of the system. He regretted to differ in principle
from the Commander-in-Chief in Spain, but could not possibly
concur in the arrangement. All depleted battalions for which no drafts
could be found must come home at once. ‘Experience has shown
that a skeleton battalion composed of officers, non-commissioned
officers, and a certain foundation of old and experienced soldiers can
be re-formed for any service in a short time: but if a corps reduced in
numbers be broken up by the division of its establishment, such an
interruption is occasioned in its interior economy and esprit de corps,
that its speedy recompletion and reorganization for foreign service is
effectually prevented. The experiment now suggested has once
been tried, and has resulted in a degree of irregularity, contention,
and indiscipline in the regiment concerned, which had made
necessary the strongest measures.’ (Many court martials, and the
removal of the whole of the officers into other battalions.) It was
justly urged that seasoned men are more valuable than men fresh
from England, but for the sake of a present and comparatively trifling
advantage the general efficiency of the whole British Army must not
be impaired. All the depleted battalions should be sent home at
once[345].
Wellington was deeply vexed at this decision. He replied that
orders, if definitely given, would of course be obeyed; but if left to act
on his own responsibility, he could only say that the service in
America or Sicily or at home was not his concern, and that he was
bound to state what was best for the Peninsular Army. One old
soldier who has served two years in Spain was more effective than
two, or even three, who had not. Raw battalions fill the hospitals,
straggle, maraud, and starve. He never would part with the
Provisional Battalions as long as it was left to his discretion: and the
same with cavalry. He had four depleted cavalry regiments much
under-horsed: he would like to have the horses of the four hussar
regiments which were being sent to him from England to give to his
old Peninsula troopers, rather than the regiments themselves. But
orders are orders and must be obeyed[346].
The Duke replied that for his part he had to take into
consideration not only the Peninsula but the British service all over
the world. Drafting of one corps into another was hurtful to the
service and depressed the spirits of corps: it was even deemed
illegal. Though the last person in the world to wish to diminish the
Army in Spain or cripple its general’s exertions, he was compelled to
persevere in his direction from necessity[347].
On March 13th Wellington reluctantly carried out the orders from
the Horse Guards as regards his depleted cavalry regiments: the 4th
Dragoon Guards, 9th and 11th Light Dragoons, and 2nd Hussars of
the German Legion were ordered to make over their effective horses
to other regiments, and to prepare to embark at Lisbon. A paragraph
in the General Orders expressed Wellington’s regret at losing any of
his brave old troops, and his hope that he might yet see them again
at the front[348].
As to the infantry, the Duke repeating his general precept that
depleted battalions must come home, but not giving definite orders
for them by name and number, a curious compromise took place.
Wellington sent back to England the two weakest units, which were
still in April well under 300 bayonets apiece[349]: he had already
drafted a third into the senior battalion of its own regiment, which
was also in the Peninsula. Four more of the war-worn battalions had
been worked up to about 400 of all ranks, by the return of
convalescents and the arrival of small drafts—Wellington ventured to
keep them, and to report them as efficient battalions, if small
ones[350]. The challenge to Home authority lay with the remaining
six[351]: though five of them were well under 400 strong he
nevertheless stuck to his original plan and formed three provisional
battalions out of them. If the Duke of York wanted them, he must ask
for them by name: he did not, and they kept the field till the end of
the war, and were repeatedly mentioned by Wellington as among the
most efficient units that he owned. Presumably Vittoria put his
arrangements beyond criticism—at any rate, the controversy was
dropped at the Duke’s end. The net result was that Wellington lost
three depleted infantry units and four depleted cavalry units of the
old stock—about 2,000 veteran sabres and bayonets. In return he
received before or during the campaign of 1813 four new cavalry
regiments—all hussars[352]—and six new infantry battalions[353] all
much stronger than the units they replaced, and making up about
1,600 sabres and 3,000 bayonets. He would probably have said that
his real strength was not appreciably changed by getting 4,500 new
hands instead of 2,000 old ones. Certainly, considering the effort that
was required from the Peninsula Army in 1813, it is sufficiently
surprising that its strength was, on balance, only four infantry units to
the good—the cavalry regiments remaining the same in number as
in 1812.
There were plenty of small administrative problems to be settled
during the winter-rest of 1812-13, which worried Wellington but need
not worry the modern student of history, being in themselves trivial. It
is well, however, to note that in the spring of 1813 his old complaint
about the impossibility of extracting hard cash from the Government,
instead of the bank-notes and bills which the Spanish and
Portuguese peasantry refused to regard as real money, came
practically to an end. By heroic exertions the Chancellor of the
Exchequer was scraping together gold enough to send £100,000 a
month to Lisbon. A large sum in pagodas had been brought all the
way from Madras, and the Mint was busy all the year in melting them
down and recoining them as guineas. It was the first time since the
‘Suspension of Cash Payments Act’ of 1797 that any gold of this size
had been struck and issued. As the whole output went straight to the
Peninsula for the Army, the new coin was generally known as the
‘military guinea.’ Considering that gold was so much sought for in
England at the time that a guinea could command 27s. in paper, it
was no small feat to procure the Indian gold, and to see that the
much wanted commodity went abroad without diminution. Wellington
could have done with much more gold—six times as much he once
observed—but at least he was no longer in the state of absolute
bankruptcy in which he had opened the campaign of the preceding
year—nor obliged to depend for a few thousand dollars on profits to
be made on Egyptian corn which he sold in Lisbon, or impositions of
doubtful legality made upon speculators in Commissariat Bonds. The
Portuguese troops had their pay still in arrears—but that was not
Wellington’s responsibility. The muleteers of the transport train were
suffering from being paid in vales, which they sold to Lisbon sharks,
rather than in the cruzados novos or Pillar Dollars which they craved,
and sometimes deserted in not unnatural disgust. But, at the worst, it
could not be denied that finance looked a good deal more promising
than it had in 1812[354].
There had been much reorganization since the end of the Burgos
retreat. In uniforms especially the change was greater than in any
other year of the war: this was the first campaign in which the British
heavy cavalry showed the new brass helmet, discarding the
antiquated cocked hat—the light dragoons had gone into shakos,
relinquishing the black japanned leather helmet with bearskin crest.
Infantry officers for the first time appeared in shakos resembling
those of the rank and file—the unwise custom by which they had up
till now worn cocked hats, which made them easy marks for the
enemy’s snipers, being at last officially condemned. Another much
needed improvement was the substitution of small tin camp kettles,
to be carried by the men, for the large iron Flanders cooking-pots,
four to each company and carried on mules, which had hitherto been
employed. They had always been a nuisance; partly because the
mules could never be relied upon to keep up with the unit, partly
because their capacity was so large that it took much firewood and a
long space of time to cook their contents. Nothing is more common
in personal diaries of 1808-12 than complaints about rations that had
to be eaten half-cooked, or were not eaten at all, because the order
to move on arrived before the cauldrons had even begun to get
warm.
A more doubtful expedient was that of putting the great-coats of
the whole of the infantry into store before the march began.
Wellington opined that the weight of coat and blanket combined was
more than the soldier could be expected to carry. One or other must
be abandoned, and after much consideration it was concluded that
the blanket was more essential. ‘Soldiers while in exercise during the
day seldom wear their great-coats, which are worn by them only at
night, together with the blanket: but as the Commander of the forces
has now caused the army to be provided with tents, the necessity for
the great-coat for night use is superseded[355].’ And tents, as a matter
of fact, were provided for the first time during this campaign. The
expedient worked well enough during the summer and autumn,
when the weather was usually fine, in spite of some spells of rainy
weather in June. But in the Pyrenees, from October onward, the
tents proved inadequate protection both from sudden hurricanes and
from continuous snowfall. And bad though the plight of men huddled
in tents frozen stiff by the north wind might be, it was nothing to that
of the sentry on some mountain defile, trying to keep a blanket round
his shoulders in December blizzards. Yet the tents, with all their
defects, were a decided boon—it would have been impossible
indeed to hold the Pyrenean passes at all, if some shelter had not
been provided for the battalions of the front line. Villages available
for billeting were few and always in the hollows to the rear, not on the
crests where the line of defence lay. It would seem that the
experiment of dispensing with the great-coats was dropped, and that
they were brought round by sea to Pasages or St. Sebastian, for
personal diaries mention them as in use again, in at least some
regiments, by December. Oddly enough, there appears to be no
official record of the revocation of the order given in May.
Another innovation of the period was the introduction of a new
unit into the British Army—called (after the idiotic system of
nomenclature used at the Horse Guards) the ‘Staff Corps Cavalry.’
They were really military mounted police, picked from the best and
steadiest men in the cavalry regiments, and placed under the
command of Major Scovell, the cypher-secretary on Wellington’s
head-quarters staff, of whose activities much has been said in the
last volume. There were two troops of them, soon raised to four, with
a total strength of about 300 of all ranks[356]. The object of the
creation of the corps was to make more effectual the restraint on
marauding, and other crimes with which the Provost-Marshal and his
assistants were too few to deal. Wellington had railed with almost
exaggerated emphasis on the straggling, disorder, and looting which
had distinguished the Burgos retreat, and the Duke of York had
licensed the formation of this police-cavalry as the best remedy for
the disease. They had plenty to do after Vittoria, when the British
Army had the greatest orgy of plunder that ever fell to its lot during
the war. Wellington’s own view was that the slackness of discipline in
certain regiments, rather than privations or casual opportunity, was
the main source of all evil. But he welcomed any machinery that
would deal with the symptoms of indiscipline, even if it did not strike
at the roots of the disease. Over-leniency by courts martial was
another cause of misconduct according to his theory—with this he
strove to cope by getting from home a civilian Judge-Advocate-
General, whose task was to revise the proceedings of such bodies,
and disallow illegal proceedings and decisions. The first and only
holder of this office, Francis Larpent, has left an interesting and not
always discreet account of his busy life at Head-Quarters, which
included a strange episode of captivity in the French lines on the
Bidassoa[357].
 SECTION XXXV: CHAPTER IV
THE PERPLEXITIES OF KING JOSEPH.
FEBRUARY-MARCH 1813

We have seen, when dealing with the last month of 1812 and the
distribution of the French army into winter quarters, that all the
arrangements made by King Joseph, Jourdan, and Soult were
settled before any knowledge of the meaning of the Moscow Retreat
had come to hand. The famous ‘29th Bulletin’ did not reach Madrid
till January 6th, 1813; this was a long delay: but the Emperor’s return
to Paris on December 16th, though he arrived at the Tuileries only
thirty-six hours after the Bulletin had come to hand, was not known
to Joseph or Jourdan till February 14th—which was a vastly longer
delay. The road had been blocked between Vittoria and Burgos for
over five weeks—and couriers and dispatches were accumulating at
both these places—one set unable to get south, the other to get
north. The Minister of War at Paris received Joseph’s dispatches of
the 9th, 20th, and 24th of December all in one delivery on January
29th[358]. The King, still more unlucky, got the Paris dispatches of all
the dates between December 18th and January 4th on February
14th to 16th by several couriers who came through almost
simultaneously[359]. It was not till Palombini’s Italian division—in a
series of fights lasting from January 25 to February 13—had cleared
away Longa and Mendizabal from the high-road between Burgos
and Vittoria, that quicker communication between those cities
became possible.
Long as it had taken in 1812 to get a letter from Paris to Madrid,
there had never been such a monstrous gap in correspondence as
that which took place in January 1813. Hence came the strange fact
that when Napoleon had returned to France, and started on his old
system of giving strategical orders for the Army of Spain once more,
these orders[360]—one on top of another—accumulated at Vittoria,
and came in one overwhelming mass, to upset all the plans which
Joseph and Jourdan had been carrying out since the New Year.
The King had received the 29th Bulletin on January 6th: he had
gathered from it that matters were going badly with the army in
Russia, but had no conception of the absolute ruin that had befallen
his brother’s host. Hence he had kept his troops spread in the wide
cantonments taken in December, and had sent Daricau’s to the
province of Cuenca, to reopen the way to Suchet at Valencia. The
great convoy of Spanish and French administrators, courtiers, and
refugees, which had been left in Suchet’s care, retraced its way to
Madrid under escort of some of Daricau’s troops in the last days of
January. Meanwhile Pierre Soult’s cavalry continued to sweep La
Mancha, imposing contributions and shooting guerrilleros, and the
Army of the Centre cleared the greater part of the country east and
north of Madrid of strong parties of the Medico’s and the
Empecinado’s men. Caffarelli, as Jourdan complained, ought to have
been making more head in the North—but his dispatches were so
infrequent that his position could not be fully judged—it was only
certain that he could not keep the Burgos-Bayonne road open for
couriers.
There was only one touch during the winter with Wellington’s
army, whose cantonments, save those of the Light Division, were far
back, behind the ‘no man’s land’ which encircled the French armies.
This single contact was due to an adventurous reconnaissance by
Foy, who at his head-quarters at Avila had conceived a project for
surprising Hill’s most outlying detachment, the 50th regiment, which
was billeted at Bejar, in the passes in front of Coria. On false news
that no good look-out was being kept around Bejar, he started on the
19th February from Piedrahita with a column of three very weak
infantry battalions and 80 horse—about 1,500 men in all, and
marching day and night fell upon the cantonments of the 50th at
dawn on the morning of the 20th. The surprise did not come off.
Colonel Harrison of the 50th was a cautious officer, who had
barricaded the ruined gates of the town, and patched its crumbling
walls—He had picquets far out, and was accustomed to keep
several companies under arms from 2 o’clock till daylight every night.
Moreover Hill, thinking the position exposed, had lately reinforced
him with the 6th Caçadores, from Ashworth’s brigade. Foy, charging
in on the town in the dusk, dislodged the outlying picquets after a
sharp skirmish; but his advanced guard of 300 voltigeurs met such a
storm of fire from the gate and walls, which were fully manned, that it
swerved off when 30 yards from the entrance. Foy ordered a general
retreat, since he saw the enemy ready for him, and marched off as
quickly as he had come, pursued for some distance by the
Caçadores[361]. He says in his dispatch to Reille that he only lost two
men killed and five wounded, that he could have carried the town
had he pleased, and that he only retired because he was warned
that the 71st and 92nd, the other regiments of Cadogan’s brigade,
were marching up from Baños, seven miles away[362]. This those may
believe who please: it is certain that he made off the moment that he
saw that his surprise had failed, and that he was committed to an
attack on a barricaded town. Hill expected more raids of this sort, but
the attempt was never repeated.
It was on the 14th of February, five days before Foy’s adventure,
that King Joseph received his first Paris mail. Its portentous and
appalling contents were far worse than anything that he had
expected. The most illuminating item was a letter from Colonel
Desprez, his aide-de-camp, who had made the Moscow retreat, and
was able to give him the whole truth concerning Russia. ‘We lost
prisoners by the tens of thousands—but, however many the
prisoners, the dead are many more. Every nightly bivouac left
hundreds of frozen corpses behind. The situation may be summed
up by saying that the army is dead. The Young Guard, to which I was
attached, quitted Moscow 8,000 strong; there were 400 left at Wilna.
All the other corps have suffered on the same scale; I am convinced
that not 20,000 men recrossed the Vistula. If your Majesty asks me
where the retreat will stop, I can only reply that the Russians will
settle that point. I cannot think that the Prussians will resist: the King
and his ministers are favourably disposed—not so the people—riots
are breaking out in Berlin: crossing Prussia I had evidence that we
can hardly count on these allies. And it seems that in the Austrian
army the officers are making public demonstrations against
continuing the war. This is a sad picture—but I think there is no
exaggeration in it. On returning to Paris and thinking all over in cold
blood, my judgement on the situation is as gloomy as it was at the
theatre of war[363].’
Napoleon had spent several days at the Tuileries, busy with
grandiose schemes for the organization of a new Grande Armée, to
replace that which he had sacrificed in Russia, and with financial and
diplomatic problems of absorbing interest, before he found a moment
in which to dictate to Clarke his orders for the King of Spain. The
note was very short and full of reticences[364]: it left much unsaid that
had to be supplied by the recipient’s intelligence. ‘The King must
have received by now the 29th Bulletin, which would show him the
state of affairs in the North; they were absorbing the Emperor’s care
and attention. Things being as they were, he ought to move his
head-quarters to Valladolid, holding Madrid only as the extreme point
of occupation of his southern wing. He should turn his attention to
the pacification of Biscay and Navarre while the English were
inactive. Soult had been sent orders to come back to France—as the
King had repeatedly requested; his Army of the South might be given
over to Marshal Jourdan or to Gazan.’ If Joseph had owned no
independent sources of information such a statement would have left
him much in the dark, both as to the actual state of the Emperor’s
resources, and as to his intentions with regard to Spain. The
Emperor did not say that he had lost his army and must create
another, nor did he intimate how far he intended to give up his
Spanish venture. But the order to draw back to Valladolid and hold
Madrid lightly, could only be interpreted as a warning that there
would be no more reinforcements available for Spain, so that the
area of occupation would have to be contracted.
The recall of Soult was what Joseph had eagerly petitioned for in
1812, when he had come upon the curious letter in which the
Marshal accused him before the Emperor of treason to the French
cause[365]. But the Marshal was not brought home in disgrace; rather
he was sent for in the hour of danger, as one who could be useful to
the new Grande Armée. It must have been irritating to the King to
know, from a passage in the already-cited letter of Colonel Desprez,
that Napoleon had called the Duke of Dalmatia ‘the only military
brain in the Peninsula’, that he stigmatized the King’s denunciations
of him as des pauvretés to which he attached no importance, and
that he had added that half the generals in Spain had shared Soult’s
suspicions. The Marshal left, in triumph rather than in disgrace, with
a large staff and escort, and a long train of fourgons carrying his
Andalusian plunder, more especially his splendid gallery of Murillos
robbed from Seville churches[366].
Dated one day later than the Emperor’s first rough notes, we find
the formal dispatch from the war-minister Clarke, which made things
a little clearer. Setting forth his master’s ideas in a more verbose
style, Clarke explained that the affairs of Spain must be subordinated
to those of the North. The move to Valladolid would make
communication with Paris shorter and safer, and provide a larger
force to hold down Northern Spain. Caffarelli was not strong enough
both to hunt down the guerrilleros and at the same time to provide
garrisons on the great roads and the coast. The King would have to
lend him a hand in the task.
There were other dispatches for Joseph and Jourdan dated on
the 4th of January, but only one more of importance: this was an
order for wholesale drafts to be made from the Army of Spain, for the
benefit of the new Army of Germany. But large as they were, the
limited scale of them showed that the Emperor had not the least
intention of surrendering his hold on the Peninsula, or of drawing
back to the line of the Ebro or the Pyrenees, as Lord Liverpool had
expected[367]. All the six Armies of Spain—those of the North,
Portugal, the Centre, the South, Aragon, and Catalonia—were to
continue in existence, and the total number of men to be drawn from
any one of them did not amount to a fourth of its numbers. There
were still to be 200,000 men left in the Peninsula.
The first demand was for twenty-five picked men from each
battalion of infantry or regiment of cavalry, and ten from each battery
of artillery, to reconstitute the Imperial Guard, reduced practically to
nothing in Russia. Putting aside foreign regiments (Italian,
Neapolitan, German, Swiss) there were some 220 French battalions
in Spain in January 1813, and some 35 regiments of cavalry. The
call was therefore for 5,500 bayonets and 875 sabres—no great