The Times Great Military Lives: Leadership and Courage – from Waterloo to the Falklands in Obituaries. Ian Brunskill

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СКАЧАТЬ a scrape,’ and he fought with the consciousness that all his reverses would be magnified and all his successes denied. Yet he failed neither in heart nor hand. He had verified all his own assertions respecting the defensibility of Portugal. His army had become a perfect model in discipline and daring, he was driving before him 80,000 of the best troops of the Empire, and he relied on the resources of his own genius for compensating those disadvantages to which he foresaw he must be still exposed. Such was the campaign of 1810, better conceived and worse appreciated than any which we shall have to record.

      As the maintenance of Portugal was subsidiary to the great object of the war, the deliverance of the Peninsula from French domination – Wellington of course proceeded, after successfully repulsing the invaders from Portuguese soil, to assume the offensive, by carrying his arms into Spain. Thus, after defeating Junot, he had been induced to try the battle of Talavera; and now, after expelling Massena, he betook himself to similar designs, with this difference that instead of operating by the valley of the Tagus against Madrid, he now moved to the valley of the Guadiana for the purpose of recovering Badajoz, a fortress, like that of Ciudad Rodrigo, so critically situated on the frontier, that with these two places in the enemy’s hands, as they now were, it became hazardous either to quit Portugal or to penetrate into Spain. At this point, therefore, were now to commence the famous sieges of the Peninsula – sieges which will always reflect immortal honour on the troops engaged, and which will always attract the interest of the English reader; but which must, nevertheless, be appealed to as illustrations of the straits to which an army may be led by want of military experience in the Government at home. By this time the repeated victories of Wellington and his colleagues had raised the renown of British soldiers to at least an equality with that of Napoleon’s veterans, and the incomparable efficiency, in particular, of the light division was acknowledged to be without a parallel in any European service. But in those departments of the army where excellence is less the result of intuitive ability, the forces under Wellington were still greatly surpassed by the trained legions of the Emperor. While Napoleon had devoted his whole genius to the organization of the parks and trains which attend the march of an army in the field, the British troops had only the most imperfect resources on which to rely. The Engineer corps, though admirable in quality, was so deficient in numbers that commissions were placed at the free disposal of Cambridge mathematicians. The siege trains were weak and worthless against the solid ramparts of Peninsular strongholds, the intrenching tools were so ill made that they snapped in the hands of the workmen, and the art of sapping and mining was so little known that this branch of the siege duties was carried on by draughts from the regiments of the line, imperfectly and hastily instructed for the purpose. Unhappily, these results can only be obviated by long foresight, patient training, and costly provision; it was not in the power of a single mind, however capacious, to effect an instantaneous reform, and Wellington was compelled to supply the deficiencies by the best blood of his troops.

      The command of the force commissioned to recover Badajoz had been intrusted to Marshal Beresford until Lord Wellington could repair in person to the scene, and it was against Soult, who was marching rapidly from the south to the relief of the place, that the glorious but sanguinary battle of Albuera was fought on the 16th of May. Having checked the enemy by this bloody defeat Beresford resumed the duties of the siege until he was superseded by the Commander-in-Chief. But all the efforts of Wellington and his troops were vain, for the present, against this celebrated fortress; two assaults were repulsed, and the British general determined on relinquishing the attempt, and returning to the northern frontier of Portugal for more favourable opportunities of action. He had now by his extraordinary genius so far changed the character of the war, that the British, heretofore fighting with desperate tenacity for a footing at Lisbon or Cadiz, were now openly assuming the offensive, and Napoleon had been actually compelled to direct defensive preparations along the road leading through Vittoria to Bayonne – that very road which Wellington in spite of these defences was soon to traverse in triumph. Meantime fresh troops were poured over the Pyrenees into Spain, and a new plan of operations was dictated by the Emperor himself. One powerful army in the north was to guard Castile and Leon, and watch the road by which Wellington might be expected to advance; another, under Soult, strongly reinforced, was to maintain French interests in Andalusia and menace Portugal from the south; while Marmont, who had succeeded Massena, took post with 30,000 men in the valley of the Tagus, resting on Toledo and Madrid, and prepared to concert movements with either of his colleagues as occasion might arise. To encounter these antagonists, who could rapidly concentrate 90,000 splendid troops against him, Wellington could barely bring 50,000 into the field; and though this disparity of numbers was afterwards somewhat lessened, yet it is scarcely in reason to expect that even the genius of Wellington or the value of his troops could have ultimately prevailed against such odds but for circumstances which favoured the designs of the British and rendered the contest less unequal. In the first place, the jealousies of the French marshals, when unrepressed by the Emperor’s presence, were so inveterate as to disconcert the best operations, being sometimes little less suicidal than those of the Princes of India. Next, although the Spanish armies had ceased to offer regular resistance to the invaders, yet the guerilla system of warfare, aided by interminable insurrections, acted to the incessant embarrassment of the French, whose duties, perils, and fatigues were doubled by the restless activity of these daring enemies. But the most important of Wellington’s advantages was that of position. With an impregnable retreat at Lisbon, with free water carriage in his rear, and with the great arteries of the Douro and the Tagus for conducting his supplies, he could operate at will from his central fastness towards the north, east, or south. If the northern provinces were temporarily disengaged from the enemy’s presence, he could issue by Almeida and Salamanca upon the great line of communication between the Pyrenees and Madrid; if the valley of the Tagus were left unguarded, he could march directly upon the capital by the well-known route of Talavera; while if Soult, by any of these demonstrations, was tempted to cross the Guadiana, he could carry his arms into Andalusia by Elvas and Badajoz. Relying, too, on the excellence of his troops, he confidently accounted himself a match for any single army of the enemy, – while he was well aware, from the exhausted state of the country and the difficulties of procuring subsistence, no concentration of the French forces could be maintained for many days together. In this way, availing himself of the far superior intelligence which he enjoyed through the agency of the guerillas, and of his own exclusive facilities for commanding supplies, he succeeded in paralysing the enormous hosts of Napoleon, by constant alarms and well-directed blows, till at length when the time of action came he advanced from cantonments and drove King Joseph and all his marshals headlong across the Pyrenees.

      The position taken up by Wellington when he transferred his operations from the south to the north frontier of Portugal was at Fuente Guinaldo, a locality possessing some advantageous features in the neighbourhood of Ciudad Rodrigo. His thoughts being still occupied by the means of gaining the border fortresses, he had promptly turned to Rodrigo from Badajoz, and had arranged his plans with a double prospect of success. Knowing that the place was inadequately provisioned he conceived hopes of blockading it into submission from his post at Fuente Guinaldo, since in the presence of this force no supplies could be thrown into the town unless escorted by a convoy equal to the army under his command. Either, therefore, the French marshal must abandon Rodrigo to its fate, or he must go through the difficult operation of concentrating all his forces to form the convoy required. Marmont chose the latter alternative, and uniting his army with that of Dorsenne advanced to the relief of Rodrigo with an immense train of stores and 60,000 fighting men. By this extraordinary effort not only was the place provisioned, but Wellington himself was brought into a situation of some peril, for after successfully repulsing an attempt of the French in the memorable combat of El Bodon he found himself the next day, with only 15,000 men actually at his disposal, exposed to the attack of the entire French army. Fortunately Marmont was unaware of the chance thus offered him, and while he was occupying himself in evolutions and displays Wellington collected his troops and stood once more in security on his position. This movement, however, of the French commander destroyed all hopes of reducing Rodrigo by blockade, and the British general recurred accordingly to the alternative he nad been contemplating of an assault by force.

      To comprehend the difficulties of this enterprise, it must be remembered that the superiority of strength was indisputably СКАЧАТЬ