BOOK VI.
Blockade of Ciudad Rodrigo—Combat of Elbodon—Combat of Aldea de Ponte—Surprise of Aroyo de Molinos—Defence of Tarifa—English Siege of Ciudad Rodrigo—Third English Siege of Badajos—Assault of Picurina—Assault of Badajos.
Blockade of Ciudad Rodrigo—Combat of Elbodon—Combat of Aldea de Ponte—Surprise of Aroyo de Molinos—Defence of Tarifa—English Siege of Ciudad Rodrigo—Third English Siege of Badajos—Assault of Picurina—Assault of Badajos.
Afterthe second siege of Badajos the contest in the Peninsula presented a new phase. French reinforcements were poured into Spain, forty thousand old soldiers entered by the northern line alone, and General Dorsenne took command of theArmy of the North, which now contained seventeen thousand of Napoleon’s young guard. The king had a particular force about Madrid called theArmy of the Centre; Soult commanded theArmy of the South; Marmont theArmy of Portugal, with which, by the emperor’s orders, he took post in the valley of the Tagus, leaving a division at Truxillo south of that river, establishing a bridge of communication at Almaraz, which he fortified on both sides strongly.
This disposition of the French armies was at once offensive and defensive. Portugal was menaced from the north by Dorsenne, who had Ciudad Rodrigo as an advanced place of arms; from the south by Soult, who had Badajos for an advanced place of arms; in the centre by Marmont, who could march on Abrantes, join Dorsenne, or unite with Soult. In defence the French were still more powerful. If Wellington assailed Dorsenne, the latter by retiring could concentrate a great force, while Marmont acted on the English right flank; and together they could present seventy thousand men in line. If he assailed Soult, as he had indeed designed before the failure of Badajos, Marmont could act on his left flank, and, united with Soult, could present sixty-five thousand fighting men. If he marched against Marmont by either bank of the Tagus, that marshal, reinforced with detachments from Dorsenne, Soult, and the king, could deliver battle with more than seventy thousand men.
The English general could not contend with such powerfularmies beyond the mountains of Portugal, yet from political pressure he could not stand still, and there were defects in his adversaries’ breast-plate through which he hoped to pierce. He saw that Badajos and Rodrigo were isolated and difficult to provision; that each depended for succour on the junction of armies under generals of equal authority, ill disposed to act together, and whose communications were long and uneasy, furnishing pretences for non-coöperation. Marmont had indeed a direct line of intercourse with Dorsenne across the Gredos mountains, by the fortified pass of Baños; but to reach Soult the Tagus was to be crossed at Almaraz, the defiles of Estremadura and the passes of the Morena to be threaded before a junction could be made in the plains of Badajos: wherefore, General Girard, having the remains of Mortier’s army, calledthe fifth corps, was employed as a moving column in Estremadura, to support Badajos and connect the army of Portugal with that of Soult.
In this state of affairs Wellington, who had received large reinforcements after the siege of Badajos, left General Hill, in August, with twelve thousand men of all arms to keep Girard in check, and in person marched to the north, under pretence of seeking healthy quarters for his sickly troops, really to blockade Ciudad Rodrigo, which an intercepted letter described as wanting provisions; it had however been previously supplied by Bessières before he quitted his command, and this effort was frustrated. The army was then placed near the sources of the Agueda and Coa, close to the line of communication between Marmont and Dorsenne, and preparations were made for a siege, in the notion that the last general’s force was weak: but that also was an error, and when discovered, a blockade was established. Almeida, whose renewed walls had been destroyed by Spencer when he marched to the south, was now repaired for a place of arms, the bridge over the Coa was restored, and with the utmost subtilty of combination and the most extensive arrangements the English general, while appearing only to blockade, secretly prepared for a siege. All his art was indeed required, for though the Anglo-Portuguese were at this time eighty thousand on paper, with ninety guns,twenty-two thousand men were in hospital; wherefore, Hill’s corps being deducted, less than forty-five thousand were on the watch to snatch a fortress which was in the keeping of eighty thousand.
In September Rodrigo called for succour, whereupon Marmont and Dorsenne advanced to its relief with sixty thousand men, six thousand being cavalry, and they had a hundred pieces of artillery. Wellington could not fight this great army beyond the Agueda, but would not retreat until he had seen all their force, lest a detachment should relieve the place to his dishonour. In this view he took the following positions.
Picton’s division, reinforced with three squadrons of German and British cavalry, was placed at the heights of Elbodon and Pastores, on the left of the Agueda, within three miles of Rodrigo. The light division with some squadrons of cavalry and six guns, were posted on the right of the Agueda, at the Vadillo, a river with a rugged channel falling into the Agueda three miles above Rodrigo: from this line an enemy coming from the eastern passes of the hills could be discerned. The sixth division and Anson’s brigade of cavalry, forming the left of the army, was under General Graham at Espeja, on the Lower Azava, with advanced posts at Carpio and Marialva, from whence to Rodrigo was eight miles over a plain. Julian Sanchez’s Partida watched the Lower Agueda, and the heads of columns were thus presented to the fortress on three points, namely, Vadillo, Pastores and Espeja. Two brigades of heavy cavalry on the Upper Azava, supported by Pack’s Portuguese, connected Graham with Elbodon; but he was very distant from Guinaldo, the pivot of operations, and to obviate the danger of a flank march in retreat the first and seventh divisions were posted in succession towards Guinaldo. The army was thus spread out on different roads, like the sticks of a fan, having their point of union on the Coa.
This disposition was faulty. Broad heights lining the left bank of the Agueda ended abruptly above the villages of Elbodon and Pastores, and were flanked in their whole length by woods and great plains, extending from Rodrigo to the Coa; they could not therefore be held against an enemy commanding those plains, and if the French pushedalong them suddenly, beyond Guinaldo, the distant wings could be cut off. At Guinaldo however, three field redoubts had been constructed on high open ground, to impose upon the enemy and so gain time to assemble and feel his disposition for a battle, because a retreat beyond the Coa was to be avoided if possible.
On the 23rd the French encamped behind the hills northeast of Rodrigo, and a strong detachment, entering the plain, looked at the light division on the Vadillo and returned.
The 24th, six thousand cavalry and four divisions of infantry crossed the hills in two columns to introduce the convoy, while on the English side the fourth division occupied the position of Guinaldo, and the redoubts were completed. No other change was made, for it was thought the French would not advance further; but the 25th, soon after daybreak, fourteen squadrons of the imperial guards drove Graham’s outpost from Carpio across the Azava; the Lancers of Berg then crossed that river in pursuit, but were flanked by some infantry in a wood and beaten back by two squadrons of the 14th and 16th Dragoons, who re-occupied the post of Carpio. During this skirmish, fourteen battalions of infantry and thirty squadrons of cavalry, with twelve guns, under Montbrun, passing the Agueda at Rodrigo marched towards Guinaldo; the road divided there, one branch turning the Elbodon heights on the French right the other leading through Pastores and Elbodon, and as the point of divarication was covered by a gentle ridge, it was doubtful which branch would be taken. Soon that doubt vanished. The cavalry pouring along the right-hand road leading to Guinaldo, drove in the advanced posts, and without waiting for their infantry fell on.
The action began disadvantageously for the allies. The left of the third division was turned, the 74th and 60th Regiments, being at Pastores, far on the right, were too distant to be called in, and Picton, having three other regiments at Elbodon, could take no immediate part in the fight. Wellington sent to Guinaldo for a brigade of the fourthdivision, and meanwhile directed General Colville to draw up the 77th and 5th British Regiments, the 21st Portuguese and two brigades of artillery of the same nation, on a hill over which the road to Guinaldo passed, supporting their flanks with Alten’s three squadrons. This position, convex towards the enemy, was covered, front and flanks, by deep ravines; but it was too extensive, and before Picton could come from Elbodon the crisis was over. Vainly the Portuguese guns sent their shot through Montbrun’s horsemen, they crossed the ravine in half squadrons, and with amazing vigour rode up the rough height on three sides; neither the loose fire of the infantry nor the artillery stopped them, but they were checked by the fine fighting of the cavalry, who charged the heads of the ascending masses, not once but twenty times, and always with a good will, maintaining the upper ground for an hour.
It was astonishing to see so few troopers resist that surging multitude even on such steep ground; but when Montbrun, obstinate to win, brought up his artillery, his horsemen, gaining ground in the centre, cut down some gunners and captured the Portuguese guns, and at the same time one German squadron, charging too far, got entangled in the ravines. The danger was then imminent, but suddenly the 5th Regiment, led by Major Ridge, a daring man, dashed bodily into the midst of the French cavalry and retook the artillery, which again opened, while the 77th, supported by the 21st Portuguese, vigorously repulsed the enemy on the left. These charges of infantry against a powerful cavalry, which had room to expand, could however only check the foe at particular points, and Montbrun pressed with fresh masses against the left of the allies, while other squadrons penetrated between their right and the village of Elbodon, from the inclosures and vineyards of which Picton was, with difficulty and some confusion, extricating his regiments. He could give no succour, the brigade of the fourth division was not in sight, the French infantry was rapidly approaching, and Wellington therefore directed both Picton and Colville to fall back and unite in the plain behind.
Colville, forming his battalions in two squares, descended at once from the hill, but Picton had a considerable distanceto move, there was a great interval, and at that moment, the cavalry, fearing to be surrounded, galloped for refuge to the Portuguese regiment, which was farthest in retreat. Then the 5th and 77th, two weak battalions formed in one square, were quite exposed, and in an instant the whole of the French horsemen came thundering down upon them. But how vain, how fruitless to match the sword with the musket, to send the charging horseman against the steadfast veteran! The multitudinous squadrons, rending the skies with their shouts, closed upon the glowing squares like the falling edges of a burning crater, and were as instantly rejected, scorched and scattered abroad; then a rolling peal of musketry echoed through the hills, bayonets glittered at the edge of the smoke, and with firm and even step the British regiments came forth like the holy men from the Assyrian’s furnace.
Picton now effected his junction and the whole retired to Guinaldo, about six miles. The French would not renew the close attack, yet plied shot and shell until the entrenched camp was gained; there the fourth division presented a fresh front, Pack then came in from Campillo, the heavy cavalry from the Upper Azava, and as it was near dusk the action ceased. The 74th and 60th Regiments, posted at Pastores, were abandoned by this retreat, but they crossed the Agueda at a ford, and moving up the right bank reached Guinaldo in the night after a march of fifteen hours.
Graham had early received orders to fall back on the first division, yet to keep posts of observation on the Azava, while Sanchez’s infantry went behind the Coa; the guerilla chief himself passed with his cavalry to the French rear, and the seventh division was withdrawn behind the left wing, which was now in line with the centre, though still distant. The light division should have come by Robledo to Fuente Guinaldo; Craufurd received the order at three o’clock, heard the cannonade, and might have reached it before midnight; but fearing a march in darkness he merely retired a league from the Vadillo, which was immediately passed by fifteen hundred French; Guinaldo was thus maintained by only fourteen thousand men, two thousand six hundred being cavalry. Graham was ten miles distant; the light division, debarred of a direct route by the enemy, was sixteen milesdistant; the fifth division, posted at Payo in the mountains, was twelve miles distant; and during the night and the following day, Marmont united sixty thousand men in front of Guinaldo. The English general was thus in great danger, yet he would not abandon the light division, which, intercepted by the French cavalry at Robledo, did not arrive until after three o’clock in the evening. Marmont’s fortune was fixed in that hour! He knew not how matters really stood. He detached a strong column by the valley of the Azava to menace the allies’ left, and made an ostentatious display of the Imperial Guards in the plain, instead of attacking an adversary who laughed to see him so employed, and soon changed the state of affairs.
In the night, by an able concentric movement, Wellington united his whole army on new ground between the Coa and the sources of the Agueda, twelve miles behind Guinaldo. Marmont, unconscious of his advantages, instead of troubling this difficult movement had also retired in the night, and was marching back when the scouts of his column in the valley of Azava reported that the allies were in retreat, and their divisions widely separated. Then discovering all the deceit of Guinaldo, and the escape of the light division, he prophetically exclaimed, alluding to Napoleon’s fortune,And Wellington, he also has a star.In this mood he would have continued his retreat, but it is said Dorsenne forced him to wheel round and pursue: Wellington was then however in a strong position behind the stream of the Villa Maior, where he could not be turned, and where it covered all the practicable roads leading to the bridges and fords of the Coa.
The French moved by two roads against the right and centre. Checked on the first by the light division, on the second their horsemen drove the cavalry posts across the Villa Maior and took possession of Aldeaponte, where at twelve o’clock the head of their infantry attacked a brigade of the fourth division, posted on opposing heights, under General Pakenham. Wellington arriving at that moment directed a charge, and the French were driven back; theyattempted to turn the brigade by a wood on their own left while their cavalry advanced to the foot of the hills, but the artillery sufficed to baffle the effort, and then the English general, taking the offensive, turned their left and seized the opposite hills: this finished the action and Aldeaponte was re-occupied. Wellington, who had been much exposed to fire, rode to another part, yet scarcely had he departed when the French from the other road joined those near Aldeaponte, and at five o’clock retook the village; Pakenham recovered it, but the enemy was very numerous, the country rugged, and so wooded he could not tell what was passing on the flanks: wherefore, knowing the chosen ground of battle was behind the Coa, he abandoned Aldeaponte for his original post.
In the night the allies retreated, and on the morning of the 28th occupied a new and strong position in a deep loop of the Coa, where it could only be attacked on a narrow front; but the French, who had brought only a few days’ provisions and could gather none in that country, retired the same day. Dorsenne marched to Salamanca, a strong division was posted at Alba de Tormes to communicate with Marmont, and the latter resumed his old position in the valley of the Tagus. The light division, reinforced by some cavalry, now resumed the nominal blockade of Ciudad Rodrigo, in concert with Julian Sanchez; the rest of the army was cantoned on both sides of the Coa and head-quarters were fixed at Freneda.
Only three hundred men and officers fell in these combats on the British side. The French lost more, because of the unreturned fire at Elbodon, and here a fine chivalric action on their side merits notice. In one of the cavalry fights, an officer in the act of striking at Felton Harvey of the 14th Dragoons, perceived that he had but one arm and with a rapid change brought down his sword to a salute and passed on!
While Rodrigo was being blockaded, General Hill co-operated with the Spaniards in Estremadura against General Drouet, who first joined Girard, but after various movementsreturned to the Morena, leaving his colleague at Caceres between the Tagus and the Guadiana. From that place Hill drove him the 26th of October, and hoping to cut him off from the bridge of Merida, moved by a cross road next day. On the march he heard Girard had halted in Arroyo de Molinos, leaving a rear-guard on the Caceres road—thus showing he knew not of the cross-road movement and looked for pursuit only from Caceres. With a rapid decision and a forced march the English general moved in the night upon Alcuesca, just one league from Arroyo, which was in a plain, and close behind it rose a rocky sierra, crescent-shaped, and about two miles wide on the chord. From Alcuesca one road led direct to Arroyo, another entered it on the left, and three led from it, the most distant of the last being the Truxillo road, which rounded the extremity of the sierra; the nearest was the Merida road, and between them was that of Medellin. The weather was very stormy and wet, but no fires were permitted in the allies’ camp, and at two o’clock in the morning of the 28th the troops moved to a low ridge half a mile from Arroyo, under cover of which they formed three bodies—the infantry on the wings, the cavalry in the centre. The left column marched straight upon the village, the right towards the extreme point of the sierra, where the Truxillo road turned the horn of the crescent, the cavalry kept the centre.
One brigade of Girard’s division had marched at four o’clock by the road of Medellin, but Dombrouski’s brigade and the cavalry of Briche were still in the place, and the horses of the rear-guard, unbridled, were tied to trees. The infantry were gathering on the Medellin road outside the village, and Girard was in a house waiting for his horse, when two British officers galloped into the street and in an instant all was confusion; hastily the cavalry bridled their horses and the infantry ran to their alarm-posts, but a tempest raged, a thick mist rolled down the craggy mountain, a terrific shout was heard amidst the clatter of the elements, and with the driving storm the 71st and 92nd Regiments came charging down. The French rear-guard of horsemen, fighting and struggling hard, were driven to the end of the village, where the infantry, forming their squares, endeavoured to cover the main body of the cavalry; but then the71st, lining the garden walls, opened a galling fire on the nearest square, the 92nd, filing out of the streets, formed upon the French right, and the 50th Regiment, following closely, secured the prisoners.
The rest of the column, headed by the Spanish cavalry, skirted outside the houses to intercept the line of retreat, and soon the guns opened on the squares, and the 13th Dragoons captured the French artillery, while the 9th Dragoons and German Hussars dispersed their cavalry. Girard, an intrepid officer, although wounded, still kept his infantry together, retreating by the Truxillo road; but the right column of the allies was in possession of that line, the cavalry and artillery were close upon his flank, and the left column followed fast; his men fell by fifties and his situation was desperate, yet he would not surrender, and giving the word to disperse endeavoured to scale the almost inaccessible rocks of the sierra. His pursuers, not less obstinate, immediately divided. The Spaniards ascended the hills at an easier point beyond his left; the 39th Regiment and Ashworth’s Portuguese turned the mountain by the Truxillo road; the 28th and 34th, led by General Howard, followed him step by step up the rocks, taking prisoners, but finally the pursuers, heavily loaded, were beaten in speed by men who had thrown away their arms and packs. Girard, Dombrouski, and Briche, escaped into the Guadalupe mountains, and then crossing the Guadiana at Orellana, on the 9th of November rejoined Drouet with six hundred men, the remains of three thousand: they were said to be the finest troops then in Spain, and their resolution in such an appalling situation was no mean proof of their excellence.
Thirteen hundred prisoners, including General Bron and the Prince of Aremberg, all the artillery, baggage, commissariat, and a contribution just raised, were taken. The allies had seventy killed and wounded, and one officer, Lieutenant Strenowitz, was taken. He was an Austrian, and distinguished for courage and successful enterprises, but he had abandoned the French to join Julian Sanchez, and was liable to death by the laws of war. Originally forced into the French service he was, in reality, no deserter, and General Hill applied frankly in his favour toDrouet, who was so good-tempered that, while smarting under this disaster, he released his prisoner.
This exploit set all the French corps in motion to revenge it; yet on the 28th of November Hill, by a forced march, again surprised three hundred infantry and some hussars under Captain Neveux, who however lost only forty men, escaping the British cavalry, said his generous antagonist, by “the intrepid and admirable manner in which he retreated.”
Soult had long resolved to reduce the maritime town of Tarifa, but General Campbell, governor of Gibraltar, equally resolute to prevent him, threw in an English garrison, under Colonel Skerrett. The defences were ancient, the place being encircled with towers connected by an archery wall, irregular, without a ditch, and too thin to resist even field artillery. It was commanded also by heights within cannon-shot, but the English engineer Smith21adapted the defence to the peculiarities of ground so skilfully as to fix the enemy’s attention entirely to one point, which offered facilities for an internal resistance, to begin when the weak ramparts should be broken.
Tarifa was cloven by a periodical torrent, entering at the east and passing out at the west. It was barred at the entrance by a tower with a portcullis, in front of which palisades were planted across its bed. The houses within the walls were strongly built on inclined planes, rising from each side of the torrent; and at the exit of the water were two massive structures, called the tower and castle of the Gusmans, both looking up the hollow formed by the inclined planes. From these structures, a sandy neck, prolonged by a causeway for eight hundred yards, joined the town to an island, whose perpendicular sides forbade entrance save by the causeway which ended on an unfinished entrenchment and battery.
On the neck of land were sand hills, the highest, called the Catalina, being scarped and crowned with a field-work holding a twelve-pounder. This hill masked the causeway towards the enemy, and with the tower of the Gusmans,which was armed with a ship eighteen-pounder, flanked the western front of the tower. This tower gun also shot clear over Tarifa to the slope where the French batteries were expected, and there were a ship of the line, a frigate, and some gun-boats, anchored to flank the approaches.
Smith deterred the enemy from attacking the western front by the flanking fire of a fortified convent beyond the walls, by the Catalina hill, and by the appearance of the shipping; but he deceitfully tempted an attack on the eastern front and the line of the torrent, whose bed rendered the inner depth of wall greater than the outer. There he loopholed the houses behind, opened communications to the rear, and barricaded the streets; so that the enemy, after forcing the breach, would have been confined between the houses on the inclined planes, exposed on each side to musketry from loopholes and windows, and in front to a fire from the Gusmans, which looked up the bed of the torrent; finally the garrison could have taken refuge in that castle and tower, which, high and massive, were fitted to cover the evacuation, and were provided with ladders for the troops to descend and retreat to the island under protection of the Catalina.
There was no want of guns. Besides those of the Catalina, there were in the island twelve pieces, comprising four twenty-four pounders and two ten-inch mortars; in the town were six field-pieces, with four cohorns on the east front; an eighteen-pounder was on the Gusmans, a howitzer on the portcullis tower, and two field-pieces were in reserve for sallies: yet most of the island ordnance was mounted after the investment, and the walls and towers of the town were too weak and narrow to sustain heavy guns; hence only three field-pieces and the cohorns did in fact reply to the enemy’s fire.
The garrison, including six hundred Spanish infantry and one hundred horse of that nation, amounted to two thousand five hundred men, of whom seven hundred were in the island, one hundred in the Catalina, two hundred in the convent, and fifteen hundred in the town.
On the 19th of December, General Laval, having eight thousand men, drove in the advanced posts, but was with a sharp skirmish designedly led towards the eastern front.
The 20th the place was invested, and the 21st someFrench troops having incautiously approached the western front, Captain Wren of the 11th, suddenly descended from the Catalina and carried them off. In the night the enemy approached close to the walls of that front, but in the morning Wren again fell on them; and at the same time a sally of discovery was made from the convent so vigorously that Lieutenant Welstead of the 82nd, entering one of the enemy’s camps captured a field-piece; he was unable to bring it off in face of the French reserves, yet the latter were drawn by the skirmish under the fire of the ships, of the island, and of the town, whereby they suffered severely and with difficulty recovered the captured piece.
In the night of the 22nd the anticipations of the British engineer were realized. The enemy broke ground five hundred yards from the eastern front, and worked assiduously until the 26th, under a destructive fire, replying principally with wall-pieces, which would have done much mischief if the garrison had not been copiously supplied with sand-bags.
On the 23rd the ships were driven off in a gale; on the 29th the French guns opened against the town and their howitzers against the island; the piece at the Gusmans was dismounted, yet quickly re-established; but the ramparts came down by flakes, and in a few hours opened a wide breach a little to the English right of the portcullis tower. Skerrett then proposed to abandon the place, and though strenuously opposed by Major King and the engineer Smith, he would have done so, if General Campbell, hearing of this intention, had not called away the transports. Tarifa was indeed open to assault and escalade. But behind the breach the depth to the street was fourteen feet, and Smith had covered the ground below with iron gratings, having every second bar turned up; the houses were also prepared and garrisoned, and the troops well disposed on the ramparts, each regiment having its own quarter. The breach was held by the 87th under Colonel Gough.22On his left were some riflemen: on his right some Spaniards should have been, yet were not, and two companies of the 47th took their place.
In the night of the 29th the enemy fired salvos of grape,but the besieged cleared the foot of the breach between the discharges.
The 30th the breaching fire was renewed, and the wall, broken for sixty feet, offered an easy ascent; yet the besieged again removed the rubbish, and in the night were augmenting the defences, when, flooded by rain, the torrent brought down from the French camp a mass of planks, fascines, gabions, and dead bodies, which broke the palisades, bent the portcullis back, and with the surge of waters injured the defences behind: a new passage was thus opened in the wall, yet the damage was repaired before morning, and the troops confidently awaited the assault.
In the night the torrent subsided as quickly as it had risen, and at daylight a living stream of French grenadiers gliding swiftly down its bed, as if assured of victory, arrived without shout or tumult within a few yards of the walls; but then, instead of quitting the hollow to reach the breach, they dashed like the torrent of the night against the portcullis. The 87th, previously silent and observant, as if at a spectacle, now arose and with a shout and a crashing volley smote the head of the French column; the leading officer, covered with wounds, fell against the portcullis grate and gave up his sword through the bars to Colonel Gough: the French drummer, a gallant boy, while beating the charge dropped lifeless by his officer’s side, and the dead and wounded filled the hollow. The survivors breaking out right and left, and spreading along the slopes of ground under the ramparts, opened an irregular musketry, and at the same time men from the trenches leaped into pits digged in front and shot fast; but no diversion at other points was made and the storming column was dreadfully shattered. The ramparts streamed fire, and a field-piece sent a tempest of grape whistling through the French ranks in such a dreadful manner that, unable to endure the torment, they plunged once more into the hollow and regained their camp, while a shout of victory mingled with the sound of musical instruments passed round the wall of the town.
The allies had five officers wounded, and thirty-one men killed or hurt; the French dead covered the slopesin front of the rampart, and choked the bed of the river: ten wounded officers, of whom only one survived, were brought in by the breach, and Skerrett, compassionating the sufferings of the others, and admiring their bravery, permitted Laval to fetch them off. The siege was then suspended, for the rain had partially ruined the French batteries, interrupted their communications, and stopped their supplies; and the torrent, again swelling, broke the stockades of the allies and injured their retrenchments: some vessels also, coming from Gibraltar with ammunition, were wrecked on the coast. Nevertheless a fresh assault was expected until the night of the 4th, when frequent firing in the French camp without any bullets reaching the town, indicated that the enemy were destroying guns previous to retreating. Hence, at daylight the besieged, issuing from the convent, commenced a skirmish with the rear-guard, but were impeded by a heavy storm and returned, after making a few prisoners. Laval’s misfortunes did not end there. His troops had contracted sickness, many deserted, and it was computed the expedition cost him a thousand men, while the allies lost only one hundred and fifty, and but one officer, Longley of the engineers, was killed.
Such is the simple tale of Tarifa, yet the true history of its defence cannot there be found. Colonel Skerrett obtained the credit, but he and Lord Proby, second in command, always wished to abandon both town and island. It was the engineer Smith’s vigour and capacity which overmatched the enemy’s strength without, and the weakness of those commanders within, repressing despondency where he failed to excite confidence. Next in merit was the artillery captain, Mitchel, a noble soldier who has since perished in the Syrian campaign against Ibrahim Pasha: his talent and energy at Tarifa were conspicuous.
Lord Wellington, unable to maintain the blockade of Rodrigo, had withdrawn behind the Coa in November and widely spread his army for provisions; but the year 1812 opened favourably for his views. Napoleon, then preparing for his gigantic invasion of Russia, had recalled from Spainmany old officers and sixty thousand of the best soldiers, including all the Imperial Guards. TheArmy of the North, thus reduced, was ordered to quarter about Burgos, while theArmy of Portugal, leaving troops to guard Almaraz, moved across the Gredos mountains into the Salamanca country. It had been reinforced with eighteen thousand men, but was spread for subsistence from Salamanca to the Asturias on one side, and to the valley of the Tagus and Toledo on the other; Montbrun also had been detached from it to Valencia. TheArmy of the Centrewas in a state of great disorder, and the king and Marmont were at open discord. In this state of affairs, seeing that Ciudad Rodrigo was weakly guarded, that Marmont, deceived by previous combination, had no suspicion of a siege, that Soult’s attention was fixed on Tarifa; seeing in fine that opportunity was ripe, Lord Wellington leaped with both feet on Ciudad Rodrigo.
Thirty-five thousand men, cavalry included, were disposable for this siege, the materials for which were placed in villages on the left of the Azava river, and the ammunition in Almeida, where seventy pieces of ordnance had been secretly collected. Hired carts and mules were employed to bring up the stores, but for the guns the means of transport were so scanty that only thirty-eight could be brought to the trenches. A bridge was laid down on the Agueda, six miles below the fortress, on the 1st of January, and the investment was designed for the 6th, but the native carters took two days to travel ten miles of good road with empty carts, and it could not be made before the 8th: to find fault with them was dangerous, as they deserted on the slightest offence.
Rodrigo was on high ground overhanging the right bank of the Agueda; an old rampart thirty feet high, nearly circular and flanked with a few projections, formed the body of the fortress; a second bulwark, called aFausse-braye, with a ditch and covered way, enclosed this rampart, yet was placed so low on the descent, as to give little cover to the main wall.
Beyond the walls, on the side farthest from the river, the suburb of Francisco was intrenched, and within it two large convents were fortified; the convent of Santa Cruz on theopposite side, near the river, was fortified as another outwork; and nearly between those points was an isolated ridge called the Little Teson, of less elevation than the place but only one hundred and fifty yards distant.
Behind the Little Teson and parallel to it, was another ridge called the Great Teson, which at six hundred yards overlooked the lesser one, and saw over it to the bottom of the ditch.
In the centre of the large Teson, on the edge towards the town, was an enclosed and palisadoed redoubt called Francisco, which was supported by the fire of two guns and a howitzer, placed on the flat roof of a convent in the fortified suburb. An old castle, forming part of the walls, gave access to the bridge at pistol-shot distance, but was of little value in defence.
On the side of the Tesons the ground was rocky, the front of the place better covered with outworks, and more fire could be directed on the trenches; yet that line of attack was adopted with reason, because elsewhere the batteries must have been constructed on the edge of the counterscarp to see low enough for breaching; whereas the lesser Teson would enable them to strike over the glacis, and a deep gully near the latter offered cover for the miner. It was therefore resolved to storm Fort Francisco, form a lodgement there, open the first parallel along the greater Teson, place thirty-three pieces in counter-batteries, ruin the defences and drive the besieged from the convent of Francisco; then, working forward by the sap, breaching batteries were to be raised on the lesser Teson and the counterscarp blowed in, while seven guns demolished a weak turret on the left, and opened a second breach to turn retrenchments behind the principal one. Previous to breaking ground, Carlos España and Julian Sanchez were pushed to the Tormes, and then four British divisions and Pack’s Portuguese commenced the siege; but as neither fuel nor cover were to be had on that side of the Agueda, the troops kept their quarters on the hither bank, cooking their provisions there and fording the river each day in severe frost and snow. Eight hundred carts drawn by horses had been constructed by the artificers, and were now the surest means for bringing up ammunition; but so many delays were anticipated from the irregularityof the native carters and muleteers, and the chances of weather, that Wellington calculated upon an operation of twenty-four days. He hoped to steal that time from his adversaries, yet knew, if he failed, the clash of arms would draw their scattered troops to this quarter as tinkling bells draw swarming bees: and to make them thus gather and consume their magazines was an essential part of his warfare.
On the 8th of January the light division and Pack’s Portuguese forded the Agueda, three miles above the fortress, and took post beyond the great Teson, where they remained quiet, and as there was no regular investment the enemy did not think the siege was commenced. But in the evening the troops stood to their arms, and Colonel Colborne, now commanding the 52nd, taking two companies from each regiment of the light division stormed the redoubt of Francisco. This he did with so much fury that the assailants appeared to be at one and the same time in the ditch, mounting the parapets, fighting on the top of the rampart, and forcing the gorge of the redoubt, where the explosion of a French shell had burst the gate open. Of the defenders, a few were killed and forty made prisoners. The post being thus taken with a loss of only twenty-four men and officers, a lodgement was begun on the right, because the fort was instantly covered with shot and shells from the town. This tempest continued through the night, yet at daybreak the parallel, six hundred yards in length, was sunk three feet deep, four wide, and a communication over the Teson was completed: thus the siege gained several days by this well-managed assault.
On the 9th the first division took the trenches, and the place was encircled by posts to prevent any external communication. In the night twelve hundred workmen commenced three counter-batteries for eleven guns each, under a heavy fire of shells and grape; before daylight the labourers obtained cover, and a ditch was sunk in front to provide earth for the batteries, which were made eighteen feet thick at top to resist the powerful artillery of the place.
On the 10th the fourth division relieved the trenches, and a thousand men laboured, yet in great peril, for the besiegedhad a superabundance of ammunition and did not spare it. In the night a communication from the parallel to the batteries was opened, and on the 11th the third division undertook the siege.
This day the magazines in the batteries were excavated and the approaches widened; but the enemy’s fire was destructive, and shells fell so on the ditch in front of the batteries that the troops were withdrawn, and earth raised from the inside. Great damage was also sustained from salvos of shells with long fuzes, whose simultaneous explosion cut away the parapets in a strange manner, and in the night a howitzer from the garden of the Francisco convent killed many men.
On the 12th the light division resumed work, and the riflemen during a thick fog digged pits for themselves in front of the trenches, from whence they picked off the enemy’s gunners; yet the weather was so cold and the besieged shot so briskly little progress was made. The 13th, the same causes impeded the labourers of the first division. The scarcity of transport also baulked the operations, for one third only of the native carts arrived, the drivers were very indolent, most of the twenty-four pound ammunition was still at Villa de Ponte, and intelligence arrived that Marmont was preparing to succour the place. Wellington, thus pressed, decided to open a breach with his counter-batteries, which were only six hundred yards from the curtain, and then storm without blowing in the counterscarp: in other words, to overstep the rules of science and sacrifice life rather than time, for the capricious Agueda might in one night flood and enable a small French force to relieve the place.
The whole army was now brought up and posted in villages on the Coa, ready to cross the Agueda and give battle. Hill also sent a division across the Tagus, lest Marmont, despairing to save Rodrigo, should fall on the communications by Castello Branco and Villa Velha.
In the night of the 13th the batteries were armed with twenty-eight guns, the approaches were continued by the flying sap, and the Santa Cruz convent was surprised by the Germans of the first division, which secured the right flank of the trenches.
On the 14th the enemy, who had observed that the menin the trenches, when relieved, went off in a disorderly manner, made a sally and overturned the gabions of the sap; they even penetrated to the parallel, and were upon the point of entering the batteries, when a few workmen getting together checked them until a support arrived. The guns were thus saved, but this sally, the death of the engineer on duty, and the heavy fire from the town, delayed the opening of the breaching-batteries. However, at half-past four in the evening twenty-five heavy guns battered the fausse-braye and ramparts, while two pieces smote the convent of Francisco. Then was beheld a spectacle fearful and sublime. For the French replied with more than fifty pieces, and the bellowing of eighty large guns shook the ground far and wide; the smoke rested in heavy volumes upon the battlements of the place, or curled in light wreaths about the numerous spires, and the shells hissing through the air seemed fiery serpents leaping from the darkness; the walls crashed to the stroke of the bullet, and the distant mountains, faintly returning the sound, appeared to moan over the falling city. When night put an end to this turmoil, the quick clatter of musketry was heard like the pattering of hail after a peal of thunder, for the 40th Regiment assaulted and carried the convent of Francisco, and established itself in the suburb on the left of the attack.
Next day the ramparts were again battered, and fell so fast it was judged expedient to commence the small breach, wherefore in the night five more guns were mounted. The 16th, at daylight, the batteries recommenced, but at eight o’clock a thick fog compelled them to desist; nevertheless the small breach was open and the place was summoned, yet without effect. At night the parallel on the Lower Teson was extended, a sharp musketry was directed against the great breach, and the riflemen of the light division, from their pits, picked off the enemy’s gunners.
The 17th the fire on both sides was heavy and the wall was beaten down in large cantles; but several of the besiegers’ guns were dismounted, their batteries injured, many men killed, the general of artillery wounded, and the sap entirely ruined. The riflemen in the pits were overpoweredwith grape, yet towards evening recovered the upper hand; the French could then only fire from distant embrasures, and in the night a new battery against the lesser breach was armed, and that on the Lower Teson was raised to afford more cover.
On the 18th, the besiegers’ fire being resumed with great violence, a turret was shaken at the small breach, and the large breach became practicable in the middle; the enemy commenced retrenching it and the sap made no progress, the engineer was badly wounded, and a twenty-four pounder, bursting, killed several men. In the night the battery on the Lower Teson was improved, and a field-piece and howitzer from thence played on the great breach to destroy the retrenchments.
On the 19th both breaches became practicable, the assault was ordered, the battering-guns were turned against the artillery of the ramparts, and the order of attack terminated with these remarkable words, “Ciudad Rodrigo must be stormed this evening.”—“We will do it,” was the soldiers’ comment.
For the storm the third and light divisions and Pack’s Portuguese were organized in four parts.
1°.Right attack.On the extreme right, troops posted in some houses beyond the bridge were to cross the river and escalade an outwork in front of the castle, where there was no ditch, but where two guns commanded the junction of the counterscarp. On their left, two regiments, assembled behind the convent of Santa Cruz with a third in reserve, were to enter the ditch at the extremity of the counterscarp, escalade the fausse-braye, and scour it on their left as far as the great breach.
2°.Great breach.One hundred and eighty men carrying hay-bags were to move out of the second parallel, followed by a storming party, and supported by Mackinnon’s brigade of the third division.
3°.Left attack.The light division, assembled behind the convent of Francisco, was to send three rifle companies to scour the fausse-braye on the right. At the same time a storming party, preceded by men carrying hay-sacks and followed by the division, was to assault the small breach, detaching men, when the fausse-braye should be passed, totheir right to assist the main assault, to the left to force a passage at the Salamanca gate.
4°.False attack.An escalade, to be attempted by Pack’s Portuguese at the opposite side of the town.
The right attack was conducted by Colonel O’Toole. Five hundred volunteers under Major Manners, with a forlorn hope under Lieut. Mackie, composed the storming party of the third division. Three hundred volunteers led by Major George Napier,23with a forlorn hope under Lieutenant Gurwood, composed the storming party of the light division.
The deserters, of which there were many, had told the governor the light division was come out of its turn, and it must be to storm, yet he took no heed, and all the troops reached their posts without seeming to attract attention; but before the signal was given, and while Wellington, who in person had pointed out the lesser breach to Major Napier, was still on the ground, the attack at the right commenced, and was instantly taken up along the whole line. The space between the trenches and the ditch was then suddenly covered with soldiers and ravaged by a tempest of grape from the ramparts; for though the storming parties in the centre jumped out of the parallel when the first shout arose, so rapid were the troops on their right, that before they could reach the ditch, Ridge, Dunkin, and Campbell, with the 5th, 77th, and 94th Regiments, had already scoured the fausse-braye, and pushed up the great breach amidst bursting shells, the whistling of grape and musketry, and the shrill cries of the French, who were driven fighting behind the inner retrenchments. There they rallied, and, aided by musketry from the houses, made hard battle for their post; none would go back on either side; yet the British could not get forward, and the bodies of men and officers, falling in heaps, choked up the passage, which from minute to minute was raked with grape, from two guns flanking the breach, at the distance of a few yards; yet striving and trampling alike upon dead and wounded these brave men maintained the combat.
Meanwhile the stormers of the light division, who hadthree hundred yards of ground to clear, would not wait for the hay-bags, and with extraordinary swiftness running to the crest of the glacis jumped down the scarp, a depth of eleven feet, and rushed up the fausse-braye under a smashing discharge of grape and musketry. The ditch was dark and intricate, and the forlorn hope inclined to the left while the stormers went straight to the breach, which was so narrow at top that a gun placed across nearly barred the opening; then the forlorn hope rejoined, and the whole rushed up, yet the head, forcibly contracted as the ascent narrowed, staggered under the fire. With the instinct of self-preservation the men snapped their muskets though they had not been allowed to load, and Napier, his arm shattered by a grape-shot, went down, but in falling called aloud to use the bayonet, while the unwounded officers instantly and simultaneously sprung to the front: the impulse of victory was thus given and with a furious shout the breach was carried. The supporting regiments, coming up abreast, then gained the rampart, the 52nd wheeled to the left, the 43rd to the right, and the place was won. During this contest, which lasted about ten minutes, the fighting at the great breach was unabated: but when the stormers and the 43rd poured along the rampart towards that quarter, the French wavered, three of their expense magazines exploded, and the third division with a mighty effort broke through the retrenchments: the garrison still fought awhile in the streets indeed, but finally fled to the castle, where the governor surrendered.
Now plunging into the town from all quarters, and throwing off all discipline, the troops committed frightful excesses; houses were soon in flames, the soldiers menaced their officers and shot each other, intoxication increased the tumult to absolute madness, and a fire being wilfully lighted in the middle of the great magazine, the town would have been blown to atoms but for the energetic coolness of some officers and a few soldiers who still preserved their senses. To excuse these excesses it was said, “the soldiers were not to be controlled.” Colonel McLeod of the 43rd, a young man of a noble and energetic spirit, proved the contrary. He placed guards at the breach and constrained his men to keep their ranks for a long time, but as no organizedefforts were made by higher authorities, and the example was not followed, the regiment dissolved by degrees in the general disorder.
Three hundred French fell, fifteen hundred were made prisoners, and immense stores of ammunition with a hundred and fifty pieces of artillery, including the battering-train of Marmont’s army, were captured. The loss of the allies was twelve hundred soldiers and ninety officers, of which six hundred and fifty men and sixty officers had been slain or hurt at the breaches. General Craufurd and General Mackinnon, the former a person of great ability, were killed, and with them died many gallant men; amongst others a captain of the 45th, of whom it has been felicitously said, that “three generals and seventy other officers had fallen, yet the soldiers fresh from the strife only talked of Hardyman.” General Vandeleur, commanding the light division after Craufurd fell, was badly wounded; so was Colonel Colborne, with a crowd of inferior rank; and unhappily the slaughter did not end with the storm; for as the prisoners and their escort were marching out by the breach, an accidental explosion killed numbers of both.
This siege lasted only twelve days, half the time originally calculated, yet from the inexperience of engineers and soldiers, and the extraordinarily heavy fire of the place, the works were rather slowly executed. The cold also impeded the labourers, yet with less severe frost the trenches would have been overflowed, because in open weather the water rises everywhere to within six inches of the surface. The greatest impediment was the badness of the cutting tools furnished from the storekeeper-general’s office in England; the profits of the contractor seemed to be the only thing respected: the engineers eagerly sought for French cutlery, because the English was useless!
Marmont heard of the siege the 15th and made great efforts to collect his forces at Salamanca. The 26th he heard of its fall and retired to Valladolid, thus harassing his men by winter marches. Had he remained between Salamanca and Rodrigo with strong advanced guards he would have recovered the place; for on the 28th the Agueda flooded two feet over the stone bridge, and carried away the allies’ trestle-bridge. The army was then on theleft bank, the breaches not closed, and no resistance could be offered. The greatest captains are the very slaves of fortune.