Wellington’s Engineers: Military Engineering on the Peninsular War 1808-1814 (19 page)

The table above shows the number of guns that were available each morning. The old brass guns continued to exhibit all the problems that had been apparent during the first siege. Most were made inoperative through use rather than through enemy action. Both Jones and Dickson remarked on the improvements when the first iron guns became available on the morning of 8 June.

As predicted by the engineers, the wall of the castle was quickly destroyed on the first day of firing. However, what was not expected was that the wall was actually just a facing for the ground behind which refused to collapse and peeled off in sheets leaving a near-perpendicular slope. This was battered incessantly until 10 June, and it was only at this point that there was some hope that the breach might be practicable. Captain Mulcaster reconnoitred the Rivellas stream on the night of 5 June, and identified two fords where troops could cross near the proposed breach.
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Captain Patton was mortally wounded making a further reconnaissance of the Rivellas stream and the castle walls on the night of 8 June 1811.
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The fire against San Christobal was also more successful than it had been during the first siege. The breach was declared practicable following a reconnaissance of the breach on the night of 5 June by Lieutenant Forster RE. An assault was ordered for midnight on the 6th, led by Lieutenant Forster. Writing to the Earl of Liverpool on that day, Wellington said ‘I have strong hopes that they will not be able to keep us out of the place [i.e. Badajoz]’.
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His optimism had gone by the following morning, and it seems it had been for public consumption only. Cocks recalled overhearing him talking to Dickson the day before, saying ‘If we succeed with the means we have it will be a wonder’.
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The assault failed, primarily due to the prompt action of the French who had cleared away the rubble from the breach between dusk and midnight when the attack was made. The attacking party made valiant attempts for nearly an hour to find a way in, but eventually retired with losses of twelve killed and eighty wounded. Jones noted that ‘the storming party, I am afraid, did not march until midnight’, which suggests that the engineers thought the delay before the assault was too long.
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The siege batteries recommenced firing the following morning and battered the walls of the fort for a further two days, when the breach was once again declared practicable. To reduce the time for the French to clear away the rubble, the assault was scheduled for 9 p.m. The size of the assault force was increased but a similar result occurred, with the garrison showing great energy in clearing the rubble from the breach and blocking the breach itself. The leader of the assault, Major McGeechy, and Lieutenant Hunt RE, who was guiding the party, were both killed in the first minutes of the attack. Casualties this time were fifty-four killed and eighty-five wounded.
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Squire, writing just before the second assault took place, showed that despondency was creeping in:

This night Fort Christobal will be again assaulted. On the last occasion we lost one of the bravest and finest young men in the Corps of Engineers. He was a real hero, he lived and died like a Roman in the best ages of their glory. In this unfortunate attack I have now buried three of my comrades – two of them, Dickinson and young Forster, I knew intimately and I sensibly feel their loss. I have called our attack unfortunate because of our miserable means. In every other aspect we have done well and the Corps of Engineers have at least endeavoured to deserve an honourable distinction – Our guns are infamous all Portugueze – and two or three became useless every day – I think a practicable breach may possibly be made tomorrow evening in the castle. Captain Patton of the Engineers was severely wounded yesterday.
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Two days later, he updated the situation:

On the night of the 9th, the assault of Fort Christobal was again attempted, and a second time it failed although I am persuaded if success had been possible, we should have succeeded. The enemy made a most noble and obstinate defence they had cleared away the rubbish from the foot of the breach and filled the ditch with 5½ inch shells, hand grenades, light balls etc. When our ladders were planted the enemy rolled down upon our men large stones or rubbish or pushed them into the ditch with poles. They cried out from the parapet
Venez Monsieurs Anglais, Venez Portugaise
. The Portugueze amidst all this fire behaved as nobly as the English. We lost 130 men killed and wounded; amongst the killed Lieutenant Hunt of the Royal Engineers, who was the first man shot on the occasion. Our losses on this side have indeed been severe. I have certainly suffered great anxiety but my calamity is now at its height for we must raise the siege, time and means completely failing us. In a day or two a large French Army will be collected in this neighbourhood; our breach in the castle will not be practicable for three or four days and to take Christobal we must go to the crest of the glacis. We have neither time nor means. Our guns are most infamous, nearly half of them have been disabled by our own fire. The artillery is Portugueze most of the vents of the guns are now 1 ½ inch in diameter! We have had no mortars whatever.
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At noon the following day, 10 June 1811, Wellington called together his officers and told them he was raising the siege. The guns and stores were removed over the following two days. The comprehensive reasons Wellington gave for his decision were:

• The poor quality of the siege guns.

• The even poorer quality of the gun carriages.

• The resistance of the castle wall. He was ‘astonished’ by it.

• Failure to take the fort of San Christobal.

• The expected arrival of French relief forces.

• The depletion of the ordnance stores at Elvas to a point where it would not be able to defend itself; the lack of replacement stores from Lisbon and the lack of transport to deliver replacement stores.

• The depletion of provisions to the point where there were less than a fortnight of supplies for Elvas.

• The need for the transport used at the siege of Badajoz to replenish the ordnance stores and provisions at Elvas.
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The two sieges of Badajoz were dismal failures. The reasons need to be re-evaluated with emphasis on the performance of the engineers rather than on the events themselves.

There are some common threads running through both sieges:

• They were carried out against time pressures.

• There were limited resources available: manpower, materials and guns.

• There were transport problems.

• The choice of point of attack was strongly criticised both at the time and later.

The two most significant English writers on the war, Oman and Fortescue, are highly critical of the sieges, blaming the engineer officers and to a lesser extent Wellington. Myatt generally takes the same line, but he is more sympathetic to the problems that the Allies faced.
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In the analysis below both sieges will be treated as one, because they were effectively the same siege, undertaken twice.

Both Oman and Fortescue criticised the decision to attack San Christobal in the strongest terms. Whist criticism with hindsight is always easy, the views of the experts who were making decisions at the time must be considered. On two separate occasions the engineers advised that there was insufficient time to carry out a regular approach. The admittedly high-risk attack on San Christobal and the castle was the only possible solution they could see to meet the time limits.
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Wellington and Beresford approved their plan on both occasions. Dickson, the senior artillery officer, expressed no concern about the strategy before, during or after the sieges. On both occasions, the siege was raised because of an approaching army. Oman, when commenting on the second siege, stated that Wellington had four weeks to take Badajoz. The fact is that Wellington only had ten days from opening the trenches to raising the siege. He had even less time in the first siege, just four days. The remainder of the time that the Allies had available was taken up arranging guns and stores or sorting out communications across the river Guadiana. If the plan chosen was believed to be the fastest, then there was absolutely no chance of an attack on the south side succeeding. The French took seven weeks to take Badajoz and that was by surrender, not assault. It is difficult to understand why most writers believe that Wellington could achieve the same in seven days.

D’Urban stated in his diary that the breach in San Christobal was never practicable and noted on 10 June that a French sapper who had deserted said that the castle wall could never be breached at the point chosen as it had solid rock behind (which was shown to be untrue). D’Urban thought the engineers had chosen the wrong point of attack and should have attacked the south side.
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He reserved more serious criticism for the overall strategy, in that he believed that Wellington should have focussed on destroying Soult’s army first and then turned on Badajoz at his leisure. There is also an interesting comment by George Ross RE who wrote that Beresford believed that the siege of Badajoz should not have been undertaken.
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The two assaults on the fort of San Christobal need further consideration. It was a small but very strong fort, each side being around 100 yards long. The first assault used less than 200 men and the second a few more. During the first assault, the French had less than 200 troops in the fort and probably not more than 400 during the second assault. Oman and Fortescue both commented that the storming parties were too small.
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There was no reason why they could not have been larger. With the forces Wellington had available, he could have made an attempt to overwhelm the fort. Brute force may not have led to any greater casualties, as the losses were caused by these small groups spending up to an hour trying to get into the fort. Ladders could have been used at different points as well as at the breach. At no time did the French have enough troops in the fort to defend all the faces at the same time. When Wellington finally took Badajoz in 1812, it was the secondary attacks that succeeded, not the main one. A similar approach, attacking at multiple locations, should have been used in the assault on San Christobal in 1811, particularly due to Wellington’s strong desire to re-take Badajoz quickly.

There is no doubt that the guns available from Elvas were not up to the task of performing siege work. There is no doubt that the lack of trained sappers and miners had an effect in that there were no experienced troops who could take the sap forward. There is also no doubt that the transport problems meant that not all the materials were there when they were required. But the single inescapable reason why these sieges failed was time. None of the other factors would have prevented the sieges’ success had Wellington not been working against deadlines. Wellington had known for days that he could not continue the siege past 10 June.
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In a letter to Charles Stuart, he wrote, ‘Badajoz may fall; but the business will be very near run on both sides … I have never seen walls bear so much battering, nor ordnance, nor artillery so bad as those belonging to Elvas’.
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He also knew that Badajoz only had supplies for two weeks.
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Added to the above, there were some other factors. San Christobal proved to be stronger than Wellington, the artillery and the engineer officers expected. It must also not be forgotten that the governor proved his skill many times during the three sieges of Badajoz. With a less energetic governor, the fortress would probably have fallen in June 1811. Overall there were too many factors working against the sieges succeeding, but they had to be tried because of the strategic importance of Badajoz.

What is surprising in looking closely at the writing of Oman, Fortescue and many modern authors is that the sieges have been skipped over and not really understood by them. Examples of this include Oman’s criticism that Wellington could have ordered up better guns in early May 1811 for the second siege of Badajoz.
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Wellington had ordered additional guns for the first siege of Badajoz around 10 April, a full month earlier than that. The lack of transport made moving them very difficult. These guns finally arrived near the end of the second siege of Badajoz on 8 June, two months after they were ordered. Fortescue gets similarly confused over the guns. First he suggests that time constraints meant that Wellington would not wait for the ‘English’ siege train.
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Later he writes that they sent for some British iron guns from Elvas.
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The iron guns from Lisbon were actually Portuguese naval 24-pounders. They were also old and worn, but much better than the old brass 24-pounders that were being used prior to their arrival.

In summary, the first two sieges of Badajoz were attempted with insufficient time and material available. The choice of point of attack was not the preferred option for any officer but circumstances led them to believe that this was the only option that might succeed. The engineer officers felt that they were not allowed to follow the plan that had been agreed. There is no strong evidence to support the view that another point of attack under the same circumstances would have been successful. The French, realising that the Allies were once again intending to besiege Badajoz, in a rare show of cooperation combined their forces into a joint operation. Marmont, who had replaced Masséna, came south with around 30,000 troops and Soult came north from Seville with a similar number.

Once Wellington had made the decision to abandon the siege, the artillery was quickly removed and on its way back to Elvas the following day. By the end of 12 June, all the stores had been removed. Over the next few days Wellington closely monitored the movements of the French, waiting until 16 June before deciding to raise the blockade. The next morning the Allied army crossed the Guadiana, primarily by the fords around Jerumenha. Soult and Marmont met at Merida on 18 June and not knowing that Wellington had already retired, made plans to advance to Badajoz on the 19th. It quickly became clear that there were no Allied troops in the vicinity, the two Marshals triumphantly entering the fortress the next morning, which fortuitously was also the last day for which Phillipon had provisions for the garrison.