Wellington (37 page)

Read Wellington Online

Authors: Richard Holmes

17
Ibid., p. 22.

18
Guedalla op. cit., pp. 24–6.

19
Gleig op. cit., p. 9.

20
Guedalla op. cit., p. 28.

21
Longford
Sword
op. cit., p. 22.

22
Guedalla op. cit., p. 29.

23
Ibid., p. 30.

24
Longford
Sword
op. cit., p. 266.

25
Basil Liddell Hart (ed)
The Letters of Private Wheeler 1808–1828
(Adlestrop, Glos 1851) pp. 64, 269.

26
Guedalla op. cit., p. 36.

27
Longford
Sword
op. cit., p. 36.

28
Sir John Fortescue
History of The British Army
(13 vols London 1899–1930) vol. IV part 1 pp. 210–11.

29
William Surtees
Twenty-Five Years in the Rifle Brigade
(London 1973) pp. 16–17.

30
Fortescue vol. IV part 1 pp. 296–7.

31
Philip J. Haythornthwaite
The Armies of Wellington
(London 1998) p. 212.

32
Guedalla op. cit., p. 42.

33
Ibid., p. 43.

34
Ibid., p. 45.

35
Fortescue vol. IV part 1 pp. 320–1.

36
Guedalla op. cit., p. 49.

37
Ibid., p. 50.

38
Thomas Pakenham
The Year of Liberty
(London 1972) p. 17.

II    SEPOY GENERAL

  1
The best short history of the East India Company is John Keay
The Honourable Company
(London 1991).

  2
Roger Hudson (ed)
Memoirs of a Georgian Rake: William Hickey
(London 1995) p. xiv.

  3
Dennis Kinkaid
British Social Life in India 1608–1937
(London 1973) p. 69.

  4
Hudson op. cit., pp. 396–7.

  5
Ibid., p. 399.

  6
Jac Weiler
Wellington in India
(London 1993) p. 30.

  7
Ibid., p. 37.

  8
Antony Brett-James (ed)
Wellington at War
(London 1961) p. 22.

  9
Ibid., p. 25.

10
Ibid., p. 20.

11
Ibid., pp 23–4.

12
Weiler op. cit., p. 44.

13
Brett-lames op. cit., p. 29.

14
Lord Monson and George Leveson-Gower (ed)
Memoirs of George Elers, Captain in the 12
th
Regiment of Foot, 1774–1842
(London 1903) p. 100.

15
Weiler op. cit., p. 65.

16
Monson and Leveson-Gower op. cit., p. 103.

17
Brett-James op. cit., pp. 32–33.

18
Guedalla op. cit., p. 89.

19
Longford op. cit.,
Sword
p. 67.

20
Guedalla op. cit., p. 89.

21
Lieutenant Colonel John Gurwood
Selections from the Dispatches and General Orders of Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington
(London 1841) p. 5.

22
Ibid., p. 4.

23
Guedalla op. cit., p. 100.

24
Gurwood op. cit., p. 6.

25
Ibid., p. 9.

26
Ibid., p. 19.

27
S. G. P. Ward
Wellington
(London 1963) p. 29.

28
Gurwood op. cit., pp. 42–43.

29
Ibid., p. 62.

30
Ibid., p. 69.

31
Anthony S. Bennell (ed)
The Maratha War Papers of Arthur Wellesley
(London 1998) p. 262.

32
Ibid., p. 311.

33
Ibid., p. 227.

34
Weiler op. cit., p. 157.

35
Ibid., p. 163.

36
Bennell op. cit., p. 287.

37
Longford
Sword
op. cit., p. 93.

38
Gurwood op. cit., p. 89.

39
Bennell op. cit., pp. 289–90.

40
Gurwood op. cit., p. 90.

41
Bennell op. cit., p. 289.

42
Ibid., p. 290.

43
Gurwood op. cit., p. 96.

44
Ibid., p. 160.

45
Gurwood op. cit., p. 170.

46
Brett-Iames op. cit., p. 119.

47
Weiler op. cit., p. 252.

48
Brett-James op. cit., p. 115.

49
Weiler op. cit., p. 251.

50
Ibid.

51
Ibid., p. 262.

52
Ibid.

53
Longford
Sword
op. cit., pp. 101–2.

54
Bennell op. cit., p. 235.

55
Weiler op. cit., p. 265.

56
Ibid., p. 266.

57
Gurwood op. cit., p. 124.

58
Ibid., p. 41.

III    FALSE STARTS

  1
Oliver Warner ‘The Meeting of Wellington and Nelson’
History Today
Feb 1968; Guedalla op. cit., pp. 119–20, Longford
Sword
pp. 109–111.

  2
Longford
Sword
op. cit., p. 111.

  3
Gleig op. cit., p. 48.

  4
Longford
Sword
op. cit., p. 121.

  5
Brett-James op. cit., p. 124.

  6
Gleig op. cit., p. 50

  7
Brett-James op. cit., p. 124.

  8
Longford
Sword
op. cit., p. 104

  9
Christopher Hibbert
Wellington: A Personal History
(London 1997) p. 55.

10
Longford
Sword
op. cit., p. 122.

11
Brett-James op. cit., p. 120.

12
Guedalla op. cit., p. 128.

13
Brett-James op. cit., p. 125.

14
Foster op. cit., p. 290.

15
Longford
Sword
op. cit., p. 129.

16
Ibid., p. 131.

17
Hibbert op. cit., p. 58.

18
Longford
Sword
op. cit., p. 132.

19
Brett-James op. cit., p. 127.

20
Ibid., p. 129.

21
Ibid., p. 128.

22
Hibbert op. cit., p. 65.

23
Philip J Haythornthwaite ‘“That unlucky war”: some aspects of the French experience in the Peninsula’ in Ian Fletcher (ed)
The Peninsular War
(Staplehurst 1998) p. 31.

24
Ibid., p. 40.

25
Mills, p. 62.

26
Hibbert op. cit., p. 68.

27
Gurwood op. cit., p. 201.

28
Guedalla op. cit., p. 147.

29
Croker I pp. 12–13.

30
Guedalla op. cit., p. 150.

31
Gurwood op. cit., p. 202.

32
Ibid.

33
Croker op. cit., vol. I p. 343.

34
Longford
Sword
op. cit., p. 147.

35
Gurwood op. cit., p. 203.

36
Spelt Vimiero in most British accounts and Vimiera on the colours of regiments which bear it as a battle honour, the village is in fact spelt Vimeiro both in Wellington’s dispatches and by its modern inhabitants.

37
Here I rely heavily on Jac Weiler
Wellington in the Peninsula
(London 1999) pp. 46–7. For a characteristically common-sense view of drill see Paddy Griffith ‘“Keep step and they cannot hurt us”: The value of drill in the Peninsular War’ in Fletcher
Peninsular War
op. cit.

38
Benjamin Harris
The Recollections of Rifleman Harris as told to Henry Curling
(London 1985) p. 50.

39
Fletcher
Galloping
op. cit., p. 86.

40
Harris op. cit., p. 53.

41
Gurwood op. cit., p. 212.

42
Ibid., p. 601.

43
Fletcher
Galloping
op. cit., p. 175.

44
Fortescue op. cit., vol. VI p. 231.

45
Michael Glover
Britannia Sickens
(London 1970) p. 67.

46
The French army of the old regime had only two grades of general officer, marshal of France being technically a dignity of state rather than a military rank. After the revolution these were renamed
général de brigade
and
général de division
. The term
major général
did not designate a rank, but the appointment of chief of staff. There were no exact parallels between the two French general ranks and the more numerous ones in the British army, for a general of division could well command a division, a corps or even an army. As all three British generals involved in the negotiation were of the same rank, lieutenant general, despite their very different seniority, there was no case in protocol for the argument that Kellermann should sign with Wellesley on the grounds that he was an officer of equal rank. The fact that the Convention was drawn up for Wellesley to sign may reflect Kellermann’s understanding of his political importance; a desire by Dalrymple and Burrard (for whatever reason) to let Wellesley sign; or it may cast doubt on Wellesley’s own version of his involvement. We simply cannot tell which.

47
Gurwood op. cit., p. 215.

48
Ibid., p. 217.

49
Glover op. cit., p. 166.

50
Longford
Sword
op. cit., p. 164.

51
Gurwood op. cit., p. 249.

IV    PENINSULA

  1
Longford
Sword
op. cit., p. 173.

  2
Guedalla op. cit., p. 174. For a discussion of an alternative version see Hibbert p. 81.

  3
Wheeler p. 48.

  4
Gurwood op. cit., p. 263.

  5
Ibid., pp. 266–8; in full in Brett-James op. cit., pp. 154–157.

  6
Guedalla op. cit., p. 179.

  7
Gurwood op. cit., p. 274.

  8
Gleig op. cit., p. 101.

  9
Longford
Sword
op. cit., p. 193.

10
Ibid., p. 194.

11
Sergeant Anthony Hamilton
Hamilton’s Campaign with Moore and Wellington
(Staplehurst 1998) p. 76.

12
Brett-James op. cit., p. 163.

13
Gurwood p. 277.

14
Ibid., p. 283.

15
Ibid., p. 284.

16
Ibid., p. 290.

17
Longford
Sword
op. cit., pp. 198–9.

18
Ibid., pp. 206–7.

19
Ibid., p. 219.

20
Brett-James op. cit., pp. 172–3. Young Pearse made honourable amends, and was killed at the top of the breach at Ciudad Rodrigo in 1812.

21
Gurwood op. cit., p. 320.

22
Ibid., p. 343.

23
Ibid., p. 389.

24
Ibid., p. 414.

25
Christopher Hibbert (ed)
A Soldier of the Seventy-First
(London 1976) pp. 61–3.

26
Gurwood op. cit., p. 478.

27
Ibid., p. 481.

28
Ibid., p. 479.

29
Longford
Sword
op. cit., p. 256.

30
W.F.P. Napier
History of the War in the Peninsula and the South of France
(6 vols, London 1835–40) vol. III p. 547.

31
Gurwood op. cit., p. 487.

32
Longford
Sword
op. cit., p. 258.

33
Gurwood op. cit., p. 483.

34
Weller
Peninsula
op. cit., pp. 182–3.

35
John Spencer Cooper
Rough Notes of Seven Campaigns
(London 1996) p. 63.

36
Hart p. 64.

37
Fletcher p. 99.

38
Kincaid op. cit., p. 93.

39
Ibid., p. 98.

40
Gurwood op. cit., p. 576.

41
Harry Smith
The Autobiography of Lieutenant General Sir Harry Smith
(2 vols London 1901) vol. I pp. 64–5.

42
Michael Glover (ed)
A Gentleman Volunteer: The Letters of George Hennell from the Peninsular War
(London 1979) p. 14.

43
Richard L. Blanco
Wellington’s Surgeon General: Sir James McGrigor
(Durham, North Carolina 1974) p. 125.

44
Antony Brett-James (ed)
Edward Costello: The Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns
(London 1967) p. 76.

45
Cooper op. cit., p. 84.

46
Oman op. cit., p. 86.

47
Ibid.

48
Hibbert op. cit., p. 118.

49
Fletcher
Galloping
op. cit., p. 169, Gurwood p. 601.

50
Longford
Sword
op. cit., p. 281.

51
Muriel Wellesley
The Man Wellington, Through the eyes of those that knew him
(London 1937) p. 225.

52
Gleig op. cit., p. 479.

53
Sir George Larpent (ed)
The Private Journals of Judge-Advocate Larpent, attached to the head-quarters of Lord Wellington
(London 1854) p. 168.

54
There are many versions of this conversation, which differ in detail but not substance: see, for instance, Guedalla p. 216, Weiler
Peninsula
p. 216, and Longford
Sword
p. 285.

55
Gurwood op. cit., p. 615.

56
Weiler
Peninsula
op. cit., p. 226.

57
Brett-James op. cit., pp. 240–1.

58
Larpent op. cit., p. 65.

59
Blanco op. cit., p. 131.

60
William Tomkinson
The Diary of a Cavalry Officer
(Staplehurst 1999) p. 210.

61
Ibid.

62
Brett-James op. cit., p. 246.

63
Hart p. 106.

64
Brett-James Hart p. 247.

65
Ibid.

66
Fletcher p. 245.

67
Longford
Sword
op. cit., p. 296.

68
Wellesley op. cit., p. 253.

69
Gurwood op. cit., pp. 645–6.

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