Wellington’s Engineers: Military Engineering on the Peninsular War 1808-1814 (22 page)

Burgoyne’s criticism was not restricted to his engineering superiors. He believed that Wellington summoned the French governor too early and that the French would have been much more likely to ask for terms had they had been summoned on 19 January, just before the assault, when there were two significant breaches.
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The commitment (or lack of it) from the army that became very evident at Burgos was also an object of criticism. Burgoyne noted that the line officers ‘do not seem to think it a point of duty or honour to interest themselves in the exertions of a working party’
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and suggested that having a general officer with the troops in the trenches would help to maintain progress.

In terms of resources for the siege, all the senior engineers, Burgoyne, Jones and Ross, commented on Wellington refusing to provide line officers to assist.
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This should, in fairness to him, be offset against the fact that the engineers had been allocated around 200 soldiers and officers from the 3rd Division who had been given some rudimentary training in the previous few months. In addition to this the division on duty each day had to furnish a further group of carpenters and miners.

There were some lighter moments during the siege. Jones described being asked by Wellington to show the newly arrived Prince of Orange round the trenches ‘being his first exposure to fire’. Jones recorded he was cautioned ‘not to expose the royal personage unnecessarily’ but lost track of time and ended up trying to leave the trenches during the change of guards when the firing was heaviest from the defenders and ‘HRH got a good peppering’.
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He did not elaborate on what the punishment would have been had he been responsible for the death of the future King of the Netherlands.

In summary, the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo was a great operational success that materially strengthened Wellington’s position and put the French firmly on the defensive. The success was due to three main factors: the weakness of the fortress, the strength of the Allied battering train and the lack of energy of the French governor. Overall, the engineers had performed their duties well, but as Fortescue wrote ‘the engineers themselves … were by no means faultless in their plans’.
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As mentioned above, the first signs of criticism within the engineers were also appearing. This situation was not helped when, due to an oversight, Burgoyne’s name was omitted from Wellington’s dispatch and only Jones and Captain George MacLeod RE were mentioned. Both received brevet promotions and only a subsequent appeal got the same recognition for Burgoyne. The promotion of Macleod in particular would have caused annoyance as he was mentioned in connection with the troops from the 3rd Division who had been trained as sappers. Burgoyne was responsible for their training but received no thanks for his work training these troops or for his performance as siege director. It appears that Wellington also asked for a brevet promotion to colonel for Fletcher. This was, however, refused with the following explanation:

HRH is most fully impressed with a high opinion of the merits and services of Lieutenant Colonel Fletcher, and would gladly attend to your recommendation in his favour, if it were not for the difficulty which would attend the establishment of such a precedent, particularly in the case of the lieutenant colonels who have eminently distinguished themselves at the head of their regiments and who would naturally look for similar indulgence.
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The frustration around the lack of trained sappers and miners was more apparent during the siege. Writing home to Liverpool after the siege, Wellington said:

I would beg to suggest to your Lordship the expediency of adding to the Engineer establishment a corps of Sappers and Miners. It is inconceivable with what disadvantage we undertake anything like a siege for want of assistance of this description … we are obliged to depend … upon the regiments of the line; and although the men are brave and willing, they want the knowledge and training which are necessary.
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Fletcher had written a similar note to the Board of Ordnance about two weeks earlier. Wellington had no-one other than Fletcher at hand to take his frustrations out on. One wonders if this was becoming a source of friction between them. Jones in his autobiography said he also wrote to the Board of Ordnance and was suitably chastised for the suggesting the inactivity of the Board of Ordnance was the equivalent of Nero fiddling whilst Rome burned.
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Casualties among the nineteen engineer officers were two killed and five wounded. Two of the wounded sailed to England and did not return to the Peninsula.
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Three of the four fortresses covering the main routes in Portugal were now in Allied hands. It was not difficult to see what was coming next.

The Third Siege of Badajoz

As soon as Wellington had the repairs for Ciudad Rodrigo under way, he turned his attention to the next challenge, the retaking of Badajoz. On 25 January 1812, Dickson arranged for all the 24-pounder roundshot and shells along with 900 barrels of powder to be moved to Oporto for onward transmission to Elvas.
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The following day Wellington ordered sixteen 24-pounder carronades (howitzers) and a number of gun carriages to be moved by land to Elvas from Almeida.
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On the 28th, Wellington met Borthwick (the senior artillery officer in the Peninsula), Dickson and Fletcher to discuss moving the 24-pounder guns from Almeida to Elvas, but Dickson argued that the state of the bullocks and the availability of forage made it impossible.
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This meant another cobbled-together siege train using guns from Lisbon and Elvas. Wellington revised his plan to use sixteen 24-pounder guns that were on transports in Lisbon, supplemented by twenty 24-pounder guns which Wellington hoped could be supplied by Admiral Berkeley from the fleet. Wellington also sent orders to Lisbon for the engineering stores to be collected and dispatched to Elvas, which would allow the garrison to start work on gabions and fascines. Captain George MacLeod RE was ordered to Elvas to superintend the preparations. Wellington had previously made arrangements for a pontoon train to be assembled, ready for use to cross the river Guadiana which would be in full flow at that time of year.
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All this preparation looks a little odd. Wellington had been planning the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo since May 1811. He knew that Badajoz was likely to be his next target but there seemed to be a distinct lack of planning for this eventuality. All the discussions of the previous days appear to be trying to work out how to get hundreds of tons of siege equipment across central Spain. When this was seen to be impossible, the Allies were then trying to find other, less-suitable guns that could be used instead. Was Wellington’s original plan to besiege Badajoz later in the year, or did he have some other plan and then changed his mind to go after Badajoz? If he had known that he was going to besiege Badajoz after taking Ciudad Rodrigo, why was there not another siege train prepared for that purpose? The plan to attack Badajoz feels like a last-minute decision as he
hoped
to get guns from Berkeley that the Admiral did not have or was unwilling to release. Wellington clearly did not know this.

Dickson found out on 10 February that Admiral Berkeley was planning to provide twenty Russian 18-pounders instead of the hoped-for English 24-pounders.
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This caused Wellington and Dickson great concern as 18-pounders were significantly less effective in siege work. The guns were also in poor condition, which meant that both their accuracy and power were further reduced. Wellington complained to Berkeley, but at the time Berkeley would not offer an alternative. Berkeley did eventually provide ten new English 18-pounders but Dickson argued that he did not want to mix 18-pounders (Russian and English) or to delay the siege to bring them up. Myatt notes that he was unsure if they were used in the siege, but Jones’ journal clearly stated that they were not used.
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Wellington remained in Ciudad Rodrigo while all the preparations were being made. The main reason for this was to keep the French guessing. Although the siege of Badajoz was an obvious next step, there were other possibilities and until Wellington signified his intention by going to Badajoz, the French had to keep their options open. He wrote to his brother:

You are aware of the great operation, which I have in hand. If I should succeed, which I certainly shall, unless those admirably useful institutions, the English newspapers, should have given Bonaparte the alarm, and should have induced him to order his Marshals to assemble their troops to oppose me, Spain will have another chance of being saved.
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Jones’ diary described a meeting to discuss the plan of attack on Badajoz. There had been much criticism of the point of attack the year before and a decision had to be made on whether to follow the same plan as last year, the previous French plan, or some other alternative. At the meeting were Wellington, General Castaños, the Spanish Chief Engineer and Fletcher. Jones recorded that Wellington and the Spanish engineer wanted to attack the southern front as the French had done in early 1811, while Fletcher wanted to attack the south-western corner from the Picurina redoubt. Fletcher was initially reluctant to admit openly that his recommendation was due to the lack of skilled sappers and miners to deal with the mines that the French were known to have placed on the southern face. Wellington, on being reminded of the situation, reluctantly agreed saying ‘he regretted extremely our deficiencies and it obliged him to undertake an attack he did not approve, but that knowing the means he believed it to be the only attack in our power to get through’. Jones added ‘though adopted through necessity, … it was never for one moment approved by any one employed in drawing it up, or in the execution of it’.
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Jones summed up his thoughts with the comment, ‘what a reflection on those who have governed the engineering service for the last nineteen years of war’.
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Jones added further comments in his published Journal to the effect that the attack on the southern side would have required a further thirty guns and significantly more engineering stores and that this was beyond the available resources and transport.
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The Siege

Like the year before, the attack on Badajoz started with the engineers placing a pontoon bridge across the river Guadiana. And, like the year before, keeping it in place proved a real challenge. The south side of the fortress was invested on 16 March. Fletcher had twenty-three engineers including Squire and Burgoyne, who acted as siege directors, and Jones as Brigade Major. At least one and possibly four of this number did not arrive until the very end of the siege.
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For the first time in the war there was a significant number of men from the Royal Military Artificers present, 115 in total. A further thirty had been ordered up from Cadiz, but they did not arrive before the end of the siege. Fletcher also had at his disposal the remainder of the men from the 3rd Division who had been previously trained in sapping, now reduced to around 120 from their original strength of around 200. Finally, there were also ten assistant engineers from the line regiments.
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Fletcher marked out the first trenches on 17 March, and these were commenced that night. The weather over the first few days was poor with constant rain and this made work in the trenches very difficult. The French launched a sortie at noon on the 19th, and once again caught the Allies unprepared. A small body of French cavalry made it to the engineers’ depot where they attacked the unarmed soldiers and captured two officers before they were driven off. Little damage was done to the works, but many tools were carried off as the French troops had been promised a reward for every one they collected. Allied casualties were around 150 men including the Chief Engineer, Fletcher, whose wound confined him to bed until 5 April but he retained command. The routine for the remainder of the siege was for Wellington to meet with Fletcher and Jones each morning to discuss progress and agree the tasks for the next twenty-four hours.

The wet weather led to the river Guadiana rising until it swept away the pontoon bridge on 22 March. This was a major concern to Wellington as the bridge was both the source of his siege supplies and also his line of retreat. A complete loss of communication across the river would require Wellington to raise the siege, the nearest alternative bridge being at Merida, twenty miles away. Lieutenant Piper RE was sent to investigate the damage to the pontoon bridge and reported that twelve of the twenty-four pontoons had sunk. Two were subsequently recovered from the river, but the rest were lost. Wellington, with his normal attention to detail, wrote further instructions: