Wellington’s Engineers: Military Engineering on the Peninsular War 1808-1814 (36 page)

The rope bridge at Alcantara
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Crossing the river Adour in February 1814 required the construction of the largest boat bridge of the war. Over forty large local boats were used, held in place by five 13in cables. These were secured at one end by connecting them to a number of siege gun barrels and tightened using a capstan and pulley arrangement on the other bank. The design of this bridge bears striking similarities to the ones at Alcantara and Almaraz and must be attributed to Sturgeon and Todd.

Pontoon Trains

For the first part of the war, the Allies had very little mobile bridging equipment. Their only pontoon train was lost to the French when Badajoz was captured in March 1811. It is unlikely to be coincidence that Wellington wrote home on 31 March asking for a full pontoon train to be shipped out to the Peninsula. He was now commanding forces operating in two different theatres and it was essential that reliable communications were maintained between these two forces. Probably based on their excellent work over the past few weeks, on 18 April Wellington asked for two more companies of Royal Staff Corps to be sent out and noting that as ‘there are no people of the description of pontooneers belonging to the service, I beg that ten warrant artificers may be sent with the pontoons … who will be employed to superintend the persons who must be hired in Portugal to attend them [the pontoons]’.
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The bridge over the Tagus at Almaraz, by Leith-Hay
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The experience of crossing the Guadiana in May 1811 reinforced the need to have an effective pontoon train with the army. The first of the pontoons from England did not arrive until June 1811, by which time most of the campaigning for the year was over. In October, Fletcher asked for a ‘person well acquainted with the construction of pontoons, the various articles belonging to them and the method of applying them would be extremely useful in this country as foreman of pontoon bridges’.
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British pontoons came in two sizes; small, approximately 16ft × 4ft (4.9m × 1.2m) and large, approximately 21ft × 5ft (6.4m × 1.5m). They were made of tin-plated iron and, with all their equipment, weighed over 1.5 tons.

A British pontoon
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A pontoon carriage needed eight horses and, I assume, a greater number oxen to move them even on good roads. Transporting the pontoon train was a massive undertaking as its components were very large, very unstable and very fragile. There was also no clear responsibility. A Royal Engineer officer was usually in overall charge, with the Royal Artillery responsible for the horses. No one took responsibility for the drivers whether they were hired locally, seamen or from the Corps of Drivers.

Lieutenant Piper RE, who commanded the pontoon train in 1812, reported that Portuguese seamen who had been attached to the pontoon train had no rations supplied to them. He also reported in December that year that most of the bullock drivers deserted through not being paid, Piper not saying if they took their bullocks with them. In the same letter he reported that the pontoons were rusting badly. A second pontoon train joined the army at the start of 1813. Writing in May 1813, Harry Jones reported the delays in its progress:

Piper was … left to himself without any assistance to be found … or any provision made against desertions of cattle, [i.e., the bullocks to pull the pontoon train] which unquestionably would be great from non-payment; so we are doomed always to labour under the greatest disadvantages of service and want of exertion on the part of those whose duty it is to provide us, or do their best, with everything that we may require.
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In a return of May 1813, Fletcher described the pontoon train that was moving up for the Vitoria campaign. It comprised 48 wagons with 350 men, 520 oxen and 310 horses. He also recorded the breakages it suffered over a three-week period:
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The pontoons continued to be a problem when they were in use. The poor design of the English pontoon, with a square bow, shallow draft and an open top, led to predictable results; they were prone to sinking. This happened spectacularly in early 1812 during the third siege of Badajoz. Several were recovered from the bottom of the river but some were lost. A new enclosed design was approved in 1814, but they were too late for service in the Peninsular War.

A British pontoon in use
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The final campaigns of the war saw the greatest need for military bridging and also the greatest difficulties. December 1813 saw the great rivers of the Bidassoa, Nivelle and Nive being crossed. The winter weather in the Pyrenees made working difficult, the rivers being invariably rapid and the level could rise by several feet with almost no warning. Keeping bridges in place was a constant challenge.

February 1814 saw the audacious crossing of the river Adour, as described above. Wellington took a small pontoon train east with his forces which was sufficient for most of the rivers he crossed but failed spectacularly around Toulouse, where one attempt had to be abandoned as the bridge was too short and the main crossing was held up for three days.

Considering the strategic importance of bridging in the Peninsula, it is surprising that more attention was not paid to it. Typically, the bridging train was commanded by a junior engineer, with the Royal Artillery responsible for much of the motive power, be that horses or oxen. The boatmen were provided by the Portuguese Navy. There were several civilian commissary staff and wagons attached and the drivers could come from the Royal Corps of Drivers, Royal Artillery or be hired locally. As previously mentioned, locally-hired mules and their owners were rarely paid or fed. It is surprising the system worked at all!

Whilst the focus of most books on the war remains on the military operations, it must not be forgotten that without bridges, those operations would have been much more limited or impossible. Wellington’s campaign in the Pyrenees and southern France would have been impossible without the efforts of the various engineering forces and the pontoon trains. They were far from perfect, but they were indispensible.

The need for trained specialists had been recognised in the English army since the invention of gunpowder. Artillery specialists had always been present in very small numbers, but there was no recognition that training was required for army officers prior to them receiving their first commissions. The chapter on tactics in the first monthly edition of the
Royal Military Chronicle
in 1810, began with: ‘It is often mentioned … [by] foreigners who have travelled in England, as a subject of reasonable astonishment, that we are totally without any general school for military instruction’.
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Contradicting the views of many of the most senior officers of the day, including Wellington, the article went on to argue against the ‘very shallow’ objections to the study of military science to allow an infantry officer to perform his role effectively.

The eighteenth century saw the formation of the first school in England to specifically address military education. The opening of the Royal Military Academy by the Board of Ordnance in 1741 recognised the need for consistent training for artillery and engineer specialists to meet the growing demand for officers. The Army would not recognise the need for ‘scientific soldiers’ for another fifty years.

The question of effective provision of training and resources to the Royal Engineers is an important one. Their activities during the Peninsular War have been heavily criticised by many authors and it is time for a reevaluation of their performance based on the availability of new primary materials and a greater understanding of the logistical and political challenges that they faced.

The Royal Military Academy and its Role in the Training of Officers

The Royal Military Academy was created in 1741 to meet the need for better-trained officers for the Ordnance Department, primarily for the Royal Artillery. At this time the Royal Engineers did not exist as a distinct corps, although the Ordnance Department retained some officers trained as engineers. The Royal Warrant of 30 April 1741 stated ‘that it would conduce to the good of our service if an Academy … was instituted … for instructing the … people belonging to the Military branch of this office, … to qualify them for the service of the artillery, and the business of engineers’.
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The rules and procedures that were drafted made it clear that the original intention was wider than the training of new cadets. The
Rules and Orders
, with the associated
Directions for the Teaching of Theory and Practice
, made it clear that the lectures should be attended by ‘Engineers, Officers, Sergeants, Corporals and Cadets’ of the Royal Artillery, and also all such … as have a capacity and inclination’.
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The word ‘inclination’ suggests that the various officers and soldiers mentioned had some choice in their attendance, and it should be noted that there was no greater onus on the cadets’ attendance than there was on the others.

The Governor of the Academy was the Master-General himself, who delegated its day-to-day command to the Commanding Royal Engineer at Woolwich. In 1744, it was decided that the cadets would be withdrawn from the artillery companies and formed into ‘The Company of Gentlemen Cadets’ with an original establishment of forty.
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Apart from attending for lectures and parades, the cadets were left to themselves, which did not appear to have done much for discipline or their studies. In many cases these cadets were young children, possibly away from home or some form of control for the first time in their lives.

In 1764 a Lieutenant Governor was appointed with direct responsibility for the day-to-day running of the Academy and in 1772, the first Inspector of the Royal Military Academy was appointed. Through their efforts, the teaching standards and the behaviour of both cadets and masters improved.
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In 1798, the number of cadets was increased to 100, although this was actually a decrease due to an agreement with the East India Company (EIC) that allowed forty of its engineer cadets to be trained. To make up the numbers for the Ordnance Department, ‘extra cadets’ were placed in local schools around Woolwich. In 1803, numbers were increased again to 180, of which sixty were for the East India Company. One hundred of these were at Woolwich and eighty were placed at the new Royal Military College at Great Marlow.
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In 1810, the East India Company opened its own college at Addiscombe, and the Ordnance cadets were all moved back to Woolwich.
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From 1741 to 1774 all requests for entry to the Royal Military Academy were made directly to the Master-General. At this time there was no entrance examination. The newly-appointed Lieutenant Governor found on his arrival that many cadets on the muster-roll were not present at the Academy. On ordering them to report, he found the youngest was not yet ten years old. In 1774, the Master-General approved the use of an entrance examination based on the ‘the first four rules of arithmetic with a competent knowledge of the rule of three and the elements of Latin grammar’.
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This was seen as essential to improve entry standards.

In 1782 the minimum age of entry was raised to fourteen.
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The general requirements were ‘to be well grounded in arithmetic, including vulgar fractions, write a very good hand, and be perfectly the master of the English and Latin grammars’. In 1813, the Lieutenant-Governor, Colonel Mudge, persuaded the Master-General to further tighten the entry qualifications for the admission of Gentleman Cadets:
¹¹

No candidate can be admitted under 14 or over 16 years. Must be possessed of (at 14) decimal fractions, duodecimals, or cross multiplication, Involution, Extraction of the square root, notation and the first four rules of Algebra, Definitions in Plane Geometry, English Grammar and Parsing, French Grammar. At 16 add, remainder of Algebra except cubic equations, the first two books of Euclid’s ‘Elements of Geometry’ or the first 65 theorems of Dr Hutton’s course of Mathematics, construing and parsing the French language.
¹²

It is likely that part of the reason for tightening up the entrance requirements was to reduce the time the cadets would take to complete their studies and therefore to be able to turn out officers faster. The length of study at the Academy varied from one month to the maximum of five years. The duration depended primarily on the prior education, intelligence and application of the cadet, but also on the demand for officers by the Ordnance.
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In 1810, the entry fee for the Royal Military Academy was twenty guineas (£21). This amount was very small compared with the cost of buying a commission, which was around £400 in a line regiment and £900 in the Guards.
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In the period immediately after the foundation of the Academy, ‘the cadets were under no discipline worthy of the name; they wore no uniform, and were so outrageous in study, that one of the occupations of the officer on duty … was [to] prevent the Masters from being ill-used, and even pelted.’
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Discipline was a major problem through the whole period and there were many documented cases of bullying for the purpose of stopping the studious cadet from embarrassing his less industrious peers.
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Many cadets were dismissed for their behaviour. The attitude to study was seriously affected by the demand for cadets. Throughout the Napoleonic wars the demand far outstripped the supply. This had two effects. Firstly there was pressure on the Academy to speed up the education process, which led to pressure to reduce the examination requirements. Secondly, the cadets knew the situation and on occasions had seen cadets commissioned without having to take the examinations, which had been first introduced in 1764 and were held annually, attended by senior officers of the Ordnance.
¹⁷
At that time, the gentlemen cadets had to be:

examined and found to be qualified in Arithmetic and logarithms; Algebra as far as Quadratic equations; the first four books of Euclid; Mensuration including trigonometry and heights and distances; practical geometry; the general principles of fortification the construction of the three systems of Vauban the definition and explanation of artillery in general and the construction of a piece of ordnance, illustrated by 24 drawings; they must also be able to read and translate French.
¹⁸

The Napoleonic Wars made demands on the supply of officers that the Academy could not meet. From 1794 to 1811, the public examination of cadets was suspended and the syllabus of the examinations varied as the demand rose and fell. The demand for officers was so great that on occasions exams were held on an individual basis as soon as a cadet felt himself competent. In 1795, the inspector was asked to recommend without examination, those cadets ‘who may appear likely to prove useful at this moment as officers’.
¹⁹

I am directed to inform you, … that the … service requires an immediate supply of officers from the Royal Military Academy; his lordship therefore desires that … you will recommend to him for promotion such of the cadets … as may appear likely to prove useful at this moment as officers … However as the persons you are now required to propose are wanted for immediate service, a certain degree of height and manliness will be indispensably necessary, and you are not to recommend any one … who has not attained the height of five foot four inches.
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In June 1798, a change was made to the way commissions were awarded. Previously, all commissions were awarded into the Royal Artillery, with officers stating their preference to be transferred to the Royal Engineers:

The Master-General … thinks it more advisable that a limited number of such cadets as may be found to have a turn for the profession should (after being duly qualified at the Academy) be sent to some station where they may improve themselves … by acting as Assistant-Engineers until vacancies occur for them in the Corps.
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The custom was that cadets wishing to join the Royal Engineers would remain at the Academy for a further six months to improve their knowledge. On 1 March 1803, the Lieutenant-Governor proposed that candidates for the Royal Engineers ‘instead of remaining at the Academy an extra six months … were to be sent to the Royal Military Surveyors under the direction of Major Mudge, to be instructed in surveying’.
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This had the dual benefit of getting the junior engineers some practical experience, while also providing a trained resource for the urgent task of mapping the southern shores of England, threatened by a French invasion.

The Royal Engineer officers who served in operational theatres throughout the Napoleonic Wars were the officers who passed through the Royal Military Academy during the period when public examinations were stopped and private examination requirements were variable. The most senior officer who served in the Peninsula, Richard Fletcher, was commissioned in 1790, at the start of this period. The other senior officers who served in the Peninsula were commissioned between 1793 and 1800, and all the captains by 1804.
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There is no doubt that the Royal Military Academy was concerned about the level of education that was being given to the cadets. There is no doubt that demand outstripped supply throughout the period, but there is also no doubt that even the partial training of an Ordnance officer at the Academy was far in excess of anything that was given to a regular army officer at that time. Until the Royal Military College started producing its first recruits after 1800, there was no other source of officers with some education and technical training.

The Royal Military Artificers, and the School of Military Engineering

The formation of the Royal Military Artificers (RMA) was discussed earlier in the book. By the start of the nineteenth century it was recognised by some that garrison-based staff did not meet the Army’s requirements. This was one of the reasons why the Royal Staff Corps was formed. The intention behind the formation of the RMA was to provide skilled workmen at the main Ordnance locations around Britain, Europe and eventually the globe. There was never an intention that these troops would be mobile and available to travel in significant numbers with an army. Lacking their own officers, they were never properly managed and were allowed levels of freedom which should never have been tolerated in any military organisation. Captain Charles William Pasley commented on the soldiers ‘going grey’ in the corps, while stagnating in the same location.

When Pasley took command of the Plymouth Company in 1811, not one of the RMA companies had been employed as a unit on active service. In a letter to a fellow officer, he wrote:

The command of the Company here gives me a greater insight into the nature of our establishment … There is no guard except of a Sunday at the Barrack gates, which breaks up at eleven o’clock … The … backward spirit amongst the Non Commissioned Officers is very great, and their ideas of subordination are exceedingly lax … I think these companies will not be worth much till they are changed every two or three years, and go upon actual service bodily, not by detachments.
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