A.D. 1811.

The Peninsular sieges in which the English were concerned are principally useful as lessons to statesmen, and consequently to the people who support these statesmen. The siege of Badajos failed, although a Wellington superintended it; but, as Sir William Napier justly says, “it was not strange that it did fail; for the British government sent an engineer corps into the field so ill-provided, that all the officers’ bravery and zeal could not render it efficient. The very tools used, especially those from the storekeeper-general’s department, were unfit for work; the captured French cutting instruments were eagerly sought for in preference; and when the soldiers’ lives and the honour of England’s arms were at stake, English cutlery would not bear comparison with French.” This account has been published many years; all whose business it was to read it and profit by the lesson have had ample time; and yet, in what respect does it differ from the same culpable error—we were going to say, but must substitute criminal jobbery—with regard to the war munitions of the Crimea?

Though ardently wishing for the capture of Badajos, Wellington knew he had not that great necessary in all sieges, time, to effect it regularly. If he laid siege to it in form, the French would be able to bring assistance that would render his endeavours nugatory; he could not command more than twenty days; with bad guns, deficient stores, and no regular corps of sappers and miners; as General Picton wittily and keenly observed, “Lord Wellington sued Badajos in form pauperis.” Reckoning all the deficiencies, regular approaches could not be ventured upon, and attacks upon the castle and Fort Cristoval were adopted instead; and these were to take place at the same time. A battering-train was very quickly got ready, consisting of thirty twenty-four-pounders, four sixteen-pounders, and twelve eight and ten-inch howitzers converted into mortars by being placed on trucks; these, with six iron Portuguese guns, made fifty-two pieces; and of British and Portuguese gunners there were collected six hundred. But even these were inefficient; for many of the guns were nearly useless from age; the gunners were inexperienced, and there was no time to teach them their craft.

On the 24th of May, Haston’s division, consisting of five thousand men, invested San Cristoval.

Phillipon, who, under the direction of Soult, governed in the town, took every precaution necessary; and the townsmen joined their efforts to those of the garrison to forward the works of defence.

Ground being broken for a false attack upon Pardileras on the 29th, the next night a parallel of eleven hundred yards was sunk against the castle, without the workmen being observed by the enemy; the same night another parallel, of four hundred and fifty yards from San Cristoval, and seven hundred from the bridge-head, was opened; one breaching and two counter mines were raised on this line, to prevent sallies by the bridge from the fort.

The attack against the castle proceeded favourably, but the soil and the situation rendered that of Cristoval slow and attended with loss: it was not finished before the night of the 1st of June. It was much impeded by some well-directed mortars from the garrison, which, strange to say, were stopped by Phillipon, from the mistaken idea that he was throwing their fire away.

On the night of the 2nd, however, the battery against San Cristoval began, and after the guns and men had got into practice, much mischief was done to the castle. On the 4th, the garrison added the fire of several guns to their artillery, and some of the besiegers’ were silenced.

The contest was kept up with tolerable spirit till two breaches were made in San Cristoval; and one of them appearing practicable, an assault was ordered, assisted by a diversion in another quarter.

The stormers reached the glacis and descended the ditch without being discovered; but they found the obstacles insurmountable, and the forlorn hope was about to retire before committing themselves to serious injury, when the main body, annoyed by a flank fire from the town, followed them into the ditch with their ladders. But the ladders proved too short, and the defence from within was so firm, that immediate retreat was necessary, and that attended with considerable loss.

The errors in this attack are subjects of military discussion; but we have not space to enter into them. The French acted with great skill and activity in clearing away ruins, presenting every obstacle that could be thought of, natural as well as scientific, and by the judicious disposition of well-armed men. Succours being at hand, a second attack was thought advisable, if any hopes could be entertained of the capture of the place. This time, things were better managed; but on the other side, Phillipon made adequate preparations to meet them.

But this attack proved no more fortunate than the former. It was led with infinite spirit by Major M’Geechy, who fell early. The French seem to have laughed at the affair, as they jeeringly called to the men in the ditch to come on. But barrels of powder rolled down among them, with the addition of shells and musketry, proved worse than their jeers. All went wrong: the troops quarrelled for the ladders, though not many of them could be reared; confusion ensued; and the enemy naturally took advantage of it: those who ascended the ladders were met with the bayonet; the ladders themselves were overturned; and a murderous fire was poured upon the unfortunate mass in the ditch. Soult’s approach rendered further attempts impossible; and the siege was converted into a blockade.

Sir William Napier’s remarks are very severe upon this siege. In addition to what we have before quoted, he says: “This siege, in which four hundred men and officers fell, violated all rules. The working parties were too weak, the guns and stores too few, the points of attack ill-chosen; the defences were untouched by counter-fire, and the breaching-batteries were too distant for the bad guns; howitzers on trucks were poor substitutes for mortars, and the sap was not practised. Lastly, the assaults were made before the glacis had been crowned and a musketry-fire established against the breach.”

SECOND ENGLISH SIEGE, A.D. 1812.

Lord Wellington having collected his troops in the Alentejo, marched against Badajos, and commenced the siege on the 16th of March, 1812.

On the 29th, previous to the opening of the breaching-batteries, the enemy made a sortie upon the Portuguese troops under General Hamilton, who invested the place on the right of the Guadiana; but they were immediately repulsed with some loss.

On the 31st, the English began to fire upon the face of the bastion to the south-west of the angle of the fort of Trinidad, and upon the flank of the bastion Santa Maria, with twenty-six pieces of artillery formed in two batteries in the second parallel. The fire of the batteries was constant and tremendous from the 31st to the evening of April 3rd, not less than sixty-four shots per minute being thrown. On the 4th of April, a battery of six pieces was opened upon the ravelin of St. Roque. On the evening of the 5th, the breaches were declared practicable; but as the enemy appeared to be making most formidable preparations to repel any assault, Lord Wellington determined to wait till the third breach was also practicable. This being deemed to be so by the evening of the 6th, it was resolved to storm the place without an hour’s delay.

The arrangements made for this purpose were as follows: The third division under General Picton was directed to attack the castle by escalade, while the guards in the trenches, which were furnished from the fourth division, should attack the ravelin of St. Roque, on the left of the castle. The fourth division, under Major-General Colville, and the light division, under Colonel Bernard, were ordered to attack the breaches in the bastions of Trinidad and Santa Maria. Major-General Walker, with his brigade, was to make a false attack upon the fort of Pardileras and other works on the banks of the Guadiana; and General Power, with the Portuguese troops under his command, had orders to attack the tÊte-du-pont and fort of San Cristoval on the right of that river.

The attack commenced exactly at ten o’clock at night. The breaches were attacked in the most gallant manner by the fourth and light divisions, who got almost to the covered way before they were perceived by the enemy. But General Phillipon had brought the bravest of his troops to that point, and every obstacle that the shortness of the time would admit of was opposed to their advance; and notwithstanding the most determined and almost desperate efforts which were made by the British to overcome these obstacles, they were three times repulsed, and were unable to effect an entry by the breaches. Many a gallant man fell a victim to his bravery, and success had almost become hopeless, when the commander was informed that General Picton was in possession of the castle.

This cheering information soon spread through the ranks, and the allied troops returned to the charge with an impetuosity that nothing could oppose, and in ten minutes more they were in possession of the place. General Walker succeeded in his attack upon the Pardileras, which was taken possession of by the 15th Portuguese infantry, under Colonel de Regoa, and the 8th CaÇadores, under Major Hill. General Walker also forced the barrier on the OlevenÇa road, and entering the covered way on the left of the bastion of St. Vincent, he descended into the ditch, and scaled the face of the bastion. Phillipon fled with a few troops to the fort of San Cristoval, but at the break of the following day he surrendered the fort and garrison.

We have here set down the prominent facts of this siege with the brevity our space commands; but if we had the opportunity for going into the details enjoyed by the elegant historian of the Peninsular war, what a world of stirring instances of devotion, bravery, and suffering we should have to relate!

Although we are bound to hold the work of a contemporary sacred, we cannot resist offering a picture of the horrors of war, given by one evidently, on other occasions, fond and proud of his profession. At the close of this siege, Sir William Napier says:—

“Now commenced that wild and desperate wickedness which tarnishes the lustre of the soldier’s heroism. All indeed were not alike; hundreds risked and many lost their lives in striving to stop the violence; but madness generally prevailed, and as the worst men were leaders, here all the dreadful passions of human nature were displayed. Shameless rapacity, brutal intemperance, savage lust, cruelty and murder, shrieks and piteous lamentations, groans, shouts, imprecations, the hissing of fire bursting from the houses, the crashing of doors and windows, and the reports of muskets used in violence, resounded for two days and nights in the streets of Badajos! On the third, when the city was sacked, when the soldiers were exhausted by their own excesses, the tumult rather subsided than was quelled: the wounded men were then looked to, and the dead disposed of!

“Five thousand men fell in this short siege—three thousand five hundred in the assault—in a space of less than a hundred square yards!

“When the extent of the night’s havoc was made known to Lord Wellington, the firmness of his nature gave way for a moment, and the pride of conquest yielded to a passionate burst of grief for the loss of his gallant soldiers.”