THE MONTHS OF WAITING: THE SIEGE OF CIUDAD RODRIGO (MAY–JULY 1810)

The long months of delay that followed the first operations of the French in 1810 were a time of anxious waiting for Wellington. He had moved his head quarters to Vizeu on the 12th of January, and had been lying in that bleak and lofty town all through the rest of the winter. With him there had come to the North all the old British divisions save the 2nd, which had been left with Hill, first at Abrantes and then at Portalegre, to watch the French between the Tagus and the Guadiana. The 1st Division was placed at Vizeu, the 3rd at Trancoso and the neighbouring villages, the 4th at Guarda, while the cavalry wintered in the coast plain between Coimbra and Aveiro. Only the Light Brigade of Robert Craufurd, which takes the new style of the Light Division on March 1, was pushed forward to the Spanish frontier, and lay in the villages about Almeida[256], with its outposts pushed forward to the line of the Agueda. The Portuguese regular brigades, which were afterwards incorporated in the British divisions, were still lying in winter quarters around Coimbra and Thomar, drilling hard and incorporating their recruits. The militia were also under arms at their regimental head quarters, save the few battalions which had already been thrown into Elvas, Almeida, Peniche, and Abrantes.

Wellington’s front, facing the French, was formed by Hill’s corps in the Alemtejo, Lecor’s Portuguese brigade in the Castello Branco district, and Craufurd’s force on the Agueda. Neither Hill nor Lecor was in actual contact with the enemy, and La Romana’s army, spread out from the Pass of Perales to[p. 232] Zafra and Ara?ena in a thin line, lay between them and Reynier’s and Mortier’s outposts. It was otherwise with Craufurd, who was placed north of La Romana’s left division, that of Martin Carrera; he was in close touch with Ney’s corps all along the line of the Agueda, as far as the Douro. Since the outposts of the 6th Corps had been pushed forward on March 9th, the Commander of the Light Division was in a most responsible, not to say a dangerous, position. The main army was forty miles to his rear in its cantonments at Vizeu, Guarda, and Trancoso. He had with him of British infantry only the first battalions of the 43rd, 52nd, and 95th, with one battery, and one regiment of cavalry, the 1st Hussars of the King’s German Legion. His orders were to keep open the communication with Ciudad Rodrigo till the last possible moment, to cover Almeida as long as was prudent, and to keep the Commander-in-Chief advised of every movement of the enemy. It was clear that he might be thrust back at any moment: the 6th Corps, since Loison had joined it, was 30,000 strong: the Light Division had only 2,500 infantry with the 500 German light horse. On March 28th Wellington sent up to reinforce Craufurd two battalions of Ca?adores, the 1st and 2nd. The latter of these units was afterwards changed for the 3rd[257], which, trained by Elder, the best of all the colonels lent to the Portuguese army, was reckoned the most efficient corps that could be selected from Beresford’s command. But the two Ca?ador battalions only added 1,000 bayonets to the Light Division, and even after their arrival Craufurd’s force was less than 4,000 strong.

Robert Craufurd, though only a brigadier, and junior of his rank, had been chosen by Wellington to take charge of his outpost line because he was one of the very few officers then in the Peninsula in whose ability his Commander-in-Chief had perfect confidence. Nothing is more striking than to compare the tone and character of the letters which Wellington wrote to him with those which he dispatched to most of his other[p. 233] general officers. Only with Craufurd, Hill, and Beresford, did he ever condescend to enter into explanations and state reasons. The rest receive orders without comment, which they are directed to carry out, and are given no opportunity to discuss[258]. The difference was noted and resented by the others: when on March 8th Craufurd was formally given charge of the whole outpost line of the army, and his seniors Picton and Cole were told to conform their movements to his, without waiting for orders from head quarters, some friction was engendered[259]. Picton and Craufurd, in especial, were for the rest of the campaign in a state of latent hostility, which more than once led to high words when they met—a fact which was not without its dangers to the welfare of the army[260].

The celebrated commander of the Light Division was at this time well known for his ability, but reckoned rather an unlucky soldier. He had entered the army so far back as 1779, and had seen service in every quarter of the globe, yet in 1809 was only a colonel. This was the more astounding since he was one of the few scientific soldiers in the British army when the Revolutionary War broke out. He had spent some time at Berlin in 1782, studying the tactics of the army of Frederick[p. 234] the Great, and had translated into English the official Prussian treatise on the Art of War. His knowledge of German, a rare accomplishment in the British army at the end of the eighteenth century, caused him to be given the post of military attaché at Coburg’s head quarters in 1794, and he followed the Austrian army through all the disasters of that and the two following years. Again in 1799 he went out to take the same post at the head quarters of the army of Switzerland, but quitted it to serve on the staff of the Duke of York, during the miserable Dutch expedition of that same year. He seemed destined to witness nothing but disasters, and though he was known to have done his duty with admirable zeal and energy in every post that he occupied, promotion lingered. Probably his caustic tongue and fiery temper were his hindrances, but it seems astonishing that he took twenty-six years to attain the rank of colonel, though he was not destitute of political influence, having friends and relatives in Parliament, and even in the Ministry[261]. In 1801 he was a disappointed man, thought of retiring from the army, and, having accepted a nomination borough, sat in the Commons for five years. In 1805 he was at last made a colonel, and in the following year went on active service with the expedition which, sent originally to the Cape, was distracted in 1807 to the unhappy Buenos Ayres campaign. This was the zenith of his misfortunes; it was he who, placed in charge of a light brigade by the incapable Whitelocke, was thrust forward into the midst of the tangled streets of Buenos Ayres, surrounded in the convent of San Domingo, and forced to capitulate for lack of support. At the ensuing court-martial he was acquitted of all blame, but the fact that he had surrendered a British brigade rankled in his mind for the rest of his life. The unshaken confidence in his abilities felt by the Home authorities was marked by the fact that he was sent out in October 1808 with Baird’s corps, which landed at Corunna, and again in June 1809 to Lisbon, each time in command of a brigade. But his bad luck seemed still to attend him: he missed the victory of Corunna because Moore[p. 235] had detached his brigade on the inexplicable march to Vigo. He failed to be present at Talavera, despite of the famous forced march which he made towards the sound of the cannon.

In 1810 Craufurd was burning to vindicate his reputation, and to show that the confidence which Wellington placed in him was not undeserved. He still regarded himself as a man who had been unjustly dealt with, and had never been given his chance. He could not forget that he was four years older than Beresford, five years older than Wellington, eight years older than Hill, yet was but a junior brigadier-general in charge of a division[262]. He was full of a consuming energy, on the look-out for slights and quarrels, a very strict disciplinarian, restless himself and leaving his troops no rest. He was not liked by all his officers: in the Light Division he had many admirers[263] and many bitter critics. Nor was he at first popular with the rank and file, though they soon began to recognize the keen intelligence that guided his actions, and to see that he was a just if a hard master[264]. In the matter of feeding his troops, the most difficult task imposed on a general of the Peninsular army, he had an unparalleled reputation for accomplishing the impossible—even if the most drastic methods had to be employed. The famous old story about Wellington and the commissary had Craufurd (and not, as it is sometimes told, Picton) as[p. 236] its hero. As a sample of his high-handed ways, it may be mentioned that he once seized and impounded some church-plate till the villages to which it belonged found him some corn for his starving division. Craufurd, on one of his happy days, and they were many, was the most brilliant subordinate that Wellington ever owned. His mistakes—and he committed more than one—were the faults of an ardent and ambitious spirit taking an immoderate risk in the hour of excitement.

From March to July 1810 Craufurd, in charge of the whole outpost system of Wellington’s army, accomplished the extraordinary feat of guarding a front of forty miles against an active enemy of sixfold force, without suffering his line to be pierced, or allowing the French to gain any information whatever of the dispositions of the host in his rear. He was in constant and daily touch with Ney’s corps, yet was never surprised, and never thrust back save by absolutely overwhelming strength; he never lost a detachment, never failed to detect every move of the enemy, and never sent his commander false intelligence. This was the result of system and science, not merely of vigilance and activity. The journal of his aide de camp Shaw-Kennedy, giving the daily work of the Light Division during the critical months of 1810, might serve as an illustrative manual of outpost duty, and was indeed printed for that purpose in 1851[265].

Craufurd’s one cavalry regiment, the German Hussars, had to cover a front of nearly forty miles, and performed the duty admirably; it had been chosen for the service because it was considered by Wellington superior in scouting power to any of his British light cavalry corps. ‘General Craufurd worked out the most difficult part of the outpost duty with them. He had the great advantage of speaking German fluently, and he arranged for the outpost duties of the different parts of the long line that he had to guard by his personal communications with the captains of that admirable corps, men who were themselves masters of the subject. They each knew his plan for the space that they covered, though not his general plan, and each worked out his part most admirably. The General communicated with them direct. He had the great advantage[p. 237] of possessing, with his great abilities and energy, uncommon bodily strength, so that he could remain on horseback almost any length of time.... When his operations began, the point to be observed was the line of the Agueda, extending for some forty miles. The country, although very irregular in its surface, was quite open and unenclosed, and fit almost everywhere for the action of all three arms. When he took up the line he kept his infantry back entirely, with the exception of four companies of the Rifles above the bridge of Barba del Puerco, upon the calculation of the time that would be required to retire the infantry behind the Coa, after he received information from the cavalry of the enemy’s advance. If we are properly to understand Craufurd’s operations, the calculation must never be lost sight of, for it was on calculations that he acted all along. The hazarding of the four companies at Barba del Puerco forms a separate consideration: it rested on the belief that the pass there was so difficult, that four companies could defend it against any numbers, and that, if they were turned higher up the river, the Hussars would give the Rifles warning in ample time for a safe retreat.... Special reports were made of the state of the fords of the Agueda every morning, and the rapidity of its rises was particularly marked. An officer had special charge of all deserters from the enemy, to examine them and bring together their information[266]. Beacons were prepared on conspicuous heights, so as to communicate information as to the enemy’s offensive movements. To ensure against mistakes in the night, pointers were kept at the stations of communication, directed to the beacons.... As Napier has remarked in his History, seven minutes sufficed for the division to get under arms in the middle of the night, and a quarter of an hour, night or day, to bring it in order of battle to its alarm-posts, with the baggage loaded and assembled at a convenient distance to the rear. And this not upon a concerted signal, nor as a trial, but at all times and certain[267].’

[p. 238]

To complete the picture it remains to be added that there were some fifteen fords between Ciudad Rodrigo and the mouth of the Agueda, which were practicable in dry weather for all arms, and that several of them could be used even after a day or two of rain. The French were along the whole river; they had 3,000 horse available in March and April, 5,000 in May and June. Their infantry at some points were only three or four miles back from the river: yet Craufurd’s line was never broken, nor was even a picket of ten men cut off or surrounded. The least movement of the enemy was reported along the whole front in an incredibly short time, the whole web of communication quivered at the slightest touch, and the division was immediately ready to fight or to draw back, according as the strength of the French dictated boldness or caution.

During February Wellington had rightly concluded that Craufurd had nothing to fear; Ney’s early demonstration against Ciudad Rodrigo had no more serious significance than Mortier’s similar appearance in front of Badajoz. But when March arrived, and the 8th Corps appeared in the plains of Leon and commenced the siege of Astorga, while Ney began to move up his cavalry to the line of the Yeltes, and Loison’s division, coming from Astorga, established itself on the lower Agueda, it seemed likely that serious work would soon begin. The first test of the efficiency of Craufurd’s outpost system was made on the night of March 19-20, when Ferey, commanding the brigade of Loison’s division which lay at San Felices, assembled his six voltigeur companies before dawn, and made a dash at the pass of Barba del Puerco. He had the good luck to bayonet the sentries at the bridge before they could fire, and was half way up the rough ascent from the bridge to the village, when Beckwith’s detachment of the 95th Rifles, roused and armed in ten minutes, were upon him. They drove him down the defile, and chased him back across the river with the loss of two officers and forty-five men killed and wounded. Beckwith’s riflemen lost one officer and three men killed, and ten men wounded in the three companies engaged. After this alarm Craufurd was in anxious expectation of a general advance of the 6th Corps, and made every preparation to receive them. But Ferey’s reconnaissance had no sequel, and a whole month passed by[p. 239] without any serious move on the part of the enemy. The Agueda was in flood for the greater part of April, owing to incessant rains, which made the outpost work simple, as the number of points to be observed went down from fifteen to three or four. It was not till the twenty-sixth that Maucune’s and Ferey’s brigades moved up close to Ciudad Rodrigo, drove in the Spanish outposts, and formed the blockade of the place on the east side of the Agueda. Even then its bridge remained unmolested, and Craufurd could communicate quite freely with the garrison, and did so till June 2nd. Masséna at a later date blamed Ney for having established this partial and useless blockade before he was ready to commence the siege in earnest. The two French brigades consumed, during the month of May, the whole of the local resources of the district around Rodrigo, so that, when the rest of the army came up, all supplies had to be brought up from a great distance. It may also be remarked that to advance a corps of no more than 7,000 men within striking distance of the British army would have been very hazardous, if Wellington had been entertaining any designs of taking the offensive—and Ney at this time could not have been sure that such a contingency was unlikely. The only advantage which the Marshal got from keeping his detachment so close to the fortress was that, in their month of waiting, the brigades were able to prepare a great store of gabions and fascines, and the engineers to make a thorough survey of the environs.

Ciudad Rodrigo stands on a single circular knoll of no great height, whose summit it exactly covers. It is a small place of some 8,000 souls, packed tight in narrow streets within a stout mediaeval wall thickly set with towers. A fourteenth-century castle, on which the houses press in too close for strength, fills its south-eastern corner: there is no other inner place of refuge. The Agueda, divided into several channels, runs under the southern side of the place; it is crossed by a bridge completely commanded by the fire of the walls. On the water-front the knoll is at its highest, on the opposite face it is much less steep, and only very slightly exceeds the level of the surrounding ground. Round the circuit of the mediaeval wall a low modern enceinte had been constructed, and served as an outer protection (fausse-braye); it was only twelve feet high, so did not shield[p. 240] more than a third of the inner wall, which could be battered over its summit. Its outline was zigzagged in the form of redans, and it was furnished with a dry ditch. Its glacis, owing to the rising of the knoll, gave it little protection, so that both the older and the modern wall could be searched, for the greater part of their height, by the artillery of a besieger. Outside the eastern gate of Rodrigo lies the straggling suburb of San Francisco, on very low ground. It was so large and so close to the walls that the governor Herrasti considered it absolutely necessary to take it inside the circuit of his defences. It had accordingly been surrounded by a strong earthwork, and the three great monasteries which it contains—San Francisco, San Domingo, and Santa Clara—had been strengthened and loopholed. The small suburb of La Marina, just across the bridge, was retrenched and manned, as was also the convent of Santa Cruz, which stands isolated 200 yards outside the north-west angle of the town. Other outlying buildings had been levelled to the ground, lest they should afford cover to the enemy.
Map of the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo

Enlarge  SIEGE OF CIUDAD RODRIGO

These preparations were very wise and helpful, but they did not do away with the main weakness of Ciudad Rodrigo considered as a modern fortress. Like many other mediaeval strongholds it is commanded by outlying heights, which could be disregarded as an element of danger in the fourteenth or the sixteenth century, because of their distance, but became all-important with the improvement of artillery. In this case two knolls, considerably higher than that on which the place stands, lie outside its northern walls. The smaller, named the Little Teson, lies only 200 yards from the northern angle of the town; it is some fifty feet higher than the base of the ramparts. Immediately behind it rises the Great Teson, which dominates the whole country-side, its broad flat top, three-quarters of a mile in diameter, being a hundred feet above the level of the plain. It was hopeless to think of holding the little Teson as an outwork, since the greater one looks down into it and searches it from end to end. The Great Teson, on the other hand, is so large—its circuit is about the same as the city itself—that it would be impossible to think of defending it, as when entrenched it would require a garrison of at least 3,000 men, and Herrasti[p. 241] had but 5,500 troops under his command. Its slopes, moreover, are gentle, and do not lend themselves to fortification. The southern edge of the plateau of the Great Teson being only 500 yards from the town wall, it was obvious that here was the place from which Rodrigo could best be assailed. Batteries on its sky-line could breach both the inner and outer walls, and could command every square foot both of the town and of the fortified suburbs. Accordingly the brigades which lay before the place in May had encamped on and behind the Teson, and stored the gabions, fascines, and sandbags which they were making in a park, near the convent of La Caridad and the village of Pedro de Toro, on its further side.

Herrasti, as we have said, had a garrison of 5,500 men, composed of one line battalion, two militia battalions, three battalions of new levies from the town and its vicinity, called ‘Voluntarios de Ciudad Rodrigo,’ and one battalion of ‘Urban Guards[268].’ None of these troops, save the line battalion of Majorca (which had formed part of the old Army of Estremadura) had ever been under fire—a fact which makes their fine defence all the more creditable. There were only 11 officers and 37 men of the artillery of the line in the place: these had to train 350 men assigned to them from the infantry; but fortunately the long delay in the opening of the siege had allowed the instruction to be thoroughly carried out. Of engineers there were only 4 officers and 60 sappers—of cavalry none—but the partisan chief Julian Sanchez with some 200 of his Lancers chanced to be in the place on the day when it was completely invested, and was forced to cut his way out when the bombardment began. Perhaps the main strength of Ciudad Rodrigo, as of Gerona, lay in the personality of its governor. General Andrés Herrasti, a veteran of nearly seventy years, was determined to do his duty, and showed as much ingenuity and readiness as obstinacy in his defence.

Though the French had appeared before the walls of Ciudad[p. 242] Rodrigo on April 26th, it was not till May 30th that Ney came up in person, with four brigades of infantry and Montbrun’s division of reserve cavalry, to complete the investment. The main cause of the delay was, as usual, the lack of supplies. Ney had to levy and forward from Salamanca two months’ rations for an army of 30,000 men, and could only do so after long and harassing preparation. He nearly came to actual blows with King Joseph over the matter, for he sent a cavalry brigade to raise requisitions in the province of Avila, which was outside his command, and General Hugo, the King’s governor, put his troops under arms and refused to allow the dragoons to enter his district. An imperial rescript, however, soon arrived, which placed Avila at the disposition of the 6th Corps, and the royal authorities had to yield[269].

All Ney’s troops were now concentrated for the siege, his outlying detachments in every direction having been relieved by Junot, who, at Masséna’s orders, brought down the 8th Corps from the Douro, placed a brigade to watch the Pass of Ba?os, left garrisons in Zamora and Toro, and advanced with the remainder of his troops to the line of the Agueda. Clausel’s division and St. Croix’s division of dragoons took post at San Felices, in immediate touch with Craufurd’s division. Solignac’s division lay a march and a half to the rear at Ledesma. San Felices is only 20, Ledesma is 40 miles from Ciudad Rodrigo, so that the 8th Corps, deducting the outlying brigades, could have joined Ney in two days. These distances were the governing factor in Wellington’s policy during the next month. Ney had 26,000 men of the 6th Corps and Montbrun’s 4,000 dragoons in front of Rodrigo; Junot could join him with 8,000 infantry and 1,800 cavalry in a day; a second day would bring up Solignac with 7,000 men more. Unless the 6th Corps could be surprised in its camps, and forced to fight before it received its reinforcements, there would be 47,000 French to face. Of their numbers Wellington was roughly aware; the figures sent in to him by Craufurd were accurate to within a few thousands[270], and estimated the enemy at 40,000 men. The Commander-in-Chief’s own calculation was even nearer the truth; early in May he reckoned[p. 243] Ney, with Loison’s division included, at 30,000 men, Junot and Kellermann at 30,000[271]. Early in June he made out that the two corps in his front, without Kellermann, amounted to 50,000 men[272], which was only 3,000 over the true total. He himself had at this moment only 18,000 British troops under his hand, and within striking distance. He had on April 27th, brought up his head quarters and the 1st Division to Celorico, and moved forward Picton and the 3rd Division to Pinhel, while Cole with the 4th remained at Guarda, and the Light Division was, as usual, facing the Agueda. The cavalry had also come up from the Mondego valley, and lay behind Almeida. Moreover, the five Portuguese brigades of Harvey, Collins, Pack, Coleman, and Alex. Campbell were ordered up to the front[273], and joined the army in the first days of May. Wellington thereupon incorporated Harvey’s brigade with the 3rd Division and Collins’s with the 4th, a system which he afterwards carried out with nearly all the Portuguese units. The whole of this mass of troops came to some 15,000 men[274].[p. 244] These, with the British, making a total of 32,000 men, were all that Wellington could count upon............