"Gallantry and Discipline"

Part 2

by Mark Clayton, U. K.

An analysis of the outlook and morale of British soldiers in the Peninsular War and Waterloo Campaign, (1807 - 15).

Although they shared many hardships with the men, such as the severities of the weather and the deficiencies in supplies, many officers could live relatively comfortably for much of the time because they always had priority of billets or bivouac site, and had money to transport their baggage, and to supplement their rations. Wealthier officers could be quite concerned about their table, (at which, if they were senior, they might also feed several subordinates and aides-de-camp); e.g. Lieutenant-General Robert Long, who several times wrote home to England for "a small supply of eatables", Wiltshire cheeses, tongues, portable soups, burgundy vinegar, tea etc.

But lesser officers too were naturally concerned to maintain and improve their diet, Kincaid once related how he managed to obtain a loaf from two nuns, for meat without bread was "loathsome"; and in July, 1812 Captain Bragge of the 3rd (King's Own) Dragoons, wrote to his father that he hoped the war would soon be over because he had no butter or spirits, scarcely any vegetables except onions, and was low on honey and cheese. It was generally felt by the rank and file (probably with some justice) that officers, because they were used to more comforts than the men, suffered more from the fatigues of a campaign. Some "felt sorry to see gentlemen of good fortune and talent exposed to such privations"; but for others, e.g. on the retreat to Corunna, it gave a "malicious satisfaction" to see officers worth thousands a year stumbling along with an old blanket around them.

For both officers and men, the main way to relieve the discomforts and sufferings of campaign life was to smoke and get drunk. On the retreat to Corunna, William Green reckoned that "those who could use tobacco held out the best", and Wheatley found "it prevents cold, spends the time and encourages meditation." But the troops were most concerned about their drink, "There is nothing, not even flogging, damps the spirit of a service soldier more than stopping his grog." Certainly drunkenness was very widespread, Wheeler wrote that "drunkenness had prevailed to such a frightful extent that I have often wondered how it was that a great part of our army were not cut off."

On the retreat to Corunna many drunkards died of exposure sleeping in the snow, or were cut down, or taken prisoner as stragglers. Drunkenness was probably proportionately more widespread among the officers than the men, because they had more money to afford it. Many soldiers spent their meagre pay on cheap Spanish wine to supplement the third of a pint of spirits or quart of beer which was their daily ration (when available). But for some, even this was not enough, particularly when their pay was in arrears, as it usually was, and there was always the incentive to plunder and pillage, for more drink; food to relieve the deficiencies and monotony of their diet, and other usable or saleable items like clothes, jewellry and church plate.

Thus pillaging was carried on by large numbers of soldiers throughout the Peninsular War, despite the penalty of hanging if caught. Tomkinson witnessed four soldiers so executed for plundering in Leiria in October, 1810; and in France in 1814, Wheatley saw a muleteer hanged from the house he had attempted to steal apples from. This was on the orders of the Provost Martial Pakenham, Wellington's brother-in-law who was appointed at the head of a multitude of `police' to deter plundering in France lest the French population turned against the British as the Spanish did against the French.

The officers' and mens' attitudes towards plundering, and towards the indigenous Portuguese and Spanish populations, most of whom were peasants on subsistence farming, really depended on the situation the soldiers themselves were in. Inevitably there must have been some who cared little about the local population's plight, made worse by the devastation of ravaging armies. Yet many others seem to have been genuinely concerned, and when they had a `sufficiency of supplies tried to avoid taking necessaries, and even tried to help the peasantry.

Soldiers of the 51st Foot gave biscuits to some of the starving poor they passed on the march in early 1811 Wheatley noted in his journal how the poor peasants were reduced to living on chestnuts and sour wine, and how fortunate the people of England were not to know the distress of a country ravaged by contending armies. But the army had to feed itself to continue the war against the French, and the soldiers were naturally concerned about their own welfare; thus with the shortages from a deficient supply system, "hunger often caused us to do things which we should have been ashamed to do, if we had had plenty" (J. Green).

In July, 1813, Wheeler and his companions in woods near Vitoria took from an old shepherd all his bread, cheese and wine. "The poor fellow cried. It was of no use, we had not eaten a bit of bread these eleven days. The old man was not far from home and could get more." Schaumann deeply regretted having "to cut the poor people's corn down", and Surtees hated having from shortage of fuel , to resort "to the cruel and unchristian like expedient of pulling down houses to obtain tinder".

Often, however, the point of necessity was stretched or ignored altogether, and the peasants plundered. One market day in July 1809 soldiers and civilians overwhelmed the peasant stalls in Talavera and carried off the produce.

The soldiers of the 95th in 1808 were not above hammering flat the buttons of their greatcoats and passing them off as English coin for Spanish wine. Some British soldiers, e.g. Tomkinson, held the view that the Spanish should not mind their corn too much, and should indeed give every assistance, since the British were fighting "their battles for them" to clear the French out of Spain.

Generally, the British soldiers did not have a very high opinion of the Portuguese and Spanish. For many, their first experience of the Peninsula was Lisbon, to which the general impression was of "a dunghill from end to end"; and there were similar complaints about many other Portuguese and Spanish dwelling places, so that it was a remarkable and delightful change to find clean, neat villages in Portugal. (Wheeler). The Spanish were found, by some British gentlemanly officers at least, to be a "diminutive race and disagreeable in thin countenance and appearance" (Do br‚e), of whom good breeding was not a characteristic. (Wheatley).

The best thing about the Spanish was their women, in whom soldiers traditionally take a considerable interest. In April, 1812 Captain Bragge wrote to his brother, "I sincerely wish we may be able to penetrate into Spain as the people are in every respect superior to the Portuguese, but in no one particular more so than in the Beauty of the Signoras, who are, generally speaking very pretty and decently clean". However, the Spanish beauties did not suit every officer's taste, Kincaid longed to feast his eyes on "the illuminated portion of Nature's fairest works a lady."

Some British officers also took a considerable dislike to the Spanish taste for bullfights. At one given in honour of Wellington in Madrid on the 31st August, 1812, according to Hennell, many officers hissed and shouted at a horse being gored by a bull. Hennell wrote disdainfully of the Spanish who delighted in "this scene of blood", "These are the men who seldom fail to run away when attacked by the French."

The general British impression of the Spanish army was of it being ill-clothed, paid, disciplined and organised; a state which was principally the fault of the officers who "appeared to be utterly unfit to command their men", full of vain-glory and empty bravado. To a large extent this opinion was justified by the army's performance in the field. From the extraordinary rout of 2000 Spanish troops at Talavera (27th July, 1809), to the flight of the Spanish army at Toulouse (11th April, 18l4), the Spanish were singularly unsuccessful and unreliable troops, generally regarded by the British soldiers as "bad plucked ones" who would rather run than fight.

The Portuguese cavalry were also "never to be trusted", but their infantry, retrained and disciplined by British officers were counted brave troops, and by 1811/12 were regarded as almost the equal of British troops. British attitudes then, to the Portuguese and Spanish populations were mixed, varying from humanitarian pity for the peasant poor, to the careless and disdainful feelings for the people and their way of life, that encouraged soldiers to rob, murder and rape.

Their attitudes towards the French were similarly inconsistent. Because of their military performance, the French were respected by British troops. Their repeated defeats on the battlefield were mostly put down to "their miserable generals" (Hennell), and the superiority of British tactics (see below); for the courage of the French troops could not be denied; "while I endeavour to record the gallantry of the British I cannot in justice to a brave enemy be silent in their praise" (Wheeler). The courage and zeal of the French officers encouraging their men was particularly noted.

Apart from military prowess, attitudes to the French depended on circumstances. On the march, whether advancing or retreating, they were the enemy to be beaten, the reason why the British were there, and the cause of the soldiers' sufferings. They were "monsieur", or "frog eating rascals", the butt of crude jokes around the campfire. In this impersonal form the enemy could be killed in skirmishes and battles , which were "them or us" situations. After the battle of Vimiero, Harris shot a fellow looter because "he was a French light infantry man, and I therefore took it quite in the way of business, he had attempted my life, and lost his own."

However, coming face to face with the enemy when neither side was on the offensive, e.g. when foraging, or when units of the two sides were encamped opposite each other for a long period of time, or when French wounded were captured, the enemy became more personal and soldiers' attitudes were more amicable and sympathetic. Indeed, in such situations there was a great deal of fraternisation with the French. Wheeler tells how British and French infantry, both coveting apples in an orchard were soon intermingled, picking them, "with as much unconcern as if they were belonging to the same service." Costello and Tomkinson had chats with French pickets opposite them. The latter and his fellow officers whilst encamped on the Rio Major in December, 1810, were invited by French officers to a play in Santarem, and the British invited the French to horse races, football and dog hunts; but this communication was stopped by a general order, one of several that tried to curtail such fraternisation.

However, between the outposts, peaceable relations were tolerated, and even encouraged. It was considered bad form for sentries to fire at one another, and notice was usually given before an attack so that the sentries who could not influence the battle might get out of the way. French wounded were treated as companions in arms, and often every effort was made towards their comfort, or at least to see that they were not molested by looters and revenge seeking Portuguese and Spanish.

For, "military hatred is never felt for the helpless but against the daring and the capable." Soldiers of the 95th pitying the half-starved, distressed condition of the French in Santarem in 1810, shared biscuit rations with them, and exchanged tobacco for brandy. Such fraternisation was principally engaged in by British soldiers, and much less, even in the last months of the war, by German, Spanish and Portuguese troops.

These troops tended to take a much harder and more cruel attitude towards the French, in revenge for the invasion and ravaging of their countries. They, and the French in reply, committed numerous atrocities, such as the torturing and killing of wounded and prisoners. The British generally regarded these atrocities with horror and disgust, Robert Long thought the atrocities committed by the French retreating in March 1811 "rival led those of the most savage Indian tribes" and would reflect eternal disgrace on the officers and men who committed them.

Thomas of the 71st, found it impossible to pity the dead Frenchmen lying by the road, whose retreat "resembled more that of famished wolves than men .... every house was a sepulchre, a cabin of horrors." Undoubtedly though, the British too committed many acts of cruelty and rapacity both against the indigenous population and enemy troops, e.g. at Vimiero, Harris witnessed an English dragoon and a Portuguese cavalryman pursue and cut down a French officer in cold blood. Yet the British committed far fewer atrocities because, not fighting on their own soil, they were much less motivated by revenge than were the Portuguese, Spanish,and Prussians (Waterloo Campaign); and in not being faced with the extensive guerrilla war that threatened the French supplies and communications, they had no need to make bloody retaliations.

Thus, despite the sack of Badajoz, Surtees was "fully persuaded that there is more humanity and generosity to be found in the breast of an English soldier than any other in the world, for, except when inflamed by drink, I am confident it would be most revolting to his feelings to be ordered to proceed with cool deliberation to the execution of such horrid butcheries as we read of in the armies of other nations." Considering the widespread drunkenness in the British army (see above), this perhaps is not saying very much.

The many horrors that British soldiers saw on Campaign, starving peasants, numerous atrocities, not to mention the horror of battlefield casualties (see below), doubtless hardened many men's characters. "War is a sad blunter of feelings." (Harris). They became callous and indifferent to the horrors and suffering they saw, the sight of three ghastly bodies near his pique was all too familiar to Harris in 1808. Wheatley happily slept in his tent at the back of which a man's hand protruded from his grave, exposed by the heavy rains. Thomas of the 71st "looked over the field of Waterloo as a matter of course, a matter of small concern."

Yet British soldiers did have a strong concept of the rules of war. The plundering of towns such as Rodrigo and Badajoz was the "immemorial privilege" of those who successfully stormed a town which had refused to surrender. It was both explicable and deserved in view of "the exasperated feelings of the soldiers who by the obstinate resistance of the enemy and the almost incredible difficulties they had been obliged to surmount were wrought to a pitch of fury which no human power could control" Many officers seem to have concurred with this view, and it is probable that even Wellington accepted the inevitability of plunder, though he was very much against it as a flagrant breach of discipline.

The plundering of the dead and wounded on a battlefield was also an accepted, if distasteful facet of war, and could be quite a major source of income and concern to the rank and file, and an incentive and encouragement to put up with the hardships and risks of campaign life. Harris generally had plenty of money, for he was always straying about and picking up what he could find on the battlefield; and Wheeler at the battle of Nivelle, though wounded in both legs, managed to shoot a French soldier who robbed him, and later crawl over and take back his money and more besides.

Officers too undoubtedly took their share of the plunder where they could, but doing so was frowned upon as ungentlemanly, and a bad example to the men, "if an officer plunders before his men, what may not soldiers be expected to do?" (Surtees). A horse was the only thing "that an officer can permit himself to consider a legal prize." (Kincaid).

But there were also other rules of war. Flags of truce frequently passed between the two sides, e.g. to be allowed to collect the wounded and bury the dead on a battlefield. Wounded and prisoners were expected not to be physically harmed, though they might be robbed, and it was by no means certain what other treatment they might receive. As soon as he was captured, at Waterloo, Wheatley had his knapsack taken, and later he was dragged along tied to a horse's tail, and almost ridden down by three or four French cavalry as sport.

Firing upon unarmed units, such as watering parties, was frowned upon, as was firing on sentries (see above). A 95th Rifleman who shot a French sentry for his knapsack and the food it might contains committed "a cruelty which no law of arms could justify." But on the whole, the British and French at least, respected these rules, and instances of their flouting recorded in letter and memoirs were exceptions worthy of anecdote. As Costello, perhaps with a little exaggeration wrote " We anticipated little terror from capture and though we ever found them to be our roughest antagonists, yet we always experienced a most generous opposition; indeed there was, on the whole, such a chivalrous spirit carried on between us, that our men had a kind respect even for a wound inflicted by a Frenchman."

Writers delighted to record examples of such chivalry; Costello remembered a British Light Dragoon being hissed at by his fellows for refusing to accept a challenge to individual combat with a Frenchman; and a French dragoon being cheered by British cavalry for his intrepidity in fighting his way back through them when cut off from his regiment.

Thomas of the 71st, tells how near Sabreira in 1810, a French officer and four men came under a flag of truce to request half of a bullock which had escaped from the French camp to the British, "which they got for godsake." And Wheeler thought it "delightful to see the very same soldiers, who an hour before were dealing destruction about them, tendering all the assistance in their power to a fallen enemy. What a boast to belong to such a country."

More Gallantry

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