Siege of Ciudad Rodrigo
Part I
January 1812
Introduction
Commentary by John Salmon, translations by Jane Hoyle
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An examination of the strategy behind the siege and the recriminations that followed with the help of the correspondence and despatches of the opposing commanders. The following article examines the events surrounding the fall of Ciudad Rodrigo in January 1812. Its centrepiece will be the words, written in dispatches and other correspondence, of the major personalities involved. Jane Hoyle has provided translations of the French documents and I have provided a commentary, to a large extent though I have let those concerned speak for themselves.
When writing his memoirs some years later, Marshal Marmont gave the following explanation for the loss of Ciudad Rodrigo;
The town of Rodrigo which was defended by the Spanish and attacked by [our] 6th Corps resisted for 25 days of open trenches, and cost us many casualties and much ammunition. The place was in a good state of defence which I had augmented by the addition of exterior works including a redoubt on the Greater Teson, above the town, in front of which the enemy opened up its trenches. I had also set up an additional fortification, a convent in the suburbs, with a view to supporting the redoubt. My most modest calculations were that the city could have held out for up to three weeks once the trenches had been opened up.
But General Dorsenne, who was in charge of the defence of the city had put it under the command of General Barrié, a detestable officer with no resolve, needing much supervision. The garrison was staffed by second-rate troops - there were fewer than 2,000 of them. General Dorsenne had totally neglected the forces stationed on the frontier. He did not seem worried about this omission, and made no effort to obtain news of the city. He did not even send a detachment of 300 cavalry to the city which would have eased matters greatly.
Once attacked, General Barrié made no credible dispositions. The fortified convent which had been so effectively used by the Spaniards when we attacked them wasn't even occupied, and the enemy just walked in without a shot being fired..
The redoubt was very efficiently attacked, and fell without loss on the very day the city was invested. The artillery started firing on the 16th, the breach [1] was made during the night and the order to assault was given during the night of the 18th. It was well defended but a feint attack by escalade succeeded and the town was carried by the English.
Never has such an operation been so effectively carried out. The English succeeded in their enterprise after eight days from the date of their first approach.
With such a miserable defence, so unprofessionally conducted, we had no time to come to the aid of the city. [2]
Blame
From this description of events, the blame for the failure of French arms seems to have been evenly distributed between Generals Dorsenne and Barrié. Of course, no blame falls on the shoulders of Marmont or the Emperor. In the following pages I will use the correspondence of the various commanders on both sides to build up a picture of what happened at Ciudad Rodrigo. From this firmer base I hope to draw more perceptive conclusions as to where fault, if it exists, lay for the fall of Ciudad Rodrigo.
First we need a summary of the events that led up to the siege. Spain in the Autumn of 1811 was unfinished business for Napoleon who had despatched forces to the Peninsula to force Portugal to comply with his continental system. This was Napoleon's attempt to restrict Britain's trade and thus dry up her wealth which she was using to raise coalitions against him. To achieve Portugal's compliance, large numbers of French troops were stationed in Spain, France's erstwhile ally. Napoleon usurped the Spanish throne and bestowed it upon his elder brother Joseph. This led to riot and open warfare between the Spanish people and the occupying French. Napoleon's campaign of 1808 should have conquered Spain and forced the withdrawal of British forces. However the attempt to cut off Britain's trade finally failed because at a crucial point Napoleon was interrupted by the Austrians, financed by British gold, who were attempting to gain revenge for their past humiliation by the French. Napoleon and many of his troops had been forced to rush to the Danube in early 1809 to counter the Hapsburg armies that threatened the Napoleonic order in central Europe. Spain was left to subordinate commanders under the nominal command of Joseph Bonaparte, newly crowned king of Spain. For the first time, the French were fighting two major campaigns at the same time. Austria was be defeated, but Spain remained as the unfinished war that sapped French strength and became the bleeding ulcer that laid low French armies and commanders.
The war in 1809 started with the French under Marshal Soult continuing to clear the British out of northern Spain, although at the cost of a defeat at Corunna on 16th January 1809. As the year progressed, the British reinforced their forces in Portugal, now commanded by Sir Arthur Wellesley, and pushed the French out of that country. They then linked up with a Spanish army and attempted a drive on the Spanish capital of Madrid, an effort that despite the victory at Talavera on 28 July 1809 was unsuccessful, largely due to lack of supplies and disputes between the two allies.
Talavera did however enable the name Wellesley to be changed to the more familiar Wellington with his elevation to the peerage as a Viscount. With the foresight that would mark him as one of the great commanders, Wellington perceived that with the defeat of the Austrians in the summer of 1809 French forces in Spain would be reinforced. In October 1809, he ordered the preparation of a defensive system for the Portuguese capital of Lisbon which would become known as 'The Lines of Torres Vedras' which took a year to construct.
Next year, the French army of Portugal, led by Marshal Massena, captured the strategically important Spanish/Portuguese border fortresses of Ciudad Rodrigo and Almeida. As they pushed on into Portugal, the French received a check at the battle of Busaco on 27 September and finally came to a halt in front of the Lines of Torres Vedras. Massena was forced to sit out a bleak winter in front of the lines as his army slowly starved or froze to death. In the early spring of 1811, he retreated from Lisbon and eventually, apart from the fortress of Almeida on the Portuguese side of the border opposite Ciudad Rodrigo, the French were cleared from the country.
The rest of 1811 was concerned with efforts by Wellington to take Almeida, which were successful, and his subordinate commander Beresford's two unsuccessful attempts to take the southern boarder fortress of Badajoz. To cover the siege of Almeida, Wellington fought Massena again on 3-5th May 1811 at Fuentes de Oñoro. This was an exceptionally tough and closely fought battle. Wellington frankly admitted, 'If Boney [Napoleon] had been there we should have been beaten.' [3]
In the south, Beresford's forces just managed to stave off defeat at the battle of Albuera on 16th May against Marshal Soult, and the second siege of Badajoz was abandoned. The rest of the year saw Wellington and the new commander of the French Army of Portugal, Marshal Marmont, manoeuvring along the border areas around Ciudad Rodrigo, but the campaigning season was fast drawing to a close. Both sides started to prepare themselves for the next round in 1812.
Spanish Forces
So far, I have concentrated on French actions and those of the Anglo/Portuguese forces under Wellington, which could give an unbalanced view of events. It would also be unfair to the Spanish forces, both regular and guerrilla, who tied down thousands of French troops. The action of Spanish forces was to be an important factor in the forthcoming siege of Ciudad Rodrigo. As Wellington prepared to advance on the fortress he was aware that on the east coast the Spanish General Blake was defending Valencia from French forces under Marshal Suchet. His advance on Ciudad Rodrigo was a partial attempt to stop reinforcements from Marmont's army going to the aid of Suchet. How successful this was we shall see later.
Besides the Spanish regular forces there were of course the guerrillas whose work was vital. They forced the French to spread themselves over the countryside in often futile attempts at pacification and subjugation. This meant that the French could not concentrate forces to oppose Wellington, whose presence in the Peninsula aided the guerrillas by stopping the French distributing enough forces around the countryside to break them. Both Wellington and the guerrillas were mutually supportive. The other major assistance the guerrillas gave Wellington was in the interdiction of French couriers. So difficult did sending messages become that the French had to supply large escorts and even then there was no certainty that the messages would get through. The French resorted to sending coded messages via sympathetic Spaniards. Their success can be judged by the great number of these messages that ended up at Wellington's headquarters. [4]
Having laid out the historical background, let us now look at the different characters involved with the events surrounding the fall of Ciudad Rodrigo in January 1812.
More Ciudad Rodrigo
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