Dubious? Wild? Incredible? Fantastic? Amazing? Astonishing?

The consensus on Britain's plans to attack México and Chile during the first years of the Napoleonic Wars is that they were impracticable. The invasion of La Plata was based on "dubious" intelligence, the idea of invading Chile and manning a chain of posts to link with the invaders of Buenos Aires has been described as "wild". The plan to attack México from both the Caribbean and Pacific is "fantastic". Collectively "it was all quite incredible", "amazing" and "astonishing." But was it?

After Trafalgar there was no doubt that Britain had sufficient naval advantage over the combined Franco-Spanish fleets to mount such ambitious operations. Furthermore, the army was not heavily engaged anywhere in Europe and, when finally used in 1807, its main expeditionary component was uselessly wasted in disease-ridden Walcheren without significantly embarrassing Napoleon. Britain certainly had the potential and opportunity to launch one or more colonial operations in Latin America in great force at any time between Trafalgar in 1805 and the outbreak of the Peninsular War in 1808, and there were nothing but local colonial resources to oppose them, because there was not a single peninsular Spanish regiment then in the Americas!

The Invasion of Mexico from the Pacific

The pre-requisite for attacking México from the Pacific was the capture of the Philippines, which were a dependency of the Viceroyalty of Nueva España (México). Their capital, Manila, had easily been taken by 1,000 British troops and 2,000 Indian sepoys in 1762, but the Spanish had since greatly increased the city's fortifications, regular garrison and Milicias Disciplinadas (Disciplined Militias), so by 1805 a major siege was in prospect in a disease ridden tropical climate likely to prove fatal to European troops.

The garrison, once assembled, would probably have been on a similar theoretical footing to that of 1797:

R	Company of Alabaderos (Halberdiers)	18
R	Two battalions of the Regimiento del Rey	2,750
R	Two companies of artillery	260
R	Squadron of Dragones de Luzon	180
MD	Battalion of Mestizos el Real Principe	1,000
MD	Nine battalions of Provincial Militia	9,000
MD	Five companies of cavalry	250
?	Six companies of Flecheros (Bowmen)	600
?	Company of San Fernando	100
MU	Four companies of Milicias Urbanas	400
.	Invalides	50
.	One company of engineering labourers	100
.	One company of firemen and porters	120
.	Sailors to man lanchas canonereas	500
Total		15,328

In 1797 the regulars, and the grenadier and light infantry companies of the Milicias Disciplinadas, were the only troops considered up to European standards. Thus it is possible that, at most, a little over 3,000 regulars and 2,000 Milicias Disciplinadas were fit for combat in 1805. However, it is very probable that the regular troops were far below establishment.

Manila

The British solution for capturing Manila was to use 4,000 already acclimatised Indian sepoys and only 1,000 European troops as stiffening. Thus, although the siege of Manila was likely to prove competitive, it's capture was a practical possibility. However, it was debatable if battle casualties, occupation duties and disease losses would have left a significant proportion of the army free for further operations.

Furthermore, the army's transportation across the Pacific, whose winds and currents were still little familiar to the British, was vastly more ambitious than reaching the well-known Philippines, and it's maintenance ultimately from India was barely conceivable. However, in the unlikely event of the logistics problems being resolved, the seizure of its primary target, relatively weak Acapulco, was not impossible. Acapulco's regular garrison consisted of only a single under-strength company, and a single British line-of-battle ship would have ensured naval dominance over the pair of under-manned frigates Spain usually maintained up the coast at San Blas, which also had only a single, weak, regular garrison company.

These were the only significant fortifications, regular army and naval units on Nueva España's Pacific coast, and were far less formidable military obstacles than Manila. It was sheer distance that made this trans-Pacific adventure definitely the weakest element of British designs on Spanish America. However, it was seen only as auxiliary to the real invasion of México, which was always to be mounted from the Caribbean.

Sir Arthur Wellesley's Planned Invasion of Mexico, 1806

The Caribbean landing to be mounted from Britain and Jamaica was to be led by Sir Arthur Wellesley, commanding 6,000 British infantry, 1,400 cavalry and 200 sappers, and 3,000 West Indian troops. His practical plan drew on his own recent experience in tropical India and lessons learnt from the horrendous disease losses at Cartagena, Havana and in Santo Domingo during the previous century. These decided him to besiege pestilential Veracruz with the acclimatised West Indian troops (fifteen single-battalion regiments of which had been raised since 1795) and the sappers, while the British infantry and cavalry marched on México City in the healthier highlands.

Wellesley's plan mirrored that of the Spanish, who intended to tie the British down in a siege of the port of Veracruz in the hope that disease would eventually defeat them. Veracruz's garrison in early 1807 contained 2,742 locally raised and acclimatised troops; the regular element being three companies of the regiment of México and the expanded Fijo Battalion of Veracruz of nearly 1,000 men. Meanwhile a field army was assembled in unprecedented numbers in the healthier central highlands to bar the route to Mexico City:

FIELD ARMY OF NUEVA ESPANA, AUGUST 1806
Unit	Strength
Regular Regt. of La Corona	1,031
Regular Regt. of Nueva España	834
Disc. Militia Regt. of Puebla	845
Disc. Militia Regt. of Tres Villas	845
Disc. Militia Regt. of México	845
Disc. Militia Regt. of Tlaxcala	845
Disc. Militia Regt. of Celaya	845
Disc. Militia Regt. of Toluca	845
Disc. Militia Regt. of Valladolid	845
Disc. Militia Regt. of Guanajuato	425
Disc. Militia Regt. of Oaxaca	425
15 Reserve Disc. Militia Companies	1,052
Regular Dragoon Regt. of México	364
Regular Dragoon Regt. of España	492
Disc. Militia Dragoon Regt. del Principe	361
Company of Artillery	114
Total	11,013

By October 1807 the number of troops under arms had grown further to 15,516, and this total excluded the bulk of the regular infantry regiments of México and Puebla deployed in Cuba and it's dependencies. In January 1808 the army exercised with 20 infantry battalions, 24 squadrons of dragoons and 34 cannon. Like the Milicias Disciplinadas of Spain, those of Nueva España and it's dependencies had permanent regular cadres to ensure routine training even in peace-time. By 1808 many disciplined militia regiments had been permanently under arms for three years and their standard of training had received the ultimate, if condescending, accolade of a Peninsular officer, "They have a military spirit like that of the soldiers of old Spain."

Given the meagre results of the Spanish Army in the Peninsular War this remark might be too easily dismissed. It is therefore worth pointing out that, later in 1808, grenadiers of the peninsular Milicias Disciplinadas were on one occasion to charge uphill and overrun guns of the French Imperial Guard, so the potential of colonial disciplined militias should not be too lightly discounted.

Siege

Thus the siege of Veracruz was likely to prove competitive, but the practical British preparations made it's capture feasible. Similarly the British plan to move the European element under Wellington rapidly into the healthier interior was also practical, and was used successfully by both the United States and France later in the century. Thereafter, it is probable that in open battle Wellington's greater command experience and his regular army would prove superior to the more numerous Milicias Disciplinadas that could be brought against them. Mexico City, although awkwardly situated on a lake, was not fortified, so it's fall was likely to follow the defeat of it's army as readily as it did later in the century to U.S. and French forces. (However, given the bitterness of the original Aztec defence of the city against Cortes in 1521, the successful defence of Buenos Aires in 1807 and the stubborn Mexican defence of nearby Puebla against the French in 1863, it would be unwise to assume that unfortified cities were necessarily always so easily seized). These Spanish and British preparations to contest México showed that colonial campaigning had reached a new scale and refinement. At last a Spanish colony had the potential to oppose the British in the open field, while the British had at last developed a practical plan to strike at the heart of a major Spanish Viceroyalty in the tropics.

The Southern Cone

Until the mid-18th Century the Plate estuary was of little commercial importance and therefore of little interest to the British. However, the diversion of many silver exports via Buenos Aires, the growth of the local cattle industry and the creation of the Viceroyalty of Río de la Plata in 1776 made it an increasingly attractive target. As a result, the British had tried unsuccessfully to attack the area in 1762 and to establish a base in the Falklands/Malvinas Islands in the early 1770's. Despite it's growing prosperity, the population of modern Argentina and Uruguay was still only a few hundred thousand in the 1800's.

This low population level meant that the region was probably the only major area of Spanish America where mass British immigration might still have overturned Hispanic demographic dominance. Furthermore, it was a more temperate region not afflicted by tropical diseases and thus amenable to both extended military operations and settlement. A British success in capturing México was unlikely to fundamentally change the character of that populous country, whereas British success in La Plata might well have led to the foundation of an Anglo-Saxon colony very like Australia, first settled in 1788. However, British motivation was not settlement, but commercial advantage.

The British Invasion of La Plata, 1806

STRENGTH OF THE ARMY OF LA PLATA, 1806
Unit	Theoretical	Actual
Regiment of Infantry of Buenos Aires	2065	791
Regiment of Dragoons of Buenos Aires	720	494
Regiment of Blandengues of Buenos Aires	720	621
Regiment of Blandengues of Montevideo	800	352
Company of Blandengues of Santa Fe	100	90

The intelligence that the defences of Buenos Aires consisted of only "a few regular troops and a few companies of undisciplined Blandengues" has been dismissed as "dubious". In fact, when the British invaded La Plata in June 1806, the Spanish regular garrison was every bit as under-strength and unprepared as they had been told. In La Plata, where the ownership of horses was universal, the local recruitment of low-prestige infantry was virtually impossible and most were Peninsulares. Only mounted units could be kept up to reasonable strength from local resources.

Furthermore, all the Blandengues were on the Indian frontiers, nearly half the infantry were in Patagonia, Paraguay or modern Bolivia, and most of the rest in Montevideo with the Dragoons. Although Montevideo had long been heavily fortified against the Portuguese in Brazil, the Viceregal capital of Buenos Aires was virtually an open city. Thus , when the British General Beresford landed eight miles east of Buenos Aires with 1,649 men and six guns on the 25th June 1806, there were only a handful of regular infantry and artillery in the city. Buenos Aires' Milicias Disciplinadas were immediately called out to support them.

SPANISH DEFENDERS OF BUENOS AIRES, JUNE 1806
Type	Unit	Foot	Horse
R	Grenadier Coy of Regt. of Buenos Aires	50	-
P	Artillery	?	?
MD	Voluntarios de Infanteria de B.A	500	100
MD	Voluntarios de Caballeria de B.A.	+ 461	129
MD	Artillery	100	-
MU	Milicias Urbanas de Comercio	+ 1,000	-
Fortress artillery - 30 Cannons, 4 Mortars
Field Artillery - 25 Cannons, 2 Mortars, 2 Howitzers

The Milicias Disciplinadas of La Plata were misnamed. They had neither been mobilised at the outbreak of war, as they had in Nueva España, nor did they possess the regular cadres of the Milicias Disciplinadas of all the circum-Caribbean colonies. Instead they (and the so-called Milicias Disciplinadas of Chile and Peru) received more occasional training from the local "Asamblea de Infantería" and "Asamblea de Caballería"; small, touring groups of regular instructors. This system was cheaper, but far less satisfactory than having permanent regular cadres. They were thus probably only slightly superior to the virtually untutored Milicias Urbanas (Urban Militias), and clearly inferior to the Milicias Disciplinadas of Nueva España or Cuba.

A Campo Volante consisting of the mounted units, two cannons and a howitzer were rushed to the British landing site, but were heavily outnumbered and were brushed aside with the loss, according to the British, of four (?) guns at Quilmes on 26 June. The following day the Campo Volante and 450 men of the Voluntarios de Infantería de Buenos Aires with four 4-pounder cannons tried to block the British advance at the Puente de Gálvez bridge on the Riachuelo River, but were driven back into the city in confusion. The defence then collapsed and the British took Buenos Aires for the loss of only 14 men, mostly to artillery fire. As the Milicias Disciplinadas were intended to act in the field in support, not instead, of regulars the result was not surprising.

Relieving Forces

Two relieving forces were raised. The first, of 800 men and 9 obsolete cannons, mostly consisted of regular Blandengues of Buenos Aires. However, these were frontier troops largely unsuited to conventional warfare, and they were driven off by 550 British with six cannons at Pedriel on 1 August 1806.

The second relief expedition was raised by the energetic Santiago Liniers at Montevideo and left that city on 3 August with 884 men, most of them regulars. By the time it attacked the British in Buenos Aires, it had grown to 1,936 men by picking up sailors, marines and local "Patriots". In the street fighting that followed, the city's population joined in enthusiastically against the British, who lost 48 dead, 107 wounded and 10 missing and were forced to surrender. It is probable that, had he met Liniers' force in the field, Beresford's better drilled regulars would have defeated the Spanish relief force convincingly.

However, most of the advantages of their superior battle training were lost in street fighting against the entire population of a still unfamiliar city.

LINIERS' RELIEF EXPEDITION TO BUENOS AIRES, 11 AUGUST 1806
Type	Unit	Strength	Losses
R	Regt. de Infanteria de B.A.	94	5
R	Regt. de Dragones de B.A.	321	11
R	Regt. de Blandengues de Montevideo	269	13
R	Artillery (2x181b, 4x41b, 2x6"How.)	131	7
MD	Bat. de Vol. de Inf. de Montevideo	100	6
MD	Regt. de Vol. de Cab. de Colonia	133	4
P	Coy. de Migueletes	150	7
.	Sailors and Marines	323	35
P	Patriotas de la Union	300	35
P	Patriotas de Caballeria	115	23
Total		1,936	186

Spanish Defense Section 2: 1807