Fletcher Galloping at Everything

1. Auflage 2008
ISBN: 978-0-7509-6190-5
Verlag: Spellmount
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 320 Seiten

The poor discipline demonstrated by the British cavalry commanded by general Slade at Maguilla in 1812 prompted the Duke of Wellington's famous remark that British cavalry officers were in the habit of galloping at everything. This work rehabilitates the reputation of the British cavalry in the Peninsula and at Waterloo.

IAN FLETCHER is an acknowledged expert on the Napoleonic wars and is the author of best-selling Wellington's Regiments, amongst many titles.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Fletcher, Ian

Leseproben

Introduction

It is the afternoon of 18 June 1815 and the place is the bloody, muddy field of Waterloo. A massive infantry attack has just been launched by over 15,000 French troops of D’Erlon’s I Corps against the left centre of Wellington’s Anglo-Dutch army. Napoleon’s Grand Battery of over seventy guns has done its job of softening up the Allied infantry and now it is all up to the French infantry, struggling gamely but resolutely up the slopes towards their objective. As they get to within thirty paces of the Allied infantry they halt and open fire, driving back their adversaries, slowly but steadily, until they themselves are brought to a standstill by veteran British infantry, thrust forward by their divisional commander, Sir Thomas Picton, himself a veteran of countless actions in the Iberian Peninsula. Deep within the dense French columns the sense of exhilaration turns to impatience, then to anxiety and then...panic and bewilderment. French troops are falling everywhere, and falling fast. Those at the head of the column are literally cut down where they stand whilst at the rear of the column the men begin to stream away like sand through an hour glass. But it is not the firepower of the British line that has inflicted such pain and panic on the French. No, it is something equally powerful and just as destructive – a full-blooded charge by 2,000 heavy British cavalry. These two brigades, the Household Brigade and the Union Brigade, will wreak so much havoc upon D’Erlon’s corps – some 2,000 killed and wounded, 3,000 prisoners and two Imperial eagles are among the haul – that, for the remainder of the afternoon, Napoleon will never again attack in any serious fashion against that part of Wellington’s main line. And yet up on the ridge of Mont St Jean the Commander-in-Chief of the Anglo-Dutch army, the Duke of Wellington, watches with a mixture not of joy and satisfaction but of horror, frustration and probably an overwhelming sense of déja vu. True, he is mightily relieved at having seen off the first real French infantry attack to be thrown against him, but it is one which has left him seriously bereft of cavalry for the remainder of the day as a result of the heavy casualties inflicted upon the Household and Union Brigades during their successful charge.

It must have seemed to Wellington like a return to the bad old days in Spain and Portugal when it appeared to be almost impossible for his cavalry to achieve anything substantial without subsequently pressing the self-destruct button and undoing all of their previous good work, a malaise which set in from the very outset of the war in the Peninsula. Indeed, at Vimeiro on 21 August 1808, his first major battle was marked by a cavalry charge by the 20th Light Dragoons which saw the regiment lose its commander in a rash gallop into enemy lines in pursuit of beaten infantry. It was a trend that was to continue on and off through the war, which lasted from 1808 to 1814, and which has left the British cavalry with a reputation of being ‘mere brainless gallopers’.

But is this the true picture, and should we not search for the reasons that this reputation, undeserved in my opinion, was acquired? I certainly think so, for I believe the poor reputation of the British cavalry in the Peninsula is a false one, based upon a handful of very high-profile misadventures, such as Vimeiro, Talavera and Maguilla, for each of which there at least twice the number of shining successes, some major and some minor – which often get overlooked. Indeed, even these misadventures can in part be explained and, upon further examination, be seen in their true light, as we shall discover when we look at Campo Mayor, for example, to see what really happened. Furthermore, there is much day-to-day operational work, such as patrols, intelligence gathering, escort work and foraging, at which British cavalry excelled. True, there were occasions when piquets were taken prisoner or when units were beaten in small combats, but that is the business of war and it is a very fortunate commander who finds himself at the head of an army which never tastes the flavour of misfortune or mishap. Wellington’s British cavalry proved more than adept at piquet work, at the gathering and transmission of intelligence, on forage and escort duties and on the field of battle where they forced their much vaunted and supposedly superior opponents to run on dozens of occasions. In fact, on the field of combat, there is hardly a single instance of a British cavalry unit being punished in the same manner that they themselves punished the French. No, not even Maguilla – the ‘unluckiest combat of the war’ according to Oman. We shall also discover how the performance of the cavalry, as compared to the British infantry, suffered as a result of their very low numbers, of a lack of good cavalry campaigning country and from the lack of a decent overall and consistent cavalry commander. We shall also see how the majority of the successes achieved by British cavalry in the Peninsula were won when Wellington himself was not present, the conclusion being that his mistrust of his cavalry was great enough for him to rely heavily on his wonderful British and Portuguese infantry.

Although this book is a reappraisal of the performance and reputation of the British cavalry, it is also a reappraisal of historians such as Sir Charles Oman, whose treatment of the cavalry has generally been followed, sometimes blindly, by successive historians. Oman’s conclusions, which I think are often erroneous, have been very influential over the years and, appearing as they did in his momentous work, History of the Peninsular War, it is little wonder that they have rarely been challenged. And yet they frequently differ enormously from the conclusions of Oman’s great contemporary, Sir John Fortescue, whose own magnum opus, The History of the British Army, often takes third place behind the works of Oman and Napier, author of the third, very influential work, The War in the Peninsula. Fortescue and Oman differed on many occasions, particularly in their treatment of the British cavalry, but the former’s verdict on such important episodes such as Campo Mayor, for example, is invariably overlooked. As a result, Oman’s has generally been the version followed by historians who have not really bothered to investigate the episode properly for themselves. Hence, Oman’s conclusion, incorrect in my view, and his damning verdict on the British cavalry have been perpetuated. Indeed, Rory Muir, author of the recent Tactics and Experience of Battle in the Age of Napoleon, actually goes so far as to state that Campo Mayor was a famous defeat for the British cavalry, which is a quite incredible statement but is typical of historians who fail to see beyond the Oman view.

It should be said from the outset that this book is devoted entirely to the study of Wellington’s British cavalry and not that of his German allies, the superb and ever-reliable King’s German Legion who were not, however, without their own faults. These worthies emerged from the campaign in the Peninsula with a reputation second-to-none. Indeed, the difference between the British and their KGL comrades can best be summed up by that most astute of observers, John Kincaid, of the 95th Rifles, It was Kincaid, who spent many a month working at the outposts with both British and KGL cavalry, who said, ‘If we saw a British dragoon at any time approaching in full speed, it excited no great curiosity among us, but whenever we saw one of the first hussars [KGL] coming on at the gallop it was high time to gird on our swords and bundle up.’ The KGL had their low points as well as their highs but this is not their story, nor is it the story of either the Portuguese or Spanish cavalry which fell under Wellington’s command.

The writing of this book has involved several individuals whom I would like to thank. Timothy Edwards, Richard Old and David Chantler (not to be confused with the eminent historian, as is often the case!) all loaned me items from their own very extensive collections of Peninsular and Waterloo literature, for which I am extremely grateful. David, in fact, was a great help, offering opinions and views on a variety of cavalry related subjects in addition to the actual structuring of the book at a stage when things were slacking off. David was also a companion, along with Richard Old, John Seabrook, Hugh Macdonald-Buchanan and John Strecker – who can claim a relative in the 9th Light Dragoons who, we believe, was at Arroyo dos Molinos during Hill’s raid in October 1811 – on several trips to the Peninsula and to Waterloo, following the fortunes of Wellington’s cavalry. There is nothing like actually seeing the ground in order get a wider appreciation of the problems faced by the cavalry and our travels took us to all of the locations featured in this book, including several hours up and down the motorway in search of the battlefield of Venta del Pozo whilst Maguilla was likewise a difficult fight to follow, particularly as there are no maps – as far as I am aware – of these actions. The majority of the battlefields are, however, both well documented and in good condition and picking our way through the olive groves above Villagarcia and Campo Mayor, or walking across the fields at Salamanca, Sahagun and Morales, certainly brought us closer to Le Marchant, Long, Cotton, Paget and comrades. I must also thank David Grant for reading the manuscript and for running his red pen through it. My good friend, Philip Haythornthwaite, was also kind enough to supply both pictures and some contemporary newspaper cuttings from his vast collection, for which I thank him.* Sir Charles Oman’s piece on the...