Cartagena, 1812.
Both Naples and Sicily were ‘recovered’ by the Spanish during the War of Polish Succession in 1734.1 Charles, Duke of Parma, the younger son of King Philip V of Spain, was installed as King of Naples and Sicily a year later, the unified kingdoms becoming collectively known as ‘The Two Sicilies’. When, in turn, Charles inherited the Spanish throne from his half-brother in 1759 he established his youngest son, Ferdinand, on the throne of the two kingdoms. Ferdinand was a member of the House of Bourbon and his wife, Queen Maria Carolina, was the sister of the executed French queen, Marie Antoinette, circumstances which made them natural opponents of the French Revolution and of Napoleon Bonaparte.2 However, Fortescue described them thus: ‘the King, a degenerate Bourbon like his brother in Spain, was incapable of any fixed resolution; and the Queen was a false, dangerous, and scheming woman, who was more likely to favour Napoleon, if by so doing she could advance any small interest of her own.’3 While the French ambassador to the Court at Naples described her as ‘born with a great deal of intelligence and natural grace and ... endowed with more knowledge than women usually possess, she had a fair claim to govern, when she came to Naples and found a man on the throne incapable of governing’.4 Despite her qualms, she was a great admirer of Nelson and thankful towards Britain. Her overriding aim was to maintain the independence and territorial integrity of the Two Sicilies by averting the menace of French invasion.
Once Prussia had defected in 1795 and Austria had been defeated in 1797 only the Papal States, which promised a questionable defence, stood between the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and the French revolutionary armies. Naples fell in early 1799 but the Strait of Messina saved the island of Sicily from a similar fate. Ferdinand remained on Sicily and then, following the Treaty of Florence with Napoleon in 1801, he was able to recover much of his mainland kingdom but only by agreeing to remain neutral and by paying for the upkeep of a French army of occupation in Naples. Such an arrangement did not suit Britain whose interest in the Two Sicilies lay in her strategic position in the Mediterranean. Admiral Horatio Nelson had been quite specific that only by preventing the enemy by invading the neutral countries of the central and eastern Mediterranean could he maintain command of the sea on which William Pitt’s plans for an offensive depended. Without the ports of Messina and Naples, Nelson would have been unable to command the Mediterranean as he had done since the battle of the Nile in 1798. Britain was, therefore, committed to assisting Ferdinand for its own political and military aims. In 1801, as a condition of the Treaty of Amiens, the French withdrew their forces from the Kingdom of Naples. However, in 1803, once the unstable peace that followed the treaty unravelled, the French reoccupied Apulia with troops under the command of General Laurent de Gouvion Saint-Cyr. Dubbed a corps of observation their presence was a clear violation of Amiens, a blatant statement of French occupation and, to both Britain and Russia, an indicator of French ambitions in the Balkans and Middle East. In 1805, with the impending war against both Austria and Russia, Napoleon withdrew Saint-Cyr’s troops to northern Italy but only after insisting on Ferdinand’s absolute compliance with neutrality. Outwardly, the beleaguered monarch had little option but to accept. However, secretly he courted allied support and this, as it happened, provided the basis for the Third Coalition.
In mid-1805, as part of a wider plan by the allies of the Third Coalition, both Britain and Russia agreed to land troops in southern Italy to safeguard Naples. British forces from Malta, under the command of Lieutenant General James Craig, and Russian forces from the Ionian Islands and Odessa under General Moritz Petrovich Lacy landed in October. However, events in Germany moved too quickly and within days the Austrian Army of Germany had surrendered to Napoleon at Ulm and Archduke Charles had withdrawn from Italy pursued by Marshal Masséna. If that was not bad enough, the news six weeks later of the catastrophic Russian defeat at Austerlitz left General Lacy in a quandary as to whether or how to continue operations in southern Italy. By January 1806 both forces had withdrawn, the Russians to Corfu and the British to Sicily. Ferdinand and his queen were ‘chagrined and stung with disappointment at the “pusillanimous” conduct of their supposed delivers’.5 The episode badly damaged relations with Britain and the Napoleonic backlash was not long in coming. Following the victory over the Neapolitans at Campo Tenese in March 1806, Napoleon installed his older brother Joseph as King of Naples and Ferdinand fled, once again, to the relative security of Sicily.
The French invasion of Naples was quickly accomplished; Neapolitan resistance was minimal but the occupiers were soon running into difficulties. The insurrection following the occupation of Calabria was a foretaste of the difficulties the Grande Armée were to endure countering guerrilla tactics in the Iberian Peninsula and, in addition, the large fortress at Gaeta, 80 kilometres north of Naples, was to prove a hard nut to crack. By May 1806 the British forces on Sicily numbered about 8,000 and were under the command of Lieutenant General Sir John Stuart who was also given, albeit not without heated dialogue, command of all the native Sicilian and Neapolitan troops (an additional 9,500 men).6 This was considered the absolute minimum force level to secure the island and the main burden of defence lay with the Royal Navy which was required to patrol the Straits of Messina and intercept any French invasion force crossing from the mainland. However, the unrest on the mainland had reached such a level by mid-1806 that Stuart decided to land an expeditionary force on the mainland to exploit the instability. The resulting battle at Maida on 4 July 1806 was Stuart’s only real success while in command. Following the engagement he aided the capture of some of the more isolated garrisons in Calabria but could not reach Gaeta in time and the city fell to the French leaving Stuart no other option but to withdraw to Sicily.
He was replaced in July 1811 by Lord William Bentinck who arrived charged as the Envoy Extraordinary to the Court as well as commanderin-chief of the British force. Bentinck was the second son of the 3rd Duke of Portland (the British Prime Minister from March 1807 to October 1809) and had joined the Coldstream Guards in 1791 at the tender age of 16. Thanks to the system of purchase of commissions and his family wealth, promotions in rank followed with great rapidity and he was a colonel within seven years. In 1803, somewhat out of the blue, he was appointed as the Governor of Madras and promoted to major general two years later. His direct order that native troops were forbidden to wear their traditional attire resulted in a serious mutiny; so, once order had been restored, and the instruction rescinded, it was a somewhat disconsolate Bentinck that was recalled in 1807. He served with Sir John Moore and in 1809 commanded a brigade at the battle of Coruña; on returning to Britain he petitioned to be appointed for service in India in an attempt to clear his name. His appointment to Sicily was considered a sop, one where, as he would be closer to home, he could be managed. Had Bentinck been no more than a soldier, his course would have been clear, however he was a man of imagination, a Whig and a radical, albeit not an original thinker. Consequently, not content with merely raising a Sicilian army, he meddled in internal Sicilian affairs and planned to invade Italy and rally the people not only to expel Napoleon but to set up a constitutional monarchy. These were dynamics which were to impact on British foreign policy in the Mediterranean and directly affect the east coast of Spain.
Wellington had, for some time, been pressing the British government to open a second front on the east coast of Spain. The forces in Sicily were the obvious basis for such a force. Despite key Cabinet support, Stuart had resisted the idea and in 1810 refused to send four regiments to the region. He argued, not unreasonably, that he needed every man to hold Sicily, complete his mission of evicting the French from the Ionian Islands and prevent French expansion into the Balkans. Bentinck’s arrival coincided with an internal political crisis; Ferdinand and Maria Carolina had blatantly discriminated against Sicilians within their administration, in favour of Neapolitans, to such an extent that the former were ‘only held down by British bayonets’..7 Despite this distraction and long before this crisis had abated, Bentinck had been absorbed in a plan to create a single Italian nation. On his way to Sicily he had stopped off at Sardinia, where he had met the Archduke Francis (the younger son of the House of Habsburg) and his sidekick, Count Sallier de la Tour. The concept of a single Italian nation struck a chord with the trio. After a short time in Sicily, Bentinck hurried home firstly to make a point to Ferdinand that British support was not unconditional but, secondly, to seek support for the Italian project from the Foreign Secretary, Marquess Wellesley (Wellington’s elder brother). While back in London news came that another emissary had arrived in Sardinia. Alessandro Turri claimed to represent a number of key Italian officials who wanted an end to French domination and independence through unity.8 From the British they asked for money, arms and naval support to land the force once assembled in Sardinia. Wellesley authorized the project and provided £100,000 to raise an Italian levy.
Bentinck returned confident of success. His plan had received almost universal support and his expectations were high. One significant doubter, however, was Wellington who wrote at some length on 24 December 1811 in response to Bentinck’s letter:
Those who embark on projects of this description should be made to understand, or to act as if they understood, that having once drawn the sword they must not return it till they shall have completely accomplished their object. They must be prepared and they must be forced to all sacrifice to the cause. Submission to military discipline and order is a matter of course; but when a nation determines to resist the authority and shake off the government of Buonoaparte, they must be prepared and forced to sacrifice the luxuries and comforts of life, and to risk all in a contest which, it should be clearly understood before it is undertaken, has for its object to save all or nothing.
The first measure for a country to adopt is to form an army, and to raise a revenue from the people to defray the expense of the army. Above all, to form a government of such strength as that army and people can be forced by it to perform their duty. This is the rock upon which Spain has split ... the enthusiasm of the people is very fine, and looks well in print; but I have never known it to produce anything but confusion ... I therefore earnestly recommend you, wherever you go, to trust nothing to the enthusiasm of the people.9
In fact, when Bentinck had returned to Palermo in December 1811, the intelligence and reports as to the preparedness for an Italian insurrection were most distressing and, in frustration, Bentinck wrote home as suggested that if nothing was forthcoming in Italy then the best use of the forces at Sicily would be to use them in Catalonia the following summer. Wellington seized upon the offer. He also seized upon the intelligence that great swathes of Marmont’s army were heading east. He immediately issued orders to commence the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo. By 19 January the key border fortress was in his hands and he now turned his attention to Badajoz and also to the subsequent campaign plan. In addition to the advance of the main allied army there were to be a number of diversionary operations. The Spanish 6th Army under General José Santocildes was to attack and contain the French garrison at Astorga; the Portuguese General Francisco Silveira was to cross the border and move with his division to undertake the same mission against the French garrison at Zamora; the Spanish 4th and 5th armies were to work in conjunction with General Rowland Hill’s corps and contain Soult’s army in Andalusia; Admiral Home Popham was to land British Royal Marines and Royal Navy sailors off the Cantabrian coast who were to work in concert with General Gabriel Mendizábal’s semi-regular Spanish 7th Army and neutralise General Marie-François Auguste de Caffarelli’s French Army of the North; and lastly, but crucially from Wellington’s perspective, and based upon Bentinck’s offer, a British-led force was to land on the east coast of Spain, link up with the Spanish 2nd and 3rd armies and prevent Suchet moving west in support of Marmont and Joseph.
However, unbeknown to Wellington, Bentinck had regretted his proposal to operate in Spain and had sent a full plan, outlining the efficacy of operations in Italy, back to Lord Liverpool the Secretary for War. This despatch, dated 25 January 1812, was laid before the Prince Regent. Liverpool’s reply dated 4 March would have been a bitter disappointment to Bentinck who clearly considered this to be his opportunity to become the ‘Italian Wellington’.10
... His Royal Highness has perceived with great satisfaction that the events which have recently occurred in Sicily are likely to render, at no very distant period of time, a proportion of the army in that island under your command disposable for active operations. His Royal Highness is fully sensible of the peculiar advantages which might arise from employing a part of the force in question in operations upon the coast of Italy ... His Royal Highness is, however, of the opinion that such an operation would not be likely to be attended with any success at all proportionate to the risk which might be incurred ... with respect to any operation against the island of Corsica or that of Elba, though considerable importance may be attached, under certain circumstances, to the latter, it may be doubted how far, in the present state of things, such operations might not be a waste of that force which might be more advantageously employed in other quarters.
Admiral Sir Edward Pellew has turned his attention so seriously to the state of the eastern provinces of Spain that His Royal Highness recommends you to take the earliest opportunity of communicating with him on the subject. If a force could rendezvous at the island of Minorca early in the summer it is not improbable that Lord Wellington (who will be apprised of this letter) may be able to detach a corps from the garrison of Cádiz for the purpose of augmenting its numbers and effect; and the operation of this force might then be directed against Barcelona, Rosas, Tarragona, Valencia or any other place of importance on the eastern coast, according to the circumstances of the war at the time and the probability of success.11
Liverpool wrote in the covering letter to Wellington that accompanied his copy, that he would wish him to write to Bentinck and Pellew and apprise them of his plans. Wellington received the letters on 20 March and immediately replied to Liverpool that an attack on Tarragona or Barcelona to be the best use of this force.12 Vice Admiral Edward Pellew needed no convincing of the importance of this force being employed in Spain in preference to Italy (see chapter 14). Pellew wrote that ‘I cannot deny myself the pleasure of opening communication with your Lordship on this occasion’.13 He went on to throw himself firmly behind plans in eastern Spain. Wellington wasted no time in replying to Bentinck and suggested that an attack on Tarragona which, if successful could be followed by an attempt on Barcelona would be the best way for him to proceed.14 The correspondence was not continued until the siege of Badajoz, and the subsequent assault on the town, was concluded on 9 April. Two days later Lord Frederick Bentinck, William Bentinck’s younger brother, who was on the staff in Sicily, arrived with letters from Bentinck which appeared less than taken with the whole affair. This was the first that Wellington had heard of Bentinck’s volte-face and he wasted no time in writing to his brother:
I propose to urge Lord W. Bentinck in the strongest manner to undertake the expedition on the coast of Catalonia. I am about to send my battering train of artillery to Gibraltar, to be put in order for him ... but I still fear he will be too weak to undertake even the smallest object of the two recommended for his attention, and I have no means of reinforcing him. I beg leave, therefore, to suggest to you the expediency of proposing to the Regency ... that 3000 men of Gen. Roche’s division at Alicante, and 3000 men of Gen. Whittingham’s division at Majorca, should be prepared to embark in early June, in order to join and co-operate on the Eastern coast with the troops under Lord William Bentinck, which will come from Sicily.15
Wellesley was given immediate approval for use of both Roche’s and Whittingham’s divisions provided the latter was also funded by the British government along the same lines as that undertaken for Roche’s formation.16 Wellington then suggested to Bentinck that the ‘months of June, July and August; say from the third week in June to the second week in September: this is the period during which the harvest is on the ground, and we may be certain that the French will collect their armies in one body’.17 He then made arrangements with the Royal Navy, through Admiral George Berkeley commanding the Portuguese Station, to have all the naval transports at Alicante and Majorca in the first week in June. It was a busy and difficult time for Wellington; he continued to put in place all the components for his impending campaign only to receive news that the British Prime Minister, Spencer Perceval had been assassinated in early May in the lobby of the House of Commons. This resulted in considerable upheaval in certain key government appointments. Liverpool became the Prime Minister; the War Department went to Earl Bathurst, while Lord Castlereagh returned to the post of Foreign Secretary. Then in June the United States of America declared war on Britain; it was an unwelcome distraction and one which would eventually have a significant impact on the availability of naval resources. If that was not enough to tax his mind, he was to lose his best intelligence officer, for which read spy, when he was captured in Portugal, his ablest divisional commander who had to return to England for medical reasons; and his most reliable chief of staff, who returned to take up another appointment in Ireland. Against this rather unsatisfactory backdrop the campaign commenced in early May with Hill’s attack on the Fort Napoleon and bridge at Almaraz and on 13 June Wellington’s main army advanced east from their concentration area between Almeida and Ciudad Rodrigo. The Salamanca forts were captured by the end of the month, the city was liberated and the diversionary operations by Santocildes, Silveira and Home Popham all went off according to plan.
In the hiatus between the liberation of Salamanca and the impending battle, Wellington received a letter from Bentinck dated 20 May in which he outlined his plans for the expeditionary force. Firstly, he had decided not to command it in person but, more alarmingly, he had reduced the number of men to 7,000. He also appears to have gone off with funding designated by Wellesley for the operation which, it might be assumed, Bentinck’s younger brother collected from Gibraltar when en route back to Sicily having met Wellington and subsequently Wellesley.18 Wellington was furious, telling his brother, ‘Bentinck’s decision is fatal to the campaign ... if he should land any where in Italy, he will, as usual, be obliged to re-embark; and we should have lost a golden opportunity here’.19 Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Gordon, one of Wellington’s ADCs and brother to Lord Aberdeen, at that time ambassador in Vienna, summed up the mood within Wellington’s headquarters: ‘That Lord William should have taken it upon himself ... to act differently from his orders from Government and contrary to the decided opinions and expectations of Lord Wellington ... must be a matter of astonishment to your Lordship as well as to the Government at home, as it is a surprise to us here, and is a line which I hope will not be countenanced by any Government.’20 Bentinck had undoubtedly erred and now he vacillated but after much deliberation he finally allowed the operation to go ahead and on 7 June some 7,000 men boarded the naval transports. However, before they could weigh anchor Bentinck changed his mind and it was another three weeks before he finally conceded the inevitable and allowed the force to set sail under the command of Lieutenant General Thomas Maitland. He wrote the next day to Lord Liverpool:
I cannot but regret the Detachment of so considerable a portion of this army upon an object which in mine and the general opinion promises no real Aid to Spain; but the Effect of which however terminating, will be to interfere very materially with the efficiency of this Army and almost disqualify it to take any decisive advantage of a favourable opportunity if it offered in Italy.21
Liverpool was nonplussed, along with other ministers in Whitehall, as to Bentinck’s behaviour and rationale. They were quite clear that Bentinck was giving greater priority to Sicilian politics than to defeating Napoleon. When Liverpool, now prime minister, wrote in August to congratulate Wellington on his great victory over Marmont’s army at Salamanca, he outlined his frustration at Bentinck’s conduct of the whole affair: ‘The change of Lord Bentinck’s plan disappointed us most grievously. I cannot understand what his objects can have been. His instructions of March last were as positive as any which can be given to a commander so circumscribed.’22 Bentinck had most certainly lost the confidence of ministers at home who questioned his judgement but for now, at least, the Anglo-Sicilian diversionary force was underway; it was far weaker than Wellington had hoped and, as a result of Bentinck’s vacillation, it was late on parade.
Maitland was an infantry officer who had served in the 78th, 72nd and 62nd Foot before taking up an appointment as Governor of Ceylon, a post he held from 1805 to 1811. He thrived on his colonial experience and was evidently unhappy about being recalled. Back in England he wanted to remain at home on the Staff, according to the Duke of York’s secretary, Gordon, who described him as ‘a very clever man, but he inclines to be prosy’.23 Maitland’s force numbered nearly 7,000 men and consisted of the 10th, 58th and 81st regiments of Foot (first battalions), the 4th and 6th Line battalions of the King’s German Legion and parts of the foreign battalions of De Roll, Dillon and the Calabrian Free Corps (see Appendix I). In addition, there was a squadron of the 20th Light Dragoons and Williamson’s Company of the Royal Artillery. The force stopped off en route at Minorca to collect some more artillery and at Majorca to incorporate Whittingham’s newly organized Balearic Division. Samuel Ford (Samford) Whittingham, like Roche, was another fluent Spanish speaker who had joined the Life Guards in 1803 and first served in Spain a year later on a ‘secret mission’ for Pitt, the prime minister. He had taken part in the ill-fated Buenos Aires operation in 1807 and then moved to Gibraltar where he worked on the commander’s staff before asking to be seconded to the Spanish Army. He joined General Francisco Castaños’s army in mid-1808 and fought with General Manuel La Peña’s division at Bailén. When Castaños became captain-general of Andalusia, Whittingham was appointed as the cavalry commander, was promoted to major general and took part in the battle of Barrosa in 1811. In June that year he was sent to Majorca where he raised a cavalry corps and established an officer training college. This was to form the nucleus of the Majorca Division. In February 1812 Whittingham wrote to Wellesley:
The force at present under my command is only 2,200 men; but I may judge from the firm measures adopted by General Gregory, this number will be more than doubled in less than two months: and nothing would give me so much pleasure as to be employed in any plan of attack which might merit Sir Edward’s [Pellew] approbation.24
However, in reality the Majorcan regional government simply did not have the funds to maintain, let alone increase, the size of this division. One result of Whittingham’s letter was an agreement by Wellesley and General Luis Wimpfen, the Spanish chief of staff, for Britain to fund the Majorca Division; this was communicated to Wellington in April.25 It is clear from later correspondence that this funding, and the accounting for it, remained an issue for Whittingham who repeatedly asked for a British paymaster to be attached to the formation. Despite this on 24 July the Majorca Division consisting ‘of 159 officers, 3 chaplains, 8 surgeons and 4,180 non-commissioned officers and men’ embarked at Palma (for the composition of this force see Appendix I).26 The subject of a paymaster had not yet been resolved and it was to force Whittingham to offer his resignation even before the division had disembarked upon mainland Spain. It was just one of many frustrations and altercations which were to beset this force over the coming months. For now, however, expectations were high as Lieutenant Robert Woollcombe recalled:
28 July. Blue Peters hoisted and the signal guns fired for sailing ... The whole fleet sailed from Mahon consisting of about 75 sail (not including the men-of-war) of transports. The destination of the expedition remains unknown further than we are going to the east coast of Spain ... The expectation of every individual in the fleet is now raised to the highest pitch, and from the time already taken since the commencement and the numerous arrangements made by the conductors of this expedition a result highly favourable to the character of the British nation as well as to the cause of Spain may be anticipated.27
Maitland finally set sail from Palma on the 28th July and arrived at Palamos, on the Catalonian coast, three days later. Maitland’s orders were to link up with Lacy, the commander of the 1st Spanish Army, and to then jointly lay siege to Tarragona. The landing of this long-await force was planned to coincide with a general uprising across the region led by Baron d’Eroles, and this officer wasted no time in rowing out to HMS Malta to meet Maitland. He was keen to commence disembarkation without delay amidst promises of great support from the Catalans. Maitland wisely elected to wait for Lacy who appeared a while later and whose assessment was far less encouraging. He outlined plans to provide just over 7,000 Spaniards but added that it would take a week or so to bring them to the area. Furthermore, he thought that General Charles Decaen might be able to detach as many as 15,000 French soldiers from Barcelona and the other French garrisons to the north. Added to these would be Suchet’s flying reserve of about 2,000 from the south and so it would require all of the Maitland’s and Lacy’s men to keep them in check allowing none to conduct the siege. Lacy went on to outline the engineer reports which unanimously concluded that Tarragona would take more than 10 days to reduce. His final discouragement, if Maitland had not already made up his mind, was that he could provide neither provisions nor transport and that the Anglo-Sicilian force would have to be sustained from the sea. Maitland discussed the matter with his officers and wasted little time in announcing that he was not prepared to land the force and that he would seek a more suitable landing site further south. Many of his naval commanders agreed with Maitland’s decision as they considered the coast difficult enough even in the summer months, and could not guarantee the extraction of the army in the case of a reverse. However, Commodore Edward Codrington, who was commanding the patrol fleet off the coast and who had been in frequent contact with both Lacy and Eroles during the intervening months, considered that Lacy’s pessimism was driven out of jealousy of Eroles and disenchantment at having to give over the bulk of his force to the command of a British officer.28 He had the unenviable task of informing the Spanish authorities:
General Maitland has decided on not landing in Cataluña, but on proceeding to some other part of the Spanish Coast! I have just made it known to Eroles and the Junta, and the scene is enough to drive one mad. E. justly says that if the French themselves had had the management of this business, they could not have made it suit their purpose better. I have never known anything more cruel. If the force was not what he thought enough, why ever come. He might have settled this in Mahon or Sicily.29
The blame, of course, did not lie at Maitland’s door but at Bentinck’s. He had reduced the size of the force from Sicily and his vacillation had prevented Roche’s division from being transported in time to join Maitland off Palamos. Woollcombe recalled on 3 August that ‘the whole fleet weighed anchor and stood to the north and east ... and at four p.m. the rendezvous for Alicante was hoisted ... everyone on board was astonished at Alicante being hoisted as the rendezvous’.30 They arrived at the port on 7 August and the disembarkation commenced immediately. With the 3,500 men of Roche’s Spanish division and the 67th Foot, which had come up on Wellington’s orders from Cartagena, his force was just shy of 15,000 men (see Appendix I). If the Spanish 2nd and 3rd armies (now under General Francisco Elio’s command) had been intact the combined total would have been about 30,000 men. It would have been an allied army strong enough to advance on Suchet and have acted as much more than a mere distraction.
Cartagena, 1812.