On 1 January 1812, Wellington saw an opportunity to attack the fortress and ordered it to be invested on the 6th. Due to the shortage of transport he decided not to wait for the howitzer ammunition to be delivered and attacked the fortress with guns only.⁷ Edward Charles Cocks, who was a great favourite of Wellington, said that he did not like using mortars.⁸ This may have come from his witnessing the British bombardment of Copenhagen in 1807 and the terrible effect it had on the civilian population. The use of mortars against San Sebastian in 1813 would cause great anger amongst the Spanish due the damage and civilian casualties they caused.

Engineer resources for the attack comprised of Fletcher in overall command with eighteen other officers⁹ and eighteen men from the Royal Military Artificers. A company of Royal Military Artificers had been ordered up from Lisbon on 18 December 1811, but they had not yet arrived.¹⁰ Burgoyne and Ross were assigned as siege directors, taking 24-hour shifts in turn. Additional support was made up of twelve assistant engineers and 180 soldiers, all from the 3rd Division. These were the men who had been given basic training under Burgoyne in the preceding months.

Timeline for Siege of Ciudad Rodrigo

14 May 1811	Wellington ordered siege train to be moved from Lisbon to Oporto
1 December 1811	Siege train moved up to Almeida, ready for use
8 January 1812	Fortress invested
8 January 1812	Reynaud redoubt stormed on night of 8/9 Jan 1812
8 January 1811	Trenches opened on night of 8/9 Jan 1812
13 January 1812	Convent of Santa Cruz stormed on night of 13/14 Jan 1812
14 January 1812	French sortie from fortress
14 January 1812	Siege guns opened fire on fortress
14 January 1812	Convent of San Francisco stormed on night of 14/15 Jan 1812
18 January 1812	New battery opens to form second breach
19 January 1812	Fortress stormed on night of 19/20 Jan 1812

Heavy snow delayed the investment due to the difficulty in bringing the stores forward. The fortress was finally invested on 8 January and on the same night the Reynaud redoubt was stormed by troops under the command of Colonel John Colborne.¹¹ Work started on the trenches immediately and the following night the breaching batteries were started. The plan was to place the first breaching batteries on the Great Teson hill and then move nearer to build a second one on the Little Teson.¹² George Ross, one of the siege directors, was killed early on the night of the 9th and was replaced by Charles Ellicombe, an officer with less experience.

On 10 January, one of the batteries being constructed was found to be partially masked by the Reynaud redoubt and some of the guns had to be moved to another battery. Jones remarked, with some irony, ‘that it was thought less labour to remove five of the guns [to another battery] … than to cut away the redoubt’.¹³ Overall progress was good, but the troops were suffering due to the freezing weather and because they had to march from their camp that was ten to twelve miles away. En route they had to ford a river so they spent most of their 24-hour shift cold and wet.

There was a change of plan on 13 January, when Wellington asked Fletcher if the second, closer, set of breaching batteries could be dispensed with as he had received news that Marmont was moving to relieve the fortress. This was agreed, although work continued on the trenches to keep Wellington’s options open if Marmont did not advance. That night the convent of Santa Cruz was stormed as it directly threatened the second parallel. On the morning of the 14th, the French made a sortie from the fortress and briefly took control of the trenches, but only limited damage was done and the breaching batteries opened later that day. Burgoyne described it as follows:

On the evening of the 14th, our batteries opened and made an hour’s very bad practice, partly however from opening the embrasures in a hurry. In this operation, while standing on the parapet, poor Skelton [Lieutenant Thomas Skelton RE] received a mortal wound, a round shot taking his hip and the hand he had upon it … On the same night Mulcaster received a musket ball through the fleshy part of his thigh (of little consequence, but disables him for the present) while superintending the zig zags on the right, on which they keep up a constant fire of musketry and occasionally grape.¹⁴

There was another error in the siting of the guns, as it was now found that two 18-pounders could not see the foot of the wall of the convent of San Francisco which they were supposed to attack. Two new batteries were started to create a second breach in the wall and these opened fire on the 18th. The new guns had an immediate impact and the next day the wall collapsed, creating the second practicable breach. Wellington inspected the breaches and wrote orders for an assault that night. The 3rd Division was to storm the main breach and the Light Division the second breach. The storming parties were led to the breaches by Major Sturgeon, Royal Staff Corps, Captain Ellicombe RE and Lieutenant Wright RE.¹⁵ The assault was planned for 7 p.m. that evening and both attacks succeeded, the troops then dissolving into a disorderly mob to ransack the town. Order was restored by the morning and work commenced at once to restore the fortress to a defensible state.

This siege was generally seen as being very successful, both at the time and by later writers, with the fortress falling in twelve days. However, there are circumstances that need further evaluation. Wellington’s decision to attack on 1 January 1812 was a consequence of intercepting orders from Napoleon reorganising the French command structure and simultaneously detaching troops to the east coast of Spain,¹⁶ the result being that the French forces covering Ciudad Rodrigo were reduced in numbers and moved further away, thereby increasing their response time to any actions by Wellington. The assault on Ciudad Rodrigo was clearly a snap decision, as on 30 December 1811, Dickson wrote ‘Wellington thinks in about a fortnight we shall have sufficient [ammunition] here to commence operations’.¹⁷ Two days later, he wrote that the ‘operation will be undertaken immediately … and … the trenches will be open in six or seven days’.¹⁸ Dickson, who was many miles away, was slightly behind with the decision-making. John Jones noted in his diary on 28 December 1811 that ‘Wellington determined to start the siege instantly he could get up the smallest possible proportion of stores and ammunition’.¹⁹ Once again Wellington was starting a siege with a very small window of opportunity, which meant that the normal rules of sieges had to be ignored. The weather was atrocious and the stores were not ready. One engineer remarked ‘Lord W is anxious to break ground tomorrow night, for which he has not afforded the means’.²⁰

This quick decision meant that there was no transport to deliver the howitzer ammunition and Wellington took the risk of starting the siege with only a limited ability to carry out counter-battery fire. This would explain why there was no attempt to silence the French guns until the day of the assault. After the siege, Wellington appeared to justify this decision as a new tactic: ‘We proceeded at Ciudad Rodrigo on quite a new principle of sieges. The whole object of our fire was to lay open the walls’.²¹ The disadvantage of this principle was that many more Allied troops were injured through the consistently effective fire from the numerous French guns. The French were certainly surprised by the lack of counter-battery fire.²² Colville, commanding the 4th Division, commented that Fletcher had requested counter-battery fire on 18 January and that when the guns were directed at the French batteries just prior to the assault they had an immediate effect. Colville also noted that whilst he thought counter-battery fire was necessary, Wellington did not.²³

One of the main reasons why Ciudad Rodrigo was taken so quickly was because it was a second-rate fortress with nothing like the strength of Badajoz. Burgoyne, after a visit to the fortress in 1808, described it as ‘incapable of defence … its works … possessing nearly every fault a fortification can have’.²⁴ In 1810, Squire described Ciudad Rodrigo as ‘merely a walled town’,²⁵ and after it was taken, wrote to Charles Pasley: ‘We succeeded in taking the place more from its own weakness, than from any means we possessed’.²⁶ Wellington took full advantage of this weakness and was able to breach the walls from the position of the first batteries. The governor and the garrison were similarly weak. Barrie, the governor, was ‘the only general of brigade available at Salamanca when his predecessor, Renaud was taken’.²⁷ Renaud described Barrie as a ‘miserable fellow, perfectly unfit for the job’.²⁸ His performance matched the expectations set: ‘all British accounts agree in condemning Barrie for his lack of energy’.²⁹ There was no serious resistance to the taking of the redoubt, the convents or the fortress. Barrie has to take responsibility for this.

The greatest success of the siege and the single event that made the siege so quick was John Colborne’s taking the Renaud redoubt on the first night. Typically four to five days would have been needed to prepare to attack and take such an outwork. It is worthy of note that to take this small redoubt Colborne used more troops than Wellington did during the two failed attempts on the much stronger Fort San Christobal at Badajoz. The outcome at Badajoz may have been different had a similar strategy been used.

The size and quality of the guns used during the siege also had a significant effect on the outcome. Wellington had none of the problems with inaccuracy and overheating that plagued the old brass guns at Badajoz. Had he been able to bring up the howitzer ammunition, there would probably have been substantially fewer casualties both before and during the assault.

The performance of the engineers tells a different story from the previous two sieges. At Badajoz, the engineers had neither time nor resources to complete their task. At Ciudad Rodrigo they had better guns and more time, although time was still a constraint. Whilst the result was positive, there were some worrying mistakes. Three significant errors were recorded; a battery being placed behind the Renaud redoubt; the guns to attack the convent of San Francisco being too low to see the base of the wall; and the embrasures for the main batteries being misaligned when originally opened. The first error, the misplacing of the battery, was made on the night of 8/9 January, when Ross who was siege director for the night was killed. Burgoyne was strongly critical of the time and effort wasted, writing:

It was placed behind the French redoubt, it was nearly finished, some platforms laid, and we had worked two nights to level the parapet of the redoubt, when it was at length ascertained that not a single gun of the nine could see the object to be fired at.³⁰

He continued: ‘Our Headquarters party have sent home a journal of the siege, in which I presume this battery does not make its appearance – it makes a very ugly one in my journal.’³¹ Burgoyne and his comrades do not specifically identify who they thought was at fault. Fletcher certainly marked out the batteries previously at Badajoz and it is difficult to believe that he was not present when this, the most vital stage, was being carried out, even if Ross actually did the work. Similarly, the failure to open the embrasures properly occurred after the engineer in command, Lieutenant Skelton, was killed whilst standing on the top of the parapet encouraging the troops to perform the task. His death was unlikely to have helped with the troops’ willingness to expose themselves to French fire. Burgoyne noted that when the batteries originally opened on 14 January, many of the shots were passing over the top of the town. Jones’ published Journal notes Skelton’s death but not the problem with the embrasures. However, his unpublished diary noted ‘the want of [a] qualified … Engineer … to superintend the opening of the embrasures … caused such a delay that the day was lost’.³² This problem was corrected that night and the guns were firing effectively from the following morning.³³ The loss of Ross so early in the siege probably had a continuing effect. Ellicombe who replaced him, whilst being a senior officer, had no operational experience. After some years in Ceylon he had been in the UK for the preceding three years. All three errors were avoidable and should have been identified earlier. Whilst Burgoyne is highly critical of the errors, he took no personal responsibility for them, which as one of the siege directors he should have. Ultimately Fletcher must take responsibility as the commanding engineer. None of these errors had a material effect on the timescale or the outcome of the siege, but they must have had some effect on the reputation and confidence of the engineers.

Burgoyne was critical of most elements of the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo, even though this was seen as the most successful Allied siege of the war. The Commanding Royal Engineer at the siege, Richard Fletcher, gave high praise to Burgoyne who ‘gave me every assistance, and executed the works under his charge with great zeal and ability’.³⁴ Burgoyne’s initial comments in his diary were quite mild: ‘Our works were certainly not carried on with great expedition’.³⁵ In private letters he was much more critical. He wrote lengthy letters to John Squire and Charles Pasley criticising most aspects of the siege including the preparation (the gabions and fascines were made without proper supervision and too far away, leading to poor quality and delivery problems) and the daily operations (the siting of the batteries and guns, the want of arrangement in bringing up stores and the organisation of the working parties). In a letter to Squire, Burgoyne complained: ‘We go on most miserably, no superintendents, no arrangements, it is said that Wellington objects to give any assistance the Colonel proposes, but I can’t think this would be the case to a man of firmness.’³⁶ In a later letter he wrote: ‘His Lordship can have but little confidence in Colonel Fletcher, as it appears from what we hear that he objects to nearly every proposal made by him … for some reason or other Colonel Fletcher had not influence enough to get the smallest assistance from the army.’³⁷ This appears to be the first suggestion that there was a lack of confidence in Fletcher’s command both amongst his subordinates and Wellington. This is a marked change from what Burgoyne said two years earlier about the relationship between Wellington and Fletcher: ‘He [Wellington] has universally treated Fletcher with the greatest consideration and attention’.³⁸

Burgoyne’s criticism was not restricted to his engineering superiors. He believed that Wellington summoned the French governor too early and that the French would have been much more likely to ask for terms had they had been summoned on 19 January, just before the assault, when there were two significant breaches.³⁹ The commitment (or lack of it) from the army that became very evident at Burgos was also an object of criticism. Burgoyne noted that the line officers ‘do not seem to think it a point of duty or honour to interest themselves in the exertions of a working party’⁴⁰ and suggested that having a general officer with the troops in the trenches would help to maintain progress.

In terms of resources for the siege, all the senior engineers, Burgoyne, Jones and Ross, commented on Wellington refusing to provide line officers to assist.⁴¹ This should, in fairness to him, be offset against the fact that the engineers had been allocated around 200 soldiers and officers from the 3rd Division who had been given some rudimentary training in the previous few months. In addition to this the division on duty each day had to furnish a further group of carpenters and miners.

There were some lighter moments during the siege. Jones described being asked by Wellington to show the newly arrived Prince of Orange round the trenches ‘being his first exposure to fire’. Jones recorded he was cautioned ‘not to expose the royal personage unnecessarily’ but lost track of time and ended up trying to leave the trenches during the change of guards when the firing was heaviest from the defenders and ‘HRH got a good peppering’.⁴² He did not elaborate on what the punishment would have been had he been responsible for the death of the future King of the Netherlands.

In summary, the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo was a great operational success that materially strengthened Wellington’s position and put the French firmly on the defensive. The success was due to three main factors: the weakness of the fortress, the strength of the Allied battering train and the lack of energy of the French governor. Overall, the engineers had performed their duties well, but as Fortescue wrote ‘the engineers themselves … were by no means faultless in their plans’.⁴³ As mentioned above, the first signs of criticism within the engineers were also appearing. This situation was not helped when, due to an oversight, Burgoyne’s name was omitted from Wellington’s dispatch and only Jones and Captain George MacLeod RE were mentioned. Both received brevet promotions and only a subsequent appeal got the same recognition for Burgoyne. The promotion of Macleod in particular would have caused annoyance as he was mentioned in connection with the troops from the 3rd Division who had been trained as sappers. Burgoyne was responsible for their training but received no thanks for his work training these troops or for his performance as siege director. It appears that Wellington also asked for a brevet promotion to colonel for Fletcher. This was, however, refused with the following explanation:

HRH is most fully impressed with a high opinion of the merits and services of Lieutenant Colonel Fletcher, and would gladly attend to your recommendation in his favour, if it were not for the difficulty which would attend the establishment of such a precedent, particularly in the case of the lieutenant colonels who have eminently distinguished themselves at the head of their regiments and who would naturally look for similar indulgence.⁴⁴

The frustration around the lack of trained sappers and miners was more apparent during the siege. Writing home to Liverpool after the siege, Wellington said:

I would beg to suggest to your Lordship the expediency of adding to the Engineer establishment a corps of Sappers and Miners. It is inconceivable with what disadvantage we undertake anything like a siege for want of assistance of this description … we are obliged to depend … upon the regiments of the line; and although the men are brave and willing, they want the knowledge and training which are necessary.⁴⁵

Fletcher had written a similar note to the Board of Ordnance about two weeks earlier. Wellington had no-one other than Fletcher at hand to take his frustrations out on. One wonders if this was becoming a source of friction between them. Jones in his autobiography said he also wrote to the Board of Ordnance and was suitably chastised for the suggesting the inactivity of the Board of Ordnance was the equivalent of Nero fiddling whilst Rome burned.⁴⁶

Casualties among the nineteen engineer officers were two killed and five wounded. Two of the wounded sailed to England and did not return to the Peninsula.⁴⁷ Three of the four fortresses covering the main routes in Portugal were now in Allied hands. It was not difficult to see what was coming next.

The Third Siege of Badajoz

As soon as Wellington had the repairs for Ciudad Rodrigo under way, he turned his attention to the next challenge, the retaking of Badajoz. On 25 January 1812, Dickson arranged for all the 24-pounder roundshot and shells along with 900 barrels of powder to be moved to Oporto for onward transmission to Elvas.⁴⁸ The following day Wellington ordered sixteen 24-pounder carronades (howitzers) and a number of gun carriages to be moved by land to Elvas from Almeida.⁴⁹ On the 28th, Wellington met Borthwick (the senior artillery officer in the Peninsula), Dickson and Fletcher to discuss moving the 24-pounder guns from Almeida to Elvas, but Dickson argued that the state of the bullocks and the availability of forage made it impossible.⁵⁰ This meant another cobbled-together siege train using guns from Lisbon and Elvas. Wellington revised his plan to use sixteen 24-pounder guns that were on transports in Lisbon, supplemented by twenty 24-pounder guns which Wellington hoped could be supplied by Admiral Berkeley from the fleet. Wellington also sent orders to Lisbon for the engineering stores to be collected and dispatched to Elvas, which would allow the garrison to start work on gabions and fascines. Captain George MacLeod RE was ordered to Elvas to superintend the preparations. Wellington had previously made arrangements for a pontoon train to be assembled, ready for use to cross the river Guadiana which would be in full flow at that time of year.⁵¹

All this preparation looks a little odd. Wellington had been planning the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo since May 1811. He knew that Badajoz was likely to be his next target but there seemed to be a distinct lack of planning for this eventuality. All the discussions of the previous days appear to be trying to work out how to get hundreds of tons of siege equipment across central Spain. When this was seen to be impossible, the Allies were then trying to find other, less-suitable guns that could be used instead. Was Wellington’s original plan to besiege Badajoz later in the year, or did he have some other plan and then changed his mind to go after Badajoz? If he had known that he was going to besiege Badajoz after taking Ciudad Rodrigo, why was there not another siege train prepared for that purpose? The plan to attack Badajoz feels like a last-minute decision as he hoped to get guns from Berkeley that the Admiral did not have or was unwilling to release. Wellington clearly did not know this.

Timeline for the Third Siege of Badajoz

28 January 1812	Wellington agreed there was insufficient transport to move main siege guns from Ciudad Rodrigo to Badajoz. Arrangements made for alternative supply from Lisbon
5 March 1812	Wellington hands Ciudad Rodrigo over to Spanish governor and sets out for Badajoz
8 March 1812	Last guns of siege train arrive at Elvas
11 March 1812	Wellington arrives at Elvas to direct the siege
16 March 1812	Fortress invested
17 March 1812	Trenches opened night of 17/18 Mar
19 March 1812	French launched sortie from Picurina fort. Colonel Fletcher wounded
22 March 1812	Pontoon bridge washed away
25 March 1812	Batteries opened fire on fortress
25 March 1812	Picurina fort stormed night of 25/26 Mar
5 April 1812	Fortress stormed night of 5/6 Apr

Dickson found out on 10 February that Admiral Berkeley was planning to provide twenty Russian 18-pounders instead of the hoped-for English 24-pounders.⁵² This caused Wellington and Dickson great concern as 18-pounders were significantly less effective in siege work. The guns were also in poor condition, which meant that both their accuracy and power were further reduced. Wellington complained to Berkeley, but at the time Berkeley would not offer an alternative. Berkeley did eventually provide ten new English 18-pounders but Dickson argued that he did not want to mix 18-pounders (Russian and English) or to delay the siege to bring them up. Myatt notes that he was unsure if they were used in the siege, but Jones’ journal clearly stated that they were not used.⁵³

Wellington remained in Ciudad Rodrigo while all the preparations were being made. The main reason for this was to keep the French guessing. Although the siege of Badajoz was an obvious next step, there were other possibilities and until Wellington signified his intention by going to Badajoz, the French had to keep their options open. He wrote to his brother:

You are aware of the great operation, which I have in hand. If I should succeed, which I certainly shall, unless those admirably useful institutions, the English newspapers, should have given Bonaparte the alarm, and should have induced him to order his Marshals to assemble their troops to oppose me, Spain will have another chance of being saved.⁵⁴

Jones’ diary described a meeting to discuss the plan of attack on Badajoz. There had been much criticism of the point of attack the year before and a decision had to be made on whether to follow the same plan as last year, the previous French plan, or some other alternative. At the meeting were Wellington, General Castaños, the Spanish Chief Engineer and Fletcher. Jones recorded that Wellington and the Spanish engineer wanted to attack the southern front as the French had done in early 1811, while Fletcher wanted to attack the south-western corner from the Picurina redoubt. Fletcher was initially reluctant to admit openly that his recommendation was due to the lack of skilled sappers and miners to deal with the mines that the French were known to have placed on the southern face. Wellington, on being reminded of the situation, reluctantly agreed saying ‘he regretted extremely our deficiencies and it obliged him to undertake an attack he did not approve, but that knowing the means he believed it to be the only attack in our power to get through’. Jones added ‘though adopted through necessity, … it was never for one moment approved by any one employed in drawing it up, or in the execution of it’.⁵⁵ Jones summed up his thoughts with the comment, ‘what a reflection on those who have governed the engineering service for the last nineteen years of war’.⁵⁶ Jones added further comments in his published Journal to the effect that the attack on the southern side would have required a further thirty guns and significantly more engineering stores and that this was beyond the available resources and transport.⁵⁷

The Siege

Like the year before, the attack on Badajoz started with the engineers placing a pontoon bridge across the river Guadiana. And, like the year before, keeping it in place proved a real challenge. The south side of the fortress was invested on 16 March. Fletcher had twenty-three engineers including Squire and Burgoyne, who acted as siege directors, and Jones as Brigade Major. At least one and possibly four of this number did not arrive until the very end of the siege.⁵⁸ For the first time in the war there was a significant number of men from the Royal Military Artificers present, 115 in total. A further thirty had been ordered up from Cadiz, but they did not arrive before the end of the siege. Fletcher also had at his disposal the remainder of the men from the 3rd Division who had been previously trained in sapping, now reduced to around 120 from their original strength of around 200. Finally, there were also ten assistant engineers from the line regiments.⁵⁹

Fletcher marked out the first trenches on 17 March, and these were commenced that night. The weather over the first few days was poor with constant rain and this made work in the trenches very difficult. The French launched a sortie at noon on the 19th, and once again caught the Allies unprepared. A small body of French cavalry made it to the engineers’ depot where they attacked the unarmed soldiers and captured two officers before they were driven off. Little damage was done to the works, but many tools were carried off as the French troops had been promised a reward for every one they collected. Allied casualties were around 150 men including the Chief Engineer, Fletcher, whose wound confined him to bed until 5 April but he retained command. The routine for the remainder of the siege was for Wellington to meet with Fletcher and Jones each morning to discuss progress and agree the tasks for the next twenty-four hours.

The wet weather led to the river Guadiana rising until it swept away the pontoon bridge on 22 March. This was a major concern to Wellington as the bridge was both the source of his siege supplies and also his line of retreat. A complete loss of communication across the river would require Wellington to raise the siege, the nearest alternative bridge being at Merida, twenty miles away. Lieutenant Piper RE was sent to investigate the damage to the pontoon bridge and reported that twelve of the twenty-four pontoons had sunk. Two were subsequently recovered from the river, but the rest were lost. Wellington, with his normal attention to detail, wrote further instructions:

1. Lieutenant Piper to be desired to supply six pontoons as row boats near the flying bridge, to carry over principally powder and shot.

2. Care must be taken that they are not overloaded; not more than forty 24-Pound shot to be put in each, or an equal quantity or weight of powder.

3. Plank must be placed in the bottom, and the lower part of the sides should have a plank in order to prevent the shot from rolling against them and making holes.

4. The pontoons must not be used as passage boats.

5. Lieutenant Piper to be requested to mention in his report whether he has bullocks in sufficient numbers, and in good order, to move the bridge.⁶⁰

For the remainder of the siege the pontoons were used exclusively as rowing boats for the transport of powder and shot across the river.⁶¹ The poor weather had probably delayed completion of the batteries by two or three days but they finally opened on the fortress on the morning of 25 March and started to batter the fortress and also the Picurina and San Roque outworks. No significant damage had been inflicted on the Picurina fort when Wellington ordered it to be stormed that night, Oman suggesting that this was to make up lost time.⁶² Due to the delay between the siege guns ceasing fire and the attack, the French had time to make repairs and although the attack was successful, fifty-four were killed and 265 wounded out of 500 attackers. Once the fort had been taken, the second parallel and associated batteries could be started.

From 27 March, the trenches were extended towards the San Roque lunette with the intention of taking it and destroying the dam that kept the ground in front of the fortress flooded. Wellington’s intention was to launch the assault across this ground but until the water was drained this was not possible. Progress by the partially-trained sappers was not fast enough and casualties were high. An attempt was made on 2 April to mine the dam near the San Roque lunette. Lieutenant Stanway RE led a party forward and placed 450 pounds of gunpowder on the dam, but the explosion did not have the desired effect. The attack on San Roque was now abandoned and Wellington accepted that the attack would have to work round the flooded area. The danger involved in trenching is well described in a letter from Lieutenant Vetch RE:

I was employed … in advancing the approaches; we were three or four officers, at least half an hour laying out the work not 80yds from the French parapet. The sap was marked out with a white cord, and the men put down as near as they could work along the line. They squat down and worked away as hard as they were able, in order to cover themselves … the moment we were perceived they opened a very sharp fire of musketry, and killed seven men in the first half hour, after which our men got too much cover to be hit.⁶³

As the days moved on into early April, Wellington once again found himself balancing the time needed to batter the fortress against the advance of the French to relieve it. He was aware that Soult was collecting troops and was moving north towards Badajoz, so he needed to decide between rapidly concluding the siege, or putting it on hold and advancing to meet Soult, leaving a force to guard the trenches, or raising the siege. Marmont was also demonstrating in the north against Almeida and Ciudad Rodrigo, but Wellington cannot have been seriously concerned about their safety at this time.

By 5 April, the breaches looked ready and Wellington issued orders for an assault that night. Later in the day the assault was postponed for twenty-four hours to allow a third breach to be battered in the curtain wall. It would appear that Wellington asked Fletcher to look at the breaches and give his opinion.⁶⁴ Following his inspection, Fletcher advised that the defences the French had constructed behind the breaches were strong and that a third breach should be made where they would have little time to prepare new defences. The original plan was to make a third breach at the last moment. The concentrated effort of the siege guns on 6 April quickly battered the wall and the third breach was ready in the afternoon. The three breaches would be attacked by the 4th and Light Divisions. Separate attacks would also be made on the castle by the 3rd Division and on the San Vincente bastion by the 5th Division. Sunset was just after 7 p.m.⁶⁵ The siege guns stopped firing at about 7.30 p.m. but the assault did not get underway until around 10 p.m., leaving the defenders with plenty of time to prepare for the assault that they knew was coming. The main attacks through the breaches all failed, with huge casualties, due to the obstacles put across them and the heavy fire from the garrison. When it became clear to Wellington that they had failed, he ordered the troops to be withdrawn and planned to make another assault just before daybreak, but about this time, he was informed that Picton’s 3rd Division had managed to scale the walls of the castle and that the 5th Division had also entered the town. He ordered the 4th and Light Divisions forward again, using these footholds to break out and finally take the fortress. As at Ciudad Rodrigo, there followed an uncontrollable sack by the troops and it took two days before order could be restored.

Lieutenant James Vetch RE who had just arrived from Cadiz with a detachment of thirty miners from the Royal Military Artificers described the events:

When we got intelligence of the siege of Badajoz, and as I knew we were wanted there I pushed on the party as fast as possible … I got to Badajoz on the morning of the fifth. I did duty in the trenches and lost, of my small working party, seven men the first half hour … The enemy had been very active in throwing every obstacle they could think of in the way … I was posted between the castle and breaches, at the ravelin of San Roque, which was to be escaladed by 200 men. About 10 p.m. a brisk firing began from the castle and they threw some light balls which gave them great advantage. When the castle had been attacked for half an hour, the parties in the breaches commenced. That moment produced such a scene as no man can conceive. The night was dark; the castle on high and all the lower points of attack involved in one sheet of fire, a well pitched light ball now and then bringing out the scenes more fully to view; at the breaches the springing of mines, bursting of large shells, which they rolled into the ditch, with the fire from the whole of the batteries made a sight which I believe never was seen in so small a space. My party of 200 men, which attacked the ravelin, carried it immediately and marched their prisoners through the breaches. General Picton carried the castle about 10 p.m. The parties at the breaches were completely repulsed; those escalading on the left succeeded about 2 a.m. with great slaughter. At 3 a.m. we had pretty good light and we discovered the enemy had left a gate open near the ravelin, which three of our companies took possession of. I was in the town at 3 a.m. and it was completely in our possession by 4 a.m. I had been sent out to give notice of the gate being in our possession, and got in again about 5 a.m. in good daylight to behold the most shocking scenes of dead and wounded, and the soldiers pillaging the houses. Not many of the inhabitants were killed, but all were left without a rag to cover them or a morsel to eat. Broken chairs and tables only were left. The pillage [had] lasted two days when two gallows were erected to show the pillage was over. When looking about for quarters, I was implored by a lady to take my abode under her roof for her protection, and I remained there two days. I found my hostess was a Marchioness; Lord Wellington called twice at my billet, and the poor lady had scarce a gown to cover her back.⁶⁶

Casualties from the assault were shocking, with 800 killed and 2,900 wounded out of an overall total for the siege of around 1,000 killed and 3,800 wounded. As always with the sieges it was the officers and better soldiers who took more than their fair share of the injuries. Engineer casualties were similarly heavy. Of the twenty-four officers present, four were killed and eight were wounded, three of whom went home.⁶⁷

Wellington had taken Badajoz in twenty-one days. His estimate before the start was twenty-four days, not taking into account the bad weather that surely delayed progress. Mulcaster, one of the engineers, had estimated twenty-seven days for the siege.⁶⁸ In 1811 the French took forty-five days to get the fortress to surrender and in reality it should have held out for much longer. The cost of this rapid success was once again measured in casualties. In this case they were all from the very experienced British divisions, troops Wellington could not afford to lose. Although there were criticisms at the time of the decision to postpone the assault for another day to make the third breach, it is probable that this decision tipped the balance by spreading the defenders thinner which meant they were not able to resist the secondary assaults. Once order had been re-established in the town, work started immediately to repair the defences. As a sign of the importance that Wellington placed on its speedy and effective repair, Fletcher was left to oversee the work and did not rejoin Wellington at headquarters until September 1812.

Analysis of the siege

As in the previous year, time was of the essence and taking the fortress on 6 April 1812 required brute force, inflicting enormous casualties on Wellington’s best divisions. The huge casualties at the siege of Badajoz finally pushed Wellington into writing a strongly-worded private letter to Liverpool demanding that something be done about the lack of trained men available to undertake siege work. His criticism overflowed into a more general complaint about the skills of the engineers. An analysis of his complaints will be detailed below, but first the other components of the siege that were not within the control of the engineers will be evaluated.

Wellington’s strategy of keeping the French guessing about his plans by staying north worked well. Soult made arrangements for Marmont to come to his aid if Wellington attacked Badajoz, but he then appears to have become distracted and, even though warnings had started filtering through, he was at Cadiz until 20 March. Soult then rushed back to Seville and spent the next ten days putting together a relief force which did not exceed 25,000 men, believing that Marmont would be doing the same. Marmont, in the meantime, had received direct orders from Napoleon not to support Badajoz, this being Soult’s responsibility. He was ordered to threaten Ciudad Rodrigo instead, which Napoleon believed would force Wellington to break off the siege of Badajoz and race north to protect it.⁶⁹ Soult did not discover until around 6 April that Marmont was sending no supporting force. By that time it was too late for the French to relieve the fortress.

The habitual problem of transport once again caused the siege train to be much less powerful than Wellington would have liked. At Ciudad Rodrigo the siege train was made up of thirty-eight new English iron guns, thirty-four of which were 24-pounders. Since these could not be transported to Badajoz, reliance had to be placed on a combination of sixteen new English 24-pounders and twenty old Russian 18-pounders in poor condition. There were an additional sixteen 24-pounder carronades but these were of no use for breaching work and appear to have been used for enfilade fire. Jones commented that the 24-pounder iron howitzer (carronade) ‘should never be admitted into a battering train … [as] it only served to waste ammunition’.⁷⁰ General Colville commented ‘we have for the third time undertaken the siege … deficient of means … half the guns are 18-pounders. We have not a single mortar’.⁷¹ This siege train was a little better than the one used at the second siege of Badajoz, primarily due to the guns being made of iron, but it was much less powerful than that used at Ciudad Rodrigo, which was a much weaker fortress, so the time taken to make a significant impact on the breaches was extended. The lack of heavy howitzers limited the besiegers’ ability to undertake counter-battery fire and this led to heavier casualties in the trenches and during the assault.

The weather also had a material effect on the early stages of the siege. It rained continuously until about 25 March, and this slowed down work in the trenches and certainly stopped any attempt to put guns into the batteries until the ground had dried out. Of more concern to Wellington was the loss of the pontoon bridge and the difficulties with the flying bridge as the river rose. At this time, around 22 March, Wellington did not have a clear picture of the movements of Soult and Marmont. The loss of his only bridge was a serious matter. If the French had forced him to lift the siege and retire, his army would have been able to do this, but the siege train would probably have been lost. The wet weather also ensured that the inundation around the walls of Badajoz caused by the damming of the Rivellas stream was higher than normal and was impossible to cross. This was what made the attack on the San Roque outwork important. If heavy howitzers had been available to suppress the French guns, it might have been possible to take the San Roque lunette, which would have enabled the destruction of the dam and the draining of the area in front of the breaches. Wellington could not reasonably blame the bad weather for unexpectedly hampering his plans. He understood what the weather would be like at this time of year and used the poor weather as an argument to explain his timing of the siege, as it would hamper the movements of the French. Of course there was also a chance that it would hamper his own plans and in the event it did.

The French governor, Phillipon, showed the same energy and determination that he had in 1811. The garrison was made up of seasoned troops and the experienced chief engineer, Lamarre, had been at the fortress for some time and knew it well. The defenders’ energy, particularly in clearing the debris from in front of the breaches and in blocking them up, made the assaults much more difficult. As described above, the assaults on the breaches all failed with heavy casualties and it was only due to the secondary attacks that the fortress was taken. With another thousand men, Phillipon would have probably repulsed the assault. It is doubtful that the British troops would have had the energy to make a further serious assault as Wellington planned on the morning of 6 April.

One question that needs further consideration is why did Wellington decide to make the assault on 6 April? Wellington was clearly concerned that the French would try to relieve the fortress, but there does not appear to be the urgency that he felt. He was aware of the movements of Soult and he had a reasonable idea of the size of his force. Wellington also must have been reasonably certain that Marmont was not marching to the aid of Soult, having had a report on 4 April that Marmont had been in front of Almeida the previous day, which suggested he was not making any immediate plans to move south.⁷² He was also clearly concerned that the breaches were only just practicable. His decisions to order and then postpone the attack on the night of 5 April show a level of indecision that was very unusual for him. He had made preliminary plans to suspend the siege and move to face Soult who he believed had up to 35,000 men. When he realised that he had around 25,000 men, he would have known that Soult could not possibly interfere with the siege without the support of Marmont. Marmont did not receive permission from Napoleon to directly support Soult until 27 March, and would have needed ten to fourteen days to concentrate sufficient troops. A week later he had not moved south and Wellington knew that, so the earliest he could have arrived would have been the end of the second week in April.

There are two areas where the lack of trained artificers appeared to have made a difference to the planning. The first was in selection of the point of attack. As mentioned above, Wellington’s preference was to attack the south front, as it appeared to be the weakest. This was the point that the French attacked, but the French, realising the same, had significantly strengthened it by reinforcing the Pardaleras outwork and also by placing mines in the approaches to the walls. The approaches to the southern wall that Wellington last saw in June 1811 were significantly stronger in March 1812. The second was in the attempt to take the San Roque lunette and allow the destruction of the dam behind it. This was abandoned due to the heavy casualties and poor progress made by the partially-trained sappers from the army. If trained sappers had been available, better progress would have been made and casualties should have been lower. But the major difficulties were caused by the heavy fire from the defenders and without some attempt to reduce this, the results might not have been any different. The siege train at Badajoz did not contain weapons that were ideal for counter-battery and breach clearing activities. The 24-pounder carronades were the only ‘high-angle’ weapon available and as they were equivalent to the smallest 5½in howitzer, they did not have the punch that was required.

It could be argued that Wellington moved too quickly to the assault, when he could have waited a few more days and continued battering the defences. This would have reduced his casualties although it is unlikely that Phillipon would have considered surrender. Wellington’s complaint about the lack of trained sappers and miners causing the additional casualties was justified, but even with the trained artificers he would still have needed to give them time to work and it is unlikely that the siege would have progressed any faster. As in all the previous sieges in 1811 and 1812, Wellington was pushed into attacking early because of the need to take the fortress before the relieving force could intervene. Badajoz was no different and trained artificers would not have made a significant difference.

On 7 April Wellington wrote his dispatch informing the government of the success at Badajoz. With it was sent a private letter to Liverpool in which he complained about the lack of trained engineers and artificers and blamed the heavy losses at Badajoz on the lack of such troops:

It is quite impossible to expect to carry fortified places … unless the army should be provided with a regular trained corps of sappers and miners … The consequences … are – first, that our engineers although well educated and brave, have never turned their minds to the mode of conducting a regular siege, as it is useless to think of that which it is impossible in our service to perform. They think that they have done their duty when they construct a battery, with a secure communication to it, which can make a breach in the wall of a place; and, secondly, these breaches are to be carried by vive force by an infinite sacrifice of officers and soldiers … I earnestly recommend to your lordship to have a corps of sappers and miners formed without loss of time.⁷³

His frustration at his losses extended his complaints from the reasonable towards what many engineers saw as an unreasonable attack on the whole engineering profession. His complaints about the lack of sappers and miners were fully supported by the engineer officers themselves. One example was Squire, who used almost the same words as Wellington in his letter after the assault: ‘This siege has served to confirm … that constituted as our Corps is, we are decidedly not equal to the attack of a place; whose scarp is covered by a good counterscarp and glacis … Sappers and Miners are as necessary to engineers during a siege, as soldiers to the General’.⁷⁴

Wellington’s critical comments in his letter of 7 April 1812 were lost until 1889, but a subsequent letter on the same subject to Major-General Murray was published in the dispatches.

I trust … that future armies will be equipped for sieges, with the people necessary to carry them on as they ought to be; and that our engineers will learn how to put their batteries on the crest of the glacis and to blow in the counterscarp, instead of placing wherever the wall can be seen, leaving the poor officers and men to get into and across the ditch as best they can.⁷⁵

This was responded to in Jones’ Journal: ‘the officers … were fully equal to the difficult duty of crowning the crest of the glacis had they been assisted by a proper trained body of men’.⁷⁶ Wellington’s complaint about the casualties during the assault on the Picurina fort is particularly unreasonable, since the fort was stormed on his orders the same day the batteries opened when it was clear that no material damage had yet been inflicted. Wellington rushed the assault to make up time lost due to the bad weather. There is no doubt, based on the available evidence, that Wellington’s criticism of the engineer officers was unfair. The four sieges of 1811 and 1812 had all been arranged with limited resources and limited time. This led to compromises that affected the chance of success and the level of casualties. There was not sufficient time at any of these sieges for formal approaches to be prepared. Complaining about the lack of troops to deliver formal approaches is not reasonable when such troops would not have had the time to make the approaches anyway.

In the archives at the British Library, there is a scrap of paper written by John Squire on 8 April 1812. You can feel the shock and exhaustion he was feeling as he wrote his brief note on the successful assault and the loss of more friends. He finishes it with ‘I am a little fatigued, so you will excuse me breaking off so abruptly’. A month later, he was dead, collapsing and dying whilst travelling with General Hill.⁷⁷

Fletcher was left at Badajoz to carry out repairs and Burgoyne accompanied Wellington with the army as it set out on the Salamanca campaign. This was an unusual arrangement, as typically the senior engineer would travel with Wellington. Whilst there has been some question about whether this was evidence of a lack of trust in Fletcher, there is no evidence to support this view. Wellington’s decision was probably based on two points that would have been foremost in his mind. Firstly, that losing Badajoz again was unthinkable, so every effort had to be made to protect it. Secondly, Wellington had handed over responsibility for Ciudad Rodrigo to the Spanish only four weeks before and he had already received communications to show that little progress had been made to complete the repairs; the Spanish were asking for further help and they had already used most of the supplies left for the use of the garrison. Because of this Wellington was forced to remain in a position where he could support Ciudad Rodrigo when one of his options would have been to pursue Soult south.⁷⁸ Although it was not approved, Wellington had also asked for promotion for Fletcher after Ciudad Rodrigo.⁷⁹

In summary, Badajoz was attacked with a second-rate siege train; the lack of sappers and miners meant that the preferred choice of attack could not be chosen; the fortress was assaulted too early; and together these factors caused the high casualties. Badajoz was taken due to the secondary attacks succeeding when all the main attacks had failed. Wellington was lucky.

However, Wellington’s complaints reinforced the desire of the Board of Ordnance to progress the development of the School of Military Engineering that had just been formed on 23 April 1812 (see Appendix 5). Liverpool wrote to Wellington on 28 April, informing him that the Board of Ordnance had been working on this issue for some time and that the first troops would be with him before the end of the month.⁸⁰ Although this was unrealistic, it is true that Charles William Pasley had previously started work on training artificers. The incorrect understanding of the causes of the formation of the Royal Sappers and Miners still appears in most works. Oman⁸¹ assumes that Wellington’s letter of 7 April caused an immediate change and the formation of the corps. Fortescue seems even wider from the mark, suggesting that Wellington was ‘beginning himself to train one on the spot’. Myatt does not recognise that the Board of Ordnance had been working throughout 1811 to rectify the situation.⁸² Similarly, in the most recent books on sieges in the Peninsula, there appears to be a misunderstanding of the role of sappers and miners. They would undertake the specialist tasks, like sapping up to the glacis or mining, but the line infantry would still do the bulk of the ‘spade work’ with the trained artificers providing supervision.⁸³

Whilst this siege is often seen as a breakdown in trust between Wellington and Fletcher, I am not so sure. Fletcher was wounded on 19 March but Wellington insisted on him retaining command even though he was bed-bound, visiting him each morning. Wellington could easily have sent Fletcher away, but chose to retain him even though other engineer officers, seen as his ‘favourites’, were present, i.e. John Burgoyne and John Jones. Whilst Jones suggested that Wellington left Fletcher to repair Badajoz as a punishment, I believe he was left there because he was not fit to travel. Fletcher only left his tent for the first time on 4 April, two days before the assault and riding was probably impossible.⁸⁴ There is plenty of correspondence to confirm Fletcher remained in charge of the engineer department for Wellington’s army whilst he was at Badajoz.

As soon as order was restored, work started of repairing the fortress, Burgoyne noting on 9 April that 300 men from Power’s brigade commenced filling in the trenches.

The following day, Burgoyne was dispatched to Villa Velha to be ready to take up the pontoon bridge as Marmont had started an advance into Portugal to try and distract Wellington from the siege that had just been completed. Wellington was not sure that he could get troops there before Marmont and did not want to lose the bridge or his ability to cross the Tagus. Burgoyne rode post horses to the river and there:

found the Portuguese Captain of Engineers in charge of the bridge in great distress, having been ordered to remove the bridge [only] when the enemy arrived … knowing how impossible this would be … he determined on preparing to burn it as the French had entered Castello Branco yesterday … and were expected down at Villa Velha hourly. Neither General Lecor … nor General Baron Alten … would take upon themselves to give an order for removing the bridge … On my arrival, I had it immediately withdrawn.⁸⁵

Burgoyne’s implied criticism of the unwillingness of senior commanders to make decisions without direct instructions from Wellington is then extended by reporting that the commandant of the sick at Villa Velha, who had made arrangements to remove the sick and stores based on intelligence he received from General Lecor, was criticised for not waiting for instructions from headquarters. The French retired from Castello Branco on 14 April, presumably having heard that Badajoz had fallen. Burgoyne rode to the point where the twelve boats had been stored and noted with satisfaction that the Portuguese engineer was already working with 200– 300 peasants to move the bridge back into place and it would be ready the next day. When he arrived back at Headquarters on 17 April 1812 he noted that he was now attached to headquarters, ‘Colonel Fletcher and other officers of engineers to remain at Badajoz’.

Other Engineering Work in Early 1812

Away from these two major sieges, other engineer officers continued to provide support to a variety of operations. John Squire remained in the south with General Hill’s detached corps and noted their advance into Spain in January 1812, a movement clearly intended to distract the French from the siege at Ciudad Rodrigo. Work continued on repairing and strengthening the various strongpoints in Portugal, Captain Wedekind reporting plans to move some of the fresh water springs around Abrantes to within the perimeter defences and also to improve the water storage capacity.⁸⁶ Lieutenant Pringle RE was working on improving the embarkation jetties at fort St Julian near Lisbon and Captain Boteler and Lieutenant Tapp continued work on the defences to the south of the Tagus.

Lieutenant Marshall RE had been sent to carry out further work on the river Douro to allow boats to carry supplies up to the border at Barca d’Alva. This had been started in 1811 under the charge of George Ross but the first boats to try and navigate the whole length reported there were still areas where the river was too shallow to pass. The supplies still reached their destination, but had to be unloaded to pass the shallows.

In late April, Squire was sent to repair the bridge at Merida that the Allies had previously destroyed. He knew this repair was for a secret operation that was being planned and reported:

Two arches of the formed bridge at Merida have been exploded with gunpowder and I have been desired to make the bridge passable again. The width of the opening is 66 feet 6 inches, fortunately part of the pier still remains 6 or 7 feet above the level of the river, which will assist our operation very much I have desired the Alcalde of the place to collect the necessary timbers; and I should think in a fortnight the passage of the bridge may be restored.⁸⁷

A month later, Squire was dead, having collapsed and died at Truxillo.

In the north, the French made a reconnaissance in strength towards Almeida, inspecting the repairs and the activity of the garrison. They tried to pass over the Agueda at San Felices but the bridge, which had been previously mined by a Portuguese engineer, was blown. Having determined that there was no opportunity to re-take the fortress, they retired. The repairs at Ciudad Rodrigo were under the charge of the Spanish engineers. Burgoyne noted that Lieutenant William Reid RE who formed a good working relationship with the Spanish General D’España was given charge of part of the repairs and this had allowed greater progress to be made. Whilst these activities carried on in the background, Wellington was looking further east.