Chapter 7

1812 – Triumph and Failure

Following the successful siege of Badajoz, the army moved north at a relatively slow pace, Burgoyne saying this was to avoid tiring the troops. For the first time in months he was not busy ‘being now unemployed at Headquarters’. He asked John Squire to send him the captured diary of the French siege of Badajoz for him to read during his leisure time.¹ The French were watching Wellington’s advance with concern and they started evacuating their sick and stores from Salamanca. Preparations were also underway to defend the city from the advancing Allies. Burgoyne noted on 18 May 1812, a month before they arrived, that ‘they are fortifying some of the convents and have pulled down 300 or 400 houses around them’.²

On the same day, General Hill was carrying out a daring raid on the French crossing-point over the Tagus at Almaraz, the most westerly crossing-point they held. Wellington ordered Hill to carry out the raid on 24 April and to make his preparations in great secrecy. Hill departed from Almendralejo, south of the Guadiana, and advanced to Merida, arriving on 9 May, before the bridge repairs had been completed by Squire and Lieutenant Peter Wright RE. Hill had to wait three days before he could cross the river on the repaired bridge. Hill’s force also had six pontoons with them. John Squire was with Hill when he arrived in Truxillo on 15 May, but he fell ill and died two days later, leaving Lieutenant Wright unexpectedly in the position of senior engineer with Hill’s force. Approaching the pass of Miravete on the 17th, Hill looked without success for a way to get his artillery into the valley of Almaraz. The following morning, Lieutenant Wright was ordered to reconnoitre the forts and the terrain but no route for the artillery could be identified. Hill now decided to attack without his guns and the troops filed through the hills, falling on the French defences at daybreak on 19 May, ejecting the garrisons from the forts and destroying the bridge. Wright was wounded in the attack and it is not clear what role he had in directing the destruction of the forts and the bridges. It is probable than Dickson would have taken charge of this. One of the artillery officers, Lieutenant Thiele from the King’s German Legion artillery, was killed whilst setting off the explosives at Fort Ragusa.

Whilst this operation was under way, Wellington took the opportunity to dispatch Burgoyne to visit the Douro and clarify what appeared to be contradictory reports on its navigability. Burgoyne spent the next three weeks examining the river and making recommendation on improvements, returning just before Wellington moved on Salamanca.

On 2 May, about the same time as authorising Hill’s raid on Almaraz, Wellington ordered Colonel Sturgeon of the Royal Staff Corps to proceed to the damaged bridge over the Tagus at Alcantara and determine if it could be repaired.³ Again, secrecy was essential so that the French could not determine his strategy. Wellington needed the bridge repaired so that he could move the siege guns from Elvas for the attack on Salamanca. As described earlier, the bridge at Alcantara had been broken in May 1809, with one of the arches destroyed. The gap was about 100 feet wide with a drop of over 100 feet and there was no easy way of repairing it. With Captain Alexander Todd RSC, Sturgeon came up with an ingenious solution that was effectively a rope suspension bridge. Using material and some expertise supplied by the Royal Navy, he constructed a rope structure that could be tensioned using capstans and then have a roadway placed across it. It was pre-prepared at Elvas and transported to Alcantara where it was ready for use on 11 June.⁴

With these two operations, Wellington had significantly altered the strategic situation in central Spain. The loss of Almaraz now meant that the French had to travel further east to cross the Tagus and the repair of Alcantara reduced the distance the Allied had to travel. Wellington could now manoeuvre his forces much quicker than the enemy. Writing to Liverpool, he said: