The 51st Regiment of Foot was present at the Battle of Waterloo more by accident than design when, as a consequence of various marching manoeuvres on 15-17 Jun 1815, it found itself in the leading 4th Brigade of the Allied 4th Division – the only Brigade of the Division to see action at Waterloo. On the 18th, the 51st played only a minor role on the extreme right flank overlooking Hougoumont Farm. Nevertheless, at least seven of its ranks were either killed in action or died of wounds received (see note1). The Waterloo Medal Roll is the primary source of names of British soldiers who fought at Waterloo. The Waterloo Medal was the first British service medal issued to all officers and men present. It was also to be awarded to the next of kin of those killed in action (see note 2); however, the new rules on issuing the medal were not uniformly implemented. In particular, the casualties of the 51st Regiment of Foot at Waterloo are not recorded in the Waterloo Medal Roll (See note 3).

The Casualty Return of the 51st Regiment of Foot for May-Jun 18164 records the following deaths:

Bt Major William Thwaites’ Company

Private Thomas Kelly, born Tuam Galway, labourer, DoW Waterloo 19 Jun 1815

Capt John Ross’ Company

Corporal Daniel Pound, born Margate, carpenter, KIA Waterloo 18 Jun 1815

Bugler Stephen Quin, born Galway, labourer, KIA Waterloo 18 Jun 1815

Capt Samuel Beardsley’s Company

Corporal Samuel Winslett, born Farnham Surrey, labourer, KIA Waterloo 18 Jun 1815

Private Thomas Turner, born Bristol, lamp lighter, KIA Waterloo 18 Jun 1815

Private Joshua Seaton, born Whitechurch YKS, labourer, KIA Waterloo 18 Jun 1815.

All were probably buried in the mass graves at Waterloo.

Later Casualty Returns record a Private Hart dying 24 Jul 1815 en route to England of wounds received at Waterloo and Privates Collins and Wilson being “severely wounded at Waterloo, not heard of, believed dead” (see note 5).

Little else is known of most of these men except for the following (somewhat tentative) details:

Daniel Pound was probably christened on 10 Oct 1794 at St John’s Margate Kent, the eldest of five children of Daniel Pound and his wife Martha Perciful (or Percival) who were married at St John’s on 24 Nov 1793.(see note 6)

Samuel Winslett (or Winslade) was probably christened on 20 Sep 1792 at St Andrew’s Farnham Surrey, the same day as (twin?) Francis, the eldest of four children of Samuel Winslade and his wife Sarah Draper who were married at St Andrew’s on 6 Dec 1788. Samuel married Ann Piggott (~1778-Q4 1853) at St Andrew’s on 6 Oct 1810 (both signed X) and had children Samuel (1 Mar 1811-Q4 1874) and Mary Ann (chr 22 Nov 1812). His son Samuel had at least eight children and may have living descendants.(see note 7)

Joshua Seaton was born on 3 Jun 1792 in Whitkirk Yorkshire and baptized on 1 Jul 1792 at Rothwell Yorkshire, the youngest of five children of Jonathan Seaton and his wife Mary Wodson who were married at Rothwell on 23 Nov 1779. Joshua married Hannah Heward (or Howard) (1794-1838) on 12 Apr 1813 at St Mary’s Kippax Yorkshire (both signed X). Joshua was recruited in England and joined the 51st in the Pyrenees France on 15 Feb 1814. He served with Capt Samuel Beardsley’s Company (10th, 2nd Btn). After the Battle of Orthez on 27 Feb 1814, Joshua was at the Brigade Hospital in Mar/Apr 1814 (possibly a battle injury). Presumably, he embarked with the Regiment at Bordeaux for Plymouth aboard Zealous on 17 Jun 1814 and remained with the Regiment in Portsmouth until it sailed for Belgium on 23 Mar 1815. Joshua was reputedly the father of (widow) Hannah’s child Mary (chr 1 Nov 1816 – 7 May 1897) who has living descendants. (8)

Further information on these men or corrections of any details would be welcomed.

Prof. Richard Ollerton PhD

r.ollerton@hotmail.com

Feb 2012

Notes:

1 Col HC Wylly & Lt Col RC Bond, Regimental History of the 51st Regiment of Foot, in History of the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry – to 1918, London: Lund Humphries, 1926-1929, Vol. 1, from p.282.

2 Maj LL Gordon, British Battles and Medals, 5th Ed, revised by EC Joslin, London: Spinks & Sons, 1979.

3 And so their families would not have received the medal.

4 51st Regiment of Foot Casualty Returns 25 May to 24 Jun 1815, National Archives WO 25/1848.

5 Regimental History of the 51st Regiment of Foot, op.cit.

6 www.familysearch.org searches.

7 www.familysearch.org searches, parish registers, censuses.

8 Parish registers, censuses, 51st Regiment Muster Rolls, family lore, Regimental History of the 51st Regiment of Foot, op.cit., The King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry (Leonard Cooper, London: Leo Cooper, 1970, pp.26-35

Captain William Wharton’s military obituary records that he took part in the Walcheren Expedition with 85th Regiment of Foot (Bucks Volunteers) in 1809, and was present at the Siege of Flushing. He also fought in the Peninsular Wars at Fuentes d’Onor and Badajoz with the 85th in 1811. He took part in the Stralsund Expedition under Major General Gibb in Swedish Pomerania with 2nd Battalion of 73rd (Highland) Regiment. He served with them in the Netherlands during1813-14, and was present at the Battle of Gohrde in Hanover. He fought with 73rd in the battles of Quatre Bras and Waterloo in 1815, and was severely wounded at Waterloo.

Captain William Wharton, 73rd Regiment of Foot

His Early Life

His story begins with finding the will of a wealthy gentleman named Samuel Wharton dated 23rd May 1797,which was discovered by Janice O’Brien in the records of St. George’s Parish Church, Hanover Square. Mr Wharton was lodging in the Neat Houses in the parish of St. George, Hanover Square. He left his estate to his son Samuel Wharton, who was living in the Stables Yard at St. James Palace. Both father and son were employed in the Royal Households of King George III, and the Prince Regent. Samuel Wharton junior became Clerk Comptroller of the King’s Kitchens. He married Mary Killick at St. George’s Parish Church in February 1783. They had three children named William, Barbara and Catherine. William Wharton was born on 31st January 1785 and baptised at the church of St. George in Hanover Square in February that year. The family connection with St. George’s Church is interesting. His father and mother were married there, and his parents were obviously members of that congregation. There were many military connections with Hanover Square and its church, which was built with a donation from General Sir William Steuart in 1721. General Sir Thomas Picton was buried in the family vault in this church after being killed at the Battle of Waterloo. Hanover Square was named after the Royal House of Hanover and has always been a fashionable part of the city to live in. William must have spent his childhood in the Royal Palace at St. James nearby, and would have come into contact with some military gentlemen through his father.

William had decided that life in the Royal Household was not what he wanted, because he joined the Army in 1806 as an Ensign in 5th Regiment of Foot without having to purchase his commission. The price of a commission as an Ensign in a Regiment of the Line was £450 in those days. His father’s connection with the Royal Household, and the rapid expansion of the Army at that time might have helped him to obtain a commission. He must have been a bright lad, because he was promoted to Lieutenant in 7th Garrison Battalion on 11th December 1806. He then joined the 2nd Batt. 35th Regt. in Manchester in September 1807. He was also ambitious, because he wrote a letter from Manchester dated 1st October 1808 to Lieut. Col. Gordon, asking him to recommend to the Commander-in-Chief that he should be removed to some Light Infantry Battalions about to be formed, as he was anxious to be employed in a Service more active than recruiting.

William’s letter to Lt. Col. Gordon

The letter was important, because it has been preserved among his papers in the Royal Archives (see appendix 1). Col. Gordon was probably a Military Secretary to the C.I.C. in the Secretariat at the Horse Guards. He may also have known William’s parents. War Office Record (ref: WO17/145) contains the Adjutant General Returns of 35th Regt. to 1813, which showed that he was transferred to 85th Regiment in 1808. I have the original document granting “Our trusty and well loved William Wharton, gent” a commission (without purchase) as a Lieutenant with 85th Regiment of Foot (Bucks Volunteers) given at the Court of St. James on 6th October 1808. William Wharton’s Military Papers in the Public Record Office (ref: WO/25/777) provide a record of his service in the Army from 1806 to 1828.

William Wharton’s commission to the 85th Regiment of Foot

The records of the 85th Regiment in the Shropshire Regimental Museum at Shrewsbury, and the 73rd (Highland) Regiment in the Black Watch Museum at Perth provided details about the campaigns and battles he fought in. I am indebted to the Archivists of both these museums. Captain Wharton commanded No.10 Company of the 2/73rd Regt. at Quatre Bras and Waterloo. The Battle of Waterloo was the most famous military engagement of the century. The defeat of the Imperial Army of France by the Duke of Wellington was a defining moment in 19th century European history and anyone who fought there on Sunday 18th June 1815 assured himself of a place in the history of his country. He was severely wounded at Waterloo, being shot through both thighs by musket ball. He was lucky to die peacefully in his bed in Wales 40 years later.

A soldier’s life in the early years of the 19th century was extremely tough. They had to walk or ride every inch of the way; exposed to all the elements with clothing made out of wool or linen. They had no thermal vests or modern waterproof jackets to keep them warm, and their clothes must have become threadbare. No wonder the price of wool rocketed when the country was at war. Just imagine how many pairs of woollen socks a man needed to march for 500 miles, or leather boots for that matter. It is fortunate that Sergeant Thomas Morris of the 73rd Foot, who was in the same battalion as William Wharton, wrote a personal account of his experiences during the Napoleonic Wars. His book provides a graphic description of what their lives were really like. What follows is an account of William’s life as a soldier of that period.

Lieut. Wharton first saw active service with 85th Regt. in the Netherlands in 1809. The Book of “The 85th King’s Light Infantry ” records that the Regiment was stationed at Brabourne Lees near Canterbury in 1808 and were brigaded with the 68th Regt., another newly organised Light Corps. The Adjutant General Returns for the 85th Regt confirm that Lt. William Wharton joined the regiment at Brabourne Lees on 6th October 1808. In June 1809, they moved to Gosport and embarked at Blockhouse Point on 16 July on board the men-of-war Resolution and Plover to sail for the Netherlands to take part in the Walcheren Campaign commanded by the Earl of Chatham. Because of bad weather, the ships were forced to shelter in the East Scheldt and they landed near the heights of Briscard on the Isle of Walcheren on 30th July. The Regiment first saw action on 1st August, when they drove the French back to Flushing. This must have been the first time William saw action, his baptism of fire. The siege of Flushing lasted 11 days and the enemy surrendered on 16 August 1809. The Regiment occupied the town until December and the casualties suffered in the fighting were small compared with the number of men, who died from Walcheren fever, which was probably malaria caused by the mosquitoes from the surrounding swamps. At one time 498 soldiers died from fever in a fortnight. William caught the fever, and he was one of the lucky survivors. On 18th December 1809, the remnant of that fine battalion, which had left England six months before, embarked on board the transports Nile and Friendship. They landed at Dover on 28th of the month and returned to their quarters at Brabourne Lees.

The Peninsular Campaign

The Regiment remained in quarters at Brabourne Lees until 1811, when they received orders to proceed on Foreign Service again. They marched back to Portsmouth and embarked for Portugal on 27th January 1811. The ship arrived off Lisbon on 5th March after a rough crossing of the Bay of Biscay. The 85th joined the 7th Division of Lord Wellington’s Army. By 21st March they were camped near the village of Carrapinha, which was known as “Starvation Camp” owing to the lack of food available for the troops. They had to go without bread or spirits, having only tough rations of beef killed and served “instanter”, i.e. half raw. Such hardships were common during the Peninsular Campaign. The 7th Division took part in the pursuit of the French Army under General Messana, who had fallen back from the lines of Torres Vedras. On 3rd May 1811 the 85th and the 51st were involved in the Battle of Fuentes d’Onor, where the 7th Division was stationed on the left towards the centre of the line. They were charged by French Cavalry and suffered many casualties from the guns of the French Artillery. By all accounts young soldiers of the 85th and the 51st stood firm and repulsed the attacks by the cavalry with steady volley firing. A lieutenant and 12 men were killed and 2 officers and 25 men were wounded. The regiment then marched on to Badajos where 7th Division took part in the siege of that city. The assaults on the heavily defended city of Badajoz involved some of the fiercest fighting of the whole campaign. Volunteers were picked from the 85th and the 51st to lead the storming parties. The men leading the assault were known as the “ Forlorn Hope” because they seldom survived. The Challis Peninsular Roll records that William Wharton took part in the second Siege of Badajoz. He was not awarded the Badajoz clasp to his General Service Medal, because it was only awarded to those present at the final assault and capture of the fortress in April 1812. After these battles, the 85th were so reduced in numbers that they were ordered to return to England. Lord Wellington considered that it was better for a regiment to recruit from the militia at home rather than fill up its ranks, while abroad on active service. They marched back to Lisbon, crossing the Spanish frontier on 3rd September, and finally reaching Lisbon on 5th October. This involved marching about 200 miles from Badajos to Lisbon. The total distance these men must have marched during that campaign was over well 500 miles in seven months. 20 officers and 246 men out of a total of 27 officers and 459 men arrived back in their old quarters at Brabourne Lees on 13th December 1811. William Wharton returned from the Peninsular a seasoned campaigner, one of the select band of men, whom the Duke of Wellington called his “Spanish Infantry”.

The following year, he was promoted to the rank of Captain. He then joined the 2nd Battalion of the 73rd (Highland) Regiment of Foot. The Adjutant General Return for the 2/73rd (ref: WO 17/194) shows Captain Wharton in command of a company stationed at the Tower of London in December 1812. Private Thomas Morris told an interesting little story about a rough ugly-looking dog that attached itself to 73rd Regt., while the battalion were guarding the Tower. The dog was adopted by the men and taken with them when the Battalion went overseas. It became a great favourite, because it would warn them when the Officer of the Watch was approaching, by gently nipping their legs, if they were asleep. The punishment for sleeping on duty was a flogging, and so the dog was very popular and used to share the men’s rations. One day while the Regiment was stationed in Holland, the dog stole part of a soldier’s rations, and the man killed it. His comrades were so annoyed with him for brutally killing the poor dog that he had to be confined in the Guard House for several days afterwards to save him from the vengeance of his comrades. William Wharton must have known about this incident, which would have been talked about in the Officer’s Mess.

The 2nd Battalion of the 73rd was raised in 1808, and commanded by Colonel William George Harris. Although nominally a Highland Regiment, Col. Harris had obtained permission to abandon Highland Dress, in order to bring his new Battalion up to the full strength of ten companies as quickly as possible, by encouraging volunteers from all parts of the kingdom.

Lord Harris, second Baron Harris, was only 3 years older than William Wharton. His entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography describes him as being a good athlete and swimmer as a young man. He was an experienced soldier by the time he took command of the 2nd Battalion of the 73rd in 1809. He had served in India with the 74th Highlanders, and he was well liked by both his officers and men. His policy of recruiting more widely paid off. The strength of the battalion increased to ten companies totalling 45 sergeants, 22 drummers and 800 rank and file in 1813. Captain Wharton commanded No.10 Company and there are a number of English names among his men.

I am indebted to Thomas Morris’s wonderful book “Sergeant Morris of the 73rd Foot” and “The 2/73rd at Waterloo” by Alan Lagden & John Sly for some of the following details. On 25th May 1813, the battalion (32 Officers and 560 men) sailed from Harwich to join the expedition to Stralsund in Swedish Pomerania commanded by General Thomas Gibbs. The 2/73rd took part in the Battle of Gohrde in Hanover on 16th September 1813 and contributed greatly to the victory over the French. Col. Harris charged with his battalion, capturing a French battery in gallant style, and causing panic among the defenders. Captain Wharton’s obituary confirmed that he took part in this battle. After this, they were ordered to join the Allied Army commanded by Sir Thomas Graham in the Low Countries. Morris relates how they left the Baltic on 2nd November and spent three weeks in Gothenburg, where the ships were frozen in. Morris recorded that there was a serious outbreak of dysentery among the men while they were in Gothenburg. Conditions aboard the ship below decks must have been ghastly, because Morris was forced to sleep on deck in the freezing weather. Many of them were still ill when they reached Yarmouth at the beginning of December 1813. The women and children were left behind in Yarmouth, along with those still suffering from dysentery. Captain Wharton was one of those, who were too ill to travel further, and he had to stay behind in Yarmouth. He wrote a letter from London dated 14th January 1814 to General Harris, stating that he was now fully recovered and wished to rejoin his Regiment. This letter has also been preserved with his papers, and Neil Barnes has kindly given me a copy .Once again, the 2/73rd distinguished themselves at the storming and capture of the village of Merxem in February 1814. Lieutenant Acres of the Grenadier Company charged up the main street and captured two cannons. I do not know if Captain Wharton had managed to rejoin his regiment by then. The Regiment also took part in the unsuccessful battle for Bergen-op-Zoom on 3rd March. The 73rd were part of the Light Brigade, which was commanded by Col. Harris. They remained in the Netherlands after the Peace of 1814, and became part of 3rd Division in the Allied Army. According to Thomas Morris, they were billeted for a time in Rostock where the inhabitants kept large flocks of geese. The abundance of the birds enabled the people to indulge in the luxury of the finest feather beds and food was plentiful there. They were lucky to have such a comfortable billet. The winter of 1814 was very severe. The soldiers suffered in the intense cold, because of inadequate clothing and poor accommodation, often having to spend the night in cold churches with only some dirty straw for bedding. The fate of the poor wives and camp followers was even worse. Morris recounts coming across a beautiful young woman, the wife of a sergeant of the 55th, who was found lying frozen to death beside the road with her dead baby at her breast. Sometimes the men had to march all night in blizzard conditions, afraid of freezing to death, if they stopped and lay down. The battalion was billeted in Ghent at the beginning of 1815. Morris’s book gives interesting descriptions of the various places, where he was billeted.

The Battle of Waterloo

Napoleon Bonaparte was born at Ajaccio in Corsica on 15th August 1769, and rose to command the Army during the French Revolution. He is one of the most celebrated Military Commanders of all time. Napoleon conquered practically the whole of Europe during the Napoleonic Wars. He created himself Emperor of France on 2nd December 1804. He was forced to abdicate by the French Senate assembled at the Palace of Fontainebleau on 14th April 1814, and was banished to the Island of Elba. When he escaped from Elba on 26th February 1815, it sent shock waves through the delegates at the Congress of Vienna. They quickly appointed the Duke of Wellington to command the Allied forces assembled in Belgium. Napoleon had prophesied that he would return to Paris before the violets were in bloom. He landed at Golfe Juan near Antibes on the south coast of France on 1st March 1815. Then followed what became known as “The Flight of the Eagle”, when he marched north with his small force of volunteers, via Grenoble, Lyon and Fontainebleau to Paris at the start of his Hundred Days Rule. He displayed great physical courage when he faced down a far larger force of Royalist troops in “The Meadow of the Meeting” beside Lake Laffrey near Grenoble on 7th March. He addressed his soldiers in Grenoble on 9th March ending with the famous proclamation “Victory will advance at the charge”. The delegates gathered at the Congress of Vienna declared him an outlaw on 13th March. Having previously boasted that he would bring Napoleon back to Paris in an iron cage, Marshal Ney changed sides on 18th March and joined him. This was a turning point in Napoleon’s fortunes. He reached Paris in triumph on 20th March, and immediately set about taking control of the country again. The French King Louis XVIII fled to Ghent in Belgium. Napoleon signalled the re-establishment of his imperial authority by ordering the firing of 100 gun salutes from all the main fortresses in France on 29th April. He assembled an army of 123,000 soldiers and marched north from Paris on 12th June to confront the Allied Armies of Europe.

Lord Wellington arrived in Brussels on 5th April. He took over command of a polyglot army of approximately 112,000 men made up of units from Britain, Hanover, Nassau, Brunswick, Holland and Belgium. A minority of the soldiers spoke English. The 2/73rd Regt. was ordered to join the 5th Brigade under the command of Maj. Gen. Sir Colin Halkett. They were part of the 3rd Division commanded by General Sir Charles Alten. The Prussian Army of the Lower Rhine commanded by Field Marshal von Blucher numbered slightly over 130,000 men at the start of the campaign, but 10,000 of them deserted, and after the heavy casualties suffered in the Battle of Ligny, there were less than 100,000 men available on 18th June.

Three battles between the French Armee du Nord, the Anglo-Allied Army and the Prussian Army took place in Belgium between the 15th and 18th June 1815. Napoleon’s stratagem was to attack on two fronts with the aim of defeating the Prussian Army, before engaging the Anglo-Allied Armies. Unfortunately for him, he did not finish off the Prussians at Ligny on 16th June, and they were able to come back to the aid of the Allies at Waterloo two days later.

The French Army crossed the Belgium border and captured the village of Charleroi on 15th June. They were only 15 miles from an important road from Nivelles to Namur, which provided the vital link between Wellington’s forces and his Prussian allies. On the night of 15th while Napoleon slept at Charleroi, Wellington and many of his senior officers were attending a Grand Ball given by the Duchess of Richmond in Brussels only 30 miles away. When he was given the news that the French Army had crossed the border, the Duke is reputed to have said “Napoleon has humbugged me, by God. He has gained twenty-four hours march on me”. He set out from Brussels at 3 a.m. on 16th June and rode to the Brye windmill overlooking the battlefield of Ligny, where he meet Field Marshal Blucher at 11 a.m. Looking through his telescope, Wellington set eyes on the Emperor Napoleon for the first time. Both men were the same age, both had attended military academies in France, and they both spoke French as their second language, but they had never faced each other on the field of battle before. They were not destined to that day. Wellington rode off to organise his forces at Quatre-Bras leaving the Prussians to face Napoleon.

At 8 a.m. on Friday 16th June, Napoleon had been informed that the Prussian army was at Sombreffe on the Namur to Nivelles road. He set off to meet them, instructing Marshal Ney, commanding the left wing of his Army, to capture the crossroads at Quatre-Bras. The battles at Quatre-Bras and Ligny developed simultaneously later that day only about 7 miles apart. Napoleon routed the Prussians at Ligny, but it was a stalemate at Quatre-Bras, where the British managed to stop Ney from capturing the vital crossroad. Over 9,000 lives were lost at Quatre-Bras, roughly equally by each side, but without strategic advantage to either. 16,000 Prussians were killed or wounded at Ligny, including Marshal Blucher, who had his horses shot from under him, but survived. In his absence, General August von Gneisenau ordered the Prussian army to retire to Wavre. 10,000 Rhinelander’s deserted the colours and returned home. But the decision to send the rest of the Prussian Army to Wavre meant that they were able to come to the aid of the Allies again at Waterloo two days later. Wellington described this as the decisive moment of the century.

On the morning of 15th June, the roll of drums and the call of a bugle summoned the men of the 2/73rd. The battalion then marched to the village of Soignes, where they joined the 3rd Division commanded by the Hanoverian General Baron Von Alten. They were part of the 5th brigade, which also included the 30th, 33rd, and the 69th British Regiments of Foot. After receiving one day’s ration, they set off at midnight to march to the town of Nivelles. The next day, as they were about to cook their meal, an officer on horseback galloped up ordering them to fall in. They were being summoned to go to the aid of the Prince of Orange, whose Dutch-Belgium Division was guarding the crossroads at Quatre-Bras. As they marched off to battle, they passed a wounded private of the 92nd who called out to them “Go on the 73rd given them pepper, I got my Chelsea commission.” He survived his terrible wounds to boast of his experiences to his grandchildren years later..

Marshal Ney had been slow in attacking the forces of the Prince of Orange at the crossroads. The fighting did not start until about 2.30 pm on 16th June. The French would have overwhelmed the Prince of Orange’s men had not General Picton’s 5th British Division and General Atlen’s 3rd Division arrived on the scene about 5 pm after a forced march from Nivelles. When they reached the scene of the fighting, the 5th Brigade were caught out in the open by French Cavalry and the 69th lost their King’s Colours. The 73rd and 33rd ran for safety in Bossu Wood, where they were rallied by their Commander Major-General Sir Colin Halkett, who personally held aloft the Colours of the 33rd. The survivors beat off the cavalry by firing volleys from their muskets. The 5th Brigade suffered heavy casualties at Quatre-Bras. Morris tells how the survivors suffered from thirst during the battle. They were unable to refill their water bottles from a stream, because the water was so full of dead bodies. The firing ceased about 9 pm and they were glad of the opportunity to lie down to rest among the dead and dying after the fatigue of such a long day. They rose early on the morning of 17th June and endeavoured to chew the hard ships’ biscuits, which was all they had with them to eat.

At midday, they were ordered to retire and take up a new position further north. Morris relates how, as they were ascending a hill, the sky darkened and they were suddenly enveloped in dense cloud. A torrent of heavy rain started to fall making the ground very slippery, and it became difficult to keep their footing as they descended the steep slope. The sky was filled with flashes of lightning and the loud sound of the thunder mingled with the distance sound of canons firing. They marched on in the pouring rain until they reached the ridge of Mount St. Jean about 5 kilometres south of the village of Waterloo, where the Duke of Wellington had made his headquarters in the old coaching inn.

The battlefield of Waterloo is situated in the French speaking southern half of Belgium some 20 kilometres due south of Brussels. It is difficult to appreciate how small the area of the battlefield was. The actual site covered an area of about 4000 x 4000 metres of rolling farmland, which was partly covered in chest high standing corn. The Duke selected the Mount St. Jean ridge facing south, on which to deploy his Army. This position had several strategic and tactical reasons for its selection. Firstly, it barred Napoleon’s main route to Brussels. Secondly, it was the last suitable defensive position south of the Forest of Soignes, and thirdly it was only 12 kilometres from Wavre, where the Prussian Army was regrouping. Napoleon deployed The French Armee du Nord on either side of the Charleroi- Brussels road with the hamlet of La Belle Alliance at the centre. The Battle of Waterloo was fought in the old way. Both armies faced each other across a gap that was never more than 1200 metres wide at most and sometimes as little as 300 metres wide. Towards the end of the fighting, after the Prussian Army had arrived, some 200,000 men with 60,000 horses and 537 guns were engaged in this small area. After the fighting had ceased the ground was literally carpeted with dead and dying men and horses.

The principal tactical formation of the British Infantry was a Battalion, which was divided into ten Companies. The companies were formed up in numerical order from right to left with the Grenadier Company on the right and the Light Company on the left. For some reason, 2/73rd Regt. numbered its Grenadier Company No.6 and its Light Company No.8. No.10 Company commanded by Captain Wharton must have been on the left of the line next to the Light Company. The tactics employed were relatively simple. Each side took up their positions in sight of each other and pounded away with their artillery, hoping to breach the ranks of men opposing them. This would allow the cavalry to charge through and scatter their enemy. The infantry formed squares to defend themselves against the charges by the cavalry. In front of each army was a line of skirmishers, who gave warning of the approaching forces.

The men of Sir Colin Halkett’s 5th Brigade were ordered to take up their position on the Mount St. Jean ridge in the centre of the front line between the chateau of Hougoumont and the farmhouse of La Haye Sainte. The 5th Brigade formed two squares in the front line between the 1st Guards Brigade on the right and 1st Hanoverians on the left. The 69th and 33rd Regiments combined to form one square on the right and the 30th and 73rd the other on the left. They were made to form two squares instead of four, because all four regiments had suffered heavy casualties at Quatre Bras. They were on slightly elevated ground, which meant they were very exposed to artillery fire later on in the battle. According to Thomas Morris they took up their position halfway between La Haye Sainte and Hougoumont with the Guards on their right. They could see the enemy taking up their positions opposite them. The French artillery fired some shots at them that evening and killed two members of their light company. The storm continued unabated and they were wet through. They were ordered to pile their arms and remain in their position so there was no chance of seeking a lodging for the night. The only food they had were the biscuits that had been issued to them on 16th and they had already eaten most of them. They had to spend the whole night standing knee deep in mud in the pouring rain. There was no question of lying down. They collected armfuls of corn and made bundles to sit on with their blankets over their heads to keep warm. They could see the watch fires of the enemy about 900 metres away in the distance. The men spent the night discussing their prospects for the forthcoming battle, and the general opinion was that it would be a very severe one. Two of the greatest Generals the world had ever seen were about to cross swords. The troops seemed animated by the thought of what was to come on the morrow.

Soon after daybreak on the morning of 18th June the rain ceased, and the men were able to collect some firewood from the Forest of Soignes nearby. By six o’clock the sun had started to shine, which cheered everyone up. They began to look about themselves and clean their muskets in readiness for the battle. Staff Officers were already riding about issuing orders. Morris obtained permission to collect a rations of ‘Hollands’. It was the calm before the storm. It is interesting to speculate what my ancestor was doing that morning as he stood stiff and cold beside his men of No.10 Company. The Adjutant’s Roll listed 3 Sergeants, 1 Corporal, 2 Drummers and 38 Private Men in Captain Wharton’s Company at the Battle of Waterloo. The Battalion was well under strength and only totalled 558 men.

The Emperor Napoleon was in his saddle by 9 am and rode down the whole length of his army to show himself to his troops, who responded with cries of “Vive l’Empereur” It must have been an imposing sight. But the wet weather of the previous night delayed the start of the battle, because many French units were late in arriving. Had Napoleon known that the Prussians would come to the aid of the Allies later on, he might have started his attack earlier. The French Grand Battery of 80 guns fired the opening cannonade of the battle at about 11.20 am that morning (the exact time is not generally agreed). The fighting continued all day until about 9 pm that night.

The art of warfare in the Napoleonic era depended on using the three main elements of infantry, cavalry and artillery in the right combination. Each branch of the army had its own strengths and weaknesses in terms of manoeuvrability, firepower and offensive potential. A regiment of infantry formed into a hollow square was almost impregnable to charging cavalry, but was very vulnerable to artillery bombardment or volleying by another infantry unit in line formation. Charging cavalry could cause havoc among an artillery battery, because they were able to cover the ground so quickly. The key in a fast changing battle was to deploy each unit to best advantage. The French Commanders failed to do so on several occasions that day.

The opening bombardment did not seriously affect the men of the 73rd, who had been ordered to lie down behind the ridge. In fact Thomas Morris said he fell asleep! However, later on when they had formed a square with the men of the 30th, there were many horrific incidences of soldiers being cut in two by canon shot or having their heads and limbs blown off. The effect of an exploding shell could be devastating. One shell killed or wounded seventeen men according to Morris. The inside of the square became full of dead and dying men calling out in agony. One man was quoted as saying, “we were nearly suffocated by the smoke and the loud cries of the wounded was most appalling”. It is incomprehensible to us today to imagine how men coped with the sounds, sights and smells of such a battle. The stench of burning buildings and gunpowder mixed with the smell of blood, sweat, vomit and excrement of thousands of men and horses must have been frightful. After the artillery bombardment came the French cavalry. Marshal Ney, who Napoleon called “The Bravest of the Brave”, led 10,000 French Cuirassiers in repeated charges against the British. The 5th Brigade commanded by Sir Colin Halkett was in the thick of the battle at this point. The Square formed by 30th and 2/73rd was charged eleven times by the French cavalry. For roughly two hours, between 4 –6 pm wave after wave of French horseman charged Wellington’s infantry. Each time the horses came within musket range, about twelve paces from the square, the kneeling ranks of infantrymen poured volleys of musket fire at them causing the horses to veer away. Not a single British Square was broken by the French Cavalry that day and the steadiness of the British Infantry at Waterloo became a byword for future generations of the British Army. Wellington himself rode his famous horse Copenhagen back and forth to where ever the fighting was fiercest, giving orders, directing artillery, looking to plug the gaps and for opportunities to exploit. Almost all his personal staff were either killed or wounded that day, but he came through unscathed. The Duke took shelter in the square formed by the 30th & 73rd during one attack, asking Sir Colin Halkett how his men got on. Sir Colin replied, “My Lord, we are dreadfully cut up. Can you relieve us a little?” “Impossible” replied the Duke. Finally, Napoleon called on his Imperial Guard in a last throw of the dice. These battle-hardened soldiers were the personal creation of the Emperor and were more feared than the ordinary soldiers. They were all big men and their high hairy caps with long red feathers waved with the nod of their heads, as they kept time to the beating of the drums, enhancing their gigantic appearance. Sir Colin Halkett’s Brigade was badly cut up in the artillery bombardment, which preceded the attack by the Imperial Guard. He received a bullet through the face, the ball passing through his mouth. It may have been at this point in the fighting that Captain Wharton received his wounds. He was shot through both thighs by musket balls. His Commanding Officer Col. Harris was also severely wounded. All five company commanders in the 73rd, who are named in the Waterloo Roll, were either killed or wounded that day. The men had become mixed up by the frequent changes of formation. There was some confusion and the Duke of Wellington spotted the danger himself. He sent Major Dawson Kelly to sort it out. Major Kelly ordered the men back in the line and instructed them to check their flints and prime their muskets. As the attacking column of the Imperial Guard appeared through the smoke, a well-directed volley stopped them. Some 9-pounders from the rear also poured grape-shot into them. The slaughter was dreadful. When the smoke cleared the backs of the Imperial Grenadiers could be seen retreating down the slope. It was about 9 pm and the battle was over.

The picture by Richard Scollins is of Lieut. Leyne, the most senior officer left standing, calling the roll of the remnants of the 73rd after the battle. It is a sketch of a group of men standing about after the battle including sergeant Burton and private Morris sharing a dram of “Hollands” from Morris’s flask to celebrate their survival. Captain Wharton is not in the picture. He was not among the men left standing, but must have been lying wounded nearby. Barely 50 men of 2/73rd Regt. and only 5 Officers were still alive and unwounded at the end of the day. According to Morris the battalion was in such a shattered state that they had to spend the night near the spot where they had been fighting all day. The wounded were crying out for water, but they had none to give them. The survivors spent their third night on the battlefield listening to the groans and shrieks of the poor wounded men around them. Morris commented that it was fortunate they had been deafened by the noise of gunfire during the battle. Belgium peasants, who came to rob the dead and dying, had stripped many of the bodies naked by morning. The battlefield presented the most awful appearance next day, the 19th June. The ground was still strewn with hundreds of poor men, who had been severely wounded and had not yet been attended to. Nearly 55,000 men were killed or wounded at Waterloo. Wellington himself remarked: “Next to a battle lost, the greatest misery is a battle gained.”

The Duke of Wellington met Marshal Blucher, the Commander of the Prussian Army, outside the inn at La Belle Alliance after the battle. The two victorious generals shook hands cordially. Speaking the only language both men understood, Blucher is reputed to have remarked “Quelle affaire”. The long eighteen-century conflict with France had finally been brought to an end. Wellington admitted that it had been “ a damned nice thing – the nearest thing you ever saw in your life. By God, I don’t think it would have been done if I had not been there.” He freely admitted that the timely arrival of Marshal Blucher and the Prussian Army contributed greatly to the Allies victory. As for the French, they fled from the scene in confusion, pursued by the Prussians, who hated them. Napoleon himself went back to Paris, where he soon realised that the game was up. One month after Waterloo, he surrendered to Admiral Maitland aboard the Royal Navy man-of-war HMS Bellerophon in the French port of Rocheport. To escape capture by French Royalists, he gave himself up to the British, whom he considered the most powerful, most steadfast and most generous of his enemies. He had hoped that the British would allow him to escape to America. Instead, he was taken to exile on the lonely island of St. Helena in the south Atlantic, where he spent the last six years of his life complaining about his treatment. He died there in May 1821. It was a sad end for a man, who had defeated practically all the armies of Europe and had proclaimed himself Emperor of France.

Morris relates how on the day after the battle, his battalion left the field about noon, and started their long march south. They passed over the ground on which the Imperial Guard had fought so desperately. It was littered with their corpses. They were following in the wake of the Prussians and witnessed some of the horrors, which those soldiers had inflicted on the local inhabitants. The Duke of Wellington had issued peremptory orders that the locals should not be abused and anyone caught looting would be shot. When Morris was billeted with a local tailor that night, he was well received. He had his face wounds dressed and enjoyed a good night’s rest. It is interesting to note that Thomas Morris was not officially listed as wounded. Only those who were disabled by their wounds were classified as “wounded.” Captain Wharton had been shot through both thighs. His daughter Emma said that her father had been so badly wounded that he had been taken for dead and put on a cart. Luckily, neither leg was broken and he recovered quickly. Broken limbs would normally have been amputated. He managed to stay with his Regiment somehow. The Muster Roll of the 73rd records that by 24th June 1815 they were camped in the Bois de Boulogne on the outskirts of Paris. The men had marched from Belgium to Paris, a distance of over 200 miles in five days. William Wharton is mentioned as wounded in the Pay Roll on 21st September, so he must have been carried to Paris on a cart. For the first week after they arrived the men of 73rd were fully occupied in felling trees, fixing tents and forming parade grounds. British troop were not permitted to enter Paris without a written pass. They remained in camp in the Bois de Boulogne during the occupation of Paris by the Allies. In the latter part of August, the Duke of Wellington held a military review. It was a very grand occasion. The troops marched past the Duke mounted on his favourite charger Copenhagen, surrounded by Princes, Dukes and Generals of the Allied Armies. The streets of Paris were densely crowded and the windows of the houses lining the route were filled by gaily-dressed ladies, waving their handkerchiefs and greeting the soldiers as they passed by in open columns of companies.

 After Waterloo

So what of the spoils of war? The Duke wrote a memorandum to the Government from his Head Quarters in Paris on 6th November 1815 stating that in his opinion the Government should pay prize money to the Officers and troops present with their Regiments in the battles on 15th, 16th, 17th &18th June and to those at their posts up to 7th July, when the Army entered Paris. In the event, the British Government was generous to all those who had fought at Waterloo, and any “Waterloo Man” could count on an extra two years service towards his pay and pension. Two years later prize money was awarded as follows:

The Commander-in-Chief £61,000 0s 0d

Generals £1,275 10s 11d

Colonels and Field Officers £433 2s 5d

Captains £90 7s 4d

Subalterns £34 14s 9d

Sergeants £19 4s 4d

Corporal, drummers & privates £2 11s 4d

There was also His Majesty’s Royal Bounty or Waterloo Subscription for War Widows and disabled Officers. The considerable sum for those days of £518,288 was raised. Mary Buckley the widow of Captain William Buckley, who was killed at Quatre-Bras, received £60. She had been left in distressed circumstances with four infant children to bring up, the last child being born only three weeks after her husband’s death. The fate of war widows has not changed much in 200 years.

The Victor of Waterloo was well rewarded. In addition to his prize money, a grateful nation also gifted the stately home of Strathfield Saye in Hampshire to the Duke of Wellington in 1817. He was created Duke of Ciudad Rodrigo and Grandee of Spain 1st Class as Victory Titles by Spain for ridding them of the French Army in the Peninsular. His descendents still hold his titles and Estates. In 1985, Jane and I met Charles Wellesley 10th Duke of Ciudad Rodrigo on his Spanish Estate near Granada. We were trying to interest him in purchasing some cashmere goats for his Estate. We did not succeed, but we shared a bottle of excellent sherry with him, and he showed us over his farm.

The Duke of Wellington held very grand receptions for surviving Officers, Royalty and the Nobility on the anniversary of the battle every year until his death. He held his last Waterloo Banquet at his London home Apsley House on 18th June 1852. Prince Albert attended on this occasion together with eighty-four veterans. The Duke drank three toasts while the band played “See the Conquering Hero Comes.” He died peacefully at Walmer Castle on 14th September 1852. The last known British survivor of the battle was Private Morris Shea formally of 2/73rd Foot, who died aged ninety-seven in 1892.

The British Government awarded Waterloo Medals to all soldiers present at the battles of Ligny and Quatre-Bras on 16th June and Waterloo on 18th June. It was the first medal on which the recipient’s name was impressed around the rim and also the first campaign medal to be awarded to the next-of-kin of men killed in action. Wm. Wharton is listed as one of the Captains in the Waterloo Roll Call for 73rd (Highland) Regiment of Foot (see appendix 4).

The 73rd did not stay long in Paris. They embarked on 23rd December from Calais, and after what Morris described as a rather boisterous crossing, their ship reached Ramsgate on Christmas Day 1815. They were not allowed much time for celebration and were marched off to Nottingham to deal with some disturbance in the manufacturing district there. The Regiment returned to their old barracks at Colchester in 1816, where they received a rapturous reception, the word “Waterloo” having a magic influence on the inhabitants. Morris describes a party they were given on the first anniversary of Waterloo at which they sang the following chorus:

“Every 18th day of June, if we live, we’ll do the same,

In remembrance of those heroes who fought at Waterloo.”

By 1817 the Government started to reduce the size of its Standing Army, as all Governments are still wont to do in times of peace. The 2/73rd were posted to Chelmsford, where the Battalion was disbanded. Some of the men were sent out to Ceylon to join the 1st Battalion. William applied for a pension, but was told that his wounds did not qualify him for one. The letter dated 26th July 1817 advising him that his case did not fall within the limits of the regulations, has been preserved with his Army Record. What is interesting about this letter is that it was sent to him at an address near Abergavenny in Wales. Why he was living in Wales at the time, we shall never know, but he went back to live in Wales several years later.

He then applied for the post of Sub-Inspector of Militia on the Isle of Corfu, which had been placed under the jurisdiction of Britain following the Peace of Versailles. He was posted there on Christmas Day 1817. He returned to London for his wedding to Sarah Turner on 18th May 1818 at Holy Trinity Church in Clapham. Both his parents Samuel and Mary Wharton were witnesses at their marriage (see appendix 5). Ann and Elizabeth Turner, who may have been her aunt and her mother, represented Sarah’s family. William and Sarah were given two small pictures of King George III and Queen Charlotte by the Royal Family as a wedding present. These etching are still in the possession of the descendents of Aubrey Wharton. William and his new bride returned to Corfu, where their first child named William Plato was born on 27th April 1819. Captain Wharton’s name appears in the Army List of those officers placed on half-pay on 1st June 1820. William and Sarah came home again in January 1821 to have their son baptised at St. George Parish Church in Hanover Square. Captain Wharton gave his abode then as the Isle of Corfu, and his profession as Captain in the Militia. By July, they were back in France, where their second son Henry Samuel was born in the town of Antony south of Paris. Sarah was a redoubtable woman to give birth to two baby boys so far from home. It is interesting to speculate how they travelled with their young family in those days. They must have been travelling overland by coach, which would have been an ordeal for Sarah, who was pregnant for the second time. They stopped in the town of Antony, where according to the records in the French Government Archives, she stayed with Madame Gorguereau during her confinement. Henry Samuel’s Acte de Naissance, which I obtained from the archivist in Antony, states that he was born there on 22nd July 1821. Surgeon Pierre Thomas delivered him at one o’clock. His father William Wharton, Captain of the Armies of His Britannic Majesty, Monsieur Boucher Proprietor and Surgeon Thomas, signed the document in the presence of the Deputy Mayor of Antony on 23rd July.

I do not know if they ever went back to Corfu after the birth of their second child. William had been transferred to the 43rd (Monmouthshire) Regiment of Foot in 1820. They must have stayed in France, because William was issued with a French Hunting Permit for the district of Antony in August 1822.

A French hunting permit issued to William Wharton

It bears his signature and gives a description of him as being 1.7 metres tall with an oval face and chestnut coloured hair. He may have stayed on in France on official business, involving negotiations with the French Authorities over the administration of Corfu, or he may just have been there for pleasure. I like to think of him hunting wild boar in the woods around Antony with his friend Monsieur Boucher. They had returned to London again by December 1822, when Henry Samuel was also baptised at St. George’s Parish Church. Captain Wharton gave his abode as Buckingham Palace on that occasion. He would have been staying with his relations or friends on the staff of the Royal Household. He had by that time applied for the post of Barrack Master at Brecon in Wales, where he went in December 1822. What were his reasons for choosing Wales? He was not a member of the Brecon Militia. The post of Barrack Master was a civilian posting, and was paid out of the Ordnance Department budget. He was responsible for running the Barracks and purchasing all the equipment. It was not exciting work, but helped to support his wife and family. Watton Barracks in Brecon was constructed by government contract in 1805 to house the town Armoury. It was converted into accommodation for 270 men a few years later. The building is now the Regimental Museum of the Royal Welsh. The Brecknock County Militia were stationed there in those days. The Militia were the forerunners of the Territorial Army and each county was required to raise a certain number of men locally to provide trained soldiers for the regular Army in times of national emergency. The Adjutant of the Brecon Militia at that time was another Waterloo veteran, Capt. Egerton Isaacson of 51st Foot. At the end of the Peninsula Campaign, the Militia had been stood down from active service and were not embodied again until 1852. Very few records were kept for periods when the Militia were stood down.

Officers on half-pay could be recalled for active service at any time. In 1828, the War Office required all officers on half-pay to submit a return confirming whether or not they were willing to serve on active service again. William’s return is still amongst his military service records. It gives details of all his postings up to 1828. He is listed as holding a Civil Situation as Barrack Master, and his salary was £137 pa plus free accommodation in the Barracks. He was asked to state if he was desirous of further active service, and he stated that he was not on account of having a wife and four children. If he had agreed to return to active service, he would probably have been posted to India. This Return also provides details of his marriage to Sarah Turner and their children, who are listed as William Plato born 27th April 1819, Henry Samuel born 22nd July 1821, Emma born 11th June 1824 and Frederick born 17th March 1828. Frederick must have died as an infant, because there is no further mention of him in any records. A fifth child named Elizabeth was born in 1834. Emma and Elizabeth are both shown on the 1851 Census for Wales as still living with their parents at Ashbrooke Place in Brecon. Henry Samuel is shown in the 1851 Census as a General Practitioner, living in Merthyr Tydfil. There was no trace of William Plato. I found out that he spent most of his life in an asylum at Briton Ferry. He was admitted to the asylum suffering from melancholia in 1846 and died there in 1891.

William was still living in the Watton Barracks with his wife Sarah, his sister Barbara, his daughter Elizabeth and his servant named Margaret Price in 1841. He retired later that year, and went to live at Ashbrooke Place in Brecon. William died there on 5th February 1855 aged 70. His old age must have been rather sad. One son had died in childhood, and his eldest son was in an asylum. His two daughters were unmarried. He had been gradually becoming paralysed by an old injury to his back. His death certificate lists “injury of cervical vertebra” as a partial cause of death. His faithful servant Margaret Price was a witness on his death certificate. He is buried at St. John’s Parish Church in Brecon. At the time of his death, he was still technically serving as an Army Officer on half-pay. His wife successfully applied to the War Office for a pension. She continued to live in Brecon with her unmarried daughter Emma and Margaret Price until 1861. Sarah Wharton died in Alverstoke in Hampshire in 1867. She left the miniature picture of her husband and his medals to her son Dr Henry Samuel Wharton (my great grandfather). He had settled in Alverstoke by 1861, where he was practising medicine. He married Emma Evans from Merthyr Tydfil in Wales in 1855. They had two children, John Henry Samuel Wharton and Enid Wharton (my grandmother). Dr Henry Wharton died in Alverstoke in 1885. Emma lived on until she was 95 years old. She died in 1922, and my mother Anice Chandler was present at her funeral in Alverstoke. It was Emma’s daughter Enid, who so proudly held her grandfather’s medals in her hands in 1960.

_________________________________________

© Colin Heape.

No part of this work may be reproduced without prior permission of the author.

My Sources

Books:

Adkin Mark, ‘The Waterloo Companion’, Autrum Press 2001

Barnett C R B., ‘The 85th King’s Light Infantry’, Spottiswoode & Co. 1913

Glover Michael, ‘Wellington as Military Commander, Penguin Books 2001

Gordon LL Maj., ‘British Battles & Medals’, Spink & Son 1971

Haythornthwaite P, ‘British Napoleonic Infantry Tactics 1792-1815’, Osprey Press

Holmes Richard, ‘Wellington The Iron Duke, Harper Collins 2003

Lagden & Sly, ‘The 2/73rd at Waterloo’, Alan Lagden 1998

Mallinson Allan, ‘The Making of the British Army’ Bantam Press 2009

Morris Thomas, ‘Sergeant Morris of the 73rd Foot’, Leonaur Ltd 2007

Roberts Andrew, ‘Waterloo Napoleon’s Last Gamble’, Harper Perennial 2006

Roberts Andrew, ‘ Napoleon & Wellington’, Phoenix 2003

Snow Peter, ‘To War with Wellington’, John Murray Publishers 2010

Archive Sources:

The National Archives, London

WO 12/8062 Quarterly Pay-List for 2/73rd Regt. from 25th March –15th Sept. 1815

WO 17/194 Adjutant General Return for 2/73rd Regt. to December 1812.

WO 17/206 Adjutant General Return for 85th Regt. for November 1808

WO 31/262 Letter to Lieut. Col. Gordon at Horse Guards, London 1st October 1808

WO 1/213 Correspondence by Duke of Wellington re capture of Paris

WO 25/777 Return of Officers Service to 1828

 Museums:

The Black Watch Museum, Balhousie Castle, Hay Street, Perth, PH1 5HR

Shropshire Regimental Museum, The Castle, Shrewsbury, SY1 2AT

The Royal Welsh Museum, The barracks, Brecon, Powys, LD3 7EB

Private papers:

Chandler Family Papers

Lt. William Wharton’s Commission in 85th Regiment (Bucks Voluteer).

French Hunting Permit issued to W Wharton in Ville Antony in 1822.

Barnes Family Papers

Notes compiled by Neil Barnes

Pictures of William and Sarah Wharton

Letter written by Capt. Wharton to General Harris dated 14th January 1814

 Online:

Ancestry, www.ancestry.co.uk

Archives Communales d’Antony, www.ville_antony.fr

British Army in the Low Countries 1813-1814, www.napoleon-series.org/military

Challis Peninsular Roll, www.napoleon-series.org

London Metropolitan Archives, www.cityoflondon.gov.uk

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, www.oxforddnb@oup.com

Royal Residences, St. James Palace, www.royal.gov.uk

St. George Church, Hanover Square, www.westminster.gov.uk/archives

Wikipedia, www.wikipedia.org

Major Thomas Walker Chambers, 30th Regiment. (Picture by kind permission of Mr J Macdonald)

“A strange mortal, but an admirable soldier.”  This was the opinion of Edward Macready on one of the most distinguished officers in the 30th Regiment.  He wrote in his journal, “My forbearance does not proceed from any regard to the ridiculous aphorism de mortuis nil nisi bonum [speak no ill of the dead], but from respect for the memory of a man whose valour and abilities were undeniable.”

Macready was thinking back to the time when both of them had been serving in Flanders, in 1813, and, young and bumptious, he had got on the wrong side of Chambers, a stickler for proper behaviour and one of the most experienced officers in the 30th.  His rather grudging compliment to Chambers’ ability was fully deserved, but his other comment, “a strange mortal”, also seems to have contained an element of truth.

Thomas Walker Chambers was born in 1781 in Lowestoft, the fourth child and only surviving son of John Chambers and Mary Walker.  His father was a herring merchant, a man of some substance, and partner to his wife’s father, who had interests in a porcelain factory, brick-making and the herring trade.  Records identify him as “Philip Walker, gent.”, and his status entitled him to a coat of arms. The Lowestof Porcelain company trades to this day, and I include here two illustrations of their work:

Illustrations by kind permission of the manufacturers, further details at: www.lowestoftporcelain.com

Thus Chambers’ background was typical of many upper middle class young men who acquired commissions in the army of the day.

What motivated young Thomas to pursue a military career can only be surmised.  Obviously, the herring trade did not appeal to him.  In the 1790s Britain was at war with Revolutionary France, so perhaps he succumbed to the lure of a more exciting life.

In his teens he was commissioned into the 17th Regiment.  His moneyed background makes it probable that his ensigncy was purchased.  Certainly, his grandfather’s social position would have guaranteed that the two sponsors required would have been easy to find.

He spent some years with his regiment in Minorca but in 1802, as a result of the Peace of Amiens, Lieutenant Chambers as he now was found himself on halfpay when the 17th lost its second battalion.  Within a year, however, the Peace had collapsed and regiments were required to augment.  Chambers was one of several halfpay officers who joined the 30th in the summer of 1803.

At the beginning of 1804 he sailed with his new regiment to Ireland.  Initially he was with the second battalion, the feeder and training unit for the first.  When he transferred to the first at the end of the year, he had the chance of  active service, which was quick in coming.

Late in 1805 the 1/30th formed part of Lord Cathcart’s expedition to north Germany, but if Chambers was hoping for military glory he was quickly disappointed.  The expedition was aborted and by March 1806 the battalion was back in England.  Two months later they sailed for India.

This may have been a frustrating situation for an ambitious young officer.  Wellesley’s victories lay in the past and the Pindari Wars, in the future.  When life did become interesting for Chambers it was not in a way he would have wished.

In March 1807, a month before he was promoted to captain, he went to Vellore as part of a detachment under the command of Captain Thomas Jackson.  Exactly what happened between Jackson and Chambers is unclear but in October 1808 the two men, along with Liuetenants Powell, Nicholson and Barlow, were returned as attending a court martial.  In November Chambers was suspended from rank and pay for three months.

There is some evidence, from the subsequent court martial of Chambers’ friend, Nicholson, that Chambers was exonerated of all but a minor charge.  Certainly, the sentence was very mild for what may well have been insubordination.

Nevertheless, the matter rankled and Chambers challenged Jackson to a duel (in which neither was hurt) to settle matters.  Nicholson was then heard to say that blood would be shed before the affair was resolved.  By this point it seems that both Chambers and Nicholson were being ostracised by the other officers of the battalion.  Determined to resolve things in his own way, Major Vaumorel (in command of the battalion) placed them both under arrest in July  1809.

Vaumorel then gave them the choice of resigning from the regiment, with the promise of a recommendation, or facing a court martial.  Chambers signed, since he had a simple solution to the problem.  Nicholson refused to sign until the recommendation was in his hands and was then charged with ungentlemanly conduct (for not trusting the word of his commanding officer) and instigating a duel.  This second charge referred to his claim that blood would be shed.

Chambers went to Madras, ready to sail back to Europe, but was then summoned to appear as a prosecution witness against Nicholson.  A very unwilling witness whose testimony did nothing to help the prosecution cause.  As a result Nicholson was found guilty only of saying that blood would be shed, although not of instigating a duel, and received a reprimand by letter.  Indeed, the court were of the opinion that he had been justified in refusing to sign the resignation without a recommendation.

Chambers was now free to continue his journey to Europe.

By April 1810 he was at sea in command of a detachment of 16 invalids.  It is unclear when he reached England but by September he was in Cadiz with the second battalion, to which he properly belonged.  How he achieved this can only be supposition.  A detachment from the depot under the command of Ensign Neville embarked from Portsmouth in July 1810.  By the time they arrived in Cadiz they had been joined by Captain Craig from the staff, Ensign Freear from the depot – and Chambers from India.  It would seem that signing the resignation had been a means to an end.

Chambers now took command of the light company, a particularly prestigious position within the battalion.  As a result, he saw what little action the battalion experienced at Fuentes de Oñoro in May 1811, some skirmishing on the extreme left of the allied position with French tirailleurs posted opposite them.

At Badajoz in April 1812 the light companies of the second brigade of the fifth division (2/4th, 2/30th. 2/44th) along with a detached company of Black Brunswick Jägers, formed the storming party when the division escaladed the San Vicente bastion.  The first men up the ladders inevitably took the heavist casualties.  The officer commanding the 2/30th, Major George Grey, was mortally wounded, while Chambers suffered wounds which kept him out of action throughout the summer.  Thus he missed the victory at Salamanca in which the fifth division played a notable part.

The 30th Regiment escalading the St Vicente Bastion at Badajoz

When he rejoined the battalion they were about to march to Burgos, where the fifth division acted as a coveering force while other divisions pursued the unsuccessful siege.  By October the allies were in retreat.  On the 25th the fifth division were charged with holding a position at Villamuriel so that the rest of the army could withdraw from a dangerous position.  The light company, with its skirmishing role, played an important part in this successful action under Chambers’ command.

The bridge at Villamuriel

Chambers remained in the Peninsula with four strong companies when six weak companies were sent home in January 1813.  In June Wellington reluctantly sent home the remainder of the battalion, who joined their comrades in Jersey.

This was a short respite.  January 1814 saw them in Flanders as part of General Graham’s expedition to drive the French out of Antwerp.  This was the point at which Macready joined the battalion as a volunteer and was posted to the light company.  He recorded how, on one occasion when a man about to go into action for the first time showed some reluctance, Chambers remarked that “a young man must not be judged harshly of for a little timidity on his first essay in arms.”  The man in question, presumably overhearing the remark, then behaved with gallantry – a glimpse, perhaps. of Chambers’ methods of command.

The battalion remained in Belgium after Napoleon’s first abdication.  Chambers returned to England in December1814 with a party of discharged men and took the opportunity to purchase a vacant majority, although he was not the senior captain in the regiment.   Conveniently, the senior captain was in India.

This brings us to Napoleon’s hundred days.  Chambers returned to Belgium in March.  At Quatre Bras he was de facto commander of the battalion after Lieutenant Colonel Hamilton was wounded.  Major Bailey, one of his superiors, was still in Brussels while the other major, Vigoureux, was commanding a detached light infantry unit.  Certainly, it was Chambers’ skill and determination which, according to Macready, enabled the 2/30th to take Germioncourt late in the action.

Two days later the battalion were in the centre of the allied position at Waterloo, and once again Chambers found himself in command when both Bailey and Vigoureux were wounded.  He seems to have exercised this command with his usual competence, particularly after a moment of panic caused by an order to retreat under a heavy French artillery barrage.

This was late in the battle.

What happened next is uncertain.  One account has Chambers shot as he desperately galloped his horse into the safety of a square.  Another has him standing with a group of officers, each of them congratulating himself on his survival.  Chambers expressed the hope that he would be promoted to lieutenant colonel.  Moments later he was killed by a stray shot.

The most ironic account comes from Captain Arthur Gore of the 30th.

“About half past six [probably a little later] at the moment he was declaring ‘that he had hitherto escaped unhurt, and that he was too small to be hit,’ he received a ball through the heart, from a tirailleur of the guards, and instantly expired.”

Macready, who put Chambers’ death some time after seven o’clock, recorded how

“When Chambers fell, his friend Nicholson threw himself on the body and sobbed aloud. ‘My friend – my friend!’”

(Nicholson had joined the second battalion in 1813.)  Macready also tells the story of how “Two officers of ours were not on terms; the one saw the other behaving gallantly, he ran up to him and cried, ‘Shake hands, and forgive all that has passed; you’re a noble fellow.’”

This seems to be an account of how Chambers and Macready were reconciled.

Did Chambers have a premonition of his death?  There is a story that he sent his watch and his will to his brother-in-law, John Diston Powles, on the eve of the battle.

There is no doubt that his death was mourned by more then Nicholson.  Gore wrote:

“I cannot remain deaf to the voice of friendship and of worth.  Of that number, there is no-one more worthy ‘of the voice of praise’ than my friend and companion in arms, Major T.W. Chambers….He was an active, zealous, and intelligent officer, and  a great loss to his regiment, both as a soldier, and as a gentleman.”

As the memorial tablet in St Margaret’s Church, Lowestoft, puts it,

“after highly distinguishing himself in Europe and India for 18 years [he] fell gloriously fighting at the memorable Battle of Waterloo on the 18th day of June in the 34th year of his life.”

Chambers’ memorial in St Margaret’s Church, Lowestoft, by kind permission of Canon John Simpson, Rector. For more information go to: www.stmargaretslowestoft.co.uk

Two sacrificial heroes of conflict

 by

Stephen de la Bédoyère, August, 2011

‘Though freedom’s blood thy plain bedew …

…………………………………..

It soars and mingles in the air,

With that of lost La Bédoyère,

With that of him whose honoured grave

Contains ‘the Bravest of the Brave’.  1.

Thus wrote Byron, not long after Waterloo… already Marshal Ney was identified, even for English ears, by his nickname, while Charles de la Bédoyère’s trial and execution set the scene for the ‘White Terror’ – the French royalist reaction to the Hundred Days. Colonel Labédoyère presented his regiment to Napoleon as he came up from Elba and occupied Grenoble.  Ney, specially commissioned by the King to confront and arrest the Usurper, in fact – under pressure from Napoleon’s increasing ‘pull’ as he made for Paris – joined the Emperor with his troops. For these acts of treason, both officers were executed after Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo. In this article I will try to establish that the primary loyalty of both men was to France – the France of the Revolution. A collateral descendant of Labédoyère, I am not a historian, and I have relied heavily on Kurtz’s ‘Trial of Marshal Ney’ and Mazel’s, ‘Un héros des Vingt-Jours: le Général de La Bédoyère’  (see Sources). Although they entered Paris together alongside Napoleon, as Louis XVIII fled, the two men had little in common… they were to share a destiny.

Michel Ney well deserved the nickname ‘Bravest of the Brave’ – he had five horses shot from under him at Waterloo. Born in 1769, a man of the people, he had risen to be a first class commander, trusted by his men (who called him ‘redhead’) and his superiors. He seems to have been a man of great personal goodness and humility. At Corunna he sent a wounded British officer back home to visit his aged mother, thus earning from Wellington the following accolade: ‘How greatly Marshal Ney’s nobility of conduct is appreciated in this country’ (Kurtz, pp. 59/60). Just before his execution he refused the ministrations of a priest, until one of his guards suggested prayer to be – in his experience – vital in facing death, and Ney made his confession (Kurtz, p.310). He was excellent in a subordinate role, but unable to make policy decisions. Who should he support in a rapid succession of governments? During the Revolution Ney made the right choices, emerging a supporter of the rising star from Corsica. In Paris in 1814, he had dithered between, either staying till the bitter end (First Abdication), or welcoming the authority of the Bourbons. Too easily did he accept the assurances of Louis XVIII that the king would maintain the benefits of the Revolution and become a symbol of peace and unity for France.

Charles de la Bédoyère was a 29-year old nobleman at Waterloo as the Emperor’s A.D.C., who in 1806 had responded to Napoleon’s call to the aristocracy to join his conquering army, which would bring the benefits of the Revolution to the rest of Europe and cement it in France. Quite fearless in battle (he and another officer had scaled the walls of Ratisbon ahead of the army!), he served under Lannes in Spain and in the invasion of Russia, and received rapid promotion to colonelcy. 1813 saw his marriage to Georgine de Chastellux, of an ultra-royalist family.

While an indecisive Ney finally abandoned Napoleon to serve under the king, La Bédoyère remained loyal, after his abdication, to the ex-Emperor, and resigned the army. But, uncertain of his future he finally accepted another regiment through the influence of his in-laws.

When, in March 1815, Napoleon set foot in France from Elba, he was enthusiastically welcomed by the French people, who had felt deceived by the restoration of the monarchy. Louis XVIII was a sensible and prudent man, sincere in his acceptance of many of the changes brought about by the Revolution. But the country was being run by ultra-royalists, who wanted to turn the clock back, rather than reconcile the two Frances. When Colonel de la Bédoyère presented his regiment (7^th of the Line) to Napoleon before Grenoble, he was part of a surge of support increasing by the day! The die was cast.

Michel Ney, on the other hand, soldier of the king, thought that his loyalty was watertight. But, was it? On hearing of Napoleon’s landing, he had said.

“If he (Bonaparte) had not known that there was discontent in France he would never have dared to set foot on French soil”.

Ney was dispatched to Lyons, to prevent Napoleon’s further progress. With support for the king collapsing all round, the uselessness of resisting became more and more apparent to Ney, but he could have fallen back on Paris. The arrival of a draft proclamation from Bonaparte for Ney’s troops and a personal note for him from the Emperor decided this indecisive man to make for Auxerre with them … there he was to embrace the Emperor. The die was once more cast!

Three months later, Napoleon, Ney and La B­édoyère were leaving the rain-drenched field of Waterloo amid streams of fleeing soldiers. For Napoleon a second abdication … hopefully in favour of his infant son … but that was no to be! As the restored Bourbon government consolidated itself and issued the Ordonnance of 24^th July, proscribing those guilty of facilitating Napoleon’s return – headed by Ney and La Bédoyère – the two were on the run! Fouché, minister of police, with the connivance of Prime-Minister Talleyrand, was arranging escape routes from France for both. This optimistic plan was to be scuppered by human nature, alas.

No one in Paris  – apart from Prussian soldiers – wanted a vindictive punishment for Ney. Wellington – a key-player at this time – believed that reconciliation was essential to quench the smouldering civil war. At the same time La Bédoyère had the protection of Talleyrand through his friendship with the great man’s son, Charles de Flahaut, as well as being ‘out of sight’ with the rest of Napoleon’s army in the Loire Valley.

Ney refused the escape route, holding up in the Massif Central. He was eventually arrested, and brought back to Paris to stand trial. That very day, 19^th August, Charles de la Bédoyère, was shot by firing squad. He had been ready to leave the country for America with forged papers, suitably disguised. He felt the need, however, to say goodbye to his wife and little son. Probably the most wanted man in France, he was caught – at home! The death sentence after court-martial was inevitable, and the king refused to commute it.

Few doubt that the popular Ney, had he been court-martialled, would have been spared the death sentence. Just when he could have let things run, Michel Ney insisted that he be must be tried by the House of Peers (of which he was one). Packed with ultra-royalists plus offended and jealous senior officers … the sentence was death: he was shot in the Luxembourg Gardens on 7^th December 1815.

Dazzled by the glory of the legend of L’Empereur they may have been, but Ney and La Bédoyère had soon made clear to Napoleon that France (and they themselves) wanted peace and liberty  (Kurtz, p.121). Bonaparte was willing to give a liberal constitution, he told Ney (Kurtz, p.133). We may condemn both for treason against the legitimate government, but we cannot condemn them for treason against France and her complex destiny. Rather their courage, united to the ideals they shared with most of the French people, contributed to that destiny over the centuries that have followed.

Although they personally shared a tragic destiny, Michel Ney and Charles de la Bédoyère were probably not even acquaintances till the Hundred Days brought them together around Napoleon. Under the third Napoleon, descendants of the two were to be united in marriage: in 1869 Napoleon Edgar Ney, the Marshal’s fourth son, married Clotilde de La Rochelambert, widow of Georges de La Bédoyère, Charles’s son.  (Bédoyére, Appendice)

Wellington has been criticised for failing to save Ney from the death sentence, on the supposition (certainly possible) that his influence could have swayed the French government. It is assumed that animosity towards the Marshal persuaded him to do nothing. In a long letter written in 1849, Wellington reflected on King Louis’s personal desire as a Christian (to pardon) and his duty to ensure that treason would not be repeated:

“I might, or I might not have had great influence on the King! I did not interfere in any way! I did not consider it my duty to interfere!  … I recollect to have heard of (I am not certain that I did not see) a letter from Lord Holland on the subject of the execution of Ney! In which he accused me of having permitted that he should be executed because I had not been able to get the better of him in the field in some affair in Portugal.

“There was no foundation for the supposition that such a motive could exist! There was no such affair”

(Kurtz, pp314/5)

We may, however, let Louis XVIII have the last words. To Charles’ wife, begging mercy for her husband, he said:

“Madame, never has a refusal cost me so much.” (Kurtz, p.226)

Of Ney, he said:

“Events were stronger than his soul.” (Kurtz, p.233)

________________________________________

“History has been all but banished from the classroom in parts of the country, with fewer than a third of all state school pupils taking a GCSE in the subject”, according to a report in the Daily Telegraph, December 19th 2011.

Fact: Last year more than 150 comprehensive schools failed to enter a single candidate for GCSE History.

Fact: In Knowsley, an area of Liverpool, out of 2000 sixth form students  just 11 sat the A-level History examination. In Cambridge, a far more affluent area of the country, of 6038 sixth formers 665 took an A-level in History.

These figures are contained in a report produced by Chris Skidmore, a Conservative MP on the Commons all-party group on History. It should be a matter of concern that of all schools only about 50% of pupils took GCSE History, and in more than half of all state secondary schools fewer than a quarter of eligible pupils take the subject. Further, there is evidence that more pupils in the private education sector take History as a GCSE subject, leading one to imagine that subject choices might be linked to levels of affluance.

Mr Skidmore says: “Not only is an educational divide opening up between the comprehensives and the independent and selective sector, there are now swathes of the country where history is becoming a forgotten subject”.

On a slightly more positive note, Michael Gove, Education Secretary, says that the introduction of the English Baccalaureate, along with other reforms, has begun to turn around the decreasing number of pupils studying History, although it is today a sad fact of life that few pupils know who commanded the Allied Army at the Battle of Waterloo.

To read the article in full click: Telegraph, History is a thing of the past

Britain’s major contribution to the Napoleonic War effort during the period 1808 to 1814 was, almost exclusively, in the Iberian Peninsula in what has been called (by the British) the Peninsular War.  It was a long war and a truly joint and multinational effort; many of Wellington’s Army commanders and men, who subsequently fought at Waterloo, learned their trade or cut their teeth during these enduring campaigns.  The full details of the war, and of the bicentenary commemorative events, can be found at www.peninsularwar200.org

The shootings of the third of May, Goya

Introduction

Unable to subdue Britain, the paymaster of Napoleon’s continental enemies, because of her mighty navy, Napoleon attempted to strangle her economically through the blockade known as the Continental System.  To be effective it had to be applied across the whole of the continent.  Thus in 1807, Napoleon joined with his ally Spain (greedy for territorial gains) in occupying the defenceless kingdom of Portugal, the Portuguese royal family being evacuated to Brazil, escorted by British warships.  But Napoleon overplayed his hand.

Thinking that the Spanish would not object to the removal of their weak, corrupt Bourbon court, he swelled his garrisons until he was ready to pounce.  In February 1808 these soldiers grabbed vital towns and forts from the unsuspecting Spanish.  The Bourbons tried to escape to America but soldiers and a mob prevented their escape; Charles IV abdicated in favour of his son, Ferdinand.  Napoleon was unnerved by this revolution and decided to rid himself of the tiresome royal family altogether.  He lured them to Bayonne where Charles repudiated his abdication.  The crown was forcibly returned to Charles who immediately offered it to Napoleon.  Napoleon promptly put his brother Joseph on the throne.

But on May 2 Madrid rose against the French – in support of the captive Ferdinand, faith and fatherland.  It was put down ferociously, and news of the barbarity spread.  Despite qualms by conservative Spaniards, the uprising rampaged across the country, and to Portugal.  Britain saw an opportunity of establishing a presence in the Iberian peninsula, landing a force in August 1808, which beat the French at Vimeiro on August 21.  The Cintra Convention unwisely allowed the vanquished French to return home in British ships with their booty.  But the British controlled Portugal.  And the French suffered an even more humiliating reverse when they were beaten by Spanish regulars and forced to withdraw to the Ebro.  The French were not invincible after all.

Napoleon was incensed.  He threw fresh divisions from Germany across the Pyrenees and by the end of 1808 had re-conquered the heart of Spain, and would have taken Portugal had he not been baulked by Austria’s plans to renew the war – which diverted vital troops – and by Sir John Moore’s advance.  Although Moore was forced to retreat to Corunna (and Moore killed), his army was evacuated, not annihilated, and time was on Britain’s side.

The new British commander in Portugal, Arthur Wellesley, realised that Napoleon was unlikely to have sufficient forces to over-run Portugal and fight in Germany.  The future Duke of Wellington swept across the border towards Madrid, and, together with Spanish regulars, resisted a counter-attack at Talavera (July 1809), but then had to retreat back to Portugal when his rear was threatened by Soult.  The Spanish were beaten badly.  The campaign highlighted the importance of logistics and supply in this barren landscape – the Catch 22 of Peninsula fighting; large armies starved, small ones risked defeat.

Wellington, as he now was, ensured that Portugal was defended by scorched earth and a well-nigh impregnable series of concentric defences before Lisbon – the Lines of Torres Vedras.  The French erred in splitting their forces.  Joseph took Andalucía with 300,000 troops who should more profitably have combined with Masséna to eject the British.  Meanwhile Masséna managed to reach the Lines but halted…and starved.  The Marshal retired, eventually losing the crucial fortresses of Badajoz and Ciudad Rodrigo, commanding the routes to southern and northern Spain respectively.

There followed a series of advances and reversals – Wellington defeated Marmont at Salamanca (Marmont paying the price for thinking Wellington a cautious general), then captured Madrid and besieged Burgos.  But Soult’s eventual arrival relieved Burgos and Wellington retreated beyond the Huebra.  In May 1813 Wellington returned in strength, took Burgos and decisively beat Joseph at Vitoria.  Demoralising French evacuations of Valencia and Aragon, futile counter-attacks by Soult to relieve San Sabastian and Pamplona, led to withdrawal back across the Pyrenees to Toulouse and defeat (April 10, 1814).  Wellington had won the Peninsular War, the campaign was over.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

 Peninsular War Chronology

1807

 18 October        French troops cross the Spanish frontier.

30 November     Junot, commanding the invasion of Portugal, occupies Lisbon after setting out in early November from Salamanca.  He is made Governor of Portugal.

1808

23 March          The French occupy Madrid.

2 May               Uprising in Madrid prompted by [Madrid commander] Marshal Murat’s attempt to send Charles IV’s daughter to Bayonne.  A crowd breaks into the royal palace to prevent her removal but is fired upon.  The rebellion begins to spread to other parts of the city.  Spanish troops are confined to barracks although some artillery units join the street fighting but are mostly killed.  The uprising is brutally suppressed.  Hundreds of prisoners are executed.  Murat’s revenge provokes wider revolution.  Goya commemorates the bloody reprisals in his famous, and revolutionary painting [‘revolutionary in every sense… in style, in subject, and in intention’ – Kenneth Clark] – Los fusilamientos del tres de mayo [The shootings of the third of May]

14 June             Capture of the Rosily Squadron.  In Cadiz, a squadron of five French ships of the line and a frigate are surrendered to the Spanish by Admiral Rosily, after a five-day engagement.  Rosily had been expecting Dupont’s flying column of 25,000 men to save him but they could not get through.  The Spanish Supreme Junta asks the English Admiral blockading Cadiz [Collingwood] to speed their envoys to Britain to negotiate an alliance against Napoleon.

4 July                 The British government declares that all previous hostilities between Great Britain and Spain would cease immediately.  Foreign Secretary Canning, in accepting the Spanish offer of an alliance, states – ‘Every nation which resists the exorbitant power of France becomes immediately…the natural ally of Great Britain’

14 July               The French, under Bessières, defeat the Spanish, under Cuesta and Blake, at the Battle of Medina de Rioseco.  Bessières defeats the only Spanish army capable of stopping the French advance into Castilla la Vieja.

16-19 July          The French flying column [25,000 men], under Dupont, are comprehensively defeated at the Battle of Bailén, in Southern Spain, by the Spanish Army [30,000] of Andalusia under Generals Castaños and von Reding.  After losing 2200 killed Dupont surrendered almost his entire army, whose two wings had been fatally split in the battle.  The French had been ordered to break through to Cadiz to relieve the Rosily Squadron.  Spanish casualties are negligible.  It is the first major defeat of Napoleon’s Grande Armée and encourages France’s enemies everywhere, leading to the Fifth Coalition against France.    French commanders in Madrid order a precipitate retreat to the Ebro, abandoning much of central Spain.

1-8 August         A British force under Sir Arthur Wellesley lands at the mouth of the Mondego River, Portugal, with 9,000 troops.

17 August          Battle of Rolica where Wellesley defeats Delaborde, the first battle between the French and the British armies. The British Army lands in Portugal at Mondego Bay and attacks a French force coming out from Lisbon. After a battle in which Wellesley’s troops show great ‘enthusiasm’, the French retreat towards their reinforcements.

21 August          Battle of Vimiero.  Wellesley defeats Junot.  Covering a landing from the sea by the rest of his troops, the British army posted on two hills is attacked by the French army under Marshal Junot. The French are routed by steady, determined British musketry and Wellesley’s firm leadership. The French sue for peace and leave the Peninsula, but Wellesley is recalled home.  First Burrard then Dalrymple replace Wellesley.

30 August          Convention of Cintra whereby the vanquished French were (controversially) allowed to return home in British ships with their booty.

30 October        The French evacuate Portugal.

8 November       Napoleon enters Spain with 200,000 men.

4 December       Napoleon occupies Madrid.

10 December     Moore advances from Salamanca.

21 December     British cavalry victory at Sahagun.  Leading Moore’s cavalry vanguard towards Burgos, Lord Uxbridge decided to deal with a French cavalry force under General Debelle based at Sahagun.  The crucial moment came when the French cavalry mistook Uxbridge’s 15^th Hussars for less formidable Spanish horsemen and attacked, only to be routed by a charge from the 400 Hussars.  Debelle escaped but he lost 120 men killed and about 160 captured.  Uxbridge lost just two dead and 20 injured.

1809              

16 January         Sir John Moore killed at the Battle of Corunna.  Moore takes the small British army through Portugal and into Spain to support a supposed Spanish uprising and relieve Madrid. When rumours of the uprising prove false, Moore has to retreat over the snow-covered mountains of Galacia pursued by Bonaparte and his army. Though saving Spain from full occupation and conquest by the French, he partially loses control of his army and some drunkenness ensues. At Corunna harbour he stops the French, now under Marshal Soult, but is killed at the moment of victory.

17 January         Moore’s army evacuated. Napoleon leaves the Peninsula and does not return, leaving his brother Joseph and the marshals in charge. Their four separate armies never manage effective co-ordination.

28 March           First Battle of Oporto.  The French under Soult rout the Portuguese under Generals Lima Barreto and Parreiras outside the city of Porto [called Oporto by the British]. Soult storms the city and slaughters the inhabitants.

22 April            Wellesley returns to Portugal to take command of British troops, confident he can hold Portugal against the French.

10-11 May         Battle of Grijó.  Fought by Wellesley’s Anglo-Portuguese army and the French under Soult.  Soult’s divisional commander Mermet, faced with being outflanked by the KGL and 15^th Portuguese – and pressed in his centre – withdrew and handed victory to Wellesley.

12 May             Second Battle of Oporto.  Wellesley makes a surprise crossing of the Douro at night and captures Oporto, defeating Soult, who retreats after heavy losses.

27-28 July         Battle of Talavera, fought some 120k SW of Madrid.  An Anglo-Portuguese army under Wellesley combined with a Spanish army under General Cuesta in an operation against French-occupied Madrid.  The Allies intended to isolate and attack Marshal Victor, but King Joseph Bonaparte reinforced him and blunted the Allied offensive.  After fierce fighting, in which the British bore the brunt of the French attacks (the Spanish were untrained for set-piece battle), the French army withdrew from the field, but the strategic advantage lay with the French; Talavera removed all threat to the capital and bought time for the arrival of French reinforcements to the theatre.  Casualties were high on both sides – about 7000.  Underestimating Soult’s strength, Wellington marched towards the French until Cuesta forwarded intelligence obtained by Spanish guerrillas, which prompted Wellesley to turn around and retreat to Portugal.  Cuesta soon followed.  The performance of the Spanish strained the Anglo-Spanish alliance.

4 September      Wellesley created Viscount Wellington

20 October       Wellington starts building the defensive fortifications, the Lines of Torres Vedras.  After Talavera, Wellington decided to strengthen Portugal, inspired in part by the Martello Towers along the English Channel.  The Lines use blockhouses, redoubts, ravelins etc.  The first line was finished in Autumn 1810.  In 1812, 34,000 men were still working on them.  The cost was around £100,000, money well spent.

1810

26 April – 9 July 1810      First siege and capture of Ciudad Rodrigo by Marshal Ney’s VI Corps.  The Spanish FM Herrasti’s 5500-man garrison surrender after Ney’s artillery breached the walls. The French pillage the city. The siege delayed Army Commander Masséna’s invasion of Portugal by over a month.

24 July             Battle of the River Côa.  Gen. Craufurd, commanding the Light Div. of 4000 Anglo-Portuguese, errs by choosing to fight Ney’s force of 20,000 (although only 6000 actually attacked) with the unfordable Côa and a single bridge at his back, despite Wellington’s orders to fall back across the river.  He is beaten.  The French succeed in their objective of forcing the Light Division across the Côa in order to besiege Almeida, but Ney’s repeated assaults over the bridge prove costly.

15-27 August        Siege of Almeida: Masséna, commanding 14,000 infantry, 1000 cavalry and 1000 gunners of Ney’s VI Corps, begins digging siege-trenches in front of Almeida on the arrival of the siege-train and ammunition from Ciudad Rodrigo and Salamanca.  By the 24^th, more than 100 guns are in position and on the 26^th the batteries open fire on General Cox and his 5000-man Portuguese garrison.  A shell makes a freak hit, igniting a gunpowder trail that reaches into the main ammunition magazine. The resulting explosion destroys the castle, kills 600 defenders and wounds a further 300.  Without gunpowder for his 100 cannon, Cox is forced to surrender.

27 September   Wellington (now Viscount Wellington, after Talavera) occupies the heights of Buçaco, a 10-mile long ridge, with 50,000 men, half British, half Portuguese.  Masséna, with 65,000 French troops, attacks five times but does not know the disposition and strength of his enemy because Wellington deploys his men on the reverse slope, where they are protected from artillery, and from view.  The attacks, poorly co-ordinated and lacking reconnaissance, are delivered by Marshal Ney’s corps and fail after fierce fighting.  French losses are 4,500 against 1,250 Anglo-Portuguese casualties.  The Portuguese army’s performance is much improved since English C-in-C Marshal Bereford’s reforms.  Wellington continues his retreat.  Masséna assumes he will take Lisbon, but the Lines of Torres Vedras are insurmountable.

10 October      Wellington enters the Lines of Torres Vedras.

14 October      Masséna discovers Lines and halts.

17 November   Masséna withdraws to Santarem.

 1811

5 March          Lieut-Gen Graham, commanding the British and Portuguese garrison in Cádiz, prevails at the Battle of Barrosa, fought to relieve the siege of Cadiz, Britain’s last stronghold in the Iberian Peninsula.  Graham planned to raise the siege by attacking the rear of the besieging French (under Victor) with 11,000 men, which included 7000 Spanish under the incompetent General La Peña who was, for political reasons, in overall command.  La Peña was subsequently court-martialed, mainly for his refusal to pursue the beaten French (he was acquitted but sacked), who were in disarray and about to destroy their stores.  Graham’s unrestrained criticism of his Spanish allies led to his transfer to Wellington’s main army.  Tactically, the battle was a British victory and casualties were less than half the French (Victor lost 2500). Graham’s troops beat a French force twice their size despite a forced march.  The Spanish lost 400 casualties.  Strategically the Spanish failure to follow up the victory allows Victor to reoccupy his siege lines, where the French remain for another 18 months, until Soult orders a general retreat following the Allied victory at Salamanca in June 1812.

11 March        Soult takes Badajoz (unsuccessfully attacked by the French in 1808 and 1809).  The Spanish commander, José Imaz, is bribed into surrendering.  Badajoz, on the southern invasion route between Portugal and Spain and one of the strongest fortified positions in Spain, is protected by a ring of fortifications, 8 bastions, 5 outlying forts, with two on the northern bank of the Guadiana River.

3-5 May          Wellington defeats Masséna at Fuentes de Onoro.   A 3-day fight as the French try to relieve Almeida from Wellington’s siege.  Heavily outnumbered in the street fighting and on the plains, Wellington’s army finally wins but he later states: ‘If Boney had been there I would been beat.’  The French blow up Almeida and leave.

6-13 May         First British siege of Badajoz.  Marshal Beresford commanding.

11 May            Brennier abandons Almeida to Wellington.

16 May            Beresford defeats Soult at Albuera.  Beresford lifts the siege of Badajoz when he receives notice that Soult is approaching, and posts his army 20k SE on the Albuera ridge in a defensive position [Wellington had ordered such a deployment if Soult advanced, when inspecting operations at Badajoz on April 23].  When Soult attacks, the Spanish and Portuguese flee and only the steadfastness of the British – especially the Fusiliers – saves the day.  The French are driven from the field and lose 8000 including 5 generals; but the British lose 3930 out of the 7640 fighting.

19 May-17 June   Second British siege of Badajoz, abandoned after futile costly attacks against stout defence.  The British lacked a proper siege train, engineers, and heavy cannon which were in use at Torres Vedras.

 1812

 8-19 January    Second siege of Ciudad Rodrigo which ends when Wellington takes advantage of French disorganization and attacks after a short bombardment.  The fortress is taken with light losses.

16 March-7 April         Siege of Badajoz, finally taken on April 7.  Wellington moves his Anglo-Portuguese army (27,000) south and begins the siege of the well-fortified Badajoz, garrisoned by 5,000 French soldiers under General Philippon, in order to secure the lines of communication back to Lisbon.  After a month of foul weather, at 22.00 on April 6 he orders the assault on the formidable walls of the fort, before the bombardment is complete, hearing that French forces under Soult are coming from the south.  In a night of destruction, British troops finally break into the city and wreak havoc but 5000 of Wellington’s soldiers are dead, though Spain now lies open.  British troops indulged a lust for revenge by raping and murdering the very people they were meant to liberate.  Wellington writes to Lord Liverpool: ‘I anxiously hope that I shall never again be the instrument of putting them to such a test as that to which they were put last night.’ I anxiously hope that I shall never again be the instrument of putting them to such a test as that to which they were put last night.  But he does – at San Sebastián in 1813.

13 June           Wellington crosses the Agueda and begins the march on Salamanca. His army of about 48,000 men (28,000 British, 17,000 Portuguese and 3000 Spanish) march in three parallel columns covering a front of some ten miles. The left is commanded by Picton, the centre by Beresford and the right by Graham. There are 3500 cavalry but Wellington is short of artillery – he has only eight British and one Portuguese battery (some 54 guns). The army starts the campaign almost bankrupt. The troops’ pay is 5 months in arrears, and the muleteers have not been paid since June 1811. Despite this they began on a high note; this was the first offensive into the heart of Spain since 1809, and intelligence gives Wellington confidence in victory.

22 July           Wellington defeats Marmont, with 50,000 troops and 78 guns, at Salamanca.   Thinking that Wellington, whose army was mostly out of sight, was retreating, Marmont sent his leading division on the left ahead to outflank Wellington’s right, but when it was a mile ahead of the main force Wellington attacked with his 3^rd Div. and overwhelmed the isolated French.  He attacked Marmont’s centre with the 4^th and 5^th Divisions, and cavalry.  A bayonet charge, and Dragoons, routed the French and although a Portuguese retreat briefly exposed 4^th Div.’s flank, 3 reserve British divisions were hurried forward to repulse the advancing  French.  The day was won.  But the victory was tempered by the failure of Spanish troops under Maj-Gen D’Espana to block the French retreat over the only bridge at Alba de Tormes.  D’Espana had withdrawn from the commanding fortress  without informing Wellington, so the French escaped.  Casualties were 13,000 French to the Allies’ 5000.

12 August      Wellington enters Madrid.

19 September Wellington begins siege of Burgos.

22 October    Wellington abandons siege of Burgos.

22 Oct-19 Nov  Allied retreat to Portugal

19 November   Allied army arrives at Ciudad Rodrigo.

 1813

 21 June            Wellington defeats Joseph at Vitoria.  Wellington spent the winter of 1812/13 strengthening his forces, while Napoleon withdrew 15,000 veteran troops from Spain to rebuild his main army after the fiasco of the Russian invasion.  Wellington marched 121,000 men (50,000 British, 40,000 Spanish, and 30,000 Portuguese) from northern Portugal across the mountains of northern Spain and the Esla River, and by May 20, 1813, had outflanked Marshal Jourdan’s army of 68,000. The French retreated to Burgos, with Wellington hastening to block their route to France.  Wellington himself commanded the centre force in a strategic feint, while Graham led the main force around the French right flank over terrain the French thought impassable.  After hard fighting, Picton’s 3rd Div. broke the enemy’s centre and soon the French defence crumbled.  About 5000 French soldiers were killed or wounded and 3000 taken prisoner, while Wellington lost around 5000 killed or wounded.  152 cannons were captured, but King Joseph escaped – just, fleeing so hurriedly that he left behind all his personal baggage, including his chamber pot.  The court escaped with him, but their 12 miles of carriages and treasure were plundered by looting British troops [‘scum of the earth’ as Wellington wrote Earl Bathurst]. The battle signalled the collapse of Napoleonic rule in Spain, and ultimately in France.

Wellington Created Field Marshal,

Soult counterattacks in the Pyrenees.  Battles of Maya and Roncesvalles.

25 July             Wellington defeats Soult at Sorauren.

31 August        Graham takes San Sebastian.

Soult repulsed at San Marciai.

7 October        Wellington crosses into France over the river Bidassoa, using secret fords, and surprises the French.

25 October      Pamplona surrenders

10 November     Wellington defeats Soult at the Battle of the Nivelle.  Wellington’s 80,000 British, Portuguese and mostly raw Spanish troops drove Soult, with only 60,000 men, across the Nivelle.  The Light Div. surprised the French and took their defensive redoubts allowing the 3rd Div. to split Soult’s army into two. By 2 o’clock Soult was in retreat.  He had lost about 4,500 men to Wellington’s 2,500.  Wellington, ever wary of night attacks, did not pursue or he might have cut off the French right.  This victory allowed the Allies to penetrate deep inside France, where the Basques and even French peasants cooperated, because unlike the French army (notorious looters) the British paid for their provisions.  Spanish troops however looked to revenge the desecration of their land by France and Wellington sent most back to Spain.

9-13 December   Wellington defeats Soult at the Battles of the Nive, a series of engagements near Bayonne, in which – unusually – Wellington remained mostly with the Reserve, delegating command to Lieutenant-Generals Rowland Hill and John Hope.  Wellington’s army was squashed between the Bay of Biscay and the Nive and to manoeuvre he needed to cross to the east bank of the Nive, but in so doing he risked being defeated in detail.  A crisis on the west bank was averted when Hope’s forces just held on (despite Portuguese units breaking), aided by Soult’s German troops changing sides when they heard the result of the Battle of Leipzig.  At the climax, French troops – despite their 3 to 1 advantage – refused to continue attacks on Hill’s forces on the east bank, demoralised by Hill’s superb, robust defence.  Soult reluctantly retreated into Bayonne, having lost 3000 men against Anglo-Portuguese losses of 1750.

1814

27 February       Wellington (37,000 men) defeats Soult (35,000) at the Battle of Orthes.  Soult had tried to confine Wellington to the SW corner of France but was out-manoeuvred.  The battle opened with Soult successfully counter-attacking an enemy advance, but Wellington changed his plans and converted a holding attack by 2 divisions into a frontal assault, and released his Light Division to drive a wedge between Reille’s right wing and D’Erlon’s two centre divisions – both generals feature at Waterloo.  Wellington nearly didn’t – he was unhorsed and hurt when a canister shot hit his sword hilt.  Soult was forced to retreat, which became increasing disorganised.  French casualties at 4000 were twice those of the Anglo-Portuguese.

6 April              Napoleon abdicates in favour of his son, which the Allies refuse to accept, forcing him to abdicate unconditionally on 11 April.  He declares – with a grandiose, if mendacious flourish – ‘The Allied Powers, having stated that Emperor Napoleon was the sole obstacle to the restoration of peace in Europe, Emperor Napoleon, faithful to his oath, renounces, for himself and his heirs, the thrones of France and Italy, and that there is no personal sacrifice, even that of his life, which he is not ready to do in the interests of France.’

10 April              Wellington defeats Soult at Toulouse, a somewhat pointless battle given Napoleon’s abdication on April 6 but the news did not reach the combatants in time.

14 April          French sortie from Bayonne.

17 April          Soult surrenders.

27 April          Bayonne surrenders.

30 May           Treaty of Paris ends the war between France and the Sixth Coalition.  Bourbons restored.

The 100 days from Napoleon’s escape from Elba to the Battle of Waterloo

26 February 1815    Napoléon escapes from exile on the Island of Elba with about 1000 men.

1 March           Lands at Golfe-Juan near Antibes, around 17.00. They spend the first night on the beach at Cannes. Their route to Grenoble is as follows:

2 March           Cannes – Grasse – Séranon

3 March           Séranon – Castellane – Barrême

4 March           Barrême – Digne – Malijai

5 March           Malijai – Sisteron – Gap

6 March           Gap – Corps

 7 March           Corps – La Mure – Grenoble. In six days the soldiers have marched 300k. The 5th Regiment is ordered to intercept Napoléon and does so south of Grenoble. Napoléon approaches the regiment alone and shouts – ‘Here I am. Kill your Emperor, if you wish!’ The soldiers rally to him and march with Napoléon towards Paris.

13 March         At the Congress of Vienna the Allies declare Napoléon an outlaw. The Congress is a conference of ambassadors of European states chaired by the Austrian, von Metternich, and held Nov. 1814 – June 1815: its objective being the redrawing of the continent’s physical map, and establishing the boundaries of France and its erstwhile satellites or conquests, after Napoléon’s defeat at Leipzig [16-19 Oct. 1813] and the first invasion of France. Wellington was Britain’s representative.

14 March         Marshal Ney, who had been ordered to arrest Napoléon at Auxerre by King Louis XVIII, and who had said that Napoléon ought to be brought to Paris in an iron cage, joins him with 6000 men – an ultimately fatal act of treason.

 15 March         Hearing of Napoléon’s escape, Joachim Murat, King of Naples and Napoléon’s brother-in-law, declares war on Austria (breaking an earlier treaty with Austria he had signed to preserve his crown), because Austria and the Allies were committed to the restoration of Ferdinand IV.

17 March         Britain, Russia, Austria and Prussia, members of the Seventh Coalition, agree to mobilise 150,000 men each, to defeat Napoléon.

20 March         Napoléon enters Paris, the (official) start of the Hundred Days.

8-9  April             Murat is defeated at the Battle of Occhiobello. In Lombardy (Austrian-ruled since Napoléon’s defeat in 1814) there were 40,000 Italian partisans, veterans of Napoléon’s army, waiting to join Murat if he reached Milan. But Austrian troops, assembled for an invasion of southern France following Napoléon’s return, move south to block Murat, who is forced eastwards towards Ferrara. During the two day battle, on April 8 Murat tries to cross the border via a lightly-held bridge on the Po at Occhiobello, but Austrian artillery defeats repeated charges, causing 2000 casualties and prompting mass desertions in Murat’s 25,000 strong army. Most of his artillery has been diverted to besieging Ferrara. He is forced to retreat to his original HQ at Ancona.

3 May  General Bianchi’s Austrian I Corps crushes Murat at the Battle of Tolentino [May 2-3]. At the climax, Murat orders an infantry attack in squares, normally a defensive formation, anticipating a cavalry counter-attack which does not come; instead his troops are devastated by musket fire. Murat suffers 4120 casualties, and his army is unable to halt the Austrian advance through Italy.

 20 May            Murat flees to Corsica, and the pro-Napoléon Neapolitans, now commanded by General Michele Caracosa after Murat’s flight, sign the Treaty of Casalanza with the Austrians (and British), agreeing to the restoration of Ferdinand IV.

23 May            Ferdinand IV restored to the Neapolitan throne.

15 June            With available forces of 200,000, Napoléon decides to go on the offensive to drive a wedge between the advancing British and Prussian armies, and defeat them separately before enforcing a favorable armistice. The French Army of the North crosses the frontier into the United Netherlands [now Belgium].

16 June            Napoléon defeats, but does not destroy, the Prussian Field Marshal  Blücher, who narrowly escapes with his life, at the Battle of Ligny. Marshal Ney and Wellington fight the inconclusive Battle of Quatre Bras. D’Erlon’s 1 Corps wanders uselessly between battles, its presence at either might have routed their enemy. Blücher retreats NE towards Wavre, Wellington N to stand and fight on the Mont St. Jean ridge, S of Waterloo. Blücher agrees to support Wellington in the coming battle, despite Gneisenau, his Chief-of-Staff, doubting that the Anglo-Dutch Belgian army would stand, and advising withdrawal along their LOC.

 18 June            Battle of Waterloo, the climax of the Hundred Days and the Napoléonic Wars, and the defeat of Napoléon and his government on the field. When Napoléon learnt that Wellington’s army and the Prussians had retreated on divergent lines he decides to advance on Wellington, while Marshal Grouchy pursues the Prussians to his right. For the battle, Napoléon adopts a blunderbuss strategy, hoping that artillery and frontal attacks would knock out Wellington’s centre (as they had done Blücher’s at Ligny) before the Prussians (80,000) could arrive from the NE. But he waits until about midday to attack to allow the ground to dry so artillery and cavalry could manoeuvre, which allows Blücher time to join Wellington late in the day. The brave but impulsive Ney, to whom Napoléon unwisely delegates tactical command, depletes his forces with unsupported cavalry attacks on unbroken British squares, fails to spike British guns, lets Prince Jérôme’s diversion on the British right at Hougoumont swallow excessive numbers and releases his final onslaught prematurely (although Napoléon can be blamed for refusing to reinforce Ney when the British centre wobbled). The day ends around 8 when the resilient Allies’ polyglot army (68,000 with 146 cannon) halts the Imperial Guard’s attempt at breaking through, with a sudden rifle volley into their flank. The French are beaten. The non-arrival of Marshal Grouchy’s 40,000 French troops, and the appearance of Blücher’s army advancing on Napoléon’s right flank, had helped destroy French morale. Allied losses are about 22,000 killed and wounded (7000 of these were Prussian); French losses about 37,000. The Prussians harass the retreating French throughout the night.

The concurrent Battle of Wavre continues until the next day when Marshal Grouchy wins a technical victory against General Johann von Thielmann, but suffers a strategic defeat. Although the Prussians retreat, with Grouchy cutting their lines of communication to the east, this lasted only 30 minutes.

The Prussians stand long enough for 72,000 of their troops to reach Wellington at Waterloo. Their rearguard of 17,000 ties down 33,000 French troops that could otherwise have been decisive at Waterloo.

After the Battle of Waterloo

21 June            Napoléon arrives in Paris.

22 June            Napoléon abdicates in favour of his son.

29 June            Napoléon quits Paris for the west of France.

7 July               Graf von Zieten’s Prussian I Corps enters Paris.

8 July              Louis XVIII is restored and the Hundred Days ends.

15 July            Napoléon, thwarted in his desire to sail to America by the Royal Navy, surrenders with his entourage to Captain Maitland of HMS Bellerophon. His plea to live in England like a country gentleman is refused, and he is exiled to St. Helena in the South Atlantic, where he dies, almost certainly from stomach cancer, in 1821, aged 51.

 Postscript

13 October      Joachim Murat is executed (a fate also suffered by Ney on Dec. 7 in Paris) by order of Ferdinand IV, in Pizzo, Calabria, having landed there five days earlier hoping to regain his kingdom by fomenting an insurrection.

 20 November  Treaty of Paris signed by France, Britain, Russian, Austria and Prussia. The Allies repudiate ‘the revolutionary system reproduced in France’ and impose substantial reparations on her.

 ___________________________________

© Waterloo 200

How much of our own history do you know?

How much of our own history do we NEED to know?

Your starter for 10: who is this man, and what did he do that was crucially important to the history of our country?

If you knew that it was the Duke of Wellington, and that he was the General in charge of the allied army at the Battle of Waterloo,  then you did better than a number of undergraduates at Cardiff University. If you didn’t know who he was, nor what he did,  then maybe your History course at school was not all that it might have been.

It would seem that for the most part we are not giving our young people an appropriate knowledge of British history.  Education Secretary of State Michael Gove is on record as saying that children leaving school are “woefully under-nourished” in terms of what they have been taught about the history of their own country.

Historian Sir David Cannadine, a professor at Princetown University,  has called for history to be made a compulsory subject for all pupils up to the age of 16. He has recently published a book which analyses the way that History has been taught since the start of the 20^th Century, and Sir David concludes that History should be given the same status as English, Mathematics and Science. He also notes that in many countries History is a compulsory subject at least until the age of 14.

At the same time Professor Derek Matthews conducted a survey amongst undergraduates at Cardiff University and found that students’ knowledge of British History was very limited. Students were asked a series of questions and their responses show a marked lack of knowledge on the subject. Events and people featuring in the questionnaire included Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the English Monarch at the time of the Spanish Armada, the Boer War, and nineteenth Century British Prime Ministers.

Many students thought that Nelson was in charge at the Battle of Waterloo, while some other students thought it was Napoleon!

Perhaps the most disappointing result was that very few students could name the General in charge at the Battle of Waterloo.  It is hoped that Waterloo200 can bring about a change in that situation.

___________________________

Footnote: This is based on a recent report in the London Evening Standard dated 24th November 2011

James Ormsby: A Waterloo Veteran in the Canadian Wilderness

Immediately after the victory at Waterloo in 1815, the battle’s veterans were lauded as national heroes in Britain. By the late 1820s, however, supporting these ageing veterans was straining the government’s budget. To alleviate these costs, the British government developed a scheme whereby it offered land in the colonies to veterans who agreed to commute their pensions. From 1830 to 1833, over 4,000 veterans accepted the government’s offer and immigrated to the colonies. Unfortunately, the majority of these veterans found destitution and early death when they arrived in the colonies: the task of taming the wilderness was too formidable as many were wounded and maimed from their long years on the battlefield. It is estimated that only one in six of these men were able to settle on their lands. By 1839, it was widely accepted that the immigration scheme was a debacle and the British government restored a reduced pension to those who had participated in it.

The following article recounts the history of Private James Ormsby, a veteran of the Battle of Waterloo who commuted his army pension in return for land in the Canadian wilderness. James and his family faced shocking hardships: an endless sea of trees to be felled, unbearable isolation, and miserable winters. Nevertheless, the Ormsby family endured and was ultimately successful in transforming their land into a prosperous farm.

Shoemaker to soldier

Born around 1790 in St John’s Parish in County Sligo, Ireland, James Ormsby was trained as a cordwainer (shoemaker).^[1] Although I have not been able to identify James’ parents, I suspect that James followed his father into this trade. Given James’ trade and his later rank in the army (private), we can conclude that James came from a poor family, unrelated (at least officially) to the wealthy Ormsbys from Counties Sligo and Roscommon who are mentioned in Burke’s Irish Peerage. Perhaps to escape this poverty or to find adventure, James abandoned his sedentary trade and joined the British Army’s 52nd Regiment of Foot at the age of nineteen. James was not the only of his countrymen to do so. At this time, an increasing number of young Irishmen were “accepting the Queen’s shilling” — by 1830, 42.2 percent of the Army’s soldiers were Irish.^[2]

If James had joined the British Army looking for adventure, he certainly found it — he had fought in some of the most important battles across Europe. The 52nd Regiment of Foot, in which James fought, was a light infantry regiment, tasked with engaging the enemy in skirmishes away from the front lines. The soldiers were trained to move quickly over difficult terrain, and they fought in smaller groups than the line regiments. James would serve in this capacity for three years in the Peninsular War, where British, Spanish and Portuguese allies fought against an invasion of Napoleon’s French troops. Following the Peninsular War, the 52nd was stationed for several years in Flanders and France and fought in the battle of Waterloo. James Ormsby was awarded a medal for his service at this battle. For five years, James’ military career also took him, perhaps fatefully, to the British Colonies of North America. The 52nd Regiment of Foot was stationed in Atlantic Canada from 1823 to 1831.^[3]

Figure 1: James Ormsby Sr.

In 1820 in Northampton, England, James had married Elizabeth Franklin, an Englishwoman.^[4] To do so, James would have first required the permission of his commanding officer. The Army discouraged marriage for its enlisted men, fearing that family life was incompatible with the demands of the job.^[5] Indeed, by marrying James, Elizabeth was condemning herself to a life of extreme hardship. The wives received no official help from the government and they were often left to support themselves and their children for years as their husbands were stationed abroad. A small number of wives and families (six out of a company of one hundred men) were allowed to accompany their husbands abroad. These families were chosen by lottery. James and Elizabeth were lucky — Elizabeth was one of the six wives in his company chosen to accompany the 52nd Regiment to Atlantic Canada.

Elizabeth Ormsby arrived in her new home a new mother. George Ormsby had been born in Ireland in 1822. A second child (Jane) was added to the family in 1824. Two other children, Andrew and Elizabeth, were also likely born during this time in the colony. The growing Ormsby family would have been expected to fit themselves quietly into the garrison life. Elizabeth and her children would have lived in the garrison building alongside the soldiers. No additional quarters or sleeping berths were allotted to the families: married couples had only the privacy of a blanket and children of the soldiers would often sleep in the beds of soldiers who were on duty. To supplement James’ pay, Elizabeth would have likely spent her days doing laundry for the soldiers in addition to caring for her children.^[6]

By 1830, James had served for over twenty-two years as a private, with a short year-long stint as a corporal. Life on the battlefields and in a colonial outpost had taken its toll. James was suffering from multiple health problems: dysphonia (a disorder of the voice), rheumation (presumably rheumatoid arthritis), and a wound in the left groin that had been inflicted during the 1813 Battle of Nivelle in France. In July 1830, he was honourably discharged from the army by reason of disability. In September 1830, he was accepted as an outpatient of London’s Chelsea Hospital, a military hospice had been created in the 17th century to support the nation’s convalescent soldiers. The Hospital would administer James’ pension to him for the rest of his life.^[7]

Soldier to pioneer

At the time that James Ormsby retired from the army, the British government had been struggling to meet its obligations to its military pensioners, in particular the 36,000 outpatients of the Chelsea Hospital.^[8] In order to alleviate the growing financial burden of their care, the Chelsea Pensioners — as they were known — were offered the opportunity to commute their pensions for passage to and tracts of land in the colonies. James was one of the fifteen hundred British soldiers who accepted this deal and who travelled to Upper Canada to settle in the wilderness.^[9]

An 1830 memorandum to the pensioners outlined the terms of the deal. The former soldiers, it was decided, would be required to commute their pensions for a lump sum payment (about four years of pension) and a grant of land of one hundred or two hundred acres depending on the soldier’s rank. To be accepted for this program, the soldier would have to show, with a letter from their home parish, that they and their family members were in good health, and that they had enough money to support themselves for one year in the colony. Once the soldier had booked passage on a boat to the colony, they would receive part of their lump sum payment. The second half of the payment would be given when the family arrived abroad. Should the soldiers decide to accept the pension deal, they would forfeit any right to further support from the British Government.^[10]

For the government, the advantages of this program were clear. The government would be able to weed out its military pension rolls at the same time as beefing up the population of sparsely settled, but strategically important land. On the surface, it also seemed like a good deal for the retired soldiers. Like James Ormsby, many of these soldiers had come from impoverished families who had no hope of ever owning their own land or rising above the working class. The four thousand pensioners who accepted the commutation deal undoubtedly felt that this was their opportunity to improve their family’s standing. However, most of these pensioners (47%) were between the ages of forty and fifty years old and forty percent of them had served between fifteen and twenty-six years in the army. By some estimates, almost half of these men had lost limbs in battle.^[11] These men were not necessarily those would be best suited to life in the backwoods of Canada. Indeed, it would become quickly obvious that the government’s strategy to thin its pension rolls would result in the destitution and death of many of the Chelsea pensioners who emigrated to the colonies.

Ships carrying the pensioners began to arrive in Quebec City in 1831. On one journey across the Atlantic aboard lumber freighters, cholera spread among the pensioners and their families. According to family history, James and Elizabeth’s daughter Elizabeth (likely born in 1826) died en route to Canada — she had perhaps succumbed to this epidemic.^[12] When the ships docked in Quebec City, over fifty men had died. Moreover, as the ships containing the payment instructions were routed through Halifax and typically arrived six to eight weeks after the ships carrying the pensioners; the authorities could not pay out the second half of the lump sum due to the pensioners and many were stuck in Quebec City. Cholera spread quickly. When the payment did arrive, it fueled a drunken binge in which many of their soldiers spent their payouts in the taverns of the Lower Town of Quebec City.^[13] Lord Aylmer, Governor of the colony, realized that the commutation plan would create “paupers of the worst description.” He predicted that only three of five would succeed in establishing themselves in Canada.^[14] This was an optimistic appraisal of the situation.

James Ormsby was, either through fortune or hard work, one of the few Chelsea Pensioners who survived in Upper Canada. According to government estimates, only one in six of the pensioners managed to endure life in the colonial wilderness.^[15] The remainder either died, unable to handle the physical hardship of life in the bush, or ended up destitute in the streets of the larger centres like Toronto or Montreal. Many never even attempted to settle their lands — after their arrival in Canada they had quickly ascertained the likelihood of their success in the wilderness.

James and Elizabeth Ormsby, however, did not seem to hesitate in fulfilling their settlement duties. They arrived in “Muddy Little York” (now “Smoggy Big Toronto”) on 28 June 1831. Presumably, they had travelled from Quebec City by steamer to Montreal, and from Montreal to Prescott by stagecoach or barge. From Prescott to York, the Ormsby family travelled aboard the steamboat Queenston, a vessel that made a weekly circuit down Lake Ontario to the entrance of the Niagara River.^[16] In the early 1830s, York deserved the both the monikers “little” and “muddy.” By 1833, the “ill-built town on low land” could only boast a population of 8,500.^[17] Samuel Thompson, who travelled through the town two years after the Ormsbys, describes a rough colonial outpost where the mud and the taverns far outnumbered the few signs of civilization, i.e., brick buildings, churches and gaols. According to Thompson, “So well did the town merit its muddy soubriquet, that in crossing Church street near St. James’s Church, boots were drawn off the feet by the tough clay soil; and to reach our tavern on Market lane (now Colborne street), we had to hop from stone to stone placed loosely on the roadside.” The main attraction for Thompson, and likely for the Ormsby family, was the Emigrant Office, where they would receive information about their land and in some instances, the location ticket which would specify the township in which they would settle.

At York, the Ormsby family was admitted to the Emigrant’s Asylum.^[18] The Asylum, which was managed by the Society for the Relief of the Sick and the Destitute, provided accommodation and provisions for “deserving emigrants”^[19] about whom the charity workers would record judgments in their registers such as “A Very Dirty People”, or “Well behaved and particularly sensitive to cleanliness and safety of [apartment]”. During their eight days in the Asylum, the Ormsby family would stay in the “brick house,” perhaps one of the government buildings described by Anna Jameson in 1838 as built from “staring red brick, in the most tasteless, vulgar style possible.”^[20] Here, the family would receive five pounds of beef and thirty pounds of flour before they continued on their journey to Simcoe County.

Figure 2: Map of Ontario showing Toronto and Simcoe County.
The red dot shows the location of the Ormsby farm. Image from Wikicommons  (GNU license)

On 6 July 1831, the family began their journey north, likely travelling by stagecoach on what is now Yonge Street. At Holland Landing, they would travel by boat up the Holland River — “a mere muddy ditch, swarming with huge bullfrogs and black snakes”^[21] — and then across Lake Simcoe to Hodge’s Landing, a town which is now known as Hawkestone.^[22] In Hawkestone, the Ormsbys would have perhaps overnighted in a group of shanties that Wellesley Richie, the Government Land Agent, had erected to accommodate the influx of settlers who arrived in Oro during the summer of 1831. Hawkestone lay directly south of the lot which the Ormsbys were assigned and a trail (perhaps created by the Aboriginal inhabitants of the land) led north to what is now the east-west road which passes through the hamlet of Rugby. If they were lucky, the Ormsbys may have found a team of oxen to help them carry their load north. If not, James, Elizabeth, and their three children carried all of their worldly possessions over the six kilometers to their new home.

The Ormsby family took possession of their land on the east half of Lot 14, Concession 12 in Oro Township on 10 July 1831.^[23] At that time, Simcoe County was a vast forest that stretched from Lake Simcoe to Lake Huron. Oro Township was, for the most part, unsettled. Whimsically named after the African village “Rio del Oro”, the government first intended the township to be the base for a colony of black families.^[24] Attempts were made to start a settlement on Wilberforce Street in Oro Township in 1819. Twenty-three black men, some of whom had fought for the British in the War of 1812, had been granted land in Oro by 1826. The settlement peaked at a population of about one hundred by 1860, but had disappeared from Oro by 1901.^[25]

Other white European settlers had arrived in the area in 1819 — these settlers were concentrated along the Penetanguishene Road, which formed the western boundary of the township. A group of half-pay officers, seduced by the idea of lakeshore property, had taken large plots of land along Lake Simcoe in the late 1820s. Sir John Colbourne, Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada, had encouraged this influx of military men to the area north of Lake Simcoe. The colonial government felt that Upper Canada might be vulnerable to an American attack through Georgian Bay and therefore encouraged the settlement of military men and their families in this area. For this reason, several Chelsea Pensioners like James Ormsby were assigned land in Oro and in the neighbouring township of Medonte.

Pioneer to farmer

From what little I know of her life in Canada, Elizabeth Ormsby cuts a figure of a hardy pioneer woman. While her time in Europe and in the colonial garrisons was undoubtedly physically difficult, it was nothing in comparison to her life as a settler in Upper Canada. Elizabeth certainly seems to have been capable of handling difficult emergencies on her own. Shortly after the family’s arrival in Oro in 1831, it was Elizabeth who brought a group of sick emigrants back to York. I’m not sure how she would have managed this trip as it would have involved travel over unbroken wilderness, a boat ride, and a journey down Yonge Street with unhelpful passengers. This journey was significant enough that it warranted a payment of ten shillings by the Emigrant Agent.^[26] It was Elizabeth again who stepped to the plate when the young colony was unsettled by a rebellion in 1837. James joined the Simcoe County militia to fight against William Lyon McKenzie and his rebels in York (Toronto). The Simcoe County militia wintered in York that year, leaving their wives and children to fend for themselves against wildlife and the potential anger and retribution of Aboriginal groups who were being forced out of their ancestral lands around Lake Simcoe and who were travelling north.^[27]

There would have been no limit to the adverse circumstances that Elizabeth and James faced when they arrived in Oro Township in 1831. At that time, the Ormsbys’ one hundred acre lot would have been entirely wooded — its boundaries marked by small white blazes cut into single trees difficult to find in the sea of the forest. To meet their settlement agreement and to be granted the title to the land, the Ormsby family were required to live on their lot, build a house, clear half of the road in front of their lot, and to clear and fence ten acres next to the road — all within the first eighteen months of their arrival.^[28] Perhaps because of his army experience in North America, James Ormsby seems to have anticipated the difficulty of fulfilling these conditions. According to Kith n’ Kin, a history of Oro Township, James had been entitled to four hundred acres of land, but he had only accepted one hundred.^[29] This was a shrewd decision and one that perhaps saved the Ormsby family from the fate of many of the other fifteen hundred Chelsea Pensioners who had come to Upper Canada.

Figure 3: 1885 Map of Simcoe County. The red dot shows the location of the Ormsby farm.

 Still, a plot of hundred acres of hardwood could have thousands of trees. Trees — beech, maple, elm, ash, cherry and pine — covered all of Simcoe County from Lake Simcoe to Lake Huron. For the first summer — no, the first decade — the entire family, including Elizabeth and any child old enough to wield an axe, would have spent every day of their lives chopping down trees. These trees were no saplings. Early settlers reported oak trees eighty feet tall with a twelve-foot circumference at the base.^[30] As Anna Jameson suggests, “a Canadian settler hates a tree, regards it as his natural enemy, as something to be destroyed, eradicated, annihilated by all and any means.”^[31]

Immediately upon arrival, the family would have had to clear enough trees to build a shanty — a one-room log house that would provide shelter for the family over the winter. Then the family would continue to clear trees, as many as possible, in order to make room to plant a crop, likely wheat, for the following summer. Given the lack of infrastructure, it was impossible to sell or remove logs from the property and the trees were duly burned, with the slight redemption that the potash would fertilize the ground for future crops. The trees did not give up the land easily, however, and the Ormsbys and the other settlers would have to wait seven years before the stumps were rotten enough to be pulled from the ground. Only once these stumps were removed could the family use farm implements to plow the land.

Initially, any provisions that the Ormsbys had needed were likely carried north by foot, probably procured in one of the small settlements along the shores of Lake Simcoe or farther afield in York. Given their lack of means and crops, the Ormsbys’ diet would have been limited to cakes of flour, salted meat (likely pork), any game or fowl which could be killed, and a tea/coffee substitute brewed from indigenous plants.

These trips for provisions would be among the only opportunities for social contact in Oro Township. The Ormsbys’ land was twenty kilometers from the area’s main artery: Penetanguishene Road. Although another road was cut out of the forest between Kempenfelt Bay and Shanty Bay by 1833, it wasn’t until 1835 that the first postal service arrived in the township.^[32] Even once the roads had been cleared, Oro Township remained isolated. One early pioneer recounted a story about a young woman who was walking to visit neighbours several miles away. Ahead of her, she saw a man on a horse. To see another human being on this road was such an unusual occurrence that she picked up the horse’s dropping as proof of what she had seen.^[33]

Figure 4: An Ontario bush farm in 1838. The tree stumps have not yet rotted enough to be removed. Source: Library and Archives Canada.

James and Elizabeth Ormsby likely endured a decade or more of these isolating and backbreaking conditions. But they did endure. The piece of wilderness that they had been given was, ultimately, a productive farm. In 1861, thirty years after their arrival in the wilderness, the Ormsby farm produced one hundred and fifty-five bushels of spring wheat, eighty bushels of peas, one hundred and seventy bushels of oats, and two hundred and fifty bushels of potatoes. The two Ormsby children who had survived to adulthood lived on the property with their families — George Billings Ormsby and his family lived in a new frame house; James Jr. and his small family lived in a log cabin, perhaps one of the original buildings that had been erected by James and Elizabeth.^[34]

As proof of their hardiness, James and Elizabeth both lived past their eightieth year. James died in 1873 and Elizabeth some time after that date. Direct descendants of their son George Billings Ormsby lived and farmed the original Ormsby property well into the 1970s, almost 150 years after the arrival of their pioneering ancestors.^[35] James Ormsby Jr. tired of the farming life and opened a hotel in nearby Washago by 1871.^[36] His sons would gravitate to the larger urban centres and entrepreneurial lives — they lived the promising future that their grandparents had hoped for.

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Matthew Clay was born in Blidworth in Nottinghamshire and served as a private in the Scots Guards. At the age of 19 he became part of a pivotal moment in European history:  on 18th June 1815 he found himself fighting at the Battle of Waterloo. His regiment was tasked with the defence of a place vital to an allied victory; Chateau Hougoumont.

Chateau Hougoumont after the Battle of Waterloo, from a contemporary drawing.

What happened there on that day is the stuff of legends and few can remain unmoved by the tales of heroism and sacrifice. There is no doubt that the action at Hougoumont was crucial to the defeat of Napoleon’s army which had waged war across Europe for the preceeding 23 years. The Battle of Waterloo brought to an end the Napoleonic era, marking the start of a ninety nine year period of relative peace in Europe which finally came to an end with the outbreak of the First World War.

Matthew Clay’s deeds have now been commemorated in his home village, largely due to diligent research by a descendant, Christine Dabbs, and the commemoration of this young man featured in a newspaper article. The full story appears in a newspaper, the Mansfield Chad, and you can view the article by clicking here: Matthew Clay memorial.