CHAP. 1808. 26. a firm determination to defend the cause of Old England, and an undoubting faith in the superiority of its arms, constituted the real springs of military exertion. The great majority of the English soldiers felt no desire to be made officers; to become sergeants and corThe English porals was, indeed, a very general and deserved object of soldiers were ambition to the meritorious privates, because that elevated with their lot. them in, without taking them out of, their own sphere in contented life; but they felt that they would be uncomfortable in the daily society of the commissioned officers, their superiors in birth, habits, and acquirements. And though many, in the course of the war, from the force of extraordinary merit, broke through these restraints, and some discharged in the most exemplary manner the duties of Wellington's the most elevated ranks, who had originally borne a Military musket on their shoulders, yet in general the situation Punishment. of privates who had risen to the officers' mess was not so comfortable as to render the change an object of general desire.1 1 Duke of Evid. on Parl. Pro. June 1836. 27. from the self classes. It may appear paradoxical to assert, but it is nevertheless strictly true, that this feeling of the propriety of each Which arose class striving to become respectable in itself, without respect of all seeking to overstep its limits, is the natural effect of longestablished freedom and order; and is much more nearly allied to the genuine spirit of liberty than the feverish desire of individual elevation which, throughout all its phases, was the mainspring of the French Revolution. Where each class is respectable and protected in itself, it feels its own importance, and often disdains to seek admission into that next in succession; the universal passion for individual exaltation is the offspring of a state of society where the rights and immunities of the humbler ranks have been habitually, by all persons in power, trampled under foot. The clearest proof of this is to be found in daily experience. The men who throughout so many ages have maintained the liberties of England, are not those who were striving perpetually to elevate themselves by a sudden start above their neighbours, but those who, by a life of unobtrusive honest industry, have risen to comfort or opulence in their own sphere, without any desire to leave it.2 And the strength of the state at present is not to be found in the anxious aspirants after 2 Foy, i. 226, 227. aristocratic favour, or the giddy candidates for fashionable distinction, but in the unheeded efforts of that more numerous but unobserved class, which is too proud of its own rank to aspire to any beyond it. CHAP. LIII. 1808. still subsisted. An iron discipline had given the military force, thus constituted, a degree of firmness and regularity unknown 28. to any other service in Europe. The use of the lash- Severe disthat remnant of savage rule-was still painfully frequent; poral punishcipline. Corand instances were not uncommon of soldiers, for incon- ments which siderable offences, receiving five hundred, eight hundred, and even one thousand stripes-an amount of torture equal perhaps to any ever inflicted by the Inquisition. But though the friends of humanity beheld with horror this barbarous infliction, so foreign to the spirit of the English constitution, and one disused in the French and several continental armies; yet the experienced observers, who considered the character of the class from which the English recruits were almost exclusively drawn, and the impossibility of giving them the prospect of promotion which operated so strongly on French conscripts, still hesitated as to the practicability of abolishing this painful and terrible correction, though they strenuously contended for the limitation of its frightful barbarity. They regarded its disgrace as the price paid by the nation for the democratic economy, which denied to the soldiers such a pay as would secure for the ranks of its army a class with whom such inflictions might be unnecessary, or render expulsion from these ranks a sufficient object of dread; and that constitution which, by confining commissions in the military service to men of family and property, possessed of a permanent interest in the commonwealth, 1 Duke of had obtained the best possible security against its force ut supra. being applied to the destruction of the public liberties.1 Wellington, 29. comforts of Better fed, clothed, lodged, and paid than any other in Europe, the English soldier had an attention devoted to his wants, both in health and sickness, and experienced Physical an integrity in the administration of every department the British of the army, which could be attained only in a country soldiers. where habits of freedom have long coexisted with those of order, and experience had pointed out the mode of effectually checking the abuses which invariably have a tendency to grow up in every branch of the public admi CHAP. LIII. 1808. General Foy's nistration. Pensions, varying according to the period or the amount of service, secured for the veteran, the maimed, or the wounded, an adequate maintenance- for the remainder of life. True, he fought-in the glowing language of Colonel Napier-in the cold shade of aristocracy; true, he could not boast that the rays of imperial favour would be attracted by the helmet of the cuirassier, or the bayonet of the grenadier; but he was sure, from good conduct, of obtaining that respect in his own sphere, and those substantial advantages which were adapted to his situation and his wishes. Experience has abundantly proved that the concentration of government support on those whose only title to power is military distinction, is a sure prelude to unbridled administration; and that, if the soldier would no longer fight in the cold shade of aristocracy, the citizen would pine in the hopeless frost of military despotism.* Nor was the inequality of force with which this great struggle was to be conducted, so great in its progress as it appeared in the outset. Napoleon indeed commenced * General Foy has left a graphic picture of the different habits of the English and French soldiers during a campaign in the Peninsular war, of the truth of which every one must, to a certain degree, be convinced. "Behold," says he, "the French battalions, when they arrive at their bivouacs after a long and painful march. No sooner have the drums ceased to beat, than the havresacks of the soldiers, disposed round the piles of arms, mark out the ground where they are to pass the night. They put off their coats: clothed only in their greatcoats, they run to collect provisions, water, and straw. The fires are lighted: the soup is soon prepared; trees brought from the adjoining wood are rudely carved into supports or beams for the huts. Quickly the simple barracks are raised; the air resounds with the sounds of the hatchet; while the soup is preparing, the young men, impatient of their idleness, clean their arms, arrange their knapsacks, clean their gaiters. The soup is soon ready; if wine is wanting, the conversation soon flags, and the noisy multitude is speedily buried in sleep. If, on the other hand, the generous fluid circulates, joyous looks follow the barrels as they are brought on men's backs into the centres of the rings; the veterans recount to the young conscripts the battles in which their regiment has acquired so much renown, and the universal transport when the Emperor, mounted on his white charger and followed by his Mameluke, suddenly appeared among them. "Turn now to the English camp; you see the soldiers exhausted and motionless, reclining on the ground: are they waiting like the Spahis in the Turkish camp till the slaves prepare their victuals? No! they have made at leisure a very moderate march, and have reached at two in the afternoon the ground they are to occupy for the night. Bread and meat are brought; the sergeant makes the distribution; he tells them where they will find water and straw, and where the trees which are to be felled will be found. When the logs arrive, he shows where each is to be placed; he reprimands the unskilful, and stimulates the lazy. Where is the industrious enterprising spirit of that nation which has outstripped all others in vigour and intelligence? Out of their own routine the soldiers can do nothing: if once the restraints of discipline are broken, excesses of every kind are indulged in, and intemperance prevails to a degree which would astonish. the Cossacks themselves. Nevertheless, do not hazard an attack unless you are well assured of success; the English soldier is not brave at times merely; he is CHAP. LIII. 1808. force together the contest with a hundred and fifteen thousand infantry, and sixteen thousand horse, in the Peninsula,* and the possession of all the most important strongholds which it contained; and the French force permanently maintained 30.. Difficulty of over its surface, after the British troops landed, exceeded keeping any two hundred and fifty, and rose at times as high as three considerable hundred and fifty thousand men ; while there never were in the inteso many as fifty thousand British soldiers in the Penin- rior of the sula. Indeed the actual force under the standards of Wellington seldom exceeded thirty, and was generally for the first three years not above twenty-five thousand Nap. i. 47. English sabres and bayonets.1 Still this force formed the 204.' nucleus of an army which, with the addition of the Peninsula. 1 Foy, i. 203, so whenever he has eat well, drunk well, and slept well. Yet their courage, 2 Foy, i. 231, rather instinctive than acquired, has need of solid nutriment; and no thoughts 233. of glory will ever make them forget that they are hungry, or that their shoes are worn out.2 "Nor is the difference less remarkable in the superior officers. While a French general of division is occupied during the leisure moments of a campaign in studying the topography of the country or the disposition of its inhabitants; And of the in attending to the nourishment, drilling, or haranguing of his troops; in en- officers of their respecdeavouring to persuade the Spanish people to adopt the system of administration, tive armies. or yield to the political conduct of his country-the English general opposed to him spends his time between the chase, riding on horseback, and the pleasures of the table. The first, alternately governor, engineer, commissary, has his mind continually on the stretch; his daily occupations lead to an enlargement of his intellect, and a continual extension of his sphere of activity. The other, as indifferent to the localities of the country in which he makes war, as to the language, disposition, or prejudices of its inhabitants, applies to the commissary to supply provisions; to the quarter-master-general for information concerning the country in which he has to act, and the marches he has to perform; to the adjutant-general for any other supplies of which he may stand in need. Unless when employed in a separate command, he seeks to narrow the sphere of his exertions and responsibility. He leads on his troops in battle with the most admirable courage; but in cantonments his habitual exertions are limited to superintending the police of his troops, seeing that their exercises are daily 3 Foy, i. 231, performed, and transmitting reports to his superiors."8 Notwithstanding his 257. admirable general candour, the French general appears, in this graphic description, to have been somewhat influenced by the prejudices of his country, though the outline of the sketch is undoubtedly correct. But the military is essentially a practical art; and notwithstanding all their riding and hunting, experience soon made the English generals as expert at all the really useful parts of their profession as the more inquisitive and instructed Frenchmen; and they are not the worst soldiers who, without disquieting themselves with the duties or designs of their superiors, are at all times ready with undaunted courage to carry them into effect. *Viz.: In Spain Besides 44,374 infantry, and 4,685 cavalry, who arrived by the 1st August 1808 on the Ebro.-Foy, iv. Table 1, Appendix. LIII. 1808. 31. Fortunate position of the British troops. CHAP. Portuguese levies of equal amount, and disciplined and led by British officers, soon became extremely formidable. Its fortunate central position in Portugal, resting on what became, under the tutelary genius of Wellington, an impregnable intrenched position in front of Lisbon, afforded to a commander of talent a favourable opportunity of striking serious blows at the enemy before their dispersed forces could collect from different quarters. If they did so, the insurrection burst forth again in the provinces they had evacuated; if they remained long together, famine, in an inland country so plentifully intersected by arid plains or desert ridges, soon paralysed any considerable offensive operations. The truth of the old saying of Henry IV., "If you make war in Spain with a small army you are beaten, if with a large one starved," was never more strongly evinced than in the Peninsular campaigns. Though Wellington frequently experienced this difficulty in the severest manner, when he advanced into the interior of the country, yet his army, in the general case, from the vicinity to the seacoast of Portugal or the water-carriage of its principal rivers, was in comparison abundantly supplied with provisions; and though he was in general inferior in number to the enemy, sometimes to a very great degree, when he hazarded a battle, yet the discrepancy in this 1 Napier, respect was never so great as the extraordinary difference 47. Foy, i. in the sum total of the regular forces which the two nations had in the field might have led us to expect.1 204. 32. The military establishment of Spain, when the contest commenced at the signal of the French cannon in the Military force streets of Madrid on the 2d May, was by no means conof Spain at siderable. It consisted, in 1807, of eighty thousand mencement of troops of the line, besides sixteen thousand cavalry and the com the contest. From thirty thousand militia; but the ranks were far from |