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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/19255-8.txt b/19255-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..775728e --- /dev/null +++ b/19255-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8905 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Deeds that Won the Empire, by W. H. Fitchett + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Deeds that Won the Empire + Historic Battle Scenes + +Author: W. H. Fitchett + +Release Date: September 12, 2006 [EBook #19255] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DEEDS THAT WON THE EMPIRE *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + + + + + + +DEEDS THAT WON THE EMPIRE + + +HISTORIC BATTLE SCENES + + + +BY W. H. FITCHETT, LL. D. + + + + + +LONDON: JOHN MURRAY + + + + FIRST EDITION (Smith, Elder & Co.) . . . November 1897 + Twenty-ninth Impression . . . . . . . . October 1914 + Reprinted (John Murray) . . . . . . . . September 1917 + Reprinted . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . February 1921 + + + + +PREFACE + +The tales here told are written, not to glorify war, but to nourish +patriotism. They represent an effort to renew in popular memory the +great traditions of the Imperial race to which we belong. + +The history of the Empire of which we are subjects--the story of the +struggles and sufferings by which it has been built up--is the best +legacy which the past has bequeathed to us. But it is a treasure +strangely neglected. The State makes primary education its anxious +care, yet it does not make its own history a vital part of that +education. There is real danger that for the average youth the great +names of British story may become meaningless sounds, that his +imagination will take no colour from the rich and deep tints of +history. And what a pallid, cold-blooded citizenship this must produce! + +War belongs, no doubt, to an imperfect stage of society; it has a side +of pure brutality. But it is not all brutal. Wordsworth's daring line +about "God's most perfect instrument" has a great truth behind it. +What examples are to be found in the tales here retold, not merely of +heroic daring, but of even finer qualities--of heroic fortitude; of +loyalty to duty stronger than the love of life; of the temper which +dreads dishonour more than it fears death; of the patriotism which +makes love of the Fatherland a passion. These are the elements of +robust citizenship. They represent some, at least, of the qualities by +which the Empire, in a sterner time than ours, was won, and by which, +in even these ease-loving days, it must be maintained. + +These sketches appeared originally in the _Melbourne Argus_, and are +republished by the kind consent of its proprietors. Each sketch is +complete in itself; and though no formal quotation of authorities is +given, yet all the available literature on each event described has +been laid under contribution. The sketches will be found to be +historically accurate. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + THE FIGHT OFF CAPE ST. VINCENT + THE HEIGHTS OF ABRAHAM + THE GREAT LORD HAWKE + THE NIGHT ATTACK ON BADAJOS + THE FIRE-SHIPS IN THE BASQUE ROADS + THE MAN WHO SPOILED NAPOLEON'S "DESTINY" + GREAT SEA-DUELS + THE BLOOD-STAINED HILL OF BUSACO + OF NELSON AND THE NILE + THE FUSILEERS AT ALBUERA + THE "SHANNON" AND THE "CHESAPEAKE" + THE GREAT BREACH OF CIUDAD RODRIGO + HOW THE "HERMIONE" WAS RECAPTURED + FRENCH AND ENGLISH IN THE PASSES + FAMOUS CUTTING-OUT EXPEDITIONS + MOUNTAIN COMBATS + THE BLOODIEST FIGHT IN THE PENINSULA + THE BATTLE OF THE BALTIC + KING-MAKING WATERLOO-- + I. The Rival Hosts + II. Hougoumont + III. Picton and D'Erlon + IV. "Scotland for Ever!" + V. Horsemen and Squares + VI. The Fight of the Gunners + VII. The Old Guard + VIII. The Great Defeat + + THE NIGHT ATTACK OFF CADIZ + + TRAFALGAR-- + I. The Strategy + II. How the Fleets Met + III. How the Victory was Won + + + +LIST OF PLANS + + THE BATTLE OFF CAPE ST. VINCENT + THE SIEGE OF QUEBEC + THE SIEGE OF BADAJOS + THE BATTLE OF THE NILE + THE BATTLE OF ALBUERA + THE SIEGE OF CIUDAD RODRIGO + THE COMBAT OF RONCESVALLES + THE BATTLE OF ST. PIERRE + THE BATTLE OF THE BALTIC + THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO + THE ATTACK OF TRAFALGAR + + + + +THE FIGHT OFF CAPE ST. VINCENT + + + THE SCEPTRE OF THE SEA. + + "Old England's sons are English yet, + Old England's hearts are strong; + And still she wears her coronet + Aflame with sword and song. + As in their pride our fathers died, + If need be, so die we; + So wield we still, gainsay who will, + The sceptre of the sea. + + We've Raleighs still for Raleigh's part, + We've Nelsons yet unknown; + The pulses of the Lion-Heart + Beat on through Wellington. + Hold, Britain, hold thy creed of old, + Strong foe and steadfast friend, + And still unto thy motto true, + 'Defy not, but defend.' + + Men whisper that our arm is weak, + Men say our blood is cold, + And that our hearts no longer speak + That clarion note of old; + But let the spear and sword draw near + The sleeping lion's den, + Our island shore shall start once more + To life, with armèd men." + --HERMAN CHARLES MERIVALE. + + +On the night of February 13, 1797, an English fleet of fifteen ships of +the line, in close order and in readiness for instant battle, was under +easy sail off Cape St. Vincent. It was a moonless night, black with +haze, and the great ships moved in silence like gigantic spectres over +the sea. Every now and again there came floating from the south-east +the dull sound of a far-off gun. It was the grand fleet of Spain, +consisting of twenty-seven ships of line, under Admiral Don Josef de +Cordova; one great ship calling to another through the night, little +dreaming that the sound of their guns was so keenly noted by the eager +but silent fleet of their enemies to leeward. The morning of the +14th--a day famous in the naval history of the empire--broke dim and +hazy; grey sea, grey fog, grey dawn, making all things strangely +obscure. At half-past six, however, the keen-sighted British outlooks +caught a glimpse of the huge straggling line of Spaniards, stretching +apparently through miles of sea haze. "They are thumpers!" as the +signal lieutenant of the _Barfleur_ reported with emphasis to his +captain; "they loom like Beachy Head in a fog!" The Spanish fleet was, +indeed, the mightiest ever sent from Spanish ports since "that great +fleet invincible" of 1588 carried into the English waters--but not out +of them!-- + + "The richest spoils of Mexico, the stoutest hearts of Spain." + +The Admiral's flag was borne by the _Santissima Trinidad_, a floating +mountain, the largest ship at that time on the sea, and carrying on her +four decks 130 guns. Next came six three-deckers carrying 112 guns +each, two ships of the line of 80 guns each, and seventeen carrying 74 +guns, with no less than twelve 34-gun frigates to act as a flying +cordon of skirmishers. Spain had joined France against England on +September 12, 1796, and Don Cordova, at the head of this immense fleet, +had sailed from Cadiz to execute a daring and splendid strategy. He +was to pick up the Toulon fleet, brush away the English squadron +blockading Brest, add the great French fleet lying imprisoned there to +his forces, and enter the British Channel with above a hundred sail of +the line under his flag, and sweep in triumph to the mouth of the +Thames! If the plan succeeded, Portugal would fall, a descent was to +be made on Ireland; the British flag, it was reckoned, would be swept +from the seas. + +Sir John Jervis was lying in the track of the Spaniards to defeat this +ingenious plan. Five ships of the line had been withdrawn from the +squadron blockading Brest to strengthen him; still he had only fifteen +ships against the twenty-seven huge Spaniards in front of him; whilst, +if the French Toulon fleet behind him broke out, he ran the risk of +being crushed, so to speak, betwixt the upper and the nether millstone. +Never, perhaps, was the naval supremacy of England challenged so boldly +and with such a prospect of success as at this moment. The northern +powers had coalesced under Russia, and only a few weeks later the +English guns were thundering over the roofs of Copenhagen, while the +united flags of France and Spain were preparing to sweep through the +narrow seas. The "splendid isolation" of to-day is no novelty. In +1796, as it threatened to be in 1896, Great Britain stood singly +against a world in arms, and it is scarcely too much to say that her +fate hung on the fortunes of the fleet that, in the grey dawn of St. +Valentine's Day, a hundred years ago, was searching the skyline for the +topmasts of Don Cordova's huge three-deckers. + +Fifteen to twenty-seven is enormous odds, but, on the testimony of +Nelson himself, a better fleet never carried the fortunes of a great +country than that under Sir John Jervis. The mere names of the ships +or of their commanders awaken more sonorous echoes than the famous +catalogue of the ships in the "Iliad." Trowbridge, in the _Culloden_, +led the van; the line was formed of such ships as the _Victory_, the +flagship, the _Barfleur_, the _Blenheim_, the _Captain_, with Nelson as +commodore, the _Excellent_, under Collingwood, the _Colossus_, under +Murray, the _Orion_, under Sir James Saumarez, &c. Finer sailors and +more daring leaders never bore down upon an enemy's fleet. The picture +offered by the two fleets in the cold haze of that fateful morning, as +a matter of fact, reflected the difference in their fighting and +sea-going qualities. The Spanish fleet, a line of monsters, straggled, +formless and shapeless, over miles of sea space, distracted with +signals, fluttering with many-coloured flags. The English fleet, grim +and silent, bore down upon the enemy in two compact and firm-drawn +columns, ship following ship so closely and so exactly that bowsprit +and stern almost touched, while an air-line drawn from the foremast of +the leading ship to the mizzenmast of the last ship in each column +would have touched almost every mast betwixt. Stately, measured, +threatening, in perfect fighting order, the compact line of the British +bore down on the Spaniards. + +[Illustration: THE BATTLE OFF CAPE ST. VINCENT. Cutting the Spanish +Line. From Allen's "Battles of the British Navy."] + +Nothing is more striking in the battle of St. Vincent than the swift +and resolute fashion in which Sir John Jervis leaped, so to speak, at +his enemy's throat, with the silent but deadly leap of a bulldog. As +the fog lifted, about nine o'clock, with the suddenness and dramatic +effect of the lifting of a curtain in a great theatre, it revealed to +the British admiral a great opportunity. The weather division of the +Spanish fleet, twenty-one gigantic ships, resembled nothing so much as +a confused and swaying forest of masts; the leeward division--six ships +in a cluster, almost as confused--was parted by an interval of nearly +three miles from the main body of the fleet, and into that fatal gap, +as with the swift and deadly thrust of a rapier, Jervis drove his fleet +in one unswerving line, the two columns melting into one, ship +following hard on ship. The Spaniards strove furiously to close their +line, the twenty-one huge ships bearing down from the windward, the +smaller squadron clawing desperately up from the leeward. But the +British fleet--a long line of gliding pyramids of sails, leaning over +to the pressure of the wind, with "the meteor flag" flying from the +peak of each vessel, and the curving lines of guns awaiting grim and +silent beneath--was too swift. As it swept through the gap, the +Spanish vice-admiral, in the _Principe de Asturias_, a great +three-decker of 112 guns, tried the daring feat of breaking through the +British line to join the severed squadron. He struck the English fleet +almost exactly at the flagship, the _Victory_. The _Victory_ was +thrown into stays to meet her, the Spaniard swung round in response, +and, exactly as her quarter was exposed to the broadside of the +_Victory_, the thunder of a tremendous broadside rolled from that ship. +The unfortunate Spaniard was smitten as with a tempest of iron, and the +next moment, with sails torn, topmasts hanging to leeward, ropes +hanging loose in every direction, and her decks splashed red with the +blood of her slaughtered crew, she broke off to windward. The iron +line of the British was unpierceable! The leading three-decker of the +Spanish lee division in like manner bore up, as though to break through +the British line to join her admiral; but the grim succession of +three-deckers, following swift on each other like the links of a moving +iron chain, was too disquieting a prospect to be faced. It was not in +Spanish seamanship, or, for the matter of that, in Spanish flesh and +blood, to beat up in the teeth of such threatening lines of iron lips. +The Spanish ships swung sullenly back to leeward, and the fleet of Don +Cordova was cloven in twain, as though by the stroke of some gigantic +sword-blade. + +As soon as Sir John Jervis saw the steady line of his fleet drawn fair +across the gap in the Spanish line, he flung his leading ships up to +windward on the mass of the Spanish fleet, by this time beating up to +windward. The _Culloden_ led, thrust itself betwixt the hindmost +Spanish three-deckers, and broke into flame and thunder on either side. +Six minutes after her came the _Blenheim_; then, in quick succession, +the _Prince George_, the _Orion_, the _Colossus_. It was a crash of +swaying masts and bellying sails, while below rose the shouting of the +crews, and, like the thrusts of fiery swords, the flames shot out from +the sides of the great three-deckers against each other, and over all +rolled the thunder and the smoke of a Titanic sea-fight. Nothing more +murderous than close fighting betwixt the huge wooden ships of those +days can well be imagined. The _Victory_, the largest British ship +present in the action, was only 186 feet long and 52 feet broad; yet in +that little area 1000 men fought, 100 great guns thundered. A Spanish +ship like the _San Josef_ was 194 feet in length and 54 feet in +breadth; but in that area 112 guns were mounted, while the three decks +were thronged with some 1300 men. When floating batteries like these +swept each other with the flame of swiftly repeated broadsides at a +distance of a few score yards, the destruction may be better imagined +than described. The Spanish had an advantage in the number of guns and +men, but the British established an instant mastery by their silent +discipline, their perfect seamanship, and the speed with which their +guns were worked. They fired at least three broadsides to every two +the Spaniards discharged, and their fire had a deadly precision +compared with which that of the Spaniards was mere distracted +spluttering. + +Meanwhile the dramatic crisis of the battle came swiftly on. The +Spanish admiral was resolute to join the severed fragments of his +fleet. The _Culloden_, the _Blenheim_, the _Prince George_, and the +_Orion_ were thundering amongst his rearmost ships, and as the British +line swept up, each ship tacked as it crossed the gap in the Spanish +line, bore up to windward and added the thunder of its guns to the +storm of battle raging amongst the hindmost Spaniards. But naturally +the section of the British line that had not yet passed the gap +shortened with every minute, and the leading Spanish ships at last saw +the sea to their leeward clear of the enemy, and the track open to +their own lee squadron. Instantly they swung round to leeward, the +great four-decker, the flagship, with a company of sister giants, the +_San Josef_ and the _Salvador del Mundo_, of 112 guns each, the _San +Nicolas_, and three other great ships of 80 guns. It was a bold and +clever stroke. This great squadron, with the breeze behind it, had but +to sweep past the rear of the British line, join the lee squadron, and +bear up, and the Spanish fleet in one unbroken mass would confront the +enemy. The rear of the British line was held by Collingwood in the +_Excellent_; next to him came the _Diadem_; the third ship was the +_Captain_, under Nelson. We may imagine how Nelson's solitary eye was +fixed on the great Spanish three-deckers that formed the Spanish van as +they suddenly swung round and came sweeping down to cross his stern. +Not Napoleon himself had a vision more swift and keen for the changing +physiognomy of a great battle than Nelson, and he met the Spanish +admiral with a counter-stroke as brilliant and daring as can be found +in the whole history of naval warfare. The British fleet saw the +_Captain_ suddenly swing out of line to leeward--in the direction from +the Spanish line, that is--but with swift curve the _Captain_ doubled +back, shot between the two English ships that formed the rear of the +line, and bore up straight in the path of the Spanish flagship, with +its four decks, and the huge battleships on either side of it. + +The _Captain_, it should be remembered, was the smallest 74 in the +British fleet, and as the great Spanish ships closed round her and +broke into flame it seemed as if each one of them was big enough to +hoist the _Captain_ on board like a jolly-boat. Nelson's act was like +that of a single stockman who undertakes to "head off" a drove of angry +bulls as they break away from the herd; but the "bulls" in this case +were a group of the mightiest battleships then afloat. Nelson's sudden +movement was a breach of orders; it left a gap in the British line; to +dash unsupported into the Spanish van seemed mere madness, and the +spectacle, as the Captain opened fire on the huge _Santissima +Trinidad_, was simply amazing. Nelson was in action at once with the +flagship of 130 guns, two ships of 112 guns, one of 80 guns, and two of +74 guns! To the spectators who watched the sight the sides of the +_Captain_ seemed to throb with quick-following pulses of flame as its +crew poured their shot into the huge hulks on every side of them. The +Spaniards formed a mass so tangled that they could scarcely fire at the +little _Captain_ without injuring each other; yet the English ship +seemed to shrivel beneath even the imperfect fire that did reach her. +Her foremast was shot away, her wheel-post shattered, her rigging torn, +some of her guns dismantled, and the ship was practically incapable of +further service either in the line or in chase. But Nelson had +accomplished his purpose: he had stopped the rush of the Spanish van. + +At this moment the _Excellent_, under Collingwood, swept into the storm +of battle that raged round the _Captain_, and poured three tremendous +broadsides into the Spanish three-decker the _Salvador del Mundo_ that +practically disabled her. "We were not further from her," the domestic +but hard-fighting Collingwood wrote to his wife, "than the length of +our garden." Then, with a fine feat of seamanship, the _Excellent_ +passed between the _Captain_ and the _San Nicolas_, scourging that +unfortunate ship with flame at a distance of ten yards, and then passed +on to bestow its favours on the _Santissima Trinidad_--"such a ship," +Collingwood afterwards confided to his wife, "as I never saw before!" +Collingwood tormented that monster with his fire so vehemently that she +actually struck, though possession of her was not taken before the +other Spanish ships, coming up, rescued her, and she survived to carry +the Spanish flag in the great fight of Trafalgar. + +Meanwhile the crippled _Captain_, though actually disabled, had +performed one of the most dramatic and brilliant feats in the history +of naval warfare. Nelson put his helm to starboard, and ran, or rather +drifted, on the quarter-gallery of the _San Nicolas_, and at once +boarded that leviathan. Nelson himself crept through the +quarter-gallery window in the stern of the Spaniard, and found himself +in the officers' cabins. The officers tried to show fight, but there +was no denying the boarders who followed Nelson, and with shout and +oath, with flash of pistol and ring of steel, the party swept through +on to the main deck. But the _San Nicolas_ had been boarded also at +other points. "The first man who jumped into the enemy's +mizzen-chains," says Nelson, "was the first lieutenant of the ship, +afterwards Captain Berry." The English sailors dropped from their +spritsail yard on to the Spaniard's deck, and by the time Nelson +reached the poop of the _San Nicolas_ he found his lieutenant in the +act of hauling down the Spanish flag. Nelson proceeded to collect the +swords of the Spanish officers, when a fire was opened upon them from +the stern gallery of the admiral's ship, the _San Josef_, of 112 guns, +whose sides were grinding against those of the _San Nicolas_. What +could Nelson do? To keep his prize he must assault a still bigger +ship. Of course he never hesitated! He flung his boarders up the side +of the huge _San Josef_, but he himself had to be assisted to climb the +main chains of that vessel, his lieutenant this time dutifully +assisting his commodore up instead of indecorously going ahead of him. +"At this moment," as Nelson records the incident, "a Spanish officer +looked over the quarterdeck rail and said they surrendered. It was not +long before I was on the quarter-deck, where the Spanish captain, with +a bow, presented me his sword, and said the admiral was dying of his +wounds. I asked him, on his honour, if the ship was surrendered. He +declared she was; on which I gave him my hand, and desired him to call +on his officers and ship's company and tell them of it, which he did; +and on the quarterdeck of a Spanish first-rate--extravagant as the +story may seem--did I receive the swords of vanquished Spaniards, +which, as I received, I gave to William Fearney, one of my bargemen, +who put them with the greatest _sang-froid_ under his arm," a circle of +"old Agamemnons," with smoke-blackened faces, looking on in grim +approval. + +This is the story of how a British fleet of fifteen vessels defeated a +Spanish fleet of twenty-seven, and captured four of their finest ships. +It is the story, too, of how a single English ship, the smallest 74 in +the fleet--but made unconquerable by the presence of Nelson--stayed the +advance of a whole squadron of Spanish three-deckers, and took two +ships, each bigger than itself, by boarding. Was there ever a finer +deed wrought under "the meteor flag"! Nelson disobeyed orders by +leaving the English line and flinging himself on the van of the +Spaniards, but he saved the battle. Calder, Jervis's captain, +complained to the admiral that Nelson had "disobeyed orders." "He +certainly did," answered Jervis; "and if ever you commit such a breach +of your orders I will forgive you also." + + + + +THE HEIGHTS OF ABRAHAM + + + "Sound, sound the clarion, fill the fife! + To all the sensual world proclaim, + One crowded hour of glorious life + Is worth an age without a name." + --SIR WALTER SCOTT. + + +The year 1759 is a golden one in British history. A great French army +that threatened Hanover was overthrown at Minden, chiefly by the heroic +stupidity of six British regiments, who, mistaking their orders, charged +the entire French cavalry in line, and destroyed them. "I have seen," +said the astonished French general, "what I never thought to be +possible--a single line of infantry break through three lines of cavalry +ranked in order of battle, and tumble them into ruin!" Contades omitted +to add that this astonishing infantry, charging cavalry in open +formation, was scourged during their entire advance by powerful batteries +on their flank. At Quiberon, in the same year, Hawke, amid a tempest, +destroyed a mighty fleet that threatened England with invasion; and on +the heights of Abraham, Wolfe broke the French power in America. "We are +forced," said Horace Walpole, the wit of his day, "to ask every morning +what new victory there is, for fear of missing one." Yet, of all the +great deeds of that _annus mirabilis_, the victory which overthrew +Montcalm and gave Quebec to England--a victory achieved by the genius of +Pitt and the daring of Wolfe--was, if not the most shining in quality, +the most far-reaching in its results. "With the triumph of Wolfe on the +heights of Abraham," says Green, "began the history of the United States." + +The hero of that historic fight wore a singularly unheroic aspect. +Wolfe's face, in the famous picture by West, resembles that of a nervous +and sentimental boy--he was an adjutant at sixteen, and only thirty-three +when he fell, mortally wounded, under the walls of Quebec. His forehead +and chin receded; his nose, tip-tilted heavenwards, formed with his other +features the point of an obtuse triangle. His hair was fiery red, his +shoulders narrow, his legs a pair of attenuated spindle-shanks; he was a +chronic invalid. But between his fiery poll and his plebeian and +upturned nose flashed a pair of eyes--keen, piercing, and steady--worthy +of Caesar or of Napoleon. In warlike genius he was on land as Nelson was +on sea, chivalrous, fiery, intense. A "magnetic" man, with a strange +gift of impressing himself on the imagination of his soldiers, and of so +penetrating the whole force he commanded with his own spirit that in his +hands it became a terrible and almost resistless instrument of war. The +gift for choosing fit agents is one of the highest qualities of genius; +and it is a sign of Pitt's piercing insight into character that, for the +great task of overthrowing the French power in Canada, he chose what +seemed to commonplace vision a rickety, hypochondriacal, and very +youthful colonel like Wolfe. + +Pitt's strategy for the American campaign was spacious, not to say +grandiose. A line of strong French posts, ranging from Duquesne, on the +Ohio, to Ticonderoga, on Lake Champlain, held the English settlements on +the coast girdled, as in an iron band, from all extension westward; while +Quebec, perched in almost impregnable strength on the frowning cliffs +which look down on the St. Lawrence, was the centre of the French power +in Canada. Pitt's plan was that Amherst, with 12,000 men, should capture +Ticonderoga; Prideaux, with another powerful force, should carry +Montreal; and Wolfe, with 7000 men, should invest Quebec, where Amherst +and Prideaux were to join him. Two-thirds of this great plan broke down. +Amherst and Prideaux, indeed, succeeded in their local operations, but +neither was able to join Wolfe, who had to carry out with one army the +task for which three were designed. + +On June 21, 1759, the advanced squadron of the fleet conveying Wolfe came +working up the St. Lawrence. To deceive the enemy they flew the white +flag, and, as the eight great ships came abreast of the Island of +Orleans, the good people of Quebec persuaded themselves it was a French +fleet bringing supplies and reinforcements. The bells rang a welcome; +flags waved. Boats put eagerly off to greet the approaching ships. But +as these swung round at their anchorage the white flag of France +disappeared, and the red ensign of Great Britain flew in its place. The +crowds, struck suddenly dumb, watched the gleam of the hostile flag with +chap-fallen faces. A priest, who was staring at the ships through a +telescope, actually dropped dead with the excitement and passion created +by the sight of the British fleet. On June 26 the main body of the fleet +bringing Wolfe himself with 7000 troops, was in sight of the lofty cliffs +on which Quebec stands; Cook, afterwards the famous navigator, master of +the _Mercury_, sounding ahead of the fleet. Wolfe at once seized the +Isle of Orleans, which shelters the basin of Quebec to the east, and +divides the St. Lawrence into two branches, and, with a few officers, +quickly stood on the western point of the isle. At a glance the +desperate nature of the task committed to him was apparent. + +[Illustration: Siege of Quebec, 1759. From Parkman's "Montcalm & Wolfe."] + +Quebec stands on the rocky nose of a promontory, shaped roughly like a +bull's-head, looking eastward. The St. Lawrence flows eastward under the +chin of the head; the St. Charles runs, so to speak, down its nose from +the north to meet the St. Lawrence. The city itself stands on lofty +cliffs, and as Wolfe looked upon it on that June evening far away, it was +girt and crowned with batteries. The banks of the St. Lawrence, that +define what we have called the throat of the bull, are precipitous and +lofty, and seem by mere natural strength to defy attack, though it was +just here, by an ant-like track up 250 feet of almost perpendicular +cliff, Wolfe actually climbed to the plains of Abraham. To the east of +Quebec is a curve of lofty shore, seven miles long, between the St. +Charles and the Montmorenci. When Wolfe's eye followed those seven miles +of curving shore, he saw the tents of a French army double his own in +strength, and commanded by the most brilliant French soldier of his +generation, Montcalm. Quebec, in a word, was a great natural fortress, +attacked by 9000 troops and defended by 16,000; and if a daring military +genius urged the English attack, a soldier as daring and well-nigh as +able as Wolfe directed the French defence. + +Montcalm gave a proof of his fine quality as a soldier within twenty-four +hours of the appearance of the British fleet. The very afternoon the +British ships dropped anchor a terrific tempest swept over the harbour, +drove the transports from their moorings, dashed the great ships of war +against each other, and wrought immense mischief. The tempest dropped as +quickly as it had arisen. The night fell black and moonless. Towards +midnight the British sentinels on the point of the Isle of Orleans saw +drifting silently through the gloom the outlines of a cluster of ships. +They were eight huge fire-ships, floating mines packed with explosives. +The nerve of the French sailors, fortunately for the British, failed +them, and they fired the ships too soon. But the spectacle of these +flaming monsters as they drifted towards the British fleet was appalling. +The river showed ebony-black under the white flames. The glare lit up +the river cliffs, the roofs of the city, the tents of Montcalm, the +slopes of the distant hills, the black hulls of the British ships. It +was one of the most stupendous exhibitions of fireworks ever witnessed! +But it was almost as harmless as a display of fireworks. The boats from +the British fleet were by this time in the water, and pulling with steady +daring to meet these drifting volcanoes. They were grappled, towed to +the banks, and stranded, and there they spluttered and smoked and flamed +till the white light of the dawn broke over them. The only mischief +achieved by these fire-ships was to burn alive one of their own captains +and five or six of his men, who failed to escape in their boats. + +Wolfe, in addition to the Isle of Orleans, seized Point Levi, opposite +the city, and this gave him complete command of the basin of Quebec; from +his batteries on Point Levi, too, he could fire directly on the city, and +destroy it if he could not capture it. He himself landed the main body +of his troops on the east bank of the Montmorenci, Montcalm's position, +strongly entrenched, being between him and the city. Between the two +armies, however, ran the deep gorge through which the swift current of +the Montmorenci rushes down to join the St. Lawrence. The gorge is +barely a gunshot in width, but of stupendous depth. The Montmorenci +tumbles over its rocky bed with a speed that turns the flashing waters +almost to the whiteness of snow. Was there ever a more curious military +position adopted by a great general in the face of superior forces! +Wolfe's tiny army was distributed into three camps: his right wing on the +Montmorenci was six miles distant from his left wing at Point Levi, and +between the centre, on the Isle of Orleans, and the two wings, ran the +two branches of the St. Lawrence. That Wolfe deliberately made such a +distribution of his forces under the very eyes of Montcalm showed his +amazing daring. And yet beyond firing across the Montmorenci on +Montcalm's left wing, and bombarding the city from Point Levi, the +British general could accomplish nothing. Montcalm knew that winter must +compel Wolfe to retreat, and he remained stubbornly but warily on the +defensive. + +On July 18 the British performed a daring feat. In the darkness of the +night two of the men-of-war and several sloops ran past the Quebec +batteries and reached the river above the town; they destroyed some +fireships they found there, and cut off Montcalm's communication by water +with Montreal. This rendered it necessary for the French to establish +guards on the line of precipices between Quebec and Cap-Rouge. On July +28 the French repeated the experiment of fire-ships on a still more +gigantic scale. A vast fire-raft was constructed, composed of some +seventy schooners, boats, and rafts, chained together, and loaded with +combustibles and explosives. The fire-raft is described as being 100 +fathoms in length, and its appearance, as it came drifting on the +current, a mass of roaring fire, discharging every instant a shower of +missiles, was terrifying. But the British sailors dashed down upon it, +broke the huge raft into fragments, and towed them easily ashore. "Hang +it, Jack," one sailor was heard to say to his mate as he tugged at the +oar, "didst thee ever take hell in tow before?" + +Time was on Montcalm's side, and unless Wolfe could draw him from his +impregnable entrenchments and compel him to fight, the game was lost. +When the tide fell, a stretch of shoal a few score yards wide was left +bare on the French side of the Montmorenci. The slope that covered this +was steep, slippery with grass, crowned by a great battery, and swept by +the cross-fire of entrenchments on either flank. Montcalm, too, holding +the interior lines, could bring to the defence of this point twice the +force with which Wolfe could attack it. Yet to Wolfe's keen eyes this +seemed the one vulnerable point in Montcalm's front, and on July 31 he +made a desperate leap upon it. + +The attack was planned with great art. The British batteries thundered +across the Montmorenci, and a feint was made of fording that river higher +up, so as to distract the attention of the French, whilst the boats of +the fleet threatened a landing near Quebec itself. At half-past five the +tide was at its lowest, and the boat-flotilla, swinging round at a +signal, pulled at speed for the patch of muddy foreshore already +selected. The Grenadiers and Royal Americans leaped ashore in the mud, +and--waiting neither for orders, nor leaders, nor supports--dashed up the +hill to storm the redoubt. They reached the first redoubt, tumbled over +it and through it, only to find themselves breathless in a semi-circle of +fire. The men fell fast, but yet struggled fiercely upwards. A furious +storm of rain broke over the combatants at that moment, and made the +steep grass-covered slope as slippery as mere glass. "We could not see +half-way down the hill," writes the French officer in command of the +battery on the summit. But through the smoke and the driving rain they +could still see the Grenadiers and Royal Americans in ragged clusters, +scarce able to stand, yet striving desperately to climb upwards. The +reckless ardour of the Grenadiers had spoiled Wolfe's attack, the sudden +storm helped to save the French, and Wolfe withdrew his broken but +furious battalions, having lost some 500 of his best men and officers. + +The exultant French regarded the siege as practically over; but Wolfe was +a man of heroic and quenchless tenacity, and never so dangerous as when +he seemed to be in the last straits. He held doggedly on, in spite of +cold and tempest and disease. His own frail body broke down, and for the +first time the shadow of depression fell on the British camps when they +no longer saw the red head and lean and scraggy body of their general +moving amongst them. For a week, between August 22 and August 29, he lay +apparently a dying man, his face, with its curious angles, white with +pain and haggard with disease. But he struggled out again, and framed +yet new plans of attack. On September 10 the captains of the men-of-war +held a council on board the flagship, and resolved that the approach of +winter required the fleet to leave Quebec without delay. By this time, +too, Wolfe's scanty force was diminished one-seventh by disease or losses +in battle. Wolfe, however had now formed the plan which ultimately gave +him success, though at the cost of his own life. + +From a tiny little cove, now known as Wolfe's Cove, five miles to the +west of Quebec, a path, scarcely accessible to a goat, climbs up the face +of the great cliff, nearly 250 feet high. The place was so inaccessible +that only a post of 100 men kept guard over it. Up that track, in the +blackness of the night, Wolfe resolved to lead his army to the attack on +Quebec! It needed the most exquisite combinations to bring the attacking +force to that point from three separate quarters, in the gloom of night, +at a given moment, and without a sound that could alarm the enemy. Wolfe +withdrew his force from the Montmorenci, embarked them on board his +ships, and made every sign of departure. Montcalm mistrusted these +signs, and suspected Wolfe would make at least one more leap on Quebec +before withdrawing. Yet he did not in the least suspect Wolfe's real +designs. He discussed, in fact, the very plan Wolfe adopted, but +dismissed it by saying, "We need not suppose that the enemy have wings." +The British ships were kept moving up and down the river front for +several days, so as to distract and perplex the enemy. On September 12 +Wolfe's plans were complete, and he issued his final orders. One +sentence in them curiously anticipates Nelson's famous signal at +Trafalgar. "Officers and men," wrote Wolfe, "_will remember what their +country expects of them_." A feint on Beauport, five miles to the east +of Quebec, as evening fell, made Montcalm mass his troops there; but it +was at a point five miles west of Quebec the real attack was directed. + +At two o'clock at night two lanterns appeared for a minute in the maintop +shrouds of the _Sunderland_. It was the signal, and from the fleet, from +the Isle of Orleans, and from Point Levi, the English boats stole +silently out, freighted with some 1700 troops, and converged towards the +point in the black wall of cliffs agreed upon. Wolfe himself was in the +leading boat of the flotilla. As the boats drifted silently through the +darkness on that desperate adventure, Wolfe, to the officers about him, +commenced to recite Gray's "Elegy":-- + + "The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, + And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, + Await alike the inevitable hour. + The paths of glory lead but to the grave." + +"Now, gentlemen," he added, "I would rather have written that poem than +take Quebec." Wolfe, in fact, was half poet, half soldier. Suddenly +from the great wall of rock and forest to their left broke the challenge +of a French sentinel--"_Qui vive_?" A Highland officer of Fraser's +regiment, who spoke French fluently, answered the challenge. "_France_." +"_A quel regiment_?" "_De la Reine_," answered the Highlander. As it +happened the French expected a flotilla of provision boats, and after a +little further dialogue, in which the cool Highlander completely deceived +the French sentries, the British were allowed to slip past in the +darkness. The tiny cove was safely reached, the boats stole silently up +without a blunder, twenty-four volunteers from the Light Infantry leaped +from their boat and led the way in single file up the path, that ran like +a thread along the face of the cliff. Wolfe sat eagerly listening in his +boat below. Suddenly from the summit he saw the flash of the muskets and +heard the stern shout which told him his men were up. A clear, firm +order, and the troops sitting silent in the boats leaped ashore, and the +long file of soldiers, like a chain of ants, went up the face of the +cliff, Wolfe amongst the foremost, and formed in order on the plateau, +the boats meanwhile rowing back at speed to bring up the remainder of the +troops. Wolfe was at last within Montcalm's guard! + +When the morning of the 13th dawned, the British army, in line of battle, +stood looking down on Quebec. Montcalm quickly heard the news, and came +riding furiously across the St. Charles and past the city to the scene of +danger. He rode, as those who saw him tell, with a fixed look, and +uttering not a word. The vigilance of months was rendered worthless by +that amazing night escalade. When he reached the slopes Montcalm saw +before him the silent red wall of British infantry, the Highlanders with +waving tartans and wind-blown plumes--all in battle array. It was not a +detachment, but an army! + +The fight lasted fifteen minutes, and might be told in almost as many +words. Montcalm brought on his men in three powerful columns, in number +double that of Wolfe's force. The British troops stood grimly silent, +though they were tormented by the fire of Indians and Canadians lying in +the grass. The French advanced eagerly, with a tumult of shouts and a +confused fire; the British moved forward a few rods, halted, dressed +their lines, and when the French were within forty paces threw in one +fierce volley, so sharply timed that the explosion of 4000 muskets +sounded like the sudden blast of a cannon. Again, again, and yet again, +the flame ran from end to end of the steadfast hue. When the smoke +lifted, the French column were wrecked. The British instantly charged. +The spirit of the clan awoke in Fraser's Highlanders: they flung aside +their muskets, drew their broadswords, and with a fierce Celtic slogan +rushed on the enemy. Never was a charge pressed more ruthlessly home. +After the fight one of the British officers wrote: "There was not a +bayonet in the three leading British regiments, nor a broadsword amongst +the Highlanders, that was not crimson with the blood of a foeman." Wolfe +himself charged at the head of the Grenadiers, his bright uniform making +him conspicuous. He was shot in the wrist, wrapped a handkerchief round +the wound, and still ran forward. Two other bullets struck him--one, it +is said, fired by a British deserter, a sergeant broken by Wolfe for +brutality to a private. "Don't let the soldiers see me drop," said +Wolfe, as he fell, to an officer running beside him. An officer of the +Grenadiers, a gentleman volunteer, and a private carried Wolfe to a +redoubt near. He refused to allow a surgeon to be called. "There is no +need," he said, "it is all over with me." Then one of the little group, +casting a look at the smoke-covered battlefield, cried, "They run! See +how they run!" "Who run?" said the dying Wolfe, like a man roused from +sleep. "The enemy, sir," was the answer. A flash of life came back to +Wolfe; the eager spirit thrust from it the swoon of death; he gave a +clear, emphatic order for cutting off the enemy's retreat; then, turning +on his side, he added, "Now God be praised; I die in peace." + +That fight determined that the North American continent should be the +heritage of the Anglo-Saxon race. And, somehow, the popular instinct, +when the news reached England, realised the historic significance of the +event. "When we first heard of Wolfe's glorious deed," writes Thackeray +in "The Virginians"--"of that army marshalled in darkness and carried +silently up the midnight river--of those rocks scaled by the intrepid +leader and his troops--of the defeat of Montcalm on the open plain by the +sheer valour of his conqueror--we were all intoxicated in England by the +news." Not merely all London but half England flamed into illuminations. +One spot alone was dark--Blackheath, where, solitary amidst a rejoicing +nation, Wolfe's mother mourned for her heroic son--like Milton's +Lycidas--"dead ere his prime." + + + + +THE GREAT LORD HAWKE + + +THE ENGLISH FLAG + + "What is the flag of England? Winds of the world, declare! + * * * * * * * * * + The lean white bear hath seen it in the long, long + Arctic night, + The musk-ox knows the standard that flouts the Northern light. + * * * * * * * * * + Never was isle so little, never was sea so lone, + But over the scud and the palm-trees an English flag + has flown. + I have wrenched it free from the halliard to hang + for a wisp on the Horn; + I have chased it north to the Lizard--ribboned and rolled + and torn; + I have spread its folds o'er the dying, adrift + in a hopeless sea; + I have hurled it swift on the slaver, and seen the slave + set free. + * * * * * * * * * + Never the lotos closes, never the wild-fowl wake, + But a soul goes out on the East Wind, that died + for England's sake-- + Man or woman or suckling, mother or bride or maid-- + Because on the bones of the English, the English flag + is stayed. + * * * * * * * * * + The dead dumb fog hath wrapped it--the frozen dews have kissed-- + The naked stars have seen it, a fellow-star in the mist. + What is the flag of England? Ye have but my breath to dare; + Ye have but my waves to conquer. Go forth, for it is there!" + --KIPLING. + + +"The great Lord Hawke" is Burke's phrase, and is one of the best-earned +epithets in literature. Yet what does the average Englishman to-day +remember of the great sailor who, through the bitter November gales of +1759, kept dogged and tireless watch over the French fleet in Brest, +destroyed that fleet with heroic daring amongst the sands of Quiberon, +while the fury of a Bay of Biscay tempest almost drowned the roar of +his guns, and so crushed a threatened invasion of England? + +Hawke has been thrown by all-devouring Time into his wallet as mere +"alms for oblivion"; yet amongst all the sea-dogs who ever sailed +beneath "the blood-red flag" no one ever less deserved that fate. +Campbell, in "Ye Mariners of England," groups "Blake and mighty Nelson" +together as the two great typical English sailors. Hawke stands midway +betwixt them, in point both of time and of achievements, though he had +more in him of Blake than of Nelson. He lacked, no doubt, the dazzling +electric strain that ran through the war-like genius of Nelson. +Hawke's fighting quality was of the grim, dour home-spun character; but +it was a true genius for battle, and as long as Great Britain is a +sea-power the memory of the great sailor who crushed Gentians off +Quiberon deserves to live. + +Hawke, too, was a great man in the age of little men. The fame of the +English navy had sunk to the lowest point. Its ships were rotten; its +captains had lost the fighting tradition; its fleets were paralysed by +a childish system of tactics which made a decisive battle almost +impossible. Hawke describes the _Portland_, a ship of which he was in +command, as "iron-sick"; the wood was too rotten, that is, to hold the +iron bolts, so that "not a man in the ship had a dry place to sleep +in." His men were "tumbling down with scurvy"; his mainmast was so +pulverised by dry rot that a walking-stick could be thrust into it. Of +another ship, the _Ramilies_--his favourite ship, too--he says, "It +became water-logged whenever it blowed hard." The ships' bottoms grew +a rank crop of grass, slime, shells, barnacles, &c., till the sluggish +vessels needed almost a gale to move them. Marines were not yet +invented; the navy had no uniform. The French ships of that day were +better built, better armed, and sometimes better fought than British +ships. A British 70-gun ship in armament and weight of fire was only +equal to a French ship of 52 guns. Every considerable fight was +promptly followed by a crop of court-martials, in which captains were +tried for misconduct before the enemy, such as to-day is unthinkable. +Admiral Matthews was broken by court-martial for having, with an excess +of daring, pierced the French line off Toulon, and thus sacrificed +pedantic tactics to victory. But the list of court-martials held +during the second quarter of the eighteenth century on British captains +for beginning to fight too late, or for leaving off too soon, would, if +published, astonish this generation. After the fight off Toulon in +1744, two admirals and six post-captains were court-martialled. +Admiral Byng was shot on his own deck, not exactly as Voltaire's _mot_ +describes it, _pour encourager les autres_, and not quite for +cowardice, for Byng was no coward. But he had no gleam of unselfish +patriotic fire, and nothing of the gallant fighting impulse we have +learned to believe is characteristic of the British sailor. He lost +Minorca, and disgraced the British flag because he was too dainty to +face the stern discomforts of a fight. The corrupt and ignoble temper +of English politics--the legacy of Walpole's evil régime--poisoned the +blood of the navy. No one can have forgotten Macaulay's picture of +Newcastle, at that moment Prime Minister of England; the sly, greedy, +fawning politician, as corrupt as Walpole, without his genius; without +honour, without truth, who loved office only less than he loved his own +neck. A Prime Minister like Newcastle made possible an admiral like +Byng. Horace Walpole tells the story of how, when the much-enduring +British public broke into one of its rare but terrible fits of passion +after the disgrace of Minorca, and Newcastle was trembling for his own +head, a deputation from the city of London waited upon him, demanding +that Byng should be put upon his trial. "Oh, indeed," replied +Newcastle, with fawning gestures, "he shall be tried immediately. He +shall be hanged directly!" It was an age of base men, and the +navy--neglected, starved, dishonoured--had lost the great traditions of +the past, and did not yet feel the thrill of the nobler spirit soon to +sweep over it. + +But in 1759 the dazzling intellect and masterful will of the first Pitt +controlled the fortunes of England, and the spirit of the nation was +beginning to awake. Burns and Wilberforce and the younger Pitt were +born that year; Minden was fought; Wolfe saw with dying eyes the French +battalions broken on the plains of Abraham and Canada won. But the +great event of the year is Hawke's defeat of Conflans off Quiberon. +Hawke was the son of a barrister; he entered the navy at fourteen years +of age as a volunteer, obtained the rating of an able seaman at +nineteen years of age, was a third lieutenant at twenty-four, and +became captain at thirty. He knew the details of his profession as +well as any sea-dog of the forecastle, was quite modern in the keen and +humane interest he took in his men, had something of Wellington's +high-minded allegiance to duty, while his fighting had a stern but +sober thoroughness worthy of Cromwell's Ironsides. The British people +came to realise that he was a sailor with the strain of a bulldog in +him; an indomitable fighter, who, ordered to blockade a hostile port, +would hang on, in spite of storms and scurvy, while he had a man left +who could pull a rope or fire a gun; a fighter, too, of the type dear +to the British imagination, who took the shortest course to the enemy's +line, and would exchange broadsides at pistol-shot distance while his +ship floated. + +In 1759 a great French army threatened the shores of England. At Havre +and Dunkirk huge flotillas of flat-bottomed boats lay at their +moorings; 18,000 French veterans were ready to embark. A great fleet +under the command of Conflans--one of the ablest seamen France has ever +produced--was gathered at Brest. A French squadron was to break out of +Toulon, join Conflans, sweep the narrow seas, and convoy the French +expedition to English shores. The strategy, if it had succeeded, might +have changed the fate of the world. + +To Hawke was entrusted the task of blockading Conflans in Brest, and a +greater feat of seamanship is not to be found in British records. The +French fleet consisted of 25 ships, manned by 15,200 men, and carrying +1598 guns. The British fleet numbered 23 ships, with 13,295 men, and +carrying 1596 guns. The two fleets, that is, were nearly equal, the +advantage, on the whole, being on the side of the French. Hawke +therefore had to blockade a fleet equal to his own, the French ships +lying snugly in harbour, the English ships scourged by November gales +and rolling in the huge seas of the Bay of Biscay. Sir Cloudesley +Shovel, himself a seaman of the highest quality, said that "an admiral +would deserve to be broke who kept great ships out after the end of +September, and to be shot if after October." Hawke maintained his +blockade of Brest for six months. His captains broke down in health, +his men were dying from scurvy, the bottoms of his ships grew foul; it +was a stormy season in the stormiest of seas. Again and again the wild +north-west gales blew the British admiral off his cruising ground. But +he fought his way back, sent his ships, singly or in couples, to Torbay +or Plymouth for a moment's breathing space, but himself held on, with a +grim courage and an unslumbering vigilance which have never been +surpassed. On November 6, a tremendous westerly gale swept over the +English cruising-ground. Hawke battled with it for three days, and +then ran, storm-driven and half-dismantled, to Torbay for shelter on +the 10th. He put to sea again on the 12th. The gale had veered round +to the south-west, but blew as furiously as ever, and Hawke was once +more driven back on the 13th to Torbay. He struggled out again on the +14th, to find that the French had escaped! The gale that blew Hawke +from his post brought a French squadron down the Channel, which ran +into Brest and joined Conflans there; and on the 14th, when Hawke was +desperately fighting his way back to his post, Conflans put to sea, +and, with the gale behind him, ran on his course to Quiberon. There he +hoped to brush aside the squadron keeping guard over the French +transports, embark the powerful French force assembled there, and swoop +down on the English coast. The wild weather, Conflans reckoned, would +keep Hawke storm-bound in Torbay till this scheme was carried out. + +But Hawke with his whole fleet, fighting his way in the teeth of the +gale, reached Ushant on the very day Conflans broke out of Brest, and, +fast as the French fleet ran before the gale, the white sails of +Hawke's ships, showing over the stormy rim of the horizon, came on the +Frenchman's track. Hawke's frigates, outrunning those heavy +sea-waggons, his line-of-battle ships, hung on Conflans' rear. The +main body of the British fleet followed, staggering under their +pyramids of sails, with wet decks and the wild north-west gale on their +quarter. Hawke's best sailers gained steadily on the laggards of +Conflans' fleet. Had Hawke obeyed the puerile tactics of his day he +would have dressed his line and refused to attack at all unless he +could bring his entire fleet into action. But, as Hawke himself said +afterwards, he "had determined to attack them in the old way and make +downright work of them," and he signalled his leading ships to attack +the moment they brought an enemy's ship within fire. Conflans could +not abandon his slower ships, and he reluctantly swung round his van +and formed line to meet the attack. + +As the main body of the English came up, the French admiral suddenly +adopted a strategy which might well have baffled a less daring +adversary than Hawke. He ran boldly in shore towards the mouth of the +Vilaine. It was a wild stretch of most dangerous coast; the granite +Breton hills above; splinters of rocky islets, on which the huge sea +rollers tore themselves into white foam, below; and more dangerous +still, and stretching far out to sea, wide reaches of shoal and +quicksand. From the north-west the gale blew more wildly than ever; +the sky was black with flying clouds; on the Breton hills the +spectators clustered in thousands. The roar of the furious breakers +and the shrill note of the gale filled the very air with tumult. +Conflans had pilots familiar with the coast, yet it was bold seamanship +on his part to run down to a lee shore on such a day of tempest. Hawke +had no pilots and no charts; but he saw before him, half hidden in mist +and spray, the great hulls of the ships over which he had kept watch so +long in Brest harbour, and he anticipated Nelson's strategy forty years +afterwards. "Where there is room for the enemy to swing," said Nelson, +"there is room for me to anchor." "Where there's a passage for the +enemy," argued Hawke, "there is a passage for me! Where a Frenchman +can sail, an Englishman can follow! Their pilots shall be ours. If +they go to pieces in the shoals, they will serve as beacons for us." + +And so, on the wild November afternoon, with the great billows that the +Bay of Biscay hurls on that stretch of iron-bound coast riding +shoreward in league-long rollers, Hawke flung himself into the boiling +caldron of rocks and shoals and quicksands. No more daring deed was +ever done at sea. Measured by mere fighting courage, there were +thousands of men in the British fleet as brave as Hawke. But the iron +nerve that, without an instant's pause, in a scene so wild, on a shore +so perilous, and a sea sown so thick with unknown dangers, flung a +whole fleet into battle, was probably possessed by no other man than +Hawke amongst the 30,000 gallant sailors who fought at Quiberon. + +The fight, taking all its incidents into account, is perhaps as +dramatic as anything known in the history of war. The British ships +came rolling on, grim and silent, throwing huge sheets of spray from +their bluff bows. An 80-gun French ship, _Le Formidable_, lay in their +track, and each huge British liner, as it swept past to attack the main +body of the French, vomited on the unfortunate _Le Formidable_ a +dreadful broadside. And upon each British ship, in turn, as it rolled +past in spray and flame, the gallant Frenchman flung an answering +broadside. Soon the thunder of the guns deepened as ship after ship +found its antagonist. The short November day was already darkening; +the thunder of surf and of tempest answered in yet wilder notes the +deep-throated guns; the wildly rolling fleets offered one of the +strangest sights the sea has ever witnessed. + +Soon Hawke himself, in the _Royal George_, of 100 guns, came on, stern +and majestic, seeking some fitting antagonist. This was the great ship +that afterwards sank ignobly at its anchorage at Spithead, with "twice +four hundred men," a tale which, for every English boy, is made famous +in Cowper's immortal ballad. But what an image of terror and of battle +the _Royal George_ seemed as in the bitter November storm she bore down +on the French fleet! Hawke disdained meaner foes, and bade his pilot +lay him alongside Conflans' flagship, _Le Soleil Royal_. Shoals were +foaming on every side, and the pilot warned Hawke he could not carry +the _Royal George_ farther in without risking the ship. "You have done +your duty," said Hawke, "in pointing out the risk; and now lay me +alongside of _Le Soleil Royal_." + +A French 70-gun ship, _La Superbe_, threw itself betwixt Hawke and +Conflans. Slowly the huge mass of the _Royal George_ bore up, so as to +bring its broadside to bear on _La Superbe_, and then the English guns +broke into a tempest of flame. Through spray and mist the masts of the +unfortunate Frenchman seemed to tumble; a tempest of cries was heard; +the British sailors ran back their guns to reload. A sudden gust +cleared the atmosphere, and _La Superbe_ had vanished. Her top-masts +gleamed wet, for a moment, through the green seas, but with her crew of +650 men she had sunk, as though crushed by a thunderbolt, beneath a +single broadside from the _Royal George_. Then from the nearer hills +the crowds of French spectators saw Hawke's blue flag and Conflans' +white pennon approach each other, and the two great ships, with +slanting decks and fluttering canvas, and rigging blown to leeward, +began their fierce duel. Other French ships crowded to their admiral's +aid, and at one time no less than seven French line-of-battle ships +were pouring their fire into the mighty and shot-torn bulk of the +_Royal George_. + +Howe, in the _Magnanime_, was engaged in fierce conflict, meanwhile, +with the _Thesée_, when a sister English ship, the _Montague_, was +flung by a huge sea on the quarter of Howe's ship, and practically +disabled it. The _Torbay_, under Captain Keppel, took Howe's place +with the _Thesée_, and both ships had their lower-deck ports open, so +as to fight with their heaviest guns. The unfortunate Frenchman rolled +to a great sea; the wide-open ports dipped, the green water rushed +through, quenched the fire of the guns, and swept the sailors from +their quarters. The great ship shivered, rolled over still more +wildly, and then, with 700 men, went down like a stone. The British +ship, with better luck and better seamanship, got its ports closed and +was saved. Several French ships by this time had struck, but the sea +was too wild to allow them to be taken possession of. Night was +falling fast, the roar of the tempest still deepened, and no less than +seven huge French liners, throwing their guns overboard, ran for +shelter across the bar of the Vilaine, the pursuing English following +them almost within reach of the spray flung from the rocks. Hawke +then, by signals, brought his fleet to anchor for the night under the +lee of the island of Dumet. + +It was a wild night, filled with the thunder of the surf and the shriek +of the gale, and all through it, as the English ships rode, madly +straining at their anchors, they could hear the sounds of distress +guns. One of the ships that perished that night was a fine English +seventy-four, the _Resolution_. The morning broke as wild as the +night. To leeward two great line-of-battle ships could be seen on the +rocks; but in the very middle of the English fleet, its masts gone, its +hull battered with shot, was the flagship of Conflans, _Le Soleil +Royal_. In the darkness and tempest of the night the unfortunate +Frenchman, all unwitting, had anchored in the very midst of his foes. +As soon as, through the grey and misty light of the November dawn, the +English ships were discovered, Conflans cut his cables and drifted +ashore. The _Essex_, 64 guns, was ordered to pursue her, and her +captain, an impetuous Irishman, obeyed his orders so literally that he +too ran ashore, and the _Essex_ became a total wreck. + +"When I consider," Hawke wrote to the Admiralty, "the season of the +year, the hard gales on the day of action, a flying enemy, the +shortness of the day, and the coast they were on, I can boldly affirm +that all that could possibly be done has been done." History confirms +that judgment. There is no other record of a great sea-fight fought +under conditions so wild, and scarcely any other sea-battle has +achieved results more decisive. Trafalgar itself scarcely exceeds it +in the quality of effectiveness. Quiberon saved England from invasion. +It destroyed for the moment the naval power of France. Its political +results in France cannot be described here, but they were of the first +importance. The victory gave a new complexion to English naval +warfare. Rodney and Howe were Hawke's pupils, Nelson himself, who was +a post-captain when Hawke died, learned his tactics in Hawke's school. +No sailor ever served England better than Hawke. And yet, such is the +irony of human affairs, that on the very day when Hawke was adding the +thunder of his guns to the diapason of surf and tempest off Quiberon, +and crushing the fleet that threatened England with invasion, a London +mob was burning his effigy for having allowed the French to escape his +blockade. + + + + +THE NIGHT ATTACK ON BADAJOS + + + "Hand to hand, and foot to foot; + Nothing there, save death, was mute: + Stroke, and thrust, and flash, and cry + For quarter or for victory, + Mingle there with the volleying thunder, + Which makes the distant cities wonder + How the sounding battle goes, + If with them, or for their foes; + If they must mourn, or must rejoice + In that annihilating voice, + Which pierces the deep hills through and through + With an echo dread and new. + * * * * * * * + From the point of encountering blades to the hilt, + Sabres and swords with blood were gilt; + But the rampart is won, and the spoil begun, + And all but the after carnage done." + --BYRON. + + +It would be difficult to find in the whole history of war a more +thrilling and heroic chapter than that which tells the story of the six +great campaigns of the Peninsular war. This was, perhaps, the least +selfish war of which history tells. It was not a war of aggrandisement +or of conquest: it was waged to deliver not merely Spain, but the whole +of Europe, from that military despotism with which the genius and +ambition of Napoleon threatened to overwhelm the civilised world. And +on what a scale Great Britain, when aroused, can fight, let the +Peninsular war tell. At its close the fleets of Great Britain rode +triumphant on every sea; and in the Peninsula between 1808-14 her land +forces fought and won nineteen pitched battles, made or sustained ten +fierce and bloody sieges, took four great fortresses, twice expelled +the French from Portugal and once from Spain. Great Britain expended +in these campaigns more than 100,000,000 pounds sterling on her own +troops, besides subsidising the forces of Spain and Portugal. This +"nation of shopkeepers" proved that when kindled to action it could +wage war on a scale and in a fashion that might have moved the wonder +of Alexander or of Caesar, and from motives, it may be added, too lofty +for either Caesar or Alexander so much as to comprehend. It is worth +while to tell afresh the story of some of the more picturesque +incidents in that great strife. + +[Illustration: Siege of Badajos, 1812. From Napier's "Peninsular War."] + +On April 6, 1812, Badajos was stormed by Wellington; and the story +forms one of the most tragical and splendid incidents in the military +history of the world. Of "the night of horrors at Badajos," Napier +says, "posterity can scarcely be expected to credit the tale." No +tale, however, is better authenticated, or, as an example of what +disciplined human valour is capable of achieving, better deserves to be +told. Wellington was preparing for his great forward movement into +Spain, the campaign which led to Salamanca, the battle in which "40,000 +Frenchmen were beaten in forty minutes." As a preliminary he had to +capture, under the vigilant eyes of Soult and Marmont, the two great +border fortresses, Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajos. He had, to use Napier's +phrase, "jumped with both feet" on the first-named fortress, and +captured it in twelve days with a loss of 1200 men and 90 officers. + +But Badajos was a still harder task. The city stands on a rocky ridge +which forms the last spur of the Toledo range, and is of extraordinary +strength. The river Rivillas falls almost at right angles into the +Guadiana, and in the angle formed by their junction stands Badajos, +oval in shape, girdled with elaborate defences, with the Guadiana 500 +yards wide as its defence to the north, the Rivillas serving as a wet +ditch to the east, and no less than five great fortified +outposts--Saint Roque, Christoval, Picurina, Pardaleras, and a +fortified bridge-head across the Guadiana--as the outer zone of its +defences. Twice the English had already assailed Badajos, but assailed +it in vain. It was now held by a garrison 5000 strong, under a +soldier, General Phillipson, with a real genius for defence, and the +utmost art had been employed in adding to its defences. On the other +hand Wellington had no means of transport and no battery train, and had +to make all his preparations under the keen-eyed vigilance of the +French. Perhaps the strangest collection of artillery ever employed in +a great siege was that which Wellington collected from every available +quarter and used at Badajos. Of the fifty-two pieces, some dated from +the days of Philip II. and the Spanish Armada, some were cast in the +reign of Philip III., others in that of John IV. of Portugal, who +reigned in 1640; there were 24-pounders of George II.'s day, and +Russian naval guns; the bulk of the extraordinary medley being obsolete +brass engines which required from seven to ten minutes to cool between +each discharge. + +Wellington, however, was strong in his own warlike genius and in the +quality of the troops he commanded. He employed 18,000 men in the +siege, and it may well be doubted whether--if we put the question of +equipment aside--a more perfect fighting instrument than the force +under his orders ever existed. The men were veterans, but the officers +on the whole were young, so there was steadiness in the ranks and fire +in the leading. Hill and Graham covered the siege, Picton and Barnard, +Kempt and Colville led the assaults. The trenches were held by the +third, fourth, and fifth divisions, and by the famous light division. +Of the latter it has been said that the Macedonian phalanx of Alexander +the Great, the Tenth Legion of Caesar, the famous Spanish infantry of +Alva, or the iron soldiers who followed Cortes to Mexico, did not +exceed it in warlike quality. Wellington's troops, too, had a personal +grudge against Badajos, and had two defeats to avenge. Perhaps no +siege in history, as a matter of fact, ever witnessed either more +furious valour in the assault, or more of cool and skilled courage in +the defence. The siege lasted exactly twenty days, and cost the +besiegers 5000 men, or an average loss of 250 per day. It was waged +throughout in stormy weather, with the rivers steadily rising, and the +tempests perpetually blowing; yet the thunder of the attack never +paused for an instant. + +Wellington's engineers attacked the city at the eastern end of the +oval, where the Rivillas served it as a gigantic wet ditch; and the +Picurina, a fortified hill, ringed by a ditch fourteen feet deep, a +rampart sixteen feet high, and a zone of mines, acted as an outwork. +Wellington, curiously enough, believed in night attacks, a sure proof +of his faith in the quality of the men he commanded; and on the eighth +night of the siege, at nine o'clock, 500 men of the third division were +suddenly flung on the Picurina. The fort broke into a ring of flame, +by the light of which the dark figures of the stormers were seen +leaping with fierce hardihood into the ditch and struggling madly up +the ramparts, or tearing furiously at the palisades. But the defences +were strong, and the assailants fell literally in scores. Napier tells +how "the axemen of the light division, compassing the fort like +prowling wolves," discovered the gate at the rear, and so broke into +the fort. The engineer officer who led the attack declares that "the +place would never have been taken had it not been for the coolness of +these men" in absolutely walking round the fort to its rear, +discovering the gate, and hewing it down under a tempest of bullets. +The assault lasted an hour, and in that period, out of the 500 men who +attacked, no less than 300, with 19 officers, were killed or wounded! +Three men out of every five in the attacking force, that is, were +disabled, and yet they won! + +There followed twelve days of furious industry, of trenches pushed +tirelessly forward through mud and wet, and of cannonading that only +ceased when the guns grew too hot to be used. Captain MacCarthy, of +the 50th Regiment, has left a curious little monograph on the siege, +full of incidents, half tragic and half amusing, but which show the +temper of Wellington's troops. Thus he tells how an engineer officer, +when marking out the ground for a breaching-battery very near the wall, +which was always lined with French soldiers in eager search of human +targets, "used to challenge them to prove the perfection of their +shooting by lifting up the skirts of his coat in defiance several times +in the course of his survey; driving in his stakes and measuring his +distances with great deliberation, and concluding by an extra shake of +his coat-tails and an ironical bow before he stepped under shelter!" + +On the night of April 6, Wellington determined to assault. No less +than seven attacks were to be delivered. Two of them--on the +bridge-head across the Guadiana and on the Pardaleras--were mere +feints. But on the extreme right Picton with the third division was to +cross the Rivillas and escalade the castle, whose walls rose +time-stained and grim, from eighteen to twenty-four feet high. Leith +with the fifth division was to attack the opposite or western extremity +of the town, the bastion of St. Vincente, where the glacis was mined, +the ditch deep, and the scarp thirty feet high. Against the actual +breaches Colville and Andrew Barnard were to lead the light division +and the fourth division, the former attacking the bastion of Santa +Maria and the latter the Trinidad. The hour was fixed for ten o'clock, +and the story of that night attack, as told in Napier's immortal prose, +is one of the great battle-pictures of literature; and any one who +tries to tell the tale will find himself slipping insensibly into +Napier's cadences. + +The night was black; a strange silence lay on rampart and trench, +broken from time to time by the deep voices of the sentinels that +proclaimed all was well in Badajos. "_Sentinelle garde à vous_," the +cry of the sentinels, was translated by the British private as "All's +well in Badahoo!" A lighted carcass thrown from the castle discovered +Picton's men standing in ordered array, and compelled them to attack at +once. MacCarthy, who acted as guide across the tangle of wet trenches +and the narrow bridge that spanned the Rivillas, has left an amusing +account of the scene. At one time Picton declared MacCarthy was +leading them wrong, and, drawing his sword, swore he would cut him +down. The column reached the trench, however, at the foot of the +castle walls, and was instantly overwhelmed with the fire of the +besieged. MacCarthy says we can only picture the scene by "supposing +that all the stars, planets, and meteors of the firmament, with +innumerable moons emitting smaller ones in their course, were +descending on the heads of the besiegers." MacCarthy himself, a +typical and gallant Irishman, addressed his general with the exultant +remark, "Tis a glorious night, sir--a glorious night!" and, rushing +forward to the head of the stormers, shouted, "Up with the ladders!" +The five ladders were raised, the troops swarmed up, an officer +leading, but the first files were at once crushed by cannon fire, and +the ladders slipped into the angle of the abutments. "Dreadful their +fall," records MacCarthy of the slaughtered stormers, "and appalling +their appearance at daylight." One ladder remained, and, a private +soldier leading, the eager red-coated crowd swarmed up it. The brave +fellow leading was shot as soon as his head appeared above the parapet; +but the next man to him--again a private--leaped over the parapet, and +was followed quickly by others, and this thin stream of desperate men +climbed singly, and in the teeth of the flashing musketry, up that +solitary ladder, and carried the castle. + +In the meanwhile the fourth and light divisions had flung themselves +with cool and silent speed on the breaches. The storming party of each +division leaped into the ditch. It was mined, the fuse was kindled, +and the ditch, crowded with eager soldiery, became in a moment a sort +of flaming crater, and the storming parties, 500 strong, were in one +fierce explosion dashed to pieces. In the light of that dreadful flame +the whole scene became visible--the black ramparts, crowded with dark +figures and glittering arms, on the one side; on the other the red +columns of the British, broad and deep, moving steadily forward like a +stream of human lava. The light division stood at the brink of the +smoking ditch for an instant, amazed at the sight. "Then," says +Napier, "with a shout that matched even the sound of the explosion," +they leaped into it and swarmed up to the breach. The fourth division +came running up and descended with equal fury, but the ditch opposite +the Trinidad was filled with water; the head of the division leaped +into it, and, as Napier puts it, "about 100 of the fusiliers, the men +of Albuera, perished there." The breaches were impassable. Across the +top of the great slope of broken wall glittered a fringe of +sword-blades, sharp-pointed, keen-edged on both sides, fixed in +ponderous beams chained together and set deep in the ruins. For ten +feet in front the ascent was covered with loose planks, studded with +sharp iron points. Behind the glittering edge of sword-blades stood +the solid ranks of the French, each man supplied with three muskets, +and their fire scourged the British ranks like a tempest. + +Hundreds had fallen, hundreds were still falling; but the British clung +doggedly to the lower slopes, and every few minutes an officer would +leap forward with a shout, a swarm of men would instantly follow him, +and, like leaves blown by a whirlwind, they swept up the ascent. But +under the incessant fire of the French the assailants melted away. One +private reached the sword-blades, and actually thrust his head beneath +them till his brains were beaten out, so desperate was his resolve to +get into Badajos. The breach, as Napier describes it, "yawning and +glittering with steel, resembled the mouth of a huge dragon belching +forth smoke and flame." But for two hours, and until 2000 men had +fallen, the stubborn British persisted in their attacks. Currie, of +the 52nd, a cool and most daring soldier, found a narrow ramp beyond +the Santa Maria breach only half-ruined; he forced his way back through +the tumult and carnage to where Wellington stood watching the scene, +obtained an unbroken battalion from the reserve, and led it towards the +broken ramp. But his men were caught in the whirling madness of the +ditch and swallowed up in the tumult. Nicholas, of the engineers, and +Shaw, of the 43rd, with some fifty soldiers, actually climbed into the +Santa Maria bastion, and from thence tried to force their way into the +breach. Every man was shot down except Shaw, who stood alone on the +bastion. "With inexpressible coolness he looked at his watch, said it +was too late to carry the breaches," and then leaped down! The British +could not penetrate the breach; but they would not retreat. They could +only die where they stood. The buglers of the reserve were sent to the +crest of the glacis to sound the retreat; the troops in the ditch would +not believe the signal to be genuine, and struck their own buglers who +attempted to repeat it. "Gathering in dark groups, and leaning on +their muskets," says Napier, "they looked up in sullen desperation at +Trinidad, while the enemy, stepping out on the ramparts, and aiming +their shots by the light of fireballs, which they threw over, asked as +their victims fell, 'Why they did not come into Badajos.'" + +All this while, curiously enough, Picton was actually in Badajos, and +held the castle securely, but made no attempt to clear the breach. On +the extreme west of the town, however, at the bastion of San Vincente, +the fifth division made an attack as desperate as that which was +failing at the breaches. When the stormers actually reached the +bastion, the Portuguese battalions, who formed part of the attack, +dismayed by the tremendous fire which broke out on them, flung down +their ladders and fled. The British, however, snatched the ladders up, +forced the barrier, jumped into the ditch, and tried to climb the +walls. These were thirty feet high, and the ladders were too short. A +mine was sprung in the ditch under the soldiers' feet; beams of wood, +stones, broken waggons, and live shells were poured upon their heads +from above. Showers of grape from the flank swept the ditch. + +The stubborn soldiers, however, discovered a low spot in the rampart, +placed three ladders against it, and climbed with reckless valour. The +first man was pushed up by his comrades; he, in turn, dragged others +up, and the unconquerable British at length broke through and swept the +bastion. The tumult still stormed and raged at the eastern breaches, +where the men of the light and fourth division were dying sullenly, and +the men of the fifth division marched at speed across the town to take +the great eastern breach in the rear. The streets were empty, but the +silent houses were bright with lamps. The men of the fifth pressed on; +they captured mules carrying ammunition to the breaches, and the +French, startled by the tramp of the fast-approaching column, and +finding themselves taken in the rear, fled. The light and fourth +divisions broke through the gap hitherto barred by flame and steel, and +Badajos was won! + +In that dreadful night assault the English lost 3500 men. "Let it be +considered," says Napier, "that this frightful carnage took place in +the space of less than a hundred yards square--that the slain died not +all suddenly, nor by one manner of death--that some perished by steel, +some by shot, some by water; that some were crushed and mangled by +heavy weights, some trampled upon, some dashed to atoms by the fiery +explosions--that for hours this destruction was endured without +shrinking, and the town was won at last. Let these things be +considered, and it must be admitted a British army bears with it an +awful power. And false would it be to say the French were feeble men. +The garrison stood and fought manfully and with good discipline, +behaving worthily. Shame there was none on any side. Yet who shall do +justice to the bravery of the British soldiers or the noble emulation +of the officers? . . . No age, no nation, ever sent forth braver +troops to battle than those who stormed Badajos." + + + + +THE FIRE-SHIPS IN THE BASQUE ROADS + + + "Ship after ship, the whole night long, + their high-built galleons came; + Ship after ship, the whole night long, + with her battle-thunder and flame; + Ship after ship, the whole night long, + drew back with her dead and her shame. + For some were sunk and many were shattered, + and so could fight us no more-- + God of battles, was ever a battle like this + in the world before?" + --TENNYSON. + + +On the night of April 11, 1809, Lord Cochrane steered his floating mine +against the gigantic boom that covered the French fleet lying in Aix +Roads. The story is one of the most picturesque and exciting in the +naval annals of Great Britain. Marryat has embalmed the great +adventure and its chief actor in the pages of "Frank Mildmay," and Lord +Cochrane himself--like the Earl of Peterborough in the seventeenth +century, who captured Barcelona with a handful of men, and Gordon in +the nineteenth century, who won great battles in China walking-stick in +hand--was a man who stamped himself, as with characters of fire, upon +the popular imagination. + +To the courage of a knight-errant Cochrane added the shrewd and +humorous sagacity of a Scotchman. If he had commanded fleets he would +have rivalled the victories of Nelson, and perhaps even have outshone +the Nile and Trafalgar. And to warlike genius of the first order +Cochrane added a certain weird and impish ingenuity which his enemies +found simply resistless. Was there ever a cruise in naval history like +that of Cochrane in his brig misnamed the _Speedy_, a mere coasting tub +that would neither steer nor tack, and whose entire broadside Cochrane +himself could carry in his pockets! But in this wretched little brig, +with its four-pounders, Cochrane captured in one brief year more than +50 vessels carrying an aggregate of 122 guns, took 500 prisoners, kept +the whole Spanish coast, off which he cruised, in perpetual alarm, and +finished by attacking and capturing a Spanish frigate, the _Gamo_, of +32 heavy guns and 319 men. What we have called the impish daring and +resource of Cochrane is shown in this strange fight. He ran the little +_Speedy_ close under the guns of the huge _Gamo_, and the Spanish ship +was actually unable to depress its guns sufficiently to harm its tiny +antagonist. When the Spaniards tried to board, Cochrane simply shoved +his pigmy craft a few yards away from the side of his foe, and this +curious fight went on for an hour. Then, in his turn, Cochrane +boarded, leaving nobody but the doctor on board the Speedy. But he +played the Spaniards a characteristic trick. One half his men boarded +the Gamo by the head, with their faces elaborately blackened; and when, +out of the white smoke forward, some forty demons with black faces +broke upon the astonished Spaniards, they naturally regarded the whole +business as partaking of the black art, and incontinently fled below! +The number of Spaniards killed and wounded in this fight by the little +_Speedy_ exceeded the number of its own entire crew; and when the fight +was over, 45 British sailors had to keep guard over 263 Spanish +prisoners. + +Afterwards, in command of the _Impérieuse_, a fine frigate, Cochrane +played a still more dashing part on the Spanish coast, destroying +batteries, cutting off supplies from the French ports, blowing up coast +roads, and keeping perspiring battalions of the enemy marching to and +fro to meet his descents. On the French coast, again, Cochrane held +large bodies of French troops paralysed by his single frigate. He +proposed to the English Government to take possession of the French +islands in the Bay of Biscay, and to allow him, with a small squadron +of frigates, to operate against the French seaboard. Had this request +been granted, he says, "neither the Peninsular war nor its enormous +cost to the nation from 1809 onwards would ever have been heard of!" +"It would have been easy," he adds, "as it always will be easy in case +of future wars, so to harass the French coasts as to find full +employment for their troops at home, and so to render operations in +foreign countries impossible." If England and France were once more +engaged in war--_absit omen_!--the story of Cochrane's exploits on the +Spanish and French coasts might prove a very valuable inspiration and +object-lesson. Cochrane's professional reward for his great services +in the _Impérieuse_ was an official rebuke for expending more sails, +stores, gunpowder and shot than any other captain afloat in the same +time! + +The fight in the Basque Roads, however--or rather in the Aix Roads--has +great historical importance. It crowned the work of Trafalgar. It +finally destroyed French power on the sea, and gave England an absolute +supremacy. No fleet actions took place after its date between "the +meteor flag" and the tricolour, for the simple reason that no French +fleet remained in existence. Cochrane's fire-ships completed the work +of the Nile and Trafalgar. + +Early in 1809 the French fleet in Brest, long blockaded by Lord +Gambier, caught the British napping, slipped out unobserved, raised the +blockades at L'Orient and Rochefort, added the squadrons lying in these +two places to its own strength, and, anchoring in the Aix Roads, +prepared for a dash on the West Indies. The success with which the +blockade at Brest had been evaded, and the menace offered to the West +Indian trade, alarmed the British Admiralty. Lord Gambier, with a +powerful fleet, kept guard outside the Aix Roads; but if the blockade +failed once, it might fail again. Eager to destroy the last fleet +France possessed, the Admiralty strongly urged Lord Gambier to attack +the enemy with fire-ships; but Gambier, grown old, had visibly lost +nerve, and he pronounced the use of fire-ships a "horrible and +unchristian mode of warfare." Lord Mulgrave, the first Lord of the +Admiralty, knowing Cochrane's ingenuity and daring, sent for him, and +proposed to send him to the Basque Roads to invent and execute some +plan for destroying the French fleet. The Scotchman was uppermost in +Cochrane in this interview, and he declined the adventure on the ground +that to send a young post-captain to execute such an enterprise would +be regarded as an insult by the whole fleet, and he would have every +man's hand against him. Lord Mulgrave, however, was peremptory, and +Cochrane yielded, but on reaching the blockading fleet was met by a +tempest of wrath from all his seniors. "Why," they asked, "was +Cochrane sent out? We could have done the business as well as he. Why +did not Lord Gambier let us do it?" Lord Gambier, who had fallen into +a sort of gentle and pious melancholy, was really more occupied in +distributing tracts among his crews than in trying to reach his +enemies; and Harvey, his second in command, an old Trafalgar sea-dog, +when Cochrane arrived with his commission, interviewed his admiral, +denounced him in a white-heat on his own quarter-deck, and ended by +telling him that "if Nelson had been there he would not have anchored +in the Basque Roads at all, but would have dashed at the enemy at +once." This outburst, no doubt, relieved Admiral Harvey's feelings, +but it cost him his flag, and he was court-martialled, and dismissed +from the service for the performance. + +Cochrane, however, set himself with characteristic daring and coolness +to carry out his task. The French fleet consisted of one huge ship of +120 guns, two of 80 guns, eight seventy-fours, a 50-gun ship, and two +40-gun frigates--fourteen ships in all. It was drawn up in two lines +under the shelter of powerful shore batteries, with the frigates as +out-guards. As a protection against fire-ships, a gigantic boom had +been constructed half a mile in length, forming two sides of a +triangle, with the apex towards the British fleet. Over this huge +floating barrier powerful boat squadrons kept watch every night. +Cochrane's plan of attack was marked by real genius. He constructed +three explosion vessels, floating mines on the largest scale. Each of +these terrific vessels contained no less than _fifteen hundred_ barrels +of gunpowder, bound together with cables, with wedges and moistened +sand rammed down betwixt them; forming, in brief, one gigantic bomb, +with 1500 barrels of gunpowder for its charge. On the top of this huge +powder magazine was piled, as a sort of agreeable condiment, hundreds +of live shells and thousands of hand grenades; the whole, by every form +of marine ingenuity, compacted into a solid mass which, at the touch of +a fuse, could be turned into a sort of floating Vesuvius. These were +to be followed by a squadron of fire-ships. Cochrane who, better, +perhaps, than any soldier or sailor that ever lived, knew how to strike +at his foes through their own imagination, calculated that when these +three huge explosion vessels, with twenty fire-ships behind them, went +off in a sort of saltpetre earthquake, the astonished Frenchmen would +imagine _every_ fire-ship to be a floating mine, and, instead of trying +to board them and divert them from their fleet, would be simply anxious +to get out of their way with the utmost possible despatch. The French, +meanwhile, having watched their enemy lying inert for weeks, and +confident in the gigantic boom which acted as their shield to the +front, and the show of batteries which kept guard over them on either +flank and to the rear, awaited the coming attack in a spirit of +half-contemptuous gaiety. They had struck their topmasts and unbent +their sails, and by way of challenge dressed their fleet with flags. +One ship, the _Calcutta_, had been captured from the English, and by +way of special insult they hung out the British ensign under that +ship's quarter-gallery, an affront whose deadly quality only a sailor +can understand. + +The night of the 9th set in stormily. The tide ran fast, and the skies +were black and the sea heavy--so heavy, indeed, that the boats of the +English fleet which were intended to follow and cover the fire-ships +never left the side of the flagship. Cochrane, however, had called the +officers commanding the fire-ships on board his frigate, given them +their last instructions, and at half-past eight P.M. he himself, +accompanied only by a lieutenant and four sailors, cut the moorings of +the chief explosion vessel, and drifted off towards the French fleet. +Seated, that is, on top of 1500 barrels of gunpowder and a sort of +haystack of grenades, he calmly floated off, with a squadron of +fire-ships behind him, towards the French fleet, backed by great shore +batteries, with seventy-three armed boats as a line of skirmishers. +"It seemed to me," says Marryat, who was an actor in the scene, "like +entering the gates of hell!" + +The great floating mine drifted on through blackness and storm till, +just as it struck the boom, Cochrane, who previously made his five +assistants get into the boat, with his own hand lit the fuse and in +turn jumped into the boat. How frantically the little crew pulled to +get clear of the ignited mine may be imagined; but wind and sea were +against them. The fuse, which was calculated to burn for twelve +minutes, lasted for only five. Then the 1500 barrels of gunpowder went +simultaneously off, peopling the black sky with a flaming torrent of +shells, grenades, and rockets, and raising a mountainous wave that +nearly swamped the unfortunate boat and its crew. The fault of the +fuse, however, saved the lives of the daring six, as the missiles from +the exploding vessel fell far _outside_ them. "The effect," says +Cochrane, who, like Caesar, could write history as well as make it, +"constituted one of the grandest artificial spectacles imaginable. For +a moment the sky was red with the lurid glare arising from the +simultaneous ignition of 1500 barrels of powder. On this gigantic +flash subsiding the air seemed alive with shells, grenades, rockets, +and masses of timber, the wreck of the shattered vessel." Then came +blackness, punctuated in flame by the explosion of the next floating +mine. Then, through sea-wrack and night, came the squadron of +fire-ships, each one a pyramid of kindling flame. But the first +explosion had achieved all that Cochrane expected. It dismissed the +huge boom into chips, and the French fleet lay open to attack. The +captain of the second explosion vessel was so determined to do his work +effectually that the entire crew was actually blown out of the vessel +and one member of the party killed, while the toil of the boats in +which, after the fire-ships had been abandoned, they and their crews +had to fight their way back in the teeth of the gale, was so severe +that several men died of mere fatigue. The physical effects of the +floating mines and the drifting fire-ships, as a matter of fact, were +not very great. The boom, indeed, was destroyed, but out of twenty +fire-ships only four actually reached the enemy's position, and not one +did any damage. Cochrane's explosion vessels, however, were addressed +not so much to the French ships as to the alarmed imagination of French +sailors, and the effect achieved was overwhelming. All the French +ships save one cut or slipped their cables, and ran ashore in wild +confusion. Cochrane cut the moorings of his explosion vessel at +half-past eight o'clock; by midnight, or in less than four hours, the +boom had been destroyed, and thirteen French ships--the solitary fleet +that remained to France--were lying helplessly ashore. Never, perhaps, +was a result so great achieved in a time so brief, in a fashion so +dramatic, or with a loss so trifling. + +When the grey morning broke, with the exception of two vessels, the +whole French fleet was lying helplessly aground on the Palles shoal. +Some were lying on their bilge with the keel exposed, others were +frantically casting their guns overboard and trying to get afloat +again. Meanwhile Gambier and the British fleet were lying fourteen +miles distant in the Basque Roads, and Cochrane in the _Impérieuse_ was +watching, with powder-blackened face, the curious spectacle of the +entire fleet he had driven ashore, and the yet more amazing spectacle +of a British fleet declining to come in and finally destroy its enemy. +For here comes a chapter in the story on which Englishmen do not love +to dwell. Cochrane tried to whip the muddy-spirited Gambier into +enterprise by emphatic and quick-following signal. At six A.M. he +signalled, "_All the enemy's ships except two are on shore_," but this +extracted from drowsy Gambier no other response than the answering +pennant. Cochrane repeated his impatient signals at half-hour +intervals, and with emphasis ever more shrill--"_The enemy's ships can +be destroyed_"; "_Half the fleet can destroy the enemy_"; "_The +frigates alone can destroy the enemy_"; but still no response save the +indifferent pennant. As the tide flowed in, the French ships showed +signs of getting afloat, and Cochrane signalled, "_The enemy is +preparing to heave off_", even this brought no response from the +pensive Gambier. At eleven o'clock the British fleet weighed and stood +in, but then, to Cochrane's speechless wrath, re-anchored at a distance +of three and a half miles, and by this time two of the French +three-deckers were afloat. + +Gambier finally despatched a single mortar-vessel in to bombard the +stranded ships, but by this time Cochrane had become desperate. He +adopted a device which recalls Nelson's use of his blind eye at +Copenhagen. At one o'clock he hove his anchor atrip and drifted, stern +foremost, towards the enemy. He dare not make sail lest his trick +should be detected and a signal of recall hoisted on the flagship. +Cochrane coolly determined, in a word, to force the hand of his +sluggish admiral. He drifted with his solitary frigate down to the +hostile fleet and batteries, which Gambier thought it scarcely safe to +attack with eleven ships of the line. When near the enemy's position +he suddenly made sail and ran up the signal, "_In want of assistance_"; +next followed a yet more peremptory message, "_In distress_." Even +Gambier could not see an English frigate destroyed under the very guns +of an English fleet without moving to its help, and he sent some of his +ships in. But meanwhile, Cochrane, though technically "in distress," +was enjoying what he must have felt to be a singularly good time. He +calmly took up a position which enabled him to engage an 80-gun ship, +one of 74 guns, and, in particular, that French ship which, on the +previous day, had hung the British flag under her quarter-gallery. For +half-an-hour he fought these three ships single-handed, and the +Calcutta actually struck to him, its captain afterwards being +court-martialled and shot by the French themselves for surrendering to +a frigate. Then the other British ships came up, and ship after ship +of the French fleet struck or was destroyed. Night fell before the +work was completed, and during the night Gambier, for some mysterious +reason, recalled his ships; but Cochrane, in the _Impérieuse_, clung to +his post. He persuaded Captain Seymour, in the _Pallas_, to remain +with him, with four brigs, and with this tiny force he proposed to +attack _L'Ocean_, the French flagship of 120 guns, which had just got +afloat; but Gambier peremptorily recalled him at dawn, before the fight +was renewed. Never before or since was a victory so complete and so +nearly bloodless. Five seamen were killed in the fire-ships, and five +in the attack on the French fleet and about twenty wounded; and with +this microscopic "butcher's bill" a great fleet, the last naval hope of +France, was practically destroyed. For so much does the genius and +daring of a single man count! + +That the French fleet was not utterly destroyed was due solely to +Gambier's want of resolution. And yet, such is the irony of history, +that of the two chief actors in this drama, Gambier, who marred it, was +rewarded with the thanks of Parliament; Cochrane, who gave to it all +its unique splendour, had his professional career abruptly terminated! + +That wild night in the Aix Roads, and the solitary and daring attack on +the French fleet which followed next day, were practically Cochrane's +last acts as a British sailor. He achieved dazzling exploits under the +flag of Chili [Transcriber's note: Chile?] and Brazil; but the most +original warlike genius the English navy has ever known, fought no more +battles for England. + + + + +THE MAN WHO SPOILED NAPOLEON'S "DESTINY"! + + + "Oh, who shall lightly say that Fame + Is nothing but an empty name! + Whilst in that sound there is a charm + The nerves to brace, the heart to warm. + As, thinking of the mighty dead, + The young from slothful couch will start, + And vow, with lifted hands outspread, + Like them to act a noble part?" + --JOANNA BAILLIE. + + +From March 18 to May 20, 1799--for more than sixty days and nights, +that is--a little, half-forgotten, and more than half-ruined Syrian +town was the scene of one of the fiercest and most dramatic sieges +recorded in military history. And rarely has there been a struggle so +apparently one-sided. A handful of British sailors and Turkish +irregulars were holding Acre, a town without regular defences, against +Napoleon, the most brilliant military genius of his generation, with an +army of 10,000 war-hardened veterans, the "Army of Italy"--soldiers who +had dared the snows of the Alps and conquered Italy, and to whom +victory was a familiar experience. In their ranks military daring had +reached, perhaps, its very highest point. And yet the sailors inside +that ring of crumbling wall won! At the blood-stained trenches of Acre +Napoleon experienced his first defeat; and, years after, at St. Helena, +he said of Sir Sidney Smith, the gallant sailor who baffled him, "That +man made me miss my destiny." It is a curious fact that one Englishman +thwarted Napoleon's career in the East, and another ended his career in +the West, and it may be doubted which of the two Napoleon hated +most--Wellington, who finally overthrew him at Waterloo, or Sidney +Smith, who, to use Napoleon's own words, made him "miss his destiny," +and exchange the empire of the East for a lonely pinnacle of rock in +the Atlantic. + +Sidney Smith was a sailor of the school of Nelson and of Dundonald--a +man, that is, with a spark of that warlike genius which begins where +mechanical rules end. He was a man of singular physical beauty, with a +certain magnetism and fire about him which made men willing to die for +him, and women who had never spoken to him fall headlong in love with +him. His whole career is curiously picturesque. He became a middy at +the tender age of eleven years; went through fierce sea-fights, and was +actually mate of the watch when fourteen years old. He was a +fellow-middy with William IV. in the fight off Cape St. Vincent, became +commander when he was eighteen years of age, and captain before he was +quite nineteen. But the British marine, even in those tumultuous days, +scarcely yielded enough of the rapture of fighting to this post-captain +in his teens. He took service under the Swedish flag, saw hard +fighting against the Russians, became the close personal friend of the +King, and was knighted by him. One of the feats at this period of his +life with which tradition, with more or less of plausibility, credits +Sidney Smith, is that of swimming by night through the Russian fleet, a +distance of two miles, carrying a letter enclosed in a bladder to the +Swedish admiral. + +Sidney Smith afterwards entered the Turkish service. When war broke +out betwixt France and England in 1790, he purchased a tiny craft at +Smyrna, picked up in that port a hybrid crew, and hurried to join Lord +Hood, who was then holding Toulon. When the British abandoned the +port--and it is curious to recollect that the duel between Sidney Smith +and Napoleon, which reached its climax at Acre, began here--Sidney +Smith volunteered to burn the French fleet, a task which he performed +with an audacity and skill worthy of Dundonald or Nelson, and for which +the French never forgave him. + +Sidney Smith was given the command of an English frigate, and fought a +dozen brilliant fights in the Channel. He carried with his boats a +famous French privateer off Havre de Grace; but during the fight on the +deck of the captured ship it drifted into the mouth of the Seine above +the forts. The wind dropped, the tide was too strong to be stemmed, +and Sidney Smith himself was captured. He had so harried the French +coast that the French refused to treat him as an ordinary prisoner of +war, and threw him into that ill-omened prison, the Temple, from whose +iron-barred windows the unfortunate sailor watched for two years the +horrors of the Reign of Terror in its last stages, the tossing crowds, +the tumbrils rolling past, crowded with victims for the guillotine. +Sidney Smith escaped at last by a singularly audacious trick. Two +confederates, dressed in dashing uniform, one wearing the dress of an +adjutant, and the other that of an officer of still higher rank, +presented themselves at the Temple with forged orders for the transfer +of Sidney Smith. + +The governor surrendered his prisoner, but insisted on sending a guard +of six men with him. The sham adjutant cheerfully acquiesced, but, +after a moment's pause, turned to Sidney Smith, and said, if he would +give his parole as an officer not to attempt to escape, they would +dispense with the escort. Sidney Smith, with due gravity, replied to +his confederate, "Sir, I swear on the faith of an officer to accompany +you wherever you choose to conduct me." The governor was satisfied, +and the two sham officers proceeded to "conduct" their friend with the +utmost possible despatch to the French coast. Another English officer +who had escaped--Captain Wright--joined Sidney Smith outside Rouen, and +the problem was how to get through the barriers without a passport. +Smith sent Wright on first, and he was duly challenged for his passport +by the sentinel; whereupon Sidney Smith, with a majestic air of +official authority, marched up and said in faultless Parisian French, +"I answer for this citizen, I know him;" whereupon the deluded sentinel +saluted and allowed them both to pass! + +Sidney Smith's escape from the Temple made him a popular hero in +England. He was known to have great influence with the Turkish +authorities, and he was sent to the East in the double office of +envoy-extraordinary to the Porte, and commander of the squadron at +Alexandria. By one of the curious coincidences which marked Sidney +Smith's career, he became acquainted while in the Temple with a French +Royalist officer named Philippeaux, an engineer of signal ability, and +who had been a schoolfellow and a close chum of Napoleon himself at +Brienne. Smith took his French friend with him to the East, and he +played a great part in the defence of Acre. Napoleon had swept north +through the desert to Syria, had captured Gaza and Jaffa, and was about +to attack Acre, which lay between him and his ultimate goal, +Constantinople. Here Sidney Smith resolved to bar his way, and in his +flagship the _Tigre_, with the _Theseus_, under Captain Miller, and two +gunboats, he sailed to Acre to assist in its defence. Philippeaux took +charge of the fortifications, and thus, in the breaches of a remote +Syrian town, the quondam prisoner of the Temple and the ancient school +friend of Napoleon joined hands to wreck that dream of a great Eastern +empire which lurked in the cells of Napoleon's masterful intellect. + +Acre represents a blunted arrow-head jutting out from a point in the +Syrian coast. Napoleon could only attack, so to speak, the neck of the +arrow, which was protected by a ditch and a weak wall, and flanked by +towers; but Sidney Smith, having command of the sea, could sweep the +four faces of the town with the fire of his guns, as well as command +all the sea-roads in its vicinity. He guessed, from the delay of the +French in opening fire, that they were waiting for their siege-train to +arrive by sea. He kept vigilant watch, pounced on the French flotilla +as it rounded the promontory of Mount Carmel, captured nine of the +vessels, carried them with their guns and warlike material to Acre, and +mounted his thirty-four captured pieces on the batteries of the town. +Thus the disgusted French saw the very guns which were intended to +batter down the defences of Acre--and which were glorious with the +memories of a dozen victories in Italy--frowning at them, loaded with +English powder and shot, and manned by English sailors. + +It is needless to say that a siege directed by Napoleon--the siege of +what he looked upon as a contemptible and almost defenceless town, the +single barrier betwixt his ambition and its goal--was urged with +amazing fire and vehemence. The wall was battered day and night, a +breach fifty feet wide made, and more than twelve assaults delivered, +with all the fire and daring of which French soldiers, gallantly led, +are capable. So sustained was the fighting, that on one occasion the +combat raged in the ditch and on the breach for _twenty-five_ +successive hours. So close and fierce was it that one half-ruined +tower was held by _both_ besiegers and besieged for twelve hours in +succession, and neither would yield. At the breach, again, the two +lines of desperately fighting men on repeated occasions clashed +bayonets together, and wrestled and stabbed and died, till the +survivors were parted by the barrier of the dead which grew beneath +their feet. + +Sidney Smith, however, fought like a sailor, and with all the cool +ingenuity and resourcefulness of a sailor. His ships, drawn up on two +faces of the town, smote the French stormers on either flank till they +learned to build up a dreadful screen, made up partly of stones plucked +from the breach, and partly of the dead bodies of their comrades. +Smith, too, perched guns in all sorts of unexpected positions--a +24-pounder in the lighthouse, under the command of an exultant middy; +two 68-pounders under the charge of "old Bray," the carpenter of the +_Tigre_, and, as Sidney Smith himself reports, "one of the bravest and +most intelligent men I ever served with"; and yet a third gun, a French +brass 18-pounder, in one of the ravelins, under a master's mate. Bray +dropped his shells with the nicest accuracy in the centre of the French +columns as they swept up the breach, and the middy perched aloft, and +the master's mate from the ravelin, smote them on either flank with +case-shot, while the _Theseus_ and the _Tigre_ added to the tumult the +thunder of their broadsides, and the captured French gunboats +contributed the yelp of their lighter pieces. + +The great feature of the siege, however, was the fierceness and the +number of the sorties. Sidney Smith's sorties actually exceeded in +number and vehemence Napoleon's assaults. He broke the strength of +Napoleon's attacks, that is, by anticipating them. A crowd of Turkish +irregulars, with a few naval officers leading them, and a solid mass of +Jack-tars in the centre, would break from a sally-port, or rush +vehemently down through the gap in the wall, and scour the French +trenches, overturn the gabions, spike the guns, and slay the guards. +The French reserves hurried fiercely up, always scourged, however, by +the flank fire of the ships, and drove back the sortie. But the +process was renewed the same night or the next day with unlessened fire +and daring. The French engineers, despairing of success on the +surface, betook themselves to mining; whereupon the besieged made a +desperate sortie and reached the mouth of the mine. Lieutenant Wright, +who led them, and who had already received two shots in his sword-arm, +leaped down the mine followed by his sailors, slew the miners, +destroyed their work, and safely regained the town. + +The British sustained one startling disaster. Captain Miller of the +_Theseus_, whose ammunition ran short, carefully collected such French +shells as fell into the town without exploding, and duly returned them +alight, and supplied with better fuses, to their original senders. He +had collected some seventy shells on the _Theseus_, and was preparing +them for use against the French. The carpenter of the ship was +endeavouring to get the fuses out of the loaded shells with an auger, +and a middy undertook to assist him, in characteristic middy fashion, +with a mallet and a spike-nail. A huge shell under his treatment +suddenly exploded on the quarter-deck of the _Theseus_, and the other +sixty-nine shells followed suit. The too ingenious middy disappeared +into space; forty seamen, with Captain Miller himself, were killed; and +forty-seven, including the two lieutenants of the ship, the chaplain, +and the surgeon, were seriously wounded. The whole of the poop was +blown to pieces, and the ship was left a wreck with fire breaking out +at half-a-dozen points. The fire was subdued, and the _Theseus_ +survived in a half-gutted condition, but the disaster was a severe blow +to Sir Sidney's resources. + +As evening fell on May 7, the white sails of a fleet, became visible +over the sea rim, and all firing ceased while besiegers and besieged +watched the approaching ships. Was it a French fleet or a Turkish? +Did it bring succour to the besieged or a triumph to the besiegers? +The approaching ships flew the crescent. It was the Turkish fleet from +Rhodes bringing reinforcements. But the wind was sinking, and +Napoleon, who had watched the approach of the hostile ships with +feelings which may be guessed, calculated that there remained six hours +before they could cast anchor in the bay. Eleven assaults had been +already made, in which eight French generals and the best officers in +every branch of the service had perished. There remained time for a +twelfth assault. He might yet pluck victory from the very edge of +defeat. At ten o'clock that night the French artillery was brought up +close to the counterscarp to batter down the curtain, and a new breach +was made. Lannes led his division against the shot-wrecked tower, and +General Rimbaud took his grenadiers with a resistless rush through the +new breach. All night the combat raged, the men fighting desperately +hand to hand. When the rays of the level morning sun broke through the +pall of smoke which hung sullenly over the combatants, the tricolour +flew on the outer angle of the tower, and still the ships bringing +reinforcements had not reached the harbour! Sidney Smith, at this +crisis, landed every man from the English ships, and led them, pike in +hand, to the breach, and the shouting and madness of the conflict awoke +once more. To use Sidney Smith's own words, "the muzzles of the +muskets touched each other--the spear-heads were locked together." But +Sidney Smith's sailors, with the brave Turks who rallied to their help, +were not to be denied. + +Lannes' grenadiers were tumbled headlong from the tower, Lannes himself +being wounded, while Rimbaud's brave men, who were actually past the +breach, were swept into ruin, their general killed, and the French +soldiers within the breach all captured or slain. + +One of the dramatic incidents of the siege was the assault made by +Kleber's troops. They had not taken part in the siege hitherto, but +had won a brilliant victory over the Arabs at Mount Tabor. On reaching +the camp, flushed with their triumph, and seeing how slight were the +apparent defences of the town, they demanded clamorously to be led to +the assault. Napoleon consented. Kleber, who was of gigantic stature, +with a head of hair worthy of a German music-master or of a Soudan +dervish, led his grenadiers to the edge of the breach and stood there, +while with gesture and voice--a voice audible even above the fierce and +sustained crackle of the musketry--he urged his men on. Napoleon, +standing on a gun in the nearest French battery, watched the sight with +eager eyes--the French grenadiers running furiously up the breach, the +grim line of levelled muskets that barred it, the sudden roar of the +English guns as from every side they smote the staggering French +column. Vainly single officers struggled out of the torn mass, ran +gesticulating up the breach, and died at the muzzles of the British +muskets. The men could not follow, or only died as they leaped +forward. The French grenadiers, still fighting, swearing, and +screaming, were swept back past the point where Kleber stood, hoarse +with shouting, black with gunpowder, furious with rage. The last +assault on Acre had failed. The French sick, field artillery, and +baggage silently defiled that night to the rear. The heavy guns were +buried in the sand, and after sixty days of open trenches Napoleon, for +the first time in his life, though not for the last, ordered a retreat. + +Napoleon buried in the breaches of Acre not merely 3000 of his bravest +troops, but the golden dream of his life. "In that miserable fort," as +he said, "lay the fate of the East." Napoleon expected to find in it +the pasha's treasures, and arms for 300,000 men. "When I have captured +it," he said to Bourrienne, "I shall march upon Damascus and Aleppo. I +shall arm the tribes; I shall reach Constantinople; I shall overturn +the Turkish Empire; I shall found in the East a new and grand empire. +Perhaps I shall return to Paris by Adrianople and Vienna!" Napoleon +was cheerfully willing to pay the price of what religion he had to +accomplish this dream. He was willing, that is, to turn Turk. Henri +IV. said "Paris was worth a mass," and was not the East, said Napoleon, +"worth a turban and a pair of trousers?" In his conversation at St. +Helena with Las Cases he seriously defended this policy. His army, he +added, would have shared his "conversion," and have taken their new +creed with a Parisian laugh. "Had I but captured Acre," Napoleon +added, "I would have reached Constantinople and the Indies; I would +have changed the face of the world. But that man made me miss my +destiny." + +Las Cases dwells upon the curious correspondence which existed between +Philippeaux, who engineered the defences of Acre, and Napoleon, who +attacked it. "They were," he says, "of the same nation, of the same +age, of the same rank, of the same corps, and of the same school." But +if Philippeaux was in a sense the brains of the defence, Sidney Smith +was the sword. There was, perhaps, it may be regretfully confessed, a +streak of the charlatan in him. He shocked the judgment of more sober +men. Wellington's stern, sober sense was affronted by him, and he +described him as "a mere vaporiser." "Of all the men whom I ever knew +who have any reputation," Wellington told Croker "the man who least +deserved it is Sir Sidney Smith." Wellington's temperament made it +impossible for him to understand Sidney Smith's erratic and dazzling +genius. Napoleon's phrase is the best epitaph of the man who defended +Acre. It is true Napoleon himself describes Sidney Smith afterwards as +"a young fool," who was "capable of invading France with 800 men." But +such "young fools" are often the makers of history. + + + + +GREAT SEA-DUELS + + + "The captain stood on the carronade: 'First Lieutenant,' says he, + 'Send all my merry men after here, for they must list to me. + I haven't the gift of the gab, my sons, because I'm bred to the sea. + That ship there is a Frenchman, who means to fight with we. + And odds, bobs, hammer and tongs, long as I've been to sea, + I've fought 'gainst every odds--but I've gained the victory! + * * * * * * * * + That ship there is a Frenchman, and if we don't take she, + 'Tis a thousand bullets to one, that she will capture we. + I haven't the gift of the gab, my boys; so each man to his gun; + If she's not mine in half-an-hour, I'll flog each mother's son. + For odds, bobs, hammer and tongs, long as I've been to sea, + I've fought 'gainst every odds--and I've gained the victory!'" + --MARRYAT. + + +British naval history is rich in the records of what may be called +great sea-duels--combats, that is, of single ship against single ship, +waged often with extraordinary fierceness and daring. They resemble +the combat of knight against knight, with flash of cannon instead of +thrust of lance, and the floor of the lonely sea for the trampled lists. + +He must have a very slow-beating imagination who cannot realise the +picturesqueness of these ancient sea-duels. Two frigates cruising for +prey catch the far-off gleam of each other's topsails over the rim of +the horizon. They approach each other warily, two high-sniffing +sea-mastiffs. A glimpse of fluttering colour--the red flag and the +_drapeau blanc_, or the Union Jack and the tricolour--reveals to each +ship its foe. The men stand grimly at quarters; the captain, with +perhaps a solitary lieutenant, and a middy as aide-de-camp, is on his +quarter-deck. There is the manoeuvring for the weather-gage, the +thunder of the sudden broadside, the hurtle and crash of the shot, the +stern, quick word of command as the clumsy guns are run in to be +reloaded and fired again and again with furious haste. The ships drift +into closer wrestle. Masts and yards come tumbling on to the +blood-splashed decks. There is the grinding shock of the great wooden +hulls as they meet, the wild leap of the boarders, the clash of cutlass +on cutlass, the shout of victory, the sight of the fluttering flag as +it sinks reluctantly from the mizzen of the beaten ship. Then the +smoke drifts away, and on the tossing sea-floor lie, little better than +dismantled wrecks, victor and vanquished. + +No great issue, perhaps, ever hung upon these lonely sea-combats; but +as object-lessons in the qualities by which the empire has been won, +and by which it must be maintained, these ancient sea-fights have real +and permanent value. What better examples of cool hardihood, of +chivalrous loyalty to the flag, of self-reliant energy, need be +imagined or desired? The generation that carries the heavy burden of +the empire to-day cannot afford to forget the tale of such exploits. + +One of the most famous frigate fights in British history is that +between the _Arethusa_ and _La Belle Poule_, fought off Brest on June +17, 1778. Who is not familiar with the name and fame of "the saucy +_Arethusa_"? Yet there is a curious absence of detail as to the fight. +The combat, indeed, owes its enduring fame to two somewhat irrelevant +circumstances--first, that it was fought when France and England were +not actually at war, but were trembling on the verge of it. The sound +of the _Arethusa's_ guns, indeed, was the signal of war between the two +nations. The other fact is that an ingenious rhymester--scarcely a +poet--crystallised the fight into a set of verses in which there is +something of the true smack of the sea, and an echo, if not of the +cannon's roar, yet of the rough-voiced mirth of the forecastle; and the +sea-fight lies embalmed, so to speak, and made immortal in the sea-song. + +The _Arethusa_ was a stumpy little frigate, scanty in crew, light in +guns, attached to the fleet of Admiral Keppel, then cruising off Brest. +Keppel had as perplexed and delicate a charge as was ever entrusted to +a British admiral. Great Britain was at war with her American +colonies, and there was every sign that France intended to add herself +to the fight. No fewer than thirty-two sail of the line and twelve +frigates were gathered in Brest roads, and another fleet of almost +equal strength in Toulon. Spain, too, was slowly collecting a mighty +armament. What would happen to England if the Toulon and Brest fleets +united, were joined by a third fleet from Spain, and the mighty array +of ships thus collected swept up the British Channel? On June 13, +1778, Keppel, with twenty-one ships of the line and three frigates, was +despatched to keep watch over the Brest fleet. War had not been +proclaimed, but Keppel was to prevent a junction of the Brest and +Toulon fleets, by persuasion if he could, but by gunpowder in the last +resort. + +Keppel's force was much inferior to that of the Brest fleet, and as +soon as the topsails of the British ships were visible from the French +coast, two French frigates, the _Licorne_ and _La Belle Poule_, with +two lighter craft, bore down upon them to reconnoitre. But Keppel +could not afford to let the French admiral know his exact force, and +signalled to his own outlying ships to bring the French frigates under +his lee. + +At nine o'clock at night the _Licorne_ was overtaken by the _Milford_, +and with some rough sailorly persuasion, and a hint of broadsides, her +head was turned towards the British fleet. The next morning, in the +grey dawn, the Frenchman, having meditated on affairs during the night, +made a wild dash for freedom. The _America_, an English 64--double, +that is, the _Licorne's_ size--overtook her, and fired a shot across +her bow to bring her to. Longford, the captain of the _America_, stood +on the gunwale of his own ship politely urging the captain of the +_Licorne_ to return with him. With a burst of Celtic passion the +French captain fired his whole broadside into the big Englishman, and +then instantly hauled down his flag so as to escape any answering +broadside! + +Meanwhile the _Arethusa_ was in eager pursuit of the _Belle Poule_; a +fox-terrier chasing a mastiff! The _Belle Poule_ was a splendid ship, +with heavy metal, and a crew more than twice as numerous as that of the +tiny _Arethusa_. But Marshall, its captain, was a singularly gallant +sailor, and not the man to count odds. The song tells the story of the +fight in an amusing fashion:-- + + "Come all ye jolly sailors bold, + Whose hearts are cast in honour's mould, + While England's glory I unfold. + Huzza to the _Arethusa_! + She is a frigate tight and brave + As ever stemmed the dashing wave; + Her men are staunch + To their fav'rite launch, + And when the foe shall meet our fire, + Sooner than strike we'll all expire + On board the _Arethusa_. + + On deck five hundred men did dance, + The stoutest they could find in France; + We, with two hundred, did advance + On board the _Arethusa_. + Our captain hailed the Frenchman, 'Ho!' + The Frenchman then cried out, 'Hallo!' + 'Bear down, d'ye see, + To our Admiral's lee.' + 'No, no,' says the Frenchman, 'that can't be. + 'Then I must lug you along with me,' + Says the saucy _Arethusa_!" + +As a matter of fact Marshall hung doggedly on the Frenchman's quarter +for two long hours, fighting a ship twice as big as his own. The +_Belle Poule_ was eager to escape; Marshall was resolute that it should +not escape; and, try as he might, the Frenchman, during that fierce two +hours' wrestle, failed to shake off his tiny but dogged antagonist. +The _Arethusa's_ masts were shot away, its jib-boom hung a tangled +wreck over its bows, its bulwarks were shattered, its decks were +splashed red with blood, half its guns were dismounted, and nearly +every third man in its crew struck down. But still it hung, with +quenchless and obstinate courage, on the _Belle Poule's_ quarter, and +by its perfect seamanship and the quickness and the deadly precision +with which its lighter guns worked, reduced its towering foe to a +condition of wreck almost as complete as its own. The terrier, in +fact, was proving too much for the mastiff. + +Suddenly the wind fell. With topmasts hanging over the side, and +canvas torn to ribbons, the _Arethusa_ lay shattered and moveless on +the sea. The shot-torn but loftier sails of the _Belle Poule_, +however, yet held wind enough to drift her out of the reach of the +_Arethusa's_ fire. Both ships were close under the French cliffs; but +the _Belle Poule_, like a broken-winged bird, struggled into a tiny +cove in the rocks, and nothing remained for the _Arethusa_ but to cut +away her wreckage, hoist what sail she could, and drag herself sullenly +back under jury-masts to the British fleet. But the story of that two +hours' heroic fight maintained against such odds sent a thrill of grim +exultation through Great Britain. Menaced by the combination of so +many mighty states, while her sea-dogs were of this fighting temper, +what had Great Britain to fear? In the streets of many a British +seaport, and in many a British forecastle, the story of how the +Arethusa fought was sung in deep-throated chorus:-- + + "The fight was off the Frenchman's land; + We forced them back upon their strand; + For we fought till not a stick would stand + Of the gallant _Arethusa_!" + + +A fight even more dramatic in its character is that fought on August +10, 1805, between the _Phoenix_ and the _Didon_. The _Didon_ was one +of the finest and fastest French frigates afloat, armed with guns of +special calibre and manned by a crew which formed, perhaps, the very +élite of the French navy. The men had been specially picked to form +the crew of the only French ship which was commanded by a Bonaparte, +the _Pomone_, selected for the command of Captain Jerome Bonaparte. +Captain Jerome Bonaparte, however, was not just now afloat, and the +_Didon_ had been selected, on account of its great speed and heavy +armament, for a service of great importance. She was manned by the +crew chosen for the _Pomone_, placed under an officer of special skill +and daring--Captain Milias--and despatched with orders for carrying out +one more of those naval "combinations" which Napoleon often attempted, +but never quite accomplished. The _Didon_, in a word, was to bring up +the Rochefort squadron to join the Franco-Spanish fleet under +Villeneuve. + +On that fatal August 10, however, it seemed to Captain Milias that +fortune had thrust into his hands a golden opportunity of snapping up a +British sloop of war, and carrying her as a trophy into Rochefort. An +American merchantman fell in with him, and its master reported that he +had been brought-to on the previous day by a British man-of-war, and +compelled to produce his papers. The American told the French captain +that he had been allowed to go round the Englishman's decks and count +his guns--omitting, no doubt, to add that he was half-drunk while doing +it. Contemplated through an American's prejudices, inflamed with grog, +the British ship seemed a very poor thing indeed. She carried, the +American told the captain of the _Didon_, only twenty guns of light +calibre, and her captain and officers were "so cocky" that if they had +a chance they would probably lay themselves alongside even the _Didon_ +and become an easy prey. The American pointed out to the eagerly +listening Frenchmen the topgallant sails of the ship he was describing +showing above the sky-line to windward. Captain Milias thought he saw +glory and cheap victory beckoning him, and he put his helm down, and +stood under easy sail towards the fast-rising topsails of the +Englishman. + +Now, the _Phoenix_ was, perhaps, the smallest frigate in the British +navy; a stocky little craft, scarcely above the rating of a sloop; and +its captain, Baker, a man with something of Dundonald's gift for ruse, +had disguised his ship so as to look as much as possible like a sloop. +Baker, too, who believed that light guns quickly handled were capable +of more effective mischief than the slow fire of heavier guns, had +changed his heavier metal for 18-pounders. The two ships, therefore, +were very unequal in fighting force. The broadside of the _Didon_ was +nearly fifty per cent. heavier than that of the _Phoenix_; her crew was +nearly fifty per cent. more numerous, and she was splendidly equipped +at every point. + +The yellow sides and royal yards rigged aloft told the "cocky" +_Phoenix_ that the big ship to leeward was a Frenchman, and, with all +sails spread, she bore down in the chase. Baker was eager to engage +his enemy to leeward, that she might not escape, and he held his fire +till he could reach the desired position. The _Didon_, however, a +quick and weatherly ship, was able to keep ahead of the _Phoenix_, and +thrice poured in a heavy broadside upon the grimly silent British ship +without receiving a shot in reply. Baker's men were falling fast at +their quarters, and, impatient at being both foiled and raked, he at +last ran fiercely at his enemy to windward. The heads of both ships +swung parallel, and at pistol-distance broadside furiously answered +broadside. In order to come up with her opponent, however, the +_Phoenix_ had all sail spread, and she gradually forged ahead. As soon +as the two ships were clear, the _Didon_, by a fine stroke of +seamanship, hauled up, crossed the stern of the _Phoenix_, and raked +her, and then repeated the pleasant operation. The rigging of the +_Phoenix_ was so shattered that for a few minutes she was out of hand. +Baker, however, was a fine seaman, and his crew were in a high state of +discipline; and when the _Didon_ once more bore up to rake her +antagonist, the British ship, with her sails thrown aback, evaded the +Frenchman's fire. But the stern of the _Didon_ smote with a crash on +the starboard quarter of the Phoenix; the ships were lying parallel; +the broadside of neither could be brought to bear. The Frenchmen, +immensely superior in numbers, made an impetuous rush across their +forecastle, and leaped on the quarter-deck of the Phoenix. The marines +of that ship, however, drawn up in a steady line across the deck, +resisted the whole rush of the French boarders; and the British +sailors, tumbling up from their guns, cutlass and boarding-pike in +hand, and wroth with the audacity of the "French lubbers" daring to +board the "cocky little _Phoenix_," with one rush, pushed fiercely +home, swept the Frenchmen back on to their own vessel. + +On the French forecastle stood a brass 36-pounder carronade; this +commanded the whole of the British ship, and with it the French opened +a most destructive fire. The British ship, as it happened, could not +bring a single gun to bear in return. Baker, however, had fitted the +cabin window on either quarter of his ship to serve as a port, in +preparation for exactly such a contingency as this; and the aftermost +main-deck gun was dragged into the cabin, the improvised port thrown +open, and Baker himself, with a cluster of officers and men, was +eagerly employed in fitting tackles to enable the gun to be worked. As +the sides of the two ships were actually grinding together the +Frenchmen saw the preparations being made; a double squad of marines +was brought up at a run to the larboard gangway, and opened a swift and +deadly fire into the cabin, crowded with English sailors busy rigging +their gun. The men dropped in clusters; the floor of the cabin was +covered with the slain, its walls were splashed with blood. But Baker +and the few men not yet struck down kept coolly to their task. The gun +was loaded under the actual flash of the French muskets, its muzzle was +thrust through the port, and it was fired! Its charge of langrage +swept the French ship from her larboard bow to her starboard quarter, +and struck down in an instant twenty-four men. The deadly fire was +renewed again and again, the British marines on the quarter-deck +meanwhile keeping down with their musketry the fire of the great French +carronade. + +That fierce and bloody wrestle lasted for nearly thirty minutes, then +the _Didon_ began to fore-reach. Her great bowsprit ground slowly +along the side of the _Phoenix_. It crossed the line of the second +aftermost gun on the British main-deck. Its flames on the instant +smote the Frenchman's head-rails to splinters, and destroyed the +gammoning of her bowsprit. Gun after gun of the two ships was brought +in succession to bear; but in this close and deadly contest the +_Phoenix_ had the advantage. Her guns were lighter, her men better +drilled, and their fierce energy overbore the Frenchmen. Presently the +_Didon_, with her foremast tottering, her maintopmast gone, her decks a +blood-stained wreck, passed out of gunshot ahead. + +In the tangle between the two ships the fly of the British white ensign +at the gaff end dropped on the _Didon's_ forecastle. The Frenchmen +tore it off, and, as the ships moved apart, they waved it triumphantly +from the _Didon's_ stern. All the colours of the _Phoenix_, indeed, in +one way or another had vanished, and the only response the exasperated +British tars could make to the insult of the _Didon_ was to immediately +lash a boat's ensign to the larboard, and the Union Jack to the +starboard end of their cross jack yard-arm. + +The wind had dropped; both ships were now lying a in a semi-wrecked +condition out of gunshot of each other, and it became a question of +which could soonest repair damages and get into fighting condition +again. Both ships, as it happened, had begun the fight with nearly all +canvas spread, and from their splintered masts the sails now hung one +wild network of rags. In each ship a desperate race to effect repairs +began. On the Frenchman's decks arose a babel of sounds, the shouts of +officers, the tumult of the men's voices. The British, on the other +hand, worked in grim and orderly silence, with no sound but the cool, +stern orders of the officers. In such a race the British were sure to +win, and fortune aided them. The two ships were rolling heavily in the +windless swell, and a little before noon the British saw the wounded +foremast of their enemy suddenly snap and tumble, with all its canvas, +upon the unfortunate _Didon's_ decks. This gave new and exultant +vigour to the British. Shot-holes were plugged, dismounted guns +refitted, fresh braces rove, the torn rigging spliced, new canvas +spread. The wind blew softly again, and a little after noon the +_Phoenix_, sorely battered indeed, but in fighting trim, with guns +loaded, and the survivors of her crew at quarters, bore down on the +_Didon_, and took her position on that ship's weather bow. Just when +the word "Fire!" was about to be given, the _Didon's_ flag fluttered +reluctantly down; she had struck! + +The toils of the _Phoenix_, however, were not even yet ended. The ship +she had captured was practically a wreck, its mainmast tottering to its +fall, while the prisoners greatly exceeded in numbers their captors. +The little _Phoenix_ courageously took her big prize in tow, and laid +her course for Plymouth. Once the pair of crippled frigates were +chased by the whole of Villeneuve's fleet; once, by a few chance words +overheard, a plot amongst the French prisoners for seizing the +_Phoenix_ and then retaking the _Didon_ was detected--almost too +late--and thwarted. The _Phoenix_, and her prize too, reached +Gibraltar when a thick fog lay on the straits, a fog which, as the +sorely damaged ships crept through it, was full of the sound of signal +guns and the ringing of bells. The Franco-Spanish fleet, in a word, a +procession of giants, went slowly past the crippled ships in the fog, +and never saw them! + +On September 3, however, the _Phoenix_ safely brought her hard-won and +stubborn-guarded prize safely into Plymouth Sound. + +The fight between the two ships was marked by many heroic incidents. +During the action the very invalids in the sick-bay of the _Phoenix_ +crept from their cots and tried to take some feeble part in the fight. +The purser is not usually part of the fighting staff of a ship, but the +acting purser of the _Phoenix_, while her captain was in the +smoke-filled cabin below, trying to rig up a gun to bear on the +_Didon_, took charge of the quarter-deck, kept his post right opposite +the brazen mouth of the great carronade we have described, and, with a +few marines, kept down the fire. A little middy had the distinction of +saving his captain's life. The _Didon's_ bowsprit was thrust, like the +shaft of a gigantic lance, over the quarter of the _Phoenix_, and a +Frenchman, lying along it, levelled his musket at Captain Baker, not +six paces distant, and took deliberate aim. A middy named Phillips, +armed with a musket as big as himself, saw the levelled piece of the +Frenchman; he gave his captain an unceremonious jostle aside just as +the Frenchman's musket flashed, and with almost the same movement +discharged his own piece at the enemy. The French bullet tore off the +rim of Captain Baker's hat, but the body of the man who fired it fell +with a splash betwixt the two ships into the water. Here was a story, +indeed, for a middy to tell, to the admiration of all the gun-rooms in +the fleet. + +The middy of the period, however, was half imp, half hero. Another +youthful Nelson, aetat. sixteen, at the hottest stage of the +fight--probably at the moment the acting-purser was in command on the +quarter-deck--found an opportunity of getting at the purser's stores. +With jaws widely distended, he was in the act of sucking--in the +fashion so delightful to boys--a huge orange, when a musket ball, after +passing through the head of a seaman, went clean through both the +youth's distended cheeks, and this without touching a single tooth. +Whether this affected the flavour of the orange is not told, but the +historian gravely records that "when the wound in each cheek healed, a +pair of not unseemly dimples remained." Happy middy! He would +scarcely envy Nelson his peerage. + + + +[Transcriber's note: The word "aetat." in the above paragraph is an +abbreviation of the Latin "aetatis", meaning "aged".] + + + + +THE BLOOD-STAINED HILL OF BUSACO + + + "Who would not fight for England? + Who would not fling a life + I' the ring, to meet a tyrant's gage, + And glory in the strife? + * * * * * + Now, fair befall our England, + On her proud and perilous road; + And woe and wail to those who make + Her footprints red with blood! + Up with our red-cross banner--roll + A thunder-peal of drums! + Fight on there, every valiant soul, + And, courage! England comes! + Now, fair befall our England, + On her proud and perilous road; + And woe and wail to those who make + Her footprints red with blood! + + Now, victory to our England! + And where'er she lifts her hand + In Freedom's fight, to rescue Right, + God bless the dear old land! + And when the storm has passed away, + In glory and in calm + May she sit down i' the green o' the day, + And sing her peaceful psalm! + Now, victory to our England! + And where'er she lifts her hand + In Freedom's fight, to rescue Right, + God bless the dear old land!" + --GERALD MASSEY. + + +Busaco is, perhaps, the most picturesque of Peninsular battles. In the +wild nature of the ground over which it raged, the dramatic incidents +which marked its progress, the furious daring of the assault, and the +stern valour of the defence, it is almost without a rival. The French +had every advantage in the fight, save one. They were 65,000 strong, +an army of veterans, many of them the men of Austerlitz and Marengo. +Massena led; Ney was second in command; both facts being pledges of +daring generalship. The English were falling sullenly back in the long +retreat which ended at Torres Vedras, and the French were in exultant +pursuit. Massena had announced that he was going to "drive the leopard +into the sea"; and French soldiers, it may be added, are never so +dangerous as when on fire with the _élan_ of success. + +Wellington's army was inferior to its foe in numbers, and of mixed +nationality, and it is probable that retreat had loosened the fibre of +even British discipline, if not of British courage. Two days before +Busaco, for example, the light division, the very flower of the English +army, was encamped in a pine-wood about which a peasant had warned them +that it was "haunted." During the night, without signal or visible +cause, officers and men, as though suddenly smitten with frenzy, +started from their sleep and dispersed in all directions. Nor could +the mysterious panic be stayed until some officer, shrewder than the +rest, shouted the order, "Prepare to receive cavalry," when the +instinct of discipline asserted itself, the men rushed into rallying +squares, and, with huge shouts of laughter, recovered themselves from +their panic. + +But battle is to the British soldier a tonic, and when Wellington drew +up his lines in challenge of battle to his pursuer, on the great hill +of Busaco, his red-coated soldiery were at least full of a grim +satisfaction. One of the combatants has described the diverse aspects +of the two hosts on the night before the fight. "The French were all +bustle and gaiety; but along the whole English line the soldiers, in +stern silence, examined their flints, cleaned their locks and barrels, +and then stretched themselves on the ground to rest, each with his +firelock within his grasp." The single advantage of the British lay in +their position. Busaco is a great hill, one of the loftiest and most +rugged in Portugal, eight miles in breadth, and barring the road by +which Massena was moving on Lisbon. "There are certainly," said +Wellington, "many bad roads in Portugal, but the enemy has taken +decidedly the worst in the whole kingdom." + +The great ridge, with its gloomy tree-clad heights and cloven crest, +round which the mists hung in sullen vapour, was an ideal position for +defence. In its front was a valley forming a natural ditch so deep +that the eye could scarcely pierce its depths. The ravine at one point +was so narrow that the English and French guns waged duel across it, +but on the British side the chasm was almost perpendicular. + +From their eyrie perch on September 27, 1810, the English watched +Massena's great host coming on. Every eminence sparkled with their +bayonets, every road was crowded with their waggons; it seemed not so +much the march of an army as the movement of a nation. The vision of +"grim Busaco's iron ridge," glittering with bayonets, arrested the +march of the French. But Ney, whose military glance was keen and sure, +saw that the English arrangements were not yet complete; an unfilled +gap, three miles wide, parted the right wing from the left, and he was +eager for an immediate attack. Massena, however, was ten miles in the +rear. According to Marbot, who has left a spirited account of Busaco, +Massena put off the attack till the next day, and thus threw away a +great opportunity. In the gloomy depths of the ravines, however, a war +of skirmishers broke out, and the muskets rang loudly through the +echoing valleys, while the puffs of eddying white smoke rose through +the black pines. But night fell, and the mountain heights above were +crowned with the bivouac fires of 100,000 warriors, over whom the +serene sky glittered. Presently a bitter wind broke on the mountain +summits, and all through the night the soldiers shivered under its keen +blast. + +Massena's plan of attack was simple and daring. Ney was to climb the +steep front on the English left, and assail the light division under +Craufurd; Regnier, with a _corps d'élite_, was to attack the English +left, held by Picton's division. Regnier formed his attack into five +columns while the stars were yet glittering coldly in the morning sky. +They had first to plunge into the savage depths of the ravine, and then +climb the steep slope leading to the English position. The vigour of +the attack was magnificent. General Merle, who had won fame at +Austerlitz, personally led the charge. At a run the columns went down +the ravine; at a run, scarcely less swift, they swept up the hostile +slope. The guns smote the columns from end to end, and the attack left +behind it a broad crimson trail of the dead and dying. But it never +paused. A wave of steel and fire and martial tumult, it swept up the +hill, broke over the crest in a spray of flame, brushed aside a +Portuguese regiment in its path like a wisp of straw, and broke on the +lines of the third division. + +The pressure was too great for even the solid English line to sustain; +it, too, yielded to the impetuous French, part of whom seized the rocks +at the highest point of the hill, while another part wheeled to the +right, intending to sweep the summit of the sierra. It was an +astonishing feat. Only French soldiers, magnificently led and in a +mood of victory, could have done it; and only British soldiers, it may +be added, whom defeat hardens, could have restored such a reverse. + +Picton was in command, and he sent at the French a wing of the 88th, +the famous Connaught Rangers, led by Colonel Wallace, an officer in +whom Wellington reposed great confidence. Wallace's address was brief +and pertinent. "Press them to the muzzle, Connaught Rangers; press on +to the rascals." There is no better fighting material in the world +than an Irish regiment well led and in a high state of discipline, and +this matchless regiment, with levelled bayonets, ran in on the French +with a grim and silent fury there was no denying. Vain was resistance. +Marbot says of the Rangers that "their first volley, delivered at +fifteen paces, stretched more than 500 men on the ground"; and the +threatening gleam of the bayonet followed fiercely on the flame of the +musket. + +The French were borne, shouting, struggling, and fighting desperately, +over the crest and down the deep slope to the ravine below. In a +whirlwind of dust and fire and clamour went the whole body of furious +soldiery into the valley, leaving a broad track of broken arms and +dying men. According to the regimental records of the 88th, "Twenty +minutes sufficed to teach the heroes of Marengo and Austerlitz that +they must yield to the Rangers of Connaught!" As the breathless +Rangers re-formed triumphantly on the ridge, Wellington galloped up and +declared he had never witnessed a more gallant charge. + +But a wing of Regnier's attack had formed at right angles across the +ridge. It was pressing forward with stern resolution; it swept before +it the light companies of the 74th and 88th regiments, and unless this +attack could be arrested the position and the battle were lost. Picton +rallied his broken lines within _sixty yards_ of the French muskets, a +feat not the least marvellous in a marvellous fight, and then sent them +furiously at the exulting French, who held a strong position amongst +the rocks. It is always difficult to disentangle the confusion which +marks a great fight. Napier says that it was Cameron who formed line +with the 38th under a violent fire, and, without returning a shot, ran +in upon the French grenadiers with the bayonet and hurled them +triumphantly over the crest. Picton, on the other hand, declares that +it was the light companies of the 74th and the 88th, under Major Smith, +an officer of great daring--who fell in the moment of victory--that +flung the last French down over the cliff. Who can decide when such +experts, and actors in the actual scene, differ? + +The result, however, as seen from the French side, is clear. The +French, Marbot records, "found themselves driven in a heap down the +deep descent up which they had climbed, and the English lines followed +them half-way down firing murderous volleys. At this point we lost a +general, 2 colonels, 80 officers, and 700 or 800 men." "The English," +he adds in explanation of this dreadful loss of life, "were the best +marksmen in Europe, the only troops who were perfectly practised in the +use of small arms, whence their firing was far more accurate than that +of any other infantry." + +A gleam of humour at this point crosses the grim visage of battle. +Picton, on lying down in his bivouac the night before the battle, had +adorned his head with a picturesque and highly coloured nightcap. The +sudden attack of the French woke him; he clapped on cloak and cocked +hat, and rode to the fighting line, when he personally led the attack +which flung the last of Regnier's troops down the slope. At the moment +of the charge he took off his cocked hat to wave the troops onward; +this revealed the domestic head-dress he unconsciously wore, and the +astonished soldiers beheld their general on flame with warlike fury +gesticulating martially in a nightcap! A great shout of laughter went +up from the men as they stopped for a moment to realise the spectacle; +then with a tempest of mingled laughter and cheers they flung +themselves on the enemy. + +Meanwhile Ney had formed his attack on the English left, held by +Craufurd and the famous light division. Marbot praises the +characteristic tactics of the British in such fights. "After having, +as we do," he says, "garnished their front with skirmishers, they post +their principal forces out of sight, holding them all the time +sufficiently near to the key of the position to be able to attack the +enemy the instant they reach it; and this attack, made unexpectedly on +assailants who have lost heavily, and think the victory already theirs, +succeeds almost invariably." "We had," he adds, "a melancholy +experience of this art at Busaco." Craufurd, a soldier of fine skill, +made exactly such a disposition of his men. Some rocks at the edge of +the ravine formed natural embrasures for the English guns under Ross; +below them the Rifles were flung out as skirmishers; behind them the +German infantry were the only visible troops; but in a fold of the +hill, unseen, Craufurd held the 43rd and 52nd regiments drawn up in +line. + +Ney's attack, as might be expected, was sudden and furious. The +English, in the grey dawn, looking down the ravine, saw three huge +masses start from the French lines and swarm up the slope. To climb an +ascent so steep, vexed by skirmishers on either flank, and scourged by +the guns which flashed from the summit, was a great and most daring +feat--yet the French did it. Busaco, indeed, is memorable as showing +the French fighting quality at its highest point. General Simon led +Loison's attack right up to the lips of the English guns, and in the +dreadful charge its order was never disturbed nor its speed arrested. +"Ross's guns," says Napier, "were worked with incredible quickness, yet +their range was palpably contracted every round; the enemy's shot came +singing up in a sharper key; the English skirmishers, breathless and +begrimed with powder, rushed over the edge of the ascent; the artillery +drew back"--and over the edge of the hill came the bearskins and the +gleaming bayonets of the French! General Simon led the attack so +fiercely home that he was the first to leap across the English +entrenchments, when an infantry soldier, lingering stubbornly after his +comrades had fallen back, shot him point-blank through the face. The +unfortunate general, when the fight was over, was found lying in the +redoubt amongst the dying and the dead, with scarcely a human feature +left. He recovered, was sent as a prisoner to England, and was +afterwards exchanged, but his horrible wound made it impossible for him +to serve again. + +Craufurd had been watching meanwhile with grim coolness the onward rush +of the French. They came storming and exultant, a wave of martial +figures, edged with a spray of fire and a tossing fringe of bayonets, +over the summit of the hill; when suddenly Craufurd, in a shrill tone, +called on his reserves to attack. In an instant there rose, as if out +of the ground, before the eyes of the astonished French, the serried +lines of the 43rd and 52nd, and what a moment before was empty space +was now filled with the frowning visage of battle. The British lines +broke into one stern and deep-toned shout, and 1800 bayonets, in one +long line of gleaming points, came swiftly down upon the French. To +stand against that moving hedge of deadly and level steel was +impossible; yet each man in the leading section of the French raised +his musket and fired, and two officers and ten soldiers fell before +them. Not a Frenchman had missed his mark! They could do no more. +"The head of their column," to quote Napier, "was violently thrown back +upon the rear, both flanks were overlapped at the same moment by the +English wings, and three terrible discharges at five yards' distance +shattered the wavering mass." Before those darting points of flame the +pride of the French shrivelled. Shining victory was converted, in +almost the passage of an instant, into bloody defeat; and a shattered +mass, with ranks broken, and colours abandoned, and discipline +forgotten, the French were swept into the depths of the ravine out of +which they had climbed. + +One of the dramatic episodes of the fight at this juncture is that of +Captain Jones--known in his regiment as "Jack Jones" of the 52nd. +Jones was a fiery Welshman, and led his company in the rush on General +Simon's column. The French were desperately trying to deploy, a +_chef-de-bataillon_ giving the necessary orders with great vehemence. +Jones ran ahead of his charging men, outstripping them by speed of +foot, challenged the French officer with a warlike gesture to single +combat, and slew him with one fierce thrust before his own troops, and +the 52nd, as they came on at the run, saw the duel and its result, were +lifted by it to a mood of victory, and raised a sudden shout of +exultation, which broke the French as by a blast of musketry fire. + +For hours the battle spluttered and smouldered amongst the skirmishers +in the ravines, and some gallant episodes followed. Towards evening, +for example, a French company, with signal audacity, and apparently on +its own private impulse, seized a cluster of houses only half a musket +shot from the light division, and held it while Craufurd scourged them +with the fire of twelve guns. They were only turned out at the point +of the bayonet by the 43rd. But the battle was practically over, and +the English had beaten, by sheer hard fighting, the best troops and the +best marshals of France. + +In the fierceness of actual fighting, Busaco has never been surpassed, +and seldom did the wounded and dying lie thicker on a battlefield than +where the hostile lines struggled together on that fatal September 27. +The _melée_ at some points was too close for even the bayonet to be +used, and the men fought with fists or with the butt-end of their +muskets. From the rush which swept Regnier's men down the slope the +Connaught Rangers came back with faces and hands and weapons literally +splashed red with blood. The firing was so fierce that Wellington, +with his whole staff, dismounted. Napier, however--one of the famous +fighting trio of that name, who afterwards conquered Scinde--fiercely +refused to dismount, or even cover his red uniform with a cloak. "This +is the uniform of my regiment," he said, "and in it I will show, or +fall this day." He had scarcely uttered the words when a bullet +smashed through his face and shattered his jaw to pieces. As he was +carried past Lord Wellington he waved his hand and whispered through +his torn mouth, "I could not die at a better moment!" Of such stuff +were the men who fought under Wellington in the Peninsula. + + + + +OF NELSON AND THE NILE + + + "Britannia needs no bulwarks, + No towers along the steep; + Her march is o'er the mountain waves, + Her home is on the deep. + With thunders from her native oak, + She quells the floods below, + As they roar on the shore + When the stormy winds do blow; + When the battle rages loud and long, + And the stormy winds do blow. + + The meteor flag of England + Shall yet terrific burn, + Till danger's troubled night depart, + And the star of peace return. + Then, then, ye ocean warriors, + Our song and feast shall flow + To the fame of your name, + When the storm has ceased to blow; + When the fiery fight is heard no more, + And the storm has ceased to blow." + --CAMPBELL. + + +Aboukir Bay resembles nothing so much as a piece bitten out of the +Egyptian pancake. A crescent-shaped bay, patchy with shoals, +stretching from the Rosetta mouth of the Nile to Aboukir, or, as it is +now called, Nelson Island, that island being simply the outer point of +a sandbank that projects from the western horn of the bay. Flat +shores, grey-blue Mediterranean waters, two horns of land six miles +apart, that to the north projecting farthest and forming a low +island--this, ninety-eight years ago, was the scene of what might +almost be described as the greatest sea-fight in history. + +On the evening of August 1, 1798, thirteen great battleships lay drawn +up in a single line parallel with the shore, and as close to it as the +sandbanks permitted. The head ship was almost stern on to the shoal +which, running out at right angles to the shore, forms Aboukir Island. +The nose of each succeeding ship was exactly 160 yards from the stern +of the ship before it, and, allowing for one or two gaps, each ship was +bound by a great cable to its neighbour. It was a thread of beads, +only each "bead" was a battleship, whose decks swarmed with brave men, +and from whose sides gaped the iron lips of more than a thousand heavy +guns. The line was not exactly straight; it formed a very obtuse +angle, the projecting point at the centre being formed by the _Orient_, +the biggest warship at that moment afloat, a giant of 120 guns. + +Next to her came the _Franklin_, of 80 guns, a vessel which, if not the +biggest, was perhaps the finest sample of naval architecture in +existence. The line of ships was more than one mile and a half long, +and consisted of the gigantic flagship, three ships of the line of 80 +guns, and nine of 74 guns. In addition, it had a fringe of gunboats +and frigates, while a battery of mortars on the island guarded, as with +a sword of fire, the gap betwixt the headmost ship and the island. +This great fleet had convoyed Napoleon, with 36,000 troops crowded into +400 transports, from France, had captured Malta on the voyage, and +three weeks before had safely landed Napoleon and his soldiers in +Egypt. The French admiral, Bruéys, knew that Nelson was coming +furiously in his track, and after a consultation with all his captains +he had drawn up his ships in the order which we have described, a +position he believed to be unassailable. And at three o'clock on the +afternoon of August 1, 1798, his look-outs were eagerly watching the +white topsails showing above the lee line, the van of Nelson's fleet. + +Napoleon had kept the secret of his Egyptian expedition well, and the +great Toulon fleet, with its swarm of transports, had vanished round +the coast of Corsica and gone off into mere space, as far as a +bewildered British Admiralty knew. A fleet of thirteen 74-gun ships +and one of 50 guns was placed under Nelson's flag. He was ordered to +pursue and destroy the vanished French fleet, and with characteristic +energy he set out on one of the most dramatic sea-chases known to +history. With the instinct of genius he guessed that Napoleon's +destination was Egypt; but while the French fleet coasted Sardinia and +went to the west of Sicily, Nelson ran down the Italian coast to +Naples, called there for information, found none, and, carrying all +sail, swept through the straits of Messina. + +On the night of June 22 the two fleets actually crossed each other's +tracks. The French fleet, including the transports, numbered 572 +vessels, and their lights, it might be imagined, would have lit up many +leagues of sea. Yet, through this forest of hostile masts the English +fleet, with keen eyes watching at every masthead, swept and saw +nothing. Nelson, for one thing, had no frigates to serve as eyes and +ears for him; his fleet in sailor-like fashion formed a compact body, +three parallel lines of phantom-like pyramids of canvas sweeping in the +darkness across the floor of the sea. Above all a haze filled the +night; and it is not too much to say that the drifting grey vapour +which hid the French ships from Nelson's lookout men changed the face +of history. + +Nelson used to explain that his ideal of perfect enjoyment would be to +have the chance of "trying Bonaparte on a wind"; and if he had caught +sound of bell or gleam of lantern from the great French fleet, and +brought it to action in the darkness of that foggy night, can any one +doubt what the result would have been? Nelson would have done off the +coast of Sicily on June 22, 1798, what Wellington did on June 18, 1815; +and in that case there would have been no Marengo or Austerlitz, no +retreat from Moscow, no Peninsular war, and no Waterloo. For so much, +in distracted human affairs, may a patch of drifting vapour count! + +Nelson, in a word, overran his prey. He reached Alexandria to find the +coast empty; doubled back to Sicily, zigzagging on his way by Cyprus +and Candia; and twelve hours after he had left Alexandria the topsails +of the French fleet hove in sight from that port. Napoleon's troops +were safely landed, and the French admiral had some four weeks in which +to prepare for Nelson's return, and at 3 P.M. on August 1 the gliding +topsails of the _Swiftsure_ above Aboukir Island showed that the +tireless Englishman had, after nearly three months of pursuit, +overtaken his enemy. + +The French, if frigates be included, counted seventeen ships to +fourteen, and ship for ship they had the advantage over the British +alike in crew, tonnage, and weight of fire. In size the English ships +scarcely averaged 1500 tons; the French ships exceeded 2000 tons. +Nelson had only seventy-fours, his heaviest gun being a 32-pounder. +The average French 80-gun ship in every detail of fighting strength +exceeded an English ninety-eight, and Bruéys had three such ships in +his fleet; while his own flagship, the _Orient_, was fully equal to two +English seventy-fours. Its weight of ball on the lower deck alone +exceeded that from the whole broadside of the _Bellerophon_, the ship +that engaged it. The French, in brief, had an advantage in guns of +about twenty per cent., and in men of over thirty per cent. Bruéys, +moreover, was lying in a carefully chosen position in a dangerous bay, +of which his enemies possessed no chart, and the head of his line was +protected by a powerful shore battery. + +Nothing in this great fight is more dramatic than the swiftness and +vehemence of Nelson's attack. He simply leaped upon his enemy at +sight. Four of his ships were miles off in the offing, but Nelson did +not wait for them. In the long pursuit he had assembled his captains +repeatedly in his cabin, and discussed every possible manner of +attacking the French fleet. If he found the fleet as he guessed, drawn +up in battle-line close in-shore and anchored, his plan was to place +one of his ships on the bows, another on the quarter, of each French +ship in succession. + +It has been debated who actually evolved the idea of rounding the head +of the French line and attacking on both faces. One version is that +Foley, in the _Goliath_, who led the British line, owed the suggestion +to a keen-eyed middy who pointed out that the anchor buoy of the +headmost French ship was at such a distance from the ship itself as to +prove there was room to pass. But the weight of evidence seems to +prove that Nelson himself, as he rounded Aboukir Island, and scanned +with fierce and questioning vision Bruéys' formation, with that +swiftness of glance in which he almost rivalled Napoleon, saw his +chance in the gap between the leading French ship and the shore. +"Where a French ship can swing," he held, "an English ship can either +sail or anchor." And he determined to double on the French line and +attack on both faces at once. He explained his plan to Berry, his +captain, who in his delight exclaimed, "If we succeed, what will the +world say?" "There is no 'if' in the case," said Nelson; "that we +shall succeed is certain; who will live to tell the story is a very +different question." + +[Illustration: THE BATTLE OF THE NILE. Doubling on the French Line. +From Allen's "Battles of the British Navy."] + +Bruéys had calculated that the English fleet must come down +perpendicularly to his centre, and each ship in the process be raked by +a line of fire a mile and a half long; but the moment the English ships +rounded the island they tacked, hugged the shore, and swept through the +gap between the leading vessel and the land. The British ships were so +close to each other that Nelson, speaking from his own quarter-deck, +was able to ask Hood in the _Zealous_, if he thought they had water +enough to round the French line. Hood replied that he had no chart, +but would lead and take soundings as he went. + +So the British line came on, the men on the yards taking in canvas, the +leadsmen in the chains coolly calling the soundings. The battery +roared from the island, the leading French ships broke into smoke and +flame, but the steady British line glided on. The _Goliath_ by this +time led; and at half-past five the shadow of its tall masts cast by +the westering sun fell over the decks of the _Guerrier_, and as Foley, +its captain, swept past the Frenchman's bows, he poured in a furious +broadside, bore swiftly up, and dropped--as Nelson, with that minute +attention to detail which marks a great commander, had ordered all his +captains--an anchor from the stern, so that, without having to "swing," +he was instantly in a fighting position on his enemy's quarter. Foley, +however, dropped his anchor a moment too late, and drifted on to the +second ship in the line; but Hood, in the _Zealous_, coming swiftly +after, also raked the _Guerrier_, and, anchoring from the stern at the +exact moment, took the place on its quarter Foley should have taken. + +The _Orion_ came into battle next, blasted the unfortunate _Guerrier_, +whose foremast had already gone, with a third broadside, and swept +outside the _Zealous_ and _Goliath_ down to the third ship on the +French line. A French frigate, the _Sérieuse_, of thirty-six guns, +anchored inside the French line, ventured to fire on the _Orion_ as it +swept past, whereupon Saumarez, its commander, discharged his starboard +broadside into that frigate. The _Sérieuse_ reeled under the shock of +the British guns, its masts disappeared like chips, and the unfortunate +Frenchman went down like a stone; while Saumarez, laying himself on the +larboard bow of the _Franklin_ and the quarter of the _Peuple Sovrain_, +broke upon them in thunder. The _Theseus_ followed hard in the track +of the _Orion_, raked the unhappy _Guerrier_ in the familiar fashion +while crossing its bows, then swept through the narrow water-lane +betwixt the _Goliath_ and _Zealous_ and their French antagonists, +poured a smashing broadside into each French ship as it passed, then +shot outside the _Orion_, and anchored with mathematical nicety off the +quarter of the _Spartiate_. The water-lane was not a pistol-shot wide, +and this feat of seamanship was marvellous. + +Miller, who commanded the _Theseus_, in a letter to his wife described +the fight. "In running along the enemy's line in the wake of the +_Zealous_ and _Goliath_, I observed," he says, "their shot sweep just +over us, and knowing well that at such a moment Frenchmen would not +have coolness enough to change their elevation, I closed them suddenly, +and, running under the arch of their shot, reserved my fire, every gun +being loaded with two, and some with three round shot, until I had the +_Guerrier's_ masts in a line, and her jib-boom about six feet clear of +our rigging. We then opened with such effect that a second breath +could not be drawn before her main and mizzen-mast were also gone. +This was precisely at sunset, or forty-four minutes past six." + +The _Audacious_, meanwhile, was too impatient to tack round the head of +the French line; it broke through the gap betwixt the first and second +ships of the enemy, delivered itself, in a comfortable manner, of a +raking broadside into both as it passed, took its position on the +larboard bow of the _Conquerant_, and gave itself up to the joy of +battle. Within thirty minutes from the beginning of the fight, that +is, five British line-of-battle ships were inside the French line, +comfortably established on the bows or quarters of the leading ships. +Nelson himself, in the _Vanguard_, anchored on the outside of the +French line, within eighty yards of the _Spartiate's_ starboard beam; +the _Minotaur_, the _Bellerophon_, and the _Majestic_, coming up in +swift succession, and at less than five minutes' interval from each +other, flung themselves on the next ships. + +How the thunder of the battle deepened, and how the quick flashes of +the guns grew brighter as the night gathered rapidly over sea, must be +imagined. But Nelson's swift and brilliant strategy was triumphant. +Each ship in the French van resembled nothing so much as a walnut in +the jaws of a nut-cracker. They were being "cracked" in succession, +and the rear of the line could only look on with agitated feelings and +watch the operation. + +The fire of the British ships for fury and precision was overwhelming. +The head of the _Guerrier_ was simply shot away; the anchors hanging +from her bows were cut in two; her main-deck ports, from the bowsprit +to the gangway, were driven into one; her masts, fallen inboard, lay +with their tangle of rigging on the unhappy crew; while some of her +main-deck beams--all supports being torn away--fell on the guns. Hood, +in the _Zealous_, who was pounding the unfortunate _Guerrier_, says, +"At last, being tired of killing men in that way, I sent a lieutenant +on board, who was allowed, as I had instructed him, to hoist a light, +and haul it down as a sign of submission." But all the damage was not +on the side of the French. The great French flagship, the _Orient_, by +this time had added her mighty voice to the tumult, and the +_Bellerophon_, who was engaged with her, had a bad time of it. It was +the story of Tom Sayers and Heenan over again--a dwarf fighting a +giant. Her mizzen-mast and mainmast were shot away, and after +maintaining the dreadful duel for more than an hour, and having 200 of +her crew struck down, at 8.20 P.M. the _Bellerophon_ cut her cable and +drifted, a disabled wreck, out of the fire. + +Meanwhile the four ships Nelson had left in the offing were beating +furiously up to add themselves to the fight. Night had fallen, by the +time Troubridge, in the _Culloden_, came round the island; and then, in +full sight of the great battle, the _Culloden_ ran hopelessly ashore! +She was, perhaps, the finest ship of the British fleet, and the +emotions of its crew and commander as they listened to the tumult, and +watched through the darkness the darting fires of the Titanic combat +they could not share, may be imagined. "Our army," according to +well-known authorities, "swore terribly in Flanders." The expletives +discharged that night along the decks and in the forecastle of the +Culloden would probably have made even a Flanders veteran open his eyes +in astonishment. + +The _Swiftsure_ and the _Alexander_, taking warning by the _Culloden's_ +fate, swept round her and bore safely up to the fight. The +_Swiftsure_, bearing down through the darkness to the combat, came +across a vessel drifting, dismasted and lightless, a mere wreck. +Holliwell, the captain of the _Swiftsure_, was about to fire, thinking +it was an enemy, but on second thoughts hailed instead, and got for an +answer the words, "_Bellerophon_; going out of action, disabled." The +_Swiftsure_ passed on, and five minutes after the _Bellerophon_ had +drifted from the bows of the _Orient_ the _Swiftsure_, coming +mysteriously up out of the darkness, took her place, and broke into a +tempest of fire. + +At nine o'clock the great French flagship burst into flame. The +painters had been at work upon her on the morning of that day, and had +left oil and combustibles about. The nearest English ships +concentrated their fire, both of musketry and of cannon, on the burning +patch, and made the task of extinguishing it hopeless. Bruéys, the +French admiral, had already been cut in two by a cannon shot, and +Casablanca, his commodore, was wounded. The fire spread, the flames +leaped up the masts and crept athwart the decks of the great ship. The +moon had just risen, and the whole scene was perhaps the strangest ever +witnessed--the great burning ship, the white light of the moon above, +the darting points of red flame from the iron lips of hundreds of guns +below, the drifting battle-smoke, the cries of ten thousand +combatants--all crowded into an area of a few hundred square yards! + +The British ships, hanging like hounds on the flanks of the Orient, +knew that the explosion might come at any moment, and they made every +preparation for it, closing their hatchways, and gathering their +firemen at quarters. But they would not withdraw their ships a single +yard! At ten o'clock the great French ship blew up with a flame that +for a moment lit shore and sea, and a sound that hushed into stillness +the whole tumult of the battle. Out of a crew of over a thousand men +only seventy were saved! For ten minutes after that dreadful sight the +warring fleets seemed stupefied. Not a shout was heard, not a shot +fired. Then the French ship next the missing flagship broke into +wrathful fire, and the battle awoke in full passion once more. + +The fighting raged with partial intermissions all through the night, +and when morning broke Bruéys' curved line of mighty battleships, a +mile and a half long, had vanished. Of the French ships, one had been +blown up, one was sunk, one was ashore, four had fled, the rest were +prizes. It was the most complete and dramatic victory in naval +history. The French fought on the whole with magnificent courage; but, +though stronger in the mass, Nelson's strategy and the seamanship of +his captains made the British stronger at every point of actual battle. +The rear of the French line did not fire a shot or lose a man. The +wonder is that when Nelson's strategy was developed, and its fatal +character understood, Villeneuve, who commanded the French rear, and +was a man of undoubted courage, did not cut his cables, make sail, and +come to the help of his comrades. A few hundred yards would have +carried him to the heart of the fight. Can any one doubt whether, if +the positions had been reversed, Nelson would have watched the +destruction of half his fleet as a mere spectator? If nothing better +had offered, he would have pulled in a wash-tub into the fight! + +Villeneuve afterwards offered three explanations of his own +inertness--(1) he "could not spare any of his anchors"; (2) "he had no +instructions"! (3) "on board the ships in the rear the idea of weighing +and going to the help of the ships engaged occurred to no one"! In +justice to the French, however, it may be admitted that nothing could +surpass the fierceness and valour with which, say, the _Tonnant_ was +fought. Its captain, Du Petit-Thouars, fought his ship magnificently, +had first both his arms and then one of his legs shot away, and died +entreating his officers not to strike. Of the ten French ships +engaged, the captains of eight were killed or wounded. Nelson took the +seven wounded captains on board the _Vanguard_, and, as they recovered, +they dined regularly with him. One of the captains had lost his nose, +another an eye, another most of his teeth, with musket-shots, &c. +Nelson, who himself had been wounded, and was still half-blind as a +result, at one of his dinners offered by mischance a case of toothpicks +to the captain on his left, who had lost all his teeth. He discovered +his error, and in his confusion handed his snuff-box to the captain on +his right, who had lost his nose! + +What was the secret of the British victory? Nelson's brilliant +strategy was only possible by virtue of the magnificent seamanship of +his captains, and the new fashion of close and desperate fighting, +which Hood and Jarvis and Nelson himself had created. It is a French +writer, Captain Gravière, who says that the French naval habit of +evading battle where they could, and of accepting action from an enemy +rather than forcing it upon him, had ruined the _morale_ of the French +navy. The long blockades had made Nelson's captains perfect seamen, +and he taught them that close fighting at pistol-shot distance was the +secret of victory. "No English captain," he said, "can do wrong who, +in fight, lays a ship alongside an enemy." It was a captain of +Nelson's school--a Scotchman--who at Camperdown, unable, just as the +action began, to read some complicated signal from his chief, flung his +signal-book on the deck, and in broad Scotch exclaimed, "D---- me! up +with the hellem an' gang in the middle o't." That trick of "ganging +into the middle o't" was irresistible. + +The battle of the Nile destroyed the naval prestige of France, made +England supreme in the Mediterranean, saved India, left Napoleon and +his army practically prisoners in Egypt, and united Austria, Russia, +and Turkey in league against France. The night battle in Aboukir Bay, +in a word, changed the face of history. + + + + +THE FUSILEERS AT ALBUERA + + + "And nearer, fast and nearer, + Doth the red whirlwind come; + And louder still, and still more loud, + From underneath that rolling cloud, + Is heard the trumpet's war-note proud, + The trampling and the hum. + And plainly, and more plainly, + Now through the gloom appears, + Far to left and far to right, + In broken gleams of dark-blue light, + The long array of helmets bright, + The long array of spears." + --MACAULAY. + + +Albuera is the fiercest, bloodiest, and most amazing fight in the mighty +drama of the Peninsular war. On May 11, 1811, the English guns were +thundering sullenly over Badajos. Wellington was beyond the Guadiana, +pressing Marmont; and Beresford, with much pluck but little skill, was +besieging the great frontier fortress. Soult, however, a master of war, +was swooping down from Seville to raise the siege. On the 14th he +reached Villafranca, only thirty miles distant, and fired salvos from his +heaviest guns all through the night to warn the garrison of approaching +succour. Beresford could not both maintain the siege and fight Soult; +and on the night of the 13th he abandoned his trenches, burnt his gabions +and fascines, and marched to meet Soult at Albuera, a low ridge, with a +shallow river in front, which barred the road to Badajos. As the morning +of May 16, 1811, broke, heavy with clouds, and wild with gusty +rain-storms, the two armies grimly gazed at each other in stern pause, +ere they joined in the wrestle of actual battle. + +All the advantages, save one, were on the side of the French. Soult was +the ablest of the French marshals. If he had not Ney's _élan_ in attack, +or Massena's stubborn resource in retreat, yet he had a military genius, +since Lannes was dead, second only to that of Napoleon himself. He had +under his command 20,000 war-hardened infantry, 40 guns, and 4000 +magnificent cavalry, commanded by Latour Maubourg, one of the most +brilliant of French cavalry generals. Beresford, the British commander, +had the dogged fighting courage, half Dutch and half English, of his name +and blood; but as a commander he was scarcely third-rate. Of his army of +30,000, 15,000 were Spanish, half drilled, and more than half +starved--they had lived for days on horse-flesh--under Blake, a general +who had lost all the good qualities of Irish character, and acquired all +the bad ones peculiar to Spanish temper. Of Beresford's remaining troop +8000 were Portuguese; he had only 7000 British soldiers. + +Beresford ought not to have fought. He had abandoned the siege at +Badajos, and no reason for giving battle remained. The condition of +Blake's men, no doubt, made retreat difficult. They had reached the +point at which they must either halt or lie down and die. The real force +driving Beresford to battle, however, was the fighting effervescence in +his own blood and the warlike impatience of his English troops. They had +taken no part in the late great battles under Wellington; Busaco had been +fought and Fuentes de Onoro gained without them; and they were in the +mood, both officers and men, of fierce determination to fight _somebody_! +This was intimated somewhat roughly to Beresford, and he had not that +iron ascendency over his troops Wellington possessed. As a matter of +fact, he was himself as stubbornly eager to fight as any private in the +ranks. + +The superiority of Soult's warlike genius was shown before a shot was +fired. Beresford regarded the bridge that crossed the Albuera and the +village that clustered at the bridge-head as the key of his position. He +occupied the village with Alten's German brigade, covered the bridge with +the fire of powerful batteries, and held in reserve above it his best +British brigade, the fusileers, under Cole, the very regiments who, four +hours later, on the extreme right of Beresford's position, were actually +to win the battle. Soult's sure vision, however, as he surveyed his +enemies on the evening of the 15th, saw that Beresford's right was his +weak point. It was a rough, broken table-land, curving till it looked +into the rear of Beresford's line. It was weakly held by Blake and his +Spaniards. Immediately in its front was a low wooded hill, behind which, +as a screen, an attacking force could be gathered. + +In the night Soult placed behind this hill the fifth corps, under Gerard, +the whole of his cavalry, under Latour Maubourg, and the strength of his +artillery. When the morning broke, Soult had 15,000 men and 30 guns +within ten minutes' march of Beresford's right wing, and nobody suspected +it. No gleam of colour, no murmur of packed battalions, no ring of +steel, no sound of marching feet warned the deluded English general of +the battle-storm about to break on his right wing. A commander with such +an unexpected tempest ready to burst on the weakest point of his line was +by all the rules of war pre-doomed. + +At nine o'clock Soult launched an attack at the bridge, the point where +Beresford expected him, but it was only a feint. Beresford, however, +with all his faults, had the soldierly brain to which the actual thunder +of the cannon gave clearness. He noticed that the French battalions +supporting the attack on the bridge did not press on closely. As a +matter of fact, as soon as the smoke of artillery from the battle raging +at the bridge swept over the field, they swung smartly to the left, and +at the double hastened to add themselves to the thunderbolt which Soult +was launching at Beresford's right. But Beresford, meanwhile, had +guessed Soult's secret, and he sent officer after officer ordering and +entreating Blake to change front so as to meet Soult's attack on his +flank, and he finally rode thither himself to enforce his commands. +Blake, however, was immovable through pride, and his men through sheer +physical weakness. They could die, but they could not march or deploy. +Blake at last tried to change front, but as he did so the French attack +smote him. Pressing up the gentle rise, Gerard's men scourged poor +Blake's flank with their fire; the French artillery, coming swiftly on, +halted every fifty yards to thunder on the unhappy Spaniards; while +Latour Maubourg's lancers and hussars, galloping in a wider sweep, +gathered momentum for a wild ride on Blake's actual rear. + +[Illustration: Battle of Albuera, 16th May, 1811. From Napier's +"Peninsular War."] + +Beresford tried to persuade the Spaniards to charge as the French were +thus circling round them. Shouts and gesticulations were in vain. He +was a man of giant height and strength, and he actually seized a Spanish +ensign in his iron grip, and carried him bodily, flag and all, at a run +for fifty yards towards the moving French lines, and planted him there. +When released, however, the bewildered Spaniard simply took to his heels +and ran back to his friends, as a terrified sheep might run back to the +flock. In half-an-hour Beresford's battle had grown desperate. +Two-thirds of the French, in compact order of battle, were perpendicular +to his right; the Spaniards were falling into disorder. Soult saw the +victory in his grasp, and eagerly pushed forward his reserves. Over the +whole hill, mingled with furious blasts of rain, rolled the tumult of a +disorderly and broken fight. Ten minutes more would have enabled Soult +to fling Beresford's right, a shattered and routed mass, on the only +possible line of retreat, and with the French superiority in cavalry his +army would have been blotted out. + +The share of the British in the fight consisted of three great attacks +delivered by way of counter-stroke to Soult's overwhelming rush on the +hill held by Blake. The first attack was delivered by the second +division, under Colborne, led by General Stewart in person. Stewart was +a sort of British version of Ney, a man of vehement spirit, with a daring +that grew even more flame-like in the eddying tumult and tempest of +actual battle. He saw Soult's attack crumpling up Blake's helpless +battalions, while the flash of the French artillery every moment grew +closer. It was the crisis of the fight, and Stewart brought on +Colborne's men at a run. Colborne himself, a fine soldier with cool +judgment, wished to halt and form his men in order of battle before +plunging into the confused vortex of the fight above; but Stewart, full +of breathless ardour, hurried the brigade up the hill in column of +companies, reached the Spanish right, and began to form line by +succession of battalions as they arrived. + +At this moment a wild tempest of rain was sweeping over the British as, +at the double, they came up the hill; the eddying fog, thick and slab +with the smoke of powder, hid everything twenty yards from the panting +soldiers. Suddenly the wall of changing fog to their right sparkled into +swiftly moving spots of red; it shone the next instant with the gleam of +a thousand steel points; above the thunder of the cannon, the shouts of +contending men, rose the awful sound of a tempest of galloping hoofs. +The French lancers and hussars caught the English in open order, and in +five fierce and bloody minutes almost trampled them out of existence! +Two-thirds of the brigade went down. The 31st Regiment flung itself +promptly into square, and stood fast--a tiny island, edged with steel and +flame, amid the mad tumult; but the French lancers, drunk with +excitement, mad with battle fury, swept over the whole slope of the hill. +They captured six guns, and might have done yet more fatal mischief but +that they occupied themselves in galloping to and fro across the line of +their original charge, spearing the wounded. + +One lancer charged Beresford as he sat, solitary and huge, on his horse +amid the broken English regiments. But Beresford was at least a +magnificent trooper; he put the lance aside with one hand, and caught the +Frenchman by the throat, lifted him clean from his saddle, and dashed him +senseless on the ground! The ensign who carried the colours of the 3rd +Buffs covered them with his body till he was slain by a dozen +lance-thrusts; the ensign who carried the other colours of the same +regiment tore the flag from its staff and thrust it into his breast, and +it was found there, stiff with his blood, after the fight. The +Spaniards, meanwhile, were firing incessantly but on general principles +merely, and into space or into the ranks of their own allies as might +happen; and the 29th, advancing to the help of Colborne's broken men, +finding the Spaniards in their path and firing into their lines, broke +sternly into volleys on them in turn. Seldom has a battlefield witnessed +a tumult so distracted and wild. + +The first English counter-stroke had failed, but the second followed +swiftly. The furious rain and fog which had proved so fatal to +Colborne's men for a moment, was in favour of Beresford. Soult, though +eagerly watching the conflict, could not see the ruin into which the +British had fallen, and hesitated to launch his reserves into the fight. +The 31st still sternly held its own against the French cavalry, and this +gave time for Stewart to bring up Houghton's brigade. But this time +Stewart, though he brought up his men with as much vehemence as before, +brought them up in order of battle. The 29th, the 48th, and the 57th +swept up the hill in line, led by Houghton, hat in hand. He fell, +pierced by three bullets; but over his dead body, eager to close, the +British line still swept. They reached the crest. A deep and narrow +ravine arrested their bayonet charge; but with stubborn valour they held +the ground they had gained, scourged with musketry fire at pistol-shot +distance, and by artillery at fifty yards' range, while a French column +smote them with its musketry on their flask. The men fell fast, but +fought as they fell. Stewart was twice wounded; Colonel Dutworth, of the +48th, slain; of the 57th, out of 570 men, 430, with their colonel, +Inglis, fell. The men, after the battle, were found lying dead in ranks +exactly as they fought. "Die hard! my men, die hard!" said Inglis when +the bullet struck him; and the 57th have borne the name of "Die hards" +ever since. At Inkerman, indeed, more than fifty years afterwards, the +"Die hard!" of Inglis served to harden the valour of the 57th in a fight +as stern as Albuera itself. + +But ammunition began to fail. Houghton's men would not yield, but it was +plain that in a few more minutes there would be none of them left, save +the dead and the wounded. And at this dreadful moment Beresford, +distracted with the tumult and horror of the fight, wavered! He called +up Alten's men from the bridge to cover his retreat, and prepared to +yield the fatal hill. At this juncture, however, a mind more masterful +and daring than his own launched a third British attack against the +victorious French and won the dreadful day. + +Colonel Hardinge, afterwards famous in Indian battles, acted as +quartermaster-general of the Portuguese army; on his own responsibility +he organised the third English attack. Cole had just come up the road +from Badajos with two brigades, and Hardinge urged him to lead his men +straight up the hill; then riding to Abercrombie's brigade, he ordered +him to sweep round the flank of the hill. Beresford, on learning of this +movement, accepted it, and sent back Alten's men to retake the bridge +which they had abandoned. + +Abercrombie's men swept to the left of the hill, and Cole, a gallant and +able soldier, using the Portuguese regiments in his brigade as a guard +against a flank attack of the French cavalry, led his two fusileer +regiments, the 7th and 23rd, straight to the crest. + +At this moment the French reserves were coming on, the fragments of +Houghton's brigade were falling back, the field was heaped with carcases, +the lancers were riding furiously about the captured artillery, and with +a storm of exultant shouts the French were sweeping on to assured +victory. It was the dramatic moment of the fight. Suddenly through the +fog, coming rapidly on with stern faces and flashing volleys, appeared +the long line of Cole's fusileers on the right of Houghton's staggering +groups, while at the same exact moment Abercrombie's line broke through +the mist on their left. As these grim and threatening lines became +visible, the French shouts suddenly died down. It was the old contest of +the British line--the "thin red line"--against the favourite French +attack in column, and the story can only be told in Napier's resonant +prose. The passage which describes the attack of the fusileers is one of +the classic passages of English battle literature, and in its syllables +can still almost be heard the tread of marching feet, the shrill clangour +of smitten steel, and the thunder of the musketry volleys:-- + +"Such a gallant line," says Napier, "arising from amid the smoke, and +rapidly separating itself from the confused and broken multitude, +startled the enemy's masses, which were increasing and pressing forward +as to assured victory; they wavered, hesitated, and then, vomiting forth +a storm of fire, hastily endeavoured to enlarge their front, while the +fearful discharge of grape from all their artillery whistled through the +British ranks. Myers was killed. Cole and the three colonels--Ellis, +Blakeney, and Hawkshawe--fell wounded, and the fusileer battalions, +struck by the iron tempest, reeled and staggered like sinking ships. +Suddenly and sternly recovering, they closed on their terrible enemies, +and then was seen with what a strength and majesty the British soldier +fights. In vain did Soult, by voice and gesture, animate his Frenchmen; +in vain did the hardiest veterans break from the crowded columns and +sacrifice their lives to gain time for the mass to open on such a fair +field; in vain did the mass itself bear up, and, fiercely striving, fire +indiscriminately on friends and foes, while the horsemen, hovering on the +flanks, threatened to charge the advancing line. + +"Nothing could stop that astonishing infantry. No sudden burst of +undisciplined valour, no nervous enthusiasm weakened the stability of +their order; their flashing eyes were bent on the dark columns in front, +their measured tread shook the ground, their dreadful volleys swept away +the head of every formation, their deafening shouts overpowered the +dissonant cries that broke from all parts of the tumultuous crowd as +slowly and with a horrid carnage it was driven by the incessant vigour of +the attack to the farthest edge of the hill. In vain did the French +reserves mix with the struggling multitude to sustain the fight; their +efforts only increased the irremediable confusion, and the mighty mass, +breaking off like a loosened cliff, went headlong down the ascent. The +rain flowed after in streams discoloured with blood, and 1800 unwounded +men, the remnant of 6000 unconquerable British soldiers, stood triumphant +on the fatal hill." + +The battle of Albuera lasted four hours; its slaughter was dreadful. +Within the space of a few hundred feet square were strewn some 7000 +bodies, and over this Aceldama the artillery had galloped, the cavalry +had charged! The 3rd Buffs went into the fight with 24 officers and 750 +rank and file; at the roll-call next morning there were only 5 officers +and 35 men. One company of the Royal Fusileers came out of the fight +commanded by a corporal; every officer and sergeant had been killed. +Albuera is essentially a soldier's fight. The bayonet of the private, +not the brain of the general, won it; and never was the fighting quality +of our race more brilliantly shown. Soult summed up the battle in words +that deserve to be memorable. "There is no beating those troops," he +wrote, "_in spite of their generals_!" "I always thought them bad +soldiers," he added, with a Frenchman's love of paradox; "now I am sure +of it. For I turned their right, pierced their centre, they were +everywhere broken, the day was mine, and yet _they did not know it_, and +would not run!" + + + + +THE "SHANNON" AND THE "CHESAPEAKE" + + + "The signal to engage shall be + A whistle and a hollo; + Be one and all but firm, like me, + And conquest soon will follow! + You, Gunnel, keep the helm in hand-- + Thus, thus, boys! steady, steady, + Till right ahead you see the land-- + Then soon as you are ready, + The signal to engage shall be + A whistle and a hollo; + Be one and all but firm, like me, + And conquest soon will follow!" + --C. DIBDIN. + + +On the early morning of June 1, 1813, a solitary British frigate, +H.M.S. _Shannon_, was cruising within sight of Boston lighthouse. She +was a ship of about 1000 tons, and bore every mark of long and hard +service. No gleam of colour sparkled about her. Her sides were rusty, +her sails weather-stained; a solitary flag flew from her mizzen-peak, +and even its blue had been bleached by sun and rain and wind to a dingy +grey. A less romantic and more severely practical ship did not float, +and her captain was of the same type as the ship. + +Captain Philip Bowes Vere Broke was an Englishman _pur sang_, and of a +type happily not uncommon. His fame will live as long as the British +flag flies, yet a more sober and prosaic figure can hardly be imagined. +He was not, like Nelson, a quarter-deck Napoleon; he had no gleam of +Dundonald's matchless _ruse de guerre_. He was as deeply religious as +Havelock or one of Cromwell's major-generals; he had the frugality of a +Scotchman, and the heavy-footed common-sense of a Hollander. He was as +nautical as a web-footed bird, and had no more "nerves" than a fish. A +domestic Englishman, whose heart was always with the little girls at +Brokehall, in Suffolk, but for whom the service of his country was a +piety, and who might have competed with Lawrence for his self-chosen +epitaph, "Here lies one who tried to do his duty." + +A sober-suited, half-melancholy common-sense was Broke's +characteristic, and he had applied it to the working of his ship, till +he had made the vessel, perhaps, the most formidable fighting machine +of her size afloat. He drilled his gunners until, from the swaying +platform of their decks, they shot with a deadly coolness and accuracy +nothing floating could resist. Broke, as a matter of fact, owed his +famous victory over the _Chesapeake_ to one of his matter-of-fact +precautions. The first broadside fired by the _Chesapeake_ sent a +32-pound shot through one of the gun-room cabins into the magazine +passage of the _Shannon_, where it might easily have ignited some +grains of loose powder and blown the ship up, if Broke had not taken +the precaution of elaborately _damping_ that passage before the action +began. The prosaic side of Broke's character is very amusing. In his +diary he records his world-famous victory thus:-- + +"June 1st.--Off Boston. Moderate." + +"N.W.--W(rote) Laurence." + +"P.M.--Took _Chesapeake_." + +Was ever a shining victory packed into fewer or duller words? Broke's +scorn of the histrionic is shown by his reply to one of his own men +who, when the _Chesapeake_, one blaze of fluttering colours, was +bearing down upon her drab-coloured opponent, said to his commander, +eyeing the bleached and solitary flag at the _Shannon's_ peak, "Mayn't +we have three ensigns, sir, like she has?" "No," said Broke, "we have +always been an _unassuming_ ship!" + +And yet, this unromantic English sailor had a gleam of Don Quixote in +him. On this pleasant summer morning he was waiting alone, under easy +sail, outside a hostile port, strongly fortified and full of armed +vessels, waiting for an enemy's ship bigger than himself to come out +and fight him. He had sent in the previous day, by way of challenge, a +letter that recalls the days of chivalry. "As the _Chesapeake_," he +wrote to Laurence, its captain, "appears now ready for sea, I request +that you will do me the favour to meet the _Shannon_ with her, ship to +ship." He proceeds to explain the exact armament of the _Shannon_, the +number of her crew, the interesting circumstance that he is short of +provisions and water, and that he has sent away his consort so that the +terms of the duel may be fair. "If you will favour me," he says, "with +any plan of signals or telegraph, I will warn you should any of my +friends be too nigh, while you are in sight, until I can detach them +out of the way. Or," he suggests coaxingly, "I would sail under a flag +of truce to any place you think safest from our cruisers, hauling it +down when fair, to begin hostilities. . . . Choose your terms," he +concludes, "but let us meet." Having sent in this amazing letter, this +middle-aged, unromantic, but hard-fighting captain climbs at daybreak +to his own maintop, and sits there till half-past eleven, watching the +challenged ship, to see if her foretopsail is unloosed and she is +coming out to fight. + +It is easy to understand the causes which kindled a British sailor of +even Broke's unimaginative temperament into flame. On June 18, 1812, +the United States, with magnificent audacity, declared war against +Great Britain. England at that moment had 621 efficient cruisers at +sea, 102 being line-of-battle ships. The American navy consisted of 8 +frigates and 12 corvettes. It is true that England was at war at the +same moment with half the civilised world; but what reasonable chance +had the tiny naval power of the United States against the mighty fleets +of England, commanded by men trained in the school of Nelson, and rich +with the traditions of the Nile and Trafalgar? As a matter of fact, in +the war which followed, the commerce of the United States was swept out +of existence. But the Americans were of the same fighting stock as the +English; to the Viking blood, indeed, they added Yankee ingenuity and +resource, making a very formidable combination; and up to the June +morning when the _Shannon_ was waiting outside Boston Harbour for the +_Chesapeake_, the naval honours of the war belonged to the Americans. +The Americans had no fleet, and the campaign was one of single ship +against single ship, but in these combats the Americans had scored more +successes in twelve months than French seamen had gained in twelve +years. The _Guerrière_, the _Java_, and the _Macedonian_ had each been +captured in single combat, and every British post-captain betwixt +Portsmouth and Halifax was swearing with mere fury. + +The Americans were shrewd enough to invent a new type of frigate which, +in strength of frame, weight of metal, and general fighting power, was +to a British frigate of the same class almost what an ironclad would be +to a wooden ship. The _Constitution_, for example, was in size to the +average British frigate as 15.3 to 10.9; in weight of metal as 76 to +51; and in crew as 46 to 25. Broke, however, had a well-founded belief +in his ship and his men, and he proposed, in his sober fashion, to +restore the tarnished honour of his flag by capturing single-handed the +best American frigate afloat. + +The _Chesapeake_ was a fine ship, perfectly equipped, under a daring +and popular commander. Laurence was a man of brilliant ingenuity and +courage, and had won fame four months before by capturing in the +_Hornet_, after a hard fight, the British brig-of-war _Peacock_. For +this feat he had been promoted to the _Chesapeake_, and in his brief +speech from the quarterdeck just before the fight with the _Shannon_ +began, he called up the memory of the fight which made him a popular +hero by exhorting his crew to "_Peacock_ her, my lads! _Peacock_ her!" +The _Chesapeake_ was larger than the _Shannon_, its crew was nearly a +hundred men stronger, its weight of fire 598 lbs. as against the +_Shannon's_ 538 lbs. Her guns fired double-headed shot, and bars of +wrought iron connected by links and loosely tied by a few rope yarns, +which, when discharged from the gun, spread out and formed a flying +iron chain six feet long. Its canister shot contained jagged pieces of +iron, broken bolts, and nails. As the British had a reputation for +boarding, a large barrel of unslacked lime was provided to fling in the +faces of the boarders. An early shot from the _Shannon_, by the way, +struck this cask of lime and scattered its contents in the faces of the +Americans themselves. Part of the equipment of the _Chesapeake_ +consisted of several hundred pairs of handcuffs, intended for the +wrists of English prisoners. Boston citizens prepared a banquet in +honour of the victors for the same evening, and a small fleet of +pleasure-boats followed the _Chesapeake_ as she came gallantly out to +the fight. + +Never was a braver, shorter, or more murderous fight. Laurence, the +most gallant of men, bore steadily down, without firing a shot, to the +starboard quarter of the _Shannon_. When within fifty yards he luffed; +his men sprang into the shrouds and gave three cheers. Broke fought +with characteristic silence and composure. He forbade his men to +cheer, enforced the sternest silence along his deck, and ordered the +captain of each gun to fire as his piece bore on the enemy. "Fire into +her quarters," he said, "main-deck into main-deck, quarter-deck into +quarter-deck. Kill the men, and the ship is yours." + +The sails of the _Chesapeake_ swept betwixt the slanting rays of the +evening sun and the _Shannon_, the drifting shadow darkened the English +main-deck ports, the rush of the enemy's cut-water could be heard +through the grim silence of the _Shannon's_ decks. Suddenly there +broke out the first gun from the _Shannon_; then her whole side leaped +into flame. Never was a more fatal broadside discharged. A tempest of +shot, splinters, torn hammocks, cut rigging, and wreck of every kind +was hurled like a cloud across the deck of the _Chesapeake_, and of one +hundred and fifty men at stations there, more than a hundred were +killed or wounded. A more fatal loss to the Americans instantly +followed, as Captain Laurence, the fiery soul of his ship, was shot +through the abdomen by an English marine, and fell mortally wounded. + +The answering thunder of the _Chesapeake's_ guns, of course, rolled +out, and then, following quick, the overwhelming blast of the +_Shannon's_ broadside once more. Each ship, indeed, fired two full +broadsides, and, as the guns fell quickly out of range, part of another +broadside. The firing of the _Chesapeake_ was furious and deadly +enough to have disabled an ordinary ship. It is computed that forty +effective shots would be enough to disable a frigate; the _Shannon_ +during the six minutes of the firing was struck by no less than 158 +shot, a fact which proves the steadiness and power of the American +fire. But the fire of the _Shannon_ was overwhelming. In those same +six fatal minutes she smote the _Chesapeake_ with no less than 362 +shots, an average of 60 shots of all sizes every minute, as against the +_Chesapeake's_ 28 shots. The _Chesapeake_ was fir-built, and the +British shot riddled her. One _Shannon_ broadside partly raked the +_Chesapeake_ and literally smashed the stern cabins and battery to mere +splinters, as completely as though a procession of aerolites had torn +through it. + +The swift, deadly, concentrated fire of the British in two +quick-following broadsides practically decided the combat. The +partially disabled vessels drifted together, and the _Chesapeake_ fell +on board the _Shannon_, her quarter striking the starboard main-chains. +Broke, as the ships ground together, looked over the blood-splashed +decks of the American and saw the men deserting the quarter-deck guns, +under the terror of another broadside at so short a distance. "Follow +me who can," he shouted, and with characteristic coolness "stepped"--in +his own phrase--across the _Chesapeake's_ bulwark. He was followed by +some 32 seamen and 18 marines--50 British boarders leaping upon a ship +with a crew of 400 men, a force which, even after the dreadful +broadsides of the _Shannon_, still numbered 270 unwounded men in its +ranks. + +It is absurd to deny to the Americans courage of the very finest +quality, but the amazing and unexpected severity of the _Shannon's_ +fire had destroyed for the moment their _morale_, and the British were +in a mood of victory. The boatswain of the _Shannon_, an old _Rodney_ +man, lashed the two ships together, and in the act had his left arm +literally hacked off by repeated strokes of a cutlass and was killed. +One British midshipman, followed by five topmen, crept along the +_Shannon's_ foreyard and stormed the _Chesapeake's_ foretop, killing +the men stationed there, and then swarmed down by a back-stay to join +the fighting on the deck. Another middy tried to attack the +_Chesapeake's_ mizzentop from the starboard mainyard arm, but being +hindered by the foot of the topsail, stretched himself out on the +mainyard arm, and from that post shot three of the enemy in succession. + +Meanwhile the fight on the deck had been short and sharp; some of the +Americans leaped overboard and others rushed below; and Laurence, lying +wounded in his steerage, saw the wild reflux of his own men down the +after ladders. On asking what it meant, he was told, "The ship is +boarded, and those are the _Chesapeake's_ men driven from the upper +decks by the English." This so exasperated the dying man that he +called out repeatedly, "Then blow her up; blow her up." + +The fight lasted exactly thirteen minutes--the broadsides occupied six +minutes, the boarding seven--and in thirteen minutes after the first +shot the British flag was flying over the American ship. The _Shannon_ +and _Chesapeake_ were bearing up, side by side, for Halifax. The +spectators in the pleasure-boats were left ruefully staring at the +spectacle; those American handcuffs, so thoughtfully provided, were on +American wrists; and the Boston citizens had to consume, with what +appetite they might, their own banquet. The carnage on the two ships +was dreadful. In thirteen minutes 252 men were either killed or +wounded, an average of nearly twenty men for every minute the fight +lasted. In the combat betwixt these two frigates, in fact, nearly as +many men were struck down as in the whole battle of Navarino! The +_Shannon_ itself lost as many men as any 74-gun ship ever lost in +battle. + +Judge Haliburton, famous as "Sam Slick," when a youth of seventeen, +boarded the Chesapeake as the two battered ships sailed into Halifax. +"The deck," he wrote, "had not been cleaned, and the coils and folds of +rope were steeped in gore as if in a slaughter-house. Pieces of skin +with pendent hair were adhering to the sides of the ship; and in one +place I noticed portions of fingers protruding, as if thrust through +the outer walls of the frigate." + +Watts, the first lieutenant of the _Shannon_, was killed by the fire of +his own ship in a very remarkable manner. He boarded with his captain, +with his own hands pulled down the _Chesapeake's_ flag, and hastily +bent on the halliards the English ensign, as he thought, above the +Stars and Stripes, and then rehoisted it. In the hurry he had bent the +English flag under the Stars and Stripes instead of above it, and the +gunners of the _Shannon_, seeing the American stripes going up first, +opened fire instantly on the group at the foot of the mizzen-mast, blew +the top of their own unfortunate lieutenant's head off with a grape +shot, and killed three or four of their own men. + +Captain Broke was desperately wounded in a curious fashion. A group of +Americans, who had laid down their arms, saw the British captain +standing for a moment alone on the break of the forecastle. It seemed +a golden chance. They snatched up weapons lying on the deck, and +leaped upon him. Warned by the shout of the sentry. Broke turned +round to find three of the enemy with uplifted weapons rushing on him. +He parried the middle fellow's pike and wounded him in the face, but +was instantly struck down with a blow from the butt-end of a musket, +which laid bare his skull. He also received a slash from the cutlass +of the third man, which clove a portion of skull completely away and +left the brain bare. He fell, and was grappled on the deck by the man +he had first wounded, a powerful fellow, who got uppermost and raised a +bayonet to thrust through Broke. At this moment a British marine came +running up, and concluding that the man underneath _must_ be an +American, also raised his bayonet to give the _coup de grace_. "Pooh, +pooh, you fool," said Broke in the most matter-of-fact fashion, "don't +you know your captain?" whereupon the marine changed the direction of +his thrust and slew the American. + +The news reached London on July 7, and was carried straight to the +House of Commons, where Lord Cochrane was just concluding a fierce +denunciation of the Admiralty on the ground of the disasters suffered +from the Americans, and Croker, the Secretary to the Admiralty, was +able to tell the story of the fight off Boston to the wildly cheering +House, as a complete defence of his department. Broke was at once +created a Baronet and a Knight of the Bath. In America, on the other +hand, the story of the fight was received with mingled wrath and +incredulity. "I remember," says Rush, afterwards U.S. Minister at the +Court of St. James, "at the first rumour of it, the universal +incredulity. I remember how the post-offices were thronged for +successive days with anxious thousands; how collections of citizens +rode out for miles on the highway to get the earliest news the mail +brought. At last, when the certainty was known, I remember the public +gloom, the universal badges of mourning. 'Don't give up the ship,' the +dying words of Laurence, were on every tongue." + +It was a great fight, the most memorable and dramatic sea-duel in naval +history. The combatants were men of the same stock, and fought with +equal bravery. Both nations, in fact, may be proud of a fight so +frank, so fair, so gallant. The world, we may hope, will never witness +another _Shannon_ engaged in the fierce wrestle of battle with another +_Chesapeake_, for the Union Jack and the Stars and Stripes are knitted +together by a bond woven of common blood and speech and political +ideals that grows stronger every year. + +For years the _Shannon_ and the _Chesapeake_ lay peacefully side by +side in the Medway, and the two famous ships might well have been +preserved as trophies. The _Chesapeake_ was bought by the Admiralty +after the fight for exactly L21,314, 11s. 11 1/4d., and six years +afterwards she was sold as mere old timber for 500 pounds, was broken +up, and to-day stands as a Hampshire flour-mill, peacefully grinding +English corn; but still on the mill-timbers can be seen the marks of +the grape and round shot of the _Shannon_. + + + + +THE GREAT BREACH OF CIUDAD RODRIGO + + + "Attend, all ye who list to hear our noble England's praise, + I tell of the thrice famous deeds she wrought in ancient days." + --MACAULAY. + + +The three great and memorable sieges of the Peninsular war are those of +Ciudad Rodrigo, Badajos, and San Sebastian. The annals of battle +record nowhere a more furious daring in assault or a more gallant +courage in defence than that which raged in turn round each of these +three great fortresses. Of the three sieges that of Badajos was the +most picturesque and bloody; that of San Sebastian the most sullen and +exasperated; that of Ciudad Rodrigo the swiftest and most brilliant. A +great siege tests the fighting quality of any army as nothing else can +test it. In the night watches in the trenches, in the dogged toil of +the batteries, and the crowded perils of the breach, all the frippery +and much of the real discipline of an army dissolves. The soldiers +fall back upon what may be called the primitive fighting qualities--the +hardihood of the individual soldier, the daring with which the officers +will lead, the dogged loyalty with which the men will follow. As an +illustration of the warlike qualities in our race by which empire has +been achieved, nothing better can be desired than the story of how the +breaches were won at Ciudad Rodrigo. + +At the end of 1811 the English and the French were watching each other +jealously across the Spanish border. The armies of Marmont and of +Soult, 67,000 strong, lay within touch of each other, barring +Wellington's entrance into Spain. Wellington, with 35,000 men, of whom +not more than 10,000 men were British, lay within sight of the Spanish +frontier. It was the winter time. Wellington's army was wasted by +sickness, his horses were dying of mere starvation, his men had +received no pay for three months, and his muleteers none for eight +months. He had no siege-train, his regiments were ragged and hungry, +and the French generals confidently reckoned the British army as, for +the moment at least, _une quantité négligeable_. + +And yet at that precise moment, Wellington, subtle and daring, was +meditating a leap upon the great frontier fortress of Ciudad Rodrigo, +in the Spanish province of Salamanca. Its capture would give him a +safe base of operations against Spain; it was the great frontier _place +d'armes_ for the French; the whole siege-equipage, and stores of the +army of Portugal were contained in it. The problem of how, in the +depth of winter, without materials for a siege, to snatch a place so +strong from under the very eyes of two armies, each stronger than his +own, was a problem which might have taxed the warlike genius of a +Caesar. But Wellington accomplished it with a combination of subtlety +and audacity simply marvellous. + +He kept the secret of his design so perfectly that his own engineers +never suspected it, and his adjutant-general, Murray, went home on +leave without dreaming anything was going to happen. Wellington +collected artillery ostensibly for the purpose of arming Almeida, but +the guns were trans-shipped at sea and brought secretly to the mouth of +the Douro. No less than 800 mule-carts were constructed without +anybody guessing their purpose. Wellington, while these preparations +were on foot, was keenly watching Marmont and Soult, till he saw that +they were lulled into a state of mere yawning security, and then, in +Napier's expressive phrase, he "instantly jumped with both feet upon +Ciudad Rodrigo." + +This famous fortress, in shape, roughly resembles a triangle with the +angles truncated. The base, looking to the south, is covered by the +Agueda, a river given to sudden inundations; the fortifications were +strong and formidably armed; as outworks it had to the east the great +fortified Convent of San Francisco, to the west a similar building +called Santa Cruz; whilst almost parallel with the northern face rose +two rocky ridges called the Great and Small Teson, the nearest within +600 yards of the city ramparts, and crowned by a formidable redoubt +called Francisco. The siege began on January 8. The soil was rocky +and covered with snow, the nights were black, the weather bitter. The +men lacked entrenching tools. They had to encamp on the side of the +Agueda farthest from the city, and ford that river every time the +trenches were relieved. The 1st, 3rd, and light divisions formed the +attacking force; each division held the trenches in turn for +twenty-four hours. Let the reader imagine what degree of hardihood it +took to wade in the grey and bitter winter dawn through a half-frozen +river, and without fire or warm food, and under a ceaseless rain of +shells from the enemy's guns, to toil in the frozen trenches, or to +keep watch, while the icicles hung from eyebrow and beard, over the +edge of the battery for twenty-four hours in succession. + +Nothing in this great siege is more wonderful than the fierce speed +with which Wellington urged his operations. Massena, who had besieged +and captured the city the year before in the height of summer, spent a +month in bombarding it before he ventured to assault. Wellington broke +ground on January 8, under a tempest of mingled hail and rain; he +stormed it on the night of the 19th. + +He began operations by leaping on the strong work that crowned the +Great Teson the very night the siege began. Two companies from each +regiment of the light division were detailed by the officer of the day, +Colonel Colborne, for the assault. Colborne (afterwards Lord Seaton), +a cool and gallant soldier, called his officers together in a group and +explained with great minuteness how they were to attack. He then +launched his men against the redoubt with a vehemence so swift that, to +those who watched the scene under the light of a wintry moon, the +column of redcoats, like the thrust of a crimson sword-blade, spanned +the ditch, shot up the glacis, and broke through the parapet with a +single movement. The accidental explosion of a French shell burst the +gate open, and the remainder of the attacking party instantly swept +through it. There was fierce musketry fire and a tumult of shouting +for a moment or two, but in twenty minutes from Colborne's launching +his attack every Frenchman in the redoubt was killed, wounded, or a +prisoner. + +The fashion in which the gate was blown open was very curious. A +French sergeant was in the act of throwing a live shell upon the +storming party in the ditch, when he was struck by an English bullet. +The lighted shell fell from his hands within the parapet, was kicked +away by the nearest French in mere self-preservation; it rolled towards +the gate, exploded, burst it open, and instantly the British broke in. + +For ten days a desperate artillery duel raged between the besiegers and +the besieged. The parallels were resolutely pushed on in spite of +rocky soil, broken tools, bitter weather, and the incessant pelting of +the French guns. The temper of the British troops is illustrated by an +incident which George Napier--the youngest of the three +Napiers--relates. The three others were gallant and remarkable +soldiers. Charles Napier in India and elsewhere made history; William, +in his wonderful tale of the Peninsular war, wrote history; and George, +if he had not the literary genius of the one nor the strategic skill of +the other, was a most gallant soldier. "I was a field-officer of the +trenches," he says, "when a 13-inch shell from the town fell in the +midst of us. I called to the men to lie down flat, and they instantly +obeyed orders, except one of them, an Irishman and an old marine, but a +most worthless drunken dog, who trotted up to the shell, the fuse of +which was still burning, and striking it with his spade, knocked the +fuse out; then taking the immense shell in his hands, brought it to me, +saying, 'There she is for you now, yer 'anner. I've knocked the life +out of the crater.'" + +The besieged brought fifty heavy guns to reply to the thirty light +pieces by which they were assailed, and day and night the bellow of +eighty pieces boomed sullenly over the doomed city and echoed faintly +back from the nearer hills, while the walls crashed to the stroke of +the bullet. The English fire made up by fierceness and accuracy for +what it lacked in weight; but the sap made no progress, the guns showed +signs of being worn out, and although two apparent breaches had been +made, the counterscarp was not destroyed. Yet Wellington determined +to attack, and, in his characteristic fashion, to attack by night. The +siege had lasted ten days, and Marmont, with an army stronger than his +own, was lying within four marches. That he had not appeared already +on the scene was wonderful. + +In a general order issued on the evening of the 19th Wellington wrote, +"Ciudad Rodrigo must be stormed this evening." The great breach was a +sloping gap in the wall at its northern angle, about a hundred feet +wide. The French had crowned it with two guns loaded with grape; the +slope was strewn with bombs, hand-grenades, and bags of powder; a great +mine pierced it beneath; a deep ditch had been cut betwixt the breach +and the adjoining ramparts, and these were crowded with riflemen. The +third division, under General Mackinnon, was to attack the breach, its +forlorn hope being led by Ensign Mackie, its storming party by General +Mackinnon himself. The lesser breach was a tiny gap, scarcely twenty +feet wide, to the left of the great breach; this was to be attacked by +the light division, under Craufurd, its forlorn hope of twenty-five men +being led by Gurwood, and its storming party by George Napier. General +Pack, with a Portuguese brigade, was to make a sham attack on the +eastern face, while a fourth attack was to be made on the southern +front by a company of the 83rd and some Portuguese troops. In the +storming party of the 83rd were the Earl of March, afterwards Duke of +Richmond; Lord Fitzroy Somerset, afterwards Lord Raglan; and the Prince +of Orange--all volunteers without Wellington's knowledge! + +At 7 o'clock a curious silence fell suddenly on the battered city and +the engirdling trenches. Not a light gleamed from the frowning +parapets, not a murmur arose from the blackened trenches. Suddenly a +shout broke out on the right of the English attack; it ran, a wave of +stormy sound, along the line of the trenches. The men who were to +attack the great breach leaped into the open. In a moment the space +betwixt the hostile lines was covered with the stormers, and the gloomy +half-seen face of the great fortress broke into a tempest of fire. + +Nothing could be finer than the vehement courage of the assault, unless +it were the cool and steady fortitude of the defence. Swift as was the +upward rush of the stormers, the race of the 5th, 77th, and 94th +regiments was almost swifter. Scorning to wait for the ladders, they +leaped into the great ditch, outpaced even the forlorn hope, and pushed +vehemently up the great breach, whilst their red ranks were torn by +shell and shot. The fire, too, ran through the tangle of broken stones +over which they climbed; the hand-grenades and powder-bags by which it +was strewn exploded. The men were walking on fire! Yet the attack +could not be denied. The Frenchmen--shooting, stabbing, yelling--were +driven behind their entrenchments. There the fire of the houses +commanding the breach came to their help, and they made a gallant +stand. "None would go back on either side, and yet the British could +not get forward, and men and officers falling in heaps choked up the +passage, which from minute to minute was raked with grape from two guns +flanking the top of the breach at the distance of a few yards. Thus +striving, and trampling alike upon the dead and the wounded, these +brave men maintained the combat." + +It was the attack on the smaller breach which really carried Ciudad +Rodrigo; and George Napier, who led it, has left a graphic narrative of +the exciting experiences of that dreadful night. The light division +was to attack, and Craufurd, with whom Napier was a favourite, gave him +command of the storming party. He was to ask for 100 volunteers from +each of the three British regiments--the 43rd, 52nd, and the Rifle +Corps--in the division. Napier halted these regiments just as they had +forded the bitterly cold river on their way to the trenches. +"Soldiers," he said, "I want 100 men from each regiment to form the +storming party which is to lead the light division to-night. Those who +will go with me come forward!" Instantly there was a rush forward of +the whole division, and Napier had to take his 300 men out of a tumult +of nearly 1500 candidates. He formed them into three companies, under +Captains Ferguson, Jones, and Mitchell. Gurwood, of the 52nd, led the +forlorn hope, consisting of twenty-five men and two sergeants. +Wellington himself came to the trench and showed Napier and Colborne, +through the gloom of the early night, the exact position of the breach. +A staff-officer looking on, said, "Your men are not loaded. Why don't +you make them load?" Napier replied, "If we don't do the business with +the bayonet we shall not do it all. I shall not load." "Let him +alone," said Wellington; "let him go his own way." Picton had adopted +the same grim policy with the third division. As each regiment passed +him, filing into the trenches, his injunction was, "No powder! We'll +do the thing with the _could_ iron." + +A party of Portuguese carrying bags filled with grass were to run with +the storming party and throw the bags into the ditch, as the leap was +too deep for the men. But the Portuguese hesitated, the tumult of the +attack on the great breach suddenly broke on the night, and the forlorn +hope went running up, leaped into the ditch a depth of eleven feet, and +clambered up the steep slope beyond, while Napier with his stormers +came with a run behind them. In the dark for a moment the breach was +lost, but found again, and up the steep quarry of broken stone the +attack swept. About two-thirds of the way up Napier's arm was smashed +by a grape-shot, and he fell. His men, checked for a moment, lifted +their muskets to the gap above them, whence the French were firing +vehemently, and forgetting their pieces were unloaded, snapped them. +"Push on with the bayonet, men!" shouted Napier, as he lay bleeding. +The officers leaped to the front, the men with a stern shout followed; +they were crushed to a front of not more than three or four. They had +to climb without firing a shot in reply up to the muzzles of the French +muskets. + +But nothing could stop the men of the light division. A 24-pounder was +placed across the narrow gap in the ramparts; the stormers leaped over +it, and the 43rd and 52nd, coming up in sections abreast, followed. +The 43rd wheeled to the right towards the great breach, the 52nd to the +left, sweeping the ramparts as they went. + +Meanwhile the other two attacks had broken into the town; but at the +great breach the dreadful fight still raged, until the 43rd, coming +swiftly along the ramparts, and brushing all opposition aside, took the +defence in the rear. The British there had, as a matter of fact, at +that exact moment pierced the French defence. The two guns that +scourged the breach had wrought deadly havoc amongst the stormers, and +a sergeant and two privates of the 88th--Irishmen all, and whose names +deserve to be preserved--Brazel, Kelly, and Swan--laid down their +firelocks that they might climb more lightly, and, armed only with +their bayonets, forced themselves through the embrasure amongst the +French gunners. They were furiously attacked, and Swan's arm was hewed +off by a sabre stroke; but they stopped the service of the gun, slew +five or six of the French gunners, and held the post until the men of +the 5th, climbing behind them, broke into the battery. + +So Ciudad Rodrigo was won, and its governor surrendered his sword to +the youthful lieutenant leading the forlorn hope of the light division, +who, with smoke-blackened face, torn uniform, and staggering from a +dreadful wound, still kept at the head of his men. + +[Illustration: Siege of Ciudad Rodrigo, 1812. From Napier's +"Peninsular War."] + +In the eleven days of the siege Wellington lost 1300 men and officers, +out of whom 650 men and 60 officers were struck down on the slopes of +the breaches. Two notable soldiers died in the attack--Craufurd, the +famous leader of the light division, as he brought his men up to the +lesser breach; and Mackinnon, who commanded a brigade of the third +division, at the great breach. Mackinnon was a gallant Highlander, a +soldier of great promise, beloved by his men. His "Children," as he +called them, followed him up the great breach till the bursting of a +French mine destroyed all the leading files, including their general. +Craufurd was buried in the lesser breach itself, and Mackinnon in the +great breach--fitting graves for soldiers so gallant. + +Alison says that with the rush of the English stormers up the breaches +of Ciudad Rodrigo "began the fall of the French Empire." That siege, +so fierce and brilliant, was, as a matter of fact, the first of that +swift-following succession of strokes which drove the French in ruin +out of Spain, and it coincided in point of time with the turn of the +tide against Napoleon in Russia. Apart from all political results, +however, it was a splendid feat of arms. The French found themselves +almost unable to believe the evidence of their senses. "On the 16th," +Marmont wrote to the Emperor, "the English batteries opened their fire +at a great distance. On the 19th the place was taken by storm. There +is something so _incomprehensible_ in this that I allow myself no +observations." Napoleon, however, relieved his feelings with some very +emphatic observations. "The fall of Ciudad Rodrigo," he wrote to +Marmont, "is an affront to you. Why had you not advices from it twice +a week? What were you doing with the five divisions of Souham? It is +a strange mode of carrying on war," &c. Unhappy Marmont! + + + + +HOW THE "HERMIONE" WAS RECAPTURED + + + "They cleared the cruiser from end to end, + From conning-tower to hold; + They fought as they fought in Nelson's fleet-- + They were stripped to the waist, they were bare to the feet, + As it was in the days of old." + --KIPLING. + + +The story of how the _Hermione_ was lost is one of the scandals and the +tragedies of British naval history; the tale of how it was re-won is +one of its glories. The _Hermione_ was a 32-gun frigate, cruising off +Porto Rico, in the West Indies. On the evening of September 21, 1797, +the men were on drill, reefing topsails. The captain, Pigot, was a +rough and daring sailor, a type of the brutal school of naval officer +long extinct. The traditions of the navy were harsh; the despotic +power over the lives and fortunes of his crew which the captain of a +man-of-war carried in the palm of his hand, when made the servant of a +ferocious temper, easily turned a ship into a floating hell. The +terrible mutinies which broke out in British fleets a hundred years ago +had some justification, at least, in the cruelties, as well as the +hardships, to which the sailors of that period were exposed. + +Pigot was rough in speech, vehement in temper, cursed with a +semi-lunatic delight in cruelty, and he tormented his men to the verge +of desperation. On this fatal night, Pigot, standing at the break of +his quarter-deck, stormed at the men aloft, and swore with many oaths +he would flog the last man off the mizzentop yard; and the men knew how +well he would keep his word. The most active sailor, as the men lay +out on the yard, naturally takes the earing, and is, of course, the +last man off, as well as on, the yard. Pigot's method, that is, would +punish not the worst sailors, but the best! The two outermost men on +the mizzen-top yard of the _Hermione_ that night, determined to escape +the threatened flogging. They made a desperate spring to get over +their comrades crowding into the ratlines, missed their foothold, fell +on the quarter-deck beside their furious captain, and were instantly +killed. The captain's epitaph on the unfortunate sailors was, "Throw +the lubbers overboard!" + +All the next day a sullen gloom lay on the ship. Mutiny was breeding. +It began, as night fell, in a childish fashion, by the men throwing +double-headed shot about the deck. The noise brought down the first +lieutenant to restore order. He was knocked down. In the jostle of +fierce tempers, murder awoke; knives gleamed. A sailor, as he bent +over the fallen officer, saw the naked undefended throat, and thrust +his knife into it. The sight kindled the men's passions to flame. The +unfortunate lieutenant was killed with a dozen stabs, and his body +thrown overboard. The men had now tasted blood. In the flame of +murderous temper suddenly let loose, all the bonds of discipline were +in a moment consumed. A wild rush was made for the officers' cabins. +The captain tried to break his way out, was wounded, and driven back; +the men swept in, and, to quote the realistic official account, "seated +in his cabin the captain was stabbed by his own coxswain and three +other mutineers, and, forced out of the cabin windows, was heard to +speak as he went astern." With mutiny comes anarchy. The men made no +distinction between their officers, cruel or gentle; not only the +captain, but the three lieutenants, the purser, the surgeon, the +lieutenant of marines, the boatswain, the captain's clerk were +murdered, and even one of the two midshipmen on board was hunted like a +rat through the ship, killed, and thrown overboard. The only officers +spared were the master, the gunner, and one midshipman. + +Having captured the ship, the mutineers were puzzled how to proceed. +Every man-of-war on the station, they knew, would be swiftly on their +track. Every British port was sealed to them. They would be pursued +by a retribution which would neither loiter nor slumber. On the open +sea there was no safety for mutineers. They turned the head of the +_Hermione_ towards the nearest Spanish port, La Guayra, and, reaching +it, surrendered the ship to the Spanish authorities, saying they had +turned their officers adrift in the jolly-boat. The Spaniards were not +disposed to scrutinise too closely the story. A transaction which put +into their hands a fine British frigate was welcomed with rapture. The +British admiral in command of the station sent in a flag of truce with +the true account of the mutiny, and called upon the Spanish +authorities, as a matter of honour, to surrender the _Hermione_, and +hand over for punishment the murderers who had carried it off. The +appeal, however, was wasted. + +The _Hermione_, a handsome ship of 715 tons, when under the British +flag, was armed with thirty-two 12-pounders, and had a complement of +220 men. The Spaniards cut new ports in her, increased her broadsides +to forty-four guns, and gave her a complement, including a detachment +of soldiers and artillerymen, of nearly 400 men. She thus became the +most formidable ship carrying the Spanish flag in West Indian waters. + +But the _Hermione_, under its new flag, had a very anxious existence. +It became a point of honour with every British vessel on the station to +look out for the ship which had become the symbol of mutiny, and make a +dash at her, no matter what the odds. The brutal murders which +attended the mutiny shocked even the forecastle imagination, while the +British officers were naturally eager to destroy the ship which +represented revolt against discipline. Both fore and aft, too, the +fact that what had been a British frigate was now carrying the flag of +Spain was resented with a degree of exasperation which assured to the +_Hermione_, under its new name and flag, a very warm time if it came +under the fire of a British ship. The Spaniards kept the _Hermione_ +for just two years, but kept her principally in port, as the moment she +showed her nose in the open sea some British ship or other, sleeplessly +on the watch for her, bore down with disconcerting eagerness. + +In September 1799 the _Hermione_ was lying in Puerto Cabello, while the +_Surprise_, a 28-gun frigate, under Captain Edward Hamilton, was +waiting outside, specially detailed by the admiral, Sir Hyde Parker, to +attack her the instant she put to sea. The _Surprise_ had less than +half the complement of the _Hermione_, and not much more than half her +weight of metal. But Hamilton was not only willing to fight the +Hermione in the open sea against such odds; he told the admiral that if +he would give him a barge and twenty men he would undertake to carry +the Hermione with his boats while lying in harbour. Parker pronounced +the scheme too desperate to be entertained, and refused Hamilton the +additional boat's crew for which he asked. Yet this was the very plan +which Hamilton actually carried out without the reinforcement for which +he had asked! + +Hamilton, to tempt the _Hermione_ out, kept carefully out of sight of +Puerto Cabello to leeward, yet in such a position that if the Hermione +left the harbour her topsails must become visible to the look-outs on +the mastheads of the _Surprise_; and he kept that post until his +provisions failed. Then, as the _Hermione_ would not come out to him, +he determined to go into the _Hermione_. Hamilton was a silent, +much-meditating man, not apt to share his counsels with anybody. In +the cells of his brooding and solitary brain he prepared, down to the +minutest details, his plan for a dash at the _Hermione_--a ship, it +must be remembered, not only more than double his own in strength, but +lying moored head and stern in a strongly fortified port, under the +fire of batteries mounting nearly 200 guns, and protected, in addition, +by several gunboats. In a boat attack, too, Hamilton could carry only +part of his crew with him; he must leave enough hands on board his own +ship to work her. As a matter of fact, he put in his boats less than +100 men, and with them, in the blackness of night, rowed off to attack +a ship that carried 400 men, and was protected by the fire, including +her own broadsides, of nearly 300 guns! The odds were indeed so great +that the imagination of even British sailors, if allowed to meditate +long upon them, might become chilled. Hamilton therefore breathed not +a whisper of his plans, even to his officers, till he was ready to put +them into execution, and, when he did announce them, carried them out +with cool but unfaltering speed. + +On the evening of October 24, Hamilton invited all the officers not on +actual duty to dine in his cabin. The scene may be easily pictured. +The captain at the head of his table, the merry officers on either +side, the jest, the laughter, the toasts; nobody there but the silent, +meditative captain dreaming of the daring deed to be that night +attempted. When dinner was over, and the officers alone, with a +gesture Hamilton arrested the attention of the party, and explained in +a few grim sentences his purpose. The little party of brave men about +him listened eagerly and with kindling eyes. "We'll stand by you, +captain," said one. "We'll all follow you," said another. Hamilton +bade his officers follow him at once to the quarter-deck. A roll of +the drum called the men instantly to quarters, and, when the officers +reported every man at his station, they were all sent aft to where, on +the break of the quarter-deck, the captain waited. + +It was night, starless and black, but a couple of lanterns shed a few +broken rays on the massed seamen with their wondering, upturned faces, +and the tall figure of the silent captain. Hamilton explained in a +dozen curt sentences that they must run into port for supplies; that if +they left their station some more fortunate ship would have the glory +of taking the _Hermione_. "Our only chance, lads," he added, "is to +cut her out to-night!" As that sentence, with a keen ring on its last +word, swept over the attentive sailors, they made the natural response, +a sudden growling cheer. "I lead you myself," added Hamilton, +whereupon came another cheer; "and here are the orders for the six +boats to be employed, with the names of the officers and men." +Instantly the crews were mustered, while the officers, standing in a +cluster round the captain, heard the details of the expedition. Every +seaman was to be dressed in blue, without a patch of white visible; the +password was "Britannia," the answer "Ireland"--Hamilton himself being +an Irishman. + +By half-past seven the boats were actually hoisted out and lowered, the +men armed and in their places, and each little crew instructed as to +the exact part it was to play in the exciting drama. The orders given +were curiously minute. The launch, for example, was to board on the +starboard bow, but three of its men, before boarding, were first to cut +the bower cable, for which purpose a little platform was rigged up on +the launch's quarter, and sharp axes provided. The jolly-boat was to +board on the starboard quarter, cut the stern cable, and send two men +aloft to loose the mizzen topsail. The gig, under the command of the +doctor, was to board on the larboard bow, and instantly send four men +aloft to loose the fore topsail. If the _Hermione_ was reached without +any alarm being given, only the boarders were to leap on board; the +ordinary crews of the boats were to take the frigate in tow. Thus, if +Hamilton's plans were carried out, the Spaniards would find themselves +suddenly boarded at six different points, their cables cut, their +topsails dropped, and their ship being towed out--and all this at the +same instant of time. "The rendezvous," said Hamilton to his officers, +as the little cluster of boats drew away from the _Surprise_, "is the +_Hermione's_ quarter-deck!" + +Hamilton himself led, standing up in his pinnace, with his night-glass +fixed on the doomed ship, and the boats followed with stern almost +touching stern, and a rope passed from each boat to the one behind. +Can a more impressive picture of human daring be imagined than these +six boats pulling silently ever the black waters and through the black +night to fling themselves, under the fire of two hundred guns, on a foe +four times more numerous than themselves! The boats had stolen to +within less than a mile of the _Hermione_, when a Spanish challenge +rang out of the darkness before them. Two Spanish gunboats were on +guard within the harbour, and they at once opened fire on the chain of +boats gliding mysteriously through the gloom. There was no longer any +possibility of surprise, and Hamilton instantly threw off the rope that +connected him with the next boat and shouted to his men to pull. The +men, with a loud "Hurrah!" dashed their oars into the water, and the +boats leaped forward towards the _Hermione_. But Hamilton's boats--two +of them commanded by midshipmen--could not find themselves so close to +a couple of Spanish gunboats without "going" for them. Two of the six +boats swung aside and dashed at the gunboats; only three followed +Hamilton at the utmost speed towards the _Hermione_. + +That ship, meanwhile, was awake. Lights flashed from every port; a +clamour of voices broke on the quiet of the night; the sound of the +drum rolled along the decks, the men ran to quarters. Hamilton, in the +pinnace, dashed past the bows of the _Hermione_ to reach his station, +but a rope, stretched from the _Hermione_ to her anchor-buoy, caught +the rudder of the pinnace and stopped her in full course, the coxswain +reporting the boat "aground." The pinnace had swung round till her +starboard oars touched the bend of the _Hermione_, and Hamilton gave +the word to "board." Hamilton himself led, and swung himself up till +his feet rested on the anchor hanging from the _Hermione's_ cat-head. +It was covered with mud, having been weighed that day, and his feet +slipping off it, Hamilton hung by the lanyard of the _Hermione's_ +foreshroud. The crew of the pinnace meanwhile climbing with the +agility of cats and the eagerness of boys, had tumbled over their own +captain's shoulders as well as the bulwarks of the _Hermione_, and were +on that vessel's forecastle, where Hamilton in another moment joined +them. Here were sixteen men on board a vessel with a hostile crew four +hundred strong. + +Hamilton ran to the break of the forecastle and looked down, and to his +amazement found the whole crew of the _Hermione_ at quarters on the +main-deck, with battle-lanterns lit, and firing with the utmost energy +at the darkness, in which their excited fancy saw the tall masts of at +least a squadron of frigates bearing down to attack them. Hamilton, +followed by his fifteen men, ran aft to the agreed rendezvous on the +_Hermione's_ quarter-deck. The doctor, with his crew, had meantime +boarded, and forgetting all about the rendezvous, and obeying only the +natural fighting impulse in their own blood, charged upon the Spaniards +in the gangway. + +Hamilton sent his men down to assist in the fight, waiting alone on the +quarter-deck till his other boat boarded. Here four Spaniards rushed +suddenly upon him; one struck him over the head with a musket with a +force that broke the weapon itself, and knocked him semi-senseless upon +the combings of the hatchway. Two British sailors, who saw their +commander's peril, rescued him, and, with blood streaming down from his +battered head upon his uniform, Hamilton flung himself into the fight +at the gangway. At this juncture the black cutter, in command of the +first lieutenant, with the _Surprise's_ marines on board, dashed up to +the side of the _Hermione_, and the men came tumbling over the larboard +gangway. They had made previously two unsuccessful attempts to board. +They came up first by the steps of the larboard gangway, the lieutenant +leading. He was incontinently knocked down, and tumbled all his men +with him as he fell back into the boat. They then tried the starboard +of the _Hermione_, and were again beaten back, and only succeeded on a +third attempt. + +Three boats' crews of the British were now together on the deck of the +Hermione. They did not number fifty men in all, but the marines were +instantly formed up and a volley was fired down the after hatchway. +Then, following the flash of their muskets, with the captain leading, +the whole party leaped down upon the maindeck, driving the Spaniards +before them. Some sixty Spaniards took refuge in the cabin, and +shouted they surrendered, whereupon they were ordered to throw down +their arms, and the doors were locked upon them, turning them into +prisoners. On the main-deck and under the forecastle, however, the +fighting was fierce and deadly; but by this time the other boats had +come up, and the cables fore and aft were cut, as had been arranged. +The men detailed for that task had raced up the Spaniard's rigging, and +while the desperate fight raged below, had cast loose the topsails of +the _Hermione_. Three of the boats, too, had taken her in tow. She +began to move seaward, and that movement, with the sound of the +rippling water along the ship's sides, appalled the Spaniards, and +persuaded them the ship was lost. + +On the quarter-deck the gunner and two men--all three wounded--stood at +the wheel, and flung the head of the _Hermione_ seaward. They were +fiercely attacked, but while one man clung to the wheel and kept +control of the ship, the gunner and his mate kept off the Spaniards. +Presently the foretopsail filled with the land breeze, the water +rippled louder along the sides of the moving vessel, the ship swayed to +the wind. The batteries by this time were thundering from the shore, +but though they shot away many ropes, they fired with signal +ill-success. Only fifty British sailors and marines, it must be +remembered, were actually on the deck of the _Hermione_, and amongst +the crowd of sullen and exasperated Spaniards below, who had +surrendered, but were still furious with the astonishment of the attack +and the passion of the fight, there arose a shout to "blow up the +ship." The British had to fire down through the hatchway upon the +swaying crowd to enforce order. By two o'clock the struggle was over, +the _Hermione_ was beyond the fire of the batteries, and the crews of +the boats towing her came on board. + +There is no more surprising fight in British history. The mere +swiftness with which the adventure was carried out is marvellous. It +was past six P.M. when Hamilton disclosed his plan to his officers, the +_Hermione_ at that moment lying some eight miles distant; by two +o'clock the captured ship, with the British flag flying from her peak, +was clear of the harbour. Only half a hundred men actually got on +board the _Hermione_, but what a resolute, hard-smiting, strong-fisted +band they were may be judged by the results. Of the Spaniards, 119 +were killed, and 97 wounded, most of them dangerously. Hamilton's 50 +men, that is, in those few minutes of fierce fighting, cut down four +times their own number! Not one of the British, as it happened, was +killed, and only 12 wounded, Captain Hamilton himself receiving no less +than five serious wounds. The _Hermione_ was restored to her place in +the British Navy List, but under a new name--the _Retribution_--and the +story of that heroic night attack will be for all time one of the most +stirring incidents in the long record of brave deeds performed by +British seamen. + + + + +FRENCH AND ENGLISH IN THE PASSES + + + "Beating from the wasted vines + Back to France her banded swarms, + Back to France with countless blows, + Till o'er the hills her eagles flew + Beyond the Pyrenean pines; + Follow'd up in valley and glen + With blare of bugle, clamour of men, + Roll of cannon and clash of arms, + And England pouring on her foes. + Such a war had such a close." + --TENNYSON. + + +"In both the passes, and on the heights above them, there was desperate +fighting. They fought on the mountain-tops, which could scarcely have +witnessed any other combat than that of the Pyrenean eagles; they +fought among jagged rocks and over profound abysses; they fought amidst +clouds and mists, for those mountain-tops were 5000 feet above the +level of the plain of France, and the rains, which had fallen in +torrents, were evaporating in the morning and noon-day sun, were +steaming heavenward and clothing the loftiest peaks with fantastic +wreaths." These words describe, with picturesque force, the most +brilliant and desperate, and yet, perhaps, the least known chapter in +the great drama of the Peninsular war: the furious combats waged +between British and French in the gloomy valleys and on the +mist-shrouded summits of the Western Pyrenees. The great campaign, +which found its climax at Vittoria, lasted six weeks. In that brief +period Wellington marched with 100,000 men 600 miles, passed six great +rivers, gained one historic and decisive battle, invested two +fortresses, and drove 120,000 veteran troops from Spain. There is no +more brilliant chapter in military history; and, at its close, to quote +Napier's clarion-like sentences, "the English general, emerging from +the chaos of the Peninsular struggle, stood on the summit of the +Pyrenees a recognised conqueror. From those lofty pinnacles the +clangour of his trumpets pealed clear and loud, and the splendour of +his genius appeared as a flaming beacon to warring nations." + +But the great barrier of the Pyrenees stretched across Wellington's +path, a tangle of mountains sixty miles in length; a wild table-land +rough with crags, fierce with mountain torrents, shaggy with forests, a +labyrinth of savage and snow-clad hills. On either flank a great +fortress--San Sebastian and Pampeluna--was held by the French, and +Wellington was besieging both at once, and besieging them without +battering trains. The echoes of Vittoria had aroused Napoleon, then +fighting desperately on the Elbe, and ten days after Vittoria the +French Emperor, acting with the lightning-like decision characteristic +of his genius, had despatched Soult, the ablest of all his generals, to +bar the passes of the Pyrenees against Wellington. Soult travelled day +and night to the scene of his new command, gathering reinforcements on +every side as he went, and in an incredibly short period he had +assembled on the French side of the Pyrenees a great and perfectly +equipped force of 75,000 men. + +Wellington could not advance and leave San Sebastian and Pampeluna on +either flank held by the enemy. Some eight separate passes pierce the +giant chain of the Pyrenees. Soult was free to choose any one of them +for his advance to the relief of either of the besieged fortresses, but +Wellington had to keep guard over the whole eight, and the force +holding each pass was almost completely isolated from its comrades. +Thus all the advantages of position were with Soult. He could pour his +whole force through one or two selected passes, brush aside the +relatively scanty force which held it, relieve San Sebastian or +Pampeluna, and, with the relieved fortress as his base, fling himself +on Wellington's flank while the allied armies were scattered over the +slopes of the Pyrenees for sixty miles. And Soult was exactly the +general to avail himself of these advantages. He had the swift vision, +the resolute will, and the daring of a great commander. "It is on +Spanish soil," he said in a proclamation to his troops, "your tents +must next be pitched. Let the account of our successes be dated from +Vittoria, and let the fête-day of his Imperial Majesty be celebrated in +that city." These were brave words, and having uttered them, Soult led +his gallant troops, with gallant purpose, into the gloomy passes of the +Pyrenees, and for days following the roar of battle sank and swelled +over the snow-clad peaks. But when the Imperial fête-day +arrived--August 15--Soult's great army was pouring back from those same +passes a shattered host, and the allied troops, sternly following them, +were threatening French soil! + +Soult judged Pampeluna to be in greater peril than San Sebastian, and +moved by his left to force the passes of Roncesvalles and Maya. The +rain fell furiously, the mountain streams were in flood, gloomy mists +shrouded the hill-tops; but by July 24, with more than 60,000 fighting +men, and nearly seventy guns, Soult was pouring along the passes he had +chosen. It is impossible to do more than pick out a few of the purple +patches in the swift succession of heroic combats that followed: fights +waged on mountain summits 5000 feet above the sea-level, in shaggy +forests, under tempests of rain and snow. D'Erlon, with a force of +20,000 men, took the British by surprise in the pass of Maya. Ross, an +eager and hardy soldier, unexpectedly encountering the French advance +guard, instantly shouted the order to "Charge!" and with a handful of +the 20th flung himself upon the enemy, and actually checked their +advance until Cole, who had only 10,000 bayonets to oppose to 30,000, +had got into fighting form. A thick fog fell like a pall on the +combatants, and checked the fight, and Cole, in the night, fell back. +The French columns were in movement at daybreak, but still the fog hid +the whole landscape, and the guides of the French feared to lead them +up the slippery crags. At Maya, however, the French in force broke +upon Stewart's division, holding that pass. The British regiments, as +they came running up, not in mass, but by companies, and breathless +with the run, were flung with furious haste upon the French. The 34th, +the 39th, the 28th in succession crashed into the fight, but were flung +back by overpowering numbers. It was a battle of 4000 men against +13,000. + +The famous 50th, fiercely advancing, checked the French rush at one +point; but Soult's men were full of the _élan_ of victory, and swept +past the British flanks. The 71st and 92nd were brought into the +fight, and the latter especially clung sternly to their position till +two men out of every three were shot down, the mound of dead and dying +forming a solid barrier between the wasted survivors of the regiment +and the shouting edge of the French advance. "The stern valour of the +92nd," says Napier, "principally composed of Irishmen, would have +graced Thermopylae." No one need question the fighting quality of the +Irish soldier, but, as a matter of fact, there were 825 Highlanders in +the regiment, and 61 Irishmen. The British, however, were steadily +pushed back, ammunition failed, and the soldiers were actually +defending the highest crag with stones, when Barnes, with a brigade of +the seventh division, coming breathlessly up the pass, plunged into the +fight, and checked the French. Soult had gained ten of the thirty +miles of road toward Pampeluna, but at an ominous cost, and, meanwhile, +the plan of his attack was developed, and Wellington was in swift +movement to bar his path. + +Soult had now swung into the pass of Roncesvalles, and was on the point +of attacking Cole, who held the pass with a very inadequate force, +when, at that exact moment, Wellington, having despatched his aides in +various directions to bring up the troops, galloped alone along the +mountain flank to the British line. He was recognised; the nearest +troops raised a shout; it ran, gathering volume as it travelled down +all the slope, where the British stood waiting for the French attack. +That sudden shout, stern and exultant, reached the French lines, and +they halted. At the same moment, round the shoulder of the hill on the +opposite side of the pass, Soult appeared, and the two generals, near +enough to see each other's features, eagerly scrutinised one another. +"Yonder is a great commander," said Wellington, as if speaking to +himself, "but he is cautious, and will delay his attack to ascertain +the cause of these cheers. That will give time for the sixth division +to arrive, and I shall beat him." Wellington's forecast of Soult's +action was curiously accurate. He made no attack that day. The sixth +division came up, and Soult was beaten! + +[Illustration: Combat of Roncesvalles, July 25, 1813. From Napier's +"Peninsular War."] + +There were two combats of Sauroren, and each was, in Wellington's own +phrase, "bludgeon work"--a battle of soldiers rather than of generals, +a tangle of fierce charges and counter-charges, of volleys delivered so +close that they scorched the very clothes of the opposing lines, and +sustained so fiercely that they died down only because the lines of +desperately firing men crumbled into ruin and silence. Nothing could +be finer than the way in which a French column, swiftly, sternly, and +without firing a shot, swept up a craggy steep crowned by rocks like +castles, held by some Portuguese battalions, and won the position. +Ross's brigade, in return, with equal vehemence recharged the position +from its side, and dashed the French out of it; the French in still +greater force came back, a shouting mass, and crushed Ross's men. Then +Wellington sent forward Byng's brigade at running pace, and hurled the +French down the mountain side. At another point in the pass the French +renewed their assault four times; in their second assault they gained +the summit. The 40th were in reserve at that point; they waited in +steady silence till the edge of the French line, a confused mass of +tossing bayonets and perspiring faces, came clear over the crest; then, +running forward with extraordinary fury, they flung them, a broken, +tumultuous mass, down the slope. In the later charges, so fierce and +resolute were the French officers that they were seen dragging their +tired soldiers up the hill by their belts! + +It is idle to attempt the tale of this wild mountain fighting. Soult +at last fell back, and Wellington followed, swift and vehement, on his +track, and moved Alten's column to intercept the French retreat. The +story of Alten's march is a marvellous record of soldierly endurance. +His men pressed on with speed for nineteen consecutive hours, and +covered forty miles of mountain tracks, wilder than the Otway Ranges, +or the paths of the Australian Alps between Bright and Omeo. The +weather was close; many men fell and died, convulsed and frothing at +the mouth. Still, their officers leading, the regiment kept up its +quick step, till, as evening fell, the head of the column reached the +edge of the precipice overlooking the bridge across which, in all the +confusion of a hurried retreat, the French troops were crowding. "We +overlooked the enemy," says Cook in his "Memoirs," "at stone's-throw. +The river separated us; but the French were wedged in a narrow road, +with inaccessible rocks on one side, and the river on the other." Who +can describe the scene that followed! Some of the French fired +vertically up at the British; others ran; others shouted for quarter; +some pointed with eager gestures to the wounded, whom they carried on +branches of trees, as if entreating the British not to fire. + +In nine days of continual marching, ten desperate actions had been +fought, at what cost of life can hardly be reckoned. Napier, after +roughly calculating the losses, says: "Let this suffice. It is not +needful to sound the stream of blood in all its horrid depths." But +the fighting sowed the wild passes of the Pyrenees thick with the +graves of brave men. + +Soult actually fought his way to within sight of the walls of +Pampeluna, and its beleaguered garrison waved frantic welcomes to his +columns as, from the flanks of the overshadowing hills, they looked +down on the city. Then broken as by the stroke of a thunderbolt, and +driven like wild birds caught in a tempest, the French poured back +through the passes to French soil again. "I never saw such fighting," +was Wellington's comment on the struggle. + +For the weeks that followed, Soult could only look on while San +Sebastian and Pampeluna fell. Then the allied outposts were advanced +to the slopes looking down on France and the distant sea. It is +recorded that the Highlanders of Hill's division, like Xenophon's +Greeks 2000 years before them, broke into cheers when they caught their +first glimpse of the sea, the great, wrinkled, azure-tinted floor, +flecked with white sails. It was "the way home!" Bearn and Gascony +and Languedoc lay stretched like a map under their feet. But the +weather was bitter, the snow lay thick in the passes, sentinels were +frozen at the outposts, and a curious stream of desertions began. The +warm plains of sunny France tempted the half-frozen troops, and Southey +computes, with an arithmetical precision which is half-humorous, that +the average weekly proportion of desertions was 25 Spaniards, 15 Irish, +12 English, 6 Scotch, and half a Portuguese! One indignant English +colonel drew up his regiment on parade, and told the men that "if any +of them wanted to join the French they had better do so at once. He +gave them free leave. He wouldn't have men in the regiment who wished +to join the enemy!" + +Meanwhile Soult was trying to construct on French soil lines of defence +as mighty as those of Wellington at Torres Vedras; and on October 7, +Wellington pushed his left across the Bidassoa, the stream that marks +the boundaries of Spain and France. On the French side the hills rise +to a great height. One huge shoulder, called La Rhune, commands the +whole stream; another lofty ridge, called the "Boar's Back," offered +almost equal facilities for defence. The only road that crossed the +hills rose steeply, with sharp zigzags, and for weeks the French had +toiled to make the whole position impregnable. The British soldiers +had watched while the mountain sides were scarred with trenches, and +the road was blocked with abattis, and redoubt rose above redoubt like +a gigantic staircase climbing the sky. The Bidassoa at its mouth is +wide, and the tides rose sixteen feet. + +But on the night of October 7--a night wild with rain and +sleet--Wellington's troops marched silently to their assigned posts on +the banks of the river. When day broke, at a signal-gun seven columns +could be seen moving at once in a line of five miles, and before Soult +could detect Wellington's plan the river was crossed, the French +entrenched camps on the Bidassoa won! The next morning the heights +were attacked. The Rifles carried the Boar's Back with a single +effort. The Bayonette Crest, a huge spur guarded by battery above +battery, and crowned by a great redoubt, was attacked by Colborne's +brigade and some Portuguese. The tale of how the hill was climbed, and +the batteries carried in swift succession, cannot be told here. It was +a warlike feat of the most splendid quality. Other columns moving +along the flanks of the great hill alarmed the French lest they should +be cut off, and they abandoned the redoubt on the summit. Colborne, +accompanied by only one of his staff and half-a-dozen files of +riflemen, came suddenly round a shoulder of the hill on the whole +garrison of the redoubt, 300 strong, in retreat. With great presence +of mind, he ordered them, in the sharpest tones of authority, to "lay +down their arms," and, believing themselves cut off, they obeyed! + +A column of Spanish troops moving up the flanks of the great Rhune +found their way barred by a strong line of abattis and the fire of two +French regiments. The column halted, and their officers vainly strove +to get the Spaniards to attack. An officer of the 43rd named +Havelock--a name yet more famous in later wars--attached to Alten's +staff, was sent to see what caused the stoppage of the column. He +found the Spaniards checked by the great abattis, through which +flashed, fierce and fast, the fire of the French. Waving his hat, he +shouted to the Spaniards to "follow him," and, putting his horse at the +abattis, at one leap went headlong amongst the French. There is a +swift contagion in valour. He was only a light-haired lad, and the +Spaniards with one vehement shout for "el chico blanco"--"the fair +lad"--swept over abattis and French together! + + + + +FAMOUS CUTTING-OUT EXPEDITIONS + + + "We have fed our sea for a thousand years, + And she calls us, still unfed, + Though there's never a wave of all her waves + But marks our English dead; + We have strawed our best to the weed's unrest, + To the shark and the sheering gull. + If blood be the price of admiralty, + Lord God, we ha' paid in full! + * * * * * + There's never a flood goes shoreward now + But lifts a keel we manned; + There's never an ebb goes seaward now + But drops our dead on the sand. + + We must feed our sea for a thousand years, + For that is our doom and pride, + As it was when they sailed with the Golden Hind, + Or the wreck that struck last tide-- + Or the wreck that lies on the spouting reef + Where the ghastly blue lights flare. + If blood be the price of admiralty, + If blood be the price of admiralty, + If blood be the price of admiralty, + Lord God, we ha' bought it fair!" + --KIPLING. + + +As illustrations of cool daring, of the courage that does not count +numbers or depend on noise, nor flinch from flame or steel, few things +are more wonderful than the many cutting-out stories to be found in the +history of the British navy. The soldier in the forlorn hope, +scrambling up the breach swept by grape and barred by a triple line of +steadfast bayonets, must be a brave man. But it may be doubted whether +he shows a courage so cool and high as that of a boat's crew of sailors +in a cutting-out expedition. + +The ship to be attacked lies, perhaps, floating in a tropic haze five +miles off, and the attacking party must pull slowly, in a sweltering +heat, up to the iron lips of her guns. The greedy, restless sea is +under them, and a single shot may turn the eager boat's crew at any +instant into a cluster of drowning wretches. When the ship is reached, +officers and men must clamber over bulwarks and boarding-netting, +exposed, almost helplessly, as they climb, to thrust of pike and shot +of musket, and then leap down, singly and without order, on to the deck +crowded with foes. Or, perhaps, the ship to be cut out lies in a +hostile port under the guard of powerful batteries, and the boats must +dash in through the darkness, and their crews tumble, at three or four +separate points, on to the deck of the foe, cut her cables, let fall +her sails, and--while the mad fight still rages on her deck and the +great battery booms from the cliff overhead--carry the ship out of the +harbour. These, surely, are deeds of which only a sailor's courage is +capable! Let a few such stories be taken from faded naval records and +told afresh to a new generation. + +In July 1800 the 14-gun cutter _Viper_, commanded by acting-Lieutenant +Jeremiah Coghlan, was attached to Sir Edward Pellew's squadron off Port +Louis. Coghlan, as his name tells, was of Irish blood. He had just +emerged from the chrysalis stage of a midshipman, and, flushed with the +joy of an independent command, was eager for adventure. The entrance +to Port Louis was watched by a number of gunboats constantly on +sentry-go, and Coghlan conceived the idea of jumping suddenly on one of +these, and carrying her off from under the guns of the enemy's fleet. +He persuaded Sir Edward Pellew to lend him the flagship's ten-oared +cutter, with twelve volunteers. Having got this reinforcement, and +having persuaded the _Amethyst_ frigate to lend him a boat and crew, +Mr. Jeremiah Coghlan proceeded to carry out another and very different +plan from that he had ventured to suggest to his admiral. A French +gun-brig, named the _Cerbère_, was lying in the harbour of St. Louis. +She mounted three long 24 and four 6-pounders, and was moored, with +springs in her cables, within pistol-shot of three batteries. A French +seventy-four and two frigates were within gunshot of her. She had a +crew of eighty-six men, sixteen of whom were soldiers. It was upon +this brig, lying under three powerful batteries, within a hostile and +difficult port, that Mr. Jeremiah Coghlan proposed, in the darkness of +night, to make a dash. He added the _Viper's_ solitary midshipman, +with himself and six of his crew, to the twelve volunteers on board the +flagship's cutter, raising its crew to twenty men, and, with the +_Amethyst's_ boat and a small boat from the _Viper_, pulled off in the +blackness of the night on this daring adventure. + +The ten-oared cutter ran away from the other two boats, reached the +_Cerbère_, found her with battle lanterns alight and men at quarters, +and its crew at once jumped on board the Frenchman. Coghlan, as was +proper, jumped first, landed on a trawl-net hung up to dry, and, while +sprawling helpless in its meshes, was thrust through the thigh with a +pike, and with his men--several also severely hurt--tumbled back into +the boat. The British picked themselves up, hauled their boat a little +farther ahead, clambered up the sides of the _Cerbère_ once more, and +were a second time beaten back with new wounds. They clung to the +Frenchman, however, fought their way up to a new point, broke through +the French defences, and after killing or wounding twenty-six of the +enemy--or more than every fourth man of the _Cerbère's_ crew--actually +captured her, the other two boats coming up in time to help in towing +out the prize under a wrathful fire from the batteries. Coghlan had +only one killed and eight wounded, himself being wounded in two places, +and his middy in six. Sir Edward Pellew, in his official despatch, +grows eloquent over "the courage which, hand to hand, gave victory to a +handful of brave fellows over four times their number, and the skill +which planned, conducted, and effected so daring an enterprise." Earl +St. Vincent, himself the driest and grimmest of admirals, was so +delighted with the youthful Irishman's exploit that he presented him +with a handsome sword. + +In 1811, again, Great Britain was at war with the Dutch--a tiny little +episode of the great revolutionary war. A small squadron of British +ships was cruising off Batavia. A French squadron, with troops to +strengthen the garrison, was expected daily. The only fortified port +into which they could run was Marrack, and the commander of the British +squadron cruising to intercept the French ships determined to make a +dash by night on Marrack, and so secure the only possible landing-place +for the French. Marrack was defended by batteries mounting fifty-four +heavy guns. The attacking force was to consist of 200 seamen and 250 +troops, under the command of Lieutenant Lyons of the _Minden_. Just +before the boats pushed off, however, the British commander learned +that the Dutch garrison had been heavily reinforced, and deeming an +assault too hazardous, the plan was abandoned. A few days afterwards +Lyons, with the _Minden's_ launch and cutter, was despatched to land +nineteen prisoners at Batavia, and pick up intelligence. Lyons, a very +daring and gallant officer, learned that the Marrack garrison was in a +state of sleepy security, and, with his two boats' crews, counting +thirty-five officers and men, he determined to make a midnight dash on +the fort, an exploit which 430 men were reckoned too weak a force to +attempt. + +Lyons crept in at sunset to the shore, and hid his two boats behind a +point from which the fort was visible. A little after midnight, just +as the moon dipped below the horizon, Lyons stole with muffled oars +round the point, and instantly the Dutch sentries gave the alarm. +Lyons, however, pushed fiercely on, grounded his boats in a heavy surf +under the very embrasures of the lower battery, and, in an instant, +thirty-five British sailors were tumbling over the Dutch guns and upon +the heavy-breeched and astonished Dutch gunners. The battery was +carried. Lyons gathered his thirty-five sailors into a cluster, and, +with a rush, captured the upper battery. Still climbing up, they +reached the top of the hill, and found the whole Dutch garrison forming +in line to receive them. The sailors instantly ran in upon the +half-formed line, cutlass in hand; Lyons roared that he "had 400 men, +and would give no quarter;" and the Dutch, finding the pace of events +too rapid for their nerves, broke and fled. But the victorious British +were only thirty-five in number, and were surrounded by powerful +forces. They began at once to dismantle the guns and destroy the fort, +but two Dutch gunboats in the bay opened fire on them, as did a heavy +battery in the rear. + +At daybreak a strong Dutch column was formed, and came on at a resolute +and laborious trot towards the shattered gate of the fort. Lyons had +trained two 24-pounders, loaded to the muzzle with musket balls, on the +gate, left invitingly open. He himself stood, with lighted match, by +one gun; his second in command, with another lighted match, by the +other. They waited coolly by the guns till the Dutch, their officers +leading, reached the gate, raising a tumult of angry guttural shouts as +they came on. Then, from a distance of little over ten yards, the +British fired. The head of the column was instantly smashed, its tail +broken up into flying fragments. Lyons finished the destruction of the +fort at leisure, sank one of the two gunboats with the last shot fired +from the last gun before he spiked it, and marched off, leaving the +British flag flying on the staff above the fort, where, in the fury of +the attack, it had been hoisted in a most gallant fashion by the +solitary middy of the party, a lad named Franks, only fifteen years +old. One of the two boats belonging to the British had been bilged by +the surf, and the thirty-five seamen--only four of them wounded--packed +themselves into the remaining boat and pulled off, carrying with them +the captured Dutch colours. Let the reader's imagination illuminate, +as the writer's pen cannot, that midnight dash by thirty-five men on a +heavily armed fort with a garrison twelve times the strength of the +attacking force. Where in stories of warfare, ancient or modern, is +such another tale of valour to be found? Lyons, however, was not +promoted, as he had "acted without orders." + +A tale, with much the same flavour in it, but not so dramatically +successful, has for its scene the coast of Spain. In August 1812, the +British sloop _Minstrel_, of 24 guns, and the 18-gun brig _Philomel_, +were blockading three small French privateers in the port of Biendom, +near Alicante. The privateers were protected by a strong fort mounting +24 guns. By way of precaution, two of the ships were hauled on shore, +six of their guns being landed, and formed into a battery manned by +eighty of their crews. The _Minstrel_ and her consort could not +pretend to attack a position so strong, but they kept vigilant watch +outside, and a boat from one ship or the other rowed guard every night +near the shore. On the night of the 12th the _Minstrel's_ boat, with +seven seamen, was in command of an Irish midshipman named Michael +Dwyer. Dwyer had all the fighting courage of his race, with almost +more of the gay disregard of odds than is natural to even an Irish +midshipman. It occurred to Mr. Michael Dwyer that if he could carry by +surprise the 6-gun battery, there would be a chance of destroying the +privateers. A little before ten P.M. he pulled silently to the beach, +at a point three miles distant from the battery, and, with his seven +followers, landed, and was instantly challenged by a French sentry. +Dwyer by some accident knew Spanish, and, with ready-witted audacity, +replied in that language that "they were peasants." They were allowed +to pass, and these seven tars, headed by a youth, set off on the three +miles' trudge to attack a fort! + +There were eighty men in the battery when Michael and his amazing seven +rushed upon it. There was a wild struggle for five minutes, and then +the eighty fled before the eight, and the delighted middy found himself +in possession of the battery. But the alarm was given, and two +companies of French infantry, each one hundred strong, came resolutely +up to retake the battery. Eight against eighty seemed desperate odds, +but eight against two hundred is a quite hopeless proportion. Yet Mr. +Dwyer and his seven held the fort till one of their number was killed, +two (including the midshipman) badly wounded, and, worst of all, their +ammunition exhausted. When the British had fired their last shot, the +French, with levelled bayonets, broke in; but the inextinguishable +Dwyer was not subdued till he had been stabbed in seventeen places, and +of the whole eight British only one was left unwounded. The French +amazement when they discovered that the force which attacked them +consisted of seven men and a boy, was too deep for words. + +Perhaps the most brilliant cutting-out in British records is the +carrying of the _Chevrette_ by the boats of three British frigates in +Cameret Bay in 1801. A previous and mismanaged attempt had put the +_Chevrette_ on its guard; it ran a mile and a half farther up the bay, +moored itself under some heavy batteries, took on board a powerful +detachment of infantry, bringing its number of men up to 339, and then +hoisted in defiance a large French ensign over the British flag. Some +temporary redoubts were thrown up on the points of land commanding the +_Chevrette_, and a heavily armed gunboat was moored at the entrance of +the bay as a guard-boat. After all these preparations the +_Chevrette's_ men felt both safe and jubilant; but the sight of that +French flag flying over the British ensign was a challenge not to be +refused, and at half-past nine that night the boats of the three +frigates--the _Doris_, the _Uranie_, and the _Beaulieu_--fifteen in +all, carrying 280 officers and men, were in the water and pulling off +to attack the _Chevrette_. + +Lieutenant Losack, in command, with his own and five other boats, +suddenly swung off in the gloom in chase of what he supposed to be the +look-out boat of the enemy, ordering the other nine boats to lie on +their oars till he returned. But time stole on; he failed to return; +and Lieutenant Maxwell, the next in command, reflecting that the night +was going, and the boats had six miles to pull, determined to carry out +the expedition, though he had only nine boats and less than 180 men, +instead of fifteen boats and 280 men. He summoned his little squadron +in the darkness about him, and gave exact instructions. As the boats +dashed up, one was to cut the _Chevrette's_ cables; when they boarded, +the smartest topmen, named man by man, were to fight their way aloft +and cut loose the _Chevrette's_ sails; one of the finest sailors in the +boats, Wallis, the quartermaster of the _Beaulieu_, was to take charge +of the _Chevrette's_ helm. Thus at one and the same instant the +_Chevrette_ was to be boarded, cut loose, its sails dropped, and its +head swung round towards the harbour mouth. + +At half-past twelve the moon sank. The night was windless and black; +but the bearing of the _Chevrette_ had been taken by compass, and the +boats pulled gently on, till, ghost-like in the gloom, the doomed ship +was discernible. A soft air from the land began to blow at that +moment. Suddenly the _Chevrette_ and the batteries overhead broke into +flame. The boats were discovered! The officers leaped to their feet +in the stern of each boat, and urged the men on. The leading boats +crashed against the _Chevrette's_ side. The ship was boarded +simultaneously on both bows and quarters. The force on board the +_Chevrette_, however, was numerous enough to make a triple line of +armed men round the whole sweep of its bulwarks; they were armed with +pikes, tomahawks, cutlasses, and muskets, and they met the attack most +gallantly, even venturing in their turn to board the boats. By this +time, however, the nine boats Maxwell was leading had all come up, and +although the defence outnumbered the attack by more than two to one, +yet the British were not to be denied. They clambered fiercely on +board; the topmen raced aloft, found the foot-ropes on the yards all +strapped up, but running out, cutlass in hand, they cut loose the +_Chevrette's_ sails. Wallis, meanwhile, had fought his way to the +wheel, slew two of the enemy in the process, was desperately wounded +himself, yet stood steadily at the wheel, and kept the _Chevrette_ +under command, the batteries by this time opening upon the ship a fire +of grape and heavy shot. + +In less than three minutes after the boats came alongside, although +nearly every second man of their crews had been killed or wounded, the +three topsails and courses of the _Chevrette_ had fallen, the cables +had been cut, and the ship was moving out in the darkness. She leaned +over to the light breeze, the ripple sounded louder at her stern, and +when the French felt the ship under movement, it for the moment +paralysed their defence. Some jumped overboard; others threw down +their arms and ran below. The fight, though short, had been so fierce +that the deck was simply strewn with bodies. Many of the French who +had retreated below renewed the fight there; they tried to blow up the +quarter-deck with gunpowder in their desperation, and the British had +to fight a new battle between decks with half their force while the +ship was slowly getting under weigh. The fire of the batteries was +furious, but, curiously enough, no important spar was struck, though +some of the boats towing alongside were sunk. And while the batteries +thundered overhead, and the battle still raged on the decks below, the +British seamen managed to set every sail on the ship, and even got +topgallant yards across. Slowly the _Chevrette_ drew out of the +harbour. Just then some boats were discovered pulling furiously up +through the darkness; they were taken to be French boats bent on +recapture, and Maxwell's almost exhausted seamen were summoned to a new +conflict. The approaching boats, however, turned out to be the +detachment under Lieutenant Losack, who came up to find the work done +and the _Chevrette_ captured. + +The fight on the deck of the _Chevrette_ had been of a singularly +deadly character. The British had a total of 11 killed and 57 wounded; +the Chevrette lost 92 killed and 62 wounded, amongst the slain being +the _Chevrette's_ captain, her two lieutenants, and three midshipmen. +Many stories are told of the daring displayed by British seamen in this +attack. The boatswain of the _Beaulieu_, for example, boarded the +_Chevrette's_ taffrail; he took one glance along the crowded decks, +waved his cutlass, shouted "Make a lane there!" and literally carved +his way through to the forecastle, which he cleared of the French, and +kept clear, in spite of repeated attacks, while he assisted to cast the +ship about and make sail with as much coolness as though he had been on +board the _Beaulieu_. Wallis, who fought his way to the helm of the +_Chevrette_, and, though wounded, kept his post with iron coolness +while the fight raged, was accosted by his officer when the fight was +over with an expression of sympathy for his wounds. "It is only a +prick or two, sir," said Wallis, and he added he "was ready to go out +on a similar expedition the next night." A boatswain's mate named Ware +had his left arm cut clean off by a furious slash of a French sabre, +and fell back into the boat. With the help of a comrade's tarry +fingers Ware bound up the bleeding stump with rough but energetic +surgery, climbed with his solitary hand on board the Chevrette, and +played a most gallant part in the fight. + +The fight that captured the _Chevrette_ is almost without parallel. +Here was a ship carried off from an enemy's port, with the combined +fleets of France and Spain looking on. The enemy were not taken by +surprise; they did not merely defy attack, they invited it. The +British had to assail a force three times their number, with every +advantage of situation and arms. The British boats were exposed to a +heavy fire from the _Chevrette_ itself and from the shore batteries +before they came alongside. The crews fought their way up the sides of +the ship in the face of overwhelming odds; they got the vessel under +weigh while the fight still raged, and brought her out of a narrow and +difficult roadstead, before they had actually captured her. "All this +was done," to quote the "Naval Chronicle" for 1802, "in the presence of +the grand fleet of the enemy; it was done by nine boats out of fifteen, +which originally set out upon the expedition; it was done under the +conduct of an officer who, in the absence of the person appointed to +command, undertook it upon his own responsibility, and whose +intrepidity, judgment, and presence of mind, seconded by the wonderful +exertions of the officers and men under his command, succeeded in +effecting an enterprise which, by those who reflect upon its peculiar +circumstances, will ever be regarded with astonishment." + + + + +MOUNTAIN COMBATS + + + "At length the freshening western blast + Aside the shroud of battle cast; + And first the ridge of mingled spears + Above the brightening cloud appears; + And in the smoke the pennons flew, + As in the storm the white sea-mew. + Then marked they, dashing broad and far, + The broken billows of the war, + And plumèd crests of chieftains brave + Floating like foam upon the wave, + But nought distinct they see." + --SCOTT. + + +The brilliant and heroic combats on the Nive belong to the later stages +of the Pyrenean campaign; and here, as on the Bidassoa, Soult had all +the advantages of position. He had a fortified camp and a great +fortress as his base; excellent roads linked the whole of his positions +together; he held the interior lines, and could reach any point in the +zone of operations in less time than his great opponent. Wellington, +on the other hand, had almost every possible disadvantage. The weather +was bitter; incessant rains fell; he had to operate on both sides of a +dangerous river; the roads were mere ribbons of tenacious clay, in +which the infantry sank to mid-leg, the guns to their axles, the +cavalry sometimes to their saddle-girths. Moreover, Wellington's +Spanish troops had the sufferings and outrages of a dozen campaigns to +avenge, and when they found themselves on French soil the temptations +to plunder and murder were irresistible. Wellington would not maintain +war by plunder, and, as he found he could not restrain his Spaniards, +he despatched the whole body, 25,000 strong, back to Spain. It was a +great deed. It violated all military canons, for by it Wellington +divided his army in the presence of the enemy. It involved, too, a +rare sacrifice of personal ambition. "If I had 20,000 Spaniards, paid +and fed," he wrote to Lord Bathurst, "I should have Bayonne. If I had +40,000 I do not know where I should stop. Now I have both the 20,000 +and the 40,000, . . . but if they plunder they will ruin all." +Wellington was great enough to sacrifice both military rules and +personal ambition to humanity. He was wise enough, too, to know that a +policy which outrages humanity in the long-run means disaster. + +Wellington's supreme advantage lay in the fighting quality of his +troops. The campaigns of six years had made them an army of veterans. +"Danger," says Napier, "was their sport," and victory, it might also be +added, was their habit. They fought with a confidence and fierceness +which, added to the cool and stubborn courage native to the British +character, made the battalions which broke over the French frontier +under Wellington perhaps the most formidable fighting force known in +the history of war. To quote Napier once more: "What Alexander's +Macedonians were at Arbela, Hannibal's Africans at Cannae, Caesar's +Romans at Pharsalia, Napoleon's Guards at Austerlitz, such were +Wellington's British soldiers at this period." + +On November 10, 1813, was fought what is called the battle of Nivelle, +in which Wellington thrust Soult roughly and fiercely from the strong +positions he held on the flanks of the great hills under which the +Nivelle flows. The morning broke in great splendour; three signal-guns +flashed from the heights of one of the British hills, and at once the +43rd leaped out and ran swiftly forward from the flank of the great +Rhune to storm the "Hog's Back" ridge of the Petite Rhune, a ridge +walled with rocks 200 feet high, except at one point, where it was +protected by a marsh. William Napier, who commanded the 43rd, has told +the story of the assault. He placed four companies in reserve, and led +the other four in person to the attack on the rocks; and he was chiefly +anxious not to rush his men--to "keep down the pace," so that they +would not arrive spent and breathless at the French works. The men +were eager to rush, however; the fighting impulse in them was on flame, +and they were held back with difficulty. When they were still nearly +200 yards from the enemy, a youthful aide-de-camp, his blood on fire, +came galloping up with a shout, and waving his hat. The 43rd broke out +of hand at once with the impulse of the lad's enthusiasm and the stroke +of his horse's flying hoofs, and with a sudden rush they launched +themselves on the French works still high above them. + +Napier had nothing for it but to join the charging mass. "I was the +first man but one," he says, "who reached and jumped into the rocks, +and I was only second because my strength and speed were unequal to +contend with the giant who got before me. He was the tallest and most +active man in the regiment, and the day before, being sentenced to +corporal punishment, I had pardoned him on the occasion of an +approaching action. He now repaid me by striving always to place +himself between me and the fire of the enemy. His name was Eccles, an +Irishman." The men won the first redoubt, but simply had not breath +and strength enough left to reach the one above it, and fell gasping +and exhausted in the rocks before it, the French firing fiercely upon +them. In a few minutes, however, they had recovered breath; they +leaped up with a shout, and tumbled over the wall of the castle; and +so, from barrier to barrier, as up some Titanic stairway, the 43rd +swept with glittering bayonets. The summit was held by a powerful work +called the Donjon; it was so strong that attack upon it seemed madness. +But a keen-eyed British officer detected signs of wavering in the +French within the fort, and with a shout the 43rd leaped at it, and +carried it. It took the 43rd twenty minutes to carry the whole chain +of positions; and of the eleven officers of the regiment, six were +killed or desperately wounded. The French showed bravery; they fought, +in fact, muzzle to muzzle up the whole chain of positions. But the +43rd charged with a daring and fury absolutely resistless. + +Another amazing feature in the day's fight was the manner in which +Colborne, with the 52nd, carried what was called the Signal Redoubt, a +strong work, crowning a steep needle-pointed hill, and overlooking the +whole French position. Colborne led his men up an ascent so sharp that +his horse with difficulty could climb it. The summit was reached, and +the men went in, with a run, at the work, only to find the redoubt +girdled by a wide ditch thirty feet deep. The men halted on the edge +of the deep cutting, and under the fire of the French they fell fast. +Colborne led back his men under the brow of the hill for shelter, and +at three separate points brought them over the crest again. In each +case, after the men had rested under shelter long enough to recover +breath, the word was passed, "Stand up and advance." The men instantly +obeyed, and charged up to the edge of the ditch again, many of the +leading files jumping into it. But it was impossible to cross, and +each time the mass of British infantry stepped coolly back into cover +again. + +One sergeant named Mayne, who had leaped into the ditch, found he could +neither climb the ramparts nor get back to his comrades, and he flung +himself on his face. A Frenchman leaned over the rampart, took +leisurely aim, and fired at him as he lay. Mayne had stuck the +billhook of his section at the back of his knapsack, and the bullet +struck it and flattened upon it. Colborne was a man of infinite +resource in war, and at this crisis he made a bugler sound a parley, +hoisted his white pocket-handkerchief, and coolly walked round to the +gate of the redoubt and invited the garrison to surrender. The veteran +who commanded it answered indignantly, "What! I with my battalion +surrender to you with yours?" "Very well," answered Colborne in +French, "the artillery will be up immediately; you cannot hold out, and +you will be surrendered to the Spaniards." That threat was sufficient. +The French officers remonstrated stormily with their commander, and the +work was surrendered. But only one French soldier in the redoubt had +fallen, whereas amongst the 52nd "there fell," says Napier, "200 +soldiers of a regiment never surpassed in arms since arms were first +borne by men." In this fight Soult was driven in a little more than +three hours from a mountain position he had been fortifying for more +than three months. + +Amongst the brave men who died that day on the side of the British were +two whose portraits Napier has drawn with something of Plutarch's +minuteness:-- + +"The first, low in rank, for he was but a lieutenant; rich in honour, +for he bore many scars; was young of days--he was only nineteen--and +had seen more combats and sieges than he could count years. So slight +in person and of such surpassing and delicate beauty that the Spaniards +often thought him a girl disguised in man's clothing; he was yet so +vigorous, so active, so brave, that the most daring and experienced +veterans watched his looks on the field of battle, and, implicitly +following where he led, would, like children, obey his slightest sign +in the most difficult situations. His education was incomplete, yet +were his natural powers so happy that the keenest and best-furnished +shrank from an encounter of wit; and every thought and aspiration was +proud and noble, indicating future greatness if destiny had so willed +it. Such was Edward Freer of the 43rd. The night before the battle he +had that strange anticipation of coming death so often felt by military +men. He was struck by three balls at the first storming of the Rhune +rocks, and the sternest soldiers wept, even in the middle of the fight, +when they saw him fall." + +"On the same day, and at the same hour, was killed Colonel Thomas +Lloyd. He likewise had been a long time in the 43rd. Under him Freer +had learned the rudiments of his profession; but in the course of the +war, promotion placed Lloyd at the head of the 94th, and it was leading +that regiment he fell. In him also were combined mental and bodily +powers of no ordinary kind. Graceful symmetry, herculean strength, and +a countenance frank and majestic, gave the true index of his nature; +for his capacity was great and commanding, and his military knowledge +extensive, both from experience and study. Of his mirth and wit, well +known in the army, it only need be said that he used the latter without +offence, yet so as to increase the ascendency over those with whom he +held intercourse; for, though gentle, he was ambitious, valiant, and +conscious of his fitness for great exploits. And he, like Freer, was +prescient of and predicted his own fall, but with no abatement of +courage, for when he received the mortal wound, a most painful one, he +would not suffer himself to be moved, and remained to watch the battle, +making observations upon its changes until death came. It was thus, at +the age of thirty, that the good, the brave, the generous Lloyd died. +Tributes to his memory have been published by Wellington, and by one of +his own poor soldiers, by the highest and by the lowest. To their +testimony I add mine. Let those who served on equal terms with him say +whether in aught it has exaggerated his deserts." + +A pathetic incident may be added, found in Napier's biography, but +which he does not give in his History. The night before the battle +Napier was stretched on the ground under his cloak, when young Freer +came to him and crept under the cover of his cloak, sobbing as if his +heart would break. Napier tried to soothe and comfort the boy, and +learnt from him that he was fully persuaded he should lose his life in +the approaching battle, and his distress was caused by thinking of his +mother and sister in England. + +On December 9, Wellington, by a daring movement and with some fierce +fighting, crossed the Nive. It was a movement which had many +advantages, but one drawback--his wings were now separated by the Nive; +and Soult at this stage, like the great and daring commander he was, +took advantage of his position to attempt a great counter-stroke. It +was within his power to fling his whole force on either wing of +Wellington, and so confident was he of success that he wrote to the +Minister of War telling him to "expect good news" the next day. +Wellington himself was on the right bank of the Nive, little dreaming +that Soult was about to leap on the extremity of his scattered forces. +The country was so broken that Soult's movements were entirely hidden, +and the roads so bad that even the cavalry outposts could scarcely +move. On the night of the 9th Soult had gathered every available +bayonet, and was ready to burst on the position held by Sir John Hope +at Arcanques. + +In the grey dawn of the 10th the out-pickets of the 43rd noticed that +the French infantry were pushing each other about as if in sport; but +the crowd seemed to thicken and to eddy nearer and nearer the British +line. It was a trick to deceive the vigilance of the British outposts. +Presently the apparently sportive crowd made a rush forwards and +resolved itself into a spray of swiftly moving skirmishers. The French +columns broke from behind a screen of houses, and, at a running pace, +and with a tumult of shouts, charged the British position. In a moment +the crowd of French soldiers had penetrated betwixt the 43rd and 52nd, +and charging eagerly forward, tried to turn the flanks of both. But +these were veteran regiments; they fell coolly and swiftly back, firing +fiercely as they went. It was at once a race and a combat. The roads +were so narrow and so bad that the British could keep no order, and if +the French outpaced them and reached the open position at the rear +first, the British line would be pierced. The 43rd came through the +pass first, apparently a crowd of running fugitives, officers and men +jumbled together. The moment they had reached the open ground, +however, the men fell, as if by a single impulse, into military form, +and became a steadfast red line, from end to end of which ran, and ran +again, and yet again, the volleying flame of a sustained musketry fire. +The pass was barred! + +The troops to the right of the French were not quite so quick or so +fortunate, and about 100 of the British--riflemen and men of the +43rd--were intercepted. The French never doubted that they would +surrender, for they were but a handful of men cut off by a whole +column. An ensign of the 43rd named Campbell, a lad not eighteen years +of age, was in the front files of the British when the call to +surrender was heard. With a shout the boy-ensign leaped at the French +column. Where an officer leads, British soldiers will always follow, +and the men followed him with a courage as high as his own. With a +rush the column was rent, and though fifty of the British were killed +or taken, fifty, including the gallant boy who led them, escaped. + +The fighting at other points was of the sharpest, and was strangely +entangled and confused. It was a fight of infantry against infantry, +and the whole field of the combat was interlaced by almost impassable +hedges. At one point, so strangely broken was the ground, and so +obscured the fight with smoke and mist, that a French regiment passed +unseen betwixt the British and Portuguese, and was rapidly filing into +line on the rear of the 9th, fiercely occupied at that moment against a +strong force in front. Cameron, its colonel, left fifty men of his +regiment to answer the fire in his front, faced about, and went at a +run against the French regiment, which by this time had commenced +volley-firing. Cameron's men fell fast--eighty men and officers, in +fact, dropped in little more than five minutes--but the rush of the 9th +was irresistible. The Frenchmen wavered, broke, and swept, a +disorganised mass, past the flank of the Royals, actually carrying off +one of its officers in the rush, and disappeared. + +The sternest and most bewildering fighting took place round a building +known as the "mayor's house," surrounded by a coppice-wood. Coppice +and outbuildings were filled with men of all regiments and all nations, +swearing, shooting, and charging with the bayonet. The 84th was caught +in a hollow road by the French, who lined the banks above, and lost its +colonel and a great proportion of its rank and file. Gronow tells an +amusing incident of the fight at this stage. An isolated British +battalion stationed near the mayor's house was suddenly surrounded by a +flood of French. The French general galloped up to the British officer +in command and demanded his sword. "Upon this," says Gronow, "without +the least hesitation the British officer shouted out, 'This fellow +wants us to surrender! Charge! my boys, and show them what stuff we +are made of.'" The men answered with a shout, sudden, scornful, and +stern, and went with a run at the French. "In a few minutes," adds +Gronow, "they had taken prisoners or killed the whole of the infantry +regiment opposed to them!" + +On the 11th desperate fighting took place on the same ground, but the +British were by this time reinforced--the Guards, in particular, coming +up after a rapid and exhausting march--and Soult's attack had failed. +But on the night of the 12th the rain fell fast and steadily, the Nive +was flooded, the bridge of boats which spanned it swept away, and Hill +was left at St. Pierre isolated, with less than 14,000 men. Soult saw +his opportunity. The interior lines he held made concentration easy, +and on the morning of the 13th he was able to pour an attacking force +of 35,000 bayonets on Hill's front, while another infantry division, +together with the whole of the French cavalry under Pierre Soult, +attacked his rear. Then there followed what has been described as the +most desperate battle of the whole Peninsular war. + + + + +THE BLOODIEST FIGHT IN THE PENINSULA + + + "Then out spoke brave Horatius, + The captain of the gate: + 'To every man upon this earth + Death cometh soon or late; + And how can man die better + Than facing fearful odds, + For the ashes of his fathers + And the temples of his gods?'" + --MACAULAY. + + +Hill's front stretched through two miles; his left; a wooded craggy +ridge, was held by Pringle's brigade, but was parted from the centre by +a marshy valley and a chain of ponds; his centre occupied a +crescent-shaped broken ridge; his right, under General Byng, held a +ridge parallel with the Adour. The French gathered in great masses on +a range of counter-heights, an open plain being between them and Hill's +centre. The day was heavy with whirling mist; and as the wind tore it +occasionally asunder, the British could see on the parallel roads +before them the huge, steadily flowing columns of the French. + +Abbé led the attack on the British centre. He was "the fighting +general" of Soult's army, famous for the rough energy of his character +and the fierceness of his onfall. He pushed his attack with such +ardour that he forced his way to the crest of the British ridge. The +famous 92nd, held in reserve, was brought forward by way of +counter-stroke, and pushed its attack keenly home. The head of Abbé's +column was crushed; but the French general replaced the broken +battalions by fresh troops, and still forced his way onward, the 92nd +falling back. + +[Illustration: Battle of St. Pierre, December 9th & 13th, 1813. From +Napier's "Peninsular War."] + +In the meanwhile on both the right and the left of the British position +an almost unique disaster had befallen Hill's troops. Peacock, the +colonel of the 71st, through some bewitched failure of nerve or of +judgment, withdrew that regiment from the fight. It was a Highland +regiment, great in fighting reputation, and full of daring. How black +were the looks of the officers, and what loud swearing in Gaelic took +place in the ranks, as the gallant regiment--discipline overcoming +human nature--obeyed the mysterious order to retire, may be imagined. +Almost at the same moment on the right, Bunbury, who commanded the 3rd +or Buffs, in the same mysterious fashion abandoned to the French the +strong position he held. Both colonels were brave men, and their +sudden lapse into unsoldierly conduct has never been explained. Both, +it may be added, were compelled to resign their commissions after the +fight. + +Hill, surveying the spectacle from the post he had taken, commanding +the whole field of battle, hastened down, met and halted the Buffs, +sent them back to the fight, drew his whole reserves into the fray, and +himself turned the 71st and led them to the attack. With what joy the +indignant Highlanders of the 71st obeyed the order to "Right about +face" may be imagined, and so vehement was their charge that the French +column upon which it was flung, though coming on at the double, in all +the _élan_ of victory, was instantly shattered. + +Meanwhile the 92nd was launched again at Abbé's column. Cameron, its +colonel, was a soldier of a very gallant type, and, himself a +Highlander, he understood the Highland temperament perfectly. He +dressed his regiment as if on parade, the colours were uncased, the +pipes shrilled fiercely, and in all the pomp of military array, with +green tartans and black plumes all wind-blown, and with the wild +strains of their native hills and lochs thrilling in their ears, the +Highlanders bore down on the French, their officers fiercely leading. +On all sides at that moment the British skirmishers were falling back. +The 50th was clinging desperately to a small wood that crowned the +ridge, but everywhere the French were forcing their way onward. +Ashworth's Portuguese were practically destroyed; Barnes, who commanded +the centre, was shot through the body. But the fierce charge of the +92nd along the high-road, and of the 71st on the left centre, sent an +electric thrill along the whole British front. The skirmishers, +instead of falling back, ran forward; the Portuguese rallied. The 92nd +found in its immediate front two strong French regiments, and their +leading files brought their bayonets to the charge, and seemed eager to +meet the 92nd with the actual push of steel. It was the crisis of the +fight. + +At that moment the French commander's nerve failed him. That +steel-edged line of kilted, plume-crested Highlanders, charging with a +step so fierce, was too much for him. He suddenly turned his horse, +waved his sword; his men promptly faced about, and marched back to +their original position. The French on both the right and the left +drew back, and the battle for the moment seemed to die down. Hill's +right was safe, and he drew the 57th from it to strengthen his sorely +battered centre; and just at that moment the sixth division, which had +been marching since daybreak, crossed the bridge over the Nive, which +the British engineers with rare energy had restored, and appeared on +the ridge overlooking the field of battle. Wellington, too, appeared +on the scene, with the third and fourth divisions. At two o'clock the +allies commenced a forward movement, and Soult fell back; his second +counter-stroke had failed. + +St. Pierre was, perhaps, the most desperately contested fight in the +Peninsular war, a field almost as bloody as Albuera. Hill's ranks were +wasted as by fire; three British generals were carried from the field; +nearly the whole of the staff was struck down. On a space scarcely one +mile square, 5000 men were killed and wounded within three hours. +Wellington, as he rode over the field by the side of Hill after the +fight was over, declared he had never seen the dead lie so thickly +before. It was a great feat for less than 14,000 men with 14 guns to +withstand the assault of 35,000 men with 22 guns; and, at least where +Abbé led, the fighting of the French was of the most resolute +character. The victory was due, in part, to Hill's generalship and the +lion-like energy with which he restored his broken centre and flung +back the Buffs and the 71st into the fight. But in a quite equal +degree the victory was due to the obstinate fighting quality of the +British private. The 92nd, for example, broke the French front no less +than four times by bayonet charges pushed home with the sternest +resolution, and it lost in these charges 13 officers and 171 rank and +file. + +The French, it might almost be said, lost the field by the momentary +failure in nerve of the officer commanding the column upon which the +92nd was rushing in its last and most dramatic charge. His column was +massive and unbroken; the men, with bent heads and levelled bayonets, +were ready to meet the 92nd with a courage as lofty as that of the +Highlanders themselves, and the 92nd, for all its parade of fluttering +colours and wind-blown tartans and feathers, was but a single weak +battalion. An electrical gesture, a single peremptory call on the part +of the leader, even a single daring act by a soldier in the ranks, and +the French column would have been hurled on the 92nd, and by its mere +weight must have broken it. But the oncoming of the Highlanders proved +too great a strain for the nerve of the French general. He wheeled the +head of his horse backward, and the fight was lost. + +Weeks of the bitterest winter weather suspended all military operations +after St. Pierre. The rivers were flooded; the clayey lowlands were +one far-stretching quagmire; fogs brooded in the ravines; perpetual +tempests shrieked over the frozen summits of the Pyrenees; the +iron-bound coast was furious with breakers. But Wellington's hardy +veterans--ill-clad, ill-sheltered, and ill-fed--yet kept their watch on +the slopes of the Pyrenees. The outposts of the two armies, indeed, +fell into almost friendly relations with each other. Barter sprang up +between them, a regular code of signals was established, friendly +offices were exchanged. Wellington on one occasion desired to +reconnoitre Soult's camp from the top of a hill occupied by a French +picket, and ordered some English rifles to drive them off. No firing +was necessary. An English soldier held up the butt of his rifle and +tapped it in a peculiar way. The signal meant, "We must have the hill +for a short time," and the French at once retired. A steady traffic in +brandy and tobacco sprang up between the pickets of the two armies. A +rivulet at one point flowed between the outposts, and an Irish soldier +named Patten, on sentry there, placed a canteen with a silver coin in +it on a stone by the bank of the rivulet, to be filled with brandy by +the French in the usual way. Canteen and coin vanished, but no brandy +arrived. Patten, a daring fellow, regarded himself as cheated, and the +next day seeing, as he supposed, the same French sentry on duty, he +crossed the rivulet, seized the Frenchman's musket, shook the amazed +sentry out of his accoutrements as a pea is shaken out of its pod, and +carried them off. The French outposts sent in a flag of truce, +complained of this treatment, and said the unfortunate sentry's life +would be forfeited unless his uniform and gun were restored. Patten, +however, insisted that he held these "in pawn for a canteen of brandy," +and he got his canteen before the uniform was restored. + +On February 12 a white hard frost suddenly fell on the whole field of +operations, and turned the viscid mud everywhere to the hardness of +stone. The men could march, the artillery move; and Wellington, whose +strategy was ripe, was at once in action. + +Soult barred his path by a great entrenched camp at Bayonne, to which +the Adour served as a Titanic wet ditch. The Adour is a great river, +swift and broad--swiftest and broadest through the six miles of its +course below the town to its mouth. Its bed is of shifting sand; the +spring-tide rises in it fourteen feet, the ebb-tide runs seven miles an +hour. Where the swift river and the great rollers of the Bay of Biscay +meet is a treacherous bar--in heavy weather a mere tumult of leaping +foam. Soult assumed that Wellington would cross the river above the +town; the attempt to cross it near the mouth, where it was barred with +sand, and beaten with surges, and guarded, too, by a tiny squadron of +French gunboats, was never suspected. Yet exactly this was +Wellington's plan; and his bridge across the Adour is declared by +Napier to be a stupendous undertaking, which must always rank amongst +"the prodigies of war." Forty large sailing-boats, of about twenty +tons burden each, carrying the materials for the bridge, were to enter +the mouth of the Adour at the moment when Hope, with part of Hill's +division, made his appearance on the left bank of the river, with +materials for rafts, by means of which sufficient troops could be +thrown across the Adour to capture a battery which commanded its +entrance. + +On the night of February 22, Hope, with the first division, was in the +assigned position on the banks of the Adour, hidden behind some +sandhills. But a furious gale made the bar impassable, and not a boat +was in sight. Hope, the most daring of men, never hesitated; he would +cross the river without the aid of the fleet. His guns were suddenly +uncovered, the tiny French flotilla was sunk or scattered, and a +pontoon or raft, carrying sixty men of the Guards, pushed out from the +British bank. A strong French picket held the other shore; but, +bewildered and ill led, they made no opposition. A hawser was dragged +across the stream, and pontoons, each carrying fifteen men, were in +quick succession pulled across. When about a thousand men had in this +way reached the French bank, some French battalions made their +appearance. Colonel Stopford, who was in command, allowed the French +to come on--their drums beating the _pas de charge_, and their officers +waving their swords--to within a distance of twenty yards, and then +opened upon them with his rocket brigade. The fiery flight and +terrifying sound of these missiles put the French to instant rout. All +night the British continued to cross, and on the morning of the 24th +the flotilla was off the bar, the boats of the men-of-war leading. + +The first boat that plunged into the tumult of breakers, leaping and +roaring over the bar, sank instantly. The second shot through and was +safe; but the tide was running out furiously, and no boat could follow +till it was high water again. When high water came, the troops +crowding the sandbanks watched with breathless interest the fight of +the boats to enter. They hung and swayed like a flock of gigantic +sea-birds on the rough and tumbling sea. Lieutenant Bloye of the +_Lyra_, who led the way in his barge, dashed into the broad zone of +foam, and was instantly swallowed up with all his crew. The rest of +the flotilla bore up to right and left, and hovered on the edge of the +tormented waters. Suddenly Lieutenant Cheyne of the _Woodlark_ caught +a glimpse of the true course and dashed through, and boat after boat +came following with reeling decks and dripping crews; but in the whole +passage no fewer than eight of the flotilla were destroyed. The bridge +was quickly constructed. Thirty-six two-masted vessels were moored +head to stern, with an interval between each vessel, across the 800 +yards of the Adour; a double line of cables, about ten feet apart, +linked the boats together; strong planks were lashed athwart the +cables, making a roadway; a double line of masts, forming a series of +floating squares, served as a floating boom; and across this swaying, +flexible, yet mighty bridge, Wellington was able to pour his left wing, +with all its artillery and material, and so draw round Bayonne an iron +line of investment. + +This movement thrust back Soult's right, but he clung obstinately to +the Gave. He held by Napoleon's maxim that the best way to defend is +to attack, and Wellington's very success gave him what seemed a golden +opportunity. Wellington's left had crossed the Adour, but that very +movement separated it from the right. + +Soult took up his position on a ridge of hills above Orthez. He +commanded the fords by which Picton must cross, and his plan was to +crush him while in the act of crossing. The opportunity was clear, but +somehow Soult missed it. There failed him at the critical moment the +swift-attacking impulse which both Napoleon and Wellington possessed in +so high a degree. Picton's two divisions crossed the Gave, and climbed +the bank through mere fissures in the rocks, which broke up all +military order, and the nearest point which allowed them to fall into +line was within cannon-shot of the enemy. Even Picton's iron nerve +shook at such a crisis; but Wellington, to use Napier's phrase, "calm +as deepest sea," watched the scene. Soult ought to have attacked; he +waited to be attacked, and so missed victory. + +By nine o'clock Wellington had formed his plan, and Ross's brigade was +thrust through a gorge on Soult's left. The French were admirably +posted: they had a narrow front, abundant artillery, and a great +battery placed so as to smite on the flank any column forcing its way +through the gorge which pierced Soult's left. Ross's men fought +magnificently. Five times they broke through the gorge, and five times +the fire of the French infantry on the slopes above them, and the grape +of the great battery at the head of the gorge, drove the shattered +regiments back. On Soult's right, again, Foy flung back with loss an +attack by part of Picton's forces. On both the right and left, that +is, Soult was victorious, and, as he saw the wasted British lines roll +sullenly back, it is said that the French general smote his thigh in +exultation, and cried, "At last I have him!" + +Almost at that moment, however, the warlike genius of Wellington +changed the aspect of the scene. He fed the attacks on Soult's right +and left, and the deepening roar of the battle at these two points +absorbed the senses of the French general. Soult's front was barred by +what was supposed to be an impassable marsh, above which a great hill +frowned; and across the marsh, and upon this hill, the centre of +Soult's position, Wellington launched the famous 52nd. + +Colborne plunged with his men into the marsh; they sank at every step +above the knee, sometimes to the middle. The skirmishers shot fiercely +at them. But with stern composure the veterans of the light +division--soldiers, as Napier never tires in declaring, who "had never +yet met their match in the field"--pressed on. The marsh was crossed, +the hill climbed, and with a sudden and deafening shout--the cheer +which has a more full and terrible note than any other voice of +fighting men, the shout of the British regiment as it charges--the 52nd +dashed between Foy and Taupin. A French battalion in their path was +scattered as by the stroke of a thunderbolt. The French centre was +pierced; both victorious wings halted, and began to ebb back. Hill, +meanwhile, had crossed the Gave, and taking a wider circle, threatened +Soult's line of retreat. The French fell back, and fell back with +ever-quickening steps, but yet fighting sternly; the British, with +deafening musketry and cannonade, pressed on them. Hill quickened his +pace on the ridge along which he was pressing. It became a race who +should reach first the single bridge on the Luy-de-Béarn over which the +French must pass. The pace became a run. Many of the French broke +from their ranks and raced forward. The British cavalry broke through +some covering battalions and sabred the fugitives. A great disaster +was imminent; and yet it was avoided, partly by Soult's cool and +obstinate defence, and partly by the accident that at that moment +Wellington was struck by a spent ball and was disabled, so that his +swift and imperious will no longer directed the pursuit. + +Orthez may be described as the last and not the least glorious fight in +the Peninsular war. Toulouse was fought ten day afterwards, but it +scarcely belongs to the Peninsular campaigns, and was actually fought +after a general armistice had been signed. + + + + +THE BATTLE OF THE BALTIC + + + "Let us think of them that sleep + Full many a fathom deep + By thy wild and stormy deep, + Elsinore!" + --CAMPBELL. + + +"I have been in a hundred and five engagements, but that of to-day is +the most terrible of them all." This was how Nelson himself summed up +the great fight off Copenhagen, or the battle of the Baltic as it is +sometimes called, fought on April 2, 1801. It was a battle betwixt +Britons and Danes. The men who fought under the blood-red flag of +Great Britain, and under the split flag of Denmark with its white +cross, were alike the descendants of the Vikings. The blood of the old +sea-rovers ran hot and fierce in their veins. Nelson, with the glories +of the Nile still ringing about his name, commanded the British fleet, +and the fire of his eager and gallant spirit ran from ship to ship like +so many volts of electricity. But the Danes fought in sight of their +capital, under the eyes of their wives and children. It is not strange +that through the four hours during which the thunder of the great +battle rolled over the roofs of Copenhagen and up the narrow waters of +the Sound, human valour and endurance in both fleets were at their very +highest. + +Less than sixty years afterwards "thunders of fort and fleet" along all +the shores of England were welcoming a daughter of the Danish throne as + + "Bride of the heir of the kings of the sea." + +And Tennyson, speaking for every Briton, assured the Danish girl who +was to be their future Queen-- + + "We are each all Dane in our welcome of thee." + + +What was it in 1801 which sent a British fleet on an errand of battle +to Copenhagen? + +It was a tiny episode of the long and stern drama of the Napoleonic +wars. Great Britain was supreme on the sea, Napoleon on the land, and, +in his own words, Napoleon conceived the idea of "conquering the sea by +the land." Paul I. of Russia, a semi-lunatic, became Napoleon's ally +and tool. Paul was able to put overwhelming pressure on Sweden, +Denmark, and Prussia, and these Powers were federated as the "League of +Armed Neutrality," with the avowed purpose of challenging the marine +supremacy of Great Britain. Paul seized all British ships in Russian +ports; Prussia marched troops into Hanover; every port from the North +Cape to Gibraltar was shut against the British flag. Britain, stood +alone, practically threatened with a naval combination of all the +Northern Powers, while behind the combination stood Napoleon, the +subtlest brain and most imperious will ever devoted to the service of +war. Napoleon's master passion, it should be remembered, was the +desire to overthrow Great Britain, and he held in the palm of his hand +the whole military strength of the Continent. The fleets of France and +Spain were crushed or blockaded: but the three Northern Powers could +have put into battle-line a fleet of fifty great ships and twenty-five +frigates. With this force they could raise the blockade of the French +ports, sweep triumphant through the narrow seas, and land a French army +in Kent or in Ulster. + +Pitt was Prime Minister, and his masterful intellect controlled British +policy. He determined that the fleets of Denmark and of Russia should +not become a weapon in the hand of Napoleon against England; and a +fleet of eighteen ships of the line, with frigates and bomb-vessels, +was despatched to reason, from the iron lips of their guns, with the +misguided Danish Government. Sir Hyde Parker, a decent, unenterprising +veteran, was commander-in-chief by virtue of seniority; but Nelson, +with the nominal rank of second in command, was the brain and soul of +the expedition. "Almost all the safety and certainly all the honour of +England," he said to his chief, "is more entrusted to you than ever yet +fell to the lot of a British officer." And all through the story of +the expedition it is amusing to notice the fashion in which Nelson's +fiery nature strove to kindle poor Sir Hyde Barker's sluggish temper to +its own flame. + +The fleet sailed from Yarmouth on March 12, and fought its way through +fierce spring gales to the entrance of the Kattegat. The wind was +fair; Nelson was eager to sweep down on Copenhagen with the whole +fleet, and negotiate with the whole skyline of Copenhagen crowded with +British topsails. "While the negotiation is going on," he said, "the +Dane should see our flag waving every time he lifts up his head." Time +was worth more than gold; it was worth brave men's lives. The Danes +were toiling day and night to prepare the defence of their capital. +But prim Sir Hyde anchored, and sent up a single frigate with his +ultimatum, and it was not until March 30 that the British fleet, a long +line of stately vessels, came sailing up the Sound, passed Elsinore, +and cast anchor fifteen miles from Copenhagen. Nothing could surpass +the gallant energy shown by the Danes in their preparation for defence, +and Nature had done much to make the city impregnable from the sea. + +[Illustration: The Battle of the Baltic, April 2nd, 1801. From +Brenton's Naval History.] + +The Sound is narrow and shallow, a mere tangle of shoals wrinkled with +twisted channels and scoured by the swift tides. King's Channel runs +straight up towards the city, but a huge sandbank, like the point of a +toe, splits the channel into two just as it reaches the harbour. The +western edge runs up, pocket-shaped, into the city, and forms the +actual port; the main channel contracts, swings round to the +south-east, and forms a narrow passage between the shallows in front of +the city and a huge shoal called the Middle Ground. A cluster of grim +and heavily armed fortifications called the Three-Crown Batteries +guarded the entrance to the harbour, and looked right up King's +Channel; a stretch of floating batteries and line-of-battle ships, a +mile and a half in extent, ran from the Three-Crown Batteries along the +edge of the shoals in front of the city, with some heavy pile batteries +at its termination. The direct approach up King's Channel, together +with the narrow passage between the city and the Middle Ground, were +thus commanded by the fire of over 600 heavy guns. The Danes had +removed the buoys that marked all the channels, the British had no +charts, and only the most daring and skilful seamanship could bring the +great ships of the British fleet through that treacherous tangle of +shoals to the Danish front. As a matter of fact, the heavier ships in +the British fleet never attempted to join in the desperate fight which +was waged, but hung as mere spectators in the offing. + +Meanwhile popular enthusiasm in the Danish capital was at fever-point. +Ten thousand disciplined troops manned the batteries; but peasants from +the farms, workmen from the factories, merchants from the city, +hastened to volunteer, and worked day and night at gun-drill. A +thousand students from the university enrolled themselves, and drilled +from morning till night. These student-soldiers had probably the best +military band ever known; it consisted of the entire orchestra of the +Theatre Royal, all volunteers. A Danish officer, sent on some message +under a flag of truce to the British fleet, was required to put his +message in writing, and was offered a somewhat damaged pen for that +purpose. He threw it down with a laugh, saying that "if the British +guns were not better pointed than their pens they wouldn't make much +impression on Copenhagen." That flash of gallant wit marked the temper +of the Danes. They were on flame with confident daring. + +Nelson, always keen for a daring policy, had undertaken to attack the +Danish defences with a squadron of twelve seventy-fours, and the +frigates and bomb-vessels of the fleet. He determined to shun the open +way of King's Channel, grope through the uncertain passage called the +Dutch Deep, at the back of the Middle Ground, and forcing his way up +the narrow channel in front of the shallows, repeat on the anchored +batteries and battleships of the Danes the exploit of the Nile. He +spent the nights of March 30 and 31 sounding the channel, being +himself, in spite of fog and ice, in the boat nearly the whole of these +two bitter nights. On April 1 the fleet came slowly up the Dutch Deep, +and dropped anchor at night about two miles from the southern extremity +of the Danish line. At eleven o'clock that night, Hardy--in whose arms +Nelson afterwards died on board the _Victory_--pushed off from the +flagship in a small boat and sounded the channel in front of the Danish +floating batteries. So daring was he that he actually sounded round +the leading ship of the Danish line, using a pole to avoid being +detected. + +In the morning the wind blew fair for the channel. Nelson's plans had +been elaborated to their minutest details, and the pilots of the fleet +were summoned at nine o'clock to the flagship to receive their last +instructions. But their nerve failed them. They were simply the mates +or masters of Baltic traders turned for the moment into naval pilots. +They had no charts. They were accustomed to handle ships of 200 or 300 +tons burden, and the task of steering the great British seventy-fours +through the labyrinths of shallows, with the tide running like a +mill-race, appalled them. At last Murray, in the _Edgar_, undertook to +lead. The signal was made to weigh in succession, and one great ship +after another, with its topsails on the caps, rounded the shoulder of +the Middle Ground, and in stately procession, the _Edgar_ leading, came +up the channel. Campbell in his fine ballad has pictured the scene:-- + + "Like leviathans afloat + Lay their bulwarks on the brine, + While the sign of battle flew + On the lofty British line. + It was ten of April morn by the chime; + As they drifted on their path + There was silence deep as death, + And the boldest held his breath + For a time. + But the might of England flushed + To anticipate the scene, + And her van the fleeter rushed + O'er the deadly space between." + +The leading Danish ships broke into a tempest of fire as the British +ships came within range. The _Agamemnon_ failed to weather the +shoulder of the Middle Ground, and went ignobly ashore, and the scour +of the tide kept her fast there, in spite of the most desperate +exertions of her crew. The _Bellona_, a pile of white canvas above, a +double line of curving batteries below, hugged the Middle Ground too +closely, and grounded too; and the _Russell_, following close after +her, went ashore in the same manner, with its jib-boom almost touching +the _Bellona's_ taffrail. One-fourth of Nelson's force was thus +practically out of the fight before a British gun was fired. These +were the ships, too, intended to sail past the whole Danish line and +engage the Three-Crown Batteries. As they were _hors de combat_, the +frigates of the squadron, under Riou--"the gallant, good Riou" of +Campbell's noble lines--had to take the place of the seventy-fours. + +Meanwhile, Nelson, in the _Elephant_, came following hard on the +ill-fated _Russell_. Nelson's orders were that each ship should pass +her leader on the starboard side, and had he acted on his own orders, +Nelson too would have grounded, with every ship that followed him. The +interval betwixt each ship was so narrow that decision had to be +instant; and Nelson, judging the water to the larboard of the _Russell_ +to be deeper, put his helm a-starboard, and so shot past the _Russell_ +on its larboard beam into the true channel, the whole line following +his example. That sudden whirl to starboard of the flagship's helm--a +flash of brilliant seamanship--saved the battle. + +Ship after ship shot past, and anchored, by a cable astern, in its +assigned position. The sullen thunder of the guns rolled from end to +end of the long line, the flash of the artillery ran in a dance of +flame along the mile and a half of batteries, and some 2000 pieces of +artillery, most of them of the heaviest calibre, filled the long Sound +with the roar of battle. Nelson loved close fighting, and he anchored +within a cable's length of the Danish flagship, the pilots refusing to +carry the ship nearer on account of the shallow depth, and the average +distance of the hostile lines was less than a hundred fathoms. The +cannonade raged, deep-voiced, unbroken, and terrible, for three hours. +"Warm work," said Nelson, as it seemed to deepen in fury and volume, +"but, mark you, I would not be elsewhere for thousands." The carnage +was terrific. Twice the Danish flagship took fire, and out of a crew +of 336 no fewer than 270 were dead or wounded. Two of the Danish prams +drifted from the line, mere wrecks, with cordage in rags, bulwarks +riddled, guns dismounted, and decks veritable shambles. + +The battle, it must be remembered, raged within easy sight of the city, +and roofs and church towers were crowded with spectators. They could +see nothing but a low-lying continent of whirling smoke, shaken with +the tumult of battle, and scored perpetually, in crimson bars, with the +flame of the guns. Above the drifting smoke towered the tops of the +British seventy-fours, stately and threatening. The south-east wind +presently drove the smoke over the city, and beneath that inky roof, as +under the gloom of an eclipse, the crowds of Copenhagen, white-faced +with excitement, watched the Homeric fight, in which their sons, and +brothers, and husbands were perishing. + +Nothing could surpass the courage of the Danes. Fresh crews marched +fiercely to the floating batteries as these threatened to grow silent +by mere slaughter, and, on decks crimson and slippery with the blood of +their predecessors, took up the fight. Again and again, after a Danish +ship had struck from mere exhaustion, it was manned afresh from the +shore, and the fight renewed. The very youngest officer in the Danish +navy was a lad of seventeen named Villemoes. He commanded a tiny +floating battery of six guns, manned by twenty-four men, and he managed +to bring it under the very counter of Nelson's flagship, and fired his +guns point-blank into its huge wooden sides. He stuck to his work +until the British marines shot down every man of his tiny crew except +four. After the battle Nelson begged that young Villemoes might be +introduced to him, and told the Danish Crown Prince that a boy so +gallant ought to be made an admiral. "If I were to make all my brave +officers admirals," was the reply, "I should have no captains or +lieutenants left." + +The terrific nature of the British fire, as well as the stubbornness of +Danish courage, may be judged from the fact that most of the prizes +taken in the fight were so absolutely riddled with shot as to have to +be destroyed. Foley, who led the van at the battle of the Nile, was +Nelson's flag-captain in the _Elephant_, and he declared he burned +fifty more barrels of powder in the four hours' furious cannonade at +Copenhagen than he did during the long night struggle at the Nile! The +fire of the Danes, it may be added, was almost as obstinate and deadly. +The _Monarch_, for example, had no fewer than 210 of its crew lying +dead or wounded on its decks. At one o'clock Sir Hyde Parker, who was +watching the struggle with a squadron of eight of his heaviest ships +from the offing, hoisted a signal to discontinue the engagement. Then +came the incident which every boy remembers. + +The signal-lieutenant of the _Elephant_ reported that the admiral had +thrown out No. 39, the signal to discontinue the fight. Nelson was +pacing his quarterdeck fiercely, and took no notice of the report. The +signal-officer met him at the next turn, and asked if he should repeat +the signal. Nelson's reply was to ask if his own signal for close +action was still hoisted. "Yes," said the officer. "Mind you keep it +so," said Nelson. Nelson continued to tramp his quarter-deck, the +thunder of the battle all about him, his ship reeling to the recoil of +its own guns. The stump of his lost arm jerked angrily to and fro, a +sure sign of excitement with him. "Leave off action!" he said to his +lieutenant; "I'm hanged if I do." "You know, Foley," he said, turning +to his captain, "I've only one eye; I've a right to be blind +sometimes." And then putting the glass to his blind eye, he exclaimed, +"I really do not see the signal!" He dismissed the incident by saying, +"D---- the signal! Keep mine for closer action flying!" + +As a matter of fact, Parker had hoisted the signal only to give Nelson +the opportunity for withdrawing from the fight if he wished. The +signal had one disastrous result--the little cluster of frigates and +sloops engaged with the Three-Crown Batteries obeyed it and hauled off. +As the Amazon, Riou's ship, ceased to fire, the smoke lifted, and the +Danish battery got her in full sight, and smote her with deadly effect. +Riou himself, heartbroken with having to abandon the fight, had just +exclaimed, "What will Nelson think of us!" when a chain-shot cut him in +two, and with him a sailor with something of Nelson's own genius for +battle perished. + +By two o'clock the Danish fire began to slack. One-half the line was a +mere chain of wrecks; some of the floating batteries had sunk; the +flagship was a mass of flames. Nelson at this point sent his boat +ashore with a flag of truce, and a letter to the Prince Regent. The +letter was addressed, "To the Danes, the brothers of Englishmen." If +the fire continued from the Danish side, Nelson said he would be +compelled to set on fire all the floating batteries he had taken, +"without being able to save the brave Danes who had defended them." +Somebody offered Nelson, when he had written the letter, a wafer with +which to close it. "This," said Nelson, "is no time to appear hurried +or informal," and he insisted on the letter being carefully sealed with +wax. The Crown Prince proposed an armistice. Nelson, with great +shrewdness, referred the proposal to his admiral lying four miles off +in the _London_, foreseeing that the long pull out and back would give +him time to get his own crippled ships clear of the shoals, and past +the Three-Crown Batteries into the open channel beyond--the only course +the wind made possible; and this was exactly what happened. Nelson, it +is clear, was a shrewd diplomatist as well as a great sailor. + +The night was coming on black with the threat of tempest; the Danish +flagship had just blown up; but the white flag of truce was flying, and +the British toiled, as fiercely as they had fought, to float their +stranded ships and take possession of their shattered prizes. Of +these, only one was found capable of being sufficiently repaired to be +taken to Portsmouth. On the 4th Nelson himself landed and visited the +Crown Prince, and a four months' truce was agreed upon. News came at +that moment of the assassination of Paul I., and the League of Armed +Neutrality--the device by which Napoleon hoped to overthrow the naval +power of Great Britain--vanished into mere space. The fire of Nelson's +guns at Copenhagen wrecked Napoleon's whole naval policy. + +It is curious that, familiar as Nelson was with the grim visage of +battle, the carnage of that four hours' cannonade was too much for even +his steady nerves. He could find no words too generous to declare his +admiration of the obstinate courage shown by the Danes. "The French +and Spanish fight well," he said, "but they could not have stood for an +hour such a fire as the Danes sustained for four hours." + + + + +KING-MAKING WATERLOO + + + "Last noon beheld them full of lusty life, + Last eve in Beauty's circle proudly gay, + The midnight brought the signal-sound of strife; + The morn the marshalling in arms--the day + Battle's magnificently stern array! + The thunder-clouds close o'er it, which when rent + The earth is cover'd thick with other clay, + Which her own clay shall cover, heap'd and pent, + Rider and horse--friend, foe--in one red burial blent!" + --BYRON. + +"I look upon Salamanca, Vittoria, and Waterloo as my three best +battles--those which had great and permanent consequences. Salamanca +relieved the whole south of Spain, changed all the prospects of the +war, and was felt even in Prussia. Vittoria freed the Peninsula +altogether, broke off the armistice at Dresden, and thus led to Leipsic +and the deliverance of Europe; and Waterloo did more than any other +battle I know of towards the true object of all battles--the peace of +the world."--WELLINGTON, _Conversation with Croker_. + + +On June 18, 1815, the grey light of a Sunday morning was breaking over +a shallow valley lying between parallel ridges of low hills some twelve +miles to the south of Brussels. All night the rain had fallen +furiously, and still the fog hung low, and driving showers swept over +plain and hill as from the church spires of half-a-dozen tiny villages +the matin bells began to ring. For centuries those bells had called +the villagers to prayers; to-day, as the wave of sound stole through +the misty air it was the signal for the awakening of two mighty armies +to the greatest battle of modern times. + +More ink has, perhaps, been shed about Waterloo than about any other +battle known to history, and still the story bristles with conundrums, +questions of fact, and problems in strategy, about which the experts +still wage, with pen and diagram, strife almost as furious as that +which was waged with lance and sword, with bayonet and musket, more +than eighty years ago on the actual slopes of Mont St. Jean. It is +still, for example, a matter of debate whether, when Wellington first +resolved to fight at Waterloo, he had any express promise from Blücher +to join him on that field. Did Wellington, for example, ride over +alone to Blücher's headquarters on the night before Waterloo, and +obtain a pledge of aid, on the strength of which he fought next day? +It is not merely possible to quote experts on each side of this +question; it is possible to quote the same expert on both sides. +Ropes, for example, the latest Waterloo critic, devotes several pages +to proving that the interview never took place, and then adds a note to +his third edition declaring that he has seen evidence which convinces +him it did take place! It is possible even to quote Wellington himself +both for the alleged visit and against it. In 1833 he told a circle of +guests at Strathfieldsaye, in minute detail, how he got rid of his only +aide-de-camp, Lord Fitzroy Somerset, and rode over on "Copenhagen" in +the rain and darkness to Wavre, and got from Blücher's own lips the +assurance that he would join him next day at Waterloo. In 1838, when +directly asked by Baron Gurney whether the story was true, he replied, +"No, I did not see Blücher the day before Waterloo." If Homer nodded, +it is plain that sometimes the Duke of Wellington forgot! + +[Illustration: Battle of Waterloo, June 18th, 1815.] + +Clearness on some points, it is true, is slowly emerging. It is +admitted, for example, that Napoleon took the allies by surprise when +he crossed the Sambre, and, in the very first stage of the campaign, +scored a brilliant strategic success over them. Wellington himself, on +the night of the famous ball, took the Duke of Richmond into his +dressing-room, shut the door, and said, "Napoleon has humbugged me, by +----; he has gained twenty-four hours' march on me." The Duke went on +to explain that he had ordered his troops to concentrate at Quatre +Bras; "but," he added, "we shall not stop him there, and I must fight +him here," at the same time passing his thumb-nail over the position of +Waterloo. That map, with the scratch of the Duke's thumb-nail over the +very line where Waterloo was afterwards fought, was long preserved as a +relic. Part of the surprise, the Duke complained, was due to Blücher. +But, as he himself explained to Napier, "I cannot tell the world that +Blücher picked the fattest man in his army (Muffling) to ride with an +express to me, and that he took thirty hours to go thirty miles." + +The hour at which Waterloo began, though there were 150,000 actors in +the great tragedy, was long a matter of dispute. The Duke of +Wellington puts it at ten o'clock. General Alava says half-past +eleven, Napoleon and Drouet say twelve o'clock, and Ney one o'clock. +Lord Hill may be credited with having settled this minute question of +fact. He took two watches with him into the fight, one a stop-watch, +and he marked with it the sound of the first shot fired, and this +evidence is now accepted as proving that the first flash of red flame +which marked the opening of the world-shaking tragedy of Waterloo took +place at exactly ten minutes to twelve. + +As these sketches are not written for military experts, but only +pretend to tell, in plain prose, and for younger Britons, the story of +the great deeds which are part of their historical inheritance, all the +disputed questions about Waterloo may be at the outset laid aside. It +is a great tale, and it seems all the greater when it is simply told. +The campaign of Waterloo, in a sense, lasted exactly four days, yet +into that brief space of time there is compressed so much of human +daring and suffering, of genius and of folly, of shining triumph and of +blackest ruin, that the story must always be one of the most exciting +records in human history. + + +I. THE RIVAL HOSTS + + + "Hark! I hear the tramp of thousands, + And of armèd men the hum; + Lo! a nation's hosts have gathered + Round the quick alarming drum,-- + Saying, 'Come, + Freeman, come, + Ere your heritage be wasted,' said the quick alarming drum. + + * * * * * * + + 'Let me of my heart take counsel: + War is not of life the sum; + Who shall stay and reap the harvest + When the autumn days shall come?' + But the drum + Echoed, 'Come! + Death shall reap the braver harvest,' said the solemn-sounding drum. + + What if, 'mid the cannons' thunder, + Whistling shot and bursting bomb, + When my brothers fall around me, + Should my heart grow cold and numb?' + But the drum + Answered, 'Come! + Better there in death united, than in life a recreant,--Come!'" + --BRET HARTE. + + +For weeks the British and Prussian armies, scattered over a district +100 miles by 40, had been keeping guard over the French frontier. +Mighty hosts of Russians and Austrians were creeping slowly across +Europe to join them. Napoleon, skilfully shrouding his movements in +impenetrable secrecy, was about to leap across the Sambre, and both +Blücher and Wellington had to guess what would be his point of attack; +and they, as it happened, guessed wrongly. Napoleon's strategy was +determined partly by his knowledge of the personal characters of the +two generals, and partly by the fact that the bases of the allied +armies lay at widely separate points--the English base at Antwerp, the +Prussian on the Rhine. Blücher was essentially "a hussar general"; the +fighting impulse ran riot in his blood. If attacked, he would +certainly fight where he stood; if defeated, and driven back on his +base, he must move in diverging lines from Wellington. That Blücher +would abandon his base to keep touch with Wellington--as actually +happened--Napoleon never guessed. Wellington, cooler and more +methodical than his Prussian fellow-commander, would not fight, it was +certain, till his troops were called in on every side and he was ready. +Blücher was nearer the French frontier. Napoleon calculated that he +could leap upon him, bar Wellington from coming to his help by planting +Ney at Quatre Bras, win a great battle before Wellington could join +hands with his ally, and then in turn crush Wellington. It was +splendid strategy, splendidly begun, but left fatally incomplete. + +Napoleon fought and defeated Blücher at Ligny on June 16, attacking +Quatre Bras at the same time, so as to occupy the English. Wellington +visited Blücher's lines before the fight began, and said to him, "Every +general knows his own men, but if my lines were drawn up in this +fashion I should expect to get beaten;" and as he cantered back to his +own army he said to those about him, "If Bonaparte be what I suppose he +is, the Prussians will get a ---- good licking to-day." Captain Bowles +was standing beside the Duke at Quatre Bras on the morning of the 17th, +when a Prussian staff-officer, his horse covered with sweat, galloped +up and whispered an agitated message in the Duke's ear. The Duke, +without a change of countenance, dismissed him, and, turning to Bowles, +said, "Old Blücher has had a ---- good licking, and gone back to Wavre, +eighteen miles. As he has gone back, we must go too. I suppose in +England they will say we have been licked. I can't help it! As they +have gone back, we must go too." And in five minutes, without stirring +from the spot, he had given complete orders for a retreat to Waterloo. + +The low ridge on which the Duke took up his position runs east and +west. The road from Brussels to the south, just before it crosses the +crest of the ridge, divides like the upper part of the letter Y into +two roads, that on the right, or westward, running to Nivelles, that on +the left, or eastward, to Charleroi. A country road, in parts only a +couple of feet deep, in parts sunk from twelve to fifteen feet, +traverses the crest of the ridge, and intersects the two roads just +named before they unite to form the main Brussels road. Two +farmhouses--La Haye Sainte, on the Charleroi road, and Hougoumont, on +that to Nivelles--stand out some 250 yards in advance of the ridge. +Thus the cross-road served as a ditch to Wellington's front; the two +farmhouses were, so to speak, horn-works guarding his right centre and +left centre; while in the little valley on the reverse side of the +crest Wellington was able to act on his favourite tactics of keeping +his men out of sight till the moment for action arrived. The ridge, in +fact, to the French generals who surveyed it from La Belle Alliance +seemed almost bare, showing nothing but batteries at intervals along +the crest, and a spray of skirmishers on the slopes below. + +Looked at from the British ridge, the plain over which the great fight +raged is a picture of pastoral simplicity and peace. The crops that +Sunday morning were high upon it, the dark green of wheat and clover +chequered with the lighter green of rye and oats. No fences intersect +the plain; a few farmhouses, each with a leafy girdle of trees, and the +brown roofs of one or two distant villages, alone break the level floor +of green. The present writer has twice visited Waterloo, and the image +of verdurous and leafy peace conveyed by the landscape is still most +vivid. Only Hougoumont, where the orchard walls are still pierced by +the loop-holes through which the Guards fired that long June Sunday, +helps one to realise the fierce strife which once raged and echoed over +this rich valley with its grassy carpet of vivid green. Waterloo is a +battlefield of singularly small dimensions. The British front did not +extend for more than two miles; the gap betwixt Hougoumont and La Haye +Sainte, through which Ney poured his living tide of cavalry, 15,000 +strong, is only 900 yards wide, a distance equal, say, to a couple of +city blocks. The ridge on which Napoleon drew up his army is less than +2000 yards distant from that on which the British stood. It sloped +steadily upward, and, as a consequence. Napoleon's whole force was +disclosed at a glance, and every combination of troops made in +preparation for an attack on the British line was clearly visible, a +fact which greatly assisted Wellington in his arrangements for meeting +it. + +The opposing armies differed rather in quality than in numbers. +Wellington had, roughly, 50,000 infantry, 12,000 cavalry, a little less +than 6000 artillerymen; a total of 67,000 men and 156 guns. Napoleon +had 49,000 infantry, nearly 16,000 cavalry, over 7000 artillery; a +total of, say, 72,000 men, with 246 guns. In infantry the two armies +were about equal, in cavalry the French were superior, and in guns +their superiority was enormous. But the French were war-hardened +veterans, the men of Austerlitz and of Wagram, of one blood and speech +and military type, a homogeneous mass, on flame with warlike +enthusiasm. Of Wellington's troops, only 30,000 were British and +German; many even of these had never seen a shot fired in battle, and +were raw drafts from the militia, still wearing the militia uniform. +Only 12,000 were old Peninsula troops. Less than 7000 of Wellington's +cavalry were British, and took any part in the actual battle. +Wellington himself somewhat ungratefully described his force as an +"infamous army"; "the worst army ever brought together!" Nearly 18,000 +were Dutch-Belgians, whose courage was doubtful, and whose loyalty was +still more vehemently suspected. Wellington had placed some battalions +of these as part of the force holding Hougoumont; but when, an hour +before the battle actually began, Napoleon rode through his troops, and +their tumultuous shouts echoed in a tempest of sound across to the +British lines, the effect on the Dutch-Belgians in Hougoumont was so +instant and visible that Wellington at once withdrew them. "The mere +name of Napoleon," he said, "had beaten them before they fired a shot!" +The French themselves did justice to the native fighting quality of the +British. "The English infantry," as Foy told the Emperor on the +morning of Waterloo, "are the very d---- to fight;" and Napoleon, five +years after, at St. Helena, said, "One might as well try to charge +through a wall." Soult, again, told Napoleon, "Sire, I know these +English. They will die on the ground on which they stand before they +lose it." That this was true, even of the raw lads from the militia, +Waterloo proved. But it is idle to deny that of the two armies the +French, tried by abstract military tests, was far the stronger. + +The very aspect of the two armies reflected their different +characteristics. A grim silence brooded over the British position. +Nothing was visible except the scattered clusters of guns and the +outposts. The French army, on the other side, was a magnificent +spectacle, gay with flags, and as many-coloured as a rainbow. Eleven +columns deployed simultaneously, and formed three huge lines of serried +infantry. They were flanked by mail-clad cuirassiers, with glittering +helmets and breast-plates; lines of scarlet-clad lancers; and hussars, +with bearskin caps and jackets glittering with gold lace. The black +and menacing masses of the Old Guard and of the Young Guard, with their +huge bearskin caps, formed the reserve. As Napoleon, with a glittering +staff, swept through his army, the bands of 114 battalions and 112 +squadrons poured upon the peaceful air of that June Sunday the martial +cadences of the Marseillaise, and the "Vive l'Empereur!" which broke +from the crowded host was heard distinctly by the grimly listening +ranks of the British. "As far as the eye could reach," says one who +describes the fight from the French ranks, "nothing was to be seen but +cuirasses, helmets, busbies, sabres and lances, and glittering lines of +bayonets." + +As for the British, there was no tumult of enthusiasm visible among +them. Flat on the ground, in double files, on the reverse side of the +hill, the men lay, and jested in rough fashion with each other, while +the officers in little groups stood on the ridge and watched the French +movements. Let it be remembered that many of the troops had fought +desperately on the 16th, and retreated on the 17th from Quatre Bras to +Waterloo under furious rain, and the whole army was soddened and +chilled with sleeping unsheltered on the soaked ground. Many of the +men, as they rose hungry and shivering from their sleeping-place in the +mud, were so stiff and cramped that they could not stand upright. + + +II. HOUGOUMONT + + + "The trumpets sound, the banners fly, + The glittering spears are rankèd ready, + The shouts o' war are heard afar, + The battle closes thick and bloody." + --BURNS. + + +The ground was heavy with the rains of the night, and Napoleon lingered +till nearly noon before he launched his attack on the British lines. +At ten minutes to twelve the first heavy gun rang sullenly from the +French ridge, and from the French left Reille's corps, 6000 strong, +flung itself on Hougoumont. The French are magnificent skirmishers, +and as the great mass moved down the slope, a dense spray of +tirailleurs ran swiftly before it, reached the hedge, and broke into +the wood, which, in a moment, was full of white smoke and the red +flashes of musketry. In a solid mass the main body followed; but the +moment it came within range, the British guns keeping guard over +Hougoumont smote it with a heavy fire. The French batteries answered +fiercely, while in the garden and orchard below the Guards and the +French fought almost literally muzzle to muzzle. + +Hougoumont was a strong post. The fire from the windows in the main +building commanded the orchard, that from the orchard commanded the +wood, that from the wood swept the ridge. The French had crossed the +ridge, cleared the wood, and were driving the Guards, fighting +vehemently, out of the orchard into the hollow road between the house +and the British ridge. But they could do no more. The light companies +of the Foot Guards, under Lieut.-Colonel Macdonnell, held the buildings +and orchard, Lord Saltoun being in command of the latter. Muffling, +the Prussian commissioner on Wellington's staff, doubted whether +Hougoumont could be held against the enemy; but Wellington had great +confidence in Macdonnell, a Highlander of gigantic strength and coolest +daring, and nobly did this brave Scotsman fulfil his trust. All day +long the attack thundered round Hougoumont. The French masses moved +again and again to the assault upon it; it was scourged with musketry +and set on fire with shells. But steadfastly under the roar of the +guns and the fierce crackle of small-arms, and even while the roofs +were in flames above their heads, the gallant Guardsmen held their +post. Once the main gateway was burst open, and the French broke in. +They were instantly bayoneted, and Macdonnell, with a cluster of +officers and a sergeant named Graham, by sheer force shut the gate +again in the face of the desperate French. In the fire which partially +consumed the building, some of the British wounded were burned to +death, and Mercer, who visited the spot the morning after the fight, +declared that in the orchard and around the walls of the farmhouse the +dead lay as thick as on the breach of Badajos. + +More than 2000 killed and wounded fell in the long seven hours' fight +which raged round this Belgian farmhouse. More than 12,000 infantry +were flung into the attack; the defence, including the Dutch and +Belgians in the wood, never exceeded 2000 men. But when, in the tumult +of the victorious advance of the British at nightfall, Wellington found +himself for a moment beside Muffling, with a flash of exultation rare +in a man so self-controlled, he shouted, "Well, you see Macdonnell held +Hougoumont after all!" Towards evening, at the close of the fight, +Lord Saltoun, with the wreck of the light companies of the Guards, +joined the main body of their division on the ridge. As they came up +to the lines, a scanty group with torn uniforms and smoke-blackened +faces, the sole survivors of the gallant hundreds who had fought +continuously for seven hours, General Maitland rode out to meet them +and cried, "Your defence has saved the army! Every man of you deserves +promotion." Long afterwards a patriotic Briton bequeathed 500 pounds +to the bravest soldier at Waterloo, the Duke of Wellington to be the +judge. The Duke named Macdonnell, who handed the money to the sergeant +who was his comrade in the struggle at the gate of Hougoumont. + + +III. PICTON AND D'ERLON + + + "But on the British heart were lost + The terrors of the charging host; + For not an eye the storm that view'd + Changed its proud glance of fortitude. + Nor was one forward footstep staid, + As dropp'd the dying and the dead." + --SCOTT. + + +Meantime a furious artillery duel raged between the opposing ridges. +Wellington had ordered his gunners not to fire at the French batteries, +but only at the French columns, while the French, in the main, +concentrated their fire on the British guns. French practice under +these conditions was naturally very beautiful, for no hostile bullets +disturbed their aim, and the British gunners fell fast; yet their fire +on the French masses was most deadly. At two o'clock Napoleon launched +his great infantry attack, led by D'Erlon, against La Haye Sainte and +the British left. It was an attack of terrific strength. Four +divisions, numbering 16,000 men, moved forward in echelon, with +intervals between them of 400 paces; seventy-two guns swept as with a +besom of fire the path along which these huge masses advanced with +shouts to the attack, while thirty light guns moved in the intervals +between them; and a cavalry division, consisting of lancers and +cuirassiers, rode on their flank ready to charge the broken masses of +the British infantry. The British line at this point consisted of +Picton's division, formed of the shattered remains of Kempt's and +Pack's brigades, who had suffered heavily at Quatre Bras. They formed +a mere thread of scarlet, a slender two-deep line of about 3000 men. +As the great mass of the enemy came slowly on, the British line was +"dressed," the men ceased to talk, except in monosyllables, the +skirmishers lying flat on the trampled corn prepared to fire. The +grape of the French guns smote Picton's red lines with fury, and the +men fell fast, yet they closed up at the word of command with the most +perfect coolness. The French skirmishers, too, running forward with +great speed and daring, drove in the British skirmishers, who came +running back to the main line smoke-begrimed and breathless. + +As the French masses began to ascend the British slope, the French guns +had to cease their fire for fear of striking their own forces. The +British infantry, too, being drawn slightly back from the crest, were +out of sight, and the leading French files saw nothing before them but +a cluster of British batteries and a this line of quickly retreating +skirmishers. A Dutch-Belgian brigade had, somehow, been placed on the +exterior slope of the hill, and when D'Erlon's huge battalions came on, +almost shaking the earth with their steady tread, the Dutch-Belgians +simply took to their heels and ran. They swept, a crowd of fugitives, +through the intervals of the British lines, and were received with +groans and hootings, the men with difficulty being restrained from +firing upon them. + +A sand-pit lay in the track of the French columns on the left. This +was held by some companies of the 95th Rifles, and these opened a fire +so sudden and close and deadly that the huge mass of the French swung +almost involuntarily to the right, off its true track; then with fierce +roll of drums and shouts of "En avant!" the Frenchmen reached the +crest. Suddenly there rose before them Picton's steady lines, along +which there ran, in one red flame from end to end, a dreadful volley. +Again the fierce musketry crackled, and yet again. The Frenchmen tried +to deploy, and Picton, seizing the moment, ordered his lines to charge. +"Charge! charge!" he cried. "Hurrah!" + +It is yet a matter keenly disputed as to whether or not D'Erlon's men +actually pierced the British line. It is alleged that the Highlanders +were thrown into confusion, and it is certain that Picton's last words +to his aide-de-camp, Captain Seymour, were, "Rally the Highlanders!" +Pack, too, appealed to the 92nd. "You must charge," he said; "all in +front have given way." However this may be, the British regiments +charged, and the swift and resolute advance of Picton's lines--though +it was a charge of 3000 men on a body four times their number--was +irresistible. The leading ranks of the French opened a hurried fire, +under which Picton himself fell shot through the head; then as the +British line came on at the double--the men with bent heads, the level +bayonets one steady edge of steel, the fierce light which gleams along +the fighting line playing on them--the leading battalions of the French +halted irresolute, shrunk back, swayed to and fro, and fell into a +shapeless receding mass. + +There were, of course, many individual instances of great gallantry +amongst them. Thus a French mounted officer had his horse shot, and +when he struggled from beneath his fallen charger he found himself +almost under the bayonets of the 32nd. But just in front of the +British line was an officer carrying the colours of the regiment, and +the brave Frenchman instantly leaped upon him. He would capture the +flag! There was a momentary struggle, and the British officer at the +head of the wing shouted, "Save the brave fellow!" but almost at the +same moment the gallant Frenchman was bayoneted by the colour-sergeant, +and shot by a British infantryman. + +The head of the French column was falling to pieces, but the main body +was yet steady, and the cuirassiers covering its flank were coming +swiftly on. But at this moment there broke upon them the terrific +counterstroke, not of Wellington, but of Lord Uxbridge, into whose +hands Wellington, with a degree of confidence quite unusual for him, +had given the absolute control of his cavalry, fettering him by no +specific orders. + + +IV. "SCOTLAND FOR EVER!" + + + "Beneath their fire, in full career, + Rush'd on the ponderous cuirassier, + The lancer couch'd his ruthless spear, + And hurrying as to havoc near, + The cohorts' eagles flew. + In one dark torrent, broad and strong, + The advancing onset roll'd along, + Forth harbinger'd by fierce acclaim + That, from the shroud of smoke and flame, + Peal'd wildly the imperial name!" + --SCOTT. + + +The attack of the Household and Union Brigades at Waterloo is one of +the most dazzling and dramatic incidents of the great fight. For +suddenness, fire, and far-reaching results, it would be difficult to +parallel that famous charge in the history of war. The Household +Brigade, consisting of the 1st and 2nd Life Guards, and the Dragoon +Guards, with the Blues in support, moved first. Lord Uxbridge, +temporarily exchanging the functions of general for those of a +squadron-leader, heading the attack. They leaped the hedge, or burst +through it, crossed the road--at that point of shallow depth--and met +the French cuirassiers in full charge. The British were bigger men on +bigger horses, and they had gained the full momentum of their charge +when the two lines met. The French, to do them justice, did not +shrink. The charging lines crashed together, like living and swiftly +moving walls, and the sound of their impact rang sharp, sudden, deep, +and long drawn out, above the din of the conflict. The French wore +armour, and carried longer swords than the British, but they were swept +away in an instant, and went, a broken and shattered mass of men and +horses, down the slope. Some of them were tumbled into the sand-pit, +amongst the astonished Rifles there, who instantly bayoneted them. +Others were swept upon the masses of their own infantry, fiercely +followed by the Life Guards. + +The 2nd Life Guards and the Dragoons, coming on a little in the rear, +struck the right regiment of the cuirassiers and hurled them across the +junction of the roads. Shaw, the famous Life Guardsman, was killed +here. He was a perfect swordsman, a man of colossal strength, and is +said to have cut down, through helmet and skull, no fewer than nine men +in the _mêlée_. How Shaw actually died is a matter of dispute. +Colonel Marten says he was shot by a cuirassier who stood clear of the +_mêlée_, coolly taking pot-shots at the English Guardsmen. Captain +Kelly, a brilliant soldier, who rode in the charge beside Shaw, says +that Shaw was killed by a thrust through the body from a French colonel +of the cuirassiers, whom Kelly himself, in return, clove through helmet +and skull. + +Meanwhile the Union Brigade on the left, consisting of the Royals and +the Inniskillings, with the Scots Greys in support, had broken into the +fight. The Royals, coming on at full speed over the crest of the +ridge, broke upon the astonished vision of the French infantry at a +distance of less than a hundred yards. It was an alarming vision of +waving swords, crested helmets, fierce red nostrils, and galloping +hoofs. The leading files tried to turn, but in an instant the Royals +were upon them, cutting them down furiously. De Lacy Evans, who rode +in the charge, says, "They fled like a flock of sheep." Colonel Clark +Kennedy adds that the "jamb" in the French was so thick that the men +could not bring down their arms or level a musket, and the Dragoons +rode in the intervals between their formation, reaching forward with +the stroke of their long swords, and slaying at will. More than 2000 +Frenchmen flung down their arms and surrendered; and on the next +morning the abandoned muskets were still lying in long straight lines +and regular order, showing that the men had surrendered before their +lines were broken. The charge of the Inniskillings to the left of the +Royals was just as furious and just as successful. They broke on the +front of Donzdot's divisions and simply ground them to powder. + +The Scots Greys were supposed to be "in support"; but coming swiftly +up, they suddenly saw on their left shoulder Marcognet's divisions, the +extreme right of the French. At that sight the Greys swung a little +off to their left, swept through the intervals of the 92nd, and smote +the French battalions full in front. As the Greys rode through the +intervals of the footmen--Scotch horsemen through Scotch infantry--the +Scotch blood in both regiments naturally took fire. Greetings in +broadest Doric flew from man to man. The pipes skirled fiercely. +"Scotland for ever!" went up in a stormy shout from the kilted lines. +The Greys, riding fast, sometimes jostled, or even struck down, some of +the 92nd; and Armour, the rough-rider of the Greys, has told how the +Highlanders shouted, "I didna think ye wad hae saired me sae!" Many of +the Highlanders caught hold of the stirrups of the Greys and raced +forward with them--Scotsmen calling to Scotsmen--into the ranks of the +French. The 92nd, in fact, according to the testimony of their own +officers, "went half mad." What could resist such a charge? + +The two British cavalry brigades were by this time riding roughly +abreast, the men drunk with warlike excitement and completely out of +hand, and most of their officers were little better. They simply rode +over D'Erlon's broken ranks. So brave were some of the French, +however, that again and again a solitary soldier or officer would leap +out of the ranks as the English cavalry came on, and charge them +single-handed! One French private deliberately ran out as the +Inniskillings came on at full gallop, knelt before the swiftly +galloping line of men and horses, coolly shot the adjutant of the +Inniskillings through the head, and was himself instantly trodden into +a bloody pulp! The British squadrons, wildly disordered, but drunk +with battle fury, and each man fighting for his "ain hand," swept +across the valley, rode up to the crest of the French position, stormed +through the great battery there, slew drivers and horses, and so +completely wrecked the battery that forty guns out of its seventy never +came into action again. Some of the men, in the rapture of the fight, +broke through to the second line of the French, and told tales, after +the mad adventure was over, of how they had come upon French artillery +drivers, mere boys, sitting crying on their horses while the tragedy +and tumult of the _mêlée_ swept past them. Some of the older officers +tried to rally and re-form their men; and Lord Uxbridge, by this time +beginning to remember that he was a general and not a dragoon, looked +round for his "supports," who, as it happened, oblivious of the duty of +"supporting" anybody, were busy fighting on their own account, and were +riding furiously in the very front ranks. + +Then there came the French counter-stroke. The French batteries opened +on the triumphant, but disordered British squadrons; a brigade of +lancers smote them on the flank and rolled them up. Lord Edward +Somerset, who commanded the Household Brigade, was unhorsed, and saved +his life by scrambling dexterously, but ignobly, through a hedge. Sir +William Ponsonby, who commanded the Union Brigade, had ridden his horse +to a dead standstill; the lancers caught him standing helpless in the +middle of a ploughed field, and slew him with a dozen lance-thrusts. +Vandeleur's Light Cavalry Brigade was by this time moving down from the +British front, and behind its steady squadrons the broken remains of +the two brigades found shelter. + +Though the British cavalry suffered terribly in retiring, nevertheless +they had accomplished what Sir Evelyn Wood describes as "one of the +most brilliant successes ever achieved by horsemen over infantry." +These two brigades--which did not number more than 2000 swords--wrecked +an entire infantry corps, disabled forty guns, overthrew a division of +cuirassiers, took 3000 prisoners, and captured two eagles. The moral +effect of the charge was, perhaps, greater than even its material +results. The French infantry never afterwards throughout the battle, +until the Old Guard appeared upon the scene, moved forward with real +confidence against the British position. Those "terrible horsemen" had +stamped themselves upon their imagination. + +The story of how the eagles were captured is worth telling. Captain +Clark Kennedy of the Dragoons took one. He was riding vehemently in +the early stage of the charge, when he caught sight of the cuirassier +officer carrying the eagle, with his covering men, trying to break +through the _mêlée_ and escape. "I gave the order to my men," he says, +"'Right shoulders forward; attack the colours.'" He himself overtook +the officer, ran him through the body, and seized the eagle. He tried +to break the eagle from the pole and push it inside his coat for +security, but, failing, gave it to his corporal to carry to the rear. +The other colour was taken by Ewart, a sergeant of the Greys, a very +fine swordsman. He overtook the officer carrying the colour, and, to +quote his own story, "he and I had a hard contest for it. He made a +thrust at my groin; I parried it off, and cut him down through the +head. After this a lancer came at me. I threw the lance off by my +right side, and cut him through the chin and upwards through the teeth. +Next, a foot-soldier fired at me, and then charged me with his bayonet, +which I also had the good luck to parry, and then I cut him down +through the head. Thus ended the contest. As I was about to follow +the regiment, the general said, 'My brave fellow, take that to the +rear; you have done enough till you get quit of it.'" + + +V. HORSEMEN AND SQUARES + + + "But yet, though thick the shafts as snow, + Though charging knights like whirlwinds go, + Though bill-men ply the ghastly blow, + Unbroken was the ring; + The stubborn spearmen still made good + Their dark impenetrable wood, + Each stepping where his comrade stood, + The instant that he fell. + No thought was there of dastard flight; + Linked in the serried phalanx tight, + Groom fought like noble, squire like knight, + As fearlessly and well." + --SCOTT. + + +Napoleon's infantry had failed to capture either Hougoumont or La Haye +Sainte, which was stoutly held by Baring and his Hanoverians. The +great infantry attack on the British left had failed, and though the +stubborn fight round the two farmhouses never paused, the main battle +along the ridge for a time resolved itself into an artillery duel. +Battery answered battery across the narrow valley, nearly four hundred +guns in action at once, the gunners toiling fiercely to load and fire +with the utmost speed. Wellington ordered his men to lie down on the +reverse of the ridge; but the French had the range perfectly, and +shells fell thickly on the ranks of recumbent men, and solid shot tore +through them. The thunder of the artillery quickened; the French +tirailleurs, showing great daring, crept in swarms up the British slope +and shot down the British gunners at their pieces. Both Hougoumont and +La Haye Sainte were on fire at this stage of the battle. The smoke of +the conflict, in an atmosphere heavy with moisture, hung like a low +pall of blackest crape over the whole field; and every now and again, +on either ridge, columns of white smoke shot suddenly up and fell back +like gigantic and vaporous mushrooms--the effect of exploding +ammunition waggons. "Hard pounding this, gentlemen," said Wellington, +as he rode past his much-enduring battalions. "Let us see who will +pound longest." + +At four o'clock came the great cavalry attack of the French. Through +the gap between, not merely the two farmhouses, but the two farmhouses +plus their zone of fire--through a gap, that is, of probably not more +than 1000 yards, the French, for two long hours, poured on the British +line the whole strength of their magnificent cavalry, led by Ney in +person. To meet the assault, Wellington drew up his first line in a +long chequer of squares, five in the first line, four, covering their +intervals, in the second. In advance of them were the British guns, +with their sadly reduced complement of gunners. Immediately behind the +squares were the British cavalry brigades; the Household Brigade, +reduced by this time to a couple of squadrons; and behind them, in +turn, the Dutch-Belgian infantry, who had fortitude enough not to run +away, but lacked daring sufficient to fill a place on the fire-scourged +edge of actual battle. When the British front was supposed to be +sufficiently macadamised by the dreadful fire of the French batteries, +Ney brought on his huge mass of cavalry, twenty-one squadrons of +cuirassiers, and nineteen squadrons of the Light Cavalry of the Guard. + +At a slow trot they came down the French slope, crossed the valley, +and, closing their ranks and quickening their stride, swept up to the +British line, and broke, a swirling torrent of men and horses, over the +crest. Nothing could be more majestic, and apparently resistless, than +their onset--the gleam of so many thousand helmets and breastplates, +the acres of wind-blown horse-hair crests and many-coloured uniforms, +the thunder of so many galloping hoofs. Wellington had ordered his +gunners, when the French cavalry reached their guns, to abandon them +and run for shelter beneath the bayonets of the nearest square, and the +brave fellows stood by their pieces pouring grape and solid shot into +the glittering, swift-coming human target before them till the leading +horses were almost within touch of the guns, when they ran and flung +themselves under the steady British bayonets for safety. + +The French horsemen, as they mounted the British slope, saw nothing +before them but the ridge, empty of everything except a few abandoned +guns. They were drunk with the rapture of victory, and squadron after +squadron, as it reached the crest, broke into tempests of shouts and a +mad gallop. All the batteries were in their possession; they looked to +see an army in rout. Suddenly they beheld the double line of British +squares--or, rather, "oblongs"--with their fringe of steady steel +points; and from end to end of the line ran the zigzag of fire--a fire +that never slackened, still less intermitted. The torrent and tumult +of the horsemen never checked; but as they rode at the squares, the +leading squadron--men and horses--smitten by the spray of lead, tumbled +dead or dying to the ground. The following squadrons parted, swept +past the flanks of the squares, scourged with deadly volleys, struggled +through the intervals of the second line, emerged breathless and broken +into the space beyond, to be instantly charged by the British cavalry, +and driven back in wreck over the British slope. As the struggling +mass left the crest clear, the French guns broke in a tempest of shot +on the squares, while the scattered French re-formed in the valley, and +prepared for a second and yet more desperate assault. + +Foiled in his first attack, Ney drew the whole of Kellerman's +division--thirty-seven squadrons, eleven of cuirassiers, six of +carabineers, and the Bed Lancers of the Guard--into the whirlpool of +his renewed assault, and this time the mass, though it came forward +more slowly, was almost double in area. Gleaming with lance and sword +and cuirass, it undulated as it crossed the broken slopes, till it +seemed a sea, shining with 10,000 points of glancing steel, in motion. +The British squares, on the reverse slope, as they obeyed the order, +"Prepare to receive cavalry!" and fell grimly into formation, could +hear the thunder of the coming storm--the shrill cries of the officers, +the deeper shouts of the men, the clash of scabbard on stirrup, the +fierce tramp of the iron-shod hoofs. Squadron after squadron came over +the ridge, like successive human waves; then, like a sea broken loose, +the flood of furious horsemen inundated the whole slope on which the +squares were drawn up. But each square, a tiny, immovable island of +red, with its fringe of smoke and steel and darting flame, stood +doggedly resolute. No French leader, however daring, ventured to ride +home on the very bayonets. The flood of maddened men and horses swung +sullenly back across the ridge, while the British gunners ran out and +scourged them with grape as they rode down the slope. + +From four o'clock to six o'clock this amazing scene was repeated. No +less than thirteen times, it was reckoned, the French horsemen rode +over the ridge, and round the squares, and swept back wrecked and +baffled. In the later charges they came on at a trot, or even a walk, +and they rode through the British batteries and round the squares, in +the words of the Duke of Wellington, "as if they owned them." So dense +was the smoke that sometimes the British could not see their foes +until, through the whirling blackness, a line of lances and crested +helmets, or of tossing horse-heads, suddenly broke. Sometimes a single +horseman would ride up to the very points of the British bayonets and +strike at them with his sword, or fire a pistol at an officer, in the +hope of drawing the fire of the square prematurely, and thus giving his +comrades a chance of breaking it. With such cool courage did the +British squares endure the fiery rush of the French cavalry, that at +last the temper of the men grew almost scornful. They would growl out, +"Here come these fools again," as a fresh sweep of horsemen came on. +Sometimes the French squadrons came on at a trot; sometimes their +"charge" slackened down to a walk. Warlike enthusiasm had exhausted +itself. "The English squares and the French squadrons," says Lord +Anglesey, "seemed almost, for a short time, hardly taking notice of +each other." + +In their later charges the French brought up some light batteries to +the crest of the British ridge, and opened fire at point-blank distance +on the solid squares. The front of the 1st Life Guards was broken by a +fire of this sort, and Gronow relates how the cuirassiers made a dash +at the opening. Captain Adair leaped into the gap, and killed with one +blow of his sword a French officer who had actually entered the square! +The British gunners always ran swiftly out when the French cavalry +recoiled down the slope, remanned their guns, and opened a murderous +fire on the broken French. Noting this, an officer of cuirassiers drew +up his horse by a British battery, and while his men drew off, stood on +guard with his single sword, and kept the gunners from remanning it +till he was shot by a British infantryman. Directly the broken cavalry +was clear of the ridge, the French guns opened furiously on the British +lines, and men dropped thick and fast. The cavalry charges, as a +matter of fact, were welcomed as affording relief from the intolerable +artillery fire. + +For two hours 15,000 French horsemen rode round the British squares, +and again and again the ridge and rear slope of the British position +was covered with lancers, cuirassiers, light and heavy dragoons, and +hussars, with the British guns in their actual possession; and yet not +a square was broken! A gaily dressed regiment of the Duke of +Cumberland's (Hanoverian) Hussars watched the Homeric contest from the +British rear, and Lord Uxbridge, as the British cavalry were completely +exhausted by their dashes at the French horsemen as they broke through +the chequer of the squares, rode up to them and called on them to +follow him in a charge. The colonel declined, explaining that his men +owned their own horses, and could not expose them to any risk of +damage! These remarkable warriors, in fact, moved in a body, and with +much expedition, off the field, Seymour (Lord Uxbridge's aide) taking +their colonel by the collar and shaking him as a dog shakes a rat, by +way of expressing his view of the performance. + + +VI. THE FIGHT OF THE GUNNERS + + + "Three hundred cannon-mouths roar'd loud; + And from their throats with flash and cloud + Their showers of iron threw." + --SCOTT. + + +One of the most realistic pictures of the fight at this stage is given +by Captain Mercer, in command of a battery of horse artillery. Mercer +was on the extreme British right during the first stage of the battle, +and only got occasional glimpses of the ridge where the fight was +raging--intermittent visions of French cavalry riding in furious +charges, and abandoned British batteries with guns, muzzle in air, +against the background of grey and whirling smoke. About three +o'clock, in the height of the cavalry struggle, Fraser, who was in +chief command of the horse artillery, galloped down the reverse slope +to Mercer's battery, his face black with powder, his uniform torn, and +brought the troop at full gallop to the central ridge, explaining as +they rode the Duke's orders, that, when the French cavalry charged +home, Mercer and his men should take refuge under the bayonets of the +nearest square. + +As they neared the crest at a gallop, Mercer describes the humming as +of innumerable and gigantic gnats that filled the bullet-torn air. He +found his position betwixt two squares of Brunswickers, in whose ranks +the French guns were making huge gaps, while the officers and sergeants +were busy literally pushing the men together. "The men," says Mercer, +"were like wooden figures, semi-paralysed with the horrors of the fight +about them;" and to have attempted to run to them for shelter would +certainly have been the signal for the whole mass to dissolve. Through +the smoke ahead, not a hundred yards distant, were the French squadrons +coming on at a trot. The British guns were swung round, unlimbered, +loaded with case-shot, and fire opened with breathless speed. Still +the French came on; but as gun after gun came into action, their pace +slowed down to a walk, till the front files could endure the terrific +fire no longer. They turned round and tried to ride back. "I actually +saw them," says Mercer, "using the pommels of their swords to fight +their way out of the _mêlée_." Some, made desperate by finding +themselves penned up at the very muzzles of the British guns, dashed +through their intervals, but without thinking of using their swords. +Presently the mass broke and ebbed, a flood of shattered squadrons, +down the slope. They rallied quickly, however, and their helmets could +be seen over the curve of the slope as the officers dressed the lines. + +The French tirailleurs, meanwhile, crept up within forty yards of the +battery, and were busy shooting down Mercer's gunners. Mercer, to keep +his men steady, rode slowly to and fro in front of the muzzles of his +guns, the men standing with lighted port-fires. The tirailleurs, +almost within pistol-shot, seized the opportunity to take pot-shots at +him. He shook his glove, with the word "Scélérat," at one of them; the +fellow grinned, and took a leisurely aim at Mercer, the muzzle of his +gun following him as he turned to and fro in his promenade before his +own pieces. The Frenchman fired, and the ball passed at the back of +Mercer's neck into the forehead of the leading driver of one of his +guns. + +But the cavalry was coming on again in solid squadrons, a column so +deep that when the leading files were within sixty yards of Mercer's +guns the rear of the great mass was still out of sight. The pace was a +deliberate trot. "They moved in profound silence," says Mercer, and +the only sound that could be heard from them, amidst the incessant roar +of battle, was the low, thunder-like reverberation of the ground +beneath the simultaneous tread of so many horses, through which ran a +jangling ripple of sharp metallic sound, the ring of steel on steel. +The British gunners, on their part, showed a stern coolness fully equal +to the occasion. Every man stood steadily at his post, "the guns ready +loaded with round-shot first, and a case over it; the tubes were in the +vents, the port-fires glared and sputtered behind the wheels." The +column was led on this time by an officer in a rich uniform, his breast +covered with decorations, whose earnest gesticulations were strangely +contrasted with the solemn demeanour of those to whom they were +addressed. Mercer allowed the leading squadron to come within sixty +yards, then lifted his glove as the signal to fire. Nearly the whole +leading rank fell in an instant, while the round shot pierced the +column. The front, covered with struggling horses and men, was +impassable. Some of the braver spirits did break their way through, +only to fall, man and horse, at the very muzzles, of the guns. "Our +guns," says Mercer, "were served with astonishing activity, and men and +horses tumbled before them like nine-pins." Where the horse alone was +killed, the cuirassier could be seen stripping himself of his armour +with desperate haste to escape. The mass of the French for a moment +stood still, then broke to pieces and fled. Again they came on, with +exactly the same result. So dreadful was the carnage, that on the next +day, Mercer, looking back from the French ridge, could identify the +position held by his battery by the huge mound of slaughtered men and +horses lying in front of it. The French at last brought up a battery, +which opened a flanking fire on Mercer's guns; he swung round two of +his pieces to meet the attack, and the combat raged till, out of 200 +fine horses in Mercer's troop, 140 lay dead or dying, and two men out +of every three were disabled. + +Ney's thirteen cavalry charges on the British position were +magnificent, but they were a failure. They did not break a single +square, nor permanently disable a single gun. Both Wellington and +Napoleon are accused of having flung away their cavalry; but +Wellington--or, rather, Uxbridge--by expending only 2000 sabres, +wrecked, as we have seen, a French infantry corps, destroyed a battery +of 40 guns, and took 3000 prisoners. Ney practically used up 15,000 +magnificent horsemen without a single appreciable result. Napoleon, at +St. Helena, put the blame of his wasted cavalry on Ney's hot-headed +impetuosity. The cavalry attack, he said, was made without his orders; +Kellerman's division joined in the attack without even Ney's orders. +But that Napoleon should watch for two hours his whole cavalry force +wrecking itself in thirteen successive and baffled assaults on the +British squares, without his orders, is an utterly incredible +supposition. + +If two hours of cavalry assault, punctuated as with flame by the fire +of 200 guns, did not destroy the stubborn British line, it cannot be +denied that it shook it terribly. The British ridge was strewn with +the dead and dying. Regiments had shrunk to companies, companies to +mere files. "Our square," says Gronow, "presented a shocking sight. +We were nearly suffocated by the smoke and smell from burnt cartridges. +It was impossible to move a step without treading on a wounded or slain +comrade." "Where is your brigade?" Vivian asked of Lord Edward +Somerset, who commanded the Life Guards. "Here," said Lord Edward, +pointing to two scanty squadrons, and a long line of wounded or +mutilated horses. Before nightfall the two gallant brigades that made +the great cavalry charge of the morning had contracted to a single +squadron of fifty files. Wellington sent an aide-de-camp to ask +General Hackett, "What square of his that was which was so far in +advance?" It was a mass of killed and wounded men belonging to the +30th and 73rd regiments that lay slain, yet in ranks, on the spot the +square had occupied at one period of the fight, and from which it had +been withdrawn. Seen through the whirling smoke, this quadrangle of +corpses looked like a square of living men. The destruction wrought by +the French guns on the British squares was, in brief, terrific. By a +single discharge of grape upon a German square, one of its sides was +completely blown away, and the "square" transfigured into a triangle, +with its base a line of slaughtered men. The effect produced by +cannon-shot at short range on solid masses of men was sometimes very +extraordinary. Thus Croker tells how an officer received a severe +wound in the shoulder, apparently from a jagged ball. When the missile +was extracted, however, it turned out to be a huge human double-tooth. +Its owner's head had been shattered by a cannon-ball, and the very +teeth transformed into a radiating spray of swift and deadly missiles. +There were other cases of soldiers being wounded by coins driven +suddenly by the impact of shot from their original owners' pockets. +The sustained fire of the French tirailleurs, too, wrought fatal +mischief. + +La Haye Sainte by this time had been captured. The brave men who held +it for so many hours carried rifles that needed a special cartridge, +and supplies of it failed. When the French captured the farmhouse, +they were able to push some guns and a strong infantry attack close up +to the British left. This was held by the 27th, who had marched from +Ghent at speed, reached Waterloo, exhausted, at nine A.M., on the very +day of the battle, slept amid the roar of the great fight till three +o'clock, and were then brought forward to strengthen the line above La +Haye Sainte. The 27th was drawn up in square, and the French +skirmishers opened a fire so close and fatal, that, literally, in the +space of a few minutes every second man was shot down! + + +VII. THE OLD GUARD + + + "On came the whirlwind--like the last, + But fiercest sweep of tempest blast-- + On came the whirlwind--steel-gleams broke + Like lightning through the rolling smoke; + The war was waked anew." + --SCOTT. + + +Napoleon had expended in vain upon the stubborn British lines his +infantry, his cavalry, and his artillery. There remained only the +Guard! The long summer evening was drawing to a close, when, at +half-past seven, he marshalled these famous soldiers for the final +attack. It is a curious fact that the intelligence of the coming +attack was brought to Wellington by a French cuirassier officer, who +deserted his colours just before it took place. The eight battalions +of the immortal Guard formed a body of magnificent soldiers, the tall +stature of the men being heightened by their imposing bearskin caps. +The prestige of a hundred victories played round their bayonets. Their +assault had never yet been resisted. Ney and Friant led them on. +Napoleon himself, as the men marched past him to the assault, spoke +some fiery words of exhortation to each company--the last words he ever +spoke to his Guard. + +It is a matter of keen dispute whether the Guard attacked in two +columns or in one. The truth seems to be that the eight battalions +were arranged in echelon, and really formed one mass, though in two +parallel columns of companies, with batteries of horse artillery on +either flank advancing with them. Nothing could well be more majestic, +nothing more menacing, than the advance of this gallant force, and it +seemed as if nothing on the British ridge, with its disabled guns and +shot-torn battalions, could check such an assault. Wellington, +however, quickly strengthened his centre by calling in Hill's division +from the extreme right, while Vivian's Light Cavalry, surrendering the +extreme left to the advancing Prussians, moved, in anticipation of +orders, to the same point. Adams's brigade, too, was brought up to the +threatened point, with all available artillery. The exact point in the +line which would be struck by the head of the Guard was barred by a +battery of nine-pounders. The attack of the Guard was aided by a +general infantry advance---usually in the form of a dense mass of +skirmishers--against the whole British front, and so fierce was this +that some Hanoverian and Nassau battalions were shaken by it into +almost fatal rout. A thread of British cavalry, made up of the scanty +remains of the Scots Greys and some of Vandeleur's Light Cavalry, alone +kept the line from being pierced. + +All interest, however, centred in the attack of the Guard. Steadily, +on a slightly diagonal line, it moved up the British slope. The guns +smote it fiercely; but never shrinking or pausing, the great double +column moved forward. It crossed the ridge. Nothing met the eyes of +the astonished French except a wall of smoke, and the battery of horse +artillery, at which the gunners were toiling madly, pouring case-shot +into the approaching column. One or two horsemen, one of whom was +Wellington himself, were dimly seen through the smoke behind the guns. +The Duke denied that he used the famous phrase, "Up Guards, and at +'em!" "What I may have said, and possibly did say," he told Croker, +"was, 'Stand up, Guards!' and then gave the commanding officers the +order to attack." + +An officer who took part in the fight has described the scene at the +critical moment when the French Old Guard appeared at the summit of the +British ridge: "As the smoke cleared away, a most superb sight opened +on us. A close column of the Guard, about seventies in front, and not +less than six thousand strong, their drums sounding the _pas de +charge_, the men shouting 'Vive l'Empereur!' were within sixty yards of +us." The sudden appearance of the long red line of the British Foot +Guards rising from the ground seems to have brought the French Guard to +a momentary pause, and, as they hesitated, along the whole line of the +British ran--and ran again, and yet again--the vivid flash of a +tremendous volley. The Guard tried to deploy; their officers leaped to +the front, and, with shouts and waving swords, tried to bring them on, +the British line, meanwhile, keeping up "independent" firing. Maitland +and Lord Saltoun simultaneously shouted the order to "Charge!" The +bayonets of the British Guards fell to level, the men came forward at a +run, the tramp of the charging line sounded louder and louder, the line +of shining points gleamed nearer and yet nearer--the bent and +threatening faces of the British came swiftly on. The nerve of the +French seemed to fail; the huge battalion faltered, shrank in upon +itself, and tumbled in ruin down the hill! + +But this was only the leading battalion of the right segment of the +great column, and the left was still moving steadily up. The British +Guards, too, who had followed the broken battalion of the French down +the hill, were arrested by a cry of "Cavalry!" and fell back on the +ridge in confusion, though the men obeyed instantly the commands of the +officers. "Halt! Front! Re-form!" Meanwhile the left section of the +huge column was moving up, the men as steady as on parade, the lofty +bearskins of the Grenadiers, as they mounted the ridge, giving them a +gigantic aspect. The black, elongated shadows, as the last rays of the +setting sun smote the lines, ran threateningly before them. But the +devoted column was practically forcing itself up into a sort of +triangle of fire. Bolton's guns crossed its head, the Guards, thrown +slightly forward, poured their swift volleys in waves of flame on its +right shoulder, the 52nd and 71st on its left scourged it with fire, +beneath which the huge mass of the French Guard seemed sometimes to +pause and thrill as if in convulsion. + +Then came the movement which assured victory to the British. Colborne, +a soldier with a singular genius for war, not waiting for orders, made +his regiment, the 52nd, bring its right shoulder forward, the outer +company swinging round at the double, until his whole front was +parallel with the flank of the French Guard. Adams, the general in +command of the brigade, rode up and asked him what he was going to do. +Colborne replied, "To make that column feel our fire," and, giving the +word, his men poured into the unprotected flank of the unfortunate +Guard a terrific volley. The 52nd, it should be noted, went into +action with upwards of one thousand bayonets, being probably the +strongest battalion in the field. Colborne had "nursed" his regiment +during the fight. He formed them into smaller squares than usual, and +kept them in shelter where possible, so that at this crisis the +regiment was still a body of great fighting force, and its firing was +of deadly volume and power. Adams swiftly brought the 71st to sustain +Colborne's attack, the Guards on the other flank also moved forward, +practically making a long obtuse angle of musketry fire, the two sides +of which were rapidly closing in on the head of the great French column. + +The left company of the 52nd was almost muzzle to muzzle with the +French column, and had to press back, while the right companies were +swinging round to bring the whole line parallel with the flank of the +Guard; yet, though the answering fire of the Frenchmen was broken and +irregular, so deadly was it--the lines almost touching each +other--that, in three minutes, from the left front of the 52nd one +hundred and fifty men fell! When the right companies, however, had +come up into line with the left, Colborne cried, "Charge! charge!" The +men answered with a deep-throated, menacing shout, and dashed at the +enemy. Napoleon's far-famed Guard, the victors in a hundred fights, +shrank, the mass swayed to and fro, the men in the centre commenced to +fire in the air, and the whole great mass seemed to tumble, break into +units, and roll down the hill! + +The 52nd and 71st came fiercely on, their officers leading. Some +squadrons of the 23rd Dragoons came at a gallop down the slope, and +literally smashed in upon the wrecked column. So wild was the +confusion, so dense the whirling smoke that shrouded the whole scene, +that some companies of the 52nd fired into the Dragoons, mistaking them +for the enemy; and while Colborne was trying to halt his line to remedy +the confusion, Wellington, who saw in this charge the sure pledge of +victory, rode up and shouted, "Never mind! go on! go on!" + +Gambier, then an officer of the 52nd, gives a graphic description of +how that famous regiment fought at this stage:-- + +"A short time before, I had seen our colonel (Colborne), twenty yards +in front of the centre, suddenly disappear, while his horse, mortally +wounded, sank under him. After one or two rounds from the guns, he +came striding down the front with, 'These guns will destroy the +regiment.'--'Shall I drive them in, sir?'--'Do.'--'Right section, left +shoulders forward!' was the word at once. So close were we that the +guns only fired their loaded charges, and limbering up, went hastily to +the rear. Reaching the spot on which they had stood, I was clear of +the Imperial Guard's smoke, and saw three squares of the Old Guard +within four hundred yards farther on. They were standing in a line of +contiguous squares with very short intervals, a small body of +cuirassiers on their right, while the guns took post on their left. +Convinced that the regiment, when it saw them, would come towards them, +I continued my course, stopped with my section about two hundred yards +in front of the centre square, and sat down. They were standing in +perfect order and steadiness, and I knew they would not disturb that +steadiness to pick a quarrel with an insignificant section. I +alternately looked at them, at the regiment, and up the hill to my +right (rear), to see who was coming to help us. + +"A red regiment was coming along steadily from the British position, +with its left directly upon me. It reached me some minutes before the +52nd, of which the right came within twenty paces of me. Colonel +Colborne then called the covering sergeants to the front, and dressed +the line upon them. Up to this moment neither the guns, the squares of +the Imperial Guard, nor the 52nd had fired a shot. I then saw one or +two of the guns slewed round to the direction of my company and fired, +but their grape went over our heads. We opened our fire and advanced; +the squares replied to it, and then steadily facing about, retired. +The cuirassiers advanced a few paces; our men ceased firing, and, bold +in their four-deep formation, came down to a sort of elevated bayonet +charge; but the cuirassiers declined the contest, and turned. The +French proper right square brought up its right shoulders and crossed +the _chaussée_, and we crossed it after them. Twilight had manifestly +commenced, and objects were now bewildering. The first event of +interest was, that getting among some French tumbrils, with the horses +attached, our colonel was seen upon one, shouting 'Cut me out!' Then +we came upon the hollow road beyond La Belle Alliance, filled with +artillery and broken infantry. Here was instantly a wild _mêlée_: the +infantry tried to escape as best they could, and at the same time turn +and defend themselves; the artillery drivers turned their horses to the +left and tried to scramble up the bank of the road, but the horses were +immediately shot down; a young subaltern of the battery threw his sword +and himself on the ground in the act of surrender; his commander, who +wore the cross of the Legion of Honour, stood in defiance among his +guns, and was bayoneted, and the subaltern, unwisely making a run for +his liberty, was shot in the attempt. The _mêlée_ at this spot placed +us amid such questionable companions, that no one at that moment could +be sure whether a bayonet would be the next moment in his ribs or not." + +It puts a sudden gleam of humour into the wild scene to read how +Colonel Sir Felton Harvey, who led a squadron of the 18th, when he saw +the Old Guard tumbling into ruins, evoked a burst of laughter from his +entire squadron by saying in a solemn voice, "Lord Wellington has won +the battle," and then suddenly adding in a changed tone, "If we could +but get the d----d fool to advance!" Wellington, as a matter of fact, +had given the signal that launched his wasted and sorely tried +battalions in one final and victorious advance. Vivian's cavalry still +remained to the Duke--the 10th and 18th Hussars--and they, at this +stage, made a charge almost as decisive as that of the Household and +Union Brigades in the morning. The 10th crashed into some cuirassiers +who were coming up to try and relieve the flank of the Guard, overthrew +them in a moment, and then plunged into the broken French Guard itself. +These veterans were retreating, so to speak, individually, all +formation wrecked, but each soldier was stalking fiercely along with +frowning brow and musket grasped, ready to charge any too audacious +horsemen. Vivian himself relates how his orderly alone cut down five +or six in swift succession who were trying to bayonet the British +cavalry general. When Vivian had launched the 10th, he galloped back +to the 18th, who had lost almost every officer. "My lads," he said, +"you'll follow me"; to which the sergeant-major, a man named Jeffs, +replied, "To h----, general, if you will lead us!" The wreck of +Vandeleur's brigade, too, charged down the slope more to the left; +batteries were carried, cavalry squadrons smashed, and infantry +battalions tumbled into ruin. Napoleon had an entire light cavalry +brigade still untouched; but this, too, was caught in the reflux of the +broken masses, and swept away. The wreck of the Old Guard and the +spectacle of the general advance of the British--cavalry, artillery, +and infantry--seemed to be the signal for the dissolution of the whole +French army. + +Two squares of the French Guard yet kept their formation. Some +squadrons of the 10th Hussars, under Major Howard, rode fiercely at +one. Howard himself rode home, and died literally on the French +bayonets; and his men rivalled his daring, and fought and died on two +faces of the square. But the Frenchmen kept their ranks, and the +attack failed. The other square was broken. The popular tradition +that Cambronne, commanding a square of the Old Guard, on being summoned +to surrender, answered, "La Garde meurt, et ne se rend pas," is pure +fable. As a matter of fact, Halkett, who commanded a brigade of +Hanoverians, personally captured Cambronne. Halkett was heading some +squadrons of the 10th, and noted Cambronne trying to rally the Guard. +In his own words, "I made a gallop for the general. When about cutting +him down, he called out he would surrender, upon which he preceded me +to the rear. But I had not gone many paces before my horse got shot +through his body and fell to the ground. In a few seconds I got him on +his legs again, and found my friend Cambronne had taken French leave in +the direction from which he came. I instantly overtook him, laid hold +of him by the aiguillette, and brought him back in safety, and gave him +in charge of a sergeant of the Osnabruckers to deliver to the Duke." + +Napoleon himself, from a spot of rising ground not far from La Haye +Sainte, had watched the advance of his Guard. His empire hung on its +success. It was the last fling of the dice for him. His cavalry was +wrecked, his infantry demoralised, half his artillery dismounted; the +Prussian guns were thundering with ever louder roar upon his right. If +the Guard succeeded, the electrifying thrill of victory would run +through the army, and knit it into energy once more. But if the Guard +failed----! + + +VIII. THE GREAT DEFEAT. + + + "And while amid their scattered band + Raged the fierce riders' bloody brand, + Recoil'd in common rout and fear, + Lancer and Guard and Cuirassier, + Horsemen and foot--a mingled host, + Their leaders fall'n, their standards lost." + --SCOTT. + + +Napoleon watched the huge black echelon of battalions mount the slope, +their right section crumbled under the rush of the British Guards. +Colborne and the 52nd tumbled the left flank into ruin; the British +cavalry swept down upon them. Those who stood near Napoleon watched +his face. It became pale as death. "Ils sont mêlés ensemble" ("they +are mingled together"), he muttered to himself. He cast one hurried +glance over the field, to right and left, and saw nothing but broken +squadrons, abandoned batteries, wrecked infantry battalions. "Tout est +perdu," he said, "sauve qui peut," and, wheeling his horse, he turned +his back upon his last battlefield. His star had set! + +Napoleon's strategy throughout the brief campaign was magnificent; his +tactics--the detailed handling of his troops on the actual +battlefield--were wretched. "We were manoeuvred," says the disgusted +Marbot, "like so many pumpkins." Napoleon was only forty-seven years +old, but, as Wolseley says, "he was no longer the thin, sleek, active +little man he had been at Rivoli. His now bloated face, large stomach, +and fat and rounded legs bespoke a man unfitted for hard work on +horseback." His fatal delay in pursuing Blücher on the 17th, and his +equally fatal waste of time in attacking Wellington on the 18th, proved +how his quality as a general had decayed. It is a curious fact that, +during the battle of Waterloo, Napoleon remained for hours motionless +at a table placed for him in the open air, often asleep, with his head +resting on his arms. One reads with an odd sense of humour the answer +which a dandy officer of the British Life Guards gave to the inquiry, +"How he felt during the battle of Waterloo?" He replied that he had +felt "awfully bored"! That anybody should feel "bored" in the vortex +of such a drama is wonderful; but scarcely so wonderful as the fact +that the general of one of the two contending hosts found it possible +to go to sleep during the crisis of the gigantic battle, on which hung +his crown and fate. Napoleon had lived too long for the world's +happiness or for his own fame. + +The story here told is that of Waterloo on its British side. No +attempt is made to describe Blücher's magnificent loyalty in pushing, +fresh from the defeat of Ligny, through the muddy cross-roads from +Wavre, to join Wellington on the blood-stained field of Waterloo. No +account, again, is attempted of Grouchy's wanderings into space, with +33,000 men and 96 guns, lazily attacking Thielmann's single corps at +Wavre, while Blücher, with three divisions, was marching at speed to +fling himself on Napoleon's right flank at Waterloo. It is idle to +speculate on what would have happened to the British if the Prussians +had not made their movement on Napoleon's right flank. The assured +help of Blücher was the condition upon which Wellington made his stand +at Waterloo; it was as much part of his calculations as the fighting +quality of his own infantry. A plain tale of British endurance and +valour is all that is offered here; and what a head of wood and heart +of stone any man of Anglo-Saxon race must have who can read such a tale +without a thrill of generous emotion! + +Waterloo was for the French not so much a defeat as a rout. Napoleon's +army simply ceased to exist. The number of its slain is unknown, for +its records were destroyed. The killed and wounded in the British army +reached the tragical number of nearly 15,000. Probably not less than +between 30,000 and 40,000 slain or wounded human beings were scattered, +the night following the battle, over the two or three square miles +where the great fight had raged; and some of the wounded were lying +there still, uncared for, four days afterwards. It is said that for +years afterwards, as one looked over the waving wheat-fields in the +valley betwixt Mont St. Jean and La Belle Alliance, huge irregular +patches, where the corn grew rankest and was of deepest tint, marked +the gigantic graves where, in the silence and reconciliation of death, +slept Wellington's ruddy-faced infantry lads and the grizzled veterans +of the Old Guard. The deep cross-country road which covered +Wellington's front has practically disappeared; the Belgians have cut +away the banks to build up a huge pyramid, on the summit of which is +perched a Belgian lion, with tail erect, grinning defiance towards the +French frontier. A lion is not exactly the animal which best +represents the contribution the Belgian troops made to Waterloo. + +But still the field keeps its main outlines. To the left lies +Planchenoit, where Wellington watched to see the white smoke of the +Prussian guns; opposite is the gentle slope down which D'Erlon's troops +marched to fling themselves on La Haye Sainte; and under the +spectator's feet, a little to his left as he stands on the summit of +the monument, is the ground over which Life Guards and Inniskillings +and Scots Greys galloped in the fury of their great charge. Right in +front is the path along which came Milhaud's Cuirassiers and +Kellerman's Lancers, and Friant's Old Guard, in turn, to fling +themselves in vain on the obstinate squares and thin red line of the +British. To the right is Hougoumont, the orchard walls still pierced +with loopholes made by the Guards. A fragment of brick, blackened with +the smoke of the great fight, is one of the treasures of the present +writer. Victors and vanquished alike have passed away, and, since the +Old Guard broke on the slopes of Mont St. Jean, British and French have +never met in the wrestle of battle. May they never meet again in that +fashion! But as long as nations preserve the memory of the great deeds +of their history, as long as human courage and endurance can send a +thrill of admiration through generous hearts, as long as British blood +beats in British veins, the story of the brave men who fought and died +at their country's bidding at Waterloo will be one of the great +traditions of the English-speaking race. + +Of Wellington's part in the great fight it is difficult to speak in +terms which do not sound exaggerated. He showed all the highest +qualities of generalship, swift vision, cool judgment, the sure insight +that forecasts each move on the part of his mighty antagonist, the +unfailing resource that instantly devises the plan for meeting it. +There is no need to dwell on Wellington's courage; the rawest British +militia lad on the field shared that quality with him. But in the +temper of Wellington's courage there was a sort of ice-clear quality +that was simply marvellous. He visited every square and battery in +turn, and was at every point where the fight was most bloody. Every +member of his staff, without exception, was killed or wounded, while it +is curious to reflect that not a member of Napoleon's staff was so much +as touched. But the roar of the battle, with its swift chances of life +and death, left Wellington's intellect as cool, and his nerve as +steady, as though he were watching a scene in a theatre. One of his +generals said to him when the fight seemed most desperate, "If you +should be struck, tell us what is your plan?" "My plan," said the +Duke, "consists in dying here to the last man." He told at a +dinner-table, long after the battle, how, as he stood under the +historic tree in the centre of his line, a Scotch sergeant came up, +told him he had observed the tree was a mark for the French gunners, +and begged him to move from it. Somebody at the table said, "I hope +you did, sir?" "I really forget," said the Duke, "but I know I thought +it very good advice at the time." + +Only twice during the day did Wellington show any trace of remembering +what may be called his personal interest in the fight. Napoleon had +called him "a Sepoy general." "I will show him to-day," he said, just +before the battle began, "how a Sepoy general can defend himself." At +night, again, as he sat with a few of his surviving officers about him +at supper, his face yet black with the smoke of the fight, he +repeatedly leaned back in his chair, rubbing his hands convulsively, +and exclaiming aloud, "Thank God! I have met him. Thank God! I have +met him." But Wellington's mood throughout the whole of the battle was +that which befitted one of the greatest soldiers war has ever produced +in the supreme hour of his country's fate. The Duke was amongst the +leading files of the British line as they pushed the broken French +Guard down the slope, and some one begged him to remember what his life +was worth, and go back. "The battle is won," said Wellington; "my life +doesn't matter now." Dr. Hulme, too, has told how he woke the Duke +early in the morning after the fight, his face grim, unwashed, and +smoke-blackened, and read the list of his principal officers--name +after name--dead or dying, until the hot tears ran, like those of a +woman, down the iron visage of the great soldier. + +As Napoleon in the gathering darkness galloped off the field, with the +wreck and tumult of his shattered army about him, there remained to his +life only those six ignoble years at St. Helena. But Wellington was +still in his very prime. He was only forty-six years old, and there +awaited him thirty-seven years of honoured life, till, "to the noise of +the mourning of a mighty nation," he was laid beside Nelson in the +crypt of St. Paul's, and Tennyson sang his requiem:-- + + "O good grey head, which all men knew, + O voice from which their omens all men drew, + O iron nerve, to true occasion true; + O fall'n at length that tower of strength + Which stood four-square to all the winds that blew." + + + + +THE NIGHT ATTACK OFF CADIZ + + + "'Captain,' they cry, 'the fight is done, + They bid you send your sword!' + And he answered, 'Grapple her stern and bow. + They have asked for the steel. They shall have it now; + Out cutlasses, and board!'" + --KIPLING. + + +On the morning of July 3, 1801, a curious scene, which might almost be +described as a sea comedy, was being transacted off the coast of +Alicante. Three huge French line-of-battle ships were manoeuvring and +firing round a tiny little British brig-of-war. It was like three +mastiffs worrying a mouse. The brig was Lord Cochrane's famous little +_Speedy_, a craft so tiny that its commander could carry its entire +broadside in his own pockets, and when he shaved himself in his cabin, +had to put his head through the skylight and his shaving-box on the +quarter-deck, in order to stand upright. + +Cochrane was caught by Admiral Linois' squadron, consisting of two +ships of eighty guns and one of seventy-four, on a lee shore, where +escape was impossible; but from four o'clock till nine o'clock Cochrane +evaded all the efforts of his big pursuers to capture him. The French +ships separated on different tacks, so as to keep the little _Speedy_ +constantly under the fire of one or the other; and as the British brig +turned and dashed at one opening of the moving triangle or the other, +the great ships thundered their broadsides at her. Cochrane threw his +guns and stores overboard, and by the most ingenious seamanship evaded +capture for hours, surviving some scores of broadsides. He could tack +far more quickly than the gigantic ships that pursued him, and again +and again the _Speedy_ spun round on its heel and shot off on a new +course, leaving its particular pursuer with sheet shivering, and +nothing but space to fire into. Once, by a quick turn, he shot past +one of the 80-gun ships occupied in trying to tack, and got clear. The +_Desaix_, however, a seventy-four, was swiftly on the track of the +_Speedy_; its tall canvas under the growing breeze gave it an +advantage, and it ran down to within musket-shot of the _Speedy_, then +yawed, bringing its whole broadside to bear, intending to sink its tiny +foe with a single discharge. In yawing, however, the _Desaix_ shot a +little too far, and the weight of her broadside only smote the water, +but the scattered grape cut up the _Speedy's_ rigging and canvas so +terribly that nothing was left but surrender. + +When Cochrane went on board his captor, its gallant captain refused to +take his sword, saying he "could not accept the sword of an officer who +had struggled for so many hours against impossibility." Cochrane and +his gallant crew were summarily packed into the Frenchman's hold, and +when the French in their turn were pursued by the British +line-of-battle ships, as every broadside crashed on the hull of the +ship that held them captive, Cochrane and his men gave a round of +exultant cheers, until the exasperated Frenchmen threatened to shoot +them unless they would hold their tongues--an announcement which only +made the British sailors cheer a little louder. The fight between +Saumarez and Linois ended with a tragedy; but it may be said to have +begun with a farce. + +The presence of a French squadron in the Straits of Gibraltar at this +particular moment may be explained in a few sentences. Napoleon had +woven afresh the web of those naval "combinations" so often torn to +fragments by British seamanship and daring. He had persuaded or +bullied Spain into placing under the French flag a squadron of six +line-of-battle ships, including two leviathans of 112 guns each, lying +in the harbour of Cadiz. With haughty, it might almost be said with +insolent daring, a couple of British seventy-fours--sometimes, indeed, +only one--patrolled the entrance to Cadiz, and blockaded a squadron of +ten times their own force. Napoleon's plan was to draw a strong French +squadron, under Admiral Linois, from Toulon, a second Spanish squadron +from Ferrol, unite these with the ships lying in Cadiz, and thus form a +powerful fleet of at least fifteen ships of the line, with a garnishing +of frigates. + +Once having got his fleet, Napoleon's imagination--which had a strong +predatory bias--hesitated betwixt two uses to which it could be turned. +One was to make a dash on Lisbon, and require, under threat of an +instant bombardment, the delivery of all British ships and goods lying +there. This ingenious plan, it was reckoned, would fill French pockets +with cash and adorn French brows with glory at one stroke. The amount +of British booty at Lisbon was computed--somewhat airily--at +200,000,000 pounds; its disappearance would send half the mercantile +houses of Great Britain into the insolvency court, and, to quote a +French state paper on the subject, "our fleet, without being buffeted +about the sea, would return to Brest loaded with riches and covered +with glory, and France would once more astonish Europe." The +alternative scheme was to transport some 32,000 new troops to Egypt and +restore French fortunes in that country. + +Meanwhile Great Britain took energetic measures to wreck this new +combination. Sir James Saumarez, in the _Caesar_, of eighty guns, with +six seventy-fours, was despatched to keep guard over Cadiz; and he had +scarcely reached his station there when a boat, pulling furiously over +from Gibraltar, reported that Admiral Linois' squadron had made its +appearance off the Rock, beating up westward. The sails of the +_Caesar_ were instantly swung round, a many-coloured flutter of bunting +summoned the rest of the squadron to follow, and Saumarez began his +eager chase of the French, bearing away for the Gut under a light +north-west wind. But the breeze died down, and the current swept the +straggling ships westward. All day they drifted helplessly, and the +night only brought a breath of air sufficient to fan them through the +Straits. + +Meanwhile Linois had taken refuge in the tiny curve of the Spanish +coast known as the roadstead of Algeciras. Linois was, perhaps, the +best French seaman of his day, having, it is true, very little French +dash, but endowed with a wealth of cool resolution, and a genius for +defensive warfare altogether admirable. Algeciras gave Linois exactly +what he wanted, an almost unassailable position. The roadstead is +open, shallow, and plentifully besprinkled with rocks, while powerful +shore batteries covered the whole anchorage with their zone of fire. +The French admiral anchored his ships at intervals of 500 yards from +each other, and so that the lines of fire from the batteries north and +south crossed in front of his ships. The French squadron carried some +3000 troops, and these were at once landed, and, manning the batteries, +raised them to a high degree of effectiveness. Some fourteen heavy +Spanish gunboats added enormously to the strength of the French +position. + +The French never doubted that Saumarez would instantly attack; the +precedents of the Nile and of Copenhagen were too recent to make any +doubt possible. And Saumarez did exactly what his enemies expected. +Algeciras, in fact, is the battle of the Nile in miniature. But +Saumarez, though he had the swift daring of Nelson, lacked his warlike +genius. Nelson, in Aboukir Bay, leaped without an instant's pause on +the line of his enemy, but then he had his own ships perfectly in hand, +and so made the leap effective. Saumarez sent his ships into the fight +headlong, and without the least regard to mutual support. At 7.50 on +the morning of July 6, an uncertain gust of air carried the leading +British ship, the _Pompée_, round Cabrita; Hood, in the _Venerable_, +lay becalmed in the offing; the flagship, with the rest of the +squadron, were mere pyramids of idle canvas on the rim of the horizon. + +The _Pompée_ drifted down the whole French line, scorched with the fire +of batteries and of gunboats, as well as by the broadsides of the great +French ships, and at 8.45 dropped her anchor so close to the +_Formidable_--a ship much bigger than itself--that the Frenchman's buoy +lay outside her. Then, deliberately clewing up her sails and tautening +her springs, the _Pompée_ opened a fire on her big antagonist so +fierce, sustained, and deadly, that the latter found it intolerable, +and began to warp closer to the shore. The _Audacious_ and _Venerable_ +came slowly up into their assigned positions, and here was a spectacle +of three British ships fighting four French ships and fourteen Spanish +gunboats, with heavy shore batteries manned by 3000 troops thrown into +the scale! At this stage, too, the _Pompée's_ springs gave way, or +were shot away, the current swung her round till she lay head on to the +broadside of her huge antagonist, while the batteries smote her with a +deadly cross-fire. A little after ten o'clock the _Caesar_ dropped +anchor three cables' lengths from the _Indomptable_, and opened a fire +which the French themselves described as "tremendous" upon her +antagonist. + +Linois found the British fire too destructive, and signalled his ships +to cut or slip their cables, calculating that a faint air from the sea, +which was beginning to blow, would drift them closer under the shelter +of the batteries. Saumarez, too, noticed that his topsails were +beginning to swell, and he instantly slipped his cable and endeavoured +to close with the _Indomptable_, signalling his ships to do the same. +The British cables rattled hoarsely through their hawse-holes along the +whole line, and the ships were adrift; but the breeze almost instantly +died away, and on the strong coast current the British ships floated +helplessly, while the fire from the great shore batteries, and from the +steady French decks, now anchored afresh, smote them heavily in turn. +The _Pompée_ lay for an hour under a concentrated fire without being +able to bring a gun to bear in return, and then summoned by signal the +boats of the squadron to tow her off. + +Saumarez, meanwhile, had ordered the _Hannibal_, under Captain Ferris, +to round the head of the French line and "rake the admiral's ship." +Ferris, by fine seamanship, partly sailed and partly drifted into the +post assigned to him, and then grounded hopelessly, under a plunging +fire from the shore batteries, within hail of the Frenchman, itself +also aground. A fire so dreadful soon reduced the unfortunate +_Hannibal_ to a state of wreck. Boats from the _Caesar_ and the +_Venerable_ came to her help, but Ferris sent them back again. They +could not help him, and should not share his fate. Saumarez, as a last +resource, prepared for a boat attack on the batteries, but in the whole +squadron there were not enough uninjured boats to carry the marines. +The British flagship itself was by this time well-nigh a wreck, and was +drifting on the reefs. A flaw of wind from the shore gave the ships +steerage-way, and Saumarez drew off, leaving the _Hannibal_ to its fate. + +Ferris fought till his masts were gone, his guns dismounted, his +bulwarks riddled, his decks pierced, and one-third of his crew killed +or wounded. Then he ordered the survivors to the lower decks, and +still kept his flag flying for half-an-hour after the shot-torn sails +of the shattered British ships had disappeared round Cabrita. Then he +struck. Here was a French triumph, indeed! A British squadron beaten +off, a British seventy-four captured! It is said that when the news +reached Paris the city went half-mad with exultation. Napoleon read +the despatch to his ministers with eyes that danced, and almost wept, +with mere gladness! + +The British squadron--officers and men in such a mood as may be +imagined--put into Gibraltar to refit; the _Caesar_, with her mainmast +shot through in five places, her boats destroyed, her hull pierced; +while of the sorely battered _Pompée_ it is recorded that she had "not +a mast, yard-spar, shroud, rope, or sail" which was not damaged by +hostile shot. Linois, meanwhile, got his grounded ships and his +solitary prize afloat, and summoned the Cadiz squadron to join him. On +the 9th these ships--six sail of the line, two of them giants of 112 +guns each, with three frigates--went triumphantly, with widespread +canvas and many-coloured bunting, past Gibraltar, where the shattered +British squadron was lying, and cast anchor beside Admiral Linois in +Algeciras Bay. + +The British were labouring, meanwhile, with fierce energy, to refit +their damaged ships under shelter of the guns of Gibraltar. The +_Pompée_ was practically destroyed, and her crew were distributed +amongst the other ships. Saumarez himself regarded the condition of +his flagship as hopeless, but his captain, Brenton, begged permission +to at least attempt to refit her. He summoned his crew aft, and told +the men the admiral proposed to leave the ship behind, and asked them +"what they thought about it." The men gave a wrathful roar, +punctuated, it is to be feared, with many sea-going expletives, and +shouted, "All hands to work day and night till she's ready!" The whole +crew, down to the very powder-boys, actually worked while daylight +lasted, kept it up, watch and watch, through the night, and did this +from the evening of the 6th to the noon of the 12th! Probably no ship +that ever floated was refitted in shorter time. In that brief period, +to quote the "Naval Register," she "shifted her mainmast; fished and +secured her foremast, shot through in several places; knotted and +spliced the rigging, which had been cut to pieces, and bent new sails; +plugged the shot-holes between wind and water; completed with stores of +all kinds, anchors and cables, powder and shot, and provisions for four +months." + +On Sunday, July 12, 1801, the French and Spanish ships in Algeciras Bay +weighed anchor, formed their line of battle as they came out, off +Cabrita Point, and, stately and slow, with the two 112-gun Spaniards as +a rearguard, bore up for Cadiz. An hour later the British ships warped +out of the mole in pursuit. It was an amazing sight: a squadron of +five sail of the line, which had been completely disabled in an action +only five days before, was starting, fresh and refitted, in pursuit of +a fleet double its own number, and more than double its strength! All +Gibraltar crowded to watch the ships as, one by one, they cleared the +pier-head. The garrison band blew itself hoarse playing "Britons, +strike home," while the _Caesar's_ band answered in strains as shrill +with "Come, cheer up, my lads, 'tis for glory we steer." Both tunes, +it may be added, were simply submerged beneath the cheers which rang up +from mole-head and batteries and dock-walls. Just as the _Caesar_ +drifted, huge and stately, past the pier-head, a boat came eagerly +pulling up to her. It was crowded with jack-tars, with bandaged heads +and swathed arms. A cluster of the _Pompée's_ wounded, who escaped +from the hospital, bribed a boatman to pull them out to the flagship, +and clamoured to be taken on board! + +Saumarez had strengthened his squadron by the addition of the _Superb_, +with the _Thames_ frigate, and at twenty minutes to nine P.M., vainly +searching the black horizon for the lights of the enemy, he hailed the +_Superb_, and ordered its captain, Keats, to clap on all sail and +attack the enemy directly he overtook them. Saumarez, in a word, +launched a single seventy-four against a fleet! Keats was a daring +sailor; his ship was, perhaps, the fastest British seventy-four afloat, +and his men were instantly aloft spreading every inch of canvas. Then, +like a huge ghost, the _Superb_ glided ahead and vanished in the +darkness. The wind freshened; the blackness deepened; the lights of +the British squadron died out astern. But a wide sprinkle of lights +ahead became visible; it was the Spanish fleet! Eagerly the daring +_Superb_ pressed on, with slanting decks and men at quarters, but with +lights hidden. At midnight the rear ships of the Spanish squadron were +under the larboard bow of the _Superb_--two stupendous three-deckers, +with lights gleaming through a hundred port-holes--while a French +two-decker to larboard of both the Spanish giants completed the line. + +Keats, unseen and unsuspected, edged down with his solitary +seventy-four, her heaviest guns only 18-pounders, on the quarter of the +nearest three-decker. He was about to fling himself, in the gloom of +the night, on three great ships, with an average of 100 guns each! Was +ever a more daring feat attempted? Silently through the darkness the +_Superb_ crept, her canvas glimmering ghostly white, till she was +within some 300 yards of the nearest Spaniard. Then out of the +darkness to windward there broke on the astonished and drowsy Spaniards +a tempest of flame, a whirlwind of shot. Thrice the _Superb_ poured +her broadside into the huge and staggering bulk of her antagonist. +With the second broadside the Spaniard's topmast came tumbling down; +with the third, so close was the flame of the _Superb's_ guns, the +Spanish sails--dry as touch-wood with lying for so many months in the +sunshine of Cadiz--took fire. + +Meanwhile a dramatic incident occurred. The two great Spaniards +commenced to thunder their heavy broadsides into each other! Many of +the Superb's shots had struck the second and more distant three-decker. +Cochrane, indeed, says that the _Superb_ passed actually betwixt the +two gigantic Spaniards, fired a broadside, larboard and starboard, into +both, and then glided on and vanished in the darkness. It is certain +that the _San Hermenegildo_, finding her decks torn by a hurricane of +shot, commenced to fire furiously through the smoke and the night at +the nearest lights. They were the lights of her own consort! She, in +turn, fired at the flash of the guns tormenting her. So, under the +black midnight skies, the two great Spanish ships thundered at each +other, flame answering flame. They drifted ever closer. The fire of +the _Real Carlos_ kindled the sails of the sister ship; the flames +leaped and danced to the very mast-heads; and, still engaged in a fiery +wrestle, they blew up in succession, and out of their united crews of +2000 men only a little over 200 were picked up! + +The _Superb_, meanwhile, had glided ahead, leaving the three-deckers to +destroy each other, and opened fire at pistol-shot distance on the +French two-decker, and in thirty minutes compelled her to strike. In +less than two hours of a night action, that is, this single English +seventy-four had destroyed two Spanish three-deckers of 112 guns each, +and captured a fine French battle-ship of 74 guns! + +The British ships by this time were coming up in the rear, with every +inch of canvas spread. They swept past the amazing spectacle of the +two great Spaniards destroying each other, and pressed on in chase of +the enemy. The wind rose to a gale. In the grey dawn the _Caesar_ +found herself, with all her sister ships, far astern, except the +_Venerable_, under Hood, which was hanging on the quarter of the +rearmost French ship, the _Formidable_, a magnificent ship of 80 guns, +with a gallant commander, and carrying quite too heavy metal for Hood. +Hood, however, the most daring of men, exchanged broadsides at +pistol-shot distance with his big antagonist, till his ship was +dismasted, and was drifted by the current on the rocky shoals off San +Pedro. The _Caesar_ came up in time to enable its disgusted crew to +see ship after ship of the flying enemy disappear safely within the +sheltering batteries of Cadiz. + + + + +TRAFALGAR + +I. THE STRATEGY + + + "Uprose the soul of him a star + On that brave day of Ocean days; + It rolled the smoke from Trafalgar + To darken Austerlitz ablaze. + Are we the men of old, its light + Will point us under every sky + The path he took; and must we fight, + Our Nelson be our battle-cry! + + He leads: we hear our Seaman's call + In the roll of battles won; + For he is Britain's Admiral + Till setting of her sun." + --GEORGE MEREDITH. + + +That Trafalgar was a great British victory, won by splendid seamanship +and by magnificent courage, everybody knows. On October 21, 1805, +Nelson, with twenty-seven line-of-battle ships, attacked Villeneuve, in +command of a combined fleet of thirty-three line-of-battle ships. The +first British gun was fired at 12.10 o'clock; at 5 o'clock the battle +was over; and within those five hours the combined fleets of France and +Spain were simply destroyed. No fewer than eighteen ships of the line +were captured, burnt, or sunk; the rest were in flight, and had +practically ceased to exist as a fighting force. But what very few +people realise is that Trafalgar is only the last incident in a great +strategic conflict--a warfare of brains rather than of bullets--which +for nearly three years raged round a single point. For that long +period the warlike genius of Napoleon was pitted in strategy against +the skill and foresight of a cluster of British sailors; and the +sailors won. They beat Napoleon at his own weapons. The French were +not merely out-fought in the shock of battling fleets, they were +out-generalled in the conflict of plotting and warlike brains which +preceded the actual fight off Cape Trafalgar. + +The strategy which preceded Trafalgar represents Napoleon's solitary +attempt to plan a great campaign on the tossing floor of the sea. "It +has an interest wholly unique," says Mahan, "as the only great naval +campaign ever planned by this foremost captain of modern times." And +it is a very marvellous fact that a cluster of British sailors--Jervis +and Barham (a salt eighty years old) at the Admiralty, Cornwallis at +Brest, Collingwood at Cadiz, and Nelson at Toulon--guessed all +Napoleon's profound and carefully hidden strategy, and met it by even +subtler plans and swifter resolves than those of Napoleon himself. The +five hours of gallant fighting off Cape Trafalgar fill us with exultant +pride. But the intellectual duel which preceded the shock of actual +battle, and which lasted for nearly three years, is, in a sense, a yet +more splendid story. Great Britain may well honour her naval leaders +of that day for their cool and profound strategy, as much as for the +unyielding courage with which such a blockade as, say, that of Brest by +Cornwallis was maintained for years, or such splendid daring as that +which Collingwood showed when, in the _Royal Sovereign_, he broke +Villeneuve's line at Trafalgar. + +When in 1803 the war which brought to an end the brief peace of Amiens +broke out, Napoleon framed a great and daring plan for the invasion of +England. French plans for the invasion of England were somewhat +numerous a century or so ago. The Committee of Public Safety in 1794, +while keeping the guillotine busy in the Place de la Révolution, had +its own little plan for extending the Reign of Terror, by means of an +invasion, to England; and on May 27 of that year solemnly appointed one +of their number to represent the Committee in England "when it was +conquered." The member chosen was citizen Bon Saint André, the same +hero who, in the battle of the 1st of June, fled in terror to the +refuge of the French flagship's cock-pit when the _Queen Charlotte_, +with her triple lines of guns, came too alarmingly near. But +Napoleon's plans for the same object in 1803 were definite, formidable, +profound. Great Britain was the one barrier in the path of his +ambition. "Buonaparte," says Green, in his "Short History of the +English People," "was resolute to be master of the western world, and +no notions of popular freedom or sense of popular right ever interfered +with his resolve. . . . England was now the one country where freedom +in any sense remained alive. . . . With the fall of England, despotism +would have been universal throughout Europe; and it was at England that +Buonaparte resolved to strike the first blow in his career of conquest. +Fifteen millions of people, he argued, must give way to forty millions." + +So he formed the vast camp at Boulogne, in which were gathered 130,000 +veterans. A great flotilla of boats was built, each boat being armed +with one or two guns, and capable of carrying 100 soldiers. More than +1000 of such boats were built, and concentrated along twenty miles of +the Channel coast, and at four different ports. A new port was dug at +Boulogne, to give shelter to the main division of this flotilla, and +great and powerful batteries erected for its protection. The French +soldiers were exercised in embarking and disembarking till the whole +process could be counted by minutes. "Let us," said Napoleon, "be +masters of the Straits for six hours, and we shall be masters of the +world." + +When since the days of William the Conqueror were the shores of Great +Britain menaced by such a peril? "There is no difficulty," said +Moltke, "in getting an army into England; the trouble would be to get +it out again." And, no doubt, Englishmen, fighting on their own soil +and for their own hearths, would have given an invader a very rough +time of it. But let it be remembered that Napoleon was a military +genius of the first order, and that the 130,000 soldiers waiting on the +heights above Boulogne to leap on British soil were, to quote Mahan, +"the most brilliant soldiery of all time." They were the men who +afterwards won Austerlitz, who struck down Prussia with a single blow +at Jena, who marched as victors through the streets of Vienna and of +Berlin, and fought their way to Moscow. Imagine such an army, with +such a leader, landed on the green fields of Kent! In that case there +might have been an English Austerlitz or Friedland. London might have +shared the fate of Moscow. If Napoleon had succeeded, the fate of the +world would have been changed, and Toronto and Cape Town, Melbourne and +Sydney and Auckland might have been ruled by French prefects. + +Napoleon himself was confident of success. He would reach London, he +calculated, within four days of landing, and then he would have issued +decrees abolishing the House of Lords, proclaiming a redistribution of +property, and declaring England a republic. "You would never have +burned your capital," he said to O'Meara at St. Helena; "you are too +rich and fond of money." The London mob, he believed, would have +joined him, for, as he cynically argued, "the _canaille_ of all nations +are nearly alike." + +Even Napoleon would probably have failed, however, in subduing Great +Britain, and would have remained a prisoner where he came intending to +be a conqueror. As he himself said when a prisoner on his way to St. +Helena, "I entered into no calculation as to the manner in which I was +to return"! But in the battles which must have been fought, how many +English cities would have perished in flames, how many English rivers +would have run red with the blood of slain men! "At Waterloo," says +Alison, "England fought for victory; at Trafalgar for existence." + +But "the streak of silver sea" guarded England, and for more than two +years Napoleon framed subtle plans and organised vast combinations +which might give him that brief six hours' command of the Strait which +was all he needed, as he thought, to make himself the master of the +world. The flotilla could not so much as get out of the ports, in +which the acres of boats lay, in a single tide, and one half of the +army of invasion must lie tossing--and, it may be suspected, dreadfully +sea-sick--for hours outside these ports, waiting for the other half to +get afloat. Then there remained forty miles of sea to cross. And what +would happen if, say, Nelson and Collingwood, with a dozen 74-gun +ships, got at work amongst the flotilla? It would be a combat between +wolves and sheep. It was Nelson's chief aspiration to have the +opportunity of "trying Napoleon on a wind," and the attempt to cross +the Straits might have given him that chance. All Napoleon's resources +and genius were therefore strained to give him for the briefest +possible time the command of the Channel; and the skill and energy of +the British navy were taxed to the utmost to prevent that consummation. + +Now, France, as a matter of fact, had a great fleet, but it was +scattered, and lying imprisoned, in fragments, in widely separated +ports. There were twelve ships of the line in Toulon, twenty in Brest, +five in Rochefort, yet other five in Ferrol; and the problem for +Napoleon was, somehow, to set these imprisoned squadrons free, and +assemble them for twenty-four hours off Boulogne. The British policy, +on the other hand, was to maintain a sleepless blockade of these ports, +and keep the French fleet sealed up in scattered and helpless +fragments. The battle for the Straits of Dover, the British naval +chiefs held, must be fought off Brest and Ferrol and Toulon; and never +in the history of the world were blockades so vigilant, and stern, and +sleepless maintained. + +Nelson spent two years battling with the fierce north-westers of the +Gulf of Lyons, keeping watch over a great French squadron in Toulon, +and from May 1803 to August 1805 left his ship only three times, and +for less than an hour on each occasion. The watch kept by Cornwallis +off Brest, through summer and winter, for nearly three years, Mahan +declares, has never, for constancy and vigilance, been excelled, +perhaps never equalled, in the history of blockades. The hardship of +these long sea-watches was terrible. It was waging an fight with +weariness and brain-paralysing monotony, with cold and scurvy and +tempest, as well as with human foes. Collingwood was once twenty-two +months at sea without dropping anchor. In seventeen years of sea +service--between 1793 and 1810--he was only twelve months in England. + +The wonder is that the seamen of that day did not grow web-footed, or +forget what solid ground felt like! Collingwood tells his wife in one +letter that he had "not seen a green leaf on a tree" for fourteen +months! By way of compensation, these long and stern blockades +developed such a race of seamen as perhaps the world has never seen +before or since; exhaustless of resource, hardy, tireless, familiar +with every turn of sea life, of iron frame and an iron courage which +neither tempest nor battle could shake. Great Britain, as a matter of +fact, won her naval battles, not because she had better ships or +heavier guns than her enemies, but only because she trained a finer +race of seamen. Says Brenton, himself a gallant sailor of the period, +"I have seen Spanish line-of-battle ships twenty-four hours unmooring; +as many minutes are sufficient for a well-manned British ship to +perform the same operation. When, on any grand ceremony, they found it +necessary to cross their top-gallant yards in harbour, they began the +day before; we cross ours in one minute from the deck." + +But it was these iron blockades that in the long-run thwarted the plans +of Napoleon and changed the fate of the world. Cornwallis off Brest, +Collingwood off Rochefort, Pellew off Ferrol, Nelson before Toulon, +fighting the wild gales of the Bay of Biscay and the fierce +north-westers of the Gulf of Lyons, in what Mahan calls "that +tremendous and sustained vigilance which reached its utmost tension in +the years preceding Trafalgar," really saved England. "Those +far-distant, storm-beaten ships, upon which the Grand Army never +looked," says Mahan, "stood between it and the dominion of the world." + +An intellect so subtle and combative as Napoleon's was, of course, +strained to the utmost to break or cheat the British blockades, and the +story of the one crafty ruse after another which he employed to beguile +the British leaders is very remarkable. Even more remarkable, perhaps, +is the manner in which these plain-minded, business-like British +seamen, for whose mental powers Napoleon cherished the deepest +contempt, fathomed his plans and shattered his combinations. + +Napoleon's first plot was decidedly clever. He gathered in Brest +20,000 troops, ostensibly for a descent upon Ireland. This, he +calculated, would preoccupy Cornwallis, and prevent him moving. The +Toulon fleet was to run out with the first north-west wind, and, as +long as a British look-out ship was in sight, would steer east, as +though making for Egypt; but when beyond sight of British eyes the +fleet was to swing round, run through the Straits, be joined off Cadiz +by the Rochefort squadron, and sweep, a great fleet of at least sixteen +sail of the line, past the Scilly Islands to Boulogne. Napoleon +calculated that Nelson would be racing in the direction of Egypt, +Cornwallis would be redoubling his vigilance before Brest, at the exact +moment the great Boulogne flotilla was carrying its 130,000 invading +Frenchmen to Dover! Napoleon put the one French admiral as to whose +resolve and daring he was sure--Latouche Treville--in command of the +Toulon fleet; but before the moment for action came Treville died, and +Napoleon had to fall back upon a weaker man, Villeneuve. + +He changed his plans to suit the qualities of his new admiral--the +Toulon and Rochefort squadrons were to break out, sail separately to a +rendezvous in the West Indies, and, once joined, spread havoc through +the British possessions there. "I think," wrote Napoleon, "that the +sailing of these twenty ships of the line will oblige the English to +despatch over thirty in pursuit." So the blockades everywhere would be +weakened, and the Toulon and Rochefort squadrons, doubling back to +Europe, were to raise the blockade off Ferrol and Brest, and the Brest +squadron was to land 18,000 troops, under Augereau, in Ireland, while +the Grand Army of Boulogne was to cross the Straits, with Napoleon at +its head. Thus Great Britain and Ireland would be invaded +simultaneously. + +The trouble was to set the scheme going by the release of the Toulon +and Rochefort squadrons. Nelson's correspondence shows that he guessed +Napoleon's strategy. If the Toulon fleet broke loose, he wrote, he was +sure its course would be held for the Atlantic, and thither he would +follow it. In the meanwhile he kept guard so steadfastly that the +great French strategy could not get itself started. In December 1804 +war broke out betwixt Britain and Spain, and this gave Napoleon a new +ally and a new fleet. Napoleon found he had nearly sixty +line-of-battle ships, French or Spanish, to weave into his +combinations, and he framed--to use Mahan's words--"upon lines equal, +both in boldness and scope, to those of the Marengo and Austerlitz +campaigns, the immense strategy which resulted in Trafalgar." The +Toulon and Rochefort squadrons, as before, were to break out +separately, rendezvous in the West Indies, return by a different route +to European waters, pick up the French and Spanish ships in Ferrol, and +then sweep through the narrow seas. + +The Rochefort squadron duly escaped; Villeneuve, too, in command of the +Toulon squadron, aided by the weather, evaded Nelson's watchfulness and +disappeared towards the east. Nelson, however, suspected the real +plan, and with fine insight took up a position which must have +intercepted Villeneuve; but that admiral found the weather too rough +for his ships, and ran back into Toulon. "These gentlemen," said +Nelson, "are not accustomed to a Gulf of Lyons gale. We have faced +them for twenty-one months, and not lost a spar!" The Rochefort +squadron was, of course, left by its own success wandering in space, a +mere cluster of sea-vagrants. + +By March 1805, Napoleon had a new combination prepared. In the ports +between Brest and Toulon were scattered no less than sixty-seven French +or Spanish ships of the line. Ganteaume, with his squadron, was to +break out from Brest; Villeneuve, with his, from Toulon; both fleets +were to rendezvous at Martinique, return by an unusual route, and +appear off Boulogne, a great fleet of thirty-five French ships of the +line. + +About the end of June the Toulon fleet got safely out--Nelson being, +for once, badly served by his frigates--picked up additional ships off +Cadiz, and disappeared on its route to the West Indies. Nelson, misled +by false intelligence, first went eastward, then had to claw back +through the Straits of Gibraltar in the teeth of strong westerly gales, +and plunged over the horizon in fierce pursuit of Villeneuve. But the +watch kept by Cornwallis over Ganteaume in Brest was so close and stern +that escape was impossible, and one-half of Napoleon's combination +broke down. Napoleon despatched swift ships on Villeneuve's track, +summoning him back to Ferrol, where he would find a squadron of fifteen +French and Spanish ships ready to join him. Villeneuve, Napoleon +believed, had thoroughly deceived Nelson. "Those boasted English," he +wrote, "who claim to know of everything, know nothing of it," _i.e._ of +Villeneuve's escape and course. But the "boasted English," as a matter +of fact, did know all about it, and in place of weakening their forces +in the Bay of Biscay, strengthened them. Meanwhile Nelson, with ten +ships of the line, was hard on the track of Villeneuve with eighteen. +At Barbadoes, Nelson was sent a hundred miles out of his course by +false intelligence, and that hundred miles just enabled Villeneuve to +double back towards Europe. + +Nelson divined this plan, and followed him with the fiercest energy, +sending off, meanwhile, his fastest brig to warn the Admiralty. +Villeneuve, if he picked up the Ferrol and Rochefort squadrons, would +arrive off Brest with forty line-of-battle ships; if he raised the +blockade, and added Ganteaume's squadron to his own, he might appear +off Boulogne with sixty great ships! Napoleon calculated on British +blunders to aid him. "We have not to do with a far-sighted, but with a +very proud Government," he wrote. The blunder Napoleon hoped the +British Admiralty would make was that of weakening the blockading +squadrons in order to pursue Villeneuve's fleet, and thus release the +imprisoned French squadrons, making a great concentration possible. + +But this was exactly the blunder into which the Admiralty refused to be +tempted. When the news that Villeneuve was on his way back to Europe +reached the Admiralty, the First Lord, Barham, an old sailor, eighty +years of age, without waiting to dress himself, dictated orders which, +without weakening the blockades at any vital point, planted a fleet, +under Sir Robert Calder, west of Finisterre, and right in Villeneuve's +track; and if Calder had been Nelson, Trafalgar might have been fought +on July 22, instead of October 21. Calder fought, and captured two of +Villeneuve's ships, but failed to prevent the junction of Villeneuve's +fleet with the squadron in Ferrol, and was court-martialled for his +failure--victory though he called it. But this partial failure does +not make less splendid the promptitude shown by the British Admiralty. +"The English Admiralty," Napoleon reasoned, "could not decide the +movements of its squadron in twenty-four hours." As a matter of fact, +Barham decided the British strategy in almost as many minutes! + +Meanwhile Nelson had reached the scene; and, like his ship, worn out +with labours, sailed for Portsmouth, for what proved his last visit to +England. On August 13, Villeneuve sailed from Ferrol with twenty-nine +ships. He had his choice between Brest, where Cornwallis was keeping +guard, with Boulogne beyond, and where Napoleon was watching eagerly +for the white topsails of his fleet; or Cadiz, where Collingwood with a +tiny squadron held the Spanish fleet strictly bottled up. + +Villeneuve's true course was Boulogne, but Cornwallis lay in his path +with over thirty sail of the line, and Villeneuve's nerve failed him. +On August 21 he swung round and bore up for Cadiz; and with the turn of +the helm which swung Villeneuve's ship away from Boulogne, Napoleon's +last chance of invading England vanished. Villeneuve pushed +Collingwood's tiny squadron aside and entered Cadiz, where the combined +fleet now numbered nearly forty ships of the line, and Collingwood, +with delightful coolness, solemnly resumed his blockade--four ships, +that is, blockading forty! Napoleon gave way to a tempest of rage when +his fleet failed to appear off Boulogne, and he realised that the +British sailors he despised had finally thwarted his strategy. A +French writer has told how Daru, his secretary, found him walking up +and down his cabinet with agitated steps. With a voice that shook, and +in half-strangled exclamations, he cried, "What a navy! What +sacrifices for nothing! What an admiral! All hope is gone! That +Villeneuve, instead of entering the Channel, has taken refuge in +Ferrol. It is all over. He will be blockaded there." Then with that +swift and terrible power of decision in which he has never been +surpassed, he flung the long-cherished plan of invading England out of +his brain, and dictated the orders which launched his troops on the +road which led to Austerlitz and Jena, and, beyond, to the flames of +Moscow and the snows of the great retreat, and which finally led +Napoleon himself to St. Helena. Villeneuve's great fleet meanwhile lay +idle in Cadiz, till, on October 20, the ill-fated French admiral led +his ships out to meet Nelson in his last great sea-fight. + + +II. HOW THE FLEETS MET + + + "Wherever the gleams of an English fire + On an English roof-tree shine, + Wherever the fire of a youth's desire + Is laid upon Honour's shrine, + Wherever brave deeds are treasured and told, + In the tale of the deeds of yore, + Like jewels of price in a chain of gold + Are the name and the fame he bore. + + Wherever the track of our English ships + Lies white on the ocean foam, + His name is sweet to our English lips + As the names of the flowers at home; + Wherever the heart of an English boy + Grows big with a deed of worth, + Such names as his name have begot the same, + Such hearts will bring it to birth." + --E. NESBIT. + + +It was the night of October 20, 1805, a night moonless and black. In the +narrow waters at the western throat of the Straits of Gibraltar, at +regular intervals of three minutes through the whole night, the deep +voice of a gun broke out and swept, a pulse of dying sound, almost to +either coast, while at every half-hour a rocket soared aloft and broke in +a curve of stars in the black sky. It was one of Nelson's repeating +frigates signalling to the British fleet, far off to the south-west, +Villeneuve's movements. Nelson for more than a week had been trying to +daintily coax Villeneuve out of Cadiz, as an angler might try to coax a +much-experienced trout from the cool depths of some deep pool. He kept +the main body of his fleet sixty leagues distant--west of Cape St. +Mary--but kept a chain of frigates within signalling distance of each +other betwixt Cadiz and himself. He allowed the news that he had +detached five of his line-of-battle ships on convoy duty to the eastward +to leak through to the French admiral, but succeeded in keeping him in +ignorance of the fact that he had called in under his flag five ships of +equal force from the westward. + +On October 19, Villeneuve, partly driven by hunger, and by the news that +a successor was on the road from Paris to displace him, and partly +tempted by the belief that he had before him a British fleet of only +twenty-one ships of the line, crept out of Cadiz with thirty-three ships +of the line--of which three were three-deckers--and seven frigates. +Nelson had twenty-seven sail of the line with four frigates. The wind +was light, and all through the 20th, Villeneuve's fleet, formed in seven +columns--the _Santissima Trinidad_ towering like a giant amongst +them--moved slowly eastward. Nelson would not alarm his foe by making +too early an appearance over the sky-line. His frigates signalled to him +every few minutes, through sixty miles of sea-air, the enemy's movements; +but Nelson himself held aloof till Villeneuve was too far from Cadiz to +make a dash back to it and safety. All through the night of the 20th, +Villeneuve's great fleet--a procession of mighty phantoms--was dimly +visible against the Spanish coast, and the British frigates sent the news +in alternate pulses of sound and flame to Nelson, by this time eagerly +bearing up from Cape St. Mary. + +The morning of the 21st broke misty, yet bright. The sea was almost like +a floor of glass. The faintest of sea-airs blew. A lazy Atlantic swell +rolled at long intervals towards the Straits, and the two fleets at last +were visible to each other. Villeneuve's ships stretched a waving and +slightly curved line, running north and south, with no regularity of +order. The British fleet, in two compact and parallel columns, half a +mile apart, came majestically on from the west. The ships in each column +followed each other so closely that sometimes the bow of one was thrust +past the quarter of the ship in advance of it. Nelson, in the _Victory_, +headed one column, Collingwood, in the _Royal Sovereign_, led the other, +and each flagship, it was to be noted, led with a clear interval between +itself and its supports. + +Villeneuve had a tactician's brain, and his battle-plan was admirable. +In a general order, issued just before leading out his fleet, he told his +captains, "There is nothing to alarm us in the sight of an English fleet. +Their 64-gun ships have not 500 men on board; they are not more brave +than we are; they are harassed by a two-years' cruise; they have fewer +motives to fight well!" Villeneuve explained that the enemy would attack +in column, the French would meet the attack in close line of battle; and, +with a touch of Nelson's spirit, he urged his captains to take every +opportunity of boarding, and warned them that every ship not under fire +would be counted a defaulter. + +Nelson's plan was simple and daring. The order of sailing was to be the +order of battle. Collingwood leading one column, and he the other, would +pierce the enemy's lines at points which would leave some twelve of the +enemy's ships to be crushed betwixt the two British lines. Nelson, whose +brooding genius forecast every changing eddy of battle, gave minute +instructions on a score of details. To prevent mistakes amid the smoke +and the fight, for example, he had the hoops on the masts of every +British ship painted yellow; every ship was directed to fly a St. +George's ensign, with the Union Jack at the fore-topmast, and another +flying from the top-gallant stays. That he would beat the enemy's fleet +he calmly took for granted, but he directed that every effort should be +made to capture its commander-in-chief. Nelson crowned his instructions +with the characteristic remark, that "in case signals were obscure, no +captain can do wrong if he places his ship alongside of an enemy." + +[Illustration: The Attack at Trafalgar, October 21st, 1805. Five minutes +past noon. From Mahan's "Life of Nelson."] + +By twelve o'clock the two huge fleets were slowly approaching each other: +the British columns compact, grim, orderly; the Franco-Spanish line +loose, but magnificently picturesque, a far-stretching line of lofty +hulls, a swaying forest of sky-piercing masts. They still preserve the +remark of one prosaic British sailor, who, surveying the enemy through an +open port, offered the comment, "What a fine sight, Bill, yon ships would +make at Spithead!" + +It is curious to reflect how exactly both British and French invert on +sea their land tactics. French infantry attack in column, and are met by +British infantry in line; and the line, with its steadfast courage and +wide front of fire, crushes the column. On sea, on the other hand, the +British attack in column, and the French meet the attack in line; but the +column wins. But it must be admitted that the peril of this method of +attack is enormous. The leading ship approaches, stern on, to a line of +fire which, if steady enough, may well crush her by its concentration of +flame. Attack in column, in fact, means that the leading ships are +sacrificed to secure victory for the ships in the rear. The risks of +this method of attack at Trafalgar were enormously increased by the light +and uncertain quality of the wind. Collingwood, in the _Royal +Sovereign_, and Nelson, in the _Victory_, as a matter of fact, drifted +slowly rather than sailed, stern on to the broadsides of their enemy. +The leading British ships, with their stately heights of swelling canvas, +moved into the raking fire of the far-stretching Franco-Spanish line at a +speed of about two knots an hour. His officers knew that Nelson's ship, +carrying the flag of the commander-in-chief, as it came slowly on, would +be the mark for every French gunner, and must pass through a tempest of +flame before it could fire a shot in reply; and Blackwood begged Nelson +to let the _Téméraire_--"the fighting _Téméraire_"--take the _Victory's_ +place at the head of the column. "Oh yes, let her go ahead," answered +Nelson, with a queer smile; and the _Téméraire_ was hailed, and ordered +to take the lead. But Nelson meant that the _Téméraire_ should take the +_Victory's_ place only if she could, and he watched grimly to see that +not a sheet was let fly or a sail shortened to give the _Téméraire_ a +chance of passing; and so the _Victory_ kept its proud and perilous lead. + +Collingwood led the lee division, and had the honour of beginning the +mighty drama of Trafalgar. The _Royal Sovereign_ was newly coppered, +and, with every inch of canvas outspread, got so far ahead of her +followers, that after Collingwood had broken into the French line, he +sustained its fire, unhelped, for nearly twenty minutes before the +_Belleisle_, the ship next following, could fire a gun for his help. + +Of Collingwood, Thackeray says, "I think, since Heaven made gentlemen, it +never made a better one than Cuthbert Collingwood," and there was, no +doubt, a knightly and chivalrous side to Collingwood worthy of King +Arthur's round table. But there was also a side of heavy-footed +common-sense, of Dutch-like frugality, in Collingwood, a sort of +wooden-headed unimaginativeness which looks humorous when set against the +background of such a planet-shaking fight as Trafalgar. Thus on the +morning of the fight he advised one of his lieutenants, who wore a pair +of boots, to follow his example and put on stockings and shoes, as, in +the event of being shot in the leg, it would, he explained, "be so much +more manageable for the surgeon." And as he walked the break of his poop +in tights, silk stockings, and buckled shoes, leading, in his single +ship, an attack on a fleet, he calmly munched an apple. To be able to +munch an apple when beginning Trafalgar is an illustration of what may be +called the quality of wooden-headed unimaginativeness in Collingwood. +And yet Collingwood had a sense of the scale of the drama in which he was +taking part. "Now, gentlemen," he said to his officers, "let us do +something to-day which the world may talk of hereafter." Collingwood, in +reality, was a great man and a great seaman, and in the battle which +followed he "fought like an angel," to quote the amusingly inappropriate +metaphor of Blackwood. + +The two majestic British columns moved slowly on, the great ships, with +ports hauled up and guns run out, following each other like a procession +of giants. "I suppose," says Codrington, who commanded the _Orion_, "no +man ever before saw such a sight." And the element of humour was added +to the scene by the spectacle of the tiny _Pickle_, a duodecimo schooner, +gravely hanging on to the quarter of an 80-gun ship--as an actor in the +fight describes it--"with the boarding-nettings up, and her tompions out +of her four guns--about as large and as formidable as two pairs of +Wellington boots." + +Collingwood bore down to the fight a clear quarter of a mile ahead of the +next ship. The fire of the enemy, like so many spokes of flame +converging to a centre, broke upon him. But in silence the great ship +moved ahead to a gap in the line between the _Santa Anna_, a huge black +hulk of 112 guns, and the _Neptune_, of 74. As the bowsprit of the +_Royal Sovereign_ slowly glided past the stern of the _Santa Anna_, +Collingwood, as Nelson had ordered all his captains, cut his +studding-sails loose, and they fell, a cloud of white canvas, into the +water. Then as the broadside of the _Royal Sovereign_ fairly covered the +stern of the _Santa Anna_, Collingwood spoke. He poured with deadly aim +and suddenness, and at pistol-shot distance, his whole broadside into the +Spaniard's stern. The tempest of shot swept the unhappy _Santa Anna_ +from end to end, and practically destroyed that vessel. Some 400 of its +crew are said to have been killed or wounded by that single discharge! +At the same moment Collingwood discharged his other broadside at the +_Neptune_, though with less effect; then swinging round broadside to +broadside on the Spanish ship, he swept its decks again and again with +his guns. The first broadside had practically done the Spaniard's +business; but its captain, a gallant man, still returned what fire he +could. All the enemy's ships within reach of Collingwood had meanwhile +opened on him a dreadful fire; no fewer than five line-of-battle ships +were emptying their guns upon the _Royal Sovereign_ at one time, and it +seemed marvellous that the British ship was not shattered to mere +splinters by the fire poured from so many quarters upon her. It was like +being in the heart of a volcano. Frequently, it is said, the British saw +the flying cannon-balls meet in mid-air. The seamen fell fast, the sails +were torn, the bulwarks shattered, the decks ran red with blood. It was +at that precise moment, however, that Collingwood said to his captain, +"What would not Nelson give to be here!" While at the same instant +Nelson was saying to Hardy, "See how that noble fellow Collingwood takes +his ship into action!" + +The other ships of Collingwood's column were by this time slowly drifting +into the fight. At a quarter past twelve the _Belleisle_, the next ship, +ranged under the stern of the unfortunate _Santa Anna_, and fired her +larboard guns, double shotted, into that ship, with the result that her +three masts fell over the side. She then steered for the _Indomptable_, +an 80-gun ship, and sustained at the same moment the fire of two Spanish +seventy-fours. Ship after ship of Collingwood's column came steadily up, +and the roar of the battle deepened as in quick-following crashes each +new line-of-battle ship broke into the thunder of broadsides. + +Nelson, leading the weather column, steered a trifle to the northward, as +the slowly moving line of the enemy pointed towards Cadiz. Nelson had +given his last orders. At his mainmast head was flying, fast belayed, +the signal, "Engage the enemy more closely." Nelson himself walked +quietly to and fro on the little patch of clear plank, scarcely seven +yards long, on the quarter-deck of the _Victory_, whence he could command +the whole ship, and he wore the familiar threadbare frock uniform coat, +bearing on the left breast four tarnished and lack-lustre stars. Then +came the incident of the immortal signal. "We must give the fleet," said +Nelson to Blackwood, "something by way of a fillip." After musing a +while, he said, "Suppose we signal, 'Nelson confides that every man will +do his duty'?" Some one suggested "England" instead of "Nelson," and +Nelson at once caught at the improvement. The signal-officer explained +that the word "confide" would have to be spelt, and suggested instead the +word "expects," as that was in the vocabulary. So the flags on the +masthead of the _Victory_ spelt out the historic sentence to the slowly +moving fleet. That the signal was "received with cheers" is scarcely +accurate. The message was duly acknowledged, and recorded in the log of +every ship, but perhaps not one man in every hundred of the actors at +Trafalgar knew at the moment that it had been sent. But the message +rings in British ears yet, across ninety years, and will ring in the ears +of generations yet unborn. + +Nelson led his column on a somewhat slanting course into the fight. He +was bent on laying himself alongside the flagship of the enemy, and he +knew that this must be one of the three great line-of-battle ships near +the huge _Santissima Trinidad_. But there was no sign to show which of +the three carried Villeneuve. At half-past twelve the ships upon which +the _Victory_ was moving began to fire single shots at her slowly +drifting hulk to discover whether she was within range. The seventh of +these shots, fired at intervals of a minute or so, tore a rent through +the upper canvas of the _Victory_--a rent still to be seen in the +carefully preserved sail. A couple of minutes of awful silence followed. +Slowly the _Victory_ drifted on its path, and then no fewer than eight of +the great ships upon which the _Victory_ was moving broke into such a +tempest of shot as perhaps never before was poured on a single ship. One +of the first shots killed Scott, Nelson's secretary; another cut down +eight marines standing in line on the _Victory's_ quarter-deck; a third +passed between Nelson and Hardy as they stood side by side. "Too warm +work to last long, Hardy," said Nelson, with a smile. Still the +_Victory_ drifted majestically on its fiery path without an answering gun. + +The French line was irregular at this point, the ships lying, in some +instances, two or three deep, and this made the business of "cutting" the +line difficult. As Nelson could not pick out the French flagship, he +said to Hardy, "Take your choice, go on board which you please;" and +Hardy pointed the stern of the Victory towards a gap between the +_Redoutable_, a 74-gun ship, and the _Bucentaure_. But the ship moved +slowly. The fire upon it was tremendous. One shot drove a shower of +splinters upon both Nelson and Hardy; nearly fifty men and officers had +been killed or wounded; the Victory's sails were riddled, her +studding-sail booms shot off close to the yard-arm, her mizzen-topmast, +shot away. At one o'clock, however, the _Victory_ slowly moved past the +stern of the _Bucentaure_, and a 68-pounder carronade on its forecastle, +charged with a round shot and a keg of 500 musket balls, was fired into +the cabin windows of the French ship. Then, as the great ship moved on, +every gun of the remaining fifty that formed its broadside--some of them +double and treble loaded--was fired through the Frenchman's cabin windows. + +The dust from the crumpled woodwork of the _Bucentaure's_ stern covered +the persons of Nelson and the group of officers standing on the +_Victory's_ quarter-deck, while the British sailors welcomed with a +fierce shout the crash their flying shot made within the Frenchman's +hull. The _Bucentaure_, as it happened--though Nelson was ignorant of +the fact--was the French flagship; and after the battle its officers +declared that by this single broadside, out of its crew of nearly 1000 +men, nearly 400 were struck down, and no less than twenty guns dismounted! + +But the _Neptune_, a fine French 80-gun ship, lay right across the +water-lane up which the _Victory_ was moving, and it poured upon the +British ship two raking broadsides of the most deadly quality. The +_Victory_, however, moved on unflinchingly, and the _Neptune_, fearing to +be run aboard by the British ship, set her jib and moved ahead; then the +_Victory_ swung to starboard on to the _Redoutable_. The French ship +fired one hurried broadside, and promptly shut her lower-deck ports, +fearing the British sailors would board through them. No fewer, indeed, +than five French line-of-battle ships during the fight, finding +themselves grinding sides with British ships, adopted the same course--an +expressive testimony to the enterprising quality of British sailors. The +_Victory_, however, with her lower-deck guns actually touching the side +of the _Redoutable_, still kept them in full and quick action; but at +each of the lower-deck ports stood a sailor with a bucket of water, and +when the gun was fired--its muzzle touching the wooden sides of the +_Redoutable_--the water was dashed upon the ragged hole made by the shot, +to prevent the Frenchman taking fire and both ships being consumed. + +The guns on the upper deck of the _Victory_ speedily swept and silenced +the upper deck of the _Redoutable_, and as far as its broadsides were +concerned, that ship was helpless. Its tops, however, were crowded with +marksmen, and armed with brass coehorns, firing langrage shot, and these +scourged with a pitiless and most deadly fire the decks of the _Victory_, +while the _Bucentaure_ and the gigantic _Santissima Trinidad_ also +thundered on the British flagship. + + +III. HOW THE VICTORY WAS WON + + + "All is over and done. + Render thanks to the Giver; + England, for thy son + Let the bell be toll'd. + Render thanks to the Giver, + And render him to the mould. + Under the cross of gold + That shines over city and river, + There he shall rest for ever + Among the wise and the bold." + --TENNYSON. + + +Nelson's strategy at Trafalgar is described quaintly, but with real +insight, in a sentence which a Spanish novelist, Don Perez Galdos, puts +into the mouth of one of his characters: "Nelson, who, as everybody +knows, was no fool, saw our long line and said, 'Ah, if I break through +that in two places, and put the part of it between the two places +between two fires, I shall grab every stick of it.' That was exactly +what the confounded fellow did. And as our line was so long that the +head couldn't help the tail, he worried us from end to end, while he +drove his two wedges into our body." It followed that the flaming +vortex of the fight was in that brief mile of sea-space, between the +two points where the parallel British lines broke through Villeneuve's +swaying forest of masts. And the tempest of sound and flame was +fiercest, of course, round the two ships that carried the flags of +Nelson and Collingwood. As each stately British liner, however, +drifted--rather than sailed--into the black pall of smoke, the roar of +the fight deepened and widened until the whole space between the _Royal +Sovereign_ and the _Victory_ was shaken with mighty pulse-beats of +sound that marked the furious and quick-following broadsides. + +The scene immediately about the _Victory_ was very remarkable. The +_Victory_ had run foul of the _Redoutable_, the anchors of the two +ships hooking into each other. The concussion of the broadsides would, +no doubt, have driven the two hulls apart, but that the _Victory's_ +studding-sail boom iron had fastened, like a claw, into the leech of +the Frenchman's fore-topsail. The _Téméraire_, coming majestically up +through the smoke, raked the _Bucentaure_, and closed with a crash on +the starboard side of the _Redoutable_, and the four great ships lay in +a solid tier, while between their huge grinding sides came, with a +sound and a glare almost resembling the blast of an exploding mine, the +flash, the smoke, the roar of broadside after broadside. + +In the whole heroic fight there is no finer bit of heroism than that +shown by the _Redoutable_. She was only a 74-gun ship, and she had the +_Victory_, of 100 guns, and the _Téméraire_, of 98, on either side. It +is true these ships had to fight at the same time with a whole ring of +antagonists; nevertheless, the fire poured on the _Redoutable_ was so +fierce that only courage of a steel-like edge and temper could have +sustained it. The gallant French ship was semi-dismasted, her hull +shot through in every direction, one-fourth of her guns were +dismounted. Out of a crew of 643, no fewer than 523 were killed or +wounded. Only 35, indeed, lived to reach England as prisoners. And +yet she fought on. The fire from her great guns, indeed, soon ceased, +but the deadly splutter of musketry from such of her tops as were yet +standing was maintained; and, as Brenton put it, "there was witnessed +for nearly an hour and a half the singular spectacle of a French 74-gun +ship engaging a British first and second rate, with small-arms only." + +As a matter of fact, the _Victory_ repeatedly ceased firing, believing +that the _Redoutable_ had struck, but still the venomous and deadly +fire from the tops of that vessel continued; and it was to this +circumstance, indeed, that Nelson owed his death. He would never put +small-arms men in his own tops, as he believed their fire interfered +with the working of the sails, and, indeed, ran the risk of igniting +them. Thus the French marksmen that crowded the tops of the +_Redoutable_ had it all their own way; and as the distance was short, +and their aim deadly, nearly every man on the poop, quarter-deck, and +forecastle of the _Victory_ was shot down. + +Nelson, with Hardy by his side, was walking backwards and forwards on a +little clear space of the _Victory's_ quarter-deck, when he suddenly +swung round and fell face downwards on the deck. Hardy picked him up. +"They have done for me at last, Hardy," said Nelson; "my backbone is +shot through." A musket bullet from the _Redoutable's_ +mizzen-top--only fifteen yards distant--had passed through the forepart +of the epaulette, smashed a path through the left shoulder, and lodged +in the spine. The evidence seems to make it clear that it was a chance +shot that wrought the fatal mischief. Hardy had twice the bulk of +Nelson's insignificant figure, and wore a more striking uniform, and +would certainly have attracted the aim of a marksman in preference to +Nelson. + +Few stories are more pathetic or more familiar than that of Nelson's +last moments. As they carried the dying hero across the blood-splashed +decks, and down the ladders into the cock-pit, he drew a handkerchief +over his own face and over the stars on his breast, lest the knowledge +that he was struck down should discourage his crew. He was stripped, +his wound probed, and it was at once known to be mortal. Nelson +suffered greatly; he was consumed with thirst, had to be fanned with +sheets of paper; and he kept constantly pushing away the sheet, the +sole covering over him, saying, "Fan, fan," or "Drink, drink," and one +attendant was constantly employed in drawing the sheet over his thin +limbs and emaciated body. Presently Hardy, snatching a moment from the +fight raging on the deck, came to his side, and the two comrades +clasped hands. "Well, Hardy, how goes the battle?" Nelson asked. He +was told that twelve or fourteen of the enemy's ships had struck. +"That is well," said Nelson, "but I had bargained for twenty." Then +his seaman's brain forecasting the change of weather, and picturing the +battered ships with their prizes on a lee shore, he exclaimed +emphatically, "Anchor! Hardy, anchor!" Hardy hinted that Collingwood +would take charge of affairs. "Not while I live, I hope, Hardy," said +the dying chief, trying to raise himself on his bed. "No! do you +anchor, Hardy." + +Many of Nelson's expressions, recorded by his doctor, Beatty, are +strangely touching. "I am a dead man, Hardy," he said, "I am going +fast. It will all be over with me soon." "O _Victory_, _Victory_," he +said, as the great ship shook to the roar of her own guns, "how you +distract my poor brain!" "How dear is life to all men!" he said, after +a pause. He begged that "his carcass might be sent to England, and not +thrown overboard." So in the dim cock-pit, with the roar of the great +battle--bellow of gun, and shout of cheering crews--filling all the +space about him, and his last thoughts yet busy for his country, the +soul of the greatest British seaman passed away. "Kiss me, Hardy," was +one of his last sentences. His last intelligible sentence was, "I have +done my duty; I praise God for it." + +It may interest many to read the prayer which Nelson wrote--the last +record, but one, he made in his diary--and written as the final act of +preparation for Trafalgar: "May the great God, whom I worship, grant to +my country, and for the benefit of Europe in general, a great and +glorious victory; and may no misconduct in any one tarnish it; and may +humanity after victory be the predominant feature in the British fleet. +For myself individually, I commit my life to Him that made me, and may +His blessing alight on my endeavours for serving my country faithfully. +To Him I resign myself, and the just cause which is entrusted to me to +defend. Amen, Amen, Amen." + +Nelson's plan allowed his captains a large discretion in the choice of +their antagonists. Each British ship had to follow the wake of her +leader till she reached the enemy's line, then her captain was free to +choose his own foe--which, naturally, was the biggest Frenchman or +Spaniard in sight. And the huge _Santissima Trinidad_, of course, +attracted the eager attention of the ships that immediately followed +the _Victory_. The Spaniard carried 140 guns, and in that swaying +continent of fighting ships, towered like a giant amongst dwarfs. The +_Neptune_, the _Leviathan_, and the _Conqueror_, in turn, hung on the +quarter or broadside of the gigantic Spaniard, scourged it with fire, +and then drifted off to engage in a fiery wrestle with some other +antagonist. By half-past two the Spanish four-decker was a mastless +wreck. The _Neptune_ at that moment was hanging on her bow, the +_Conqueror_ on her quarter. "This tremendous fabric," says an account +written by an officer on board the Conqueror, "gave a deep roll, with a +swell to leeward, then back to windward, and on her return every mast +went by the board, leaving her an unmanageable hulk on the water. Her +immense topsails had every reef out, her royals were sheeted home but +lowered, and the falling of this majestic mass of spars, sails, and +rigging plunging into the water at the muzzles of our guns, was one of +the most magnificent sights I ever beheld." Directly after this a +Spaniard waved an English union over the lee gangway of the _Santissima +Trinidad_ in token of surrender; whereupon the _Conqueror_, scorning to +waste time in taking possession of even a four-decker that had no +longer any fight in it, pushed off in search of a new foe; while the +_Neptune's_ crew proceeded to shift the tattered topsails of their ship +for new ones, with as much coolness as though in a friendly port. + +The _Africa_, sixty-four, less than half the size of the Spaniard, +presently came slowly up through the smoke, and fired into the Spanish +ship; then seeing no flag flying, sent a lieutenant on board the +mastless hulk to take possession. The Englishman climbed to the +quarterdeck, all black with smoke and bloody with slaughter, and asked +the solitary officer he found there whether or not the _Santissima +Trinidad_ had surrendered. The ship, as a matter of fact, was drifting +into the centre of a cluster of French and Spanish ships; so the +Spaniard replied, "Non, non," at the same time pointing to the friendly +ships upon which they were drifting. The Englishman had only +half-a-dozen men with him, so he coolly returned to his boat, and the +_Santissima Trinidad_ drifted like a log upon the water till half-past +five P.M., when the _Prince_ put a prize crew on board. + +Perez Galdos has given a realistic picture--quoted in the _Cornhill +Magazine_--of the scenes within the gloomy recesses of the great +Spanish four-decker as the British ships hung on her flanks and wasted +her with their fire: "The English shot had torn our sails to tatters. +It was as if huge invisible talons had been dragging at them. +Fragments of spars, splinters of wood, thick hempen cables cut up as +corn is cut by the sickle, fallen blocks, shreds of canvas, bits of +iron, and hundreds of other things that had been wrenched away by the +enemy's fire, were piled along the deck, where it was scarcely possible +to move about. From moment to moment men fell--some into the sea; and +the curses of the combatants mingled with groans of the wounded, so +that it was often difficult to decide whether the dying were +blaspheming God or the fighters were calling upon Him for aid. I +helped in the very dismal task of carrying the wounded into the hold, +where the surgeons worked. Some died ere we could convey them thither; +others had to undergo frightful operations ere their worn-out bodies +could get an instant's rest. It was much more satisfactory to be able +to assist the carpenter's crew in temporarily stopping some of the +holes torn by shot in the ship's hull. . . . Blood ran in streams +about the deck; and, in spite of the sand, the rolling of the ship +carried it hither and thither until it made strange patterns on the +planks. The enemy's shot, fired, as they were, from very short range, +caused horrible mutilations. . . . The ship creaked and groaned as she +rolled, and through a thousand holes and crevices in her strained hull +the sea spurted in and began to flood the hold. The _Trinidad's_ +people saw the commander-in-chief haul down his flag; heard the +_Achille_ blow up and hurl her six hundred men into eternity; learnt +that their own hold was so crowded with wounded that no more could be +received there. Then, when all three masts had in succession been +brought crashing down, the defence collapsed, and the _Santissima +Trinidad_ struck her flag." + +The dreadful scenes on the decks of the _Santissima Trinidad_ might +almost have been paralleled on some of the British ships. Thus the +_Belleisle_, Collingwood's immediate supporter, sustained the fire of +two French and one Spanish line-of-battle ships until she was +dismasted. The wreck of her mizzen-mast covered her larboard guns, her +mainmast fell upon the break of the poop; her larboard broadside was +thus rendered useless; and just then another French line-of-battle +ship, the _Achille_, took her position on the _Belleisle's_ larboard +quarter, and opened on her a deadly fire, to which the British ship +could not return a shot. This scene lasted for nearly an hour and a +half, but at half-past three the _Swiftsure_ came majestically up, +passed under the _Belleisle's_ stern--the two crews cheering each +other, the _Belleisle's_ men waving a Union Jack at the end of a pike +to show they were still fighting, while an ensign still flew from the +stump of the mainmast--and the fury with which the _Swiftsure_ fell +upon the _Achille_ may be imagined. The _Defiance_ about the same time +took off the _Aigle_, and the _Polyphemus_ the _Neptune_, and the +much-battered _Belleisle_ floated free. Masts, bowsprit, boats, +figure-head--all were shot away; her hull was pierced in every +direction; she was a mere splintered wreck. + +The _Téméraire_ fought a battle almost as dreadful. The _Africa_, a +light ship carrying only sixty-four guns, chose as her antagonist the +_Intrépide_, a French seventy-four, in weight of broadside and number +of crew almost double her force. How dreadful were the damages +sustained by the British ship in a fight so unequal and so stubborn may +be imagined; but she clung to her big antagonist until, the _Orion_ +coming up, the _Intrépide_ struck. + +At three P.M. the firing had begun to slacken, and ship after ship of +the enemy was striking. At a quarter past two the _Algeziras_ struck +to the _Tonnant_, and fifteen minutes afterwards the _San Juan_--the +_Tonnant_ was fighting both ships--also hailed that she surrendered. +Lieutenant Clement was sent in the jolly-boat, with two hands, to take +possession of the Spanish seventy-four, and the boat carrying the +gallant three was struck by a shot and swamped. The sailors could +swim, but not the lieutenant; the pair of tars succeeded in struggling +back with their officer to the _Tonnant_; and as that ship had not +another boat that would float, she had to see her prize drift off. The +_Colossus_, in like manner, fought with the French _Swiftsure_ and the +_Bahama_--each her own size--and captured them both! The _Redoutable_ +had surrendered by this time, and a couple of midshipmen, with a dozen +hands, had climbed from the _Victory's_ one remaining boat through the +stern ports of the French ship. The _Bucentaure_, Villeneuve's +flagship, had her fate practically sealed by the first tremendous +broadside poured into her by the _Victory_. With fine courage, +however, the French ship maintained a straggling fire until both the +_Leviathan_ and the _Conqueror_, at a distance of less than thirty +yards, were pouring a tempest of shot into her. The French flagship +then struck, and was taken possession of by a tiny boat's crew from the +_Conqueror_ consisting of three marines and two sailors. The marine +officer coolly locked the powder magazine of the Frenchman, put the key +in his pocket, left two of his men in charge of the surrendered +_Bucentaure_, put Villeneuve and his two captains in his boat with his +two marines and himself, and went off in search of the _Conqueror_. In +the smoke and confusion, however, he could not find that ship, and so +carried the captured French admiral to the _Mars_. Hercules Robinson +has drawn a pen picture of the unfortunate French admiral as he came on +board the British ship: "Villeneuve was a tallish, thin man, a very +tranquil, placid, English-looking Frenchman; he wore a long-tailed +uniform coat, high and flat collar, corduroy pantaloons of a greenish +colour with stripes two inches wide, half-boots with sharp toes, and a +watch-chain with long gold links. Majendie was a short, fat, jocund +sailor, who found a cure for all ills in the Frenchman's philosophy, +"Fortune de la guerre" (though this was the third time the goddess had +brought him to England as a prisoner); and he used to tell our officers +very tough stories of the 'Mysteries of Paris.'" + +By five o'clock the roar of guns had died almost into silence. Of +thirty-three stately battle-ships that formed the Franco-Spanish fleet +four hours earlier, one had vanished in flames, seventeen were captured +as mere blood-stained hulks, and fifteen were in flight; while +Villeneuve himself was a prisoner. But Nelson was dead. Night was +falling. A fierce south-east gale was blowing. A sea--such a sea as +only arises in shallow waters--ugly, broken, hollow, was rising fast. +In all directions ships dismantled, with scuppers crimson with blood, +and sides jagged with shot-holes, were rolling their tall, huge hulks +in the heavy sea; and the shoals of Trafalgar were only thirteen miles +to leeward! The fight with tempest and sea during that terrific night +was almost more dreadful than the battle with human foes during the +day. Codrington says, the gale was so furious that "it blew away the +top main-topsail, though it was close-reefed, and the fore-topsail +after it was clewed up ready for furling." They dare not set a storm +staysail, although now within six miles of the reef. The _Redoutable_ +sank at the stern of the ship towing it; the _Bucentaure_ had to be cut +adrift, and went to pieces on the shoals. The wind shifted in the +night and enabled the shot-wrecked and storm-battered ships to claw off +the shore; but the fierce weather still raged, and on the 24th the huge +_Santissima Trinidad_ had to be cut adrift. It was night; wind and sea +were furious; but the boats of the _Ajax_ and the _Neptune_ succeeded +in rescuing every wounded man on board the huge Spaniard. The boats, +indeed, had all put off when a cat ran out on the muzzle of one of the +lower-deck guns and mewed plaintively, and one of the boats pulled +back, in the teeth of wind and sea, and rescued poor puss! + +Of the eighteen British prizes, fourteen sank, were wrecked, burnt by +the captors, or recaptured; only four reached Portsmouth. Yet never +was the destruction of a fleet more absolutely complete. Of the +fifteen ships that escaped Trafalgar, four were met in the open sea on +November 4 by an equal number of British ships, under Sir Richard +Strahan, and were captured. The other eleven lay disabled hulks in +Cadiz till--when France and Spain broke into war with each other--they +were all destroyed. Villeneuve's great fleet, in brief, simply +vanished from existence! But Napoleon, with that courageous economy of +truth characteristic of him, summed up Trafalgar in the sentence: "The +storms occasioned to us the loss of a few ships after a battle +imprudently fought"! Trafalgar, as a matter of fact, was the most +amazing victory won by land or sea through the whole Revolutionary war. +It permanently changed the course of history; and it goes far to +justify Nelson's magnificently audacious boast, "The fleets of England +are equal to meet the world in arms!" + + + + +THE END + + + + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Deeds that Won the Empire, by W. H. 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H. Fitchett +</TITLE> + +<STYLE TYPE="text/css"> +BODY { color: Black; + background: White; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: medium; + font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; + text-align: justify } + +P {text-indent: 4% } + +P.noindent {text-indent: 0% } + +p.toc {text-indent: 0% ; + margin-top: 0em ; + margin-bottom: .5em } + +P.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: small } + +P.letter {font-size: small ; + margin-left: 5% ; + margin-right: 5% } + +P.published {font-size: small ; + text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 15% } + +p.dedication {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 15%; + text-align: justify } + +</STYLE> + +</HEAD> + +<BODY> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Deeds that Won the Empire, by W. H. Fitchett + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Deeds that Won the Empire + Historic Battle Scenes + +Author: W. H. Fitchett + +Release Date: September 12, 2006 [EBook #19255] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DEEDS THAT WON THE EMPIRE *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + +</pre> + + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +DEEDS THAT WON THE EMPIRE +</H1> + +<BR> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +HISTORIC BATTLE SCENES +</H2> + +<BR><BR> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +BY W. H. FITCHETT, LL. D. +</H2> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +LONDON: JOHN MURRAY +</H4> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="published"> +FIRST EDITION (Smith, Elder & Co.) . . . November 1897<BR> +Twenty-ninth Impression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . October 1914<BR> +Reprinted (John Murray) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . September 1917<BR> +Reprinted . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . February 1921<BR> +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +PREFACE +</H3> + +<P> +The tales here told are written, not to glorify war, but to nourish +patriotism. They represent an effort to renew in popular memory the +great traditions of the Imperial race to which we belong. +</P> + +<P> +The history of the Empire of which we are subjects—the story of the +struggles and sufferings by which it has been built up—is the best +legacy which the past has bequeathed to us. But it is a treasure +strangely neglected. The State makes primary education its anxious +care, yet it does not make its own history a vital part of that +education. There is real danger that for the average youth the great +names of British story may become meaningless sounds, that his +imagination will take no colour from the rich and deep tints of +history. And what a pallid, cold-blooded citizenship this must produce! +</P> + +<P> +War belongs, no doubt, to an imperfect stage of society; it has a side +of pure brutality. But it is not all brutal. Wordsworth's daring line +about "God's most perfect instrument" has a great truth behind it. +What examples are to be found in the tales here retold, not merely of +heroic daring, but of even finer qualities—of heroic fortitude; of +loyalty to duty stronger than the love of life; of the temper which +dreads dishonour more than it fears death; of the patriotism which +makes love of the Fatherland a passion. These are the elements of +robust citizenship. They represent some, at least, of the qualities by +which the Empire, in a sterner time than ours, was won, and by which, +in even these ease-loving days, it must be maintained. +</P> + +<P> +These sketches appeared originally in the <I>Melbourne Argus</I>, and are +republished by the kind consent of its proprietors. Each sketch is +complete in itself; and though no formal quotation of authorities is +given, yet all the available literature on each event described has +been laid under contribution. The sketches will be found to be +historically accurate. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +CONTENTS +</H2> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="toc"> +<A HREF="#chap01"> +THE FIGHT OFF CAPE ST. VINCENT +</A> +</P> + +<P CLASS="toc"> +<A HREF="#chap02"> +THE HEIGHTS OF ABRAHAM +</A> +</P> + +<P CLASS="toc"> +<A HREF="#chap03"> +THE GREAT LORD HAWKE +</A> +</P> + +<P CLASS="toc"> +<A HREF="#chap04"> +THE NIGHT ATTACK ON BADAJOS +</A> +</P> + +<P CLASS="toc"> +<A HREF="#chap05"> +THE FIRE-SHIPS IN THE BASQUE ROADS +</A> +</P> + +<P CLASS="toc"> +<A HREF="#chap06"> +THE MAN WHO SPOILED NAPOLEON'S "DESTINY" +</A> +</P> + +<P CLASS="toc"> +<A HREF="#chap07"> +GREAT SEA-DUELS +</A> +</P> + +<P CLASS="toc"> +<A HREF="#chap08"> +THE BLOOD-STAINED HILL OF BUSACO +</A> +</P> + +<P CLASS="toc"> +<A HREF="#chap09"> +OF NELSON AND THE NILE +</A> +</P> + +<P CLASS="toc"> +<A HREF="#chap10"> +THE FUSILEERS AT ALBUERA +</A> +</P> + +<P CLASS="toc"> +<A HREF="#chap11"> +THE "SHANNON" AND THE "CHESAPEAKE" +</A> +</P> + +<P CLASS="toc"> +<A HREF="#chap12"> +THE GREAT BREACH OF CIUDAD RODRIGO +</A> +</P> + +<P CLASS="toc"> +<A HREF="#chap13"> +HOW THE "HERMIONE" WAS RECAPTURED +</A> +</P> + +<P CLASS="toc"> +<A HREF="#chap14"> +FRENCH AND ENGLISH IN THE PASSES +</A> +</P> + +<P CLASS="toc"> +<A HREF="#chap15"> +FAMOUS CUTTING-OUT EXPEDITIONS +</A> +</P> + +<P CLASS="toc"> +<A HREF="#chap16"> +MOUNTAIN COMBATS +</A> +</P> + +<P CLASS="toc"> +<A HREF="#chap17"> +THE BLOODIEST FIGHT IN THE PENINSULA +</A> +</P> + +<P CLASS="toc"> +<A HREF="#chap18"> +THE BATTLE OF THE BALTIC +</A> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="toc"> +<A HREF="#chap1900"> +KING-MAKING WATERLOO— +</A> +</P> +<P CLASS="toc"> + I. +<A HREF="#chap1901"> +The Rival Hosts +</A> +</P> +<P CLASS="toc"> + II. +<A HREF="#chap1902"> +Hougoumont +</A> +</P> +<P CLASS="toc"> + III. +<A HREF="#chap1903"> +Picton and D'Erlon +</A> +</P> +<P CLASS="toc"> + IV. +<A HREF="#chap1904"> +"Scotland for Ever!" +</A> +</P> +<P CLASS="toc"> + V. +<A HREF="#chap1905"> +Horsemen and Squares +</A> +</P> +<P CLASS="toc"> + VI. +<A HREF="#chap1906"> +The Fight of the Gunners +</A> +</P> +<P CLASS="toc"> + VII. +<A HREF="#chap1907"> +The Old Guard +</A> +</P> +<P CLASS="toc"> + VIII. +<A HREF="#chap1908"> +The Great Defeat +</A> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="toc"> +<A HREF="#chap20"> +THE NIGHT ATTACK OFF CADIZ +</A> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="toc"> +TRAFALGAR— +</P> +<P CLASS="toc"> + I. +<A HREF="#chap2101"> +The Strategy +</A> +</P> +<P CLASS="toc"> + II. +<A HREF="#chap2102"> +How the Fleets Met +</A> +</P> +<P CLASS="toc"> + III. +<A HREF="#chap2103"> +How the Victory was Won +</A> +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +LIST OF PLANS +</H2> + +<BR> + +<H3> +<A HREF="#img-005"> +THE BATTLE OFF CAPE ST. VINCENT +</A> +</H3> + +<H3> +<A HREF="#img-016"> +THE SIEGE OF QUEBEC +</A> +</H3> + +<H3> +<A HREF="#img-041"> +THE SIEGE OF BADAJOS +</A> +</H3> + +<H3> +<A HREF="#img-106"> +THE BATTLE OF THE NILE +</A> +</H3> + +<H3> +<A HREF="#img-118"> +THE BATTLE OF ALBUERA +</A> +</H3> + +<H3> +<A HREF="#img-148"> +THE SIEGE OF CIUDAD RODRIGO +</A> +</H3> + +<H3> +<A HREF="#img-168"> +THE COMBAT OF RONCESVALLES +</A> +</H3> + +<H3> +<A HREF="#img-200"> +THE BATTLE OF ST. PIERRE +</A> +</H3> + +<H3> +<A HREF="#img-215"> +THE BATTLE OF THE BALTIC +</A> +</H3> + +<H3> +<A HREF="#img-227"> +THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO +</A> +</H3> + +<H3> +<A HREF="#img-308"> +THE ATTACK OF TRAFALGAR +</A> +</H3> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap01"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE FIGHT OFF CAPE ST. VINCENT +</H3> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +THE SCEPTRE OF THE SEA.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Old England's sons are English yet,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Old England's hearts are strong;</SPAN><BR> +And still she wears her coronet<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Aflame with sword and song.</SPAN><BR> +As in their pride our fathers died,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">If need be, so die we;</SPAN><BR> +So wield we still, gainsay who will,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">The sceptre of the sea.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +We've Raleighs still for Raleigh's part,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">We've Nelsons yet unknown;</SPAN><BR> +The pulses of the Lion-Heart<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Beat on through Wellington.</SPAN><BR> +Hold, Britain, hold thy creed of old,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Strong foe and steadfast friend,</SPAN><BR> +And still unto thy motto true,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">'Defy not, but defend.'</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Men whisper that our arm is weak,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Men say our blood is cold,</SPAN><BR> +And that our hearts no longer speak<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">That clarion note of old;</SPAN><BR> +But let the spear and sword draw near<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">The sleeping lion's den,</SPAN><BR> +Our island shore shall start once more<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">To life, with armèd men."</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 5em">—HERMAN CHARLES MERIVALE.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +On the night of February 13, 1797, an English fleet of fifteen ships of +the line, in close order and in readiness for instant battle, was under +easy sail off Cape St. Vincent. It was a moonless night, black with +haze, and the great ships moved in silence like gigantic spectres over +the sea. Every now and again there came floating from the south-east +the dull sound of a far-off gun. It was the grand fleet of Spain, +consisting of twenty-seven ships of line, under Admiral Don Josef de +Cordova; one great ship calling to another through the night, little +dreaming that the sound of their guns was so keenly noted by the eager +but silent fleet of their enemies to leeward. The morning of the +14th—a day famous in the naval history of the empire—broke dim and +hazy; grey sea, grey fog, grey dawn, making all things strangely +obscure. At half-past six, however, the keen-sighted British outlooks +caught a glimpse of the huge straggling line of Spaniards, stretching +apparently through miles of sea haze. "They are thumpers!" as the +signal lieutenant of the <I>Barfleur</I> reported with emphasis to his +captain; "they loom like Beachy Head in a fog!" The Spanish fleet was, +indeed, the mightiest ever sent from Spanish ports since "that great +fleet invincible" of 1588 carried into the English waters—but not out +of them!— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"The richest spoils of Mexico, the stoutest hearts of Spain."<BR> +</P> + +<P> +The Admiral's flag was borne by the <I>Santissima Trinidad</I>, a floating +mountain, the largest ship at that time on the sea, and carrying on her +four decks 130 guns. Next came six three-deckers carrying 112 guns +each, two ships of the line of 80 guns each, and seventeen carrying 74 +guns, with no less than twelve 34-gun frigates to act as a flying +cordon of skirmishers. Spain had joined France against England on +September 12, 1796, and Don Cordova, at the head of this immense fleet, +had sailed from Cadiz to execute a daring and splendid strategy. He +was to pick up the Toulon fleet, brush away the English squadron +blockading Brest, add the great French fleet lying imprisoned there to +his forces, and enter the British Channel with above a hundred sail of +the line under his flag, and sweep in triumph to the mouth of the +Thames! If the plan succeeded, Portugal would fall, a descent was to +be made on Ireland; the British flag, it was reckoned, would be swept +from the seas. +</P> + +<P> +Sir John Jervis was lying in the track of the Spaniards to defeat this +ingenious plan. Five ships of the line had been withdrawn from the +squadron blockading Brest to strengthen him; still he had only fifteen +ships against the twenty-seven huge Spaniards in front of him; whilst, +if the French Toulon fleet behind him broke out, he ran the risk of +being crushed, so to speak, betwixt the upper and the nether millstone. +Never, perhaps, was the naval supremacy of England challenged so boldly +and with such a prospect of success as at this moment. The northern +powers had coalesced under Russia, and only a few weeks later the +English guns were thundering over the roofs of Copenhagen, while the +united flags of France and Spain were preparing to sweep through the +narrow seas. The "splendid isolation" of to-day is no novelty. In +1796, as it threatened to be in 1896, Great Britain stood singly +against a world in arms, and it is scarcely too much to say that her +fate hung on the fortunes of the fleet that, in the grey dawn of St. +Valentine's Day, a hundred years ago, was searching the skyline for the +topmasts of Don Cordova's huge three-deckers. +</P> + +<P> +Fifteen to twenty-seven is enormous odds, but, on the testimony of +Nelson himself, a better fleet never carried the fortunes of a great +country than that under Sir John Jervis. The mere names of the ships +or of their commanders awaken more sonorous echoes than the famous +catalogue of the ships in the "Iliad." Trowbridge, in the <I>Culloden</I>, +led the van; the line was formed of such ships as the <I>Victory</I>, the +flagship, the <I>Barfleur</I>, the <I>Blenheim</I>, the <I>Captain</I>, with Nelson as +commodore, the <I>Excellent</I>, under Collingwood, the <I>Colossus</I>, under +Murray, the <I>Orion</I>, under Sir James Saumarez, &c. Finer sailors and +more daring leaders never bore down upon an enemy's fleet. The picture +offered by the two fleets in the cold haze of that fateful morning, as +a matter of fact, reflected the difference in their fighting and +sea-going qualities. The Spanish fleet, a line of monsters, straggled, +formless and shapeless, over miles of sea space, distracted with +signals, fluttering with many-coloured flags. The English fleet, grim +and silent, bore down upon the enemy in two compact and firm-drawn +columns, ship following ship so closely and so exactly that bowsprit +and stern almost touched, while an air-line drawn from the foremast of +the leading ship to the mizzenmast of the last ship in each column +would have touched almost every mast betwixt. Stately, measured, +threatening, in perfect fighting order, the compact line of the British +bore down on the Spaniards. +</P> + +<A NAME="img-005"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG SRC="images/img-005.jpg" ALT="THE BATTLE OFF CAPE ST. VINCENT. Cutting the Spanish Line. From Allen's "Battles of the British Navy."" BORDER="2" WIDTH="385" HEIGHT="352"> +<H3> +[Illustration: THE BATTLE OFF CAPE ST. VINCENT. <BR> +Cutting the Spanish Line. <BR> +From Allen's "Battles of the British Navy."] +</H3> +</CENTER> + +<P> +Nothing is more striking in the battle of St. Vincent than the swift +and resolute fashion in which Sir John Jervis leaped, so to speak, at +his enemy's throat, with the silent but deadly leap of a bulldog. As +the fog lifted, about nine o'clock, with the suddenness and dramatic +effect of the lifting of a curtain in a great theatre, it revealed to +the British admiral a great opportunity. The weather division of the +Spanish fleet, twenty-one gigantic ships, resembled nothing so much as +a confused and swaying forest of masts; the leeward division—six ships +in a cluster, almost as confused—was parted by an interval of nearly +three miles from the main body of the fleet, and into that fatal gap, +as with the swift and deadly thrust of a rapier, Jervis drove his fleet +in one unswerving line, the two columns melting into one, ship +following hard on ship. The Spaniards strove furiously to close their +line, the twenty-one huge ships bearing down from the windward, the +smaller squadron clawing desperately up from the leeward. But the +British fleet—a long line of gliding pyramids of sails, leaning over +to the pressure of the wind, with "the meteor flag" flying from the +peak of each vessel, and the curving lines of guns awaiting grim and +silent beneath—was too swift. As it swept through the gap, the +Spanish vice-admiral, in the <I>Principe de Asturias</I>, a great +three-decker of 112 guns, tried the daring feat of breaking through the +British line to join the severed squadron. He struck the English fleet +almost exactly at the flagship, the <I>Victory</I>. The <I>Victory</I> was +thrown into stays to meet her, the Spaniard swung round in response, +and, exactly as her quarter was exposed to the broadside of the +<I>Victory</I>, the thunder of a tremendous broadside rolled from that ship. +The unfortunate Spaniard was smitten as with a tempest of iron, and the +next moment, with sails torn, topmasts hanging to leeward, ropes +hanging loose in every direction, and her decks splashed red with the +blood of her slaughtered crew, she broke off to windward. The iron +line of the British was unpierceable! The leading three-decker of the +Spanish lee division in like manner bore up, as though to break through +the British line to join her admiral; but the grim succession of +three-deckers, following swift on each other like the links of a moving +iron chain, was too disquieting a prospect to be faced. It was not in +Spanish seamanship, or, for the matter of that, in Spanish flesh and +blood, to beat up in the teeth of such threatening lines of iron lips. +The Spanish ships swung sullenly back to leeward, and the fleet of Don +Cordova was cloven in twain, as though by the stroke of some gigantic +sword-blade. +</P> + +<P> +As soon as Sir John Jervis saw the steady line of his fleet drawn fair +across the gap in the Spanish line, he flung his leading ships up to +windward on the mass of the Spanish fleet, by this time beating up to +windward. The <I>Culloden</I> led, thrust itself betwixt the hindmost +Spanish three-deckers, and broke into flame and thunder on either side. +Six minutes after her came the <I>Blenheim</I>; then, in quick succession, +the <I>Prince George</I>, the <I>Orion</I>, the <I>Colossus</I>. It was a crash of +swaying masts and bellying sails, while below rose the shouting of the +crews, and, like the thrusts of fiery swords, the flames shot out from +the sides of the great three-deckers against each other, and over all +rolled the thunder and the smoke of a Titanic sea-fight. Nothing more +murderous than close fighting betwixt the huge wooden ships of those +days can well be imagined. The <I>Victory</I>, the largest British ship +present in the action, was only 186 feet long and 52 feet broad; yet in +that little area 1000 men fought, 100 great guns thundered. A Spanish +ship like the <I>San Josef</I> was 194 feet in length and 54 feet in +breadth; but in that area 112 guns were mounted, while the three decks +were thronged with some 1300 men. When floating batteries like these +swept each other with the flame of swiftly repeated broadsides at a +distance of a few score yards, the destruction may be better imagined +than described. The Spanish had an advantage in the number of guns and +men, but the British established an instant mastery by their silent +discipline, their perfect seamanship, and the speed with which their +guns were worked. They fired at least three broadsides to every two +the Spaniards discharged, and their fire had a deadly precision +compared with which that of the Spaniards was mere distracted +spluttering. +</P> + +<P> +Meanwhile the dramatic crisis of the battle came swiftly on. The +Spanish admiral was resolute to join the severed fragments of his +fleet. The <I>Culloden</I>, the <I>Blenheim</I>, the <I>Prince George</I>, and the +<I>Orion</I> were thundering amongst his rearmost ships, and as the British +line swept up, each ship tacked as it crossed the gap in the Spanish +line, bore up to windward and added the thunder of its guns to the +storm of battle raging amongst the hindmost Spaniards. But naturally +the section of the British line that had not yet passed the gap +shortened with every minute, and the leading Spanish ships at last saw +the sea to their leeward clear of the enemy, and the track open to +their own lee squadron. Instantly they swung round to leeward, the +great four-decker, the flagship, with a company of sister giants, the +<I>San Josef</I> and the <I>Salvador del Mundo</I>, of 112 guns each, the <I>San +Nicolas</I>, and three other great ships of 80 guns. It was a bold and +clever stroke. This great squadron, with the breeze behind it, had but +to sweep past the rear of the British line, join the lee squadron, and +bear up, and the Spanish fleet in one unbroken mass would confront the +enemy. The rear of the British line was held by Collingwood in the +<I>Excellent</I>; next to him came the <I>Diadem</I>; the third ship was the +<I>Captain</I>, under Nelson. We may imagine how Nelson's solitary eye was +fixed on the great Spanish three-deckers that formed the Spanish van as +they suddenly swung round and came sweeping down to cross his stern. +Not Napoleon himself had a vision more swift and keen for the changing +physiognomy of a great battle than Nelson, and he met the Spanish +admiral with a counter-stroke as brilliant and daring as can be found +in the whole history of naval warfare. The British fleet saw the +<I>Captain</I> suddenly swing out of line to leeward—in the direction from +the Spanish line, that is—but with swift curve the <I>Captain</I> doubled +back, shot between the two English ships that formed the rear of the +line, and bore up straight in the path of the Spanish flagship, with +its four decks, and the huge battleships on either side of it. +</P> + +<P> +The <I>Captain</I>, it should be remembered, was the smallest 74 in the +British fleet, and as the great Spanish ships closed round her and +broke into flame it seemed as if each one of them was big enough to +hoist the <I>Captain</I> on board like a jolly-boat. Nelson's act was like +that of a single stockman who undertakes to "head off" a drove of angry +bulls as they break away from the herd; but the "bulls" in this case +were a group of the mightiest battleships then afloat. Nelson's sudden +movement was a breach of orders; it left a gap in the British line; to +dash unsupported into the Spanish van seemed mere madness, and the +spectacle, as the Captain opened fire on the huge <I>Santissima +Trinidad</I>, was simply amazing. Nelson was in action at once with the +flagship of 130 guns, two ships of 112 guns, one of 80 guns, and two of +74 guns! To the spectators who watched the sight the sides of the +<I>Captain</I> seemed to throb with quick-following pulses of flame as its +crew poured their shot into the huge hulks on every side of them. The +Spaniards formed a mass so tangled that they could scarcely fire at the +little <I>Captain</I> without injuring each other; yet the English ship +seemed to shrivel beneath even the imperfect fire that did reach her. +Her foremast was shot away, her wheel-post shattered, her rigging torn, +some of her guns dismantled, and the ship was practically incapable of +further service either in the line or in chase. But Nelson had +accomplished his purpose: he had stopped the rush of the Spanish van. +</P> + +<P> +At this moment the <I>Excellent</I>, under Collingwood, swept into the storm +of battle that raged round the <I>Captain</I>, and poured three tremendous +broadsides into the Spanish three-decker the <I>Salvador del Mundo</I> that +practically disabled her. "We were not further from her," the domestic +but hard-fighting Collingwood wrote to his wife, "than the length of +our garden." Then, with a fine feat of seamanship, the <I>Excellent</I> +passed between the <I>Captain</I> and the <I>San Nicolas</I>, scourging that +unfortunate ship with flame at a distance of ten yards, and then passed +on to bestow its favours on the <I>Santissima Trinidad</I>—"such a ship," +Collingwood afterwards confided to his wife, "as I never saw before!" +Collingwood tormented that monster with his fire so vehemently that she +actually struck, though possession of her was not taken before the +other Spanish ships, coming up, rescued her, and she survived to carry +the Spanish flag in the great fight of Trafalgar. +</P> + +<P> +Meanwhile the crippled <I>Captain</I>, though actually disabled, had +performed one of the most dramatic and brilliant feats in the history +of naval warfare. Nelson put his helm to starboard, and ran, or rather +drifted, on the quarter-gallery of the <I>San Nicolas</I>, and at once +boarded that leviathan. Nelson himself crept through the +quarter-gallery window in the stern of the Spaniard, and found himself +in the officers' cabins. The officers tried to show fight, but there +was no denying the boarders who followed Nelson, and with shout and +oath, with flash of pistol and ring of steel, the party swept through +on to the main deck. But the <I>San Nicolas</I> had been boarded also at +other points. "The first man who jumped into the enemy's +mizzen-chains," says Nelson, "was the first lieutenant of the ship, +afterwards Captain Berry." The English sailors dropped from their +spritsail yard on to the Spaniard's deck, and by the time Nelson +reached the poop of the <I>San Nicolas</I> he found his lieutenant in the +act of hauling down the Spanish flag. Nelson proceeded to collect the +swords of the Spanish officers, when a fire was opened upon them from +the stern gallery of the admiral's ship, the <I>San Josef</I>, of 112 guns, +whose sides were grinding against those of the <I>San Nicolas</I>. What +could Nelson do? To keep his prize he must assault a still bigger +ship. Of course he never hesitated! He flung his boarders up the side +of the huge <I>San Josef</I>, but he himself had to be assisted to climb the +main chains of that vessel, his lieutenant this time dutifully +assisting his commodore up instead of indecorously going ahead of him. +"At this moment," as Nelson records the incident, "a Spanish officer +looked over the quarterdeck rail and said they surrendered. It was not +long before I was on the quarter-deck, where the Spanish captain, with +a bow, presented me his sword, and said the admiral was dying of his +wounds. I asked him, on his honour, if the ship was surrendered. He +declared she was; on which I gave him my hand, and desired him to call +on his officers and ship's company and tell them of it, which he did; +and on the quarterdeck of a Spanish first-rate—extravagant as the +story may seem—did I receive the swords of vanquished Spaniards, +which, as I received, I gave to William Fearney, one of my bargemen, +who put them with the greatest <I>sang-froid</I> under his arm," a circle of +"old Agamemnons," with smoke-blackened faces, looking on in grim +approval. +</P> + +<P> +This is the story of how a British fleet of fifteen vessels defeated a +Spanish fleet of twenty-seven, and captured four of their finest ships. +It is the story, too, of how a single English ship, the smallest 74 in +the fleet—but made unconquerable by the presence of Nelson—stayed the +advance of a whole squadron of Spanish three-deckers, and took two +ships, each bigger than itself, by boarding. Was there ever a finer +deed wrought under "the meteor flag"! Nelson disobeyed orders by +leaving the English line and flinging himself on the van of the +Spaniards, but he saved the battle. Calder, Jervis's captain, +complained to the admiral that Nelson had "disobeyed orders." "He +certainly did," answered Jervis; "and if ever you commit such a breach +of your orders I will forgive you also." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap02"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE HEIGHTS OF ABRAHAM +</H3> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Sound, sound the clarion, fill the fife!<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">To all the sensual world proclaim,</SPAN><BR> +One crowded hour of glorious life<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Is worth an age without a name."</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 5em">—SIR WALTER SCOTT.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +The year 1759 is a golden one in British history. A great French army +that threatened Hanover was overthrown at Minden, chiefly by the heroic +stupidity of six British regiments, who, mistaking their orders, charged +the entire French cavalry in line, and destroyed them. "I have seen," +said the astonished French general, "what I never thought to be +possible—a single line of infantry break through three lines of cavalry +ranked in order of battle, and tumble them into ruin!" Contades omitted +to add that this astonishing infantry, charging cavalry in open +formation, was scourged during their entire advance by powerful batteries +on their flank. At Quiberon, in the same year, Hawke, amid a tempest, +destroyed a mighty fleet that threatened England with invasion; and on +the heights of Abraham, Wolfe broke the French power in America. "We are +forced," said Horace Walpole, the wit of his day, "to ask every morning +what new victory there is, for fear of missing one." Yet, of all the +great deeds of that <I>annus mirabilis</I>, the victory which overthrew +Montcalm and gave Quebec to England—a victory achieved by the genius of +Pitt and the daring of Wolfe—was, if not the most shining in quality, +the most far-reaching in its results. "With the triumph of Wolfe on the +heights of Abraham," says Green, "began the history of the United States." +</P> + +<P> +The hero of that historic fight wore a singularly unheroic aspect. +Wolfe's face, in the famous picture by West, resembles that of a nervous +and sentimental boy—he was an adjutant at sixteen, and only thirty-three +when he fell, mortally wounded, under the walls of Quebec. His forehead +and chin receded; his nose, tip-tilted heavenwards, formed with his other +features the point of an obtuse triangle. His hair was fiery red, his +shoulders narrow, his legs a pair of attenuated spindle-shanks; he was a +chronic invalid. But between his fiery poll and his plebeian and +upturned nose flashed a pair of eyes—keen, piercing, and steady—worthy +of Caesar or of Napoleon. In warlike genius he was on land as Nelson was +on sea, chivalrous, fiery, intense. A "magnetic" man, with a strange +gift of impressing himself on the imagination of his soldiers, and of so +penetrating the whole force he commanded with his own spirit that in his +hands it became a terrible and almost resistless instrument of war. The +gift for choosing fit agents is one of the highest qualities of genius; +and it is a sign of Pitt's piercing insight into character that, for the +great task of overthrowing the French power in Canada, he chose what +seemed to commonplace vision a rickety, hypochondriacal, and very +youthful colonel like Wolfe. +</P> + +<P> +Pitt's strategy for the American campaign was spacious, not to say +grandiose. A line of strong French posts, ranging from Duquesne, on the +Ohio, to Ticonderoga, on Lake Champlain, held the English settlements on +the coast girdled, as in an iron band, from all extension westward; while +Quebec, perched in almost impregnable strength on the frowning cliffs +which look down on the St. Lawrence, was the centre of the French power +in Canada. Pitt's plan was that Amherst, with 12,000 men, should capture +Ticonderoga; Prideaux, with another powerful force, should carry +Montreal; and Wolfe, with 7000 men, should invest Quebec, where Amherst +and Prideaux were to join him. Two-thirds of this great plan broke down. +Amherst and Prideaux, indeed, succeeded in their local operations, but +neither was able to join Wolfe, who had to carry out with one army the +task for which three were designed. +</P> + +<P> +On June 21, 1759, the advanced squadron of the fleet conveying Wolfe came +working up the St. Lawrence. To deceive the enemy they flew the white +flag, and, as the eight great ships came abreast of the Island of +Orleans, the good people of Quebec persuaded themselves it was a French +fleet bringing supplies and reinforcements. The bells rang a welcome; +flags waved. Boats put eagerly off to greet the approaching ships. But +as these swung round at their anchorage the white flag of France +disappeared, and the red ensign of Great Britain flew in its place. The +crowds, struck suddenly dumb, watched the gleam of the hostile flag with +chap-fallen faces. A priest, who was staring at the ships through a +telescope, actually dropped dead with the excitement and passion created +by the sight of the British fleet. On June 26 the main body of the fleet +bringing Wolfe himself with 7000 troops, was in sight of the lofty cliffs +on which Quebec stands; Cook, afterwards the famous navigator, master of +the <I>Mercury</I>, sounding ahead of the fleet. Wolfe at once seized the +Isle of Orleans, which shelters the basin of Quebec to the east, and +divides the St. Lawrence into two branches, and, with a few officers, +quickly stood on the western point of the isle. At a glance the +desperate nature of the task committed to him was apparent. +</P> + +<A NAME="img-016"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG SRC="images/img-016.jpg" ALT="Siege of Quebec, 1759. From Parkman's "Montcalm & Wolfe."" BORDER="2" WIDTH="612" HEIGHT="376"> +<H3> +[Illustration: Siege of Quebec, 1759. <BR> +From Parkman's "Montcalm & Wolfe."] +</H3> +</CENTER> + +<P> +Quebec stands on the rocky nose of a promontory, shaped roughly like a +bull's-head, looking eastward. The St. Lawrence flows eastward under the +chin of the head; the St. Charles runs, so to speak, down its nose from +the north to meet the St. Lawrence. The city itself stands on lofty +cliffs, and as Wolfe looked upon it on that June evening far away, it was +girt and crowned with batteries. The banks of the St. Lawrence, that +define what we have called the throat of the bull, are precipitous and +lofty, and seem by mere natural strength to defy attack, though it was +just here, by an ant-like track up 250 feet of almost perpendicular +cliff, Wolfe actually climbed to the plains of Abraham. To the east of +Quebec is a curve of lofty shore, seven miles long, between the St. +Charles and the Montmorenci. When Wolfe's eye followed those seven miles +of curving shore, he saw the tents of a French army double his own in +strength, and commanded by the most brilliant French soldier of his +generation, Montcalm. Quebec, in a word, was a great natural fortress, +attacked by 9000 troops and defended by 16,000; and if a daring military +genius urged the English attack, a soldier as daring and well-nigh as +able as Wolfe directed the French defence. +</P> + +<P> +Montcalm gave a proof of his fine quality as a soldier within twenty-four +hours of the appearance of the British fleet. The very afternoon the +British ships dropped anchor a terrific tempest swept over the harbour, +drove the transports from their moorings, dashed the great ships of war +against each other, and wrought immense mischief. The tempest dropped as +quickly as it had arisen. The night fell black and moonless. Towards +midnight the British sentinels on the point of the Isle of Orleans saw +drifting silently through the gloom the outlines of a cluster of ships. +They were eight huge fire-ships, floating mines packed with explosives. +The nerve of the French sailors, fortunately for the British, failed +them, and they fired the ships too soon. But the spectacle of these +flaming monsters as they drifted towards the British fleet was appalling. +The river showed ebony-black under the white flames. The glare lit up +the river cliffs, the roofs of the city, the tents of Montcalm, the +slopes of the distant hills, the black hulls of the British ships. It +was one of the most stupendous exhibitions of fireworks ever witnessed! +But it was almost as harmless as a display of fireworks. The boats from +the British fleet were by this time in the water, and pulling with steady +daring to meet these drifting volcanoes. They were grappled, towed to +the banks, and stranded, and there they spluttered and smoked and flamed +till the white light of the dawn broke over them. The only mischief +achieved by these fire-ships was to burn alive one of their own captains +and five or six of his men, who failed to escape in their boats. +</P> + +<P> +Wolfe, in addition to the Isle of Orleans, seized Point Levi, opposite +the city, and this gave him complete command of the basin of Quebec; from +his batteries on Point Levi, too, he could fire directly on the city, and +destroy it if he could not capture it. He himself landed the main body +of his troops on the east bank of the Montmorenci, Montcalm's position, +strongly entrenched, being between him and the city. Between the two +armies, however, ran the deep gorge through which the swift current of +the Montmorenci rushes down to join the St. Lawrence. The gorge is +barely a gunshot in width, but of stupendous depth. The Montmorenci +tumbles over its rocky bed with a speed that turns the flashing waters +almost to the whiteness of snow. Was there ever a more curious military +position adopted by a great general in the face of superior forces! +Wolfe's tiny army was distributed into three camps: his right wing on the +Montmorenci was six miles distant from his left wing at Point Levi, and +between the centre, on the Isle of Orleans, and the two wings, ran the +two branches of the St. Lawrence. That Wolfe deliberately made such a +distribution of his forces under the very eyes of Montcalm showed his +amazing daring. And yet beyond firing across the Montmorenci on +Montcalm's left wing, and bombarding the city from Point Levi, the +British general could accomplish nothing. Montcalm knew that winter must +compel Wolfe to retreat, and he remained stubbornly but warily on the +defensive. +</P> + +<P> +On July 18 the British performed a daring feat. In the darkness of the +night two of the men-of-war and several sloops ran past the Quebec +batteries and reached the river above the town; they destroyed some +fireships they found there, and cut off Montcalm's communication by water +with Montreal. This rendered it necessary for the French to establish +guards on the line of precipices between Quebec and Cap-Rouge. On July +28 the French repeated the experiment of fire-ships on a still more +gigantic scale. A vast fire-raft was constructed, composed of some +seventy schooners, boats, and rafts, chained together, and loaded with +combustibles and explosives. The fire-raft is described as being 100 +fathoms in length, and its appearance, as it came drifting on the +current, a mass of roaring fire, discharging every instant a shower of +missiles, was terrifying. But the British sailors dashed down upon it, +broke the huge raft into fragments, and towed them easily ashore. "Hang +it, Jack," one sailor was heard to say to his mate as he tugged at the +oar, "didst thee ever take hell in tow before?" +</P> + +<P> +Time was on Montcalm's side, and unless Wolfe could draw him from his +impregnable entrenchments and compel him to fight, the game was lost. +When the tide fell, a stretch of shoal a few score yards wide was left +bare on the French side of the Montmorenci. The slope that covered this +was steep, slippery with grass, crowned by a great battery, and swept by +the cross-fire of entrenchments on either flank. Montcalm, too, holding +the interior lines, could bring to the defence of this point twice the +force with which Wolfe could attack it. Yet to Wolfe's keen eyes this +seemed the one vulnerable point in Montcalm's front, and on July 31 he +made a desperate leap upon it. +</P> + +<P> +The attack was planned with great art. The British batteries thundered +across the Montmorenci, and a feint was made of fording that river higher +up, so as to distract the attention of the French, whilst the boats of +the fleet threatened a landing near Quebec itself. At half-past five the +tide was at its lowest, and the boat-flotilla, swinging round at a +signal, pulled at speed for the patch of muddy foreshore already +selected. The Grenadiers and Royal Americans leaped ashore in the mud, +and—waiting neither for orders, nor leaders, nor supports—dashed up the +hill to storm the redoubt. They reached the first redoubt, tumbled over +it and through it, only to find themselves breathless in a semi-circle of +fire. The men fell fast, but yet struggled fiercely upwards. A furious +storm of rain broke over the combatants at that moment, and made the +steep grass-covered slope as slippery as mere glass. "We could not see +half-way down the hill," writes the French officer in command of the +battery on the summit. But through the smoke and the driving rain they +could still see the Grenadiers and Royal Americans in ragged clusters, +scarce able to stand, yet striving desperately to climb upwards. The +reckless ardour of the Grenadiers had spoiled Wolfe's attack, the sudden +storm helped to save the French, and Wolfe withdrew his broken but +furious battalions, having lost some 500 of his best men and officers. +</P> + +<P> +The exultant French regarded the siege as practically over; but Wolfe was +a man of heroic and quenchless tenacity, and never so dangerous as when +he seemed to be in the last straits. He held doggedly on, in spite of +cold and tempest and disease. His own frail body broke down, and for the +first time the shadow of depression fell on the British camps when they +no longer saw the red head and lean and scraggy body of their general +moving amongst them. For a week, between August 22 and August 29, he lay +apparently a dying man, his face, with its curious angles, white with +pain and haggard with disease. But he struggled out again, and framed +yet new plans of attack. On September 10 the captains of the men-of-war +held a council on board the flagship, and resolved that the approach of +winter required the fleet to leave Quebec without delay. By this time, +too, Wolfe's scanty force was diminished one-seventh by disease or losses +in battle. Wolfe, however had now formed the plan which ultimately gave +him success, though at the cost of his own life. +</P> + +<P> +From a tiny little cove, now known as Wolfe's Cove, five miles to the +west of Quebec, a path, scarcely accessible to a goat, climbs up the face +of the great cliff, nearly 250 feet high. The place was so inaccessible +that only a post of 100 men kept guard over it. Up that track, in the +blackness of the night, Wolfe resolved to lead his army to the attack on +Quebec! It needed the most exquisite combinations to bring the attacking +force to that point from three separate quarters, in the gloom of night, +at a given moment, and without a sound that could alarm the enemy. Wolfe +withdrew his force from the Montmorenci, embarked them on board his +ships, and made every sign of departure. Montcalm mistrusted these +signs, and suspected Wolfe would make at least one more leap on Quebec +before withdrawing. Yet he did not in the least suspect Wolfe's real +designs. He discussed, in fact, the very plan Wolfe adopted, but +dismissed it by saying, "We need not suppose that the enemy have wings." +The British ships were kept moving up and down the river front for +several days, so as to distract and perplex the enemy. On September 12 +Wolfe's plans were complete, and he issued his final orders. One +sentence in them curiously anticipates Nelson's famous signal at +Trafalgar. "Officers and men," wrote Wolfe, "<I>will remember what their +country expects of them</I>." A feint on Beauport, five miles to the east +of Quebec, as evening fell, made Montcalm mass his troops there; but it +was at a point five miles west of Quebec the real attack was directed. +</P> + +<P> +At two o'clock at night two lanterns appeared for a minute in the maintop +shrouds of the <I>Sunderland</I>. It was the signal, and from the fleet, from +the Isle of Orleans, and from Point Levi, the English boats stole +silently out, freighted with some 1700 troops, and converged towards the +point in the black wall of cliffs agreed upon. Wolfe himself was in the +leading boat of the flotilla. As the boats drifted silently through the +darkness on that desperate adventure, Wolfe, to the officers about him, +commenced to recite Gray's "Elegy":— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,</SPAN><BR> +Await alike the inevitable hour.<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">The paths of glory lead but to the grave."</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P> +"Now, gentlemen," he added, "I would rather have written that poem than +take Quebec." Wolfe, in fact, was half poet, half soldier. Suddenly +from the great wall of rock and forest to their left broke the challenge +of a French sentinel—"<I>Qui vive</I>?" A Highland officer of Fraser's +regiment, who spoke French fluently, answered the challenge. "<I>France</I>." +"<I>A quel regiment</I>?" "<I>De la Reine</I>," answered the Highlander. As it +happened the French expected a flotilla of provision boats, and after a +little further dialogue, in which the cool Highlander completely deceived +the French sentries, the British were allowed to slip past in the +darkness. The tiny cove was safely reached, the boats stole silently up +without a blunder, twenty-four volunteers from the Light Infantry leaped +from their boat and led the way in single file up the path, that ran like +a thread along the face of the cliff. Wolfe sat eagerly listening in his +boat below. Suddenly from the summit he saw the flash of the muskets and +heard the stern shout which told him his men were up. A clear, firm +order, and the troops sitting silent in the boats leaped ashore, and the +long file of soldiers, like a chain of ants, went up the face of the +cliff, Wolfe amongst the foremost, and formed in order on the plateau, +the boats meanwhile rowing back at speed to bring up the remainder of the +troops. Wolfe was at last within Montcalm's guard! +</P> + +<P> +When the morning of the 13th dawned, the British army, in line of battle, +stood looking down on Quebec. Montcalm quickly heard the news, and came +riding furiously across the St. Charles and past the city to the scene of +danger. He rode, as those who saw him tell, with a fixed look, and +uttering not a word. The vigilance of months was rendered worthless by +that amazing night escalade. When he reached the slopes Montcalm saw +before him the silent red wall of British infantry, the Highlanders with +waving tartans and wind-blown plumes—all in battle array. It was not a +detachment, but an army! +</P> + +<P> +The fight lasted fifteen minutes, and might be told in almost as many +words. Montcalm brought on his men in three powerful columns, in number +double that of Wolfe's force. The British troops stood grimly silent, +though they were tormented by the fire of Indians and Canadians lying in +the grass. The French advanced eagerly, with a tumult of shouts and a +confused fire; the British moved forward a few rods, halted, dressed +their lines, and when the French were within forty paces threw in one +fierce volley, so sharply timed that the explosion of 4000 muskets +sounded like the sudden blast of a cannon. Again, again, and yet again, +the flame ran from end to end of the steadfast hue. When the smoke +lifted, the French column were wrecked. The British instantly charged. +The spirit of the clan awoke in Fraser's Highlanders: they flung aside +their muskets, drew their broadswords, and with a fierce Celtic slogan +rushed on the enemy. Never was a charge pressed more ruthlessly home. +After the fight one of the British officers wrote: "There was not a +bayonet in the three leading British regiments, nor a broadsword amongst +the Highlanders, that was not crimson with the blood of a foeman." Wolfe +himself charged at the head of the Grenadiers, his bright uniform making +him conspicuous. He was shot in the wrist, wrapped a handkerchief round +the wound, and still ran forward. Two other bullets struck him—one, it +is said, fired by a British deserter, a sergeant broken by Wolfe for +brutality to a private. "Don't let the soldiers see me drop," said +Wolfe, as he fell, to an officer running beside him. An officer of the +Grenadiers, a gentleman volunteer, and a private carried Wolfe to a +redoubt near. He refused to allow a surgeon to be called. "There is no +need," he said, "it is all over with me." Then one of the little group, +casting a look at the smoke-covered battlefield, cried, "They run! See +how they run!" "Who run?" said the dying Wolfe, like a man roused from +sleep. "The enemy, sir," was the answer. A flash of life came back to +Wolfe; the eager spirit thrust from it the swoon of death; he gave a +clear, emphatic order for cutting off the enemy's retreat; then, turning +on his side, he added, "Now God be praised; I die in peace." +</P> + +<P> +That fight determined that the North American continent should be the +heritage of the Anglo-Saxon race. And, somehow, the popular instinct, +when the news reached England, realised the historic significance of the +event. "When we first heard of Wolfe's glorious deed," writes Thackeray +in "The Virginians"—"of that army marshalled in darkness and carried +silently up the midnight river—of those rocks scaled by the intrepid +leader and his troops—of the defeat of Montcalm on the open plain by the +sheer valour of his conqueror—we were all intoxicated in England by the +news." Not merely all London but half England flamed into illuminations. +One spot alone was dark—Blackheath, where, solitary amidst a rejoicing +nation, Wolfe's mother mourned for her heroic son—like Milton's +Lycidas—"dead ere his prime." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap03"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE GREAT LORD HAWKE +</H3> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +THE ENGLISH FLAG +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"What is the flag of England? Winds of the world, declare!<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="letter-spacing: 2em">********</SPAN><BR> +The lean white bear hath seen it in the long, long Arctic night,<BR> +The musk-ox knows the standard that flouts the Northern light.<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="letter-spacing: 2em">********</SPAN><BR> +Never was isle so little, never was sea so lone,<BR> +But over the scud and the palm-trees an English flag has flown.<BR> +I have wrenched it free from the halliard to hang for a wisp on the Horn;<BR> +I have chased it north to the Lizard—ribboned and rolled and torn;<BR> +I have spread its folds o'er the dying, adrift in a hopeless sea;<BR> +I have hurled it swift on the slaver, and seen the slave set free.<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="letter-spacing: 2em">********</SPAN><BR> +Never the lotos closes, never the wild-fowl wake,<BR> +But a soul goes out on the East Wind, that died for England's sake—<BR> +Man or woman or suckling, mother or bride or maid—<BR> +Because on the bones of the English, the English flag is stayed.<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="letter-spacing: 2em">********</SPAN><BR> +The dead dumb fog hath wrapped it—the frozen dews have kissed—<BR> +The naked stars have seen it, a fellow-star in the mist.<BR> +What is the flag of England? Ye have but my breath to dare;<BR> +Ye have but my waves to conquer. Go forth, for it is there!"<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 5em">—KIPLING.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"The great Lord Hawke" is Burke's phrase, and is one of the best-earned +epithets in literature. Yet what does the average Englishman to-day +remember of the great sailor who, through the bitter November gales of +1759, kept dogged and tireless watch over the French fleet in Brest, +destroyed that fleet with heroic daring amongst the sands of Quiberon, +while the fury of a Bay of Biscay tempest almost drowned the roar of +his guns, and so crushed a threatened invasion of England? +</P> + +<P> +Hawke has been thrown by all-devouring Time into his wallet as mere +"alms for oblivion"; yet amongst all the sea-dogs who ever sailed +beneath "the blood-red flag" no one ever less deserved that fate. +Campbell, in "Ye Mariners of England," groups "Blake and mighty Nelson" +together as the two great typical English sailors. Hawke stands midway +betwixt them, in point both of time and of achievements, though he had +more in him of Blake than of Nelson. He lacked, no doubt, the dazzling +electric strain that ran through the war-like genius of Nelson. +Hawke's fighting quality was of the grim, dour home-spun character; but +it was a true genius for battle, and as long as Great Britain is a +sea-power the memory of the great sailor who crushed Gentians off +Quiberon deserves to live. +</P> + +<P> +Hawke, too, was a great man in the age of little men. The fame of the +English navy had sunk to the lowest point. Its ships were rotten; its +captains had lost the fighting tradition; its fleets were paralysed by +a childish system of tactics which made a decisive battle almost +impossible. Hawke describes the <I>Portland</I>, a ship of which he was in +command, as "iron-sick"; the wood was too rotten, that is, to hold the +iron bolts, so that "not a man in the ship had a dry place to sleep +in." His men were "tumbling down with scurvy"; his mainmast was so +pulverised by dry rot that a walking-stick could be thrust into it. Of +another ship, the <I>Ramilies</I>—his favourite ship, too—he says, "It +became water-logged whenever it blowed hard." The ships' bottoms grew +a rank crop of grass, slime, shells, barnacles, &c., till the sluggish +vessels needed almost a gale to move them. Marines were not yet +invented; the navy had no uniform. The French ships of that day were +better built, better armed, and sometimes better fought than British +ships. A British 70-gun ship in armament and weight of fire was only +equal to a French ship of 52 guns. Every considerable fight was +promptly followed by a crop of court-martials, in which captains were +tried for misconduct before the enemy, such as to-day is unthinkable. +Admiral Matthews was broken by court-martial for having, with an excess +of daring, pierced the French line off Toulon, and thus sacrificed +pedantic tactics to victory. But the list of court-martials held +during the second quarter of the eighteenth century on British captains +for beginning to fight too late, or for leaving off too soon, would, if +published, astonish this generation. After the fight off Toulon in +1744, two admirals and six post-captains were court-martialled. +Admiral Byng was shot on his own deck, not exactly as Voltaire's <I>mot</I> +describes it, <I>pour encourager les autres</I>, and not quite for +cowardice, for Byng was no coward. But he had no gleam of unselfish +patriotic fire, and nothing of the gallant fighting impulse we have +learned to believe is characteristic of the British sailor. He lost +Minorca, and disgraced the British flag because he was too dainty to +face the stern discomforts of a fight. The corrupt and ignoble temper +of English politics—the legacy of Walpole's evil régime—poisoned the +blood of the navy. No one can have forgotten Macaulay's picture of +Newcastle, at that moment Prime Minister of England; the sly, greedy, +fawning politician, as corrupt as Walpole, without his genius; without +honour, without truth, who loved office only less than he loved his own +neck. A Prime Minister like Newcastle made possible an admiral like +Byng. Horace Walpole tells the story of how, when the much-enduring +British public broke into one of its rare but terrible fits of passion +after the disgrace of Minorca, and Newcastle was trembling for his own +head, a deputation from the city of London waited upon him, demanding +that Byng should be put upon his trial. "Oh, indeed," replied +Newcastle, with fawning gestures, "he shall be tried immediately. He +shall be hanged directly!" It was an age of base men, and the +navy—neglected, starved, dishonoured—had lost the great traditions of +the past, and did not yet feel the thrill of the nobler spirit soon to +sweep over it. +</P> + +<P> +But in 1759 the dazzling intellect and masterful will of the first Pitt +controlled the fortunes of England, and the spirit of the nation was +beginning to awake. Burns and Wilberforce and the younger Pitt were +born that year; Minden was fought; Wolfe saw with dying eyes the French +battalions broken on the plains of Abraham and Canada won. But the +great event of the year is Hawke's defeat of Conflans off Quiberon. +Hawke was the son of a barrister; he entered the navy at fourteen years +of age as a volunteer, obtained the rating of an able seaman at +nineteen years of age, was a third lieutenant at twenty-four, and +became captain at thirty. He knew the details of his profession as +well as any sea-dog of the forecastle, was quite modern in the keen and +humane interest he took in his men, had something of Wellington's +high-minded allegiance to duty, while his fighting had a stern but +sober thoroughness worthy of Cromwell's Ironsides. The British people +came to realise that he was a sailor with the strain of a bulldog in +him; an indomitable fighter, who, ordered to blockade a hostile port, +would hang on, in spite of storms and scurvy, while he had a man left +who could pull a rope or fire a gun; a fighter, too, of the type dear +to the British imagination, who took the shortest course to the enemy's +line, and would exchange broadsides at pistol-shot distance while his +ship floated. +</P> + +<P> +In 1759 a great French army threatened the shores of England. At Havre +and Dunkirk huge flotillas of flat-bottomed boats lay at their +moorings; 18,000 French veterans were ready to embark. A great fleet +under the command of Conflans—one of the ablest seamen France has ever +produced—was gathered at Brest. A French squadron was to break out of +Toulon, join Conflans, sweep the narrow seas, and convoy the French +expedition to English shores. The strategy, if it had succeeded, might +have changed the fate of the world. +</P> + +<P> +To Hawke was entrusted the task of blockading Conflans in Brest, and a +greater feat of seamanship is not to be found in British records. The +French fleet consisted of 25 ships, manned by 15,200 men, and carrying +1598 guns. The British fleet numbered 23 ships, with 13,295 men, and +carrying 1596 guns. The two fleets, that is, were nearly equal, the +advantage, on the whole, being on the side of the French. Hawke +therefore had to blockade a fleet equal to his own, the French ships +lying snugly in harbour, the English ships scourged by November gales +and rolling in the huge seas of the Bay of Biscay. Sir Cloudesley +Shovel, himself a seaman of the highest quality, said that "an admiral +would deserve to be broke who kept great ships out after the end of +September, and to be shot if after October." Hawke maintained his +blockade of Brest for six months. His captains broke down in health, +his men were dying from scurvy, the bottoms of his ships grew foul; it +was a stormy season in the stormiest of seas. Again and again the wild +north-west gales blew the British admiral off his cruising ground. But +he fought his way back, sent his ships, singly or in couples, to Torbay +or Plymouth for a moment's breathing space, but himself held on, with a +grim courage and an unslumbering vigilance which have never been +surpassed. On November 6, a tremendous westerly gale swept over the +English cruising-ground. Hawke battled with it for three days, and +then ran, storm-driven and half-dismantled, to Torbay for shelter on +the 10th. He put to sea again on the 12th. The gale had veered round +to the south-west, but blew as furiously as ever, and Hawke was once +more driven back on the 13th to Torbay. He struggled out again on the +14th, to find that the French had escaped! The gale that blew Hawke +from his post brought a French squadron down the Channel, which ran +into Brest and joined Conflans there; and on the 14th, when Hawke was +desperately fighting his way back to his post, Conflans put to sea, +and, with the gale behind him, ran on his course to Quiberon. There he +hoped to brush aside the squadron keeping guard over the French +transports, embark the powerful French force assembled there, and swoop +down on the English coast. The wild weather, Conflans reckoned, would +keep Hawke storm-bound in Torbay till this scheme was carried out. +</P> + +<P> +But Hawke with his whole fleet, fighting his way in the teeth of the +gale, reached Ushant on the very day Conflans broke out of Brest, and, +fast as the French fleet ran before the gale, the white sails of +Hawke's ships, showing over the stormy rim of the horizon, came on the +Frenchman's track. Hawke's frigates, outrunning those heavy +sea-waggons, his line-of-battle ships, hung on Conflans' rear. The +main body of the British fleet followed, staggering under their +pyramids of sails, with wet decks and the wild north-west gale on their +quarter. Hawke's best sailers gained steadily on the laggards of +Conflans' fleet. Had Hawke obeyed the puerile tactics of his day he +would have dressed his line and refused to attack at all unless he +could bring his entire fleet into action. But, as Hawke himself said +afterwards, he "had determined to attack them in the old way and make +downright work of them," and he signalled his leading ships to attack +the moment they brought an enemy's ship within fire. Conflans could +not abandon his slower ships, and he reluctantly swung round his van +and formed line to meet the attack. +</P> + +<P> +As the main body of the English came up, the French admiral suddenly +adopted a strategy which might well have baffled a less daring +adversary than Hawke. He ran boldly in shore towards the mouth of the +Vilaine. It was a wild stretch of most dangerous coast; the granite +Breton hills above; splinters of rocky islets, on which the huge sea +rollers tore themselves into white foam, below; and more dangerous +still, and stretching far out to sea, wide reaches of shoal and +quicksand. From the north-west the gale blew more wildly than ever; +the sky was black with flying clouds; on the Breton hills the +spectators clustered in thousands. The roar of the furious breakers +and the shrill note of the gale filled the very air with tumult. +Conflans had pilots familiar with the coast, yet it was bold seamanship +on his part to run down to a lee shore on such a day of tempest. Hawke +had no pilots and no charts; but he saw before him, half hidden in mist +and spray, the great hulls of the ships over which he had kept watch so +long in Brest harbour, and he anticipated Nelson's strategy forty years +afterwards. "Where there is room for the enemy to swing," said Nelson, +"there is room for me to anchor." "Where there's a passage for the +enemy," argued Hawke, "there is a passage for me! Where a Frenchman +can sail, an Englishman can follow! Their pilots shall be ours. If +they go to pieces in the shoals, they will serve as beacons for us." +</P> + +<P> +And so, on the wild November afternoon, with the great billows that the +Bay of Biscay hurls on that stretch of iron-bound coast riding +shoreward in league-long rollers, Hawke flung himself into the boiling +caldron of rocks and shoals and quicksands. No more daring deed was +ever done at sea. Measured by mere fighting courage, there were +thousands of men in the British fleet as brave as Hawke. But the iron +nerve that, without an instant's pause, in a scene so wild, on a shore +so perilous, and a sea sown so thick with unknown dangers, flung a +whole fleet into battle, was probably possessed by no other man than +Hawke amongst the 30,000 gallant sailors who fought at Quiberon. +</P> + +<P> +The fight, taking all its incidents into account, is perhaps as +dramatic as anything known in the history of war. The British ships +came rolling on, grim and silent, throwing huge sheets of spray from +their bluff bows. An 80-gun French ship, <I>Le Formidable</I>, lay in their +track, and each huge British liner, as it swept past to attack the main +body of the French, vomited on the unfortunate <I>Le Formidable</I> a +dreadful broadside. And upon each British ship, in turn, as it rolled +past in spray and flame, the gallant Frenchman flung an answering +broadside. Soon the thunder of the guns deepened as ship after ship +found its antagonist. The short November day was already darkening; +the thunder of surf and of tempest answered in yet wilder notes the +deep-throated guns; the wildly rolling fleets offered one of the +strangest sights the sea has ever witnessed. +</P> + +<P> +Soon Hawke himself, in the <I>Royal George</I>, of 100 guns, came on, stern +and majestic, seeking some fitting antagonist. This was the great ship +that afterwards sank ignobly at its anchorage at Spithead, with "twice +four hundred men," a tale which, for every English boy, is made famous +in Cowper's immortal ballad. But what an image of terror and of battle +the <I>Royal George</I> seemed as in the bitter November storm she bore down +on the French fleet! Hawke disdained meaner foes, and bade his pilot +lay him alongside Conflans' flagship, <I>Le Soleil Royal</I>. Shoals were +foaming on every side, and the pilot warned Hawke he could not carry +the <I>Royal George</I> farther in without risking the ship. "You have done +your duty," said Hawke, "in pointing out the risk; and now lay me +alongside of <I>Le Soleil Royal</I>." +</P> + +<P> +A French 70-gun ship, <I>La Superbe</I>, threw itself betwixt Hawke and +Conflans. Slowly the huge mass of the <I>Royal George</I> bore up, so as to +bring its broadside to bear on <I>La Superbe</I>, and then the English guns +broke into a tempest of flame. Through spray and mist the masts of the +unfortunate Frenchman seemed to tumble; a tempest of cries was heard; +the British sailors ran back their guns to reload. A sudden gust +cleared the atmosphere, and <I>La Superbe</I> had vanished. Her top-masts +gleamed wet, for a moment, through the green seas, but with her crew of +650 men she had sunk, as though crushed by a thunderbolt, beneath a +single broadside from the <I>Royal George</I>. Then from the nearer hills +the crowds of French spectators saw Hawke's blue flag and Conflans' +white pennon approach each other, and the two great ships, with +slanting decks and fluttering canvas, and rigging blown to leeward, +began their fierce duel. Other French ships crowded to their admiral's +aid, and at one time no less than seven French line-of-battle ships +were pouring their fire into the mighty and shot-torn bulk of the +<I>Royal George</I>. +</P> + +<P> +Howe, in the <I>Magnanime</I>, was engaged in fierce conflict, meanwhile, +with the <I>Thesée</I>, when a sister English ship, the <I>Montague</I>, was +flung by a huge sea on the quarter of Howe's ship, and practically +disabled it. The <I>Torbay</I>, under Captain Keppel, took Howe's place +with the <I>Thesée</I>, and both ships had their lower-deck ports open, so +as to fight with their heaviest guns. The unfortunate Frenchman rolled +to a great sea; the wide-open ports dipped, the green water rushed +through, quenched the fire of the guns, and swept the sailors from +their quarters. The great ship shivered, rolled over still more +wildly, and then, with 700 men, went down like a stone. The British +ship, with better luck and better seamanship, got its ports closed and +was saved. Several French ships by this time had struck, but the sea +was too wild to allow them to be taken possession of. Night was +falling fast, the roar of the tempest still deepened, and no less than +seven huge French liners, throwing their guns overboard, ran for +shelter across the bar of the Vilaine, the pursuing English following +them almost within reach of the spray flung from the rocks. Hawke +then, by signals, brought his fleet to anchor for the night under the +lee of the island of Dumet. +</P> + +<P> +It was a wild night, filled with the thunder of the surf and the shriek +of the gale, and all through it, as the English ships rode, madly +straining at their anchors, they could hear the sounds of distress +guns. One of the ships that perished that night was a fine English +seventy-four, the <I>Resolution</I>. The morning broke as wild as the +night. To leeward two great line-of-battle ships could be seen on the +rocks; but in the very middle of the English fleet, its masts gone, its +hull battered with shot, was the flagship of Conflans, <I>Le Soleil +Royal</I>. In the darkness and tempest of the night the unfortunate +Frenchman, all unwitting, had anchored in the very midst of his foes. +As soon as, through the grey and misty light of the November dawn, the +English ships were discovered, Conflans cut his cables and drifted +ashore. The <I>Essex</I>, 64 guns, was ordered to pursue her, and her +captain, an impetuous Irishman, obeyed his orders so literally that he +too ran ashore, and the <I>Essex</I> became a total wreck. +</P> + +<P> +"When I consider," Hawke wrote to the Admiralty, "the season of the +year, the hard gales on the day of action, a flying enemy, the +shortness of the day, and the coast they were on, I can boldly affirm +that all that could possibly be done has been done." History confirms +that judgment. There is no other record of a great sea-fight fought +under conditions so wild, and scarcely any other sea-battle has +achieved results more decisive. Trafalgar itself scarcely exceeds it +in the quality of effectiveness. Quiberon saved England from invasion. +It destroyed for the moment the naval power of France. Its political +results in France cannot be described here, but they were of the first +importance. The victory gave a new complexion to English naval +warfare. Rodney and Howe were Hawke's pupils, Nelson himself, who was +a post-captain when Hawke died, learned his tactics in Hawke's school. +No sailor ever served England better than Hawke. And yet, such is the +irony of human affairs, that on the very day when Hawke was adding the +thunder of his guns to the diapason of surf and tempest off Quiberon, +and crushing the fleet that threatened England with invasion, a London +mob was burning his effigy for having allowed the French to escape his +blockade. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap04"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE NIGHT ATTACK ON BADAJOS +</H3> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Hand to hand, and foot to foot;<BR> +Nothing there, save death, was mute:<BR> +Stroke, and thrust, and flash, and cry<BR> +For quarter or for victory,<BR> +Mingle there with the volleying thunder,<BR> +Which makes the distant cities wonder<BR> +How the sounding battle goes,<BR> +If with them, or for their foes;<BR> +If they must mourn, or must rejoice<BR> +In that annihilating voice,<BR> +Which pierces the deep hills through and through<BR> +With an echo dread and new.<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="letter-spacing: 2em">******</SPAN><BR> +From the point of encountering blades to the hilt,<BR> +Sabres and swords with blood were gilt;<BR> +But the rampart is won, and the spoil begun,<BR> +And all but the after carnage done."<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 5em">—BYRON.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +It would be difficult to find in the whole history of war a more +thrilling and heroic chapter than that which tells the story of the six +great campaigns of the Peninsular war. This was, perhaps, the least +selfish war of which history tells. It was not a war of aggrandisement +or of conquest: it was waged to deliver not merely Spain, but the whole +of Europe, from that military despotism with which the genius and +ambition of Napoleon threatened to overwhelm the civilised world. And +on what a scale Great Britain, when aroused, can fight, let the +Peninsular war tell. At its close the fleets of Great Britain rode +triumphant on every sea; and in the Peninsula between 1808-14 her land +forces fought and won nineteen pitched battles, made or sustained ten +fierce and bloody sieges, took four great fortresses, twice expelled +the French from Portugal and once from Spain. Great Britain expended +in these campaigns more than 100,000,000 pounds sterling on her own +troops, besides subsidising the forces of Spain and Portugal. This +"nation of shopkeepers" proved that when kindled to action it could +wage war on a scale and in a fashion that might have moved the wonder +of Alexander or of Caesar, and from motives, it may be added, too lofty +for either Caesar or Alexander so much as to comprehend. It is worth +while to tell afresh the story of some of the more picturesque +incidents in that great strife. +</P> + +<A NAME="img-041"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG SRC="images/img-041.jpg" ALT="Siege of Badajos, 1812. From Napier's "Peninsular War."" BORDER="2" WIDTH="389" HEIGHT="595"> +<H3> +[Illustration: Siege of Badajos, 1812. <BR> +From Napier's "Peninsular War."] +</H3> +</CENTER> + +<P> +On April 6, 1812, Badajos was stormed by Wellington; and the story +forms one of the most tragical and splendid incidents in the military +history of the world. Of "the night of horrors at Badajos," Napier +says, "posterity can scarcely be expected to credit the tale." No +tale, however, is better authenticated, or, as an example of what +disciplined human valour is capable of achieving, better deserves to be +told. Wellington was preparing for his great forward movement into +Spain, the campaign which led to Salamanca, the battle in which "40,000 +Frenchmen were beaten in forty minutes." As a preliminary he had to +capture, under the vigilant eyes of Soult and Marmont, the two great +border fortresses, Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajos. He had, to use Napier's +phrase, "jumped with both feet" on the first-named fortress, and +captured it in twelve days with a loss of 1200 men and 90 officers. +</P> + +<P> +But Badajos was a still harder task. The city stands on a rocky ridge +which forms the last spur of the Toledo range, and is of extraordinary +strength. The river Rivillas falls almost at right angles into the +Guadiana, and in the angle formed by their junction stands Badajos, +oval in shape, girdled with elaborate defences, with the Guadiana 500 +yards wide as its defence to the north, the Rivillas serving as a wet +ditch to the east, and no less than five great fortified +outposts—Saint Roque, Christoval, Picurina, Pardaleras, and a +fortified bridge-head across the Guadiana—as the outer zone of its +defences. Twice the English had already assailed Badajos, but assailed +it in vain. It was now held by a garrison 5000 strong, under a +soldier, General Phillipson, with a real genius for defence, and the +utmost art had been employed in adding to its defences. On the other +hand Wellington had no means of transport and no battery train, and had +to make all his preparations under the keen-eyed vigilance of the +French. Perhaps the strangest collection of artillery ever employed in +a great siege was that which Wellington collected from every available +quarter and used at Badajos. Of the fifty-two pieces, some dated from +the days of Philip II. and the Spanish Armada, some were cast in the +reign of Philip III., others in that of John IV. of Portugal, who +reigned in 1640; there were 24-pounders of George II.'s day, and +Russian naval guns; the bulk of the extraordinary medley being obsolete +brass engines which required from seven to ten minutes to cool between +each discharge. +</P> + +<P> +Wellington, however, was strong in his own warlike genius and in the +quality of the troops he commanded. He employed 18,000 men in the +siege, and it may well be doubted whether—if we put the question of +equipment aside—a more perfect fighting instrument than the force +under his orders ever existed. The men were veterans, but the officers +on the whole were young, so there was steadiness in the ranks and fire +in the leading. Hill and Graham covered the siege, Picton and Barnard, +Kempt and Colville led the assaults. The trenches were held by the +third, fourth, and fifth divisions, and by the famous light division. +Of the latter it has been said that the Macedonian phalanx of Alexander +the Great, the Tenth Legion of Caesar, the famous Spanish infantry of +Alva, or the iron soldiers who followed Cortes to Mexico, did not +exceed it in warlike quality. Wellington's troops, too, had a personal +grudge against Badajos, and had two defeats to avenge. Perhaps no +siege in history, as a matter of fact, ever witnessed either more +furious valour in the assault, or more of cool and skilled courage in +the defence. The siege lasted exactly twenty days, and cost the +besiegers 5000 men, or an average loss of 250 per day. It was waged +throughout in stormy weather, with the rivers steadily rising, and the +tempests perpetually blowing; yet the thunder of the attack never +paused for an instant. +</P> + +<P> +Wellington's engineers attacked the city at the eastern end of the +oval, where the Rivillas served it as a gigantic wet ditch; and the +Picurina, a fortified hill, ringed by a ditch fourteen feet deep, a +rampart sixteen feet high, and a zone of mines, acted as an outwork. +Wellington, curiously enough, believed in night attacks, a sure proof +of his faith in the quality of the men he commanded; and on the eighth +night of the siege, at nine o'clock, 500 men of the third division were +suddenly flung on the Picurina. The fort broke into a ring of flame, +by the light of which the dark figures of the stormers were seen +leaping with fierce hardihood into the ditch and struggling madly up +the ramparts, or tearing furiously at the palisades. But the defences +were strong, and the assailants fell literally in scores. Napier tells +how "the axemen of the light division, compassing the fort like +prowling wolves," discovered the gate at the rear, and so broke into +the fort. The engineer officer who led the attack declares that "the +place would never have been taken had it not been for the coolness of +these men" in absolutely walking round the fort to its rear, +discovering the gate, and hewing it down under a tempest of bullets. +The assault lasted an hour, and in that period, out of the 500 men who +attacked, no less than 300, with 19 officers, were killed or wounded! +Three men out of every five in the attacking force, that is, were +disabled, and yet they won! +</P> + +<P> +There followed twelve days of furious industry, of trenches pushed +tirelessly forward through mud and wet, and of cannonading that only +ceased when the guns grew too hot to be used. Captain MacCarthy, of +the 50th Regiment, has left a curious little monograph on the siege, +full of incidents, half tragic and half amusing, but which show the +temper of Wellington's troops. Thus he tells how an engineer officer, +when marking out the ground for a breaching-battery very near the wall, +which was always lined with French soldiers in eager search of human +targets, "used to challenge them to prove the perfection of their +shooting by lifting up the skirts of his coat in defiance several times +in the course of his survey; driving in his stakes and measuring his +distances with great deliberation, and concluding by an extra shake of +his coat-tails and an ironical bow before he stepped under shelter!" +</P> + +<P> +On the night of April 6, Wellington determined to assault. No less +than seven attacks were to be delivered. Two of them—on the +bridge-head across the Guadiana and on the Pardaleras—were mere +feints. But on the extreme right Picton with the third division was to +cross the Rivillas and escalade the castle, whose walls rose +time-stained and grim, from eighteen to twenty-four feet high. Leith +with the fifth division was to attack the opposite or western extremity +of the town, the bastion of St. Vincente, where the glacis was mined, +the ditch deep, and the scarp thirty feet high. Against the actual +breaches Colville and Andrew Barnard were to lead the light division +and the fourth division, the former attacking the bastion of Santa +Maria and the latter the Trinidad. The hour was fixed for ten o'clock, +and the story of that night attack, as told in Napier's immortal prose, +is one of the great battle-pictures of literature; and any one who +tries to tell the tale will find himself slipping insensibly into +Napier's cadences. +</P> + +<P> +The night was black; a strange silence lay on rampart and trench, +broken from time to time by the deep voices of the sentinels that +proclaimed all was well in Badajos. "<I>Sentinelle garde à vous</I>," the +cry of the sentinels, was translated by the British private as "All's +well in Badahoo!" A lighted carcass thrown from the castle discovered +Picton's men standing in ordered array, and compelled them to attack at +once. MacCarthy, who acted as guide across the tangle of wet trenches +and the narrow bridge that spanned the Rivillas, has left an amusing +account of the scene. At one time Picton declared MacCarthy was +leading them wrong, and, drawing his sword, swore he would cut him +down. The column reached the trench, however, at the foot of the +castle walls, and was instantly overwhelmed with the fire of the +besieged. MacCarthy says we can only picture the scene by "supposing +that all the stars, planets, and meteors of the firmament, with +innumerable moons emitting smaller ones in their course, were +descending on the heads of the besiegers." MacCarthy himself, a +typical and gallant Irishman, addressed his general with the exultant +remark, "Tis a glorious night, sir—a glorious night!" and, rushing +forward to the head of the stormers, shouted, "Up with the ladders!" +The five ladders were raised, the troops swarmed up, an officer +leading, but the first files were at once crushed by cannon fire, and +the ladders slipped into the angle of the abutments. "Dreadful their +fall," records MacCarthy of the slaughtered stormers, "and appalling +their appearance at daylight." One ladder remained, and, a private +soldier leading, the eager red-coated crowd swarmed up it. The brave +fellow leading was shot as soon as his head appeared above the parapet; +but the next man to him—again a private—leaped over the parapet, and +was followed quickly by others, and this thin stream of desperate men +climbed singly, and in the teeth of the flashing musketry, up that +solitary ladder, and carried the castle. +</P> + +<P> +In the meanwhile the fourth and light divisions had flung themselves +with cool and silent speed on the breaches. The storming party of each +division leaped into the ditch. It was mined, the fuse was kindled, +and the ditch, crowded with eager soldiery, became in a moment a sort +of flaming crater, and the storming parties, 500 strong, were in one +fierce explosion dashed to pieces. In the light of that dreadful flame +the whole scene became visible—the black ramparts, crowded with dark +figures and glittering arms, on the one side; on the other the red +columns of the British, broad and deep, moving steadily forward like a +stream of human lava. The light division stood at the brink of the +smoking ditch for an instant, amazed at the sight. "Then," says +Napier, "with a shout that matched even the sound of the explosion," +they leaped into it and swarmed up to the breach. The fourth division +came running up and descended with equal fury, but the ditch opposite +the Trinidad was filled with water; the head of the division leaped +into it, and, as Napier puts it, "about 100 of the fusiliers, the men +of Albuera, perished there." The breaches were impassable. Across the +top of the great slope of broken wall glittered a fringe of +sword-blades, sharp-pointed, keen-edged on both sides, fixed in +ponderous beams chained together and set deep in the ruins. For ten +feet in front the ascent was covered with loose planks, studded with +sharp iron points. Behind the glittering edge of sword-blades stood +the solid ranks of the French, each man supplied with three muskets, +and their fire scourged the British ranks like a tempest. +</P> + +<P> +Hundreds had fallen, hundreds were still falling; but the British clung +doggedly to the lower slopes, and every few minutes an officer would +leap forward with a shout, a swarm of men would instantly follow him, +and, like leaves blown by a whirlwind, they swept up the ascent. But +under the incessant fire of the French the assailants melted away. One +private reached the sword-blades, and actually thrust his head beneath +them till his brains were beaten out, so desperate was his resolve to +get into Badajos. The breach, as Napier describes it, "yawning and +glittering with steel, resembled the mouth of a huge dragon belching +forth smoke and flame." But for two hours, and until 2000 men had +fallen, the stubborn British persisted in their attacks. Currie, of +the 52nd, a cool and most daring soldier, found a narrow ramp beyond +the Santa Maria breach only half-ruined; he forced his way back through +the tumult and carnage to where Wellington stood watching the scene, +obtained an unbroken battalion from the reserve, and led it towards the +broken ramp. But his men were caught in the whirling madness of the +ditch and swallowed up in the tumult. Nicholas, of the engineers, and +Shaw, of the 43rd, with some fifty soldiers, actually climbed into the +Santa Maria bastion, and from thence tried to force their way into the +breach. Every man was shot down except Shaw, who stood alone on the +bastion. "With inexpressible coolness he looked at his watch, said it +was too late to carry the breaches," and then leaped down! The British +could not penetrate the breach; but they would not retreat. They could +only die where they stood. The buglers of the reserve were sent to the +crest of the glacis to sound the retreat; the troops in the ditch would +not believe the signal to be genuine, and struck their own buglers who +attempted to repeat it. "Gathering in dark groups, and leaning on +their muskets," says Napier, "they looked up in sullen desperation at +Trinidad, while the enemy, stepping out on the ramparts, and aiming +their shots by the light of fireballs, which they threw over, asked as +their victims fell, 'Why they did not come into Badajos.'" +</P> + +<P> +All this while, curiously enough, Picton was actually in Badajos, and +held the castle securely, but made no attempt to clear the breach. On +the extreme west of the town, however, at the bastion of San Vincente, +the fifth division made an attack as desperate as that which was +failing at the breaches. When the stormers actually reached the +bastion, the Portuguese battalions, who formed part of the attack, +dismayed by the tremendous fire which broke out on them, flung down +their ladders and fled. The British, however, snatched the ladders up, +forced the barrier, jumped into the ditch, and tried to climb the +walls. These were thirty feet high, and the ladders were too short. A +mine was sprung in the ditch under the soldiers' feet; beams of wood, +stones, broken waggons, and live shells were poured upon their heads +from above. Showers of grape from the flank swept the ditch. +</P> + +<P> +The stubborn soldiers, however, discovered a low spot in the rampart, +placed three ladders against it, and climbed with reckless valour. The +first man was pushed up by his comrades; he, in turn, dragged others +up, and the unconquerable British at length broke through and swept the +bastion. The tumult still stormed and raged at the eastern breaches, +where the men of the light and fourth division were dying sullenly, and +the men of the fifth division marched at speed across the town to take +the great eastern breach in the rear. The streets were empty, but the +silent houses were bright with lamps. The men of the fifth pressed on; +they captured mules carrying ammunition to the breaches, and the +French, startled by the tramp of the fast-approaching column, and +finding themselves taken in the rear, fled. The light and fourth +divisions broke through the gap hitherto barred by flame and steel, and +Badajos was won! +</P> + +<P> +In that dreadful night assault the English lost 3500 men. "Let it be +considered," says Napier, "that this frightful carnage took place in +the space of less than a hundred yards square—that the slain died not +all suddenly, nor by one manner of death—that some perished by steel, +some by shot, some by water; that some were crushed and mangled by +heavy weights, some trampled upon, some dashed to atoms by the fiery +explosions—that for hours this destruction was endured without +shrinking, and the town was won at last. Let these things be +considered, and it must be admitted a British army bears with it an +awful power. And false would it be to say the French were feeble men. +The garrison stood and fought manfully and with good discipline, +behaving worthily. Shame there was none on any side. Yet who shall do +justice to the bravery of the British soldiers or the noble emulation +of the officers?… No age, no nation, ever sent forth braver +troops to battle than those who stormed Badajos." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap05"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE FIRE-SHIPS IN THE BASQUE ROADS +</H3> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Ship after ship, the whole night long, their high-built galleons came;<BR> +Ship after ship, the whole night long, with her battle-thunder and flame;<BR> +Ship after ship, the whole night long, drew back with her dead and her shame.<BR> +For some were sunk and many were shattered, and so could fight us no more—<BR> +God of battles, was ever a battle like this in the world before?"<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 5em">—TENNYSON.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +On the night of April 11, 1809, Lord Cochrane steered his floating mine +against the gigantic boom that covered the French fleet lying in Aix +Roads. The story is one of the most picturesque and exciting in the +naval annals of Great Britain. Marryat has embalmed the great +adventure and its chief actor in the pages of "Frank Mildmay," and Lord +Cochrane himself—like the Earl of Peterborough in the seventeenth +century, who captured Barcelona with a handful of men, and Gordon in +the nineteenth century, who won great battles in China walking-stick in +hand—was a man who stamped himself, as with characters of fire, upon +the popular imagination. +</P> + +<P> +To the courage of a knight-errant Cochrane added the shrewd and +humorous sagacity of a Scotchman. If he had commanded fleets he would +have rivalled the victories of Nelson, and perhaps even have outshone +the Nile and Trafalgar. And to warlike genius of the first order +Cochrane added a certain weird and impish ingenuity which his enemies +found simply resistless. Was there ever a cruise in naval history like +that of Cochrane in his brig misnamed the <I>Speedy</I>, a mere coasting tub +that would neither steer nor tack, and whose entire broadside Cochrane +himself could carry in his pockets! But in this wretched little brig, +with its four-pounders, Cochrane captured in one brief year more than +50 vessels carrying an aggregate of 122 guns, took 500 prisoners, kept +the whole Spanish coast, off which he cruised, in perpetual alarm, and +finished by attacking and capturing a Spanish frigate, the <I>Gamo</I>, of +32 heavy guns and 319 men. What we have called the impish daring and +resource of Cochrane is shown in this strange fight. He ran the little +<I>Speedy</I> close under the guns of the huge <I>Gamo</I>, and the Spanish ship +was actually unable to depress its guns sufficiently to harm its tiny +antagonist. When the Spaniards tried to board, Cochrane simply shoved +his pigmy craft a few yards away from the side of his foe, and this +curious fight went on for an hour. Then, in his turn, Cochrane +boarded, leaving nobody but the doctor on board the Speedy. But he +played the Spaniards a characteristic trick. One half his men boarded +the Gamo by the head, with their faces elaborately blackened; and when, +out of the white smoke forward, some forty demons with black faces +broke upon the astonished Spaniards, they naturally regarded the whole +business as partaking of the black art, and incontinently fled below! +The number of Spaniards killed and wounded in this fight by the little +<I>Speedy</I> exceeded the number of its own entire crew; and when the fight +was over, 45 British sailors had to keep guard over 263 Spanish +prisoners. +</P> + +<P> +Afterwards, in command of the <I>Impérieuse</I>, a fine frigate, Cochrane +played a still more dashing part on the Spanish coast, destroying +batteries, cutting off supplies from the French ports, blowing up coast +roads, and keeping perspiring battalions of the enemy marching to and +fro to meet his descents. On the French coast, again, Cochrane held +large bodies of French troops paralysed by his single frigate. He +proposed to the English Government to take possession of the French +islands in the Bay of Biscay, and to allow him, with a small squadron +of frigates, to operate against the French seaboard. Had this request +been granted, he says, "neither the Peninsular war nor its enormous +cost to the nation from 1809 onwards would ever have been heard of!" +"It would have been easy," he adds, "as it always will be easy in case +of future wars, so to harass the French coasts as to find full +employment for their troops at home, and so to render operations in +foreign countries impossible." If England and France were once more +engaged in war—<I>absit omen</I>!—the story of Cochrane's exploits on the +Spanish and French coasts might prove a very valuable inspiration and +object-lesson. Cochrane's professional reward for his great services +in the <I>Impérieuse</I> was an official rebuke for expending more sails, +stores, gunpowder and shot than any other captain afloat in the same +time! +</P> + +<P> +The fight in the Basque Roads, however—or rather in the Aix Roads—has +great historical importance. It crowned the work of Trafalgar. It +finally destroyed French power on the sea, and gave England an absolute +supremacy. No fleet actions took place after its date between "the +meteor flag" and the tricolour, for the simple reason that no French +fleet remained in existence. Cochrane's fire-ships completed the work +of the Nile and Trafalgar. +</P> + +<P> +Early in 1809 the French fleet in Brest, long blockaded by Lord +Gambier, caught the British napping, slipped out unobserved, raised the +blockades at L'Orient and Rochefort, added the squadrons lying in these +two places to its own strength, and, anchoring in the Aix Roads, +prepared for a dash on the West Indies. The success with which the +blockade at Brest had been evaded, and the menace offered to the West +Indian trade, alarmed the British Admiralty. Lord Gambier, with a +powerful fleet, kept guard outside the Aix Roads; but if the blockade +failed once, it might fail again. Eager to destroy the last fleet +France possessed, the Admiralty strongly urged Lord Gambier to attack +the enemy with fire-ships; but Gambier, grown old, had visibly lost +nerve, and he pronounced the use of fire-ships a "horrible and +unchristian mode of warfare." Lord Mulgrave, the first Lord of the +Admiralty, knowing Cochrane's ingenuity and daring, sent for him, and +proposed to send him to the Basque Roads to invent and execute some +plan for destroying the French fleet. The Scotchman was uppermost in +Cochrane in this interview, and he declined the adventure on the ground +that to send a young post-captain to execute such an enterprise would +be regarded as an insult by the whole fleet, and he would have every +man's hand against him. Lord Mulgrave, however, was peremptory, and +Cochrane yielded, but on reaching the blockading fleet was met by a +tempest of wrath from all his seniors. "Why," they asked, "was +Cochrane sent out? We could have done the business as well as he. Why +did not Lord Gambier let us do it?" Lord Gambier, who had fallen into +a sort of gentle and pious melancholy, was really more occupied in +distributing tracts among his crews than in trying to reach his +enemies; and Harvey, his second in command, an old Trafalgar sea-dog, +when Cochrane arrived with his commission, interviewed his admiral, +denounced him in a white-heat on his own quarter-deck, and ended by +telling him that "if Nelson had been there he would not have anchored +in the Basque Roads at all, but would have dashed at the enemy at +once." This outburst, no doubt, relieved Admiral Harvey's feelings, +but it cost him his flag, and he was court-martialled, and dismissed +from the service for the performance. +</P> + +<P> +Cochrane, however, set himself with characteristic daring and coolness +to carry out his task. The French fleet consisted of one huge ship of +120 guns, two of 80 guns, eight seventy-fours, a 50-gun ship, and two +40-gun frigates—fourteen ships in all. It was drawn up in two lines +under the shelter of powerful shore batteries, with the frigates as +out-guards. As a protection against fire-ships, a gigantic boom had +been constructed half a mile in length, forming two sides of a +triangle, with the apex towards the British fleet. Over this huge +floating barrier powerful boat squadrons kept watch every night. +Cochrane's plan of attack was marked by real genius. He constructed +three explosion vessels, floating mines on the largest scale. Each of +these terrific vessels contained no less than <I>fifteen hundred</I> barrels +of gunpowder, bound together with cables, with wedges and moistened +sand rammed down betwixt them; forming, in brief, one gigantic bomb, +with 1500 barrels of gunpowder for its charge. On the top of this huge +powder magazine was piled, as a sort of agreeable condiment, hundreds +of live shells and thousands of hand grenades; the whole, by every form +of marine ingenuity, compacted into a solid mass which, at the touch of +a fuse, could be turned into a sort of floating Vesuvius. These were +to be followed by a squadron of fire-ships. Cochrane who, better, +perhaps, than any soldier or sailor that ever lived, knew how to strike +at his foes through their own imagination, calculated that when these +three huge explosion vessels, with twenty fire-ships behind them, went +off in a sort of saltpetre earthquake, the astonished Frenchmen would +imagine <I>every</I> fire-ship to be a floating mine, and, instead of trying +to board them and divert them from their fleet, would be simply anxious +to get out of their way with the utmost possible despatch. The French, +meanwhile, having watched their enemy lying inert for weeks, and +confident in the gigantic boom which acted as their shield to the +front, and the show of batteries which kept guard over them on either +flank and to the rear, awaited the coming attack in a spirit of +half-contemptuous gaiety. They had struck their topmasts and unbent +their sails, and by way of challenge dressed their fleet with flags. +One ship, the <I>Calcutta</I>, had been captured from the English, and by +way of special insult they hung out the British ensign under that +ship's quarter-gallery, an affront whose deadly quality only a sailor +can understand. +</P> + +<P> +The night of the 9th set in stormily. The tide ran fast, and the skies +were black and the sea heavy—so heavy, indeed, that the boats of the +English fleet which were intended to follow and cover the fire-ships +never left the side of the flagship. Cochrane, however, had called the +officers commanding the fire-ships on board his frigate, given them +their last instructions, and at half-past eight P.M. he himself, +accompanied only by a lieutenant and four sailors, cut the moorings of +the chief explosion vessel, and drifted off towards the French fleet. +Seated, that is, on top of 1500 barrels of gunpowder and a sort of +haystack of grenades, he calmly floated off, with a squadron of +fire-ships behind him, towards the French fleet, backed by great shore +batteries, with seventy-three armed boats as a line of skirmishers. +"It seemed to me," says Marryat, who was an actor in the scene, "like +entering the gates of hell!" +</P> + +<P> +The great floating mine drifted on through blackness and storm till, +just as it struck the boom, Cochrane, who previously made his five +assistants get into the boat, with his own hand lit the fuse and in +turn jumped into the boat. How frantically the little crew pulled to +get clear of the ignited mine may be imagined; but wind and sea were +against them. The fuse, which was calculated to burn for twelve +minutes, lasted for only five. Then the 1500 barrels of gunpowder went +simultaneously off, peopling the black sky with a flaming torrent of +shells, grenades, and rockets, and raising a mountainous wave that +nearly swamped the unfortunate boat and its crew. The fault of the +fuse, however, saved the lives of the daring six, as the missiles from +the exploding vessel fell far <I>outside</I> them. "The effect," says +Cochrane, who, like Caesar, could write history as well as make it, +"constituted one of the grandest artificial spectacles imaginable. For +a moment the sky was red with the lurid glare arising from the +simultaneous ignition of 1500 barrels of powder. On this gigantic +flash subsiding the air seemed alive with shells, grenades, rockets, +and masses of timber, the wreck of the shattered vessel." Then came +blackness, punctuated in flame by the explosion of the next floating +mine. Then, through sea-wrack and night, came the squadron of +fire-ships, each one a pyramid of kindling flame. But the first +explosion had achieved all that Cochrane expected. It dismissed the +huge boom into chips, and the French fleet lay open to attack. The +captain of the second explosion vessel was so determined to do his work +effectually that the entire crew was actually blown out of the vessel +and one member of the party killed, while the toil of the boats in +which, after the fire-ships had been abandoned, they and their crews +had to fight their way back in the teeth of the gale, was so severe +that several men died of mere fatigue. The physical effects of the +floating mines and the drifting fire-ships, as a matter of fact, were +not very great. The boom, indeed, was destroyed, but out of twenty +fire-ships only four actually reached the enemy's position, and not one +did any damage. Cochrane's explosion vessels, however, were addressed +not so much to the French ships as to the alarmed imagination of French +sailors, and the effect achieved was overwhelming. All the French +ships save one cut or slipped their cables, and ran ashore in wild +confusion. Cochrane cut the moorings of his explosion vessel at +half-past eight o'clock; by midnight, or in less than four hours, the +boom had been destroyed, and thirteen French ships—the solitary fleet +that remained to France—were lying helplessly ashore. Never, perhaps, +was a result so great achieved in a time so brief, in a fashion so +dramatic, or with a loss so trifling. +</P> + +<P> +When the grey morning broke, with the exception of two vessels, the +whole French fleet was lying helplessly aground on the Palles shoal. +Some were lying on their bilge with the keel exposed, others were +frantically casting their guns overboard and trying to get afloat +again. Meanwhile Gambier and the British fleet were lying fourteen +miles distant in the Basque Roads, and Cochrane in the <I>Impérieuse</I> was +watching, with powder-blackened face, the curious spectacle of the +entire fleet he had driven ashore, and the yet more amazing spectacle +of a British fleet declining to come in and finally destroy its enemy. +For here comes a chapter in the story on which Englishmen do not love +to dwell. Cochrane tried to whip the muddy-spirited Gambier into +enterprise by emphatic and quick-following signal. At six A.M. he +signalled, "<I>All the enemy's ships except two are on shore</I>," but this +extracted from drowsy Gambier no other response than the answering +pennant. Cochrane repeated his impatient signals at half-hour +intervals, and with emphasis ever more shrill—"<I>The enemy's ships can +be destroyed</I>"; "<I>Half the fleet can destroy the enemy</I>"; "<I>The +frigates alone can destroy the enemy</I>"; but still no response save the +indifferent pennant. As the tide flowed in, the French ships showed +signs of getting afloat, and Cochrane signalled, "<I>The enemy is +preparing to heave off</I>", even this brought no response from the +pensive Gambier. At eleven o'clock the British fleet weighed and stood +in, but then, to Cochrane's speechless wrath, re-anchored at a distance +of three and a half miles, and by this time two of the French +three-deckers were afloat. +</P> + +<P> +Gambier finally despatched a single mortar-vessel in to bombard the +stranded ships, but by this time Cochrane had become desperate. He +adopted a device which recalls Nelson's use of his blind eye at +Copenhagen. At one o'clock he hove his anchor atrip and drifted, stern +foremost, towards the enemy. He dare not make sail lest his trick +should be detected and a signal of recall hoisted on the flagship. +Cochrane coolly determined, in a word, to force the hand of his +sluggish admiral. He drifted with his solitary frigate down to the +hostile fleet and batteries, which Gambier thought it scarcely safe to +attack with eleven ships of the line. When near the enemy's position +he suddenly made sail and ran up the signal, "<I>In want of assistance</I>"; +next followed a yet more peremptory message, "<I>In distress</I>." Even +Gambier could not see an English frigate destroyed under the very guns +of an English fleet without moving to its help, and he sent some of his +ships in. But meanwhile, Cochrane, though technically "in distress," +was enjoying what he must have felt to be a singularly good time. He +calmly took up a position which enabled him to engage an 80-gun ship, +one of 74 guns, and, in particular, that French ship which, on the +previous day, had hung the British flag under her quarter-gallery. For +half-an-hour he fought these three ships single-handed, and the +Calcutta actually struck to him, its captain afterwards being +court-martialled and shot by the French themselves for surrendering to +a frigate. Then the other British ships came up, and ship after ship +of the French fleet struck or was destroyed. Night fell before the +work was completed, and during the night Gambier, for some mysterious +reason, recalled his ships; but Cochrane, in the <I>Impérieuse</I>, clung to +his post. He persuaded Captain Seymour, in the <I>Pallas</I>, to remain +with him, with four brigs, and with this tiny force he proposed to +attack <I>L'Ocean</I>, the French flagship of 120 guns, which had just got +afloat; but Gambier peremptorily recalled him at dawn, before the fight +was renewed. Never before or since was a victory so complete and so +nearly bloodless. Five seamen were killed in the fire-ships, and five +in the attack on the French fleet and about twenty wounded; and with +this microscopic "butcher's bill" a great fleet, the last naval hope of +France, was practically destroyed. For so much does the genius and +daring of a single man count! +</P> + +<P> +That the French fleet was not utterly destroyed was due solely to +Gambier's want of resolution. And yet, such is the irony of history, +that of the two chief actors in this drama, Gambier, who marred it, was +rewarded with the thanks of Parliament; Cochrane, who gave to it all +its unique splendour, had his professional career abruptly terminated! +</P> + +<P> +That wild night in the Aix Roads, and the solitary and daring attack on +the French fleet which followed next day, were practically Cochrane's +last acts as a British sailor. He achieved dazzling exploits under the +flag of Chili [Transcriber's note: Chile?] and Brazil; but the most +original warlike genius the English navy has ever known, fought no more +battles for England. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap06"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE MAN WHO SPOILED NAPOLEON'S "DESTINY"! +</H3> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Oh, who shall lightly say that Fame<BR> +Is nothing but an empty name!<BR> +Whilst in that sound there is a charm<BR> +The nerves to brace, the heart to warm.<BR> +As, thinking of the mighty dead,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">The young from slothful couch will start,</SPAN><BR> +And vow, with lifted hands outspread,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Like them to act a noble part?"</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 5em">—JOANNA BAILLIE.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +From March 18 to May 20, 1799—for more than sixty days and nights, +that is—a little, half-forgotten, and more than half-ruined Syrian +town was the scene of one of the fiercest and most dramatic sieges +recorded in military history. And rarely has there been a struggle so +apparently one-sided. A handful of British sailors and Turkish +irregulars were holding Acre, a town without regular defences, against +Napoleon, the most brilliant military genius of his generation, with an +army of 10,000 war-hardened veterans, the "Army of Italy"—soldiers who +had dared the snows of the Alps and conquered Italy, and to whom +victory was a familiar experience. In their ranks military daring had +reached, perhaps, its very highest point. And yet the sailors inside +that ring of crumbling wall won! At the blood-stained trenches of Acre +Napoleon experienced his first defeat; and, years after, at St. Helena, +he said of Sir Sidney Smith, the gallant sailor who baffled him, "That +man made me miss my destiny." It is a curious fact that one Englishman +thwarted Napoleon's career in the East, and another ended his career in +the West, and it may be doubted which of the two Napoleon hated +most—Wellington, who finally overthrew him at Waterloo, or Sidney +Smith, who, to use Napoleon's own words, made him "miss his destiny," +and exchange the empire of the East for a lonely pinnacle of rock in +the Atlantic. +</P> + +<P> +Sidney Smith was a sailor of the school of Nelson and of Dundonald—a +man, that is, with a spark of that warlike genius which begins where +mechanical rules end. He was a man of singular physical beauty, with a +certain magnetism and fire about him which made men willing to die for +him, and women who had never spoken to him fall headlong in love with +him. His whole career is curiously picturesque. He became a middy at +the tender age of eleven years; went through fierce sea-fights, and was +actually mate of the watch when fourteen years old. He was a +fellow-middy with William IV. in the fight off Cape St. Vincent, became +commander when he was eighteen years of age, and captain before he was +quite nineteen. But the British marine, even in those tumultuous days, +scarcely yielded enough of the rapture of fighting to this post-captain +in his teens. He took service under the Swedish flag, saw hard +fighting against the Russians, became the close personal friend of the +King, and was knighted by him. One of the feats at this period of his +life with which tradition, with more or less of plausibility, credits +Sidney Smith, is that of swimming by night through the Russian fleet, a +distance of two miles, carrying a letter enclosed in a bladder to the +Swedish admiral. +</P> + +<P> +Sidney Smith afterwards entered the Turkish service. When war broke +out betwixt France and England in 1790, he purchased a tiny craft at +Smyrna, picked up in that port a hybrid crew, and hurried to join Lord +Hood, who was then holding Toulon. When the British abandoned the +port—and it is curious to recollect that the duel between Sidney Smith +and Napoleon, which reached its climax at Acre, began here—Sidney +Smith volunteered to burn the French fleet, a task which he performed +with an audacity and skill worthy of Dundonald or Nelson, and for which +the French never forgave him. +</P> + +<P> +Sidney Smith was given the command of an English frigate, and fought a +dozen brilliant fights in the Channel. He carried with his boats a +famous French privateer off Havre de Grace; but during the fight on the +deck of the captured ship it drifted into the mouth of the Seine above +the forts. The wind dropped, the tide was too strong to be stemmed, +and Sidney Smith himself was captured. He had so harried the French +coast that the French refused to treat him as an ordinary prisoner of +war, and threw him into that ill-omened prison, the Temple, from whose +iron-barred windows the unfortunate sailor watched for two years the +horrors of the Reign of Terror in its last stages, the tossing crowds, +the tumbrils rolling past, crowded with victims for the guillotine. +Sidney Smith escaped at last by a singularly audacious trick. Two +confederates, dressed in dashing uniform, one wearing the dress of an +adjutant, and the other that of an officer of still higher rank, +presented themselves at the Temple with forged orders for the transfer +of Sidney Smith. +</P> + +<P> +The governor surrendered his prisoner, but insisted on sending a guard +of six men with him. The sham adjutant cheerfully acquiesced, but, +after a moment's pause, turned to Sidney Smith, and said, if he would +give his parole as an officer not to attempt to escape, they would +dispense with the escort. Sidney Smith, with due gravity, replied to +his confederate, "Sir, I swear on the faith of an officer to accompany +you wherever you choose to conduct me." The governor was satisfied, +and the two sham officers proceeded to "conduct" their friend with the +utmost possible despatch to the French coast. Another English officer +who had escaped—Captain Wright—joined Sidney Smith outside Rouen, and +the problem was how to get through the barriers without a passport. +Smith sent Wright on first, and he was duly challenged for his passport +by the sentinel; whereupon Sidney Smith, with a majestic air of +official authority, marched up and said in faultless Parisian French, +"I answer for this citizen, I know him;" whereupon the deluded sentinel +saluted and allowed them both to pass! +</P> + +<P> +Sidney Smith's escape from the Temple made him a popular hero in +England. He was known to have great influence with the Turkish +authorities, and he was sent to the East in the double office of +envoy-extraordinary to the Porte, and commander of the squadron at +Alexandria. By one of the curious coincidences which marked Sidney +Smith's career, he became acquainted while in the Temple with a French +Royalist officer named Philippeaux, an engineer of signal ability, and +who had been a schoolfellow and a close chum of Napoleon himself at +Brienne. Smith took his French friend with him to the East, and he +played a great part in the defence of Acre. Napoleon had swept north +through the desert to Syria, had captured Gaza and Jaffa, and was about +to attack Acre, which lay between him and his ultimate goal, +Constantinople. Here Sidney Smith resolved to bar his way, and in his +flagship the <I>Tigre</I>, with the <I>Theseus</I>, under Captain Miller, and two +gunboats, he sailed to Acre to assist in its defence. Philippeaux took +charge of the fortifications, and thus, in the breaches of a remote +Syrian town, the quondam prisoner of the Temple and the ancient school +friend of Napoleon joined hands to wreck that dream of a great Eastern +empire which lurked in the cells of Napoleon's masterful intellect. +</P> + +<P> +Acre represents a blunted arrow-head jutting out from a point in the +Syrian coast. Napoleon could only attack, so to speak, the neck of the +arrow, which was protected by a ditch and a weak wall, and flanked by +towers; but Sidney Smith, having command of the sea, could sweep the +four faces of the town with the fire of his guns, as well as command +all the sea-roads in its vicinity. He guessed, from the delay of the +French in opening fire, that they were waiting for their siege-train to +arrive by sea. He kept vigilant watch, pounced on the French flotilla +as it rounded the promontory of Mount Carmel, captured nine of the +vessels, carried them with their guns and warlike material to Acre, and +mounted his thirty-four captured pieces on the batteries of the town. +Thus the disgusted French saw the very guns which were intended to +batter down the defences of Acre—and which were glorious with the +memories of a dozen victories in Italy—frowning at them, loaded with +English powder and shot, and manned by English sailors. +</P> + +<P> +It is needless to say that a siege directed by Napoleon—the siege of +what he looked upon as a contemptible and almost defenceless town, the +single barrier betwixt his ambition and its goal—was urged with +amazing fire and vehemence. The wall was battered day and night, a +breach fifty feet wide made, and more than twelve assaults delivered, +with all the fire and daring of which French soldiers, gallantly led, +are capable. So sustained was the fighting, that on one occasion the +combat raged in the ditch and on the breach for <I>twenty-five</I> +successive hours. So close and fierce was it that one half-ruined +tower was held by <I>both</I> besiegers and besieged for twelve hours in +succession, and neither would yield. At the breach, again, the two +lines of desperately fighting men on repeated occasions clashed +bayonets together, and wrestled and stabbed and died, till the +survivors were parted by the barrier of the dead which grew beneath +their feet. +</P> + +<P> +Sidney Smith, however, fought like a sailor, and with all the cool +ingenuity and resourcefulness of a sailor. His ships, drawn up on two +faces of the town, smote the French stormers on either flank till they +learned to build up a dreadful screen, made up partly of stones plucked +from the breach, and partly of the dead bodies of their comrades. +Smith, too, perched guns in all sorts of unexpected positions—a +24-pounder in the lighthouse, under the command of an exultant middy; +two 68-pounders under the charge of "old Bray," the carpenter of the +<I>Tigre</I>, and, as Sidney Smith himself reports, "one of the bravest and +most intelligent men I ever served with"; and yet a third gun, a French +brass 18-pounder, in one of the ravelins, under a master's mate. Bray +dropped his shells with the nicest accuracy in the centre of the French +columns as they swept up the breach, and the middy perched aloft, and +the master's mate from the ravelin, smote them on either flank with +case-shot, while the <I>Theseus</I> and the <I>Tigre</I> added to the tumult the +thunder of their broadsides, and the captured French gunboats +contributed the yelp of their lighter pieces. +</P> + +<P> +The great feature of the siege, however, was the fierceness and the +number of the sorties. Sidney Smith's sorties actually exceeded in +number and vehemence Napoleon's assaults. He broke the strength of +Napoleon's attacks, that is, by anticipating them. A crowd of Turkish +irregulars, with a few naval officers leading them, and a solid mass of +Jack-tars in the centre, would break from a sally-port, or rush +vehemently down through the gap in the wall, and scour the French +trenches, overturn the gabions, spike the guns, and slay the guards. +The French reserves hurried fiercely up, always scourged, however, by +the flank fire of the ships, and drove back the sortie. But the +process was renewed the same night or the next day with unlessened fire +and daring. The French engineers, despairing of success on the +surface, betook themselves to mining; whereupon the besieged made a +desperate sortie and reached the mouth of the mine. Lieutenant Wright, +who led them, and who had already received two shots in his sword-arm, +leaped down the mine followed by his sailors, slew the miners, +destroyed their work, and safely regained the town. +</P> + +<P> +The British sustained one startling disaster. Captain Miller of the +<I>Theseus</I>, whose ammunition ran short, carefully collected such French +shells as fell into the town without exploding, and duly returned them +alight, and supplied with better fuses, to their original senders. He +had collected some seventy shells on the <I>Theseus</I>, and was preparing +them for use against the French. The carpenter of the ship was +endeavouring to get the fuses out of the loaded shells with an auger, +and a middy undertook to assist him, in characteristic middy fashion, +with a mallet and a spike-nail. A huge shell under his treatment +suddenly exploded on the quarter-deck of the <I>Theseus</I>, and the other +sixty-nine shells followed suit. The too ingenious middy disappeared +into space; forty seamen, with Captain Miller himself, were killed; and +forty-seven, including the two lieutenants of the ship, the chaplain, +and the surgeon, were seriously wounded. The whole of the poop was +blown to pieces, and the ship was left a wreck with fire breaking out +at half-a-dozen points. The fire was subdued, and the <I>Theseus</I> +survived in a half-gutted condition, but the disaster was a severe blow +to Sir Sidney's resources. +</P> + +<P> +As evening fell on May 7, the white sails of a fleet, became visible +over the sea rim, and all firing ceased while besiegers and besieged +watched the approaching ships. Was it a French fleet or a Turkish? +Did it bring succour to the besieged or a triumph to the besiegers? +The approaching ships flew the crescent. It was the Turkish fleet from +Rhodes bringing reinforcements. But the wind was sinking, and +Napoleon, who had watched the approach of the hostile ships with +feelings which may be guessed, calculated that there remained six hours +before they could cast anchor in the bay. Eleven assaults had been +already made, in which eight French generals and the best officers in +every branch of the service had perished. There remained time for a +twelfth assault. He might yet pluck victory from the very edge of +defeat. At ten o'clock that night the French artillery was brought up +close to the counterscarp to batter down the curtain, and a new breach +was made. Lannes led his division against the shot-wrecked tower, and +General Rimbaud took his grenadiers with a resistless rush through the +new breach. All night the combat raged, the men fighting desperately +hand to hand. When the rays of the level morning sun broke through the +pall of smoke which hung sullenly over the combatants, the tricolour +flew on the outer angle of the tower, and still the ships bringing +reinforcements had not reached the harbour! Sidney Smith, at this +crisis, landed every man from the English ships, and led them, pike in +hand, to the breach, and the shouting and madness of the conflict awoke +once more. To use Sidney Smith's own words, "the muzzles of the +muskets touched each other—the spear-heads were locked together." But +Sidney Smith's sailors, with the brave Turks who rallied to their help, +were not to be denied. +</P> + +<P> +Lannes' grenadiers were tumbled headlong from the tower, Lannes himself +being wounded, while Rimbaud's brave men, who were actually past the +breach, were swept into ruin, their general killed, and the French +soldiers within the breach all captured or slain. +</P> + +<P> +One of the dramatic incidents of the siege was the assault made by +Kleber's troops. They had not taken part in the siege hitherto, but +had won a brilliant victory over the Arabs at Mount Tabor. On reaching +the camp, flushed with their triumph, and seeing how slight were the +apparent defences of the town, they demanded clamorously to be led to +the assault. Napoleon consented. Kleber, who was of gigantic stature, +with a head of hair worthy of a German music-master or of a Soudan +dervish, led his grenadiers to the edge of the breach and stood there, +while with gesture and voice—a voice audible even above the fierce and +sustained crackle of the musketry—he urged his men on. Napoleon, +standing on a gun in the nearest French battery, watched the sight with +eager eyes—the French grenadiers running furiously up the breach, the +grim line of levelled muskets that barred it, the sudden roar of the +English guns as from every side they smote the staggering French +column. Vainly single officers struggled out of the torn mass, ran +gesticulating up the breach, and died at the muzzles of the British +muskets. The men could not follow, or only died as they leaped +forward. The French grenadiers, still fighting, swearing, and +screaming, were swept back past the point where Kleber stood, hoarse +with shouting, black with gunpowder, furious with rage. The last +assault on Acre had failed. The French sick, field artillery, and +baggage silently defiled that night to the rear. The heavy guns were +buried in the sand, and after sixty days of open trenches Napoleon, for +the first time in his life, though not for the last, ordered a retreat. +</P> + +<P> +Napoleon buried in the breaches of Acre not merely 3000 of his bravest +troops, but the golden dream of his life. "In that miserable fort," as +he said, "lay the fate of the East." Napoleon expected to find in it +the pasha's treasures, and arms for 300,000 men. "When I have captured +it," he said to Bourrienne, "I shall march upon Damascus and Aleppo. I +shall arm the tribes; I shall reach Constantinople; I shall overturn +the Turkish Empire; I shall found in the East a new and grand empire. +Perhaps I shall return to Paris by Adrianople and Vienna!" Napoleon +was cheerfully willing to pay the price of what religion he had to +accomplish this dream. He was willing, that is, to turn Turk. Henri +IV. said "Paris was worth a mass," and was not the East, said Napoleon, +"worth a turban and a pair of trousers?" In his conversation at St. +Helena with Las Cases he seriously defended this policy. His army, he +added, would have shared his "conversion," and have taken their new +creed with a Parisian laugh. "Had I but captured Acre," Napoleon +added, "I would have reached Constantinople and the Indies; I would +have changed the face of the world. But that man made me miss my +destiny." +</P> + +<P> +Las Cases dwells upon the curious correspondence which existed between +Philippeaux, who engineered the defences of Acre, and Napoleon, who +attacked it. "They were," he says, "of the same nation, of the same +age, of the same rank, of the same corps, and of the same school." But +if Philippeaux was in a sense the brains of the defence, Sidney Smith +was the sword. There was, perhaps, it may be regretfully confessed, a +streak of the charlatan in him. He shocked the judgment of more sober +men. Wellington's stern, sober sense was affronted by him, and he +described him as "a mere vaporiser." "Of all the men whom I ever knew +who have any reputation," Wellington told Croker "the man who least +deserved it is Sir Sidney Smith." Wellington's temperament made it +impossible for him to understand Sidney Smith's erratic and dazzling +genius. Napoleon's phrase is the best epitaph of the man who defended +Acre. It is true Napoleon himself describes Sidney Smith afterwards as +"a young fool," who was "capable of invading France with 800 men." But +such "young fools" are often the makers of history. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap07"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +GREAT SEA-DUELS +</H3> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"The captain stood on the carronade: 'First Lieutenant,' says he,<BR> +'Send all my merry men after here, for they must list to me.<BR> +I haven't the gift of the gab, my sons, because I'm bred to the sea.<BR> +That ship there is a Frenchman, who means to fight with we.<BR> +And odds, bobs, hammer and tongs, long as I've been to sea,<BR> +I've fought 'gainst every odds—but I've gained the victory!<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="letter-spacing: 2em">********</SPAN><BR> +That ship there is a Frenchman, and if we don't take she,<BR> +'Tis a thousand bullets to one, that she will capture we.<BR> +I haven't the gift of the gab, my boys; so each man to his gun;<BR> +If she's not mine in half-an-hour, I'll flog each mother's son.<BR> +For odds, bobs, hammer and tongs, long as I've been to sea,<BR> +I've fought 'gainst every odds—and I've gained the victory!'"<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 5em">—MARRYAT.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +British naval history is rich in the records of what may be called +great sea-duels—combats, that is, of single ship against single ship, +waged often with extraordinary fierceness and daring. They resemble +the combat of knight against knight, with flash of cannon instead of +thrust of lance, and the floor of the lonely sea for the trampled lists. +</P> + +<P> +He must have a very slow-beating imagination who cannot realise the +picturesqueness of these ancient sea-duels. Two frigates cruising for +prey catch the far-off gleam of each other's topsails over the rim of +the horizon. They approach each other warily, two high-sniffing +sea-mastiffs. A glimpse of fluttering colour—the red flag and the +<I>drapeau blanc</I>, or the Union Jack and the tricolour—reveals to each +ship its foe. The men stand grimly at quarters; the captain, with +perhaps a solitary lieutenant, and a middy as aide-de-camp, is on his +quarter-deck. There is the manoeuvring for the weather-gage, the +thunder of the sudden broadside, the hurtle and crash of the shot, the +stern, quick word of command as the clumsy guns are run in to be +reloaded and fired again and again with furious haste. The ships drift +into closer wrestle. Masts and yards come tumbling on to the +blood-splashed decks. There is the grinding shock of the great wooden +hulls as they meet, the wild leap of the boarders, the clash of cutlass +on cutlass, the shout of victory, the sight of the fluttering flag as +it sinks reluctantly from the mizzen of the beaten ship. Then the +smoke drifts away, and on the tossing sea-floor lie, little better than +dismantled wrecks, victor and vanquished. +</P> + +<P> +No great issue, perhaps, ever hung upon these lonely sea-combats; but +as object-lessons in the qualities by which the empire has been won, +and by which it must be maintained, these ancient sea-fights have real +and permanent value. What better examples of cool hardihood, of +chivalrous loyalty to the flag, of self-reliant energy, need be +imagined or desired? The generation that carries the heavy burden of +the empire to-day cannot afford to forget the tale of such exploits. +</P> + +<P> +One of the most famous frigate fights in British history is that +between the <I>Arethusa</I> and <I>La Belle Poule</I>, fought off Brest on June +17, 1778. Who is not familiar with the name and fame of "the saucy +<I>Arethusa</I>"? Yet there is a curious absence of detail as to the fight. +The combat, indeed, owes its enduring fame to two somewhat irrelevant +circumstances—first, that it was fought when France and England were +not actually at war, but were trembling on the verge of it. The sound +of the <I>Arethusa's</I> guns, indeed, was the signal of war between the two +nations. The other fact is that an ingenious rhymester—scarcely a +poet—crystallised the fight into a set of verses in which there is +something of the true smack of the sea, and an echo, if not of the +cannon's roar, yet of the rough-voiced mirth of the forecastle; and the +sea-fight lies embalmed, so to speak, and made immortal in the sea-song. +</P> + +<P> +The <I>Arethusa</I> was a stumpy little frigate, scanty in crew, light in +guns, attached to the fleet of Admiral Keppel, then cruising off Brest. +Keppel had as perplexed and delicate a charge as was ever entrusted to +a British admiral. Great Britain was at war with her American +colonies, and there was every sign that France intended to add herself +to the fight. No fewer than thirty-two sail of the line and twelve +frigates were gathered in Brest roads, and another fleet of almost +equal strength in Toulon. Spain, too, was slowly collecting a mighty +armament. What would happen to England if the Toulon and Brest fleets +united, were joined by a third fleet from Spain, and the mighty array +of ships thus collected swept up the British Channel? On June 13, +1778, Keppel, with twenty-one ships of the line and three frigates, was +despatched to keep watch over the Brest fleet. War had not been +proclaimed, but Keppel was to prevent a junction of the Brest and +Toulon fleets, by persuasion if he could, but by gunpowder in the last +resort. +</P> + +<P> +Keppel's force was much inferior to that of the Brest fleet, and as +soon as the topsails of the British ships were visible from the French +coast, two French frigates, the <I>Licorne</I> and <I>La Belle Poule</I>, with +two lighter craft, bore down upon them to reconnoitre. But Keppel +could not afford to let the French admiral know his exact force, and +signalled to his own outlying ships to bring the French frigates under +his lee. +</P> + +<P> +At nine o'clock at night the <I>Licorne</I> was overtaken by the <I>Milford</I>, +and with some rough sailorly persuasion, and a hint of broadsides, her +head was turned towards the British fleet. The next morning, in the +grey dawn, the Frenchman, having meditated on affairs during the night, +made a wild dash for freedom. The <I>America</I>, an English 64—double, +that is, the <I>Licorne's</I> size—overtook her, and fired a shot across +her bow to bring her to. Longford, the captain of the <I>America</I>, stood +on the gunwale of his own ship politely urging the captain of the +<I>Licorne</I> to return with him. With a burst of Celtic passion the +French captain fired his whole broadside into the big Englishman, and +then instantly hauled down his flag so as to escape any answering +broadside! +</P> + +<P> +Meanwhile the <I>Arethusa</I> was in eager pursuit of the <I>Belle Poule</I>; a +fox-terrier chasing a mastiff! The <I>Belle Poule</I> was a splendid ship, +with heavy metal, and a crew more than twice as numerous as that of the +tiny <I>Arethusa</I>. But Marshall, its captain, was a singularly gallant +sailor, and not the man to count odds. The song tells the story of the +fight in an amusing fashion:— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Come all ye jolly sailors bold,<BR> +Whose hearts are cast in honour's mould,<BR> +While England's glory I unfold.<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">Huzza to the _Arethusa_!</SPAN><BR> +She is a frigate tight and brave<BR> +As ever stemmed the dashing wave;<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">Her men are staunch</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">To their fav'rite launch,</SPAN><BR> +And when the foe shall meet our fire,<BR> +Sooner than strike we'll all expire<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">On board the _Arethusa_.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +On deck five hundred men did dance,<BR> +The stoutest they could find in France;<BR> +We, with two hundred, did advance<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">On board the _Arethusa_.</SPAN><BR> +Our captain hailed the Frenchman, 'Ho!'<BR> +The Frenchman then cried out, 'Hallo!'<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">'Bear down, d'ye see,</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">To our Admiral's lee.'</SPAN><BR> +'No, no,' says the Frenchman, 'that can't be.<BR> +'Then I must lug you along with me,'<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">Says the saucy _Arethusa_!"</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P> +As a matter of fact Marshall hung doggedly on the Frenchman's quarter +for two long hours, fighting a ship twice as big as his own. The +<I>Belle Poule</I> was eager to escape; Marshall was resolute that it should +not escape; and, try as he might, the Frenchman, during that fierce two +hours' wrestle, failed to shake off his tiny but dogged antagonist. +The <I>Arethusa's</I> masts were shot away, its jib-boom hung a tangled +wreck over its bows, its bulwarks were shattered, its decks were +splashed red with blood, half its guns were dismounted, and nearly +every third man in its crew struck down. But still it hung, with +quenchless and obstinate courage, on the <I>Belle Poule's</I> quarter, and +by its perfect seamanship and the quickness and the deadly precision +with which its lighter guns worked, reduced its towering foe to a +condition of wreck almost as complete as its own. The terrier, in +fact, was proving too much for the mastiff. +</P> + +<P> +Suddenly the wind fell. With topmasts hanging over the side, and +canvas torn to ribbons, the <I>Arethusa</I> lay shattered and moveless on +the sea. The shot-torn but loftier sails of the <I>Belle Poule</I>, +however, yet held wind enough to drift her out of the reach of the +<I>Arethusa's</I> fire. Both ships were close under the French cliffs; but +the <I>Belle Poule</I>, like a broken-winged bird, struggled into a tiny +cove in the rocks, and nothing remained for the <I>Arethusa</I> but to cut +away her wreckage, hoist what sail she could, and drag herself sullenly +back under jury-masts to the British fleet. But the story of that two +hours' heroic fight maintained against such odds sent a thrill of grim +exultation through Great Britain. Menaced by the combination of so +many mighty states, while her sea-dogs were of this fighting temper, +what had Great Britain to fear? In the streets of many a British +seaport, and in many a British forecastle, the story of how the +Arethusa fought was sung in deep-throated chorus:— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"The fight was off the Frenchman's land;<BR> +We forced them back upon their strand;<BR> +For we fought till not a stick would stand<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">Of the gallant _Arethusa_!"</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +A fight even more dramatic in its character is that fought on August +10, 1805, between the <I>Phoenix</I> and the <I>Didon</I>. The <I>Didon</I> was one +of the finest and fastest French frigates afloat, armed with guns of +special calibre and manned by a crew which formed, perhaps, the very +élite of the French navy. The men had been specially picked to form +the crew of the only French ship which was commanded by a Bonaparte, +the <I>Pomone</I>, selected for the command of Captain Jerome Bonaparte. +Captain Jerome Bonaparte, however, was not just now afloat, and the +<I>Didon</I> had been selected, on account of its great speed and heavy +armament, for a service of great importance. She was manned by the +crew chosen for the <I>Pomone</I>, placed under an officer of special skill +and daring—Captain Milias—and despatched with orders for carrying out +one more of those naval "combinations" which Napoleon often attempted, +but never quite accomplished. The <I>Didon</I>, in a word, was to bring up +the Rochefort squadron to join the Franco-Spanish fleet under +Villeneuve. +</P> + +<P> +On that fatal August 10, however, it seemed to Captain Milias that +fortune had thrust into his hands a golden opportunity of snapping up a +British sloop of war, and carrying her as a trophy into Rochefort. An +American merchantman fell in with him, and its master reported that he +had been brought-to on the previous day by a British man-of-war, and +compelled to produce his papers. The American told the French captain +that he had been allowed to go round the Englishman's decks and count +his guns—omitting, no doubt, to add that he was half-drunk while doing +it. Contemplated through an American's prejudices, inflamed with grog, +the British ship seemed a very poor thing indeed. She carried, the +American told the captain of the <I>Didon</I>, only twenty guns of light +calibre, and her captain and officers were "so cocky" that if they had +a chance they would probably lay themselves alongside even the <I>Didon</I> +and become an easy prey. The American pointed out to the eagerly +listening Frenchmen the topgallant sails of the ship he was describing +showing above the sky-line to windward. Captain Milias thought he saw +glory and cheap victory beckoning him, and he put his helm down, and +stood under easy sail towards the fast-rising topsails of the +Englishman. +</P> + +<P> +Now, the <I>Phoenix</I> was, perhaps, the smallest frigate in the British +navy; a stocky little craft, scarcely above the rating of a sloop; and +its captain, Baker, a man with something of Dundonald's gift for ruse, +had disguised his ship so as to look as much as possible like a sloop. +Baker, too, who believed that light guns quickly handled were capable +of more effective mischief than the slow fire of heavier guns, had +changed his heavier metal for 18-pounders. The two ships, therefore, +were very unequal in fighting force. The broadside of the <I>Didon</I> was +nearly fifty per cent. heavier than that of the <I>Phoenix</I>; her crew was +nearly fifty per cent. more numerous, and she was splendidly equipped +at every point. +</P> + +<P> +The yellow sides and royal yards rigged aloft told the "cocky" +<I>Phoenix</I> that the big ship to leeward was a Frenchman, and, with all +sails spread, she bore down in the chase. Baker was eager to engage +his enemy to leeward, that she might not escape, and he held his fire +till he could reach the desired position. The <I>Didon</I>, however, a +quick and weatherly ship, was able to keep ahead of the <I>Phoenix</I>, and +thrice poured in a heavy broadside upon the grimly silent British ship +without receiving a shot in reply. Baker's men were falling fast at +their quarters, and, impatient at being both foiled and raked, he at +last ran fiercely at his enemy to windward. The heads of both ships +swung parallel, and at pistol-distance broadside furiously answered +broadside. In order to come up with her opponent, however, the +<I>Phoenix</I> had all sail spread, and she gradually forged ahead. As soon +as the two ships were clear, the <I>Didon</I>, by a fine stroke of +seamanship, hauled up, crossed the stern of the <I>Phoenix</I>, and raked +her, and then repeated the pleasant operation. The rigging of the +<I>Phoenix</I> was so shattered that for a few minutes she was out of hand. +Baker, however, was a fine seaman, and his crew were in a high state of +discipline; and when the <I>Didon</I> once more bore up to rake her +antagonist, the British ship, with her sails thrown aback, evaded the +Frenchman's fire. But the stern of the <I>Didon</I> smote with a crash on +the starboard quarter of the Phoenix; the ships were lying parallel; +the broadside of neither could be brought to bear. The Frenchmen, +immensely superior in numbers, made an impetuous rush across their +forecastle, and leaped on the quarter-deck of the Phoenix. The marines +of that ship, however, drawn up in a steady line across the deck, +resisted the whole rush of the French boarders; and the British +sailors, tumbling up from their guns, cutlass and boarding-pike in +hand, and wroth with the audacity of the "French lubbers" daring to +board the "cocky little <I>Phoenix</I>," with one rush, pushed fiercely +home, swept the Frenchmen back on to their own vessel. +</P> + +<P> +On the French forecastle stood a brass 36-pounder carronade; this +commanded the whole of the British ship, and with it the French opened +a most destructive fire. The British ship, as it happened, could not +bring a single gun to bear in return. Baker, however, had fitted the +cabin window on either quarter of his ship to serve as a port, in +preparation for exactly such a contingency as this; and the aftermost +main-deck gun was dragged into the cabin, the improvised port thrown +open, and Baker himself, with a cluster of officers and men, was +eagerly employed in fitting tackles to enable the gun to be worked. As +the sides of the two ships were actually grinding together the +Frenchmen saw the preparations being made; a double squad of marines +was brought up at a run to the larboard gangway, and opened a swift and +deadly fire into the cabin, crowded with English sailors busy rigging +their gun. The men dropped in clusters; the floor of the cabin was +covered with the slain, its walls were splashed with blood. But Baker +and the few men not yet struck down kept coolly to their task. The gun +was loaded under the actual flash of the French muskets, its muzzle was +thrust through the port, and it was fired! Its charge of langrage +swept the French ship from her larboard bow to her starboard quarter, +and struck down in an instant twenty-four men. The deadly fire was +renewed again and again, the British marines on the quarter-deck +meanwhile keeping down with their musketry the fire of the great French +carronade. +</P> + +<P> +That fierce and bloody wrestle lasted for nearly thirty minutes, then +the <I>Didon</I> began to fore-reach. Her great bowsprit ground slowly +along the side of the <I>Phoenix</I>. It crossed the line of the second +aftermost gun on the British main-deck. Its flames on the instant +smote the Frenchman's head-rails to splinters, and destroyed the +gammoning of her bowsprit. Gun after gun of the two ships was brought +in succession to bear; but in this close and deadly contest the +<I>Phoenix</I> had the advantage. Her guns were lighter, her men better +drilled, and their fierce energy overbore the Frenchmen. Presently the +<I>Didon</I>, with her foremast tottering, her maintopmast gone, her decks a +blood-stained wreck, passed out of gunshot ahead. +</P> + +<P> +In the tangle between the two ships the fly of the British white ensign +at the gaff end dropped on the <I>Didon's</I> forecastle. The Frenchmen +tore it off, and, as the ships moved apart, they waved it triumphantly +from the <I>Didon's</I> stern. All the colours of the <I>Phoenix</I>, indeed, in +one way or another had vanished, and the only response the exasperated +British tars could make to the insult of the <I>Didon</I> was to immediately +lash a boat's ensign to the larboard, and the Union Jack to the +starboard end of their cross jack yard-arm. +</P> + +<P> +The wind had dropped; both ships were now lying a in a semi-wrecked +condition out of gunshot of each other, and it became a question of +which could soonest repair damages and get into fighting condition +again. Both ships, as it happened, had begun the fight with nearly all +canvas spread, and from their splintered masts the sails now hung one +wild network of rags. In each ship a desperate race to effect repairs +began. On the Frenchman's decks arose a babel of sounds, the shouts of +officers, the tumult of the men's voices. The British, on the other +hand, worked in grim and orderly silence, with no sound but the cool, +stern orders of the officers. In such a race the British were sure to +win, and fortune aided them. The two ships were rolling heavily in the +windless swell, and a little before noon the British saw the wounded +foremast of their enemy suddenly snap and tumble, with all its canvas, +upon the unfortunate <I>Didon's</I> decks. This gave new and exultant +vigour to the British. Shot-holes were plugged, dismounted guns +refitted, fresh braces rove, the torn rigging spliced, new canvas +spread. The wind blew softly again, and a little after noon the +<I>Phoenix</I>, sorely battered indeed, but in fighting trim, with guns +loaded, and the survivors of her crew at quarters, bore down on the +<I>Didon</I>, and took her position on that ship's weather bow. Just when +the word "Fire!" was about to be given, the <I>Didon's</I> flag fluttered +reluctantly down; she had struck! +</P> + +<P> +The toils of the <I>Phoenix</I>, however, were not even yet ended. The ship +she had captured was practically a wreck, its mainmast tottering to its +fall, while the prisoners greatly exceeded in numbers their captors. +The little <I>Phoenix</I> courageously took her big prize in tow, and laid +her course for Plymouth. Once the pair of crippled frigates were +chased by the whole of Villeneuve's fleet; once, by a few chance words +overheard, a plot amongst the French prisoners for seizing the +<I>Phoenix</I> and then retaking the <I>Didon</I> was detected—almost too +late—and thwarted. The <I>Phoenix</I>, and her prize too, reached +Gibraltar when a thick fog lay on the straits, a fog which, as the +sorely damaged ships crept through it, was full of the sound of signal +guns and the ringing of bells. The Franco-Spanish fleet, in a word, a +procession of giants, went slowly past the crippled ships in the fog, +and never saw them! +</P> + +<P> +On September 3, however, the <I>Phoenix</I> safely brought her hard-won and +stubborn-guarded prize safely into Plymouth Sound. +</P> + +<P> +The fight between the two ships was marked by many heroic incidents. +During the action the very invalids in the sick-bay of the <I>Phoenix</I> +crept from their cots and tried to take some feeble part in the fight. +The purser is not usually part of the fighting staff of a ship, but the +acting purser of the <I>Phoenix</I>, while her captain was in the +smoke-filled cabin below, trying to rig up a gun to bear on the +<I>Didon</I>, took charge of the quarter-deck, kept his post right opposite +the brazen mouth of the great carronade we have described, and, with a +few marines, kept down the fire. A little middy had the distinction of +saving his captain's life. The <I>Didon's</I> bowsprit was thrust, like the +shaft of a gigantic lance, over the quarter of the <I>Phoenix</I>, and a +Frenchman, lying along it, levelled his musket at Captain Baker, not +six paces distant, and took deliberate aim. A middy named Phillips, +armed with a musket as big as himself, saw the levelled piece of the +Frenchman; he gave his captain an unceremonious jostle aside just as +the Frenchman's musket flashed, and with almost the same movement +discharged his own piece at the enemy. The French bullet tore off the +rim of Captain Baker's hat, but the body of the man who fired it fell +with a splash betwixt the two ships into the water. Here was a story, +indeed, for a middy to tell, to the admiration of all the gun-rooms in +the fleet. +</P> + +<P> +The middy of the period, however, was half imp, half hero. Another +youthful Nelson, aetat. sixteen, at the hottest stage of the +fight—probably at the moment the acting-purser was in command on the +quarter-deck—found an opportunity of getting at the purser's stores. +With jaws widely distended, he was in the act of sucking—in the +fashion so delightful to boys—a huge orange, when a musket ball, after +passing through the head of a seaman, went clean through both the +youth's distended cheeks, and this without touching a single tooth. +Whether this affected the flavour of the orange is not told, but the +historian gravely records that "when the wound in each cheek healed, a +pair of not unseemly dimples remained." Happy middy! He would +scarcely envy Nelson his peerage. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +[Transcriber's note: The word "aetat." in the above paragraph is an +abbreviation of the Latin "aetatis", meaning "aged".] +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap08"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE BLOOD-STAINED HILL OF BUSACO +</H3> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Who would not fight for England?<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Who would not fling a life</SPAN><BR> +I' the ring, to meet a tyrant's gage,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And glory in the strife?</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="letter-spacing: 2em">*****</SPAN><BR> +Now, fair befall our England,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">On her proud and perilous road;</SPAN><BR> +And woe and wail to those who make<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Her footprints red with blood!</SPAN><BR> +Up with our red-cross banner—roll<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">A thunder-peal of drums!</SPAN><BR> +Fight on there, every valiant soul,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And, courage! England comes!</SPAN><BR> +Now, fair befall our England,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">On her proud and perilous road;</SPAN><BR> +And woe and wail to those who make<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Her footprints red with blood!</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Now, victory to our England!<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And where'er she lifts her hand</SPAN><BR> +In Freedom's fight, to rescue Right,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">God bless the dear old land!</SPAN><BR> +And when the storm has passed away,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">In glory and in calm</SPAN><BR> +May she sit down i' the green o' the day,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And sing her peaceful psalm!</SPAN><BR> +Now, victory to our England!<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And where'er she lifts her hand</SPAN><BR> +In Freedom's fight, to rescue Right,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">God bless the dear old land!"</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 5em">—GERALD MASSEY.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Busaco is, perhaps, the most picturesque of Peninsular battles. In the +wild nature of the ground over which it raged, the dramatic incidents +which marked its progress, the furious daring of the assault, and the +stern valour of the defence, it is almost without a rival. The French +had every advantage in the fight, save one. They were 65,000 strong, +an army of veterans, many of them the men of Austerlitz and Marengo. +Massena led; Ney was second in command; both facts being pledges of +daring generalship. The English were falling sullenly back in the long +retreat which ended at Torres Vedras, and the French were in exultant +pursuit. Massena had announced that he was going to "drive the leopard +into the sea"; and French soldiers, it may be added, are never so +dangerous as when on fire with the <I>élan</I> of success. +</P> + +<P> +Wellington's army was inferior to its foe in numbers, and of mixed +nationality, and it is probable that retreat had loosened the fibre of +even British discipline, if not of British courage. Two days before +Busaco, for example, the light division, the very flower of the English +army, was encamped in a pine-wood about which a peasant had warned them +that it was "haunted." During the night, without signal or visible +cause, officers and men, as though suddenly smitten with frenzy, +started from their sleep and dispersed in all directions. Nor could +the mysterious panic be stayed until some officer, shrewder than the +rest, shouted the order, "Prepare to receive cavalry," when the +instinct of discipline asserted itself, the men rushed into rallying +squares, and, with huge shouts of laughter, recovered themselves from +their panic. +</P> + +<P> +But battle is to the British soldier a tonic, and when Wellington drew +up his lines in challenge of battle to his pursuer, on the great hill +of Busaco, his red-coated soldiery were at least full of a grim +satisfaction. One of the combatants has described the diverse aspects +of the two hosts on the night before the fight. "The French were all +bustle and gaiety; but along the whole English line the soldiers, in +stern silence, examined their flints, cleaned their locks and barrels, +and then stretched themselves on the ground to rest, each with his +firelock within his grasp." The single advantage of the British lay in +their position. Busaco is a great hill, one of the loftiest and most +rugged in Portugal, eight miles in breadth, and barring the road by +which Massena was moving on Lisbon. "There are certainly," said +Wellington, "many bad roads in Portugal, but the enemy has taken +decidedly the worst in the whole kingdom." +</P> + +<P> +The great ridge, with its gloomy tree-clad heights and cloven crest, +round which the mists hung in sullen vapour, was an ideal position for +defence. In its front was a valley forming a natural ditch so deep +that the eye could scarcely pierce its depths. The ravine at one point +was so narrow that the English and French guns waged duel across it, +but on the British side the chasm was almost perpendicular. +</P> + +<P> +From their eyrie perch on September 27, 1810, the English watched +Massena's great host coming on. Every eminence sparkled with their +bayonets, every road was crowded with their waggons; it seemed not so +much the march of an army as the movement of a nation. The vision of +"grim Busaco's iron ridge," glittering with bayonets, arrested the +march of the French. But Ney, whose military glance was keen and sure, +saw that the English arrangements were not yet complete; an unfilled +gap, three miles wide, parted the right wing from the left, and he was +eager for an immediate attack. Massena, however, was ten miles in the +rear. According to Marbot, who has left a spirited account of Busaco, +Massena put off the attack till the next day, and thus threw away a +great opportunity. In the gloomy depths of the ravines, however, a war +of skirmishers broke out, and the muskets rang loudly through the +echoing valleys, while the puffs of eddying white smoke rose through +the black pines. But night fell, and the mountain heights above were +crowned with the bivouac fires of 100,000 warriors, over whom the +serene sky glittered. Presently a bitter wind broke on the mountain +summits, and all through the night the soldiers shivered under its keen +blast. +</P> + +<P> +Massena's plan of attack was simple and daring. Ney was to climb the +steep front on the English left, and assail the light division under +Craufurd; Regnier, with a <I>corps d'élite</I>, was to attack the English +left, held by Picton's division. Regnier formed his attack into five +columns while the stars were yet glittering coldly in the morning sky. +They had first to plunge into the savage depths of the ravine, and then +climb the steep slope leading to the English position. The vigour of +the attack was magnificent. General Merle, who had won fame at +Austerlitz, personally led the charge. At a run the columns went down +the ravine; at a run, scarcely less swift, they swept up the hostile +slope. The guns smote the columns from end to end, and the attack left +behind it a broad crimson trail of the dead and dying. But it never +paused. A wave of steel and fire and martial tumult, it swept up the +hill, broke over the crest in a spray of flame, brushed aside a +Portuguese regiment in its path like a wisp of straw, and broke on the +lines of the third division. +</P> + +<P> +The pressure was too great for even the solid English line to sustain; +it, too, yielded to the impetuous French, part of whom seized the rocks +at the highest point of the hill, while another part wheeled to the +right, intending to sweep the summit of the sierra. It was an +astonishing feat. Only French soldiers, magnificently led and in a +mood of victory, could have done it; and only British soldiers, it may +be added, whom defeat hardens, could have restored such a reverse. +</P> + +<P> +Picton was in command, and he sent at the French a wing of the 88th, +the famous Connaught Rangers, led by Colonel Wallace, an officer in +whom Wellington reposed great confidence. Wallace's address was brief +and pertinent. "Press them to the muzzle, Connaught Rangers; press on +to the rascals." There is no better fighting material in the world +than an Irish regiment well led and in a high state of discipline, and +this matchless regiment, with levelled bayonets, ran in on the French +with a grim and silent fury there was no denying. Vain was resistance. +Marbot says of the Rangers that "their first volley, delivered at +fifteen paces, stretched more than 500 men on the ground"; and the +threatening gleam of the bayonet followed fiercely on the flame of the +musket. +</P> + +<P> +The French were borne, shouting, struggling, and fighting desperately, +over the crest and down the deep slope to the ravine below. In a +whirlwind of dust and fire and clamour went the whole body of furious +soldiery into the valley, leaving a broad track of broken arms and +dying men. According to the regimental records of the 88th, "Twenty +minutes sufficed to teach the heroes of Marengo and Austerlitz that +they must yield to the Rangers of Connaught!" As the breathless +Rangers re-formed triumphantly on the ridge, Wellington galloped up and +declared he had never witnessed a more gallant charge. +</P> + +<P> +But a wing of Regnier's attack had formed at right angles across the +ridge. It was pressing forward with stern resolution; it swept before +it the light companies of the 74th and 88th regiments, and unless this +attack could be arrested the position and the battle were lost. Picton +rallied his broken lines within <I>sixty yards</I> of the French muskets, a +feat not the least marvellous in a marvellous fight, and then sent them +furiously at the exulting French, who held a strong position amongst +the rocks. It is always difficult to disentangle the confusion which +marks a great fight. Napier says that it was Cameron who formed line +with the 38th under a violent fire, and, without returning a shot, ran +in upon the French grenadiers with the bayonet and hurled them +triumphantly over the crest. Picton, on the other hand, declares that +it was the light companies of the 74th and the 88th, under Major Smith, +an officer of great daring—who fell in the moment of victory—that +flung the last French down over the cliff. Who can decide when such +experts, and actors in the actual scene, differ? +</P> + +<P> +The result, however, as seen from the French side, is clear. The +French, Marbot records, "found themselves driven in a heap down the +deep descent up which they had climbed, and the English lines followed +them half-way down firing murderous volleys. At this point we lost a +general, 2 colonels, 80 officers, and 700 or 800 men." "The English," +he adds in explanation of this dreadful loss of life, "were the best +marksmen in Europe, the only troops who were perfectly practised in the +use of small arms, whence their firing was far more accurate than that +of any other infantry." +</P> + +<P> +A gleam of humour at this point crosses the grim visage of battle. +Picton, on lying down in his bivouac the night before the battle, had +adorned his head with a picturesque and highly coloured nightcap. The +sudden attack of the French woke him; he clapped on cloak and cocked +hat, and rode to the fighting line, when he personally led the attack +which flung the last of Regnier's troops down the slope. At the moment +of the charge he took off his cocked hat to wave the troops onward; +this revealed the domestic head-dress he unconsciously wore, and the +astonished soldiers beheld their general on flame with warlike fury +gesticulating martially in a nightcap! A great shout of laughter went +up from the men as they stopped for a moment to realise the spectacle; +then with a tempest of mingled laughter and cheers they flung +themselves on the enemy. +</P> + +<P> +Meanwhile Ney had formed his attack on the English left, held by +Craufurd and the famous light division. Marbot praises the +characteristic tactics of the British in such fights. "After having, +as we do," he says, "garnished their front with skirmishers, they post +their principal forces out of sight, holding them all the time +sufficiently near to the key of the position to be able to attack the +enemy the instant they reach it; and this attack, made unexpectedly on +assailants who have lost heavily, and think the victory already theirs, +succeeds almost invariably." "We had," he adds, "a melancholy +experience of this art at Busaco." Craufurd, a soldier of fine skill, +made exactly such a disposition of his men. Some rocks at the edge of +the ravine formed natural embrasures for the English guns under Ross; +below them the Rifles were flung out as skirmishers; behind them the +German infantry were the only visible troops; but in a fold of the +hill, unseen, Craufurd held the 43rd and 52nd regiments drawn up in +line. +</P> + +<P> +Ney's attack, as might be expected, was sudden and furious. The +English, in the grey dawn, looking down the ravine, saw three huge +masses start from the French lines and swarm up the slope. To climb an +ascent so steep, vexed by skirmishers on either flank, and scourged by +the guns which flashed from the summit, was a great and most daring +feat—yet the French did it. Busaco, indeed, is memorable as showing +the French fighting quality at its highest point. General Simon led +Loison's attack right up to the lips of the English guns, and in the +dreadful charge its order was never disturbed nor its speed arrested. +"Ross's guns," says Napier, "were worked with incredible quickness, yet +their range was palpably contracted every round; the enemy's shot came +singing up in a sharper key; the English skirmishers, breathless and +begrimed with powder, rushed over the edge of the ascent; the artillery +drew back"—and over the edge of the hill came the bearskins and the +gleaming bayonets of the French! General Simon led the attack so +fiercely home that he was the first to leap across the English +entrenchments, when an infantry soldier, lingering stubbornly after his +comrades had fallen back, shot him point-blank through the face. The +unfortunate general, when the fight was over, was found lying in the +redoubt amongst the dying and the dead, with scarcely a human feature +left. He recovered, was sent as a prisoner to England, and was +afterwards exchanged, but his horrible wound made it impossible for him +to serve again. +</P> + +<P> +Craufurd had been watching meanwhile with grim coolness the onward rush +of the French. They came storming and exultant, a wave of martial +figures, edged with a spray of fire and a tossing fringe of bayonets, +over the summit of the hill; when suddenly Craufurd, in a shrill tone, +called on his reserves to attack. In an instant there rose, as if out +of the ground, before the eyes of the astonished French, the serried +lines of the 43rd and 52nd, and what a moment before was empty space +was now filled with the frowning visage of battle. The British lines +broke into one stern and deep-toned shout, and 1800 bayonets, in one +long line of gleaming points, came swiftly down upon the French. To +stand against that moving hedge of deadly and level steel was +impossible; yet each man in the leading section of the French raised +his musket and fired, and two officers and ten soldiers fell before +them. Not a Frenchman had missed his mark! They could do no more. +"The head of their column," to quote Napier, "was violently thrown back +upon the rear, both flanks were overlapped at the same moment by the +English wings, and three terrible discharges at five yards' distance +shattered the wavering mass." Before those darting points of flame the +pride of the French shrivelled. Shining victory was converted, in +almost the passage of an instant, into bloody defeat; and a shattered +mass, with ranks broken, and colours abandoned, and discipline +forgotten, the French were swept into the depths of the ravine out of +which they had climbed. +</P> + +<P> +One of the dramatic episodes of the fight at this juncture is that of +Captain Jones—known in his regiment as "Jack Jones" of the 52nd. +Jones was a fiery Welshman, and led his company in the rush on General +Simon's column. The French were desperately trying to deploy, a +<I>chef-de-bataillon</I> giving the necessary orders with great vehemence. +Jones ran ahead of his charging men, outstripping them by speed of +foot, challenged the French officer with a warlike gesture to single +combat, and slew him with one fierce thrust before his own troops, and +the 52nd, as they came on at the run, saw the duel and its result, were +lifted by it to a mood of victory, and raised a sudden shout of +exultation, which broke the French as by a blast of musketry fire. +</P> + +<P> +For hours the battle spluttered and smouldered amongst the skirmishers +in the ravines, and some gallant episodes followed. Towards evening, +for example, a French company, with signal audacity, and apparently on +its own private impulse, seized a cluster of houses only half a musket +shot from the light division, and held it while Craufurd scourged them +with the fire of twelve guns. They were only turned out at the point +of the bayonet by the 43rd. But the battle was practically over, and +the English had beaten, by sheer hard fighting, the best troops and the +best marshals of France. +</P> + +<P> +In the fierceness of actual fighting, Busaco has never been surpassed, +and seldom did the wounded and dying lie thicker on a battlefield than +where the hostile lines struggled together on that fatal September 27. +The <I>melée</I> at some points was too close for even the bayonet to be +used, and the men fought with fists or with the butt-end of their +muskets. From the rush which swept Regnier's men down the slope the +Connaught Rangers came back with faces and hands and weapons literally +splashed red with blood. The firing was so fierce that Wellington, +with his whole staff, dismounted. Napier, however—one of the famous +fighting trio of that name, who afterwards conquered Scinde—fiercely +refused to dismount, or even cover his red uniform with a cloak. "This +is the uniform of my regiment," he said, "and in it I will show, or +fall this day." He had scarcely uttered the words when a bullet +smashed through his face and shattered his jaw to pieces. As he was +carried past Lord Wellington he waved his hand and whispered through +his torn mouth, "I could not die at a better moment!" Of such stuff +were the men who fought under Wellington in the Peninsula. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap09"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +OF NELSON AND THE NILE +</H3> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Britannia needs no bulwarks,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">No towers along the steep;</SPAN><BR> +Her march is o'er the mountain waves,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Her home is on the deep.</SPAN><BR> +With thunders from her native oak,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">She quells the floods below,</SPAN><BR> +As they roar on the shore<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">When the stormy winds do blow;</SPAN><BR> +When the battle rages loud and long,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And the stormy winds do blow.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +The meteor flag of England<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Shall yet terrific burn,</SPAN><BR> +Till danger's troubled night depart,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And the star of peace return.</SPAN><BR> +Then, then, ye ocean warriors,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Our song and feast shall flow</SPAN><BR> +To the fame of your name,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">When the storm has ceased to blow;</SPAN><BR> +When the fiery fight is heard no more,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And the storm has ceased to blow."</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 5em">—CAMPBELL.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Aboukir Bay resembles nothing so much as a piece bitten out of the +Egyptian pancake. A crescent-shaped bay, patchy with shoals, +stretching from the Rosetta mouth of the Nile to Aboukir, or, as it is +now called, Nelson Island, that island being simply the outer point of +a sandbank that projects from the western horn of the bay. Flat +shores, grey-blue Mediterranean waters, two horns of land six miles +apart, that to the north projecting farthest and forming a low +island—this, ninety-eight years ago, was the scene of what might +almost be described as the greatest sea-fight in history. +</P> + +<P> +On the evening of August 1, 1798, thirteen great battleships lay drawn +up in a single line parallel with the shore, and as close to it as the +sandbanks permitted. The head ship was almost stern on to the shoal +which, running out at right angles to the shore, forms Aboukir Island. +The nose of each succeeding ship was exactly 160 yards from the stern +of the ship before it, and, allowing for one or two gaps, each ship was +bound by a great cable to its neighbour. It was a thread of beads, +only each "bead" was a battleship, whose decks swarmed with brave men, +and from whose sides gaped the iron lips of more than a thousand heavy +guns. The line was not exactly straight; it formed a very obtuse +angle, the projecting point at the centre being formed by the <I>Orient</I>, +the biggest warship at that moment afloat, a giant of 120 guns. +</P> + +<P> +Next to her came the <I>Franklin</I>, of 80 guns, a vessel which, if not the +biggest, was perhaps the finest sample of naval architecture in +existence. The line of ships was more than one mile and a half long, +and consisted of the gigantic flagship, three ships of the line of 80 +guns, and nine of 74 guns. In addition, it had a fringe of gunboats +and frigates, while a battery of mortars on the island guarded, as with +a sword of fire, the gap betwixt the headmost ship and the island. +This great fleet had convoyed Napoleon, with 36,000 troops crowded into +400 transports, from France, had captured Malta on the voyage, and +three weeks before had safely landed Napoleon and his soldiers in +Egypt. The French admiral, Bruéys, knew that Nelson was coming +furiously in his track, and after a consultation with all his captains +he had drawn up his ships in the order which we have described, a +position he believed to be unassailable. And at three o'clock on the +afternoon of August 1, 1798, his look-outs were eagerly watching the +white topsails showing above the lee line, the van of Nelson's fleet. +</P> + +<P> +Napoleon had kept the secret of his Egyptian expedition well, and the +great Toulon fleet, with its swarm of transports, had vanished round +the coast of Corsica and gone off into mere space, as far as a +bewildered British Admiralty knew. A fleet of thirteen 74-gun ships +and one of 50 guns was placed under Nelson's flag. He was ordered to +pursue and destroy the vanished French fleet, and with characteristic +energy he set out on one of the most dramatic sea-chases known to +history. With the instinct of genius he guessed that Napoleon's +destination was Egypt; but while the French fleet coasted Sardinia and +went to the west of Sicily, Nelson ran down the Italian coast to +Naples, called there for information, found none, and, carrying all +sail, swept through the straits of Messina. +</P> + +<P> +On the night of June 22 the two fleets actually crossed each other's +tracks. The French fleet, including the transports, numbered 572 +vessels, and their lights, it might be imagined, would have lit up many +leagues of sea. Yet, through this forest of hostile masts the English +fleet, with keen eyes watching at every masthead, swept and saw +nothing. Nelson, for one thing, had no frigates to serve as eyes and +ears for him; his fleet in sailor-like fashion formed a compact body, +three parallel lines of phantom-like pyramids of canvas sweeping in the +darkness across the floor of the sea. Above all a haze filled the +night; and it is not too much to say that the drifting grey vapour +which hid the French ships from Nelson's lookout men changed the face +of history. +</P> + +<P> +Nelson used to explain that his ideal of perfect enjoyment would be to +have the chance of "trying Bonaparte on a wind"; and if he had caught +sound of bell or gleam of lantern from the great French fleet, and +brought it to action in the darkness of that foggy night, can any one +doubt what the result would have been? Nelson would have done off the +coast of Sicily on June 22, 1798, what Wellington did on June 18, 1815; +and in that case there would have been no Marengo or Austerlitz, no +retreat from Moscow, no Peninsular war, and no Waterloo. For so much, +in distracted human affairs, may a patch of drifting vapour count! +</P> + +<P> +Nelson, in a word, overran his prey. He reached Alexandria to find the +coast empty; doubled back to Sicily, zigzagging on his way by Cyprus +and Candia; and twelve hours after he had left Alexandria the topsails +of the French fleet hove in sight from that port. Napoleon's troops +were safely landed, and the French admiral had some four weeks in which +to prepare for Nelson's return, and at 3 P.M. on August 1 the gliding +topsails of the <I>Swiftsure</I> above Aboukir Island showed that the +tireless Englishman had, after nearly three months of pursuit, +overtaken his enemy. +</P> + +<P> +The French, if frigates be included, counted seventeen ships to +fourteen, and ship for ship they had the advantage over the British +alike in crew, tonnage, and weight of fire. In size the English ships +scarcely averaged 1500 tons; the French ships exceeded 2000 tons. +Nelson had only seventy-fours, his heaviest gun being a 32-pounder. +The average French 80-gun ship in every detail of fighting strength +exceeded an English ninety-eight, and Bruéys had three such ships in +his fleet; while his own flagship, the <I>Orient</I>, was fully equal to two +English seventy-fours. Its weight of ball on the lower deck alone +exceeded that from the whole broadside of the <I>Bellerophon</I>, the ship +that engaged it. The French, in brief, had an advantage in guns of +about twenty per cent., and in men of over thirty per cent. Bruéys, +moreover, was lying in a carefully chosen position in a dangerous bay, +of which his enemies possessed no chart, and the head of his line was +protected by a powerful shore battery. +</P> + +<P> +Nothing in this great fight is more dramatic than the swiftness and +vehemence of Nelson's attack. He simply leaped upon his enemy at +sight. Four of his ships were miles off in the offing, but Nelson did +not wait for them. In the long pursuit he had assembled his captains +repeatedly in his cabin, and discussed every possible manner of +attacking the French fleet. If he found the fleet as he guessed, drawn +up in battle-line close in-shore and anchored, his plan was to place +one of his ships on the bows, another on the quarter, of each French +ship in succession. +</P> + +<P> +It has been debated who actually evolved the idea of rounding the head +of the French line and attacking on both faces. One version is that +Foley, in the <I>Goliath</I>, who led the British line, owed the suggestion +to a keen-eyed middy who pointed out that the anchor buoy of the +headmost French ship was at such a distance from the ship itself as to +prove there was room to pass. But the weight of evidence seems to +prove that Nelson himself, as he rounded Aboukir Island, and scanned +with fierce and questioning vision Bruéys' formation, with that +swiftness of glance in which he almost rivalled Napoleon, saw his +chance in the gap between the leading French ship and the shore. +"Where a French ship can swing," he held, "an English ship can either +sail or anchor." And he determined to double on the French line and +attack on both faces at once. He explained his plan to Berry, his +captain, who in his delight exclaimed, "If we succeed, what will the +world say?" "There is no 'if' in the case," said Nelson; "that we +shall succeed is certain; who will live to tell the story is a very +different question." +</P> + +<A NAME="img-106"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG SRC="images/img-106.jpg" ALT="THE BATTLE OF THE NILE. Doubling on the French Line. From Allen's "Battles of the British Navy."" BORDER="2" WIDTH="385" HEIGHT="353"> +<H3> +[Illustration: THE BATTLE OF THE NILE. <BR> +Doubling on the French Line.<BR> +From Allen's "Battles of the British Navy."] +</H3> +</CENTER> + +<P> +Bruéys had calculated that the English fleet must come down +perpendicularly to his centre, and each ship in the process be raked by +a line of fire a mile and a half long; but the moment the English ships +rounded the island they tacked, hugged the shore, and swept through the +gap between the leading vessel and the land. The British ships were so +close to each other that Nelson, speaking from his own quarter-deck, +was able to ask Hood in the <I>Zealous</I>, if he thought they had water +enough to round the French line. Hood replied that he had no chart, +but would lead and take soundings as he went. +</P> + +<P> +So the British line came on, the men on the yards taking in canvas, the +leadsmen in the chains coolly calling the soundings. The battery +roared from the island, the leading French ships broke into smoke and +flame, but the steady British line glided on. The <I>Goliath</I> by this +time led; and at half-past five the shadow of its tall masts cast by +the westering sun fell over the decks of the <I>Guerrier</I>, and as Foley, +its captain, swept past the Frenchman's bows, he poured in a furious +broadside, bore swiftly up, and dropped—as Nelson, with that minute +attention to detail which marks a great commander, had ordered all his +captains—an anchor from the stern, so that, without having to "swing," +he was instantly in a fighting position on his enemy's quarter. Foley, +however, dropped his anchor a moment too late, and drifted on to the +second ship in the line; but Hood, in the <I>Zealous</I>, coming swiftly +after, also raked the <I>Guerrier</I>, and, anchoring from the stern at the +exact moment, took the place on its quarter Foley should have taken. +</P> + +<P> +The <I>Orion</I> came into battle next, blasted the unfortunate <I>Guerrier</I>, +whose foremast had already gone, with a third broadside, and swept +outside the <I>Zealous</I> and <I>Goliath</I> down to the third ship on the +French line. A French frigate, the <I>Sérieuse</I>, of thirty-six guns, +anchored inside the French line, ventured to fire on the <I>Orion</I> as it +swept past, whereupon Saumarez, its commander, discharged his starboard +broadside into that frigate. The <I>Sérieuse</I> reeled under the shock of +the British guns, its masts disappeared like chips, and the unfortunate +Frenchman went down like a stone; while Saumarez, laying himself on the +larboard bow of the <I>Franklin</I> and the quarter of the <I>Peuple Sovrain</I>, +broke upon them in thunder. The <I>Theseus</I> followed hard in the track +of the <I>Orion</I>, raked the unhappy <I>Guerrier</I> in the familiar fashion +while crossing its bows, then swept through the narrow water-lane +betwixt the <I>Goliath</I> and <I>Zealous</I> and their French antagonists, +poured a smashing broadside into each French ship as it passed, then +shot outside the <I>Orion</I>, and anchored with mathematical nicety off the +quarter of the <I>Spartiate</I>. The water-lane was not a pistol-shot wide, +and this feat of seamanship was marvellous. +</P> + +<P> +Miller, who commanded the <I>Theseus</I>, in a letter to his wife described +the fight. "In running along the enemy's line in the wake of the +<I>Zealous</I> and <I>Goliath</I>, I observed," he says, "their shot sweep just +over us, and knowing well that at such a moment Frenchmen would not +have coolness enough to change their elevation, I closed them suddenly, +and, running under the arch of their shot, reserved my fire, every gun +being loaded with two, and some with three round shot, until I had the +<I>Guerrier's</I> masts in a line, and her jib-boom about six feet clear of +our rigging. We then opened with such effect that a second breath +could not be drawn before her main and mizzen-mast were also gone. +This was precisely at sunset, or forty-four minutes past six." +</P> + +<P> +The <I>Audacious</I>, meanwhile, was too impatient to tack round the head of +the French line; it broke through the gap betwixt the first and second +ships of the enemy, delivered itself, in a comfortable manner, of a +raking broadside into both as it passed, took its position on the +larboard bow of the <I>Conquerant</I>, and gave itself up to the joy of +battle. Within thirty minutes from the beginning of the fight, that +is, five British line-of-battle ships were inside the French line, +comfortably established on the bows or quarters of the leading ships. +Nelson himself, in the <I>Vanguard</I>, anchored on the outside of the +French line, within eighty yards of the <I>Spartiate's</I> starboard beam; +the <I>Minotaur</I>, the <I>Bellerophon</I>, and the <I>Majestic</I>, coming up in +swift succession, and at less than five minutes' interval from each +other, flung themselves on the next ships. +</P> + +<P> +How the thunder of the battle deepened, and how the quick flashes of +the guns grew brighter as the night gathered rapidly over sea, must be +imagined. But Nelson's swift and brilliant strategy was triumphant. +Each ship in the French van resembled nothing so much as a walnut in +the jaws of a nut-cracker. They were being "cracked" in succession, +and the rear of the line could only look on with agitated feelings and +watch the operation. +</P> + +<P> +The fire of the British ships for fury and precision was overwhelming. +The head of the <I>Guerrier</I> was simply shot away; the anchors hanging +from her bows were cut in two; her main-deck ports, from the bowsprit +to the gangway, were driven into one; her masts, fallen inboard, lay +with their tangle of rigging on the unhappy crew; while some of her +main-deck beams—all supports being torn away—fell on the guns. Hood, +in the <I>Zealous</I>, who was pounding the unfortunate <I>Guerrier</I>, says, +"At last, being tired of killing men in that way, I sent a lieutenant +on board, who was allowed, as I had instructed him, to hoist a light, +and haul it down as a sign of submission." But all the damage was not +on the side of the French. The great French flagship, the <I>Orient</I>, by +this time had added her mighty voice to the tumult, and the +<I>Bellerophon</I>, who was engaged with her, had a bad time of it. It was +the story of Tom Sayers and Heenan over again—a dwarf fighting a +giant. Her mizzen-mast and mainmast were shot away, and after +maintaining the dreadful duel for more than an hour, and having 200 of +her crew struck down, at 8.20 P.M. the <I>Bellerophon</I> cut her cable and +drifted, a disabled wreck, out of the fire. +</P> + +<P> +Meanwhile the four ships Nelson had left in the offing were beating +furiously up to add themselves to the fight. Night had fallen, by the +time Troubridge, in the <I>Culloden</I>, came round the island; and then, in +full sight of the great battle, the <I>Culloden</I> ran hopelessly ashore! +She was, perhaps, the finest ship of the British fleet, and the +emotions of its crew and commander as they listened to the tumult, and +watched through the darkness the darting fires of the Titanic combat +they could not share, may be imagined. "Our army," according to +well-known authorities, "swore terribly in Flanders." The expletives +discharged that night along the decks and in the forecastle of the +Culloden would probably have made even a Flanders veteran open his eyes +in astonishment. +</P> + +<P> +The <I>Swiftsure</I> and the <I>Alexander</I>, taking warning by the <I>Culloden's</I> +fate, swept round her and bore safely up to the fight. The +<I>Swiftsure</I>, bearing down through the darkness to the combat, came +across a vessel drifting, dismasted and lightless, a mere wreck. +Holliwell, the captain of the <I>Swiftsure</I>, was about to fire, thinking +it was an enemy, but on second thoughts hailed instead, and got for an +answer the words, "<I>Bellerophon</I>; going out of action, disabled." The +<I>Swiftsure</I> passed on, and five minutes after the <I>Bellerophon</I> had +drifted from the bows of the <I>Orient</I> the <I>Swiftsure</I>, coming +mysteriously up out of the darkness, took her place, and broke into a +tempest of fire. +</P> + +<P> +At nine o'clock the great French flagship burst into flame. The +painters had been at work upon her on the morning of that day, and had +left oil and combustibles about. The nearest English ships +concentrated their fire, both of musketry and of cannon, on the burning +patch, and made the task of extinguishing it hopeless. Bruéys, the +French admiral, had already been cut in two by a cannon shot, and +Casablanca, his commodore, was wounded. The fire spread, the flames +leaped up the masts and crept athwart the decks of the great ship. The +moon had just risen, and the whole scene was perhaps the strangest ever +witnessed—the great burning ship, the white light of the moon above, +the darting points of red flame from the iron lips of hundreds of guns +below, the drifting battle-smoke, the cries of ten thousand +combatants—all crowded into an area of a few hundred square yards! +</P> + +<P> +The British ships, hanging like hounds on the flanks of the Orient, +knew that the explosion might come at any moment, and they made every +preparation for it, closing their hatchways, arid gathering their +firemen at quarters. But they would not withdraw their ships a single +yard! At ten o'clock the great French ship blew up with a flame that +for a moment lit shore and sea, and a sound that hushed into stillness +the whole tumult of the battle. Out of a crew of over a thousand men +only seventy were saved! For ten minutes after that dreadful sight the +warring fleets seemed stupefied. Not a shout was heard, not a shot +fired. Then the French ship next the missing flagship broke into +wrathful fire, and the battle awoke in full passion once more. +</P> + +<P> +The fighting raged with partial intermissions all through the night, +and when morning broke Bruéys' curved line of mighty battleships, a +mile and a half long, had vanished. Of the French ships, one had been +blown up, one was sunk, one was ashore, four had fled, the rest were +prizes. It was the most complete and dramatic victory in naval +history. The French fought on the whole with magnificent courage; but, +though stronger in the mass, Nelson's strategy and the seamanship of +his captains made the British stronger at every point of actual battle. +The rear of the French line did not fire a shot or lose a man. The +wonder is that when Nelson's strategy was developed, and its fatal +character understood, Villeneuve, who commanded the French rear, and +was a man of undoubted courage, did not cut his cables, make sail, and +come to the help of his comrades. A few hundred yards would have +carried him to the heart of the fight. Can any one doubt whether, if +the positions had been reversed, Nelson would have watched the +destruction of half his fleet as a mere spectator? If nothing better +had offered, he would have pulled in a wash-tub into the fight! +</P> + +<P> +Villeneuve afterwards offered three explanations of his own +inertness—(1) he "could not spare any of his anchors"; (2) "he had no +instructions"! (3) "on board the ships in the rear the idea of weighing +and going to the help of the ships engaged occurred to no one"! In +justice to the French, however, it may be admitted that nothing could +surpass the fierceness and valour with which, say, the <I>Tonnant</I> was +fought. Its captain, Du Petit-Thouars, fought his ship magnificently, +had first both his arms and then one of his legs shot away, and died +entreating his officers not to strike. Of the ten French ships +engaged, the captains of eight were killed or wounded. Nelson took the +seven wounded captains on board the <I>Vanguard</I>, and, as they recovered, +they dined regularly with him. One of the captains had lost his nose, +another an eye, another most of his teeth, with musket-shots, &c. +Nelson, who himself had been wounded, and was still half-blind as a +result, at one of his dinners offered by mischance a case of toothpicks +to the captain on his left, who had lost all his teeth. He discovered +his error, and in his confusion handed his snuff-box to the captain on +his right, who had lost his nose! +</P> + +<P> +What was the secret of the British victory? Nelson's brilliant +strategy was only possible by virtue of the magnificent seamanship of +his captains, and the new fashion of close and desperate fighting, +which Hood and Jarvis and Nelson himself had created. It is a French +writer, Captain Gravière, who says that the French naval habit of +evading battle where they could, and of accepting action from an enemy +rather than forcing it upon him, had ruined the <I>morale</I> of the French +navy. The long blockades had made Nelson's captains perfect seamen, +and he taught them that close fighting at pistol-shot distance was the +secret of victory. "No English captain," he said, "can do wrong who, +in fight, lays a ship alongside an enemy." It was a captain of +Nelson's school—a Scotchman—who at Camperdown, unable, just as the +action began, to read some complicated signal from his chief, flung his +signal-book on the deck, and in broad Scotch exclaimed, "D—— me! up +with the hellem an' gang in the middle o't." That trick of "ganging +into the middle o't" was irresistible. +</P> + +<P> +The battle of the Nile destroyed the naval prestige of France, made +England supreme in the Mediterranean, saved India, left Napoleon and +his army practically prisoners in Egypt, and united Austria, Russia, +and Turkey in league against France. The night battle in Aboukir Bay, +in a word, changed the face of history. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap10"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE FUSILEERS AT ALBUERA +</H3> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"And nearer, fast and nearer,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Doth the red whirlwind come;</SPAN><BR> +And louder still, and still more loud,<BR> +From underneath that rolling cloud,<BR> +Is heard the trumpet's war-note proud,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">The trampling and the hum.</SPAN><BR> +And plainly, and more plainly,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Now through the gloom appears,</SPAN><BR> +Far to left and far to right,<BR> +In broken gleams of dark-blue light,<BR> +The long array of helmets bright,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">The long array of spears."</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 5em">—MACAULAY.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Albuera is the fiercest, bloodiest, and most amazing fight in the mighty +drama of the Peninsular war. On May 11, 1811, the English guns were +thundering sullenly over Badajos. Wellington was beyond the Guadiana, +pressing Marmont; and Beresford, with much pluck but little skill, was +besieging the great frontier fortress. Soult, however, a master of war, +was swooping down from Seville to raise the siege. On the 14th he +reached Villafranca, only thirty miles distant, and fired salvos from his +heaviest guns all through the night to warn the garrison of approaching +succour. Beresford could not both maintain the siege and fight Soult; +and on the night of the 13th he abandoned his trenches, burnt his gabions +and fascines, and marched to meet Soult at Albuera, a low ridge, with a +shallow river in front, which barred the road to Badajos. As the morning +of May 16, 1811, broke, heavy with clouds, and wild with gusty +rain-storms, the two armies grimly gazed at each other in stern pause, +ere they joined in the wrestle of actual battle. +</P> + +<P> +All the advantages, save one, were on the side of the French. Soult was +the ablest of the French marshals. If he had not Ney's <I>élan</I> in attack, +or Massena's stubborn resource in retreat, yet he had a military genius, +since Lannes was dead, second only to that of Napoleon himself. He had +under his command 20,000 war-hardened infantry, 40 guns, and 4000 +magnificent cavalry, commanded by Latour Maubourg, one of the most +brilliant of French cavalry generals. Beresford, the British commander, +had the dogged fighting courage, half Dutch and half English, of his name +and blood; but as a commander he was scarcely third-rate. Of his army of +30,000, 15,000 were Spanish, half drilled, and more than half +starved—they had lived for days on horse-flesh—under Blake, a general +who had lost all the good qualities of Irish character, and acquired all +the bad ones peculiar to Spanish temper. Of Beresford's remaining troop +8000 were Portuguese; he had only 7000 British soldiers. +</P> + +<P> +Beresford ought not to have fought. He had abandoned the siege at +Badajos, and no reason for giving battle remained. The condition of +Blake's men, no doubt, made retreat difficult. They had reached the +point at which they must either halt or lie down and die. The real force +driving Beresford to battle, however, was the fighting effervescence in +his own blood and the warlike impatience of his English troops. They had +taken no part in the late great battles under Wellington; Busaco had been +fought and Fuentes de Onoro gained without them; and they were in the +mood, both officers and men, of fierce determination to fight <I>somebody</I>! +This was intimated somewhat roughly to Beresford, and he had not that +iron ascendency over his troops Wellington possessed. As a matter of +fact, he was himself as stubbornly eager to fight as any private in the +ranks. +</P> + +<P> +The superiority of Soult's warlike genius was shown before a shot was +fired. Beresford regarded the bridge that crossed the Albuera and the +village that clustered at the bridge-head as the key of his position. He +occupied the village with Alten's German brigade, covered the bridge with +the fire of powerful batteries, and held in reserve above it his best +British brigade, the fusileers, under Cole, the very regiments who, four +hours later, on the extreme right of Beresford's position, were actually +to win the battle. Soult's sure vision, however, as he surveyed his +enemies on the evening of the 15th, saw that Beresford's right was his +weak point. It was a rough, broken table-land, curving till it looked +into the rear of Beresford's line. It was weakly held by Blake and his +Spaniards. Immediately in its front was a low wooded hill, behind which, +as a screen, an attacking force could be gathered. +</P> + +<P> +In the night Soult placed behind this hill the fifth corps, under Gerard, +the whole of his cavalry, under Latour Maubourg, and the strength of his +artillery. When the morning broke, Soult had 15,000 men and 30 guns +within ten minutes' march of Beresford's right wing, and nobody suspected +it. No gleam of colour, no murmur of packed battalions, no ring of +steel, no sound of marching feet warned the deluded English general of +the battle-storm about to break on his right wing. A commander with such +an unexpected tempest ready to burst on the weakest point of his line was +by all the rules of war pre-doomed. +</P> + +<P> +At nine o'clock Soult launched an attack at the bridge, the point where +Beresford expected him, but it was only a feint. Beresford, however, +with all his faults, had the soldierly brain to which the actual thunder +of the cannon gave clearness. He noticed that the French battalions +supporting the attack on the bridge did not press on closely. As a +matter of fact, as soon as the smoke of artillery from the battle raging +at the bridge swept over the field, they swung smartly to the left, and +at the double hastened to add themselves to the thunderbolt which Soult +was launching at Beresford's right. But Beresford, meanwhile, had +guessed Soult's secret, and he sent officer after officer ordering and +entreating Blake to change front so as to meet Soult's attack on his +flank, and he finally rode thither himself to enforce his commands. +Blake, however, was immovable through pride, and his men through sheer +physical weakness. They could die, but they could not march or deploy. +Blake at last tried to change front, but as he did so the French attack +smote him. Pressing up the gentle rise, Gerard's men scourged poor +Blake's flank with their fire; the French artillery, coming swiftly on, +halted every fifty yards to thunder on the unhappy Spaniards; while +Latour Maubourg's lancers and hussars, galloping in a wider sweep, +gathered momentum for a wild ride on Blake's actual rear. +</P> + +<A NAME="img-118"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG SRC="images/img-118.jpg" ALT="Battle of Albuera, 16th May, 1811. From Napier's "Peninsular War."" BORDER="2" WIDTH="613" HEIGHT="395"> +<H3> +[Illustration: Battle of Albuera, 16th May, 1811. <BR> +From Napier's "Peninsular War."] +</H3> +</CENTER> + +<P> +Beresford tried to persuade the Spaniards to charge as the French were +thus circling round them. Shouts and gesticulations were in vain. He +was a man of giant height and strength, and he actually seized a Spanish +ensign in his iron grip, and carried him bodily, flag and all, at a run +for fifty yards towards the moving French lines, and planted him there. +When released, however, the bewildered Spaniard simply took to his heels +and ran back to his friends, as a terrified sheep might run back to the +flock. In half-an-hour Beresford's battle had grown desperate. +Two-thirds of the French, in compact order of battle, were perpendicular +to his right; the Spaniards were falling into disorder. Soult saw the +victory in his grasp, and eagerly pushed forward his reserves. Over the +whole hill, mingled with furious blasts of rain, rolled the tumult of a +disorderly and broken fight. Ten minutes more would have enabled Soult +to fling Beresford's right, a shattered and routed mass, on the only +possible line of retreat, and with the French superiority in cavalry his +army would have been blotted out. +</P> + +<P> +The share of the British in the fight consisted of three great attacks +delivered by way of counter-stroke to Soult's overwhelming rush on the +hill held by Blake. The first attack was delivered by the second +division, under Colborne, led by General Stewart in person. Stewart was +a sort of British version of Ney, a man of vehement spirit, with a daring +that grew even more flame-like in the eddying tumult and tempest of +actual battle. He saw Soult's attack crumpling up Blake's helpless +battalions, while the flash of the French artillery every moment grew +closer. It was the crisis of the fight, and Stewart brought on +Colborne's men at a run. Colborne himself, a fine soldier with cool +judgment, wished to halt and form his men in order of battle before +plunging into the confused vortex of the fight above; but Stewart, full +of breathless ardour, hurried the brigade up the hill in column of +companies, reached the Spanish right, and began to form line by +succession of battalions as they arrived. +</P> + +<P> +At this moment a wild tempest of rain was sweeping over the British as, +at the double, they came up the hill; the eddying fog, thick and slab +with the smoke of powder, hid everything twenty yards from the panting +soldiers. Suddenly the wall of changing fog to their right sparkled into +swiftly moving spots of red; it shone the next instant with the gleam of +a thousand steel points; above the thunder of the cannon, the shouts of +contending men, rose the awful sound of a tempest of galloping hoofs. +The French lancers and hussars caught the English in open order, and in +five fierce and bloody minutes almost trampled them out of existence! +Two-thirds of the brigade went down. The 31st Regiment flung itself +promptly into square, and stood fast—a tiny island, edged with steel and +flame, amid the mad tumult; but the French lancers, drunk with +excitement, mad with battle fury, swept over the whole slope of the hill. +They captured six guns, and might have done yet more fatal mischief but +that they occupied themselves in galloping to and fro across the line of +their original charge, spearing the wounded. +</P> + +<P> +One lancer charged Beresford as he sat, solitary and huge, on his horse +amid the broken English regiments. But Beresford was at least a +magnificent trooper; he put the lance aside with one hand, and caught the +Frenchman by the throat, lifted him clean from his saddle, and dashed him +senseless on the ground! The ensign who carried the colours of the 3rd +Buffs covered them with his body till he was slain by a dozen +lance-thrusts; the ensign who carried the other colours of the same +regiment tore the flag from its staff and thrust it into his breast, and +it was found there, stiff with his blood, after the fight. The +Spaniards, meanwhile, were firing incessantly but on general principles +merely, and into space or into the ranks of their own allies as might +happen; and the 29th, advancing to the help of Colborne's broken men, +finding the Spaniards in their path and firing into their lines, broke +sternly into volleys on them in turn. Seldom has a battlefield witnessed +a tumult so distracted and wild. +</P> + +<P> +The first English counter-stroke had failed, but the second followed +swiftly. The furious rain and fog which had proved so fatal to +Colborne's men for a moment, was in favour of Beresford. Soult, though +eagerly watching the conflict, could not see the ruin into which the +British had fallen, and hesitated to launch his reserves into the fight. +The 31st still sternly held its own against the French cavalry, and this +gave time for Stewart to bring up Houghton's brigade. But this time +Stewart, though he brought up his men with as much vehemence as before, +brought them up in order of battle. The 29th, the 48th, and the 57th +swept up the hill in line, led by Houghton, hat in hand. He fell, +pierced by three bullets; but over his dead body, eager to close, the +British line still swept. They reached the crest. A deep and narrow +ravine arrested their bayonet charge; but with stubborn valour they held +the ground they had gained, scourged with musketry fire at pistol-shot +distance, and by artillery at fifty yards' range, while a French column +smote them with its musketry on their flask. The men fell fast, but +fought as they fell. Stewart was twice wounded; Colonel Dutworth, of the +48th, slain; of the 57th, out of 570 men, 430, with their colonel, +Inglis, fell. The men, after the battle, were found lying dead in ranks +exactly as they fought. "Die hard! my men, die hard!" said Inglis when +the bullet struck him; and the 57th have borne the name of "Die hards" +ever since. At Inkerman, indeed, more than fifty years afterwards, the +"Die hard!" of Inglis served to harden the valour of the 57th in a fight +as stern as Albuera itself. +</P> + +<P> +But ammunition began to fail. Houghton's men would not yield, but it was +plain that in a few more minutes there would be none of them left, save +the dead and the wounded. And at this dreadful moment Beresford, +distracted with the tumult and horror of the fight, wavered! He called +up Alten's men from the bridge to cover his retreat, and prepared to +yield the fatal hill. At this juncture, however, a mind more masterful +and daring than his own launched a third British attack against the +victorious French and won the dreadful day. +</P> + +<P> +Colonel Hardinge, afterwards famous in Indian battles, acted as +quartermaster-general of the Portuguese army; on his own responsibility +he organised the third English attack. Cole had just come up the road +from Badajos with two brigades, and Hardinge urged him to lead his men +straight up the hill; then riding to Abercrombie's brigade, he ordered +him to sweep round the flank of the hill. Beresford, on learning of this +movement, accepted it, and sent back Alten's men to retake the bridge +which they had abandoned. +</P> + +<P> +Abercrombie's men swept to the left of the hill, and Cole, a gallant and +able soldier, using the Portuguese regiments in his brigade as a guard +against a flank attack of the French cavalry, led his two fusileer +regiments, the 7th and 23rd, straight to the crest. +</P> + +<P> +At this moment the French reserves were coming on, the fragments of +Houghton's brigade were falling back, the field was heaped with carcases, +the lancers were riding furiously about the captured artillery, and with +a storm of exultant shouts the French were sweeping on to assured +victory. It was the dramatic moment of the fight. Suddenly through the +fog, coming rapidly on with stern faces and flashing volleys, appeared +the long line of Cole's fusileers on the right of Houghton's staggering +groups, while at the same exact moment Abercrombie's line broke through +the mist on their left. As these grim and threatening lines became +visible, the French shouts suddenly died down. It was the old contest of +the British line—the "thin red line"—against the favourite French +attack in column, and the story can only be told in Napier's resonant +prose. The passage which describes the attack of the fusileers is one of +the classic passages of English battle literature, and in its syllables +can still almost be heard the tread of marching feet, the shrill clangour +of smitten steel, and the thunder of the musketry volleys:— +</P> + +<P> +"Such a gallant line," says Napier, "arising from amid the smoke, and +rapidly separating itself from the confused and broken multitude, +startled the enemy's masses, which were increasing and pressing forward +as to assured victory; they wavered, hesitated, and then, vomiting forth +a storm of fire, hastily endeavoured to enlarge their front, while the +fearful discharge of grape from all their artillery whistled through the +British ranks. Myers was killed. Cole and the three colonels—Ellis, +Blakeney, and Hawkshawe—fell wounded, and the fusileer battalions, +struck by the iron tempest, reeled and staggered like sinking ships. +Suddenly and sternly recovering, they closed on their terrible enemies, +and then was seen with what a strength and majesty the British soldier +fights. In vain did Soult, by voice and gesture, animate his Frenchmen; +in vain did the hardiest veterans break from the crowded columns and +sacrifice their lives to gain time for the mass to open on such a fair +field; in vain did the mass itself bear up, and, fiercely striving, fire +indiscriminately on friends and foes, while the horsemen, hovering on the +flanks, threatened to charge the advancing line. +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing could stop that astonishing infantry. No sudden burst of +undisciplined valour, no nervous enthusiasm weakened the stability of +their order; their flashing eyes were bent on the dark columns in front, +their measured tread shook the ground, their dreadful volleys swept away +the head of every formation, their deafening shouts overpowered the +dissonant cries that broke from all parts of the tumultuous crowd as +slowly and with a horrid carnage it was driven by the incessant vigour of +the attack to the farthest edge of the hill. In vain did the French +reserves mix with the struggling multitude to sustain the fight; their +efforts only increased the irremediable confusion, and the mighty mass, +breaking off like a loosened cliff, went headlong down the ascent. The +rain flowed after in streams discoloured with blood, and 1800 unwounded +men, the remnant of 6000 unconquerable British soldiers, stood triumphant +on the fatal hill." +</P> + +<P> +The battle of Albuera lasted four hours; its slaughter was dreadful. +Within the space of a few hundred feet square were strewn some 7000 +bodies, and over this Aceldama the artillery had galloped, the cavalry +had charged! The 3rd Buffs went into the fight with 24 officers and 750 +rank and file; at the roll-call next morning there were only 5 officers +and 35 men. One company of the Royal Fusileers came out of the fight +commanded by a corporal; every officer and sergeant had been killed. +Albuera is essentially a soldier's fight. The bayonet of the private, +not the brain of the general, won it; and never was the fighting quality +of our race more brilliantly shown. Soult summed up the battle in words +that deserve to be memorable. "There is no beating those troops," he +wrote, "<I>in spite of their generals</I>!" "I always thought them bad +soldiers," he added, with a Frenchman's love of paradox; "now I am sure +of it. For I turned their right, pierced their centre, they were +everywhere broken, the day was mine, and yet <I>they did not know it</I>, and +would not run!" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap11"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE "SHANNON" AND THE "CHESAPEAKE" +</H3> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"The signal to engage shall be<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">A whistle and a hollo;</SPAN><BR> +Be one and all but firm, like me,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And conquest soon will follow!</SPAN><BR> +You, Gunnel, keep the helm in hand—<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Thus, thus, boys! steady, steady,</SPAN><BR> +Till right ahead you see the land—<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Then soon as you are ready,</SPAN><BR> +The signal to engage shall be<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">A whistle and a hollo;</SPAN><BR> +Be one and all but firm, like me,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And conquest soon will follow!"</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 5em">—C. DIBDIN.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +On the early morning of June 1, 1813, a solitary British frigate, +H.M.S. <I>Shannon</I>, was cruising within sight of Boston lighthouse. She +was a ship of about 1000 tons, and bore every mark of long and hard +service. No gleam of colour sparkled about her. Her sides were rusty, +her sails weather-stained; a solitary flag flew from her mizzen-peak, +and even its blue had been bleached by sun and rain and wind to a dingy +grey. A less romantic and more severely practical ship did not float, +and her captain was of the same type as the ship. +</P> + +<P> +Captain Philip Bowes Vere Broke was an Englishman <I>pur sang</I>, and of a +type happily not uncommon. His fame will live as long as the British +flag flies, yet a more sober and prosaic figure can hardly be imagined. +He was not, like Nelson, a quarter-deck Napoleon; he had no gleam of +Dundonald's matchless <I>ruse de guerre</I>. He was as deeply religious as +Havelock or one of Cromwell's major-generals; he had the frugality of a +Scotchman, and the heavy-footed common-sense of a Hollander. He was as +nautical as a web-footed bird, and had no more "nerves" than a fish. A +domestic Englishman, whose heart was always with the little girls at +Brokehall, in Suffolk, but for whom the service of his country was a +piety, and who might have competed with Lawrence for his self-chosen +epitaph, "Here lies one who tried to do his duty." +</P> + +<P> +A sober-suited, half-melancholy common-sense was Broke's +characteristic, and he had applied it to the working of his ship, till +he had made the vessel, perhaps, the most formidable fighting machine +of her size afloat. He drilled his gunners until, from the swaying +platform of their decks, they shot with a deadly coolness and accuracy +nothing floating could resist. Broke, as a matter of fact, owed his +famous victory over the <I>Chesapeake</I> to one of his matter-of-fact +precautions. The first broadside fired by the <I>Chesapeake</I> sent a +32-pound shot through one of the gun-room cabins into the magazine +passage of the <I>Shannon</I>, where it might easily have ignited some +grains of loose powder and blown the ship up, if Broke had not taken +the precaution of elaborately <I>damping</I> that passage before the action +began. The prosaic side of Broke's character is very amusing. In his +diary he records his world-famous victory thus:— +</P> + +<P> +"June 1st.—Off Boston. Moderate." +</P> + +<P> +"N.W.—W(rote) Laurence." +</P> + +<P> +"P.M.—Took <I>Chesapeake</I>." +</P> + +<P> +Was ever a shining victory packed into fewer or duller words? Broke's +scorn of the histrionic is shown by his reply to one of his own men +who, when the <I>Chesapeake</I>, one blaze of fluttering colours, was +bearing down upon her drab-coloured opponent, said to his commander, +eyeing the bleached and solitary flag at the <I>Shannon's</I> peak, "Mayn't +we have three ensigns, sir, like she has?" "No," said Broke, "we have +always been an <I>unassuming</I> ship!" +</P> + +<P> +And yet, this unromantic English sailor had a gleam of Don Quixote in +him. On this pleasant summer morning he was waiting alone, under easy +sail, outside a hostile port, strongly fortified and full of armed +vessels, waiting for an enemy's ship bigger than himself to come out +and fight him. He had sent in the previous day, by way of challenge, a +letter that recalls the days of chivalry. "As the <I>Chesapeake</I>," he +wrote to Laurence, its captain, "appears now ready for sea, I request +that you will do me the favour to meet the <I>Shannon</I> with her, ship to +ship." He proceeds to explain the exact armament of the <I>Shannon</I>, the +number of her crew, the interesting circumstance that he is short of +provisions and water, and that he has sent away his consort so that the +terms of the duel may be fair. "If you will favour me," he says, "with +any plan of signals or telegraph, I will warn you should any of my +friends be too nigh, while you are in sight, until I can detach them +out of the way. Or," he suggests coaxingly, "I would sail under a flag +of truce to any place you think safest from our cruisers, hauling it +down when fair, to begin hostilities.… Choose your terms," he +concludes, "but let us meet." Having sent in this amazing letter, this +middle-aged, unromantic, but hard-fighting captain climbs at daybreak +to his own maintop, and sits there till half-past eleven, watching the +challenged ship, to see if her foretopsail is unloosed and she is +coming out to fight. +</P> + +<P> +It is easy to understand the causes which kindled a British sailor of +even Broke's unimaginative temperament into flame. On June 18, 1812, +the United States, with magnificent audacity, declared war against +Great Britain. England at that moment had 621 efficient cruisers at +sea, 102 being line-of-battle ships. The American navy consisted of 8 +frigates and 12 corvettes. It is true that England was at war at the +same moment with half the civilised world; but what reasonable chance +had the tiny naval power of the United States against the mighty fleets +of England, commanded by men trained in the school of Nelson, and rich +with the traditions of the Nile and Trafalgar? As a matter of fact, in +the war which followed, the commerce of the United States was swept out +of existence. But the Americans were of the same fighting stock as the +English; to the Viking blood, indeed, they added Yankee ingenuity and +resource, making a very formidable combination; and up to the June +morning when the <I>Shannon</I> was waiting outside Boston Harbour for the +<I>Chesapeake</I>, the naval honours of the war belonged to the Americans. +The Americans had no fleet, and the campaign was one of single ship +against single ship, but in these combats the Americans had scored more +successes in twelve months than French seamen had gained in twelve +years. The <I>Guerrière</I>, the <I>Java</I>, and the <I>Macedonian</I> had each been +captured in single combat, and every British post-captain betwixt +Portsmouth and Halifax was swearing with mere fury. +</P> + +<P> +The Americans were shrewd enough to invent a new type of frigate which, +in strength of frame, weight of metal, and general fighting power, was +to a British frigate of the same class almost what an ironclad would be +to a wooden ship. The <I>Constitution</I>, for example, was in size to the +average British frigate as 15.3 to 10.9; in weight of metal as 76 to +51; and in crew as 46 to 25. Broke, however, had a well-founded belief +in his ship and his men, and he proposed, in his sober fashion, to +restore the tarnished honour of his flag by capturing single-handed the +best American frigate afloat. +</P> + +<P> +The <I>Chesapeake</I> was a fine ship, perfectly equipped, under a daring +and popular commander. Laurence was a man of brilliant ingenuity and +courage, and had won fame four months before by capturing in the +<I>Hornet</I>, after a hard fight, the British brig-of-war <I>Peacock</I>. For +this feat he had been promoted to the <I>Chesapeake</I>, and in his brief +speech from the quarterdeck just before the fight with the <I>Shannon</I> +began, he called up the memory of the fight which made him a popular +hero by exhorting his crew to "<I>Peacock</I> her, my lads! <I>Peacock</I> her!" +The <I>Chesapeake</I> was larger than the <I>Shannon</I>, its crew was nearly a +hundred men stronger, its weight of fire 598 lbs. as against the +<I>Shannon's</I> 538 lbs. Her guns fired double-headed shot, and bars of +wrought iron connected by links and loosely tied by a few rope yarns, +which, when discharged from the gun, spread out and formed a flying +iron chain six feet long. Its canister shot contained jagged pieces of +iron, broken bolts, and nails. As the British had a reputation for +boarding, a large barrel of unslacked lime was provided to fling in the +faces of the boarders. An early shot from the <I>Shannon</I>, by the way, +struck this cask of lime and scattered its contents in the faces of the +Americans themselves. Part of the equipment of the <I>Chesapeake</I> +consisted of several hundred pairs of handcuffs, intended for the +wrists of English prisoners. Boston citizens prepared a banquet in +honour of the victors for the same evening, and a small fleet of +pleasure-boats followed the <I>Chesapeake</I> as she came gallantly out to +the fight. +</P> + +<P> +Never was a braver, shorter, or more murderous fight. Laurence, the +most gallant of men, bore steadily down, without firing a shot, to the +starboard quarter of the <I>Shannon</I>. When within fifty yards he luffed; +his men sprang into the shrouds and gave three cheers. Broke fought +with characteristic silence and composure. He forbade his men to +cheer, enforced the sternest silence along his deck, and ordered the +captain of each gun to fire as his piece bore on the enemy. "Fire into +her quarters," he said, "main-deck into main-deck, quarter-deck into +quarter-deck. Kill the men, and the ship is yours." +</P> + +<P> +The sails of the <I>Chesapeake</I> swept betwixt the slanting rays of the +evening sun and the <I>Shannon</I>, the drifting shadow darkened the English +main-deck ports, the rush of the enemy's cut-water could be heard +through the grim silence of the <I>Shannon's</I> decks. Suddenly there +broke out the first gun from the <I>Shannon</I>; then her whole side leaped +into flame. Never was a more fatal broadside discharged. A tempest of +shot, splinters, torn hammocks, cut rigging, and wreck of every kind +was hurled like a cloud across the deck of the <I>Chesapeake</I>, and of one +hundred and fifty men at stations there, more than a hundred were +killed or wounded. A more fatal loss to the Americans instantly +followed, as Captain Laurence, the fiery soul of his ship, was shot +through the abdomen by an English marine, and fell mortally wounded. +</P> + +<P> +The answering thunder of the <I>Chesapeake's</I> guns, of course, rolled +out, and then, following quick, the overwhelming blast of the +<I>Shannon's</I> broadside once more. Each ship, indeed, fired two full +broadsides, and, as the guns fell quickly out of range, part of another +broadside. The firing of the <I>Chesapeake</I> was furious and deadly +enough to have disabled an ordinary ship. It is computed that forty +effective shots would be enough to disable a frigate; the <I>Shannon</I> +during the six minutes of the firing was struck by no less than 158 +shot, a fact which proves the steadiness and power of the American +fire. But the fire of the <I>Shannon</I> was overwhelming. In those same +six fatal minutes she smote the <I>Chesapeake</I> with no less than 362 +shots, an average of 60 shots of all sizes every minute, as against the +<I>Chesapeake's</I> 28 shots. The <I>Chesapeake</I> was fir-built, and the +British shot riddled her. One <I>Shannon</I> broadside partly raked the +<I>Chesapeake</I> and literally smashed the stern cabins and battery to mere +splinters, as completely as though a procession of aerolites had torn +through it. +</P> + +<P> +The swift, deadly, concentrated fire of the British in two +quick-following broadsides practically decided the combat. The +partially disabled vessels drifted together, and the <I>Chesapeake</I> fell +on board the <I>Shannon</I>, her quarter striking the starboard main-chains. +Broke, as the ships ground together, looked over the blood-splashed +decks of the American and saw the men deserting the quarter-deck guns, +under the terror of another broadside at so short a distance. "Follow +me who can," he shouted, and with characteristic coolness "stepped"—in +his own phrase—across the <I>Chesapeake's</I> bulwark. He was followed by +some 32 seamen and 18 marines—50 British boarders leaping upon a ship +with a crew of 400 men, a force which, even after the dreadful +broadsides of the <I>Shannon</I>, still numbered 270 unwounded men in its +ranks. +</P> + +<P> +It is absurd to deny to the Americans courage of the very finest +quality, but the amazing and unexpected severity of the <I>Shannon's</I> +fire had destroyed for the moment their <I>morale</I>, and the British were +in a mood of victory. The boatswain of the <I>Shannon</I>, an old <I>Rodney</I> +man, lashed the two ships together, and in the act had his left arm +literally hacked off by repeated strokes of a cutlass and was killed. +One British midshipman, followed by five topmen, crept along the +<I>Shannon's</I> foreyard and stormed the <I>Chesapeake's</I> foretop, killing +the men stationed there, and then swarmed down by a back-stay to join +the fighting on the deck. Another middy tried to attack the +<I>Chesapeake's</I> mizzentop from the starboard mainyard arm, but being +hindered by the foot of the topsail, stretched himself out on the +mainyard arm, and from that post shot three of the enemy in succession. +</P> + +<P> +Meanwhile the fight on the deck had been short and sharp; some of the +Americans leaped overboard and others rushed below; and Laurence, lying +wounded in his steerage, saw the wild reflux of his own men down the +after ladders. On asking what it meant, he was told, "The ship is +boarded, and those are the <I>Chesapeake's</I> men driven from the upper +decks by the English." This so exasperated the dying man that he +called out repeatedly, "Then blow her up; blow her up." +</P> + +<P> +The fight lasted exactly thirteen minutes—the broadsides occupied six +minutes, the boarding seven—and in thirteen minutes after the first +shot the British flag was flying over the American ship. The <I>Shannon</I> +and <I>Chesapeake</I> were bearing up, side by side, for Halifax. The +spectators in the pleasure-boats were left ruefully staring at the +spectacle; those American handcuffs, so thoughtfully provided, were on +American wrists; and the Boston citizens had to consume, with what +appetite they might, their own banquet. The carnage on the two ships +was dreadful. In thirteen minutes 252 men were either killed or +wounded, an average of nearly twenty men for every minute the fight +lasted. In the combat betwixt these two frigates, in fact, nearly as +many men were struck down as in the whole battle of Navarino! The +<I>Shannon</I> itself lost as many men as any 74-gun ship ever lost in +battle. +</P> + +<P> +Judge Haliburton, famous as "Sam Slick," when a youth of seventeen, +boarded the Chesapeake as the two battered ships sailed into Halifax. +"The deck," he wrote, "had not been cleaned, and the coils and folds of +rope were steeped in gore as if in a slaughter-house. Pieces of skin +with pendent hair were adhering to the sides of the ship; and in one +place I noticed portions of fingers protruding, as if thrust through +the outer walls of the frigate." +</P> + +<P> +Watts, the first lieutenant of the <I>Shannon</I>, was killed by the fire of +his own ship in a very remarkable manner. He boarded with his captain, +with his own hands pulled down the <I>Chesapeake's</I> flag, and hastily +bent on the halliards the English ensign, as he thought, above the +Stars and Stripes, and then rehoisted it. In the hurry he had bent the +English flag under the Stars and Stripes instead of above it, and the +gunners of the <I>Shannon</I>, seeing the American stripes going up first, +opened fire instantly on the group at the foot of the mizzen-mast, blew +the top of their own unfortunate lieutenant's head off with a grape +shot, and killed three or four of their own men. +</P> + +<P> +Captain Broke was desperately wounded in a curious fashion. A group of +Americans, who had laid down their arms, saw the British captain +standing for a moment alone on the break of the forecastle. It seemed +a golden chance. They snatched up weapons lying on the deck, and +leaped upon him. Warned by the shout of the sentry. Broke turned +round to find three of the enemy with uplifted weapons rushing on him. +He parried the middle fellow's pike and wounded him in the face, but +was instantly struck down with a blow from the butt-end of a musket, +which laid bare his skull. He also received a slash from the cutlass +of the third man, which clove a portion of skull completely away and +left the brain bare. He fell, and was grappled on the deck by the man +he had first wounded, a powerful fellow, who got uppermost and raised a +bayonet to thrust through Broke. At this moment a British marine came +running up, and concluding that the man underneath <I>must</I> be an +American, also raised his bayonet to give the <I>coup de grace</I>. "Pooh, +pooh, you fool," said Broke in the most matter-of-fact fashion, "don't +you know your captain?" whereupon the marine changed the direction of +his thrust and slew the American. +</P> + +<P> +The news reached London on July 7, and was carried straight to the +House of Commons, where Lord Cochrane was just concluding a fierce +denunciation of the Admiralty on the ground of the disasters suffered +from the Americans, and Croker, the Secretary to the Admiralty, was +able to tell the story of the fight off Boston to the wildly cheering +House, as a complete defence of his department. Broke was at once +created a Baronet and a Knight of the Bath. In America, on the other +hand, the story of the fight was received with mingled wrath and +incredulity. "I remember," says Rush, afterwards U.S. Minister at the +Court of St. James, "at the first rumour of it, the universal +incredulity. I remember how the post-offices were thronged for +successive days with anxious thousands; how collections of citizens +rode out for miles on the highway to get the earliest news the mail +brought. At last, when the certainty was known, I remember the public +gloom, the universal badges of mourning. 'Don't give up the ship,' the +dying words of Laurence, were on every tongue." +</P> + +<P> +It was a great fight, the most memorable and dramatic sea-duel in naval +history. The combatants were men of the same stock, and fought with +equal bravery. Both nations, in fact, may be proud of a fight so +frank, so fair, so gallant. The world, we may hope, will never witness +another <I>Shannon</I> engaged in the fierce wrestle of battle with another +<I>Chesapeake</I>, for the Union Jack and the Stars and Stripes are knitted +together by a bond woven of common blood and speech and political +ideals that grows stronger every year. +</P> + +<P> +For years the <I>Shannon</I> and the <I>Chesapeake</I> lay peacefully side by +side in the Medway, and the two famous ships might well have been +preserved as trophies. The <I>Chesapeake</I> was bought by the Admiralty +after the fight for exactly L21,314, 11s. 11 1/4d., and six years +afterwards she was sold as mere old timber for 500 pounds, was broken +up, and to-day stands as a Hampshire flour-mill, peacefully grinding +English corn; but still on the mill-timbers can be seen the marks of +the grape and round shot of the <I>Shannon</I>. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap12"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE GREAT BREACH OF CIUDAD RODRIGO +</H3> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Attend, all ye who list to hear our noble England's praise,<BR> +I tell of the thrice famous deeds she wrought in ancient days."<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 5em">—MACAULAY.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +The three great and memorable sieges of the Peninsular war are those of +Ciudad Rodrigo, Badajos, and San Sebastian. The annals of battle +record nowhere a more furious daring in assault or a more gallant +courage in defence than that which raged in turn round each of these +three great fortresses. Of the three sieges that of Badajos was the +most picturesque and bloody; that of San Sebastian the most sullen and +exasperated; that of Ciudad Rodrigo the swiftest and most brilliant. A +great siege tests the fighting quality of any army as nothing else can +test it. In the night watches in the trenches, in the dogged toil of +the batteries, and the crowded perils of the breach, all the frippery +and much of the real discipline of an army dissolves. The soldiers +fall back upon what may be called the primitive fighting qualities—the +hardihood of the individual soldier, the daring with which the officers +will lead, the dogged loyalty with which the men will follow. As an +illustration of the warlike qualities in our race by which empire has +been achieved, nothing better can be desired than the story of how the +breaches were won at Ciudad Rodrigo. +</P> + +<P> +At the end of 1811 the English and the French were watching each other +jealously across the Spanish border. The armies of Marmont and of +Soult, 67,000 strong, lay within touch of each other, barring +Wellington's entrance into Spain. Wellington, with 35,000 men, of whom +not more than 10,000 men were British, lay within sight of the Spanish +frontier. It was the winter time. Wellington's army was wasted by +sickness, his horses were dying of mere starvation, his men had +received no pay for three months, and his muleteers none for eight +months. He had no siege-train, his regiments were ragged and hungry, +and the French generals confidently reckoned the British army as, for +the moment at least, <I>une quantité négligeable</I>. +</P> + +<P> +And yet at that precise moment, Wellington, subtle and daring, was +meditating a leap upon the great frontier fortress of Ciudad Rodrigo, +in the Spanish province of Salamanca. Its capture would give him a +safe base of operations against Spain; it was the great frontier <I>place +d'armes</I> for the French; the whole siege-equipage, and stores of the +army of Portugal were contained in it. The problem of how, in the +depth of winter, without materials for a siege, to snatch a place so +strong from under the very eyes of two armies, each stronger than his +own, was a problem which might have taxed the warlike genius of a +Caesar. But Wellington accomplished it with a combination of subtlety +and audacity simply marvellous. +</P> + +<P> +He kept the secret of his design so perfectly that his own engineers +never suspected it, and his adjutant-general, Murray, went home on +leave without dreaming anything was going to happen. Wellington +collected artillery ostensibly for the purpose of arming Almeida, but +the guns were trans-shipped at sea and brought secretly to the mouth of +the Douro. No less than 800 mule-carts were constructed without +anybody guessing their purpose. Wellington, while these preparations +were on foot, was keenly watching Marmont and Soult, till he saw that +they were lulled into a state of mere yawning security, and then, in +Napier's expressive phrase, he "instantly jumped with both feet upon +Ciudad Rodrigo." +</P> + +<P> +This famous fortress, in shape, roughly resembles a triangle with the +angles truncated. The base, looking to the south, is covered by the +Agueda, a river given to sudden inundations; the fortifications were +strong and formidably armed; as outworks it had to the east the great +fortified Convent of San Francisco, to the west a similar building +called Santa Cruz; whilst almost parallel with the northern face rose +two rocky ridges called the Great and Small Teson, the nearest within +600 yards of the city ramparts, and crowned by a formidable redoubt +called Francisco. The siege began on January 8. The soil was rocky +and covered with snow, the nights were black, the weather bitter. The +men lacked entrenching tools. They had to encamp on the side of the +Agueda farthest from the city, and ford that river every time the +trenches were relieved. The 1st, 3rd, and light divisions formed the +attacking force; each division held the trenches in turn for +twenty-four hours. Let the reader imagine what degree of hardihood it +took to wade in the grey and bitter winter dawn through a half-frozen +river, and without fire or warm food, and under a ceaseless rain of +shells from the enemy's guns, to toil in the frozen trenches, or to +keep watch, while the icicles hung from eyebrow and beard, over the +edge of the battery for twenty-four hours in succession. +</P> + +<P> +Nothing in this great siege is more wonderful than the fierce speed +with which Wellington urged his operations. Massena, who had besieged +and captured the city the year before in the height of summer, spent a +month in bombarding it before he ventured to assault. Wellington broke +ground on January 8, under a tempest of mingled hail and rain; he +stormed it on the night of the 19th. +</P> + +<P> +He began operations by leaping on the strong work that crowned the +Great Teson the very night the siege began. Two companies from each +regiment of the light division were detailed by the officer of the day, +Colonel Colborne, for the assault. Colborne (afterwards Lord Seaton), +a cool and gallant soldier, called his officers together in a group and +explained with great minuteness how they were to attack. He then +launched his men against the redoubt with a vehemence so swift that, to +those who watched the scene under the light of a wintry moon, the +column of redcoats, like the thrust of a crimson sword-blade, spanned +the ditch, shot up the glacis, and broke through the parapet with a +single movement. The accidental explosion of a French shell burst the +gate open, and the remainder of the attacking party instantly swept +through it. There was fierce musketry fire and a tumult of shouting +for a moment or two, but in twenty minutes from Colborne's launching +his attack every Frenchman in the redoubt was killed, wounded, or a +prisoner. +</P> + +<P> +The fashion in which the gate was blown open was very curious. A +French sergeant was in the act of throwing a live shell upon the +storming party in the ditch, when he was struck by an English bullet. +The lighted shell fell from his hands within the parapet, was kicked +away by the nearest French in mere self-preservation; it rolled towards +the gate, exploded, burst it open, and instantly the British broke in. +</P> + +<P> +For ten days a desperate artillery duel raged between the besiegers and +the besieged. The parallels were resolutely pushed on in spite of +rocky soil, broken tools, bitter weather, and the incessant pelting of +the French guns. The temper of the British troops is illustrated by an +incident which George Napier—the youngest of the three +Napiers—relates. The three others were gallant and remarkable +soldiers. Charles Napier in India and elsewhere made history; William, +in his wonderful tale of the Peninsular war, wrote history; and George, +if he had not the literary genius of the one nor the strategic skill of +the other, was a most gallant soldier. "I was a field-officer of the +trenches," he says, "when a 13-inch shell from the town fell in the +midst of us. I called to the men to lie down flat, and they instantly +obeyed orders, except one of them, an Irishman and an old marine, but a +most worthless drunken dog, who trotted up to the shell, the fuse of +which was still burning, and striking it with his spade, knocked the +fuse out; then taking the immense shell in his hands, brought it to me, +saying, 'There she is for you now, yer 'anner. I've knocked the life +out of the crater.'" +</P> + +<P> +The besieged brought fifty heavy guns to reply to the thirty light +pieces by which they were assailed, and day and night the bellow of +eighty pieces boomed sullenly over the doomed city and echoed faintly +back from the nearer hills, while the walls crashed to the stroke of +the bullet. The English fire made up by fierceness and accuracy for +what it lacked in weight; but the sap made no progress, the guns showed +signs of being worn out, and although two apparent breaches had been +made, the counterscarp was not destroyed. Yet Wellington determined +to attack, and, in his characteristic fashion, to attack by night. The +siege had lasted ten days, and Marmont, with an army stronger than his +own, was lying within four marches. That he had not appeared already +on the scene was wonderful. +</P> + +<P> +In a general order issued on the evening of the 19th Wellington wrote, +"Ciudad Rodrigo must be stormed this evening." The great breach was a +sloping gap in the wall at its northern angle, about a hundred feet +wide. The French had crowned it with two guns loaded with grape; the +slope was strewn with bombs, hand-grenades, and bags of powder; a great +mine pierced it beneath; a deep ditch had been cut betwixt the breach +and the adjoining ramparts, and these were crowded with riflemen. The +third division, under General Mackinnon, was to attack the breach, its +forlorn hope being led by Ensign Mackie, its storming party by General +Mackinnon himself. The lesser breach was a tiny gap, scarcely twenty +feet wide, to the left of the great breach; this was to be attacked by +the light division, under Craufurd, its forlorn hope of twenty-five men +being led by Gurwood, and its storming party by George Napier. General +Pack, with a Portuguese brigade, was to make a sham attack on the +eastern face, while a fourth attack was to be made on the southern +front by a company of the 83rd and some Portuguese troops. In the +storming party of the 83rd were the Earl of March, afterwards Duke of +Richmond; Lord Fitzroy Somerset, afterwards Lord Raglan; and the Prince +of Orange—all volunteers without Wellington's knowledge! +</P> + +<P> +At 7 o'clock a curious silence fell suddenly on the battered city and +the engirdling trenches. Not a light gleamed from the frowning +parapets, not a murmur arose from the blackened trenches. Suddenly a +shout broke out on the right of the English attack; it ran, a wave of +stormy sound, along the line of the trenches. The men who were to +attack the great breach leaped into the open. In a moment the space +betwixt the hostile lines was covered with the stormers, and the gloomy +half-seen face of the great fortress broke into a tempest of fire. +</P> + +<P> +Nothing could be finer than the vehement courage of the assault, unless +it were the cool and steady fortitude of the defence. Swift as was the +upward rush of the stormers, the race of the 5th, 77th, and 94th +regiments was almost swifter. Scorning to wait for the ladders, they +leaped into the great ditch, outpaced even the forlorn hope, and pushed +vehemently up the great breach, whilst their red ranks were torn by +shell and shot. The fire, too, ran through the tangle of broken stones +over which they climbed; the hand-grenades and powder-bags by which it +was strewn exploded. The men were walking on fire! Yet the attack +could not be denied. The Frenchmen—shooting, stabbing, yelling—were +driven behind their entrenchments. There the fire of the houses +commanding the breach came to their help, and they made a gallant +stand. "None would go back on either side, and yet the British could +not get forward, and men and officers falling in heaps choked up the +passage, which from minute to minute was raked with grape from two guns +flanking the top of the breach at the distance of a few yards. Thus +striving, and trampling alike upon the dead and the wounded, these +brave men maintained the combat." +</P> + +<P> +It was the attack on the smaller breach which really carried Ciudad +Rodrigo; and George Napier, who led it, has left a graphic narrative of +the exciting experiences of that dreadful night. The light division +was to attack, and Craufurd, with whom Napier was a favourite, gave him +command of the storming party. He was to ask for 100 volunteers from +each of the three British regiments—the 43rd, 52nd, and the Rifle +Corps—in the division. Napier halted these regiments just as they had +forded the bitterly cold river on their way to the trenches. +"Soldiers," he said, "I want 100 men from each regiment to form the +storming party which is to lead the light division to-night. Those who +will go with me come forward!" Instantly there was a rush forward of +the whole division, and Napier had to take his 300 men out of a tumult +of nearly 1500 candidates. He formed them into three companies, under +Captains Ferguson, Jones, and Mitchell. Gurwood, of the 52nd, led the +forlorn hope, consisting of twenty-five men and two sergeants. +Wellington himself came to the trench and showed Napier and Colborne, +through the gloom of the early night, the exact position of the breach. +A staff-officer looking on, said, "Your men are not loaded. Why don't +you make them load?" Napier replied, "If we don't do the business with +the bayonet we shall not do it all. I shall not load." "Let him +alone," said Wellington; "let him go his own way." Picton had adopted +the same grim policy with the third division. As each regiment passed +him, filing into the trenches, his injunction was, "No powder! We'll +do the thing with the <I>could</I> iron." +</P> + +<P> +A party of Portuguese carrying bags filled with grass were to run with +the storming party and throw the bags into the ditch, as the leap was +too deep for the men. But the Portuguese hesitated, the tumult of the +attack on the great breach suddenly broke on the night, and the forlorn +hope went running up, leaped into the ditch a depth of eleven feet, and +clambered up the steep slope beyond, while Napier with his stormers +came with a run behind them. In the dark for a moment the breach was +lost, but found again, and up the steep quarry of broken stone the +attack swept. About two-thirds of the way up Napier's arm was smashed +by a grape-shot, and he fell. His men, checked for a moment, lifted +their muskets to the gap above them, whence the French were firing +vehemently, and forgetting their pieces were unloaded, snapped them. +"Push on with the bayonet, men!" shouted Napier, as he lay bleeding. +The officers leaped to the front, the men with a stern shout followed; +they were crushed to a front of not more than three or four. They had +to climb without firing a shot in reply up to the muzzles of the French +muskets. +</P> + +<P> +But nothing could stop the men of the light division. A 24-pounder was +placed across the narrow gap in the ramparts; the stormers leaped over +it, and the 43rd and 52nd, coming up in sections abreast, followed. +The 43rd wheeled to the right towards the great breach, the 52nd to the +left, sweeping the ramparts as they went. +</P> + +<P> +Meanwhile the other two attacks had broken into the town; but at the +great breach the dreadful fight still raged, until the 43rd, coming +swiftly along the ramparts, and brushing all opposition aside, took the +defence in the rear. The British there had, as a matter of fact, at +that exact moment pierced the French defence. The two guns that +scourged the breach had wrought deadly havoc amongst the stormers, and +a sergeant and two privates of the 88th—Irishmen all, and whose names +deserve to be preserved—Brazel, Kelly, and Swan—laid down their +firelocks that they might climb more lightly, and, armed only with +their bayonets, forced themselves through the embrasure amongst the +French gunners. They were furiously attacked, and Swan's arm was hewed +off by a sabre stroke; but they stopped the service of the gun, slew +five or six of the French gunners, and held the post until the men of +the 5th, climbing behind them, broke into the battery. +</P> + +<P> +So Ciudad Rodrigo was won, and its governor surrendered his sword to +the youthful lieutenant leading the forlorn hope of the light division, +who, with smoke-blackened face, torn uniform, and staggering from a +dreadful wound, still kept at the head of his men. +</P> + +<A NAME="img-148"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG SRC="images/img-148.jpg" ALT="Siege of Ciudad Rodrigo, 1812. From Napier's "Peninsular War."" BORDER="2" WIDTH="387" HEIGHT="597"> +<H3> +[Illustration: Siege of Ciudad Rodrigo, 1812. <BR> +From Napier's "Peninsular War."] +</H3> +</CENTER> + +<P> +In the eleven days of the siege Wellington lost 1300 men and officers, +out of whom 650 men and 60 officers were struck down on the slopes of +the breaches. Two notable soldiers died in the attack—Craufurd, the +famous leader of the light division, as he brought his men up to the +lesser breach; and Mackinnon, who commanded a brigade of the third +division, at the great breach. Mackinnon was a gallant Highlander, a +soldier of great promise, beloved by his men. His "Children," as he +called them, followed him up the great breach till the bursting of a +French mine destroyed all the leading files, including their general. +Craufurd was buried in the lesser breach itself, and Mackinnon in the +great breach—fitting graves for soldiers so gallant. +</P> + +<P> +Alison says that with the rush of the English stormers up the breaches +of Ciudad Rodrigo "began the fall of the French Empire." That siege, +so fierce and brilliant, was, as a matter of fact, the first of that +swift-following succession of strokes which drove the French in ruin +out of Spain, and it coincided in point of time with the turn of the +tide against Napoleon in Russia. Apart from all political results, +however, it was a splendid feat of arms. The French found themselves +almost unable to believe the evidence of their senses. "On the 16th," +Marmont wrote to the Emperor, "the English batteries opened their fire +at a great distance. On the 19th the place was taken by storm. There +is something so <I>incomprehensible</I> in this that I allow myself no +observations." Napoleon, however, relieved his feelings with some very +emphatic observations. "The fall of Ciudad Rodrigo," he wrote to +Marmont, "is an affront to you. Why had you not advices from it twice +a week? What were you doing with the five divisions of Souham? It is +a strange mode of carrying on war," &c. Unhappy Marmont! +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap13"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +HOW THE "HERMIONE" WAS RECAPTURED +</H3> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"They cleared the cruiser from end to end,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">From conning-tower to hold;</SPAN><BR> +They fought as they fought in Nelson's fleet—<BR> +They were stripped to the waist, they were bare to the feet,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">As it was in the days of old."</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 5em">—KIPLING.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +The story of how the <I>Hermione</I> was lost is one of the scandals and the +tragedies of British naval history; the tale of how it was re-won is +one of its glories. The <I>Hermione</I> was a 32-gun frigate, cruising off +Porto Rico, in the West Indies. On the evening of September 21, 1797, +the men were on drill, reefing topsails. The captain, Pigot, was a +rough and daring sailor, a type of the brutal school of naval officer +long extinct. The traditions of the navy were harsh; the despotic +power over the lives and fortunes of his crew which the captain of a +man-of-war carried in the palm of his hand, when made the servant of a +ferocious temper, easily turned a ship into a floating hell. The +terrible mutinies which broke out in British fleets a hundred years ago +had some justification, at least, in the cruelties, as well as the +hardships, to which the sailors of that period were exposed. +</P> + +<P> +Pigot was rough in speech, vehement in temper, cursed with a +semi-lunatic delight in cruelty, and he tormented his men to the verge +of desperation. On this fatal night, Pigot, standing at the break of +his quarter-deck, stormed at the men aloft, and swore with many oaths +he would flog the last man off the mizzentop yard; and the men knew how +well he would keep his word. The most active sailor, as the men lay +out on the yard, naturally takes the earing, and is, of course, the +last man off, as well as on, the yard. Pigot's method, that is, would +punish not the worst sailors, but the best! The two outermost men on +the mizzen-top yard of the <I>Hermione</I> that night, determined to escape +the threatened flogging. They made a desperate spring to get over +their comrades crowding into the ratlines, missed their foothold, fell +on the quarter-deck beside their furious captain, and were instantly +killed. The captain's epitaph on the unfortunate sailors was, "Throw +the lubbers overboard!" +</P> + +<P> +All the next day a sullen gloom lay on the ship. Mutiny was breeding. +It began, as night fell, in a childish fashion, by the men throwing +double-headed shot about the deck. The noise brought down the first +lieutenant to restore order. He was knocked down. In the jostle of +fierce tempers, murder awoke; knives gleamed. A sailor, as he bent +over the fallen officer, saw the naked undefended throat, and thrust +his knife into it. The sight kindled the men's passions to flame. The +unfortunate lieutenant was killed with a dozen stabs, and his body +thrown overboard. The men had now tasted blood. In the flame of +murderous temper suddenly let loose, all the bonds of discipline were +in a moment consumed. A wild rush was made for the officers' cabins. +The captain tried to break his way out, was wounded, and driven back; +the men swept in, and, to quote the realistic official account, "seated +in his cabin the captain was stabbed by his own coxswain and three +other mutineers, and, forced out of the cabin windows, was heard to +speak as he went astern." With mutiny comes anarchy. The men made no +distinction between their officers, cruel or gentle; not only the +captain, but the three lieutenants, the purser, the surgeon, the +lieutenant of marines, the boatswain, the captain's clerk were +murdered, and even one of the two midshipmen on board was hunted like a +rat through the ship, killed, and thrown overboard. The only officers +spared were the master, the gunner, and one midshipman. +</P> + +<P> +Having captured the ship, the mutineers were puzzled how to proceed. +Every man-of-war on the station, they knew, would be swiftly on their +track. Every British port was sealed to them. They would be pursued +by a retribution which would neither loiter nor slumber. On the open +sea there was no safety for mutineers. They turned the head of the +<I>Hermione</I> towards the nearest Spanish port, La Guayra, and, reaching +it, surrendered the ship to the Spanish authorities, saying they had +turned their officers adrift in the jolly-boat. The Spaniards were not +disposed to scrutinise too closely the story. A transaction which put +into their hands a fine British frigate was welcomed with rapture. The +British admiral in command of the station sent in a flag of truce with +the true account of the mutiny, and called upon the Spanish +authorities, as a matter of honour, to surrender the <I>Hermione</I>, and +hand over for punishment the murderers who had carried it off. The +appeal, however, was wasted. +</P> + +<P> +The <I>Hermione</I>, a handsome ship of 715 tons, when under the British +flag, was armed with thirty-two 12-pounders, and had a complement of +220 men. The Spaniards cut new ports in her, increased her broadsides +to forty-four guns, and gave her a complement, including a detachment +of soldiers and artillerymen, of nearly 400 men. She thus became the +most formidable ship carrying the Spanish flag in West Indian waters. +</P> + +<P> +But the <I>Hermione</I>, under its new flag, had a very anxious existence. +It became a point of honour with every British vessel on the station to +look out for the ship which had become the symbol of mutiny, and make a +dash at her, no matter what the odds. The brutal murders which +attended the mutiny shocked even the forecastle imagination, while the +British officers were naturally eager to destroy the ship which +represented revolt against discipline. Both fore and aft, too, the +fact that what had been a British frigate was now carrying the flag of +Spain was resented with a degree of exasperation which assured to the +<I>Hermione</I>, under its new name and flag, a very warm time if it came +under the fire of a British ship. The Spaniards kept the <I>Hermione</I> +for just two years, but kept her principally in port, as the moment she +showed her nose in the open sea some British ship or other, sleeplessly +on the watch for her, bore down with disconcerting eagerness. +</P> + +<P> +In September 1799 the <I>Hermione</I> was lying in Puerto Cabello, while the +<I>Surprise</I>, a 28-gun frigate, under Captain Edward Hamilton, was +waiting outside, specially detailed by the admiral, Sir Hyde Parker, to +attack her the instant she put to sea. The <I>Surprise</I> had less than +half the complement of the <I>Hermione</I>, and not much more than half her +weight of metal. But Hamilton was not only willing to fight the +Hermione in the open sea against such odds; he told the admiral that if +he would give him a barge and twenty men he would undertake to carry +the Hermione with his boats while lying in harbour. Parker pronounced +the scheme too desperate to be entertained, and refused Hamilton the +additional boat's crew for which he asked. Yet this was the very plan +which Hamilton actually carried out without the reinforcement for which +he had asked! +</P> + +<P> +Hamilton, to tempt the <I>Hermione</I> out, kept carefully out of sight of +Puerto Cabello to leeward, yet in such a position that if the Hermione +left the harbour her topsails must become visible to the look-outs on +the mastheads of the <I>Surprise</I>; and he kept that post until his +provisions failed. Then, as the <I>Hermione</I> would not come out to him, +he determined to go into the <I>Hermione</I>. Hamilton was a silent, +much-meditating man, not apt to share his counsels with anybody. In +the cells of his brooding and solitary brain he prepared, down to the +minutest details, his plan for a dash at the <I>Hermione</I>—a ship, it +must be remembered, not only more than double his own in strength, but +lying moored head and stern in a strongly fortified port, under the +fire of batteries mounting nearly 200 guns, and protected, in addition, +by several gunboats. In a boat attack, too, Hamilton could carry only +part of his crew with him; he must leave enough hands on board his own +ship to work her. As a matter of fact, he put in his boats less than +100 men, and with them, in the blackness of night, rowed off to attack +a ship that carried 400 men, and was protected by the fire, including +her own broadsides, of nearly 300 guns! The odds were indeed so great +that the imagination of even British sailors, if allowed to meditate +long upon them, might become chilled. Hamilton therefore breathed not +a whisper of his plans, even to his officers, till he was ready to put +them into execution, and, when he did announce them, carried them out +with cool but unfaltering speed. +</P> + +<P> +On the evening of October 24, Hamilton invited all the officers not on +actual duty to dine in his cabin. The scene may be easily pictured. +The captain at the head of his table, the merry officers on either +side, the jest, the laughter, the toasts; nobody there but the silent, +meditative captain dreaming of the daring deed to be that night +attempted. When dinner was over, and the officers alone, with a +gesture Hamilton arrested the attention of the party, and explained in +a few grim sentences his purpose. The little party of brave men about +him listened eagerly and with kindling eyes. "We'll stand by you, +captain," said one. "We'll all follow you," said another. Hamilton +bade his officers follow him at once to the quarter-deck. A roll of +the drum called the men instantly to quarters, and, when the officers +reported every man at his station, they were all sent aft to where, on +the break of the quarter-deck, the captain waited. +</P> + +<P> +It was night, starless and black, but a couple of lanterns shed a few +broken rays on the massed seamen with their wondering, upturned faces, +and the tall figure of the silent captain. Hamilton explained in a +dozen curt sentences that they must run into port for supplies; that if +they left their station some more fortunate ship would have the glory +of taking the <I>Hermione</I>. "Our only chance, lads," he added, "is to +cut her out to-night!" As that sentence, with a keen ring on its last +word, swept over the attentive sailors, they made the natural response, +a sudden growling cheer. "I lead you myself," added Hamilton, +whereupon came another cheer; "and here are the orders for the six +boats to be employed, with the names of the officers and men." +Instantly the crews were mustered, while the officers, standing in a +cluster round the captain, heard the details of the expedition. Every +seaman was to be dressed in blue, without a patch of white visible; the +password was "Britannia," the answer "Ireland"—Hamilton himself being +an Irishman. +</P> + +<P> +By half-past seven the boats were actually hoisted out and lowered, the +men armed and in their places, and each little crew instructed as to +the exact part it was to play in the exciting drama. The orders given +were curiously minute. The launch, for example, was to board on the +starboard bow, but three of its men, before boarding, were first to cut +the bower cable, for which purpose a little platform was rigged up on +the launch's quarter, and sharp axes provided. The jolly-boat was to +board on the starboard quarter, cut the stern cable, and send two men +aloft to loose the mizzen topsail. The gig, under the command of the +doctor, was to board on the larboard bow, and instantly send four men +aloft to loose the fore topsail. If the <I>Hermione</I> was reached without +any alarm being given, only the boarders were to leap on board; the +ordinary crews of the boats were to take the frigate in tow. Thus, if +Hamilton's plans were carried out, the Spaniards would find themselves +suddenly boarded at six different points, their cables cut, their +topsails dropped, and their ship being towed out—and all this at the +same instant of time. "The rendezvous," said Hamilton to his officers, +as the little cluster of boats drew away from the <I>Surprise</I>, "is the +<I>Hermione's</I> quarter-deck!" +</P> + +<P> +Hamilton himself led, standing up in his pinnace, with his night-glass +fixed on the doomed ship, and the boats followed with stern almost +touching stern, and a rope passed from each boat to the one behind. +Can a more impressive picture of human daring be imagined than these +six boats pulling silently ever the black waters and through the black +night to fling themselves, under the fire of two hundred guns, on a foe +four times more numerous than themselves! The boats had stolen to +within less than a mile of the <I>Hermione</I>, when a Spanish challenge +rang out of the darkness before them. Two Spanish gunboats were on +guard within the harbour, and they at once opened fire on the chain of +boats gliding mysteriously through the gloom. There was no longer any +possibility of surprise, and Hamilton instantly threw off the rope that +connected him with the next boat and shouted to his men to pull. The +men, with a loud "Hurrah!" dashed their oars into the water, and the +boats leaped forward towards the <I>Hermione</I>. But Hamilton's boats—two +of them commanded by midshipmen—could not find themselves so close to +a couple of Spanish gunboats without "going" for them. Two of the six +boats swung aside and dashed at the gunboats; only three followed +Hamilton at the utmost speed towards the <I>Hermione</I>. +</P> + +<P> +That ship, meanwhile, was awake. Lights flashed from every port; a +clamour of voices broke on the quiet of the night; the sound of the +drum rolled along the decks, the men ran to quarters. Hamilton, in the +pinnace, dashed past the bows of the <I>Hermione</I> to reach his station, +but a rope, stretched from the <I>Hermione</I> to her anchor-buoy, caught +the rudder of the pinnace and stopped her in full course, the coxswain +reporting the boat "aground." The pinnace had swung round till her +starboard oars touched the bend of the <I>Hermione</I>, and Hamilton gave +the word to "board." Hamilton himself led, and swung himself up till +his feet rested on the anchor hanging from the <I>Hermione's</I> cat-head. +It was covered with mud, having been weighed that day, and his feet +slipping off it, Hamilton hung by the lanyard of the <I>Hermione's</I> +foreshroud. The crew of the pinnace meanwhile climbing with the +agility of cats and the eagerness of boys, had tumbled over their own +captain's shoulders as well as the bulwarks of the <I>Hermione</I>, and were +on that vessel's forecastle, where Hamilton in another moment joined +them. Here were sixteen men on board a vessel with a hostile crew four +hundred strong. +</P> + +<P> +Hamilton ran to the break of the forecastle and looked down, and to his +amazement found the whole crew of the <I>Hermione</I> at quarters on the +main-deck, with battle-lanterns lit, and firing with the utmost energy +at the darkness, in which their excited fancy saw the tall masts of at +least a squadron of frigates bearing down to attack them. Hamilton, +followed by his fifteen men, ran aft to the agreed rendezvous on the +<I>Hermione's</I> quarter-deck. The doctor, with his crew, had meantime +boarded, and forgetting all about the rendezvous, and obeying only the +natural fighting impulse in their own blood, charged upon the Spaniards +in the gangway. +</P> + +<P> +Hamilton sent his men down to assist in the fight, waiting alone on the +quarter-deck till his other boat boarded. Here four Spaniards rushed +suddenly upon him; one struck him over the head with a musket with a +force that broke the weapon itself, and knocked him semi-senseless upon +the combings of the hatchway. Two British sailors, who saw their +commander's peril, rescued him, and, with blood streaming down from his +battered head upon his uniform, Hamilton flung himself into the fight +at the gangway. At this juncture the black cutter, in command of the +first lieutenant, with the <I>Surprise's</I> marines on board, dashed up to +the side of the <I>Hermione</I>, and the men came tumbling over the larboard +gangway. They had made previously two unsuccessful attempts to board. +They came up first by the steps of the larboard gangway, the lieutenant +leading. He was incontinently knocked down, and tumbled all his men +with him as he fell back into the boat. They then tried the starboard +of the <I>Hermione</I>, and were again beaten back, and only succeeded on a +third attempt. +</P> + +<P> +Three boats' crews of the British were now together on the deck of the +Hermione. They did not number fifty men in all, but the marines were +instantly formed up and a volley was fired down the after hatchway. +Then, following the flash of their muskets, with the captain leading, +the whole party leaped down upon the maindeck, driving the Spaniards +before them. Some sixty Spaniards took refuge in the cabin, and +shouted they surrendered, whereupon they were ordered to throw down +their arms, and the doors were locked upon them, turning them into +prisoners. On the main-deck and under the forecastle, however, the +fighting was fierce and deadly; but by this time the other boats had +come up, and the cables fore and aft were cut, as had been arranged. +The men detailed for that task had raced up the Spaniard's rigging, and +while the desperate fight raged below, had cast loose the topsails of +the <I>Hermione</I>. Three of the boats, too, had taken her in tow. She +began to move seaward, and that movement, with the sound of the +rippling water along the ship's sides, appalled the Spaniards, and +persuaded them the ship was lost. +</P> + +<P> +On the quarter-deck the gunner and two men—all three wounded—stood at +the wheel, and flung the head of the <I>Hermione</I> seaward. They were +fiercely attacked, but while one man clung to the wheel and kept +control of the ship, the gunner and his mate kept off the Spaniards. +Presently the foretopsail filled with the land breeze, the water +rippled louder along the sides of the moving vessel, the ship swayed to +the wind. The batteries by this time were thundering from the shore, +but though they shot away many ropes, they fired with signal +ill-success. Only fifty British sailors and marines, it must be +remembered, were actually on the deck of the <I>Hermione</I>, and amongst +the crowd of sullen and exasperated Spaniards below, who had +surrendered, but were still furious with the astonishment of the attack +and the passion of the fight, there arose a shout to "blow up the +ship." The British had to fire down through the hatchway upon the +swaying crowd to enforce order. By two o'clock the struggle was over, +the <I>Hermione</I> was beyond the fire of the batteries, and the crews of +the boats towing her came on board. +</P> + +<P> +There is no more surprising fight in British history. The mere +swiftness with which the adventure was carried out is marvellous. It +was past six P.M. when Hamilton disclosed his plan to his officers, the +<I>Hermione</I> at that moment lying some eight miles distant; by two +o'clock the captured ship, with the British flag flying from her peak, +was clear of the harbour. Only half a hundred men actually got on +board the <I>Hermione</I>, but what a resolute, hard-smiting, strong-fisted +band they were may be judged by the results. Of the Spaniards, 119 +were killed, and 97 wounded, most of them dangerously. Hamilton's 50 +men, that is, in those few minutes of fierce fighting, cut down four +times their own number! Not one of the British, as it happened, was +killed, and only 12 wounded, Captain Hamilton himself receiving no less +than five serious wounds. The <I>Hermione</I> was restored to her place in +the British Navy List, but under a new name—the <I>Retribution</I>—and the +story of that heroic night attack will be for all time one of the most +stirring incidents in the long record of brave deeds performed by +British seamen. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap14"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +FRENCH AND ENGLISH IN THE PASSES +</H3> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Beating from the wasted vines<BR> +Back to France her banded swarms,<BR> +Back to France with countless blows,<BR> +Till o'er the hills her eagles flew<BR> +Beyond the Pyrenean pines;<BR> +Follow'd up in valley and glen<BR> +With blare of bugle, clamour of men,<BR> +Roll of cannon and clash of arms,<BR> +And England pouring on her foes.<BR> +Such a war had such a close."<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 5em">—TENNYSON.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"In both the passes, and on the heights above them, there was desperate +fighting. They fought on the mountain-tops, which could scarcely have +witnessed any other combat than that of the Pyrenean eagles; they +fought among jagged rocks and over profound abysses; they fought amidst +clouds and mists, for those mountain-tops were 5000 feet above the +level of the plain of France, and the rains, which had fallen in +torrents, were evaporating in the morning and noon-day sun, were +steaming heavenward and clothing the loftiest peaks with fantastic +wreaths." These words describe, with picturesque force, the most +brilliant and desperate, and yet, perhaps, the least known chapter in +the great drama of the Peninsular war: the furious combats waged +between British and French in the gloomy valleys and on the +mist-shrouded summits of the Western Pyrenees. The great campaign, +which found its climax at Vittoria, lasted six weeks. In that brief +period Wellington marched with 100,000 men 600 miles, passed six great +rivers, gained one historic and decisive battle, invested two +fortresses, and drove 120,000 veteran troops from Spain. There is no +more brilliant chapter in military history; and, at its close, to quote +Napier's clarion-like sentences, "the English general, emerging from +the chaos of the Peninsular struggle, stood on the summit of the +Pyrenees a recognised conqueror. From those lofty pinnacles the +clangour of his trumpets pealed clear and loud, and the splendour of +his genius appeared as a flaming beacon to warring nations." +</P> + +<P> +But the great barrier of the Pyrenees stretched across Wellington's +path, a tangle of mountains sixty miles in length; a wild table-land +rough with crags, fierce with mountain torrents, shaggy with forests, a +labyrinth of savage and snow-clad hills. On either flank a great +fortress—San Sebastian and Pampeluna—was held by the French, and +Wellington was besieging both at once, and besieging them without +battering trains. The echoes of Vittoria had aroused Napoleon, then +fighting desperately on the Elbe, and ten days after Vittoria the +French Emperor, acting with the lightning-like decision characteristic +of his genius, had despatched Soult, the ablest of all his generals, to +bar the passes of the Pyrenees against Wellington. Soult travelled day +and night to the scene of his new command, gathering reinforcements on +every side as he went, and in an incredibly short period he had +assembled on the French side of the Pyrenees a great and perfectly +equipped force of 75,000 men. +</P> + +<P> +Wellington could not advance and leave San Sebastian and Pampeluna on +either flank held by the enemy. Some eight separate passes pierce the +giant chain of the Pyrenees. Soult was free to choose any one of them +for his advance to the relief of either of the besieged fortresses, but +Wellington had to keep guard over the whole eight, and the force +holding each pass was almost completely isolated from its comrades. +Thus all the advantages of position were with Soult. He could pour his +whole force through one or two selected passes, brush aside the +relatively scanty force which held it, relieve San Sebastian or +Pampeluna, and, with the relieved fortress as his base, fling himself +on Wellington's flank while the allied armies were scattered over the +slopes of the Pyrenees for sixty miles. And Soult was exactly the +general to avail himself of these advantages. He had the swift vision, +the resolute will, and the daring of a great commander. "It is on +Spanish soil," he said in a proclamation to his troops, "your tents +must next be pitched. Let the account of our successes be dated from +Vittoria, and let the fête-day of his Imperial Majesty be celebrated in +that city." These were brave words, and having uttered them, Soult led +his gallant troops, with gallant purpose, into the gloomy passes of the +Pyrenees, and for days following the roar of battle sank and swelled +over the snow-clad peaks. But when the Imperial fête-day +arrived—August 15—Soult's great army was pouring back from those same +passes a shattered host, and the allied troops, sternly following them, +were threatening French soil! +</P> + +<P> +Soult judged Pampeluna to be in greater peril than San Sebastian, and +moved by his left to force the passes of Roncesvalles and Maya. The +rain fell furiously, the mountain streams were in flood, gloomy mists +shrouded the hill-tops; but by July 24, with more than 60,000 fighting +men, and nearly seventy guns, Soult was pouring along the passes he had +chosen. It is impossible to do more than pick out a few of the purple +patches in the swift succession of heroic combats that followed: fights +waged on mountain summits 5000 feet above the sea-level, in shaggy +forests, under tempests of rain and snow. D'Erlon, with a force of +20,000 men, took the British by surprise in the pass of Maya. Ross, an +eager and hardy soldier, unexpectedly encountering the French advance +guard, instantly shouted the order to "Charge!" and with a handful of +the 20th flung himself upon the enemy, and actually checked their +advance until Cole, who had only 10,000 bayonets to oppose to 30,000, +had got into fighting form. A thick fog fell like a pall on the +combatants, and checked the fight, and Cole, in the night, fell back. +The French columns were in movement at daybreak, but still the fog hid +the whole landscape, and the guides of the French feared to lead them +up the slippery crags. At Maya, however, the French in force broke +upon Stewart's division, holding that pass. The British regiments, as +they came running up, not in mass, but by companies, and breathless +with the run, were flung with furious haste upon the French. The 34th, +the 39th, the 28th in succession crashed into the fight, but were flung +back by overpowering numbers. It was a battle of 4000 men against +13,000. +</P> + +<P> +The famous 50th, fiercely advancing, checked the French rush at one +point; but Soult's men were full of the <I>élan</I> of victory, and swept +past the British flanks. The 71st and 92nd were brought into the +fight, and the latter especially clung sternly to their position till +two men out of every three were shot down, the mound of dead and dying +forming a solid barrier between the wasted survivors of the regiment +and the shouting edge of the French advance. "The stern valour of the +92nd," says Napier, "principally composed of Irishmen, would have +graced Thermopylae." No one need question the fighting quality of the +Irish soldier, but, as a matter of fact, there were 825 Highlanders in +the regiment, and 61 Irishmen. The British, however, were steadily +pushed back, ammunition failed, and the soldiers were actually +defending the highest crag with stones, when Barnes, with a brigade of +the seventh division, coming breathlessly up the pass, plunged into the +fight, and checked the French. Soult had gained ten of the thirty +miles of road toward Pampeluna, but at an ominous cost, and, meanwhile, +the plan of his attack was developed, and Wellington was in swift +movement to bar his path. +</P> + +<P> +Soult had now swung into the pass of Roncesvalles, and was on the point +of attacking Cole, who held the pass with a very inadequate force, +when, at that exact moment, Wellington, having despatched his aides in +various directions to bring up the troops, galloped alone along the +mountain flank to the British line. He was recognised; the nearest +troops raised a shout; it ran, gathering volume as it travelled down +all the slope, where the British stood waiting for the French attack. +That sudden shout, stern and exultant, reached the French lines, and +they halted. At the same moment, round the shoulder of the hill on the +opposite side of the pass, Soult appeared, and the two generals, near +enough to see each other's features, eagerly scrutinised one another. +"Yonder is a great commander," said Wellington, as if speaking to +himself, "but he is cautious, and will delay his attack to ascertain +the cause of these cheers. That will give time for the sixth division +to arrive, and I shall beat him." Wellington's forecast of Soult's +action was curiously accurate. He made no attack that day. The sixth +division came up, and Soult was beaten! +</P> + +<A NAME="img-168"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG SRC="images/img-168.jpg" ALT="Combat of Roncesvalles, July 25, 1813. From Napier's "Peninsular War."" BORDER="2" WIDTH="575" HEIGHT="381"> +<H3> +[Illustration: Combat of Roncesvalles, July 25, 1813. <BR> +From Napier's "Peninsular War."] +</H3> +</CENTER> + +<P> +There were two combats of Sauroren, and each was, in Wellington's own +phrase, "bludgeon work"—a battle of soldiers rather than of generals, +a tangle of fierce charges and counter-charges, of volleys delivered so +close that they scorched the very clothes of the opposing lines, and +sustained so fiercely that they died down only because the lines of +desperately firing men crumbled into ruin and silence. Nothing could +be finer than the way in which a French column, swiftly, sternly, and +without firing a shot, swept up a craggy steep crowned by rocks like +castles, held by some Portuguese battalions, and won the position. +Ross's brigade, in return, with equal vehemence recharged the position +from its side, and dashed the French out of it; the French in still +greater force came back, a shouting mass, and crushed Ross's men. Then +Wellington sent forward Byng's brigade at running pace, and hurled the +French down the mountain side. At another point in the pass the French +renewed their assault four times; in their second assault they gained +the summit. The 40th were in reserve at that point; they waited in +steady silence till the edge of the French line, a confused mass of +tossing bayonets and perspiring faces, came clear over the crest; then, +running forward with extraordinary fury, they flung them, a broken, +tumultuous mass, down the slope. In the later charges, so fierce and +resolute were the French officers that they were seen dragging their +tired soldiers up the hill by their belts! +</P> + +<P> +It is idle to attempt the tale of this wild mountain fighting. Soult +at last fell back, and Wellington followed, swift and vehement, on his +track, and moved Alten's column to intercept the French retreat. The +story of Alten's march is a marvellous record of soldierly endurance. +His men pressed on with speed for nineteen consecutive hours, and +covered forty miles of mountain tracks, wilder than the Otway Ranges, +or the paths of the Australian Alps between Bright and Omeo. The +weather was close; many men fell and died, convulsed and frothing at +the mouth. Still, their officers leading, the regiment kept up its +quick step, till, as evening fell, the head of the column reached the +edge of the precipice overlooking the bridge across which, in all the +confusion of a hurried retreat, the French troops were crowding. "We +overlooked the enemy," says Cook in his "Memoirs," "at stone's-throw. +The river separated us; but the French were wedged in a narrow road, +with inaccessible rocks on one side, and the river on the other." Who +can describe the scene that followed! Some of the French fired +vertically up at the British; others ran; others shouted for quarter; +some pointed with eager gestures to the wounded, whom they carried on +branches of trees, as if entreating the British not to fire. +</P> + +<P> +In nine days of continual marching, ten desperate actions had been +fought, at what cost of life can hardly be reckoned. Napier, after +roughly calculating the losses, says: "Let this suffice. It is not +needful to sound the stream of blood in all its horrid depths." But +the fighting sowed the wild passes of the Pyrenees thick with the +graves of brave men. +</P> + +<P> +Soult actually fought his way to within sight of the walls of +Pampeluna, and its beleaguered garrison waved frantic welcomes to his +columns as, from the flanks of the overshadowing hills, they looked +down on the city. Then broken as by the stroke of a thunderbolt, and +driven like wild birds caught in a tempest, the French poured back +through the passes to French soil again. "I never saw such fighting," +was Wellington's comment on the struggle. +</P> + +<P> +For the weeks that followed, Soult could only look on while San +Sebastian and Pampeluna fell. Then the allied outposts were advanced +to the slopes looking down on France and the distant sea. It is +recorded that the Highlanders of Hill's division, like Xenophon's +Greeks 2000 years before them, broke into cheers when they caught their +first glimpse of the sea, the great, wrinkled, azure-tinted floor, +flecked with white sails. It was "the way home!" Bearn and Gascony +and Languedoc lay stretched like a map under their feet. But the +weather was bitter, the snow lay thick in the passes, sentinels were +frozen at the outposts, and a curious stream of desertions began. The +warm plains of sunny France tempted the half-frozen troops, and Southey +computes, with an arithmetical precision which is half-humorous, that +the average weekly proportion of desertions was 25 Spaniards, 15 Irish, +12 English, 6 Scotch, and half a Portuguese! One indignant English +colonel drew up his regiment on parade, and told the men that "if any +of them wanted to join the French they had better do so at once. He +gave them free leave. He wouldn't have men in the regiment who wished +to join the enemy!" +</P> + +<P> +Meanwhile Soult was trying to construct on French soil lines of defence +as mighty as those of Wellington at Torres Vedras; and on October 7, +Wellington pushed his left across the Bidassoa, the stream that marks +the boundaries of Spain and France. On the French side the hills rise +to a great height. One huge shoulder, called La Rhune, commands the +whole stream; another lofty ridge, called the "Boar's Back," offered +almost equal facilities for defence. The only road that crossed the +hills rose steeply, with sharp zigzags, and for weeks the French had +toiled to make the whole position impregnable. The British soldiers +had watched while the mountain sides were scarred with trenches, and +the road was blocked with abattis, and redoubt rose above redoubt like +a gigantic staircase climbing the sky. The Bidassoa at its mouth is +wide, and the tides rose sixteen feet. +</P> + +<P> +But on the night of October 7—a night wild with rain and +sleet—Wellington's troops marched silently to their assigned posts on +the banks of the river. When day broke, at a signal-gun seven columns +could be seen moving at once in a line of five miles, and before Soult +could detect Wellington's plan the river was crossed, the French +entrenched camps on the Bidassoa won! The next morning the heights +were attacked. The Rifles carried the Boar's Back with a single +effort. The Bayonette Crest, a huge spur guarded by battery above +battery, and crowned by a great redoubt, was attacked by Colborne's +brigade and some Portuguese. The tale of how the hill was climbed, and +the batteries carried in swift succession, cannot be told here. It was +a warlike feat of the most splendid quality. Other columns moving +along the flanks of the great hill alarmed the French lest they should +be cut off, and they abandoned the redoubt on the summit. Colborne, +accompanied by only one of his staff and half-a-dozen files of +riflemen, came suddenly round a shoulder of the hill on the whole +garrison of the redoubt, 300 strong, in retreat. With great presence +of mind, he ordered them, in the sharpest tones of authority, to "lay +down their arms," and, believing themselves cut off, they obeyed! +</P> + +<P> +A column of Spanish troops moving up the flanks of the great Rhune +found their way barred by a strong line of abattis and the fire of two +French regiments. The column halted, and their officers vainly strove +to get the Spaniards to attack. An officer of the 43rd named +Havelock—a name yet more famous in later wars—attached to Alten's +staff, was sent to see what caused the stoppage of the column. He +found the Spaniards checked by the great abattis, through which +flashed, fierce and fast, the fire of the French. Waving his hat, he +shouted to the Spaniards to "follow him," and, putting his horse at the +abattis, at one leap went headlong amongst the French. There is a +swift contagion in valour. He was only a light-haired lad, and the +Spaniards with one vehement shout for "el chico blanco"—"the fair +lad"—swept over abattis and French together! +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap15"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +FAMOUS CUTTING-OUT EXPEDITIONS +</H3> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"We have fed our sea for a thousand years,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And she calls us, still unfed,</SPAN><BR> +Though there's never a wave of all her waves<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">But marks our English dead;</SPAN><BR> +We have strawed our best to the weed's unrest,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">To the shark and the sheering gull.</SPAN><BR> +If blood be the price of admiralty,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Lord God, we ha' paid in full!</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +There's never a flood goes shoreward now<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">But lifts a keel we manned;</SPAN><BR> +There's never an ebb goes seaward now<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">But drops our dead on the sand.</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="letter-spacing: 2em">******</SPAN><BR> +We must feed our sea for a thousand years,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">For that is our doom and pride,</SPAN><BR> +As it was when they sailed with the Golden Hind,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Or the wreck that struck last tide—</SPAN><BR> +Or the wreck that lies on the spouting reef<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Where the ghastly blue lights flare.</SPAN><BR> +If blood be the price of admiralty,<BR> +If blood be the price of admiralty,<BR> +If blood be the price of admiralty,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Lord God, we ha' bought it fair!"</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 5em">—KIPLING.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +As illustrations of cool daring, of the courage that does not count +numbers or depend on noise, nor flinch from flame or steel, few things +are more wonderful than the many cutting-out stories to be found in the +history of the British navy. The soldier in the forlorn hope, +scrambling up the breach swept by grape and barred by a triple line of +steadfast bayonets, must be a brave man. But it may be doubted whether +he shows a courage so cool and high as that of a boat's crew of sailors +in a cutting-out expedition. +</P> + +<P> +The ship to be attacked lies, perhaps, floating in a tropic haze five +miles off, and the attacking party must pull slowly, in a sweltering +heat, up to the iron lips of her guns. The greedy, restless sea is +under them, and a single shot may turn the eager boat's crew at any +instant into a cluster of drowning wretches. When the ship is reached, +officers and men must clamber over bulwarks and boarding-netting, +exposed, almost helplessly, as they climb, to thrust of pike and shot +of musket, and then leap down, singly and without order, on to the deck +crowded with foes. Or, perhaps, the ship to be cut out lies in a +hostile port under the guard of powerful batteries, and the boats must +dash in through the darkness, and their crews tumble, at three or four +separate points, on to the deck of the foe, cut her cables, let fall +her sails, and—while the mad fight still rages on her deck and the +great battery booms from the cliff overhead—carry the ship out of the +harbour. These, surely, are deeds of which only a sailor's courage is +capable! Let a few such stories be taken from faded naval records and +told afresh to a new generation. +</P> + +<P> +In July 1800 the 14-gun cutter <I>Viper</I>, commanded by acting-Lieutenant +Jeremiah Coghlan, was attached to Sir Edward Pellew's squadron off Port +Louis. Coghlan, as his name tells, was of Irish blood. He had just +emerged from the chrysalis stage of a midshipman, and, flushed with the +joy of an independent command, was eager for adventure. The entrance +to Port Louis was watched by a number of gunboats constantly on +sentry-go, and Coghlan conceived the idea of jumping suddenly on one of +these, and carrying her off from under the guns of the enemy's fleet. +He persuaded Sir Edward Pellew to lend him the flagship's ten-oared +cutter, with twelve volunteers. Having got this reinforcement, and +having persuaded the <I>Amethyst</I> frigate to lend him a boat and crew, +Mr. Jeremiah Coghlan proceeded to carry out another and very different +plan from that he had ventured to suggest to his admiral. A French +gun-brig, named the <I>Cerbère</I>, was lying in the harbour of St. Louis. +She mounted three long 24 and four 6-pounders, and was moored, with +springs in her cables, within pistol-shot of three batteries. A French +seventy-four and two frigates were within gunshot of her. She had a +crew of eighty-six men, sixteen of whom were soldiers. It was upon +this brig, lying under three powerful batteries, within a hostile and +difficult port, that Mr. Jeremiah Coghlan proposed, in the darkness of +night, to make a dash. He added the <I>Viper's</I> solitary midshipman, +with himself and six of his crew, to the twelve volunteers on board the +flagship's cutter, raising its crew to twenty men, and, with the +<I>Amethyst's</I> boat and a small boat from the <I>Viper</I>, pulled off in the +blackness of the night on this daring adventure. +</P> + +<P> +The ten-oared cutter ran away from the other two boats, reached the +<I>Cerbère</I>, found her with battle lanterns alight and men at quarters, +and its crew at once jumped on board the Frenchman. Coghlan, as was +proper, jumped first, landed on a trawl-net hung up to dry, and, while +sprawling helpless in its meshes, was thrust through the thigh with a +pike, and with his men—several also severely hurt—tumbled back into +the boat. The British picked themselves up, hauled their boat a little +farther ahead, clambered up the sides of the <I>Cerbère</I> once more, and +were a second time beaten back with new wounds. They clung to the +Frenchman, however, fought their way up to a new point, broke through +the French defences, and after killing or wounding twenty-six of the +enemy—or more than every fourth man of the <I>Cerbère's</I> crew—actually +captured her, the other two boats coming up in time to help in towing +out the prize under a wrathful fire from the batteries. Coghlan had +only one killed and eight wounded, himself being wounded in two places, +and his middy in six. Sir Edward Pellew, in his official despatch, +grows eloquent over "the courage which, hand to hand, gave victory to a +handful of brave fellows over four times their number, and the skill +which planned, conducted, and effected so daring an enterprise." Earl +St. Vincent, himself the driest and grimmest of admirals, was so +delighted with the youthful Irishman's exploit that he presented him +with a handsome sword. +</P> + +<P> +In 1811, again, Great Britain was at war with the Dutch—a tiny little +episode of the great revolutionary war. A small squadron of British +ships was cruising off Batavia. A French squadron, with troops to +strengthen the garrison, was expected daily. The only fortified port +into which they could run was Marrack, and the commander of the British +squadron cruising to intercept the French ships determined to make a +dash by night on Marrack, and so secure the only possible landing-place +for the French. Marrack was defended by batteries mounting fifty-four +heavy guns. The attacking force was to consist of 200 seamen and 250 +troops, under the command of Lieutenant Lyons of the <I>Minden</I>. Just +before the boats pushed off, however, the British commander learned +that the Dutch garrison had been heavily reinforced, and deeming an +assault too hazardous, the plan was abandoned. A few days afterwards +Lyons, with the <I>Minden's</I> launch and cutter, was despatched to land +nineteen prisoners at Batavia, and pick up intelligence. Lyons, a very +daring and gallant officer, learned that the Marrack garrison was in a +state of sleepy security, and, with his two boats' crews, counting +thirty-five officers and men, he determined to make a midnight dash on +the fort, an exploit which 430 men were reckoned too weak a force to +attempt. +</P> + +<P> +Lyons crept in at sunset to the shore, and hid his two boats behind a +point from which the fort was visible. A little after midnight, just +as the moon dipped below the horizon, Lyons stole with muffled oars +round the point, and instantly the Dutch sentries gave the alarm. +Lyons, however, pushed fiercely on, grounded his boats in a heavy surf +under the very embrasures of the lower battery, and, in an instant, +thirty-five British sailors were tumbling over the Dutch guns and upon +the heavy-breeched and astonished Dutch gunners. The battery was +carried. Lyons gathered his thirty-five sailors into a cluster, and, +with a rush, captured the upper battery. Still climbing up, they +reached the top of the hill, and found the whole Dutch garrison forming +in line to receive them. The sailors instantly ran in upon the +half-formed line, cutlass in hand; Lyons roared that he "had 400 men, +and would give no quarter;" and the Dutch, finding the pace of events +too rapid for their nerves, broke and fled. But the victorious British +were only thirty-five in number, and were surrounded by powerful +forces. They began at once to dismantle the guns and destroy the fort, +but two Dutch gunboats in the bay opened fire on them, as did a heavy +battery in the rear. +</P> + +<P> +At daybreak a strong Dutch column was formed, and came on at a resolute +and laborious trot towards the shattered gate of the fort. Lyons had +trained two 24-pounders, loaded to the muzzle with musket balls, on the +gate, left invitingly open. He himself stood, with lighted match, by +one gun; his second in command, with another lighted match, by the +other. They waited coolly by the guns till the Dutch, their officers +leading, reached the gate, raising a tumult of angry guttural shouts as +they came on. Then, from a distance of little over ten yards, the +British fired. The head of the column was instantly smashed, its tail +broken up into flying fragments. Lyons finished the destruction of the +fort at leisure, sank one of the two gunboats with the last shot fired +from the last gun before he spiked it, and marched off, leaving the +British flag flying on the staff above the fort, where, in the fury of +the attack, it had been hoisted in a most gallant fashion by the +solitary middy of the party, a lad named Franks, only fifteen years +old. One of the two boats belonging to the British had been bilged by +the surf, and the thirty-five seamen—only four of them wounded—packed +themselves into the remaining boat and pulled off, carrying with them +the captured Dutch colours. Let the reader's imagination illuminate, +as the writer's pen cannot, that midnight dash by thirty-five men on a +heavily armed fort with a garrison twelve times the strength of the +attacking force. Where in stories of warfare, ancient or modern, is +such another tale of valour to be found? Lyons, however, was not +promoted, as he had "acted without orders." +</P> + +<P> +A tale, with much the same flavour in it, but not so dramatically +successful, has for its scene the coast of Spain. In August 1812, the +British sloop <I>Minstrel</I>, of 24 guns, and the 18-gun brig <I>Philomel</I>, +were blockading three small French privateers in the port of Biendom, +near Alicante. The privateers were protected by a strong fort mounting +24 guns. By way of precaution, two of the ships were hauled on shore, +six of their guns being landed, and formed into a battery manned by +eighty of their crews. The <I>Minstrel</I> and her consort could not +pretend to attack a position so strong, but they kept vigilant watch +outside, and a boat from one ship or the other rowed guard every night +near the shore. On the night of the 12th the <I>Minstrel's</I> boat, with +seven seamen, was in command of an Irish midshipman named Michael +Dwyer. Dwyer had all the fighting courage of his race, with almost +more of the gay disregard of odds than is natural to even an Irish +midshipman. It occurred to Mr. Michael Dwyer that if he could carry by +surprise the 6-gun battery, there would be a chance of destroying the +privateers. A little before ten P.M. he pulled silently to the beach, +at a point three miles distant from the battery, and, with his seven +followers, landed, and was instantly challenged by a French sentry. +Dwyer by some accident knew Spanish, and, with ready-witted audacity, +replied in that language that "they were peasants." They were allowed +to pass, and these seven tars, headed by a youth, set off on the three +miles' trudge to attack a fort! +</P> + +<P> +There were eighty men in the battery when Michael and his amazing seven +rushed upon it. There was a wild struggle for five minutes, and then +the eighty fled before the eight, and the delighted middy found himself +in possession of the battery. But the alarm was given, and two +companies of French infantry, each one hundred strong, came resolutely +up to retake the battery. Eight against eighty seemed desperate odds, +but eight against two hundred is a quite hopeless proportion. Yet Mr. +Dwyer and his seven held the fort till one of their number was killed, +two (including the midshipman) badly wounded, and, worst of all, their +ammunition exhausted. When the British had fired their last shot, the +French, with levelled bayonets, broke in; but the inextinguishable +Dwyer was not subdued till he had been stabbed in seventeen places, and +of the whole eight British only one was left unwounded. The French +amazement when they discovered that the force which attacked them +consisted of seven men and a boy, was too deep for words. +</P> + +<P> +Perhaps the most brilliant cutting-out in British records is the +carrying of the <I>Chevrette</I> by the boats of three British frigates in +Cameret Bay in 1801. A previous and mismanaged attempt had put the +<I>Chevrette</I> on its guard; it ran a mile and a half farther up the bay, +moored itself under some heavy batteries, took on board a powerful +detachment of infantry, bringing its number of men up to 339, and then +hoisted in defiance a large French ensign over the British flag. Some +temporary redoubts were thrown up on the points of land commanding the +<I>Chevrette</I>, and a heavily armed gunboat was moored at the entrance of +the bay as a guard-boat. After all these preparations the +<I>Chevrette's</I> men felt both safe and jubilant; but the sight of that +French flag flying over the British ensign was a challenge not to be +refused, and at half-past nine that night the boats of the three +frigates—the <I>Doris</I>, the <I>Uranie</I>, and the <I>Beaulieu</I>—fifteen in +all, carrying 280 officers and men, were in the water and pulling off +to attack the <I>Chevrette</I>. +</P> + +<P> +Lieutenant Losack, in command, with his own and five other boats, +suddenly swung off in the gloom in chase of what he supposed to be the +look-out boat of the enemy, ordering the other nine boats to lie on +their oars till he returned. But time stole on; he failed to return; +and Lieutenant Maxwell, the next in command, reflecting that the night +was going, and the boats had six miles to pull, determined to carry out +the expedition, though he had only nine boats and less than 180 men, +instead of fifteen boats and 280 men. He summoned his little squadron +in the darkness about him, and gave exact instructions. As the boats +dashed up, one was to cut the <I>Chevrette's</I> cables; when they boarded, +the smartest topmen, named man by man, were to fight their way aloft +and cut loose the <I>Chevrette's</I> sails; one of the finest sailors in the +boats, Wallis, the quartermaster of the <I>Beaulieu</I>, was to take charge +of the <I>Chevrette's</I> helm. Thus at one and the same instant the +<I>Chevrette</I> was to be boarded, cut loose, its sails dropped, and its +head swung round towards the harbour mouth. +</P> + +<P> +At half-past twelve the moon sank. The night was windless and black; +but the bearing of the <I>Chevrette</I> had been taken by compass, and the +boats pulled gently on, till, ghost-like in the gloom, the doomed ship +was discernible. A soft air from the land began to blow at that +moment. Suddenly the <I>Chevrette</I> and the batteries overhead broke into +flame. The boats were discovered! The officers leaped to their feet +in the stern of each boat, and urged the men on. The leading boats +crashed against the <I>Chevrette's</I> side. The ship was boarded +simultaneously on both bows and quarters. The force on board the +<I>Chevrette</I>, however, was numerous enough to make a triple line of +armed men round the whole sweep of its bulwarks; they were armed with +pikes, tomahawks, cutlasses, and muskets, and they met the attack most +gallantly, even venturing in their turn to board the boats. By this +time, however, the nine boats Maxwell was leading had all come up, and +although the defence outnumbered the attack by more than two to one, +yet the British were not to be denied. They clambered fiercely on +board; the topmen raced aloft, found the foot-ropes on the yards all +strapped up, but running out, cutlass in hand, they cut loose the +<I>Chevrette's</I> sails. Wallis, meanwhile, had fought his way to the +wheel, slew two of the enemy in the process, was desperately wounded +himself, yet stood steadily at the wheel, and kept the <I>Chevrette</I> +under command, the batteries by this time opening upon the ship a fire +of grape and heavy shot. +</P> + +<P> +In less than three minutes after the boats came alongside, although +nearly every second man of their crews had been killed or wounded, the +three topsails and courses of the <I>Chevrette</I> had fallen, the cables +had been cut, and the ship was moving out in the darkness. She leaned +over to the light breeze, the ripple sounded louder at her stern, and +when the French felt the ship under movement, it for the moment +paralysed their defence. Some jumped overboard; others threw down +their arms and ran below. The fight, though short, had been so fierce +that the deck was simply strewn with bodies. Many of the French who +had retreated below renewed the fight there; they tried to blow up the +quarter-deck with gunpowder in their desperation, and the British had +to fight a new battle between decks with half their force while the +ship was slowly getting under weigh. The fire of the batteries was +furious, but, curiously enough, no important spar was struck, though +some of the boats towing alongside were sunk. And while the batteries +thundered overhead, and the battle still raged on the decks below, the +British seamen managed to set every sail on the ship, and even got +topgallant yards across. Slowly the <I>Chevrette</I> drew out of the +harbour. Just then some boats were discovered pulling furiously up +through the darkness; they were taken to be French boats bent on +recapture, and Maxwell's almost exhausted seamen were summoned to a new +conflict. The approaching boats, however, turned out to be the +detachment under Lieutenant Losack, who came up to find the work done +and the <I>Chevrette</I> captured. +</P> + +<P> +The fight on the deck of the <I>Chevrette</I> had been of a singularly +deadly character. The British had a total of 11 killed and 57 wounded; +the Chevrette lost 92 killed and 62 wounded, amongst the slain being +the <I>Chevrette's</I> captain, her two lieutenants, and three midshipmen. +Many stories are told of the daring displayed by British seamen in this +attack. The boatswain of the <I>Beaulieu</I>, for example, boarded the +<I>Chevrette's</I> taffrail; he took one glance along the crowded decks, +waved his cutlass, shouted "Make a lane there!" and literally carved +his way through to the forecastle, which he cleared of the French, and +kept clear, in spite of repeated attacks, while he assisted to cast the +ship about and make sail with as much coolness as though he had been on +board the <I>Beaulieu</I>. Wallis, who fought his way to the helm of the +<I>Chevrette</I>, and, though wounded, kept his post with iron coolness +while the fight raged, was accosted by his officer when the fight was +over with an expression of sympathy for his wounds. "It is only a +prick or two, sir," said Wallis, and he added he "was ready to go out +on a similar expedition the next night." A boatswain's mate named Ware +had his left arm cut clean off by a furious slash of a French sabre, +and fell back into the boat. With the help of a comrade's tarry +fingers Ware bound up the bleeding stump with rough but energetic +surgery, climbed with his solitary hand on board the Chevrette, and +played a most gallant part in the fight. +</P> + +<P> +The fight that captured the <I>Chevrette</I> is almost without parallel. +Here was a ship carried off from an enemy's port, with the combined +fleets of France and Spain looking on. The enemy were not taken by +surprise; they did not merely defy attack, they invited it. The +British had to assail a force three times their number, with every +advantage of situation and arms. The British boats were exposed to a +heavy fire from the <I>Chevrette</I> itself and from the shore batteries +before they came alongside. The crews fought their way up the sides of +the ship in the face of overwhelming odds; they got the vessel under +weigh while the fight still raged, and brought her out of a narrow and +difficult roadstead, before they had actually captured her. "All this +was done," to quote the "Naval Chronicle" for 1802, "in the presence of +the grand fleet of the enemy; it was done by nine boats out of fifteen, +which originally set out upon the expedition; it was done under the +conduct of an officer who, in the absence of the person appointed to +command, undertook it upon his own responsibility, and whose +intrepidity, judgment, and presence of mind, seconded by the wonderful +exertions of the officers and men under his command, succeeded in +effecting an enterprise which, by those who reflect upon its peculiar +circumstances, will ever be regarded with astonishment." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap16"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +MOUNTAIN COMBATS +</H3> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"At length the freshening western blast<BR> +Aside the shroud of battle cast;<BR> +And first the ridge of mingled spears<BR> +Above the brightening cloud appears;<BR> +And in the smoke the pennons flew,<BR> +As in the storm the white sea-mew.<BR> +Then marked they, dashing broad and far,<BR> +The broken billows of the war,<BR> +And plumèd crests of chieftains brave<BR> +Floating like foam upon the wave,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">But nought distinct they see."</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 5em">—SCOTT.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +The brilliant and heroic combats on the Nive belong to the later stages +of the Pyrenean campaign; and here, as on the Bidassoa, Soult had all +the advantages of position. He had a fortified camp and a great +fortress as his base; excellent roads linked the whole of his positions +together; he held the interior lines, and could reach any point in the +zone of operations in less time than his great opponent. Wellington, +on the other hand, had almost every possible disadvantage. The weather +was bitter; incessant rains fell; he had to operate on both sides of a +dangerous river; the roads were mere ribbons of tenacious clay, in +which the infantry sank to mid-leg, the guns to their axles, the +cavalry sometimes to their saddle-girths. Moreover, Wellington's +Spanish troops had the sufferings and outrages of a dozen campaigns to +avenge, and when they found themselves on French soil the temptations +to plunder and murder were irresistible. Wellington would not maintain +war by plunder, and, as he found he could not restrain his Spaniards, +he despatched the whole body, 25,000 strong, back to Spain. It was a +great deed. It violated all military canons, for by it Wellington +divided his army in the presence of the enemy. It involved, too, a +rare sacrifice of personal ambition. "If I had 20,000 Spaniards, paid +and fed," he wrote to Lord Bathurst, "I should have Bayonne. If I had +40,000 I do not know where I should stop. Now I have both the 20,000 +and the 40,000, … but if they plunder they will ruin all." +Wellington was great enough to sacrifice both military rules and +personal ambition to humanity. He was wise enough, too, to know that a +policy which outrages humanity in the long-run means disaster. +</P> + +<P> +Wellington's supreme advantage lay in the fighting quality of his +troops. The campaigns of six years had made them an army of veterans. +"Danger," says Napier, "was their sport," and victory, it might also be +added, was their habit. They fought with a confidence and fierceness +which, added to the cool and stubborn courage native to the British +character, made the battalions which broke over the French frontier +under Wellington perhaps the most formidable fighting force known in +the history of war. To quote Napier once more: "What Alexander's +Macedonians were at Arbela, Hannibal's Africans at Cannae, Caesar's +Romans at Pharsalia, Napoleon's Guards at Austerlitz, such were +Wellington's British soldiers at this period." +</P> + +<P> +On November 10, 1813, was fought what is called the battle of Nivelle, +in which Wellington thrust Soult roughly and fiercely from the strong +positions he held on the flanks of the great hills under which the +Nivelle flows. The morning broke in great splendour; three signal-guns +flashed from the heights of one of the British hills, and at once the +43rd leaped out and ran swiftly forward from the flank of the great +Rhune to storm the "Hog's Back" ridge of the Petite Rhune, a ridge +walled with rocks 200 feet high, except at one point, where it was +protected by a marsh. William Napier, who commanded the 43rd, has told +the story of the assault. He placed four companies in reserve, and led +the other four in person to the attack on the rocks; and he was chiefly +anxious not to rush his men—to "keep down the pace," so that they +would not arrive spent and breathless at the French works. The men +were eager to rush, however; the fighting impulse in them was on flame, +and they were held back with difficulty. When they were still nearly +200 yards from the enemy, a youthful aide-de-camp, his blood on fire, +came galloping up with a shout, and waving his hat. The 43rd broke out +of hand at once with the impulse of the lad's enthusiasm and the stroke +of his horse's flying hoofs, and with a sudden rush they launched +themselves on the French works still high above them. +</P> + +<P> +Napier had nothing for it but to join the charging mass. "I was the +first man but one," he says, "who reached and jumped into the rocks, +and I was only second because my strength and speed were unequal to +contend with the giant who got before me. He was the tallest and most +active man in the regiment, and the day before, being sentenced to +corporal punishment, I had pardoned him on the occasion of an +approaching action. He now repaid me by striving always to place +himself between me and the fire of the enemy. His name was Eccles, an +Irishman." The men won the first redoubt, but simply had not breath +and strength enough left to reach the one above it, and fell gasping +and exhausted in the rocks before it, the French firing fiercely upon +them. In a few minutes, however, they had recovered breath; they +leaped up with a shout, and tumbled over the wall of the castle; and +so, from barrier to barrier, as up some Titanic stairway, the 43rd +swept with glittering bayonets. The summit was held by a powerful work +called the Donjon; it was so strong that attack upon it seemed madness. +But a keen-eyed British officer detected signs of wavering in the +French within the fort, and with a shout the 43rd leaped at it, and +carried it. It took the 43rd twenty minutes to carry the whole chain +of positions; and of the eleven officers of the regiment, six were +killed or desperately wounded. The French showed bravery; they fought, +in fact, muzzle to muzzle up the whole chain of positions. But the +43rd charged with a daring and fury absolutely resistless. +</P> + +<P> +Another amazing feature in the day's fight was the manner in which +Colborne, with the 52nd, carried what was called the Signal Redoubt, a +strong work, crowning a steep needle-pointed hill, and overlooking the +whole French position. Colborne led his men up an ascent so sharp that +his horse with difficulty could climb it. The summit was reached, and +the men went in, with a run, at the work, only to find the redoubt +girdled by a wide ditch thirty feet deep. The men halted on the edge +of the deep cutting, and under the fire of the French they fell fast. +Colborne led back his men under the brow of the hill for shelter, and +at three separate points brought them over the crest again. In each +case, after the men had rested under shelter long enough to recover +breath, the word was passed, "Stand up and advance." The men instantly +obeyed, and charged up to the edge of the ditch again, many of the +leading files jumping into it. But it was impossible to cross, and +each time the mass of British infantry stepped coolly back into cover +again. +</P> + +<P> +One sergeant named Mayne, who had leaped into the ditch, found he could +neither climb the ramparts nor get back to his comrades, and he flung +himself on his face. A Frenchman leaned over the rampart, took +leisurely aim, and fired at him as he lay. Mayne had stuck the +billhook of his section at the back of his knapsack, and the bullet +struck it and flattened upon it. Colborne was a man of infinite +resource in war, and at this crisis he made a bugler sound a parley, +hoisted his white pocket-handkerchief, and coolly walked round to the +gate of the redoubt and invited the garrison to surrender. The veteran +who commanded it answered indignantly, "What! I with my battalion +surrender to you with yours?" "Very well," answered Colborne in +French, "the artillery will be up immediately; you cannot hold out, and +you will be surrendered to the Spaniards." That threat was sufficient. +The French officers remonstrated stormily with their commander, and the +work was surrendered. But only one French soldier in the redoubt had +fallen, whereas amongst the 52nd "there fell," says Napier, "200 +soldiers of a regiment never surpassed in arms since arms were first +borne by men." In this fight Soult was driven in a little more than +three hours from a mountain position he had been fortifying for more +than three months. +</P> + +<P> +Amongst the brave men who died that day on the side of the British were +two whose portraits Napier has drawn with something of Plutarch's +minuteness:— +</P> + +<P> +"The first, low in rank, for he was but a lieutenant; rich in honour, +for he bore many scars; was young of days—he was only nineteen—and +had seen more combats and sieges than he could count years. So slight +in person and of such surpassing and delicate beauty that the Spaniards +often thought him a girl disguised in man's clothing; he was yet so +vigorous, so active, so brave, that the most daring and experienced +veterans watched his looks on the field of battle, and, implicitly +following where he led, would, like children, obey his slightest sign +in the most difficult situations. His education was incomplete, yet +were his natural powers so happy that the keenest and best-furnished +shrank from an encounter of wit; and every thought and aspiration was +proud and noble, indicating future greatness if destiny had so willed +it. Such was Edward Freer of the 43rd. The night before the battle he +had that strange anticipation of coming death so often felt by military +men. He was struck by three balls at the first storming of the Rhune +rocks, and the sternest soldiers wept, even in the middle of the fight, +when they saw him fall." +</P> + +<P> +"On the same day, and at the same hour, was killed Colonel Thomas +Lloyd. He likewise had been a long time in the 43rd. Under him Freer +had learned the rudiments of his profession; but in the course of the +war, promotion placed Lloyd at the head of the 94th, and it was leading +that regiment he fell. In him also were combined mental and bodily +powers of no ordinary kind. Graceful symmetry, herculean strength, and +a countenance frank and majestic, gave the true index of his nature; +for his capacity was great and commanding, and his military knowledge +extensive, both from experience and study. Of his mirth and wit, well +known in the army, it only need be said that he used the latter without +offence, yet so as to increase the ascendency over those with whom he +held intercourse; for, though gentle, he was ambitious, valiant, and +conscious of his fitness for great exploits. And he, like Freer, was +prescient of and predicted his own fall, but with no abatement of +courage, for when he received the mortal wound, a most painful one, he +would not suffer himself to be moved, and remained to watch the battle, +making observations upon its changes until death came. It was thus, at +the age of thirty, that the good, the brave, the generous Lloyd died. +Tributes to his memory have been published by Wellington, and by one of +his own poor soldiers, by the highest and by the lowest. To their +testimony I add mine. Let those who served on equal terms with him say +whether in aught it has exaggerated his deserts." +</P> + +<P> +A pathetic incident may be added, found in Napier's biography, but +which he does not give in his History. The night before the battle +Napier was stretched on the ground under his cloak, when young Freer +came to him and crept under the cover of his cloak, sobbing as if his +heart would break. Napier tried to soothe and comfort the boy, and +learnt from him that he was fully persuaded he should lose his life in +the approaching battle, and his distress was caused by thinking of his +mother and sister in England. +</P> + +<P> +On December 9, Wellington, by a daring movement and with some fierce +fighting, crossed the Nive. It was a movement which had many +advantages, but one drawback—his wings were now separated by the Nive; +and Soult at this stage, like the great and daring commander he was, +took advantage of his position to attempt a great counter-stroke. It +was within his power to fling his whole force on either wing of +Wellington, and so confident was he of success that he wrote to the +Minister of War telling him to "expect good news" the next day. +Wellington himself was on the right bank of the Nive, little dreaming +that Soult was about to leap on the extremity of his scattered forces. +The country was so broken that Soult's movements were entirely hidden, +and the roads so bad that even the cavalry outposts could scarcely +move. On the night of the 9th Soult had gathered every available +bayonet, and was ready to burst on the position held by Sir John Hope +at Arcanques. +</P> + +<P> +In the grey dawn of the 10th the out-pickets of the 43rd noticed that +the French infantry were pushing each other about as if in sport; but +the crowd seemed to thicken and to eddy nearer and nearer the British +line. It was a trick to deceive the vigilance of the British outposts. +Presently the apparently sportive crowd made a rush forwards and +resolved itself into a spray of swiftly moving skirmishers. The French +columns broke from behind a screen of houses, and, at a running pace, +and with a tumult of shouts, charged the British position. In a moment +the crowd of French soldiers had penetrated betwixt the 43rd and 52nd, +and charging eagerly forward, tried to turn the flanks of both. But +these were veteran regiments; they fell coolly and swiftly back, firing +fiercely as they went. It was at once a race and a combat. The roads +were so narrow and so bad that the British could keep no order, and if +the French outpaced them and reached the open position at the rear +first, the British line would be pierced. The 43rd came through the +pass first, apparently a crowd of running fugitives, officers and men +jumbled together. The moment they had reached the open ground, +however, the men fell, as if by a single impulse, into military form, +and became a steadfast red line, from end to end of which ran, and ran +again, and yet again, the volleying flame of a sustained musketry fire. +The pass was barred! +</P> + +<P> +The troops to the right of the French were not quite so quick or so +fortunate, and about 100 of the British—riflemen and men of the +43rd—were intercepted. The French never doubted that they would +surrender, for they were but a handful of men cut off by a whole +column. An ensign of the 43rd named Campbell, a lad not eighteen years +of age, was in the front files of the British when the call to +surrender was heard. With a shout the boy-ensign leaped at the French +column. Where an officer leads, British soldiers will always follow, +and the men followed him with a courage as high as his own. With a +rush the column was rent, and though fifty of the British were killed +or taken, fifty, including the gallant boy who led them, escaped. +</P> + +<P> +The fighting at other points was of the sharpest, and was strangely +entangled and confused. It was a fight of infantry against infantry, +and the whole field of the combat was interlaced by almost impassable +hedges. At one point, so strangely broken was the ground, and so +obscured the fight with smoke and mist, that a French regiment passed +unseen betwixt the British and Portuguese, and was rapidly filing into +line on the rear of the 9th, fiercely occupied at that moment against a +strong force in front. Cameron, its colonel, left fifty men of his +regiment to answer the fire in his front, faced about, and went at a +run against the French regiment, which by this time had commenced +volley-firing. Cameron's men fell fast—eighty men and officers, in +fact, dropped in little more than five minutes—but the rush of the 9th +was irresistible. The Frenchmen wavered, broke, and swept, a +disorganised mass, past the flank of the Royals, actually carrying off +one of its officers in the rush, and disappeared. +</P> + +<P> +The sternest and most bewildering fighting took place round a building +known as the "mayor's house," surrounded by a coppice-wood. Coppice +and outbuildings were filled with men of all regiments and all nations, +swearing, shooting, and charging with the bayonet. The 84th was caught +in a hollow road by the French, who lined the banks above, and lost its +colonel and a great proportion of its rank and file. Gronow tells an +amusing incident of the fight at this stage. An isolated British +battalion stationed near the mayor's house was suddenly surrounded by a +flood of French. The French general galloped up to the British officer +in command and demanded his sword. "Upon this," says Gronow, "without +the least hesitation the British officer shouted out, 'This fellow +wants us to surrender! Charge! my boys, and show them what stuff we +are made of.'" The men answered with a shout, sudden, scornful, and +stern, and went with a run at the French. "In a few minutes," adds +Gronow, "they had taken prisoners or killed the whole of the infantry +regiment opposed to them!" +</P> + +<P> +On the 11th desperate fighting took place on the same ground, but the +British were by this time reinforced—the Guards, in particular, coming +up after a rapid and exhausting march—and Soult's attack had failed. +But on the night of the 12th the rain fell fast and steadily, the Nive +was flooded, the bridge of boats which spanned it swept away, and Hill +was left at St. Pierre isolated, with less than 14,000 men. Soult saw +his opportunity. The interior lines he held made concentration easy, +and on the morning of the 13th he was able to pour an attacking force +of 35,000 bayonets on Hill's front, while another infantry division, +together with the whole of the French cavalry under Pierre Soult, +attacked his rear. Then there followed what has been described as the +most desperate battle of the whole Peninsular war. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap17"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE BLOODIEST FIGHT IN THE PENINSULA +</H3> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Then out spoke brave Horatius,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">The captain of the gate:</SPAN><BR> +'To every man upon this earth<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Death cometh soon or late;</SPAN><BR> +And how can man die better<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Than facing fearful odds,</SPAN><BR> +For the ashes of his fathers<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And the temples of his gods?'"</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 5em">—MACAULAY.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Hill's front stretched through two miles; his left; a wooded craggy +ridge, was held by Pringle's brigade, but was parted from the centre by +a marshy valley and a chain of ponds; his centre occupied a +crescent-shaped broken ridge; his right, under General Byng, held a +ridge parallel with the Adour. The French gathered in great masses on +a range of counter-heights, an open plain being between them and Hill's +centre. The day was heavy with whirling mist; and as the wind tore it +occasionally asunder, the British could see on the parallel roads +before them the huge, steadily flowing columns of the French. +</P> + +<P> +Abbé led the attack on the British centre. He was "the fighting +general" of Soult's army, famous for the rough energy of his character +and the fierceness of his onfall. He pushed his attack with such +ardour that he forced his way to the crest of the British ridge. The +famous 92nd, held in reserve, was brought forward by way of +counter-stroke, and pushed its attack keenly home. The head of Abbé's +column was crushed; but the French general replaced the broken +battalions by fresh troops, and still forced his way onward, the 92nd +falling back. +</P> + +<A NAME="img-200"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG SRC="images/img-200.jpg" ALT="Battle of St. Pierre, December 9th & 13th, 1813. From Napier's "Peninsular War."" BORDER="2" WIDTH="584" HEIGHT="389"> +<H3> +[Illustration: Battle of St. Pierre, December 9th & 13th, 1813. <BR> +From Napier's "Peninsular War."] +</H3> +</CENTER> + +<P> +In the meanwhile on both the right and the left of the British position +an almost unique disaster had befallen Hill's troops. Peacock, the +colonel of the 71st, through some bewitched failure of nerve or of +judgment, withdrew that regiment from the fight. It was a Highland +regiment, great in fighting reputation, and full of daring. How black +were the looks of the officers, and what loud swearing in Gaelic took +place in the ranks, as the gallant regiment—discipline overcoming +human nature—obeyed the mysterious order to retire, may be imagined. +Almost at the same moment on the right, Bunbury, who commanded the 3rd +or Buffs, in the same mysterious fashion abandoned to the French the +strong position he held. Both colonels were brave men, and their +sudden lapse into unsoldierly conduct has never been explained. Both, +it may be added, were compelled to resign their commissions after the +fight. +</P> + +<P> +Hill, surveying the spectacle from the post he had taken, commanding +the whole field of battle, hastened down, met and halted the Buffs, +sent them back to the fight, drew his whole reserves into the fray, and +himself turned the 71st and led them to the attack. With what joy the +indignant Highlanders of the 71st obeyed the order to "Right about +face" may be imagined, and so vehement was their charge that the French +column upon which it was flung, though coming on at the double, in all +the <I>élan</I> of victory, was instantly shattered. +</P> + +<P> +Meanwhile the 92nd was launched again at Abbé's column. Cameron, its +colonel, was a soldier of a very gallant type, and, himself a +Highlander, he understood the Highland temperament perfectly. He +dressed his regiment as if on parade, the colours were uncased, the +pipes shrilled fiercely, and in all the pomp of military array, with +green tartans and black plumes all wind-blown, and with the wild +strains of their native hills and lochs thrilling in their ears, the +Highlanders bore down on the French, their officers fiercely leading. +On all sides at that moment the British skirmishers were falling back. +The 50th was clinging desperately to a small wood that crowned the +ridge, but everywhere the French were forcing their way onward. +Ashworth's Portuguese were practically destroyed; Barnes, who commanded +the centre, was shot through the body. But the fierce charge of the +92nd along the high-road, and of the 71st on the left centre, sent an +electric thrill along the whole British front. The skirmishers, +instead of falling back, ran forward; the Portuguese rallied. The 92nd +found in its immediate front two strong French regiments, and their +leading files brought their bayonets to the charge, and seemed eager to +meet the 92nd with the actual push of steel. It was the crisis of the +fight. +</P> + +<P> +At that moment the French commander's nerve failed him. That +steel-edged line of kilted, plume-crested Highlanders, charging with a +step so fierce, was too much for him. He suddenly turned his horse, +waved his sword; his men promptly faced about, and marched back to +their original position. The French on both the right and the left +drew back, and the battle for the moment seemed to die down. Hill's +right was safe, and he drew the 57th from it to strengthen his sorely +battered centre; and just at that moment the sixth division, which had +been marching since daybreak, crossed the bridge over the Nive, which +the British engineers with rare energy had restored, and appeared on +the ridge overlooking the field of battle. Wellington, too, appeared +on the scene, with the third and fourth divisions. At two o'clock the +allies commenced a forward movement, and Soult fell back; his second +counter-stroke had failed. +</P> + +<P> +St. Pierre was, perhaps, the most desperately contested fight in the +Peninsular war, a field almost as bloody as Albuera. Hill's ranks were +wasted as by fire; three British generals were carried from the field; +nearly the whole of the staff was struck down. On a space scarcely one +mile square, 5000 men were killed and wounded within three hours. +Wellington, as he rode over the field by the side of Hill after the +fight was over, declared he had never seen the dead lie so thickly +before. It was a great feat for less than 14,000 men with 14 guns to +withstand the assault of 35,000 men with 22 guns; and, at least where +Abbé led, the fighting of the French was of the most resolute +character. The victory was due, in part, to Hill's generalship and the +lion-like energy with which he restored his broken centre and flung +back the Buffs and the 71st into the fight. But in a quite equal +degree the victory was due to the obstinate fighting quality of the +British private. The 92nd, for example, broke the French front no less +than four times by bayonet charges pushed home with the sternest +resolution, and it lost in these charges 13 officers and 171 rank and +file. +</P> + +<P> +The French, it might almost be said, lost the field by the momentary +failure in nerve of the officer commanding the column upon which the +92nd was rushing in its last and most dramatic charge. His column was +massive and unbroken; the men, with bent heads and levelled bayonets, +were ready to meet the 92nd with a courage as lofty as that of the +Highlanders themselves, and the 92nd, for all its parade of fluttering +colours and wind-blown tartans and feathers, was but a single weak +battalion. An electrical gesture, a single peremptory call on the part +of the leader, even a single daring act by a soldier in the ranks, and +the French column would have been hurled on the 92nd, and by its mere +weight must have broken it. But the oncoming of the Highlanders proved +too great a strain for the nerve of the French general. He wheeled the +head of his horse backward, and the fight was lost. +</P> + +<P> +Weeks of the bitterest winter weather suspended all military operations +after St. Pierre. The rivers were flooded; the clayey lowlands were +one far-stretching quagmire; fogs brooded in the ravines; perpetual +tempests shrieked over the frozen summits of the Pyrenees; the +iron-bound coast was furious with breakers. But Wellington's hardy +veterans—ill-clad, ill-sheltered, and ill-fed—yet kept their watch on +the slopes of the Pyrenees. The outposts of the two armies, indeed, +fell into almost friendly relations with each other. Barter sprang up +between them, a regular code of signals was established, friendly +offices were exchanged. Wellington on one occasion desired to +reconnoitre Soult's camp from the top of a hill occupied by a French +picket, and ordered some English rifles to drive them off. No firing +was necessary. An English soldier held up the butt of his rifle and +tapped it in a peculiar way. The signal meant, "We must have the hill +for a short time," and the French at once retired. A steady traffic in +brandy and tobacco sprang up between the pickets of the two armies. A +rivulet at one point flowed between the outposts, and an Irish soldier +named Patten, on sentry there, placed a canteen with a silver coin in +it on a stone by the bank of the rivulet, to be filled with brandy by +the French in the usual way. Canteen and coin vanished, but no brandy +arrived. Patten, a daring fellow, regarded himself as cheated, and the +next day seeing, as he supposed, the same French sentry on duty, he +crossed the rivulet, seized the Frenchman's musket, shook the amazed +sentry out of his accoutrements as a pea is shaken out of its pod, and +carried them off. The French outposts sent in a flag of truce, +complained of this treatment, and said the unfortunate sentry's life +would be forfeited unless his uniform and gun were restored. Patten, +however, insisted that he held these "in pawn for a canteen of brandy," +and he got his canteen before the uniform was restored. +</P> + +<P> +On February 12 a white hard frost suddenly fell on the whole field of +operations, and turned the viscid mud everywhere to the hardness of +stone. The men could march, the artillery move; and Wellington, whose +strategy was ripe, was at once in action. +</P> + +<P> +Soult barred his path by a great entrenched camp at Bayonne, to which +the Adour served as a Titanic wet ditch. The Adour is a great river, +swift and broad—swiftest and broadest through the six miles of its +course below the town to its mouth. Its bed is of shifting sand; the +spring-tide rises in it fourteen feet, the ebb-tide runs seven miles an +hour. Where the swift river and the great rollers of the Bay of Biscay +meet is a treacherous bar—in heavy weather a mere tumult of leaping +foam. Soult assumed that Wellington would cross the river above the +town; the attempt to cross it near the mouth, where it was barred with +sand, and beaten with surges, and guarded, too, by a tiny squadron of +French gunboats, was never suspected. Yet exactly this was +Wellington's plan; and his bridge across the Adour is declared by +Napier to be a stupendous undertaking, which must always rank amongst +"the prodigies of war." Forty large sailing-boats, of about twenty +tons burden each, carrying the materials for the bridge, were to enter +the mouth of the Adour at the moment when Hope, with part of Hill's +division, made his appearance on the left bank of the river, with +materials for rafts, by means of which sufficient troops could be +thrown across the Adour to capture a battery which commanded its +entrance. +</P> + +<P> +On the night of February 22, Hope, with the first division, was in the +assigned position on the banks of the Adour, hidden behind some +sandhills. But a furious gale made the bar impassable, and not a boat +was in sight. Hope, the most daring of men, never hesitated; he would +cross the river without the aid of the fleet. His guns were suddenly +uncovered, the tiny French flotilla was sunk or scattered, and a +pontoon or raft, carrying sixty men of the Guards, pushed out from the +British bank. A strong French picket held the other shore; but, +bewildered and ill led, they made no opposition. A hawser was dragged +across the stream, and pontoons, each carrying fifteen men, were in +quick succession pulled across. When about a thousand men had in this +way reached the French bank, some French battalions made their +appearance. Colonel Stopford, who was in command, allowed the French +to come on—their drums beating the <I>pas de charge</I>, and their officers +waving their swords—to within a distance of twenty yards, and then +opened upon them with his rocket brigade. The fiery flight and +terrifying sound of these missiles put the French to instant rout. All +night the British continued to cross, and on the morning of the 24th +the flotilla was off the bar, the boats of the men-of-war leading. +</P> + +<P> +The first boat that plunged into the tumult of breakers, leaping and +roaring over the bar, sank instantly. The second shot through and was +safe; but the tide was running out furiously, and no boat could follow +till it was high water again. When high water came, the troops +crowding the sandbanks watched with breathless interest the fight of +the boats to enter. They hung and swayed like a flock of gigantic +sea-birds on the rough and tumbling sea. Lieutenant Bloye of the +<I>Lyra</I>, who led the way in his barge, dashed into the broad zone of +foam, and was instantly swallowed up with all his crew. The rest of +the flotilla bore up to right and left, and hovered on the edge of the +tormented waters. Suddenly Lieutenant Cheyne of the <I>Woodlark</I> caught +a glimpse of the true course and dashed through, and boat after boat +came following with reeling decks and dripping crews; but in the whole +passage no fewer than eight of the flotilla were destroyed. The bridge +was quickly constructed. Thirty-six two-masted vessels were moored +head to stern, with an interval between each vessel, across the 800 +yards of the Adour; a double line of cables, about ten feet apart, +linked the boats together; strong planks were lashed athwart the +cables, making a roadway; a double line of masts, forming a series of +floating squares, served as a floating boom; and across this swaying, +flexible, yet mighty bridge, Wellington was able to pour his left wing, +with all its artillery and material, and so draw round Bayonne an iron +line of investment. +</P> + +<P> +This movement thrust back Soult's right, but he clung obstinately to +the Gave. He held by Napoleon's maxim that the best way to defend is +to attack, and Wellington's very success gave him what seemed a golden +opportunity. Wellington's left had crossed the Adour, but that very +movement separated it from the right. +</P> + +<P> +Soult took up his position on a ridge of hills above Orthez. He +commanded the fords by which Picton must cross, and his plan was to +crush him while in the act of crossing. The opportunity was clear, but +somehow Soult missed it. There failed him at the critical moment the +swift-attacking impulse which both Napoleon and Wellington possessed in +so high a degree. Picton's two divisions crossed the Gave, and climbed +the bank through mere fissures in the rocks, which broke up all +military order, and the nearest point which allowed them to fall into +line was within cannon-shot of the enemy. Even Picton's iron nerve +shook at such a crisis; but Wellington, to use Napier's phrase, "calm +as deepest sea," watched the scene. Soult ought to have attacked; he +waited to be attacked, and so missed victory. +</P> + +<P> +By nine o'clock Wellington had formed his plan, and Ross's brigade was +thrust through a gorge on Soult's left. The French were admirably +posted: they had a narrow front, abundant artillery, and a great +battery placed so as to smite on the flank any column forcing its way +through the gorge which pierced Soult's left. Ross's men fought +magnificently. Five times they broke through the gorge, and five times +the fire of the French infantry on the slopes above them, and the grape +of the great battery at the head of the gorge, drove the shattered +regiments back. On Soult's right, again, Foy flung back with loss an +attack by part of Picton's forces. On both the right and left, that +is, Soult was victorious, and, as he saw the wasted British lines roll +sullenly back, it is said that the French general smote his thigh in +exultation, and cried, "At last I have him!" +</P> + +<P> +Almost at that moment, however, the warlike genius of Wellington +changed the aspect of the scene. He fed the attacks on Soult's right +and left, and the deepening roar of the battle at these two points +absorbed the senses of the French general. Soult's front was barred by +what was supposed to be an impassable marsh, above which a great hill +frowned; and across the marsh, and upon this hill, the centre of +Soult's position, Wellington launched the famous 52nd. +</P> + +<P> +Colborne plunged with his men into the marsh; they sank at every step +above the knee, sometimes to the middle. The skirmishers shot fiercely +at them. But with stern composure the veterans of the light +division—soldiers, as Napier never tires in declaring, who "had never +yet met their match in the field"—pressed on. The marsh was crossed, +the hill climbed, and with a sudden and deafening shout—the cheer +which has a more full and terrible note than any other voice of +fighting men, the shout of the British regiment as it charges—the 52nd +dashed between Foy and Taupin. A French battalion in their path was +scattered as by the stroke of a thunderbolt. The French centre was +pierced; both victorious wings halted, and began to ebb back. Hill, +meanwhile, had crossed the Gave, and taking a wider circle, threatened +Soult's line of retreat. The French fell back, and fell back with +ever-quickening steps, but yet fighting sternly; the British, with +deafening musketry and cannonade, pressed on them. Hill quickened his +pace on the ridge along which he was pressing. It became a race who +should reach first the single bridge on the Luy-de-Béarn over which the +French must pass. The pace became a run. Many of the French broke +from their ranks and raced forward. The British cavalry broke through +some covering battalions and sabred the fugitives. A great disaster +was imminent; and yet it was avoided, partly by Soult's cool and +obstinate defence, and partly by the accident that at that moment +Wellington was struck by a spent ball and was disabled, so that his +swift and imperious will no longer directed the pursuit. +</P> + +<P> +Orthez may be described as the last and not the least glorious fight in +the Peninsular war. Toulouse was fought ten day afterwards, but it +scarcely belongs to the Peninsular campaigns, and was actually fought +after a general armistice had been signed. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap18"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE BATTLE OF THE BALTIC +</H3> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Let us think of them that sleep<BR> +Full many a fathom deep<BR> +By thy wild and stormy deep,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">Elsinore!"</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 5em">—CAMPBELL.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"I have been in a hundred and five engagements, but that of to-day is +the most terrible of them all." This was how Nelson himself summed up +the great fight off Copenhagen, or the battle of the Baltic as it is +sometimes called, fought on April 2, 1801. It was a battle betwixt +Britons and Danes. The men who fought under the blood-red flag of +Great Britain, and under the split flag of Denmark with its white +cross, were alike the descendants of the Vikings. The blood of the old +sea-rovers ran hot and fierce in their veins. Nelson, with the glories +of the Nile still ringing about his name, commanded the British fleet, +and the fire of his eager and gallant spirit ran from ship to ship like +so many volts of electricity. But the Danes fought in sight of their +capital, under the eyes of their wives and children. It is not strange +that through the four hours during which the thunder of the great +battle rolled over the roofs of Copenhagen and up the narrow waters of +the Sound, human valour and endurance in both fleets were at their very +highest. +</P> + +<P> +Less than sixty years afterwards "thunders of fort and fleet" along all +the shores of England were welcoming a daughter of the Danish throne as +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Bride of the heir of the kings of the sea."<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +And Tennyson, speaking for every Briton, assured the Danish girl who +was to be their future Queen— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"We are each all Dane in our welcome of thee."<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +What was it in 1801 which sent a British fleet on an errand of battle +to Copenhagen? +</P> + +<P> +It was a tiny episode of the long and stern drama of the Napoleonic +wars. Great Britain was supreme on the sea, Napoleon on the land, and, +in his own words, Napoleon conceived the idea of "conquering the sea by +the land." Paul I. of Russia, a semi-lunatic, became Napoleon's ally +and tool. Paul was able to put overwhelming pressure on Sweden, +Denmark, and Prussia, and these Powers were federated as the "League of +Armed Neutrality," with the avowed purpose of challenging the marine +supremacy of Great Britain. Paul seized all British ships in Russian +ports; Prussia marched troops into Hanover; every port from the North +Cape to Gibraltar was shut against the British flag. Britain, stood +alone, practically threatened with a naval combination of all the +Northern Powers, while behind the combination stood Napoleon, the +subtlest brain and most imperious will ever devoted to the service of +war. Napoleon's master passion, it should be remembered, was the +desire to overthrow Great Britain, and he held in the palm of his hand +the whole military strength of the Continent. The fleets of France and +Spain were crushed or blockaded: but the three Northern Powers could +have put into battle-line a fleet of fifty great ships and twenty-five +frigates. With this force they could raise the blockade of the French +ports, sweep triumphant through the narrow seas, and land a French army +in Kent or in Ulster. +</P> + +<P> +Pitt was Prime Minister, and his masterful intellect controlled British +policy. He determined that the fleets of Denmark and of Russia should +not become a weapon in the hand of Napoleon against England; and a +fleet of eighteen ships of the line, with frigates and bomb-vessels, +was despatched to reason, from the iron lips of their guns, with the +misguided Danish Government. Sir Hyde Parker, a decent, unenterprising +veteran, was commander-in-chief by virtue of seniority; but Nelson, +with the nominal rank of second in command, was the brain and soul of +the expedition. "Almost all the safety and certainly all the honour of +England," he said to his chief, "is more entrusted to you than ever yet +fell to the lot of a British officer." And all through the story of +the expedition it is amusing to notice the fashion in which Nelson's +fiery nature strove to kindle poor Sir Hyde Barker's sluggish temper to +its own flame. +</P> + +<P> +The fleet sailed from Yarmouth on March 12, and fought its way through +fierce spring gales to the entrance of the Kattegat. The wind was +fair; Nelson was eager to sweep down on Copenhagen with the whole +fleet, and negotiate with the whole skyline of Copenhagen crowded with +British topsails. "While the negotiation is going on," he said, "the +Dane should see our flag waving every time he lifts up his head." Time +was worth more than gold; it was worth brave men's lives. The Danes +were toiling day and night to prepare the defence of their capital. +But prim Sir Hyde anchored, and sent up a single frigate with his +ultimatum, and it was not until March 30 that the British fleet, a long +line of stately vessels, came sailing up the Sound, passed Elsinore, +and cast anchor fifteen miles from Copenhagen. Nothing could surpass +the gallant energy shown by the Danes in their preparation for defence, +and Nature had done much to make the city impregnable from the sea. +</P> + +<A NAME="img-215"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG SRC="images/img-215.jpg" ALT="The Battle of the Baltic, April 2nd, 1801. From Brenton's Naval History." BORDER="2" WIDTH="583" HEIGHT="383"> +<H3> +[Illustration: The Battle of the Baltic, April 2nd, 1801. <BR> +From Brenton's Naval History.] +</H3> +</CENTER> + +<P> +The Sound is narrow and shallow, a mere tangle of shoals wrinkled with +twisted channels and scoured by the swift tides. King's Channel runs +straight up towards the city, but a huge sandbank, like the point of a +toe, splits the channel into two just as it reaches the harbour. The +western edge runs up, pocket-shaped, into the city, and forms the +actual port; the main channel contracts, swings round to the +south-east, and forms a narrow passage between the shallows in front of +the city and a huge shoal called the Middle Ground. A cluster of grim +and heavily armed fortifications called the Three-Crown Batteries +guarded the entrance to the harbour, and looked right up King's +Channel; a stretch of floating batteries and line-of-battle ships, a +mile and a half in extent, ran from the Three-Crown Batteries along the +edge of the shoals in front of the city, with some heavy pile batteries +at its termination. The direct approach up King's Channel, together +with the narrow passage between the city and the Middle Ground, were +thus commanded by the fire of over 600 heavy guns. The Danes had +removed the buoys that marked all the channels, the British had no +charts, and only the most daring and skilful seamanship could bring the +great ships of the British fleet through that treacherous tangle of +shoals to the Danish front. As a matter of fact, the heavier ships in +the British fleet never attempted to join in the desperate fight which +was waged, but hung as mere spectators in the offing. +</P> + +<P> +Meanwhile popular enthusiasm in the Danish capital was at fever-point. +Ten thousand disciplined troops manned the batteries; but peasants from +the farms, workmen from the factories, merchants from the city, +hastened to volunteer, and worked day and night at gun-drill. A +thousand students from the university enrolled themselves, and drilled +from morning till night. These student-soldiers had probably the best +military band ever known; it consisted of the entire orchestra of the +Theatre Royal, all volunteers. A Danish officer, sent on some message +under a flag of truce to the British fleet, was required to put his +message in writing, and was offered a somewhat damaged pen for that +purpose. He threw it down with a laugh, saying that "if the British +guns were not better pointed than their pens they wouldn't make much +impression on Copenhagen." That flash of gallant wit marked the temper +of the Danes. They were on flame with confident daring. +</P> + +<P> +Nelson, always keen for a daring policy, had undertaken to attack the +Danish defences with a squadron of twelve seventy-fours, and the +frigates and bomb-vessels of the fleet. He determined to shun the open +way of King's Channel, grope through the uncertain passage called the +Dutch Deep, at the back of the Middle Ground, and forcing his way up +the narrow channel in front of the shallows, repeat on the anchored +batteries and battleships of the Danes the exploit of the Nile. He +spent the nights of March 30 and 31 sounding the channel, being +himself, in spite of fog and ice, in the boat nearly the whole of these +two bitter nights. On April 1 the fleet came slowly up the Dutch Deep, +and dropped anchor at night about two miles from the southern extremity +of the Danish line. At eleven o'clock that night, Hardy—in whose arms +Nelson afterwards died on board the <I>Victory</I>—pushed off from the +flagship in a small boat and sounded the channel in front of the Danish +floating batteries. So daring was he that he actually sounded round +the leading ship of the Danish line, using a pole to avoid being +detected. +</P> + +<P> +In the morning the wind blew fair for the channel. Nelson's plans had +been elaborated to their minutest details, and the pilots of the fleet +were summoned at nine o'clock to the flagship to receive their last +instructions. But their nerve failed them. They were simply the mates +or masters of Baltic traders turned for the moment into naval pilots. +They had no charts. They were accustomed to handle ships of 200 or 300 +tons burden, and the task of steering the great British seventy-fours +through the labyrinths of shallows, with the tide running like a +mill-race, appalled them. At last Murray, in the <I>Edgar</I>, undertook to +lead. The signal was made to weigh in succession, and one great ship +after another, with its topsails on the caps, rounded the shoulder of +the Middle Ground, and in stately procession, the <I>Edgar</I> leading, came +up the channel. Campbell in his fine ballad has pictured the scene:— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Like leviathans afloat<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Lay their bulwarks on the brine,</SPAN><BR> +While the sign of battle flew<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">On the lofty British line.</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">It was ten of April morn by the chime;</SPAN><BR> +As they drifted on their path<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">There was silence deep as death,</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And the boldest held his breath</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">For a time.</SPAN><BR> +But the might of England flushed<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">To anticipate the scene,</SPAN><BR> +And her van the fleeter rushed<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">O'er the deadly space between."</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P> +The leading Danish ships broke into a tempest of fire as the British +ships came within range. The <I>Agamemnon</I> failed to weather the +shoulder of the Middle Ground, and went ignobly ashore, and the scour +of the tide kept her fast there, in spite of the most desperate +exertions of her crew. The <I>Bellona</I>, a pile of white canvas above, a +double line of curving batteries below, hugged the Middle Ground too +closely, and grounded too; and the <I>Russell</I>, following close after +her, went ashore in the same manner, with its jib-boom almost touching +the <I>Bellona's</I> taffrail. One-fourth of Nelson's force was thus +practically out of the fight before a British gun was fired. These +were the ships, too, intended to sail past the whole Danish line and +engage the Three-Crown Batteries. As they were <I>hors de combat</I>, the +frigates of the squadron, under Riou—"the gallant, good Riou" of +Campbell's noble lines—had to take the place of the seventy-fours. +</P> + +<P> +Meanwhile, Nelson, in the <I>Elephant</I>, came following hard on the +ill-fated <I>Russell</I>. Nelson's orders were that each ship should pass +her leader on the starboard side, and had he acted on his own orders, +Nelson too would have grounded, with every ship that followed him. The +interval betwixt each ship was so narrow that decision had to be +instant; and Nelson, judging the water to the larboard of the <I>Russell</I> +to be deeper, put his helm a-starboard, and so shot past the <I>Russell</I> +on its larboard beam into the true channel, the whole line following +his example. That sudden whirl to starboard of the flagship's helm—a +flash of brilliant seamanship—saved the battle. +</P> + +<P> +Ship after ship shot past, and anchored, by a cable astern, in its +assigned position. The sullen thunder of the guns rolled from end to +end of the long line, the flash of the artillery ran in a dance of +flame along the mile and a half of batteries, and some 2000 pieces of +artillery, most of them of the heaviest calibre, filled the long Sound +with the roar of battle. Nelson loved close fighting, and he anchored +within a cable's length of the Danish flagship, the pilots refusing to +carry the ship nearer on account of the shallow depth, and the average +distance of the hostile lines was less than a hundred fathoms. The +cannonade raged, deep-voiced, unbroken, and terrible, for three hours. +"Warm work," said Nelson, as it seemed to deepen in fury and volume, +"but, mark you, I would not be elsewhere for thousands." The carnage +was terrific. Twice the Danish flagship took fire, and out of a crew +of 336 no fewer than 270 were dead or wounded. Two of the Danish prams +drifted from the line, mere wrecks, with cordage in rags, bulwarks +riddled, guns dismounted, and decks veritable shambles. +</P> + +<P> +The battle, it must be remembered, raged within easy sight of the city, +and roofs and church towers were crowded with spectators. They could +see nothing but a low-lying continent of whirling smoke, shaken with +the tumult of battle, and scored perpetually, in crimson bars, with the +flame of the guns. Above the drifting smoke towered the tops of the +British seventy-fours, stately and threatening. The south-east wind +presently drove the smoke over the city, and beneath that inky roof, as +under the gloom of an eclipse, the crowds of Copenhagen, white-faced +with excitement, watched the Homeric fight, in which their sons, and +brothers, and husbands were perishing. +</P> + +<P> +Nothing could surpass the courage of the Danes. Fresh crews marched +fiercely to the floating batteries as these threatened to grow silent +by mere slaughter, and, on decks crimson and slippery with the blood of +their predecessors, took up the fight. Again and again, after a Danish +ship had struck from mere exhaustion, it was manned afresh from the +shore, and the fight renewed. The very youngest officer in the Danish +navy was a lad of seventeen named Villemoes. He commanded a tiny +floating battery of six guns, manned by twenty-four men, and he managed +to bring it under the very counter of Nelson's flagship, and fired his +guns point-blank into its huge wooden sides. He stuck to his work +until the British marines shot down every man of his tiny crew except +four. After the battle Nelson begged that young Villemoes might be +introduced to him, and told the Danish Crown Prince that a boy so +gallant ought to be made an admiral. "If I were to make all my brave +officers admirals," was the reply, "I should have no captains or +lieutenants left." +</P> + +<P> +The terrific nature of the British fire, as well as the stubbornness of +Danish courage, may be judged from the fact that most of the prizes +taken in the fight were so absolutely riddled with shot as to have to +be destroyed. Foley, who led the van at the battle of the Nile, was +Nelson's flag-captain in the <I>Elephant</I>, and he declared he burned +fifty more barrels of powder in the four hours' furious cannonade at +Copenhagen than he did during the long night struggle at the Nile! The +fire of the Danes, it may be added, was almost as obstinate and deadly. +The <I>Monarch</I>, for example, had no fewer than 210 of its crew lying +dead or wounded on its decks. At one o'clock Sir Hyde Parker, who was +watching the struggle with a squadron of eight of his heaviest ships +from the offing, hoisted a signal to discontinue the engagement. Then +came the incident which every boy remembers. +</P> + +<P> +The signal-lieutenant of the <I>Elephant</I> reported that the admiral had +thrown out No. 39, the signal to discontinue the fight. Nelson was +pacing his quarterdeck fiercely, and took no notice of the report. The +signal-officer met him at the next turn, and asked if he should repeat +the signal. Nelson's reply was to ask if his own signal for close +action was still hoisted. "Yes," said the officer. "Mind you keep it +so," said Nelson. Nelson continued to tramp his quarter-deck, the +thunder of the battle all about him, his ship reeling to the recoil of +its own guns. The stump of his lost arm jerked angrily to and fro, a +sure sign of excitement with him. "Leave off action!" he said to his +lieutenant; "I'm hanged if I do." "You know, Foley," he said, turning +to his captain, "I've only one eye; I've a right to be blind +sometimes." And then putting the glass to his blind eye, he exclaimed, +"I really do not see the signal!" He dismissed the incident by saying, +"D—— the signal! Keep mine for closer action flying!" +</P> + +<P> +As a matter of fact, Parker had hoisted the signal only to give Nelson +the opportunity for withdrawing from the fight if he wished. The +signal had one disastrous result—the little cluster of frigates and +sloops engaged with the Three-Crown Batteries obeyed it and hauled off. +As the Amazon, Riou's ship, ceased to fire, the smoke lifted, and the +Danish battery got her in full sight, and smote her with deadly effect. +Riou himself, heartbroken with having to abandon the fight, had just +exclaimed, "What will Nelson think of us!" when a chain-shot cut him in +two, and with him a sailor with something of Nelson's own genius for +battle perished. +</P> + +<P> +By two o'clock the Danish fire began to slack. One-half the line was a +mere chain of wrecks; some of the floating batteries had sunk; the +flagship was a mass of flames. Nelson at this point sent his boat +ashore with a flag of truce, and a letter to the Prince Regent. The +letter was addressed, "To the Danes, the brothers of Englishmen." If +the fire continued from the Danish side, Nelson said he would be +compelled to set on fire all the floating batteries he had taken, +"without being able to save the brave Danes who had defended them." +Somebody offered Nelson, when he had written the letter, a wafer with +which to close it. "This," said Nelson, "is no time to appear hurried +or informal," and he insisted on the letter being carefully sealed with +wax. The Crown Prince proposed an armistice. Nelson, with great +shrewdness, referred the proposal to his admiral lying four miles off +in the <I>London</I>, foreseeing that the long pull out and back would give +him time to get his own crippled ships clear of the shoals, and past +the Three-Crown Batteries into the open channel beyond—the only course +the wind made possible; and this was exactly what happened. Nelson, it +is clear, was a shrewd diplomatist as well as a great sailor. +</P> + +<P> +The night was coming on black with the threat of tempest; the Danish +flagship had just blown up; but the white flag of truce was flying, and +the British toiled, as fiercely as they had fought, to float their +stranded ships and take possession of their shattered prizes. Of +these, only one was found capable of being sufficiently repaired to be +taken to Portsmouth. On the 4th Nelson himself landed and visited the +Crown Prince, and a four months' truce was agreed upon. News came at +that moment of the assassination of Paul I., and the League of Armed +Neutrality—the device by which Napoleon hoped to overthrow the naval +power of Great Britain—vanished into mere space. The fire of Nelson's +guns at Copenhagen wrecked Napoleon's whole naval policy. +</P> + +<P> +It is curious that, familiar as Nelson was with the grim visage of +battle, the carnage of that four hours' cannonade was too much for even +his steady nerves. He could find no words too generous to declare his +admiration of the obstinate courage shown by the Danes. "The French +and Spanish fight well," he said, "but they could not have stood for an +hour such a fire as the Danes sustained for four hours." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap1900"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +KING-MAKING WATERLOO +</H3> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Last noon beheld them full of lusty life,<BR> +Last eve in Beauty's circle proudly gay,<BR> +The midnight brought the signal-sound of strife;<BR> +The morn the marshalling in arms—the day<BR> +Battle's magnificently stern array!<BR> +The thunder-clouds close o'er it, which when rent<BR> +The earth is cover'd thick with other clay,<BR> +Which her own clay shall cover, heap'd and pent,<BR> +Rider and horse—friend, foe—in one red burial blent!"<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 5em">—BYRON.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +"I look upon Salamanca, Vittoria, and Waterloo as my three best +battles—those which had great and permanent consequences. Salamanca +relieved the whole south of Spain, changed all the prospects of the +war, and was felt even in Prussia. Vittoria freed the Peninsula +altogether, broke off the armistice at Dresden, and thus led to Leipsic +and the deliverance of Europe; and Waterloo did more than any other +battle I know of towards the true object of all battles—the peace of +the world."—WELLINGTON, <I>Conversation with Croker</I>. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +On June 18, 1815, the grey light of a Sunday morning was breaking over +a shallow valley lying between parallel ridges of low hills some twelve +miles to the south of Brussels. All night the rain had fallen +furiously, and still the fog hung low, and driving showers swept over +plain and hill as from the church spires of half-a-dozen tiny villages +the matin bells began to ring. For centuries those bells had called +the villagers to prayers; to-day, as the wave of sound stole through +the misty air it was the signal for the awakening of two mighty armies +to the greatest battle of modern times. +</P> + +<P> +More ink has, perhaps, been shed about Waterloo than about any other +battle known to history, and still the story bristles with conundrums, +questions of fact, and problems in strategy, about which the experts +still wage, with pen and diagram, strife almost as furious as that +which was waged with lance and sword, with bayonet and musket, more +than eighty years ago on the actual slopes of Mont St. Jean. It is +still, for example, a matter of debate whether, when Wellington first +resolved to fight at Waterloo, he had any express promise from Blücher +to join him on that field. Did Wellington, for example, ride over +alone to Blücher's headquarters on the night before Waterloo, and +obtain a pledge of aid, on the strength of which he fought next day? +It is not merely possible to quote experts on each side of this +question; it is possible to quote the same expert on both sides. +Ropes, for example, the latest Waterloo critic, devotes several pages +to proving that the interview never took place, and then adds a note to +his third edition declaring that he has seen evidence which convinces +him it did take place! It is possible even to quote Wellington himself +both for the alleged visit and against it. In 1833 he told a circle of +guests at Strathfieldsaye, in minute detail, how he got rid of his only +aide-de-camp, Lord Fitzroy Somerset, and rode over on "Copenhagen" in +the rain and darkness to Wavre, and got from Blücher's own lips the +assurance that he would join him next day at Waterloo. In 1838, when +directly asked by Baron Gurney whether the story was true, he replied, +"No, I did not see Blücher the day before Waterloo." If Homer nodded, +it is plain that sometimes the Duke of Wellington forgot! +</P> + +<A NAME="img-227"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG SRC="images/img-227.jpg" ALT="Battle of Waterloo, June 18th, 1815." BORDER="2" WIDTH="545" HEIGHT="385"> +<H3> +[Illustration: Battle of Waterloo, June 18th, 1815.] +</H3> +</CENTER> + +<P> +Clearness on some points, it is true, is slowly emerging. It is +admitted, for example, that Napoleon took the allies by surprise when +he crossed the Sambre, and, in the very first stage of the campaign, +scored a brilliant strategic success over them. Wellington himself, on +the night of the famous ball, took the Duke of Richmond into his +dressing-room, shut the door, and said, "Napoleon has humbugged me, by +——; he has gained twenty-four hours' march on me." The Duke went on +to explain that he had ordered his troops to concentrate at Quatre +Bras; "but," he added, "we shall not stop him there, and I must fight +him here," at the same time passing his thumb-nail over the position of +Waterloo. That map, with the scratch of the Duke's thumb-nail over the +very line where Waterloo was afterwards fought, was long preserved as a +relic. Part of the surprise, the Duke complained, was due to Blücher. +But, as he himself explained to Napier, "I cannot tell the world that +Blücher picked the fattest man in his army (Muffling) to ride with an +express to me, and that he took thirty hours to go thirty miles." +</P> + +<P> +The hour at which Waterloo began, though there were 150,000 actors in +the great tragedy, was long a matter of dispute. The Duke of +Wellington puts it at ten o'clock. General Alava says half-past +eleven, Napoleon and Drouet say twelve o'clock, and Ney one o'clock. +Lord Hill may be credited with having settled this minute question of +fact. He took two watches with him into the fight, one a stop-watch, +and he marked with it the sound of the first shot fired, and this +evidence is now accepted as proving that the first flash of red flame +which marked the opening of the world-shaking tragedy of Waterloo took +place at exactly ten minutes to twelve. +</P> + +<P> +As these sketches are not written for military experts, but only +pretend to tell, in plain prose, and for younger Britons, the story of +the great deeds which are part of their historical inheritance, all the +disputed questions about Waterloo may be at the outset laid aside. It +is a great tale, and it seems all the greater when it is simply told. +The campaign of Waterloo, in a sense, lasted exactly four days, yet +into that brief space of time there is compressed so much of human +daring and suffering, of genius and of folly, of shining triumph and of +blackest ruin, that the story must always be one of the most exciting +records in human history. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap1901"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +I. THE RIVAL HOSTS +</H3> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Hark! I hear the tramp of thousands,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And of armèd men the hum;</SPAN><BR> +Lo! a nation's hosts have gathered<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Round the quick alarming drum,—</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 3em">Saying, 'Come,</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 3em">Freeman, come,</SPAN><BR> +Ere your heritage be wasted,' said the quick alarming drum.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="letter-spacing: 2em">******</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +'Let me of my heart take counsel:<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">War is not of life the sum;</SPAN><BR> +Who shall stay and reap the harvest<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">When the autumn days shall come?'</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 3em">But the drum</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 3em">Echoed, 'Come!</SPAN><BR> +Death shall reap the braver harvest,' said the solemn-sounding drum.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +What if, 'mid the cannons' thunder,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Whistling shot and bursting bomb,</SPAN><BR> +When my brothers fall around me,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Should my heart grow cold and numb?'</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 3em">But the drum</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 3em">Answered, 'Come!</SPAN><BR> +Better there in death united, than in life a recreant,—Come!'"<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 5em">—BRET HARTE.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +For weeks the British and Prussian armies, scattered over a district +100 miles by 40, had been keeping guard over the French frontier. +Mighty hosts of Russians and Austrians were creeping slowly across +Europe to join them. Napoleon, skilfully shrouding his movements in +impenetrable secrecy, was about to leap across the Sambre, and both +Blücher and Wellington had to guess what would be his point of attack; +and they, as it happened, guessed wrongly. Napoleon's strategy was +determined partly by his knowledge of the personal characters of the +two generals, and partly by the fact that the bases of the allied +armies lay at widely separate points—the English base at Antwerp, the +Prussian on the Rhine. Blücher was essentially "a hussar general"; the +fighting impulse ran riot in his blood. If attacked, he would +certainly fight where he stood; if defeated, and driven back on his +base, he must move in diverging lines from Wellington. That Blücher +would abandon his base to keep touch with Wellington—as actually +happened—Napoleon never guessed. Wellington, cooler and more +methodical than his Prussian fellow-commander, would not fight, it was +certain, till his troops were called in on every side and he was ready. +Blücher was nearer the French frontier. Napoleon calculated that he +could leap upon him, bar Wellington from coming to his help by planting +Ney at Quatre Bras, win a great battle before Wellington could join +hands with his ally, and then in turn crush Wellington. It was +splendid strategy, splendidly begun, but left fatally incomplete. +</P> + +<P> +Napoleon fought and defeated Blücher at Ligny on June 16, attacking +Quatre Bras at the same time, so as to occupy the English. Wellington +visited Blücher's lines before the fight began, and said to him, "Every +general knows his own men, but if my lines were drawn up in this +fashion I should expect to get beaten;" and as he cantered back to his +own army he said to those about him, "If Bonaparte be what I suppose he +is, the Prussians will get a —— good licking to-day." Captain Bowles +was standing beside the Duke at Quatre Bras on the morning of the 17th, +when a Prussian staff-officer, his horse covered with sweat, galloped +up and whispered an agitated message in the Duke's ear. The Duke, +without a change of countenance, dismissed him, and, turning to Bowles, +said, "Old Blücher has had a —— good licking, and gone back to Wavre, +eighteen miles. As he has gone back, we must go too. I suppose in +England they will say we have been licked. I can't help it! As they +have gone back, we must go too." And in five minutes, without stirring +from the spot, he had given complete orders for a retreat to Waterloo. +</P> + +<P> +The low ridge on which the Duke took up his position runs east and +west. The road from Brussels to the south, just before it crosses the +crest of the ridge, divides like the upper part of the letter Y into +two roads, that on the right, or westward, running to Nivelles, that on +the left, or eastward, to Charleroi. A country road, in parts only a +couple of feet deep, in parts sunk from twelve to fifteen feet, +traverses the crest of the ridge, and intersects the two roads just +named before they unite to form the main Brussels road. Two +farmhouses—La Haye Sainte, on the Charleroi road, and Hougoumont, on +that to Nivelles—stand out some 250 yards in advance of the ridge. +Thus the cross-road served as a ditch to Wellington's front; the two +farmhouses were, so to speak, horn-works guarding his right centre and +left centre; while in the little valley on the reverse side of the +crest Wellington was able to act on his favourite tactics of keeping +his men out of sight till the moment for action arrived. The ridge, in +fact, to the French generals who surveyed it from La Belle Alliance +seemed almost bare, showing nothing but batteries at intervals along +the crest, and a spray of skirmishers on the slopes below. +</P> + +<P> +Looked at from the British ridge, the plain over which the great fight +raged is a picture of pastoral simplicity and peace. The crops that +Sunday morning were high upon it, the dark green of wheat and clover +chequered with the lighter green of rye and oats. No fences intersect +the plain; a few farmhouses, each with a leafy girdle of trees, and the +brown roofs of one or two distant villages, alone break the level floor +of green. The present writer has twice visited Waterloo, and the image +of verdurous and leafy peace conveyed by the landscape is still most +vivid. Only Hougoumont, where the orchard walls are still pierced by +the loop-holes through which the Guards fired that long June Sunday, +helps one to realise the fierce strife which once raged and echoed over +this rich valley with its grassy carpet of vivid green. Waterloo is a +battlefield of singularly small dimensions. The British front did not +extend for more than two miles; the gap betwixt Hougoumont and La Haye +Sainte, through which Ney poured his living tide of cavalry, 15,000 +strong, is only 900 yards wide, a distance equal, say, to a couple of +city blocks. The ridge on which Napoleon drew up his army is less than +2000 yards distant from that on which the British stood. It sloped +steadily upward, and, as a consequence. Napoleon's whole force was +disclosed at a glance, and every combination of troops made in +preparation for an attack on the British line was clearly visible, a +fact which greatly assisted Wellington in his arrangements for meeting +it. +</P> + +<P> +The opposing armies differed rather in quality than in numbers. +Wellington had, roughly, 50,000 infantry, 12,000 cavalry, a little less +than 6000 artillerymen; a total of 67,000 men and 156 guns. Napoleon +had 49,000 infantry, nearly 16,000 cavalry, over 7000 artillery; a +total of, say, 72,000 men, with 246 guns. In infantry the two armies +were about equal, in cavalry the French were superior, and in guns +their superiority was enormous. But the French were war-hardened +veterans, the men of Austerlitz and of Wagram, of one blood and speech +and military type, a homogeneous mass, on flame with warlike +enthusiasm. Of Wellington's troops, only 30,000 were British and +German; many even of these had never seen a shot fired in battle, and +were raw drafts from the militia, still wearing the militia uniform. +Only 12,000 were old Peninsula troops. Less than 7000 of Wellington's +cavalry were British, and took any part in the actual battle. +Wellington himself somewhat ungratefully described his force as an +"infamous army"; "the worst army ever brought together!" Nearly 18,000 +were Dutch-Belgians, whose courage was doubtful, and whose loyalty was +still more vehemently suspected. Wellington had placed some battalions +of these as part of the force holding Hougoumont; but when, an hour +before the battle actually began, Napoleon rode through his troops, and +their tumultuous shouts echoed in a tempest of sound across to the +British lines, the effect on the Dutch-Belgians in Hougoumont was so +instant and visible that Wellington at once withdrew them. "The mere +name of Napoleon," he said, "had beaten them before they fired a shot!" +The French themselves did justice to the native fighting quality of the +British. "The English infantry," as Foy told the Emperor on the +morning of Waterloo, "are the very d—— to fight;" and Napoleon, five +years after, at St. Helena, said, "One might as well try to charge +through a wall." Soult, again, told Napoleon, "Sire, I know these +English. They will die on the ground on which they stand before they +lose it." That this was true, even of the raw lads from the militia, +Waterloo proved. But it is idle to deny that of the two armies the +French, tried by abstract military tests, was far the stronger. +</P> + +<P> +The very aspect of the two armies reflected their different +characteristics. A grim silence brooded over the British position. +Nothing was visible except the scattered clusters of guns and the +outposts. The French army, on the other side, was a magnificent +spectacle, gay with flags, and as many-coloured as a rainbow. Eleven +columns deployed simultaneously, and formed three huge lines of serried +infantry. They were flanked by mail-clad cuirassiers, with glittering +helmets and breast-plates; lines of scarlet-clad lancers; and hussars, +with bearskin caps and jackets glittering with gold lace. The black +and menacing masses of the Old Guard and of the Young Guard, with their +huge bearskin caps, formed the reserve. As Napoleon, with a glittering +staff, swept through his army, the bands of 114 battalions and 112 +squadrons poured upon the peaceful air of that June Sunday the martial +cadences of the Marseillaise, and the "Vive l'Empereur!" which broke +from the crowded host was heard distinctly by the grimly listening +ranks of the British. "As far as the eye could reach," says one who +describes the fight from the French ranks, "nothing was to be seen but +cuirasses, helmets, busbies, sabres and lances, and glittering lines of +bayonets." +</P> + +<P> +As for the British, there was no tumult of enthusiasm visible among +them. Flat on the ground, in double files, on the reverse side of the +hill, the men lay, and jested in rough fashion with each other, while +the officers in little groups stood on the ridge and watched the French +movements. Let it be remembered that many of the troops had fought +desperately on the 16th, and retreated on the 17th from Quatre Bras to +Waterloo under furious rain, and the whole army was soddened and +chilled with sleeping unsheltered on the soaked ground. Many of the +men, as they rose hungry and shivering from their sleeping-place in the +mud, were so stiff and cramped that they could not stand upright. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap1902"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +II. HOUGOUMONT +</H3> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"The trumpets sound, the banners fly,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">The glittering spears are rankèd ready,</SPAN><BR> +The shouts o' war are heard afar,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">The battle closes thick and bloody."</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 5em">—BURNS.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +The ground was heavy with the rains of the night, and Napoleon lingered +till nearly noon before he launched his attack on the British lines. +At ten minutes to twelve the first heavy gun rang sullenly from the +French ridge, and from the French left Reille's corps, 6000 strong, +flung itself on Hougoumont. The French are magnificent skirmishers, +and as the great mass moved down the slope, a dense spray of +tirailleurs ran swiftly before it, reached the hedge, and broke into +the wood, which, in a moment, was full of white smoke and the red +flashes of musketry. In a solid mass the main body followed; but the +moment it came within range, the British guns keeping guard over +Hougoumont smote it with a heavy fire. The French batteries answered +fiercely, while in the garden and orchard below the Guards and the +French fought almost literally muzzle to muzzle. +</P> + +<P> +Hougoumont was a strong post. The fire from the windows in the main +building commanded the orchard, that from the orchard commanded the +wood, that from the wood swept the ridge. The French had crossed the +ridge, cleared the wood, and were driving the Guards, fighting +vehemently, out of the orchard into the hollow road between the house +and the British ridge. But they could do no more. The light companies +of the Foot Guards, under Lieut.-Colonel Macdonnell, held the buildings +and orchard, Lord Saltoun being in command of the latter. Muffling, +the Prussian commissioner on Wellington's staff, doubted whether +Hougoumont could be held against the enemy; but Wellington had great +confidence in Macdonnell, a Highlander of gigantic strength and coolest +daring, and nobly did this brave Scotsman fulfil his trust. All day +long the attack thundered round Hougoumont. The French masses moved +again and again to the assault upon it; it was scourged with musketry +and set on fire with shells. But steadfastly under the roar of the +guns and the fierce crackle of small-arms, and even while the roofs +were in flames above their heads, the gallant Guardsmen held their +post. Once the main gateway was burst open, and the French broke in. +They were instantly bayoneted, and Macdonnell, with a cluster of +officers and a sergeant named Graham, by sheer force shut the gate +again in the face of the desperate French. In the fire which partially +consumed the building, some of the British wounded were burned to +death, and Mercer, who visited the spot the morning after the fight, +declared that in the orchard and around the walls of the farmhouse the +dead lay as thick as on the breach of Badajos. +</P> + +<P> +More than 2000 killed and wounded fell in the long seven hours' fight +which raged round this Belgian farmhouse. More than 12,000 infantry +were flung into the attack; the defence, including the Dutch and +Belgians in the wood, never exceeded 2000 men. But when, in the tumult +of the victorious advance of the British at nightfall, Wellington found +himself for a moment beside Muffling, with a flash of exultation rare +in a man so self-controlled, he shouted, "Well, you see Macdonnell held +Hougoumont after all!" Towards evening, at the close of the fight, +Lord Saltoun, with the wreck of the light companies of the Guards, +joined the main body of their division on the ridge. As they came up +to the lines, a scanty group with torn uniforms and smoke-blackened +faces, the sole survivors of the gallant hundreds who had fought +continuously for seven hours, General Maitland rode out to meet them +and cried, "Your defence has saved the army! Every man of you deserves +promotion." Long afterwards a patriotic Briton bequeathed 500 pounds +to the bravest soldier at Waterloo, the Duke of Wellington to be the +judge. The Duke named Macdonnell, who handed the money to the sergeant +who was his comrade in the struggle at the gate of Hougoumont. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap1903"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +III. PICTON AND D'ERLON +</H3> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"But on the British heart were lost<BR> +The terrors of the charging host;<BR> +For not an eye the storm that view'd<BR> +Changed its proud glance of fortitude.<BR> +Nor was one forward footstep staid,<BR> +As dropp'd the dying and the dead."<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 5em">—SCOTT.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Meantime a furious artillery duel raged between the opposing ridges. +Wellington had ordered his gunners not to fire at the French batteries, +but only at the French columns, while the French, in the main, +concentrated their fire on the British guns. French practice under +these conditions was naturally very beautiful, for no hostile bullets +disturbed their aim, and the British gunners fell fast; yet their fire +on the French masses was most deadly. At two o'clock Napoleon launched +his great infantry attack, led by D'Erlon, against La Haye Sainte and +the British left. It was an attack of terrific strength. Four +divisions, numbering 16,000 men, moved forward in echelon, with +intervals between them of 400 paces; seventy-two guns swept as with a +besom of fire the path along which these huge masses advanced with +shouts to the attack, while thirty light guns moved in the intervals +between them; and a cavalry division, consisting of lancers and +cuirassiers, rode on their flank ready to charge the broken masses of +the British infantry. The British line at this point consisted of +Picton's division, formed of the shattered remains of Kempt's and +Pack's brigades, who had suffered heavily at Quatre Bras. They formed +a mere thread of scarlet, a slender two-deep line of about 3000 men. +As the great mass of the enemy came slowly on, the British line was +"dressed," the men ceased to talk, except in monosyllables, the +skirmishers lying flat on the trampled corn prepared to fire. The +grape of the French guns smote Picton's red lines with fury, and the +men fell fast, yet they closed up at the word of command with the most +perfect coolness. The French skirmishers, too, running forward with +great speed and daring, drove in the British skirmishers, who came +running back to the main line smoke-begrimed and breathless. +</P> + +<P> +As the French masses began to ascend the British slope, the French guns +had to cease their fire for fear of striking their own forces. The +British infantry, too, being drawn slightly back from the crest, were +out of sight, and the leading French files saw nothing before them but +a cluster of British batteries and a this line of quickly retreating +skirmishers. A Dutch-Belgian brigade had, somehow, been placed on the +exterior slope of the hill, and when D'Erlon's huge battalions came on, +almost shaking the earth with their steady tread, the Dutch-Belgians +simply took to their heels and ran. They swept, a crowd of fugitives, +through the intervals of the British lines, and were received with +groans and hootings, the men with difficulty being restrained from +firing upon them. +</P> + +<P> +A sand-pit lay in the track of the French columns on the left. This +was held by some companies of the 95th Rifles, and these opened a fire +so sudden and close and deadly that the huge mass of the French swung +almost involuntarily to the right, off its true track; then with fierce +roll of drums and shouts of "En avant!" the Frenchmen reached the +crest. Suddenly there rose before them Picton's steady lines, along +which there ran, in one red flame from end to end, a dreadful volley. +Again the fierce musketry crackled, and yet again. The Frenchmen tried +to deploy, and Picton, seizing the moment, ordered his lines to charge. +"Charge! charge!" he cried. "Hurrah!" +</P> + +<P> +It is yet a matter keenly disputed as to whether or not D'Erlon's men +actually pierced the British line. It is alleged that the Highlanders +were thrown into confusion, and it is certain that Picton's last words +to his aide-de-camp, Captain Seymour, were, "Rally the Highlanders!" +Pack, too, appealed to the 92nd. "You must charge," he said; "all in +front have given way." However this may be, the British regiments +charged, and the swift and resolute advance of Picton's lines—though +it was a charge of 3000 men on a body four times their number—was +irresistible. The leading ranks of the French opened a hurried fire, +under which Picton himself fell shot through the head; then as the +British line came on at the double—the men with bent heads, the level +bayonets one steady edge of steel, the fierce light which gleams along +the fighting line playing on them—the leading battalions of the French +halted irresolute, shrunk back, swayed to and fro, and fell into a +shapeless receding mass. +</P> + +<P> +There were, of course, many individual instances of great gallantry +amongst them. Thus a French mounted officer had his horse shot, and +when he struggled from beneath his fallen charger he found himself +almost under the bayonets of the 32nd. But just in front of the +British line was an officer carrying the colours of the regiment, and +the brave Frenchman instantly leaped upon him. He would capture the +flag! There was a momentary struggle, and the British officer at the +head of the wing shouted, "Save the brave fellow!" but almost at the +same moment the gallant Frenchman was bayoneted by the colour-sergeant, +and shot by a British infantryman. +</P> + +<P> +The head of the French column was falling to pieces, but the main body +was yet steady, and the cuirassiers covering its flank were coming +swiftly on. But at this moment there broke upon them the terrific +counterstroke, not of Wellington, but of Lord Uxbridge, into whose +hands Wellington, with a degree of confidence quite unusual for him, +had given the absolute control of his cavalry, fettering him by no +specific orders. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap1904"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +IV. "SCOTLAND FOR EVER!" +</H3> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Beneath their fire, in full career,<BR> +Rush'd on the ponderous cuirassier,<BR> +The lancer couch'd his ruthless spear,<BR> +And hurrying as to havoc near,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">The cohorts' eagles flew.</SPAN><BR> +In one dark torrent, broad and strong,<BR> +The advancing onset roll'd along,<BR> +Forth harbinger'd by fierce acclaim<BR> +That, from the shroud of smoke and flame,<BR> +Peal'd wildly the imperial name!"<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 5em">—SCOTT.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +The attack of the Household and Union Brigades at Waterloo is one of +the most dazzling and dramatic incidents of the great fight. For +suddenness, fire, and far-reaching results, it would be difficult to +parallel that famous charge in the history of war. The Household +Brigade, consisting of the 1st and 2nd Life Guards, and the Dragoon +Guards, with the Blues in support, moved first. Lord Uxbridge, +temporarily exchanging the functions of general for those of a +squadron-leader, heading the attack. They leaped the hedge, or burst +through it, crossed the road—at that point of shallow depth—and met +the French cuirassiers in full charge. The British were bigger men on +bigger horses, and they had gained the full momentum of their charge +when the two lines met. The French, to do them justice, did not +shrink. The charging lines crashed together, like living and swiftly +moving walls, and the sound of their impact rang sharp, sudden, deep, +and long drawn out, above the din of the conflict. The French wore +armour, and carried longer swords than the British, but they were swept +away in an instant, and went, a broken and shattered mass of men and +horses, down the slope. Some of them were tumbled into the sand-pit, +amongst the astonished Rifles there, who instantly bayoneted them. +Others were swept upon the masses of their own infantry, fiercely +followed by the Life Guards. +</P> + +<P> +The 2nd Life Guards and the Dragoons, coming on a little in the rear, +struck the right regiment of the cuirassiers and hurled them across the +junction of the roads. Shaw, the famous Life Guardsman, was killed +here. He was a perfect swordsman, a man of colossal strength, and is +said to have cut down, through helmet and skull, no fewer than nine men +in the <I>mêlée</I>. How Shaw actually died is a matter of dispute. +Colonel Marten says he was shot by a cuirassier who stood clear of the +<I>mêlée</I>, coolly taking pot-shots at the English Guardsmen. Captain +Kelly, a brilliant soldier, who rode in the charge beside Shaw, says +that Shaw was killed by a thrust through the body from a French colonel +of the cuirassiers, whom Kelly himself, in return, clove through helmet +and skull. +</P> + +<P> +Meanwhile the Union Brigade on the left, consisting of the Royals and +the Inniskillings, with the Scots Greys in support, had broken into the +fight. The Royals, coming on at full speed over the crest of the +ridge, broke upon the astonished vision of the French infantry at a +distance of less than a hundred yards. It was an alarming vision of +waving swords, crested helmets, fierce red nostrils, and galloping +hoofs. The leading files tried to turn, but in an instant the Royals +were upon them, cutting them down furiously. De Lacy Evans, who rode +in the charge, says, "They fled like a flock of sheep." Colonel Clark +Kennedy adds that the "jamb" in the French was so thick that the men +could not bring down their arms or level a musket, and the Dragoons +rode in the intervals between their formation, reaching forward with +the stroke of their long swords, and slaying at will. More than 2000 +Frenchmen flung down their arms and surrendered; and on the next +morning the abandoned muskets were still lying in long straight lines +and regular order, showing that the men had surrendered before their +lines were broken. The charge of the Inniskillings to the left of the +Royals was just as furious and just as successful. They broke on the +front of Donzdot's divisions and simply ground them to powder. +</P> + +<P> +The Scots Greys were supposed to be "in support"; but coming swiftly +up, they suddenly saw on their left shoulder Marcognet's divisions, the +extreme right of the French. At that sight the Greys swung a little +off to their left, swept through the intervals of the 92nd, and smote +the French battalions full in front. As the Greys rode through the +intervals of the footmen—Scotch horsemen through Scotch infantry—the +Scotch blood in both regiments naturally took fire. Greetings in +broadest Doric flew from man to man. The pipes skirled fiercely. +"Scotland for ever!" went up in a stormy shout from the kilted lines. +The Greys, riding fast, sometimes jostled, or even struck down, some of +the 92nd; and Armour, the rough-rider of the Greys, has told how the +Highlanders shouted, "I didna think ye wad hae saired me sae!" Many of +the Highlanders caught hold of the stirrups of the Greys and raced +forward with them—Scotsmen calling to Scotsmen—into the ranks of the +French. The 92nd, in fact, according to the testimony of their own +officers, "went half mad." What could resist such a charge? +</P> + +<P> +The two British cavalry brigades were by this time riding roughly +abreast, the men drunk with warlike excitement and completely out of +hand, and most of their officers were little better. They simply rode +over D'Erlon's broken ranks. So brave were some of the French, +however, that again and again a solitary soldier or officer would leap +out of the ranks as the English cavalry came on, and charge them +single-handed! One French private deliberately ran out as the +Inniskillings came on at full gallop, knelt before the swiftly +galloping line of men and horses, coolly shot the adjutant of the +Inniskillings through the head, and was himself instantly trodden into +a bloody pulp! The British squadrons, wildly disordered, but drunk +with battle fury, and each man fighting for his "ain hand," swept +across the valley, rode up to the crest of the French position, stormed +through the great battery there, slew drivers and horses, and so +completely wrecked the battery that forty guns out of its seventy never +came into action again. Some of the men, in the rapture of the fight, +broke through to the second line of the French, and told tales, after +the mad adventure was over, of how they had come upon French artillery +drivers, mere boys, sitting crying on their horses while the tragedy +and tumult of the <I>mêlée</I> swept past them. Some of the older officers +tried to rally and re-form their men; and Lord Uxbridge, by this time +beginning to remember that he was a general and not a dragoon, looked +round for his "supports," who, as it happened, oblivious of the duty of +"supporting" anybody, were busy fighting on their own account, and were +riding furiously in the very front ranks. +</P> + +<P> +Then there came the French counter-stroke. The French batteries opened +on the triumphant, but disordered British squadrons; a brigade of +lancers smote them on the flank and rolled them up. Lord Edward +Somerset, who commanded the Household Brigade, was unhorsed, and saved +his life by scrambling dexterously, but ignobly, through a hedge. Sir +William Ponsonby, who commanded the Union Brigade, had ridden his horse +to a dead standstill; the lancers caught him standing helpless in the +middle of a ploughed field, and slew him with a dozen lance-thrusts. +Vandeleur's Light Cavalry Brigade was by this time moving down from the +British front, and behind its steady squadrons the broken remains of +the two brigades found shelter. +</P> + +<P> +Though the British cavalry suffered terribly in retiring, nevertheless +they had accomplished what Sir Evelyn Wood describes as "one of the +most brilliant successes ever achieved by horsemen over infantry." +These two brigades—which did not number more than 2000 swords—wrecked +an entire infantry corps, disabled forty guns, overthrew a division of +cuirassiers, took 3000 prisoners, and captured two eagles. The moral +effect of the charge was, perhaps, greater than even its material +results. The French infantry never afterwards throughout the battle, +until the Old Guard appeared upon the scene, moved forward with real +confidence against the British position. Those "terrible horsemen" had +stamped themselves upon their imagination. +</P> + +<P> +The story of how the eagles were captured is worth telling. Captain +Clark Kennedy of the Dragoons took one. He was riding vehemently in +the early stage of the charge, when he caught sight of the cuirassier +officer carrying the eagle, with his covering men, trying to break +through the <I>mêlée</I> and escape. "I gave the order to my men," he says, +"'Right shoulders forward; attack the colours.'" He himself overtook +the officer, ran him through the body, and seized the eagle. He tried +to break the eagle from the pole and push it inside his coat for +security, but, failing, gave it to his corporal to carry to the rear. +The other colour was taken by Ewart, a sergeant of the Greys, a very +fine swordsman. He overtook the officer carrying the colour, and, to +quote his own story, "he and I had a hard contest for it. He made a +thrust at my groin; I parried it off, and cut him down through the +head. After this a lancer came at me. I threw the lance off by my +right side, and cut him through the chin and upwards through the teeth. +Next, a foot-soldier fired at me, and then charged me with his bayonet, +which I also had the good luck to parry, and then I cut him down +through the head. Thus ended the contest. As I was about to follow +the regiment, the general said, 'My brave fellow, take that to the +rear; you have done enough till you get quit of it.'" +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap1905"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +V. HORSEMEN AND SQUARES +</H3> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"But yet, though thick the shafts as snow,<BR> +Though charging knights like whirlwinds go,<BR> +Though bill-men ply the ghastly blow,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Unbroken was the ring;</SPAN><BR> +The stubborn spearmen still made good<BR> +Their dark impenetrable wood,<BR> +Each stepping where his comrade stood,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">The instant that he fell.</SPAN><BR> +No thought was there of dastard flight;<BR> +Linked in the serried phalanx tight,<BR> +Groom fought like noble, squire like knight,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">As fearlessly and well."</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 5em">—SCOTT.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Napoleon's infantry had failed to capture either Hougoumont or La Haye +Sainte, which was stoutly held by Baring and his Hanoverians. The +great infantry attack on the British left had failed, and though the +stubborn fight round the two farmhouses never paused, the main battle +along the ridge for a time resolved itself into an artillery duel. +Battery answered battery across the narrow valley, nearly four hundred +guns in action at once, the gunners toiling fiercely to load and fire +with the utmost speed. Wellington ordered his men to lie down on the +reverse of the ridge; but the French had the range perfectly, and +shells fell thickly on the ranks of recumbent men, and solid shot tore +through them. The thunder of the artillery quickened; the French +tirailleurs, showing great daring, crept in swarms up the British slope +and shot down the British gunners at their pieces. Both Hougoumont and +La Haye Sainte were on fire at this stage of the battle. The smoke of +the conflict, in an atmosphere heavy with moisture, hung like a low +pall of blackest crape over the whole field; and every now and again, +on either ridge, columns of white smoke shot suddenly up and fell back +like gigantic and vaporous mushrooms—the effect of exploding +ammunition waggons. "Hard pounding this, gentlemen," said Wellington, +as he rode past his much-enduring battalions. "Let us see who will +pound longest." +</P> + +<P> +At four o'clock came the great cavalry attack of the French. Through +the gap between, not merely the two farmhouses, but the two farmhouses +plus their zone of fire—through a gap, that is, of probably not more +than 1000 yards, the French, for two long hours, poured on the British +line the whole strength of their magnificent cavalry, led by Ney in +person. To meet the assault, Wellington drew up his first line in a +long chequer of squares, five in the first line, four, covering their +intervals, in the second. In advance of them were the British guns, +with their sadly reduced complement of gunners. Immediately behind the +squares were the British cavalry brigades; the Household Brigade, +reduced by this time to a couple of squadrons; and behind them, in +turn, the Dutch-Belgian infantry, who had fortitude enough not to run +away, but lacked daring sufficient to fill a place on the fire-scourged +edge of actual battle. When the British front was supposed to be +sufficiently macadamised by the dreadful fire of the French batteries, +Ney brought on his huge mass of cavalry, twenty-one squadrons of +cuirassiers, and nineteen squadrons of the Light Cavalry of the Guard. +</P> + +<P> +At a slow trot they came down the French slope, crossed the valley, +and, closing their ranks and quickening their stride, swept up to the +British line, and broke, a swirling torrent of men and horses, over the +crest. Nothing could be more majestic, and apparently resistless, than +their onset—the gleam of so many thousand helmets and breastplates, +the acres of wind-blown horse-hair crests and many-coloured uniforms, +the thunder of so many galloping hoofs. Wellington had ordered his +gunners, when the French cavalry reached their guns, to abandon them +and run for shelter beneath the bayonets of the nearest square, and the +brave fellows stood by their pieces pouring grape and solid shot into +the glittering, swift-coming human target before them till the leading +horses were almost within touch of the guns, when they ran and flung +themselves under the steady British bayonets for safety. +</P> + +<P> +The French horsemen, as they mounted the British slope, saw nothing +before them but the ridge, empty of everything except a few abandoned +guns. They were drunk with the rapture of victory, and squadron after +squadron, as it reached the crest, broke into tempests of shouts and a +mad gallop. All the batteries were in their possession; they looked to +see an army in rout. Suddenly they beheld the double line of British +squares—or, rather, "oblongs"—with their fringe of steady steel +points; and from end to end of the line ran the zigzag of fire—a fire +that never slackened, still less intermitted. The torrent and tumult +of the horsemen never checked; but as they rode at the squares, the +leading squadron—men and horses—smitten by the spray of lead, tumbled +dead or dying to the ground. The following squadrons parted, swept +past the flanks of the squares, scourged with deadly volleys, struggled +through the intervals of the second line, emerged breathless and broken +into the space beyond, to be instantly charged by the British cavalry, +and driven back in wreck over the British slope. As the struggling +mass left the crest clear, the French guns broke in a tempest of shot +on the squares, while the scattered French re-formed in the valley, and +prepared for a second and yet more desperate assault. +</P> + +<P> +Foiled in his first attack, Ney drew the whole of Kellerman's +division—thirty-seven squadrons, eleven of cuirassiers, six of +carabineers, and the Bed Lancers of the Guard—into the whirlpool of +his renewed assault, and this time the mass, though it came forward +more slowly, was almost double in area. Gleaming with lance and sword +and cuirass, it undulated as it crossed the broken slopes, till it +seemed a sea, shining with 10,000 points of glancing steel, in motion. +The British squares, on the reverse slope, as they obeyed the order, +"Prepare to receive cavalry!" and fell grimly into formation, could +hear the thunder of the coming storm—the shrill cries of the officers, +the deeper shouts of the men, the clash of scabbard on stirrup, the +fierce tramp of the iron-shod hoofs. Squadron after squadron came over +the ridge, like successive human waves; then, like a sea broken loose, +the flood of furious horsemen inundated the whole slope on which the +squares were drawn up. But each square, a tiny, immovable island of +red, with its fringe of smoke and steel and darting flame, stood +doggedly resolute. No French leader, however daring, ventured to ride +home on the very bayonets. The flood of maddened men and horses swung +sullenly back across the ridge, while the British gunners ran out and +scourged them with grape as they rode down the slope. +</P> + +<P> +From four o'clock to six o'clock this amazing scene was repeated. No +less than thirteen times, it was reckoned, the French horsemen rode +over the ridge, and round the squares, and swept back wrecked and +baffled. In the later charges they came on at a trot, or even a walk, +and they rode through the British batteries and round the squares, in +the words of the Duke of Wellington, "as if they owned them." So dense +was the smoke that sometimes the British could not see their foes +until, through the whirling blackness, a line of lances and crested +helmets, or of tossing horse-heads, suddenly broke. Sometimes a single +horseman would ride up to the very points of the British bayonets and +strike at them with his sword, or fire a pistol at an officer, in the +hope of drawing the fire of the square prematurely, and thus giving his +comrades a chance of breaking it. With such cool courage did the +British squares endure the fiery rush of the French cavalry, that at +last the temper of the men grew almost scornful. They would growl out, +"Here come these fools again," as a fresh sweep of horsemen came on. +Sometimes the French squadrons came on at a trot; sometimes their +"charge" slackened down to a walk. Warlike enthusiasm had exhausted +itself. "The English squares and the French squadrons," says Lord +Anglesey, "seemed almost, for a short time, hardly taking notice of +each other." +</P> + +<P> +In their later charges the French brought up some light batteries to +the crest of the British ridge, and opened fire at point-blank distance +on the solid squares. The front of the 1st Life Guards was broken by a +fire of this sort, and Gronow relates how the cuirassiers made a dash +at the opening. Captain Adair leaped into the gap, and killed with one +blow of his sword a French officer who had actually entered the square! +The British gunners always ran swiftly out when the French cavalry +recoiled down the slope, remanned their guns, and opened a murderous +fire on the broken French. Noting this, an officer of cuirassiers drew +up his horse by a British battery, and while his men drew off, stood on +guard with his single sword, and kept the gunners from remanning it +till he was shot by a British infantryman. Directly the broken cavalry +was clear of the ridge, the French guns opened furiously on the British +lines, and men dropped thick and fast. The cavalry charges, as a +matter of fact, were welcomed as affording relief from the intolerable +artillery fire. +</P> + +<P> +For two hours 15,000 French horsemen rode round the British squares, +and again and again the ridge and rear slope of the British position +was covered with lancers, cuirassiers, light and heavy dragoons, and +hussars, with the British guns in their actual possession; and yet not +a square was broken! A gaily dressed regiment of the Duke of +Cumberland's (Hanoverian) Hussars watched the Homeric contest from the +British rear, and Lord Uxbridge, as the British cavalry were completely +exhausted by their dashes at the French horsemen as they broke through +the chequer of the squares, rode up to them and called on them to +follow him in a charge. The colonel declined, explaining that his men +owned their own horses, and could not expose them to any risk of +damage! These remarkable warriors, in fact, moved in a body, and with +much expedition, off the field, Seymour (Lord Uxbridge's aide) taking +their colonel by the collar and shaking him as a dog shakes a rat, by +way of expressing his view of the performance. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap1906"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +VI. THE FIGHT OF THE GUNNERS +</H3> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Three hundred cannon-mouths roar'd loud;<BR> +And from their throats with flash and cloud<BR> +Their showers of iron threw."<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 5em">—SCOTT.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +One of the most realistic pictures of the fight at this stage is given +by Captain Mercer, in command of a battery of horse artillery. Mercer +was on the extreme British right during the first stage of the battle, +and only got occasional glimpses of the ridge where the fight was +raging—intermittent visions of French cavalry riding in furious +charges, and abandoned British batteries with guns, muzzle in air, +against the background of grey and whirling smoke. About three +o'clock, in the height of the cavalry struggle, Fraser, who was in +chief command of the horse artillery, galloped down the reverse slope +to Mercer's battery, his face black with powder, his uniform torn, and +brought the troop at full gallop to the central ridge, explaining as +they rode the Duke's orders, that, when the French cavalry charged +home, Mercer and his men should take refuge under the bayonets of the +nearest square. +</P> + +<P> +As they neared the crest at a gallop, Mercer describes the humming as +of innumerable and gigantic gnats that filled the bullet-torn air. He +found his position betwixt two squares of Brunswickers, in whose ranks +the French guns were making huge gaps, while the officers and sergeants +were busy literally pushing the men together. "The men," says Mercer, +"were like wooden figures, semi-paralysed with the horrors of the fight +about them;" and to have attempted to run to them for shelter would +certainly have been the signal for the whole mass to dissolve. Through +the smoke ahead, not a hundred yards distant, were the French squadrons +coming on at a trot. The British guns were swung round, unlimbered, +loaded with case-shot, and fire opened with breathless speed. Still +the French came on; but as gun after gun came into action, their pace +slowed down to a walk, till the front files could endure the terrific +fire no longer. They turned round and tried to ride back. "I actually +saw them," says Mercer, "using the pommels of their swords to fight +their way out of the <I>mêlée</I>." Some, made desperate by finding +themselves penned up at the very muzzles of the British guns, dashed +through their intervals, but without thinking of using their swords. +Presently the mass broke and ebbed, a flood of shattered squadrons, +down the slope. They rallied quickly, however, and their helmets could +be seen over the curve of the slope as the officers dressed the lines. +</P> + +<P> +The French tirailleurs, meanwhile, crept up within forty yards of the +battery, and were busy shooting down Mercer's gunners. Mercer, to keep +his men steady, rode slowly to and fro in front of the muzzles of his +guns, the men standing with lighted port-fires. The tirailleurs, +almost within pistol-shot, seized the opportunity to take pot-shots at +him. He shook his glove, with the word "Scélérat," at one of them; the +fellow grinned, and took a leisurely aim at Mercer, the muzzle of his +gun following him as he turned to and fro in his promenade before his +own pieces. The Frenchman fired, and the ball passed at the back of +Mercer's neck into the forehead of the leading driver of one of his +guns. +</P> + +<P> +But the cavalry was coming on again in solid squadrons, a column so +deep that when the leading files were within sixty yards of Mercer's +guns the rear of the great mass was still out of sight. The pace was a +deliberate trot. "They moved in profound silence," says Mercer, and +the only sound that could be heard from them, amidst the incessant roar +of battle, was the low, thunder-like reverberation of the ground +beneath the simultaneous tread of so many horses, through which ran a +jangling ripple of sharp metallic sound, the ring of steel on steel. +The British gunners, on their part, showed a stern coolness fully equal +to the occasion. Every man stood steadily at his post, "the guns ready +loaded with round-shot first, and a case over it; the tubes were in the +vents, the port-fires glared and sputtered behind the wheels." The +column was led on this time by an officer in a rich uniform, his breast +covered with decorations, whose earnest gesticulations were strangely +contrasted with the solemn demeanour of those to whom they were +addressed. Mercer allowed the leading squadron to come within sixty +yards, then lifted his glove as the signal to fire. Nearly the whole +leading rank fell in an instant, while the round shot pierced the +column. The front, covered with struggling horses and men, was +impassable. Some of the braver spirits did break their way through, +only to fall, man and horse, at the very muzzles, of the guns. "Our +guns," says Mercer, "were served with astonishing activity, and men and +horses tumbled before them like nine-pins." Where the horse alone was +killed, the cuirassier could be seen stripping himself of his armour +with desperate haste to escape. The mass of the French for a moment +stood still, then broke to pieces and fled. Again they came on, with +exactly the same result. So dreadful was the carnage, that on the next +day, Mercer, looking back from the French ridge, could identify the +position held by his battery by the huge mound of slaughtered men and +horses lying in front of it. The French at last brought up a battery, +which opened a flanking fire on Mercer's guns; he swung round two of +his pieces to meet the attack, and the combat raged till, out of 200 +fine horses in Mercer's troop, 140 lay dead or dying, and two men out +of every three were disabled. +</P> + +<P> +Ney's thirteen cavalry charges on the British position were +magnificent, but they were a failure. They did not break a single +square, nor permanently disable a single gun. Both Wellington and +Napoleon are accused of having flung away their cavalry; but +Wellington—or, rather, Uxbridge—by expending only 2000 sabres, +wrecked, as we have seen, a French infantry corps, destroyed a battery +of 40 guns, and took 3000 prisoners. Ney practically used up 15,000 +magnificent horsemen without a single appreciable result. Napoleon, at +St. Helena, put the blame of his wasted cavalry on Ney's hot-headed +impetuosity. The cavalry attack, he said, was made without his orders; +Kellerman's division joined in the attack without even Ney's orders. +But that Napoleon should watch for two hours his whole cavalry force +wrecking itself in thirteen successive and baffled assaults on the +British squares, without his orders, is an utterly incredible +supposition. +</P> + +<P> +If two hours of cavalry assault, punctuated as with flame by the fire +of 200 guns, did not destroy the stubborn British line, it cannot be +denied that it shook it terribly. The British ridge was strewn with +the dead and dying. Regiments had shrunk to companies, companies to +mere files. "Our square," says Gronow, "presented a shocking sight. +We were nearly suffocated by the smoke and smell from burnt cartridges. +It was impossible to move a step without treading on a wounded or slain +comrade." "Where is your brigade?" Vivian asked of Lord Edward +Somerset, who commanded the Life Guards. "Here," said Lord Edward, +pointing to two scanty squadrons, and a long line of wounded or +mutilated horses. Before nightfall the two gallant brigades that made +the great cavalry charge of the morning had contracted to a single +squadron of fifty files. Wellington sent an aide-de-camp to ask +General Hackett, "What square of his that was which was so far in +advance?" It was a mass of killed and wounded men belonging to the +30th and 73rd regiments that lay slain, yet in ranks, on the spot the +square had occupied at one period of the fight, and from which it had +been withdrawn. Seen through the whirling smoke, this quadrangle of +corpses looked like a square of living men. The destruction wrought by +the French guns on the British squares was, in brief, terrific. By a +single discharge of grape upon a German square, one of its sides was +completely blown away, and the "square" transfigured into a triangle, +with its base a line of slaughtered men. The effect produced by +cannon-shot at short range on solid masses of men was sometimes very +extraordinary. Thus Croker tells how an officer received a severe +wound in the shoulder, apparently from a jagged ball. When the missile +was extracted, however, it turned out to be a huge human double-tooth. +Its owner's head had been shattered by a cannon-ball, and the very +teeth transformed into a radiating spray of swift and deadly missiles. +There were other cases of soldiers being wounded by coins driven +suddenly by the impact of shot from their original owners' pockets. +The sustained fire of the French tirailleurs, too, wrought fatal +mischief. +</P> + +<P> +La Haye Sainte by this time had been captured. The brave men who held +it for so many hours carried rifles that needed a special cartridge, +and supplies of it failed. When the French captured the farmhouse, +they were able to push some guns and a strong infantry attack close up +to the British left. This was held by the 27th, who had marched from +Ghent at speed, reached Waterloo, exhausted, at nine A.M., on the very +day of the battle, slept amid the roar of the great fight till three +o'clock, and were then brought forward to strengthen the line above La +Haye Sainte. The 27th was drawn up in square, and the French +skirmishers opened a fire so close and fatal, that, literally, in the +space of a few minutes every second man was shot down! +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap1907"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +VII. THE OLD GUARD +</H3> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"On came the whirlwind—like the last,<BR> +But fiercest sweep of tempest blast—<BR> +On came the whirlwind—steel-gleams broke<BR> +Like lightning through the rolling smoke;<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 3em">The war was waked anew."</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 5em">—SCOTT.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Napoleon had expended in vain upon the stubborn British lines his +infantry, his cavalry, and his artillery. There remained only the +Guard! The long summer evening was drawing to a close, when, at +half-past seven, he marshalled these famous soldiers for the final +attack. It is a curious fact that the intelligence of the coming +attack was brought to Wellington by a French cuirassier officer, who +deserted his colours just before it took place. The eight battalions +of the immortal Guard formed a body of magnificent soldiers, the tall +stature of the men being heightened by their imposing bearskin caps. +The prestige of a hundred victories played round their bayonets. Their +assault had never yet been resisted. Ney and Friant led them on. +Napoleon himself, as the men marched past him to the assault, spoke +some fiery words of exhortation to each company—the last words he ever +spoke to his Guard. +</P> + +<P> +It is a matter of keen dispute whether the Guard attacked in two +columns or in one. The truth seems to be that the eight battalions +were arranged in echelon, and really formed one mass, though in two +parallel columns of companies, with batteries of horse artillery on +either flank advancing with them. Nothing could well be more majestic, +nothing more menacing, than the advance of this gallant force, and it +seemed as if nothing on the British ridge, with its disabled guns and +shot-torn battalions, could check such an assault. Wellington, +however, quickly strengthened his centre by calling in Hill's division +from the extreme right, while Vivian's Light Cavalry, surrendering the +extreme left to the advancing Prussians, moved, in anticipation of +orders, to the same point. Adams's brigade, too, was brought up to the +threatened point, with all available artillery. The exact point in the +line which would be struck by the head of the Guard was barred by a +battery of nine-pounders. The attack of the Guard was aided by a +general infantry advance—-usually in the form of a dense mass of +skirmishers—against the whole British front, and so fierce was this +that some Hanoverian and Nassau battalions were shaken by it into +almost fatal rout. A thread of British cavalry, made up of the scanty +remains of the Scots Greys and some of Vandeleur's Light Cavalry, alone +kept the line from being pierced. +</P> + +<P> +All interest, however, centred in the attack of the Guard. Steadily, +on a slightly diagonal line, it moved up the British slope. The guns +smote it fiercely; but never shrinking or pausing, the great double +column moved forward. It crossed the ridge. Nothing met the eyes of +the astonished French except a wall of smoke, and the battery of horse +artillery, at which the gunners were toiling madly, pouring case-shot +into the approaching column. One or two horsemen, one of whom was +Wellington himself, were dimly seen through the smoke behind the guns. +The Duke denied that he used the famous phrase, "Up Guards, and at +'em!" "What I may have said, and possibly did say," he told Croker, +"was, 'Stand up, Guards!' and then gave the commanding officers the +order to attack." +</P> + +<P> +An officer who took part in the fight has described the scene at the +critical moment when the French Old Guard appeared at the summit of the +British ridge: "As the smoke cleared away, a most superb sight opened +on us. A close column of the Guard, about seventies in front, and not +less than six thousand strong, their drums sounding the <I>pas de +charge</I>, the men shouting 'Vive l'Empereur!' were within sixty yards of +us." The sudden appearance of the long red line of the British Foot +Guards rising from the ground seems to have brought the French Guard to +a momentary pause, and, as they hesitated, along the whole line of the +British ran—and ran again, and yet again—the vivid flash of a +tremendous volley. The Guard tried to deploy; their officers leaped to +the front, and, with shouts and waving swords, tried to bring them on, +the British line, meanwhile, keeping up "independent" firing. Maitland +and Lord Saltoun simultaneously shouted the order to "Charge!" The +bayonets of the British Guards fell to level, the men came forward at a +run, the tramp of the charging line sounded louder and louder, the line +of shining points gleamed nearer and yet nearer—the bent and +threatening faces of the British came swiftly on. The nerve of the +French seemed to fail; the huge battalion faltered, shrank in upon +itself, and tumbled in ruin down the hill! +</P> + +<P> +But this was only the leading battalion of the right segment of the +great column, and the left was still moving steadily up. The British +Guards, too, who had followed the broken battalion of the French down +the hill, were arrested by a cry of "Cavalry!" and fell back on the +ridge in confusion, though the men obeyed instantly the commands of the +officers. "Halt! Front! Re-form!" Meanwhile the left section of the +huge column was moving up, the men as steady as on parade, the lofty +bearskins of the Grenadiers, as they mounted the ridge, giving them a +gigantic aspect. The black, elongated shadows, as the last rays of the +setting sun smote the lines, ran threateningly before them. But the +devoted column was practically forcing itself up into a sort of +triangle of fire. Bolton's guns crossed its head, the Guards, thrown +slightly forward, poured their swift volleys in waves of flame on its +right shoulder, the 52nd and 71st on its left scourged it with fire, +beneath which the huge mass of the French Guard seemed sometimes to +pause and thrill as if in convulsion. +</P> + +<P> +Then came the movement which assured victory to the British. Colborne, +a soldier with a singular genius for war, not waiting for orders, made +his regiment, the 52nd, bring its right shoulder forward, the outer +company swinging round at the double, until his whole front was +parallel with the flank of the French Guard. Adams, the general in +command of the brigade, rode up and asked him what he was going to do. +Colborne replied, "To make that column feel our fire," and, giving the +word, his men poured into the unprotected flank of the unfortunate +Guard a terrific volley. The 52nd, it should be noted, went into +action with upwards of one thousand bayonets, being probably the +strongest battalion in the field. Colborne had "nursed" his regiment +during the fight. He formed them into smaller squares than usual, and +kept them in shelter where possible, so that at this crisis the +regiment was still a body of great fighting force, and its firing was +of deadly volume and power. Adams swiftly brought the 71st to sustain +Colborne's attack, the Guards on the other flank also moved forward, +practically making a long obtuse angle of musketry fire, the two sides +of which were rapidly closing in on the head of the great French column. +</P> + +<P> +The left company of the 52nd was almost muzzle to muzzle with the +French column, and had to press back, while the right companies were +swinging round to bring the whole line parallel with the flank of the +Guard; yet, though the answering fire of the Frenchmen was broken and +irregular, so deadly was it—the lines almost touching each +other—that, in three minutes, from the left front of the 52nd one +hundred and fifty men fell! When the right companies, however, had +come up into line with the left, Colborne cried, "Charge! charge!" The +men answered with a deep-throated, menacing shout, and dashed at the +enemy. Napoleon's far-famed Guard, the victors in a hundred fights, +shrank, the mass swayed to and fro, the men in the centre commenced to +fire in the air, and the whole great mass seemed to tumble, break into +units, and roll down the hill! +</P> + +<P> +The 52nd and 71st came fiercely on, their officers leading. Some +squadrons of the 23rd Dragoons came at a gallop down the slope, and +literally smashed in upon the wrecked column. So wild was the +confusion, so dense the whirling smoke that shrouded the whole scene, +that some companies of the 52nd fired into the Dragoons, mistaking them +for the enemy; and while Colborne was trying to halt his line to remedy +the confusion, Wellington, who saw in this charge the sure pledge of +victory, rode up and shouted, "Never mind! go on! go on!" +</P> + +<P> +Gambier, then an officer of the 52nd, gives a graphic description of +how that famous regiment fought at this stage:— +</P> + +<P> +"A short time before, I had seen our colonel (Colborne), twenty yards +in front of the centre, suddenly disappear, while his horse, mortally +wounded, sank under him. After one or two rounds from the guns, he +came striding down the front with, 'These guns will destroy the +regiment.'—'Shall I drive them in, sir?'—'Do.'—'Right section, left +shoulders forward!' was the word at once. So close were we that the +guns only fired their loaded charges, and limbering up, went hastily to +the rear. Reaching the spot on which they had stood, I was clear of +the Imperial Guard's smoke, and saw three squares of the Old Guard +within four hundred yards farther on. They were standing in a line of +contiguous squares with very short intervals, a small body of +cuirassiers on their right, while the guns took post on their left. +Convinced that the regiment, when it saw them, would come towards them, +I continued my course, stopped with my section about two hundred yards +in front of the centre square, and sat down. They were standing in +perfect order and steadiness, and I knew they would not disturb that +steadiness to pick a quarrel with an insignificant section. I +alternately looked at them, at the regiment, and up the hill to my +right (rear), to see who was coming to help us. +</P> + +<P> +"A red regiment was coming along steadily from the British position, +with its left directly upon me. It reached me some minutes before the +52nd, of which the right came within twenty paces of me. Colonel +Colborne then called the covering sergeants to the front, and dressed +the line upon them. Up to this moment neither the guns, the squares of +the Imperial Guard, nor the 52nd had fired a shot. I then saw one or +two of the guns slewed round to the direction of my company and fired, +but their grape went over our heads. We opened our fire and advanced; +the squares replied to it, and then steadily facing about, retired. +The cuirassiers advanced a few paces; our men ceased firing, and, bold +in their four-deep formation, came down to a sort of elevated bayonet +charge; but the cuirassiers declined the contest, and turned. The +French proper right square brought up its right shoulders and crossed +the <I>chaussée</I>, and we crossed it after them. Twilight had manifestly +commenced, and objects were now bewildering. The first event of +interest was, that getting among some French tumbrils, with the horses +attached, our colonel was seen upon one, shouting 'Cut me out!' Then +we came upon the hollow road beyond La Belle Alliance, filled with +artillery and broken infantry. Here was instantly a wild <I>mêlée</I>: the +infantry tried to escape as best they could, and at the same time turn +and defend themselves; the artillery drivers turned their horses to the +left and tried to scramble up the bank of the road, but the horses were +immediately shot down; a young subaltern of the battery threw his sword +and himself on the ground in the act of surrender; his commander, who +wore the cross of the Legion of Honour, stood in defiance among his +guns, and was bayoneted, and the subaltern, unwisely making a run for +his liberty, was shot in the attempt. The <I>mêlée</I> at this spot placed +us amid such questionable companions, that no one at that moment could +be sure whether a bayonet would be the next moment in his ribs or not." +</P> + +<P> +It puts a sudden gleam of humour into the wild scene to read how +Colonel Sir Felton Harvey, who led a squadron of the 18th, when he saw +the Old Guard tumbling into ruins, evoked a burst of laughter from his +entire squadron by saying in a solemn voice, "Lord Wellington has won +the battle," and then suddenly adding in a changed tone, "If we could +but get the d——d fool to advance!" Wellington, as a matter of fact, +had given the signal that launched his wasted and sorely tried +battalions in one final and victorious advance. Vivian's cavalry still +remained to the Duke—the 10th and 18th Hussars—and they, at this +stage, made a charge almost as decisive as that of the Household and +Union Brigades in the morning. The 10th crashed into some cuirassiers +who were coming up to try and relieve the flank of the Guard, overthrew +them in a moment, and then plunged into the broken French Guard itself. +These veterans were retreating, so to speak, individually, all +formation wrecked, but each soldier was stalking fiercely along with +frowning brow and musket grasped, ready to charge any too audacious +horsemen. Vivian himself relates how his orderly alone cut down five +or six in swift succession who were trying to bayonet the British +cavalry general. When Vivian had launched the 10th, he galloped back +to the 18th, who had lost almost every officer. "My lads," he said, +"you'll follow me"; to which the sergeant-major, a man named Jeffs, +replied, "To h——, general, if you will lead us!" The wreck of +Vandeleur's brigade, too, charged down the slope more to the left; +batteries were carried, cavalry squadrons smashed, and infantry +battalions tumbled into ruin. Napoleon had an entire light cavalry +brigade still untouched; but this, too, was caught in the reflux of the +broken masses, and swept away. The wreck of the Old Guard and the +spectacle of the general advance of the British—cavalry, artillery, +and infantry—seemed to be the signal for the dissolution of the whole +French army. +</P> + +<P> +Two squares of the French Guard yet kept their formation. Some +squadrons of the 10th Hussars, under Major Howard, rode fiercely at +one. Howard himself rode home, and died literally on the French +bayonets; and his men rivalled his daring, and fought and died on two +faces of the square. But the Frenchmen kept their ranks, and the +attack failed. The other square was broken. The popular tradition +that Cambronne, commanding a square of the Old Guard, on being summoned +to surrender, answered, "La Garde meurt, et ne se rend pas," is pure +fable. As a matter of fact, Halkett, who commanded a brigade of +Hanoverians, personally captured Cambronne. Halkett was heading some +squadrons of the 10th, and noted Cambronne trying to rally the Guard. +In his own words, "I made a gallop for the general. When about cutting +him down, he called out he would surrender, upon which he preceded me +to the rear. But I had not gone many paces before my horse got shot +through his body and fell to the ground. In a few seconds I got him on +his legs again, and found my friend Cambronne had taken French leave in +the direction from which he came. I instantly overtook him, laid hold +of him by the aiguillette, and brought him back in safety, and gave him +in charge of a sergeant of the Osnabruckers to deliver to the Duke." +</P> + +<P> +Napoleon himself, from a spot of rising ground not far from La Haye +Sainte, had watched the advance of his Guard. His empire hung on its +success. It was the last fling of the dice for him. His cavalry was +wrecked, his infantry demoralised, half his artillery dismounted; the +Prussian guns were thundering with ever louder roar upon his right. If +the Guard succeeded, the electrifying thrill of victory would run +through the army, and knit it into energy once more. But if the Guard +failed——! +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap1908"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +VIII. THE GREAT DEFEAT. +</H3> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"And while amid their scattered band<BR> +Raged the fierce riders' bloody brand,<BR> +Recoil'd in common rout and fear,<BR> +Lancer and Guard and Cuirassier,<BR> +Horsemen and foot—a mingled host,<BR> +Their leaders fall'n, their standards lost."<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 5em">—SCOTT.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Napoleon watched the huge black echelon of battalions mount the slope, +their right section crumbled under the rush of the British Guards. +Colborne and the 52nd tumbled the left flank into ruin; the British +cavalry swept down upon them. Those who stood near Napoleon watched +his face. It became pale as death. "Ils sont mêlés ensemble" ("they +are mingled together"), he muttered to himself. He cast one hurried +glance over the field, to right and left, and saw nothing but broken +squadrons, abandoned batteries, wrecked infantry battalions. "Tout est +perdu," he said, "sauve qui peut," and, wheeling his horse, he turned +his back upon his last battlefield. His star had set! +</P> + +<P> +Napoleon's strategy throughout the brief campaign was magnificent; his +tactics—the detailed handling of his troops on the actual +battlefield—were wretched. "We were manoeuvred," says the disgusted +Marbot, "like so many pumpkins." Napoleon was only forty-seven years +old, but, as Wolseley says, "he was no longer the thin, sleek, active +little man he had been at Rivoli. His now bloated face, large stomach, +and fat and rounded legs bespoke a man unfitted for hard work on +horseback." His fatal delay in pursuing Blücher on the 17th, and his +equally fatal waste of time in attacking Wellington on the 18th, proved +how his quality as a general had decayed. It is a curious fact that, +during the battle of Waterloo, Napoleon remained for hours motionless +at a table placed for him in the open air, often asleep, with his head +resting on his arms. One reads with an odd sense of humour the answer +which a dandy officer of the British Life Guards gave to the inquiry, +"How he felt during the battle of Waterloo?" He replied that he had +felt "awfully bored"! That anybody should feel "bored" in the vortex +of such a drama is wonderful; but scarcely so wonderful as the fact +that the general of one of the two contending hosts found it possible +to go to sleep during the crisis of the gigantic battle, on which hung +his crown and fate. Napoleon had lived too long for the world's +happiness or for his own fame. +</P> + +<P> +The story here told is that of Waterloo on its British side. No +attempt is made to describe Blücher's magnificent loyalty in pushing, +fresh from the defeat of Ligny, through the muddy cross-roads from +Wavre, to join Wellington on the blood-stained field of Waterloo. No +account, again, is attempted of Grouchy's wanderings into space, with +33,000 men and 96 guns, lazily attacking Thielmann's single corps at +Wavre, while Blücher, with three divisions, was marching at speed to +fling himself on Napoleon's right flank at Waterloo. It is idle to +speculate on what would have happened to the British if the Prussians +had not made their movement on Napoleon's right flank. The assured +help of Blücher was the condition upon which Wellington made his stand +at Waterloo; it was as much part of his calculations as the fighting +quality of his own infantry. A plain tale of British endurance and +valour is all that is offered here; and what a head of wood and heart +of stone any man of Anglo-Saxon race must have who can read such a tale +without a thrill of generous emotion! +</P> + +<P> +Waterloo was for the French not so much a defeat as a rout. Napoleon's +army simply ceased to exist. The number of its slain is unknown, for +its records were destroyed. The killed and wounded in the British army +reached the tragical number of nearly 15,000. Probably not less than +between 30,000 and 40,000 slain or wounded human beings were scattered, +the night following the battle, over the two or three square miles +where the great fight had raged; and some of the wounded were lying +there still, uncared for, four days afterwards. It is said that for +years afterwards, as one looked over the waving wheat-fields in the +valley betwixt Mont St. Jean and La Belle Alliance, huge irregular +patches, where the corn grew rankest and was of deepest tint, marked +the gigantic graves where, in the silence and reconciliation of death, +slept Wellington's ruddy-faced infantry lads and the grizzled veterans +of the Old Guard. The deep cross-country road which covered +Wellington's front has practically disappeared; the Belgians have cut +away the banks to build up a huge pyramid, on the summit of which is +perched a Belgian lion, with tail erect, grinning defiance towards the +French frontier. A lion is not exactly the animal which best +represents the contribution the Belgian troops made to Waterloo. +</P> + +<P> +But still the field keeps its main outlines. To the left lies +Planchenoit, where Wellington watched to see the white smoke of the +Prussian guns; opposite is the gentle slope down which D'Erlon's troops +marched to fling themselves on La Haye Sainte; and under the +spectator's feet, a little to his left as he stands on the summit of +the monument, is the ground over which Life Guards and Inniskillings +and Scots Greys galloped in the fury of their great charge. Right in +front is the path along which came Milhaud's Cuirassiers and +Kellerman's Lancers, and Friant's Old Guard, in turn, to fling +themselves in vain on the obstinate squares and thin red line of the +British. To the right is Hougoumont, the orchard walls still pierced +with loopholes made by the Guards. A fragment of brick, blackened with +the smoke of the great fight, is one of the treasures of the present +writer. Victors and vanquished alike have passed away, and, since the +Old Guard broke on the slopes of Mont St. Jean, British and French have +never met in the wrestle of battle. May they never meet again in that +fashion! But as long as nations preserve the memory of the great deeds +of their history, as long as human courage and endurance can send a +thrill of admiration through generous hearts, as long as British blood +beats in British veins, the story of the brave men who fought and died +at their country's bidding at Waterloo will be one of the great +traditions of the English-speaking race. +</P> + +<P> +Of Wellington's part in the great fight it is difficult to speak in +terms which do not sound exaggerated. He showed all the highest +qualities of generalship, swift vision, cool judgment, the sure insight +that forecasts each move on the part of his mighty antagonist, the +unfailing resource that instantly devises the plan for meeting it. +There is no need to dwell on Wellington's courage; the rawest British +militia lad on the field shared that quality with him. But in the +temper of Wellington's courage there was a sort of ice-clear quality +that was simply marvellous. He visited every square and battery in +turn, and was at every point where the fight was most bloody. Every +member of his staff, without exception, was killed or wounded, while it +is curious to reflect that not a member of Napoleon's staff was so much +as touched. But the roar of the battle, with its swift chances of life +and death, left Wellington's intellect as cool, and his nerve as +steady, as though he were watching a scene in a theatre. One of his +generals said to him when the fight seemed most desperate, "If you +should be struck, tell us what is your plan?" "My plan," said the +Duke, "consists in dying here to the last man." He told at a +dinner-table, long after the battle, how, as he stood under the +historic tree in the centre of his line, a Scotch sergeant came up, +told him he had observed the tree was a mark for the French gunners, +and begged him to move from it. Somebody at the table said, "I hope +you did, sir?" "I really forget," said the Duke, "but I know I thought +it very good advice at the time." +</P> + +<P> +Only twice during the day did Wellington show any trace of remembering +what may be called his personal interest in the fight. Napoleon had +called him "a Sepoy general." "I will show him to-day," he said, just +before the battle began, "how a Sepoy general can defend himself." At +night, again, as he sat with a few of his surviving officers about him +at supper, his face yet black with the smoke of the fight, he +repeatedly leaned back in his chair, rubbing his hands convulsively, +and exclaiming aloud, "Thank God! I have met him. Thank God! I have +met him." But Wellington's mood throughout the whole of the battle was +that which befitted one of the greatest soldiers war has ever produced +in the supreme hour of his country's fate. The Duke was amongst the +leading files of the British line as they pushed the broken French +Guard down the slope, and some one begged him to remember what his life +was worth, and go back. "The battle is won," said Wellington; "my life +doesn't matter now." Dr. Hulme, too, has told how he woke the Duke +early in the morning after the fight, his face grim, unwashed, and +smoke-blackened, and read the list of his principal officers—name +after name—dead or dying, until the hot tears ran, like those of a +woman, down the iron visage of the great soldier. +</P> + +<P> +As Napoleon in the gathering darkness galloped off the field, with the +wreck and tumult of his shattered army about him, there remained to his +life only those six ignoble years at St. Helena. But Wellington was +still in his very prime. He was only forty-six years old, and there +awaited him thirty-seven years of honoured life, till, "to the noise of +the mourning of a mighty nation," he was laid beside Nelson in the +crypt of St. Paul's, and Tennyson sang his requiem:— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"O good grey head, which all men knew,<BR> +O voice from which their omens all men drew,<BR> +O iron nerve, to true occasion true;<BR> +O fall'n at length that tower of strength<BR> +Which stood four-square to all the winds that blew."<BR> +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap20"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE NIGHT ATTACK OFF CADIZ +</H3> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"'Captain,' they cry, 'the fight is done,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">They bid you send your sword!'</SPAN><BR> +And he answered, 'Grapple her stern and bow.<BR> +They have asked for the steel. They shall have it now;<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Out cutlasses, and board!'"</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 5em">—KIPLING.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +On the morning of July 3, 1801, a curious scene, which might almost be +described as a sea comedy, was being transacted off the coast of +Alicante. Three huge French line-of-battle ships were manoeuvring and +firing round a tiny little British brig-of-war. It was like three +mastiffs worrying a mouse. The brig was Lord Cochrane's famous little +<I>Speedy</I>, a craft so tiny that its commander could carry its entire +broadside in his own pockets, and when he shaved himself in his cabin, +had to put his head through the skylight and his shaving-box on the +quarter-deck, in order to stand upright. +</P> + +<P> +Cochrane was caught by Admiral Linois' squadron, consisting of two +ships of eighty guns and one of seventy-four, on a lee shore, where +escape was impossible; but from four o'clock till nine o'clock Cochrane +evaded all the efforts of his big pursuers to capture him. The French +ships separated on different tacks, so as to keep the little <I>Speedy</I> +constantly under the fire of one or the other; and as the British brig +turned and dashed at one opening of the moving triangle or the other, +the great ships thundered their broadsides at her. Cochrane threw his +guns and stores overboard, and by the most ingenious seamanship evaded +capture for hours, surviving some scores of broadsides. He could tack +far more quickly than the gigantic ships that pursued him, and again +and again the <I>Speedy</I> spun round on its heel and shot off on a new +course, leaving its particular pursuer with sheet shivering, and +nothing but space to fire into. Once, by a quick turn, he shot past +one of the 80-gun ships occupied in trying to tack, and got clear. The +<I>Desaix</I>, however, a seventy-four, was swiftly on the track of the +<I>Speedy</I>; its tall canvas under the growing breeze gave it an +advantage, and it ran down to within musket-shot of the <I>Speedy</I>, then +yawed, bringing its whole broadside to bear, intending to sink its tiny +foe with a single discharge. In yawing, however, the <I>Desaix</I> shot a +little too far, and the weight of her broadside only smote the water, +but the scattered grape cut up the <I>Speedy's</I> rigging and canvas so +terribly that nothing was left but surrender. +</P> + +<P> +When Cochrane went on board his captor, its gallant captain refused to +take his sword, saying he "could not accept the sword of an officer who +had struggled for so many hours against impossibility." Cochrane and +his gallant crew were summarily packed into the Frenchman's hold, and +when the French in their turn were pursued by the British +line-of-battle ships, as every broadside crashed on the hull of the +ship that held them captive, Cochrane and his men gave a round of +exultant cheers, until the exasperated Frenchmen threatened to shoot +them unless they would hold their tongues—an announcement which only +made the British sailors cheer a little louder. The fight between +Saumarez and Linois ended with a tragedy; but it may be said to have +begun with a farce. +</P> + +<P> +The presence of a French squadron in the Straits of Gibraltar at this +particular moment may be explained in a few sentences. Napoleon had +woven afresh the web of those naval "combinations" so often torn to +fragments by British seamanship and daring. He had persuaded or +bullied Spain into placing under the French flag a squadron of six +line-of-battle ships, including two leviathans of 112 guns each, lying +in the harbour of Cadiz. With haughty, it might almost be said with +insolent daring, a couple of British seventy-fours—sometimes, indeed, +only one—patrolled the entrance to Cadiz, and blockaded a squadron of +ten times their own force. Napoleon's plan was to draw a strong French +squadron, under Admiral Linois, from Toulon, a second Spanish squadron +from Ferrol, unite these with the ships lying in Cadiz, and thus form a +powerful fleet of at least fifteen ships of the line, with a garnishing +of frigates. +</P> + +<P> +Once having got his fleet, Napoleon's imagination—which had a strong +predatory bias—hesitated betwixt two uses to which it could be turned. +One was to make a dash on Lisbon, and require, under threat of an +instant bombardment, the delivery of all British ships and goods lying +there. This ingenious plan, it was reckoned, would fill French pockets +with cash and adorn French brows with glory at one stroke. The amount +of British booty at Lisbon was computed—somewhat airily—at +200,000,000 pounds; its disappearance would send half the mercantile +houses of Great Britain into the insolvency court, and, to quote a +French state paper on the subject, "our fleet, without being buffeted +about the sea, would return to Brest loaded with riches and covered +with glory, and France would once more astonish Europe." The +alternative scheme was to transport some 32,000 new troops to Egypt and +restore French fortunes in that country. +</P> + +<P> +Meanwhile Great Britain took energetic measures to wreck this new +combination. Sir James Saumarez, in the <I>Caesar</I>, of eighty guns, with +six seventy-fours, was despatched to keep guard over Cadiz; and he had +scarcely reached his station there when a boat, pulling furiously over +from Gibraltar, reported that Admiral Linois' squadron had made its +appearance off the Rock, beating up westward. The sails of the +<I>Caesar</I> were instantly swung round, a many-coloured flutter of bunting +summoned the rest of the squadron to follow, and Saumarez began his +eager chase of the French, bearing away for the Gut under a light +north-west wind. But the breeze died down, and the current swept the +straggling ships westward. All day they drifted helplessly, and the +night only brought a breath of air sufficient to fan them through the +Straits. +</P> + +<P> +Meanwhile Linois had taken refuge in the tiny curve of the Spanish +coast known as the roadstead of Algeciras. Linois was, perhaps, the +best French seaman of his day, having, it is true, very little French +dash, but endowed with a wealth of cool resolution, and a genius for +defensive warfare altogether admirable. Algeciras gave Linois exactly +what he wanted, an almost unassailable position. The roadstead is +open, shallow, and plentifully besprinkled with rocks, while powerful +shore batteries covered the whole anchorage with their zone of fire. +The French admiral anchored his ships at intervals of 500 yards from +each other, and so that the lines of fire from the batteries north and +south crossed in front of his ships. The French squadron carried some +3000 troops, and these were at once landed, and, manning the batteries, +raised them to a high degree of effectiveness. Some fourteen heavy +Spanish gunboats added enormously to the strength of the French +position. +</P> + +<P> +The French never doubted that Saumarez would instantly attack; the +precedents of the Nile and of Copenhagen were too recent to make any +doubt possible. And Saumarez did exactly what his enemies expected. +Algeciras, in fact, is the battle of the Nile in miniature. But +Saumarez, though he had the swift daring of Nelson, lacked his warlike +genius. Nelson, in Aboukir Bay, leaped without an instant's pause on +the line of his enemy, but then he had his own ships perfectly in hand, +and so made the leap effective. Saumarez sent his ships into the fight +headlong, and without the least regard to mutual support. At 7.50 on +the morning of July 6, an uncertain gust of air carried the leading +British ship, the <I>Pompée</I>, round Cabrita; Hood, in the <I>Venerable</I>, +lay becalmed in the offing; the flagship, with the rest of the +squadron, were mere pyramids of idle canvas on the rim of the horizon. +</P> + +<P> +The <I>Pompée</I> drifted down the whole French line, scorched with the fire +of batteries and of gunboats, as well as by the broadsides of the great +French ships, and at 8.45 dropped her anchor so close to the +<I>Formidable</I>—a ship much bigger than itself—that the Frenchman's buoy +lay outside her. Then, deliberately clewing up her sails and tautening +her springs, the <I>Pompée</I> opened a fire on her big antagonist so +fierce, sustained, and deadly, that the latter found it intolerable, +and began to warp closer to the shore. The <I>Audacious</I> and <I>Venerable</I> +came slowly up into their assigned positions, and here was a spectacle +of three British ships fighting four French ships and fourteen Spanish +gunboats, with heavy shore batteries manned by 3000 troops thrown into +the scale! At this stage, too, the <I>Pompée's</I> springs gave way, or +were shot away, the current swung her round till she lay head on to the +broadside of her huge antagonist, while the batteries smote her with a +deadly cross-fire. A little after ten o'clock the <I>Caesar</I> dropped +anchor three cables' lengths from the <I>Indomptable</I>, and opened a fire +which the French themselves described as "tremendous" upon her +antagonist. +</P> + +<P> +Linois found the British fire too destructive, and signalled his ships +to cut or slip their cables, calculating that a faint air from the sea, +which was beginning to blow, would drift them closer under the shelter +of the batteries. Saumarez, too, noticed that his topsails were +beginning to swell, and he instantly slipped his cable and endeavoured +to close with the <I>Indomptable</I>, signalling his ships to do the same. +The British cables rattled hoarsely through their hawse-holes along the +whole line, and the ships were adrift; but the breeze almost instantly +died away, and on the strong coast current the British ships floated +helplessly, while the fire from the great shore batteries, and from the +steady French decks, now anchored afresh, smote them heavily in turn. +The <I>Pompée</I> lay for an hour under a concentrated fire without being +able to bring a gun to bear in return, and then summoned by signal the +boats of the squadron to tow her off. +</P> + +<P> +Saumarez, meanwhile, had ordered the <I>Hannibal</I>, under Captain Ferris, +to round the head of the French line and "rake the admiral's ship." +Ferris, by fine seamanship, partly sailed and partly drifted into the +post assigned to him, and then grounded hopelessly, under a plunging +fire from the shore batteries, within hail of the Frenchman, itself +also aground. A fire so dreadful soon reduced the unfortunate +<I>Hannibal</I> to a state of wreck. Boats from the <I>Caesar</I> and the +<I>Venerable</I> came to her help, but Ferris sent them back again. They +could not help him, and should not share his fate. Saumarez, as a last +resource, prepared for a boat attack on the batteries, but in the whole +squadron there were not enough uninjured boats to carry the marines. +The British flagship itself was by this time well-nigh a wreck, and was +drifting on the reefs. A flaw of wind from the shore gave the ships +steerage-way, and Saumarez drew off, leaving the <I>Hannibal</I> to its fate. +</P> + +<P> +Ferris fought till his masts were gone, his guns dismounted, his +bulwarks riddled, his decks pierced, and one-third of his crew killed +or wounded. Then he ordered the survivors to the lower decks, and +still kept his flag flying for half-an-hour after the shot-torn sails +of the shattered British ships had disappeared round Cabrita. Then he +struck. Here was a French triumph, indeed! A British squadron beaten +off, a British seventy-four captured! It is said that when the news +reached Paris the city went half-mad with exultation. Napoleon read +the despatch to his ministers with eyes that danced, and almost wept, +with mere gladness! +</P> + +<P> +The British squadron—officers and men in such a mood as may be +imagined—put into Gibraltar to refit; the <I>Caesar</I>, with her mainmast +shot through in five places, her boats destroyed, her hull pierced; +while of the sorely battered <I>Pompée</I> it is recorded that she had "not +a mast, yard-spar, shroud, rope, or sail" which was not damaged by +hostile shot. Linois, meanwhile, got his grounded ships and his +solitary prize afloat, and summoned the Cadiz squadron to join him. On +the 9th these ships—six sail of the line, two of them giants of 112 +guns each, with three frigates—went triumphantly, with widespread +canvas and many-coloured bunting, past Gibraltar, where the shattered +British squadron was lying, and cast anchor beside Admiral Linois in +Algeciras Bay. +</P> + +<P> +The British were labouring, meanwhile, with fierce energy, to refit +their damaged ships under shelter of the guns of Gibraltar. The +<I>Pompée</I> was practically destroyed, and her crew were distributed +amongst the other ships. Saumarez himself regarded the condition of +his flagship as hopeless, but his captain, Brenton, begged permission +to at least attempt to refit her. He summoned his crew aft, and told +the men the admiral proposed to leave the ship behind, and asked them +"what they thought about it." The men gave a wrathful roar, +punctuated, it is to be feared, with many sea-going expletives, and +shouted, "All hands to work day and night till she's ready!" The whole +crew, down to the very powder-boys, actually worked while daylight +lasted, kept it up, watch and watch, through the night, and did this +from the evening of the 6th to the noon of the 12th! Probably no ship +that ever floated was refitted in shorter time. In that brief period, +to quote the "Naval Register," she "shifted her mainmast; fished and +secured her foremast, shot through in several places; knotted and +spliced the rigging, which had been cut to pieces, and bent new sails; +plugged the shot-holes between wind and water; completed with stores of +all kinds, anchors and cables, powder and shot, and provisions for four +months." +</P> + +<P> +On Sunday, July 12, 1801, the French and Spanish ships in Algeciras Bay +weighed anchor, formed their line of battle as they came out, off +Cabrita Point, and, stately and slow, with the two 112-gun Spaniards as +a rearguard, bore up for Cadiz. An hour later the British ships warped +out of the mole in pursuit. It was an amazing sight: a squadron of +five sail of the line, which had been completely disabled in an action +only five days before, was starting, fresh and refitted, in pursuit of +a fleet double its own number, and more than double its strength! All +Gibraltar crowded to watch the ships as, one by one, they cleared the +pier-head. The garrison band blew itself hoarse playing "Britons, +strike home," while the <I>Caesar's</I> band answered in strains as shrill +with "Come, cheer up, my lads, 'tis for glory we steer." Both tunes, +it may be added, were simply submerged beneath the cheers which rang up +from mole-head and batteries and dock-walls. Just as the <I>Caesar</I> +drifted, huge and stately, past the pier-head, a boat came eagerly +pulling up to her. It was crowded with jack-tars, with bandaged heads +and swathed arms. A cluster of the <I>Pompée's</I> wounded, who escaped +from the hospital, bribed a boatman to pull them out to the flagship, +and clamoured to be taken on board! +</P> + +<P> +Saumarez had strengthened his squadron by the addition of the <I>Superb</I>, +with the <I>Thames</I> frigate, and at twenty minutes to nine P.M., vainly +searching the black horizon for the lights of the enemy, he hailed the +<I>Superb</I>, and ordered its captain, Keats, to clap on all sail and +attack the enemy directly he overtook them. Saumarez, in a word, +launched a single seventy-four against a fleet! Keats was a daring +sailor; his ship was, perhaps, the fastest British seventy-four afloat, +and his men were instantly aloft spreading every inch of canvas. Then, +like a huge ghost, the <I>Superb</I> glided ahead and vanished in the +darkness. The wind freshened; the blackness deepened; the lights of +the British squadron died out astern. But a wide sprinkle of lights +ahead became visible; it was the Spanish fleet! Eagerly the daring +<I>Superb</I> pressed on, with slanting decks and men at quarters, but with +lights hidden. At midnight the rear ships of the Spanish squadron were +under the larboard bow of the <I>Superb</I>—two stupendous three-deckers, +with lights gleaming through a hundred port-holes—while a French +two-decker to larboard of both the Spanish giants completed the line. +</P> + +<P> +Keats, unseen and unsuspected, edged down with his solitary +seventy-four, her heaviest guns only 18-pounders, on the quarter of the +nearest three-decker. He was about to fling himself, in the gloom of +the night, on three great ships, with an average of 100 guns each! Was +ever a more daring feat attempted? Silently through the darkness the +<I>Superb</I> crept, her canvas glimmering ghostly white, till she was +within some 300 yards of the nearest Spaniard. Then out of the +darkness to windward there broke on the astonished and drowsy Spaniards +a tempest of flame, a whirlwind of shot. Thrice the <I>Superb</I> poured +her broadside into the huge and staggering bulk of her antagonist. +With the second broadside the Spaniard's topmast came tumbling down; +with the third, so close was the flame of the <I>Superb's</I> guns, the +Spanish sails—dry as touch-wood with lying for so many months in the +sunshine of Cadiz—took fire. +</P> + +<P> +Meanwhile a dramatic incident occurred. The two great Spaniards +commenced to thunder their heavy broadsides into each other! Many of +the Superb's shots had struck the second and more distant three-decker. +Cochrane, indeed, says that the <I>Superb</I> passed actually betwixt the +two gigantic Spaniards, fired a broadside, larboard and starboard, into +both, and then glided on and vanished in the darkness. It is certain +that the <I>San Hermenegildo</I>, finding her decks torn by a hurricane of +shot, commenced to fire furiously through the smoke and the night at +the nearest lights. They were the lights of her own consort! She, in +turn, fired at the flash of the guns tormenting her. So, under the +black midnight skies, the two great Spanish ships thundered at each +other, flame answering flame. They drifted ever closer. The fire of +the <I>Real Carlos</I> kindled the sails of the sister ship; the flames +leaped and danced to the very mast-heads; and, still engaged in a fiery +wrestle, they blew up in succession, and out of their united crews of +2000 men only a little over 200 were picked up! +</P> + +<P> +The <I>Superb</I>, meanwhile, had glided ahead, leaving the three-deckers to +destroy each other, and opened fire at pistol-shot distance on the +French two-decker, and in thirty minutes compelled her to strike. In +less than two hours of a night action, that is, this single English +seventy-four had destroyed two Spanish three-deckers of 112 guns each, +and captured a fine French battle-ship of 74 guns! +</P> + +<P> +The British ships by this time were coming up in the rear, with every +inch of canvas spread. They swept past the amazing spectacle of the +two great Spaniards destroying each other, and pressed on in chase of +the enemy. The wind rose to a gale. In the grey dawn the <I>Caesar</I> +found herself, with all her sister ships, far astern, except the +<I>Venerable</I>, under Hood, which was hanging on the quarter of the +rearmost French ship, the <I>Formidable</I>, a magnificent ship of 80 guns, +with a gallant commander, and carrying quite too heavy metal for Hood. +Hood, however, the most daring of men, exchanged broadsides at +pistol-shot distance with his big antagonist, till his ship was +dismasted, and was drifted by the current on the rocky shoals off San +Pedro. The <I>Caesar</I> came up in time to enable its disgusted crew to +see ship after ship of the flying enemy disappear safely within the +sheltering batteries of Cadiz. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap2101"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +TRAFALGAR +</H3> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +I. THE STRATEGY +</H3> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Uprose the soul of him a star<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">On that brave day of Ocean days;</SPAN><BR> +It rolled the smoke from Trafalgar<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">To darken Austerlitz ablaze.</SPAN><BR> +Are we the men of old, its light<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Will point us under every sky</SPAN><BR> +The path he took; and must we fight,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Our Nelson be our battle-cry!</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +He leads: we hear our Seaman's call<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">In the roll of battles won;</SPAN><BR> +For he is Britain's Admiral<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Till setting of her sun."</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 5em">—GEORGE MEREDITH.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +That Trafalgar was a great British victory, won by splendid seamanship +and by magnificent courage, everybody knows. On October 21, 1805, +Nelson, with twenty-seven line-of-battle ships, attacked Villeneuve, in +command of a combined fleet of thirty-three line-of-battle ships. The +first British gun was fired at 12.10 o'clock; at 5 o'clock the battle +was over; and within those five hours the combined fleets of France and +Spain were simply destroyed. No fewer than eighteen ships of the line +were captured, burnt, or sunk; the rest were in flight, and had +practically ceased to exist as a fighting force. But what very few +people realise is that Trafalgar is only the last incident in a great +strategic conflict—a warfare of brains rather than of bullets—which +for nearly three years raged round a single point. For that long +period the warlike genius of Napoleon was pitted in strategy against +the skill and foresight of a cluster of British sailors; and the +sailors won. They beat Napoleon at his own weapons. The French were +not merely out-fought in the shock of battling fleets, they were +out-generalled in the conflict of plotting and warlike brains which +preceded the actual fight off Cape Trafalgar. +</P> + +<P> +The strategy which preceded Trafalgar represents Napoleon's solitary +attempt to plan a great campaign on the tossing floor of the sea. "It +has an interest wholly unique," says Mahan, "as the only great naval +campaign ever planned by this foremost captain of modern times." And +it is a very marvellous fact that a cluster of British sailors—Jervis +and Barham (a salt eighty years old) at the Admiralty, Cornwallis at +Brest, Collingwood at Cadiz, and Nelson at Toulon—guessed all +Napoleon's profound and carefully hidden strategy, and met it by even +subtler plans and swifter resolves than those of Napoleon himself. The +five hours of gallant fighting off Cape Trafalgar fill us with exultant +pride. But the intellectual duel which preceded the shock of actual +battle, and which lasted for nearly three years, is, in a sense, a yet +more splendid story. Great Britain may well honour her naval leaders +of that day for their cool and profound strategy, as much as for the +unyielding courage with which such a blockade as, say, that of Brest by +Cornwallis was maintained for years, or such splendid daring as that +which Collingwood showed when, in the <I>Royal Sovereign</I>, he broke +Villeneuve's line at Trafalgar. +</P> + +<P> +When in 1803 the war which brought to an end the brief peace of Amiens +broke out, Napoleon framed a great and daring plan for the invasion of +England. French plans for the invasion of England were somewhat +numerous a century or so ago. The Committee of Public Safety in 1794, +while keeping the guillotine busy in the Place de la Révolution, had +its own little plan for extending the Reign of Terror, by means of an +invasion, to England; and on May 27 of that year solemnly appointed one +of their number to represent the Committee in England "when it was +conquered." The member chosen was citizen Bon Saint André, the same +hero who, in the battle of the 1st of June, fled in terror to the +refuge of the French flagship's cock-pit when the <I>Queen Charlotte</I>, +with her triple lines of guns, came too alarmingly near. But +Napoleon's plans for the same object in 1803 were definite, formidable, +profound. Great Britain was the one barrier in the path of his +ambition. "Buonaparte," says Green, in his "Short History of the +English People," "was resolute to be master of the western world, and +no notions of popular freedom or sense of popular right ever interfered +with his resolve.… England was now the one country where freedom +in any sense remained alive.… With the fall of England, despotism +would have been universal throughout Europe; and it was at England that +Buonaparte resolved to strike the first blow in his career of conquest. +Fifteen millions of people, he argued, must give way to forty millions." +</P> + +<P> +So he formed the vast camp at Boulogne, in which were gathered 130,000 +veterans. A great flotilla of boats was built, each boat being armed +with one or two guns, and capable of carrying 100 soldiers. More than +1000 of such boats were built, and concentrated along twenty miles of +the Channel coast, and at four different ports. A new port was dug at +Boulogne, to give shelter to the main division of this flotilla, and +great and powerful batteries erected for its protection. The French +soldiers were exercised in embarking and disembarking till the whole +process could be counted by minutes. "Let us," said Napoleon, "be +masters of the Straits for six hours, and we shall be masters of the +world." +</P> + +<P> +When since the days of William the Conqueror were the shores of Great +Britain menaced by such a peril? "There is no difficulty," said +Moltke, "in getting an army into England; the trouble would be to get +it out again." And, no doubt, Englishmen, fighting on their own soil +and for their own hearths, would have given an invader a very rough +time of it. But let it be remembered that Napoleon was a military +genius of the first order, and that the 130,000 soldiers waiting on the +heights above Boulogne to leap on British soil were, to quote Mahan, +"the most brilliant soldiery of all time." They were the men who +afterwards won Austerlitz, who struck down Prussia with a single blow +at Jena, who marched as victors through the streets of Vienna and of +Berlin, and fought their way to Moscow. Imagine such an army, with +such a leader, landed on the green fields of Kent! In that case there +might have been an English Austerlitz or Friedland. London might have +shared the fate of Moscow. If Napoleon had succeeded, the fate of the +world would have been changed, and Toronto and Cape Town, Melbourne and +Sydney and Auckland might have been ruled by French prefects. +</P> + +<P> +Napoleon himself was confident of success. He would reach London, he +calculated, within four days of landing, and then he would have issued +decrees abolishing the House of Lords, proclaiming a redistribution of +property, and declaring England a republic. "You would never have +burned your capital," he said to O'Meara at St. Helena; "you are too +rich and fond of money." The London mob, he believed, would have +joined him, for, as he cynically argued, "the <I>canaille</I> of all nations +are nearly alike." +</P> + +<P> +Even Napoleon would probably have failed, however, in subduing Great +Britain, and would have remained a prisoner where he came intending to +be a conqueror. As he himself said when a prisoner on his way to St. +Helena, "I entered into no calculation as to the manner in which I was +to return"! But in the battles which must have been fought, how many +English cities would have perished in flames, how many English rivers +would have run red with the blood of slain men! "At Waterloo," says +Alison, "England fought for victory; at Trafalgar for existence." +</P> + +<P> +But "the streak of silver sea" guarded England, and for more than two +years Napoleon framed subtle plans and organised vast combinations +which might give him that brief six hours' command of the Strait which +was all he needed, as he thought, to make himself the master of the +world. The flotilla could not so much as get out of the ports, in +which the acres of boats lay, in a single tide, and one half of the +army of invasion must lie tossing—and, it may be suspected, dreadfully +sea-sick—for hours outside these ports, waiting for the other half to +get afloat. Then there remained forty miles of sea to cross. And what +would happen if, say, Nelson and Collingwood, with a dozen 74-gun +ships, got at work amongst the flotilla? It would be a combat between +wolves and sheep. It was Nelson's chief aspiration to have the +opportunity of "trying Napoleon on a wind," and the attempt to cross +the Straits might have given him that chance. All Napoleon's resources +and genius were therefore strained to give him for the briefest +possible time the command of the Channel; and the skill and energy of +the British navy were taxed to the utmost to prevent that consummation. +</P> + +<P> +Now, France, as a matter of fact, had a great fleet, but it was +scattered, and lying imprisoned, in fragments, in widely separated +ports. There were twelve ships of the line in Toulon, twenty in Brest, +five in Rochefort, yet other five in Ferrol; and the problem for +Napoleon was, somehow, to set these imprisoned squadrons free, and +assemble them for twenty-four hours off Boulogne. The British policy, +on the other hand, was to maintain a sleepless blockade of these ports, +and keep the French fleet sealed up in scattered and helpless +fragments. The battle for the Straits of Dover, the British naval +chiefs held, must be fought off Brest and Ferrol and Toulon; and never +in the history of the world were blockades so vigilant, and stern, and +sleepless maintained. +</P> + +<P> +Nelson spent two years battling with the fierce north-westers of the +Gulf of Lyons, keeping watch over a great French squadron in Toulon, +and from May 1803 to August 1805 left his ship only three times, and +for less than an hour on each occasion. The watch kept by Cornwallis +off Brest, through summer and winter, for nearly three years, Mahan +declares, has never, for constancy and vigilance, been excelled, +perhaps never equalled, in the history of blockades. The hardship of +these long sea-watches was terrible. It was waging an fight with +weariness and brain-paralysing monotony, with cold and scurvy and +tempest, as well as with human foes. Collingwood was once twenty-two +months at sea without dropping anchor. In seventeen years of sea +service—between 1793 and 1810—he was only twelve months in England. +</P> + +<P> +The wonder is that the seamen of that day did not grow web-footed, or +forget what solid ground felt like! Collingwood tells his wife in one +letter that he had "not seen a green leaf on a tree" for fourteen +months! By way of compensation, these long and stern blockades +developed such a race of seamen as perhaps the world has never seen +before or since; exhaustless of resource, hardy, tireless, familiar +with every turn of sea life, of iron frame and an iron courage which +neither tempest nor battle could shake. Great Britain, as a matter of +fact, won her naval battles, not because she had better ships or +heavier guns than her enemies, but only because she trained a finer +race of seamen. Says Brenton, himself a gallant sailor of the period, +"I have seen Spanish line-of-battle ships twenty-four hours unmooring; +as many minutes are sufficient for a well-manned British ship to +perform the same operation. When, on any grand ceremony, they found it +necessary to cross their top-gallant yards in harbour, they began the +day before; we cross ours in one minute from the deck." +</P> + +<P> +But it was these iron blockades that in the long-run thwarted the plans +of Napoleon and changed the fate of the world. Cornwallis off Brest, +Collingwood off Rochefort, Pellew off Ferrol, Nelson before Toulon, +fighting the wild gales of the Bay of Biscay and the fierce +north-westers of the Gulf of Lyons, in what Mahan calls "that +tremendous and sustained vigilance which reached its utmost tension in +the years preceding Trafalgar," really saved England. "Those +far-distant, storm-beaten ships, upon which the Grand Army never +looked," says Mahan, "stood between it and the dominion of the world." +</P> + +<P> +An intellect so subtle and combative as Napoleon's was, of course, +strained to the utmost to break or cheat the British blockades, and the +story of the one crafty ruse after another which he employed to beguile +the British leaders is very remarkable. Even more remarkable, perhaps, +is the manner in which these plain-minded, business-like British +seamen, for whose mental powers Napoleon cherished the deepest +contempt, fathomed his plans and shattered his combinations. +</P> + +<P> +Napoleon's first plot was decidedly clever. He gathered in Brest +20,000 troops, ostensibly for a descent upon Ireland. This, he +calculated, would preoccupy Cornwallis, and prevent him moving. The +Toulon fleet was to run out with the first north-west wind, and, as +long as a British look-out ship was in sight, would steer east, as +though making for Egypt; but when beyond sight of British eyes the +fleet was to swing round, run through the Straits, be joined off Cadiz +by the Rochefort squadron, and sweep, a great fleet of at least sixteen +sail of the line, past the Scilly Islands to Boulogne. Napoleon +calculated that Nelson would be racing in the direction of Egypt, +Cornwallis would be redoubling his vigilance before Brest, at the exact +moment the great Boulogne flotilla was carrying its 130,000 invading +Frenchmen to Dover! Napoleon put the one French admiral as to whose +resolve and daring he was sure—Latouche Treville—in command of the +Toulon fleet; but before the moment for action came Treville died, and +Napoleon had to fall back upon a weaker man, Villeneuve. +</P> + +<P> +He changed his plans to suit the qualities of his new admiral—the +Toulon and Rochefort squadrons were to break out, sail separately to a +rendezvous in the West Indies, and, once joined, spread havoc through +the British possessions there. "I think," wrote Napoleon, "that the +sailing of these twenty ships of the line will oblige the English to +despatch over thirty in pursuit." So the blockades everywhere would be +weakened, and the Toulon and Rochefort squadrons, doubling back to +Europe, were to raise the blockade off Ferrol and Brest, and the Brest +squadron was to land 18,000 troops, under Augereau, in Ireland, while +the Grand Army of Boulogne was to cross the Straits, with Napoleon at +its head. Thus Great Britain and Ireland would be invaded +simultaneously. +</P> + +<P> +The trouble was to set the scheme going by the release of the Toulon +and Rochefort squadrons. Nelson's correspondence shows that he guessed +Napoleon's strategy. If the Toulon fleet broke loose, he wrote, he was +sure its course would be held for the Atlantic, and thither he would +follow it. In the meanwhile he kept guard so steadfastly that the +great French strategy could not get itself started. In December 1804 +war broke out betwixt Britain and Spain, and this gave Napoleon a new +ally and a new fleet. Napoleon found he had nearly sixty +line-of-battle ships, French or Spanish, to weave into his +combinations, and he framed—to use Mahan's words—"upon lines equal, +both in boldness and scope, to those of the Marengo and Austerlitz +campaigns, the immense strategy which resulted in Trafalgar." The +Toulon and Rochefort squadrons, as before, were to break out +separately, rendezvous in the West Indies, return by a different route +to European waters, pick up the French and Spanish ships in Ferrol, and +then sweep through the narrow seas. +</P> + +<P> +The Rochefort squadron duly escaped; Villeneuve, too, in command of the +Toulon squadron, aided by the weather, evaded Nelson's watchfulness and +disappeared towards the east. Nelson, however, suspected the real +plan, and with fine insight took up a position which must have +intercepted Villeneuve; but that admiral found the weather too rough +for his ships, and ran back into Toulon. "These gentlemen," said +Nelson, "are not accustomed to a Gulf of Lyons gale. We have faced +them for twenty-one months, and not lost a spar!" The Rochefort +squadron was, of course, left by its own success wandering in space, a +mere cluster of sea-vagrants. +</P> + +<P> +By March 1805, Napoleon had a new combination prepared. In the ports +between Brest and Toulon were scattered no less than sixty-seven French +or Spanish ships of the line. Ganteaume, with his squadron, was to +break out from Brest; Villeneuve, with his, from Toulon; both fleets +were to rendezvous at Martinique, return by an unusual route, and +appear off Boulogne, a great fleet of thirty-five French ships of the +line. +</P> + +<P> +About the end of June the Toulon fleet got safely out—Nelson being, +for once, badly served by his frigates—picked up additional ships off +Cadiz, and disappeared on its route to the West Indies. Nelson, misled +by false intelligence, first went eastward, then had to claw back +through the Straits of Gibraltar in the teeth of strong westerly gales, +and plunged over the horizon in fierce pursuit of Villeneuve. But the +watch kept by Cornwallis over Ganteaume in Brest was so close and stern +that escape was impossible, and one-half of Napoleon's combination +broke down. Napoleon despatched swift ships on Villeneuve's track, +summoning him back to Ferrol, where he would find a squadron of fifteen +French and Spanish ships ready to join him. Villeneuve, Napoleon +believed, had thoroughly deceived Nelson. "Those boasted English," he +wrote, "who claim to know of everything, know nothing of it," <I>i.e.</I> of +Villeneuve's escape and course. But the "boasted English," as a matter +of fact, did know all about it, and in place of weakening their forces +in the Bay of Biscay, strengthened them. Meanwhile Nelson, with ten +ships of the line, was hard on the track of Villeneuve with eighteen. +At Barbadoes, Nelson was sent a hundred miles out of his course by +false intelligence, and that hundred miles just enabled Villeneuve to +double back towards Europe. +</P> + +<P> +Nelson divined this plan, and followed him with the fiercest energy, +sending off, meanwhile, his fastest brig to warn the Admiralty. +Villeneuve, if he picked up the Ferrol and Rochefort squadrons, would +arrive off Brest with forty line-of-battle ships; if he raised the +blockade, and added Ganteaume's squadron to his own, he might appear +off Boulogne with sixty great ships! Napoleon calculated on British +blunders to aid him. "We have not to do with a far-sighted, but with a +very proud Government," he wrote. The blunder Napoleon hoped the +British Admiralty would make was that of weakening the blockading +squadrons in order to pursue Villeneuve's fleet, and thus release the +imprisoned French squadrons, making a great concentration possible. +</P> + +<P> +But this was exactly the blunder into which the Admiralty refused to be +tempted. When the news that Villeneuve was on his way back to Europe +reached the Admiralty, the First Lord, Barham, an old sailor, eighty +years of age, without waiting to dress himself, dictated orders which, +without weakening the blockades at any vital point, planted a fleet, +under Sir Robert Calder, west of Finisterre, and right in Villeneuve's +track; and if Calder had been Nelson, Trafalgar might have been fought +on July 22, instead of October 21. Calder fought, and captured two of +Villeneuve's ships, but failed to prevent the junction of Villeneuve's +fleet with the squadron in Ferrol, and was court-martialled for his +failure—victory though he called it. But this partial failure does +not make less splendid the promptitude shown by the British Admiralty. +"The English Admiralty," Napoleon reasoned, "could not decide the +movements of its squadron in twenty-four hours." As a matter of fact, +Barham decided the British strategy in almost as many minutes! +</P> + +<P> +Meanwhile Nelson had reached the scene; and, like his ship, worn out +with labours, sailed for Portsmouth, for what proved his last visit to +England. On August 13, Villeneuve sailed from Ferrol with twenty-nine +ships. He had his choice between Brest, where Cornwallis was keeping +guard, with Boulogne beyond, and where Napoleon was watching eagerly +for the white topsails of his fleet; or Cadiz, where Collingwood with a +tiny squadron held the Spanish fleet strictly bottled up. +</P> + +<P> +Villeneuve's true course was Boulogne, but Cornwallis lay in his path +with over thirty sail of the line, and Villeneuve's nerve failed him. +On August 21 he swung round and bore up for Cadiz; and with the turn of +the helm which swung Villeneuve's ship away from Boulogne, Napoleon's +last chance of invading England vanished. Villeneuve pushed +Collingwood's tiny squadron aside and entered Cadiz, where the combined +fleet now numbered nearly forty ships of the line, and Collingwood, +with delightful coolness, solemnly resumed his blockade—four ships, +that is, blockading forty! Napoleon gave way to a tempest of rage when +his fleet failed to appear off Boulogne, and he realised that the +British sailors he despised had finally thwarted his strategy. A +French writer has told how Daru, his secretary, found him walking up +and down his cabinet with agitated steps. With a voice that shook, and +in half-strangled exclamations, he cried, "What a navy! What +sacrifices for nothing! What an admiral! All hope is gone! That +Villeneuve, instead of entering the Channel, has taken refuge in +Ferrol. It is all over. He will be blockaded there." Then with that +swift and terrible power of decision in which he has never been +surpassed, he flung the long-cherished plan of invading England out of +his brain, and dictated the orders which launched his troops on the +road which led to Austerlitz and Jena, and, beyond, to the flames of +Moscow and the snows of the great retreat, and which finally led +Napoleon himself to St. Helena. Villeneuve's great fleet meanwhile lay +idle in Cadiz, till, on October 20, the ill-fated French admiral led +his ships out to meet Nelson in his last great sea-fight. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap2102"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +II. HOW THE FLEETS MET +</H3> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Wherever the gleams of an English fire<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">On an English roof-tree shine,</SPAN><BR> +Wherever the fire of a youth's desire<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Is laid upon Honour's shrine,</SPAN><BR> +Wherever brave deeds are treasured and told,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">In the tale of the deeds of yore,</SPAN><BR> +Like jewels of price in a chain of gold<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Are the name and the fame he bore.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Wherever the track of our English ships<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Lies white on the ocean foam,</SPAN><BR> +His name is sweet to our English lips<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">As the names of the flowers at home;</SPAN><BR> +Wherever the heart of an English boy<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Grows big with a deed of worth,</SPAN><BR> +Such names as his name have begot the same,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Such hearts will bring it to birth."</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 5em">—E. NESBIT.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +It was the night of October 20, 1805, a night moonless and black. In the +narrow waters at the western throat of the Straits of Gibraltar, at +regular intervals of three minutes through the whole night, the deep +voice of a gun broke out and swept, a pulse of dying sound, almost to +either coast, while at every half-hour a rocket soared aloft and broke in +a curve of stars in the black sky. It was one of Nelson's repeating +frigates signalling to the British fleet, far off to the south-west, +Villeneuve's movements. Nelson for more than a week had been trying to +daintily coax Villeneuve out of Cadiz, as an angler might try to coax a +much-experienced trout from the cool depths of some deep pool. He kept +the main body of his fleet sixty leagues distant—west of Cape St. +Mary—but kept a chain of frigates within signalling distance of each +other betwixt Cadiz and himself. He allowed the news that he had +detached five of his line-of-battle ships on convoy duty to the eastward +to leak through to the French admiral, but succeeded in keeping him in +ignorance of the fact that he had called in under his flag five ships of +equal force from the westward. +</P> + +<P> +On October 19, Villeneuve, partly driven by hunger, and by the news that +a successor was on the road from Paris to displace him, and partly +tempted by the belief that he had before him a British fleet of only +twenty-one ships of the line, crept out of Cadiz with thirty-three ships +of the line—of which three were three-deckers—and seven frigates. +Nelson had twenty-seven sail of the line with four frigates. The wind +was light, and all through the 20th, Villeneuve's fleet, formed in seven +columns—the <I>Santissima Trinidad</I> towering like a giant amongst +them—moved slowly eastward. Nelson would not alarm his foe by making +too early an appearance over the sky-line. His frigates signalled to him +every few minutes, through sixty miles of sea-air, the enemy's movements; +but Nelson himself held aloof till Villeneuve was too far from Cadiz to +make a dash back to it and safety. All through the night of the 20th, +Villeneuve's great fleet—a procession of mighty phantoms—was dimly +visible against the Spanish coast, and the British frigates sent the news +in alternate pulses of sound and flame to Nelson, by this time eagerly +bearing up from Cape St. Mary. +</P> + +<P> +The morning of the 21st broke misty, yet bright. The sea was almost like +a floor of glass. The faintest of sea-airs blew. A lazy Atlantic swell +rolled at long intervals towards the Straits, and the two fleets at last +were visible to each other. Villeneuve's ships stretched a waving and +slightly curved line, running north and south, with no regularity of +order. The British fleet, in two compact and parallel columns, half a +mile apart, came majestically on from the west. The ships in each column +followed each other so closely that sometimes the bow of one was thrust +past the quarter of the ship in advance of it. Nelson, in the <I>Victory</I>, +headed one column, Collingwood, in the <I>Royal Sovereign</I>, led the other, +and each flagship, it was to be noted, led with a clear interval between +itself and its supports. +</P> + +<P> +Villeneuve had a tactician's brain, and his battle-plan was admirable. +In a general order, issued just before leading out his fleet, he told his +captains, "There is nothing to alarm us in the sight of an English fleet. +Their 64-gun ships have not 500 men on board; they are not more brave +than we are; they are harassed by a two-years' cruise; they have fewer +motives to fight well!" Villeneuve explained that the enemy would attack +in column, the French would meet the attack in close line of battle; and, +with a touch of Nelson's spirit, he urged his captains to take every +opportunity of boarding, and warned them that every ship not under fire +would be counted a defaulter. +</P> + +<P> +Nelson's plan was simple and daring. The order of sailing was to be the +order of battle. Collingwood leading one column, and he the other, would +pierce the enemy's lines at points which would leave some twelve of the +enemy's ships to be crushed betwixt the two British lines. Nelson, whose +brooding genius forecast every changing eddy of battle, gave minute +instructions on a score of details. To prevent mistakes amid the smoke +and the fight, for example, he had the hoops on the masts of every +British ship painted yellow; every ship was directed to fly a St. +George's ensign, with the Union Jack at the fore-topmast, and another +flying from the top-gallant stays. That he would beat the enemy's fleet +he calmly took for granted, but he directed that every effort should be +made to capture its commander-in-chief. Nelson crowned his instructions +with the characteristic remark, that "in case signals were obscure, no +captain can do wrong if he places his ship alongside of an enemy." +</P> + +<A NAME="img-308"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG SRC="images/img-308.jpg" ALT="The Attack at Trafalgar, October 21st, 1805. Five minutes past noon. From Mahan's "Life of Nelson."" BORDER="2" WIDTH="389" HEIGHT="617"> +<H3> +[Illustration: The Attack at Trafalgar, October 21st, 1805. <BR> +Five minutes past noon. <BR> +From Mahan's "Life of Nelson."] +</H3> +</CENTER> + +<P> +By twelve o'clock the two huge fleets were slowly approaching each other: +the British columns compact, grim, orderly; the Franco-Spanish line +loose, but magnificently picturesque, a far-stretching line of lofty +hulls, a swaying forest of sky-piercing masts. They still preserve the +remark of one prosaic British sailor, who, surveying the enemy through an +open port, offered the comment, "What a fine sight, Bill, yon ships would +make at Spithead!" +</P> + +<P> +It is curious to reflect how exactly both British and French invert on +sea their land tactics. French infantry attack in column, and are met by +British infantry in line; and the line, with its steadfast courage and +wide front of fire, crushes the column. On sea, on the other hand, the +British attack in column, and the French meet the attack in line; but the +column wins. But it must be admitted that the peril of this method of +attack is enormous. The leading ship approaches, stern on, to a line of +fire which, if steady enough, may well crush her by its concentration of +flame. Attack in column, in fact, means that the leading ships are +sacrificed to secure victory for the ships in the rear. The risks of +this method of attack at Trafalgar were enormously increased by the light +and uncertain quality of the wind. Collingwood, in the <I>Royal +Sovereign</I>, and Nelson, in the <I>Victory</I>, as a matter of fact, drifted +slowly rather than sailed, stern on to the broadsides of their enemy. +The leading British ships, with their stately heights of swelling canvas, +moved into the raking fire of the far-stretching Franco-Spanish line at a +speed of about two knots an hour. His officers knew that Nelson's ship, +carrying the flag of the commander-in-chief, as it came slowly on, would +be the mark for every French gunner, and must pass through a tempest of +flame before it could fire a shot in reply; and Blackwood begged Nelson +to let the <I>Téméraire</I>—"the fighting <I>Téméraire</I>"—take the <I>Victory's</I> +place at the head of the column. "Oh yes, let her go ahead," answered +Nelson, with a queer smile; and the <I>Téméraire</I> was hailed, and ordered +to take the lead. But Nelson meant that the <I>Téméraire</I> should take the +<I>Victory's</I> place only if she could, and he watched grimly to see that +not a sheet was let fly or a sail shortened to give the <I>Téméraire</I> a +chance of passing; and so the <I>Victory</I> kept its proud and perilous lead. +</P> + +<P> +Collingwood led the lee division, and had the honour of beginning the +mighty drama of Trafalgar. The <I>Royal Sovereign</I> was newly coppered, +and, with every inch of canvas outspread, got so far ahead of her +followers, that after Collingwood had broken into the French line, he +sustained its fire, unhelped, for nearly twenty minutes before the +<I>Belleisle</I>, the ship next following, could fire a gun for his help. +</P> + +<P> +Of Collingwood, Thackeray says, "I think, since Heaven made gentlemen, it +never made a better one than Cuthbert Collingwood," and there was, no +doubt, a knightly and chivalrous side to Collingwood worthy of King +Arthur's round table. But there was also a side of heavy-footed +common-sense, of Dutch-like frugality, in Collingwood, a sort of +wooden-headed unimaginativeness which looks humorous when set against the +background of such a planet-shaking fight as Trafalgar. Thus on the +morning of the fight he advised one of his lieutenants, who wore a pair +of boots, to follow his example and put on stockings and shoes, as, in +the event of being shot in the leg, it would, he explained, "be so much +more manageable for the surgeon." And as he walked the break of his poop +in tights, silk stockings, and buckled shoes, leading, in his single +ship, an attack on a fleet, he calmly munched an apple. To be able to +munch an apple when beginning Trafalgar is an illustration of what may be +called the quality of wooden-headed unimaginativeness in Collingwood. +And yet Collingwood had a sense of the scale of the drama in which he was +taking part. "Now, gentlemen," he said to his officers, "let us do +something to-day which the world may talk of hereafter." Collingwood, in +reality, was a great man and a great seaman, and in the battle which +followed he "fought like an angel," to quote the amusingly inappropriate +metaphor of Blackwood. +</P> + +<P> +The two majestic British columns moved slowly on, the great ships, with +ports hauled up and guns run out, following each other like a procession +of giants. "I suppose," says Codrington, who commanded the <I>Orion</I>, "no +man ever before saw such a sight." And the element of humour was added +to the scene by the spectacle of the tiny <I>Pickle</I>, a duodecimo schooner, +gravely hanging on to the quarter of an 80-gun ship—as an actor in the +fight describes it—"with the boarding-nettings up, and her tompions out +of her four guns—about as large and as formidable as two pairs of +Wellington boots." +</P> + +<P> +Collingwood bore down to the fight a clear quarter of a mile ahead of the +next ship. The fire of the enemy, like so many spokes of flame +converging to a centre, broke upon him. But in silence the great ship +moved ahead to a gap in the line between the <I>Santa Anna</I>, a huge black +hulk of 112 guns, and the <I>Neptune</I>, of 74. As the bowsprit of the +<I>Royal Sovereign</I> slowly glided past the stern of the <I>Santa Anna</I>, +Collingwood, as Nelson had ordered all his captains, cut his +studding-sails loose, and they fell, a cloud of white canvas, into the +water. Then as the broadside of the <I>Royal Sovereign</I> fairly covered the +stern of the <I>Santa Anna</I>, Collingwood spoke. He poured with deadly aim +and suddenness, and at pistol-shot distance, his whole broadside into the +Spaniard's stern. The tempest of shot swept the unhappy <I>Santa Anna</I> +from end to end, and practically destroyed that vessel. Some 400 of its +crew are said to have been killed or wounded by that single discharge! +At the same moment Collingwood discharged his other broadside at the +<I>Neptune</I>, though with less effect; then swinging round broadside to +broadside on the Spanish ship, he swept its decks again and again with +his guns. The first broadside had practically done the Spaniard's +business; but its captain, a gallant man, still returned what fire he +could. All the enemy's ships within reach of Collingwood had meanwhile +opened on him a dreadful fire; no fewer than five line-of-battle ships +were emptying their guns upon the <I>Royal Sovereign</I> at one time, and it +seemed marvellous that the British ship was not shattered to mere +splinters by the fire poured from so many quarters upon her. It was like +being in the heart of a volcano. Frequently, it is said, the British saw +the flying cannon-balls meet in mid-air. The seamen fell fast, the sails +were torn, the bulwarks shattered, the decks ran red with blood. It was +at that precise moment, however, that Collingwood said to his captain, +"What would not Nelson give to be here!" While at the same instant +Nelson was saying to Hardy, "See how that noble fellow Collingwood takes +his ship into action!" +</P> + +<P> +The other ships of Collingwood's column were by this time slowly drifting +into the fight. At a quarter past twelve the <I>Belleisle</I>, the next ship, +ranged under the stern of the unfortunate <I>Santa Anna</I>, and fired her +larboard guns, double shotted, into that ship, with the result that her +three masts fell over the side. She then steered for the <I>Indomptable</I>, +an 80-gun ship, and sustained at the same moment the fire of two Spanish +seventy-fours. Ship after ship of Collingwood's column came steadily up, +and the roar of the battle deepened as in quick-following crashes each +new line-of-battle ship broke into the thunder of broadsides. +</P> + +<P> +Nelson, leading the weather column, steered a trifle to the northward, as +the slowly moving line of the enemy pointed towards Cadiz. Nelson had +given his last orders. At his mainmast head was flying, fast belayed, +the signal, "Engage the enemy more closely." Nelson himself walked +quietly to and fro on the little patch of clear plank, scarcely seven +yards long, on the quarter-deck of the <I>Victory</I>, whence he could command +the whole ship, and he wore the familiar threadbare frock uniform coat, +bearing on the left breast four tarnished and lack-lustre stars. Then +came the incident of the immortal signal. "We must give the fleet," said +Nelson to Blackwood, "something by way of a fillip." After musing a +while, he said, "Suppose we signal, 'Nelson confides that every man will +do his duty'?" Some one suggested "England" instead of "Nelson," and +Nelson at once caught at the improvement. The signal-officer explained +that the word "confide" would have to be spelt, and suggested instead the +word "expects," as that was in the vocabulary. So the flags on the +masthead of the <I>Victory</I> spelt out the historic sentence to the slowly +moving fleet. That the signal was "received with cheers" is scarcely +accurate. The message was duly acknowledged, and recorded in the log of +every ship, but perhaps not one man in every hundred of the actors at +Trafalgar knew at the moment that it had been sent. But the message +rings in British ears yet, across ninety years, and will ring in the ears +of generations yet unborn. +</P> + +<P> +Nelson led his column on a somewhat slanting course into the fight. He +was bent on laying himself alongside the flagship of the enemy, and he +knew that this must be one of the three great line-of-battle ships near +the huge <I>Santissima Trinidad</I>. But there was no sign to show which of +the three carried Villeneuve. At half-past twelve the ships upon which +the <I>Victory</I> was moving began to fire single shots at her slowly +drifting hulk to discover whether she was within range. The seventh of +these shots, fired at intervals of a minute or so, tore a rent through +the upper canvas of the <I>Victory</I>—a rent still to be seen in the +carefully preserved sail. A couple of minutes of awful silence followed. +Slowly the <I>Victory</I> drifted on its path, and then no fewer than eight of +the great ships upon which the <I>Victory</I> was moving broke into such a +tempest of shot as perhaps never before was poured on a single ship. One +of the first shots killed Scott, Nelson's secretary; another cut down +eight marines standing in line on the <I>Victory's</I> quarter-deck; a third +passed between Nelson and Hardy as they stood side by side. "Too warm +work to last long, Hardy," said Nelson, with a smile. Still the +<I>Victory</I> drifted majestically on its fiery path without an answering gun. +</P> + +<P> +The French line was irregular at this point, the ships lying, in some +instances, two or three deep, and this made the business of "cutting" the +line difficult. As Nelson could not pick out the French flagship, he +said to Hardy, "Take your choice, go on board which you please;" and +Hardy pointed the stern of the Victory towards a gap between the +<I>Redoutable</I>, a 74-gun ship, and the <I>Bucentaure</I>. But the ship moved +slowly. The fire upon it was tremendous. One shot drove a shower of +splinters upon both Nelson and Hardy; nearly fifty men and officers had +been killed or wounded; the Victory's sails were riddled, her +studding-sail booms shot off close to the yard-arm, her mizzen-topmast, +shot away. At one o'clock, however, the <I>Victory</I> slowly moved past the +stern of the <I>Bucentaure</I>, and a 68-pounder carronade on its forecastle, +charged with a round shot and a keg of 500 musket balls, was fired into +the cabin windows of the French ship. Then, as the great ship moved on, +every gun of the remaining fifty that formed its broadside—some of them +double and treble loaded—was fired through the Frenchman's cabin windows. +</P> + +<P> +The dust from the crumpled woodwork of the <I>Bucentaure's</I> stern covered +the persons of Nelson and the group of officers standing on the +<I>Victory's</I> quarter-deck, while the British sailors welcomed with a +fierce shout the crash their flying shot made within the Frenchman's +hull. The <I>Bucentaure</I>, as it happened—though Nelson was ignorant of +the fact—was the French flagship; and after the battle its officers +declared that by this single broadside, out of its crew of nearly 1000 +men, nearly 400 were struck down, and no less than twenty guns dismounted! +</P> + +<P> +But the <I>Neptune</I>, a fine French 80-gun ship, lay right across the +water-lane up which the <I>Victory</I> was moving, and it poured upon the +British ship two raking broadsides of the most deadly quality. The +<I>Victory</I>, however, moved on unflinchingly, and the <I>Neptune</I>, fearing to +be run aboard by the British ship, set her jib and moved ahead; then the +<I>Victory</I> swung to starboard on to the <I>Redoutable</I>. The French ship +fired one hurried broadside, and promptly shut her lower-deck ports, +fearing the British sailors would board through them. No fewer, indeed, +than five French line-of-battle ships during the fight, finding +themselves grinding sides with British ships, adopted the same course—an +expressive testimony to the enterprising quality of British sailors. The +<I>Victory</I>, however, with her lower-deck guns actually touching the side +of the <I>Redoutable</I>, still kept them in full and quick action; but at +each of the lower-deck ports stood a sailor with a bucket of water, and +when the gun was fired—its muzzle touching the wooden sides of the +<I>Redoutable</I>—the water was dashed upon the ragged hole made by the shot, +to prevent the Frenchman taking fire and both ships being consumed. +</P> + +<P> +The guns on the upper deck of the <I>Victory</I> speedily swept and silenced +the upper deck of the <I>Redoutable</I>, and as far as its broadsides were +concerned, that ship was helpless. Its tops, however, were crowded with +marksmen, and armed with brass coehorns, firing langrage shot, and these +scourged with a pitiless and most deadly fire the decks of the <I>Victory</I>, +while the <I>Bucentaure</I> and the gigantic <I>Santissima Trinidad</I> also +thundered on the British flagship. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap2103"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +III. HOW THE VICTORY WAS WON +</H3> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"All is over and done.<BR> +Render thanks to the Giver;<BR> +England, for thy son<BR> +Let the bell be toll'd.<BR> +Render thanks to the Giver,<BR> +And render him to the mould.<BR> +Under the cross of gold<BR> +That shines over city and river,<BR> +There he shall rest for ever<BR> +Among the wise and the bold."<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 5em">—TENNYSON.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Nelson's strategy at Trafalgar is described quaintly, but with real +insight, in a sentence which a Spanish novelist, Don Perez Galdos, puts +into the mouth of one of his characters: "Nelson, who, as everybody +knows, was no fool, saw our long line and said, 'Ah, if I break through +that in two places, and put the part of it between the two places +between two fires, I shall grab every stick of it.' That was exactly +what the confounded fellow did. And as our line was so long that the +head couldn't help the tail, he worried us from end to end, while he +drove his two wedges into our body." It followed that the flaming +vortex of the fight was in that brief mile of sea-space, between the +two points where the parallel British lines broke through Villeneuve's +swaying forest of masts. And the tempest of sound and flame was +fiercest, of course, round the two ships that carried the flags of +Nelson and Collingwood. As each stately British liner, however, +drifted—rather than sailed—into the black pall of smoke, the roar of +the fight deepened and widened until the whole space between the <I>Royal +Sovereign</I> and the <I>Victory</I> was shaken with mighty pulse-beats of +sound that marked the furious and quick-following broadsides. +</P> + +<P> +The scene immediately about the <I>Victory</I> was very remarkable. The +<I>Victory</I> had run foul of the <I>Redoutable</I>, the anchors of the two +ships hooking into each other. The concussion of the broadsides would, +no doubt, have driven the two hulls apart, but that the <I>Victory's</I> +studding-sail boom iron had fastened, like a claw, into the leech of +the Frenchman's fore-topsail. The <I>Téméraire</I>, coming majestically up +through the smoke, raked the <I>Bucentaure</I>, and closed with a crash on +the starboard side of the <I>Redoutable</I>, and the four great ships lay in +a solid tier, while between their huge grinding sides came, with a +sound and a glare almost resembling the blast of an exploding mine, the +flash, the smoke, the roar of broadside after broadside. +</P> + +<P> +In the whole heroic fight there is no finer bit of heroism than that +shown by the <I>Redoutable</I>. She was only a 74-gun ship, and she had the +<I>Victory</I>, of 100 guns, and the <I>Téméraire</I>, of 98, on either side. It +is true these ships had to fight at the same time with a whole ring of +antagonists; nevertheless, the fire poured on the <I>Redoutable</I> was so +fierce that only courage of a steel-like edge and temper could have +sustained it. The gallant French ship was semi-dismasted, her hull +shot through in every direction, one-fourth of her guns were +dismounted. Out of a crew of 643, no fewer than 523 were killed or +wounded. Only 35, indeed, lived to reach England as prisoners. And +yet she fought on. The fire from her great guns, indeed, soon ceased, +but the deadly splutter of musketry from such of her tops as were yet +standing was maintained; and, as Brenton put it, "there was witnessed +for nearly an hour and a half the singular spectacle of a French 74-gun +ship engaging a British first and second rate, with small-arms only." +</P> + +<P> +As a matter of fact, the <I>Victory</I> repeatedly ceased firing, believing +that the <I>Redoutable</I> had struck, but still the venomous and deadly +fire from the tops of that vessel continued; and it was to this +circumstance, indeed, that Nelson owed his death. He would never put +small-arms men in his own tops, as he believed their fire interfered +with the working of the sails, and, indeed, ran the risk of igniting +them. Thus the French marksmen that crowded the tops of the +<I>Redoutable</I> had it all their own way; and as the distance was short, +and their aim deadly, nearly every man on the poop, quarter-deck, and +forecastle of the <I>Victory</I> was shot down. +</P> + +<P> +Nelson, with Hardy by his side, was walking backwards and forwards on a +little clear space of the <I>Victory's</I> quarter-deck, when he suddenly +swung round and fell face downwards on the deck. Hardy picked him up. +"They have done for me at last, Hardy," said Nelson; "my backbone is +shot through." A musket bullet from the <I>Redoutable's</I> +mizzen-top—only fifteen yards distant—had passed through the forepart +of the epaulette, smashed a path through the left shoulder, and lodged +in the spine. The evidence seems to make it clear that it was a chance +shot that wrought the fatal mischief. Hardy had twice the bulk of +Nelson's insignificant figure, and wore a more striking uniform, and +would certainly have attracted the aim of a marksman in preference to +Nelson. +</P> + +<P> +Few stories are more pathetic or more familiar than that of Nelson's +last moments. As they carried the dying hero across the blood-splashed +decks, and down the ladders into the cock-pit, he drew a handkerchief +over his own face and over the stars on his breast, lest the knowledge +that he was struck down should discourage his crew. He was stripped, +his wound probed, and it was at once known to be mortal. Nelson +suffered greatly; he was consumed with thirst, had to be fanned with +sheets of paper; and he kept constantly pushing away the sheet, the +sole covering over him, saying, "Fan, fan," or "Drink, drink," and one +attendant was constantly employed in drawing the sheet over his thin +limbs and emaciated body. Presently Hardy, snatching a moment from the +fight raging on the deck, came to his side, and the two comrades +clasped hands. "Well, Hardy, how goes the battle?" Nelson asked. He +was told that twelve or fourteen of the enemy's ships had struck. +"That is well," said Nelson, "but I had bargained for twenty." Then +his seaman's brain forecasting the change of weather, and picturing the +battered ships with their prizes on a lee shore, he exclaimed +emphatically, "Anchor! Hardy, anchor!" Hardy hinted that Collingwood +would take charge of affairs. "Not while I live, I hope, Hardy," said +the dying chief, trying to raise himself on his bed. "No! do you +anchor, Hardy." +</P> + +<P> +Many of Nelson's expressions, recorded by his doctor, Beatty, are +strangely touching. "I am a dead man, Hardy," he said, "I am going +fast. It will all be over with me soon." "O <I>Victory</I>, <I>Victory</I>," he +said, as the great ship shook to the roar of her own guns, "how you +distract my poor brain!" "How dear is life to all men!" he said, after +a pause. He begged that "his carcass might be sent to England, and not +thrown overboard." So in the dim cock-pit, with the roar of the great +battle—bellow of gun, and shout of cheering crews—filling all the +space about him, and his last thoughts yet busy for his country, the +soul of the greatest British seaman passed away. "Kiss me, Hardy," was +one of his last sentences. His last intelligible sentence was, "I have +done my duty; I praise God for it." +</P> + +<P> +It may interest many to read the prayer which Nelson wrote—the last +record, but one, he made in his diary—and written as the final act of +preparation for Trafalgar: "May the great God, whom I worship, grant to +my country, and for the benefit of Europe in general, a great and +glorious victory; and may no misconduct in any one tarnish it; and may +humanity after victory be the predominant feature in the British fleet. +For myself individually, I commit my life to Him that made me, and may +His blessing alight on my endeavours for serving my country faithfully. +To Him I resign myself, and the just cause which is entrusted to me to +defend. Amen, Amen, Amen." +</P> + +<P> +Nelson's plan allowed his captains a large discretion in the choice of +their antagonists. Each British ship had to follow the wake of her +leader till she reached the enemy's line, then her captain was free to +choose his own foe—which, naturally, was the biggest Frenchman or +Spaniard in sight. And the huge <I>Santissima Trinidad</I>, of course, +attracted the eager attention of the ships that immediately followed +the <I>Victory</I>. The Spaniard carried 140 guns, and in that swaying +continent of fighting ships, towered like a giant amongst dwarfs. The +<I>Neptune</I>, the <I>Leviathan</I>, and the <I>Conqueror</I>, in turn, hung on the +quarter or broadside of the gigantic Spaniard, scourged it with fire, +and then drifted off to engage in a fiery wrestle with some other +antagonist. By half-past two the Spanish four-decker was a mastless +wreck. The <I>Neptune</I> at that moment was hanging on her bow, the +<I>Conqueror</I> on her quarter. "This tremendous fabric," says an account +written by an officer on board the Conqueror, "gave a deep roll, with a +swell to leeward, then back to windward, and on her return every mast +went by the board, leaving her an unmanageable hulk on the water. Her +immense topsails had every reef out, her royals were sheeted home but +lowered, and the falling of this majestic mass of spars, sails, and +rigging plunging into the water at the muzzles of our guns, was one of +the most magnificent sights I ever beheld." Directly after this a +Spaniard waved an English union over the lee gangway of the <I>Santissima +Trinidad</I> in token of surrender; whereupon the <I>Conqueror</I>, scorning to +waste time in taking possession of even a four-decker that had no +longer any fight in it, pushed off in search of a new foe; while the +<I>Neptune's</I> crew proceeded to shift the tattered topsails of their ship +for new ones, with as much coolness as though in a friendly port. +</P> + +<P> +The <I>Africa</I>, sixty-four, less than half the size of the Spaniard, +presently came slowly up through the smoke, and fired into the Spanish +ship; then seeing no flag flying, sent a lieutenant on board the +mastless hulk to take possession. The Englishman climbed to the +quarterdeck, all black with smoke and bloody with slaughter, and asked +the solitary officer he found there whether or not the <I>Santissima +Trinidad</I> had surrendered. The ship, as a matter of fact, was drifting +into the centre of a cluster of French and Spanish ships; so the +Spaniard replied, "Non, non," at the same time pointing to the friendly +ships upon which they were drifting. The Englishman had only +half-a-dozen men with him, so he coolly returned to his boat, and the +<I>Santissima Trinidad</I> drifted like a log upon the water till half-past +five P.M., when the <I>Prince</I> put a prize crew on board. +</P> + +<P> +Perez Galdos has given a realistic picture—quoted in the <I>Cornhill +Magazine</I>—of the scenes within the gloomy recesses of the great +Spanish four-decker as the British ships hung on her flanks and wasted +her with their fire: "The English shot had torn our sails to tatters. +It was as if huge invisible talons had been dragging at them. +Fragments of spars, splinters of wood, thick hempen cables cut up as +corn is cut by the sickle, fallen blocks, shreds of canvas, bits of +iron, and hundreds of other things that had been wrenched away by the +enemy's fire, were piled along the deck, where it was scarcely possible +to move about. From moment to moment men fell—some into the sea; and +the curses of the combatants mingled with groans of the wounded, so +that it was often difficult to decide whether the dying were +blaspheming God or the fighters were calling upon Him for aid. I +helped in the very dismal task of carrying the wounded into the hold, +where the surgeons worked. Some died ere we could convey them thither; +others had to undergo frightful operations ere their worn-out bodies +could get an instant's rest. It was much more satisfactory to be able +to assist the carpenter's crew in temporarily stopping some of the +holes torn by shot in the ship's hull.… Blood ran in streams +about the deck; and, in spite of the sand, the rolling of the ship +carried it hither and thither until it made strange patterns on the +planks. The enemy's shot, fired, as they were, from very short range, +caused horrible mutilations.… The ship creaked and groaned as she +rolled, and through a thousand holes and crevices in her strained hull +the sea spurted in and began to flood the hold. The <I>Trinidad's</I> +people saw the commander-in-chief haul down his flag; heard the +<I>Achille</I> blow up and hurl her six hundred men into eternity; learnt +that their own hold was so crowded with wounded that no more could be +received there. Then, when all three masts had in succession been +brought crashing down, the defence collapsed, and the <I>Santissima +Trinidad</I> struck her flag." +</P> + +<P> +The dreadful scenes on the decks of the <I>Santissima Trinidad</I> might +almost have been paralleled on some of the British ships. Thus the +<I>Belleisle</I>, Collingwood's immediate supporter, sustained the fire of +two French and one Spanish line-of-battle ships until she was +dismasted. The wreck of her mizzen-mast covered her larboard guns, her +mainmast fell upon the break of the poop; her larboard broadside was +thus rendered useless; and just then another French line-of-battle +ship, the <I>Achille</I>, took her position on the <I>Belleisle's</I> larboard +quarter, and opened on her a deadly fire, to which the British ship +could not return a shot. This scene lasted for nearly an hour and a +half, but at half-past three the <I>Swiftsure</I> came majestically up, +passed under the <I>Belleisle's</I> stern—the two crews cheering each +other, the <I>Belleisle's</I> men waving a Union Jack at the end of a pike +to show they were still fighting, while an ensign still flew from the +stump of the mainmast—and the fury with which the <I>Swiftsure</I> fell +upon the <I>Achille</I> may be imagined. The <I>Defiance</I> about the same time +took off the <I>Aigle</I>, and the <I>Polyphemus</I> the <I>Neptune</I>, and the +much-battered <I>Belleisle</I> floated free. Masts, bowsprit, boats, +figure-head—all were shot away; her hull was pierced in every +direction; she was a mere splintered wreck. +</P> + +<P> +The <I>Téméraire</I> fought a battle almost as dreadful. The <I>Africa</I>, a +light ship carrying only sixty-four guns, chose as her antagonist the +<I>Intrépide</I>, a French seventy-four, in weight of broadside and number +of crew almost double her force. How dreadful were the damages +sustained by the British ship in a fight so unequal and so stubborn may +be imagined; but she clung to her big antagonist until, the <I>Orion</I> +coming up, the <I>Intrépide</I> struck. +</P> + +<P> +At three P.M. the firing had begun to slacken, and ship after ship of +the enemy was striking. At a quarter past two the <I>Algeziras</I> struck +to the <I>Tonnant</I>, and fifteen minutes afterwards the <I>San Juan</I>—the +<I>Tonnant</I> was fighting both ships—also hailed that she surrendered. +Lieutenant Clement was sent in the jolly-boat, with two hands, to take +possession of the Spanish seventy-four, and the boat carrying the +gallant three was struck by a shot and swamped. The sailors could +swim, but not the lieutenant; the pair of tars succeeded in struggling +back with their officer to the <I>Tonnant</I>; and as that ship had not +another boat that would float, she had to see her prize drift off. The +<I>Colossus</I>, in like manner, fought with the French <I>Swiftsure</I> and the +<I>Bahama</I>—each her own size—and captured them both! The <I>Redoutable</I> +had surrendered by this time, and a couple of midshipmen, with a dozen +hands, had climbed from the <I>Victory's</I> one remaining boat through the +stern ports of the French ship. The <I>Bucentaure</I>, Villeneuve's +flagship, had her fate practically sealed by the first tremendous +broadside poured into her by the <I>Victory</I>. With fine courage, +however, the French ship maintained a straggling fire until both the +<I>Leviathan</I> and the <I>Conqueror</I>, at a distance of less than thirty +yards, were pouring a tempest of shot into her. The French flagship +then struck, and was taken possession of by a tiny boat's crew from the +<I>Conqueror</I> consisting of three marines and two sailors. The marine +officer coolly locked the powder magazine of the Frenchman, put the key +in his pocket, left two of his men in charge of the surrendered +<I>Bucentaure</I>, put Villeneuve and his two captains in his boat with his +two marines and himself, and went off in search of the <I>Conqueror</I>. In +the smoke and confusion, however, he could not find that ship, and so +carried the captured French admiral to the <I>Mars</I>. Hercules Robinson +has drawn a pen picture of the unfortunate French admiral as he came on +board the British ship: "Villeneuve was a tallish, thin man, a very +tranquil, placid, English-looking Frenchman; he wore a long-tailed +uniform coat, high and flat collar, corduroy pantaloons of a greenish +colour with stripes two inches wide, half-boots with sharp toes, and a +watch-chain with long gold links. Majendie was a short, fat, jocund +sailor, who found a cure for all ills in the Frenchman's philosophy, +"Fortune de la guerre" (though this was the third time the goddess had +brought him to England as a prisoner); and he used to tell our officers +very tough stories of the 'Mysteries of Paris.'" +</P> + +<P> +By five o'clock the roar of guns had died almost into silence. Of +thirty-three stately battle-ships that formed the Franco-Spanish fleet +four hours earlier, one had vanished in flames, seventeen were captured +as mere blood-stained hulks, and fifteen were in flight; while +Villeneuve himself was a prisoner. But Nelson was dead. Night was +falling. A fierce south-east gale was blowing. A sea—such a sea as +only arises in shallow waters—ugly, broken, hollow, was rising fast. +In all directions ships dismantled, with scuppers crimson with blood, +and sides jagged with shot-holes, were rolling their tall, huge hulks +in the heavy sea; and the shoals of Trafalgar were only thirteen miles +to leeward! The fight with tempest and sea during that terrific night +was almost more dreadful than the battle with human foes during the +day. Codrington says, the gale was so furious that "it blew away the +top main-topsail, though it was close-reefed, and the fore-topsail +after it was clewed up ready for furling." They dare not set a storm +staysail, although now within six miles of the reef. The <I>Redoutable</I> +sank at the stern of the ship towing it; the <I>Bucentaure</I> had to be cut +adrift, and went to pieces on the shoals. The wind shifted in the +night and enabled the shot-wrecked and storm-battered ships to claw off +the shore; but the fierce weather still raged, and on the 24th the huge +<I>Santissima Trinidad</I> had to be cut adrift. It was night; wind and sea +were furious; but the boats of the <I>Ajax</I> and the <I>Neptune</I> succeeded +in rescuing every wounded man on board the huge Spaniard. The boats, +indeed, had all put off when a cat ran out on the muzzle of one of the +lower-deck guns and mewed plaintively, and one of the boats pulled +back, in the teeth of wind and sea, and rescued poor puss! +</P> + +<P> +Of the eighteen British prizes, fourteen sank, were wrecked, burnt by +the captors, or recaptured; only four reached Portsmouth. Yet never +was the destruction of a fleet more absolutely complete. Of the +fifteen ships that escaped Trafalgar, four were met in the open sea on +November 4 by an equal number of British ships, under Sir Richard +Strahan, and were captured. The other eleven lay disabled hulks in +Cadiz till—when France and Spain broke into war with each other—they +were all destroyed. Villeneuve's great fleet, in brief, simply +vanished from existence! But Napoleon, with that courageous economy of +truth characteristic of him, summed up Trafalgar in the sentence: "The +storms occasioned to us the loss of a few ships after a battle +imprudently fought"! Trafalgar, as a matter of fact, was the most +amazing victory won by land or sea through the whole Revolutionary war. +It permanently changed the course of history; and it goes far to +justify Nelson's magnificently audacious boast, "The fleets of England +are equal to meet the world in arms!" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE END +</H3> + +<BR><BR><BR><BR> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Deeds that Won the Empire, by W. H. 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H. Fitchett + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Deeds that Won the Empire + Historic Battle Scenes + +Author: W. H. Fitchett + +Release Date: September 12, 2006 [EBook #19255] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DEEDS THAT WON THE EMPIRE *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + + + + + + +DEEDS THAT WON THE EMPIRE + + +HISTORIC BATTLE SCENES + + + +BY W. H. FITCHETT, LL. D. + + + + + +LONDON: JOHN MURRAY + + + + FIRST EDITION (Smith, Elder & Co.) . . . November 1897 + Twenty-ninth Impression . . . . . . . . October 1914 + Reprinted (John Murray) . . . . . . . . September 1917 + Reprinted . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . February 1921 + + + + +PREFACE + +The tales here told are written, not to glorify war, but to nourish +patriotism. They represent an effort to renew in popular memory the +great traditions of the Imperial race to which we belong. + +The history of the Empire of which we are subjects--the story of the +struggles and sufferings by which it has been built up--is the best +legacy which the past has bequeathed to us. But it is a treasure +strangely neglected. The State makes primary education its anxious +care, yet it does not make its own history a vital part of that +education. There is real danger that for the average youth the great +names of British story may become meaningless sounds, that his +imagination will take no colour from the rich and deep tints of +history. And what a pallid, cold-blooded citizenship this must produce! + +War belongs, no doubt, to an imperfect stage of society; it has a side +of pure brutality. But it is not all brutal. Wordsworth's daring line +about "God's most perfect instrument" has a great truth behind it. +What examples are to be found in the tales here retold, not merely of +heroic daring, but of even finer qualities--of heroic fortitude; of +loyalty to duty stronger than the love of life; of the temper which +dreads dishonour more than it fears death; of the patriotism which +makes love of the Fatherland a passion. These are the elements of +robust citizenship. They represent some, at least, of the qualities by +which the Empire, in a sterner time than ours, was won, and by which, +in even these ease-loving days, it must be maintained. + +These sketches appeared originally in the _Melbourne Argus_, and are +republished by the kind consent of its proprietors. Each sketch is +complete in itself; and though no formal quotation of authorities is +given, yet all the available literature on each event described has +been laid under contribution. The sketches will be found to be +historically accurate. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + THE FIGHT OFF CAPE ST. VINCENT + THE HEIGHTS OF ABRAHAM + THE GREAT LORD HAWKE + THE NIGHT ATTACK ON BADAJOS + THE FIRE-SHIPS IN THE BASQUE ROADS + THE MAN WHO SPOILED NAPOLEON'S "DESTINY" + GREAT SEA-DUELS + THE BLOOD-STAINED HILL OF BUSACO + OF NELSON AND THE NILE + THE FUSILEERS AT ALBUERA + THE "SHANNON" AND THE "CHESAPEAKE" + THE GREAT BREACH OF CIUDAD RODRIGO + HOW THE "HERMIONE" WAS RECAPTURED + FRENCH AND ENGLISH IN THE PASSES + FAMOUS CUTTING-OUT EXPEDITIONS + MOUNTAIN COMBATS + THE BLOODIEST FIGHT IN THE PENINSULA + THE BATTLE OF THE BALTIC + KING-MAKING WATERLOO-- + I. The Rival Hosts + II. Hougoumont + III. Picton and D'Erlon + IV. "Scotland for Ever!" + V. Horsemen and Squares + VI. The Fight of the Gunners + VII. The Old Guard + VIII. The Great Defeat + + THE NIGHT ATTACK OFF CADIZ + + TRAFALGAR-- + I. The Strategy + II. How the Fleets Met + III. How the Victory was Won + + + +LIST OF PLANS + + THE BATTLE OFF CAPE ST. VINCENT + THE SIEGE OF QUEBEC + THE SIEGE OF BADAJOS + THE BATTLE OF THE NILE + THE BATTLE OF ALBUERA + THE SIEGE OF CIUDAD RODRIGO + THE COMBAT OF RONCESVALLES + THE BATTLE OF ST. PIERRE + THE BATTLE OF THE BALTIC + THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO + THE ATTACK OF TRAFALGAR + + + + +THE FIGHT OFF CAPE ST. VINCENT + + + THE SCEPTRE OF THE SEA. + + "Old England's sons are English yet, + Old England's hearts are strong; + And still she wears her coronet + Aflame with sword and song. + As in their pride our fathers died, + If need be, so die we; + So wield we still, gainsay who will, + The sceptre of the sea. + + We've Raleighs still for Raleigh's part, + We've Nelsons yet unknown; + The pulses of the Lion-Heart + Beat on through Wellington. + Hold, Britain, hold thy creed of old, + Strong foe and steadfast friend, + And still unto thy motto true, + 'Defy not, but defend.' + + Men whisper that our arm is weak, + Men say our blood is cold, + And that our hearts no longer speak + That clarion note of old; + But let the spear and sword draw near + The sleeping lion's den, + Our island shore shall start once more + To life, with armed men." + --HERMAN CHARLES MERIVALE. + + +On the night of February 13, 1797, an English fleet of fifteen ships of +the line, in close order and in readiness for instant battle, was under +easy sail off Cape St. Vincent. It was a moonless night, black with +haze, and the great ships moved in silence like gigantic spectres over +the sea. Every now and again there came floating from the south-east +the dull sound of a far-off gun. It was the grand fleet of Spain, +consisting of twenty-seven ships of line, under Admiral Don Josef de +Cordova; one great ship calling to another through the night, little +dreaming that the sound of their guns was so keenly noted by the eager +but silent fleet of their enemies to leeward. The morning of the +14th--a day famous in the naval history of the empire--broke dim and +hazy; grey sea, grey fog, grey dawn, making all things strangely +obscure. At half-past six, however, the keen-sighted British outlooks +caught a glimpse of the huge straggling line of Spaniards, stretching +apparently through miles of sea haze. "They are thumpers!" as the +signal lieutenant of the _Barfleur_ reported with emphasis to his +captain; "they loom like Beachy Head in a fog!" The Spanish fleet was, +indeed, the mightiest ever sent from Spanish ports since "that great +fleet invincible" of 1588 carried into the English waters--but not out +of them!-- + + "The richest spoils of Mexico, the stoutest hearts of Spain." + +The Admiral's flag was borne by the _Santissima Trinidad_, a floating +mountain, the largest ship at that time on the sea, and carrying on her +four decks 130 guns. Next came six three-deckers carrying 112 guns +each, two ships of the line of 80 guns each, and seventeen carrying 74 +guns, with no less than twelve 34-gun frigates to act as a flying +cordon of skirmishers. Spain had joined France against England on +September 12, 1796, and Don Cordova, at the head of this immense fleet, +had sailed from Cadiz to execute a daring and splendid strategy. He +was to pick up the Toulon fleet, brush away the English squadron +blockading Brest, add the great French fleet lying imprisoned there to +his forces, and enter the British Channel with above a hundred sail of +the line under his flag, and sweep in triumph to the mouth of the +Thames! If the plan succeeded, Portugal would fall, a descent was to +be made on Ireland; the British flag, it was reckoned, would be swept +from the seas. + +Sir John Jervis was lying in the track of the Spaniards to defeat this +ingenious plan. Five ships of the line had been withdrawn from the +squadron blockading Brest to strengthen him; still he had only fifteen +ships against the twenty-seven huge Spaniards in front of him; whilst, +if the French Toulon fleet behind him broke out, he ran the risk of +being crushed, so to speak, betwixt the upper and the nether millstone. +Never, perhaps, was the naval supremacy of England challenged so boldly +and with such a prospect of success as at this moment. The northern +powers had coalesced under Russia, and only a few weeks later the +English guns were thundering over the roofs of Copenhagen, while the +united flags of France and Spain were preparing to sweep through the +narrow seas. The "splendid isolation" of to-day is no novelty. In +1796, as it threatened to be in 1896, Great Britain stood singly +against a world in arms, and it is scarcely too much to say that her +fate hung on the fortunes of the fleet that, in the grey dawn of St. +Valentine's Day, a hundred years ago, was searching the skyline for the +topmasts of Don Cordova's huge three-deckers. + +Fifteen to twenty-seven is enormous odds, but, on the testimony of +Nelson himself, a better fleet never carried the fortunes of a great +country than that under Sir John Jervis. The mere names of the ships +or of their commanders awaken more sonorous echoes than the famous +catalogue of the ships in the "Iliad." Trowbridge, in the _Culloden_, +led the van; the line was formed of such ships as the _Victory_, the +flagship, the _Barfleur_, the _Blenheim_, the _Captain_, with Nelson as +commodore, the _Excellent_, under Collingwood, the _Colossus_, under +Murray, the _Orion_, under Sir James Saumarez, &c. Finer sailors and +more daring leaders never bore down upon an enemy's fleet. The picture +offered by the two fleets in the cold haze of that fateful morning, as +a matter of fact, reflected the difference in their fighting and +sea-going qualities. The Spanish fleet, a line of monsters, straggled, +formless and shapeless, over miles of sea space, distracted with +signals, fluttering with many-coloured flags. The English fleet, grim +and silent, bore down upon the enemy in two compact and firm-drawn +columns, ship following ship so closely and so exactly that bowsprit +and stern almost touched, while an air-line drawn from the foremast of +the leading ship to the mizzenmast of the last ship in each column +would have touched almost every mast betwixt. Stately, measured, +threatening, in perfect fighting order, the compact line of the British +bore down on the Spaniards. + +[Illustration: THE BATTLE OFF CAPE ST. VINCENT. Cutting the Spanish +Line. From Allen's "Battles of the British Navy."] + +Nothing is more striking in the battle of St. Vincent than the swift +and resolute fashion in which Sir John Jervis leaped, so to speak, at +his enemy's throat, with the silent but deadly leap of a bulldog. As +the fog lifted, about nine o'clock, with the suddenness and dramatic +effect of the lifting of a curtain in a great theatre, it revealed to +the British admiral a great opportunity. The weather division of the +Spanish fleet, twenty-one gigantic ships, resembled nothing so much as +a confused and swaying forest of masts; the leeward division--six ships +in a cluster, almost as confused--was parted by an interval of nearly +three miles from the main body of the fleet, and into that fatal gap, +as with the swift and deadly thrust of a rapier, Jervis drove his fleet +in one unswerving line, the two columns melting into one, ship +following hard on ship. The Spaniards strove furiously to close their +line, the twenty-one huge ships bearing down from the windward, the +smaller squadron clawing desperately up from the leeward. But the +British fleet--a long line of gliding pyramids of sails, leaning over +to the pressure of the wind, with "the meteor flag" flying from the +peak of each vessel, and the curving lines of guns awaiting grim and +silent beneath--was too swift. As it swept through the gap, the +Spanish vice-admiral, in the _Principe de Asturias_, a great +three-decker of 112 guns, tried the daring feat of breaking through the +British line to join the severed squadron. He struck the English fleet +almost exactly at the flagship, the _Victory_. The _Victory_ was +thrown into stays to meet her, the Spaniard swung round in response, +and, exactly as her quarter was exposed to the broadside of the +_Victory_, the thunder of a tremendous broadside rolled from that ship. +The unfortunate Spaniard was smitten as with a tempest of iron, and the +next moment, with sails torn, topmasts hanging to leeward, ropes +hanging loose in every direction, and her decks splashed red with the +blood of her slaughtered crew, she broke off to windward. The iron +line of the British was unpierceable! The leading three-decker of the +Spanish lee division in like manner bore up, as though to break through +the British line to join her admiral; but the grim succession of +three-deckers, following swift on each other like the links of a moving +iron chain, was too disquieting a prospect to be faced. It was not in +Spanish seamanship, or, for the matter of that, in Spanish flesh and +blood, to beat up in the teeth of such threatening lines of iron lips. +The Spanish ships swung sullenly back to leeward, and the fleet of Don +Cordova was cloven in twain, as though by the stroke of some gigantic +sword-blade. + +As soon as Sir John Jervis saw the steady line of his fleet drawn fair +across the gap in the Spanish line, he flung his leading ships up to +windward on the mass of the Spanish fleet, by this time beating up to +windward. The _Culloden_ led, thrust itself betwixt the hindmost +Spanish three-deckers, and broke into flame and thunder on either side. +Six minutes after her came the _Blenheim_; then, in quick succession, +the _Prince George_, the _Orion_, the _Colossus_. It was a crash of +swaying masts and bellying sails, while below rose the shouting of the +crews, and, like the thrusts of fiery swords, the flames shot out from +the sides of the great three-deckers against each other, and over all +rolled the thunder and the smoke of a Titanic sea-fight. Nothing more +murderous than close fighting betwixt the huge wooden ships of those +days can well be imagined. The _Victory_, the largest British ship +present in the action, was only 186 feet long and 52 feet broad; yet in +that little area 1000 men fought, 100 great guns thundered. A Spanish +ship like the _San Josef_ was 194 feet in length and 54 feet in +breadth; but in that area 112 guns were mounted, while the three decks +were thronged with some 1300 men. When floating batteries like these +swept each other with the flame of swiftly repeated broadsides at a +distance of a few score yards, the destruction may be better imagined +than described. The Spanish had an advantage in the number of guns and +men, but the British established an instant mastery by their silent +discipline, their perfect seamanship, and the speed with which their +guns were worked. They fired at least three broadsides to every two +the Spaniards discharged, and their fire had a deadly precision +compared with which that of the Spaniards was mere distracted +spluttering. + +Meanwhile the dramatic crisis of the battle came swiftly on. The +Spanish admiral was resolute to join the severed fragments of his +fleet. The _Culloden_, the _Blenheim_, the _Prince George_, and the +_Orion_ were thundering amongst his rearmost ships, and as the British +line swept up, each ship tacked as it crossed the gap in the Spanish +line, bore up to windward and added the thunder of its guns to the +storm of battle raging amongst the hindmost Spaniards. But naturally +the section of the British line that had not yet passed the gap +shortened with every minute, and the leading Spanish ships at last saw +the sea to their leeward clear of the enemy, and the track open to +their own lee squadron. Instantly they swung round to leeward, the +great four-decker, the flagship, with a company of sister giants, the +_San Josef_ and the _Salvador del Mundo_, of 112 guns each, the _San +Nicolas_, and three other great ships of 80 guns. It was a bold and +clever stroke. This great squadron, with the breeze behind it, had but +to sweep past the rear of the British line, join the lee squadron, and +bear up, and the Spanish fleet in one unbroken mass would confront the +enemy. The rear of the British line was held by Collingwood in the +_Excellent_; next to him came the _Diadem_; the third ship was the +_Captain_, under Nelson. We may imagine how Nelson's solitary eye was +fixed on the great Spanish three-deckers that formed the Spanish van as +they suddenly swung round and came sweeping down to cross his stern. +Not Napoleon himself had a vision more swift and keen for the changing +physiognomy of a great battle than Nelson, and he met the Spanish +admiral with a counter-stroke as brilliant and daring as can be found +in the whole history of naval warfare. The British fleet saw the +_Captain_ suddenly swing out of line to leeward--in the direction from +the Spanish line, that is--but with swift curve the _Captain_ doubled +back, shot between the two English ships that formed the rear of the +line, and bore up straight in the path of the Spanish flagship, with +its four decks, and the huge battleships on either side of it. + +The _Captain_, it should be remembered, was the smallest 74 in the +British fleet, and as the great Spanish ships closed round her and +broke into flame it seemed as if each one of them was big enough to +hoist the _Captain_ on board like a jolly-boat. Nelson's act was like +that of a single stockman who undertakes to "head off" a drove of angry +bulls as they break away from the herd; but the "bulls" in this case +were a group of the mightiest battleships then afloat. Nelson's sudden +movement was a breach of orders; it left a gap in the British line; to +dash unsupported into the Spanish van seemed mere madness, and the +spectacle, as the Captain opened fire on the huge _Santissima +Trinidad_, was simply amazing. Nelson was in action at once with the +flagship of 130 guns, two ships of 112 guns, one of 80 guns, and two of +74 guns! To the spectators who watched the sight the sides of the +_Captain_ seemed to throb with quick-following pulses of flame as its +crew poured their shot into the huge hulks on every side of them. The +Spaniards formed a mass so tangled that they could scarcely fire at the +little _Captain_ without injuring each other; yet the English ship +seemed to shrivel beneath even the imperfect fire that did reach her. +Her foremast was shot away, her wheel-post shattered, her rigging torn, +some of her guns dismantled, and the ship was practically incapable of +further service either in the line or in chase. But Nelson had +accomplished his purpose: he had stopped the rush of the Spanish van. + +At this moment the _Excellent_, under Collingwood, swept into the storm +of battle that raged round the _Captain_, and poured three tremendous +broadsides into the Spanish three-decker the _Salvador del Mundo_ that +practically disabled her. "We were not further from her," the domestic +but hard-fighting Collingwood wrote to his wife, "than the length of +our garden." Then, with a fine feat of seamanship, the _Excellent_ +passed between the _Captain_ and the _San Nicolas_, scourging that +unfortunate ship with flame at a distance of ten yards, and then passed +on to bestow its favours on the _Santissima Trinidad_--"such a ship," +Collingwood afterwards confided to his wife, "as I never saw before!" +Collingwood tormented that monster with his fire so vehemently that she +actually struck, though possession of her was not taken before the +other Spanish ships, coming up, rescued her, and she survived to carry +the Spanish flag in the great fight of Trafalgar. + +Meanwhile the crippled _Captain_, though actually disabled, had +performed one of the most dramatic and brilliant feats in the history +of naval warfare. Nelson put his helm to starboard, and ran, or rather +drifted, on the quarter-gallery of the _San Nicolas_, and at once +boarded that leviathan. Nelson himself crept through the +quarter-gallery window in the stern of the Spaniard, and found himself +in the officers' cabins. The officers tried to show fight, but there +was no denying the boarders who followed Nelson, and with shout and +oath, with flash of pistol and ring of steel, the party swept through +on to the main deck. But the _San Nicolas_ had been boarded also at +other points. "The first man who jumped into the enemy's +mizzen-chains," says Nelson, "was the first lieutenant of the ship, +afterwards Captain Berry." The English sailors dropped from their +spritsail yard on to the Spaniard's deck, and by the time Nelson +reached the poop of the _San Nicolas_ he found his lieutenant in the +act of hauling down the Spanish flag. Nelson proceeded to collect the +swords of the Spanish officers, when a fire was opened upon them from +the stern gallery of the admiral's ship, the _San Josef_, of 112 guns, +whose sides were grinding against those of the _San Nicolas_. What +could Nelson do? To keep his prize he must assault a still bigger +ship. Of course he never hesitated! He flung his boarders up the side +of the huge _San Josef_, but he himself had to be assisted to climb the +main chains of that vessel, his lieutenant this time dutifully +assisting his commodore up instead of indecorously going ahead of him. +"At this moment," as Nelson records the incident, "a Spanish officer +looked over the quarterdeck rail and said they surrendered. It was not +long before I was on the quarter-deck, where the Spanish captain, with +a bow, presented me his sword, and said the admiral was dying of his +wounds. I asked him, on his honour, if the ship was surrendered. He +declared she was; on which I gave him my hand, and desired him to call +on his officers and ship's company and tell them of it, which he did; +and on the quarterdeck of a Spanish first-rate--extravagant as the +story may seem--did I receive the swords of vanquished Spaniards, +which, as I received, I gave to William Fearney, one of my bargemen, +who put them with the greatest _sang-froid_ under his arm," a circle of +"old Agamemnons," with smoke-blackened faces, looking on in grim +approval. + +This is the story of how a British fleet of fifteen vessels defeated a +Spanish fleet of twenty-seven, and captured four of their finest ships. +It is the story, too, of how a single English ship, the smallest 74 in +the fleet--but made unconquerable by the presence of Nelson--stayed the +advance of a whole squadron of Spanish three-deckers, and took two +ships, each bigger than itself, by boarding. Was there ever a finer +deed wrought under "the meteor flag"! Nelson disobeyed orders by +leaving the English line and flinging himself on the van of the +Spaniards, but he saved the battle. Calder, Jervis's captain, +complained to the admiral that Nelson had "disobeyed orders." "He +certainly did," answered Jervis; "and if ever you commit such a breach +of your orders I will forgive you also." + + + + +THE HEIGHTS OF ABRAHAM + + + "Sound, sound the clarion, fill the fife! + To all the sensual world proclaim, + One crowded hour of glorious life + Is worth an age without a name." + --SIR WALTER SCOTT. + + +The year 1759 is a golden one in British history. A great French army +that threatened Hanover was overthrown at Minden, chiefly by the heroic +stupidity of six British regiments, who, mistaking their orders, charged +the entire French cavalry in line, and destroyed them. "I have seen," +said the astonished French general, "what I never thought to be +possible--a single line of infantry break through three lines of cavalry +ranked in order of battle, and tumble them into ruin!" Contades omitted +to add that this astonishing infantry, charging cavalry in open +formation, was scourged during their entire advance by powerful batteries +on their flank. At Quiberon, in the same year, Hawke, amid a tempest, +destroyed a mighty fleet that threatened England with invasion; and on +the heights of Abraham, Wolfe broke the French power in America. "We are +forced," said Horace Walpole, the wit of his day, "to ask every morning +what new victory there is, for fear of missing one." Yet, of all the +great deeds of that _annus mirabilis_, the victory which overthrew +Montcalm and gave Quebec to England--a victory achieved by the genius of +Pitt and the daring of Wolfe--was, if not the most shining in quality, +the most far-reaching in its results. "With the triumph of Wolfe on the +heights of Abraham," says Green, "began the history of the United States." + +The hero of that historic fight wore a singularly unheroic aspect. +Wolfe's face, in the famous picture by West, resembles that of a nervous +and sentimental boy--he was an adjutant at sixteen, and only thirty-three +when he fell, mortally wounded, under the walls of Quebec. His forehead +and chin receded; his nose, tip-tilted heavenwards, formed with his other +features the point of an obtuse triangle. His hair was fiery red, his +shoulders narrow, his legs a pair of attenuated spindle-shanks; he was a +chronic invalid. But between his fiery poll and his plebeian and +upturned nose flashed a pair of eyes--keen, piercing, and steady--worthy +of Caesar or of Napoleon. In warlike genius he was on land as Nelson was +on sea, chivalrous, fiery, intense. A "magnetic" man, with a strange +gift of impressing himself on the imagination of his soldiers, and of so +penetrating the whole force he commanded with his own spirit that in his +hands it became a terrible and almost resistless instrument of war. The +gift for choosing fit agents is one of the highest qualities of genius; +and it is a sign of Pitt's piercing insight into character that, for the +great task of overthrowing the French power in Canada, he chose what +seemed to commonplace vision a rickety, hypochondriacal, and very +youthful colonel like Wolfe. + +Pitt's strategy for the American campaign was spacious, not to say +grandiose. A line of strong French posts, ranging from Duquesne, on the +Ohio, to Ticonderoga, on Lake Champlain, held the English settlements on +the coast girdled, as in an iron band, from all extension westward; while +Quebec, perched in almost impregnable strength on the frowning cliffs +which look down on the St. Lawrence, was the centre of the French power +in Canada. Pitt's plan was that Amherst, with 12,000 men, should capture +Ticonderoga; Prideaux, with another powerful force, should carry +Montreal; and Wolfe, with 7000 men, should invest Quebec, where Amherst +and Prideaux were to join him. Two-thirds of this great plan broke down. +Amherst and Prideaux, indeed, succeeded in their local operations, but +neither was able to join Wolfe, who had to carry out with one army the +task for which three were designed. + +On June 21, 1759, the advanced squadron of the fleet conveying Wolfe came +working up the St. Lawrence. To deceive the enemy they flew the white +flag, and, as the eight great ships came abreast of the Island of +Orleans, the good people of Quebec persuaded themselves it was a French +fleet bringing supplies and reinforcements. The bells rang a welcome; +flags waved. Boats put eagerly off to greet the approaching ships. But +as these swung round at their anchorage the white flag of France +disappeared, and the red ensign of Great Britain flew in its place. The +crowds, struck suddenly dumb, watched the gleam of the hostile flag with +chap-fallen faces. A priest, who was staring at the ships through a +telescope, actually dropped dead with the excitement and passion created +by the sight of the British fleet. On June 26 the main body of the fleet +bringing Wolfe himself with 7000 troops, was in sight of the lofty cliffs +on which Quebec stands; Cook, afterwards the famous navigator, master of +the _Mercury_, sounding ahead of the fleet. Wolfe at once seized the +Isle of Orleans, which shelters the basin of Quebec to the east, and +divides the St. Lawrence into two branches, and, with a few officers, +quickly stood on the western point of the isle. At a glance the +desperate nature of the task committed to him was apparent. + +[Illustration: Siege of Quebec, 1759. From Parkman's "Montcalm & Wolfe."] + +Quebec stands on the rocky nose of a promontory, shaped roughly like a +bull's-head, looking eastward. The St. Lawrence flows eastward under the +chin of the head; the St. Charles runs, so to speak, down its nose from +the north to meet the St. Lawrence. The city itself stands on lofty +cliffs, and as Wolfe looked upon it on that June evening far away, it was +girt and crowned with batteries. The banks of the St. Lawrence, that +define what we have called the throat of the bull, are precipitous and +lofty, and seem by mere natural strength to defy attack, though it was +just here, by an ant-like track up 250 feet of almost perpendicular +cliff, Wolfe actually climbed to the plains of Abraham. To the east of +Quebec is a curve of lofty shore, seven miles long, between the St. +Charles and the Montmorenci. When Wolfe's eye followed those seven miles +of curving shore, he saw the tents of a French army double his own in +strength, and commanded by the most brilliant French soldier of his +generation, Montcalm. Quebec, in a word, was a great natural fortress, +attacked by 9000 troops and defended by 16,000; and if a daring military +genius urged the English attack, a soldier as daring and well-nigh as +able as Wolfe directed the French defence. + +Montcalm gave a proof of his fine quality as a soldier within twenty-four +hours of the appearance of the British fleet. The very afternoon the +British ships dropped anchor a terrific tempest swept over the harbour, +drove the transports from their moorings, dashed the great ships of war +against each other, and wrought immense mischief. The tempest dropped as +quickly as it had arisen. The night fell black and moonless. Towards +midnight the British sentinels on the point of the Isle of Orleans saw +drifting silently through the gloom the outlines of a cluster of ships. +They were eight huge fire-ships, floating mines packed with explosives. +The nerve of the French sailors, fortunately for the British, failed +them, and they fired the ships too soon. But the spectacle of these +flaming monsters as they drifted towards the British fleet was appalling. +The river showed ebony-black under the white flames. The glare lit up +the river cliffs, the roofs of the city, the tents of Montcalm, the +slopes of the distant hills, the black hulls of the British ships. It +was one of the most stupendous exhibitions of fireworks ever witnessed! +But it was almost as harmless as a display of fireworks. The boats from +the British fleet were by this time in the water, and pulling with steady +daring to meet these drifting volcanoes. They were grappled, towed to +the banks, and stranded, and there they spluttered and smoked and flamed +till the white light of the dawn broke over them. The only mischief +achieved by these fire-ships was to burn alive one of their own captains +and five or six of his men, who failed to escape in their boats. + +Wolfe, in addition to the Isle of Orleans, seized Point Levi, opposite +the city, and this gave him complete command of the basin of Quebec; from +his batteries on Point Levi, too, he could fire directly on the city, and +destroy it if he could not capture it. He himself landed the main body +of his troops on the east bank of the Montmorenci, Montcalm's position, +strongly entrenched, being between him and the city. Between the two +armies, however, ran the deep gorge through which the swift current of +the Montmorenci rushes down to join the St. Lawrence. The gorge is +barely a gunshot in width, but of stupendous depth. The Montmorenci +tumbles over its rocky bed with a speed that turns the flashing waters +almost to the whiteness of snow. Was there ever a more curious military +position adopted by a great general in the face of superior forces! +Wolfe's tiny army was distributed into three camps: his right wing on the +Montmorenci was six miles distant from his left wing at Point Levi, and +between the centre, on the Isle of Orleans, and the two wings, ran the +two branches of the St. Lawrence. That Wolfe deliberately made such a +distribution of his forces under the very eyes of Montcalm showed his +amazing daring. And yet beyond firing across the Montmorenci on +Montcalm's left wing, and bombarding the city from Point Levi, the +British general could accomplish nothing. Montcalm knew that winter must +compel Wolfe to retreat, and he remained stubbornly but warily on the +defensive. + +On July 18 the British performed a daring feat. In the darkness of the +night two of the men-of-war and several sloops ran past the Quebec +batteries and reached the river above the town; they destroyed some +fireships they found there, and cut off Montcalm's communication by water +with Montreal. This rendered it necessary for the French to establish +guards on the line of precipices between Quebec and Cap-Rouge. On July +28 the French repeated the experiment of fire-ships on a still more +gigantic scale. A vast fire-raft was constructed, composed of some +seventy schooners, boats, and rafts, chained together, and loaded with +combustibles and explosives. The fire-raft is described as being 100 +fathoms in length, and its appearance, as it came drifting on the +current, a mass of roaring fire, discharging every instant a shower of +missiles, was terrifying. But the British sailors dashed down upon it, +broke the huge raft into fragments, and towed them easily ashore. "Hang +it, Jack," one sailor was heard to say to his mate as he tugged at the +oar, "didst thee ever take hell in tow before?" + +Time was on Montcalm's side, and unless Wolfe could draw him from his +impregnable entrenchments and compel him to fight, the game was lost. +When the tide fell, a stretch of shoal a few score yards wide was left +bare on the French side of the Montmorenci. The slope that covered this +was steep, slippery with grass, crowned by a great battery, and swept by +the cross-fire of entrenchments on either flank. Montcalm, too, holding +the interior lines, could bring to the defence of this point twice the +force with which Wolfe could attack it. Yet to Wolfe's keen eyes this +seemed the one vulnerable point in Montcalm's front, and on July 31 he +made a desperate leap upon it. + +The attack was planned with great art. The British batteries thundered +across the Montmorenci, and a feint was made of fording that river higher +up, so as to distract the attention of the French, whilst the boats of +the fleet threatened a landing near Quebec itself. At half-past five the +tide was at its lowest, and the boat-flotilla, swinging round at a +signal, pulled at speed for the patch of muddy foreshore already +selected. The Grenadiers and Royal Americans leaped ashore in the mud, +and--waiting neither for orders, nor leaders, nor supports--dashed up the +hill to storm the redoubt. They reached the first redoubt, tumbled over +it and through it, only to find themselves breathless in a semi-circle of +fire. The men fell fast, but yet struggled fiercely upwards. A furious +storm of rain broke over the combatants at that moment, and made the +steep grass-covered slope as slippery as mere glass. "We could not see +half-way down the hill," writes the French officer in command of the +battery on the summit. But through the smoke and the driving rain they +could still see the Grenadiers and Royal Americans in ragged clusters, +scarce able to stand, yet striving desperately to climb upwards. The +reckless ardour of the Grenadiers had spoiled Wolfe's attack, the sudden +storm helped to save the French, and Wolfe withdrew his broken but +furious battalions, having lost some 500 of his best men and officers. + +The exultant French regarded the siege as practically over; but Wolfe was +a man of heroic and quenchless tenacity, and never so dangerous as when +he seemed to be in the last straits. He held doggedly on, in spite of +cold and tempest and disease. His own frail body broke down, and for the +first time the shadow of depression fell on the British camps when they +no longer saw the red head and lean and scraggy body of their general +moving amongst them. For a week, between August 22 and August 29, he lay +apparently a dying man, his face, with its curious angles, white with +pain and haggard with disease. But he struggled out again, and framed +yet new plans of attack. On September 10 the captains of the men-of-war +held a council on board the flagship, and resolved that the approach of +winter required the fleet to leave Quebec without delay. By this time, +too, Wolfe's scanty force was diminished one-seventh by disease or losses +in battle. Wolfe, however had now formed the plan which ultimately gave +him success, though at the cost of his own life. + +From a tiny little cove, now known as Wolfe's Cove, five miles to the +west of Quebec, a path, scarcely accessible to a goat, climbs up the face +of the great cliff, nearly 250 feet high. The place was so inaccessible +that only a post of 100 men kept guard over it. Up that track, in the +blackness of the night, Wolfe resolved to lead his army to the attack on +Quebec! It needed the most exquisite combinations to bring the attacking +force to that point from three separate quarters, in the gloom of night, +at a given moment, and without a sound that could alarm the enemy. Wolfe +withdrew his force from the Montmorenci, embarked them on board his +ships, and made every sign of departure. Montcalm mistrusted these +signs, and suspected Wolfe would make at least one more leap on Quebec +before withdrawing. Yet he did not in the least suspect Wolfe's real +designs. He discussed, in fact, the very plan Wolfe adopted, but +dismissed it by saying, "We need not suppose that the enemy have wings." +The British ships were kept moving up and down the river front for +several days, so as to distract and perplex the enemy. On September 12 +Wolfe's plans were complete, and he issued his final orders. One +sentence in them curiously anticipates Nelson's famous signal at +Trafalgar. "Officers and men," wrote Wolfe, "_will remember what their +country expects of them_." A feint on Beauport, five miles to the east +of Quebec, as evening fell, made Montcalm mass his troops there; but it +was at a point five miles west of Quebec the real attack was directed. + +At two o'clock at night two lanterns appeared for a minute in the maintop +shrouds of the _Sunderland_. It was the signal, and from the fleet, from +the Isle of Orleans, and from Point Levi, the English boats stole +silently out, freighted with some 1700 troops, and converged towards the +point in the black wall of cliffs agreed upon. Wolfe himself was in the +leading boat of the flotilla. As the boats drifted silently through the +darkness on that desperate adventure, Wolfe, to the officers about him, +commenced to recite Gray's "Elegy":-- + + "The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, + And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, + Await alike the inevitable hour. + The paths of glory lead but to the grave." + +"Now, gentlemen," he added, "I would rather have written that poem than +take Quebec." Wolfe, in fact, was half poet, half soldier. Suddenly +from the great wall of rock and forest to their left broke the challenge +of a French sentinel--"_Qui vive_?" A Highland officer of Fraser's +regiment, who spoke French fluently, answered the challenge. "_France_." +"_A quel regiment_?" "_De la Reine_," answered the Highlander. As it +happened the French expected a flotilla of provision boats, and after a +little further dialogue, in which the cool Highlander completely deceived +the French sentries, the British were allowed to slip past in the +darkness. The tiny cove was safely reached, the boats stole silently up +without a blunder, twenty-four volunteers from the Light Infantry leaped +from their boat and led the way in single file up the path, that ran like +a thread along the face of the cliff. Wolfe sat eagerly listening in his +boat below. Suddenly from the summit he saw the flash of the muskets and +heard the stern shout which told him his men were up. A clear, firm +order, and the troops sitting silent in the boats leaped ashore, and the +long file of soldiers, like a chain of ants, went up the face of the +cliff, Wolfe amongst the foremost, and formed in order on the plateau, +the boats meanwhile rowing back at speed to bring up the remainder of the +troops. Wolfe was at last within Montcalm's guard! + +When the morning of the 13th dawned, the British army, in line of battle, +stood looking down on Quebec. Montcalm quickly heard the news, and came +riding furiously across the St. Charles and past the city to the scene of +danger. He rode, as those who saw him tell, with a fixed look, and +uttering not a word. The vigilance of months was rendered worthless by +that amazing night escalade. When he reached the slopes Montcalm saw +before him the silent red wall of British infantry, the Highlanders with +waving tartans and wind-blown plumes--all in battle array. It was not a +detachment, but an army! + +The fight lasted fifteen minutes, and might be told in almost as many +words. Montcalm brought on his men in three powerful columns, in number +double that of Wolfe's force. The British troops stood grimly silent, +though they were tormented by the fire of Indians and Canadians lying in +the grass. The French advanced eagerly, with a tumult of shouts and a +confused fire; the British moved forward a few rods, halted, dressed +their lines, and when the French were within forty paces threw in one +fierce volley, so sharply timed that the explosion of 4000 muskets +sounded like the sudden blast of a cannon. Again, again, and yet again, +the flame ran from end to end of the steadfast hue. When the smoke +lifted, the French column were wrecked. The British instantly charged. +The spirit of the clan awoke in Fraser's Highlanders: they flung aside +their muskets, drew their broadswords, and with a fierce Celtic slogan +rushed on the enemy. Never was a charge pressed more ruthlessly home. +After the fight one of the British officers wrote: "There was not a +bayonet in the three leading British regiments, nor a broadsword amongst +the Highlanders, that was not crimson with the blood of a foeman." Wolfe +himself charged at the head of the Grenadiers, his bright uniform making +him conspicuous. He was shot in the wrist, wrapped a handkerchief round +the wound, and still ran forward. Two other bullets struck him--one, it +is said, fired by a British deserter, a sergeant broken by Wolfe for +brutality to a private. "Don't let the soldiers see me drop," said +Wolfe, as he fell, to an officer running beside him. An officer of the +Grenadiers, a gentleman volunteer, and a private carried Wolfe to a +redoubt near. He refused to allow a surgeon to be called. "There is no +need," he said, "it is all over with me." Then one of the little group, +casting a look at the smoke-covered battlefield, cried, "They run! See +how they run!" "Who run?" said the dying Wolfe, like a man roused from +sleep. "The enemy, sir," was the answer. A flash of life came back to +Wolfe; the eager spirit thrust from it the swoon of death; he gave a +clear, emphatic order for cutting off the enemy's retreat; then, turning +on his side, he added, "Now God be praised; I die in peace." + +That fight determined that the North American continent should be the +heritage of the Anglo-Saxon race. And, somehow, the popular instinct, +when the news reached England, realised the historic significance of the +event. "When we first heard of Wolfe's glorious deed," writes Thackeray +in "The Virginians"--"of that army marshalled in darkness and carried +silently up the midnight river--of those rocks scaled by the intrepid +leader and his troops--of the defeat of Montcalm on the open plain by the +sheer valour of his conqueror--we were all intoxicated in England by the +news." Not merely all London but half England flamed into illuminations. +One spot alone was dark--Blackheath, where, solitary amidst a rejoicing +nation, Wolfe's mother mourned for her heroic son--like Milton's +Lycidas--"dead ere his prime." + + + + +THE GREAT LORD HAWKE + + +THE ENGLISH FLAG + + "What is the flag of England? Winds of the world, declare! + * * * * * * * * * + The lean white bear hath seen it in the long, long + Arctic night, + The musk-ox knows the standard that flouts the Northern light. + * * * * * * * * * + Never was isle so little, never was sea so lone, + But over the scud and the palm-trees an English flag + has flown. + I have wrenched it free from the halliard to hang + for a wisp on the Horn; + I have chased it north to the Lizard--ribboned and rolled + and torn; + I have spread its folds o'er the dying, adrift + in a hopeless sea; + I have hurled it swift on the slaver, and seen the slave + set free. + * * * * * * * * * + Never the lotos closes, never the wild-fowl wake, + But a soul goes out on the East Wind, that died + for England's sake-- + Man or woman or suckling, mother or bride or maid-- + Because on the bones of the English, the English flag + is stayed. + * * * * * * * * * + The dead dumb fog hath wrapped it--the frozen dews have kissed-- + The naked stars have seen it, a fellow-star in the mist. + What is the flag of England? Ye have but my breath to dare; + Ye have but my waves to conquer. Go forth, for it is there!" + --KIPLING. + + +"The great Lord Hawke" is Burke's phrase, and is one of the best-earned +epithets in literature. Yet what does the average Englishman to-day +remember of the great sailor who, through the bitter November gales of +1759, kept dogged and tireless watch over the French fleet in Brest, +destroyed that fleet with heroic daring amongst the sands of Quiberon, +while the fury of a Bay of Biscay tempest almost drowned the roar of +his guns, and so crushed a threatened invasion of England? + +Hawke has been thrown by all-devouring Time into his wallet as mere +"alms for oblivion"; yet amongst all the sea-dogs who ever sailed +beneath "the blood-red flag" no one ever less deserved that fate. +Campbell, in "Ye Mariners of England," groups "Blake and mighty Nelson" +together as the two great typical English sailors. Hawke stands midway +betwixt them, in point both of time and of achievements, though he had +more in him of Blake than of Nelson. He lacked, no doubt, the dazzling +electric strain that ran through the war-like genius of Nelson. +Hawke's fighting quality was of the grim, dour home-spun character; but +it was a true genius for battle, and as long as Great Britain is a +sea-power the memory of the great sailor who crushed Gentians off +Quiberon deserves to live. + +Hawke, too, was a great man in the age of little men. The fame of the +English navy had sunk to the lowest point. Its ships were rotten; its +captains had lost the fighting tradition; its fleets were paralysed by +a childish system of tactics which made a decisive battle almost +impossible. Hawke describes the _Portland_, a ship of which he was in +command, as "iron-sick"; the wood was too rotten, that is, to hold the +iron bolts, so that "not a man in the ship had a dry place to sleep +in." His men were "tumbling down with scurvy"; his mainmast was so +pulverised by dry rot that a walking-stick could be thrust into it. Of +another ship, the _Ramilies_--his favourite ship, too--he says, "It +became water-logged whenever it blowed hard." The ships' bottoms grew +a rank crop of grass, slime, shells, barnacles, &c., till the sluggish +vessels needed almost a gale to move them. Marines were not yet +invented; the navy had no uniform. The French ships of that day were +better built, better armed, and sometimes better fought than British +ships. A British 70-gun ship in armament and weight of fire was only +equal to a French ship of 52 guns. Every considerable fight was +promptly followed by a crop of court-martials, in which captains were +tried for misconduct before the enemy, such as to-day is unthinkable. +Admiral Matthews was broken by court-martial for having, with an excess +of daring, pierced the French line off Toulon, and thus sacrificed +pedantic tactics to victory. But the list of court-martials held +during the second quarter of the eighteenth century on British captains +for beginning to fight too late, or for leaving off too soon, would, if +published, astonish this generation. After the fight off Toulon in +1744, two admirals and six post-captains were court-martialled. +Admiral Byng was shot on his own deck, not exactly as Voltaire's _mot_ +describes it, _pour encourager les autres_, and not quite for +cowardice, for Byng was no coward. But he had no gleam of unselfish +patriotic fire, and nothing of the gallant fighting impulse we have +learned to believe is characteristic of the British sailor. He lost +Minorca, and disgraced the British flag because he was too dainty to +face the stern discomforts of a fight. The corrupt and ignoble temper +of English politics--the legacy of Walpole's evil regime--poisoned the +blood of the navy. No one can have forgotten Macaulay's picture of +Newcastle, at that moment Prime Minister of England; the sly, greedy, +fawning politician, as corrupt as Walpole, without his genius; without +honour, without truth, who loved office only less than he loved his own +neck. A Prime Minister like Newcastle made possible an admiral like +Byng. Horace Walpole tells the story of how, when the much-enduring +British public broke into one of its rare but terrible fits of passion +after the disgrace of Minorca, and Newcastle was trembling for his own +head, a deputation from the city of London waited upon him, demanding +that Byng should be put upon his trial. "Oh, indeed," replied +Newcastle, with fawning gestures, "he shall be tried immediately. He +shall be hanged directly!" It was an age of base men, and the +navy--neglected, starved, dishonoured--had lost the great traditions of +the past, and did not yet feel the thrill of the nobler spirit soon to +sweep over it. + +But in 1759 the dazzling intellect and masterful will of the first Pitt +controlled the fortunes of England, and the spirit of the nation was +beginning to awake. Burns and Wilberforce and the younger Pitt were +born that year; Minden was fought; Wolfe saw with dying eyes the French +battalions broken on the plains of Abraham and Canada won. But the +great event of the year is Hawke's defeat of Conflans off Quiberon. +Hawke was the son of a barrister; he entered the navy at fourteen years +of age as a volunteer, obtained the rating of an able seaman at +nineteen years of age, was a third lieutenant at twenty-four, and +became captain at thirty. He knew the details of his profession as +well as any sea-dog of the forecastle, was quite modern in the keen and +humane interest he took in his men, had something of Wellington's +high-minded allegiance to duty, while his fighting had a stern but +sober thoroughness worthy of Cromwell's Ironsides. The British people +came to realise that he was a sailor with the strain of a bulldog in +him; an indomitable fighter, who, ordered to blockade a hostile port, +would hang on, in spite of storms and scurvy, while he had a man left +who could pull a rope or fire a gun; a fighter, too, of the type dear +to the British imagination, who took the shortest course to the enemy's +line, and would exchange broadsides at pistol-shot distance while his +ship floated. + +In 1759 a great French army threatened the shores of England. At Havre +and Dunkirk huge flotillas of flat-bottomed boats lay at their +moorings; 18,000 French veterans were ready to embark. A great fleet +under the command of Conflans--one of the ablest seamen France has ever +produced--was gathered at Brest. A French squadron was to break out of +Toulon, join Conflans, sweep the narrow seas, and convoy the French +expedition to English shores. The strategy, if it had succeeded, might +have changed the fate of the world. + +To Hawke was entrusted the task of blockading Conflans in Brest, and a +greater feat of seamanship is not to be found in British records. The +French fleet consisted of 25 ships, manned by 15,200 men, and carrying +1598 guns. The British fleet numbered 23 ships, with 13,295 men, and +carrying 1596 guns. The two fleets, that is, were nearly equal, the +advantage, on the whole, being on the side of the French. Hawke +therefore had to blockade a fleet equal to his own, the French ships +lying snugly in harbour, the English ships scourged by November gales +and rolling in the huge seas of the Bay of Biscay. Sir Cloudesley +Shovel, himself a seaman of the highest quality, said that "an admiral +would deserve to be broke who kept great ships out after the end of +September, and to be shot if after October." Hawke maintained his +blockade of Brest for six months. His captains broke down in health, +his men were dying from scurvy, the bottoms of his ships grew foul; it +was a stormy season in the stormiest of seas. Again and again the wild +north-west gales blew the British admiral off his cruising ground. But +he fought his way back, sent his ships, singly or in couples, to Torbay +or Plymouth for a moment's breathing space, but himself held on, with a +grim courage and an unslumbering vigilance which have never been +surpassed. On November 6, a tremendous westerly gale swept over the +English cruising-ground. Hawke battled with it for three days, and +then ran, storm-driven and half-dismantled, to Torbay for shelter on +the 10th. He put to sea again on the 12th. The gale had veered round +to the south-west, but blew as furiously as ever, and Hawke was once +more driven back on the 13th to Torbay. He struggled out again on the +14th, to find that the French had escaped! The gale that blew Hawke +from his post brought a French squadron down the Channel, which ran +into Brest and joined Conflans there; and on the 14th, when Hawke was +desperately fighting his way back to his post, Conflans put to sea, +and, with the gale behind him, ran on his course to Quiberon. There he +hoped to brush aside the squadron keeping guard over the French +transports, embark the powerful French force assembled there, and swoop +down on the English coast. The wild weather, Conflans reckoned, would +keep Hawke storm-bound in Torbay till this scheme was carried out. + +But Hawke with his whole fleet, fighting his way in the teeth of the +gale, reached Ushant on the very day Conflans broke out of Brest, and, +fast as the French fleet ran before the gale, the white sails of +Hawke's ships, showing over the stormy rim of the horizon, came on the +Frenchman's track. Hawke's frigates, outrunning those heavy +sea-waggons, his line-of-battle ships, hung on Conflans' rear. The +main body of the British fleet followed, staggering under their +pyramids of sails, with wet decks and the wild north-west gale on their +quarter. Hawke's best sailers gained steadily on the laggards of +Conflans' fleet. Had Hawke obeyed the puerile tactics of his day he +would have dressed his line and refused to attack at all unless he +could bring his entire fleet into action. But, as Hawke himself said +afterwards, he "had determined to attack them in the old way and make +downright work of them," and he signalled his leading ships to attack +the moment they brought an enemy's ship within fire. Conflans could +not abandon his slower ships, and he reluctantly swung round his van +and formed line to meet the attack. + +As the main body of the English came up, the French admiral suddenly +adopted a strategy which might well have baffled a less daring +adversary than Hawke. He ran boldly in shore towards the mouth of the +Vilaine. It was a wild stretch of most dangerous coast; the granite +Breton hills above; splinters of rocky islets, on which the huge sea +rollers tore themselves into white foam, below; and more dangerous +still, and stretching far out to sea, wide reaches of shoal and +quicksand. From the north-west the gale blew more wildly than ever; +the sky was black with flying clouds; on the Breton hills the +spectators clustered in thousands. The roar of the furious breakers +and the shrill note of the gale filled the very air with tumult. +Conflans had pilots familiar with the coast, yet it was bold seamanship +on his part to run down to a lee shore on such a day of tempest. Hawke +had no pilots and no charts; but he saw before him, half hidden in mist +and spray, the great hulls of the ships over which he had kept watch so +long in Brest harbour, and he anticipated Nelson's strategy forty years +afterwards. "Where there is room for the enemy to swing," said Nelson, +"there is room for me to anchor." "Where there's a passage for the +enemy," argued Hawke, "there is a passage for me! Where a Frenchman +can sail, an Englishman can follow! Their pilots shall be ours. If +they go to pieces in the shoals, they will serve as beacons for us." + +And so, on the wild November afternoon, with the great billows that the +Bay of Biscay hurls on that stretch of iron-bound coast riding +shoreward in league-long rollers, Hawke flung himself into the boiling +caldron of rocks and shoals and quicksands. No more daring deed was +ever done at sea. Measured by mere fighting courage, there were +thousands of men in the British fleet as brave as Hawke. But the iron +nerve that, without an instant's pause, in a scene so wild, on a shore +so perilous, and a sea sown so thick with unknown dangers, flung a +whole fleet into battle, was probably possessed by no other man than +Hawke amongst the 30,000 gallant sailors who fought at Quiberon. + +The fight, taking all its incidents into account, is perhaps as +dramatic as anything known in the history of war. The British ships +came rolling on, grim and silent, throwing huge sheets of spray from +their bluff bows. An 80-gun French ship, _Le Formidable_, lay in their +track, and each huge British liner, as it swept past to attack the main +body of the French, vomited on the unfortunate _Le Formidable_ a +dreadful broadside. And upon each British ship, in turn, as it rolled +past in spray and flame, the gallant Frenchman flung an answering +broadside. Soon the thunder of the guns deepened as ship after ship +found its antagonist. The short November day was already darkening; +the thunder of surf and of tempest answered in yet wilder notes the +deep-throated guns; the wildly rolling fleets offered one of the +strangest sights the sea has ever witnessed. + +Soon Hawke himself, in the _Royal George_, of 100 guns, came on, stern +and majestic, seeking some fitting antagonist. This was the great ship +that afterwards sank ignobly at its anchorage at Spithead, with "twice +four hundred men," a tale which, for every English boy, is made famous +in Cowper's immortal ballad. But what an image of terror and of battle +the _Royal George_ seemed as in the bitter November storm she bore down +on the French fleet! Hawke disdained meaner foes, and bade his pilot +lay him alongside Conflans' flagship, _Le Soleil Royal_. Shoals were +foaming on every side, and the pilot warned Hawke he could not carry +the _Royal George_ farther in without risking the ship. "You have done +your duty," said Hawke, "in pointing out the risk; and now lay me +alongside of _Le Soleil Royal_." + +A French 70-gun ship, _La Superbe_, threw itself betwixt Hawke and +Conflans. Slowly the huge mass of the _Royal George_ bore up, so as to +bring its broadside to bear on _La Superbe_, and then the English guns +broke into a tempest of flame. Through spray and mist the masts of the +unfortunate Frenchman seemed to tumble; a tempest of cries was heard; +the British sailors ran back their guns to reload. A sudden gust +cleared the atmosphere, and _La Superbe_ had vanished. Her top-masts +gleamed wet, for a moment, through the green seas, but with her crew of +650 men she had sunk, as though crushed by a thunderbolt, beneath a +single broadside from the _Royal George_. Then from the nearer hills +the crowds of French spectators saw Hawke's blue flag and Conflans' +white pennon approach each other, and the two great ships, with +slanting decks and fluttering canvas, and rigging blown to leeward, +began their fierce duel. Other French ships crowded to their admiral's +aid, and at one time no less than seven French line-of-battle ships +were pouring their fire into the mighty and shot-torn bulk of the +_Royal George_. + +Howe, in the _Magnanime_, was engaged in fierce conflict, meanwhile, +with the _Thesee_, when a sister English ship, the _Montague_, was +flung by a huge sea on the quarter of Howe's ship, and practically +disabled it. The _Torbay_, under Captain Keppel, took Howe's place +with the _Thesee_, and both ships had their lower-deck ports open, so +as to fight with their heaviest guns. The unfortunate Frenchman rolled +to a great sea; the wide-open ports dipped, the green water rushed +through, quenched the fire of the guns, and swept the sailors from +their quarters. The great ship shivered, rolled over still more +wildly, and then, with 700 men, went down like a stone. The British +ship, with better luck and better seamanship, got its ports closed and +was saved. Several French ships by this time had struck, but the sea +was too wild to allow them to be taken possession of. Night was +falling fast, the roar of the tempest still deepened, and no less than +seven huge French liners, throwing their guns overboard, ran for +shelter across the bar of the Vilaine, the pursuing English following +them almost within reach of the spray flung from the rocks. Hawke +then, by signals, brought his fleet to anchor for the night under the +lee of the island of Dumet. + +It was a wild night, filled with the thunder of the surf and the shriek +of the gale, and all through it, as the English ships rode, madly +straining at their anchors, they could hear the sounds of distress +guns. One of the ships that perished that night was a fine English +seventy-four, the _Resolution_. The morning broke as wild as the +night. To leeward two great line-of-battle ships could be seen on the +rocks; but in the very middle of the English fleet, its masts gone, its +hull battered with shot, was the flagship of Conflans, _Le Soleil +Royal_. In the darkness and tempest of the night the unfortunate +Frenchman, all unwitting, had anchored in the very midst of his foes. +As soon as, through the grey and misty light of the November dawn, the +English ships were discovered, Conflans cut his cables and drifted +ashore. The _Essex_, 64 guns, was ordered to pursue her, and her +captain, an impetuous Irishman, obeyed his orders so literally that he +too ran ashore, and the _Essex_ became a total wreck. + +"When I consider," Hawke wrote to the Admiralty, "the season of the +year, the hard gales on the day of action, a flying enemy, the +shortness of the day, and the coast they were on, I can boldly affirm +that all that could possibly be done has been done." History confirms +that judgment. There is no other record of a great sea-fight fought +under conditions so wild, and scarcely any other sea-battle has +achieved results more decisive. Trafalgar itself scarcely exceeds it +in the quality of effectiveness. Quiberon saved England from invasion. +It destroyed for the moment the naval power of France. Its political +results in France cannot be described here, but they were of the first +importance. The victory gave a new complexion to English naval +warfare. Rodney and Howe were Hawke's pupils, Nelson himself, who was +a post-captain when Hawke died, learned his tactics in Hawke's school. +No sailor ever served England better than Hawke. And yet, such is the +irony of human affairs, that on the very day when Hawke was adding the +thunder of his guns to the diapason of surf and tempest off Quiberon, +and crushing the fleet that threatened England with invasion, a London +mob was burning his effigy for having allowed the French to escape his +blockade. + + + + +THE NIGHT ATTACK ON BADAJOS + + + "Hand to hand, and foot to foot; + Nothing there, save death, was mute: + Stroke, and thrust, and flash, and cry + For quarter or for victory, + Mingle there with the volleying thunder, + Which makes the distant cities wonder + How the sounding battle goes, + If with them, or for their foes; + If they must mourn, or must rejoice + In that annihilating voice, + Which pierces the deep hills through and through + With an echo dread and new. + * * * * * * * + From the point of encountering blades to the hilt, + Sabres and swords with blood were gilt; + But the rampart is won, and the spoil begun, + And all but the after carnage done." + --BYRON. + + +It would be difficult to find in the whole history of war a more +thrilling and heroic chapter than that which tells the story of the six +great campaigns of the Peninsular war. This was, perhaps, the least +selfish war of which history tells. It was not a war of aggrandisement +or of conquest: it was waged to deliver not merely Spain, but the whole +of Europe, from that military despotism with which the genius and +ambition of Napoleon threatened to overwhelm the civilised world. And +on what a scale Great Britain, when aroused, can fight, let the +Peninsular war tell. At its close the fleets of Great Britain rode +triumphant on every sea; and in the Peninsula between 1808-14 her land +forces fought and won nineteen pitched battles, made or sustained ten +fierce and bloody sieges, took four great fortresses, twice expelled +the French from Portugal and once from Spain. Great Britain expended +in these campaigns more than 100,000,000 pounds sterling on her own +troops, besides subsidising the forces of Spain and Portugal. This +"nation of shopkeepers" proved that when kindled to action it could +wage war on a scale and in a fashion that might have moved the wonder +of Alexander or of Caesar, and from motives, it may be added, too lofty +for either Caesar or Alexander so much as to comprehend. It is worth +while to tell afresh the story of some of the more picturesque +incidents in that great strife. + +[Illustration: Siege of Badajos, 1812. From Napier's "Peninsular War."] + +On April 6, 1812, Badajos was stormed by Wellington; and the story +forms one of the most tragical and splendid incidents in the military +history of the world. Of "the night of horrors at Badajos," Napier +says, "posterity can scarcely be expected to credit the tale." No +tale, however, is better authenticated, or, as an example of what +disciplined human valour is capable of achieving, better deserves to be +told. Wellington was preparing for his great forward movement into +Spain, the campaign which led to Salamanca, the battle in which "40,000 +Frenchmen were beaten in forty minutes." As a preliminary he had to +capture, under the vigilant eyes of Soult and Marmont, the two great +border fortresses, Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajos. He had, to use Napier's +phrase, "jumped with both feet" on the first-named fortress, and +captured it in twelve days with a loss of 1200 men and 90 officers. + +But Badajos was a still harder task. The city stands on a rocky ridge +which forms the last spur of the Toledo range, and is of extraordinary +strength. The river Rivillas falls almost at right angles into the +Guadiana, and in the angle formed by their junction stands Badajos, +oval in shape, girdled with elaborate defences, with the Guadiana 500 +yards wide as its defence to the north, the Rivillas serving as a wet +ditch to the east, and no less than five great fortified +outposts--Saint Roque, Christoval, Picurina, Pardaleras, and a +fortified bridge-head across the Guadiana--as the outer zone of its +defences. Twice the English had already assailed Badajos, but assailed +it in vain. It was now held by a garrison 5000 strong, under a +soldier, General Phillipson, with a real genius for defence, and the +utmost art had been employed in adding to its defences. On the other +hand Wellington had no means of transport and no battery train, and had +to make all his preparations under the keen-eyed vigilance of the +French. Perhaps the strangest collection of artillery ever employed in +a great siege was that which Wellington collected from every available +quarter and used at Badajos. Of the fifty-two pieces, some dated from +the days of Philip II. and the Spanish Armada, some were cast in the +reign of Philip III., others in that of John IV. of Portugal, who +reigned in 1640; there were 24-pounders of George II.'s day, and +Russian naval guns; the bulk of the extraordinary medley being obsolete +brass engines which required from seven to ten minutes to cool between +each discharge. + +Wellington, however, was strong in his own warlike genius and in the +quality of the troops he commanded. He employed 18,000 men in the +siege, and it may well be doubted whether--if we put the question of +equipment aside--a more perfect fighting instrument than the force +under his orders ever existed. The men were veterans, but the officers +on the whole were young, so there was steadiness in the ranks and fire +in the leading. Hill and Graham covered the siege, Picton and Barnard, +Kempt and Colville led the assaults. The trenches were held by the +third, fourth, and fifth divisions, and by the famous light division. +Of the latter it has been said that the Macedonian phalanx of Alexander +the Great, the Tenth Legion of Caesar, the famous Spanish infantry of +Alva, or the iron soldiers who followed Cortes to Mexico, did not +exceed it in warlike quality. Wellington's troops, too, had a personal +grudge against Badajos, and had two defeats to avenge. Perhaps no +siege in history, as a matter of fact, ever witnessed either more +furious valour in the assault, or more of cool and skilled courage in +the defence. The siege lasted exactly twenty days, and cost the +besiegers 5000 men, or an average loss of 250 per day. It was waged +throughout in stormy weather, with the rivers steadily rising, and the +tempests perpetually blowing; yet the thunder of the attack never +paused for an instant. + +Wellington's engineers attacked the city at the eastern end of the +oval, where the Rivillas served it as a gigantic wet ditch; and the +Picurina, a fortified hill, ringed by a ditch fourteen feet deep, a +rampart sixteen feet high, and a zone of mines, acted as an outwork. +Wellington, curiously enough, believed in night attacks, a sure proof +of his faith in the quality of the men he commanded; and on the eighth +night of the siege, at nine o'clock, 500 men of the third division were +suddenly flung on the Picurina. The fort broke into a ring of flame, +by the light of which the dark figures of the stormers were seen +leaping with fierce hardihood into the ditch and struggling madly up +the ramparts, or tearing furiously at the palisades. But the defences +were strong, and the assailants fell literally in scores. Napier tells +how "the axemen of the light division, compassing the fort like +prowling wolves," discovered the gate at the rear, and so broke into +the fort. The engineer officer who led the attack declares that "the +place would never have been taken had it not been for the coolness of +these men" in absolutely walking round the fort to its rear, +discovering the gate, and hewing it down under a tempest of bullets. +The assault lasted an hour, and in that period, out of the 500 men who +attacked, no less than 300, with 19 officers, were killed or wounded! +Three men out of every five in the attacking force, that is, were +disabled, and yet they won! + +There followed twelve days of furious industry, of trenches pushed +tirelessly forward through mud and wet, and of cannonading that only +ceased when the guns grew too hot to be used. Captain MacCarthy, of +the 50th Regiment, has left a curious little monograph on the siege, +full of incidents, half tragic and half amusing, but which show the +temper of Wellington's troops. Thus he tells how an engineer officer, +when marking out the ground for a breaching-battery very near the wall, +which was always lined with French soldiers in eager search of human +targets, "used to challenge them to prove the perfection of their +shooting by lifting up the skirts of his coat in defiance several times +in the course of his survey; driving in his stakes and measuring his +distances with great deliberation, and concluding by an extra shake of +his coat-tails and an ironical bow before he stepped under shelter!" + +On the night of April 6, Wellington determined to assault. No less +than seven attacks were to be delivered. Two of them--on the +bridge-head across the Guadiana and on the Pardaleras--were mere +feints. But on the extreme right Picton with the third division was to +cross the Rivillas and escalade the castle, whose walls rose +time-stained and grim, from eighteen to twenty-four feet high. Leith +with the fifth division was to attack the opposite or western extremity +of the town, the bastion of St. Vincente, where the glacis was mined, +the ditch deep, and the scarp thirty feet high. Against the actual +breaches Colville and Andrew Barnard were to lead the light division +and the fourth division, the former attacking the bastion of Santa +Maria and the latter the Trinidad. The hour was fixed for ten o'clock, +and the story of that night attack, as told in Napier's immortal prose, +is one of the great battle-pictures of literature; and any one who +tries to tell the tale will find himself slipping insensibly into +Napier's cadences. + +The night was black; a strange silence lay on rampart and trench, +broken from time to time by the deep voices of the sentinels that +proclaimed all was well in Badajos. "_Sentinelle garde a vous_," the +cry of the sentinels, was translated by the British private as "All's +well in Badahoo!" A lighted carcass thrown from the castle discovered +Picton's men standing in ordered array, and compelled them to attack at +once. MacCarthy, who acted as guide across the tangle of wet trenches +and the narrow bridge that spanned the Rivillas, has left an amusing +account of the scene. At one time Picton declared MacCarthy was +leading them wrong, and, drawing his sword, swore he would cut him +down. The column reached the trench, however, at the foot of the +castle walls, and was instantly overwhelmed with the fire of the +besieged. MacCarthy says we can only picture the scene by "supposing +that all the stars, planets, and meteors of the firmament, with +innumerable moons emitting smaller ones in their course, were +descending on the heads of the besiegers." MacCarthy himself, a +typical and gallant Irishman, addressed his general with the exultant +remark, "Tis a glorious night, sir--a glorious night!" and, rushing +forward to the head of the stormers, shouted, "Up with the ladders!" +The five ladders were raised, the troops swarmed up, an officer +leading, but the first files were at once crushed by cannon fire, and +the ladders slipped into the angle of the abutments. "Dreadful their +fall," records MacCarthy of the slaughtered stormers, "and appalling +their appearance at daylight." One ladder remained, and, a private +soldier leading, the eager red-coated crowd swarmed up it. The brave +fellow leading was shot as soon as his head appeared above the parapet; +but the next man to him--again a private--leaped over the parapet, and +was followed quickly by others, and this thin stream of desperate men +climbed singly, and in the teeth of the flashing musketry, up that +solitary ladder, and carried the castle. + +In the meanwhile the fourth and light divisions had flung themselves +with cool and silent speed on the breaches. The storming party of each +division leaped into the ditch. It was mined, the fuse was kindled, +and the ditch, crowded with eager soldiery, became in a moment a sort +of flaming crater, and the storming parties, 500 strong, were in one +fierce explosion dashed to pieces. In the light of that dreadful flame +the whole scene became visible--the black ramparts, crowded with dark +figures and glittering arms, on the one side; on the other the red +columns of the British, broad and deep, moving steadily forward like a +stream of human lava. The light division stood at the brink of the +smoking ditch for an instant, amazed at the sight. "Then," says +Napier, "with a shout that matched even the sound of the explosion," +they leaped into it and swarmed up to the breach. The fourth division +came running up and descended with equal fury, but the ditch opposite +the Trinidad was filled with water; the head of the division leaped +into it, and, as Napier puts it, "about 100 of the fusiliers, the men +of Albuera, perished there." The breaches were impassable. Across the +top of the great slope of broken wall glittered a fringe of +sword-blades, sharp-pointed, keen-edged on both sides, fixed in +ponderous beams chained together and set deep in the ruins. For ten +feet in front the ascent was covered with loose planks, studded with +sharp iron points. Behind the glittering edge of sword-blades stood +the solid ranks of the French, each man supplied with three muskets, +and their fire scourged the British ranks like a tempest. + +Hundreds had fallen, hundreds were still falling; but the British clung +doggedly to the lower slopes, and every few minutes an officer would +leap forward with a shout, a swarm of men would instantly follow him, +and, like leaves blown by a whirlwind, they swept up the ascent. But +under the incessant fire of the French the assailants melted away. One +private reached the sword-blades, and actually thrust his head beneath +them till his brains were beaten out, so desperate was his resolve to +get into Badajos. The breach, as Napier describes it, "yawning and +glittering with steel, resembled the mouth of a huge dragon belching +forth smoke and flame." But for two hours, and until 2000 men had +fallen, the stubborn British persisted in their attacks. Currie, of +the 52nd, a cool and most daring soldier, found a narrow ramp beyond +the Santa Maria breach only half-ruined; he forced his way back through +the tumult and carnage to where Wellington stood watching the scene, +obtained an unbroken battalion from the reserve, and led it towards the +broken ramp. But his men were caught in the whirling madness of the +ditch and swallowed up in the tumult. Nicholas, of the engineers, and +Shaw, of the 43rd, with some fifty soldiers, actually climbed into the +Santa Maria bastion, and from thence tried to force their way into the +breach. Every man was shot down except Shaw, who stood alone on the +bastion. "With inexpressible coolness he looked at his watch, said it +was too late to carry the breaches," and then leaped down! The British +could not penetrate the breach; but they would not retreat. They could +only die where they stood. The buglers of the reserve were sent to the +crest of the glacis to sound the retreat; the troops in the ditch would +not believe the signal to be genuine, and struck their own buglers who +attempted to repeat it. "Gathering in dark groups, and leaning on +their muskets," says Napier, "they looked up in sullen desperation at +Trinidad, while the enemy, stepping out on the ramparts, and aiming +their shots by the light of fireballs, which they threw over, asked as +their victims fell, 'Why they did not come into Badajos.'" + +All this while, curiously enough, Picton was actually in Badajos, and +held the castle securely, but made no attempt to clear the breach. On +the extreme west of the town, however, at the bastion of San Vincente, +the fifth division made an attack as desperate as that which was +failing at the breaches. When the stormers actually reached the +bastion, the Portuguese battalions, who formed part of the attack, +dismayed by the tremendous fire which broke out on them, flung down +their ladders and fled. The British, however, snatched the ladders up, +forced the barrier, jumped into the ditch, and tried to climb the +walls. These were thirty feet high, and the ladders were too short. A +mine was sprung in the ditch under the soldiers' feet; beams of wood, +stones, broken waggons, and live shells were poured upon their heads +from above. Showers of grape from the flank swept the ditch. + +The stubborn soldiers, however, discovered a low spot in the rampart, +placed three ladders against it, and climbed with reckless valour. The +first man was pushed up by his comrades; he, in turn, dragged others +up, and the unconquerable British at length broke through and swept the +bastion. The tumult still stormed and raged at the eastern breaches, +where the men of the light and fourth division were dying sullenly, and +the men of the fifth division marched at speed across the town to take +the great eastern breach in the rear. The streets were empty, but the +silent houses were bright with lamps. The men of the fifth pressed on; +they captured mules carrying ammunition to the breaches, and the +French, startled by the tramp of the fast-approaching column, and +finding themselves taken in the rear, fled. The light and fourth +divisions broke through the gap hitherto barred by flame and steel, and +Badajos was won! + +In that dreadful night assault the English lost 3500 men. "Let it be +considered," says Napier, "that this frightful carnage took place in +the space of less than a hundred yards square--that the slain died not +all suddenly, nor by one manner of death--that some perished by steel, +some by shot, some by water; that some were crushed and mangled by +heavy weights, some trampled upon, some dashed to atoms by the fiery +explosions--that for hours this destruction was endured without +shrinking, and the town was won at last. Let these things be +considered, and it must be admitted a British army bears with it an +awful power. And false would it be to say the French were feeble men. +The garrison stood and fought manfully and with good discipline, +behaving worthily. Shame there was none on any side. Yet who shall do +justice to the bravery of the British soldiers or the noble emulation +of the officers? . . . No age, no nation, ever sent forth braver +troops to battle than those who stormed Badajos." + + + + +THE FIRE-SHIPS IN THE BASQUE ROADS + + + "Ship after ship, the whole night long, + their high-built galleons came; + Ship after ship, the whole night long, + with her battle-thunder and flame; + Ship after ship, the whole night long, + drew back with her dead and her shame. + For some were sunk and many were shattered, + and so could fight us no more-- + God of battles, was ever a battle like this + in the world before?" + --TENNYSON. + + +On the night of April 11, 1809, Lord Cochrane steered his floating mine +against the gigantic boom that covered the French fleet lying in Aix +Roads. The story is one of the most picturesque and exciting in the +naval annals of Great Britain. Marryat has embalmed the great +adventure and its chief actor in the pages of "Frank Mildmay," and Lord +Cochrane himself--like the Earl of Peterborough in the seventeenth +century, who captured Barcelona with a handful of men, and Gordon in +the nineteenth century, who won great battles in China walking-stick in +hand--was a man who stamped himself, as with characters of fire, upon +the popular imagination. + +To the courage of a knight-errant Cochrane added the shrewd and +humorous sagacity of a Scotchman. If he had commanded fleets he would +have rivalled the victories of Nelson, and perhaps even have outshone +the Nile and Trafalgar. And to warlike genius of the first order +Cochrane added a certain weird and impish ingenuity which his enemies +found simply resistless. Was there ever a cruise in naval history like +that of Cochrane in his brig misnamed the _Speedy_, a mere coasting tub +that would neither steer nor tack, and whose entire broadside Cochrane +himself could carry in his pockets! But in this wretched little brig, +with its four-pounders, Cochrane captured in one brief year more than +50 vessels carrying an aggregate of 122 guns, took 500 prisoners, kept +the whole Spanish coast, off which he cruised, in perpetual alarm, and +finished by attacking and capturing a Spanish frigate, the _Gamo_, of +32 heavy guns and 319 men. What we have called the impish daring and +resource of Cochrane is shown in this strange fight. He ran the little +_Speedy_ close under the guns of the huge _Gamo_, and the Spanish ship +was actually unable to depress its guns sufficiently to harm its tiny +antagonist. When the Spaniards tried to board, Cochrane simply shoved +his pigmy craft a few yards away from the side of his foe, and this +curious fight went on for an hour. Then, in his turn, Cochrane +boarded, leaving nobody but the doctor on board the Speedy. But he +played the Spaniards a characteristic trick. One half his men boarded +the Gamo by the head, with their faces elaborately blackened; and when, +out of the white smoke forward, some forty demons with black faces +broke upon the astonished Spaniards, they naturally regarded the whole +business as partaking of the black art, and incontinently fled below! +The number of Spaniards killed and wounded in this fight by the little +_Speedy_ exceeded the number of its own entire crew; and when the fight +was over, 45 British sailors had to keep guard over 263 Spanish +prisoners. + +Afterwards, in command of the _Imperieuse_, a fine frigate, Cochrane +played a still more dashing part on the Spanish coast, destroying +batteries, cutting off supplies from the French ports, blowing up coast +roads, and keeping perspiring battalions of the enemy marching to and +fro to meet his descents. On the French coast, again, Cochrane held +large bodies of French troops paralysed by his single frigate. He +proposed to the English Government to take possession of the French +islands in the Bay of Biscay, and to allow him, with a small squadron +of frigates, to operate against the French seaboard. Had this request +been granted, he says, "neither the Peninsular war nor its enormous +cost to the nation from 1809 onwards would ever have been heard of!" +"It would have been easy," he adds, "as it always will be easy in case +of future wars, so to harass the French coasts as to find full +employment for their troops at home, and so to render operations in +foreign countries impossible." If England and France were once more +engaged in war--_absit omen_!--the story of Cochrane's exploits on the +Spanish and French coasts might prove a very valuable inspiration and +object-lesson. Cochrane's professional reward for his great services +in the _Imperieuse_ was an official rebuke for expending more sails, +stores, gunpowder and shot than any other captain afloat in the same +time! + +The fight in the Basque Roads, however--or rather in the Aix Roads--has +great historical importance. It crowned the work of Trafalgar. It +finally destroyed French power on the sea, and gave England an absolute +supremacy. No fleet actions took place after its date between "the +meteor flag" and the tricolour, for the simple reason that no French +fleet remained in existence. Cochrane's fire-ships completed the work +of the Nile and Trafalgar. + +Early in 1809 the French fleet in Brest, long blockaded by Lord +Gambier, caught the British napping, slipped out unobserved, raised the +blockades at L'Orient and Rochefort, added the squadrons lying in these +two places to its own strength, and, anchoring in the Aix Roads, +prepared for a dash on the West Indies. The success with which the +blockade at Brest had been evaded, and the menace offered to the West +Indian trade, alarmed the British Admiralty. Lord Gambier, with a +powerful fleet, kept guard outside the Aix Roads; but if the blockade +failed once, it might fail again. Eager to destroy the last fleet +France possessed, the Admiralty strongly urged Lord Gambier to attack +the enemy with fire-ships; but Gambier, grown old, had visibly lost +nerve, and he pronounced the use of fire-ships a "horrible and +unchristian mode of warfare." Lord Mulgrave, the first Lord of the +Admiralty, knowing Cochrane's ingenuity and daring, sent for him, and +proposed to send him to the Basque Roads to invent and execute some +plan for destroying the French fleet. The Scotchman was uppermost in +Cochrane in this interview, and he declined the adventure on the ground +that to send a young post-captain to execute such an enterprise would +be regarded as an insult by the whole fleet, and he would have every +man's hand against him. Lord Mulgrave, however, was peremptory, and +Cochrane yielded, but on reaching the blockading fleet was met by a +tempest of wrath from all his seniors. "Why," they asked, "was +Cochrane sent out? We could have done the business as well as he. Why +did not Lord Gambier let us do it?" Lord Gambier, who had fallen into +a sort of gentle and pious melancholy, was really more occupied in +distributing tracts among his crews than in trying to reach his +enemies; and Harvey, his second in command, an old Trafalgar sea-dog, +when Cochrane arrived with his commission, interviewed his admiral, +denounced him in a white-heat on his own quarter-deck, and ended by +telling him that "if Nelson had been there he would not have anchored +in the Basque Roads at all, but would have dashed at the enemy at +once." This outburst, no doubt, relieved Admiral Harvey's feelings, +but it cost him his flag, and he was court-martialled, and dismissed +from the service for the performance. + +Cochrane, however, set himself with characteristic daring and coolness +to carry out his task. The French fleet consisted of one huge ship of +120 guns, two of 80 guns, eight seventy-fours, a 50-gun ship, and two +40-gun frigates--fourteen ships in all. It was drawn up in two lines +under the shelter of powerful shore batteries, with the frigates as +out-guards. As a protection against fire-ships, a gigantic boom had +been constructed half a mile in length, forming two sides of a +triangle, with the apex towards the British fleet. Over this huge +floating barrier powerful boat squadrons kept watch every night. +Cochrane's plan of attack was marked by real genius. He constructed +three explosion vessels, floating mines on the largest scale. Each of +these terrific vessels contained no less than _fifteen hundred_ barrels +of gunpowder, bound together with cables, with wedges and moistened +sand rammed down betwixt them; forming, in brief, one gigantic bomb, +with 1500 barrels of gunpowder for its charge. On the top of this huge +powder magazine was piled, as a sort of agreeable condiment, hundreds +of live shells and thousands of hand grenades; the whole, by every form +of marine ingenuity, compacted into a solid mass which, at the touch of +a fuse, could be turned into a sort of floating Vesuvius. These were +to be followed by a squadron of fire-ships. Cochrane who, better, +perhaps, than any soldier or sailor that ever lived, knew how to strike +at his foes through their own imagination, calculated that when these +three huge explosion vessels, with twenty fire-ships behind them, went +off in a sort of saltpetre earthquake, the astonished Frenchmen would +imagine _every_ fire-ship to be a floating mine, and, instead of trying +to board them and divert them from their fleet, would be simply anxious +to get out of their way with the utmost possible despatch. The French, +meanwhile, having watched their enemy lying inert for weeks, and +confident in the gigantic boom which acted as their shield to the +front, and the show of batteries which kept guard over them on either +flank and to the rear, awaited the coming attack in a spirit of +half-contemptuous gaiety. They had struck their topmasts and unbent +their sails, and by way of challenge dressed their fleet with flags. +One ship, the _Calcutta_, had been captured from the English, and by +way of special insult they hung out the British ensign under that +ship's quarter-gallery, an affront whose deadly quality only a sailor +can understand. + +The night of the 9th set in stormily. The tide ran fast, and the skies +were black and the sea heavy--so heavy, indeed, that the boats of the +English fleet which were intended to follow and cover the fire-ships +never left the side of the flagship. Cochrane, however, had called the +officers commanding the fire-ships on board his frigate, given them +their last instructions, and at half-past eight P.M. he himself, +accompanied only by a lieutenant and four sailors, cut the moorings of +the chief explosion vessel, and drifted off towards the French fleet. +Seated, that is, on top of 1500 barrels of gunpowder and a sort of +haystack of grenades, he calmly floated off, with a squadron of +fire-ships behind him, towards the French fleet, backed by great shore +batteries, with seventy-three armed boats as a line of skirmishers. +"It seemed to me," says Marryat, who was an actor in the scene, "like +entering the gates of hell!" + +The great floating mine drifted on through blackness and storm till, +just as it struck the boom, Cochrane, who previously made his five +assistants get into the boat, with his own hand lit the fuse and in +turn jumped into the boat. How frantically the little crew pulled to +get clear of the ignited mine may be imagined; but wind and sea were +against them. The fuse, which was calculated to burn for twelve +minutes, lasted for only five. Then the 1500 barrels of gunpowder went +simultaneously off, peopling the black sky with a flaming torrent of +shells, grenades, and rockets, and raising a mountainous wave that +nearly swamped the unfortunate boat and its crew. The fault of the +fuse, however, saved the lives of the daring six, as the missiles from +the exploding vessel fell far _outside_ them. "The effect," says +Cochrane, who, like Caesar, could write history as well as make it, +"constituted one of the grandest artificial spectacles imaginable. For +a moment the sky was red with the lurid glare arising from the +simultaneous ignition of 1500 barrels of powder. On this gigantic +flash subsiding the air seemed alive with shells, grenades, rockets, +and masses of timber, the wreck of the shattered vessel." Then came +blackness, punctuated in flame by the explosion of the next floating +mine. Then, through sea-wrack and night, came the squadron of +fire-ships, each one a pyramid of kindling flame. But the first +explosion had achieved all that Cochrane expected. It dismissed the +huge boom into chips, and the French fleet lay open to attack. The +captain of the second explosion vessel was so determined to do his work +effectually that the entire crew was actually blown out of the vessel +and one member of the party killed, while the toil of the boats in +which, after the fire-ships had been abandoned, they and their crews +had to fight their way back in the teeth of the gale, was so severe +that several men died of mere fatigue. The physical effects of the +floating mines and the drifting fire-ships, as a matter of fact, were +not very great. The boom, indeed, was destroyed, but out of twenty +fire-ships only four actually reached the enemy's position, and not one +did any damage. Cochrane's explosion vessels, however, were addressed +not so much to the French ships as to the alarmed imagination of French +sailors, and the effect achieved was overwhelming. All the French +ships save one cut or slipped their cables, and ran ashore in wild +confusion. Cochrane cut the moorings of his explosion vessel at +half-past eight o'clock; by midnight, or in less than four hours, the +boom had been destroyed, and thirteen French ships--the solitary fleet +that remained to France--were lying helplessly ashore. Never, perhaps, +was a result so great achieved in a time so brief, in a fashion so +dramatic, or with a loss so trifling. + +When the grey morning broke, with the exception of two vessels, the +whole French fleet was lying helplessly aground on the Palles shoal. +Some were lying on their bilge with the keel exposed, others were +frantically casting their guns overboard and trying to get afloat +again. Meanwhile Gambier and the British fleet were lying fourteen +miles distant in the Basque Roads, and Cochrane in the _Imperieuse_ was +watching, with powder-blackened face, the curious spectacle of the +entire fleet he had driven ashore, and the yet more amazing spectacle +of a British fleet declining to come in and finally destroy its enemy. +For here comes a chapter in the story on which Englishmen do not love +to dwell. Cochrane tried to whip the muddy-spirited Gambier into +enterprise by emphatic and quick-following signal. At six A.M. he +signalled, "_All the enemy's ships except two are on shore_," but this +extracted from drowsy Gambier no other response than the answering +pennant. Cochrane repeated his impatient signals at half-hour +intervals, and with emphasis ever more shrill--"_The enemy's ships can +be destroyed_"; "_Half the fleet can destroy the enemy_"; "_The +frigates alone can destroy the enemy_"; but still no response save the +indifferent pennant. As the tide flowed in, the French ships showed +signs of getting afloat, and Cochrane signalled, "_The enemy is +preparing to heave off_", even this brought no response from the +pensive Gambier. At eleven o'clock the British fleet weighed and stood +in, but then, to Cochrane's speechless wrath, re-anchored at a distance +of three and a half miles, and by this time two of the French +three-deckers were afloat. + +Gambier finally despatched a single mortar-vessel in to bombard the +stranded ships, but by this time Cochrane had become desperate. He +adopted a device which recalls Nelson's use of his blind eye at +Copenhagen. At one o'clock he hove his anchor atrip and drifted, stern +foremost, towards the enemy. He dare not make sail lest his trick +should be detected and a signal of recall hoisted on the flagship. +Cochrane coolly determined, in a word, to force the hand of his +sluggish admiral. He drifted with his solitary frigate down to the +hostile fleet and batteries, which Gambier thought it scarcely safe to +attack with eleven ships of the line. When near the enemy's position +he suddenly made sail and ran up the signal, "_In want of assistance_"; +next followed a yet more peremptory message, "_In distress_." Even +Gambier could not see an English frigate destroyed under the very guns +of an English fleet without moving to its help, and he sent some of his +ships in. But meanwhile, Cochrane, though technically "in distress," +was enjoying what he must have felt to be a singularly good time. He +calmly took up a position which enabled him to engage an 80-gun ship, +one of 74 guns, and, in particular, that French ship which, on the +previous day, had hung the British flag under her quarter-gallery. For +half-an-hour he fought these three ships single-handed, and the +Calcutta actually struck to him, its captain afterwards being +court-martialled and shot by the French themselves for surrendering to +a frigate. Then the other British ships came up, and ship after ship +of the French fleet struck or was destroyed. Night fell before the +work was completed, and during the night Gambier, for some mysterious +reason, recalled his ships; but Cochrane, in the _Imperieuse_, clung to +his post. He persuaded Captain Seymour, in the _Pallas_, to remain +with him, with four brigs, and with this tiny force he proposed to +attack _L'Ocean_, the French flagship of 120 guns, which had just got +afloat; but Gambier peremptorily recalled him at dawn, before the fight +was renewed. Never before or since was a victory so complete and so +nearly bloodless. Five seamen were killed in the fire-ships, and five +in the attack on the French fleet and about twenty wounded; and with +this microscopic "butcher's bill" a great fleet, the last naval hope of +France, was practically destroyed. For so much does the genius and +daring of a single man count! + +That the French fleet was not utterly destroyed was due solely to +Gambier's want of resolution. And yet, such is the irony of history, +that of the two chief actors in this drama, Gambier, who marred it, was +rewarded with the thanks of Parliament; Cochrane, who gave to it all +its unique splendour, had his professional career abruptly terminated! + +That wild night in the Aix Roads, and the solitary and daring attack on +the French fleet which followed next day, were practically Cochrane's +last acts as a British sailor. He achieved dazzling exploits under the +flag of Chili [Transcriber's note: Chile?] and Brazil; but the most +original warlike genius the English navy has ever known, fought no more +battles for England. + + + + +THE MAN WHO SPOILED NAPOLEON'S "DESTINY"! + + + "Oh, who shall lightly say that Fame + Is nothing but an empty name! + Whilst in that sound there is a charm + The nerves to brace, the heart to warm. + As, thinking of the mighty dead, + The young from slothful couch will start, + And vow, with lifted hands outspread, + Like them to act a noble part?" + --JOANNA BAILLIE. + + +From March 18 to May 20, 1799--for more than sixty days and nights, +that is--a little, half-forgotten, and more than half-ruined Syrian +town was the scene of one of the fiercest and most dramatic sieges +recorded in military history. And rarely has there been a struggle so +apparently one-sided. A handful of British sailors and Turkish +irregulars were holding Acre, a town without regular defences, against +Napoleon, the most brilliant military genius of his generation, with an +army of 10,000 war-hardened veterans, the "Army of Italy"--soldiers who +had dared the snows of the Alps and conquered Italy, and to whom +victory was a familiar experience. In their ranks military daring had +reached, perhaps, its very highest point. And yet the sailors inside +that ring of crumbling wall won! At the blood-stained trenches of Acre +Napoleon experienced his first defeat; and, years after, at St. Helena, +he said of Sir Sidney Smith, the gallant sailor who baffled him, "That +man made me miss my destiny." It is a curious fact that one Englishman +thwarted Napoleon's career in the East, and another ended his career in +the West, and it may be doubted which of the two Napoleon hated +most--Wellington, who finally overthrew him at Waterloo, or Sidney +Smith, who, to use Napoleon's own words, made him "miss his destiny," +and exchange the empire of the East for a lonely pinnacle of rock in +the Atlantic. + +Sidney Smith was a sailor of the school of Nelson and of Dundonald--a +man, that is, with a spark of that warlike genius which begins where +mechanical rules end. He was a man of singular physical beauty, with a +certain magnetism and fire about him which made men willing to die for +him, and women who had never spoken to him fall headlong in love with +him. His whole career is curiously picturesque. He became a middy at +the tender age of eleven years; went through fierce sea-fights, and was +actually mate of the watch when fourteen years old. He was a +fellow-middy with William IV. in the fight off Cape St. Vincent, became +commander when he was eighteen years of age, and captain before he was +quite nineteen. But the British marine, even in those tumultuous days, +scarcely yielded enough of the rapture of fighting to this post-captain +in his teens. He took service under the Swedish flag, saw hard +fighting against the Russians, became the close personal friend of the +King, and was knighted by him. One of the feats at this period of his +life with which tradition, with more or less of plausibility, credits +Sidney Smith, is that of swimming by night through the Russian fleet, a +distance of two miles, carrying a letter enclosed in a bladder to the +Swedish admiral. + +Sidney Smith afterwards entered the Turkish service. When war broke +out betwixt France and England in 1790, he purchased a tiny craft at +Smyrna, picked up in that port a hybrid crew, and hurried to join Lord +Hood, who was then holding Toulon. When the British abandoned the +port--and it is curious to recollect that the duel between Sidney Smith +and Napoleon, which reached its climax at Acre, began here--Sidney +Smith volunteered to burn the French fleet, a task which he performed +with an audacity and skill worthy of Dundonald or Nelson, and for which +the French never forgave him. + +Sidney Smith was given the command of an English frigate, and fought a +dozen brilliant fights in the Channel. He carried with his boats a +famous French privateer off Havre de Grace; but during the fight on the +deck of the captured ship it drifted into the mouth of the Seine above +the forts. The wind dropped, the tide was too strong to be stemmed, +and Sidney Smith himself was captured. He had so harried the French +coast that the French refused to treat him as an ordinary prisoner of +war, and threw him into that ill-omened prison, the Temple, from whose +iron-barred windows the unfortunate sailor watched for two years the +horrors of the Reign of Terror in its last stages, the tossing crowds, +the tumbrils rolling past, crowded with victims for the guillotine. +Sidney Smith escaped at last by a singularly audacious trick. Two +confederates, dressed in dashing uniform, one wearing the dress of an +adjutant, and the other that of an officer of still higher rank, +presented themselves at the Temple with forged orders for the transfer +of Sidney Smith. + +The governor surrendered his prisoner, but insisted on sending a guard +of six men with him. The sham adjutant cheerfully acquiesced, but, +after a moment's pause, turned to Sidney Smith, and said, if he would +give his parole as an officer not to attempt to escape, they would +dispense with the escort. Sidney Smith, with due gravity, replied to +his confederate, "Sir, I swear on the faith of an officer to accompany +you wherever you choose to conduct me." The governor was satisfied, +and the two sham officers proceeded to "conduct" their friend with the +utmost possible despatch to the French coast. Another English officer +who had escaped--Captain Wright--joined Sidney Smith outside Rouen, and +the problem was how to get through the barriers without a passport. +Smith sent Wright on first, and he was duly challenged for his passport +by the sentinel; whereupon Sidney Smith, with a majestic air of +official authority, marched up and said in faultless Parisian French, +"I answer for this citizen, I know him;" whereupon the deluded sentinel +saluted and allowed them both to pass! + +Sidney Smith's escape from the Temple made him a popular hero in +England. He was known to have great influence with the Turkish +authorities, and he was sent to the East in the double office of +envoy-extraordinary to the Porte, and commander of the squadron at +Alexandria. By one of the curious coincidences which marked Sidney +Smith's career, he became acquainted while in the Temple with a French +Royalist officer named Philippeaux, an engineer of signal ability, and +who had been a schoolfellow and a close chum of Napoleon himself at +Brienne. Smith took his French friend with him to the East, and he +played a great part in the defence of Acre. Napoleon had swept north +through the desert to Syria, had captured Gaza and Jaffa, and was about +to attack Acre, which lay between him and his ultimate goal, +Constantinople. Here Sidney Smith resolved to bar his way, and in his +flagship the _Tigre_, with the _Theseus_, under Captain Miller, and two +gunboats, he sailed to Acre to assist in its defence. Philippeaux took +charge of the fortifications, and thus, in the breaches of a remote +Syrian town, the quondam prisoner of the Temple and the ancient school +friend of Napoleon joined hands to wreck that dream of a great Eastern +empire which lurked in the cells of Napoleon's masterful intellect. + +Acre represents a blunted arrow-head jutting out from a point in the +Syrian coast. Napoleon could only attack, so to speak, the neck of the +arrow, which was protected by a ditch and a weak wall, and flanked by +towers; but Sidney Smith, having command of the sea, could sweep the +four faces of the town with the fire of his guns, as well as command +all the sea-roads in its vicinity. He guessed, from the delay of the +French in opening fire, that they were waiting for their siege-train to +arrive by sea. He kept vigilant watch, pounced on the French flotilla +as it rounded the promontory of Mount Carmel, captured nine of the +vessels, carried them with their guns and warlike material to Acre, and +mounted his thirty-four captured pieces on the batteries of the town. +Thus the disgusted French saw the very guns which were intended to +batter down the defences of Acre--and which were glorious with the +memories of a dozen victories in Italy--frowning at them, loaded with +English powder and shot, and manned by English sailors. + +It is needless to say that a siege directed by Napoleon--the siege of +what he looked upon as a contemptible and almost defenceless town, the +single barrier betwixt his ambition and its goal--was urged with +amazing fire and vehemence. The wall was battered day and night, a +breach fifty feet wide made, and more than twelve assaults delivered, +with all the fire and daring of which French soldiers, gallantly led, +are capable. So sustained was the fighting, that on one occasion the +combat raged in the ditch and on the breach for _twenty-five_ +successive hours. So close and fierce was it that one half-ruined +tower was held by _both_ besiegers and besieged for twelve hours in +succession, and neither would yield. At the breach, again, the two +lines of desperately fighting men on repeated occasions clashed +bayonets together, and wrestled and stabbed and died, till the +survivors were parted by the barrier of the dead which grew beneath +their feet. + +Sidney Smith, however, fought like a sailor, and with all the cool +ingenuity and resourcefulness of a sailor. His ships, drawn up on two +faces of the town, smote the French stormers on either flank till they +learned to build up a dreadful screen, made up partly of stones plucked +from the breach, and partly of the dead bodies of their comrades. +Smith, too, perched guns in all sorts of unexpected positions--a +24-pounder in the lighthouse, under the command of an exultant middy; +two 68-pounders under the charge of "old Bray," the carpenter of the +_Tigre_, and, as Sidney Smith himself reports, "one of the bravest and +most intelligent men I ever served with"; and yet a third gun, a French +brass 18-pounder, in one of the ravelins, under a master's mate. Bray +dropped his shells with the nicest accuracy in the centre of the French +columns as they swept up the breach, and the middy perched aloft, and +the master's mate from the ravelin, smote them on either flank with +case-shot, while the _Theseus_ and the _Tigre_ added to the tumult the +thunder of their broadsides, and the captured French gunboats +contributed the yelp of their lighter pieces. + +The great feature of the siege, however, was the fierceness and the +number of the sorties. Sidney Smith's sorties actually exceeded in +number and vehemence Napoleon's assaults. He broke the strength of +Napoleon's attacks, that is, by anticipating them. A crowd of Turkish +irregulars, with a few naval officers leading them, and a solid mass of +Jack-tars in the centre, would break from a sally-port, or rush +vehemently down through the gap in the wall, and scour the French +trenches, overturn the gabions, spike the guns, and slay the guards. +The French reserves hurried fiercely up, always scourged, however, by +the flank fire of the ships, and drove back the sortie. But the +process was renewed the same night or the next day with unlessened fire +and daring. The French engineers, despairing of success on the +surface, betook themselves to mining; whereupon the besieged made a +desperate sortie and reached the mouth of the mine. Lieutenant Wright, +who led them, and who had already received two shots in his sword-arm, +leaped down the mine followed by his sailors, slew the miners, +destroyed their work, and safely regained the town. + +The British sustained one startling disaster. Captain Miller of the +_Theseus_, whose ammunition ran short, carefully collected such French +shells as fell into the town without exploding, and duly returned them +alight, and supplied with better fuses, to their original senders. He +had collected some seventy shells on the _Theseus_, and was preparing +them for use against the French. The carpenter of the ship was +endeavouring to get the fuses out of the loaded shells with an auger, +and a middy undertook to assist him, in characteristic middy fashion, +with a mallet and a spike-nail. A huge shell under his treatment +suddenly exploded on the quarter-deck of the _Theseus_, and the other +sixty-nine shells followed suit. The too ingenious middy disappeared +into space; forty seamen, with Captain Miller himself, were killed; and +forty-seven, including the two lieutenants of the ship, the chaplain, +and the surgeon, were seriously wounded. The whole of the poop was +blown to pieces, and the ship was left a wreck with fire breaking out +at half-a-dozen points. The fire was subdued, and the _Theseus_ +survived in a half-gutted condition, but the disaster was a severe blow +to Sir Sidney's resources. + +As evening fell on May 7, the white sails of a fleet, became visible +over the sea rim, and all firing ceased while besiegers and besieged +watched the approaching ships. Was it a French fleet or a Turkish? +Did it bring succour to the besieged or a triumph to the besiegers? +The approaching ships flew the crescent. It was the Turkish fleet from +Rhodes bringing reinforcements. But the wind was sinking, and +Napoleon, who had watched the approach of the hostile ships with +feelings which may be guessed, calculated that there remained six hours +before they could cast anchor in the bay. Eleven assaults had been +already made, in which eight French generals and the best officers in +every branch of the service had perished. There remained time for a +twelfth assault. He might yet pluck victory from the very edge of +defeat. At ten o'clock that night the French artillery was brought up +close to the counterscarp to batter down the curtain, and a new breach +was made. Lannes led his division against the shot-wrecked tower, and +General Rimbaud took his grenadiers with a resistless rush through the +new breach. All night the combat raged, the men fighting desperately +hand to hand. When the rays of the level morning sun broke through the +pall of smoke which hung sullenly over the combatants, the tricolour +flew on the outer angle of the tower, and still the ships bringing +reinforcements had not reached the harbour! Sidney Smith, at this +crisis, landed every man from the English ships, and led them, pike in +hand, to the breach, and the shouting and madness of the conflict awoke +once more. To use Sidney Smith's own words, "the muzzles of the +muskets touched each other--the spear-heads were locked together." But +Sidney Smith's sailors, with the brave Turks who rallied to their help, +were not to be denied. + +Lannes' grenadiers were tumbled headlong from the tower, Lannes himself +being wounded, while Rimbaud's brave men, who were actually past the +breach, were swept into ruin, their general killed, and the French +soldiers within the breach all captured or slain. + +One of the dramatic incidents of the siege was the assault made by +Kleber's troops. They had not taken part in the siege hitherto, but +had won a brilliant victory over the Arabs at Mount Tabor. On reaching +the camp, flushed with their triumph, and seeing how slight were the +apparent defences of the town, they demanded clamorously to be led to +the assault. Napoleon consented. Kleber, who was of gigantic stature, +with a head of hair worthy of a German music-master or of a Soudan +dervish, led his grenadiers to the edge of the breach and stood there, +while with gesture and voice--a voice audible even above the fierce and +sustained crackle of the musketry--he urged his men on. Napoleon, +standing on a gun in the nearest French battery, watched the sight with +eager eyes--the French grenadiers running furiously up the breach, the +grim line of levelled muskets that barred it, the sudden roar of the +English guns as from every side they smote the staggering French +column. Vainly single officers struggled out of the torn mass, ran +gesticulating up the breach, and died at the muzzles of the British +muskets. The men could not follow, or only died as they leaped +forward. The French grenadiers, still fighting, swearing, and +screaming, were swept back past the point where Kleber stood, hoarse +with shouting, black with gunpowder, furious with rage. The last +assault on Acre had failed. The French sick, field artillery, and +baggage silently defiled that night to the rear. The heavy guns were +buried in the sand, and after sixty days of open trenches Napoleon, for +the first time in his life, though not for the last, ordered a retreat. + +Napoleon buried in the breaches of Acre not merely 3000 of his bravest +troops, but the golden dream of his life. "In that miserable fort," as +he said, "lay the fate of the East." Napoleon expected to find in it +the pasha's treasures, and arms for 300,000 men. "When I have captured +it," he said to Bourrienne, "I shall march upon Damascus and Aleppo. I +shall arm the tribes; I shall reach Constantinople; I shall overturn +the Turkish Empire; I shall found in the East a new and grand empire. +Perhaps I shall return to Paris by Adrianople and Vienna!" Napoleon +was cheerfully willing to pay the price of what religion he had to +accomplish this dream. He was willing, that is, to turn Turk. Henri +IV. said "Paris was worth a mass," and was not the East, said Napoleon, +"worth a turban and a pair of trousers?" In his conversation at St. +Helena with Las Cases he seriously defended this policy. His army, he +added, would have shared his "conversion," and have taken their new +creed with a Parisian laugh. "Had I but captured Acre," Napoleon +added, "I would have reached Constantinople and the Indies; I would +have changed the face of the world. But that man made me miss my +destiny." + +Las Cases dwells upon the curious correspondence which existed between +Philippeaux, who engineered the defences of Acre, and Napoleon, who +attacked it. "They were," he says, "of the same nation, of the same +age, of the same rank, of the same corps, and of the same school." But +if Philippeaux was in a sense the brains of the defence, Sidney Smith +was the sword. There was, perhaps, it may be regretfully confessed, a +streak of the charlatan in him. He shocked the judgment of more sober +men. Wellington's stern, sober sense was affronted by him, and he +described him as "a mere vaporiser." "Of all the men whom I ever knew +who have any reputation," Wellington told Croker "the man who least +deserved it is Sir Sidney Smith." Wellington's temperament made it +impossible for him to understand Sidney Smith's erratic and dazzling +genius. Napoleon's phrase is the best epitaph of the man who defended +Acre. It is true Napoleon himself describes Sidney Smith afterwards as +"a young fool," who was "capable of invading France with 800 men." But +such "young fools" are often the makers of history. + + + + +GREAT SEA-DUELS + + + "The captain stood on the carronade: 'First Lieutenant,' says he, + 'Send all my merry men after here, for they must list to me. + I haven't the gift of the gab, my sons, because I'm bred to the sea. + That ship there is a Frenchman, who means to fight with we. + And odds, bobs, hammer and tongs, long as I've been to sea, + I've fought 'gainst every odds--but I've gained the victory! + * * * * * * * * + That ship there is a Frenchman, and if we don't take she, + 'Tis a thousand bullets to one, that she will capture we. + I haven't the gift of the gab, my boys; so each man to his gun; + If she's not mine in half-an-hour, I'll flog each mother's son. + For odds, bobs, hammer and tongs, long as I've been to sea, + I've fought 'gainst every odds--and I've gained the victory!'" + --MARRYAT. + + +British naval history is rich in the records of what may be called +great sea-duels--combats, that is, of single ship against single ship, +waged often with extraordinary fierceness and daring. They resemble +the combat of knight against knight, with flash of cannon instead of +thrust of lance, and the floor of the lonely sea for the trampled lists. + +He must have a very slow-beating imagination who cannot realise the +picturesqueness of these ancient sea-duels. Two frigates cruising for +prey catch the far-off gleam of each other's topsails over the rim of +the horizon. They approach each other warily, two high-sniffing +sea-mastiffs. A glimpse of fluttering colour--the red flag and the +_drapeau blanc_, or the Union Jack and the tricolour--reveals to each +ship its foe. The men stand grimly at quarters; the captain, with +perhaps a solitary lieutenant, and a middy as aide-de-camp, is on his +quarter-deck. There is the manoeuvring for the weather-gage, the +thunder of the sudden broadside, the hurtle and crash of the shot, the +stern, quick word of command as the clumsy guns are run in to be +reloaded and fired again and again with furious haste. The ships drift +into closer wrestle. Masts and yards come tumbling on to the +blood-splashed decks. There is the grinding shock of the great wooden +hulls as they meet, the wild leap of the boarders, the clash of cutlass +on cutlass, the shout of victory, the sight of the fluttering flag as +it sinks reluctantly from the mizzen of the beaten ship. Then the +smoke drifts away, and on the tossing sea-floor lie, little better than +dismantled wrecks, victor and vanquished. + +No great issue, perhaps, ever hung upon these lonely sea-combats; but +as object-lessons in the qualities by which the empire has been won, +and by which it must be maintained, these ancient sea-fights have real +and permanent value. What better examples of cool hardihood, of +chivalrous loyalty to the flag, of self-reliant energy, need be +imagined or desired? The generation that carries the heavy burden of +the empire to-day cannot afford to forget the tale of such exploits. + +One of the most famous frigate fights in British history is that +between the _Arethusa_ and _La Belle Poule_, fought off Brest on June +17, 1778. Who is not familiar with the name and fame of "the saucy +_Arethusa_"? Yet there is a curious absence of detail as to the fight. +The combat, indeed, owes its enduring fame to two somewhat irrelevant +circumstances--first, that it was fought when France and England were +not actually at war, but were trembling on the verge of it. The sound +of the _Arethusa's_ guns, indeed, was the signal of war between the two +nations. The other fact is that an ingenious rhymester--scarcely a +poet--crystallised the fight into a set of verses in which there is +something of the true smack of the sea, and an echo, if not of the +cannon's roar, yet of the rough-voiced mirth of the forecastle; and the +sea-fight lies embalmed, so to speak, and made immortal in the sea-song. + +The _Arethusa_ was a stumpy little frigate, scanty in crew, light in +guns, attached to the fleet of Admiral Keppel, then cruising off Brest. +Keppel had as perplexed and delicate a charge as was ever entrusted to +a British admiral. Great Britain was at war with her American +colonies, and there was every sign that France intended to add herself +to the fight. No fewer than thirty-two sail of the line and twelve +frigates were gathered in Brest roads, and another fleet of almost +equal strength in Toulon. Spain, too, was slowly collecting a mighty +armament. What would happen to England if the Toulon and Brest fleets +united, were joined by a third fleet from Spain, and the mighty array +of ships thus collected swept up the British Channel? On June 13, +1778, Keppel, with twenty-one ships of the line and three frigates, was +despatched to keep watch over the Brest fleet. War had not been +proclaimed, but Keppel was to prevent a junction of the Brest and +Toulon fleets, by persuasion if he could, but by gunpowder in the last +resort. + +Keppel's force was much inferior to that of the Brest fleet, and as +soon as the topsails of the British ships were visible from the French +coast, two French frigates, the _Licorne_ and _La Belle Poule_, with +two lighter craft, bore down upon them to reconnoitre. But Keppel +could not afford to let the French admiral know his exact force, and +signalled to his own outlying ships to bring the French frigates under +his lee. + +At nine o'clock at night the _Licorne_ was overtaken by the _Milford_, +and with some rough sailorly persuasion, and a hint of broadsides, her +head was turned towards the British fleet. The next morning, in the +grey dawn, the Frenchman, having meditated on affairs during the night, +made a wild dash for freedom. The _America_, an English 64--double, +that is, the _Licorne's_ size--overtook her, and fired a shot across +her bow to bring her to. Longford, the captain of the _America_, stood +on the gunwale of his own ship politely urging the captain of the +_Licorne_ to return with him. With a burst of Celtic passion the +French captain fired his whole broadside into the big Englishman, and +then instantly hauled down his flag so as to escape any answering +broadside! + +Meanwhile the _Arethusa_ was in eager pursuit of the _Belle Poule_; a +fox-terrier chasing a mastiff! The _Belle Poule_ was a splendid ship, +with heavy metal, and a crew more than twice as numerous as that of the +tiny _Arethusa_. But Marshall, its captain, was a singularly gallant +sailor, and not the man to count odds. The song tells the story of the +fight in an amusing fashion:-- + + "Come all ye jolly sailors bold, + Whose hearts are cast in honour's mould, + While England's glory I unfold. + Huzza to the _Arethusa_! + She is a frigate tight and brave + As ever stemmed the dashing wave; + Her men are staunch + To their fav'rite launch, + And when the foe shall meet our fire, + Sooner than strike we'll all expire + On board the _Arethusa_. + + On deck five hundred men did dance, + The stoutest they could find in France; + We, with two hundred, did advance + On board the _Arethusa_. + Our captain hailed the Frenchman, 'Ho!' + The Frenchman then cried out, 'Hallo!' + 'Bear down, d'ye see, + To our Admiral's lee.' + 'No, no,' says the Frenchman, 'that can't be. + 'Then I must lug you along with me,' + Says the saucy _Arethusa_!" + +As a matter of fact Marshall hung doggedly on the Frenchman's quarter +for two long hours, fighting a ship twice as big as his own. The +_Belle Poule_ was eager to escape; Marshall was resolute that it should +not escape; and, try as he might, the Frenchman, during that fierce two +hours' wrestle, failed to shake off his tiny but dogged antagonist. +The _Arethusa's_ masts were shot away, its jib-boom hung a tangled +wreck over its bows, its bulwarks were shattered, its decks were +splashed red with blood, half its guns were dismounted, and nearly +every third man in its crew struck down. But still it hung, with +quenchless and obstinate courage, on the _Belle Poule's_ quarter, and +by its perfect seamanship and the quickness and the deadly precision +with which its lighter guns worked, reduced its towering foe to a +condition of wreck almost as complete as its own. The terrier, in +fact, was proving too much for the mastiff. + +Suddenly the wind fell. With topmasts hanging over the side, and +canvas torn to ribbons, the _Arethusa_ lay shattered and moveless on +the sea. The shot-torn but loftier sails of the _Belle Poule_, +however, yet held wind enough to drift her out of the reach of the +_Arethusa's_ fire. Both ships were close under the French cliffs; but +the _Belle Poule_, like a broken-winged bird, struggled into a tiny +cove in the rocks, and nothing remained for the _Arethusa_ but to cut +away her wreckage, hoist what sail she could, and drag herself sullenly +back under jury-masts to the British fleet. But the story of that two +hours' heroic fight maintained against such odds sent a thrill of grim +exultation through Great Britain. Menaced by the combination of so +many mighty states, while her sea-dogs were of this fighting temper, +what had Great Britain to fear? In the streets of many a British +seaport, and in many a British forecastle, the story of how the +Arethusa fought was sung in deep-throated chorus:-- + + "The fight was off the Frenchman's land; + We forced them back upon their strand; + For we fought till not a stick would stand + Of the gallant _Arethusa_!" + + +A fight even more dramatic in its character is that fought on August +10, 1805, between the _Phoenix_ and the _Didon_. The _Didon_ was one +of the finest and fastest French frigates afloat, armed with guns of +special calibre and manned by a crew which formed, perhaps, the very +elite of the French navy. The men had been specially picked to form +the crew of the only French ship which was commanded by a Bonaparte, +the _Pomone_, selected for the command of Captain Jerome Bonaparte. +Captain Jerome Bonaparte, however, was not just now afloat, and the +_Didon_ had been selected, on account of its great speed and heavy +armament, for a service of great importance. She was manned by the +crew chosen for the _Pomone_, placed under an officer of special skill +and daring--Captain Milias--and despatched with orders for carrying out +one more of those naval "combinations" which Napoleon often attempted, +but never quite accomplished. The _Didon_, in a word, was to bring up +the Rochefort squadron to join the Franco-Spanish fleet under +Villeneuve. + +On that fatal August 10, however, it seemed to Captain Milias that +fortune had thrust into his hands a golden opportunity of snapping up a +British sloop of war, and carrying her as a trophy into Rochefort. An +American merchantman fell in with him, and its master reported that he +had been brought-to on the previous day by a British man-of-war, and +compelled to produce his papers. The American told the French captain +that he had been allowed to go round the Englishman's decks and count +his guns--omitting, no doubt, to add that he was half-drunk while doing +it. Contemplated through an American's prejudices, inflamed with grog, +the British ship seemed a very poor thing indeed. She carried, the +American told the captain of the _Didon_, only twenty guns of light +calibre, and her captain and officers were "so cocky" that if they had +a chance they would probably lay themselves alongside even the _Didon_ +and become an easy prey. The American pointed out to the eagerly +listening Frenchmen the topgallant sails of the ship he was describing +showing above the sky-line to windward. Captain Milias thought he saw +glory and cheap victory beckoning him, and he put his helm down, and +stood under easy sail towards the fast-rising topsails of the +Englishman. + +Now, the _Phoenix_ was, perhaps, the smallest frigate in the British +navy; a stocky little craft, scarcely above the rating of a sloop; and +its captain, Baker, a man with something of Dundonald's gift for ruse, +had disguised his ship so as to look as much as possible like a sloop. +Baker, too, who believed that light guns quickly handled were capable +of more effective mischief than the slow fire of heavier guns, had +changed his heavier metal for 18-pounders. The two ships, therefore, +were very unequal in fighting force. The broadside of the _Didon_ was +nearly fifty per cent. heavier than that of the _Phoenix_; her crew was +nearly fifty per cent. more numerous, and she was splendidly equipped +at every point. + +The yellow sides and royal yards rigged aloft told the "cocky" +_Phoenix_ that the big ship to leeward was a Frenchman, and, with all +sails spread, she bore down in the chase. Baker was eager to engage +his enemy to leeward, that she might not escape, and he held his fire +till he could reach the desired position. The _Didon_, however, a +quick and weatherly ship, was able to keep ahead of the _Phoenix_, and +thrice poured in a heavy broadside upon the grimly silent British ship +without receiving a shot in reply. Baker's men were falling fast at +their quarters, and, impatient at being both foiled and raked, he at +last ran fiercely at his enemy to windward. The heads of both ships +swung parallel, and at pistol-distance broadside furiously answered +broadside. In order to come up with her opponent, however, the +_Phoenix_ had all sail spread, and she gradually forged ahead. As soon +as the two ships were clear, the _Didon_, by a fine stroke of +seamanship, hauled up, crossed the stern of the _Phoenix_, and raked +her, and then repeated the pleasant operation. The rigging of the +_Phoenix_ was so shattered that for a few minutes she was out of hand. +Baker, however, was a fine seaman, and his crew were in a high state of +discipline; and when the _Didon_ once more bore up to rake her +antagonist, the British ship, with her sails thrown aback, evaded the +Frenchman's fire. But the stern of the _Didon_ smote with a crash on +the starboard quarter of the Phoenix; the ships were lying parallel; +the broadside of neither could be brought to bear. The Frenchmen, +immensely superior in numbers, made an impetuous rush across their +forecastle, and leaped on the quarter-deck of the Phoenix. The marines +of that ship, however, drawn up in a steady line across the deck, +resisted the whole rush of the French boarders; and the British +sailors, tumbling up from their guns, cutlass and boarding-pike in +hand, and wroth with the audacity of the "French lubbers" daring to +board the "cocky little _Phoenix_," with one rush, pushed fiercely +home, swept the Frenchmen back on to their own vessel. + +On the French forecastle stood a brass 36-pounder carronade; this +commanded the whole of the British ship, and with it the French opened +a most destructive fire. The British ship, as it happened, could not +bring a single gun to bear in return. Baker, however, had fitted the +cabin window on either quarter of his ship to serve as a port, in +preparation for exactly such a contingency as this; and the aftermost +main-deck gun was dragged into the cabin, the improvised port thrown +open, and Baker himself, with a cluster of officers and men, was +eagerly employed in fitting tackles to enable the gun to be worked. As +the sides of the two ships were actually grinding together the +Frenchmen saw the preparations being made; a double squad of marines +was brought up at a run to the larboard gangway, and opened a swift and +deadly fire into the cabin, crowded with English sailors busy rigging +their gun. The men dropped in clusters; the floor of the cabin was +covered with the slain, its walls were splashed with blood. But Baker +and the few men not yet struck down kept coolly to their task. The gun +was loaded under the actual flash of the French muskets, its muzzle was +thrust through the port, and it was fired! Its charge of langrage +swept the French ship from her larboard bow to her starboard quarter, +and struck down in an instant twenty-four men. The deadly fire was +renewed again and again, the British marines on the quarter-deck +meanwhile keeping down with their musketry the fire of the great French +carronade. + +That fierce and bloody wrestle lasted for nearly thirty minutes, then +the _Didon_ began to fore-reach. Her great bowsprit ground slowly +along the side of the _Phoenix_. It crossed the line of the second +aftermost gun on the British main-deck. Its flames on the instant +smote the Frenchman's head-rails to splinters, and destroyed the +gammoning of her bowsprit. Gun after gun of the two ships was brought +in succession to bear; but in this close and deadly contest the +_Phoenix_ had the advantage. Her guns were lighter, her men better +drilled, and their fierce energy overbore the Frenchmen. Presently the +_Didon_, with her foremast tottering, her maintopmast gone, her decks a +blood-stained wreck, passed out of gunshot ahead. + +In the tangle between the two ships the fly of the British white ensign +at the gaff end dropped on the _Didon's_ forecastle. The Frenchmen +tore it off, and, as the ships moved apart, they waved it triumphantly +from the _Didon's_ stern. All the colours of the _Phoenix_, indeed, in +one way or another had vanished, and the only response the exasperated +British tars could make to the insult of the _Didon_ was to immediately +lash a boat's ensign to the larboard, and the Union Jack to the +starboard end of their cross jack yard-arm. + +The wind had dropped; both ships were now lying a in a semi-wrecked +condition out of gunshot of each other, and it became a question of +which could soonest repair damages and get into fighting condition +again. Both ships, as it happened, had begun the fight with nearly all +canvas spread, and from their splintered masts the sails now hung one +wild network of rags. In each ship a desperate race to effect repairs +began. On the Frenchman's decks arose a babel of sounds, the shouts of +officers, the tumult of the men's voices. The British, on the other +hand, worked in grim and orderly silence, with no sound but the cool, +stern orders of the officers. In such a race the British were sure to +win, and fortune aided them. The two ships were rolling heavily in the +windless swell, and a little before noon the British saw the wounded +foremast of their enemy suddenly snap and tumble, with all its canvas, +upon the unfortunate _Didon's_ decks. This gave new and exultant +vigour to the British. Shot-holes were plugged, dismounted guns +refitted, fresh braces rove, the torn rigging spliced, new canvas +spread. The wind blew softly again, and a little after noon the +_Phoenix_, sorely battered indeed, but in fighting trim, with guns +loaded, and the survivors of her crew at quarters, bore down on the +_Didon_, and took her position on that ship's weather bow. Just when +the word "Fire!" was about to be given, the _Didon's_ flag fluttered +reluctantly down; she had struck! + +The toils of the _Phoenix_, however, were not even yet ended. The ship +she had captured was practically a wreck, its mainmast tottering to its +fall, while the prisoners greatly exceeded in numbers their captors. +The little _Phoenix_ courageously took her big prize in tow, and laid +her course for Plymouth. Once the pair of crippled frigates were +chased by the whole of Villeneuve's fleet; once, by a few chance words +overheard, a plot amongst the French prisoners for seizing the +_Phoenix_ and then retaking the _Didon_ was detected--almost too +late--and thwarted. The _Phoenix_, and her prize too, reached +Gibraltar when a thick fog lay on the straits, a fog which, as the +sorely damaged ships crept through it, was full of the sound of signal +guns and the ringing of bells. The Franco-Spanish fleet, in a word, a +procession of giants, went slowly past the crippled ships in the fog, +and never saw them! + +On September 3, however, the _Phoenix_ safely brought her hard-won and +stubborn-guarded prize safely into Plymouth Sound. + +The fight between the two ships was marked by many heroic incidents. +During the action the very invalids in the sick-bay of the _Phoenix_ +crept from their cots and tried to take some feeble part in the fight. +The purser is not usually part of the fighting staff of a ship, but the +acting purser of the _Phoenix_, while her captain was in the +smoke-filled cabin below, trying to rig up a gun to bear on the +_Didon_, took charge of the quarter-deck, kept his post right opposite +the brazen mouth of the great carronade we have described, and, with a +few marines, kept down the fire. A little middy had the distinction of +saving his captain's life. The _Didon's_ bowsprit was thrust, like the +shaft of a gigantic lance, over the quarter of the _Phoenix_, and a +Frenchman, lying along it, levelled his musket at Captain Baker, not +six paces distant, and took deliberate aim. A middy named Phillips, +armed with a musket as big as himself, saw the levelled piece of the +Frenchman; he gave his captain an unceremonious jostle aside just as +the Frenchman's musket flashed, and with almost the same movement +discharged his own piece at the enemy. The French bullet tore off the +rim of Captain Baker's hat, but the body of the man who fired it fell +with a splash betwixt the two ships into the water. Here was a story, +indeed, for a middy to tell, to the admiration of all the gun-rooms in +the fleet. + +The middy of the period, however, was half imp, half hero. Another +youthful Nelson, aetat. sixteen, at the hottest stage of the +fight--probably at the moment the acting-purser was in command on the +quarter-deck--found an opportunity of getting at the purser's stores. +With jaws widely distended, he was in the act of sucking--in the +fashion so delightful to boys--a huge orange, when a musket ball, after +passing through the head of a seaman, went clean through both the +youth's distended cheeks, and this without touching a single tooth. +Whether this affected the flavour of the orange is not told, but the +historian gravely records that "when the wound in each cheek healed, a +pair of not unseemly dimples remained." Happy middy! He would +scarcely envy Nelson his peerage. + + + +[Transcriber's note: The word "aetat." in the above paragraph is an +abbreviation of the Latin "aetatis", meaning "aged".] + + + + +THE BLOOD-STAINED HILL OF BUSACO + + + "Who would not fight for England? + Who would not fling a life + I' the ring, to meet a tyrant's gage, + And glory in the strife? + * * * * * + Now, fair befall our England, + On her proud and perilous road; + And woe and wail to those who make + Her footprints red with blood! + Up with our red-cross banner--roll + A thunder-peal of drums! + Fight on there, every valiant soul, + And, courage! England comes! + Now, fair befall our England, + On her proud and perilous road; + And woe and wail to those who make + Her footprints red with blood! + + Now, victory to our England! + And where'er she lifts her hand + In Freedom's fight, to rescue Right, + God bless the dear old land! + And when the storm has passed away, + In glory and in calm + May she sit down i' the green o' the day, + And sing her peaceful psalm! + Now, victory to our England! + And where'er she lifts her hand + In Freedom's fight, to rescue Right, + God bless the dear old land!" + --GERALD MASSEY. + + +Busaco is, perhaps, the most picturesque of Peninsular battles. In the +wild nature of the ground over which it raged, the dramatic incidents +which marked its progress, the furious daring of the assault, and the +stern valour of the defence, it is almost without a rival. The French +had every advantage in the fight, save one. They were 65,000 strong, +an army of veterans, many of them the men of Austerlitz and Marengo. +Massena led; Ney was second in command; both facts being pledges of +daring generalship. The English were falling sullenly back in the long +retreat which ended at Torres Vedras, and the French were in exultant +pursuit. Massena had announced that he was going to "drive the leopard +into the sea"; and French soldiers, it may be added, are never so +dangerous as when on fire with the _elan_ of success. + +Wellington's army was inferior to its foe in numbers, and of mixed +nationality, and it is probable that retreat had loosened the fibre of +even British discipline, if not of British courage. Two days before +Busaco, for example, the light division, the very flower of the English +army, was encamped in a pine-wood about which a peasant had warned them +that it was "haunted." During the night, without signal or visible +cause, officers and men, as though suddenly smitten with frenzy, +started from their sleep and dispersed in all directions. Nor could +the mysterious panic be stayed until some officer, shrewder than the +rest, shouted the order, "Prepare to receive cavalry," when the +instinct of discipline asserted itself, the men rushed into rallying +squares, and, with huge shouts of laughter, recovered themselves from +their panic. + +But battle is to the British soldier a tonic, and when Wellington drew +up his lines in challenge of battle to his pursuer, on the great hill +of Busaco, his red-coated soldiery were at least full of a grim +satisfaction. One of the combatants has described the diverse aspects +of the two hosts on the night before the fight. "The French were all +bustle and gaiety; but along the whole English line the soldiers, in +stern silence, examined their flints, cleaned their locks and barrels, +and then stretched themselves on the ground to rest, each with his +firelock within his grasp." The single advantage of the British lay in +their position. Busaco is a great hill, one of the loftiest and most +rugged in Portugal, eight miles in breadth, and barring the road by +which Massena was moving on Lisbon. "There are certainly," said +Wellington, "many bad roads in Portugal, but the enemy has taken +decidedly the worst in the whole kingdom." + +The great ridge, with its gloomy tree-clad heights and cloven crest, +round which the mists hung in sullen vapour, was an ideal position for +defence. In its front was a valley forming a natural ditch so deep +that the eye could scarcely pierce its depths. The ravine at one point +was so narrow that the English and French guns waged duel across it, +but on the British side the chasm was almost perpendicular. + +From their eyrie perch on September 27, 1810, the English watched +Massena's great host coming on. Every eminence sparkled with their +bayonets, every road was crowded with their waggons; it seemed not so +much the march of an army as the movement of a nation. The vision of +"grim Busaco's iron ridge," glittering with bayonets, arrested the +march of the French. But Ney, whose military glance was keen and sure, +saw that the English arrangements were not yet complete; an unfilled +gap, three miles wide, parted the right wing from the left, and he was +eager for an immediate attack. Massena, however, was ten miles in the +rear. According to Marbot, who has left a spirited account of Busaco, +Massena put off the attack till the next day, and thus threw away a +great opportunity. In the gloomy depths of the ravines, however, a war +of skirmishers broke out, and the muskets rang loudly through the +echoing valleys, while the puffs of eddying white smoke rose through +the black pines. But night fell, and the mountain heights above were +crowned with the bivouac fires of 100,000 warriors, over whom the +serene sky glittered. Presently a bitter wind broke on the mountain +summits, and all through the night the soldiers shivered under its keen +blast. + +Massena's plan of attack was simple and daring. Ney was to climb the +steep front on the English left, and assail the light division under +Craufurd; Regnier, with a _corps d'elite_, was to attack the English +left, held by Picton's division. Regnier formed his attack into five +columns while the stars were yet glittering coldly in the morning sky. +They had first to plunge into the savage depths of the ravine, and then +climb the steep slope leading to the English position. The vigour of +the attack was magnificent. General Merle, who had won fame at +Austerlitz, personally led the charge. At a run the columns went down +the ravine; at a run, scarcely less swift, they swept up the hostile +slope. The guns smote the columns from end to end, and the attack left +behind it a broad crimson trail of the dead and dying. But it never +paused. A wave of steel and fire and martial tumult, it swept up the +hill, broke over the crest in a spray of flame, brushed aside a +Portuguese regiment in its path like a wisp of straw, and broke on the +lines of the third division. + +The pressure was too great for even the solid English line to sustain; +it, too, yielded to the impetuous French, part of whom seized the rocks +at the highest point of the hill, while another part wheeled to the +right, intending to sweep the summit of the sierra. It was an +astonishing feat. Only French soldiers, magnificently led and in a +mood of victory, could have done it; and only British soldiers, it may +be added, whom defeat hardens, could have restored such a reverse. + +Picton was in command, and he sent at the French a wing of the 88th, +the famous Connaught Rangers, led by Colonel Wallace, an officer in +whom Wellington reposed great confidence. Wallace's address was brief +and pertinent. "Press them to the muzzle, Connaught Rangers; press on +to the rascals." There is no better fighting material in the world +than an Irish regiment well led and in a high state of discipline, and +this matchless regiment, with levelled bayonets, ran in on the French +with a grim and silent fury there was no denying. Vain was resistance. +Marbot says of the Rangers that "their first volley, delivered at +fifteen paces, stretched more than 500 men on the ground"; and the +threatening gleam of the bayonet followed fiercely on the flame of the +musket. + +The French were borne, shouting, struggling, and fighting desperately, +over the crest and down the deep slope to the ravine below. In a +whirlwind of dust and fire and clamour went the whole body of furious +soldiery into the valley, leaving a broad track of broken arms and +dying men. According to the regimental records of the 88th, "Twenty +minutes sufficed to teach the heroes of Marengo and Austerlitz that +they must yield to the Rangers of Connaught!" As the breathless +Rangers re-formed triumphantly on the ridge, Wellington galloped up and +declared he had never witnessed a more gallant charge. + +But a wing of Regnier's attack had formed at right angles across the +ridge. It was pressing forward with stern resolution; it swept before +it the light companies of the 74th and 88th regiments, and unless this +attack could be arrested the position and the battle were lost. Picton +rallied his broken lines within _sixty yards_ of the French muskets, a +feat not the least marvellous in a marvellous fight, and then sent them +furiously at the exulting French, who held a strong position amongst +the rocks. It is always difficult to disentangle the confusion which +marks a great fight. Napier says that it was Cameron who formed line +with the 38th under a violent fire, and, without returning a shot, ran +in upon the French grenadiers with the bayonet and hurled them +triumphantly over the crest. Picton, on the other hand, declares that +it was the light companies of the 74th and the 88th, under Major Smith, +an officer of great daring--who fell in the moment of victory--that +flung the last French down over the cliff. Who can decide when such +experts, and actors in the actual scene, differ? + +The result, however, as seen from the French side, is clear. The +French, Marbot records, "found themselves driven in a heap down the +deep descent up which they had climbed, and the English lines followed +them half-way down firing murderous volleys. At this point we lost a +general, 2 colonels, 80 officers, and 700 or 800 men." "The English," +he adds in explanation of this dreadful loss of life, "were the best +marksmen in Europe, the only troops who were perfectly practised in the +use of small arms, whence their firing was far more accurate than that +of any other infantry." + +A gleam of humour at this point crosses the grim visage of battle. +Picton, on lying down in his bivouac the night before the battle, had +adorned his head with a picturesque and highly coloured nightcap. The +sudden attack of the French woke him; he clapped on cloak and cocked +hat, and rode to the fighting line, when he personally led the attack +which flung the last of Regnier's troops down the slope. At the moment +of the charge he took off his cocked hat to wave the troops onward; +this revealed the domestic head-dress he unconsciously wore, and the +astonished soldiers beheld their general on flame with warlike fury +gesticulating martially in a nightcap! A great shout of laughter went +up from the men as they stopped for a moment to realise the spectacle; +then with a tempest of mingled laughter and cheers they flung +themselves on the enemy. + +Meanwhile Ney had formed his attack on the English left, held by +Craufurd and the famous light division. Marbot praises the +characteristic tactics of the British in such fights. "After having, +as we do," he says, "garnished their front with skirmishers, they post +their principal forces out of sight, holding them all the time +sufficiently near to the key of the position to be able to attack the +enemy the instant they reach it; and this attack, made unexpectedly on +assailants who have lost heavily, and think the victory already theirs, +succeeds almost invariably." "We had," he adds, "a melancholy +experience of this art at Busaco." Craufurd, a soldier of fine skill, +made exactly such a disposition of his men. Some rocks at the edge of +the ravine formed natural embrasures for the English guns under Ross; +below them the Rifles were flung out as skirmishers; behind them the +German infantry were the only visible troops; but in a fold of the +hill, unseen, Craufurd held the 43rd and 52nd regiments drawn up in +line. + +Ney's attack, as might be expected, was sudden and furious. The +English, in the grey dawn, looking down the ravine, saw three huge +masses start from the French lines and swarm up the slope. To climb an +ascent so steep, vexed by skirmishers on either flank, and scourged by +the guns which flashed from the summit, was a great and most daring +feat--yet the French did it. Busaco, indeed, is memorable as showing +the French fighting quality at its highest point. General Simon led +Loison's attack right up to the lips of the English guns, and in the +dreadful charge its order was never disturbed nor its speed arrested. +"Ross's guns," says Napier, "were worked with incredible quickness, yet +their range was palpably contracted every round; the enemy's shot came +singing up in a sharper key; the English skirmishers, breathless and +begrimed with powder, rushed over the edge of the ascent; the artillery +drew back"--and over the edge of the hill came the bearskins and the +gleaming bayonets of the French! General Simon led the attack so +fiercely home that he was the first to leap across the English +entrenchments, when an infantry soldier, lingering stubbornly after his +comrades had fallen back, shot him point-blank through the face. The +unfortunate general, when the fight was over, was found lying in the +redoubt amongst the dying and the dead, with scarcely a human feature +left. He recovered, was sent as a prisoner to England, and was +afterwards exchanged, but his horrible wound made it impossible for him +to serve again. + +Craufurd had been watching meanwhile with grim coolness the onward rush +of the French. They came storming and exultant, a wave of martial +figures, edged with a spray of fire and a tossing fringe of bayonets, +over the summit of the hill; when suddenly Craufurd, in a shrill tone, +called on his reserves to attack. In an instant there rose, as if out +of the ground, before the eyes of the astonished French, the serried +lines of the 43rd and 52nd, and what a moment before was empty space +was now filled with the frowning visage of battle. The British lines +broke into one stern and deep-toned shout, and 1800 bayonets, in one +long line of gleaming points, came swiftly down upon the French. To +stand against that moving hedge of deadly and level steel was +impossible; yet each man in the leading section of the French raised +his musket and fired, and two officers and ten soldiers fell before +them. Not a Frenchman had missed his mark! They could do no more. +"The head of their column," to quote Napier, "was violently thrown back +upon the rear, both flanks were overlapped at the same moment by the +English wings, and three terrible discharges at five yards' distance +shattered the wavering mass." Before those darting points of flame the +pride of the French shrivelled. Shining victory was converted, in +almost the passage of an instant, into bloody defeat; and a shattered +mass, with ranks broken, and colours abandoned, and discipline +forgotten, the French were swept into the depths of the ravine out of +which they had climbed. + +One of the dramatic episodes of the fight at this juncture is that of +Captain Jones--known in his regiment as "Jack Jones" of the 52nd. +Jones was a fiery Welshman, and led his company in the rush on General +Simon's column. The French were desperately trying to deploy, a +_chef-de-bataillon_ giving the necessary orders with great vehemence. +Jones ran ahead of his charging men, outstripping them by speed of +foot, challenged the French officer with a warlike gesture to single +combat, and slew him with one fierce thrust before his own troops, and +the 52nd, as they came on at the run, saw the duel and its result, were +lifted by it to a mood of victory, and raised a sudden shout of +exultation, which broke the French as by a blast of musketry fire. + +For hours the battle spluttered and smouldered amongst the skirmishers +in the ravines, and some gallant episodes followed. Towards evening, +for example, a French company, with signal audacity, and apparently on +its own private impulse, seized a cluster of houses only half a musket +shot from the light division, and held it while Craufurd scourged them +with the fire of twelve guns. They were only turned out at the point +of the bayonet by the 43rd. But the battle was practically over, and +the English had beaten, by sheer hard fighting, the best troops and the +best marshals of France. + +In the fierceness of actual fighting, Busaco has never been surpassed, +and seldom did the wounded and dying lie thicker on a battlefield than +where the hostile lines struggled together on that fatal September 27. +The _melee_ at some points was too close for even the bayonet to be +used, and the men fought with fists or with the butt-end of their +muskets. From the rush which swept Regnier's men down the slope the +Connaught Rangers came back with faces and hands and weapons literally +splashed red with blood. The firing was so fierce that Wellington, +with his whole staff, dismounted. Napier, however--one of the famous +fighting trio of that name, who afterwards conquered Scinde--fiercely +refused to dismount, or even cover his red uniform with a cloak. "This +is the uniform of my regiment," he said, "and in it I will show, or +fall this day." He had scarcely uttered the words when a bullet +smashed through his face and shattered his jaw to pieces. As he was +carried past Lord Wellington he waved his hand and whispered through +his torn mouth, "I could not die at a better moment!" Of such stuff +were the men who fought under Wellington in the Peninsula. + + + + +OF NELSON AND THE NILE + + + "Britannia needs no bulwarks, + No towers along the steep; + Her march is o'er the mountain waves, + Her home is on the deep. + With thunders from her native oak, + She quells the floods below, + As they roar on the shore + When the stormy winds do blow; + When the battle rages loud and long, + And the stormy winds do blow. + + The meteor flag of England + Shall yet terrific burn, + Till danger's troubled night depart, + And the star of peace return. + Then, then, ye ocean warriors, + Our song and feast shall flow + To the fame of your name, + When the storm has ceased to blow; + When the fiery fight is heard no more, + And the storm has ceased to blow." + --CAMPBELL. + + +Aboukir Bay resembles nothing so much as a piece bitten out of the +Egyptian pancake. A crescent-shaped bay, patchy with shoals, +stretching from the Rosetta mouth of the Nile to Aboukir, or, as it is +now called, Nelson Island, that island being simply the outer point of +a sandbank that projects from the western horn of the bay. Flat +shores, grey-blue Mediterranean waters, two horns of land six miles +apart, that to the north projecting farthest and forming a low +island--this, ninety-eight years ago, was the scene of what might +almost be described as the greatest sea-fight in history. + +On the evening of August 1, 1798, thirteen great battleships lay drawn +up in a single line parallel with the shore, and as close to it as the +sandbanks permitted. The head ship was almost stern on to the shoal +which, running out at right angles to the shore, forms Aboukir Island. +The nose of each succeeding ship was exactly 160 yards from the stern +of the ship before it, and, allowing for one or two gaps, each ship was +bound by a great cable to its neighbour. It was a thread of beads, +only each "bead" was a battleship, whose decks swarmed with brave men, +and from whose sides gaped the iron lips of more than a thousand heavy +guns. The line was not exactly straight; it formed a very obtuse +angle, the projecting point at the centre being formed by the _Orient_, +the biggest warship at that moment afloat, a giant of 120 guns. + +Next to her came the _Franklin_, of 80 guns, a vessel which, if not the +biggest, was perhaps the finest sample of naval architecture in +existence. The line of ships was more than one mile and a half long, +and consisted of the gigantic flagship, three ships of the line of 80 +guns, and nine of 74 guns. In addition, it had a fringe of gunboats +and frigates, while a battery of mortars on the island guarded, as with +a sword of fire, the gap betwixt the headmost ship and the island. +This great fleet had convoyed Napoleon, with 36,000 troops crowded into +400 transports, from France, had captured Malta on the voyage, and +three weeks before had safely landed Napoleon and his soldiers in +Egypt. The French admiral, Brueys, knew that Nelson was coming +furiously in his track, and after a consultation with all his captains +he had drawn up his ships in the order which we have described, a +position he believed to be unassailable. And at three o'clock on the +afternoon of August 1, 1798, his look-outs were eagerly watching the +white topsails showing above the lee line, the van of Nelson's fleet. + +Napoleon had kept the secret of his Egyptian expedition well, and the +great Toulon fleet, with its swarm of transports, had vanished round +the coast of Corsica and gone off into mere space, as far as a +bewildered British Admiralty knew. A fleet of thirteen 74-gun ships +and one of 50 guns was placed under Nelson's flag. He was ordered to +pursue and destroy the vanished French fleet, and with characteristic +energy he set out on one of the most dramatic sea-chases known to +history. With the instinct of genius he guessed that Napoleon's +destination was Egypt; but while the French fleet coasted Sardinia and +went to the west of Sicily, Nelson ran down the Italian coast to +Naples, called there for information, found none, and, carrying all +sail, swept through the straits of Messina. + +On the night of June 22 the two fleets actually crossed each other's +tracks. The French fleet, including the transports, numbered 572 +vessels, and their lights, it might be imagined, would have lit up many +leagues of sea. Yet, through this forest of hostile masts the English +fleet, with keen eyes watching at every masthead, swept and saw +nothing. Nelson, for one thing, had no frigates to serve as eyes and +ears for him; his fleet in sailor-like fashion formed a compact body, +three parallel lines of phantom-like pyramids of canvas sweeping in the +darkness across the floor of the sea. Above all a haze filled the +night; and it is not too much to say that the drifting grey vapour +which hid the French ships from Nelson's lookout men changed the face +of history. + +Nelson used to explain that his ideal of perfect enjoyment would be to +have the chance of "trying Bonaparte on a wind"; and if he had caught +sound of bell or gleam of lantern from the great French fleet, and +brought it to action in the darkness of that foggy night, can any one +doubt what the result would have been? Nelson would have done off the +coast of Sicily on June 22, 1798, what Wellington did on June 18, 1815; +and in that case there would have been no Marengo or Austerlitz, no +retreat from Moscow, no Peninsular war, and no Waterloo. For so much, +in distracted human affairs, may a patch of drifting vapour count! + +Nelson, in a word, overran his prey. He reached Alexandria to find the +coast empty; doubled back to Sicily, zigzagging on his way by Cyprus +and Candia; and twelve hours after he had left Alexandria the topsails +of the French fleet hove in sight from that port. Napoleon's troops +were safely landed, and the French admiral had some four weeks in which +to prepare for Nelson's return, and at 3 P.M. on August 1 the gliding +topsails of the _Swiftsure_ above Aboukir Island showed that the +tireless Englishman had, after nearly three months of pursuit, +overtaken his enemy. + +The French, if frigates be included, counted seventeen ships to +fourteen, and ship for ship they had the advantage over the British +alike in crew, tonnage, and weight of fire. In size the English ships +scarcely averaged 1500 tons; the French ships exceeded 2000 tons. +Nelson had only seventy-fours, his heaviest gun being a 32-pounder. +The average French 80-gun ship in every detail of fighting strength +exceeded an English ninety-eight, and Brueys had three such ships in +his fleet; while his own flagship, the _Orient_, was fully equal to two +English seventy-fours. Its weight of ball on the lower deck alone +exceeded that from the whole broadside of the _Bellerophon_, the ship +that engaged it. The French, in brief, had an advantage in guns of +about twenty per cent., and in men of over thirty per cent. Brueys, +moreover, was lying in a carefully chosen position in a dangerous bay, +of which his enemies possessed no chart, and the head of his line was +protected by a powerful shore battery. + +Nothing in this great fight is more dramatic than the swiftness and +vehemence of Nelson's attack. He simply leaped upon his enemy at +sight. Four of his ships were miles off in the offing, but Nelson did +not wait for them. In the long pursuit he had assembled his captains +repeatedly in his cabin, and discussed every possible manner of +attacking the French fleet. If he found the fleet as he guessed, drawn +up in battle-line close in-shore and anchored, his plan was to place +one of his ships on the bows, another on the quarter, of each French +ship in succession. + +It has been debated who actually evolved the idea of rounding the head +of the French line and attacking on both faces. One version is that +Foley, in the _Goliath_, who led the British line, owed the suggestion +to a keen-eyed middy who pointed out that the anchor buoy of the +headmost French ship was at such a distance from the ship itself as to +prove there was room to pass. But the weight of evidence seems to +prove that Nelson himself, as he rounded Aboukir Island, and scanned +with fierce and questioning vision Brueys' formation, with that +swiftness of glance in which he almost rivalled Napoleon, saw his +chance in the gap between the leading French ship and the shore. +"Where a French ship can swing," he held, "an English ship can either +sail or anchor." And he determined to double on the French line and +attack on both faces at once. He explained his plan to Berry, his +captain, who in his delight exclaimed, "If we succeed, what will the +world say?" "There is no 'if' in the case," said Nelson; "that we +shall succeed is certain; who will live to tell the story is a very +different question." + +[Illustration: THE BATTLE OF THE NILE. Doubling on the French Line. +From Allen's "Battles of the British Navy."] + +Brueys had calculated that the English fleet must come down +perpendicularly to his centre, and each ship in the process be raked by +a line of fire a mile and a half long; but the moment the English ships +rounded the island they tacked, hugged the shore, and swept through the +gap between the leading vessel and the land. The British ships were so +close to each other that Nelson, speaking from his own quarter-deck, +was able to ask Hood in the _Zealous_, if he thought they had water +enough to round the French line. Hood replied that he had no chart, +but would lead and take soundings as he went. + +So the British line came on, the men on the yards taking in canvas, the +leadsmen in the chains coolly calling the soundings. The battery +roared from the island, the leading French ships broke into smoke and +flame, but the steady British line glided on. The _Goliath_ by this +time led; and at half-past five the shadow of its tall masts cast by +the westering sun fell over the decks of the _Guerrier_, and as Foley, +its captain, swept past the Frenchman's bows, he poured in a furious +broadside, bore swiftly up, and dropped--as Nelson, with that minute +attention to detail which marks a great commander, had ordered all his +captains--an anchor from the stern, so that, without having to "swing," +he was instantly in a fighting position on his enemy's quarter. Foley, +however, dropped his anchor a moment too late, and drifted on to the +second ship in the line; but Hood, in the _Zealous_, coming swiftly +after, also raked the _Guerrier_, and, anchoring from the stern at the +exact moment, took the place on its quarter Foley should have taken. + +The _Orion_ came into battle next, blasted the unfortunate _Guerrier_, +whose foremast had already gone, with a third broadside, and swept +outside the _Zealous_ and _Goliath_ down to the third ship on the +French line. A French frigate, the _Serieuse_, of thirty-six guns, +anchored inside the French line, ventured to fire on the _Orion_ as it +swept past, whereupon Saumarez, its commander, discharged his starboard +broadside into that frigate. The _Serieuse_ reeled under the shock of +the British guns, its masts disappeared like chips, and the unfortunate +Frenchman went down like a stone; while Saumarez, laying himself on the +larboard bow of the _Franklin_ and the quarter of the _Peuple Sovrain_, +broke upon them in thunder. The _Theseus_ followed hard in the track +of the _Orion_, raked the unhappy _Guerrier_ in the familiar fashion +while crossing its bows, then swept through the narrow water-lane +betwixt the _Goliath_ and _Zealous_ and their French antagonists, +poured a smashing broadside into each French ship as it passed, then +shot outside the _Orion_, and anchored with mathematical nicety off the +quarter of the _Spartiate_. The water-lane was not a pistol-shot wide, +and this feat of seamanship was marvellous. + +Miller, who commanded the _Theseus_, in a letter to his wife described +the fight. "In running along the enemy's line in the wake of the +_Zealous_ and _Goliath_, I observed," he says, "their shot sweep just +over us, and knowing well that at such a moment Frenchmen would not +have coolness enough to change their elevation, I closed them suddenly, +and, running under the arch of their shot, reserved my fire, every gun +being loaded with two, and some with three round shot, until I had the +_Guerrier's_ masts in a line, and her jib-boom about six feet clear of +our rigging. We then opened with such effect that a second breath +could not be drawn before her main and mizzen-mast were also gone. +This was precisely at sunset, or forty-four minutes past six." + +The _Audacious_, meanwhile, was too impatient to tack round the head of +the French line; it broke through the gap betwixt the first and second +ships of the enemy, delivered itself, in a comfortable manner, of a +raking broadside into both as it passed, took its position on the +larboard bow of the _Conquerant_, and gave itself up to the joy of +battle. Within thirty minutes from the beginning of the fight, that +is, five British line-of-battle ships were inside the French line, +comfortably established on the bows or quarters of the leading ships. +Nelson himself, in the _Vanguard_, anchored on the outside of the +French line, within eighty yards of the _Spartiate's_ starboard beam; +the _Minotaur_, the _Bellerophon_, and the _Majestic_, coming up in +swift succession, and at less than five minutes' interval from each +other, flung themselves on the next ships. + +How the thunder of the battle deepened, and how the quick flashes of +the guns grew brighter as the night gathered rapidly over sea, must be +imagined. But Nelson's swift and brilliant strategy was triumphant. +Each ship in the French van resembled nothing so much as a walnut in +the jaws of a nut-cracker. They were being "cracked" in succession, +and the rear of the line could only look on with agitated feelings and +watch the operation. + +The fire of the British ships for fury and precision was overwhelming. +The head of the _Guerrier_ was simply shot away; the anchors hanging +from her bows were cut in two; her main-deck ports, from the bowsprit +to the gangway, were driven into one; her masts, fallen inboard, lay +with their tangle of rigging on the unhappy crew; while some of her +main-deck beams--all supports being torn away--fell on the guns. Hood, +in the _Zealous_, who was pounding the unfortunate _Guerrier_, says, +"At last, being tired of killing men in that way, I sent a lieutenant +on board, who was allowed, as I had instructed him, to hoist a light, +and haul it down as a sign of submission." But all the damage was not +on the side of the French. The great French flagship, the _Orient_, by +this time had added her mighty voice to the tumult, and the +_Bellerophon_, who was engaged with her, had a bad time of it. It was +the story of Tom Sayers and Heenan over again--a dwarf fighting a +giant. Her mizzen-mast and mainmast were shot away, and after +maintaining the dreadful duel for more than an hour, and having 200 of +her crew struck down, at 8.20 P.M. the _Bellerophon_ cut her cable and +drifted, a disabled wreck, out of the fire. + +Meanwhile the four ships Nelson had left in the offing were beating +furiously up to add themselves to the fight. Night had fallen, by the +time Troubridge, in the _Culloden_, came round the island; and then, in +full sight of the great battle, the _Culloden_ ran hopelessly ashore! +She was, perhaps, the finest ship of the British fleet, and the +emotions of its crew and commander as they listened to the tumult, and +watched through the darkness the darting fires of the Titanic combat +they could not share, may be imagined. "Our army," according to +well-known authorities, "swore terribly in Flanders." The expletives +discharged that night along the decks and in the forecastle of the +Culloden would probably have made even a Flanders veteran open his eyes +in astonishment. + +The _Swiftsure_ and the _Alexander_, taking warning by the _Culloden's_ +fate, swept round her and bore safely up to the fight. The +_Swiftsure_, bearing down through the darkness to the combat, came +across a vessel drifting, dismasted and lightless, a mere wreck. +Holliwell, the captain of the _Swiftsure_, was about to fire, thinking +it was an enemy, but on second thoughts hailed instead, and got for an +answer the words, "_Bellerophon_; going out of action, disabled." The +_Swiftsure_ passed on, and five minutes after the _Bellerophon_ had +drifted from the bows of the _Orient_ the _Swiftsure_, coming +mysteriously up out of the darkness, took her place, and broke into a +tempest of fire. + +At nine o'clock the great French flagship burst into flame. The +painters had been at work upon her on the morning of that day, and had +left oil and combustibles about. The nearest English ships +concentrated their fire, both of musketry and of cannon, on the burning +patch, and made the task of extinguishing it hopeless. Brueys, the +French admiral, had already been cut in two by a cannon shot, and +Casablanca, his commodore, was wounded. The fire spread, the flames +leaped up the masts and crept athwart the decks of the great ship. The +moon had just risen, and the whole scene was perhaps the strangest ever +witnessed--the great burning ship, the white light of the moon above, +the darting points of red flame from the iron lips of hundreds of guns +below, the drifting battle-smoke, the cries of ten thousand +combatants--all crowded into an area of a few hundred square yards! + +The British ships, hanging like hounds on the flanks of the Orient, +knew that the explosion might come at any moment, and they made every +preparation for it, closing their hatchways, and gathering their +firemen at quarters. But they would not withdraw their ships a single +yard! At ten o'clock the great French ship blew up with a flame that +for a moment lit shore and sea, and a sound that hushed into stillness +the whole tumult of the battle. Out of a crew of over a thousand men +only seventy were saved! For ten minutes after that dreadful sight the +warring fleets seemed stupefied. Not a shout was heard, not a shot +fired. Then the French ship next the missing flagship broke into +wrathful fire, and the battle awoke in full passion once more. + +The fighting raged with partial intermissions all through the night, +and when morning broke Brueys' curved line of mighty battleships, a +mile and a half long, had vanished. Of the French ships, one had been +blown up, one was sunk, one was ashore, four had fled, the rest were +prizes. It was the most complete and dramatic victory in naval +history. The French fought on the whole with magnificent courage; but, +though stronger in the mass, Nelson's strategy and the seamanship of +his captains made the British stronger at every point of actual battle. +The rear of the French line did not fire a shot or lose a man. The +wonder is that when Nelson's strategy was developed, and its fatal +character understood, Villeneuve, who commanded the French rear, and +was a man of undoubted courage, did not cut his cables, make sail, and +come to the help of his comrades. A few hundred yards would have +carried him to the heart of the fight. Can any one doubt whether, if +the positions had been reversed, Nelson would have watched the +destruction of half his fleet as a mere spectator? If nothing better +had offered, he would have pulled in a wash-tub into the fight! + +Villeneuve afterwards offered three explanations of his own +inertness--(1) he "could not spare any of his anchors"; (2) "he had no +instructions"! (3) "on board the ships in the rear the idea of weighing +and going to the help of the ships engaged occurred to no one"! In +justice to the French, however, it may be admitted that nothing could +surpass the fierceness and valour with which, say, the _Tonnant_ was +fought. Its captain, Du Petit-Thouars, fought his ship magnificently, +had first both his arms and then one of his legs shot away, and died +entreating his officers not to strike. Of the ten French ships +engaged, the captains of eight were killed or wounded. Nelson took the +seven wounded captains on board the _Vanguard_, and, as they recovered, +they dined regularly with him. One of the captains had lost his nose, +another an eye, another most of his teeth, with musket-shots, &c. +Nelson, who himself had been wounded, and was still half-blind as a +result, at one of his dinners offered by mischance a case of toothpicks +to the captain on his left, who had lost all his teeth. He discovered +his error, and in his confusion handed his snuff-box to the captain on +his right, who had lost his nose! + +What was the secret of the British victory? Nelson's brilliant +strategy was only possible by virtue of the magnificent seamanship of +his captains, and the new fashion of close and desperate fighting, +which Hood and Jarvis and Nelson himself had created. It is a French +writer, Captain Graviere, who says that the French naval habit of +evading battle where they could, and of accepting action from an enemy +rather than forcing it upon him, had ruined the _morale_ of the French +navy. The long blockades had made Nelson's captains perfect seamen, +and he taught them that close fighting at pistol-shot distance was the +secret of victory. "No English captain," he said, "can do wrong who, +in fight, lays a ship alongside an enemy." It was a captain of +Nelson's school--a Scotchman--who at Camperdown, unable, just as the +action began, to read some complicated signal from his chief, flung his +signal-book on the deck, and in broad Scotch exclaimed, "D---- me! up +with the hellem an' gang in the middle o't." That trick of "ganging +into the middle o't" was irresistible. + +The battle of the Nile destroyed the naval prestige of France, made +England supreme in the Mediterranean, saved India, left Napoleon and +his army practically prisoners in Egypt, and united Austria, Russia, +and Turkey in league against France. The night battle in Aboukir Bay, +in a word, changed the face of history. + + + + +THE FUSILEERS AT ALBUERA + + + "And nearer, fast and nearer, + Doth the red whirlwind come; + And louder still, and still more loud, + From underneath that rolling cloud, + Is heard the trumpet's war-note proud, + The trampling and the hum. + And plainly, and more plainly, + Now through the gloom appears, + Far to left and far to right, + In broken gleams of dark-blue light, + The long array of helmets bright, + The long array of spears." + --MACAULAY. + + +Albuera is the fiercest, bloodiest, and most amazing fight in the mighty +drama of the Peninsular war. On May 11, 1811, the English guns were +thundering sullenly over Badajos. Wellington was beyond the Guadiana, +pressing Marmont; and Beresford, with much pluck but little skill, was +besieging the great frontier fortress. Soult, however, a master of war, +was swooping down from Seville to raise the siege. On the 14th he +reached Villafranca, only thirty miles distant, and fired salvos from his +heaviest guns all through the night to warn the garrison of approaching +succour. Beresford could not both maintain the siege and fight Soult; +and on the night of the 13th he abandoned his trenches, burnt his gabions +and fascines, and marched to meet Soult at Albuera, a low ridge, with a +shallow river in front, which barred the road to Badajos. As the morning +of May 16, 1811, broke, heavy with clouds, and wild with gusty +rain-storms, the two armies grimly gazed at each other in stern pause, +ere they joined in the wrestle of actual battle. + +All the advantages, save one, were on the side of the French. Soult was +the ablest of the French marshals. If he had not Ney's _elan_ in attack, +or Massena's stubborn resource in retreat, yet he had a military genius, +since Lannes was dead, second only to that of Napoleon himself. He had +under his command 20,000 war-hardened infantry, 40 guns, and 4000 +magnificent cavalry, commanded by Latour Maubourg, one of the most +brilliant of French cavalry generals. Beresford, the British commander, +had the dogged fighting courage, half Dutch and half English, of his name +and blood; but as a commander he was scarcely third-rate. Of his army of +30,000, 15,000 were Spanish, half drilled, and more than half +starved--they had lived for days on horse-flesh--under Blake, a general +who had lost all the good qualities of Irish character, and acquired all +the bad ones peculiar to Spanish temper. Of Beresford's remaining troop +8000 were Portuguese; he had only 7000 British soldiers. + +Beresford ought not to have fought. He had abandoned the siege at +Badajos, and no reason for giving battle remained. The condition of +Blake's men, no doubt, made retreat difficult. They had reached the +point at which they must either halt or lie down and die. The real force +driving Beresford to battle, however, was the fighting effervescence in +his own blood and the warlike impatience of his English troops. They had +taken no part in the late great battles under Wellington; Busaco had been +fought and Fuentes de Onoro gained without them; and they were in the +mood, both officers and men, of fierce determination to fight _somebody_! +This was intimated somewhat roughly to Beresford, and he had not that +iron ascendency over his troops Wellington possessed. As a matter of +fact, he was himself as stubbornly eager to fight as any private in the +ranks. + +The superiority of Soult's warlike genius was shown before a shot was +fired. Beresford regarded the bridge that crossed the Albuera and the +village that clustered at the bridge-head as the key of his position. He +occupied the village with Alten's German brigade, covered the bridge with +the fire of powerful batteries, and held in reserve above it his best +British brigade, the fusileers, under Cole, the very regiments who, four +hours later, on the extreme right of Beresford's position, were actually +to win the battle. Soult's sure vision, however, as he surveyed his +enemies on the evening of the 15th, saw that Beresford's right was his +weak point. It was a rough, broken table-land, curving till it looked +into the rear of Beresford's line. It was weakly held by Blake and his +Spaniards. Immediately in its front was a low wooded hill, behind which, +as a screen, an attacking force could be gathered. + +In the night Soult placed behind this hill the fifth corps, under Gerard, +the whole of his cavalry, under Latour Maubourg, and the strength of his +artillery. When the morning broke, Soult had 15,000 men and 30 guns +within ten minutes' march of Beresford's right wing, and nobody suspected +it. No gleam of colour, no murmur of packed battalions, no ring of +steel, no sound of marching feet warned the deluded English general of +the battle-storm about to break on his right wing. A commander with such +an unexpected tempest ready to burst on the weakest point of his line was +by all the rules of war pre-doomed. + +At nine o'clock Soult launched an attack at the bridge, the point where +Beresford expected him, but it was only a feint. Beresford, however, +with all his faults, had the soldierly brain to which the actual thunder +of the cannon gave clearness. He noticed that the French battalions +supporting the attack on the bridge did not press on closely. As a +matter of fact, as soon as the smoke of artillery from the battle raging +at the bridge swept over the field, they swung smartly to the left, and +at the double hastened to add themselves to the thunderbolt which Soult +was launching at Beresford's right. But Beresford, meanwhile, had +guessed Soult's secret, and he sent officer after officer ordering and +entreating Blake to change front so as to meet Soult's attack on his +flank, and he finally rode thither himself to enforce his commands. +Blake, however, was immovable through pride, and his men through sheer +physical weakness. They could die, but they could not march or deploy. +Blake at last tried to change front, but as he did so the French attack +smote him. Pressing up the gentle rise, Gerard's men scourged poor +Blake's flank with their fire; the French artillery, coming swiftly on, +halted every fifty yards to thunder on the unhappy Spaniards; while +Latour Maubourg's lancers and hussars, galloping in a wider sweep, +gathered momentum for a wild ride on Blake's actual rear. + +[Illustration: Battle of Albuera, 16th May, 1811. From Napier's +"Peninsular War."] + +Beresford tried to persuade the Spaniards to charge as the French were +thus circling round them. Shouts and gesticulations were in vain. He +was a man of giant height and strength, and he actually seized a Spanish +ensign in his iron grip, and carried him bodily, flag and all, at a run +for fifty yards towards the moving French lines, and planted him there. +When released, however, the bewildered Spaniard simply took to his heels +and ran back to his friends, as a terrified sheep might run back to the +flock. In half-an-hour Beresford's battle had grown desperate. +Two-thirds of the French, in compact order of battle, were perpendicular +to his right; the Spaniards were falling into disorder. Soult saw the +victory in his grasp, and eagerly pushed forward his reserves. Over the +whole hill, mingled with furious blasts of rain, rolled the tumult of a +disorderly and broken fight. Ten minutes more would have enabled Soult +to fling Beresford's right, a shattered and routed mass, on the only +possible line of retreat, and with the French superiority in cavalry his +army would have been blotted out. + +The share of the British in the fight consisted of three great attacks +delivered by way of counter-stroke to Soult's overwhelming rush on the +hill held by Blake. The first attack was delivered by the second +division, under Colborne, led by General Stewart in person. Stewart was +a sort of British version of Ney, a man of vehement spirit, with a daring +that grew even more flame-like in the eddying tumult and tempest of +actual battle. He saw Soult's attack crumpling up Blake's helpless +battalions, while the flash of the French artillery every moment grew +closer. It was the crisis of the fight, and Stewart brought on +Colborne's men at a run. Colborne himself, a fine soldier with cool +judgment, wished to halt and form his men in order of battle before +plunging into the confused vortex of the fight above; but Stewart, full +of breathless ardour, hurried the brigade up the hill in column of +companies, reached the Spanish right, and began to form line by +succession of battalions as they arrived. + +At this moment a wild tempest of rain was sweeping over the British as, +at the double, they came up the hill; the eddying fog, thick and slab +with the smoke of powder, hid everything twenty yards from the panting +soldiers. Suddenly the wall of changing fog to their right sparkled into +swiftly moving spots of red; it shone the next instant with the gleam of +a thousand steel points; above the thunder of the cannon, the shouts of +contending men, rose the awful sound of a tempest of galloping hoofs. +The French lancers and hussars caught the English in open order, and in +five fierce and bloody minutes almost trampled them out of existence! +Two-thirds of the brigade went down. The 31st Regiment flung itself +promptly into square, and stood fast--a tiny island, edged with steel and +flame, amid the mad tumult; but the French lancers, drunk with +excitement, mad with battle fury, swept over the whole slope of the hill. +They captured six guns, and might have done yet more fatal mischief but +that they occupied themselves in galloping to and fro across the line of +their original charge, spearing the wounded. + +One lancer charged Beresford as he sat, solitary and huge, on his horse +amid the broken English regiments. But Beresford was at least a +magnificent trooper; he put the lance aside with one hand, and caught the +Frenchman by the throat, lifted him clean from his saddle, and dashed him +senseless on the ground! The ensign who carried the colours of the 3rd +Buffs covered them with his body till he was slain by a dozen +lance-thrusts; the ensign who carried the other colours of the same +regiment tore the flag from its staff and thrust it into his breast, and +it was found there, stiff with his blood, after the fight. The +Spaniards, meanwhile, were firing incessantly but on general principles +merely, and into space or into the ranks of their own allies as might +happen; and the 29th, advancing to the help of Colborne's broken men, +finding the Spaniards in their path and firing into their lines, broke +sternly into volleys on them in turn. Seldom has a battlefield witnessed +a tumult so distracted and wild. + +The first English counter-stroke had failed, but the second followed +swiftly. The furious rain and fog which had proved so fatal to +Colborne's men for a moment, was in favour of Beresford. Soult, though +eagerly watching the conflict, could not see the ruin into which the +British had fallen, and hesitated to launch his reserves into the fight. +The 31st still sternly held its own against the French cavalry, and this +gave time for Stewart to bring up Houghton's brigade. But this time +Stewart, though he brought up his men with as much vehemence as before, +brought them up in order of battle. The 29th, the 48th, and the 57th +swept up the hill in line, led by Houghton, hat in hand. He fell, +pierced by three bullets; but over his dead body, eager to close, the +British line still swept. They reached the crest. A deep and narrow +ravine arrested their bayonet charge; but with stubborn valour they held +the ground they had gained, scourged with musketry fire at pistol-shot +distance, and by artillery at fifty yards' range, while a French column +smote them with its musketry on their flask. The men fell fast, but +fought as they fell. Stewart was twice wounded; Colonel Dutworth, of the +48th, slain; of the 57th, out of 570 men, 430, with their colonel, +Inglis, fell. The men, after the battle, were found lying dead in ranks +exactly as they fought. "Die hard! my men, die hard!" said Inglis when +the bullet struck him; and the 57th have borne the name of "Die hards" +ever since. At Inkerman, indeed, more than fifty years afterwards, the +"Die hard!" of Inglis served to harden the valour of the 57th in a fight +as stern as Albuera itself. + +But ammunition began to fail. Houghton's men would not yield, but it was +plain that in a few more minutes there would be none of them left, save +the dead and the wounded. And at this dreadful moment Beresford, +distracted with the tumult and horror of the fight, wavered! He called +up Alten's men from the bridge to cover his retreat, and prepared to +yield the fatal hill. At this juncture, however, a mind more masterful +and daring than his own launched a third British attack against the +victorious French and won the dreadful day. + +Colonel Hardinge, afterwards famous in Indian battles, acted as +quartermaster-general of the Portuguese army; on his own responsibility +he organised the third English attack. Cole had just come up the road +from Badajos with two brigades, and Hardinge urged him to lead his men +straight up the hill; then riding to Abercrombie's brigade, he ordered +him to sweep round the flank of the hill. Beresford, on learning of this +movement, accepted it, and sent back Alten's men to retake the bridge +which they had abandoned. + +Abercrombie's men swept to the left of the hill, and Cole, a gallant and +able soldier, using the Portuguese regiments in his brigade as a guard +against a flank attack of the French cavalry, led his two fusileer +regiments, the 7th and 23rd, straight to the crest. + +At this moment the French reserves were coming on, the fragments of +Houghton's brigade were falling back, the field was heaped with carcases, +the lancers were riding furiously about the captured artillery, and with +a storm of exultant shouts the French were sweeping on to assured +victory. It was the dramatic moment of the fight. Suddenly through the +fog, coming rapidly on with stern faces and flashing volleys, appeared +the long line of Cole's fusileers on the right of Houghton's staggering +groups, while at the same exact moment Abercrombie's line broke through +the mist on their left. As these grim and threatening lines became +visible, the French shouts suddenly died down. It was the old contest of +the British line--the "thin red line"--against the favourite French +attack in column, and the story can only be told in Napier's resonant +prose. The passage which describes the attack of the fusileers is one of +the classic passages of English battle literature, and in its syllables +can still almost be heard the tread of marching feet, the shrill clangour +of smitten steel, and the thunder of the musketry volleys:-- + +"Such a gallant line," says Napier, "arising from amid the smoke, and +rapidly separating itself from the confused and broken multitude, +startled the enemy's masses, which were increasing and pressing forward +as to assured victory; they wavered, hesitated, and then, vomiting forth +a storm of fire, hastily endeavoured to enlarge their front, while the +fearful discharge of grape from all their artillery whistled through the +British ranks. Myers was killed. Cole and the three colonels--Ellis, +Blakeney, and Hawkshawe--fell wounded, and the fusileer battalions, +struck by the iron tempest, reeled and staggered like sinking ships. +Suddenly and sternly recovering, they closed on their terrible enemies, +and then was seen with what a strength and majesty the British soldier +fights. In vain did Soult, by voice and gesture, animate his Frenchmen; +in vain did the hardiest veterans break from the crowded columns and +sacrifice their lives to gain time for the mass to open on such a fair +field; in vain did the mass itself bear up, and, fiercely striving, fire +indiscriminately on friends and foes, while the horsemen, hovering on the +flanks, threatened to charge the advancing line. + +"Nothing could stop that astonishing infantry. No sudden burst of +undisciplined valour, no nervous enthusiasm weakened the stability of +their order; their flashing eyes were bent on the dark columns in front, +their measured tread shook the ground, their dreadful volleys swept away +the head of every formation, their deafening shouts overpowered the +dissonant cries that broke from all parts of the tumultuous crowd as +slowly and with a horrid carnage it was driven by the incessant vigour of +the attack to the farthest edge of the hill. In vain did the French +reserves mix with the struggling multitude to sustain the fight; their +efforts only increased the irremediable confusion, and the mighty mass, +breaking off like a loosened cliff, went headlong down the ascent. The +rain flowed after in streams discoloured with blood, and 1800 unwounded +men, the remnant of 6000 unconquerable British soldiers, stood triumphant +on the fatal hill." + +The battle of Albuera lasted four hours; its slaughter was dreadful. +Within the space of a few hundred feet square were strewn some 7000 +bodies, and over this Aceldama the artillery had galloped, the cavalry +had charged! The 3rd Buffs went into the fight with 24 officers and 750 +rank and file; at the roll-call next morning there were only 5 officers +and 35 men. One company of the Royal Fusileers came out of the fight +commanded by a corporal; every officer and sergeant had been killed. +Albuera is essentially a soldier's fight. The bayonet of the private, +not the brain of the general, won it; and never was the fighting quality +of our race more brilliantly shown. Soult summed up the battle in words +that deserve to be memorable. "There is no beating those troops," he +wrote, "_in spite of their generals_!" "I always thought them bad +soldiers," he added, with a Frenchman's love of paradox; "now I am sure +of it. For I turned their right, pierced their centre, they were +everywhere broken, the day was mine, and yet _they did not know it_, and +would not run!" + + + + +THE "SHANNON" AND THE "CHESAPEAKE" + + + "The signal to engage shall be + A whistle and a hollo; + Be one and all but firm, like me, + And conquest soon will follow! + You, Gunnel, keep the helm in hand-- + Thus, thus, boys! steady, steady, + Till right ahead you see the land-- + Then soon as you are ready, + The signal to engage shall be + A whistle and a hollo; + Be one and all but firm, like me, + And conquest soon will follow!" + --C. DIBDIN. + + +On the early morning of June 1, 1813, a solitary British frigate, +H.M.S. _Shannon_, was cruising within sight of Boston lighthouse. She +was a ship of about 1000 tons, and bore every mark of long and hard +service. No gleam of colour sparkled about her. Her sides were rusty, +her sails weather-stained; a solitary flag flew from her mizzen-peak, +and even its blue had been bleached by sun and rain and wind to a dingy +grey. A less romantic and more severely practical ship did not float, +and her captain was of the same type as the ship. + +Captain Philip Bowes Vere Broke was an Englishman _pur sang_, and of a +type happily not uncommon. His fame will live as long as the British +flag flies, yet a more sober and prosaic figure can hardly be imagined. +He was not, like Nelson, a quarter-deck Napoleon; he had no gleam of +Dundonald's matchless _ruse de guerre_. He was as deeply religious as +Havelock or one of Cromwell's major-generals; he had the frugality of a +Scotchman, and the heavy-footed common-sense of a Hollander. He was as +nautical as a web-footed bird, and had no more "nerves" than a fish. A +domestic Englishman, whose heart was always with the little girls at +Brokehall, in Suffolk, but for whom the service of his country was a +piety, and who might have competed with Lawrence for his self-chosen +epitaph, "Here lies one who tried to do his duty." + +A sober-suited, half-melancholy common-sense was Broke's +characteristic, and he had applied it to the working of his ship, till +he had made the vessel, perhaps, the most formidable fighting machine +of her size afloat. He drilled his gunners until, from the swaying +platform of their decks, they shot with a deadly coolness and accuracy +nothing floating could resist. Broke, as a matter of fact, owed his +famous victory over the _Chesapeake_ to one of his matter-of-fact +precautions. The first broadside fired by the _Chesapeake_ sent a +32-pound shot through one of the gun-room cabins into the magazine +passage of the _Shannon_, where it might easily have ignited some +grains of loose powder and blown the ship up, if Broke had not taken +the precaution of elaborately _damping_ that passage before the action +began. The prosaic side of Broke's character is very amusing. In his +diary he records his world-famous victory thus:-- + +"June 1st.--Off Boston. Moderate." + +"N.W.--W(rote) Laurence." + +"P.M.--Took _Chesapeake_." + +Was ever a shining victory packed into fewer or duller words? Broke's +scorn of the histrionic is shown by his reply to one of his own men +who, when the _Chesapeake_, one blaze of fluttering colours, was +bearing down upon her drab-coloured opponent, said to his commander, +eyeing the bleached and solitary flag at the _Shannon's_ peak, "Mayn't +we have three ensigns, sir, like she has?" "No," said Broke, "we have +always been an _unassuming_ ship!" + +And yet, this unromantic English sailor had a gleam of Don Quixote in +him. On this pleasant summer morning he was waiting alone, under easy +sail, outside a hostile port, strongly fortified and full of armed +vessels, waiting for an enemy's ship bigger than himself to come out +and fight him. He had sent in the previous day, by way of challenge, a +letter that recalls the days of chivalry. "As the _Chesapeake_," he +wrote to Laurence, its captain, "appears now ready for sea, I request +that you will do me the favour to meet the _Shannon_ with her, ship to +ship." He proceeds to explain the exact armament of the _Shannon_, the +number of her crew, the interesting circumstance that he is short of +provisions and water, and that he has sent away his consort so that the +terms of the duel may be fair. "If you will favour me," he says, "with +any plan of signals or telegraph, I will warn you should any of my +friends be too nigh, while you are in sight, until I can detach them +out of the way. Or," he suggests coaxingly, "I would sail under a flag +of truce to any place you think safest from our cruisers, hauling it +down when fair, to begin hostilities. . . . Choose your terms," he +concludes, "but let us meet." Having sent in this amazing letter, this +middle-aged, unromantic, but hard-fighting captain climbs at daybreak +to his own maintop, and sits there till half-past eleven, watching the +challenged ship, to see if her foretopsail is unloosed and she is +coming out to fight. + +It is easy to understand the causes which kindled a British sailor of +even Broke's unimaginative temperament into flame. On June 18, 1812, +the United States, with magnificent audacity, declared war against +Great Britain. England at that moment had 621 efficient cruisers at +sea, 102 being line-of-battle ships. The American navy consisted of 8 +frigates and 12 corvettes. It is true that England was at war at the +same moment with half the civilised world; but what reasonable chance +had the tiny naval power of the United States against the mighty fleets +of England, commanded by men trained in the school of Nelson, and rich +with the traditions of the Nile and Trafalgar? As a matter of fact, in +the war which followed, the commerce of the United States was swept out +of existence. But the Americans were of the same fighting stock as the +English; to the Viking blood, indeed, they added Yankee ingenuity and +resource, making a very formidable combination; and up to the June +morning when the _Shannon_ was waiting outside Boston Harbour for the +_Chesapeake_, the naval honours of the war belonged to the Americans. +The Americans had no fleet, and the campaign was one of single ship +against single ship, but in these combats the Americans had scored more +successes in twelve months than French seamen had gained in twelve +years. The _Guerriere_, the _Java_, and the _Macedonian_ had each been +captured in single combat, and every British post-captain betwixt +Portsmouth and Halifax was swearing with mere fury. + +The Americans were shrewd enough to invent a new type of frigate which, +in strength of frame, weight of metal, and general fighting power, was +to a British frigate of the same class almost what an ironclad would be +to a wooden ship. The _Constitution_, for example, was in size to the +average British frigate as 15.3 to 10.9; in weight of metal as 76 to +51; and in crew as 46 to 25. Broke, however, had a well-founded belief +in his ship and his men, and he proposed, in his sober fashion, to +restore the tarnished honour of his flag by capturing single-handed the +best American frigate afloat. + +The _Chesapeake_ was a fine ship, perfectly equipped, under a daring +and popular commander. Laurence was a man of brilliant ingenuity and +courage, and had won fame four months before by capturing in the +_Hornet_, after a hard fight, the British brig-of-war _Peacock_. For +this feat he had been promoted to the _Chesapeake_, and in his brief +speech from the quarterdeck just before the fight with the _Shannon_ +began, he called up the memory of the fight which made him a popular +hero by exhorting his crew to "_Peacock_ her, my lads! _Peacock_ her!" +The _Chesapeake_ was larger than the _Shannon_, its crew was nearly a +hundred men stronger, its weight of fire 598 lbs. as against the +_Shannon's_ 538 lbs. Her guns fired double-headed shot, and bars of +wrought iron connected by links and loosely tied by a few rope yarns, +which, when discharged from the gun, spread out and formed a flying +iron chain six feet long. Its canister shot contained jagged pieces of +iron, broken bolts, and nails. As the British had a reputation for +boarding, a large barrel of unslacked lime was provided to fling in the +faces of the boarders. An early shot from the _Shannon_, by the way, +struck this cask of lime and scattered its contents in the faces of the +Americans themselves. Part of the equipment of the _Chesapeake_ +consisted of several hundred pairs of handcuffs, intended for the +wrists of English prisoners. Boston citizens prepared a banquet in +honour of the victors for the same evening, and a small fleet of +pleasure-boats followed the _Chesapeake_ as she came gallantly out to +the fight. + +Never was a braver, shorter, or more murderous fight. Laurence, the +most gallant of men, bore steadily down, without firing a shot, to the +starboard quarter of the _Shannon_. When within fifty yards he luffed; +his men sprang into the shrouds and gave three cheers. Broke fought +with characteristic silence and composure. He forbade his men to +cheer, enforced the sternest silence along his deck, and ordered the +captain of each gun to fire as his piece bore on the enemy. "Fire into +her quarters," he said, "main-deck into main-deck, quarter-deck into +quarter-deck. Kill the men, and the ship is yours." + +The sails of the _Chesapeake_ swept betwixt the slanting rays of the +evening sun and the _Shannon_, the drifting shadow darkened the English +main-deck ports, the rush of the enemy's cut-water could be heard +through the grim silence of the _Shannon's_ decks. Suddenly there +broke out the first gun from the _Shannon_; then her whole side leaped +into flame. Never was a more fatal broadside discharged. A tempest of +shot, splinters, torn hammocks, cut rigging, and wreck of every kind +was hurled like a cloud across the deck of the _Chesapeake_, and of one +hundred and fifty men at stations there, more than a hundred were +killed or wounded. A more fatal loss to the Americans instantly +followed, as Captain Laurence, the fiery soul of his ship, was shot +through the abdomen by an English marine, and fell mortally wounded. + +The answering thunder of the _Chesapeake's_ guns, of course, rolled +out, and then, following quick, the overwhelming blast of the +_Shannon's_ broadside once more. Each ship, indeed, fired two full +broadsides, and, as the guns fell quickly out of range, part of another +broadside. The firing of the _Chesapeake_ was furious and deadly +enough to have disabled an ordinary ship. It is computed that forty +effective shots would be enough to disable a frigate; the _Shannon_ +during the six minutes of the firing was struck by no less than 158 +shot, a fact which proves the steadiness and power of the American +fire. But the fire of the _Shannon_ was overwhelming. In those same +six fatal minutes she smote the _Chesapeake_ with no less than 362 +shots, an average of 60 shots of all sizes every minute, as against the +_Chesapeake's_ 28 shots. The _Chesapeake_ was fir-built, and the +British shot riddled her. One _Shannon_ broadside partly raked the +_Chesapeake_ and literally smashed the stern cabins and battery to mere +splinters, as completely as though a procession of aerolites had torn +through it. + +The swift, deadly, concentrated fire of the British in two +quick-following broadsides practically decided the combat. The +partially disabled vessels drifted together, and the _Chesapeake_ fell +on board the _Shannon_, her quarter striking the starboard main-chains. +Broke, as the ships ground together, looked over the blood-splashed +decks of the American and saw the men deserting the quarter-deck guns, +under the terror of another broadside at so short a distance. "Follow +me who can," he shouted, and with characteristic coolness "stepped"--in +his own phrase--across the _Chesapeake's_ bulwark. He was followed by +some 32 seamen and 18 marines--50 British boarders leaping upon a ship +with a crew of 400 men, a force which, even after the dreadful +broadsides of the _Shannon_, still numbered 270 unwounded men in its +ranks. + +It is absurd to deny to the Americans courage of the very finest +quality, but the amazing and unexpected severity of the _Shannon's_ +fire had destroyed for the moment their _morale_, and the British were +in a mood of victory. The boatswain of the _Shannon_, an old _Rodney_ +man, lashed the two ships together, and in the act had his left arm +literally hacked off by repeated strokes of a cutlass and was killed. +One British midshipman, followed by five topmen, crept along the +_Shannon's_ foreyard and stormed the _Chesapeake's_ foretop, killing +the men stationed there, and then swarmed down by a back-stay to join +the fighting on the deck. Another middy tried to attack the +_Chesapeake's_ mizzentop from the starboard mainyard arm, but being +hindered by the foot of the topsail, stretched himself out on the +mainyard arm, and from that post shot three of the enemy in succession. + +Meanwhile the fight on the deck had been short and sharp; some of the +Americans leaped overboard and others rushed below; and Laurence, lying +wounded in his steerage, saw the wild reflux of his own men down the +after ladders. On asking what it meant, he was told, "The ship is +boarded, and those are the _Chesapeake's_ men driven from the upper +decks by the English." This so exasperated the dying man that he +called out repeatedly, "Then blow her up; blow her up." + +The fight lasted exactly thirteen minutes--the broadsides occupied six +minutes, the boarding seven--and in thirteen minutes after the first +shot the British flag was flying over the American ship. The _Shannon_ +and _Chesapeake_ were bearing up, side by side, for Halifax. The +spectators in the pleasure-boats were left ruefully staring at the +spectacle; those American handcuffs, so thoughtfully provided, were on +American wrists; and the Boston citizens had to consume, with what +appetite they might, their own banquet. The carnage on the two ships +was dreadful. In thirteen minutes 252 men were either killed or +wounded, an average of nearly twenty men for every minute the fight +lasted. In the combat betwixt these two frigates, in fact, nearly as +many men were struck down as in the whole battle of Navarino! The +_Shannon_ itself lost as many men as any 74-gun ship ever lost in +battle. + +Judge Haliburton, famous as "Sam Slick," when a youth of seventeen, +boarded the Chesapeake as the two battered ships sailed into Halifax. +"The deck," he wrote, "had not been cleaned, and the coils and folds of +rope were steeped in gore as if in a slaughter-house. Pieces of skin +with pendent hair were adhering to the sides of the ship; and in one +place I noticed portions of fingers protruding, as if thrust through +the outer walls of the frigate." + +Watts, the first lieutenant of the _Shannon_, was killed by the fire of +his own ship in a very remarkable manner. He boarded with his captain, +with his own hands pulled down the _Chesapeake's_ flag, and hastily +bent on the halliards the English ensign, as he thought, above the +Stars and Stripes, and then rehoisted it. In the hurry he had bent the +English flag under the Stars and Stripes instead of above it, and the +gunners of the _Shannon_, seeing the American stripes going up first, +opened fire instantly on the group at the foot of the mizzen-mast, blew +the top of their own unfortunate lieutenant's head off with a grape +shot, and killed three or four of their own men. + +Captain Broke was desperately wounded in a curious fashion. A group of +Americans, who had laid down their arms, saw the British captain +standing for a moment alone on the break of the forecastle. It seemed +a golden chance. They snatched up weapons lying on the deck, and +leaped upon him. Warned by the shout of the sentry. Broke turned +round to find three of the enemy with uplifted weapons rushing on him. +He parried the middle fellow's pike and wounded him in the face, but +was instantly struck down with a blow from the butt-end of a musket, +which laid bare his skull. He also received a slash from the cutlass +of the third man, which clove a portion of skull completely away and +left the brain bare. He fell, and was grappled on the deck by the man +he had first wounded, a powerful fellow, who got uppermost and raised a +bayonet to thrust through Broke. At this moment a British marine came +running up, and concluding that the man underneath _must_ be an +American, also raised his bayonet to give the _coup de grace_. "Pooh, +pooh, you fool," said Broke in the most matter-of-fact fashion, "don't +you know your captain?" whereupon the marine changed the direction of +his thrust and slew the American. + +The news reached London on July 7, and was carried straight to the +House of Commons, where Lord Cochrane was just concluding a fierce +denunciation of the Admiralty on the ground of the disasters suffered +from the Americans, and Croker, the Secretary to the Admiralty, was +able to tell the story of the fight off Boston to the wildly cheering +House, as a complete defence of his department. Broke was at once +created a Baronet and a Knight of the Bath. In America, on the other +hand, the story of the fight was received with mingled wrath and +incredulity. "I remember," says Rush, afterwards U.S. Minister at the +Court of St. James, "at the first rumour of it, the universal +incredulity. I remember how the post-offices were thronged for +successive days with anxious thousands; how collections of citizens +rode out for miles on the highway to get the earliest news the mail +brought. At last, when the certainty was known, I remember the public +gloom, the universal badges of mourning. 'Don't give up the ship,' the +dying words of Laurence, were on every tongue." + +It was a great fight, the most memorable and dramatic sea-duel in naval +history. The combatants were men of the same stock, and fought with +equal bravery. Both nations, in fact, may be proud of a fight so +frank, so fair, so gallant. The world, we may hope, will never witness +another _Shannon_ engaged in the fierce wrestle of battle with another +_Chesapeake_, for the Union Jack and the Stars and Stripes are knitted +together by a bond woven of common blood and speech and political +ideals that grows stronger every year. + +For years the _Shannon_ and the _Chesapeake_ lay peacefully side by +side in the Medway, and the two famous ships might well have been +preserved as trophies. The _Chesapeake_ was bought by the Admiralty +after the fight for exactly L21,314, 11s. 11 1/4d., and six years +afterwards she was sold as mere old timber for 500 pounds, was broken +up, and to-day stands as a Hampshire flour-mill, peacefully grinding +English corn; but still on the mill-timbers can be seen the marks of +the grape and round shot of the _Shannon_. + + + + +THE GREAT BREACH OF CIUDAD RODRIGO + + + "Attend, all ye who list to hear our noble England's praise, + I tell of the thrice famous deeds she wrought in ancient days." + --MACAULAY. + + +The three great and memorable sieges of the Peninsular war are those of +Ciudad Rodrigo, Badajos, and San Sebastian. The annals of battle +record nowhere a more furious daring in assault or a more gallant +courage in defence than that which raged in turn round each of these +three great fortresses. Of the three sieges that of Badajos was the +most picturesque and bloody; that of San Sebastian the most sullen and +exasperated; that of Ciudad Rodrigo the swiftest and most brilliant. A +great siege tests the fighting quality of any army as nothing else can +test it. In the night watches in the trenches, in the dogged toil of +the batteries, and the crowded perils of the breach, all the frippery +and much of the real discipline of an army dissolves. The soldiers +fall back upon what may be called the primitive fighting qualities--the +hardihood of the individual soldier, the daring with which the officers +will lead, the dogged loyalty with which the men will follow. As an +illustration of the warlike qualities in our race by which empire has +been achieved, nothing better can be desired than the story of how the +breaches were won at Ciudad Rodrigo. + +At the end of 1811 the English and the French were watching each other +jealously across the Spanish border. The armies of Marmont and of +Soult, 67,000 strong, lay within touch of each other, barring +Wellington's entrance into Spain. Wellington, with 35,000 men, of whom +not more than 10,000 men were British, lay within sight of the Spanish +frontier. It was the winter time. Wellington's army was wasted by +sickness, his horses were dying of mere starvation, his men had +received no pay for three months, and his muleteers none for eight +months. He had no siege-train, his regiments were ragged and hungry, +and the French generals confidently reckoned the British army as, for +the moment at least, _une quantite negligeable_. + +And yet at that precise moment, Wellington, subtle and daring, was +meditating a leap upon the great frontier fortress of Ciudad Rodrigo, +in the Spanish province of Salamanca. Its capture would give him a +safe base of operations against Spain; it was the great frontier _place +d'armes_ for the French; the whole siege-equipage, and stores of the +army of Portugal were contained in it. The problem of how, in the +depth of winter, without materials for a siege, to snatch a place so +strong from under the very eyes of two armies, each stronger than his +own, was a problem which might have taxed the warlike genius of a +Caesar. But Wellington accomplished it with a combination of subtlety +and audacity simply marvellous. + +He kept the secret of his design so perfectly that his own engineers +never suspected it, and his adjutant-general, Murray, went home on +leave without dreaming anything was going to happen. Wellington +collected artillery ostensibly for the purpose of arming Almeida, but +the guns were trans-shipped at sea and brought secretly to the mouth of +the Douro. No less than 800 mule-carts were constructed without +anybody guessing their purpose. Wellington, while these preparations +were on foot, was keenly watching Marmont and Soult, till he saw that +they were lulled into a state of mere yawning security, and then, in +Napier's expressive phrase, he "instantly jumped with both feet upon +Ciudad Rodrigo." + +This famous fortress, in shape, roughly resembles a triangle with the +angles truncated. The base, looking to the south, is covered by the +Agueda, a river given to sudden inundations; the fortifications were +strong and formidably armed; as outworks it had to the east the great +fortified Convent of San Francisco, to the west a similar building +called Santa Cruz; whilst almost parallel with the northern face rose +two rocky ridges called the Great and Small Teson, the nearest within +600 yards of the city ramparts, and crowned by a formidable redoubt +called Francisco. The siege began on January 8. The soil was rocky +and covered with snow, the nights were black, the weather bitter. The +men lacked entrenching tools. They had to encamp on the side of the +Agueda farthest from the city, and ford that river every time the +trenches were relieved. The 1st, 3rd, and light divisions formed the +attacking force; each division held the trenches in turn for +twenty-four hours. Let the reader imagine what degree of hardihood it +took to wade in the grey and bitter winter dawn through a half-frozen +river, and without fire or warm food, and under a ceaseless rain of +shells from the enemy's guns, to toil in the frozen trenches, or to +keep watch, while the icicles hung from eyebrow and beard, over the +edge of the battery for twenty-four hours in succession. + +Nothing in this great siege is more wonderful than the fierce speed +with which Wellington urged his operations. Massena, who had besieged +and captured the city the year before in the height of summer, spent a +month in bombarding it before he ventured to assault. Wellington broke +ground on January 8, under a tempest of mingled hail and rain; he +stormed it on the night of the 19th. + +He began operations by leaping on the strong work that crowned the +Great Teson the very night the siege began. Two companies from each +regiment of the light division were detailed by the officer of the day, +Colonel Colborne, for the assault. Colborne (afterwards Lord Seaton), +a cool and gallant soldier, called his officers together in a group and +explained with great minuteness how they were to attack. He then +launched his men against the redoubt with a vehemence so swift that, to +those who watched the scene under the light of a wintry moon, the +column of redcoats, like the thrust of a crimson sword-blade, spanned +the ditch, shot up the glacis, and broke through the parapet with a +single movement. The accidental explosion of a French shell burst the +gate open, and the remainder of the attacking party instantly swept +through it. There was fierce musketry fire and a tumult of shouting +for a moment or two, but in twenty minutes from Colborne's launching +his attack every Frenchman in the redoubt was killed, wounded, or a +prisoner. + +The fashion in which the gate was blown open was very curious. A +French sergeant was in the act of throwing a live shell upon the +storming party in the ditch, when he was struck by an English bullet. +The lighted shell fell from his hands within the parapet, was kicked +away by the nearest French in mere self-preservation; it rolled towards +the gate, exploded, burst it open, and instantly the British broke in. + +For ten days a desperate artillery duel raged between the besiegers and +the besieged. The parallels were resolutely pushed on in spite of +rocky soil, broken tools, bitter weather, and the incessant pelting of +the French guns. The temper of the British troops is illustrated by an +incident which George Napier--the youngest of the three +Napiers--relates. The three others were gallant and remarkable +soldiers. Charles Napier in India and elsewhere made history; William, +in his wonderful tale of the Peninsular war, wrote history; and George, +if he had not the literary genius of the one nor the strategic skill of +the other, was a most gallant soldier. "I was a field-officer of the +trenches," he says, "when a 13-inch shell from the town fell in the +midst of us. I called to the men to lie down flat, and they instantly +obeyed orders, except one of them, an Irishman and an old marine, but a +most worthless drunken dog, who trotted up to the shell, the fuse of +which was still burning, and striking it with his spade, knocked the +fuse out; then taking the immense shell in his hands, brought it to me, +saying, 'There she is for you now, yer 'anner. I've knocked the life +out of the crater.'" + +The besieged brought fifty heavy guns to reply to the thirty light +pieces by which they were assailed, and day and night the bellow of +eighty pieces boomed sullenly over the doomed city and echoed faintly +back from the nearer hills, while the walls crashed to the stroke of +the bullet. The English fire made up by fierceness and accuracy for +what it lacked in weight; but the sap made no progress, the guns showed +signs of being worn out, and although two apparent breaches had been +made, the counterscarp was not destroyed. Yet Wellington determined +to attack, and, in his characteristic fashion, to attack by night. The +siege had lasted ten days, and Marmont, with an army stronger than his +own, was lying within four marches. That he had not appeared already +on the scene was wonderful. + +In a general order issued on the evening of the 19th Wellington wrote, +"Ciudad Rodrigo must be stormed this evening." The great breach was a +sloping gap in the wall at its northern angle, about a hundred feet +wide. The French had crowned it with two guns loaded with grape; the +slope was strewn with bombs, hand-grenades, and bags of powder; a great +mine pierced it beneath; a deep ditch had been cut betwixt the breach +and the adjoining ramparts, and these were crowded with riflemen. The +third division, under General Mackinnon, was to attack the breach, its +forlorn hope being led by Ensign Mackie, its storming party by General +Mackinnon himself. The lesser breach was a tiny gap, scarcely twenty +feet wide, to the left of the great breach; this was to be attacked by +the light division, under Craufurd, its forlorn hope of twenty-five men +being led by Gurwood, and its storming party by George Napier. General +Pack, with a Portuguese brigade, was to make a sham attack on the +eastern face, while a fourth attack was to be made on the southern +front by a company of the 83rd and some Portuguese troops. In the +storming party of the 83rd were the Earl of March, afterwards Duke of +Richmond; Lord Fitzroy Somerset, afterwards Lord Raglan; and the Prince +of Orange--all volunteers without Wellington's knowledge! + +At 7 o'clock a curious silence fell suddenly on the battered city and +the engirdling trenches. Not a light gleamed from the frowning +parapets, not a murmur arose from the blackened trenches. Suddenly a +shout broke out on the right of the English attack; it ran, a wave of +stormy sound, along the line of the trenches. The men who were to +attack the great breach leaped into the open. In a moment the space +betwixt the hostile lines was covered with the stormers, and the gloomy +half-seen face of the great fortress broke into a tempest of fire. + +Nothing could be finer than the vehement courage of the assault, unless +it were the cool and steady fortitude of the defence. Swift as was the +upward rush of the stormers, the race of the 5th, 77th, and 94th +regiments was almost swifter. Scorning to wait for the ladders, they +leaped into the great ditch, outpaced even the forlorn hope, and pushed +vehemently up the great breach, whilst their red ranks were torn by +shell and shot. The fire, too, ran through the tangle of broken stones +over which they climbed; the hand-grenades and powder-bags by which it +was strewn exploded. The men were walking on fire! Yet the attack +could not be denied. The Frenchmen--shooting, stabbing, yelling--were +driven behind their entrenchments. There the fire of the houses +commanding the breach came to their help, and they made a gallant +stand. "None would go back on either side, and yet the British could +not get forward, and men and officers falling in heaps choked up the +passage, which from minute to minute was raked with grape from two guns +flanking the top of the breach at the distance of a few yards. Thus +striving, and trampling alike upon the dead and the wounded, these +brave men maintained the combat." + +It was the attack on the smaller breach which really carried Ciudad +Rodrigo; and George Napier, who led it, has left a graphic narrative of +the exciting experiences of that dreadful night. The light division +was to attack, and Craufurd, with whom Napier was a favourite, gave him +command of the storming party. He was to ask for 100 volunteers from +each of the three British regiments--the 43rd, 52nd, and the Rifle +Corps--in the division. Napier halted these regiments just as they had +forded the bitterly cold river on their way to the trenches. +"Soldiers," he said, "I want 100 men from each regiment to form the +storming party which is to lead the light division to-night. Those who +will go with me come forward!" Instantly there was a rush forward of +the whole division, and Napier had to take his 300 men out of a tumult +of nearly 1500 candidates. He formed them into three companies, under +Captains Ferguson, Jones, and Mitchell. Gurwood, of the 52nd, led the +forlorn hope, consisting of twenty-five men and two sergeants. +Wellington himself came to the trench and showed Napier and Colborne, +through the gloom of the early night, the exact position of the breach. +A staff-officer looking on, said, "Your men are not loaded. Why don't +you make them load?" Napier replied, "If we don't do the business with +the bayonet we shall not do it all. I shall not load." "Let him +alone," said Wellington; "let him go his own way." Picton had adopted +the same grim policy with the third division. As each regiment passed +him, filing into the trenches, his injunction was, "No powder! We'll +do the thing with the _could_ iron." + +A party of Portuguese carrying bags filled with grass were to run with +the storming party and throw the bags into the ditch, as the leap was +too deep for the men. But the Portuguese hesitated, the tumult of the +attack on the great breach suddenly broke on the night, and the forlorn +hope went running up, leaped into the ditch a depth of eleven feet, and +clambered up the steep slope beyond, while Napier with his stormers +came with a run behind them. In the dark for a moment the breach was +lost, but found again, and up the steep quarry of broken stone the +attack swept. About two-thirds of the way up Napier's arm was smashed +by a grape-shot, and he fell. His men, checked for a moment, lifted +their muskets to the gap above them, whence the French were firing +vehemently, and forgetting their pieces were unloaded, snapped them. +"Push on with the bayonet, men!" shouted Napier, as he lay bleeding. +The officers leaped to the front, the men with a stern shout followed; +they were crushed to a front of not more than three or four. They had +to climb without firing a shot in reply up to the muzzles of the French +muskets. + +But nothing could stop the men of the light division. A 24-pounder was +placed across the narrow gap in the ramparts; the stormers leaped over +it, and the 43rd and 52nd, coming up in sections abreast, followed. +The 43rd wheeled to the right towards the great breach, the 52nd to the +left, sweeping the ramparts as they went. + +Meanwhile the other two attacks had broken into the town; but at the +great breach the dreadful fight still raged, until the 43rd, coming +swiftly along the ramparts, and brushing all opposition aside, took the +defence in the rear. The British there had, as a matter of fact, at +that exact moment pierced the French defence. The two guns that +scourged the breach had wrought deadly havoc amongst the stormers, and +a sergeant and two privates of the 88th--Irishmen all, and whose names +deserve to be preserved--Brazel, Kelly, and Swan--laid down their +firelocks that they might climb more lightly, and, armed only with +their bayonets, forced themselves through the embrasure amongst the +French gunners. They were furiously attacked, and Swan's arm was hewed +off by a sabre stroke; but they stopped the service of the gun, slew +five or six of the French gunners, and held the post until the men of +the 5th, climbing behind them, broke into the battery. + +So Ciudad Rodrigo was won, and its governor surrendered his sword to +the youthful lieutenant leading the forlorn hope of the light division, +who, with smoke-blackened face, torn uniform, and staggering from a +dreadful wound, still kept at the head of his men. + +[Illustration: Siege of Ciudad Rodrigo, 1812. From Napier's +"Peninsular War."] + +In the eleven days of the siege Wellington lost 1300 men and officers, +out of whom 650 men and 60 officers were struck down on the slopes of +the breaches. Two notable soldiers died in the attack--Craufurd, the +famous leader of the light division, as he brought his men up to the +lesser breach; and Mackinnon, who commanded a brigade of the third +division, at the great breach. Mackinnon was a gallant Highlander, a +soldier of great promise, beloved by his men. His "Children," as he +called them, followed him up the great breach till the bursting of a +French mine destroyed all the leading files, including their general. +Craufurd was buried in the lesser breach itself, and Mackinnon in the +great breach--fitting graves for soldiers so gallant. + +Alison says that with the rush of the English stormers up the breaches +of Ciudad Rodrigo "began the fall of the French Empire." That siege, +so fierce and brilliant, was, as a matter of fact, the first of that +swift-following succession of strokes which drove the French in ruin +out of Spain, and it coincided in point of time with the turn of the +tide against Napoleon in Russia. Apart from all political results, +however, it was a splendid feat of arms. The French found themselves +almost unable to believe the evidence of their senses. "On the 16th," +Marmont wrote to the Emperor, "the English batteries opened their fire +at a great distance. On the 19th the place was taken by storm. There +is something so _incomprehensible_ in this that I allow myself no +observations." Napoleon, however, relieved his feelings with some very +emphatic observations. "The fall of Ciudad Rodrigo," he wrote to +Marmont, "is an affront to you. Why had you not advices from it twice +a week? What were you doing with the five divisions of Souham? It is +a strange mode of carrying on war," &c. Unhappy Marmont! + + + + +HOW THE "HERMIONE" WAS RECAPTURED + + + "They cleared the cruiser from end to end, + From conning-tower to hold; + They fought as they fought in Nelson's fleet-- + They were stripped to the waist, they were bare to the feet, + As it was in the days of old." + --KIPLING. + + +The story of how the _Hermione_ was lost is one of the scandals and the +tragedies of British naval history; the tale of how it was re-won is +one of its glories. The _Hermione_ was a 32-gun frigate, cruising off +Porto Rico, in the West Indies. On the evening of September 21, 1797, +the men were on drill, reefing topsails. The captain, Pigot, was a +rough and daring sailor, a type of the brutal school of naval officer +long extinct. The traditions of the navy were harsh; the despotic +power over the lives and fortunes of his crew which the captain of a +man-of-war carried in the palm of his hand, when made the servant of a +ferocious temper, easily turned a ship into a floating hell. The +terrible mutinies which broke out in British fleets a hundred years ago +had some justification, at least, in the cruelties, as well as the +hardships, to which the sailors of that period were exposed. + +Pigot was rough in speech, vehement in temper, cursed with a +semi-lunatic delight in cruelty, and he tormented his men to the verge +of desperation. On this fatal night, Pigot, standing at the break of +his quarter-deck, stormed at the men aloft, and swore with many oaths +he would flog the last man off the mizzentop yard; and the men knew how +well he would keep his word. The most active sailor, as the men lay +out on the yard, naturally takes the earing, and is, of course, the +last man off, as well as on, the yard. Pigot's method, that is, would +punish not the worst sailors, but the best! The two outermost men on +the mizzen-top yard of the _Hermione_ that night, determined to escape +the threatened flogging. They made a desperate spring to get over +their comrades crowding into the ratlines, missed their foothold, fell +on the quarter-deck beside their furious captain, and were instantly +killed. The captain's epitaph on the unfortunate sailors was, "Throw +the lubbers overboard!" + +All the next day a sullen gloom lay on the ship. Mutiny was breeding. +It began, as night fell, in a childish fashion, by the men throwing +double-headed shot about the deck. The noise brought down the first +lieutenant to restore order. He was knocked down. In the jostle of +fierce tempers, murder awoke; knives gleamed. A sailor, as he bent +over the fallen officer, saw the naked undefended throat, and thrust +his knife into it. The sight kindled the men's passions to flame. The +unfortunate lieutenant was killed with a dozen stabs, and his body +thrown overboard. The men had now tasted blood. In the flame of +murderous temper suddenly let loose, all the bonds of discipline were +in a moment consumed. A wild rush was made for the officers' cabins. +The captain tried to break his way out, was wounded, and driven back; +the men swept in, and, to quote the realistic official account, "seated +in his cabin the captain was stabbed by his own coxswain and three +other mutineers, and, forced out of the cabin windows, was heard to +speak as he went astern." With mutiny comes anarchy. The men made no +distinction between their officers, cruel or gentle; not only the +captain, but the three lieutenants, the purser, the surgeon, the +lieutenant of marines, the boatswain, the captain's clerk were +murdered, and even one of the two midshipmen on board was hunted like a +rat through the ship, killed, and thrown overboard. The only officers +spared were the master, the gunner, and one midshipman. + +Having captured the ship, the mutineers were puzzled how to proceed. +Every man-of-war on the station, they knew, would be swiftly on their +track. Every British port was sealed to them. They would be pursued +by a retribution which would neither loiter nor slumber. On the open +sea there was no safety for mutineers. They turned the head of the +_Hermione_ towards the nearest Spanish port, La Guayra, and, reaching +it, surrendered the ship to the Spanish authorities, saying they had +turned their officers adrift in the jolly-boat. The Spaniards were not +disposed to scrutinise too closely the story. A transaction which put +into their hands a fine British frigate was welcomed with rapture. The +British admiral in command of the station sent in a flag of truce with +the true account of the mutiny, and called upon the Spanish +authorities, as a matter of honour, to surrender the _Hermione_, and +hand over for punishment the murderers who had carried it off. The +appeal, however, was wasted. + +The _Hermione_, a handsome ship of 715 tons, when under the British +flag, was armed with thirty-two 12-pounders, and had a complement of +220 men. The Spaniards cut new ports in her, increased her broadsides +to forty-four guns, and gave her a complement, including a detachment +of soldiers and artillerymen, of nearly 400 men. She thus became the +most formidable ship carrying the Spanish flag in West Indian waters. + +But the _Hermione_, under its new flag, had a very anxious existence. +It became a point of honour with every British vessel on the station to +look out for the ship which had become the symbol of mutiny, and make a +dash at her, no matter what the odds. The brutal murders which +attended the mutiny shocked even the forecastle imagination, while the +British officers were naturally eager to destroy the ship which +represented revolt against discipline. Both fore and aft, too, the +fact that what had been a British frigate was now carrying the flag of +Spain was resented with a degree of exasperation which assured to the +_Hermione_, under its new name and flag, a very warm time if it came +under the fire of a British ship. The Spaniards kept the _Hermione_ +for just two years, but kept her principally in port, as the moment she +showed her nose in the open sea some British ship or other, sleeplessly +on the watch for her, bore down with disconcerting eagerness. + +In September 1799 the _Hermione_ was lying in Puerto Cabello, while the +_Surprise_, a 28-gun frigate, under Captain Edward Hamilton, was +waiting outside, specially detailed by the admiral, Sir Hyde Parker, to +attack her the instant she put to sea. The _Surprise_ had less than +half the complement of the _Hermione_, and not much more than half her +weight of metal. But Hamilton was not only willing to fight the +Hermione in the open sea against such odds; he told the admiral that if +he would give him a barge and twenty men he would undertake to carry +the Hermione with his boats while lying in harbour. Parker pronounced +the scheme too desperate to be entertained, and refused Hamilton the +additional boat's crew for which he asked. Yet this was the very plan +which Hamilton actually carried out without the reinforcement for which +he had asked! + +Hamilton, to tempt the _Hermione_ out, kept carefully out of sight of +Puerto Cabello to leeward, yet in such a position that if the Hermione +left the harbour her topsails must become visible to the look-outs on +the mastheads of the _Surprise_; and he kept that post until his +provisions failed. Then, as the _Hermione_ would not come out to him, +he determined to go into the _Hermione_. Hamilton was a silent, +much-meditating man, not apt to share his counsels with anybody. In +the cells of his brooding and solitary brain he prepared, down to the +minutest details, his plan for a dash at the _Hermione_--a ship, it +must be remembered, not only more than double his own in strength, but +lying moored head and stern in a strongly fortified port, under the +fire of batteries mounting nearly 200 guns, and protected, in addition, +by several gunboats. In a boat attack, too, Hamilton could carry only +part of his crew with him; he must leave enough hands on board his own +ship to work her. As a matter of fact, he put in his boats less than +100 men, and with them, in the blackness of night, rowed off to attack +a ship that carried 400 men, and was protected by the fire, including +her own broadsides, of nearly 300 guns! The odds were indeed so great +that the imagination of even British sailors, if allowed to meditate +long upon them, might become chilled. Hamilton therefore breathed not +a whisper of his plans, even to his officers, till he was ready to put +them into execution, and, when he did announce them, carried them out +with cool but unfaltering speed. + +On the evening of October 24, Hamilton invited all the officers not on +actual duty to dine in his cabin. The scene may be easily pictured. +The captain at the head of his table, the merry officers on either +side, the jest, the laughter, the toasts; nobody there but the silent, +meditative captain dreaming of the daring deed to be that night +attempted. When dinner was over, and the officers alone, with a +gesture Hamilton arrested the attention of the party, and explained in +a few grim sentences his purpose. The little party of brave men about +him listened eagerly and with kindling eyes. "We'll stand by you, +captain," said one. "We'll all follow you," said another. Hamilton +bade his officers follow him at once to the quarter-deck. A roll of +the drum called the men instantly to quarters, and, when the officers +reported every man at his station, they were all sent aft to where, on +the break of the quarter-deck, the captain waited. + +It was night, starless and black, but a couple of lanterns shed a few +broken rays on the massed seamen with their wondering, upturned faces, +and the tall figure of the silent captain. Hamilton explained in a +dozen curt sentences that they must run into port for supplies; that if +they left their station some more fortunate ship would have the glory +of taking the _Hermione_. "Our only chance, lads," he added, "is to +cut her out to-night!" As that sentence, with a keen ring on its last +word, swept over the attentive sailors, they made the natural response, +a sudden growling cheer. "I lead you myself," added Hamilton, +whereupon came another cheer; "and here are the orders for the six +boats to be employed, with the names of the officers and men." +Instantly the crews were mustered, while the officers, standing in a +cluster round the captain, heard the details of the expedition. Every +seaman was to be dressed in blue, without a patch of white visible; the +password was "Britannia," the answer "Ireland"--Hamilton himself being +an Irishman. + +By half-past seven the boats were actually hoisted out and lowered, the +men armed and in their places, and each little crew instructed as to +the exact part it was to play in the exciting drama. The orders given +were curiously minute. The launch, for example, was to board on the +starboard bow, but three of its men, before boarding, were first to cut +the bower cable, for which purpose a little platform was rigged up on +the launch's quarter, and sharp axes provided. The jolly-boat was to +board on the starboard quarter, cut the stern cable, and send two men +aloft to loose the mizzen topsail. The gig, under the command of the +doctor, was to board on the larboard bow, and instantly send four men +aloft to loose the fore topsail. If the _Hermione_ was reached without +any alarm being given, only the boarders were to leap on board; the +ordinary crews of the boats were to take the frigate in tow. Thus, if +Hamilton's plans were carried out, the Spaniards would find themselves +suddenly boarded at six different points, their cables cut, their +topsails dropped, and their ship being towed out--and all this at the +same instant of time. "The rendezvous," said Hamilton to his officers, +as the little cluster of boats drew away from the _Surprise_, "is the +_Hermione's_ quarter-deck!" + +Hamilton himself led, standing up in his pinnace, with his night-glass +fixed on the doomed ship, and the boats followed with stern almost +touching stern, and a rope passed from each boat to the one behind. +Can a more impressive picture of human daring be imagined than these +six boats pulling silently ever the black waters and through the black +night to fling themselves, under the fire of two hundred guns, on a foe +four times more numerous than themselves! The boats had stolen to +within less than a mile of the _Hermione_, when a Spanish challenge +rang out of the darkness before them. Two Spanish gunboats were on +guard within the harbour, and they at once opened fire on the chain of +boats gliding mysteriously through the gloom. There was no longer any +possibility of surprise, and Hamilton instantly threw off the rope that +connected him with the next boat and shouted to his men to pull. The +men, with a loud "Hurrah!" dashed their oars into the water, and the +boats leaped forward towards the _Hermione_. But Hamilton's boats--two +of them commanded by midshipmen--could not find themselves so close to +a couple of Spanish gunboats without "going" for them. Two of the six +boats swung aside and dashed at the gunboats; only three followed +Hamilton at the utmost speed towards the _Hermione_. + +That ship, meanwhile, was awake. Lights flashed from every port; a +clamour of voices broke on the quiet of the night; the sound of the +drum rolled along the decks, the men ran to quarters. Hamilton, in the +pinnace, dashed past the bows of the _Hermione_ to reach his station, +but a rope, stretched from the _Hermione_ to her anchor-buoy, caught +the rudder of the pinnace and stopped her in full course, the coxswain +reporting the boat "aground." The pinnace had swung round till her +starboard oars touched the bend of the _Hermione_, and Hamilton gave +the word to "board." Hamilton himself led, and swung himself up till +his feet rested on the anchor hanging from the _Hermione's_ cat-head. +It was covered with mud, having been weighed that day, and his feet +slipping off it, Hamilton hung by the lanyard of the _Hermione's_ +foreshroud. The crew of the pinnace meanwhile climbing with the +agility of cats and the eagerness of boys, had tumbled over their own +captain's shoulders as well as the bulwarks of the _Hermione_, and were +on that vessel's forecastle, where Hamilton in another moment joined +them. Here were sixteen men on board a vessel with a hostile crew four +hundred strong. + +Hamilton ran to the break of the forecastle and looked down, and to his +amazement found the whole crew of the _Hermione_ at quarters on the +main-deck, with battle-lanterns lit, and firing with the utmost energy +at the darkness, in which their excited fancy saw the tall masts of at +least a squadron of frigates bearing down to attack them. Hamilton, +followed by his fifteen men, ran aft to the agreed rendezvous on the +_Hermione's_ quarter-deck. The doctor, with his crew, had meantime +boarded, and forgetting all about the rendezvous, and obeying only the +natural fighting impulse in their own blood, charged upon the Spaniards +in the gangway. + +Hamilton sent his men down to assist in the fight, waiting alone on the +quarter-deck till his other boat boarded. Here four Spaniards rushed +suddenly upon him; one struck him over the head with a musket with a +force that broke the weapon itself, and knocked him semi-senseless upon +the combings of the hatchway. Two British sailors, who saw their +commander's peril, rescued him, and, with blood streaming down from his +battered head upon his uniform, Hamilton flung himself into the fight +at the gangway. At this juncture the black cutter, in command of the +first lieutenant, with the _Surprise's_ marines on board, dashed up to +the side of the _Hermione_, and the men came tumbling over the larboard +gangway. They had made previously two unsuccessful attempts to board. +They came up first by the steps of the larboard gangway, the lieutenant +leading. He was incontinently knocked down, and tumbled all his men +with him as he fell back into the boat. They then tried the starboard +of the _Hermione_, and were again beaten back, and only succeeded on a +third attempt. + +Three boats' crews of the British were now together on the deck of the +Hermione. They did not number fifty men in all, but the marines were +instantly formed up and a volley was fired down the after hatchway. +Then, following the flash of their muskets, with the captain leading, +the whole party leaped down upon the maindeck, driving the Spaniards +before them. Some sixty Spaniards took refuge in the cabin, and +shouted they surrendered, whereupon they were ordered to throw down +their arms, and the doors were locked upon them, turning them into +prisoners. On the main-deck and under the forecastle, however, the +fighting was fierce and deadly; but by this time the other boats had +come up, and the cables fore and aft were cut, as had been arranged. +The men detailed for that task had raced up the Spaniard's rigging, and +while the desperate fight raged below, had cast loose the topsails of +the _Hermione_. Three of the boats, too, had taken her in tow. She +began to move seaward, and that movement, with the sound of the +rippling water along the ship's sides, appalled the Spaniards, and +persuaded them the ship was lost. + +On the quarter-deck the gunner and two men--all three wounded--stood at +the wheel, and flung the head of the _Hermione_ seaward. They were +fiercely attacked, but while one man clung to the wheel and kept +control of the ship, the gunner and his mate kept off the Spaniards. +Presently the foretopsail filled with the land breeze, the water +rippled louder along the sides of the moving vessel, the ship swayed to +the wind. The batteries by this time were thundering from the shore, +but though they shot away many ropes, they fired with signal +ill-success. Only fifty British sailors and marines, it must be +remembered, were actually on the deck of the _Hermione_, and amongst +the crowd of sullen and exasperated Spaniards below, who had +surrendered, but were still furious with the astonishment of the attack +and the passion of the fight, there arose a shout to "blow up the +ship." The British had to fire down through the hatchway upon the +swaying crowd to enforce order. By two o'clock the struggle was over, +the _Hermione_ was beyond the fire of the batteries, and the crews of +the boats towing her came on board. + +There is no more surprising fight in British history. The mere +swiftness with which the adventure was carried out is marvellous. It +was past six P.M. when Hamilton disclosed his plan to his officers, the +_Hermione_ at that moment lying some eight miles distant; by two +o'clock the captured ship, with the British flag flying from her peak, +was clear of the harbour. Only half a hundred men actually got on +board the _Hermione_, but what a resolute, hard-smiting, strong-fisted +band they were may be judged by the results. Of the Spaniards, 119 +were killed, and 97 wounded, most of them dangerously. Hamilton's 50 +men, that is, in those few minutes of fierce fighting, cut down four +times their own number! Not one of the British, as it happened, was +killed, and only 12 wounded, Captain Hamilton himself receiving no less +than five serious wounds. The _Hermione_ was restored to her place in +the British Navy List, but under a new name--the _Retribution_--and the +story of that heroic night attack will be for all time one of the most +stirring incidents in the long record of brave deeds performed by +British seamen. + + + + +FRENCH AND ENGLISH IN THE PASSES + + + "Beating from the wasted vines + Back to France her banded swarms, + Back to France with countless blows, + Till o'er the hills her eagles flew + Beyond the Pyrenean pines; + Follow'd up in valley and glen + With blare of bugle, clamour of men, + Roll of cannon and clash of arms, + And England pouring on her foes. + Such a war had such a close." + --TENNYSON. + + +"In both the passes, and on the heights above them, there was desperate +fighting. They fought on the mountain-tops, which could scarcely have +witnessed any other combat than that of the Pyrenean eagles; they +fought among jagged rocks and over profound abysses; they fought amidst +clouds and mists, for those mountain-tops were 5000 feet above the +level of the plain of France, and the rains, which had fallen in +torrents, were evaporating in the morning and noon-day sun, were +steaming heavenward and clothing the loftiest peaks with fantastic +wreaths." These words describe, with picturesque force, the most +brilliant and desperate, and yet, perhaps, the least known chapter in +the great drama of the Peninsular war: the furious combats waged +between British and French in the gloomy valleys and on the +mist-shrouded summits of the Western Pyrenees. The great campaign, +which found its climax at Vittoria, lasted six weeks. In that brief +period Wellington marched with 100,000 men 600 miles, passed six great +rivers, gained one historic and decisive battle, invested two +fortresses, and drove 120,000 veteran troops from Spain. There is no +more brilliant chapter in military history; and, at its close, to quote +Napier's clarion-like sentences, "the English general, emerging from +the chaos of the Peninsular struggle, stood on the summit of the +Pyrenees a recognised conqueror. From those lofty pinnacles the +clangour of his trumpets pealed clear and loud, and the splendour of +his genius appeared as a flaming beacon to warring nations." + +But the great barrier of the Pyrenees stretched across Wellington's +path, a tangle of mountains sixty miles in length; a wild table-land +rough with crags, fierce with mountain torrents, shaggy with forests, a +labyrinth of savage and snow-clad hills. On either flank a great +fortress--San Sebastian and Pampeluna--was held by the French, and +Wellington was besieging both at once, and besieging them without +battering trains. The echoes of Vittoria had aroused Napoleon, then +fighting desperately on the Elbe, and ten days after Vittoria the +French Emperor, acting with the lightning-like decision characteristic +of his genius, had despatched Soult, the ablest of all his generals, to +bar the passes of the Pyrenees against Wellington. Soult travelled day +and night to the scene of his new command, gathering reinforcements on +every side as he went, and in an incredibly short period he had +assembled on the French side of the Pyrenees a great and perfectly +equipped force of 75,000 men. + +Wellington could not advance and leave San Sebastian and Pampeluna on +either flank held by the enemy. Some eight separate passes pierce the +giant chain of the Pyrenees. Soult was free to choose any one of them +for his advance to the relief of either of the besieged fortresses, but +Wellington had to keep guard over the whole eight, and the force +holding each pass was almost completely isolated from its comrades. +Thus all the advantages of position were with Soult. He could pour his +whole force through one or two selected passes, brush aside the +relatively scanty force which held it, relieve San Sebastian or +Pampeluna, and, with the relieved fortress as his base, fling himself +on Wellington's flank while the allied armies were scattered over the +slopes of the Pyrenees for sixty miles. And Soult was exactly the +general to avail himself of these advantages. He had the swift vision, +the resolute will, and the daring of a great commander. "It is on +Spanish soil," he said in a proclamation to his troops, "your tents +must next be pitched. Let the account of our successes be dated from +Vittoria, and let the fete-day of his Imperial Majesty be celebrated in +that city." These were brave words, and having uttered them, Soult led +his gallant troops, with gallant purpose, into the gloomy passes of the +Pyrenees, and for days following the roar of battle sank and swelled +over the snow-clad peaks. But when the Imperial fete-day +arrived--August 15--Soult's great army was pouring back from those same +passes a shattered host, and the allied troops, sternly following them, +were threatening French soil! + +Soult judged Pampeluna to be in greater peril than San Sebastian, and +moved by his left to force the passes of Roncesvalles and Maya. The +rain fell furiously, the mountain streams were in flood, gloomy mists +shrouded the hill-tops; but by July 24, with more than 60,000 fighting +men, and nearly seventy guns, Soult was pouring along the passes he had +chosen. It is impossible to do more than pick out a few of the purple +patches in the swift succession of heroic combats that followed: fights +waged on mountain summits 5000 feet above the sea-level, in shaggy +forests, under tempests of rain and snow. D'Erlon, with a force of +20,000 men, took the British by surprise in the pass of Maya. Ross, an +eager and hardy soldier, unexpectedly encountering the French advance +guard, instantly shouted the order to "Charge!" and with a handful of +the 20th flung himself upon the enemy, and actually checked their +advance until Cole, who had only 10,000 bayonets to oppose to 30,000, +had got into fighting form. A thick fog fell like a pall on the +combatants, and checked the fight, and Cole, in the night, fell back. +The French columns were in movement at daybreak, but still the fog hid +the whole landscape, and the guides of the French feared to lead them +up the slippery crags. At Maya, however, the French in force broke +upon Stewart's division, holding that pass. The British regiments, as +they came running up, not in mass, but by companies, and breathless +with the run, were flung with furious haste upon the French. The 34th, +the 39th, the 28th in succession crashed into the fight, but were flung +back by overpowering numbers. It was a battle of 4000 men against +13,000. + +The famous 50th, fiercely advancing, checked the French rush at one +point; but Soult's men were full of the _elan_ of victory, and swept +past the British flanks. The 71st and 92nd were brought into the +fight, and the latter especially clung sternly to their position till +two men out of every three were shot down, the mound of dead and dying +forming a solid barrier between the wasted survivors of the regiment +and the shouting edge of the French advance. "The stern valour of the +92nd," says Napier, "principally composed of Irishmen, would have +graced Thermopylae." No one need question the fighting quality of the +Irish soldier, but, as a matter of fact, there were 825 Highlanders in +the regiment, and 61 Irishmen. The British, however, were steadily +pushed back, ammunition failed, and the soldiers were actually +defending the highest crag with stones, when Barnes, with a brigade of +the seventh division, coming breathlessly up the pass, plunged into the +fight, and checked the French. Soult had gained ten of the thirty +miles of road toward Pampeluna, but at an ominous cost, and, meanwhile, +the plan of his attack was developed, and Wellington was in swift +movement to bar his path. + +Soult had now swung into the pass of Roncesvalles, and was on the point +of attacking Cole, who held the pass with a very inadequate force, +when, at that exact moment, Wellington, having despatched his aides in +various directions to bring up the troops, galloped alone along the +mountain flank to the British line. He was recognised; the nearest +troops raised a shout; it ran, gathering volume as it travelled down +all the slope, where the British stood waiting for the French attack. +That sudden shout, stern and exultant, reached the French lines, and +they halted. At the same moment, round the shoulder of the hill on the +opposite side of the pass, Soult appeared, and the two generals, near +enough to see each other's features, eagerly scrutinised one another. +"Yonder is a great commander," said Wellington, as if speaking to +himself, "but he is cautious, and will delay his attack to ascertain +the cause of these cheers. That will give time for the sixth division +to arrive, and I shall beat him." Wellington's forecast of Soult's +action was curiously accurate. He made no attack that day. The sixth +division came up, and Soult was beaten! + +[Illustration: Combat of Roncesvalles, July 25, 1813. From Napier's +"Peninsular War."] + +There were two combats of Sauroren, and each was, in Wellington's own +phrase, "bludgeon work"--a battle of soldiers rather than of generals, +a tangle of fierce charges and counter-charges, of volleys delivered so +close that they scorched the very clothes of the opposing lines, and +sustained so fiercely that they died down only because the lines of +desperately firing men crumbled into ruin and silence. Nothing could +be finer than the way in which a French column, swiftly, sternly, and +without firing a shot, swept up a craggy steep crowned by rocks like +castles, held by some Portuguese battalions, and won the position. +Ross's brigade, in return, with equal vehemence recharged the position +from its side, and dashed the French out of it; the French in still +greater force came back, a shouting mass, and crushed Ross's men. Then +Wellington sent forward Byng's brigade at running pace, and hurled the +French down the mountain side. At another point in the pass the French +renewed their assault four times; in their second assault they gained +the summit. The 40th were in reserve at that point; they waited in +steady silence till the edge of the French line, a confused mass of +tossing bayonets and perspiring faces, came clear over the crest; then, +running forward with extraordinary fury, they flung them, a broken, +tumultuous mass, down the slope. In the later charges, so fierce and +resolute were the French officers that they were seen dragging their +tired soldiers up the hill by their belts! + +It is idle to attempt the tale of this wild mountain fighting. Soult +at last fell back, and Wellington followed, swift and vehement, on his +track, and moved Alten's column to intercept the French retreat. The +story of Alten's march is a marvellous record of soldierly endurance. +His men pressed on with speed for nineteen consecutive hours, and +covered forty miles of mountain tracks, wilder than the Otway Ranges, +or the paths of the Australian Alps between Bright and Omeo. The +weather was close; many men fell and died, convulsed and frothing at +the mouth. Still, their officers leading, the regiment kept up its +quick step, till, as evening fell, the head of the column reached the +edge of the precipice overlooking the bridge across which, in all the +confusion of a hurried retreat, the French troops were crowding. "We +overlooked the enemy," says Cook in his "Memoirs," "at stone's-throw. +The river separated us; but the French were wedged in a narrow road, +with inaccessible rocks on one side, and the river on the other." Who +can describe the scene that followed! Some of the French fired +vertically up at the British; others ran; others shouted for quarter; +some pointed with eager gestures to the wounded, whom they carried on +branches of trees, as if entreating the British not to fire. + +In nine days of continual marching, ten desperate actions had been +fought, at what cost of life can hardly be reckoned. Napier, after +roughly calculating the losses, says: "Let this suffice. It is not +needful to sound the stream of blood in all its horrid depths." But +the fighting sowed the wild passes of the Pyrenees thick with the +graves of brave men. + +Soult actually fought his way to within sight of the walls of +Pampeluna, and its beleaguered garrison waved frantic welcomes to his +columns as, from the flanks of the overshadowing hills, they looked +down on the city. Then broken as by the stroke of a thunderbolt, and +driven like wild birds caught in a tempest, the French poured back +through the passes to French soil again. "I never saw such fighting," +was Wellington's comment on the struggle. + +For the weeks that followed, Soult could only look on while San +Sebastian and Pampeluna fell. Then the allied outposts were advanced +to the slopes looking down on France and the distant sea. It is +recorded that the Highlanders of Hill's division, like Xenophon's +Greeks 2000 years before them, broke into cheers when they caught their +first glimpse of the sea, the great, wrinkled, azure-tinted floor, +flecked with white sails. It was "the way home!" Bearn and Gascony +and Languedoc lay stretched like a map under their feet. But the +weather was bitter, the snow lay thick in the passes, sentinels were +frozen at the outposts, and a curious stream of desertions began. The +warm plains of sunny France tempted the half-frozen troops, and Southey +computes, with an arithmetical precision which is half-humorous, that +the average weekly proportion of desertions was 25 Spaniards, 15 Irish, +12 English, 6 Scotch, and half a Portuguese! One indignant English +colonel drew up his regiment on parade, and told the men that "if any +of them wanted to join the French they had better do so at once. He +gave them free leave. He wouldn't have men in the regiment who wished +to join the enemy!" + +Meanwhile Soult was trying to construct on French soil lines of defence +as mighty as those of Wellington at Torres Vedras; and on October 7, +Wellington pushed his left across the Bidassoa, the stream that marks +the boundaries of Spain and France. On the French side the hills rise +to a great height. One huge shoulder, called La Rhune, commands the +whole stream; another lofty ridge, called the "Boar's Back," offered +almost equal facilities for defence. The only road that crossed the +hills rose steeply, with sharp zigzags, and for weeks the French had +toiled to make the whole position impregnable. The British soldiers +had watched while the mountain sides were scarred with trenches, and +the road was blocked with abattis, and redoubt rose above redoubt like +a gigantic staircase climbing the sky. The Bidassoa at its mouth is +wide, and the tides rose sixteen feet. + +But on the night of October 7--a night wild with rain and +sleet--Wellington's troops marched silently to their assigned posts on +the banks of the river. When day broke, at a signal-gun seven columns +could be seen moving at once in a line of five miles, and before Soult +could detect Wellington's plan the river was crossed, the French +entrenched camps on the Bidassoa won! The next morning the heights +were attacked. The Rifles carried the Boar's Back with a single +effort. The Bayonette Crest, a huge spur guarded by battery above +battery, and crowned by a great redoubt, was attacked by Colborne's +brigade and some Portuguese. The tale of how the hill was climbed, and +the batteries carried in swift succession, cannot be told here. It was +a warlike feat of the most splendid quality. Other columns moving +along the flanks of the great hill alarmed the French lest they should +be cut off, and they abandoned the redoubt on the summit. Colborne, +accompanied by only one of his staff and half-a-dozen files of +riflemen, came suddenly round a shoulder of the hill on the whole +garrison of the redoubt, 300 strong, in retreat. With great presence +of mind, he ordered them, in the sharpest tones of authority, to "lay +down their arms," and, believing themselves cut off, they obeyed! + +A column of Spanish troops moving up the flanks of the great Rhune +found their way barred by a strong line of abattis and the fire of two +French regiments. The column halted, and their officers vainly strove +to get the Spaniards to attack. An officer of the 43rd named +Havelock--a name yet more famous in later wars--attached to Alten's +staff, was sent to see what caused the stoppage of the column. He +found the Spaniards checked by the great abattis, through which +flashed, fierce and fast, the fire of the French. Waving his hat, he +shouted to the Spaniards to "follow him," and, putting his horse at the +abattis, at one leap went headlong amongst the French. There is a +swift contagion in valour. He was only a light-haired lad, and the +Spaniards with one vehement shout for "el chico blanco"--"the fair +lad"--swept over abattis and French together! + + + + +FAMOUS CUTTING-OUT EXPEDITIONS + + + "We have fed our sea for a thousand years, + And she calls us, still unfed, + Though there's never a wave of all her waves + But marks our English dead; + We have strawed our best to the weed's unrest, + To the shark and the sheering gull. + If blood be the price of admiralty, + Lord God, we ha' paid in full! + * * * * * + There's never a flood goes shoreward now + But lifts a keel we manned; + There's never an ebb goes seaward now + But drops our dead on the sand. + + We must feed our sea for a thousand years, + For that is our doom and pride, + As it was when they sailed with the Golden Hind, + Or the wreck that struck last tide-- + Or the wreck that lies on the spouting reef + Where the ghastly blue lights flare. + If blood be the price of admiralty, + If blood be the price of admiralty, + If blood be the price of admiralty, + Lord God, we ha' bought it fair!" + --KIPLING. + + +As illustrations of cool daring, of the courage that does not count +numbers or depend on noise, nor flinch from flame or steel, few things +are more wonderful than the many cutting-out stories to be found in the +history of the British navy. The soldier in the forlorn hope, +scrambling up the breach swept by grape and barred by a triple line of +steadfast bayonets, must be a brave man. But it may be doubted whether +he shows a courage so cool and high as that of a boat's crew of sailors +in a cutting-out expedition. + +The ship to be attacked lies, perhaps, floating in a tropic haze five +miles off, and the attacking party must pull slowly, in a sweltering +heat, up to the iron lips of her guns. The greedy, restless sea is +under them, and a single shot may turn the eager boat's crew at any +instant into a cluster of drowning wretches. When the ship is reached, +officers and men must clamber over bulwarks and boarding-netting, +exposed, almost helplessly, as they climb, to thrust of pike and shot +of musket, and then leap down, singly and without order, on to the deck +crowded with foes. Or, perhaps, the ship to be cut out lies in a +hostile port under the guard of powerful batteries, and the boats must +dash in through the darkness, and their crews tumble, at three or four +separate points, on to the deck of the foe, cut her cables, let fall +her sails, and--while the mad fight still rages on her deck and the +great battery booms from the cliff overhead--carry the ship out of the +harbour. These, surely, are deeds of which only a sailor's courage is +capable! Let a few such stories be taken from faded naval records and +told afresh to a new generation. + +In July 1800 the 14-gun cutter _Viper_, commanded by acting-Lieutenant +Jeremiah Coghlan, was attached to Sir Edward Pellew's squadron off Port +Louis. Coghlan, as his name tells, was of Irish blood. He had just +emerged from the chrysalis stage of a midshipman, and, flushed with the +joy of an independent command, was eager for adventure. The entrance +to Port Louis was watched by a number of gunboats constantly on +sentry-go, and Coghlan conceived the idea of jumping suddenly on one of +these, and carrying her off from under the guns of the enemy's fleet. +He persuaded Sir Edward Pellew to lend him the flagship's ten-oared +cutter, with twelve volunteers. Having got this reinforcement, and +having persuaded the _Amethyst_ frigate to lend him a boat and crew, +Mr. Jeremiah Coghlan proceeded to carry out another and very different +plan from that he had ventured to suggest to his admiral. A French +gun-brig, named the _Cerbere_, was lying in the harbour of St. Louis. +She mounted three long 24 and four 6-pounders, and was moored, with +springs in her cables, within pistol-shot of three batteries. A French +seventy-four and two frigates were within gunshot of her. She had a +crew of eighty-six men, sixteen of whom were soldiers. It was upon +this brig, lying under three powerful batteries, within a hostile and +difficult port, that Mr. Jeremiah Coghlan proposed, in the darkness of +night, to make a dash. He added the _Viper's_ solitary midshipman, +with himself and six of his crew, to the twelve volunteers on board the +flagship's cutter, raising its crew to twenty men, and, with the +_Amethyst's_ boat and a small boat from the _Viper_, pulled off in the +blackness of the night on this daring adventure. + +The ten-oared cutter ran away from the other two boats, reached the +_Cerbere_, found her with battle lanterns alight and men at quarters, +and its crew at once jumped on board the Frenchman. Coghlan, as was +proper, jumped first, landed on a trawl-net hung up to dry, and, while +sprawling helpless in its meshes, was thrust through the thigh with a +pike, and with his men--several also severely hurt--tumbled back into +the boat. The British picked themselves up, hauled their boat a little +farther ahead, clambered up the sides of the _Cerbere_ once more, and +were a second time beaten back with new wounds. They clung to the +Frenchman, however, fought their way up to a new point, broke through +the French defences, and after killing or wounding twenty-six of the +enemy--or more than every fourth man of the _Cerbere's_ crew--actually +captured her, the other two boats coming up in time to help in towing +out the prize under a wrathful fire from the batteries. Coghlan had +only one killed and eight wounded, himself being wounded in two places, +and his middy in six. Sir Edward Pellew, in his official despatch, +grows eloquent over "the courage which, hand to hand, gave victory to a +handful of brave fellows over four times their number, and the skill +which planned, conducted, and effected so daring an enterprise." Earl +St. Vincent, himself the driest and grimmest of admirals, was so +delighted with the youthful Irishman's exploit that he presented him +with a handsome sword. + +In 1811, again, Great Britain was at war with the Dutch--a tiny little +episode of the great revolutionary war. A small squadron of British +ships was cruising off Batavia. A French squadron, with troops to +strengthen the garrison, was expected daily. The only fortified port +into which they could run was Marrack, and the commander of the British +squadron cruising to intercept the French ships determined to make a +dash by night on Marrack, and so secure the only possible landing-place +for the French. Marrack was defended by batteries mounting fifty-four +heavy guns. The attacking force was to consist of 200 seamen and 250 +troops, under the command of Lieutenant Lyons of the _Minden_. Just +before the boats pushed off, however, the British commander learned +that the Dutch garrison had been heavily reinforced, and deeming an +assault too hazardous, the plan was abandoned. A few days afterwards +Lyons, with the _Minden's_ launch and cutter, was despatched to land +nineteen prisoners at Batavia, and pick up intelligence. Lyons, a very +daring and gallant officer, learned that the Marrack garrison was in a +state of sleepy security, and, with his two boats' crews, counting +thirty-five officers and men, he determined to make a midnight dash on +the fort, an exploit which 430 men were reckoned too weak a force to +attempt. + +Lyons crept in at sunset to the shore, and hid his two boats behind a +point from which the fort was visible. A little after midnight, just +as the moon dipped below the horizon, Lyons stole with muffled oars +round the point, and instantly the Dutch sentries gave the alarm. +Lyons, however, pushed fiercely on, grounded his boats in a heavy surf +under the very embrasures of the lower battery, and, in an instant, +thirty-five British sailors were tumbling over the Dutch guns and upon +the heavy-breeched and astonished Dutch gunners. The battery was +carried. Lyons gathered his thirty-five sailors into a cluster, and, +with a rush, captured the upper battery. Still climbing up, they +reached the top of the hill, and found the whole Dutch garrison forming +in line to receive them. The sailors instantly ran in upon the +half-formed line, cutlass in hand; Lyons roared that he "had 400 men, +and would give no quarter;" and the Dutch, finding the pace of events +too rapid for their nerves, broke and fled. But the victorious British +were only thirty-five in number, and were surrounded by powerful +forces. They began at once to dismantle the guns and destroy the fort, +but two Dutch gunboats in the bay opened fire on them, as did a heavy +battery in the rear. + +At daybreak a strong Dutch column was formed, and came on at a resolute +and laborious trot towards the shattered gate of the fort. Lyons had +trained two 24-pounders, loaded to the muzzle with musket balls, on the +gate, left invitingly open. He himself stood, with lighted match, by +one gun; his second in command, with another lighted match, by the +other. They waited coolly by the guns till the Dutch, their officers +leading, reached the gate, raising a tumult of angry guttural shouts as +they came on. Then, from a distance of little over ten yards, the +British fired. The head of the column was instantly smashed, its tail +broken up into flying fragments. Lyons finished the destruction of the +fort at leisure, sank one of the two gunboats with the last shot fired +from the last gun before he spiked it, and marched off, leaving the +British flag flying on the staff above the fort, where, in the fury of +the attack, it had been hoisted in a most gallant fashion by the +solitary middy of the party, a lad named Franks, only fifteen years +old. One of the two boats belonging to the British had been bilged by +the surf, and the thirty-five seamen--only four of them wounded--packed +themselves into the remaining boat and pulled off, carrying with them +the captured Dutch colours. Let the reader's imagination illuminate, +as the writer's pen cannot, that midnight dash by thirty-five men on a +heavily armed fort with a garrison twelve times the strength of the +attacking force. Where in stories of warfare, ancient or modern, is +such another tale of valour to be found? Lyons, however, was not +promoted, as he had "acted without orders." + +A tale, with much the same flavour in it, but not so dramatically +successful, has for its scene the coast of Spain. In August 1812, the +British sloop _Minstrel_, of 24 guns, and the 18-gun brig _Philomel_, +were blockading three small French privateers in the port of Biendom, +near Alicante. The privateers were protected by a strong fort mounting +24 guns. By way of precaution, two of the ships were hauled on shore, +six of their guns being landed, and formed into a battery manned by +eighty of their crews. The _Minstrel_ and her consort could not +pretend to attack a position so strong, but they kept vigilant watch +outside, and a boat from one ship or the other rowed guard every night +near the shore. On the night of the 12th the _Minstrel's_ boat, with +seven seamen, was in command of an Irish midshipman named Michael +Dwyer. Dwyer had all the fighting courage of his race, with almost +more of the gay disregard of odds than is natural to even an Irish +midshipman. It occurred to Mr. Michael Dwyer that if he could carry by +surprise the 6-gun battery, there would be a chance of destroying the +privateers. A little before ten P.M. he pulled silently to the beach, +at a point three miles distant from the battery, and, with his seven +followers, landed, and was instantly challenged by a French sentry. +Dwyer by some accident knew Spanish, and, with ready-witted audacity, +replied in that language that "they were peasants." They were allowed +to pass, and these seven tars, headed by a youth, set off on the three +miles' trudge to attack a fort! + +There were eighty men in the battery when Michael and his amazing seven +rushed upon it. There was a wild struggle for five minutes, and then +the eighty fled before the eight, and the delighted middy found himself +in possession of the battery. But the alarm was given, and two +companies of French infantry, each one hundred strong, came resolutely +up to retake the battery. Eight against eighty seemed desperate odds, +but eight against two hundred is a quite hopeless proportion. Yet Mr. +Dwyer and his seven held the fort till one of their number was killed, +two (including the midshipman) badly wounded, and, worst of all, their +ammunition exhausted. When the British had fired their last shot, the +French, with levelled bayonets, broke in; but the inextinguishable +Dwyer was not subdued till he had been stabbed in seventeen places, and +of the whole eight British only one was left unwounded. The French +amazement when they discovered that the force which attacked them +consisted of seven men and a boy, was too deep for words. + +Perhaps the most brilliant cutting-out in British records is the +carrying of the _Chevrette_ by the boats of three British frigates in +Cameret Bay in 1801. A previous and mismanaged attempt had put the +_Chevrette_ on its guard; it ran a mile and a half farther up the bay, +moored itself under some heavy batteries, took on board a powerful +detachment of infantry, bringing its number of men up to 339, and then +hoisted in defiance a large French ensign over the British flag. Some +temporary redoubts were thrown up on the points of land commanding the +_Chevrette_, and a heavily armed gunboat was moored at the entrance of +the bay as a guard-boat. After all these preparations the +_Chevrette's_ men felt both safe and jubilant; but the sight of that +French flag flying over the British ensign was a challenge not to be +refused, and at half-past nine that night the boats of the three +frigates--the _Doris_, the _Uranie_, and the _Beaulieu_--fifteen in +all, carrying 280 officers and men, were in the water and pulling off +to attack the _Chevrette_. + +Lieutenant Losack, in command, with his own and five other boats, +suddenly swung off in the gloom in chase of what he supposed to be the +look-out boat of the enemy, ordering the other nine boats to lie on +their oars till he returned. But time stole on; he failed to return; +and Lieutenant Maxwell, the next in command, reflecting that the night +was going, and the boats had six miles to pull, determined to carry out +the expedition, though he had only nine boats and less than 180 men, +instead of fifteen boats and 280 men. He summoned his little squadron +in the darkness about him, and gave exact instructions. As the boats +dashed up, one was to cut the _Chevrette's_ cables; when they boarded, +the smartest topmen, named man by man, were to fight their way aloft +and cut loose the _Chevrette's_ sails; one of the finest sailors in the +boats, Wallis, the quartermaster of the _Beaulieu_, was to take charge +of the _Chevrette's_ helm. Thus at one and the same instant the +_Chevrette_ was to be boarded, cut loose, its sails dropped, and its +head swung round towards the harbour mouth. + +At half-past twelve the moon sank. The night was windless and black; +but the bearing of the _Chevrette_ had been taken by compass, and the +boats pulled gently on, till, ghost-like in the gloom, the doomed ship +was discernible. A soft air from the land began to blow at that +moment. Suddenly the _Chevrette_ and the batteries overhead broke into +flame. The boats were discovered! The officers leaped to their feet +in the stern of each boat, and urged the men on. The leading boats +crashed against the _Chevrette's_ side. The ship was boarded +simultaneously on both bows and quarters. The force on board the +_Chevrette_, however, was numerous enough to make a triple line of +armed men round the whole sweep of its bulwarks; they were armed with +pikes, tomahawks, cutlasses, and muskets, and they met the attack most +gallantly, even venturing in their turn to board the boats. By this +time, however, the nine boats Maxwell was leading had all come up, and +although the defence outnumbered the attack by more than two to one, +yet the British were not to be denied. They clambered fiercely on +board; the topmen raced aloft, found the foot-ropes on the yards all +strapped up, but running out, cutlass in hand, they cut loose the +_Chevrette's_ sails. Wallis, meanwhile, had fought his way to the +wheel, slew two of the enemy in the process, was desperately wounded +himself, yet stood steadily at the wheel, and kept the _Chevrette_ +under command, the batteries by this time opening upon the ship a fire +of grape and heavy shot. + +In less than three minutes after the boats came alongside, although +nearly every second man of their crews had been killed or wounded, the +three topsails and courses of the _Chevrette_ had fallen, the cables +had been cut, and the ship was moving out in the darkness. She leaned +over to the light breeze, the ripple sounded louder at her stern, and +when the French felt the ship under movement, it for the moment +paralysed their defence. Some jumped overboard; others threw down +their arms and ran below. The fight, though short, had been so fierce +that the deck was simply strewn with bodies. Many of the French who +had retreated below renewed the fight there; they tried to blow up the +quarter-deck with gunpowder in their desperation, and the British had +to fight a new battle between decks with half their force while the +ship was slowly getting under weigh. The fire of the batteries was +furious, but, curiously enough, no important spar was struck, though +some of the boats towing alongside were sunk. And while the batteries +thundered overhead, and the battle still raged on the decks below, the +British seamen managed to set every sail on the ship, and even got +topgallant yards across. Slowly the _Chevrette_ drew out of the +harbour. Just then some boats were discovered pulling furiously up +through the darkness; they were taken to be French boats bent on +recapture, and Maxwell's almost exhausted seamen were summoned to a new +conflict. The approaching boats, however, turned out to be the +detachment under Lieutenant Losack, who came up to find the work done +and the _Chevrette_ captured. + +The fight on the deck of the _Chevrette_ had been of a singularly +deadly character. The British had a total of 11 killed and 57 wounded; +the Chevrette lost 92 killed and 62 wounded, amongst the slain being +the _Chevrette's_ captain, her two lieutenants, and three midshipmen. +Many stories are told of the daring displayed by British seamen in this +attack. The boatswain of the _Beaulieu_, for example, boarded the +_Chevrette's_ taffrail; he took one glance along the crowded decks, +waved his cutlass, shouted "Make a lane there!" and literally carved +his way through to the forecastle, which he cleared of the French, and +kept clear, in spite of repeated attacks, while he assisted to cast the +ship about and make sail with as much coolness as though he had been on +board the _Beaulieu_. Wallis, who fought his way to the helm of the +_Chevrette_, and, though wounded, kept his post with iron coolness +while the fight raged, was accosted by his officer when the fight was +over with an expression of sympathy for his wounds. "It is only a +prick or two, sir," said Wallis, and he added he "was ready to go out +on a similar expedition the next night." A boatswain's mate named Ware +had his left arm cut clean off by a furious slash of a French sabre, +and fell back into the boat. With the help of a comrade's tarry +fingers Ware bound up the bleeding stump with rough but energetic +surgery, climbed with his solitary hand on board the Chevrette, and +played a most gallant part in the fight. + +The fight that captured the _Chevrette_ is almost without parallel. +Here was a ship carried off from an enemy's port, with the combined +fleets of France and Spain looking on. The enemy were not taken by +surprise; they did not merely defy attack, they invited it. The +British had to assail a force three times their number, with every +advantage of situation and arms. The British boats were exposed to a +heavy fire from the _Chevrette_ itself and from the shore batteries +before they came alongside. The crews fought their way up the sides of +the ship in the face of overwhelming odds; they got the vessel under +weigh while the fight still raged, and brought her out of a narrow and +difficult roadstead, before they had actually captured her. "All this +was done," to quote the "Naval Chronicle" for 1802, "in the presence of +the grand fleet of the enemy; it was done by nine boats out of fifteen, +which originally set out upon the expedition; it was done under the +conduct of an officer who, in the absence of the person appointed to +command, undertook it upon his own responsibility, and whose +intrepidity, judgment, and presence of mind, seconded by the wonderful +exertions of the officers and men under his command, succeeded in +effecting an enterprise which, by those who reflect upon its peculiar +circumstances, will ever be regarded with astonishment." + + + + +MOUNTAIN COMBATS + + + "At length the freshening western blast + Aside the shroud of battle cast; + And first the ridge of mingled spears + Above the brightening cloud appears; + And in the smoke the pennons flew, + As in the storm the white sea-mew. + Then marked they, dashing broad and far, + The broken billows of the war, + And plumed crests of chieftains brave + Floating like foam upon the wave, + But nought distinct they see." + --SCOTT. + + +The brilliant and heroic combats on the Nive belong to the later stages +of the Pyrenean campaign; and here, as on the Bidassoa, Soult had all +the advantages of position. He had a fortified camp and a great +fortress as his base; excellent roads linked the whole of his positions +together; he held the interior lines, and could reach any point in the +zone of operations in less time than his great opponent. Wellington, +on the other hand, had almost every possible disadvantage. The weather +was bitter; incessant rains fell; he had to operate on both sides of a +dangerous river; the roads were mere ribbons of tenacious clay, in +which the infantry sank to mid-leg, the guns to their axles, the +cavalry sometimes to their saddle-girths. Moreover, Wellington's +Spanish troops had the sufferings and outrages of a dozen campaigns to +avenge, and when they found themselves on French soil the temptations +to plunder and murder were irresistible. Wellington would not maintain +war by plunder, and, as he found he could not restrain his Spaniards, +he despatched the whole body, 25,000 strong, back to Spain. It was a +great deed. It violated all military canons, for by it Wellington +divided his army in the presence of the enemy. It involved, too, a +rare sacrifice of personal ambition. "If I had 20,000 Spaniards, paid +and fed," he wrote to Lord Bathurst, "I should have Bayonne. If I had +40,000 I do not know where I should stop. Now I have both the 20,000 +and the 40,000, . . . but if they plunder they will ruin all." +Wellington was great enough to sacrifice both military rules and +personal ambition to humanity. He was wise enough, too, to know that a +policy which outrages humanity in the long-run means disaster. + +Wellington's supreme advantage lay in the fighting quality of his +troops. The campaigns of six years had made them an army of veterans. +"Danger," says Napier, "was their sport," and victory, it might also be +added, was their habit. They fought with a confidence and fierceness +which, added to the cool and stubborn courage native to the British +character, made the battalions which broke over the French frontier +under Wellington perhaps the most formidable fighting force known in +the history of war. To quote Napier once more: "What Alexander's +Macedonians were at Arbela, Hannibal's Africans at Cannae, Caesar's +Romans at Pharsalia, Napoleon's Guards at Austerlitz, such were +Wellington's British soldiers at this period." + +On November 10, 1813, was fought what is called the battle of Nivelle, +in which Wellington thrust Soult roughly and fiercely from the strong +positions he held on the flanks of the great hills under which the +Nivelle flows. The morning broke in great splendour; three signal-guns +flashed from the heights of one of the British hills, and at once the +43rd leaped out and ran swiftly forward from the flank of the great +Rhune to storm the "Hog's Back" ridge of the Petite Rhune, a ridge +walled with rocks 200 feet high, except at one point, where it was +protected by a marsh. William Napier, who commanded the 43rd, has told +the story of the assault. He placed four companies in reserve, and led +the other four in person to the attack on the rocks; and he was chiefly +anxious not to rush his men--to "keep down the pace," so that they +would not arrive spent and breathless at the French works. The men +were eager to rush, however; the fighting impulse in them was on flame, +and they were held back with difficulty. When they were still nearly +200 yards from the enemy, a youthful aide-de-camp, his blood on fire, +came galloping up with a shout, and waving his hat. The 43rd broke out +of hand at once with the impulse of the lad's enthusiasm and the stroke +of his horse's flying hoofs, and with a sudden rush they launched +themselves on the French works still high above them. + +Napier had nothing for it but to join the charging mass. "I was the +first man but one," he says, "who reached and jumped into the rocks, +and I was only second because my strength and speed were unequal to +contend with the giant who got before me. He was the tallest and most +active man in the regiment, and the day before, being sentenced to +corporal punishment, I had pardoned him on the occasion of an +approaching action. He now repaid me by striving always to place +himself between me and the fire of the enemy. His name was Eccles, an +Irishman." The men won the first redoubt, but simply had not breath +and strength enough left to reach the one above it, and fell gasping +and exhausted in the rocks before it, the French firing fiercely upon +them. In a few minutes, however, they had recovered breath; they +leaped up with a shout, and tumbled over the wall of the castle; and +so, from barrier to barrier, as up some Titanic stairway, the 43rd +swept with glittering bayonets. The summit was held by a powerful work +called the Donjon; it was so strong that attack upon it seemed madness. +But a keen-eyed British officer detected signs of wavering in the +French within the fort, and with a shout the 43rd leaped at it, and +carried it. It took the 43rd twenty minutes to carry the whole chain +of positions; and of the eleven officers of the regiment, six were +killed or desperately wounded. The French showed bravery; they fought, +in fact, muzzle to muzzle up the whole chain of positions. But the +43rd charged with a daring and fury absolutely resistless. + +Another amazing feature in the day's fight was the manner in which +Colborne, with the 52nd, carried what was called the Signal Redoubt, a +strong work, crowning a steep needle-pointed hill, and overlooking the +whole French position. Colborne led his men up an ascent so sharp that +his horse with difficulty could climb it. The summit was reached, and +the men went in, with a run, at the work, only to find the redoubt +girdled by a wide ditch thirty feet deep. The men halted on the edge +of the deep cutting, and under the fire of the French they fell fast. +Colborne led back his men under the brow of the hill for shelter, and +at three separate points brought them over the crest again. In each +case, after the men had rested under shelter long enough to recover +breath, the word was passed, "Stand up and advance." The men instantly +obeyed, and charged up to the edge of the ditch again, many of the +leading files jumping into it. But it was impossible to cross, and +each time the mass of British infantry stepped coolly back into cover +again. + +One sergeant named Mayne, who had leaped into the ditch, found he could +neither climb the ramparts nor get back to his comrades, and he flung +himself on his face. A Frenchman leaned over the rampart, took +leisurely aim, and fired at him as he lay. Mayne had stuck the +billhook of his section at the back of his knapsack, and the bullet +struck it and flattened upon it. Colborne was a man of infinite +resource in war, and at this crisis he made a bugler sound a parley, +hoisted his white pocket-handkerchief, and coolly walked round to the +gate of the redoubt and invited the garrison to surrender. The veteran +who commanded it answered indignantly, "What! I with my battalion +surrender to you with yours?" "Very well," answered Colborne in +French, "the artillery will be up immediately; you cannot hold out, and +you will be surrendered to the Spaniards." That threat was sufficient. +The French officers remonstrated stormily with their commander, and the +work was surrendered. But only one French soldier in the redoubt had +fallen, whereas amongst the 52nd "there fell," says Napier, "200 +soldiers of a regiment never surpassed in arms since arms were first +borne by men." In this fight Soult was driven in a little more than +three hours from a mountain position he had been fortifying for more +than three months. + +Amongst the brave men who died that day on the side of the British were +two whose portraits Napier has drawn with something of Plutarch's +minuteness:-- + +"The first, low in rank, for he was but a lieutenant; rich in honour, +for he bore many scars; was young of days--he was only nineteen--and +had seen more combats and sieges than he could count years. So slight +in person and of such surpassing and delicate beauty that the Spaniards +often thought him a girl disguised in man's clothing; he was yet so +vigorous, so active, so brave, that the most daring and experienced +veterans watched his looks on the field of battle, and, implicitly +following where he led, would, like children, obey his slightest sign +in the most difficult situations. His education was incomplete, yet +were his natural powers so happy that the keenest and best-furnished +shrank from an encounter of wit; and every thought and aspiration was +proud and noble, indicating future greatness if destiny had so willed +it. Such was Edward Freer of the 43rd. The night before the battle he +had that strange anticipation of coming death so often felt by military +men. He was struck by three balls at the first storming of the Rhune +rocks, and the sternest soldiers wept, even in the middle of the fight, +when they saw him fall." + +"On the same day, and at the same hour, was killed Colonel Thomas +Lloyd. He likewise had been a long time in the 43rd. Under him Freer +had learned the rudiments of his profession; but in the course of the +war, promotion placed Lloyd at the head of the 94th, and it was leading +that regiment he fell. In him also were combined mental and bodily +powers of no ordinary kind. Graceful symmetry, herculean strength, and +a countenance frank and majestic, gave the true index of his nature; +for his capacity was great and commanding, and his military knowledge +extensive, both from experience and study. Of his mirth and wit, well +known in the army, it only need be said that he used the latter without +offence, yet so as to increase the ascendency over those with whom he +held intercourse; for, though gentle, he was ambitious, valiant, and +conscious of his fitness for great exploits. And he, like Freer, was +prescient of and predicted his own fall, but with no abatement of +courage, for when he received the mortal wound, a most painful one, he +would not suffer himself to be moved, and remained to watch the battle, +making observations upon its changes until death came. It was thus, at +the age of thirty, that the good, the brave, the generous Lloyd died. +Tributes to his memory have been published by Wellington, and by one of +his own poor soldiers, by the highest and by the lowest. To their +testimony I add mine. Let those who served on equal terms with him say +whether in aught it has exaggerated his deserts." + +A pathetic incident may be added, found in Napier's biography, but +which he does not give in his History. The night before the battle +Napier was stretched on the ground under his cloak, when young Freer +came to him and crept under the cover of his cloak, sobbing as if his +heart would break. Napier tried to soothe and comfort the boy, and +learnt from him that he was fully persuaded he should lose his life in +the approaching battle, and his distress was caused by thinking of his +mother and sister in England. + +On December 9, Wellington, by a daring movement and with some fierce +fighting, crossed the Nive. It was a movement which had many +advantages, but one drawback--his wings were now separated by the Nive; +and Soult at this stage, like the great and daring commander he was, +took advantage of his position to attempt a great counter-stroke. It +was within his power to fling his whole force on either wing of +Wellington, and so confident was he of success that he wrote to the +Minister of War telling him to "expect good news" the next day. +Wellington himself was on the right bank of the Nive, little dreaming +that Soult was about to leap on the extremity of his scattered forces. +The country was so broken that Soult's movements were entirely hidden, +and the roads so bad that even the cavalry outposts could scarcely +move. On the night of the 9th Soult had gathered every available +bayonet, and was ready to burst on the position held by Sir John Hope +at Arcanques. + +In the grey dawn of the 10th the out-pickets of the 43rd noticed that +the French infantry were pushing each other about as if in sport; but +the crowd seemed to thicken and to eddy nearer and nearer the British +line. It was a trick to deceive the vigilance of the British outposts. +Presently the apparently sportive crowd made a rush forwards and +resolved itself into a spray of swiftly moving skirmishers. The French +columns broke from behind a screen of houses, and, at a running pace, +and with a tumult of shouts, charged the British position. In a moment +the crowd of French soldiers had penetrated betwixt the 43rd and 52nd, +and charging eagerly forward, tried to turn the flanks of both. But +these were veteran regiments; they fell coolly and swiftly back, firing +fiercely as they went. It was at once a race and a combat. The roads +were so narrow and so bad that the British could keep no order, and if +the French outpaced them and reached the open position at the rear +first, the British line would be pierced. The 43rd came through the +pass first, apparently a crowd of running fugitives, officers and men +jumbled together. The moment they had reached the open ground, +however, the men fell, as if by a single impulse, into military form, +and became a steadfast red line, from end to end of which ran, and ran +again, and yet again, the volleying flame of a sustained musketry fire. +The pass was barred! + +The troops to the right of the French were not quite so quick or so +fortunate, and about 100 of the British--riflemen and men of the +43rd--were intercepted. The French never doubted that they would +surrender, for they were but a handful of men cut off by a whole +column. An ensign of the 43rd named Campbell, a lad not eighteen years +of age, was in the front files of the British when the call to +surrender was heard. With a shout the boy-ensign leaped at the French +column. Where an officer leads, British soldiers will always follow, +and the men followed him with a courage as high as his own. With a +rush the column was rent, and though fifty of the British were killed +or taken, fifty, including the gallant boy who led them, escaped. + +The fighting at other points was of the sharpest, and was strangely +entangled and confused. It was a fight of infantry against infantry, +and the whole field of the combat was interlaced by almost impassable +hedges. At one point, so strangely broken was the ground, and so +obscured the fight with smoke and mist, that a French regiment passed +unseen betwixt the British and Portuguese, and was rapidly filing into +line on the rear of the 9th, fiercely occupied at that moment against a +strong force in front. Cameron, its colonel, left fifty men of his +regiment to answer the fire in his front, faced about, and went at a +run against the French regiment, which by this time had commenced +volley-firing. Cameron's men fell fast--eighty men and officers, in +fact, dropped in little more than five minutes--but the rush of the 9th +was irresistible. The Frenchmen wavered, broke, and swept, a +disorganised mass, past the flank of the Royals, actually carrying off +one of its officers in the rush, and disappeared. + +The sternest and most bewildering fighting took place round a building +known as the "mayor's house," surrounded by a coppice-wood. Coppice +and outbuildings were filled with men of all regiments and all nations, +swearing, shooting, and charging with the bayonet. The 84th was caught +in a hollow road by the French, who lined the banks above, and lost its +colonel and a great proportion of its rank and file. Gronow tells an +amusing incident of the fight at this stage. An isolated British +battalion stationed near the mayor's house was suddenly surrounded by a +flood of French. The French general galloped up to the British officer +in command and demanded his sword. "Upon this," says Gronow, "without +the least hesitation the British officer shouted out, 'This fellow +wants us to surrender! Charge! my boys, and show them what stuff we +are made of.'" The men answered with a shout, sudden, scornful, and +stern, and went with a run at the French. "In a few minutes," adds +Gronow, "they had taken prisoners or killed the whole of the infantry +regiment opposed to them!" + +On the 11th desperate fighting took place on the same ground, but the +British were by this time reinforced--the Guards, in particular, coming +up after a rapid and exhausting march--and Soult's attack had failed. +But on the night of the 12th the rain fell fast and steadily, the Nive +was flooded, the bridge of boats which spanned it swept away, and Hill +was left at St. Pierre isolated, with less than 14,000 men. Soult saw +his opportunity. The interior lines he held made concentration easy, +and on the morning of the 13th he was able to pour an attacking force +of 35,000 bayonets on Hill's front, while another infantry division, +together with the whole of the French cavalry under Pierre Soult, +attacked his rear. Then there followed what has been described as the +most desperate battle of the whole Peninsular war. + + + + +THE BLOODIEST FIGHT IN THE PENINSULA + + + "Then out spoke brave Horatius, + The captain of the gate: + 'To every man upon this earth + Death cometh soon or late; + And how can man die better + Than facing fearful odds, + For the ashes of his fathers + And the temples of his gods?'" + --MACAULAY. + + +Hill's front stretched through two miles; his left; a wooded craggy +ridge, was held by Pringle's brigade, but was parted from the centre by +a marshy valley and a chain of ponds; his centre occupied a +crescent-shaped broken ridge; his right, under General Byng, held a +ridge parallel with the Adour. The French gathered in great masses on +a range of counter-heights, an open plain being between them and Hill's +centre. The day was heavy with whirling mist; and as the wind tore it +occasionally asunder, the British could see on the parallel roads +before them the huge, steadily flowing columns of the French. + +Abbe led the attack on the British centre. He was "the fighting +general" of Soult's army, famous for the rough energy of his character +and the fierceness of his onfall. He pushed his attack with such +ardour that he forced his way to the crest of the British ridge. The +famous 92nd, held in reserve, was brought forward by way of +counter-stroke, and pushed its attack keenly home. The head of Abbe's +column was crushed; but the French general replaced the broken +battalions by fresh troops, and still forced his way onward, the 92nd +falling back. + +[Illustration: Battle of St. Pierre, December 9th & 13th, 1813. From +Napier's "Peninsular War."] + +In the meanwhile on both the right and the left of the British position +an almost unique disaster had befallen Hill's troops. Peacock, the +colonel of the 71st, through some bewitched failure of nerve or of +judgment, withdrew that regiment from the fight. It was a Highland +regiment, great in fighting reputation, and full of daring. How black +were the looks of the officers, and what loud swearing in Gaelic took +place in the ranks, as the gallant regiment--discipline overcoming +human nature--obeyed the mysterious order to retire, may be imagined. +Almost at the same moment on the right, Bunbury, who commanded the 3rd +or Buffs, in the same mysterious fashion abandoned to the French the +strong position he held. Both colonels were brave men, and their +sudden lapse into unsoldierly conduct has never been explained. Both, +it may be added, were compelled to resign their commissions after the +fight. + +Hill, surveying the spectacle from the post he had taken, commanding +the whole field of battle, hastened down, met and halted the Buffs, +sent them back to the fight, drew his whole reserves into the fray, and +himself turned the 71st and led them to the attack. With what joy the +indignant Highlanders of the 71st obeyed the order to "Right about +face" may be imagined, and so vehement was their charge that the French +column upon which it was flung, though coming on at the double, in all +the _elan_ of victory, was instantly shattered. + +Meanwhile the 92nd was launched again at Abbe's column. Cameron, its +colonel, was a soldier of a very gallant type, and, himself a +Highlander, he understood the Highland temperament perfectly. He +dressed his regiment as if on parade, the colours were uncased, the +pipes shrilled fiercely, and in all the pomp of military array, with +green tartans and black plumes all wind-blown, and with the wild +strains of their native hills and lochs thrilling in their ears, the +Highlanders bore down on the French, their officers fiercely leading. +On all sides at that moment the British skirmishers were falling back. +The 50th was clinging desperately to a small wood that crowned the +ridge, but everywhere the French were forcing their way onward. +Ashworth's Portuguese were practically destroyed; Barnes, who commanded +the centre, was shot through the body. But the fierce charge of the +92nd along the high-road, and of the 71st on the left centre, sent an +electric thrill along the whole British front. The skirmishers, +instead of falling back, ran forward; the Portuguese rallied. The 92nd +found in its immediate front two strong French regiments, and their +leading files brought their bayonets to the charge, and seemed eager to +meet the 92nd with the actual push of steel. It was the crisis of the +fight. + +At that moment the French commander's nerve failed him. That +steel-edged line of kilted, plume-crested Highlanders, charging with a +step so fierce, was too much for him. He suddenly turned his horse, +waved his sword; his men promptly faced about, and marched back to +their original position. The French on both the right and the left +drew back, and the battle for the moment seemed to die down. Hill's +right was safe, and he drew the 57th from it to strengthen his sorely +battered centre; and just at that moment the sixth division, which had +been marching since daybreak, crossed the bridge over the Nive, which +the British engineers with rare energy had restored, and appeared on +the ridge overlooking the field of battle. Wellington, too, appeared +on the scene, with the third and fourth divisions. At two o'clock the +allies commenced a forward movement, and Soult fell back; his second +counter-stroke had failed. + +St. Pierre was, perhaps, the most desperately contested fight in the +Peninsular war, a field almost as bloody as Albuera. Hill's ranks were +wasted as by fire; three British generals were carried from the field; +nearly the whole of the staff was struck down. On a space scarcely one +mile square, 5000 men were killed and wounded within three hours. +Wellington, as he rode over the field by the side of Hill after the +fight was over, declared he had never seen the dead lie so thickly +before. It was a great feat for less than 14,000 men with 14 guns to +withstand the assault of 35,000 men with 22 guns; and, at least where +Abbe led, the fighting of the French was of the most resolute +character. The victory was due, in part, to Hill's generalship and the +lion-like energy with which he restored his broken centre and flung +back the Buffs and the 71st into the fight. But in a quite equal +degree the victory was due to the obstinate fighting quality of the +British private. The 92nd, for example, broke the French front no less +than four times by bayonet charges pushed home with the sternest +resolution, and it lost in these charges 13 officers and 171 rank and +file. + +The French, it might almost be said, lost the field by the momentary +failure in nerve of the officer commanding the column upon which the +92nd was rushing in its last and most dramatic charge. His column was +massive and unbroken; the men, with bent heads and levelled bayonets, +were ready to meet the 92nd with a courage as lofty as that of the +Highlanders themselves, and the 92nd, for all its parade of fluttering +colours and wind-blown tartans and feathers, was but a single weak +battalion. An electrical gesture, a single peremptory call on the part +of the leader, even a single daring act by a soldier in the ranks, and +the French column would have been hurled on the 92nd, and by its mere +weight must have broken it. But the oncoming of the Highlanders proved +too great a strain for the nerve of the French general. He wheeled the +head of his horse backward, and the fight was lost. + +Weeks of the bitterest winter weather suspended all military operations +after St. Pierre. The rivers were flooded; the clayey lowlands were +one far-stretching quagmire; fogs brooded in the ravines; perpetual +tempests shrieked over the frozen summits of the Pyrenees; the +iron-bound coast was furious with breakers. But Wellington's hardy +veterans--ill-clad, ill-sheltered, and ill-fed--yet kept their watch on +the slopes of the Pyrenees. The outposts of the two armies, indeed, +fell into almost friendly relations with each other. Barter sprang up +between them, a regular code of signals was established, friendly +offices were exchanged. Wellington on one occasion desired to +reconnoitre Soult's camp from the top of a hill occupied by a French +picket, and ordered some English rifles to drive them off. No firing +was necessary. An English soldier held up the butt of his rifle and +tapped it in a peculiar way. The signal meant, "We must have the hill +for a short time," and the French at once retired. A steady traffic in +brandy and tobacco sprang up between the pickets of the two armies. A +rivulet at one point flowed between the outposts, and an Irish soldier +named Patten, on sentry there, placed a canteen with a silver coin in +it on a stone by the bank of the rivulet, to be filled with brandy by +the French in the usual way. Canteen and coin vanished, but no brandy +arrived. Patten, a daring fellow, regarded himself as cheated, and the +next day seeing, as he supposed, the same French sentry on duty, he +crossed the rivulet, seized the Frenchman's musket, shook the amazed +sentry out of his accoutrements as a pea is shaken out of its pod, and +carried them off. The French outposts sent in a flag of truce, +complained of this treatment, and said the unfortunate sentry's life +would be forfeited unless his uniform and gun were restored. Patten, +however, insisted that he held these "in pawn for a canteen of brandy," +and he got his canteen before the uniform was restored. + +On February 12 a white hard frost suddenly fell on the whole field of +operations, and turned the viscid mud everywhere to the hardness of +stone. The men could march, the artillery move; and Wellington, whose +strategy was ripe, was at once in action. + +Soult barred his path by a great entrenched camp at Bayonne, to which +the Adour served as a Titanic wet ditch. The Adour is a great river, +swift and broad--swiftest and broadest through the six miles of its +course below the town to its mouth. Its bed is of shifting sand; the +spring-tide rises in it fourteen feet, the ebb-tide runs seven miles an +hour. Where the swift river and the great rollers of the Bay of Biscay +meet is a treacherous bar--in heavy weather a mere tumult of leaping +foam. Soult assumed that Wellington would cross the river above the +town; the attempt to cross it near the mouth, where it was barred with +sand, and beaten with surges, and guarded, too, by a tiny squadron of +French gunboats, was never suspected. Yet exactly this was +Wellington's plan; and his bridge across the Adour is declared by +Napier to be a stupendous undertaking, which must always rank amongst +"the prodigies of war." Forty large sailing-boats, of about twenty +tons burden each, carrying the materials for the bridge, were to enter +the mouth of the Adour at the moment when Hope, with part of Hill's +division, made his appearance on the left bank of the river, with +materials for rafts, by means of which sufficient troops could be +thrown across the Adour to capture a battery which commanded its +entrance. + +On the night of February 22, Hope, with the first division, was in the +assigned position on the banks of the Adour, hidden behind some +sandhills. But a furious gale made the bar impassable, and not a boat +was in sight. Hope, the most daring of men, never hesitated; he would +cross the river without the aid of the fleet. His guns were suddenly +uncovered, the tiny French flotilla was sunk or scattered, and a +pontoon or raft, carrying sixty men of the Guards, pushed out from the +British bank. A strong French picket held the other shore; but, +bewildered and ill led, they made no opposition. A hawser was dragged +across the stream, and pontoons, each carrying fifteen men, were in +quick succession pulled across. When about a thousand men had in this +way reached the French bank, some French battalions made their +appearance. Colonel Stopford, who was in command, allowed the French +to come on--their drums beating the _pas de charge_, and their officers +waving their swords--to within a distance of twenty yards, and then +opened upon them with his rocket brigade. The fiery flight and +terrifying sound of these missiles put the French to instant rout. All +night the British continued to cross, and on the morning of the 24th +the flotilla was off the bar, the boats of the men-of-war leading. + +The first boat that plunged into the tumult of breakers, leaping and +roaring over the bar, sank instantly. The second shot through and was +safe; but the tide was running out furiously, and no boat could follow +till it was high water again. When high water came, the troops +crowding the sandbanks watched with breathless interest the fight of +the boats to enter. They hung and swayed like a flock of gigantic +sea-birds on the rough and tumbling sea. Lieutenant Bloye of the +_Lyra_, who led the way in his barge, dashed into the broad zone of +foam, and was instantly swallowed up with all his crew. The rest of +the flotilla bore up to right and left, and hovered on the edge of the +tormented waters. Suddenly Lieutenant Cheyne of the _Woodlark_ caught +a glimpse of the true course and dashed through, and boat after boat +came following with reeling decks and dripping crews; but in the whole +passage no fewer than eight of the flotilla were destroyed. The bridge +was quickly constructed. Thirty-six two-masted vessels were moored +head to stern, with an interval between each vessel, across the 800 +yards of the Adour; a double line of cables, about ten feet apart, +linked the boats together; strong planks were lashed athwart the +cables, making a roadway; a double line of masts, forming a series of +floating squares, served as a floating boom; and across this swaying, +flexible, yet mighty bridge, Wellington was able to pour his left wing, +with all its artillery and material, and so draw round Bayonne an iron +line of investment. + +This movement thrust back Soult's right, but he clung obstinately to +the Gave. He held by Napoleon's maxim that the best way to defend is +to attack, and Wellington's very success gave him what seemed a golden +opportunity. Wellington's left had crossed the Adour, but that very +movement separated it from the right. + +Soult took up his position on a ridge of hills above Orthez. He +commanded the fords by which Picton must cross, and his plan was to +crush him while in the act of crossing. The opportunity was clear, but +somehow Soult missed it. There failed him at the critical moment the +swift-attacking impulse which both Napoleon and Wellington possessed in +so high a degree. Picton's two divisions crossed the Gave, and climbed +the bank through mere fissures in the rocks, which broke up all +military order, and the nearest point which allowed them to fall into +line was within cannon-shot of the enemy. Even Picton's iron nerve +shook at such a crisis; but Wellington, to use Napier's phrase, "calm +as deepest sea," watched the scene. Soult ought to have attacked; he +waited to be attacked, and so missed victory. + +By nine o'clock Wellington had formed his plan, and Ross's brigade was +thrust through a gorge on Soult's left. The French were admirably +posted: they had a narrow front, abundant artillery, and a great +battery placed so as to smite on the flank any column forcing its way +through the gorge which pierced Soult's left. Ross's men fought +magnificently. Five times they broke through the gorge, and five times +the fire of the French infantry on the slopes above them, and the grape +of the great battery at the head of the gorge, drove the shattered +regiments back. On Soult's right, again, Foy flung back with loss an +attack by part of Picton's forces. On both the right and left, that +is, Soult was victorious, and, as he saw the wasted British lines roll +sullenly back, it is said that the French general smote his thigh in +exultation, and cried, "At last I have him!" + +Almost at that moment, however, the warlike genius of Wellington +changed the aspect of the scene. He fed the attacks on Soult's right +and left, and the deepening roar of the battle at these two points +absorbed the senses of the French general. Soult's front was barred by +what was supposed to be an impassable marsh, above which a great hill +frowned; and across the marsh, and upon this hill, the centre of +Soult's position, Wellington launched the famous 52nd. + +Colborne plunged with his men into the marsh; they sank at every step +above the knee, sometimes to the middle. The skirmishers shot fiercely +at them. But with stern composure the veterans of the light +division--soldiers, as Napier never tires in declaring, who "had never +yet met their match in the field"--pressed on. The marsh was crossed, +the hill climbed, and with a sudden and deafening shout--the cheer +which has a more full and terrible note than any other voice of +fighting men, the shout of the British regiment as it charges--the 52nd +dashed between Foy and Taupin. A French battalion in their path was +scattered as by the stroke of a thunderbolt. The French centre was +pierced; both victorious wings halted, and began to ebb back. Hill, +meanwhile, had crossed the Gave, and taking a wider circle, threatened +Soult's line of retreat. The French fell back, and fell back with +ever-quickening steps, but yet fighting sternly; the British, with +deafening musketry and cannonade, pressed on them. Hill quickened his +pace on the ridge along which he was pressing. It became a race who +should reach first the single bridge on the Luy-de-Bearn over which the +French must pass. The pace became a run. Many of the French broke +from their ranks and raced forward. The British cavalry broke through +some covering battalions and sabred the fugitives. A great disaster +was imminent; and yet it was avoided, partly by Soult's cool and +obstinate defence, and partly by the accident that at that moment +Wellington was struck by a spent ball and was disabled, so that his +swift and imperious will no longer directed the pursuit. + +Orthez may be described as the last and not the least glorious fight in +the Peninsular war. Toulouse was fought ten day afterwards, but it +scarcely belongs to the Peninsular campaigns, and was actually fought +after a general armistice had been signed. + + + + +THE BATTLE OF THE BALTIC + + + "Let us think of them that sleep + Full many a fathom deep + By thy wild and stormy deep, + Elsinore!" + --CAMPBELL. + + +"I have been in a hundred and five engagements, but that of to-day is +the most terrible of them all." This was how Nelson himself summed up +the great fight off Copenhagen, or the battle of the Baltic as it is +sometimes called, fought on April 2, 1801. It was a battle betwixt +Britons and Danes. The men who fought under the blood-red flag of +Great Britain, and under the split flag of Denmark with its white +cross, were alike the descendants of the Vikings. The blood of the old +sea-rovers ran hot and fierce in their veins. Nelson, with the glories +of the Nile still ringing about his name, commanded the British fleet, +and the fire of his eager and gallant spirit ran from ship to ship like +so many volts of electricity. But the Danes fought in sight of their +capital, under the eyes of their wives and children. It is not strange +that through the four hours during which the thunder of the great +battle rolled over the roofs of Copenhagen and up the narrow waters of +the Sound, human valour and endurance in both fleets were at their very +highest. + +Less than sixty years afterwards "thunders of fort and fleet" along all +the shores of England were welcoming a daughter of the Danish throne as + + "Bride of the heir of the kings of the sea." + +And Tennyson, speaking for every Briton, assured the Danish girl who +was to be their future Queen-- + + "We are each all Dane in our welcome of thee." + + +What was it in 1801 which sent a British fleet on an errand of battle +to Copenhagen? + +It was a tiny episode of the long and stern drama of the Napoleonic +wars. Great Britain was supreme on the sea, Napoleon on the land, and, +in his own words, Napoleon conceived the idea of "conquering the sea by +the land." Paul I. of Russia, a semi-lunatic, became Napoleon's ally +and tool. Paul was able to put overwhelming pressure on Sweden, +Denmark, and Prussia, and these Powers were federated as the "League of +Armed Neutrality," with the avowed purpose of challenging the marine +supremacy of Great Britain. Paul seized all British ships in Russian +ports; Prussia marched troops into Hanover; every port from the North +Cape to Gibraltar was shut against the British flag. Britain, stood +alone, practically threatened with a naval combination of all the +Northern Powers, while behind the combination stood Napoleon, the +subtlest brain and most imperious will ever devoted to the service of +war. Napoleon's master passion, it should be remembered, was the +desire to overthrow Great Britain, and he held in the palm of his hand +the whole military strength of the Continent. The fleets of France and +Spain were crushed or blockaded: but the three Northern Powers could +have put into battle-line a fleet of fifty great ships and twenty-five +frigates. With this force they could raise the blockade of the French +ports, sweep triumphant through the narrow seas, and land a French army +in Kent or in Ulster. + +Pitt was Prime Minister, and his masterful intellect controlled British +policy. He determined that the fleets of Denmark and of Russia should +not become a weapon in the hand of Napoleon against England; and a +fleet of eighteen ships of the line, with frigates and bomb-vessels, +was despatched to reason, from the iron lips of their guns, with the +misguided Danish Government. Sir Hyde Parker, a decent, unenterprising +veteran, was commander-in-chief by virtue of seniority; but Nelson, +with the nominal rank of second in command, was the brain and soul of +the expedition. "Almost all the safety and certainly all the honour of +England," he said to his chief, "is more entrusted to you than ever yet +fell to the lot of a British officer." And all through the story of +the expedition it is amusing to notice the fashion in which Nelson's +fiery nature strove to kindle poor Sir Hyde Barker's sluggish temper to +its own flame. + +The fleet sailed from Yarmouth on March 12, and fought its way through +fierce spring gales to the entrance of the Kattegat. The wind was +fair; Nelson was eager to sweep down on Copenhagen with the whole +fleet, and negotiate with the whole skyline of Copenhagen crowded with +British topsails. "While the negotiation is going on," he said, "the +Dane should see our flag waving every time he lifts up his head." Time +was worth more than gold; it was worth brave men's lives. The Danes +were toiling day and night to prepare the defence of their capital. +But prim Sir Hyde anchored, and sent up a single frigate with his +ultimatum, and it was not until March 30 that the British fleet, a long +line of stately vessels, came sailing up the Sound, passed Elsinore, +and cast anchor fifteen miles from Copenhagen. Nothing could surpass +the gallant energy shown by the Danes in their preparation for defence, +and Nature had done much to make the city impregnable from the sea. + +[Illustration: The Battle of the Baltic, April 2nd, 1801. From +Brenton's Naval History.] + +The Sound is narrow and shallow, a mere tangle of shoals wrinkled with +twisted channels and scoured by the swift tides. King's Channel runs +straight up towards the city, but a huge sandbank, like the point of a +toe, splits the channel into two just as it reaches the harbour. The +western edge runs up, pocket-shaped, into the city, and forms the +actual port; the main channel contracts, swings round to the +south-east, and forms a narrow passage between the shallows in front of +the city and a huge shoal called the Middle Ground. A cluster of grim +and heavily armed fortifications called the Three-Crown Batteries +guarded the entrance to the harbour, and looked right up King's +Channel; a stretch of floating batteries and line-of-battle ships, a +mile and a half in extent, ran from the Three-Crown Batteries along the +edge of the shoals in front of the city, with some heavy pile batteries +at its termination. The direct approach up King's Channel, together +with the narrow passage between the city and the Middle Ground, were +thus commanded by the fire of over 600 heavy guns. The Danes had +removed the buoys that marked all the channels, the British had no +charts, and only the most daring and skilful seamanship could bring the +great ships of the British fleet through that treacherous tangle of +shoals to the Danish front. As a matter of fact, the heavier ships in +the British fleet never attempted to join in the desperate fight which +was waged, but hung as mere spectators in the offing. + +Meanwhile popular enthusiasm in the Danish capital was at fever-point. +Ten thousand disciplined troops manned the batteries; but peasants from +the farms, workmen from the factories, merchants from the city, +hastened to volunteer, and worked day and night at gun-drill. A +thousand students from the university enrolled themselves, and drilled +from morning till night. These student-soldiers had probably the best +military band ever known; it consisted of the entire orchestra of the +Theatre Royal, all volunteers. A Danish officer, sent on some message +under a flag of truce to the British fleet, was required to put his +message in writing, and was offered a somewhat damaged pen for that +purpose. He threw it down with a laugh, saying that "if the British +guns were not better pointed than their pens they wouldn't make much +impression on Copenhagen." That flash of gallant wit marked the temper +of the Danes. They were on flame with confident daring. + +Nelson, always keen for a daring policy, had undertaken to attack the +Danish defences with a squadron of twelve seventy-fours, and the +frigates and bomb-vessels of the fleet. He determined to shun the open +way of King's Channel, grope through the uncertain passage called the +Dutch Deep, at the back of the Middle Ground, and forcing his way up +the narrow channel in front of the shallows, repeat on the anchored +batteries and battleships of the Danes the exploit of the Nile. He +spent the nights of March 30 and 31 sounding the channel, being +himself, in spite of fog and ice, in the boat nearly the whole of these +two bitter nights. On April 1 the fleet came slowly up the Dutch Deep, +and dropped anchor at night about two miles from the southern extremity +of the Danish line. At eleven o'clock that night, Hardy--in whose arms +Nelson afterwards died on board the _Victory_--pushed off from the +flagship in a small boat and sounded the channel in front of the Danish +floating batteries. So daring was he that he actually sounded round +the leading ship of the Danish line, using a pole to avoid being +detected. + +In the morning the wind blew fair for the channel. Nelson's plans had +been elaborated to their minutest details, and the pilots of the fleet +were summoned at nine o'clock to the flagship to receive their last +instructions. But their nerve failed them. They were simply the mates +or masters of Baltic traders turned for the moment into naval pilots. +They had no charts. They were accustomed to handle ships of 200 or 300 +tons burden, and the task of steering the great British seventy-fours +through the labyrinths of shallows, with the tide running like a +mill-race, appalled them. At last Murray, in the _Edgar_, undertook to +lead. The signal was made to weigh in succession, and one great ship +after another, with its topsails on the caps, rounded the shoulder of +the Middle Ground, and in stately procession, the _Edgar_ leading, came +up the channel. Campbell in his fine ballad has pictured the scene:-- + + "Like leviathans afloat + Lay their bulwarks on the brine, + While the sign of battle flew + On the lofty British line. + It was ten of April morn by the chime; + As they drifted on their path + There was silence deep as death, + And the boldest held his breath + For a time. + But the might of England flushed + To anticipate the scene, + And her van the fleeter rushed + O'er the deadly space between." + +The leading Danish ships broke into a tempest of fire as the British +ships came within range. The _Agamemnon_ failed to weather the +shoulder of the Middle Ground, and went ignobly ashore, and the scour +of the tide kept her fast there, in spite of the most desperate +exertions of her crew. The _Bellona_, a pile of white canvas above, a +double line of curving batteries below, hugged the Middle Ground too +closely, and grounded too; and the _Russell_, following close after +her, went ashore in the same manner, with its jib-boom almost touching +the _Bellona's_ taffrail. One-fourth of Nelson's force was thus +practically out of the fight before a British gun was fired. These +were the ships, too, intended to sail past the whole Danish line and +engage the Three-Crown Batteries. As they were _hors de combat_, the +frigates of the squadron, under Riou--"the gallant, good Riou" of +Campbell's noble lines--had to take the place of the seventy-fours. + +Meanwhile, Nelson, in the _Elephant_, came following hard on the +ill-fated _Russell_. Nelson's orders were that each ship should pass +her leader on the starboard side, and had he acted on his own orders, +Nelson too would have grounded, with every ship that followed him. The +interval betwixt each ship was so narrow that decision had to be +instant; and Nelson, judging the water to the larboard of the _Russell_ +to be deeper, put his helm a-starboard, and so shot past the _Russell_ +on its larboard beam into the true channel, the whole line following +his example. That sudden whirl to starboard of the flagship's helm--a +flash of brilliant seamanship--saved the battle. + +Ship after ship shot past, and anchored, by a cable astern, in its +assigned position. The sullen thunder of the guns rolled from end to +end of the long line, the flash of the artillery ran in a dance of +flame along the mile and a half of batteries, and some 2000 pieces of +artillery, most of them of the heaviest calibre, filled the long Sound +with the roar of battle. Nelson loved close fighting, and he anchored +within a cable's length of the Danish flagship, the pilots refusing to +carry the ship nearer on account of the shallow depth, and the average +distance of the hostile lines was less than a hundred fathoms. The +cannonade raged, deep-voiced, unbroken, and terrible, for three hours. +"Warm work," said Nelson, as it seemed to deepen in fury and volume, +"but, mark you, I would not be elsewhere for thousands." The carnage +was terrific. Twice the Danish flagship took fire, and out of a crew +of 336 no fewer than 270 were dead or wounded. Two of the Danish prams +drifted from the line, mere wrecks, with cordage in rags, bulwarks +riddled, guns dismounted, and decks veritable shambles. + +The battle, it must be remembered, raged within easy sight of the city, +and roofs and church towers were crowded with spectators. They could +see nothing but a low-lying continent of whirling smoke, shaken with +the tumult of battle, and scored perpetually, in crimson bars, with the +flame of the guns. Above the drifting smoke towered the tops of the +British seventy-fours, stately and threatening. The south-east wind +presently drove the smoke over the city, and beneath that inky roof, as +under the gloom of an eclipse, the crowds of Copenhagen, white-faced +with excitement, watched the Homeric fight, in which their sons, and +brothers, and husbands were perishing. + +Nothing could surpass the courage of the Danes. Fresh crews marched +fiercely to the floating batteries as these threatened to grow silent +by mere slaughter, and, on decks crimson and slippery with the blood of +their predecessors, took up the fight. Again and again, after a Danish +ship had struck from mere exhaustion, it was manned afresh from the +shore, and the fight renewed. The very youngest officer in the Danish +navy was a lad of seventeen named Villemoes. He commanded a tiny +floating battery of six guns, manned by twenty-four men, and he managed +to bring it under the very counter of Nelson's flagship, and fired his +guns point-blank into its huge wooden sides. He stuck to his work +until the British marines shot down every man of his tiny crew except +four. After the battle Nelson begged that young Villemoes might be +introduced to him, and told the Danish Crown Prince that a boy so +gallant ought to be made an admiral. "If I were to make all my brave +officers admirals," was the reply, "I should have no captains or +lieutenants left." + +The terrific nature of the British fire, as well as the stubbornness of +Danish courage, may be judged from the fact that most of the prizes +taken in the fight were so absolutely riddled with shot as to have to +be destroyed. Foley, who led the van at the battle of the Nile, was +Nelson's flag-captain in the _Elephant_, and he declared he burned +fifty more barrels of powder in the four hours' furious cannonade at +Copenhagen than he did during the long night struggle at the Nile! The +fire of the Danes, it may be added, was almost as obstinate and deadly. +The _Monarch_, for example, had no fewer than 210 of its crew lying +dead or wounded on its decks. At one o'clock Sir Hyde Parker, who was +watching the struggle with a squadron of eight of his heaviest ships +from the offing, hoisted a signal to discontinue the engagement. Then +came the incident which every boy remembers. + +The signal-lieutenant of the _Elephant_ reported that the admiral had +thrown out No. 39, the signal to discontinue the fight. Nelson was +pacing his quarterdeck fiercely, and took no notice of the report. The +signal-officer met him at the next turn, and asked if he should repeat +the signal. Nelson's reply was to ask if his own signal for close +action was still hoisted. "Yes," said the officer. "Mind you keep it +so," said Nelson. Nelson continued to tramp his quarter-deck, the +thunder of the battle all about him, his ship reeling to the recoil of +its own guns. The stump of his lost arm jerked angrily to and fro, a +sure sign of excitement with him. "Leave off action!" he said to his +lieutenant; "I'm hanged if I do." "You know, Foley," he said, turning +to his captain, "I've only one eye; I've a right to be blind +sometimes." And then putting the glass to his blind eye, he exclaimed, +"I really do not see the signal!" He dismissed the incident by saying, +"D---- the signal! Keep mine for closer action flying!" + +As a matter of fact, Parker had hoisted the signal only to give Nelson +the opportunity for withdrawing from the fight if he wished. The +signal had one disastrous result--the little cluster of frigates and +sloops engaged with the Three-Crown Batteries obeyed it and hauled off. +As the Amazon, Riou's ship, ceased to fire, the smoke lifted, and the +Danish battery got her in full sight, and smote her with deadly effect. +Riou himself, heartbroken with having to abandon the fight, had just +exclaimed, "What will Nelson think of us!" when a chain-shot cut him in +two, and with him a sailor with something of Nelson's own genius for +battle perished. + +By two o'clock the Danish fire began to slack. One-half the line was a +mere chain of wrecks; some of the floating batteries had sunk; the +flagship was a mass of flames. Nelson at this point sent his boat +ashore with a flag of truce, and a letter to the Prince Regent. The +letter was addressed, "To the Danes, the brothers of Englishmen." If +the fire continued from the Danish side, Nelson said he would be +compelled to set on fire all the floating batteries he had taken, +"without being able to save the brave Danes who had defended them." +Somebody offered Nelson, when he had written the letter, a wafer with +which to close it. "This," said Nelson, "is no time to appear hurried +or informal," and he insisted on the letter being carefully sealed with +wax. The Crown Prince proposed an armistice. Nelson, with great +shrewdness, referred the proposal to his admiral lying four miles off +in the _London_, foreseeing that the long pull out and back would give +him time to get his own crippled ships clear of the shoals, and past +the Three-Crown Batteries into the open channel beyond--the only course +the wind made possible; and this was exactly what happened. Nelson, it +is clear, was a shrewd diplomatist as well as a great sailor. + +The night was coming on black with the threat of tempest; the Danish +flagship had just blown up; but the white flag of truce was flying, and +the British toiled, as fiercely as they had fought, to float their +stranded ships and take possession of their shattered prizes. Of +these, only one was found capable of being sufficiently repaired to be +taken to Portsmouth. On the 4th Nelson himself landed and visited the +Crown Prince, and a four months' truce was agreed upon. News came at +that moment of the assassination of Paul I., and the League of Armed +Neutrality--the device by which Napoleon hoped to overthrow the naval +power of Great Britain--vanished into mere space. The fire of Nelson's +guns at Copenhagen wrecked Napoleon's whole naval policy. + +It is curious that, familiar as Nelson was with the grim visage of +battle, the carnage of that four hours' cannonade was too much for even +his steady nerves. He could find no words too generous to declare his +admiration of the obstinate courage shown by the Danes. "The French +and Spanish fight well," he said, "but they could not have stood for an +hour such a fire as the Danes sustained for four hours." + + + + +KING-MAKING WATERLOO + + + "Last noon beheld them full of lusty life, + Last eve in Beauty's circle proudly gay, + The midnight brought the signal-sound of strife; + The morn the marshalling in arms--the day + Battle's magnificently stern array! + The thunder-clouds close o'er it, which when rent + The earth is cover'd thick with other clay, + Which her own clay shall cover, heap'd and pent, + Rider and horse--friend, foe--in one red burial blent!" + --BYRON. + +"I look upon Salamanca, Vittoria, and Waterloo as my three best +battles--those which had great and permanent consequences. Salamanca +relieved the whole south of Spain, changed all the prospects of the +war, and was felt even in Prussia. Vittoria freed the Peninsula +altogether, broke off the armistice at Dresden, and thus led to Leipsic +and the deliverance of Europe; and Waterloo did more than any other +battle I know of towards the true object of all battles--the peace of +the world."--WELLINGTON, _Conversation with Croker_. + + +On June 18, 1815, the grey light of a Sunday morning was breaking over +a shallow valley lying between parallel ridges of low hills some twelve +miles to the south of Brussels. All night the rain had fallen +furiously, and still the fog hung low, and driving showers swept over +plain and hill as from the church spires of half-a-dozen tiny villages +the matin bells began to ring. For centuries those bells had called +the villagers to prayers; to-day, as the wave of sound stole through +the misty air it was the signal for the awakening of two mighty armies +to the greatest battle of modern times. + +More ink has, perhaps, been shed about Waterloo than about any other +battle known to history, and still the story bristles with conundrums, +questions of fact, and problems in strategy, about which the experts +still wage, with pen and diagram, strife almost as furious as that +which was waged with lance and sword, with bayonet and musket, more +than eighty years ago on the actual slopes of Mont St. Jean. It is +still, for example, a matter of debate whether, when Wellington first +resolved to fight at Waterloo, he had any express promise from Bluecher +to join him on that field. Did Wellington, for example, ride over +alone to Bluecher's headquarters on the night before Waterloo, and +obtain a pledge of aid, on the strength of which he fought next day? +It is not merely possible to quote experts on each side of this +question; it is possible to quote the same expert on both sides. +Ropes, for example, the latest Waterloo critic, devotes several pages +to proving that the interview never took place, and then adds a note to +his third edition declaring that he has seen evidence which convinces +him it did take place! It is possible even to quote Wellington himself +both for the alleged visit and against it. In 1833 he told a circle of +guests at Strathfieldsaye, in minute detail, how he got rid of his only +aide-de-camp, Lord Fitzroy Somerset, and rode over on "Copenhagen" in +the rain and darkness to Wavre, and got from Bluecher's own lips the +assurance that he would join him next day at Waterloo. In 1838, when +directly asked by Baron Gurney whether the story was true, he replied, +"No, I did not see Bluecher the day before Waterloo." If Homer nodded, +it is plain that sometimes the Duke of Wellington forgot! + +[Illustration: Battle of Waterloo, June 18th, 1815.] + +Clearness on some points, it is true, is slowly emerging. It is +admitted, for example, that Napoleon took the allies by surprise when +he crossed the Sambre, and, in the very first stage of the campaign, +scored a brilliant strategic success over them. Wellington himself, on +the night of the famous ball, took the Duke of Richmond into his +dressing-room, shut the door, and said, "Napoleon has humbugged me, by +----; he has gained twenty-four hours' march on me." The Duke went on +to explain that he had ordered his troops to concentrate at Quatre +Bras; "but," he added, "we shall not stop him there, and I must fight +him here," at the same time passing his thumb-nail over the position of +Waterloo. That map, with the scratch of the Duke's thumb-nail over the +very line where Waterloo was afterwards fought, was long preserved as a +relic. Part of the surprise, the Duke complained, was due to Bluecher. +But, as he himself explained to Napier, "I cannot tell the world that +Bluecher picked the fattest man in his army (Muffling) to ride with an +express to me, and that he took thirty hours to go thirty miles." + +The hour at which Waterloo began, though there were 150,000 actors in +the great tragedy, was long a matter of dispute. The Duke of +Wellington puts it at ten o'clock. General Alava says half-past +eleven, Napoleon and Drouet say twelve o'clock, and Ney one o'clock. +Lord Hill may be credited with having settled this minute question of +fact. He took two watches with him into the fight, one a stop-watch, +and he marked with it the sound of the first shot fired, and this +evidence is now accepted as proving that the first flash of red flame +which marked the opening of the world-shaking tragedy of Waterloo took +place at exactly ten minutes to twelve. + +As these sketches are not written for military experts, but only +pretend to tell, in plain prose, and for younger Britons, the story of +the great deeds which are part of their historical inheritance, all the +disputed questions about Waterloo may be at the outset laid aside. It +is a great tale, and it seems all the greater when it is simply told. +The campaign of Waterloo, in a sense, lasted exactly four days, yet +into that brief space of time there is compressed so much of human +daring and suffering, of genius and of folly, of shining triumph and of +blackest ruin, that the story must always be one of the most exciting +records in human history. + + +I. THE RIVAL HOSTS + + + "Hark! I hear the tramp of thousands, + And of armed men the hum; + Lo! a nation's hosts have gathered + Round the quick alarming drum,-- + Saying, 'Come, + Freeman, come, + Ere your heritage be wasted,' said the quick alarming drum. + + * * * * * * + + 'Let me of my heart take counsel: + War is not of life the sum; + Who shall stay and reap the harvest + When the autumn days shall come?' + But the drum + Echoed, 'Come! + Death shall reap the braver harvest,' said the solemn-sounding drum. + + What if, 'mid the cannons' thunder, + Whistling shot and bursting bomb, + When my brothers fall around me, + Should my heart grow cold and numb?' + But the drum + Answered, 'Come! + Better there in death united, than in life a recreant,--Come!'" + --BRET HARTE. + + +For weeks the British and Prussian armies, scattered over a district +100 miles by 40, had been keeping guard over the French frontier. +Mighty hosts of Russians and Austrians were creeping slowly across +Europe to join them. Napoleon, skilfully shrouding his movements in +impenetrable secrecy, was about to leap across the Sambre, and both +Bluecher and Wellington had to guess what would be his point of attack; +and they, as it happened, guessed wrongly. Napoleon's strategy was +determined partly by his knowledge of the personal characters of the +two generals, and partly by the fact that the bases of the allied +armies lay at widely separate points--the English base at Antwerp, the +Prussian on the Rhine. Bluecher was essentially "a hussar general"; the +fighting impulse ran riot in his blood. If attacked, he would +certainly fight where he stood; if defeated, and driven back on his +base, he must move in diverging lines from Wellington. That Bluecher +would abandon his base to keep touch with Wellington--as actually +happened--Napoleon never guessed. Wellington, cooler and more +methodical than his Prussian fellow-commander, would not fight, it was +certain, till his troops were called in on every side and he was ready. +Bluecher was nearer the French frontier. Napoleon calculated that he +could leap upon him, bar Wellington from coming to his help by planting +Ney at Quatre Bras, win a great battle before Wellington could join +hands with his ally, and then in turn crush Wellington. It was +splendid strategy, splendidly begun, but left fatally incomplete. + +Napoleon fought and defeated Bluecher at Ligny on June 16, attacking +Quatre Bras at the same time, so as to occupy the English. Wellington +visited Bluecher's lines before the fight began, and said to him, "Every +general knows his own men, but if my lines were drawn up in this +fashion I should expect to get beaten;" and as he cantered back to his +own army he said to those about him, "If Bonaparte be what I suppose he +is, the Prussians will get a ---- good licking to-day." Captain Bowles +was standing beside the Duke at Quatre Bras on the morning of the 17th, +when a Prussian staff-officer, his horse covered with sweat, galloped +up and whispered an agitated message in the Duke's ear. The Duke, +without a change of countenance, dismissed him, and, turning to Bowles, +said, "Old Bluecher has had a ---- good licking, and gone back to Wavre, +eighteen miles. As he has gone back, we must go too. I suppose in +England they will say we have been licked. I can't help it! As they +have gone back, we must go too." And in five minutes, without stirring +from the spot, he had given complete orders for a retreat to Waterloo. + +The low ridge on which the Duke took up his position runs east and +west. The road from Brussels to the south, just before it crosses the +crest of the ridge, divides like the upper part of the letter Y into +two roads, that on the right, or westward, running to Nivelles, that on +the left, or eastward, to Charleroi. A country road, in parts only a +couple of feet deep, in parts sunk from twelve to fifteen feet, +traverses the crest of the ridge, and intersects the two roads just +named before they unite to form the main Brussels road. Two +farmhouses--La Haye Sainte, on the Charleroi road, and Hougoumont, on +that to Nivelles--stand out some 250 yards in advance of the ridge. +Thus the cross-road served as a ditch to Wellington's front; the two +farmhouses were, so to speak, horn-works guarding his right centre and +left centre; while in the little valley on the reverse side of the +crest Wellington was able to act on his favourite tactics of keeping +his men out of sight till the moment for action arrived. The ridge, in +fact, to the French generals who surveyed it from La Belle Alliance +seemed almost bare, showing nothing but batteries at intervals along +the crest, and a spray of skirmishers on the slopes below. + +Looked at from the British ridge, the plain over which the great fight +raged is a picture of pastoral simplicity and peace. The crops that +Sunday morning were high upon it, the dark green of wheat and clover +chequered with the lighter green of rye and oats. No fences intersect +the plain; a few farmhouses, each with a leafy girdle of trees, and the +brown roofs of one or two distant villages, alone break the level floor +of green. The present writer has twice visited Waterloo, and the image +of verdurous and leafy peace conveyed by the landscape is still most +vivid. Only Hougoumont, where the orchard walls are still pierced by +the loop-holes through which the Guards fired that long June Sunday, +helps one to realise the fierce strife which once raged and echoed over +this rich valley with its grassy carpet of vivid green. Waterloo is a +battlefield of singularly small dimensions. The British front did not +extend for more than two miles; the gap betwixt Hougoumont and La Haye +Sainte, through which Ney poured his living tide of cavalry, 15,000 +strong, is only 900 yards wide, a distance equal, say, to a couple of +city blocks. The ridge on which Napoleon drew up his army is less than +2000 yards distant from that on which the British stood. It sloped +steadily upward, and, as a consequence. Napoleon's whole force was +disclosed at a glance, and every combination of troops made in +preparation for an attack on the British line was clearly visible, a +fact which greatly assisted Wellington in his arrangements for meeting +it. + +The opposing armies differed rather in quality than in numbers. +Wellington had, roughly, 50,000 infantry, 12,000 cavalry, a little less +than 6000 artillerymen; a total of 67,000 men and 156 guns. Napoleon +had 49,000 infantry, nearly 16,000 cavalry, over 7000 artillery; a +total of, say, 72,000 men, with 246 guns. In infantry the two armies +were about equal, in cavalry the French were superior, and in guns +their superiority was enormous. But the French were war-hardened +veterans, the men of Austerlitz and of Wagram, of one blood and speech +and military type, a homogeneous mass, on flame with warlike +enthusiasm. Of Wellington's troops, only 30,000 were British and +German; many even of these had never seen a shot fired in battle, and +were raw drafts from the militia, still wearing the militia uniform. +Only 12,000 were old Peninsula troops. Less than 7000 of Wellington's +cavalry were British, and took any part in the actual battle. +Wellington himself somewhat ungratefully described his force as an +"infamous army"; "the worst army ever brought together!" Nearly 18,000 +were Dutch-Belgians, whose courage was doubtful, and whose loyalty was +still more vehemently suspected. Wellington had placed some battalions +of these as part of the force holding Hougoumont; but when, an hour +before the battle actually began, Napoleon rode through his troops, and +their tumultuous shouts echoed in a tempest of sound across to the +British lines, the effect on the Dutch-Belgians in Hougoumont was so +instant and visible that Wellington at once withdrew them. "The mere +name of Napoleon," he said, "had beaten them before they fired a shot!" +The French themselves did justice to the native fighting quality of the +British. "The English infantry," as Foy told the Emperor on the +morning of Waterloo, "are the very d---- to fight;" and Napoleon, five +years after, at St. Helena, said, "One might as well try to charge +through a wall." Soult, again, told Napoleon, "Sire, I know these +English. They will die on the ground on which they stand before they +lose it." That this was true, even of the raw lads from the militia, +Waterloo proved. But it is idle to deny that of the two armies the +French, tried by abstract military tests, was far the stronger. + +The very aspect of the two armies reflected their different +characteristics. A grim silence brooded over the British position. +Nothing was visible except the scattered clusters of guns and the +outposts. The French army, on the other side, was a magnificent +spectacle, gay with flags, and as many-coloured as a rainbow. Eleven +columns deployed simultaneously, and formed three huge lines of serried +infantry. They were flanked by mail-clad cuirassiers, with glittering +helmets and breast-plates; lines of scarlet-clad lancers; and hussars, +with bearskin caps and jackets glittering with gold lace. The black +and menacing masses of the Old Guard and of the Young Guard, with their +huge bearskin caps, formed the reserve. As Napoleon, with a glittering +staff, swept through his army, the bands of 114 battalions and 112 +squadrons poured upon the peaceful air of that June Sunday the martial +cadences of the Marseillaise, and the "Vive l'Empereur!" which broke +from the crowded host was heard distinctly by the grimly listening +ranks of the British. "As far as the eye could reach," says one who +describes the fight from the French ranks, "nothing was to be seen but +cuirasses, helmets, busbies, sabres and lances, and glittering lines of +bayonets." + +As for the British, there was no tumult of enthusiasm visible among +them. Flat on the ground, in double files, on the reverse side of the +hill, the men lay, and jested in rough fashion with each other, while +the officers in little groups stood on the ridge and watched the French +movements. Let it be remembered that many of the troops had fought +desperately on the 16th, and retreated on the 17th from Quatre Bras to +Waterloo under furious rain, and the whole army was soddened and +chilled with sleeping unsheltered on the soaked ground. Many of the +men, as they rose hungry and shivering from their sleeping-place in the +mud, were so stiff and cramped that they could not stand upright. + + +II. HOUGOUMONT + + + "The trumpets sound, the banners fly, + The glittering spears are ranked ready, + The shouts o' war are heard afar, + The battle closes thick and bloody." + --BURNS. + + +The ground was heavy with the rains of the night, and Napoleon lingered +till nearly noon before he launched his attack on the British lines. +At ten minutes to twelve the first heavy gun rang sullenly from the +French ridge, and from the French left Reille's corps, 6000 strong, +flung itself on Hougoumont. The French are magnificent skirmishers, +and as the great mass moved down the slope, a dense spray of +tirailleurs ran swiftly before it, reached the hedge, and broke into +the wood, which, in a moment, was full of white smoke and the red +flashes of musketry. In a solid mass the main body followed; but the +moment it came within range, the British guns keeping guard over +Hougoumont smote it with a heavy fire. The French batteries answered +fiercely, while in the garden and orchard below the Guards and the +French fought almost literally muzzle to muzzle. + +Hougoumont was a strong post. The fire from the windows in the main +building commanded the orchard, that from the orchard commanded the +wood, that from the wood swept the ridge. The French had crossed the +ridge, cleared the wood, and were driving the Guards, fighting +vehemently, out of the orchard into the hollow road between the house +and the British ridge. But they could do no more. The light companies +of the Foot Guards, under Lieut.-Colonel Macdonnell, held the buildings +and orchard, Lord Saltoun being in command of the latter. Muffling, +the Prussian commissioner on Wellington's staff, doubted whether +Hougoumont could be held against the enemy; but Wellington had great +confidence in Macdonnell, a Highlander of gigantic strength and coolest +daring, and nobly did this brave Scotsman fulfil his trust. All day +long the attack thundered round Hougoumont. The French masses moved +again and again to the assault upon it; it was scourged with musketry +and set on fire with shells. But steadfastly under the roar of the +guns and the fierce crackle of small-arms, and even while the roofs +were in flames above their heads, the gallant Guardsmen held their +post. Once the main gateway was burst open, and the French broke in. +They were instantly bayoneted, and Macdonnell, with a cluster of +officers and a sergeant named Graham, by sheer force shut the gate +again in the face of the desperate French. In the fire which partially +consumed the building, some of the British wounded were burned to +death, and Mercer, who visited the spot the morning after the fight, +declared that in the orchard and around the walls of the farmhouse the +dead lay as thick as on the breach of Badajos. + +More than 2000 killed and wounded fell in the long seven hours' fight +which raged round this Belgian farmhouse. More than 12,000 infantry +were flung into the attack; the defence, including the Dutch and +Belgians in the wood, never exceeded 2000 men. But when, in the tumult +of the victorious advance of the British at nightfall, Wellington found +himself for a moment beside Muffling, with a flash of exultation rare +in a man so self-controlled, he shouted, "Well, you see Macdonnell held +Hougoumont after all!" Towards evening, at the close of the fight, +Lord Saltoun, with the wreck of the light companies of the Guards, +joined the main body of their division on the ridge. As they came up +to the lines, a scanty group with torn uniforms and smoke-blackened +faces, the sole survivors of the gallant hundreds who had fought +continuously for seven hours, General Maitland rode out to meet them +and cried, "Your defence has saved the army! Every man of you deserves +promotion." Long afterwards a patriotic Briton bequeathed 500 pounds +to the bravest soldier at Waterloo, the Duke of Wellington to be the +judge. The Duke named Macdonnell, who handed the money to the sergeant +who was his comrade in the struggle at the gate of Hougoumont. + + +III. PICTON AND D'ERLON + + + "But on the British heart were lost + The terrors of the charging host; + For not an eye the storm that view'd + Changed its proud glance of fortitude. + Nor was one forward footstep staid, + As dropp'd the dying and the dead." + --SCOTT. + + +Meantime a furious artillery duel raged between the opposing ridges. +Wellington had ordered his gunners not to fire at the French batteries, +but only at the French columns, while the French, in the main, +concentrated their fire on the British guns. French practice under +these conditions was naturally very beautiful, for no hostile bullets +disturbed their aim, and the British gunners fell fast; yet their fire +on the French masses was most deadly. At two o'clock Napoleon launched +his great infantry attack, led by D'Erlon, against La Haye Sainte and +the British left. It was an attack of terrific strength. Four +divisions, numbering 16,000 men, moved forward in echelon, with +intervals between them of 400 paces; seventy-two guns swept as with a +besom of fire the path along which these huge masses advanced with +shouts to the attack, while thirty light guns moved in the intervals +between them; and a cavalry division, consisting of lancers and +cuirassiers, rode on their flank ready to charge the broken masses of +the British infantry. The British line at this point consisted of +Picton's division, formed of the shattered remains of Kempt's and +Pack's brigades, who had suffered heavily at Quatre Bras. They formed +a mere thread of scarlet, a slender two-deep line of about 3000 men. +As the great mass of the enemy came slowly on, the British line was +"dressed," the men ceased to talk, except in monosyllables, the +skirmishers lying flat on the trampled corn prepared to fire. The +grape of the French guns smote Picton's red lines with fury, and the +men fell fast, yet they closed up at the word of command with the most +perfect coolness. The French skirmishers, too, running forward with +great speed and daring, drove in the British skirmishers, who came +running back to the main line smoke-begrimed and breathless. + +As the French masses began to ascend the British slope, the French guns +had to cease their fire for fear of striking their own forces. The +British infantry, too, being drawn slightly back from the crest, were +out of sight, and the leading French files saw nothing before them but +a cluster of British batteries and a this line of quickly retreating +skirmishers. A Dutch-Belgian brigade had, somehow, been placed on the +exterior slope of the hill, and when D'Erlon's huge battalions came on, +almost shaking the earth with their steady tread, the Dutch-Belgians +simply took to their heels and ran. They swept, a crowd of fugitives, +through the intervals of the British lines, and were received with +groans and hootings, the men with difficulty being restrained from +firing upon them. + +A sand-pit lay in the track of the French columns on the left. This +was held by some companies of the 95th Rifles, and these opened a fire +so sudden and close and deadly that the huge mass of the French swung +almost involuntarily to the right, off its true track; then with fierce +roll of drums and shouts of "En avant!" the Frenchmen reached the +crest. Suddenly there rose before them Picton's steady lines, along +which there ran, in one red flame from end to end, a dreadful volley. +Again the fierce musketry crackled, and yet again. The Frenchmen tried +to deploy, and Picton, seizing the moment, ordered his lines to charge. +"Charge! charge!" he cried. "Hurrah!" + +It is yet a matter keenly disputed as to whether or not D'Erlon's men +actually pierced the British line. It is alleged that the Highlanders +were thrown into confusion, and it is certain that Picton's last words +to his aide-de-camp, Captain Seymour, were, "Rally the Highlanders!" +Pack, too, appealed to the 92nd. "You must charge," he said; "all in +front have given way." However this may be, the British regiments +charged, and the swift and resolute advance of Picton's lines--though +it was a charge of 3000 men on a body four times their number--was +irresistible. The leading ranks of the French opened a hurried fire, +under which Picton himself fell shot through the head; then as the +British line came on at the double--the men with bent heads, the level +bayonets one steady edge of steel, the fierce light which gleams along +the fighting line playing on them--the leading battalions of the French +halted irresolute, shrunk back, swayed to and fro, and fell into a +shapeless receding mass. + +There were, of course, many individual instances of great gallantry +amongst them. Thus a French mounted officer had his horse shot, and +when he struggled from beneath his fallen charger he found himself +almost under the bayonets of the 32nd. But just in front of the +British line was an officer carrying the colours of the regiment, and +the brave Frenchman instantly leaped upon him. He would capture the +flag! There was a momentary struggle, and the British officer at the +head of the wing shouted, "Save the brave fellow!" but almost at the +same moment the gallant Frenchman was bayoneted by the colour-sergeant, +and shot by a British infantryman. + +The head of the French column was falling to pieces, but the main body +was yet steady, and the cuirassiers covering its flank were coming +swiftly on. But at this moment there broke upon them the terrific +counterstroke, not of Wellington, but of Lord Uxbridge, into whose +hands Wellington, with a degree of confidence quite unusual for him, +had given the absolute control of his cavalry, fettering him by no +specific orders. + + +IV. "SCOTLAND FOR EVER!" + + + "Beneath their fire, in full career, + Rush'd on the ponderous cuirassier, + The lancer couch'd his ruthless spear, + And hurrying as to havoc near, + The cohorts' eagles flew. + In one dark torrent, broad and strong, + The advancing onset roll'd along, + Forth harbinger'd by fierce acclaim + That, from the shroud of smoke and flame, + Peal'd wildly the imperial name!" + --SCOTT. + + +The attack of the Household and Union Brigades at Waterloo is one of +the most dazzling and dramatic incidents of the great fight. For +suddenness, fire, and far-reaching results, it would be difficult to +parallel that famous charge in the history of war. The Household +Brigade, consisting of the 1st and 2nd Life Guards, and the Dragoon +Guards, with the Blues in support, moved first. Lord Uxbridge, +temporarily exchanging the functions of general for those of a +squadron-leader, heading the attack. They leaped the hedge, or burst +through it, crossed the road--at that point of shallow depth--and met +the French cuirassiers in full charge. The British were bigger men on +bigger horses, and they had gained the full momentum of their charge +when the two lines met. The French, to do them justice, did not +shrink. The charging lines crashed together, like living and swiftly +moving walls, and the sound of their impact rang sharp, sudden, deep, +and long drawn out, above the din of the conflict. The French wore +armour, and carried longer swords than the British, but they were swept +away in an instant, and went, a broken and shattered mass of men and +horses, down the slope. Some of them were tumbled into the sand-pit, +amongst the astonished Rifles there, who instantly bayoneted them. +Others were swept upon the masses of their own infantry, fiercely +followed by the Life Guards. + +The 2nd Life Guards and the Dragoons, coming on a little in the rear, +struck the right regiment of the cuirassiers and hurled them across the +junction of the roads. Shaw, the famous Life Guardsman, was killed +here. He was a perfect swordsman, a man of colossal strength, and is +said to have cut down, through helmet and skull, no fewer than nine men +in the _melee_. How Shaw actually died is a matter of dispute. +Colonel Marten says he was shot by a cuirassier who stood clear of the +_melee_, coolly taking pot-shots at the English Guardsmen. Captain +Kelly, a brilliant soldier, who rode in the charge beside Shaw, says +that Shaw was killed by a thrust through the body from a French colonel +of the cuirassiers, whom Kelly himself, in return, clove through helmet +and skull. + +Meanwhile the Union Brigade on the left, consisting of the Royals and +the Inniskillings, with the Scots Greys in support, had broken into the +fight. The Royals, coming on at full speed over the crest of the +ridge, broke upon the astonished vision of the French infantry at a +distance of less than a hundred yards. It was an alarming vision of +waving swords, crested helmets, fierce red nostrils, and galloping +hoofs. The leading files tried to turn, but in an instant the Royals +were upon them, cutting them down furiously. De Lacy Evans, who rode +in the charge, says, "They fled like a flock of sheep." Colonel Clark +Kennedy adds that the "jamb" in the French was so thick that the men +could not bring down their arms or level a musket, and the Dragoons +rode in the intervals between their formation, reaching forward with +the stroke of their long swords, and slaying at will. More than 2000 +Frenchmen flung down their arms and surrendered; and on the next +morning the abandoned muskets were still lying in long straight lines +and regular order, showing that the men had surrendered before their +lines were broken. The charge of the Inniskillings to the left of the +Royals was just as furious and just as successful. They broke on the +front of Donzdot's divisions and simply ground them to powder. + +The Scots Greys were supposed to be "in support"; but coming swiftly +up, they suddenly saw on their left shoulder Marcognet's divisions, the +extreme right of the French. At that sight the Greys swung a little +off to their left, swept through the intervals of the 92nd, and smote +the French battalions full in front. As the Greys rode through the +intervals of the footmen--Scotch horsemen through Scotch infantry--the +Scotch blood in both regiments naturally took fire. Greetings in +broadest Doric flew from man to man. The pipes skirled fiercely. +"Scotland for ever!" went up in a stormy shout from the kilted lines. +The Greys, riding fast, sometimes jostled, or even struck down, some of +the 92nd; and Armour, the rough-rider of the Greys, has told how the +Highlanders shouted, "I didna think ye wad hae saired me sae!" Many of +the Highlanders caught hold of the stirrups of the Greys and raced +forward with them--Scotsmen calling to Scotsmen--into the ranks of the +French. The 92nd, in fact, according to the testimony of their own +officers, "went half mad." What could resist such a charge? + +The two British cavalry brigades were by this time riding roughly +abreast, the men drunk with warlike excitement and completely out of +hand, and most of their officers were little better. They simply rode +over D'Erlon's broken ranks. So brave were some of the French, +however, that again and again a solitary soldier or officer would leap +out of the ranks as the English cavalry came on, and charge them +single-handed! One French private deliberately ran out as the +Inniskillings came on at full gallop, knelt before the swiftly +galloping line of men and horses, coolly shot the adjutant of the +Inniskillings through the head, and was himself instantly trodden into +a bloody pulp! The British squadrons, wildly disordered, but drunk +with battle fury, and each man fighting for his "ain hand," swept +across the valley, rode up to the crest of the French position, stormed +through the great battery there, slew drivers and horses, and so +completely wrecked the battery that forty guns out of its seventy never +came into action again. Some of the men, in the rapture of the fight, +broke through to the second line of the French, and told tales, after +the mad adventure was over, of how they had come upon French artillery +drivers, mere boys, sitting crying on their horses while the tragedy +and tumult of the _melee_ swept past them. Some of the older officers +tried to rally and re-form their men; and Lord Uxbridge, by this time +beginning to remember that he was a general and not a dragoon, looked +round for his "supports," who, as it happened, oblivious of the duty of +"supporting" anybody, were busy fighting on their own account, and were +riding furiously in the very front ranks. + +Then there came the French counter-stroke. The French batteries opened +on the triumphant, but disordered British squadrons; a brigade of +lancers smote them on the flank and rolled them up. Lord Edward +Somerset, who commanded the Household Brigade, was unhorsed, and saved +his life by scrambling dexterously, but ignobly, through a hedge. Sir +William Ponsonby, who commanded the Union Brigade, had ridden his horse +to a dead standstill; the lancers caught him standing helpless in the +middle of a ploughed field, and slew him with a dozen lance-thrusts. +Vandeleur's Light Cavalry Brigade was by this time moving down from the +British front, and behind its steady squadrons the broken remains of +the two brigades found shelter. + +Though the British cavalry suffered terribly in retiring, nevertheless +they had accomplished what Sir Evelyn Wood describes as "one of the +most brilliant successes ever achieved by horsemen over infantry." +These two brigades--which did not number more than 2000 swords--wrecked +an entire infantry corps, disabled forty guns, overthrew a division of +cuirassiers, took 3000 prisoners, and captured two eagles. The moral +effect of the charge was, perhaps, greater than even its material +results. The French infantry never afterwards throughout the battle, +until the Old Guard appeared upon the scene, moved forward with real +confidence against the British position. Those "terrible horsemen" had +stamped themselves upon their imagination. + +The story of how the eagles were captured is worth telling. Captain +Clark Kennedy of the Dragoons took one. He was riding vehemently in +the early stage of the charge, when he caught sight of the cuirassier +officer carrying the eagle, with his covering men, trying to break +through the _melee_ and escape. "I gave the order to my men," he says, +"'Right shoulders forward; attack the colours.'" He himself overtook +the officer, ran him through the body, and seized the eagle. He tried +to break the eagle from the pole and push it inside his coat for +security, but, failing, gave it to his corporal to carry to the rear. +The other colour was taken by Ewart, a sergeant of the Greys, a very +fine swordsman. He overtook the officer carrying the colour, and, to +quote his own story, "he and I had a hard contest for it. He made a +thrust at my groin; I parried it off, and cut him down through the +head. After this a lancer came at me. I threw the lance off by my +right side, and cut him through the chin and upwards through the teeth. +Next, a foot-soldier fired at me, and then charged me with his bayonet, +which I also had the good luck to parry, and then I cut him down +through the head. Thus ended the contest. As I was about to follow +the regiment, the general said, 'My brave fellow, take that to the +rear; you have done enough till you get quit of it.'" + + +V. HORSEMEN AND SQUARES + + + "But yet, though thick the shafts as snow, + Though charging knights like whirlwinds go, + Though bill-men ply the ghastly blow, + Unbroken was the ring; + The stubborn spearmen still made good + Their dark impenetrable wood, + Each stepping where his comrade stood, + The instant that he fell. + No thought was there of dastard flight; + Linked in the serried phalanx tight, + Groom fought like noble, squire like knight, + As fearlessly and well." + --SCOTT. + + +Napoleon's infantry had failed to capture either Hougoumont or La Haye +Sainte, which was stoutly held by Baring and his Hanoverians. The +great infantry attack on the British left had failed, and though the +stubborn fight round the two farmhouses never paused, the main battle +along the ridge for a time resolved itself into an artillery duel. +Battery answered battery across the narrow valley, nearly four hundred +guns in action at once, the gunners toiling fiercely to load and fire +with the utmost speed. Wellington ordered his men to lie down on the +reverse of the ridge; but the French had the range perfectly, and +shells fell thickly on the ranks of recumbent men, and solid shot tore +through them. The thunder of the artillery quickened; the French +tirailleurs, showing great daring, crept in swarms up the British slope +and shot down the British gunners at their pieces. Both Hougoumont and +La Haye Sainte were on fire at this stage of the battle. The smoke of +the conflict, in an atmosphere heavy with moisture, hung like a low +pall of blackest crape over the whole field; and every now and again, +on either ridge, columns of white smoke shot suddenly up and fell back +like gigantic and vaporous mushrooms--the effect of exploding +ammunition waggons. "Hard pounding this, gentlemen," said Wellington, +as he rode past his much-enduring battalions. "Let us see who will +pound longest." + +At four o'clock came the great cavalry attack of the French. Through +the gap between, not merely the two farmhouses, but the two farmhouses +plus their zone of fire--through a gap, that is, of probably not more +than 1000 yards, the French, for two long hours, poured on the British +line the whole strength of their magnificent cavalry, led by Ney in +person. To meet the assault, Wellington drew up his first line in a +long chequer of squares, five in the first line, four, covering their +intervals, in the second. In advance of them were the British guns, +with their sadly reduced complement of gunners. Immediately behind the +squares were the British cavalry brigades; the Household Brigade, +reduced by this time to a couple of squadrons; and behind them, in +turn, the Dutch-Belgian infantry, who had fortitude enough not to run +away, but lacked daring sufficient to fill a place on the fire-scourged +edge of actual battle. When the British front was supposed to be +sufficiently macadamised by the dreadful fire of the French batteries, +Ney brought on his huge mass of cavalry, twenty-one squadrons of +cuirassiers, and nineteen squadrons of the Light Cavalry of the Guard. + +At a slow trot they came down the French slope, crossed the valley, +and, closing their ranks and quickening their stride, swept up to the +British line, and broke, a swirling torrent of men and horses, over the +crest. Nothing could be more majestic, and apparently resistless, than +their onset--the gleam of so many thousand helmets and breastplates, +the acres of wind-blown horse-hair crests and many-coloured uniforms, +the thunder of so many galloping hoofs. Wellington had ordered his +gunners, when the French cavalry reached their guns, to abandon them +and run for shelter beneath the bayonets of the nearest square, and the +brave fellows stood by their pieces pouring grape and solid shot into +the glittering, swift-coming human target before them till the leading +horses were almost within touch of the guns, when they ran and flung +themselves under the steady British bayonets for safety. + +The French horsemen, as they mounted the British slope, saw nothing +before them but the ridge, empty of everything except a few abandoned +guns. They were drunk with the rapture of victory, and squadron after +squadron, as it reached the crest, broke into tempests of shouts and a +mad gallop. All the batteries were in their possession; they looked to +see an army in rout. Suddenly they beheld the double line of British +squares--or, rather, "oblongs"--with their fringe of steady steel +points; and from end to end of the line ran the zigzag of fire--a fire +that never slackened, still less intermitted. The torrent and tumult +of the horsemen never checked; but as they rode at the squares, the +leading squadron--men and horses--smitten by the spray of lead, tumbled +dead or dying to the ground. The following squadrons parted, swept +past the flanks of the squares, scourged with deadly volleys, struggled +through the intervals of the second line, emerged breathless and broken +into the space beyond, to be instantly charged by the British cavalry, +and driven back in wreck over the British slope. As the struggling +mass left the crest clear, the French guns broke in a tempest of shot +on the squares, while the scattered French re-formed in the valley, and +prepared for a second and yet more desperate assault. + +Foiled in his first attack, Ney drew the whole of Kellerman's +division--thirty-seven squadrons, eleven of cuirassiers, six of +carabineers, and the Bed Lancers of the Guard--into the whirlpool of +his renewed assault, and this time the mass, though it came forward +more slowly, was almost double in area. Gleaming with lance and sword +and cuirass, it undulated as it crossed the broken slopes, till it +seemed a sea, shining with 10,000 points of glancing steel, in motion. +The British squares, on the reverse slope, as they obeyed the order, +"Prepare to receive cavalry!" and fell grimly into formation, could +hear the thunder of the coming storm--the shrill cries of the officers, +the deeper shouts of the men, the clash of scabbard on stirrup, the +fierce tramp of the iron-shod hoofs. Squadron after squadron came over +the ridge, like successive human waves; then, like a sea broken loose, +the flood of furious horsemen inundated the whole slope on which the +squares were drawn up. But each square, a tiny, immovable island of +red, with its fringe of smoke and steel and darting flame, stood +doggedly resolute. No French leader, however daring, ventured to ride +home on the very bayonets. The flood of maddened men and horses swung +sullenly back across the ridge, while the British gunners ran out and +scourged them with grape as they rode down the slope. + +From four o'clock to six o'clock this amazing scene was repeated. No +less than thirteen times, it was reckoned, the French horsemen rode +over the ridge, and round the squares, and swept back wrecked and +baffled. In the later charges they came on at a trot, or even a walk, +and they rode through the British batteries and round the squares, in +the words of the Duke of Wellington, "as if they owned them." So dense +was the smoke that sometimes the British could not see their foes +until, through the whirling blackness, a line of lances and crested +helmets, or of tossing horse-heads, suddenly broke. Sometimes a single +horseman would ride up to the very points of the British bayonets and +strike at them with his sword, or fire a pistol at an officer, in the +hope of drawing the fire of the square prematurely, and thus giving his +comrades a chance of breaking it. With such cool courage did the +British squares endure the fiery rush of the French cavalry, that at +last the temper of the men grew almost scornful. They would growl out, +"Here come these fools again," as a fresh sweep of horsemen came on. +Sometimes the French squadrons came on at a trot; sometimes their +"charge" slackened down to a walk. Warlike enthusiasm had exhausted +itself. "The English squares and the French squadrons," says Lord +Anglesey, "seemed almost, for a short time, hardly taking notice of +each other." + +In their later charges the French brought up some light batteries to +the crest of the British ridge, and opened fire at point-blank distance +on the solid squares. The front of the 1st Life Guards was broken by a +fire of this sort, and Gronow relates how the cuirassiers made a dash +at the opening. Captain Adair leaped into the gap, and killed with one +blow of his sword a French officer who had actually entered the square! +The British gunners always ran swiftly out when the French cavalry +recoiled down the slope, remanned their guns, and opened a murderous +fire on the broken French. Noting this, an officer of cuirassiers drew +up his horse by a British battery, and while his men drew off, stood on +guard with his single sword, and kept the gunners from remanning it +till he was shot by a British infantryman. Directly the broken cavalry +was clear of the ridge, the French guns opened furiously on the British +lines, and men dropped thick and fast. The cavalry charges, as a +matter of fact, were welcomed as affording relief from the intolerable +artillery fire. + +For two hours 15,000 French horsemen rode round the British squares, +and again and again the ridge and rear slope of the British position +was covered with lancers, cuirassiers, light and heavy dragoons, and +hussars, with the British guns in their actual possession; and yet not +a square was broken! A gaily dressed regiment of the Duke of +Cumberland's (Hanoverian) Hussars watched the Homeric contest from the +British rear, and Lord Uxbridge, as the British cavalry were completely +exhausted by their dashes at the French horsemen as they broke through +the chequer of the squares, rode up to them and called on them to +follow him in a charge. The colonel declined, explaining that his men +owned their own horses, and could not expose them to any risk of +damage! These remarkable warriors, in fact, moved in a body, and with +much expedition, off the field, Seymour (Lord Uxbridge's aide) taking +their colonel by the collar and shaking him as a dog shakes a rat, by +way of expressing his view of the performance. + + +VI. THE FIGHT OF THE GUNNERS + + + "Three hundred cannon-mouths roar'd loud; + And from their throats with flash and cloud + Their showers of iron threw." + --SCOTT. + + +One of the most realistic pictures of the fight at this stage is given +by Captain Mercer, in command of a battery of horse artillery. Mercer +was on the extreme British right during the first stage of the battle, +and only got occasional glimpses of the ridge where the fight was +raging--intermittent visions of French cavalry riding in furious +charges, and abandoned British batteries with guns, muzzle in air, +against the background of grey and whirling smoke. About three +o'clock, in the height of the cavalry struggle, Fraser, who was in +chief command of the horse artillery, galloped down the reverse slope +to Mercer's battery, his face black with powder, his uniform torn, and +brought the troop at full gallop to the central ridge, explaining as +they rode the Duke's orders, that, when the French cavalry charged +home, Mercer and his men should take refuge under the bayonets of the +nearest square. + +As they neared the crest at a gallop, Mercer describes the humming as +of innumerable and gigantic gnats that filled the bullet-torn air. He +found his position betwixt two squares of Brunswickers, in whose ranks +the French guns were making huge gaps, while the officers and sergeants +were busy literally pushing the men together. "The men," says Mercer, +"were like wooden figures, semi-paralysed with the horrors of the fight +about them;" and to have attempted to run to them for shelter would +certainly have been the signal for the whole mass to dissolve. Through +the smoke ahead, not a hundred yards distant, were the French squadrons +coming on at a trot. The British guns were swung round, unlimbered, +loaded with case-shot, and fire opened with breathless speed. Still +the French came on; but as gun after gun came into action, their pace +slowed down to a walk, till the front files could endure the terrific +fire no longer. They turned round and tried to ride back. "I actually +saw them," says Mercer, "using the pommels of their swords to fight +their way out of the _melee_." Some, made desperate by finding +themselves penned up at the very muzzles of the British guns, dashed +through their intervals, but without thinking of using their swords. +Presently the mass broke and ebbed, a flood of shattered squadrons, +down the slope. They rallied quickly, however, and their helmets could +be seen over the curve of the slope as the officers dressed the lines. + +The French tirailleurs, meanwhile, crept up within forty yards of the +battery, and were busy shooting down Mercer's gunners. Mercer, to keep +his men steady, rode slowly to and fro in front of the muzzles of his +guns, the men standing with lighted port-fires. The tirailleurs, +almost within pistol-shot, seized the opportunity to take pot-shots at +him. He shook his glove, with the word "Scelerat," at one of them; the +fellow grinned, and took a leisurely aim at Mercer, the muzzle of his +gun following him as he turned to and fro in his promenade before his +own pieces. The Frenchman fired, and the ball passed at the back of +Mercer's neck into the forehead of the leading driver of one of his +guns. + +But the cavalry was coming on again in solid squadrons, a column so +deep that when the leading files were within sixty yards of Mercer's +guns the rear of the great mass was still out of sight. The pace was a +deliberate trot. "They moved in profound silence," says Mercer, and +the only sound that could be heard from them, amidst the incessant roar +of battle, was the low, thunder-like reverberation of the ground +beneath the simultaneous tread of so many horses, through which ran a +jangling ripple of sharp metallic sound, the ring of steel on steel. +The British gunners, on their part, showed a stern coolness fully equal +to the occasion. Every man stood steadily at his post, "the guns ready +loaded with round-shot first, and a case over it; the tubes were in the +vents, the port-fires glared and sputtered behind the wheels." The +column was led on this time by an officer in a rich uniform, his breast +covered with decorations, whose earnest gesticulations were strangely +contrasted with the solemn demeanour of those to whom they were +addressed. Mercer allowed the leading squadron to come within sixty +yards, then lifted his glove as the signal to fire. Nearly the whole +leading rank fell in an instant, while the round shot pierced the +column. The front, covered with struggling horses and men, was +impassable. Some of the braver spirits did break their way through, +only to fall, man and horse, at the very muzzles, of the guns. "Our +guns," says Mercer, "were served with astonishing activity, and men and +horses tumbled before them like nine-pins." Where the horse alone was +killed, the cuirassier could be seen stripping himself of his armour +with desperate haste to escape. The mass of the French for a moment +stood still, then broke to pieces and fled. Again they came on, with +exactly the same result. So dreadful was the carnage, that on the next +day, Mercer, looking back from the French ridge, could identify the +position held by his battery by the huge mound of slaughtered men and +horses lying in front of it. The French at last brought up a battery, +which opened a flanking fire on Mercer's guns; he swung round two of +his pieces to meet the attack, and the combat raged till, out of 200 +fine horses in Mercer's troop, 140 lay dead or dying, and two men out +of every three were disabled. + +Ney's thirteen cavalry charges on the British position were +magnificent, but they were a failure. They did not break a single +square, nor permanently disable a single gun. Both Wellington and +Napoleon are accused of having flung away their cavalry; but +Wellington--or, rather, Uxbridge--by expending only 2000 sabres, +wrecked, as we have seen, a French infantry corps, destroyed a battery +of 40 guns, and took 3000 prisoners. Ney practically used up 15,000 +magnificent horsemen without a single appreciable result. Napoleon, at +St. Helena, put the blame of his wasted cavalry on Ney's hot-headed +impetuosity. The cavalry attack, he said, was made without his orders; +Kellerman's division joined in the attack without even Ney's orders. +But that Napoleon should watch for two hours his whole cavalry force +wrecking itself in thirteen successive and baffled assaults on the +British squares, without his orders, is an utterly incredible +supposition. + +If two hours of cavalry assault, punctuated as with flame by the fire +of 200 guns, did not destroy the stubborn British line, it cannot be +denied that it shook it terribly. The British ridge was strewn with +the dead and dying. Regiments had shrunk to companies, companies to +mere files. "Our square," says Gronow, "presented a shocking sight. +We were nearly suffocated by the smoke and smell from burnt cartridges. +It was impossible to move a step without treading on a wounded or slain +comrade." "Where is your brigade?" Vivian asked of Lord Edward +Somerset, who commanded the Life Guards. "Here," said Lord Edward, +pointing to two scanty squadrons, and a long line of wounded or +mutilated horses. Before nightfall the two gallant brigades that made +the great cavalry charge of the morning had contracted to a single +squadron of fifty files. Wellington sent an aide-de-camp to ask +General Hackett, "What square of his that was which was so far in +advance?" It was a mass of killed and wounded men belonging to the +30th and 73rd regiments that lay slain, yet in ranks, on the spot the +square had occupied at one period of the fight, and from which it had +been withdrawn. Seen through the whirling smoke, this quadrangle of +corpses looked like a square of living men. The destruction wrought by +the French guns on the British squares was, in brief, terrific. By a +single discharge of grape upon a German square, one of its sides was +completely blown away, and the "square" transfigured into a triangle, +with its base a line of slaughtered men. The effect produced by +cannon-shot at short range on solid masses of men was sometimes very +extraordinary. Thus Croker tells how an officer received a severe +wound in the shoulder, apparently from a jagged ball. When the missile +was extracted, however, it turned out to be a huge human double-tooth. +Its owner's head had been shattered by a cannon-ball, and the very +teeth transformed into a radiating spray of swift and deadly missiles. +There were other cases of soldiers being wounded by coins driven +suddenly by the impact of shot from their original owners' pockets. +The sustained fire of the French tirailleurs, too, wrought fatal +mischief. + +La Haye Sainte by this time had been captured. The brave men who held +it for so many hours carried rifles that needed a special cartridge, +and supplies of it failed. When the French captured the farmhouse, +they were able to push some guns and a strong infantry attack close up +to the British left. This was held by the 27th, who had marched from +Ghent at speed, reached Waterloo, exhausted, at nine A.M., on the very +day of the battle, slept amid the roar of the great fight till three +o'clock, and were then brought forward to strengthen the line above La +Haye Sainte. The 27th was drawn up in square, and the French +skirmishers opened a fire so close and fatal, that, literally, in the +space of a few minutes every second man was shot down! + + +VII. THE OLD GUARD + + + "On came the whirlwind--like the last, + But fiercest sweep of tempest blast-- + On came the whirlwind--steel-gleams broke + Like lightning through the rolling smoke; + The war was waked anew." + --SCOTT. + + +Napoleon had expended in vain upon the stubborn British lines his +infantry, his cavalry, and his artillery. There remained only the +Guard! The long summer evening was drawing to a close, when, at +half-past seven, he marshalled these famous soldiers for the final +attack. It is a curious fact that the intelligence of the coming +attack was brought to Wellington by a French cuirassier officer, who +deserted his colours just before it took place. The eight battalions +of the immortal Guard formed a body of magnificent soldiers, the tall +stature of the men being heightened by their imposing bearskin caps. +The prestige of a hundred victories played round their bayonets. Their +assault had never yet been resisted. Ney and Friant led them on. +Napoleon himself, as the men marched past him to the assault, spoke +some fiery words of exhortation to each company--the last words he ever +spoke to his Guard. + +It is a matter of keen dispute whether the Guard attacked in two +columns or in one. The truth seems to be that the eight battalions +were arranged in echelon, and really formed one mass, though in two +parallel columns of companies, with batteries of horse artillery on +either flank advancing with them. Nothing could well be more majestic, +nothing more menacing, than the advance of this gallant force, and it +seemed as if nothing on the British ridge, with its disabled guns and +shot-torn battalions, could check such an assault. Wellington, +however, quickly strengthened his centre by calling in Hill's division +from the extreme right, while Vivian's Light Cavalry, surrendering the +extreme left to the advancing Prussians, moved, in anticipation of +orders, to the same point. Adams's brigade, too, was brought up to the +threatened point, with all available artillery. The exact point in the +line which would be struck by the head of the Guard was barred by a +battery of nine-pounders. The attack of the Guard was aided by a +general infantry advance---usually in the form of a dense mass of +skirmishers--against the whole British front, and so fierce was this +that some Hanoverian and Nassau battalions were shaken by it into +almost fatal rout. A thread of British cavalry, made up of the scanty +remains of the Scots Greys and some of Vandeleur's Light Cavalry, alone +kept the line from being pierced. + +All interest, however, centred in the attack of the Guard. Steadily, +on a slightly diagonal line, it moved up the British slope. The guns +smote it fiercely; but never shrinking or pausing, the great double +column moved forward. It crossed the ridge. Nothing met the eyes of +the astonished French except a wall of smoke, and the battery of horse +artillery, at which the gunners were toiling madly, pouring case-shot +into the approaching column. One or two horsemen, one of whom was +Wellington himself, were dimly seen through the smoke behind the guns. +The Duke denied that he used the famous phrase, "Up Guards, and at +'em!" "What I may have said, and possibly did say," he told Croker, +"was, 'Stand up, Guards!' and then gave the commanding officers the +order to attack." + +An officer who took part in the fight has described the scene at the +critical moment when the French Old Guard appeared at the summit of the +British ridge: "As the smoke cleared away, a most superb sight opened +on us. A close column of the Guard, about seventies in front, and not +less than six thousand strong, their drums sounding the _pas de +charge_, the men shouting 'Vive l'Empereur!' were within sixty yards of +us." The sudden appearance of the long red line of the British Foot +Guards rising from the ground seems to have brought the French Guard to +a momentary pause, and, as they hesitated, along the whole line of the +British ran--and ran again, and yet again--the vivid flash of a +tremendous volley. The Guard tried to deploy; their officers leaped to +the front, and, with shouts and waving swords, tried to bring them on, +the British line, meanwhile, keeping up "independent" firing. Maitland +and Lord Saltoun simultaneously shouted the order to "Charge!" The +bayonets of the British Guards fell to level, the men came forward at a +run, the tramp of the charging line sounded louder and louder, the line +of shining points gleamed nearer and yet nearer--the bent and +threatening faces of the British came swiftly on. The nerve of the +French seemed to fail; the huge battalion faltered, shrank in upon +itself, and tumbled in ruin down the hill! + +But this was only the leading battalion of the right segment of the +great column, and the left was still moving steadily up. The British +Guards, too, who had followed the broken battalion of the French down +the hill, were arrested by a cry of "Cavalry!" and fell back on the +ridge in confusion, though the men obeyed instantly the commands of the +officers. "Halt! Front! Re-form!" Meanwhile the left section of the +huge column was moving up, the men as steady as on parade, the lofty +bearskins of the Grenadiers, as they mounted the ridge, giving them a +gigantic aspect. The black, elongated shadows, as the last rays of the +setting sun smote the lines, ran threateningly before them. But the +devoted column was practically forcing itself up into a sort of +triangle of fire. Bolton's guns crossed its head, the Guards, thrown +slightly forward, poured their swift volleys in waves of flame on its +right shoulder, the 52nd and 71st on its left scourged it with fire, +beneath which the huge mass of the French Guard seemed sometimes to +pause and thrill as if in convulsion. + +Then came the movement which assured victory to the British. Colborne, +a soldier with a singular genius for war, not waiting for orders, made +his regiment, the 52nd, bring its right shoulder forward, the outer +company swinging round at the double, until his whole front was +parallel with the flank of the French Guard. Adams, the general in +command of the brigade, rode up and asked him what he was going to do. +Colborne replied, "To make that column feel our fire," and, giving the +word, his men poured into the unprotected flank of the unfortunate +Guard a terrific volley. The 52nd, it should be noted, went into +action with upwards of one thousand bayonets, being probably the +strongest battalion in the field. Colborne had "nursed" his regiment +during the fight. He formed them into smaller squares than usual, and +kept them in shelter where possible, so that at this crisis the +regiment was still a body of great fighting force, and its firing was +of deadly volume and power. Adams swiftly brought the 71st to sustain +Colborne's attack, the Guards on the other flank also moved forward, +practically making a long obtuse angle of musketry fire, the two sides +of which were rapidly closing in on the head of the great French column. + +The left company of the 52nd was almost muzzle to muzzle with the +French column, and had to press back, while the right companies were +swinging round to bring the whole line parallel with the flank of the +Guard; yet, though the answering fire of the Frenchmen was broken and +irregular, so deadly was it--the lines almost touching each +other--that, in three minutes, from the left front of the 52nd one +hundred and fifty men fell! When the right companies, however, had +come up into line with the left, Colborne cried, "Charge! charge!" The +men answered with a deep-throated, menacing shout, and dashed at the +enemy. Napoleon's far-famed Guard, the victors in a hundred fights, +shrank, the mass swayed to and fro, the men in the centre commenced to +fire in the air, and the whole great mass seemed to tumble, break into +units, and roll down the hill! + +The 52nd and 71st came fiercely on, their officers leading. Some +squadrons of the 23rd Dragoons came at a gallop down the slope, and +literally smashed in upon the wrecked column. So wild was the +confusion, so dense the whirling smoke that shrouded the whole scene, +that some companies of the 52nd fired into the Dragoons, mistaking them +for the enemy; and while Colborne was trying to halt his line to remedy +the confusion, Wellington, who saw in this charge the sure pledge of +victory, rode up and shouted, "Never mind! go on! go on!" + +Gambier, then an officer of the 52nd, gives a graphic description of +how that famous regiment fought at this stage:-- + +"A short time before, I had seen our colonel (Colborne), twenty yards +in front of the centre, suddenly disappear, while his horse, mortally +wounded, sank under him. After one or two rounds from the guns, he +came striding down the front with, 'These guns will destroy the +regiment.'--'Shall I drive them in, sir?'--'Do.'--'Right section, left +shoulders forward!' was the word at once. So close were we that the +guns only fired their loaded charges, and limbering up, went hastily to +the rear. Reaching the spot on which they had stood, I was clear of +the Imperial Guard's smoke, and saw three squares of the Old Guard +within four hundred yards farther on. They were standing in a line of +contiguous squares with very short intervals, a small body of +cuirassiers on their right, while the guns took post on their left. +Convinced that the regiment, when it saw them, would come towards them, +I continued my course, stopped with my section about two hundred yards +in front of the centre square, and sat down. They were standing in +perfect order and steadiness, and I knew they would not disturb that +steadiness to pick a quarrel with an insignificant section. I +alternately looked at them, at the regiment, and up the hill to my +right (rear), to see who was coming to help us. + +"A red regiment was coming along steadily from the British position, +with its left directly upon me. It reached me some minutes before the +52nd, of which the right came within twenty paces of me. Colonel +Colborne then called the covering sergeants to the front, and dressed +the line upon them. Up to this moment neither the guns, the squares of +the Imperial Guard, nor the 52nd had fired a shot. I then saw one or +two of the guns slewed round to the direction of my company and fired, +but their grape went over our heads. We opened our fire and advanced; +the squares replied to it, and then steadily facing about, retired. +The cuirassiers advanced a few paces; our men ceased firing, and, bold +in their four-deep formation, came down to a sort of elevated bayonet +charge; but the cuirassiers declined the contest, and turned. The +French proper right square brought up its right shoulders and crossed +the _chaussee_, and we crossed it after them. Twilight had manifestly +commenced, and objects were now bewildering. The first event of +interest was, that getting among some French tumbrils, with the horses +attached, our colonel was seen upon one, shouting 'Cut me out!' Then +we came upon the hollow road beyond La Belle Alliance, filled with +artillery and broken infantry. Here was instantly a wild _melee_: the +infantry tried to escape as best they could, and at the same time turn +and defend themselves; the artillery drivers turned their horses to the +left and tried to scramble up the bank of the road, but the horses were +immediately shot down; a young subaltern of the battery threw his sword +and himself on the ground in the act of surrender; his commander, who +wore the cross of the Legion of Honour, stood in defiance among his +guns, and was bayoneted, and the subaltern, unwisely making a run for +his liberty, was shot in the attempt. The _melee_ at this spot placed +us amid such questionable companions, that no one at that moment could +be sure whether a bayonet would be the next moment in his ribs or not." + +It puts a sudden gleam of humour into the wild scene to read how +Colonel Sir Felton Harvey, who led a squadron of the 18th, when he saw +the Old Guard tumbling into ruins, evoked a burst of laughter from his +entire squadron by saying in a solemn voice, "Lord Wellington has won +the battle," and then suddenly adding in a changed tone, "If we could +but get the d----d fool to advance!" Wellington, as a matter of fact, +had given the signal that launched his wasted and sorely tried +battalions in one final and victorious advance. Vivian's cavalry still +remained to the Duke--the 10th and 18th Hussars--and they, at this +stage, made a charge almost as decisive as that of the Household and +Union Brigades in the morning. The 10th crashed into some cuirassiers +who were coming up to try and relieve the flank of the Guard, overthrew +them in a moment, and then plunged into the broken French Guard itself. +These veterans were retreating, so to speak, individually, all +formation wrecked, but each soldier was stalking fiercely along with +frowning brow and musket grasped, ready to charge any too audacious +horsemen. Vivian himself relates how his orderly alone cut down five +or six in swift succession who were trying to bayonet the British +cavalry general. When Vivian had launched the 10th, he galloped back +to the 18th, who had lost almost every officer. "My lads," he said, +"you'll follow me"; to which the sergeant-major, a man named Jeffs, +replied, "To h----, general, if you will lead us!" The wreck of +Vandeleur's brigade, too, charged down the slope more to the left; +batteries were carried, cavalry squadrons smashed, and infantry +battalions tumbled into ruin. Napoleon had an entire light cavalry +brigade still untouched; but this, too, was caught in the reflux of the +broken masses, and swept away. The wreck of the Old Guard and the +spectacle of the general advance of the British--cavalry, artillery, +and infantry--seemed to be the signal for the dissolution of the whole +French army. + +Two squares of the French Guard yet kept their formation. Some +squadrons of the 10th Hussars, under Major Howard, rode fiercely at +one. Howard himself rode home, and died literally on the French +bayonets; and his men rivalled his daring, and fought and died on two +faces of the square. But the Frenchmen kept their ranks, and the +attack failed. The other square was broken. The popular tradition +that Cambronne, commanding a square of the Old Guard, on being summoned +to surrender, answered, "La Garde meurt, et ne se rend pas," is pure +fable. As a matter of fact, Halkett, who commanded a brigade of +Hanoverians, personally captured Cambronne. Halkett was heading some +squadrons of the 10th, and noted Cambronne trying to rally the Guard. +In his own words, "I made a gallop for the general. When about cutting +him down, he called out he would surrender, upon which he preceded me +to the rear. But I had not gone many paces before my horse got shot +through his body and fell to the ground. In a few seconds I got him on +his legs again, and found my friend Cambronne had taken French leave in +the direction from which he came. I instantly overtook him, laid hold +of him by the aiguillette, and brought him back in safety, and gave him +in charge of a sergeant of the Osnabruckers to deliver to the Duke." + +Napoleon himself, from a spot of rising ground not far from La Haye +Sainte, had watched the advance of his Guard. His empire hung on its +success. It was the last fling of the dice for him. His cavalry was +wrecked, his infantry demoralised, half his artillery dismounted; the +Prussian guns were thundering with ever louder roar upon his right. If +the Guard succeeded, the electrifying thrill of victory would run +through the army, and knit it into energy once more. But if the Guard +failed----! + + +VIII. THE GREAT DEFEAT. + + + "And while amid their scattered band + Raged the fierce riders' bloody brand, + Recoil'd in common rout and fear, + Lancer and Guard and Cuirassier, + Horsemen and foot--a mingled host, + Their leaders fall'n, their standards lost." + --SCOTT. + + +Napoleon watched the huge black echelon of battalions mount the slope, +their right section crumbled under the rush of the British Guards. +Colborne and the 52nd tumbled the left flank into ruin; the British +cavalry swept down upon them. Those who stood near Napoleon watched +his face. It became pale as death. "Ils sont meles ensemble" ("they +are mingled together"), he muttered to himself. He cast one hurried +glance over the field, to right and left, and saw nothing but broken +squadrons, abandoned batteries, wrecked infantry battalions. "Tout est +perdu," he said, "sauve qui peut," and, wheeling his horse, he turned +his back upon his last battlefield. His star had set! + +Napoleon's strategy throughout the brief campaign was magnificent; his +tactics--the detailed handling of his troops on the actual +battlefield--were wretched. "We were manoeuvred," says the disgusted +Marbot, "like so many pumpkins." Napoleon was only forty-seven years +old, but, as Wolseley says, "he was no longer the thin, sleek, active +little man he had been at Rivoli. His now bloated face, large stomach, +and fat and rounded legs bespoke a man unfitted for hard work on +horseback." His fatal delay in pursuing Bluecher on the 17th, and his +equally fatal waste of time in attacking Wellington on the 18th, proved +how his quality as a general had decayed. It is a curious fact that, +during the battle of Waterloo, Napoleon remained for hours motionless +at a table placed for him in the open air, often asleep, with his head +resting on his arms. One reads with an odd sense of humour the answer +which a dandy officer of the British Life Guards gave to the inquiry, +"How he felt during the battle of Waterloo?" He replied that he had +felt "awfully bored"! That anybody should feel "bored" in the vortex +of such a drama is wonderful; but scarcely so wonderful as the fact +that the general of one of the two contending hosts found it possible +to go to sleep during the crisis of the gigantic battle, on which hung +his crown and fate. Napoleon had lived too long for the world's +happiness or for his own fame. + +The story here told is that of Waterloo on its British side. No +attempt is made to describe Bluecher's magnificent loyalty in pushing, +fresh from the defeat of Ligny, through the muddy cross-roads from +Wavre, to join Wellington on the blood-stained field of Waterloo. No +account, again, is attempted of Grouchy's wanderings into space, with +33,000 men and 96 guns, lazily attacking Thielmann's single corps at +Wavre, while Bluecher, with three divisions, was marching at speed to +fling himself on Napoleon's right flank at Waterloo. It is idle to +speculate on what would have happened to the British if the Prussians +had not made their movement on Napoleon's right flank. The assured +help of Bluecher was the condition upon which Wellington made his stand +at Waterloo; it was as much part of his calculations as the fighting +quality of his own infantry. A plain tale of British endurance and +valour is all that is offered here; and what a head of wood and heart +of stone any man of Anglo-Saxon race must have who can read such a tale +without a thrill of generous emotion! + +Waterloo was for the French not so much a defeat as a rout. Napoleon's +army simply ceased to exist. The number of its slain is unknown, for +its records were destroyed. The killed and wounded in the British army +reached the tragical number of nearly 15,000. Probably not less than +between 30,000 and 40,000 slain or wounded human beings were scattered, +the night following the battle, over the two or three square miles +where the great fight had raged; and some of the wounded were lying +there still, uncared for, four days afterwards. It is said that for +years afterwards, as one looked over the waving wheat-fields in the +valley betwixt Mont St. Jean and La Belle Alliance, huge irregular +patches, where the corn grew rankest and was of deepest tint, marked +the gigantic graves where, in the silence and reconciliation of death, +slept Wellington's ruddy-faced infantry lads and the grizzled veterans +of the Old Guard. The deep cross-country road which covered +Wellington's front has practically disappeared; the Belgians have cut +away the banks to build up a huge pyramid, on the summit of which is +perched a Belgian lion, with tail erect, grinning defiance towards the +French frontier. A lion is not exactly the animal which best +represents the contribution the Belgian troops made to Waterloo. + +But still the field keeps its main outlines. To the left lies +Planchenoit, where Wellington watched to see the white smoke of the +Prussian guns; opposite is the gentle slope down which D'Erlon's troops +marched to fling themselves on La Haye Sainte; and under the +spectator's feet, a little to his left as he stands on the summit of +the monument, is the ground over which Life Guards and Inniskillings +and Scots Greys galloped in the fury of their great charge. Right in +front is the path along which came Milhaud's Cuirassiers and +Kellerman's Lancers, and Friant's Old Guard, in turn, to fling +themselves in vain on the obstinate squares and thin red line of the +British. To the right is Hougoumont, the orchard walls still pierced +with loopholes made by the Guards. A fragment of brick, blackened with +the smoke of the great fight, is one of the treasures of the present +writer. Victors and vanquished alike have passed away, and, since the +Old Guard broke on the slopes of Mont St. Jean, British and French have +never met in the wrestle of battle. May they never meet again in that +fashion! But as long as nations preserve the memory of the great deeds +of their history, as long as human courage and endurance can send a +thrill of admiration through generous hearts, as long as British blood +beats in British veins, the story of the brave men who fought and died +at their country's bidding at Waterloo will be one of the great +traditions of the English-speaking race. + +Of Wellington's part in the great fight it is difficult to speak in +terms which do not sound exaggerated. He showed all the highest +qualities of generalship, swift vision, cool judgment, the sure insight +that forecasts each move on the part of his mighty antagonist, the +unfailing resource that instantly devises the plan for meeting it. +There is no need to dwell on Wellington's courage; the rawest British +militia lad on the field shared that quality with him. But in the +temper of Wellington's courage there was a sort of ice-clear quality +that was simply marvellous. He visited every square and battery in +turn, and was at every point where the fight was most bloody. Every +member of his staff, without exception, was killed or wounded, while it +is curious to reflect that not a member of Napoleon's staff was so much +as touched. But the roar of the battle, with its swift chances of life +and death, left Wellington's intellect as cool, and his nerve as +steady, as though he were watching a scene in a theatre. One of his +generals said to him when the fight seemed most desperate, "If you +should be struck, tell us what is your plan?" "My plan," said the +Duke, "consists in dying here to the last man." He told at a +dinner-table, long after the battle, how, as he stood under the +historic tree in the centre of his line, a Scotch sergeant came up, +told him he had observed the tree was a mark for the French gunners, +and begged him to move from it. Somebody at the table said, "I hope +you did, sir?" "I really forget," said the Duke, "but I know I thought +it very good advice at the time." + +Only twice during the day did Wellington show any trace of remembering +what may be called his personal interest in the fight. Napoleon had +called him "a Sepoy general." "I will show him to-day," he said, just +before the battle began, "how a Sepoy general can defend himself." At +night, again, as he sat with a few of his surviving officers about him +at supper, his face yet black with the smoke of the fight, he +repeatedly leaned back in his chair, rubbing his hands convulsively, +and exclaiming aloud, "Thank God! I have met him. Thank God! I have +met him." But Wellington's mood throughout the whole of the battle was +that which befitted one of the greatest soldiers war has ever produced +in the supreme hour of his country's fate. The Duke was amongst the +leading files of the British line as they pushed the broken French +Guard down the slope, and some one begged him to remember what his life +was worth, and go back. "The battle is won," said Wellington; "my life +doesn't matter now." Dr. Hulme, too, has told how he woke the Duke +early in the morning after the fight, his face grim, unwashed, and +smoke-blackened, and read the list of his principal officers--name +after name--dead or dying, until the hot tears ran, like those of a +woman, down the iron visage of the great soldier. + +As Napoleon in the gathering darkness galloped off the field, with the +wreck and tumult of his shattered army about him, there remained to his +life only those six ignoble years at St. Helena. But Wellington was +still in his very prime. He was only forty-six years old, and there +awaited him thirty-seven years of honoured life, till, "to the noise of +the mourning of a mighty nation," he was laid beside Nelson in the +crypt of St. Paul's, and Tennyson sang his requiem:-- + + "O good grey head, which all men knew, + O voice from which their omens all men drew, + O iron nerve, to true occasion true; + O fall'n at length that tower of strength + Which stood four-square to all the winds that blew." + + + + +THE NIGHT ATTACK OFF CADIZ + + + "'Captain,' they cry, 'the fight is done, + They bid you send your sword!' + And he answered, 'Grapple her stern and bow. + They have asked for the steel. They shall have it now; + Out cutlasses, and board!'" + --KIPLING. + + +On the morning of July 3, 1801, a curious scene, which might almost be +described as a sea comedy, was being transacted off the coast of +Alicante. Three huge French line-of-battle ships were manoeuvring and +firing round a tiny little British brig-of-war. It was like three +mastiffs worrying a mouse. The brig was Lord Cochrane's famous little +_Speedy_, a craft so tiny that its commander could carry its entire +broadside in his own pockets, and when he shaved himself in his cabin, +had to put his head through the skylight and his shaving-box on the +quarter-deck, in order to stand upright. + +Cochrane was caught by Admiral Linois' squadron, consisting of two +ships of eighty guns and one of seventy-four, on a lee shore, where +escape was impossible; but from four o'clock till nine o'clock Cochrane +evaded all the efforts of his big pursuers to capture him. The French +ships separated on different tacks, so as to keep the little _Speedy_ +constantly under the fire of one or the other; and as the British brig +turned and dashed at one opening of the moving triangle or the other, +the great ships thundered their broadsides at her. Cochrane threw his +guns and stores overboard, and by the most ingenious seamanship evaded +capture for hours, surviving some scores of broadsides. He could tack +far more quickly than the gigantic ships that pursued him, and again +and again the _Speedy_ spun round on its heel and shot off on a new +course, leaving its particular pursuer with sheet shivering, and +nothing but space to fire into. Once, by a quick turn, he shot past +one of the 80-gun ships occupied in trying to tack, and got clear. The +_Desaix_, however, a seventy-four, was swiftly on the track of the +_Speedy_; its tall canvas under the growing breeze gave it an +advantage, and it ran down to within musket-shot of the _Speedy_, then +yawed, bringing its whole broadside to bear, intending to sink its tiny +foe with a single discharge. In yawing, however, the _Desaix_ shot a +little too far, and the weight of her broadside only smote the water, +but the scattered grape cut up the _Speedy's_ rigging and canvas so +terribly that nothing was left but surrender. + +When Cochrane went on board his captor, its gallant captain refused to +take his sword, saying he "could not accept the sword of an officer who +had struggled for so many hours against impossibility." Cochrane and +his gallant crew were summarily packed into the Frenchman's hold, and +when the French in their turn were pursued by the British +line-of-battle ships, as every broadside crashed on the hull of the +ship that held them captive, Cochrane and his men gave a round of +exultant cheers, until the exasperated Frenchmen threatened to shoot +them unless they would hold their tongues--an announcement which only +made the British sailors cheer a little louder. The fight between +Saumarez and Linois ended with a tragedy; but it may be said to have +begun with a farce. + +The presence of a French squadron in the Straits of Gibraltar at this +particular moment may be explained in a few sentences. Napoleon had +woven afresh the web of those naval "combinations" so often torn to +fragments by British seamanship and daring. He had persuaded or +bullied Spain into placing under the French flag a squadron of six +line-of-battle ships, including two leviathans of 112 guns each, lying +in the harbour of Cadiz. With haughty, it might almost be said with +insolent daring, a couple of British seventy-fours--sometimes, indeed, +only one--patrolled the entrance to Cadiz, and blockaded a squadron of +ten times their own force. Napoleon's plan was to draw a strong French +squadron, under Admiral Linois, from Toulon, a second Spanish squadron +from Ferrol, unite these with the ships lying in Cadiz, and thus form a +powerful fleet of at least fifteen ships of the line, with a garnishing +of frigates. + +Once having got his fleet, Napoleon's imagination--which had a strong +predatory bias--hesitated betwixt two uses to which it could be turned. +One was to make a dash on Lisbon, and require, under threat of an +instant bombardment, the delivery of all British ships and goods lying +there. This ingenious plan, it was reckoned, would fill French pockets +with cash and adorn French brows with glory at one stroke. The amount +of British booty at Lisbon was computed--somewhat airily--at +200,000,000 pounds; its disappearance would send half the mercantile +houses of Great Britain into the insolvency court, and, to quote a +French state paper on the subject, "our fleet, without being buffeted +about the sea, would return to Brest loaded with riches and covered +with glory, and France would once more astonish Europe." The +alternative scheme was to transport some 32,000 new troops to Egypt and +restore French fortunes in that country. + +Meanwhile Great Britain took energetic measures to wreck this new +combination. Sir James Saumarez, in the _Caesar_, of eighty guns, with +six seventy-fours, was despatched to keep guard over Cadiz; and he had +scarcely reached his station there when a boat, pulling furiously over +from Gibraltar, reported that Admiral Linois' squadron had made its +appearance off the Rock, beating up westward. The sails of the +_Caesar_ were instantly swung round, a many-coloured flutter of bunting +summoned the rest of the squadron to follow, and Saumarez began his +eager chase of the French, bearing away for the Gut under a light +north-west wind. But the breeze died down, and the current swept the +straggling ships westward. All day they drifted helplessly, and the +night only brought a breath of air sufficient to fan them through the +Straits. + +Meanwhile Linois had taken refuge in the tiny curve of the Spanish +coast known as the roadstead of Algeciras. Linois was, perhaps, the +best French seaman of his day, having, it is true, very little French +dash, but endowed with a wealth of cool resolution, and a genius for +defensive warfare altogether admirable. Algeciras gave Linois exactly +what he wanted, an almost unassailable position. The roadstead is +open, shallow, and plentifully besprinkled with rocks, while powerful +shore batteries covered the whole anchorage with their zone of fire. +The French admiral anchored his ships at intervals of 500 yards from +each other, and so that the lines of fire from the batteries north and +south crossed in front of his ships. The French squadron carried some +3000 troops, and these were at once landed, and, manning the batteries, +raised them to a high degree of effectiveness. Some fourteen heavy +Spanish gunboats added enormously to the strength of the French +position. + +The French never doubted that Saumarez would instantly attack; the +precedents of the Nile and of Copenhagen were too recent to make any +doubt possible. And Saumarez did exactly what his enemies expected. +Algeciras, in fact, is the battle of the Nile in miniature. But +Saumarez, though he had the swift daring of Nelson, lacked his warlike +genius. Nelson, in Aboukir Bay, leaped without an instant's pause on +the line of his enemy, but then he had his own ships perfectly in hand, +and so made the leap effective. Saumarez sent his ships into the fight +headlong, and without the least regard to mutual support. At 7.50 on +the morning of July 6, an uncertain gust of air carried the leading +British ship, the _Pompee_, round Cabrita; Hood, in the _Venerable_, +lay becalmed in the offing; the flagship, with the rest of the +squadron, were mere pyramids of idle canvas on the rim of the horizon. + +The _Pompee_ drifted down the whole French line, scorched with the fire +of batteries and of gunboats, as well as by the broadsides of the great +French ships, and at 8.45 dropped her anchor so close to the +_Formidable_--a ship much bigger than itself--that the Frenchman's buoy +lay outside her. Then, deliberately clewing up her sails and tautening +her springs, the _Pompee_ opened a fire on her big antagonist so +fierce, sustained, and deadly, that the latter found it intolerable, +and began to warp closer to the shore. The _Audacious_ and _Venerable_ +came slowly up into their assigned positions, and here was a spectacle +of three British ships fighting four French ships and fourteen Spanish +gunboats, with heavy shore batteries manned by 3000 troops thrown into +the scale! At this stage, too, the _Pompee's_ springs gave way, or +were shot away, the current swung her round till she lay head on to the +broadside of her huge antagonist, while the batteries smote her with a +deadly cross-fire. A little after ten o'clock the _Caesar_ dropped +anchor three cables' lengths from the _Indomptable_, and opened a fire +which the French themselves described as "tremendous" upon her +antagonist. + +Linois found the British fire too destructive, and signalled his ships +to cut or slip their cables, calculating that a faint air from the sea, +which was beginning to blow, would drift them closer under the shelter +of the batteries. Saumarez, too, noticed that his topsails were +beginning to swell, and he instantly slipped his cable and endeavoured +to close with the _Indomptable_, signalling his ships to do the same. +The British cables rattled hoarsely through their hawse-holes along the +whole line, and the ships were adrift; but the breeze almost instantly +died away, and on the strong coast current the British ships floated +helplessly, while the fire from the great shore batteries, and from the +steady French decks, now anchored afresh, smote them heavily in turn. +The _Pompee_ lay for an hour under a concentrated fire without being +able to bring a gun to bear in return, and then summoned by signal the +boats of the squadron to tow her off. + +Saumarez, meanwhile, had ordered the _Hannibal_, under Captain Ferris, +to round the head of the French line and "rake the admiral's ship." +Ferris, by fine seamanship, partly sailed and partly drifted into the +post assigned to him, and then grounded hopelessly, under a plunging +fire from the shore batteries, within hail of the Frenchman, itself +also aground. A fire so dreadful soon reduced the unfortunate +_Hannibal_ to a state of wreck. Boats from the _Caesar_ and the +_Venerable_ came to her help, but Ferris sent them back again. They +could not help him, and should not share his fate. Saumarez, as a last +resource, prepared for a boat attack on the batteries, but in the whole +squadron there were not enough uninjured boats to carry the marines. +The British flagship itself was by this time well-nigh a wreck, and was +drifting on the reefs. A flaw of wind from the shore gave the ships +steerage-way, and Saumarez drew off, leaving the _Hannibal_ to its fate. + +Ferris fought till his masts were gone, his guns dismounted, his +bulwarks riddled, his decks pierced, and one-third of his crew killed +or wounded. Then he ordered the survivors to the lower decks, and +still kept his flag flying for half-an-hour after the shot-torn sails +of the shattered British ships had disappeared round Cabrita. Then he +struck. Here was a French triumph, indeed! A British squadron beaten +off, a British seventy-four captured! It is said that when the news +reached Paris the city went half-mad with exultation. Napoleon read +the despatch to his ministers with eyes that danced, and almost wept, +with mere gladness! + +The British squadron--officers and men in such a mood as may be +imagined--put into Gibraltar to refit; the _Caesar_, with her mainmast +shot through in five places, her boats destroyed, her hull pierced; +while of the sorely battered _Pompee_ it is recorded that she had "not +a mast, yard-spar, shroud, rope, or sail" which was not damaged by +hostile shot. Linois, meanwhile, got his grounded ships and his +solitary prize afloat, and summoned the Cadiz squadron to join him. On +the 9th these ships--six sail of the line, two of them giants of 112 +guns each, with three frigates--went triumphantly, with widespread +canvas and many-coloured bunting, past Gibraltar, where the shattered +British squadron was lying, and cast anchor beside Admiral Linois in +Algeciras Bay. + +The British were labouring, meanwhile, with fierce energy, to refit +their damaged ships under shelter of the guns of Gibraltar. The +_Pompee_ was practically destroyed, and her crew were distributed +amongst the other ships. Saumarez himself regarded the condition of +his flagship as hopeless, but his captain, Brenton, begged permission +to at least attempt to refit her. He summoned his crew aft, and told +the men the admiral proposed to leave the ship behind, and asked them +"what they thought about it." The men gave a wrathful roar, +punctuated, it is to be feared, with many sea-going expletives, and +shouted, "All hands to work day and night till she's ready!" The whole +crew, down to the very powder-boys, actually worked while daylight +lasted, kept it up, watch and watch, through the night, and did this +from the evening of the 6th to the noon of the 12th! Probably no ship +that ever floated was refitted in shorter time. In that brief period, +to quote the "Naval Register," she "shifted her mainmast; fished and +secured her foremast, shot through in several places; knotted and +spliced the rigging, which had been cut to pieces, and bent new sails; +plugged the shot-holes between wind and water; completed with stores of +all kinds, anchors and cables, powder and shot, and provisions for four +months." + +On Sunday, July 12, 1801, the French and Spanish ships in Algeciras Bay +weighed anchor, formed their line of battle as they came out, off +Cabrita Point, and, stately and slow, with the two 112-gun Spaniards as +a rearguard, bore up for Cadiz. An hour later the British ships warped +out of the mole in pursuit. It was an amazing sight: a squadron of +five sail of the line, which had been completely disabled in an action +only five days before, was starting, fresh and refitted, in pursuit of +a fleet double its own number, and more than double its strength! All +Gibraltar crowded to watch the ships as, one by one, they cleared the +pier-head. The garrison band blew itself hoarse playing "Britons, +strike home," while the _Caesar's_ band answered in strains as shrill +with "Come, cheer up, my lads, 'tis for glory we steer." Both tunes, +it may be added, were simply submerged beneath the cheers which rang up +from mole-head and batteries and dock-walls. Just as the _Caesar_ +drifted, huge and stately, past the pier-head, a boat came eagerly +pulling up to her. It was crowded with jack-tars, with bandaged heads +and swathed arms. A cluster of the _Pompee's_ wounded, who escaped +from the hospital, bribed a boatman to pull them out to the flagship, +and clamoured to be taken on board! + +Saumarez had strengthened his squadron by the addition of the _Superb_, +with the _Thames_ frigate, and at twenty minutes to nine P.M., vainly +searching the black horizon for the lights of the enemy, he hailed the +_Superb_, and ordered its captain, Keats, to clap on all sail and +attack the enemy directly he overtook them. Saumarez, in a word, +launched a single seventy-four against a fleet! Keats was a daring +sailor; his ship was, perhaps, the fastest British seventy-four afloat, +and his men were instantly aloft spreading every inch of canvas. Then, +like a huge ghost, the _Superb_ glided ahead and vanished in the +darkness. The wind freshened; the blackness deepened; the lights of +the British squadron died out astern. But a wide sprinkle of lights +ahead became visible; it was the Spanish fleet! Eagerly the daring +_Superb_ pressed on, with slanting decks and men at quarters, but with +lights hidden. At midnight the rear ships of the Spanish squadron were +under the larboard bow of the _Superb_--two stupendous three-deckers, +with lights gleaming through a hundred port-holes--while a French +two-decker to larboard of both the Spanish giants completed the line. + +Keats, unseen and unsuspected, edged down with his solitary +seventy-four, her heaviest guns only 18-pounders, on the quarter of the +nearest three-decker. He was about to fling himself, in the gloom of +the night, on three great ships, with an average of 100 guns each! Was +ever a more daring feat attempted? Silently through the darkness the +_Superb_ crept, her canvas glimmering ghostly white, till she was +within some 300 yards of the nearest Spaniard. Then out of the +darkness to windward there broke on the astonished and drowsy Spaniards +a tempest of flame, a whirlwind of shot. Thrice the _Superb_ poured +her broadside into the huge and staggering bulk of her antagonist. +With the second broadside the Spaniard's topmast came tumbling down; +with the third, so close was the flame of the _Superb's_ guns, the +Spanish sails--dry as touch-wood with lying for so many months in the +sunshine of Cadiz--took fire. + +Meanwhile a dramatic incident occurred. The two great Spaniards +commenced to thunder their heavy broadsides into each other! Many of +the Superb's shots had struck the second and more distant three-decker. +Cochrane, indeed, says that the _Superb_ passed actually betwixt the +two gigantic Spaniards, fired a broadside, larboard and starboard, into +both, and then glided on and vanished in the darkness. It is certain +that the _San Hermenegildo_, finding her decks torn by a hurricane of +shot, commenced to fire furiously through the smoke and the night at +the nearest lights. They were the lights of her own consort! She, in +turn, fired at the flash of the guns tormenting her. So, under the +black midnight skies, the two great Spanish ships thundered at each +other, flame answering flame. They drifted ever closer. The fire of +the _Real Carlos_ kindled the sails of the sister ship; the flames +leaped and danced to the very mast-heads; and, still engaged in a fiery +wrestle, they blew up in succession, and out of their united crews of +2000 men only a little over 200 were picked up! + +The _Superb_, meanwhile, had glided ahead, leaving the three-deckers to +destroy each other, and opened fire at pistol-shot distance on the +French two-decker, and in thirty minutes compelled her to strike. In +less than two hours of a night action, that is, this single English +seventy-four had destroyed two Spanish three-deckers of 112 guns each, +and captured a fine French battle-ship of 74 guns! + +The British ships by this time were coming up in the rear, with every +inch of canvas spread. They swept past the amazing spectacle of the +two great Spaniards destroying each other, and pressed on in chase of +the enemy. The wind rose to a gale. In the grey dawn the _Caesar_ +found herself, with all her sister ships, far astern, except the +_Venerable_, under Hood, which was hanging on the quarter of the +rearmost French ship, the _Formidable_, a magnificent ship of 80 guns, +with a gallant commander, and carrying quite too heavy metal for Hood. +Hood, however, the most daring of men, exchanged broadsides at +pistol-shot distance with his big antagonist, till his ship was +dismasted, and was drifted by the current on the rocky shoals off San +Pedro. The _Caesar_ came up in time to enable its disgusted crew to +see ship after ship of the flying enemy disappear safely within the +sheltering batteries of Cadiz. + + + + +TRAFALGAR + +I. THE STRATEGY + + + "Uprose the soul of him a star + On that brave day of Ocean days; + It rolled the smoke from Trafalgar + To darken Austerlitz ablaze. + Are we the men of old, its light + Will point us under every sky + The path he took; and must we fight, + Our Nelson be our battle-cry! + + He leads: we hear our Seaman's call + In the roll of battles won; + For he is Britain's Admiral + Till setting of her sun." + --GEORGE MEREDITH. + + +That Trafalgar was a great British victory, won by splendid seamanship +and by magnificent courage, everybody knows. On October 21, 1805, +Nelson, with twenty-seven line-of-battle ships, attacked Villeneuve, in +command of a combined fleet of thirty-three line-of-battle ships. The +first British gun was fired at 12.10 o'clock; at 5 o'clock the battle +was over; and within those five hours the combined fleets of France and +Spain were simply destroyed. No fewer than eighteen ships of the line +were captured, burnt, or sunk; the rest were in flight, and had +practically ceased to exist as a fighting force. But what very few +people realise is that Trafalgar is only the last incident in a great +strategic conflict--a warfare of brains rather than of bullets--which +for nearly three years raged round a single point. For that long +period the warlike genius of Napoleon was pitted in strategy against +the skill and foresight of a cluster of British sailors; and the +sailors won. They beat Napoleon at his own weapons. The French were +not merely out-fought in the shock of battling fleets, they were +out-generalled in the conflict of plotting and warlike brains which +preceded the actual fight off Cape Trafalgar. + +The strategy which preceded Trafalgar represents Napoleon's solitary +attempt to plan a great campaign on the tossing floor of the sea. "It +has an interest wholly unique," says Mahan, "as the only great naval +campaign ever planned by this foremost captain of modern times." And +it is a very marvellous fact that a cluster of British sailors--Jervis +and Barham (a salt eighty years old) at the Admiralty, Cornwallis at +Brest, Collingwood at Cadiz, and Nelson at Toulon--guessed all +Napoleon's profound and carefully hidden strategy, and met it by even +subtler plans and swifter resolves than those of Napoleon himself. The +five hours of gallant fighting off Cape Trafalgar fill us with exultant +pride. But the intellectual duel which preceded the shock of actual +battle, and which lasted for nearly three years, is, in a sense, a yet +more splendid story. Great Britain may well honour her naval leaders +of that day for their cool and profound strategy, as much as for the +unyielding courage with which such a blockade as, say, that of Brest by +Cornwallis was maintained for years, or such splendid daring as that +which Collingwood showed when, in the _Royal Sovereign_, he broke +Villeneuve's line at Trafalgar. + +When in 1803 the war which brought to an end the brief peace of Amiens +broke out, Napoleon framed a great and daring plan for the invasion of +England. French plans for the invasion of England were somewhat +numerous a century or so ago. The Committee of Public Safety in 1794, +while keeping the guillotine busy in the Place de la Revolution, had +its own little plan for extending the Reign of Terror, by means of an +invasion, to England; and on May 27 of that year solemnly appointed one +of their number to represent the Committee in England "when it was +conquered." The member chosen was citizen Bon Saint Andre, the same +hero who, in the battle of the 1st of June, fled in terror to the +refuge of the French flagship's cock-pit when the _Queen Charlotte_, +with her triple lines of guns, came too alarmingly near. But +Napoleon's plans for the same object in 1803 were definite, formidable, +profound. Great Britain was the one barrier in the path of his +ambition. "Buonaparte," says Green, in his "Short History of the +English People," "was resolute to be master of the western world, and +no notions of popular freedom or sense of popular right ever interfered +with his resolve. . . . England was now the one country where freedom +in any sense remained alive. . . . With the fall of England, despotism +would have been universal throughout Europe; and it was at England that +Buonaparte resolved to strike the first blow in his career of conquest. +Fifteen millions of people, he argued, must give way to forty millions." + +So he formed the vast camp at Boulogne, in which were gathered 130,000 +veterans. A great flotilla of boats was built, each boat being armed +with one or two guns, and capable of carrying 100 soldiers. More than +1000 of such boats were built, and concentrated along twenty miles of +the Channel coast, and at four different ports. A new port was dug at +Boulogne, to give shelter to the main division of this flotilla, and +great and powerful batteries erected for its protection. The French +soldiers were exercised in embarking and disembarking till the whole +process could be counted by minutes. "Let us," said Napoleon, "be +masters of the Straits for six hours, and we shall be masters of the +world." + +When since the days of William the Conqueror were the shores of Great +Britain menaced by such a peril? "There is no difficulty," said +Moltke, "in getting an army into England; the trouble would be to get +it out again." And, no doubt, Englishmen, fighting on their own soil +and for their own hearths, would have given an invader a very rough +time of it. But let it be remembered that Napoleon was a military +genius of the first order, and that the 130,000 soldiers waiting on the +heights above Boulogne to leap on British soil were, to quote Mahan, +"the most brilliant soldiery of all time." They were the men who +afterwards won Austerlitz, who struck down Prussia with a single blow +at Jena, who marched as victors through the streets of Vienna and of +Berlin, and fought their way to Moscow. Imagine such an army, with +such a leader, landed on the green fields of Kent! In that case there +might have been an English Austerlitz or Friedland. London might have +shared the fate of Moscow. If Napoleon had succeeded, the fate of the +world would have been changed, and Toronto and Cape Town, Melbourne and +Sydney and Auckland might have been ruled by French prefects. + +Napoleon himself was confident of success. He would reach London, he +calculated, within four days of landing, and then he would have issued +decrees abolishing the House of Lords, proclaiming a redistribution of +property, and declaring England a republic. "You would never have +burned your capital," he said to O'Meara at St. Helena; "you are too +rich and fond of money." The London mob, he believed, would have +joined him, for, as he cynically argued, "the _canaille_ of all nations +are nearly alike." + +Even Napoleon would probably have failed, however, in subduing Great +Britain, and would have remained a prisoner where he came intending to +be a conqueror. As he himself said when a prisoner on his way to St. +Helena, "I entered into no calculation as to the manner in which I was +to return"! But in the battles which must have been fought, how many +English cities would have perished in flames, how many English rivers +would have run red with the blood of slain men! "At Waterloo," says +Alison, "England fought for victory; at Trafalgar for existence." + +But "the streak of silver sea" guarded England, and for more than two +years Napoleon framed subtle plans and organised vast combinations +which might give him that brief six hours' command of the Strait which +was all he needed, as he thought, to make himself the master of the +world. The flotilla could not so much as get out of the ports, in +which the acres of boats lay, in a single tide, and one half of the +army of invasion must lie tossing--and, it may be suspected, dreadfully +sea-sick--for hours outside these ports, waiting for the other half to +get afloat. Then there remained forty miles of sea to cross. And what +would happen if, say, Nelson and Collingwood, with a dozen 74-gun +ships, got at work amongst the flotilla? It would be a combat between +wolves and sheep. It was Nelson's chief aspiration to have the +opportunity of "trying Napoleon on a wind," and the attempt to cross +the Straits might have given him that chance. All Napoleon's resources +and genius were therefore strained to give him for the briefest +possible time the command of the Channel; and the skill and energy of +the British navy were taxed to the utmost to prevent that consummation. + +Now, France, as a matter of fact, had a great fleet, but it was +scattered, and lying imprisoned, in fragments, in widely separated +ports. There were twelve ships of the line in Toulon, twenty in Brest, +five in Rochefort, yet other five in Ferrol; and the problem for +Napoleon was, somehow, to set these imprisoned squadrons free, and +assemble them for twenty-four hours off Boulogne. The British policy, +on the other hand, was to maintain a sleepless blockade of these ports, +and keep the French fleet sealed up in scattered and helpless +fragments. The battle for the Straits of Dover, the British naval +chiefs held, must be fought off Brest and Ferrol and Toulon; and never +in the history of the world were blockades so vigilant, and stern, and +sleepless maintained. + +Nelson spent two years battling with the fierce north-westers of the +Gulf of Lyons, keeping watch over a great French squadron in Toulon, +and from May 1803 to August 1805 left his ship only three times, and +for less than an hour on each occasion. The watch kept by Cornwallis +off Brest, through summer and winter, for nearly three years, Mahan +declares, has never, for constancy and vigilance, been excelled, +perhaps never equalled, in the history of blockades. The hardship of +these long sea-watches was terrible. It was waging an fight with +weariness and brain-paralysing monotony, with cold and scurvy and +tempest, as well as with human foes. Collingwood was once twenty-two +months at sea without dropping anchor. In seventeen years of sea +service--between 1793 and 1810--he was only twelve months in England. + +The wonder is that the seamen of that day did not grow web-footed, or +forget what solid ground felt like! Collingwood tells his wife in one +letter that he had "not seen a green leaf on a tree" for fourteen +months! By way of compensation, these long and stern blockades +developed such a race of seamen as perhaps the world has never seen +before or since; exhaustless of resource, hardy, tireless, familiar +with every turn of sea life, of iron frame and an iron courage which +neither tempest nor battle could shake. Great Britain, as a matter of +fact, won her naval battles, not because she had better ships or +heavier guns than her enemies, but only because she trained a finer +race of seamen. Says Brenton, himself a gallant sailor of the period, +"I have seen Spanish line-of-battle ships twenty-four hours unmooring; +as many minutes are sufficient for a well-manned British ship to +perform the same operation. When, on any grand ceremony, they found it +necessary to cross their top-gallant yards in harbour, they began the +day before; we cross ours in one minute from the deck." + +But it was these iron blockades that in the long-run thwarted the plans +of Napoleon and changed the fate of the world. Cornwallis off Brest, +Collingwood off Rochefort, Pellew off Ferrol, Nelson before Toulon, +fighting the wild gales of the Bay of Biscay and the fierce +north-westers of the Gulf of Lyons, in what Mahan calls "that +tremendous and sustained vigilance which reached its utmost tension in +the years preceding Trafalgar," really saved England. "Those +far-distant, storm-beaten ships, upon which the Grand Army never +looked," says Mahan, "stood between it and the dominion of the world." + +An intellect so subtle and combative as Napoleon's was, of course, +strained to the utmost to break or cheat the British blockades, and the +story of the one crafty ruse after another which he employed to beguile +the British leaders is very remarkable. Even more remarkable, perhaps, +is the manner in which these plain-minded, business-like British +seamen, for whose mental powers Napoleon cherished the deepest +contempt, fathomed his plans and shattered his combinations. + +Napoleon's first plot was decidedly clever. He gathered in Brest +20,000 troops, ostensibly for a descent upon Ireland. This, he +calculated, would preoccupy Cornwallis, and prevent him moving. The +Toulon fleet was to run out with the first north-west wind, and, as +long as a British look-out ship was in sight, would steer east, as +though making for Egypt; but when beyond sight of British eyes the +fleet was to swing round, run through the Straits, be joined off Cadiz +by the Rochefort squadron, and sweep, a great fleet of at least sixteen +sail of the line, past the Scilly Islands to Boulogne. Napoleon +calculated that Nelson would be racing in the direction of Egypt, +Cornwallis would be redoubling his vigilance before Brest, at the exact +moment the great Boulogne flotilla was carrying its 130,000 invading +Frenchmen to Dover! Napoleon put the one French admiral as to whose +resolve and daring he was sure--Latouche Treville--in command of the +Toulon fleet; but before the moment for action came Treville died, and +Napoleon had to fall back upon a weaker man, Villeneuve. + +He changed his plans to suit the qualities of his new admiral--the +Toulon and Rochefort squadrons were to break out, sail separately to a +rendezvous in the West Indies, and, once joined, spread havoc through +the British possessions there. "I think," wrote Napoleon, "that the +sailing of these twenty ships of the line will oblige the English to +despatch over thirty in pursuit." So the blockades everywhere would be +weakened, and the Toulon and Rochefort squadrons, doubling back to +Europe, were to raise the blockade off Ferrol and Brest, and the Brest +squadron was to land 18,000 troops, under Augereau, in Ireland, while +the Grand Army of Boulogne was to cross the Straits, with Napoleon at +its head. Thus Great Britain and Ireland would be invaded +simultaneously. + +The trouble was to set the scheme going by the release of the Toulon +and Rochefort squadrons. Nelson's correspondence shows that he guessed +Napoleon's strategy. If the Toulon fleet broke loose, he wrote, he was +sure its course would be held for the Atlantic, and thither he would +follow it. In the meanwhile he kept guard so steadfastly that the +great French strategy could not get itself started. In December 1804 +war broke out betwixt Britain and Spain, and this gave Napoleon a new +ally and a new fleet. Napoleon found he had nearly sixty +line-of-battle ships, French or Spanish, to weave into his +combinations, and he framed--to use Mahan's words--"upon lines equal, +both in boldness and scope, to those of the Marengo and Austerlitz +campaigns, the immense strategy which resulted in Trafalgar." The +Toulon and Rochefort squadrons, as before, were to break out +separately, rendezvous in the West Indies, return by a different route +to European waters, pick up the French and Spanish ships in Ferrol, and +then sweep through the narrow seas. + +The Rochefort squadron duly escaped; Villeneuve, too, in command of the +Toulon squadron, aided by the weather, evaded Nelson's watchfulness and +disappeared towards the east. Nelson, however, suspected the real +plan, and with fine insight took up a position which must have +intercepted Villeneuve; but that admiral found the weather too rough +for his ships, and ran back into Toulon. "These gentlemen," said +Nelson, "are not accustomed to a Gulf of Lyons gale. We have faced +them for twenty-one months, and not lost a spar!" The Rochefort +squadron was, of course, left by its own success wandering in space, a +mere cluster of sea-vagrants. + +By March 1805, Napoleon had a new combination prepared. In the ports +between Brest and Toulon were scattered no less than sixty-seven French +or Spanish ships of the line. Ganteaume, with his squadron, was to +break out from Brest; Villeneuve, with his, from Toulon; both fleets +were to rendezvous at Martinique, return by an unusual route, and +appear off Boulogne, a great fleet of thirty-five French ships of the +line. + +About the end of June the Toulon fleet got safely out--Nelson being, +for once, badly served by his frigates--picked up additional ships off +Cadiz, and disappeared on its route to the West Indies. Nelson, misled +by false intelligence, first went eastward, then had to claw back +through the Straits of Gibraltar in the teeth of strong westerly gales, +and plunged over the horizon in fierce pursuit of Villeneuve. But the +watch kept by Cornwallis over Ganteaume in Brest was so close and stern +that escape was impossible, and one-half of Napoleon's combination +broke down. Napoleon despatched swift ships on Villeneuve's track, +summoning him back to Ferrol, where he would find a squadron of fifteen +French and Spanish ships ready to join him. Villeneuve, Napoleon +believed, had thoroughly deceived Nelson. "Those boasted English," he +wrote, "who claim to know of everything, know nothing of it," _i.e._ of +Villeneuve's escape and course. But the "boasted English," as a matter +of fact, did know all about it, and in place of weakening their forces +in the Bay of Biscay, strengthened them. Meanwhile Nelson, with ten +ships of the line, was hard on the track of Villeneuve with eighteen. +At Barbadoes, Nelson was sent a hundred miles out of his course by +false intelligence, and that hundred miles just enabled Villeneuve to +double back towards Europe. + +Nelson divined this plan, and followed him with the fiercest energy, +sending off, meanwhile, his fastest brig to warn the Admiralty. +Villeneuve, if he picked up the Ferrol and Rochefort squadrons, would +arrive off Brest with forty line-of-battle ships; if he raised the +blockade, and added Ganteaume's squadron to his own, he might appear +off Boulogne with sixty great ships! Napoleon calculated on British +blunders to aid him. "We have not to do with a far-sighted, but with a +very proud Government," he wrote. The blunder Napoleon hoped the +British Admiralty would make was that of weakening the blockading +squadrons in order to pursue Villeneuve's fleet, and thus release the +imprisoned French squadrons, making a great concentration possible. + +But this was exactly the blunder into which the Admiralty refused to be +tempted. When the news that Villeneuve was on his way back to Europe +reached the Admiralty, the First Lord, Barham, an old sailor, eighty +years of age, without waiting to dress himself, dictated orders which, +without weakening the blockades at any vital point, planted a fleet, +under Sir Robert Calder, west of Finisterre, and right in Villeneuve's +track; and if Calder had been Nelson, Trafalgar might have been fought +on July 22, instead of October 21. Calder fought, and captured two of +Villeneuve's ships, but failed to prevent the junction of Villeneuve's +fleet with the squadron in Ferrol, and was court-martialled for his +failure--victory though he called it. But this partial failure does +not make less splendid the promptitude shown by the British Admiralty. +"The English Admiralty," Napoleon reasoned, "could not decide the +movements of its squadron in twenty-four hours." As a matter of fact, +Barham decided the British strategy in almost as many minutes! + +Meanwhile Nelson had reached the scene; and, like his ship, worn out +with labours, sailed for Portsmouth, for what proved his last visit to +England. On August 13, Villeneuve sailed from Ferrol with twenty-nine +ships. He had his choice between Brest, where Cornwallis was keeping +guard, with Boulogne beyond, and where Napoleon was watching eagerly +for the white topsails of his fleet; or Cadiz, where Collingwood with a +tiny squadron held the Spanish fleet strictly bottled up. + +Villeneuve's true course was Boulogne, but Cornwallis lay in his path +with over thirty sail of the line, and Villeneuve's nerve failed him. +On August 21 he swung round and bore up for Cadiz; and with the turn of +the helm which swung Villeneuve's ship away from Boulogne, Napoleon's +last chance of invading England vanished. Villeneuve pushed +Collingwood's tiny squadron aside and entered Cadiz, where the combined +fleet now numbered nearly forty ships of the line, and Collingwood, +with delightful coolness, solemnly resumed his blockade--four ships, +that is, blockading forty! Napoleon gave way to a tempest of rage when +his fleet failed to appear off Boulogne, and he realised that the +British sailors he despised had finally thwarted his strategy. A +French writer has told how Daru, his secretary, found him walking up +and down his cabinet with agitated steps. With a voice that shook, and +in half-strangled exclamations, he cried, "What a navy! What +sacrifices for nothing! What an admiral! All hope is gone! That +Villeneuve, instead of entering the Channel, has taken refuge in +Ferrol. It is all over. He will be blockaded there." Then with that +swift and terrible power of decision in which he has never been +surpassed, he flung the long-cherished plan of invading England out of +his brain, and dictated the orders which launched his troops on the +road which led to Austerlitz and Jena, and, beyond, to the flames of +Moscow and the snows of the great retreat, and which finally led +Napoleon himself to St. Helena. Villeneuve's great fleet meanwhile lay +idle in Cadiz, till, on October 20, the ill-fated French admiral led +his ships out to meet Nelson in his last great sea-fight. + + +II. HOW THE FLEETS MET + + + "Wherever the gleams of an English fire + On an English roof-tree shine, + Wherever the fire of a youth's desire + Is laid upon Honour's shrine, + Wherever brave deeds are treasured and told, + In the tale of the deeds of yore, + Like jewels of price in a chain of gold + Are the name and the fame he bore. + + Wherever the track of our English ships + Lies white on the ocean foam, + His name is sweet to our English lips + As the names of the flowers at home; + Wherever the heart of an English boy + Grows big with a deed of worth, + Such names as his name have begot the same, + Such hearts will bring it to birth." + --E. NESBIT. + + +It was the night of October 20, 1805, a night moonless and black. In the +narrow waters at the western throat of the Straits of Gibraltar, at +regular intervals of three minutes through the whole night, the deep +voice of a gun broke out and swept, a pulse of dying sound, almost to +either coast, while at every half-hour a rocket soared aloft and broke in +a curve of stars in the black sky. It was one of Nelson's repeating +frigates signalling to the British fleet, far off to the south-west, +Villeneuve's movements. Nelson for more than a week had been trying to +daintily coax Villeneuve out of Cadiz, as an angler might try to coax a +much-experienced trout from the cool depths of some deep pool. He kept +the main body of his fleet sixty leagues distant--west of Cape St. +Mary--but kept a chain of frigates within signalling distance of each +other betwixt Cadiz and himself. He allowed the news that he had +detached five of his line-of-battle ships on convoy duty to the eastward +to leak through to the French admiral, but succeeded in keeping him in +ignorance of the fact that he had called in under his flag five ships of +equal force from the westward. + +On October 19, Villeneuve, partly driven by hunger, and by the news that +a successor was on the road from Paris to displace him, and partly +tempted by the belief that he had before him a British fleet of only +twenty-one ships of the line, crept out of Cadiz with thirty-three ships +of the line--of which three were three-deckers--and seven frigates. +Nelson had twenty-seven sail of the line with four frigates. The wind +was light, and all through the 20th, Villeneuve's fleet, formed in seven +columns--the _Santissima Trinidad_ towering like a giant amongst +them--moved slowly eastward. Nelson would not alarm his foe by making +too early an appearance over the sky-line. His frigates signalled to him +every few minutes, through sixty miles of sea-air, the enemy's movements; +but Nelson himself held aloof till Villeneuve was too far from Cadiz to +make a dash back to it and safety. All through the night of the 20th, +Villeneuve's great fleet--a procession of mighty phantoms--was dimly +visible against the Spanish coast, and the British frigates sent the news +in alternate pulses of sound and flame to Nelson, by this time eagerly +bearing up from Cape St. Mary. + +The morning of the 21st broke misty, yet bright. The sea was almost like +a floor of glass. The faintest of sea-airs blew. A lazy Atlantic swell +rolled at long intervals towards the Straits, and the two fleets at last +were visible to each other. Villeneuve's ships stretched a waving and +slightly curved line, running north and south, with no regularity of +order. The British fleet, in two compact and parallel columns, half a +mile apart, came majestically on from the west. The ships in each column +followed each other so closely that sometimes the bow of one was thrust +past the quarter of the ship in advance of it. Nelson, in the _Victory_, +headed one column, Collingwood, in the _Royal Sovereign_, led the other, +and each flagship, it was to be noted, led with a clear interval between +itself and its supports. + +Villeneuve had a tactician's brain, and his battle-plan was admirable. +In a general order, issued just before leading out his fleet, he told his +captains, "There is nothing to alarm us in the sight of an English fleet. +Their 64-gun ships have not 500 men on board; they are not more brave +than we are; they are harassed by a two-years' cruise; they have fewer +motives to fight well!" Villeneuve explained that the enemy would attack +in column, the French would meet the attack in close line of battle; and, +with a touch of Nelson's spirit, he urged his captains to take every +opportunity of boarding, and warned them that every ship not under fire +would be counted a defaulter. + +Nelson's plan was simple and daring. The order of sailing was to be the +order of battle. Collingwood leading one column, and he the other, would +pierce the enemy's lines at points which would leave some twelve of the +enemy's ships to be crushed betwixt the two British lines. Nelson, whose +brooding genius forecast every changing eddy of battle, gave minute +instructions on a score of details. To prevent mistakes amid the smoke +and the fight, for example, he had the hoops on the masts of every +British ship painted yellow; every ship was directed to fly a St. +George's ensign, with the Union Jack at the fore-topmast, and another +flying from the top-gallant stays. That he would beat the enemy's fleet +he calmly took for granted, but he directed that every effort should be +made to capture its commander-in-chief. Nelson crowned his instructions +with the characteristic remark, that "in case signals were obscure, no +captain can do wrong if he places his ship alongside of an enemy." + +[Illustration: The Attack at Trafalgar, October 21st, 1805. Five minutes +past noon. From Mahan's "Life of Nelson."] + +By twelve o'clock the two huge fleets were slowly approaching each other: +the British columns compact, grim, orderly; the Franco-Spanish line +loose, but magnificently picturesque, a far-stretching line of lofty +hulls, a swaying forest of sky-piercing masts. They still preserve the +remark of one prosaic British sailor, who, surveying the enemy through an +open port, offered the comment, "What a fine sight, Bill, yon ships would +make at Spithead!" + +It is curious to reflect how exactly both British and French invert on +sea their land tactics. French infantry attack in column, and are met by +British infantry in line; and the line, with its steadfast courage and +wide front of fire, crushes the column. On sea, on the other hand, the +British attack in column, and the French meet the attack in line; but the +column wins. But it must be admitted that the peril of this method of +attack is enormous. The leading ship approaches, stern on, to a line of +fire which, if steady enough, may well crush her by its concentration of +flame. Attack in column, in fact, means that the leading ships are +sacrificed to secure victory for the ships in the rear. The risks of +this method of attack at Trafalgar were enormously increased by the light +and uncertain quality of the wind. Collingwood, in the _Royal +Sovereign_, and Nelson, in the _Victory_, as a matter of fact, drifted +slowly rather than sailed, stern on to the broadsides of their enemy. +The leading British ships, with their stately heights of swelling canvas, +moved into the raking fire of the far-stretching Franco-Spanish line at a +speed of about two knots an hour. His officers knew that Nelson's ship, +carrying the flag of the commander-in-chief, as it came slowly on, would +be the mark for every French gunner, and must pass through a tempest of +flame before it could fire a shot in reply; and Blackwood begged Nelson +to let the _Temeraire_--"the fighting _Temeraire_"--take the _Victory's_ +place at the head of the column. "Oh yes, let her go ahead," answered +Nelson, with a queer smile; and the _Temeraire_ was hailed, and ordered +to take the lead. But Nelson meant that the _Temeraire_ should take the +_Victory's_ place only if she could, and he watched grimly to see that +not a sheet was let fly or a sail shortened to give the _Temeraire_ a +chance of passing; and so the _Victory_ kept its proud and perilous lead. + +Collingwood led the lee division, and had the honour of beginning the +mighty drama of Trafalgar. The _Royal Sovereign_ was newly coppered, +and, with every inch of canvas outspread, got so far ahead of her +followers, that after Collingwood had broken into the French line, he +sustained its fire, unhelped, for nearly twenty minutes before the +_Belleisle_, the ship next following, could fire a gun for his help. + +Of Collingwood, Thackeray says, "I think, since Heaven made gentlemen, it +never made a better one than Cuthbert Collingwood," and there was, no +doubt, a knightly and chivalrous side to Collingwood worthy of King +Arthur's round table. But there was also a side of heavy-footed +common-sense, of Dutch-like frugality, in Collingwood, a sort of +wooden-headed unimaginativeness which looks humorous when set against the +background of such a planet-shaking fight as Trafalgar. Thus on the +morning of the fight he advised one of his lieutenants, who wore a pair +of boots, to follow his example and put on stockings and shoes, as, in +the event of being shot in the leg, it would, he explained, "be so much +more manageable for the surgeon." And as he walked the break of his poop +in tights, silk stockings, and buckled shoes, leading, in his single +ship, an attack on a fleet, he calmly munched an apple. To be able to +munch an apple when beginning Trafalgar is an illustration of what may be +called the quality of wooden-headed unimaginativeness in Collingwood. +And yet Collingwood had a sense of the scale of the drama in which he was +taking part. "Now, gentlemen," he said to his officers, "let us do +something to-day which the world may talk of hereafter." Collingwood, in +reality, was a great man and a great seaman, and in the battle which +followed he "fought like an angel," to quote the amusingly inappropriate +metaphor of Blackwood. + +The two majestic British columns moved slowly on, the great ships, with +ports hauled up and guns run out, following each other like a procession +of giants. "I suppose," says Codrington, who commanded the _Orion_, "no +man ever before saw such a sight." And the element of humour was added +to the scene by the spectacle of the tiny _Pickle_, a duodecimo schooner, +gravely hanging on to the quarter of an 80-gun ship--as an actor in the +fight describes it--"with the boarding-nettings up, and her tompions out +of her four guns--about as large and as formidable as two pairs of +Wellington boots." + +Collingwood bore down to the fight a clear quarter of a mile ahead of the +next ship. The fire of the enemy, like so many spokes of flame +converging to a centre, broke upon him. But in silence the great ship +moved ahead to a gap in the line between the _Santa Anna_, a huge black +hulk of 112 guns, and the _Neptune_, of 74. As the bowsprit of the +_Royal Sovereign_ slowly glided past the stern of the _Santa Anna_, +Collingwood, as Nelson had ordered all his captains, cut his +studding-sails loose, and they fell, a cloud of white canvas, into the +water. Then as the broadside of the _Royal Sovereign_ fairly covered the +stern of the _Santa Anna_, Collingwood spoke. He poured with deadly aim +and suddenness, and at pistol-shot distance, his whole broadside into the +Spaniard's stern. The tempest of shot swept the unhappy _Santa Anna_ +from end to end, and practically destroyed that vessel. Some 400 of its +crew are said to have been killed or wounded by that single discharge! +At the same moment Collingwood discharged his other broadside at the +_Neptune_, though with less effect; then swinging round broadside to +broadside on the Spanish ship, he swept its decks again and again with +his guns. The first broadside had practically done the Spaniard's +business; but its captain, a gallant man, still returned what fire he +could. All the enemy's ships within reach of Collingwood had meanwhile +opened on him a dreadful fire; no fewer than five line-of-battle ships +were emptying their guns upon the _Royal Sovereign_ at one time, and it +seemed marvellous that the British ship was not shattered to mere +splinters by the fire poured from so many quarters upon her. It was like +being in the heart of a volcano. Frequently, it is said, the British saw +the flying cannon-balls meet in mid-air. The seamen fell fast, the sails +were torn, the bulwarks shattered, the decks ran red with blood. It was +at that precise moment, however, that Collingwood said to his captain, +"What would not Nelson give to be here!" While at the same instant +Nelson was saying to Hardy, "See how that noble fellow Collingwood takes +his ship into action!" + +The other ships of Collingwood's column were by this time slowly drifting +into the fight. At a quarter past twelve the _Belleisle_, the next ship, +ranged under the stern of the unfortunate _Santa Anna_, and fired her +larboard guns, double shotted, into that ship, with the result that her +three masts fell over the side. She then steered for the _Indomptable_, +an 80-gun ship, and sustained at the same moment the fire of two Spanish +seventy-fours. Ship after ship of Collingwood's column came steadily up, +and the roar of the battle deepened as in quick-following crashes each +new line-of-battle ship broke into the thunder of broadsides. + +Nelson, leading the weather column, steered a trifle to the northward, as +the slowly moving line of the enemy pointed towards Cadiz. Nelson had +given his last orders. At his mainmast head was flying, fast belayed, +the signal, "Engage the enemy more closely." Nelson himself walked +quietly to and fro on the little patch of clear plank, scarcely seven +yards long, on the quarter-deck of the _Victory_, whence he could command +the whole ship, and he wore the familiar threadbare frock uniform coat, +bearing on the left breast four tarnished and lack-lustre stars. Then +came the incident of the immortal signal. "We must give the fleet," said +Nelson to Blackwood, "something by way of a fillip." After musing a +while, he said, "Suppose we signal, 'Nelson confides that every man will +do his duty'?" Some one suggested "England" instead of "Nelson," and +Nelson at once caught at the improvement. The signal-officer explained +that the word "confide" would have to be spelt, and suggested instead the +word "expects," as that was in the vocabulary. So the flags on the +masthead of the _Victory_ spelt out the historic sentence to the slowly +moving fleet. That the signal was "received with cheers" is scarcely +accurate. The message was duly acknowledged, and recorded in the log of +every ship, but perhaps not one man in every hundred of the actors at +Trafalgar knew at the moment that it had been sent. But the message +rings in British ears yet, across ninety years, and will ring in the ears +of generations yet unborn. + +Nelson led his column on a somewhat slanting course into the fight. He +was bent on laying himself alongside the flagship of the enemy, and he +knew that this must be one of the three great line-of-battle ships near +the huge _Santissima Trinidad_. But there was no sign to show which of +the three carried Villeneuve. At half-past twelve the ships upon which +the _Victory_ was moving began to fire single shots at her slowly +drifting hulk to discover whether she was within range. The seventh of +these shots, fired at intervals of a minute or so, tore a rent through +the upper canvas of the _Victory_--a rent still to be seen in the +carefully preserved sail. A couple of minutes of awful silence followed. +Slowly the _Victory_ drifted on its path, and then no fewer than eight of +the great ships upon which the _Victory_ was moving broke into such a +tempest of shot as perhaps never before was poured on a single ship. One +of the first shots killed Scott, Nelson's secretary; another cut down +eight marines standing in line on the _Victory's_ quarter-deck; a third +passed between Nelson and Hardy as they stood side by side. "Too warm +work to last long, Hardy," said Nelson, with a smile. Still the +_Victory_ drifted majestically on its fiery path without an answering gun. + +The French line was irregular at this point, the ships lying, in some +instances, two or three deep, and this made the business of "cutting" the +line difficult. As Nelson could not pick out the French flagship, he +said to Hardy, "Take your choice, go on board which you please;" and +Hardy pointed the stern of the Victory towards a gap between the +_Redoutable_, a 74-gun ship, and the _Bucentaure_. But the ship moved +slowly. The fire upon it was tremendous. One shot drove a shower of +splinters upon both Nelson and Hardy; nearly fifty men and officers had +been killed or wounded; the Victory's sails were riddled, her +studding-sail booms shot off close to the yard-arm, her mizzen-topmast, +shot away. At one o'clock, however, the _Victory_ slowly moved past the +stern of the _Bucentaure_, and a 68-pounder carronade on its forecastle, +charged with a round shot and a keg of 500 musket balls, was fired into +the cabin windows of the French ship. Then, as the great ship moved on, +every gun of the remaining fifty that formed its broadside--some of them +double and treble loaded--was fired through the Frenchman's cabin windows. + +The dust from the crumpled woodwork of the _Bucentaure's_ stern covered +the persons of Nelson and the group of officers standing on the +_Victory's_ quarter-deck, while the British sailors welcomed with a +fierce shout the crash their flying shot made within the Frenchman's +hull. The _Bucentaure_, as it happened--though Nelson was ignorant of +the fact--was the French flagship; and after the battle its officers +declared that by this single broadside, out of its crew of nearly 1000 +men, nearly 400 were struck down, and no less than twenty guns dismounted! + +But the _Neptune_, a fine French 80-gun ship, lay right across the +water-lane up which the _Victory_ was moving, and it poured upon the +British ship two raking broadsides of the most deadly quality. The +_Victory_, however, moved on unflinchingly, and the _Neptune_, fearing to +be run aboard by the British ship, set her jib and moved ahead; then the +_Victory_ swung to starboard on to the _Redoutable_. The French ship +fired one hurried broadside, and promptly shut her lower-deck ports, +fearing the British sailors would board through them. No fewer, indeed, +than five French line-of-battle ships during the fight, finding +themselves grinding sides with British ships, adopted the same course--an +expressive testimony to the enterprising quality of British sailors. The +_Victory_, however, with her lower-deck guns actually touching the side +of the _Redoutable_, still kept them in full and quick action; but at +each of the lower-deck ports stood a sailor with a bucket of water, and +when the gun was fired--its muzzle touching the wooden sides of the +_Redoutable_--the water was dashed upon the ragged hole made by the shot, +to prevent the Frenchman taking fire and both ships being consumed. + +The guns on the upper deck of the _Victory_ speedily swept and silenced +the upper deck of the _Redoutable_, and as far as its broadsides were +concerned, that ship was helpless. Its tops, however, were crowded with +marksmen, and armed with brass coehorns, firing langrage shot, and these +scourged with a pitiless and most deadly fire the decks of the _Victory_, +while the _Bucentaure_ and the gigantic _Santissima Trinidad_ also +thundered on the British flagship. + + +III. HOW THE VICTORY WAS WON + + + "All is over and done. + Render thanks to the Giver; + England, for thy son + Let the bell be toll'd. + Render thanks to the Giver, + And render him to the mould. + Under the cross of gold + That shines over city and river, + There he shall rest for ever + Among the wise and the bold." + --TENNYSON. + + +Nelson's strategy at Trafalgar is described quaintly, but with real +insight, in a sentence which a Spanish novelist, Don Perez Galdos, puts +into the mouth of one of his characters: "Nelson, who, as everybody +knows, was no fool, saw our long line and said, 'Ah, if I break through +that in two places, and put the part of it between the two places +between two fires, I shall grab every stick of it.' That was exactly +what the confounded fellow did. And as our line was so long that the +head couldn't help the tail, he worried us from end to end, while he +drove his two wedges into our body." It followed that the flaming +vortex of the fight was in that brief mile of sea-space, between the +two points where the parallel British lines broke through Villeneuve's +swaying forest of masts. And the tempest of sound and flame was +fiercest, of course, round the two ships that carried the flags of +Nelson and Collingwood. As each stately British liner, however, +drifted--rather than sailed--into the black pall of smoke, the roar of +the fight deepened and widened until the whole space between the _Royal +Sovereign_ and the _Victory_ was shaken with mighty pulse-beats of +sound that marked the furious and quick-following broadsides. + +The scene immediately about the _Victory_ was very remarkable. The +_Victory_ had run foul of the _Redoutable_, the anchors of the two +ships hooking into each other. The concussion of the broadsides would, +no doubt, have driven the two hulls apart, but that the _Victory's_ +studding-sail boom iron had fastened, like a claw, into the leech of +the Frenchman's fore-topsail. The _Temeraire_, coming majestically up +through the smoke, raked the _Bucentaure_, and closed with a crash on +the starboard side of the _Redoutable_, and the four great ships lay in +a solid tier, while between their huge grinding sides came, with a +sound and a glare almost resembling the blast of an exploding mine, the +flash, the smoke, the roar of broadside after broadside. + +In the whole heroic fight there is no finer bit of heroism than that +shown by the _Redoutable_. She was only a 74-gun ship, and she had the +_Victory_, of 100 guns, and the _Temeraire_, of 98, on either side. It +is true these ships had to fight at the same time with a whole ring of +antagonists; nevertheless, the fire poured on the _Redoutable_ was so +fierce that only courage of a steel-like edge and temper could have +sustained it. The gallant French ship was semi-dismasted, her hull +shot through in every direction, one-fourth of her guns were +dismounted. Out of a crew of 643, no fewer than 523 were killed or +wounded. Only 35, indeed, lived to reach England as prisoners. And +yet she fought on. The fire from her great guns, indeed, soon ceased, +but the deadly splutter of musketry from such of her tops as were yet +standing was maintained; and, as Brenton put it, "there was witnessed +for nearly an hour and a half the singular spectacle of a French 74-gun +ship engaging a British first and second rate, with small-arms only." + +As a matter of fact, the _Victory_ repeatedly ceased firing, believing +that the _Redoutable_ had struck, but still the venomous and deadly +fire from the tops of that vessel continued; and it was to this +circumstance, indeed, that Nelson owed his death. He would never put +small-arms men in his own tops, as he believed their fire interfered +with the working of the sails, and, indeed, ran the risk of igniting +them. Thus the French marksmen that crowded the tops of the +_Redoutable_ had it all their own way; and as the distance was short, +and their aim deadly, nearly every man on the poop, quarter-deck, and +forecastle of the _Victory_ was shot down. + +Nelson, with Hardy by his side, was walking backwards and forwards on a +little clear space of the _Victory's_ quarter-deck, when he suddenly +swung round and fell face downwards on the deck. Hardy picked him up. +"They have done for me at last, Hardy," said Nelson; "my backbone is +shot through." A musket bullet from the _Redoutable's_ +mizzen-top--only fifteen yards distant--had passed through the forepart +of the epaulette, smashed a path through the left shoulder, and lodged +in the spine. The evidence seems to make it clear that it was a chance +shot that wrought the fatal mischief. Hardy had twice the bulk of +Nelson's insignificant figure, and wore a more striking uniform, and +would certainly have attracted the aim of a marksman in preference to +Nelson. + +Few stories are more pathetic or more familiar than that of Nelson's +last moments. As they carried the dying hero across the blood-splashed +decks, and down the ladders into the cock-pit, he drew a handkerchief +over his own face and over the stars on his breast, lest the knowledge +that he was struck down should discourage his crew. He was stripped, +his wound probed, and it was at once known to be mortal. Nelson +suffered greatly; he was consumed with thirst, had to be fanned with +sheets of paper; and he kept constantly pushing away the sheet, the +sole covering over him, saying, "Fan, fan," or "Drink, drink," and one +attendant was constantly employed in drawing the sheet over his thin +limbs and emaciated body. Presently Hardy, snatching a moment from the +fight raging on the deck, came to his side, and the two comrades +clasped hands. "Well, Hardy, how goes the battle?" Nelson asked. He +was told that twelve or fourteen of the enemy's ships had struck. +"That is well," said Nelson, "but I had bargained for twenty." Then +his seaman's brain forecasting the change of weather, and picturing the +battered ships with their prizes on a lee shore, he exclaimed +emphatically, "Anchor! Hardy, anchor!" Hardy hinted that Collingwood +would take charge of affairs. "Not while I live, I hope, Hardy," said +the dying chief, trying to raise himself on his bed. "No! do you +anchor, Hardy." + +Many of Nelson's expressions, recorded by his doctor, Beatty, are +strangely touching. "I am a dead man, Hardy," he said, "I am going +fast. It will all be over with me soon." "O _Victory_, _Victory_," he +said, as the great ship shook to the roar of her own guns, "how you +distract my poor brain!" "How dear is life to all men!" he said, after +a pause. He begged that "his carcass might be sent to England, and not +thrown overboard." So in the dim cock-pit, with the roar of the great +battle--bellow of gun, and shout of cheering crews--filling all the +space about him, and his last thoughts yet busy for his country, the +soul of the greatest British seaman passed away. "Kiss me, Hardy," was +one of his last sentences. His last intelligible sentence was, "I have +done my duty; I praise God for it." + +It may interest many to read the prayer which Nelson wrote--the last +record, but one, he made in his diary--and written as the final act of +preparation for Trafalgar: "May the great God, whom I worship, grant to +my country, and for the benefit of Europe in general, a great and +glorious victory; and may no misconduct in any one tarnish it; and may +humanity after victory be the predominant feature in the British fleet. +For myself individually, I commit my life to Him that made me, and may +His blessing alight on my endeavours for serving my country faithfully. +To Him I resign myself, and the just cause which is entrusted to me to +defend. Amen, Amen, Amen." + +Nelson's plan allowed his captains a large discretion in the choice of +their antagonists. Each British ship had to follow the wake of her +leader till she reached the enemy's line, then her captain was free to +choose his own foe--which, naturally, was the biggest Frenchman or +Spaniard in sight. And the huge _Santissima Trinidad_, of course, +attracted the eager attention of the ships that immediately followed +the _Victory_. The Spaniard carried 140 guns, and in that swaying +continent of fighting ships, towered like a giant amongst dwarfs. The +_Neptune_, the _Leviathan_, and the _Conqueror_, in turn, hung on the +quarter or broadside of the gigantic Spaniard, scourged it with fire, +and then drifted off to engage in a fiery wrestle with some other +antagonist. By half-past two the Spanish four-decker was a mastless +wreck. The _Neptune_ at that moment was hanging on her bow, the +_Conqueror_ on her quarter. "This tremendous fabric," says an account +written by an officer on board the Conqueror, "gave a deep roll, with a +swell to leeward, then back to windward, and on her return every mast +went by the board, leaving her an unmanageable hulk on the water. Her +immense topsails had every reef out, her royals were sheeted home but +lowered, and the falling of this majestic mass of spars, sails, and +rigging plunging into the water at the muzzles of our guns, was one of +the most magnificent sights I ever beheld." Directly after this a +Spaniard waved an English union over the lee gangway of the _Santissima +Trinidad_ in token of surrender; whereupon the _Conqueror_, scorning to +waste time in taking possession of even a four-decker that had no +longer any fight in it, pushed off in search of a new foe; while the +_Neptune's_ crew proceeded to shift the tattered topsails of their ship +for new ones, with as much coolness as though in a friendly port. + +The _Africa_, sixty-four, less than half the size of the Spaniard, +presently came slowly up through the smoke, and fired into the Spanish +ship; then seeing no flag flying, sent a lieutenant on board the +mastless hulk to take possession. The Englishman climbed to the +quarterdeck, all black with smoke and bloody with slaughter, and asked +the solitary officer he found there whether or not the _Santissima +Trinidad_ had surrendered. The ship, as a matter of fact, was drifting +into the centre of a cluster of French and Spanish ships; so the +Spaniard replied, "Non, non," at the same time pointing to the friendly +ships upon which they were drifting. The Englishman had only +half-a-dozen men with him, so he coolly returned to his boat, and the +_Santissima Trinidad_ drifted like a log upon the water till half-past +five P.M., when the _Prince_ put a prize crew on board. + +Perez Galdos has given a realistic picture--quoted in the _Cornhill +Magazine_--of the scenes within the gloomy recesses of the great +Spanish four-decker as the British ships hung on her flanks and wasted +her with their fire: "The English shot had torn our sails to tatters. +It was as if huge invisible talons had been dragging at them. +Fragments of spars, splinters of wood, thick hempen cables cut up as +corn is cut by the sickle, fallen blocks, shreds of canvas, bits of +iron, and hundreds of other things that had been wrenched away by the +enemy's fire, were piled along the deck, where it was scarcely possible +to move about. From moment to moment men fell--some into the sea; and +the curses of the combatants mingled with groans of the wounded, so +that it was often difficult to decide whether the dying were +blaspheming God or the fighters were calling upon Him for aid. I +helped in the very dismal task of carrying the wounded into the hold, +where the surgeons worked. Some died ere we could convey them thither; +others had to undergo frightful operations ere their worn-out bodies +could get an instant's rest. It was much more satisfactory to be able +to assist the carpenter's crew in temporarily stopping some of the +holes torn by shot in the ship's hull. . . . Blood ran in streams +about the deck; and, in spite of the sand, the rolling of the ship +carried it hither and thither until it made strange patterns on the +planks. The enemy's shot, fired, as they were, from very short range, +caused horrible mutilations. . . . The ship creaked and groaned as she +rolled, and through a thousand holes and crevices in her strained hull +the sea spurted in and began to flood the hold. The _Trinidad's_ +people saw the commander-in-chief haul down his flag; heard the +_Achille_ blow up and hurl her six hundred men into eternity; learnt +that their own hold was so crowded with wounded that no more could be +received there. Then, when all three masts had in succession been +brought crashing down, the defence collapsed, and the _Santissima +Trinidad_ struck her flag." + +The dreadful scenes on the decks of the _Santissima Trinidad_ might +almost have been paralleled on some of the British ships. Thus the +_Belleisle_, Collingwood's immediate supporter, sustained the fire of +two French and one Spanish line-of-battle ships until she was +dismasted. The wreck of her mizzen-mast covered her larboard guns, her +mainmast fell upon the break of the poop; her larboard broadside was +thus rendered useless; and just then another French line-of-battle +ship, the _Achille_, took her position on the _Belleisle's_ larboard +quarter, and opened on her a deadly fire, to which the British ship +could not return a shot. This scene lasted for nearly an hour and a +half, but at half-past three the _Swiftsure_ came majestically up, +passed under the _Belleisle's_ stern--the two crews cheering each +other, the _Belleisle's_ men waving a Union Jack at the end of a pike +to show they were still fighting, while an ensign still flew from the +stump of the mainmast--and the fury with which the _Swiftsure_ fell +upon the _Achille_ may be imagined. The _Defiance_ about the same time +took off the _Aigle_, and the _Polyphemus_ the _Neptune_, and the +much-battered _Belleisle_ floated free. Masts, bowsprit, boats, +figure-head--all were shot away; her hull was pierced in every +direction; she was a mere splintered wreck. + +The _Temeraire_ fought a battle almost as dreadful. The _Africa_, a +light ship carrying only sixty-four guns, chose as her antagonist the +_Intrepide_, a French seventy-four, in weight of broadside and number +of crew almost double her force. How dreadful were the damages +sustained by the British ship in a fight so unequal and so stubborn may +be imagined; but she clung to her big antagonist until, the _Orion_ +coming up, the _Intrepide_ struck. + +At three P.M. the firing had begun to slacken, and ship after ship of +the enemy was striking. At a quarter past two the _Algeziras_ struck +to the _Tonnant_, and fifteen minutes afterwards the _San Juan_--the +_Tonnant_ was fighting both ships--also hailed that she surrendered. +Lieutenant Clement was sent in the jolly-boat, with two hands, to take +possession of the Spanish seventy-four, and the boat carrying the +gallant three was struck by a shot and swamped. The sailors could +swim, but not the lieutenant; the pair of tars succeeded in struggling +back with their officer to the _Tonnant_; and as that ship had not +another boat that would float, she had to see her prize drift off. The +_Colossus_, in like manner, fought with the French _Swiftsure_ and the +_Bahama_--each her own size--and captured them both! The _Redoutable_ +had surrendered by this time, and a couple of midshipmen, with a dozen +hands, had climbed from the _Victory's_ one remaining boat through the +stern ports of the French ship. The _Bucentaure_, Villeneuve's +flagship, had her fate practically sealed by the first tremendous +broadside poured into her by the _Victory_. With fine courage, +however, the French ship maintained a straggling fire until both the +_Leviathan_ and the _Conqueror_, at a distance of less than thirty +yards, were pouring a tempest of shot into her. The French flagship +then struck, and was taken possession of by a tiny boat's crew from the +_Conqueror_ consisting of three marines and two sailors. The marine +officer coolly locked the powder magazine of the Frenchman, put the key +in his pocket, left two of his men in charge of the surrendered +_Bucentaure_, put Villeneuve and his two captains in his boat with his +two marines and himself, and went off in search of the _Conqueror_. In +the smoke and confusion, however, he could not find that ship, and so +carried the captured French admiral to the _Mars_. Hercules Robinson +has drawn a pen picture of the unfortunate French admiral as he came on +board the British ship: "Villeneuve was a tallish, thin man, a very +tranquil, placid, English-looking Frenchman; he wore a long-tailed +uniform coat, high and flat collar, corduroy pantaloons of a greenish +colour with stripes two inches wide, half-boots with sharp toes, and a +watch-chain with long gold links. Majendie was a short, fat, jocund +sailor, who found a cure for all ills in the Frenchman's philosophy, +"Fortune de la guerre" (though this was the third time the goddess had +brought him to England as a prisoner); and he used to tell our officers +very tough stories of the 'Mysteries of Paris.'" + +By five o'clock the roar of guns had died almost into silence. Of +thirty-three stately battle-ships that formed the Franco-Spanish fleet +four hours earlier, one had vanished in flames, seventeen were captured +as mere blood-stained hulks, and fifteen were in flight; while +Villeneuve himself was a prisoner. But Nelson was dead. Night was +falling. A fierce south-east gale was blowing. A sea--such a sea as +only arises in shallow waters--ugly, broken, hollow, was rising fast. +In all directions ships dismantled, with scuppers crimson with blood, +and sides jagged with shot-holes, were rolling their tall, huge hulks +in the heavy sea; and the shoals of Trafalgar were only thirteen miles +to leeward! The fight with tempest and sea during that terrific night +was almost more dreadful than the battle with human foes during the +day. Codrington says, the gale was so furious that "it blew away the +top main-topsail, though it was close-reefed, and the fore-topsail +after it was clewed up ready for furling." They dare not set a storm +staysail, although now within six miles of the reef. The _Redoutable_ +sank at the stern of the ship towing it; the _Bucentaure_ had to be cut +adrift, and went to pieces on the shoals. The wind shifted in the +night and enabled the shot-wrecked and storm-battered ships to claw off +the shore; but the fierce weather still raged, and on the 24th the huge +_Santissima Trinidad_ had to be cut adrift. It was night; wind and sea +were furious; but the boats of the _Ajax_ and the _Neptune_ succeeded +in rescuing every wounded man on board the huge Spaniard. The boats, +indeed, had all put off when a cat ran out on the muzzle of one of the +lower-deck guns and mewed plaintively, and one of the boats pulled +back, in the teeth of wind and sea, and rescued poor puss! + +Of the eighteen British prizes, fourteen sank, were wrecked, burnt by +the captors, or recaptured; only four reached Portsmouth. Yet never +was the destruction of a fleet more absolutely complete. Of the +fifteen ships that escaped Trafalgar, four were met in the open sea on +November 4 by an equal number of British ships, under Sir Richard +Strahan, and were captured. The other eleven lay disabled hulks in +Cadiz till--when France and Spain broke into war with each other--they +were all destroyed. Villeneuve's great fleet, in brief, simply +vanished from existence! But Napoleon, with that courageous economy of +truth characteristic of him, summed up Trafalgar in the sentence: "The +storms occasioned to us the loss of a few ships after a battle +imprudently fought"! Trafalgar, as a matter of fact, was the most +amazing victory won by land or sea through the whole Revolutionary war. +It permanently changed the course of history; and it goes far to +justify Nelson's magnificently audacious boast, "The fleets of England +are equal to meet the world in arms!" + + + + +THE END + + + + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Deeds that Won the Empire, by W. H. 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