Table Of ContentTHE DUKE OF WELLINGTON AND THE COMMAND
OF THE SPANISH ARMY, 1812-14
Also by Charles J. Esdaile
THE SPANISH ARMY IN THE PENINSULAR WAR
The
Duke of Wellington
and the Com.m.and
of the Spanish ArnlY
1812-14
Charles J. Esdaile
Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN 978-1-349-20704-6 ISBN 978-1-349-20702-2 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-20702-2
© Charles J. Esdaile, 1990
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1s t edition 1990
All rights reserved. For infonnation, write:
Scholarly and Reference Division,
St. Martin's Press, Inc., 175 Fifth Avenue,
New York, N.Y. 10010
First published in the United States of America in 1990
ISBN 978-0-312-03536-5
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Esdaile, Charles J.
The Duke of Wellington and the command of the Spanish Army,
1812-14/Charles J. Esdaile.
p. cm.
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
ISBN 978-0-312-03536-5
1. Peninsular War, 1807-14-Campaigns-Spain. 2. Wellington,
Arthur Wellesley, Duke of, 1769-1852-Military leadership.
3. Spain-History, Military. 4. Spain. Ejercito-History-19th
century. I. Title.
DC232.E73 1990
940.2'7-dc20 89-34295
CIP
In loving memory of my father,
Martin Kennedy Esdaile,
and of my good friend,
Andrzej Roman Ciupka,
who both died whilst this book was being written.
Requiescant in pace
Contents
List of Figures viii
Preface ix
Acknowledgements xii
1 An Unhappy Alliance 1
2 The Making of a Generalissimo 27
3 Protest and Retreat, September-November 1812 59
4 An Interlude at Cidiz 85
5 From Cadiz to Vitoria, January-June 1813 108
6 Crisis in the Pyrenees, July-December 1813 136
7 Victory and Retribution, January-June 1814 166
Appendix 1: Organisation of the Spanish Army, November 1812 182
Appendix 2: Organisation of the Spanish Army, [uly 1813 186
Notes and Referenc;es 190
Seleet Bibliography 219
Index 228
vii
List of Figures
1 The Iberian Peninsula xiv
2 The Pyrenean Theatre of Operations 137
viii
Preface
In 1983 the papers of the first Duke of Wellington were deposited
at the University of 50uthampton. In order to promote the use
of this collection it was decided to establish the Post-Doctoral
Fellowship of which the author has been the incumbent, and this
book the result.
50 why another book on the Duke of Wellington? After all, there
are few figures of nineteenth-century British his tory who have
attracted such attention: as the Duke himself complained, 'I have
been much exposed to authors.' His career has been the subject of
at least three major biographies in this century alone, his military
campaigns have been refought ad infinitum, and various aspects of
his life treated to detailed thematic analysis. Most recently Neville
Thompson has published a fine study of Wellington's statesman
ship which also sheds much light on his enigmatic character,
whilst Paddy Griffith has edited an interesting collection of essays
on his generalship. Yet, for all that, certain aspects of the Duke's
career remain relatively unknown, one of these being his tenure
of the command of the 5panish army between 1812 and 1814. A
glance at previous Wellingtonia will reveal that this has received
no more than a passing mention, and yet control of the Spaniards
ca me to be regarded by the Duke as a sine qua non for the ejection
of the French from the Peninsula. An important object of British
strategy long be fore 1812, the command also became a serious
bone of contention, and continued to poison relations between
the allies even when it was finally conceded by the 5paniards. 50
severe were the tensions provoked by Wellington's appointment,
in fact, that at one point the Anglo-5panish alliance seemed to be
on the brink of collapse.
Important though it is, none of this has received much attention.
Cynics might argue that the answer is that the story is less than
creditable: Wellington himself can be seen to have adopted tactics
that were as clumsy as they were counter-productive, whilst the
behaviour of his troops was such as to cause deep resentment
ix
x Preface
amongst the Spaniards. To paraphrase Sir Arthur Bryant, the Pen
insular army's readiness to lark may indeed have been an index
of its readiness to fight, but when its practieal jokes - not to
mention drunken savagery - were directed at the inhabitants, and,
above aIl, the Catholic religion, the effect on inter-allied relations
was distinctly deleterious. The problem, of course, was not one
sided, for the Spaniards were all too often xenophobie and over
proud, but the fact remains that the British troops did little to
lessen their commander's diffieulties. Unpalatable though the facts
may be, there are also practieal reasons why the story of Welling
ton's command of the Spanish army should have gone untold. In
the first place, its understanding required a knowledge of Spanish
polities that was often unavailable to historians writing from a
British point of view. At the same time, much damage was also
done by the fact that the published editions of Wellington's corre
spondence - the source used for much of the previous work on the
Duke - omitted the numerous Spanish and Portuguese documents
contained in his papers, without whieh it would have been
impossible to write this study.
If previous work on the Duke of Wellington has left a gap whieh
justifies this book, the present study also provides an interesting
case-study of the problems faced by a coalition general. Although
the Duke may not have handled his Spanish allies with all the
finesse that was required, he mayaIso be seen to have been in an
unenviable position. Determined to make something of the Span
ish army, his chances of success were constantly undermined by
the desire of Cabinet Ministers and commercial interests alike to
obtain a measure of free trade with the Spanish empire, their
efforts serving only to in flame hispanic opinion against the Duke.
With domestie requirements in confliet with the dietates of the
situation in the field, the need for some form of strategie co
ordination was already becoming dear a century before the First
World War finally made it a necessity.
In writing a work of analysis, the author has for obvious reasons
been unable to dweIl on the details of military operations. For
further details the reader is referred to Oman, failing whieh the
works of Glover, Gates and Weller will also be found to be helpful
primers. Of these, the most useful is undoubtedly that of David
Gates, in that it is the only English-Ianguage, single-volume his
tory of the war to pay due attention to the Spanish struggle.
So far as usage is concerned, all punctuation and spelling has
