1809.] THE BRITISH LAND IN WALCHEREN. 519 Richard Strachan, and the earl of Chatham on board, sailed from the Downs. A larger division followed on the 29th. On the 30th twenty thousand men landed on the isle of Walcheren. Middleburgh, the chief town, was immediately surrendered. The French troops were driven into Flushing. Other operations were attended with complete success. Every obstacle was quickly removed that would have prevented Antwerp being taken by a sudden and wellcombined movement of the naval and military forces. The French ships at Flushing had withdrawn and had gone up the Scheldt. No English squadron pursued. The garrison of Antwerp had only 3000 men. Napoleon said to O'Meara that if a few thousand men had been landed at Wilhemstadt and marched direct to Antwerp, it might have been taken by a coup-de-main. After the fleet had got up, that was impossible. Bahtz, the key to both channels of the Scheldt, was taken by sir John Hope on the morning of the 3rd, and the whole of South Beveland was in his possession. All the energy of the first operations had no other ulterior object, in the eye of the Commander-in-chief, than the taking of Flushing, and the occupation of Walcheren. It would seem as if the earl of Chatham had known that Napoleon held that Flushing was impregnable; and that it had become a point of honour with him to prove that the great emperor could be sometimes mistaken. From the palace of Schönbrunn, whilst negotiating a peace with Austria, Napoleon wrote on the 6th of October to his minister of war at Paris,-who had apprised him of the appearance off Walcheren of the English armament," They will not take Flushing, since the dykes can be cut; they will not take the squadron, for it can ascend to Antwerp."* Ten days later, this provident administrator, who never suffered any circumstances in his vast empire to be indifferent to him, showed how much better he understood what our army would experience than the war minister who directed the expedition. Napoleon then wrote, "Before six weeks, of the fifteen thousand English who are on the isle of Walcheren not fifteen hundred will be left. The rest will be in the hospitals. The expedition has been undertaken under false information, and has been ignorantly calculated." + The enemy that was gathering around our troops,-far more dangerous than the batteries of Flushing,-was soon perceptible. The investment of the place was completed, before a bombardment commenced on the 13th of August. The troops slept, for the most part, in the open air. In his MS. Journal the officer writes: "Towards morning we found ourselves wrapped in that chill, blue, marshy mist rising from the ground, that no clothing can keep out, and that actually seems to penetrate to the inmost frame. And this we always found the morning atmosphere of Walcheren,-the island covered with a sheet of exhalation, blue, dense, and fetid." The positive orders which Napoleon had sent from Schönbrunn, that general Monnet, the commander of Flushing, should cut the dykes, were now carried into effect. On the 11th, the sea-dyke extending from the right flank of Flushing on the land side to the canal of St. Joostland, was cut. The water spread over the fields, filled the ditches, and forced the besiegers to abandon some parts of the trenches. There was no time to lose. The bombardment commenced upon a scale that was perhaps unequalled in any previous siege. Batteries of + Ibid., p. 460. Thiers, tome xi. p. 452-"Lettres relatives à Walcheren." 520 FLUSHING BOMBARDED-ITS SURRENDER. [1804 heavy ordnance fired incessantly night and day upon the devoted town. The Congreve rocket was employed with fearful effect. Ten line of battle ships, on the morning of the 14th, ranged along the sea line of defences, and kept up a cannonade for several hours. Flushing was on fire in every quarter. At last after three days the governor agreed to surrender, on the condition of the garrison becoming prisoners of war. The occupation of the Dutch fishing tow was the prize that cost twenty millions of money. The siege operations were conducted by sir Eyre Coote, lord Chatham " having hoped, had circumstances permitted, to have proceeded up the river." His lordship, whose vocation, according to an epigram not far from the truth, was to eat, and to sleep, contrived to console himself for his disappointment in not going up the river, to encounter Bernadotte, who had arrived at Antwerp with a great army. He rested happily at Bahtz; where his existence was proclaimed by two turtles sprawling upon their backs in his garden, ready for the art of the commander-in-chief of the kitchen who accompanied him.† * And now came the dread event which Napoleon had predicted. Lord Chatham wrote home on the 29th that he was obliged to close his operations with the capture of Flushing. He adds, "I am concerned to say, that the effect of the climate at this unhealthy period of the year is felt most seriously, and that the number of the sick already is little short of three thousand." : The morning fogs began to be heavier and more penetrating. The soldiers, who had been kept up by the animation of the siege, now sank, exhausted and despairing. They were carried into close barracks at Middleburgh, where the fever raged more and more, and the barracks all became hospitals. The surgeons were unsupplied with bark and other necessary medicines. The medical officers themselves were seized, and either died or were disqualified for attendance. Proper supplies of medicine and of wine from England were coming as soon as routine could bestir itself. The main army was ordered home, and with them went lord Chatham. But fifteen thousand men were left in Walcheren "for the protection of the island." The despatches of sir Eyre Coote, from the 31st of August to the 23rd of October, contain the most distressing accounts of the progress of the fever. Thousands had died. Four thousand sick had been sent to England. Sixteen hundred more were about to be sent; and then the hospitals would still contain four thousand sick, who must have been abandoned to the French in the event of their landing. Every one who had thought or read knew what would be the consequence sending forty thousand men to Zealand in August, and of their continuing there for two or three months. Every one suspected what might happen, except the ministry, and especially the Secretary-at-War. Sir John Pringle's book on the "Diseases of the Army " was known to common readers; but it was unknown, or unheeded, in Cabinet Councils, where some members were assiduously engaged in the laudable endeavour to circumvent a colleague, yet leaving him to the consequences of his own incapacity; and others thought that whatever he did was right, as long as he did not go before his party in any large or liberal views. Mr. John Webb, the Inspector of Hospitals, reported to lord Castlereagh, on the 11th of September,-when the ravages 1809.] THE MARSH-FEVER-FATAL TERMINATION OF THE EXPEDITION. 521 * had begun, and statesmanship at last had taken counsel of science,—that, independent of the existing records of the unhealthiness of Zealand, every feature of the country exhibited it in the most forcible manner;-the canals communicating with the sea, covered with the most noisome ooze; every ditch loaded with matter in a state of putrefaction; the whole island little better than a swamp; scarcely a place where water of a tolerable quality could be procured; the children sickly, and many of the adults deformed. The endemic diseases of the country, remittent and intermittent fevers, says the Inspector, begin to appear about the middle of August, and continue to prevail until the commencement of frosty weather. He adds one important fact, after describing how the disease had spread in the army with a rapidity almost unexampled in the history of any military operation, that "those men who may be attacked with fever, and recover from it, will have their constitutions so affected by the shock, that their physical powers, when called into action hereafter, will be very materially diminished." The "Journal of an Officer" describes what was endured by thousands of the sick. After a month's suffering he was carried to Flushing; shipped on board of a frigate; when in the Downs, the ship was telegraphed that the hospitals were full ; went on to Spithead; and was borne ashore fainting. "My recovery was long doubtful, and when it at last commenced, it was long imperfect. The venom of the marsh-fever had a singular power of permeating the whole human frame. It unstrung every muscle, penetrated every bone, and seemed to search and enfeeble all the sources of mental and bodily life. I dragged it about with me for years." Such was the end of the great Armada that sailed from the Downs on the 28th of July, with a pomp and power that had never been equalled since another Armada came to a like fatal termination of vain hopes and blind confidence. The calamity which England had sustained had a most serious effect upon the progress of the war in Spain and Portugal. In the summer of 1810, the operations of lord Wellington were fatally crippled by the want of men to supply his losses. His earnest request for more aid from home was thus answered by lord Liverpool on the 2nd of August: "Now, with respect to reinforcements to your army, I am under the painful necessity of informing you that the effects of the fever contracted by our army last year in Walcheren are still of that nature that, by a late inspection, we have not at this time a single battalion of infantry, in Great Britain and Ireland, reported fit for service in the field, with the exception of the infantry of the duke of Brunswick's corps."+ Walcheren was evacuated on the 23rd of December. Then came inquiries in Parliament. The ministry made every effort to screen lord Chatham from a vote of censure, which was prevented only by very small majorities. The character of the army and navy was not injured. The disgrace rested with the commander; with the Secretaryat-War; and with the members of the Cabinet, who believed him incapable, and had not the courage to enforce their belief. After the retreat of Soult from Oporto, sir Arthur Wellesley, at the beginning of July, entered Spain. On the 20th, he made a junction with the Spanish army under Cuesta, at Oropesa. Marshal Victor was in position at Hansard, vol. xv. Appendix, col. xii. VOL. VII. XX 522 THE BATTLE OF TALAVERA. [1809 Talavera. His outposts were attacked on the 22nd by the Spanish and British; and Victor, retiring to Torrijos, was joined by Sebastiani, and afterwards by king Joseph. Cuesta was obstinate and conceited. Taking his own counsel, he pushed on alone to attack the French, and was driven back the British army, on the Alberche. With the greatest difficulty he was persuaded not to fight in a position where he would have been destroyed. I a sulky mood, he left to sir Arthur Wellesley the command of the tw armies. The British general retired six miles to Talavera, where he had previously chosen his field of battle, and which he had strengthened by some earthworks. On the 27th, the French crossed the Alberche, and there was a partial contest, in which they were repulsed. On the 28th, the French renewed the attack. From nine o'clock of that morning till noon, the two armies reposed. It was the calm before the storm. The heat was excessive, and the French and English soldiers quitted their ranks, and assuaged ther thirst in the little stream that separated their several positions. The scene was suddenly changed The French drums beat the rappel; the eagles wer uplifted; the columns formed, and the battle commenced. They firs attacked the left, which was weak; then fell upon the right; and later in the day threw their force upon the centre of the line. A formidable battery was making fearful havoc. The centre was giving way, when sir Arthur Wellesley ordered the 48th regiment to descend from the height which they occupied, and meet the brunt of the fight. The scattered masses rallied The English general hurled a charge of cavalry upon the French columns; and the victory was won. In writing to a friend in India, sir Arthur Wellesley said, "The battle of Talavera was the hardest fought of moder times. The fire at Assaye was heavier, while it lasted; but the battle of Talavera lasted for two days and a night. Each party engaged lost a fourth of their numbers." To another friend he writes, "We had certainly * most fierce contest at Talavera, and the victory which we gained, although from circumstances it has not been followed by all the good consequences which we might have expected from it, has at least added to the military · reputation of the country, and has convinced the French that their title to be called the first military nation in Europe will be disputed, not unsuc cessfully."+"This battle," says Jomini, "recovered the glory of the successors of Marlborough, which for a century had declined. It was felt! that the English infantry could contend with the best in Europe." Very few Spaniards were engaged. Sixteen thousand English, of which number many had been recently taken from the militia, repulsed thirty thousand French veterans. Napoleon was furious at the results of the battle of Talavera. He wrote from Schönbrunn to general Clarke, that he should express to marshal Jourdan the emperor's extreme displeasure at the inaccuracies and falsehoods in his report. "He says that on the 28th we were in possession of the British army's field of battle-that is to say, of Talavera, and of the table land on which their left flank rested; whilst his subsequent reports, and those of other officers, say the exact contrary, and that we were repulsed during the whole day. "Supplementary Despatches," vol. vi. p. 431. + Ibid., p. 387. Tell 1 1809.] THE BATTLE OF TALAVERA. 523 him that he might have put what he pleased into the Madrid newspapers, but that he had no right to disguise the truth to government." * The next day the emperor wrote to his Minister of Police a memorandum, to be expanded into articles in the Journals: "Lord Wellesley is beaten in Spain. Surrounded in his rout, he seeks his safety in a precipitate flight under excessive heat. In quitting Talavera, he has recommended to the duke of Belluno five thousand sick and wounded that he was obliged to leave there. If affairs had been properly conducted in Spain, not an Englishman would have escaped; but nevertheless they are beaten. Comment on these ideas in the journals. Demonstrate the extravagance of the ministers in exposing thirty thousand English, in the heart of Spain, against a hundred and twenty thousand French, the best troops in the world, while at the same time they sent twenty-five thousand others to come to grief (se casser le nez) in the marshes of Holland." In these hints for his journalists of Paris, Napoleon exaggerated the painful facts which the English general readily admitted. He was obliged to retreat, for Soult had suddenly appeared with fifty thousand men. He was surrounded by immense armies; he did leave, to be guarded by Cuesta, fifteen hundred of his sick and wounded; when Cuesta marched away and left his charge, sir Arthur did recommend them to the humanity of the French generals, who acted generously towards them, as sir Arthur Wellesley had acted towards the French at Oporto. He had confided too much in Spanish generals and in Spanish troops. He had trusted too much to the zeal and activity of the commissariat to furnish him supplies. Admiral Berkeley, who commanded in the Tagus, says: "Twice has the army been stopped for money, and twice for provisions. The horses starved, while ships, loaded with hay and oats from England, enough to furnish all the cavalry, were rotting and spoiling in the Tagus. The medical staff is as bad: as our army were dying away for want of medicines, while more than sufficient were in ships in the river." Nearly half a century was to slide on before such results of "ignorance and delay were to be counted as monstrous things, that could never again shake the public confidence in official sagacity. The experience of one campaign taught sir Arthur Wellesley great lessons. In India he had acquired the power of regulating the commissariat upon the largest scale; in providing not only for men and horses, but for elephants and bullocks, and all the gorgeous cavalcades of an oriental camp. In his first campaign in Portugal, he had somewhat too much relied upon the War Office, and the Victualling Office, and the Transport Office. Each department did its own work in parallel lines, and never thought that the Division of Labour was worthless without the Union of Forces. He soon came to look sharply after the most apparently trifling details. But he also came to rely upon himself, and to leave the Spanish generals to their jealousies, and the Spanish juntas to their own conceits. His brother, the marquis (then ambassador in Spain), seeing that he could not bring the native authorities to act "with common spirit, honesty, or decency," advised him to return home.§ * "Correspondence with King Joseph," vol. ii. p. 66, August 21. "Court, &c. of George III.' vol. iv. p. 359. § "Supplementary Despatches," vol. vi. p. 372. |