Elements of Military Art and Science, Henry Wager Halleck [top young adult novels txt] 📗
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All military historians speak of the influence of fortifications in the Peninsular campaigns: those which had been given up to Napoleon previous to the opening of hostilities, contributed very much to the success of his arms, while those which were retained by Spain and her allies, contributed in an equal degree to hamper and embarrass his operations. Some of these, like Saragossa and Tarragona, with their broken walls and defective armaments, kept the enemy in check some sixty days each, and did much to weaken the French power in the Peninsula.
Temporary or field-fortifications also had an important influence here. The lines of Torres-Vedras, the field-works of Ronda, the intrenched camps of the Pyrenees, Bayonne, Toulouse, &c., are examples under this head. In fact, field-works played a most important part in all of Napoleon's wars. We might mention the redoubt of Montenotte, the intrenchments at Milesimo, the batteries of Lobau, the field-defences of Hougomont, La Haye-Sainte, and Papelotte at Waterloo, and numerous other cases equally striking. Just before the battle of Waterloo, Wellington employed some eighteen thousand peasants and two thousand horses, under the direction of British officers of engineers. In speaking of these defences, Colonel Pasley says: "It may be easily conceived that to have directed such a great body of workmen to proper advantage, by means of a few officers of engineers, would have been impossible, but for the system adopted of subdividing the various works among the non-commissioned officers and privates of the engineer troops, each of whom was made responsible for laying out the details of his own portion, and for the direction of a party of from twenty to one hundred men, or even more, according to circumstances."
But to return to the Peninsular war. These campaigns exhibit in strong colors the advantages derived, on the one side, from a well-organized engineer corps, and the losses, delays, and defects suffered on the other, until the defects of the organization were remedied. Napoleon entered Spain with a well-appointed army, and soon, through strategy and well-directed force, gained possession of the important fortresses of the Peninsula; seizing in this way the strategic routes and important geographical points, he was enabled to retain possession of the country for eight years, in spite of the numerous forces arrayed against him, the absence of himself and his best generals in Germany, and the great inefficiency of Joseph and of many of his generals. These fortifications were old, and of strength inferior to modern works of defence, but it required years and the expenditure of millions in blood and treasure to expel from the country those who had possession of them.
For the first five years of this war the English struggled with a most imperfect army organization.[37] When "the first serious siege," says Napier, was undertaken by the British army, "to the discredit of the English government, no army was ever so ill provided with the means of prosecuting such an enterprise. The engineer officers were exceedingly zealous; and many of them were well versed in the theory of their business. But the ablest trembled when reflecting on their utter destitution of all that belonged to real service. Without a corps of sappers and miners, without a single private who knew how to carry on an approach under fire, they were compelled to attack fortresses defended by the most warlike, practised, and scientific troops of the age."
[37]
In a letter dated February 11th, 1812, Wellington wrote to the Secretary of State as follows:—"I would beg leave to suggest to your lordship the expediency of adding to the engineer establishment a corps of sappers and miners. It is inconceivable with what disadvantages we undertake any thing like a siege for want of assistance of this description. There is no French corps d'armée which has not a battalion of sappers and a company of miners; but we are obliged to depend for assistance of this description upon the regiments of the line; and although the men are brave and willing, they want the knowledge and training which are necessary. Many casualties among them consequently occur, and much valuable time is lost at the most critical period of the siege."
"The best officers and finest soldiers were obliged to sacrifice themselves in a lamentable manner, to compensate for the negligence and incapacity of a government, always ready to plunge the nation into war, without the slightest care of what was necessary to obtain success. The sieges carried on by the British in Spain were a succession of butcheries; because the commonest materials, and the means necessary to their art, were denied the engineers." Colonel J.T. Jones writes in nearly the same terms of the early sieges in the Peninsula, and with respect to the siege of Badajos, adds in express terms, that "a body of sappers and miners, and the necessary fascines and gabions, would have rendered the reduction of the work certain."[38] Soon after this siege a body of engineer troops arrived from England, but their number was insufficient, and Wellington, having learned by sad experience the importance of engineer troops, ordered a body of two hundred volunteers to be detached from the line, "and daily instructed in the practice of sapping, making and laying fascines and gabions, and the construction of batteries, &c." The siege of Ciudad Rodrigo, which immediately followed this organization, was conducted with greater skill and success than any other till nearly the close of the war; and all military writers have attributed this result to the greater efficiency of the engineer force engaged in the siege. This arm was now gradually increased, and the last year of the war the engineer force with the English army in the field consisted of seventy-seven officers, seven assistant-engineers and surveyors, four surgeons and assistants, one thousand six hundred and forty-six sappers, miners, artificers, &c., one thousand three hundred and forty horses and one hundred and sixty carriages.
[38]
Colonel Pasley states that only one and a half yards of excavation, per man, was executed in a whole night, by the untrained troops in the Peninsular war; whereas an instructed sapper can easily accomplish this in twenty minutes, and that it has been done by one of his most skilful sappers, at Chatham, in seven minutes!
During all this time the French furnished their armies in Spain with well-organized engineer forces. We have endeavored to form a comparison of the number of French engineers and artillerists employed on these peninsular sieges. But from the loose manner in which these details are usually given by historians, it is almost impossible to distinguish between the two. Both are not unfrequently given under the same head, and when a distinction is apparently kept up, only the engineer staff is mentioned under the head of engineers—the sappers, miners, artificers, the train, &c., all being put down as artillery. In the following table we have endeavored to arrange them as is done in our own army. The trains of both arms are left out, for frequently that of one arm performed the duties of the other. Moreover, in our service a portion of these duties of engineer and artillery trains is performed by the quartermaster's department. For those who wish to know the exact organization of the French engineer train, we give it as it existed in 1811, viz.:—seven troops, each troop consisting of three officers, one hundred and forty-one non-commissioned officers and privates, two hundred and fifty horses, and fifty wagons, conveying five thousand two hundred and seventy intrenching tools, one thousand seven hundred cutting tools, one thousand eight hundred and two artificers' tools, two hundred and fifty-three miners' tools, and eight thousand three hundred and eighteen kilogrammes' weight of machinery and stores, each article being made to a particular pattern. The pioneers in Spain acted sometimes with one arm and sometimes with the other, and we have assigned them accordingly in the table. The pontoniers, however, in our service are included with the engineers; we have therefore put them, in our table, in the same column with the engineers.
Name of Siege. Engineer staff, sappers, miners, pontoniers and pioneers. Artillery staff, horse and foot artillery, ouvriers and pioneers Total of engineers, sappers, miners, pontoniers and pioneers Total of artillery staff, horse and foot artillery, ouvriers and pioneers Officers Men Officer Men Saragossa 86 1180 90 1276 1275 1360 Rosas 21 211 - - 232 461 Girona 54 603 62 1299 637 1361 Astorga 7 91 17 427 98 444 Lerida 15 316 11 208 331 219 Meguinenza 34 278 - - 312 136 1st. Cuidad Rodrigo 34 441 - - 475 1019 Almeida 34 489 - - 523 1019 Tortosa 43 429 32 381 472 413 Tarragona 50 681 46 701 731 747 Olivensa 10 106 - - 116 186 1st. Badajos 25 707 41 699 732 740 Tarifa 12 235 17 148 247 165 Peniscola 13 138 9 183 151 192 2nd. Cuidad Rodrigo 3 12 8 160 15 168 2nd. Badajos 9 256 - - 265 268 Burgos 4 124 3 126 128 129 Castio Udiales 5 68 8 197 73 205 St Sebastian 13 248 7 166 261 173From this table it appears that the ratio of the two arms at these sieges, making the comparison on the basis of our own organization, is about the same as for the present French army in Algeria, or a little more than five of engineers to six of artillery.
Thus far we have spoken of the field-operations of engineer troops in connection with fortifications, alluding only incidentally to the use of military bridges and the passage of rivers. In the early wars of the French Revolution the want of pontoniers was severely felt, and from the deficiency of this branch of service, the operations of the French generals were on several occasions very much restricted. The evil was afterwards remedied in a great degree by the introduction of several battalions of ponioniers in the regular army organization. On many occasions, during his wars, did Napoleon feel and acknowledge the importance of these troops; but on none, perhaps, was this importance more clearly shown than in the passage of the Beresina during his retreat from Moscow with the wreck of his army. The Russians had cut the bridge of Borisow and taken position in great strength on the right bank of the river, both at this point and below; the French, wearied with long and difficult marches, destitute of artillery, provisions, and military stores, with a wide and deep river in front, and a powerful enemy on their flank and rear, benumbed by the rigors of a merciless climate, and dispirited by defeat—every thing seemed to promise their total destruction. "General Eblé," says an English general officer, in his remarks on this retreat, "who, from the beginning of the campaign, had made all the arrangements for the equipment and construction of military bridges, was specially charged with the important duty of providing for the passage of this river; and he discharged that duty with a degree of forecast and ability to which certainly Napoleon owed his escape and the wreck of his army its safety. General Eblé had begun to prepare, at Smolensko, for the difficulties which he foresaw in this operation. He formed, with every care, a train sufficient for the transport of all the tools and stores that might be required; and, further to provide against casualties and accidents, every man belonging to the companies of pontoniers was obliged to carry from Smolensko a tool or implement of some kind, and a proportion of nails: and fortunate was it for the army that he did so; for such was the difficulty in getting through the carriages containing stores, that only two forge-wagons and six caissons of tools and nails could be preserved. To these the general added a quantity of iron-work taken from the wheels of carriages that were abandoned on the march. Much was sacrificed to bring off these valuable materials for making clamps and fastenings, but, as Segur observes, that exertion 'sauva l'armée.'"
But it is not always in the possession of a thing that we are most likely to appreciate its utility; the evils and inconveniences resulting from the want of it not unfrequently impress us
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