Military Dispatches by The Duke of Wellington

Author:The Duke of Wellington
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780141394329
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2014-05-30T16:00:00+00:00

To the Duke of Richmond.

Gallegos, 29th Jan. 1812.

I have not written to you lately, as I have had nothing to tell you deserving your attention.

My troops have been remarkably unhealthy during the summer and autumn, and, although numerous, were so inferior in numbers to those the enemy had in my front, that I could do nothing more than keep them in check, and prevent them, at least, from undertaking any thing against the Spaniards. At length, in the end of December, convinced, I believe, by the reports in our own newspapers, that we were too sickly to undertake any thing, they broke up from Castille and the western parts of Estremadura, and marched off towards Valencia and Aragon, the former to assist Suchet, and the latter to endeavor to check the guerrillas. I immediately pushed forward the preparations for the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo; invested the place and broke ground on the 8th, and we took it by assault, as you will have seen, on the 19th Jan. Marmont returned upon hearing of our first movements, and collected about 50,000 men on the Tormes about the 23d and 24th of the month, but he has advanced only a reconnaitring party from thence; and it appears that he will not attempt to prevent us from putting the place again in a state of defence. It is already provisioned; and has been for some days in such a state as that it could not have been carried by a coup de main.

I have likewise restored the works of Almeida, so that I shall have this frontier as good as it ever was; and I hope to be able to get the whole army together, when I shall have a better chance with these gentlemen.

We proceeded at Ciudad Rodrigo on quite a new principle in sieges. The whole object of our fire was to lay open the walls. We had not one mortar; nor a howitzer, excepting to prevent the enemy from clearing the breaches, and for that purpose we had only two; and we fired upon the flanks and defences only when we wished to get the better of them, with a view to protect those who were to storm. This shows the kind of place we had to attack, and how important it is to cover the works of a place well by a glacis. The French, however, who are supposed to know every thing, could not take this place in less than 40 days after it was completely invested, or than 25 days after breaking ground.

March came here about a month ago, remarkably well; but he has had two slight attacks of fever since he arrived, from one of which he is now recovering. He is very liable to catch cold, and with the cold he always has fever. This must be a consequence of his disorder in the summer; but I hope that he will be quite well before the hot weather shall set in. If he should not be so, I shall certainly send him home.

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