The Battle of Maida 1806 by Richard Hopton

Author:Richard Hopton
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
ISBN: 9781844686070
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 2012-11-19T05:00:00+00:00

IMMEDIATE

ENVIRONS OF

MAIDA

Chapter Six

“SOMETHING DASHING IS EXPECTED”: THE BATTLE OF MAIDA

On the night of 30 June 1806, Stuart’s small army arrived in the Bay of St Euphemia.179 The beach which skirts the bay is about twelve miles long and forms a gentle crescent from north to south. The British landed at the northern extremity of the beach which extends to the south past the mouth of the River Amato as far as the River Angitola. The strand itself is flat, wide and composed of coarse sand and pebbles, while along its landward side there is now, as there was in 1806, a thick belt of scrub, mainly broom. The wide expanses of the beach made it an ideal place to land an army and its equipment, and, once the transports had anchored in the bay, the troops began to wade ashore, although their progress was hampered by heavy surf.

At daybreak Lt.-Colonel Oswald led an advance party to secure the beachhead. Regnier had been expecting a landing in the Bay of St Euphemia and there was a small detachment of Polish troops on the beach when the British landed. Stuart, anticipating opposition, had asked Captain Fellowes of the Apollo to order his ships to cover the landing.180 But instead of attacking the British while they were coming ashore the Poles quickly retreated into the hinterland, allowing Stuart’s men to land unopposed. Oswald’s party consisted of troops from the Light Battalion, the Grenadier Battalion and the 78th Foot. They moved off from the Bastione di Malta, a square, squat fortified tower which stood behind the beach; nowadays it is several hundred yards inland. Away from the sea a “vast plain with much cover of brushwood extended from the beach to the receding mountains”.181

Oswald and his men advanced into this scrub and soon encountered the enemy, who consisted of two companies of French troops and five companies of Polish troops, amounting to perhaps 400 troops, commanded by Colonel Grabinski.182 A fierce skirmish followed which resulted in the Poles being forced to retreat further inland and to the south, towards the main rendezvous for Regnier’s forces on the River Angitola.183 It was the first opportunity that the newly-formed Light Battalion had had to prove itself under fire and it acquitted itself with honour. One British officer recalled that no “fox-hunters after a long frost could appear to enjoy their sport more keenly”.184 Sergeant O’Neal, of the Light Company of the 81st Foot, distinguished himself by single-handedly taking several Poles prisoner.185 The French and Poles lost about twenty men killed and eighty-one were taken prisoner by the British, including two officers of the rank of major.186 The British suffered only one casualty, a sergeant in the Light Battalion, who was wounded in the skirmish.187 Oswald’s men, having seen off the Poles, advanced inland and began to establish themselves in positions near the village of St Euphemia, about a mile from the beach, where the ground starts to rise towards the hills.

The beachhead was, at least for

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