Wellington's Army 1809-1814 [Illustrated Edition] by Charles William Chadwick Oman

Author:Charles William Chadwick Oman [Oman, Charles William Chadwick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
Published: 2015-11-06T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XII — INTERNAL ORGANIZATION OF THE REGIMENT: THE RANK AND FILE

HE who would make himself acquainted in detail with the many experiments by which British Governments, from the rupture of the Peace of Amiens onward, strove to keep on foot in full numbers the very large army that it had raised, must satisfy his curiosity by studying the admirable volumes of Mr. Fortescue. Here we are concerned only with the methods which prevailed from 1809 till 1814, and gave Wellington the invincible, though often attenuated, battalions which conquered at Talavera and Bussaco, at Salamanca and Toulouse.

In the Peninsular Army the system of territorial names prevailed for nearly all the regiments of the line, but in most cases the local designation had no very close relation with the actual provenance of the men. There were a certain number of regiments that were practically national, e.g. most of the Highland battalions, and nearly all of the Irish ones, were very predominantly Highland and Irish as to their rank and file: but even in the 79th or the 88th there was a certain sprinkling of English recruits. And in some nominally Scottish regiments like the 71st Highland Light Infantry, or the 90th Perthshire Volunteers,{212} the proportion of English and Irish was very large. Similarly in almost all the nominally English regiments there was a large sprinkling of Irish, and a few Scots. This came partly from the fact that, though the corps recruited in their own districts, yet they were often allowed to send recruiting parties of great centres like London, Bristol, Liverpool, Glasgow, or Dublin. But still more was it due to the fact that the larger half of the recruits were raised not in the old normal fashion, but by volunteering from the embodied militia, and that in this system practically no attempt was made to confine the choice of militiamen wishing to join the regular army to their territorial regiment. Nothing, for example, was more usual than to find such things as 100 of the King’s County Militia joining the 31st or Huntingdonshire Regiment. When the 77th or East Middlesex Regiment returned from India in 1808, it was completed, before going out to the Peninsula, from the 1st West York, North and South Mayo, Northampton, and South Lincoln Militia, but did not get a single man from the Middlesex Militia.{213} The Shropshire Regiment (53rd) when allowed in a similar case to call for volunteers, did get 99 from its own county militia, but 144 more from the Dorset, East York, and Montgomery local corps.{214} The 81st or Loyal Lincoln was filled up in 1808, before sailing for Portugal, from the Dublin, King’s County, South Devon, and Montgomery Militia. Instances might be multiplied ad nauseam. It was quite exceptional for any English corps to contain a preponderance of men from its own nominal district, and nearly all of them had from a fifth to a fourth of Irish.

It is impossible to exaggerate the advantage to the Peninsular Army of the

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