Siege of Badajoz (1812)

Siege of Badajoz (1812)
Part of the Peninsular War
"The Devil's Own" 88th Regiment at the Siege of Badajoz, by Richard Caton Woodville
Date 16 March – 6 April 1812; (3 weeks) Location Badajoz, Spain 38°52′49″N 6°58′31″W / 38.88028°N 6.97528°W / 38.88028; -6.97528 Result Coalition victory[1]
Belligerents
French Empire	United Kingdom Portugal
Commanders and leaders
Armand Philippon	Arthur Wellesley
Strength
4,742–5,000[1]	27,000[2] 52 guns
Casualties and losses
1,300[1]–1,500 killed or wounded 3,500–3,700[1] captured[3]	4,760[4]–4,924[5] killed or wounded
200–4,000 Spanish civilians killed or injured[a]

Peninsular War
Castile 1811–13

200km
125miles

20

19

Burgos

18

17

16

Salamanca

15

Astorga

14

13

12

11

Ciudad Rodrigo

10

9

8

7

Arlabán

6

5

Albuera

4

Campo Maior

3

2

Badajoz

1

  

  current battle

The siege of Badajoz (16 March – 6 April 1812; [baðaˈxoθ]), also called the third siege of Badajoz, was an Anglo-Portuguese Army under the Earl of Wellington (later the Duke of Wellington) besieged Badajoz, Spain, and forced the surrender of the French garrison. The siege was one of the bloodiest in the Napoleonic Wars^[4] and was considered a costly victory by the British, with some 4,800 Allied soldiers killed or wounded in a few short hours of intense fighting during the storming of the breaches as the siege drew to an end. Enraged at the huge number of casualties they suffered in seizing the city, the troops broke into houses and stores consuming vast quantities of alcohol with many of them then going on a rampage, threatening their officers and ignoring their commands to desist, and even killing several.^[5] It took three days before the men were brought back into order. When order was restored, an estimated 200–300 civilians had been killed or injured.^[a][6]

Background

After the

The allied army, some 27,000[2] strong, outnumbered the French garrison by around five to one and after encircling the town on 17 March 1812, began to lay siege by preparing trenches, parallels and earthworks to protect the heavy siege artillery, work made difficult by a week of prolonged and torrential rainfalls, which also swept away bridging works that were needed to bring the heavy cannon and supplies forward.^[8]

Assaults and sallys

On 19 March the French made a strong sally with 1,500 men and 40 cavalry which surprised the working parties and caused losses of 150 officers and men before being repulsed. Amongst the wounded was

The capture of the bastion allowed more extensive siege earthworks to be dug and with the arrival of heavy 18 lb (8.2 kg) and 24 lb (11 kg) siege guns, breaching batteries were established. On 31 March the allies began an intense bombardment of the town's defences.^[10] Soon a maze of trenches was creeping up to the high stone walls as the cannons continued to blast away at the stonework. On 2 April an attempt was made to destroy a barrier that had been erected amongst the arches of the bridge to cause flooding that was hampering the siege. The explosion of 450 lbs of powder was only partly successful.^[10]

Breaches made

By 5 April two breaches had been made in the curtain wall and the soldiers readied themselves to storm Badajoz. The order to attack was delayed for 24 hours to allow another breach to be made in the wall.^[11] News began to filter to the allies that Marshal Soult was marching to relieve the town and an order was given to launch the attack at 22:00 on 6 April.^[12]

The French garrison were well aware of what was to come and, in between the cessation of siege guns at 19:30 and the start of the assault at 22:00, protected the large breaches in the walls with harrows, caltrops, and chevaux de frise in preparation for the imminent assault.^[13]

Final assault

With three large gaps in the curtain wall and being aware of Marshal Soult marching to the town's aid, Wellington ordered his regiments to storm the town so at 22:00 on the 6th and the troops made their way forward with scaling ladders and various tools. Three attacks would be mounted. The first men to assault the breaches were the men of the

Picton's 3rd Division managed to reach the top of the castle wall – without Picton, who was wounded[5] as he climbed a ladder to try to reach the top of the wall – and found themselves secure within the castle but, as all entrances into the town were blocked, unable to come immediately to the assistance of the other divisions.^[14]

Everywhere they attacked, the allied soldiers were being halted and the carnage was so immense that Wellington was about to call a halt to the assault when he heard that the soldiers had gained a foothold in the castle. He ordered that the castle gates be blown and that the 3rd Division should support the assaults on the breaches with a flank attack.^[15]

The 5th Division, which had been delayed because their ladder party had become lost, now attacked the San Vicente bastion; losing 600 men, they eventually made it to the top of the curtain wall.^[15] Major Lord FitzRoy Somerset, Wellington's military secretary (and the future Field Marshal the Lord Raglan), was the first to mount the breach,^[16] and afterwards secured one of the gates to enable access for British reinforcements before the French could organise a fresh defence.^{[citation needed]}

The town's fate was sealed with the linking up with men of the 3rd and 5th Divisions, who were also making their way into the town.^[12] Once they had a foothold, the British and Portuguese soldiers had an advantage. Seeing that he could no longer hold out, General Philippon withdrew from Badajoz to the neighbouring outwork of San Cristobal; he surrendered shortly after the town had fallen.^[17]

When dawn finally came on 7 April, it revealed the horror of the slaughter all around the curtain wall. Bodies were piled high and blood flowed like rivers in the ditches and trenches. Surveying the destruction and slaughter Wellington wept openly at the sight of British dead piled upon each other in the breaches^[18] and bitterly cursed the British Parliament for granting him so few resources and soldiers. The assault and the earlier skirmishes had left the allies with some 4,800 casualties. Numbers differ between 4,760^[4] and 4,924.^[5] The elite Light Division had suffered badly, losing some 40 percent of their fighting strength.

Rampage

After the capture of the city, British troops became drunk on stocks of captured alcohol and began rampaging through the city. During the sack of Badajoz, numerous homes were broken into, private property was vandalized or stolen, civilians of all ages and backgrounds raped and many British officers trying to bring to order were shot by the men.^[19][5] Captain Robert Blakeney wrote:

The infuriated soldiery resembled rather a pack of hell hounds vomited up from infernal regions for the extirpation of mankind than what they were but twelve short hours previously – a well-organised, brave, disciplined and obedient British Army, and burning only with impatience for what is called glory.^[20]

Despite this, some historians have defended the actions of the British soldiers by arguing that the aftermath could not have been avoided considering the ferociousness of the battle. Ian Fletcher argues:

Let us not forget that hundreds of British troops were killed and maimed by the fury of the respective assaults, during which men saw their comrades and brothers slaughtered before their very eyes. Should we really condemn them for feeling some degree of bitterness, for wanting to vent their anger upon somebody? The storming of a fortress is not the same as a battle where men expect casualties to occur. But when a force was asked to storm a fortress when practicable breaches had been formed, such casualties would have been deemed unnecessary. Given the enormity of the task facing the stormers in the Peninsula, I for one begrudge them none of their feelings of anger and desire for revenge.^[21]

On the other hand, Myatt writes:

Presumably one can return to the laws of war which, imprecise though they were, did at least suggest propriety of a surrender when a practicable breach had been made, to which Phillipon might very justifiably have retorted that practicable was not a recognisable description of breaches on which two of the best divisions in the British Army had failed to make any impressions, even though the extent of their effort can be measured by their losses.^[22]

After fifteen to eighteen hours Wellington finally issued an order that the sack of Badajoz should cease and ordered detachments to restore order beginning at 5 a.m. the next day.^[23] However, it took another 72 hours before military order was completely restored in the ranks.^[24] Many British soldiers were flogged as punishment and a gallows was erected, though no one was hanged.^[25]

Aftermath

The most detailed study of the effects of the British sacking of Badajoz is undoubtedly the one published in 1983 by Spanish historian Eladio Méndez Venegas from data collected in the Diocesan Archives of Badajoz. Research into the local archives have established that only about 300 families (between 1,200 and 1,500 people) had remained in the city. A document drawn up at the time by the priest of the Parish of Conception, which is signed ‘Bances’, presents in two folios the detailed list, per street/per parish, of the civilian dead and injured. The conclusion is that the total could be as high as 250, possibly even 280. These numbers indicated that between 20% and 30% of the Spanish civilians who were living near or within the walls of Badajoz were killed or injured during the sack of the city.^[26]

In a letter to

The storming of Badajoz affords as strong an instance of the gallantry of our troops as has ever been displayed. But I greatly hope that I shall never again be the instrument of putting them to such a test as that to which they were put last night.^[27]

From an

Wellington advanced into Spain leading to the Battle of Salamanca in a continuation of the Coalition campaign of 1812.

See also

• Badajoz bastioned enclosure

Explanatory notes

Notes

References

• Bodart, Gaston (1908). Militär-historisches Kriegs-Lexikon (1618–1905). Retrieved 28 May 2021.
• EB (2020). "Siege of Badajoz". Encyclopædia Britannica. Archived from the original on 24 October 2020.
• Fletcher, Ian (2001). In Hell before Daylight: The Siege and Storming of the Castle of Badajoz, March–April 1812. Spellmount Ltd.
  ISBN 1-873376-26-X
  .
• Fletcher, Ian (2005). Badajoz 1812: Wellington's bloodiest siege.
• Heathcote, T. A. (1999). The British Field Marshals 1736–1997. Staplehurst.
  ISBN 0-85052-696-5
  .
• Hibbert, Christopher (1997). Wellington: A Personal History. Perseus Books.
  ISBN 0738201480
  .
• Melón, Miguel Ángel (2012). "Badajoz (1811–1812) La resistencia en la frontera" (PDF). In Butró Prída, Gonzalo; Rújula, Pedro (eds.). Los sitios en la guerra de la Independencia: La lucha en las ciudades. Cádiz:
  ISBN 978-84-9828-393-8
  .
• Myatt, Frederick (1995). British Sieges of the Peninsular War. Staplehurst.
  ISBN 0-946771-59-6
  .
• Oman, Sir Charles (1914), A History of the Peninsular War: Volume V, October 1811 to August 1812, Clarendon Press
• Ortiz, Lt Col Fernando (2019). "Civilian Casualties during the Sack of Badajoz 1812". Retrieved 28 May 2021.
• Paget, Julian (1996). Wellington's Peninsular War – Battles and Battlefields. London.
  ISBN 0-85052-603-5.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link
  )
• Porter, Maj Gen Whitworth (1889). History of the Corps of Royal Engineers Vol I. Chatham: The Institution of Royal Engineers.
• Weller, Jac (1962). Wellington in the Peninsula 1808–1814. London: The Institution of Royal Engineers.
  ISBN 0-7182-0730-0
  .
• Wellesley, Arthur (1838). The dispatches of Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington, during his various campaigns in India, Denmark, Portugal, Spain, the Low Countries, and France. From 1799 to 1818. Compiled from official and authentic documents Vol 9. London: John Murray.

Further reading

• Fletcher, Ian: Fortresses of the Peninsular War, Osprey Publishing.
• Fletcher, Ian: Wellington's Regiments: The Men and Their Battles, 1808–15, The History Press Ltd.,
  ISBN 1-873376-06-5

• Media related to Battle of Badajoz at Wikimedia Commons