Читать книгу Military Memoirs of Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington - Joseph Moyle Sherer - Страница 5

Table of Contents

The honorable Arthur Wellesley, now field-marshal of England, and duke of Wellington, a younger son of the late earl of Mornington, and a brother of the present marquis Wellesley, received his first commission as an ensign of infantry in 1787. He was then in his eighteenth year, and had been regularly educated for the profession of his choice. He studied for a time at the military academy of Angers in France, whither, at an early age, he was prudently removed from Eton, where science is not taught

As subaltern and captain he served both in the cavalry and infantry, and enjoyed the rare advantage of an early acquaintance with the field duties of both those arms.

In the spring of 1793 he was promoted to a majority in the 33d regiment, and was advanced to the lieutenant-colonelcy of that corps, by purchase, in the autumn of the same year.

A young man, in the command of a fine regiment, he sailed upon his first service from the Cove of Cork in the month of May, 1794.

The corps landed at Ostend in the latter end of June, and was already in garrison, when lord Moira (with the troops originally destined for a chivalrous but unwise attempt in Britany) arrived at that place, to hold it as a point of support for the allied army in Flanders.

The enemy, however, was already in possession of Ypres on the one side, and of Bruges on the other. Near the former place the Austrian general, Clairfait, had just sustained three successive defeats, and had retired upon Ghent:—Walmoden, the Hanoverian commander, being thus compelled to evacuate Bruges, had marched to join him.

That brave prince, the duke of York, whose misfortune it was to have a command so ill-defined, that it would have perplexed a much older and a far more experienced leader, was, as a consequence of these defeats, driven from his position at Tournay, and placed in circumstances very critical and disheartening.

In this state of affairs lord Moira called a council of war; and it was there agreed, that the mere defence of Ostend, to which object his orders confined him, was not of so great importance as the immediate succor of the duke of York. Ostend was evacuated on the 29th of June. With about eight thousand men lord Moira marched by Bruges (from which place the French retired on his approach) to Ghent. On the same day the garrison under colonel Vyse embarked with such order and expedition, that the town was clear both of troops and stores before sunset. This brigade proceeded to the Scheldt, and, disembarking on the banks of that river, joined the camp of the duke of York before Antwerp.

It was here that lieutenant-colonel Wellesley, who accompanied his regiment by sea from Ostend, first saw an army in the field. It was at this moment, and upon this theatre of war, where there was no sound but of reverses, and no prospect but one dreary with expected disappointments, that the conqueror in so many battles made his first essay in arms.

Here he received his first lessons in practical warfare, and here obtained that early notice and early praise, which bestow confidence, and which animate ambition.

In the formal and stationary camps, and in the confined and chilling operations of this defensive campaign, there were few opportunities of distinction; yet some occurred, and they were eagerly improved. Lieutenant-colonel Wellesley commanded the 33d regiment in every affair in which it was engaged. On the river Neethe; in a warm affair near the village of Boxtel; and in a hot skirmish on the Waal, it did good service.

The allied army was not in strength to face the weighty masses of the French in battle; but the British posts were occasionally disturbed ; and to secure and preserve their communications some fighting was necessary. In the affairs alluded to, our young commander was not unobserved. At the close of the campaign he was selected by general David Dundas to cover, with the brigade to which his regiment was then attached, the memorable retreat from Holland: no mean distinction; for Dundas was an officer of high reputation, a strict disciplinarian, and an intrepid soldier.

It was in the middle of January that this movement was decided on; for two months previous the service had been trying. Both officers and soldiers were exhausted by continual fatigues; they had to support the rigors of winter, and long nights of ceaseless watching, without the clothing or the contorts suited to that cold climate and to the inclement season.

The sufferings on the retreat were yet more severe. The route from the frozen banks of the Lech to those of the Yssel lay through the dreary and inhospitable provinces of Gueldreland and Over-Yssel. The way was over desert and flat heaths there were but few houses on the route, and these scattered singly or in small villages, or in mere hamlets, affording a seldom and insufficient cover for the troops. It was a hard frost: the wheel-tracks were covered with snow; and bitter winds and blinding storms of sleet blew keenly from the north-east, directly meeting them as they marched. If the fatigued soldier reposed too long, drowsiness would steal over him; and if not roused and urged forward on his road, he slept the sleep of death. Such casualties were numerous. Under these circumstances no common zeal and activity were necessary in covering the retreat The command of the rear-guard was a post of honor: it was filled with credit, and stamped lieutenant-colonel Wellesley then as a man of promise. Such was the rude experience of his first campaign; a campaign, however, pregnant with useful lessons. It had been carried on by councils of war, —divided councils ;—a campaign where the talents and courage of the generals were paralyzed for want of men, materiel, and money, and no less for want of well-defined commands, and full powers of action. Clairfait, the Austrian, was both able and brave; Walmoden of Hanover was a man highly considered ; and the British prince, though young and of no experience, was full of ardor and spirit, and was not without firm and intelligent advisers.

But in this war, from the moment that Prussia entered Poland, the motives of all the continental allies became suspected, and the popularity of their cause in the Netherlands soon expired. When the inhabitants clearly saw the inability to protect them, they became at first fearful, then wearied, and at length hostile; a consequence that in no theatre of war should ever cause surprise, and is rarely a theme for any just reproach. For the irritated feelings of a retiring and mortified soldiery some allowance may be made; but the abuse poured out in England, at that period, upon the people of Flanders and Holland was bitter and unmerited.

Nothing but a sacred love of liberty, or a love for the existing government so strong as to supply, if possible, its place, or such a dread and hatred of the invader as prompts all sacrifice for his expulsion, will ever engage the peaceful dwellers in towns and villages in the toil and peril of a present and protracted warfare. Under all governments the smith plies his anvil, the rustic follows his plow, the citizen opens 'his shop in the morning and counts his gains in the evening; and all these ask but to perform their daily tasks, and eat their daily bread in peace. They ask individual liberty, and personal repose. It is true that the people of the Netherlands had shouted round the state coach of the emperor that very spring at Brussels. The pageantry of the inauguration of a duke of Brabant had amused their eyes, and cheated them of a few cheers; but events soon showed the weakness of their Cæsar, and in the moment of trial they forsook him. The Dutch bad more to contend for, and were, at first, in earnest; but they, too, felt their own weakness; they saw that of the allies; and they were hopeless of any effectual resistance. Moreover, as a maritime nation, they had always a jealousy of the English, and this prevented the cordiality of a generous co-operation. The French, for which they may thank the coarse policy of their enemies, were all united: they had numbers and energy; and, flushed with the triumph of Fleurus, they were not to be resisted by a motley army of jealous allies, acting amid a people indifferent to their success. The English evacuated Holland, execrating the inhabitants; and the Hollanders saw them depart with no equivocal expressions of their dislike.

Notwithstanding all their sufferings, the English soldiers returned home in good heart; satisfied that they had maintained the national character for true valor on every occasion that offered for its display.

They returned, too, with a feeling about the bonnets rouges and sans-culottes of republican France, differing little from the prejudice of their forefathers against the wooden shoes and soup maigre of her monarchy. Well for England that they did. By this feeling, conspiring with the old national antipathies, and combined with the good sense and right judgment of the reflecting, the pestilence of the licentious and infidel sentiments which, at that period, poisoned the whole atmosphere of France, was stayed within the confines of her own conquests.

That English spirit was the safeguard of the people from the corrupting and inflammatory language of those very levellers who were soon after trodden under foot by the iron heel of a military despot; an idol of their own raising, and the object of a slavish though splendid worship.

That spirit enabled England to carry through, with perseverance and patience, a long and glorious war;—a war, not as many perversely contend, for the weak cause and the weak house of Bourbon, but for her own sacred institutions.

Somewhere the battle must have been fought; and if Spam and the Netherlands had not furnished fields for the contest, it must sooner or later have been fought upon her own green hills at home; and the pendants of her gallant fleets, instead of flying in constant triumph upon the far ocean, must have been drooping on the dull watch in sight of her own shores. That spirit in her fleets and armies, under the guidance of such instruments as God gave us in their leaders, has raised England to that pinnacle of power, wealth, and influence, to which 6he has now attained, and from which nothing but suicidal folly can cast her down.

But we return to the steps of one who has been honored, above all other instruments, individually, in bringing about these great results:—be it remembered, too, not as an aspiring usurper, but as the free-born general of a constitutional army, as the loyal subject of an English king, and the faithful servant of the English people.

Such was the aspect of our continental relations at the period just mentioned, that, for a time, the British soldier could see no field in all Europe whereon to display his enterprise and win renown.

Short, however, as was this campaign in Flanders, though there was no battle, and but little fighting, it had shown to Wellesley a something of war upon the grand scale; for it was in an army of sixty-eight battalions, and eighty squadrons, that he had served. He had seen troops of various nations, differing in their discipline, their habits, their costume, and their aspect. He had heard those grand sounds with which he was to have so long and so glorious a familiarity in after-life: the distant boom of the hostile gun; the nigh thunder of batteries of cannon; the rolling of musketry; the tread of columns; the trampling of squadrons, and the voice of the trumpet There was yet another sound he had heard,—the dauntless cheers, the loud hurrah of those soldiers whom, under happier auspices, and on a more glorious theatre of action, he was so often to lead against the enemies of his country, and to guide to victory and glory.

While he had witnessed the excellent spirit and brave bearing of English soldiers, he had also marked their defects, and listened, probably, to the complaints made against their discipline, interior economy, and temper, by their Austrian allies, with no light or inattentive ear. The Austrians in that campaign reproached the British for being disdainful; admitted that they were brave, and ready for all great occasions, but complained that they were indolent, negligent, and indifferent in the discharge of all those minor calls,—those labors, fatigues, and pickets, in which the duties of a prolonged warfare mainly consist High courage was, at that time, as always, the great distinction, the brilliant merit of our soldiery; but the system of our regimental economy was comparatively bad; all our military institutions were defective and vicious; few departments of the army were conducted with intelligence, some with a known want of integrity: the commissariat and medical departments were notoriously incapable; nor were the talents and acquirements necessary for the prompt and intelligent discharge of their important duties commonly found even among officers of the general staff.

Too much praise can never be assigned to the wise regulations by which the late duke of York labored for years, at a subsequent period, to remedy these sad evils, and great was the improvement he effected; but it is to the preparatory system and discipline of a Dundas, a Cathcart, and a Moore, and to the large and practical application of their principles by a Wellington, that we owe the present character, efficiency, and, above all, the present lame of the English army.

On the return of the troops from Holland, the 33d regiment, as soon as it was reported fit for service, was ordered upon an expedition then fitting out against the West Indies, and sailed, early in 1795, with the fleet under the orders of admiral Christian.

The fleet made several attempts to put out to sea, but was repeatedly driven back by adverse winds. Owing to these delays, the 33d was countermanded, ordered to land, and sailed again in April, 1796, for the Cape and India. Thus a star which might have set early in the West in obscurity, and perhaps death, arose in the East with life and brightness.

Lord Mornington, the present marquis Wellesley, being appointed governor-general of India in 1797, the interests of Ins brother were not forgotten. Lieutenant-colonel Wellesley was promoted to the rank of colonel.

During his voyage to India, it is yet remembered by one of his fellow-passengers, that he passed much time in his cabin diligently reading, to prepare himself for command and conduct in that country. Distinguishable from young men of his age and station by no affected singularities, he was quietly laying the foundation of his renown. Birth and high connexion had given him quick promotion and early advancement to responsible command,—but they could do no more. Men grow not to greatness by accident, but by those personal endowments, which are, in the first place, the gifts of Providence; and after, by a constant improvement of them, by steady preparation, strong will, and undiverted resolve.