A history of the Peninsular War, Vol. 1, 1807-1809 : $b From the treaty of Fontainbleau to the battle of CorunnaOman, Charles
History
A history of the Peninsular War, Vol. 1, 1807-1809 : $b From the treaty of Fontainbleau to the battle of Corunna
Oman, Charles
Peninsular War, 1807-1814
The artillery of the Spanish army, on the other hand, earned on the
whole a good reputation. This was not the result of proper preparation.
When the struggle began it consisted of thirty-four batteries of field
artillery, six of horse, and twenty-one garrison batteries (_compañias
fijas_), with a total of 6,500 men. Forty batteries--that is to say
240 guns or somewhat less, for in some cases there seem to have been
only four instead of six pieces in the battery--was according to the
standard of 1808 a mediocre allowance to an army of 130,000 men, only
about two-thirds of what it should have been[75]. But this was not the
worst. Deducting four fully-horsed batteries, which had been taken
off by Napoleon to Denmark, there remained in Spain four horse and
thirty-two field batteries. These were practically unable to move, for
they were almost entirely destitute of horses. For the 216 guns and
their caissons there were only in hand 400 draught animals! When the
war began, the artillery had to requisition, and more or less train,
3,000 horses or mules before they could move from their barracks! I
do not know any fact that illustrates better the state of Spanish
administration under the rule of Godoy. The raising of the great
insurrectionary armies in the summer of 1808 ought to have led to an
enormous increase to the artillery arm, but the trained men were so few
that the greatest difficulty was found in organizing new batteries.
Something was done by turning the marine artillery of the fleet into
land troops, and there were a few hundreds of the militia who had been
trained to work guns. But the officers necessary for the training and
officering of new batteries were so scarce, that for many months no
fresh forces of the artillery arm could take the field. In the autumn
of 1808, at the time of the battles of Espinosa and Tudela, if we
carefully add up the number of guns brought into action by the five
armies of Galicia, Estremadura, Aragon, the ‘Centre’ (i.e. Andalusia
and Castile), and Catalonia, we do not find a piece more than the 240
which existed at the outbreak of the war. That is to say, the Spaniards
had raised 100,000 new levies of infantry, without any corresponding
extension of the artillery arm. During the campaign the conduct of the
corps seems on the whole to have been very good, compared with that of
the other arms. This was to be expected, as they were old soldiers to a
much greater extent than either the infantry or the cavalry. They seem
to have attained a fair skill with their weapons, and to have stuck
to them very well. We often hear of gunners cut down or bayonetted
over their pieces, seldom of a general bolt to the rear. For this very
reason the personnel of the batteries suffered terribly: every defeat
meant the capture of some dozens of guns, and the cutting up of the men
who served them. It was as much as the government could do to keep up
a moderate number of batteries, by supplying new guns and amalgamating
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account