A History Of The British Army – Vol. X – (1814-1815)

By Sir John William Fortescue

Sir John Fortescue holds a pre-eminent place amongst British military historians, his enduring fame and legacy resting mainly on his life’s work “The History of the British Army”, issued in 20 volumes, which took him some 30 years to complete. In scope and breadth it is such that no modern scholar has attempted to cover such a large and diverse subject in its entirety; but Sir John did so and with aplomb, leading to a readable and comprehensive study.
This tenth volume covers the period from 1814-1815, as the British Army along with its Portuguese and Spanish Allies finally pushed into France in 1814 they still met with fierce and determined resistance from the French troops under the veteran Marshal Soult. After a number of skilful, and some less skilful actions along the river lines the victories of the British troops added further evidence to the hopeless situation for Napoleon who abdicated in 1814. The British government immediately sent a large part of the victorious Peninsular army on a foolish and unsuccessful attack of New Orleans, all the more futile as peace had already been signed between the United States and Great Britain. Napoleon did not rest long in his new home on the Isle of Elba, returning to France in 1815 reuniting his enemies against him and fighting the era defining battle of Waterloo, one of the finest hours of the British Army.
TIMES.—"We have in these volumes the worthy continuation of a history which is worthy of its subject. Mr. Fortescue will not ask for higher praise."
A MUST READ for any military enthusiast.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Normanby Press
• Release date: Jun 13, 2014
• ISBN: 9781782891376

Sir John William Fortescue

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CHAPTER XVII — LOW COUNTRIES/FRANCE— 1814

Graham projects the surprise of Bergen-op-Zoom—Description of Bergen-op-Zoom—Bad news prompts Graham to haste—His plan of attack—The attack on Bergen-op-Zoom—Reflections upon the operation—The casualties on both sides—Chivalrous behaviour of the French commandant—Further preparations of the Allies in Holland—The Allies enter Paris—The Senate declares Napoleon dethroned—Marmont deserts Napoleon—Napoleon consents to abdicate conditionally—Souham's defection causes him to abdicate without conditions—Napoleon is consigned to Elba

1814

While the Allies were still fencing with Napoleon in Northern France, and Wellington was halted after his victory at Orthez, Graham had played an astonishingly bold game in Holland. Being condemned to inactivity after the failure of his second advance upon Antwerp, he sent Stanhope to Bernadotte’s head-quarters at Cologne to ask for reinforcements. Bernadotte received this emissary with great friendliness and promised to order Walmoden’s Hanoverian corps, which was cantoned on the left bank of the Elbe a little to west of Hamburg, to join Sir Thomas immediately. Being at such a distance these troops could not be expected for several days; and in the meanwhile Graham received a letter dated the 28th of February,{11} from Bathurst, intimating that in all probability his force would shortly be withdrawn and sent to America, owing to the failure of the Militia Act to produce recruits. Sir Thomas had already considered the feasibility of capturing Bergen-op-Zoom by surprise, but had rejected the operation as too dangerous, unless it were positively forced upon him. Existing circumstances, however, seemed to call for a great effort. The latest news from France announced the retreat of the Allies, and the latest instruction from England ordered the withdrawal of the British force. Unless Bergen-op-Zoom were taken, therefore, all Holland would be open to invasion; whereas possession of the town would break the line of hostile fortifications between Antwerp and Flushing, ensure the possibility of naval cooperation for England, and in brief save the existence of Holland as an independent state. So Graham argued, not incorrectly, for ever since the sixteenth century Bergen-op-Zoom had been the bridge-head which gave the Dutch access to the continent of Europe, either through Brabant by land, or by Zeeland at sea, when they were strong, and, when they were weak, protected them against invasion.

The fortress itself, brought to perfection by Cohorn in 1688, in shape resembled a violin, the finger-board and half of the sound-board to west representing the port, and the rest of the sound-board to east the town. Town and port were almost joined together by walls and buildings, the communication between the two being a gate, known as the False Gate, in the ancient castle which stood in the middle of the aforesaid buildings. The place itself had sixteen bastions and three gates, the Breda Gate on the east side, the Antwerp Gate on the south side, and the Steenbergen Gate on the north side, besides twenty-six sally-ports—four of them spacious enough for the passage of vehicles, and the remainder also very large—which passed into the casemates and so into the ditches. The eastern and southern fronts were the strongest, being those that faced towards France; and the latter was covered, over a considerable area, by an entrenched camp with four redoubts upon four salient angles, which were practically bastions. The whole of these works had been finished to the utmost nicety by Cohorn, saving only that the scarp was not revetted with masonry to a greater height than sixteen feet above the ditch, which defect, though of no importance against an attack in form, afforded dangerous facilities for an escalade.

On the western or water front the fortifications were wholly of earth, and the scarp, which had no counterscarp, was of inclination so gentle that cavalry could gallop up it in line. The true defence on this front consisted of a broad ditch within, holding six feet of water, and of a broad marsh without intersected with creeks, which, being covered with water at high tide, was impracticable for trench-making. North of this marsh was a narrow slip of reclaimed land between dykes and ditches, called the Little Polder, which ran westward from the north-west angle of the place, and ended in a fort called the Water-fort, standing in the midst of a wide ditch, likewise full of water, with steps leading down from it to the Scheldt. This work was revetted with masonry, but the scarp was not above twelve feet high. Beyond the Polder, and parallel to it on the north side, passed the canal known as the Zoom, which led to the port, and formed the communication between it and the river; and north of the canal a marsh, similar to that below the entrenched camp, extended to the Tholen dyke. This was an embankment which had been thrown up in the later half of the eighteenth century for the reclamation of land, and which abutted at right angles to the canal upon an earthern demi-bastion in the north-western angle of the fortress. The northern front was wholly of earth, with ditches full of water but without demi-lunes; the defence of this quarter being dependent upon a vast entrenched camp called the lines of Steenbergen which, together with other works, united the irregular quadrilateral formed by Steenbergen, Bergen-op-Zoom, Klundert and Willemstadt into one huge fortified position.

The general scheme of the defences, though well designed from a Dutch point of view—that is to say to resist an attack from the side of France—was by no means so well adapted to a French garrison, which might be threatened from any quarter. The lines of Steenbergen required a whole army for their defence, and no such army was to hand; indeed Steenbergen and Willemstadt were actually in the hands of the Allies. Again the entrance to the Water-fort, which was well placed for the reception of reinforcements from a nation which was mistress of the sea, was for a foreign garrison a weak point, which courted an assault by surprise. The French therefore moved this entrance back to the gorge of the bastion in rear, and endeavoured through the bitter winter of 1813-1814 to keep open the water, which was the main source of security on this front, by daily breaking of the ice. Frequently it was necessary to employ axes and even saws for this purpose, with enormous fatigue to the troops and anxiety to the officers. On the north front the want of demi-lunes was made good by retrenchment and by palisading of the re-entrant angles between the bastions; but, owing to the weakness of the garrison, it was impossible to occupy these retrenchments in proper strength. The troops, numbering two thousand seven hundred men,{12} were raw levies which, none the less, had improved greatly under the instruction of excellent officers; while the commandant, the veteran General Ambert, maintained both discipline and vigilance, and had taken every possible precaution against surprise.

In the first days of March Graham advanced his head-quarters to Calmpthout, and brought the cantonments of his right wing forward from Rozendaal to Putten and Stabroek, with the general idea of preventing the French from reinforcing Antwerp from Courtrai. On the 7th unfavourable news from all quarters prompted him to make his attack without delay. Of the operations of the Allied forces which were marching on Paris he knew nothing, except that Grand Headquarters had fallen back to Chaumont, which suggested, to say the least, that affairs were not going favourably. Of his expected reinforcements under Walmoden the latest information was that they could not have drawn nearer to him than Bremen by the 26th of February, so that, in case of a French invasion of Flanders he would have no troops to stand by him but the Saxons, who, though brave enough, were imperfectly disciplined. In the circumstances Graham decided that, if he meant to attack Bergen-op-Zoom, he must do so forthwith, and accordingly he made his dispositions for an assault on the evening of the 8th, while the waters were still frozen and his intentions still unsuspected.

Before dawn of the 8th the First Division was moved quietly down to Halsteren and Huibergen, north-west and south-east of Bergen-op-Zoom; the Second Division being employed to cover the movement against any interruption from Antwerp. Four thousand men were then distributed into four columns, the leaders of which received the following instructions. On the right five hundred men of the Twenty-first, Thirty-seventh and Forty-fourth, supported by six hundred of the Royals, under Colonel Carleton of the Forty-fourth, were to march from Halsteren under cover of darkness so as to reach the junction of the Tholen dyke with the Scheldt at nine o’clock in the evening. From thence they were to be guided to their point of attack where the same dyke abuts on the fortress. On the right centre six hundred and fifty men of the Twenty-first, Thirty-seventh and Ninety-first—under Colonel Henry of the first-named regiment—were to deliver a feint assault on the Steenbergen Gate. On the left centre twelve hundred men of the Thirty-third, Fifty-fifth and Sixty-ninth, advancing from Huibergen under Colonel Morrice, were to assail the north-eastern angle near the Breda Gate; and on the extreme left a thousand of the Guards under Lord Proby were to move from Borguliet and attempt to force an entrance by the Orange bastion, in rear of the entrenched camp on the southern front. The four columns were directed to be within cannon-shot of the works by nine o’clock and to move to the attack at half-past ten; and three watches were set in each column to ensure accuracy of time. Perfect silence was of course to be observed up to the last moment; and it was arranged that the watchword for the attacking parties should be Oranje Boven, and the answer God Save the King. Graham looked for help from confederates within the fortress,{13} and this system of watchwords was designed for their benefit. It was intended that the left centre attack should be the principal one, that the right and left attacks should concentrate upon it, and that Henry’s column, after serving its purpose of diverting the enemy’s attention by a false onslaught, should act as a