‘The pontoons will cross to the island this afternoon, and we’ll bridge the final gap tonight.’
‘Excellent.’ Napoleon smiled warmly. ‘Then by dawn we’ll have our bridgehead. Massйna’s corps will take the villages of Essling and Aspern and then the rest of the army can cross.’
Marshal Lannes leaned forward in his chair and cleared his throat. ‘That’s all very well, sire, but can we be sure that the enemy will not contest our landing on the far bank?’
‘Rest assured, my dear Lannes, the Austrian army is still many days’ march away. The first they’ll know about our crossing the Danube is when the cannon announce our presence. By then, it will be too late to do anything but give battle.’
‘But if the Austrians are closer than you have calculated, then we could be advancing into a trap of our own making. Sire, I urge caution. We are advancing over a fast-flowing river on a single bridge. What if this span broke, or was destroyed? Then the army would be cut in half. The vanguard would be at the mercy of the enemy if they could gather sufficient forces to oppose us. Sire, it is too much of a risk.’
‘The enemy are not strong enough to hamper the river crossing, I assure you. War is the realm of risk, chance and opportunity. In this case it is my judgement that the opportunity outweighs the risk.’ Napoleon’s tone hardened.‘Gentlemen, the orders are given and the army begins to cross the Danube tonight.’
THE IBERIAN PENINSULA
Chapter 3
General Sir Arthur Wellesley lowered the letter with a frustrated sigh and leaned back in his chair. Even though he sat in the shade outside the small tavern the noon heat was stifling. Not so bad as India, he recalled, but beyond reasonable comfort all the same. He had taken off his coat and sat bareheaded at a plain trestle table as he dealt with the morning’s reports and correspondence. The army had halted at the Portuguese town of Abrantes several days earlier as it waited for supplies and money. The latter was Arthur’s most pressing concern. Not only had his men not been paid for over two months, but there were also numerous bills that required settling with Portuguese grain merchants and horse dealers, as well as the need for twenty thousand pairs of boots to replace those worn out by his men. It was Arthur’s policy that the British army must pay its way in the Peninsula if it was to enjoy the continued support of the Portuguese and Spanish people. His army was outnumbered at least five to one as things stood and the British could not afford the enmity of the people across whose land they campaigned.
Arthur knew that the French took a less enlightened view regarding their supplies, and lived off the land with no regard for the consequent attitude of the local people. As a result the French had incurred the wrath of the Spanish and Portuguese peasants who now waged a pitiless war of resistance, ambushing French patrols, harassing their columns and butchering any stragglers left behind.
Arthur looked down the steep slope towards the river Tagus. The water flowed with a serene grace through hills planted with groves of olive and fruit trees and the men of the British army were enjoying a hard-earned rest as they waited for their commander to decide on his next steps. Hundreds of soldiers were lining the bank, taking the chance to wash their clothes, while the more adventurous had stripped and were splashing in the shallows.
Arthur permitted himself a small smile as he regarded them. The men had performed well at Oporto a month earlier, where they had surprised Marshal Soult and sent him fleeing towards Spain, abandoning all his artillery and wagons in the process. Besides proving that they could march hard, the redcoats had shown that they could stand up to the fanatical attacks of the French at the earlier battle of Vimeiro. Arthur was confident that his army, even outnumbered as it was, had the beating of all the marshals and men of Napoleon’s forces in the Peninsula, provided that the French were prevented from concentrating their armies. That was the trick of it, Arthur reflected. He must defeat them in detail until the Peninsula was liberated. Conversely, he dare not let his army suffer a single setback.
He commanded the largest British army in the field and there were many at home in England who loudly questioned the sagacity of supporting such a large force in the Peninsula, far from the vital battlefields of central Europe, where Arthur’s men could be better used. He disagreed. It was best to deploy valuable British soldiers where they stood a good chance of tipping the scales. Even so, Arthur’s political masters had proved reluctant to allow him to take risks. Or they had been until the victory at Oporto. Then, true to form, the politicians had veered from caution to opportunism in an instant.
Before Oporto Arthur had been forbidden from entering Spain without the express permission of the British government. Now that the news of the victory had arrived in London, together with Arthur’s report of his pursuit of Soult as far as the Spanish border, the Prime Minister had sent him a despatch expressing his disappointment that Arthur had not fully exploited his success. The Prime Minister now urged Arthur to invade Spain, capture Madrid and drive the French out.
Arthur heard footsteps approaching the table and looked up to see his senior aide de camp approaching. Lord Fitzroy Somerset was a handsome youth, but unlike many of the other younger officers in the army he dedicated himself to his duties with a high degree of organisation and intelligence. He had proved to be a valuable member of Arthur’s small team of staff officers and the general had come to rely on him and, on occasion, seek his opinion.
‘Good morning, sir,’ Somerset smiled, proffering a small bundle of letters.
‘Put them there, on the corner of the table. You can deal with them in a moment. For now, read this.’ Arthur pushed the despatch he had been reading across the table to Somerset as the latter pulled up a stool and sat down.
Somerset picked up the document and read through it quickly, his expression settling into an irritated frown as his gaze flitted across the text. He looked up as he lowered the letter.
‘He must be joking.’
‘Only at my expense,’ Arthur muttered.
‘Sir, this is preposterous. They get one whiff of victory and then want the impossible.’
Arthur sighed. ‘You are right, of course. It is impossible. We have barely twenty-five thousand men under arms, and another fifteen if you include Beresford and his Portuguese troops. Against us Joseph Bonaparte has perhaps as many as a quarter of a million men. It is true that many of the enemy are tied down in garrisons but they must still be marched upon and destroyed, and any siege is a costly affair.’ He paused briefly. ‘Speaking of cost, it appears that His Majesty’s treasury has declined to send me the four hundred thousand pounds I requested to fund our operations here. I am told that they have decided that the hundred and twenty thousand already sent is sufficient for the foreseeable future. It barely covers our existing debts.’
‘At least we should be able to pay those off soon enough, sir,’ Somerset responded, as he began to open and read the morning’s despatches. ‘Once Cradock returns from Cadiz.’
Arthur nodded. Cradock was one of his senior officers, entrusted with a hundred thousand pounds’ worth of captured bullion to be converted into Portuguese dollars. He was due back any day, and once there was money in the army’s war chest Arthur would be able to lead his men against the French once more and enter Spain. The Spanish junta, the government opposed to the regime of Joseph Bonaparte in Madrid, had offered to co-operate with the British and Arthur was bidden to join forces with General Cuesta to the west of the capital. Britain’s ally promised to provide ample supplies of food and ammunition to the redcoat army marching to their aid. Arthur had been promised much by the Portuguese government and received little, and feared that he could only expect the same from the Spanish.
Somerset cleared his throat as he looked at a lengthy list of names on a sheet of paper.‘More bad news, sir. A score at least of our officers have requested reappointment to the Portuguese army.’
Arthur’s heart sank at the news. ‘How many is that so far?’
Somerset paused a moment to think. ‘Must be over a hundred by now.’
Dearth of supplies was not the only difficulty facing the army,Arthur mused ruefully. The men were in good enough spirits, despite the frustration of watching Soult escape when they reached the border, but the mood amongst many of the officers was far less encouraging. In an army where commissions were bought and sold like any other commodity, those without a family fortune or access to large loans were often destined to spend the
