DC Under Siege_2of6_Ciudad Rodrigo 1812 Breaching the Walls
Transcript
00:00The bloody battles of the early years of the Peninsular War are writ large in military
00:09folklore.
00:10Demiero, Caruana, Talavera and Busaco.
00:15After four years of intense fighting, which had seen the British successfully drive the
00:19French from Portugal, the focus fell on one strategically crucial city.
00:25The French army held it, and in the middle of a harsh Iberian winter, the fight for its
00:31control began.
00:34It was not the weary battle of attrition of so many sieges, but rather a swift and decisive
00:39move that flew in the face of conventional tactics.
00:43A small British force, operating in the depths of winter, besieged a French garrison with
00:48the whole Portuguese siege train at its disposal.
00:52The outcome of the battle was dramatically to affect the fortunes of both sides, and
00:57in many ways signalled the beginning of the end for Napoleon's forces.
01:02Ciudad Rodrigo, 1812.
01:22Today, Ciudad Rodrigo is a peaceful, picturesque town that remains an impressive sight to modern
01:43day travellers as they approach from the nearby Portuguese border.
01:48However, the brutal events of nearly 200 years ago are not hard to find, as the scars are
01:54etched in the very fabric of the town.
01:58The poppy-strewn remains of the Great Breach in the city walls.
02:03The walls of the church, pitted by shot and shell.
02:07The Lesser Breach, through which the main road into the town now runs, are all testament
02:12to the bloody siege.
02:17In 1807, the French army had invaded Spain and Portugal to implement Napoleon's Continental
02:22System, which was designed to cut Britain off from trade with mainland Europe.
02:28The nation of shopkeepers had sent forces to the Iberian Peninsula in 1808, under the
02:33command of the Duke of Wellington, to release the stranglehold and drive the French out
02:38of the peninsula.
02:41By March 1811, the French had been forced to leave Portugal by an allied force of British,
02:46Portuguese and Spanish troops.
02:49The summer months of that year saw more costly bloodbaths, in the streets and alleys of Fuentes
02:54do Noro and at the mighty fortress of Almeida.
02:59But even with the capture by Wellington of these border towns, the job was still only
03:03half done.
03:05If Wellington was to secure Portugal and move on into Spain, he had to capture two vital
03:10strategic frontier towns, Ciudad Rodrigo in the north and Badajoz in the south.
03:18Ciudad Rodrigo was very important in terms of the overall strategy in the Peninsular
03:23War.
03:25Any army that wanted to invade Portugal, or in fact Spain, needed to command the two corridors
03:30between Portugal and Spain.
03:32Once you held them, then your base was safe, Portugal was safe, the French would not be
03:38able to invade Portugal.
03:40And therefore, once he had those two fortresses, he could then think about going on the offensive
03:44into Spain.
03:46They'd always been important, and they were very important now.
03:49Ciudad Rodrigo was certainly not an easy target.
03:53When the French had originally captured it in 1810, they had acquired the entire Portuguese
03:58siege train.
03:59So when Wellington arrived, the town not only housed a substantial French garrison, but
04:04enormous supplies of ammunition and cannon within its formidable walls.
04:10For Wellington successfully to take the fortress town, he would have to lay siege to it.
04:16And for this strategy to be successful, he would have to strike when French forces were
04:20widely dispersed, to avoid engaging a relieving force in open battle, something he had neither
04:26the time nor the resources to do.
04:29Clearly, timing would be crucial.
04:32Firstly, he wanted to besiege it when he knew that if he took it, he could hold it.
04:37In other words, at a stage in the war when he was ready not only to go on the offensive,
04:43but to maintain the offensive.
04:44Secondly, he deliberately decided to besiege it during the winter in January, because the
04:50French thought that nobody in their right mind would besiege a fortress in the middle
04:55of winter.
04:56French armies couldn't fight terribly well during the winter, because they couldn't supply
05:00themselves.
05:01They thought the same applied to the British.
05:04Actually, it didn't.
05:06So by besieging in January, of course, he caught the French completely on the hop.
05:11The British system of supply, where depots were established at regular intervals, meant
05:16that no British unit was further than 80 kilometres from the nearest food, and so could move around
05:22far more quickly and freely.
05:24Unlike the French, the British forces weren't allowed to forage for food or take it by force
05:29from the locals.
05:31Willington believed that to do so would breed resentment among the very people who were
05:35supposed to be their allies.
05:38With a strong Spanish and Portuguese contingent in his army, and a reliance on Spanish guerrilla
05:43fighters, Britain couldn't afford to alienate this vital support.
05:48Willington knew that if you wanted to keep troops in the field, that you wanted to keep
05:52them fit and well, you had to be able to supply them, you had to be able to feed them, you
05:56had to be able to clothe them, you had to be able to look after them when they were
05:59sick.
06:00He recognised the importance of logistics, which many other generals of the time didn't,
06:05and he brought what he learned in India to Spain.
06:08For his strategy to work, Wellington would have to ensure that his own forces would be
06:12able to operate in the unremitting conditions, and that his siege train could be brought
06:17to Rodrigo before French forces could march to the relief of the town.
06:23All operations would have to be coordinated to the last detail, and conducted in absolute
06:28secrecy, if Wellington's audacious plan was to work.
06:34With his men fed, watered and adequately housed in tents, and with his siege train making
06:39its way to his operational base at Gallegos, Wellington could turn his attentions to the
06:44south.
06:46He planned to use his forces under the command of General Hill, to draw potential relieving
06:50forces into a fight.
06:53Wellington ordered Hill, whose corps was stationed at Elvas, to strike against Drouet
06:58near Merida.
06:59Drouet's forces were widely dispersed, and engaged in searching out supplies, and were
07:04certainly not expecting any attack to be mounted during December.
07:10The effect of Hill's attack was to all but destroy Drouet's army, capture vital food
07:16stocks, and severely disrupt the already makeshift supply lines to the rest of the French forces
07:21in southwest Spain.
07:23Even if news of Wellington's secret plan to attack Rodrigo reached the French in the
07:28south, any attempt to mount a relief effort would further stretch their limited resources.
07:34As with so many campaigns, the battle is not simply won at the site of the victory.
07:40The siege of Ciudad Rodrigo was to come down to the military expertise of its commanders,
07:46and in the Duke of Wellington, Britain certainly had a safe pair of hands.
07:51Wellington has this reputation of being a defensive-minded general, certainly amongst
07:56the French who regarded him as such, incapable of offensive moves.
08:01But it's a bit of a myth.
08:03Wellington was very prudent, very cautious and careful.
08:06We only had one army, and if you lose it, then you're going to lose the war, and that's
08:10as simple as that.
08:12So he chose his place and his time.
08:14He would strike when he felt it was right, and nobody else.
08:19When you weigh up all the battle honours that he achieved in the peninsula, the majority
08:23are achieved on the offensive.
08:26He began the war with an offensive at Raulisa, driving down and getting the French pinned
08:31against Lisbon.
08:34The sieges themselves, the great sieges like Ciudad Rodrigo, Badajoz, are all offensives.
08:40Everything from Vitoria onwards is a great offensive, and he never looks back.
08:45Wellington's caution was perhaps dictated by the fact that he commanded a relatively
08:48small army.
08:51Unlike other European armies, which consisted of conscripts, the British army was made up
08:56of long-term volunteers, regular soldiers who enlisted for life.
09:01This had huge advantages in terms of training and professionalism, but it adversely affected
09:06numbers.
09:07Indeed, while Napoleon had a force numbering half a million for his 1812 invasion of Russia,
09:14Wellington never commanded more than 100,000 men.
09:18A brilliant tactician, Wellington understood exactly how to fight a war on land, and was
09:24able to use ground to make up for his numerical inferiority.
09:29He always had an eye to precisely the strategic moment to strike, and that's why he went for
09:34Rodrigo when he did, in some ways at the worst possible time of the year, when there was
09:39ice flowing down the river, when conditions for both infantry and siege warfare were very
09:44difficult.
09:45But he took the opportunity, he struck boldly and well.
09:49Marmont was warned several times by the governor of Salamanca, Thiebault, that Ciudad Rodrigo
09:54was in danger, but he took it as a joke.
09:57He thought that no, that no, that Wellington would never be able to take the initiative,
10:01and therefore he did not help Ciudad Rodrigo.
10:05Therefore I think it is explained that he was seen as a very defensive general.
10:09The surprise came in Salamanca, of course, when Wellington made his great move and made
10:15a really offensive battle, and with this he changed the course of the war definitively.
10:20Wellington's cautious approach was to benefit his strategic planning.
10:24The ever-careful general used an intelligence network to inform his operations.
10:30Wellington had a very sophisticated intelligence service, in fact he had a number of intelligence
10:34services working throughout Spain.
10:37First of all he had what you might call the overt intelligence service, which was the
10:41staff corps of cavalry.
10:43Now these were men in uniform, on good horses, who could go and recce, look at defensive
10:49fortifications, look at where the French were, but keep far enough away not to be caught.
10:54Then he had what were called officers in observation.
10:58Now these were the MI6 of the day, if you like.
11:00They were linguists, they were able to mix with the population, they spoke not only Spanish
11:04but various dialects of Spanish, Catalan, Basque and the like.
11:09Most of them also spoke Portuguese.
11:12They brought back an enormous amount of information, and of course his third intelligence service
11:17was the Spanish guerrillas.
11:19When Wellington heard of further French troop movements on the 1st of January 1812, he knew
11:24the time had come to begin the operation to take the vital fortress town.
11:29The Light Division were already patrolling the countryside around the city when the order
11:33was given for the rest of the forces to march from their bases at Almeida, Guarda and Aldea
11:39Ponte.
11:41Once it became obvious to the French garrison that forces were massing outside the city,
11:46they would strengthen their defences.
11:48So time was of the essence.
11:51However, the progress of Wellington's siege train, which contained his 18-pound and 24-pound
11:57siege guns and was vital to his plans, was being hampered by the adverse weather conditions.
12:04Moving the train was a massive operation.
12:07In addition to the heavy siege guns, there were huge quantities of ammunition and supplies.
12:13Hundreds of country carts were employed to move the vast cargo.
12:16However, the local carters didn't have the same urgency as the impatient general, and
12:22the convoy made slow progress.
12:26William Napier, who later chronicled the siege, wrote...
12:30The investment was designed for the 6th, but the native carters took two days to travel
12:35ten miles of good roads with empty carts, and it could not be made before the 8th.
12:40To find fault with them was dangerous, as they desert on the slightest offence.
12:45Wellington had carefully calculated the number of days he needed to take the town.
12:50Any delay in these crucial early stages would disrupt his coordinated plans, and with every
12:56day that passed, the threat of a relief attack being mounted by Marmont from Madrid grew.
13:02Napier recalled...
13:04Wellington calculated upon 24 days.
13:07He hoped to steal that time from his adversaries, yet knew if he failed, the clash of arms would
13:12draw scattered troops to this quarter, as tinkling bells draw swarming bees.
13:19Efforts on the ground continued, and Wellington rode out to the medieval town to survey the
13:23terrain and formulate his plan of attack.
13:27The walled town had obviously long been a defensive position, and had been fought over
13:31countless times.
13:33The battered walls, already a formidable ten metres high, had been strengthened and added
13:39to, and a new outer low rampart, known as a force braille, had been constructed.
13:46Any attacker would not only have to scale the new outer defences, but face a hail of
13:50missiles from the old town walls.
13:55The ramparts, which had not been strongly reinforced after the French assault of 1810,
13:59would crumble under sustained artillery bombardment.
14:03But in order for any attacker to be successful, both defences would have to be destroyed and
14:08assaulted in one movement.
14:10The town itself was an oval-shaped fortress, whose long sides faced east and west.
14:16If Wellington's forces were to attack from the south, they would literally face an uphill
14:21battle.
14:22The ground sloped away from the town, making attacking forces very vulnerable.
14:27An attack from the west would mean crossing the river Agueda, a treacherous route.
14:34An earth entrenchment protected the eastern side and the suburbs.
14:37To attack here would mean lengthy preparation with no guarantee of success.
14:43It was on the north-east side, at a point known as the Little Tesson, where the ground
14:47rose and provided vital cover close to the town walls, that Wellington chose as his point
14:51of attack.
14:55The surrounding ground rose further, and approximately 274 metres away stood the Great Tesson, a
15:02ridge that ran level with the line of the old town walls.
15:07Whoever commanded the Great Tesson would also command a good view of the defences.
15:13You always tried to create a breach where there was an existing weakness.
15:18Existing weaknesses might be corners, which tended to be weaker.
15:21They might be where a tower had been put in, or they might be where there had been an existing
15:24breach before, which had been repaired.
15:28Wellington having ridden all around Ciudad Rodrigo several times, largely to fool the
15:33French as to where exactly he might make his breach, decided on his two breaches where
15:38he thought the walls had been weak anyway.
15:42And he was proved correct.
15:46While these were the best points of attack, they were also the most obvious.
15:50And the French commander, Barillet, was all too aware of the threat that they posed.
15:56He had stationed troops at three key points outside the town walls, at the convents of
16:01San Francisco and Santa Cruz, to protect the Little Tesson, and on the Great Tesson,
16:06at a point known as the Renault Redoubt.
16:11Barillet was in many ways a rather reluctant commander.
16:14He had refused the posting when it was initially offered to him, but had been sent there after
16:19Spanish rebels had kidnapped the previous commander.
16:22Barillet had been in charge of the garrison for little over two months when Wellington
16:26and his men arrived.
16:29Barillet was moved in much against his will to hold this fortress.
16:33He knew that there weren't going to be very many troops.
16:37He was also a particularly supine defensive commander, and instead of being out there
16:43and attacking like Philippon at Badajoz, he very much decided to wait, and wait for the
16:49attackers to come to him.
17:00Barillet refused to take the position, and so he was carrying out a mission that he
17:05perhaps wasn't prepared for.
17:07We can't say that he didn't do everything he could, despite that, and he fought with
17:12his men until the end to defend the garrison.
17:15We must also bear in mind that he had only been in charge of the garrison of Ciudad
17:20Rodrigo for two months.
17:21The previous commander had been kidnapped by the Spanish guerrillas, and so he didn't
17:27know where he was.
17:30With the line of attack decided, the Renault Redoubt would simply have to be taken before
17:35the siege proper could begin.
17:38On the 8th of January, the orders for the siege were issued.
17:42The job of taking the Redoubt was entrusted to the famous Light Division, and they swung
17:47into action that very night.
17:50Protected by the French gunners in the confluence by the darkness, a detachment from the division
17:55stormed the position.
17:57The small garrison offered little resistance, and by first light, the position was secured
18:02for the British.
18:03The French thought it could hold out for between four and five days, and would probably then
18:08have to surrender, but that four to five days was going to be buying them time.
18:12In fact, the British captured it on the first night.
18:15First of all, they did it at night.
18:17This surprised the French.
18:19The British were regular soldiers.
18:20They knew how to operate at night.
18:22They'd been trained to operate at night.
18:24The French hadn't, and they assumed that the British standard of training was much
18:28the same as their own, that the British wouldn't have a crack at night.
18:33Frantic work now began on the construction of the first British parallels.
18:38A parallel was essentially a trench.
18:40It's kind of an antiquated, old-fashioned word for a trench.
18:45I guess largely called parallels because they went across the face of your target.
18:50Once you'd dug your parallel or your trench, you then sapped forward in a zigzag fashion,
18:57and then you would construct another parallel or trench, and then you would begin to establish
19:02your breaching batteries where you put your guns, which would open fire and hopefully
19:06breach the walls.
19:08This was perhaps the part of siege warfare that was most unpopular with Wellington's men.
19:13Without the luxury of miners or sappers, the dangerous and gruelling job fell to the infantry.
19:20Despite their dislike of the task, the troops mounted a remarkable round-the-clock effort,
19:25and the first parallel was built by the 11th of January.
19:29To besiege a castle, you needed to get your siege guns near enough to the walls
19:34to be able to do some damage.
19:36Well, that was generally about 450 to 500 yards.
19:40Now, you couldn't just put your guns out in the open, because if you did,
19:43the guns in the castle would simply shell you out of the way.
19:47So those guns had to be undercover.
19:49They had to be undercover from fire, both from cannon from the castle,
19:55and indeed from sallies from the garrison.
19:58In an attempt to halt the Allied advance,
20:01General Barrier directed 48 guns at the enemy held position on the Grand Tesson.
20:06Under relentless fire, work on the gun platforms continued.
20:11Napier describes the conditions that the men were working under.
20:15A thousand men laboured, yet in great peril,
20:19for the besieged had a superabundance of ammunition, and did not spare it.
20:27Having completed the first parallel, the British were ready to advance further,
20:32and on the night of the 13th, they stormed the Santa Cruz convent and took it without loss.
20:38Work on the second parallel began immediately.
20:43With the British now less than 183 meters from the ramparts,
20:48Barrier finally took action.
20:51Having observed that there was a time during the handover between the night and the day shift
20:55when the earthworks were not properly guarded,
20:58Barrier's men attacked.
21:01The morning of the 14th of January saw the first and last French offensive move.
21:07A raiding party of some 500 French troops suddenly appeared and overran the trenches,
21:12catching the British unawares.
21:15As they swept up towards the British guns, the troops managed to rally and thwarted the attack
21:20before the French could take the guns.
21:23Despite the damage to earthworks and the loss of vital entrenching tools,
21:27the French attack had failed to oust the British from their strong position.
21:32Undaunted by the French action, and perhaps aware that Barrier could not afford to risk losing
21:37any more of his small force in further attacks,
21:40the British themselves attacked the convent of San Francisco on the very same night.
21:45Napier described the ferocity of the French fire that the assaulting troops faced.
21:51Then was beheld a spectacle fearful and sublime,
21:54for the French replied with more than 50 pieces and the bellowing of 80 large guns
21:59shook the ground far and wide, the smoke resting in heavy volumes upon the battlements of the place,
22:05or curled in light wreaths about the numerous spires,
22:08and the shells hissing through the air seemed fiery serpents leaping from the darkness.
22:15Despite the huge firepower that they faced, the British troops managed to take the convent.
22:21With this vital point under their control, the second parallel was completed,
22:26and the British artillery began firing its huge siege guns at the walls of Ciudad Rodrigo.
22:32Large amounts of rubble and debris were already beginning to accumulate beneath the yawning gaps in the walls.
22:39These piles of masonry were vital in effecting a successful breach.
22:46Wellington reasoned that to make only one breach and point of attack at Rodrigo
22:51would be a risky strategy that would allow Barrier to concentrate his efforts
22:55in constructing an impenetrable second line of defence.
22:59What was needed was a second point of attack, a lesser breach.
23:04If you assault two different parts of a wall,
23:08you clearly divide the defenders' ability to concentrate on one particular point.
23:14The most crucial point of the attack is physically when the guns have opened the breach
23:19and then the infantry are trying to get in and get hand-to-hand with the enemy.
23:23Now, if the enemy have at least two points to choose from, clearly that's jolly difficult.
23:28Better than that, even better than that, is if you can get troops round to the rear
23:32and distract them from the rear as they tried to,
23:34then your advantages as an attacker start not necessarily to outweigh
23:38but come more or less level with the defender.
23:42Wellington found his second breach just 274 metres from his first,
23:47a medieval tower that overhung the walls of the town could easily be brought down
23:52and would provide an excellent position from which to assail the walls.
23:57However, as before, surprise would be the key to a successful second breach
24:03and Wellington resolved to attack this point only when the main breach was declared ready,
24:08giving Barrier no time to construct secondary defences.
24:13While addressing his immediate siege strategy,
24:16the ever-cautious Wellington had also made efforts to counter the movements of any relieving force.
24:22To ensure that none of his forces at Rodrigo had to be called away,
24:26he brought General Hill, fresh from his successful campaign in the south,
24:30up to the Portuguese border and deployed his corps at Porto Alegre, Nyssa and Castello Branco.
24:37Wellington had also moved Le Marchand's heavy cavalry brigade from Castello Branco
24:42to protect his men at Rodrigo.
24:45As the British bombardment continued, the beleaguered French commander began to realise
24:50that it was impossible to mount an adequate defence of the walls.
24:54As Wellington had predicted, Barrier concentrated instead on organising a second line of defence.
25:01It was these defensive measures that were to contribute to the later carnage in and around the Great Breach.
25:09If any besieging soldier managed to escape death or injury
25:13as he scrambled up the masonry of the breach itself,
25:16there were likely to be further deadly hazards awaiting him.
25:20When the walls at Rodrigo, and in fact all of the fortresses, were breached
25:25and the French knew that an assault was imminent,
25:27you would employ several things to keep the assault troops out.
25:32The most common method, of course, was the dreaded chevaux de frise,
25:36which would be a large beam studded with razor-sharp swords, bayonets, the whole thing.
25:42So you would get this kind of criss-cross effect that no man could pass.
25:48Other planks were greased with oil,
25:50and all manner of barricades were erected to prevent or obstruct progress.
25:55Perhaps worst of all, and this was certainly the case at Ciudad Rodrigo,
26:01the breach provided the perfect conditions to conceal mines and explosives.
26:07By the 18th, the Great Breach was large enough to mount an attack.
26:13Wellington ordered that the second breach be opened,
26:16and the huge guns opened fire on the medieval tower.
26:20By nightfall, it had been reduced to rubble,
26:23and by the following morning, the engineers proclaimed both breaches ready for an assault.
26:29Four 18-pound guns and 23 24-pounders had fired an awesome 9,515 rounds
26:37and used 834 barrels of powder.
26:41The siege guns were the big boys.
26:43You generally had an 18-pounder and a 24-pounder,
26:47which were capable of firing a huge iron ball about once per minute,
26:52and then when the smoke had cleared, you could fire again.
26:56The difference between an 18 and a 24-pounder might not seem a lot,
27:00but Jones, who was the historian of the sieges,
27:02said that no self-respecting engineer should settle for an 18 if he could get a 24.
27:08I mean, these were huge things, and they would really batter these walls.
27:12Despite initial delays, Wellington's original schedule had been literally smashed,
27:18and the artillery bombardment had done its work in only four days.
27:22A mere 12 days into the siege, Wellington was ready to attack.
27:28Standard military practice would have suggested that to attack on the 19th of January would have been premature.
27:35Not only would it cost Wellington more men, it might lead to the defeat of the besiegers.
27:44Napier wrote of Wellington's dilemma.
27:47Wellington, thus pressed, decided to open a breach with his counter batteries,
27:51which were only 600 yards from the curtain, and then storm without blowing in the counterscarp.
27:57In other words, to overstep the rules of science and sacrifice life rather than time.
28:05Mindful that a French force was now in its way to defend the garrison,
28:09Wellington was determined to launch an assault on the town at the earliest opportunity.
28:14This, he decided, would be 1900 hours that very evening.
28:19The plan provided for simultaneous attacks on the French defences.
28:23General Thomas Picton and his 3rd Division were to attack the principal breach in the western wall,
28:29while the storming of a lesser breach was entrusted to the Light Division,
28:34under Major General Robert Black Bob Crawford.
28:38Picton and Crawford were two of Wellington's most able, if unconventional, commanders.
28:44Wellington put up with Picton's rough, obscene, filthy language and untidy way of behaving,
28:54because he was a cracking good divisional commander.
28:57Wellington also knew that Picton would never disobey an order,
29:02he would do exactly as Wellington had told him to do,
29:05and he wouldn't use his initiative and deviate from Wellington's plan.
29:09So if Wellington told him to do something, he knew that Picton would go away and do it.
29:13And not get some bright idea of his own.
29:16Black Bob Crawford probably flogged and hanged more soldiers of the British Army in the peninsula
29:23than any other British generals put together.
29:26And his soldiers loved him.
29:28He knew exactly what he was doing.
29:31And although he was hard on his men, and he brooked no deviation from his orders,
29:35no misbehaviour at all,
29:37but his men knew that he would never ask them to do something unless he had been properly thought out,
29:44and that they had the best equipment that he could possibly get them.
29:48They trusted him absolutely.
29:53Wellington also decided that while Picton and Crawford were making their attacks on the greater and lesser breaches,
29:59columns under Lieutenant Colonel Brian O'Toole and Major General Sir Dennis Pack
30:04were to attack the south walls of the town.
30:07Inside the town itself,
30:09Barrier realised that his garrison of only 2,000 men
30:13was simply not enough to mount an all-round defence of the walls.
30:17So he opted to concentrate his resources around the main breach,
30:21and it was here that the most desperate fighting was to take place.
30:26On the bitterly cold evening,
30:28the troops massed and awaited the order to attack.
30:32They abandoned their heavy kit and greatcoats
30:35and took up the equipment that would be essential if they were to successfully scale the French defences.
30:41They would almost certainly have been encumbered with scaling ladders,
30:45usually homemade affairs, which the soldiers were pretty good at making by this stage,
30:50and possibly wool sacks or facines.
30:53In other words, a sack stuffed with wool that you could do two things with,
31:00either sling it in a ditch in front of you and then run across it,
31:03or at a pinch, physically protect you from being seen in a breach,
31:07or it might just absorb a musket ball.
31:10A facine was a bundle of sticks, really quite heavy,
31:13which again you could sling into an obstacle and then run across.
31:18And of course a breach would have been full of pitfalls, holes caused by the rubble
31:23and all sorts of other ghastly detritus.
31:26Remarkably, the soldiers armed themselves only with their muskets or bayonets.
31:32The Light Division didn't load their muskets at all,
31:34for fear that their surprise attack would be compromised by a soldier firing by mistake.
31:41As 1900 hours approached, General Picton addressed his troops
31:45and instructed them to do business with cold iron.
31:51The guns sounded the attack.
31:53The Allied forces launched themselves at the French positions,
31:56and the fight to take Ciudad Rodrigo had begun.
32:01O'Toole's company met with little resistance as they crossed the river via the Roman bridge.
32:07They assaulted the southern walls and took two of the French guns.
32:12There was similarly little opposition to the advance of Pax Column,
32:16and they had relatively little trouble in scaling the defences
32:19and gaining entry to that end of the town.
32:23At the Greater Breach, however, it was a very different story for the 3rd Division.
32:29The 3rd Division were attacking out of fringes.
32:32The Light Division from behind some cover of a convent.
32:37It must have been extraordinarily nerve-wracking,
32:39hoping against hope that the enemy would not understand
32:43exactly when the assaults were going to be launched,
32:47and knowing that there were 200 or so yards covered in ditches, pitfalls, obstacles.
32:57The 3rd Division lacked nothing in gallantry or courage,
33:00and even after seeing the head of the column blown away by the French artillery pieces,
33:04they gathered themselves once more for another attempt on the crest of the breach.
33:11The nightmare of the fighting can scarcely be imagined,
33:14as red-coated British soldiers scrambled up the twisted masonry,
33:18and the French infantrymen picked them off once they had fought their way up to the gap in the walls.
33:25This early 19th century soldier would have gone into action essentially
33:29with nothing much more potent than a spear, a musket and a bayonet.
33:34It's exactly that.
33:35And therefore he knew that the French defenders would be waiting for him,
33:39their guns would be firing at him,
33:41as well as infantrymen waiting with a number of prepared muskets ready to fire at him.
33:45So the fighting, once they physically got inside it,
33:48must have depended upon sheer force of will and sheer physical strength.
33:54In a field battle, let's say we had the option to flee, to run,
33:58but in the face of a breach there was no other option than to penetrate a very small space.
34:03And you have to think that on the other side there were a lot of people trying to prevent you from entering,
34:08armed with all kinds of things.
34:10It must have been one of the most horrible experiences of the war,
34:14which explains what happened after a siege.
34:18The French had retreated from the outer ramparts inside their newly constructed inner defences,
34:23from where they were able to fire relentlessly at their attackers.
34:28At the lesser breach, Crawford's Light Division were on the attack,
34:32headed by the aptly named Forlorn Hope,
34:35the small, ill-fated group of men who volunteered to lead the attack.
34:41The name carries with it the precise explanation.
34:44There was Forlorn Hope of surviving,
34:46and it was always said that if a subaltern led the Forlorn Hope, if he survived,
34:50he'd get a step in rank and get to command his company.
34:53Despite the lethality of the whole thing,
34:56there was always a huge amount of volunteering for this,
34:58because it usually carried with it not just rewards from officers,
35:02but also the possibility of getting into the town first and getting at the loot,
35:06and the other fleshpots that were available once troops were inside.
35:10You were, for what it was worth, entitled to wear a valiant stormer badge on your arm, on your sleeve,
35:16but the chances were you'd just be blown into the next world.
35:20I mean, once you got onto that breach, the French would hold fire,
35:24great would hit you from all sides, musketry,
35:27and more often than not, you would just be swept away into oblivion.
35:32The Forlorn Hope rushed into action, only to find that they were in the wrong place.
35:37Just as Harry Smith, one member of the intrepid band, was about to move to his correct position,
35:42a volley of shots rained down on his destination.
35:46Smith escaped, but Crawford had been cut down.
35:51One of Wellington's most able and best-loved commanders had sustained a fatal injury.
35:58Before the French could fire again, the light division, with Smith at their head, surged forwards,
36:04and the defenders, who had had no time to prepare any secondary defence, gave way.
36:09With the lesser breach conquered, Smith took command of the nearest company,
36:13and raced along to assist MacKinnon's men, still battling furiously against the prepared French defences.
36:20For Smith, it was to be yet another lucky escape.
36:24Just as he advanced on the greater breach, there was a huge explosion.
36:29The French had set a mine under the great breach,
36:32and the advancing British forces, including the brigade commander, had been blown into the air.
36:50A great loss, of course, for the army.
36:53Apart from all this, many men perished with MacKinnon,
36:56and, well, the consequences were horrible mutilations.
37:00There are soldiers' diaries that tell us how, at the same time they were trying to penetrate the breach,
37:05they saw the members cut into the ground, their comrades' friends, arms, legs, heads...
37:12Anyway, as I said before, a siege, an entry through a breach,
37:16was something very, very horrible, and they were willing to do anything to defend it.
37:21Mines, crossbows, cars...
37:25With countless dead and wounded littering their path,
37:28the 3rd Division, and the companies who had rushed to its aid, pressed on into the city.
37:35Cook, a 21-year-old captain, wrote later...
37:39I ran towards the large breach,
37:41and met an officer slowly walking between two soldiers of the rifle corps.
37:45I asked who it was, when he faintly replied,
37:48Yuniaki, and walked on.
37:51One of his eyes was blown out, and the flesh was torn off his arms and legs.
37:56He had taken chocolate with our mess an hour and a half before.
38:01Despite the carnage caused by the mine,
38:04there was no hope of the French holding out.
38:08The losses had done little else but delay the inevitable British victory.
38:12With no hope of beating back their attackers,
38:15the French retreated into the town square, and laid down their arms.
38:22What Wellington had, which Barrier did not, was an offensive spirit,
38:27which he understood quite well, that he must take the outer siege works,
38:31hold the outer siege works, and then quickly envelop the town.
38:35And I think that was really what Wellington got right,
38:38is that he got inside Barrier's decision-making cycle,
38:42and with a series of very quick rolling attacks,
38:45and then a very rapid advance on four fronts,
38:48actually, on the evening of the attack,
38:51mystified and completely bamboozled his opponent.
38:55The fight for Ciudad Rodrigo was over, and the town was Wellington's.
39:01Victory didn't mean an end to the bloodshed, however,
39:05and the conquering army rampaged through the town
39:08on a sustained orgy of rape, looting and violence.
39:12Many quick-thinking citizens invited British officers to dine with them,
39:16in the hope that they would afford a degree of protection against the rabble.
39:21This was about the only thing that the officers could do,
39:24and the men were only brought under control the following day.
39:31For us Spaniards, it is very painful to remember this,
39:35and there is still a certain resentment towards England
39:38for what happened in Ciudad Rodrigo or in Badajoz.
39:41The scenes, as I said before,
39:43once the soldiers crossed the border, they lost control.
39:47The officers couldn't control them,
39:49and the first thing they did, of course, was to look for alcohol,
39:52the deposits of brandy, of brandy, to get drunk immediately,
39:57looking for food, drink and, of course, women.
40:00This led to the rape of a large part of the civilian population,
40:04many women, and, well, this is something very, very sad for the Spaniards,
40:09because we have to think that that same population
40:12was the one who was two years earlier in the city defending the French.
40:16It was something very, very unfair.
40:18There is another curious postscript to the fighting at Ciudad Rodrigo.
40:22It seems that the French were leaving army,
40:25the threat of which had done much to set Wellington's timetable for the siege.
40:29It did not hear that the fortress was in danger of falling into British hands
40:33until the 13th of January, a mere six days before it actually fell.
40:38In the event, there was nothing the army could have done
40:41to help the beleaguered garrison.
40:43It was simply too far away.
40:46The town had fallen in record time,
40:49and with it, Wellington had acquired 153 guns,
40:53including the Portuguese siege train,
40:56and redefined siege warfare on the peninsula.
41:00His remarkable victory had secured the northern gateway to Spain
41:04and allowed him to move on to Badajoz in the south.
41:08The French defeat had also yielded some 1,300 prisoners.
41:13What Wellington did with these men was to prove very costly.
41:18The convention of siege warfare was that those defenders who were captured
41:22should be put to death.
41:25In another break with convention, Wellington decided to spare the men,
41:29a move that he later deeply regretted.
41:33If you were a garrison, if you were inside a fortress,
41:37and the walls were breached and the breaches were deemed to be practical,
41:41i.e., they were indefensible in many ways,
41:44then you were summoned to surrender
41:47and you were allowed to march out with all the honours of war.
41:50Now, of course, if you chose to fight on,
41:52even though you knew that the breaches were practicable and indefensible,
41:57then you effectively waived all rights to mercy.
42:01By allowing the garrison to get off scot-free,
42:05certainly the garrison at Badajoz would look at this and say,
42:08hey, we can defend these walls without fear of retribution afterwards.
42:12The same happens at Burgos and, of course, at San Sebastian.
42:16Now, Wellington knew this problem,
42:18and years afterwards, after Badajoz,
42:21he certainly was moved to write in a private letter.
42:25He said that if I'd had slaughtered the garrison of Ciudad Rodrigo,
42:30I would have saved myself the flower of my army at Badajoz,
42:33which is where, of course, they got really butchered.
42:36This was perhaps not Wellington's only regret.
42:40During the battle, he had lost one of his best men.
42:44Black Bob Crawford died on 24th January.
42:47And was buried in the lesser breach.
42:50A plaque commemorating the courageous soldier
42:53still remains on the town walls.
42:56When he was killed on the breach of Ciudad Rodrigo,
42:59it was one of the very few times when Wellington was seen actually to cry,
43:03to weep in public.
43:05And the second thing that says a lot for him, I think,
43:08was that when the light division were being marched back from Crawford's funeral,
43:14there was a stream running across the road.
43:17Now, everybody, normal people, would simply get off the road,
43:20cross the stream and get back onto the road.
43:22Not the light division. They marched straight through it.
43:25And when people asked them why, they said,
43:27General Crawford would never allow us to move from our route.
43:31We always had to march through puddles and rivers and mud,
43:34and we'll do it for him today.
43:38With Ciudad Rodrigo now a British stronghold,
43:41Wellington turned south towards that other great fortress, Badajoz.
43:46Here, the sufferings and the sacrifices of the troops on both sides
43:50were to eclipse the carnage at the taking of the northern gateway.
43:54Ciudad Rodrigo had been only the start of the campaign
43:58to prise open the gates of Spain.
44:01Rodrigo was at the centre of so much throughout the Peninsular War.
44:05The whole area is alive with battles and scrapes,
44:09rivers, bridges, and Rodrigo is the dominating presence in that area.
44:13So, to get Rodrigo is extremely important,
44:17and without its possession,
44:19of course, Wellington wouldn't have been able to get into Spain.
44:23The capture of Rodrigo and Badajoz,
44:26the two fortresses that guarded the northern and southern routes
44:30in and out of Portugal, were critical to the result of the war,
44:34because until Wellington could control those,
44:37he could not go on the offensive in Spain,
44:40knowing that his rear was secure.
44:42Once he'd got them, then he knows he can go on the offensive
44:46and he can maintain that offensive and he can beat the French,
44:49which, of course, is exactly what he did.
44:52Try to paraphrase Churchill, it was the beginning of the end.
44:55This allowed Wellington,
44:58Rodrigo allowed Wellington to be able to break out,
45:01to be able to communicate properly from his firm bases in Portugal
45:05with the interior of Spain,
45:08and, of course, to be able to move his forces south
45:11to follow up and to take on the next great fortress down south at Badajoz.
45:16Once that was done, once we had both Rodrigo and Badajoz,
45:20then it wasn't quite all over bar the shouting,
45:23but the French were then, their forces were necessarily divided,
45:27and Wellington could do what he'd always sought to do,
45:30which was to divide the French,
45:33concentrate his forces and then deal with them piecemeal.
45:37So this was the start of the French's final defeat in the peninsula.
45:43Ciudad Rodrigo was a great victory.
45:46Wellington's careful planning,
45:48combined with an aggressive offensive strategy
45:51and a willingness to risk all, had paid dividends
45:54and had given the Allied forces the impetus
45:57for a successful assault on Badajoz,
45:59an opportunity to launch a spring offensive
46:02and the momentum to defeat the forces of Napoleon
46:05and drive him from the peninsula.
46:32.