Sarah the history nut has been visiting the odd battlefield…

It’s some years since I took a battlefield tour, but one of the most memorable was in January 2009. (Yes, January. The dead of winter, hence the coat!)

We followed the British Army’s retreat to Corunna, Northern Spain.

The tour was arranged and guided by Ian Fletcher, author and leading authority on the Peninsular War and Wellington’s army. You can read about it on my blog, here.

How it started

In the summer of 2024, Ian said he was thinking of running another Peninsular War tour this year. Of course I leapt at the chance!

image 270406888 stock.adobe.com

A small group of us flew out to Madrid together to meet up with the remaining enthusiasts. Amongst our number was artist and illustrator Christa Hook, who brought her sketch book with the intention of sketching the actual battlefields.

Christa Hook

More of Christa later. Back to the tour.

Warning – our route did not follow the battles in the order they occurred – that would have taken weeks, not days, so hope it’s not too confusing!

The first night

Our very first stop was at a beautiful hotel overlooking Toledo and the Alcázar. This was my view from the bedroom!

The historic city didn’t feature in this particular tour, but the sight of balloons flying over the city the following morning provided a wonderful start to our travels.

There isn’t time or space to detail everything we learned that week, so this will be a whistle stop tour.

Buckle up

We set off early from Toledo for the long drive to Badajoz and our hotel for the next few nights. On the way we stopped at Talavera, with its rather stark memorial. At Talavera in July 1809, Wellington (still Sir Arthur Wellesley at the time) had a very hard time seeing off the French.

It is difficult to visualise the battlefield now, but there was a map  board showing the layout of the land and the battle lines. And one of our group had brought a prized possession: a service medal with its Talavera clasp.

And on to Almaraz

One thing that kept coming up on this tour was the importance of bridges when moving armies around the country. The bridge here had been partially destroyed by the Spanish in March 1809. The French built a pontoon bridge of boats in the autumn of that year and protected it on both banks by strong earthworks.

Hill’s raid in May 1812 destroyed the pontoon bridge. That meant that the nearest bridge across the Tagus that the French could now use was some 50 miles to the east, at Toledo. So, imagine this stone bridge with one arch missing and the pontoon bridge somewhere down in the valley.  Not sure the water was quite so green then, though!

On to the walled city of Badajoz, and our hotel for the next two nights.

Day 3: Bloody Albuera and…

An early drive south to Albuera where one of the bloodiest battles of the Peninsular War was fought. Standing in that peaceful landscape and hearing about Beresford’s battle with Marshal Soult, with the two armies facing each other on the battlefield on 16th May 1811, was quite chilling. Load, fire, close up and repeat. For hours. A sombre moment to reflect on the bloody nature of war.

We drove into Albuera for lunch. The village has a large roadside memorial, with a quote from Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage.

The village itself was also the scene of tough fighting, but there are few signs of it now in its pretty peaceful streets or near the church.

Don’t miss its stork nests on the roof.

…bloody Badajoz

As if we hadn’t had enough blood and gore, we spent the afternoon in Badajoz. First of all we visited the site of two huge breaches in the walls, where many soldiers died on the night of 6th April 1812.

The walls have been rebuilt since and from the picture on the left you can imagine what a daunting task it was to break through them. (The lady in pink will give you so idea of scale!) To make things worse, the French had dug a ditch around the base of the outer rampart and flooded it.

Artillery bombarded the base of the wall until a section collapsed. The French then replaced the parapet with sacks stuffed with sand or wool. They covered the slope between their makeshift defences and the ditch with planks studded with spikes and chevaux de frise (logs stuck with sword blades) to slow the advancing soldiers. This detail from the on-site illustration board imagines what it might have looked like..

Scaling the walls…

We then moved on to the castle built into the north east corner of the city walls, where Sir Thomas Picton’s 3rd Division successfully scaled the walls (despite their ladders being too short!) and were then able to overcome French defences.

And an aside…

When I was researching in Bristol for the original pleasure gardens that inspired my gardens in The Earl’s Marriage Dilemma and A Kiss to Stop a Wedding, the fashionable street that evolved nearby was (and still is) named Picton Street!

Even in the Spanish sunshine, it was sobering to consider the infamous storming of the castle and the violence that followed. Three days of horrific rampage and destruction.

It was excessive, even by the standards of the time.

A little light in the darkness

It was during this horrific episode that Captain Harry Smith of the 95th Rifles met fourteen-year-old Juana Maria de los Delores de Leon, who was fleeing for her life. They married soon after and their marriage thrived. Harry went on to become Governor of Cape Colony in present-day South Africa and named Ladysmith in his wife’s honour. Their story comes beautifully to life beautifully in Heyer’s The Spanish Bride.

Day 4

Deep breath: we crossed into Portugal for coffee in the fortified town of Elvas, then past Campo Mayor (considered a walled town of little strategic value) and on to the roman bridge at Alcantara, which took us across the Tagus. Then it was across the Sierra de Gata (where the cloudy weather made visibility too poor for good photos). And onwards via El Bodon, where we viewed the scene of action in September 1811. We finally arrived at the fortified city of Ciudad Rodrigo to collapse into bed at the Parador, where we were staying for the next three nights. Still with me??

Day 5

Today we were following  the story of Robert Craufurd, Commander of the Light Division. First stop was Barba del Puerco, where the Light Division guarded the old roman bridge across the River Agueda from March to July 1810. Apparently, there were a number of skirmishes here in 1810, so no major engagements, but for me the landscape made it one of our most memorable stops!

As you can see from the picture, the bridge is at the bottom of a ravine. We stopped at the  outcrop of rock (above), from where we could look look up and watch the vultures circling, or down to see the bridge:

Possibly the Light Division did the same, back in the day. The more intrepid of our travellers ventured down to the bridge, but as it was nearly mid-day and very hot, several of us decided to walk back to the village and wait in the bar, humming a certain Noel Coward ditty about mad dogs and Englishmen….

And onward…

From there, it was off to the River Coa, scene of Craufurd’s controversial decision to defend the bridge rather than fall back to Almeida, as Wellington had ordered.

Almeida

The fortress town of Almeida is 20 miles inside Portugal, and once the French had taken Ciudad Rodrigo, they headed for the River Coa and forced Craufurd to retreat. Two weeks later, they were laying siege to Almeida.

Wellington hoped this powerfully-built and well-stocked fortress, with its deep defensive ditches and strong walls, would hold out for some time.

Sadly this was not to be. A stray shot from a French mortar is thought to have ignited some spilled gunpowder which led into the magazine where the fortress’s considerable stock of gunpowder and weapons was stored. The resulting explosion was huge. Many soldiers were killed and some stones were even said to have landed in the trenches of the French attackers, killing some of them. A large part of the fort was completely destroyed and Almeida was defenceless.

Day 6 on the battlefield

Once more, we crossed the border into Portugal. First stop, Wellington’s HQ at Freneida. A statue of Wellington has recently been erected in front of the HQ, but I’m not sure its quite my style. What do you think?

Then on to Fuentes de Oñoro

Standing in this sleepy little village, it is hard to imagine that, in May 1811, one of the fiercest battles of the Peninsular War took place here. It was a struggle that many historians believe decided the fate of Portugal.

Wellington was facing André Masséna, whom he described as the ablest of Napoleon’s Marshals. Bitter hand-to-hand fighting took place in the village, as well as furious cavalry charges on the nearby battlefield. This picture was taken from what had once been a ford across the river, where there is now a modern (and not very pretty) agricultural bridge.

Ian described the battle to us as we stood on the actual site of the action. Then we learned that Christa Hook had painted a scene from this very battle! She has kindly given me permission to add the picture of her painting “A Masterly Manoeuvre”. It’s in her book of Peninsular War paintings, Far in Advance.

Ciudad Rodrigo

The rest of the day we spent in this beautiful fortress city. We walked around the walls, hearing about the the breaches and the storming of the town in January 1812. Our tour bus parked up outside the city walls, in sight of the cathedral and we entered by the Avenida Yurramendi, the new entrance that was built when the breaches were repaired.

In the picture above you can just see the top of the gateway’s stone arch. What you can’t see is the deep defensive ditch hidden by the rising ground.

Somewhere in these newly built walls, the British buried the body of Robert Craufurd, who died during the storming on the city.

Two more views before we leave Ciudad Rodrigo. From the ramparts, showing just what a daunting prospect they were!

Day 7 and finally…

Los Aripiles, Salamanca (author’s picture)

East towards Salamanca and the battlefield situated a few miles south of the town. Here Wellington had a decisive victory over Marmon in July 1812.

The battlefield remains relatively unchanged, which made it much easier to imagine what happened on the ground.

We spent our final night in Salamanca.

While we were enjoying drinks on the terrace after dinner, we were treated to a fabulous firework display. It made a perfect finale to our wonderful tour.

But we hadn’t quite finished!

Up early and off towards Madrid for our homeward flight. But on the way, we stopped at Garcia Hernandez to visit the site of a famous charge by the Kings German Legion cavalry, which broke not one but two French squares.

Ian explained all of this while we looked around the now-empty and unspectacular fields, but all the while Christa was busy with her sketchbook, and below is the result. The Cavalry rides again, and we are the ethereal ones….

That was the last stop on our battlefield tour. Christa’s picture captures how it feels when you wake up the ghosts of those bygone days. And that’s what our guide was doing: bringing the past to life, vividly.

And that’s it

This blog doesn’t even scratch the surface of what we saw and learned on this trip. But I hope it’s given you a brief armchair tour of some of the battles that took place during the Peninsular war. And if you want to know more, well, there are lots of good books out there!

Happy reading

Sarah