Letters and journals of Field-Marshal Sir William Maynard Gomm... from 1799 to Waterloo, 1815

14 June 1807 (2 June Old Style)

Battle of Friedland

CHAPTER IV.

France ; but Napoleon had been too quick for him, and in June 1807, after the battle of Friedland, the Emperors met at Tilsit, on the Niemen, and concluded the Treaty of Tilsit. One of the main though concealed objects of Napoleon in con- cluding this treaty was to paralyse the trade of England. Mr. Canning learnt that, by a secret article in this treaty, the Danish fleet was to be seized for the war by France, and all the ports of Prussia, as well as of D{:!ntzic, were to be shut against the vessels and trade of Great Britain. The English therefore directed the force which had been sent out under Admiral Gambier and Lord Cathcart to bombard Copenhagen. From this time forward Captain Gomm appears to have served continuously upon the Staff of the Quartermaster- General, until the close of the great war, except during the retreat of Sir John Moore in the Peninsula, when for a short time he rejoined his old regiment.

22 July 1812

Battle of Salamanca

CHAPTER XII.

MONT over the TORMBS— SIEGE OF SALAMANCA— CAPTURE—

INTRODUCTORY,

becoming gradually reduced, till they in their turn had to re- treat in the spring from point to point, fighting continually till they were completely routed at Fuentes d'Onor. He bore his part in the terrible sieges of Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz, and in the battle of Salamanca, for his conduct in which battle the Duke specially recommended him for promotion, and he be- came a lieutenant-colonel before he was twenty-eight years of age. Thence followed the bright advance into the capital of Spain, driving Joseph from his ill-fitting throne ; and the march through Valladolid to Burgos, where for once Wel- lington had to own himself foiled after many brave assaults, and the siege had to be raised, while another odious retreat had to be conducted and the army placed in^ safety on the other side of the Agueda. Perhaps this was one of the most arduous and trying manoeuvres in which Gomm ever bore a part. It was a retreat after a failure, in the face of an over- powering foe led by a general more skilful than he who allowed himself to be defeated at Salamanca (for Soult never allowed his hand to be forced like Marmont) ; the army was disorganised and almost mutinous, and throughout disheartened; the weather was most unfavourable ; the Ministry very tardy in their support ; while the newspapers and the public at home were then, as ever, loud in their denunciation of those who are not ostensibly and continuously successful, and utterly in- appreciative of able generalship under difficulties. It was in these circumstances that Gomm most truly appreciated the force of his leader's character. This is fully seen in his letter of November 22, 1812, written ere the sad march was con- cluded. That young Gomm's letters were not the usual military comments of the day is most noticeable if reference be made to the English journals of that time, and notice be taken of the carping ignorance with which the conduct of Wellington was therein condemned upon the authority of officers who were indeed with the army, but to whom the complicated and skilfully prudent movements of the General were quite un- intelligible. It is easy to be wise after the event, and nothing is more remarkable in these letters than the correctness of

MONTES — SALAMONDE, ETC. — ADVANCE DRIVING MARMONT OVER THE

ToRMES — Siege op Salamanca— ^Capture— Battle of Salamanca — General Leith.

MONTES — SALAMONDE, ETC. — ADVANCE DRIVING MARMONT OVER THE

* The battle of Salamanca has at length been fought, and glorious indeed has been the result. When I wrote to you last I believe Marmont had commenced his retreat to the Douro, after the fall of the forts. He conducted it ably, crossing the river at Toro and Tordes villas, and we passed many a tedious day observing him from the left bank, but evidently without any fixed intention of forcino^ thepassao;e. At leno;th he had collected reinforcements enough to induce him to resume the offensive, and he crossed the river by an able manoeuvre, threatening our right flank, but still avoiding a battle, which was constantly offered on our part ; forcing us, by this means, to conform to his movement, and to recross the Tormes on the 21st, in order to cover Salamanca, which was a scene of distress I have never seen equalled ; considering itself already in the hands of the French^ and preparing to pay the forfeit of all these rejoicings

26–27 August 1813

Battle of Dresden

CHAPTER XV.

' We are most anxiously looking out for accounts from our side of the battle of Dresden, the Crown Prince's movements, Moreau, etc. There has certainly been hard work, and I believe Bonaparte has been well beaten in the end.

CHAPTER XV.

'^ Jean Victor Moreau was one of the most celebrated of the Grenerals of the French Republic, and was born in 1763. He had been at the early age of thirty- two, Commander-in-Chief of the army of the Rhine, shortly afterwards, however, he was expatriated by Buonaparte, probably through his fear of finding in him a successful rival; he retired to America, whence in 1813 he was summoned by the allies and more especially by Russia. At Prague he found the Emperors of Austria and Russia with the King of Prussia, all of whom received him with great cordi- ality, and he was induced to aid them against his countrymen. Soon afterwards while conversing with the Emperor Alexander on horseback in the battle before Dresden, a cannon ball which passed through his horse, shattered his legs, and after suffering two amputations, with great fortitude, he died universally esteemed and regretted by those whom he had joined.

16 June 1815

Battle of Ligny

CHAPTER XVL

six days what memorable events happened ! As this last letter of the 13 th was being written Napoleon was fast nearincy Belgium; on the 15th he crossed the frontier; on the 16th the battles of Ligny and Quatre Bras were fought, and on the 18th the battle of Waterloo. How different from the letter of the 13th June, with its comfortable quarters and 'nothino- immediately stirring' is the following most interesting letter to his sister, written upon that ever memorable field, while so sleepy and tired out that he could hardly write, were it not for the magnificence of his theme, and his constant solicitude for the happiness of his dear ones at home.

CHAPTER XVL

selves, nor to Napoleon liimself in front of Ligny, to whom its arrival on the Prussian rig-ht flank would have ensured the utter destruction of that army.

16 June 1815

Battle of Quatre Bras

CHAPTER XYI.

1815. Knight Commander of the Bath — Napoleon's Escape from Elba — Brussels — Appointed to Staff — Quartermaster- General OF 5th Picton's Division— Quatre Bras— Waterloo — Diary of the Campaign and March to Paris— Note on the Diary written Fifty Years afterwards— Waterloo Jot- tings — On Claims of 52nd Regiment to have repulsed the Imperial Guard— Death of his Brother and Sister— Finis 346

INTRODUCTORY,

The following year (1815) saw him once more beside his old chief, once more in his old Staff appointment, as the Quartermaster-General of Picton's division (the Fighting Fifth), and once more opposed to the French — this time under the great commander himself. Both at Quatre Bras and Waterloo he was, as he says, ' in the hottest of all this glorious business.' Then he followed up the French to Paris itself, where he saw the King's return.

INTRODUCTORY,

unhurt through them all, for the slig-ht wound he received in the leg at the Nivelle was not enough to incapacitate him for work, and the touch he had at Bergen, when only fourteen years of age, was to his sorrow only a scratch, and too rapidly imperceptible. In fact, he personally suffered less in a score of hard and bloody and long-contested battles than many a lad does in a single football match. It is, of course, impossible to say how many hairbreadth escapes he had, many of them, curiously enough, from drowning, both in sea and in flood. He frequently had to lament that the beloved horses which he was riding did not escape equally well with himself. At Busaco, at Vittoria, at the Nive, and at Quatre Bras, his horses were shot under him. The narrowness of his own escape at Vittoria was little short of miraculous.

CHAPTER XVL

' But the great attack of infantry on our left, covered by eighty pieces of cannon, and consisting of d'Erlon's corps of 20,000 men, which Bonaparte meant and fully expected to be as decisive of the fate of the day as Soult's 20,000 launched against the Prusso-Austrian centre at Austerlitz, passed in the immediate gaze of the Quartermaster-General of the British division (the 5th), and assailed the three solid masses advancing (as reported in the narrative) in direct Echelon of columns from their left (Durutte's division, the 4th, diverged to the attack of the hamlets of La Haye and Papellotte) ; and a mounted officer so disengaged from local associa- tion with any particular section of our line had the rare opportunity aflforded him of presenting himself at the repulse of each of the three French columns in succes- sion, as recorded in the narrative ; and this repulse amounted to nothing short of the utter discomfiture of some 15,000 French infantry, bearing forward renowned eagles over their heads, and burning for a first meeting with us, by not more than 3,301 English, the numbers to which the two British Brigades of the division who marched out of Brussels in the dawn of the 16th 5,170 strong, were reduced by its conflicts before the close of that day at Quatre Bras.

18 June 1815

Battle of Waterloo

INTRODUCTORY,

In the following year (1801) he was aide-de-camp to the General commanding the Northern Division; and in 1803 he got his captaincy, at the age of eighteen, and did duty with his regiment in Ireland. In 1805 he studied at the Koyal Military College at High Wycombe, where he was under the instruction of Sir Howard Douglas, who from that time was his attached friend. In 1806 he again joined his regiment, when it went over to Hanover in another somewhat futile ex- pedition; and in the following year (1807) was employed under Lord Cathcart in an exploit which reflects no credit upon our country's arms or honour — viz. the destruction of Copenhagen. He was then upon the Quartermaster-General's Staff, on which, with some interruptions, he remained until the termination of the Waterloo campaign. In 1808 he went with Sir A. Wellesley to Portugal, and was eno-ao-ed in the

CHAPTER XVL

six days what memorable events happened ! As this last letter of the 13 th was being written Napoleon was fast nearincy Belgium; on the 15th he crossed the frontier; on the 16th the battles of Ligny and Quatre Bras were fought, and on the 18th the battle of Waterloo. How different from the letter of the 13th June, with its comfortable quarters and 'nothino- immediately stirring' is the following most interesting letter to his sister, written upon that ever memorable field, while so sleepy and tired out that he could hardly write, were it not for the magnificence of his theme, and his constant solicitude for the happiness of his dear ones at home.

CHAPTER XVL

' The battle of Waterloo will claim so distinguished a place among the events of modern times, that it is perhaps the duty, as it is the pride, of everyone who had the good fortune to stand in the ranks of the Allied Army on that day to describe minutely and faithfully every particular incident that came more immediately under his own notice ; and it will be found, upon the most exact scrutiny, to afford some of the most splendid examples of intrepidity and enthusiasm on the one hand^ and of constancy and unshaken firmness on the other, that the world ever witnessed.

CHAPTER XVL

' The fortunes of the world seemed to have been set upon a cast. Had the Allies lost the battle of Waterloo, such was the nature of the conflict that utter ruin must have ensued. It was the peculiar characteristic of this battle from the beginning that the result must be decisive of the fate of both armies.