Whenever I raised the question of the behaviour of Massena's army with certain contributors on this Forum, however, I received howls of indignation, curses and endless red herrings. I am really not all that interested in the French army in the Peninsula -- except as a case study in the breakdown of military discipline and the absence of command responsibility. I am interested in the conduct of war (particularly as regards the treatment of unoffending civilians), military law and military discipline in the American and British armies during the period. Eventually all the research I have been doing into those subjects will end up in an article that will be posted on the Nap Series early next year.
However, to be fair, let's take a quick look at the four instances of gross indiscipline in the British army during the Peninsular War: Moore's retreat to Corunna, Ciudad Rodrigo, Badajoz and St. Sebastian.
No retreating army is ever in good spirits (just ask Massena's men) and there is no doubt that many of Moore's soldiers got out of hand (particularly at Bembibre which was a town that functioned as the district wine harvest storage place). Given the speed of the army's movement, there was no time to convene and hold traditional courts martial yet there is no doubt that senior officers such as Moore, Craufurd and Paget did punish many miscreat soldiers. They used summary punishment, something I discussed in a previous post and what it basically meant that if you were a soldier caught redhanded committing a criminal act and a senior officer wanted to make a quick example of you to deter further occurrences, he punished you on the spot up to, and including execution. Summary punishment had been used in the English and later British army for more than a century and a half and at one time it was enshrined in the Articles of War but removed as it made the law officers of the Crown nervous for it more or less gave an officer the power of life and death without any legal procedure. In the case of Moore, he caught a soldier robbing a house and had him hanged within the hour.
Ciudad Rodrigo, Badajoz and St. Sebastian were sieges, the misbehaviour took place immediately after these places were successfully stormed, at a cost of very high casualties. I have not looked at Ciudad Rodrigo or St. Sebastain in any great detail but I have seen the General Orders Wellington issued to stop the insubordination and riotous behaviour at Badajoz. Those orders were disobeyed. My guess would be that a combination of very high officer casualties suffered in the assault (including many senior officers), darkness and men maddened by what they had just experienced during the attack, the possible presence of alcohol (more plentiful in towns than villages and the besetting curse of the British army)combined to form a perfect storm of insubordination that led to a total breakdown of discipline.
I think it would be a very profitable activity if someone actually examined these three sieges and correlated the units that got out of control with the number of their officer casualties to see if my surmise is correct. In any case, these three incidents deserve more attention, research and analysis than they have received.
On assessing responsibility for these three incidents of gross misconduct, I do not know much about C Rodrigo and St. Sebastian but Wellington took responsibility for Badajoz and did not discipline any of the general officers whose troops had run riot (in any case many of them had been wounded or killed). However, we must always remember that the British army was quite unlike the French army and Wellington had very little power to reward or punish senior officers or even to pick them, that was the purview of the Horse Guards and an endless source of frustration for him. Remember his problems with Erskine who was stark raving mad but who the Horse Guards sent back to Spain over Wellington's protests. Fortunately the problem was solved when Erskine jumped out of a window in Lisbon. And then there was William ("Auld Grog Willie") Stewart, possibly one of the best battalion commanders and worst divisional commanders in the British army. Wellington was always trying to get rid of him but Stewart was a sitting MP and had very strong political connections. None of this is particularly new but it should always be kept in mind when discussing Wellington and his army and problems.
dg