True Soldier Gentlemen is a work of fiction, but it is fiction grounded in fact.
In August 1808 an army under the command of Sir Arthur Wellesley landed in Portugal and began Britain’s direct involvement in what would become known as the Peninsular War. Six years later, the British Army had chased the French from Spain and Portugal, had invaded southern France and made a major contribution to the collapse of Napoleon’s empire. In 1815, Wellington faced and defeated the Emperor himself at Waterloo. It was one of the great achievements of the British Army, and it sparked a flood of personal accounts and histories. The memoirs written by veterans, including a substantial number of men from the ranks as well as officers, provide a wealth of material regarding the lives and experiences of Wellington’s men, and I have drawn heavily upon these. Very many of the episodes of the story are based on real incidents.
Regency attitudes differed greatly from those of the present day. Scarcely anyone questioned a system that allowed the purchase of commissions, but purchase was in fact relatively rare except in fashionable regiments. Officers were expected to be gentlemen, but many were not especially wealthy and relied on seniority for promotion. This was often slow, especially if their regiment did not see active service and suffer heavy casualties. Many men grew old as subalterns or captains. There were probably very few veterans of the American War still with the battalions in 1808, but it is certainly not impossible that a man like MacAndrews could have existed.
Gentleman Volunteers were far more common. By the height of the Peninsular War almost one in twenty officers earned his commission in this way. It was a peculiar institution, with a man serving in the ranks, but living with the officers. The path was followed by men who lacked not only the money to purchase rank, but the influence to secure direct appointment to a commission without purchase. There was no guarantee that a volunteer wuld be made an officer, and it could take a considerable time before they proved themselves and a vacancy occurred.
The vast majority of army officers had modest funds and little influence. Promotion was slow. Conspicuous valour might win them a step in promotion, but in most cases they had to wait their turn and rely on seniority. For this, as well as other reasons, most welcomed the prospect of active service and heavy casualties. Uniforms, equipment and other necessities were expensive, and officers’ pay at best barely sufficient. They were gentlemen, but for many their claim to that status rested on fragile grounds.
Regency England is probably now most familiar to us from the genteel world of Jane Austen. In many ways the situation for her heroines mirrored the lives of junior officers in the army and navy. Belonging to the gentry by birth and education, but not truly wealthy, such young women had to hope for a good marriage. The alternatives were posts as companions or governesses, honourable penury, or in extreme cases even prostitution. Such fears underlay the gentility and the rituals of courtship and flirtation and give the stories some of their edge, even though they are only occasionally mentioned. The safe world of Austen concealed real risks.
For officers the dangers were different, but no less real. They had little control over postings. A man’s career might stagnate in Britain, or be ended abruptly by disease if the battalion was sent to the West Indies, which consumed units at quite staggering rates. War service brought more opportunities for advancement at the risk of death and dreadful injury – and indeed increased the chance of succumbing to disease. All the time a man’s conduct was regulated by strict rules. No gentleman could strike another, unless in a formal duel. As in wider Regency society, most army officers drank heavily and many gambled freely. There were plenty of opportunities to disgrace themselves and be forced to resign. There were also constant frustrations as better-connected or wealthier men advanced their careers far faster than was possible for most. Officers who chose to marry, or who had to assist their parents and siblings, struggled even harder to cope, but many somehow managed to do this.
Jane Austen created a witty and incisive portrait of the real world for young women of her own class. Many army officers lived in the same world. The even bleaker conditions of the poor register only slightly. The gentility of Austen’s stories also has little hint of the wider war with France going on in the background. In particular, the contrast with the savagery of the Peninsular War could not be more marked. Yet many army officers experienced both, and it is something of this contrast that I have tried to convey in this story. Hence the inclusion of Wickham, made possible by Austen’s final comments about him, under the convenient assumption that the ‘restoration of peace’ she refers to was the Peace of Amiens in 1803, rather than the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815.
I have probably allowed my characters greater knowledge about the reasons for the Peninsular War than is actually likely, although I have tried to give a little sense of the vague perspective of junior officers. Soldiers throughout the ages have rarely been party to the wider reasons of why they are sent to fight. The roots of the conflict lay in Napoleon’s ‘continental system’, through which he hoped to close all European ports to British ships and trade. Since he was unable to defeat the Royal Navy and invade Britain, his aim was to ruin its economy and force the acceptance of peace on his terms. Portugal refused to comply and so in November 1807 French forces under General Junot invaded the country. They had moved through Spain with the cooperation of the Spanish, who were allied to France – Trafalgar had been fought only two years before. Portugal was quickly overrun and this success encouraged Napoleon to turn against his ally. Spain’s government was corrupt and unpopular, and it seemed an easy matter to remove the Bourbon monarchs and appoint his own brother Joseph as King of Spain.
It proved to be one of Napoleon’s biggest mistakes, but it is unlikely that anyone would have guessed this at the time. Uprisings against the French forces occurred all over Spain. The French responded with great brutality, and the massacre in Madrid on 2nd May with which the novel begins was just the most famous of many incidents. It is now probably best known from Goya’s painting El Dos de Mayo and its companion piece depicting a French firing squad. The savagery of the conflict quickly escalated as each side outdid the other in reprisals. Today the Spanish know the conflict as the ‘War of Independence’, and it was fought as much by armed bands of guerrillas as by formal armies. Goya’s Horrors of War present haunting images of its brutality.
The risings in Spain provided Britain with an opportunity that was quickly seized. Wellesley’s army had originally been organised to mount another expedition against Spain’s South American colonies. The attempt on Buenos Aires in 1806 had been a humiliating disaster for the British, but the lure of lucrative colonies was always a strong one. Instead, the government responded to an appeal for aid from a Spanish embassy. The state of war between Britain and Spain was not formally renounced until some time afterwards. In the event, however, the Galician junta that ran the war effort in north-western Spain did not want the assistance of British soldiers. So Wellesley sailed on, to receive a better welcome in Portugal.
The campaign there occurred very much as described in the story. Lieutenant Bunbury of the 95th was the first British battlefield fatality of the war. Hindsight tells us that these early encounters were the first of the succession of battles won by Wellesley’s army. None of this later success was inevitable. The record of British expeditions – especially to continental Europe – was extremely poor. So was the reputation of the British Army. Alexandria in 1801 and Maida in 1806 (which gave its name to Maida Vale in West London) were rare victories amid a long series of failures. They hinted that the reforms of the army under the aegis of the Duke of York and carried on by imaginative generals such as Abercromby and Moore were beginning to bear fruit. Yet the redcoats had yet to prove themselves. Numerically, Britain’s army was dwarfed by that of Napoleon and powers like Austria, Russia or Prussia. It was simply not large enough to confront the main strength of the Emperor’s army on its own. The Peninsular War offered a chance for it to face French forces spread very thinly as they struggled to control Spain and Portugal.
It was understandable that at first French generals like Junot underestimated their British opponents. At Roliça the forces actually engaged were similar in numbers, although overall the British outnumbered the French by more than two to one. It was therefore inevitable that the latter would be forced from their position, and it was merely a question of how long this took. At Vimeiro the French attacked a somewhat larger British Army, although again the numbers actually engaged were more equal. Junot attacked recklessly and met far tougher resistance than he had expected. It was easy afterwards for the French to blame his mistakes and the relative inexperience of much of his army. It would take several years and more British victories before French commanders learned more respect for their opponents.
I have described these actions as accurately as I could. The 106th Foot did not existfone form described here. (A unit with that number was briefly included in the Army List, but was probably never organised in reality and certainly did not see active service.) The regimental number was far more important than any name or regional affiliation until the end of the nineteenth century. Therefore, in the story the battalion is usually referred to as the 106th rather that the Glamorganshire Regiment. I chose that county simply because it happens to be my home and because there was no such regiment in reality. Wales was generally under-represented in the Army List, with only the 23rd Royal Welch Fusiliers being formally affiliated to the region. The battalions of that regiment recruited widely and actual Welshmen were never more than a significant minority. I have given the 106th red facings to their jackets in honour of the 41st Foot, one of the ancestors of the Royal Regiment of Wales (and now combined with the Royal Welch Fusiliers in the Royal Welsh). The 41st did not serve in the Peninsula, but saw considerable action in Canada during the 1812 War.
The routine of the battalion, its organisation and drill are as accurate as I can make them. It is all too easily forgotten that long periods of training underlay the success of Wellington’s army. For both officers and men the bulk of this training occurred at the battalion level. Gentlemen were expected to behave with courage and set an example to their soldiers, but as officers they also had to learn how to manoeuvre and control their men, as well as the less tangible skills of leadership. Much of this occurred in Britain and is all too easily ignored. Examples of the wooden blocks used to explain the manoeuvring of a battalion can be seen today in the National Army Museum in London.
The conditions of the men in the ranks are only glimpsed in the story to reflect the perspective of junior officers. Discipline was harsh, and could be arbitrary but then civilian justice for the poor was sometimes even worse. In some ways the lot of the redcoats’ families was even more bleak. The scene where the wives draw lots to see who will accompany the regiment is based firmly on reality – indeed, such things would be hard to invent. The prospects for those left behind were often bleak, and such ballots were carried out at the last minute to prevent desertions. Some officers’ wives did follow their husbands to the Peninsula, although there were probably very few there as early as August 1808. It is far less likely that an unmarried daughter would have gone with her mother, but I have permitted this because I wanted Jane to be there for this and future plots. I will keep looking to see whether I can find a real precedent for this, but have so far failed.
I have based the exploits of the 106th at Roliça and Vimeiro closely on those of the 29th Foot (formerly the Worcestershire and Sherwood Foresters and now part of the Mercian Regiment). This is largely because the exploits of the real redcoats were in reality more impressive than almost anything a novelist could plausibly invent. I have not stuck rigidly to this in every respect, however, and this remains a novel. In the real battle Lieutenant Colonel Lake led the 29th in a premature attack and was killed when he and part of the battalion found themselves attacked by French infantry who had been bypassed as the redcoats advanced up one of the gullies. Lake had won a high reputation for himself in India and the attack appears to have been a genuine mistake. For a while the colours of the 29th were lost to the enemy. These were soon recaptured, however, and the regiment re-formed and repulsed a series of French counter-attacks. Wellesley singled them out for praise in his dispatch. The 29th would later fight with considerable distinction at Talavera and other engagements. Moss is not supposed to be a reflection of Lieutenant Colonel Lake, nor is the fictional 106th, and the tenss within its ranks are not intended in any way to be representative of the real 29th Foot. In later stories the 106th will no doubt mirror the fortunes of different regiments.
Bizarrely enough, there was a Russian fleet in the Tagus in 1808 and no one was entirely sure whether the Russians would side with their French allies. In the event they maintained an uneasy neutrality. Many Russians felt humiliated by the 1807 Treaty of Tilsit and the new friendship between Tsar Alexander and Napoleon, but it must have been very hard to guess whether or not the French Emperor would ever lose his dominance. There was also little love for Britain, however. Count Denilov is an invention, exploiting this strange situation. I needed a more personal enemy for my heroes and having a Russian seemed a greater novelty than a Frenchman.
True Soldier Gentlemen is the first in a series of novels, intended to follow the characters through the years of war with France. Much lies ahead of them. There will be more battles in Portugal and Spain, some in Canada, and in the long run they will end up on the ridge at Waterloo. Ahead of our characters lie adventure, romance, plenty of battles and powder smoke and – this being Wellington’s army – no doubt a fair amount of amateur dramatics.