The Siege of Ciudad Rodrigo

Ciudad Rodrigo lies in western Spain near the Portuguese border and the River Águeda. Its strategic importance came from its position controlling the northern invasion route between Portugal and central Spain. The fortress had been captured by the French from its Spanish defenders in 1810.

By the beginning of 1812, the strategic situation in the Peninsula had begun to favour Wellington. French resources were increasingly stretched and Napoleon was preparing for the invasion of Russia. Wellington recognised an opportunity to move from the largely defensive struggle for Portugal towards offensive operations inside Spain.

Two major fortresses obstructed this strategy: Ciudad Rodrigo, guarding the northern route, and Badajoz, guarding the southern route. Wellington decided to capture both.

Time was crucial. A conventional lengthy siege risked allowing a French field army to concentrate and force Wellington to abandon the operation. Ciudad Rodrigo therefore became as much a race against French relief forces as a siege against the garrison itself.

Wellington began operations against Ciudad Rodrigo on 8 January 1812. The siege was conducted during extremely cold winter weather. Contemporary accounts mention frost and snow.

One of the immediate problems was an important French advanced position associated with the Greater Tesón, which overlooked ground required for the Allied siege works. On the opening night, a party from the Light Division, commanded by Major John Colborne of the 52nd Foot and comprising companies of the 43rd, 52nd and 95th together with the 1st and 3rd Portuguese Caçadores, attacked and captured the French position at the redoubt of San Francisco. This allowed the Allies to begin constructing batteries and approaches much closer to the fortress.

Allied heavy artillery opened a sustained bombardment. The primary purpose was not simply to inflict casualties on the French garrison. The siege artillery needed to create practicable breaches in the fortress walls through which infantry could assault.

By 19 January, two important breaches had been created: the Great Breach and the Lesser Breach. Wellington decided they were sufficiently practicable to justify an immediate assault. Waiting longer might have improved the breaches but would also have given Marmont more time to concentrate a relief army. Wellington chose speed.

The Forlorn Hope was a small body of volunteers placed at the very front of an assault against a fortified position. The term comes from the Dutch verloren hoop, meaning “lost troop”. It should not be confused with the entire storming party or assault column.

A simplified sequence was: Forlorn Hope, then storming party, then main assault column. The Forlorn Hope went first. Its tasks could include entering the breach before the main body, identifying or overcoming obstacles, absorbing the defenders’ first fire, establishing a foothold, clearing or identifying mines and obstructions, and creating enough space for the storming party behind.

The name reflects the extreme danger of the role, but the men were volunteers, not soldiers selected for a suicide mission. In British service, command commonly fell to an ambitious junior commissioned officer, particularly a lieutenant, though there was no formal regulation requiring a specific rank.

For an officer, successfully leading a Forlorn Hope offered an exceptional opportunity for distinction. Promotion, favourable attention from senior commanders and increased seniority could all follow. For an ambitious lieutenant whose normal promotion prospects might otherwise be slow, a successful storm could transform his career.

The 52nd Foot valued the honour of the Forlorn Hope so highly that in 1820 the regiment instituted its own Forlorn Hope Medal, awarded to survivors of the regimental Forlorn Hope parties at Ciudad Rodrigo, Badajoz and San Sebastián. The 52nd is believed to be the only regiment to have created such a medal.

The Light Division attacked the Lesser Breach. The division included famous Peninsular formations: the 43rd Foot, the 52nd Foot and the 95th Rifles.

The Forlorn Hope at the Lesser Breach was led by Lieutenant John Gurwood of the 52nd Foot. He was severely wounded in the head during the assault but continued into the fortress after regaining consciousness. Making his way to the citadel, Gurwood took Governor Barrié prisoner. The governor surrendered his sword to Gurwood, who presented it to Wellington. Wellington subsequently returned it as a reward for Gurwood’s conduct.

Gurwood’s story has become one of the most famous individual episodes of the siege. He would later serve as editor of Wellington’s Dispatches.

Immediately behind the Forlorn Hope came the main storming party, 300 men under Major George Napier of the 52nd. The breach was carried at high cost.

Once Allied troops gained the ramparts, they could move along the fortifications and attack French positions from unexpected directions. The French defensive system began to unravel rapidly as defenders were attacked from behind as well as from the breaches.

Ciudad Rodrigo was not simply a British operation. Wellington commanded an Anglo-Portuguese army, and Portuguese soldiers contributed throughout the siege and participated directly in the assault.

Denis Pack’s Portuguese brigade attacked towards the Santiago Gate (some sources describe this position as the San Pelayo Gate). Their action captured an advanced defensive work and forced the French to defend that sector rather than concentrate every available man against the main breaches. Describing this attack as a “diversion” understates what happened.

Another Portuguese force under O’Toole crossed the Águeda and attacked from the southern direction. O’Toole’s men succeeded in penetrating the defences and entering the town. The collapse of the French position was therefore not simply the result of British troops forcing the two main breaches; French defenders increasingly faced Allied troops penetrating from several directions at once.

Portuguese Caçadores were also involved in the opening capture of the San Francisco redoubt on 9 January, alongside British light infantry.

The capture was followed by one of the darker episodes of the operation. Ciudad Rodrigo was a Spanish town. Spain was Britain’s ally. Nevertheless, discipline among parts of the victorious Allied force broke down after the storm.

Soldiers looted houses and businesses. In one French store, vats of rum were broken open and consumed; some soldiers are reported to have been pushed into the vats in the crush and drowned. Property was stolen or destroyed. Officers struggled to restore order.

The behaviour reflected a wider and brutal culture surrounding early nineteenth-century siege warfare. A military convention held that a fortress which refused to surrender after a practicable breach had been created and was subsequently taken by storm might be subjected to pillage. This is historical context, not justification.

Ciudad Rodrigo had just witnessed extraordinarily violent close-quarter fighting. Soldiers had watched friends killed in the breaches, many believed they had earned the right to plunder, large quantities of alcohol became available, and command structures temporarily broke down. The sack of Ciudad Rodrigo was overshadowed by the considerably worse breakdown of discipline that followed the storming of Badajoz three months later, but its contradiction remained acute: Wellington’s army had liberated a Spanish city from French occupation and then proceeded to plunder the inhabitants it had ostensibly come to assist.

George Simmons of the 95th Rifles described the appearance of soldiers leaving Ciudad Rodrigo after the storm. He wrote in his journal that the soldiers “were laden with all sorts of things, and looked like a moving rag-fair.”

John Kincaid, also of the 95th Rifles, wrote critically about the behaviour of victorious troops, observing that they “no sooner obtain possession, than they think themselves at liberty to do what they please, without considering that the poor inhabitants may nevertheless be friends and allies.” Kincaid’s testimony is particularly useful because it shows that some contemporary observers themselves recognised the moral contradiction.

Major Jonathan Leach, also of the 95th Rifles, wrote in his own memoir that “when a town is stormed, it is inevitable that excesses will be, as they have ever been, committed by assailants, more particularly if it takes place at night.”

Ciudad Rodrigo solved only half of Wellington’s strategic problem. The northern gateway into Spain was now substantially more secure. The southern fortress of Badajoz remained in French hands.

Wellington therefore moved south against Badajoz. It was stormed on 6 April 1812. Badajoz proved much more costly than Ciudad Rodrigo; the assault and subsequent sack became some of the most notorious episodes in the history of Wellington’s army.

With both frontier fortresses captured, Wellington possessed much greater freedom to operate inside Spain. This helped create the strategic circumstances leading to the Battle of Salamanca on 22 July 1812, where Wellington defeated Marmont and subsequently entered Madrid.

Ciudad Rodrigo therefore belongs to the wider transformation of the Peninsular War during 1812, when Wellington moved from defending Portugal to carrying the war deep into French-held Spain.