Free Wellington’s Engineers: Military Engineering on the Peninsular War 1808-1814 by Mark S. Thomson Page A
Authors: Mark S. Thomson
supportive of my research and particularly in the efforts to identify the names of places and people in the unpublished diary of Edmund Mulcaster. There have been several others in Portugal who have contributed to my research, including José Paulo Berger, João Torres Centeno, Carlos Cunha, Flor Estavo, Moisés Gaudencio, Rui Moura, Jorge Quinta-Nova, Rui Sa Leul and Sergio Tavares. In the same group, although not Portuguese, is Anthony Gray.
From the British Commission for Military History (BCMH), I would particularly like to thank Dick Tennant and John Peaty. We have had a number of healthy debates about the war in general but particularly around bridging and military surveying. It was Dick who invited me to one of their conferences where I found myself speaking at Sandhurst next to the late, great Richard Holmes, an experience I will not forget for many reasons. The battlefield tour with them in 2012 is also a memory I will treasure.
Whilst not a regular contributor myself, I must recommend the Napoleon Series ( www.napoleon-series.org ) as a tremendous source of information both in the website content, but also the discussion forum. Over the years I have received help from many people but would particularly like to mention Bob Burnham, Howie Muir, Ron McGuigan and Tony Broughton. Bob Burnham and I have also corresponded on military bridging and he has written an excellent chapter on the subject in the book Inside Wellington’s Peninsular Army . 2
One constant in my life as a historian has been the presence of the British book dealer Ken Trotman, run by Richard and Roz Brown. I have been buying books from them for over thirty years and many of the books on my shelves came from them. I also owe them special thanks for allowing me to use images from some of their reprints.
I cannot end without giving my thanks to Chris Woolgar and Karen Robson at Southampton University, both for answering my questions and for arranging the Wellington Congress. I also must thank the staff of the British Library, the National Archives and the National Army Museum for their help in providing material for my research.
My final thanks are to my family who have lost me for a second time to Fletcher and his officers. Their understanding when I locked myself away for days on end and over my ‘business’ trips to London, Portugal and Spain have always been met with understanding and patience. This book and the PhD that preceded it are the result of the support of ‘Team Thompson’. The credit for this book should go to you, Trish, my wife and daughters, Ruth and Katherine.
Mark S. Thompson
October 2014
Foreword
It is well over one hundred years since Major General Whitworth Porter included an account of the Peninsular War when writing Volume One of the History of the Corps of Royal Engineers . This book now draws on much new material, not previously available, to tell the story from the perspective of engineer officers and explains how they supported the victories of the Duke of Wellington in the Iberian Peninsula. These officers from the Royal Engineers, never more than fifty at any one time, played a highly significant, but mainly invisible role in supporting Wellington’s army and the operations in Spain and Portugal. They were present at almost every major engagement, but their roles as staff officer, liaison officer, bridge and road builder, and fortifications engineer are not well recognised. A number of them lived to enjoy rank and high reputation, while others died in the breach of a stormed city, leading the infantry into the gap in the enemy’s defences as Sapper officers should. It is now time that all their various contributions are better understood.
Further into the nineteenth century some of these same officers continued their careers in both military and civil roles, to high acclaim. Field Marshal Sir John Burgoyne (the first Royal Engineer to achieve that rank), who served on both Sir John Moore’s and the Duke of
From the British Commission for Military History (BCMH), I would particularly like to thank Dick Tennant and John Peaty. We have had a number of healthy debates about the war in general but particularly around bridging and military surveying. It was Dick who invited me to one of their conferences where I found myself speaking at Sandhurst next to the late, great Richard Holmes, an experience I will not forget for many reasons. The battlefield tour with them in 2012 is also a memory I will treasure.
Whilst not a regular contributor myself, I must recommend the Napoleon Series ( www.napoleon-series.org ) as a tremendous source of information both in the website content, but also the discussion forum. Over the years I have received help from many people but would particularly like to mention Bob Burnham, Howie Muir, Ron McGuigan and Tony Broughton. Bob Burnham and I have also corresponded on military bridging and he has written an excellent chapter on the subject in the book Inside Wellington’s Peninsular Army . 2
One constant in my life as a historian has been the presence of the British book dealer Ken Trotman, run by Richard and Roz Brown. I have been buying books from them for over thirty years and many of the books on my shelves came from them. I also owe them special thanks for allowing me to use images from some of their reprints.
I cannot end without giving my thanks to Chris Woolgar and Karen Robson at Southampton University, both for answering my questions and for arranging the Wellington Congress. I also must thank the staff of the British Library, the National Archives and the National Army Museum for their help in providing material for my research.
My final thanks are to my family who have lost me for a second time to Fletcher and his officers. Their understanding when I locked myself away for days on end and over my ‘business’ trips to London, Portugal and Spain have always been met with understanding and patience. This book and the PhD that preceded it are the result of the support of ‘Team Thompson’. The credit for this book should go to you, Trish, my wife and daughters, Ruth and Katherine.
Mark S. Thompson
October 2014
Foreword
It is well over one hundred years since Major General Whitworth Porter included an account of the Peninsular War when writing Volume One of the History of the Corps of Royal Engineers . This book now draws on much new material, not previously available, to tell the story from the perspective of engineer officers and explains how they supported the victories of the Duke of Wellington in the Iberian Peninsula. These officers from the Royal Engineers, never more than fifty at any one time, played a highly significant, but mainly invisible role in supporting Wellington’s army and the operations in Spain and Portugal. They were present at almost every major engagement, but their roles as staff officer, liaison officer, bridge and road builder, and fortifications engineer are not well recognised. A number of them lived to enjoy rank and high reputation, while others died in the breach of a stormed city, leading the infantry into the gap in the enemy’s defences as Sapper officers should. It is now time that all their various contributions are better understood.
Further into the nineteenth century some of these same officers continued their careers in both military and civil roles, to high acclaim. Field Marshal Sir John Burgoyne (the first Royal Engineer to achieve that rank), who served on both Sir John Moore’s and the Duke of
Similar Books
The Live-Forever Machine
Kenneth Oppel
Thoreau in Love
John Schuyler Bishop
3 Loosey Goosey
Rae Davies
The Testimonium
Lewis Ben Smith
What Happens At Christmas...
T A Williams
Consumed
Matt Shaw
Devour
Andrea Heltsley
Organo-Topia
Scott Michael Decker
The Strangler
William Landay
Shroud of Shadow
Gael Baudino