HENRY PEISLEY L’ESTRANGE III AND THE SIEGE OF BADAJOZ

Two fortresses stand on the Spanish side of the Portuguese/Spanish border, Cuidad Rodrigo to the north and Badajoz to the south.  It was necessary for Wellington to storm and capture both before he could advance into the centre of Spain and capture the capital Madrid.

The city of Badajoz was encircled by immense ochre coloured walls with angular bastions.  Built into one section of wall was the castle, from which troops had access along the ramparts to all the other parts of the defences.  The Spaniards had built this fortress after they had wrested it from the Moors in 1229.  In 1811 it had been surrendered by the Spaniards to the French, who lost no time in making good the defences and providing the defenders with fearsome weapons of destruction.  Twice in that same year it had been besieged unsuccessfully by the British and Portuguese armies.  It was finally besieged and stormed in operation lasting from the 16^th March to the 6^th April 1812.

As usual the siege train was inadequate, but eventually by continued bombardment a breach was made in the curtain wall between two of the bastions.  This breach was to be stormed by the Fourth and Light Divisions.  Among diversionary attacks, the castle, which was well to the right of the breach, was to be scaled by Picton’s Division in which Henry Peisley L’Estrange was serving with the 5^th Regiment.  The castle walls were 18 feet to 24 feet in height from the top of which the defenders could reach and overturn the scaling ladders used by the besiegers.

The attack began at 10 o’clock at night.  At the curtain wall where the breach had been made the assault troops met fearful resistance.  Rocket flares and fire balls illuminated the scene.  Men were drowned in holes dug by the French near the walls.  Shells and grenades fell from the walls into the attackers.  Barrels filled with gunpowder and with lighted fuses were rolled from the ramparts onto these below and then exploded.  The noise was increased by guns and howitzers.  Those who stormed up to the top of the breach were faced with rows of sharp-pointed sword blades firmly fixed in heavy beams, chained together and set firmly in the ruins; and for ten feet in front of these blades the ascent was covered with loose planks studded with sharp iron points, so that when trodden on the planks moved causing the soldiers to fall on the spikes and roll down upon the ranks behind.  All this was accompanied by close range musket fire from above, while showers of grapeshot  from planks raked the attackers.

In fact the resistance was so formidable that the town was not entered through this breach.  Success was achieved by those who were engaged in a diversionary escapade on the castle.  Heavy ladders were moved up against the walls.  Those who attempted to climb up the ladders were met with showers of heavy stones, logs of wood and busting shells which were rolled off the ramparts, while from the flanks the enemy discharged his musketry.  The leading men were stabbed with pikes and bayonets. All this was attended by deafening shouts and the crash of breaking ladders and the shrieks of crushed soldiers.

As we have seen already Henry Peisley L’Estrange was by the side of Colonel Ridge when the latter was killed.  In his ‘History of the Peninsular War’, from which the facts recounted above have been taken, Napier gives the following account of the colonel’s death:

Still, swarming round the remaining ladders, these undaunted (British) veterans strove who should first climb, until all being overturned the French shouted victory, and the British, baffled but untamed, fell back a few paces and took shelter under the rugged edge of the hill.  Here when the broken ranks were somewhat re-formed, the heroic Colonel Ridge, springing forward, called with a stentorian voice on his men to follow and, seizing a ladder, once more raised it against the castle, where the wall was lower and an embrasure offered some facility. A second ladder was soon placed alongside

the first by the grenadier officer, Canon, and the next instant he and Ridge were on the rampart; the shouting troops pressed after them; the garrison amazed, and in a manner surprised, were driven fighting through the double gate (of the castle) into the town, and the castle was won.  A re-inforcement sent from the French reserve then came up; a sharp action followed, both sides fired through the gate, and the enemy retired, but Ridge fell, and no man died that night with more glory - though many died and there was much glory.

Since Henry L’Estrange was at Colonel Ridge’s side when the latter was killed, it follows that he was one of the officers who scaled the walls and stormed first the castle and then the town.  Picton’s division and Leith’s division entered the town by means of this assault on the castle and at once engaged from the rear the French defending the original breach.

Henry Peisley L’Estrange III was a survivor of this siege, but Wellington’s losses were nearly 5000.  When he visited the dead in front of, on and within the walls he broke down and wept.  This is the only recorded occasion when he did so.  He wrote to the War Minister:

The capture of Badajoz affords as strong an instance of the gallantry of our troops as has ever been displayed.  But I greatly hope that I shall never again be the instrument of putting them to such a test. 

As a reaction to what Napier described as the fiery lakes of smoking blood, the spikes, the shredded bodies, the flames, the din, the corpses piled so tight and high that they were still warm in the morning, the soldiery sacked the town.  Old men were shot, women raped, children bayonetted.  In a memoir written by Captain Hopkins of the 4^th Regiment, quoted by Napier in an appendix, the following appears:

Several French officers of rank, their wives and children, ran into the square in a state of frenzy, holding little caskets containing their jewels and valuables, and their children in their arms.  The situation of these females was dreadful;  they implored our protection.  The scene that now commenced surpassed all that can be imagined; drunkenness, cruelty and debauchery, the loss of many lives and great destruction of property, was one boon for our victory.