The Combat at San Millan

Church in San Millan de San Zadornil

The Combat at San Millan

I’ve been driven off course during my writing of book seven of the Peninsular War Saga this week by the tangled story of the Combat at San Millan. Having emerged from the other end with enough of a grasp of events to write the chapter, I decided to prolong the distraction a little longer by sharing the story in a blog post, since this is a really interesting example of how I use research to put the books together. It’s also an example of how important it is to me to find a variety of sources if I possibly can, and how challenging it can be to come up with a coherent account.

Lieutenant-General Charles Alten

The Combat at San Millan was a small action fought by Lieutenant-General Charles Alten’s Light Division on 18th June 1813 during the march on Vitoria. To give a brief summary, Alten’s division was ordered to march across the hills via La Boveda towards the village of San Millan with the intention of outflanking General Reille’s corps at Osma. At San Millan, they unexpectedly encountered General Maucune’s division which was on its way to join up with Reille’s main force. After a short, sharp fight, Reille’s forces retreated before the Light Division, leaving behind approximately 400 dead, wounded and prisoners and the entire baggage train.

My usual first source for any battle that I’m about to write is Sir Charles Oman’s epic History of the Peninsular War. Generally speaking, he can be relied upon for a straightforward account of who did what, and where and when. Once I’ve got the sense of what happened from Oman, I will search any other histories, published letters and memoirs from the period which might cover that action for further details which can be incorporated into my fictional account.

In the case of San Millan, there are a number of different accounts, but as I began to plan out the action and to work out the best way to weave in my fictional brigade it was clear that not all these agreed. As I went on, I became more and more confused.

There were two brigades in Alten’s division in 1813. To avoid confusion I will leave out the fictional exploits of Paul van Daan and his men at this point.

Sir James Kempt

The first brigade was led by Major-General Sir James Kempt and consisted of the 1st battalion of the 43rd foot, the 1st battalion of the 95th rifles, five companies of the 3rd battalion of the 95th rifles and the 1st Portuguese caçadores.

The second brigade was led by Major-General John Ormsby Vandeleur and consisted of the 1st battalion of the 52nd foot, the 2nd battalion of the 95th rifles and the 3rd battalion of the Portuguese caçadores.

Under normal circumstances, the Light Division would march in brigade order with Kempt’s men at the front.

According to all sources, the first to encounter the French were the cavalry scouts attached to the Light Division, the hussars of the King’s German Legion. After chasing away the French cavalry patrols, the KGL reported back to Alten, who ordered in the first troops. This is where it becomes confusing.

Sir John Ormsby Vandeleur

Oman says that Vandeleur’s Brigade was at the head of the British column and were sent in to attack immediately, the 95th and Portuguese caçadores in the front line and the 52nd in support. Macaune initially stood to fight, knowing that his second brigade with his baggage train was approaching. Shortly afterwards, Kempt’s brigade made an appearance and began to deploy to the left of Vandeleur’s at which point Macaune gave the order to retreat through the village. Macaune’s second brigade then appeared with the baggage in the rear and were attacked, by Kempt’s brigade, while Vandeleur’s men continued to pursue the first brigade through the village.

Tim Saunders and Rob Yuill in their recently published Light Division in the Peninsular War 1811-1814, give the same account of the French presence at San Millan, but give Kempt’s brigade as being the leading brigade. They say that Wellington arrived immediately on the spot as the cavalry was giving Kempt the information and immediately directed the 1st and 3rd battalions of riflemen, supported by the rest of Kempt’s brigade, to attack the French. They then go on to say that the 52nd along with the 1st and 3rd caçadores attacked and cleared the village. Meanwhile, Vandeleur’s brigade, which had been some distance behind Kempt’s came forward and the 43rd and second 95th were deployed across the valley. This account goes on to say that Kempt’s brigade continued the pursuit of the French 1st brigade through the village while Vandeleur’s brigade chased the 2nd brigade into the hills.

We now move on to English Battles And Sieges In The Peninsula by Lieut.-Gen. Sir William Napier. Napier gives a very brief summary of the battle but does not separate out the different brigades or battalions apart from the fact that the first attack was by riflemen followed by the 52nd. He says the rest of the Light Division remained in reserve. He then describes the 52nd’s fight on the hillside and says that the reserve were chasing the French who then came up behind the 52nd. Reading between the lines, it appears that Napier views Vandeleur’s Brigade as the reserve, but does not give any explanation as to why the 52nd, which was part of Vandeleur’s Brigade, seemed to have been fighting with Kempt’s Brigade.

There is enough agreement between Napier and the more recent history of the Light Division to suggest that Saunders and Yuill agree with his interpretation of events. To move on to another earlier history, I looked at J W Fortescue’s History of the British Army. Fortescue describes the skirmish in volume 9 and once again agrees with the role of the German hussars. In his account, Alten received the news of the presence of the enemy and sent forward the Rifles from Kempt’s Brigade.

At this point, Wellington arrived. He sent the rest of Kempt’s Brigade (i.e. the 43rd and 1st caçadores) along with the 3rd caçadores from Vandeleur’s Brigade in support. This is interesting. There is no information about how much time elapsed between Alten’s first orders and Wellington’s arrival and secondary orders, but what seems clear is that by this time, Vandeleur’s Brigade was close enough for Wellington to give orders to send in both battalions of Portuguese. What is also interesting is that Fortescue does not mention the 52nd being sent in with them.

Fortescue then goes on to describe one of the notable parts of the skirmish:

“While this fight was going on , Macune’s second brigade suddenly emerged from a rocky defile, where upon Vandeleur’s brigade instantly flew upon their left flank. The unhappy French made for a hill a little way to their front; but the Fifty-second, who were stationed beyond this hill, turned about and raced them for the summit . A rude scuffle followed , but the bulk of the enemy…made their escape through wood and mountain to Miranda del Ebro.”

This account seems to suggest that the 52nd were already stationed upon the hill when the rest of their brigade chased the French up the hill. Does this mean they had already been stationed there before the sighting of the French second division? Or were they placed there when Vandeleur’s brigade first came up as part of the reserve? It’s not clear from this.

Another history of the Rifle Brigade was written in 1877 by William Henry Cope. It’s old, but I found some of the details delightful and they’ll definitely be finding their way into the book. With the usual early agreement about the actions of the German hussars, Cope goes on to say that Colonel Barnard, who commanded a battalion of the 95th in Kempt’s brigade led the first attack. This definitely seems to disagree with Oman’s account of Vandeleur’s brigade leading the attack, and makes more sense, as Kempt’s brigade should have been in the lead. 

While Cope gives no specific details about the 43rd or 52nd, he does state that  the second brigade of the Light Division (Vandeleur’s brigade) came up to San Millan at the same time as the rear brigade of the French rear-guard and that Vandeleur’s brigade attacked them.

Moving on to published memoirs and letters, we start with A Light Infantryman with Wellington: the letters of George Ulrich Barlow, edited by Gareth Glover. Barlow was in the 52nd and gives a very brief summary of the battle. He describes the incident with the 52nd atop the hill and says they were too winded to pursue successfully but gives no specifics of any other battalions or where they were.

William Surtees was a quartermaster in the 1st battalion of the 95th. He confirmed that his battalion was the first into the attack, and describes the attack on the French first brigade as being conducted by Kempt’s brigade. His description then goes as follows:

“The first brigade of the enemy being thus beaten, retreated along the great road in the direction of Espeja, leaving their second brigade and all their baggage to their fate. These latter being pressed by our second or rear brigade, and seeing us in possession of the village, and the road they had to pass, immediately broke in all directions, and dispersed themselves in the mountains over the village, each man making the best of his way. This their baggage could not do, and it consequently fell into the hands of the captors, an easy and valuable booty; but although my brigade, by beating and dispersing the enemy at the village, had been the principal cause of its capture, yet those whose hands it fell into had not the generosity to offer the least share of it to us, but divided it amongst themselves.”

This very clearly states that the first attack was made by Kempt’s brigade and the second attack upon the baggage by Vandeleur’s brigade which came in later. There is no mention of the 52nd coming in earlier and fighting with a different brigade.

Andrew Francis Barnard

John Kincaid was another rifleman who wrote several entertaining accounts of his service in the Peninsula. His account of San Millan is brief. He served in Kempt’s brigade under Andrew Barnard.  He described being part of the first attack, and chasing the French. He also complains that Vandeleur’s brigade got all the baggage even though his brigade had done most of the fighting.

While his account of the action in his memoirs is limited, there is an interesting letter from Kincaid, which was written many years later to W S Moorsom after the publication of his Historical record of the Fifty-second Regiment (Oxfordshire Light Infantry) from the year 1755 to the year 1858. I’m indebted to Gareth Glover once more for providing me with this letter along with several other accounts of the combat all of which are due to be published by him over the course of the next year. Kincaid complains to Moorsom that his account gives undue credit to the actions of the 52nd, ignoring the contributions of the rest of the battalions, particularly the 95th.

This letter sets out far more clearly than any of the other accounts, the timing of the skirmish. According to Kincaid:

“We all arrived on the hill above San Millan, at the same time, we were about half an hour there before our battalion was ordered to attack the Brigade of Maucune’s Division, which was on the road below. It was probably half an hour later before the 52nd attacked the 2nd brigade of that division, which at the time our attack was made, had not arrived within sight. I must therefore submit to you whether your description does not leave it to be inferred by those unacquainted with what took place, that there had been only one brigade of Maucune’s Division near San Millan, and that it had been attacked and dispersed by Vandeleur’s Brigade but as the other brigade of that same division had been defeated but a few minutes before by our old 1st battalion I think.”

Until Gareth provided me with this letter, I’d never come across Moorsom’s history. I was delighted to find that it is available online, courtesy of the fantastic HathiTrust website and it is clearly destined to become a regular source for my research. Like Kincaid, Moorsom is very useful for the timing of the combat. His account reads as follows:

“The following day the Light Division crossed that river at Puente Arenas, and on the 18th it suddenly came upon two brigades of Maucune’s division, which, being in observation, and proceeding from Frias to Osma, had quitted the high-road, and were moving along a small ridge of hills to the right of the road near the village of San Millan, with a large interval between them, and thus crossed the route of the division. The brigades of the Light Division were separated on the march, some distance apart; and as soon as the enemy were discovered, General Alten halted the division to reconnoitre, and a considerable delay took place before the first brigade (in which were the 43rd and 1st battalion 95th Rifles) were allowed to attack.

“As soon, however, as the force and intentions of the enemy were ascertained, Colonel Barnard led his battalion of the 95th Rifles down the hill, with three companies in skirmishing order among the brushwood, and three in reserve: on this the enemy at once threw out a body of skirmishers to meet the 95th, and put his column to a running pace to escape the flank fire which the first brigade now opened on him and which was kept up for some miles, inflicting on him a severe loss.

“Meantime the second brigade of the Light Division found Maucune’s rear brigade encumbered with baggage, and so far behind its comrades of the leading brigade that the action was entirely a separate affair without concert on the part of the French. On this being perceived, the 2nd battalion of the 95th, immediately extending in the brushwood, commenced a fire on the rear of the French, while the 52nd, pushing on at double quick along the flank of their column, as soon as they had gained a sufficient advance, charged upon it, and took three hundred prisoners and a great quantity of baggage, the remainder of the enemy dispersing among the mountains.”

Despite Kincaid’s complaints, I actually think Moorsom sets out the roles of the various brigades and battalions very clearly; in fact I wonder if he may have adjusted a more biased account for a later edition because he seems to give full credit to all concerned in this excerpt. It also solves many of the problems of the previous accounts that I’ve mentioned above. It seems clear that General Alten did not send in his men quite so precipitately as suggested, and in fact waited until both his brigades had arrived on the hills above San Millan. That would give Lord Wellington time to make his appearance. It also sounds far more like the meticulous Alten to me. 

Moorsom is also very specific that the 43rd and not the 52nd was with Kempt’s Brigade, and it was that brigade which was sent to attack the French first brigade which was waiting in and around the village. Most of the fighting seems to have been done by the riflemen, with the 43rd ready in support. This left Vandeleur’s Brigade, including the 52nd, in reserve and they only became involved in the fight when the French second brigade with the baggage train made its unexpected appearance.

As an interesting aside, Moorsom’s account, written as a regimental history in the mid-nineteenth century, makes no mention at all even of the existence of the two Portuguese battalions even though they were an integral part of the Light Division, and both Oman and Fortescue agree that they were sent into battle very early on by Lord Wellington himself. He also fails to mention the role of the Spanish division who continued the pursuit of the French into the hills. Clearly Moorsom preferred to ignore the multi-national nature of Wellington’s Peninsular command. 

An account by William Freer of the 43rd (courtesy of Gareth Glover) confirms Moorsom’s suggestion that the 43rd remained ready in support, leaving most of the fighting to the riflemen:

“We were not brought into play, but were kept in reserve dreading another [column] coming from the same point which would (had we been all pursuing) have been an inconvenience.”

Gareth Glover also provided me with an account by William Rowan of the 52nd, which makes it easy to see how some of the confusion of the various accounts may have come about. Rowan describes the combat thus:

“We then crossed the River Ebro and on the 18th (my birthday) we had a stirring affair, when our brigade unexpectedly and to our material surprise, near the village of San Milan cut in between the two brigades of a French division on route to Vitoria by a road that crossed the one on which we were marching our regiment; immediately wheeled into line and dashed at one of the brigades as it attempted to form on some high ground to our right. It did not however, want to receive us, but after a desultory fire it dispersed in all direction among the hills. We pursued for some time, taking several hundred prisoners and capturing all the baggage.”

The tone of Rowan’s account suggests that the 52nd flew into action the moment the French were sighted, and contradicts the measured account given by Moorsom. However, when you read it carefully, Rowan agrees that the 52nd’s attack was in fact made on the second brigade and the baggage, which most accounts agree did not even appear until after Kempt’s brigade was engaged fighting the French in the village. Rowan was definitely only interested in his own regiment’s part in the affair and does not mention any of the other battalions involved.

Which brings me very neatly to my own part in the Combat at San Millan. As a writer of historical fiction, it isn’t my job to decide which historian has it right and which doesn’t. In order to write a believable story, I need to choose the accounts that seem most likely, weave in my fictional regiment, and allow the historians to pick apart the rest. The list I’ve given is probably by no means complete. More accounts are being discovered all the time, and historians such as Gareth Glover do an amazing job of editing, publishing and interpreting them for their readers.

I already know the part I want Paul and his men to play at San Millan, and I’m going to go with the accounts of Moorsom and Kincaid. Their detailed timings are very useful and the delay before the initial attack gives me the opportunity to introduce a ‘Wellington moment’. In the face of so much conflicting evidence, I’m going to fall back on the most likely scenario which is that Kempt’s brigade, with the 43rd, was sent in first leaving Vandeleur’s brigade to deal with the second French brigade when it turned up. I will also borrow some of the individual stories from the other accounts, because they’re fun.

The enormous amount of information that needed to be sifted for an account of a small fight at San Millan makes it easy to understand why there are so many books written about a huge battle such as Waterloo. I’m going to end with a quote from Wellington. There are so many quotes attributed to him, but this one, or at least a version of it, seems more reliable than most. It also sums up very nicely what I’ve learned from researching battles for historical fiction.

“The history of a battle, is not unlike the history of a ball. Some individuals may recollect all the little events of which the great result is the battle won or lost, but no individual can recollect the order in which, or the exact moment at which, they occurred, which makes all the difference as to their value or importance.” (Letter to John Croker, 8 August 1815, as quoted in The Waterloo Letters (1891) edited by H. T. Sibome)

Now let’s see what Major-General Paul van Daan makes of the Combat at San Millan…

Book Seven of the Peninsular War Saga, An Indomitable Brigade, is due to be published this November.

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Once again I’d like to thank Gareth Glover for generously providing me with several as yet unpublished sources for this post. There is a full list of the sources I’ve used here but I’d recommend you have a look at Gareth’s website and watch out for future publications as there are still many more unpublished Peninsular War memoirs to come, and they’re all fascinating.

Sources

Cope, William Henry     The History of the Rifle Brigade (the Prince Consort’s Own) Formerly the 95th, Chatto and Windus, 1877)

Fortescue,  J W    A History of the British Army (Volume 9), Naval & Military Press, 2004

Glover, Gareth (ed)    A Light Infantryman with Wellington: the letters of George Ulrich Barlow,  Helion and Co, 2018

Glover, Gareth (ed) Unpublished account of Henry Booth (43rd)

Glover, Gareth (ed) Unpublished account of William Freer (43rd) 

Glover, Gareth (ed) Unpublished account of Surgeon Gibson (52nd)

Glover, Gareth (ed)    Unpublished letter from John Kincaid to W S Moorsom 

Glover, Gareth (ed) Unpublished account by William Rowan (52nd)

Kincaid, John    The Complete Kincaid of the Rifles,  Leonaur, 2011

Maxwell, W H (ed)    Peninsular sketches; by actors on the scene, H.Colburn, 1844

Moorsom, W S (ed)    Historical record of the Fifty-second Regiment (Oxfordshire Light Infantry) from the year 1755 to the year 1858, R Bentley, 1860

Napier, Lt-Gen Sir William     English Battles And Sieges In The Peninsula (Extracted From His ‘Peninsula War.’) John Murray, 1855

Oman, Sir Charles     History of the Peninsular War (Vol 6), Naval & Military Press, 2017

Surtees, William    Twenty five years in the Rifle Brigade,  William Blackwood, 1833

Sir Harry Smith

Sir Harry Smith is one of my favourite characters from the Peninsular War, up there with Lord Wellington and General Robert Craufurd. A relatively humble doctor’s son from Cambridgeshire, he rose to the heights of his profession on sheer merit and a good deal of personality, retained the friendship and admiration of the Duke of Wellington, defying the accepted belief that Wellington only favoured aristocratic and well-born officers, and married the love of his life in the shadow of the bloody siege of Badajoz. He is one of the most colourful characters of his day, and his autobiography, along with that of Kincaid, his close friend in the 95th are two of the liveliest and most readable accounts of Wellington’s campaigns. Harry Smith has a more personal significance for me, as he was the historical figure who first sparked my enthusiasm for the Peninsular War and is the inspiration, although not the model, for Colonel Paul van Daan of the 110th light infantry.

Henry George Wakelyn Smith was born in 1787, the son of a surgeon in Whittlesey, Cambridgeshire, and was commissioned into the army in 1805 and promoted to lieutenant in the 95th Rifles a few months later. He first saw active service in South America during the British invasions of 1806-07 and distinguished himself at the Battle of Montevideo.

In 1808 the young Harry Smith joined the forces under Sir John Moore invading Spain. The expedition, begun with high hopes, ended in a disastrous retreat over 200 miles of mountain paths in winter. Men, women and children died by the roadside, but Smith made it back to Corunna and the battle which left Moore dead on the field. A brief period of recovery in England restored Smith to health and his next voyage to Portugal was as part of General Robert Craufurd’s light brigade, later to become the celebrated light division. Harry Smith’s Peninsular War had begun in earnest.

Smith served with the 95th throughout the war, from 1808 to end Battle of Toulouse in 1814, and he served with considerable distinction. In 1810 he was appointed to ADC to Colonel Beckwith, with whom he clearly enjoyed an excellent relationship. In February 1812 he was promoted captain and he filled a succession of staff posts within the light division.

In April, Wellington’s army successfully stormed Badajoz and the army sacked the city, turning into a drunken mob whom even their own officers could not control for several days. Looting, murder and rape were committed openly and many citizens, especially women, fled from the town to take refuge at the British lines, hoping that the officers would protect them. One such lady, whose home had been destroyed, brought her younger sister with her, a girl of fourteen newly returned from a convent education. Juana Maria de Los Dolores de Leon appears to have shaken off the restrictions of her upbringing very quickly. Within a few days she was the wife of Captain Harry Smith and remained by his side for the rest of the war.

Harry Smith volunteered to serve in the United States, fighting at the Battle of Bladensburg and witnessing the burning of the capitol in Washington, an act which appalled Smith and some of the other Peninsula veterans, who compared it unfavourably to “the Duke’s humane warfare in the south of France.” He returned to Europe in time to serve as a brigade major at Waterloo and remained with the army during the occupation of France, acting as Mayor of Cambrai in Picardy. His close relationship with Wellington continued; the two men both ran hunting packs and in his autobiography, Smith describes how Wellington arranged to divide up the countryside between the two packs.

When the occupation was over, Smith returned to being divisional ADC in Glasgow for Major-General Reynell who commanded the Western District of Scotland, and it was Reynell’s recommendation that gained him his first colonial appointment as ADC to the Governor of Nova Scotia, Lieutenant-General Sir James Kempt in 1826.

Smith was promoted Major in the army by the end of 1826, but remained unattached to a regiment, and was still unattached when raised to Lieutenant-colonel in July 1830. In 1828 he was sent to the Cape of Good Hope where he commanded a force in the Sixth Xhosa War of 1834-36 and was later appointed as governor of the Province of Queen Adelaide. He was considered an energetic and talented commander who was able to restore confidence among British and Boer residents and had considerable influence over the tribes.

Smith’s attempts to modernise and introduce improvements and benefits to the Xhosa tribes were supported by the high commissioner, Sir Benjamin D’Urban, another peninsular veteran, but his policies were reversed by the ministry in London and he was removed from his command. Both Xhosa and Boers regretted his loss and some historians have suggested that his departure precipitated the Great Trek.

In 1840 Harry Smith was appointed Adjutant-General in India. He fought in the Gwalior campaign of 1843 and the first Anglo-Sikh war of 1845-6, where he was eventually given an independent command and on 28 January 1846 he inflicted a crushing defeat on the Sikhs at Aliwal on the Sutlej. For this victory he was awarded the thanks of Parliament and was the subject of an unusually long tribute from the Duke of Wellington, whose remarks concluded:

“I have read the account of many a battle, but I never read the account of one in which more ability, energy, and experience have been manifested than in this. I know of no one, in which an officer ever showed himself more capable than this officer has, in commanding troops in the field. He brought every description of troops to bear with all arms, in the position in which they were most capable of rendering service; the nicest manoeuvres were performed under the fire of the enemy with the utmost precision, and at the same time, with an energy and gallantry on the part of the troops never surpassed on any occasion whatever in any part of the world. I must say of this officer, that I never have seen any account which manifests more plainly than his does, that he is an officer capable of rendering the most important services and of ultimately being an honour to this country.”

This is probably the greatest tribute the Duke ever bestowed on an officer. Sir Harry Smith was created a baronet and the words “of Aliwal” were appended to the title by the patent. He was promoted to major-general in November 1846.

In 1847 Smith returned to South Africa as Governor of Cape Colony and high commissioner with the local rank of lieutenant-general. The disaffection of the Boers and the local tribes had gone very much the way Smith had prophesied eleven years earlier. Smith’s first campaign was to deal with the Boers in the Orange River Sovereignty and he defeated them at Boomplaats in August 1848.

In December 1850 war broke out with the Xhosa once more and some of the Khoikhoi joined in. Smith did not have enough troops from England but he experienced some success. He has been criticised by modern historians for his conduct during this period. Smith had a tendency towards the dramatic, and some of his demonstrations towards the tribes appear appalling in a modern context, although interestingly do not seem to have been seen that way by Xhosa themselves at the time. His campaign was warmly approved by the Duke of Wellington and other military authorities but Earl Grey, in a dispatch never submitted to the queen, recalled him in 1852 before the Xhosa and Khoikhoi had been completely subdued. Smith protested strongly against the abandonment of the Orange River Sovereignty to the Boers, which happened two years after his departure, and was a firm supporter of the granting of responsible government to Cape Colony.

In 1853 Sir Harry Smith was made General Officer Commanding the Western District in England and was given brevet promotion to lieutenant-general in 1854. He was appointed to the same role in the Northern District in 1856.

Smith died at his home at Eton Place, London, on 12 October 1860. He was buried at St Mary’s, Whittlesey. His wife, Juana, who had accompanied him throughout his life on his various campaigns, died twelve years later and is buried with him. Smith’s autobiography was first published posthumously in 1901.

I first met Harry Smith, not as the enthusiastic junior officer who features as a recurring character in my peninsular war books, but as the victor over the Sikhs at Aliwal and then as a colonial general and administrator in South Africa. There was always something very appealing about Sir Harry Smith and reading between the dry lines of some of the history texts, I had a sense of a huge personality, a man with courage and ideas and a determination to make progress and to do whatever job he was sent to do, to his utmost.

This didn’t always go well. Smith’s enthusiasm as a young officer clearly recommended him to his seniors during his days with the light division and I suspect that his independent thinking worked well under commanders like Robert Craufurd and Sydney Beckwith while it might not always have gone down as well with ministers such as Lord Glenelg in later life.

The slightly surprising thing, is how well Smith seemed to get on with Lord Wellington, a commander with a reputation for disliking initiative in his officers and a man, moreover, who was reputed to prefer his officers to be young men from aristocratic families. Smith failed on both counts and yet it is very obvious that he held Wellington’s favour from the start.

My interest in the older Harry Smith caused me to read his autobiography. I already knew something of the political history of the Napoleonic Wars but my knowledge of the military aspects was restricted to a couple of Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe books which came out at round about the same time. I read, initially one or two more contemporary accounts of the conflict and then began to read some of the standard histories of the period, old and new, and more biographies and autobiographies and I was completely hooked.

When I began to attempt writing my own historical novels, these were initially set in very different periods. The idea of a Peninsular War novel came to me several years later and I baulked at it, probably because by that stage Sharpe had arrived on our TV screens and a host of other writers were tackling the Napoleonic wars both from and army and a naval perspective. It seemed to me at the time, that the stories were being told by others and told well.

The story of Harry and Juana Smith kept coming back to me over the years, however, and I continued to read everything I could get my hands on about the period. I wanted to write, not their story exactly, but the story of another couple who took the same journey as them and lived through the same events. Gradually, over a couple of years of scribbling, Paul and Anne van Daan were born.

Paul van Daan shares Harry Smith’s talent and energy and independent spirit. I chose a different background for him. I wanted something a long way from Cornwell’s Sharpe, since it seemed to me that every novel of that period would be directly compared to those. Sharpe was from the bottom of the heap, an enlisted man scrabbling his way up to an officer’s commission. Harry Smith started higher, respectably middle class but with no money. I moved a step or two up the social scale with my hero, giving him a wealthy background but a very mixed pedigree and an early stint below decks in the Royal Navy to make him comfortable with his enlisted men. The point of Sharpe is that he struggles to fit in anywhere; I wanted a hero who could fit in everywhere. Paul’s fight is not against the army establishment it is against his own nature; quick-tempered, hot-headed and impulsive; the early books are about Paul growing up.

Anne’s background has little in common with Juana Smith although like Juana, she takes to life in the army’s tail as if she had been born there. She shares a lot of Juana’s traits; she is attractive, charming and very determined and she has the ability to get on with both officers and enlisted men. Like Juana, she is a favourite of the irascible Lord Wellington. Like Juana, she has a hard-headed practicality which enables her to cope very well with the conditions of an army on the move.

The joy of writing fiction is that it is possible to introduce one’s fictional creations to the characters who inspired them. Colonel Paul van Daan is both older and senior to the young Harry Smith and although they get on well, they also disagree spectacularly on occasion. It has been fun to go back to Smith’s early days and to tell a little of his story alongside my own and it’s good to look back and remember how my own journey through the Peninsular War began with Harry’s autobiography.

Book five of the Peninsular War Saga, An Untrustworthy Army, is due for publication on kindle at the end of November and in paperback in December. The first four books are available on Amazon here and for a glimpse at an earlier episode in Paul van Daan’s history, try An Unwilling Alliance.

 

 

 

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