On 16 March 1812 three British divisions crossed the Guadiana on a pontoon bridge and closed around Badajoz, the French-held fortress on the road between Portugal and Spain. Three weeks later, on the night of 6 April, Wellington's army stormed the walls. It took the town, but at a cost of several thousand men in a few hours, and the victory was followed by a sack of the town that lasted for days.
The third siege
Badajoz had already beaten off two allied attempts in 1811. The National Army Museum notes that Wellington's assaults on its outer forts in June 1811 were thrown back, because he lacked a proper siege train and trained engineers. In early 1812, with French troops being drawn away for Napoleon's invasion of Russia, he struck at the two border fortresses that guarded the routes into Spain: Ciudad Rodrigo fell in January, and Badajoz came next.1
The garrison was commanded by General Armand Philippon. Sir Charles Oman's history, using the French figures of Belmas, counts 5,003 men on 15 March, including the sick and non-combatants. According to Oman, the 3rd, 4th and Light Divisions completed the investment on the evening of 16 March without meeting any resistance, and on the following stormy night 1,800 workmen dug the first trench line facing Fort Picurina. Rain fell almost without pause for days, flooding the works and washing away the bridges over the Guadiana.2
Sortie, Picurina and the breaches
On 19 March the French sallied out against the trenches. Oman describes two battalions, about 1,000 men, who were thrown out again within a quarter of an hour; the besiegers lost 150 men, and the chief engineer, Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Fletcher, was wounded. On the night of 25 March about 500 men of the 3rd and Light Divisions stormed Fort Picurina. Oman counts 4 officers and 50 men killed and 15 officers and 250 men wounded, more than half of those who went in.3
With Picurina taken, the heavy guns were brought closer and from 31 March pounded the walls. By 6 April three breaches had been opened. News that Marshal Soult was marching to relieve the town made Wellington hurry, and the assault was set for ten o'clock on the night of 6 April. The French had used the hours of darkness to choke the breaches with obstacles, among them sword blades fixed in heavy beams.4
The night of 6 April
The 4th and Light Divisions threw themselves at the breaches and were shot down in the ditch and on the rubble slopes for about two hours without getting through. The town fell elsewhere. Picton's 3rd Division climbed the castle walls on ladders, and a brigade of the 5th Division escaladed the San Vicente bastion at the other end of the town. Philippon withdrew across the river to Fort San Cristóbal and surrendered there at dawn on 7 April.5
The cost was enormous. Oman's table from the official returns gives 3,713 allied casualties in the storm and 4,670 for the whole siege, while the National Army Museum says Wellington's army lost over 4,500 storming the breaches. In a letter to Lord Liverpool, quoted by Oman, Wellington wrote that he hoped never again to put his troops to such a test, and blamed the lack of a trained corps of sappers and miners.6
The sack
Once inside, the troops broke into the wine and spirit stores and ran wild through the town. The National Army Museum describes looting, rape and the killing of civilians, with officers threatened when they tried to stop it; order took three days to restore. Oman notes that the sack had run for fifteen or eighteen hours before Wellington's order to end it. The civilian toll is uncertain; the Museum speaks of hundreds of civilians massacred.7
With both border fortresses in his hands, Wellington moved into Spain and beat Marshal Marmont at Salamanca on 22 July 1812. His career is traced in our article on the Duke of Wellington, and an earlier chapter of the war appears in 16 January in military history: Corunna, 1809.8
