Campaign, capture and the long march to liberation
This substantial book, originally published in two volumes under the title 'Narrative of a Forced March Through Spain and France as a Prisoner of War During the Years 1810 to 1814', provides useful historical context for all those interested in the war in the Peninsula and the conditions of British prisoners in the hands of the French leading up to the first abdication of Napoleon and the Bourbon Restoration. We join Blayney, an officer engaged in the campaign in Southern Spain, as a disastrous expedition finds him a prisoner of the French Army, and so begins an adventure through Spain—where the French are hounded by Spanish guerrillas—and into the south of France as the British pursue their enemies. Blayney has provided posterity with an interesting view 'behind the lines' and combined that with insights into the France of the First Empire and the reasons for its ultimate collapse.
During my confinement I feared nothing so much as being removed to Bitche, of which place I had received such accounts; as left scarce a doubt of death being preferable. One of these narratives, which I received from a gentleman who had inhabited its subterraneous dungeons, I shall beg leave to present to my readers.<br>
We quitted Quesnoi with a detachment of Spanish and Swedish prisoners; and refractory conscripts. Among them was the wife of a Swedish captain of a ship, who had died of his wounds at Mezieres. He had fought his ship with great gallantry, and his wife had received two musket-balls in the thigh, from which she had not recovered when she was dismissed from the hospital, for the depôt at Roquelon, and was every night shut up in the common prison with the rest of the prisoners; though her youth, not being above twenty-two; her sex; and above all her beauty, it might be supposed, would have procured her other treatment.<br>
The prisoners were thirty-nine in number, all chained together and handcuffed, except the two English, who, though also handcuffed, were indulged with being only tied to the tails of two of the horses of the escort, which was composed of Portuguese chasseurs à cheval, and who treated the prisoners in the most inhuman manner, preventing their receiving any succours from the inhabitants of the towns we passed through; so that many of the Spaniards died of hunger and fatigue. The prisoners were drummed into the towns in ranks, and if any one ventured to look round he was sure to receive a coup de sabre.<br>
At last we arrived at Bitche, and were marched to the Petite Tête, where we were searched for concealed instruments with which we might attempt our escape. From hence we were conducted to the subterraneous dungeons, and, to our great surprise, were better received than we expected. The first night we were put into the great dungeon, in which were three or four hundred midshipmen, soldiers, sailors, and others, jumbled together. The descent to it was by about fifty or sixty steps; and on reaching the bottom we were received with three cheers, immediately hoisted on the shoulders of four men, and marched round the place with hallowing and shouting.
A blanket was then produced, into which we were forced to enter, and received a hearty tossing. These ceremonies we thought would make us free of these gloomy abodes, but in addition we were obliged to give two bottles of snick, an ardent spirit made from potatoes, which, when mixed with water, turns quite blue; it is not, however, considered more unwholesome than other spirits.<br>
In two or three days we were shifted from the grand to the little dungeon, called by the seamen Saint Giles’s. The descent was by nearly the same number of steps as to the great one, and we were made free by going through the same ceremonies as before, with a double allowance of snick, which being drank, and some of the party being half-seas over, I was asked ‘if I could shew?’<br>
To which, not knowing the meaning, I answered, ‘yes.’ A ring was immediately formed; I was stripped to the buff, and a champion, nearly of my height, but much stouter, stood forward, and in self-defence I was obliged to commence a boxing match, which was regulated by all the rules of pugilism, each having his bottle-holder and second. At the end of every third round we each got a glass of snick , and in this manner I was forced to fight for an hour and a half: but being inferior to my antagonist, I received a drubbing that prevented my moving for six days.
The dungeon, which resembles a large wine vault, is sunk twenty-five to thirty feet underground, and excavated in a saltpetre rock. In many places the water drips continually from the vaults, and in winter the cold and damp are beyond description; nor had the prisoners in general clothing sufficient to prevent the baneful effects on their health; the blanket allowed to each being usually one condemned from the soldiers’ barracks. In these shocking dungeons the prisoners were locked up from eight o’clock at night till the same hour in the morning, when they were mustered out, and permitted to remain in the yard, which is about one hundred and twenty paces in length and thirty in breadth, until noon; they were then again mustered into the subterraneous receptacle, and remained there till two, when they were again let out into the yard until six in the evening.<br>
From such horrid abodes it is natural to conclude that many attempts would be made to escape. In many instances they have been successful, neither bars nor walls being capable of resisting the perseverance and determination of despair. Four midshipmen in particular escaped, by excavating a depth of seventy feet, until they arrived at a subterraneous passage, which leads from the fort to the neighbouring woods, and is three leagues in length.
This successful attempt some time after induced the whole of the prisoners to make a similar one, and each was sworn to secrecy and perseverance. In a few days they arrived at the subterraneous passage, but there were still three wooden doors and an iron one to be forced, before they could gain the outside of the fort.<br>
These obstacles were also overcome, and the moment of accomplishment had just arrived, when one of the prisoners, a Jersey man named Williams, waited on the commandant, to whom he discovered the whole plot. The commandant, with a degree of ferocity without excuse, because without necessity, ordered a guard of veteran soldiers to be placed at the spot where the prisoners were to emerge from their gloomy abode, with orders not to fire till a dozen at least were on the outside. These orders were exactly obeyed: the whole were shot dead, and their bodies exposed in the yard of the fort.