3. The Battle of Maida (9)
The General as Spectator: Sir John Stuart
At this moment the battle came to a sudden end by the unexpected arrival of a small additional British force. The 20th regiment, or rather its eight weak “battalion companies”, about 600 men, had arrived too late to join in the march of the main army. By the advice of Sir Sidney Smith, who came out to meet their three transports on his frigate, Colonel Ross landed not where the first disembarkation had taken place, but near the mouth of the Lamato, directly behind the battle-field and two miles from it.
As the landing began, the firing in front made itself heard, and Ross, leaving his last men still on shipboard, for the disembarkation was very difficult owing to the heavy surf on the shore, hurried off across the marsh. On his way to the front he fell in with Bunbury, Stuart’s Quarter-Master General, who told him that he could strike in to the best effect by coasting along behind Cole’s line and turning the French extreme right in the bushy tract which lay beyond it. He did so, and, thrusting aside a few tirailleurs, found himself looking down the French line, with a squadron of Chasseurs just in front of him which was demonstrating against the left of the 27th regiment. Ross, forming line in the bushes as best he could, delivered a volley at fifty yards against the cavalry, which sent them in confusion to the rear. He then emerged from his shelter, and advanced, forming in line against the flank of the nearer battalion of the French 23rd.
This finished the day. The enemy were already yielding before Cole’s and Oswald’s fire—the latter had just come up, and was getting into effective action at the same moment that the 20th appeared from the bushes. Reynier gave the order for an instant retreat, and his last three battalions went off across the open plain to the east, covered by the two remaining squadrons of the Chasseurs and the four horse guns. “If we had owned 200 good cavalry we should have destroyed the whole of them,” writes Bunbury, “but we could do little more with our jaded infantry. We followed them until they abandoned the plain of Maida, and retreated rapidly up the valley through which runs the road to Catanzaro.”
The French right wing had suffered severely, though not in the same proportion as their left. The 23rd Léger had two officers killed, eight wounded, and one taken prisoner without a wound. Of 1,200 bayonets present at Maida, 780 were effective in September—they had left ninety-one prisoners behind, and had about eighty killed and 250 wounded. Their Swiss auxiliaries suffered in about the same proportion to their number, with their 106 prisoners and 100 killed and wounded, more than a third of their number. The 300 Chasseurs had one officer killed, thirty-five prisoners, no doubt men whose horses had been shot, and about thirty killed and wounded.
So ended the Battle of Maida. You will notice that I have not had occasion to mention Sir John Stuart once during the narrative, though Reynier’s name is perpetually occurring. The explanation seems to be simply that he allowed the battle to fight itself, and gave no further orders after he had once launched his echelon of brigades against the French. His Quarter-Master General, Bunbury, writes as follows:
“But where was Sir John Stuart? And what part did he play in this brilliant action? To say the truth, he seemed to be rather a spectator than the person most interested in the result of the conflict. He formed no plan; he declared no intention; and scarcely troubled himself to give a single order. Perfectly regardless of personal danger, he was cantering about the field, indulging himself in little pleasantries, as was his wont. He launched forth with particular glee when a Sicilian márchese, whom he had brought as an extra aide-de-camp, betook himself to shelter from fire behind a haystack. But after the charge of Kempt’s light infantry and the utter rout of the French left wing a change came over the spirit of Sir John. He still dawdled about, but broke into passionate exclamations: ‘Begad, I never saw a thing so glorious as this! There was nothing in Egypt to equal it! It’s the finest thing that I ever witnessed.’ From that moment he was an altered man, full of visions of coming greatness; as I found that I could get no orders from him, I made it my own business to go round to the leaders of brigades, to give them what information they wanted.”
This picture of fussy incompetence, written by a man whom Stuart himself in his dispatches praises for his zeal and activity, is probably little exaggerated. For Sir John’s subsequent actions give evidence of the most extraordinary want of military insight and enterprise—as we shall soon see. His first order was that there should be no pursuit, and that the whole army should return to the beach for repose, save Kempt’s light infantry, who were completely out of call; but orders were sent to search for them in the Maida direction and to bring them back. They only returned next morning, and not all of them then, for the light company of the 20th under Colborne, who had been directed by Kempt to go ahead and keep touch with the flying enemy till the main army should come up, had outstripped its commander and continued to dog the steps of the demoralized French, not only on the afternoon of the 4th but for the whole of July 5th, till it reached the town of Borgia, right on the other side of the Calabrian peninsula and only ten miles from Catanzaro, where Reynier finally rallied his routed host.
Then, hearing that not a man was following in his support, Colborne had to turn back.
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