She was in bed. She smiled at the champagne, then at him, and Richard Sharpe, leaning on the locked door, thought that this was what had driven him across Spain to this city. This woman, treacherous as sin, who would love and betray him in the same moment. She was as faithful as a morning mist, as hard as a sword-bayonet, and that, he thought, made her a suitable reward for a soldier.
He unbuckled his sword, dropped it on a chair, and sat on the bed. The Marquesa pulled his face to hers, kissed him, and put her hands to the buttons of his jacket. She was the whore of gold, she was the enemy, and she had known that this man, in the cause of her greed, would give to her his sword, his strength, and even his life. He would give her all that he had, all but for the one small thing that she had wanted; the one small thing she could not take; Sharpe’s honour.
HISTORICAL NOTE
‘The material captured,’ wrote Charles Oman in his great History of the Peninsular War, ‘was such as no European army had ever laid hands on… since Alexander’s Macedonians plundered the camp of the Persian king after the battle of Issus.’
‘Many of our men,’ wrote Commissary Schaumann, ‘and particularly those who found diamonds, became rich people that day.’
Edward Costello, a Rifleman, reckoned that he made about a thousand pounds on the evening of the battle, helped by a ‘few whacks of my rifle’.
The plunder of Vitoria was truly spectacular. In military terms it was stunning; ail the French guns save two, a hundred and fifty-one in all, and of the two guns the French did manage to salvage, one was lost during the retreat. But it was not the guns that the soldiers were interested in acquiring.
No one truly knows the value of the plunder. I suspect the figure of five million pounds is a low estimate, and it could well have been seven million. In today’s money that translates to something like £154,000,000 ($234,000,000). Much of it was in such ‘non-negotiable’ items as paintings by Rubens, though even those had their uses as tarpaulins. Eventually the paintings were recovered and some of them, presented to Wellington by the restored King Ferdinand VII, can be seen at Stratfield Saye or at Apsley House in London. One object that was never recovered was the Crown of Spain.
Some of the plunder was extremely negotiable, and not just the gold. Schaumann, a German officer in Wellington’s army, who was one of the men who enjoyed the victory feast in the hotel, particularly noted the number of captured women, many of them dressed in specially tailored cavalry uniforms. Schaumann, who had a particular and discriminating eye for women during the campaign, noted how, in the plunder, the French women instinctively found one enemy soldier to whom, in exchange for protection, they offered their allegiance. Those who, like the Marquesa, wanted to return to France with their belongings, were given safe conduct and an escort. The words, ‘we are a walking brothel’ were spoken to Wellington by a captured French officer.
Wellington himself reckons that the British soldiers took one million pounds worth of gold coin (and they were third into the baggage-park after the fleeing French and the citizens of Vitoria), while he, for the military chest, received only one hundred thousand silver dollars. Among the other trophies were King Joseph’s silver chamberpot (still used, though for drinking purposes, by the cavalry regiment that captured it), and also Marshal Jourdan’s baton which Wellington sent to the Prince Regent. The Prince returned the compliment, ‘you have sent me the staff of a French Marshal, and I send you in return that of England’. Except, that no such English staff existed, one had to be designed, and thus Wellington became a Field Marshal.
An extremely unhappy Field Marshal after his victory. He was furious with the men for plundering the baggage, describing them in a phrase for which he has been attacked ever since; ‘the scum of the earth’. Many of his soldiers doubtless were (but by no means all) and those people who cite the phrase as evidence that Wellington despised the men who fought for him usually forget that he was fond of adding, ‘but it is wonderful what fine fellows we have made of them’. Wellington had cause to be angry (he was hoping to use the French treasure to pay for the campaign), but in defence of the ‘scum’ it is very hard to see how any soldier, paid a shilling a day, could resist the field of gold that waited for them to the east of Vitoria. Yet many did; some regiments kept their order and marched straight through it, so I have no excuses to offer for Sharpe and Harper.
The Inquisition was banned by the Spanish Junta, and reinstated by King Ferdinand in 1814. I have no evidence that the Inquisition was involved in the politics that accompanied the restoration of Ferdinand, but it seemed a fitting idea. The Spanish Inquisition was finally dissolved in 1834.
The thought that a restored Ferdinand VII might make peace with France and expel the British is not fiction. It formed the basis of the Treaty of Valencay, signed by Ferdinand and Napoleon, and there was support for it among those Spaniards who wished to restore their Empire and defeat the new liberals. In the end the treaty was never fulfilled. Napoleon kept his side of the bargain (by restoring Ferdinand and releasing all Spanish prisoners), but Ferdinand VII was prevented (by public opinion as much as anything else) from making the peace with France that would have expelled Wellington’s army and allowed his own to reconquer the Spanish empire abroad.
The battle of Vitoria was not the largest battle fought in the Peninsula, but it had the most far-reaching consequences. At a time when the fortunes of Napoleon seemed to be rising after his huge defeat in Russia, the battle encouraged the northern allies to continue the fight, leading to the great northern victory at Leipzig in the following year.
The battle also ejected the French from Spain, except for the garrisons of three fortresses. Eight thousand Frenchmen and five thousand of Wellington’s men were casualties. The plundering of the baggage and the night of drink that followed the battle effectively stopped any pursuit by the British and so the remnant of Joseph’s army managed to reach France, struggling up the steep tracks of the Pyrenees north of Pamplona.
Burgos Castle is still in ruins (it was mined for destruction and the mines, as described in the novel, went off prematurely, though no one knows why). Vitoria is now a much enlarged industrial city, though the central hill, with the narrow streets circling about the cathedral, looks much today as it did in 1813. The battlefield is still recognisable, at least to the west of the town. The river follows the same course, the bridges are there, and the Arinez Hill provides a superb viewpoint. The area of Gamarra Mayor, where the fighting was among the heaviest (the British lost 500 casualties in taking the village and trying to cross the bridge) is sadly much changed.
One happy circumstance to note is that Vitoria, rare among cities in Spain, marks the contribution Wellington’s army made to the liberation with a quite magnificent statue that shows Wellington with his men. It is a truly fantastic confection, appreciated by an army of pigeons, and also by the citizens of Vitoria who are fond of it in the same way that Londoners like the Albert Memorial. In most cities in Spain, where Wellington’s men died for that country’s freedom, you look in vain for any memorial that acknowledges the gratitude that Vitoria so lavishly bestows.
It was a great victory. Wellington, when he started the campaign, had turned at the border of Portugal, raised his hat, and prophetically said goodbye to a country. ‘I will never see you again.’ Now, as a result of the battle of Vitoria, he is threatening a different country; France itself.
So Sharpe and Harper will march again.