“During that time I made the acquaintance of some local combatants, and learned the language, so I was able to act as a liaison.” (March 21, 1814)

No one expects the Spanish guerrilla – or do they? The pages of historical romance are notoriously populated by spies and dukes, so Justin could not be allowed to have a standard army career, however steep; he must needs be seconded to special duties. (I’ve cheated you out of the duke, though; an earl is as good as it gets).

 

This part of Justin’s background is based on Chapter VIII ("The Organization of the Army: Headquarters) of Sir Charles Oman's seminal study on Wellington's Army (1913) as well as Jock Haswell’s The First Respectable Spy: The Life and Times of Colquhoun Grant, Wellington’s Head of Intelligence (1969) and British Military Intelligence (1973), by the same author. Justin’s exchange from the Hussars to the Riflemen was suggested by a reference to Haswell’s Spy on p. 265 in Elizabeth Longford’s Wellington: The Years of the Sword: “Grant endured the handicap of his scarlet uniform rather than wear the civilian clothes of a spy. It caused his capture in 1812 by glowing brightly through the trees where he was hiding.” Another excellent source was Mark Urban’s eminently readable and informative The Man Who Broke Napoleon’s Codes: The Story of George Scovell (2001), which I bought in Helsinki’s wonderful Akademiska Bokhandeln – along with Boyd Hilton's magisterial A Mad, Bad & Dangerous People? England 1783–1846 (2006).

 

Justin’s backstory was all settled by the time Huw J. Davies’s Spying for Wellington: British Military Intelligence in the Peninsular War was published in 2018, and I have yet to read it. My notes also list John A. Hall’s Biographical Dictionary of British Officers Killed and Wounded, 1808-1814 (1998), vol. 8 in Sir Charles Oman’s History of the Peninsular War (1902–1930).

 

The "local combatants" Justin mentions when talking to his father are, of course, the Spanish guerrilla. Elizabeth Longford writes: "Spain was to be saved, in fact, not by grape-shot, greybeards and grandees, but by hardy guerrillas and the sudden flash of the knife. These peasants spontaneously organized themselves into small, do-or-die bands, at least one to each province, headed by folk heroes: Juan-Martín Díaz called 'El Empecinado‘, the dweller-by-the-streams in the Guadalajara mountains; Julián Sánchez, the farmer in Old Castile whose family had been murdered by the abhorred French dragoons; El Marquisito in the Asturias; El Médico; the Minas, Elder and Younger." (Wellington, p. 264)

 

Robert Hughes explains: "The word guerrilla, one of the most common military terms in the last quarter of the past century, means 'little war' and was used after 1808 to denote the struggle between bands of irregulars, or armed civilians [...] against a formal State army. It was coined and first used in Spain – although the American rebels came up with it at the same time – and bequeathed to us by this popular struggle for Spanish independence two hundred years ago. At the time, since all wars were fought by professional armies [...], there was no English or French word for what guerrillas did or were." (Robert Hughes, Goya, London 2003, p. 263). His study on Goya gives a clear-eyed, unromanticized view of the spiral of atrocities and reprisals that guerrilla warfare meant. He quotes one former guerrilla leader using the expression "total war" (p. 264), and that's what it was: everyone was involved, no one was safe.

 

Salvador Martínez Cubells, Juan Martín Díaz, El Empecinado (copy), ca. 1881
©Museo Nacional del Prado

 

Juan Martín Díaz (1775–1825) hailed from a labourer’s family (Haswell, p. 103). Once the French had been thrown out of Spain, he went on to fight against the absolutist rule of the restored Spanish king, Ferdinand VII. Just in case you're wondering, "empecinado" means "stubborn". 'Tis called persistency in a good cause, and obstinacy in a bad one.