Spying for Wellington: British Military Intelligence in the Peninsular War. Huw J. Davies. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2018.
The historiography of French and British experiences on the Iberian Peninsula in the opening decade of the nineteenth century lacks neither depth nor breadth. New entries into this crowded field often face significant scrutiny to see if they truly present anything different than the thousands of previous offerings. In Spying for Wellington: British Military Intelligence in the Peninsular War, Dr. Huw Davies has combined the underappreciated topic of intelligence with the well-trodden topic of Wellington to outline just how the British forces managed to knew so much about the French intentions and actions, often seemingly before the French knew themselves. In so doing, Davies has enriched the study of the Napoleonic era. The traditional works run the gamut: narratives, diaries, memoirs, and document collections. Some focus on specific units or nations, while other authors examine one slice of the different functions that come together to make an army run, such as artillery, infantry, or cavalry. Among this group, the function of intelligence, both at the tactical level and beyond, seems to get short shrift. A great number of books shine the spotlight on a few key leaders from the campaigns. Based on Napoleon’s almost total absence from the Peninsula, most of that attention fell to the British commander for much of the time, General Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington.
Davies begins by outlining the systemic challenges under which the British collected intelligence. Chief among these was the lack of any single department in charge, or even close to in charge, of gathering intelligence. Each of the various cabinet secretaries had the right to spend some portion of their budget on intelligence collection. Davies characterizes this clunky system as a “blind cyclops,” that required almost fifteen years before “the British grew better equipped to deal with the plethora of information” that came in via different methods from a wide range of sources.[1]
The next three chapters cover different themes related to the development and evolution of the British intelligence system, as well as a brief recounting of the origins of the Peninsular War. Davies devotes one chapter to the diplomatic contributions to intelligence gathering, followed by another examining similar effects from the British military forces in the Iberian Peninsula. In the diplomatic chapter, Davies introduces many of the British officials, including Wellington’s brother, Henry Wellesley, who played key roles throughout the conflict. On the military side, Davies offers great detail as to the types of information typically collected by officers, comparing those to the work of the diplomats. Military officers tended to focus on topographical intelligence, strengths and intentions of smaller sized enemy forces, and local conditions which may have had an impact on the operations of either side. Diplomats set their sights on the tracking of enemy forces and equipment flowing into Spain, as well as the political decisions and changes that changed conditions for British forces in Spain.
Similarly, Davies stratifies the process across the different levels of war; the diplomats collected most of the strategic intelligence, while the military worked at the tactical level, with an overlapping effort at the operational level. Wellington’s processes would probably seem similar to those used in today’s intelligence world, but with one key difference. The nineteenth-century pace moved much more slowly than that of the twenty-first century. This applied to both the speed at which intelligence was collected and analyzed, as well as the tempo of the operations themselves. Along these same lines, Davies also rejects the “popular historical opinion that Wellington obtained only raw information and analyzed it all himself,” pointing out that volume alone would have made such a feat all but impossible. Instead, diplomats and subordinate military staff performed the initial analysis in order to reduce the volume of information that reached Wellington. Wellington focused his efforts on the more important task of integrating the operational and strategic intelligence, which in turn helped him make the key decisions to guide the overall course of action.[2]
The second half of the book shifts from these thematic structure to more of a chronological approach, walking the reader through the major phases of the Peninsular War. While the story itself will not prove groundbreaking to most students of the Napoleonic Era, Davies provides a fresh outlook on familiar events by using the intelligence function to frame the major events of the campaign. Perhaps the most useful theme to emerge from Spying for Wellington, especially for the younger audience, is the emphasis that Davis places on the value of topographical intelligence. While this idea presents itself throughout the book, Davies hammers the point home in the final chapter covering the 1813-1814 campaign. In today’s world enabled the Global Positioning System, too many historians and military practitioners have either lost some appreciation, or perhaps never had much appreciation, for the value of maps or their limited availability in earlier eras. Throughout the book, Davies highlights the importance of an accurate map, produced in a timely enough manner to prove useful to a commander on the ground.
“The Eve Before Waterloo, Duke of Wellington at the Trumpet Inn” (Robert Alexander Hillingford)
The book ends with a brief epilogue recounting Wellington’s attempts at the beginning of the 1815 Waterloo Campaign to reconstruct the intelligence apparatus from the Peninsular War. While he failed to get all the pieces in place before the campaign ended, his efforts did result in some lasting changes to the British system. Davies brings the concept full circle by explaining the links between the early nineteenth century and modern times. This detailed study of the intelligence function will prove especially useful to those studying the conduct of intelligence operations throughout the era, whether on the Iberian Peninsula or elsewhere. Davies has also added to the body of knowledge about the Duke of Wellington himself. We get a better appreciation for how Wellington balanced the collected intelligence with his own senses to reach the decisions that propelled him to defeat the French forces in Iberia, and then again with Prussian assistance at Waterloo. Overall, Huw Davies has made an important contribution to the historiography of the Napoleonic field.
Frederick Black is a U.S. Army officer. He is a 1994 graduate of West Point, and holds an MA and PhD. from Florida State University. The views contained in this article are the author’s alone, and do not represent the views of the U.S. Army, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government. The author currently teaches military history at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.
Have a response or an idea for your own article? Follow the logo below, and you too can contribute to The Bridge:
Enjoy what you just read? Please help spread the word to new readers by sharing it on social media.
Header Image: “The Battle of Waterloo” painted by Jan Willem Pieneman (Wikimedia)
Notes:
[1] Huw J. Davies, Spying for Wellington: British Military Intelligence in the Peninsular War, (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2018), 12.
[2] Ibid., 107.