Burgos

Our first visit was to the city of Burgos, capital of Old Castile. This was the scene of one of Wellington’s few failures in the Peninsula. 1812 saw victories for him at Cuidad Rodrigo, Badajoz, Salamanca and his liberation of Madrid. Yet by late October his army would be in retreat back to the Portuguese border. The cause was his siege of Burgos from 19 September to 21 October.

The cause was a mixture of a very strong castle, a determined garrison commander, a lack of siege materials and a large relief army. But whatever the cause, it must have been a bitter disappointment for him after his brilliant campaign.

We left Santander at 0900 and drove the 100 miles to Burgos, where we arrived just before midday. We managed to find the castle without having to drive through the city. The castle is now a ruin, but overlooking the city as it does, it is easy to get your bearings from a map of the siege. The city is very much on the tourist route, and many of them make their way to the castle. So parking is easy and the ruins well signposted. There was a collection of works of art scattered around the ruins, including this rather strange one behind us on the castle wall.

This simple diagram is just to give you an idea of the layout, there is a much more detailed one below. We approached the castle along the heights of San Miguel, and we stopped to have a look at the Hornwork. Then to the castle itself, which we spent a couple of hours looking and reading.

The siege opened with a successful assault on the Hornwork. But despite four separate attacks, including major siege and mining operations, the garrison held their own and Wellington’s eventually had to give up and retire to Cuidad Rodrigo.

The siege of Burgos is well documented, and we came well prepared with photocopies from books dealing with the siege, and of course we had Jac Weller’s “Wellington in the Peninsula”, our regular companion during all of our visits in Portugal and Spain. We were blessed with a warm, sunny day so it was easy to find a convenient corner and settle down to read of the “daring deeds”.

This photograph shows how close the city is to the castle. The gothic building is the cathedral with the tomb of El Cid. We then walked down the hill to the city, which was crowded with tourists. We were unable to visit the cathedral as it was closed and therefore could not see the tomb of El Cid. The city is well worth a visit in its own right, though we only had time for a short half hour walk around the centre.

The castle survived Wellington’s siege of 1812, but was destroyed by the French themselves the following year when they had to retreat to in the face of Wellington’s advance to Vittoria. On our walk down the hill to the city we looked for any signs of the siege works, but could find none. It was not difficult to identify where the parallels would have been, but the area is now covered in trees making.

This more detailed map of the siege shows the siege works in much greater detail. The siege opened with the capture of the Hornwork, which protected the castle from attack from the rear. After our visit to the castle we returned to the heights of San Miguel to explore the area of the Hornwork.

Unlike the siege works around the castle itself, it is easy to find ditches and redoubts which formed the Hornwork. We had the area to ourselves and settled down to a picnic lunch whilst we read about the light division attack on 19 September 1812 which was led by Major Somers-Cocks, one of Wellington’s most promising officers. Unfortunately he died a few days later taking part in one of the assaults on the castle itself.

Back to the castle for a final look around, and then off on the road to Vittoria.

Preparation is Everything

We returned from our first solo visit to the Portugal and Spain in September 1994 and we started planning for a return visit immediately.

We had pretty well done all we wanted to do in central Portugal and Spain, and wanted to explore Northern Spain and the Pyrenees. We had gained a lot of confidence on our last battlefield tour, and were keen to try new fields.

On our previous trip we had mostly visited the same battlefields as on our earlier Holt’s Battlefield Tour, so we knew what to expect. This time we would be exploring an area we had never visited before, although it all seemed very familiar from reading so much about it. I spent hours on the map working out the best route and trying to estimate how long we would need to travel and then to explore. Then I went to our local travel agent who was very helpful arranging accommodation. This was before your could easily book on-line, and I was disappointed to discover that it would not be possible to book accommodation on or near the battlefields. So once more I had to consult the maps to see which of the available hotels were best situated. But by far most of the preparation was in reading about the battlefields we planned to visit and photocopying extracts from all the books I had at home or could borrow from the local library. It involved a lot of hard work, but it was very enjoyable and rewarding research.

Our last tour had been a fly-drive, but this time we would travel by Brittany Ferries from Plymouth to Santander and take our own car. Again we would stay in Paradore’s (state run hotels), as they were the only type of accommodation we could easily book from UK.

We would drive the 95 miles from Santander to Burgos and explore the castle and surrounding area before driving 50 miles more to Vittoria, where we would spend two nights. Then 70 miles to Pamplona to explore Roncesvalles and Sourauren. This would be followed by a 60 miles drive to Hondarribia where we would spend three nights to explore the Pyrenees. This would include Vera, Bidassoa, San Marcial ridge, The Rhune the battles of the Nivelle and the Nive. We would then drive the 140 miles back to Santander, stopping at San Sabastian to explore the castle and the siege area. It was going to be a very busy 10 days.

The morning of 12 June 1995 was sunny and warm as we left Salisbury to drive to Plymouth to catch the ferry. We planned to travel 1100 miles and visit 13 battlefields and the whole trip would cost £500.

Once more our guide would be Jac Weller’s “Wellington in the Peninsula”. Indeed we had planned our trip largely on the battles covered in this excellent book. And again we would be using the photographs and maps to get our bearings on site.

Julian Paget’s book “Wellington’s Peninsular War – Battles and Battlefields” would again be our main aide in finding where to park and what to look for. This book had proved its worth during the previous tour and we were confident it would do so again.