"DIE HARD! MY MEN, DIE HARD!"

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 4, Issue 18, 5 March 1915, Page 6 (Supplement)

"DIE HARD! MY MEN, DIE HARD!"

A STORY OF THE FAMOUS 57th

Now Victory to our England! And where'er she lifts her hand In Freedom's fight, to rescue Right, God bless the dear old land!

Once more, as Sir John French s dispatches eloquently tell us, the gallant British Fusiliers are covering themselves with glory, as in every battle in which they have fought for their King and country; but the proudest page in their annals is still that which tells the story of their prowess one May day, in 1811 when in such dramatic fashion they' rescued Beresford's army from annihilation in the " fierciest bloodiest and most amazing fight of the Peninsular War." . General Beresford was besieging the ereat frontier fortress of Badajos when the swift coming of Soult's army from Seville compelled him to raise the siege and face the oncoming enemy; and when dawn came on May 16th, it found the two forces face to face, separated only by a shallow river—Soult with 24 000 war-hardened veterans ; Beresford with onlv 7,000 British soldiers, supplemented 'by 23,000 Spanish and Portuguese, half-trained, half-starved, and wholly demoralised. It was a mad enterprise on the part of the British army. Beresford, if he had been a wise general, would have retreated; but a passion for fighting was in his Irish blood, and he knew that the Englishmen, who had had no part in recent battles, were "spoiling tor 8 fight.

THE ENEMY PREPARES A SURPRISE.

Regarding the bridge as the key of his position, he occupied the village with a strong force and covered the bridge with his batteries. The remainder of his army he placed on a crescentshaped ridge overlooking it and screened in front by a low, wooded hill, which afforded excellent shelter for an attack ing army, as Soult was quick to see. During the night the French general stealthily placed 15,000 of his men and 30 guns' behind this bill within half a mile of the unsuspecting British forces, and awaited the dawn with supreme confidence. At nine o'clock the next morning, after a feigned attack on the bridge, Souk launched his thunderbolt on Beresford's right, feebly held by the Spaniards, too exhausted to fight, almost to fly. Up the ridge the Frenchmen poured irresistibly the artillery sweeping the Spanish ranks with lire. At intervals ten thousand chassepots hurled the tempests of lead at them; while at their flank regiments of Lancers and Hussars swept down on them in a gigantic

wave. In vain did Beresford command the Spaniards to charge; they refused to move a foot, preferring to be killed as they stood. When in his anger he seized a young standard-bearer in his powerful arms, and, carrying him fifty yards towards the onrushing enemy, planted him there, flag and all, the moment he was released, he rushed back like a rabbit. A few moments later the encircling torrent was on the Spaniards, and was sweeping them with furious thrusts of bayonet and flash of sword, a broken rabble, over the crest of the hill. Thus in a few minutes half of Beresford's army was put hors de combat; their dead and fallen strewed the ridge in thousands, and victory was in Soult's grasp. A few minutes more, and the whole British army would have been surrounded and annihilated. FORLORN HOPES. Such was Beresford's desperate plight, when the first of three gallant attempts to save the day was made — the last of which was destined, when all hope of victory seemed dead, to turn disaster into a glorious victory. The first of these three great attacks, each a miiacle of British heroism, was made by the second division led, in person, by General Stewart, as valiant a soldier as ever led a forlorn hope in battle. "When he saw the Spaniards put to flight and slaughtered like a drove of helpless sheep, he rushed his brigade up tile hill at breathless speed through a hurricane of shot from the French batteries, and a tempest of rain which suddenly burst on the hillside, and with the drifting clouds of smoke made it impossible to see anything twenty yards ahead.

When the fog slightly lifted, the attackers found themselves faced by a barrier of steel and flame, the massed infantry of France; the merciless scythe of death mowed them down in hundreds: and at the same moment above the roar of cannon and the tumult of battle, they heard the thunder of galloping hoofs. The French horsemen, hussars and lancers, were sweeping down on them like a tornado, hacking and hewing, riding through and over them and crushing them out of existence. In five minutes two-thirds of the brigade were dead or dving: the hillside ran red with blood. The 31st Regiment alone withstood the shock, in a hastily formed square, around which the storm of carnage laged as hungry waves leap and ra<je around a rock. A GLORIOUS sTAND. Through all this inferno of fighting Beresford, a giant in stature and strength, carried a (harmed life, mowing down the French horsemen with strokes of his mighty arm. One lancer who (barged him he seized by the throat, and lifting him from the saddle dashed him lifeless to the ground. And no less brave were two ensigns who carried the colours of their regiments. One' was struck down, covered bis flag with his body, and defended it until, pierced by a dozen lance-thrusts, he drew his last breath. Another was found dead, the pennon, torn from its staff, hidden beneath his tunic and stiff with his life's blood. Two-thirds of the brigade went down, and still the French horsemen, drunk with the rage of battle, were sweeping backwards and forwards over the face of the hill, cutting down the survivors.

Then it v.a.- ~.1:'.'.-.- '.!:.■ gallant square of the 31st, still unbroken, held the enemy .it hay, that Hoiiyhton brought up his brigade to the attack rand th< 29th, 48th, and the 57th surged up the blood-stained hill in his wake. Before they had advanced many yards Houghton fell dead with three bullets in him : but without a moment's check the brigade rushed over his body, a swift moving line of grim-set faces and bayonets —-up and up the slope, until at last tho summit was reached. Here the on-sweeping wave was brought to a sudden pause by a deep ravine which made further progress impossible. Their position was now periiess in the extreme. Across the ravine less than fifty yards distant, the enemy, in massed thousands, began to scourge them with pitiless blasts of lead; the French guns at the same short range were pouring destruction into their ranks and on their flank they were raked by a tempest of musketry. THE "DTE-HATCDS." To stay meant annihilation, but not

a man took a backward step, though | they were falling faster than leaves in j autumn. Of the 57th, within a few I minutes, only 430 out of 570 were still ' standing. Their gallant colonel, Inglis, when he in turn was stricken down riddled with bullets, called out, "Die : hard! my men, die hard!" and raising himself on his elbow he watched with proud eyes his brave men drop like himself until he fell back a dead man. Ever since that glorious hour when the 57th fell in ranks exactly as they had stood, looking death in the face with fearless eyes, the 57th have borne the proud name of the "Die-hards," and have proved their titlo to it on many a later held of battle. ' Though they had shot their last bullets Houghton's men still refused to yield. A few minutes more and the last of them would be struck down. At this horrible crisis even Beresford's brave heart failed him, and he was about to give the order for a retreat which would certainly have meant the entire destruction of his remaining force, when the matter was dramatically taken out of his hand by a man more daring and masterful than himself-Colonel Hardinge, a soldier who was later to win ' manv laurels in war, and who was now 1 attached to the Portuguese Army. ' Cole had opportunely arrived on the I .scene of battle from Badajos with some • Portuguese troops and two regiments of - Fusiliers, the 7th and the 23rd; and - Hard'nge, galloping up to him, urged ' him to make a third attack on the hill > while Abereombie's brigade swept round its Hank. It was the last chance of ' averting a terrible disaster, and Beres--5 ford, though he expected nothing to - como of it, gave his consent. While s Abercombic's men moved swiftly round 4 the base of the hill, Cole led his Fusifc Hers straight towards its summit at the r moment when the French Lancers, with exultant cries, were rushing on the square of the 31st, to scatter the last remnant of Houghton's brigade to the winds. [ ASTOUNDING INFANTRY. J Up the hill slopes heaped with corps- " es the two regiments swept through ' the fog which had now fallen like a pall ■ on the scene of so much carnage. It 1 was an intensely dramatic moment. Suddenly through the fog the French- • men saw the long red line of Cole s 1 Fusiliers advancing swiftly on their 1 right, and on their left a long gleam of 1 bayonets—Abercombie's brigade—and ' at'the sight, so unexpected and so men--3 acing, the jubilant cries died down. A°moment they stood still, then, i stung- to action, after emptying their > muskets at the swiftly closing in lines, - they made a desperate attempt to en- ■ their front. Too late, however. > The British ranks, swept by the torrent ■ of bullets, never wavered for an me stant. Pouring in volley after volley ' they literally hurled themselves at the - enemy, with' shouts which struck ter- ' rot- into every Frenchman. "In vain did Soult, by voice and ges- ; tare, seek to animate his men; in vain did the hardiest veterans break from c the crowded column and sacrifice their > lives to gain time for the mass to op- • en on such a fair field; in vain did the • mass itself bear up, and, fiercely striv- ! ing, gre indiscriminately on friends and ' foes, while the horsemen, hovering on . the' flanks, threatened to charge the »- advancing line. Nothing could stop k that astounding infantry. Up and up i the bill they swept the enemy, resist- • lessiy, rcmorsely, striking them down - as they went in a veritable fury of " slaughter—up the last steeps until they t hurled the survivors over its crest and " flung them in panic flight down the otii- » er side.

The day was saved, the hill was ours; but at what a cost! "Within an area, a hundred yards square, near the summit seven thousand dead men lay—from base to crest the whole ridge was red with blood. In one company of the Fusiliers every officer down to the corporals was killed; one n g:ment, the 3rd Brrffs, emerged from the fight reduced to five officers and 3o men; the rest, 734 in number, had fallen. Well might Soult exclaim, when telling the story of this terrible day, "There is no beating these troops! I turned their right, and pierced their centre; they were everywhere broken, the day was mine—and yet they did not know it and would not run I" And today as a century and mo -e ago, the gallant Fusiliers have still to learn when they are beaten, and how 1o run.