Thomas Picton

Sir Thomas Picton

Sir Thomas Picton , GCB , (born August 24, 1758 in Haverfordwest , Pembrokeshire , Wales ; † June 18, 1815 near Waterloo , died) was a British general who distinguished himself many times in the war on the Iberian Peninsula and was one of Wellington's most capable divisional commanders .

Life

origin

Thomas Picton was the seventh of twelve children of Thomas Picton († 1790) from Poyston , Pembrokeshire, and Cecil Powell († 1806), daughter of Reverend Edward Powell from Llanddow and half-sister of Richard Turberville, who was sheriff of Glamorgan in 1740. The family had Norman ancestors who settled in Pembrokeshire. Thomas Picton the Elder was in before his wedding sheriff high of Pembroke been. Young Thomas was born in 1758 in the Laugharne family townhouse (now the Dragon Hotel on Hill Street ) in Haverfordwest, where his mother was visiting, and was baptized on August 29, 1758 in Rudbaxton , Pembrokeshire. His five-year-old older brother Thomas had died the previous year and Picton was named after him.

First years in the army

Picton received his appointment as ensign in his uncle William's regiment , the 12th Regiment of Foot , in 1771, at the age of 13 . He initially spent two years at the Chelsea Military Academy before actually joining the regiment that was in Gibraltar at the time. He remained there until his uncle in 1777 Colonel (Colonel) in the newly prepared the 75th Regiment of Foot (Prince of Wales's Regiment) was. Picton received the post of captain in the same regiment in January 1778 and returned to Britain with his uncle. After the American War of Independence was officially ended in 1783 with the signing of the Peace of Paris , the 75th regiment on foot, billeted in Bristol, was disbanded again - like many other regiments.

On this occasion, Picton publicly demonstrated his courage for the first time when he took courageous action to nip in the bud a mutiny by his regiment, which was angry about the dissolution order. However, he never got the promised major position and spent the next eleven years on half pay at home in Pembroke.

Although war broke out with France in 1793, Picton was not given military command and so he sailed to the West Indies the following year through an acquaintance with Lieutenant General Sir John Vaughan , the local commander in chief, who made him his adjutant . A short time later, Picton was promoted to major and, as Brevet Lieutenant Colonel, deputy Quartermaster General. Under Sir Ralph Abercromby , who had succeeded Vaughan as Commander-in-Chief after his death in August 1795, Picton took part in the capture of St. Lucia (May 24, 1796), for which he was promoted to regular lieutenant colonel retrospectively to June 22, 1795, and that of St. Vincent (June 10, 1796). After the Spaniards surrendered Trinidad to Abercromby without a fight (February 17, 1797), the latter made Picton governor of the island.

Trinidad 1797–1803 and the aftermath

The troops at his disposal were not sufficient to prevent uprisings or a landing by the Spaniards, so that Picton ruled the island with harsh methods, some of which were also described as brutal. Picton did his job as governor with such success that the upper class of the islanders spoke out against the planned return of the island to Spain. Their protest, supported by Picton and Abercrombie’s portrayals of the situation, actually ensured that Trinidad would remain in British hands after the peace of Amiens . Governor Picton was made Brigadier General in October 1801 .

The criticism of his administration and the assertion that his mulatto - mistress influencing his decisions, but reached in the aftermath London, where in the meantime the government had changed. This had a much lower interest in keeping the island in possession. A three-person body was entrusted with the administration of the island, with Picton being the lowest-ranking member.

When Picton returned to Britain in 1803, he was tried in both the Privy Council and a court of law. The proceedings, which essentially revolved around the question of the permissibility of torture , dragged on until 1808, but ultimately ended with Picton's acquittal . The trial was the subject of many contemporary pamphlets .

The war on the Iberian Peninsula

Picton took part in the successful campaigns under the Duke of Wellington in Spain and Portugal as leader of a division, especially in the attack on Vitoria he distinguished himself. After the 3rd Division was disbanded, the officers presented their commander with a valuable dinner service. To his personal disappointment and to the astonishment of the British public, who had considered him a safe candidate, Picton was not among the generals raised to the high nobility . He was only knighted on February 1, 1813 as Knight Companion of the Order of the Bath and from then on carried the suffix "Sir". The reasons can only be guessed at. For one thing, he was only a division commander and not a leader of an independent command outside the direct control of the commander-in-chief. On the other hand, the taint of the Trinidad affair still clung to him. It is also possible that his non-aristocratic origin, his little aristocratic demeanor and his lack of connections contributed to his not being accepted into the high hereditary nobility. Whatever the reason, a letter to the Times published May 13, 1814, labeled the fact that it was passed over as positive injustice and insult .

After Parliament had thanked him for the services rendered on June 24, 1814 - for the seventh time - Picton left active military service and retired to his country estate Iscoed in Ferryside near Carmarthen , which he had acquired in 1804. On January 2, 1815, he was raised to the Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath.

Waterloo 1815

After Napoleon returned from Elba in the spring of 1815 , Wellington asked him, because of his bravery and experience, for the campaign against Napoleon as commander of his 2nd Corps. He's a gruff, foul devil , the Duke described him. At Quatre-Bras (June 16, 1815) he suffered a serious wound. A bullet broke two of his ribs and caused further internal injuries. Since he knew that the decisive battle was imminent and that such a severe wound would have led to his release from command, he hid his wound and had only a makeshift bandage. On the day after next, June 18, he and the 5th Division took up their assigned position in the middle of the battle line at La Haye Sainte . Picton kept his men under cover until the French under Drouet d'Erlon were only about 40 yards away, then he let them get up and gave the order to fire. The next moment he was hit by a bullet in the head and fell dead from the saddle. Captain Tyler, his adjutant who saw him fall, caught him with the help of a soldier, laid the body under a tree to be found after the battle, and notified the leader of the 8th Brigade, Major General James Kempt , who immediately took over the leadership of the division.

The commander-in-chief, Wellington , paid tribute to Picton the following day in his despatch to War Minister Lord Bathurst, known for its laconic style :

"Your lordship will observe, that such a desperate action could not be fought, and such advantages could not be gained, without great loss; and, I am sorry to add, that our's has been immense. In Lieutenant-general Sir Thomas Picton, his majesty has sustained the loss of an officer who has frequently distinguished himself in his service; and he fell, gloriously leading his division to a charge with bayonets, by which one of the most serious attacks made by the enemy of our position was defeated. "

Sir Thomas Picton was buried in the family vault in St. George's Church in Hanover Square , London on July 3, 1815 .

Posthumous honors

The Picton Monument in Carmarthen

On June 8, 1859, Thomas Picton's remains were moved from St George's Church to the tomb of St Paul's Cathedral . He is the only Welshman buried there. In addition to the monument commissioned by the British Parliament and created by Sebastian Gahagan in St. Paul's Cathedral in London, another monument was erected in Carmarthen , Wales. The statue, financed by subscription , for which George IV donated 100 guineas , was designed in 1824 by the king's architect, John Nash , and completed in 1828. Since it could not withstand the harsh Welsh weather, it was demolished in 1846 and replaced with a new one in the shape of an obelisk the following year. This second monument, designed by the architect Frances Fowler, is still there today - after it was rebuilt stone by stone in 1988. The bas-reliefs of the first memorial, executed by EH Bailey, depicting Picton's death on the battlefield, can now be seen at the Carmarthenshire County Museum in Carmarthen. The cities of Picton in Marlborough, New Zealand, Picton in Ontario, Canada, and Picton in New South Wales, Australia are named after Sir Thomas Picton.

The poet Thomas Moore wrote a poem in Picton's honor with the opening line "Oh, give to the hero the death of the brave." A portrait of Pictons by Martin Archer Shee is in the National Portrait Gallery in London, another by Sir William Beechey is owned by the Dukes of Wellington ( Wellington Museum , London).

Major General John Picton (1765-1815) was Thomas Picton's brother, General William Picton († 1811) his uncle.

Movie

In the 1970 film Waterloo , General Picton is portrayed by Jack Hawkins .

literature

• Robert Havard: Wellington's Welsh General. A life of Sir Thomas Picton . Aurum Press, London 1996, ISBN 1-85410-402-0
• Frederick Myatt: Peninsular General. Sir Thomas Picton 1758-1815 . David & Charles, Newton Abbot 1980, ISBN 0-7153-7923-2
• Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul : Farewell to Eldorado. A colonial story . List-Verlag, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-548-60358-0 (“The Loss of El Dorado. A colonial history”)
• Heaton B. Robinson: Memoirs of Lieutenant-General Sir Thomas Picton . Richard Bentley, London 1836
• Picton, Sir Thomas . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . 11th edition. tape 21 : Payn - Polka . London 1911, p. 586 (English, full text [ Wikisource ]).

Individual evidence

1. ^ William Arthur Shaw: The Knights of England. Volume 1, Sherratt and Hughes, London 1906, p. 179
2. ^ William Arthur Shaw: The Knights of England. Volume 1, Sherratt and Hughes, London 1906, p. 181
3. ^ Bernard Cornwell: Waterloo. A battle changes Europe . Rowohlt, Hamburg 2015. ISBN 978-3-8052-5083-2 , p. 67