INDEX

END OF VOL. III

Oxford: Printed at the Clarendon Press by Horace Hart, M.A.

FOOTNOTES

[1] Not, it must be remembered, to become the Light Division till March 1810.

[2] See Wellington to Canning, Sept. 5, 1800, in Dispatches, v. 123-4.

[3] See vol. ii. pp. 465-6.

[4] See Dispatches, v. 168, for an account of an interview with the Marquis of Malaspina and Lord Macduff, who had come to Badajoz to make personal representation, which Wellington much resented.

[5] Wellington to Wellesley, Oct. 30: Dispatches, v. 213. For stronger language about the rash folly of Spanish generals, see Wellington to Beresford, ibid. 179.

[6] Wellington to Wellesley, Aug. 24, from Merida.

[7] See Canning’s instruction to Wellesley of June 27, 1809, on pages 186-91 of Wellesley’s Dispatches and Correspondence, Lond. 1838.

[8] See Baumgarten, Geschichte Spaniens, i. 408, and Toreno, vol, ii. p. 72. Wellesley only calls the Duke ‘a person’: Dispatches, p. 160.

[9] Wellesley to Wellington, Sept. 19, 1809. Wellington, Supplementary Dispatches, vi. 372.

[10] For the text of this wordy proclamation see Wellesley’s Spanish Dispatches, pp. 135-9.

[11] Note the extraordinary similarity of this plan to that produced by the Athenian oligarchs in 411 B. C. Had some one been reading Thucydides?

[12] Catalonia had been added to his command after Reding died of wounds received at the battle of Valls.

[13] See vol. ii. p. 387.

[14] For an excellent personal diary of all these operations see General Von Brandt’s Aus meinem Leben, pp. 100-12. He accuses Suchet of grossly exaggerating, both in his dispatches and his memoirs, the difficulty and importance of these mountain raids (see Suchet’s Memoirs, i. pp. 40-74, for a highly picturesque narrative). The insurgents were still unskilled in arms, shot very poorly, kept bad watch, and were given to panic. That there is something in Brandt’s criticism seems to be shown by the fact that the whole division of Musnier lost between July 1 and Dec. 31, 1809, only three officers killed and eight wounded out of 200 present with the eagles in six months of incessant raids and skirmishes (see Martinien’s Liste des officiers, often quoted before).

[15] Suchet’s third division, that of Habert, was lying out in the direction of the Cinca and the Guadalupe, watching lest Blake might make a new sally from Tortosa or Lerida.

[16] The 3rd Corps which had gone down to little over 10,000 men in May 1809, counted on Jan. 1, 1810, the following force:

Division Laval5,348
Division Musnier8,465
Division Habert4,757
Cavalry Brigade2,172
Artillery and Engineers928
Garrisons of Alcañiz, Jaca, Monzon, Saragossa, Tudela3,110
‘Chasseurs des Montagnes’
[permanently embodied Pyrenean National Guards]		1,425
Total26,205

Of these 23,074 were effectives present with colours, the remainder were in hospital or detached.

[17] Cette portion de l’Espagne reste, d’ailleurs, isolée, et sans influence sur le reste de la Péninsule. Imperial Minute of Dec. 1, 1809.

[18] There is only a short note in Dispatch no. 16,004. See [p. 63] of this vol.

[19] See St. Cyr to Berthier, March 6, 1809, and St. Cyr’s Memoirs, p. 130.

[20] It may be found printed in full in the Appendix to the narrative of the siege of Gerona in Belmas’s Sieges, vol. ii. pp. 660-1.

[21] 3,116 bayonets and two squadrons of Italian light horse by the return of May 15. The Neapolitans were bad troops, deserting whenever it was safe to do so.

[22] See vol. i. pp. 317-29.

[23] For a good historical study of the fortifications of Gerona and their history, see Vacani, vol. iii. pp. 245-55.

[24] This last was done by public subscription, when the engineers pointed out the danger of the city being stormed across the river-bed. See Arteche, vii. 151. Belmas and Vacani do not seem to have known of this fact, as each of them makes the remark that if the Mercadal had been taken, a sudden rush might have taken the assailants across the shallow river and into the old town. It may be remarked that there had once been a river-wall, but that most of it had been allowed to fall into decay when the Mercadal was taken into the city defences.

[25] Manuscript notes of General Fournas, quoted by Arteche, vii. 458.

[26] The bishop gave his sanction to the formation of this strange corps; see his proclamation in Arteche’s Appendix vii. p. 539, dated June 9.

[27] Ultonia, the regiment of Ulster, still contained many officers of the old Jacobite strain, as may be seen by consulting the list of killed and wounded, where such names as O’Donnell, Macarthy, Nash, Fitzgerald, Pierson, Coleby, Candy, occur: but it had just been raised from 200 to 800 bayonets by filling the depleted cadre with Catalan recruits, and all the junior lieutenants, newly appointed, were Catalans also. So there was little Irish about it save the names of some of its senior officers.

[28] For the details of the composition of the Gerona garrison, see [Appendix no. 1].

[29] I know not why Napier, contrasting Gerona with Saragossa (ii. 251), says that at the former place the regular garrison was 3,000, the armed multitude ‘less than 6,000.’ When it is remembered that its total population was 14,000 souls—of whom some fled to places of safety before the siege began—and that it had already raised two battalions of miqueletes with 1,360 bayonets out of its able-bodied male inhabitants, it is difficult to see how more than 5,000 armed irregulars are to be procured, for in a population of 14,000 souls there cannot be more than some 3,000 men between eighteen and forty-five. As a matter of fact (see documents in Arteche, vii. Appendix 5), the ‘Crusade’ was about 1,100 strong at most.

[30] Vacani, iii. 211.

[31] See Belmas, iii. 516.

[32] See their letter in Appendix V to Belmas’s account of the siege.

[33] Note, ibid., ii. p. 502.

[34] See St. Cyr to Alvarez and Verdier to the Minister of War at Paris, nos. 9 and 11 of Belmas’s Appendices in his second volume, pp. 677 and 678.

[35] Napier says (ii. 250) that ‘the breaching fire ceased for four days before the assault,’ and that this caused the failure. The statement is in direct contradiction of Vacani (iii. 277) who states that Verdier on the contrary ‘proseguì per tre giorni il vivo fuoco della sua artilleria,’ and of Belmas (ii. 530) who makes the same statement.

[36] See Alvarez’s letter in Belmas’s Appendix, no. 15, where he says that the breach had this breadth since July 3.

[37] This seems a low estimate of Belmas, as the compagnies d’élite formed a third of each battalion.

[38] St. Cyr, Vacani, and Belmas all say that Marshall escaped by hoisting the white flag, and taking to the hills while terms of capitulation were being arranged. Coupigny on the other hand (see his letter in Belmas’s Appendix no. 18) says that Marshall behaved admirably, but was not seconded by his men, who flinched and abandoned him. Rich, the officer who failed to guide the column aright, was not, as Napier supposed (ii. 236), an Englishman, but a Catalan, as is shown by his Christian name Narciso. Ric or Rich is a common name in Catalonia.

[39] This must have been an exaggeration, as 2,000 men under arms of the old garrison survived to surrender in December. See Alvarez’s letter, on p. 686 of Belmas’s Appendix.

[40] See Verdier’s letter of August 12, in Belmas’s Appendix no. 11, p. 700.

[41] Some call them bastions, but they are too small to deserve that name.

[42] Belmas, for convenience’ sake, distinguishes these two breaches by calling the northern one the breach in the Barracks, the southern the breach in the Latrines of the ‘German Redoubt.’

[43] Between Gerona and Perpignan, for the defence of communications and the garrisoning of Figueras, there were at this time the Valais battalion, one battalion of the Confederation of the Rhine (Waldeck-Reuss-Schwarzburg), one battalion each of the French 7th and 113th—not more than 2,300 bayonets in all. See Returns of the Army of Spain for Sept. 15, 1809.

[44] For this correspondence see the Appendices nos. 16 and 24-5 in vol. ii of Belmas.

[45] See the ‘morning state’ given in Arteche, vii. pp. 565-6. The Valencian regiments were Savoia, Orihuela, Voluntarios de Valencia, and Almanza, with about 5,000 bayonets. Of Reding’s old troops from the south there were Almeria, Baza, Santa Fé, 1st of Granada (otherwise called Iliberia), and two battalions of Provincial Grenadiers, something over 3,000 men. The rest were mainly Catalans.

[46] The reinforcements left behind by Garcia Conde consisted of two battalions of Baza (one of Reding’s old Granadan regiments), with 1,368 bayonets, two Catalan ‘tercios,’ 1st and 2nd of Talarn, with 716 bayonets, and select companies of 1st of Granada (Iliberia), 2nd of Vich, and Voluntarios de Tarragona—in all apparently about 2,707 men.

The table on p. 375 of Arteche’s vol. vii seems to err in crediting the Cervera ‘tercio’ to Garcia: this had come in on Aug. 17, as described on p. 35. On the other hand the company of Voluntarios de Tarragona should be credited to him.

[47] St. Cyr tells a story to the effect that he had placed Mazzuchelli’s brigade of Pino’s division in ambush behind the hill of Palau to intercept Garcia Conde, and that the Spaniards would have marched right into the trap on Sept. 3, if the Italians had not been stupid enough to sound the réveil at dawn, and so warn the enemy of their existence. But the Spanish accounts of Minali and Claros are quite different (see Arteche, vii. 377); they are to the effect that Garcia Conde had intended to start at dusk on the third, but, hearing firing on the side of Palau, deferred his exit and took another road. If he was starting at 7 or 8 o’clock at night on the third, he cannot have been warned by the morning bugles at 4 o’clock on the previous morning. See St. Cyr, p. 234, and Napier, ii. 245, for the French story, which the latter takes over whole from the former. Belmas and Vacani do not give the tale, though they have a full narration of the escape of Garcia Conde.

[48] Verdier did not exaggerate: see [Appendix no. 2] at end of this volume, showing that his three divisions had lost 8,161 men out of 14,044 by September 15.

[49] See the acrid correspondence between St. Cyr and Verdier in Appendices nos. 37-8, 40-6 of Belmas, vol. ii.

[50] ‘Il paraît que l’on a employé la ressource, malheureusement trop usitée en pareil cas, de dire que les troupes n’ont pas fait leur devoir, ce qui produit de justes réclamations de leur part.’ (St. Cyr to the Minister, Sept. 24, 1809.)

[51] The not unnatural suggestion that the German and Italian troops may have failed to display such desperate courage as the native French in the assault seems to be refuted by their losses, which were hardly smaller in proportion. Of 1,430 native French of the 7th and 56th Line and 32nd Léger, 328 were put out of action; of 1,400 Berg, Würzburg, and Italian troops, 296. The difference in the percentage is so small that it is clear that there was no great difference in conduct.

[52] See especially Verdier to Augereau, no. 53, and to the Minister, no. 61, of Belmas’s Appendices.

[53] The very interesting list of the prices of commodities at the commencement and the end of the siege, drawn up by Dr. Ruiz, one of the Gerona diarists, may be found on p. 579 of Arteche’s vol. vii. Note the following—the real (20 to the dollar) = 2½d. :—

Reals.
In June.In Sept.
Wheat flour, the qr.80112
Barleymeal, the qr.3056
Oatmeal, the qr.4880
Coffee, the lb.824
Chocolate, the lb.1664
Oil, the measure2½24
Salt fish, the lb.2¼32
Cheese, the lb.440
Wood, the arroba (32 lb.)548
Charcoal, ditto3½40
Tobacco, the lb.24100
A fowl14320
Rice, the lb.1½32
Fresh fish from the Ter, the lb.436

Thus while flour and meal had not doubled in value, coffee had gone up threefold, chocolate and tobacco fourfold, cheese and fuel tenfold, and the other commodities far more.

[54] See Toreno, ii, and Arteche, vii. 412.

[55] See St. Cyr to the Minister, Belmas, ii. Appendix no. 67.

[56] Augereau to the Minister, ibid., Oct. 8.

[57] See Souham’s dispatch, striving to make the combat into a very big business, in Belmas, ii, Appendix no. 72, and cf. Arteche, vii. pp. 430-1.

[58] See Pino’s and Augereau’s dispatches in Belmas’s Appendices, nos. 73 and 74.

[59] Alvarez’s letter to Blake of Nov. 3 printed in Arteche’s Appendix, no. 18 of his vol. vii, gives this account of the first discovery of plots.

[60] Of whom two, strangely enough, had been specially mentioned for courage at the September assault.

[61] Napier (ii. 249) says that the sortie was so far successful that the Geronese opened the way for the garrison of the Constable fort to escape into the city. But I can find no authority for this in either the French or the Spanish narratives, see especially Vacani.

[62] For details of this disgraceful cruelty, see Arteche’s ‘Elogio’ on Alvarez in the proceedings of the Madrid Academy. The Emperor Napoleon himself must bear the responsibility, as it was by orders from Paris that Alvarez was sent back from France to Figueras. Apparently he was to be tried at Barcelona, and perhaps executed. There is no allusion to the matter in the Correspondance de Napoléon.

[63] For details, see James’s Naval History, v. pp. 142-5.

[64] The Proclamation of Nov. 29 ordering this levy, written in a very magniloquent style, may be found in Belmas, Appendix no. 81.

[65] Napoleon’s comments on the operations of his generals are always interesting, though sometimes founded on imperfect information, or vitiated by predispositions. Of St. Cyr’s campaign he writes [Disp. no. 16,004] to Clarke, his Minister of War:

‘Il faut me faire un rapport sérieux sur la campagne du général Gouvion Saint-Cyr en Catalogne: (1) Sur les raisons qui l’ont porté à évacuer cette province, lorsque Saragosse était prise et sa jonction faite avec le maréchal Mortier. (2) Sur ce qu’il s’est laissé attaquer par les Espagnols, et ne les a jamais attaqués, et sur ce que, après les avoir toujours battus par la valeur des troupes, il n’a jamais profité de la victoire. (3) Sur ce qu’il a, par cet esprit d’égoisme qui lui est particulier, compromis le siège de Gérone: sur ce qu’il n’a jamais secouru suffisamment l’armée assiégeante, l’a au contraire attirée à lui, et a laissé ravitailler la ville. (4) Sur ce qu’il a quitté l’armée sans permission, sous le vain prétexte de maladie.’

The first point seems unjust to St. Cyr. From his position in front of Tarragona, after Valls, he had no real chance of combining his operations with the army of Aragon. But the other three charges seem well founded.

[66] The Valencian troops at Maria were eleven battalions, viz. Savoia (three), 1st and 3rd Cazadores de Valencia (two), America (two), Voluntarios de Valencia (one), 1st of Valencia (three). Of these only Savoia (now two batts. only) and Voluntarios de Valencia turned up for the relief of Gerona. Along with them came two fresh regiments, 2nd Cazadores of Orihuela, and Almanza, which had not been at Maria. But these were Murcian, not Valencian, troops.

[67] De Garay to Wellesley in Wellesley Dispatches, p. 92.

[68] Wellington to Wellesley, from Merida, Sept. 1, 1809.

[69] See the details in Wellesley to Canning, Sept. 2, 1809.

[70] His head quarters moved from Truxillo on the seventeenth, were at La Serena on the twenty-first, and joined the army of La Mancha about October 1.

[71] See the list of Albuquerque’s army in [Appendix no. 2]. There had been twenty-one regular battalions in Cuesta’s army in June. Twenty of these marched off with Eguia, leaving only one (4th Walloon Guards) with Albuquerque.

[72] The only regiments of Blake’s original army that seem to be completely dead in October 1809 are 2nd of Catalonia, Naples, Pontevedra, Compostella. Naples had been drafted into Rey early in 1809. Of the others I can find no details.

[73] The new Galician regiments which appear in the autumn of 1809 are Monforte de Lemos, Voluntarios de la Muerte, La Union, Lovera, Maceda, Morazzo.

[74] For the full muster-roll of Del Parque’s army in October, see Appendix no. 4.

[75] Some small fraction of it reappeared in the campaign of 1809.

[76] One battalion of Majorca, and the Militia battalion of Segovia.

[77] Borbon, Sagunto, and Granaderos de Llerena, 1,053 sabres in October. These regiments had newly rejoined the Estremaduran army from the rear.

[78] See Wellington to Wellesley, from Badajoz, Oct. 30, 1809.

[79] For Jourdan’s personal views, see his Mémoires, ed. Grouchy, p. 282.

[80] See the table given by Sprünglin on p. 366 of his Mémoires.

[81] Apparently Kellermann had at this moment a battalion each of the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Swiss, a battalion of the Garde de Paris, one each of the 12th Léger and 32nd Line, and one or two of the 122nd.

[82] 6th Léger (two batts.), 69th Line (three batts.), and one battalion of voltigeurs réunis.

[83] 39th and 76th of the Line.

[84] Marchand in his dispatch says 1,300 men in all were lost, and a gun; he makes no mention of the eagle. His aide-de-camp, Sprünglin, who has a good account of the battle in his Mémoires (pp. 370-1), gives the total of 1,500. The Spaniards exaggerated the loss to 3,000.

[85] ‘La perte de cette affaire fut entièrement due à la faute que fit le Général Marchand de multiplier ses attaques, et de s’engager par petits paquets. Tout le monde se mêlait de donner son avis, et on remarquait l’absence de M. le Maréchal,’ says Sprünglin in p. 371 of his Mémoires.

[86] Del Parque’s demands had begun as early as the end of September, see Wellington to Castlereagh, Badajoz, Sept. 29, Dispatches, v. 200-1, and cf. Wellington to Forjaz, Oct. 15, ibid. 223.

[87] Wellington to Beresford, Nov. 16, 1809.

[88] He sent this estimate to Wellington, see the latter to Beresford, Badajoz, Nov. 16.

[89] The Junta afterwards contemplated bringing him down to join Albuquerque, via Plasencia, which was free of French troops, since Soult had moved to Oropesa. But this does not seem to have been thought of so early as Nov. 5.

[90] See Soult to Clarke, from Madrid, Nov. 6, for these movements.

[91] Soult to Clarke, from Madrid, Nov. 6. The deserters were a body of twenty-one men of the Walloon Guards, who had enlisted from Dupont’s prisoners in order to get a chance of escaping: they reached Oropesa on Oct. 25.

[92] Roche to Wellington, from Santa Cruz de la Mudela, Wellington Supplementary Dispatches, vi. 394. Cf. also the same to the same, vi. 414.

[93] Historia de la Guerra de la Independencia, vii. 283.

[94] Soult to Clarke, Madrid, Nov. 6.

[95] Soult to Clarke, Madrid, Nov. 10.

[96] Sebastiani to Soult, night of the twelfth-thirteenth, from Aranjuez.

[97] It had still no divisional general, and was officially known by the name of ‘Sebastiani’s division’—regiments 28th, 32nd, 58th, 75th.

[98] Colborne, in a letter dated December 5, says ‘we had 46,100 infantry and nearly 6,000 cavalry drawn out, in a very bad position.’ He was present all through the campaign, but wrote no full report.

[99] Viz.

Mortier’s Infantry Divisions (Girard and Gazan), twenty-two batts. [one regiment deducted]about12,000men
Sebastiani’s Polish Division and German Division (under Werlé and Leval)about8,000men
Rey’s Brigade of Dessolles’ Division of the Central Reserveabout3,500men
The King’s Reserves, viz. four guard battalions and three othersabout3,500men
Milhaud’s Dragoons, five regimentsabout1,800men
Paris’s Light Cavalry, attached to 4th Corps, three regimentsabout1,000men
Beauregard’s Cavalry of the 5th Corps, four regimentsabout1,500men
The King’s Cavalry, one regiment of the Guards, one of Chasseursabout700men
Artillery, Sappers, &c.about1,500men
Totalabout33,500men

[100] Joseph declared that he urged instant attack when Soult advised waiting for Victor. See his letter in vol. vii of Ducasse’s Life and Correspondence of Joseph Napoleon.

[101] This order seems the only one consistent with the sole sentence in Areizaga’s dispatch to the Junta in which he explains his battle-array: ‘Inmediatamente formé por mi mismo la primera linea en direccion de Ocaña, colocando por la izquierda la division de Vigodet, defendida por la frente de la gran zanja, y por su derecha las divisiones de Giron, Castejon y Lacy: la de Copons formaba martillo, junta á las tapias de la villa, inmediata á la de Giron, y las demás la secunda linea á distancia competente para proteger á la primera.’ The unnamed divisions which must have lain beyond Copons in the right of the second line are Jacomé and Zerain.

[102] The only detailed accounts of the Spanish movements that I have discovered are the divisional reports of Lacy and Zayas, both in the Foreign Office archives at the Record Office. Areizaga’s dispatch is so vague as to be nearly useless.

[103] Viz. Zayas, Vigodet, and Castejon, about 4,000 men each, Copons 3,000, Giron 2,500, remains of the other three divisions about 3,500. From the returns in the Madrid War Office.

[104] Martinien’s lists of officers killed and wounded show that the German division lost 19 officers, the Polish division 23, Girard’s division 28—in all 70 out of the total of 94 officers hit in the whole army.

[105] Martinien’s lists show 4 officers killed and 14 wounded.

[106] There is a long report by Del Parque in the Record Office, in which he states that the panic was caused by a stray party of his own routed cavalry dashing in among the rearguard in the dark, and crying that the French were pursuing them. He afterwards court-martialled and shot some cavalrymen for cowardice.

[107] He then pushed on to Cadiz, where he was on the 6th-7th, spent a night at Seville again on the 9th-10th, and was back at Badajoz on the 11th of November. At Cadiz he parted with his brother, who was just embarking for England, to take up his place in the new Ministry.

[108] As late as Oct. 28 he had written to Colonel Roche, the British officer attached to the staff of the Army of the Centre, to beg him to press on the newly-arrived Areizaga the necessity of adopting a defensive posture, and risking nothing. From the wording of the letter it is clear that no hint of the orders sent to Areizaga from Seville had reached Badajoz. Wellington Dispatches, v. 248-9, see also the dispatch to Castlereagh on p. 267.

[109] See Wellington to Roche, and to B. Frère, Badajoz, Nov. 19. Dispatches, v. 292-3 and 294.

[110] ‘Nothing can save them save a victory by Areizaga, and the possession of Madrid, which are the most improbable of events.... If Del Parque and Albuquerque are destroyed, which is not unlikely, indeed pretty certain ... we must make our arrangements for the defence of Portugal.’ Wellington to Beresford, Nov. 20, 1809.

[111] Wellington’s arguments must be culled from his various dispatches to Lord Liverpool and other ministers in November and December 1809. For the first of the motives quoted above see Wellington to Liverpool Dec. 9. ‘The object in occupying this proposed position [in Beira] is to be at the point of the defence of Portugal, to divert the attention of the French from the South of Spain, when they shall receive their reinforcements, and thus to give time to the Spanish Government to repair their losses.... It is absolutely necessary to cross the Tagus immediately, as it may be depended upon that the enemy’s first effort, after receiving his reinforcements, will be upon the troops to the North of the Tagus.’ Very much the same opinion is expressed in the earlier dispatch to Lord Liverpool of November 14. Expressions of Wellington’s conviction that it was impossible to co-operate with the Junta or the Spanish generals may be found passim in all his confidential letters. See for example that to Sir J. Anstruther, pp. 386-8 of Supplementary Dispatches, vol. vi.

[112] The papers in the Madrid archives show that Copons had about 3,000 men, Zerain (whose division had been almost entirely destroyed) about 1,500.

[113] See vol. ii. pp. 168-9.

[114] See [page 83].

[115] For a typical example of the relations of French governors and the King’s officials see Thiébault’s account of his quarrel with Amoros in his autobiography, iv. 350-5. Cf. Miot de Melito, chapters xi-xii of vol. ii.

[116] Miot de Melito, ii. p. 351.

[117] For all these details see Soult’s dispatches to the Minister of War at Paris, dated Nov. 21 and Nov. 24, from Aranjuez and Madrid. Perreymond had received the cavalry brigade of the 4th Corps when Paris fell in action.

[118] Soult to Clarke, Nov. 21: ‘Sa Majesté a pensé qu’il était inutile qu’elle s’engageât vers la Sierra Morena, à la poursuite des débris de l’armée de la Manche, qu’on ne pourra plus joindre, et qui se sauvent individuellement sur toutes les directions, d’autant plus que tout porte à croire qu’il y aura encore des mouvements sur la droite, et qu’il convient de se mettre en mesure de repousser les nouveaux corps [Albuquerque, Del Parque, and the English] qui pourraient se présenter pour la forcer. Il est aussi pressant de prendre des dispositions pour rétablir l’ordre et la tranquillité dans les provinces de l’intérieur, et pour assurer la liberté des communications. Après la bataille d’Ocaña le roi a aussi en vue de se mettre en mesure d’attendre que Sa Majesté L’Empereur ait jugé à propos de faire connaître ses intentions sur les opérations ultérieures qui devront être faites.’ The entirely false supposition that Albuquerque and the English were on the move was, as Soult afterwards explained, due to a dispatch received from Heudelet at Talavera, who sent in an alarming report that Wellington was expected at Truxillo in a few days. As to the idea that Del Parque might join Albuquerque, the Junta had actually given him an order to do so (see [page 97]), but he had ignored it, and marched on Salamanca.

[119] At the New Year Gazan had 6,600 men present with the eagles, Rey 4,100. See [Tables] at the end of this volume.

[120] See Orders for Loison (in Napoleon to Berthier of Dec. 9), and for Reynier (in Napoleon to Berthier, Dec. 14), in the Correspondance. Reynier was superseded by Lagrange, and sent to command the 2nd Corps a little later.

[121] The Emperor scolds his brother for not sending to Paris the flags taken at Ocaña, and for calling Sebastiani’s 3rd Division ‘the Polish division’ instead of ‘the division of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw!’

[122] In a dispatch dated from the Trianon on Dec. 17.

[123] Jourdan, Mémoires, p. 294.

[124] Napoleon to Berthier, Jan. 31, 1810—giving directions which could not be carried out, because the invasion of Andalusia had begun ten days before the dispatch had been written.

[125] Soult writes plaintively to Berthier, from Madrid, on January 1, 1810: ‘Le Roi croit ne pouvoir différer davantage: ainsi il se met en mesure d’exécuter les dispositions générales de l’Empereur, lorsque Sa Majesté aura daigné les faire connaître; et il est vraisemblable qu’avant que la Sierra Morena soit passée, les ordres, qui out été demandés depuis plus d’un mois, seront parvenus.’ But the order never came.

[126] It may be found set forth in full in Soult’s dispatch to Berthier of Jan. 1, 1810.

[127] See for details pages [111-12].

[128] With the exception of the 58th Regiment, which went on with Sebastiani to the front.

[129] Heudelet, writing from Talavera on Jan. 13, assured the King that he had certain information, by English deserters, that Wellington’s army, 16,000 foot and 7,000 cavalry, was at Merida, Badajoz, and Elvas on Dec. 31. As a matter of fact, the army had marched off between Dec. 9 and Dec. 20, and Wellington himself had retired into Portugal on Christmas Eve. On the day when Heudelet wrote he and his head quarters were at Vizeu, in the Beira.

[130] Viz. by the ‘morning states’ of January 15, in the French War Office, Sebastiani had: Polish Division, 4,809 men; 58th of the Line, 1,630 men; Milhaud’s Dragoons, 1,721 men; Perreymond’s Light Horse, 1,349 men; Artillery and Engineers, 569 men; or a total of 10,078 sabres and bayonets.

[131] Strength apparently: Girard, 7,040; Royal Guards, about 2,500; Spaniards, about 2,000; Cavalry, about 1,500; Artillery, &c., 800.

[132] Gazan’s division, forming the third French column, had 6,414 bayonets; Dessolles’, the extreme right-hand column, 8,354.

[133] Soult’s statement that he lost ‘some 25 men’ (Soult to Berthier, Jan. 21) is no doubt a little exaggerated. But Martinien’s invaluable tables show that Mortier’s corps, which did nearly all the fighting, lost only two officers out of 549 present, probably, therefore, it lost no more than forty men. Dessolles must have lost about the same.

[134] Of his whole 10,000 men only 6,400 were infantry, and Vigodet (with the wrecks of Jacomé’s division) had nearly as many.

[135] For details of their plans see the dispatch of Soult to Berthier, from Andujar under the date of that day.

[136] There was a considerable controversy among French military writers as to whether the omission to march on Cadiz was the fault of Soult or of the King. The authors of Victoires et Conquêtes, having put all the blame on the latter (vol. xx. page 7), his friends hastened to reply. His aide-de-camp Bigarré, who was present with him at the time, explicitly says in his autobiography (pp. 265-6) that the King raised the point, but was talked down by Soult and Dessolles. Miot de Melito (ii. 385) bears witness to the same effect, saying that he heard Soult clinch his argument by crying ‘Qu’on me réponde de Séville, moi je réponds de Cadix.’ Both say that the final decision was made at Carmona. See also Ducasse’s Correspondance du roi Joseph, vii. 142-3, and x. pp. 395-6, where the same story is given by the King himself.

[137] See Soult to Berthier, from Carmona, Jan. 31.

[138] Soult, in his dispatch of Jan. 31, says that the advanced guard of the 1st Corps appeared before Seville hier au soir, i. e. on the 30th. But the Spanish authorities give the evening of the 29th as the true date, and seem to be correct. Possibly Soult is speaking of the first solid force of infantry, and does not count the cavalry as a real advanced guard, but only as a reconnoitring force. As Latour-Maubourg was at Carmona on the 28th, it seems certain that he must have reached Seville (eighteen miles only from Carmona) on the 29th, not the 30th.

[139] Napier (ii. 298) seems unjust to the arrangements of the King and Soult when he writes: ‘From Andujar to Seville is only 100 miles, and the French took ten days to traverse them, a tardiness for which there appears no adequate cause.’ He then attributes it to King Joseph’s wish to make spectacular entries, and to display his benevolence to the Andalusian towns. But the facts are wrong. Joseph reached Andujar late on Jan. 22; Victor’s cavalry was in front of Seville on Jan. 29: this makes seven, not ten, days: and the distance by the direct road via Ecija and Carmona is not 100, but 130 miles. A rate of eighteen miles a day is no bad record for an army advancing through a hostile country, even if it is meeting with no actual resistance. And January days are short, with sunrise late and sunset early.

[140] After a very short tenure of office Fernandez de Leon was superseded by Lardizabal, another American.

[141] It is difficult to make out what precisely were the battalions in Seville on January 23-29. But they certainly included a battalion of the 1st Walloon Guards [the Junta’s old guard], with 1st and 2nd of España and Barbastro from Zerain’s division. It is almost certain that most of Zerain’s other battalions were with these three.

[142] Dessolles’ division had been left behind at Cordova and Andujar, to garrison Upper Andalusia, and to extend a helping hand to Sebastiani, if he should meet with any resistance in his conquest of the kingdom of Granada.

[143] Younger brother of the victor of Baylen.

[144] ‘Sire, il paraît que Cadix veut se défendre. Nous verrons dans quelques jours ce qu’elle fera lorsque nous aurons quelques batteries montées. Si votre Majesté pouvait disposer de l’escadre de Toulon, l’occasion pourrait être bonne.’ Joseph to Napoleon, Sta. Maria, Feb. 18.

[145] 79th, 2nd batt. 87th, and 94th regiments, and the 20th Portuguese line regiment.

[146] See Wellington to Bart. Frère and General Stewart, from Torres Vedras, Feb. 5th, and Vizeu, Feb. 27, 1810.

[147] For a scathing account of the conduct of the Cadiz Junta and its doings see Schepeler, vol. iii. 550-5. Napier very rightly calls it ‘an imperious body without honour, talents, or patriotism’ (ii. 334).

[148] See [Section xix, chapter iv] of this volume.

[149] Miot, ii. 432. Compare Joseph’s hysterical letter to the Emperor (Ducasse, vii. 236): ‘La pacification générale de l’Andalousie sera opérée.... Mais, sire, au nom du sang français et du sang espagnol rappelez Loison, Kellermann, Thouvenot! Ces hommes nous coûtent bien cher!’ It is curious that he, in the same letter, quotes as ‘hommes honnêtes,’ along with Mortier, Suchet, and Reynier, both Soult and Sebastiani, who were plunderers on as large a scale as Kellermann or Loison.

[150] See vol. i. pp. 75, 76.

[151] A student of the War of the Spanish Succession is always surprised to see how much fighting took place on fronts which were left severely alone by the English and French in 1809-12.

[152] See [Map of the Lines of Torres Vedras], in Section xx of this volume, for the environs of Lisbon.

[153] Eliot, in his very judicious remarks on p. 100 of his Defence of Portugal, published just before Masséna’s invasion, sums up the situation with—‘a passage may without any difficulty be forced to the left bank of the Tagus: but then the enemy is as far from the accomplishment of his project as before, the river forming an insuperable barrier if well defended.’

[154] Wellington to Col. Fletcher, commanding Royal Engineers, Oct. 20, 1809 (Dispatches, v. 235): ‘The enemy will probably attack on two distinct lines, the one south, the other north of the Tagus, and the system of defence must be founded upon this general basis.... His object will be, by means of the corps south of the Tagus, to turn the positions which we shall take up in front of the corps north of that river, to cut off from Lisbon the corps opposed to him, and to destroy it by an attack in front and rear. This can be avoided only by the retreat of the right, centre, and left of the allies to a point at which (from the state of the river) they cannot be turned, by the passage of the Tagus by the enemy’s left corps.’

Six days later (Disp. v. 245) Wellington wrote to Admiral Berkeley in similar terms: ‘It is probable that in the event of the enemy being enabled to invade this country in force, he will make his main attack by the right of the Tagus: but he will employ one corps on the left of the river, with the object of embarrassing, if not of preventing, the embarcation of the British army.’

[155] So much so that in Corresp., xx. p. 552, we find him informing Masséna that Badajoz and Elvas need not be touched till after Lisbon has fallen. The first contrary view, ordering a demonstration on the Lower Tagus, appears in the dispatch on p. 273 of vol. xxi.

[156] The above notes on the Castello Branco country and its roads are mostly derived from Eliot’s Defence of Portugal. Eliot has marched all over the region; see his pages 78-81.

[157] For the perilous adventure among these cuttings of a small French column which crossed the Estrada Nova, that which escorted Foy back to Santarem in Feb. 1811, see the autobiography of General Hulot, pp. 325-33. A considerable number of men and horses fell down these cuttings in a forced night-march, and in all several hundred men of Foy’s column perished, starved and storm-beaten on this inhospitable road. The survivors only got through by cutting a slippery foot-track along the precipices: nothing on wheels could have passed that way.

[158] In Foy’s interesting minute of his conversation with Napoleon about the invasion, on Nov. 23, 1810, when he had taken home Masséna’s dispatches: ‘Montrez-moi les deux routes de Ponte de Murcella et de Castello Branco,’ says the Emperor. Then after a pause: ‘Et l’Estrada Nova? Pourquoi Masséna n’a-t-il pas débouché par l’Estrada Nova?’—‘Sire, à cause d’Abrantès et du Zézère.’—‘Oui, Masséna a bien fait; maintenant il faut prendre Abrantès: Elvas ne nous servirait de rien.’ See Foy’s Mémoires, p. 111.

[159] There were some others thrown up on the extreme lower course of the Zezere, by Barca Nova and Punhete, to guard against a possible but unlikely use of the Castello Branco road by the enemy.

[160] Wellington to Hill (Disp., vi. p. 441), Sept. 15.

[161] Wellington to Chas. Stuart, Sept. 18.

[162] Nap. Corresp., xx. p. 117. Napoleon to Berthier.

[163] Ibid., p. 271.

[164] Napoleon to Masséna, July 29, 1810, Corresp., xx. p. 552.

[165] For his views just after Talavera see vol. ii. of this work, pages 609-10.

[166] ‘I strongly recommend to you, unless you mean to incur the risk of the loss of your army, not to have anything to do with Spanish warfare, on any ground whatever, in the existing state of things.... If you should take up Cadiz you must lay down Portugal.’ Wellington to Castlereagh, Dispatches, v. 90.

[167] See vol. ii. pages 286-8.

[168] See also vol. ii. page 286, of this book.

[169] All these quotations are from Wellington to Lord Liverpool, April 2, 1810, a long dispatch written from Vizeu, every word of which is well worth study.

[170] I found these passages in letters to Sir John Le Marchant, then in command at the Staff College at High Wycombe, from a highly-placed friend in Portugal. It is notable that other contemporary epistles from younger men, old pupils of Le Marchant, show a far more cheery spirit. The correspondence (from which I shall have many other passages to quote) was placed at my disposition by the kindness of Sir Henry Le Marchant, grandson of Sir John.

[171] See vol. ii. pages 440-1 and 620.

[172] See vol. ii. pages 600-1. Beresford had some 18,000 men with him.

[173] See tables in vol. ii. pages 629-31.

[174] On Sept. 15, 1809, the 22nd, which had been destroyed by Soult at Oporto, had only 193 men. The 8th had but 369, the 15th 577, the 24th 505.

[175] Ten regiments present at Bussaco had over 1,100 men each, only one less than 800. This was the 22nd, mentioned above as practically non-existent a year before. It had only recruited up to the strength of one battalion: all the rest had two. The strongest regiment was the 11th with 1,438 men.

[176] See vol. ii. pages 210-15.

[177] This unpublished document here quoted, along with the whole of Sir Benjamin’s journal and correspondence, has been placed at my disposal by his grandson, Mr. D’Urban. They are invaluable for the Portuguese aspect of the War.

[178] This rule I find definitely laid down in a letter of Hardinge, Beresford’s Quartermaster-general, written as late as 1812, but the practice was already in full use by 1810.

[179] For narratives of the daily life of a British officer in a Portuguese regiment see Bunbury’s Reminiscences of a Veteran, and Blakiston’s Twelve Years of Military Adventure. Both had their difficulties, but both, on the whole, got on well with their colleagues. D’Urban’s correspondence supplies a frequent commentary on regimental problems.

[180] How this was done may be read in Blakiston.

[181] See Bunbury, p. 54.

[182] They were dressed in dark brown instead of in the rifle green. The shako, coat, and trousers were of the British model.

[183] Silveira was the despair of Beresford and his chief-of-the-staff D’Urban. The latter writes (Apr. 19, 1810): ‘This general is the most extraordinary of all the people in this extraordinary country. Perpetually fluctuating—incapable of standing still—always wishing to move backward or forward—all his movements to no purpose but that of harassing his troops. The man is either very weak or very designing—perhaps both. Anyhow he is a mischievous charlatan, and I wish the Marshal would not yield to the prejudices of the people by employing him.’

[184] Viz. the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 7th, 10th, 11th, 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 19th of the line, and the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Caçadores.

[185] Wellington to Hill, Jan. 24, 1810.

[186] Wellington to Villiers, Jan. 25, 1810.

[187] D’Urban writes, May 4, ‘Such is the poverty, imbecility, and want of arrangement of the Portuguese government, that any regular system of supply is not to be expected. The whole civil branch of the army is in such a state of confusion, that I hold it impossible to carry on active operations for more than a few weeks.’

[188] I note in D’Urban’s diary, when he was making an inspection tour with Beresford at the end of the winter, ‘At Sardão a very good regiment of militia, 1,100 strong, that of Maia.’ ‘Abrantes, two regiments of militia, Lousão 1,035, Soure 1,035, all armed.’ But, on the other hand, ‘Vizeu, Arganil, Trancoso, ordered to be assembled at Almeida, have only—the first 867, the second 600, the last 505 firelocks, and the description of troops the very worst.’ Of course the numbers were somewhat higher by the next August.

[189] These regiments were Lagos, Tavira, Beja, Evora, Villaviciosa, Portalegre, Alcazar do Sul, Setubal.

[190] It may be well to name, once for all, the composition of these Militia Brigades. They were distributed as follows:—

Of Miller’s division, I think, but am not sure, that the last four were those detached under Wilson in September.

[191] D’Urban to Wilson, and Trant to Wilson, after two unfortunate incidents in 1812, when the militia had been more or less under arms for two whole years. The former are in D’Urban’s, the latter in Wilson’s correspondence.

[192] Dumouriez, State of Portugal, page 22. There was, however, one notable combat at Villa Pouca in the Tras-os-Montes where a whole Spanish column of 3,000 men was defeated by the Ordenança.

[193] Unlike the many French writers who content themselves with denouncing Wellington’s inhumanity, Pelet (Masséna’s chief confidant) confesses that the English general’s plan was perfectly logical. In his Aperçu de la Campagne de Portugal, he writes, ‘On a critiqué sans raison son système de guerre. Il était à peu près infaillible contre un ennemi inférieur en nombre. Mais peu de généraux oseront “sauver un pays” d’une telle manière.’

[194] Continuation of Vertot’s History of Portugal, ii. 51.

[195] Dumouriez’s State of Portugal, p. 21, n.

[196] For these officers and their duties see vol. ii. pp. 221-2.

[197] Wellington to Beresford, Vizeu, Feb. 28, 1810, long before the actual invasion.

[198] D’Urban says in his diary (Dec. 8, 1809): ‘Inspected Peniche. The isthmus over which the peninsula is approached is covered with water at high tide, and from the line of works describing a sort of arc, very powerful cross-fires may be established upon every part of it. There are nearly 100 good guns upon the work, the brass ones especially good. This is the most favourable position that can he conceived for embarking the British army, should it ever be necessary to do so. The circumference abounds with creeks and clefts in the rocks, inside which there is always smooth water, and easy egress for boats. They are out of the reach of fire from the mainland: indeed, there is sufficient room to encamp a large force perfectly beyond the range of the enemy. If it should be thought worth while, this peninsula could be held by England, even if Portugal otherwise were in the power of the enemy. There is abundance of water. If it be the wish of Lord Wellington he can retire upon Lisbon, give battle in front of it, and, if the day go against him, retreat upon Peniche and defend it so long as he pleases.’

[199] D’Urban has a long disquisition on Abrantes in his diary. Its weak points, he says, were an outlying hill on the Punhete road, which gave a favourable position for hostile batteries, and the friable nature of the gravelly soil, which did not bind well in trenches and outworks.

[200] For these views of Aug. and Sept. 1809, see vol. ii. p. 610.

[201] Wellington to Lord Liverpool, Dispatches, vi. p. 435.

[202] A man of whom all Portuguese writers speak with respect; even Napier notes him (ii. 386) as ‘a man of talent and discretion.’ But Wellington seems to have disliked him. ‘The admission of Dr. Raymundo Nogueira to the Regency, and the reasons of his admission, were truly ludicrous ... his appointment is to be agreeable to the lower orders—from among whom he is selected!’ (Wellington to Charles Stuart, Celorico, Aug. 4, 1810.)

[203] ‘Faites-moi connaître la marche que vous faites faire aux 66e, 82e, 26e, etc., etc.: lorsque j’entrerai en Espagne cela me pourra faire une force de 18,000 hommes.’ Napoleon to Clarke, Schönbrunn, July 18.

[204] Napoleon to Clarke, Schönbrunn, Sept. 7.

[205] Napoleon to Clarke, memoranda for King Joseph, Oct. 3, 1809.

[206] Same to same, Oct. 7, 1809.

[207] Napoleon to Berthier, Nov. 28.

[208] Napoleon to Clarke, Dec. 5. Minute for the Privy Council dated Dec. 15, in the Correspondance.

[209] The civil ceremony took place on the first, the religious on the second of these two days.

[210] Napoleon to Berthier, Paris, Feb. 12.

[211] On Feb. 16: see Napoleon to King Joseph, Paris, Feb. 23.

[212] Napoleon to Clarke, April 22, 1810. Not in the Correspondance, but given at length by Ducasse in his Memoirs of King Joseph, vii. 275.

[213] Note that the 4th Corps had left behind in Madrid 6,000 men of its 1st division (the 28th Léger, 32nd and 75th Line) and taken on instead 8,000 men of the division Dessolles, properly forming part of the ‘Army of the Centre.’

[214] Loison’s division of the 6th Corps received these stray battalions, which were united to those of the same regiments which had crossed the Pyrenees with him. They consisted of a battalion each of the Légion du Midi, of the Légion Hanovrienne, the 26th, 66th, 82nd of the line, and the 32nd Léger.

[215] All these figures are inclusive of men sick and detached, the former about 16,000, the latter 44,000.

[216] Junot’s original corps was reinforced by the 22nd of the line (4 batts.) drawn from the Prussian fortresses, and by some units which had hitherto been doing garrison duty in Navarrese and Biscayan fortresses, where they were now replaced by the Young Guard. Among these were the Irish Brigade (2 batts.) and the Prussian regiment which had formed the original garrison of Pampeluna.

[217] For details of this corps and its services see the monograph, La Gendarmerie en Espagne et Portugal, by E. Martin, Paris, 1898.

[218] Nine battalions as follows: Two of Nassau, the others from Gotha, Weimar, Altenburg, Waldeck, Reuss, Schwarzburg, Anhalt, and Lippe; strength about 6,000 men.

[219] The 4th battalions ultimately retained in Junot’s corps did not for the most part belong to regiments of the Spanish army, but to regiments in Germany or the colonies. They are over and above the 66 fourth battalions accounted for in the list above. For details of the whole set of reinforcements see Tables in [Appendix].

[220] Over and above the ordinary death-rate for French troops quartered in Spain, which was very high, we have to allow for the losses at Tamames, Ocaña, the conquest of Andalusia, the sieges of Astorga, Gerona, Ciudad Rodrigo, and Almeida, and all smaller engagements.

[221] This division had charge of the Provinces of Leon, Zamora, and Salamanca, which were not a ‘military government.’

[222] Roughly, on May 15, 2nd Corps 20,000 men, 6th ditto 35,000, 8th ditto 26,000, Cavalry reserve 5,000, effectives present under arms, besides the sick, who made up about 12,000 more, and some 6,000 men detached. See Tables in [Appendix].

[223] The Emperor once confiscated 3,000,000 francs which Masséna had collected by selling licences to trade with the English at Leghorn and other Italian ports. See the Memoirs of General Lamarque, who carried out the seizure.

[224] See Thiébault, iv. 375; Marbot, ii. 380-1; Duchesse d’Abrantes, viii. 50. All these may be called scandal-mongers, but the lady’s presence, and the troubles to which it gave rise, are chronicled by more serious authorities.

[225] See Foy’s complaints on p. 114 of his Vie Militaire (ed. Girod de L’Ain) as to the way in which the Marshal suspected him of undermining his favour with the Emperor.

[226] See Lord Stanhope’s Conversations with the Duke of Wellington, p. 20.

[227] This comes from an eye-witness with no grudge against Masséna, Hulot, commanding the artillery of the 8th Corps. See his Mémoires, p. 303.

[228] Foy, p. 101. The Emperor, a notoriously bad shot, lodged some pellets in the Marshal’s left eye while letting fly at a pheasant. Napoleon turned round and accused his faithful Berthier of having fired the shot: the Prince of Neuchâtel was courtier enough to take the blame without a word, and in official histories appears as the culprit (see e. g. Amic’s Masséna, p. 272); for other notes see Guingret, p. 250. What is most astonishing is that Masséna was complaisant enough to affect to blame Berthier for the disaster.

[229] See the admirable summary of all this in Foy’s diary (Girod de L’Ain), p. 101. Marbot gives the same views at bottom, but with his usual exaggeration, and with ‘illustrative anecdotes,’ occasionally of doubtful accuracy.

[230] Note Pelet’s Aperçu sur la Campagne de Portugal, nearly forty pages in the Appendix to Victoires et Conquêtes, vol. xxi: for his disputes with Baron Fririon see the Spectateur Militaire for 1841. Pelet says, ignoring the chief of the staff entirely, ‘qu’il était investi de la confiance absolue du maréchal: qu’il faisait seul auprès de lui tout le travail militaire et politique, qu’il dirigeait la haute correspondance avec le major-général (Berthier) et les chefs de corps, etc., etc.’ For Fririon’s comparative impotence see a story on p. 387 of Marbot’s vol. ii, which may or may not be true—probably the former.

Pelet’s writings give a poor impression of his brain-power and his love of exact truth. He says, for example, in his Aperçu that Masséna had only 40,000 men in his army of invasion, when it is certain that he had 64,000. See Baron Fririon’s remarks on him in Spectateur Militaire, June 1841, pp. 1-5.

[231] Napoleon to Clarke, Oct. 30, 1809.

[232] See for example Jan. 20, 1810, to Berthier; Jan. 31, to same; Feb. 12, to same.

[233] Correspondance, vol. xx, Napoleon to Berthier, Feb. 12, 1810.

[234] Soult had given up the 2nd Corps when he became King Joseph’s Major-General: Reynier, appointed to command it, had not yet appeared.

[235] ‘Il faut prévoir que les Anglais peuvent marcher sur Talavera pour faire diversion,’ wrote Napoleon on Jan. 31 to Berthier. But Heudelet had been moved before his caution could reach Madrid.

[236] Hill’s division, two brigades strong at Talavera in August, had received a third brigade in September under Catlin Craufurd, consisting of the 2/28th, 2/34th, and 2/39th.

[237] Composed of the 2nd, 4th, 10th, and 14th regiments, each two battalions strong, with 4,500 bayonets.

[238] 1st and 4th Portuguese cavalry.

[239] He had 7,094 men with the colours, besides sick and detached, by the imperial muster rolls of Jan. 15, 1810.

[240] I cannot understand Napier’s narrative of this little campaign, on pages 352-4 of his vol. ii. It runs as follows, and seems to have no relation to the facts detailed by Belmas, Toreno, Arteche, or any other historian. No mention is made of the four captures of Oviedo!

‘Mahy was organizing a second army at Lugo and in the Asturias. D’Arco [Arce] commanded 7,000 men, 3,000 of whom were posted at Cornellana under General Ponte.... Bonnet, from the Asturias, threatened Galicia by the Concija d’Ibas: having destroyed Ponte’s force at Potes de la Sierra [30 miles from Colombres, where the actual fight took place], he menaced Galicia by the pass of Nava de Suarna

This last blunder is apparently borrowed from Victoires et Conquêtes, xx. 12, which states that General Bonnet detached Jeannin’s brigade, the 46th and 65th, to Astorga. But these regiments did not belong to Bonnet, but were, from the first to the last, parts of Junot’s own corps, and never entered the Asturias. Compare Napoleon, Correspondance, xx. 21, the muster rolls of Jan. 1, Feb. 15, and Belmas, iii. p. 46.

[241] Napoleon to Berthier, Jan. 11, 1810.

[242] See [p. 76].

[243] For the letters of Loison to Santocildes and the reply of the Spanish brigadier, see the correspondence in Belmas, iii. pp. 53-6.

[244] Loison to Berthier, Feb. 16, from La Baneza.

[245] For notes as to the cause and execution of this abortive movement, see the diary of Ney’s aide de camp, Sprünglin, pages 402-3.

[246] Wellington to Craufurd, Feb. 16. Compare similar remarks in Wellington to Beresford, from Vizeu, Feb. 21, 1810.

[247] Even the 8th Corps had to leave guns behind at Bayonne for want of horses, Belmas, ii. 13.

[248] There are good narratives in the autobiographies of Noël and Hulot of the artillery, beside the excellent account in Belmas, vol. iii.

[249] Only consisting of four 24-pounders, one 16-pounder, four 12-pounders, eight 6-inch howitzers, and one 6-inch mortar. See Belmas, iii. 28.

[250] ‘Les Espagnols rispostèrent avec vivacité; on s’étonnait d’autant plus que, le parapet étant en pierres sèches, chaque boulet qui le frappait en faisait jaillir de nombreux éclats.’ Belmas, iii. 34.

[251] Two officers and forty-nine men killed, ten officers and ninety-nine men wounded, according to his official report to the Junta, in which all details are duly given.

[252] See the figures in Junot’s dispatch, given on pages 66-7 of Belmas, vol. iii.

[253] Napoleon to Berthier, May 29, 1810.

[254] Serras’ division consisted of the 113th Line, a Tuscan regiment originally employed in Catalonia, which had been so cut up in 1809 that it had been sent back to refill its cadres; also of the 4th of the Vistula (two battalions), a Polish regiment raised in 1810, with four provisional battalions, and three stray battalions belonging to regiments in the South, which had not been allowed to go on to join Soult [4th battalions of the 32nd and 58th Line and of 12th Léger]: his total strength was 8,000 men.

[255] See the curious dispatch no. 16651, of July 14, directing Suchet to be ready to send half his corps to Valladolid after he should have taken Tortosa.

[256] The head quarters of the 43rd during January and February were at Valverde, above the Coa, those of the 52nd at Pinhel, those of the 95th at Villa Torpim.

[257] On Craufurd’s complaint that the 2nd Caçadores were badly commanded and too full of boys. He repeatedly asked for, and ultimately obtained, the 3rd battalion in place of the 2nd, because of his confidence in Elder.

[258] Note especially Wellington’s explanatory dispatch to Craufurd of March 8, where he even goes so far as to give his subordinate a free hand as to the choice of his line: ‘You must be a better judge of the details of this question than I can be, and I wish you to consider them, in order to be able to carry the plan into execution when I shall send it to you.’ In another letter Wellington writes: ‘Nothing can be of greater advantage to me than to have the benefit of your opinion on any subject.’

[259] ‘I intend that the divisions of Generals Cole and Picton should support you on the Coa, without waiting for orders from me, if it should be necessary, and they shall be directed accordingly.’ 8th March, from Vizeu.

[260] It should not be forgotten that Picton, no less than Craufurd, was at this time living down an old disaster. But Picton’s misfortune had not been military. It was the celebrated case of Rex v. Picton. He had been tried for permitting the use of torture to extract evidence against criminals while governor of the newly conquered island of Trinidad, and convicted, though Spanish law (which was still in force in Trinidad) apparently permitted of the practice. After this Picton was a marked man. The story of Luisa Calderon, the quadroon girl who had been tortured by ‘picketing,’ had been appearing intermittently in the columns of every Whig paper for more than three years.

[261] His elder brother, Sir Charles Craufurd, was Deputy-Adjutant-General, and M.P. for Retford. Windham, the Secretary for War, was his devoted friend.

[262] Though senior in the date of his first commission to nearly all the officers of the Peninsular army, Craufurd was six years junior to Picton, and one year junior to Hope. Graham, much his senior in age, had only entered the army in 1793.

[263] Such as Shaw-Kennedy, William Campbell, Kincaid, and Lord Seaton.

[264] For Craufurd’s life and personality see his biography by his grandson the Rev. Alex. Craufurd, London, 1890. The most vivid picture of him is in Rifleman Harris’s chronicle of the Corunna retreat, a wonderful piece of narrative by a writer from the ranks, who admired his general despite of all his severity, and acknowledges that his methods were necessary. Though Napier as a historian is on the whole fairly just to his old commander, whose achievements were bound up indissolubly with the glories of the Light Division, as a man he disliked Craufurd: in one of his hooks which I possess (Delagrave’s Campagne de Portugal) he has written in the margin several bitter personal remarks about him, very unlike the language employed in his history. The unpublished Journal of Colonel McLeod of the 43rd is (as Mr. Alex. Craufurd informs me) written in the same spirit. So is Charles Napier’s Diary.

[265] As an Appendix to Lord F. Fitz-Clarence’s Manual of Outpost Duties.

[266] One of the most curious points in Shaw-Kennedy’s Diary [p. 218] is that from the reports of deserters Craufurd succeeded in reconstructing the exact composition of Ney’s corps, in brigades and battalions, with a final error of only one battalion and 2,000 men too few.

[267] Shaw-Kennedy, Diary, pp. 142 and 147.

[268] Herrasti’s report gives 1st of Majorca 706 officers and men, Avila and Segovia militia 857 and 317 respectively, three battalions of volunteers of Ciudad Rodrigo 2,242, Urban guard 750, artillery 375, sappers 60; total, with some details added, 5,510, not including Sanchez’s Partida. See Belmas, iii. 314.

[269] See Sprünglin’s Journal, p. 417.

[270] May 2, to Craufurd.

[271] On June 1 Craufurd calculated the troops in front of Ciudad Rodrigo, by counting regiments and battalions, at over 25,000 men. There were really 30,000, and the under-estimate came from allowing only 550 men to a battalion, while they really averaged 650. About the same time Craufurd estimated the parts of Junot’s corps in the neighbourhood to be 13,000 men: they were really nearly 17,000. The cause of error was the same. See Shaw-Kennedy’s Diary, pages 190-5. The estimates are corrected, on fuller information, early in July, see ibid., p. 220.

[272] To Charles Stuart, June 8, and to Hill, June 9.

[273] This movement, unchronicled elsewhere, appears in D’Urban’s diary, April 26. ‘The Portuguese ordered to the front, consisting of two brigades of artillery, 4th and 6th Caçadores, 1st and 16th (Pack), 7th and 19th (Coleman), 6th and 18th (Alex. Campbell), 11th and 23rd (Collins), 9th and 21st (Harvey) of the Line. They all go into march on the 28th, and will arrive by successive brigades at Celorico in four days.’

[274] At this moment the total force of the allied army was:—

1st Division (all British)6,000bayonets.
3rd Division British2,500with Harvey’s Portuguese1,800
4th Division British4,000with Collins’s Portuguese2,500
Light Division British2,500with 2 Caçador Batts.1,000
Pack’s, Campbell’s, and Coleman’s Portuguese brigades8,000
Cavalry (British)2,100Portuguese700
Artillery (British)1,000Portuguese600
18,100 14,600

[275] Dispatches, vi. p. 172.

[276] D’Urban, for example, wrote in his journal on June 18 that he took the daring step of suggesting a surprise attack on Ney to the General. No notice was taken of his suggestion.

[277] Picton summed up the situation in a letter to a friend [see Robinson’s Life of Picton, i. 273] very clearly: ‘If we attempt to relieve the place the French will drive us out of Portugal: while if they get possession of it, they will lose time, which is more important to them than Ciudad Rodrigo. But they have got to find this out.’

[278] A slight under-estimate, as it would seem, for with La Carrera’s force the whole would have been 36,000 sabres and bayonets. Of the 3,000 cavalry 700 were Portuguese and 300 Spaniards.

[279] Wellington to Henry Wellesley, June 20.

[280] Wellington to Craufurd, June 24.

[281] Wellington to Hill, July 9.

[282] These were Napoleon’s dispatches nos. 16,505, 16,519-20, and 16,504, as is shown by the excellent analysis of them given by D’Urban in his diary. He read them over with Beresford on July 1. No. 16,519 was very valuable, as giving the exact strength of the 2nd, 6th, and 8th Corps—the first absolutely certain analysis of them that Wellington obtained.

[283] These were the 3/1st, 1/9th, 2/38th, which arrived at Lisbon April 1-8. Leith’s division was formally constituted only on July 15, but really existed since June.

[284] See the Emperor’s dispatches to Berthier of May 27 and May 29.

[285] Masséna came up from Salamanca this day to inspect the bombardment, and made (as was his wont) a rather mendacious report thereon to the Emperor, declaring that the French loss had been 12 killed and 41 wounded, whereas it had exceeded 100 [see Belmas, iii. p. 233], and that the defence of the place was seriously impaired—which it was not as yet.

[286] Belmas, iii. 245, July 2.

[287] See Shaw-Kennedy’s Diary, pp. 208-9 and 211.

[288] Belmas, iii. 250. For the conduct of the Hussars see Beamish’s German Legion, i. pp. 274-6. Martinien’s lists show that the 1st French dragoons lost one, the 2nd three, and the 4th one officer on this day.

[289] See the criticisms in Belmas, iii. 259. Compare the views of the artilleryman Hulot, pages 306-9 of his autobiography.

[290] Viz. three squadrons of the 14th, one (Krauchenberg’s) of the 1st Hussars K.G.L., and two of the 16th. The other two squadrons of the hussars, and the 4th squadron of the 14th, were holding the outpost line to right and left.

[291] It is certain that both charged, and both were beaten off. But the regimental diarists of the two regiments each mention only the repulse of the squadron from the other corps. See Tompkinson (of the 16th), Diary, p. 31, and Von Linsingen’s letter (from the 1st Hussars), printed in Beamish, i. 279-80.

[292] Von Grüben’s squadron of the K.G.L. Hussars, and the fourth squadron of the 14th Light Dragoons, neither of which formed part of Craufurd’s little expedition. The former had been watching Villa de Ciervo, the latter was on outpost duty.

[293] Charles Napier in his diary [Life, i. p. 132] and Tomkinson [p. 31] accuse Craufurd of reckless haste. Harry Smith, in his autobiography [i. p. 22], holds that the Rifles could have got up in time to force the square to surrender. Leach [p. 142] makes much the same comment. All these were eye-witnesses. Yet it would have taken some time to bring up the guns or the infantry, and the French were near broken ground, over which they might have escaped, if not immediately assailed. See also Craufurd’s Life by his grandson, pp. 114-16.

[294] Among these officers was General Stewart, the adjutant-general, see Wellington to Craufurd, from Alverca, July 23, a very interesting letter, commented on in the Life of Craufurd, pp. 117-20.

[295] Hulot (p. 36) says that he met the square retiring, and noticed that numbers of the bayonets and gun-barrels had been cut and bent by the blows of the English dragoons, as they tried to force their way in. See Masséna’s dispatch to Berthier of Aug. 10, in Belmas’s Pièces Justificatives.

[296] Wellington to Craufurd from Alverca, July 16.

[297] Wellington to Craufurd from Alverca, July 22, 8 p.m.

[298] The 43rd on the left, the two Caçador battalions in the centre, the 52nd on the right, while the Rifles were partly dispersed along the front, partly with the 43rd.

[299] Simmons’s Journal of a British Rifleman, p. 77.

[300] Of this, O’Hare’s Company of the 1/95th, sixty-seven strong, an officer and eleven men were killed or wounded and forty-five were taken prisoners.

[301] Leach’s Reminiscences, pp. 149-50.

[302] The Chasseurs de la Siège formed of picked marksmen from all the regiments of the 6th Corps.

[303] That Ney himself was the person responsible for this mad adventure seems proved by the journal of Sprünglin, who writes ‘À midi je reçus de M. le Maréchal lui-même l’ordre d’emporter à tout prix le pont de la Coa, d’où deux compagnies de Grenadiers venaient d’être repoussés. J’avais 300 hommes; je formai mon bataillon en colonne et abordai les Anglais à la baïonnette, et au cri de Vive l’Empereur. Le pont fut emporté, mais j’eus 4 officiers et 86 soldats tués, et 3 officiers et 144 soldats blessés. Le 25 le bataillon, étant détruit, fut dissous.’ That the bridge was ‘emporté’ in any other sense than that a score or so of survivors got to the other side, and then returned, is of course untrue. Sprünglin, p. 439.

[304] For an interesting description of this incident, see George Napier’s autobiography, p. 131.

[305] Thirty-six killed, 189 wounded, 83 missing. See Tables in [Appendix].

[306] Martinien’s invaluable lists show 7 officers killed and 17 wounded, which at the normal rate of 22 men per officer, exactly corresponds to the actual loss of 117 killed and 410 wounded (Koch, vii. 118).

[307] It is a curious fact that in the draft of Masséna’s dispatch in the Archives du Ministère de la Guerre, we actually catch him in the act of falsifying returns. There is first written ‘Nous leur avons pris 100 hommes et deux pièces de canon. Notre perte a été de près de 500 hommes tant tués que blessés.’ Then the figures 100 are scratched out and above is inserted ‘un drapeau et 400 hommes,’ while for the French loss 500 is scratched out and 300 inserted. Ney, whose dispatch was lying before Masséna, had honestly written that Craufurd ‘a été chassé de sa position avec une perte considérable de tués et de blessés, nous lui avons fait en outre une centaine de prisonniers.’ Ney reported also a loss of about 500 men, which Masséna deliberately cut down to 300. Belmas (iii. 379) has replaced the genuine figures in his reprint of Masséna’s dispatch, though both the draft in the Archives and the original publication in the Moniteur give the falsifications. Masséna says nought of the check at the bridge, though Ney honestly wrote ‘au delà du Coa, une réserve qu’il avait lui permis de se reconnaître, et il continue sa retraite sur Pinhel la nuit du 24.’ As to the guns captured, it was perfectly true that some cannon were taken that day, but not in fighting, nor from Craufurd. The governor of Almeida was mounting two small guns (4-pounders) on a windmill some way outside the glacis. They had not been got up to their position, but were lying below—removed from their carriages, in order to be slung up more easily on to the roof. The mill was abandoned when Ney came up, and the dismounted cannon fell into his hands. He said not a word of them, any more than he did of the imaginary flag alleged by Masséna to have been captured. But the Prince of Essling brought in both, to please the imperial palate, which yearned for British flags and guns. His dispatch, published some weeks later in the Moniteur, came into Craufurd’s hands in November, and provoked him to write a vindication of his conduct, and a contradiction of ‘the false assertions contained in Marshal Masséna’s report of an action which was not only highly honourable to the Light Division, but positively terminated in its favour, notwithstanding the extraordinary disparity of numbers. For a corps of 4,000 men performed, in the face of an army of 24,000, one of the most difficult operations of war,—a retreat from a broken and extensive position over one narrow defile, and defended during the whole day the first defensible position that was to be found in the neighbourhood of the place where the action commenced.’ For the whole letter see Alex. Craufurd’s Life of Craufurd, pp. 140-1.

[308] See the letter to Craufurd in the Dispatches, dated July 26 and 27. His letter to Lord Liverpool of July 25 offers, indeed, excuses for Craufurd. But in that to Henry Wellesley of July 27, and still more in that to his relative Pole of July 31, he expresses vexation. ‘I had positively forbidden the foolish affairs in which Craufurd involved his outposts, ... and repeated my injunction that he should not engage in an affair on the right of the river.... You will say in this case, “Why not accuse Craufurd?” I answer, “Because if I am to be hanged for it, I cannot accuse a man who I believe has meant well, and whose error was one of judgement, not of intention.”’

[309] See Craufurd’s Life, pp. 149-50.

[310] This interview was denied by Robinson in his Life of Picton (i. 294) on the mere allegation of some of Picton’s staff that they had not heard of it, or been present at it. But the evidence of William Campbell, Craufurd’s brigade-major, brought forward by Napier at Robinson’s challenge, is conclusive. See Napier, vi. pp. 418-19, for the ‘fiery looks and violent rejoinders’ witnessed by Campbell. Picton had been specially ordered to support Craufurd if necessary. See Wellington Dispatches, v. pp. 535 and 547.

[311] This came from the extreme hardness of the soil, which induced the builders of the 18th-century enceinte to put less earth into the glacis than was needed, since it had to be scraped up and carried from a great distance, owing to the fact that the coating of soil all around is so thin above the rock.

[312] Wellington to Hill, Alverca, July 27, ‘There is not the smallest appearance of the enemy’s intending to attack Almeida, and I conclude that as soon as they have got together their force, they will make a dash at us, and endeavour to make our retreat as difficult as possible.’

[313] For details of this combat see Foy’s observations on p. 97 of his Vie Militaire, ed. Girod de L’Ain.

[314] For a narrative of these obscure campaigns see Schaller’s Souvenirs d’un officier Fribourgeois, pp. 29-37.

[315] See ibid., pp. 32-3.

[316] For a narrative of these interesting but obscure movements, see Schepeler, iii. 596-9. It is impossible to give a full account of them here, but necessary to mention them, to show the Sisyphean character of Bonnet’s task.

[317] This version of the cause of the disaster is given by Soriano da Luz (iii. 73) from the mouth of an artillery officer (one José Moreira) who had it from the only man in the castle-yard who escaped. This soldier, seeing the train fired, jumped into an oven-hole which lay behind him, and chanced not to be killed.

[318] Sprünglin’s Journal, pp. 444-5.

[319] There is a good account of this interview in Sprünglin’s Journal, p. 445, the diarist having accompanied Pelet into the town.

[320] The First Portuguese Legion, which served against Austria in 1809, was composed of the troops drafted out of the Peninsula by Junot in 1808 during his domination at Lisbon.

[321] D’Urban’s diary reports that 450 men and 18 officers of the 24th of the Line came in between the 2nd and 4th of September to Silveira’s outposts; a still larger number reached Wellington’s.

[322] D’Urban has most gloomy remarks on the subject in his diary, under the date Aug. 30.

[323] To Chas. Stuart, from Celorico, Aug. 31.

[324] To Chas. Stuart, from Celorico, Sept. 11.

[325] Wellington to Masséna, Sept. 24. ‘Votre excellence s’est engagée que les officiers et les soldats de la milice retourneraient chez eux: malgré cet engagement vous en avez retenu 7 officiers et 200 soldats de chaque régiment, pour en faire un corps de pionniers. La capitulation d’Almeida est donc nulle, et je suis en droit d’en faire ce que je voudrais. Mais je puis vous assurer qu’il n’y a pas un seul soldat de la milice qui était en Almeida au service.’

[326] For details of all this, including the curious terms of the Portuguese sentence for high treason, see Soriano da Luz, iii. 80-109, and 719-22. The attempts to exculpate Barreiros seem inadequate. Da Costa was shot, not for treason, but for cowardice and mutiny.

[327] See Wellington to Hill of Aug. 31, Sept. 1, Sept. 4, Sept. 6. The Commander-in-Chief was much worried by a false rumour that Reynier was already in force at Sabugal on Aug. 31, and then by an equally false one that the whole 2nd Corps had marched south towards the Tagus, and was about to cross it near Alcantara (see the letter to La Romana of Sept. 6). As a matter of fact, Reynier made no definite move from Zarza till Sept. 10, though he had made feints, in both the directions indicated, with small forces.

[328] That this possibility was in Wellington’s mind is shown by the letter to La Romana of Sept. 6, from Gouvea, in which he writes, ‘Vous aurez appris les mouvements du corps de Regnier de la part du Général Hill. Ou l’ennemi va faire le mouvement sur notre droite (dont je vous ai écrit) ou il va faire le siège de Badajoz. On dit que du canon a passé d’Almeida à Sabugal, et de là vers Regnier, mais je ne sais pas si c’est vrai, ou si c’est du canon de siège.... Vous savez ce qu’il faut faire si on se met entre nous deux, en passant le Tage à Villa Velha, ou au-dessous de la jonction.’

[329] Suchet in his Mémoires (i. 77) says that in Jan. 1810 his corps was only 20,000 strong. But the imperial muster-rolls show that it had 23,000 présents sous les armes, besides 1,819 men in hospital and 973 detached, in that month.

[330] See [p. 123] of this volume.

[331] See [p. 222].

[332] See [p. 200].

[333] Whether the Conde de Pozoblanco and the other persons executed were really traitors is very doubtful. Napier takes them as such (ii. 303), Suchet denies it (p. 100); Schepeler says (iii. 627) that proclamations of King Joseph and treasonable letters were found in the Count’s house. Toreno (ii. 124) remains doubtful, but points out that Caro and Pozoblanco were old enemies, and thinks that, at any rate, there was personal spite in the matter.

[334] Dated from Compiègne on April 9 and April 20. See Correspondance, xx. 284 and 299.

[335] In January, Verdier’s French and Westphalian divisions could only show 6,000 men in line and 7,000 in hospital. Muster roll of Jan. 15 in the Archives Nationaux.

[336] The text of this bloodthirsty document may be found in Belmas, i. 429. There are details of its execution in Barckhausen, who mentions that several priests were among the victims.

[337] See pp. [62], [63] of this volume.

[338] Duhesme, or the friend writing under his name, gives himself most handsome and unconvincing testimonials in the narrative printed in 1823, as part of the Mémoires sur la Guerre d’Espagne. They contrast strangely with Arteche’s quotations from Barcelonese local writers.

[339] Napoleon to Clarke, Compiègne, April 24, 1810.

[340] 1st Léger (three batts.), 42nd Ligne (three batts.), 93rd Ligne (one batt.), and 7th Ligne (one batt.). Meanwhile the other battalion of the 7th Ligne and that of the 3rd Léger were holding back the miqueletes. The cavalry were the 24th Dragoons, 3rd Provisional Chasseurs (soon afterwards rechristened the 29th Chasseurs), and half the Italian ‘Dragoons of Napoleon.’

[341] This regiment had been formed on the ‘cadre’ of the old Swiss regiment of Beschard, by means of deserters from the German and Italian troops of the French Army of Catalonia.

[342] Martinien’s lists show 29 officers killed and wounded, which, at the usual rate, presupposes about 600 or 700 casualties. Napier, Schepeler, and Arteche all three state the French loss at 1,000 or 1,200—evidently too high.

[343] Correspondance, 16411. From Compiègne, 24 April, 1810.

[344] Severoli’s division alone numbered 6,900 foot and 900 horse, at the moment.

[345] Napoleon to Clarke, Feb. 19, from Paris. Cf. another dispatch of Feb. 26, no. 16294 of the Correspondance.

[346] See vol. i. pp. 309-11.

[347] The Lippe-Bückeburg officer Barckhausen says in his diary that only 20 officers and 620 men were lost. But Martinien’s lists show 30 officers of the Nassau, ducal Saxon, and Anhalt-Lippe regiments killed or wounded at or near Manresa on the 2nd-5th of April.

[348] For details of Villatte’s expedition see Vacani, iv. 140-1.

[349] According to Spanish accounts this included much ill-gotten property belonging to the Marshal himself, and other superior officers. Ferrer (see Arteche, viii. 203) declares that Augereau carried off all the furniture of the Royal Palace.

[350] For a defence of the Marshal on these lines, see Victoires et Conquêtes, vol. xx. pp. 52-3.

[351] About 56,000 in all, but 10,000 were in hospital or detached.

[352] One battalion of Iliberia (or 1st of Granada) and one tercio of levies from the province of Gerona: total strength about 1,200 bayonets.

[353] See Correspondance, 16411, Napoleon to Clarke, of April 24, and 16500, same to same of May 23.

[354] It was with a detachment of this column that Severoli’s flanking party under Villatte got into communication on April 4, as detailed above, [page 296].

[355] For his strength at this moment, see the table which he gives in his Mémoires, vol. i, Appendix 4. His figures cannot always be trusted: for instance, purporting in this table to give his whole force, present at Lerida or detached in Aragon, he omits the six squadrons of gendarmerie which were guarding his rear [37 officers, 1,121 men] and the four battalions of Chasseurs des Montagnes, who were garrisoning Jaca, Venasque, &c. [about 2,000 men].

[356] Suchet says that he took 5,600 prisoners, a figure that appears quite impossible, as Schepeler rightly remarks (iii. 649). Ibarrola’s division had only 4,000 bayonets, and of that of Pirez only the one Swiss battalion was seriously engaged. Moreover, Ibarrola’s division was not absolutely exterminated, for O’Donnell on April 26 issued an order of the day, in which he thanks the division for its courage, and praises the battalions which kept their ranks and re-formed behind those of Pirez, ‘returning in good order to occupy the position (Juneda), from which they had started at dawn.’ See the document, printed in Arteche’s Appendix, no. 12 of vol. viii. I should doubt if 2,000 prisoners were not nearer the mark than 5,600.

[357] Figures probably correct. Martinien’s lists show one officer killed and two wounded; of the latter, one was the cavalry general Boussard.

[358] One or two cases can also be quoted from the European Middle Ages.

[359] Suchet, Mémoires, i. pp. 147-8.

[360] Napier, ii. 322.

[361] Napoleon to Berthier, Correspondance, May 29, 1810.

[362] To please the Catalans, who hated the idea of long service, the enlistment in the Legions was made for two years only, and the men were to be entitled to fifteen days’ leave during each half-year of service.

[363] Though not always. See the case of the revenue from the quicksilver mines, in Correspondance, no. 17,076.

[364] Cf. ibid., July 10, to Soult.

[365] There was desperate quarrelling with Madrid when Soult tried to get hold of the port-revenues—small as these were, owing to the English blockade—and when he tried to nominate consuls on his own authority. See Ducasse’s Correspondance du Roi Joseph, vol. vii. p. 337.

[366] 3rd and 4th Chasseurs à Cheval, both present at Albuera and other fights in Estremadura in 1810-12. They seem to have gone to pieces on the evacuation of Andalusia in the autumn of 1812.

[367] Cazadores de Jaen, Francos de Montaña, &c. There was a company of this sort in Badajoz when it was taken in 1812. The Spanish government shot the officers after trial by court martial.

[368] Cf. Observations by his aide-de-camp St. Chamans, in his Memoirs, pp. 203-5, as to the Marshal’s administration. It may serve as an example of the liberal way in which the superior officers were allowed to draw in money, that Soult gave his ex-aide-de-camp 1,500 francs a month, when he was commanding in the town of Carmona, besides his pay and free food and quarters. It is small wonder that he and other governors began, as he said, ‘à trancher du grand seigneur.’ Cf. Arteche, viii. 109, for Spanish views on Soult’s administration.

[369] There is a good account of the desperate life of the garrison of Matagorda during the bombardment in the Eventful Life of a Scottish Soldier, by Sergeant Donaldson of the 94th.

[370] See the letter of Charles Vaughan deploring the ‘beastly necessity of firing into the poor devils’ quoted by Napier in his Appendix, vol. ii. p. 482. For a narrative by one of the escaping French officers see the Mémoires of Colonel Chalbrand.

[371] Nothing can be more distressing reading than the chronicles of the Cabrera prisoners, Ducor, Guillemard, Gille and others. Actual cannibalism is said to have occurred during the longest of the spells of fasting caused by the non-arrival of provisions. [See Gille, p. 240.]

[372] See pp. [213-14] of this volume and p. [246].

[373] See pp. [215-16] of this volume.

[374] See Wellington Dispatches, v. p. 292, &c., and Stanhope’s Conversations with the Duke of Wellington, pp. 10 and 23.

[375] For strange and scandalous details of Sebastiani’s doings in Murcia, see Schepeler, iii. pp. 566-7.

[376] Martinien’s lists show that the 40th regiment of Girard’s division lost four officers at Albondonates, and the 64th the same number at Grazalema—so the skirmishes must have been fairly vigorous.

[377] That Lacy’s force was not so entirely destroyed as Napier implies is shown by the fact that many of the same regiments could be utilized for the subsequent expedition to the Condado de Niebla.

[378] For illustrative anecdotes of warfare in the Serrania de Ronda, see the autobiography of Rocca of the 2nd Hussars, who was busy in this region in the spring and summer of 1810.

[379] See pp. [246-7] of this volume.

[380] Not marked in any contemporary map that I have seen. It is situated, however, opposite the junction of the River Almonte with the Tagus, about eighteen miles above Alcantara, near the ancient ruined bridge of Mantible.

[381] Which had just rejoined him from the north, after the fall of Ciudad Rodrigo. See [p. 253].

[382] See Wellington, Dispatches, vi. p. 343. ‘I am a little anxious about Mortier’s movement into Estremadura, not on account of the progress he can make, but because I think that the Marquis de la Romana is inclined to fight a battle. If we could only avoid a disaster for some time, I hope we may do some good at last.’ Cf. also vi. pp. 348 and 393.

[383] The brigade consisted of three squadrons each of the 5th and 8th regiments, and two of the 3rd. Beresford’s report to Wellington speaks of their behaviour in the highest terms. See Soriano da Luz, vol. iii. pp. 66-7.

[384] Dissatisfied with all his cavalry officers, La Romana had removed La Carrera to the command of the horse, making over his old infantry division to Carlos d’España.

[385] The 4th Corps was now a little stronger than it had been in the spring, the 32nd regiment, 2,000 strong, having joined from Madrid. But it was still short of its German division, which now lay in La Mancha, but had never crossed the Sierra Morena.

[386] See [p. 328] of this chapter.

[387] Lord Blayney, a humorous person save when the absurdities of his own generalship were in question, wrote an interesting narrative of his ‘Forced Journey to France,’ which contains one of the best accounts of the state of Madrid under King Joseph’s government, as well as some curious notes on the state of the English prisoners at Verdun in 1811-13.

[388] From the 32nd and 58th Line, Rey’s brigade of Sebastiani’s corps. The 88th, in Victoires et Conquêtes, xx. 127, and Arteche is a misprint. That regiment was with Girard in the Sierra Morena, 150 miles away.

[389] The 8th Corps had in its ranks the 4th battalions of the following regiments whose first three battalions were in the south of Spain, and belonged to the 1st, 4th, or 5th corps—the 28th, 34th, and 75th. But the 9th Corps was almost entirely composed of 4th battalions of the corps of Victor, Sebastiani, and Mortier, including those of the 8th, 24th, 45th, 54th, 63rd, 94th, 95th, 96th Line, and 16th and 27th Léger, of the 1st corps, and of the 17th Léger, and 40th, 88th, 100th and 103rd Line of the 5th Corps.

[390] 28th and 75th, the remaining brigade of the 1st Division of the 4th Corps, which never joined Sebastiani in Andalusia.

[391] 26th Chasseurs and 3rd Dutch Hussars.

[392] 17th, 18th, 19th, and 27th Dragoons, only two squadrons each—only 1,300 men.

[393] As a sample of their behaviour it may be mentioned that the whole guard of the south gate of Toledo once marched off to join the insurgents, officers and all.

[394] Wellington to Masséna, Sept. 9 and Sept. 24.

[395] Masséna to Wellington, Sept. 14, from Fort Concepcion (Archives du Ministère de la Guerre).

[396] In the Archives du Ministère de la Guerre, see [Appendix] to this vol.

[397] For details see the Tables in the [Appendix]. All the troops left behind have been rigidly deducted. The figures given by Fririon, 59,806, are not quite exact, see proofs in Appendix: he makes some troops enter Portugal which were left as garrisons, and on the other hand omits whole battalions which marched, as if they had never existed.

[398] The troops left behind were the fifth battalion of the 82nd, the fourth battalions of the 15th and 86th, and a provisional battalion of convalescents, or about 2,000 infantry; a squadron of the 3rd Dragoons (157 men), the whole of the 10th Dragoons (718 men) under Gardanne, and some 800 men belonging to the siege-train and park.

[399] To Cotton and to Leith, both dated Sept. 17.

[400] For a most interesting article on these maps, and all that they show, see Mr. T. J. Andrews’s article in the English Historical Review for 1901. The maps, captured at Vittoria, are now in the Library of Queen’s College, Belfast.

[401] Mémoires of Col. Noël, pp. 112-13.

[402] A lively account of this affair may be found in Marbot, ii. 378; details may not be all trustworthy, but the general narrative agrees with Trant’s report, printed in Soriano da Luz, vol. vii, Appendix.

[403] Report of Lambert, Intendant-General, dated Vizeu, Sept. 23.

[404] Wellington to Lord Liverpool, from Lorvão, Sept. 20.

[405] Indeed, an exploring party under Captain Somers Cocks, of the 16th Light Dragoons, had dogged the steps of the detachment, and counted every battalion. See Tomkinson’s Diary, pp. 39-40.

[406] Wellington to Charles Stuart, Sept. 18.

[407] Wellington to Lord Liverpool, Sept. 20.

[408] Ibid., Sept. 20.

[409] Wellington to Stapleton Cotton, Sept. 21.

[410] See the orders in the Archives du Ministère de la Guerre.

[411] It is this interchange of troops which makes all the figures of the Army of Portugal so divergent. Fririon, for example, ignores it, as do most French statisticians. But see Masséna’s orders (14), and the ‘situations’ in the Archives of Sept. 14 and Sept. 27 respectively.

[412] According to Napier (iii. 22-3) Craufurd risked his division somewhat in their skirmish. But this criticism is not made by D’Urban, Leach, and other eye-witnesses.

[413] The Light Division had been first divided into brigades on Aug. 8, when the 1st was constituted of the 43rd, four companies of the 95th, and the 1st Caçadores, under Beckwith: the 2nd of the 52nd, four companies of the 95th, and the 3rd Caçadores, under Barclay. See Atkinson’s lists of the Peninsular Army in the Eng. Hist. Rev.

[414] There are two monuments: this simple weather-beaten obelisk on the culminating height where the 1st Division stood, a point where no fighting took place, and the modern column lower down and close to the high-road, behind the spot where Craufurd fought. Here the Portuguese to this day maintain a small military post, and hoist a flag to do honour to the victory.

[415] Which makes astounding Fririon’s statement that it was only three-quarters of a league long (p. 46).

[416] Archibald Campbell’s and Fonseca’s brigades, forming Hamilton’s Portuguese Division, which was attached to the British 2nd Division throughout the war, and shared with it the triumphs of Albuera, Vittoria, and St. Pierre.

[417] This is the feature which Napier, somewhat hyperbolically, describes as ‘a chasm so profound that the naked eye could hardly distinguish the movement of troops in the bottom, yet so narrow in parts that 12-pounders could range across (iii. 21).’ It does not, as he says, separate the Serra de Bussaco from the last ridge in front of it, that which the French held, as it only lay in front of Craufurd and Pack. There is no chasm between Spencer’s, Picton’s, Leith’s, or Hill’s position and the French knolls.

[418] See the letter quoted on [page 358].

[419] See Marbot, ii. p. 384—if that lively writer may be trusted.

[420] See Foy’s account of his interview with the Emperor in his Vie Militaire, p. 108.

[421] This unpublished document from the Archives du Ministère de la Guerre seems to have escaped all historians.

[422] These orders are printed in the [Appendix].

[423] So Fririon in his Campagne de Portugal, p. 47. But his enemy Pelet says (Vic. et Conq., xxi. p. 321) that Ney, like Reynier, ‘demanda la bataille à grands cris.’ Cf., for what it is worth, Marbot’s tale, ii. 384.

[424] All this is told at great length in Koch’s Vie de Masséna, vii. p. 192, where the Council of War is described with many details.

[425] Grattan’s Adventures with the 88th, pp. 28-9, and Leith Hay, i. 231.

[426] Masséna’s orders for the battle call Reynier’s attack one on ‘la droite de l’armée ennemie,’ but it was really on the right-centre, Hill and Leith extending for four miles south of the point assailed.

[427] The Mémoires of Lemonnier Delafosse, a captain in the 31st Léger, give an excellent and clear account of its sufferings, see pp. 69-70 of his work.

[428] Grattan’s Adventure with the Connaught Rangers, p. 35.

[429] Picton to Wellington, Supplementary Dispatches, vi. p. 635. I do not know whether Wallace really descended from the famous Sir William, but Craufurd of the Light Division (as his descendant and biographer has pointed out to me) chanced to have a connexion with the Knight of Ellerslie.

[430] Leith’s nephew and aide-de-camp, Leith Hay, had explored all the villages in this direction on the previous afternoon, with a squadron of Portuguese horse, see his Narrative, i. 381.

[431] Picton and Leith each rather slur over the part taken by the other in their parallel narratives of the crisis. Picton says that he took command of Leith’s troops: ‘at this moment Major-General Leith’s aide-de-camp came up to report the arrival of that general and his division, on which I rode from the post of San Antonio to the road of communication, and directed the leading regiment of the brigade to proceed without loss of time to the left, as I had no occasion for assistance. General Leith’s brigade, in consequence, moved on and arrived in time to join the five companies of the 45th and the 8th Portuguese in repulsing the enemy’s last attempt.’ Leith, on the other hand, speaks of having taken command of some of Picton’s troops, as if the latter had not been present, and says nought of their conversation. ‘Major-General Leith thereupon directed a movement of succession, ordering Colonel Douglas with the right battalion of the 8th Portuguese to support the point attacked. He also directed the 9th Portuguese under Colonel Sutton (belonging to Major-General Picton’s division) to move up to the support of General Picton’s division,’ and again, ‘He (General Leith) ordered the 8th and 9th Portuguese to support the point attacked, and where the enemy were fast gaining ground.’ Each general speaks as if he had been in command, and I fear that each is using undue reticence as to the other’s doings. See [note] at the end of this chapter.

[432] Napier calls it a ‘precipice,’ but this is not the right word. I found that I could walk freely about on it, but no formed body of men could have passed up the slope.

[433] Foy’s diary, pp. 103-4, tallies exactly with Leith’s narrative in Wellington Supplementary Dispatches, vi. 678, and Cameron’s letter in Napier, Appendix to vol. vi.

[434] Viz. British: Mackinnon’s 1/88th, 1/45th, 74th, Barnes’s 3/1st, 1/9th, 2/38th. Portuguese: Champlemond’s 9th Line (2 batts.) and 21st Line (1 batt.), with the 8th from Leith’s division (2 batts.). Spry’s brigade and the Lusitanian Legion from Leith were never under fire, and did not lose a man. Picton’s left brigade (Lightburne) was never engaged, save that the light companies of the 5th and 83rd, far down the slope, lost eight and four men respectively. The Thomar militia bolted before coming under fire.

[435] A passage of Napier’s account of the movements of the Light Division (iii. 27) has puzzled many readers. ‘Eighteen hundred British bayonets went sparkling over the brow of the hill. Yet so hardy were the leading French that every man of the first section raised his musket, and two officers and ten soldiers (of the 52nd) fell before them. Not a Frenchman had missed his mark!’ This passage looks as if the whole French division had been conceived by Napier as moving in a single column with a front of only twelve men. An eye-witness, Sir John Bell, of the 52nd, who owned the copy of the book which I now have before me, has written Bosh! in the margin against the words. Of course the enemy was advancing with each battalion in column of companies, with a front of thirty at least. What Napier seems to have had in his head was an anecdote told by his brother George (Autobiography, p. 143). ‘My company met the very head of the French column, and immediately calling to my men to form column of sections, in order to give more force to our rush, we dashed forward. I was in front of my men a yard or two, when a Frenchman made a plunge at me with his bayonet, and at the same time received the contents of his musket under my hip and fell. At the same instant they fired upon my front section, consisting of about nine men in the front rank, all of whom fell, four dead, the rest wounded.’ But this does not imply that the French column was only twelve broad.

[436] Sprünglin, Ney’s aide-de-camp, gives an account of his being detached with these voltigeurs, on p. 450 of his diary. He lost 142 men. It must have been in contending with these companies that the 1st Division (excluding the German brigade, occupied elsewhere) got the 89 casualties returned by Wellington, as also the 5/60 their 24 casualties. The only one of the British battalions in this quarter which had an appreciable number of men hurt was the 1/79th. Its regimental history says that its light company was almost cut off at the commencement of the day. The captain was taken prisoner—being the only British officer captured that day—with six men, and there were over 40 other casualties. Stopford’s brigade lost two men—Lord Blantyre’s seven.

[437] This too in a dispatch to Berthier dated Coimbra, Oct. 4, three days after the returns had been placed before him.

[438] For these returns, see Appendix, [no. xiii]. They are certainly incomplete, omitting (1) losses of the cavalry of the 2nd Corps (where Martinien’s invaluable tables show that three officers were wounded), (2) losses of the 8th Corps, which caught a few shells as it stood on the heights by Moura and had (as again shown by Martinien’s tables) six officers hit, which must imply some hundred men. (3) Some casualties in the infantry omitted in the returns, for while the report accounts for 253 killed and wounded officers, Martinien names 275. Deducting the cavalry and 8th Corps losses mentioned above, there are still fifteen officers (and therefore presumably 250 men) too few given in the reports sent in to Masséna; e.g. for the 2nd Léger the report has eighteen officers hit, Martinien gives the names of twenty-two.

[439] Viz. all Reynier’s Corps, save the 47th, twenty-two battalions; Marchand eleven battalions, Loison twelve battalions—total 26,000 men. See Tables in [Appendix].

[440] Viz. the brigades of Mackinnon and Champlemond of the 3rd Division: the 1st, 9th, 38th, British, and the 8th Portuguese of Leith, Craufurd’s five battalions, Pack’s five battalions, three battalions of Coleman—total 14,000 men. See Tables in [Appendix].

[441] As a matter of fact, the modern railway from Coimbra and Pampilhosa to the upper Mondego does not use the pass of Bussaco, but goes north of it, round the left flank of Wellington’s position, by Luso, far south of the Boialvo road to Mortagoa.

[442] The firing commenced soon after 12 noon. See Tomkinson, p. 44.

[443] This was imagined to be the case by some observers, who overrated Masséna’s loss, and thought he had 10,000 casualties on the 27th.

[444] See, for example, Fririon, pp. 55-6, Toreno, ii. 164. Thiers, and even Napier, iii. 32-3.

[445] Dispatches, vi. 460. Had he proposed to blast away sections, so as to make it impassable for wheel traffic, as he did with the Estrada Nova?

[446] Dispatches, vii. pp. 306-7.

[447] See Tomkinson, p. 44, and von Linsingen’s Diary, in Beamish, i. 292. Fririon and the other French narratives speak of the difficulties of transporting the wounded, but do not mention that any were abandoned.

[448] Unless some of Reynier’s rearguard cavalry may have looked in at Bussaco on the 30th, when Craufurd had gone. This is possible. Trant’s Portuguese were back in the place on Oct. 4.

[449] This seems proved by the ‘Table of Damages committed by the French Army in 1810-11,’ published by the Coimbra authorities in 1812, which gives the number of houses burnt and persons killed in each rural-deanery (arcyprestado) of the bishopric of Coimbra. Omitting the rural-deaneries south of the Mondego, where the damages were mainly done during the retreat of the French in March 1811, and taking only those north of the river, where no hostile column appeared after October 1810—the district having been protected by Trant and Wilson during Masséna’s return march,—we find the following statistics:—

Deanery of Mortagoa108murders19villages and 47 isolated houses burnt.
Deanery of Oliveirinha102murders100houses burnt.
Deanery of Arazede99murders124houses burnt.
Deanery of Coimbra city14murders7houses burnt.

The figures for the deaneries south of Mondego (Soure, Arganil, Redinha, Miranda do Corvo, Sinde, Cea) are enormously higher. See Soriano da Luz, iii. 203.

[450] I cannot resist quoting here Trant’s account of the engagement. He was a man of quaint humour, and the all too few letters from him to General J. Wilson, which have come into my hands by the courtesy of Wilson’s representative, Captain Bertram Chambers, R.N., inspire me with regret that I have not his whole correspondence. ‘I have once more been putting my fellows to a trial—my Caçadore battalion did not do as it ought, and had about thirty killed, wounded, and prisoners, without making scarcely any resistance—a pleasant business. On the 30th I was still at Agueda (Sardão and Agueda are one village, properly speaking, but divided by a bridge), though I was aware that the French principal force of cavalry was at Boyalva, only a league from Agueda, and I was completely cut off from the army. On that morning I had withdrawn the infantry to the Vouga, but placed my dragoons close to Agueda to observe the French, with the Caçadores at a half-way distance to support them. I put them in the most advantageous possible position, protected by a close pine wood, through which the French cavalry must pass. I had been from three in the morning till one o’clock, making my arrangements, and had just sat down to eat something, in a small village on the left of the Vouga, when a dragoon came flying to inform me that the French were coming on with two columns of cavalry in full speed. My coffee was not ready, and remained for the French to amuse themselves with. I had only time to get the Penafiel regiment over the bridge when the French arrived—five minutes sooner and I had been nabbed! I drew up in a good position, but the French did not cross the Vouga, and I returned to Oliveira without molestation—but not without a damned false alarm and panic on the part of the dragoons who were covering my rear. They galloped through the infantry, and carried confusion and all the comforts of hell to Oporto! Lieutenant-Colonel ‘Bravoure Bombasto,’ who commanded the Caçadores, ordered his men to fire, but thought that enough for his honour, as he instantly left them to shift for themselves, and never looked behind till he reached Oporto. I put this fellow, with four of the leading dragoons, into the common dungeon of this place, and am about to inflict some divisional punishment, for I daren’t report such conduct to the Marshal (Beresford), who does not punish by halves! My regiments of infantry—this is the brighter side of the picture—showed no agitation, notwithstanding the attack on their nerves. The enemy’s force, I now ascertain, was 800 cavalry, two pieces, and two infantry regiments. The cavalry alone would have done my business if they had crossed the Vouga! But they contented themselves with driving in the dragoons and the Caçadore battalion from Agueda. God bless you. N.T.’

[451] Tomkinson, p. 47.

[452] Lord Londonderry, ii. p. 12.

[453] See Beamish’s History of the King’s German Legion, i. 293-4, and Tomkinson, p. 46.

[454] De Grey’s brigade, though it had no regular fighting, lost five prisoners and one trooper wounded in this same retreat. The total loss of the cavalry that day was thirty-four men.

[455] Colonel Noël’s Souvenirs Militaires, pp. 120-1.

[456] The authority for this statement is the Portuguese renegade General Pamplona, who served on the Marshal’s staff. See p. 155 of his Aperçu sur les campagnes des Français en Portugal. Pamplona adds that Ney refused to take the present of a large telescope, which Masséna sent him as a propitiatory gift. A less certain authority says that the Marshal caught in the street a plunderer with a barrel of butter, and another with a chest of wax candles, and let them off punishment on condition that they took them to his own quarters! Soriano da Luz, iii. p. 198.

[457] Fririon, in his account of these debates (pp. 72-3), forgets that the existence of the Lines of Torres Vedras was still unknown both to Masséna and his subordinates. So does Delagrave (pp. 93-4). But Pelet, Masséna’s confidant, is positive that they were first heard of from prisoners taken at Pombal on Oct. 5, two days after the advance had recommenced.

[458] Foy’s minutes of his conversation with the Emperor on Nov. 22, sent by him to Masséna, in his letter of Dec. 4. See Appendix to Foy’s Vie Militaire by Girod de L’Ain, p. 348.

[459] So Guingret, of the 6th Corps, who mentions that his own regiment received notice that no garrison was to be left, only just in time to enable it to pick up its slightly wounded and footsore men, who would otherwise have remained behind. (Memoirs, p. 79.)

[460] The best summing up of the Marshal’s resolve may be found in Foy’s minute presented to Napoleon on Nov. 22: ‘Le prince n’a pas pu se résoudre à faire un fort détachement lorsqu’il devait livrer sous peu de jours une bataille décisive à une armée déjà victorieuse et deux fois plus nombreuse[!] que la notre. Les dangers que couraient ses malades ont affligé son cœur, mais il a pensé que la crainte de perdre l’hôpital ne devait pas arrêter la campagne.’ (Foy’s Vie Militaire, Appendix, p. 348.)

[461] Though Slade’s brigade had the rearguard on the 7th, and was engaged on the 8th also, Anson’s only was in touch with the French on the 4th-6th, and again on the 9th-10th.

[462] This was the case with Picton’s division, despite its splendid services and heavy loss at Bussaco, only ten days back. Leith’s British brigade and the Lusitanian Legion are also specially upbraided for straggling. See General Orders for 1810, pp. 173-4.

[463] The brigade was not complete, the Feira battalion having—somehow or other—got to Lisbon. But Porto, Penafiel, Coimbra, Aveiro, Maia, and a combined battalion of light companies were apparently present.

[464] See Trant’s dispatch to Beresford in Soriano da Luz, vii, Appendix, p. 221.

[465] As for example Delagrave, p. 197, and Fririon, p. 75.

[466] Trant delivered nearly 400 British and Portuguese wounded, whom Wellington had been obliged to leave behind at Coimbra, as non-transportable.

[467] Sprünglin writes, under Oct. 7, in his Diary: ‘Lorsque le sort des malheureux abandonnés à Coimbre fut connu dans l’armée, on murmura hautement contre le Prince d’Essling. On qualifia de coupable entêtement et de barbarie sa conduite à Busaco et l’abandon des blessés à Coimbre. Il faut avouer que le maréchal Ney, le général Reynier et le duc d’Abrantes ne firent rien pour faire cesser ces murmures. Dès lors l’armée perdit de sa force, parce que le général-en-chef n’avait plus la confiance de ses soldats.’ Cf. Guingret, p. 79.

[468] ‘Rather a new style of war, to place guns in a village and the troops protecting them a mile in the rear.’—Tomkinson, p. 51.

[469] Readers interested in cavalry work should read Beamish, i. 298-301, and Tomkinson, 52-3, who have admirable accounts of this rearguard fighting.

[470] For this reason the dismal picture of the situation drawn by Napier (iii. 38-9) must be considered exaggerated. The French main army was further off than he imagines; it had not passed Alcoentre. The cavalry could have done nothing against the heights, and Taupin’s brigade would have been crushed if it had endeavoured to enter the gap. But it never came within ten miles of the exposed point on the 10th and 11th, not having passed Alemquer. The Light Division diarists do not treat seriously the position which Napier paints in such gloomy colours. See Leach, p. 172, and Simmons, p. 111. The Light Division countermarched from Sobral to Arruda and reached their proper post long before midnight. There they picked up a detachment of 150 convalescents and recruits from Lisbon, who, had been waiting for them. Among these were Harry Smith and Simmons, who have accounts of the arrival of the division ‘after dark,’ and of its relief at finding large fires already lighted and provisions prepared by the draft.

[471] For Sousa’s arguments, see Soriano da Luz, iii. pp. 130-44. That author thinks the Principal’s arguments weighty, and sees no harm in the fact that he set them forth in public and private. Cf. Wellington, Dispatches, vi. 430.

[472] See Wellington to Charles Stuart, Sept. 9, and to Lord Liverpool, Sept. 13, 1810, Dispatches, vol. vi. pp. 420-30.

[473] See Soriano da Luz, iii. 90-9, for a list of them, and Wellington’s Dispatches, vi. 433, for the protest against the deportation; also ibid. 528-9.

[474] Dispatches, vi. p. 493.

[475] Dispatches, vi. 521. ‘When they have got mules and carriages, by injudicious seizure, they do not employ them, but the animals and people are kept starving and shivering, while we still want provisions.’

[476] Ibid., vi. p. 506.

[477] See Soriano da Luz, iii. p. 142. For text of it his Appendix, vii. 178-9. The answer was only written on Feb. 11, 1811, and only got to Wellington in April when the crisis was over.

[478] Or two vintems Portuguese money.

[479] Or six, and afterwards ten, vintems. See Jones, Lines of Torres Vedras, p. 77.

[480] Jones, p. 79.

[481] Id., p. 107.

[482] Major Jones to Col. Fletcher, the chief engineer, then absent on a visit to Wellingtons head quarters. See Jones, Lines of Torres Vedras, p. 187.

[483] Jones, Lines, p. 26.

[484] Afterwards, when Masséna had arrived, increased to sixteen redoubts with seventy-five guns. See Jones, p. 113.

[485] Jones, Lines, p. 173. ‘An extent of upwards of 2,000 yards on the left has been so cut and blasted along its summit as to give a continuous scarp, everywhere exceeding 10 feet in height, and covered for its whole length by both musketry and cannon.’

[486] By an astonishing blunder the camp of Torres Vedras is placed by Napier in his map (and apparently in his text also) south of the river Zizandre, on the main line of heights, while in reality it was a great tête-du-pont covering the only passage from north to south over the stream and its bogs.

[487] See note to that effect in Jones, p. 21.

[488] The third division (Picton) only, behind Torres Vedras. Behind the Alhandra-Arruda section were the 2nd (Hill), Hamilton’s Portuguese, and the Light Division; in the central part the 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th Divisions and three unattached Portuguese brigades (Pack, Coleman, and Al. Campbell).

[489] About 5,800 rank and file, with 250 officers and 350 sergeants and drummers, by mid-winter return.

[490] For all these changes see Atkinson’s admirable ‘Composition of the British Army in the Peninsula,’ printed in the English Historical Review.

[491] The 12th and 13th line regiments and the 5th Caçadores, not much over 2,500 bayonets in all.

[492] Idanha, Castello Branco, Covilhão.

[493] Thomar, Leiria, Santarem; the fourth battalion (Tondella) was in garrison at Peniche, as was also a considerable body of dépôt troops from the line, half-trained recruits, &c.

[494] 1, 2, 3, and 4 of Lisbon, and Torres Vedras.

[495] Feira and Vizeu, properly belonging to Trant’s corps, but somehow separated from it.

[496] Setubal and Alcaçer do Sul.

[497] Who had now resigned the command of the cavalry, and gone back to his old infantry division.

[498] The ‘Vanguard’ and 2nd Division of his army.

[499] Dispatches, vi. p. 544.

[500] Correspondance, xxi. pp. 273, 295.

[501] Dispatches, vi. 502, to Craufurd.

[502] Wellington to Spencer, afternoon of Oct. 11, Dispatches, vi. 505.

[503] Wellington to Craufurd, same day, Dispatches, vi. 504.

[504] Wellington to Chas. Stuart, Dispatches, vi. 506. D’Urban’s invaluable diary has the note. ‘Oct. 11: ’Tis difficult to account for all this, which must be vexatious to the Commander-in-Chief, who, aware of the importance of the heights in front of Sobral, must have wished to keep them for the present.... Oct. 12: In the morning the enemy was no more to be seen, and what we should never have given up, we were fortunately permitted to re-occupy. But at nightfall the French, with about six battalions, retook the height and town of Sobral.’

[505] Of the nineteen casualties, nine belonged to the newly-landed 71st, four to the German Legion, six to the company of the 5/60th attached to Erskine. See Return in Record Office.

[506] Sainte-Croix had been the Marshal’s chief-of-the-staff during the Wagram campaign, and was generally reputed to have been responsible for some of the boldest moves made by Masséna’s army during that period.

[507] That Fririon is correct in dating Sainte-Croix’s death on the 12th, and Delagrave and others wrong in placing it on the 16th, is proved by an entry in D’Urban’s diary of Oct. 15, stating that it had just been discovered that the general killed in front of Alhandra was called Sainte-Croix. Clearly then he was dead before the 16th.

[508] For his dispositions for resisting the suspected attack see Dispatches, vi. pp. 507-9 of Oct. 13. The line running from right to left was (1) Pack’s Portuguese in the great redoubt facing Sobral, (2) 1st Division between the redoubt and Zibreira, (3) Picton touching Spencer’s left, (4) Cole touching Picton’s left, (5) Campbell (new 6th Division) on Cole’s left, reaching to the Portello redoubts. Each of these divisions had one brigade in reserve. A separate general reserve was formed by Leith behind the right, and Coleman’s and Alex. Campbell’s Portuguese behind the left.

[509] I find in the note to Gachot’s excellent editions of Delagrave’s Campagne de Portugal that the losses of the French on this day were 157 men, those of the allies 139. The last statement, one sufficiently probable in itself, cannot be verified from any British source that I have found: Wellington, annexed to the document on page 511 of vol. vi of the Dispatches, gives the loss of Cole’s British brigades in detail—they amount to twenty-five men only. But he does not give details of Hervey’s Portuguese, though he mentions that the brigadier was wounded, and that the two regiments (Nos. 11 and 23 of the Line) distinguished themselves. They may well have lost the 124 men mentioned by Gachot, but I have no proof of it. Vere’s usually accurate ‘Marches of the 4th Division’ gives no figures for this day, nor does D’Urban’s Diary. Wellington remarks that ‘the attack of this day on General Cole’s pickets near Sobral was without much effect.’ It is certain, however, that the British lost a little ground in front of the heights. Martinien’s Liste des officiers tués et blessés, which I so often find of use, shows that Junot’s corps lost two officers killed and seven wounded. This, at the usual average, would imply 150-180 casualties.

[510] For his position and character, see [p. 209] of this volume.

[511] This figure is, of course, a ludicrous exaggeration. Masséna had still more than 50,000 men. Even on Jan. 1, 1811, after suffering two months more of untold privation, the Army of Portugal was still 44,000 strong, plus sick and men detached.

[512] Pelet’s Appendice sur la Guerre d’Espagne, p. 323 of vol. xxi of Victoires et Conquêtes.

[513] Delagrave, p. 100.

[514] Of the sixty-seven British casualties, thirty-eight were in the 71st, the rest in the neighbouring brigades of the 1st Division. Noël—who had charge of the battery at Sobral, estimates the French loss at 120—very probably the correct one, as Martinien’s lists show one officer killed and six wounded, all in Ménard’s brigade. This should mean 120-150 casualties. Delagrave gives the higher figure of 200 killed and wounded, probably an overstatement.

[515] Masséna was clearly seen from the British Lines. Leith Hay, a staff-officer of the 5th Division, noted ‘a crowd of officers on horseback, dragoons with led horses, and all the cortége of a general-in-chief’ (Narrative, p. 249), and saw the Marshal dismount by the windmill above Sobral. He was watching from Pack’s redoubt, on the hill just opposite, through his telescope, about 2,000 yards from the French front. It is Jones who, on p. 40 of his Lines of Torres Vedras, gives the anecdote about the Marshal’s salute.

[516] See Foy’s Vie Militaire, Appendix, p. 343.

[517] Wellington to Craufurd, Dispatches, vi. p. 517.

[518] D’Urban’s Journal, under Oct. 15.

[519] For the miseries and dangers of life in Rodrigo, see the Memoirs of the Duchesse d’Abrantes. Her letter to Junot, intercepted by Wellington, tells the same tale: it is to be found in D’Urban’s collection of documents.

[520] See Correspondance, vol. xxi. pp. 262, 280, 338, &c.

[521] See Fririon, pp. 57-8.

[522] See above, [p. 277].

[523] Ferey’s brigade, which had already faced Craufurd at Bussaco.

[524] According to Fririon, p. 98, the morning state of Nov. 1 showed only 46,591 men effective. But the figures of that officer are always a little lower than what I have found in the official documents.

[525] The first morning note of D’Urban’s diary in November is nearly always ‘more deserters arrived.’

[526] See Wellington to Lord Liverpool, Dispatches, vi. 554.

[527] See especially the longer dispatch of Nov. 3, on pp. 582-3 ibid.

[528] Loison, to whom Ferey’s brigade belonged, had gone to the rear with his other brigade.

[529] The whole dispatch may be found in Fririon, pp. 96-7. That officer quite saw the danger of the position: see his comments on pp. 99-100.

[530] Wellington also, on Lobo’s report, thought (Dispatches, vi. 604) that Foy’s and Montbrun’s object had been to seize the bridge of Villa Velha.

[531] Only part of Claparéde’s division had as yet even reached Salamanca. Foy to Masséna, Nov. 8, from Rodrigo.

[532] échauffourée.

[533] This is the order in Correspondance, 17,097. It goes on to give Drouet detailed orders as to what he should do ‘aussitôt que les Anglais seront rembarqués.’

[534] This had been sent off the day before Foy arrived, Nov. 20, it is Correspondance, 17,146.

[535] Correspondance, 17,172, dated Nov. 28.

[536] Berthier to Soult, Dec. 4, 1810.

[537] See above, [p. 458].

[538] See pp. [201] and [284] above.

[539] See the above-quoted conversation with Foy, in the latter’s Vie Militaire, p. 109.

[540] See for example those noted in Dispatches, vi. 545, and a whole series copied out in D’Urban’s journal in October and November, 1810.

[541] A most modest estimate, for the returns of sick for the second half of October in a document at the Archives de la Guerre give a total of 10,897 men in hospital.

[542] An allusion to a phrase in one of the captured dispatches.

[543] Wellington to Liverpool, October 27, pp. 545 and 555 of vol. vi.

[544] Fririon’s confidential report to Masséna, night of 8th–9th of November.

[545] Viz. 39th (3 batts.) and 69th (3 batts.) of Marchand’s division at Thomar and Torres Novas, with Loison’s 66th (3 batts.), 82nd (2 batts.), and 26th (3 batts.). It will be remembered that Reynier was, at the same time, minus the 4/47th, sent as escort with Foy to Ciudad Rodrigo.

[546] Delagrave, p. 123 and note.

[547] Londonderry, ii. pp. 51-2.

[548] His first dispatch, that to Craufurd, is dated at 10.20.

[549] See Leach’s Diary, p. 178.

[550] Wellington to Fane, Nov. 15: ‘The enemy retreated last night. He intends either to retire across the Zezere into Spain, or across the Tagus into Spain, or across the Zezere to attack Abrantes. The last is possible, as I last night received an account that on the 9th they had a considerable reinforcement coming on the frontier at Beira Alta.’

[551] See [p. 457] above.

[552] All from the orders issued at 10.30 in the morning ‘from the hill in front of Sobral’. Dispatches, vi. 623.

[553] All from the orders issued at 10.30 in the morning ‘from the hill in front of Sobral’. Dispatches, vi. 623.

[554] Leach’s Journal, p. 179.

[555] George Simmons’s Journal, pp. 121-2.

[556] For a full description of the doings of the 16th on this day, see Tomkinson, pp. 59-60.

[557] Leach thinks, with William Napier (iii. 41), that Wellington acted wisely in refusing Craufurd leave to attack (p. 180). Tomkinson, another eye-witness, thinks that an opportunity was missed (pp. 60, 61).

[558] Having now received the Brunswick Oels Jägers, the Light Division was six battalions strong, not its usual five. Its strength about this time was some 4,000 bayonets. Merle’s division was about 5,000 strong: it had dwindled to 4,200 effectives before December was out. Thus the English and Caçadore battalions averaged 650 men, the French 450 only, so that the strength was not very unequal. But only 2,500 of Craufurd’s troops were British.

[559] There its main body was now joined by Ferey’s brigade, which had been detached for some weeks.

[560] Probably Ferey’s brigade marching to join Loison and trains following it, and certainly Reynier’s trains which he had sent off towards Golegão. See Dispatches, vi. 629.

[561] The Diary of the Marches of the 4th Division, by its Assistant Quarter-Master, Charles Vere, settles the date. For Leith’s start on the same morning, see Leith-Hay’s Narrative, i. p. 269.

[562] Napier, however, dates the General’s escapade wrongly. It took place on the night of the 18th-19th, where it is duly related in the diary of George Simmons (p. 117), and not on the 21st as Napier implies. I have a copy of Delagrave’s Campagne de Portugal, which once belonged to Napier; he has written a sarcastic note on the bottom of page 111, commenting on the ridiculous account of the event which appeared in the French narratives. He adds that the sergeant’s name was McCurry, and that ‘the sergeant had sense enough to hold his tongue, but Craufurd spoke out, and so drew the fire of the enemy’s picket.’

[563] The emplacement of the Anglo-Portuguese army is given as follows by Beresford’s Quarter-Master-General, D’Urban, on the night of the 18th-19th, showing its complete dislocation:—

[564] It was their march, visible from the other side of the Tagus, which helped to deceive Fane as to the general movements of the French army.

[565] See Delagrave, 128-30, and Gachot’s excellent notes thereon.

[566] Wellington to Liverpool, Nov. 26, 1810.

[567] Notably the column of Gardanne, of which we shall speak presently.

[568] Including sick in each case, and excluding reinforcements received later.

[569] Dispatches, vii. 59.

[570] D’Urban’s Diary, under Nov. 24.

[571] Belmas’s figures (i. 137) given here must be about correct, not the 2,000 of Fririon, and Victoires et Conquêtes. For the two Rodrigo battalions were 1,500 strong, Foy’s escort 600, and Gardanne took with him some of his own dragoon regiment, beside the convalescents.

[572] Dispatches, vii. p. 20, to Craufurd.

[573] Ibid., p. 36, to Lord Liverpool.

[574] See pp. [270-1].

[575] See pp. [200-1] and [315-16].

[576] See pp. [312-14].

[577] Viz. 113th Line (2 batts.), 4th of the Vistula (2 batts.), one battalion each of the 12th Léger and 32nd and 58th Line, four ‘provisional battalions’ (Nos. 2, 4, 5, 7), and two provisional regiments of dragoons. Total on Sept. 15, 9,524 men, of whom 1,000 were cavalry.

[578] Two Swiss battalions, one battalion of the Garde de Paris, and the 5th and 17th dragoons. Total, 1,300 cavalry and 1,700 infantry.

[579] Line regiments (each of 4 batts.), Nos. 118, 119, 120, 122, and a squadron of the 21st Chasseurs, 9,298 men.

[580] See Correspondance, xxi. 106. On Sept. 13, the date of the dispatch creating Caffarelli’s division, one of its regiments was forming at Limoges, another at Blois, another at Bordeaux, the fourth at Orleans.

[581] Viz. Kellermann, 3,000; Serras, 9,000; Bonnet, 8,000; Young Guard, 11,500; Biscay, 8,000; Navarre, 8,500; Santander, 3,500; 9th Corps, 18,000; Masséna’s Garrisons, 2,500.

[582] As being nephew to the Marquis of La Romana.

[583] See pp. [270-1].

[584] See pp. [10-11].

[585] See for this verdict both Arteche and Toreno.

[586] See [p. 447].

[587] See [p. 286].

[588] See Mina’s Extracto de su Vida, published in London, during his exile, in 1825.

[589] Mina’s Breve Extracto, p. 39.

[590] Martinien’s lists show seven officers hit in the 44th Équipage de Marine, which joined Masséna in the next month, and six in the Bataillon D’Espagne, which was on its way to Cadiz.

[591] See Arteche, ix. 241.

[592] See pp. [300-9].

[593] Correspondance under May 29.

[594] Correspondance under Sept. 16.

[595] See [p. 311].

[596] See [p. 313].

[597] For details see Arteche, ix. 267, Schepeler, iv. 659-60, and Suchet’s Mémoires, vol. i. p. 193. The dictator’s own brother, General Juan Caro, was one of those who deposed him.

[598] Vice Souham, wounded at Vich, and Augereau recalled.

[599] See Suchet’s Mémoires, i. 196-7, and the dispatch from Napoleon’s Correspondance of July 25, 1810.

[600] For details see Vacani, iv. pp. 307-8.

[601] See vol. i. p. 311.

[602] See this vol. [p. 295].

[603] Only about eighteen miles distant.

[604] The best narrative of Schwartz’s disaster may be found in the diary of the Lippe-Bückeburg officer Barkhausen, one of the prisoners, pp. 110-15.

[605] Martinien’s invaluable lists show only three Italian and one French officer hurt, which agrees well enough with Vacani’s estimate of 80 to 100 hors de combat.

[606] See especially Napier, iii. 199.

[607] Suchet, Mémoires, i. 205.

[608] See [previous page].

[609] See pp. [201-2] and [316].

[610] See [p. 242].

[611] Joseph to Napoleon. Ducasse’s Correspondance du Roi Joseph, vii. 278-9. The Emperor gave Avila back to the King in September, see Nap. Correspondance, xxi. 126.

[612] See Miot de Melito’s Diary, Sept. 8, 1810.

[613] Joseph to Napoleon, Aug. 25, 1810. Ducasse, vii. 321, and ibid., p. 332 of Sept. 12.

[614] Joseph to Napoleon, Aug. 9, Ducasse, vii. 307.

[615] Correspondance, xxi. p. 213.

[616] For a specimen, see the plate of coins in vol. ii, facing p. 478.

[617] Napoleon to Champagny, Sept. 9, 1810.

[618] I cannot find anywhere any authority for Napier’s strange statement (iii. p. 261) that it was Almenara, and not Napoleon, who started the idea that Portugal should be exchanged for the Ebro Province. The nearest thing to it is that ‘M. d’Almenara déclare formellement qu’il ne consente à aucune cession de territoire espagnol, que cette compensation [Portugal] ne soit pas stipulée et garantie; mais comme il est dans l’intention formelle du roi de ne pas consentir à aucun démembrement, même avec une compensation plus avantageuse, il n’aurait jamais ratifié un pareil traité.’ Ducasse, Correspondance, vii. 190.

[619] Napoleon to Laforest, ambassador at Madrid, Nov. 7.

[620] Joseph to the Queen of Spain, Oct. 12. Ducasse, Correspondance, vii. 355.

[621] See his letters to his wife in December 1810 and January 1811, about his brother’s ‘mauvaises dispositions à mon égard.’

[622] He writes that at his most splendid State banquets nothing but china is now to be seen on his table.

[623] The question of the Consuls and Soult (mentioned in an earlier chapter) crops up again in Joseph to Berthier, Nov. 28.

[624] Napoleon to Berthier, Oct. 4, orders Digeon’s brigade of Lahoussaye’s dragoons to cross the Sierra Morena, thus leaving the king only four regiments of French cavalry in New Castile.

[625] Ducasse, Correspondance, vii. p. 361.

[626] Argüelles, Cortes de Cadiz, p. 160.

[627] For details see Schepeler, iii. p. 691. The goods must also be carried in Spanish vessels, so the grant was not a very liberal one!

[628] Liberal clergy of the type of the journalist Blanco-White (Leucadio Doblado) were rare exceptions.

[629] Doblado’s Letters, p. 392.

[630] Motion by one Francisco Maria Riesco, deputy, and formerly Inquisitor, at Llerena in Estremadura. Argüelles’s Las Cortes de Cadiz, p. 209.

[631] See below, [p. 520].

[632] He was of the same branch as the Countess of Chinchon, Godoy’s wife, being son of Luis, youngest child of Philip V, by a quasi-morganatic marriage with a lady of the name of Vallabriga.

[633] ‘Que la nación era soberana con el rey, desde luego prestaría el juramento pedido. Pero si se entendía que la nación era soberana sin el rey, y soberana de su mismo soberano, nunca se sometería á tal doctrina.’ See more of his argument in Toreno, ii. 225.

[634] Compare Toreno’s insinuation against the Regent Lardizabal (ii. 213), to whom he ascribes a definite plot, with Arteche’s defence and eulogy of the late Regency, ix. 109-11.

[635] Toreno, ii. pp. 222-3.

[636] See Wellington to Henry Wellesley, Nov. 4, 1810:—‘If the Princess of the Brazils be the person appointed regent, the Court will be inundated with intriguers of all nations, and attended by other evils.’

[637] See Galiano, quoted by Arteche, ix. 76.

[638] Wellington to Henry Wellesley, from Cartaxo, Nov. 21, 1810.

[639] Charles Vaughan to Charles Stuart, Feb. 27, 1811.

[640] This Provisional regiment received the name of ‘2nd of Algarve’ in December.

[641] Not stated separately. All the Artillery of the Army of Portugal is placed under one head in the return of March 15, and not distributed to the corps.

[642] The 82nd had detached its 5th battalion, 575 strong, to form part of the garrison of Almeida.

[643] Some fractions of the general artillery reserve had been transferred to the corps since Sept. 15, hence the rise in numbers.

[644] By March 15 these six battalions had got so weak that their cadres had been sent back to France, and the remaining rank and file were being drafted into the regiments of the 2nd Corps.

[645] These regiments had detached their 4th battalions, 578 and 873 strong respectively, to form the garrison of Ciudad Rodrigo.

[646] Like the 6th Corps, the 8th had received part of the General Park of the army, and absorbed it.

[647] About 17 officers and 150 men had been drafted into the garrisons of Almeida and Rodrigo.

[648] The 3rd Dragoons left one squadron, 157 men, at Almeida.

[649] The 10th Dragoons, the other regiments of this brigade, 718 strong, had been left at Ciudad Rodrigo under General Gardanne.

[650] About 300 artillerymen left at Ciudad Rodrigo and Almeida.

[651] This includes not only the original reserve artillery, park, &c., of the army, but the whole of the artillery of the three corps, which is not distributed among them in the return of March 15, 1811.

[652] In the Portuguese regiments the officers are counted in with the men.

[653] Leith in his report (Wellington, Supplementary Dispatches, vi. 636) gives the above brigading. The Portuguese official list of troops present (given by Soriano da Luz, iii) puts Eben as commanding an imperfect brigade, consisting of the 8th Line only, while the Lusitanian legion is given as a separate force under Lieut.-Col. Grant.

[654] In the Portuguese regiments the officers are counted in with the men.

[655] This figure includes two batteries not present, but detached with Lecor’s division beyond the Mondego. The totals can not be distinguished.

[656] A strange phrase. How could the enemy ‘advance in order to make movement of retreat’?

[657] The greater part of the losses of this battalion were in the companies attached to other brigades, but the total is inserted here.

[658] An extraordinary coincidence in the total losses of the two nations!

[659] These two brigades, forming Hamilton’s division, were always acting with Hill’s British Division.

[660] Forming part of Leith’s 5th Division.

[661] Forming part of Alex. Campbell’s 6th Division.

[662] Forming part of Picton’s 3rd Division.

[663] Forming part of Cole’s 4th Division.

[664] This regiment, with the 13th Line, formed Bradford’s brigade of Lecor’s Portuguese division. But the 13th was absent, in garrison at Abrantes.

[665] The 5th Caçadores, which had formed part of Bradford’s brigade and Lecor’s division, was in October and November outside the lines, on the south side of the Tagus, observing Santarem, and under the orders of the Cavalry-General Fane.

[666] The companies of the battalions R.A. were not numbered in 1810, but only designated by their captains’ names. The numbers here given, for purposes of easier identification, are those given to these companies when numeration was introduced about 1822.

[667] Captain Birch commanded this company from June 1810 to July 1812, vice Captain Alex. Dickson, employed with the Portuguese army.

Transcriber’s note

Albaracin,now Albarracín,
Albondonates,now Algodonales,
Albuquerque,now Alburquerque,
Alcanizas,now Alcañices,
Alemtejo,now Alentejo,
Almanza,now Almansa,
Almunecar,now Almuñecar,
Araçena,now Aracena,
Arzobispo,now El Puente del Arzobispo,
Baccelar (Manuel),now Manuel Pinto de Morais Bacelar,
Ballasteros,now Ballesteros,
Barcellos,now Barcelos,
Baylen,now Bailén,
Boçaco,now Buçaco,
Bussaco,now Buçaco,
Cacabellos,now Cacabelos,
Caçeres,now Cáceres,
Calandriz,now Calhandriz,
Campredon,now Camprodón,
Cardadeu,now Cardedeu,
Compostella,now Compostela,
Cordova,now Córdoba,
Corunna,now La Coruña,
Dao,now Dão,
Daymiel,now Daimiel,
Deleytosa,now Deleitosa,
Despeña-Perros,now Despeñaperros,
Douro,now Duero (in Spain),
and Douro (in Portugal),
El Moral,now Moral de Calatrava,
Estremadura,now Extremadura (for Spain),
and Estremadura (for Portugal),
Golegão,now Golegã,
Guadalaviar (river),now Turia (río),
Guimaraens,now Guimarães,
La Baneza,now La Bañeza
La Bispal,now La Bisbal,
Loxa,now Loja,
Majorca,now Mallorca,
Meza,now Mesas de Ibor,
Momblanch,now Montblanch,
Nabao (river),now Nabão (río),
Ona (river),now Güeña (río),
Oña (river),now Oñar (río),
Palleresa,now Pallaresa,
Pampeluna,now Pamplona,
Ripol,now Ripoll,
Sabugoça,now Sabugosa,
Santona,now Santoña,
Saragossa,now Zaragoza,
Senabria,now Sanabria,
Tagus (river),now Tajo (Spanish), Tejo (Portuguese),
Tajuna,now Tajuña,
Tondella,now Tondela,
Truxillo,now Trujillo,
Vierzo,now El Bierzo,
Villaharta,now Villarta de San Juan,
Vincente,now Vicente,
Vittoria,now Vitoria,
Xeres,now Jerez,