A history of the Peninsular War, Vol. 4, Dec. 1810-Dec. 1811

by Charles Oman

CHAPTER I

BERESFORD’S CAMPAIGN IN ESTREMADURA. THE FIRST SIEGE OF BADAJOZ. MARCH-APRIL 1811

On the 11th of March, as it will be remembered, Imaz—the deplorable successor of the gallant Menacho—surrendered Badajoz to Marshal Soult, despite of the messages which he had received that an Anglo-Portuguese corps was on its way for his relief. On the 14th the conqueror, appalled at the news of the battle of Barrosa and the danger of Seville, marched back to Andalusia, taking with him a brigade of dragoons and the greater part of Gazan’s infantry division. He left behind him in Estremadura Mortier with a force of some 11,000 men, composed of fifteen battalions of the 5th Corps[305], five cavalry regiments[306], and a heavy proportion of artillerymen and engineers, who were required for the garrisoning of the fortress of Badajoz no less than for the siege of the small places in its vicinity, whose capture Soult had delegated to Mortier as his parting legacy.

This was a small force to leave behind, charged not only with the occupation of an extensive province, but with the duty of continuing the offensive, by attacking Campo Mayor and Albuquerque. Elvas the Marshal can hardly have hoped to assail—it was a fortress as large and in some ways stronger than Badajoz, with a garrison composed of Portuguese troops of the line. Any idea of an invasion of the Alemtejo was useless, now that it was known that Masséna had departed from his old position on the Tagus. The Emperor had ordered Soult to undertake it merely for Masséna’s assistance, and the ‘Army of Portugal’ was no longer needing such help: for good or for ill it had moved away on its own business. It remained to be seen whether Mortier would be able to carry out the orders given him, for no one in the French camp could tell whether the British relieving force for Badajoz, whose existence had been known since March 8th, had actually started for Estremadura, or had joined in the pursuit of Masséna, when it received the news that Imaz had made his disgraceful capitulation. If this force were on its way, and proved to be strong in numbers, Mortier would be thrown at once on the defensive. His duty would be to hold off the Allies till Badajoz was in a state of defence: and the repairing of the fortress would take some time, even though the greater part of its fortifications were intact, and only the Pardaleras Fort and the ruined bastions behind it required reconstruction. If the Allies came on in great force, and without delaying for a moment, it was even possible that Mortier would have to blow up Badajoz and withdraw its garrison, for it would be absurd to leave behind, in an untenable post, such a large body of men as would be required for the holding of its extensive enceinte.

The actual course of affairs in Estremadura followed logically from Wellington’s orders to Beresford on the 9th and the 15th of March. On the 8th, as it will be remembered, Beresford had been directed to march to the relief of Badajoz with the 2nd and 4th Divisions and Hamilton’s Portuguese, some 18,000 men. On the 9th these orders had been countermanded, on a false report that Masséna had concentrated and was offering battle behind Thomar. The 4th Division and one brigade (Hoghton’s) of the 2nd were called off, and marched to join Wellington’s main body. The rest of the 2nd Division and Hamilton’s Portuguese stood halted, in or near Abrantes, till the intentions of the French should be discovered. It was not till March 12th that Wellington, reassured as to his adversaries’ intentions, thought it possible once more to take the relief of Badajoz in hand[307]. The troops about Abrantes were ordered to prepare to march for the Guadiana in successive brigades; the absent brigade of the 2nd Division, which had reached Thomar, was directed to retrace its steps and join the main body of that unit. But the 4th Division had gone on much further; it was well on its way towards Coimbra, and was engaged in the Pombal-Redinha operations. It was not till the 15th that Wellington thought himself able to dispatch it, along with De Grey’s brigade of dragoons, to cross the Tagus in the wake of the 2nd Division. Beresford himself, who had joined the main army for a few days by Wellington’s own orders, was not given his final instructions and sent off to the south till the following morning.

But before the moment at which Beresford started, the whole face of affairs had been changed by the news, received on the 14th, that Badajoz had surrendered on the 11th. Wellington was not prepared for this blow. ‘I had received on the 9th,’ he wrote to Lord Liverpool, ‘accounts of a most favourable nature, from which I was induced to believe not only that the place was in no danger, but that it was in fact untouched: that its fire was superior to that of the enemy, that it was in no want of provisions and ammunition, had sustained no loss, excepting that of the governor Menacho, and was able and likely to hold out for a month. General Imaz, a person of equally good reputation, had succeeded to the command, and great confidence was reposed in him.... I had called up to the army the 4th Division of infantry and the brigade of heavy cavalry, under the conviction that Badajoz would hold out for the time during which it would be necessary to employ them. Experience has shown that I could not have done without these troops, and it is also clear that, if I had left them behind, they could not have saved Badajoz, which the governor surrendered on the day after he received my assurances that he should be relieved, and my entreaties that he would hold out to the last moment[308].’

As far as the argument from time goes, it is clear that Wellington is stating indisputable facts. Supposing that he had not countermanded on the 9th of March the orders to Beresford which he had given on the previous night, and that the three divisions designated for service in Estremadura had marched with unrelaxing vigour, the head of their column could not have been further forward than Arronches (if they took the Portalegre road) or Estremos (if they took the Elvas road) at the moment when Imaz surrendered. As the former of these points is about twenty-five and the latter about thirty miles from Badajoz, the capitulation would not have been prevented. For the governor was determined to surrender, and did so in full knowledge of the fact, transmitted by semaphore from Elvas[309], that a relieving expedition was in hand. Whether the nearest allied troops were (as was actually the case) at Abrantes or (as might have been the case) at Estremos, would not have affected him. For, as the proceedings recorded at his council of war show, he concealed from his officers the news that succour was promised, and allowed one of them to put down in the procès verbal of the proceedings the statement that ‘there was no official news whatever that any army of succour was in movement.’ Such official news Imaz possessed, through the semaphore messages sent on by General Leite at Elvas, so that it is evident that he kept them from the knowledge of his subordinates.

If Badajoz had held out for a fortnight after March 9th,—and Wellington supposed that it was well able to defend itself for a whole month—the relieving column would have been in good time. The dispatch of March 12th set in motion two divisions from near Abrantes, that of the 15th sent on the third from the banks of the Ceira. Steady marches of twenty miles a day, or a little less, would have brought Stewart and Hamilton to the neighbourhood of Badajoz on the 17th, and Cole with the 4th Division and the dragoon brigade on the 24th[310]. If, as is probable, Beresford had waited for the arrival of the last-named force before presenting himself in front of the French lines, the 24th of March would have been the critical day. It is hard to believe that Soult could have fought to advantage, since he must have left so many men to blockade Badajoz that he could not have faced Beresford with more than 12,000 sabres and bayonets, numbers inadequate to hold off the 18,000 Anglo-Portuguese who formed the allied Army of Estremadura. It is quite probable that he might have raised the siege, and offered battle with his whole army, somewhere south of Badajoz. But into these possibilities it is profitless to inquire.

Since, however, Wellington and Beresford knew on the night of the 14th that Imaz had surrendered, there was no longer the same need for haste that existed down to this moment, and the advance of the Anglo-Portuguese army was made at a moderate pace. Hamilton’s Portuguese were at Portalegre by the 17th, the 2nd Division came in on the 19th and 20th. Beresford himself appeared on the latter day, having ridden through from the neighbourhood of Coimbra in four days. The 4th Division, which had made an admirable march, a hundred and ten miles of mountain road in six days, came up on the 22nd. On this day, therefore, the whole 18,000 men of the expeditionary force were collected within forty miles of Badajoz, and Beresford had to make up his mind as to the course of his campaign. The orders given to him by Wellington had been to concentrate at Portalegre and attack the French, who (as it had now been ascertained) were moving out to besiege the little Portuguese fortress of Campo Mayor, just across the frontier. The small Spanish force under Castaños at Estremos—the wrecks of the old Army of Estremadura—was to be called up to assist[311]. Wellington, who did not know of Soult’s departure for Seville, thought that he could not possibly collect enough men, after garrisoning Badajoz and Olivenza, to enable him to face Beresford. In a supplementary dispatch he told his colleague that he thought it most likely that the Marshal would go south of the Guadiana without accepting battle. In that case the allied army must be careful, when following him, not to trust its communications and line of advance or retreat to any temporary bridge, but must use the Portuguese riverside fortress of Jerumenha as its base, and construct there a bridge composed of twenty Spanish pontoon-boats, which (as Wellington was informed) had been floated down from Badajoz before the siege of that place began. Beresford was to construct a strong tête-du-pont on the Spanish bank to cover this bridge[312], and might then move forward and invest Badajoz if he were able.

A most prescient note occurs in this dispatch, which seems as if it were written in prophetical foresight of what was to happen at Campo Mayor five days later. ‘The cavalry is the most delicate arm we possess. We have few officers who have practical knowledge of the mode of using it, or who have ever seen more than two regiments together. To these circumstances add that the defeat of, or any great loss sustained by, our cavalry in these open grounds would be a misfortune, amounting almost to a defeat of the whole; you will therefore see the necessity of keeping your cavalry as much as possible en masse, and in reserve, to be thrown in at the moment when opportunity offers for striking a decisive blow.’ It looks almost as if Wellington knew that General Long, who commanded Beresford’s cavalry, was going to make the very mistakes that he actually committed on the first collision with the enemy.

The moment that the 4th Division and De Grey’s dragoons reached Portalegre, Beresford began his march on Campo Mayor (March 22) sending out Colborne’s and Lumley’s brigades of the 2nd Division to Arronches, and the Portuguese cavalry brigade of Otway to Azumar. This last-named unit had been watching the frontier between the Tagus and the Guadiana ever since Masséna’s retreat from Santarem, and joined the 2nd Division on the 20th of March. Hamilton’s Portuguese infantry division was to follow next day, the 4th Division was to be allowed two days’ rest after its fatiguing march from the Ceira, and was only to start on the 24th[313]. On the 25th the whole army was to be in front of Campo Mayor.

It remains to speak of the position in which the enemy was found. Between the 14th of March, when Soult departed from Seville, and the 25th, when Beresford’s army made its sudden and quite unexpected descent into the middle of the French forces, only eleven days elapsed; but Mortier had turned them to good account, and had more than fulfilled all that had been expected of him. On the very day that Soult started for Seville he marched against Campo Mayor, with nine battalions of infantry, a cavalry brigade, and part of the siege-train which had just captured Badajoz. One other battalion was left as garrison in Olivenza, the six that remained from the corps were told off for Badajoz, where General Phillipon had been appointed governor. With the aid of three companies of sappers they were already busily engaged in levelling their own old siege-works, and commencing the repairs to the battered front of the walls. Mortier conceived that there could not be any danger in carrying out the orders that Soult had left, for he could find no traces of any hostile force in his vicinity, save the Portuguese garrison of Elvas, and the 4,000 men who formed the wrecks of Mendizabal’s army. This demoralized force had rallied at Campo Mayor, but on receiving the news of the fall of Badajoz retired in haste to Estremos, twenty miles within the Portuguese frontier. Their presence there was a danger rather than a defence to the Alemtejo, for not only did they consume some magazines collected there by Wellington’s orders for the use of the expeditionary force, but they plundered recklessly in the neighbouring villages, and committed such outrages that the Portuguese Government was almost forced to take military measures against them[314]. Mortier had nothing to fear from this quarter, while he could hear no news of the approach of any British force from the direction of the Tagus. The 2nd Division and Hamilton’s Portuguese, it will be remembered, had only been ordered to resume their movement towards Estremadura on the 13th, by Wellington’s dispatch of the 12th, and when Mortier started from Badajoz they were only just commencing their advance from the neighbourhood of Abrantes towards Crato and Portalegre, and were very nearly a hundred miles away, so that it was impossible that he should get any information concerning them.

Campo Mayor was an old-fashioned fortress, which had not been remodelled since the War of the Spanish Succession, its greatest weakness was that an outlying fort (São João), only 200 yards from the walls in a commanding position, had been dismantled, but not blown up and levelled to the ground. It overlooked one of the bastions of the place, and had only to be seized in order to provide an admirable starting-place for operations against the enceinte. No serious attention had been paid to Campo Mayor of late, the much stronger place of Elvas, only eleven miles away, having absorbed all the attention of the Portuguese government. The Spaniards had been garrisoning it for the last six months, but when they hastily departed the Governor of Elvas threw into it half a battalion of the Portalegre Militia (about 300 men) and a company of artillery. This handful of men, aided by the Ordenança of the place, were all that were at the disposition of the very gallant and resourceful old engineer officer, Major José Joaquim Talaya, who was left in charge of the place. As the population was under 3,000 souls, the levy of the Ordenança cannot have amounted to more than 300 men, and many of these (as was still the case in most parts of Portugal) had no firearms, but only pikes. But the chief magistrate (juiz de fora), José Carvalho, served at the head of them with great energy, and we are assured that (contrary to what might have been expected) the citizens took a more creditable part than the militiamen in the defence[315].

With no regulars save the company of artillery, and no more than 800 men in all to protect a long enceinte, it might have been expected that Talaya could make no defence at all—indeed he might have evacuated the place without any blame. But being a man of fine resolution, and recognizing the fact that he was doing the greatest possible service by detaining 7,000 French before his walls, and thereby covering Elvas and allowing time for Beresford to arrive, he resolved to hold out as long as possible. The French seized Fort São João on the night of their arrival (March 14th) and opened trenches on each side of it, commencing at the same time three batteries, of which two were sheltered by the dismantled work. Next morning two of these works were in a position to open fire on the town, since the heavy guns for them had only to come from Badajoz, a mere nine miles away.

Despite of this Talaya held out for seven days of bombardment and open trenches (15th-21st March). He concentrated all his artillery on the approaches and the breaching-batteries, and for some time held his own. On the 19th a breach was opened in the projecting bastion (de Concelho), but the Governor refused a summons to surrender, and actually beat off an assault that night. On the following day the whole face of the bastion began to crumble, and, since further resistance was hopeless, Talaya accepted the terms offered him by Mortier—viz. that the garrison should lay down its arms if not relieved within twenty-four hours, the Militia and Ordenança not to be regarded as prisoners of war, but to be allowed to stay in or retire to their homes, on condition that they should not again bear arms against the French. A similar favour was extended to the Governor himself, who was allowed, ‘on account of his great age,’ says the capitulation, to retire to his own residence on giving his word of honour not to serve again[316]. As the whole garrison, save the artillery, were irregular troops, Mortier took over less than 100 prisoners. Some fifty guns, many of them of very antique and useless fabric, and 10,000 rations of biscuit were captured. The delay of twenty-four hours in the surrender of the town turned out very unluckily for Mortier, as it just gave time for Beresford and his army to arrive, only four days after the surrender, before the place had been dismantled or injured.

The eight-day defence of the absolutely untenable Campo Mayor contrasts in the strongest fashion with that of the neighbouring Spanish fortress of Albuquerque. This, too, was a very neglected and antiquated place, but it possessed a citadel on a high crag, which might have been held for some days against anything but heavy artillery, and it would have taken some time to erect batteries which could effectively reach it. When, however, Latour-Maubourg, with two cavalry regiments, summoned it, on March 15, the Governor at once began to parley, and on being told that infantry and guns were coming forward, actually opened his gates next day, before the two battalions and two guns sent by Mortier arrived. This demoralized officer was Major-General José Cagigal; his garrison consisted of two battalions of the Estremaduran regiment of Fernando VII, about 800 men, and a few artillerymen with seventeen brass guns of position. This was, on the whole, the most disgraceful surrender made during the whole Peninsular War—it can only be compared to the celebrated capitulation of Stettin in 1806, when the Prussian general, in an exactly similar fashion, yielded a fortress to a brigade of hussars who were impudent enough to summon it. But Stettin was a far worse case than Albuquerque—since it was a modern stronghold with a garrison of no less than 6,000 men.

After the surrender of Albuquerque, Latour-Maubourg sent on a regiment of dragoons to Valencia de Alcantara, the last fortified place in Spanish hands between the Guadiana and the Tagus. The small garrison evacuated it, and the dragoons, after bursting seven guns found within its walls, and blowing up its gates (March 17), returned to Badajoz.

The news of the loss of the one Portuguese and the two Spanish fortresses did not detain Beresford a moment in his advance, indeed he was only anxious to attack the enemy before he should have either repaired and garrisoned, or else dismantled and destroyed, Campo Mayor. On the 24th, Cole’s 4th Division, having had its two prescribed days of rest, marched from Portalegre to Arronches, where it caught up the cavalry and the other two divisions. Nothing had been discovered of the French, save some hussar vedettes only three miles north of Campo Mayor. It seems that Beresford’s approach came as a complete surprise to Mortier, who had made no preparations to meet it. He had withdrawn the greater part of the troops who had formed the siege corps to Badajoz, and had left Latour-Maubourg to dismantle the place—for he had made up his mind not to hold it. The cavalry general retained three of his own regiments (26th Dragoons and 2nd and 10th Hussars), one infantry regiment (the 100th of the Line), a half-battery of horse artillery, with a large detachment of the military train, who were in charge not only of the siege-guns lately used, but of thirty pieces from the walls of Campo Mayor, which it was intended to bring over to Badajoz. The rest of the Portuguese guns were to be burst, as useless and antiquated. The engineers were selecting sections of the enceinte, which were to be mined and blown up. The whole French force was about 900 sabres and 1,200 bayonets, plus the detachments of the auxiliary arms—perhaps 2,400 men in all[317]. There was a very fair chance of capturing it entire, owing to the careless way in which Latour-Maubourg kept watch. The presence of scouting parties of Portuguese dragoons had been reported to him[318]. But probably he attached little importance to their presence in this direction. There had been cavalry of that nation on the Estremaduran frontier ever since January.

At half-past ten o’clock on the very rainy morning of the 25th, Beresford’s army was advancing on Campo Mayor in three converging columns, the bulk of the 2nd Division preceded by De Grey’s dragoons on the high-road, Hamilton’s Portuguese division on a by-path over a ridge to the east of the road, with the 13th Light Dragoons and two Portuguese squadrons in their front, Colborne’s brigade and the remaining Portuguese horse on a corresponding ridge, some way to the western or right side of the chaussée. Cole followed a mile in the rear as reserve. The French outposts were found as on the preceding day, only three miles outside the town. General Latour-Maubourg chanced to be visiting them, probably in tardy consequence of the reports of the previous day. When attacked they retired skirmishing, to delay as far as possible the advance of Beresford’s leading squadrons. Latour-Maubourg, seeing that the Allies were coming up on a broad front, and at least 15,000 strong, rode back hastily into the town, ordered the drums to beat, and directed infantry and cavalry alike to abandon their baggage, and to form up without a moment’s delay on the glacis outside the southern gate for a retreat. A column of sixteen heavy guns from the walls of Campo Mayor and the siege-train, with practically no escort, had started some little time back, and was on its way to Badajoz along the high-road before the alarm was given[319]. The allied cavalry, on coming in sight of the town from the ridge to its north, discovered the enemy just moving off, the infantry regiment in column of route on the road, with one hussar regiment in front of it and another in rear, while the 26th Dragoons, some little way ahead, was covering the rest from being intercepted on the high-road, for Latour-Maubourg had seen that his danger lay in the probability that Beresford would strike in, with the horse of his van, between him and Badajoz, and so force him to fight his way through, under pain of being surrounded and captured if he failed. This indeed was Beresford’s intention, but being impressed with Wellington’s warning not to risk or lose his cavalry, he had ordered General Long, who was in command of the division of that arm, not to commit himself against a superior force, and ‘to wait for the infantry to come up if he were in any doubt; yet if the opportunity to strike a blow occurs he must avail himself of it[320].’ The whole cavalry force with the army was only eleven British squadrons and five Portuguese, the latter very weak, and the total number of sabres was about 1,500, a very small allowance for an army of over 18,000 men, and therefore very precious.

When Latour-Maubourg saw the British divisions coming on in the distance, he marched off with all possible speed, and had such a start that his column, whose pace was set by the quick step of the infantry, had got nearly three miles from Campo Mayor before it was seriously threatened. General Long had, by Beresford’s orders, directed his squadrons to sweep east of the walls of the town, out of gunshot, in case there should chance to have been a garrison left behind. The sweep was a long one, because a ravine was discovered which forced the regiments to turn further eastward than was at first intended. They came up in two detachments, one formed by the 13th Light Dragoons and Otway’s Portuguese, more to the left (east), the other of De Grey’s dragoons further to the right (west). The first body was nearly level with the dragoon regiment which was moving ahead of the French column, the other was not so far to the front, being 400 or 500 yards away from the rear flank of the French. The nearest British infantry and guns, Colborne’s brigade and Cleeves’s German battery accompanying it, were out of sight, two miles to the rear, hidden by undulations of the ground; so was Beresford himself and his staff, who were riding ahead of the main body.

Seeing a fight forced on him, Latour-Maubourg resolved to accept it. He had a force of all arms, and thought himself strong enough to beat off cavalry unsupported by infantry or guns, even though they outnumbered his own horsemen in the proportion of five to three. Accordingly he suddenly halted and formed his infantry in battalion squares on the high-road, with the hussars flanking them in deep order, while the dragoon regiment, with its right wing drawn back and its left wing not far from the leading hussars, formed a line at an obtuse angle to the main body, ready to deliver a flanking charge on the British and Portuguese if they should attack the infantry.

Long, considering, as he says, that he was strong enough to attempt the ‘blow’ of which Beresford had spoken, resolved first to drive off the French dragoon regiment which threatened his flank, and then to fall upon the hussars and infantry. He sent orders to De Grey and the heavy dragoons to close in upon the rear and left flank of the French, from whom they were still separated by a ridge, but to hold off till the rest of the troops had disposed of the covering cavalry. He then advanced with the light squadrons, English and Portuguese, to get beyond the French dragoons—his line was formed with two Portuguese squadrons (7th regiment) on the extreme left, then the two and a half squadrons of the 13th British Light Dragoons[321], and to the right the three remaining Portuguese squadrons (1st regiment).

Seeing that Long was manœuvring to outflank him, Latour-Maubourg ordered the 26th Dragoons to charge before the movement was far advanced. The British 13th formed to their front, and started to meet them; the two lines met with a tremendous crash, neither giving way, and were mingled for a few moments in desperate hand to hand fighting[322], in which Colonel Chamorin, the French brigadier, was slain in a personal combat with a corporal named Logan of the 13th. Presently the French broke, and fled in disorder along and beside the Badajoz road. Then followed one of those wild and senseless pursuits which always provoked Wellington’s wrath, and induced him to say in bitterness that the ordinary British cavalry regiment was ‘good for nothing but galloping[323].’ General Long says in his account of the affair that he found it impossible to stop or rally the Light Dragoons, and therefore sent after them the two squadrons of the 7th Portuguese, to act as a support. But the Portuguese put on a great pace to come up with the 13th, got excited in pursuing stray knots of French dragoons, broke their order, and finally joined in the headlong chase as recklessly as their comrades.

The ride was incredibly long and disorderly, quite in the style of Prince Rupert at Edgehill. It was continued for no less than seven miles; four miles from the place where it had started, the Light Dragoons came on the artillery convoy of sixteen heavy guns which had left Campo Mayor in the early morning, and had crawled on almost to the gates of Badajoz; the small escort was dispersed, and the drivers were cut down or chased off the road. Many of the Portuguese stopped to make prize of the horses—most valuable personal plunder—and went off with them in small parties towards the allied camp. The pursuers should have stopped here. There was no object in chasing any further the few surviving French dragoons, who were scattered broadcast. The guns, with a long train of caissons and carts, were left standing beside the road, but little attention was paid to these valuable trophies. One or two were rehorsed and turned towards the British lines by some officers of the 13th. The main body of the pursuers, however, did not stop with the convoy, but, still sabring at the routed French, rode two miles and a half further, till they hurtled against the bridge-head fortifications of Badajoz. They were only stopped by being shelled from Fort San Cristobal, and fired on by the garrison of the tête-du-pont. It is said by one French authority[324] that the leading dragoons actually reached the barrier-gate of the covered way of the latter work, and were shot there. Marshal Mortier, learning what had happened, sallied out of the fortress with a cavalry regiment and four battalions, captured quite a number of straggling dragoons, whose horses had fallen or given out in the wild ride, and found the bulk of the artillery convoy standing lonely and teamless by the wayside. It was dragged along into Badajoz, save one howitzer and six caissons, which were left behind on the approach of Beresford’s main body. Mortier also picked up near the place where the convoy was lying, and brought into Badajoz, Latour-Maubourg’s column, whose further fortunes need to be detailed.

When the 13th Light Dragoons and the 7th Portuguese went off on their mad escapade, General Long found himself left in front of the main French force, with only the three squadrons of the 1st Portuguese cavalry, which had formed his reserve, and the Heavy Brigade, distant half a mile from him, and on the other side of the French line. It was apparently his intention to charge the enemy with these troops, a most hazardous experiment, for the French with a regiment of 1,200 infantry in square, flanked by four squadrons of hussars, were dangerous to deal with. In all the Peninsular War there was only one occasion (at Garcia Hernandez in 1812) where formed squares of either side were broken by the cavalry of the other, and the 100th Ligne on this occasion had 500 hussars to support them. There was some delay while Long was sending an aide-de-camp to the Heavy Brigade to bid them prepare to attack[325], and, seeing him holding back, Latour-Maubourg started off his column once more along the high-road, the infantry marching in square, with two squadrons of hussars in front and two behind. To stop him from moving on, Long brought forward the 1st Portuguese to check the hussars. But when they advanced toward them, and were about to engage, the front side of the leading French battalion square opened a distant fire against their flank. Surprised by this, for they had not realized that they were within effective range of the hostile infantry, the three Portuguese squadrons broke and galloped off, pursued by the hussars for some little way[326].

At this moment Marshal Beresford and his staff came upon the scene, on the ridge near De Grey’s brigade, and saw the three Portuguese squadrons rallying at a distance, and still in disorder, while the heavy dragoons were preparing to attack. On inquiring what had become of the 13th and the rest of the Portuguese, Beresford was told by one of his staff[327] that they had been cut off and were believed to have been captured. Horrified at this news, which brought to his mind all Wellington’s warnings, Beresford forbade the Heavy Brigade to charge, and bade them hold off, till some infantry and guns should come up. He was indubitably right in so doing, for, as all previous and later experience proved, it was most unlikely that they would have broken the French squares.

He sent back for the nearest infantry, which was Colborne’s brigade, and some guns. Meanwhile the enemy continued moving off at a great pace, followed at a distance by the heavy dragoons, while Long and the three rallied Portuguese squadrons marched parallel with their flank. The two parties had proceeded several miles in this way, when the 13th Light Dragoons came in sight, returning from the direction of Badajoz, and their Portuguese companions with them. Soon after, two guns of Cleeves’s battery got up, unlimbered, and opened a fire at long range against the rear of the French. It had some effect, but the enemy kept his ranks and continued to move on as fast as possible, leaving his dead and wounded in the road. The artillery horses were exhausted and unable to keep up, wherefore Beresford ordered the whole force to halt, saying that without infantry there was nothing more to be done. At this moment Colborne’s brigade was no more than half a mile behind according to Long and certain other witnesses[328]. But on the other hand, Mortier with 2,000 infantry and a cavalry regiment from Badajoz was visible, waiting for Latour-Maubourg near the spot where the dismantled convoy was standing. The two French forces joined, and retired into the fortress with nearly all the recaptured guns—only one and some caissons remained to be picked up by Beresford’s advance.

The loss of the British on this occasion, all in the 13th Light Dragoons[329], was 10 killed, 3 officers and 24 men wounded, and 22 prisoners; among the Portuguese 1st and 7th cavalry an officer and 13 men killed, 40 wounded, and 55 prisoners—a total of over 150. The French suffered more—the 26th Dragoons alone had 8 officers[330] and over 100 men killed, wounded, and taken, the train and artillery had been dreadfully cut up at the capture of the convoy, and the infantry had lost 3 officers and many men by the fire of Cleeves’s guns. The total casualties were over 200[331]. But the moral effect of a combat is not judged by a mere comparison of losses, and the British officers were much disappointed. Beresford and his friends held that Long had by mismanagement wasted 150 precious cavalrymen—Long declared that if Beresford had not taken the command out of his hands he would have captured the whole French column. This last claim was absolutely unreasonable: it is far more likely that he would merely have caused severe loss to the two heavy dragoon regiments by persisting. The Marshal and the General were on bad terms from this moment onward, and the former took the next opportunity given him to remove the latter from the chief command of the allied cavalry. The most curious comment on the combat of Campo Mayor is Napier’s statement that ‘the 13th Light Dragoons were severely reprimanded for pursuing so eagerly. But the unsparing admiration of the whole army consoled them!’ Pursuing eagerly is a mild expression for riding seven miles off the battlefield, and on to the glacis of a hostile fortress. Wellington’s comment was that ‘the undisciplined ardour of the 13th Dragoons and the 7th regiment of Portuguese cavalry is not of the description of the determined bravery of soldiers confident in their discipline and their officers. Their conduct was that of a rabble galloping as fast as their horses could carry them, after an enemy to whom they could do no further mischief when they were broken: the pursuit was continued for an unlimited distance, and sacrificed substantial advantages, and all the objects of the operation, by want of discipline[332].’ A similar reproof was published in a General Order, to be read to the cavalry.

The only really satisfactory result of the combat of Campo Mayor was that Beresford recovered the town intact, with some guns which had not yet been sent off to Badajoz, and a considerable amount of stores, including 8,000 rations of biscuit. The place was at once re-garrisoned with the Faro regiment of militia from Elvas, who rapidly repaired the breach. It was tenable again in a few days.

On the 26th Beresford discovered that the French had withdrawn entirely beyond the Guadiana, keeping nothing north of it save the bridge-head and Fort San Cristobal at Badajoz. All accounts agreed that after deducting the garrison of that place Mortier could not have more than 8,000, or at the most 10,000, men available for the field, so that there was no reason why Wellington’s orders to thrust him out of Estremadura, and besiege Badajoz, should not be carried out. It was particularly directed in those orders that the expeditionary force should cross the Guadiana at Jerumenha, and make a bridge at that place, only a few miles from the strong fortress of Elvas, the base of its line of communications[333]. Accordingly the 2nd Division and Hamilton’s Portuguese marched to Elvas on the 26th, leaving Cole and the 4th Division (still much fatigued by their long march) for a day at Campo Mayor. There can be no doubt that if Beresford had been able to cross at Jerumenha on the 27th or 28th he would have compelled the French to retire southward at once, and might have invested Badajoz, then not yet fully repaired, as soon as he chose. But a most tiresome series of hindrances, for which it seems unjust to blame the Anglo-Portuguese commander, now began to crop up. The first and most fatal was that the stock of Spanish pontoon boats which, as he had been told by Wellington, would be found at Elvas or Jerumenha, was not forthcoming. Only five were discovered: two complete bridge-equipages had been kept by Imaz at Badajoz, and were now in the hands of the French. But twenty large pontoons, as the engineers declared, was the least number which would suffice to bridge the Guadiana. An attempt was made to seek for river-craft to eke out the pontoons. But by Wellington’s orders all the boats on the river for many miles had been destroyed, when Soult entered Estremadura in January. Some Portuguese pontoons were ordered from Lisbon, but it would be a week or so before they could be carted across the Alemtejo. Meanwhile Captain Squire, the engineer charged with the bridge-building, offered to lay trestles across the shallower part of the bed of the Guadiana on either bank, and to moor the five pontoons in the deep channel in the middle to join them. To this Beresford assented, and the bridge-place was selected on the 30th: Squire promised that the whole should be completed on the 3rd of April; he could not finish it earlier, as the wood for the trestles had to be found, cut down, and shaped ab initio.

The delay of a week thus caused was of the less importance, however, because of another contretemps. There were no stores ready to feed the army when it should cross the Guadiana. The 200,000 rations at Estremos which Wellington (as it will be remembered) had promised to Beresford, were found to have been entirely consumed by the wreck of Mendizabal’s army, who had been lying there for the last three weeks. There was nothing to lade upon the mules and carts of the expeditionary force; the troops were in great difficulties from day to day, ate the 8,000 rations at Campo Mayor, and were finally forced to indent upon the stores of the garrison of Elvas, which ought to have been sacred to the defence of the town.

Lastly, and this was perhaps the most important of all, the shoes of the 4th Division, which had marched continuously from the 6th to the 22nd of March, first from the Lines to Espinhal, and then from Espinhal to Portalegre, were completely worn out. Cole protested against the division being moved till it was reshod. No footgear could be found at Elvas, and though an immediate requisition was sent to Lisbon, the convoy bringing the shoes would obviously take a week or so to get up[334]. From the 26th of March to the 3rd of April Beresford was perforce immovable. This loss of eight days was apparently the reason why Badajoz did not fall into his hands a little later, for the fortifications, which were still in a dangerous state of disrepair on the 25th, were practically tenable by the second week in April. The stores in the fortress were a less important matter. Imaz when he surrendered had over a month’s rations for 9,000 men, which, even when a certain amount had been consumed by Soult’s field army, left a nucleus sufficient to keep the garrison of 3,000 men placed in the town by Mortier out of need for many weeks. In addition, cattle had been requisitioned all over Estremadura. The small movable force of 8,000 men which was available for observing Beresford, was now living entirely on the country-side, in order to spare the stores of Badajoz.

Beresford’s delay in crossing the Guadiana, therefore, was unfortunate, but apparently inevitable, and there seems no reason to blame him for it. On April 3rd the engineers reported that the bridge at Jerumenha would be ready that evening, and the three divisions concentrated on the left bank: the water was low, and a difficult ford for cavalry had been found above the bridge, by which a squadron of dragoons passed, and established a chain of pickets on the Spanish side. No French were seen abroad, though it was discovered that they still had a garrison in Olivenza, only six miles away. It is difficult to make out why no attempt was made to obstruct the building of Beresford’s bridge—the enemy had five regiments of cavalry in Estremadura, and 6,000 infantry of Girard’s division were available for field service. Even a small detachment with some guns would have made it impossible for the British engineers to complete their work. But the Allies found a great advantage in the fact that Mortier had just received orders to return to Paris, and had on March 26th handed over the command of all the troops on the Guadiana to Latour-Maubourg, who was a good divisional general on the battlefield, but a very indifferent strategist. All his manœuvres during the following month were weak and confused. How it came that from the 30th of March to the 7th of April no French cavalry were seen opposite Jerumenha, much less any serious force sent to disturb the bridge-building, it is impossible to conceive. By all accounts the horsemen who should have been in front of Olivenza were at this time mainly employed in scouring the villages of Central Estremadura for cattle and corn, and escorting what they could seize into Badajoz and the camp of Girard’s division.

On the morning of March 4th, when the allied troops should have crossed the Guadiana, Beresford was brought the untoward news that the river had risen three feet in the night, had swept away the trestles, and forced the engineers to draw back the five pontoon boats in the central stream to the Portuguese bank. The squadron beyond the river was cut off from the army, and communication with it was only restored during the day, by rigging up a flying bridge composed of a raft and a rope. The cavalry ford above the destroyed bridge was of course impassable. Throughout the 4th and 5th the water continued to rise, from storms higher up the river apparently, for there was no rain at Jerumenha.

The position was exasperating to the highest degree. ‘Establishing a permanent bridge is out of the question,’ writes D’Urban, the chief of the staff, in his journal. ‘The means are anything but secure either for passing the army (tedious beyond measure, too, no doubt), or for establishing a communication afterwards for supplies and other purposes. Nevertheless the general state of things, and above all Lord Wellington’s reiterated orders received this morning, render it necessary to pass[335].’ The engineers, put upon their mettle, finally made the five Spanish pontoon boats into two flying bridges worked by ropes. On these a battalion of infantry was passed across the river, and stockaded itself on the other side. Later in the day (April 5) some small tin pontoons arrived from Lisbon, and out of these, helped by all the wine-casks of the neighbouring villages, collected in haste, a floating bridge was constructed, ‘not very substantial, but, upon trial, found capable of admitting infantry to pass in file[336].’ It was not ready till noon on the 6th, but by the two flying bridges the whole 2nd Division and three squadrons of cavalry were passed on the night of the 5th-6th. What might have happened it Latour-Maubourg had concentrated at Olivenza, and fallen on the first two or three battalions that crossed with a force of all arms, we had better not inquire[337]. A disaster on a small scale might very possibly have occurred. But not a Frenchman was seen.

During the 6th Hamilton’s Portuguese passed with infinite slowness on the flying bridges, and the cask and pontoon bridge being at last completed, Cole’s 4th Division and Long’s cavalry began to file over it at dusk, an operation so tedious that the last of them were not over till the following dawn. Ere they were all across a ‘regrettable incident’ occurred: the advanced cavalry pickets were formed on the night of the 6th-7th by Major Morris’s squadron of the 13th Light Dragoons. Owing to bad staff work in the placing of them (as D’Urban and General Long both assert), the main guard of this squadron was surprised by French cavalry in the dusk of the morning, and captured almost entire, two officers and fifty men being taken. The assailants found that they had run into the camp of a whole army, and promptly retired before they could be touched.

At last Latour-Maubourg had given signs of life; this reconnaissance had been conducted by a flying column of two cavalry regiments and four battalions, under General Veilland, sent out to Olivenza from the camp of Girard’s division, with the very tardy purpose of hindering Beresford’s passage. Veilland reported to his chief that the enemy was across in such strength that he could do nothing. The appearance of 20,000 men on the Spanish bank of the Guadiana, so far to the south of Badajoz, placed Latour-Maubourg in a very delicate position: if he stayed twenty-four hours longer in his present camp close to Badajoz, he lost his communications with Andalusia, and might be pushed eastward up the Guadiana, out of touch with Soult, and having no retreat save towards the distant Army of the Centre. It was even possible that a rapid advance of the Allies might drive him into Badajoz, the last thing that he would desire. Accordingly he concentrated at Albuera, twelve miles south of that fortress, as a preliminary move, and prepared to fall back from thence by the great southern chaussée, towards Llerena and the Sierra Morena, where he would preserve, and shorten, his line of communication with Soult. Phillipon was left with 3,000 men in Badajoz, which was now quite beyond danger from a coup de main, and able to take care of itself for some weeks, till reinforcements should come up from Andalusia for its relief. With great unwisdom Latour-Maubourg left Olivenza garrisoned also; it was, as had been shown in January, contemptible as a fortress, even when held by a large force, and the French general placed in it only a single weak battalion of under 400 men. There were still on the walls the few guns that had been taken from the Spaniards—no more than fifteen were mounted, and several of these only on makeshift carriages. Why Latour-Maubourg chose to sacrifice a battalion it is hard to see; Napoleon wrote to Soult a month later to condemn the policy of small garrisons in the strongest terms[338]. At the best Olivenza, when so weakly held, could not hold out for more than a few days, and if Beresford had tried to rush it by escalade, when first he arrived before its walls, he must undoubtedly have succeeded, for 400 men cannot defend three miles of enceinte against a serious assault. There were some magazines in the place, and a small hospital of sick, who could not be removed[339]. But it was obviously absurd to throw away a battalion of sound men to keep them from capture for a few days. It has been suggested that Latour-Maubourg merely wanted to gain time[340]; but the time gained was trifling—Olivenza only held out five days—and might have fallen much sooner.

Beresford’s train and guns having joined him beyond the river on March 8th, he moved to Olivenza on the 9th, in an order of march ready to deploy into an order of battle in case Latour-Maubourg should turn up with his small field force. The town was summoned on the same afternoon, and when the governor refused to surrender, the 4th Division, still almost unable to move for want of the shoes which were daily expected from Lisbon, was left to besiege it, with the aid of heavy guns to be brought from Elvas, only fifteen miles away. The extreme weakness of the garrison was not known, or the Marshal would not have wasted time by ordering regular approaches to be made. The rest of the army bivouacked on the Badajoz road a few miles beyond Olivenza, and on the following day occupied Valverde, and pushed its cavalry to Albuera, cutting the chaussée between Badajoz and Seville. No enemy could be found, and it was ascertained that Latour-Maubourg’s rearguard was at Santa Marta, ten miles to the south, and the rest of his troops far beyond it. On the 11th the infantry, minus the 4th Division, were at Albuera, while the bulk of the cavalry marched to find out how far southward the enemy was ready to withdraw.

Central Estremadura, at any rate, was now in Beresford’s hands, and he was in a position to carry out Wellington’s orders to drive the 5th Corps over the Sierra Morena and invest Badajoz. In accordance with his instructions he had seen Castaños on March 30th, and settled with him that the wrecks of the old Army of Estremadura—now about 1,000 horse and 3,000 foot—should join in the campaign. Castaños, who showed himself both eager and obliging, had promised that his infantry should seize the bridge of Merida, and that, when it was occupied, his cavalry, under Penne Villemur, should join in the movement to sweep Latour-Maubourg over the mountains, operating on the eastern road (Merida-Ribera-Usagre-Llerena), while the allied cavalry took the western one (Albuera-Los Santos-Fuente Cantos-Monasterio). These promises were carried out: Morillo’s infantry division occupied Merida on the 10th, and next day Penne Villemur’s cavalry had reached Almendralejo.

The siege of Olivenza gave little trouble. The only difficulty was the improvising of a siege-train, even on the very modest scale required to deal with such a weak place. It was invested, as we have seen, on the 9th. On the 10th Major Alexander Dickson of the Portuguese artillery, and Captain Squire of the Engineers reconnoitred the place, and determined that the proper starting-point for the attack was the same ruined lunette, outside the walls, which the French had chosen as their first base in January. On the night of the 11th this point was occupied with the loss of one man only, killed by the enemy’s ill-directed fire. A battery for six guns was constructed in the gorge of the ruined work, but the pieces themselves, which Dickson went to choose from Elvas, did not arrive till the 14th; the cask-bridge at Jerumenha being too weak to bear them, they and their ammunition had to be ferried over on the flying bridges. The six 24-pounders were placed in position that same night. At daybreak they opened, and by the time that they had fired seventy rounds each, long ere noon, a practicable breach was made in the nearest bastion. Thereupon the governor, seeing that to have stood an assault with his handful of men would have been madness, surrendered at discretion. He marched out with only 9 officers and 357 men under arms, giving up also 96 sick, and some commissaries and medical officers. Several of his miserable stock of fifteen guns were found to be practically useless save to make a noise, for (as has already been mentioned) they were fixed not on proper carriages, but on the main timbers and wheels of ox-carts, and could not be elevated or depressed. The governor deserves some credit for having held out five days; if the Allies had been aware of the weakness of the garrison, they would have swamped it at once by an escalade.

On the next morning (April 16th) Cole and the 4th Division, who had at last received their much-needed supply of shoes, marched to join the rest of the army. A Portuguese garrison was thrown into Olivenza, but there was no intention to hold it, if the enemy should come up again. It was only a man-trap. Beresford might now have invested Badajoz, if it had pleased him so to do. But he thought it better to drive Latour-Maubourg completely out of Estremadura, and across the Sierra Morena, before taking the siege in hand. The main reason for his resolve was that it was clear that a week or ten days at least would be required to organize a battering-train at Elvas, for the bombardment and breaching of the fortress, and he thought it more profitable to spend this interval in pushing the French as far from Badajoz as possible, rather than in sitting down before it to no purpose, and waiting for the appearance of the siege-train. It was apparently an omission on Wellington’s part not to have ordered General Leite, the governor of Elvas, to begin making preparations for the gathering of a park and the collection of a large body of artillerymen, on the same day that he finally launched Beresford’s[341] force into Estremadura (March 16). But this had not been done, and it was not till April 18th that Major Alexander Dickson, who had already learnt what was available in Elvas while organizing the little train required for the capture of Olivenza, was directed to take in hand the much larger and more difficult task of collecting the men and material destined for the siege of a first-class fortress[342]. This delay seems extraordinary: did Wellington think on March 16th that Badajoz, only five days in the hands of the French at the moment, would be incapable of defence when Beresford should appear in front of it about the 25th of that same month? It is quite possible that this would have been the case, and that the French would have blown it up, if the Jerumenha bridge had been standing ready for the passage of the army on the next day, as Wellington had supposed. The Dispatches give us no help on this point; Wellington speaks of investing Badajoz, but gives no hint as to how the investment was to be followed up, till March 27th, when he observes to Beresford that ‘Elvas must supply the means for the attack on Badajoz, if possible; if it has them not, I must send them there; this will take time, but that cannot be avoided[343].’

Elvas, as matters turned out, did ‘supply the means,’ but the resources to be found there were so limited that, as was wittily said at the time by Picton, Wellington, both in May and in June 1811, ‘sued Badajoz in forma pauperis,’ and if the place had fallen it would have been almost a miracle, for no sufficient material to ensure its capture had been collected even by the month of June. The main difficulty arose from the fact that Wellington had never been provided by his Government with a siege-train. Looking upon the war in Portugal as essentially defensive in character, the Home authorities had forgotten that it might have offensive episodes, and that a great siege might not impossibly be one of them. The British army in Portugal possessed nothing in the way of artillery save the ordinary horse and field batteries (or ‘troops’ and ‘companies’ as they were then called), with their 3, 6, and 9-pounder guns. If a few hundred men were told off to heavy pieces in the Lisbon lines during the preceding autumn, it was not that they were intended for such service—they were parts of incomplete or unhorsed batteries, which had not taken the field when the campaign of 1810 began, and were waiting to complete their equipment. The British army in Portugal was absolutely destitute of artillery destined for and trained to the working of siege-guns. The only British pieces of heavy calibre used in the spring of 1811 were ships’ cannon lent by the commander of the squadron in the Tagus.

For such work as was now before them, therefore, the Allies had to depend entirely on what the Portuguese arsenals could supply. But all that could be found in them was now mounted on the interminable redoubts of the Lisbon lines, save such as had been sent to strengthen Elvas, Abrantes, and Peniche. Practically every gun in Portugal was defending some work, small or great; they had all been requisitioned down to the most antique and imperfect pieces. The walls of Elvas were a perfect museum of ancient artillery: among the heaviest pieces, carefully sorted out because of their calibre, and chosen for the siege-train that was to batter Badajoz, were to be seen not only many 24-pounders bearing the arms and cyphers of the earliest kings of the house of Braganza, João and Affonso, but still older brass guns of enormous length, showing the names of Philip III and IV of Spain, and dating back to the years before 1640, when Portugal was a discontented province of the Hapsburg kings[344]. It seems almost incredible, but is actually a fact, that some of the cannon used by Wellington’s men against Badajoz were just two hundred years old. Those that were not quite so antique were mainly pieces of early eighteenth-century pattern, without the later improvements invented by the French scientific artillerymen of the days of Louis XV and Louis XVI: for the Lisbon arsenal had persisted in using old models long after they had been dropped in the larger countries of Europe.

The gunners for the siege were of course mainly Portuguese, though a few were afterwards drawn from the imperfect British companies at Lisbon[345]. Those first employed were borrowed from the garrison of Elvas; they comprised a great number of recruits only partially trained, but did their best. It was the guns, not the men, that were at fault—or rather, both the guns and the ammunition, for the Portuguese cannon-balls in store, dating from all ages, varied much in size, and Dickson had to sort each convoy of 24 lb. or 12 lb. shot into batches, some of which were rather small and some rather large, and to apportion them to particular pieces. The old brass seventeenth-century guns, being generally worn from long use, needed the biggest shot, and even these were so large in the bore that the balls fitted loosely, and the discharge suffered from ‘windage.’ The impact of such shot was not half what it should have been[346]. With such tools to employ, it is not wonderful that the Anglo-Portuguese artillery made a poor show at the first siege of Badajoz. But worst of all was the fact that the number of pieces was at first far too small—Elvas could only spare a certain part of the armament of its walls, and it was not till some weeks had passed that guns, British and Portuguese, could be brought up from Lisbon, and with them drafts of artillerymen of both nations. But twenty-three guns and 400 artillerymen were all that Dickson could collect for the first siege, and these were not ready till April was out; indeed, it was no small achievement to organize a siege-train of any sort between April 18th and May 6th, from the sole resources of the fortress of Elvas. Of the additional hindrance caused by the small numbers and the inexperience of the engineer officers, and the total lack of trained sappers, we shall speak in the proper place.

The space of time before the siege-train for Badajoz could be got ready was employed by Beresford in clearing southern Estremadura of the enemy. Having left a brigade of the 2nd Division at Talavera Real, a battalion of the Lusitanian Legion (from Cole’s division) in Olivenza, and some squadrons of Portuguese cavalry round the southern front of Badajoz, to watch the garrison, the army marched for Santa Marta and Zafra, on the high-road to Seville, with its own cavalry in front, and Penne Villemur’s Spanish squadrons on the left (April 16th-18th). The bulk of the infantry went no further forward, because Latour-Maubourg withdrew into the Sierra Morena on the rumour of its approach. The cavalry continued the pursuit—at Los Santos on the 16th its leading regiment, the 13th Light Dragoons, had a smart affair with the French rearguard (2nd Hussars), and routed it with the loss of three officers and many men[347]. After this Latour-Maubourg never stopped till he had reached Guadalcanal, on the borders of Andalusia, evacuating Llerena and the other towns on the Estremaduran slope of the mountains (April 19th). Beresford thereupon left his British cavalry at Zafra, and Penne Villemur at Llerena, to watch the passes, while he drew back his infantry divisions to take in hand the siege of Badajoz (April 20th), with the exception of the brigade of Colborne, which was sent out with some Spanish horse to demonstrate against Latour-Maubourg, and to drive him still further southward if he showed signs of irresolution.

While these operations were in progress, there was a short and unexpected diversion in the extreme south-west corner of Estremadura, caused by the appearance of an outlying French column in that quarter, which had no connexion with Latour-Maubourg. A word as to this is necessary, since its result was to bring a new Spanish force into Beresford’s sphere of operations. When Soult returned to Andalusia in the middle of March, his first care was to drive off Ballasteros and the other detachments which had been threatening Seville in his absence. They gave back into the Condado de Niebla, as has already been mentioned. But at the end of the month the situation was complicated by the news that an expedition from Cadiz, the division of Zayas, had landed at Moguer, in the estuary of the Rio Tinto, and seemed about to join Ballasteros. If this junction had been made, the force collected in the west would have been too large to be safely neglected. Wherefore Soult sent out General Maransin and the Prince of Aremberg, the former with seven battalions of Gazan’s division, and the latter with two cavalry regiments, to attack the Spaniards. At the approach of this column of 4,500 men Zayas re-embarked, losing 300 men from his rearguard in so doing (April 1). Ballasteros retired into the mountains. Maransin thought it his duty to endeavour to make an end of this active and elusive adversary, whose constant appearances and reappearances on the flank of Seville had caused so much trouble. Sending back his cavalry and guns, he plunged into the hills with his infantry, and for twelve days hunted Ballasteros up and down the rugged upper valleys of the Odiel and the Rio Tinto. On April 12th Ballasteros, gradually pushed northward, came down to Fregenal, on the borders of Estremadura, where he offered battle, but was beaten, and fled to Xeres de los Caballeros. Maransin pursued, and reached that place on the 11th, while Ballasteros retired to Salvatierra de los Barros, not far from Santa Marta, and close on the flank of Beresford’s army. Maransin, who had long been cut off from touch with other French detachments, was wholly unaware that he had run into the neighbourhood of a British force, and would have been captured, or defeated, if he had stayed a day longer at Xeres, for Ballasteros had called for help to Beresford, and the latter was preparing to throw two divisions upon his flank and rear[348]. Letters from Latour-Maubourg to Maransin, to warn him of his danger, were intercepted by the guerrilleros and sent to the British camp[349]. But an Afrancesado, one of the principal inhabitants of Xeres, warned the French general just before it was too late: and, hastily leaving his position at night, Maransin retired into Andalusia via Fregenal and Aracena, and ultimately joined Latour-Maubourg by a circuitous route.

Ballasteros stayed behind in Estremadura, and the allied force in that province was strengthened by his 3,500 men. But this was not all: the Regency at Cadiz resolved to place a considerable army in this direction, their own city being more than amply garrisoned, and expeditions to the south being unpopular since the fiasco that followed Barrosa. On April 25th General Blake took the two divisions of Zayas and Lardizabal (both of which had fought at Barrosa), and landed with them at Ayamonte, the port in the mouth of the Guadiana. From thence he moved up along the Portuguese frontier, and joined Ballasteros near Xeres de los Caballeros about a fortnight later. Between them they had over 10,000 infantry and about 800 cavalry, but few guns, for Blake found it difficult to horse the batteries that he had brought with him, and left all save six pieces behind, at Ayamonte, to follow when they could procure teams. They had not rejoined him four weeks later, when the battle of Albuera was fought. The presence of Blake was not altogether an unmixed benefit, for he was independent of Castaños, who commanded the ‘5th Army’ or old Estremaduran force, and the two generals were ancient rivals and did not seem likely to co-operate with any cordiality. But if Soult was to make his appearance for the relief of Badajoz, it was as well that the Allies should be as strong as possible on the front by which he must attack.

Before, however, Blake had arrived in Estremadura, the investment of Badajoz had begun. It was directed by Wellington himself, who dropped suddenly into the middle of the campaign on the 20th, when he arrived at Elvas. Having seen Masséna retreat to Salamanca, and break up his army into cantonments, he now considered that it was safe for him to pay the visit to the south which he had always projected. Leaving Sabugal on April 16th, he rode across country by Castello Branco and Niza, and reached Elvas on the fifth night. The next day but one he conducted a reconnaissance of Badajoz, escorted by a brigade newly landed at Lisbon, which he had ordered to join Beresford—Alten’s two light battalions of the King’s German Legion. The examination of the defences of the fortress was made under some difficulties, for at the moment when Wellington was riding round the walls a large working party of the garrison, which had been dispatched to cut timber in the woods to the south, was returning into the place. Phillipon, the governor, thinking that Wellington’s escort was a detachment sent to cut off his workmen, came hastily out of the fortress with three battalions, and swept off the high-road two companies of the Germans who were accompanying the head-quarters’ staff, with the loss of fifty or sixty men. The working party hurried to join their friends, and got into the gate before the main body of Alten’s brigade could come up. This interruption being over, Wellington completed his survey of the whole circuit of Badajoz, and on the next day (April 23rd) issued elaborate orders to Beresford, concerning the policy to be observed in Estremadura during the siege. He had never intended to stay more than a few days in the south, to supervise affairs, and on the 25th a dispatch received from Sir Brent Spencer, the senior officer left with the main army in the north, reported such activity of the French in that direction that he rode hard for the frontiers of Leon, where he arrived on the 29th.

The orders dictated to Beresford governed the whole course of the campaign in Estremadura during the next month, and were of the highest importance. Wellington directed that the siege of Badajoz should be begun the moment that the guns and material were ready, but warned his colleague that its commencement would infallibly bring Soult to the relief of the place, with every available man that he could scrape together from Andalusia. It was impossible to calculate what the strength of his army would be: if he raised the siege of Cadiz or evacuated Granada, so that he could bring a very large force with him, Beresford was to retire behind the Guadiana, and assume a defensive position on the Caya river in front of Elvas. If forced from thence, he must retire even as far as Portalegre should it be necessary. But if Soult (as was more likely) came up with a force which was not absolutely overwhelming in numbers, ‘Marshal Beresford will consider of and decide upon the chance of success, according to a view of the relative number of both armies, and making a reasonable allowance for the number of Spanish troops which will co-operate with him.... If he should think his strength sufficient to fight a general action to save the siege of Badajoz, he will collect his troops to fight it. I believe that, upon the whole, the most central and advantageous place to collect the troops will be at Albuera.... All this must of course be left to the decision of Sir William Beresford. I authorize him to fight the action if he should think proper, or to retire if he should not[350].’

The co-operation of the Spaniards was the crucial point. Unless it were assured, Wellington considered that Beresford must assume the more cautious and defensive attitude. If it were secured, the bolder policy might be pursued. The lines which Wellington laid down were in the main those which had already been suggested by Beresford: (1) Castaños must undertake to keep the horse of Villemur in the Sierra Morena, closely observing Latour-Maubourg, but forbid him to engage in any fighting; he must retire if pressed; the infantry of the 5th army must stay at Merida, as at present, but be ready to join Beresford if Soult invaded Estremadura. (2) Ballasteros was to take a similar position on the other flank, with his head quarters at Burguillos (near Zafra)[351] and his advanced posts at Fregenal and Monasterio; if Soult moved forward, he was to join Beresford without attempting to fight. (3) When Blake’s army had landed, it was to pass up the Guadiana, and take post at Xeres de los Caballeros; on any alarm from Soult, it was (like the other Spanish troops) to join Beresford at once. If these arrangements worked, at least 15,000 Spaniards would be in line at Albuera, the chosen position, to assist in holding back Soult. And, as we shall see, the scheme did work exactly as Wellington had designed, and the whole force was collected. (4) Lastly, and this was all-important, when the allied forces were concentrated, they must be placed under a single commander, and not worked with divided authority and divided responsibility, as had been the case in the Talavera campaign of 1809. Concerning Blake there could be no difficulty, as he was junior to Castaños, and the latter had consented to place himself at Beresford’s disposition when they met at Jerumenha on March 30th. Too much praise cannot be given to his reasonable and conciliatory conduct, which alone rendered possible the co-operation of all the allied forces during the ensuing campaign.

Wellington therefore, as is clear, foresaw the whole course of subsequent operations, and even fixed the exact battle-spot on which the fate of Soult’s attempt to relieve Badajoz would be decided. The only point left to Beresford’s decision was whether the strength of the French army was such as to render a successful resistance possible. And when we come to consider the respective forces at the disposition of the two parties, it can hardly be urged that Beresford was wrong to accept battle. That his victory was a hard-fought and costly one came from minor tactical circumstances, which will be explained in their due place.

As to the details of the projected siege of Badajoz, Wellington laid down an equally clear policy. All guns and material were to be collected in Elvas, Campo Mayor, and Olivenza, and not to move till everything was ready. The main communications of the army were to be across a floating bridge to be constructed at the junction of the Caya and the Guadiana, five miles below Badajoz and six from Elvas. The permanent bridge of Merida and the temporary bridges at Jerumenha would be subsidiary resources. Lastly, and here was the most important point, the general scheme to be pursued was that the besiegers should first reduce the outlying defences of Badajoz, Fort San Cristobal on the north bank of the Guadiana, the Pardaleras and the Picurina on the south bank. Only when all these were taken would operations against the city itself be begun. To quote the concluding paragraph of Wellington’s memorandum: ‘When the British army shall be in possession of San Cristobal, Picurina and Pardaleras, Marshal Beresford will determine upon the point at which he will attack the body of the place. It is believed that, upon the whole, one of the south faces will be the most advantageous.’

There can be no doubt that all the mishaps of the two first British sieges of Badajoz had their origin in these original orders of Wellington, which were drawn up on the advice of his chief engineer, Colonel Fletcher. The great mistake was the choosing of the almost impregnable fort of San Cristobal as one of the three first points of attack, and the making all subsequent operations depend upon its capture. No doubt the possession of this lofty and commanding work would render the fall of Badajoz certain, since it overlooked the castle and all the northern end of the city. But it was the strongest part of the whole defences, and when the miserable and antiquated train of artillery at Beresford’s disposition is taken into consideration, and it is remembered that the siege was to be conducted ‘against time’ as it were, i. e. with the hope that it might be concluded before Soult could collect a relieving force, it is clear that San Cristobal ought to have been left alone. The other points designated by Wellington, the Pardaleras and Picurina, were much more accessible, and the capture of one or other of them would have brought the besiegers close to the walls, though neither of them commanded the whole city in the same fashion as San Cristobal. The best commentary on the sieges of 1811 is that a year later, at the third and successful leaguer, Wellington left the high-lying fort on the other side of the Guadiana entirely alone. The original orders of 1811 gave three separate and distinct objectives, and none of these were to be mere ‘false attacks,’ since it is distinctly said that operations against the enceinte were only to begin when all three of the forts were in British hands. Wellington was not a trained engineer; he was dependent on the advice of the officers of that arm, and it seems that they gave him bad counsel, as they certainly did to Beresford during the subsequent weeks. The most puzzling thing is to make out why Colonel Fletcher and his colleagues ignored Soult’s precedent; the French engineers had concentrated their attack on the Pardaleras front as their sole objective, for their other operations were false attacks. The English engineers, instead of concentrating their efforts in the same way, wasted their work on three separate points, which was all the more inexcusable because they knew that the resources which their comrades of the artillery arm had at their disposition were most inadequate for a great siege. Hence came a very costly and deplorable series of failures.

On the day of Wellington’s departure from Elvas heavy rain fell, and the Guadiana rose high, not merely washing away the cask-bridge at Jerumenha, but rendering the working of the flying bridges impossible. This was a serious matter; not only did it put a temporary stop to the communications between Elvas and the army, but it raised the question as to what might happen if a similar mischance were to occur when Soult was invading Estremadura. For if the Jerumenha bridges should break when the Allies were concentrated at Albuera, they would have no line of retreat and an impassable river behind. Beresford, with this possibility in his eye, ordered an alternative line of communication to be established via Merida, and sent a brigade of the 2nd Division thither to reinforce the Spaniards of Morillo, and a day later the whole 4th Division. His anxiety on this point did not cease till, on the 5th of May, a strong pontoon bridge had been built at the point selected by Wellington, the place where the Caya falls into the Guadiana. By this time the Jerumenha bridges were again in working order, but it was clear that it would be a mistake to trust the whole safety of the army to them.

It was only on this same day (May 5) that Colonel Fletcher and Major Alexander Dickson reported to Beresford that they were ready to produce the means for the attack on Badajoz: the former had his stock of platforms, fascines, and gabions prepared; the latter had organized the first convoy of artillery and ammunition from Elvas. On the 6th, therefore, the investment of Badajoz on the south side of the Guadiana was completed by the British brigades of Lumley and Alten and the Portuguese brigade of Fonseca, while on the following day the brigade of Kemmis and the 17th Portuguese (part of the garrison of Elvas) appeared opposite San Cristobal, and shut in the place on the northern bank of the river. The rest of the infantry[352] encamped as a support of the besieging force in the woods between Badajoz and Albuera, but the cavalry still remained in southern Estremadura, and Colborne’s brigade had been for some days (April 30th-May 11th) executing a demonstration in the Sierra Morena, with the object of keeping Latour-Maubourg employed. This last operation, owing to Colborne’s skilful management of his column of 2,000 infantry and two squadrons each of Spanish and Portuguese horse, had been very successful. On hearing of British infantry in his front, the French general evacuated his posts on the crest of the mountains, Guadalcanal, Fuente Ovejuna, Azuaga, and Monasterio, and fell back south-eastward towards Constantina on the Cordova road, abandoning the direct line of retreat on Seville, which he had hitherto covered. Colborne, after clearing all these places, extended his march eastward into a very wild and unexplored country, and summoned the isolated castle of Benalcazar, the only French garrison left north of the Sierra Morena. When it refused to listen to a summons, he had to leave it, having neither guns to batter it nor time to waste. From thence he returned by a circular sweep through Campanario to Almendralejo, where he once more was in touch with the British army (May 11th).

The first episodes of the siege of Badajoz were not very encouraging to the besiegers. On the 8th trenches were opened opposite all the three points of attack designated by Wellington, the Picurina and Pardaleras forts on the south side, and San Cristobal on the north. In each case the first parallel was started at about 400 yards from the walls; Dickson had told off fourteen 24-pounders and two 8-inch howitzers for the work on the left bank, five 24-pounders and two other howitzers for the attack on San Cristobal. More energy was displayed in this last quarter than in the others, apparently from the notion that if this commanding work could be subdued the rest of the siege would be an easy matter. But the results were disappointing: on the stony slopes of San Cristobal there was little earth to throw up, and the spade gritted against rock at three inches from the surface. At the end of the first night’s digging the trench was but a seam, and there was only one section at which about ten men could work under cover. The rest had to be abandoned during daylight, for the enemy kept up a furious fire, not merely from the fort, but from the citadel on the other side of the river, whose flank battery enfiladed the projected trench. Three out of nine engineer officers present on this front were killed or wounded in the first twenty-four hours, and many of the workers from Kemmis’s brigade and the 17th Portuguese. It soon became obvious that the trenches would have to be built with earth from a distance and gabions, rather than excavated. Nevertheless, a battery for Dickson’s five 24-pounders was sketched out, and began to be visible to the enemy. On the night of the 10th Phillipon sent up a reserve battalion into San Cristobal, and executed a sortie upon the British works. It penetrated into the trenches, but was driven out after a sharp struggle by the covering party. But, pursuing too far, the British came under the guns of San Cristobal, and had to retire to their trenches with lamentably heavy loss[353]. Next day the battery was completed, despite of a deadly fire both from the fort and the castle, and opened upon its objective. But it was completely overmastered, and before night four of its five guns had been damaged or dismounted; three more engineer officers were hurt, leaving only three surviving of the original nine. It is said that the battery opened before it had been intended—a fault of over-zeal on the part of the Portuguese major in command. Beresford’s purpose had been to wait till the other attacks, on the Picurina and Pardaleras, were ready, before beginning to batter San Cristobal. These attacks had met with less difficulty, the ground being easier to dig, and on the evening of the 11th the trenches in front of the Picurina were well advanced, and the battery of ten guns there opened upon the fort with some, but not great, effect.

Seeing the San Cristobal attack faring so badly, the engineers got leave to erect a second battery on that side, further down the hill, which was intended to check the enfilading fire from the other side of the Guadiana. More guns were brought up to the original battery, to replace those that had been damaged. But both batteries were overpowered and badly maltreated on the morning of the 12th. A few hours later news arrived from the south, sent by Ballasteros, to the effect that the French were in motion from Seville with a large relieving army, and were marching hard across the Sierra Morena, just as Wellington had expected; they had reached Santa Olalla on the 11th, and were already in touch with Latour-Maubourg. Since their force was estimated at only 23,000 men—not far from the real amount—Beresford resolved to fight, and sent requests to Castaños, Ballasteros, and Blake to concentrate on Albuera, the battle-ground selected by Wellington. It was fortunate that Blake was now in close touch and available—he had reached Fregenal on the 9th and Barcarrota on the 12th, so that his arrival was certain, unless some unforeseen accident should occur. Without his aid it would have been doubtful policy to wait for Soult and risk a general action: but with his 10,000 men in line the Allies would have wellnigh 35,000 men available, if every unit came complete to the field.

Meanwhile, pending the confirmation of the news of the French advance, Beresford’s engineers asked leave to open another parallel, and 1,400 men had been paraded for the purpose of starting it, when complete details as to Soult’s progress came to hand. It had been so rapid that the Marshal at once ordered all the siege operations to be discontinued, though the engineers tried to persuade him to risk two days’ more work, by the vain promise that they would undertake to produce two practicable breaches in that space of time. Beresford wisely refused to listen to them, and ordered that all the guns and ammunition should be returned at once to Elvas, with such of the siege stores as could be readily moved. But the mass of gabions and fascines had to be burnt, as these would be profitable to the garrison, and would certainly be carried into the town if they were left intact. The troops, English, Portuguese, and Spanish (three battalions of Castaños’s infantry had come up from Merida), were ordered to prepare to march for Albuera in successive detachments, the 4th Division and the Spaniards being left to the last in the trenches, to cover the removal of the guns and stores.

Beresford’s total casualties in this mismanaged fragment of a siege, from May 6th to May 12th, had been 533 British and 200 Portuguese, or 733 in all, lost in the trenches and in the sortie. It will be seen that the sortie cost far more lives than the actual beleaguering work. All the British loss save seven casualties was in Kemmis’s brigade of the 4th Division[354], which lay on the Cristobal side, and suffered both in the trench-building and in the sortie. The Portuguese loss was partly in the 17th Line, which acted with Kemmis, partly among the artillery.

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SECTION XXVI: CHAPTER II

FUENTES DE OÑORO: PRELIMINARY OPERATIONS.
APRIL 12nd-MAY 3rd, 1811

The Army of Portugal, sullenly retiring far within the frontiers of Spain, had been lost to Wellington’s sight on April 8th, when it passed the Agueda and fell back in diverging columns towards various towns of the kingdom of Leon—Salamanca, Toro, and Zamora—where it went into cantonments. Only Drouet with the two divisions of Conroux and Claparéde remained in observation of the Allies, with his head quarters at San Muñoz. The British general was well aware of the dilapidated state in which the enemy had reached his base, and calculated that it would take many weeks for Masséna to get his army into fighting trim again. He considered that he might even hope to gain possession of Almeida before the French would be in a position to attempt its relief, though it could only fall by famine, since there were no heavy guns to form a battering-train for its siege nearer than Oporto, Abrantes, or Lisbon. He had already inspected the place, and saw that it had been put in such a good state of defence by the governor, Brennier, that all external traces of the great explosion of August 1810 had disappeared. That the town within was still a mass of ruins, with nearly every house cut off sheer at the first story, was of no military importance, when the enceinte and the bomb-proofs were in good order.

There was a short moment during which Wellington had some hopes of being able to lay hands on Ciudad Rodrigo as well as Almeida. He had learnt that the Spanish fortress was almost as depleted of food as the Portuguese, and that Masséna’s troops had consumed 200,000 rations from its stores when they reached the frontier; he thought that the extra garrison which Junot had thrown into it, before he passed onward, would only serve to exhaust the magazines so much the earlier. Accordingly he not only requested that active and enterprising partisan Julian Sanchez, to beset the roads between Salamanca and Rodrigo, in order that no provisions might get through, but made preparations to throw some British light troops across the Agueda to co-operate with him, when the approach of a convoy should be reported. With this object he moved up the Light Division and Arentschildt’s brigade of cavalry close to the Agueda and within a few miles of Rodrigo. Their head quarters were at Gallegos, their outposts extended from the bridge of Barba del Puerco on the north as far as El Bodon on the south. It was intended that, when Don Julian signalled the approach of the French, the Light Division should make a dash across the fords of the Agueda, and endeavour to intercept the convoy. This plan failed on the 13th of April, owing, as Wellington held, to the slowness of Sir William Erskine[355], who was still in command of the division, though news had just arrived—to the great satisfaction of all the battalions—that its old general, Craufurd, was daily expected at Lisbon on his way to the front.

Rodrigo having been revictualled, Wellington abandoned all hope of molesting it further; to have invested it would have been useless, when he had no siege-train. But Almeida he intended to reduce at his leisure, being of the opinion that it would be starved out before Masséna was in a position to take the field to relieve it. Nothing short of his whole army would suffice for that operation—if that even were enough. And knowing that the troops had just reached Salamanca in a demoralized and discontented condition, without shoes, without train, almost without ammunition, and with the remnant of their cavalry and artillery horses dying off at the rate of several hundreds a day, Wellington doubted if his adversary would be able to come out of his cantonments before the summer was far spent. At any rate, he calculated that he had a good many weeks before him, in which he was not likely to find the Army of Portugal a serious danger. Accordingly he resolved to put his own host into cantonments also, in such a position as to block the road to Almeida, and to give it a well-earned rest while that fortress was being starved out. He had, as we observed in a previous chapter, no intention of assuming the offensive against the French in Leon till he had organized his line of communication with his new base at Coimbra, and established large intermediate dépôts at Lamego, Celorico, and other conveniently placed localities. The army was living from hand to mouth,—all the country about Almeida, Guarda, and Sabugal having been thoroughly devastated,—on convoys which were only struggling up at irregular intervals from the lower Mondego. The horses especially were in very poor order, from want of proper forage. ‘The regiments subsisted on the green corn, which was dreadful to the inhabitants, and of little use to the horses, when they had to work. There was nothing else, and we had to cut their rye.... How our army has been carried though this desolate abandoned country is astonishing[356].’ Till there were dépôts and a regular service established, it was impossible to concentrate the army, much less to send it forward into Spain.

Accordingly the allied troops were spread broadcast in the villages between the Coa and the Agueda. The Light Division and two cavalry regiments[357] were in front, holding the outposts facing Ciudad Rodrigo, and in touch with Drouet’s corps, which lay along the Yeltes, a stream that runs roughly parallel with the Agueda, at a distance of from seven to fifteen miles to the north-east. The 5th Division was in the villages around Fort Concepcion, in support of the Light Division. The 6th Division, with Pack’s Portuguese, who had lately come up from the Mondego, where they had been dropped during the pursuit of Masséna[358], were blockading Almeida. The main body of the army, the 1st, 3rd, and 7th Divisions, with Ashworth’s independent Portuguese brigade[359], were cantoned in the valleys of the Dos Casas and the Turon, tributaries of the Agueda, being distributed between Nava de Aver, Fuentes de Oñoro, Pozo Bello, and other small places in the neighbourhood. The cavalry, save that detached to the front, was trying to keep its horses alive in the poor villages along the Coa, from Castello Rodrigo to Alfayates[360]. The whole army, distributed in a square of not more than twenty miles, was so placed that it could concentrate at any point in one march. Wellington, even though he judged Masséna unable to molest him, was determined not to be caught with his troops in a state of dispersion.

But considering that things were at present at a standstill on the northern frontier, and that nothing serious could be undertaken there, till the line of supplies was organized and Almeida captured, Wellington now resolved to pay the long-deferred visit to Estremadura which he projected as far back as the commencement of Masséna’s retreat. ‘At this moment,’ he wrote to Lord Liverpool, ‘the first object is certainly Badajoz.’ Till that place should have been recovered and regarrisoned, he could never feel quite safe on his southern flank. A diversion on the part of Soult in the Alemtejo, threatening Lisbon from the south, would always be a dangerous and tiresome possibility, until Badajoz was once more in the hands of the Allies, and all Estremadura recovered and held by a competent force. The future was inscrutable—for all Wellington knew the Emperor might appear in person, before the summer was over, to take up the Spanish problem; or, on the other hand, the affairs of Eastern Europe might cause him to shut off all reinforcements from the Peninsula, and to turn his attention to a Russian war. But whatever might happen, it was well to have the Portuguese frontier properly covered in the south. Supposing the French made another march on Lisbon, it was necessary to be free of danger in the rear. Supposing that they showed weakness, and dropped the offensive, the possession of Badajoz and Estremadura gave facilities for disquieting the Army of Andalusia, perhaps for raising the siege of Cadiz, which could not be secured in any other fashion.

Meanwhile Wellington formulated three possible courses[361] which the French might pursue during the next two months, before new reinforcements could reach them from France, or the Emperor make his appearance—if so he should decide to do. These three possible courses were: (a) Masséna might call on Bessières, and induce him to join the Army of Portugal at once with all his disposable troops, in order that they might save Almeida by driving off the British army. (b) Masséna might allow his troops a long repose in cantonments, relieving the Army of the North in its present charge of Old Castile, while Bessières, with such part of his corps as he could collect, might invade Galicia, to clear the French right flank. (c) Masséna might give his troops the repose that they needed, and, after some interval, might pass south into Estremadura, to join Soult in operations on the Guadiana, while leaving Bessières in charge of the defence of the frontiers of Leon. It will be seen that the French actually adopted first plan (a), the endeavour to save Almeida by a junction of the Armies of Portugal and the North, and then, a month later, plan (c), a concentration in Estremadura to save Badajoz. Oddly enough, Wellington conceived that the first plan was the least likely of the three, apparently because he over-estimated the time which it would take Masséna to reorganize his army and resume active operations. He did not make enough allowance for the old Marshal’s obstinacy, and for the pride which forbade him to allow Almeida to fall without any effort being made to relieve it. But though he thought this scheme the least likely for the French to adopt, he made full provisions for dealing with it, in case it should be the one they selected. His second suggestion, that Bessières might hand over the charge of Old Castile to Masséna, and proceed to invade Galicia, was founded on an insufficient knowledge of the present situation and difficulties of the Army of the North. Bessières, though the gross amount of his forces was large (over 70,000 men), was much too obsessed and worried by the guerrilleros to dream of concentrating a force large enough to make a serious invasion of Galicia. We shall find him, three weeks after the date of Wellington’s dispatch, declaring that he could only collect 1,600 cavalry and one battery to form a field force, because any movement of his infantry would imperil the whole fabric of the French supremacy in northern Spain. If the objection be raised that this plea of his was only put forth in order to disoblige Masséna, and to save himself from responsibility, no such objection can be made to his statement of June 6th—made after Masséna’s recall—to the effect that if he were forced to concentrate 20,000 men for any purpose, all communications with France and Madrid would be lost, and the whole of the country-side, from the Guadiana to the Bay of Biscay, would blaze up in one general insurrection[362]. Supposing that Masséna and Bessières had been on the best of terms, and that the former had proposed to take over the charge of the region occupied by the latter, in order to set the Army of the North free for field operations, Bessières must have replied that he would not be able to produce enough men to ‘contain’ the British army, and at the same time to attack Galicia. Wellington’s hypothesis therefore was faulty; he undervalued the work of the guerrilleros, who were occupying, for his benefit, the attention of a much greater part of the French army than he supposed. The idea that the enemy might make a blow at Galicia was inspired by his knowledge of the weakness of that province, where Mahy had put everything out of gear, and Santocildes had not yet begun the process of reorganization. Knowing how disastrous the appearance of a French corps in this quarter might prove, he feared it more than was necessary[363].

If it be asked what were Napoleon’s views as to the proper scheme for the French marshals to adopt, under the circumstances that existed on April 15, we must not look (of course) to orders issued about that time, when he was still working on data three weeks old. As late as March 30th he had been sending instructions to Soult and other commanders on the hypothesis that Masséna’s head quarters were at Coimbra, and that Oporto was very possibly in French hands![364] On April 9 he was telling the Prince of Essling to devote his energy to the armament of Almeida, and to place himself so as to cover both that place and Ciudad Rodrigo[365]—orders exquisitely inapplicable when Almeida was already blockaded by Wellington, and Masséna’s troops had just crawled past Ciudad Rodrigo, in a state of hopeless dilapidation, on their retreat to Salamanca. The next advice sent to the Army of Portugal was almost equally inappropriate: having heard of Wellington’s flying visit to Estremadura by intelligence dated April 18th (the trip had begun upon the 15th), he jumped to the conclusion that the English general must have taken many troops with him. On May 7th he wrote, ‘the translations from English newspapers herewith enclosed show that Lord Wellington had crossed the Tagus on April 18th. So it seems that on the side of Castile there can now be only half the English army left. The events which must already have taken place on the side of Almeida will have shown the generals that this is the case, and will have enabled them to make the proper corresponding move (de prendre le parti convenable), viz. to begin to move towards the Tagus[366].’ On the day when this was written, Wellington, who had not taken a man to Estremadura, had been back on the frontier of Leon since April 28, and had, at the head of the whole of his original army, defeated Masséna and Bessières at Fuentes de Oñoro, on May 5th. As always, the imperial orders, founded on data that had long ceased to be correct, or had never been correct at all, arrived too late to direct the course of the campaign.

One most important measure, however, was taken at this time, by which the Emperor did succeed in affecting the general course of affairs on the frontier of Portugal. On April 20th he made up his mind to recall Masséna, and to send a new chief to the Army of Portugal. Five days before, Marshal Marmont, newly returned from commanding in Dalmatia, had received orders to start at once for Spain, where he was to replace Ney at the head of the 6th Corps. Whether the Emperor had already made up his mind on the 15th that Marmont was to replace Masséna, not to serve under him, it is impossible to say. But he at any rate concealed his purpose from the younger Marshal, who had been some days in Spain before he received on May 10th the dispatch of April 20th which made him commander of the Army of Portugal[367]. Probably the news that Masséna had failed in his design to hold Coimbra, which Foy had elaborately explained to the Emperor, and had fallen back behind Ciudad Rodrigo, had provoked his master to dismiss him from command. Foy’s report had caused Napoleon to believe that Masséna could stop on the Mondego and hold Wellington in check. The imperial dispatch of March 30 (as we have already seen) speaks of Masséna’s stay at Coimbra as a settled fact, and states that Oporto is or will soon be in his hands. On April 9 Napoleon knew that the Marshal had lost Coimbra and fallen back on Guarda[368], but continued to send him elaborate instructions. It was apparently the receipt of Masséna’s dispatch of March 31st from Alfayates, confessing that he was completely foiled, and that he must retire beyond the Agueda, as far as Zamora and Toro, since the spirit of the army was so broken that he dared not risk a general action[369], which determined the Emperor to supersede him. This document must have reached Paris about the 15th or 16th, and would suffice to explain Napoleon’s anger. For a Commander-in-Chief who confesses that he has lost the confidence of his army is a dangerous person to retain in power. There was ample evidence from Masséna’s earlier letters that he had quarrelled not only with Ney but with most of his other superior officers; if the general feeling of the army was also against him, he was not likely to get much good service out of it. Possibly there may have been also a feeling of wounded amour propre in the Emperor’s breast, when he reflected how, relying on Masséna’s assurances, he had informed Soult, King Joseph, and Bessières that the Army of Portugal had its head quarters at Coimbra, and would attack Lisbon in the autumn[370], so that ‘a hundred thousand men, using Coimbra and Badajoz as their bases, would complete the conquest of Portugal, a conquest which would drag England into a crisis that would be of the highest interest.’ Napoleon did not like to be made ridiculous before his subordinates, by having been induced to publish an absurd misstatement of fact, leading up to a vainglorious prophecy which appeared most unlikely to be realized.

But though Masséna’s death-warrant, as commander-in-chief was signed on April 20, and may have been decided upon as early as April 16, there were still three weeks during which he was to make his last stroke for revenge, and to lose his last battle, for it was not till May 12th that Marmont presented his lettres de service and took over the command.

Wellington, meanwhile, convinced that he had nothing to fear for some little time from the Army of Portugal and its commander, left Villar Formoso on the morning of April 15th, reached Sabugal that night, Castello Branco on the 17th, and Elvas by the noon of the 20th. This was marvellous travelling, considering the mountain roads that had to be traversed, but Wellington was a mighty horseman, and accompanied by only a few well-mounted staff officers flew like the wind over hill and dale. He remained only four days in Estremadura; during that short time he surveyed Badajoz, and issued compendious directions for the siege[371]; he drew up a plan of campaign for the united armies of Beresford, Blake, and Castaños, and then, returning as rapidly as he had come, retraced his route to the frontiers of Leon, and was back at Alameda on the 29th, having been less than a fortnight absent from his army. This rapidity of movement, as we have already seen, completely puzzled Napoleon, who, on receiving the intelligence that Wellington was over the Tagus on the 18th, thought that he had gone with a strong force to establish himself in Estremadura, and sent orders for the Army of Portugal to move at once towards the south[372], a movement which at that moment could not have been executed for want of train, transport, and provisions.

During Wellington’s absence the command of the troops cantoned between the Agueda and the Coa had been given over to Sir Brent Spencer, as the senior division-commander present. Wellington did not think it probable that Spencer would be much troubled by the enemy during his short spell of responsibility, but left him directions that covered every possible contingency. If, contrary to all expectation, Masséna should make an effort to relieve Almeida within the fortnight for which the Commander-in-Chief intended to be absent[373], Spencer was directed to make a careful estimate of the force of the enemy; if it were but small the line of the Agueda might be held; if it were great—it was conceivable that Bessières might succour Masséna—Spencer was to concentrate, not in front of Almeida, nor across the road from Rodrigo to that place, but in a defensive position to the south of it, parallel to the French line of advance and threatening it in flank. Only Pack’s Portuguese infantry brigade, and Barbaçena’s cavalry brigade of the same nation, were to keep up the investment of Almeida till the last possible moment. The designated position was that in front of Rendo, Alfayates, and Aldea Velha, which Wellington took up himself later in the same year, during a subsequent movement of the French to relieve Ciudad Rodrigo. No leave to fight a battle was given to Spencer, though it was given to Beresford when the latter was placed in a similar responsible position. Instead, he was ordered to send constant information to his absent chief, who gave him a tabular statement of the mileage of his journey and the place at which he was to be heard of each day[374]. Wellington intended to return with his own peculiar swiftness on the first threatening news, and thought that he could reckon on being back in time, if he was properly advised of the first ominous movements of the enemy. He apparently calculated that, if Masséna came on in great force, and found the British army massed in a strong mountain position, upon the flank of the route that he must take towards Almeida, he would be unlikely to attack it—Bussaco being an unpleasant memory. If the Marshal began to manœuvre he would lose time, and he himself would be back before the crisis came.

As a matter of fact it was only towards the end of Spencer’s short period of responsibility that matters began to grow interesting upon the frontiers of Leon. There was, however, a slight alarm on the 15th-16th, just after Wellington’s departure. Masséna, not contented with having passed a first convoy into Rodrigo on the 13th, had followed it up with a second, which was escorted by Marchand’s division of the 6th Corps—a unit which had seen more severe service during March than any other part of the French army, yet was considered to be in better order than its fellows. The same phenomenon, it will be remembered, had been noted with Paget’s rearguard division during Moore’s retreat to Corunna. Marchand was ordered, when he should have lodged the convoy in Rodrigo, to make a reconnaissance toward the Azava, and try to discover what was the force of the British in that direction. He got into the fortress without hindrance, owing to Erskine’s usual talent for bungling—on the approach of the convoy the Light Division was concentrated at Molino de Flores, but Erskine refused to send it over the fords, and watched Marchand defile into the town. Some cavalry went across the Agueda, and cut off a flanking party of three hundred French, who took shelter in a ruined village and refused to surrender. Erskine sent no one to support the British horse, and presently a French column came out of Rodrigo and released the blockaded party. All this took place under the eyes of the disgusted Light Division on the other side of the water[375] (April 16th).

Some days later Marchand came out of Rodrigo with a regiment of infantry and a squadron, to make the reconnaissance which he had been directed to execute. At Marialva, five miles outside the fortress, he ran into the pickets of the 95th and 52nd, and received such a warm reception that he turned back at once, and sent the report to Masséna that the British were established in strong force close above the Agueda (April 22[376]). After this there were no further alarms at the front till the 28th, the day on which Wellington returned from Elvas. But Spencer’s account of the reconnaissance of the 22nd, which reached Wellington at Portalegre on the 25th, undoubtedly contributed to hurry the return journey of the Commander-in-Chief, for it was accompanied by a report—which was perfectly correct—that information from the side of Salamanca seemed to make it certain that Masséna was reconcentrating his troops for a dash at Almeida, and that Bessières had been asked to give help. The Salamanca secret correspondents (of whom the chief was Doctor Curtis, the head of the Irish College in the University) had always proved trustworthy, so that their reports could not be ignored, and Wellington was glad that the French movement was reported at the end, and not at the commencement, of his trip to Estremadura.

The fact was that Masséna was making a last desperate effort to save the military reputation of which he was so proud, and to justify himself to his master. If Almeida and Rodrigo were both to be lost, as the final sequel to his retreat from Portugal, his whole year’s command must be written down as a failure; if these early conquests of 1810 could be saved, he might yet claim to have added somewhat to the French dominions in the Peninsula. His troops had not been a fortnight in their cantonments before he was making preparations to reassemble them for a last effort. In some respects that fortnight had made a great difference in their condition: Salamanca and Valladolid, at the moment of his arrival, were full of drafts of men, and accumulation of stores, belonging to the Army of Portugal, which had been gathering there for many months while the communications with that army were cut. At one moment in the late winter, Thiébault, the governor of Salamanca, had no less than 18,000 men of detachments belonging to Masséna’s troops in his government[377]—partly convalescents, partly small parties which had come up from the French dépôts to join their regiments, and had been unable to do so. Though some of them had ultimately gone forward with Foy and Gardanne, many still remained to be absorbed. The numbers of ‘present under arms’ in the 2nd, 6th, and 8th Corps went up at once, the mass of sick and exhausted men which they discharged into hospital being replaced by the drafts and convalescents. Masséna also took out of the 9th Corps the battalions belonging to regiments of which the main bodies were already in the old Army of Portugal, and sent them to join their comrades[378]. The cadres of one battalion in each regiment were then sent home to France, and the other three raised to something like their original war strength. This redistribution brought up the divisions of Reynier and Loison to a figure which they had not known for many months, though it depleted Drouet’s corps to a corresponding extent: his troops now consisted of only eighteen battalions, or 10,000 infantry, all consisting of fourth battalions belonging to regiments serving in Andalusia. He had received orders that when the crisis on the frontiers of Leon was over, he was to conduct these units to join their eagles in Soult’s army. Drouet was anxious to get away from Masséna as soon as possible, and would gladly have marched for Seville without delay; but it was obvious that this was as yet impossible, and, as he was technically under the command of the Marshal, he was compelled to play his part in the ensuing campaign.

The net result of all the transferences of battalions and the picking up of drafts was that on May 1, the 2nd Corps had in the ranks 1,200 more men than it had possessed on March 15, the 6th Corps 2,000 more, Solignac’s division of the 8th Corps 800 more. On the other hand, Clausel’s division of the last-named corps, originally composed almost entirely of isolated ‘fourth battalions’ was practically ruined[379]. Masséna left it behind, when he mobilized the other divisions of the old Army of Portugal for the May campaign. But the men available for the field in the remaining divisions, including those of Drouet, now amounted to 42,000 bayonets. Their ammunition had been replenished, they had been reshod, though only to a small extent reclothed, and they had received at the last moment several months’ arrears of pay. Their morale still left much to be desired, for confidence in their Commander-in-Chief had not been restored, and Ney was still regretted. But a French army, however discontented, could always be trusted to fight when duty called, and the Prince of Essling still hoped to redeem his lost reputation.

But the weak points in the Army of Portugal were the cavalry and artillery. The greater part of the horses which had survived the retreat from Santarem had only reached the plains of Leon to die. A third of the troopers lacked horses altogether, the remainder had in many cases mounts which must perish if asked to do another week’s work. When the cavalry brigadiers of the 2nd and 6th Corps were directed to send to the front all mounted men fit for service, Lamotte could only show 319 sabres from a brigade which had counted 800 in March; Pierre Soult (decidedly more fortunate) had 600 out of 900, though one of his regiments (the 1st Hussars) could put only 103 men in the saddle. Montbrun’s division of reserve dragoons, which had 2,400 sabres a few weeks back, came to the front with 1,187. The most effective cavalry unit in the army was the brigade of Fournier[380], belonging to Drouet’s corps, which, not having shared in the winter campaign in Portugal, could show 794 men in good state. Thus Masséna could bring forward for the new campaign no more than 3,000 horsemen, and these not in the best condition[381].

With the artillery the case was even worse, for the class of horse had been weaker, and the mortality proportionately greater. As we have seen in a previous chapter, the batteries had for the most part just succeeded in dragging back their guns to the Agueda, after destroying nearly all their carts and caissons. It was doubtful whether for an offensive campaign the whole army could now provide twenty guns with the full complement of auxiliary vehicles, adequately horsed. Masséna, in stating his difficulties to Berthier, went so far as to say that each of the four corps could put about half a battery into the field in proper order[382]. The state of the military train was quite as bad—regimental and corps transport was reduced to such a state of nullity, that when the army took the field it would have to be for a few days at most, since, after loading the men with as many rations as each could carry, the only extra supply was what could be drawn by a few store carts found in Rodrigo and Salamanca. During the short campaign that was imminent, the troops lived from hand to mouth, on food daily brought up from the magazines of Rodrigo, after having been compelled to eat the convoy that they had brought with them for the supply of Almeida. There was nothing to be got from the country-side, which was exhausted, by the constant passing to and fro of armies and detachments, all the way from Salamanca to the frontier.

Food at the base existed; when Masséna reached Salamanca he had found there considerable accumulations, though not nearly so much as he expected or required[383]. It was on this particular point that he had started a lively dispute with Bessières the moment that he reached Spain. The Duke of Istria had been for some months in charge of the whole of Old Castile and Leon, and had come to look upon their resources as so much his own private property that he greatly resented the intrusion of 40,000 starving men into his governorship. Masséna complained that he was fed with promises, and that when statistics of food placed at his disposal were compared with what was actually handed over, there was a lamentable discrepancy. He had been told that he would find at Salamanca 10,000 fanegas of wheat, and that 8,000 more and 200,000 rations of biscuit for the garrison of Rodrigo would appear in a few days; he stated that he could only discover 6,000 fanegas and 39,000 rations of biscuit, and that the convoy sent to Rodrigo on the 13th had only carried 20,000 rations at most. Bessières replied that he was doing his best, that he had his own corps to feed, that the arrival of the Army of Portugal was wholly unexpected—had he not been told only a few weeks back, first that it was to stay at Coimbra, and then that it was going off by a cross march to Plasencia and the Tagus? For so Masséna had written from Guarda at the end of March. Moreover, Old Castile was dreadfully exhausted, and the guerrilleros so active that every convoy required an immense escort to guard it. All this was perfectly true, yet it is probable that he might have done more if he had chosen, and he presently received virulent rebukes from the Emperor for lack of zeal.

But when recriminatory letters were already passing between the two marshals on the food question, Bessières began to receive additional demands for military help. On April 20th Masséna wrote that he was bound in honour to march to the relief of Almeida, that he would have his infantry reorganized by the 26th, but that his cavalry and artillery were in such a hopeless state that he was forced to make a formal request for aid to the Army of the North. The Duke of Istria replied that his troops were so scattered, and the guerrilleros so active, that he doubted if he could give any help at all. On the 22nd, however, he wrote that by making a great effort he could collect some cavalry and guns, and would be at Salamanca on the 26th. But on the 27th nothing had arrived from the Army of the North at that city. Masséna replied in high wrath: ‘Vos lettres sont inconcevables. Je vous ai demandé de l’artillerie et des attelages, et encore plus positivement de la cavalerie—vous avez sous différents prétextes éludé ma demande. Toutes les troupes qui sont en Espagne sont de la même famille. Vous êtes, jusqu’à ce qu’il y ait de nouveaux ordres, chargé de la défense et de l’approvisionnement des places de Rodrigo et d’Almeida,’ &c.

Bessières, however, did not break his promise, as Masséna had for a moment feared, he merely executed it a little late, and on the smallest possible scale. He brought with him two small brigades of cavalry, making between 1,600 and 1,700 sabres, that of Wathier (11th, 12th, 24th Chasseurs à cheval, and 5th Hussars), and that of Lepic, which consisted of two squadrons each of the grenadiers, lancers, and chasseurs of the Imperial Guard. He had also a horse artillery battery of the Guard, and had brought thirty teams of gun-horses, which, when distributed to the Army of Portugal, enabled it to put thirty-two pieces and the corresponding caissons in the field. Masséna had asked for Bessières’s cavalry and guns, but had not been at all anxious to see his colleague in person appearing. ‘He would have done better,’ said the Prince to his staff, ‘to have sent me a few thousand men more, and more food and ammunition, and to have stopped at his own head quarters, instead of coming here to examine and criticize all my movements[384].’ He got a cool reception, which did not prevent him from following Masséna about during the whole campaign, volunteering frequent advice, and expressing a polite curiosity at his colleague’s smallest actions. Apparently he wanted to have credit for being present at a victory—if one should occur—but was anxious to risk as few of his own troops as possible, and not to take any responsibility. The Emperor, three weeks later, wrote him a letter of bitter rebuke, saying that he could well have brought up 10,000 men without disgarnishing any important posts; an infantry division of the Guard and four batteries might have been added to the 1,700 horse that he actually produced, without leaving Valladolid, Burgos, or the frontier opposite Galicia in any danger[385]. If the two marshals had collected some 55,000 men, it is certain that Wellington would not have fought, and would have allowed Almeida to be revictualled.

Masséna had reached Ciudad Rodrigo on April 26th, his four corps concentrated there by the 29th, and Bessières came up with his cavalry on the 1st of May. The whole force assembled consisted of 42,000 infantry, 4,500 cavalry, and 38 guns, a total, counting the auxiliary arms, of about 48,000 men[386]. On the 30th Marchand was sent out with six squadrons and his own infantry to make a reconnaissance in force of the allied lines. He found the Light Division still in position at Gallegos, with outposts along the Azava, and withdrew to Rodrigo after having stayed for some hours opposite the height of Marialva. On the next day but one (May 2) the French army began to pour in an interminable stream across the Agueda, by the bridge of Ciudad Rodrigo, dividing into two columns when it had passed—the 2nd Corps on the Marialva road, more to the north, the 8th and 9th Corps on the Carpio road, more to the south. The 6th Corps, forming the reserve and crossing late, also took the left-hand Carpio road. Each column was preceded by its corps-cavalry.

Wellington was perfectly well prepared to meet the movement. He had been back with his army since the 29th of April, and had been informed on his arrival that Masséna had come to Ciudad Rodrigo in person two days before, and that the roads from Salamanca westward were black with French columns[387]. He had made up his mind to fight, though he had denied Spencer the power to do so in his absence. The battle position was already chosen, and the army was concentrated upon it, all save the covering screen formed by the Light Division and the cavalry, which was to hold its ground as long as possible before falling back on the main body. The two cavalry regiments which had been sent to the rear in the middle of the month had been brought up again to the Azava on the 28th, so that the whole of the small force of that arm was available for holding back the French advance.

Wellington had less troops in line than he desired, mainly owing to the dreadful depletion in the ranks of the Portuguese infantry, caused by the inefficient way in which it was fed by its government, and the slowness with which convalescents and detached parties rejoined their colours[388]. Some of the regiments which ought to have shown 1,200 men in the ranks had only 500 or 700 men, and the twenty-five battalions with the field army amounted in all to no more than 11,000 bayonets on May 1st, though they had shown 13,000 in the preceding December, and had absorbed many drafts since that date. The single Portuguese cavalry brigade with the army was in even worse state, the two regiments showing but 312 sabres in line, though they had mustered nearly 800 during the winter. The men were alive, but the chargers had disappeared, owing (as Wellington maintained) to bad horse-mastership on the part of the men and slack supervision on the part of the regimental officers. As the four British cavalry corps, which had seen the same service during the last two months, were only 200 horses weaker in May than they were in March, the explanation is probably correct.

The total force available for a general action on May 1st was 34,000 infantry, of which 23,000 were British, 1,850 cavalry, including the 312 Portuguese, and 1,250 artillery, sappers, &c. There were four British and four Portuguese batteries, with 48 guns. This total does not include the detachment blockading Almeida, which consisted of Pack’s brigade and one British battalion. While only 8,000 weaker than Masséna in infantry, it will be seen that Wellington’s army had hardly more than a third of the number of his cavalry—1,850 to 4,500; in guns there was a slight superiority—48 pieces to 38. In a mountain position, such as that of Bussaco, the deficiency of cavalry would have been of no importance. But the country-side between Almeida and Rodrigo is mostly undulating plateau, practicable in most parts for cavalry operations on a large scale. The only obstacles of importance are the courses of the three small streams which cross the high-road, the Azava, Dos Casas, and Turon, minor tributaries of the Agueda. All three are insignificant brooks save after heavy rain, and though there had been a downfall in the end of April, they were now going down and resuming their usual proportions. Their waters were now a negligible quantity, but in some parts of their course they flow in deep-cut ravines, many feet below the general level of the plateau, and present a serious hindrance to the movement of troops. This is especially the case in their lower course; nearer the hills to the south, where they rise, the ravines as well as the streams grow smaller, and can be crossed anywhere.

The particular position which Wellington had selected as his fighting-ground was the line of the Dos Casas, from the ruined Fort Concepcion to the village of Fuentes de Oñoro. The ravine of the Dos Casas is both wide and steep in the neighbourhood of the fort—perhaps 150 feet deep—but grows decidedly shallower towards Fuentes, and above that place is no longer a notable feature in the country-side. The stream itself is nowhere more than ten yards broad nor three feet deep, so that, when its banks cease to be high and scarped, it can be crossed anywhere by infantry, cavalry, or guns. Its valley above Fuentes is partly arable, partly meadow-land in gentle grassy slopes, much more like an English than a typical Spanish landscape. Standing on the higher ground behind the village, the observer sees a marked contrast between the rocky ravine down-stream, and the broad undulating bottom to his right. The ridge, however, on which he is standing does not entirely disappear to the south; it still remains as the watershed between the little basin of the Dos Casas and that of its twin-stream the Turon, which flows exactly parallel with it less than two miles to the west. Up-stream the view is closed by woods surrounding the village of Pozo Bello (or Posovelho as the neighbouring Portuguese call it) on the right or further bank of the Dos Casas, and by the rounded hill of Nava de Aver, below which the river is flanked on both sides by a stretch of boggy ground, only to be crossed by some invisible paths. There are five miles from Fort Concepcion to Fuentes de Oñoro village, and this was Wellington’s original position, entirely covered in front by a well-marked ravine. But the two further miles from Fuentes to Pozo Bello, which he proceeded to take in for defence when the enemy showed signs of turning his right, may be described as open ground, with no protection on its flank save the morass by Nava de Aver, which could obviously be turned by any enemy who chose to make a sufficiently wide circuit, and might be crossed by infantry at some points, after careful exploration of its depths.

Fuentes de Oñoro itself stands on the western bank of the Dos Casas, at the point where the heights begin to sink and the ravine ceases. Its lower houses are almost level with the stream, but the village slopes uphill to two points a little higher than the general summit of the plateau, one of which is crowned by its church, the other by a cross on a large rock. On the opposite side of the stream there are no buildings but a chapel and a single farm-steading. Past these the high-road from Ciudad Rodrigo ascends on a gentle slope, commanded for some hundred yards by the heights on which the village stands, so that any force advancing to attack Fuentes comes under fire early, and has no cover whatever. The eligibility of the place as a post is much increased by the fact that the houses are surrounded by numerous stone walls, making crofts and gardens, which are of a height and strength suitable for giving excellent cover to infantry in skirmishing order. Nor can it easily be turned, since to the left it is protected by the ravine of the Dos Casas, ever growing deeper down-stream, while on the right the houses trend back for a long distance up the slopes, and the stone walls continue their line for some distance. In short, it is an admirable point on which to rest the flank of an army in battle order, and Wellington had well marked its strength, and was serene and content, so long as the French ranged their forces parallel to his own. The trouble only came when, on the second day of battle, they extended their southern wing to Pozo Bello, so that Fuentes became the right centre instead of the right flank-guard of the allied army.

The general position behind the Dos Casas has only one serious defect: it has in its rear, at a distance of some six or seven miles, the ravine of the Coa, passable at only a limited number of points for artillery and wheeled vehicles, though there are many more at which infantry or cavalry can get across. Of bridges within a reasonable distance from the position there are only those of (1) Ponte Sequeiro, ten miles to the right rear; (2) of Castello Bom, six miles to the direct rear of Fuentes village; and (3) of Almeida, eight miles to the left rear[389]. If the army should be constrained by any misfortune to retreat, its transport and artillery would have to pass over one or more of these three defiles, of which the first is inconveniently placed because it is too far off to the flank, while the third had been broken by the French and only hastily repaired. It may be added also that it was dangerously close to Almeida, though out of sight of that fortress, and completely beyond the range of its cannon. But to have sent baggage or guns across it might have appeared a little hazardous. The only really convenient line of retreat from the Fuentes position was that across the bridge of Castello Bom, a structure of no great breadth, and liable to become congested or blocked in a moment of hurry. It was only wheeled traffic, however, that might become difficult; above and below the Castello Bom bridge are good fords for infantry and cavalry at San Miguel and Algeirenos, besides numerous other points where troops could get across at a pinch. Evidently, however, if Wellington failed to hold his chosen position, he ran the risk of losing some or all of his impedimenta, supposing that he were vigorously pursued and compelled to retreat in haste. A caisson overturned on the descent towards the bridge might force him to abandon whole batteries, jammed in the narrow road. Of this danger he was well aware, but judged it worth risking, in view of the importance of holding the best possible position for covering the siege of Almeida. No battle-ground that was ever chosen is destitute of some fault. And, at the worst, the infantry and cavalry would not be endangered, since the fords could not fail them, and the Coa (though its ravine is often steep) is by no means a large river. But Wellington did not believe that he could be beaten by the force which Masséna was able to bring against him, and though he thought over orders for a retreat, was strongly under the impression that he would never have to issue them.

On May 2nd, as we have already mentioned, the whole French army advanced from Ciudad Rodrigo, one column on the Marialva-Gallegos road, the other on the southern or Carpio road. The Light Division, and the four cavalry regiments accompanying it, began to retire, according to their directions, not making more haste than was necessary, and turning to bay occasionally to fight a small rearguard action. The country-side was somewhat dangerous for a small ‘detaining force,’ being passable for cavalry in many directions and thickly wooded. It had to be remembered that the enemy, using the cover of the woods, and hiding himself behind the undulations of the ground, might easily break through the screen of cavalry and light troops unless great care and caution were shown. Fortunately the Light Division was well skilled in keeping touch along the line, and in avoiding risks, and a whole day of skirmishing in retreat led to no regrettable incidents. On the night of the 2nd of May the covering force bivouacked behind Gallegos and Espeja, both of which villages were occupied by the advanced guards of the enemy.

On the 3rd Masséna resumed his advance, and drove in the Light Division and the cavalry upon Wellington’s chosen position. They retired skirmishing, till they came to the main body, when the four cavalry regiments wheeled into line on the right rear of the village of Fuentes de Oñoro, while the Light Division, crossing the bridge at that place, placed itself in reserve on the heights, behind the front crest. In the afternoon the whole French army became more or less visible from the Allies’ position. It was now in three columns: the right column was formed by the 2nd Corps, which had taken the route Gallegos-Alameda, and displayed itself on the heights opposite Wellington’s left, facing towards Fort Concepcion and San Pedro, with the deepest part of the ravine of the Dos Casas in front of it. The centre column was formed by the single division of the 8th Corps (Solignac), which posted itself to the left of the 2nd, south of Alameda. The heaviest and most important mass of the enemy, however, was on the left, where Montbrun’s cavalry, which had been engaged all the morning in pushing back the British horse, came up directly opposite Fuentes de Oñoro, and on finding that village occupied in force by the Allies took ground to its left, facing the squadrons which it had been pursuing, on the other side of the Dos Casas. When the cavalry had wheeled aside, the front of the infantry of the 6th Corps became visible on the high-road, division behind division. The 9th Corps, still out of sight in the rear, was behind the 6th, so that five of the eight infantry divisions forming Masséna’s army were concentrated opposite Fuentes de Oñoro. The front of the French did not extend for more than a short distance south of that village, so that it looked as if Wellington was to be assailed precisely in the strong position that he had selected.

The allied army had been arrayed at leisure on the ground chosen by its chief, who had ample time to make all his dispositions while the covering force was being driven in. His line was formed as follows: the 5th Division (Erskine) was posted just to the south of Fort Concepcion, with Barbaçena’s handful of Portuguese cavalry (only 300 sabres) watching its flank. Next to the south of Erskine lay the 6th Division (Campbell), in front of San Pedro. These two units faced Reynier and Junot respectively, with the deep ravine protecting their front. The 1st, 3rd, and 7th Divisions and Ashworth’s Portuguese brigade were arrayed on the heights behind Fuentes de Oñoro, and the Light Division had taken post in their reserve. The houses and crofts of the village were occupied by a strong force of picked troops, composed of the light companies of Nightingale’s, Howard’s, and Löwe’s brigades of the 1st Division, and of Mackinnon’s, Colville’s, and Power’s (Portuguese) brigades of the 3rd Division—28 companies in all[390]—with the 2/83rd from Colville’s brigade in support. The senior officer in the village was Lieut.-Colonel Williams, of the 5/60th. He had under him about 1,800 men of the light companies, all chosen shots, besides the 460 of the 2/83rd. To the south and rear of Fuentes, some way behind the village, were the four British cavalry regiments, only 1,500 sabres in gross, and reduced to a somewhat lower figure by detachments[391]. It will thus be seen that Wellington, like Masséna, had strengthened his southern wing. He had four and a half divisions of infantry—24,000 men—facing the 6th and 9th Corps, with their 27,000 bayonets and 3,500 horse, in and about Fuentes, while the 2nd Corps was observed by Erskine’s 5,000 men, and the 8th Corps by Campbell with a similar number[392]. In the northern end of the field the immense strength of the position behind the ravine enabled Wellington to be economical of troops; if it should chance that the French made a serious attack in that direction, there were ample reserves to be spared from the mass of infantry behind the right wing.

Masséna, having surveyed Wellington’s position in the early afternoon, recognized without difficulty that the village of Fuentes was the key of the whole, and that the northern front was too formidable, from the nature of the ground, to be lightly meddled with. It was impossible to make out the disposition of the allied troops, for (in accordance with his usual practice) their general had placed his battle-line behind the crest, so that nothing could be made out save the skirmishers all along the heights, and the garrison of Fuentes itself, which was sufficiently visible on the slope. In a manner which somewhat suggests his old method of Bussaco[393], Masséna ordered the leading division of the 6th Corps, Ferey’s ten battalions, to storm the village by direct frontal attack, while Reynier made a mere demonstration against the 5th Division on the extreme northern end of the position. The latter movement led to nothing, save that, when it seemed threatening, Wellington sent off the Light Division to strengthen his right wing—but, since the 2nd Corps never closed, it was not needed there, and halted behind the crest till nightfall.

In Fuentes village, however, there was a sharp conflict: the first brigade of Ferey’s division charged across the easily fordable brook under heavy fire, and got possession of some of the houses on the lower slope. From these the French were dislodged by the charge of the reserves of which Colonel Williams could dispose. The second brigade was then thrown into action by Ferey, and, coming on to the British while they were in the disorder caused by a charge among houses and walls, beat them back, and pursued them up to the top of the village. Here the light companies rallied, by the church and among the rocks, but the enemy remained for a moment master of all that part of Fuentes which lies on the slope and in the bottom by the brook. Wellington was determined that the French should make no lodgement in his line, and late in the afternoon sent three fresh battalions of the 1st Division to clear the village. Cadogan with the 1/71st, supported by the 1/79th and 2/24th, made a determined advance through the tangle of houses, lanes, and walls, and at considerable cost drove Ferey’s men right over the brook and up their own slope. Masséna then ordered the defeated troops to be supported by four battalions from Marchand’s division, and with this aid they once more advanced and got possession of the chapel and the few other buildings on the east side of Dos Casas, but could not make their way across the water again, or into the main body of the village.

The combat only stopped with the fall of night, though the fusillade across the brook was of course objectless, when neither side made any further definite attack. It had cost the French 652 men—mostly in Ferey’s division[394], of whom 3 officers and 164 men were prisoners, taken when the village was re-stormed by Cadogan. The Allies, being on the defensive, and under cover, save at the moment of their counter-attack, only had 259 killed and hurt, of whom 48 were Portuguese. Colonel Williams, the original commander of the village, was severely wounded, but no other officer above the rank of captain was hit[395].

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SECTION XXVI: CHAPTER III

THE BATTLE OF FUENTES DE OÑORO.
MAY 5th, 1811

Masséna’s attempt to ‘take the bull by the horns’—for the phrase used at Bussaco may well be repeated for the attack on Fuentes village—had failed with loss. It was clear that he had hit upon a strong point in Wellington’s well-hidden line, and he had paid dearly for his brutal methods. It remained to be seen whether he might not also find, as at Bussaco, some way of turning his adversary’s position by a wide flank movement. Down-stream the ground looked very impracticable, and the ravine of the Dos Casas seemed to grow more and more formidable as it neared its junction with the Agueda. The Marshal therefore ordered Montbrun to make reconnaissances in every direction towards the right, on the side of Pozo Bello and Nava de Aver, and to report on the roads and the character of the ground, as well as on the disposition of the flank-guards of the enemy. The whole of the 4th of May was taken up in this fashion—there being no shots fired save in Fuentes de Oñoro itself, when Ferey’s troops in the morning exchanged a lively fusillade across the brook with the British regiments occupying the main block of the village. The firing died down before noon, neither side being inclined to take the offensive[396].

Montbrun’s reports came in during the afternoon, and were very important. The enemy, he said, had no more than a screen of cavalry pickets to the south of Fuentes, with a single detached battalion in the village of Pozo Bello. The end of his line had been found at Nava de Aver; it was composed only of the guerrilla band of Julian Sanchez. There was nothing to prevent a frontal attack on Pozo Bello by infantry, though the place was enclosed in woods and somewhat difficult to approach. There was accessible ground between Pozo Bello and Nava where cavalry might act, nor was the morass by the latter village, on which the extreme right of the Allies rested, impassable.

On this report Masséna based his new scheme of operations[397]. He resolved to turn Wellington’s right with three infantry divisions and nearly the whole of his cavalry, while detaining him in his present position by attacks more or less pressed home. The striking-force was to be composed of Marchand’s and Mermet’s divisions of the 6th Corps with Solignac’s division of the 8th Corps in support, and of all the horsemen save the skeleton squadrons attached to the 2nd and 6th Corps, viz. Montbrun’s division of dragoons and the cavalry brigades of Fournier, Wathier, and Lepic, a mass of 17,000 infantry and 3,500 sabres. Reynier, opposite Wellington’s left, was to make demonstrations, which were to be turned into a serious attack only if the Allies showed weakness in this direction. But in the centre there was to be a vigorous onslaught launched against Fuentes de Oñoro, when the turning movement was seen to be in progress to the south. For this, not only Ferey’s division, already in position opposite the village, was told off, but also Drouet’s two divisions of the 9th Corps. The place was to be carried at all costs, while Wellington was busy on his right, and a breach was thus to be made in the line of the Allies at the same moment that their wing was turned. Fourteen thousand infantry were concentrated opposite Fuentes for this purpose.

After dusk had fallen the French army made the preliminary movements required by the new plan. Montbrun’s cavalry rode out far to the south, one brigade to the foot of the hill of Nava de Aver, the others to the ground east of Pozo Bello. To this latter point Marchand’s and Mermet’s infantry proceeded, with Solignac’s division following them. Drouet brought the 9th Corps to the ground formerly occupied by the 6th Corps, while Reynier drew in a little southward, leaving one division opposite Fort Concepcion, but moving the other to the position in front of Alameda lately occupied by Solignac. A large detachment of sappers went out with Montbrun, to mend the paths across the morass which his flanking brigade had to cross.

Wellington had not been unaware that the want of movement on Masséna’s part during the 4th probably covered some design against his flanks, and since his left flank was practically impregnable, he suspected that his right might be in danger, a suspicion which was made into certainty by reconnaissances which detected the French stirring among the marshy woods. The whole of his cavalry was thrown out in this direction, but the four regiments could only cover the ground inadequately, and being scattered in squadrons along three miles of front were weak everywhere. The most serious movement that he made was to detach the 7th Division as an outlying force to cover his right: two battalions were put into the village of Pozo Bello[398] and the wood in front of it; the remaining seven occupied a position on the slope to the west of that little place. This was a somewhat dangerous expedient—the 7th Division was the smallest and weakest unit in Wellington’s army—it only contained two British battalions[399], and these were new-comers just landed at Lisbon. It was thrown out two miles from the main position, and on open ground not presenting any particular advantage for defence—indeed, if the enemy should attack in strength, it would be compelled to act as a mere detaining and observing rather than a fighting force. For though it was well placed for foiling a mere attempt to turn the Fuentes position by a small detachment and a short lateral movement[400], yet if the enemy’s flanking manœuvre were made by a large body and far afield, it was clear that the 7th Division would have to retreat in haste towards the main position. This being so, one wonders that Wellington did not select one of his best divisions—the 3rd or the Light—for such a responsible post. But he apparently did not foresee the whole plan of Masséna. ‘Imagining,’ he writes in his dispatch describing the battle, ‘that the enemy would endeavour to obtain possession of Fuentes de Oñoro and of the ground occupied by the troops behind that village, by crossing the Dos Casas at Pozo Velho, I moved the 7th Division under Major-General Houston to the right, in order to protect, if possible, that passage.’ But Masséna was set not only on attacking Pozo Bello, but on turning it, and taking it in the rear by a wide sweep of his whole disposable cavalry force. Over 20,000 men were on the move, and Houston had but 4,000 infantry, with 1,400 horse to guard his flank.

The other preparation which Wellington made for a possible battle on the 5th was to draw back the Light Division at dusk from the left wing to its original position behind Fuentes village in reserve. He also withdrew the numerous light companies which had formed the original garrison of that place, and left there only two battalions, the 1/71st and 1/79th, with the 2/24th to support them at the top of the hill.

The fighting on the 5th of May began very early. Just at daybreak the extreme right flank of Wellington’s cavalry screen was attacked by the outermost of the enemy’s turning columns, composed of two regiments of Montbrun’s dragoons[401]. This took place under the hill of Nava de Aver, where Julian Sanchez with his guerrilleros had been posted on the 3rd, while two squadrons of the 14th Light Dragoons had been moved up to his support on the night of the 4th. The guerrilleros kept a bad look-out, and in the dusk of the morning were surprised by the enemy—they drew off hastily to the south without making any resistance. Not so the two British squadrons under Major Brotherton of the 14th, who fought a running fight for two miles, showing front repeatedly, till their flank was on each occasion turned by the vastly superior numbers of the enemy. They were driven in at last upon Pozo Bello, where lay two battalions of the 7th Division, whose extreme right picket, placed in a wood, stopped the enemy’s pursuit by a volley. The main body of the French cavalry seems to have started a little later than the flanking force which assailed Nava de Aver, as its leading regiments only attacked the British cavalry screen to the right of that village some time after Brotherton’s squadrons had begun to be driven in. Here the line of observation was furnished by a squadron of the 16th Light Dragoons and another of the 1st Hussars of the King’s German Legion, who drew together, and gallantly, but rather rashly, attempted to stop the enemy’s advance at a defile between two woods. The squadron of the 16th, charging into a mass of the enemy, suffered heavily and had its commanding officer captured[402]. The Germans then took their turn, but were also driven back with loss. The broken troops had to fall back in all haste till, like Brotherton’s detachment, they came in upon the flank of the village of Pozo Bello, and formed up there. The French cavalry, extending over the slopes when they were clear of the woods, appeared in overpowering numbers, and showed an evident intention to turn the right flank of the British force, which they were strong enough to do even when the whole twelve squadrons of Wellington’s cavalry, falling back from various points of the line which they had been observing, were concentrated on the flank of the woods and enclosures of Pozo Bello.

Up to this moment, an hour after daybreak, only French cavalry had been seen, but the infantry now joined in. The two divisions of Marchand and Mermet had been moved in the night to a point opposite Pozo Bello: when the skirmishing to the right of that place was growing hot, the leading division, that of Marchand, charged in upon the wood in front of the village, cleared out of it the skirmishers of the 85th regiment and the 2nd Caçadores, and then stormed the village also, driving out of it the two battalions, which vainly tried to maintain themselves there against the crushing superiority of the attack. As they were emerging from among the houses in great disorder, they were fallen upon and ridden over by a French light cavalry regiment, which had pushed round their flank unobserved. Both battalions suffered heavily: between them they lost over 150 men, of whom 85 were killed and wounded and some 70 unwounded prisoners. It is marvellous that the two corps were not entirely destroyed—but they were saved by a charge of two squadrons of the German Hussars, and succeeded in forming up with promptness and moving away in the direction of the main body of the 7th Division, which was visible a mile to the west, on the opposite slope of the bottom in which Pozo Bello lies.

The next hour was a very dangerous one: the French infantry divisions, emerging from the captured village and the woods, began to form up in heavy columns, threatening both to attack the Fuentes de Oñoro position on its right flank, and to cut in between the isolated 7th Division and the rest of the army. Montbrun’s cavalry, displaying regiment after regiment, came on in hot pursuit of the troops that had escaped from Pozo Bello and of the British squadrons that were covering them. They were already outflanking the 7th Division on the right, by means of the detachment which had come from Nava de Aver.

Wellington was surprised at the strength of the turning force—its numbers were far greater than he had foreseen, and he was forced to take a new resolution and form a fresh battle-order. The most important thing was to save the 7th Division from being cut off, and to bring it back into line with the rest of the army. Accordingly he directed a chosen unit—the Light Division, now once more under the indomitable Craufurd, who had joined on the preceding night—to advance from its position in reserve behind Fuentes, and to move out along the slope of the low heights to the right, so as to come into touch with Houston and the cavalry, and to help them to get home. Meanwhile the rest of the centre of the army—the 1st and 3rd Divisions and Ashworth’s Portuguese[403], formed a new line of battle, en potence to the original right flank of the British position. They were drawn up along the dominating ground between the rocky hillocks that overhang the village of Fuentes and the descent into the valley of the Turon brook. This is the last of the high ground—to the right of it (as has been before mentioned) the watershed between the Dos Casas and the Turon ceases to be composed of a commanding ridge, and sinks into gentle slopes[404]. Thus Fuentes de Oñoro became the projecting point of a battle-order thrown back at right angles to the original position—where the 5th and 6th Divisions still continued to occupy their old post opposite Reynier. Formations en potence are proverbially dangerous, because of the liability of the angle to be enfiladed and crushed by artillery fire. But in this case the danger was less than usual, since Wellington for once in his life had more guns than the French, and the lie of the plateau was such that the lower parts of Fuentes village might be enfiladed, but not the ground above it by the church and rocks, nor the plateau behind it, where the ground occupied by the 3rd Division was out of sight of the French on the lesser heights. Indeed, the holding of the houses in the bottom was of comparatively little importance to Wellington, so long as he kept his grip on the upper end of the straggling village. Here, on the double-headed height crowned by the church and the rocks, was the real pivot of the position.

Wellington had ample time to move the 1st and 3rd Divisions with Ashworth’s Portuguese into the new position—none of them had much over a mile to march, since all had been concentrated behind Fuentes when the alarm came. The enemy’s approach was slow, partly because his infantry had to disentangle itself from the houses of Pozo Bello and the surrounding wood, and to form in a fresh front, partly because his cavalry became wholly absorbed in a running fight with the Light and 7th Divisions, and had no attention to spare for any other direction.

Masséna’s plan, when he had got his left wing out of the woods, soon became clear. He was intending to break in with his cavalry between the 7th Division and the rest of the army, while Marchand and Mermet were to attack the new front of the 1st and 3rd Divisions, and the 9th Corps, with Ferey’s division, was to smash in the projecting point of Wellington’s position, by storming Fuentes village and the height behind it. Reynier, as on the 3rd of May, was to demonstrate against the allied left, but not to attack till success in the centre seemed assured. From the course of the action it is evident that the Marshal’s main intention was to beat Wellington by hard fighting, and to break up his army—not merely to manœuvre him into a bad strategical position and to cut his more available lines of communication, so as to force him into a difficult and dangerous retreat. If the last had been Masséna’s intention—as some authors suggest—the course of the battle would have been different. But he made no attempt to send cavalry to intercept the roads to Castello Bom, still less to detach infantry against Wellington’s rear. Having turned his enemy’s flank, and forced him to make a new front, he showed no further desire to manœuvre, but proceeded to batter away at the troops in front of him, trusting that numbers and impetus would secure him the victory.

The fight fell for some time into two absolutely distinct sections—an attempt by Drouet’s and Ferey’s three divisions to carry Fuentes de Oñoro village and break Wellington’s centre, and an attempt to cut up, by the cavalry arm alone, the 7th Division and its attendant squadrons, before they could be succoured and drawn back into Wellington’s new line of defence. It was only after some time that these two combats became joined, by an attempt—which was never pressed home—to attack that part of the British position which lay to the right rear of Fuentes de Oñoro.

The fighting west of Pozo Bello may be taken first, as it was a logical continuation of the engagement in the early morning. Here Montbrun had under his hand four cavalry brigades—those of Wathier, Fournier, Cavrois, and Ornano—about 2,700 sabres, with Lepic’s 800 guard cavalry as his reserve—though, as it turned out in the end, the use of that reserve was to be denied him. In front of him were the two battalions recently evicted from Pozo Bello, with the British cavalry brigades of Slade and Arentschildt (about 1,400 sabres) and Bull’s horse-artillery troop, which had drawn up to protect the retreat of the routed battalions towards the main body of the 7th Division. General Houston with that force (one British battalion, two foreign, and four Portuguese battalions[405]) was engaged in taking up new ground, on the slope which is separated from Pozo Bello by the shallow trough forming the valley of the Dos Casas brook. Montbrun’s object was, of course, to break the British horsemen, and then to fall upon and destroy the shaken infantry which they were protecting, before they could cross the valley. There resulted a very fierce and long-sustained cavalry combat, infinitely creditable to the four British regiments, who had to fight a detaining action against numbers about double their own. They were bound to retire in the end—and indeed had no other intention—but it was their duty to hold off the enemy till the infantry behind them had got into order. This was done, though at great cost, the regiments retiring by alternate squadrons, while the rear squadron at each change of front charged, often winning a temporary and partial success over the enemy in its immediate front, but always forced to give back as the French reserve came up. ‘When we charged,’ wrote a participant in this long combat, ‘they would often turn their horses, and our men shouted in the pursuit—but go which way they might, we were but scattered drops amid their host, and could not possibly arrest their progress. We had again to go about and retire[406].’ The British cavalry, though losing heavily, never got out of hand, and could be still used as efficient units down to the end of this phase of the battle. Of their total casualty list of 157 nearly all must have been lost in this hard work; it is noticeable that only one officer and four men were taken prisoners, a sufficient proof that there was no such rout as French accounts describe—for a rout always implies a serious loss in ‘missing.’

After a running fight, the British cavalry was driven back on to the 7th Division, which (now joined by the two detached battalions) was drawn up on the best position that Houston could select on the slope above the valley: his centre was in a projecting angle among some rocks which crop up in the generally bare hillside—his wings thrown back, and partly covered by stone walls forming the boundaries of meadows. The much-tried British squadrons, clearing off to the side, took position on the left rear of the infantry, leaving the 7th Division in face of the now rather confused mass of Montbrun’s horsemen, whose order was none the better for the long and well-contested combat in which they had been engaged. The French general made a serious attempt to break into the 7th Division: while skirmishers demonstrated against its front, and a light battery just sent forward by Masséna shelled its centre, a brigade of dragoons turned its right wing and tried to roll it up. This attack was foiled by the Chasseurs Britanniques, who, drawn up behind a long stone wall, had apparently escaped Montbrun’s notice; receiving a staggering volley at close range, just when they supposed that they had come upon an unprotected flank, the advancing squadrons fell back in confusion. Another charge, made against the 51st, was also beaten off by musketry[407]. The French then came to a stand—it was clear that they wanted infantry if they were to get any advantage over the 7th Division, which was now well settled down into its position. But Marchand’s and Mermet’s battalions had not followed Montbrun across the valley, but had begun to march straight against the centre of Wellington’s new line, west of Fuentes de Oñoro.

At this moment a new force came upon the scene; Craufurd and the Light Division were at hand, marching along the higher slope of the watershed between the Turon and the Dos Casas, in order to connect with the 7th Division. But Craufurd had not come to form up and hold the ground where Houston was already engaged. Wellington’s orders were that the 7th Division should move to its rear, cross the Turon, and prolong, to the west of that stream, the new line already formed by the 1st and 3rd Divisions. It was to make this movement covered by the Light Division and the cavalry, who were to hold the slope till Houston was well on his way and out of danger. They were then to retire behind the 1st Division. This was a dangerous task for Craufurd and his men, but Wellington had selected them precisely because he knew that they were to be trusted. While Montbrun was busy rearranging his disordered brigades, Houston slipped down the reverse slope of the hillside where he had been lying, crossed the Turon, and finally drew up with one brigade (Sontag’s) on the well-marked heights west of that stream, and the other (Doyle’s Portuguese) in the village of Freneda, a mile further to the right. Thus Wellington had once more an outlying flank-guard, covering the roads which lead to the Coa and the Bridge of Castello Bom. With the exception of the two battalions cut up at the opening of the fight, the 7th Division had suffered very slightly—apparently the French cavalry had not harmed it, but their attached battery had caused some casualties, which came in all to no more than 90 men[408] out of the 3,800 in the seven battalions which had not fought at Pozo Bello.

On the departure of the 7th Division all the peril and responsibility now fell on Craufurd and the already much-tried cavalry, who had to make their way back for a full mile along the open slope of the hillside, to join their comrades in the new position south of Fuentes. Montbrun, though he had failed in his attack on infantry in position, thought that he ought to have better fortune against men retreating over a rolling upland, so urged the pursuit with great energy. Craufurd formed his men in battalion squares, save a few companies of the rifles and Caçadores, whom he threw into thickets and enclosures to the right and left, where he thought them safe against horsemen. The main body retreated in a line of squares, with the cavalry and the battery of horse artillery in the intervals. Whenever the French came forward, the guns played upon them, and the British cavalry charged by squadrons to check the onslaught. So beautifully was the retreat managed, that Montbrun never got a chance to charge the infantry at advantage. ‘The steadiness and regularity with which the troops performed their movement, the whole time exposed to a cannonade, and followed across a plain by a numerous cavalry, ready to pounce on the squares if the least disorder should be detected, was acknowledged by hundreds of unprejudiced spectators (who witnessed it from the heights) to have been a masterpiece of military evolution. ‘We sustained a very trifling loss from the cannonade[409],’ writes one Light Division officer. Another (Napier himself) in more stirring phrases tells how ‘many times Montbrun threatened to charge Craufurd’s squares, but always found them too dangerous to meddle with. They appeared but as specks, with close behind them 5,000 [read 3,500] horsemen, trampling, bounding, shouting for the word to charge. Fifteen guns were up with the French cavalry, the eighth corps[410] was in order of battle behind them, the woods on their right were filled with Loison’s skirmishers, and if that general, pivoting upon Fuentes, had come forth with the 6th Corps, while Drouet assailed the village and the cavalry made a general charge, the loose crowd of non-combatants and broken troops would have been violently dashed against the 1st Division, to intercept its fire and break its ranks, and the battle might have been lost[411].’ But Montbrun knew as well as Craufurd that intact infantry of good quality cannot be broken when it is securely formed in square, and any attempt to molest the Light Division by artillery fire was checked by the self-sacrificing efforts of the British cavalry and guns, who fought their best to keep off the enemy. Bull’s guns were incessantly unlimbering and firing a few rounds in the intervals of the squares, and then retreating rapidly to a new position. On the only occasion when a French battery got close up it was charged in front, with desperate gallantry, by a squadron of the 14th Light Dragoons, who suffered terribly, but won the necessary minutes for the square to which it was neighbour to get out of range[412]. At last the whole retiring force, horse and foot, came into Wellington’s lines, with the French close in their rear, and found safety with the 1st Division. Two incidents marked the last moments of the retreat: at one point occurred an episode which Napier has immortalized, with some inaccuracy of detail, in one of his most brilliant ‘purple passages.’ Captain Norman Ramsay, with two guns of Bull’s troop, had halted, not for the first time, for a shot or two at the pursuing cavalry; lingering a moment too long, he found himself cut off, just as he had limbered up, by a swarm of chasseurs, who rode in from the flank. But he put his guns to the gallop, and, charging himself in front of them with the mounted gunners, was cutting his way through the French when he was brought off by friends. On one side a squadron of the 14th Light Dragoons under Brotherton, on the other a squadron of the Royals, had turned back when they saw the artillery in danger. They fell upon the chasseurs before Ramsay had suffered any hurt, and saved him and his guns, which were brought into the lines of the 1st Division amid loud cheers from all who had seen the affair[413].

A little to the left of the point where this happy escape took place there was an episode of a less fortunate kind. The skirmishing line of the 1st Division was extended along the foot of the slope on which its brigades were arrayed. When the rolling mass composed of the Light Division squares, their attendant cavalry, and the French in hot pursuit, drew near to the position, the officer in charge of the pickets of the Guards’ brigade (Lieutenant-Colonel Hill of the 3rd Guards) directed them to close up into solid order, for safety’s sake: this they did, forming a small square. In this formation they beat off the rather disorderly charge of the French horse; but Colonel Hill then very unwisely extended them again, and thus exposed them in the most dangerous order to a second charge of a French regiment (13th Chasseurs) which came in from the side after the main attack was over. The three companies were taken in flank, rolled up, and very badly mauled, sixty or eighty men being killed or wounded, and Hill himself with another officer and nineteen men being taken prisoners[414]. The rest had time to club together and defend themselves, till they were rescued by the charge of a squadron of the Royals under Colonel Clifton and a troop of the 14th Light Dragoons, which brought off most of the survivors. The total loss was about 100 men[415].

This was only one of several partial attacks made by the French cavalry against the front of Wellington’s new position[416]. Montbrun seems to have thought that he could continue to press the Allies—not recognizing that he had hitherto had to do with troops voluntarily retiring, but had now run against a battle-line which intended to stand. Indeed, he wished to try the effect of a general charge against the front of the 1st Division, and with that object sent orders to his reserve, Lepic’s brigade of Guard cavalry, to come to the front, and head an advance, which the rallied squadrons of his main body would support. Lepic, however, refused to move, saying that personally he was only too ready to attack, but that he had received specific orders not to use his brigade save at the direct command of his immediate superior, Marshal Bessières[417]. While the Marshal was being sought (he was ultimately found, after much delay, behind Pozo Bello), the moment which Montbrun supposed suitable for a charge passed away.

With this episode the advance of Montbrun’s cavalry ended, frittering itself away on the edge of the new position of the Allies. Its total effect had been to roll in the flanking force which Wellington had thrown out, and to gain some three miles of ground. The loss of the British had been appreciable, but can hardly be called severe—under 250 in the 7th Division, about 150 in the cavalry, and 200 in the 1st Division. Montbrun’s squadrons on their side had 359 casualties, to which may be added perhaps a hundred in Marchand’s division of the 6th Corps, which fought in the attack on Pozo Bello. The strategical advantage obtained by forcing Wellington to throw back his right wing, and to leave the roads towards Castello Bom exposed to the possibility of flanking cavalry raids, was considerable. But it was less important than it appeared, since the mere threatening of his communications was useless, unless he could be forced or manœuvred out of his position; and this was not to be done. He himself saw this clearly, writing in his dispatch which describes the battle: ‘I had occupied Poço Velho and that neighbourhood, in hopes that I should be able to maintain the communication across the Coa by Sabugal, &c., as well as to provide for the blockade of Almeida, which objects, as was now obvious, were become incompatible with each other. I therefore abandoned that which was the less important[418].’ He then proceeds to show how his new position still covered the blockade of Almeida, and (by means of the troops placed beyond the Turon) rendered it hard for the enemy to make any real attempt towards Castello Bom—since this could not be done save by an isolated detachment. Indeed, Masséna had still to beat the allied army, and the preliminary operations now ended had done nothing more than thrust it back into its fighting position.

That, according to Masséna’s design, the second act of the battle was to consist in a vigorous attempt to break Wellington’s new line, is clear from his own dispatch. And the point to be pierced was the projecting angle of its centre, in, and to the right of, Fuentes village. Here the attack was to be concentric and enveloping, Ferey’s division and the two divisions of the 9th Corps being intended to storm the village, after which Marchand’s and Mermet’s divisions, supported by Solignac’s, were to assail the heights to its south-west, where Picton and Spencer were now in line. Six of the eight infantry divisions of the French army were to attack on a front of not much over a mile. This was a powerful combination, but the position which it was to assail was also very strong. The village, with its barricaded streets and its tiers of houses trending up the hill, was susceptible of indefinite defence. The hillside above it and to its right was a perfect fighting-ground—with the ravine in its front, fine artillery emplacements along the sky-line, and a flat plateau behind, on which the main line and the reserves could stand sheltered, till the moment when they were required to deal with an infantry attack.

Masséna’s plan was to storm the village first, and then, when Ferey and Drouet should have pushed through it, and have got a lodgement on the plateau, to deliver the frontal attack with the other three divisions. He did not intend Marchand and Mermet to move till the projecting angle of Wellington’s line was turned and broken in by the success of the other attack. For to send forward these two divisions of the 6th Corps for an assault on the fine position opposite them, while it was held by intact troops with their flanks properly covered, would have been to invite a repetition of Bussaco. The plateau was held by a perfectly adequate force, the four brigades of the 1st Division (minus three battalions detached to hold Fuentes de Oñoro[419]), Ashworth’s Portuguese brigade, and the whole 3rd Division, over 13,000 men, on a short front, while the Light Division had now returned to take its place in reserve. Wellington had these troops drawn up in a double line, the 1st Division next the Turon, Ashworth’s brigade in the centre, and the 3rd Division above Fuentes, whose defence it was to feed, if necessary, by detaching battalions from its second line, which was formed by Mackinnon’s brigade. Owing to the numerical inferiority of the French artillery, Wellington had also been able to concentrate a larger number of guns (six batteries) on the critical point of the battlefield than his enemy could bring against him, so that the ‘artillery preparation,’ to maul his line before a general attack, was bound to fail. The French guns were overpowered in the contest.

It must not be supposed that Masséna waited for the arrival of Marchand’s and Mermet’s infantry in front of the position before commencing his attack. The troops opposite Fuentes had been ordered to storm the village when Montbrun’s operations had begun to develop successfully, but ‘sans rien hasarder[420],’ i. e. they were not to move if the attempt to turn the British right failed. But when the cavalry were seen sweeping the hillsides beyond Pozo Bello, and driving the enemy before them, the attack on Fuentes was begun by Ferey’s division, which was already in possession of the few houses on the east side of the Dos Casas brook. The assault commenced at about two hours after dawn, when the combat was already in full progress to the south, by a brisk attack which drove the defenders of the village (the 71st and 79th) out of its lower portion. Two companies of the latter regiment, barricaded in some buildings near the water, were completely surrounded and forced to surrender, after all their officers had been wounded. Ninety-four men were taken prisoners. The remainder of this Highland battalion and of its countrymen of the 71st rallied in the upper end of the village, and when joined by the regiment in reserve (the 2/24th) came forward again, and drove the French into the lower houses by the river. The fight came to a standstill for a moment, Ferey’s division (which had already suffered so severely on the 3rd) being now a spent force so far as initiative went.

But Drouet, who had been told to give Ferey his best support, then fed the fight with three bataillons d’élite, composed of the eighteen grenadier companies of his two divisions[421]. These picked troops, who were mistaken for men of the Imperial Guard by their opponents because of their bearskins and tall plumes, came on with great courage, and cleared all the middle slopes of the village, driving the garrison up to the summit of the double-headed hill, near the church and the rocks. The fighting was very deadly to both sides, but more so to the French, who had to dislodge an obstinate foe from barricaded houses and lines of stone walls. It ended in the establishment of the attacking force on the brink of the summit, but further the grenadiers could not go—the head of the village and the plateau above it was still maintained by the 71st, 79th, and 24th, and Wellington began to feed the defending force by drafting into the upper end of Fuentes, one after another, the light companies of several brigades of the 1st and 3rd Divisions—the same detachments who had defended the village upon May 3—in succession those of Löwe’s German brigade, of Howard’s brigade, of Ashworth’s and Power’s Portuguese, were sent to the critical point. The whole of the 6th Caçadores followed.

But the progress of the attack had been so far encouraging that at this moment—about noon—Drouet resolved to finish the affair by putting in heavy supports from Conroux’s and Claparéde’s divisions for a final blow[422], which should heave the French line up on to the plateau, clear the allied troops out of the last few houses of the village, and definitively break Wellington’s line at its projecting point. Eight or ten fresh battalions charged across the brook in column, through the narrow streets encumbered by dead and wounded, and, ascending the slope, drove their enemies out of the church and the rocks beside it. This was the critical moment of the day—the only one at which Wellington lost possession of the whole of the advanced post which so perfectly defended his centre.

‘Such a series of attacks,’ writes an eye-witness[423], ‘constantly supported by fresh troops, required exertions more than human to withstand: every effort had been made to maintain the post, but efforts, however great, have their limits. Our soldiers had now been engaged in this unequal contest for upwards of eight hours; the heat was excessive, and their ammunition was nearly expended. The town presented a shocking sight: our Highlanders lay dead in heaps, while the other regiments, though less remarkable in dress, were scarcely so in the number of their slain. The French grenadiers, with their immense caps and gaudy plumes, lay in piles of ten and twenty together—some dead, others wounded, with barely strength sufficient to move, their exhausted state and the weight of their cumbrous accoutrements making it impossible for them to crawl out of the dreadful fire of grape and round shot which the enemy poured into the town. The Highlanders had been driven to the churchyard at the very top of the village, and were fighting with the French grenadiers across the graves and tombstones. The 9th French Light Infantry (the leading battalion of Conroux’s division) had penetrated as far as the church, and were preparing to debouch upon the rear of our centre.’

This part of the British army, the second or reserve line of the 3rd Division—whose front line was nearer the edge of the position, facing Marchand—was composed of Mackinnon’s brigade, the 1/45th, 74th, and 1/88th. On these troops devolved the responsibility of stopping the gap, by recovering the church and the head of the village. The moment for their action had evidently come. Mackinnon sent for leave to charge to Wellington by Sir Edward Pakenham, who galloped back in a few minutes, for he had found his chief only a few yards away, watching for the crisis. ‘He says you may go—come along[424],’ was the prompt reply, and Mackinnon moved down with the 74th and 88th in column of sections, left in front, leaving the 45th in reserve on his old position.

There was a fearful clash by the church at the mouth of the village street, between the 88th, the leading British regiment, and the 4th battalion of the 9th Léger at the head of Conroux’s column. They met front to front, both in column, and are said to have fought with the bayonet for some moments—the rarest thing in war; it was only in a street combat like this that such a chance could happen. After a sharp bicker the French battalion gave way and turned back. At the same moment the 74th charged down another lane which led into the village, and all the broken remnants of the Highland regiments and the light companies cheered and advanced among the lanes and houses. The enemy yielded at every point, seeing their main column beaten back, and the advance of the British line swept the whole village as far as the brook: some of the pursuers, going too far, were killed even on its further side. It was impossible to maintain the houses near the water, which were too much exposed to the fire of the French artillery on the opposite bank. But the 74th and 88th made a firm lodgement in the middle and upper parts of the village, and were not molested by any further attempt on the part of Drouet to expel them, though his guns made their position sufficiently uncomfortable. The commander of the 9th Corps contented himself with bringing forward his last intact battalions to the front, to cover the routed masses, while they were getting into order again to the rear of their original position.

The attempt to storm Fuentes had failed with loss, and by about two o’clock the decisive fighting was over. The 9th Corps had lost 835 men in the street-fighting, Ferey’s division at least 400 more[425]. On the part of the defenders, the 71st and 79th, the original garrison of the village, had 458 casualties, including 119 prisoners taken at the moment of the first storm—this was a loss of 30 per cent., as they had 1,419 officers and men on the field. Cameron, the colonel of the 79th, was shot from a house during the last victorious charge. The 74th and 88th, who finally recovered Fuentes by their decisive charge, lost only 116 men in doing so. The 2/24th, with the light companies and Caçadores who had formed the earlier reinforcements, seem to have had about 160 casualties, but it is impossible to separate the losses of the light companies in the village from those of the battalions to which they belonged, who were drawn up in the main position and suffered certain casualties there. On the whole the defenders of Fuentes seem to have lost about 800 men, its assailants about 1,300, out of the 4,000 and the 7,000 men whom they respectively engaged within it: such is the value of the defensive, even when the fighting comes to close quarters among houses and enclosures.

Masséna had evidently considered the capture of the village of Fuentes as the necessary preliminary for a general attack upon Wellington’s line. While Ferey and Drouet had been making their last efforts, Marchand’s and Mermet’s divisions had been halted before the position of Picton’s and Ashworth’s troops, while Montbrun’s cavalry was facing the 1st Division. Solignac was visible more to the rear, in front of Pozo Bello, acting as general reserve. The twenty-four guns belonging to these units[426] were all brought to the front, and cannonaded so much of the British line as was visible, doing some little harm. But they were gradually overpowered by the six batteries[427] which Wellington had brought up to his front, and finally ceased to fire. The infantry columns of Marchand and Mermet also suffered appreciably from the shot and shell, for they were well within range, though too far off for infantry fire to tell upon them[428]. It is clear that Masséna refused to attack the front of the 3rd and 1st Divisions till their flank should be turned on the Fuentes side, and since that necessary preliminary was never accomplished, the frontal assault was never delivered, though three divisions stood ready to make it. The only move on this side, during the hours after noon, was that on the extreme left of the French line some voltigeurs, apparently from Mermet’s division, were sent down into the ravine of the Turon, and tried to push up it, as if to turn the right flank of the Guards brigade. They were, however, soon stopped by five companies of the 95th Rifles, whom Craufurd had left to block the passage up this low-lying part of the British position; no serious attempt was made to reinforce the attack, which soon died down into a mere tiraillade.

Masséna’s account of his reasons for refusing to commit himself to the decisive attack runs as follows in his dispatch to the Emperor: ‘The English general had united in his centre very large forces and much artillery. I wished to try to pierce his centre, and to drive the English army towards the lower Coa. The spirit of the troops was admirable; but I had to assure myself, before making this vigorous blow, as to the state of my ammunition, for during the course of this campaign I had seen myself checked repeatedly by insurmountable difficulties. It resulted from the report which the officer commanding the artillery submitted to me, that there only remained in the reserve park four cartridges per man, which might give thirty shots, counting what was still in the men’s cartridge-boxes. I did not think myself in a situation to recommence the attack with such a meagre supply, and decided to send all the empty caissons back to Rodrigo, in order to bring up more ammunition. Meanwhile I took the necessary measures to preserve the advantage already gained over the enemy[429].’

It is clear that we have not here the whole of the Marshal’s motives explained. Granting that the reserve of cartridges had run low, the troops with which he had to deliver the decisive blow were precisely those who had still plenty of ammunition. Mermet’s[430] and Solignac’s divisions had not fired a shot; Marchand’s had only been engaged for a few minutes in Pozo Bello, with the two battalions of the 7th Division which it had evicted from that village. It is true that Ferey’s, Claparéde’s, and Conroux’s troops, which had made the successive attacks on Fuentes, must have been not only exhausted in morale but very short of ammunition by this moment. But why had not the attack by the three intact divisions been made before the troops to their right had been completely used up? Clearly because Masséna refused to deliver the frontal assault till the flanking movement had been successful, and Wellington’s left-centre had been driven from the village. There were several hours about noon during which the troops of Marchand, Mermet, and Solignac remained halted in front of the allied line, while furious fighting was going on in Fuentes. If the Marshal did not let them loose upon the enemy during that long space of time, it was because he thought the attack hopeless. The explanation appears clearly enough in the narrative of his aide-de-camp Pelet: ‘The Marshal came to the front when this sort of defile had become already impregnable; a tiraillade was already established; he threw himself off his horse, and, accompanied only by myself, walked several times up and down the front of the line, to look for a point where he could break in. But the whole position seemed equally strong; the fire of the enemy upon Fuentes, and the reinforcements which he had sent into the village, drew in that direction the bulk of the French divisions. Everything had come to turn upon the affaire de poste in that direction. It was necessary to force the village and the ravine at its back, where all the ground was in favour of the enemy. The day slipped by in vain attacks[431].’

If Masséna did not move his main body at noon, when the British were waging a doubtful contest in Fuentes, it would have been idle to strike after two o’clock, when the attack on the village had utterly failed. The fact was that he had staked everything on the capture of Fuentes, and had seen at an early hour that he dared not send forward Marchand, Mermet, and Solignac, till the village should have been taken and Wellington’s flank turned. But though three divisions had been used up one after another against that strong post, they had failed to master it. The game was up; for to deliver the front attack when the flank attack had failed would have been hopeless. The only chance that the Marshal had of success was to make the two attacks simultaneous: but he had such a respect for Wellington’s main position that he would not assail it till it was turned. It never was turned, and so he never engaged the three divisions that were so long facing it. As a subsidiary reason for his refusal to strike home, we must undoubtedly add the fact that he had discovered that he was too weak in guns to make any proper artillery preparation for an attack on the British centre. In the course of a long duel his twenty-four pieces had been overpowered by the thirty-six which Wellington had placed over against them. They were badly mauled, and largely out of action, by the moment that the fighting in Fuentes village was over. If the infantry had advanced, it would have been shot to pieces by the victorious British artillery, before it could reach the crest of the strong position where the Anglo-Portuguese battalions lay ranged behind the sky-line.

On the northern flank of the British position, where the 5th Division, about Fort Concepcion, and the 6th Division in front of San Pedro, watched Reynier’s corps across the steep ravine of the Dos Casas, nothing of importance happened throughout the day. The opposing forces were almost equal, each about 10,000 strong, and Reynier had been ordered to make no more than ‘a general demonstration all along his line, to support the attack of the main army.’ It was true that he was also directed to make a parallel movement along the river, if Wellington should draw in towards Fuentes de Oñoro the troops immediately opposed to him[432]. But this was never done: Wellington kept the 5th and 6th Divisions almost in their original positions throughout the day. A regiment from the latter (the 53rd)[433] was moved to the edge of the plateau at the north end of Fuentes village, to keep back any attempt to turn the place on that side—but such an attempt was not made, and the rest of the division kept its original place opposite Reynier. The ‘demonstration’ which that general had been ordered to make was duly carried out, but amounted to nothing more than the sending of the 31st Léger and two guns from Heudelet’s division to skirmish, at the edge of the ravine, with the light troops of the 5th Division on the other side[434]. Some more of the French regiments deployed, but never came within gunshot. The figures of the losses on the two sides show how little serious was the engagement: the 31st Léger lost 4 officers and 48 men killed or wounded; the light companies of the British 3/1st, 1/9th, 2/30th, and 2/44th, and of the Portuguese 8th Caçadores lost 27 men. The 6th Division had no losses at all in its British brigades, and only four men in the 12th Portuguese line. Reynier has been blamed by some French critics for not pushing forward a pronounced attack, but it is hard to see how he could have done more. He was ordered to demonstrate only, not to commit himself to a real action, unless the British should withdraw from his front and go towards Fuentes. And as Wellington kept 10,000 men in his front all day, covered by a difficult ravine, he would only have lost lives, and gained nothing, by engaging. The two divisions opposite him were numerically as strong as himself, and lay in a most formidable position. An attack would have been beaten off, while if he had manœuvred towards Fuentes to join Drouet, the 5th Division could have crossed the ravine and taken him in the rear. Such a movement would also have exposed the convoy intended for Almeida, which lay at Gallegos, to Reynier’s left rear.

Thus ended the battle of Fuentes de Oñoro: the fight, which had been hot and well contested down to two o’clock, dying down into a mere skirmishing between outposts before dusk. The total losses of the 5th had been, on the part of the Allies, 1,452 officers and men, of whom 192 were killed, 958 wounded, and 255 taken prisoners. That of the French was 2,192, of whom 267 were killed, 1,878 wounded, and 47 prisoners. On both sides the larger half of the casualties was incurred in the street fighting that raged up and down the village of Fuentes for so many hours; as has been already explained, the Allies lost here 800 men, the French about 1,300. The remaining losses among Wellington’s men are mainly accounted for by the hustling of the 7th Division about Pozo Bello, which cost 237 men, by the cutting up of the light troops of the Guards brigade, where about 100 casualties took place, and by the hard fighting of the cavalry during the early part of the day, while they were covering the retreat of the Light and 7th Divisions, in which they lost 160 men. On the other side the French, besides their casualties in Fuentes village, had 359 officers and men of their cavalry put out of action, and some 400 of Marchand’s and Mermet’s infantry killed or hurt, partly in the storming of Pozo Bello, but mainly in the cannonade in the afternoon, while they were standing in column facing Wellington’s second position, which they were never allowed to attack[435]. Of the 255 prisoners taken from the Allies, nearly 100 were lost about Pozo Bello by the 7th Division, and 94 belonged to the two companies of the 79th captured in Fuentes de Oñoro during Ferey’s first attack. Undoubtedly the most surprising item in the statistics of the day is the small loss incurred by the Light Division during its retreat to the British lines, wherein, though beset by 3,000 cavalry and a battery of horse artillery, it counted only 67 casualties[436]. But steady infantry, such as the Light Division, was invulnerable even to the most daring horsemen, so long as it preserved its formation in square.

On the morning after the battle, dawn showed the two armies still holding their positions of the preceding night. Masséna had not drawn back, and the line of his pickets was still covering all the ground taken from the British on the 5th. The divisions were encamped close behind, Marchand’s, Mermet’s, and Solignac’s in the edge of the wood on the near side of Pozo Bello, Ferey’s, Conroux’s, and Claparéde’s on the heights facing Fuentes de Oñoro, Reynier’s far away to the right. Nor had Wellington moved a man; but from several hours before daylight his troops had been employed in entrenching the new front that they had taken up. This was wellnigh the only occasion during the whole Peninsular War when Wellington used field-fortification on a large scale. A trench with the earth thrown outward was constructed from near Fuentes de Oñoro down to the banks of the Turon—a distance of over a mile. There was special protection for the six batteries of artillery distributed down the front, and a great abattis blocking the ravine of the Turon. The village of Villar Formoso on that stream, somewhat to the rear of the line, and that of Freneda, on the extreme right, where the 7th Division lay, had also been put in a state of defence.

Masséna, having failed when the enemy was maintaining a hastily assumed position, had no intention of attacking it when it was entrenched. In his dispatch of the 7th he writes: ‘The enemy has passed the night after the battle in fortifying the crest of the plateau which he occupies. There are five large works, much artillery is visible, and trenches for the firing line. He has put up épaulements in the ravines and behind the rocks; he has barricaded the upper part of Fuentes de Oñoro village, and Villaformosa; thus he has called to his aid all the resources of fortifications against an attack that must be made by main force.’ The idea of relieving Almeida had vanished from the Marshal’s mind—as is sufficiently marked by the fact that he ordered the great convoy at Gallegos, which had been collected for throwing into the fortress, to be distributed for the daily necessities of the army, which would otherwise have had to be fed by provisions sent forward from Ciudad Rodrigo. In his report of the battle he states that his intention is now to withdraw the garrison of Almeida, if he can manage it, and to have the place blown up. There is no prospect of dislodging the allied army by a second general engagement; but, by manœuvring, an opportunity of bringing off Brennier and his men may be secured. The primary object of the campaign is therefore abandoned; but the new secondary object of saving the garrison of Almeida may possibly be secured. In this, as we shall see, the Marshal was to succeed, owing to the culpable negligence of some of Wellington’s subordinates. The main purpose of the expedition of the Army of Portugal had been foiled; after the battle the idea of retaining Almeida, as a foothold beyond the frontier, was given up.

Fuentes de Oñoro has been called the most hazardous of all Wellington’s fights, and he has often been censured for fighting at all. Success is not always the best criterion of a general’s dispositions, and in this case the fact that Masséna was foiled is not enough to vindicate all his adversary’s arrangements. But when the case against Wellington is stated by critics like Napier, Fririon, or Pelet, it is necessary to set forth his defence, which seems an adequate one. Napier blames his old chief for accepting battle. ‘A mistaken notion of Masséna’s sufferings during the late retreat induced Wellington to undertake two operations at the same time[437], which was above his strength, and this error might have been his ruin, for Bessières, who only brought 1,500 cavalry and six guns to the battle of Fuentes Oñoro, might have brought 10,000 men and sixteen guns.’ He erred in sending out Houston’s division to Pozo Bello, and so extending his line to an unwieldy length, across ground which, beyond Fuentes, was suitable for cavalry and lacked defensive strength. By engaging the 7th and Light Divisions on this terrain he gave the enemy ‘great advantages, which Napoleon would have made fatal.’ He took up a position which would have allowed Masséna to detach some of his numerous squadrons round his right flank, by the Sabugal and Sequeiro bridges, to destroy his magazines at Guarda and Celorico, break his communication, and cut up the transport in the rear of the allied army. But, says Napier, ‘with an overwhelming cavalry on suitable ground, the Prince of Essling merely indicated, as it were, the English general’s errors, and stopped short when he should have sprung forward.’

To this it may be answered, firstly, that Wellington would not have fought, if Bessières had brought 10,000 men instead of the two cavalry brigades which actually accompanied him. He states in his dispatch to Lord Liverpool of May 1st that he is prepared to abandon the blockade of Almeida ‘if the enemy have such a superiority of force as to render the result of contest for that point doubtful.’ He also states that he is aware that Masséna might be reinforced by detachments of the troops under Bessières, which would include some of the Imperial Guard. On May 2nd[438] his intelligence through Spanish sources was sufficiently good to enable him to know that very little of the Army of the North had actually moved. If one or both of the Guard infantry divisions had marched for the frontier a week before the campaign began, it is perfectly certain that he must have heard of it, for such a force would have taken long to advance from Valladolid to Ciudad Rodrigo, or still longer from Burgos to Ciudad Rodrigo. There were secret agents at Salamanca and most of the other towns of the Douro valley, who would certainly have taken care that such a piece of information should reach the hands of Wellington. He fought because he was aware that the force opposed to him practically consisted of the Army of Portugal alone. It will be remembered that, before his short visit to the Alemtejo in April, he gave Sir Brent Spencer elaborate directions as to the position which he was to take up, in case the French should come in overwhelming force to relieve Almeida during his own absence. Spencer was directed to leave the road open, and to draw back to a defensive position covering the allied lines of communication[439]. And this no doubt is the policy which Wellington would have adopted, if Bessières had brought up the infantry of the Imperial Guard to Masséna’s help. Of this the best proof is that he actually followed this plan in September, at the time of the El Bodon fighting, when Dorsenne, Bessières’s successor, came up to the help of the Army of Portugal with a large force.

Napier’s second criticism is of more validity. The placing of the 7th Division at Pozo Bello did extend the front of the army into indefensible ground. But, as has already been pointed out, Wellington’s intention was not to fight with the 7th Division in such a position, if the enemy made a wide flanking movement with a very large force. Houston’s battalions and their cavalry supports were to guard against any attempt to turn Fuentes de Oñoro by a mere detachment, operating on a short circle. For this the force sufficed: that, though it was assailed by three infantry divisions and 3,000 cavalry, it came off with a loss of only 400 men, and assumed the new position allotted to it in due course, is surely a testimony to the fundamental soundness of Wellington’s tactics. Flanking detachments must withdraw if hopelessly outnumbered; but that is no reason for saying that such detachments must never be made. Montbrun’s cavalry sought every possible opportunity to act against the 7th and Light Divisions, but had no success save in the one case where they caught two battalions in scattered fragments evacuating a village—even there, owing to the splendid succour afforded by the British cavalry, they did not destroy the unlucky troops, but only cut up 150 of them. The moral is the old one, that cavalry unsupported is helpless against a steady force of all arms, even when it is in movement over open ground. Inferior though the British horsemen were in number, they gave an invaluable support to the infantry, which was never seriously incommoded during its retreat.

But, it is urged[440], the Light and 7th Divisions might have been in great peril if Marchand’s and Mermet’s infantry had followed Montbrun’s cavalry with all speed, and pursued the retiring British, instead of drawing up in front of Wellington’s left centre, to the south of Fuentes village. Masséna seems to contradict the possibility of this in his dispatch, where he says that ‘the 1st and 2nd Divisions of the 6th Corps followed the movement of the cavalry as much as it was possible for infantry in column to do,’ and again: ‘This superb movement [of the cavalry] was stopped; and before our infantry could arrive the enemy had the time to cover the crest of his plateau with several lines of English infantry and a formidable force of artillery[441].’ It seems probable that there was actually not time for Marchand and Mermet, coming out by narrow swampy paths from the woods of Pozo Bello[442], and forced to get into order in the open ere they could move on, to catch up Craufurd and Houston before they were safe in their appointed positions. Moreover, if they had hurried after Montbrun they would have been making a flank march across the front of Wellington’s new line, and exposing themselves to the possibility of a ruinous counter-stroke, like that delivered at Salamanca a year later.

Apparently then, on Masséna’s own showing, the advance of Montbrun was too rapid for the infantry to join him, and if so, the dismal picture drawn by Napier of the cavalry and the Light Division overwhelmed by a combination of Montbrun and Marchand, and hurled in disorder against the 1st Division in its position on the plateau, must be overdrawn. It is rash to criticize Wellington as a tactician, when (as in this case) he was moving troops under his own eye, on ground where calculations of time and pace were simple. If, from his commanding position on the edge of the plateau, he had judged that the French infantry were close enough to Montbrun to give him effective support, he certainly would not have sent out Craufurd to succour Houston, but would have allowed the latter to make the best retreat that he could towards the Turon and Freneda. But Wellington evidently judged that the 7th Division could be brought off without too much risk, and he knew that Craufurd and his veterans could be trusted even in the most delicate situations. No amount of cavalry could harm them, and if the French infantry were far enough away, the operation would be in reality much less hazardous than it looked.

When once the Light and 7th Divisions had got to their appointed places in the new line, it is hard to see that Masséna could have done anything against Wellington’s front, which was well established on a commanding ground, with a steep slope in front, and a superior artillery ranged along the crest. The Marshal himself, as we have seen, after inspecting the new position in person, thought that Fuentes village was the crucial point, and had turned three divisions against it. Undoubtedly, if he could have taken it, the position of the Allies would have been much altered for the worse. But it was a very strong post—as is sufficiently shown by the fact that 4,000 men held it against nearly double numbers for six or seven hours. Indeed, its importance may be compared with that of Hougoumont in the battle of Waterloo—it forced the attacking party to use up a disproportionate number of men against an outwork, whose occupation was absolutely necessary as a preliminary for the general attack which was contemplated. The infantry of the French left could not assail the 1st and 3rd Divisions with any reasonable prospect of success till Fuentes was carried, and, as it was never carried, the attack could not be delivered.

As to Napier’s suggestion that Masséna might have used some of his superabundant cavalry for a raid against the Sequeiro and Sabugal bridges, and the communications of the allied army, it is clear that the move was feasible, but there is no reason to suppose that it would have been effective. The moment that the force—say a couple of brigades—got to the Coa it would have been in the narrow and difficult roads of the mountains—liable to be stopped by the breaking of the first bridge, or the barricading of the road by the first bands of Ordenança that it ran against. Cavalry raids to the rear may be effective in the plains, but in a country like northern Portugal they are of very doubtful expediency. The military historian will remember how fruitless in the end were all the brilliant expeditions of J. E. B. Stuart and Morgan in the American Civil War; though they did much damage to trains and convoys, they had practically no effect on the general results of the campaign. Moreover, any expedition to places so remote as Celorico or Guarda would have taken many days, and Masséna had no time to waste; considerations of supply pressed him to make a speedy end to the campaign. On the whole, Napier’s criticism seems unconvincing on this point.

As to Pelet’s and Fririon’s and Delagrave’s carpings at Wellington, they seem to be based on a radical ignorance of the force which he had at his disposal. He may be proved as rash or as timid as the critic pleases, if it is presupposed that he had 50,000 men, as some French writers assert, or horsemen superior in numbers to his enemy, as others have the face to set forth[443]. If the allied army had possessed an adequate cavalry, or two infantry divisions more than it actually contained, we may be sure that the fight would have taken a very different aspect. It was the balance of numbers which forced Wellington to assume a purely defensive position. The critic who urges that Masséna might have left the 2nd and 9th Corps alone in front of the allied position, and have marched with 15,000 men of the 6th and 8th Corps on Castello Bom, taking Freneda on the way, is perhaps the most unreasonable of all—for he would have had the Marshal divide his forces into two groups separated from each other by many miles, with nothing to close the gap. This would surely have led to prompt disaster. It is clear that Wellington could have overwhelmed the containing force, or have crushed the turning force, at his choice. This plan ignores the serious chance of a counter-attack on the part of the British general—a possibility which does indeed seem to have escaped the imaginations of many a French general down to the day of Salamanca. It was deeply rooted in their minds that he was a fighter on the defensive; they had yet to learn that when the chance was given him he could be as formidable on the offensive.

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SECTION XXVI: CHAPTER IV

BRENNIER’S ESCAPE FROM ALMEIDA. MAY, 1811

The 6th of May went by without any sign of movement on the part of the French. Wellington watched with anxiety for the indications of an extension of the enemy’s front to north or south. But not even a cavalry picket was shown to the right of Nava de Aver, or to the left of Fort Concepcion; reconnaissance on the flank showed that the French remained concentrated in their old positions. It was clearly improbable that Masséna was about to risk another frontal attack: and if, as was more likely, he was intending to try some other way of reaching Almeida than that which runs through Fuentes de Oñoro, it was odd that he should not start upon it at once. On the 8th, however, it became obvious that the enemy considered himself beaten, and was already retreating; at dawn it was found that the 6th and 9th Corps had disappeared from in front of Fuentes de Oñoro and the entrenched position to its right. Only part of the 2nd Corps was still keeping its ground in front of Alameda. The columns of Drouet and Loison were detected by exploring officers in the woods towards Espeja and Gallegos; Reynier was acting as a covering force to protect their withdrawal, and would have vanished at once if he had been attacked in force.

Masséna, in fact, had only lingered on the fighting-ground during the 6th and 7th in order to organize his retreat. He had ordered the great convoy of food, which had been brought up to Gallegos, to be distributed among the corps, since there was no longer any hope of throwing it into Almeida, and had sent back his artillery caissons to Rodrigo to be refilled. They were not to return, as he intended to pick them up during his retreat. But the main reason why the army had remained near Fuentes for two days was that an effort had been made to communicate with General Brennier by stealth, since force had not availed. By offering a reward of 6,000 francs, the Marshal had succeeded in finding three soldiers who volunteered to attempt to pass through the British lines by night bearing a cipher dispatch. Chance has preserved their names, Zaniboni, Lami, and Tillet. The first two disguised themselves as Spanish peasants, but were both detected and shot as spies. The third, a private in the 6th Léger, retained his uniform and crawled for some miles down the bed of the Dos Casas ravine in the dark, only emerging from it when he got some way beyond Fort Concepcion. From thence he made his way to Almeida before dawn, by creeping on all fours though fields of corn. The dispatch which he bore to the governor directed him to evacuate the place and escape as best he could; he was recommended to try a northerly line, and to make for the bridge of Barba del Puerco, where Reynier’s corps was to be placed from the 8th onward. By taking this route he would avoid the main body of the allied army, as there seemed to be nothing but cavalry vedettes north of Fort Concepcion. Brennier was instructed to acknowledge the receipt of the message, by firing three heavy salvos at five minutes’ intervals from his heaviest guns at 10 o’clock at night. This he did, and it was their sound which enabled Masséna to retreat during the dark hours which followed, with a knowledge that his orders had been received and that the garrison would try to escape. During the next day (May 8th) the 6th and 9th Corps recrossed the Azava and retired to Ciudad Rodrigo. Reynier with the 2nd Corps, moving later, and taking a separate route, marched by the bridge of Barba del Puerco, further down the Agueda, and placed himself at San Felices, just beyond the stream.

Wellington, on seeing the French fall back to their point of starting, thought that Almeida and its garrison were now his own—and so they should have been if his subordinates had acted with common ability. He pushed forward his advanced posts to the Azava and the Agueda in face of the retiring enemy, but sent back the whole 6th Division to relieve Pack’s Portuguese in the task of blockading Almeida. General Campbell took over the command from Pack on the 10th, and disposed his three brigades round the place in what he considered a satisfactory and scientific fashion. It appears, however, that he cantoned them, for convenience sake, much too far out, and neglected the usual precaution of pushing pickets close up to the walls every night, to watch the garrison during the dark hours. The regiments were placed in villages three or four miles from the town, and the connecting screen of pickets between them was thin. Pack’s Portuguese were moved by Campbell to Cinco Villas, four miles north-west of Almeida. Of Burne’s brigade the 2nd regiment was nearest Almeida, on the road that goes out towards the north, the 36th at Malpartida close by. The other British brigade (Hulse’s) was facing the south side of the fortress at a considerable distance; the Portuguese of the division (Madden’s brigade) were at or near Junca on the east front.

Brennier was determined to do his very best to carry out the dangerous task which had been set him. Not only would he carry off his garrison, but he would leave Almeida a wreck behind him. The 8th and 9th of May were employed in driving mines into the whole of the enceinte, and in disabling as much of the artillery as was possible in the time. Some of the pieces were merely spiked, others had their bores choked also; many were disabled by the ingenious plan of firing several pairs of guns simultaneously, with the muzzles of some placed at right angles to those of the others, so that while half the shots flew outwards, the other half struck and disabled the guns against which they were aimed. The besiegers had detected that there was something odd in these salvos, but thought that they were signals to Masséna—as indeed the firing on the night of the 7th had actually been.

At about 11.30 on the night of the 10th, the French came out of the north gate of Almeida in two columns, one formed of the battalion of the 82nd Line, the other of the provisional battalion, artillery, and sappers who formed the larger half of the garrison, which numbered something over 1,300 men. The two columns, which marched close together, parallel with each other, struck the cordon of the blockading line near the point where the pickets of the 1st Portuguese, belonging to Pack’s brigade, joined with those of the 2nd Queen’s of Burne’s. Rushing violently on, they pierced the line, with nothing more than a splutter of musketry from the few Portuguese sentries immediately opposed to them, who were trampled down or driven off. Five minutes after, a tremendous series of explosions from Almeida startled the whole of the blockading force: the mines left behind by Brennier had worked, and the greater part of the eastern and northern fronts of the place had been blown up. On the south side something had gone wrong with the fuses, and little damage was done: but the fortress was effectively ruined.

Brennier should have been caught if the officers entrusted with the blockade had shown ordinary wisdom, for he was plunging into the midst of 6,000 men, and, if Wellington’s orders had been properly carried out, he could never have reached his destination. The main blame for his successful evasion seems to rest on the shoulders of Colonel Iremonger of the Queen’s regiment, and General Erskine. The former, who was nearest of all the blockading battalions to the point of Brennier’s exit, merely put his men under arms, and sent out patrols both towards Almeida and to right and left. They came back after long delay, reporting that the town seemed to have been evacuated, and that the French had apparently got off to the north and were out of sight. Even at dawn Colonel Iremonger had made no movement, yet his battalion of all the division had the best chance of pursuing the enemy. Erskine’s responsibility is still heavier: he had been directed by a written order, on the afternoon of the 10th, to extend the line of the 4th Division as far as the bridge of Barba del Puerco, and in particular to send the 4th regiment under Colonel Bevan to the rocky defile which overhangs that bridge.[444] Having, apparently, received the dispatch at four o’clock, he detained it (unopened according to some accounts) till long after dusk, when he forwarded directions to the 4th regiment to move to Barba del Puerco. Colonel Bevan, not receiving the order till late at night, took upon himself the responsibility of ordering that the battalion should only move at daybreak. Wherefore there were no troops holding the defile at the critical moment.

For the first few miles of his retreat Brennier was followed only by General Pack, who had caught up eighty men of the main picket of the 1st Portuguese, and hurried after the retreating columns, after sending word to Campbell at Malpartida of the enemy’s general direction. Pack kept up a running fire for several hours, and took many stragglers and all the French baggage; but, by the orders of their commander, the retreating columns did not wait to beat off the teasing force which pursued them, or even fire a shot in return. Towards daybreak Pack found himself near Villa de Ciervo, with only a major and eleven men left in his company, but still close on the heels of the French. In this village there was a troop of the 1st Royals, watching the line of the Agueda; they turned out on hearing the firing, demonstrated against the flying enemy, and detained him for a few useful minutes; but fifty dragoons could do nothing against two battalion columns. However, with the growing light, more British troops were seen hurrying up. General Campbell, on getting Pack’s message, had come on rapidly with the 36th regiment from Malpartida, and was within a mile of Brennier, when the latter turned down to the defile which leads to the bridge of Barba del Puerco. At the same time the 4th, so unhappily absent up to this moment, were perceived approaching from the south, parallel with the course of the Agueda, while a squadron of Barbaçena’s dragoons and some Portuguese infantry were visible in a north-westerly direction. If Brennier had allowed himself to be detained for half an hour longer, at any moment in his retreat, he would have been a lost man. But, as it was, his leading column was nearing the bridge before the British got within touch of him.

General Campbell had ordered the 36th to throw off their packs and run, when he saw how close the French were to safety, and the regiment, followed by the 4th, which came up a minute later, struck the second French column just as it was descending to the bridge. Fired upon and charged on the steep road, the battalion broke, and many men, trying to find short cuts down the precipitous hillside, lost their footing, and fell down the rocks. There were some broken necks and many broken limbs, while other fugitives fell into the river and were drowned. Meanwhile a heavy fire was opened on the pursuers from the opposite bank. Reynier, who (as he had been ordered) kept a good watch on the bridge from San Felices, had sent down three battalions of the 31st Léger and some guns to receive the flying garrison. They had lined the bank, and were ready to defend the defile. Colonel Cochrane, of the 36th, without Campbell’s orders, took upon himself to try to force a passage through the covering force, and led a mixed mass of his own regiment and the 4th across the bridge, and up the opposite slope. They were repulsed with loss by the 31st Léger; the casualties in this rash enterprise were the only ones suffered by the British that morning, and amounted to eighteen killed and wounded, and an officer and sixteen men taken prisoners. Pack’s Portuguese had lost some fifteen men when their picket line was forced at midnight, so that the total casualties of the Allies were about fifty.

Brennier’s columns had of course suffered far more—but it was a scandal that a single man had escaped. He states his loss in his report to Marmont at 360 men out of 1,300, of whom over 200 were prisoners and 150 killed or wounded. The commandant de place of Almeida and twelve other officers were taken. Reynier says that when General Campbell had withdrawn his troops from the water’s edge, and up the cliff, out of the range of the French cannon, he sent a party across the bridge to bring in the wounded, and that they found quite a heap of men with broken limbs at the foot of the precipice, whom they dragged out from among the dead and brought back with them. There were some few English and Portuguese in this ghastly pile, who had lost their footing in reckless pursuit of the flying enemy and had fallen with them[445].

Wellington gave it as his opinion that the escape of the garrison of Almeida was ‘the most disgraceful military event’ that had yet occurred to the British army in the Peninsula, and it is easy to understand his wrath. Campbell had been warned that Brennier might very probably attempt to escape; Erskine had been told to guard the defile of Barba del Puerco. The former kept his troops too far back from the place, and so disposed them that there was nothing directly behind the cordon of pickets, at the point where Brennier broke out, save the main-guard of the 1st Portuguese. He also watched the south and west sides of Almeida with unnecessary numbers—for it was unlikely that the governor would choose either of those points for his sortie. But he clearly did his best to pursue when the alarm came, and was the first to appear at Barba del Puerco with the 36th. The colonel of the 2nd regiment was much more to blame than his chief, since he was close to the original point where the French appeared, but merely collected his battalion at its head quarters and made no attempt to pursue. In his exculpatory letter to General Campbell he ‘thinks that he has explained everything satisfactorily[446],’ but he clearly does not show that he made an adequate attempt to face the situation, which demanded a rapid pursuit. An extraordinary chance happened to another regiment of the 6th Division: Colonel Douglas, with the 8th Portuguese, was at Junca, some way to the east of Almeida. He started off at the first alarm, and with proper military instinct marched for Barba del Puerco. Having good guides he reached the bridge before daybreak, but could see nothing of Brennier (who was still some miles away near Villa de Ciervo). Finding the defile all quiet, and no French visible save Reynier’s cavalry picket on the other side of the water, he concluded that he had come upon the wrong track, and turned back across the Dos Casas to look for the garrison elsewhere[447]. If he had been a trifle less prompt, he would have found Brennier running into his arms. This was sheer bad luck. But clearly the main blame lay with Erskine, who kept an important order back for six or seven hours, and was the person directly responsible for the fact that the bridge of Barba del Puerco was not watched, according to the precise direction issued by the Commander-in-Chief.

Wellington summed up the affair in a confidential letter to his brother[448] with the bitter words: ‘I begin to be of the opinion that there is nothing so stupid as “a gallant officer.” They (the blockading force) had about 13,000 men[449] to watch 1,400, and on the night of the 10th, to the infinite surprise of the enemy, they allowed the garrison to slip through their fingers and escape.... There they were, sleeping in their spurs even, but the French got off.’ The two officers who bore the brunt of their chief’s wrath were not—as might have been expected—Erskine and Iremonger, but Cochrane and Bevan. The former, for his ill-advised attempt to cross the bridge, got a withering rebuke in a general order. The latter found that his statement that Erskine’s dispatch did not reach him till midnight was disbelieved: threatened with being brought before a court of inquiry, he committed suicide at Portalegre, while the army was on its march to the south a few weeks later. Public opinion in the army held that he had been sacrificed to the hierarchical theory that a general must be believed before a lieutenant-colonel[450].

It will have been noted that Brennier’s report of his hazardous exploit, for which Napoleon very deservedly promoted him to the rank of general of division, was sent in, not to Masséna but to Marmont. The Prince of Essling had ceased to command the Army of Portugal a few hours before the explosion at Almeida. It will be remembered that the Emperor had made up his mind to supersede the old Marshal on April 20, and had entrusted the dispatch to General Foy, who (travelling with his usual headlong speed) reached Ciudad Rodrigo on the afternoon of May 10th. Marmont, who declares that he had no idea that he was to take over any charge greater than that of the 6th Corps, had reached Rodrigo two days before, and had reported his arrival to Masséna when the latter entered the fortress on May 8th. When Foy delivered the fatal dispatch to his old chief, the latter vented himself in loud outbursts of wrath, and declared that he had been maligned to the Emperor[451]. He accused Foy of having given an ill account of his late campaign to their master, and so of having caused his fall. And he added insult to injury by pointing out that the envelope of the dispatch was torn, and insinuating that the bearer had picked it open, in order to read its contents on his journey. Aghast at these accusations, which seem to have been no more than the angry inspirations of the moment, Foy wrote a long letter of remonstrance and self-justification to the Marshal, but got no satisfaction thereby. Masséna’s own character was such that it was natural for him to suspect double dealing and dishonourable conduct on the part of others. The reasons which probably brought about his recall at this particular moment have been explained in an earlier chapter[452]. They were the Emperor’s verdict on the campaign of Portugal. His lieutenant had failed and had lost the confidence of his army, therefore he must be recalled. Masséna had done far more than any other general could have accomplished, and he had, in effect, been sent to essay the impossible. His master far more than himself was responsible for the failure; but this the Emperor could not, or perhaps would not, see. The recall was now necessary, for the old Marshal’s bolt was shot, and it was clear that after Fuentes de Oñoro he could not have got any more good work out of his army.

His successor, Marmont, was a far younger man, aged only thirty-six, and promoted to his marshalship so late as 1809. He was one of Napoleon’s earliest followers, and had seen his first service under him as lieutenant of artillery at Toulon. Having fought all through the Italian campaign of 1796-7, he had followed his chief to Egypt, and had been one of the few officers selected to accompany him in his surreptitious return to France in 1799. He had served in the campaigns of Marengo, Austerlitz, and Wagram, but not in the Prusso-Russian War of 1806-7, during which he had been acting as Governor of Dalmatia. It was his good service both as general and organizer in that province which had won him his Illyrian title of ‘Duke of Ragusa.’ Personally Marmont was the exact antithesis of his predecessor in command: he was no rough and unscrupulous adventurer, but a well-educated and cultured gentleman, whose ancestors had served the old monarchy in the army and the law. Of all the marshals, he and St. Cyr are the only two whose writings give the impression of real literary ability. His autobiography displays his character in all its strength and weakness; it shows him brilliant, active, ingenious, and plausible, but absurdly vain and self-satisfied. The Spanish chapters of it form one of the best and most convincing indictments of Napoleon’s policy in the Peninsula, and he supports every deduction by original documents in the true historical method. But he is such a whole-hearted admirer of himself and his achievements that he can never realize his own faults and failures. Nothing that he ever did was wrong—even the loss of the battle of Salamanca, entirely his own work, can be shifted on to the shoulders of his subordinates. And he has no sympathy and admiration for any other person in the world. As a bitter critic remarked at the time of the publication of his bulky memoirs, ‘Marmont is not only autolatrous, but his autolatry is exclusive and intolerant. Many conceited men are not incapable of recognizing merit in others; they can adjust themselves to their equals and respect them. Marmont gets irritated and angry whenever he runs against another man of parts. He is a self-lover who has become a general misanthrope; the iconoclast of the reputations of all other notable persons.’

But Marmont’s jealousy was reserved for those who were important enough to be considered as rivals. To his subordinates and inferiors he was kindly and considerate in a patronizing sort of manner. The diarists who served under him speak with amusement rather than anger of his grand airs, his elaborate parade and pomp, and the ostentatious splendour of his field equipage[453]. He was clearly not disliked as Masséna had been, for he took care of his men as well as of himself, and was not considered a hard master[454].

The military capacity of this clever, vain, ostentatious young marshal has often been undervalued. He was an excellent strategist, who could grasp and face a situation with firmness and rapidity. He could form a good plan of campaign, and manœuvre his troops skilfully, as was sufficiently shown in his movements in June 1811 and July 1812. As an organizer he cannot be too highly praised: the way in which he refitted the Army of Portugal within a month of Fuentes, and made it efficient for a long and difficult march across central Spain, was deserving of the highest approval. His weak point was in tactical execution. When he had got his army to the striking point, he was seized with irresolution, which contrasted strangely with the skill and decision which he had shown up to that moment. In personal courage he was the equal of any of his colleagues—but he could not keep a clear head on a battle morning. Foy, who served under him during the whole of his command in Spain, sums him up as follows in his diary: ‘Bold and enterprising till the moment of danger, he suddenly becomes cold and apathetic when the armies are in presence. In discussion he will not face the difficulty, but tries to evade it. He is a good, estimable, and respectable man, but he himself (and many others) have been entirely deceived as to the value of his talents. He was never born to be the general of an army. His face expresses too faithfully the hesitation of his mind. He asks advice too often, too publicly, and of too many persons. A witty friend said to me in 1806: “Marmont is like Mont Cenis: in good weather his brow is high and imposing, in times of storm the clouds wrap it completely round[455].” ... Yet so mobile is his imagination that, when the crisis is over, he forgets all his indecision and mental anguish, he effaces from his memory past facts, and turns to his profit and glory all that has happened, even events that were unfortunate and disgraceful[456].’

Marmont had commanded an army corps with credit; he had even conducted a little campaign of his own against the Austrians on the Dalmatian frontier, in 1809, so as to bring it to a satisfactory conclusion. But he was very far from being fit to contend with Wellington, who was as good a strategist as himself and a practical tactician of a very different class of merit. He lacked both the imperturbable coolness and the iron resolution of his opponent—and the first time that they met in serious combat he was ‘found out,’ and dashed to destruction.

Meanwhile Marmont’s first seven weeks of command were infinitely creditable to him. He reorganized the Army of Portugal with a rapidity that disarranged Wellington’s calculations, and he led it to the strategical point where it was needed, with great swiftness and skill—as we shall presently see.

The Emperor, in the dispatch which explained to Marmont his duties, had bidden him drop the organization into corps on which the Army of Portugal had been hitherto formed, and send home the superfluous corps-commanders, and any other generals whose absence he desired more than their presence. Such advice squared with the Duke of Ragusa’s own ideas, for he disliked to have about him officers who were too high in rank and seniority to be his humble assistants. Junot and Loison went back to France at once, and with them nearly all the old divisional generals: Marmont worked the army with promoted brigadiers. We hear for the future nothing more of many familiar names—Marchand, Merle, Mermet, Heudelet, &c. Of the old divisional commanders only Clausel and Solignac remained. The rest of the new divisions, into which the old corps were redistributed, were given to men who had entered Portugal in 1810 at the head of brigades only—Ferey, Brennier, Sarrut, Foy, Maucune. Reynier stopped a few months more with the army and went off in July, there being no place for him in the new system. Of the old superior officers only Montbrun, commanding all the cavalry, remained with Marmont till the end of the campaign of 1811—there was no one who could be substituted for him in command of that arm.

In the reorganization of the army the old regimental association in brigades and divisions were mainly adhered to. The two senior divisions of the 6th Corps (Marchand’s and Mermet’s original commands) simply became the 1st and 2nd Divisions of the Army of Portugal, under Foy and Clausel. The two divisions of the 2nd Corps (late Merle’s and Heudelet’s) became the 4th and 3rd Divisions of the new organization, under Sarrut and Ferey[457]. The 8th Corps and Loison’s original division of the 6th Corps were amalgamated, and made into the 5th and 6th Divisions (Maucune and Brennier). A few small abnormal units, such as the Légion du Midi and the Hanoverian Legion, horse and foot, were disbanded, and ceased to exist. All the isolated fourth battalions of the old 8th Corps had gone down to skeleton units of 200 or 300 strong—their rank and file were drafted into other regiments, their cadres sent home to France to recruit. In each Line regiment Marmont reduced the number of field battalions to three or two, and, having filled them up to a strength of 700 men each, sent back the cadres and the small remainder of rank and file from the junior battalions to their dépôts. A fortnight after Fuentes there were not more than 28,000 infantry with the eagles in the Army of Portugal, but there was a great mass of convalescents in the base hospitals, and of newly arrived drafts in the governments of Leon and Old Castile, whom Marmont strove, not at first with great success, to draw to himself and embody in their regiments. It was hard to get them forward, when every officer commanding a small post in the rear detained drafts to strengthen his garrison, and when the Governors of Salamanca and Valladolid wanted to keep as many recovered convalescents with them as they could retain, because their governments were undermanned.

The cavalry units were in a far worse state than those of the infantry. Already at Fuentes most of the regiments had shown only two squadrons for want of horses, and had left behind them in their cantonments dismounted men in vast numbers. Marmont, seeing it was impossible to find chargers for them in Spain, was forced to send them all back on foot to Bayonne, to draw horses from the interior of France. In June he could put only 2,500 mounted men in the field. The artillery in a similar fashion was hopelessly short of teams: it could produce only 36 guns (six batteries) properly horsed, though Masséna had started from Santarem in March with more than 100. Marmont says that the army returns showed that Masséna had entered Portugal in 1810 with 4,200 artillery horses—of these only 1,400 survived the retreat, and of them in May only 400 were fit for service[458]. As to the train, it had vanished altogether, so far as horses and waggons went; the Marshal says that precisely four waggons were fully horsed and ready for work when he took over the command. But rest, the return to a land where food was to be got with ease and regularity, and the opening up of the dépôts of Salamanca and Valladolid, where uniforms, boots, and pay had been accumulating, soon did wonders for the army, under the Marshal’s careful and judicious supervision. By June he was able to take the field with an army that was restored in morale, and fit for good service.

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SECTION XXVI: CHAPTER V

THE BATTLE OF ALBUERA. MAY 16th, 1811

Soult, it will be remembered, had quitted Estremadura, and handed over the charge of the troops left therein to Mortier, on March 14th. He received the news of Beresford’s irruption into the province and of the combat of Campo Mayor on March 30th, so that from the beginning of April onward he was aware that it would be incumbent on him to support the 5th Corps and to relieve Badajoz within a few weeks. That he was not forced to march back from Seville to the north at once was due to the breaking of the Jerumenha bridges, which (as we have seen) delayed Beresford’s advance and the investment of Badajoz for many days. But by the end of April the danger had grown pressing: Latour-Maubourg had been thrust out of Estremadura, and (deceived by the movements of Colborne) reported that the Allies were about to invade Andalusia also. He had fallen back to Constantina, well within the limits of that kingdom, and not over forty miles from Seville. Nothing definite had been heard of Badajoz and its garrison, since the communications between that fortress and the south had been cut by Beresford’s cavalry on April 10th. Though its governor, Phillipon, was known to be a man of resource, and though provisions and military stores (the leavings of Imaz) were abundant, yet the garrison was small for such a large place, and Soult was not aware how far the damaged fortifications had been repaired since his departure. It was clear that he must strike at Beresford without delay, or the news that Badajoz had been attacked and captured might come to hand some black morning.

The Marshal’s situation, therefore, on May 1st was not unlike what it had been at the end of the preceding December, when by the Emperor’s orders he had been directed to make his first irruption into Estremadura. He must once more collect from the 70,000 men of the 1st, 4th, and 5th Corps a force sufficient to beat whatever number of troops the Allies had placed in that province. The task would clearly be more difficult than it had been in January, for, instead of 16,000 or 20,000 Spaniards, there were now in Estremadura some 20,000 Anglo-Portuguese, besides the 8,000 men of whom Ballasteros and Castaños could dispose. Moreover, there was Blake to be taken into consideration; but the Marshal—badly informed as to the movements of that general and his corps—thought that he was still so far from the rest of the Allies that he would not be able to join Beresford for battle, if the attack upon the latter was pressed with great swiftness and decision. The only favourable feature in the situation was that Badajoz was now in French hands, and could not be used (as in February) for a general rallying-place for the Allies. Campo Mayor and Olivenza would be of little or no use to Beresford, and, if he made Elvas his point d’appui, he must first evacuate all that lay on the south bank of the Guadiana. The only alternative for the British general would be to concentrate and fight at some point where he could cover the siege of Badajoz. This was the probable course for him to adopt, and Soult had to calculate the force that he would require in order to make victory reasonably certain. He fixed it at about 25,000 men—too low an estimate, as it turned out. It is interesting to note that at the very moment when Soult was ordering his concentration at Seville, a dispatch was on the way to him from Napoleon at Paris, dictating the course which he ought to pursue under the exact circumstances which had now arisen. ‘Wellington,’ wrote the Emperor on March 30th, ‘has only 32,000 British troops: he cannot make a detachment of more than 8,000 or 9,000 of them, with 5,000 or 6,000 Portuguese added. It is necessary to keep permanently about Badajoz the value of 15,000 men of all arms, in good state and of the best regiments, so that at the least movement of the English on this side the Duke of Dalmatia, taking with him 8,000 or 10,000 men, should be able to concentrate in Estremadura a total of from 25,000 to 30,000 men. If this exceptional crisis arises, only a corps of observation must be left on the side of Granada, and it must be placed under the orders of the Duke of Belluno (Victor). The Duke of Dalmatia must keep in correspondence, via Madrid, with the Army of Portugal and the Army of the Centre. The King ought always to keep a division of 6,000 men between the Tagus and Badajoz, ready to unite with the Duke of Dalmatia, if it becomes necessary to resist a movement of the English against Andalusia. But to arrive at this result it is necessary that the country-side should be entirely disgarrisoned, that all hospitals and magazines should be concentrated in Seville, and that Cadiz, Seville, and Badajoz should be the only points to guard, with a corps of observation at Granada. In this case the Duke of Belluno would take command of the troops at Seville and Granada, as well as of the force besieging Cadiz, and the Duke of Dalmatia would only have charge of the army opposed to the English. Counting the division from the Army of the Centre, he can easily unite 30,000 to 35,000 men.... In this case he would be able to resist even 30,000 English, if Lord Wellington marched against him with his entire army. But this supposition can never be realized; because, if it happened, the Prince of Essling (Masséna) would be able to march on Lisbon, and the English would find themselves cut off from that place, and between two fires[459].’

From the first part of Napoleon’s calculations it is clear that he thought Soult would require about 25,000 men—the 15,000 who were to be left about Badajoz and the 10,000 who were to be brought up from Andalusia: they are increased to 30,000 by erroneous addition only. As a matter of fact Soult, in order to cover Seville and to rescue Victor, had left only 11,000 men in Estremadura on March 14th, and 3,000 of these were now shut up in Badajoz. But on the other hand he collected from Andalusia (including Maransin’s column)[460] 16,000 men, so that his fighting force was within a few hundreds of the 25,000 named by the Emperor. The 35,000 spoken of in a later sentence would only be required, so Napoleon thought, if Wellington came down to invade Andalusia with all his British troops. We may point out, by the way, that the Imperial calculations were all wrong in detail, as was bound to be the case when they were made at Paris on data many weeks old. Wellington, owing to the reinforcements which had landed at Lisbon in the first days of March, had now nearly 40,000 British troops. He had detached 12,000 of them under Beresford[461], and these were accompanied not by 6,000 Portuguese at the most, as the Emperor guessed, but by a full 10,000. There was therefore a serious miscalculation. We may add that if Wellington had taken the unlikely step of concentrating his whole army against Andalusia, he would have had not only 38,000 British troops with him, but nearly 25,000 Portuguese troops of good quality[462]. The united force could have smashed up in one morning’s work the 35,000 French under Soult, whom the Emperor thought enough to restrain them. But, as Napoleon truly observed, it was practically impossible for Wellington to make this move, so long as Masséna’s force was still opposed to him in the north. It was only when the Army of Portugal moved down to the Guadiana in June that the British general concentrated practically his whole force in one line, behind the Caya, in the southern sphere of operations. And when he had done so the Armies of Portugal and Andalusia united, though about 60,000 strong, did not dare to attack him. But of this more anon.

In early May Soult, under-valuing Beresford’s fighting force, thought that 25,000 men would suffice to sweep him behind the Guadiana, even when he had the help of Castaños and Ballasteros. The force was collected in the following fashion: Latour-Maubourg at Constantina had 8,000 men, who had just been rejoined by Maransin’s column, thus the 5th Corps was once more concentrated and complete (with the exception of five battalions in Badajoz, and one or two more which Soult was bringing up from Seville). When all came in, the corps amounted to 10,000 men of all arms. The remaining part of the expedition was made up by requisitioning from Victor’s 1st Corps and the lines before Cadiz four battalions and two regiments of cavalry[463], and from Sebastiani’s 4th Corps four battalions and three regiments of cavalry[464]. Of the independent division under Godinot, which garrisoned the kingdom of Cordova, Soult took nearly the whole—nine battalions and two regiments of cavalry[465]. The borrowed troops were divided into two large brigades (one might better have been called a small division) under Generals Godinot and Werlé[466], and three provisional brigades of cavalry. They took five batteries (thirty guns) with them, to add to the eighteen guns of Latour-Maubourg, and some companies of sappers and train. The total force available came to just under 25,000 men, unequally divided in numbers between the 5th Corps and the Andalusian reserves. The cavalry was very strong in proportion, about 4,400 sabres[467].

It will be noted that Soult had (as in January) refrained from adopting the general plan which Napoleon favoured, that of abandoning all Andalusia save Seville and the Cadiz Lines, and leaving only a corps of observation at Granada. It is true that the Duke of Dalmatia took very little from Victor, and left the 1st Corps almost intact in the lines, but Sebastiani’s 4th Corps was also left only slightly diminished, and was expected to hold down all eastern Andalusia, instead of being requisitioned for 10,000 men and reduced to a flying column as the Emperor would have wished. The unit that had been most heavily drawn upon was the garrison of the kingdom of Cordova, and the result of this was that (as in January) very few troops could be detailed for the defence of Seville, since nearly all that had been in its neighbourhood were summoned off to Estremadura. The great city which formed Soult’s base was once more left inadequately defended by dépôts and drafts, and Juramentados of doubtful fidelity. The Marshal had lately raised some companies of so-called Swiss[468], deserters of all nations, and these were also utilized. But the total left under General Daricau was dangerously small. So keenly was this realized that the governor was directed to retire within the great fortified enclosure of the Carthusian convent (La Cartuja) if pressed, and all the military stores had been placed in this immense building, which had been surrounded with a bastioned enceinte, and armed with cannon, so as to form a sort of citadel. The Castle of the Inquisition at Cordova in a similar fashion had been fortified, and converted into a work that could be held against any irregular force, and similar precautions had been taken at Jaen, Andujar, Ronda, Alcala Real, and Niebla, to provide centres of resistance against possible assaults by guerrilleros. Probably, however, Napoleon was right, and if the minor places and eastern Andalusia had been evacuated, Soult might have brought 10,000 more infantry against Beresford, in which case the latter would never have dared to fight him, and must have retired behind the Guadiana. There would have been no battle of Albuera—but on the other hand all the evacuated districts would have flared up into insurrection, and it is difficult to see how Soult could have reconquered them, since he was to be for several months tied up in operations against the British, from which he could not have withdrawn a man.

But having taken another decision, and resolved to surrender nothing, the Marshal had only gathered 12,000 men to reinforce the 5th Corps. They required many days to concentrate, and it was only on May 8th that he reviewed them in their new provisional brigading at Seville, and delivered an allocution in which he announced to them that they were destined to save Badajoz and drive the British from Estremadura, and that the force would march at midnight on the 10th[469]. This threat did not escape the Spanish patriots in the city, who passed the news on so swiftly that Ballasteros was able to forward it to Beresford by the afternoon of the 12th.

Having once started, Soult hoped to surprise his enemy by the swiftness of his movements. The head of the column which marched at 12 p.m. on the night of the 9th-10th was at Santa Olalla, more than thirty miles away, on the 11th. The pace had to slacken in crossing the Sierra Morena, but on the 12th head quarters were at Monasterio (fifteen miles further on) from which Ballasteros’s scouts withdrew. Latour-Maubourg and the 5th Corps, far away to the right, had advanced at the same time from Cazalla and Constantina, and driven Castaños’s advanced posts from Guadalcanal and then from Llerena. On the 13th the two French forces joined at Fuente Cantos, and their leading cavalry squadrons reached Los Santos, from which the 13th Light Dragoons retired. As Wellington had directed, nearly a month before, in his Elvas memorandum, the Spaniards made no attempt to check the advance: their cavalry withdrew as the French pushed forward; their infantry were prepared to fall back on the rendezvous at Albuera.

From the 13th the British cavalry as well as the Spanish were in touch with Soult; General Long had been lying about Villafranca and Los Santos till that day, with three British and four Portuguese regiments[470]. He retired to Fuente del Maestre, and then to Santa Marta, contenting himself with reporting the successive advances of the French to Beresford, who was apparently not over well contented with his operations on this and the two following days, and thought that he might have gone back more slowly, and have compelled the leading squadrons of the enemy to deploy and lose time. At Fuente del Maestre the allied cavalry split itself up, Madden with two Portuguese regiments covering the roads to Almendralejo and Solana, while Long and the main body stayed on the high-road to Badajoz via Santa Marta and Albuera[471].

Having such long warning of his adversary’s movements, Beresford was able to carry out the concentration of his fighting force at leisure. There was still some uncertainty as to which road the enemy might choose, three[472] being open to him when his advance had reached Los Santos, viz. (1) the obvious central and shortest route by Albuera-Badajoz, (2) the eastern route Solana-Talavera Real-Badajoz, (3) the western route Almendral-Valverde-Badajoz. The former was rather circuitous, its main advantage to the French being that it was all across open flat country, where their superior cavalry would have had excellent ground; but the Albuera route was not perceptibly inferior in this respect, as subsequent operations showed. To take the third or western road, that by Almendral-Valverde (though this is not so long as that by Solana) would have forced Soult to execute a flank march across Beresford’s front, and (what probably weighed more with the French Marshal) would have fixed the decisive spot, where the fate of the campaign would be settled, nearer to the point towards which Blake’s army was known to be marching: and Soult still hoped to fight his battle in that general’s absence.

On the 13th of May Beresford marched out from his lines in front of Badajoz to Valverde, a point convenient for occupying a position across two of the possible roads, and not very remote from the third and least likely one. He took with him the 2nd Division and Hamilton’s Portuguese, with three batteries. The rest of the army remained before Badajoz, covering the removal of artillery and stores, but ready to come up at any moment. On the same afternoon he had a conference with General Blake, who rode over from Barcarrota. On the following day Soult’s movement seemed to be growing much slower—the heads of his columns only reached Fuente del Maestre and Villafranca. The fact, duly reported to Beresford, that part of the French army had reached the latter place, which is off the main chaussée to the right, seemed to make it possible that Soult was, after all, going to move by Talavera Real. Beresford waited for a more precise indication of his adversary’s final route, and sent pressing orders to Madden to cover with his scouts all the open country between Talavera Real and Almendralejo. Blake on this day, finding that his cavalry could discover no signs of the French in his front, to the west of the great chaussée, drew in from Barcarrota to Almendral, as he promised to do when he met Beresford at Valverde on the 12th.

It being perfectly clear by this time that the French were not about to take the western route, Beresford on the 15th marched the 2nd Division and Hamilton’s Portuguese to Albuera, where they were joined by more troops from in front of Badajoz, Alten’s German brigade, and a provisional brigade of Portuguese under Colonel Collins[473]. Only the 4th Division and the Spanish brigade belonging to Castaños, lately arrived from Merida, now remained in front of the fortress—all on the south bank save Kemmis’s brigade of the first-named unit. The last of the stores were moved on this day from the trenches to Elvas, and the flying bridge opposite the mouth of the Caya was taken up. This last proved a mistake—it was intended that Kemmis should join the army by using a ford below Badajoz, which had been practicable for the last ten days; but on the night of the 15th-16th the water rose, and the brigade was forced to march round by the next passage, that at Jerumenha, which involved a circuit of thirty miles, and made it late for the battle. Only three companies, which chanced to be on the south bank of the Guadiana when the freshet came down, were able to march off with Cole and the rest of the division, when the order came.

About 15,000 men were already in line at Albuera when Soult’s intention at last became perfectly clear: his chasseurs and hussars vigorously attacked Long’s horsemen at Santa Marta, and began to drive them along the chaussée. Long made no stand, though, having three British and two Portuguese regiments (Otway) besides some 600 of Castaños’s cavalry, he was in considerable strength. ‘He was driven rather faster than one could have wished, and retiring precipitately crossed the Albuera stream, and gave up the whole right bank to the enemy. This haste is a bad thing, because the woods there mask all the enemy’s movements,’ wrote D’Urban in his diary. Beresford was so vexed with him that he that night assigned to the command of the cavalry of the whole allied army General Lumley, who was Long’s senior, leaving the latter in nominal command of the British horse alone. Lumley, though then in charge of an infantry brigade in the 2nd Division, was an old light dragoon, and showed himself next day well able to manage a mass of mounted men[474].

No enemy, save Briche’s light cavalry, came up during the 15th—Soult’s infantry were far behind, and bivouacked that night at Santa Marta. Beresford was therefore able to complete his concentration at leisure. Blake’s army was directed to march up in the afternoon from Almendral, only five miles away; Cole and the Spanish brigade of Carlos de España, Castaños’s only infantry force, were directed to break up from the Badajoz lines and march at 2 a.m. to Albuera. The Spaniards, for some unknown reason, were very late; Blake only arrived at 11 p.m., and his troops, encamping in the dark, could not take up the position assigned to them till daylight. However, he had arrived, which was the main thing, bringing with him the three infantry divisions of Zayas, Ballasteros, and Lardizabal, and 1,000 horse under Loy, but only one battery. Cole reported that he would be on the ground soon after dawn, but that Kemmis was cut off from him by the rise of the river, so that he could only bring two brigades instead of three. Orders were also sent to Madden to close up with his Portuguese horse—but he could not be found, having most unaccountably crossed the Guadiana to Montijo with the bulk of his brigade, an eccentric and unjustifiable movement. Two of his squadrons, however, were met, and sent to join Otway that night.

The position of Albuera is not a strong or a well-marked one, yet it is far the best that can be discovered across the Seville chaussée for many miles south of Badajoz. It consists of a long rolling line of low hills, extending for several miles along the brook which takes its name from the village. This stream is in spring an insignificant thread of water, fordable anywhere by infantry or cavalry, and allowing even guns and waggons to pass at many points, though there are occasionally long stretches of bank with an almost precipitous drop of ten or twelve feet, which would stop anything on wheels. The ground on the south-east or French bank slopes up in a very gentle rise, and is covered in many places with groves of olives, which make it impossible to take any general view of the country-side, or to get more than vague and partial notions as to any movements of troops that may be going on in it. On the north-west or English bank the rolling heights are completely bare of trees; except at the village of Albuera there is neither house, wall, nor bush upon them—nothing taller than a few withered shrubs three feet high[475].

The so-called heights of Albuera are simply an undulation along the bank of the stream, which rises very slightly above the level of the plateau that stretches from the position to the descent into the valley of the Guadiana, thirteen miles away. This ridge or undulation extends in either direction as far as the eye can reach, with varying altitude, sometimes only 60 feet, sometimes perhaps 150 feet above the water’s edge. There are therefore many ‘dips’ on the summit of the position. The main battle-spot was on the two slopes of one of these dips, where, between two of the higher knolls of the ridge, there is a depression perhaps a third of a mile in width. The back-descent of the heights, to the north-west, in the direction of Badajoz, is even gentler than that towards the Albuera stream. The ‘ravine of the Arroyo river,’ marked in Napier’s and other maps, is an absurd exaggeration. There is simply a slightly curved ‘bottom,’ where a lush growth of grass along a certain line may indicate the course of a rivulet in very wet weather. This line has no marked banks, and is as much like a high-road as a ravine: it would not, even after rain, present any obstacle to infantry or cavalry moving in mass[476], and it is a mistake to make it take any prominent part in the history of the battle.

There is no ravine or ‘dead ground’ of any kind anywhere on either the French or the English side of the Albuera. The slopes are so gentle that any spot can be seen from any other. But the French side is wooded, so that movements of troops are hard to follow, while the other bank is absolutely bare. There is, however, a ‘sky-line’ on the English heights, between the dip where the main battle took place and Albuera village. An observer standing on the point where Soult formed his front of battle cannot get a view of the English line near the village—to do so he must ride sideways down towards the water, to look along the trough of the depression. Hence Soult during the battle cannot have seen a good deal of what was going on behind the allied front line, but Beresford, on the sky-line above the north-eastern edge of the dip, could make out all Soult’s dispositions when the battle smoke did not hinder him.

Albuera is a big well-built village, with a disproportionately high church tower. It stands on a knoll of its own, in front of the main line of the ridge, to which it serves as an outwork, as Hougoumont did to Wellington’s position at Waterloo. It is well away from the river bank, perhaps 150 or 200 yards from it; the bridge which brings the Seville chaussée across the stream is not exactly opposite the village, but decidedly to the south-east of it.

The Albuera stream is formed by two minor brooks, the Nogales and the Chicapierna, which meet a little south of the village. Between them is a low wooded hill, which conceals from an observer on the British heights the upper course of the Nogales, and part of the woods beyond, in which the French formed their order of battle. It was behind this long low knoll that Soult hid his main attacking column. But the elevation itself is insignificant, and much less effective than the more distant woods in covering his movement.

Beresford drew up his army on the hypothesis that Soult’s aim would be to pierce his centre, by capturing Albuera village, and storming the heights beyond, over which the high-road passes. Years after the battle had become a matter of history he still maintained[477] that this would have been his adversary’s best policy, since the place where the road crosses the position is the lowest and weakest part of the heights, and a blow piercing the centre of a hostile army is always more effective than the mere tactical success of turning one of his flanks, which still leaves everything to be decided by hard fighting, if the attacked party throws back his threatened wing, and stands to defend himself in the new position. The ground on the allied right wing he held, on the other hand, to be higher and stronger: and even if the French got upon the crest of the heights, the range gave, by reason of its successive dips, several positions on which a new line could well be formed. I leave these considerations to the critic, and am not fully convinced by them.

Beresford’s line was drawn up as follows: on the extreme left, to the north-east of Albuera, were Hamilton’s Portuguese division, with Collins’s brigade in support, amounting to eleven strong battalions in two lines. Beyond them, to guard the flank, were Otway’s weak Portuguese cavalry brigade and the two stray squadrons of Madden’s. The whole made only 800 sabres.

The centre was formed of William Stewart’s English division, the 2nd, comprising the three brigades of Colborne, Hoghton, and Abercrombie[478], ten battalions. In front of them Alten’s two German battalions occupied Albuera village. The 2nd Division was drawn up across the high-road, on the reverse slope of the heights; Beresford had learned from Wellington to hide his men till the actual moment of conflict, and, as he says with some pride, not a man of Stewart’s or Hamilton’s divisions was visible, and the only troops under the enemy’s eye were Otway’s cavalry and the two German battalions in Albuera.

In the rear of Stewart, as general reserve, was Cole’s division from the siege of Badajoz, which had marched at 2 o’clock a.m. according to orders and reached the field at 6.30 in the morning. There was some error in ‘logistics’ here, for Cole ought to have been earlier on the field. He had fifteen miles to cover, and should have been started sooner, for preference on the preceding evening, so as to allow his men time to rest and cook on reaching the position. Having marched till dawn they then had to lie down in formation, and eat as best they might, for the French were on the move not very long after they came up. The division, as already mentioned, consisted only of Myers’s fusilier brigade (1 and 2/7th Royal Fusiliers and 1/23rd Royal Welsh Fusiliers) and Harvey’s Portuguese brigade (11th, 23rd, and 1st battalion Lusitanian Legion). Kemmis with the other British brigade, save three companies which had followed Myers, was making a fruitless march against time, round by Jerumenha. With Cole there had also come up Castaños’s sole contribution of infantry—the weak brigade of Carlos de España, three battalions with 1,700 bayonets[479].

The right wing of Beresford’s position, the part of it which he thought least likely to be attacked, was held by Blake’s 12,000 men. Having encamped anyhow on the hillside, when they arrived at midnight, they had to be collected and rearranged with much loss of time after morning broke. Indeed, they had formed their line only about an hour before the battle began. The three infantry divisions of Lardizabal, Ballasteros, and Zayas were arranged in succession from left to right, each with one brigade in first and one in second line. The 1,100 horse of Loy were out on the extreme right, corresponding to Otway’s Portuguese on the extreme left. Of the rest of the allied cavalry, De Grey’s 700 heavy dragoons and 600 horse of Castaños’s Estremaduran force, under Penne Villemur, were in reserve near Cole’s 4th Division. The 13th Light Dragoons, separated from the other two British regiments, were watching the course of the Albuera from the bridge upwards, in front of Blake’s line.

Soult had come prepared to fight on the morrow, as soon as his infantry should arrive on the field. At nightfall only one brigade of them was up. The main body had bivouacked at Santa Marta, from whence they broke up before dawn and marched eleven miles to the battlefield. Werlé’s reserve, forming the tail of the column, was not closed up till seven or eight o’clock in the morning. The Marshal was still under the impression that Blake had not yet arrived, and that Beresford could not have more than 20,000 men in line opposite him[480]. It is one of the ironies of history to read in his dispatch that his great flank attack, which so much surprised Beresford, and caused so much confusion in the allied army at the commencement of the action, was made with the intention of cutting in between Beresford and Blake, whom he believed to be still on the march from the direction of Almendral, some miles to the south. The Spanish army, having arrived after dark, had never been seen; and at Beresford’s request Blake had ranged it behind the sky-line on the crest, so that nothing was visible save Loy’s horse far on the right. Soult thought these were Penne Villemur’s squadrons, belonging to Castaños, which had been accompanying the British cavalry for some days.

The Marshal could make out very little of his enemy’s force or position. All that could be guessed was that Otway’s and Loy’s cavalry, both well visible, covered the two ends of the line. Soult’s scheme of attack was ingenious, though founded on an utterly wrong hypothesis. He resolved to demonstrate with one infantry and one cavalry brigade against the village of Albuera, so as to attract his enemy’s attention to his centre, while carrying the rest of his army far to the left, under cover of the woods and the low hill between the Nogales and Chicapierna brooks, to a point from which they could turn Beresford’s right, by crossing the two streams and ascending the plateau somewhere beyond the point where Loy’s cavalry were visible.

The details of the execution of this plan were very well worked out. Godinot’s brigade (the 3,500 muskets of the 12th Léger and 51st Ligne) marched upon Albuera, flanked by Briche’s light cavalry, and supported by the fire of two batteries. They became at once hotly engaged with Alten’s German battalions, and with two battalions of Spaniards whom Blake sent down to give the village flank support. A Portuguese battery above the village swept the approaches to the bridge very effectively[481]. Meanwhile, on Godinot’s left, Soult showed two brigades of dragoons and Werlé’s strong brigade of 6,000 men drawn up on the edge of the wood, and apparently about to attack Blake’s line in front. But deep in the olives to the left the two divisions of the 5th Corps, Girard and Gazan, were executing a circular sweep, with a cavalry brigade in front of them, quite out of sight. They were covered not only by the trees but by the height between the Nogales and Chicapierna brooks.

Beresford and Blake prepared to resist an attack on their centre and right, and felt reasonably confident of giving a good account of themselves. But the frontal attack seemed somehow to hang fire, and suddenly a new development came: four regiments of French cavalry, far to the right, galloped out of the woods, across the two brooks, and up the slopes far beyond Beresford’s right. Loy’s Spanish cavalry, who lay in that direction, naturally gave way before them. Immediately afterwards the head of a long infantry column came marching up from the same point, making for the heights at a place some way beyond Blake’s extreme right. It is curious to note that they did not aim at attacking Blake’s actual flank, but rather at getting on top of the heights beyond him, so as to be able to move against him on the level of the plateau, without having to climb the hill in face of opposition.

Beresford rode hastily along the line to meet Blake, and requested him to deal with this unexpected flank attack by drawing off one of his two lines, and placing it at right angles to the original position, across the summit of the heights. He himself would take care of the frontal attack. Blake promised to do this, but sent only one brigade of Zayas’s division, four battalions, and his only battery, to execute the required movement. He was still not convinced that the front attack might not be the main one. Beresford meanwhile went back to his own troops, to direct Stewart’s division to prepare to support the Spaniards when necessary, and Lumley’s cavalry to move off to join Loy on the extreme right.

The next half-hour served to develop the whole face of the battle in its second aspect. The French cavalry at the head of the turning column spread themselves out on the rolling plateau to the west of the heights so as to flank their infantry. The 5th Corps formed itself in a column of extraordinary depth on the undulating summit of the ridge, and began to move on toward Blake’s flank. The responsibility for the order of battle adopted must apparently be laid on the shoulders of Girard, the senior division-commander, who was placed that day at the head of the whole corps; Latour-Maubourg, who had led it during the last two months, had been taken away to assume general charge of the cavalry. Girard, as it seems, intended to beat down the hastily formed line of defence, which the Spaniards were opposing to him, by the impetus of an immensely heavy column. His force consisted of two divisions, each of two brigades, and each brigade composed of from four to six battalions[482]. I had long sought for an exact description of his array, of which the French historians and Soult’s dispatch only say that it was a colonne serrée de bataillons. At last I found the required information in the Paris archives[483], in the shape of an anonymous criticism on Soult’s operations, drawn up (apparently for Napoleon’s eye) by some officer who had been set to write a report on the causes of the loss of the battle.

This document says that ‘the line of attack was formed by a brigade in column of attack [i. e. a column formed of four battalions in column of double companies, one battalion behind the other]. To the right and left the front line was in a mixed formation, that is to say, on each side of the central column was a battalion deployed in line, and on each of the two outer sides of the deployed battalions was a battalion or a regiment in column, so that at each end the line was composed of a column ready to form square, in case the hostile cavalry should try to fall upon one of our flanks—which was hardly likely, since our own cavalry was immensely superior to it in number.’

This formation disposed of the nine battalions of Girard’s division, which, as we see, advanced with a front consisting of three battalions in column and two in line. Gazan’s, the 2nd Division of the corps, followed very close behind Girard, the four regiments each in column with their two (or three) battalions one behind the other. The 2nd Division had been intended to attack as an independent supporting line, but ultimately worked up so close to the 1st Division that it could not easily be drawn off or disentangled, and to the Allies the whole 8,400 men looked like one vast column, with a front of about 500 men only, which, allowing for battalion intervals, just stretched across the top level of the heights, which is here about 700 yards broad.

Three batteries of field artillery belonging to the 5th Corps accompanied the 1st Division; a fourth, of horse artillery, was with the cavalry which covered the left flank of the column. Two more were in company with Werlé’s brigade. The remaining two stopped with Godinot opposite Albuera.

When Blake realized the strength of the turning force, he began to detach more troops from his front line to strengthen Zayas, whose four battalions would obviously be no more than a mouthful for the 5th Corps. They went in haste, four battalions from Ballasteros, two from Lardizabal, but failed to reach Zayas before the fighting began. Meanwhile a majestic movement changed the whole aspect of the French front. The two brigades of dragoons which had hitherto formed the French right-centre wheeled into column of squadrons, and galloped off in beautiful order along the side of the Albuera brook till they reached the 5th Corps; passing behind it they joined the cavalry on its left, which now became 3,500 strong. Latour-Maubourg was with them in person. At the same moment Werlé’s 6,000 infantry performed a slower and shorter circular march and joined the rear of the 5th Corps, to which they now acted as a reserve. Thus Soult had all his infantry save Godinot’s brigade of 3,500 men, and all his cavalry save Briche’s two regiment of light horse, 550 sabres, massed opposite Blake’s new ‘refused’ right flank.

The sight of this sweep to the south on the part of the French caused Beresford to make a complete change in his disposition. The whole 2nd Division, one brigade following the other, in the order Colborne-Hoghton-Abercrombie, marched along the top of the heights to reinforce Zayas. Hamilton’s Portuguese were to move in, to take up the ground evacuated by the 2nd Division. Lastly, Cole’s 4th Division, Myers’s British and Harvey’s Portuguese brigades, forming the reserve, were moved a full mile to the right, and placed behind the English and Spanish cavalry, facing Latour-Maubourg’s great mass of horse. It was the sight of these eight solid battalions in column, ready to form square, which alone prevented the French cavalry general from ordering a general charge upon the 2,300 allied horse in his front, whom he outnumbered in the proportion of three to two, and of whom only De Grey’s 700 sabres were British. For the 13th Light Dragoons, the third regiment in the field, was covering the other wing of the new front, down by the Albuera stream.

Zayas’s Spaniards, having a much shorter way to move than the French turning column, were in line of battle long before the 5th Corps came up against them. But the reinforcements tardily sent by Blake were still coming up, and forming on Zayas’s flanks in much confusion, when the fighting began. Most of them prolonged the line down the slope of the heights above the Chicapierna brook. Beresford was personally occupied in posting and aligning them at the moment of the first clash.

Zayas, whose behaviour all through the day was most creditable, had found a very good point at which to draw up his brigade and battery. The summit of the heights is not level, but undulating; he had chosen the deepest dip in their summit, about a mile to the south of Albuera village, and drew up his small force in line on the hither side of it, so that the enemy had to attack him slightly uphill. His four battalions exactly occupied the top of the plateau; the troops under Ballasteros, which were now coming up, were not on the top, but on the descending slope towards the stream.

Girard’s two divisions advancing along the summit had a front about equal to that of Zayas, but four times as deep. Opposite the rest of the Spanish line, Ballasteros’s battalions, they sent out nothing but skirmishers. But Girard’s division, with a line of tirailleurs in front, descended their own side of the dip, and then began to ascend that occupied by the Spaniards. When they had reached a point on the gentle up-slope about sixty yards from the Spaniards, the French tirailleurs cleared off to right and left, and the battalions behind them began to open up their fire, slowly advancing between each volley. The musketry was hot, and both sides were falling freely, when the first British troops arrived on the battle-spot. These were the four battalions of Colborne’s brigade, at the head of the 2nd Division: the 1/3rd, 2/48th, 2/66th, and 2/31st, counting in that order from right to left. With them was the divisional commander, William Stewart.

Beresford, in his account of the battle, says that he had intended to draw up the whole 2nd Division in a single line in support of Zayas, and to advance with it against the French when all was in order. But William Stewart, though he had received no order to attack, and had been only directed to support the Spaniards, took upon himself to assume the offensive. The position indeed was rather a tempting one: the enemy was engaged with Zayas on an equal front, and had no flank guard of any kind within a quarter of a mile. He could obviously be assailed at great advantage by a force which should pass round and through Zayas’s right, and place itself perpendicular to Girard’s long unprotected flank. This movement Stewart took upon himself to execute; as each of the battalions of the 1st Brigade came up, it was extended and sent forward, apparently in a sort of échelon, the Buffs leading, far to the flank, and the 48th and 66th passing actually through Zayas’s right battalions. But the 31st, the left regiment, had not come up or deployed when the other three went forward into action[484]. Along with Colborne there was coming up Cleeves’s battery of the King’s German Legion. The leading four guns got into action, just to Zayas’s front, at the same moment that the British infantry went forward.

The French column, thus unexpectedly attacked in flank both by artillery and infantry fire, was naturally thrown into dreadful confusion. The two battalions in column which formed its left section faced outwards, and opened a rolling fire three deep, the front rank kneeling. But they could not stand the volleys poured into them from a distance of sixty paces, and soon began to break—the men were seen trying to go to the rear, and the officers beating them back with their swords. Colborne’s line cheered, and went forward to complete its victory with the bayonet.

At this moment a dreadful catastrophe occurred: Latour-Maubourg had been watching the struggle on the hillside before him, and, when he saw it going badly for his friends, directed his nearest cavalry regiments, which chanced to be the 1st Lancers of the Vistula and the 2nd Hussars, to charge along the slopes against the exposed outer flank of Colborne’s brigade. At this moment the morning, which had been fair at first but had been growing darker every hour, was disturbed by a blinding shower of rain and hail coming from the north. It is said to have been largely in consequence of this accident that the approach of the 800 horsemen was unnoticed by any of the British infantry—but Colborne’s men were also smothered in their own smoke, and entirely concentrated on the work before them. At any rate the charge took the Buffs in flank, rolled them up, and then swept down the back of the other two battalions, and on to Cleeves’s battery. It is hardly exaggeration to say that Colborne’s three leading battalions were annihilated in five minutes. Fifty-eight officers out of 80, 1,190 men out of 1,568 were slain, wounded, or captured. The number of killed was out of all proportion to the wounded: in the Buffs there were 212 dead to 234 hurt. This ghastly slaughter is said to have been due to the fact that the savage Polish lancers not only refused to accept surrender from the unhappy infantry, but deliberately speared the wounded as they lay. Nor can I refuse credit to the general statement of contemporary British authorities after reading the journal of Major Brooke, commanding the 2/48th, who relates how, after he had surrendered and was being taken to the rear by two French infantry soldiers, a Pole rode up to him and deliberately cut him down, after which the ruffian made his horse trample over him and left him for dead[485]. In the regimental annals of the 66th two officers are named as having been wounded by the lance, while already disabled and lying on the ground[486]. Peninsular tradition tells that the 2nd Division after Albuera swore to give no quarter to Poles.

But not all the victorious horsemen were so inhumane; 479 prisoners, many wounded, were driven off to the French lines. The brigade lost five of its six colours; and the four guns of Cleeves’s battery, which had accompanied it, were captured. Only one howitzer, however, was dragged off by the victors—the other three were left behind for want of horses. The 2/31st, somewhat to the left rear of its comrades, had time to form square, and beat off without difficulty the rush of the remnant of the lancers who got so far as its position. Marking too late the awful catastrophe on his left, General Lumley sent two squadrons of the 4th Dragoons to fall upon the flank and rear of the Poles—but they were intercepted by a French hussar regiment which Latour-Maubourg sent out to cover the retreat of the lancers, and were beaten back with the loss of both their squadron leaders wounded and taken prisoners[487].

Note.—The front line of the French attacking force is not correctly represented. It consisted of a column of four battalions in the centre, flanked by two deployed battalions, and with battalions in column placed outside the two deployed battalions on either side (see [p. 380]). In the French reserve there should be only two, not three, battalions of Grenadiers. The right flank of Zayas’s line is two battalions too long.

It may be remarked that the loss of the victorious cavalry was very heavy, though not out of proportion to their success. The lancers lost 130 men out of 580—the hussars who charged in support of them 70 out of 300. It was a curious evidence of the headlong nature of their charge that some scores of the Poles, after passing by and failing to break the square of the 2/31st, actually rode down the rear of Zayas’s Spanish line, sweeping aside that general and his staff, and coming into collision soon after with Beresford and his—the Marshal actually parried a lance-thrust, and cast the man who dealt it from his saddle, and his aides-de-camp had to fight for their lives.

At this moment the head of Hoghton’s brigade was just coming up from the rear—and its leading regiment opening fire on the scattered lancers shot a great many men of the rear rank of Zayas’s Spaniards in the back. Notwithstanding this, and to their eternal credit, the Spaniards did not break, and continued their frontal contest with Girard’s division, which had not slackened for a moment during Colborne’s disastrous fight[488].

There was a distinct pause, however, in the battle after this bloody episode. The leading division of French infantry had been so much shaken and driven into disorder, by Colborne’s momentary pressure on their flank, that the whole column had lost its impetus, and stood wavering below the Spanish line. Girard, regarding his own division as practically a spent force, ordered up Gazan’s two brigades to relieve it. There was fearful confusion while the new columns were thrusting their way to the front, and they were never properly formed. For the rest of the battle the two divisions formed a dense mass of 8,000 men, which looked like one solid clump, without much vestige of regular formation.

While this confused change of front-line was being carried out by the French, Beresford had leisure to deploy Hoghton’s brigade in the rear of Zayas, and Abercrombie’s in rear of Ballasteros, lower down the slope. He then proceeded to bring them forward to relieve the Spaniards. The latter, it is due to them to explain, had behaved extremely well. Beresford bears witness that Zayas’s four battalions, on the edge of the undulation which marked the front of battle ‘did not even to the end break their line or quit the field, as Napier alleges. After having suffered very considerable loss they began to crowd together in groups, and it was then that the second line (Hoghton and Abercrombie) was ordered up.’ The losses of the two battalions of Irlanda, and the 2nd and 4th Spanish Guards, were indeed the best testimonial to their good service. They had 615 officers and men killed and wounded out of 2,026 present, over 30 per cent.—all lost by musketry or artillery fire without a foot of ground having been yielded, in a close struggle that had lasted over an hour.

With the coming up of Gazan’s division on one side, and of Hoghton’s and Abercrombie’s brigades on the other, the second stage of the battle was reached. The clash was confined to the top of the plateau, the French having only a skirmishing line opposite Abercrombie on the slope, though the central backbone of the ridge was crowded with their dense columns. Hence it may be said that for the next half-hour Hoghton’s men, assisted by the 2/31st, the sole survivors of Colborne’s brigade alone, were fighting the entire 5th Corps—a line of 1,900 men two deep opposed to a mass of 8,000 twelve deep, on an equal front. This was the hardest and most splendid fighting done that day, not even excepting the glorious advance of the Fusiliers half an hour later. The three battalions, 29th, 1/48th, and 1/57th, absolutely died in line[489], without yielding an inch. Their losses speak for themselves—56 officers and 971 men killed and wounded out of 95 officers and 1,556 men present. The best account of this part of the action that I know is in the reminiscences of Moyle Sherer of the 1/48th:—

‘When we arrived near the retiring Spaniards, and formed our line to advance through them towards the enemy, a very noble-looking young Spanish officer rode up to me, and begged me, with a sort of proud anxiety, to take notice that his countrymen were ordered to retire, not flying. Just as our line had entirely cleared the Spaniards, the smoke of battle was for one moment blown aside, by the slackening of the fire, and gave to our view the French grenadier caps, their arms, and the whole aspect of their frowning masses. It was a grand, but a momentary sight; a heavy atmosphere of smoke enveloped us, and few objects could be discerned at all—none distinctly. The best soldier can make no calculation of time, if he be in the heat of an engagement, but this murderous contest of musketry lasted long. At intervals a shriek or a groan told that men were falling around me; but it was not always that the tumult of the contest suffered me to catch individual sounds. The constant “feeling to the centre” and the gradual diminution of our front more truly bespoke the havock of death. We were the whole time progressively advancing upon and shaking the enemy. As we moved slowly, but ever a little in advance, our own killed and wounded lay behind us; we arrived among those of the Spaniards who had fallen in the first onset, then among those of the enemy. At last we were only twenty yards from their front.’ The brigade had lost nearly two-thirds of its numbers, the brigadier had been killed; of the three battalion commanders one was killed and two wounded. The front of the shrinking line no longer covered that of the French mass before it. But the enemy was in no condition to profit by the exhaustion of the British. The fire of the line had, as always, been more effective than that of the column. The front of the enemy was one deep bank of dead and wounded; the 5th Corps lost 3,000 men that day, and there can be no doubt that 2,000 of them fell during this murderous exchange of musketry.

Meanwhile it is strange to find that both commanders allowed this duel of the many against the few, on the plateau, to go on undisturbed. Soult had still eleven battalions intact in reserve—Werlé’s brigade and two battalions of grenadiers réunis: his cavalry was also doing nothing, save observe Lumley’s much inferior force. Beresford had still of intact troops the 4th Division, the three brigades of Hamilton’s and Collins’s Portuguese, and the 4,000 Spaniards who had remained on their original position. None of those forces on either side were being utilized during the crisis of the battle.

The explanation is to be found in the narratives of the two hostile generals. Soult says in his dispatch to the Emperor, ‘When I ascended the heights, at the moment that the enemy’s second line advanced and began to press in our front, I was surprised to notice their great numbers. Immediately afterwards I learned from a Spanish prisoner that Blake had already joined Beresford, so that I had 30,000 men to deal with. The odds were not fair, and I resolved at once to give up my original project, and to aim at nothing more than retaining the ground already won.’ The Marshal therefore changed his plan from an offensive to a defensive battle, and refused to engage his reserves, or to bid his cavalry charge—a most half-hearted resolve.

As to Beresford, he was anxious to succour Hoghton, but he did not wish to move the 4th Division, which (he thought) was playing its part in ‘containing’ Latour-Maubourg’s enormous mass of cavalry, and covering the Valverde and Badajoz road—the line of communication of the allied army. He sent back instead to order up Hamilton’s Portuguese to the hilltop—4,800 fresh infantry. But it took a much greater time to bring them up than Beresford had expected. Some of the aides-de-camp sent to summon them were wounded on the way; but the main delay was caused by the fact that Hamilton, instead of taking up Stewart’s original position, had gone down closer to Albuera, to support Alten’s brigade at the village against Godinot’s attack, which had become a very fierce one. It was only after many precious minutes had been wasted that he was found, and Fonseca’s and Collins’s brigades did not start for half an hour after the order had been sent to them. Campbell’s brigade remained to give Alten help, if he should need it.

Meanwhile Beresford was trying to utilize the troops already at hand: Abercrombie’s brigade was told to wheel inward and attack the right flank of the 5th Corps, while the Marshal himself tried to move up Carlos de España’s Spanish brigade to the place where Colborne had fought so unsuccessfully a little earlier, on the left flank of the French mass. But this brigade, demoralized relics of the lost army of the Gebora, refused to face the fire, though the Marshal went to lead it on in person, seized one colonel by the epaulettes, and tried to drag him to the front of his battalion. As this brigade only lost 33 men out of 1,700 present, it is clear that it misbehaved.

At last Beresford grew so anxious at the sight of Hoghton’s gallant brigade shrinking away to nothing, while no succour appeared from the rear, that he actually sent orders to Alten’s Germans to evacuate Albuera village, and to come in haste to strengthen the centre. They were to be relieved by a brigade of the Spaniards who still held the old position above the village. The legionaries were disentangled from the village with some difficulty, and the French 16th Léger got into it before the Spaniards had taken Alten’s place. If Godinot had been in force, the position here would have been very dangerous; but he had only six battalions, 3,500 men in all, and was hopelessly outnumbered, for Hamilton had left Campbell’s Portuguese brigade opposite him, and 3,000 Spaniards came down from the heights. As a matter of fact Alten never had to go to the front; the crisis on the heights was over before he got far from the village, and he was sent back to retake it half an hour after he had given it up. This he accomplished with a loss of 100 men, long after the more important business on the heights was over.

The stroke which ended the battle came from a direction where Beresford had intended to keep to the defensive, and was delivered by the one part of his army which he had refused to utilize—the 4th Division. Cole and his eight battalions had been standing for an hour and a half supporting the allied cavalry, opposite Maubourg’s threatening squadrons. He was himself doubting whether he ought not to take a more active part, and sent an aide-de-camp to Beresford to ask for further orders[490]; but this officer was badly wounded on the way, and the message was never delivered. If it had been, the answer would undoubtedly have been in the negative.

But at this moment there rode up to the 4th Division Henry Hardinge, then a young Portuguese colonel, and Deputy Quarter-master-general of the Portuguese army. He had no orders from Beresford, but he took upon himself to urge Cole to assume the responsibility of advancing, saying (what was true enough) that Hoghton’s brigade on the heights above could not hold out much longer, and that there were no British reserves behind the centre. Cole hesitated for a moment—the proposal that he should advance across open ground in face of 3,500 French cavalry, without any adequate support of that arm on his own side, was enough to make any man think twice. But he had already been pondering over the move himself, and after a short conference with Lumley, his colleague in command of the cavalry, determined to risk all.

The 4th Division was ordered to deploy from columns into line, and to strike obliquely at the French flank. Entirely conscious of the danger from the twenty-six squadrons of French horse before him, Cole flanked his deployed battalions with a unit in column at either end: at the right flank, where Harvey’s Portuguese brigade was drawn out, he placed a provisional battalion made up of the nine light companies of all his regiments, British and Portuguese; at the left extremity, on the flank of his British Fusilier brigade—the two battalions of the 7th, and the 23rd Royal Welsh Fusiliers—was a good Portuguese unit—Hawkshaw’s battalion of the Loyal Lusitanian Legion[491]. The line made up 5,000 bayonets—2,000 British, 3,000 Portuguese. The whole of the English and Spanish cavalry advanced on his flank and rear, Lefebure’s horse-artillery battery accompanying the extreme right[492].

The sight of this mile of bayonets moving forward showed Soult that he must fight for his life—there was no drawn battle possible, but only dire disaster, unless Cole were stopped. Accordingly he told Latour-Maubourg to charge the Portuguese brigade, while the whole nine battalions of Werlé’s reserve were sent forward diagonally to protect the flank of the 5th Corps, moving along the upper slope of the heights so as to thrust themselves between the Fusilier brigade and the flank of Girard and Gazan. Soult had now no reserve left except the two battalions of grenadiers réunis, which he held back for the last chance, on his right rear, keeping up the connexion with Godinot.

The story of what happened at the right end of Cole’s line is simple: Latour-Maubourg sent four regiments of dragoons at the middle of the Portuguese brigade, thinking to break it down, as he had done often before with deployed infantry in Spanish battles. But Harvey’s four battalions, keeping absolutely steady, delivered a series of volleys which completely shattered the advance of the charging squadrons. It was a fine achievement for troops which had never before taken part in the thick of a battle—for the 11th and 23rd Portuguese Line had not been engaged at Bussaco or any previous action of importance. Owing to their excellent behaviour the flank of the British brigade was kept perfectly safe from cavalry assaults during the next half-hour.

Myers’s three Fusilier battalions, therefore, with the Lusitanian Legion battalion that guarded their left rear, came into collision with Werlé’s three regiments without any interference from without. They were outnumbered by over two to one—2,000 British and 600 Portuguese against 5,600 French. But Werlé had adopted the same vicious formation which had already hampered the 5th Corps—his nine battalions were in three columns of regiments, each with a front of only two companies and a depth of nine, i. e. he was opposing in each case a front of about 120 men in the first two ranks, capable of using their muskets, to a front of about 500—the fact that there were 16 men in depth, behind the 120 who could fire, was of no profit to him. Three separate regimental duels followed—the 23rd and the 1st and 2nd battalions of the 7th Fusiliers each tackled a column, as Blakeney, the colonel of the last-named unit, tells in his letter[493]. In each case the stress for the moment was tremendous. Blakeney may be quoted for its general character:—

‘From the quantity of smoke,’ he writes, ‘I could perceive very little but what went on in my own front. The 1st battalion of the 7th closed with the right column of the French: I moved on and closed with the second; the 23rd took the third. The men behaved most gloriously, never losing their rank, and closing to the centre as casualties occurred. The French faced us at a distance of about thirty or forty paces. During the closest part of the action I saw their officers endeavouring to deploy their columns, but all to no purpose. For as soon as the third of a company got out, they would immediately run back, to be covered by the front of their column.’ This lasted for some minutes—possibly twenty—when suddenly the enemy broke, and went up the hillside in three disorderly clumps, which presently splayed out into a mass of running men. The Fusiliers followed, still firing, until they crowned the ridge: the end of their movement was under a terrible artillery fire from Soult’s reserve batteries, which were used till the last possible moment to cover the flying infantry. The fusiliers lost more than half their numbers—1,045 out of 2,015 officers and men. Their gallant brigadier, Myers, was among the slain. Werlé’s three regiments had casualties of well over 1,800 out of 5,600 present—a bigger total but a much smaller percentage—one in three instead of the victors’ one in two.

The rout of the French reserves would have settled the fate of the battle in any case; but already it was won on the summit of the plateau also. For at the same moment when the Fusiliers closed, Abercrombie’s brigade had wheeled in upon the right of the much-disordered mass that represented the 5th Corps, and, when they followed up their volleys with a charge, Girard’s and Gazan’s men ran to the rear along the heights, leaving Hoghton’s exhausted brigade lying dead in line in front of them. The fugitives of the 5th Corps mingled with those from Werlé’s brigade, and all passed the Chicapierna brook in one vast horde.

There was practically no pursuit: Latour-Maubourg threw his squadrons between the flying mass and the victorious Allies and the British and Portuguese halted on the heights that they had won. Soult’s last infantry reserve, the two grenadier battalions, were also drawn out on the nearer side of the Chicapierna, and suffered severely from the artillery fire of the Allies, losing 370 men out of 1,000 in twenty minutes. But Lumley’s cavalry could not meddle with Latour-Maubourg’s double strength, and it was not till some time had passed that Beresford brought up three Portuguese brigades in line—Collins, Fonseca, and Harvey—and finally pushed the enemy over the brook. By this moment Soult had got nearly all his artillery—forty guns—in line on the height between the two brooks, and their fire forbade further progress, unless Beresford were prepared to storm that position with the Portuguese. He refused to try it, and wisely; for though the enemy’s infantry were completely out of action, it is a formidable thing to deliver a frontal attack on six batteries flanked by 3,500 horse.

So finished the fight of Albuera; a drenching rain, similar to that which had been so deadly to Colborne’s brigade, ended the day, and made more miserable the lot of the 10,000 wounded who lay scattered over the hillsides. The British had hardly enough sound men left in half the battalions to pick up their own bleeding comrades, much less to bear off the mounds of French wounded, who lay along the slopes of the gentle dip where the battle had raged hardest. It was two days before the last of these were gathered in.

That Albuera was the most bloody of all the fights of the Peninsular War, in proportion to the numbers engaged, everybody knows. But the exact table of the losses on each side has never, I believe, been fully worked out. After studying the French returns in the Archives of the Paris Ministry of War and the Spanish figures at Madrid, no less than Beresford’s report, we get to the results which I have printed in the [XVth Appendix] to this volume.

Summarizing them, we find that the British, including Alten’s German battalions, had 10,449 men on the field. Their total loss was 206 officers and 3,953 men. Of these 882 were killed, 2,733 wounded, and 544 missing. Of this frightful casualty list no less than five-sixths belonged to the three brigades of Colborne, Hoghton, and Myers, for the cavalry and artillery, with Alten’s and Abercrombie’s brigades of infantry, though all seriously engaged, lost but 618 out of nearly 4,500 men present. The remaining 3,502 casualties all came from the ranks of the three first-named brigades, whose total strength on the field was but 5,732. Colborne’s brigade lost, in an instant as it were, under the charge of the lancers and hussars, seven-tenths of its numbers, 1,400 men out of 2,000. Of the 600 who were left standing, nearly half belonged to the 2/31st, the battalion which was not broken by the cavalry charge, and survived to join in Hoghton’s advance. The brigades of Hoghton and Myers were not, like Colborne’s, annihilated in one awful moment of disaster, but used up in continuous fighting at short musketry range, with an enemy of far superior numbers. The former (29th, 1/48th, 2/57th) took 1,650 officers and men into the field, and lost 1,044. The latter (the two battalions of the 7th Royal Fusiliers and the 1st battalion of the Welsh Fusiliers) had 2,015 combatants present, and lost 1,045. Hoghton’s troops, therefore, lost five-eighths, Myers’s one-half of their strength, and these were victorious units which hardly left a single prisoner in the enemy’s hands, and finally drove their adversaries from the field in spite of a twofold inequality of numbers. Truly Albuera is the most honourable of all Peninsular blazons on a regimental flag.

Of the 10,000 Portuguese, only Harvey’s brigade was seriously engaged; it had over 200 casualties[494] out of the 389 suffered on that day by troops of that nation, and established a most honourable record by its defeat of Latour-Maubourg’s dragoons. The other men killed or hurt were distributed in fives and tens over the battalions of Fonseca, Collins, and Campbell, which only came under fire in the last stage of the battle.

The Spaniards returned 1,368 casualties out of 14,000 present, of which (as we have already seen) no less than 615 were in those four battalions of Zayas’s division which held out so stubbornly against the 5th Corps, till Hoghton’s men came up to relieve them. Of the rest, Ballasteros’s and Lardizabal’s divisions, with under 300 casualties each, had only suffered from skirmishing or distant artillery fire. The losses of Carlos de España and the cavalry were insignificant.

Note.—There should be only two, not three, battalions of Grenadiers placed as reserve behind Girard and Gazan’s troops.

The French losses can be made out with reasonable certainty after careful comparison of different returns in the Paris Archives. Soult had the shamelessness to assert in his dispatch to the Emperor that he had only 2,800 killed and wounded! But a tardily prepared and incomplete list drawn up on July 6th gave 6,000 casualties, of whom 900 were missing—wounded prisoners left on the allied position. Unfortunately this return, on examination, turns out to be far from satisfactory. Soult gives 262 officers killed, wounded, or missing, but the regimental returns when compiled show a much higher figure—359—and cannot possibly be wrong, since the name and rank of every officer hit is carefully recorded for documentary and official purposes.[495] But if 262 casualties among officers correspond (as the return of July 6th states) to 5,744 among the rank and file, then 362 officers hit must imply 7,900 men disabled, and this, we may conclude, was very near the real figure. Belmas and Lapéne, the most trustworthy French historians of the campaign, agree in giving 7,000, a thousand more than Soult conceded in his tardy and incomplete return. This proportion out of 24,000 men put in the field is sufficiently heavy, though exceeded so terribly by the 4,150 men lost out of 10,450 among the British troops. The units which suffered most heavily were the two divisions of the 5th Corps, which must have lost nearly 4,000 out of 8,400 present; Werlé’s reserve had probably close on 2,000 casualties, out of 5,600 bayonets; Godinot’s column and the cavalry had very considerable losses, but were the only troops fit for action next day. The 5th Corps was absolutely wrecked; in some battalions there were only three or four officers unhurt, and the losses were similar to those in Myers’s or Hoghton’s British brigades[496]. Two or three others had fared comparatively better, having been in the flank or rear at the time when the desperate musketry duel in the front was in progress. But the corps as a whole could not have been put in action on the 17th.

On the morning of that day each army sullenly formed line on its own side of the Albuera brook, but made no further movement. Beresford was prepared to fight another defensive battle, in the unlikely event of its being forced upon him[497], but was not willing to attack an enemy hidden behind a screen of woods, and possessed of a superior and still effective cavalry and artillery. Such an attack must have been delivered mainly by the Spanish and Portuguese infantry, since of the British only Abercrombie’s and Alten’s five battalions were fit for immediate service. The missing brigade of Kemmis arrived during the day, after a fatiguing march over the Jerumenha bridge, and added 1,400 bayonets more, but even so there would have been only 4,000 British infantry in full fighting trim; the sad relics of Hoghton’s and Colborne’s brigades were organized into two provisional battalions of 600 men each, where whole regiments were represented by one, two, or, at the most, three companies. Myers’s brigade had 1,000 men left, so was better off, but no general would have dreamed of using any of these troops for offensive action on the day after the battle. An attack would have had to be delivered by the 9,000 Portuguese infantry, backed by the Spaniards and Abercrombie, Alten, and Kemmis. Beresford refused to try it, even though he knew that Soult’s losses had been greater than his own, so far as mere numbers went; probably, he argued, Soult would retire covered by his cavalry and artillery if he were assailed. Covered by the woods, he could get off as he pleased. But Soult was certain to retire in any case, as news had now come to hand that Wellington was coming down to Elvas with two divisions[498], and might be expected there immediately—he actually arrived on the 19th; the head of his column had marched on the 14th, and reached Elvas on the 23rd. To risk anything in order to get Soult on the move a few days earlier was not worth while.

The French marshal was even further than Beresford from the idea of renewing operations on the 17th; he had shot his bolt and failed—the battle, so he declared, would never have been fought if he had known that Blake had joined the British on the night of the 15th. His main object in keeping his ground for a day was to organize the transport of a column of 5,000 wounded on to Seville; if he had retired at once, the greater part of them would have had to be abandoned. As it was, his transport was used up, and several hundreds of severe cases had to be left to the mercy of the Allies, in and about the chapel in the wood of Albuera. Beresford found them there on the morning of the 18th, for Soult commenced his retreat before dawn, some thirty-six hours after the battle was over. Gazan (himself wounded) and some 2,000 men from the regiments which had been most cut up guarded the convoy (which included the 500 British prisoners)[499], southward along the great chaussée. Soult himself, with the rest of the army, now reduced to 14,000 men at the most, retired by a more circuitous route, by Solana and Fuente del Maestre towards Llerena and the Sierra Morena. Beresford’s cavalry followed, but was unable to do anything in face of Latour-Maubourg’s preponderant squadrons. The allied infantry remained behind to resume the siege of Badajoz; on the 18th Hamilton’s division and Madden’s cavalry were sent back to invest the place, which was shut in again at dawn on the 19th, after having been relieved of the presence of the Allies for only three days (16th-17th-18th May). General Phillipon had employed this short respite in the useful task of levelling the allied trenches and batteries outside his works. He found nothing in them of which he could make booty, save the heavy wood employed for the gun-platforms before San Cristobal. The more valuable stores had all been removed to Elvas, the gabions and fascines burned by the 4th Division before it gave up the investment on the night of the 15th May.

That Albuera, with all its slaughter, was a battle in which both sides committed serious errors is generally acknowledged; but few are the general actions in which there is nothing to criticize on the part of the victor—much more of the vanquished. We must, however, protest against Napier’s sweeping assertion that ‘no general ever gained so great a battle with so little increase of military reputation as Marshal Beresford[500]. His triumph was disputed by the very soldiers who followed his car. Their censures have been reiterated without change and without abatement to this hour, and a close examination (while it detects many ill-founded observations and others tainted with malice) leaves little doubt that the general feeling was right[501].’ Napier then proceeds to argue that Beresford ought to have refused battle, and retired beyond the Guadiana, that his concentration was over-tardy, and that, considering the doubtful quality of Blake’s troops, he was too bold in fighting. His tactical dispositions were bad; ‘he occupied the position so as to render defeat almost certain’; he brought up his reserves in a succession of separate attacks, and hesitated too long to move the 4th Division. ‘Hardinge caused Cole and Abercrombie to win the victory;’ the guidance of a commanding mind was nowhere seen.

Napier was Beresford’s bitter enemy, and it is clear that his eloquent denunciations of the Marshal were inspired by a personal animosity which clouded his judgement. His account of Albuera is one of the finest pieces of military writing in the English language, but it bristles with mistakes, many of them worked in so as to throw additional discredit on his enemy’s capacity[502]. One turns naturally to investigate Wellington’s observations on the fight, made when he had ridden over the field on May 21st, only five days after the battle. In one private letter he writes, ‘We had a very good position, and I think should have gained a complete victory without any material loss, if the Spaniards could have manœuvred; but unfortunately they cannot.’ In another he says, ‘The Spanish troops behaved admirably, I understand. They stood like stocks while both parties were firing into them, but they were quite immovable, and this was the great cause of all our losses. After they had lost their position, the natural thing to do would have been to attack it with the nearest Spanish troops, but these could not be moved. The British troops [2nd Division] were next, and they were brought up (and must in such cases always be brought up), and they suffered accordingly.’

Wellington’s opinion therefore was that Blake’s slowness in guarding against the flank attack was the real cause of all the trouble. Considering the gallant way in which Zayas’s four battalions fought, when once they were in line, it certainly seems that if thrice the force which that officer was given had been thrown back en potence across the heights, as Beresford desired, at the moment that Soult’s movement was detected, they would have held their own so effectively that the British 2nd Division could have come up at leisure, and in order, to support the Spaniards. As it was, the reinforcements sent over-late by Blake to help Zayas arrived by driblets, and gave him little help, falling into a mere tiraillade with the French light troops on Zayas’s left, instead of engaging in the main battle.

After Blake’s slowness the main cause of loss was William Stewart’s over-haste. Beresford had given orders that the whole 2nd Division was to form up in a second line behind Zayas, and go into action simultaneously, outflanking the massed 5th Corps on either wing. Stewart, combining over-zeal and want of discipline, attacked with the first brigade that came up, while the second and the third were still remote. He also, if several contemporaries are to be trusted, refused to listen to Colonel Colborne’s request to be allowed to keep a unit in square or column, to protect the flank of the 1st brigade when it started out to make its attack[503], and it was the want of this flank-guard alone which made the charge of the Polish lancers so effective. As Beresford’s vindicator writes, ‘The Marshal had directed Sir William Stewart to form the second line; he could not distrust an officer of his experience, zeal, and knowledge of the service.’ That his subordinate should be struck with sudden battle-fury, and attack the French flank with one isolated brigade, contrary to his orders, cannot be imputed as a crime to Beresford, who was in no way responsible for it. The move, and the disaster that followed within a few minutes, took place without his knowledge. As he was endeavouring to put in line the Spanish battalions which were coming up to reinforce Zayas, he was surprised by being charged in the midst of his staff by a knot of the lancers, who a minute before had ridden over Colborne’s men on his right. It is clear that if the three brigades of the 2nd Division had been properly arranged and put into action simultaneously, as Beresford intended, the 5th Corps would have been driven from the heights an hour before it actually yielded. Girard’s division had already wellnigh exhausted itself upon Zayas’s stubborn resistance, and it was only the interval in the allied attack, caused by the destruction of Colborne’s brigade, which permitted Gazan’s troops to get up into the front line, in such order as they could, in time to fight Hoghton and Abercrombie. If Stewart’s advance had been made at the proper time, he would have come upon the two French divisions at the very moment when they were making their confused change of front. They could not have resisted the assault, considering the disorder in which they were mingled. Soult, who had just made up his mind to discontinue the offensive battle in which he was engaged[504], would certainly have used Werlé’s reserve only to cover his retreat, and would have withdrawn from a position which had become desperate, covered by his cavalry.

The one point in which Napier’s charges against Beresford have some foundation is that there was undoubtedly much delay in putting Cole and the 4th Division into action. This, as we have shown above, was caused by Beresford’s wish to strike the final blow at the 5th Corps with Hamilton’s Portuguese, whom he had ordered to the front after Colborne’s disaster, and who did not make their appearance, partly because the first aide-de-camp sent for them was wounded on the way, partly because Hamilton had changed his position, and was not found at once by later messengers. When it became evident that the delay was growing dangerous, Beresford would have done well to send Cole orders to advance at once, and to have directed Abercrombie also to charge. Napier is right in saying that ‘Hardinge caused Cole to win the victory,’ for Cole’s advance was made without Beresford’s orders, and even contrary to his intention, since he had sent for Alten and the Portuguese to make the final stroke. But while they were being collected, Hoghton’s brigade had been practically used up, and there was nothing but Zayas’s reformed but exhausted battalions in Hoghton’s rear, to form the allied centre. It is true, however, that, supposing the last relics of the ‘Die-hards’ and their comrades had finally recoiled, there would have been no push or impetus left in their opponents of the 5th Corps, who were a spent force, in complete disorder, and with hardly one man in two left standing. While they were disentangling themselves for a final effort, Collins’s and Fonseca’s Portuguese, perfectly trustworthy troops and absolutely fresh, would have been getting into position. It is practically certain that Soult would have made no further attempt to go forward. His own dispatch states that he had abandoned all offensive intentions. This much Beresford’s advocates may plead; but it remains true that the moral impression of Albuera would have been very different if the charge of the Fusilier brigade had never taken place. It was their triumphant sweeping away of Werlé’s reserve which struck dismay into the enemy. If it had never occurred, Soult would have retired, foiled indeed, but in good order, and with two or three thousand fewer casualties than he actually suffered.

In criticizing the operations of the French, the main point which strikes us is that Soult stands self-convicted of hesitation and divided purpose in the crisis of the battle. His attack had been admirable; the movement which threw four-fifths of his available force unexpectedly on to Beresford’s flank was beautifully designed and carried out. But when, in the check and pause that followed the incident of Colborne’s disaster, he realized (as he himself says) that he had 30,000 men and not 20,000 to fight, and that ‘the odds were no longer fair,’ he should have made up his mind either to withdraw under cover of his splendid cavalry, or else to risk all, and throw his infantry reserves straight into the fight, before the enemy’s line was reformed. He did neither, but, as he says, ‘giving up his original project, aimed at nothing more than retaining the ground already won.’ What use was half a mile of hillside to him, if he had failed to break the Allies and drive them off the position which covered the road to Badajoz? He deserved the beating that he got for this extraordinary resolve.

As to the details of the French tactics, Girard was responsible for the dense order of the 5th Corps, which told so fatally on his men. But in arranging them as he did, he was but adopting the method that most other French generals were wont to use. Accustomed to break through the lines of Continental armies by the impetus of a solid mass, and not by musketry fire, he prepared to employ the normal shock-tactics of the ‘column of divisions.’ It may be even noticed that, more enlightened than many of his comrades, he used the ordre mixte recommended by Napoleon, in which some battalions in three-deep line were interspersed among the columns. His array was better than that of Victor at Barrosa or Talavera, or that of Reynier and Ney at Bussaco. But he had never met the British line before—this was the first time that the 5th Corps saw the red-coats—and he did not know the unwelcome truth that Reille told Napoleon before Waterloo: ‘Sire, l’infanterie anglaise en duel c’est le diable.’ There was, no doubt, extra confusion caused by the fact that the 2nd Division of the corps closed up too near to the first, so that the passage des lignes, when it was brought up to the front with the idea of passing it through the intervals of the shattered regiments of the van, was even more disorderly than was necessary. But the crucial mistake, repeated by every French general throughout the war, was to come on in column at all against the British line. Girard did no worse than his contemporaries, and the gallant obstinacy of his troops enabled him to inflict very heavy losses upon the victors.

Latour-Maubourg has sometimes been accused of making insufficient use of his great mass of cavalry. But till the last stage of the battle he had in front of him not merely Lumley’s squadrons, but the whole 4th Division. To attack a force of all arms, in a good position, with cavalry alone would have been dangerous. If he had failed, the flank of the 5th Corps would have been laid open in the most disastrous fashion. Probably he was right to be satisfied in ‘containing’ with his 3,500 horse 7,000 men, 5,000 of them good infantry, belonging to the enemy. His brilliant stroke at Colborne’s brigade is enough to save his reputation as a battle-general, though (as we have said before) he was no strategist. By this alone he had done more for Soult than any other French officer upon the field.

The real hero, most undoubtedly, of the whole fight was Sir Lowry Cole, who showed as much moral courage in striking in, on his own responsibility, at the critical moment, as he did practical skill in conducting his two brigades against the enemy opposed to him—a most formidable adversary who showed twenty-six squadrons of cavalry opposed to one of his wings, and the 5,600 bayonets of Werlé’s infantry opposed to the other. With Harvey’s Portuguese he drove off the cavalry charge, with Myers’s Fusiliers he beat to pieces the heavy columns of the French reserve. It was a great achievement, and the General was worthy of his soldiers, no less than the soldiers of their General. He was well seconded by Lumley, who justified in the most splendid way his sudden appointment to the command of the cavalry of the whole army only a few hours before the battle.

NOTE

The result of a four hours’ visit to the field of Albuera, on a very hot day in April 1907, was to prove to me that Napier had no idea of its topography, while Beresford in his Strictures on Colonel Napier’s History, 1833, describes it very well. I could see no trace of several things on which Napier lays stress, especially the ‘ravine’ behind the British position. Nearly the whole of the field is now arable—it was covered thickly with small red poppies, when I visited it, in which four ploughs were cutting long seams, turning up a thin soil of a chocolate brown hue.

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