INDEX

FOOTNOTES

[1] August 23, from Madrid, Dispatches, ix. p. 374.

[2] Certainly Carlos de España and Morillo, probably some of the Galicians, and even some of Elio’s or Ballasteros’ troops from the South, if they proved able to feed themselves and march.

[3] Dispatches, ix. p. 424, to General Dumouriez, to whom Wellington often sent an illuminating note on the situation.

[4] Dispatches, ix. pp. 390-1. Alten had the 3rd, 4th, Light, and España’s divisions.

[5] Dispatches, ix. p. 377.

[6] Ibid., ix. pp. 383-4 and 386-7.

[7] Ibid., ix. p. 398.

[8] The best account of all this is in the diary for August of Tomkinson of the 16th Light Dragoons, who was in charge of the outlying party that went to Valtanas.

[9] The actual numbers (as shown in the tables given in vol. v, Appendix xi—which I owe to Mr. Fortescue’s kindness) were July 15, 49,636; August 1, 39,301. The deficiency of about 600 cavalry lost had been more than replaced by Chauvel’s 750 sabres. There was a shortage of twenty guns of the original artillery, but Chauvel had brought up six.

[10] Dispatch printed in King Joseph’s Correspondence, ix. p. 64.

[11] Clausel to Clarke, August 18th, 1812.

[12] The 2nd, 4th, 6th, and 25th Léger, the 1st, 15th, 36th, 50th, 62nd, 65th, 118th, 119th, 120th Line had to cut themselves down by a battalion each: the 22nd and 101st, which had been the heaviest sufferers of all, and had each lost their eagle, were reduced from three to one battalion each. There had been seventy-four battalions in the Army of Portugal on July 1st: on August 1st there were only fifty-seven.

[13] See ‘Memorandum for General Santocildes’ of August 5. Dispatches, ix. pp. 344-5.

[14] Dispatches, ix. pp. 389-90.

[15] The best account of all this is not (as might have been expected) in Foy’s dispatches to Clausel, but in a memorandum drawn up by him in 1817 at the request of Sir Howard Douglas, and printed in an appendix at the end of the life of that officer (pp. 429-30). Sir Howard had asked Foy what he intended to do on the 23rd-27th August, and got a most interesting reply.

[16] Diary of Foy, in Girod de l’Ain’s Vie militaire du Général Foy, p. 182.

[17] Wellington to Bathurst, August 18th.

[18] Wellington to Castaños, September 2. Dispatches, ix. p. 394.

[19] See especially Sir Howard Douglas’s Memoirs, pp. 206-7, and Tomkinson’s diary, p. 201. Napier is short and unsatisfactory at this point, and says wrongly that Clausel abandoned Valladolid on the night of the 6th. His rearguard was certainly there on the 7th.

[20] Castaños’s explanation was that Wellington’s letter of August 30, telling him to march on Valladolid, did not reach him till the 7th September, along with another supplementary letter to the same effect from Arevalo of September 3.

[21] ‘The proclamation was made from the town-hall in the square: few people of any respectability attended.’ Tomkinson, p. 202.

[22] Tomkinson, p. 203.

[23] Wellington to Henry Wellesley, Magaz, September 12. Dispatches, ix. p. 422.

[24] Napier, iv. p. 335.

[25] Napier was not with the main army during this march, the Light Division being left at Madrid. On the other hand Clausel had been very polite to him, and lent him some of his orders and dispatches (Napier, iv. p. 327). I fancy he was repaid in print for his courtesy. The diaries of Tomkinson, Burgoyne, D’Urban, and Sir Howard Douglas do not give the impression that the French ever stayed to manœuvre seriously, save on the 16th.

[26] Head-quarters were at Valladolid, September 9; Cigales, September 10; Dueñas, September 11; Magaz, September 12; Torquemada, September 13; Cordovilla, September 14; Villajera, September 15; Pampliega, September 16; Tardajos, September 17; Villa Toro, September 18. Ten stages in about 80 miles!

[27] Wellington to Sir E. Paget, September 20. Dispatches, ix. p. 436.

[28] One of the regiments withdrawn to the north after suffering at Arroyo dos Molinos, see vol. iv. p. 603.

[29] Wellington to Castaños. Dispatches, ix. p. 394.

[30] Wellington to George Murray. Dispatches, ix. p. 398.

[31] Wellington to Lord Bathurst. Dispatches, ix. p. 442.

[32] Jones, History of the Peninsular Sieges, i. p. 473.

[33] There were eight rank and file of the Royal Military Artificers only, of whom seven were hit during the siege, and five R.E. officers in all.

[34] By an odd misprint in Wellington’s Supplementary Dispatches, xiv. p. 120, the order is made to allot the flank-battalions instead of the flank-companies to the task.

[35] This narrative of the assault, not very clearly worked out in Napier—is drawn from the accounts of Burgoyne, Jones, the anonymous ‘Private Soldier of the 42nd’ [London, 1821], and Tomkinson, the latter the special friend and confidant of Somers Cocks.

[36] Wellington to Lord Bathurst. Dispatches, ix. pp. 443-4.

[37] For a dispute between the chief engineer, Burgoyne, who blamed the Portuguese, and some officers in the Portuguese service who resented his words, see Wellington, Supplementary Dispatches, xiv. p. 123.

[38] Clarke to Marmont of August 18, and to Masséna of August 19.

[39] Napoleon to Clarke, Moscow, September 12.

[40] See Wellington to Hill of October 2. Dispatches, ix. p. 463.

[41] Jones, i. p. 329.

[42] Indeed the besiegers had largely depended on a dépôt of French picks and shovels found by chance in the town of Burgos, after the siege had begun.

[43] See especially Tomkinson, an old comrade of Cocks in the 16th Light Dragoons, pp. 211-17.

[44] Wellington says 18 prisoners in his return. Dubreton claimed to have taken 2 officers and 36 men in his report. Possibly the difference was mortally wounded men, who were captured but died.

[45] Dispatches, ix. p. 450.

[46] Ibid., ix. p. 465.

[47] See Wellington to Castaños of 7 October. Dispatches, ix. p. 477.

[48] See Napier, iv. p. 412, who had the fact from Sir Edward Pakenham’s own mouth.

[49] Howard Douglas’s proposal to get up big guns at once on September 20 is detailed at length in his biography, pp. 210-11. Napier has a good deal to say on it. Jones and Burgoyne tell nothing about it, but they were evidently nettled at the idea that Douglas, who had no official position in the army, should have raised a proposal and got Wellington to listen to it. I fancy that Douglas is one of the officers alluded to by Burgoyne (Correspondence, i. p. 234) as unauthorized persons, who volunteered useless advice. Gomm, p. 287, says, ‘we have set to work idly without having the means we might have commanded.’

[50] Burgoyne, i. p. 220.

[51] Ibid., i. p. 233.

[52] Alexander Dickson remarks in his diary, p. 772, ‘This was done to please General Clinton, and had nothing to do with the attack.’ Clinton’s troops were opposite this side of the Castle, and had as yet not been entrusted with any important duty.

[53] Jones, i. p. 357.

[54] For this dialogue, told at length, see Burgoyne’s Correspondence, ed. Wrottesley, i. p. 235.

[55] So I make out from the returns, but Beamish’s and Schwertfeger’s Histories of the K.G.L. both give the lesser figure of 75—still sufficiently high!

[56] Wellington to Lord Bathurst, October 26.

[57] Burgoyne’s Correspondence, i. p. 236.

[58] Dubreton and Belmas speak of a ‘grand nombre d’Anglais écrasés,’ the latter says 300! (Belmas, iv. pp. 501 and 548). Putting aside the fact that there were no English here at all, we may remark that Burgoyne (i. p. 226) says that three Spaniards were buried in the ruins, and that the loss of the Portuguese in the whole affair is put at 8 killed, 44 wounded, and 2 missing in Wellington’s report.

[59] By knocking off their remaining trunnions, which made them permanently useless. Some of the captured French field-guns from the hornwork were also destroyed.

[60] For detailed losses see table in [Appendix I].

[61] See vol. v. pp. 255-6.

[62] Burgoyne commanding, John Jones the historian, Captain Williams, and Lieutenants Pitts and Reid.

[63] Burgoyne, i. p. 230.

[64] Ibid., i. p. 233. There is much more in this interesting page of Burgoyne’s explanation of the failure, which I have not space to quote.

[65] See above, pp. [3-4].

[66] Pringle was commanding the 5th Division (Leith being wounded); Bernewitz the 7th (Hope having gone home sick on September 23): Campbell, in charge of the 1st since Graham was invalided, was off duty himself for illness when relieved by Paget. Bock commanded the Cavalry Division vice Stapleton Cotton, wounded at Salamanca.

[67] Clearly expressed in letters as late as that to Hill of October 12.

[68] Viz. (figures of the Imperial Muster Rolls for October 15) Army of Portugal 32,000 infantry, 3,400 cavalry; Army of the North: Chauvel’s cavalry brigade (lent to the Army of Portugal since July) 700 sabres, Laferrière’s cavalry brigade 1,600 sabres, parts of Abbé’s and Dumoustier’s divisions 9,500 infantry. Allowing another 2,000 for artillery, sappers, &c., the total must have reached 53,000. Belmas says that Caffarelli and Souham had only 41,000 men. Napier gives them 44,000. Both these figures are far too low. No one denies that Caffarelli brought up about 10,000 men; and the Army of Portugal, by the return of October 15, had 45,000 effectives, from whom there are only to be deducted the men of the artillery park and the ‘équipages militaires.’ It must have taken forward 40,000 of all arms. See tables of October 15 in [Appendix II].

[69] Wellington on the 11,000 Galicians, Hill on Carlos de España (4,000 men), Penne Villemur and Murillo (3,500 men), and the Murcian remnants under Freire and Elio, which got separated from the Alicante section of their Army and came under Hill’s charge, about 5,000.

[70] i. e. if they brought up Suchet’s troops from Valencia, beside their own armies.

[71] Wellington to Hill, October 10. Dispatches, ix. p. 82.

[72] Wellington to Hill, October 12. Ibid., p. 485.

[73] Wellington to Popham, October 12. Ibid., p. 486.

[74] Wellington to Mackenzie, October 13. Dispatches, ix. p. 487.

[75] See Wellington to Hill of October 14, and Wellington to Popham of October 17. Ibid., pp. 490 and 495.

[76] Dispatches, ix. p. 467.

[77] Schepeler, pp. 672-3.

[78] Wellington to Hill, October 5. Dispatches, ix. p. 469: ‘I do not write to General Ballasteros, because I do not know exactly where he is: but I believe he is at Alcaraz. At least I understand he was ordered there [by the Regency]. Tell him to hang upon the left flank and rear of the enemy, if they move by Albacete toward the Tagus.’

[79] Wellington to Popham. Dispatches, ix. p. 494.

[80] See above, pp. [1-2].

[81] Wellington says in his Dispatch to Lord Bathurst of October 26 that the Brunswick officer disobeyed orders, and was taken because he did not retire at once, as directed.

[82] Souham to Clarke, October 22.

[83] This is the figure given by Colonel Béchaud in his interesting narrative of the doings of Maucune’s division (Études Napoléoniennes, ii. p. 396). Martinien’s lists show 3 casualties of officers only, all in the 86th of Maucune’s division.

[84] For details see Wellington’s Order of March in Supplementary Dispatches, xiv. pp. 144-5.

[85] The wheels of the artillery were all muffled with straw. The cavalry went at a walk.

[86] So Colonel Béchaud’s narrative, quoted above, and most valuable for all this retreat.

[87] These figures look very large—and exceed Napier’s estimate of 5,000 sabres. But I can only give the strength of the French official returns, viz. Curto’s division 2,163, Boyer’s division 1,373, Merlin’s brigade 746, Laferrière’s brigade 1,662; total 5,944. All these units were engaged that day, as the French narrative shows, except that 4 only of the 6 squadrons of gendarmerie in Laferrière’s brigade were at the front.

[88] Owing to losses at Garcia Hernandez and Majadahonda the Germans were only 4 squadrons, under 450 effective sabres. The Light Dragoons of Anson, all three regiments down to 2-squadron strength, made up about 800.

[89] See vol. iv. pp. 565-9.

[90] Who was not himself any longer at their head, having been killed in a private quarrel some weeks before. His men were this day under his lieutenant Puente (Schepeler, p. 680).

[91] To Caffarelli’s high disgust: see his dispatch to Clarke of October 30, where he calls Boyer’s action a ‘fatalité que l’on ne peut conçevoir.’

[92] As Lumley did at Usagre against L’Allemand, see vol. iv. p. 412.

[93] Anson’s brigade fought, it is said, with only 600 sabres out of its original 800, owing to heavy losses in the morning, and to the dropping behind of many men on exhausted horses, who did not get up in time to form for the charge. Bock’s brigade was intact, but only 400 strong. Of the French brigade 1,600 strong on October 15 by its ‘morning state’ two squadrons out of the six of gendarmes were not present, so that the total was probably 1,250 or so engaged.

[94] Most of this detail is from the admirable account of von Hodenberg, aide-de-camp to Bock, whose letter I printed in Blackwood for 1913. There is a good narrative also in Martin’s Gendarmerie d’Espagne, pp. 317-19.

[95] In a conversation with Foy (see life of the latter, by Girod de l’Ain, p. 141) when he said that all the cavalry generals of the Army of Portugal except Montbrun, Fournier, and Lamotte were ‘mauvais ou médiocres’—these others being Curto, Boyer, Cavrois, Lorcet, and Carrié.

[96] Details are worth giving. The 2nd Dragoons K.G.L. had 52 casualties, the 1st 44. In Anson’s brigade the 11th Light Dragoons lost 49, the 12th only 20, the 16th 47. The officers taken prisoners were Colonel Pelly and Lieutenant Baker of the 16th, Major Fischer (mortally wounded) of the 1st Dragoons K.G.L., and Captain Lenthe and Lieutenant Schaeffer of the 2nd Dragoons K.G.L. The two infantry battalions had 18 casualties, of whom 13 were men missing, apparently skirmishers cut off in the fight earlier in the day on the Hormaza, or footsore men who had fallen behind.

[97] H. Sydenham to Henry Wellesley, printed in Wellington Supplementary Dispatches, vii. pp. 464-5. Sydenham understates, however, the available force when he says that Anson had only 460 sabres and Bock only two squadrons. Hodenberg diminishes less, but still too much, when he gives Bock 300 sabres and Anson 600. The real numbers are given above.

[98] Napier, iv. p. 361. Corroboration may be had on p. 120 of the Journal of Green of the 68th, who says that his colonel was much puzzled to know how so many men had succeeded in getting liquor, and that one soldier was drowned in a vat, overcome by the fumes of new wine.

[99] This was Bonnet’s old division: Chauvel had been commanding it since Bonnet was disabled at Salamanca. But he had been wounded by a chance shot at Venta del Pozo on the 23rd, and Gauthier, his senior brigadier, had taken it over.

[100] Some 27 men of the 3/1st, taken prisoners here, represent this party in the casualty list of October 25. The battalion was not otherwise seriously engaged.

[101] Who were drawn from the 4th, 30th, and 44th.

[102] For a romantic story of how one was discovered see Napier, iv. p. 363, a tale which I have not found corroborated in any other authority.

[103] I had not been able to make out how the 1/9th came to lose these prisoners till I came on the whole story in the Autobiography of Hale of the 1/9th, printed at Cirencester 1826, a rare little book, with a good account of this combat. He is my best source for it on the British side.

[104] Hale, p. 95, quoted above.

[105] I have been using for the French side mainly the elaborate and interesting narrative of Colonel Béchaud of the 66th, recently published in Études Napoléoniennes, ii. pp. 405-11.

[106] See Béchaud, p. 410.

[107] These modest figures of Foy’s report to Souham are much exaggerated in most French narratives of the affair.

[108] There is a full account of this business in Foy’s dispatch to Souham of the next morning, in which occur all the facts given by Guingret in his own little book. That officer’s narrative must be taken as fully correct.

[109] All this from Burgoyne, i. p. 244. Napier does not mention the earthworks, which were batteries for six guns each.

[110] There he wrote his dispatch, concerning the late combats, to Clarke. Napier never mentions Caffarelli’s departure—a curious omission.

[111] p. 437.

[112] See vol. v. pp. 538-9.

[113] Deprez, travelling with great speed, reached Paris and interviewed Clarke on September 21. The Minister, who was no friend of Soult’s, told him that neither he himself nor the King could dare to depose the Marshal without the Emperor’s permission. Deprez then posted on to Moscow, and overtook the Emperor there on October 18. Napoleon in his reply practically ignored the quarrel, contented himself with administering a general scolding to all parties, and directed them to ‘unite, and diminish as far as possible the evils that a bad system had caused.’ But who had inaugurated the system? He himself!

[114] Joseph to Clarke, September 7.

[115] See Soult to Joseph of October 11, and other days.

[116] Which were the 27th Chasseurs and 7th Polish Lancers.

[117] For details see Table of the Army of Spain of the date October 15th, in [Appendix II] to this volume.

[118] Joseph to Soult, Valencia, October 12.

[119] See above, vol. v. p. 332.

[120] Napier and Jourdan say that Cearra was killed; but he only suffered concussion of the brain, and survived to tell Schepeler (p. 688) how his sword and its sheath were melted into one rod of metal by the lightning which ran down the side of the couch on which he was lying at the moment.

[121] See, e. g., Schepeler (p. 689), who was present.

[122] See Dispatches, ix. p. 518.

[123] This is clearly stated in Wellington’s note to Hill of October 10. Dispatches, ix. p. 481.

[124] Ibid., p. 485.

[125] When Penne Villemur moved in, and went behind the Tagus, I cannot make out exactly. But it was before October 25th, as at that time Erskine’s British cavalry had no longer any screen in front of them.

[126] All these dispositions come from a table of routes sent to D’Urban by Jackson, Hill’s chief of the staff (Quartermaster-general), on the 24th.

[127] Jackson, Q.M.G., to D’Urban, 27th night: ‘Sir Rowland has determined to concentrate behind the Jarama, on account of the state of the fords upon the Tagus, and their number,’ &c.

[128] They had been at Arganda behind the Tajuna on the previous day, when Hill was still thinking of defending the line of the Tagus. See Diary of Leach, p. 287.

[129] Jackson to D’Urban, October 27: ‘Keep your patrols on the Tagus as long as they can with prudence stay there, with orders to follow the march of your main body.’ On the next day the order is varied to that quoted above.

[130] Owing to disgraceful carelessness on the part of a brigadier of the British 2nd Division much of the boat-bridge of Fuente Dueñas (which had been brought over to the north bank) had not been burnt when the troops retired. Many boats were intact; some of the French swam over, and brought back several of them. (D’Urban MSS.)

[131] Wellington to Hill, Cabezon, October 27. Dispatches, ix. pp. 518-19.

[132] See for this Wachholz (of the Fusilier brigade), Schepeler, Purdon’s history of the 47th, &c. Wachholz’s Brunswick Company straggled so that of 60 men he found only 7 with him at night. Several were lost for good. Wellington put the colonel of the 82nd under arrest, because he had lost 80 men this day.

[133] D’Erlon’s old division now commanded by this brigadier.

[134] Always a reckless falsifier of his own losses (he said that he had only lost 2,800 men at Albuera!), Soult wrote in his dispatch that he had only about 25 wounded at the Puente Larga. The figure I give above is that of the staff-officer d’Espinchel, whose memoirs are useful for this campaign. By far the best English account is that of H. Bunbury of the 20th Portuguese (Reminiscences of a Veteran, i. pp. 158-63). I can only trace three of the five French officers in Martinien’s lists—Pillioud, Caulet, Fitz-James, but do not doubt d’Espinchel’s figures though his account of the combat is hard to fit in with any English version. He speaks with admiration of the steadiness of the defence.

[135] All this from Soult’s dispatch to the King of October 31, from Valdemoro, and Jourdan’s to Clarke from Madrid of November 3rd.

[136] See Diary of Swabey, R.A., p. 428, in Journal of the Artillery Institution, vol. xxii.

[137] The importance of the second evacuation of Madrid is brought out by no historian of the war except Vacani, vi. pp. 188-90. Napier barely mentions it. A curious story of the fate of certain English prisoners of Hill’s army, who were forgotten in prison, and came out again to liberty when the French army moved on, may be found in the autobiography of Harley of the 47th Regiment.

[138] Napier (iv. p. 373) says that Joseph left a garrison and his impedimenta in Madrid—I can find no trace of it in the contemporary accounts, e. g. of Romanos (Memorias de un Setenton) or of Harley who was about the town during the second week of November. Vacani distinctly says that Joseph had to take on even his sick (vi. p. 190). Cf. also Arteche, xi. pp. 309-12.

[139] Napier, iv. p. 373, says that Joseph went by the route of Segovia to Castile. I cannot think where he picked up this extraordinary idea. Jourdan’s dispatch of November 10 from Peñaranda gives all the facts. It was on the 5th, near Villacastin, that Soult told Joseph that Hill was about to be joined by Wellington and that the two might crush him. The King at once sent orders to Drouet to come up by forced marches from Madrid. The Army of the Centre started next day. Palombini did not get off till the 8th (Vacani, vi. p. 190), but the head of the column reached Villacastin that same day.

[140] Wellington to Hill, November 3. Dispatches, ix. p. 532.

[141] His first definite information as to this was from a Spaniard who on November 4 saw 3,000 French infantry marching through Torquemada towards Burgos (Dispatches, ix. p. 544). Even so late as November 8th he did not rely on this important news as correct.

[142] From Rueda, November 5, morning. Dispatches, ix. p. 537.

[143] They had really not the 50,000 on which Wellington speculated (’45,000 men I should consider rather below the number’ (Dispatches, ix. p. 544) ) but 60,000 or very nearly that number. But, on the day when Wellington was writing, their rear had not even started from Madrid, and Soult’s 40,000 men were strung out all along the road.

[144] As a matter of fact, using the best map of 1812 available to me (Nantiat’s), it would seem that the line Rueda-Fuentesauco-Salamanca is about 50 miles, that by Rueda-Nava del Rey-Pitiegua-Salamanca about 55 miles, while the route suggested for the French, circuitous and running in more than one place by country cross-paths, is over 65 miles long, not to speak of its being a worse route for topographical reasons.

[145] An under-estimate by several thousands. Wellington did not know of Aussenac’s brigade from Bayonne, over 3,000 men, which had now been attached provisionally to the Army of Portugal.

[146] The total which marched was 60,000, so Wellington was even more correct than he supposed in his notion that 45,000 was too small a figure.

[147] Wellington to Lord Bathurst, Pitiegua, November 8. Dispatches, ix. pp. 544-5.

[148] Dispatches, ix. p. 520.

[149] Wellington to Hill, Rueda, November 5. Dispatches, ix. p. 537.

[150] Ibid., p. 539.

[151] I cannot find the details of the marching orders of the divisions; but from personal diaries I seem to deduce that the 5th and 7th Divisions marched by Alaejos, the 1st and 6th by Castrejon and Vallesa, while the cavalry not only provided a rearguard but kept out flank detachments as far as Cantalapiedra on one side and the lower Guarena on the other.

[152] All this from the detailed routes of march in the dispatches of Jackson (Hill’s Q.M.G.) to D’Urban on November 4-5-6.

[153] See his dispatch of November 8 from Flores de Avila.

[154] For an adventure with these rascals, who threatened to shoot one of Hill’s aides-de-camp, see Schepeler, p. 691.

[155] The ground on which Del Parque had fought his unlucky battle in 1809.

[156] These movements from Jourdan to Clarke, of November 10, and Soult to Clarke of November 12.

[157] See the Notes of the Baden officer Riegel (vol. iii. p. 537), who complains bitterly of the piercing north wind, and the lack of wood to build fires.

[158] D’Espinchel (ii. p. 71) says that the voltigeurs got within the walls, but were expelled on each occasion. The English narratives deny that they ever closed, or reached the barricades.

[159] Soult to Joseph, 8 a.m. on the 11th, ‘bivouac sur la hauteur en arrière d’Alba de Tormes.’

[160] General Hamilton’s account of the business (Dispatch to Hill, Wellington Dispatches, ix. p. 558) is very clear. There is also a good account of the Alba fighting in Colonel Gardyne’s excellent history of the 92nd.

[161] All their names verifiable from Martinien’s admirable lists of ‘Officiers tués et blessés.’

[162] See Jourdan’s Mémoires, p. 441, for the meeting.

[163] Wellington to Hill, November 10, 4.30 p.m. (Dispatches, ix. p. 549).

[164] Same to same, November 11 (ix. p. 550).

[165] Same to same, pp. 550-1.

[166] Jourdan to Joseph, head-quarters at Peñaranda: early on November 12.

[167] Soult to Joseph, night of November 11, from the bivouac behind Alba de Tormes.

[168] As the table of the French Armies of Spain for October 15 in the Appendix shows, the Army of the South had on that day 47,000 men under arms (omitting ‘sick’ and ‘detached’), the Army of the Centre 15,000, the Army of Portugal 45,000 (including Aussenac’s brigade and Merlin’s cavalry, both attached to it provisionally). This gives a total of 107,000, without sick or detached. The Army of Portugal may have lost 1,000 men in action at Villadrigo and Villa Muriel, &c.: the Army of the South not more than 400 at the Puente Larga, Alba de Tormes, &c. The Army of the Centre had not fought at all. A deduction has to be made for Soult’s very large body of men attached to the Artillery Park, and for a smaller number in the Army of Portugal—say 3,000 men for the two together. Souham had left a small garrison at Valladolid—perhaps 1,500 men. If we allow 5,000 men for sick and stragglers between October 20 and November 12 there must still have been a good 90,000 men present. Miot (who was present) calls the total 97,000 (iii. p. 254), making it a little too high, I imagine.

[169] Maucune and Gauthier (late Chauvel). See Wellington Dispatches, ix. p. 556.

[170] Souham naturally expressed his indignation. See Miot, iii. p. 252-3.

[171] D’Urban reports on November 12th: ‘Enemy’s troops in continual movement, and he made a careful reconnaissance of the river from Huerta to Exeme [above Alba].’ On the 13th he writes: ‘The enemy moved all his troops between Huerta and Alba by his left into the woods behind Exeme on the high road to Avila. From thence he can either go in that direction or cross the Tormes by fords above Alba bridge.’

[172] This fact, very important in justification of Wellington’s long stay on San Cristobal, is not mentioned in any of his dispatches. But there is a full account of the skirmish in the Mémoire of Colonel Béchaud of Maucune’s Division, printed in Études Napoléoniennes, iii. pp. 98-9.

[173] The reconnaissance was executed by Leith Hay, who found the French flank at Galisancho and reported its exact position. See his Narrative, ii. pp. 99-100.

[174] Details from Foy’s Vie militaire, ed. Girod de l’Ain, p. 118, and Béchaud (quoted above), pp. 99-100.

[175] His original intention to attack is clearly stated in Dispatches, ix. p. 559, and the statement is corroborated by D’Urban.

[176] D’Urban, an eye-witness, thinks that Wellington ought to have called up Hill and attacked, despite of all difficulties. ‘Lord Wellington arrived upon the ground at about 12 noon, and at first appeared inclined to attack what of the enemy had already passed, with the divisions and cavalry on the spot. The success of such a measure appeared certain, and would have frustrated all the enemy’s projects. However, his opinion changed: they were allowed to continue passing unmolested.’

[177] Mémoires, p. 448. Cf. also Napier, iv. p. 381, who seems to share the idea. ‘Why, it may be asked, did the English commander, having somewhat carelessly suffered Soult to pass the Tormes and turn his position, wait so long on the Arapiles position as to render a dangerous movement (retreat in face of the enemy and to a flank) necessary?’

[178] This horrid reminiscence I found in the unpublished letters of Hodenberg of the 1st Heavy Dragoons K.G.L., which I reprinted in Blackwood’s Magazine in the year 1913.

[179] Details about the exact drawing-up of the second line and reserves seem impossible to discover. I have only accurate notes as to the position of the front line and some of the cavalry and the 1st Division.

[180] For doing this Jourdan criticized Soult for over-caution, and wasting of time, describing this measure as timid and unnecessary. Mémoires, p. 443.

[181] Donaldson of the 94th. Recollections, p. 179.

[182] The 4th Division formed the infantry rearguard on the southern road, the Light Division that on the central road.

[183] Colonel James Willoughby Gordon seems not to have been a success as quarter-master-general. Very soon after his arrival we get notes in the earlier part of the Salamanca campaign that intelligent officers ‘thought he would not stop long with the Army.’ Cf. Tomkinson, p. 224: ‘Nothing could equal the bad arrangements of the Quartermaster-General—the cavalry all retired by one road, allowing that of the enemy to follow our infantry’ [of the central column on November 18]—which was not covered, all the horse having gone on the western or left road. Wellington had a worse accusation against him than mere incapacity (of this more will be found in chap. iii of sect. xxxv)—that of sending letters home which revealed military secrets which got into the English papers. In September he made up his mind that Gordon must not see his dispatches, and must be ‘kept at as great distance as possible’ (Supplementary Dispatches, vii. pp. 427-8). He was sent home before the next campaign.

[184] D’Urban’s diary.

[185] See Foy, Vie militaire, p. 190. He was a witness to the conversation. And cf. Espinchel, Mémoires, ii. p. 73, who gets the hour too late and exaggerates the contact of the armies. He says that 12 of Hill’s guns opened on the French light cavalry. Cf. also Joseph to Clarke of December 20.

[186] Espinchel, ii. p. 73.

[187] Joseph to Clarke, in a long dispatch of December 20. Ducasse’s Correspondance du Roi Joseph, ix. pp. 119-20.

[188] See above, p. [126].

[189] For the curious adventures of Captain v. Stolzenberg commanding this little party, and of the horde which he shepherded, see Schwertfeger’s History of the K.G.L., ii. pp. 262-3.

[190] Mémoires of Béchaud, quoted above, p. 101.

[191] Foy, Vie militaire, pp. 189-90.

[192] Soult to King Joseph, Matilla, 16th November 1812.

[193] There is a good account of the skirmish in the Mémoires of Espinchel, ii. p. 73, who frankly allows that the French light cavalry were both outmanœuvred and repulsed with loss. The returns of the three French regiments show 22 killed, no wounded, and 25 missing—an odd proportion. Apparently the wounded must all have been captured. The 1st Hussars K.G.L. had 7 wounded and 7 missing, the rest of Alten’s brigade under 20 casualties. This brigade was now three regiments strong instead of two, having had the 2nd Hussars K.G.L. from Hill’s Army attached to it at Salamanca.

[194] Napier says that the column went through Tamames, but no 2nd, 3rd, or 4th Division diary mentions that considerable town as passed—they all speak of solitudes and oak-woods alone. Wellington’s orders on the night of November 16 (Supplementary Dispatches, xiv. p. 157) give ‘La Neja’ as Hill’s destination, and this oddly spelt place is undoubtedly Anaya de Huebra.

[195] Memoirs of Donaldson of the 94th, pp. 181-2.

[196] See the Memoirs of Grattan of the 88th, and Bell of the 34th.

[197] See Wellington’s Marching Orders for the 17th in Supplementary Dispatches, xiv. pp. 157-8, for the cavalry. A perverse reading of them might make the cavalry start too early for ‘the brook which passes by La Maza and Aldehuela’, where they are told to be at dawn. They are not actually directed to wait for the infantry rearguard.

[198] There is a full account of his capture in the memoirs of Espinchel, ii. p. 77, the officer whose men took Paget prisoner.

[199] The movements of this day are made very difficult to follow by the fact that Wellington in his dispatches (ix. 464-5) calls Hill’s column the right, and the Spanish column the left, of the three in which the Army marched. Vere’s Diary of the Marches of the 4th Division does the same. But these directions are only correct when the army faced about and stopped to check the French. On the march Hill’s was the left column, and the Spaniards the right. For this reason I have called them the southern and northern columns respectively.

[200] Soult to Joseph, November 17, from before San Muñoz.

[201] So the regimental histories (both good) of these corps. Napier gives one more company of the 43rd.

[202] Napier, iv. p. 385.

[203] Autobiography of Green of the 68th, p. 127.

[204] British ‘missing’ one officer (General Paget) and 111 men, Portuguese ‘missing’ 66 men.

[205] Reminiscences of Hay, 12th Light Dragoons, p. 86.

[206] Espinchel commanded that which went farthest, to the bridge in front of Santi Espiritus: he says that the whole road was lined with broken-down carts and carriages, and strewn with dead men. About 100 British stragglers were gathered in.

[207] The tale may be found with details, told from Wellington’s point of view, in Supplementary Dispatches, vii. p. 494. The chief offender was W. Stewart, who had succeeded to the command of the 1st Division on Paget’s capture the preceding day. The others Wellington describes as ‘new-comers’ so they must have been Oswald and Lord Dalhousie, for the other divisional commanders in this column, Clinton and C. Alten, were not in any sense ‘new-comers’. I think, therefore, that Mr. Fortescue is wrong in giving the names of the culprits as Stewart, Dalhousie, and Clinton.

[208] See Napier, iv. p. 386. But cf. Fitzroy Somerset’s version in Greville Memoirs, i. pp. 136-7.

[209] Donaldson of the 94th, p. 184. Grattan (p. 315) has a story of a Connaught Ranger who ate, in addition to his rations, six ox-heads on six successive days, and died of inflammation of the bowels.

[210] Grattan, pp. 303 and 305-6.

[211] Seventeen of the Chasseurs Britanniques were tried all together for desertion in October 1812! They were mostly Italians. And for one man recaptured and tried, how many got away safely?

[212] See Dispatches, ix. pp. 601-2.

[213] See Dispatches, ix. pp. 562 and 570.

[214] See the Life of Burgoyne, who was sent to look after the threatening symptoms, vol. i. p. 246.

[215] The troops of the Army of Portugal began to march east as early as November 20, long before Soult got back into touch with them. Jourdan to Clarke, from Salamanca, November 20.

[216] The 1st Division seems to have been quartered about the upper Mondego between Celorico and Mangualde, the 3rd in villages between Moimenta and Lamego, the 4th about São João de Pesqueira, the 5th, Pack and Bradford, in the direction of Lamego, the 6th and 7th on the lower Mondego and the Alva under the Serra da Estrella, as far as I can make out from regimental diaries. There is no general notice as to cantonments in the Wellington Dispatches to help. But see General Orders for December 1, 1812, as to the post-towns for each division.

[217] Their cases are in General Orders for 1813, pp. 51-3. Each was condemned to six months’ suspension, but the members of the court martial petitioned for their pardon, on account of the privations of the time. Wellington grudgingly granted the request ‘not concurring in any way in the opinion of the court, that their cases in any way deserved this indulgence.’

[218] Bunbury, aide-de-camp to General Hamilton, referring to Wellington’s memorandum, makes solemn asseveration that his troops got no distribution whatever for those four days. The general himself had no bread. Acorns were the sole diet.

[219] Private and unpublished diary of General D’Urban.

[220] Grattan of the 88th, p. 307.

[221] Tomkinson, p. 227.

[222] They had been ordered in May 1812, but had not been distributed by November. See Dispatches, ix. p. 603.

[223] The figures may be found on pp. 170-1 of the Statistical ‘Ejércitos Españoles’ of 1822, referred to in other places.

[224] See [Tables in Appendix]. The British battalions were 1/27th and a grenadier battalion formed of companies of the regiments left in Sicily. The light battalion was formed of companies from the 3rd, 7th, 8th Line of the K.G.L. and from de Roll and Dillon. The Italians were ‘2nd Anglo-Italian Levy’. There was a field battery (British), but only 13 cavalry (20th Light Dragoons).

[225] See p. [279], below.

[226] See Suchet, Mémoires, ii. p. 269.

[227] The best account is in Gildea’s History of the 81st Regiment, pp. 104-8.

[228] Dispatches, ix. p. 487.

[229] 161 of the 20th Light Dragoons, and 71 of the ‘Foreign Hussars,’ a newly raised corps, mainly German, which did very creditably in 1813.

[230] Wellington to Lord Bathurst. Dispatches, ix, p. 535.

[231] Dispatches, ix. p. 545.

[232] See Wellington to H. Clinton (W. Clinton’s brother) on December 9 (Dispatches, ix. p. 614), and to Lord Bathurst (ibid., p. 616).

[233] Wellington to Lord Liverpool, Dispatches, ix. p. 573.

[234] These figures seem to represent about 1,400 prisoners at Rodrigo, 4,000 at Badajoz, 300 at the Almaraz forts, 600 at the Salamanca forts, 7,000 at the battle of Salamanca, 2,000 at the Retiro, 1,300 at Astorga, 700 at Guadalajara, with 2,000 more taken in smaller affairs, such as the surrenders of Consuegra and Tordesillas, the combat on the Guarena, the pursuit after Salamanca, and Hill’s operations in Estremadura.

[235] This looks a large figure, but over 150 guns were taken at Rodrigo, more than that number at Badajoz, several hundred in the Retiro, and infinite numbers in the Cadiz lines and the arsenal of Seville, not to speak of the captures at Astorga, Guadalajara, Almaraz, and in the field at Salamanca, &c.

[236] Foy, Vie militaire, p. 193. Napoleon to Clarke, October 19, 1812.

[237] Report of Colonel Desprez to Joseph of his interview with the Emperor at Moscow on October 19th. Correspondance du Roi Joseph, ix. p. 178.

[238] Ibid., p. 179.

[239] See above, vol. v, pp. 194-5.

[240] Napier’s statement that Napoleon was thinking of this project when he declared Soult to be the ‘only military head in Spain’ is entirely unjustified by the context from which he is quoting. The Emperor therein makes no allusion to the Seville project. See Ducasse’s Correspondance, ix. pp. 178-9.

[241] See his letter quoted above, vol. v, pp. 255-6.

[242] Jones, Sieges of the Peninsula, ii. p. 430.

[243] Jones remarks that ‘we had to leave it to the valour of the troops to surmount intermediate obstacles which in a properly conducted siege would be removed by art and labour’ (Sieges, i. p. 163).

[244] See above, vol. v, p. 270.

[245] See above, vol. v, p. 316.

[246] Wellington to Lord Liverpool, Dispatches, ix. p. 574.

[247] Memorandum for Baron Alten, Madrid, 31st August 1812.

[248] The bad weather on the Tagus only began October 30th.

[249] See above, pp. [112-13].

[250] See above, p. [142].

[251] Not including 2/59th at Cadiz, but including the 1/6th, 20th, and 91st which only landed in November, and the battalions of the 1st Foot Guards which had only just joined during the Burgos retreat.

[252] The Portuguese infantry had suffered quite as heavily—cold being very trying to them, though summer heat affected them less than the British. The 20th Portuguese, starting on the retreat from Madrid with 900 men, only brought 350 to Rodrigo.

[253] 4,400 for the infantry, 350 for cavalry, plus drafts for artillery, &c.

[254] Where the new Second Guards Brigade had a dreadful epidemic of fever and dysentery, and buried 700 men. It was so thinned that it could not march even in May, and missed the Vittoria campaign.

[255] Brigades were not always kept together, the regiments being a little scattered. Individual battalions were in Baños, Bejar, Bohoyo, Montehermoso, &c.

[256] Jourdan, Mémoires, p. 449.

[257] See Correspondance du Roi Joseph, ix. p. 462.

[258] For a curious narrative of adventures in Madrid, November 4-10, by a party of English prisoners who escaped in the confusion that followed the outmarch of the French, see the Memoirs of Captain Harley of the 47th, ii. pp. 42-50.

[259] Fortunately for themselves most of King Joseph’s Spanish partisans, who fled from Madrid in July to Valencia, were still under Suchet’s charge and had not returned, or their lot would have been a hard one.

[260] Miot de Melito, iii. p. 258.

[261] The 2nd Division (see above, [p. 90]) had been taken from Soult and lent to the Army of the Centre during the operation of November. It was never given back.

[262] A good picture of the state of Central Spain in January and February 1813 may be got from the Memoirs of d’Espinchel, of the 2nd Hussars, an officer charged with the raising of contributions in La Mancha—a melancholy record of violence and treachery, assassination by guerrilleros and reprisals by the French, of villages plundered and magistrates shot. D’Espinchel had mainly to deal with the bands of El Medico and the Empecinado. See his Souvenirs militaires, pp. 86-110.

[263] Vide v. pp. 550-8.

[264] See Mina’s Life of himself, pp. 39-43. He declares that the French custom-house at Yrun paid him 100 onzas de oro (£300) a month, for leave to pass goods across the Bidassoa.

[265] The remains of Thomières’ unlucky division, cut to pieces at Salamanca—the 1st, 65th, and 101st Line.

[266] 64th Line.

[267] Correspondance du Roi Joseph, ix. p. 224.

[268] Jourdan, Mémoires, p. 452.

[269] Clarke to King Joseph, Correspondance du Roi, ix. p. 186.

[270] See vol. ii, pp. 465-6.

[271] For text see Toreno, iii. p. 149.

[272] Wellington Dispatches, ix. p. 467.

[273] Ibid., pp. 474-5, October 5.

[274] Bathurst to Wellington, October 21. Supplementary Dispatches, vii. p. 462.

[275] See above, pp. [61-2].

[276] Roughly correct: the joint force of the Castilian and Estremaduran divisions in October 1812 was 8,000 men with the colours—there were some 7,000 men in dépôts and garrisons.

[277] In November the 3rd Army had about 5,000 men with the colours, 3,000 in dépôt: the 2nd, 7,000, excluding the guerrilleros of the Empecinado and Duran.

[278] Two days later Wellington sent Carvajal a definite instance of this friction. The Civil Intendant of Old Castile had collected a magazine for the benefit of the garrison of Rodrigo. The Captain-General had seized it, and used it to support his own staff. Dispatches, ix. p. 623.

[279] Wellington to Carvajal. Dispatches, ix. pp. 604-5.

[280] For the exact text of the reply see the Spanish Minister of War’s letter. Supplementary Dispatches, xiv. pp. 170-1.

[281] See Supplementary Dispatches, vii. pp. 529-30 and 546.

[282] Wellesley to Castlereagh. Supplementary Dispatches, vii. p. 530.

[283] They were the Duke of Infantado, Admiral Villaviciencio, and Señors Ignacio Rivas, Mosquera, and Villamil. The last two were reputed very anti-British.

[284] This Act had been a great demonstration of the ‘Liberales’, and they were desirous of punishing certain canons and bishops who had refused to read it publicly in their cathedrals; an odd parallel to the case of James II and the Seven Bishops in English history.

[285] Including the presentation of a thundering letter from the British Prince-Regent: see H. Wellesley to Wellington, July 28, Supplementary Dispatches, viii. p. 160 and ibid., p. 188.

[286] See especially below the difficulties with the Galician army as to ammunition, and the Andalusian reserve as to transport and magazines.

[287] Dispatches, x. pp. 211-12.

[288] See Dispatches, x. p. 181, when Wellington writes in March: ‘There is not a single battalion or squadron fit to take the field, not in the whole kingdom of Spain a dépôt of provisions that would keep one battalion for one day—not a shilling of money in any military chest.’

[289] Wellington Dispatches, x. p. 199.

[290] See above, vol. iii. pp. 193, 415-17, and iv. p. 71. The best sketch of the personalities of the Portuguese regency is that in Lord Wellesley’s Memorandum respecting Portugal, in Wellington Dispatches, Suppl., vii. pp. 199-204, a very interesting document.

[291] Now Marquis de Borba by his father’s death in 1812.

[292] See e. g. Wellington Dispatches, x. pp. 37 and 106-7.

[293] See e. g. the cases dealt with in Wellington Dispatches, Suppl., vii. pp. 240 and 316.

[294] e. g. Wellington Dispatches, x. p. 129, and another case accompanied by the murder of a soldier, x. p. 117.

[295] See Wellington Dispatches, x. pp. 131, 191, and 201.

[296] See Wellington Dispatches, x. p. 88 and ix. p. 615.

[297] See Wellington to Forjaz, Dispatches, ix. p. 353.

[298] See Wellington to Bathurst, ibid., ix. pp. 461-2.

[299] Wellington to the Prince-Regent of Portugal, Dispatches, x. pp. 284-7.

[300] Wellington to Stuart, ibid., x. pp. 342, &c.

[301] See Meneval’s Mémoires, iii. p. 317.

[302] It was generally known in London next day. See Sir G. Jackson’s Memoirs, iii. p. 447.

[303] Liverpool to Wellington. Supplementary Dispatches, vii. pp. 502-3.

[304] Lord Liverpool doubted whether Prussia or Austria would move. Prussia might stir, if only she was sure that Austria would support her. But ‘the councils of Vienna at this time are abject.’

[305] Though on February 17 Wellington heard of the departure northward of the 7th (Polish) Lancers, and some squadrons of Gendarmerie belonging to the Army of the North. But this was too small a move to serve as the base of a deduction. Dispatches, x. p. 125.

[306] Wellington to Bathurst. Dispatches, x. p. 177.

[307] Ibid., p. 207, March 17.

[308] By an intercepted letter from the King to Reille, dated March 14, now in the ‘Scovell Cyphers,’ which mentions both facts.

[309] Wellington to Graham, April 7. Dispatches, x. p. 270.

[310] In the ‘Scovell Cyphers,’ like the dispatch quoted above.

[311] Wellington to Bathurst, January 26. Dispatches, x. p. 39; cf. ibid., p. 256.

[312] Supplementary Dispatches, vii. pp. 601-2, April 7.

[313] Wellington to Bathurst. Dispatches, x. p. 307.

[314] For details see Schwertfeger’s History of the K.G.L., vol. i, pp. 500-50.

[315] See letters in von Wacholz’s Diary, pp. 311-12. It is doubtful if the men, largely waifs and prisoners of all nations, felt the same zeal as the officers.

[316] See vol. i, pp. 371, &c.

[317] Supplementary Dispatches, vii. pp. 449-50.

[318] Henry Wellesley to Wellington. Supplementary Dispatches, x, pp. 571-3.

[319] Bathurst to Wellington, Supplementary Dispatches, vii. 577, and Castlereagh to Sir Charles Stuart, ibid., p. 586, March 3, 1813.

[320] See above, vol. v, pp. 342-7.

[321] Wellington to Bathurst. Dispatches, x. pp. 384-5.

[322] For this forgotten raid in December 1813, see Études Napoléoniennes, 1914, p. 191. For the Genoa affair see C. T. Atkinson in the R.U.S.I. Journal, 1915.

[323] See Wellington to Torrens, May 28, 1812. Dispatches, ix. p. 182. Yet Wellington, unconsulted though he had been, expresses his thanks to the Duke for fixing upon a successor to Murray.

[324] Creevey Papers, i. p. 173.

[325] Supplementary Dispatches, vii. pp. 427-8.

[326] Supplementary Dispatches, vii. p, 457.

[327] Oddly enough, Wellington wanted the Duke of York to take the initiative and odium, by appointing Gordon to a home post. The Duke refused, holding that Wellington must take the responsibility.

[328] Supplementary Dispatches, vii. p. 499.

[329] Ibid., p. 527.

[330] See examples on [page 138], above.

[331] See above, pp. [151-2].

[332] See Wellington to Torrens, Supplementary Dispatches, vii. pp. 494-5.

[333] Ibid., p. 486.

[334] Wellington Dispatches, ix. p. 592.

[335] Wellington to Bathurst, Supplementary Dispatches, vii. p. 484.

[336] Duke of York to Bathurst, Supplementary Dispatches, vii. pp. 516-17.

[337] He was bothering Lord Bathurst for a peerage, which he was not yet destined to obtain. Supplementary Dispatches, vii. p. 515. He was put off with the colonelcy of a cavalry regiment.

[338] Bathurst to Wellington, Supplementary Dispatches, vii. pp. 538-9.

[339] Ibid., vii. pp. 577-8.

[340] The 2nd, 20th, 51st, 68th, 74th, 77th, 94th Regiments.

[341] The 9th, 11th, 24th, 27th, 30th, 34th, 39th, 44th, 47th, 53rd, 58th, 66th, 81st, 83rd, 87th, as also Chasseurs Britanniques and Brunswick-Oels.

[342] 2nd, 2/24th, 2/30th, 2/31st, 2/44th, 51st, 2/53rd, 2/58th, 2/66th, 68th, 2/83rd, 94th.

[343] 1st Prov. Batt. = 2/31st and 2/66th; 2nd = 2nd and 2/53rd; 3rd = 2/24th and 2/58th; 4th = 2/30th and 2/44th.

[344] e.g. the 51st and 68th. Wellington Dispatches, ix. p. 609.

[345] The Duke to Wellington, Supplementary Dispatches, vii. pp. 524-5.

[346] Wellington to Torrens, Dispatches, x. pp. 77-8.

[347] The Duke to Wellington, Supplementary Dispatches, vii. p. 553, February 17.

[348] Ibid., vii. pp. 581-3.

[349] The 2/30th and 2/44th.

[350] The 51st, 68th, 2/83rd, and 94th.

[351] 2nd, 2/24th, 2/31st, 2/53rd, 2/58th, 2/66th.

[352] 7th, 10th, 15th, 18th Hussars.

[353] 2/59th (from Cadiz), 2/62nd, 76th, 77th (from Lisbon garrison), 2/84th, 85th.

[354] On all this the reader interested in military finance will find excellent commentaries in chap. i of vol. ix of Mr. Fortescue’s History of the British Army, which appeared three months after this chapter of mine was written.

[355] See Supplementary Dispatches, xiv. p. 212.

[356] Ibid., vii. pp. 539-41.

[357] He was captured by a raiding party, while watching the enemy from too short a distance, on August 31.

[358] So Clarke to the King, Corresp. du Roi Joseph, vol. ix. p. 189.

[359] Jourdan, Mémoires, p. 452.

[360] See Corresp. du Roi Joseph, ix. p. 187.

[361] See account in the Memoirs of Patterson of the 50th, pp. 303-5.

[362] See dispatch in Girod’s Vie militaire du Général Foy, pp. 386-7. The whole is written in a boastful and unconvincing style, unworthy of such a good soldier. Colonel Harrison’s report is singularly vague and short. He only says that the enemy made off, leaving their dead behind.

[363] Desprez to Joseph, from Paris, January 3, Corresp. R. J. ix. pp. 180-2.

[364] Nap. Corresp. xxiv, no. 19411.

[365] See vol. v. pp. 538-9.

[366] Miot de Melito, iii. pp. 263-4.

[367] See above, pp. [215-16].

[368] Two regiments which had only two battalions in February 1813 got cut down to one apiece.

[369] A brigade not a division, since the Hessian regiment perished at Badajoz.

[370] He had also later to give up the 22nd, a weak one-battalion regiment of 700 bayonets.

[371] See above, [p. 188].

[372] Even the 2nd Dragoons, the first regiment scheduled, though it started in March, shows casualties at Vittoria, so did not get away.

[373] See Joseph to Suchet, Correspondance, ix. p. 200.

[374] See Mémoires du Roi Joseph, ix. p. 134.

[375] Clarke to Joseph, Correspondance, ix. p. 193 (February 2).

[376] Ibid. (February 12), pp. 194-5.

[377] Clarke to Joseph, February 12. Ibid., pp. 197-9.

[378] See above, [p. 219].

[379] Correspondance du Roi Joseph, ix. p. 290, written just before Clarke got news of Wellington’s start.

[380] See above, pp. [190-91].

[381] Dispatch of February 26, Correspondance du Roi Joseph, ix. p. 206.

[382] See vol. iv. p. 472.

[383] Mémoires, iv. p. 202.

[384] ‘Au lieu de les poursuivre, de les inquiéter, d’aller au devant de leurs entreprises, on attendait la nouvelle de leurs tentatives sur un point pour s’y porter soi-même: on agissait toujours après l’événement.’ Clarke to Clausel, Correspondance du Roi Joseph, ix. p. 210.

[385] Clarke to Clausel, March 9, Correspondance du Roi Joseph, ix. 209-12—a very long and interesting dispatch, of which this is only a short précis.

[386] For a long account of the Combat of Poza, see Vacani, vol. vi. pp. 228-33.

[387] Martinien’s lists show casualties in the 3rd, 52nd, and 105th Line and 10th Léger of Abbé’s division on this day, so he had clearly gone out in force.

[388] The interesting dispatch of Leguia, the captor of Fuenterrabia, will be found in the Appendix to Arteche, vol. xiii.

[389] Mina’s claim to have annihilated these unfortunate troops is sustained by Martinien’s lists, which show 8 officers killed and 23 wounded in the 25th Léger and 27th Line, at Lerin, March 31. There would not be more than 40 or 45 officers present with two battalions.

[390] Expressed at some length in the great guerrillero’s Memoirs.

[391] Who has a long and interesting narrative of the expedition in his vol. vi. pp. 240-50.

[392] Vacani’s statement that the Italian division lost this day only 110 men, is made absurd by the lists in Martinien, which show that the 4th, 6th, and 2nd Ligeros lost that day 3 officers killed and 16 wounded—which implies a total casualty list of at least 350.

[393] In Martinien’s lists there are five officer-casualties given for this fight, but they do not include all the names of officers mentioned as killed by Vacani in his narrative.

[394] Not the 24th as in Vacani and Belmas. See Girod de l’Ain’s Life of Foy, p. 260.

[395] Figures in Belmas are (in detail) Foy’s own division (10 battalions) 5,513 men, Palombini’s (5 battalions) 2,474, artillery 409, Sarrut’s division about 4,500. Foy left behind Aussenac’s brigade about 1,500, and the garrison of Bilbao about 2,000.

[396] For horrid details of mishandlings of both sexes see Marcel (of the 6th Léger) in his Campagnes d’Espagne, pp. 193-4. Marcel is a raconteur, but Belmas bears him out (iv. p. 566).

[397] Napier says the Spanish loss was 180—which seems more probable. The British ships lost one officer and sixteen men wounded, by Bloye’s report. As to the French loss, we have the names of 3 officers killed and 6 wounded during the operation—which looks like 150 to 180 casualties.

[398] See above, vol. ii. p. 341.

[399] 1/10th, 1/27th, 1/58th, 1/81st, and 2/27th which came in time for Castalla, also a battalion of grenadier companies of units in Sicily.

[400] 4th and 6th Line battalions, and a light battalion composed of the light companies of 3rd, 4th, 6th, 7th, 8th, and of De Roll and Dillon.

[401] Three companies of De Roll and four of Dillon—the whole making up a battalion 800 bayonets and the Calabrese Free Corps.

[402] 1st and 2nd Italian Levy, and two battalions of Sicilian Estero Regiment.

[403] Those of Villacampa, Mijares, and Sarsfield.

[404] For details see letter of February 22nd in Sir Samuel Whittingham’s Memoirs, pp. 172-4. He says that Colonel Grant, commanding the 2nd Italian Levy, had made himself cordially detested by his men by ‘employing the minute worry of the old British School,’ and that Bourke of the 1st Italian Levy had much more control over his men.

[405] Murray to Wellington. Supplementary Dispatches, xiv. p. 191.

[406] See his letter of March 19th, written after the skirmish: ‘Our army is concentrating itself, and a few days I hope will bring on a general action, in which I hope to play my part’ (Memoirs, p. 188).

[407] Murray to Wellington. Supplementary Dispatches, xiv. p. 200.

[408] Napier blames the British Government for having got things into such a position of double command that Bentinck could withdraw from Spain troops which he had sent there, and which had passed under Wellington’s authority (v. p. 54). Wellington seems to have made no objection to this particular recall (Dispatches, vii. p. 260), thinking (I suppose) that the risk of losing Sicily was much more serious than the deduction of 2,000 men from the Alicante side-show. He wrote at any rate to Murray to send them off at once, if he had not done so already. The fault, of course, lay with Bentinck, for denuding Sicily before he was sure of the stability of the new Constitution.

[409] Murray to Wellington, April 2. Supplementary Dispatches, vii. p. 605. The 6th K.G.L. was present at Castalla on April 13th.

[410] Wellington, Dispatches, x. p. 162.

[411] The best account of all this from the Spanish point of view is a dispatch written by Colonel Potons y Moxica, Elio’s chief of the staff, in the Record Office, ‘East Coast of Spain’ file. It is equally valuable for the battle of Castalla.

[412] Consisting of 2/27th British, Calabrese Free Corps, 1st Italian Levy, and the rifle companies of 3rd and 8th K.G.L.

[413] Two squadrons 20th Light Dragoons, the troop of Foreign Hussars, and some of Whittingham’s Spaniards, two squadrons of Olivenza.

[414] I do not know who was commanding this division (3rd of the Murcian army) in April: its divisional general, Sarsfield, was absent. It included Bailen, Badajoz, America, Alpujarras, Corona, and Guadix: O’Ronan had it in the preceding autumn.

[415] Potons y Moxica’s dispatch says that ‘la entrega del castillo provino de una especie de sedicion en la tropa de Velez Malaga,’ which is conclusive. Why Napier (v. 57) calls Velez Malaga ‘the finest regiment in the Spanish army’ I cannot conceive. It was one of O’Donnell’s old regiments, cut to pieces at Castalla in the preceding July, and hastily filled up with drafts. I suspect that Napier is paraphrasing Suchet’s description of this corps as ‘mille hommes de belles troupes.’ Except that they had been recently re-clothed from the British subsidy, there was nothing ‘fine’ about them.

[416] In his own narrative he says that he sent in the 1st and 3rd Léger, 14th, 114th, and 121st Line—a big deployment of forces.

[417] The best account of the combat of Biar is that of the anonymous officer of the 2/27th, quoted at length by Trimble in his History of the Inniskilling Regiment, pp. 61-2. See also the less trustworthy Landsheit (of the ‘Foreign Hussars’), ii. pp. 86-9.

[418] De Roll-Dillon, 81st, and one of Whittingham’s Spanish battalions. They had some casualties—the Spaniards 29, De Roll-Dillon probably 25: its total casualty list for the days April 12-13 of 34 cannot be divided between the two actions.

[419] It is impossible to disentangle the losses of Adam’s brigade on April 12 and April 13, given together in Murray’s report. But on the second day the 2/27th regiment was the only unit seriously engaged. The total for both days was killed 1 officer and 56 men, wounded 10 officers and 231 men, missing 32 men: or a total of 330. If we deduct 40 for assumed losses of the 2/27th on the second day, and 30 more for casual losses of the other units on April 13—they were engaged but not seriously—and add 29 for losses in Whittingham’s battalion (he gives the figure himself) and 25 (including 9 missing) for those in De Roll-Dillon (which was barely under fire on the second day and lost 34 altogether), we must conclude that the total was very close to 300.

[420] The light company 7th K.G.L., two newly arrived squadrons of Brunswick Hussars, and two batteries.

[421] 2/27th, Calabrese Free Corps, 1st Italian Levy, two light companies K.G.L.

[422] 1/27th, 4th and 6th K.G.L., ‘Estero’ regiment (two battalions).

[423] 1/10th, 1/58th, 1/81st British, composite battalion of De Roll-Dillon, 2nd Italian Levy.

[424] Cordoba, Mallorca, Guadalajara, 2nd of Burgos, 2nd of Murcia, 5th Grenadiers.

[425] Chinchilla, Canarias, Alicante, Cazadores de Valencia, Voluntarios de Aragon.

[426] Two squadrons each of Olivenza and Almanza.

[427] Napier, v. 58, quoting Donkin MSS., which are unpublished and unfindable.

[428] Landsheit, ii. p. 91.

[429] Suchet says that to support the voltigeurs he sent in only four battalions of the 3rd Léger and 121st—but most undoubtedly the 114th attacked also, for it lost four officers killed and nine wounded, as many as the 3rd Léger, and this means 250 casualties at least in the rank and file.

[430] Whittingham, Memoirs, p. 197.

[431] Mr. Fortescue (British Army, ix. p. 43) seems rather to lean to the idea that the staff, or at any rate Catanelli, resolved to force Murray to fight despite of himself. This may have been the case.

[432] Cordoba and 2nd of Burgos.

[433] Guadalajara.

[434] Murcia, Majorca, and 5th Grenadiers.

[435] 1st Léger, in reserve on the Cerro del Doncel.

[436] During which occurred the dramatic duel in front of the line between Captain Waldron and a French Grenadier officer mentioned in Napier, v. p. 59. The picturesqueness of the story induced some critics to doubt it. But there is no getting over the fact that Waldron gave his opponent’s weapon, which was a sword of honour presented by the Emperor, to the Quartermaster-General (Donkin), who forwarded it to the Duke of York, and the Commander-in-Chief gazetted Waldron to a brevet-majority in consequence. (See Trimble’s Historical Record of the 27th, p. 64.) It is extremely odd (as Arteche remarks) that Suchet in his short and insincere account of Castalla tells a story of a French officer who killed an English officer in single combat (Mémoires, ii. p. 308).

[437] I am inclined to think the latter, as it is doubtful whether, with the spur between, Adam’s fighting-ground was visible from Whittingham’s.

[438] Taking Murray’s casualty list for comparison with Suchet’s, we find that he had 4 officers killed and 16 wounded to 649 men at Biar and Castalla, i. e. 1 officer to 32 men. But this was an exceptionally low proportion of officers lost. At such a rate Suchet might have lost 2,000 men! I take 1,300 as a fair estimate.

[439] Cf. Wellington, Dispatches, x. pp. 354-5, in which Wellington asks what sort of a victory was it, if Suchet was able to hold the pass of Biar, only two miles from the battlefield, till nightfall?

[440] See [Appendix] on Castalla losses, English and French, at the end of the volume.

[441] Six companies of Dillon came from Sicily, to replace the 2/67th at Cartagena.

[442] Wellington to Dumouriez, Supplementary Dispatches, vii. 482-3, and to Cooke, ibid. pp. 477-8.

[443] Wellington to Liverpool, November 23, 1812. Dispatches, ix. p. 572.

[444] Wellington to Graham, January 31. Dispatches, x. p. 67.

[445] Wellington to Bathurst. Ibid., p. 104.

[446] Dispatches, x. p. 464.

[447] Wellington to Henry Wellesley. Dispatches, x. p. 239.

[448] Wellington to Stapleton Cotton, ibid., p. 268, and to Bathurst, ibid. 295, speaking of the extraordinary dry spring. Dickson notes in his Diary that for two months before April 4 there had been no rain.

[449] See Dispatches, x. pp. 372-3.

[450] Wellington to Beresford, April 24. Dispatches, x. p. 322.

[451] See above, pp. [224-5].

[452] Wellington to Bathurst, Dispatches, x. 372.

[453] Wellington to Bathurst, May 6. Dispatches, x. p. 361.

[454] Algarve, and Hussars of Estremadura.

[455] Pontevedra and Principe.

[456] Castaños himself during the campaign acted more as Captain-General than as Army-Commander—stationing himself at Salamanca and reorganizing the districts just recovered from the French.

[457] Apparently not without reason, if we can trust King Joseph’s correspondence, which contains notes of a treasonable intrigue in May, between certain officers of the 3rd Army and General Viruez, an Afrancesado at Madrid. See Correspondance du Roi, ix. pp. 130 and 466.

[458] Total force a nominal 15,000, but dépôts, hospitals, petty garrisons, &c., absorbed a full third—the cavalry was 441 sabres only.

[459] See Codrington to Wellesley, January 18, in Supplementary Dispatches, vii. p. 569.

[460] Sarsfield with one of the two Catalan field divisions was normally operating as a sort of guerrillero on the Aragonese side. Manso generally hung about the Ampurdam with a brigade.

[461] The H.A. troops were ‘A’ Ross, ‘D’ Bean, ‘E’ Gardiner, ‘F’ Webber-Smith, and ‘I’ Ramsay. The foot companies were those of Dubourdieu (1st Division), Maxwell (2nd Division), Douglas (3rd Division), Sympher K.G.L. (4th Division), Lawson (5th Division), Brandreth (6th Division), Cairnes (7th Division). Tulloh’s Portuguese company was attached to the 2nd Division, Da Cunha’s to Silveira’s division. The reserve was composed of Webber-Smith’s H.A. troop, Arriaga’s Portuguese heavy 18-pounders, and Parker’s foot company. See Colonel Leslie’s edition of the Dickson Papers, ii. p. 719.

[462] Long was now in charge of Hill’s cavalry vice Erskine, a general whose acts have so often required criticism. This unfortunate officer had committed suicide at Brozas during the winter, by leaping out of a lofty window while non compos mentis. The moment he was removed Wellington abolished the ‘2nd Cavalry Division’, and threw its two brigades into the general stock under Stapleton Cotton for the campaign of 1813.

[463] Wellington to Hill, Supplementary Dispatches, xiv. pp. 206 and 216.

[464] 12th Dragoons, of Digeon’s division.

[465] This is Wellington’s own observation, Dispatches x. 397, to Graham from Matilla.

[466] Wellington to Graham, Dispatches, x. 401.

[467] That the charges were not pushed home is shown by the casualties—10 wounded in the Royals, 1 killed no wounded in the 1st Hussars K.G.L.

[468] Creditable as was the conduct of Villatte’s infantry, it is hyperbole to say with Napier (v. p. 98) that ‘the dauntless survivors won their way in the face of 30,000 enemies!’ For only 1,600 British horsemen were up, and the nearest allied infantry was 6 or 8 miles away.

[469] Jourdan (Mémoires, p. 464) holds that Villatte was to blame, and ‘engagea le combat mal à propos,’ but considers that he was ‘faiblement suivi’ by Fane and Alten. He acknowledges the loss of some of Villatte’s guns, probably in error, for Wellington speaks of captured caissons only in his report of the affair. Martinien’s list of casualties shows hardly any officer-casualties on this day in Villatte’s division.

[470] See the elaborate dispatch of June 28 (to Hill, Dispatches, x. pp. 402-4).

[471] See Jourdan’s Mémoires, p. 466.

[472] For all this see Wellington to Hill, Dispatches, x. pp. 402-4.

[473] There are some slips either in the original or the copy of the Marching Orders printed in Supplementary Dispatches, xiv. pp. 215-16. For Carazedo, given on the itinerary of the 1st Division, is many miles from it, though it is on the proper line of the 5th Division, which was going to Outeiro and not to Braganza. Limão on the itinerary of the 3rd Division should be Vinhas, if I am not mistaken.

[474] Another odd error in Marching Orders given in Wellington Dispatches, x. p. 368, had turned the Portuguese heavy guns into infantry ‘18th Portuguese Brigade’ which should read ‘Portuguese 18-pounder brigade.’ There was no higher numbered Portuguese infantry brigade than the 10th. This misprint has misled many historians.

[475] See Tomkinson, p. 232, for the road by Chaves and Monforte.

[476] Improvised by dismantling artillery carriages. Wellington to Bathurst, Dispatches, x. 388.

[477] Wellington to Graham, Dispatches, x. p. 392.

[478] Minus Grant’s hussars, who only arrived on the 27th.

[479] Jourdan’s Mémoires, p. 464. Note that Napier (v. 102) has got this expedition a week too late—May 29-30. His statement that the French cavalry got in touch with the northern wing of Graham’s army and was closely followed by British scouting parties, is contradicted by the absolute silence about any touch with the French in the diary of Tomkinson, whose regiment was at Tabara and must have been the one which Boyer would have met.

[480] Digeon’s own report, which chanced to be entirely inaccurate, was that on the 29th his reconnaissance reported that there were signs of intentions to throw trestle bridges across the Esla opposite the ford of Morellas, the lowest ford on the Esla toward the Douro, and at Santa Enferina opposite San Cebrian, where Spanish troops were visible. Also that at Almendra there was a post of British hussars. Only the third item was correct. (Archives Nationaux—copy lent me by Mr. Fortescue.)

[481] Tomkinson says that his regiment, the 16th Light Dragoons, was 20 hours on horseback this day, continually hurried off and countermarching (p. 235).

[482] Julian Sanchez’s lancers, from Hill’s wing, moving from Penauseude, got in the same night to Zamora.

[483] Digeon has an elaborate and unconvincing account of this affair in the long dispatch quoted above. He says that he had two regiments (16th and 21st Dragoons) drawn up in front of a bridge and ravine, awaiting the return of a reconnaissance sent to Toro: that the detachment arrived hotly pursued by British hussars, whereupon he resolved to retire, and told the brigade to file across the ravine. But the 16th Dragoons charged without orders, in order to save the flying party, and got engaged against fourfold numbers, while the 21st was retiring. They did wonders: killed or wounded 100 hussars, captured an officer and 13 men, and retired fighting on the battery and infantry at Pedroso, losing only 100 men.

[484] Two officers of the 16th were taken: the lists in Martinien show only one more officer wounded—from which we should gather that the resistance must have been poor. For a regiment fighting strongly should have had more officer-casualties than three to 208 other ranks. The 16th Dragoons must have been pretty well destroyed—with 1 officer and 108 men unwounded prisoners, 1 officer and 100 men wounded prisoners, and 1 officer and an unknown number of other ranks wounded but not captured. This was the same regiment which had lost the 1 officer and 32 men taken by their own carelessness at Val de Perdices on the 31st. It had been less than 400 strong by its last preserved morning-state.

[485] Jourdan, Mémoires, p. 463.

[486] See above, [p. 327].

[487] 45th Ligne and 12th Léger.

[488] 2nd Hussars, 5th and 10th Chasseurs à Cheval. For an interesting narrative of Maransin’s and P. Soult’s manœuvres about Toledo, see the book of Wellington’s intelligence officer, Leith Hay, who was then a prisoner with them, having been captured while scouting (vol. ii. pp. 142-55).

[489] Clausel was sent a dispatch on May 27 not ordering him to come south at once, but requesting him to send back Barbot, Taupin, and Foy if his operations were now completed in Navarre! Mémoires du Roi Joseph, ix. 280.

[490] Viz. four and a half divisions of the Army of the South, two of the Army of the Centre, one of the Army of Portugal, the King’s French Guards, and his trifling Spanish auxiliary force.

[491] Jourdan, Mémoires, p. 466.

[492] Jourdan, Mémoires, p. 467.

[493] Wellington to Graham, Dispatches, x. p. 411.

[494] Wellington to Giron, Dispatches, x. 413 and 414, and to O’Donoju, x. pp. 414-15.

[495] Viz. Wellington to Colonel Bourke from Melgar, June 10, Dispatches, x. p. 429.

[496] Wellington to Bourke from Melgar, June 10, Dispatches, x. 429.

[497] As, for example, in the letter to Bathurst about ships. Dispatches, x. 416.

[498] These sort of courtesies were most misplaced. The subject of discussion was the exchange of the British officer captured at Morales (see above, [p. 332]) for a French officer whom Gazan was anxious to get back. See Dispatches, x. 421, Wellington to Gazan; Jourdan’s Mémoires, p. 467; and the narrative of the flag-bearer in Maxwell’s Peninsular Sketches, ii. pp. 97-8.

[499] Tomkinson’s Diary (16th Light Dragoons), pp. 239-40.

[500] Maxwell’s Peninsular Sketches, ii. 37.

[501] Dispatches, x. 437.

[502] 1st and 5th with Bradford’s Portuguese.

[503] Food having run low, owing to the mule-transport falling behind.

[504] 3rd, 4th, 6th, 7th Divisions and Pack’s Portuguese.

[505] Presumably Maucune’s brigade, which had been there some time, as well as the convoy escorts.

[506] ‘Grant begged Lord Wellington to allow him to attack the retiring infantry, but in spite of his pressing solicitations was not permitted.’ Maxwell’s Peninsular Sketches, ii. 99.

[507] Jourdan, Mémoires, p. 469.

[508] Cf. Miot de Melito in Ducasse, ix. p. 468.

[509] Cf. Jourdan’s Mémoires, p. 470; Wellington Dispatches, x. pp. 436-7; Digeon’s Report, and the Appendix in Arteche, xiii. p. 486. Toreno (iii. p. 230) says that the citizens held that the French had intended the mine to work when they were gone, and to destroy the city and the incoming allied troops, but leans to the view that ignorance of the power of explosives explains all.

[510] Dispatches, x. p. 436.

[511] Sometimes called the bridge of Policutes, from the name of the village on the opposite bank.

[512] Tomkinson’s Diary, p. 341.

[513] Maxwell’s Peninsular Sketches, ii. p. 38.

[514] e.g. Wachholz of Brunswick-Oels, attached to the 4th Division, p. 314.

[515] See, for example, vol. ii. p. 586 and vol. iv. p. 159.

[516] These were the words of Colonel Arnaud, senior aide-de-camp to Gazan, conversing (most incautiously) with his prisoner Leith Hay, whose diary is most interesting for these days. See Leith Hay, ii. p. 176.

[517] Foy to Jourdan, Bergara, June 19.

[518] Some of Hill’s troops used the bridge of Rampalares also, a few miles west of Puente Arenas.

[519] But did not follow the main road to Osma, going off by a by-path north of the sierras to Orduña.

[520] Dispatches, x. p. 450.

[521] Pakenham’s Private Correspondence (ed. Lord Longford, 1914) gives no help. He only writes on June 24th, ‘Lord W. left me to protect his rear: I executed my duty, but have lost my laurel.... I have satisfied myself, and I hope my master’ (p. 211).

[522] In Supplementary Dispatches, vii. the two papers on pp. 641 and 644 should be read together, the first giving the moves for Graham and the Light and 4th Divisions, the second for Hill and the 3rd and 7th Divisions.

[523] Jourdan, Mémoires, p. 472.

[524] Not Barbacena as in Napier: the latter place is in Portugal.

[525] They lost 1 officer and 1 man wounded only.

[526] Tomkinson’s Diary, p. 242.

[527] At least Martinien’s lists show one officer killed and five wounded—all but one in Sarrut’s regiments—which at the usual rate would mean 120 casualties.

[528] Most of these details are from the excellent account by an officer of the 43rd in Maxwell’s Peninsular Sketches, ii. pp. 39-40. This narrative was evidently seen by Napier, who reproduces many of its actual words, as I have done myself. It must have been lent him long before it was printed in 1845.

[529] Martinien’s lists show only 1 officer killed and 5 wounded this day in Maucune’s division—this means about 120-50 casualties, but of course does not include the unwounded prisoners from the baggage-guard. Jourdan says that the division had ‘une perte assez considérable.’

[530] See Vie militaire du Général Foy, pp. 206-7.

[531] Vie militaire du Général Foy, p. 206. The editor, Girod de l’Ain, seems to prove that Foy got no other dispatch, though Jourdan declares that several had been sent to him.

[532] It would appear, however, that though the 1st and 5th Divisions and Anson’s cavalry never went near Orduña, yet Bradford and Pack’s Portuguese (without artillery) had got so near it on the preceding day that Wellington let them go through it, bringing them back to the main body via Unza by a mountain path. See Supplementary Dispatches, vii. p. 647.

[533] Probably by Angulo, and the valley of the Gordajuela.

[534] He says so in his letter to the Conde d’Abispal, Dispatches, x. pp. 445-6. ‘Je les attaquerai demain, s’ils ne font pas la retraite dans la nuit.’

[535] Napier, v. p. 114.

[536] There is a good account of the skirmish on the Bayas in Wachholz, p. 314. He remarks on the abominable weather, ‘incredible for the time of year—continuous unbearable cold and rain—the sun visible only for short intervals. Very bad roads.’

[537] For all this see Tomkinson’s Diary, p. 243. His statement that the column went off on the Orduña road by mistake and was at once set right, seems to me conclusive against Napier’s views.

[538] An English eye-witness calls it ‘nowhere fordable’: a French eye-witness ‘fordable everywhere’; both are wrong. Cf. Fortescue, ix. p. 152.

[539] Jourdan’s Mémoires, p. 474.

[540] See Toreno, iii. pp. 233-6.

[541] There is an account of this skirmish in Digeon’s report, and in Hay’s Reminiscences under Wellington, pp. 107-8.

[542] Jourdan, p. 473.

[543] The fortified position north of the defile of Salinas, where the road from Bilbao to France joins the great chaussée.

[544] i. e. the position above the northern exit from the plain of Vittoria.

[545] Not counting Pakenham and Giron, but including Longa and Morillo.

[546] Digeon in his report insists that he thought there was something more behind Longa. But this is ex post facto allegation.

[547] Napier, v. p. 134.

[548] Cf. events in the Nimy-Obourg Salient at Mons on August 22, 1914.

[549] The classical instance of the proper defence of a river front is (I suppose) Lee’s defence of the Rappahannock at the battle of Fredericksburg. For the ruinous fate of an army which gets across at one or two points of a long front, and is counter-attacked, cf. the battle of the Katzbach, fought two months after Vittoria.

[550] Especially the bridges of Tres Puentes and Nanclares by which a reconnaissance was made on June 20, and that of Mendoza up-stream. See Jourdan, p. 473.

[551] Blakiston’s Twelve Years of Military Adventure, ii. p. 207.

[552] And this not belonging to the Army of the South, but to d’Erlon—Avy’s 27th Chasseurs.

[553] This story is given by Gazan in his report, as a proof that Jourdan had ample warning that there was danger from the north as well as from the east.

[554] These troops were ‘nobody’s children’ and get ignored in Gazan’s and Reille’s reports. But we hear of the 3rd Line defending Gamarra Menor in one French report, a fact corroborated by its showing two officer-casualties in Martinien’s lists—the guns are mentioned in Tirlet’s artillery report. Cavalry of the Army of the North is vaguely mentioned—its presence seems established by an officer-casualty of the 15th Chasseurs in Martinien. I suspect the presence of part of the 10th Léger, which has an officer-casualty, Vittoria 22nd June, presumably a misprint for 21st.

[555] Dispatches, x. p. 449, says that Reille had two divisions in reserve (they were only two brigades) in addition to his front line holding the bridges: and cf. x. p. 450, which says directly that four divisions of Reille’s army were present.

[556] Here comes in a curious incident, illustrating the extraordinary carelessness of the French Staff. Gazan was very anxious to get restored to him an artillery officer, a Captain Cheville, then a prisoner. As an exchange for him he sent into the British lines on the 20th, Captain Leith Hay, a captured British intelligence officer, who had been with the Army of the South for a month, and had witnessed the whole retreat, during which he had been freely in intercourse with General Maransin and many staff officers. On his release he was able to tell Wellington that the French were definitely halted, and expected to fight. Why exchange such a prisoner on such a day? See Leith Hay, ii. p. 190. Cf. Wellington Dispatches, x. p. 443, which corroborates Hay’s story.

[557] Jourdan, Mémoires, p. 475.

[558] Digeon had obstructed the bridges of Arriaga and Gamarra. The bridge of Villodas, below Gazan’s extreme right, had been partly barricaded. Not so Nanclares, Mendoza, and the bridge immediately below Tres Puentes.

[559] Diary of the 43rd officer, in Maxwell, ii. p. 40.

[560] There is a good account of the heroic death of Cadogan, a much-loved colonel of the 71st, in the diary of his quarter-master, William Gavin, of the same regiment. When aware that he was mortally hit, Cadogan refused to be moved from the field, and had himself propped up against two knapsacks, on a point from which his dying eyes could survey the whole field, and watched the fight to the bitter end.

[561] From Gazan’s report in the French Archives, written at St. Jean-Pied-du-Port in July—very much ex post facto. It was lent me by Mr. Fortescue, along with several other Vittorian documents.

[562] Diary of Cooke of the 43rd in Maxwell’s Peninsular Sketches, ii. 42.

[563] Graham’s Report, Wellington Supplementary Dispatches, viii. 7-8.

[564] Cooke, the 43rd officer in Maxwell’s Peninsular Sketches, ii. 44. The guns were undoubtedly the Horse Artillery battery on the high-road in front of Gazan’s centre.

[565] Of course, Cooke is understating the distance, which was about a quarter of a mile.

[566] This interesting narrative of Captain Cooke of the 43rd must have been in Napier’s hands before it was printed by Maxwell, as several phrases from it are repeated in Napier, vol. v, p. 121. Sir William himself was in England that day.

[567] He was, along with Stewart and Oswald, one of the three divisional generals who committed the gross breach of orders during the Burgos retreat mentioned [above, p. 152].

[568] Cf. Burgoyne, Life and Letters, i. 263 (June 23, 1813), with Picton’s letters in Wellington Supplementary Dispatches, xiv. 225, about ‘the 3rd Division being kept in the background, for Sir T. P. is by no means a favourite with Lord W.’ Cairnes (in Dickson, ed. Leslie) puts the change down as ‘most mortifying to Picton’.

[569] See Dalhousie to Wellington, in Supplementary Dispatches, viii. p. 6, which leaves much unsaid.

[570] Narrative of one of Picton’s staff in Robinson’s Life of Picton, ii. 195-6.

[571] The third battery originally at Ariñez was Villatte’s divisional battery, which had gone off with him to the Puebla heights. Neither P. Soult nor Treillard had guns with them.

[572] Such turning might have been done either by the two belated brigades of the 7th Division or by troops detached by Graham, who had several brigades to spare, which he never used, but might have sent to pass the Zadorra at the bridge of Yurre or the fords west of it, both well behind the new French line.

[573] Who was this officer? Not Brevet Lieut.-Colonel Cother of the 71st nor Brevet Lieut.-Colonel Harrison of the 50th. Hope of the 92nd, in his rather detailed narrative of this fight, calls him ‘Colonel R——.’ I cannot identify him. Conceivably, it may have been Colonel Rooke, the senior officer of Hill’s staff who may have been sent up the heights, and may have taken over command on Cadogan’s being mortally wounded.

[574] So says the anonymous but invaluable ‘T. S.’ of the 71st. Leith Hay, a prisoner with the French in this campaign, remarks that they were all in their summer wear of long linen overcoats, with the cross-belts put on above.

[575] They were released at Pampeluna on the surrender of that fortress three months later, in a state of semi-starvation, having been carried on with Villatte’s division during the French retreat. They described to Gavin of the 71st, who happened to be present at the surrender, their unhappy fortunes. See his diary, p. 25.

[576] Gazan’s most unconvincing account of all this engagement is that ‘General Villatte attacked the enemy with his usual vigour: nothing could resist the shock of his division. The position, whose recapture ought to have assured us the victory, was retaken, as well as the height in front of Subijana. The enemy was routed at every point. Such was the position of the Army of the South, when news came to the King that our troops by the Zadorra were attacked, and could not maintain themselves. I was told to break off my attack and retire to a position further back.’

[577] The 71st lost, beside their well-loved colonel—the only man mentioned in Wellington’s private letter of next morning to his brother Henry (Dispatches, x. p. 454)—44 killed, 272 wounded, and nearly 40 prisoners: half the battalion. The 50th lost only 7 officers and 97 men; the 92nd no more than 20 men. If Villatte gave correct figures, his total loss was only 2 officers and 289 men—including 22 prisoners. Of these the 63rd, obviously the leading regiment, was responsible for 135 casualties, the 95th for 94. The other two regiments had practically no losses. These figures are very low, but seem to be corroborated by Martinien.

[578] Its heavy loss of 33 officers and 515 men out of about 2,200 present was nearly all, I believe, suffered at this point. The 2/87th with 244 casualties out of about 600 present lost 40 per cent. of its strength. Chassé’s French brigade, the immediate opponents, had 800 casualties, nearly all at this moment.

[579] Why did not Dalhousie support Colville more promptly? He had a bridge to cross, and some way to go, but was evidently late.

[580] These details come mainly out of the Mémoire sur la Retraite des Armées françaises in the French Archives, lent me by Mr. Fortescue. Internal evidence shows it written by some member of D’Erlon’s staff. Tirlet’s report is also useful.

[581] Captured by skirmishers of the 1/95th, as it was retreating up the high road and was nearing Ariñez. The French infantry recovered it for a moment by a counter-stroke, but as the Riflemen had cut the traces and shot or removed the horses, they could not get the gun away. Tirlet says the battery lost only one gun, which is corroborated by Costello of the 95th, present on the spot. Kincaid and other Riflemen say three.

[582] There is a curious problem connected with a correspondence (Dispatches, x. pp. 329-31) between Picton and Wellington on July 16—three weeks after the battle. Wellington apparently thought that Picton blamed the 88th for losing Ariñez in the first assault, while it was really only two companies of the 1/95th which had entered that village and been driven out. He says that he had seen the 88th coming into action in a very ragged line, and had himself halted them and dressed their front, before he let them go on: after this he did not notice what became of them, but saw them again after the fighting formed on the other side of the village.

What Wellington did not witness is chronicled by Costello of the 1/95th: after describing the repulse of the Riflemen, he notes their pleasure at seeing ‘our favourite third division’ coming down the road. Ariñez was promptly retaken and the advance recommenced. ‘I noticed a regiment, which by its yellow facings was the Connaught Rangers, marching in close column of companies to attack a French regiment drawn up in line on the verge of the hill, with a small village [Gomecha?] in its rear. The 88th, although under a heavy cannonade from the enemy’s artillery, continued advancing gallantly, while we skirmishers took ground to the left, close to the road, in order to allow them to oppose this line in front. Though we were hotly engaged I watched their movements. The 88th next deployed into line, advancing all the time towards their opponents, who seemed to wait very coolly for them. When they had approached within 300 yards the French poured in a volley, or I should rather say a running fire from right to left. As soon as the British regiment recovered the first shock, and closed their files on the gap that had been made, they commenced advancing at double time till within fifty yards nearer to the enemy, when they halted and in turn gave a running fire from the whole line, and then without a moment’s pause, cheered and charged up the hill against them. The French meanwhile were attempting to reload. But they were hard pressed by the British, who gave them no time for a second volley. They went immediately to the right about, making the best of their way to the village behind.’

From this it is clear that the 88th fought on open ground, to the right of Ariñez and the high road. It was the centre regiment of the brigade: the 45th, therefore, must have been more to the right and well south of the road; the 74th on the high road were the actual takers of Ariñez. We have unluckily no description of Power’s Portuguese at the moment—but they lost heavily—the casualties being 25 officers and 386 men. They must have been engaged with Leval’s 2nd Brigade, which had been stationed about and to the north of Gomecha, while the 1st Brigade held the village of Ariñez and the hill behind.

[583] The amusing story told of this storm by Harry Smith in his autobiography (i. pp. 97-8) is too good to be omitted. ‘My brigade was sent to support the 7th Division, which was hotly engaged. I was sent forward to report to Lord Dalhousie, who commanded. I found his lordship and his Q.M.G. Drake in deep conversation. I reported pretty quick, and asked for orders (the head of the brigade was just getting under fire). I repeated the question, “What orders, my lord?” Drake became somewhat animated, and I heard his lordship say, “Better take the village.” I roared out, “Certainly, my lord,” and off I galloped, both calling to me to come back, but “none are so deaf as those who won’t hear.” I told General Vandeleur we were immediately to take the village. The 52nd deployed into line, our Riflemen were sent out in every direction, keeping up a fire nothing could resist.... The 52nd in line and the swarm of Riflemen rushed at the village, and though the ground was intersected by gardens and ditches nothing ever checked us, until we reached the rear of it. There was never a more impetuous onset—nothing could resist such a burst of determination.’ Smith’s addition that the brigade took twelve guns in this charge seems (as Mr. Fortescue remarks) to be of more doubtful value.

Naturally there is nothing of this in Dalhousie’s dispatch—a most disappointing paper. It is mostly in a self-exculpatory tone, to justify his lateness and the absence of his two rear brigades. He says that they came up at the same time as Vandeleur, which is certainly untrue, as neither of them had a single casualty all day. And they could not have failed to catch a shell or two if they had been anywhere near the fighting-line during the subsequent capture of Crispijana and Zuazo. Mr. Fortescue’s note that Captain Cairnes’s letter in the Dickson Papers, p. 916, proves that Barnes’s brigade had arrived by this time, is a misdeduction from Cairnes’s carelessness in talking of Grant’s brigade as ‘our first brigade,’ meaning thereby our leading brigade, not the brigade officially numbered 1. When Cairnes says that the ‘first brigade’ and the guns were ‘in their place,’ while the rest arrived very late in the action, we need only contrast the casualty lists—1st Brigade nil, 2nd Brigade 330 casualties, 3rd Brigade nil, to see what he means.

[584] It will be noticed that I put La Hermandad as the village where the heavy fighting took place, and which Vandeleur’s brigade stormed. All historians up to now have followed Napier in making Margarita the important place. A glance at the map will show that the latter village is too far forward to have been held for any time, after Leval had evacuated his original position on the great knoll facing Tres Puentes and Villodas.

I have to point out that neither Wellington nor Lord Dalhousie in the two contemporary dispatches (Dispatches, x. p. 451, and Supplementary Dispatches, viii. pp. 4-6) mention either place by name—only speaking of ‘a village.’ D’Erlon’s staff-officer in the report of the Army of the Centre says that Margarita was held for some time but was rendered untenable by Leval’s retreat—so that Darmagnac had to go back to the heights behind. Gazan’s report says that the British were masters of Margarita before he took up his position on the heights above Ariñez, and that the heights behind Margarita were the fighting position of D’Erlon. Of the diarists or chroniclers who issued their books before the fifth volume of Napier came out, and who were present on this part of the field, Green (68th), Wheeler (51st), Captain Wood (82nd), mention no village names, nor do Lord Gough’s and Captain Cairnes’s contemporary letters, nor Geo. Simmons’ contemporary diary. Nor does Sir Harry Smith’s amusing account of his dealings with Lord Dalhousie before ‘the village’ which Vandeleur took (Autobiography, i. pp. 97-8) quoted in the preceding note.

After Napier’s book stated that the Light Division battalions took Margarita, and Gough with the 2/87th La Hermandad (a reversal of the real time and facts as I think), most later writers accepted these statements as gospel. But the report of Kruse, commanding the Nassau regiment, absolutely proves that Napier is wrong. Moreover, the rough map, annexed to D’Erlon’s original report of the battle in the French Archives, gives Hermandad as the position of Darmagnac, with his march thither from Gomecha and to Zuazo indicated by arrows. Kruse’s report may be found at length in the Nassau volume of Saussez’s Les Allemands sous les Aigles, pp. 340-1.

[585] This British claim is corroborated by the narrative of the French surgeon Fée, present at Abechuco that day.

[586] Though he had lost several when La Martinière was driven out of Gamarra Mayor (see above, [p. 425]) and Abechuco.

[587] The other regiments of Hay’s brigade were evidently kept in reserve, for the casualties of the 1/38th were eight only, and those of the 1/9th 25. The 8th Caçadores of Spry’s brigade lost 40 men, the Portuguese Line battalions only 41 between the four of them.

[588] Sergeant James Hale of the 1/9th, who has left us the only good detailed account of the fighting at Gamarra with which I am acquainted (pp. 105-6).

[589] Numbers impossible to determine, as they are never borne in the muster rolls of the Army of the Centre. But as they were 2,019 strong on July 16, when Soult reorganized the whole Army of Spain, they were probably 2,500 strong before the battle.

[590] So Tirlet, making allowances for the lost pieces.

[591] Viz. the divisional batteries of the 2nd Division (one British, one Portuguese), 3rd, 4th, 7th, Light, and Silveira’s Divisions, two H. A. batteries attached to the cavalry, two British and one Portuguese batteries of the reserve, and three Spanish guns belonging to Morillo.

[592] These notes are partly from Tirlet’s very interesting artillery report, partly from the narrative of the staff-officer of the Army of the Centre, already often quoted above.

[593] See tables of losses in Appendices, nos. [xi] and [xii].

[594] Memoirs, p. 479.

[595] Diary of Wachholz, attached with a Brunswick light company to the 4th Division, pp. 315-16.

[596] Thirty guns according to Garbé’s report—40 according to that of D’Erlon’s staff-officer, quoted above.

[597] Blaze, p. 244.

[598] What regiment was this? Obviously one of Colville’s or Grant’s—as obviously not the 51st, 68th, 82nd, 87th, 94th, from all of which we have narratives of the battle, which do not mention their being charged by cavalry or forming square. There remain the Chasseurs Britanniques, 1/5th, 2/83rd—it may have been any of these.

[599] Tomkinson of the 16th, fighting not far off, says that these squadrons ‘got into a scrape’ by charging about 2,000 French cavalry (p. 249). They lost 2 officers and 57 men. This was obviously the affair of which Digeon speaks. His 12th Dragoons, which charged the square, lost 22 casualties.

[600] One each of the 12th and 16th.

[601] The best account of all this is in the invaluable Tomkinson’s Diary (pp. 250-1). There is also an interesting narrative by Dallas, who took part in the charge, though he had no business there (pp. 92-3). The French cavalry were the 15th Dragoons and 3rd Hussars. They suffered heavily—the former regiment losing 4 officers and 53 men, the latter 4 officers and 30 men. The British dragoons got off lightly, all things considered, with 1 officer and 11 men hit in the 12th, and 1 officer and 20 men in the 10th. Tomkinson much praises the French infantry. ‘I never saw men more steady and exact to the word of command. I rode within a yard of them, they had their arms at the port, and not a man attempted to fire till we began to retire.’

[602] Cf. the reports of the Army of Portugal, Tomkinson, Hale of the 1/9th, and Graham’s very sketchy dispatch, which says that the infantry was much delayed at the bridges, but that ‘the greatest eagerness was manifested by all the corps. The Caçador battalions of both Portuguese brigades followed with the cavalry.... The enemy’s flight, however, was so rapid that no material impression could be made on them, though more than once charged by squadrons of General Anson’s brigade.’ (Supplementary Dispatches, viii. p. 9.)

[603] Gazan says in his report that he only abandoned the guns because he found the roads south of Vittoria blocked by fugitive vehicles from Vittoria.

[604] L’Estrange of the 31st says that some of the French, moving almost in the middle of advancing British brigades, were mistaken for Spaniards, and allowed to get off unharmed. Surtees of the 2/95th tells a similar story.

[605] The lancers are shown in Martinien’s lists to have lost six officers, the hussars four. The casualties of the 18th Hussars (3 officers and 37 men) and of the 10th (16 men) were certainly got in this affair, which was evidently hot while it lasted. The best account of Joseph’s last half-hour on the battlefield is in the Mémoires of Miot de Melito (iii. pp. 280-1), who was at the King’s side and shared his wild ride.

[606] Of the artillery Tirlet’s report shows that 104 were field guns actually used in the battle. The remaining 47 were partly the reserve guns of the Army of the North, left stacked at Vittoria when Clausel took his divisions to hunt for Mina, and partly guns of position from the garrisons of Burgos, Vittoria, Miranda, &c.

[607] There is a report of the regiment in the Archives Nationales setting forth that it did not lose its eagle, but the flag of the battalion reduced by Imperial orders in the spring, which was in the regimental fourgon.

[608] It inspired him with the idea of designing a British marshal’s baton on which lions were substituted for eagles. Wellington naturally got the first ever made.

[609] All this from Leith Hay (always an interesting narrator), vol. ii. pp. 203 and 208.

[610] Oddly enough, two contemporary diaries mention Mr. D.’s luck. He got by no means the biggest haul. Sergeant Costello of the 1/95th says that he got over £1,000. A private of the 23rd carried off 1,000 dollars in silver—a vast load! Green of the 68th records that two of his comrades got respectively 180 doubloons, and nearly 1,000 dollars (p. 165).

[611] Tomkinson, p. 254.

[612] Miot de Melito, iii. p. 279.

[613] There are amusing accounts of the conversation of this lively lady in the narratives of Leith Hay and Dr. McGrigor, who took care of her.

[614] But Lecor had a straggler or two out of one of his line-battalions—no doubt men who had gone off marauding, like most of the missing in the British list.

[615] Supplementary Dispatches, viii. p. 8.

[616] See e. g. Swabey’s note on his dangerous ride with Graham along the Esla, at the end of May, ‘whether the General is blind or mad I have not decided—he must have been one or the other to ride in cold blood over those rocks and precipices.’ Swabey’s Diary, p. 595.

[617] Cairnes’s Diary, p. 926.

[618] Fée, Souvenirs de la guerre d’Espagne, pp. 249-50.

[619] He is thinking of the nights after the storms of Rodrigo and Badajoz.

[620] Dispatches, xii. p. 473. The regiment named is a newly arrived cavalry unit, which attracted the Commander-in-Chief’s special notice by its prominence in plundering.

[621] Wellington to Bathurst, Dispatches, xii. p. 496.

[622] Personal diaries seem to show that this was the case with Cadogan’s brigade on the right, and the whole 5th Division on the left.

[623] This interesting fact is recorded in a conversation of Wellington with Croker, which contains some curious notes on the battle (Croker, ii. p. 232).

[624] Thinking that he had only his own two divisions of the Army of the North, and Taupin’s of the Army of Portugal, while really Barbot’s division was also with him.

[625] The former going by El Burgo and Alegria, the latter by Arzubiaga and Audicana.

[626] Murray to Wellington, Supplementary Dispatches, viii. pp. 3-4.

[627] See his dispatch to Wellington dated from Tolosa on June 26th.

[628] See vol. iv. p. 327.

[629] See Colonel Frazer’s account in his Peninsular Letters, p. 186.

[630] See, for this statement of the Duke’s, Fortescue’s British Army, vol. ix. p. 199.

[631] See Duncan’s History of the Royal Artillery, vol. ii. pp. 356-60, an indictment of Wellington’s whole policy to the corps, and especially of his famous Waterloo letter on their conduct in 1815.

[632] Reille reported that the straggling was so portentous that only 4,200 infantry were with the eagles on July 24th. See Vidal de la Blache, i. p. 79.

[633] Which had relieved Cassagne’s division, the rearguard on the 23rd.

[634] The regiment of Nassau alone returned 76 casualties that day.

[635] And took over command on the night of the 22nd; see Pakenham Letters, June 26, 1813.

[636] Whose riotous and undisciplined conduct so irritated Wellington that he directed that all the officers in charge should miss their next step in regimental promotion, by being passed over by their juniors.

[637] I have only mentioned the movement of the 6th Division and R. Hill’s cavalry above: there is no doubt as to what they did, and on the 30th they are both at Lerin, according to the location given by Supplementary Dispatches, viii. p. 39. But there is a puzzle about Oswald’s 5th Division on the 26th-30th, which I was long unable to solve. Wellington in his dispatch to Bathurst of July 3 (Dispatches, x. p. 501) says that he moved not only Clinton from Vittoria but Oswald from Salvatierra towards Logroño, on the march to intercept Clausel. He ought to have known if any one did! But I was not able to find any trace of the 5th Division having actually gone to Logroño: to march back from Salvatierra to Vittoria, and thence to follow Clinton to Logroño and Lerin would have been a very long business. Now regimental diaries of the 3/1st and 1/9th prove that the division was at Salvatierra on the 25th, and marched back to Vittoria on the 26th. But the best of them (Hale of the 1/9th) says that from Vittoria the division was turned back towards Pampeluna, and reached a spot within two leagues of it on the third day. At this point it was turned off northward and marched by Tolosa to join Graham’s column and assist at the siege of St. Sebastian. All accounts agree that it reached the neighbourhood of that fortress on July 5th-6th. Allowing six days for the march Vittoria-St. Sebastian, we have only the 27th, 28th, 29th, 30th June for the supposed march Salvatierra-Vittoria-Logroño, and return. The solution at last came to hand in General Shadwell’s Life of Colin Campbell of the 1/9th (Lord Clyde). Here it is mentioned, apparently on some record of Campbell’s, that his brigade only got to La Guardia, one march beyond Trevino, and was then turned back and sent north (Life of Campbell, i. p. 18). This is no doubt correct.

[638] Supplementary Dispatches, viii. p. 33.

[639] Wellington’s letters to Hill, Copons, and Castaños in Dispatches, x. pp. 470-1, all state very shortly that he hopes to cut off Clausel if he tries to get back into France by Jaca. All that is said is, ‘I do not think we shall be able to do much against Clausel. He has passed Tudela on the way to Saragossa. I propose to try for him on the road to Jaca’ (to Hill). The letters to the Spanish generals do not speak of Clausel’s going through Saragossa, but of his marching across Aragon to Jaca.

[640] See ‘Dispositions for the 28th June,’ Supplementary Dispatches, viii. p. 33.

[641] Wellington to Castaños, Monreal, June 30, Dispatches, x. p. 477, and to Bathurst, x. p. 496 and ibid. 501.

[642] Elaborate dispositions for their distribution round the fortress are given in the Order dated June 30 (Supplementary Dispatches, viii. pp. 34-6).

[643] See above, [p. 378]. For all the narrative which follows Foy’s well-written dispatches, printed in full in his life by Girod de l’Ain, are a primary authority. But I think that historians have given him a little more credit than he deserves—he is a very engaging witness. As to his own strength, that of his enemies, and the losses on both sides, he is no more trustworthy than Soult or Masséna. It may suffice to say that he makes the British 4th and 5th Divisions present at Tolosa, and gives Longa 6,000 men.

[644] Foy to Jourdan, 20 June, in Girod de l’Ain’s appendix, pp. 393-4.

[645] Batteries of Smith and Arriaga. Julius Hartmann, commanding Artillery Reserve, accompanied them; see Dickson Papers, June 22.

[646] From the journal of operations of General Giron’s Army, lent me by Colonel Arzadun.

[647] In his Diary (Girod de l’Ain, p. 210) Foy says that he had only one battalion of the 6th Léger, in his formal dispatch to Clarke (ibid. 395) he says that he had two.

[648] In reporting to Giron Longa mentions his 53 prisoners, and says that his own losses were ‘inconsiderable.’ Journal of the Army of Galicia, June 22.

[649] Journal of the Army of Galicia, June 23.

[650] Maucune reported 200 casualties (Foy, ed. Girod de l’Ain, p. 333), Graham 93, mostly in the 5th Caçadores. St. Pol’s Italians had beaten off Longa without losing more than 100 men—Giron does not give Longa’s loss, which was probably a little more.

[651] 1st Division about 4,500 bayonets, Pack and Bradford 4,500, Anson’s cavalry 650.

[652] Giron’s two Galician divisions 11,000, Porlier 2,500, Longa 3,000.

[653] His own division and Maucune’s about 3,000 each, St. Pol’s Italians 1,500, garrisons from Bilbao, Durango, and other western places about 3,000, De Conchy’s brigade of Army of the North [64th (2 battalions), 22nd (1 battalion), 1st Line (2 companies), and 34th (4 companies)] 2,000, garrisons of Tolosa and other places in Guipuzcoa about 2,500.

[654] Girod de l’Ain, p. 400.

[655] This was merely the noise of the rearguard action of Cassagne with Wellington’s advance, near Yrurzun, on the afternoon of that day.

[656] See above, [p. 274].

[657] The column was led—for reasons which are not given—not by its own Caçador battalion, but by three companies of the 4th Caçadores and two of the 1st Line, borrowed from the neighbouring brigade of Pack. Graham praises the conduct of this detachment.

[658] Foy (Girod de l’Ain, p. 400) says that if his orders had been obeyed there would have been a battalion and not a detachment holding the access to the hill. Graham (Wellington Supplementary Dispatches, viii. p. 44) declares that though many of Bradford’s men fought well, ‘the officers did not seem to understand what they were about, or how to keep their men in the proper place,’ and a good many hung back.

[659] Very different figures from those of Foy’s dispatch, which stated that eight minutes of terrible fire laid low 500 of the assailants! (Girod de l’Ain, p. 402).

[660] There is one paragraph of Foy’s dispatch which I cannot make out. He says that two British regiments tried to storm the hill of Jagoz, and were repulsed by the voltigeur companies alone of the brigade which held it. I cannot fit this in to any British narrative—the only red-coated battalions in that part of the field were the line battalions of the K.G.L., and they had certainly been engaged against Bonté and the Italians, and afterwards tried to storm the Pampeluna Gate. Longa’s men only were opposite the Jagoz position, as far as I can make out.

[661] For all this see Rey’s letter in the Pièces justificatives of Belmas’s History of Sieges in Spain, iv. p. 662.

[662] Under General Deconchy, who got a new brigade when his old one was thrown into San Sebastian.

[663] Dubourdieu’s battery belonging to the British 1st Division, and four guns of Giron’s own small artillery equipment.

[664] Lecestre’s Lettres inédites de Napoléon, ii. p. 265.

[665] Severoli reached Valencia on May 2 (Vacani, vi. p. 207), so was not drawn down in consequence of Murray’s move of May 25, as Mr. Fortescue seems to imply in British Army, ix. p. 49. He had with him two battalions each of the 1st Line and 1st Ligero, with a weak cavalry regiment.

[666] 2nd of Burgos, detached by Wellington’s order. See Murray’s Court Martial, p. 371.

[667] These changes of units had caused some re-brigading. Murray had transferred the 4th K.G.L. and the Sicilian ‘Estero’ regiment to Clinton’s division, but taken away from the latter and given to Mackenzie the 2nd Italian Levy, the 1/10th and the 1/81st. But Clinton was given charge over Whittingham’s Spaniards, and authorized to use them as part of his division, so that his total command was now much larger than Mackenzie’s.

[668] Pontevedra and Principe.

[669] It is interesting to compare the May 31 morning state of the Army of Catalonia with the list of battalions which Murray reports as having been brought down to the neighbourhood of Tarragona. All are there save two (Fernando 7th and Ausona) left at Vich under Eroles (see [Table] in Appendix), twelve battalions were with Copons.

[670] One of the 20th Line, one of the 7th Italian Line.

[671] Not only was the whole of the enceinte of the lower city abandoned, but the outer enceinte of the upper city on its east and north sides, from the bastion of El Rey to that of La Reyna (see map of Tarragona, p. 524 of vol. iv).

[672] Court Martial Proceedings, p. 228. He adds that his only chance (as he thought) was that conceivably he might find Tarragona so ill-fortified that he might risk an immediate assault on unfinished defences.

[673] Ibid., p. 292.

[674] Court Martial Proceedings, p. 183.

[675] Ibid., p. 165.

[676] The Quartermaster-General of the Army.

[677] Proceedings, p. 168.

[678] Note, Napier, v. p. 147.

[679] All this from Vacani (vi. p. 321), the only full French source: I can find no mention of this abortive demonstration from the British side.

[680] Court Martial Proceedings, p. 49.

[681] Murray’s evidence at the Court Martial, p. 50.

[682] Prevost’s very moderate loss was 1 officer and 4 men killed, 1 sergeant and 38 men wounded. This includes Spaniards.

[683] Court Martial, Murray’s defence, p. 228.

[684] Murray’s Defence, p. 232.

[685] Murray to Wellington, Supplementary Dispatches, vii. p. 467.

[686] Musnier’s division had 4,100 men present, by its return of June 15th. Pannetier’s column consisted of two battalions each of the 3rd Léger and 20th Line and one of the 5th Léger and a squadron of Westphalians—by the return of the same date 2,600 in all. The hussars were 650 sabres—adding the squadron of dragoons (200), the gunners of three batteries, train, &c.; the whole may have made just under 8,000 of all arms. See Tables in Appendix, [p. 755].

[687] Decaen to M. Mathieu, 5th June: see Vidal de la Blache, i. 353.

[688] Suchet to Decaen, Valencia, May 31. See Vidal de la Blache, i. p. 352.

[689] Report of Brigadier Llauder, commanding Copons’ left wing, to Murray, Proceedings, p. 190. Llauder adds that he had discovered that Mathieu’s column was only 5,500 strong.

[690] See especially Clinton’s evidence on pp. 180-2 of Murray’s Court Martial.

[691] See Manso’s letter and Guillot’s report on pp. 275-6 of the Court Martial Proceedings.

[692] For which see Court Martial Proceedings, pp. 282-3.

[693] His main blunder was that he took Pannetier’s brigade to be a separate item of 3,000 men, over and above the 9,000 men coming from Valencia of whom his emissary had written. He also doubled Suchet’s cavalry, by supposing that the 9th bis of Hussars and the 12th Hussars were two separate regiments. But they were the same unit, the number having recently been changed by order from Paris.

[694] Court Martial Proceedings, p. 285.

[695] See evidence of Bentinck, p. 175, and Clinton, p. 180, of Court Martial Proceedings.

[696] Evidence of Captain Milner, ibid., p. 397. This was not true at the moment, early in the morning.

[697] Donkin to Murray, 3 p.m. 11th June. Court Martial Proceedings, p. 360.

[698] He recalls this forgotten disaster in his defence (p. 300). A landing force cut off by storms from its transports had to surrender whole.

[699] Court Martial Proceedings, pp. 285-6.

[700] Donkin’s evidence, Court Martial Proceedings, p. 448.

[701] Williamson’s evidence, Proceedings, p. 124.

[702] Williamson’s evidence, ibid., p. 125.

[703] Mr. Fortescue has, I think, misinterpreted this order, when he says that it told Clinton to march to the same spot as the first (British Army, ix. p. 63), for Constanti is not in the direction of the Gaya, but on the opposite flank, west of the Francoli river.

[704] A queer misprint in this dispatch makes it say ‘the enemy will march.’

[705] Evidence of Captains Withers and Bathurst, R.N., Court Martial Proceedings, pp. 86 and 95.

[706] Mackenzie in his evidence says his men began at 2 p.m. to get into the boats.

[707] Evidence of Bentinck, ibid., p. 176. The cavalry went off at 3 p.m.

[708] The hours of this belated work are stated very differently by various naval witnesses, some of whom say that they worked till 1 a.m., others till 4 a.m., others till 7; one thinks that embarkations continued till well into the forenoon of the 13th—say 11 o’clock. At any rate, the hour must have been long after daylight had come—which was at 4.15, as is recorded by one witness.

[709] The total loss of Murray’s Army during the Tarragona operations was:

Killed. Wounded. Missing. Total.
British, Germans, Calabrese, Italian Levy 14 60 5 102
Sicilians — 15 —
Whittingham’s Spaniards 1 7 —

Bertoletti’s garrison lost 13 killed and 85 wounded = 98. The enemies did each other little harm!

[710] Not apparently the whole division, for Mackenzie calls it ‘a small body of infantry.’

[711] Suchet, Mémoires, ii. p. 315.

[712] Date stated by some as the 16th, but the earlier day seems correct. See Mackenzie’s evidence, pp. 152-3: he was uncertain as to the date.

[713] Hallowell says on the evening of the 14th or the 15th, he forgets which. But the latter date must be the true one.

[714] Hallowell’s speech, p. 554 of the Court Martial Proceedings.

[715] Pannetier’s rearguard followed on the 17th. See letter of the Alcalde of Perello, Court Martial, p. 361.

[716] Hallowell’s speech, Court Martial Proceedings, p. 556.

[717] By Mr. Fortescue, History of the British Army, ix. 67.

[718] See above, [p. 515].

[719] Supplementary Dispatches, viii. pp. 18-19, June 23.

[720] Ibid., p. 20.

[721] Supplementary Dispatches, viii. p. 22.

[722] Wellington to Murray, July 1, Dispatches, x. p. 487.

[723] Dispatches, x. p. 495, to Lord Bathurst, July 2.

[724] To the same, Dispatches, x. p. 496.

[725] To O’Donoju, Minister of War, Dispatches, x. pp. 492-3; to Castaños, x. p. 475; to Lord Bathurst, x. pp. 473-4.

[726] ‘We and the powers of Europe are interested in the success of the War in the Peninsula. But the creatures who govern at Cadiz appear to feel no such interest. All that they care about really is the praise of their foolish Constitution.... As long as Spain shall be governed by the Cortes, acting upon Republican principles, we cannot hope for any permanent amelioration.’ Dispatches, x. p. 474, Wellington to Bathurst, June 29.

[727] Wellington to Henry Wellesley, Dispatches, x. p. 491.

[728] Dispatches, x. pp. 523-4.

[729] Ibid., x. p. 521.

[730] Ibid., x. pp. 553-4. When this letter was written to Lord William Bentinck, Wellington had received no London dispatch for twenty days, mainly owing to bad weather in the Bay of Biscay.

[731] Ibid., x. pp. 613-14, to Lord Bathurst.

[732] Ibid., x. p. 478, to Bentinck.

[733] Ibid., x. pp. 477-9.

[734] Ibid., x. p. 531.

[735] Full details in O’Donnell’s report to Wellington of July 1, 1813. Dispatches, p. 503. Toreno makes an odd mistake in calling the French commander de Ceva: this was the name of the junior officer who drew up the capitulation.

[736] Not to be confounded with General Cassagne, who long commanded a division in the Army of Andalusia.

[737] Late Hamilton’s division in 1810-11-12.

[738] Lord Dalhousie was left in command—a great slight to Picton—all the more so after what had happened at Vittoria. See Supplementary Dispatches, viii. p. 249.

[739] Late Cadogan’s.

[740] Pringle arrived and took command of this brigade a fortnight later. Meanwhile the senior battalion commander led it.

[741] Reille had only two chasseur regiments with him.

[742] See the indignant letters of French officials quoted in Vidal de la Blache, i. pp. 69 and 165-7.

[743] For the Army of Portugal only two chasseur regiments were left: for the Army of the North only one: for the Army of the Centre only the weak Nassau squadrons. But 13 out of the 14 cavalry regiments of the Army of the South remained behind.

[744] Chassé’s brigade lost 850 men of 1,700 present, and the Nassau regiment in the German brigade had similar casualties, though the Baden regiment got off more lightly.

[745] It should be noted that Daricau’s 6th Division was now led by Maransin—its old commander having been badly wounded at Vittoria. Maransin’s late brigade, still extra-divisional as at Vittoria, had been made over to Gruardet.

[746] Jourdan answered that it was a false movement, but that on June 29th he could not possibly foresee that the King would change his mind as to the destination of the Army of the South. See Vidal de la Blache, i. p. 103.

[747] See Vidal de la Blache, i. pp. 103-4.

[748] Under Cameron of the 92nd as senior colonel—Cadogan who fell at Vittoria not having yet been replaced.

[749] Viz. Villatte’s and Maransin’s divisions, and Gruardet’s brigade of his own army, and Braun’s brigade of the Army of the Centre.

[750] On May 1 the three 2nd Division brigades had shown 7,200 bayonets—they had lost 900 men in action at Vittoria. If we allow for sick and stragglers and other casual losses, they cannot possibly have had 6,000 men in line on July 5.

[751] All these absurd theories are to be found in Gazan’s reports to Jourdan of July 4 and 5. See Vidal de la Blache, i. pp. 106-7.

[752] The troops of the Army of the North which Foy had collected from the Biscay garrisons, the brigades of Deconchy, Rouget, and Berlier of which we have heard so much in a previous chapter.

[753] Foy, Lamartinière, Maucune and Fririon (late Sarrut). There were behind them the King’s Spaniards and the raw Bayonne reserve.

[754] Dispatches, x. p. 512. The total losses having been 124 on all three days, Wellington’s ‘no loss’ means, of course, practically no loss.

[755] The clearest proof of Gazan’s resolute resolve not to stand, and of the complete mendacity of his dispatches concerning his heavy fighting on the 4th-5th and 7th, is that he returned the total of his losses at 35 killed and 309 wounded. As he had six brigades, or 13,000 men at least, engaged, it is clear that there was no serious fighting at all—a fact borne out by Hill’s corresponding return of 8 killed, 119 wounded, and 2 missing in the whole petty campaign.

[756] Cf. Lecestre, Lettres inédites, ii. p. 1037, where the Emperor says on July 3 that he cannot make out what is happening; and that Joseph and Jourdan are incapables.

[757] See, e. g., Joseph to Clarke, p. 336 of vol. ix of his Correspondance.

[758] See vol. v, p. 97.

[759] ‘Les malheurs de l’Espagne sont d’autant plus grands qu’ils sont ridicules.’ Napoleon to Savary, Dresden, 20 July: Lecestre, Lettres inédites, ii.

[760] Even that he was withdrawing the British Army from Portugal. Lecestre, ii. 998, May 5.

[761] Though he did once make the observation that ‘on ne conduit pas des campagnes à 500 lieues de distance,’ in a lucid interval.

[762] See v. pp. [194-6].

[763] Napoleon to Cambacérès, Lecestre, ii. 1055.

[764] See above, [p. 88].

[765] See the very interesting pages of Vidal de la Blache, i. pp. 142-3.

[766] See Roederer’s account of the interview in Vidal de la Blache, i. pp. 132-3. Napoleon had suggested him as the best person for the errand.

[767] Napoleon to Cambacérès, Lecestre, Lettres inédites, ii. 1055.

[768] ‘Joey Bottles’ is the English equivalent.

[769] See especially the caustic paragraphs in Lecestre, ii. 1045, 1047, 1055, to Clarke and Cambacérès.

[770] So Jourdan’s Mémoires, p. viii. Vidal de la Blache, i. p. 140, says 5,000 francs only, which seems an impossibly small sum for Marshal’s half pay.

[771] Napoleon to Cambacérès, Lecestre, ii. 1045.

[772] Napoleon to Maret, No. 28 in Lettres de Napoléon non insérées dans la Correspondance, Aug.-Sept.-Oct. 1813. Paris, 1907.

[773] Bathurst to Wellington, June 23, Supplementary Dispatches, viii. pp. 17-18.

[774] Liverpool to Wellington, Supplementary Dispatches, viii. pp. 64-5, dated July 7.

[775] Wellington to Bathurst, July 12, from Hernani. Dispatches, x. p. 524.

[776] Wellington to Lord Liverpool, July 23, from Lesaca, ibid., x. p. 568. Cf. same to same, x. p. 596.

[777] Dispatches, x. p. 570.

[778] See Wellington to Torrens, Dispatches, x. p. 616.

[779] See Wellington to Bathurst, Dispatches, x. p. 599, and other epistles on same topic.

[780] Called the Mirador (’look-out’), Queen’s, and Principe batteries: there were others facing sea-ward, which were of no account in this siege, as no attack from the water-side took place.

[781] See Jones’s Sieges of the Peninsula, ii. p. 94.

[782] The governor surrendered the town on August 1, but retired into the castle of La Mota, where he capitulated a few days later, just as Rey did in 1813.

[783] Jones’s Sieges of the Peninsula, ii. p. 14.

[784] Dickson’s diary, July 12, 1813, p. 960 of Colonel John Leslie’s edition of the Dickson Papers.

[785] Jones, ii. p. 97.

[786] See above, [p. 478].

[787] See Graham to Wellington, Supplementary Dispatches, viii. p. 62. The K.G.L. brigade of the 1st Division was present for a few days.

[788] Wellington to Graham, Dispatches, x. p. 512.

[789] Wellington Dispatches, x. p. 525.

[790] Melville to Wellington, Supplementary Dispatches, viii. pp. 224-5.

[791] Wellington to Melville, Dispatches, xi. p. 115.

[792] See the interesting account of his cross-country ride on June 25-9 in his Letters from the Peninsula, pp. 167-74.

[793] See Frazer, p. 195.

[794] In detail Jones gives them as twenty 24-pounders, six 18-pounders, four 68-pound cannonades, six 8-inch howitzers, and four mortars.

[795] See Hartmann’s Life, pp. 153-4.

[796] Nos. 4, 5 in map.

[797] Nos. 1, 2, 3 in map.

[798] No. 6 in the map.

[799] Why does Belmas, who was very well informed, and used Jones’s book, call the stormers ‘les Anglais’ and say that they lost 150 men? (Sièges, iv. p. 608). He knew from Jones that they were Caçadores only (Jones, ii. p. 21), and that their loss was under 70.

[800] Right column, to attack the cemetery and fortified houses—150 of 5th Caçadores, 150 13th Portuguese Line, three companies 1/9th Foot, three companies 3/1st Foot (Royal Scots) all under Hay, Brigadier of the 5th Division. Left column: 200 of 5th Caçadores, 200 of 13th Portuguese Line, three companies 1/9th Foot—all under Bradford commanding Portuguese independent brigade. Why did not Oswald use his own Portuguese brigade, but draw on Bradford? Possibly because Spry’s brigade were discouraged by the failure of their Caçador battalion on the 15th.

[801] Generally in British narratives called the Cask Redoubt, because wine casks had been used to revet the shifting sand of which the soil was there composed.

[802] Batteries 8 and 7 in the map.

[803] Batteries 13 and 14 in the map.

[804] Batteries 12 and 11 in the map.

[805] No. 6 in the map.

[806] There is a curious contradiction between Jones and Belmas as to the fate of the Cask Redoubt. The latter says that the British took it—the former that the garrison abandoned it, though not attacked.

[807] ‘From the looseness of the sand in which the battery was constructed, it was found impossible to keep the soles of the embrasures sufficiently clear to use the three short 24-pounders mounted on ship carriages—after a few rounds they had to cease firing.’ Jones, ii. p. 28.

[808] Burgoyne’s Life and Correspondence, i. p. 267.

[809] Burgoyne, who took out the flag of truce, says that the French officer who met him on the glacis used very angry words (ibid.).

[810] See Dickson Papers, ed. Col. Leslie, p. 970. The second breach is marked as ‘Lesser Breach’ on the map.

[811] Burgoyne, whose diary of the siege is one of the primary authorities, says that in his opinion the mine could have been much more useful than it was. ‘On the discovery of the drain, I should have immediately have altered the whole plan of attack. I would have made a “globe of compression” to blow in the counterscarp and the crest of the glacis, and then at low water have threatened an attack on the breaches, exploded the mine, and have made the real assault on the hornwork, which not being threatened had few people in it, and would undoubtedly have been carried easily.’ There was, he says, good cover in the hornwork, which would have been easily connected with the parallel, and used as the base for attacking the main front, with breaching batteries in its terre-plein and the crest of the glacis. Burgoyne, i. p. 271. But this is wisdom after the event.

[812] Jones, ii. p. 36.

[813] For all these details see Belmas, iv. pp. 620-1.

[814] Burgoyne says (i. 369) that the engineers on the 24th settled that the mine was no more than a signal ‘with a chance of alarming them’. On the 25th it would seem that a little more attention, but not nearly enough, was given to this useful subsidiary operation.

[815] Burgoyne says at 4.30.

[816] This is slurred over in the British narratives except Dickson’s Diary, p. 973. Belmas gives some account of it, however, though he calls the assailants British instead of Portuguese (iv. p. 623). They were some companies of the 8th Caçadores.

[817] Most of this narrative is from Colin Campbell’s long and interesting letter to Sir J. Cameron, printed on pp. 25-30 of his Life by General Shadwell.

[818] Gomm, p. 312.

[819] Frazer’s Letters from the Peninsula, p. 205.

[820] The 38th lost 53 men, the 9th 25, the Portuguese 138 in the side-attack. Why need Belmas, who had Jones’s book before him, give the total of British losses as 2,000? (Sièges, iv. 625).

[821] Though Jones says that he saw some wounded bayoneted.

[822] Printed in Maxwell’s Peninsular Sketches, vol. ii.

[823] Campbell’s letter quoted above in his Life, i. p. 30.

[824] ‘The men, panic stricken, turned and could never be rallied,’ writes Frazer next day (p. 204). ‘One party, I believe of the 9th and 38th, went up to the breach and then turned and ran away,’ says Larpent (p. 200). Neither saw the actual assault in the dark.

[825] So at least he wrote to Castaños on the 24th: ‘j’espère que cette affaire est finie.’ Dispatches, x. p. 564.

[826] See Frazer, p. 206, and Burgoyne, i. p. 269.

[827] See Wellington to Graham, night of the 25th, Dispatches, x. p. 566.

[828] Permission was given to leave four guns behind in the main breaching batteries and two on Monte Olia, to keep up a semblance of continued attack. Dispatches, x. p. 566.

[829] The British officer in command in the trenches, Major O’Halloran, was court martialled, but acquitted. It was proved that he had given the correct orders to the Portuguese captains of the companies on guard, who had not obeyed them. All the prisoners except 30 were Portuguese.

[830] The history of this proclamation is curious. Clarke, or Napoleon himself, considered it too full of insults of a person who was, after all, the Emperor’s brother. So it had to be disavowed: Soult wrote to Paris that he had not authorized it, and Clarke had the ingenuity to print in the French newspapers that it was an invention of the English government, intended to disgust the Spanish partisans of King Joseph, and to advertise the ill feeling that prevailed between the French army and the Imperial family. See Vidal de la Blache, i. p. 138; as he remarks, the style is all Soult’s, and there is not a trace of foreign diction in it. No Englishman or Spaniard could have written it.

[831] Joseph to Napoleon, 1st February 1813.

[832] See notably the case of General Excelmans.

[833] See especially the proclamation of March 6, 1815.

[834] Mémoires of St. Chamans, p. 35.

[835] Maximilien Lamarque, ii. p. 182.

[836] Stanhope’s Conversations with Wellington, p. 20.

[837] The gendarmerie were those who had come from the ‘legions’, employed in 1811-12-13 as garrisons in Northern Spain. They were embodied in units, horse and foot, and used as combatants (as at the combat of Venta del Pozo, for which see [p. 71]).

[838] As Table XVI in the Appendix shows, Foy’s division received two of Sarrut’s regiments: Cassagne’s (now Darmagnac’s) took all the French infantry of the old Army of the Centre: Villatte’s (now Abbé’s) was given two of Abbé’s regiments of the Army of the North: Conroux’s division absorbed Maransin’s independent brigade: Barbot’s (now Vandermaesen’s) received two regiments of the Army of the North: Daricau’s (now Maransin’s) got half Leval’s ‘scrapped’ division, Taupin the other half of it: Maucune absorbed one of Vandermaesen’s old regiments, Lamartinière one of Sarrut’s.

[839] 120th Line of Lamartinière.

[840] 2nd Léger of same, which suffered heavily at Vittoria while under Sarrut.

[841] 20,957 to be exact.

[842] Not only the Afrancesados but some of the Army of the North troops withdrawn from the Biscay garrisons had a poor record, and had disgusted Foy in his recent Tolosa fight. These were high-numbered battalions, recently made up from the Bayonne conscript reserve.

[843] The best proof of the efficiency of the bulk of Villatte’s corps is that when Vandermaesen’s and Maucune’s divisions were cut to pieces in the battles of the Pyrenees, Soult made up a new brigade for each of them out of the Reserve. Joseph’s French Guards fought splendidly at San Marcial. The Germans were very steady veteran troops.

[844] Vidal de la Blache, i. p. 160.

[845] See above, [p. 533]. Jourdan to Joseph, July 5. The memorandum had been made over to Soult. Cf. Clere, Campagne du Maréchal Soult, p. 46, and Vidal de la Blache, i. p. 182.

[846] One asks oneself why Soult did not give Reille the Maya attack, saving him two-thirds of his journey, and send D’Erlon to join Clausel at St. Jean-Pied-du-Port, by a march much shorter than Reille was asked to make.

[847] It is said that persons acquainted with the country told Soult to send the whole column round by Bayonne, on account of the artillery, but that he refused. As a matter of fact, Lamartinière’s division and some of the guns did go that détour, owing to the broken bridge.

[848] Wellington to Graham, July 22. Dispatches, x. p. 559.

[849] Ibid., p. 563, same to same.

[850] Supplementary Dispatches, viii. p. 113.

[851] Ibid., p. 114.

[852] Wellington to Graham, July 24, Dispatches, x. p. 563.

[853] Same morning, to Giron, ibid., p. 564.

[854] Wellington to Graham, 25th July, Dispatches, x. p. 566.

[855] Wellington to Graham, Dispatches, x. p. 570.

[856] See especially Lemonnier-Delafosse, pp. 211-12, and Wachholz of Brunswick-Oels, p. 321.

[857] Vittoria and light companies of Doyle, La Union, and Legion Estremena.

[858] La Union and the Legion, minus their light companies.

[859] Doyle and 2nd of Jaen.

[860] Sometimes called the Puerto de Val Carlos.

[861] See the very interesting letter of Bainbrigge of the 20th, printed as an Appendix to the regimental history of that corps, p. 390.

[862] Bainbrigge says that it was 7 a.m. before the regiment reached the Linduz, but that it was an hour earlier is demonstrated by the fact that they heard firing at Roncesvalles after arriving. Now Byng’s fight on the Leiçaratheca began at 6 a.m. Therefore Ross was on the Linduz earlier.

[863] What became of this Spanish company? Captain Tovey of the 20th (see history of that corps, p. 408) says that the French ‘made the Spanish picquet, who were posted to give us intelligence, prisoners, without their firing a shot’. Another account is that having seen Ross arrive, they quietly went off to rejoin their brigade, without giving any notice.

[864] There is a curious and interesting account of all this in the Memoirs of Lemonnier-Delafosse, aide-de-camp to Clausel, who was twice sent to stir up Barbot, whose conduct he describes in scathing terms (pp. 212-14). Clausel says that the 50th stormed the Leiçaratheca. That it stormed an abandoned position is shown by the figure of its losses. What Clausel does not tell can be gathered from Byng’s workmanlike dispatch to Cole, in Supplementary Dispatches, viii. pp. 128-9.

[865] Of the 27th and 130th Line.

[866] I confess that I doubt these figures. Martinien’s lists show the 27th Line with seven officer-casualties, the 1st Line with two, the 25th Léger with three, the 130th with two. Fourteen officer-casualties ought to mean more like 280 than 100 casualties of all ranks. In the whole Pyrenean campaign the French army lost 120 officers to 12,300 men—nearly 30 men to each officer. Clausel asks us to believe that at Roncesvalles the proportion was one officer to twelve men! Yet, of course, such disproportion is quite possible.

[867] While we have quite a number of good personal narratives of the fight on the Linduz, I have found for the fight on the Leiçaratheca nothing but the official reports of Clausel, Byng, and Morillo, save the memoirs of George L’Estrange of the 31st and of Lemonnier-Delafosse, who is interesting but obviously inaccurate, since he says that the French regiment which carried the hill was the 71st. Not only was it the 50th, as Clausel specially mentions, but 71 was a blank number in the French Army List.

[868] Four, not five, because the light company of the 20th was absent with the other light companies far to the right: so the wing was only four companies strong, or three deducting Tovey’s men. Wachholz forgets this.

[869] Wachholz, p. 322.

[870] Tovey fortunately wrote a narrative of this little affair, which may be found in the history of the 20th, p. 408. He says: ‘The enemy’s light troops opened so galling a fire that Major-General Ross called out for a company to go to the front. Without waiting for orders I pushed out with mine, and in close order and double-quick cleared away the skirmishers from a sort of plateau. They did not wait for us: on reaching its opposite side we came so suddenly on the head of the enemy’s infantry column, which had just gained a footing on the summit of the hill, that the men of my company absolutely paused in astonishment, for we were face to face with them. The French officer called to us to throw down our arms: I replied “bayonet away,” and rushing on them we turned them back down the descent. Such was the panic and confusion caused by the sudden onset, that our small party (for such it was compared to the French column) had time to regain the regiment, but my military readers may rest assured that it required to be done double quick.’

[871] This ditch had been cut by the Spaniards in 1793 as an outer protection to their redoubt on the Linduz.

[872] Wachholz, p. 324.

[873] The 6th Léger, 69th (2 battalions), 76th, and 36th show casualties, the rear regiments (39th and 65th) none. Nor does Maucune’s division. Similarly on the British side none of Anson’s or Stubbs’s battalions contribute to the list.

[874] As we have seen already, Clausel puts his loss at the Leiçaratheca at 160, to Byng’s and Morillo’s 120. At the other end of the line Ross’s brigade had lost 216 men—139 of them in the 20th, 31 in the 7th, 42 in the 23rd, 4 in the Brunswick company. [I know not where Napier got his strange statement that this company lost 42 men: their captain, Wachholz, reports 2 killed and 2 wounded.] Foy’s six front battalions had lost 10 officers and 361 men. The total Allied loss was about 350, there having been a few casualties among Campbell’s Portuguese and among the Spaniards at Orbaiceta. The total French loss was not less than 530. Both figures are very moderate. Cole estimated the French casualties at 2,000 men! Soult wrote that he had almost exterminated the 20th, whose total loss had been 139.

[875] Cole to Wellington, Supplementary Dispatches, viii. p. 127.

[876] Wellington to Liverpool, Dispatches, x. p. 596.

[877] See vol. iv. pp. 389-90.

[878] Cole to Murray, Linzoain, July 26th. Wrongly dated July 27th in Supplementary Dispatches, viii. p. 124.

[879] See diary of Dr. Henry, who was at Elizondo, and notes how all the senior officers rode out eastward (p. 161).

[880] Bell, vol. i. p. 102; Cadell, p. 161.

[881] One from each battalion plus the odd company of the 5/60th attached to each 2nd Division brigade.

[882] See Hope’s Military Memoirs, p. 319. Sceptical observers with telescopes said that the objects seen were droves of bullocks.

[883] See Moyle Sherer (who commanded the picquet), p. 257.

[884] Major Thorne, assistant quartermaster-general. Moyle Sherer says that Thorne owned that there was a small column on the move, but that he judged it to be a battalion shifting its quarters, or a relief of outposts.

[885] Mr. Fortescue (History of the Army, ix. p. 258) thinks that the 34th got up in time to join in their last struggle. But Bell of that regiment says ‘we laboured on, but all too late—a forlorn hope—our comrades were all killed, wounded, or prisoners. The enemy had full possession of the ground.’ Bell’s Rough Notes, i. p. 103.

[886] Bell’s Rough Notes, i. p. 103.

[887] Bell, i. p. 104.

[888] All this is most difficult to follow, our numerous sources contradicting each other in matters of detail in the most puzzling fashion. For this part of the narrative I have used, beside the dispatch of William Stewart, the books of Moyle Sherer of the 34th, who commanded the Aretesque picquet and was taken prisoner—Sir George Bell of the same regiment, Cadell of the 28th, Hope and Sergeant Robertson of the 92nd, Patterson of the 50th, the two anonymous diarists ‘J. S.’ and the ‘Scottish Soldier’ of the 71st, besides D’Erlon’s and Darmagnac’s original dispatches, lent me by Mr. Fortescue. I take it that each authority may be followed for the doings of his own corps, but is of inferior weight for those of other units. Patterson says that the 34th was at one time in close touch with the 50th, Cadell that the 28th and 92nd worked together, while Hope says that the 28th was only seen by the 92nd right wing after it had ended its terrible first entry into the fight. Patterson says that he saw O’Callaghan of the 39th fighting along with the 50th in the third episode of the combat, when, according to other sources, that regiment had already retreated south toward the valley with the 34th. Stewart’s dispatch only speaks of the 28th and 34th retiring in that direction, not the 39th. A confused fight has left confused memories. I cannot be sure of all the details.

[889] The statement in Napier and succeeding writers that the wounded of the right wing of the 92nd formed a bank behind which the French advance halted, and stood to receive the fire of the left wing of that same corps, whose bullets hit many of its comrades, comes from the narrative of Norton of the 34th (Napier, V. appendix, p. 442), who was some way off. That the troops which came up were the right wing 71st, and not the left wing 92nd, seems to me proved by the narrative of Hope of the 92nd, who distinctly says that the right wing were relieved by the 71st, and that the left wing were still holding the Maya position and under Stewart, who had just arrived, along with the left wing of the 71st (Military Memoirs, p. 210).

[890] He himself in his dispatch only says that it was after 1 p.m.

[891] Tulloh (commanding 2nd division batteries) to Dickson, in Dickson Papers, p. 1022. Wellington’s censure of Stewart may be found in Dispatches, x. p. 588, and his reply to the latter’s self-defence in xi. p. 107. The details are hard to follow: Wellington says that Pringle ordered the guns to be taken off by the road to Maya—that Stewart directed that they were to go back, and look to ‘the mountain road to Elizondo’ as their proper line of retreat. When it became necessary for them to retire at all costs, that road was already in the hands of the French. But I do not know precisely what Wellington meant by the mountain-road to Elizondo. Does it mean the track by which the 28th and 34th had retired?

[892] See Stewart’s Report to Hill, Berueta, July 26.

[893] Robertson, pp. 109-10.

[894] Stewart’s dispatch says that it was the 82nd who fought with stones.

[895] This was not the brigade to which the 82nd belonged, but the reserve brigade of the 7th Division, short of one of its units, the 3rd Provisional.

[896] Cf. Dispatches, x. pp. 597-8.

[897] ‘Lettres de l’Empereur Napoléon non insérées dans la Correspondance, publiées par X. Paris and Nancy, 1909,’ page 3. It is amusing to find out what Napoleon III omitted of his uncle’s letters.

[898] ‘Lettres de l’Empereur Napoléon non insérées dans la Correspondance,’ p. 13.

[899] Wellington’s letter to Graham, giving the false report that D’Erlon had been repulsed at Maya, is dated at 10 p.m. The letter to O’Donnell must be a little later, as it repeats this error, but adds that a note has come in from Cole, saying that he was heavily engaged at noon. Dispatches, x. pp. 566-7.

[900] The dispatch giving this information (Dispatches, x. p. 570) is wrongly dated in the Wellington correspondence. It should be July 26th at 4 a.m. The hour of the receipt of Hill’s and Stewart’s reports is not given.

[901] All in Supplementary Dispatches, viii. pp. 120-1.

[902] Hill to Murray, Supplementary Dispatches, viii. p. 121.

[903] The orders to Pack and Dalhousie may be found in Supplementary Dispatches, xix. p. 258-9, dated from Almandoz—obviously before Cole’s dispatch had come to hand.

[904] This letter in Supplementary Dispatches, viii. pp. 124-5, is there wrongly dated July 27th (for 26th). Cole, of course, was no longer at Linzoain on the 27th.

[905] To Picton from Almandoz, Supplementary Dispatches, xiv. p. 259.

[906] Picton to Murray, 8.30 p.m., Supplementary Dispatches, xviii. pp. 121-2.

[907] See above, [p. 622].

[908] See above, [p. 591].

[909] These are his own words, in his Report of August 2.

[910] Foy to Reille, July 20.

[911] Reille to Soult, July 27.

[912] The tall hat is vouched for by George L’Estrange of the 31st, and Wachholz from Ross’s brigade, the furled umbrella by Bainbrigge of the 20th, all eye-witnesses, whose narratives are among the few detailed accounts of this retreat.

[913] Words overheard by Bainbrigge in his own company.

[914] See Quartermaster-General to Picton, enclosing letter for Cole, sent off from Lesaca on July 23 (Supplementary Dispatches, viii. pp. 112-13), which must have reached Picton at Olague on the 24th.

[915] This seems a more controvertible plea. Orders went out from Lesaca on the 23rd, and must have reached Picton not very late in the day on the 24th. Supposing he had marched from Olague on the afternoon of the 24th, he would have been at Zubiri (only 6 miles off) on that same night, or even at Viscarret. And from Zubiri to Roncesvalles is not an excessive day’s march for the 25th, especially when firing was to be heard at the front.

[916] The remaining four were in the Caçador battalion of Stubbs’s Portuguese brigade.

[917] Unfortunately all French losses are given en bloc for the six days July 27 to August 1, and the casualties of each day cannot be disentangled. The casualties of Maya and Roncesvalles can be ascertained, but not those of the subsequent days.

[918] Viz. about 6,000 of Cole’s division, 5,000 of his own, 1,700 of Byng’s brigade, 2,500 of Campbell’s Portuguese at Eugui, only a few miles away, and something under 4,000 of Morillo’s Spaniards.

[919] See Belmas, iv. p. 803.

[920] Napier says (v. p. 225), and all subsequent historians have followed him, that Picton originally intended to place Cole on a line between Oricain and Arleta, i. e. on the low back-slope of the ridge. This seems to me almost incredible, as this ground is all running downhill, completely commanded by the much loftier crests about the Col. Surely no one, according to the tactical ideas of 1813, would take up a defensive position half-way down a slope whose summit is abandoned to the enemy. I can find no authority save Napier (who was not in the battle) for this curious statement. And I am justified, I think, in holding that the San Miguel hill was the place where Picton intended to place Cole, by the narrative and sketch-map of Wachholz of Ross’s brigade, who places the first position of the 4th Division on a well-marked hill immediately to the right of Villaba, and close to the 3rd Division’s ground at Huarte. This must mean San Miguel.

[921] R. Hill’s, Ponsonby’s, the Hussar brigade, and D’Urban’s Portuguese, Fane’s brigade, which was observing on the side of Aragon, did not arrive this day.

[922] One of the 4th Line.

[923] Reille’s report of August 1st.

[924] Clausel in his report says that he arrived in time to see the 4th Division cross the hill of Oricain.

[925] Perhaps Carlos de España’s division, arriving from the south.

[926] All this from the very interesting narrative of Clausel’s aide-de-camp Lemonnier Delafosse (p. 220), who bore the first message to Soult, and was (like his chief) much irritated by the Marshal’s caution and refusal to commit himself. Clausel had got a completely erroneous notion of the enemy’s intentions—like Ney at Bussaco.

[927] Quartermaster-General to Sir R. Hill, Supplementary Dispatches, viii. pp. 259-60.

[928] Wellington to Pack, Supplementary Dispatches, viii. p. 122, wrongly dated 1 o’clock—it should be 10 o’clock. Wellington was at Sorauren by 11.

[929] Final destination not given—clearly it might be down the high-road to Pampeluna; but if Picton had retreated still further and raised the siege, it might be to Lizaso, to join Hill and the rest.

[930] Wellington described his ride to Larpent, his Judge-Advocate General, a week later, in the following terse language (Larpent, p. 242): ‘At one time it was rather alarming, certainly, and a close run thing. When I came to the bridge of Sorauren I saw French on the hills on one side, and it was clear that we could make a stand on the other hill, in our position of the 28th, but I found that we could not keep Sorauren, as it was exposed to their fire and not to ours. I was obliged to write my orders accordingly at Sorauren, to be sent back instantly. For if they had not been dispatched back directly, by the way I had come, I must have sent them four leagues round, a quarter of an hour later. I stopped therefore to write accordingly, people saying to me all the time, “The French are coming!” “The French are coming!” I looked pretty sharp after them every now and then, till I had completed my orders, and then set off. I saw them just near the one end of the village as I went out of it at the other end. And then we took up our ground.’ Wellington then added, in a confidential moment, that there need have been no fuss or trouble, if only Cole had kept sending the proper information on the 26th and 27th. If only his intention of going right back to Pampeluna had been known earlier, the 6th and 7th Divisions could have been up on the 27th, and Hill’s corps too, which had been kept at Irurita and Berueta for 36 hours, because the situation in the south was concealed by Cole’s reticence. ‘We should have stopped the French much sooner.’

[931] French critics expressed surprise that Wellington did not tell Pack to fall on Clausel’s flank and rear. But the 6th Division, attacking from Olague, would have been out of touch with the rest of the army, and Wellington did not believe in attacks by isolated corps uncombined with the main army, and unable to communicate with it. See Dumas’ Campagne du Maréchal Soult, p. 163.

[932] Bainbrigge’s narrative in Smyth’s History of the XXth, p. 396.

[933] Ibid. Bainbrigge was standing close to both.

[934] Larpent, p. 243.

[935] Lemonnier-Delafosse, p. 219.

[936] Soult to Clarke, July 28.

[937] Supplementary Dispatches, viii. p. 123.

[938] Ibid., p. 124.

[939] See above, [p. 661].

[940] Reports of Maucune and Lamartinière dated August 3rd and 4th.

[941] Clausel’s report of August 2.

[942] There is a most curious and difficult point in this history of the first phase of the action. Clausel says, and he is of course a primary authority, that though Conroux was already deeply engaged with the 6th Division, ‘was being fired on from all sides, was suffering severe losses, and had already had one of his brigadiers disabled’ [Schwitter], he told him that he must join in the attack ‘swerving to the left so as to mount the hill in the direction originally assigned to him’, which was done and Conroux immediately repulsed. I cannot see how this was physically possible. How could Conroux, if already disadvantageously engaged with the 6th Division, and ‘fired at from all sides’, break off this fight and attack any point of the hill of Oricain? If he had gone away in that direction, who was there to hold Sorauren against Pack’s people, who were pressing in on it, and (as Clausel says) only a musket-shot away from it? As far as I can make out, Conroux must have been sufficiently employed in fending off Pack and maintaining Sorauren, so as to cover the flank of the other divisions, for the next hour or two. No other authority but Clausel gives any hint that Conroux got away from Pack and joined in the general assault. And I am constrained to think that Clausel (strange as it may seem) is making a misstatement—and that when Conroux is said to have been ordered to attack the hill by swerving to the left, he can only have been keeping off Pack. I note that Vidal de la Blache and Mr. Fortescue try to accept Clausel’s story, but that General Beatson (With Wellington in the Pyrenees, pp. 170-2) ignores it.

[943] I include, in reckoning Picton’s force at Bussaco, his own division and the three battalions of Leith’s first brigade which brought him help. In Cole’s Oricain figures are reckoned the 4th Division, Byng’s brigade, Campbell’s Portuguese, and two Spanish regiments.

[944] Lemonnier-Delafosse of the 31st Léger.

[945] This exceptional use of grenadiers in the skirmishing line, I get from an observation of Bainbrigge of the 20th, who expresses his surprise that the troops with whom he was engaged, though acting as tirailleurs, were not light infantry, but men in tall bearskin caps like the Guard, ‘some of the finest-looking soldiers I ever met’ (p. 400).

[946] The 10th Caçadores, Campbell’s light battalion, was a very weak unit of only 250 bayonets.

[947] Clausel’s report of August 2.

[948] D’Haw of the 34th Léger.

[949] The fourth battalion of the brigade, the 1/40th was detached below on the Spaniards’ Hill.

[950] Lemonnier-Delafosse, pp. 227-8.

[951] The Buffs lost only 2 men, the 1st Provisional (2/31st and 2/66th) only 5—so can hardly have been engaged,—but the 1/57th had 63 casualties.

[952] The above narrative is reconstructed from Reille’s two reports (the divisional report of Lamartinière, however, is useless) and from narratives of Stretton of the 40th in Maxwell’s Peninsular Sketches, and Mills in the history of the regiment by Smythies.

[953] There is little about this affair in the British narratives. Diarists were rare in the 6th Division. The only point of interest I found in them is the mention of mule-guns used by the French.

[954] Larpent, p. 221. Cf. Napier, v. p. 226: ‘That will give time for the 6th Division to arrive, and I shall beat him’—words true in thought but perhaps never spoken by Wellington.

[955] Lapéne, p. 80.

[956] Soult to Clarke, report of the battle.

[957] See statistics in [Appendix XXII].

[958] Narrative of Captain G. Wood of the 1/82nd, pp. 192-3.

[959] See Dickson Papers, Tulloh’s letter, p. 1022.

[960] Hill to Quartermaster-General, Supplementary Dispatches, viii. p. 142.

[961] Dalhousie to Quartermaster-General, ibid.

[962] 28th Léger.

[963] 22nd Chasseurs.

[964] Soult’s general orders of July 23rd.

[965] Soult to Clarke, from Zabaldica, evening of the 28th.

[966] See St. Chamans, quoted above, p. 590.

[967] Expressed most clearly, perhaps, in the Orders issued by the Chief of the Staff, Gazan, to the Corps-Commanders on July 29: ‘L’intention du Général en Chef est de se porter avec toute l’armée sur la communication de Pampelune à St. Estevan.’

[968] Ordre du 29 Juillet; see also Gazan to Reille of same date.

[969] Quartermaster-General to Dalhousie and Hill, Supplementary Dispatches, viii. p. 151.

[970] Ibid., Q.M.G. to Hill, p. 152. In this Da Costa’s brigade is called the Conde de Amarante’s division, but Campbell had not yet joined Da Costa.

[971] Q.M.G. to Alten, Supplementary Dispatches, viii. pp. 150-1.

[972] Foy (Girod de l’Ain), p. 219.

[973] These guns did not belong to Brandreth’s battery, the divisional artillery of the 6th Division, but oddly enough to Cairnes’s battery, which belonged to the 7th. See Duncan’s History of the Royal Artillery, ii. p. 190.

[974] Sympher’s, of the K.G.L.

[975] Foy in Girod de l’Ain, p. 220.

[976] That the firing began at dawn immediately is stated by Larpent, p. 210. That the troops were under arms before daylight is noted by the anonymous Soldier of the 42nd, p. 199. The attack by the 6th Division on Sorauren was appreciably before the descent of Cole and Byng from the heights of Oricain.

[977] Girod de l’Ain, p. 221.

[978] 43rd Line (2 battalions).

[979] Maucune’s 34th Léger reports 13 officers and 531 men prisoners out of a strength of 773. Why does Captain Vidal de la Blache, usually accurate, give this as Maucune’s total loss in prisoners? (cf. p. 251). His other battalions contribute another 550. Conroux’s 55th and 58th Line give respectively 282 and 348 prisoners—the other regiments smaller but appreciable lists of captured.

[980] Interesting accounts of this fight may be found in the narratives of Wood of the 82nd, Green of the 68th, and Wheeler of the 51st—all in Inglis’s brigade. They are, however, most confused, none of them having much notion of how or where they came into the general scheme of the fight. All speak of the steepness of the ground.

[981] I cannot make out for certain when Le Cor’s Portuguese joined Dalhousie on the 30th, coming from the Marcalain road, where they had been placed on the previous evening. Probably not early, as they had 64 casualties only (mostly in 2nd Caçadores), while the other brigades had 200 apiece. The fact that the losses are nearly all in the light battalion shows that a skirmishing pursuit was the task of Le Cor’s men.

[982] Clausel’s report is (perhaps naturally) very reticent, and would give a reader who had no other sources to utilize a very inadequate account of the day’s work—no one could possibly gather from it that Conroux lost 600 prisoners and Vandermaesen 300, or that the whole corps was in great disorder. For a picture of Conroux’s division scattered over the hills, and its general storming at the fugitives, see Lemonnier-Delafosse, p. 232.

The hours at which events took place on Clausel’s wing are hard to settle. I follow him in making the artillery begin to play on Sorauren long before 7, the infantry attack soon after that hour, and the loss of Sorauren about 9.

[983] So Lamartinière, who admits that there was ‘un peu de désordre’ but confesses much less than Foy, for whose account see Girod de l’Ain, p. 221.

[984] Picton’s division lost 89 in Brisbane’s brigade, 20 among Power’s Portuguese, none in Colville’s brigade.

[985] So Foy. Reille thinks that it was Sarrasibar, 3 miles farther east.

[986] Girod de l’Ain, p. 223.

[987] See Vidal de la Blache, p. 280, for complaints by the French maires of atrocities committed.

[988] See above, [p. 681].

[989] See above, [p. 664].

[990] All this in Q.M.G. to Hill, &c., in Supplementary Dispatches, viii. pp. 154-5, where it is stupidly printed after the evening orders given at 9 p.m.

[991] Soult says by way of Zubiri, Eugui, and Lanz, which seems a vast circuit—this march must surely have been made on the preceding evening: in the dark it would hardly have been possible.

[992] 75th Line. Darmagnac says in his report that its colonel attacked the second position without orders. Martinien’s lists show that it lost 16 officers—presumably therefore over 300 men.

[993] See [casualty tables] in Appendix. Maransin had no losses, having never been engaged. Hill made an astounding blunder in estimating his total loss at 400 in his report to Wellington. Nine British and 36 Portuguese officers were hit—exactly the same number as the French officer-casualties.

[994] Hill had Fitzgerald’s and O’Callaghan’s British brigades—2,600 deducting Maya losses, Da Costa’s brigade 2,300, Ashworth’s 2,800, and some squadrons of Long’s light dragoons—about 8,000 in all. D’Erlon had, also deducting 2,000 Maya losses, over 18,000 infantry in his three divisions—not to speak of the cavalry division just arrived.

[995] Soult to Clarke, August 2.

[996] Supplementary Dispatches, viii. pp. 152-3.

[997] Supplementary Dispatches, viii. p. 154, written at Ostiz, 30th July, many hours after the preceding note to Alten, also written on the 30th but from Villaba. It is endorsed by G. Murray, Lizaso, 11 a.m., 31st July.

[998] One battalion and one cavalry regiment, see above, [p. 681].

[999] Wellington to Q.M.G., Irurita, 3 p.m.

[1000] Narrative of L’Estrange of the 31st, p. 121.

[1001] In his report, as he explains, ‘je m’occupai de déblayer la route, qui était encombrée d’équipages et de cavalerie.’

[1002] D’Erlon in his report of August 3 says that ‘the majority of the enemy’s soldiers were drunk,’ an involuntary tribute to their wild pluck.

[1003] The 7th Division had a steep scramble and a tough fight; see the diary of Green of the 68th, p. 162.

[1004] A fact mentioned only by D’Erlon and by Rigaud’s history of the 5/60th, Fitzgerald’s corps.

[1005] So I deduce from there being precisely 10 officer-casualties in Abbé’s regiments, according to Martinien’s lists.

[1006] Hill and the Quartermaster-General, George Murray, had settled at 11 a.m. that Wellington’s original order was only ‘momentarily suspended’ and not cancelled, by the necessity for driving in ‘the column of the enemy now retiring by the Donna Maria road.’ Supplementary Dispatches, viii. p. 163.

[1007] Supplementary Dispatches, viii. p. 159.

[1008] Wellington to O’Donnell, Irurita 6 a.m., on the 1st August. Supplementary Dispatches, viii. p. 163.

[1009] 1/120th Line of Lamartinière.

[1010] Who were picked up by Reille some miles north of Santesteban, having been sent forward on the Sumbilla road overnight, in charge of the convoy of wounded. See Reille’s Report.

[1011] Reduced to five battalions, since it had detached one regiment to the head of the column, and was short of two battalions which had escaped by Almandoz, and one which had escaped by Zubiri and Eugui following Foy. See above, pp. [699-700].

[1012] The chasseur regiments only—the dragoons having escorted the artillery to Roncesvalles. Place in the column not quite certain—but see the narrative of Lemonnier-Delafosse for P. Soult’s presence.

[1013] To Alten, 12 noon, from near Almandoz. Dispatches, x. p. 574.

[1014] Dispatches, x. p. 573.

[1015] Graham to Wellington, July 30, 5 a.m. Supplementary Dispatches, viii. p. 156.

[1016] Napier (v. p. 243) and Stanhope (pp. 71-2) both say that they had the anecdote from the Duke himself—but wrote many years after 1813. But Larpent’s absolutely contemporary diary also has the tale (p. 218) written down on August 3, only two days after the supposed event.

[1017] Wellington to O’Donnell. Supplementary Dispatches, viii. p. 163.

[1018] Some good diarists had been wounded at Sorauren, and fail us after the 28th July.

[1019] One of the French officers killed on August 1, Hutant of the 59th, is registered as ‘tué en défendant l’aigle.’ Now with such absurdly small casualty lists as those shown above, the eagle can only have been in danger if the regiment was ‘on the run.’

[1020] I had immense difficulty in identifying this battalion, which belonged to Barcena’s division, as Wellington mentions in his letter to Lord Liverpool of August 4 (Dispatches, x. p. 598). But Wellington calls it there a cazadore battalion, which it was not, but an old line battalion. The trouble was first to find the composition of Barcena’s division in July 1813, and then to hunt in Spanish regimental histories (those of the Conde de Clonard) for a claim by any of those corps to have been at the bridge of Yanzi on August 1. Alone among all the regiments Asturias makes this claim—but the corps-historian says not one word about its meritorious service—evidently unknown to him.

[1021] Reille says in his report that the order ‘halt,’ issued at the head of the column, was repeated down the column of dragoons and turned in the noise and confusion into ‘demi tour’. Whereupon the rear regiments thought the column was cut off, and galloped back in panic. ‘Halte’ is not very like ‘demi tour’—but there was no doubt about the panic.

[1022] We learn from Lamartinière’s report that it was one of the 118th regiment.

[1023] He declares in his report that he never heard of the trouble until nightfall.

[1024] Report of Maucune, dated August 3.

[1025] Report of Reille.

[1026] Report of the Right Wing—dated that night, August 1.

[1027] D’Erlon complains that he found no French troops whatever facing the bridge—i. e. the 118th and Maucune had disappeared long before his front battalion got up. The battalions engaged were the 5th Léger and 63rd and 64th Line—whose officer-casualties for that day were 1 killed and 8 wounded.

[1028] The best account of all this is in Graham’s report, Supplementary Dispatches, xiv. p. 261.

[1029] All these marches are mainly detailed from the excellent narrative of Quartermaster Surtees of the 3/95th, pp. 223-6, supplemented by that of Captain Cooke of the 1/43rd.

[1030] See above, [p. 700].

[1031] See above, [p. 707].

[1032] See above, [p. 710]. It was written at Ostiz on the night of the 30th, but only sent off by G. Murray from Lizaso on the morning of the 31st.

[1033] See Cooke, i. p. 315.

[1034] Cooke, i. pp. 315-16.

[1035] Some, therefore, of P. Soult’s chasseurs must have been with the rearguard.

[1036] Cooke, i. p. 317.

[1037] Surtees, p. 226.

[1038] Dispatches, x. p. 591.

[1039] Probably also we must add the responsibility for Hill and the 2nd Division being at Elizondo this day, owing to the false march which they had made—on Wellington’s orders—from the Puerto de Arraiz to the Velate road.

[1040] Wellington in Dispatches, xi. p. 7, blames Barcena for this—one would have supposed that Graham and Giron were still more responsible, as they were in higher command.

[1041] Orders for Q.M.G. from Santesteban, 9.30 a.m. Supplementary Dispatches, viii. p. 164.

[1042] Wellington to Graham, 8 p.m., from Santesteban. Dispatches, x. p. 574.

[1043] Cooke, i. 819.

[1044] A brigadier in Maransin’s division.

[1045] Larpent’s diary, p. 214.

[1046] Harry Smith, i. p. 115.

[1047] Dalhousie to Cairnes in Dickson Papers, ed. Leslie, p. 1020.

[1048] 2/24th and 2/58th.

[1049] Wellington thought this the most desperate and gallant charge he had ever seen. Dispatches, x. p. 591.

[1050] Report of Clausel, August 2. ‘Les troupes relevées n’ayant pu, malgré les efforts des généraux Conroux et Rey, s’arrêter sur la position indiquée, et s’étant jetées sur celles qui repoussaient l’attaque de la direction d’Échalar, il s’ensuivit un peu de confusion, et on fut obligé de les laisser aller jusqu’à l’hauteur de la division Taupin.’

[1051] Ross’s brigade had a few casualties in each battalion—37 in all.

[1052] ‘Devant la division Maransin je n’ai vu que des tirailleurs,’ says Clausel. From the sequence of brigades in the 7th Division, I think these must have been Lecor’s people.

[1053] Cooke, i. p. 320. Both he and Surtees mention that the evicted French battalion was the 2nd Léger—a fact not to be found in the reports of Lamartinière or of Reille.

[1054] The total French loss was probably not very great—as happens when troops give at once, and are not pursued. Conroux’s division only records 5 officer-casualties, Vandermaesen’s 8—which should mean a total casualty list of 300 or so. But it is astonishing to find Reille reporting that Maucune lost only about 20 men; if so, the flank-guard cannot have stood at all.

[1055] Soult to Clarke, August 2, and August 6.

[1056] Dispatches, x. p. 591.

[1057] Ibid., x. p. 611. August 7.

[1058] 6,440 to be exact. Of which 4,708 were British and 1,732 Portuguese. The latter figure is worked out from the detailed Portuguese returns in Appendix No. XXI, and is perceptibly lower than Wellington’s original estimate of 2,300: stragglers no doubt had been rejoining.

[1059] e. g. the troops on the Roncesvalles road, the two battalions of Lamartinière which followed Foy, and Maransin’s 28th Léger from Elizondo—at least 2,500 in all.

[1060] Cassagne succeeded Barrois shortly after.

[1061] After D’Erlon was removed to command the Army of the Centre, this division was at different times under Remond and Semélé.

[1062] Attached to Whittingham. Regiments of Olivenza and Almanza.

[1063] 3rd Léger, properly belonging to Lamarque’s brigade from Catalonia, was short of four companies left in garrisons.

[1064] The second battalions of these corps were left behind, along with the 11th and 20th Ligne, two squadrons of 4th Hussars, one of 24th Dragoons, the 3/5th Léger, and some 250 Italian Light Horse, to hold down the kingdom of Valencia.

[1065] In Portuguese Units officers and men are given together.

[1066] The other Guards’ Brigade, 1st and 3rd batts. of 1st Guards, was left at Oporto and did not rejoin till August.

[1067] 2/31st and 2/66th.

[1068] 2nd and 2/53rd.

[1069] 2/24th and 2/58th.

[1070] These figures are estimated from what was still surviving of each unit when Soult reorganized the army in July 16. The Royal Guards infantry had then 2,019 men, the line cavalry 64 officers and 500 men, the line infantry 1,168, though it had lost over 300 men at Vittoria and a much greater number from desertion. I take it that to allow 300 extra men at the battle for the Guard infantry, 100 more for the Line cavalry, and 800 more for the Line infantry cannot be far out.

[1071] About 40 prisoners of the 1/71st are lost among the general total of 223 ‘missing and stragglers’: these were the only actual prisoners lost in the battle. See [p. 416] of this volume.

[1072] i. e. 2/31st and 2/66th.

[1073] i. e. 2nd and 2/53rd.

[1074] Brunswick-Oels Head-Quarters were in the 7th Division, but companies were distributed all around the Army. These casualties partly belong to outlying companies, not to Head-Quarters.

[1075] Pannetier’s flying column, which tried to relieve Tarragona, consisted of 3/5th Léger, and two battalions each of 20th Line and 3rd Léger, with the Westphalian chasseurs: a little under 3,000 men.

[1076] But originally an A. of S. regiment, transferred to A. of N. in January.

[1077] Originally an A. of P. regiment, but transferred to A. of N. in January 1813.

[1078] General William Stewart, commanding the Division.

[1079] Colonel Fitzgerald, 5/60th, commanding a Brigade.

Transcriber’s note

Abispal (Count),now conde Abisbal,
and conde La Bisbal,
Agaera (river),now Agüera (río),
Aguilar del Campo,now Aguilar de Campoo,
Albayda,
Albeyda,		now Albaida,
Albaracin,now Albarracín,
Albuquerque,now Alburquerque,
Alcanizas,now Alcañices,
Alemtejo,now Alentejo,
Almanza,now Almansa,
Arroyo dos Molinos,now Arroyomolinos (Cáceres),
Aspeytia,now Azpeitia,
Babila Fuente,now Babilafuente,
Ballasteros,now Ballesteros,
Balmaseda,now Valmaseda,
Bastan,now Batzán,
Beassayn,now Beasáin,
Becceril,now Becerril,
Belayos,now Velayos,
Bergara,now Vergara,
Berostigueta,now Berrosteguieta,
Bivar,now Vivar,
Bussaco,now Buçaco,
Caçeres,now Cáceres,
Calvarisa de Abaxo,now Calvarrasa de Abajo,
Calvarisa de Ariba,now Calvarrasa de Arriba,
Castroxeriz,now Castrojeriz,
Consentaina,now Concentaina,
Cordova,now Córdoba,
Corunna,now La Coruña,
Donna Maria,
Doña Maria,		now Donamaría,
Douro,now Duero (in Spain),
and Douro (in Portugal),
El Orrio,now Elorrio,
Ernani,now Hernani,
Escurial,now El Escorial,
Espadacinda,now Freixo de Espada à Cinta,
Estremadura,now Extremadura (for Spain),
and Estremadura (for Portugal),
Exea,now Ejea de los Caballeros,
Exeme,now Ejeme,
Freneda,now Freineda,
Fuente Dueñas,
Fuentedueñas,		now Fuentidueña de Tajo,
Garcia Hernandez,now Garcihernández,
Guadalaviar (river),now Turia (río),
Guarena,now Guareña,
La Baneza,now La Bañeza,
La Mota,now Mota del Marqués,
Majorca,now Mallorca,
Moxente,now Moixent,
Pampeluna,now Pamplona,
Passages,now Pasajes,
Penauseude,now Peñausende,
Puycerda,now Puigcerdá,
Requeña,now Requena,
Saguntum,now Sagunto,
Sanguesa,now Sangüesa,
Santa Enferina,now Santa Eufemia del Barco,
Saragossa,now Zaragoza,
Senabria,now Sanabria,
Tagus (river),now Tajo (Spanish),
and Tejo (Portuguese),
Torre dem Barra,now Torredembarra,
Valtanas,now Baltanás,
Villa al Campo,now Villalcampo,
Villa Real,now Vila Real,
Villaba,now Villava,
Villadrigo,now Villodrigo,
Villavanez,now Villabáñez,
Vittoria,now Vitoria,
Xucar (river),now Júcar (río),
Yrurzun,now Irurzun,
Zagaramurdi,now Zugarramurdi,
Zamorra,now Zamarra.
Zevico,now Cevico de la Torre.