Combats between the Duero and the Tormes. (July, 1812.)
When the forts were taken Marmont retreated. Wellington pursued by easy marches, and on the 2nd of July inflicted a slight loss on the rear-guard at the bridge of Tordesillas; it would have been a great one if he had not been deceived by a false report that the French had broken the bridge the night before.
Marmont then took the line of the Duero, having fortified posts at Zamora and Toro, and broken the bridges there and at Puente Duero and Tudela also, preserving only that of Tordesillas. His left was at Simancas on the Pisuerga, which was unfordable, and the bridges at that place and Valladolid were commanded by fortified posts. His centre was at Tordesillas and very numerous; his right on heights opposite the ford of Pollos, which Wellington seized instantly as it gave him a passage, though a difficult one and unfit for a large force. Head-quarters were then fixed at Rueda, and the army disposed with a head against the ford of Pollos and bridge of Tordesillas, the rear on the Zapardiel and Trabancos rivers to meet any outbreak from the Valladolid side. Marmont’s line of defence, measured from Valladolid to Zamora, was sixty miles; from Simancas to Toro above thirty; but the actual occupation was not above twelve; the bend of the river gave him the chord, the allies the arc, and the fords were few and difficult.
It was Wellington’s design to force Marmont by the co-operation of the Gallician and other Spanish forces to live on his fixed magazines; Castaños however, like all Spanish generals, failed in the hour of need. Marmont had then the means of rendering the campaign futile if not disastrous to the British general, but with a false judgment threw away his actual advantages by striving to better them. Bonet’s recall from the Asturias was a great error. Napoleon and Wellington had alike foreseen the importance of holding that province; the one ordered, the other calculated on its retention, and their judgment was now vindicated. The Gallicians and Asturians immediately moved by the coast towards Biscay, where the maritime expedition from Coruña, a large one under Sir Home Popham, had descended on several points; Caffarelli therefore retained the reinforcement destined for Marmont, and that marshal, by gaining six thousand men under Bonet, lost twelve or thirteen thousand of the army of the north, and opened all the northern provinces to the Spaniards.
In this state of affairs neither Wellington nor Marmont had reason to fight on the Duero. The latter because his position was so strong he could safely wait for Bonet’s and Caffarelli’s troops, while the king operated against the allies’ communications. The former because he could not attack the French, except at great disadvantage; for the fords of the Duero were little known, and that of Pollos very deep. To pass the river there and form within gunshot of the enemy’s left, without other combinations, promised nothing but defeat, for the strength of ground was with the French. While they had the bridge at Tordesillas, an attempt to force a passage would have enabled Marmont to fall on the front and rear, if the operation was within his reach; if beyond his reach, that is to say, near Zamora, he could cut the communication with Rodrigo and yet preserve his own with Caffarelli and the king. Wellington therefore resolved to wait until the fords should become lower, or the Gallicians and Partidas should be persuaded to act, and thus force the French to detach men or dislodge for want of provisions.
D’Urban’s Portuguese cavalry, which was on the French side of the river, now incommoded Marmont’s right, and Foy marched to drive them off; General Pakenham, commanding the third division, immediately crossed the ford of Pollos, which brought Foy back, and Marmont then augmented the efficiency of his cavalry by taking a thousand horses from the infantry officers and sutlers.
On the 8th Bonet arrived, and the French marshal, extending his right to Toro, commenced repairing the bridge there. Wellington, in like manner, stretched his left to the Guarena, keeping his centre still on the Trabancos and his right at Rueda, with posts near Tordesillas and the ford of Pollos. In this situation the armies remained for some days, during which Graham and Picton went to England in bad health, and the principal powder magazine at Salamanca exploded with hurt to many. No other events worth recording occurred. The weather was fine, the country rich, the troops received their rations regularly, and wine was so plentiful it was hard to keep the soldiers sober; the caves of Rueda, natural or cut in the rock below the surface of the earth, were so immense, and held so much wine, that the drunkards of two armies failed to make any very sensible diminution in the quantity, and many men perished in that labyrinth. The soldiers of each army also, passing the Duero in groups, held amicable intercourse, conversing of battles that were yet to be fought, and the camps on the banks of the Duero seemed at times to belong to one general, so difficult is it to make brave men hate each other.
To the officers of the allies all looked prosperous, they were impatient for the signal of battle, and many complained that the French had been permitted to retreat from Christoval; had Wellington been finally forced back to Portugal, his reputation would have been grievously assailed by his own people. The majority, peering forward with misty political vision, overlooked the difficulties close at hand, but their general was fretted with care and mortification, for all cross and evil circumstances seemed to combine against him. The Spanish coöperation had failed in all quarters, the enemy in front was growing stronger, Soult was seriously menacing Cadiz, and the king was said to have been joined by Drouet; the Portuguese troops were deserting in great numbers from misery; the English government had absurdly and perniciously interfered with the supply of the military chest; there was no money and the personal resources of Wellington alone kept the army in its forward position. “I have never,” said he, “been in such distress as at present, and some serious misfortune must happen if the government do not attend seriously to the subject and supply us regularly with money. The arrears and distresses of the Portuguese government are a joke to ours, and if our credit was not better than theirs we should certainly starve. As it is, if we don’t find means to pay our bills for butcher’s meat there will be an end to the war at once.”
Thus stript as it were to the skin, he was going once more to hide his nakedness in the mountains of Portugal, when Marmont, proud of his own unripened skill, and perhaps, from the experience of San Christoval, undervaluing his adversary’s tactics; desirous also, it was said, to gain a victory without the presence of a king; Marmont, pushed on by fate, madly broke the chain which restrained his enemy’s strength.
To understand the remarkable movements which were now about to commence, it must be borne in mind that the French army, while the harvest was on the ground, had no regard to lines of communication; it had supports on all sides, and the troops were taught to reap the standing corn, and grind it themselves if their cavalry could not seize flour in the villages. This organization, approaching the ancient Roman military perfection, baffled the irregular, and threw the regular force of the allies entirely upon the defensive; their flanks once turned a retreat must follow to save the communications; but the French offered no point for retaliation. Wherefore, with a force composed of four different nations, Wellington was to make difficult evolutions in an open country, his only chances of success being the casual errors of his adversary, an able general, who knew the country perfectly and had troops well disciplined, and of one nation. The game would have been quite unequal if the English had not been so strong in cavalry.
In the course of the 15th and 16th Marmont, who had previously made deceptive movements, concentrated his beautiful and gallant army on its right towards Toro, which place, intercepted letters, reports of deserters and the talk of the peasants, had for several days assigned as his point of passage. On the morning of the 16th English exploring officers, passing the Duero near Tordesillas, found only the garrison there, and in the evening the reports stated, that two French divisions had already crossed by the bridge of Toro; wherefore Wellington united his centre and left at Canizal, on the Guarena, during the night, intending to attack; but as he had still some doubts of the real object, he left Sir Stapleton Cotton on the Trabancos with the right wing, composed of the fourth and light divisions and Anson’s cavalry. Suddenly Marmont recalled his troops, returned to Tordesillas and Pollos, passed the Duero and concentrated at Nava del Rey in the evening of the 17th, some of his men having marched forty, some fifty miles without a halt. Wellington was then near Toro, and Cotton remained behind the Trabancos during the night without orders, in a bad position; Wellington however hastened to his aid, bringing up Bock’s, Le Marchant’s, and Alten’s cavalry, while the fifth division took post six miles in rear of the Trabancos.