Surprise of Arroyo de Molinos. (Oct. 1811.)
While Rodrigo was being blockaded, General Hill co-operated with the Spaniards in Estremadura against General Drouet, who first joined Girard, but after various movements returned to the Morena, leaving his colleague at Caceres between the Tagus and the Guadiana. From that place Hill drove him the 26th of October, and hoping to cut him off from the bridge of Merida, moved by a cross road next day. On the march he heard Girard had halted in Arroyo de Molinos, leaving a rear-guard on the Caceres road—thus showing he knew not of the cross-road movement and looked for pursuit only from Caceres. With a rapid decision and a forced march the English general moved in the night upon Alcuesca, just one league from Arroyo, which was in a plain, and close behind it rose a rocky sierra, crescent-shaped, and about two miles wide on the chord. From Alcuesca one road led direct to Arroyo, another entered it on the left, and three led from it, the most distant of the last being the Truxillo road, which rounded the extremity of the sierra; the nearest was the Merida road, and between them was that of Medellin. The weather was very stormy and wet, but no fires were permitted in the allies’ camp, and at two o’clock in the morning of the 28th the troops moved to a low ridge half a mile from Arroyo, under cover of which they formed three bodies—the infantry on the wings, the cavalry in the centre. The left column marched straight upon the village, the right towards the extreme point of the sierra, where the Truxillo road turned the horn of the crescent, the cavalry kept the centre.
One brigade of Girard’s division had marched at four o’clock by the road of Medellin, but Dombrouski’s brigade and the cavalry of Briche were still in the place, and the horses of the rear-guard, unbridled, were tied to trees. The infantry were gathering on the Medellin road outside the village, and Girard was in a house waiting for his horse, when two British officers galloped into the street and in an instant all was confusion; hastily the cavalry bridled their horses and the infantry ran to their alarm-posts, but a tempest raged, a thick mist rolled down the craggy mountain, a terrific shout was heard amidst the clatter of the elements, and with the driving storm the 71st and 92nd Regiments came charging down. The French rear-guard of horsemen, fighting and struggling hard, were driven to the end of the village, where the infantry, forming their squares, endeavoured to cover the main body of the cavalry; but then the 71st, lining the garden walls, opened a galling fire on the nearest square, the 92nd, filing out of the streets, formed upon the French right, and the 50th Regiment, following closely, secured the prisoners.
The rest of the column, headed by the Spanish cavalry, skirted outside the houses to intercept the line of retreat, and soon the guns opened on the squares, and the 13th Dragoons captured the French artillery, while the 9th Dragoons and German Hussars dispersed their cavalry. Girard, an intrepid officer, although wounded, still kept his infantry together, retreating by the Truxillo road; but the right column of the allies was in possession of that line, the cavalry and artillery were close upon his flank, and the left column followed fast; his men fell by fifties and his situation was desperate, yet he would not surrender, and giving the word to disperse endeavoured to scale the almost inaccessible rocks of the sierra. His pursuers, not less obstinate, immediately divided. The Spaniards ascended the hills at an easier point beyond his left; the 39th Regiment and Ashworth’s Portuguese turned the mountain by the Truxillo road; the 28th and 34th, led by General Howard, followed him step by step up the rocks, taking prisoners, but finally the pursuers, heavily loaded, were beaten in speed by men who had thrown away their arms and packs. Girard, Dombrouski, and Briche, escaped into the Guadalupe mountains, and then crossing the Guadiana at Orellana, on the 9th of November rejoined Drouet with six hundred men, the remains of three thousand: they were said to be the finest troops then in Spain, and their resolution in such an appalling situation was no mean proof of their excellence.
Thirteen hundred prisoners, including General Bron and the Prince of Aremberg, all the artillery, baggage, commissariat, and a contribution just raised, were taken. The allies had seventy killed and wounded, and one officer, Lieutenant Strenowitz, was taken. He was an Austrian, and distinguished for courage and successful enterprises, but he had abandoned the French to join Julian Sanchez, and was liable to death by the laws of war. Originally forced into the French service he was, in reality, no deserter, and General Hill applied frankly in his favour to Drouet, who was so good-tempered that, while smarting under this disaster, he released his prisoner.
This exploit set all the French corps in motion to revenge it; yet on the 28th of November Hill, by a forced march, again surprised three hundred infantry and some hussars under Captain Neveux, who however lost only forty men, escaping the British cavalry, said his generous antagonist, by “the intrepid and admirable manner in which he retreated.”