CHAPTER III.
The French rested the 29th at Salinas; but, in the night, the king marched with the 4th corps and the reserve to St. Ollalla, from whence he sent a division to relieve Toledo. The 31st, he halted. The 1st of August he marched to Illescas, a central position, from whence he could interpose between Venegas and the capital. The duke of Belluno, with the first corps, remained on the Alberche, having orders to fall upon the rear-guard of the allies, when the latter should be forced to retire, in consequence of Soult’s operations. Meantime, sir Robert Wilson, who, during the action was near Cazalegas, returned to Escalona; and Victor, displaying an unaccountable dread of this small body, which he supposed to be the precursor of the allied army, immediately retired, first to Maqueda, then to Santa Cruz del Retamar, and was even proceeding to Mostoles, when a retrograde movement of the allies recalled him to the Alberche.
The British army was so weak, and had suffered so much, that the 29th and 30th were passed, by sir Arthur, in establishing his hospitals at Talavera, and in fruitless endeavours to procure provisions, and the necessary assistance to prevent the wounded men from perishing. Neither Cuesta nor the inhabitants of Talavera, although possessing ample means, would render the slightest aid, nor would they even assist to bury the dead. The corn secreted in Talavera was alone sufficient to support the army for a month; but the troops were starving, although the inhabitants, who had fled across the Tagus with their portable effects at the beginning of the battle, had now returned. It is not surprising that, in such circumstances, men should endeavour to save their property, especially provisions; yet the apathy with which they beheld the wounded men dying for want of aid, and those who were found sinking from hunger, did in no wise answer Mr. Frere’s description of them, as men who “looked upon the war in the light of a crusade, and carried it on with all the enthusiasm of such a cause.”
This conduct left an indelible impression on the minds of the English soldiers. From that period to the end of the war their contempt and dislike of the Spaniards were never effaced; and long afterwards, Badajos and St. Sebastian suffered for the churlish behaviour of the people of Talavera. The principal motive of action with the Spaniards was always personal rancour: hence, those troops who had behaved so ill in action, and the inhabitants, who withheld alike their sympathy and their aid from the English soldiers to whose bravery they owed the existence of their town, were busily engaged after the battle, in beating out the brains of the wounded French as they lay upon the field; and they were only checked by the English soldiers, who, in some instances, fired upon the perpetrators of this horrible iniquity.
Cuesta also gave proofs of his ferocious character; he, who had shown himself alike devoid of talent and real patriotism, whose indolence and ignorance of his profession had banished all order and discipline from his army, and whose stupid pride had all but caused its destruction, now assumed the Roman general, and proceeded to decimate the regiments that had fled in the panic on the 27th. Above fifty men he slew in this manner; and if his cruelty, so contrary to reason and the morals of the age, had not been mitigated by the earnest intercession of sir Arthur Wellesley, more men would have been destroyed in cold blood, by this savage old man, than had fallen in the battle.
Sir A. Wellesley’s Correspondence, Parl. Papers, 1810.
Hitherto the allied generals had thought little of the duke of Dalmatia’s movements, and their eyes were still fixed on Madrid; but, the 30th, information was received at Talavera, that twelve thousand rations had been ordered, for the 28th, at Fuente Dueña by that marshal, and twenty-four thousand at Los Santos, a town situated between Alba de Tormes and the pass of Baños. Cuesta, conscious of the defenceless state of the latter post, suggested that sir Robert Wilson should be sent there; but sir Arthur Wellesley wished Wilson to remain at Escalona, to renew his intercourse with Madrid, and proposed that a Spanish corps should go. Indeed, he still slighted the idea of danger from that quarter, and hoped that the result of the battle would suffice to check Soult’s march. Cuesta rejected this proposal at the moment, and again, on the 31st, when sir Arthur renewed his application; but, on the 1st of August, it was known that Soult had entered Bejar; and then, on the 2d, general Bassecour was detached by Cuesta to defend the Puerto de Baños, from which he was absent four long marches, while the enemy had been, on the 31st, within one march.
The day that Bassecour marched, intelligence arrived that Soult had entered Plasencia. Baños had been abandoned to the enemy without a shot; for the battalions from Bejar had dispersed, and those sent by Cuesta had been withdrawn to Almaraz by their general the marquis de la Reyna, who also proclaimed that he would destroy the boat-bridge at that place. This news roused Cuesta; he proposed that half the allied army should march to the rear, and attack Soult. Sir Arthur Wellesley refused to divide the English army, but offered to go or stay with the whole; and, when the other desired him to choose, he answered that he would go, and Cuesta appeared satisfied.
On the night of the 2d August, letters were received from Wilson, announcing the appearance of the French near Nombella, whither he, unconscious of the effect produced by his presence at Escalona, had retreated with his infantry, sending his artillery to St. Roman, near Talavera. As sir Arthur Wellesley could not suppose that sir Robert Wilson’s corps alone would cause the first corps to retire, he naturally concluded that Victor’s design was to cross the Alberche at Escalona, crush Wilson, and operate a communication with Soult by the valley of the Tietar. As such a movement, if persisted in, would necessarily dislodge Cuesta from Talavera, sir Arthur, before he commenced his march, obtained the Spanish general’s promise that he would collect cars, for the purpose of transporting as many of the English wounded as were in a condition to be moved, from Talavera, to some more suitable place. This promise, like all the others, was shamefully violated; but the British general had not yet learned the full extent of Cuesta’s bad faith, and thinking that a few days would suffice to drive back Soult, marched, on the 3d of August, with seventeen thousand men, to Oropesa, intending to unite with Bassecour’s division, and to fight Soult, whose force he estimated at fifteen thousand.
S.
Journal of Operations 2d corps, MS.
Meanwhile, Soult being, by the return of general Foy, on the 24th of July, assured of the king’s concurrence in the combined movements to be executed, ordered Laborde, Merle, and La Houssaye to march from Zamora and Toro upon Salamanca and Ledesma, and to scour the banks of the Tormes. The sixth corps was also directed upon the same place; and, the 25th, Soult repaired to Salamanca in person, intending to unite the three corps there. Hearing, however, of Victor’s retrograde movement from the Alberche to the Guadarama, he desired marshal Mortier to march, on the 28th, to Plasencia, by Fuente Roble and Bejar, and he placed La Houssaye’s and Lorge’s dragoons under his command: the remainder of the second corps and the light cavalry were to follow when the sixth corps should be in motion. This done, Soult wrote to the king, saying, “My urgent desire is that your majesty may not fight a general battle before you are certain of the concentration of all my forces near Plasencia. The most important results will be obtained if your majesty will abstain from attacking until the moment when a knowledge of my march causes the enemy to retrace his steps, which he must do, or he is lost.”
The 29th, the fifth corps was at Fuente Roble; but information being received that Beresford, with an army, had reached Almeida on the 27th, the march was covered by strong detachments on the side of Ciudad Rodrigo. The long-expected convoy of artillery and ammunition for the second corps had, however, arrived in Salamanca the 29th; and Ney wrote, from Toro, that he also would be there the 31st.
The 30th, the fifth corps drove the marquis de la Reyna from the pass of Baños, and took post at Aldea Neuva del Camina and Herbas; and the second corps, quitting Salamanca, arrived, the same day, at Siete Carrera.
The 31st, the fifth corps entered Plasencia; the second corps reached Fuente la Casa, Fuente Roble, San Estevan, and Los Santos.
Plasencia was full of convalescents, detachments, and non-combatants; and when the French arrived, about two thousand men, including five hundred of the Lusitanian legion, evacuated the town, taking the road to Moraleja and Zarza Mayor; but four hundred sick men, following the enemy’s accounts, were captured, together with a few stores. During these rapid marches, the French were daily harassed by the Spanish peasantry: the villages were also deserted; the cavalry wandered far and near to procure subsistence; and several slight skirmishes and some pillage took place.
The 1st of August, the second corps passed the Col de Baños, and the head of the column entered Plasencia, which was, like other places, deserted by the greatest part of the inhabitants. Vague reports that a battle had been fought between the 26th and 29th was the only intelligence that could be procured of the situation of the allies; and, on the 2d, the advanced guard of the army marched to the Venta de Bazagona, while scouting parties were, at the same time, directed towards Coria, to acquire news of marshal Beresford, who was now said to be moving along the Portuguese frontier.
The 3d of August, the fifth corps and the dragoons, passing the Tietar, reached Toril, the outposts were pushed to Cazatejada and Sierra de Requemada; but the second corps remained at Plasencia, awaiting the arrival of the sixth corps, the head of which was now at Baños. Hence, on the 3d of August, the king and Sebastiani being at Illescas and Valdemoro, Victor at Maqueda, Cuesta at Talavera, sir Arthur Wellesley at Oropesa, and Soult on the Tietar; the narrow valley of the Tagus was crowded in its whole length by the contending troops.
The allies held the centre, being only one day’s march asunder; but their force, when concentrated, was not more than forty-seven thousand men. The French could not unite in under three days, but their combined forces exceeded ninety thousand [Appendix, No. 1], section 4. men, of which fifty-three thousand were under Soult; and this singular situation was rendered more remarkable by the ignorance in which all parties were as to the strength and movements of their adversaries. Victor and the king, frightened by Wilson’s partizan corps of four thousand men, were preparing to unite at Mostoles, while Cuesta, equally alarmed at Victor, was retiring from Talavera. Sir Arthur Wellesley was supposed, by Joseph, to be at the head of twenty-five thousand British; and the former, calculating on Soult’s weakness, was marching, with twenty-three thousand Spanish and English, to engage fifty-three thousand French; while Soult, unable to ascertain the exact situation of either friends or enemies, little suspected that the prey was rushing into his jaws. At this moment the fate of the Peninsula hung by a thread, which could not bear the weight for twenty-four hours; yet fortune so ordained that no irreparable disaster ensued.
Plate 8.
The Battle of
TALAVERA,
at the period of the final Attack
on the 28th July 1809.
London. Published by T. & W. BOONE, July 1829.
At five o’clock in the evening of the third, it was known at the English head-quarters that the French were near Naval Moral, and, consequently, between the allies and the bridge of Almaraz.
At six o’clock, letters from Cuesta advised sir Arthur that the king was again advancing, and that, from intercepted despatches addressed to Soult, it appeared that the latter must be stronger than was supposed; hence, Cuesta said that, wishing to aid the English, he would quit Talavera that evening: in other words, abandon the British hospitals!
To this unexpected communication sir Arthur replied that the king was still some marches off, and that Venegas should be directed to occupy him on the Upper Tagus; that Soult’s strength was exceedingly overrated, and Victor’s movements not decided enough to oblige the Spanish army to quit Talavera. Hence he required that Cuesta should at least wait until the next morning, to cover the evacuation of the English hospitals. But, before this communication reached Cuesta, the latter was in full march; and, at day-break on the 4th, the Spanish army was descried moving, in several columns, down the valley towards Oropesa, where Bassecour’s division soon after joined it from Centinello, and, at the same time, the cavalry patroles found the French near Naval Moral.
Sir Arthur Wellesley having, by this time, seen the intercepted letters himself, became convinced that Soult’s force was not overrated at thirty thousand; and the duke of Dalmatia, who had also intercepted some English letters, learned that, on the first of August, the allies were still at Talavera, and ill-informed of his march. Thus, the one general perceived his danger and the other his advantage at the same moment.
Mortier was immediately ordered, by the duke of Dalmatia, to take a position with the fifth corps at Cazatejada, to seize the boat-bridge at Almaraz, if it was not destroyed, and to patrole towards Arzobispo. The second corps was, likewise, directed upon the same place; and the head of the sixth entered Plasencia. The further progress of the allies was thus barred in front; the Tagus was on their left; impassable mountains on their right; and it was certain that Cuesta’s retreat would immediately bring the king and Victor down upon their rear. The peril of this situation was apparent to every soldier in the British ranks, and produced a general inquietude. No man felt the slightest confidence in the Spaniards, and the recollection of the stern conflict at Talavera, aided by a sense of exhaustion from long abstinence, depressed the spirits of men and officers. The army was, indeed, ready to fight, but all persons felt that it must be for safety, not for glory.
In this trying moment, sir Arthur Wellesley abated nothing of his usual calmness and fortitude. He knew not the full extent of the danger; but, assuming the enemy in his front to be thirty thousand men, and Victor to have twenty-five thousand others in his rear, he judged that to continue the offensive would be rash, because he must fight and beat those two marshals separately within three days, which, with starving and tired troops, inferior in number, was scarcely to be accomplished. But, to remain where he was on the defensive was equally unpromising, because the road from Talavera to Arzobispo led through Calera, in the rear of Oropesa; and thus Victor could intercept the only line of retreat, and a battle must then be fought, in an unfavourable position, against the united forces of the enemy, estimated, as we have seen, to be above fifty thousand men. One resource remained: to pass the bridge of Arzobispo immediately, and take up a line of defence behind that river, before the French could seize the Col de Mirabete, and so cut off the road to Truxillo and Merida—a hard alternative; but the long-cherished error relative to Soult’s weakness had dried up the springs of success, and left the campaign, like a withered stem, without fruit or foliage.
Cuesta doggedly opposed this project; asserting that Oropesa was a position suitable for a battle, and that he would fight there. Further concession to his humours would have been folly, and sir Arthur sternly declared that he would move forthwith, leaving the Spanish general to do that which should seem meet to him; and, assuredly, this decided conduct saved the Peninsula, for not fifty, but ninety thousand enemies were at hand.
It was now six o’clock in the morning, the baggage and ammunition were already in motion for the bridge of Arzobispo; but the army, which had been reinforced by a troop of horse-artillery, and some convalescents that escaped from Plasencia, remained in position for several hours, to cover the passage of the stores and the wounded men from Talavera; the latter having just arrived at Calera in the most pitiable condition. About noon, the road being clear, the columns marched to the bridge; and, at two o’clock, the whole army was in position at the other side, the present danger was averted, and the combinations of the enemy were baffled. During the passage, several herds of swine, which, following the custom of the country, were feeding in the woods, under charge of the swineherds, were fallen in with; and the soldiers, instigated by hunger, broke their ranks, and ran in upon the animals as in a charge, shooting, stabbing, and, like men possessed, cutting off the flesh while the beasts were yet alive; nor can this conduct be much censured under the circumstances of the moment; yet it was a severe misfortune to the poor peasants, whose property was thus destroyed.
From Arzobispo, the army moved towards Deleytoza; but general Craufurd’s brigade, with six pieces of artillery, was directed to gain the bridge of Almaraz by a forced march, lest the enemy, discovering the ford below that place, should cross the river, and seize the Puerto de Mirabete. The roads were exceedingly rugged, and the guns could only be dragged up the Meza d’Ibor by the force of men. Nevertheless, Craufurd reached his destination on the evening of the 5th, and the head-quarters were established at Deleytoza, on the 7th, the artillery being at Campillo, the rear guard occupying the Meza d’Ibor. The sick and wounded were then forwarded to Merida; but the paucity of transport was such, that sir Arthur Wellesley was obliged to unload both ammunition and treasure carts for the conveyance of these unfortunate men. Meanwhile Soult, little thinking that his object was already frustrated, continued his march on the 5th, and Mortier took post at Naval Moral; the advanced guard entered Puebla de Naciada, and the patroles, scouring the roads to Oropesa and the bridge of Arzobispo, fell in with and were chased by the Spanish cavalry from Arzobispo; for Cuesta would not retire on the 4th, and was in the act of passing the bridge when the French came in view. The movements were now hurried on both sides; before dark, the Spanish army was across the Tagus, with the exception of a rear guard, which remained on the right bank that evening, but it was driven across the river, on the morning of the 6th, by the fifth corps, which afterwards took post at Valdeveja and Puebla de Naciada. Ney also reached Naval Moral, and the second corps entered Gordo.
The 7th, Mortier examined the Spanish position, and reported that Cuesta, having thrown up entrenchments, and placed twenty guns in battery, to rake the bridge, which was also barricadoed, had left two divisions of infantry and one of cavalry to hold the post, and withdrawn the rest of his army towards Meza d’Ibor. Hereupon, Soult detached his light cavalry towards Talavera, to communicate with the king, and brought up the second corps to Arzobispo. Meanwhile, the duke of Belluno having, on the 5th, ascertained the retreat of the allies from Talavera, retraced his steps, and entered that town on the 6th. Thus the English wounded, left there, fell into his hands, and their treatment was such as might be expected from a gallant and courteous nation, for, between the British soldiers and the French, there was no rancour, and the generous usages of a civilized and honourable warfare were cherished.
The 7th, Victor crossed the Tagus, at the bridge of Talavera, and pushed his advanced guard to Aldea Nueva de Balbaroya, on the left bank, within a few leagues of the Spanish position, which Soult was preparing to attack in front, for he had observed that, at a certain point, the Spanish horses, when brought to drink, came far into the stream, and, the place being sounded in the night of the 7th, a deep but practicable ford was discovered, about half a mile above the bridge.
The fifth and second corps and a division of the sixth were concentrated to force this passage, early on the morning of the 8th; but Soult being just then informed of Victor’s movement, and perceiving that Albuquerque had withdrawn the Spanish cavalry, leaving only a rear guard in the works, judged that the allies were retreating; wherefore, without relinquishing the attack at Arzobispo, he immediately sent the division of the sixth corps back to Naval Moral, and, at the same time, transmitted a plan of the ford below Almaraz, directed Ney to cross the Tagus there, seize the Puerto de Mirabete, and be in readiness to fall upon the allies, as they came out from the defiles between Deleytoza and Truxillo.
Meanwhile, the heat of the day had induced Albuquerque to seek shelter for his horsemen in a wood, near Azutan, a village about five miles from the bridge; and the Spanish infantry, keeping a bad guard, were sleeping or loitering about without care or thought, when Mortier, who was charged with the direction of the attack, taking advantage of their want of vigilance, commenced the passage of the river.
COMBAT OF ARZOBISPO.
The French cavalry, about six thousand in number, were secretly assembled near the ford, and, about two o’clock in the day, general Caulaincourt’s brigade suddenly entered the stream. The Spaniards, running to their arms, manned the batteries, and opened upon the leading squadrons; but Mortier, with a powerful concentric fire of artillery, immediately overwhelmed the Spanish gunners; and Caulaincourt, having reached the other side of the river, turned to his right, and, taking the batteries in reverse, cut down the artillerymen, and dispersed the infantry who attempted to form. The duke of Albuquerque, who had mounted at the first alarm, now came down with all his horsemen in one mass, but without order, upon Caulaincourt, and the latter was, for a few moments, in imminent danger; but the rest of the French cavalry, passing rapidly, soon joined in the combat; one brigade of infantry followed at the ford, another burst the barriers on the bridge itself, and, by this time, the Spanish foot were flying to the mountains. Albuquerque’s effort was thus frustrated, a general route ensued, and five guns and about four hundred prisoners were taken.
Soult’s intention being to follow up this success, he directed that the first corps should move, in two columns, upon Guadalupe and Deleytoza, intending to support it with the second and fifth, while the sixth corps crossed at Almaraz, and seized the pass of Mirabete. This would undoubtedly have completed the ruin of the Spanish army, and forced sir Arthur to make a rapid and disastrous retreat; for so complete was the surprise and so sudden the overthrow that some of the English foragers also fell into the hands of the enemy; and that Cuesta’s army was in no condition to have made any resistance, if the pursuit had been continued with vigour, is clear, from the following facts:—
1º. When he withdrew his main body from the bridge of Arzobispo to Peralada de Garbin, on the 7th, he left fifteen pieces of artillery by the road-side, without a guard. The defeat of Albuquerque placed these guns at the mercy of the enemy, who were, however, ignorant of their situation, until a trumpeter attending an English flag of truce, either treacherously or foolishly, mentioned it in the French camp, from whence a detachment of cavalry was sent to fetch them off. 2º. The British military agent, placed at the Spanish head-quarters, was kept in ignorance of the action; and it was only by the arrival of the duke of Albuquerque, at Deleytoza, on the evening of the 9th, that sir Arthur Wellesley knew the bridge was lost. He had before advised Cuesta to withdraw behind the Ibor river, and even now contemplated a partial attack to keep the enemy in check; but when he repaired in person to that general’s quarter, on the 10th, he found the country covered with fugitives and stragglers, and Cuesta as helpless and yet as haughty as ever. All his ammunition and guns (forty pieces) were at the right bank of the Ibor, and, of course, at the foot of the Meza, and within sight and cannon-shot of the enemy, on the right bank of the Tagus. They would have been taken by the first French patroles that approached, but that sir Arthur Wellesley persuaded the Spanish staff-officers to have them dragged up the hill, in the course of the 10th, without Cuesta’s knowledge.
In this state of affairs, the impending fate of the Peninsula was again averted by the king, who recalled the first corps to the support of the fourth, then opposed to Venegas. Marshal Ney, also, was unable to discover the ford below the bridge of Almaraz; and, by the 11th, the allies had re-established their line of defence. The head-quarters of the British were at Jaraicejo, and those of the Spaniards at Deleytoza: the former, guarding the ford of Almaraz, formed the left; the latter, occupying the Meza d’Ibor and Campillo, were on the right. The 12th, Cuesta having resigned, general Equia succeeded to the command, and gave hopes of a better co-operation; but the evil was in the character of the people. The position of the allies was, however, compact and central; the reserves could easily support the advanced posts; the communication to the rear was open; and, if defended with courage, the Meza d’Ibor is impregnable. To pass the Tagus at Almaraz, in itself a difficult operation, would be of no avail to the enemy, while the Mirabete and Meza d’Ibor were occupied, because his troops would be enclosed in the narrow space between those ridges and the river.
The duke of Dalmatia, thus thwarted, conceived that sir Arthur Wellesley would endeavour to re-pass the Tagus by Alcantara, and so rejoin Beresford and the five thousand British troops under Catlin Craufurd and Lightburn, which were, by this time, near the frontier of Portugal. To prevent this he resolved to march at once upon Coria, with the second, fifth, and sixth corps, to menace the communications both of sir Arthur and Beresford with Lisbon, and, at the same time, prepare for the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo; but marshal Ney absolutely refused to concur in this operation: he observed that sir Arthur Wellesley was not yet in march for Alcantara; that it was exceedingly dangerous to invade Portugal in a hasty manner; and that the army could not be fed between Coria, Plasencia, and the Tagus; finally, that Salamanca, being again in possession of the Spaniards, it was more fitting that the sixth corps should retake that town, and occupy the line of the Tormes to cover Castile.
This reasoning was approved by Joseph; he dreaded the further fatigue and privations that would attend a continuance of the operations during the excessive heats, and in a wasted country; and he was strengthened in his opinion by the receipt of a despatch from the emperor, dated Schoenbrun, the 29th of July, in which any further offensive operations were forbad, until the reinforcements which the recent victory of Wagram enabled him to send should arrive in Spain. The second corps was, consequently, directed to take post at Plasencia. The fifth corps relieved the first at Talavera; and the English wounded being, by Victor, given over to marshal Mortier, the latter, with a chivalrous sense of honour, would not permit his own soldiers, although suffering severe privations themselves, to receive rations until the hospitals were first supplied. The sixth corps was now directed upon Valladolid, for Joseph was alarmed lest fresh insurrection, excited and supported by the duke del Parque, should spread over the whole of Leon and Castile. Ney marched, on the 11th, from Plasencia; but, to his surprise, found that sir Robert Wilson, with about four thousand men, part Spaniards, part Portuguese, was in possession of the pass of Baños. To explain this, it must be observed, that when the British army marched from Talavera, on the 3d, Wilson, being at Nombella, was put in communication with Cuesta. He had sent his artillery to the army on the 3d, and on the 4th, finding that the Spaniards had abandoned Talavera, he fell back with his infantry to Vellada, a few miles north of Talavera. He was then twenty-four miles from Arzobispo; and, as Cuesta did not quit Oropesa until the 5th, a junction with sir Arthur Wellesley might have been effected: but it was impossible to know this at the time; and Wilson, very prudently, crossing the Tietar, made for the mountains, trusting to his activity and local knowledge to escape the enemy. Villatte’s division pursued him, on the 5th, to Nombella; a detachment from the garrison of Avila was watching for him in the passes of Arenas and Monbeltran, and general Foy waited for him in the Vera de Plasencia. Nevertheless, he baffled his opponents, broke through their circle at Viandar, passed the Gredos at a ridge called the Sierra de Lanes, and, getting into the valley of the Tormes, reached Bejar: from thence, thinking to recover his communications with the army, he marched towards Plasencia, by the pass of Baños, and thus, on the morning of the 12th, met with Ney, returning to the Salamanca country.
The dust of the French column being seen from afar, and a retreat to Ciudad Rodrigo open, it is not easy to comprehend why sir Robert Wilson should have given battle to the sixth corps. His position, although difficult of approach, and strengthened by the piling of large stones in the narrowest parts, was not one in which he could hope to stop a whole army; and, accordingly, when the French, overcoming the local obstacles, got close upon his left, the fight was at an end. The first charge broke both the legion and the Spanish auxiliaries, and the whole dispersed. Ney then continued his march, and, having recovered the line of the Tormes, resigned the command of the sixth corps to general Marchand, and returned to France. But, while these things happened in Estremadura, La Mancha was the theatre of more important operations.