CHAPTER VI.
When Marmont had thus recovered the garrison of Almeida, he withdrew the greatest part of his army towards Salamanca. Lord Wellington then leaving the first, fifth, sixth, and light divisions, under general Spencer, on the Azava, directed the third and seventh divisions and the second German hussars upon Badajos: and on the 15th, hearing that Soult, although hitherto reported, by Beresford, to Appendix, [No. II.] Section 11.be entirely on the defensive, was actually marching into Estremadura, he set out himself for that province; but, ere he could arrive, a great and bloody battle had terminated the operations.
While awaiting the Spanish generals accession to lord Wellington’s plan, Beresford fixed his head-quarters at Almendralejos; but Latour Maubourg remained at Guadalcanal, and his parties were foraging the most fertile tracts between the armies. Penne Villamur was, therefore, reinforced with five squadrons; and colonel John Colborne was detached with a brigade of the second division, two Spanish guns, and two squadrons of cavalry, to curb the French inroads, and to raise the confidence of the people. Colborne, a man of singular talent for war, by rapid marches and sudden changes of direction, in concert with Villamur, created great confusion amongst the enemy’s parties. He intercepted several convoys, and obliged the French troops to quit Fuente Ovejuna, La Granja, Azuaga, and most of the other frontier towns, and he imposed upon Latour Maubourg with so much address, that the latter, imagining a great force was at hand, abandoned Guadalcanal also and fell back to Constantino.
Having cleared the country on that side, Colborne attempted to surprise the fortified post of Benelcazar, and, by a hardy attempt, was like to have carried it; for, riding on to the drawbridge with a few officers in the grey of the morning, he summoned the commandant to surrender, as the only means of saving himself from the Spanish army which was close at hand and would give no quarter. The French officer, amazed at the appearance of the party, was yet too resolute to yield, and Colborne, quick to perceive the attempt had failed, galloped off under a few straggling shot. After this, taking to the mountains, he rejoined the army without any loss.
During his absence, the Spanish generals acceded to lord Wellington’s proposition; Blake was in march for Xeres Caballeros, and Ballasteros was at Burgillos. The waters of the Guadiana had also subsided, the bridge under Jerumenha was restored, and the preparations completed for the
FIRST ENGLISH SIEGE OF BADAJOS.
The 5th of May, general William Stewart invested this place, on the left bank of the Guadiana, with two squadrons of horse, six field-pieces, and three brigades of infantry, while the formation of the depôt of the siege was commenced by the engineers and artillery.
On the 7th the remainder of the infantry, reinforced by two thousand Spaniards under Carlos d’España, encamped in the woods near the fortress; but Madden’s Portuguese remained in observation near Merida, and a troop of horse-artillery arriving from Lisbon was attached to the English cavalry, which was still near Los Santos and Zafra. The flying bridge was at first brought up from Jerumenha, and re-established near the mouth of the Caya; it was however again drawn over, because the right bank of the Guadiana being still open, some French horse had come down the river.
The 8th general Lumley invested Christoval on the right bank, with a brigade of the fourth division, four light Spanish guns, the seventeenth Portuguese infantry, and two squadrons of horse drafted from the garrison of Elvas; nevertheless the troops did not arrive simultaneously, and sixty French dragoons, moving under the fire of the place, disputed the ground, and were only repulsed, after a sharp skirmish, by the Portuguese infantry.
Thus the first serious siege undertaken by the British army in the Peninsula was commenced, and, to the discredit of the English government, no army was ever so ill provided with the means of prosecuting such enterprises. The engineer officers were exceedingly zealous, and, notwithstanding some defects in the constitution and customs of their corps tending rather to make regimental than practical scientific officers, many of them were very well versed in the theory of their business. But the ablest trembled when reflecting on their utter destitution of all that belonged to real service. Without a corps of sappers and miners, without a single private who knew how to carry on an approach under fire, they were compelled to attack fortresses defended by the most warlike, practised, and scientific troops of the age: the best officers and the finest soldiers were obliged to sacrifice themselves in a lamentable manner, to compensate for the negligence and incapacity of a government, always ready to plunge the nation into war, without the slightest care of what was necessary to obtain success. The sieges carried on by the British in Spain were a succession of butcheries, because the commonest resources of their art were denied to the engineers.
Colonel Fletcher’s plan was to breach the castle of Badajos, while batteries established on the right bank of the Guadiana should take the defences in reverse; false attacks against the Pardaleras and Picurina were also to be commenced by re-opening the French trenches; but it was necessary to reduce the fort of Christoval ere the batteries for ruining the defences of the castle could be erected.
In double operations, whether of the field or of siege, it is essential to move with an exact concert, lest the enemy should crush each in detail, yet neither in the investment nor in the attack was this maxim regarded. Captain Squires, although ill provided with tools, was directed to commence a battery against Christoval on the night of the 8th, under a bright moon, and at the distance of only four Appendix, [No. X.] Section 3.hundred yards from the rampart. Exposed to a destructive fire of musketry from the fort, and of shot and shells from the town, he continued to work, with great loss, until the 10th, when the enemy, making a furious sally, carried his battery. The French were, indeed, immediately driven back, but the allies pursuing too hotly, were taken in front and flank with grape, and lost four hundred men. Thus five engineer and seven hundred officers and soldiers of the line were already on the long and bloody list of victims offered to this Moloch; and only one small battery against a small outwork was completed! On the 11th it opened, but before sunset the fire of the enemy had disabled four of its five guns, and killed many more of the besiegers; nor could any other result be expected, seeing that this single work was exposed to the undivided fire of the fortress, for the approaches against the castle were not yet commenced, and two distant batteries on the false attacks scarcely attracted the notice of the enemy.
To check future sallies, a second battery was erected against the bridge-head, but this was also overmatched, and meanwhile Beresford, having received intelligence that the French army was again in movement, arrested the progress of all the works. On the 12th, believing this information premature, he resumed the labour, directing the trenches to be opened against the castle: the intelligence was, however, true, and being confirmed at twelve o’clock in the night, the working-parties were again drawn off, and measures taken to raise the siege.
SOULT’S SECOND EXPEDITION TO ESTREMADURA.
The duke of Dalmatia resolved to succour Badajos the moment he heard of Beresford’s being in Estremadura; the tardiness of the latter not only gave the garrison time to organize a defence, but permitted the French general to tranquillise his province and arrange a system of resistance to the allied army in the Isla. With that view, he commenced additional fortifications at Seville, renewing Appendix, [No. II.] Section 11.also the construction of those which had been suspended in other places by the battle of Barosa, and thus deceived Beresford, who believed that, far from thinking to relieve Badajos, he was trembling for his own province. Nothing could be more fallacious. There were seventy thousand fighting men in Andalusia, and Drouet, who had quitted Massena immediately after the battle of Fuentes Onoro, was likewise in march for that province by the way of Avila and Toledo, bringing with him eleven thousand men.
All things being ready, Soult quitted Seville the 10th, with thirty guns, three thousand heavy dragoons, and a division of infantry, reinforced by a battalion of grenadiers belonging to the first corps, and by two regiments of light cavalry belonging to the fourth corps. The 11th he entered Olalla, where general Marasin joined him, and at the same time a brigade of Godinot’s division marched from Cordoba upon Constantino, to reinforce the fifth corps, which was falling back from Guadalcanal in consequence of Colborne’s operations. The 13th a junction was effected with Latour Maubourg, who assumed the command of the heavy cavalry, while Girard taking that of the fifth corps, advanced to Los Santos. The 14th the French head-quarters reached Villa Franca. Being then within thirty miles of Badajos, Soult caused his heaviest guns to fire salvos during the night, to give notice of his approach to the garrison; but the expedient failed of success, and the 15th, in the evening, the army was concentrated at Santa Marta.
Beresford, as I have before said, remained in a state of uncertainty until the night of the 12th, when he commenced raising the siege, contrary to the earnest representations of the engineers, who promised to put him in possession of the place in three days, if he would persevere. This promise was ill-founded, and, if it had been otherwise, Soult would have surprised him in the trenches: his firmness, therefore, saved the army, and his arrangements for carrying off the stores were admirably executed. The artillery and the platforms were removed in the night of the 13th, and, at twelve o’clock, on the 15th, all the guns and stores on the left bank, having been passed over the Guadiana, the gabions and fascines were burnt, and the flying bridge removed. These transactions were completely masked by the fourth division, which, with the Spaniards, continued to maintain the investment; it was not until the rear guard was ready to draw off, that the French, in a sally, after severely handling the piquets of Harvey’s Portuguese brigade, learned that the siege was raised. But of the cause they were still ignorant.
Beresford held a conference with the Spanish generals at Valverde, on the 13th, when it was agreed to receive battle at the village of Albuera. Ballasteros’ and Blake’s corps having already formed a junction at Baracotta, were then falling back upon Almendral, and Blake engaged to bring them into line at Albuera, before twelve o’clock, on the 15th. Meanwhile, as Badajos was the centre of an arc, sweeping through Valverde, Albuera, and Talavera Real, it was arranged that Blake’s army should watch the roads on the right; the British and the fifth Spanish army guard those leading upon the centre; and that Madden’s Portuguese cavalry should observe those on the left, conducting through Talavera Real. The main body of the British being in the woods near Valverde, could reach Albuera by a half march, and no part of the arc was more than four leagues from Badajos; but the enemy being, on the 14th, at Los Santos, was eight leagues distant from Albuera: hence, Beresford, thinking that he could not be forestalled on any point of importance to the allies, continued to keep the fourth division round the fortress. Colborne’s moveable column joined the army on the 14th, Madden then retired to Talavera Real, Blake’s army reached Almendral, and the allied cavalry, under general Long, fell back before the enemy from Zafra and Los Santos, to Santa Marta, where it was joined by the dragoons of the fourth army.
In the morning of the 15th, the British occupied the left of the position of Albuera, which was a ridge about four miles long, having the Aroya Val de Sevilla in rear and the Albuera river in front. The right of the army was prolonged towards Almendral, the left towards Badajos, and the ascent from the river was easy, the ground being in all parts practicable for cavalry and artillery. Somewhat in advance of the centre were the bridge and village of Albuera, the former commanded by a battery, the latter occupied by Alten’s brigade. The second division, under general William Stewart, was drawn up in one line, the right on a commanding hill over which the Valverde road passed; the left on the road of Badajos, beyond which the order of battle was continued in two lines, by the Portuguese troops under general Hamilton and colonel Collins.
The right of the position, which was stronger, and higher, and broader than any other part, was left open for Blake’s army, because Beresford, thinking the hill on the Valverde road to be the key of the position, as protecting his only line of retreat, was desirous to secure it with the best troops. The fourth division and the infantry of the fifth army were still before Badajos, but general Cole had orders to send the seventeenth Portuguese regiment to Elvas; to throw a battalion of Spaniards into Olivenza; to bring his second brigade, which was before Christoval, over the Guadiana, by a ford above Badajos, if practicable, and to be in readiness to march at the first notice.
In this posture of affairs, about three o’clock in the evening of the 15th, while Beresford was at some distance on the left, the whole mass of the allied cavalry, closely followed by the French light horsemen, came in from Santa Marta in a hurried manner, and passing the Albuera abandoned all the wooded heights in front to the enemy, whose dispositions being thus effectually concealed at the distance of cannon-shot, the strength of the position was already sapped. Beresford immediately formed a temporary right wing with the cavalry and artillery, stretching his piquets along the road to Almendral, and sending officers to hasten Blake’s movements; but that general, who had only a few miles of good road to march, and who had promised to be in line at noon, did not reach the ground before eleven at night; and his rear was not there before three o’clock in the morning of the 16th; meanwhile, as the enemy was evidently in force on the Albuera road, Cole and Madden were ordered up. The orders failed to reach the latter, but, at six o’clock in the morning, the former reached the position with the infantry of the fifth army, two squadrons of Portuguese cavalry, and two brigades of the fourth division; the third brigade, under colonel Kemmis, being unable to cross the Guadiana, above Badajos, was in march by Jerumenha. The Spanish troops immediately joined Blake on the right, and the two brigades of the fourth division, were drawn up in columns behind the second division. The Portuguese squadrons reinforced colonel Otway, whose horsemen, of the same nation, were pushed forward in front of the left wing; and, as general Long seemed oppressed by the responsibility of directing the troops of so many different nations, general Lumley assumed the chief command of the allied squadrons, which were concentrated in rear of the centre.
The position was now occupied by thirty thousand infantry, above two thousand cavalry, and thirty-eight pieces of artillery, of which eighteen were nine-pounders; but, the brigade of the fourth division being still absent, the British infantry, the pith and strength of battle, did not amount to seven thousand, and already Blake’s arrogance was shaking Beresford’s authority. The French had fifty guns, and above four thousand veteran cavalry, but only nineteen thousand chosen infantry; yet being of one nation, obedient to one discipline, and animated by one spirit, their excellent composition amply compensated for the inferiority of numbers, and their general’s talent was immeasurably greater than his adversary’s.
Soult examined Beresford’s position, without hindrance, on the evening of the 15th, and having heard that the fourth division was left before Badajos, and that Blake would not arrive before the 17th, he resolved to attack the next morning, for he had detected all the weakness of the English general’s dispositions for battle.
The hill in the centre, commanding the Valverde road, was undoubtedly the key of the position if an attack was made parallel to the front; but the heights on the right presented a sort of table-land, trending backwards towards the Valverde road, and looking into the rear of the line of battle. Hence it was evident that, if a mass of troops could be placed there, they must be beaten, or the right wing of the allied army would be rolled up on the centre and pushed into the narrow ravine of the Aroya: the Valverde road could then be seized, the retreat cut, and the powerful cavalry of the French would complete the victory. Now the right of the allies and the left of the French approximated to each other, being only divided by a wooded hill, about cannon-shot distance from either but separated from the allies by the Albuera, and from the French by a rivulet called the Feria. This height, neglected by Beresford, was ably made use of by Soult. During the night he placed behind it the artillery under general Ruty; the fifth corps under Girard; and the heavy dragoons under Latour Maubourg; thus concentrating fifteen thousand men and forty guns within ten minutes’ march of Beresford’s right wing, and yet that general could neither see a man nor draw a sound conclusion as to the real plan of attack.
The light cavalry; the division of the first corps under general Werlé; Godinot’s brigade, and ten guns, still remained at the French marshal’s disposal. These he formed in the woods, extending along the banks of the Feria towards its confluence with the Albuera, and Godinot was ordered to attack the village and bridge, and to bear strongly against the centre of the position, with a view to attract Beresford’s attention, to separate his wings, and to double up his right at the moment when the principal attack should be developed.
BATTLE OF ALBUERA.
During the night, Blake and Cole, as we have seen, arrived with above sixteen thousand men; but so defective was the occupation of the ground, that Soult had no change to make in his plans from this circumstance, and, a little before nine o’clock in the morning, Godinot’s division issued from the woods in one heavy column of attack, preceded by ten guns. He was flanked by the light cavalry, and followed by Werlé’s division of reserve, and, making straight towards the bridge, commenced a sharp cannonade, attempting to force the passage; at the same time Briché, with two regiments of hussars, drew further down the river to observe colonel Otway’s horse.
The allies’ guns on the rising ground above the village answered the fire of the French, and ploughed through their columns, which were crowding without judgement towards the bridge, although the stream was passable above and below. But Beresford observing that Werlé’s division did not follow closely, was soon convinced that the principal effort would be on the right, and, therefore, sent Blake orders to form a part of the first and all the second line of the Spanish army, on the broad part of the hills, at right angles to their actual front. Then drawing the Portuguese infantry of the left wing to the centre, he sent one brigade down to support Alten, and directed general Hamilton to hold the remainder in columns of battalions, ready to move to any part of the field. The thirteenth dragoons were posted near the edge of the river, above the bridge, and, meanwhile, the second division marched to support Blake. The horse-artillery, the heavy dragoons, and the fourth division also took ground to the right, and were posted; the cavalry and guns on a small plain behind the Aroya, and the fourth division in an oblique line about half-musket shot behind them. This done, Beresford galloped to Blake, for that general had refused to change his front and, with great heat, told colonel Hardinge, the bearer of the order, that the real attack was at the village and bridge. Beresford had sent again to entreat that he would obey, but this message was as fruitless as the former, and, when the marshal arrived, nothing had been done. The enemy’s columns were, however, now beginning to appear on the right, and Blake, yielding to this evidence, proceeded to make the evolution, yet with such pedantic slowness, that Beresford, impatient of his folly, took the direction in person.
Great was the confusion and the delay thus occasioned, and ere the troops could be put in order the French were amongst them. For scarcely had Godinot engaged Alten’s brigade, when Werlé, leaving only a battalion of grenadiers and some squadrons to watch the thirteenth dragoons and to connect the attacks, countermarched with the remainder of his division, and rapidly gained the rear of the fifth corps as it was mounting the hills on the right of the allies. At the same time the mass of light cavalry suddenly quitted Godinot’s column, and crossing the river Albuera above the bridge, ascended the left bank at a gallop, and, sweeping round the rear of the fifth corps, joined Latour Maubourg, who was already in face of Lumley’s squadrons. Thus half an hour had sufficed to render Beresford’s position nearly desperate. Two-thirds of the French were in a compact order of battle on a line perpendicular to his right, and his army, disordered and composed of different nations, was still in the difficult act of changing its front. It was in vain that he endeavoured to form the Spanish line sufficiently in advance to give room for the second division to support it; the French guns opened, their infantry threw out a heavy musketry, and their cavalry, outflanking the front and charging here and there, put the Spaniards in disorder at all points; in a short time the latter gave way, and Soult, thinking the whole army was yielding, pushed forward his columns, while his reserves also mounted the hill, and general Ruty placed all the batteries in position.
At this critical moment general William Stewart arrived at the foot of the height with colonel Colborne’s brigade, which formed the head of the second division. The colonel, seeing the confusion above, desired to form in order of battle previous to mounting the ascent, but Stewart, whose boiling courage overlaid his judgement, led up without any delay in column of companies, and attempted to open out his line in succession as the battalions arrived at the summit. Being under a destructive fire the foremost charged to gain room, but a heavy rain prevented any object from being distinctly seen, and four regiments of hussars and lancers, which had passed the right flank in the obscurity, came galloping in upon the rear of the line at the instant of its developement, and slew or took two-thirds of the brigade. One battalion only (the thirty-first) being still in column, escaped the storm and maintained its ground, while the French horsemen, riding violently over every thing else, penetrated to all parts. In the tumult, a lancer fell upon Beresford, but the marshal, a man of great strength, putting his spear aside cast him from his saddle, and a shift of wind blowing aside the mist and smoke, the mischief was perceived from the plains by general Lumley, who sent four squadrons out upon the lancers and cut many of them off.
During this first unhappy effort of the second division, so great was the confusion, that the Spanish line continued to fire without cessation, although the British were before them; whereupon Beresford, finding his exhortations to advance fruitless, seized an ensign and bore him and his colours, by main force, to the front, yet the troops would not follow, and the man went back again on being released. In this crisis, the weather, which had ruined Colborne’s brigade, also prevented Soult from seeing the whole extent of the field of battle, and he still kept his heavy columns together. His cavalry, indeed, began to hem in that of the allies, but the fire of the horse-artillery enabled Lumley, covered as he was by the bed of the Aroya and supported by the fourth division, to check them on the plain, while Colborne still maintained the heights with the thirty-first regiment; the British artillery, under major Dickson, was likewise coming fast into action, and William Stewart, who had escaped the charge of the lancers, was again mounting the hill with general Houghton’s brigade, which he brought on with the same vehemence, but, instructed by his previous misfortune, in a juster order of battle. The weather now cleared, and a dreadful fire poured into the thickest of the French columns convinced Soult that the day was yet to be won.
Houghton’s regiments soon got footing on the summit, Dickson placed the artillery in line, the remaining brigade of the second division came up on the left, and two Spanish corps at last moved forward. The enemy’s infantry then recoiled, yet soon recovering, renewed the fight with greater violence than before; the cannon on both sides discharged showers of grape at half range, and the peals of musketry were incessant and often within pistol shot; but the close formation of the French embarrassed their battle, and the British line would not yield them one inch of ground nor a moment of time to open their ranks. Their fighting was, however, fierce and dangerous. Stewart was twice hurt, colonel Duckworth, of the forty-eighth, was slain, and the gallant Houghton, who had received many wounds without shrinking, fell and died in the act of cheering his men. Still the struggle continued with unabated fury. Colonel Inglis, twenty-two other officers, and more than four hundred men out of five hundred and seventy that had mounted the hill, fell in the fifty-seventh alone, and the other regiments were scarcely better off, not one-third were standing in any. Ammunition failed, and, as the English fire slackened, the enemy established a column in advance upon the right flank; the play of Dickson’s artillery checked them a moment, but again the Polish lancers charging, captured six guns. And in this desperate crisis, Beresford, who had already withdrawn the thirteenth dragoons from the banks of the river and brought Hamilton’s Portuguese into a situation to cover a retrograde movement, wavered! destruction stared him in the face, his personal resources were exhausted, and the unhappy thought of a retreat rose in his agitated mind. Yet no order to that effect was given, and it was urged by some about him that the day might still be redeemed with the fourth division. While he hesitated, colonel Hardinge boldly ordered general Cole to advance, and then riding to colonel Abercrombie, who commanded the remaining brigade of the second division, directed him also to push forward into the fight. The die being thus cast, Beresford acquiesced, and this terrible battle was continued.
The fourth division had only two brigades in the field; the one Portuguese under general Harvey, the other commanded by sir W. Myers and composed of the seventh and twenty-third British regiments, was called the fuzileer brigade. General Cole directed the Portuguese to move between Lumley’s dragoons and the hill, where they were immediately charged by some of the French horsemen, but beat them off with great loss: meanwhile he led the fuzileers in person up the height.
At this time six guns were in the enemy’s possession, the whole of Werlé’s reserves were coming forward to reinforce the front column of the French, and the remnant of Houghton’s brigade could no longer maintain its ground; the field was heaped with carcasses, the lancers were riding furiously about the captured artillery on the upper part of the hill, and on the lower slopes, a Spanish and an English regiment in mutual error were exchanging volleys: behind all, general Hamilton’s Portuguese, in withdrawing from the heights above the bridge, appeared to be in retreat. The conduct of a few brave men soon changed this state of affairs. Colonel Robert Arbuthnot, pushing between the double fire of the mistaken troops, arrested that mischief, while Cole, with the fuzileers, flanked by a battalion of the Lusitanian legion under colonel Hawkshawe, mounted the hill, dispersed the lancers, recovered the captured guns, and appeared on the right of Houghton’s brigade exactly as Abercrombie passed it on the left.
Vol. 3, Plate 12.
BATTLE of ALBUERA
16TH MAY, 1811.
London Published by T. & W. Boone Novr 1830.
Such a gallant line, issuing from the midst of the smoke and rapidly separating itself from the confused and broken multitude, startled the enemy’s heavy masses, which were increasing and pressing onwards as to an assured victory: they wavered, hesitated, and then vomiting forth a storm of fire, hastily endeavoured to enlarge their front, while a fearful discharge of grape from all their artillery whistled through the British ranks. Myers was killed; Cole and the three colonels, Ellis, Blakeney, and Hawkshawe, fell wounded, and the fuzileer battalions, struck by the iron tempest, reeled, and staggered like sinking ships. Suddenly and sternly recovering, they closed on their terrible enemies, and then was seen with what a strength and majesty the British soldier fights. In vain did Soult, by voice and gesture, animate his Frenchmen; in vain did the hardiest veterans, extricating themselves from the crowded columns, sacrifice their lives to gain time for the mass to open out on such a fair field; in vain did the mass itself bear up, and fiercely striving, fire indiscriminately upon friends and foes, while the horsemen hovering on the flank threatened to charge the advancing line. Nothing could stop that astonishing infantry. No sudden burst of undisciplined valour, no nervous enthusiasm, weakened the stability of their order; their flashing eyes were bent on the dark columns in their front; their measured tread shook the ground; their dreadful volleys swept away the head of every formation; their deafening shouts overpowered the dissonant cries that broke from all parts of the tumultuous crowd, as foot by foot and with a horrid carnage it was driven by the incessant vigour of the attack to the farthest edge of the hill. In vain did the French reserves, joining with the struggling multitude, endeavour to sustain the fight; their efforts only increased the irremediable confusion, and the mighty mass giving way like a loosened cliff, went headlong down the ascent. The rain flowed after in streams discoloured with blood, and fifteen hundred unwounded men, the remnant of six thousand unconquerable British soldiers, stood triumphant on the fatal hill!