CHAPTER I.
1812. Great and surprising as the winter campaign had been, its importance was not understood, and therefore not duly appreciated by the English ministers. But the French generals saw with anxiety that lord Wellington, having snapped the heavy links of the chain which bound him to Lisbon, had acquired new bases of operation on the Guadiana, the Agueda, and the Douro, that he could now choose his own field of battle, and Spain would feel the tread of his conquering soldiers. Those soldiers with the confidence inspired by repeated successes, only demanded to be led forward, but their general had still to encounter political obstacles, raised by the governments he served.
In Spain, the leading men, neglecting the war at hand, were entirely occupied with intrigues, with the pernicious project of reducing their revolted colonies, or with their new constitution. In Portugal, and in the Brazils, a jealous opposition to the general on the part of the native authorities had kept pace with the military successes. In England the cabinet, swayed by Mr. Perceval’s narrow policy, was still vacillating between its desire to conquer and its fear of the expense. There also the Whigs greedy of office and dexterous in parliamentary politics, deafened the country with their clamours, while the people, deceived by both parties as to the nature of the war, and wondering how the French should keep the field at all, were, in common with the ministers, still doubtful, if their commander was truly a great man or an impostor.
The struggle in the British cabinet having ended with the resignation of lord Wellesley, the consequent predominance of the Perceval faction, left small hopes of a successful termination to the contest in the Peninsula. Wellington had, however, carefully abstained from political intrigues, and his brother’s retirement, although a subject of regret, did not affect his own personal position; he was the General of England, untrammelled, undegraded by factious ties, and responsible to his country only for his actions. The ministers might, he said, relinquish or continue the war, they might supply his wants, or defraud the hopes of the nation by their timorous economy, his efforts must be proportioned to his means; if the latter were great, so would be his actions, under any circumstances he would do his best, yet he was well assured the people of England would not endure to forego triumph at the call of a niggard parsimony. It was in this temper that he had undertaken the siege of Badajos, in this temper he had stormed it, and meanwhile political affairs in England were brought to a crisis.
Lord Wellesley had made no secret of Mr. Perceval’s mismanagement of the war, and the public mind being unsettled, the Whigs were invited by the Prince Regent, his year of restrictions having now expired, to join a new administration. But the heads of that faction would not share with Mr. Perceval, and he, master of the secrets relating to the detestable persecution of the Princess of Wales, was too powerful to be removed. However, on the 11th of May, Perceval was killed in the house of Commons, and this act, which was a horrible crime, but politically no misfortune either to England or the Peninsula, produced other negociations, upon a more enlarged scheme with regard both to parties and to the system of government. Personal feelings again prevailed. Lord Liverpool would not unite with lord Wellesley, the Grey and Grenville faction would not serve their country without having the disposal of all the household offices, and lord Moira, judging a discourtesy to the Prince Regent too high a price to pay for their adhesion, refused that condition. The materials of a new cabinet were therefore drawn from the dregs of the Tory faction, and lord Liverpool became prime minister.
It was unfortunate that a man of lord Wellesley’s vigorous talent should have been rejected for lord Liverpool, but this remnant of a party being too weak to domineer, proved less mischievous with respect to the Peninsula than any of the preceding governments. There was no direct personal interest opposed to lord Wellington’s wishes, and the military policy of the cabinet yielding by degrees to the attraction of his ascending genius, was finally absorbed in its meridian splendour. Many practical improvements had also been growing up in the official departments, especially in that of war and colonies, where colonel Bunbury, the under-secretary, a man experienced in the wants of an army on service, had reformed the incredible disorders which pervaded that department during the first years of the contest. The result of the political crisis was therefore comparatively favourable to the war in the Peninsula, the story of which shall now be resumed.
It has been shewn how the danger of Gallicia, and the negligence of the Portuguese and Spanish authorities with reference to Almeida and Ciudad Rodrigo, stopped the invasion of Andalusia, and brought the allies back to Beira. But if Wellington, pursuing his first plan, had overthrown Soult on the banks of the Guadalquivir and destroyed the French arsenal at Seville, his campaign would have ranked amongst the most hardy and glorious that ever graced a general; and it is no slight proof of the uncertainty of war, that combinations, so extensive and judicious, should have been marred by the negligence of a few secondary authorities, at points distant from the immediate scenes of action. The English general had indeed under-estimated the force opposed to him, both in the north and south; but the bravery of the allied troops, aided by the moral power of their recent successes, would have borne that error, and in all other particulars his profound military judgment was manifest.
Yet to obtain a true notion of his views, the various operations which he had foreseen and provided against must be considered, inasmuch as they shew the actual resources of the allies, the difficulty of bringing them to bear with due concert, and the propriety of looking to the general state of the war, previous to each of Wellington’s great movements. For his calculations were constantly dependent upon the ill-judged operations of men, over whom he had little influence, and his successes, sudden, accidental, snatched from the midst of conflicting political circumstances, were as gems brought up from the turbulence of a whirlpool.
Castaños was captain-general of Gallicia, as well as of Estremadura, and when Ciudad Rodrigo fell, lord Wellington, expecting from his friendly feeling some efficient aid, had counselled him upon all the probable movements of the enemy during the siege of Badajos.
First. He supposed Marmont might march into Estremadura, either with or without the divisions of Souham and Bonnet. In either case, he advised that Abadia should enter Leon, and, according to his means, attack Astorga, Benavente, Zamora, and the other posts fortified by the enemy in that kingdom; and that Carlos d’España, Sanchez, Saornil, in fine all the partidas in Castile and the Asturias, and even Mendizabel, who was then in the Montaña St. Ander, should come to Abadia’s assistance. He promised also that the regular Portuguese cavalry, under Silveira and Bacellar, should pass the Spanish frontier. Thus a force of not less than twenty-five thousand men would have been put in motion on the rear of Marmont, and a most powerful diversion effected in aid of the siege of Badajos and the invasion of Andalusia.
The next operation considered, was that of an invasion of Gallicia, by five divisions of the army of Portugal, the three other divisions, and the cavalry, then in the valley of the Tagus and about Bejar, being left to contend, in concert with Soult, for Badajos. To help Abadia to meet such an attack, Bacellar and Silveira had orders to harass the left flank and rear of the French, with both infantry and cavalry, as much as the nature of the case would admit, regard being had to the safety of their raw militia, and to their connection with the right flank of the Gallician army, whose retreat was to be by Orense.
Thirdly. The French might invade Portugal north of the Douro. Abadia was then to harass their right flank and rear, while the Portuguese opposed them in front; and whether they fell on Gallicia or Portugal, or Estremadura, Carlos d’España, and the Partidas, and Mendizabel, would have an open field in Leon and Castile.
Lastly, the operation which really happened was considered, and to meet it lord Wellington’s arrangements were, as we have seen, calculated to cover the magazines on the Douro, and the Mondego, and to force the enemy to take the barren difficult line of country, through Lower Beira, towards Castelo Branco, while Abadia and the Guerilla chiefs entered Castile and Leon on his rear. Carlos d’España had also been ordered to break down the bridges on the Yeltes, and the Huebra, in front of Ciudad Rodrigo, and that of Barba de Puerco on the Agueda to the left of that fortress. Marmont would thus have been delayed two days, and the magazines both at Castelo Branco and Celorico saved by the near approach of the allied army.
España did none of these things, neither did Abadia nor Mendizabel operate in a manner to be felt by the enemy, and their remissness, added to the other faults noticed in former observations, entirely marred Wellington’s defensive plan in the north, and brought him back to fight Marmont. And when that general had passed the Agueda in retreat, the allied army wanting the provisions which had been so foolishly sacrificed at Castelo Branco, was unable to follow; the distant magazines on the Douro and the Mondego were its only resource; then also it was found that Ciudad and Almeida were in want, and before those places could be furnished, and the intermediate magazines on the lines of communication restored, it was too late to march against Andalusia. For the harvest which ripens the beginning of June in that province and a fortnight later in Estremadura, would have enabled the army of Portugal to follow the allies march by march.
Now Marmont, as Napoleon repeatedly told him, had only to watch lord Wellington’s movements, and a temporary absence from Castile would have cost him nothing of any consequence, because the army of the north would have protected the great communication with France. The advantages of greater means, and better arrangements for supply, on which Wellington had calculated, would thus have been lost, and moreover, the discontented state of the garrison of Ciudad Rodrigo, and the approach of a new battering train from France, rendered it dangerous to move far from that fortress. The invasion of Andalusia, judicious in April, would in the latter end of May have been a false movement; and the more so that Castaños having, like his predecessors, failed to bring forward the Gallician army, it was again made painfully evident, that in critical circumstances no aid could be obtained from that quarter.
Such being the impediments to an invasion of Andalusia, it behoved the English general to adopt some other scheme of offence more suitable to the altered state of affairs. He considered that as the harvest in Leon and Castile, that is to say, in the districts north of the Gredos and Gata mountains, was much later than in Estremadura and Andalusia, he should be enabled to preserve his commissariat advantages over the French in the field for a longer period in the north than in the south. And if he could strike a decisive blow against Marmont, he would relieve Andalusia as securely as by a direct attack, because Madrid would then fall, and Soult, being thus cut off from his communications with France, would fear to be hemmed in on all sides. Wherefore to make the duke of Ragusa fight a great battle, to calculate the chances, and prepare the means of success, became the immediate objects of lord Wellington’s thoughts.
The French general might be forced to fight by a vigorous advance into Castile, but a happy result depended upon the relative skill of the generals, the number and goodness of the troops. Marmont’s reputation was great, yet hitherto the essays had been in favour of the Englishman’s talents. The British infantry was excellent, the cavalry well horsed, and more numerous than it had ever been. The French cavalry had been greatly reduced by drafts made for the Russian contest, by the separation of the army of the north from that of Portugal, and by frequent and harassing marches. Marmont could indeed be reinforced with horsemen from the army of the centre, and from the army of the north, but his own cavalry was weak, and his artillery badly horsed, whereas the allies’ guns were well and powerfully equipped. Every man in the British army expected victory, and this was the time to seek it, because, without pitched battles the French could never be dispossessed of Spain, and they were now comparatively weaker than they had yet been, or were expected to be; for such was the influence of Napoleon’s stupendous genius, that his complete success in Russia, and return to the Peninsula with overwhelming forces, was not doubted even by the British commander. The time, therefore, being propitious, and the chances favourable, it remained only to combine the primary and secondary operations in such a manner, that the French army of Portugal, should find itself isolated for so long as would enable the allies to force it singly into a general action. If the combinations failed to obtain that great result, the march of the French succouring corps, would nevertheless relieve various parts of Spain, giving fresh opportunities to the Spaniards to raise new obstacles, and it is never to be lost sight of, that this principle was always the base of Wellington’s plans. Ever, while he could secure his final retreat into the strong holds of Portugal without a defeat, offensive operations, beyond the frontiers, could not fail to hurt the French.
To effect the isolating of Marmont’s army, the first condition was to be as early in the field as the rainy season would permit, and before the coming harvest enabled the other French armies to move in large bodies. But Marmont could avail himself, successively, of the lines of the Tormes and the Douro to protract the campaign until the ripening of the harvest enabled reinforcements to join him, and hence the security of the allies’ flanks and rear during the operations, and of their retreat, if overpowered, was to be previously looked to. Soult, burning to revenge the loss of Badajos, might attack Hill with superior numbers, or detach a force across the Tagus, which, in conjunction with the army of the centre, now directed by Jourdan, could advance upon Portugal by the valley of the Tagus, and so turn the right flank of the allied army in Castile. Boats and magazines supplied from Toledo and Madrid, were already being collected at the fort of Lugar Nueva, near Almaraz, and from hence, as from a place of arms, the French could move upon Coria, Placencia, and Castelo Branco, menacing Abrantes, Celorico, Ciudad Rodrigo, and Almeida, while detachments from the army of the north reinforced the army of Portugal. But to obviate this last danger Wellington had planned one of those enterprizes, which as they are successful, principally because of their exceeding boldness, are beheld with astonishment when achieved, and are attributed to madness when they fail.
SURPRISE OF ALMARAZ.
For a clear understanding of this event, the reader must call to mind, 1º. that the left bank of the Tagus, from Toledo to Almaraz, is lined with rugged mountains, the ways through which, impracticable for an army, are difficult even for small divisions; 2º. that from Almaraz to the frontier of Portugal, the banks, although more open, were still difficult, and the Tagus was only to be crossed at certain points, to which bad roads leading through the mountains descended. But from Almaraz to Alcantara, all the bridges had been long ruined, and those of Arzobispo and Talavera, situated between Almaraz and Toledo, were of little value, because of the ruggedness of the mountains above spoken of. Soult’s pontoon equipage had been captured in Badajos, and the only means of crossing the Tagus, possessed by the French, from Toledo to the frontier of Portugal, was a boat-bridge laid down at Almaraz by Marmont, and to secure which he had constructed three strong forts and a bridge-head.
The first of these forts, called Ragusa, was a magazine, containing many stores and provisions, and it was, although not finished, exceedingly strong, having a loopholed stone tower, twenty-five feet high within, and being flanked without by a field-work near the bridge.
On the left bank of the Tagus the bridge had a fortified head of masonry, which was again flanked by a redoubt, called Fort Napoleon, placed on a height a little in advance. This redoubt, thoughJones’s Sieges. imperfectly constructed, inasmuch as a wide berm, in the middle of the scarp, offered a landing place to troops escalading the rampart, was yet strong because it contained a second interior defence or retrenchment, with a loopholed stone tower, a ditch, draw-bridge, and palisades.
These two forts, and the bridge-head, were armed with eighteen guns, and they were garrisoned by above a thousand men, which seemed sufficient to insure the command of the river; but the mountains on the left bank still precluded the passage of an army towards Lower Estremadura, save by the royal road to Truxillo, which road, at the distance of five miles from the river, passed over the rugged Mirabete ridge, and to secure the summit of the mountain the French had drawn another line of works, across the throat of the pass. This line consisted of a large fortified house, connected by smaller posts, with the ancient watch-tower of Mirabete, which itself contained eight guns, and was surrounded by a rampart twelve feet high.
If all these works and a road, which Marmont, following the traces of an ancient Roman way, was now opening across the Gredos mountains had been finished, the communication of the French, although circuitous, would have been very good and secure. Indeed Wellington fearing the accomplishment, intended to have surprised the French at Almaraz previous to the siege of Badajos, when the redoubts were far from complete, but the Portuguese government neglected to furnish the means of transporting the artillery from Lisbon, and he was baffled. General Hill was now ordered to attempt it with a force of six thousand men, including four hundred cavalry, two field brigades of artillery, a pontoon equipage, and a battering train of six iron twenty-four pound howitzers.
May. The enterprize at all times difficult was become one of extreme delicacy. When the army was round Badajos, only the resistance of the forts themselves was to be looked for; now Foy’s division of the army of Portugal had returned to the valley of the Tagus, and was in no manner fettered, and d’Armagnac, with troops from the army of the centre, occupied Talavera. Drouet also was, with eight or nine thousand men of the army of the south, at Hinojosa de Cordoba, his cavalry was on the roadSee Plan, No. 1. to Medellin, he was nearer to Merida than Hill was to Almaraz, he might intercept the latter’s retreat, and the king’s orders were imperative that he should hang upon the English army in Estremadura. Soult could also detach a corps fromJoseph’s Correspondence, MSS. Seville by St. Ollala to fall upon sir William Erskine, who was posted with the cavalry and the remainder of Hill’s infantry, near Almendralejo. However lord Wellington placed general Graham near Portalegre, with the first and sixth divisions, and Cotton’s cavalry, all of which had crossed the Tagus for the occasion, and thus including Erskine’s corps, above twenty thousand men were ready to protect Hill’s enterprize.
Drouet by a rapid march might still interpose between Hill and Erskine, and beat them in detail before Graham could support them, wherefore the English general made many other arrangements to deceive the enemy. First, he chose the moment of action when Soult having sent detachments in various directions, to restore his communications in Andalusia, had marched himself with a division to Cadiz, and was consequently unfavourably placed for a sudden movement. Secondly, by rumours adroitly spread, and by demonstrations with the Portuguese militia of the Alemtejo, he caused the French to believe that ten thousand men were moving down the Guadiana, towards the Niebla, preparatory to the invasion of Andalusia, a notion upheld by the assembling of so many troops under Graham, by the pushing of cavalry parties towards the Morena, and by restoring the bridge at Merida, with the avowed intention of sending Hill’s battering and pontoon train, which had been formed at Elvas, to Almendralejo. Finally, many exploring officers, taking the roads leading to the province of Cordoba, made ostentatious inquiries about the French posts at Belalcazar and other places, and thus every thing seemed to point at Andalusia.
The restoration of the bridge at Merida proving unexpectedly difficult, cost a fortnight’s labour, for two arches having been destroyed the opening was above sixty feet wide, and large timber was scarce. Hill’s march was thus dangerously delayed, but on the 12th of May, the repairs being effected and all else being ready, he quitted Almendralejo, passed the Guadiana, at Merida, with near six thousand men and twelve field-pieces, and joined his pontoons and battering train. These last had come by the way of Montijo, and formed a considerable convoy, nearly fifty country carts, besides the guns and limber carriages, being employed to convey the pontoons, the ladders, and the ammunition for the howitzers.
The 13th the armament reached the Burdalo river on the road to Truxillo; the 14th it was at Villa Mesias; the 15th at Truxillo. Meanwhile, to mislead the enemy on the right bank of the Tagus the guerillas of the Guadalupe mountains made demonstrations at different points between Almaraz and Arzobispo, as if they were seeking a place to cast a bridge that Hill might join lord Wellington. General Foy was deceived by these operations, and though his spies at Truxillo had early informed him of the passage of the Guadiana by the allies, they led him to believe that HillFoy’s Official Correspondence, MSS. had fifteen thousand men, and that two brigades of cavalry were following in his rear; one report even stated that thirty thousand men had entered Truxillo, whereas there were less than six thousand of all arms.
Hill having reached Jaraicejo early on the 16th, formed his troops in three columns, and made a night march, intending to attack by surprise and at the same moment, the tower of Mirabete, the fortified house in the pass, and the forts at the bridge of Almaraz. The left column, directed against the tower, was commanded by general Chowne. The centre column, with the dragoons and the artillery, moved by the royal road, under the command of general Long. The right column, composed of the 50th, 71st, and 92d regiments, under the direction of Hill in person, was intended to penetrate by the narrow and difficult way of La Cueva, and Roman Gordo against the forts at the bridge. But the day broke before any of the columns reached their destination, and all hopes of a surprise were extinguished. This untoward beginning was unavoidable on the part of the right and centre column, because of the bad roads; but it would appear that some negligence had retarded general Chowne’s column, and that the castle of Mirabete might have been carried by assault before day-light.
The difficulty, great before, was now much increased. An attentive examination of the French defences convinced Hill that to reduce the works in the pass, he must incur more loss than was justifiable, and finish in such plight that he could not afterwards carry the forts at the bridge, which were the chief objects of his expedition. Yet it was only through the pass of Mirabete that the artillery could move against the bridge. In this dilemma, after losing the 17th and part of the 18th in fruitless attempts to discover some opening through which to reach the valley of Almaraz with his guns, he resolved to leave them on the Sierra with the centre column, and to make a false attack upon the tower with general Chowne’s troops while he himself, with the right column, secretly penetrated by the scarcely practicable line of La Cueva and Roman Gordo to the bridge, intent, with infantry alone, to storm works which were defended by eighteen pieces of artillery and powerful garrisons!
This resolution was even more hardy, and bold, than it appears without a reference to the general state of affairs. Hill’s march had been one of secrecy, amidst various divisions of the enemy; he was four days’ journey distant from Merida, which was his first point of retreat; he expected that Drouet would be reinforced, and advance towards Medellin, and hence, whether defeated or victorious at Almaraz, that his own retreat would be very dangerous; exceedingly so if defeated, because his fine British troops could not be repulsed with a small loss, and he should have to fall back through a difficult country, with his best soldiers dispirited by failure, and burthened with numbers of wounded men. Then harassed on one side by Drouet, pursued by Foy and D’Armagnac on the other, he would have been exposed to the greatest misfortunes, every slanderous tongue would have been let loose on the rashness of attacking impregnable forts, and a military career, hitherto so glorious, might have terminated in shame. But general Hill being totally devoid of interested ambition, was necessarily unshaken by such fears.
The troops remained concealed in their position until the evening of the 18th, and then the general, reinforcing his own column with the 6th Portuguese regiment, a company of the 60th rifles, and the artillery-men of the centre column, commenced the descent of the valley. His design was to storm Fort Napoleon before day-light, and the march was less than six miles, but his utmost efforts could only bring the head of the troops to the fort, a little before day-light, the rear was still distant, and it was doubtful if the scaling-ladders, which had been cut in halves to thread the short narrow turns in the precipitous descent, would serve for an assault. Fortunately some small hills concealed the head of the column from the enemy, and at that moment general Chowne commenced the false attack on the castle of Mirabete. Pillars of white smoke rose on the lofty brow of the Sierra, the heavy sound of artillery came rolling over the valley, and the garrison of Fort Napoleon, crowding on the ramparts, were anxiously gazing at these portentous signs of war, when, quick and loud, a British shout broke on their ears, and the gallant 50th regiment, aided by a wing of the 71st, came bounding over the nearest hills.
The French were surprised to see an enemy so close while the Mirabete was still defended, yet they were not unprepared, for a patrole of English cavalry had been seen from the fort on the 17th in the pass of Roman Gordo; and in the evening of the 18th a woman of that village had carried very exact information of Hill’s numbers and intentions to Lugar Nueva. This intelligence had caused the commandant Aubert to march in the night with reinforcements to Fort Napoleon, which was therefore defended by six companies, including the 39th French and the voltigeurs of a foreign regiment. These troops were ready to fight, and when the first shout was heard, turning their heads, they, with a heavy fire of musketry and artillery, smote the assailants in front, while the guns of Fort Ragusa took them in flank from the opposite side of the river; in a few moments, however, a rise of ground, at the distance of only twenty yards from the ramparts, covered the British from the front fire, and general Howard, in person, leading the foremost troops into the ditch, commenced the escalade. The great breadth of the berm kept off the ends of the shortened ladders from the parapet, but the soldiers who first ascended, jumped on to the berm itself, and drawing up the ladders planted them there, and thus, with a second escalade, forced their way over the rampart; then, closely fighting, friends and enemies went together into the retrenchment round the stone tower. Colonel Aubert was wounded and taken, the tower was not defended, and the garrison fled towards the bridge-head, but the victorious troops would not be shaken off, and entered that work also in one confused mass with the fugitives, who continued their flight over the bridge itself. Still the British soldiers pushed their headlong charge, slaying the hindmost, and they would have passed the river if some of the boats had not been destroyed by stray shots from the forts, which were now sharply cannonading each other, for the artillery-men had turned the guns of Napoleon on Fort Ragusa.
Many of the French leaped into the water and were drowned, but the greatest part were made prisoners, and to the amazement of the conquerors, the panic spread to the other side of the river; the garrison of Fort Ragusa, although perfectly safe, abandoned that fort also and fled with the others along the road to Naval Moral. Some grenadiers of the 92d immediately swam over and brought back several boats, with which the bridge was restored, and Fort Ragusa was gained. The towers and other works were then destroyed, the stores, ammunition, provisions, and boats were burned in the course of the day, and in the night the troops returned to the Sierra above, carrying with them the colours of the foreign regiment, and more than two hundred and fifty prisoners, including a commandant and sixteen other officers. The whole loss on the part of the British was about one hundred and eighty men, and one officer of artillery was killed by his own mine, placed for the destruction of the tower; but the only officer slain in the actual assault was captain Candler, a brave man, who fell while leading the grenadiers of the 50th on to the rampart of Fort Napoleon.
This daring attack was executed with a decision similar to that with which it had been planned. The first intention of general Hill was, to have directed a part of his column against the bridge-head, and so to have assailed both works together, but when the difficulties of the road marred this project, he attacked the nearest work with the leading troops, leaving the rear to follow as it could. This rapidity was an essential cause of the success, for Foy hearing on the 17th that the allies were at Truxillo, had ordered D’Armagnac to reinforce Lugar Nueva with a battalion, which being at NavalFoy’s Official Correspondence, MSS. Moral the 18th, might have entered Fort Ragusa early in the morning of the 19th; but instead of marching before day-break, this battalion did not move until eleven o’clock, and meeting the fugitives on the road, caught the panic and returned.
The works at Mirabete being now cut off from the right bank of the Tagus, general Hill was preparing to reduce them with his heavy artillery, when a report, from sir William Erskine, caused him, in conformity with his instructions, to commence a retreat on Merida, leaving Mirabete blockaded by the guerillas of the neighbourhood. It appeared that Soult, being at Chiclana, heard of the allies’ march the 19th, and then only desired Drouet to make a diversion in Estremadura without losing his communication with Andalusia; for he did not perceive the true object of the enterprize, and thinking he had to check a movement, which the king told him was made for the purpose of reinforcing Wellington in the north, resolved to enforce Hill’s stay in Estremadura. In this view he recalled his own detachments from the Niebla, where they had just dispersed a body of Spaniards at Castillejos, and then forming a large division at Seville, he purposed to strengthen Drouet and enable him to fight a battle. But that general, anticipating his orders, had pushed an advanced guard of four thousand men to Dom Benito the 17th, and his cavalry patroles passing the Guadiana on the 18th had scoured the roads to Miajadas and Merida, while Lallemand’s dragoons drove back the British outposts from Ribera, on the side of Zafra.
Confused by these demonstrations, sir William Erskine immediately reported to Graham, and to Hill, that Soult himself was in Estremadura with his whole army, whereupon Graham came up to Badajos, and Hill, fearful of being cut off, retired, as I have said, from Mirabete on the 21st, and on the 26th reached Merida unmolested. Drouet then withdrew his advanced guards, and Graham returned to Castelo de Vide. Notwithstanding this error Wellington’s precautions succeeded, for if Drouet had been aware of Hill’s real object, instead of making demonstrations with a part of his force, he would with the whole of his troops, more than ten thousand, have marched rapidly from Medellin to fall on the allies as they issued out of the passes of Truxillo, and before Erskine or Graham could come to their aid; whereas acting on the supposition that the intention was to cross the Tagus, his demonstrations merely hastened the retreat, and saved Mirabete. To meet Hill in the right place, would, however, have required very nice arrangements and great activity, as he could have made his retreat by the road of Caceres as well as by that of Merida.
Lord Wellington was greatly displeased that this false alarm, given by Erskine, should have rendered the success incomplete; yet he avoided any public expression of discontent, lest the enemy, who had no apparent interest in preserving the post of Mirabete, should be led to keep it, and so embarrass the allies when their operations required a restoration of the bridge of Almaraz. To the ministers however he complained, that his generals, stout in action, personally, as the poorest soldiers, were commonly so overwhelmed with the fear of responsibility when left to themselves, that the slightest movement of the enemy deprived them of their judgment, and they spread unnecessary alarm far and wide. But instead of expressing his surprise, he should rather have reflected on the cause of this weakness. Every British officer of rank knew, that without powerful interest, his future prospects, and his reputation for past services, would have withered together under the first blight of misfortune; that a selfish government would instantly offer him up, a victim to a misjudging public and a ribald press with whom success is the only criterion of merit. English generals are and must be prodigal of their blood to gain a reputation, but they are necessarily timid in command, when a single failure, even without a fault, consigns them to an old age of shame and misery. It is however undeniable that sir William Erskine was not an able officer.
On the other side the king was equally discontented with Soult, whose refusal to reinforce Drouet, he thought had caused the loss of Almaraz, and he affirmed that if Hill had been more enterprising, the arsenal of Madrid might have fallen as well as the dépôt of Almaraz, for he thought that general had brought up his whole corps instead of a division only six thousand strong.