[453] Each mustered less than 400 bayonets.
[454] To show how strange is Napier’s statement (i. 254) that the army of Estremadura consisted of ‘the best troops then in Spain,’ and that it was therefore disgraceful that they ‘fought worse than the half-starved peasants of Blake,’ we may perhaps give the list of Belvedere’s little force: it consisted of—
| 1st Division (General de Alos): | 4,160 | |
| *4th battalion of the Spanish Guards | ||
| One battalion of Provincial Grenadiers of Estremadura | ||
| *Regiment of Majorca (two batts.) | ||
| *2nd Regiment of Catalonia (one batt.) | ||
| One company of Sharpshooters | ||
| 2nd Division (General Henestrosa): | 3,300 | |
| *4th battalion of the Walloon Guards | ||
| Volunteers of Badajoz (two batts.) | ||
| Volunteers of Valencia de Alcantara (one batt.) | ||
| Volunteers of Zafra (one batt.) | ||
| Galician troops: Battalions of Tuy and Benavente | 1,600 | |
| Cavalry: 2nd, 4th, and 5th Hussars (called respectively ‘Lusitania,’ ‘Volunteers of Spain,’ and ‘Maria Luisa’) | 1,100 | |
| Artillery: two and a half batteries | 250 | |
| Sappers: one battalion | 550 | |
| Total | 10,960 | |
Only the cavalry and the five battalions marked with a star were regulars.
[455] As ill luck would have it four of these five battalions in the plain were raw levies, the Volunteers of Badajoz (two batts.) and of Tuy and Benavente. They had not skill enough even to form square.
[456] It is fair to say, however, that Jourdan asserts that their loss was only about 1,500 (Mémoires, p. 85). There is no Spanish estimate of any authority. Napoleon in his Bulletin claimed 3,000 killed and 3,000 prisoners, one of his usual exaggerations.
[457] There were only sixteen field-guns with the army, yet Napoleon says that he took twenty-five (Nap. Corresp., 14,478). If this figure is correct (which we may doubt) there must have been some guns of position taken in the city of Burgos. But of the twelve flags there is no question: they were forwarded to Paris two days later (Nap. Corresp., 14,463).
[458] Mémoires of St. Chamans (Soult’s senior aide-de-camp), p. 110. Compare the Journal of Fantin des Odoards (p. 189) for the scenes of horror in and about the town. The scattered corpses of Spaniards, cut down as they fled, covered the road for half-a-day’s march beyond Burgos.
[459] Nap. Corresp., 14,496, contains this false report.
[460] This brigade did not properly belong to the 2nd Corps, but to Franceschi’s division of reserve cavalry. Lasalle, with the proper cavalry division of the 2nd Corps, was being employed elsewhere.