A history of the Peninsular War, Vol. 2, Jan.-Sep. 1809

by Charles Oman

The French made no appearance that night, though they might well have done so, and the Spanish army, bivouacing confusedly in the narrow slip of flat ground between the heights and the Alberche, enjoyed undisturbed rest during the hours of darkness. It is impossible not to marvel at the slackness with which Victor conducted the pursuit: he had twelve regiments of splendid cavalry to the front[629], and could undoubtedly have pressed the Estremadurans hard if he had chosen to do so. Cuesta’s retreating columns were in such a state of confusion and disorder that a vigorous assault on their rear might have caused a general débandade. But after driving in Zayas in the early morning, Victor moved very slowly, and did not even attempt to roll up Albuquerque’s cavalry rearguard, though he could have assailed it with very superior numbers. When taxed with sloth by Marshal Jourdan, he merely defended himself by saying that the horses were tired, and that the infantry was still too far to the rear to make it right for him to begin a combat which might develop into a general engagement. But it is hard to see that he would have risked anything by pressing in upon Albuquerque, for if Cuesta had halted his whole army in order to support his rearguard, there was nothing to prevent the French cavalry from drawing off, and refusing to close till the main body of the 1st Corps should come up.

Thanks to Victor’s slackness the Spaniards secured an unmolested retreat across the Alberche on the following morning. It is said that Cuesta, in sheer perversity and reluctance to listen to any advice proffered him by Wellesley, delayed for some hours before he would retreat, and that when at last he yielded to the pressing solicitations of his colleague he remarked to his staff ‘that he had made the Englishman go down on his knees’ before consenting.

All through the morning hours of the twenty-seventh the Army of Estremadura was pouring across the bridge and the fords, not in the best order. They had almost all passed, when about noon the French cavalry began to appear in their front. When the enemy at last began to press forward in strength, Wellesley directed Sherbrooke’s and Mackenzie’s divisions to prepare to evacuate their positions on the eastern bank, which they did as soon as the last of the Spaniards had got into safety. The first division passed at the bridge, the third at the fords near the village of Cazalegas: then Sherbrooke marched by the high-road towards Talavera, while Mackenzie, who had been told off as the rearguard, remained with Anson’s light horse near the ruined Casa de Salinas, a mile to the west of the Alberche.

It may seem strange that Wellesley made no attempt to dispute the passage of the river, but the ground was hopelessly indefensible. The left bank (Victor’s old position of July 22) completely commands the right, the one being high, the other both low and entirely destitute of artillery positions. Moreover, a great part of the terrain was thickly strewn with woods and olive plantations, which made it impossible to obtain any general view of the country-side. They would have given splendid cover for an army advancing to storm the heights on the French bank, but were anything but an advantage to an army on the defensive. For, unable to hold the actual river bank because of the commanding hills on the further side, such an army would have been forced to form its line some way from the water, and the tangled cover down by the brink of the stream would have given the enemy every facility for pushing troops across, and for pressing them into the midst of the defender’s position without exposing them to his fire. Wellington had examined the line of the Alberche upon the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth, and had pronounced it absolutely untenable; ‘no position could be worse,’ he wrote to O’Donoju[630], but he had discovered one of a very different kind a little to the rear, and had already settled the way in which it was to be occupied. It presented so many advantages that even Cuesta had consented to accept it as a good fighting-ground, and the Estremaduran army was at this very moment occupied in arraying itself along that part of the line which had been allotted to it. Sherbrooke’s division was retiring across the plain to fall into the section which Wellesley had chosen for it, and Hill’s and Campbell’s troops were moving to their designated ground. Only Mackenzie and the light cavalry had yet to be established in their post.

In the act of withdrawing, this division became involved in an unfortunate combat, which bid fair for a moment to develop into a disaster. Its two brigades had been halted close to the ruined house called the Casa de Salinas, in ground covered partly with underwood and partly with olive groves. The cavalry had been withdrawn to the rear, as it was impossible to use it for vedettes in such a locality. The infantry was supposed to have a chain of pickets thrown out in its front, but it would appear that they must have been badly placed: as one eye-witness confesses, ‘we were by no means such good soldiers in those days as succeeding campaigns made us, and sufficient precautions had not been taken to ascertain what was passing in the wood[631],’ and between it and the ford below Cazalegas. French cavalry alone had hitherto been seen, and from cavalry Mackenzie’s troops were certainly safe in the tangled ground where they were now lying.

But already Victor’s infantry had reached the front, and its leading division, that of Lapisse, had forded the Alberche far to the north, and had entered the woods without being observed by the outlying pickets of Mackenzie’s left brigade[632]. It had even escaped the notice of Wellesley himself, who had just mounted the roof of the ruined Casa de Salinas, the only point in the neighbourhood from which anything like a general view of the country-side could be secured. While he was intent on watching the heights above the Alberche in his front, and the cavalry vedettes descending from them, the enemy’s infantry was stealing in upon his left.

Lapisse had promptly discovered the line of British outposts, and had succeeded in drawing out his division in battle order before it was observed. He had deployed one regiment, the 16th Léger, as a front line, while the rest of his twelve battalions were coming on in support.

While, therefore, Wellesley was still unconscious that the enemy was close upon him, a brisk fire of musketry broke out upon his left front. It was the French advance driving in the pickets of Donkin’s brigade. The division had barely time to stand to its arms—some men are said to have been killed before they had risen from the ground—and the Commander-in-chief had hardly descended from the roof and mounted his charger, when the enemy was upon them. The assault fell upon the whole front of Donkin’s brigade, and on the left regiment (the 2/31st) of that of Mackenzie himself. So furious and unexpected was it, that the 87th, 88th, and 31st were all broken, and driven some way to the rear, losing about eighty prisoners. It was fortunate that the French advance did not strike the whole line, but only its left and centre. The 1/45th, which was just outside the limit of Lapisse’s attack, stood firm, and on it Wellesley re-formed the 31st, while, a little further to the north, the half-battalion of the 5/60th also held its ground and served as a rallying-point for the 87th and 88th. The steadiness of the 1/45th and 5/60th saved the situation; covered by them the division retired from the woods and formed up in the plain, where Anson’s light horsemen came to their aid and guarded their flanks. The French still pressed furiously forward, sending out two batteries of horse artillery to gall the retreating columns, but they had done their worst, and during the hours of the late afternoon Mackenzie’s infantry fell back slowly and in order to the points of the position which had been assigned to them. Donkin’s brigade took post in the second line behind the German Legion, while Mackenzie’s own three regiments passed through the Guards and formed up in their rear. Their total loss in the combat of Casa de Salinas had been 440 men—the French casualties must have been comparatively insignificant—probably not 100 in all[633].

From the moment when the fray had begun in the woods till dusk, the noise of battle never stopped, for on arriving in front of the allied position, the French artillery drew up and commenced a hot, but not very effective, fire against those of the troops who held the most advanced stations. As the cannonade continued, the different regiments were seen hurrying to their battle-posts, for, although the arrangements had all been made, some brigades, not expecting a fight till the morrow, had still to take up their allotted ground.

‘The men, as they formed and faced the enemy, looked pale, but the officers riding along their line, only two deep, on which all our hopes depended, observed that they appeared not less tranquil than determined. In the meanwhile the departing sun showed by his rays the immense masses moving towards us, and the last glimmering of the light proved their direction to be across our front, toward the left. The darkness, only broken in upon by the bursting shells and the flashes of the French guns, closed quickly upon us, and it was the opinion of many that the enemy would rest till the morning[634].’