The order of march was as follows: the vanguard was composed of the whole corps of Mortier, nearly 17,000 strong[701], reinforced by three brigades of dragoons under Lahoussaye and Lorges with a strength of 2,000 sabres. The 2nd Corps followed; though it started three days later than the 5th it was gradually gaining ground on the vanguard all through the march, as it had no fighting to do or reconnaissances to execute. Hence it was only twenty-four hours behind Mortier in arriving at Plasencia. Its strength was 18,000 men, even after it had detached the brigades of dragoons to strengthen the vanguard, and placed five battalions at the disposal of General Kellermann[702]. During its stay at Zamora and Toro it had picked up a mass of convalescents and details, who had not taken part in its Galician campaign. The rear was formed by Ney’s troops, which started from Salamanca only one day behind the 2nd Corps. The infantry was not complete, as a brigade of 3,000 men was left behind on the Douro, to assist Kellermann in holding down the kingdom of Leon. Hence, even including a brigade of Lorges’ dragoons, the 6th Corps had only some 12,500 men on the march. The whole army, therefore, as it will be seen, was about 50,000 strong.
Just before he marched from Salamanca Soult had heard that Beresford’s Portuguese were commencing to show themselves in force in the direction of Almeida, while Del Parque’s small division at Ciudad Rodrigo was beginning to be reinforced by troops descending from the mountains of Galicia. Trusting that the danger from this quarter might not prove imminent, the Marshal left in observation of the allies only the remains of the force that Kellermann had brought back from the Asturias—the 5th division of dragoons and a few battalions of infantry, strengthened by the five battalions from the 2nd Corps and the one brigade detached from Ney. The whole did not amount to more than 9,000 or 10,000 men, scattered along the whole front from Astorga to Salamanca. It was clear that much was risked in this direction, for Beresford and Del Parque could concentrate over 20,000 troops for an attack on any point that they might select. But Soult was prepared to accept the chances of war in the Douro valley, rightly thinking that if he could crush Wellesley’s army on the Tagus any losses in the north could easily be repaired. It would matter little if the Spaniards and Portuguese occupied Salamanca, or even Valladolid, after the British had been destroyed.
Mortier, starting on July 27, on the road by Fuente Roble and Los Santos, made two marches without coming in touch with any enemy. It was only on the third day that he met at La Calzada the vedettes of the trifling force under the Marquis Del Reino which Cuesta had sent to hold the Puerto de Baños. After chasing them through Bejar, the Marshal came upon their supports drawn up in the pass [July 30]. Del Reino thought himself obliged to fight, though he had but four battalions with a total of 2,500 or 3,000 bayonets[703]. He was of course dislodged with ease by the overwhelming numbers which Mortier turned against him—the first division of the 5th Corps alone sufficed to drive him through the pass. Thereupon he retired down the Alagon, and after sending news of his defeat to Cuesta fell back to Almaraz, where he took up the bridge of boats and removed it to the southern bank of the Tagus.
Having cleared the passes upon the thirtieth, the 5th Corps advanced to Candelaria and Baños de Bejar upon the thirty-first, and entered Plasencia on the first of August. Here Mortier captured 334 of Wellesley’s sick, who had been left behind as being incapable of removal. On the preceding day the town had been full of British detachments: the place was the half-way house between Portugal and Talavera, and many commissaries, isolated officers going to or from the front, and details marching to join their corps, had been collected there. Captain Pattison, the senior officer present, withdrew to Zarza, with every man that could march, when he heard of Mortier’s approach, taking with him a convoy which had recently arrived from Abrantes. But he was obliged to leave behind him a considerable amount of corn, just collected from the Vera, which had been destined for Wellesley’s army. The whole civil population of Plasencia fled to the hills, in obedience to an order of the local Junta, and the British soldiers in the hospital were the only living beings whom the French vanguard found in the city. The men of the 5th Corps plundered the deserted houses, as was but natural, but behaved with much humanity to the captured invalids[704].
After seizing Plasencia Mortier halted for a day, in obedience to Soult’s orders, that he might allow the 2nd Corps to close up before he pressed in any further towards Wellesley. The Duke of Dalmatia was determined to run no risks, when dealing with an adversary so enterprising as his old enemy of Oporto. On August 2 he himself and the leading divisions of his corps reached Plasencia: the rest were close behind. On the same afternoon, therefore, the advance could be resumed, and Mortier set out on the high road towards Almaraz and Talavera, having eight regiments of horse—3,000 men—in his front. He slept that night at Malpartida, seven miles in advance of Plasencia, and moved on next morning to the line of the Tietar and the village of Toril. One of his reconnoitring parties approached the bridge of Almaraz and found it broken: another reached Navalmoral. He was now drawing very close to Wellesley, who had encamped that day at Oropesa, and was only thirty miles away: indeed the British and the French cavalry came in contact that evening in front of Navalmoral.
On August 3, by a curious coincidence, each Commander-in-chief was at last informed of his adversary’s strength and intentions by a captured dispatch. A Spanish messenger was arrested by Soult’s cavalry, while bearing a letter from Wellesley to General Erskine dated August 1. In this document there was an account of the battle of Talavera, which had hitherto been unknown to Soult. But the most important clause of it was a request to Erskine to find out whether the rumours reporting the advance of 12,000 French towards the Puerto de Baños were correct. The Duke of Dalmatia thus discovered that his adversary, only two days before, was grossly underrating the numbers of the army that was marching against his rear. He was led on to hope that Wellesley would presently advance against him with inferior numbers, and court destruction by attacking the united 2nd and 5th Corps[705].
This indeed might have come to pass had not the allies on the same day become possessed of a French dispatch which revealed to them the real situation of affairs. Some guerrillas in the neighbourhood of Avila intercepted a friar, who was an agent of King Joseph, and was bearing a letter from him to Soult. They brought the paper to Cuesta on August 3: it contained not only an account of the King’s plans and projects, but orders for the Marshal, which mentioned Ney and the 6th Corps, and showed that the force marching on Plasencia was at least double the strength that Wellesley had expected[706]. This letter Cuesta sent on to his colleague with laudable promptness; it reached the British commander in time to save him from taking the irreparable step of marching from Oropesa to Navalmoral, where the vanguard of Mortier’s cavalry had just been met by the vedettes of Cotton’s light horse. Wellesley had actually written to Bassecourt to bid him halt at Centinello till he himself should arrive, and then to join him in an attack on the French[707], when he was handed the intercepted letter which showed that Soult had at least 30,000 men in hand.
This unpalatable news changed the whole prospect of affairs: it would be mad to assail such an enemy with a force consisting of no more than 18,000 British troops and Bassecourt’s 5,000 Spaniards. Wellesley had therefore to reconsider the whole situation, and to dictate a new plan of campaign at very short notice, since his cavalry were actually in touch with the enemy at the distance of a single day’s march from Oropesa. On the morrow he must either fight or fly. The situation was made more complicated by the fact that Cuesta, when forwarding the French dispatch, had sent information to the effect that he considered his own situation at Talavera so much compromised that he was about to retreat at once, with the design of crossing the Tagus at Almaraz, and of taking up once more his old line of communications, which ran by Truxillo to Badajoz. It may be asked why the Captain-General did not adopt the simpler course of crossing the Tagus at Talavera, and moving under cover of the river, instead of executing the long flank march by Oropesa to Almaraz on the exposed bank, where the French were known to be in movement. The answer, however, is simple and conclusive: the paths which lead southward from Talavera are impracticable for artillery and wheeled vehicles. Infantry alone could have retreated by the route which climbs up to the Puerto de San Vincente, the main pass of this section of the Sierra de Guadalupe: nor was the track along the edge of the river from Talavera to Arzobispo any better fitted for the transport of a large army. It is this want of any adequate communication with the south which makes Talavera such a dangerous position: no retreat from it is possible save that by the road to Oropesa, unless the retiring army is prepared to sacrifice all its impedimenta.
Cuesta has been criticized in the most savage style by many English writers, from Lord Londonderry and Napier downwards, for his hasty departure from Talavera. It is fair to state in his defence the fact that if he had tarried any longer in his present position he might have been cut off not merely from Almaraz—that passage was already impracticable—but also from the bridge of Arzobispo, the only other crossing of the Tagus by which artillery and heavy wagons can pass southward. If he had started on the fourth instead of the third he might have found Mortier and Soult interposed between him and this last line of retreat. He would then have been forced to abandon all his matériel, and to hurry back to Talavera, in order to take the break-neck track to the Puerto de San Vincente. But there was every reason to believe that Victor might arrive in front of Talavera on the evening of the fourth or the morning of the fifth, so that this last road to safety might have been already blocked. Thus the Spanish army, if it had started on the fourth for Oropesa, might have found itself caught between the two French corps, and vowed to inevitable destruction. As a matter of fact Victor moved slowly and cautiously, and only reached Talavera on the sixth—but this could not possibly have been foreseen. We cannot therefore blame Cuesta’s precipitate departure upon the night of August 3.
His main body marched under cover of the darkness to Oropesa, where they arrived, much wearied and in some disorder, on the following morning. He left Zayas’s division and Albuquerque’s horse as a rearguard, to hold Talavera till midday on the fourth, with orders to make a semblance of resistance and to detain Victor for a few hours if he should appear. But no hostile force showed itself: by his unwise retreat to Santa Cruz the Marshal had drawn back so far from the enemy that he could not take advantage of their retrograde movement when it became known to him. Villatte’s division and Beaumont’s cavalry only reached Talavera on the morning of the sixth.