The King, as we have already seen, had made up his mind that the all-important point, at this stage of the campaign, was to make an end of the army of Venegas, and to relieve Madrid from danger. He had therefore called Victor towards Toledo, and directed Mortier to relieve the divisions of the 1st Corps which lay at Talavera with troops from the 5th Corps. The result of this movement was to leave Soult too weak to undertake any important operations against Portugal. For Mortier’s men, being strung out on the long line from Talavera to Navalmoral, with both Wellesley’s and Cuesta’s armies in their front, could not be relied upon to lend aid for an advance on Castello Branco or Abrantes. The Duke of Dalmatia therefore, when he had reached Plasencia, could dispose of nothing but his own 2nd Corps and Lahoussaye’s four regiments of dragoons. He dared not march on Portugal with no more than 20,000 men, when the allies had it in their power to fall upon Mortier the moment that his back was turned. Accordingly he waited at Plasencia, sending out cavalry to Coria and Torejoncillo, but did nothing more. Meanwhile Beresford and the two British brigades from Lisbon were drawing near him, and on August 16 the Portuguese cavalry, advancing from the pass of Perales and Moraleja, drove out the two French squadrons which were occupying Coria, and thus warned Soult that a new army was coming into play against him. Two days later Beresford had transferred himself to the Castello Branco road, and a force of 23,000 men had been thrown between the 2nd Corps and the Portuguese frontier.
Meanwhile the King had met with unexpected good fortune in his attack on Venegas. On August 5 he had set out from Valdemoro with the intention of attacking the army of La Mancha in its position at Aranjuez. It seemed unlikely that he would find it there, for Venegas had displayed such excessive caution in his advance from the Sierra Morena to the Tagus, and had so tamely refused to take his opportunity of pouncing upon Madrid, that it seemed probable that he would retreat at the first sign of the King’s approach. But rushing to the opposite extreme of conduct, the Spanish general was now ready to court destruction. He had received on the preceding night, that of August 4, Cuesta’s dispatch of the third, informing him that Soult had crossed the mountains and that both the British and the Estremaduran armies were quitting Talavera. The Captain-General warned him that he might expect an attack from the King’s army, and ordered him to avoid an action, and to fall back towards the Despeña Perros if he were pressed. Serenely putting aside the orders of Cuesta, Venegas refused to retreat, and announced that he should not copy the conduct of a superior who had fled even before the enemy was in sight. He announced his intention of fighting, and directed his army to concentrate in the neighbourhood of Aranjuez. Of his five divisions, three were holding that town when the French came in sight; the other two were écheloned between Aranjuez and Tembleque, apparently in order to watch the roads from Toledo and Añover. The enemy might, as Venegas saw, turn his flank either by crossing the bridges of the former place, or by passing the easy ford at the latter. A detachment of 800 men had been left to watch the debouches from Toledo, and a couple of battalions observed the ford of Añover.
King Joseph meanwhile, marching with a force composed of Sebastiani’s corps, the Central Reserve, and Milhaud’s division of dragoons, arrived in front of Aranjuez on August 5. Sebastiani, whose troops led the advance, drove in the Spanish outposts, who retired across the Tagus and broke the town bridge behind them. But beyond the river the greater part of the army of La Mancha was visible in battle order, prepared to receive the attack: Venegas himself, however, chanced to be absent at the moment, as he had ridden over that morning to visit his left wing, and General Giron was in temporary charge of the defence. Sebastiani risked an attack on the Spanish position, which was accessible by means of two fords. But finding that the enemy was in great force and stood firm, he drew off his men after a sharp skirmish.
King Joseph now determined not to press the attack on Aranjuez and its fords, but to cross the Tagus at points where he could secure a less difficult passage. He countermarched Sebastiani’s corps to the bridge of Toledo, and gave Milhaud orders to force the ford of Añover. This manœuvre cost him three days; it was only on the evening of August 8 that he succeeded in concentrating his main body at Toledo. On the following morning Sebastiani passed the bridges and drove off the Spanish detachment that was observing them: it fell back on a larger force, and the 4th Corps pressing its advance, came into contact with a whole hostile division.
Venegas had not failed to guess the plan which the King would adopt, and had moved off from Aranjuez towards Toledo, by roads parallel to those which the French had employed. His 5th division, 4,000 bayonets, under Major-General Zerain, was in front, and thus was the first to meet Sebastiani’s attack. It was driven in after a sharp skirmish, and retired a few miles to the small town of Almonacid, on the high-road to Mora and Madridejos. On the same evening Milhaud’s dragoons assailed the ford of Añover, drove off the small force that was guarding it, and fell into line on Sebastiani’s left flank. On the next morning Venegas came up with his remaining four divisions, those of Lacy, Vigodet, Giron, and Castejon, and joined Zerain at Almonacid. Thus both sides were concentrated for battle, save that Joseph and his reserves, owing to the delay caused by a defile over the narrow bridge of Toledo, were some ten miles to the rear of Sebastiani. The Spanish army, after the deduction of men in hospital or detached, amounted to about 23,000 men, of whom nearly 3,000 were horse: it had forty guns. The King and Sebastiani had some 21,000 sabres and bayonets, but of these nearly 4,000 were cavalry, so that the French army enjoyed its usual preponderance in that arm, in numbers no less than in efficiency. Two of its infantry divisions, those of Leval and Sebastiani, had suffered heavily at Talavera: the rest of the infantry—Valence’s Poles and the King’s guards and reserves—had not been engaged in that battle; all the cavalry was equally intact[751].
Both armies were prepared to fight: King Joseph had resolved that Madrid would never be safe till the army of La Mancha had been beaten. Venegas was eager to meet him: he had persuaded himself that the French troops which had passed the bridge of Toledo did not amount to more than 14,000 men, and hoped for an easy victory. He held a council of war on the night of the tenth, and found his subordinates as ready to fight as himself. They determined to attack Sebastiani on the dawn of August 12, and the Commander-in-chief exclaimed with exultation that, whatever other Spanish officers might do, he at least would never earn the nickname of El General Retiradas[752].
The French, however, anticipated Venegas, for on the morning of August 11, at half-past five o’clock, Sebastiani presented himself in front of the Spanish position and opened a furious attack, without waiting for the arrival of King Joseph and the reserve. The army of La Mancha had therefore to fight a defensive engagement, and never got the chance of carrying out the ambitious designs of its chief.
The battle-field of Almonacid bears a strong resemblance to that of Ucles, where Venegas six months before had made such a deplorable début in the character of a ‘fighting general.’ As at Ucles, the Spanish army was arrayed on a series of eminences on each side of a small town, with a long array of infantry and guns in its centre, and the cavalry on the wings. As if to emphasize the resemblance, Venegas committed his old fault of keeping no adequate reserve in hand, and distributed his whole force in one thin line, with no more than four battalions and two cavalry regiments drawn up in support to the rear of the centre! The only points in which there was a marked difference between Ucles and Almonacid was that on the latter field the eminence on the Spanish left—a hill called Los Cerrojones—was so much higher than the rest of the ground that it formed the key of the position, just as the Cerro de Medellin had done at Talavera. Moreover, there was a long hill behind Almonacid—the Cerro del Castillo—which gave an admirable rallying-point for the army if it should be forced out of its first fighting-ground.
The main line of the Spanish order of battle was formed, counting from right to left, by the divisions of Vigodet (no. 2), Castejon (no. 4), Zerain (no. 5), and Lacy (no. 1), with a brigade of the division of Giron (no. 3) continuing the array on to the Cerrojones. The second brigade of Giron formed the sole reserve; it was drawn up on the Cerro del Castillo, where the ruins of the mediaeval fort that gave the hill its name were turned to account as a place of strength. It had two cavalry regiments in its rear: the rest of the troops of that arm were distributed between the two flanks.
When Sebastiani came upon the field he fell upon the Spanish line without a moment’s hesitation. Apparently he thought that delay would only give the enemy time to rearrange his troops and strengthen his weak points. At any rate he did not wait for the arrival of the King and the reserve, but attacked at once. It was the same fault that Victor had committed at Talavera, but Sebastiani was not destined to receive the condign punishment that befell the Duke of Belluno. Noting that the steep hill on the Spanish left was the key of the position, he resolved to storm it before attacking the rest of the hostile line. Accordingly he threw out Milhaud’s dragoons and his own French division to ‘contain’ the Spanish centre and right, while Leval’s Germans and Valence’s Poles were directed to assail the Cerrojones. The former division turned the flank of the hill, while the latter attacked it in front.