[517] From a casual reading of Suchet, i. 17-21, it might be thought that the general had been joined by Habert before the battle. But he certainly was not, as the Memoirs of Von Brandt, who was with Habert, show that this brigade was at Villafranca, forty miles from Alcañiz, on the twenty-third, and only started (too late) to join its chief on the twenty-fourth. The mention of the 2nd of the Vistula on p. 21 of Suchet is a misprint for the 3rd of the Vistula of Musnier’s division. Half the 13th Cuirassiers was also absent with Habert.
[518] According to Suchet’s own figures from his May 15 return, the forces engaged must have been:—
| Musnier’s Division: | |
| 114th Line (three batts.) | 1,627 |
| 115th Line (three batts.) | 1,732 |
| 1st of the Vistula (two batts.) | 1,039 |
| 121st Line (one batt. only) | 400 |
| Detachment of the 64th and 40th of the Line [General’s escort] | 450 |
| 5,248 | |
| Laval’s Brigade: | |
| 14th Line (two batts.) | 1,080 |
| 3rd of the Vistula (two batts.) | 964 |
| Cavalry, 4th Hussars | 326 |
| Half 13th Cuirassiers | 200 |
| Artillery | 320 |
| 2,890 | |
| Total | 8,138 |
[519] The Spanish line-of-battle was as follows:—
| Left wing, General Areizaga: | |
| Daroca, Volunteers of Aragon, Tiradores de Doyle, Reserve of Aragon, 1st Tiradores de Murcia, Company of Tiradores de Cartagena—five and one-sixth batts. | 2,669 |
| Centre, Marquis of Lazan: | |
| Volunteers of Valencia, Ferdinando VII, 3rd batt. of America, detachment of Traxler’s Swiss—three and a half batts. | 1,605 |
| Right wing, General Roca: | |
| 3rd batt. of Savoia, 2nd batt. of America, 1st of Valencia (three batts.), 2nd Cazadores of Valencia, 1st Volunteers of Saragossa—seven batts. | 3,742 |
| Cavalry (detachments of Santiago, Olivenza, and Husares Españoles) | 445 |
| Artillery | 245 |
[520] Napier, for example, following French sources, gives Blake 12,000 men.
[521] Three battalions of the 114th of the Line, and two of the 1st of the Vistula.
[522] Suchet gives a very poor account of Alcañiz in his Mémoires. In spite of his many merits, he did not take a beating well, and slurs over this action, just as in 1812 he slurs over his defeat at Castalla. He does not even give an estimate of his killed and wounded, and has the assurance to say that he left the enemy only ‘l’opinion de la victoire’ (i. 20). Blake clearly makes too much of the French attack on his right in his dispatch.
[523] Suchet, Mémoires, p. 20.
[524] The drafts were so large that the troops of Lazan’s division, which had numbered 3,979 in May, were 5,679 in June, those of Roca rose similarly from 3,449 to 5,525. The Valencian Junta claimed to have sent in all 11,881 men to reinforce Blake, and the returns bear them out. They also gave him 2,000,000 reals in cash—about £22,000—raised by a special contribution in fifteen days. Their report says that they had sent on every armed man in the province, and that the city was only guarded by peasants armed with pikes. (Argüelles.)