[700] Orders of Napoleon from Schönbrunn, June 12: ‘Les trois corps doivent fournir 50 à 60 mille hommes. Si cette réunion a lieu promptement les Anglais doivent être détruits; mais il faut se réunir, et ne pas marcher par petits paquets. Cela est le principe général pour tous les guerres, mais surtout pour un pays où l’on ne peut pas avoir de communication.’
[701] By the return of July 15, the 5th Corps had 16,916 men, the attached brigades of dragoons, 1,853: the 2nd Corps had 18,740 (deducting Lorges and Lahoussaye): the 6th Corps 15,700, of whom one brigade of infantry (3,200 bayonets) was left behind. The total then was 50,009.
[702] The Marshal had dissolved one of his four divisions, that of Mermet, making over the 122nd of the line, reduced to two battalions, and the Swiss units to Kellermann, and distributing the other regiments between Merle, Delaborde, and Heudelet.
[703] Cuesta, in a dispatch in the Deposito de la Guerra, which seems unpublished, says that Del Reino fought with four battalions. He had started with no more than two, so must have rallied two others. I can find no trace of what they were, but conclude that they must have been some of those battalions of the Army of Estremadura which are not named in the Ordre de Bataille of the divisions present at Talavera. As I have shown in my [Talavera Appendix], there were eight regiments which had belonged to Cuesta’s army in March but do not appear in the divisional return of July. Most of these were in garrison at Badajoz: but two or three may well have been sent to guard the passes when the army advanced from the Guadiana in the end of June.
[704] For details of Mortier’s march see the memoir of Naylies, of Lahoussaye’s Dragoons, who was with the vanguard. According to the Diary of Fantin des Odoards, Soult pushed his kindness to the British invalids so far as to leave with them a small supply of muskets, with which to defend themselves against guerrillas.
[705] See Le Noble, p. 320.
[706] See Arteche, vi. 342, and Wellington Dispatches, iv. 561; the letter itself is not published by Gurwood, but Lord Londonderry, then on Wellesley’s staff, gives an analysis of it. It contained, according to him, orders to Soult to hasten his march, and to bring up Ney’s corps with all speed, while the king himself undertook to threaten Talavera again with Victor’s forces [Londonderry, i. p. 416].
[707] Wellesley to Bassecourt, from Oropesa, August 3. So confident was the British commander at this moment, that he wrote to Beresford on the same morning, telling him that Soult when assailed would probably retire at once, either by the pass of Perales or that of Baños. He wished his lieutenant to send Portuguese troops to the outlets of those defiles, to intercept the retreating enemy.
[708] Wellesley to O’Donoju, Aug. 3, 1809.
[709] I am bound to say that after reading the Spanish narratives, I doubt whether Cuesta had at his disposal the large amount of spare vehicles of which Londonderry and Napier speak.