[233] Correspondance, vol. xx, Napoleon to Berthier, Feb. 12, 1810.
[234] Soult had given up the 2nd Corps when he became King Joseph’s Major-General: Reynier, appointed to command it, had not yet appeared.
[235] ‘Il faut prévoir que les Anglais peuvent marcher sur Talavera pour faire diversion,’ wrote Napoleon on Jan. 31 to Berthier. But Heudelet had been moved before his caution could reach Madrid.
[236] Hill’s division, two brigades strong at Talavera in August, had received a third brigade in September under Catlin Craufurd, consisting of the 2/28th, 2/34th, and 2/39th.
[237] Composed of the 2nd, 4th, 10th, and 14th regiments, each two battalions strong, with 4,500 bayonets.
[238] 1st and 4th Portuguese cavalry.
[239] He had 7,094 men with the colours, besides sick and detached, by the imperial muster rolls of Jan. 15, 1810.
[240] I cannot understand Napier’s narrative of this little campaign, on pages 352-4 of his vol. ii. It runs as follows, and seems to have no relation to the facts detailed by Belmas, Toreno, Arteche, or any other historian. No mention is made of the four captures of Oviedo!
‘Mahy was organizing a second army at Lugo and in the Asturias. D’Arco [Arce] commanded 7,000 men, 3,000 of whom were posted at Cornellana under General Ponte.... Bonnet, from the Asturias, threatened Galicia by the Concija d’Ibas: having destroyed Ponte’s force at Potes de la Sierra [30 miles from Colombres, where the actual fight took place], he menaced Galicia by the pass of Nava de Suarna This last blunder is apparently borrowed from Victoires et Conquêtes, xx. 12, which states that General Bonnet detached Jeannin’s brigade, the 46th and 65th, to Astorga. But these regiments did not belong to Bonnet, but were, from the first to the last, parts of Junot’s own corps, and never entered the Asturias. Compare Napoleon, Correspondance, xx. 21, the muster rolls of Jan. 1, Feb. 15, and Belmas, iii. p. 46.