[380] Not marked in any contemporary map that I have seen. It is situated, however, opposite the junction of the River Almonte with the Tagus, about eighteen miles above Alcantara, near the ancient ruined bridge of Mantible.
[381] Which had just rejoined him from the north, after the fall of Ciudad Rodrigo. See [p. 253].
[382] See Wellington, Dispatches, vi. p. 343. ‘I am a little anxious about Mortier’s movement into Estremadura, not on account of the progress he can make, but because I think that the Marquis de la Romana is inclined to fight a battle. If we could only avoid a disaster for some time, I hope we may do some good at last.’ Cf. also vi. pp. 348 and 393.
[383] The brigade consisted of three squadrons each of the 5th and 8th regiments, and two of the 3rd. Beresford’s report to Wellington speaks of their behaviour in the highest terms. See Soriano da Luz, vol. iii. pp. 66-7.
[384] Dissatisfied with all his cavalry officers, La Romana had removed La Carrera to the command of the horse, making over his old infantry division to Carlos d’España.
[385] The 4th Corps was now a little stronger than it had been in the spring, the 32nd regiment, 2,000 strong, having joined from Madrid. But it was still short of its German division, which now lay in La Mancha, but had never crossed the Sierra Morena.
[386] See [p. 328] of this chapter.
[387] Lord Blayney, a humorous person save when the absurdities of his own generalship were in question, wrote an interesting narrative of his ‘Forced Journey to France,’ which contains one of the best accounts of the state of Madrid under King Joseph’s government, as well as some curious notes on the state of the English prisoners at Verdun in 1811-13.
[388] From the 32nd and 58th Line, Rey’s brigade of Sebastiani’s corps. The 88th, in Victoires et Conquêtes, xx. 127, and Arteche is a misprint. That regiment was with Girard in the Sierra Morena, 150 miles away.
[389] The 8th Corps had in its ranks the 4th battalions of the following regiments whose first three battalions were in the south of Spain, and belonged to the 1st, 4th, or 5th corps—the 28th, 34th, and 75th. But the 9th Corps was almost entirely composed of 4th battalions of the corps of Victor, Sebastiani, and Mortier, including those of the 8th, 24th, 45th, 54th, 63rd, 94th, 95th, 96th Line, and 16th and 27th Léger, of the 1st corps, and of the 17th Léger, and 40th, 88th, 100th and 103rd Line of the 5th Corps.