Meanwhile, on seeing their right brigade opening the combat with such success, the two other French columns went forward, Marcognet against the Spanish centre, Anselme of the 25th Léger against the extreme right. But the ground was here much steeper: Losada’s Galician division stood its ground very steadily, and Marcognet’s two regiments made an involuntary halt three-quarters of the way up the heights, under the full fire of the two Spanish batteries there placed and the long line of infantry. The officers made several desperate attempts to induce the columns to resume their advance, but to no effect. They fell in great numbers, and at last the regiments recoiled and descended the hill in disorder. Losada’s battalions pursued them to the foot of the slope, and the Spanish light troops in the village sallied out upon their flank, and completed their rout. Marcognet’s brigade poured down into the plain as a disordered mass of fugitives, and were only stayed when Marchand brought up the 27th and 59th to their rescue. Del Parque wisely halted the pursuing force before it came into contact with the French reserves, and took up again his post on the heights.
Meanwhile the 25th Léger, on the extreme French right, had not pressed its attack home, and retreated when the central advance was repulsed. Maucune, too, seeing the rout to his left, withdrew from the heights under cover of his cavalry, carrying off only one of the Spanish guns that he had taken early in the fight, and leaving in return a disabled piece of his own on the hill.
The battle was fairly lost, and Marchand retired, under cover of his cavalry along the Salamanca road. The enemy made no serious attempt to pursue him in the plain, where his horsemen would have been able to act with advantage. The French had lost 1,300 or 1,400 men, including 18 officers killed, and a general (Lorcet) and 54 officers wounded[84]. Marcognet’s brigade supplied the greater part of the casualties; the 76th lost its eagle, seven officers killed and fifteen wounded: the 39th almost as many. The cavalry and Maucune’s brigade suffered little. The very moderate Spanish loss was 713 killed and wounded, mostly in La Carrera’s division.
This was the first general action since Baylen in which the Spaniards gained a complete victory. They had a superiority of about seven to four in numbers, and a good position; nevertheless the troops were so raw, and the past record of the Army of the Left was so disheartening, that the victory reflects considerable credit on the Galicians. The 6th Corps was reckoned the best of all the French units in Spain, being entirely composed of old regiments from the army of Germany. It is not too much to say that Ney’s absence was responsible for the defeat of his men. Marchand attacked at three points, and was weak at each. The Marshal would certainly have massed a whole division against the Spanish left, and would not have been stopped by the stout resistance made by Belveder’s reserve. A demonstration by a few battalions would have ‘contained’ Losada’s troops on the left, where the ground was too unfavourable for a serious attack[85].
On the 19th of October the beaten army reached Salamanca by a forced march. Marchand feared that the enemy would now manœuvre either by Ledesma, so as to cut him off from Kellermann and the troops in the north, or by Alba de Tormes, so as to intercept his communication with Madrid. In either case he would have to retreat, for there was no good defensive ground on the Tormes to resist an army coming from the west. As a matter of fact Del Parque moved by Ledesma, for two reasons: the first was that he wished to avoid the plains, fearing that Kellermann might have joined the 6th Corps with his cavalry division. The second was that, by moving in this direction, he hoped to make his junction with Ballasteros, who had started from the Asturias to join him, and had been reported to have moved from Astorga to Miranda del Duero, and to be feeling his way south-eastward. The juncture took place: the Asturian division, after an unsuccessful attempt to cut off the garrison of Zamora on the seventeenth, had marched to Ledesma, and met the main army there. Del Parque had now 28,000 men, and though still very weak in cavalry, thought himself strong enough to march on Salamanca. He reached it on October 25 and found it evacuated. Marchand, learning that Kellermann was too far off to help him, and knowing that no reinforcements from Madrid could reach him for many days, had evacuated the town on the previous evening. He retired towards Toro, thus throwing up his communications with Madrid in order to make sure of joining Kellermann. This seems doubtful policy, for that general could only aid him with 4,000 or 5,000 men, and their joint force would be under 20,000 strong. On the other hand, by retiring on Peñaranda or Medina de Campo, and so approaching the King’s army, he could have counted on picking up much larger reinforcements, and on resuming the struggle with a good prospect of success.
As a matter of fact Jourdan, on hearing of the disaster of Tamames, had dispatched, to aid the 6th Corps, Godinot’s brigade of Dessolles’ division, some 3,500 bayonets, from Madrid, and Heudelet’s division of the 2nd Corps, about 4,000 strong, from Oropesa, as well as a couple of regiments of cavalry. He made these detachments without scruple, because there was as yet no sign of any activity on the part of the Spanish armies of La Mancha and Estremadura. A week later he would have found it much more hazardous to weaken his front in the valley of the Tagus. These were the last orders issued by Jourdan, who resigned his post on October 31, while Soult on November 5 arrived at Madrid and replaced him as chief of the staff to King Joseph.
Del Parque, not unnaturally elated by his victory, now nourished ambitious ideas of clearing the whole of Leon and Old Castile of the enemy, being aware that the armies of La Mancha and Estremadura ought now to be on the move, and that full occupation would be found ere long for the French corps in the valley of the Tagus. He ordered up his 5th Division, the raw Leonese battalions of Castrofuerte, from Ciudad Rodrigo, and made vehement appeals to the Portuguese Government to lend him the whole of Beresford’s army for a great advance up the Douro. The Regency, though much pressed by the Spanish ambassador at Lisbon, gave a blank refusal, following Wellington’s advice to have nothing to do with offensive operations in Spanish company[86]. But part of Beresford’s troops were ordered up to the frontier, not so much to lend a moral support to Del Parque’s advance[87] as to be ready to defend their own borders in the event of his defeat. Showing more prudence than Wellington had expected, Del Parque did not push forward from Salamanca, when he became certain that he would have to depend on his own forces alone. Even after the arrival of his reserves from Rodrigo he remained quiet, only pushing out reconnaissances to discover which way the enemy had gone. He had, in fact, carried out his part in the Central Junta’s plan of campaign, by calling the attention of the French to the north, and distracting troops thither from the King’s army. It was now the time for Albuquerque and Areizaga to take up the game, and relieve him. Marchand meanwhile had retired across the Douro, and taken up an extended line behind it from Zamora to Tordesillas—a front of over forty miles—which it would have been impossible to hold with his 13,000 men against a heavy attack delivered at one point. But he was hardly in position when Kellermann arrived, took over the command, and changed the whole plan of campaign (November 1). He had left two battalions to guard Benavente, two to hold Valladolid, and had only brought up his 3,000 dragoons and 1,500 infantry. Seeing that it was absolutely necessary to recover the line of communication with Madrid, he ordered the 6th Corps to leave Zamora and Toro, mass at Tordesillas, and then cross the Douro to Medina del Campo, the junction point of the roads from Madrid, Segovia, Valladolid, and Toro. To this same place he brought up his own small force, and having received Godinot’s brigade from Madrid, had thirty-four battalions and eighteen squadrons concentrated—about 23,000 men. Though not yet joined by the other troops from the south—Heudelet’s division—he now marched straight upon Salamanca in two columns, one by Cantalapiedra, the other by Fuente Sauco, intending to offer battle to Del Parque.
But the duke, much to the surprise of every one, utterly refused to fight, holding the plain too dangerous for an army so weak in cavalry as his own, and over-estimating the enemy’s force at 36,000 men[88]. He retired from Salamanca, after having held it less than a fortnight, on November 5, and took not the road to Ciudad Rodrigo but that to Bejar and the Pass of Baños, as if he were about to pass the mountains into Estremadura[89]. This was an excellent move: the French could not pursue him in force without evacuating Old Castile and Leon, which it would have been impossible for them to contemplate. For when Kellermann had concentrated his troops to strike at Salamanca, there was nothing left behind him in the vast upland save a battalion or two at Benavente, Valladolid, and Burgos. Mahy, from Galicia, and the Asturians might have overrun the whole region unopposed. As it was, the whole of the provinces behind the Douro showed signs of bursting out into insurrection. Julian Sanchez, the Empecinado, and other guerrillero chiefs, whose names were soon to be famous, raised large bands during the absence of the normal garrisons, and swept the country-side, capturing convoys and cutting the lines of communication between Vittoria, Burgos, and Valladolid. Porlier came down with a flying column from the Asturias, assaulted Palencia, and threatened Burgos. The French governors on every side kept reporting their perilous position, when they could get a message through to Madrid[90].