The whole routed multitude now streamed wildly over the plain, with the French cavalry in hot pursuit. Thousands of prisoners were taken, and the chase only ended with nightfall. The fugitives headed straight for the Sierra Morena, and reached it with a rapidity even greater than that which they had used in their outward march a fortnight before. Victor’s cavalry arrived in time to take up the pursuit next morning: they had on their way to the field captured the whole of the trains of the Spanish army, on the road from Noblejas to Ocaña. The losses of Areizaga’s army were appalling; about 4,000 killed and wounded and 14,000 prisoners. Thirty flags and fifty out of the sixty guns had been captured. When the wrecks of the army had been rallied in the passes, three weeks after the battle, only some 21,000 infantry[103] and 3,000 horse were reported as present. The divisions of Lacy, Jacomé, and Zerain had practically disappeared, and the others had lost from a third to a half of their numbers. The condition of the cavalry was peculiarly disgraceful; as it had never stood to fight, its losses represent not prisoners, for the most part, but mere runaways who never returned to their standards. The French had lost about 90 officers and 1,900 men, nearly all in the divisions of Leval, Werlé, and Girard[104]. The cavalry, which had delivered the great stroke and won the battle, suffered very little. Mortier had been slightly wounded, Leval and Girard severely.
Even allowing for the fact that Areizaga had been the victim of the Junta’s insensate resolve to make an offensive movement on Madrid, it is impossible to speak with patience of his generalship. For a combination of rashness and vacillation it excels that of any other Spanish general during the whole war. His only chance was to catch the enemy before they could concentrate: he succeeded in doing this by his rapid march from the passes to La Guardia. Then he waited three days in deplorable indecision, though there were only 10,000 men between him and Madrid. Next he resumed his advance, but by the circuitous route of Villamanrique, by taking which he lost three days more. Then he halted again, the moment that he found Victor with 20,000 men in his front, though he might still have fought at great advantage. Lastly he retreated, yet so slowly and unskilfully that he was finally brought to action at Ocaña by the 34,000 men of Mortier and Sebastiani. He was sent out to win a battle, since Madrid could not be delivered without one, and knew that he must fight sooner or later, but threw away his favourable opportunities, and then accepted an action when all the chances were against him. For he must have known by this time the miserable quality of his cavalry, yet gave battle in a vast plain, where everything depended on the mounted arm. In the actual moment of conflict he seems to have remained in a hypnotized condition on his church-tower, issuing hardly an order, and allowing the fight to go as it pleased. Yet he was, by all accounts, possessed of personal courage, as he had proved at Alcañiz and elsewhere. Apparently responsibility reduced him to a condition of vacillating idiocy. Perhaps the most surprising fact of the whole business is that the Junta retained him in command after his fiasco, thanked him for his services, and sent him an honorary present—as it had done to Cuesta after Medellin with somewhat better excuse. He was its own man, and it did not throw him over, even when he had proved his perfect incompetence.
To complete the narrative of the deplorable autumn campaign of 1809, it only remains to tell of the doings of Albuquerque and Del Parque. The former played his part with reasonable success; he was ordered to distract the attention of the enemy from the army of La Mancha, and did what he could. Having got some 10,000 men concentrated at Almaraz, he sent one column over the Tagus to demonstrate against the 2nd Corps from beyond the river, and with another threatened the bridge of Talavera from the near side. But Heudelet, now in command of the 2nd Corps, soon found that there was no reality in his demonstration, and that he was not supported by the English, though he had given out that Wellington was close in his rear. After skirmishing around Talavera from the 17th to the 22nd of November, the Duke hastily recrossed the river on hearing the news of Ocaña, and resumed his old positions.
Del Parque’s campaign was more vigorous and more unfortunate. While he lay in the passes above Bejar and Baños, he got early news of the withdrawal of Godinot’s and Marcognet’s troops toward Madrid, when Soult summoned them off to reinforce the main army. He reasoned that since he had now only the 6th Corps, shorn of one of its brigades, in his front, he might repeat the success of Tamames, for Marchand was weaker than he had been in October, while he himself was far stronger. Accordingly he disregarded an order from the Junta to extend his operations southward, and to join Albuquerque in the valley of the Tagus. Instead, he marched once more upon Salamanca on November 18, the day before the disaster of Ocaña. He drove in an outlying brigade of Marchand’s force from Alba de Tormes, and pressed it vigorously back towards the main body. Conscious that with his 10,000 men he could not hope to face 30,000, Marchand promptly evacuated Salamanca on December 19, and retired, just as he had done in October, behind the Douro, concentrating his whole corps at Toro. He sent urgent demands for help both to Kellermann at Valladolid, and to Soult at Madrid. By the time that they arrived Areizaga had been dealt with, and the army in New Castile could spare as many reinforcements as were required. Marcognet’s brigade, the one which had been borrowed from the 6th Corps, was first sent back from Segovia, the point which it had reached in its southward march, and Gazan’s division of the 5th Corps was ordered by Soult to follow.
Meanwhile Del Parque, still ignorant of the disaster in the south, had occupied Salamanca on November 20, and on the following day moved out towards Cantalapiedra and Medina del Campo, with the object of throwing himself between Marchand and Kellermann and the capital. This was an excellent move, and, but for what had happened at Ocaña, might have had considerable results, since the Army of the Left ought to have made an end of the small French force in Old Castile.
Kellermann, however, had seen the danger of Marchand’s retreat to Toro, and had directed him to close in towards the east, and to occupy Medina del Campo, as the strategical point that must be held in order to maintain touch with Madrid. Thus it chanced that on November 23 Labassée’s brigade and four regiments of cavalry, coming from Tordesillas, reached Medina del Campo just as Marcognet’s brigade, returning from Segovia, came into the town from the other side. They had hardly met when the approach of Del Parque’s army along the Salamanca road was reported. The two French brigadiers thought for a moment of fighting, and the cavalry was ordered to press back the Spanish advanced guard. They drove off with ease Anglona’s horsemen, who rode at the head of the long column, but were repulsed by Ballasteros’s infantry, which formed square in good style, and drove them off with a rolling fire of musketry. Seeing that the whole Spanish army was coming up, Marcognet and Labassée then evacuated Medina del Campo, and retired to Valdestillas. With one push more the Spaniards could have cut the line between Valladolid and Madrid.
On November 24 the whole 6th Corps and Kellermann’s dragoons, with a battalion or two from the garrisons of Old Castile, were concentrated at Puente de Duero, with their van at Valdestillas. If attacked, they must have gone behind the Douro and abandoned all touch with Madrid; for there were not more than 16,000 men in line, and they were forced to take the defensive. But, to their surprise, Del Parque made no advance. He had heard on that morning of the disaster of Ocaña, and guessed that reinforcements for Kellermann must already be on the march. Wherefore he resolved to regain the mountains without delay, and to give up Salamanca and his other conquests. With this prudent resolve he broke up from Medina del Campo, and marched hastily away in retreat, making, not for Salamanca, which was too much in the plains to please him, but for Alba de Tormes. He had gained a day’s start by his prompt action, but on the twenty-sixth Kellermann set off in pursuit, leaving orders for the troops that were expected from Madrid to follow him.
On the twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh the French cavalry failed even to get in touch with Del Parque’s rearguard, and found nothing but a few stragglers on the road. But on the afternoon of the twenty-eighth the leading squadrons reported that they had come upon the whole Spanish army encamped in a mass around the town of Alba de Tormes. The duke had flattered himself that he had shaken off his pursuers, and was surprised in a most unfortunate position. Two of his divisions (Ballasteros and Castrofuerte) were beyond the Tormes, preparing to bivouac on the upland above it. The other three were quartered in and about the town, while the cavalry was watching the road, but had fallen in so close to the main body that its vedettes gave very short notice of the approach of the enemy. Kellermann was riding with the leading brigade of his cavalry—Lorcet’s chasseurs and hussars; the six regiments of dragoons were close behind him, so that he had over 3,000 sabres in hand; but the infantry was ten miles to the rear. If he waited for it, Del Parque would have time to cross the river and take up a defensive position behind it. The French general, therefore, resolved to risk a most hazardous experiment, an attack with unsupported cavalry upon a force of all arms, in the hope of detaining it till the infantry should come up. The Spaniards were getting into line of battle in a hurry, Losada’s division on the right, Belveder’s and La Carrera’s on the left, the cavalry—1,200 sabres at most—in their front. The divisions beyond the river were only beginning to assemble, and would take some time to recross the narrow bridge: but 18,000 men were on the right bank prepared to fight.
Without a moment’s delay Kellermann ordered Lorcet’s brigade to charge the Spanish right and centre: it was followed by the six regiments of dragoons in three successive lines, and the whole mass came down like a whirlwind upon Del Parque’s front, scattering his cavalry to the winds, and breaking the whole of Losada’s and the right of Belveder’s divisions. A battery of artillery, and nearly 2,000 prisoners were taken. The wrecks of the broken divisions fell back into Alba de Tormes, and jammed the bridge, thus preventing the divisions on the further side from recrossing it. Kellermann then rallied his squadrons, and led them against La Carrera’s division and the remaining battalions of that of Belveder. These troops, formed in brigade-squares upon a rising ground, held out gallantly and repulsed the charge. But they were cut off from the bridge, which they could only reach by a dangerous flank movement over rough ground. By continually threatening to repeat his attacks, Kellermann kept them from moving off, till, two hours and a half after the action had begun, the French infantry and guns commenced to come up. La Carrera saw that it would be fatal to await them, and bade his division retreat and reach the bridge as best it could. This was naturally done in disorder, and with some loss; but it was already growing dusk, and the bulk of the Spanish left got away.