[43] Napoleon to Berthier, March 29, Correspondance, no. 17,531.
[44] Soult to Berthier, from the siege lines in front of Olivenza, dated January 22.
[45] He calls it ‘la détermination que j’avais prise sur de simples avis indirects.’ To Berthier, January 25.
[46] For the explanation of all this see Soult to Berthier, already quoted, from Seville, December 1, acknowledging the receipt of the imperial orders of October 26th.
[47] Belonging to that division of the Army of the Centre under Dessolles which Soult had borrowed for the conquest of Andalusia, and which King Joseph, despite of many demands, could never get back.
[48] Certainly not with the loss of 1,500 men as Gazan alleged, still less with that of 3,000 as stated by Napier.
[49] By far the best account of this wild excursion is to be found in La Mare’s account of the Estremaduran Campaign of 1811-12 (Paris, 1825). Toreno exaggerates the losses of the French, which cannot have been heavy, as Martinien’s Liste des officiers tués, &c., shows only two or three casualties in Gazan’s division.
[50] Soult reports eighteen guns surrendered: but Herck says in his dispatch that only eight were serviceable.
[51] The original garrison was Voluntarios de Navarra, 1,150 bayonets properly belonging to O’Donnell’s division, which was at Lisbon with La Romana. The reinforcements thrown in at the last moment were four battalions, 2,400 bayonets, from the regiments Merida, Truxillo, Barbastro, and Monforte—the two former part of the original army of Estremadura, the two latter part of Del Parque’s old army from the north.
[52] Herck’s miserable exculpatory dispatch may be found in Chaby, iv. pp. 200-1.