The 2nd Division, left behind near Abrantes, had about 6,100 of all ranks. Hamilton’s Portuguese Division about 4,200, Fane’s British (13th Lt. Dragoons) and Portuguese cavalry was about 1,000 sabres, artillery of both nations for the Army of Estremadura about 500. The 7th Division, now being formed at Lisbon, was composed of 2,800 British and 2,300 Portuguese. There were two battalions not belonging to the 7th Division marching up with it, with 1,300 bayonets (2/52nd, 2/88th).
[169] Picton to Col. Pleydell, a letter printed in Robinson’s Life of Picton, i. 385.
[170] Narrative of Delagrave: ‘La cavalerie anglaise se déployait avec une certaine audace, et semblait vouloir provoquer un combat. Le Général Montbrun s’avança fièrement pour l’accepter. Les Anglais avaient des chevaux plus frais que les nôtres, et ils semblaient s’en prévaloir. Mais nos gens avaient pour eux le vrai courage et le sang-froid. Quelques escadrons de dragons, les plus avancés, en voyant qu’on les chargeait au grand galop, s’arrêtèrent et poussèrent le sabre en avant, et dans cette position reçurent de pied ferme l’ennemi. Cette manœuvre eut un plein succès. L’ennemi fut rompu, désuni, il eut beaucoup d’hommes et de chevaux tant tués que blessés. Ensuite les nôtres, dont pas un n’avait été touché, tirant un prompt parti de leur bon ordre, et du désordre des Anglais, chargèrent à leur tour, et eurent en quelques minutes bon marché de cette troupe, qui avait d’abord montré tant d’audace.’ (Campagne de Portugal, pp. 191-2.)
Narrative of Tomkinson, 16th Light Dragoons: ‘We followed the enemy up to the Pombal plain, where they showed eight squadrons formed on the heath in front. The Hussars advanced with one squadron in front and three in support, on which the enemy’s skirmishers retired, and the whole eight squadrons began to withdraw. We passed the defile in our front, and came up in time to join the Hussars in their charge. We charged and broke one squadron of the enemy, drove that on to the second, and so on, till the whole eight were altogether in the greatest confusion, when we drove them on to their main support. We wounded several and took a few prisoners, and should have made more, but that they were so thick that we could not get into them. The French officers called on the men supporting to advance: but not a man moved.’ (Diary, p. 79.)
The returns show that the total loss of the British cavalry was nine men on this day. Six belonged to the Hussars. The report states that one officer and eleven men of the French were taken prisoners (see Beamish, History of the K.G.L., i. p. 820). Wellington’s dispatch merely says, ‘The Hussars distinguished themselves in a charge, made under the command of Colonel Arentschildt.’
[171] No. 3 of that arm.
[172] Some French authorities, favourable to Masséna, assert that he was not responsible for the failure to occupy Coimbra, that Ney, on the 10th, had been told to send Marcognet’s brigade to support Montbrun, who said that he could not succeed without infantry help (Pelet, Notes sur la campagne de Portugal, p. 334). But Ney, it is said would not detach the brigade. This seems most improbable, for (1) Junot’s corps, which was in Ney’s rear and five miles nearer to Coimbra, would have been the natural source from which to seek for infantry supports for Montbrun, and (2) Masséna does not accuse Ney of this particular piece of disobedience in his report to Berthier of March 19, nor in the later one of March 22, when he is giving his reasons for superseding his colleague and sending him home to France. He simply says, in recounting his reasons for not seizing Coimbra, that Montbrun and the engineers reported ‘that the river was in flood, that the bridge had two arches broken, that the left bank was occupied by the forces of Trant and Silveira, and defended by cannon. It would have required several days to repair the bridge and to drive the Portuguese out of Coimbra; there was no pontoon train with the army, and not a single boat on the Mondego. In face of the danger of being attacked by Wellington’s whole force while the passage was in progress, he resolved to renounce it.’ The one battalion of infantry which was sent to Montbrun’s aid on the 12th came from Solignac’s division in Junot’s corps—as might have been expected.
[173] I spent two interesting hours at Redinha on September 29, 1910, going round the battle-ground, guided by Mr. Reynolds of Barreiro. The village is most irregularly built, and the way to the bridge not obvious, the streets being tortuous and narrow. The place is easy to defend, but not easy to get out of. A courteous denizen of Redinha, Mr. J. J. Leitão, presented me with an unexploded British shrapnel shell, which he had got out of the sand of the river-bed just above the bridge. Several more had been found on this spot; they must have been thrown by the pursuing British artillery at the French column hurrying over the bridge, and had fallen short, into the water. Each contained thirty-two balls, but the powder had decayed into an impalpable red dust. The shell that we got is now in the United Service Museum.
[174] See table of losses in [Appendix III]. Of the regiments the chief losers were the 95th (13 men), and 52nd (18 men).
[175] Of the fourteen French officers killed and wounded no less than thirteen were from the 25th Léger, and 27th and 50th Ligne of Mermet’s division.