[379] It had sunk on May 1 from an original strength of 6,800 men to 3,073.
[380] For strange doings of this eccentric brigadier at Salamanca during the winter, see Thiébault, vol. iv. pp. 435-7.
[381] These figures, differing much from those supplied by Koch, are worked out from the return of May 1 in the Paris Archives Nationales. The total of cavalry mounted and available seems to have been 3,007, including Fournier. See tables in [Appendix XIX].
[382] Masséna to Berthier, April 30, 1811, from Ciudad Rodrigo. The returns show that on May 1 twelve batteries had been left behind with no horses at all, in order that the five remaining might take the field with 425 horses.
[383] Masséna to Berthier, April 17th, from Salamanca.
[384] So Marbot, ii. 457. If Marbot’s talents as a raconteur make his authority doubtful, we may point out that Thiébault, the governor of Salamanca, tells much the same story in his Mémoires, iv. p. 478.
[385] Berthier to Bessières, May 19, 1811.
[386] Infantry. 2nd Corps, 10,292; 6th Corps, 16,816; 8th Corps (1 division), 4,714; 9th Corps, 10,304; total, 42,126. Cavalry. Masséna’s own, 3,007; Bessières, 1,665; Artillery, Sappers, Train, &c., 1,400; total, 48,198. Masséna would only acknowledge 35,000 men, and put Wellington’s force (which was, as we shall see, 37,000 men) at about 50,000. If Wellington had possessed 50,000 men, Fuentes de Oñoro would have been a very different sort of battle.
[387] Masséna’s arrival was known, through deserters, the day after it occurred. Diary of Simmons of the 95th, p. 166.
[388] Complaints on this score fill up great parts of Wellington’s letters of the 30th April and 1st May (Dispatches, vii. 511-12, 516-17). They seem slightly to overstate the deficiency, compared with morning states of May 1; but this comes from his persistent habit of counting only rank and file, omitting officers and sergeants. When he says that the total infantry (including Pack) was only 11,000, while it works out to over 12,000 when that detached brigade is counted, we must remember that he is not reckoning anything but rank and file. Wellington attributes most of the loss to (1) slackness at the depositos (dépôts) in forwarding drafts, (2) maladministration of the hospitals, (3) insufficient food at the front for those brigades still fed by the Portuguese government, and not taken on to the British establishment.