[399] 51st and 85th, the other regiments being foreign (Chasseurs Britanniques and Brunswick Oels) or Portuguese.
[400] Its position, from this point of view, might be compared to that of Pakenham and the 3rd Division at Salamanca.
[401] The accusation against Montbrun, made by Napier and several French writers, of having waited for two hours after dawn, and then of having suffered himself to be delayed for another hour by the pursuit of a mere Spanish irregular band, is clearly groundless. We have the diaries of two officers of the squadrons of the 14th (Major Brotherton and Cornet F. Hall) who prove that the attack was made in the dusk of early dawn. ‘Just at daybreak,’ says the former, ‘I requested Don Julian to show me where his pickets were placed. He pointed out to me what he said was one of them, but I observed to him that in the dusk of morning it looked too large for a picket. The sun rising rapidly dispelled the fog, and the illusion at the same time, for Don Julian’s picket proved to be a whole French regiment dismounted. They now mounted immediately and advanced against us.’ (See the Diary in Hamilton’s History of the 14th Hussars.)
[402] Captain Belli, who had joined the regiment from England only the night before. A sergeant and six men were killed in trying to rescue him. See Tomkinson’s diary, p. 101. This officer of the 16th accuses Major Meyer of the Hussars of having lost the right moment for a charge by indecision. But the K.G.L. narratives (see Schwertfeger) show that Meyer fought hard, and was an enterprising officer.
[403] 1st Division in four brigades on the right; then Ashworth; then the 3rd Division next to Fuentes village.
[404] Along which the modern railway line is conducted from Villar Formoso to Ciudad Rodrigo. Fuentes de Oñoro station is a mile from the village, and only a few hundred yards from the Portuguese customs-station of Villar Formoso.
[405] 51st Foot, Chasseurs Britanniques, the incomplete battalion of Brunswick Oels (short of two companies detached), and the 7th and 19th Portuguese, commanded on this day by Doyle, colonel of the 19th.
[406] Unpublished Diary of Hall of the 14th Light Dragoons.
[407] See Journal of Wheeler of the 51st, pp. 13-14.
[408] The 51st lost 6 men; Brunswick Oels, 18; Chasseurs Britanniques, 58; 7th Portuguese, 8 men; 19th, 2 men—of these 92 only 19 were prisoners, so that it is clear that the French cavalry never got in among them, or cut them up in the style described by Pelet, Fournier, Fririon, or Masséna himself. When a body of 4,000 infantry attacked by cavalry has only 90 casualties, we know that no part of it can have been ridden over or seriously broken.