[438] Dispatches, vii. 515.
[440] Both by Napier, iii. 152, and by Fririon, p. 207.
[441] See his dispatch in the Appendix to Belmas, i. p. 539.
[442] Moreover, Marchand’s leading brigade, that of Maucune, must have been in great disorder, after having driven the British advanced guard out of the woods and the village, and would need time to re-form.
[443] Pelet thinks that ‘l’excessive supériorité du général anglais lui donnait le moyen de tout entreprendre. Il s’est montré, dans cette campagne, et même ailleurs, fort étranger à la stratégie comme à la tactique.’ He concludes that Wellington with his superior numbers should have attacked the French centre or Reynier! He was ‘plus fort des deux cinquièmes que les Français.’ (Appendice sur la Guerre d’Espagne, pp. 340-2.) Fririon states as an incontestable fact that the French cavalry was inferior to the English in numbers (Journal historique de la Campagne de Portugal, p. 207). Marbot, on the other hand, thinks that Wellington was over rash in fighting at all on such a position (Mémoires, ii. 460), coming to much the same conclusion as Napier. Belmas’s arguments, like those of Pelet, are all vitiated by his giving Wellington 45,000 men—9,000 more than he actually possessed. Delagrave thinks, like Pelet, that Wellington showed ‘timidity which passed into cowardice.’ Yet he allows that Masséna had 41,000 infantry and cavalry, without counting gunners or sappers, and Wellington only 40,000 (p. 239).
[444] Wellington says (to Lord Liverpool, May 15): ‘Sir W. Erskine was dining with Sir Brent Spencer at head quarters, and received his orders about 4 o’clock. He says that he sent them off forthwith to the 4th regiment, which was stationed between Aldea de Obispo and Barba del Puerco.... The 4th regiment, it is said, did not receive their orders before midnight, and, though they had only 2½ miles to march, missed the road, and did not arrive at Barba del Puerco till after the French.’ (Dispatches, vii. 566.) Tomkinson’s contemporary comment on this is (pp. 102-3 of his diary): ‘The order reached Sir W. Erskine’s quarters about 2 p.m.: he put it in his pocket, and did not dispatch the letter to Colonel Bevan before midnight, and to cover himself, when required to explain by Lord Wellington, said that the 4th unfortunately missed its way, which was not the case.’ Many years later (1836) in his Conversations with Lord Stanhope (which see, p. 89) Wellington said that he believed Bevan had his orders ‘about four or five in the afternoon, but the people about him said “Oh! you need not march till daybreak,” and so by his fault the French got to Barba del Puerco.’ Napier (History, iii. p. 156) says plainly that ‘Erskine sent no order to the 4th regiment.’ Colonel Bevan always maintained that he got nothing from Erskine till nearly midnight.
[445] Marbot’s well-known narrative of this disaster (ii. 473) errs in exaggerating the numbers, but Reynier’s dispatch shows that there was a solid foundation for what might otherwise have appeared a rather lurid picture.
[446] Colonel Iremonger to Campbell, printed in History of the 2nd Regt., vol. iii. p. 190.
[447] Wellington to Lord Liverpool, vii. p. 566.