[468] I cannot find any proper account of these ‘compagnies helvétiques’ who were not part of the organized Swiss troops in French service. But they are several times mentioned in narratives of 1811. See for example Lapéne, p. 238. Presumably they were in King Joseph’s service.
[469] For details of the allocution to the officers ‘rangés en cercle,’ see Lapéne, p. 145.
[470] I cannot exactly make out on what day Madden’s weak cavalry brigade (4 squadrons 5th and 8th Portuguese) joined Beresford. It was not with him at Campo Mayor on March 25th, but was up by April 10. Probably it joined before April 1st, as it had been at Elvas since the battle of the Gebora.
[471] For these movements the best authority is Long’s journal, on pp. 109-11 of C. B. Long’s Vindication of his relative.
[472] D’Urban in his narrative points out seven, but four of these were practically impossible.
[473] This brigade, which appears for the Albuera campaign, was composed of the 5th Line (2 batts.) from the garrison of Elvas, joined by the 5th Caçadores, a detached light battalion which had been serving with the cavalry south of the Tagus since last November (see vol. iii. p. 557). This temporary brigade must not be confused with other units headed by Collins before and after.
[474] In a private letter to Sir H. Taylor, D’Urban uses even stronger language: ‘Our cavalry instead of retiring leisurely, had fallen back (indeed I may say fled) rapidly before the advanced guard of the enemy. The left bank of the Albuera was given up without the slightest attempt at dispute. This error on the part of the officer commanding the cavalry was so completely of a piece with his conduct upon more than one previous occasion, that it became imperatively necessary to relieve him.’ (D’Urban MSS.)
[475] This account of the Albuera position was written on the spot, and involved a good deal of walking on a blazing April day. See [note] at end of the chapter.
[476] Either Napier never saw the ground of Albuera (as Beresford suggests in the Strictures on Napier’s History, p. 207) or else he had forgotten it. The only good plan available was D’Urban’s, and this Napier used (a copy of it is among his portfolio of maps in the Bodleian Library), memory or hypothesis exaggerating into hills and ravines the very gentle ups and downs shown on the map.
[477] Strictures on Napier’s History, vol. iii. pp. 233-4.