The other preparation which Wellington made for a possible battle on the 5th was to draw back the Light Division at dusk from the left wing to its original position behind Fuentes village in reserve. He also withdrew the numerous light companies which had formed the original garrison of that place, and left there only two battalions, the 1/71st and 1/79th, with the 2/24th to support them at the top of the hill.
The fighting on the 5th of May began very early. Just at daybreak the extreme right flank of Wellington’s cavalry screen was attacked by the outermost of the enemy’s turning columns, composed of two regiments of Montbrun’s dragoons[401]. This took place under the hill of Nava de Aver, where Julian Sanchez with his guerrilleros had been posted on the 3rd, while two squadrons of the 14th Light Dragoons had been moved up to his support on the night of the 4th. The guerrilleros kept a bad look-out, and in the dusk of the morning were surprised by the enemy—they drew off hastily to the south without making any resistance. Not so the two British squadrons under Major Brotherton of the 14th, who fought a running fight for two miles, showing front repeatedly, till their flank was on each occasion turned by the vastly superior numbers of the enemy. They were driven in at last upon Pozo Bello, where lay two battalions of the 7th Division, whose extreme right picket, placed in a wood, stopped the enemy’s pursuit by a volley. The main body of the French cavalry seems to have started a little later than the flanking force which assailed Nava de Aver, as its leading regiments only attacked the British cavalry screen to the right of that village some time after Brotherton’s squadrons had begun to be driven in. Here the line of observation was furnished by a squadron of the 16th Light Dragoons and another of the 1st Hussars of the King’s German Legion, who drew together, and gallantly, but rather rashly, attempted to stop the enemy’s advance at a defile between two woods. The squadron of the 16th, charging into a mass of the enemy, suffered heavily and had its commanding officer captured[402]. The Germans then took their turn, but were also driven back with loss. The broken troops had to fall back in all haste till, like Brotherton’s detachment, they came in upon the flank of the village of Pozo Bello, and formed up there. The French cavalry, extending over the slopes when they were clear of the woods, appeared in overpowering numbers, and showed an evident intention to turn the right flank of the British force, which they were strong enough to do even when the whole twelve squadrons of Wellington’s cavalry, falling back from various points of the line which they had been observing, were concentrated on the flank of the woods and enclosures of Pozo Bello.
Up to this moment, an hour after daybreak, only French cavalry had been seen, but the infantry now joined in. The two divisions of Marchand and Mermet had been moved in the night to a point opposite Pozo Bello: when the skirmishing to the right of that place was growing hot, the leading division, that of Marchand, charged in upon the wood in front of the village, cleared out of it the skirmishers of the 85th regiment and the 2nd Caçadores, and then stormed the village also, driving out of it the two battalions, which vainly tried to maintain themselves there against the crushing superiority of the attack. As they were emerging from among the houses in great disorder, they were fallen upon and ridden over by a French light cavalry regiment, which had pushed round their flank unobserved. Both battalions suffered heavily: between them they lost over 150 men, of whom 85 were killed and wounded and some 70 unwounded prisoners. It is marvellous that the two corps were not entirely destroyed—but they were saved by a charge of two squadrons of the German Hussars, and succeeded in forming up with promptness and moving away in the direction of the main body of the 7th Division, which was visible a mile to the west, on the opposite slope of the bottom in which Pozo Bello lies.
The next hour was a very dangerous one: the French infantry divisions, emerging from the captured village and the woods, began to form up in heavy columns, threatening both to attack the Fuentes de Oñoro position on its right flank, and to cut in between the isolated 7th Division and the rest of the army. Montbrun’s cavalry, displaying regiment after regiment, came on in hot pursuit of the troops that had escaped from Pozo Bello and of the British squadrons that were covering them. They were already outflanking the 7th Division on the right, by means of the detachment which had come from Nava de Aver.
Wellington was surprised at the strength of the turning force—its numbers were far greater than he had foreseen, and he was forced to take a new resolution and form a fresh battle-order. The most important thing was to save the 7th Division from being cut off, and to bring it back into line with the rest of the army. Accordingly he directed a chosen unit—the Light Division, now once more under the indomitable Craufurd, who had joined on the preceding night—to advance from its position in reserve behind Fuentes, and to move out along the slope of the low heights to the right, so as to come into touch with Houston and the cavalry, and to help them to get home. Meanwhile the rest of the centre of the army—the 1st and 3rd Divisions and Ashworth’s Portuguese[403], formed a new line of battle, en potence to the original right flank of the British position. They were drawn up along the dominating ground between the rocky hillocks that overhang the village of Fuentes and the descent into the valley of the Turon brook. This is the last of the high ground—to the right of it (as has been before mentioned) the watershed between the Dos Casas and the Turon ceases to be composed of a commanding ridge, and sinks into gentle slopes[404]. Thus Fuentes de Oñoro became the projecting point of a battle-order thrown back at right angles to the original position—where the 5th and 6th Divisions still continued to occupy their old post opposite Reynier. Formations en potence are proverbially dangerous, because of the liability of the angle to be enfiladed and crushed by artillery fire. But in this case the danger was less than usual, since Wellington for once in his life had more guns than the French, and the lie of the plateau was such that the lower parts of Fuentes village might be enfiladed, but not the ground above it by the church and rocks, nor the plateau behind it, where the ground occupied by the 3rd Division was out of sight of the French on the lesser heights. Indeed, the holding of the houses in the bottom was of comparatively little importance to Wellington, so long as he kept his grip on the upper end of the straggling village. Here, on the double-headed height crowned by the church and the rocks, was the real pivot of the position.
Wellington had ample time to move the 1st and 3rd Divisions with Ashworth’s Portuguese into the new position—none of them had much over a mile to march, since all had been concentrated behind Fuentes when the alarm came. The enemy’s approach was slow, partly because his infantry had to disentangle itself from the houses of Pozo Bello and the surrounding wood, and to form in a fresh front, partly because his cavalry became wholly absorbed in a running fight with the Light and 7th Divisions, and had no attention to spare for any other direction.
Masséna’s plan, when he had got his left wing out of the woods, soon became clear. He was intending to break in with his cavalry between the 7th Division and the rest of the army, while Marchand and Mermet were to attack the new front of the 1st and 3rd Divisions, and the 9th Corps, with Ferey’s division, was to smash in the projecting point of Wellington’s position, by storming Fuentes village and the height behind it. Reynier, as on the 3rd of May, was to demonstrate against the allied left, but not to attack till success in the centre seemed assured. From the course of the action it is evident that the Marshal’s main intention was to beat Wellington by hard fighting, and to break up his army—not merely to manœuvre him into a bad strategical position and to cut his more available lines of communication, so as to force him into a difficult and dangerous retreat. If the last had been Masséna’s intention—as some authors suggest—the course of the battle would have been different. But he made no attempt to send cavalry to intercept the roads to Castello Bom, still less to detach infantry against Wellington’s rear. Having turned his enemy’s flank, and forced him to make a new front, he showed no further desire to manœuvre, but proceeded to batter away at the troops in front of him, trusting that numbers and impetus would secure him the victory.
The fight fell for some time into two absolutely distinct sections—an attempt by Drouet’s and Ferey’s three divisions to carry Fuentes de Oñoro village and break Wellington’s centre, and an attempt to cut up, by the cavalry arm alone, the 7th Division and its attendant squadrons, before they could be succoured and drawn back into Wellington’s new line of defence. It was only after some time that these two combats became joined, by an attempt—which was never pressed home—to attack that part of the British position which lay to the right rear of Fuentes de Oñoro.
The fighting west of Pozo Bello may be taken first, as it was a logical continuation of the engagement in the early morning. Here Montbrun had under his hand four cavalry brigades—those of Wathier, Fournier, Cavrois, and Ornano—about 2,700 sabres, with Lepic’s 800 guard cavalry as his reserve—though, as it turned out in the end, the use of that reserve was to be denied him. In front of him were the two battalions recently evicted from Pozo Bello, with the British cavalry brigades of Slade and Arentschildt (about 1,400 sabres) and Bull’s horse-artillery troop, which had drawn up to protect the retreat of the routed battalions towards the main body of the 7th Division. General Houston with that force (one British battalion, two foreign, and four Portuguese battalions[405]) was engaged in taking up new ground, on the slope which is separated from Pozo Bello by the shallow trough forming the valley of the Dos Casas brook. Montbrun’s object was, of course, to break the British horsemen, and then to fall upon and destroy the shaken infantry which they were protecting, before they could cross the valley. There resulted a very fierce and long-sustained cavalry combat, infinitely creditable to the four British regiments, who had to fight a detaining action against numbers about double their own. They were bound to retire in the end—and indeed had no other intention—but it was their duty to hold off the enemy till the infantry behind them had got into order. This was done, though at great cost, the regiments retiring by alternate squadrons, while the rear squadron at each change of front charged, often winning a temporary and partial success over the enemy in its immediate front, but always forced to give back as the French reserve came up. ‘When we charged,’ wrote a participant in this long combat, ‘they would often turn their horses, and our men shouted in the pursuit—but go which way they might, we were but scattered drops amid their host, and could not possibly arrest their progress. We had again to go about and retire[406].’ The British cavalry, though losing heavily, never got out of hand, and could be still used as efficient units down to the end of this phase of the battle. Of their total casualty list of 157 nearly all must have been lost in this hard work; it is noticeable that only one officer and four men were taken prisoners, a sufficient proof that there was no such rout as French accounts describe—for a rout always implies a serious loss in ‘missing.’
After a running fight, the British cavalry was driven back on to the 7th Division, which (now joined by the two detached battalions) was drawn up on the best position that Houston could select on the slope above the valley: his centre was in a projecting angle among some rocks which crop up in the generally bare hillside—his wings thrown back, and partly covered by stone walls forming the boundaries of meadows. The much-tried British squadrons, clearing off to the side, took position on the left rear of the infantry, leaving the 7th Division in face of the now rather confused mass of Montbrun’s horsemen, whose order was none the better for the long and well-contested combat in which they had been engaged. The French general made a serious attempt to break into the 7th Division: while skirmishers demonstrated against its front, and a light battery just sent forward by Masséna shelled its centre, a brigade of dragoons turned its right wing and tried to roll it up. This attack was foiled by the Chasseurs Britanniques, who, drawn up behind a long stone wall, had apparently escaped Montbrun’s notice; receiving a staggering volley at close range, just when they supposed that they had come upon an unprotected flank, the advancing squadrons fell back in confusion. Another charge, made against the 51st, was also beaten off by musketry[407]. The French then came to a stand—it was clear that they wanted infantry if they were to get any advantage over the 7th Division, which was now well settled down into its position. But Marchand’s and Mermet’s battalions had not followed Montbrun across the valley, but had begun to march straight against the centre of Wellington’s new line, west of Fuentes de Oñoro.