The right wing of Beresford’s position, the part of it which he thought least likely to be attacked, was held by Blake’s 12,000 men. Having encamped anyhow on the hillside, when they arrived at midnight, they had to be collected and rearranged with much loss of time after morning broke. Indeed, they had formed their line only about an hour before the battle began. The three infantry divisions of Lardizabal, Ballasteros, and Zayas were arranged in succession from left to right, each with one brigade in first and one in second line. The 1,100 horse of Loy were out on the extreme right, corresponding to Otway’s Portuguese on the extreme left. Of the rest of the allied cavalry, De Grey’s 700 heavy dragoons and 600 horse of Castaños’s Estremaduran force, under Penne Villemur, were in reserve near Cole’s 4th Division. The 13th Light Dragoons, separated from the other two British regiments, were watching the course of the Albuera from the bridge upwards, in front of Blake’s line.
Soult had come prepared to fight on the morrow, as soon as his infantry should arrive on the field. At nightfall only one brigade of them was up. The main body had bivouacked at Santa Marta, from whence they broke up before dawn and marched eleven miles to the battlefield. Werlé’s reserve, forming the tail of the column, was not closed up till seven or eight o’clock in the morning. The Marshal was still under the impression that Blake had not yet arrived, and that Beresford could not have more than 20,000 men in line opposite him[480]. It is one of the ironies of history to read in his dispatch that his great flank attack, which so much surprised Beresford, and caused so much confusion in the allied army at the commencement of the action, was made with the intention of cutting in between Beresford and Blake, whom he believed to be still on the march from the direction of Almendral, some miles to the south. The Spanish army, having arrived after dark, had never been seen; and at Beresford’s request Blake had ranged it behind the sky-line on the crest, so that nothing was visible save Loy’s horse far on the right. Soult thought these were Penne Villemur’s squadrons, belonging to Castaños, which had been accompanying the British cavalry for some days.
The Marshal could make out very little of his enemy’s force or position. All that could be guessed was that Otway’s and Loy’s cavalry, both well visible, covered the two ends of the line. Soult’s scheme of attack was ingenious, though founded on an utterly wrong hypothesis. He resolved to demonstrate with one infantry and one cavalry brigade against the village of Albuera, so as to attract his enemy’s attention to his centre, while carrying the rest of his army far to the left, under cover of the woods and the low hill between the Nogales and Chicapierna brooks, to a point from which they could turn Beresford’s right, by crossing the two streams and ascending the plateau somewhere beyond the point where Loy’s cavalry were visible.
The details of the execution of this plan were very well worked out. Godinot’s brigade (the 3,500 muskets of the 12th Léger and 51st Ligne) marched upon Albuera, flanked by Briche’s light cavalry, and supported by the fire of two batteries. They became at once hotly engaged with Alten’s German battalions, and with two battalions of Spaniards whom Blake sent down to give the village flank support. A Portuguese battery above the village swept the approaches to the bridge very effectively[481]. Meanwhile, on Godinot’s left, Soult showed two brigades of dragoons and Werlé’s strong brigade of 6,000 men drawn up on the edge of the wood, and apparently about to attack Blake’s line in front. But deep in the olives to the left the two divisions of the 5th Corps, Girard and Gazan, were executing a circular sweep, with a cavalry brigade in front of them, quite out of sight. They were covered not only by the trees but by the height between the Nogales and Chicapierna brooks.
Beresford and Blake prepared to resist an attack on their centre and right, and felt reasonably confident of giving a good account of themselves. But the frontal attack seemed somehow to hang fire, and suddenly a new development came: four regiments of French cavalry, far to the right, galloped out of the woods, across the two brooks, and up the slopes far beyond Beresford’s right. Loy’s Spanish cavalry, who lay in that direction, naturally gave way before them. Immediately afterwards the head of a long infantry column came marching up from the same point, making for the heights at a place some way beyond Blake’s extreme right. It is curious to note that they did not aim at attacking Blake’s actual flank, but rather at getting on top of the heights beyond him, so as to be able to move against him on the level of the plateau, without having to climb the hill in face of opposition.
Beresford rode hastily along the line to meet Blake, and requested him to deal with this unexpected flank attack by drawing off one of his two lines, and placing it at right angles to the original position, across the summit of the heights. He himself would take care of the frontal attack. Blake promised to do this, but sent only one brigade of Zayas’s division, four battalions, and his only battery, to execute the required movement. He was still not convinced that the front attack might not be the main one. Beresford meanwhile went back to his own troops, to direct Stewart’s division to prepare to support the Spaniards when necessary, and Lumley’s cavalry to move off to join Loy on the extreme right.
The next half-hour served to develop the whole face of the battle in its second aspect. The French cavalry at the head of the turning column spread themselves out on the rolling plateau to the west of the heights so as to flank their infantry. The 5th Corps formed itself in a column of extraordinary depth on the undulating summit of the ridge, and began to move on toward Blake’s flank. The responsibility for the order of battle adopted must apparently be laid on the shoulders of Girard, the senior division-commander, who was placed that day at the head of the whole corps; Latour-Maubourg, who had led it during the last two months, had been taken away to assume general charge of the cavalry. Girard, as it seems, intended to beat down the hastily formed line of defence, which the Spaniards were opposing to him, by the impetus of an immensely heavy column. His force consisted of two divisions, each of two brigades, and each brigade composed of from four to six battalions[482]. I had long sought for an exact description of his array, of which the French historians and Soult’s dispatch only say that it was a colonne serrée de bataillons. At last I found the required information in the Paris archives[483], in the shape of an anonymous criticism on Soult’s operations, drawn up (apparently for Napoleon’s eye) by some officer who had been set to write a report on the causes of the loss of the battle.
This document says that ‘the line of attack was formed by a brigade in column of attack [i. e. a column formed of four battalions in column of double companies, one battalion behind the other]. To the right and left the front line was in a mixed formation, that is to say, on each side of the central column was a battalion deployed in line, and on each of the two outer sides of the deployed battalions was a battalion or a regiment in column, so that at each end the line was composed of a column ready to form square, in case the hostile cavalry should try to fall upon one of our flanks—which was hardly likely, since our own cavalry was immensely superior to it in number.’
This formation disposed of the nine battalions of Girard’s division, which, as we see, advanced with a front consisting of three battalions in column and two in line. Gazan’s, the 2nd Division of the corps, followed very close behind Girard, the four regiments each in column with their two (or three) battalions one behind the other. The 2nd Division had been intended to attack as an independent supporting line, but ultimately worked up so close to the 1st Division that it could not easily be drawn off or disentangled, and to the Allies the whole 8,400 men looked like one vast column, with a front of about 500 men only, which, allowing for battalion intervals, just stretched across the top level of the heights, which is here about 700 yards broad.
Three batteries of field artillery belonging to the 5th Corps accompanied the 1st Division; a fourth, of horse artillery, was with the cavalry which covered the left flank of the column. Two more were in company with Werlé’s brigade. The remaining two stopped with Godinot opposite Albuera.