When Blake realized the strength of the turning force, he began to detach more troops from his front line to strengthen Zayas, whose four battalions would obviously be no more than a mouthful for the 5th Corps. They went in haste, four battalions from Ballasteros, two from Lardizabal, but failed to reach Zayas before the fighting began. Meanwhile a majestic movement changed the whole aspect of the French front. The two brigades of dragoons which had hitherto formed the French right-centre wheeled into column of squadrons, and galloped off in beautiful order along the side of the Albuera brook till they reached the 5th Corps; passing behind it they joined the cavalry on its left, which now became 3,500 strong. Latour-Maubourg was with them in person. At the same moment Werlé’s 6,000 infantry performed a slower and shorter circular march and joined the rear of the 5th Corps, to which they now acted as a reserve. Thus Soult had all his infantry save Godinot’s brigade of 3,500 men, and all his cavalry save Briche’s two regiment of light horse, 550 sabres, massed opposite Blake’s new ‘refused’ right flank.
The sight of this sweep to the south on the part of the French caused Beresford to make a complete change in his disposition. The whole 2nd Division, one brigade following the other, in the order Colborne-Hoghton-Abercrombie, marched along the top of the heights to reinforce Zayas. Hamilton’s Portuguese were to move in, to take up the ground evacuated by the 2nd Division. Lastly, Cole’s 4th Division, Myers’s British and Harvey’s Portuguese brigades, forming the reserve, were moved a full mile to the right, and placed behind the English and Spanish cavalry, facing Latour-Maubourg’s great mass of horse. It was the sight of these eight solid battalions in column, ready to form square, which alone prevented the French cavalry general from ordering a general charge upon the 2,300 allied horse in his front, whom he outnumbered in the proportion of three to two, and of whom only De Grey’s 700 sabres were British. For the 13th Light Dragoons, the third regiment in the field, was covering the other wing of the new front, down by the Albuera stream.
Zayas’s Spaniards, having a much shorter way to move than the French turning column, were in line of battle long before the 5th Corps came up against them. But the reinforcements tardily sent by Blake were still coming up, and forming on Zayas’s flanks in much confusion, when the fighting began. Most of them prolonged the line down the slope of the heights above the Chicapierna brook. Beresford was personally occupied in posting and aligning them at the moment of the first clash.
Zayas, whose behaviour all through the day was most creditable, had found a very good point at which to draw up his brigade and battery. The summit of the heights is not level, but undulating; he had chosen the deepest dip in their summit, about a mile to the south of Albuera village, and drew up his small force in line on the hither side of it, so that the enemy had to attack him slightly uphill. His four battalions exactly occupied the top of the plateau; the troops under Ballasteros, which were now coming up, were not on the top, but on the descending slope towards the stream.
Girard’s two divisions advancing along the summit had a front about equal to that of Zayas, but four times as deep. Opposite the rest of the Spanish line, Ballasteros’s battalions, they sent out nothing but skirmishers. But Girard’s division, with a line of tirailleurs in front, descended their own side of the dip, and then began to ascend that occupied by the Spaniards. When they had reached a point on the gentle up-slope about sixty yards from the Spaniards, the French tirailleurs cleared off to right and left, and the battalions behind them began to open up their fire, slowly advancing between each volley. The musketry was hot, and both sides were falling freely, when the first British troops arrived on the battle-spot. These were the four battalions of Colborne’s brigade, at the head of the 2nd Division: the 1/3rd, 2/48th, 2/66th, and 2/31st, counting in that order from right to left. With them was the divisional commander, William Stewart.
Beresford, in his account of the battle, says that he had intended to draw up the whole 2nd Division in a single line in support of Zayas, and to advance with it against the French when all was in order. But William Stewart, though he had received no order to attack, and had been only directed to support the Spaniards, took upon himself to assume the offensive. The position indeed was rather a tempting one: the enemy was engaged with Zayas on an equal front, and had no flank guard of any kind within a quarter of a mile. He could obviously be assailed at great advantage by a force which should pass round and through Zayas’s right, and place itself perpendicular to Girard’s long unprotected flank. This movement Stewart took upon himself to execute; as each of the battalions of the 1st Brigade came up, it was extended and sent forward, apparently in a sort of échelon, the Buffs leading, far to the flank, and the 48th and 66th passing actually through Zayas’s right battalions. But the 31st, the left regiment, had not come up or deployed when the other three went forward into action[484]. Along with Colborne there was coming up Cleeves’s battery of the King’s German Legion. The leading four guns got into action, just to Zayas’s front, at the same moment that the British infantry went forward.
The French column, thus unexpectedly attacked in flank both by artillery and infantry fire, was naturally thrown into dreadful confusion. The two battalions in column which formed its left section faced outwards, and opened a rolling fire three deep, the front rank kneeling. But they could not stand the volleys poured into them from a distance of sixty paces, and soon began to break—the men were seen trying to go to the rear, and the officers beating them back with their swords. Colborne’s line cheered, and went forward to complete its victory with the bayonet.
At this moment a dreadful catastrophe occurred: Latour-Maubourg had been watching the struggle on the hillside before him, and, when he saw it going badly for his friends, directed his nearest cavalry regiments, which chanced to be the 1st Lancers of the Vistula and the 2nd Hussars, to charge along the slopes against the exposed outer flank of Colborne’s brigade. At this moment the morning, which had been fair at first but had been growing darker every hour, was disturbed by a blinding shower of rain and hail coming from the north. It is said to have been largely in consequence of this accident that the approach of the 800 horsemen was unnoticed by any of the British infantry—but Colborne’s men were also smothered in their own smoke, and entirely concentrated on the work before them. At any rate the charge took the Buffs in flank, rolled them up, and then swept down the back of the other two battalions, and on to Cleeves’s battery. It is hardly exaggeration to say that Colborne’s three leading battalions were annihilated in five minutes. Fifty-eight officers out of 80, 1,190 men out of 1,568 were slain, wounded, or captured. The number of killed was out of all proportion to the wounded: in the Buffs there were 212 dead to 234 hurt. This ghastly slaughter is said to have been due to the fact that the savage Polish lancers not only refused to accept surrender from the unhappy infantry, but deliberately speared the wounded as they lay. Nor can I refuse credit to the general statement of contemporary British authorities after reading the journal of Major Brooke, commanding the 2/48th, who relates how, after he had surrendered and was being taken to the rear by two French infantry soldiers, a Pole rode up to him and deliberately cut him down, after which the ruffian made his horse trample over him and left him for dead[485]. In the regimental annals of the 66th two officers are named as having been wounded by the lance, while already disabled and lying on the ground[486]. Peninsular tradition tells that the 2nd Division after Albuera swore to give no quarter to Poles.
But not all the victorious horsemen were so inhumane; 479 prisoners, many wounded, were driven off to the French lines. The brigade lost five of its six colours; and the four guns of Cleeves’s battery, which had accompanied it, were captured. Only one howitzer, however, was dragged off by the victors—the other three were left behind for want of horses. The 2/31st, somewhat to the left rear of its comrades, had time to form square, and beat off without difficulty the rush of the remnant of the lancers who got so far as its position. Marking too late the awful catastrophe on his left, General Lumley sent two squadrons of the 4th Dragoons to fall upon the flank and rear of the Poles—but they were intercepted by a French hussar regiment which Latour-Maubourg sent out to cover the retreat of the lancers, and were beaten back with the loss of both their squadron leaders wounded and taken prisoners[487].
