A history of the Peninsular War, Vol. 4, Dec. 1810-Dec. 1811

by Charles Oman

Note.—The front line of the French attacking force is not correctly represented. It consisted of a column of four battalions in the centre, flanked by two deployed battalions, and with battalions in column placed outside the two deployed battalions on either side (see [p. 380]). In the French reserve there should be only two, not three, battalions of Grenadiers. The right flank of Zayas’s line is two battalions too long.

It may be remarked that the loss of the victorious cavalry was very heavy, though not out of proportion to their success. The lancers lost 130 men out of 580—the hussars who charged in support of them 70 out of 300. It was a curious evidence of the headlong nature of their charge that some scores of the Poles, after passing by and failing to break the square of the 2/31st, actually rode down the rear of Zayas’s Spanish line, sweeping aside that general and his staff, and coming into collision soon after with Beresford and his—the Marshal actually parried a lance-thrust, and cast the man who dealt it from his saddle, and his aides-de-camp had to fight for their lives.

At this moment the head of Hoghton’s brigade was just coming up from the rear—and its leading regiment opening fire on the scattered lancers shot a great many men of the rear rank of Zayas’s Spaniards in the back. Notwithstanding this, and to their eternal credit, the Spaniards did not break, and continued their frontal contest with Girard’s division, which had not slackened for a moment during Colborne’s disastrous fight[488].

There was a distinct pause, however, in the battle after this bloody episode. The leading division of French infantry had been so much shaken and driven into disorder, by Colborne’s momentary pressure on their flank, that the whole column had lost its impetus, and stood wavering below the Spanish line. Girard, regarding his own division as practically a spent force, ordered up Gazan’s two brigades to relieve it. There was fearful confusion while the new columns were thrusting their way to the front, and they were never properly formed. For the rest of the battle the two divisions formed a dense mass of 8,000 men, which looked like one solid clump, without much vestige of regular formation.

While this confused change of front-line was being carried out by the French, Beresford had leisure to deploy Hoghton’s brigade in the rear of Zayas, and Abercrombie’s in rear of Ballasteros, lower down the slope. He then proceeded to bring them forward to relieve the Spaniards. The latter, it is due to them to explain, had behaved extremely well. Beresford bears witness that Zayas’s four battalions, on the edge of the undulation which marked the front of battle ‘did not even to the end break their line or quit the field, as Napier alleges. After having suffered very considerable loss they began to crowd together in groups, and it was then that the second line (Hoghton and Abercrombie) was ordered up.’ The losses of the two battalions of Irlanda, and the 2nd and 4th Spanish Guards, were indeed the best testimonial to their good service. They had 615 officers and men killed and wounded out of 2,026 present, over 30 per cent.—all lost by musketry or artillery fire without a foot of ground having been yielded, in a close struggle that had lasted over an hour.

With the coming up of Gazan’s division on one side, and of Hoghton’s and Abercrombie’s brigades on the other, the second stage of the battle was reached. The clash was confined to the top of the plateau, the French having only a skirmishing line opposite Abercrombie on the slope, though the central backbone of the ridge was crowded with their dense columns. Hence it may be said that for the next half-hour Hoghton’s men, assisted by the 2/31st, the sole survivors of Colborne’s brigade alone, were fighting the entire 5th Corps—a line of 1,900 men two deep opposed to a mass of 8,000 twelve deep, on an equal front. This was the hardest and most splendid fighting done that day, not even excepting the glorious advance of the Fusiliers half an hour later. The three battalions, 29th, 1/48th, and 1/57th, absolutely died in line[489], without yielding an inch. Their losses speak for themselves—56 officers and 971 men killed and wounded out of 95 officers and 1,556 men present. The best account of this part of the action that I know is in the reminiscences of Moyle Sherer of the 1/48th:—

‘When we arrived near the retiring Spaniards, and formed our line to advance through them towards the enemy, a very noble-looking young Spanish officer rode up to me, and begged me, with a sort of proud anxiety, to take notice that his countrymen were ordered to retire, not flying. Just as our line had entirely cleared the Spaniards, the smoke of battle was for one moment blown aside, by the slackening of the fire, and gave to our view the French grenadier caps, their arms, and the whole aspect of their frowning masses. It was a grand, but a momentary sight; a heavy atmosphere of smoke enveloped us, and few objects could be discerned at all—none distinctly. The best soldier can make no calculation of time, if he be in the heat of an engagement, but this murderous contest of musketry lasted long. At intervals a shriek or a groan told that men were falling around me; but it was not always that the tumult of the contest suffered me to catch individual sounds. The constant “feeling to the centre” and the gradual diminution of our front more truly bespoke the havock of death. We were the whole time progressively advancing upon and shaking the enemy. As we moved slowly, but ever a little in advance, our own killed and wounded lay behind us; we arrived among those of the Spaniards who had fallen in the first onset, then among those of the enemy. At last we were only twenty yards from their front.’ The brigade had lost nearly two-thirds of its numbers, the brigadier had been killed; of the three battalion commanders one was killed and two wounded. The front of the shrinking line no longer covered that of the French mass before it. But the enemy was in no condition to profit by the exhaustion of the British. The fire of the line had, as always, been more effective than that of the column. The front of the enemy was one deep bank of dead and wounded; the 5th Corps lost 3,000 men that day, and there can be no doubt that 2,000 of them fell during this murderous exchange of musketry.

Meanwhile it is strange to find that both commanders allowed this duel of the many against the few, on the plateau, to go on undisturbed. Soult had still eleven battalions intact in reserve—Werlé’s brigade and two battalions of grenadiers réunis: his cavalry was also doing nothing, save observe Lumley’s much inferior force. Beresford had still of intact troops the 4th Division, the three brigades of Hamilton’s and Collins’s Portuguese, and the 4,000 Spaniards who had remained on their original position. None of those forces on either side were being utilized during the crisis of the battle.

The explanation is to be found in the narratives of the two hostile generals. Soult says in his dispatch to the Emperor, ‘When I ascended the heights, at the moment that the enemy’s second line advanced and began to press in our front, I was surprised to notice their great numbers. Immediately afterwards I learned from a Spanish prisoner that Blake had already joined Beresford, so that I had 30,000 men to deal with. The odds were not fair, and I resolved at once to give up my original project, and to aim at nothing more than retaining the ground already won.’ The Marshal therefore changed his plan from an offensive to a defensive battle, and refused to engage his reserves, or to bid his cavalry charge—a most half-hearted resolve.