SECTION XXVII: CHAPTER II
WELLINGTON ON THE CAYA. JUNE-JULY 1811
On the morning of June 17th the five divisions of the Anglo-Portuguese army which had hitherto remained on the south bank of the Guadiana crossed that river, and retired to the positions along the line Elvas, Campo Mayor, Ouguella, which Wellington had already selected for them. The water was low, and the bulk of the troops used the fords between Jerumenha and Badajoz[564] which are practicable during the summer months, except after days of exceptional rain[565]. Head quarters were moved back to the country-house known as the Quinta de São João, near São Vicente, a spot equidistant from Elvas and Campo Mayor. The 7th Division, from the north side of Badajoz, made a corresponding movement, and fell back into the same general line. Spencer’s column from the Beira was now all across the Tagus, save Slade’s cavalry and the 5th Division, and its head was resting at Portalegre, to which its rear was rapidly coming up. As there are only two marches between Portalegre and Elvas, it was clear that the two sections of the allied army were certain of their junction. For since on the 18th Marmont’s column-head had only reached Merida, and Soult’s was at Almendralejo, it would take some days for the two French armies to draw together, and concert further operations on the northern side of Badajoz.
But there was one section of the allied forces which Wellington was anxious not to withdraw across the Guadiana, but to send on another quest, and all his future movements depended on the march of this corps. The moment that Soult began to advance from Llerena on the 14th, and to edge off in the direction of Merida and Marmont, he had left the western roads into Andalusia uncovered. Except a trifling detachment at Guadalcanal, there was now no force protecting Seville on that side. From the day that he got the news of the Marshal’s northerly march, Wellington began to press General Blake to return at once into his old haunts in the Condado de Niebla, passing round the left rear of the enemy, and to begin to threaten Seville. There was now nothing to prevent him from doing so, and it was well known that the Andalusian capital was left to a scanty garrison, largely composed of convalescents and untrustworthy Juramentados. As long as Soult lay at Llerena, he could easily throw a column to the flank to succour Seville; but when he had moved on, this was no longer in his power. As early as June 10 Wellington had written to Castaños[566] that Soult would ultimately move on Merida, and that Blake would then be able to slip into Andalusia either by the route of Xeres de los Caballeros and Fregenal, or if he preferred a safer though longer road, by that hugging the Portuguese frontier, following which he would emerge into Spain by Mertola. He could not be stopped on either route, and his appearance before Seville would bring back Soult in haste from Badajoz, and cure him of any desire to cross the Guadiana or to besiege Elvas. On June 12th Wellington ordered his commissaries to prepare rations at Mertola for the benefit of the Spaniards, who would probably be in their usual state of semi-starvation, and wrote to Blake to urge him to march at once[567]. The Captain-General consented to move, but asked for more food; he was told in reply that he should be fed from Jerumenha to Mertola while he was on Portuguese soil, but must rely on his own exertions while he was in Spain. On the morning of the 17th Blake crossed the Guadiana at Jerumenha with Loy’s 1,000 horse, the 10,000 infantry of Zayas and Ballasteros, and two batteries, and started to march down-stream for his destination. He was quite out of touch with the enemy, and so well protected by the Guadiana and the mountains that it was certain that his movement would be unobserved. Marching fast, he reached Mertola on June 22nd, and Castillejos, across the Andalusian frontier, on the 24th. Thus Wellington was serenely confident, when the enemy came up against his front, that he had thrown a bomb behind them, whose explosion would cause no small stir, and infallibly draw back a large section of the Army of Andalusia to defend Seville. Without these troops Soult would be in no condition to attack him[568], even with Marmont’s aid. The crisis between Elvas and Badajoz, therefore, could only last for a few days.
Meanwhile it had to be faced, and from the 22nd to the 29th of June Wellington might have found himself engaged in a general action on any day of the week. Soult and Marmont had met at Merida on the 18th—the day after Wellington’s army had crossed the Guadiana. The elder marshal had overwhelmed the younger with compliments—it was the first time, he said, that the Army of Portugal had done anything for the Army of the South; with a colleague who was unselfish and enterprising, he felt himself able to undertake any task[569]. It was settled that the combined armies should march against the Albuera positions next morning, in three columns. Marmont and his six divisions would move along the bank of the Guadiana by the road running through Lobon and Talavera Real: the main body of the Andalusian forces would take the route Almendralejo-Solana-Albuera. One division detached by Soult (it was the ten battalions of Conroux, the undistributed fraction of Drouet’s 9th Corps) was to turn the British line by a flanking movement through Almendral to Valverde. Thus just 60,000 men were put in motion, Marmont having brought about 32,000 of all arms, while Soult, including Drouet, had about 28,000. Expecting an action, for Wellington was known to have been at Albuera on the 16th, and his departure was unsuspected, the three columns advanced cautiously, and ready to deploy. But no enemy was found, and by the evening of the 19th it was known that the Anglo-Portuguese were all behind the Guadiana. At dusk the head of Marmont’s light cavalry got in touch with the garrison of Badajoz, and learnt that the last of the Allies had disappeared from in front of its walls on the 16th. Phillipon was justified of his long and obstinate defence: on the very day before his half-rations would have given out, and at the moment when he was thinking seriously of blowing up his works, and making a dash to get away, the expected succours had appeared.
On the 20th Marmont entered Badajoz in triumph, amid the blare of military music, and a few hours later Soult arrived and exchanged felicitations with him and with the trusty governor. The two main columns of each of their armies converged on the fortress, but Briche’s light cavalry and the divisions of Conroux and Godinot went to Olivenza, to see if by chance the Allies were holding that unlucky and ill-protected town. It was found empty (June 21st), the small Portuguese garrison having retired to Elvas on the 17th.
With 60,000 men in hand (or more, if the 3,500 bayonets of the Badajoz garrison are counted) and with one bridge and many good fords at their disposition, for the crossing of the Guadiana, the two marshals had the power to thrust a general action upon their adversary—unless indeed he should retire far beyond the Portuguese frontier, and so give them the chance of laying siege to Elvas. It remained to be seen what was his purpose, and on June 22nd a general reconnaissance on the further bank of the Guadiana was carried out. On the left Godinot’s division advanced from Olivenza to a point opposite Jerumenha, where, being very visible from the further bank, it was furiously but ineffectively cannonaded by the Portuguese garrison. Two dragoon regiments under General Bron forded the river, but found no allied troops in this direction. On the right, Montbrun, with two cavalry brigades of the Army of Portugal, passed the Badajoz bridge, and marched on Campo Mayor. After driving in a cavalry screen belonging to De Grey’s and Madden’s regiments, he found himself feeling the front of a defensive line, which he estimated at two division of infantry and 1,400 horse, and could get no further forward[570]. He returned to report that Wellington was showing fight.
In the centre, where Latour-Maubourg in person, with fourteen squadrons of dragoons and Polish lancers, forded the Guadiana almost in front of Elvas, there was hard fighting, ending in a petty disaster for the allied outposts. Here the cavalry screen was formed on the right by the 2nd Hussars of the King’s German Legion, on the left by the 11th Light Dragoons. The French column drove in the pickets of the hussars, who resisted from the water’s edge onward with great obstinacy. Presently the main body of this weak corps (only two squadrons strong[571]) came up, and with more courage than discretion charged the leading French regiment, which they broke. But being outflanked by the enemy’s reserves, they were surrounded on three sides, and had to cut their way out with a loss of three officers wounded, two dead, and twenty prisoners. The remains of the hussars rallied behind the Quinta de Gremezia, where they were presently joined by the main body of the 11th Light Dragoons. The enemy pushed them no further, but turning to the right swept along Wellington’s outpost line in the direction of Badajoz. By so doing they found themselves in the rear of the outlying picket of the 11th, formed by Captain Lutyens’s troop. This little force had, by some mischance, not paid much attention to the disturbance in front of the hussars, nor had any orders been sent to them by their brigadier (Long) to bid them be cautious as to their flank. Warned at the last moment by a German sergeant, Lutyens had just collected his men, and was about to retire, when he saw a body of cavalry, not on his flank but directly in his rear, cutting him off from Elvas. Thinking that a bold dash was his only chance, he closed up his men and charged the front French squadron, which he broke through. But a second line was behind, and he and his whole party of sixty-four sabres were ridden down and captured[572]. Only one wounded officer (Lieutenant Binney) cut his way through and brought the news of the mishap[573].
Wellington, with his usual clear perception, attributed this little disaster to the fact that the two regiments engaged had both landed in the Peninsula only a few weeks before, and were utterly unpractised in outpost duty. The hussars ought to have retired skirmishing—it was not their duty to try to fight five regiments of French. The light dragoon pickets had clearly not kept touch with the detachments on their flanks, or they would have heard of the advance of the enemy in force, and would not have been surrounded before they were aware that the French had got well round their rear. ‘This disagreeable circumstance,’ he writes, ‘tends to show the difference between old and new troops. The old regiments of cavalry, throughout all their service, with all their losses put together, have not lost so many men as the 2nd Hussars and the 11th Light Dragoons in a few days. However, we must make the new as good as the old[574].’ Wellington also blamed General Long. ‘Let him attend to the directions he before received from Sir Stapleton Cotton, to throw out only small picquets of observation on the Caya and Guadiana. If he had had his whole brigade, instead of one large picquet, on the Caya, he could not have prevented the enemy from advancing.... This principle is well known and understood in the army, and if it had not been acted upon invariably, we should have lost all our cavalry long ago, in the way in which Captain Lutyens lost the picquet of the 11th this morning[575].’