Of the two French regiments engaged, a whole battalion of the 76th was captured or destroyed—of the 27 officers with it one was killed, 5 wounded, 16 taken prisoners: taking the same proportion of its rank and file, very few out of 650 can have escaped. The 6th Léger was less completely annihilated, but it had its colonel (Molard) and 6 other officers taken prisoners[609], and 8 more wounded, with about 500 rank and file taken or hurt. Allowing for some small losses to the chasseurs, the total casualties of the French must have been about 1,100.
When the last charge of the Heavy Dragoons was over, Foy led his surviving battalions off, followed at a distance by Anson’s brigade, when it had re-formed. The Germans were too fatigued to do more: the leading British infantry, the Light Division, was only just coming in sight far to the rear. The pursuit, therefore, by the four British squadrons had no further results—if they had chanced to have a horse battery with them it might have been much more effective. Six miles from Garcia Hernandez, Foy was relieved to find, waiting for him by the roadside, the long-expected cavalry brigade from the Army of the North—Chauvel’s 1st Hussars and 31st Chasseurs: these fresh squadrons took up the rearguard duty for the rest of the day, and covered the march of the infantry to Peñaranda.
From this day onward Wellington’s pursuit cannot be said to have been urged with any great vigour. On the morning of the 24th the vanguard entered Peñaranda, to find that the French had started off before dawn. G. Anson’s brigade followed, accompanied this time by Bull’s and Ross’s horse artillery, which had come up from the rear. The tail of the enemy’s column was found at Aldea Seca, a few miles beyond Peñaranda: he started off without firing a shot, and was out of sight before more than two guns had been brought to shell him. It seems that opportunities were lost this day—an intelligent observer remarks that ‘if only the whole brigade and twelve guns had come up, we might have taken 500 of them—great part of the infantry were without arms[610].’
That night the British head-quarters and vanguard were at Flores de Avila, but the enemy were quite out of sight. ‘How they get on their troops at such a rate I cannot conceive,’ wrote Wellington, ‘but they left this about two in the morning, and they will arrive in Valladolid to-morrow[611].’ He gave up all attempt at close or rapid pursuit on the 25th, reporting to Lord Bathurst, ‘I find the troops so much fatigued by the battle and their previous and subsequent marches, and the enemy have got so far before our infantry, that I halted this day, and have sent on only the light cavalry and guerrillas.’ After this there was no prospect of doing any further harm to Clausel, or of scattering his demoralized army before it had time to recover its cohesion. ‘This does not look like the quick advance following up a great victory,’ wrote a critical dragoon[612], ‘and I think they will be let off too easily. The peasants report them as in a dreadful state: all their cavalry, except a few for their rearguard, is employed in carrying their sick.’ It may be taken for certain that a general of the Napoleonic school would have urged on his cavalry at all costs—there was plenty of it, and none save Le Marchant’s and Bock’s brigades had suffered any serious loss. Nor can it be doubted that such a hunt would have been richly rewarded by captures. Clausel wrote on the 25th that he could only rally 22,000 men[613]; and as some 48,000 had fought at Salamanca, and the actual losses seem to have been about 14,000, it is clear that he must be allowing for over 12,000 stragglers and unarmed fugitives—whom an active pursuit might have swept up.
Wellington’s defence for the slowness of his movement would undoubtedly have been that a headlong chase might have cost him over-much—he would have lost too many men, and—what was even more important—too many horses by forcing the pace. Clausel’s army had been put out of action for some weeks by the battle of Salamanca—to smash it up still further would give him no such profit as would justify the expenditure of several thousands of his precious British troops. He was looking forward to the possibility of having to fight Soult and Suchet—not to speak of King Joseph—and wished to be as strong as possible for the present. It is probable that he made a mistake in holding back—Clausel, being left practically unmolested, was able to rally his army somewhat sooner than his adversary calculated. By August it was again able to give trouble: in October its strength was sufficient to wreck the Burgos campaign. If it had been well hunted in the last days of July, it would seem that no such reorganization would have been possible—only negligible fragments of it should have reached Valladolid or Burgos. Yet it must always be remembered that economy of men was the cardinal necessity for Wellington—his total British force was so small, the difficulty of getting up drafts and reinforcements was so enormous, the total number of the enemy’s armies in the Peninsula was so overpowering, that he could not afford to thin down his regiments by the exhausting forced marches that were necessary in an active pursuit. It would have been little profit to him if he had exterminated the Army of Portugal, only to find himself left victorious, indeed, but with a force so weak and so tired out that further exertion was impossible. As it was, many of his battalions in August showed only 300 bayonets in line[614], and only recovered their strength, by the reappearance of Badajoz and Salamanca convalescents, and the arrival of drafts, during the following winter.
It was at Flores de Avila on July 25th that Wellington received the news that a new factor had come into the game. King Joseph had left Madrid four days earlier with the Army of the Centre, and was marching northward by the Guadarrama Pass and Villa Castin, with the obvious intention of joining Marmont. This move would have been all-important if it had taken place ten days earlier: but when the Army of Portugal was in absolute rout, and flying by forced marches towards the Douro, the appearance of the King was too late to be dangerous. He could not strengthen the beaten army sufficiently to enable it to fight—and he would expose himself to some peril if he continued his forward march, and came any nearer to the British line of advance.
Joseph’s long hesitation and tardy start require a word of explanation. It will be remembered[615] that his last communication which had got through to Marmont was a dispatch dated June 30, in which he had expressed his surprise that the Army of Portugal was refusing battle, and stated that he could offer no immediate help. If Hill, from Estremadura, should march to join Wellington, he had directed that D’Erlon should move up in a similar fashion northward, and he himself would come also, with all or part of the Army of the Centre. But supposing that Hill should remain in the far south, beyond the Guadiana, Joseph gave no promise of coming to Marmont’s aid. Indeed he never mentioned this contingency at all, except to say that if Wellington had not been joined by his lieutenant, ‘you should choose a good position and give battle with all your troops united.’
Since writing this epistle Joseph had experienced many searchings of heart. On the very day on which it was sent off he had received a dispatch from Soult, which filled him with dismay: the Duke of Dalmatia said that he had forbidden D’Erlon to cross to the north bank of the Tagus, even if it were certain that Hill and his corps had gone to join Wellington. Writing in high wrath, the King, on July 2nd, threatened to remove Soult from his command in Andalusia. ‘If you have formally forbidden D’Erlon to pass the Tagus, in case the English force in Estremadura goes off to join the enemy’s main body, you have given him orders contradictory to those which I sent both to him and to you. You set your authority above mine, you refuse to recognize me as Commander-in-Chief of the Armies of Spain. Consequently, placed as I may be between the two alternatives—of either depriving myself of the service of your talent and military experience, or of allowing the powers confided to me by the Emperor to be broken in my hand almost as soon as given—I can have no hesitation.... Painful as it is to me, therefore, I accept the offer which you formerly made me, to resign your command if I do not revoke my original order; for not only do I refuse to revoke it, but I hereby repeat it again both to you and to Comte d’Erlon. If you prefer to take this extreme step of disobedience, resign your command to D’Erlon, as your senior general of division, and he will take it up till the Emperor shall nominate your successor[616].’
This angry dispatch was followed by another, written on July 6th, which varied the original order to Soult in an important feature. For instead of speaking of a northern movement of D’Erlon’s troops as consequent on a similar transference of Hill’s corps to Castile, it makes no mention of Hill, but prescribes a definite manœuvre without any reference to the action of that British general. ‘Send at once to Toledo a force of 10,000 men: 8,000 infantry, 2,000 horse, with the men and horses for 12 guns. By leaving the guns behind, the march of the corps will be made more rapid, and the roads are good.... I authorize you to evacuate any part of the occupied territory that you may choose, in order to hasten the departure of these 10,000 men, whose arrival I await with great impatience[617].’
Clearly it would take many days for these orders to get to Soult, who was at this time before Cadiz. As a matter of fact they only reached his hands on July 16th, and long before that date Joseph was becoming very anxious at the state of affairs on the Douro. He got news that Caffarelli, scared by Home Popham’s diversion, had sent no succours to Marmont, and he received letters from Suchet, which showed him that he could not count on any reinforcement from Valencia[618]. It was certain that, even if Soult yielded to the peremptory orders sent on July 2 and July 6, the detachment under D’Erlon could not reach Toledo till somewhere about the 1st August. That it would start at all seemed doubtful, in face of a letter of July 3 from D’Erlon, stating that he was being ‘contained’ by no less than 30,000 men under Hill—a scandalous perversion of fact, for Hill had not over two-thirds of that force[619].