Treillard came on in three successive lines of brigades, each composed of six squadrons, Reiset’s dragoons (13th and 18th) forming the front line, the other dragoon brigade (19th and 22nd) the second, and the two foreign regiments the reserve. The clash came very quickly, before the British guns had time to fire more than three or four rounds. The Portuguese rode forward briskly enough till they were within a few yards of the enemy, when they checked, wavered, and went about, leaving their brigadier and their colonels, who were riding well in front, actually in the French ranks. D’Urban cut his way out—the Visconde de Barbaçena and Colonel Lobo were both severely wounded and taken prisoners. The broken line shivered in all directions, and went to the rear pursued by the French: some of the fugitives rode into and carried away the reserve squadron, which abandoned the guns on the left as they were limbering up. There was a wild chase for the mile that intervened between the battle spot in front of Majalahonda and the village of Las Rosas. In it three of the four horse artillery guns were captured—one by a wheel breaking, the other two by their drivers being cut down by the pursuing dragoons. Captain Dyneley, commanding the left section of the battery, and fourteen of his men were taken prisoners—mostly wounded. The small party of German dragoons, under an officer named Kuhls, who chanced to be present, made a desperate attempt to save the guns. ‘Oh, how those poor fellows behaved!’ wrote Dyneley, ‘they were not much more than twenty in number, but when they saw the scrape our guns were in, they formed up to support us, which they had no sooner done than down came at least 150 dragoons and lancers: the poor fellows fought like men, but of course they were soon overpowered, and every soul of them cut to pieces.’
The main body of the leading French brigade rode, without a check, up to the first houses of Las Rosas, where they found the German heavy brigade only just getting into order, so swift had the rout been. When D’Urban’s first alarm came to hand, the horses were all unsaddled, the men, some asleep, some occupied in grooming their mounts or leading them to water. The trumpets blew, but the squadrons were only just assembling, when in a confused mass and a cloud of dust flying Portuguese and pursuing French hurtled in among them. That no irreparable disaster took place was due to two causes—two captains[658], who had got a few of these men already together, gallantly charged the head of the French to gain time, and some of the light infantry opened a spattering fire upon them from the houses. Reiset called back his regiments to re-form them, and meanwhile the Germans came pouring out of the village and got into line anyhow, ‘some on barebacked horses, some with bare heads, others in forage-caps, many in their shirt-sleeves.’ By the time that the French were advancing again, all the four squadrons of the heavies were more or less in line, and D’Urban had rallied the greater part of his Portuguese on their left. The fight in front of Las Rosas was very fierce, though the Portuguese soon had enough of it and retired. But the Germans made a splendid resistance, and ended by beating back the front line of the enemy. Treillard then put in his second line, and under the charge of these fresh squadrons the dragoons of the Legion, still fighting obstinately, were pressed back to the entrance of the village: Colonel Jonquières, commanding the brigade in Bock’s absence, was taken prisoner with a few of his men. The salvation of the overmatched cavalry was that the light infantry battalion of the Legion had now lined the outskirts of the village, and opened such a hot fire that the enemy had to draw back.
What Treillard would have done had he been left undisturbed it is impossible to say, but just at this moment Ponsonby’s cavalry brigade and the head of the infantry column of the 7th Division came in sight from the rear, hurrying up to support the vanguard. The French drew off, and retired in mass, with such haste that they did not even bring off the captured guns, which were found by the roadside not much damaged, though an attempt had been made to destroy their carriages.
In this fierce fight, which was so honourable to the Germans and so much the reverse to the Portuguese, the vanguard lost nearly 200 men. The heavy brigade had 1 officer and 13 men killed, 5 officers and 35 men wounded, 1 officer (Colonel Jonquières) and 6 men prisoners. The Portuguese naturally suffered much more—by their own fault, for it was in the rout that they were cut up. They had 3 officers and 30 men killed, 3 officers and 49 men wounded, and 1 officer[659] and 22 men missing. Macdonald’s unfortunate battery lost 6 killed, 6 wounded, and its second captain (Dyneley) and 14 men missing: most of the latter were more or less hurt. The K.G.L. light battalion had 7 wounded. The total casualty list, therefore, was 15 officers and 182 men. It is probable that the French did not suffer much less, for they had as many as 17 officers disabled, including Reiset, the brigadier who led the first line, and 11 more of the officers of his two regiments: the supporting corps lost only 5 officers wounded among the four of them[660]. But a loss of 17 officers must certainly imply that of at least 150 men: the Germans had used their broadswords most effectively. Treillard sought to diminish the effect of his loss by making the preposterous statement that he had killed 150 of the allies, wounded 500, and carried off 60 prisoners; he forgot also to mention that he left the three captured guns behind him.
After this affair Wellington made the memorandum: ‘the occurrences of the 22nd of July [Salamanca] had induced me to hope that the Portuguese dragoons would have conducted themselves better, or I should not have placed them at the outposts of the army. I shall not place them again in situations in which, by their misconduct, they can influence the safety of other troops[661].’ It is fair to D’Urban’s men, however, to remember that they were put into action against superior numbers, and with a knowledge that they themselves were unsupported, while the enemy had two lines of reserve behind him. To be broken under such circumstances was perhaps inevitable. But the second rout, in the vicinity of Las Rosas, was much more discreditable. Their brigadier, very reticent in his dispatch to Wellington, wrote in a private letter: ‘The same men who at Salamanca followed me into the French ranks like British dragoons, on this 11th of August at the first charge went just far enough to leave me in the midst of the enemy’s ranks. In the second, which, having got them rallied, I attempted, I could not get them within ten yards of the enemy-they left me alone, and vanished from before the helmets like leaves before the autumn wind[662].’
Treillard brought back to King Joseph the news that Wellington in person was certainly marching on Madrid with the greater part of his army. Indeed his prisoners had tried to scare him by saying that 8,000 horse were coming down on him, and otherwise exaggerating the numbers of the allies. The cavalry brigades fell back to form the rearguard of the King’s army, which moved on Valdemoro and Aranjuez, not toward Toledo, for certain information had come that none of Soult’s troops were anywhere near that ancient city. The convoy had been turned towards Ocaña, and the road to Valencia.
Wellington entered Madrid unopposed next day—vexed that his arrival should have been marred by the untoward business at Majalahonda, ‘a devil of an affair,’ as he called it in a private letter to Stapleton Cotton[663]. But the inhabitants of the Spanish capital took little heed of the mishap—the departure of the French was the only thing that mattered. Their enthusiasm was unbounded.
‘I never witnessed,’ wrote an intelligent observer in the ranks[664], ‘such a scene before. For a distance of five miles from the gates the road was crowded with the people who had come out to meet us, each bringing something—laurel boughs, flowers, bread, wine, grapes, lemonade, sweetmeats, &c. The road was like a moving forest from the multitude who carried palms, which they strewed in the way for us to march over. Young ladies presented us with laurel, and even fixed it in our caps: others handed us sweetmeats and fruit. Gentlemen had hired porters to bring out wine, which they handed to us as we passed by: every individual strove to outvie each other in good nature. On the other hand the feelings of each British soldier were wound up to the highest pitch—Wellington himself rode at the head of our regiment, we were flushed with victory, and a defeated enemy was flying in our front: proud of the honour paid us by the people, we entered Madrid, the air rent with cries of “Long live Wellington, Long live the English.” The crowd and shouts and ringing of bells was beyond description. The men on the flanks were involuntarily dragged out of their subdivisions into houses, and treated with the best that could be found for them. It was with difficulty that Lord Wellington could keep his seat on horseback-every one was pressing round him.’ They kissed his hands, his sword, even his horse and the ground he had passed over. It would have been a moment of intoxicating exultation to most men: but Wellington looked beyond the laurels and the shouting. ‘It is impossible to describe the joy of the inhabitants on our arrival:’ he wrote, in his rather ponderous style, ‘I hope that the prevalence of the same sentiment of detestation of the French yoke which first induced them to set the example of resistance to the usurper, will again induce them to make exertions in the cause of their country, which, being more wisely directed, will be more efficacious than those they formerly made[665].’ But hope is not the same as expectation.
That evening the whole city was illuminated, and the streets were so full, till long after midnight, of crowds tumultuously joyful, that some cautious officers feared that the French garrison of the Retiro might sally out to make mischief in the confusion. Lafon-Blaniac, however, kept quiet—he was already quailing over two discoveries—the one that his water supply was very short, the other that the inner enceinte of the works was so full of miscellaneous combustible stuff, shot in at the last moment, that nothing was more probable than a general conflagration if he were to be bombarded. It had also begun to strike him that his outer line of defences was very weak, and his second one very constricted for the amount of men and material that he had in charge. The larger enceinte, indeed, only consisted, for the greater part of its extent, of the loopholed wall of the Retiro Park, with some flèches placed in good flanking positions. On the side facing the Prado were buildings—the Retiro Palace and the Museum, which had been barricaded and made tenable: they formed the strongest section of the exterior line. The inner enceinte was a more formidable affair—with ten bastioned fronts on the scale of a powerful field-work. The star-fort, which constituted the final refuge for the garrison, was built around the solid building that had once been the royal porcelain manufactory (where the celebrated Buen Retiro china was made): it had a ditch twelve feet deep and twenty-four wide, and was formidably palisaded.
Wellington reconnoitred the works on the 13th, and directed that the outer line should be stormed that night. Three hundred men of the 3rd Division were told off to break into the Park wall on the north, near the Bull-Ring: 300 more from the 51st and 68th regiments of the 7th Division were to attack the south-west angle of the enceinte, which was formed by the wall of the Botanical Garden. Both assaults were completely successful—the walls were so flimsy that they were easily hewn through with picks, or beaten in with beams used as battering-rams, and the 68th found and broke open a postern. The resistance was very weak—only ten of the storming-parties were killed or wounded, and the enemy retired almost at once into his second line, abandoning the Palace and other fortified buildings.