[290] This Soult quotes in his recriminatory letter to Marmont of April 8, and in his angry dispatch to Berthier of the same date (printed in King Joseph’s Correspondance, viii. p. 355).
[291] The date is proved by the letter from Soult to Marmont of March 11, printed in Marmont’s Mémoires, iv. p. 359.
[292] The date is proved by Soult’s letter to the Emperor of that date from Santa Maria, in which he announces his intention to start, and says that he is writing to Marmont, to get him to unite the armies as soon as possible.
[293] See his Mémoires, p. 377.
[294] To be exact, 7,776 officers and men on March 1. He also brought with him some ‘bataillons d’élite’ of grenadier companies from Villatte’s division.
[295] The 55th, three battalions about 1,500 strong, the fourth being left at Jaen. Soult says in his dispatch of April 8 that he took a whole brigade from Leval, but the states of April 14 show the 32nd and 58th regiments of Leval’s division, and three of the four battalions of the 43rd, all left in the kingdom of Granada. Apparently three battalions of the 55th and one of the 43rd marched, about 2,200 strong.
[296] Though he calls them only 21,000 in his dispatches. But the figures [see [Appendix no. VIII]] show 23,500. The total in the monthly reports indicate 25,000 as more likely.
[297] The orders to Hill issued by Wellington on April 4 and 5 (Dispatches, ix. p. 30) contemplate two possibilities: (1) Soult is marching with his whole force on Villafranca, and Foy is remaining far away: in this case Hill is to move en masse on Albuera. This is the case that actually occurred; (2) if Foy is moving toward the Upper Guadiana, and Soult is showing signs of extending to join him, Howard’s British and Ashworth’s Portuguese brigades and Campbell’s Portuguese horse will stay at Merida as long as is prudent, in order to prevent the junction, and will break the bridge at the last moment and then follow Hill.
Wellington, when he wrote his first orders of the 4th to Hill, was intending to storm Badajoz on the 5th, and knew, by calculating distances, that Soult could not be in front of Albuera till the 7th. He ultimately chanced another day of bombardment, running the time limit rather fine. But there was no real risk with Graham and Hill at Albuera: Soult could not have forced them.
[298] He says in his letter to Berthier of April 8 that he had intended (but for the fall of Badajoz) to move by his right that morning, to the lower course of the Guadajira river—which would have brought on an action near Talavera Real, lower down the stream of the Albuera than the battle-spot of May 1811.