[655] The surrender-rolls show that there were also some small leavings of Marmont’s troops in the Retiro, notably from the 50th Line [of which there were no less than six officers]. Of the Army of the South the 12th and 27th Léger, and 45th and 51st Line were strongly represented.
[656] Treillard calls them only les lanciers in his report. Dyneley in his narrative calls them Polish lancers, but they were really the Westphalian Chevaux-légers-lanciers of the Army of the Centre.
[657] This was a squadron of the 11th, whose other squadron formed the reserve.
[658] Reizenstein and Marshalk.
[659] Colonel Lobo: the other colonel (the Visconde de Barbaçena) who was taken, had been so severely wounded that the French left him behind.
[660] Three in the 19th Dragoons, one in the 22nd, one in the Italian regiment. Oddly enough, of seventeen officers in the casualty list, only one (a chef d’escadron of the 13th) was killed. The sabre disables, but does not usually slay outright.
[661] Dispatches, ix. p. 354.
[662] There are very full narratives of Majalahonda to be got from D’Urban’s correspondence, Reiset’s memoirs, and the letters of Dyneley, who was lucky enough to escape a few days later and rejoin his troop. Schwertfeger’s History of the German Legion gives the facts about the part taken by the K.G.L. Light Battalion, whose service Wellington ignored in his dispatch—wrongly stating that it was not engaged. Treillard’s dispatch is a fine piece of exaggeration, but useful as giving the official French view of the affair.
[663] Dispatches, ix. p. 351.
[664] Journal of Wheeler of the 51st, p. 27.