The Marshal, in his account of the affair, says that the Portuguese formed up on the heights by the town, apparently ready to fight, but drew off rapidly so soon as he had prepared for a regular attack on the position. Wise not quite in time, the two militia generals sent their men at a trot down the steep road at the back of the place, with the single troop of regular dragoons that they possessed bringing up the rear. It had now begun to rain in torrents, and Trant and Wilson having obtained two or three miles start, and being able to see no distance owing to the downpour, thought that they had got off safe. This was not the case: Marmont realized that his infantry could not catch them, but seeing their hurry and disorder ordered his cavalry—his own escort-squadron and the 13th Chasseurs—to pursue and charge the rearguard of the retreating column. They overtook it by the bridge of Faya, three miles outside Guarda, where the road to Celorico descends on a steep slope to cross the river. The leading French squadron scattered the forty dragoons at the tail of Trant’s division, and rode on, mixed with them, against the rearguard battalion (that of Oporto). The militiamen, startled and caught utterly by surprise, tried to form across the road and to open fire: but the rain had damped their cartridges, and hardly a musket gave fire. Thereupon the battalion went to pieces, the men nearest the French throwing down their guns and asking for quarter, while those behind scattered uphill or downhill from the road, seeking safety on the steep slopes. The charge swept downhill on to the battalion of Aveiro, and the other successive units of the Oporto brigade, which broke up in confusion. Five of their six colours were taken, and 1,500 prisoners were cut off, while some tumbled into the Mondego and were drowned, by losing their footing on the steep hillside. Hardly a Frenchman fell, and not very many Portuguese, for the chasseurs, finding that they had to deal with helpless militiamen who made no resistance, were sparing with the sabre[320]. The greater part of the prisoners were allowed, in contempt, to make off, and only a few hundred and the five flags were brought back to Marmont at Guarda. The pursuit did not penetrate so far as Wilson’s division, which got across the Mondego while Trant’s was being routed, and formed up behind the narrow bridge, where the chasseurs, being a trifling force of 400 men, did not think fit to attack them. The French infantry had marched over twenty miles already that day, and were dead beat: Marmont did not send them down from Guarda to pursue, in spite of the brilliant success of his cavalry.
The day after the ‘Rout of Guarda’ Marmont pushed an advanced guard to Lagiosa, half-way to Celorico, where Trant and Wilson had taken refuge, with their ranks short of some 2,000 men scattered in the hills. Thereupon the militia generals set fire to the stores, and evacuated Celorico, falling back into the hills towards Trancoso. But finding that the French were not coming on, they halted; and when they ascertained that the enemy was actually returning to Guarda, they came back, extinguished the fires, and rescued great part of the magazines. Marmont’s unexpected forbearance was caused by the fact that the news of the fall of Badajoz reached him on the 15th, along with a report from Clausel (who had just evacuated Castello Branco) that Wellington’s army had already started northward, and that its advanced guard was across the Tagus at Villa Velha.
This was startling, nay appalling, intelligence. Badajoz had been reckoned good for a much longer resistance, and the news had come so slowly—it had taken nine days to reach Marmont—that it was possible that the British army was already in a position to cut off his expeditionary force from its base on the Agueda. Wherefore Marmont hastily evacuated Guarda, and was back at Sabugal by the 16th, where Clausel and the other dispersed fractions of his army joined him. Here he regarded himself as reasonably safe, but determined to retire behind the Spanish frontier ere long, raising the blockade of Ciudad Rodrigo. ‘My troops,’ he wrote to Berthier on that day, ‘have used up the little food to be gathered between the Tagus and the Zezere; and now that the enemy is on the Tagus I cannot possibly remain on the Mondego, as I should be leaving him on my line of communications. I shall fall back to the right bank of the Agueda. If the enemy resolves to pursue me thither I shall fight him. If not I shall fall back on Salamanca, because of the absolute impossibility of feeding an army between the Agueda and the Tormes.’
Marmont remained at Sabugal and its neighbourhood for nearly a week—by the 22nd he had drawn back a few miles to Fuente Guinaldo—with about 20,000 men. His position was more dangerous than he knew; for on the 18th the heavy rains, which began on the day of the combat of Guarda, broke his bridge over the Agueda at La Caridad, so that he was cut off from Brennier and from Salamanca. He was under the impression that Wellington had only brought up a couple of divisions against him, and that these were still south of Castello Branco[321], whereas as a matter of fact seven had marched; and on the day that he wrote this incautious estimate Wellington’s headquarters were at Penamacor, the Light and 3rd Divisions were closing in on Sabugal, the 4th and 5th were a full march north of Castello Branco, and the 1st, 6th, and 7th were at Losa, quite close to that city. Thirty-six hours more of delay would have placed Marmont in the terrible position of finding himself with a broken bridge behind him, and 40,000 enemies closing in upon his front and flank.
To explain the situation, Wellington’s movements after the capture of Badajoz must now be detailed. It had been his hope, though not his expectation, that Soult might have remained at Villafranca after hearing of the disaster of the 6th April; in this case he had intended to fall upon him with every available man, crush him by force of numbers, and then follow up his routed army into Andalusia, where the whole fabric of French occupation must have crumpled up. But Soult wisely retreated at a sharp pace; and the idea of following him as far as Seville, there to find him reinforced for a general action by all the troops from the Cadiz Lines and Granada, was not so tempting as that of bringing him to battle in Estremadura. On the day after the fall of Badajoz Wellington formulated his intentions in a letter to Lord Liverpool. ‘It would be very desirable that I should have it in my power to strike a blow against Marshal Soult, before he could be reinforced.... But it is not very probable that he will risk an action in the province of Estremadura, which it would not be difficult for him to avoid; and it is necessary for him that he should return to Andalusia owing to the movements of General Ballasteros and the Conde de Penne Villemur ... if he should retire into Andalusia I must return to Castille[322].’
The reason given by Wellington for his resolve to turn north again was that Carlos de España had informed him that Ciudad Rodrigo, though otherwise tenable enough, had only provisions for twenty-three days, partly from what Wellington called the general policy of ‘Mañana’[323]—of shiftless procrastination—partly from the definite single fact that a very large convoy provided from the British magazines on the Douro had been stopped at Almeida on March 30th. This, in Wellington’s estimation, was the fault of Victor Alten, who, if he had held the outposts beyond the Agueda for a day longer, might have covered the entry of the convoy into Ciudad Rodrigo[324]. Marmont’s operations on the Coa and the Agueda would have been quite negligible from the strategic point of view but for this one fact. He might ravage as far as Guarda or Castello Branco without doing any practical harm, but it could not be permitted that he should starve Rodrigo into surrender: even allowing for a firm resistance by the garrison, and a judicious resort to lessened rations, the place would be in danger from the third week of April onward. Wherefore, unless Marmont withdrew into Spain by the middle of the month, he must be forced to do so, by the transference of the main body of the Anglo-Portuguese Army to the North.
The Marshal, during the critical days following the fall of Badajoz, showed no such intention. Indeed he advanced to Sabugal on the 8th, seized Castello Branco on the 12th, and executed his raid on Guarda upon the 13th-14th. Ignorant of the fall of Badajoz, he was naturally extending the sphere of his operations, under the belief that no serious force was in his front. While he was overrunning Beira Baixa, Ciudad Rodrigo continued to be blockaded by Brennier, and its stores were now running very low.
On April 11th[325] Wellington made up his mind that this state of things must be brought to an end, and he determined that no mere detachment should march, but a force sufficient to overwhelm Marmont if he could be brought to action. The movement began with the march of the 11th Light Dragoons and Pack’s and Bradford’s Portuguese to Elvas on the afternoon of the 11th April, all being ordered to move on Arronches and Portalegre. On the 12th a larger force started off from the camps around Badajoz and on the Albuera position: the 3rd and Light Divisions moved (following Pack and Bradford) on Portalegre via Arronches, the 4th and 5th, making a shorter move, to Campo Mayor on the same road, the 7th from Valverde to Elvas. The 1st and 6th under Graham, bringing up the rear, went off on the 13th from Valverde and Elvas northward. Orders were sent to Stapleton Cotton, then in pursuit of Drouet in southern Estremadura, to come with Anson’s and Le Marchant’s cavalry brigades to join the main army, leaving only Slade’s and Long’s to Hill. Bock’s Heavy Dragoon brigade of the King’s German Legion was also directed to take part in the general movement.
Only Hill, with the troops that had served under him since the summer of 1811, plus one new cavalry brigade, was left behind in Estremadura to ‘contain’ Drouet. It was highly unlikely that Soult would be heard of in that province, as he had his own troubles in Andalusia to keep him employed. Indeed Wellington in his parting message to this trusty lieutenant told him that it was ‘impossible’ that the enemy could assemble enough troops to incommode him at present, and explained that his chief duty would be to cover the repairing of Badajoz, into which three Portuguese line regiments[326] under Power, hitherto forming the garrisons of Elvas and Abrantes, were thrown, to hold it till Castaños should provide 3,000 Spaniards for the purpose.
The movement of the army marching against Marmont was rapid and continuous, though it might have been even more swift but for the fact that the whole long column had to pass the bridge of Villa Velha, the only passage of the Tagus that lay straight on the way to the Lower Beira: to send troops by Abrantes would have cost too much time. On the 16th the Light and 3rd Divisions crossed the bridge, on the 17th some cavalry and Pack’s and Bradford’s Portuguese, while the 4th, 5th, and 6th Divisions were now close to the river at Castello de Vide and Alpalhão, and only the 1st was rather to the rear at Portalegre[327]. Alten’s German Hussars, picked up at Castello Branco on the 18th by the head of the column, were the only cavalry which Wellington showed in his front. This was done on principle: Marmont knew that this regiment was in his neighbourhood, and if it pressed in upon his outposts, it told him nothing as to the arrival of new troops opposite him. As we have already seen, when quoting one of his dispatches[328], he drew the inference that Wellington intended, and so late as the 22nd believed that his adversary’s main army was still behind the Tagus, and that at most two divisions had come up to Villa Velha—but probably no further.