The orders for Hill’s move were given out on May 7th. He was to march from his head-quarters at Almendralejo with two British brigades (Howard’s and Wilson’s) of the 2nd Division, and the Portuguese brigade attached to the division (Ashworth’s), one British cavalry regiment (13th Light Dragoons), and to cross the Guadiana at Merida. Beyond the Guadiana he would pick up Campbell’s Portuguese cavalry brigade, which was lying at Arroyo dos Molinos. The march was then to be as rapid as possible, via Jaraicejo and Miravete. The expeditionary force made up 7,000 men in all.
There were left in Estremadura to ‘contain’ Drouet the two English cavalry brigades of Hill’s force (Slade’s and Long’s)[361], one British infantry brigade (Byng’s) of the 2nd Division, Hamilton’s Portuguese division, and Power’s unattached Portuguese brigade (late the garrison of Elvas, and more recently acting as that of Badajoz). The whole would make up 11,000 men. Power, or at least some of his regiments, was now disposable, because the Spaniards destined to hold Badajoz had begun to arrive, and more were daily expected[362].
But this was not the only precaution taken against Drouet, who had recently been reported as a little inclined to move northward from Fuente Ovejuna—detachments of his cavalry had been seen as far north as Zalamea[363]. Wellington determined to move down towards the Guadiana the southern or right wing of his main army—the 1st and 6th Divisions under Graham. First one and then the other were filed across the bridge of Villa Velha and sent to Portalegre. Here they would be in a position to support the force left in front of Drouet, if Soult should unexpectedly reinforce his Estremaduran corps. Wellington acknowledged that he disliked this wide extension of his army, but justified himself by observing that, if he had now his left wing almost touching the Douro, and his right wing almost touching the Sierra Morena, he might risk the situation, because he was fully informed as to Marmont’s similar dispersion. The Army of Portugal was scattered from the Asturias to Talavera, and from its want of magazines and transport, which Marmont’s intercepted dispatches made evident, would be unable to concentrate as quickly as he himself could.
The movement of Graham’s two divisions from the Castello Branco region to south of the Tagus had an additional advantage. If reported to the French it would tend to make them believe that the next offensive operation of the allied army would be in the direction of Andalusia, not towards the Tormes. If Soult heard of it, he would begin to prepare to defend his own borders, and would not dream that Marmont was really the enemy at whom Wellington was about to strike; while Marmont, on the other hand, thinking that Soult was to be the object of Wellington’s attentions, might be less careful of his own front. The expedition to Almaraz would not undeceive either of them, since it was well suited for a preliminary move in an attack on Andalusia, no less than for one directed against Leon.
Hill’s column reached Merida on May 12th, but was delayed there for some hours, because the bridge, broken in April, had not yet been repaired, as had been expected, the officers sent there having contented themselves with organizing a service of boats for the passage. The bridge was hastily finished, but the troops only passed late in the day; they picked up in the town the artillery and engineers told off for the expedition, Glubb’s British and Arriaga’s Portuguese companies of artillery, who brought with them six 24-pounder howitzers, a pontoon train, and wagons carrying some 30-foot ladders for escalading work. The importance attached to the raid by Wellington is shown by the fact that he placed Alexander Dickson, his most trusted artillery officer, in charge of this trifling detachment, which came up by the road north of the Guadiana by Badajoz and Montijo to join the main column.
Once over the Guadiana, Hill reached Truxillo in three rapid marches [May 15], and there left all his baggage-train, save one mule for each company with the camp-kettles. The most difficult part of the route had now been reached, three successive mountain ranges separating Truxillo from the Tagus. On the 16th, having crossed the first of them, the column reached Jaraicejo: at dawn on the 17th, having made a night march, it was nearing the Pass of Miravete, the last defile above the river. Here, as Hill was aware, the French had outlying works, an old castle and two small forts, on very commanding ground, overlooking the whole defile in such a way that guns and wagons could not possibly pass them. The British general’s original intention was to storm the Miravete works at dawn, on the 17th, and at the same time to attack with a separate column the forts at the bridge. With this purpose he divided his troops into three detachments. Ashworth’s Portuguese and the artillery were to keep to the chaussée, and make a demonstration of frontal attack on the Castle: General Tilson-Chowne [interim commander of the 2nd Division at the moment[364]] was, with Wilson’s brigade and the 6th Caçadores, to make a détour in the hills to the left and to endeavour to storm the Castle from its rear side. General Howard, with the other British brigade, was to follow a similar bridle path to the right, and to descend on to the river and attack the forts by the bridge.
A miscalculation had been made—the by-paths which the flanking columns were to take proved so far more steep and difficult than had been expected, that by dawn neither of them had got anywhere near its destination. Hill ordered them to halt, and put off the assault. This was fortunate, for by a long and close reconnaissance in daylight it was recognized that the Castle of Miravete and its dependent outworks, Forts Colbert and Senarmont, were so placed on a precipitous conical hill that they appeared impregnable save by regular siege operations, for which the expeditionary force had no time to spare. The most vexatious thing was that the garrison had discovered the main column on the chaussée, and it could not be doubted that intelligence must have been sent down to the lower forts, and most certainly to Foy at Talavera also. After a thorough inspection of the ground, Hill concluded that he could not hope to master Miravete, and, while it was held against him, his guns could not get through the pass which it so effectively commanded. It remained to be seen what could be done with the forts at the bridge.
The Almaraz forts crowned two hills on each side of the Tagus. The stronger, Fort Napoleon, occupied the end of a long rising ground, about 100 yards from the water’s edge; below it, and connecting with it, was a masonry tête-de-pont covering the end of the pontoon-bridge. The weaker work, Fort Ragusa, was on an isolated knoll on the north bank, supporting the other end of the bridge. Fort Napoleon mounted nine guns, had a good but unpalisaded ditch around its bastioned front, and a second retrenchment, well palisaded, with a loopholed stone tower within. Fort Ragusa was an oblong earthwork mounting six guns, and also provided with a central tower. It had as outwork a flèche or lunette, commanding the north end of the bridge. The small tête-de-pont mounted three guns more. Half a mile up-stream was the ruined masonry bridge which had formed the old crossing, with the village of Almaraz on the north bank behind it. Between the tête-de-pont and the old bridge were the magazines and storehouses in the village of Lugar Nuevo.
The garrison of the works consisted of a depleted foreign corps, the régiment de Prusse or 4th Étranger, mustering under 400 bayonets, of a battalion of the French 39th of the Line, and of two companies of the 6th Léger, from Foy’s division, with a company of artillery and another of sappers. The whole may have amounted to 1,000 men, of whom 300 were isolated in the high-lying Castle of Miravete, five miles from the bridge-head. The governor, a Piedmontese officer named Aubert, had manned Fort Napoleon with two companies of the 6th and 39th. The foreign corps and one company of the 6th were in Fort Ragusa and the bridge-head; Miravete was held by the centre companies of the 39th.
Though delay after the French had got the alarm was dangerous, Hill spent the whole of the 17th in making fruitless explorations for vantage-ground, from which Miravete might be attacked. None was found, and on the 18th he made up his mind to adopt a scheme hazardous beyond his original intention. It would be possible to mask the Castle by a false attack, in which all his artillery should join, and to lead part of his infantry over the hills to the right, by a gorge called the Pass of La Cueva, for a direct attack by escalade, without the help of guns, upon the Almaraz forts.