Wellington’s conduct on reaching Salamanca was not that which might have been expected. When a general has, by a careful and well-arranged concentration, collected all his own troops into one solid mass, and then by a rapid advance has thrown himself into the midst of the scattered cantonments of an enemy who has no superiority to him in numbers, it is natural for him to press his pursuit vigorously. Far the most effective way of opening the campaign would have been to cut up the two divisions which Marmont had just led out of Salamanca, or at least to follow them so closely that they could be brought to action before all the outlying divisions had come in. This would certainly have been Napoleon’s method.
Wellington, however, wanted to fight a battle in one of his favourite defensive positions, and he thought that he had a means of compelling Marmont to attack him, by laying siege to the Salamanca forts. After Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz, no French marshal would like to see a third important post captured ‘under his nose.’ The British general judged that Marmont would fight him, in order to save his prestige and his garrison. And since he believed that Bonnet would not evacuate the Asturias, and that Caffarelli would send help late, if at all, he thought that he could count upon a superiority of numbers which rendered victory certain.
This seems to be the only rational way of explaining Wellington’s conduct on June 17th. On arriving in front of Salamanca his army made a majestic encircling movement, Picton’s column crossing the Tormes by the fords of El Canto below the city, Beresford’s and Graham’s by those of Santa Marta above it. The use of the unbroken town-bridge was made impossible by Marmont’s forts. The heads of the two columns met on the north side, and they then moved three miles on, and took up a long position below the heights of San Cristobal, which lie outside Salamanca on its northern and eastern front. These formed the chosen defensive fighting-ground which Wellington had already in his mind.
Only the 14th Light Dragoons and Clinton’s infantry of the 6th Division turned into Salamanca by the Toro gate, and acted as Wellington’s escort, while he was received by the municipality and made his arrangements for the attack on the forts, which, though they commanded the bridge, had no outlook on the spacious arcaded Plaza Mayor, where the reception took place. It was a lively scene. ‘We were received with shouts and vivas,’ writes an eye-witness. ‘The inhabitants were out of their senses at having got rid of the French, and nearly pulled Lord Wellington off his horse. The ladies were the most violent, many coming up to him and embracing him. He kept writing orders upon his sabretash, and was interrupted three or four times by them. What with the joy of the people, and the feeling accompanying troops about to attack a fortress, it was a half-hour of suspense and anxiety, and a scene of such interest as I never before witnessed[422].’
Head-quarters were established that night in the city, and Clinton’s division invested the forts, which looked formidable enough to require close study before they were attacked. The rest of the army took up its bivouacs, with the cavalry out in front, and remained practically without movement on the ground now selected, for the next two days, till Marmont came to pay his expected visit.
The three Salamanca forts were built on high ground in the south-west corner of the city, which overlooks the long Roman bridge. To make them Marmont had destroyed a great part of the old University quarter of the place, levelling the majority of the colleges—for Salamanca, till 1808, had been a university of the English rather than the usual continental type, and had owned a score of such institutions. Nearly all the buildings on the slopes had been pulled down, leaving a wide open glacis round three massive convents, which had been transformed into places of strength. San Vincente occupied the crest of the knoll overlooking the river, and lay in the extreme angle of the old city wall, which enclosed it on two sides. The smaller strongholds, San Cayetano and La Merced, were separated from San Vincente by a narrow but steep ravine, and lay close together on another rising-ground of about the same height. The three formed a triangle with crossing fires, each to a large extent commanding the ground over which the others would have to be approached. The south and west sides of San Vincente and La Merced overhung precipitous slopes above the river, and were almost inaccessible. The north sides of San Cayetano and San Vincente were the only fronts that looked promising for attack, and in each elaborate preparations had been made in view of that fact. Marmont had originally intended to enclose all three forts and many buildings more—such as the Town Hospital, the convent of San Francisco, and the colleges of Ireland and Cuenca, in an outer enceinte, to serve as a large citadel which would contain several thousand men and all his magazines. But money and time had failed, and on the slopes below the forts, several convents and colleges, half pulled to pieces, were still standing, and offered cover for besiegers at a distance of some 250 yards from the works. The garrison consisted of six flank-companies from the 15th, 65th, 82nd, and 86th of the line and the 17th Léger, and of a company of artillery, under the chef de bataillon Duchemin of the 65th. They made up a total of 800 men, and had thirty-six guns in position, of which, however, the greater part were only light field-pieces: two guns (commanding the bridge) were in La Merced, four in San Cayetano, the remaining thirty in San Vincente, the most formidable of the three.
Wellington had come prepared to besiege ‘three fortified convents,’ and had been sent a confused sketch of them drawn by an amateur’s hand[423]. They turned out much stronger than he had been led to expect, owing to the immense amount of hewn stone from the demolished colleges and other buildings that was available to build them up. The walls had been doubled in thickness, the windows stopped, and scarps and counterscarps with solid masonry had been thrown around them. The roofs of the two minor forts had been taken off, and the upper stories casemated, by massive oak beams with a thick coating of earth laid upon them. This surface was so strong that guns, protected by sandbag embrasures, had been mounted on it at some points. There was also an ample provision of palisades, made from strong oak and chestnut beams. Altogether it was clear that the works would require a systematic battering, and were not mere patched-up mediaeval monasteries, as had been expected.
It was, therefore, most vexatious to find that the very small battering-train which Wellington had brought with him from Ciudad Rodrigo was obviously insufficient for the task before it; there were no more than four iron 18-pounder guns, with only 100 rounds of shot each, at the front; though six 24-pound howitzers, from the train that had taken Badajoz, were on their way from Elvas to join, and were due on the 20th. It was not, however, howitzers so much as more heavy 18-or 24-pounders that were required for battering, and the lack of them at the moment was made all the more irksome by the known fact that there were plenty of both sorts at Rodrigo and Almeida, five or six marches away. The mistake was precisely the same that was to be made again at Burgos in the autumn—undervaluation of the means required to deal with works of third-class importance. Whether Wellington himself or his artillery and engineer advisers were primarily responsible is not clear[424].
The responsibility for the working out of the little siege with inadequate means fell on Lieut.-Colonel Burgoyne, as senior engineer (he had with him only two other officers of that corps and nine military artificers!), and Lieut.-Colonel May, R.A., who was in charge of the four 18-pounders. The latter borrowed three howitzers from field-batteries to supplement his miserable means, and afterwards two 6-pounder field-guns, which, of course, were only for annoying the garrison, not for battering.
It looked at first as if the only practicable scheme was to build a battery for the 18-pounders on the nearest available ground, 250 yards from San Vincente to the north, and lower down the knoll on which that fort stood. There was good cover from ruined buildings up to this distance from the French works. On the night of the occupation of Salamanca 400 workmen of the 6th Division commenced a battery on the selected spot and approaches leading to it from the cover in the ruins. The work done was not satisfactory: it was nearly full moon, the night was short, and the enemy (who knew well enough where the attack must begin), kept up a lively fire of artillery and musketry all night. Unfortunately the 6th Division workmen had no experience of sieges—they had never used pick or shovel before, and there were only two engineer officers and nine artificers to instruct them. ‘Great difficulty was found in keeping the men to work under the fire: the Portuguese in particular absolutely went on hands and knees, dragging their baskets along the ground[425].’ By daylight the projected line of the battery was only knee-high, and gave no cover, so that the men had to be withdrawn till dusk. An attempt had been made during the night to ascertain whether it were possible to creep forward to the ditch, and lay mines there, to blow in the counterscarp. But the party who tried to reach the ditch were detected by the barking of a dog, who alarmed the French out-picket, and the explorers had to retire with several men wounded.