(2) He had clear permission from Joseph to give battle, unless Hill should have joined Wellington.
(3) The succours from Caffarelli, a weak cavalry brigade and one battery, were so small that their arrival would have made no practical difference to the strength of the army. But to have waited two days for them, after the campaign had commenced, would have given Wellington the opportunity of concentrating, and taking up a good position. It was only after the manœuvring had begun [July 15th] that this little brigade started from Vittoria, on July 16th. The Army of Portugal had already committed itself to offensive operations, and could not halt for two days in the midst of them, without losing the initiative.
From his own point of view, then, Marmont was entirely justified in recrossing the Douro and assuming the offensive. He had got all the reinforcements that he could count upon: they made his army practically equal to Wellington’s in numbers: in homogeneity it was far superior. If he had waited a little longer, he might have found 12,000 men of the Army of Galicia at his back, setting all Old Castile and Leon aflame. Moreover Astorga was only victualled up to August 1st, and might fall any day. He could not have foreseen King Joseph’s unexpected march to his aid, which no dispatch received before July 12th rendered likely. His misfortune (or fault) was that he undervalued the capacity of Wellington to manœuvre, his readiness to force on an offensive battle, and (most of all) the fighting value of the Anglo-Portuguese army.
It cannot be denied that Marmont’s method of taking the offensive against Wellington was neat and effective. It consisted in a feint against his adversary’s left wing, followed by a sudden countermarch and a real attack upon his right wing.
On July 15th Foy and Bonnet, with the two divisions forming the French right, received orders to restore the bridge of Toro, to drive in Wellington’s cavalry screen in front of it, and to cross to the south bank of the Douro. At the same time the divisions of the French centre, opposite the fords of Pollos, made an ostentatious move down-stream towards Toro, accompanied by the Marshal himself, and those on the left, near Tordesillas, shifted themselves towards Pollos. Almost the whole French army was clearly seen marching westward, and the two leading divisions were actually across the river next morning, and seemed to be heading straight for Salamanca by the Toro road.
Wellington was deceived, exactly as Marmont had intended. He drew the obvious conclusion that his adversary was about to turn his left flank, and to strike at Salamanca and his line of communications. It would have been in his power to make a corresponding move against Valladolid, Marmont’s base. But his own line of communications meant much more to him than did Marmont’s. There was a great difference between the position of an army living by transport and magazines, and that of an army living on the country by plunder, like that of the French marshal. Wellington had always been jealous of his left wing, and as early as July 12 had drawn up an elaborate order of march, providing for the contingency of the enemy crossing the Douro at Toro and the ford of Castro Nuño. If his entire force seemed on the move, the whole British army would make a corresponding shift westward—if only a division or two, the mass transferred would be less in similar proportion. He had no idea of defending the actual course of the river: in a letter written a few days later to Lord Bathurst, he remarked that ‘it was totally out of my power to prevent the enemy from crossing the Douro at any point at which he might think it expedient, as he had in his possession all the bridges [Toro and Tordesillas] and many of the fords[476].’ His plan was to concentrate against the crossing force, and fight a defensive action against it, wherever a good position might be available.
There were two reasons for which Wellington regarded a genuine offensive move of Marmont by Toro and Castro Nuño as probable. The first was that he had received King Joseph’s dispatch of July 9th, captured by guerrilleros, which gave him the startling news that the King had resolved to evacuate all New Castile save Madrid and Toledo, and to march with his field-force of some 14,000 men to join the Army of Portugal[477]. Wellington wrote to Graham (who was now on his way home) early on the 16th, that either the Galicians’ approach on his rear had induced Marmont to collect his troops near Toro, or he had heard that Joseph was gathering the Army of the Centre at Madrid, and was threatening the allied left ‘in order to prevent us from molesting the King.’ It was clear that if Wellington had to shift westward to protect his line of communications, he could make no detachment to ‘contain’ King Joseph, who would be approaching from the south-east. Another letter, written an hour or so later, says, ‘these movements of Marmont are certainly intended to divert our attention from the Army of the Centre (which is collecting at Madrid), if he knows of this circumstance, which I doubt[478].’ The doubt was well grounded.
That the whole movement on Toro was a feint did not occur to Wellington, but his orders of the 16th, given in the evening, after he had heard that two French divisions were actually across the Douro on his left, provide for the possibility that some serious force may still remain at Tordesillas and may require observation.
The orders direct the transference of the great bulk of the allied army to a position which will cover the road Toro-Salamanca. They were issued in the evening to the following effect. The reserve (1st and 7th Divisions) was to march from Medina del Campo to Alaejos beyond the Trabancos river, and subsequently to Canizal and Fuente la Peña behind the Guarena river. The left wing, which was watching the fords of Pollos (3rd Division, Bock’s cavalry, Bradford’s and Carlos de España’s infantry), to Castrillo on the Guarena. Of the right wing the 6th Division and two regiments of Le Marchant’s horse were to move on Fuente la Peña, the 5th Division on Canizal. Alten’s cavalry brigade was to follow the 1st Division. This left the 4th and Light Divisions and Anson’s cavalry still unaccounted for. They were set aside to act as a sort of rearguard, being directed to move westward only as far as Castrejon on the Trabancos river, ten miles short of the concentration-point on the Toro road, to which the rest of the army was ordered to proceed. It is clear (though Wellington does not say so) that they would serve as a containing force, if the enemy had left any troops at Tordesillas, and brought them over the Douro there, or at the fords of Pollos.
All these moves were duly executed, and on the morning of the 17th Wellington’s army was getting into position to withstand the expected advance of the enemy on Salamanca by the Toro road. This attack, however, failed to make itself felt, and presently news came that the two divisions of Foy and Bonnet, which had crossed the Douro at Toro, had gone behind it again, and destroyed their bridge. What Marmont had done during the night of the 16th-17th was to reverse the marching order of his whole army, the rear suddenly becoming the head, and the head the rear. The divisions to the eastward, which had not yet got near Toro, countermarched on Tordesillas, and crossed its bridge, with the light cavalry at their head. Those which had reached Toro brought up the rear, and followed, with Foy and Bonnet, at the tail of the column. This was a most fatiguing march for all concerned, the distance from Toro to Tordesillas being about twenty miles, and the operation being carried out in the night hours. But it was completely successful—during the morning of the 17th the vanguard, consisting of Clausel’s and Maucune’s divisions and Curto’s chasseurs à cheval, was pouring over the bridge of Tordesillas and occupying Rueda and La Seca, which the British had evacuated fifteen hours before. The rest followed, the two rear divisions cutting a corner, and saving a few miles, by crossing the ford of Pollos. This was a safe move, when the cavalry had discovered that there were none of Wellington’s troops left east of the Trabancos river. By night on the 17th the bulk of the French army was concentrated at Nava del Rey, ten miles south-west of Tordesillas. In the afternoon Wellington’s rearguard, the 4th and Light Divisions, and Anson’s cavalry had been discovered in position at Castrejon, where their commander had halted them, when he discovered that he had been deceived as to his adversary’s purpose. The rest of the British army had concentrated, according to orders, in the triangle Canizal-Castrillo-Fuente la Peña, behind the Guarena river and in front of the Toro-Salamanca road.