‘The position of San Cristobal had been almost stripped of troops: we could see one English division in a sparsely-planted wood within cannon-shot of Calvarisa de Ariba, on the Salamanca road: very far behind a thin column was ascending the heights of Tejares: nothing more could be made out of Wellington’s army: all the rest was hidden from us by the chain of heights which runs from north to south, and ends in the high and precipitous knolls of the Arapiles. Wellington was on this chain, sufficiently near for us to recognize by means of the staff surrounding him[511].’
All, then, that Foy, and Marmont who was riding near him, actually saw, was the 7th Division in the wood opposite Nuestra Señora de la Peña, and the distant baggage-column already filing off on the Ciudad Rodrigo road, which ascends the heights beyond Aldea Tejada four miles to the rear.
The French army was a little more visible to Wellington, who could not only make out Foy’s division behind Calvarisa de Ariba, but several other masses farther south and east, in front of the long belt of woods which extends on each side of the village of Utrera for some two miles or more. It was impossible to see how far the French left reached among the dense trees: but the right was ‘refused:’ no troops were opposite Wellington’s left or northern wing, and the villages of Pelabravo and Calvarisa de Abaxo, far in advance of it, were still held by British cavalry vedettes. In short, only the allied right and centre had enemies in front of them. This indicated what Wellington had expected—an attempt of Marmont to continue his old policy of outflanking his adversary’s extreme right: clearly the British left was not in danger.
Marmont, as his exculpatory dispatch to Berthier acknowledges, was convinced that Wellington would retire once more the moment that his flank was threatened. ‘Everything led me to believe,’ he writes, ‘that the enemy intended to occupy the position of Tejares [across the Zurgain] which lay a league behind him, while at present he was a league and a half in front of Salamanca[512].’ Foy’s diary completely bears out this view of Marmont’s conception of the situation. ‘The Marshal had no definite plan: he thought that the English army was already gone off, or at least that it was going off, to take position on the heights of Tejares on the left [or farther] bank of the river Zurgain. He was tempted to make an attack on the one visible English division, with which a skirmishing fire had already begun. He was fearing that this division might get out of his reach! How little did he foresee the hapless lot of his own army that day! The wily Wellington was ready to give battle—the greater part of his host was collected, but masked behind the line of heights: he was showing nothing on the crest, lest his intention should be divined: he was waiting for our movement[513].’
The skirmish to which Foy alludes was one begun by the voltigeurs of his own division, whom Marmont had ordered forward, to push back the English pickets on the height of Nuestra Señora de la Peña. These belonged to the 7th Division, which was occupying the wood behind. Not wishing his position to be too closely examined, Wellington sent out two whole battalions, the 68th and the 2nd Caçadores, who formed a very powerful screen of light troops, and pushed back the French from the hill and the ruined chapel on top of it. Marmont then strengthened his firing line, and brought up a battery, which checked the further advance of the allied skirmishers. The two screens continued to exchange shots for several hours, half a mile in front of Wellington’s position. The tiraillade had many episodes, in one of which General Victor Alten, leading a squadron of his hussars to protect the flank of the British skirmishers, received a ball in the knee, which put him out of action, and threw the command of his brigade into the hands of Arentschildt, colonel of the 1st Hussars K.G.L. After much bickering, and when noon had long passed, the 68th and Caçadores were relieved by some companies of the 95th from the Light Division, as Wellington wished to employ the 7th Division elsewhere. He had at first thought it possible that Marmont was about to make a serious attack on this part of his front; but the notion died away when it was seen that the Marshal did not send up any formed battalions to support his voltigeurs, and allowed the light troops of the allies to cling to the western half of the slopes of Nuestra Señora de la Peña.
From photographs by Mr. C. Armstrong.