This was apparently the leading battalion of the French 101st, marching with its front absolutely uncovered by either cavalry vedettes or any exploring parties of its own. D’Urban galloped back, unseen by the enemy, and wheeled his leading regiment, the 1st Portuguese dragoons—three weak squadrons of little over 200 sabres—into line, with orders to charge the French battalion, before it should take the alarm and form square. The 11th Portuguese, and two squadrons of the British 14th Light Dragoons, which had only just arrived on the ground, being the foremost part of Arentschildt’s brigade, followed in support. The charge was successful—the French were so much taken by surprise that the only manœuvre they were able to perform was to close their second company upon the first, so that their front was six deep. The two squadrons of the Portuguese which attacked frontally suffered severe loss, their colonel, Watson, falling severely wounded among the French bayonets. But the right-hand squadron, which overlapped the French left, broke in almost unopposed on the unformed flank of the battalion, which then went to pieces, and was chased uphill by the whole of the Portuguese horsemen, losing many prisoners[546].
This sudden assault on his leading unit, which seems to have been acting as an advanced guard, and was considerably ahead of the next, must have been sufficiently startling to Thomières, who was taken wholly unawares. But the next moment brought worse trouble: the first brigade of the 3rd Division—Wallace’s—emerged almost simultaneously with the cavalry charge from the scattered trees which had hitherto covered its advance, and was seen coming uphill in beautiful order against him. He was caught in a long column—battalion marching behind battalion, with considerable intervals between the regiments, of which there were three (101st, three battalions; 62nd, two battalions; 1st, three battalions)[547]. If he was able to see Pakenham’s supporting lines, which is a little doubtful, Thomières must have known that he was considerably outnumbered: the British division had 5,800 men against his 4,500, while Curto’s 1,800 light cavalry were not forthcoming at the critical moment to save the situation.
The space between the advancing line of Wallace’s brigade and the head of the French column, when they came in sight of each other, was about 1,000 yards—the time that it took to bring them into collision just sufficed to enable Thomières to make some sort of hasty disposition of his battalions: those in the rear pushed out on to the flanks of the leading regiment, and made an irregular line of columns badly spaced. The voltigeurs of each battalion had time to run to the front: ‘their light troops,’ says a witness from the Connaught Rangers, ‘hoping to take advantage of the time which our deploying from column into line would take, ran down the face of the hill in a state of great excitement.’ Pakenham appears to have sent out against them his three companies of the 5/60th and the whole of the 12th Caçadores, a skirmishing line of superior strength. Wallace’s three battalions formed line from open column without halting, when they had got to within 250 yards of the enemy: ‘the different companies, by throwing forward their right shoulders, were in line without the slow manœuvre of a deployment.’ The French fire is said to have been rather ineffective, because delivered downhill. The most serious loss was that caused by Thomières’s divisional battery, which got up and into action very promptly. It was answered by Douglas’s battery, the divisional artillery of the 3rd Division, which unlimbered on a knoll at the edge of the wood, and sent a raking discharge uphill, against the right of the French division, shelling it over the heads of the brigade advancing up the slope. The two Portuguese line regiments, from the rear of Wallace’s brigade, formed in support of him: Campbell’s brigade followed as a third line.
The main body of the French[548] stood in a group, rather than a line, of battalion columns near the brow of the hill, while Wallace’s brigade continued to press upwards with a front which outflanked the enemy at both ends. ‘Regardless of the fire of the tirailleurs, and the shower of grape and canister, the brigade continued to press onward. The centre (88th regiment) suffered, but still advanced, the right and left (l/45th and 74th) continued to go forward at a more rapid pace, and as the wings inclined forward and outstripped the centre, the brigade assumed the form of a crescent[549].’ They were nearly at the brow, when Thomières directed the French columns to charge down in support of his tirailleurs. The mass, with drums beating and loud shouts of Vive l’Empereur, ran forward, and the leading files delivered a heavy fire, which told severely on the 88th. But on coming under fire in return the French halted, and then wavered: ‘their second discharge was unlike the first—it was irregular and ill-directed, the men acted without concert or method: many fired in the air.’ The three British battalions then cheered and advanced, when the enemy, his columns already in much confusion and mixed with the wrecks of his tirailleurs, gave way completely, and went off in confusion along the top of the plateau.
Just at this moment Curto’s chasseurs at last appeared—where they had been up to this moment does not appear, but certainly not in their proper place. Now, however, six or seven squadrons of them came trotting up on the outer flank of the broken division, of whom some charged the two battalions which formed the right of Pakenham’s first and third lines—the 1/45th and 1/5th respectively. The former, feebly attacked, threw back some companies en potence and beat off their assailants easily. The latter fell back some little way, and had many men cut up, but finally rallied in a clump and were not broken[550]. Their assailants disappeared a moment after, being driven off by Arentschildt, who had just come up on Pakenham’s right with the five squadrons of the 1st Hussars K.G.L. and 14th Light Dragoons[551]. D’Urban’s Portuguese were now a little to the rear, rallying after their successful charge and collecting prisoners: their commander says in his narrative of this part of the battle that he never saw any French cavalry till later in the day, but does not dispute that the 5th may have been attacked by them without his knowledge.
Curto’s cavalry being driven off, the 3rd Division and its attendant squadrons pursued the broken French division of infantry along the top of the plateau, and very nearly annihilated it. Thomières was killed, his divisional battery was captured whole; of his two leading regiments the 101st Line lost 1,031 men out of 1,449 present: its colonel and eagle were both taken with many hundred unwounded prisoners: the 62nd Line lost 868 men out of 1,123. The rear regiment, the 1st Line, got off with the comparatively trifling casualty-list of 231 out of 1,743: it was possibly not up in time to take part in resisting Pakenham’s first attack, and may perhaps have done no more than cover the retreat of the wrecks of the two leading regiments. The whole division was out of action as a fighting body for the rest of the day, having lost 2,130 men out of a little over 4,500.[552] The victorious British 3rd Division, whose casualties had not amounted to more than 500 of all ranks, continued to press the fugitives before it, till it had gone a mile, and came in on the flank of Maucune’s division, the next unit in the French line; D’Urban’s cavalry accompanied it close on its right flank, Arentschildt’s squadrons lay farther out, watching Curto’s defeated first brigade of chasseurs, which rallied upon a reserve, his second brigade, and made head once more against the pursuers, just about the same time that Pakenham’s infantry began again to meet with resistance.
SECTION XXXIII: CHAPTER VII
THE BATTLE OF SALAMANCA: THE MAIN ENGAGEMENT
We must now turn from the exploits of Pakenham and the 3rd Division to deal with the great central attack of Wellington’s frontal striking force, the 5th and 4th Divisions, under Leith and Cole, upon the French left centre. They had been told to move on when Bradford’s Portuguese brigade should be sufficiently near to cover the right flank of the 5th Division, and the necessity of waiting for this support caused their attack to be delivered perceptibly later than that of Pakenham. Leith had drawn out his division in two lines, the first consisting of Greville’s brigade (3/1st, 1/9th, and both battalions of the 38th) and the first battalion of the 4th, brought up from the rear brigade (Pringle’s) to equalize the front of the two lines: the second consisted of the rest of that brigade (the second battalion of the 4th, the 2/30th, and 2/44th) and the Portuguese of Spry (3rd and 15th Line). There was a heavy skirmishing line in front, composed of all the British light companies and the 8th Caçadores[553]. Cole had a smaller force, as his left brigade (Anson’s) had been told off to the defence of the British Arapile: the 3/27th was holding that rocky knoll, the 1/40th was at its foot in support. Only therefore the Fusilier brigade (under Ellis of the 23rd) and Stubbs’s Portuguese formed the attacking force. They were in a single line of seven battalions, with a heavy skirmishing screen composed of four light companies and the whole of the 7th Caçadores[554]. The Fusilier brigade of the 4th Division went through the end of the village of Arapiles, which it did by files from the right of companies, the companies forming up again on the east side of the place, upon their sergeants regularly sent out as markers. This defile delayed the advance of the division, which therefore attacked decidedly later than Leith’s men, the joint movement being in an échelon, with the right leading and the left considerably refused. It was obvious that when the 4th Division drew near to the French line on the plateau, it would be exposing its left flank to the hostile division (Bonnet’s) which was massed on and near the Greater Arapile. Wellington had noted this, and had given special discretionary orders to Pack, directing him to use his independent brigade for the sole purpose of protecting the near flank of the 4th Division; he might attack the Arapile, as the best means of holding back Bonnet from descending against Cole’s line, or might manœuvre below the knoll for the same purpose. When the dangerous moment came, Pack, as we shall see, took the bull by the horns, and assailed the precipitous height in front with his whole 2,000 men.