At first the advance had considerable success. Bonnet’s regiments pushed forward on the right, driving in the 1/40th[571], which had come forward to cover Pack’s routed battalions, and pressing quite close to the British Arapile, whose battery was turned upon them with much effect. Clausel’s own division pushed the Fusiliers some way down the slope and right into the valley at its foot. The dragoons charged Stubbs’s retreating Portuguese, and cut up many of them, though the 11th regiment finally succeeded in forming square with what remained solid of its companies, and beat off the main attack. Part of the French horsemen, however, pushed on, and reached the front of Wellington’s reserve line, the 6th Division, which had now descended the heights to relieve the broken 4th. One battalion of Hulse’s brigade, the 2/53rd, was charged by several squadrons, but formed square in time and repulsed them. Some little way to the right the Fusiliers and the Portuguese 23rd formed a large parti-coloured square, expecting a similar attack, but it did not come their way[572].
Wellington, thanks to his own prescience, had ample reserves with which to parry Clausel’s desperate stroke. Setting aside the Light Division, which now paired off against Foy on the extreme left of the field, there were the 1st, 6th, and 7th Divisions, not to speak of Bradford’s Portuguese and España’s Spaniards, all of them perfectly intact. And of these, such was his strength, only one fresh unit, Clinton’s 6th Division, required to be brought up to turn the day. It was now coming over the valley where the 4th had preceded it, in a long majestic line, Hulse’s brigade on the right, Hinde’s on the left, the Portuguese of the Conde de Rezende in second line. The 1st Division, if it had been needed, could have supported Clinton, from its post just to the north of the Lesser Arapile, but had not yet got under way.
The repulse of the new French attack was carried out with no great difficulty, if not without serious fighting. The advance of Clausel’s own division was checked by Marshal Beresford, who took Spry’s Portuguese brigade out of the second line of the victorious 5th Division, and led it diagonally along the southern slope of the plateau to fall upon Clausel’s flank. This it did effectively, for the French division could not dare to press on against the Fusiliers, and had to throw back its left, and form up opposite Spry, with whom it became engaged in a lively musketry fight. It could no longer move forward, and was immobilized, though it held its own: Beresford was wounded in the chest and taken to the rear, but Spry’s five battalions had served the desired purpose, and stopped the French advance in this quarter.
But the decisive check to Clausel’s offensive was given by Clinton and the 6th Division, who advancing straight before them—over the ground previously traversed by Cole—fell upon, overlapped at both ends, and thoroughly discomfited in close musketry duel the nine battalions of Bonnet’s division, which had pressed forward close to the Lesser Arapile, as if to insert a wedge in the British line. Unsupported by Boyer’s dragoons, who had shot their bolt too early, and were now re-forming far to the rear, this French division was badly cut up. Each of the three regiments which had taken part in its advance lost more than 500 men in the struggle[573]: they fell back in disorder towards the hill behind them, and their rout compelled Clausel’s division to give way also, since it exposed its flank to the oncoming line of Hulse’s brigade on Clinton’s right. Moreover the Great Arapile had to be evacuated, for while the routed troops passed away to its left rear, the 1st British Division was soon after seen steadily advancing towards its right. The regiment on the hill (the 120th) was exposed to be cut off and surrounded, and hastily ran down the back of the mount: while retreating it was much molested by the skirmishers of the German Legion Brigade of the 1st Division. It lost heavily, and the battery that had been on the summit was captured before it could get away.
Thus Clausel’s brief half-hour of triumph ended in complete disaster, and the two divisions with which he had made his stroke were flung back against the slope in front of the woods in their rear, where they took refuge behind the intact division of Ferey, the sole available reserve in this part of the field. They were now as badly beaten as Thomières and Maucune had been earlier in the day[574].
While this lively action was in progress, the 5th and 3rd Divisions, supported by the 7th and by Bradford’s Portuguese, in second line, and assisted on their flanks by Arentschildt’s, D’Urban’s, and Anson’s horse, had been driving in the wrecks of the French left wing towards the woods. There was much resistance: on Sarrut’s intact battalions many of the broken regiments had rallied. ‘These men, besmeared with blood, dust, and clay, half naked, and some carrying only broken weapons, fought with a fury not to be surpassed,’ says a 3rd Division narrator of the battle. But the tide of battle was always moving backward, towards the woods from which the French had originally issued, and though it sometimes seemed about to stop for a minute or two, a new outflanking manœuvre by the troops of Pakenham, D’Urban, and Arentschildt, sufficed on each occasion to set it in motion again.
The last stage of the conflict had now been reached: the French centre was as thoroughly beaten as their left had been earlier in the day: many of the battalions had gone completely to pieces, and were pouring into the woods and making their way to the rear, with no thought except for their personal safety. Of intact troops there were only two divisions left, Ferey’s in the centre, and Foy’s on the extreme right near Calvarisa de Ariba. It was generally considered that Foy ought to have been overwhelmed by the much superior British force in front of him, for not only was he opposed by the Light Division, whose skirmishers had been bickering with him all the afternoon, but the 1st Division became available for use against him the moment that it was clear that the French offensive against the 4th Division had been shattered, by the advance of Clinton and Spry. Wellington, it is said[575], dispatched orders for the 1st Division to move forward and strike in between Foy and the Greater Arapile, at the moment that he saw that the 6th Division had broken Bonnet’s troops. If so, the order was not executed, and General Campbell led out his three brigades much too late, and not in time either to cut off Foy or to encircle the right of the disordered mass of the enemy now retiring into the woods. He seems to have acted simply as a link between the 6th Division on his right, and the Light Division on his left, for the latter alone pressed Foy vigorously. The only part of Campbell’s division which suffered any appreciable loss at this time of the day were the light companies of Löwe’s brigade—that which was composed of the King’s German Legion: they fell on the flank of the French regiment that was evacuating the Greater Arapile, and did it considerable harm[576].
Meanwhile the last and not the least bloody fighting of the day was beginning, on the hillside just outside the head of the forest, where Marmont had deployed his main body at midday, and where Ferey’s division was now standing in reserve, while the broken troops both from its front and from its flank were streaming by to the rear. Clausel had given Ferey orders to cover the retreat at all costs, warning him that unless he could hold back the advancing enemy for some time the disaster would be complete. The general to whom this unenviable task was assigned carried it out with splendid courage, and by his constancy gave time for the escape of the whole of the confused mass behind him. He drew out his nine battalions in a single line, the centre a little advanced to suit the shape of the hillside, the flanks a little thrown back. The extreme battalions at each end were in square, to guard against possible attacks by cavalry, but the seven central units were deployed en bataille in three-deep line, a formation which had not been seen in the other episodes of the battle, and which made their fire much more effective than that of regiments fighting in ‘column of divisions,’ as most of their comrades had done[577].
Against the orderly front thus disposed Clinton came up with the 6th Division, pursuing his victorious advance. He was flanked on the left by the Fusilier brigade of the 4th Division, which had long ago rallied and come up to the front since its disaster of an hour back. On Clinton’s right were the 5th and 3rd Divisions, but both were at the moment re-forming, after their long struggle with Sarrut and the wrecks of the French left wing. Anson’s cavalry had at last got to the front in this direction, and replaced D’Urban and Arentschildt—whose squadrons were quite worn out—upon the extreme right of the allied line.
Clinton, it is said[578], refused to wait till the troops on his right were re-formed, and hurried on the attack: it was growing dark, and a few more minutes of delay would allow the French to make off under cover of the night. Therefore he advanced at once, and found himself engaged at once in a most desperate musketry contest, whose deadly results recalled Albuera, so heavy were the losses on both sides. But here the French had the advantage of being deployed, and not (as at Albuera) wedged in deep columns. The first fire of the French line, as Clinton’s brigades closed in, was particularly murderous, and swept away whole sections of the attacking force. ‘The ground over which we had to pass,’ writes an officer in Hinde’s brigade[579], ‘was a remarkably clear slope, like the glacis of a fortress, most favourable for the defensive fire of the enemy, and disadvantageous for the assailant. The craggy ridge, on which the French were drawn up, rose so abruptly that the rear ranks could fire over the heads of the front. But we had approached within two hundred yards before the musketry began: it was far the heaviest fire that I have ever seen, and accompanied by constant discharges of grape. An uninterrupted blaze was thus maintained, so that the crest of the hill seemed one long streak of flame. Our men came down to the charging position, and commenced firing from that level, at the same time keeping touch to the right, so that the gaps opened by the enemy’s fire were instantly filled up. At the first volley about eighty men of our right wing fell to the rear in one group. Our commanding officer rode up to know the cause, and found that they were every one wounded!’ But heavy as was the loss of this regiment (137 out of 600 present), it was trifling compared to that of its neighbours to the right, in Hulse’s brigade, where the right and centre regiments in the line, the 1/11th and 1/61st, lost respectively 340 men out of 516 and 366 out of 546—a proportion to which only Albuera could show a parallel. For many minutes—one observer calls it nearly an hour, but the stress of the struggle multiplied time—the two hostile lines continued blazing at each other in the growing dusk. ‘The glare of light caused by the artillery, the continued fire of musketry, and by the dry grass which had caught fire, gave the face of the hill a terrific appearance: it was one sheet of flame, and Clinton’s men seemed to be attacking a burning mountain, whose crater was defended by a barrier of shining steel[580].’ The French, so far as losses went, probably suffered no more, or perhaps less, than their assailants: but their casualties were nevertheless appalling. And at last they gave way: ‘the cruel fire cost us many lives,’ writes an officer of the 31st Léger, ‘and at last, slowly, and after having given nearly an hour’s respite to the remainder of the army, Ferey gave back, still protected by his flanking squares, to the very edge of the forest, where he halted our half-destroyed division. Formed in line it still presented a respectable front, and halted, despite of the English batteries, which enfiladed us with a thundering fire. Here Ferey met the form of death which the soldier prefers to all others, he was slain outright by a round-shot[581].’