[166] Jourdan to Joseph, head-quarters at Peñaranda: early on November 12.
[167] Soult to Joseph, night of November 11, from the bivouac behind Alba de Tormes.
[168] As the table of the French Armies of Spain for October 15 in the Appendix shows, the Army of the South had on that day 47,000 men under arms (omitting ‘sick’ and ‘detached’), the Army of the Centre 15,000, the Army of Portugal 45,000 (including Aussenac’s brigade and Merlin’s cavalry, both attached to it provisionally). This gives a total of 107,000, without sick or detached. The Army of Portugal may have lost 1,000 men in action at Villadrigo and Villa Muriel, &c.: the Army of the South not more than 400 at the Puente Larga, Alba de Tormes, &c. The Army of the Centre had not fought at all. A deduction has to be made for Soult’s very large body of men attached to the Artillery Park, and for a smaller number in the Army of Portugal—say 3,000 men for the two together. Souham had left a small garrison at Valladolid—perhaps 1,500 men. If we allow 5,000 men for sick and stragglers between October 20 and November 12 there must still have been a good 90,000 men present. Miot (who was present) calls the total 97,000 (iii. p. 254), making it a little too high, I imagine.
[169] Maucune and Gauthier (late Chauvel). See Wellington Dispatches, ix. p. 556.
[170] Souham naturally expressed his indignation. See Miot, iii. p. 252-3.
[171] D’Urban reports on November 12th: ‘Enemy’s troops in continual movement, and he made a careful reconnaissance of the river from Huerta to Exeme [above Alba].’ On the 13th he writes: ‘The enemy moved all his troops between Huerta and Alba by his left into the woods behind Exeme on the high road to Avila. From thence he can either go in that direction or cross the Tormes by fords above Alba bridge.’
[172] This fact, very important in justification of Wellington’s long stay on San Cristobal, is not mentioned in any of his dispatches. But there is a full account of the skirmish in the Mémoire of Colonel Béchaud of Maucune’s Division, printed in Études Napoléoniennes, iii. pp. 98-9.
[173] The reconnaissance was executed by Leith Hay, who found the French flank at Galisancho and reported its exact position. See his Narrative, ii. pp. 99-100.
[174] Details from Foy’s Vie militaire, ed. Girod de l’Ain, p. 118, and Béchaud (quoted above), pp. 99-100.
[175] His original intention to attack is clearly stated in Dispatches, ix. p. 559, and the statement is corroborated by D’Urban.