Joseph, as was perhaps natural, gave his final decision in favour of Soult’s plan. It was true that he had a marked superiority in numbers, and that a defeat of a crushing sort inflicted on Wellington would go far to end the Peninsular War. No such army on the French side had ever been in line on a single field before in Spain. Jourdan’s estimate of 80,000 men was a decided understatement, even allowing for the fact that Soult’s divisions had already many stragglers, and that Souham had left a ‘minimum’ garrison at Valladolid. Something much more like the 90,000 men at which Wellington estimated the three united French armies must have been collected[168]. On the other hand there is a dreadful risk taken when an army endeavours to cross a group of fords, supplemented at the best by some hastily constructed bridges, in face of an enemy known to be wary, active, and determined. What might not happen if Wellington fell upon the leading divisions, while the rest were crowding down to their crossing points? Or who could guarantee that sudden rain in the Sierra de Francia might not cause the Tormes to rise three feet on the battle day, and separate the troops who had crossed from those still on the eastern bank? Every one at the French head-quarters must have remembered Essling, and the narrow escape from supreme disaster there suffered from the caprice of the Danube.
On the whole, the prospect of the enormous advantage to be got by inflicting a complete disaster on Wellington did not balance the possibility of loss that might follow an unsuccessful frontal attack upon his position. Joseph made his choice in favour of Soult’s plan for a flank march to the upper Tormes. This manœuvre would take several days to execute, as the Army of the South had to be moved to its left from all its cantonments facing Alba, while the Armies of the Centre and Portugal had to wait till this flank march was finished, in order to come up and take over the former positions of Soult’s divisions. For all the French chiefs were agreed that the armies must keep closed up, and that no gap must be allowed to come into existence between them. When the Army of the South should begin to cross the Tormes, the Army of Portugal must be in direct support of it, and must make no separate attack of its own to the north of Alba, in the localities which Jourdan had found so tempting. The whole of the 12th and 13th November was expended in making this shift of troops southward. Soult moved his army up-stream and placed his head-quarters at Anaya, six miles south of Alba, above the fords of Galisancho, where the crossing was to take place. The King moved to Valdecarros, a little to Soult’s right, with the Army of the Centre. The Army of Portugal, leaving its cavalry and two infantry divisions[169] as a rearguard about Huerta, moved the other six to the heights above Alba, where it was hoped that it might cross, when Soult’s manœuvre should force Hill to abandon that place and draw back.
The King took two unexpected measures before passing the Tormes. The first was to supersede Souham as commander of the Army of Portugal—the excuse used was that he was indisposed, and not up to his task: the real cause was that he was considered to have shown tardiness and over-caution in his manœuvres since October 30th.[170] Drouet was taken from the command of the Army of the Centre, and given the more important charge of that of Portugal. The other, and more surprising, order was one which made over—as a temporary arrangement—the charge of the Army of the Centre to Soult, who thus had nearly 60,000 men put at his disposition. The object was, apparently, to give him ample forces for the move now about to be made at his request, and on his responsibility.
Wellington was evidently somewhat puzzled at the posture of the French on the 12th-13th November. He could not make out any reduction of the French forces between Huerta and Alba, where indeed the whole Army of Portugal still lay, but now with an accumulation of forces on its left and a weaker right. Yet so long as the enemy was still in force at Huerta he could not evacuate the San Cristobal position, in order to send reinforcements to Hill. Reconnaissances by French cavalry above Alba were reported each day by outlying picquets of Hamilton’s Portuguese, who were watching the course of the upper Tormes[171]. But no solid force was sent to back these outlying posts: Wellington considered it unsafe to extend his already lengthy front. The disposition of the troops on his right wing was still that Hill lay in the woods behind Alba, with the 3rd and 4th Divisions at Calvarisa de Abaxo as a reserve for him, while Long’s and D’Urban’s cavalry carefully watched the course of the river from Alba to opposite Huerta. On the north of the Tormes Pack’s and Bradford’s Portuguese were on the river-bank at Aldea Lengua and Cabrerizos, watching the two French divisions at Huerta. The 1st, 5th, 6th, 7th Divisions and the Galicians held the San Cristobal position, with Anson’s, Victor Alten’s, and Ponsonby’s cavalry far out in their front. Nothing hostile could be discovered in this direction nearer than the two divisions of the Army of Portugal at Huerta. Yet Wellington did not like to weaken his left flank: at any moment the enemy at Huerta might come forward, and might prove to be the vanguard of an advancing army, not the rearguard of one about to go off southward. This hypothesis seemed all the more possible because Maucune, on the morning of the 12th, had made a reconnaissance in force against Pack’s Portuguese, at Aldea Lengua: he deployed three brigades, engaged in a lively skirmish, and only retreated when British reinforcements began to come up. On the following day Wellington, wishing to see whether Maucune was on the move, beat up his quarters with strong reconnaissances of cavalry, and found him still in position[172]. Till Maucune should leave Huerta, in advance or retreat, the situation was not clear. For these two days, it seems, Wellington was still thinking it possible that he might be attacked either on the San Cristobal position or by the fords between Huerta and Alba. But he was quite aware that the other possibility (a flank movement of Soult by the upper Tormes) existed, and had sent a staff officer with a party of the 13th Light Dragoons to cross the river at Salvatierra and ascertain the southernmost point to which the French had moved[173]. And he had given Hill elaborate orders as to what should be done if he were turned and driven in. Whether there would be a battle to follow, or a retreat on Ciudad Rodrigo, depended on the exact movements of the enemy, and the force that he brought up to the crucial point. If the French split themselves into many columns, with long gaps between them, there was still a chance of administering a second lesson like that of July 22nd on much the same ground.
On the early morning of the 14th the crisis came. At dawn Pierre Soult’s Light Cavalry crossed the Tormes in force at three fords between Galisancho and Lucinos, which were perfectly passable, the water only coming up to the horses’ bellies. The Portuguese picquets beyond the river gave the alarm, but had to retire at once; some few were cut off by the chasseurs. Two divisions of dragoons followed Vinot’s and Avy’s light horse, and when they had scoured the west bank of the Tormes up and down and found no enemy in force, the infantry began to pass, not only by the fords but by several trestle bridges which were constructed in haste. As soon as there were a couple of divisions across the river, they advanced to a line of heights a couple of miles ahead, where there was a fair defensive position above the village of Martin Amor. By the afternoon the whole Army of the South was across the water, and had taken up a more advanced line towards Mozarbes, while the Army of the Centre was beginning to follow. It had been hoped that the Army of Portugal would be able to cross at or near Alba, for Soult supposed it likely that Hill would evacuate that town, when he saw 40,000 men arrayed behind his left flank. But though Hill did withdraw Howard’s and da Costa’s brigades in the afternoon, he left Miranda’s Spanish battalion in the castle, and blew up the bridge. As the castle commanded the ruined structure and the ford near it, and fired furiously on both, there was no chance of passing here or of repairing the ruined arch. Drouet found that he would have to march up-stream, and made his crossing at Torrejon, four miles south of Alba and near the fords that Soult had employed. He had the bulk of his army over the river by the afternoon, and his two rear divisions under Maucune, which had arrived late after a forced march from Huerta, crossed at dusk[174]. The whole 90,000 men of the French Army were over the Tormes that night, bivouacking on the heights from Torradillos to Valdenuerque, in front of Martin Amor. The operation had been neatly carried out, and was quite successful.
Wellington had early knowledge of the French movement from two sources—his cavalry told him almost at daybreak that the French camps above Huerta were empty, and soon after came Hill’s news that Soult had begun to cross the Tormes in force at Galisancho. Quite early in the morning Wellington rode out in haste, to take command in person on the threatened front, after having issued orders that the whole of the troops on the San Cristobal position should follow him. He himself pushed on with his staff, met Hill in the wood south of the Arapiles, and told him to watch the roads from Alba with the 4th Division and Hamilton’s Portuguese. Then, taking the strong 2nd Division—8,000 infantry—and all the cavalry brigades that had been watching the middle Tormes (Slade’s, Long’s, and D’Urban’s, and Penne Villemur’s Spaniards) he pushed on to ‘contain’ and possibly to attack Soult[175]. But on arriving in front of Mozarbes a little before noon, he saw that the enemy had already three or four divisions and 4,000 horse drawn up in line to cover the passage of the Tormes by the rest of his army. He had arrived too late to check Soult’s leading columns, and if he sent for Hill and the other troops which lay to his rear, he would, even when they arrived, have only 25,000 men available to attack an enemy who had already as great a force in line, and who was receiving fresh troops every moment from the fords[176]. Nothing could be done till the great reserve from the San Cristobal position came up, and they were not due till late in the day—the last of them indeed did not cross the bridge of Salamanca till the following morning.
At dusk Wellington ordered Hill to fall back with his infantry from the woods in front of Alba to the old position of the Arapiles, but kept his cavalry to the front, to cover his own line of battle as long as possible. Their screen of vedettes was placed in the line of woods from Miranda de Azan to Utrera, south of the heights on which Marmont’s army had taken up its position upon July 22nd. Till this cavalry was driven in, the French, on the rising ground above Mozarbes, could not make out the British position.
On the morning of the 15th Wellington had all his troops in hand, though the last divisions from San Cristobal did not come up till some hours after daybreak. But the enemy had also brought up every man to the front, being resolved to sacrifice not even the smallest part of his numerical superiority. Some critics, among them Jourdan[177], hold that Wellington, since he was determined not to fight save at advantage, should have commenced his retreat on Ciudad Rodrigo the moment that he saw the whole of the three hostile armies massed in his front, and before they could begin to debouch from their position on the heights of Mozarbes. And it is probable that if he had directed the troops from San Cristobal to take the roads towards the Agueda, instead of bringing them up to the Arapiles position, and if he had used Hill’s corps and all his cavalry as a rearguard only, he would have reached Ciudad Rodrigo with a smaller loss of life than was actually to be spent. The French would have had to start their pursuit from a more distant and a less favourable point.