[1048] 2/24th and 2/58th.
[1049] Wellington thought this the most desperate and gallant charge he had ever seen. Dispatches, x. p. 591.
[1050] Report of Clausel, August 2. ‘Les troupes relevées n’ayant pu, malgré les efforts des généraux Conroux et Rey, s’arrêter sur la position indiquée, et s’étant jetées sur celles qui repoussaient l’attaque de la direction d’Échalar, il s’ensuivit un peu de confusion, et on fut obligé de les laisser aller jusqu’à l’hauteur de la division Taupin.’
[1051] Ross’s brigade had a few casualties in each battalion—37 in all.
[1052] ‘Devant la division Maransin je n’ai vu que des tirailleurs,’ says Clausel. From the sequence of brigades in the 7th Division, I think these must have been Lecor’s people.
[1053] Cooke, i. p. 320. Both he and Surtees mention that the evicted French battalion was the 2nd Léger—a fact not to be found in the reports of Lamartinière or of Reille.
[1054] The total French loss was probably not very great—as happens when troops give at once, and are not pursued. Conroux’s division only records 5 officer-casualties, Vandermaesen’s 8—which should mean a total casualty list of 300 or so. But it is astonishing to find Reille reporting that Maucune lost only about 20 men; if so, the flank-guard cannot have stood at all.
[1055] Soult to Clarke, August 2, and August 6.
[1056] Dispatches, x. p. 591.
[1057] Ibid., x. p. 611. August 7.