Murray had long surveyed his ground, and had (as we have seen) thrown up barricades and entrenchments on the hill of Castalla and the ground immediately to its right and left. He had very nearly every available man of his army in hand, only a minimum garrison having been left in Alicante[420]. The total cannot have been less than 18,000 men; he had divided his own troops into the Light Brigade of Adam, and the two divisions of Mackenzie and Clinton. The first named had three and a quarter battalions—not quite 2,000 men after its losses at Biar on the previous afternoon[421]. Mackenzie seems to have had one British, two German Legion, and two Sicilian battalions[422]: Clinton three British, one composite Foreign, and one Italian battalion[423]. Whittingham had six Spanish battalions with him[424]—Roche only five[425]. The cavalry consisted of three squadrons of the 20th Light Dragoons, two of Sicilian cavalry, one of ‘Foreign Hussars,’ and about 400 of Whittingham’s Spanish horse[426], under 1,000 sabres in all. There were two British, two Portuguese, and a Sicilian battery on the ground.
The sierra on the left, known as the heights of Guerra, was held by Whittingham’s Spaniards for a mile, next them came Adam’s brigade, above a jutting spur which projects from the sierra towards the plain, then Mackenzie’s division, which extended as far as the hill on which the castle of Castalla stands: this was occupied by the 1/58th of Clinton’s division, and two batteries had been thrown up on the slope. With this hill the sierra ends suddenly; but a depression and stream running southward furnished a good protection for Murray’s right, which was held by the rest of Clinton’s division. The stream had been dammed up, and formed a broad morass covering a considerable portion of the front. Behind it Clinton’s troops were deployed, with three of Roche’s battalions as a reserve in their rear: two batteries were placed on commanding knolls in this part of the line, which was so far thrown back en potence that it was almost at right angles to the front occupied by Mackenzie, Adam, and Whittingham. The Spanish and Sicilian cavalry was thrown out as a screen in front of Castalla, with two of Roche’s battalions in support. The 20th Light Dragoons were in reserve behind the town. The east end of the sierra, near Castalla, was covered by vineyards in step-cultivation, each enclosure a few feet higher than the next below it. Farther west there was only rough hillside, below Whittingham’s front. The whole position was excellent—yet Murray is said by his Quartermaster-General, Donkin, to have felt so uncomfortable that he thrice contemplated issuing orders for a retreat, though he could see the whole French army, and judge that its strength was much less than his own[427]. But he distrusted both himself and many battalions of his miscellaneous army.
Suchet, contrary to his wont, was slow to act. It is said that he disliked the look of the position, and doubted the wisdom of attacking, but was over-persuaded by some of his generals, who urged that the enemy was a mixed multitude, and that the Spaniards and Sicilians would never stand against a resolute attack. It was not till noon that the French army moved—the first manœuvre was that the whole of the cavalry rode out eastward, took position opposite the angle en potence of Murray’s position, and sent exploring parties towards Clinton’s front. Evidently the report was that it was inaccessible. While this was happening the infantry deployed, and Habert’s and Robert’s division advanced and occupied a low ridge, called the Cerro del Doncel, in the plain facing Murray’s left and left-centre. Harispe’s division, minus a detachment left behind the pass of Biar to watch for any possible appearance of Elio’s troops on the road from Sax, formed in reserve. The whole of Suchet’s infantry was only 18 battalions, individually weaker than Murray’s 24; he was outnumbered in guns also—24 to 30 apparently—but his 1,250 cavalry were superior in numbers and quality to Murray’s. He had certainly not more than 13,000 men on the ground to the Allies’ 18,000.
His game was to leave Clinton’s division and Castalla alone, watched only by his cavalry; to contain Mackenzie by demonstrations, which were not to be pushed home; but to strike heavily with Robert’s division at the Spaniards on the left. If he could break down Whittingham’s defence, and drive him off the sierra, he would attack the allied centre from flank and front alike—but meanwhile it was not to be pressed. When, therefore, Habert faced Mackenzie nothing serious happened, the French sent out swarms of tirailleurs, brought up eight guns and shelled the position with grape. Mackenzie’s light companies and guns replied, ‘but there was nothing more than a skirmish: the columns shifted their ground indeed more than once, but they did not deploy, and their officers took good care not to bring them under the fire of our line[428].’
On the left, however, there was hard fighting. Suchet first sent out five light companies to endeavour to turn the extreme western end of Whittingham’s line, and, when they were far up the slope, delivered a frontal attack on the heights of Guerra with six battalions of Robert’s division: the 3rd Léger and 114th and 121st Line[429]: of these the left-hand battalions (belonging to the 121st) came up the projecting spur mentioned above, and faced the 2/27th on the left of Adam’s brigade. The other four were opposed to the Spaniards.
Whittingham was caught in a rather dangerous position, for a little while before the attack developed, he had received an order from head-quarters bidding him execute against Robert’s division precisely the same manœuvre that Suchet was trying against himself, viz. to send troops to outflank the extreme French right. He was told by the bearer of the orders, a Sicilian colonel, that this was preliminary to a general attack downhill upon the French line, which Murray was intending to carry out. The Spanish division was to turn its flank, while Adam and Mackenzie went straight at its front. There is some mystery here—Murray afterwards denied to Whittingham that he had given any such order[430], and Donkin, his Chief of the Staff, maintained that his general was thinking of a retreat all that morning rather than of an attack. Yet Colonel Catanelli was a respectable officer, who was thanked in dispatches both by Murray and Whittingham for his services! Three hypotheses suggest themselves: (1) that Murray at one moment meditated an attack, because he saw Suchet holding back, and then (with his usual infirmity of purpose) dropped the idea, and denied having made any such plan to Whittingham, whose position had been gravely imperilled by its execution. This is quite in accordance with his mentality, and he often tampered with the truth—as we shall see when telling the tale of Tarragona. (2) That Donkin and the head-quarters staff, enraged with Murray’s timidity, were resolved to commit him to a fight, and gave unauthorized orders which must bring it on. (3) That Catanelli, from lack of a good command of English, misunderstood the General’s language, and gave complete misdirections to Whittingham. I must confess that I incline to the first solution[431].
Whatever the source of these orders may have been, Whittingham began to carry them out, though they seemed to him very ill-advised. But noting that if he completely evacuated the heights of Guerra there would be a broad gap in the allied line, he left his picquets in position and two battalions on the crest of the hill[432], with another in support behind[433], while with the remaining three[434] he moved off to the left. The march was executed, out of sight of the enemy, by a mountain path which ran along the rear of the heights.
Whittingham had been moving for some half an hour, and slowly, for the path was steep and narrow, when the sound of musketry on the other side of the crest reached his ears, and soon after a message that the enemy was attacking the whole of the front of his old position. On its left the voltigeur companies had got very near the top of the hill—farther east the assault was only developing. It was lucky that the marching column had not gone far—Whittingham was able to send his hindmost battalion straight up the hill against the voltigeurs, to strengthen his flank—with the other two he counter-marched to the rear of the heights of Guerra, and fed the fighting line which he had left there, as each point needed succour.
The contest all along the heights was protracted and fierce. At several points the French reached the crest, but were never able to maintain themselves there, as Whittingham had always a reserve of a few companies ready for a counter-stroke. The troops of the Army of Aragon had never before met with such opposition from Spaniards, and for a long time refused to own themselves beaten. There was still one regiment of Robert’s division in reserve[435], but evidently Suchet shrank from committing the last fraction of his right wing to the attack, which was obviously not making any decisive headway.
Meanwhile the easternmost column of the French advance suffered a complete defeat: this body, composed of two battalions of the 121st regiment, had mounted the heights, not at their steepest, but at the point where a long projecting spur falls down from them into the plain. But even so there was a sudden rise in the last stage of the ascent, before the crest was reached. On coming to it the French colonel (Millet by name) began to deploy his leading companies, which found themselves opposite the 2/27th, on the left of Adam’s brigade. This manœuvre had always failed when tried against British infantry—notably at Albuera, for deployment at close quarters under the deadly fire of a British line was impracticable, and always led to confusion. There was a pause[436], many casualties, and much wavering; then, seeing the enemy stationary and discouraged, Colonel Reeves flung his battalion at them in a downhill bayonet charge—like Craufurd at Bussaco. The effect was instantaneous and conclusive—the French column broke and raced headlong down the slopes, arriving in the valley as a disorganized mob. It had lost 19 officers and probably 350 men in five minutes.