The two Salamanca Eagles were—and are, for they have a place to-day among our Chelsea Hospital trophies—mementoes of one of the most dramatic episodes of a battle in which there were many.
WELLINGTON AND SALAMANCA
Salamanca, it may be said incidentally—the battle, like Waterloo, was fought on a Sunday, on July 22, 1812—was, in Wellington’s own eyes, his chef d’œuvre, his masterpiece, although it may be rather overlooked now perhaps by most of us and the world at large, eclipsed in the dazzling splendour of the last crowning victory of Waterloo. It was at Salamanca that Wellington, in the words of a French officer, speaking, of course, in general terms, “defeated 40,000 men in forty minutes.” The victory was held in such estimation by Wellington himself that he selected it in preference to all his other victories to be displayed over again in a sham fight on the Plain of Saint-Denis in the presence of the three Allied Sovereigns during the occupation of Paris in 1815 after Waterloo. Of it he wrote at the time: “I never saw an army receive such a beating.”
Upwards of 6,000 prisoners were taken, including one general and 136 other officers. Six thousand of the enemy, at the lowest computation, were left dead or wounded on the field of battle. Three French generals were killed and three wounded. Marshal Marmont himself, the enemy’s commander-in-chief, was among the wounded; grievously maimed by a bursting shell as he galloped to rally one of his broken columns. “Spurring furiously to the point of danger, he was struck by the fragment of a shell, which shattered his left arm and tore open his side.” Marmont bore the arm in a sling for the rest of his life. He was carried off the field under fire, on a stretcher made of a soldier’s great-coat with a couple of muskets thrust through the armholes to give it shape, under the escort of a squad of grenadiers. Eleven cannon—melted down at Woolwich Arsenal in 1820 as a cheap way of making new field-guns for the British Army—with the two Eagles and six stand of colours, were the trophies of the day.
The two Salamanca trophy Eagles at Chelsea Hospital are the spoils of the fiercest cavalry charge that British horsemen ever delivered on a battlefield; the death-ride—for 1,200 of Napoleon’s infantry—of the Heavy Brigade, which annihilated an entire French division in less than a quarter of an hour. It came about as one of the results of that opening false move on the part of the French commander which cost France in the end the loss of the battle.
MARMONT’S FATAL BLUNDER
Marmont, after a series of ably conducted manœuvres in the neighbourhood of Salamanca, had forced Wellington, on July 22, into a position so unfavourable that the British commander decided to retire towards the Portuguese frontier under cover of darkness during the following night. But at the last moment the French marshal overreached himself. Taking in the difficulties that confronted his opponent he attempted to anticipate him and cut him off from his base by barring the one line of retreat that was open to Wellington. In doing that, Marmont gave his game away. He rashly divided his force in the presence of the enemy, separating his left wing to a distance from the main body and marching off a whole division of infantry, cavalry, and artillery to occupy the road to Ciudad Rodrigo.
The fault was flagrant, and Wellington seized eagerly at the chance all unexpectedly offered him. He was at breakfast when Marmont’s troops began their false move and the aide de camp whom he had posted on the look-out hurriedly came to him with the news. “I think they are extending to the left——” the young officer began. He did not finish the sentence.
“The devil they are!” interposed Wellington hastily, with his mouth full. “Give me the glass!”
He took it, and for nearly a minute scanned the movements of the enemy with fixed attention.