Lord Wellington was now prepared to open the campaign, and, for the first time, with such means as enabled him to act in full confidence of success. If the Anglo-Sicilian army should not achieve any signal service, he was yet assured that it would give sufficient employment to Suchet, so that the Intruder could look for no support from that side. The British force under his command consisted of 48,000 effective men; the Portugueze of about 28,000; the Galician of 18,000. The enemy were not inferior in number, and could more surely rely upon the whole of ♦May.♦ their troops; but the change in their Emperor’s fortune and in their own had been such, that they looked only to a defensive campaign, and trusted to their strong position on the Douro. In the middle of May Lord Wellington put his troops in motion. The cavalry which had wintered in the neighbourhood of Coimbra began their movement at the end of April: they went by the way of Porto to Braga, where they rested some days, and proceeding to Braganza, reached that place, which was the point of union for the left of the army, on the 22d of May. The left of the army under Sir Thomas Graham crossed the Douro in Portugal, between Lamego and the frontier. The siege of Ciudad Rodrigo in the preceding year could not have been undertaken unless that river had been rendered navigable far above the point to which the Portugueze barks formerly ascended: it had now been opened as high as to the mouth of the Agueda; and boats had been quietly collected at different points, without exciting any suspicion that they were ♦The left of the army crosses the Douro.♦ designed for the passage of the troops. Five divisions of infantry and two brigades of cavalry were thus placed upon the right bank of the Douro, while the enemy supposed that they had only to guard against an attempt from the left. The difficulties of the march were indeed very great; most of the roads are so narrow that carriages could barely pass between the thick walls which bounded them; and the mountain streams had their course in ravines, from whence the ascent is so laborious that sixty men could not without great exertion enable the horses to drag the artillery up. Nevertheless, hope and ardour overcame all difficulties; and the advantage which the troops derived from being provided with shelter was sensibly felt: out of a division of 6000 men, there were but 120 sick after a march of 250 miles, through such a country. When these were far on their way, Lord Wellington, with two divisions of British infantry, a Portugueze one under the Conde de Amarante, a Spanish one under Morillo, and some corps of cavalry, advanced from Ciudad Rodrigo by the direct road to Salamanca; the remainder of the army under Sir Rowland Hill moved upon the same point by Alba de Tormes.
The line of their retreat in November was still too evidently marked by the skeletons of the poor animals who had been worked to death in that cruel service. A division of infantry under General Villatte had been left in Salamanca, with some artillery, and three squadrons of horse. They evacuated the city upon the approach of the allies, but they lingered too long upon ♦May 26.Affair near Salamanca.♦ the high ground in its vicinity. When Lord Wellington was within half a league of Salamanca, he and his staff got upon a rocky height which commanded a full view of the city and adjacent country. Below him were his own videttes, and beyond them those of the enemy, each supported by piquets. To the right were the Arapiles, a name known only in topography before, but which had now a place in military history; and in the same direction, but more behind him, the heads of two columns, forming Sir Rowland’s division, were seen on two nearly parallel roads. Through a glass, the enemy were observed drawn up; two battalions and a squadron to the right of the city, near a ruined convent; two squadrons on the Tormes, near the bridge; half a squadron guarding the ford, about a mile above the city, near S. Martha; ... and behind the city a battalion in reserve. Villatte having barricadoed the bridge and the principal communications throughout the town, seemed to have thought himself sure of an easy retreat. The 1st German hussars, favoured by ground which concealed them from the enemy, inclined toward the ford, while the 14th light dragoons, keeping beyond the reach of fire, edged along the left bank of the river. The enemy appeared in some confusion, but remained stationary, as if waiting for something; and beyond the city, in the direction of Miranda de Duero and Zamora, their piquets were withdrawing, and mules and baggage joining them from all sides. It was now nearly ten in the forenoon, and the day very hot. The head of Sir Rowland’s right column, which consisted of cavalry, and a troop of horse artillery, under General Fane, were within two miles of S. Martha, marching for the ford: the enemy now began to move, first in the direction of Toro, but presently, as if wavering, bending to their right, they kept close to the Tormes, in the direction of Arevalo; and retired rapidly, but in good order, when Fane with his six squadrons had crossed the river. It was well for them that this cavalry was already jaded by a long march; but the horse artillery, as soon as, owing to the ravines and the intricacies of the ground, it could be brought into use, opened upon them with great effect, every shot going through their crowded ranks. They retired with extreme rapidity, but in excellent order, and the artillery pursued as quickly as a very deep country, occasionally intersected with hollow roads, would allow. When the enemy came to Aldea Lengua, there was an opportunity of attacking them with every probability of forcing them to lay down their arms; but strict orders had been given not to pass a ravine just by that village; and the moment (never to be regained in war) went by. When orders came to proceed, it was just too late; the pursuit however was continued, and some three miles beyond the village a charge was attempted by two squadrons, but feebly, for the horses were now far spent; the enemy formed into squares, and repulsed them by a volley, though with little loss. The pursuit was continued about three miles farther. Some of the French were taken, being unable to march farther from fatigue; and many threw away their knapsacks, and sacks full of biscuit, and of corn, but no troops under such circumstances could have behaved better; ... and some proofs were given of what better deserves to be called ferocious intrepidity than courage. One of their men who was severely wounded attempted to destroy himself; and another obstinately refusing to surrender when it was not possible for him to escape, compelled those who would fain have saved his life to cut him down. The affair ended in front of Aldea Rubia; a corps of infantry and cavalry retiring from Alba, when threatened by Major-General Long and by Morillo’s division, joined the enemy here; and Lord Wellington, as his infantry had not come up, recalled the troops from the pursuit. Above fourscore of the French lay dead on the road, and many fell among the standing corn: some 200 were made prisoners; and some baggage, ammunition, and provisions, with Villatte’s coach, were taken.
♦Passage of the Ezla.♦
During the two following days, Lord Wellington established the troops which had marched from the Agueda and Extremadura Alta between the Tormes and the Lower Douro. On the 29th he left Salamanca, and reached Miranda de Duero. The enemy had destroyed all the bridges upon the river except that at Zamora. Opposite Miranda there is a ferry, where this deep and rapid stream is from 80 to 100 yards wide, and the rocks on either side from 400 to 500 feet high. When it is so swoln that the ferry is impracticable, the only way by which travellers can cross is after the old Peruvian manner, in a sort of hammock or cradle, fastened to a rope, which is secured upon two projecting points of rock, about thirty feet above the ordinary level of the ♦Florez Esp. Sagrada, t. 16, p. 3.♦ water. Here Lord Wellington crossed, and on the following day joined Sir Thomas Graham’s corps at Carvajales on the Ezla. This river, which upon good grounds is believed to have been the Astura of the ancients, and in Leon is called the Rio Grande, descends from the Puertos de Asturias, passes by Mansilla to Benevente, near which town it receives the Cea from the east, and the larger river Orbigo from the west, and enters the Douro below Zamora. At daybreak on the 31st the troops began to ford: the enemy so little apprehended danger on that side, that they had only a piquet there, and thus no opposition was offered to a very difficult and perilous passage. The ford was intricate; the water nearly chin deep; the bottom rough and stony; and the stones large and loose. The hussar brigade began the passage, entering in a body; and as it was supposed that a village on the opposite hill was occupied by the enemy, and as it was necessary that some infantry should cross to support the advance of the hussars, each dragoon had a soldier holding by his stirrup. But this impeded the horses: alarmed both by, the stream and the unsafe footing, they became unmanageable and plunged forward: the men, who before could scarcely keep their feet against the force and weight of the stream, lost at once their footing and their hold; they were plunged into the water, their knapsacks overweighed them and kept them on their backs, and in this manner they struggled at the mercy of the current. There were, fortunately, three or four small islands just at this part; and by these most of the officers and men were stopped, but several valuable lives were lost. The hussars exerted themselves with exemplary humanity to assist the infantry, and one of their corporals lost his own life in the performance of this generous duty. In this way the 51st and the Brunswick Oel’s corps, as well as the cavalry, passed. Their orders were to ascend the hill and take the village: the enemy’s piquet were made prisoners. A pontoon bridge was then thrown across, and the remainder of the corps passed over.
♦June.♦
The French seem now for the first time to have comprehended Lord Wellington’s plan, and found themselves out-manœuvred by an enemy to whom they had hitherto allowed no credit for any thing except courage, and that only because they had been so often beaten by them that it was no longer for their own credit to deny it. No sooner were they menaced by the advance of the columns than they destroyed the bridge at Zamora, and retired from that city and from Toro. Both cities were entered by the allies; and at daybreak on the first of June the hussar brigade under Colonel Grant came up near Toro with the enemy’s rear-guard, who retired rapidly to the village of Morales, in the direction of Tordesillas. After having been cannonaded by two guns, which were all that could be brought up in time through the deep sandy roads, the French formed behind the village. The hussars passed on both sides of the village, and instantly charged them; upon which they made off with all speed for a little bridge across a marshy bottom, faced about there, being supported by some guns belonging to their infantry, and stood a charge. They were worsted in it, but passed the bridge; part of the 10th hussars pursued, and Captain Lloyd advancing with great spirit, but few followers, was taken: they were again pressed, and retired hastily on the infantry, losing more than 200 prisoners in these affairs, and so many in killed and wounded, that the 16th regiment of dragoons was almost destroyed. Captain Lloyd was ill-treated by his captors; they beat him and rifled him, but left him in their retreat. Though the fighting was almost in the street of Morales, the Spaniards were now so accustomed to sights of war, that within ten minutes after the firing had ceased the women were spinning at their doors, and the little children at play as if nothing had happened.
♦Sir Rowland Hill crosses the Douro. June 3.♦
Lord Wellington halted at Toro, that the light division and the troops under Sir Rowland might cross the Douro by the bridge there, that his rear-guard might come up, and that the Galician army should unite itself with his left. The whole of the allied force was now on the right side of the Douro: leaving then half the reserve-ammunition near Zamora to spare the horses (which were already suffering), he proceeded: the French, whose force was distributed between Valladolid, Tordesillas, and Medina, retiring as he advanced, their rear crossing at the Puente de Duero, on the same day that the allies accomplished their first object in the campaign, by uniting on the right side of that river. The enemy now concentrated their force behind the Pisuerga: there also there was strong ground for defence; but abandoning that also when Lord Wellington manœuvred on their right, they withdrew behind the Carrion. The Intruder quitted Palencia on the 6th, and the greater part of his troops early on the following morning, after a night passed in the fear of close pursuit. When Lord Wellington entered that city, flowers were thrown upon him from the windows, and a shower of roses from the upper gratings of a nunnery. The enemy had not left a morsel of bread, nor a drop of wine in that city: and when they hastily retired from a bivouac near Tordesillas, leaving it to be occupied by a part of Sir Rowland’s corps, the fuel which the troops found collected there consisted of doors, window-frames, tables, and drawers, from the houses in the neighbourhood.
From the Ezla to Palencia the troops had marched through one continued track of corn, where villages were so thinly scattered, that it seemed unaccountable where the cultivators were to be found. The land was generally in wheat, with a fair proportion of barley, and here and there a crop of vetches and clover. They moved generally by two roads, and on each side of each at least twenty yards were trampled down. The horses were fed on green barley nearly the whole march. The intention of the British Government was to pay the inhabitants for whatever the army must of necessity take from them; and on the part of the Government, the full payment was in fact made: but little of that payment reached the poor people to whom it was due. For want of specie, the commissaries could pay upon the spot only in bills; to the peasantry these were worth no more than what the land-sharks who follow in the wake of an army chose to offer for them; and in this iniquitous manner large fortunes were amassed, ... a species of roguery which many of the Portugueze (though as a people the Portugueze are eminent for probity) were not slow in learning.
♦The French abandon Burgos.♦