Out of 17,500 men we had lost 5,335, including Generals M'Kenzie and Langworth killed, and Gen. Hill, Sir H. Campbell, and Brig.-Gen. A. Campbell, wounded. This was two-sevenths of our force, and is, with the exception of Albuera, the heaviest list of casualties offered, for the men engaged, of any victorious army in modern war. The loss of the 23d Dragoons was remarkable from its extent; that fine regiment, which had only joined three weeks, being only able to assemble, after the action, one hundred men. Two officers and forty-six men and ninety-five horses were killed on the spot, and besides the numerous wounded, three officers, and about one hundred men were taken, in consequence of penetrating into the enemy's supporting cavalry. The whole regiment was so reduced, as to be sent home to England, on our return to the Portuguese frontier.
The Spanish returns gave between 1300 and 1400 men, but this included their loss on the 25th in front of St. Ollala[38].
The French army fell back across the Alberche, diminished not less than one-fifth, if not one-fourth of their effectives, their loss being indifferently rated from 10 to 14,000 men. Some of the little enclosures in front of the right of the British were choked with their dead, and in one little field more than 400 bodies were counted.
Besides the innumerable dead, vast numbers of wounded were left in our front; and many more stand of arms than the most sanguine rated their loss, were abandoned on the field of battle[39]. Nineteen pieces of cannon remained in our possession as trophies of our victory[40]. Besides these, they left in our possession several silk standards, but whether they had borne eagles or not it was difficult to say; as, besides being much broken and torn when brought into head-quarters, the staff of one had been used as a poker to a bivouac fire. It was the custom of the French to unscrew their eagles, and for the eagle-bearers to conceal them about their person when in danger. Having only one to a regiment, and there being five battalions to each, every eagle taken by us during the war, may be considered as equivalent to five stand of colours, and the trophies at Whitehall as ten times more numerous than they appear.
It is a remarkable and curious instance of the instability of human institutions, that these idols of the French armies for so many years, and around which so much blood was spilt, only now exist as trophies to their conquerors.
This hard-fought battle was remarkable from the circumstance of almost the entire efforts of an army being directed on the troops of one nation of their allied opponents. It is, perhaps, fortunate, that the rancour and vanity of the enemy led them to this conduct, as, had they forced the Spaniards from the difficult country on our right, our army would have been thrown off the Tagus, and had to combat the whole French army, with its communications threatened, if not cut off.
With the exception of occupying the ground, the dash of the regiment of King's cavalry, and the employment of a few battalions in skirmishing on the hills on our left, the Spaniards did nothing whatever[41]. But their previous behaviour had tended to make us uneasy during the whole battle, and so disgusted was Cuesta with some of his troops, that he ordered several officers and men to be shot for cowardice the next day. This battle gave the character to all the subsequent actions in the Peninsula. They were ever almost entirely of infantry and artillery, while the cavalry, which acted with such effect on the continent, did not assert its power. However brilliant Vimiera and Corunna, still Talavera must be considered as the place where the military character of the two nations was fairly brought to trial and proved. This battle proved the total want of firmness of the enemy in meeting our troops with the bayonet, and offered an example, followed by others on every occasion, of their best troops flying like chaff before the wind, on the hostile troops arriving within charging distance.
The French would ever expose themselves to fire at the smallest distance as long as ourselves, but a hurra and a rush with the bayonet, within reach, caused their instant flight.
With the exception of a few desperate men at the rear of a flying column, or from accidental circumstances, scarce any bayonet wounds were exchanged during the whole war; and their dread of closing was so strongly evinced in foggy weather, that a shout was sufficient, as at the pass of Maida in the Pyrenees, to disperse a forming column.
Indeed, our bayonets might as well have been of pasteboard, from their temper being so seldom tried, for the dread of them alone was sufficient to scatter the best troops of France. In fact it is a bad, if not useless weapon in their hands, and the Portuguese beat them with it on more than one occasion.