Sir Arthur Wellesley, quitting Braga in the morning of the 16th, overtook Soult’s rear-guard in the evening, at Salamonde, before it could cross the Ponte Nova; it was in a strong position, but men momentarily expecting an order to retire seldom stand firmly. Some light troops turned their left, Sherbrooke assailed their front, and after one discharge they fled by their right to the Ponte Nova. It was dusk, the way to the bridge was not that of apparent retreat, and for a while the French were lost to view; they thus gained time to form a rear-guard, but ere their cavalry could pass the bridge the English guns opened, sending men and horses crushed together into the gulf, and the bridge and the rocks and the defile beyond were strewed with mangled carcasses.
This was the last infliction by the sword in a retreat signalized by many horrid and many glorious actions; for the peasants in their fury tortured and mutilated the sick and straggling soldiers who fell into their hands, the troops in revenge shot the peasants, and the marches could be traced from afar by the smoke of burning houses.
Talavera. (July, 1809.)
When Soult saved himself in Gallicia Sir Arthur Wellesley marched to Abrantes on the Tagus, from whence, thinking the French marshal’s army so ruined it could be of no weight in the war for several months, he designed to make a great movement against Madrid, in concert with the Spanish generals Cuesta and Venegas. He was at the time incredulous of the Spaniards’ failings, thinking Sir John Moore had misrepresented them as apathetic and perverse; but this expedition taught him to respect that great man’s judgment, both as to the people and the nature of their warfare.
His plan of operations, as might be expected from so great a general, was bold, comprehensive, and military, according to the data presented: but he accepted false data. He under-calculated the French in the Peninsula by more than a hundred thousand men, he overrated the injury inflicted on Soult; and while slighting the personal energy and resources of that marshal, relied on Spanish politicians, Spanish generals, Spanish troops, and Spanish promises. The time was indeed one of riotous boasting and ill-founded anticipations with the Spanish, Portuguese, and British governments. Their agents and partisans were incredibly noisy, their newspapers teemed with idle stories of the weakness, misery, fear and despondency of the French armies, and of the successful fury of the Spaniards; the most inflated notions of easy triumph pervaded councils and camps, and the English general’s judgment was not entirely proof against the pernicious influence.
Victor, relinquishing the south side of the Tagus, was then in position at Talavera, and behind him King Joseph had his own guards, a great body of horsemen, and Sebastiani’s army corps. Thus more than fifty thousand men, seven thousand being cavalry, covered Madrid.
Cuesta, following Victor’s movements, had taken post at Almaraz, with thirty thousand infantry, seven thousand cavalry, and seventy pieces of artillery.
Venegas was in La Mancha with twenty-five thousand men.
Sir Arthur Wellesley had eighteen thousand infantry, and three thousand cavalry, with thirty guns; eight thousand men, recently landed from England, were on the march to join him, and both the Spanish government and generals gave him the strongest assurances of co-operation and support. He had made contracts with the alcaldes in the valley of the Tagus for a supply of provisions, and, confiding in those promises and contracts, entered Spain the latter end of June, with scanty means of transport and without magazines, to find every Spanish promise broken, every contract a failure. When he remonstrated, all the Spaniards concerned, political or military, vehemently denied that any breach of engagements had taken place, and as vehemently offered to make new ones, without the slightest intention to fulfil them.
A junction with Cuesta was effected the 18th of July.