McKenzie with one brigade now took post behind the Guards in the centre, but Colonel Donkin, seeing the hill on the extreme left unoccupied, crowned it with the other brigade, and thus accidentally filled the position. Meanwhile Victor, issuing from the forest in fine martial order, rapidly crossed the plain, seized another isolated hill, opposite to that held by Donkin, and opened a heavy cannonade: at the same time Sebastiani approached the Spanish line, and pushed forward his light cavalry to make Cuesta show his order of battle; whereupon happened one of those events which show what a chance-medley thing a battle is, even in the hands of a great captain. The French horsemen, riding boldly up, commenced a pistol skirmish, to which the Spaniards replied with one general discharge of musketry, and then ten thousand infantry, with all the artillerymen, as if deprived of their senses, broke and fled away in confused heaps; the gunners carried away their horses, the footmen threw away their arms, the Adjutant-General O’Donoghue was foremost in flight, and even Cuesta went off some distance in his coach: the panic was spreading wide, and the elated horsemen charged down the Royal road, but Sir Arthur instantly flanked them with some English squadrons, the ditches on the opposite side were impracticable, the Spaniards who stood fast began to use their firearms, and those daring troopers had to retreat.
Most of the Spanish runaways made for Oropesa, saying the allies were defeated, the French in hot pursuit. Incredible disorder followed. The English commissaries went off with their animals, the paymasters carried away their money-chests, the baggage was scattered, and the alarm spread along the rear even to the frontier of Portugal. Cuesta indeed, having recovered his presence of mind, sent several thousand horsemen to head the fugitives and drive them back, and some of the artillerymen and horses were thus recovered; many of the infantry also, but in the next day’s battle the Spanish army was less by six thousand fighting men than it should have been, and the great redoubt in the centre was silent for want of guns.
While this disgraceful flight was being perpetrated on the right, the left of the English line displayed the greatest intrepidity. The round hill at the extremity was of easy ascent in rear, but steep and rugged towards the French, and was also protected there by the deep watercourse at the bottom. Nevertheless Victor, seeing Donkin’s brigade was not numerous, and the summit of the hill still naked of troops, thought to seize the latter by a sudden assault.
First Combat of Talavera. (July, 1809.)
The sun was sinking, but the twilight and the confusion amongst the Spaniards appeared so favourable to the French marshal, that, without informing the king, he directed Ruffin’s division to attack, Villatte’s to follow in support, and Lapisse to assail the German Legion as a diversion for Ruffin, without engaging seriously. The assault was vigorous, and though Donkin beat back the French in his front, many of them turned his left and won the height in his rear. General Hill had been previously ordered to reinforce him, and it was not quite dark when that officer, while giving orders below, was shot at by men on the highest point; thinking they were English stragglers firing at the enemy, he rode up, followed by his brigade-major Fordyce, and in a moment found himself in the midst of the French. Fordyce was killed, Hill’s horse was wounded, and a grenadier seized his bridle, but spurring hard he broke the man’s hold and galloping down met the 29th Regiment, which he led up with so strong a charge the enemy could not sustain the shock.
When the summit was thus happily recovered, the 48th Regiment and a battalion of detachments were brought forward, and in conjunction with the 29th and Donkin’s brigade presented a formidable front and in good time; for the troops beaten back were but part of a regiment forming the van of Ruffin’s division, the two other regiments having lost their way in the watercourse; the attack had therefore only subsided, Lapisse soon opened fire against the Germans, and Ruffin’s regiment in one mass again assailed the hill. The fighting then became vehement, and in the darkness the opposing flashes of musketry showed how resolutely the struggle was maintained, for the combatants were scarcely twenty yards asunder, and the event seemed doubtful; but the charging shout of the British soldier was at last heard above the din of arms, and the enemy’s broken troops went down once more into the ravine below: Lapisse, who had made some impression on the Germans, then abandoned his false attack and the fighting of the 27th ceased. The British lost eight hundred men, the French a thousand.
Now the bivouac fires blazed up and the French and British soldiers were quiet, but at midnight the Spaniards opened a prodigious peal of musketry and artillery without cause or object; and during the remainder of the night, the line was frequently disturbed with desultory firing, which killed several men and officers.
From the prisoners Victor ascertained the exact position of the Spaniards, until then unknown, and when reporting his own failure proposed a second attack for next morning on the hill. Marshal Jourdan, chief of the king’s staff, opposed this as a partial enterprise leading to no great result; yet Victor was so earnest for a trial, urging his intimate knowledge of the ground, that he won Joseph’s assent. Then he placed all his guns in one mass on the height to the English left, from whence they could plunge into the great valley on their own right, range the summit of the hill in their front, and obliquely search the whole British line as far as the great redoubt between the allied armies. Ruffin was in front of the guns, Villatte in rear, yet having one regiment close to the watercourse; Lapisse occupied low table-land, opposite Sherbrooke; Latour Maubourg’s cavalry formed a reserve for Lapisse; Beaumont’s cavalry a reserve for Ruffin.
On the English side, Hill’s division was concentrated on the disputed height; the cavalry was massed in a plain behind; the park of artillery and the hospitals were between the cavalry and Hill.