The Portuguese government had reported that guns, provisions, boats, stores and means of carriage had been actually collected for the operation: this was false. The battering train and stores for the attack had therefore to be taken from Elvas, and as it was essential for the safety of the fortress to preserve its armament, and the Guadiana had again carried away the bridge at Jerumenha, that direct line of communication was given up for the circuitous one of Merida, where a stone bridge rendered all safe. But then political difficulties arose. The Portuguese government was on the point of declaring war against Spain, which made the Spanish generals delay assent to the plan of co-operation, and in the midst of this confusion Massena’s advance recalled Wellington to fight the battle of Fuentes Onoro.
As Latour Maubourg still held on to Estremadura and foraged the fertile districts, Colonel Colborne, a man of singular talent for war, was sent with a brigade of infantry, some horsemen and guns to curb his inroads. In concert with Count Penne Villemur, a commander of Spanish cavalry, he intercepted several convoys, forced the French troops to quit many frontier towns, and acted with so much address, that Latour Maubourg went into the Morena, thinking a great force was at hand. Colborne then attempted to surprise the fortified post of Benelcazar. Riding on to the drawbridge in the grey of the morning, he summoned the commandant to surrender, as the only means of saving himself from a Spanish army which was coming up and would give no quarter; the French officer was amazed at the appearance of the party, yet hesitated, whereupon Colborne, perceiving he would not yield, galloped off under a few straggling shot and soon after rejoined the army without loss. During his absence, the Spanish generals had acceded to Wellington’s proposition, Blake was in march, the Guadiana had subsided and the siege was undertaken.
General William Stewart invested Badajos the 5th of May, on the left bank of the Guadiana, where the principal features were an ancient castle and some out-works.
On the 8th General Lumley invested Christoval, an isolated fort or citadel, on the other bank of the Guadiana, which commanded the bridge; but this operation was not well combined, and sixty French dragoons, moving under the fire of the place, maintained a sharp skirmish beyond the walls.
Thus the first serious siege undertaken by the British army in the Peninsula was commenced, and, to the discredit of the English government, no army was ever worse provided for such an enterprise. The engineers were zealous, and some of them well versed in the theory of their business, but the ablest trembled at their utter destitution. Without sappers and miners, or a soldier who knew how to carry on an approach under fire, they were compelled to attack a fortress defended by the most practised and scientific troops of the age; hence the best officers and boldest soldiers were forced to sacrifice themselves in a lamentable manner, to compensate for the negligence and incapacity of a government always ready to plunge into war without the slightest care for what was necessary to obtain success. The sieges carried on by the British in Spain were a succession of butcheries, because the commonest materials and means necessary for their art were denied to the engineers.
To breach the castle, while batteries established on the right bank of the Guadiana took it in reverse, and false attacks were made against the out-works, was the plan adopted; but San Christoval was to be reduced before the batteries against the castle could be constructed; wherefore on the night of the 8th, the captain of engineers, Squire, was ordered to break ground there at a distance of four hundred yards. The moon shone bright, he was ill provided with tools, and exposed to a destructive fire of musketry from the fort, of shot and shells from the town; hence he worked with loss until the 10th, and then the French in a sally entered his battery; they were driven back, but the allies pursued too hotly, were caught with grape and lost four hundred men. Thus five engineers and seven hundred officers and soldiers of the line were already inscribed upon the bloody list of victims offered to this Moloch, and only one small battery against an outwork was completed! On the 11th it opened, and before sunset the fire of the enemy had disabled four of its five guns and killed many soldiers. No other result could be expected. The concert essential to success in double operations had been neglected by Beresford. Squire was exposed to the undivided fire of the fortress before the approaches against the castle were even commenced, and the false attacks scarcely attracted the notice of the enemy.
To check future sallies a second battery was erected against the bridge-head, yet this was also overmatched, and Beresford, having received intelligence that the French army was again in movement, then arrested the progress of all the works. On the 12th, believing this information premature, he directed the trenches to be opened against the castle; but the intelligence was confirmed at twelve o’clock in the night, and measures were taken to raise the siege.
Battle of Albuera. (May, 1811.)
Soult had resolved to succour Badajos the moment he heard that Beresford was in Estremadura, and the latter’s tardiness gave him time to tranquillise his province and arrange a system of resistance to the allied army in the Isla during his absence. Beresford believed he was trembling for Andalusia. Nothing could be more fallacious. He had seventy thousand fighting men there, and Drouet, who had quitted Massena immediately after the battle of Fuentes Onoro, was in march for that province with eleven thousand, by the way of Toledo.
On the 10th of May Soult quitted Seville with three thousand heavy dragoons, thirty guns, and two strong brigades of infantry under the generals Werlé and Godinot.