BOOK VI.
Blockade of Ciudad Rodrigo—Combat of Elbodon—Combat of Aldea de Ponte—Surprise of Aroyo de Molinos—Defence of Tarifa—English Siege of Ciudad Rodrigo—Third English Siege of Badajos—Assault of Picurina—Assault of Badajos.
Blockade of Ciudad Rodrigo. (Sept. 1811.)
After the second siege of Badajos the contest in the Peninsula presented a new phase. French reinforcements were poured into Spain, forty thousand old soldiers entered by the northern line alone, and General Dorsenne took command of the Army of the North, which now contained seventeen thousand of Napoleon’s young guard. The king had a particular force about Madrid called the Army of the Centre; Soult commanded the Army of the South; Marmont the Army of Portugal, with which, by the emperor’s orders, he took post in the valley of the Tagus, leaving a division at Truxillo south of that river, establishing a bridge of communication at Almaraz, which he fortified on both sides strongly.
This disposition of the French armies was at once offensive and defensive. Portugal was menaced from the north by Dorsenne, who had Ciudad Rodrigo as an advanced place of arms; from the south by Soult, who had Badajos for an advanced place of arms; in the centre by Marmont, who could march on Abrantes, join Dorsenne, or unite with Soult. In defence the French were still more powerful. If Wellington assailed Dorsenne, the latter by retiring could concentrate a great force, while Marmont acted on the English right flank; and together they could present seventy thousand men in line. If he assailed Soult, as he had indeed designed before the failure of Badajos, Marmont could act on his left flank, and, united with Soult, could present sixty-five thousand fighting men. If he marched against Marmont by either bank of the Tagus, that marshal, reinforced with detachments from Dorsenne, Soult, and the king, could deliver battle with more than seventy thousand men.
The English general could not contend with such powerful armies beyond the mountains of Portugal, yet from political pressure he could not stand still, and there were defects in his adversaries’ breast-plate through which he hoped to pierce. He saw that Badajos and Rodrigo were isolated and difficult to provision; that each depended for succour on the junction of armies under generals of equal authority, ill disposed to act together, and whose communications were long and uneasy, furnishing pretences for non-coöperation. Marmont had indeed a direct line of intercourse with Dorsenne across the Gredos mountains, by the fortified pass of Baños; but to reach Soult the Tagus was to be crossed at Almaraz, the defiles of Estremadura and the passes of the Morena to be threaded before a junction could be made in the plains of Badajos: wherefore, General Girard, having the remains of Mortier’s army, called the fifth corps, was employed as a moving column in Estremadura, to support Badajos and connect the army of Portugal with that of Soult.
In this state of affairs Wellington, who had received large reinforcements after the siege of Badajos, left General Hill, in August, with twelve thousand men of all arms to keep Girard in check, and in person marched to the north, under pretence of seeking healthy quarters for his sickly troops, really to blockade Ciudad Rodrigo, which an intercepted letter described as wanting provisions; it had however been previously supplied by Bessières before he quitted his command, and this effort was frustrated. The army was then placed near the sources of the Agueda and Coa, close to the line of communication between Marmont and Dorsenne, and preparations were made for a siege, in the notion that the last general’s force was weak: but that also was an error, and when discovered, a blockade was established. Almeida, whose renewed walls had been destroyed by Spencer when he marched to the south, was now repaired for a place of arms, the bridge over the Coa was restored, and with the utmost subtilty of combination and the most extensive arrangements the English general, while appearing only to blockade, secretly prepared for a siege. All his art was indeed required, for though the Anglo-Portuguese were at this time eighty thousand on paper, with ninety guns, twenty-two thousand men were in hospital; wherefore, Hill’s corps being deducted, less than forty-five thousand were on the watch to snatch a fortress which was in the keeping of eighty thousand.
In September Rodrigo called for succour, whereupon Marmont and Dorsenne advanced to its relief with sixty thousand men, six thousand being cavalry, and they had a hundred pieces of artillery. Wellington could not fight this great army beyond the Agueda, but would not retreat until he had seen all their force, lest a detachment should relieve the place to his dishonour. In this view he took the following positions.
Picton’s division, reinforced with three squadrons of German and British cavalry, was placed at the heights of Elbodon and Pastores, on the left of the Agueda, within three miles of Rodrigo. The light division with some squadrons of cavalry and six guns, were posted on the right of the Agueda, at the Vadillo, a river with a rugged channel falling into the Agueda three miles above Rodrigo: from this line an enemy coming from the eastern passes of the hills could be discerned. The sixth division and Anson’s brigade of cavalry, forming the left of the army, was under General Graham at Espeja, on the Lower Azava, with advanced posts at Carpio and Marialva, from whence to Rodrigo was eight miles over a plain. Julian Sanchez’s Partida watched the Lower Agueda, and the heads of columns were thus presented to the fortress on three points, namely, Vadillo, Pastores and Espeja. Two brigades of heavy cavalry on the Upper Azava, supported by Pack’s Portuguese, connected Graham with Elbodon; but he was very distant from Guinaldo, the pivot of operations, and to obviate the danger of a flank march in retreat the first and seventh divisions were posted in succession towards Guinaldo. The army was thus spread out on different roads, like the sticks of a fan, having their point of union on the Coa.