Thus moving for ten miles, yet keeping the most perfect order, both parties approached the Guarena, and the enemy seeing the light division, although more in their power than the others, was yet outstripping them in the march, increased the fire of their guns and menaced an attack with infantry: the German cavalry instantly drew close round, the column plunged suddenly into a hollow dip of ground on the left, and ten minutes after the head of the division was in the stream of the Guarena between Osmo and Castrillo. The fifth division entered it at the same time higher up on the left, and the fourth division passed on the right. The soldiers of the light division, tormented with thirst yet long used to their enemy’s mode of warfare, drunk as they marched; those of the fifth division, less experienced, stopped a few moments, and on the instant forty French guns gathering on the heights above sent a tempest of bullets amongst them. So nicely timed was the operation.
The Guarena, flowing from four distinct sources which united below Castrillo, offered a very strong line of defence; yet Marmont, hoping to carry it in the first confusion, brought up all his artillery and pushed the head of his right column over an upper branch. Wellington, expecting this, had previously ordered up the other divisions of his army, and they were in line before Marmont’s infantry, oppressed with heat and long marches, could gather strength to attempt the passage of the other branch. Carier’s brigade of cavalry first crossed, and was followed by a column of infantry, just as the fourth division had gained the table-land above. Carier’s horsemen entered the valley on the left, the infantry in one column menaced the front, but the sedgy banks of the stream would have been difficult to force, if Victor Alten, slow to perceive an advantage, had not suffered the French cavalry to cross first in considerable numbers without opposition. Then he assailed them by successive squadrons instead of regiments, and when the 14th and German Hussars were hard-pressed, brought up the 3rd Dragoons, who were however driven back by the fire of the infantry, and many fell. Finally Carier being wounded and taken, the French retired, and meanwhile the 27th and 40th Regiments, coming down the hill, broke the enemy’s infantry with an impetuous bayonet charge: Alten’s horsemen then sabred some of the fugitives.
Marmont lost a general and five hundred soldiers by this combat, but, though baffled at one point, and beaten at another, he concentrated his army and held both banks of the branch he had gained. Wellington also concentrated, and as the previous operations had only cost him six hundred men and the French but eight hundred, the day being still young, the positions open and within cannon-shot, a battle was expected. Marmont’s troops had however been marching for two days and nights, and Wellington’s plan did not admit of fighting unless in defence, or with such advantage as that he could crush his opponent and keep the field afterwards against the king.
The French marshal had passed a great river, surprised the allies’ right, and pushed it back above ten miles: he had nevertheless failed as a general. His aim had been, by menacing the communication between Salamanca and Rodrigo, to draw the allies back; yet on the evening of the 16th, having passed the Duero at Toro, he was nearer to Salamanca than they were, and, persisting, Wellington must have fought him at disadvantage, or passed the Tormes at Huerta to regain the road of Rodrigo. Marmont however relinquished this stroke to march eighty miles in forty-eight hours, and after many nice evolutions, in which he lost a thousand men by the sword and fatigue, found his adversary on the 18th facing him in the very position he had turned on the evening of the 16th!
On the 19th the armies were quiet until evening, when the French were suddenly concentrated in one mass on their left. Wellington made a corresponding movement on the tableland above, which caused the light division to overlook the enemy’s main body, then at rest round the bivouac fires; it would have remained so if Sir Stapleton Cotton coming up had not turned a battery upon a group of French officers. At the first shot they seemed surprised—for it was a discourteous and ill-considered act—at the second their gunners run to their pieces, and a reply from twelve heavier guns wounded an artillery-officer, killed several British soldiers, swept away a whole section of Portuguese, and compelled the division to withdraw in a mortifying manner to avoid unnecessary blood-spilling.
Wellington now expected a battle, because the heights he occupied trended backwards to the Tormes on the shortest line, and as he had thrown a Spanish garrison into the castle of Alba de Tormes he thought the French could not turn his right; if they attempted it, he could shoulder them off the Tormes at the ford of Huerta. At daybreak however, instead of crossing the Guarena in front to dispute the high land, Marmont marched rapidly up the river and crossed the stream, though the banks were difficult, before any disposition could be made to oppose him. He thus turned the right and gained a new range of hills trending also towards the Tormes, and parallel to those which Wellington possessed. Then commenced a scene similar to that of the 18th but on a greater scale. The allies moving in two lines of battle within musket-shot of the French endeavoured to cross their march, the guns on both sides exchanged rough salutations as the accidents of ground favoured their play, and the officers, like gallant gentlemen who bore no malice and knew no fear, made their military recognitions, while the horsemen on each side watched with eager eyes for an opening to charge: but the French, moving as one man along the crest of the heights, preserved the lead and made no mistake.
Soon it became evident that the allies would be outflanked, wherefore Wellington, falling off a little, made towards the heights occupied by Marmont during the siege of the forts, intending to halt there while an advanced guard, forcing a march, secured the position and fords of Christoval. But he made no effort to seize the ford of Huerta, for his own march had been long, the French had passed over nearly twice as much ground, and he thought they could not reach the Tormes that day. When night approached he discovered his error. His second line had indeed got the heights of Vellosa, but his first line was heaped up in low ground near the French army, whose fires, crowning all the opposite hills, showed they commanded the ford of Huerta. Wellington then ordered the bivouac fires to be made with much smoke, under cover of which he filed the troops off with great celerity towards Vellosa; but the Portuguese cavalry, coming in from the front, were mistaken for French and lost some men by cannon-shot ere they were recognised.
Very much disquieted by this day’s operations was the English leader. Marmont, perfectly acquainted with the country, had outflanked and outmarched him, and gained the command of the Tormes, thus securing his junction with the king’s army, and enabled to fight or wait for reinforcements, while the scope of the allies’ operations would hourly become more restricted. Meanwhile Caffarelli having finally detached eighteen hundred cavalry with guns to aid Marmont, they were coming on, and the king also was taking the field; hence though a victory should be won, unless it was decisive, Wellington’s object would not be advanced. That object was to deliver the Peninsula by a course of solid operations, incompatible with sudden and rash strokes unauthorized by anything but hope; wherefore, yielding to circumstances, he resolved to retreat on Portugal and abide his time; yet with a bitter spirit, nothing soothed by the recollection that he had refused to fight at advantage exactly one month before upon the very hills he now occupied. Nevertheless that steadfast temper which then prevented him from seizing an adventitious chance would not now let him yield to fortune more than she could ravish from him: he still hoped to give the lion’s stroke, and resolved to cover Salamanca and the communication with Ciudad Rodrigo to the last moment. The uncertainty of war was now shown. This inability to hold his ground was made known to Castaños by a letter, which Marmont intercepted, and immediately decided to push on without waiting for the king, who afterwards announced this accident as a subtle stroke by Wellington to draw on a premature battle!
On the 21st, the allies being on San Christoval, the French threw a garrison into Alba de Tormes, from whence the Spaniards had been withdrawn by Carlos España, without the knowledge of the English general. Marmont then passed the Tormes by the fords, between Alba and Huerta, and moving up the valley of the Machechuco encamped at the outer edge of a forest. Wellington also passed the Tormes in the evening by the bridge of Salamanca and the fords of Santa Marta and Aldea Lengua; but the third division and D’Urban’s cavalry remaining on the right bank, intrenched themselves, lest the French, who had left a division on the heights of Babila Fuente, should recross the Tonnes in the night and overwhelm them.
When the light division descended the rough side of the Aldea Lengua mountain to cross the river night had come down suddenly, and with more than common darkness, for a storm, that usual precursor of a battle in the Peninsula, was at hand. Torrents of rain deepened the ford, the water foamed and dashed with increasing violence, the thunder was frequent and deafening, and the lightning passed in sheets of fire close over the column, playing upon the points of the bayonets. One flash falling amongst the cavalry near Santa Marta killed many men and horses, while hundreds of frightened animals, breaking loose and galloping wildly about, were supposed to be the enemy charging in the darkness, and some of their patrols were indeed at hand, hovering like birds of prey: but nothing could disturb the beautiful order in which the serene veterans of the light division were seen by the fiery gleams to pass the foaming river, pursuing their march amidst this astounding turmoil, alike regardless of the storm and the enemy.