Victor did not suffer as he might have done; but his numerical weakness was certainly the safety of Cuesta. For that general, having followed the retreat of the first corps from Torremocha, crossed the Tagus, at Almaraz, on the 23d of June, and pushed an advanced guard towards Oropesa. He had thirty-eight thousand men, yet he remained tranquil while (at a distance of only twelve miles) fourteen thousand French made a flank movement that lasted three days; and his careless method of acting, and his unskilful dispositions, were so evident, that the French cavalry, far from fearing, were preparing to punish him, when he suddenly took the alarm, and, withdrawing to Almaraz, occupied himself in finishing his bridges over the Tagus.
The 28th, Victor, having removed his hospitals and depôts from Arzobispo, took a position behind the Alberche, keeping, however, three battalions and the cavalry at Talavera, with advanced posts at Calera and Gamonal. A small detachment, also, watched the course of the Tagus from the mouth of the Alberche to that of the Guadarama, and a moveable column was sent to Escalona, to observe the Vera de Plasencia and passes leading upon Avila. In executing this retrograde movement, Victor, having no means of transport, burnt ten out of Semelé’s Journal of Operations First Corps MSS. the fifteen pontoons supporting his bridge over the Tietar, and, for the same reason, he threw a considerable quantity of powder and shot into the river. His troops had been for four days on quarter rations, and were suffering from sickness and hunger; and the Tagus was fordable in several places. The danger of his position is evident. The British were, however, still at Abrantes, and Cuesta knew not how to profit by this opportunity before the king returned from La Mancha.
Such was the position of the different armies when the British general arrived at Plasencia. He had seen Soult’s letters, found upon general Franceschi, and thus ascertained that the second corps was at Zamora, and from Franceschi himself, who passed as a prisoner, at the same time, he learned the arrival of the fifth corps at Valladolid; but the march of Ney’s corps was not suspected, and the tenor of Soult’s letters led to the notion that Gallicia was to be retained. A letter of Victor’s to Joseph, dated the 23d of June, and written in the most desponding language, had been likewise intercepted; and, as Soult’s correspondence also gave a strong picture of his difficulties, the general impression that the French armies were not only weak but utterly dismayed was rather augmented than lessened by this information. Sir Arthur Wellesley, however, could not but have some distrust, when he knew that two corps were beyond the mountains, on his left; and, though far from suspecting the extent of his danger, he took Sir A. Wellesley’s Correspondence, Parl. Papers, printed in 1810. additional precautions to protect that flank, and renewed his instructions to Beresford to watch the enemy’s movements, and to look carefully to the defence of the Puerto Perales. But the pass of Baños was still to be guarded, and for this purpose sir Arthur applied to Cuesta.
The Spanish general was at first unwilling to detach any men to that quarter, but he finally agreed that two battalions from his army and two others from the town of Bejar, at the other side of the pass, should unite to defend Baños, and that the duke del Parque should also send a detachment to the pass of Perales. Although these measures appeared sufficient to obviate danger from Soult’s corps, weakened as it was supposed to be, they were evidently futile to check the real force under that marshal; and they were rendered absolutely ridiculous by Cuesta, who sent two weak battalions, of three hundred men each, and with only twenty rounds of ammunition per man: and yet this was only a part of a system which already weighed heavily on the English general.
The 10th, sir Arthur Wellesley proceeded to Cuesta’s head-quarters, near the Col de Mirabete, to confer with him on their future operations. Ever since the affair of Valdez, in 1808, the junta had been sorely afraid of Cuesta, and, suspecting that he was meditating some signal vengeance, they endeavoured to raise up rivals to his power. In this view they had lavished honours and authority upon Blake; but the defeat at Belchite having crushed their hopes in that quarter, they turned their eyes upon Venegas, and increased his forces, taking care to give him the best troops. Still Cuesta’s force was formidable, and to reduce it was the object both of Mr. Frere and the junta: the motive of the first being to elevate the duke of Albuquerque; the intention of the others being merely to reduce the power of Cuesta.
Whatever might have been the latter’s ultimate intention, with respect to the junta, it is certain that his natural obstinacy and violence were greatly increased by a knowledge of these proceedings, and that he was ill-disposed towards the English general, as thinking him a party concerned in these intrigues. When, therefore, sir Arthur, at the instigation of Mr. Frere, proposed that a draft of ten thousand Sir A. Wellesley’s Correspondence, Parl. Papers, 1810. Spanish troops should be detached towards Avila and Segovia, Cuesta replied that it should be done by the British, and absolutely refused to furnish more than two battalions of infantry and a few cavalry to strengthen sir Robert Wilson’s partizan corps, which was destined to act on the enemy’s right. This determination again baffled Mr. Frere’s project of placing the duke of Albuquerque at the head of an independent force, and obliged the supreme junta to fall upon some other expedient for reducing Cuesta’s power; and it was fortunate that the old Spaniard resisted the proposal, because the ten thousand men would have gone straight into the midst of the fifth corps, which, in expectation of such a movement, was then at Villa Castin, and, having been rejoined by the detachment of colonel Briche, from Catalonia, was eighteen thousand strong, and supported by Kellerman’s division of cavalry at Valladolid.
The discussion between the generals lasted two days; but, with the approbation of the supreme junta, it was finally agreed that the British and Spanish armies, under sir Arthur and Cuesta, should march, on the 18th, against Victor; and that Venegas, advancing, at the same time, through La Mancha, should leave Toledo and Aranjues to his left, and push for Fuente Duenas and Villa Maurique on the Upper Tagus. If this movement should draw Sebastiani, with the fourth corps, to that side, Venegas was to keep him in play while the allied forces defeated Victor. If Sebastiani disregarded it, Venegas was to cross the Tagus and march upon Madrid, from the south east, while sir Robert Wilson, reinforced by some Spanish battalions, menaced that capital from the opposite quarter.
Previous to entering Spain, sir Arthur had ascertained that the valleys of the Alagon and the Arago and those between Bejar and Ciudad Rodrigo were fertile and capable of nourishing the army, and he had sent commissaries to all these points to purchase mules, and to arrange with the alcaldes of the different districts for the supply of the troops. He had obtained the warmest assurances, from the supreme junta, that every needful article should be forthcoming, and the latter had also sent the intendant-general, don Lonzano de Torres, to the British head-quarters, with full powers to forward all arrangements for the supply of the English troops. Relying upon these preparations, sir Arthur had crossed the frontier with few means of transport and without magazines, for Portugal could not furnish what was required, and, moreover, the Portuguese peasants had an insuperable objection to quitting their own country; a matter apparently of little consequence, because Mr. Frere, writing officially at the time, described the people of Estremadura as viewing “the war in the light of a crusade, and carrying it on with all the enthusiasm of such a cause!”
From Castello Branco to Plasencia is but seven days’ march, yet that short time was sufficient to prove the bad faith of the junta, and the illusion under which Mr. Frere laboured. Neither mules for the transport of ammunition and provisions, nor the promised help of the authorities, nor aid of any kind could be procured; and don Lonzano de Torres, although, to sir Arthur, he freely acknowledged the extent of the evil, the ill-will of the inhabitants, and the shameful conduct of the supreme junta, afterwards, without shame, asserted that the British troops had always received and consumed double rations, and were in want of nothing; an assertion in which he was supported by don Martin de Garay, the Spanish secretary of state; the whole [Appendix, No. 17]. proceeding being a concerted plan, to afford the junta a pretext for justifying their own and casting a slur upon the English general’s conduct, if any disasters should happen.
Sir Arthur Wellesley, seriously alarmed for the subsistence of his army, wrote, upon the 16th, to Mr. Frere and to general O’Donoghue, the chief of Cuesta’s staff; representing to both the distress of his army, and intimating his resolution not to proceed beyond the Alberche, unless his wants were immediately supplied; faithful, however, to his agreement with Cuesta, he prepared to put the army in motion for that river. It was known at Plasencia, on the 15th, that Ney had retreated from Coruña; but it was believed, that his corps had been recalled to France; and no change took place in the plan of campaign. It was not suspected that the sixth corps had then been sixteen days at Astorga!