I have said that Cuesta was playing with a tiger: he had some faint perception of his danger on the 25th, and he gave orders to retreat on the 26th; but the French, suddenly passing the Guadarama, at two o’clock in the morning of that day, quickly drove the Spanish cavalry out of Torrijos, and pursued them to Alcabon. Here general Zayas had drawn up four thousand infantry, two thousand horsemen, and eight guns, on a plain, and offered battle.
COMBAT OF ALCABON.
The Spanish right rested on the road of Domingo Perez, and the left on a chapel of the same name. The French cavalry, under Latour Maubourg, advanced in a parallel line against the Spaniards, and a cannonade commenced; but, at that moment, the head of the French infantry appearing in sight, the Spaniards broke, and fled in disorder towards St. Ollalla, followed, at full gallop, by the horsemen, who pressed them so sorely that the panic would, doubtless, have spread through the whole army, but for the courage of Albuquerque, who, coming up with a division of three thousand fresh cavalry, held the enemy in play, while Cuesta retreated, in the greatest disorder, towards the Alberche.
After reaching St. Ollalla, the French slackened their efforts; the main body halted there, and the advanced guards, save a few cavalry-posts, did not pass El Bravo, and no attempt was made to profit from the unconnected position of the allies—a gross and palpable error; for, either by the sword or dispersion, the Spaniards lost, on that day, not less than four thousand men; and such was their fear and haste that it required but a little more perseverance in the pursuit to cause a general rout. Albuquerque, alone, showed any front; but his efforts were unavailing, and the disorder continued to increase until general Sherbrooke, marching out of Cazalegas, placed his divisions between the scared troops and the enemy. Still the danger was imminent; there was no concert between the commanders, the ground on the left of the Alberche was unfavourable to a retiring party, and, as yet, no position upon which the combined forces could retire had been agreed upon! What, then, would have been the consequence if the whole French army had borne down, compact and strong, into the midst of the disordered masses?
Sir Arthur Wellesley, who, at the first alarm, had hastened to the front, seeing the confusion beyond the Alberche, knew that a battle was at hand; and, being persuaded that in a strong defensive position only could the Spaniards be brought to stand a shock, earnestly endeavoured to persuade Cuesta, while Sherbrooke’s people could yet cover the movement, to withdraw to Talavera, where there was ground suited for defence; but Cuesta’s uncouth nature again broke forth; his people were beaten, dispirited, fatigued, bewildered; clustered on a narrow slip of low, flat land, between the Alberche, the Tagus, and the heights of Salinas; and the first shot fired by the enemy must have been the signal of defeat; yet it was in vain that sir Arthur Wellesley pointed out those things, and entreated of him to avoid the fall of the rock that trembled over his head; he replied, that his troops would be disheartened by any further retreat, that he would fight where he stood: and in this mood he passed the night.
The 27th, at day-light, the British general renewed his solicitations, at first, fruitlessly, but when the enemy’s cavalry came in sight, and Sherbrooke prepared to retire, Cuesta sullenly yielded, yet, turning to his staff with frantic pride, observed that “He had first made the Englishman go down on his knees.” Sir Arthur Wellesley, by virtue of his genius, now assumed the direction of both armies. General Mackenzie’s division and a brigade of light cavalry were left on the Alberche, to cover the retrograde movement: but the rest of the allied troops was soon in full march for the position, which was about six miles in the rear. Sir Robert Wilson, who had reached Naval Carneiro on the 25th, and opened a communication with Madrid, and who would certainly have entered that capital but for the approaching battle, was also recalled. He returned, on the 28th, to Escalona, and hung on the enemy’s rear, but did not attempt to join the army.
Between the Alberche and the town of Talavera, the country was flat, and covered with olives and cork-trees; and, on the north, nearly parallel to the Tagus, and at a distance of about two or three miles, a chain of round but steep hills bounded the woody plain. Beyond these hills, but separated from them by a deep and rugged valley, something less than half a mile wide, was the high mountain-ridge which divides the bed of the Alberche from that of the Tietar. Hence, a line drawn perpendicularly from the Tagus would cross the first chain of hills at the distance of two miles, and at two miles and a half would fall on the mountains.
Sir Arthur Wellesley, taking the town of Talavera, which was built close to the river, as his fixed point, placed the right of the Spaniards there, drawing their army up in two lines, with the left resting upon a mound, where a large field-redoubt was constructed, and behind which a brigade of British light cavalry was posted. The front was covered by a convent, by ditches, mud walls, breast-works, and felled trees. The cavalry was posted behind the infantry; and the rear was supported by a large house in the wood, well placed, in case of defeat, to cover a retreat on to the main roads leading from Talavera to Arzobispo and Oropesa. In this position they could not be attacked seriously, nor their disposition be even seen; and, thus, one-half of the line necessary to be occupied by the allies was rendered nearly impregnable, and yet held by the worst troops.
The front of battle was prolonged by the British infantry. General Campbell’s division, formed in two lines, touched the Spanish left; general Sherbrooke’s division stood next to Campbell’s, but arranged on one line only, because general Mackenzie’s division, destined to form the second, was then near the Alberche. It was intended that general Hill’s division should close the left of the British, by taking post on the highest hill, in the chain before mentioned, as bounding the flat and woody country; but, by some accident, the summit of this height was not immediately occupied.
The whole line, thus displayed, was about two miles in length, the left being covered by the valley between the hill and the mountain; and from this valley a ravine, or water-course, opened, deeply, in the front of the British left, but being gradually obliterated in the flat ground about the centre of the line. Part of the British cavalry was with general Mackenzie, and in the plain in front of the left, and part behind the great redoubt, at the [Appendix, No. 11]. junction of the allied troops. The British and Germans under arms that day were somewhat above nineteen thousand sabres and bayonets, with thirty guns. The Spaniards, after their previous defeat, could only produce from thirty-three to thirty-four thousand men; but they had seventy guns. The combined army, therefore, offered battle with forty-four thousand infantry, nearly ten thousand cavalry, and a hundred pieces of artillery; and the French were coming on with at least eighty guns, and, including the king’s guards, nearly fifty thousand men, of which above seven thousand were cavalry. But what a difference in the quality of the troops! The French were all hardy veterans, while the genuine soldiers of the allied army did not exceed nineteen thousand.