The French cavalry, about six thousand in number, were secretly assembled near the ford, and, about two o’clock in the day, general Caulaincourt’s brigade suddenly entered the stream. The Spaniards, running to their arms, manned the batteries, and opened upon the leading squadrons; but Mortier, with a powerful concentric fire of artillery, immediately overwhelmed the Spanish gunners; and Caulaincourt, having reached the other side of the river, turned to his right, and, taking the batteries in reverse, cut down the artillerymen, and dispersed the infantry who attempted to form. The duke of Albuquerque, who had mounted at the first alarm, now came down with all his horsemen in one mass, but without order, upon Caulaincourt, and the latter was, for a few moments, in imminent danger; but the rest of the French cavalry, passing rapidly, soon joined in the combat; one brigade of infantry followed at the ford, another burst the barriers on the bridge itself, and, by this time, the Spanish foot were flying to the mountains. Albuquerque’s effort was thus frustrated, a general route ensued, and five guns and about four hundred prisoners were taken.
Soult’s intention being to follow up this success, he directed that the first corps should move, in two columns, upon Guadalupe and Deleytoza, intending to support it with the second and fifth, while the sixth corps crossed at Almaraz, and seized the pass of Mirabete. This would undoubtedly have completed the ruin of the Spanish army, and forced sir Arthur to make a rapid and disastrous retreat; for so complete was the surprise and so sudden the overthrow that some of the English foragers also fell into the hands of the enemy; and that Cuesta’s army was in no condition to have made any resistance, if the pursuit had been continued with vigour, is clear, from the following facts:—
1º. When he withdrew his main body from the bridge of Arzobispo to Peralada de Garbin, on the 7th, he left fifteen pieces of artillery by the road-side, without a guard. The defeat of Albuquerque placed these guns at the mercy of the enemy, who were, however, ignorant of their situation, until a trumpeter attending an English flag of truce, either treacherously or foolishly, mentioned it in the French camp, from whence a detachment of cavalry was sent to fetch them off. 2º. The British military agent, placed at the Spanish head-quarters, was kept in ignorance of the action; and it was only by the arrival of the duke of Albuquerque, at Deleytoza, on the evening of the 9th, that sir Arthur Wellesley knew the bridge was lost. He had before advised Cuesta to withdraw behind the Ibor river, and even now contemplated a partial attack to keep the enemy in check; but when he repaired in person to that general’s quarter, on the 10th, he found the country covered with fugitives and stragglers, and Cuesta as helpless and yet as haughty as ever. All his ammunition and guns (forty pieces) were at the right bank of the Ibor, and, of course, at the foot of the Meza, and within sight and cannon-shot of the enemy, on the right bank of the Tagus. They would have been taken by the first French patroles that approached, but that sir Arthur Wellesley persuaded the Spanish staff-officers to have them dragged up the hill, in the course of the 10th, without Cuesta’s knowledge.
In this state of affairs, the impending fate of the Peninsula was again averted by the king, who recalled the first corps to the support of the fourth, then opposed to Venegas. Marshal Ney, also, was unable to discover the ford below the bridge of Almaraz; and, by the 11th, the allies had re-established their line of defence. The head-quarters of the British were at Jaraicejo, and those of the Spaniards at Deleytoza: the former, guarding the ford of Almaraz, formed the left; the latter, occupying the Meza d’Ibor and Campillo, were on the right. The 12th, Cuesta having resigned, general Equia succeeded to the command, and gave hopes of a better co-operation; but the evil was in the character of the people. The position of the allies was, however, compact and central; the reserves could easily support the advanced posts; the communication to the rear was open; and, if defended with courage, the Meza d’Ibor is impregnable. To pass the Tagus at Almaraz, in itself a difficult operation, would be of no avail to the enemy, while the Mirabete and Meza d’Ibor were occupied, because his troops would be enclosed in the narrow space between those ridges and the river.
The duke of Dalmatia, thus thwarted, conceived that sir Arthur Wellesley would endeavour to re-pass the Tagus by Alcantara, and so rejoin Beresford and the five thousand British troops under Catlin Craufurd and Lightburn, which were, by this time, near the frontier of Portugal. To prevent this he resolved to march at once upon Coria, with the second, fifth, and sixth corps, to menace the communications both of sir Arthur and Beresford with Lisbon, and, at the same time, prepare for the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo; but marshal Ney absolutely refused to concur in this operation: he observed that sir Arthur Wellesley was not yet in march for Alcantara; that it was exceedingly dangerous to invade Portugal in a hasty manner; and that the army could not be fed between Coria, Plasencia, and the Tagus; finally, that Salamanca, being again in possession of the Spaniards, it was more fitting that the sixth corps should retake that town, and occupy the line of the Tormes to cover Castile.
This reasoning was approved by Joseph; he dreaded the further fatigue and privations that would attend a continuance of the operations during the excessive heats, and in a wasted country; and he was strengthened in his opinion by the receipt of a despatch from the emperor, dated Schoenbrun, the 29th of July, in which any further offensive operations were forbad, until the reinforcements which the recent victory of Wagram enabled him to send should arrive in Spain. The second corps was, consequently, directed to take post at Plasencia. The fifth corps relieved the first at Talavera; and the English wounded being, by Victor, given over to marshal Mortier, the latter, with a chivalrous sense of honour, would not permit his own soldiers, although suffering severe privations themselves, to receive rations until the hospitals were first supplied. The sixth corps was now directed upon Valladolid, for Joseph was alarmed lest fresh insurrection, excited and supported by the duke del Parque, should spread over the whole of Leon and Castile. Ney marched, on the 11th, from Plasencia; but, to his surprise, found that sir Robert Wilson, with about four thousand men, part Spaniards, part Portuguese, was in possession of the pass of Baños. To explain this, it must be observed, that when the British army marched from Talavera, on the 3d, Wilson, being at Nombella, was put in communication with Cuesta. He had sent his artillery to the army on the 3d, and on the 4th, finding that the Spaniards had abandoned Talavera, he fell back with his infantry to Vellada, a few miles north of Talavera. He was then twenty-four miles from Arzobispo; and, as Cuesta did not quit Oropesa until the 5th, a junction with sir Arthur Wellesley might have been effected: but it was impossible to know this at the time; and Wilson, very prudently, crossing the Tietar, made for the mountains, trusting to his activity and local knowledge to escape the enemy. Villatte’s division pursued him, on the 5th, to Nombella; a detachment from the garrison of Avila was watching for him in the passes of Arenas and Monbeltran, and general Foy waited for him in the Vera de Plasencia. Nevertheless, he baffled his opponents, broke through their circle at Viandar, passed the Gredos at a ridge called the Sierra de Lanes, and, getting into the valley of the Tormes, reached Bejar: from thence, thinking to recover his communications with the army, he marched towards Plasencia, by the pass of Baños, and thus, on the morning of the 12th, met with Ney, returning to the Salamanca country.
The dust of the French column being seen from afar, and a retreat to Ciudad Rodrigo open, it is not easy to comprehend why sir Robert Wilson should have given battle to the sixth corps. His position, although difficult of approach, and strengthened by the piling of large stones in the narrowest parts, was not one in which he could hope to stop a whole army; and, accordingly, when the French, overcoming the local obstacles, got close upon his left, the fight was at an end. The first charge broke both the legion and the Spanish auxiliaries, and the whole dispersed. Ney then continued his march, and, having recovered the line of the Tormes, resigned the command of the sixth corps to general Marchand, and returned to France. But, while these things happened in Estremadura, La Mancha was the theatre of more important operations.