While this action was taking place at Meza d’Ibor, Villatte’s division, being higher up the Sierra, to the left, overthrew a smaller body of Spaniards at Frenedoso, making three hundred prisoners, and capturing a large store of arms.
The 18th, at day-break, the duke of Belluno, who had superintended in person the attack at Meza d’Ibor, examined from that high ground all the remaining position of the Spaniards. Cuesta, he observed, was in full retreat to Truxillo; but Henestrosa was still posted in front of Almaraz. Hereupon Villatte’s division was detached after Cuesta, to Deleytosa; but Laval’s Germans were led against Henestrosa; and the latter, aware of his danger, and already preparing to retire, was driven hastily over the ridge of Mirabete.
In the course of the night, the raft bridge was thrown across the Tagus; and the next day the dragoons passed to the left bank, the artillery followed, and the cavalry immediately pushed forward to Truxillo, from which town Cuesta had already fallen back to Santa Cruz, leaving Henestrosa to cover the retreat.
The 20th, after a slight skirmish, the latter was forced over the Mazarna; and the whole French army, with the exception of a regiment of dragoons (left to guard the raft bridge) was poured along the road to Merida.
The advanced guard, consisting of a regiment of light cavalry, under general Bordesoult, arrived in front of Miajadas on the 21st. Here the road dividing, sends one branch to Merida, the other to Medellin. A party of Spanish horsemen were posted near the town; they appeared in great alarm, and by their hesitating movements invited a charge. The French incautiously galloped forward; and, in a moment, twelve or fourteen hundred Spanish cavalry, placed in ambush, came up at speed on both flanks. General Lasalle, who from a distance had observed the movements of both sides, immediately rode forward with a second regiment; and arrived just as Bordesoult had extricated himself from a great peril, by his own valour, but with the loss of seventy killed and a hundred wounded.
After this well-managed combat, Cuesta retired to Medellin without being molested, and Victor spreading his cavalry posts on the different routes to gain intelligence and to collect provisions, established Journal of Operations MSS. his own quarters at Truxillo, a town of some trade and advantageously situated for a place of arms. It had been deserted by the inhabitants and pillaged by the first French troops that entered it, but it still offered great resources for the army, and there was an ancient citadel, capable of being rendered defensible, which was immediately armed with the Spanish guns, and provisioned from the magazines taken at Meza d’Ibor.
The flooding of the Tagus and the rocky nature of its bed had injured the raft-bridge near Almaraz, and delayed the passage of the artillery and stores; to remedy this inconvenience the marshal issued directions to have a boat-bridge prepared, and caused a field-fort to be constructed on the left bank of the Tagus, which he armed with three guns, and garrisoned with a hundred and fifty men to protect his bridge. These arrangements and the establishment of an hospital for two thousand men at Truxillo, delayed the first corps until the 24th of March.
Meanwhile, the light cavalry reinforced by twelve hundred voltigeurs were posted at Miajadas, and having covered all the roads branching from that central point with their scouting parties, reported that a few of Cuesta’s people had retired to Medellin, that from five to six thousand men were thrown into the Sierra de Guadalupe, on the left of the French; that four thousand infantry and two thousand cavalry were behind the river Guadiana, in front of Medellin, but that every thing else was over the Guadiana.
The line of retreat chosen by Cuesta uncovered Merida, and, consequently, the great road between Badajos and Seville was open to the French; but Victor was not disposed to profit from this, for he was aware that Albuquerque was coming from La Mancha to Cuesta, and believing that he brought nine thousand infantry and two thousand cavalry—feared that Cuesta’s intention was either to draw him into a difficult country, by making a flank march to join Cartoajal in La Mancha, or by crossing the Guadiana, above Naval Villar, where the fords are always practicable, to rejoin his detachments in the Sierra de Guadalupe, and so establish a new base of operations on the left flank of the French army.
This reasoning was misplaced; neither Cuesta nor his army were capable of such operations, his line of retreat was solely directed by a desire to join Albuquerque, and to save his troops, by taking to a rugged instead of an open country, and the duke of Belluno lost the fruits of his previous success, by over rating his adversary’s skill; for, instead of following Cuesta with a resolution to break up the Spanish army, he, after leaving a brigade at Truxillo and Almaraz, to protect the communications, was contented to advance a few leagues on the road to Medellin with his main body, sending his light cavalry to Merida, and pushing on detachments towards Badajos and Seville, while other parties explored the roads leading into the Guadalupe.