The right of the position, which was stronger, and higher, and broader than any other part, was left open for Blake’s army, because Beresford, thinking the hill on the Valverde road to be the key of the position, as protecting his only line of retreat, was desirous to secure it with the best troops. The fourth division and the infantry of the fifth army were still before Badajos, but general Cole had orders to send the seventeenth Portuguese regiment to Elvas; to throw a battalion of Spaniards into Olivenza; to bring his second brigade, which was before Christoval, over the Guadiana, by a ford above Badajos, if practicable, and to be in readiness to march at the first notice.
In this posture of affairs, about three o’clock in the evening of the 15th, while Beresford was at some distance on the left, the whole mass of the allied cavalry, closely followed by the French light horsemen, came in from Santa Marta in a hurried manner, and passing the Albuera abandoned all the wooded heights in front to the enemy, whose dispositions being thus effectually concealed at the distance of cannon-shot, the strength of the position was already sapped. Beresford immediately formed a temporary right wing with the cavalry and artillery, stretching his piquets along the road to Almendral, and sending officers to hasten Blake’s movements; but that general, who had only a few miles of good road to march, and who had promised to be in line at noon, did not reach the ground before eleven at night; and his rear was not there before three o’clock in the morning of the 16th; meanwhile, as the enemy was evidently in force on the Albuera road, Cole and Madden were ordered up. The orders failed to reach the latter, but, at six o’clock in the morning, the former reached the position with the infantry of the fifth army, two squadrons of Portuguese cavalry, and two brigades of the fourth division; the third brigade, under colonel Kemmis, being unable to cross the Guadiana, above Badajos, was in march by Jerumenha. The Spanish troops immediately joined Blake on the right, and the two brigades of the fourth division, were drawn up in columns behind the second division. The Portuguese squadrons reinforced colonel Otway, whose horsemen, of the same nation, were pushed forward in front of the left wing; and, as general Long seemed oppressed by the responsibility of directing the troops of so many different nations, general Lumley assumed the chief command of the allied squadrons, which were concentrated in rear of the centre.
The position was now occupied by thirty thousand infantry, above two thousand cavalry, and thirty-eight pieces of artillery, of which eighteen were nine-pounders; but, the brigade of the fourth division being still absent, the British infantry, the pith and strength of battle, did not amount to seven thousand, and already Blake’s arrogance was shaking Beresford’s authority. The French had fifty guns, and above four thousand veteran cavalry, but only nineteen thousand chosen infantry; yet being of one nation, obedient to one discipline, and animated by one spirit, their excellent composition amply compensated for the inferiority of numbers, and their general’s talent was immeasurably greater than his adversary’s.
Soult examined Beresford’s position, without hindrance, on the evening of the 15th, and having heard that the fourth division was left before Badajos, and that Blake would not arrive before the 17th, he resolved to attack the next morning, for he had detected all the weakness of the English general’s dispositions for battle.
The hill in the centre, commanding the Valverde road, was undoubtedly the key of the position if an attack was made parallel to the front; but the heights on the right presented a sort of table-land, trending backwards towards the Valverde road, and looking into the rear of the line of battle. Hence it was evident that, if a mass of troops could be placed there, they must be beaten, or the right wing of the allied army would be rolled up on the centre and pushed into the narrow ravine of the Aroya: the Valverde road could then be seized, the retreat cut, and the powerful cavalry of the French would complete the victory. Now the right of the allies and the left of the French approximated to each other, being only divided by a wooded hill, about cannon-shot distance from either but separated from the allies by the Albuera, and from the French by a rivulet called the Feria. This height, neglected by Beresford, was ably made use of by Soult. During the night he placed behind it the artillery under general Ruty; the fifth corps under Girard; and the heavy dragoons under Latour Maubourg; thus concentrating fifteen thousand men and forty guns within ten minutes’ march of Beresford’s right wing, and yet that general could neither see a man nor draw a sound conclusion as to the real plan of attack.
The light cavalry; the division of the first corps under general Werlé; Godinot’s brigade, and ten guns, still remained at the French marshal’s disposal. These he formed in the woods, extending along the banks of the Feria towards its confluence with the Albuera, and Godinot was ordered to attack the village and bridge, and to bear strongly against the centre of the position, with a view to attract Beresford’s attention, to separate his wings, and to double up his right at the moment when the principal attack should be developed.
BATTLE OF ALBUERA.
During the night, Blake and Cole, as we have seen, arrived with above sixteen thousand men; but so defective was the occupation of the ground, that Soult had no change to make in his plans from this circumstance, and, a little before nine o’clock in the morning, Godinot’s division issued from the woods in one heavy column of attack, preceded by ten guns. He was flanked by the light cavalry, and followed by Werlé’s division of reserve, and, making straight towards the bridge, commenced a sharp cannonade, attempting to force the passage; at the same time Briché, with two regiments of hussars, drew further down the river to observe colonel Otway’s horse.
The allies’ guns on the rising ground above the village answered the fire of the French, and ploughed through their columns, which were crowding without judgement towards the bridge, although the stream was passable above and below. But Beresford observing that Werlé’s division did not follow closely, was soon convinced that the principal effort would be on the right, and, therefore, sent Blake orders to form a part of the first and all the second line of the Spanish army, on the broad part of the hills, at right angles to their actual front. Then drawing the Portuguese infantry of the left wing to the centre, he sent one brigade down to support Alten, and directed general Hamilton to hold the remainder in columns of battalions, ready to move to any part of the field. The thirteenth dragoons were posted near the edge of the river, above the bridge, and, meanwhile, the second division marched to support Blake. The horse-artillery, the heavy dragoons, and the fourth division also took ground to the right, and were posted; the cavalry and guns on a small plain behind the Aroya, and the fourth division in an oblique line about half-musket shot behind them. This done, Beresford galloped to Blake, for that general had refused to change his front and, with great heat, told colonel Hardinge, the bearer of the order, that the real attack was at the village and bridge. Beresford had sent again to entreat that he would obey, but this message was as fruitless as the former, and, when the marshal arrived, nothing had been done. The enemy’s columns were, however, now beginning to appear on the right, and Blake, yielding to this evidence, proceeded to make the evolution, yet with such pedantic slowness, that Beresford, impatient of his folly, took the direction in person.
Great was the confusion and the delay thus occasioned, and ere the troops could be put in order the French were amongst them. For scarcely had Godinot engaged Alten’s brigade, when Werlé, leaving only a battalion of grenadiers and some squadrons to watch the thirteenth dragoons and to connect the attacks, countermarched with the remainder of his division, and rapidly gained the rear of the fifth corps as it was mounting the hills on the right of the allies. At the same time the mass of light cavalry suddenly quitted Godinot’s column, and crossing the river Albuera above the bridge, ascended the left bank at a gallop, and, sweeping round the rear of the fifth corps, joined Latour Maubourg, who was already in face of Lumley’s squadrons. Thus half an hour had sufficed to render Beresford’s position nearly desperate. Two-thirds of the French were in a compact order of battle on a line perpendicular to his right, and his army, disordered and composed of different nations, was still in the difficult act of changing its front. It was in vain that he endeavoured to form the Spanish line sufficiently in advance to give room for the second division to support it; the French guns opened, their infantry threw out a heavy musketry, and their cavalry, outflanking the front and charging here and there, put the Spaniards in disorder at all points; in a short time the latter gave way, and Soult, thinking the whole army was yielding, pushed forward his columns, while his reserves also mounted the hill, and general Ruty placed all the batteries in position.