CHAPTER VII.
While the fuzileers were thus striving on the upper part of the hill, the cavalry and Harvey’s brigade continually advanced, and Latour Maubourg’s dragoons, battered by Lefebre’s guns, retired before them, yet still threatening the British with their right, and covering the flank of their own infantry from a charge of Lumley’s horse. Beresford, seeing that colonel Hardinge’s decision had brought on the critical moment of the battle, then endeavoured to secure a favourable result. Blake’s first line had not been at all engaged, and were ordered to move upon the village; Alten’s Germans and Hamilton’s and Collins’s Portuguese were thus rendered disposable, forming a mass of ten thousand fresh men with which the English general followed up the attack of the fuzileers and Abercrombie’s brigade, and at the same time the Spanish divisions of Zayas, Ballasteros, and España advanced. Nevertheless, so rapid was the execution of the fuzileers, that the enemy’s infantry were never attained by these reserves, which yet suffered severely; for general Ruty got the French guns altogether, and worked them with prodigious activity, while the fifth corps still made head, and, when the day was irrevocably lost, he regained the other side of the Albuera, and protected the passage of the broken infantry.
Beresford, being too hardly handled to pursue, formed a fresh line with his Portuguese, parallel to the hill from whence Soult had advanced to the attack in the morning, and where the French troops were now rallying with their usual celerity. Meanwhile the fight continued at the village, but Godinot’s division and the connecting battalion of grenadiers on that side were soon afterwards withdrawn, and the action terminated before three o’clock.
The serious fighting had endured only four hours, and in that space of time, nearly seven thousand of the allies and above eight thousand of their adversaries were struck down. Three French generals were wounded, two slain, and eight hundred soldiers so badly hurt as to be left on the field. On Beresford’s side only two thousand Spaniards, and six hundred Germans and Portuguese, were killed or wounded; hence it is plain with what a resolution the pure British fought, for they had only fifteen hundred men left standing out of six thousand! The laurel is nobly won when the exhausted victor reels as he places it on his bleeding front.
The trophies of the French were five hundred unwounded prisoners, a howitzer, and several stand of colours; the British had nothing of that kind to boast of; but the horrid piles of carcasses within their lines told, with dreadful eloquence, who were the conquerors, and all the night the rain poured down, and the river and the hills and the woods on each side, resounded with the dismal clamour and groans of dying men. Beresford, obliged to place his Portuguese in the front line, was oppressed with the number of his wounded; they far exceeded that of the sound amongst the British soldiers, and when the latter’s piquets were established, few men remained to help the sufferers. In this cruel situation he sent colonel Hardinge to demand assistance from Blake; but wrath and mortified pride were predominant in that general’s breast, and he refused; saying it was customary with allied armies for each to take care of its own men.
Morning came, and both sides remained in their respective situations, the wounded still covering the field of battle, the hostile lines still menacing and dangerous. The greater multitude had fallen on the French part, but the best soldiers on that of the allies; and the dark masses of Soult’s powerful cavalry and artillery, as they covered all his front, seemed alone able to contend again for the victory: the right of the French also appeared to threaten the Badajos road, and Beresford, in gloom and doubt, awaited another attack. On the 17th, however, the third brigade of the fourth division came up by a forced march from Jerumenha, and enabled the second division to retake their former ground between the Valverde and the Badajos roads. On the 18th, Soult retreated.
He left to the generosity of the English general several hundred men too deeply wounded to be removed; but all that could travel he had, in the night of the 17th, sent towards Seville, by the royal road, through Santa Marta, Los Santos, and Monasterio: then, protecting his movements with all his horsemen and six battalions of infantry, he filed the army, in the morning, to its right, and gained the road of Solano. When this flank march was completed, Latour Maubourg covered the rear with the heavy dragoons, and Briché protected the march of the wounded men by the royal road.
The duke of Dalmatia remained the 19th at Solano. His intention was to hold a position in Estremadura until he could receive reinforcements from Andalusia; for he judged truly that, although Beresford was in no condition to hurt Badajos, lord Wellington would come down, and that fresh combats would be required to save that fortress. On the 14th he had commenced repairing the castle of Villalba, a large structure between Almendralejos and Santa Marta, and he now continued this work; designing to form a head of cantonments, that the allies would be unable to besiege before the French army could be reinforced.
When Beresford discovered the enemy’s retreat, he despatched general Hamilton to make a show of re-investing Badajos, which was effected at day-break the 19th, but on the left bank only. Meanwhile the allied cavalry, supported by Alten’s Germans, followed the French line of retreat. Soult then transferred his head-quarters to Fuente del Maestre, and the Spanish cavalry cutting off some of his men menaced Villalba. Lord Wellington reached the field of battle the same day, and, after examining the state of affairs, desired the marshal to follow the enemy cautiously; then returning to Elvas himself, he directed the third and seventh divisions, which were already at Campo Mayor, to complete the re-investment of Badajos on the right bank.