History of the war in the Peninsula and in the south of France from the year 1807 to the year 1814, vol. 3

by William Francis Patrick Napier

To resolve on battle was, however, easier than to prepare for it with skill. Albuera, we have seen, was the point of concentration. Colonel Colborne’s brigade did not arrive until the 14th, and these was no certainty that it could arrive before the enemy did. Blake did not arrive until three in the morning of the 16th. The fourth division not until six o’clock. Kemmis with three fine British regiments, and Maddens cavalry, did not come at all. These facts prove that the whole plan was faulty, it was mere accident that a sufficient force to give battle was concentrated. Beresford was too late, and the keeping up the investment of Badajos, although laudable in one sense, was a great error; it was only an accessary, and yet the success of the principal object was made subservient to it. If Soult, instead of passing by Villa Franca, in his advance, had pushed straight on from Los Santos to Albuera, he would have arrived the 15th, when Beresford had not much more than half his force in position; the point of concentration would then have been lost, and the allies scattered in all directions. If the French had even continued their march by Solano instead of turning upon Albuera, they must inevitably have communicated with Badajos, unless Beresford had fought without waiting for Blake, and without Kemmis’s brigade. Why, then, did the French marshal turn out of the way to seek a battle, in preference to attaining his object without one? and why did he neglect to operate by his right or left until the unwieldy allied army should separate or get into confusion, as it inevitably would have done? Because the English general’s dispositions were so faulty that no worse error could well be expected from him, and Soult had every reason to hope for a great and decided victory; a victory which would have more than counterbalanced Massena’s failure. He knew that only one half of the allied force was at Albuera on the 15th, and when he examined the ground, every thing promised the most complete success.

Marshal Beresford had fixed upon and studied his own field of battle above a month before the action took place, and yet occupied it in such a manner as to render defeat almost certain; his infantry were not held in hand, and his inferiority in guns and cavalry was not compensated for by entrenchments. But were any other proofs of error wanting, this fact would suffice, he had a greater strength of infantry on a field of battle scarcely four miles long, and three times the day was lost and won, the allies being always fewest in number at the decisive point. It is true that Blake’s conduct was very perplexing; it is true that general William Stewart’s error cost one brigade, and thus annihilated the command of colonel Colborne, a man capable of turning the fate of a battle even with fewer troops than those swept away from him by the French cavalry: but the neglect of the hill beyond the Albuera, fronting the right of the position, was Beresford’s own error and a most serious one; so also were the successive attacks of the brigades, and the hesitation about the fourth division. And where are we to look for that promptness in critical moments which marks the great commander? It was colonel Hardinge that gave the fourth division and Abercrombie’s brigade orders to advance, and it was their astounding valour in attack, and the astonishing firmness of Houghton’s brigade in defence that saved the day; the person of the general-in-chief was indeed seen every where, a gallant soldier! but the mind of the great commander was seen no where.

Beresford remained master of the field of battle, but he could not take Badajos, that prize was the result of many great efforts, and many deep combinations by a far greater man: neither did he clear Estremadura, for Soult maintained positions from Llerena to Usagre. What then did he gain? The power of simulating a renewal of the siege, and holding his own cantonments on the left bank of the Guadiana; I say simulating, for, if the third and seventh divisions had not arrived from Beira, even the investment could not have been completed. These illusive advantages he purchased at the price of seven thousand men. Now lord Wellington fought two general and several minor actions, with a smaller loss, and moreover turned Massena and seventy thousand men out of Portugal!

Such being the fruit of victory, what would have been the result of defeat? There was no retreat, save by the temporary bridge of Jerumenha, but, had the hill on the right been carried in the battle, the Valverde road would have been in Soult’s possession, and the line of retreat cut; and, had it been otherwise, Beresford, with four thousand victorious French cavalry at his heels, could never have passed the river. Back, then, must have come the army from the north, the Lines of Lisbon would have been once more occupied—a French force fixed on the south of the Tagus—Spain ruined—Portugal laid prostrate—England in dismay. Could even the genius of lord Wellington have recovered such a state of affairs? And yet, with these results, the terrible balance hung for two hours, and twice trembling to the sinister side, only yielded at last to the superlative vigour of the fuzileers. The battle should never have been fought. The siege of Badajos could not have been renewed without reinforcements, and, with them, it could have been renewed without an action, or at least without risking an unequal one.

But would even the bravery of British soldiers have saved the day, at Albuera, if the French general had not also committed great errors. His plan of attack and his execution of it, up to the moment when the Spanish line fell back in disorder, cannot be too much admired; after that, the great error of fighting in dense columns being persisted in beyond reason, lost the fairest field ever offered to the arms of France. Had the fifth corps opened out while there was time to do so, that is, between the falling back of the Spaniards and the advance of Houghton’s brigade, what on earth could have saved Beresford from a total defeat? The fire of the enemy’s columns alone destroyed two-thirds of his British troops; the fire of their lines would have swept away all!

It has been said that Latour Maubourg and Godinot did not second Soult with sufficient vigour; the latter certainly did not display any great energy, but the village was maintained by Alten’s Germans, who were good and hardy troops, and well backed up by a great body of Portuguese. Latour Maubourg’s movements seem to have been objected to without reason. He took six guns, sabred many Spaniards, and overthrew a whole brigade of the British, without ceasing to keep in check their cavalry. He was, undoubtedly, greatly superior in numbers, but general Lumley handled the allied squadrons with skill and courage, and drew all the advantage possible from his situation, and, in the choice of that situation, none can deny ability to marshal Beresford. The rising ground behind the horsemen, the bed of the Aroya in their front, the aid of the horse-artillery, and the support of the fourth division, were all circumstances of strength so well combined that nothing could be better, and they dictated Latour Maubourg’s proceedings, which seem consonant to true principles. If he had charged in mass, under the fire of Lefebre’s guns, he must have been thrown into confusion in passing the Aroya at the moment when the fourth division, advancing along the slopes, would have opened a musketry on his right flank; Lumley could then have charged, or retired up the hill, according to circumstances. In this case, great loss might have been sustained, and nothing very decisive could have accrued to the advantage of the French, because no number of cavalry, if unsustained by infantry and artillery, can make a serious impression against the three arms united.

On the other hand, a repulse might have been fatal not only to himself but to the French infantry on the hill, as their left would have been open to the enterprises of the allied cavalry. If Latour Maubourg had stretched away to his own left, he would, in like manner, have exposed the flank of Soult’s infantry, and his movements would have been eccentric, and contrary to sound principles; and, (in the event of a disaster to the corps on the hill, as really happened,) destructive to the safety of the retreating army. By keeping in mass on the plain, and detaching squadrons from time to time, as favourable opportunities offered for partial charges, he gained, as we have seen, great advantages during the action, and kept his troopers well in hand for the decisive moment; finally, he covered the retreat of the beaten infantry. Still it may be admitted that, with such superior numbers, he might have more closely pressed Lumley.

When Soult had regained the hills at the other side of the Albuera, the battle ceased, each side being, as we have seen, so hardly handled that neither offered to renew the fight. Here was the greatest failure of the French commander; he had lost eight thousand men, but he had still fifteen thousand under arms, and his artillery and his cavalry were comparatively untouched. On the side of the allies, only fifteen hundred British infantry were standing; the troops were suffering greatly from famine; the Spaniards had been feeding on horseflesh, and were so extenuated by continual fatigue and misery, that, for several days previous to the battle, they had gone over in considerable numbers even to the French, hoping thus to get food: these circumstances should be borne in mind, when reflecting on their conduct in the battle; under such a commander as Blake, and, while enduring such heavy privations, it was a great effort of resolution, and honourable to them that they fought at all. Their resistance feeble, when compared to the desperate valour of the British, was by no means weak in itself or infirm; nor is it to be wondered at that men so exhausted and so ill-managed should have been deaf to the call of Beresford, a strange general, whose exhortations they probably did not understand. When the fortune of the day changed they followed the fuzileers with alacrity, and at no period did they give way with dishonour.

Nevertheless, all circumstances considered, they were not and could not be equal to a second desperate struggle, a renewed attack on the 17th, would have certainly ended in favour of the French; and so conscious was Beresford of this, that, on the evening of the 16th, he wrote to lord Wellington, avowing that he anticipated a certain and ruinous defeat the next day. The resolution with which he maintained the position notwithstanding, was the strongest indication of military talent he gave during the whole of his operations; had Soult only persisted in holding his position with equal pertinacity, Beresford must have retired. It was a great and decided mistake of the French marshal not to have done so. There is nothing more essential in war than a confident front; a general should never acknowledge himself vanquished, for the front line of an army always looks formidable, and the adversary can seldom see the real state of what is behind. The importance of this maxim is finely indicated in Livy, where he relates that, after a drawn battle, a god called out in the night, the Etruscans had lost one man more than the Romans! Hereupon the former retired, and the latter, remaining on the field, gathered all the fruits of a real victory.