Massena, sagacious and well understanding his business, only desired that the attempt should be made. He held back his troops, appeared careless, and in his proclamations taunted the English general, that he was afraid!—that the sails were flapping on the ships prepared to carry him away—that he was a man, who, insensible to military honour, permitted his ally’s towns to fall without risking a shot to save them, or to redeem his plighted word! But all this subtlety failed; lord Wellington was unmoved, and abided his own time. “If thou art a great general, Marius, come down and fight! If thou art a great general, Silo, make me come down and fight!”
Ciudad Rodrigo left to its fate, held out yet a little longer, and meanwhile the enemy pushing infantry on to the Azava; Carrera retired to the Dos Casas river, and Crawfurd, reinforced with the sixteenth and fourteenth light dragoons, placed his cavalry at Gallegos, and concentrated his infantry in the wood of Alameda, two miles in rear. From thence he could fall back, either to the bridge of Almeida by San Pedro or to the bridge of Castello Bom by Villa Formosa. Obstinate however not to relinquish a foot of ground that he could keep either by art or force, he disposed his troops in single ranks on the rising grounds, in the evening of the 2d of July, and then sending some horsemen to the rear to raise the dust, marched the ranks of infantry in succession, and slowly, within sight of the enemy, hoping that the latter would imagine the whole army was come up to succour Ciudad Rodrigo. He thus gained two days; but, on the 4th of July, a strong body of the enemy assembled at Marialva, and a squadron of horse, crossing the ford below that bridge, pushed at full speed towards Gallegos driving back the picquets. The enemy then passed the river, and the British retired skirmishing upon Alameda, leaving two guns, a troop of British and a troop of German hussars to cover the movement. This rear-guard drew up on a hill half-cannon shot from a streamlet with marshy banks, which crossed the road to Alameda; in a few moments a column of French horsemen was observed coming on at a charging pace, diminishing its front as it approached the bridge, but resolute to pass, and preserving the most perfect order, notwithstanding some well-directed shots from the guns. Captain Kraüchenberg, of the hussars, proposed to charge. The English officer did not conceive his orders warranted it; and the gallant German rode full speed against the head of the advancing columns with his single troop, and with such a shock, that he killed the leading officers, overthrew the front ranks, and drove the whole back. Meanwhile the enemy crossed the stream at other points, and a squadron coming close up to Alameda was driven off by a volley from the third caçadores.
This skirmish not being followed up by the enemy, Crawfurd took a fresh post with his infantry and guns in a wood near Fort Conception. His cavalry, reinforced by Julian Sanchez and Carrera’s divisions, were disposed higher up on the Duas Casas, and the French withdrew behind the Azava, leaving only a piquet at Gallegos. Their marauding parties however entered the villages of Barquillo and Villa de Puerco for three nights successively; and Crawfurd, thinking to cut them off, formed an ambuscade in a wood near Villa de Puerco with six squadrons, another of three squadrons near Barquillo, and disposed his artillery, five companies of the ninety-fifth and the third caçadores in reserve, for the enemy were again in force at Gallegos and even in advance of it.
A little after day-break, on the 11th, two French parties were observed, the one of infantry near Villa de Puerco, the other of cavalry at Barquillo. An open country on the right would have enabled the six squadrons to get between the infantry in Villa de Puerco and their point of retreat. This was circuitous, and Crawfurd preferred pushing straight through a stone enclosure as the shortest road: the enclosure proved difficult, the squadrons were separated, and the French, two hundred strong, had time to draw up in square on a rather steep rise of land; yet so far from the edge, as not to be seen until the ascent was gained. The two squadrons which first arrived, galloped in upon them, and the charge was rough and pushed home, but failed. The troopers received the fire of the square in front and on both sides, and in passing saw and heard the French captain Guache and his serjeant-major exhorting the men to shoot carefully.
Scarcely was this charge over when the enemy’s cavalry came out of Barquillos, and the two squadrons riding against it, made twenty-nine men and two officers prisoners, a few being also wounded. Meanwhile colonel Talbot mounting the hill with four squadrons of the fourteenth dragoons, bore gallantly in upon captain Guache; but the latter again opened such a fire, that Talbot himself and fourteen men went down close to the bayonets, and the stout Frenchman made good his retreat; after which Crawfurd returned to the camp, having had thirty-two troopers, besides the colonel, killed or wounded in this unfortunate affair. That day Ciudad Rodrigo surrendered, and the Spanish troops, grieved and irritated, separated from the light division, and marching by the pass of Perales, rejoined Romana; but Crawfurd assumed a fresh position, a mile and a half from Almeida, and demanded a reinforcement of two battalions. Lord Wellington replied that he would give him two divisions, if he could hold his ground; but that he could not do so; yet, knowing the temper of the man, he repeated his former orders not to fight beyond the Coa.
On the 21st, the enemy’s cavalry again advanced, Fort Conception was blown up, and Crawfurd fell back to Almeida, apparently disposed to cross the Coa. Yet nothing was further from his thoughts. Braving the whole French army, he had kept with a weak division, for three months, within two hours march, of sixty thousand men, appropriating the resources of the plains entirely to himself; but this exploit, only to be appreciated by military men, did not satisfy his feverish thirst of distinction. Hitherto he had safely affronted a superior power, and forgetting that his stay beyond the Coa was a matter of sufferance, not real strength, with headstrong ambition, he resolved, in defiance of reason and of the reiterated orders of his general, to fight on the right bank.
COMBAT OF THE COA.
Crawfurd’s whole force under arms consisted of four thousand infantry, eleven hundred cavalry, and six guns, and his position, one mile and a half in length, extended in an oblique line towards the Coa. The cavalry piquets were upon the plain in his front, his right on some broken ground, and his left resting on an unfinished tower, eight hundred yards from Almeida, was defended by the guns of that fortress; but his back was on the edge of the ravine forming the channel of the Coa, and the bridge was more than a mile distant, in the bottom of the chasm.
A stormy night ushered in the 24th of July. The troops, drenched with rain, were under arms before day-light, expecting to retire, when a few pistol shots in front, followed by an order for the cavalry reserves and the guns to advance, gave notice of the enemy’s approach; and as the morning cleared, twenty-four thousand French infantry, five thousand cavalry, and thirty pieces of artillery were observed marching beyond the Turones. The British line was immediately contracted and brought under the edge of the ravine; but meanwhile Ney, who had observed Crawfurd’s false disposition, came down with the stoop of an eagle. Four thousand horsemen and a powerful artillery swept the plain. The allied cavalry gave back, and Loison’s division coming up at a charging pace, made towards the centre and left of the position.