SECTION 2.
FRENCH PAPERS RELATING TO SOULT’S AND
MARMONT’S OPERATIONS.
Translated. Extracts from Soult’s intercepted despatches.
“Seville, April 14, 1812.
“I enclose copies of a letter from the duke of Ragusa, dated 22d February, and another from general Foy, dated Velvis de Jara, 28th February, which announced positively that three divisions of infantry and one division of cavalry of the army of Portugal would join me if Badajos was attacked; but those divisions, fifteen days afterwards, marched into Old Castile at the moment when they knew that all the English army was moving upon Badajos, and at the instant when I, in virtue of your highness’s (Berthier’s) orders, had sent five regiments of infantry and two of cavalry, and my skeleton regiments to Talavera. It is certain that if those three divisions had remained in the valley of the Tagus the enemy would not have attacked Badajos, where they could have been fought to advantage.
“The contrary has arrived. I have been left to my own forces, which have been reduced by fifteen thousand men, as I have stated above, and not even a military demonstration has been made, much less succour, because the attack on Beira could not influence the siege, and did not.”——“Badajos fell by a ‘coup de fortune,’ because it was not in human foresight to think that five thousand men defending the breach successfully, would suffer a surprise on a point where no attack was directed, and when I was within a few marches with twenty-four thousand men strongly organized.
“If I had received your highness’s letter when I was before the English, I might, although unaided by M. Marmont and numerically inferior, have given battle to save Badajos; but I should probably have been wrong, and I should have lost the force I left in Andalusia, where not only Seville was invested and my communications cut, but a general insurrection was commencing. Happily I heard in time of the fall of Badajos; but I have not even yet opened my communications with New Castile, Grenada, or Malaga. I have, however, prepared in time to deliver a great battle on my own ground—Andalusia.
“The emperor, of course, cannot foresee all things, and in his orders naturally meant that his generals should act with discretion on such occasions; hence if Marmont had only made demonstrations on Beira with a part of his army, and had crossed the Tagus to unite with my troops, the siege would have been raised before the breach was practicable. Marmont had nothing before him, and he knew Wellington had passed the Guadiana and commenced the siege: I say that all the English army had passed the Guadiana, and this was its disposition.
“General Graham commanding the first corps of observation had the sixth and seventh divisions of infantry and Cotton’s cavalry two thousand five hundred strong, with thirty guns. This corps pushed my right wing to Granja and Azagua at the ‘debouche’ of Fuente Ovejuna, while Hill, with the second and third divisions, twelve hundred cavalry under Erskine, and twelve guns, moved on my extreme right in the direction of La Lerena from Belendenzer.
“Wellington carried on the siege in person, having the fourth division, part of the third division, a Portuguese corps; and I am assured he has also two or three thousand Spaniards, which made round the place eighteen thousand men.
“The fifth division remained at first on the right bank of the Tagus with a brigade of cavalry; but they were also called up and came to Elvas on the 4th or 5th of April. The best accounts gave Wellington thirty thousand men, and some make him as high as forty thousand, at the moment when I was before him at Villalba; and if the army of Portugal had joined me with twenty-five thousand men, Badajos would have been saved or retaken: and a great victory would throw the English back into their lines. I was not strong enough alone; and besides the loss I should have suffered, I could not have got back in time to save my troops in Andalusia.