“The English did not hide their knowledge that Marmont was gathering in Leon; but they knew he had no battering-train, and that the wasted state of the country would not permit him to penetrate far into Portugal. So measured, indeed, were their operations, that it is to be supposed they had intercepted some despatch which explained the system of operation and the irresolution of Marmont.
“Your highness tells me I ‘should not have left Hill after his last movement in December on Estremadura, nor have permitted him to take my magazines:’ I say he has taken nothing from me. The advanced guard at Merida lived from day to day on what was sent to them from La Lerena. I know not if some of this has fallen into his hands; but it can be but little. But at this period Wellington wished to besiege Badajos, and only suspended it because of the rain, which would not let him move his artillery, and because three divisions of the army of Portugal were in the valley of the Tagus. If they had remained the siege would not have been undertaken, and Marmont knew this; for on the 22d February he wrote to me to say that, independent of those three divisions under Foy, which he destined to send to the aid of Badajos, he himself would act so as to surmount the difficulties which the state of his munitions opposed to his resolution to defeat the enemy’s projects.
“If your highness looks at the states of the 14th April, you will see that I had not, as you suppose by your letter of 19th February, forty thousand men; I had only thirty-five thousand, including the garrison of Badajos, out of which I had brought with me twenty-four thousand, the rest being employed before Cadiz at Seville, in Grenada and Murcia, and against Ballesteros. You must consider that fifteen days before the English passed the Guadiana I had sent five regiments of infantry, two of cavalry, and many skeletons upon Talavera, in all fifteen thousand men; and since two years I have sent many other skeleton regiments to France, being more than fifteen thousand men changing their destination or worn out, without having yet received the troops from the interior destined for my army, although these are borne on the states: besides which, I have four thousand men unfit for the field, who ought to go to France, but I am forced to employ them in the posts. Ballesteros has, besides the army of Murcia, ten thousand men; and in Murcia the Spaniards are strong, because the fugitives from Valencia had joined two divisions which had not been engaged there, and thus, including the garrisons of Alicant and Carthagena, they had fifteen thousand men. Suchet’s operations have certainly produced great results, but for the moment have hurt me, because all who fly from him come back upon my left flank at a moment when I have only three battalions and four hundred cavalry to oppose them at Grenada only. I have sent my brother there in haste to support them. The English, Portuguese, and Spanish at Cadiz, Gibraltar, and on the ocean could also at any time descend with ten or twelve thousand men on any part of my line, and I want at least as many to oppose them and guard my posts. I may therefore be accused of having carried too many men to the relief of Badajos; and that army was not strong enough, though excellent in quality.
“I cannot hold twenty thousand men, as your highness desires, on the Guadiana, unless I am reinforced, especially since the fall of Badajos; but as soon as I know the English have repassed that river, all my right under d’Erlon, i.e. nine regiments of infantry and four of cavalry, and twelve guns, shall march into the interior of Estremadura, and occupy Medellin, Villafranca, and even Merida, and, if possible, hold in check the garrison of Badajos and the English corps left in Alemtejo, and so prevent any grand movement up the valley of the Tagus against Madrid.
“Since my return here the demonstrations of the English appear directed to invade Andalusia so far as to have obliged me to unfurnish many points, and even in a manner raise the siege of Cadiz, Graham has come to Llerena, and Cotton to Berlanga, where we had an affair and lost sixty men.” “I have ordered d’Erlon to repass the Guadalquivir and come to me to fight the English if they advance; if not, he shall go on again, and I think the English general will not commit the fault of entering the mountains, though he says he will!”
No. IX.
SECTION 1.
SUMMARY OF THE FORCE OF THE ANGLO-PORTUGUESE ARMY AT DIFFERENT PERIODS, EXCLUSIVE OF DRUMMERS AND ARTILLERY-MEN.
| Sabres and bayonets | 51767 |
| Field artillery-men | 1980 |
| Gunners in the batteries | 900 |
| ——— | |
| General Total | 54647 |
| ——— | |
| Note. The heavy German cavalry were in the rear at Estremos, andtwo Portuguese regiments were in Abrantes. | |
TROOPS EMPLOYED AT THE SIEGE OF BADAJOS, APRIL, 1812.