When Drouet had retired to Zafra, Hill received orders from Wellington to drive Girard away from Caceres, that Morillo might forage that country. For this purpose he assembled his corps at Albuquerque on the 23d, and Morillo brought the fifth Spanish army to Aliseda on the Salor. Girard was then at Caceres with an advanced guard at Aroyo de Puerco, but on the 24th Hill occupied Aliseda and Casa de Cantillana, and the Spanish cavalry drove the French from Aroyo de Puerco. The 26th at day-break Hill entered Malpartida de Caceres, and his cavalry pushed back that of the enemy. Girard then abandoned Caceres, but the weather was wet and stormy, and Hill, having no certain knowledge of the enemy’s movements, halted for the night at Malpartida.
On the morning of the 27th the Spaniards entered Caceres; the enemy was tracked to Torre Mocha on the road to Merida; and the British general, hoping to intercept their line of march, pursued by a cross road, through Aldea de Cano and Casa de Don Antonio. During this movement intelligence was received that the French general had halted at Aroyo Molino, leaving a rear-guard at Albala, on the main road to Caceres, which proved that he was ignorant of the new direction taken by the allies, and only looked to a pursuit from Caceres. Hill immediately seized the advantage, and by a forced march reached Alcuesca in the night, being then within a league of Aroyo de Molinos.
This village was situated in a plain, and behind it a sierra or ridge of rocks, rose in the form of a crescent, about two miles wide on the chord. One road led directly from Alcuesca upon Aroyo, another entered it from the left, and three led from it to the right. The most distant of the last was the Truxillo road, which rounded the extremity of the sierra; the nearest was the Merida road, and between them was that of Medellin.
During the night, though the weather was dreadful, no fires were permitted in the allied camp; and at two o’clock in the morning of the 28th, the troops moved to a low ridge, half-a-mile from Aroyo, under cover of which they formed three bodies; the infantry on the wings and the cavalry in the centre. The left column then marched straight upon the village, the right marched towards the extreme point of the sierra, where the road to Truxillo turned the horn of the crescent; the cavalry kept its due place between both.
One brigade of Girard’s division, having marched at four o’clock by the road of Medellin, was already safe, but Dombrouski’s brigade and the cavalry of Briche were still in the place; the horses of the rear-guard, unbridled, were tied to the olive-trees, and the infantry were only gathering to form on the Medellin road outside the village. Girard himself was in his quarters, waiting for his horse, when two British officers galloped down the street, and in an instant all was confusion; the cavalry bridled their horses, and the infantry run to their alarming posts. But a thick mist rolled down the craggy mountain, a terrifying shout, drowning even the clatter of the elements arose on the blast, and with the driving storm came the seventy-first and ninety-second regiments, charging down the street. Then the French rear-guard of cavalry, fighting and struggling hard, were driven to the end of the village, and the infantry, hastily forming their squares, covered the main body of the horsemen which gathered on their left.
The seventy-first immediately lined the garden walls, and opened a galling fire on the nearest square, while the ninety-second filing out of the streets formed upon the French right; the fiftieth regiment closely following, secured the prisoners in the village, and the rest of the column, headed by the Spanish cavalry, skirted the outside of the houses, and endeavoured to intercept the line of retreat. The guns soon opened on the French squares, the thirteenth dragoons captured their artillery, the ninth dragoons and German hussars, charged their cavalry and entirely dispersed it with great loss; but Girard, an intrepid officer, although wounded, still kept his infantry together, and continued his retreat by the Truxillo road. The right column of the allies was however already in possession of that line, the cavalry and artillery were close upon the French flank, and the left column, having re-formed, was again coming up fast; Girard’s men were falling by fifties, and his situation was desperate, yet he would not surrender, but giving the word to disperse, endeavoured to escape by scaling the almost inaccessible rocks of the sierra. His pursuers, not less obstinate, immediately divided. The Spaniards ascended the hills at an easier part beyond his left, the thirty-ninth regiment and Ashworth’s Portuguese turned the mountain by the Truxillo road; the twenty-eighth and thirty-fourth, led by general Howard, followed him step by step up the rocks, and prisoners were taken every moment, until the pursuers, heavily loaded, were unable to continue the trial of speed with men who had thrown away their arms and packs. Girard, Dombrouski, and Briche, escaped at first to San Hernando, and Zorita, in the Guadalupe mountains, after which, crossing the Guadiana at Orellano on the 9th of November, they rejoined Drouet with about six hundred men, the remains of three thousand. They were said to be the finest troops then in Spain, and indeed their resolution not to surrender in such an appalling situation was no mean proof of their excellence.
The trophies of this action were the capture of twelve or thirteen hundred prisoners, including general Bron, and the prince of Aremberg; all the French artillery, baggage, and commissariat, together with a contribution just raised; and during the fight, a Portuguese brigade, being united to Penne Villamur’s cavalry was sent to Merida, where some stores were found. The loss of the allies was not more than seventy killed and wounded, but one officer, lieutenant Strenowitz, was taken. He was distinguished by his courage and successful enterprises, but he was an Austrian, who having abandoned the French army in Spain to join Julian Sanchez’ Partida, was liable to death by the laws of war; having been however originally forced into the French service he was, in reality, no deserter. General Hill, anxious to save him, applied frankly to general Drouet, and such was the latter’s good temper, that while smarting under this disaster he released his prisoner.
Vol. 4 Plate 6.
Explanatory Sketch of
GENL. HILL’S OPERATIONS,
1811.
London. Published by T. & W. BOONE.