Girard was only deprived of his division, which was given to general Barois, yet in a military point of view his offence was unpardonable. He knew two or three days before, that general Hill was near him; he knew that there was a good road from Malpartida to Alcuesca, because he had himself passed it coming from Caceres; and yet he halted at Aroyo de Molino without necessity, and without sending out even a patrole upon his flank, thus sacrificing two thousand brave men. Napoleon’s clemency was therefore great, and yet not misplaced, for Girard, afterwards, repaid it by his devotion at the battle of Lutzen when the emperor’s star was on the wane. On the other hand general Hill neglected no precaution, let no advantage escape; and to good arrangements added celerity of movement, with the utmost firmness and vigour of execution. His troops seconded him as he merited; and here was made manifest the advantage of possessing the friendship of a people so strongly influenced by the instincts of revenge as the Peninsulars; for, during the night of the 27th, every Spaniard in Aroyo, as well as in Alcuesca, knew that the allies were at hand, and not one was found so base or so indiscreet as to betray the fact.
This blow being struck, Hill returned to his old1811. Nov. quarters, and the Spanish troops fell back behind the Salor, but the report of Girard’s disaster set all the French corps in motion. Drouet reoccupied Caceres with a thousand men; Foy passed the Tagus at Almaraz on the 15th of November, and moved to Truxillo; a convoy entered Badajos from Zafra on the 12th, a second on the 20th, and Soult, while collecting troops in Seville, directed Phillipon to plant all the ground under the guns at Badajos with potatoes and corn. Every thing seemed to indicate a powerful attack upon Hill, when a serious disturbance amongst the Polish troops, at Ronquillo, obliged Soult to detach men from Seville to quell it. When that was effected, a division ofMr. Stuart’s papers, MSS. four thousand entered Estremadura, and Drouet, whose corps was thus raised to fourteen thousand infantry and three thousand cavalry, on the 5th of December advanced to Almendralejos, and the 18th his advanced guard occupied Merida. At the same time Marmont concentrated part of his army at Toledo, from whence Montbrun, as we have seen, was directed to aid Suchet at Valencia, and Soult with the same view sent ten thousand men to the Despeños Peros.
Drouet’s movements were, however, again stopped1811. Dec. by some insubordination in the fifth corps. And as it was now known that Soult’s principal object was to destroy Ballesteros, and take Tarifa, Hill again advanced, partly to protect Morillo from Drouet, partly to save the resources of Estremadura, partly to make a diversion in favour of Ballesteros and Tarifa, and in some sort also for Valencia. With this view he entered Estremadura by Albuquerque on the 27th of December, and having received information that the French, untaught by their former misfortunes were not vigilant, he made a forced march in hopes to surprise them. On the 28th he passed Villar del Rey and San Vincente and reached Nava de Membrillos, where he fell in with three hundred French infantry, and a few hussars, part of a foraging party, the remainder of which was at a village two leagues distant. A patrole gave an alarm, the French retreated towards Merida, and were closely followed by four hundred of the allied cavalry, who had orders to make every effort to stop their march; but to use the words of general Hill, “the intrepid and admirable manner in which the enemy retreated, the infantry formed in square, and favoured as he was by the nature of the country of which he knew how to take the fullest advantage, prevented the cavalry alone from effecting any thing against him.” Captain Neveux, the able officer who commanded on this occasion, reached Merida with a loss of only forty men, all killed or wounded by the fire of the artillery; but the French at Merida immediately abandoned their unfinished works, and evacuated that town in the night, leaving behind some bread and a quantity of wheat.
From Merida, Hill, intending to fight Drouet,1812. January marched on the 1st of January to Almendralejos, where he captured another field store; but the French general, whose troops were scattered, fell back towards Zafra; the weather was so bad, and the roads so deep, that general Hill with the main body halted while colonel Abercrombie with a detachment of Portuguese and German cavalry followed the enemy’s rear-guard. Meanwhile Phillipon, who never lost an advantage, sent, either the detachment which had escorted the convoy to Badajos, or some Polish troops with whom he was discontented, down the Portuguese frontier on the right of the Guadiana, by Moura, Mourao, and Serpe, with orders to drive the herds of cattle from those places into the sierra Morena.
Abercrombie reached Fuente del Maestro, on the evening of the 3d, where, meeting with a stout squadron of the enemy, a stiff charge took place, and the French out-numbered and flanked on both sides were overthrown with a loss of thirty men. But Drouet was now in full retreat for Monasterio, and Morillo moving upon Medellin, took post at San Benito. Thus the allies remained masters of Estremadura until the 13th of January, when Marmont’s divisions moved by the valley of the Tagus towards the eastern frontier of Portugal; Hill then returned to Portalegre and sent a division over the Tagus to Castello Branco. Drouet immediately returned to Llerena and his cavalry supported by a detachment of infantry marched against Morillo, but that general, instead of falling back when Hill did, had made a sudden incursion to La Mancha, and was then attacking the castle of Almagro. There, however, he was so completely defeated by general Treillard that, flying to Horcajo in the Guadaloupe mountains, although he reached it on the 18th, his fugitives were still coming in on the 21st, and his army remained for a long time in the greatest disorder.
CHAPTER V.
While the events, recorded in the foregoing1811. Nov. chapter, were passing in Estremadura, the south of Andalusia was the scene of more important operations. Soult, persisting in his design against Tarifa, had given orders to assemble a battering train, and directed general Laval with a strong division of the 4th corps to move from Antequera upon San Roque. Skerrett was then menacing the communications of general Semélé on the side of Vejer de Frontera, and Ballesteros had obtained some success against that general at Bornos on the 5th of November; but Skerrett finding that Copons instead of four thousand had only brought seven hundred men, returned to Tarifa on the approach of some French from Conil.
Semélé, being thus reinforced, obliged Ballesteros, on the 27th, again to take refuge under the walls of Gibraltar, which he reached just in time, to avoid a collision with Laval’s column from Antequera. Semélé’s troops did not follow very close, and a combined attack upon Laval by the divisions of Ballesteros, Skerrett, and Copons, was projected. The two latter with a part of the troops under Ballesteros, were actually embarked on the 29th of November for the purpose of landing at Manilba, in pursuance of this scheme, when Semélé’s column came in sight, and Skerrett and Copons instantly returned to Tarifa.
Ballesteros remained at Gibraltar, a heavy1811. Dec. burthen upon that fortress, and his own troops without shelter from the winter rain, wherefore general Campbell proposed to send them, in British vessels, to renew the attempt against Malaga, which had formerly failed under Lord Blayney. On the 12th of January, at the very moment of embarking, the French retired from before Gibraltar, by the Puerto de Ojen, a grand pass connecting the plains of Gibraltar and the vallies of the Guadaranque, with the great and rich plain called the Campiña de Tarifa; and with the gorge of Los Pedragosos, which is the eastern entrance to the pastures called the Vega de Tarifa. This movement was preparatory to the siege of Tarifa; and as the battering train was already within five leagues of that place, Skerrett proposed to seize it by a combined operation from Cadiz, Tarifa, Gibraltar, and Los Barios, where Ballesteros had now taken post. This combination was however on too wide a scale to be adopted in all its parts; Ballesteros indeed fell on the enemy by surprise at the pass of Ojen, and Skerrett and Copons received orders from general Campbell to take advantage of this diversion; but the former, seeing that his own plan was not adopted to its full extent, would not stir, and the Spaniards after a skirmish of six hours retired. Laval then left fifteen hundred men to observe Ballesteros, and placing a detachment at Vejes to cover his right flank, threaded Los Pedragosos and advanced against Tarifa.