The 29th a slight sally, made on the right bank of the river, was repulsed by the Portuguese, but the sap at the San Roque was ruined by the enemy’s fire, and the besieged continued to raise the counter-guard and ravelin of the Trinidad and to strengthen the front attacked. On the other hand the besiegers during the night carried the sap over the Talavera road, and armed two breaching batteries, with eighteen pounders, which the next day opened against the flank of Santa Maria; but they made little impression, and the explosion of an expense magazine killed many men and hurt others.
While the siege was thus proceeding Soult having little fear for the town, but expecting a great battle, was carefully organizing a powerful force to unite with Drouet and Daricau. Those generals had endeavoured to hold the district of La Serena with the view of keeping open the communication with Marmont by Medellin and Truxillo; but Graham and Hill marched against their flanks and forced them into the Morena by the Cordova roads; and on the other side of the country Morillo and Penne Villemur, were lying close on the lower Guadiana waiting their opportunity to fall on Seville when Soult should advance. Nor were there wanting other combinations to embarrass and delay the French marshal; for in February, general Montes being detached, by Ballesteros, from San Roque, had defeated Maransin on the Guadajore river, driving him from Cartama into Malaga. After this the whole of the Spanish army was assembled in the Ronda hills, with a view to fall on Seville by the left of the Guadiana while Morillo assailed it on the right of that river. This had obliged Soult to send troops towards Malaga, and fatally delayed his march to Estremadura.
Meanwhile Marmont was concentrating his army in the Salamanca country, and it was rumoured that he meant to attack Ciudad Rodrigo. Lord Wellington was somewhat disturbed by this information; he knew indeed that the flooding of the rivers in the north, would prevent a blockade, and he was also assured that Marmont had not yet obtained a battering train. But the Spanish generals and engineers had neglected the new works and repairs of Ciudad Rodrigo; even the provisions at St. Joa de Pesquiera had not been brought up; the fortress had only thirty days’ supply, Almeida was in as bad a state, and the grand project of invading Andalusia was likely to be baulked by these embarrassments.
On the 30th Soult’s advance from Cordova being decided, the fifth division was brought over the Guadiana as a reserve to the covering army; but Power’s Portuguese brigade, with some cavalry, of the same nation, still maintained the investment on the right bank, the siege was urged forward very rapidly, forty-eight pieces of artillery were in constant play, and the sap against St. Roque advanced. The enemy was equally active, his fire was very destructive, and his progress in raising the ravelin and counter-guard of the front attacked was very visible.
The 1st of April the sap was pushed close to the1812. April. San Roque, the Trinidad bastion crumbled under the stroke of the bullet, and the flank of the Santa Maria, which was casemated and had hitherto resisted the batteries, also began to yield. The 2d the face of the Trinidad was very much broken, but at the Santa Maria the casemates being laid open, the bullets were lost in their cavities, and the garrison commenced a retrenchment to cut off the whole of the attacked front, from the town.
In the night a new battery against the San Roque was armed, and two officers with some sappers gliding behind that outwork, gagged the sentinel, placed powder-barrels and a match against the dam of the inundation, and retired undiscovered, but the explosion did not destroy the dam, and the inundation remained. Nor did the sap make progress, because of the French musketeers; for though the marksmen set against them slew many they were reinforced by means of a raft with parapets, which crossed the inundation, and men also passed by the cloth communication from the Trinidad gate.
On the 3d some guns were turned against the curtain behind the San Roque, but the masonry proved hard, ammunition was scarce, and as a breach there would have been useless, while the inundation remained, the fire was soon discontinued. The two breaches in the bastion were now greatly enlarged and the besieged assiduously laboured at the retrenchments behind them, and converted the nearest houses and garden walls into a third line of defence. All the houses behind the front next the castle were also thrown down, and a battery of five guns, intended to flank the ditch and breach of the Trinidad, was commenced on the castle hill, but outside the wall; the besiegers therefore traced out a counter-battery, of fourteen Shrapnel howitzers, to play upon that point during the assault.
The crisis of the siege was now approaching rapidly. The breaches were nearly practicable, Soult, having effected a junction with Drouet and Daricau, was advancing; and as the allies were not in sufficient force to assault the place and give battle at the same time, it was resolved to leave two divisions in the trenches, and to fight at Albuera with the remainder. Graham therefore fell back towards that place, and Hill having destroyed the bridge at Merida, marched from the Upper Guadiana to Talavera Real.
Time being now, as in war it always is, a great object, the anxiety on both sides redoubled; but Soult was still at Llerena, when on the morning of the 5th the breaches were declared practicable, and the assault ordered for that evening. Leith’s division was even recalled to the camp to assist, when a careful personal examination of the enemy’s retrenchments caused some doubt in lord Wellington’s mind, and he delayed the storm, until a third breach, as originally projected, should be formed in the curtain between the bastions of Trinidad and Maria. This could not, however, be commenced before morning, and during the night the enemy’s workmen laboured assiduously at their retrenchments, regardless of the showers of grape with which the besiegers’ batteries scoured the ditch and the breach. But the 6th, the besiegers’ guns being all turned against the curtain, the bad masonry crumbled rapidly away, in two hours a yawning breach appeared, and Wellington, having again examined the points of attack in person, renewed the order for the assault. Then the soldiers eagerly made themselves ready for a combat, so fiercely fought, so terribly won, so dreadful in all its circumstances, that posterity can scarcely be expected to credit the tale; but many are still alive who know that it is true.
The British general was so sensible of Phillipon’s firmness and of the courage of his garrison, that he spared them the affront of a summons, yet seeing the breach strongly entrenched, and the enemy’s flank fire, still powerful, he would not in this dread crisis, trust his fortune to a single effort. Eighteen thousand daring soldiers burned for the signal of attack, and as he was unwilling to lose the service of any, to each division he gave a task such as few generals would have the hardihood even to contemplate.