History of the war in the Peninsula and in the south of France from the year 1807 to the year 1814, vol. 5

by William Francis Patrick Napier

The guns opening upon the French squares killed thirty or forty men, and the English horsemen charged, but horsemen are no match for such infantry whose courage and discipline nothing could quell; they fell before the round shot, and nearly one hundred died in the ranks without a wound, from the intolerable heat, yet the cavalry made no impression on those dauntless soldiers, and in the face of thirty thousand enemies they made their way to Babila Fuente where they were joined by general Lefol with the troops from Alba, and finally the whole disappeared from the sight of their admiring and applauding opponents. Nevertheless two hundred had sunk dead in the ranks, a like number unable to keep up were made prisoners, and a leading gun having been overturned in the defile of Aldea Lengua, six others were retarded and the whole fell in the allies’ hands together with their tumbrils.

The line of the Tormes being thus gained the allied troops were on the 27th and 28th pushed forward with their left towards Miranda and Zamora, and their right towards Toro; so placed the latter covered the communications with Ciudad Rodrigo while the former approached the point on the Duero where it was proposed to throw the bridge for communication with Graham’s corps. This done Wellington left general Hill in command, and went off suddenly, for he was uneasy about his combinations on the Esla. On the 29th he passed the Duero at Miranda, by means of a basket slung on a rope which was stretched from rock to rock, the river foaming several hundred feet below. The 30th he reached Carvajales.

Graham had met with many difficulties in his march through the rugged Tras os Montes, and though the troops were now close to the Esla stretching from Carvajales to Tabara, and their left was in communication with the Gallicians who were coming down to Benevente, the combination had been in some measure thwarted by the difficulty of crossing the Esla. The general combination required that river to be passed on the 29th, at which time the right wing, continuing its march from the Tormes without halting, could have been close to Zamora, and the passage of the Duero would have been insured. The French armies would then have been entirely surprised and separated, and some of their divisions overtaken and beaten. They were indeed still ignorant that a whole army was on the Esla, but the opposite bank of that river was watched by picquets of cavalry and infantry, the stream was full and rapid, the banks steep, the fords hard to find, difficult, and deep, with stony beds, and the alarm had spread from the Tormes through all the cantonments.

At day-break on the 31st some squadrons of hussars, with infantry holding by their stirrups, entered the stream at the ford of Almendra, and at the same time Graham approached the right bank with all his forces. A French picquet of thirty men was surprised in the village of Villa Perdrices by the hussars, the pontoons were immediately laid down, and the columns commenced passing, but several men, even of the cavalry, had been drowned at the fords.

June. On the 1st of June, while the rear was still on the Esla, the head of the allies entered Zamora which the French evacuated after destroying the bridge. They retired upon Toro, and the next day having destroyed the bridge there also, they again fell back, but their rear-guard was overtaken near the village of Morales by the hussar brigade under colonel Grant. Their horsemen immediately passed a bridge and swamp under a cannonade, and then facing about in two lines, gave battle, whereupon major Roberts with the tenth regiment, supported by the fifteenth, broke both the lines with one charge and pursued them for two miles, and they lost above two hundred men, but finally rallied on the infantry reserves.

The junction of the allies’ wings on the Duero was now secure, for that river was fordable, and Wellington had also, in anticipation of failure on one point, made arrangements for forming a boat-bridge below the confluence of the Esla; and he could also throw his pontoons without difficulty at Toro, and even in advance, because Julian Sanchez had surprised a cavalry picquet at Castronuño on the left bank, and driven the French outposts from the fords of Pollos. But the enemy’s columns were concentrating, it might be for a battle, wherefore the English general halted the 3d to bring the Gallicians in conjunction on his left, and to close up his own rear which had been retarded by the difficulty of passing the Esla. The two divisions of his right wing, namely, the second and light division, passed the Duero on the morning of the 3rd, the artillery and baggage by a ford, the infantry at the bridge of Toro, which was ingeniously repaired by the lieutenant of engineers Pringle, who dropped ladders at each side of the broken arch, and then laid planks from one to the other just above the water level. Thus the English general mastered the line of the Duero, and those who understand war may say whether it was an effort worthy of the man and his army.

Let them trace all the combinations, follow the movement of Graham’s columns, some of which marched one hundred and fifty, some more than two hundred and fifty miles, through the wild districts of the Tras os Montes. Through those regions, held to be nearly impracticable even for small corps, forty thousand men, infantry, cavalry, artillery, and pontoons, had been carried and placed as if by a supernatural power upon the Esla, before the enemy knew even that they were in movement! Was it fortune or skill that presided? Not fortune, for the difficulties were such that Graham arrived later on the Esla than Wellington intended, and yet so soon, that the enemy could make no advantage of the delay. For had the king even concentrated his troops behind the Esla on the 31st, the Gallicians would still have been at Benevente and reinforced by Penne Villemur’s cavalry which had marched with Graham’s corps, and the Asturians would have been at Leon on the Upper Esla which was fordable. Then the final passage of that river could have been effected by a repetition of the same combinations on a smaller scale, because the king’s army would not have been numerous enough to defend the Duero against Hill, the Lower Esla against Wellington, and the Upper Esla against the Spaniards at the same time. Wellington had also, as we have seen, prepared the means of bringing Hill’s corps or any part of it over the Duero below the confluence of the Esla, and all these combinations, these surprising exertions had been made merely to gain a fair field of battle.

But if Napoleon’s instructions had been ably worked out by the king during the winter, this great movement could not have succeeded, for the insurrection in the north would have been crushed in time, or at least so far quelled, that sixty thousand French infantry, ten thousand cavalry, and one hundred pieces of artillery would have been disposable, and such a force held in an offensive position on the Tormes would probably have obliged Wellington to adopt a different plan of campaign. If concentrated between the Duero and the Esla it would have baffled him on that river, because operations which would have been effectual against thirty-five thousand infantry would have been powerless against sixty thousand. Joseph indeed complained that he could not put down the insurrection in the north, that he could not feed such large armies, that a thousand obstacles arose on every side which he could not overcome, in fine that he could not execute his brother’s instructions. They could have been executed notwithstanding. Activity, the taking time by the forelock, would have quelled the insurrection; and for the feeding of the troops, the boundless plains called the “Tierras de Campos,” where the armies were now operating, were covered with the ripening harvest; the only difficulty was to subsist that part of the French army not engaged in the northern provinces during the winter. Joseph could not find the means though Soult told him they were at hand, because the difficulties of his situation overpowered him; they would not have overpowered Napoleon, but the difference between a common general and a great captain is immense, the one is victorious when the other is defeated.

The field was now clear for the shock of battle, but the forces on either side were unequally matched. Wellington had ninety thousand men, with more than one hundred pieces of artillery. Twelve thousand were cavalry, and the British and Portuguese present with the colours, were, including serjeants and drummers, above seventy thousand sabres and bayonets; the rest of the army was Spanish. Besides this mass there were the irregulars on the wings, Sanchez’ horsemen, a thousand strong, on the right beyond the Duero; Porlier, Barceña, Salazar and Manzo on the left between the Upper Esla and the Carion. Saornil had moved upon Avila, the Empecinado was hovering about Leval. Finally the reserve of Andalusia had crossed the Tagus at Almaraz on the 30th, and numerous minor bands were swarming round as it advanced. On the other hand though the French could collect nine or ten thousand horsemen and one hundred guns, their infantry was less than half the number of the allies, being only thirty-five thousand strong exclusive of Leval. Hence the way to victory was open, and on the 4th Wellington marched forward with a conquering violence.