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

If all these works and a road, which Marmont, following the traces of an ancient Roman way, was now opening across the Gredos mountains had been finished, the communication of the French, although circuitous, would have been very good and secure. Indeed Wellington fearing the accomplishment, intended to have surprised the French at Almaraz previous to the siege of Badajos, when the redoubts were far from complete, but the Portuguese government neglected to furnish the means of transporting the artillery from Lisbon, and he was baffled. General Hill was now ordered to attempt it with a force of six thousand men, including four hundred cavalry, two field brigades of artillery, a pontoon equipage, and a battering train of six iron twenty-four pound howitzers.

May. The enterprize at all times difficult was become one of extreme delicacy. When the army was round Badajos, only the resistance of the forts themselves was to be looked for; now Foy’s division of the army of Portugal had returned to the valley of the Tagus, and was in no manner fettered, and d’Armagnac, with troops from the army of the centre, occupied Talavera. Drouet also was, with eight or nine thousand men of the army of the south, at Hinojosa de Cordoba, his cavalry was on the roadSee Plan, No. 1. to Medellin, he was nearer to Merida than Hill was to Almaraz, he might intercept the latter’s retreat, and the king’s orders were imperative that he should hang upon the English army in Estremadura. Soult could also detach a corps fromJoseph’s Correspondence, MSS. Seville by St. Ollala to fall upon sir William Erskine, who was posted with the cavalry and the remainder of Hill’s infantry, near Almendralejo. However lord Wellington placed general Graham near Portalegre, with the first and sixth divisions, and Cotton’s cavalry, all of which had crossed the Tagus for the occasion, and thus including Erskine’s corps, above twenty thousand men were ready to protect Hill’s enterprize.

Drouet by a rapid march might still interpose between Hill and Erskine, and beat them in detail before Graham could support them, wherefore the English general made many other arrangements to deceive the enemy. First, he chose the moment of action when Soult having sent detachments in various directions, to restore his communications in Andalusia, had marched himself with a division to Cadiz, and was consequently unfavourably placed for a sudden movement. Secondly, by rumours adroitly spread, and by demonstrations with the Portuguese militia of the Alemtejo, he caused the French to believe that ten thousand men were moving down the Guadiana, towards the Niebla, preparatory to the invasion of Andalusia, a notion upheld by the assembling of so many troops under Graham, by the pushing of cavalry parties towards the Morena, and by restoring the bridge at Merida, with the avowed intention of sending Hill’s battering and pontoon train, which had been formed at Elvas, to Almendralejo. Finally, many exploring officers, taking the roads leading to the province of Cordoba, made ostentatious inquiries about the French posts at Belalcazar and other places, and thus every thing seemed to point at Andalusia.

The restoration of the bridge at Merida proving unexpectedly difficult, cost a fortnight’s labour, for two arches having been destroyed the opening was above sixty feet wide, and large timber was scarce. Hill’s march was thus dangerously delayed, but on the 12th of May, the repairs being effected and all else being ready, he quitted Almendralejo, passed the Guadiana, at Merida, with near six thousand men and twelve field-pieces, and joined his pontoons and battering train. These last had come by the way of Montijo, and formed a considerable convoy, nearly fifty country carts, besides the guns and limber carriages, being employed to convey the pontoons, the ladders, and the ammunition for the howitzers.

The 13th the armament reached the Burdalo river on the road to Truxillo; the 14th it was at Villa Mesias; the 15th at Truxillo. Meanwhile, to mislead the enemy on the right bank of the Tagus the guerillas of the Guadalupe mountains made demonstrations at different points between Almaraz and Arzobispo, as if they were seeking a place to cast a bridge that Hill might join lord Wellington. General Foy was deceived by these operations, and though his spies at Truxillo had early informed him of the passage of the Guadiana by the allies, they led him to believe that HillFoy’s Official Correspondence, MSS. had fifteen thousand men, and that two brigades of cavalry were following in his rear; one report even stated that thirty thousand men had entered Truxillo, whereas there were less than six thousand of all arms.

Hill having reached Jaraicejo early on the 16th, formed his troops in three columns, and made a night march, intending to attack by surprise and at the same moment, the tower of Mirabete, the fortified house in the pass, and the forts at the bridge of Almaraz. The left column, directed against the tower, was commanded by general Chowne. The centre column, with the dragoons and the artillery, moved by the royal road, under the command of general Long. The right column, composed of the 50th, 71st, and 92d regiments, under the direction of Hill in person, was intended to penetrate by the narrow and difficult way of La Cueva, and Roman Gordo against the forts at the bridge. But the day broke before any of the columns reached their destination, and all hopes of a surprise were extinguished. This untoward beginning was unavoidable on the part of the right and centre column, because of the bad roads; but it would appear that some negligence had retarded general Chowne’s column, and that the castle of Mirabete might have been carried by assault before day-light.

The difficulty, great before, was now much increased. An attentive examination of the French defences convinced Hill that to reduce the works in the pass, he must incur more loss than was justifiable, and finish in such plight that he could not afterwards carry the forts at the bridge, which were the chief objects of his expedition. Yet it was only through the pass of Mirabete that the artillery could move against the bridge. In this dilemma, after losing the 17th and part of the 18th in fruitless attempts to discover some opening through which to reach the valley of Almaraz with his guns, he resolved to leave them on the Sierra with the centre column, and to make a false attack upon the tower with general Chowne’s troops while he himself, with the right column, secretly penetrated by the scarcely practicable line of La Cueva and Roman Gordo to the bridge, intent, with infantry alone, to storm works which were defended by eighteen pieces of artillery and powerful garrisons!

This resolution was even more hardy, and bold, than it appears without a reference to the general state of affairs. Hill’s march had been one of secrecy, amidst various divisions of the enemy; he was four days’ journey distant from Merida, which was his first point of retreat; he expected that Drouet would be reinforced, and advance towards Medellin, and hence, whether defeated or victorious at Almaraz, that his own retreat would be very dangerous; exceedingly so if defeated, because his fine British troops could not be repulsed with a small loss, and he should have to fall back through a difficult country, with his best soldiers dispirited by failure, and burthened with numbers of wounded men. Then harassed on one side by Drouet, pursued by Foy and D’Armagnac on the other, he would have been exposed to the greatest misfortunes, every slanderous tongue would have been let loose on the rashness of attacking impregnable forts, and a military career, hitherto so glorious, might have terminated in shame. But general Hill being totally devoid of interested ambition, was necessarily unshaken by such fears.

The troops remained concealed in their position until the evening of the 18th, and then the general, reinforcing his own column with the 6th Portuguese regiment, a company of the 60th rifles, and the artillery-men of the centre column, commenced the descent of the valley. His design was to storm Fort Napoleon before day-light, and the march was less than six miles, but his utmost efforts could only bring the head of the troops to the fort, a little before day-light, the rear was still distant, and it was doubtful if the scaling-ladders, which had been cut in halves to thread the short narrow turns in the precipitous descent, would serve for an assault. Fortunately some small hills concealed the head of the column from the enemy, and at that moment general Chowne commenced the false attack on the castle of Mirabete. Pillars of white smoke rose on the lofty brow of the Sierra, the heavy sound of artillery came rolling over the valley, and the garrison of Fort Napoleon, crowding on the ramparts, were anxiously gazing at these portentous signs of war, when, quick and loud, a British shout broke on their ears, and the gallant 50th regiment, aided by a wing of the 71st, came bounding over the nearest hills.

The French were surprised to see an enemy so close while the Mirabete was still defended, yet they were not unprepared, for a patrole of English cavalry had been seen from the fort on the 17th in the pass of Roman Gordo; and in the evening of the 18th a woman of that village had carried very exact information of Hill’s numbers and intentions to Lugar Nueva. This intelligence had caused the commandant Aubert to march in the night with reinforcements to Fort Napoleon, which was therefore defended by six companies, including the 39th French and the voltigeurs of a foreign regiment. These troops were ready to fight, and when the first shout was heard, turning their heads, they, with a heavy fire of musketry and artillery, smote the assailants in front, while the guns of Fort Ragusa took them in flank from the opposite side of the river; in a few moments, however, a rise of ground, at the distance of only twenty yards from the ramparts, covered the British from the front fire, and general Howard, in person, leading the foremost troops into the ditch, commenced the escalade. The great breadth of the berm kept off the ends of the shortened ladders from the parapet, but the soldiers who first ascended, jumped on to the berm itself, and drawing up the ladders planted them there, and thus, with a second escalade, forced their way over the rampart; then, closely fighting, friends and enemies went together into the retrenchment round the stone tower. Colonel Aubert was wounded and taken, the tower was not defended, and the garrison fled towards the bridge-head, but the victorious troops would not be shaken off, and entered that work also in one confused mass with the fugitives, who continued their flight over the bridge itself. Still the British soldiers pushed their headlong charge, slaying the hindmost, and they would have passed the river if some of the boats had not been destroyed by stray shots from the forts, which were now sharply cannonading each other, for the artillery-men had turned the guns of Napoleon on Fort Ragusa.