On the 20th at day-break instead of crossing the Guarena to dispute the high land of Vallesa, Marmont marched rapidly in several columns, covered by a powerful rear-guard, up the river to Canta la Piedra, and crossed the stream there, though the banks were difficult, before any disposition could be made to oppose him. He thus turned the right flank of the allies and gained a new range of hills trending towards the Tormes, and parallel to those leading from Vallesa. Wellington immediately made a corresponding movement. Then commenced an evolution similar to that of the 18th, but on a greater scale both as to numbers and length of way. The allies moving in two lines of battle within musket-shot of the French endeavoured to gain upon and cross their march at Cantalpino; the guns on both sides again exchanged their rough salutations as the accidents of ground favoured their play; and again the officers, like gallant gentlemen who bore no malice and knew no fear, made their military recognitions, while the horsemen on each side watched with eager eyes, for an opening to charge; but the French general moving his army as one man along the crest of the heights, preserved the lead he had taken, and made no mistake.
At Cantalpino it became evident that the allies were outflanked, and all this time Marmont had so skilfully managed his troops that he furnished no opportunity even for a partial attack. Wellington therefore fell off a little and made towards the heights of Cabeça Vellosa and Aldea Rubia, intending to halt there while the sixth division and Alten’s cavalry, forcing their march, seized Aldea Lengua and secured the position of Christoval. But he made no effort to seize the ford of Huerta, for his own march had been long and the French had passed over nearly twice as much ground, wherefore he thought they would not attempt to reach the Tormes that day. However when night approached, although his second line had got possession of the heights of Vellosa, his first line was heaped up without much order in the low ground between that place and Hornillos; the French army crowned all the summit of the opposite hills, and their fires, stretching in a half circle from Villaruela to Babila Fuente, shewed that they commanded the ford of Huerta. They could even have attacked the allies with great advantage had there been light for the battle. The English general immediately ordered the bivouac fires to be made, but filed the troops off in succession with the greatest celerity towards Vellosa and Aldea Rubia, and during the movement the Portuguese cavalry, coming in from the front, were mistaken for French and lost some men by cannon-shot ere they were recognised.
Wellington was deeply disquieted at the unexpected result of this day’s operations which had been entirely to the advantage of the French general. Marmont had shewn himself perfectly acquainted with the country, had outflanked and outmarched the allies, had gained the command of the Tormes, and as his junction with the king’s army was thus secured he might fight or wait for reinforcements or continue his operations as it seemed good to himself. But the scope of Wellington’s campaign was hourly being more restricted. His reasons for avoiding a battle except at advantage, were stronger than before, because Caffarelli’s cavalry was known to be in march, and the army of the centre was on the point of taking the field; hence though he should fight and gain a victory, unless it was decisive, his object would not be advanced. That object was to deliver the Peninsula, which could only be done by a long course of solid operations incompatible with sudden and rash strokes unauthorized by any thing but hope; wherefore yielding to the force of circumstances, he prepared to return to Portugal and abide his time; yet with a bitter spirit, which was not soothed by the recollection, that he had refused the opportunity of fighting to advantage, exactly one month before and upon the very hills he now occupied. Nevertheless that stedfast temper, which then prevented him from seizing an adventitious chance, would not now let him yield to fortune more than she could ravish from him: he still hoped to give the lion’s stroke, and resolved to cover Salamanca and the communication with Ciudad Rodrigo to the last moment. A letter stating his inability to hold his ground was however sent to Castaños, but it was intercepted by Marmont, who exultingly pushed forwards without regard to the king’s movements; and it is curious that Joseph afterwardsKing’s correspondence, MSS. imagined this to have been a subtlety of Wellington’s to draw the French general into a premature battle.
On the 21st while the allies occupied the old position of Christoval, the French threw a garrison into Alba de Tormes, from whence the Spaniards had been withdrawn by Carlos D’España, without the knowledge of the English general. Marmont then passed the Tormes, by the fords between Alba and Huerta, and moving up the valley of Machechuco encamped behind Calvariza Ariba, at the edge of a forest which extended from the river to that place. Wellington also passed the Tormes in the course of the evening by the bridges, and by the fords of Santa Marta and Aldea Lengua; but the third division and D’Urban’s cavalry remained on the right bank, and entrenched themselves at Cabrerizos, lest the French, who had left a division on the heights of Babila Fuente, should recross the Tormes in the night and overwhelm them.
It was late when the light division descended the rough side of the Aldea Lengua mountain to cross the river, and the night came suddenly down, with more than common darkness, for a storm, that common precursor of a battle in the Peninsula, was at hand. Torrents of rain deepened the ford, the water foamed and dashed with encreasing violence, the thunder was frequent and deafening, and the lightning passed in sheets of fire close over the column, or played upon the points of the bayonets. One flash falling amongst the fifth dragoon guards, near Santa Marta, killed many men and horses, while hundreds of frightened animals breaking loose from their piquet ropes, and galloping wildly about, were supposed to be the enemy’s cavalry charging in the darkness, and indeed some of their patroles were at hand; but to a military eye there was nothing more imposing than the close and beautiful order in which the soldiers of that noble light division, were seen by the fiery gleams to step from the river to the bank and pursue their march amidst this astounding turmoil, defying alike the storm and the enemy.
The position now taken by the allies was nearly the same as that occupied by general Graham a month before, when the forts of Salamanca were invested. The left wing rested in the low ground on the Tormes, near Santa Marta, having a cavalry post in front towards Calvariza de Abaxo. The right wing extended along a range of heights which ended also in low ground, near the village of Arapiles, and this line being perpendicular to the course of the Tormes from Huerta to Salamanca, and parallel to its course from Alba to Huerta, covered Salamanca. But the enemy extending his left along the edge of the forest, still menaced theSee [Plan 3.] line of communication with Ciudad Rodrigo; and in the night advice came that general Chauvel, with near two thousand of Caffarelli’s horsemen, and twenty guns, had actually reached Pollos on the 20th, and would join Marmont the 22nd or 23rd. Hence Wellington, feeling that he must now perforce retreat to Ciudad Rodrigo, and fearing that the French cavalry thus reinforced would hamper his movements, determined, unless the enemy attacked him, or committed some flagrant fault, to retire before Chauvel’s horsemen could arrive.
At day-break on the 22nd, Marmont who had called the troops at Babila Fuente over the Tormes, by the ford of Encina, brought Bonet’s and Maucune’s divisions up from the forest and took possession of the ridge of Calvariza de Ariba; he also occupied in advance of it a wooded height on which was an old chapel called Nuestra Señora de la Pena. But at a little distance from his left, and from the English right, stood a pair of solitary hills, called the Two Arapiles, about half cannon-shot from each other; steep and savagely rugged they were, and the possession of them would have enabled the French general to form his army across Wellington’s right, and thus bring on a battle with every disadvantage to the allies, confined, as the latter would have been, between the French army and the Tormes. These hills were neglected by the English general until a staff officer, who had observed the enemy’s detachments stealing towards them, first informed Beresford, and afterwards Wellington of the fact. The former thought it was of no consequence, but the latter immediately sent the seventh Caçadores to seize the most distant of the rocks, and then a combat occurred similar to that which happened between Cæsar and Afranius at Lerida; for the French seeing the allies’ detachment approaching, broke their own ranks, and running without order to the encounter gained the first Arapiles and kept it, but were repulsed in an endeavour to seize the second. This skirmish was followed by one at Nuestra Señora de la Pena, which was also assailed by a detachment of the seventh division, and so far successfully, that half that height was gained; yet the enemy kept the other half, and Victor Alten, flanking the attack with a squadron of German hussars, lost some men and was himself wounded by a musket-shot.
The result of the dispute for the Arapiles rendered a retreat difficult to the allies during day-light; for though the rock gained by the English was a fortress in the way of the French army, Marmont, by extending his left, and by gathering a force behind his own Arapiles, could still frame a dangerous battle and pounce upon the allies during their movement. Wherefore Wellington immediately extended his right into the low ground, placing the light companies of the guards in the village of Arapiles, and the fourth division, with exception of the twenty-seventh regiment, which remained at the rock, on a gentle ridge behind them. The fifth and sixth divisions he gathered in one mass upon the internal slope of the English Arapiles, where from the hollow nature of the ground they were quite hidden from the enemy; and during these movements a sharp cannonade was exchanged from the tops of those frowning hills, on whose crowning rocks the two generals sat like ravenous vultures watching for their quarry.
Marmont’s project was not yet developed; his troops coming from Babila Fuente were still in the forest, and some miles off; he had only two divisions close up, and the occupation of Calvariza Ariba, and Nuestra Señora de la Pena, was a daring defensive measure to cover the formation of his army. The occupation of the Arapiles was however a start forward, for an advantage to be afterwards turned to profit, and seemed to fix the operations on the left of the Tormes. Wellington, therefore, brought up the first and the light divisions to confront the enemy’s troops on the height of Calvariza Ariba; and then calling the third division and D’Urban’s cavalry over the river, by the fords of Santa Marta, he posted them in a wood near Aldea Tejada, entirely refused to the enemy and unseen by him, yet in a situation to secure the main road to Ciudad Rodrigo. Thus the position of the allies was suddenly reversed; the left rested on the English Arapiles, the right on Aldea Tejada; that which was the rear became the front, and the interval between the third and the fourth division was occupied by Bradford’s Portuguese infantry, by the Spaniards, and by the British cavalry.
This ground had several breaks and hollows, so that few of these troops could be viewed by the enemy, and those which were, seemed, both from their movement and from their position, to be pointing to the Ciudad Rodrigo road as in retreat. The commissariat and baggage had also been ordered to the rear, the dust of their march was plainly to be seen many miles off, and hence there was nothing in the relative position of the armies, save their proximity, to indicate an approaching battle. Such a state of affairs could not last long. About twelve o’clock Marmont, fearing that the important bearing of the French Arapiles on Wellington’s retreat would induce the latter to drive him thence, hastily brought up Foy’s and Ferey’s divisions in support, placing, the first, with some guns, on a wooded height between the Arapiles and Nuestra Señora de la Pena, the second, and Boyer’s dragoons, behind Foy on the ridge of Calvariza de Ariba. Nor was this fear ill-founded, for the English general, thinking that he could not safely retreat in day-light without possessing both Arapiles, had actually issued orders for the seventh division to attack the French, but perceiving the approach of more troops, gave counter-orders lest he should bring on the battle disadvantageously. He judged it better to wait for new events, being certain that at night he could make his retreat good, and wishing rather that Marmont should attack him in his now strong position.