orders, and of Soult’s and Suchet’s entire neglect of them, was that
Jourdan’s main design of providing for close and speedy co-operation
between the Armies of Portugal and Andalusia was completely foiled.
When, on May 17th-19th, Hill made his celebrated irruption into the
valley of the Tagus, with the object of destroying the bridge and
forts of Almaraz, the point where the interests of Soult and Marmont
were linked together, he found no French troops within fifty miles
of his objective, save the single division of Foy and D’Armagnac’s
3,000 men from the Army of the Centre. Marmont’s nearest division in
support was at Avila, Soult’s in the Sierra Morena; both lay so far
off from Almaraz that Hill could not only deliver his blow, but could
depart at leisure when it was struck, without any risk of being beset
by superior forces. If King Joseph’s orders of April had been carried
out, Wellington’s stroke in May would have been impossible--or risky
to the verge of rashness. Indeed we may be certain, on Wellington’s
record, that he would not have made it, if three French divisions,
instead of one, had been about Talavera and Almaraz. We may add that
his self-reliance during the Salamanca campaign rested largely on the
fact that Soult could not succour Marmont, within any reasonable space
of time, even if he wished to do so, because the bridge of Almaraz was
broken. Wherefore Jourdan and King Joseph must be pronounced to have
been wise in their foresight, and the Dukes of Ragusa and Dalmatia
highly blameworthy for their disregard of the orders given them. They
looked each to their own local interests, not to the general strategic
necessities of the French position in Spain, which the King and his
Chief-of-the-Staff were keeping in mind.
So far their precautions were wise: to blame them for not taking the
tremendous step of evacuating Andalusia without the Emperor’s leave,
and concentrating such a force in central Spain as would have paralysed
Wellington’s offensive, would be unjust. They dared not have given such
an order--and if they had, Soult would have disobeyed it.
Napoleon himself, indeed, would have agreed with Soult at this time.
For not long after Jourdan’s _Mémoire_ of May 1812, with its request
for leave to abandon Andalusia, had started on its journey for Dresden,
there arrived at Madrid a dispatch from Berthier, setting forth the
final instructions left by the Emperor before he started from Paris
on May 9th. It was of a nature to strike dismay into the heart of the
level-headed and rather despondent Jourdan; for it ignored all the
difficulties which his recently dispatched appeal set forth with such
clearness. The King was directed to keep a grip on all the conquered
provinces of Spain, and to extend their limits till the enemy should
be extirpated. The conquest of Portugal might be postponed till ‘les
événements détermineraient absolument cette mesure.’ The region to
which the Emperor devoted most attention was the sphere of the Army of
the North. ‘This is the part on which it is indispensable to keep a
firm hold, never to allow the enemy to establish himself there, or to
threaten the line of communications. Wherefore a most active war must
be waged upon the “Brigands” [Mina, Porlier, Longa, &c.]: it is of
no use to hunt and scatter them, leaving them power to reunite and to
renew their incursions. As to the English, the present situation seems
rather to require a defensive posture: but it is necessary to maintain
an imposing attitude in face of them, so that they may not take any
advantage of our position. The strength of the forces at the King’s
disposition enables him to do, in this respect, all that circumstances
may demand. Such are the principal ideas which the Emperor, before
departing, has expressed on the Spanish problem.’
This was a heart-breaking document. Just when the King and Jourdan had
demonstrated that they had no available field army left to hold back
Wellington, they were informed that their forces were ample for the
purpose. When they had asked leave to evacuate Andalusia they are told
to ‘conserver les conquêtes et les étendre successivement.’ They had
been wishing to concentrate at all costs a central reserve--now they
were directed to spread the already scattered army of occupation over
a still greater surface--presumably the Emperor’s phrase meant that he
wished to see Murcia, the Catalonian inland, the whole of the Asturias,
and the Condado de Niebla garrisoned, in addition to all that was held
already. The one central problem to Joseph and Jourdan was how to face
Wellington’s expected onslaught by making the armies co-operate--the
Emperor forbids concentration, and recommends ‘the assumption of an
imposing attitude!’ As if Wellington, whose knowledge of the movements
and plans of his adversaries was beginning to appear almost uncanny to
them, was to be contained by ‘attitudes,’ imposing or otherwise.
The unhappy Commander-in-Chief and Chief-of-the-Staff of the united
armies of Spain were reduced to a sort of apathetic despair by the
Emperor’s memorandum. Jourdan, in his _Mémoires_, appears to shrug the
shoulders of resignation in commenting on its effect. ‘If only instead
of “hold all you have, and conquer the rest bit by bit,” we had been
told that we might evacuate some provinces and concentrate the troops,
there would have been much good in the instructions. The King might
have dared to abandon the South in order to keep down the North, if he
had not received this dispatch. But he could not take that portentous
step without the imperial permission. All that he could now do, was to
reiterate his directions to Soult and Marmont that they must so place
their troops as to be able to succour each other. We shall see how they
obeyed those orders[349].’
[349] Jourdan’s _Mémoires_, pp. 395-6.
So, by the special and deliberate directions of the Emperor, the
230,000 effective men ‘present under arms,’ forming the five imperial
armies of Spain, were placed at the mercy of Lord Wellington and his
modest force of eight divisions of Anglo-Portuguese. In a flight of
angry rhetoric, Berthier, writing under Napoleon’s dictation, had once
asked whether it was reasonable ‘_que quarante mille Anglais gâtent
toutes les affaires d’Espagne_.’ The reply of the fates was to be that
such a contingency was perfectly possible, under the system which the
Emperor had instituted, and with the directions which he persisted in
giving.
SECTION XXXIII: CHAPTER II
THE BRIDGE OF ALMARAZ. MAY 1812
On April 24th Wellington halted his pursuing army at Fuente Guinaldo
and Sabugal, on hearing that Marmont had escaped him by a margin of
twenty-four hours. The French were in full march for Salamanca, and it
was impossible to pursue them any further, firstly because the allied
army needed a few days of rest after the forced march from Badajoz, and
secondly because its train had dropped behind, food was nearly out, and
convoys had to be brought up from Lamego and São João de Pesqueira.
There was, of course, nothing to be got out of the unhappy region in
which Marmont’s locusts had just been spread abroad. The only fortunate
thing was that the Duke of Ragusa had turned his raid against the Beira
Baixa, and left the great dépôts on the Douro unmolested. From them
ample sustenance could be got up, in a week, to the positions behind
the Agueda and Coa where the army had halted.
Wellington, as it will be remembered, had contemplated an attack on
Andalusia after Badajoz fell. But the necessity for seeing to the
relief and revictualling of Almeida and Ciudad Rodrigo had brought
him up to the frontiers of Leon with the main body of his host. In
the position where he now lay, he was well placed for an advance
on Salamanca, and an attack on the Army of Portugal. To return to
Estremadura would involve a long and weary countermarch. Moreover
there was no doubt that operations in Leon would be more decisive
than operations in Andalusia. As Marmont was to write to Berthier a
few days later, a victory of the allies in the North would involve
the evacuation of the South by Soult, while a victory in Andalusia
would leave the French power in the valleys of the Douro and Tagus
unshaken[350]. Advancing from the line of the Agueda against Salamanca
and Valladolid, Wellington would have his base and his main line of
communications in his direct rear, safe against any flank attack. A
raid against Andalusia, even if successful, would separate him from
Lisbon, and compel him to take up a new base at Cadiz--a doubtful
expedient. But what seems, in the end, to have been the main cause for
Wellington’s choosing Leon rather than Andalusia as his next sphere of
operations, was that Marmont (as he judged) had the larger available
army for field movements outside his own ground. Soult was more pinned
down to his viceroyalty by local needs: he would not raise the siege of
Cadiz or evacuate Granada and Cordova. Therefore he could not collect
(as his movement at the time of the fall of Badajoz had shown) more
than 24,000 men for an offensive operation. This was the absolute limit
of his power to aid Marmont. But the latter, if he chose to evacuate
Asturias and other outlying regions, could bring a much larger force to
help Soult. Therefore an attack on Andalusia would enable the enemy to
concentrate a more numerous defensive force than an attack on Leon. ‘Of
the two armies opposed to us that of Portugal can produce the larger
number of men for a distant operation. Marmont has nothing to attend to
but the British army, as he has been repeatedly told in [intercepted]
time he may lose some plunder and contributions, but he loses nothing
that can permanently affect his situation, or which he could not
regain as soon as he has a superiority, particularly of cavalry, in
the open plains of Castille. Marmont’s, then, being what may be called
of the two the _operating_ army, the movement which I might make into
Andalusia would enable the enemy to bring the largest body of men to
act together on one point. It would be a false movement, and this must
by all means be avoided[351].’
[350] See above, p. 311.
[351] _Dispatches_, ix. p. 173.
This decision was not made immediately on Marmont’s retreat of April
24th: for some days after the British headquarters settled down at
Fuente Guinaldo, Wellington had not quite made up his mind between the
two operations: his letters to Lord Liverpool, to Hill, and Graham,
are full of the needs of the moment, and do not lay down any general
strategical plan. The staff, in their discussions with each other,
canvassed the situation. ‘While Marmont remains in Old Castile he
[Wellington] must leave a certain force near the frontier of the Beira.
But leaving the 3rd, 4th, 5th Divisions, and Pack’s and Bradford’s
Portuguese (perhaps 18,000 men) for that purpose, he can move upon
Andalusia, if he wishes, with the 1st, 6th, 7th, and Light Divisions,
afterwards picking up Power’s Portuguese brigade and all General Hill’s
_corps d’armée_--perhaps 36,000 infantry. This would do.’ So wrote
D’Urban the chief of the Portuguese staff in his private diary, on
May 5, evidently after discussion with Beresford, and others of those
who were nearest the centre of decision. Wellington, however, was
pondering over alternatives: he could not move for a week or two at the
best, for he had to replenish his stores at the front, and to see that
the repairs and revictualling of Almeida and Rodrigo were completed,
before he could start on any offensive movement. In that time, too,
he would be able to learn how Marmont was disposing of his army, and
whether Soult was showing any tendency to reinforce Drouet’s force in
Estremadura.
It seems that an insight into his enemies’ purposes was made specially
easy for Wellington at this moment by the successive capture of a
great deal of French correspondence. When Marmont was in Portugal,
between the 1st and 23rd of April, three of the duplicates of his
dispatches were captured, one by Portuguese Ordenança, the others by
Julian Sanchez between Rodrigo and Salamanca[352]. They were all in
cipher, but the ingenuity of Captain Scovell, the cipher-secretary at
head-quarters, was capable of dealing with them, and from them could
be made out a great deal about the strength of the Marshal’s army, and
his general views on the campaign. If they had been taken and sent in
a little earlier, they might have enabled Wellington to complete that
surprise and dispersion of the French expeditionary force which had
been in his mind.
[352] The cipher-originals are all in the Scovell papers,
worked out into their interpretation by that ingenious officer:
Wellington only kept the fair copies for himself. The dispatches
are dated Sabugal, 11 April (to Brennier about the Agueda
bridge); Sabugal, April 16 (to Berthier); Fuente Guinaldo, April
22 (to Berthier). The last two are full of the most acrimonious
criticism of Napoleon’s orders for the invasion of Beira. Scovell
made out much, but not all, of the contents of these letters.
But though they arrived too late for this purpose, they were valuable,
as showing Marmont’s dislike of the imperial orders that he had been
sent to carry out, and his preference for his own schemes. They were
also full of bitter complaints of the neglect in which the Army of
Portugal was left as to pay, stores, and transport. Wellington might
reasonably deduce from them that any reconcentration of that army would
be slow, and that if it had to march to reinforce Soult in the South,
the effort would be a severe one.
But shortly after Marmont’s return to Salamanca, his adversary got
an even more valuable insight into his plans. The guerrilleros
carried off, between Salamanca and Valladolid, an officer bearing
five dispatches, dated April 28 and April 30th. One was directed to
Dorsenne, two to Berthier, one to Jourdan, the fifth contained the
parole to Bayonne of the great scout, Colquhoun Grant[353]. The first,
couched in very peremptory terms, asked for food--the Army of Portugal
must absolutely receive 8,000 quintals of wheat, once promised,
without delay--it was in a state of danger and penury, and could not
keep concentrated to face the British. Of the letters to Berthier one
announced that Bonnet’s division was duly in march for the Asturias,
and that without it the Marshal thought his own strength dangerously
low. The other asked for 4,000,000 francs owing to the Army of Portugal
for pay and sustenance, and declared that, unless money came to hand at
once, it was impossible to see how the troops were to be kept alive in
the two months still remaining before harvest. A postscript asked for a
siege-train to be sent on at all costs--the Marshal had heard that one
was on the way from Bayonne: but nothing was known about it at Burgos.
The letter to Jourdan was the most important of all[354]: it was the
document, already quoted in the previous chapter, in which the Marshal
detailed his intentions as to the dispersion of his army, protested
against being obliged to send too many men into the valley of the
Tagus, and explained the importance of the bridge-forts and magazines
at Almaraz, by which his troops at Avila, &c., would debouch southward
whenever they were ordered to concentrate for a junction with Soult.
‘On ne peut agir que par Lugar Nuevo [the name by which Marmont always
designates the Almaraz forts] ... il faut bien se garder de jeter trop
de troupes sur le Tage, et se contenter de bien assurer une défense de
huit jours pour les forts de Lugar Nuevo et Mirabete, temps suffisant
pour que les troupes rassemblées à Avila débouchent.... Un dépôt de
400 à 500 mille fanegas (qui n’est pas au delà de ce que Madrid et La
Manche peuvent fournir) donnerait les moyens d’agir sans compromettre
la subsistance des troupes.’
[353] All the originals are in the Scovell Papers.
[354] It is the one printed in Ducasse’s _Correspondence of King
Joseph_, viii. pp. 413-17.
Undoubtedly it was the deciphering of the greater part of this letter,
which set forth so clearly the importance of the Almaraz bridge,
and showed at the same time that only one French division [Foy’s at
Talavera] was anywhere near it, that determined Wellington to make the
sudden stroke at that central strategical point which he had thought
of in February[355]. At that time he had refused to try it, because
there were three French divisions on the Tagus. Now there was only one
at Talavera, two marches from Almaraz, and the nearest reinforcements
at Avila were two very long marches from Talavera. The possibility
presented itself that a column might strike at Almaraz from somewhere
on the Portuguese frontier, and take the place by a _coup-de-main_,
with or without first beating Foy, whose strength of 5,000 men was
perfectly known to Wellington.
[355] See above, p. 202.
Hill could count on two or three days of undisturbed operations before
the nearest reinforcing division, that of Foy, could reach Almaraz: on
four or five more, before troops from Avila could come up. It must be
noted that everything would depend on the absolute secrecy that could
be preserved as to the start of the expedition: but on this Wellington
thought that he could count. The Spanish peasantry seldom or never
betrayed him: the French had no outlying posts beyond Almaraz which
might give them warning. The garrison was in a normal state of blockade
by guerrillero bands haunting the Sierra de Guadalupe.
It may be added that a blow at Almaraz was just as useful as a means
for keeping Soult from joining Marmont as Marmont from joining Soult.
It would be profitable if Wellington’s final decision should be
given in favour of an Andalusian expedition. But his mind was by now
leaning towards an attack on Leon rather than on the South. The final
inclination may have been given by the receipt of another intercepted
dispatch--Soult’s to Jourdan of April 17[356], sent in by guerrilleros
who had probably captured the bearer in the Sierra Morena about April
20th. This document, which we have already had occasion to quote for
another purpose[357], was full of angry denunciations of Marmont for
letting Badajoz fall unaided, and served to show that, if Soult had
to help the Army of Portugal, he would do so with no good will to
its commander. Moreover it was largely occupied by proposals for the
circumventing of Ballasteros and the siege of Tarifa--movements which
would disperse the Army of the South even more than it was already
dispersed, and would clearly prevent it from succouring Marmont within
any reasonable space of time.
[356] Original in the Scovell Papers. Place of capture uncertain,
but clearly taken by guerrilleros between Seville and Madrid.
[357] See above, pp. 269-70.
The decision that Hill should make his long-deferred _coup-de-main_
upon Almaraz first appears in Wellington’s dispatches on May 4th[358],
but Hill had been warned that the operation was likely to be sanctioned
some days earlier, on April 24, and again more definitely on April
30th[359]. That the final judgement of Wellington was now leaning
in favour of the advance on Salamanca rather than the Andalusian
raid appears to emerge from a note of D’Urban dated May 6th--’The
retirement of Marmont within a given distance--the slow progress of the
Spaniards at Rodrigo, which renders it unsafe to leave that place and
this frontier--the retiring altogether of Soult, and the state of his
army not making him dangerous now--these and other combining reasons
determine Lord Wellington to make his offensive operation _north_ of
the Tagus, and to move upon Marmont. All necessary preparations making,
but secretly: it will be very feasible to keep the movement unforeseen
till it begins. Meanwhile General Hill is to move upon and destroy
everything at Almaraz[360].’
[358] Wellington to Graham, Fuente Guinaldo, May 4, _Dispatches_,
ix. p. 114.
[359] Ibid., p. 101.
[360] D’Urban’s unpublished diary, under May 6.
The orders for Hill’s move were given out on May 7th. He was to march
from his head-quarters at Almendralejo with two British brigades
(Howard’s and Wilson’s) of the 2nd Division, and the Portuguese brigade
attached to the division (Ashworth’s), one British cavalry regiment
(13th Light Dragoons), and to cross the Guadiana at Merida. Beyond the
Guadiana he would pick up Campbell’s Portuguese cavalry brigade, which
was lying at Arroyo dos Molinos. The march was then to be as rapid as
possible, via Jaraicejo and Miravete. The expeditionary force made up
7,000 men in all.
There were left in Estremadura to ‘contain’ Drouet the two English
cavalry brigades of Hill’s force (Slade’s and Long’s)[361], one British
infantry brigade (Byng’s) of the 2nd Division, Hamilton’s Portuguese
division, and Power’s unattached Portuguese brigade (late the garrison
of Elvas, and more recently acting as that of Badajoz). The whole would
make up 11,000 men. Power, or at least some of his regiments, was now
disposable, because the Spaniards destined to hold Badajoz had begun to
arrive, and more were daily expected[362].
[361] Minus, of course, the 13th Light Dragoons.
[362] Erskine was the senior officer left with the corps--a
dangerous experiment. One marvels that Wellington risked it after
previous experience.
But this was not the only precaution taken against Drouet, who had
recently been reported as a little inclined to move northward from
Fuente Ovejuna--detachments of his cavalry had been seen as far north
as Zalamea[363]. Wellington determined to move down towards the
Guadiana the southern or right wing of his main army--the 1st and 6th
Divisions under Graham. First one and then the other were filed across
the bridge of Villa Velha and sent to Portalegre. Here they would be
in a position to support the force left in front of Drouet, if Soult
should unexpectedly reinforce his Estremaduran corps. Wellington
acknowledged that he disliked this wide extension of his army, but
justified himself by observing that, if he had now his left wing almost
touching the Douro, and his right wing almost touching the Sierra
Morena, he might risk the situation, because he was fully informed as
to Marmont’s similar dispersion. The Army of Portugal was scattered
from the Asturias to Talavera, and from its want of magazines and
transport, which Marmont’s intercepted dispatches made evident, would
be unable to concentrate as quickly as he himself could.
[363] Wellington to Graham, May 7, _Dispatches_, ix. p. 128.
The movement of Graham’s two divisions from the Castello Branco region
to south of the Tagus had an additional advantage. If reported to the
French it would tend to make them believe that the next offensive
operation of the allied army would be in the direction of Andalusia,
not towards the Tormes. If Soult heard of it, he would begin to prepare
to defend his own borders, and would not dream that Marmont was really
the enemy at whom Wellington was about to strike; while Marmont, on the
other hand, thinking that Soult was to be the object of Wellington’s
attentions, might be less careful of his own front. The expedition to
Almaraz would not undeceive either of them, since it was well suited
for a preliminary move in an attack on Andalusia, no less than for one
directed against Leon.
Hill’s column reached Merida on May 12th, but was delayed there
for some hours, because the bridge, broken in April, had not yet
been repaired, as had been expected, the officers sent there having
contented themselves with organizing a service of boats for the
passage. The bridge was hastily finished, but the troops only passed
late in the day; they picked up in the town the artillery and engineers
told off for the expedition, Glubb’s British and Arriaga’s Portuguese
companies of artillery, who brought with them six 24-pounder howitzers,
a pontoon train, and wagons carrying some 30-foot ladders for
escalading work. The importance attached to the raid by Wellington is
shown by the fact that he placed Alexander Dickson, his most trusted
artillery officer, in charge of this trifling detachment, which came up
by the road north of the Guadiana by Badajoz and Montijo to join the
main column.
Once over the Guadiana, Hill reached Truxillo in three rapid marches
[May 15], and there left all his baggage-train, save one mule for each
company with the camp-kettles. The most difficult part of the route had
now been reached, three successive mountain ranges separating Truxillo
from the Tagus. On the 16th, having crossed the first of them, the
column reached Jaraicejo: at dawn on the 17th, having made a night
march, it was nearing the Pass of Miravete, the last defile above the
river. Here, as Hill was aware, the French had outlying works, an old
castle and two small forts, on very commanding ground, overlooking the
whole defile in such a way that guns and wagons could not possibly
pass them. The British general’s original intention was to storm the
Miravete works at dawn, on the 17th, and at the same time to attack
with a separate column the forts at the bridge. With this purpose he
divided his troops into three detachments. Ashworth’s Portuguese and
the artillery were to keep to the _chaussée_, and make a demonstration
of frontal attack on the Castle: General Tilson-Chowne [interim
commander of the 2nd Division at the moment[364]] was, with Wilson’s
brigade and the 6th Caçadores, to make a détour in the hills to the
left and to endeavour to storm the Castle from its rear side. General
Howard, with the other British brigade, was to follow a similar bridle
path to the right, and to descend on to the river and attack the forts
by the bridge.
[364] This was the Tilson of 1809: he had lengthened his name.
A miscalculation had been made--the by-paths which the flanking
columns were to take proved so far more steep and difficult than had
been expected, that by dawn neither of them had got anywhere near its
destination. Hill ordered them to halt, and put off the assault. This
was fortunate, for by a long and close reconnaissance in daylight it
was recognized that the Castle of Miravete and its dependent outworks,
Forts Colbert and Senarmont, were so placed on a precipitous conical
hill that they appeared impregnable save by regular siege operations,
for which the expeditionary force had no time to spare. The most
vexatious thing was that the garrison had discovered the main column
on the _chaussée_, and it could not be doubted that intelligence must
have been sent down to the lower forts, and most certainly to Foy
at Talavera also. After a thorough inspection of the ground, Hill
concluded that he could not hope to master Miravete, and, while it was
held against him, his guns could not get through the pass which it so
effectively commanded. It remained to be seen what could be done with
the forts at the bridge.
The Almaraz forts crowned two hills on each side of the Tagus. The
stronger, Fort Napoleon, occupied the end of a long rising ground,
about 100 yards from the water’s edge; below it, and connecting
with it, was a masonry _tête-de-pont_ covering the end of the
pontoon-bridge. The weaker work, Fort Ragusa, was on an isolated
knoll on the north bank, supporting the other end of the bridge. Fort
Napoleon mounted nine guns, had a good but unpalisaded ditch around
its bastioned front, and a second retrenchment, well palisaded, with
a loopholed stone tower within. Fort Ragusa was an oblong earthwork
mounting six guns, and also provided with a central tower. It had as
outwork a _flèche_ or lunette, commanding the north end of the bridge.
The small _tête-de-pont_ mounted three guns more. Half a mile up-stream
was the ruined masonry bridge which had formed the old crossing,
with the village of Almaraz on the north bank behind it. Between the
_tête-de-pont_ and the old bridge were the magazines and storehouses in
the village of Lugar Nuevo.
The garrison of the works consisted of a depleted foreign corps, the
_régiment de Prusse_ or 4th Étranger, mustering under 400 bayonets, of
a battalion of the French 39th of the Line, and of two companies of
the 6th Léger, from Foy’s division, with a company of artillery and
another of sappers. The whole may have amounted to 1,000 men, of whom
300 were isolated in the high-lying Castle of Miravete, five miles from
the bridge-head. The governor, a Piedmontese officer named Aubert,
had manned Fort Napoleon with two companies of the 6th and 39th. The
foreign corps and one company of the 6th were in Fort Ragusa and the
bridge-head; Miravete was held by the centre companies of the 39th.
Though delay after the French had got the alarm was dangerous, Hill
spent the whole of the 17th in making fruitless explorations for
vantage-ground, from which Miravete might be attacked. None was found,
and on the 18th he made up his mind to adopt a scheme hazardous beyond
his original intention. It would be possible to mask the Castle by a
false attack, in which all his artillery should join, and to lead part
of his infantry over the hills to the right, by a gorge called the Pass
of La Cueva, for a direct attack by escalade, without the help of guns,
upon the Almaraz forts.
The detachment selected for this purpose was Howard’s brigade (1/50th,
1/71st, 1/92nd), strengthened by the 6th Portuguese Line from
Ashworth’s brigade, and accompanied by 20 artillerymen in charge of the
ladders. So rough was the ground to be covered, that the long 30-foot
ladders had to be sawn in two, being unwieldy on slopes and angles, as
was soon discovered when they were taken off the carts for carriage
by hand. The route that had to be followed was very circuitous, and
though the forts were only five miles, as the crow flies, from the
place where the column left the road, it took the whole night to reach
them. An eye-witness[365] describes it as a mazy sheep-walk among
high brushwood, which could not have been used without the help of
the experienced peasant-guide who led the march. The men had to pass
in Indian file over many of its stretches, and it resulted from long
walking in the darkness that the rear dropped far behind the van, and
nearly lost touch with it. Just before dawn the column reached the
hamlet of Romangordo, a mile from the forts, and rested there for some
time before resuming its march.
[365] Captain MacCarthy of the 50th.
The sun was well up when, at 6 o’clock, the leading company, coming
to the edge of a thicket, suddenly saw Fort Napoleon only 300 yards
in their front. The French had been warned that a column had crossed
the hills, and had caught some glimpse of it, but had lost sight of
its latest move: many of the garrison could be seen standing on the
ramparts, and watching the puffs of smoke round the Castle of Miravete,
which showed that the false attack on that high-lying stronghold
had begun. General Tilson-Chowne was making a noisy demonstration
before it, using his artillery with much ostentation, and pushing up
skirmishers among the boulders on the sides of the castle-hill[366].
[366] The statement in Jones’s _Sieges_, i. p. 259, that the
enemy were unaware of the turning column is disproved by the
official reports of the surviving French officers Sêve and Teppe.
Hill was anxious to assault at once, before the sun should rise higher,
or the garrison of the forts catch sight of him. But some time had
to be spent to allow a sufficient force to accumulate in the cover
where the head of the column was hiding. So slowly did the companies
straggle in, that the General at last resolved to escalade at once with
the 50th and the right wing of the 71st, all that had yet come up.
Orders were left behind that the left wing of the 71st and the 92nd
should attack the bridge-head entrenchment when they arrived, and the
6th Portuguese support where they were needed.
At a little after 6 o’clock the 900 men available, in three columns of
a half-battalion each, headed by ladder parties, started up out of the
brake on the crest of the hillside nearest Fort Napoleon, and raced for
three separate points of its _enceinte_. The French, though taken by
surprise, had all their preparations ready, and a furious fire broke
out upon the stormers both from cannon and musketry. Nevertheless all
three parties reached the goal without any very overwhelming losses,
jumped into the ditch, and began to apply their ladders to such points
of the rampart as lay nearest to them. The assault was a very daring
one--the work was intact, the garrison adequate in numbers, the
assailants had no advantage from darkness, for the sun was well up and
every man was visible. All that was in their favour was the suddenness
of their onslaught, the number of separate points at which it was
launched, and their own splendid dash and decision. Many men fell in
the first few minutes, and there was a check when it was discovered
that the ladders were over-short, owing to their having been sawn up
before the start. But the rampart had a rather broad berm[367], a fault
of construction, and the stormers, discovering this, climbed up on
it, and dragging some of the ladders with them, relaid them against
the upper section of the defences, which they easily overtopped. By
this unexpected device a footing was established on the ramparts at
several points simultaneously--Captain Candler of the 50th is said to
have been the first man over the parapet: he was pierced by several
balls as he sprang down, and fell dead inside. The garrison had kept
up a furious fire till the moment when they saw the assailants swarm
over the parapet--then, however, there can be no doubt that most of
them flinched[368]: the governor tried to lead a counter-charge, but
found few to follow him; he was surrounded, and, refusing to surrender
and striking at those who bade him yield, was piked by a sergeant of
the 50th and mortally wounded. So closely were the British and French
mixed that the latter got no chance of manning the inner work, or the
loopholed tower which should have served as their rallying-point.
Many of the garrison threw down their arms, but the majority rushed
out of the rear gate of the fort towards the neighbouring redoubt
at the bridge-head. They were so closely followed that pursuers and
pursued went in a mixed mass into that work, whose gunners were unable
to fire because their balls would have gone straight into their own
flying friends. The foreign garrison of the _tête-de-pont_ made little
attempt to resist, and fled over the bridge[369]. It is probable that
the British would have reached the other side along with them if the
centre pontoons had not been sunk: some say that they were struck by
a round-shot from Fort Ragusa, which had opened a fire upon the lost
works; others declare that some of the fugitives broke them, whether by
design or by mischance of overcrowding[370].
[367] The berm is the line where the scarp of the ditch meets
the slope of the rampart: the scarp should be perpendicular, the
rampart-slope tends backward, hence there is a change on this
line from the vertical to the obtuse in the profile of the work.
The berm should have been only a foot or so wide and was three.
[368] The official report of the French captain, Sêve of the
6th Léger, accuses the grenadiers of the 39th of giving way and
bolting at the critical moment, and this is confirmed by the
report of the _chef de bataillon_ Teppe of the 39th, an unwilling
witness.
[369] According to Teppe’s narrative they left the walls, and
many hid in the bakehouses, while most of the officers headed the
rush for the bridge.
[370] Foy says that the centre link of the bridge was not a
regular pontoon but a river boat, which could be drawn out when
the garrison wanted to open the bridge for any purpose, and being
light it collapsed under the feet of the flying crowd (p. 163).
This ought to have been the end of Hill’s sudden success, since passage
across the Tagus was now denied him. But the enemy were panic-stricken;
and when the guns of Fort Napoleon were trained upon Fort Ragusa by
Lieutenant Love and the twenty gunners who had accompanied Hill’s
column, the garrison evacuated it, and went off with the rest of the
fugitives in a disorderly flight towards Naval Moral. The formidable
works of Almaraz had fallen before the assault of 900 men--for the
tail of Hill’s column arrived on the scene to find all over[371].
Four grenadiers of the 92nd, wishing to do something if they had been
disappointed of the expected day’s work, stripped, swam the river,
and brought back several boats which had been left moored under Fort
Ragusa. By means of these communication between the two banks was
re-established, and the fort beyond the river was occupied[372].
[371] The 92nd and the right wing of the 71st reached the
_tête-de-pont_ just as the fugitives from Fort Napoleon entered
it, and swept away the garrison. They only lost two wounded.
[372] Gardyne’s history of the 92nd gives the names of two of
these gallant men, Gauld and Somerville.
The loss of the victors was very moderate--it fell mostly on the 50th
and 71st, for Chowne’s demonstration against Miravete had been almost
bloodless--only one ensign and one private of the 6th Caçadores were
wounded. But the 50th lost one captain and 26 men killed, and seven
officers and 93 men wounded, while the half-battalion of the 71st had
five killed and five officers and 47 men wounded[373]. The 92nd had two
wounded. Thus the total of casualties was 189.
[373] Hill’s total of casualties is 2 officers and 31 men killed:
13 officers and 143 wounded. The second officer killed was
Lieutenant Thiele of the Artillery of the K.G.L., accidentally
blown up by a mine on the day of the evacuation. But two of the
wounded officers died.
Of the garrison the 4th Étranger was pretty well destroyed--those who
were neither killed nor taken mostly deserted, and its numbers had gone
down from 366 in the return of May 15 to 88 in that of July 1. The
companies of the 39th and 6th Léger also suffered heavily, since they
had furnished the whole of the unlucky garrison of Fort Napoleon. Hill
reports 17 officers and 262 men taken prisoners, including the mortally
wounded governor and a _chef de bataillon_ of the 39th[374]. It is
probable that the whole loss of the French was at least 400.
[374] Teppe by name, whose narrative, written in captivity, is
our best source for the French side. It is a frank confession of
misbehaviour by the troops--particularly the 4th Étranger.
The trophies taken consisted of a colour of the 4th Étranger, 18 guns
mounted in the works, an immense store of powder and round-shot,
120,000 musket cartridges, the 20 large pontoons forming the bridge,
with a store of rope, timbers, anchors, carriages, &c., kept for its
repair, some well-furnished workshops, and a large miscellaneous
magazine of food and other stores. All this was destroyed, the
pontoons, &c., being burnt, while the powder was used to lay many mines
in the forts and bridgehead, which were blown up very successfully
on the morning of the 20th, so that hardly a trace of them remained.
Thiele of the German artillery, the officer charged with carrying
out the explosions, was unfortunately killed by accident: a mine had
apparently failed; he went back to see to its match, but it blew up
just as he was inspecting it.
[Illustration: ALMARAZ]
Having accomplished his purpose with complete success, Hill moved
off without delay, and by two forced marches reached Truxillo and
his baggage on the 21st. Here he was quite safe: Foy, being too weak
to pursue him to any effect, followed cautiously, and only reached
Miravete (whose garrison he relieved) on the 23rd and Truxillo on the
25th, from whence he turned back, being altogether too late. He had
received news of Hill’s movement rather late on the 17th, had been
misinformed as to his strength, which report made 15,000 men instead
of the real 7,000, and so had been disposed to act cautiously. He had
ordered a battalion of the 6th Léger from Naval Moral to join the
garrison of Almaraz, but it arrived on the afternoon of the 19th,
only in time to hear from fugitives of the disaster[375]. He himself
was confident that the forts could hold out eight days even against
artillery, which was also Marmont’s calculation. Hence their fall
within 48 hours of Hill’s appearance was a distressing surprise: Foy
had calculated on being helped not only by D’Armagnac from Talavera but
by the division of Clausel from Avila, before moving to fight Hill and
relieve them.
[375] D’Armagnac also sent the battalion of Frankfort for the
same purpose, which arrived late with less excuse. See Foy, p.
375.
Wellington appears to have been under the impression that this
expedition, which Hill had executed with such admirable celerity and
dispatch, might have been made even more decisive, by the capture of
the castle of Miravete, if untoward circumstances had not intervened.
In a letter to Lord Liverpool, written on May 28[376], he expresses
the opinion that Tilson-Chowne might have taken it on the night of the
16th--which must appear a hazardous decision to those who look at the
precipitous position of the place and the strength of its defences.
He also says that Hill might have stopped at Almaraz for a few days
more, and have bombarded Miravete with Dickson’s heavy howitzers, if
he had not received false news from Sir William Erskine as to Drouet’s
movements in Estremadura. There can be no doubt, as we shall see, about
the false intelligence: but whether the bombardment would have been
successful is another thing. Probably Wellington considered that the
garrison would have been demoralized after what had happened at Almaraz.
[376] _Dispatches_, ix. p. 189.
As to Drouet’s movements, having received rather tardy notice of
Hill’s northward march from Merida, he had resolved to make a push to
ascertain what was left in his front. Lallemand’s dragoons, therefore,
pressed out in the direction of Zafra, where they came into contact
with Slade’s outposts and drove them in. At the same time Drouet
himself, with an infantry division and some light cavalry, advanced
as far as Don Benito, near Medellin, on the 17th May, from whence he
pushed patrols across the Guadiana as far as Miajadas. This movement,
made to ascertain whether Hill had departed with his whole corps, or
whether a large force had been left in Estremadura, was reported to Sir
William Erskine, the commander of the 2nd cavalry division, along with
rumours that Soult was across the Sierra Morena and closely supporting
Drouet. Erskine sent on the news to Graham at Portalegre, and to Hill,
who was then before Miravete, with assertions that Soult was certainly
approaching. This, as Wellington knew, was unlikely, for the Marshal
had been before Cadiz on the 11th, and could not possibly have crossed
the Sierra Morena by the 17th. As a matter of fact he only learnt on
the 19th, at Chiclana, that Hill had started, and Drouet’s move was
made purely to gain information and on his own responsibility. But
Graham, naturally unaware of this, brought up his two divisions to
Badajoz, as he had been directed to do if Estremadura were attacked
during Hill’s absence. And Hill himself was certainly induced to return
promptly from Almaraz by Erskine’s letter, though it is doubtful
whether he would have lingered to besiege Miravete even if he had not
received it. For Foy might have been reinforced by D’Armagnac and the
Avila division up to a strength which would have made Hill’s longer
stay on the Tagus undesirable.
Drouet did no more; indeed, with his own force he was quite helpless
against Hill, since when he discovered that there was a large body
of allied troops left in Estremadura, and that more were coming up,
it would have been mad for him to move on Merida, or take any other
method of molesting the return of the expedition from Almaraz. Though
Soult spoke of coming with a division to his aid, the succours must be
many days on the way, while he himself could only act effectively by
marching northward at once. But if he had taken his own division he
would have been helpless against Hill, who could have beaten such a
force; while if he had crossed the Guadiana with his whole 12,000 men,
he would have been cut off from Soult by the ‘uncontained’ allied force
left in Estremadura, which he knew to be considerable.
But to move upon Almaraz on his own responsibility, and without Soult’s
orders, would have been beyond Drouet’s power: he was a man under
authority, who dared not take such a step. And when Soult’s dispatches
reached him, they directed him not to lose touch with Andalusia, but to
demonstrate enough to bring Hill back. The Marshal did not intend to
let Drouet get out of touch with him, by bidding him march toward the
Tagus.
Hill’s column, then, was never in any danger. But Wellington, who had
for a moment some anxiety in his behalf, was deeply vexed by Erskine’s
false intelligence, which had given rise to that feeling, and wrote in
wrath to Henry Wellesley and Graham[377] concerning the mischief that
this very incapable officer had done. He was particularly chagrined
that Graham had been drawn down to Badajoz by the needless alarm, as he
was intending to bring him back to join the main army within a short
time, and the movement to Badajoz had removed him three marches from
Portalegre, so that six days in all would be wasted in bringing him
back to his original starting-point. It is curious that Wellington did
not harden his heart to get rid of Erskine after this mishap: but
though he wrote bitterly about his subordinate’s incapacity, he did
not remove him. ‘Influence’ at home was apparently the key to his long
endurance: it will be remembered that this was by no means the first of
Erskine’s mistakes[378].
[377] To both on June 1. _Dispatches_, ix. p. 197. Erskine’s name
is the blank to be filled up.
[378] See vol. iv. pp. 133 and 191.
The fall of the Almaraz forts, as might have been expected, was
interpreted by Marmont and Soult each from his own point of view. The
former, rightly as it turned out, wrote to Foy that he must be prepared
to return to Leon at short notice, and that the Army of the Centre
and Drouet must guard the valley of the Tagus on his departure[379].
Soult, on the other hand, having heard of Graham’s arrival at Badajoz
and Hill’s return to Merida, argued that the allies were massing on
the Guadiana for an advance into Andalusia. He made bitter complaints
to Jourdan that he had violated the rules of military subordination by
sending a letter to Drouet warning him that he might be called up to
the Tagus. It was unheard of, he said, to communicate directly with a
subordinate, who ought to be written to only through the channel of
his immediate superior. He even threatened to resign the command of
the Army of the South[380]--but when Joseph showed no signs of being
terrified by this menace, no more was heard of it. The viceroyalty of
Andalusia was not a thing to be lightly given up.
[379] Marmont to Foy, June 1.
[380] See Jourdan’s _Mémoires_, pp. 399-400.
It soon became evident to Wellington that the surprise of Almaraz was
not to be resented by the enemy in any practical form. Foy was not
reinforced, nor was Drouet brought up to the Tagus: it was clear that
the French were too weak to take the offensive either in the North or
the South, even under such provocation. They could not even rebuild
the lost bridge: the transport from Madrid of a new pontoon train as a
substitute for the lost boats was beyond King Joseph’s power. One or
two boats were finally got to Almaraz--but nothing that could serve as
a bridge. Nor were the lost magazines ever replaced.
It was at this same time that Wellington took in hand a scheme for
facilitating his communications north and south, which was to have a
high strategical importance. As long as Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz
were in the enemy’s hands, the most eastern crossing of the Tagus
practicable for the Anglo-Portuguese army was the boat-bridge of Villa
Velha. But when these two fortresses were regained, it was possible
to open up a line farther east, which had not been available for two
years. Since Mayne blew up the ancient Roman bridge of Alcantara in
June 1809[381], the Middle Tagus had been impassable for both sides.
The allies had usually been in possession of both banks of the Tagus
in this direction, but so intermittently that it had never been worth
their while to restore the passage, which would have been lost to them
whenever the French (as not unfrequently happened) extended their
operations into the Coria-Zarza Mayor country on the north bank, or the
Caçeres-Albuquerque country on the other. But when the enemy had lost
both Badajoz and Rodrigo, and had no posts nearer to Alcantara than the
Upper Tormes, the forts of Miravete, and Zalamea, when, moreover, he
had adopted a distinctly defensive attitude for many months, Wellington
thought it worth while to recover possession of a passage which would
shorten the route from Estremadura to the frontiers of Leon by a
hundred miles, and would therefore give him an advantage of six marches
over the enemy in transferring troops from north to south. Whether
Almaraz were again seized and reoccupied by the French mattered little:
the restoration of Alcantara would be safe and profitable.
[381] See vol. ii. p. 444.
Accordingly, on May 24th, Colonel Sturgeon[382] and Major Todd
of the Royal Staff Corps were sent to Alcantara to report on the
practicability of restoring the broken arch, which, owing to the
immense depth of the cañon of the Tagus, overhung the river by no less
than 140 feet. It was intended that if the engineering problem should
prove too hard, a flying bridge of rafts, boats, or pontoons should
be established at the water level[383]. But Sturgeon and Todd did
more than Wellington had expected, and succeeded in a very few days
in establishing a sort of suspension-bridge of ropes between the two
shattered piers of Trajan’s great structure. The system adopted was
that of placing at each end of the broken roadway a very large and
solid beam, clamped to the Roman stones, by being sunk in channels cut
in them. These beams being made absolutely adhesive to the original
work, served as solid bases from which a series of eighteen cables were
stretched over the gap. Eight more beams, with notches cut in them
to receive the cables, were laid at right angles across the parallel
ropes, and lashed tight to them. The long cables were strained taut
with winches: a network of rope yarn for a flooring was laid between
the eight beams, and on this planks were placed, while a screen of
tarpaulins supported on guide-ropes acted as parapets. The structure
was sound enough to carry not only infantry and horses, but heavy
artillery, yet could always be broken up in a short time if an enemy
had ever appeared in the neighbourhood[384]. Several times it was
rolled up, and then replaced.
[382] An officer probably better remembered by the general reader
as the husband of Sarah Curran, Robert Emmet’s sometime fiancée,
than as the executor of some of Wellington’s most important
engineering works. He fell before Bayonne in 1814.
[383] See Wellington to Graham, 23rd and 24th May. _Dispatches_,
ix. pp. 163-5.
[384] The best and most elaborate account of this is in Leith
Hay, i. pp. 300-1.
When the completion of the repairs of Alcantara and the destruction of
the French bridge of Almaraz are taken together, it must be concluded
that Wellington’s work in May gave him an advantage over the French of
at least ten or twelve marches in moving troops from north to south
or vice versa. For the route from Ciudad Rodrigo to Merida, now open
to him, had at least that superiority over the only itinerary of the
enemy, which would be that by Avila, Talavera, Toledo, and the eastern
passes of the Sierra Morena. Though the narrow bridge of Arzobispo on
the Middle Tagus still remained in French hands, it did not lead on to
any good road to Estremadura or Andalusia, but on to the defiles of the
Mesa d’Ibor and the ravines of the Sierra de Guadalupe. No large force
could march or feed in those solitudes.
All was now ready for the advance upon the Tormes, which Wellington had
made up his mind to execute.
SECTION XXXIII: CHAPTER III
WELLINGTON’S ADVANCE INTO LEON
It was not till June 13th that Wellington crossed the Agueda and began
his march upon Salamanca, the first great offensive movement against
the main fighting army of the French since the advance to Talavera in
1809. But for many days beforehand his troops were converging on Fuente
Guinaldo and Ciudad Rodrigo from their widely-spread cantonments.
Graham’s divisions quitted Portalegre on May 30th, and some of the
other troops, which had been left on the western side of the Beira,
had also to make an early start. Every available infantry unit of the
Anglo-Portuguese army had been drawn in, save the 2nd Division and
Hamilton’s Portuguese--left as usual with Hill in Estremadura--and
Power’s new Portuguese brigade--once the garrisons of Elvas and
Abrantes--which had become available for the field since the fall
of Badajoz made it possible to place those fortresses in charge of
militia. Its arrival made Hill stronger by 2,000 in infantry than he
had ever been before, and he was also left the three brigades (Long’s
and Slade’s British and John Campbell’s Portuguese) of Erskine’s
cavalry division. The total was 18,000 men. Wellington’s own main army,
consisting of the seven other infantry divisions, Pack’s and Bradford’s
Portuguese brigades, and the cavalry of Anson, Bock, Le Marchant,
and Victor Alten, made up a force of 48,000 men, of which 3,500 were
cavalry: there were only eight British and one Portuguese batteries
with the army--a short allowance of 54 guns.
But though these 48,000 men constituted the striking force, which was
to deal the great blow, their action was to be supported by a very
elaborate and complicated system of diversions, which were intended
to prevent the French armies of the South, North, Centre, and Aragon
from sending any help to Marmont, the foe whom Wellington was set
on demolishing. It is necessary to explain the concentric scheme
by which it was intended that pressure should be brought to bear
on all the outlying French armies, at the same moment at which the
Anglo-Portuguese main body crossed the Agueda.
Soult had the largest force--over 50,000 men, as a recently captured
morning-state revealed to his adversary[385]. But he could not
assemble more than some 24,000 men, unless he abandoned the siege of
Cadiz and the kingdom of Granada--half his army was pinned down to
occupation-work. Wherefore Wellington judged that his field-force
could be ‘contained’ by Hill, if only means were found of preventing
him from reinforcing Drouet’s divisions in Estremadura by any
appreciable succours. This means lay to hand in the roving army of
Ballasteros, whose random schemes of campaign were often irrational,
but had the solitary advantage of being quite inscrutable. He might do
anything--and so was a most tiresome adversary for Soult to deal with,
since his actions could not be foreseen. At this moment Wellington had
urged the Cadiz Regency to stir up Ballasteros to activity, and had
promised that, if Soult concentrated against him, Hill should press
in upon Drouet, and so call off the Marshal’s attention. Similarly
if Soult concentrated against Hill, Ballasteros was to demonstrate
against Seville, or the rear of the Cadiz Lines. There was always the
possibility that the Spanish general might refuse to obey the orders of
his Government, or that he might commit himself to some rash enterprise
and get badly beaten. Both these chances had to be risked. The one that
occurred was that Ballasteros took up the idea desired, but acted too
early and too incautiously, and sustained a severe check at the battle
of Bornos (June 1). Fortunately he was ‘scotched but not slain,’ and
kept together a force large enough to give Soult much further trouble,
though he did not prevent the Marshal from sending reinforcements to
Drouet and putting Hill upon the defensive. Of this more in its due
place.
[385] See Wellington to Henry Wellesley at Cadiz, June 7.
_Dispatches_, ix. p. 219.
So much for the diversion against Soult. On the other flank Wellington
had prepared a similar plan for molesting the French in the Asturias,
and threatening Marmont’s flank and rear, at the same moment that his
front was to be assailed. The force here available was Abadia’s Army of
Galicia, which nominally counted over 24,000 men, but had 6,000 of them
shut up in the garrisons of Corunna, Ferrol, and Vigo. About 16,000
could be put into the field by an effort, if only Abadia were stirred
up to activity. But there were many hindrances: this general was (like
most of his predecessors) at strife with the Galician Junta. He was
also very jealous of Sir Howard Douglas, the British Commissioner at
Corunna, who was in favour with the Junta and people, and was inclined
to resent any advice offered by him[386]. His army was not only (as in
1810-11) very short of cavalry--there were only about 400 effective
sabres--but also of artillery. For the Cadiz government, searching
for troops to send against the rebels of South America, had recently
drafted off several batteries, as well as several foot regiments, to
the New World. The most effective units had been taken, to the wild
indignation of the Galicians, who wanted to keep the troops that
they had raised for their own protection. There were only about 500
trained artillerymen left in Galicia, and when deduction was made for
the garrisons of Ferrol, Vigo, and Corunna, very few remained for the
active army. Abadia had, therefore, many excuses to offer for taking
the field late, and with insufficient equipment[387]. It was fortunate
that his superior, Castaños, who commanded (as Captain-General both
of Estremadura and Galicia) all the troops in western Spain, fell in
completely with Wellington’s plan, and brought pressure to bear upon
his subordinate, coming up to Santiago in person to expedite matters.
[386] An extraordinary case of Abadia’s ill will occurred in this
spring: a damaged transport, carrying British troops to Lisbon,
having put in to Corunna to repair, permission was refused for
the men to land: apparently it was suspected that they were
trying to garrison Corunna.
[387] For all this Galician business see the _Life of Sir Howard
Douglas_, pp. 120-60.
The part which the Army of Galicia was to play in the general scheme
was that of marching upon Astorga, and laying siege to the considerable
French garrison which was isolated in that rather advanced position. If
Marmont should attempt to succour it, he would be left weak in front
of the oncoming British invasion. If he did not, its fall would turn
and expose his right flank, and throw all the plains of northern Leon
into the power of the allies. A move in force upon Astorga would also
have some effect on the position of General Bonnet in the Asturias, and
ought certainly to keep him uneasy, if not to draw him away from his
conquests.
It will be remembered that Bonnet had been directed to reoccupy the
Asturias by Napoleon’s special command, and by no means to Marmont’s
liking[388]. He marched from Leon on May 15, by the road across
the pass of Pajares, which he had so often taken before on similar
expeditions. The Asturians made no serious resistance, and on May 17-18
Bonnet seized Oviedo and its port of Gijon. But, as in 1811, when he
had accomplished this much, and planted some detachments in the coast
towns, his division of 6,000 men was mainly immobilized, and became
a string of garrisons rather than a field-force. It was observed
by Porlier’s Cantabrian bands on its right hand, and by Castañon’s
division of the Army of Galicia on its left, and was not strong enough
to hunt them down, though it could prevent them from showing themselves
anywhere in the neighbourhood of Oviedo.
[388] See above, p. 210.
But if the Galicians should lay siege to Astorga, and push advanced
guards beyond it, in the direction of the city of Leon, it was clear
that Bonnet’s position would be threatened, and his communications with
his chief, Marmont, imperilled. Wellington, who knew from intercepted
dispatches the importance attached by the Emperor to the retention of
the Asturias, judged that Bonnet would not evacuate it, but would spend
his energy in an attempt to hold back the Galicians and keep open his
connexion with Leon. He thus hoped that the French division at Oviedo
would never appear near Salamanca--an expectation in which he was to
be deceived, for Marmont (disregarding his master’s instructions)
ordered the evacuation of the Asturias the moment that he discovered
the strength of the attack that was being directed against his front
on the Tormes. Hence Wellington’s advance cleared the Asturias of the
enemy, and enabled the Galicians to besiege Astorga unmolested for two
months--good results in themselves, but not the precise benefits that
he had hoped to secure by putting the Galician army in motion.
No item of assistance being too small to be taken into consideration,
Wellington also directed Silveira to advance from the Tras-os-Montes,
with the four militia regiments of that province[389], to cross the
Spanish frontier and blockade Zamora, the outlying French garrison on
the Douro, which covered Marmont’s flank, as Astorga did his rear.
To enable this not too trustworthy irregular force to guard itself
from sudden attacks, Wellington lent it a full brigade of regular
cavalry[390], which was entrusted to General D’Urban, who dropped the
post of Chief-of-the-Staff to Beresford to take up this small but
responsible charge. His duty was to watch the country on each side
of the Douro in Silveira’s front, so as to prevent him from being
surprised, and generally to keep Wellington informed about Marmont’s
right wing, when he should begin to concentrate. Toro, only 20 miles
farther up the Douro than Zamora, was another French garrison, and a
likely place for the Marshal to use as one of his minor bases. Silveira
being as rash as he was enterprising, it was D’Urban’s task to see that
he should be warned betimes, and not allowed to get into trouble. He
was to retreat on Carvajales and the mountains beyond the Esla if he
were attacked by a superior force.
[389] Chaves, Braganza, Miranda, Villa Real.
[390] Silveira already had Nos. 11 and 12, D’Urban brought up No.
1, which had not hitherto operated on this frontier.
A much more serious diversion was prepared to distract the free
movement of the French Army of the North, from which Caffarelli
might naturally be expected to send heavy detachments for Marmont’s
assistance, when the British striking-force should advance on
Salamanca. Caffarelli’s old enemies were the patriot bands of Cantabria
and Navarre, who had given his predecessor, Dorsenne, so much trouble
earlier in the year. Mina, on the borders of Navarre, Aragon, and
Old Castile, was very far away, and not easy to communicate with or
to bring into the general plan, though his spirit was excellent. But
the so-called ‘Seventh Army,’ under Mendizabal, was near enough to be
treated as a serious factor in the general scheme. This force consisted
of the two large bands under Porlier in Cantabria, and Longa in the
mountains above Santander, each of which was several thousands strong:
these were supposed to be regular divisions, though their training
left much to be desired: in addition there were several considerable
guerrilla ‘partidas’ under Merino, Salazar, Saornil, and other chiefs,
who lived a hunted life in the provinces of Burgos, Palencia, and
Avila, and were in theory more or less dependent on Mendizabal. The
chief of the Seventh Army was requested to do all that he could to keep
Caffarelli employed during the month of June--a task that quite fell in
with his ideas--he executed several very daring raids into Old Castile,
one of which put the garrison of Burgos in great terror, as it was
surprised at a moment when all its better items chanced to be absent,
and nothing was left in the place but dépôts and convalescents[391].
[391] See Thiébault, _Mémoires_, v. p. 561.
But the main distraction contrived to occupy the French Army of the
North was one for which Wellington was not primarily responsible,
though he approved of it when the scheme was laid before him. This
was a naval expedition to attack the coast-forts of Cantabria and
Biscay, and open up direct communication with Mendizabal’s bands
from the side of the sea. The idea was apparently started by Sir
Howard Douglas and Sir Home Popham, the former of whom was a great
believer in the _guerrilleros_, and the latter a strong advocate of
the striking power of the navy. Nothing serious had been done on the
Biscay coast since the two expeditions of 1810, of which the former
had been very successful, but the latter had ended in the disastrous
tempest which wrecked Renovales’s flotilla on that rocky shore[392].
Lord Liverpool consented to give Popham two battalions of marines and
a company of artillery, to add to the force provided by the crews of
the _Venerable_, his flagship, five frigates (_Surveillante_, _Rhin_,
_Isis_, _Diadem_, _Medusa_), and several smaller vessels. The plan was
to proceed eastward along the coast from Gijon, to call down Longa and
Porlier to blockade each isolated French garrison from the land side,
and to batter it with heavy ship guns from the water. The opportunity
was to be taken at the same time of making over to the Cantabrian bands
a large store of muskets and munitions which had been prepared for
them. The arrangements were made in May, and Popham’s squadron was
ready to move precisely at the same moment that Wellington crossed the
Agueda. Its first descent was made on June 17th, a day exactly suitable
for alarming the Army of the North at the same time that Marmont’s
first appeals for help were likely to reach Caffarelli. The plan, as
we shall see, worked exceedingly well, and the fact that the Army of
Portugal got no reinforcements from Burgos or Biscay was due entirely
to the dismay caused to Caffarelli by this unexpected descent on his
rear. He conceived that the squadron carried a large landing force, and
that he was about to see Biscay slip out of his hands. The tale of this
useful diversion will be told in its due place.
[392] See vol. iii. pp. 486-7.
There was yet one more item in the long list of outlying distractions
on which Wellington relied for the vexing of the French. He was
strongly of opinion that Suchet would spare troops to reinforce King
Joseph at Madrid, if his own invasion of Leon had a prosperous start.
Indeed, he somewhat overvalued the Duke of Albufera’s will and power to
interfere in central Spain, his idea being that King Joseph had a much
more direct control over the Valencian and Aragonese armies than was
really the case. One of the king’s intercepted dispatches, directing
Suchet to send troops into La Mancha, had fallen into his hands, and
he was unaware that the Marshal had refused to obey it, and had found
plausible reasons to cloak his disobedience[393].
[393] See above, p. 304. The intercepted cipher is in the Scovell
Papers.
The opportunity of finding means to harass Suchet depended on the
general posture of affairs in the Mediterranean caused by the outbreak
of the Russian war. As long as Napoleon kept a large army in Italy,
there was always a possibility that he might some day try a descent on
Sicily, where the authority of King Ferdinand rested on the bayonets
of a strong British garrison. There were a dozen red-coated battalions
always ready in Sicily, beside the rather inefficient forces of King
Ferdinand. In September 1810 Murat had massed a Franco-Neapolitan army
at Reggio, and tried an actual invasion, which ended ignominiously in
the capture of the only two battalions that succeeded in landing. But
by the early spring of 1812 it was known that nearly all the French
troops in Italy had been moved northward, and a great part of Murat’s
Neapolitan army with them. By April, indeed, there was only one French
division left in the whole Peninsula, nearly all the old ‘Army of
Italy’ having marched across the Alps. Lord William Bentinck, the
commander of the British forces in Sicily, had early notice of these
movements, and being a man of action and enterprising mind, though
too much given to wavering councils and rapid changes of purpose, was
anxious to turn the new situation to account. He was divided between
two ideas--the one which appealed to him most was to make a bold
descent on the under-garrisoned Italian peninsula, either to stir up
trouble in Calabria--where the ruthless government of Murat’s military
satraps had barely succeeded in keeping down rebellion, but had not
crushed its spirit--or, farther away, in the former dominions of the
Pope and the small dukes of the Austrian connexion. But the memory
of the fruitless attempt against the Italian mainland in 1809 under
Sir John Stuart survived as a warning: it was doubtful whether the
occasional adventurers who came to Palermo to promise insurrection
in northern Italy had any backing[394], and though Calabria was a
more promising field, it was to be remembered that such troops as
the enemy still retained were mainly concentrated there. Thus it
came to pass that Lord William Bentinck at times despaired of all
Italian expeditions, and thought of sending a force to Catalonia or
Valencia to harass Suchet. ‘I cannot but imagine,’ he wrote, ‘that the
occasional disembarkation at different points of a large regular force
must considerably annoy the enemy, and create an important diversion
for other Spanish operations[395].’ But when he wrote this, early in
the year, he was hankering after descents on Elba and Corsica--the
latter a most wild inspiration! These schemes the ministry very wisely
condemned: Lord Liverpool wrote in reply that ‘though there might be a
considerable degree of dissatisfaction, and even of ferment, pervading
the greater part of Italy,’ there was no evidence of any systematic
conspiracy to shake off the yoke of France. Corsica and Elba, even if
conquered, would only be of secondary importance. A diversion to be
made upon the east coast of Spain would be far the best way in which
the disposable force in Sicily could be employed. Wellington had been
informed of the proposal, and might probably be able to lend part of
the garrison of Cadiz, to make the expedition more formidable. Sir
Edward Pellew, the admiral commanding on the Mediterranean station,
would be able to give advice, and arrange for the co-operation of the
fleet[396]. Lord Liverpool wrote on the next day (March 4) to inform
Wellington of the answer that had been made to Bentinck, but pointed
out that probably the aid could only be given from May to October, as
the expedition would depend on the fleet, and naval men thought that
it would be impossible to keep a large squadron in attendance on the
Sicilian force during the winter months. The troops would probably have
to return to their old quarters at the close of autumn[397].
[394] See Lord Wellesley to Lord W. Bentinck, December 27, 1811,
in Wellington’s _Supplementary Dispatches_, vii. p. 249.
[395] Bentinck to Lord Liverpool, January 25, 1812, ibid., pp.
290-1.
[396] Liverpool to Bentinck, March 4. Wellington’s _Supplementary
Dispatches_, vii. p. 300.
[397] Liverpool to Wellington, March 5, ibid., p. 301.
Wellington, as it chanced, was already in communication with Bentinck,
for the latter had sent his brother, Lord Frederick, to Lisbon, with
a dispatch for the Commander-in-Chief in Portugal, in which he stated
that he leaned himself to the Corsican scheme, but that if the home
government disliked it, he would be prepared to send in April or May
an expedition of 10,000 men to operate against Suchet[398]. The letter
from London reached Wellington first, about March 20th[399], and was
a source of great joy to him, as he saw that the Cabinet intended to
prohibit the Italian diversion, and wished to direct Bentinck’s men
towards Spain. He wrote to London and to Palermo, to state that a
descent upon the coast of Catalonia seemed to him ‘the most essential
object.’ It should be aimed at Barcelona or Tarragona: it might not
succeed so far as its immediate object was concerned, but it would
have the infallible result of forcing Suchet to come up with all his
available forces from Valencia, and would prevent him from interfering
in the affairs of western and central Spain during the next campaign.
Ten thousand men, even with such aid as Lacy and the Catalan army
might give, were probably insufficient to deal with a place of such
strength as Barcelona; but Tarragona, which was weakly garrisoned,
might well be taken. Even if it were not, a great point would be gained
in opening up communication with the Catalans, and throwing all the
affairs of the French in eastern Spain into confusion. Bentinck was
advised in the strongest terms to land north of the Ebro, and not in
Valencia: an attack on Catalonia would draw Suchet out of Valencia,
which would then fall of its own accord. Wellington added, writing
to Lord Liverpool only, not to Bentinck, that he did not see how any
appreciable aid could be got from the Cadiz garrison, or those of
Tarifa or Cartagena[400]: the British regiments there had been cut down
to a necessary minimum, but there were 1,400 Portuguese and two foreign
regiments, of whom some might possibly be spared. The government must
give him a definite order to detach such and such battalions, and it
should be done--the responsibility being their own. Lord Frederick
Bentinck arrived from Palermo at Badajoz just after that place fell:
Wellington charged him with additional advices for his brother, to the
effect that he would send him a siege-train and officers and gunners
to work it, which might serve to batter Tarragona, if that proved
possible. Though he could himself spare no British troops, the Spanish
Regency should be urged to lend, for an expedition to Catalonia, two
divisions, one under Roche at Alicante, the other under Whittingham
in Majorca, which consisted each of 3,000 men recently entrusted
for training to those British officers. Their aid was hardly likely
to be refused, and they had been better trained, fed, and clothed
of late than other Spanish troops. Wellington was not deceived in
this expectation, the Regency very handsomely offered to place both
divisions at Bentinck’s disposition[401], and they turned out to have
swelled in numbers of late, owing to vigorous recruiting of dispersed
men from Blake’s defunct army. The available figure was far over the
6,000 of which Wellington had spoken.
[398] Bentinck to Wellington, February 23, ibid., p. 296.
[399] The answer to Lord Liverpool went off on March 20, that to
Bentinck on March 24th.
[400] Whither the 2/67th, a company of artillery, and five
companies of De Watteville’s Swiss regiment had been sent, on the
news of Blake’s disasters before Valencia. _Dispatches_, viii. p.
448.
[401] The best source of information about these subsidized
corps is the life of Sir Samford Whittingham, who raised and
disciplined one of them in Majorca, on the skeletons of the old
regiments of Cordova, Burgos, and 5th Granaderos Provinciales.
He had only 1,500 men on January 1, 1812, and 2,200 on February
21, but had worked them up to over 3,000 by April. Roche, who
had to work on the cadres of Canarias, Alicante, Chinchilla,
Voluntarios de Aragon, 2nd of Murcia, and Corona, had 5,500 men
ready on March 1, and more by May. Whittingham maintains that his
battalions always did their duty far better than other divisions,
commanded by officers with unhappy traditions of defeat, and
attributes the previous miserable history of the Murcian army to
incapacity and poor spirit in high places.
There seemed, therefore, in May to be every probability that a force of
some 17,000 men might be available for the descent on Catalonia which
Wellington advised: and both Admiral Pellew and Roche and Whittingham
made active preparations to be found in perfect readiness when Lord
William Bentinck should start off the nucleus of the expeditionary
force from Palermo[402]. Wellington had fixed the third week in June
as the date at which the appearance of the diversion would be most
effective[403]. On June 5th he was able to state that two separate
divisions of transports had already been sent off from Lisbon, one to
Alicante and one to Majorca, to pick up the two Spanish divisions.
[402] Henry Wellesley to Wellington. _Supplementary Dispatches_,
vii. p. 320.
[403] See as evidence of eagerness Whittingham’s letter to Pellew
of May 28 in the former’s _Memoirs_, p. 161.
Now, however, came a deplorable check to the plan, which only became
known to Wellington when he had already committed himself to his
campaign against Marmont. Bentinck could never get out of his head the
original idea of Italian conquest which he had laid before the Cabinet
in January. There was no doubt that it had been discouraged by the
home government, and that he had received very distinct instructions
that Spain was to be the sphere of his activity, and that he was to
take Wellington into his councils. But Lord Liverpool’s dispatch had
contained the unfortunate phrase that ‘unless the project of resistance
to the French power in Italy should appear to rest upon much better
grounds than those of which we are at present apprised,’ the diversion
to Catalonia was the obvious course[404].’ This gave a discretionary
power to Bentinck, if he should judge that evidence of discontent in
Italy had cropped up in unexpected quantity and quality since March.
It does not appear, to the unprejudiced observer, that such evidence
was forthcoming in May. But Bentinck, with his original prejudice
in favour of a descent on Italy running in his brain, chose to take
certain secret correspondence received from the Austrian general
Nugent, and other sources, as justification for holding back from
the immediate action in eastern Spain, on which Wellington had been
led to rely. No troops sailed from Palermo or Messina till the very
end of June, and then the numbers sent were much less than had been
promised, and the directions given to Maitland, the general entrusted
with the command, were by no means satisfactory[405]. The underlying
fact would appear to be that, since March, Bentinck had begun to be
alarmed at the intrigues of the Queen of Sicily, and feared to send
away British troops so far afield as Spain. That notorious princess and
her incapable spouse had been deprived in the preceding autumn of their
ancient status as absolute sovereigns, and a Sicilian constitution and
parliament, somewhat on the British model, had been called into being.
For some time it had been supposed that Caroline, though incensed,
was powerless to do harm, and the native Sicilians were undoubtedly
gratified by the change. But Bentinck presently detected traces of a
conspiracy fostered by the Queen among the Italian and mercenary troops
employed by the Sicilian government: and, what was more surprising,
it was suspected (and proved later on) that the court had actually
opened up negotiations with Napoleon and even with Murat, in order
to get rid of the English from Sicily at all costs[406]. In view of
the fact that there were 8,000 Italian and foreign troops of doubtful
disposition quartered in Sicily, Bentinck was seized with qualms
at the idea of sending away a large expedition, mainly composed of
British regiments. In the end he compromised, by detaching only three
British and two German Legion battalions, along with a miscellaneous
collection of fractions of several foreign corps, making 7,000 men in
all[407]. They only arrived off the coast of Catalonia on July 31st,
and Maitland’s freedom of operations was hampered by instructions to
the effect that ‘the division of the Sicilian army detached has for
its first object the safety of Sicily; its employment on the Spanish
coast is temporary.’ He was told that he was liable to be withdrawn at
any moment, if complications arose in Sicily or Italy, and was not to
consider himself a permanent part of the British army in Spain. Yet at
the same time that Bentinck had given these orders, the home government
had told Wellington to regard the expeditionary force as placed at his
disposal, and authorized him to send directions to it.
[404] Liverpool to Bentinck, 4th March, quoted above.
[405] See Wellington to Lord W. Bentinck in _Dispatches_, ix. pp.
60-1.
[406] That veritable ‘stormy petrel of politics,’ Sir Robert
Wilson, was passing through Sicily in May, and seems to have
acted a mischievous part in visiting the Queen, and allowing her
to set before him all her grievances against Bentinck, and the
‘Jacobin Parliament’ that he was setting up. She told Wilson that
Bentinck ‘went to jails and took evidence of miserable wretches,
actual malefactors or suspects, inducing them to say what he
wished for his plans, and acting without any substantiating
facts.’ As to the army Wilson gathered that ‘the Neapolitan
soldiery hate us to a man, the Germans would adhere to us, the
native Sicilians at least not act against us.’ But there were
only 2,000 Sicilians and 1,900 Germans, and 8,000 Neapolitans
and other Italians, eminently untrustworthy. [So untrustworthy
were they, indeed, that the Italian corps sent to Spain in the
autumn deserted by hundreds to the French.] See Wilson’s _Private
Diary_, 1812-15, pp. 35-62.
[407] For details, see table in Appendix no. XIII.
All this worked out less unhappily than might have been expected; for
though Wellington got little practical military help from the Sicilian
corps, and though Maitland’s operations were most disappointing and
started far too late, yet the knowledge that great transport squadrons
were at Alicante and Majorca, and the rumour that a large force was
coming from Sicily, most certainly kept Suchet in a state of alarm,
and prevented him from helping Soult or King Joseph. It is interesting
to find from his correspondence[408] that in the earliest days of
July he was anxiously watching the ships at Alicante, and expecting a
descent either on Valencia or on Catalonia, though Maitland was yet
far away, and did not appear off Palamos till July 31. The fear of
the descent was an admirable help to Wellington--perhaps more useful
than its actual appearance at an early date might have been, since the
expeditionary troops were decidedly less in numbers than Wellington
had hoped or Suchet had feared. At the same time the news that the
Sicilian force had not sailed, and perhaps might never appear, reached
Salamanca at one of the most critical moments of the campaign, and
filled Wellington with fears that the Army of Valencia might already be
detaching troops against him, while he had calculated upon its being
entirely distracted by the projected demonstration[409]. The news that
Maitland had sailed at last, only came to hand some time after the
battle of Salamanca had been won, when the whole position in Spain had
assumed a new and more satisfactory aspect.
[408] Suchet’s correspondence (in the Archives of the French War
Ministry) begins to be anxious from July 6 onward. On that date
he hears that ships are at Alicante to take Roche on board, who
is to join a very large English force, and 15,000 (!) men from
Majorca. On July 13th he hears that Maitland is to have 17,000
men, though only 3,000 British regulars.
[409] Wellington to Lord Bathurst, July 14: ‘I have this day
received a letter from Lord W. Bentinck of the 9th of June, from
which I am concerned to observe that his Lordship does not intend
to carry into execution the operation on the east coast of the
Peninsula, until he shall have tried the success of another plan
on the coast of Italy. I am apprehensive that this determination
may bring upon us additional forces of the Army of Aragon:
but I still hope that I shall be able to retain at the close
of this campaign the acquisitions made at its commencement.’
_Dispatches_, ix. p. 285.
Such were the subsidiary schemes with which Wellington supported his
main design of a direct advance against Marmont’s army. Some of them
worked well--Hill, Home Popham, and Mendizabal did all, and more than
all, that had been expected of them, in the way of containing large
French forces. Others accomplished all that could in reason have been
hoped--such was the case with Silveira and Ballasteros. Others fell far
below the amount of usefulness that had been reckoned upon--both the
Galician army and the Sicilian army proved most disappointing in the
timing of their movements and the sum of their achievements. But on the
whole the plan worked--the French generals in all parts of Spain were
distracted, and Marmont got little help from without.
It is certain that, at the moment of Wellington’s starting on his
offensive campaign, the thing that gave him most trouble and anxiety
was not the timing or efficacy of the various diversions that he had
planned, but a purely financial problem. It was now a matter of years
since the money due for the pay and maintenance of the army had been
coming in with terrible unpunctuality. Officers and men had grown to
regard it as normal that their pay should be four or six months in
arrears: the muleteers and camp followers were in even worse case. And
the orders for payment (_vales_ as they were called) issued by the
commissariat to the peasantry, were so tardily settled in cash, that
the recipients would often sell them for half or two-thirds of their
face value to speculators in Lisbon, who could afford to wait many
months for the money.
This state of things was deplorable: but it did not proceed, as Napier
usually hints, and as Wellington himself seems sometimes to have felt,
from perversity on the part of the home government. It was not the case
that there was gold or silver in London, and that the ministers did
not send it with sufficient promptness. No one can be so simple as to
suppose that Lord Liverpool, Mr. Perceval, the Marquess of Wellesley,
or Lord Castlereagh, did not understand that the Army of Portugal must
have cash, or it would lose that mobility which was its great strength.
Still less would they wittingly starve it, when the fortunes of the
ministry were bound up with the successful conduct of the war.
But the years 1811-12, as has been already pointed out in the last
volume of this work, were those of the greatest stringency in the
cash-market of Great Britain. The country was absolutely drained dry
of metallic currency in the precious metals: no silver had been coined
at the Mint since the Revolutionary war began: no guineas since 1798.
England was transacting all her internal business on bank-notes, and
gold was a rare commodity, only to be got by high prices and much
searching. This was the time when the Jews of Portsmouth used to
board every home-coming transport, to offer convalescents or sailors
27_s._, or even more, in paper for every guinea that they had on
them. The Spanish dollar, though weighing much less than an English
five-shilling piece (when that valuable antiquity could be found[410]),
readily passed for six shillings in paper. And even this coin could
not now be got so easily as in 1809 or 1810, for the growing state of
disturbance in the Spanish-American colonies was beginning to affect
the annual import of silver from the mines of Mexico and Peru, which
had for a long time been the main source from which bullion for Europe
was procured. To buy dollars at Cadiz with bills on London was becoming
a much more difficult business. In May 1812 a special complication
was introduced--Lord William Bentinck wishing to provide Spanish coin
for the expedition which was about to sail for Catalonia, sent agents
to Gibraltar, who bought with Sicilian gold all the dollars that
they could procure, giving a reckless price for them, equivalent to
over six shillings a dollar, and competing with Wellington’s regular
correspondents who were at the same moment offering only 5_s._ 4_d._
or 5_s._ 6_d._ for the coin. Of course the higher offer secured the
cash, and Wellington made bitter complaints that the market had been
spoilt, and that he suddenly found himself shut out from a supply on
which he had hitherto reckoned with security[411]. But the competition
was only transient, though very tiresome at a moment when silver coin
was specially wanted for payments in Leon. For, as Wellington remarked,
the people about Salamanca had never seen the British army before,
and would be wanting to do business on a prompt cash basis, not being
accustomed to credit, as were the Portuguese.
[410] No silver crowns had been coined since 1760 at the Mint.
They weighed 463 grains: the Spanish dollar only 415 grains.
[411] See Wellington to Lord Bathurst. _Dispatches_, vii. p. 370.
The army started upon the campaign with a military chest in the most
deplorable state of depletion. ‘We are absolutely bankrupt,’ wrote
Wellington, ‘the troops are now five months in arrears instead of one
month in advance. The staff have not been paid since February; the
muleteers not since June 1811! and we are in debt in all parts of
the country. I am obliged to take money sent me by my brother [Henry
Wellesley, British Minister at Cadiz] for the Spaniards, in order to
give my own troops a fortnight’s pay, who are really suffering for want
of money[412].’ Some weeks before this last complaint Wellington had
sounded an even louder note of alarm. ‘We owe not less than 5,000,000
dollars. The Portuguese troops and establishments are likewise in the
greatest distress, and it is my opinion, as well as that of Marshal
Beresford, that we must disband part of that army, unless I can
increase the monthly payments of the subsidy. The Commissary-General
has this day informed me that he is very apprehensive that he will not
be able to make good his engagements for the payment for the meat for
the troops. If we are obliged to stop that payment, your Lordship may
as well prepare to recall the army, for it will be impossible to carry
up salt meat (as well as bread) to the troops from the sea-coast....
It is not improbable that we may not be able to take advantage of
the enemy’s comparative weakness in this campaign _for sheer want of
money_[413].’ One almost feels that Wellington is here painting the
position of the army in the blackest possible colours, in order to
bring pressure on his correspondent at home. But this dismal picture
was certainly reflected in the language of his staff at the time: a
letter from his aide-de-camp, Colin Campbell, speaks (on May 30) of
the depleted state of the military chest being a possible curb to the
campaign: ‘Lord W. cannot take supplies with him to enable him to do
more than demonstrate towards Valladolid, when so good an opportunity
offers, and an inconsiderable addition would suffice. The harvest
is ripening, the country round Salamanca is full of all requisite
supplies, but they are not procurable without cash[414].’
[412] Ibid., vii. p. 319.
[413] Wellington to Lord Liverpool, April 22. _Supplementary
Dispatches_, vii. p. 318.
[414] Campbell to Shawe. _Supplementary Dispatches_, vii. p. 362.
Yet it is hard to be over-censorious of the home government. They were
in the most bitter straits for money. Gold and silver were simply
not to be got in the quantities that Wellington required. The amount
actually sent was very large: it would have been larger if economic
conditions had not been desperate. The rupture with the United States
of America which took place in June (fortunately too late to serve
Napoleon’s purpose), had just added a new source of anxiety to the
troubles of the Cabinet: both money and men were now wanted for Canada.
There can be no doubt that when Lord Bathurst wrote, in the middle
of the Salamanca campaign, that ‘£100,000 in cash, chiefly gold, had
been sent off,’ and that ‘I wish to God we could assist you more in
money,’ he was writing quite honestly, and amid most adverse financial
circumstances. Great Britain was at the most exhausting point of her
long struggle with Napoleon. The Russian war had begun--but there
was no sign as yet that it was to be the ruin of the Emperor: his
armies seemed to be penetrating towards Moscow in the old triumphant
style: many politicians spoke of a humiliating peace dictated to Czar
Alexander in the autumn as the probable end of the campaign, and
speculated on Napoleon’s appearance at Madrid in 1813 as a possible
event. Wheat had risen in this spring to 130_s._ the quarter. The
outbreak of the long-threatened but long-averted American war looked
like the last blow that was to break down the British Empire. It was no
wonder that the national credit was low in June 1812. There was nothing
to revive it till Wellington’s Salamanca triumph in July: nor did any
one understand that Napoleon’s star had passed its zenith, till the
news of the disasters of the Moscow retreat began to drift westward in
November and December.
[Illustration: CENTRAL SPAIN]
Meanwhile, if the financial outlook was gloomy, the actual military
situation was more promising than it had ever been before. Well aware,
from intercepted dispatches, of the quarrels of his adversaries,
and perfectly informed as to their numbers and their cantonments,
Wellington considered with justice that he had such a game in his hands
as he had never before had set before him. On June 13th he crossed
the Agueda with his army in three parallel columns. The left was
under charge of Picton, and consisted of the 3rd Division, Pack’s and
Bradford’s Portuguese, and Le Marchant’s brigade of heavy dragoons.
The centre, which Beresford conducted, was composed of the Light, 4th,
and 5th Divisions. It was preceded by Alten’s German hussars, and
accompanied by Bock’s dragoons. The right column, under Graham, had
the 1st, 6th, and 7th Divisions, with a regiment of Anson’s horse for
purposes of exploration. It is to be noted that both Picton and Graham
were destined to remain only a few weeks with the army: the former had
taken the field ere his Badajoz wound was properly healed: it broke
open again, he fell into a high fever, and had to be sent to the rear.
Wellington’s brother-in-law, Pakenham, took over charge of the 3rd
Division on June 28th. Graham had been suffering for some months from
an affection of the eyes, which the physicians told him might at any
time grow worse and threaten his sight. He persisted on staying with
the army till the last possible moment, but became more blind each day,
and was compelled to throw up his command on July 6th and to return to
England for skilled medical advice. Thus, during the greater part of
the Salamanca campaign, Wellington was working without his best-trusted
lieutenants--Craufurd was dead, both Picton and Graham invalided. In
consequence of Graham’s departure a very difficult point was raised.
If some illness or wound should disable the Commander-in-Chief, to
whom would the charge of operations fall[415]? Wellington considered
that Beresford was entitled to expect the succession, and deprecated
the sending out of some senior officer from England with a commission
to act as second in command. He observed that no one coming fresh from
home would have a real grasp of the conditions of the war: that he
would probably start with _a priori_ views, and have to unlearn them
in a time of imminent danger. Moreover, a second-in-command was, when
his superior was in good health, either an unnecessary person or else
a tiresome one, if he presumed on his position to offer advice or
remonstrances. Fortunately the question remained a wholly academic one,
since Wellington’s iron physique, and unbroken luck when bullets were
flying, never failed him. An understudy turned out to be superfluous.
[415] Wellington to Bathurst. _Dispatches_, ix. p. 277.
The three columns of the allied army advanced on a very narrow front of
not more than ten miles, though the cavalry spread out considerably to
the flanks. On the 13th the columns bivouacked on the Guadapero river,
in front of Ciudad Rodrigo, between Santi Espiritus and Tenebron. On
the 14th they advanced four leagues to the Huebra, and camped on each
side of San Muñoz, with head-quarters at Cabrillas. On the 15th a
rather longer march took them to Matilla and Cayos. Nothing had yet
been seen of any enemy. It was only on the 16th, in the morning, that
the advanced cavalry of the centre column, after crossing the Valmusa
river, came into contact with two squadrons of French _chasseurs_, not
more than two leagues outside of Salamanca. These outposts gave way
when pushed, and retired across the Tormes. The British army bivouacked
in sight of Salamanca that night, and received the information that
Marmont had already evacuated the city, save for a garrison left in its
three new forts[416].
[416] The itinerary of this march in detail may be found in the
excellent Diary of Tomkinson of the 16th Light Dragoons.
The Army of Portugal had been caught, just as Wellington had hoped,
in a condition of wide dispersion. It was not that Marmont did not
expect the attack, but that, till the day when it should be actually
delivered, he dared not concentrate, because of his want of magazines
and the paucity of transport. He had resolved that he must be content
to abandon all the land west of Salamanca, in order that his point of
concentration should be out of reach of his enemy’s first stroke. It
was fixed at Bleines and Fuente Sauco, twenty miles north of Salamanca
on the road to Toro. On the morning of the 14th, when the news that
Wellington was over the Agueda first reached him, the Marshal issued
orders to all his divisions to march on this point, not even excepting
that of Bonnet in the Asturias. For, despite of the Emperor’s wish to
keep a hold upon that province, Marmont held, and rightly, that it
was more important to place in front of the Anglo-Portuguese every
possible bayonet, and he could not spare a solid division of 6,500
men. Unfortunately for him, however, it was clear that Bonnet could
not arrive for fifteen or twenty days. The other seven divisions were
concentrated by the fifth night from the giving of the alarm[417]. They
formed a mass of 36,000 infantry, with 80 guns, but only 2,800 horse.
This total does not include either Bonnet, nor three battalions of
Thomières’s division left to hold Astorga, nor small garrisons placed
in Toro, Zamora, the Salamanca forts, and certain other posts farther
east[418]. Nor does it take account of a dépôt of 3,000 men, including
many dismounted dragoons, at Valladolid. The total of the field army,
including artillery, sappers, &c., was about 40,000 of all arms.
[417] Foy, who had been drawn away from the Tagus after the
affair at Almaraz, had to march from Avila, Clausel from
Peñaranda, Ferey from Valladolid, Sarrut from Toro, Maucune and
Brennier had been at Salamanca, Thomières came from Zamora.
Boyer’s dragoons were at Toro and Benavente, Curto’s light
cavalry division had been with Maucune and Brennier at Salamanca.
Valladolid, Avila, and Benavente were the most distant points:
but the troops from them were all up by the 19th. Nor was it
possible for Wellington to interfere with the concentration,
though possibly he might have forced Foy from Avila to make a
détour, if he had followed Marmont very close.
[418] Nor do we reckon the regiment of Sarrut’s division (130th)
permanently detached at Santander.
This force was distinctly inferior in number to that of the
Anglo-Portuguese, who, without counting three infantry battalions on
their way to the front from Lisbon, or D’Urban’s Portuguese horse
on the side of Zamora, had some 40,000 infantry in line, and 3,500
excellent cavalry, in which arm Wellington, for the first time in his
life, had a slight advantage over the enemy. Carlos de España was also
approaching, with the 3,000 Spanish infantry that were available after
the garrison of Ciudad Rodrigo had been completed, and in all the
allied army must have had 48,000 men at the front[419]. The balance
of numbers, of which each general was pretty well informed, was such
as to make both sides careful--Marmont was 8,000 men short of his
adversary’s power, and was particularly depressed by the knowledge of
his inferiority in cavalry, an arm on which the French had hitherto
relied with confidence. But the horse of the Army of Portugal had
never recovered from the consequences of Masséna’s retreat in the last
spring, and all the regiments were very weak: while Wellington was
at last profiting from the liberal way in which the home government
had reinforced his mounted arm during the autumn of 1811. He had ten
British regiments with him, whereas at Fuentes de Oñoro he had owned
but four.
[419] See tables of the armies of both sides in the Appendix no.
IX.
On the other hand Wellington, among his 48,000 men, had only 28,000
British; there were 17,000 Portuguese and 3,000 Spaniards with him, and
excellent though the conduct of the former had been during the late
campaign, it would be hypocrisy to pretend that their commander could
rely upon them under all circumstances, as he would have done upon a
corresponding number of British infantry. He was ready to give battle,
but it must be a battle under favourable conditions. Marmont felt much
the same: it was necessary to beat Wellington if the French domination
in Spain was to be preserved. But it would be rash to attack him
in one of his favourite defensive positions: there must be no more
Bussacos. And every available man must be gathered in, before a general
action was risked. The only justification for instant battle would be
the unlikely chance of catching the Anglo-Portuguese army in a state
of dispersion or some other unlucky posture--and Wellington’s known
caution did not make such a chance very probable.
Marmont’s main purpose, indeed, was to hold Wellington ‘contained’ till
he should have succeeded in bringing up Bonnet, and also reinforcements
from the Armies of the North and Centre--if not even from some distant
forces. On Bonnet’s eventual arrival he could rely--but not on any
fixed date for his appearance, for it was difficult to get orders
promptly to the Asturias, and there might be many unforeseen delays in
their execution. But Marmont was also counting on aid from Caffarelli,
which would presumably reach him even before Bonnet appeared. In
expectation of Wellington’s advance, he had written to the Commander
of the Army of the North on May 24th and 30th, and again on June
5th, asking for assurances of help, and reminding his colleague of
the Emperor’s directions. The answers received were, on the whole,
satisfactory: the last of them, dated at Vittoria on June 14th, said
that the disposable field-force was 8,000 men, including a brigade of
light cavalry and 22 guns. They should march from Vittoria as soon
as some troops of Abbé’s division arrived from Pampeluna to replace
them, and they should be écheloned along the high-road from Burgos
to Valladolid ready to move up when called upon[420]. It must be
remembered that on this date Caffarelli was answering a hypothetical
inquiry as to his exact power to help, not a definite demand for men,
since Wellington had only crossed the Agueda on the previous day, and
nothing was known at Vittoria of his actual start. But the dispatch was
encouraging, as it seemed to show a good spirit, and named the exact
force available, and the route that it would take. Marmont received
it upon the 19th, just as he had completed his own concentration at
Fuente Sauco. It seemed to justify him in believing that before July 1
he would have 8,000 men from Caffarelli at his disposition, including,
what was specially valuable, 1,000 horse.
[420] See Caffarelli to Marmont of June 10 and June 14th in
Marmont’s _Mémoires_, iv. pp. 408-10.
The dispatches from King Joseph and Jourdan were less satisfactory. At
this moment they were in a state of hesitation caused by contradictory
intelligence. ‘Your letter of June 6th,’ wrote Jourdan to Marmont,
‘says that Wellington will soon fall upon you. But we have similar
letters from Soult, declaring that the blow is to be delivered against
him: he encloses two notes of June 2nd and 5th from General Daricau
in Estremadura, declaring that 60,000 of the allies are just about
to begin an invasion of Andalusia. We are too far off from the scene
of operations to determine whether it is you or the Duke of Dalmatia
who is deceived. We can only tell you, meanwhile, not to be misled by
demonstrations, and to be ready to start off three divisions to Soult’s
help without a moment’s delay, if Lord Wellington’s real objective is
Andalusia. Similarly we have sent Soult express orders that he shall
move Drouet to the north bank of the Tagus, if Wellington has called up
Hill to join him, and is making the true attack on you. Caffarelli has
stringent orders to support you with what troops he can collect, when
you are able to tell him definitely that you are the person threatened,
not Soult[421].’
[421] Jourdan to Marmont, June 14th, in _Mémoires_, iv. pp.
411-12.
It is clear that the hallucinations of the Duke of Dalmatia were most
valuable to Wellington, who had foreseen them long ago by a study of
intercepted dispatches. Whatever happened, Soult could not refrain from
believing that he had the great rôle to play, and that his Andalusian
viceroyalty was the centre of all things. At this moment his picture
of Wellington about to move on Cordova with 60,000 men seems to have
been a belated conception caused by Graham’s march to Elvas on May 20.
He had not yet realized that ten days later Graham’s corps had gone
northward again, and had joined Wellington on the Agueda about the
time that he was writing his alarmist letters. There was nothing in
front of him save Hill’s 18,000 men: but he refused to see the facts,
and deceived Joseph and Jourdan for some days by the definite and
authoritative restatement of absolutely erroneous intelligence. Hence
it was not till Marmont was able to say, without any possible chance
of error, that Wellington was across the Agueda, and had advanced to
Salamanca at the head of at least 40,000 men, that the King and his
Chief-of-the-Staff at last recognized the true seat of danger. Long
after they had detected it, they continued (as we shall see) to receive
preposterous dispatches from Soult, still maintaining that they were
mistaken, and still discovering excuses for not obeying the peremptory
orders that they sent him.
SECTION XXXIII: CHAPTER IV
THE SALAMANCA FORTS. TEN DAYS OF MANŒUVRES, JUNE 20TH-30TH, 1812
Wellington’s conduct on reaching Salamanca was not that which might
have been expected. When a general has, by a careful and well-arranged
concentration, collected all his own troops into one solid mass, and
then by a rapid advance has thrown himself into the midst of the
scattered cantonments of an enemy who has no superiority to him in
numbers, it is natural for him to press his pursuit vigorously. Far the
most effective way of opening the campaign would have been to cut up
the two divisions which Marmont had just led out of Salamanca, or at
least to follow them so closely that they could be brought to action
before all the outlying divisions had come in. This would certainly
have been Napoleon’s method.
Wellington, however, wanted to fight a battle in one of his favourite
defensive positions, and he thought that he had a means of compelling
Marmont to attack him, by laying siege to the Salamanca forts. After
Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz, no French marshal would like to see a
third important post captured ‘under his nose.’ The British general
judged that Marmont would fight him, in order to save his prestige and
his garrison. And since he believed that Bonnet would not evacuate
the Asturias, and that Caffarelli would send help late, if at all,
he thought that he could count upon a superiority of numbers which
rendered victory certain.
This seems to be the only rational way of explaining Wellington’s
conduct on June 17th. On arriving in front of Salamanca his army made
a majestic encircling movement, Picton’s column crossing the Tormes
by the fords of El Canto below the city, Beresford’s and Graham’s by
those of Santa Marta above it. The use of the unbroken town-bridge was
made impossible by Marmont’s forts. The heads of the two columns met
on the north side, and they then moved three miles on, and took up a
long position below the heights of San Cristobal, which lie outside
Salamanca on its northern and eastern front. These formed the chosen
defensive fighting-ground which Wellington had already in his mind.
Only the 14th Light Dragoons and Clinton’s infantry of the 6th Division
turned into Salamanca by the Toro gate, and acted as Wellington’s
escort, while he was received by the municipality and made his
arrangements for the attack on the forts, which, though they commanded
the bridge, had no outlook on the spacious arcaded Plaza Mayor, where
the reception took place. It was a lively scene. ‘We were received with
shouts and _vivas_,’ writes an eye-witness. ‘The inhabitants were out
of their senses at having got rid of the French, and nearly pulled Lord
Wellington off his horse. The ladies were the most violent, many coming
up to him and embracing him. He kept writing orders upon his sabretash,
and was interrupted three or four times by them. What with the joy
of the people, and the feeling accompanying troops about to attack a
fortress, it was a half-hour of suspense and anxiety, and a scene of
such interest as I never before witnessed[422].’
[422] Tomkinson’s _Diary_, p. 162.
Head-quarters were established that night in the city, and Clinton’s
division invested the forts, which looked formidable enough to require
close study before they were attacked. The rest of the army took up
its bivouacs, with the cavalry out in front, and remained practically
without movement on the ground now selected, for the next two days,
till Marmont came to pay his expected visit.
The three Salamanca forts were built on high ground in the south-west
corner of the city, which overlooks the long Roman bridge. To make
them Marmont had destroyed a great part of the old University quarter
of the place, levelling the majority of the colleges--for Salamanca,
till 1808, had been a university of the English rather than the usual
continental type, and had owned a score of such institutions. Nearly
all the buildings on the slopes had been pulled down, leaving a wide
open glacis round three massive convents, which had been transformed
into places of strength. San Vincente occupied the crest of the knoll
overlooking the river, and lay in the extreme angle of the old city
wall, which enclosed it on two sides. The smaller strongholds, San
Cayetano and La Merced, were separated from San Vincente by a narrow
but steep ravine, and lay close together on another rising-ground of
about the same height. The three formed a triangle with crossing fires,
each to a large extent commanding the ground over which the others
would have to be approached. The south and west sides of San Vincente
and La Merced overhung precipitous slopes above the river, and were
almost inaccessible. The north sides of San Cayetano and San Vincente
were the only fronts that looked promising for attack, and in each
elaborate preparations had been made in view of that fact. Marmont
had originally intended to enclose all three forts and many buildings
more--such as the Town Hospital, the convent of San Francisco, and the
colleges of Ireland and Cuenca, in an outer _enceinte_, to serve as
a large citadel which would contain several thousand men and all his
magazines. But money and time had failed, and on the slopes below the
forts, several convents and colleges, half pulled to pieces, were still
standing, and offered cover for besiegers at a distance of some 250
yards from the works. The garrison consisted of six flank-companies
from the 15th, 65th, 82nd, and 86th of the line and the 17th Léger,
and of a company of artillery, under the _chef de bataillon_ Duchemin
of the 65th. They made up a total of 800 men, and had thirty-six guns
in position, of which, however, the greater part were only light
field-pieces: two guns (commanding the bridge) were in La Merced,
four in San Cayetano, the remaining thirty in San Vincente, the most
formidable of the three.
Wellington had come prepared to besiege ‘three fortified convents,’
and had been sent a confused sketch of them drawn by an amateur’s
hand[423]. They turned out much stronger than he had been led to
expect, owing to the immense amount of hewn stone from the demolished
colleges and other buildings that was available to build them up. The
walls had been doubled in thickness, the windows stopped, and scarps
and counterscarps with solid masonry had been thrown around them. The
roofs of the two minor forts had been taken off, and the upper stories
casemated, by massive oak beams with a thick coating of earth laid
upon them. This surface was so strong that guns, protected by sandbag
embrasures, had been mounted on it at some points. There was also an
ample provision of palisades, made from strong oak and chestnut beams.
Altogether it was clear that the works would require a systematic
battering, and were not mere patched-up mediaeval monasteries, as had
been expected.
[423] Jones, _Sieges_, i. p. 269.
It was, therefore, most vexatious to find that the very small
battering-train which Wellington had brought with him from Ciudad
Rodrigo was obviously insufficient for the task before it; there were
no more than four iron 18-pounder guns, with only 100 rounds of shot
each, at the front; though six 24-pound howitzers, from the train that
had taken Badajoz, were on their way from Elvas to join, and were due
on the 20th. It was not, however, howitzers so much as more heavy 18-or
24-pounders that were required for battering, and the lack of them at
the moment was made all the more irksome by the known fact that there
were plenty of both sorts at Rodrigo and Almeida, five or six marches
away. The mistake was precisely the same that was to be made again at
Burgos in the autumn--undervaluation of the means required to deal
with works of third-class importance. Whether Wellington himself or
his artillery and engineer advisers were primarily responsible is not
clear[424].
[424] At any rate Dickson was not, as he was with the howitzers
that were coming up from Elvas, and had not started from Rodrigo
with the army.
The responsibility for the working out of the little siege with
inadequate means fell on Lieut.-Colonel Burgoyne, as senior engineer
(he had with him only two other officers of that corps and nine
military artificers!), and Lieut.-Colonel May, R.A., who was in charge
of the four 18-pounders. The latter borrowed three howitzers from
field-batteries to supplement his miserable means, and afterwards two
6-pounder field-guns, which, of course, were only for annoying the
garrison, not for battering.
It looked at first as if the only practicable scheme was to build a
battery for the 18-pounders on the nearest available ground, 250 yards
from San Vincente to the north, and lower down the knoll on which
that fort stood. There was good cover from ruined buildings up to
this distance from the French works. On the night of the occupation
of Salamanca 400 workmen of the 6th Division commenced a battery on
the selected spot and approaches leading to it from the cover in the
ruins. The work done was not satisfactory: it was nearly full moon,
the night was short, and the enemy (who knew well enough where the
attack must begin), kept up a lively fire of artillery and musketry
all night. Unfortunately the 6th Division workmen had no experience
of sieges--they had never used pick or shovel before, and there were
only two engineer officers and nine artificers to instruct them. ‘Great
difficulty was found in keeping the men to work under the fire: the
Portuguese in particular absolutely went on hands and knees, dragging
their baskets along the ground[425].’ By daylight the projected line of
the battery was only knee-high, and gave no cover, so that the men had
to be withdrawn till dusk. An attempt had been made during the night to
ascertain whether it were possible to creep forward to the ditch, and
lay mines there, to blow in the counterscarp. But the party who tried
to reach the ditch were detected by the barking of a dog, who alarmed
the French out-picket, and the explorers had to retire with several men
wounded.
[425] Burgoyne’s diary in his _Life_, i. p. 192.
Seeing that the fire of the garrison was so effective, the officers
in charge of the siege asked for, and obtained from Wellington, three
hundred marksmen to keep down the _tiraillade_. They were taken from
the Light Brigade of the King’s German Legion, and spread among the
ruins to fire at the embrasures and loopholes of the French. They also
hoisted, with some difficulty, two field-guns on to the first floor of
the convent of San Bernardo, which lies north-west of San Vincente,
and kept up a lively discharge ‘out of the drawing-room window, so to
speak. We fired for some hours at each other, during which time an
unlucky shot went as completely through my captain’s (Eligé’s) heart as
possible. But considering how near we were, I am much surprised that
our loss was so slight--one killed and one wounded at my own gun[426].’
But the fire of the San Vincente artillery was by no means silenced.
[426] Letter of F. Monro, R.A., lent me by his representative.
See _Fortnightly Review_ for July 1912.
On the night of June 18th-19th the working party of the 6th Division
succeeded in finishing the battery which was to breach the main fort,
and also commenced two smaller batteries, to right and left, in places
among the ruins, one by the College of Cuenca, the other below San
Bernardo[427]. On the morning of the 19th the four 18-pounders and
three howitzers opened, and brought down the upper courses of the
masonry of that part of San Vincente on which they were trained.
But they could not move its lower part, or reach the counterscarp.
Wherefore two howitzers were put into the second battery, near the
College of Cuenca, which could command the counterscarp. The play of
these guns proved insufficient, however, to shake it, and the garrison
concentrated such a fire upon them, mainly from musketry at loopholes,
that twenty gunners were killed or hurt while working the two howitzers.
[427] Nos. 2 and 3 in the map respectively.
Next morning Dickson’s six howitzers from Elvas came up, and served to
replace those borrowed from the field companies, wherefore there was
only an addition of three pieces net to the battering-train. Two of the
18-pounders were moved round to the battery (No. 2) which had been so
hard hit on the preceding day: their fire proved much more effective
than that of the howitzers, and brought down an angle of the upper wall
of San Vincente and part of its roof, which fell on and crushed many of
the French.
But on the 21st it was impossible to continue the battering, for the
ignominious reason that there were hardly any more shot left to fire.
Only sixty balls remained in store for the 18-pounders, and a little
over one hundred for the howitzers[428]. The calculations of the
besiegers had been so erroneous that they had used up their stock just
as the critical moment had arrived. On the previous day Wellington,
seeing what was coming, had sent a hurried message to Almeida for more
shot and powder--but the convoy, though urged on with all possible
speed, did not arrive at Salamanca till the 26th.
[428] Of course a few rounds more for the howitzers could have
been borrowed from the field-batteries with the divisions. For
the 18-pounders, the really important guns, there was no such
resource for borrowing.