lay opposite each other were visited by an appalling tempest. ‘The
rain fell in torrents accompanied by vivid flashes of lightning, and
succeeded by instantaneous peals of thunder:’ writes one annalist:
‘a more violent crash of the elements has seldom been witnessed: its
effects were soon apparent. Le Marchands brigade of cavalry had halted
to our left: the men, dismounted, were either seated or lying on the
ground, holding their horses’ bridles. Alarmed by the thunder, the
beasts started with a sudden violence, and many of them breaking loose
galloped across the country in all directions. The frightened horses,
in a state of wildness, passing by without riders, added to the awful
effect of the tempest[503].’ The 5th Dragoon Guards suffered most by
the stampede--eighteen men were hurt, and thirty-one horses were not
to be found. Another diarist speaks of the splendid effect of the
lightning reflected on the musket-barrels of belated infantry columns,
which were just marching to their camping-ground. Before midnight the
storm had passed over--the later hours of sleep were undisturbed, and
next morning a brilliant sun rose into a cloudless sky[504]. The last
day of manœuvring was begun, and the battle which both sides had so
long avoided was at last to come.
[503] Leith Hay, ii. p. 46.
[504] Diary of Green of the 68th, p. 98.
SECTION XXXIII: CHAPTER VI
THE BATTLE OF SALAMANCA, JULY 22, 1812. THE EARLY STAGES
The decisive moment of the campaign of 1812 had now been
reached--though Marmont was wholly unaware of it, and was proposing
merely to continue his manœuvring of the last five days, and though
Wellington hardly expected that the 22nd of July would turn out
more eventful than the 21st. Both of them have left record of their
intentions on the fateful morning. The Duke of Ragusa wrote to Berthier
as follows: ‘My object was, in taking up this position, to prolong
my movement to the left, in order to dislodge the enemy from the
neighbourhood of Salamanca, and to fight him at a greater advantage. I
calculated on taking up a good defensive position, against which the
enemy could make no offensive move, and intended to press near enough
to him to be able to profit from the first fault that he might make,
and to attack him with vigour[505].’ He adds in another document, ‘I
considered that our respective positions would bring on not a battle,
but an advantageous rearguard action, in which, using my full force
late in the day, with a part only of the British army left in front
of me, I should probably score a point[506].’ It is clear that he
reckoned that his adversary would continue his policy of the last five
days; Wellington, if his flank were once more turned, would move on as
before--always parrying the thrusts made at him, but not taking the
offensive himself.
[505] Marmont to Berthier, July 31, printed in _Mémoires_, iv. p.
443.
[506] Marmont, _Mémoires_, iv. p. 237.
Nor was he altogether wrong in his expectation. Writing to Lord
Bathurst on the evening of July 21st, the British Commander-in-Chief
summed up his intentions in these words. ‘I have determined to cross
the Tormes, if the enemy should: to cover Salamanca as long as I
can: and above all not to give up our communication with Ciudad
Rodrigo: and not to fight an action unless under very advantageous
circumstances, or if it should become absolutely necessary[507].’ This
determination is re-stated in a dispatch which Wellington wrote three
days later, in a very different frame of mind. ‘I had determined that
if circumstances should not permit me to attack him on the 22nd, I
should move toward Ciudad Rodrigo without further loss of time[508].’
Wellington was therefore, it is clear, intending simply to continue
his retreat without delivering battle, unless Marmont should give him
an opportunity of striking a heavy blow, by putting himself in some
dangerous posture. He desired to fight, but only if he could fight
at advantage. Had Marmont continued to turn his flank by cautious
movements made at a discreet distance, and with an army always ready
to form an orderly line of battle, Wellington would have sacrificed
Salamanca, and moved back toward the Agueda. He was not prepared to
waste men in indecisive combats, which would not put the enemy out of
action even if they went off well. ‘It is better that a battle should
not be fought, unless under such favourable circumstances that there
would be reason to hope that the allied army would be able to maintain
the field, while that of the enemy would not[509].’ For if the French
were only checked, and not completely knocked to pieces, Wellington
knew that they would be reinforced within a few days by the 14,000 men
whom King Joseph (unknown to Marmont) was bringing up from Madrid.
Retreat would then again become necessary, since the enemy would be
superior in numbers to a hopeless extent. Wellington added that the
22nd was his best day of advantage, since within thirty-six hours
Marmont would have been reinforced by the cavalry brigade under General
Chauvel, which Caffarelli had at last sent forward from Burgos. It
had reached the Douro at Valladolid on the 20th, and would be up at
the front on the 23rd: this he well knew, and somewhat overrated its
strength[510].
[507] _Dispatches_, ix. p. 299, July 21st.
[508] Wellington to Bathurst, July 24. _Dispatches_, ix. p. 300.
[509] Again from dispatch to Bathurst, July 21st. _Dispatches_,
ix. p. 296.
[510] Supposing it, apparently, to be over 1,000 strong, while it
was really not 800 sabres.
But though ready to take his advantage, if it were offered him,
Wellington evidently leaned to the idea that it would not be given.
He prepared for retreat, by sending off his whole baggage-train on
the Ciudad Rodrigo road at dawn, escorted by one of D’Urban’s three
Portuguese cavalry regiments. This was a clear expression of his
intention to move off. So is his letter of July 24 to Graham in which,
writing in confidence to a trusted subordinate, he remarks, ‘Marmont
ought to have given me a _pont d’or_, and then he would have made a
handsome operation of it.’ Instead of furnishing the proverbial bridge
of gold to the yielding adversary, the Marshal pressed in upon him in
a threatening fashion, yet with his troops so scattered and strung
out on a long front, that he was not ready for a decisive action when
Wellington at last saw his opportunity and dashed in upon him.
At dawn on the 22nd each party had to discover the exact position of
his adversary, for the country-side was both wooded and undulating.
Wellington’s army, on the line of heights reaching southward from Santa
Marta, was almost entirely masked, partly by the woods in the centre of
his position, but still more by his having placed all the divisions far
back from the sky-line on the reverse slope of the plateau. The front
was about three miles long, but little was visible upon it. Foy, whose
division was ahead of the rest of the French army, describes what he
saw as follows:--
‘The position of San Cristobal had been almost stripped of troops:
we could see one English division in a sparsely-planted wood within
cannon-shot of Calvarisa de Ariba, on the Salamanca road: very far
behind a thin column was ascending the heights of Tejares: nothing more
could be made out of Wellington’s army: all the rest was hidden from
us by the chain of heights which runs from north to south, and ends
in the high and precipitous knolls of the Arapiles. Wellington was on
this chain, sufficiently near for us to recognize by means of the staff
surrounding him[511].’
[511] _Vie militaire_, edited by Girod de l’Ain, p. 173.
All, then, that Foy, and Marmont who was riding near him, actually
saw, was the 7th Division in the wood opposite Nuestra Señora de la
Peña, and the distant baggage-column already filing off on the Ciudad
Rodrigo road, which ascends the heights beyond Aldea Tejada four miles
to the rear.
The French army was a little more visible to Wellington, who could not
only make out Foy’s division behind Calvarisa de Ariba, but several
other masses farther south and east, in front of the long belt of
woods which extends on each side of the village of Utrera for some
two miles or more. It was impossible to see how far the French left
reached among the dense trees: but the right was ‘refused:’ no troops
were opposite Wellington’s left or northern wing, and the villages of
Pelabravo and Calvarisa de Abaxo, far in advance of it, were still
held by British cavalry vedettes. In short, only the allied right and
centre had enemies in front of them. This indicated what Wellington
had expected--an attempt of Marmont to continue his old policy of
outflanking his adversary’s extreme right: clearly the British left was
not in danger.
Marmont, as his exculpatory dispatch to Berthier acknowledges, was
convinced that Wellington would retire once more the moment that his
flank was threatened. ‘Everything led me to believe,’ he writes,
‘that the enemy intended to occupy the position of Tejares [across
the Zurgain] which lay a league behind him, while at present he was a
league and a half in front of Salamanca[512].’ Foy’s diary completely
bears out this view of Marmont’s conception of the situation. ‘The
Marshal had no definite plan: he thought that the English army was
already gone off, or at least that it was going off, to take position
on the heights of Tejares on the left [or farther] bank of the river
Zurgain. He was tempted to make an attack on the one visible English
division, with which a skirmishing fire had already begun. He was
fearing that this division might get out of his reach! How little
did he foresee the hapless lot of his own army that day! The wily
Wellington was ready to give battle--the greater part of his host
was collected, but masked behind the line of heights: he was showing
nothing on the crest, lest his intention should be divined: he was
waiting for our movement[513].’
[512] Correspondence in _Mémoires_, iv. p. 254.
[513] Foy, p. 174.
The skirmish to which Foy alludes was one begun by the _voltigeurs_
of his own division, whom Marmont had ordered forward, to push back
the English pickets on the height of Nuestra Señora de la Peña. These
belonged to the 7th Division, which was occupying the wood behind. Not
wishing his position to be too closely examined, Wellington sent out
two whole battalions, the 68th and the 2nd Caçadores, who formed a
very powerful screen of light troops, and pushed back the French from
the hill and the ruined chapel on top of it. Marmont then strengthened
his firing line, and brought up a battery, which checked the further
advance of the allied skirmishers. The two screens continued to
exchange shots for several hours, half a mile in front of Wellington’s
position. The _tiraillade_ had many episodes, in one of which General
Victor Alten, leading a squadron of his hussars to protect the flank
of the British skirmishers, received a ball in the knee, which put him
out of action, and threw the command of his brigade into the hands of
Arentschildt, colonel of the 1st Hussars K.G.L. After much bickering,
and when noon had long passed, the 68th and Caçadores were relieved
by some companies of the 95th from the Light Division, as Wellington
wished to employ the 7th Division elsewhere. He had at first thought
it possible that Marmont was about to make a serious attack on this
part of his front; but the notion died away when it was seen that
the Marshal did not send up any formed battalions to support his
_voltigeurs_, and allowed the light troops of the allies to cling to
the western half of the slopes of Nuestra Señora de la Peña.
[Illustration: THE GREATER OR FRENCH ARAPILE SEEN FROM THE FOOT OF THE
LESSER ARAPILE.]
[Illustration: GENERAL VIEW OF THE BRITISH AND FRENCH POSITIONS, TAKEN
FROM THE REAR OF THE FORMER, THE NEARER HILL WAS THE POSITION OF THE
5TH DIVISION. THE VILLAGE OF ARAPILES TO THE LEFT. THE DISTANT RIDGE,
ALONG WHICH SMOKE IS ROLLING, IS THE FRENCH POSITION.
From photographs by Mr. C. Armstrong.]
It was soon evident that the French were--as so often before during the
last six days--about to extend their left wing. The right or southern
flank of Wellington’s line rested on the rocky knoll, 400 feet high,
which is known as the ‘Lesser Arapile.’ Six hundred yards from it,
and outside the allied zone of occupation, lay the ‘Greater Arapile,’
which is a few feet higher and much longer than its fellow. These two
curious hills, sometimes called the ‘Hermanitos’ or ‘little brothers,’
are the most striking natural feature in the country-side. They rise
a hundred and fifty feet above the valley which lies between them,
and a hundred feet above the heights on either side. Their general
appearance somewhat recalls that of Dartmoor ‘Tors,’ rough rock
breaking out through the soil. But their shapes differ: the Greater
Arapile shows crags at each end, but has a comparatively smooth ascent
to its centre on its northern front--so smooth that steep ploughed
fields have been laid out upon it, and extend almost to the crest. The
Lesser Arapile is precipitous on its southern front, where it faces its
twin, but is joined at its back (or northern) side by a gentle slope
to the main line of the heights where Wellington’s army lay. It is in
short an integral part of them, though it rises far above their level.
The Greater Arapile, on the other hand, is an isolated height, not
belonging to the system of much lower knolls which lies to its south.
These, three-quarters of a mile away, are covered with wood, and form
part of the long forest which reaches as far as the neighbourhood of
Alba de Tormes.
Wellington had left the Greater Arapile outside his position, partly
because it was completely separated from the other heights that he
held, partly (it is said) because he had surveyed the ground in the
dusk, and had judged the knoll farther from the Lesser Arapile than
was actually the case; they were within easy cannon-shot from each
other[514]. At about eight o’clock, French skirmishers were observed
breaking out from the woods to the south of the Arapile and pushing
rapidly toward it. They were followed by supporting columns in
strength--indeed Marmont had directed the whole of Bonnet’s division
to move, under cover of the trees, to the point where the woods
approach nearest to the hill, and from thence to carry it if possible.
Wellington, now judging that it was uncomfortably near to his right
flank, ordered the 7th Caçadores--from the 4th Division, the unit that
lay nearest--to race hard for the Greater Arapile and try to seize it
before the French had arrived. They made good speed but failed: the
enemy was on the crest first, and repulsed them with some loss. They
had to fall back to behind the Lesser Arapile, which was held by the
first British brigade of their division (W. Anson’s).
[514] So says Vere, in his _Marches of the 4th Division_, p. 31.
Marmont had seized the Greater Arapile, as he tells us, to form
a strong advanced post, behind which he could move his main body
westward, in pursuance of his old design of turning Wellington’s right.
It was to be the ‘pivot on which the flanking movement should be made,’
the ‘_point d’appui_ of the right of his army’ when it should reach
its new position[515]. Bonnet’s troops being firmly established on
and behind it, he began to move his divisions to their left. On his
original ground, the plateau of Calvarisa de Ariba, he left Foy’s
division in front line--still bickering with the skirmishing line of
the allies--Ferey’s division in support, and Boyer’s dragoons to cover
the flank against any possible attack from the British cavalry, who
were in force on Wellington’s left, and still had detachments out on
the plateau by Pelabravo, beyond Foy’s extreme right. Having made this
provision against any possible attempt to attack him in the rear while
he was executing his great manœuvre, Marmont marched his five remaining
divisions[516], under cover of Bonnet’s advanced position, to the edge
of the wooded hills in rear of the Great Arapile, where they remained
for some time in a threatening mass, without further movement.
[515] Marmont, _Mémoires_, iv. p. 255.
[516] Clausel, Brennier, Maucune, Thomières, and Sarrut also,
when the latter arrived late from Babila Fuente, and joined the
main body.
Wellington, clearly discerning from the summit of the Lesser Arapile
this general shift of the enemy to the left, now made great alterations
in the arrangement of his troops, and adopted what may be called
his second battle-position. The 4th Division, about and around that
height, was placed so as to serve for the allied army the same purpose
that Bonnet was carrying out for the French on the other Hermanito.
Of Cole’s three brigades, that of Anson occupied the Arapile--the
3/27th on the summit, the 1/40th in support on the rear slope. Pack’s
independent Portuguese brigade was placed beside Anson. The Fusilier
brigade (under Ellis of the 1/23rd) and Stubbs’s Portuguese, the
remaining units of the 4th Division, were formed up to the right of the
hill, extending as far as the village which takes its name of Arapiles
from the two strange knolls. Two guns of Cole’s divisional battery
(that of Sympher[517]) were hoisted up with some difficulty to the
level of the 3/27th. The other four were left with the Fusiliers near
the village[518]. Thus the little Arapile became the obtuse angle of a
formation ‘en potence,’ with Pack and two brigades of the 4th Division
on its right, and the 7th Division (still engaged at a distance with
Foy) and the 1st and Light Divisions on its left. At the same time
Wellington moved down the troops which had originally formed his
left wing (5th and 6th Divisions, España’s Spaniards, and Bradford’s
Portuguese) to a supporting position behind his centre, somewhere near
the village of Las Torres, where they could reinforce either his right
or his left, as might prove necessary in the end. As a further general
reserve G. Anson’s and Le Marchant’s cavalry brigades, and the greater
part of Victor Alten’s, were brought away from the original left, and
placed in reserve near the 6th Division; but Bock and two of Victor
Alten’s squadrons[519] remained on the left, opposite Boyer’s dragoons.
[517] A K.G.L. unit--the only German artillery present at
Salamanca.
[518] All this from Vere’s _Marches of the 4th Division_, p. 32.
[519] From the 14th Light Dragoons.
In connexion with this same general move, Wellington sent a most
important order to the troops which he had left till this moment on
the north bank of the Tormes, covering Salamanca, in the position by
Cabrerizos. These consisted of the 3rd Division--which was under the
temporary command of Edward Pakenham (Wellington’s brother-in-law)
during Picton’s sickness--and the 500 sabres that remained of
D’Urban’s Portuguese horse, after one regiment had been sent off on
escort-duty with the baggage-train. These corps were directed to march
over the town-bridge of Salamanca, and take up a position between
Aldea Tejada and La Penilla, to the east of the high-road to Ciudad
Rodrigo. There placed, they were available either as a reserve to the
newly-formed right wing, or as a supporting échelon, if the whole
army should ultimately fall back for a retreat along the high-road,
or as a detached force placed so far to the right that it could
outflank or throw itself in front of any French troops which might
continue Marmont’s advance from the Arapiles westward. It is probable
that Wellington, at the moment when he gave the orders, would have
been quite unable to say which of these three duties would fall to
Pakenham’s share. The 3rd Division marched from Cabrerizos at noon,
passing through the city, which was at this moment full of alarms and
excursions. For the sight of Marmont close at hand, and of the British
baggage-train moving off hastily toward Rodrigo, had filled the
inhabitants with dismay. Some were hiding their more valuable property,
others (who had compromised themselves by their friendly reception of
the allied army) were preparing for hasty flight. Some used bitter
language of complaint--the English were retreating without a battle
after betraying their friends.
Pakenham and D’Urban reached their appointed station by two
o’clock,[520] and halted in a dip in the ground, well screened by
trees, between La Penilla and Aldea Tejada, where they could barely
be seen from the highest slopes of Wellington’s position, and not at
all from any other point. For some time they were left undisturbed,
listening to a growing noise of artillery fire to their left front,
where matters were evidently coming to a head.
[520] The hours are taken from D’Urban’s diary.
At about eleven o’clock Marmont had climbed to the summit of the French
Arapile, from whence he obtained for the first time a partial view into
the British position; for looking up the dip in the ground between the
Lesser Arapile and the heights occupied by the Fusilier brigade of the
4th Division, he could catch a glimpse of some of the movements that
were going on at the back of Wellington’s first line. Apparently he saw
the 1st and Light Divisions behind the crest of their destined fighting
position, and the 5th and 6th and Bradford’s Portuguese taking ground
to their right. Pack’s Portuguese on the flank and rear of the British
Arapile must also have been visible at least in part. The conclusion to
which he came was that his adversary was accumulating forces behind the
Lesser Arapile with the object of sallying out against Bonnet, whose
post was very far advanced in front of the rest of the French army, and
against Foy and Ferey, who were left in a somewhat isolated position on
the plateau by Calvarisa, when the main body of the army had moved so
far to the west.
Some such intention seems for a moment to have been in Wellington’s
mind, though he says nothing of it in his dispatch. ‘About twelve
o’clock,’ writes one of the most trustworthy British diarists, ‘the
troops were ordered to attack, and the 1st Division moved forward
to gain the other Arapile, which the French had taken.... There was
something singular, I think, in Lord Wellington’s ordering the 1st and
Light Divisions to attack early in the day, and then counter-ordering
them after they had begun to move. Marshal Beresford, no doubt, was the
cause of the alteration, by what he urged. Yet at the same time Lord
W. is so little influenced (or indeed allows any person to say a word)
that his attending to the Marshal was considered singular. From all I
could collect and observe “the Peer” was a little nervous: it was the
first time he had ever attacked. When he _did_ finally determine on the
attack it was well done, in the most decided manner. There was possibly
some little trouble in arriving at that decision[521].’ Oddly enough
this contemporary note is exactly borne out by Marmont’s statement in
his _Mémoires_, that meeting Wellington years after, he inquired about
the point, and was frankly told that an attack had been projected
at this moment, but that it had been put off in consequence of the
representation of Beresford, who had counselled delay[522]. There was
a heavy mass of troops available behind the Lesser Arapile and to both
sides of it--the 4th Division, Pack’s Portuguese, and the 1st, 7th, and
Light Divisions, with the 5th and 6th and Bradford and the cavalry in
reserve. The blow might have succeeded--but undoubtedly that delivered
four hours later was much more effective.
[521] Tomkinson’s _Diary_, pp. 187-9.
[522] Marmont, _Mémoires_, iv. p. 256.
The idea of an attack at noon having been finally rejected Wellington
turned his mind to another possibility. If Marmont should commit no
blunders, and should continue his turning movement at a safe distance,
and with his whole army well concentrated, it was quite possible that
a retreat might become necessary. The Commander-in-Chief called up
Colonel Delancey, then acting as Adjutant-General[523], and directed
him to draft a comprehensive scheme for the order in which the troops
should be withdrawn, and the route which each division would take in
the event of an evacuation of the position. The next stand was to be
made, as Marmont had supposed, on the heights above Aldea Tejada,
behind the river Zurgain[524]. Such a move would have involved the
abandonment of the city of Salamanca to the French. The news spread
from the staff round the commanding officers of divisions, and so
downwards to the ranks, where it caused immense discontent. Every one
was ‘spoiling for a fight,’ and the cautious tactics of the last six
days had been causing murmurs, which were only kept from becoming acute
by the long-tried confidence that the army felt in its chief.
[523] Charles Stewart (Lord Londonderry), who had held the post
for the last three years had just gone home, and his successor
had not yet come out to Spain.
[524] The note concerning Delancey is from Vere’s _Marches of the
4th Division_, p. 31.
At this very moment Marmont began to act in the fashion that Wellington
most desired, by making an altogether dangerous extension of his left
wing, and at the same time pressing in so close to his adversary
that he could not avoid a battle if it were thrust upon him. His own
explanation is that he took the putting off of Wellington’s tentative
movement against Bonnet as a sign that the allied army was actually
commencing its retreat. ‘Wellington renounced his intention of
fighting, and from that moment he had to prepare to draw away, for if
he had remained in his present position I should from the next day
have threatened his communications, by marching on to my left. His
withdrawal commenced at midday.... He had to retreat by his right, and
consequently he had to begin by strengthening his right. He therefore
weakened his left, and accumulated troops on his right. Then his more
distant units and his reserves commenced to move, and in succession
drew off towards Tejares [Aldea Tejada]. His intention was easy to
discern.... The enemy having carried off the bulk of his force to
his right, I had to reinforce my left, so as to be able to act with
promptness and vigour, without having to make new arrangements, when
the moment should arrive for falling upon the English rearguard[525].’
[525] _Mémoires_, iv. p. 257.
It is clear that the Duke of Ragusa had drawn his conclusion that
Wellington was about to retreat at once, and had argued, from
partly-seen motions in his adversary’s rear, that the whole allied
army was moving off. But this was not yet the case: Wellington was
taking precautions, but he was still not without hope that the French
would commit themselves to some unwise and premature movement. He had
still every man in hand, and the supposed general retreat on Aldea
Tejada, which the Marshal thought that he saw, was in reality only the
shifting of reserves more to the right.
Unwitting of this, Marmont, a little before two o’clock, began his
extension to the left. To the westward of the woods on whose edge the
five divisions composing his main body were massed, is a long plateau
facing the village of Arapiles and the heights behind it. It is about
three-quarters of a mile broad and three miles long, gently undulating
and well suited for marching: in 1812 it seems to have been open
waste: to-day it is mainly under the plough. Its front or northern
side slopes gently down, toward the bottom in which lies the village
of Arapiles: at its back, which is steeper, are woods, outlying parts
of the great forest which extends to Alba de Tormes. It ends suddenly
in a knoll with an outcrop of rock, called the Pico de Miranda, above
the hamlet of Miranda de Azan, from which it draws its name. Along
this plateau was the obvious and easy route for a force marching to
turn Wellington’s right. It was a very tempting piece of ground, with
a glacis-like slope towards the English heights, which made it very
defensible--a better artillery position against a force advancing
from the village of Arapiles and the ridges behind it could not be
conceived. The only danger connected with it seemed to be that it was
over-long--it had more than two miles of front, and a very large force
would be required to hold it securely from end to end. From the Pico
de Miranda, if the French should extend so far, to Foy’s right wing by
Calvarisa de Ariba was a distance of six miles in all--far too much for
an army of 48,000 men in the battle-array of the Napoleonic period.
Marmont says that his first intention was only to occupy the nearer end
of the plateau, that part of it which faces the village of Arapiles.
In his apologetic dispatch to Berthier, he declares that he wished to
get a lodgement upon it, lest Wellington might seize it before him,
and so block his way westward. ‘It was indispensable to occupy it,
seeing that the enemy had just strengthened his centre, from whence he
could push out _en masse_ on to this plateau, and commence an attack
by taking possession of this important ground. Accordingly I ordered
the 5th Division (Maucune) to move out and form up on the right end of
the plateau, where his fire would link on perfectly with that from
the [Great] Arapile: the 7th Division [Thomières] was to place itself
in second line as a support, the 2nd Division (Clausel) to act as a
reserve to the 7th. The 6th Division (Brennier) was to occupy the high
ground in front of the wood, where a large number of my guns were still
stationed. I ordered General Bonnet at the same time to occupy with the
122nd regiment a knoll intermediate between the plateau and the hill
of the [Great] Arapile, which blocks the exit from the village of the
same name. Finally, I directed General Boyer to leave only one regiment
of his dragoons to watch Foy’s right, and to come round with the other
three to the front of the wood, beside the 2nd Division. The object of
this was that, supposing the enemy should attack the plateau, Boyer
could charge in on their right flank, while my light cavalry could
charge in on their left flank[526].’
[526] Dispatch to Berthier, _Mémoires_, iv. pp. 445-6.
All this reads very plausibly and ingeniously, but unfortunately
it squares in neither with the psychology of the moment, nor with
the manœuvres which Maucune, Thomières, and Clausel executed, under
the Marshal’s eye and without his interference. He had forgotten
when he dictated this paragraph--and not unnaturally, for he wrote
sorely wounded, on his sick-bed, in pain, and with his head not too
clear--that he had just before stated that Wellington was obviously
retreating, and had begun to withdraw towards Aldea Tejada. If this
was so, how could he possibly have conceived at the moment that his
adversary, far from retreating, was preparing an offensive movement
_en masse_ against the left flank of the French position? The two
conceptions cannot be reconciled. The fact was, undoubtedly, that he
thought that Wellington was moving off, and pushed forward Maucune,
Thomières, and Clausel, with the object of molesting and detaining what
he supposed to be the rearguard of his adversary. The real idea of the
moment was the one which appears in the paragraph of his _Mémoires_,
already quoted on an earlier page: ‘I hoped that our respective
positions would bring on not a battle but an advantageous rearguard
action, in which, using my full force late in the day, with a part
only of the British army left in front of me, I should probably score
a point.’ Jourdan, a severe critic of his colleague, puts the matter
with perfect frankness in his _Guerre d’Espagne_. After quoting
Marmont’s insincere dispatch at length, he adds, ‘it is evident that
the Marshal, in order to menace the point of retreat of the allies,
extended his left much too far[527].’ Napoleon, after reading Marmont’s
dispatch in a Russian bivouac[528], pronounced that all his reasons and
explanations for the position into which he got himself had ‘as much
complicated stuffing as the inside of a clock, and not a word of truth
as to the real state of things.’
[527] Jourdan’s _Mémoire sur la Guerre d’Espagne_, p. 418.
[528] ‘Il y a plus de fatras et de rouages que dans une horloge,
et pas un mot qui fasse connaître l’état réel des choses.’ For
more hard words see Napoleon to Clarke, Ghiatz, September 2.
What happened under the eyes of Marmont, as he took a long-delayed
lunch on the top of the Greater Arapile[529], was as follows. Maucune,
with his strong division of nine battalions or 5,200 men, after
breaking out from the position in front of the woods where the French
main body was massed, marched across the open ground for about a mile
or more, till he had got well on to the central part of the plateau
which he was directed to occupy. He then drew up opposite the village
of Arapiles, and sent out his voltigeur companies to work down the
slope toward that place, which lay well in front of the British line.
The position which he took up was on that part of the plateau which
sweeps forward nearest to the opposite heights, and is little more
than half a mile from them. A fierce artillery engagement then set in:
Maucune’s divisional battery began to shell the village of Arapiles.
Sympher’s battery, belonging to the 4th Division, replied from the
slope behind the village and from two guns on the Lesser Arapile. The
French pieces which had been dragged up on to the Greater Arapile then
started shelling the Lesser, and silenced the two guns there, which
were drawn off, and sent to rejoin the rest of the battery, on a less
exposed position. The 3/27th on the hilltop had to take cover behind
rocks as best it could. Soon after at least two more French batteries,
from the artillery reserve, took ground to the right of Maucune, and
joined in the shelling of the village of Arapiles. Wellington presently
supported Sympher’s battery with that of Lawson, belonging to the
5th Division, which turned on to shell Maucune’s supporting columns
from ground on the lower slopes, not far to the right of Sympher’s
position. The effect was good, and the columns shifted sideways to get
out of range. But one [or perhaps two] of the French batteries then
shifted their position, and began to play upon Lawson diagonally from
the left, so enfilading him that he was ordered to limber up and move
higher on the hill behind the village, from whence he resumed his fire.
Wellington also, a little later, brought up the horse-artillery troop
belonging to the 7th Division [’E’, Macdonald’s troop] and placed it on
the Lesser Arapile--two guns on the summit, four on the lower slopes
near the 1/40th of W. Anson’s brigade. The British fire all along the
heights was effective and accurate, but quite unable to cope with that
of the French, who had apparently six batteries in action against
three. Marmont, indeed, had all along his line an immense superiority
of guns, having 78 pieces with him against Wellington’s 54. His
artillery-reserve consisted of four batteries--that of his adversary of
one only--Arriaga’s Portuguese 24-pounder howitzers[530].
[529] See Memoirs of Parquin, who commanded his escort, p. 299.
But he states the hour as 11 o’clock, much too early.
[530] For this artillery business see especially the six
narratives of artillery officers printed by Major Leslie in his
_Dickson Papers_, ii. pp. 685-97. Also for doings of the 5th
Division battery (Lawson’s), Leith Hay, ii. pp. 47-8, and of the
4th Division battery (Sympher’s), Vere’s _Marches of the 4th
Division_, pp. 33-4.
While Maucune and the French artillery were making a very noisy
demonstration against the British line between the Lesser Arapile and
the village of the same name, which looked like the preliminaries of
a serious attack, more troops emerged from the woods of Marmont’s
centre, and began to file along the plateau, under cover of Maucune’s
deployed line. These were Thomières’s division, succeeded after a long
interval by that of Clausel. ‘During the cannonade column followed
column in quick and continued succession along the heights occupied
by the enemy: Marmont was moving his army in battle-order along his
position, and gaining ground rapidly to his left[531].’ According
to the Marshal’s own account of his intentions, he had proposed to
place Maucune on the (French) right end of the plateau, Thomières and
Clausel in support of him. What happened, however, was that Maucune
went well forward on to the right-centre of the plateau, and that
Thomières marched along past Maucune’s rear, and continued moving in a
westerly direction along the summit of the plateau, though Clausel soon
halted: before Thomières stopped he had gone nearly three miles. It is
clear that if Marmont had chosen, he could have checked the manœuvres
of his subordinates, the moment that they passed the limit which he
alleges that he had set them. An aide-de-camp sent down from the back
of the Greater Arapile could have told Maucune not to press forward
toward the English position, or Thomières to stop his march, within a
matter of twenty minutes or half an hour. No such counterorders were
sent--and the reason clearly was that Marmont was satisfied with the
movements that he saw proceeding before him, until the moment when he
suddenly realized with dismay that Wellington was about to deliver a
counter-stroke in full force.
[531] Vere’s _Marches of the 4th Division_, p. 33.
We must now turn to the movements of the allied army. The instant that
Maucune deployed on the plateau in front of the village of Arapiles,
and that the cannonade began, Wellington judged that he was about to
be attacked--the thing that he most desired. A very few orders put his
army in a defensive battle-position. The 5th Division was sent from
the rear side of the heights to occupy the crest, continuing the line
of the 4th Division. The 6th Division was brought up from the rear
to a position behind the 4th. The 7th Division, abandoning the long
bickering with Foy in which its light troops had been engaged, was
drawn back from the left wing, and took post in second line parallel to
the 6th and in rear of the 5th Division. The place of its skirmishers
on the slopes in front of Nuestra Señora de la Peña was taken by some
companies of the 95th, sent out from the Light Division. That unit and
the 1st Division now formed the total of the allied left wing, with
Bock’s heavy dragoons covering their flank. They were ‘containing’ an
equivalent French force--Foy’s and Ferey’s infantry divisions, and the
single regiment of Boyer’s dragoons which Marmont had left in this
quarter.
There still remained in reserve, near the village of Las Torres,
Bradford’s Portuguese and España’s Spanish battalions, with the bulk
of the allied cavalry--all Anson’s and Le Marchant’s and the greater
part of Arentschildt’s squadrons, and in addition Pakenham and D’Urban
were available a little farther to the right, near Aldea Tejada. If the
French were going to attack the heights on each side of the village of
Arapiles, as seemed probable at the moment, all these remoter reserves
could be used as should seem most profitable.
But the battle did not go exactly as Wellington expected. The cannonade
continued, and Maucune’s skirmishing line pushed very boldly forward,
and actually attacked the village of Arapiles, which was defended by
the light companies of the Guards’ brigade of the 1st Division and of
the Fusilier brigade of the 4th Division. The _voltigeurs_ twice seized
the southern outlying houses of the straggling village, and were twice
driven out. But the battalions in support of them did not come forward,
nor did Bonnet attack on the right of them, nor Thomières on the left.
The former remained stationary, on and about the Great Arapile: the
latter continued to march westward along the plateau: a perceptible gap
began to appear between him and Maucune.
Wellington at this moment was toward the right rear of his own
line--occupied according to some authorities in snatching a late
and hasty lunch[532] while matters were developing, but not yet
developed--according to others in giving orders concerning the cavalry
to Stapleton Cotton, near Las Torres--when he received an urgent
message from Leith. It said that Maucune had ceased to advance, but
that the French extreme left was still in march westward. ‘On being
made acquainted with the posture of affairs,’ writes the officer who
bore Leith’s report[533], ‘Lord Wellington declared his intention of
riding to the spot and directed me to accompany him. When he arrived at
the ground of the 5th Division--now under arms and perfectly prepared
to receive the attack, his Lordship found the enemy still in the same
formation, but not displaying any intention of trying his fortune, by
crossing the valley at that point. He soon became satisfied that no
operation of consequence was intended against this part of the line. He
again galloped off toward the right, which at this time became the most
interesting and important scene of action.’
[532] The traditional story may be found in Greville’s _Memoirs_,
ii. p. 39. Wellington is said to have been in the courtyard of a
farmhouse, where some food had been laid out for him, ‘stumping
about and munching,’ and taking occasional peeps through his
telescope. Presently came the aide-de-camp with Leith’s message.
Wellington took another long look through his glass, and cried,
‘By God! that will do!’ his mouth still full. He then sprang on
his horse and rode off, the staff following. Another version may
be found in Grattan, pp. 239-40: ‘Lord W. had given his glass to
an aide-de-camp, while he himself sat down to eat a few mouthfuls
of cold beef. Presently the officer reported that the enemy were
still extending to their left. “The devil they are! give me
the glass quickly,” said his lordship--and then, after a long
inspection, “This will do at last, I think--ride off.”’
[533] His nephew, Leith Hay, whose memoir I have so often had to
quote, here ii. p. 49.
The critical moment of the day was the short space of time when
Wellington was surveying the French army, from the height where
Leith’s men were lying prostrate behind the crest, above the village
of Arapiles, under a distant but not very effective artillery fire.
The whole plateau opposite was very visible: Maucune could be seen
halted and in line, with much artillery on his flank, but no infantry
force near--there was half a mile between him and Bonnet. Thomières
was still pushing away to his left, already separated by some distance
from Maucune. Clausel had apparently halted after the end of his march
out of the woods. Foy and Ferey were at least two miles off to the
French right. The enemy, in short, were in no solid battle order,
and were scattered on an immense arc, which enveloped on both sides
the obtuse angle _en potence_ formed by the main body of the allied
army. From Foy’s right to Thomières’s left there was length but no
depth. The only reserves were the troops imperfectly visible in the
woods behind the Great Arapile--where lay Brennier in first line, and
Sarrut who was now nearing Marmont’s artillery-park and baggage. Their
strength might be guessed from the fact that Marmont was known to have
eight infantry divisions, and that six were clearly visible elsewhere.
Wellington’s determination was suddenly taken, to turn what had been
intended for a defensive into an offensive battle. Seeing the enemy so
scattered, and so entirely out of regular formation, he would attack
him with the whole force that he had in position west of the little
Arapile, before Marmont could get into order. Leith, Cole, and Pack in
front line, supported by the 6th and 7th Divisions in second line,
and with Bradford, España, and Stapleton Cotton’s cavalry covering
their right flank in a protective échelon, should cross the valley and
fall upon Bonnet, Maucune, Clausel, and Thomières. Meanwhile Pakenham
and D’Urban, being in a hidden position from which they could easily
outflank Thomières, should ascend the western end of the plateau, get
across the head of his marching column, and drive it in upon Maucune,
whom Leith would be assailing at the same moment. Pakenham’s turning
movement was the most delicate part of the plan; wherefore Wellington
resolved to start it himself. He rode like the wind across the ground
behind the heights, past Las Torres and Penilla, and appeared all
alone before D’Urban’s Portuguese squadrons. It was only some time
later that first Colonel Delancey and then others of his staff, quite
outdistanced, came dropping in with blown horses. The orders to D’Urban
were short and clear: Pakenham was about to attack the western end of
the plateau where Thomières was moving--near the Pico de Miranda. It
would be D’Urban’s duty to cover his right flank[534]. A minute later
Wellington was before the 3rd Division, which had just received orders
to stand to its arms.
[534] D’Urban’s unpublished diary gives the fact that he got his
order from Wellington personally before Pakenham was reached.
‘The officers had not taken their places in the column, but were in a
group together, in front of it. As Lord Wellington rode up to Pakenham
every eye was turned towards him. He looked paler than usual; but,
notwithstanding the sudden change he had just made in the disposition
of his army, he was quite unruffled in his manner, as if the battle
to be fought was nothing but a field-day. His words were few and his
orders brief. Tapping Pakenham on the shoulder, he said, “Edward, move
on with the 3rd Division, take those heights in your front--and drive
everything before you.” “I will, my lord,” was the laconic reply of the
gallant Sir Edward. A moment after, Lord Wellington was galloping on to
the next division, to give (I suppose) orders to the same effect, and
in less than half an hour the battle had commenced[535].’ The time was
about a quarter to four in the afternoon.
[535] Grattan’s _With the Connaught Rangers_, pp. 241-2.
Having set Pakenham and D’Urban in motion, Wellington rode back to the
ground of the 5th Division, sending on his way orders for Arentschildt
to leave the cavalry reserve, and join D’Urban with the five squadrons
that remained of Victor Alten’s brigade[536]. Bradford, España, and
Cotton at the same time were directed to come forward to Leith’s right
flank. On reaching the hilltop behind the village of Arapiles, the
Commander-in-Chief gave his orders to Leith: the 5th Division was to
advance downhill and attack Maucune across the valley, as soon as
Bradford’s Portuguese should be close up to support his right, and as
Pakenham’s distant movement should become visible. Wellington then rode
on to give the corresponding orders to Cole, more to the left[537].
[536] Two of 14th Light Dragoons, three of 1st Hussars K.G.L.
[537] All this from Leith Hay, ii. pp. 51-2.
The 5th Division thereupon sent out its light companies in skirmishing
line, and came up to the crest: the two neighbouring brigades of the
4th Division followed suit, and then Pack’s Portuguese, opposite the
Greater Arapile. Considerable loss was suffered in all these corps
from the French artillery fire, when the battalions rose from their
lying posture behind the crest and became visible. Some thirty or forty
minutes elapsed between Wellington’s arrival on the scene and the
commencement of the advance: the delay was caused by the necessity for
waiting for Bradford, who was coming up as fast as possible from Las
Torres. The attack did not begin till about 4.40 p.m.
By the time that Leith and Cole came into action the French army had
been deprived of its chief. Somewhere between three and four o’clock
in the afternoon[538], and certainly nearer the latter than the former
hour, Marmont had been severely wounded. According to his own narrative
he had begun to be troubled by seeing Maucune pressing in too close to
the village of Arapiles, and Thomières passing on too far to the left,
and had been roused to considerable vexation by getting a message
from the former that he observed that the troops in front of him were
retiring, and therefore would ask leave to support his _voltigeurs_
and attack the British position with his whole division. Marmont
says that it was his wish to stop Maucune from closing that induced
him to prepare to depart from his eyrie on the Great Arapile, and to
descend to take charge of his left wing. Be this as it may, there is
no doubt that he was starting to climb down and mount his horse, when
a shell from one of Dyneley’s two guns on the British Arapile burst
near him, and flung him to the ground with a lacerated right arm, and
a wound in his side which broke two ribs[539]. He himself says that
there was nothing irremediable in the state of his army at the moment
that he was disabled. His critic, Foy, held otherwise. ‘The Duke of
Ragusa,’ he wrote, ‘insinuated that the battle of the 22nd was lost
because, after his own wounding, there was a gap in the command,
anarchy, and disorder. But it was the Duke who forced on the battle,
and that contrary to the advice of General Clausel. His left was
already beaten when he was disabled: already it was impossible either
to refuse a battle or to give it a good turn. It was only possible to
attenuate the disaster--and that was what Clausel did[540].’ Foy also
insinuates that Maucune’s advance, at least in its early stages, was
consonant with Marmont’s intentions. ‘He had made his arrangements for
a decisive blow: when the English were seen to take up their position,
the heads of the columns were turned to the left, so as to occupy the
elevations which dominate the plain, and swell up one after another.
The occupation of one led to the temptation to seize the next, and so
by advance after advance the village of Arapiles was at last reached.
Maucune’s division actually held it for some minutes. Nevertheless we
had not yet made up our minds to deliver battle, and the necessary
dispositions for one had not been made. My division was still occupying
the plateau of Calvarisa, with the 3rd and 4th Divisions (Ferey and
Sarrut) and the dragoons supporting me in the rear. Here, then, was
a whole section of the army quite out of the fight: and the other
divisions were not well linked together, and could be beaten one after
the other.’
[538] Marmont says that it was ‘environ trois heures du soir.’
But I think that about 3.45 should be given as the hour, since
Maucune only left the woods at 2 o’clock, and had to march
on to the plateau, to take up his position, to send out his
_voltigeurs_, and to get them close in to Arapiles before he
would have sent such a message to his chief. Foy says ‘between 3
and 4 p.m.’
[539] Many years after, when Marmont, now a subject of Louis
XVIII, was inspecting some British artillery, an officer had the
maladroit idea of introducing to him the sergeant who had pointed
the gun--the effect of the shot in the middle of the French staff
had been noticed on the British Arapile.
[540] _Vie militaire de Foy_, p. 177.
Foy is certainly correct in asserting that, at the moment of the
Marshal’s wound, he himself and Ferey were too far off to be brought
up in time to save Maucune, and that Bonnet, Maucune, Clausel, and
Thomières were in no solid connexion with each other. This indeed
was what made Wellington deliver his attack. It is probable that the
Marshal’s wound occurred just about the moment (3.45) when Pakenham
and D’Urban were being directed by Wellington to advance. Even if it
fell a trifle earlier, the French left wing was already too dislocated
to have time to get into a good position before it was attacked.
Marmont, it must be confessed, rather gave away his case when, in his
reply to Napoleon’s angry query why he had fought a battle on the
22nd, he answered that he had not intended to deliver a general action
at all--it had been forced on him by Wellington[541]. If so, he was
responsible for being caught by his adversary with his army strung out
in such a fashion that it had a very poor chance of avoiding disaster.
If it be granted that the unlucky shell had never struck him, it would
not have been in ‘a quarter of an hour[542]’ (as he himself pretends),
nor even in a whole hour, that he could have rearranged a line six
miles long[543], though he might have stopped Maucune’s attack and
Thomières’s flank march in a much shorter time.
[541] Marmont to Berthier, _Mémoires_, iv. p. 468.
[542] Ibid., ‘la gauche eut été formée en moins d’un quart
d’heure’!
[543] The exact moment of Marmont’s wound is very difficult to
fix, as also that of Wellington’s attack. The Marshal himself
(as mentioned above, p.438) says that he was hit ‘environ les
trois heures,’ and that Leith and Cole advanced ‘peu après, sur
les quatre heures.’ Foy places the wound merely ‘between 3 and
4 p.m.’ Parquin, who commanded Marmont’s escort of _chasseurs_,
says that the Marshal had been carried back to Alba de Tormes
by 4 o’clock--impossibly early. On the other hand Napier gives
too late an hour, when saying that Marmont was wounded only at
the moment when Leith and Cole advanced, 4.45 or so, and was
running down from the Arapile because of their movement. This
is, I imagine, much too late. But it is supported by _Victoires
et Conquêtes_, sometimes a well-documented work but often
inaccurate, which places the unlucky shot at 4.30. Grattan places
the order to the British infantry (Leith and Cole) to prepare to
attack at 4.20--Leith Hay at ‘at least an hour after 3 o’clock.’
Gomm, on the other hand, makes Wellington move ‘at 3 o’clock
in the afternoon.’ Tomkinson (usually very accurate) places
Pakenham’s and Leith’s success at ‘about 5 p.m.’ D’Urban thinks
that he met Lord Wellington and received his orders _after_ 4
p.m.--probably he is half an hour too late in his estimate.
On Marmont’s fall, the command of the army of Portugal fell to Bonnet,
the senior general of division. He was within a few yards of his
wounded chief, since his division was holding the Great Arapile, and
took up the charge at once. But it was an extraordinary piece of
ill-luck for the French that Bonnet also was wounded within an hour, so
that the command passed to Clausel before six o’clock. As Foy remarks,
however, no one could have saved the compromised left wing--Marmont had
let it get into a thoroughly vicious position before he was disabled.
Since the main clash of the battle of Salamanca started at the western
end of the field, it will be best to begin the narrative of the British
advance with the doings of Pakenham and D’Urban. These two officers
had some two miles of rough ground to cover between the point where
Wellington had parted from them, and the point which had now been
reached by the head of the French advance. They were ordered to move
in four ‘columns of lines,’ with D’Urban’s cavalry forming the two
outer or right-hand columns, the third composed of Wallace’s brigade
(1/45th, 1/88th, 74th) and of Power’s Portuguese (9th and 21st Line
and 12th Caçadores), while the fourth consisted of Campbell’s brigade
(1/5th, 2/5th, 94th, 2/83rd). The object of this formation was that
the division, when it came into action, should be able to deploy into
two lines, without the delay that would have been caused if the third
brigade had followed in the wake of the other two[544].
[544] Wellington in his dispatch (ix. p. 302) speaks of the four
columns, D’Urban makes it clear that his own squadrons formed the
outer two, but the fact that Power’s Portuguese followed Wallace
in the 3rd column only emerges in the Regimental History of the
45th (Dalbiac), p. 103. This is quite consistent with the other
information.
The way in which the two sides came into collision was rather peculiar.
Thomières’s column was accompanied by the whole, or nearly the whole,
of Curto’s light cavalry division, which, as one would have supposed,
would naturally have been keeping a squadron or so in advance to
explore the way, as well as others on the flanks to cover the
infantry. But it appears that this simple precaution was not taken,
for Pakenham and D’Urban met no French cavalry at all, till they had
got well in touch with the hostile infantry. Curto, we must suppose,
was marching parallel with the centre, not certainly with the head,
of Thomières’s division, without any vedettes or exploring parties in
front. For D’Urban describes the first meeting as follows:--
‘The enemy was marching by his left along the wooded heights, which
form the southern boundary of the valley of the Arapiles, and the
western extremity of which closes in a lower fall, which descends upon
the little stream of the Azan, near the village of Miranda. As the head
of our column approached this lower fall, or hill, skirting it near its
base, and having it on our left, we became aware that we were close to
the enemy, though we could not see them owing to the trees, the dust,
and the peculiar configuration of the ground. Anxious, therefore, to
ascertain their exact whereabouts I had ridden out a little in front,
having with me, I think, only my brigade-major Flangini and Da Camara,
when upon clearing the verge of a small clump of trees, a short way
up the slope, I came suddenly upon the head of a French column of
infantry, having about a company in front, and marching very fast
by its left. It was at once obvious that, as the columns of the 3rd
Division were marching on our left, the French must be already beyond
their right, and consequently I ought to attack at once[545].’
[545] All this from D’Urban’s unpublished narrative in the
D’Urban papers.
This was apparently the leading battalion of the French 101st, marching
with its front absolutely uncovered by either cavalry vedettes or
any exploring parties of its own. D’Urban galloped back, unseen by
the enemy, and wheeled his leading regiment, the 1st Portuguese
dragoons--three weak squadrons of little over 200 sabres--into line,
with orders to charge the French battalion, before it should take the
alarm and form square. The 11th Portuguese, and two squadrons of the
British 14th Light Dragoons, which had only just arrived on the ground,
being the foremost part of Arentschildt’s brigade, followed in support.
The charge was successful--the French were so much taken by surprise
that the only manœuvre they were able to perform was to close their
second company upon the first, so that their front was six deep. The
two squadrons of the Portuguese which attacked frontally suffered
severe loss, their colonel, Watson, falling severely wounded among the
French bayonets. But the right-hand squadron, which overlapped the
French left, broke in almost unopposed on the unformed flank of the
battalion, which then went to pieces, and was chased uphill by the
whole of the Portuguese horsemen, losing many prisoners[546].
[546] All this is from D’Urban’s narrative, and letters from
Colonel Watson to D’Urban. The colonel bitterly resented Napier’s
account of the charge (_Peninsular War_, iv. p. 268).
This sudden assault on his leading unit, which seems to have been
acting as an advanced guard, and was considerably ahead of the next,
must have been sufficiently startling to Thomières, who was taken
wholly unawares. But the next moment brought worse trouble: the first
brigade of the 3rd Division--Wallace’s--emerged almost simultaneously
with the cavalry charge from the scattered trees which had hitherto
covered its advance, and was seen coming uphill in beautiful order
against him. He was caught in a long column--battalion marching behind
battalion, with considerable intervals between the regiments, of which
there were three (101st, three battalions; 62nd, two battalions; 1st,
three battalions)[547]. If he was able to see Pakenham’s supporting
lines, which is a little doubtful, Thomières must have known that
he was considerably outnumbered: the British division had 5,800
men against his 4,500, while Curto’s 1,800 light cavalry were not
forthcoming at the critical moment to save the situation.
[547] The division was marching left in front, so that the senior
regiment was in the rear. The fourth unit of the division (23rd
Léger) was absent, garrisoning Astorga, as was also the 2nd
battalion of the 1st, which was a very strong four-battalion
corps. Hence there were only 8 battalions out of 11 present, or
4,300 men out of 6,200.
The space between the advancing line of Wallace’s brigade and the head
of the French column, when they came in sight of each other, was about
1,000 yards--the time that it took to bring them into collision just
sufficed to enable Thomières to make some sort of hasty disposition
of his battalions: those in the rear pushed out on to the flanks
of the leading regiment, and made an irregular line of columns
badly spaced. The _voltigeurs_ of each battalion had time to run to
the front: ‘their light troops,’ says a witness from the Connaught
Rangers, ‘hoping to take advantage of the time which our deploying
from column into line would take, ran down the face of the hill in a
state of great excitement.’ Pakenham appears to have sent out against
them his three companies of the 5/60th and the whole of the 12th
Caçadores, a skirmishing line of superior strength. Wallace’s three
battalions formed line from open column without halting, when they had
got to within 250 yards of the enemy: ‘the different companies, by
throwing forward their right shoulders, were in line without the slow
manœuvre of a deployment.’ The French fire is said to have been rather
ineffective, because delivered downhill. The most serious loss was that
caused by Thomières’s divisional battery, which got up and into action
very promptly. It was answered by Douglas’s battery, the divisional
artillery of the 3rd Division, which unlimbered on a knoll at the edge
of the wood, and sent a raking discharge uphill, against the right
of the French division, shelling it over the heads of the brigade
advancing up the slope. The two Portuguese line regiments, from the
rear of Wallace’s brigade, formed in support of him: Campbell’s brigade
followed as a third line.
The main body of the French[548] stood in a group, rather than a line,
of battalion columns near the brow of the hill, while Wallace’s brigade
continued to press upwards with a front which outflanked the enemy
at both ends. ‘Regardless of the fire of the _tirailleurs_, and the
shower of grape and canister, the brigade continued to press onward.
The centre (88th regiment) suffered, but still advanced, the right
and left (l/45th and 74th) continued to go forward at a more rapid
pace, and as the wings inclined forward and outstripped the centre,
the brigade assumed the form of a crescent[549].’ They were nearly at
the brow, when Thomières directed the French columns to charge down
in support of his _tirailleurs_. The mass, with drums beating and
loud shouts of _Vive l’Empereur_, ran forward, and the leading files
delivered a heavy fire, which told severely on the 88th. But on coming
under fire in return the French halted, and then wavered: ‘their second
discharge was unlike the first--it was irregular and ill-directed,
the men acted without concert or method: many fired in the air.’ The
three British battalions then cheered and advanced, when the enemy,
his columns already in much confusion and mixed with the wrecks of his
_tirailleurs_, gave way completely, and went off in confusion along the
top of the plateau.
[548] It is not certain that the whole of the rear regiment (the
1st Line) was in the group: possibly one or two of its battalions
were not yet on the ground.
[549] Grattan, p. 245.
Just at this moment Curto’s _chasseurs_ at last appeared--where they
had been up to this moment does not appear, but certainly not in
their proper place. Now, however, six or seven squadrons of them came
trotting up on the outer flank of the broken division, of whom some
charged the two battalions which formed the right of Pakenham’s first
and third lines--the 1/45th and 1/5th respectively. The former, feebly
attacked, threw back some companies _en potence_ and beat off their
assailants easily. The latter fell back some little way, and had many
men cut up, but finally rallied in a clump and were not broken[550].
Their assailants disappeared a moment after, being driven off by
Arentschildt, who had just come up on Pakenham’s right with the five
squadrons of the 1st Hussars K.G.L. and 14th Light Dragoons[551].
D’Urban’s Portuguese were now a little to the rear, rallying after
their successful charge and collecting prisoners: their commander says
in his narrative of this part of the battle that he never saw any
French cavalry till later in the day, but does not dispute that the
5th may have been attacked by them without his knowledge.
[550] The 1/5th lost 126 men, more than any other 3rd Division
regiment except the 88th. Sergeant Morley of the 5th, its only
Salamanca diarist, writes (p. 113): ‘There was a pause--a
hesitation. Here I blush--but I should blush more if I were
guilty of a falsehood. We retired--slowly, in good order, not
far, not 100 paces. General Pakenham approached, and very
good-naturedly said “re-form,” and after a moment “advance--there
they are, my lads--let them feel the temper of your bayonets.”
We advanced--rather slowly at first, a regiment of dragoons
which had retired with us again accompanying ... and took our
retribution for our repulse.’ The dragoon regiment was presumably
part of D’Urban’s brigade.
[551] This comes from the report of Arentschildt on the doings
of his brigade: it is not mentioned by Napier, nor is there
anything about it in Wellington’s dispatch. The time is fixed by
Arentschildt speaking of it as ‘during the attack on the first
hill.’ He says that he closed with the main body of the French
horse and drove it off.
Curto’s cavalry being driven off, the 3rd Division and its attendant
squadrons pursued the broken French division of infantry along the top
of the plateau, and very nearly annihilated it. Thomières was killed,
his divisional battery was captured whole; of his two leading regiments
the 101st Line lost 1,031 men out of 1,449 present: its colonel and
eagle were both taken with many hundred unwounded prisoners: the 62nd
Line lost 868 men out of 1,123. The rear regiment, the 1st Line, got
off with the comparatively trifling casualty-list of 231 out of 1,743:
it was possibly not up in time to take part in resisting Pakenham’s
first attack, and may perhaps have done no more than cover the retreat
of the wrecks of the two leading regiments. The whole division was
out of action as a fighting body for the rest of the day, having lost
2,130 men out of a little over 4,500.[552] The victorious British 3rd
Division, whose casualties had not amounted to more than 500 of all
ranks, continued to press the fugitives before it, till it had gone a
mile, and came in on the flank of Maucune’s division, the next unit in
the French line; D’Urban’s cavalry accompanied it close on its right
flank, Arentschildt’s squadrons lay farther out, watching Curto’s
defeated first brigade of _chasseurs_, which rallied upon a reserve,
his second brigade, and made head once more against the pursuers, just
about the same time that Pakenham’s infantry began again to meet with
resistance.
[552] The losses in officers of the three regiments were, taking
killed and wounded only, not unwounded prisoners, 25 for the
101st, 15 for the 62nd, 5 for the 1st, by Martinien’s lists.
The British returns of prisoners sent to England, at the Record
Office, show 6 officers from the 101st, 2 from the 62nd, and 1
from the 1st, received after the battle. I presume that nearly
all the wounded, both officers and rank and file, count among the
prisoners. The 1st entered in its regimental report 176 _tués
ou pris_, 22 _blessés_, 29 _disparus_: here the only people who
got away would be the 22 _blessés_. The regimental return of the
101st shows 31 officers wanting--which seems to correspond to the
25 killed and wounded plus the 6 prisoners sent to England.
SECTION XXXIII: CHAPTER VII
THE BATTLE OF SALAMANCA: THE MAIN ENGAGEMENT
We must now turn from the exploits of Pakenham and the 3rd Division to
deal with the great central attack of Wellington’s frontal striking
force, the 5th and 4th Divisions, under Leith and Cole, upon the French
left centre. They had been told to move on when Bradford’s Portuguese
brigade should be sufficiently near to cover the right flank of the
5th Division, and the necessity of waiting for this support caused
their attack to be delivered perceptibly later than that of Pakenham.
Leith had drawn out his division in two lines, the first consisting
of Greville’s brigade (3/1st, 1/9th, and both battalions of the
38th) and the first battalion of the 4th, brought up from the rear
brigade (Pringle’s) to equalize the front of the two lines: the second
consisted of the rest of that brigade (the second battalion of the
4th, the 2/30th, and 2/44th) and the Portuguese of Spry (3rd and 15th
Line). There was a heavy skirmishing line in front, composed of all the
British light companies and the 8th Caçadores[553]. Cole had a smaller
force, as his left brigade (Anson’s) had been told off to the defence
of the British Arapile: the 3/27th was holding that rocky knoll, the
1/40th was at its foot in support. Only therefore the Fusilier brigade
(under Ellis of the 23rd) and Stubbs’s Portuguese formed the attacking
force. They were in a single line of seven battalions, with a heavy
skirmishing screen composed of four light companies and the whole of
the 7th Caçadores[554]. The Fusilier brigade of the 4th Division went
through the end of the village of Arapiles, which it did by files from
the right of companies, the companies forming up again on the east side
of the place, upon their sergeants regularly sent out as markers. This
defile delayed the advance of the division, which therefore attacked
decidedly later than Leith’s men, the joint movement being in an
échelon, with the right leading and the left considerably refused. It
was obvious that when the 4th Division drew near to the French line
on the plateau, it would be exposing its left flank to the hostile
division (Bonnet’s) which was massed on and near the Greater Arapile.
Wellington had noted this, and had given special discretionary orders
to Pack, directing him to use his independent brigade for the sole
purpose of protecting the near flank of the 4th Division; he might
attack the Arapile, as the best means of holding back Bonnet from
descending against Cole’s line, or might manœuvre below the knoll for
the same purpose. When the dangerous moment came, Pack, as we shall
see, took the bull by the horns, and assailed the precipitous height in
front with his whole 2,000 men.
[553] All this from Leith Hay, ii. p. 53. The 1/38th had joined
from Lisbon only twelve hours back.
[554] This is proved by the narrative of the Brunswick captain,
Wachholz, who commanded the company of that corps attached to the
Fusilier brigade.
In the rear of the 4th Division the 6th was now coming up the back
slope of the hill behind the Arapile in second line: similarly the 7th
Division was following the 5th. To the right of the 7th, Stapleton
Cotton was moving up from Las Torres with the cavalry reserve, now
consisting only of the six regiments of Le Marchant and G. Anson.
Bradford, more to the right still, and not yet in line with Leith and
Cole, moved with España’s small Spanish division behind him.
Of Wellington’s front line Leith with the 5th Division had Maucune in
front of him: Cole would have to deal with Clausel, who had arrived
late on the ground, and was only just taking up his position on the
extreme right end of the French plateau. Pack and W. Anson’s detached
brigade from the 4th Division, with the Lesser Arapile in their
power, looked across the valley at Bonnet, massed around its greater
twin-hill. The British attacking line was amply provided with reserves:
the defensive line of the French was still very thin, though Brennier’s
division was hurrying up from the head of the wood to support Maucune.
Sarrut’s division was still invisible in the forest far to the rear:
Ferey’s was better seen--it was hastening up across the open ground on
its way from the extreme French right, but must obviously be too late
to join in meeting Wellington’s first attack.
The roar of the cannon and musketry away in the direction of the Pico
de Miranda had been announcing for some time that Pakenham was at
close grips with Thomières, before Leith marched down from his heights
to cross the valley that separated him from Maucune’s position. Soon
after five, however, the 5th Division was in close contact with the
enemy, having suffered a considerable amount of casualties in reaching
him, mainly from the very superior French artillery fire, which swept
every yard of the glacis-like slope that ascends from the bottom of
the Arapiles valley to the brow of the plateau that forms its southern
limit.
‘The ground,’ writes Leith Hay, ‘between the advancing force and that
which it was to assail was crowded by the light troops of both sides in
extended order, carrying on a very incessant _tiraillade_. The general
desired me to ride forward, to make our light infantry press up the
heights to cover his line of march, and to bid them, if practicable,
make a rush at the enemy’s guns. Our light troops soon drove in those
opposed to them: the cannon were removed to the rear: every obstruction
to the general advance of our line vanished. In front of the centre
of that beautiful line rode General Leith, directing its movements.
Occasionally every soldier was visible, the sun shining bright upon
their arms, though at intervals all were enveloped in a dense cloud of
dust, from whence at times issued the animating cheer of the British
infantry.
[Illustration: SALAMANCA]
‘The French columns, retired from the crest of the heights, were formed
in squares, about fifty yards behind the line at which, when arrived,
the British regiments would become visible. Their artillery, although
placed more to the rear, still poured its fire upon our advancing
troops. We were now near the summit of the ridge. The men marched with
the same orderly steadiness as at the first: no advance in line at a
review was ever more correctly executed: the dressing was admirable,
and the gaps caused by casualties were filled up with the most perfect
regularity. General Leith and the officers of his staff, being on
horseback, first perceived the enemy, and had time to observe his
formation, before our infantry line became so visible as to induce him
to commence firing. He was drawn up in contiguous squares, the front
rank kneeling, and prepared to fire when the drum should beat. All
was still and quiet in these squares: not a musket was discharged until
the whole opened. Nearly at the same instant General Leith ordered our
line to fire and charge. At this moment the last thing I saw through
the smoke was the plunge of the horse of Colonel Greville, commanding
the leading brigade, who, shot through the head, reared and fell back
on his rider. In an instant every individual present was enveloped in
smoke and obscurity. No serious struggle for ascendancy followed, for
the French squares were penetrated, broken, and discomfited, and the
victorious 5th Division pressed forward no longer against troops formed
up, but against a mass of disorganized men flying in all directions....
When close to the enemy’s squares Leith had been severely wounded and
reluctantly forced to quit the field; at the same moment I was hit
myself, and my horse killed by a musket-ball: thus removed, I cannot
detail the further movements of the division[555].’
[555] Leith Hay, ii. pp. 57-8.
In this clear and simple narrative the most remarkable point is Leith
Hay’s distinct statement that the French received the charge of the
5th Division in a line of squares, a most strange formation to adopt
against infantry advancing deployed, even when it was supplemented by
a strong screen of _tirailleurs_, and flanked by several batteries
of artillery. It is possible that Maucune adopted it because, from
his commanding position on the plateau, he could see a considerable
body of cavalry coming up on Leith’s right rear. This was composed
of the brigades of Le Marchant and G. Anson, which Stapleton Cotton
was bringing up to the front by Wellington’s orders. While Leith
was advancing they pressed forward, Le Marchant leading, and passed
up the hill in the interval between the 5th Division and Pakenham’s
front--leaving behind them Bradford, who had crossed the valley
parallel to, but much behind, the right of Leith. Bradford had no
solid body of troops in front of him, being outside Maucune’s extreme
left, and suffered practically no loss--the total casualty list of his
brigade that day was only seventeen men. This contrasts marvellously
with the loss of Leith’s front line, where Greville’s brigade in their
triumphant advance lost 350 men--mainly from the artillery fire
endured while the long slope of the French plateau was being mounted:
for there were at least four batteries aligned on Maucune’s right, and
their guns had been worked till the last possible minute.
Whatever was the cause of the formation in square adopted by the French
division, it would have been fortunate if only it could have preserved
that formation a little longer; for precisely when it had lost its
order, and fallen back before Leith’s shattering volleys of musketry,
Le Marchant’s heavy dragoons arrived upon the crest of the plateau. No
better opportunity for the use of cavalry could have been conceived,
than that which existed at this moment. Infantry already engaged with,
and worsted by, other infantry is the destined prey of cavalry coming
on the scene from the flank in unbroken order. Le Marchant had received
his instructions directly from Wellington, who had told him to ‘charge
in at all hazards[556],’ when he saw the French battalions on the
plateau hotly engaged. He had formed his 1,000 sabres in two lines,
the 5th Dragoon Guards and 4th Dragoons in front, the 3rd Dragoons
in support, and had come over the sky-line and trotted down into the
valley just as Leith’s division got to close quarters with Maucune.
Passing Bradford on his right, he came to the crest to find all
confusion in front of him. The squares that Leith had just broken were
rolling back in disorder: directly behind a new division (Brennier’s),
only just arriving upon the field, was beginning to form up, to cover
and support the shaken battalions. Some distance to their left rear the
remains of Thomières’s division, in a disorderly crowd, were falling
back in front of the triumphant advance of Pakenham.
[556] See Le Marchant’s _Life_, from notes supplied by his son,
in Cole’s _Peninsular Generals_, ii. p. 281.
Le Marchant charged in diagonally upon the flank of Maucune’s left
brigade, and caught the two battalions of the 66th regiment falling
back from the crest. The Frenchmen were courageous enough to make a
desperate attempt to club themselves together in a solid mass: their
rear ranks faced about and opened a heavy fire upon the advancing
squadrons. But it was given with uncertain aim and trifling effect, and
before they could reload the dragoons were among them. A desperate
minority attempted to resist with the bayonet, and were sabred: some
hundreds cast down their muskets, raised their hands, and asked
quarter. The rear ranks scattered and fled southward across the
plateau. Leaving the gathering up of the prisoners to the infantry of
Leith, Le Marchant led his brigade, so soon as some order could be
restored, against the next regiment of Maucune’s division, the 15th
Line; they were better prepared for resistance than the 66th, which
had been caught quite unawares, they showed a regular front, and gave
a more effective fire. Many of the dragoons fell; but nevertheless
their impetus carried them through the mass, which went to pieces and
dispersed into a disorderly crowd: it fled in the same direction as the
wrecks of the 66th.
Le Marchant’s brigade had now lost its formation, ‘the three regiments
had become mixed together, the officers rode where they could find
places: but a good front, without intervals, was still maintained, and
there was no confusion[557].’ In front of them there was now a fresh
enemy--the 22nd Line, the leading regiment of the division of Brennier,
which had just arrived on the field, and was getting into order to
save and support Maucune’s routed battalions. It would seem that in
the midst of the dust and smoke, and surrounded and interfered with by
the fugitives of the broken regiments, the 22nd had either no time or
no good opportunity for forming squares: they were found in _colonne
serrée_, in good order, partly covered by a clump of trees, an outlying
thicket from the great forest to their rear. They reserved their fire,
with great composure, till the dragoons were within ten yards distance,
and poured a volley so close and well aimed upon the leading squadron
[5th Dragoon Guards] that nearly a fourth of them fell. Tremendous
as was the effect of the discharge, the dragoons were not arrested:
they broke in through the opposing bayonets, and plunged into the
dense masses of the enemy. In the combat which ensued, broadsword
and bayonet were used against each other with various results: the
French, hewn down and trampled under the horses’ feet, offered all the
resistance that brave men could make. Le Marchant himself had some
narrow escapes--he fought like a private, and had to cut down more
than one of the enemy. It was only after a fierce struggle that the
French yielded, and he had the satisfaction of seeing them fly before
him in helpless confusion. The brigade had now lost all order: the
dragoons, excited by the struggle, vied with each other in the pursuit,
and galloped recklessly into the crowd of fugitives, sabring those who
came within their reach. To restrain them at such a moment was beyond
the power of their officers[558].’
[557] _Life of Le Marchant_, p. 285.
[558] _Life of Le Marchant_, pp. 286-7.
Le Marchant endeavoured to keep a few men in hand, in order to guard
against any attempt of the French to rally, but he had only about
half a squadron of the 4th Dragoons with him, when he came upon some
companies which were beginning to re-form in the edge of the great
wood. He led his party against them, and drove them back among the
trees, where they dispersed. But at the moment of contact he was shot
dead, by a ball which entered his groin and broke his spine. Thus fell
an officer of whom great things had been expected by all who knew him,
in the moment when he had just obtained and used to the full his first
chance of leading his brigade in a general action. One of the few
scientific soldiers in the cavalry arm whom the British army owned, Le
Marchant had been mainly known as the founder and administrator of the
Royal Military College at High Wycombe, which was already beginning to
send to the front many young officers trained as their predecessors
had never been. He was the author of many military pamphlets, and
of a new system of sword exercise which had lately been adopted for
the cavalry[559]. On his promotion to the rank of Major-General, in
1811, he had been unexpectedly sent to the Peninsula in command of
the heavy brigade, which reinforced Wellington during that autumn. As
an executive commander in the field he had given the first proofs of
his ability at the combat of Villagarcia[560]--but this was a small
affair--at Salamanca he proved himself a born commander of cavalry, and
his services would have been invaluable to Wellington in later fields
but for the disastrous shot that ended his career. He was a man of a
lofty and religious spirit, ill to be spared by his country[561].
[559] Le Marchant was also an admirable artist in water colours.
I saw many of his pleasing sketches of Peninsular landscapes when
his grandson, Sir Henry Le Marchant, allowed me to look through
his correspondence and notes.
[560] See p. 277 above.
[561] I have read with respect his admirable letters to his
family. ‘I never go into battle,’ he said, ‘without subjecting
myself to a strict self-examination: when, having (as I hope)
humbly made my peace with God, I leave the result in His hands,
with perfect confidence that He will determine what is best for
me.’
Le Marchant’s charge made a complete wreck of the left wing of the
French army. The remnants of the eight battalions which he had broken
fled eastward in a confused mass, towards the edge of the woods,
becoming blended with the separate stream of fugitives from Thomières’s
division. The 5th Division swept in some 1,500 prisoners from them, as
also the eagle of the 22nd Line, which the heavy brigade had broken in
their last effort, while five guns were taken by the 4th Dragoons[562].
The French, flying blindly from the pursuit, were so scattered that
some of them actually ran in headlong among D’Urban’s Portuguese horse,
on the back side of the plateau. ‘We were so far in their rear,’
writes that officer, ‘that a mass of their routed infantry (to our
astonishment, since we did not know the cause) in the wildness of their
panic and confusion, and throwing away their arms, actually ran against
our horses, where many of them fell down exhausted, and incapable of
further movement.’ The same happened in the front of the 3rd Division,
where, according to a narrator in the Connaught Rangers, ‘hundreds of
men frightfully disfigured, black with dust, worn out with fatigue,
and covered with sabre-cuts and blood, threw themselves among us for
safety.’
[562] It is vexatious to find that neither the 22nd nor the 66th
was among the fourteen Salamanca regiments of which detailed
casualty lists survive. The 15th Line returned 15 officers and
359 men as their loss. Martinien’s tables show 21 officers
lost in the 22nd, and 17 in the 66th. The deficits of these
two regiments as shown by the muster-rolls of August 1 were
respectively about 750 and 500, but these do not represent their
total losses, as all the regiments present at the battle had
picked up many men at their dépôts at Valladolid, and from the
small evacuated posts, before August 1, e.g. the 15th had 52
officers present on July 15, lost 15 at Salamanca, but showed 46
present on August 1; 9 officers must have joined from somewhere
in the interim. So the 66th had 38 officers present on July 15,
lost 17, but showed 34 present on August 1. Thirteen more must
have arrived, and accompanied of course by the corresponding rank
and file.
The 3rd Division had now, in its advance along the plateau, come in
contact with the right flank of the fifth, and both of them fell into
one line reaching across the whole breadth of the heights, while in
front of them were recoiling the wrecks of Thomières, Maucune, and
Brennier. The four French regiments which had not been caught in Le
Marchant’s charge were still keeping together, and making occasional
attempts at a stand, but were always outflanked on their left by the
3rd Division and Arentschildt’s and D’Urban’s horse. Curto’s French
light cavalry had rallied, and picked up their second brigade, and were
now doing their best to cover the southern flank of the retreating
multitude[563]. An officer of one of their regiments speaks in his
memoirs of having charged with advantage against red dragoons--these
must apparently have been scattered parties of Le Marchant’s brigade,
pursuing far and furiously, since no other red-coated cavalry was in
this part of the field[564]. But Curto’s squadrons had mainly to do
with Arentschildt and D’Urban, both of whom report sharp fighting with
French horse at this moment. The 3rd French Hussars charged the 1st
Hussars K.G.L., while the latter were employed in gleaning prisoners
from the routed infantry, and were only driven off after a severe
combat[565]. The pursuit then continued until the disordered French
masses were driven off the plateau, and on to the wooded hills parallel
with the Greater Arapile, where Marmont had massed his army before his
fatal move to the left.
[563] The regiments of Maucune’s brigade, which did not get
caught in the cavalry charge (82nd and 86th), lost only 8 and 3
officers respectively, as against the 15 and 17 lost by the 66th
and 15th. Of Brennier’s division the 22nd Line had 21 casualties
among officers, while the 65th and 17th Léger had only 3 and 9
respectively.
[564] So Parquin of the 13th Chasseurs in his _Mémoires_, p. 302.
The only other red-coated dragoons in Wellington’s army, Bock’s
brigade, were far away to the left.
[565] Arentschildt reports that his and D’Urban’s men were all
mixed and busy with the French infantry, when the French hussars
charged in, and that he rallied, to beat them off, a body
composed mostly of his own Germans, but with Portuguese and 14th
Light Dragoons among them.
Meanwhile the 4th Division and Pack’s Portuguese had fought, with much
less fortunate results, against the French divisions of Clausel and
Bonnet. There are good narratives of their advance from three officers
who took part in it, all so full and clear that it is impossible
to have any doubts about its details. One comes from the Assistant
Quarter-Master-General of the 4th Division, Charles Vere: the second
is from the captain commanding one of the four light companies of the
Fusilier brigade, Ludwig von Wachholz of the Brunswick-Oels Jägers:
the third is the narrative of Pack’s aide-de-camp, Charles Synge,
who was with the front line of the Portuguese in their vigorous but
unsuccessful attack on the Greater Arapile. The three narratives have
nothing contradictory in them.
The sequence of events was as follows. After deploying the three
battalions of the Fusilier brigade (1/7th, 1/23rd, 1/48th) beyond the
end of the village of Arapiles, and Stubbs’s Portuguese brigade to
their left, Cole started to cross the valley, having a very strong
skirmishing line, composed of the whole of the 7th Caçadores and of the
four light companies of the British brigade. During the first stage of
the advance, which started at 5.45[566], a perceptible time after that
of the 5th Division, the two brigades suffered severely from French
artillery fire, but had no infantry opposed to them. Their objective
was the division of Clausel, which had by this time come into line on
the extreme eastern end of the plateau occupied by Maucune. When the
advancing line had reached the trough of the valley which separated it
from the French heights, Cole saw that his left front was faced by a
detached French force[567] on a low rocky ridge half-way between the
end of the plateau and the Great Arapile, and also that behind the
Arapile, and in a position to support this detachment, were several
other French battalions. Pack was deploying to assault the Arapile,
but even if he won a first success there was visible a considerable
mass of troops behind it. After the valley was crossed Stubbs’s
Portuguese brigade, coming first into action, with the caçadores in
front, attacked the French regiment on the knoll and drove it back.
It retired towards the Arapile and the bulk of Bonnet’s division, to
which it belonged. Cole detached his caçador battalion to follow it,
hoping that Pack might succeed in ‘containing’ the rest of the French
force in this direction. The remainder of his line pushed on, with
the light companies of the Fusilier brigade acting as its screen, and
attacked Clausel on the plateau. The advance was steady, but cost many
lives, and the line was enfiladed by a tiresome flank fire from the
French guns on the top of the Great Arapile. Nevertheless the crest
was reached--on it lay the front line of the French division--five
battalions--which engaged in a furious frontal combat of musketry with
the Fusiliers and their Portuguese comrades, but was beaten in it, and
fell back some 200 yards on to its reserves. The impetus of the attack
was exhausted, Cole had just been wounded, so that there was a gap
in the command, and the troops were re-forming and recovering their
breath, when it was seen that things were going very badly behind and
to the left. The attack on the Arapile had by this time been delivered,
and had failed completely.
[566] The moment is fixed by Wachholz, who says that he looked at
his watch, to fix the hour.
[567] This was the 122nd (three battalions), of Bonnet’s
division, which Marmont says (see above, p. 430) that he had
placed as a connecting-link between the Arapile and the troops on
the plateau.
Pack had grasped the fact that when the 4th Division had crossed
the valley, it would be much at the mercy of Bonnet’s troops in the
direction of the Arapile, which were now on its flank, and would
presently be almost in its rear. He therefore resolved to use the
option of attacking that Wellington had given him. He deployed the 4th
Caçadores as a skirmishing line, gave them as an immediate support
the four grenadier companies of his line regiments, and followed with
the rest in two columns, the 1st Line on the right, the 16th on the
left. The caçadores went up the comparatively level field which formed
the central slope between the two rocky ends of the Arapile--it was
sown with rye some three feet high that year. French skirmishers in
small numbers gave way before them, but the main opposition of the
enemy was from his battery placed on the summit. The skirmishing line
got four-fifths of the way to the crest, and then found an obstacle
before it, a bank of some four feet high, where the field ended. It was
perpendicular, and men scrambling up it had to sling their muskets, or
to lay them down, so as to be able to use both hands. The caçadores
were just tackling the bank--a few of them were over it--when the
French regiment on top, the 120th, which had been waiting till the
Portuguese should reach the obstacle, delivered a shattering volley
and charged. The caçadores were quite helpless, being more engaged
in climbing than in using their arms[568]. They were swept off in a
moment, and the French, jumping down into the field, pursued them
vigorously, and overthrew first the supporting grenadier companies,
and then the two regiments, which were caught half-way up the slope.
As Napier truly observes, ‘the Portuguese were scoffed at for their
failure--but unjustly: no troops could have withstood that crash upon
such steep ground, and the propriety of attacking the hill at all seems
questionable.’ Pack made the attempt purely because he thought that it
was the only way of taking off the attention of the French from Cole’s
flank. The brigade suffered heavily, losing 386 men in ten minutes. It
took refuge at the foot of the British Arapile, where it was covered by
the 1/40th of Anson’s brigade, which was standing there in reserve.
[568] All this from the journal of Chas. Synge, Pack’s
aide-de-camp, who was with the caçadores, and was desperately
wounded at the bank, in the first clash. It was printed in the
_Nineteenth Century_ for July 1912.
The French brigadier in command on the Greater Arapile wisely made
little attempt to pursue Pack’s fugitives, but having his front now
clear of any danger, sallied out from behind his hill with three
regiments, the 118th and 119th and the re-formed 122nd, against the
flank and rear of the British 4th Division. There was nothing in front
of him save the 7th Caçadores, which Cole had detached as a covering
force, when he stormed the heights with the remainder of the brigades
of Ellis and Stubbs. This isolated battalion behaved very well, it
stood its ground in line, but was absolutely overwhelmed and broken up
by the superior numbers converging on it[569].
[569] See Vere’s _Marches of the 4th Division_, p. 36.
Nearly at the same moment Clausel’s whole force in column charged the
two brigades of the 4th Division which had carried the heights. The
French were in superior numbers--ten battalions to seven--and their two
reserve regiments were fresh troops, acting against men who had just
won a dearly-bought success by a great effort. The Anglo-Portuguese
line gave way, from the left first, where the 23rd Portuguese began
the movement. But it spread down the whole front, and the Fusiliers,
no less than Stubbs’s brigade, recoiled to the very foot of the
plateau[570].
[570] All this from Wachholz, who was now with the 7th Fusiliers.
This reverse gave Clausel, who was now in command since Bonnet’s wound,
an opportunity that looked unlikely a few minutes before. He could
either withdraw the Army of Portugal in retreat, covering the three
disorganized divisions with those which were still intact--his own,
Bonnet’s, and the two reserve divisions of Ferey and Sarrut, which had
just come on the ground--Foy was far off and otherwise engaged--or
he might adopt a bolder policy, and attempt to take advantage of the
disaster to Pack and Cole, by bursting into the gap between Leith and
the British Arapile, and trying to break Wellington’s centre. Being an
ambitious and resolute man he chose the latter alternative--though it
was a dangerous one when Leith and Pakenham were bearing in hard upon
his routed left wing. Accordingly he left Sarrut to rally and cover the
three beaten divisions, and attacked with his right centre. His own
division followed the retreating brigades of Ellis and Stubbs down the
heights, while the three disposable regiments of Bonnet came into line
to its right, and Boyer’s three regiments of dragoons advanced down the
depression between the Greater Arapile and the recovered plateau. Ferey
was left in second line or reserve on the crest.
At first the advance had considerable success. Bonnet’s regiments
pushed forward on the right, driving in the 1/40th[571], which had
come forward to cover Pack’s routed battalions, and pressing quite
close to the British Arapile, whose battery was turned upon them with
much effect. Clausel’s own division pushed the Fusiliers some way
down the slope and right into the valley at its foot. The dragoons
charged Stubbs’s retreating Portuguese, and cut up many of them,
though the 11th regiment finally succeeded in forming square with what
remained solid of its companies, and beat off the main attack. Part
of the French horsemen, however, pushed on, and reached the front of
Wellington’s reserve line, the 6th Division, which had now descended
the heights to relieve the broken 4th. One battalion of Hulse’s
brigade, the 2/53rd, was charged by several squadrons, but formed
square in time and repulsed them. Some little way to the right the
Fusiliers and the Portuguese 23rd formed a large parti-coloured square,
expecting a similar attack, but it did not come their way[572].
[571] See Vere’s _Marches of the 4th Division_, p. 36. The 3/27th
on top of the hill was not brought forward, as some wrongly say.
[572] This from Wachholz’s narrative, very clearly explained. The
Fusiliers were _not_ relieved by the advance of the 1/40th and
3/27th, as some authorities state.
Wellington, thanks to his own prescience, had ample reserves with which
to parry Clausel’s desperate stroke. Setting aside the Light Division,
which now paired off against Foy on the extreme left of the field,
there were the 1st, 6th, and 7th Divisions, not to speak of Bradford’s
Portuguese and España’s Spaniards, all of them perfectly intact. And
of these, such was his strength, only one fresh unit, Clinton’s 6th
Division, required to be brought up to turn the day. It was now coming
over the valley where the 4th had preceded it, in a long majestic line,
Hulse’s brigade on the right, Hinde’s on the left, the Portuguese of
the Conde de Rezende in second line. The 1st Division, if it had been
needed, could have supported Clinton, from its post just to the north
of the Lesser Arapile, but had not yet got under way.
The repulse of the new French attack was carried out with no great
difficulty, if not without serious fighting. The advance of Clausel’s
own division was checked by Marshal Beresford, who took Spry’s
Portuguese brigade out of the second line of the victorious 5th
Division, and led it diagonally along the southern slope of the plateau
to fall upon Clausel’s flank. This it did effectively, for the French
division could not dare to press on against the Fusiliers, and had to
throw back its left, and form up opposite Spry, with whom it became
engaged in a lively musketry fight. It could no longer move forward,
and was immobilized, though it held its own: Beresford was wounded in
the chest and taken to the rear, but Spry’s five battalions had served
the desired purpose, and stopped the French advance in this quarter.
But the decisive check to Clausel’s offensive was given by Clinton and
the 6th Division, who advancing straight before them--over the ground
previously traversed by Cole--fell upon, overlapped at both ends,
and thoroughly discomfited in close musketry duel the nine battalions
of Bonnet’s division, which had pressed forward close to the Lesser
Arapile, as if to insert a wedge in the British line. Unsupported by
Boyer’s dragoons, who had shot their bolt too early, and were now
re-forming far to the rear, this French division was badly cut up. Each
of the three regiments which had taken part in its advance lost more
than 500 men in the struggle[573]: they fell back in disorder towards
the hill behind them, and their rout compelled Clausel’s division to
give way also, since it exposed its flank to the oncoming line of
Hulse’s brigade on Clinton’s right. Moreover the Great Arapile had to
be evacuated, for while the routed troops passed away to its left rear,
the 1st British Division was soon after seen steadily advancing towards
its right. The regiment on the hill (the 120th) was exposed to be cut
off and surrounded, and hastily ran down the back of the mount: while
retreating it was much molested by the skirmishers of the German Legion
Brigade of the 1st Division. It lost heavily, and the battery that had
been on the summit was captured before it could get away.
[573] The 122nd lost 21 officers and 508 men, the 118th and
119th probably as many or more--they had respectively 20 and
26 officers hit. The 120th, the regiment on the Great Arapile,
lost only 8 officers--but 580 men, an almost inexplicable
disproportion. The 118th claimed to have taken a flag--perhaps
one of the 7th Portuguese Caçadores, who were badly cut up when
Bonnet first advanced.
Thus Clausel’s brief half-hour of triumph ended in complete disaster,
and the two divisions with which he had made his stroke were flung back
against the slope in front of the woods in their rear, where they took
refuge behind the intact division of Ferey, the sole available reserve
in this part of the field. They were now as badly beaten as Thomières
and Maucune had been earlier in the day[574].
[574] The losses of three of Clausel’s four regiments chance to
have been preserved--the 25th Léger lost 16 officers and 322 men:
the 27th Ligne 7 officers and 159 men: the 59th Ligne 17 officers
and 253 men. The 50th, which had 26 officers hit, must have
had more casualties than any of the other three, so the total
divisional loss must have been well over 1,200. But Bonnet’s
division, much worse mauled, lost at least 2,200.
While this lively action was in progress, the 5th and 3rd Divisions,
supported by the 7th and by Bradford’s Portuguese, in second line,
and assisted on their flanks by Arentschildt’s, D’Urban’s, and Anson’s
horse, had been driving in the wrecks of the French left wing towards
the woods. There was much resistance: on Sarrut’s intact battalions
many of the broken regiments had rallied. ‘These men, besmeared with
blood, dust, and clay, half naked, and some carrying only broken
weapons, fought with a fury not to be surpassed,’ says a 3rd Division
narrator of the battle. But the tide of battle was always moving
backward, towards the woods from which the French had originally
issued, and though it sometimes seemed about to stop for a minute or
two, a new outflanking manœuvre by the troops of Pakenham, D’Urban, and
Arentschildt, sufficed on each occasion to set it in motion again.
The last stage of the conflict had now been reached: the French centre
was as thoroughly beaten as their left had been earlier in the day:
many of the battalions had gone completely to pieces, and were pouring
into the woods and making their way to the rear, with no thought
except for their personal safety. Of intact troops there were only
two divisions left, Ferey’s in the centre, and Foy’s on the extreme
right near Calvarisa de Ariba. It was generally considered that Foy
ought to have been overwhelmed by the much superior British force
in front of him, for not only was he opposed by the Light Division,
whose skirmishers had been bickering with him all the afternoon, but
the 1st Division became available for use against him the moment that
it was clear that the French offensive against the 4th Division had
been shattered, by the advance of Clinton and Spry. Wellington, it is
said[575], dispatched orders for the 1st Division to move forward and
strike in between Foy and the Greater Arapile, at the moment that he
saw that the 6th Division had broken Bonnet’s troops. If so, the order
was not executed, and General Campbell led out his three brigades much
too late, and not in time either to cut off Foy or to encircle the
right of the disordered mass of the enemy now retiring into the woods.
He seems to have acted simply as a link between the 6th Division on his
right, and the Light Division on his left, for the latter alone pressed
Foy vigorously. The only part of Campbell’s division which suffered
any appreciable loss at this time of the day were the light companies
of Löwe’s brigade--that which was composed of the King’s German Legion:
they fell on the flank of the French regiment that was evacuating the
Greater Arapile, and did it considerable harm[576].
[575] This is stated by Napier, iv. p. 273, and seems reasonable.
See also Tomkinson, p. 186.
[576] The losses in Campbell’s Guards’ brigade (62 men) were in
the companies which defended the village of Arapiles earlier in
the day--those in his line brigade (Wheatley’s) were trifling--16
wounded and no killed. The K.G.L. brigade lost 60 or so, all in
the light companies, during the advance.
Meanwhile the last and not the least bloody fighting of the day was
beginning, on the hillside just outside the head of the forest, where
Marmont had deployed his main body at midday, and where Ferey’s
division was now standing in reserve, while the broken troops both from
its front and from its flank were streaming by to the rear. Clausel
had given Ferey orders to cover the retreat at all costs, warning him
that unless he could hold back the advancing enemy for some time the
disaster would be complete. The general to whom this unenviable task
was assigned carried it out with splendid courage, and by his constancy
gave time for the escape of the whole of the confused mass behind him.
He drew out his nine battalions in a single line, the centre a little
advanced to suit the shape of the hillside, the flanks a little thrown
back. The extreme battalions at each end were in square, to guard
against possible attacks by cavalry, but the seven central units were
deployed _en bataille_ in three-deep line, a formation which had not
been seen in the other episodes of the battle, and which made their
fire much more effective than that of regiments fighting in ‘column of
divisions,’ as most of their comrades had done[577].
[577] All this from Lemonnier-Delafosse of Ferey’s division, pp.
158-9.
Against the orderly front thus disposed Clinton came up with the 6th
Division, pursuing his victorious advance. He was flanked on the
left by the Fusilier brigade of the 4th Division, which had long ago
rallied and come up to the front since its disaster of an hour back.
On Clinton’s right were the 5th and 3rd Divisions, but both were at
the moment re-forming, after their long struggle with Sarrut and the
wrecks of the French left wing. Anson’s cavalry had at last got to the
front in this direction, and replaced D’Urban and Arentschildt--whose
squadrons were quite worn out--upon the extreme right of the allied
line.
Clinton, it is said[578], refused to wait till the troops on his right
were re-formed, and hurried on the attack: it was growing dark, and
a few more minutes of delay would allow the French to make off under
cover of the night. Therefore he advanced at once, and found himself
engaged at once in a most desperate musketry contest, whose deadly
results recalled Albuera, so heavy were the losses on both sides. But
here the French had the advantage of being deployed, and not (as at
Albuera) wedged in deep columns. The first fire of the French line,
as Clinton’s brigades closed in, was particularly murderous, and
swept away whole sections of the attacking force. ‘The ground over
which we had to pass,’ writes an officer in Hinde’s brigade[579],
‘was a remarkably clear slope, like the glacis of a fortress, most
favourable for the defensive fire of the enemy, and disadvantageous
for the assailant. The craggy ridge, on which the French were drawn
up, rose so abruptly that the rear ranks could fire over the heads of
the front. But we had approached within two hundred yards before the
musketry began: it was far the heaviest fire that I have ever seen, and
accompanied by constant discharges of grape. An uninterrupted blaze was
thus maintained, so that the crest of the hill seemed one long streak
of flame. Our men came down to the charging position, and commenced
firing from that level, at the same time keeping touch to the right, so
that the gaps opened by the enemy’s fire were instantly filled up. At
the first volley about eighty men of our right wing fell to the rear in
one group. Our commanding officer rode up to know the cause, and found
that they were every one wounded!’ But heavy as was the loss of this
regiment (137 out of 600 present), it was trifling compared to that of
its neighbours to the right, in Hulse’s brigade, where the right and
centre regiments in the line, the 1/11th and 1/61st, lost respectively
340 men out of 516 and 366 out of 546--a proportion to which only
Albuera could show a parallel. For many minutes--one observer calls it
nearly an hour, but the stress of the struggle multiplied time--the two
hostile lines continued blazing at each other in the growing dusk. ‘The
glare of light caused by the artillery, the continued fire of musketry,
and by the dry grass which had caught fire, gave the face of the hill
a terrific appearance: it was one sheet of flame, and Clinton’s men
seemed to be attacking a burning mountain, whose crater was defended by
a barrier of shining steel[580].’ The French, so far as losses went,
probably suffered no more, or perhaps less, than their assailants: but
their casualties were nevertheless appalling. And at last they gave
way: ‘the cruel fire cost us many lives,’ writes an officer of the 31st
Léger, ‘and at last, slowly, and after having given nearly an hour’s
respite to the remainder of the army, Ferey gave back, still protected
by his flanking squares, to the very edge of the forest, where he
halted our half-destroyed division. Formed in line it still presented a
respectable front, and halted, despite of the English batteries, which
enfiladed us with a thundering fire. Here Ferey met the form of death
which the soldier prefers to all others, he was slain outright by a
round-shot[581].’
[578] But not on the best authority: regimental diaries are not
always safe to follow on such points.
[579] Ross Lewin of the 32nd, ii. pp. 25-6.
[580] Grattan, p. 253.
[581] Lemonnier-Delafosse, p. 159. This note about Ferey’s being
slain outright does not agree with the usual statement that he
was mortally wounded, and died two days later, given by several
English diarists. But Lemonnier-Delafosse is first-hand authority.
Clinton’s English regiments were so disordered and reduced by the awful
fire through which they had passed in their victorious march, that he
put into front line for a final assault on the enemy his Portuguese
brigade, that of the Conde de Rezende, which was still intact, as
it had hitherto been in reserve. Its five battalions deployed, and
advanced against the now much contracted line of Ferey’s division: they
were supported on the left by the Fusilier brigade of the 4th Division,
on the right by the 5th Division, which was now re-formed and well to
the front. Anson’s cavalry was also in this direction.
The dying effort of Ferey’s division was worthy of its previous hard
fighting. ‘Formed right up against the trees,’ writes the French
officer, whom we have already quoted, ‘no longer with any artillery to
help, we saw the enemy marching up against us in two lines, the first
of which was composed of Portuguese. Our position was critical, but we
waited for the shock: the two lines moved up toward us; their order
was so regular that in the Portuguese regiment in front of us we could
see the company intervals, and note the officers behind keeping the
men in accurate line, by blows with the flat of their swords or their
canes. We fired first, the moment that they got within range: and the
volleys which we delivered from our two first ranks were so heavy and
so continuous that, though they tried to give us back fire for fire,
the whole melted away. The second line was coming up behind--this
was English, we should have tried to receive it in the same way,
still holding our ground though under a flank fire of artillery, when
suddenly the left of our line ceased firing and fell back into the
wood in complete disorder. The 70th Ligne had found itself turned by
cavalry; it broke; the rout spread down the front to the 26th and 77th;
only our two battalions of the 31st Léger held firm, under the fire of
the enemy, which continued so long as we showed outside the edge of the
forest. We only gave back as the day ended, retiring some 250 yards
from our original position, and keeping our _voltigeur_ companies still
in a skirmishing line in front[582].’
[582] Lemonnier-Delafosse, pp. 161-2.
This vigorous account of the last stand of the French reserve is not
far from being accurate. It is quite true that the Portuguese brigade
of the 6th Division suffered terribly in its attack, and was completely
checked. It lost 487 men during the fifteen minutes in which it was
engaged--the heaviest casualty list in any of the brigades of its
nation, even heavier than that of Stubbs’s troops in the 4th Division.
The only point that requires to be added is that it was not so much a
panic caused by a partial cavalry charge which broke the 70th Ligne,
and finally dispersed Ferey’s regiments[583], as the pressure of the
5th Division upon the whole of the left of their line, which collapsed
almost simultaneously. But they had done their work--before they
dispersed, leaving only the 31st Léger to act as a most inadequate
rearguard, they had detained the allies for a half-hour or more, and
night had set in. Wellington ordered the 6th Division to pursue, but
it was so much cut up and fatigued that it only advanced a hundred
yards into the forest, and then halted and settled down for the night.
Why the intact 7th Division was not rather used for the pursuit it is
hard to understand. Still more so is the fact that no cavalry was sent
forward in this direction: the woods, no doubt, looked uninviting and
dangerous, but the enemy was in a state of absolute panic, and ready to
disperse at the least pressure. ‘But,’ says the most intelligent of the
British diarists with the mounted arm, ‘the cavalry during the assault
on the last hill was ordered back to the point on the left where we
assembled before the attack, leaving the infantry to pursue without
us. Had this not been done (though it might not have been prudent to
pursue with both in the night), yet by their being at hand there was a
greater chance of accomplishing more. The order came from Sir Stapleton
Cotton himself. The infantry moved in pursuit by moonlight.... I have
heard from an officer in the 6th Division that although they had been
marching all day, and were so tired, when ordered to halt for the
night, that they could not possibly have marched much farther, yet they
sat up through the night, talking over the action, each recalling to
his comrade the events that happened[584].’
[583] Ferey’s four regiments probably lost somewhat over 1,100
men--the 31st Léger had 380 casualties, the 47th Ligne (with
18 officers killed and wounded) something like 500; the 70th
suffered least, it returned only 111 casualties; the 26th
slightly more, perhaps 150. The whole forms a moderate total,
considering the work done.
[584] Tomkinson (of Anson’s brigade), p. 187.
Some part of the slackness of the pursuit is to be explained by an
unfortunate misconception by which Wellington (through no fault of
his own) was obsessed that night. He was under the impression that
the Castle of Alba de Tormes was still held by the Spanish garrison
which he had left there, and that the bridge and the neighbouring ford
were therefore unavailable for the retreat of the French, who (as he
supposed) must be retiring by the fords of Huerta and Villa Gonzalo,
which they had used to reach the field. Unhappily--as has been already
mentioned--Carlos de España had withdrawn the battalion at Alba
without making any mention of the fact to his Commander-in-Chief[585].
Wellington therefore put more thought to urging the pursuit in the
direction of the East than of the South, and it was not till late in
the night, and when nothing but stragglers had been picked up on the
Huerta road, that he discovered what had really occurred.
[585] Tomkinson in his diary (p. 188) has a curious story to the
effect that ‘the Spanish general, before the action, asked if he
should not take his troops out of Alba--after he had done it.
Lord Wellington replied, “Certainly not,” and the Don was afraid
to tell what he had done, Lord W. therefore acted, of course, as
if the place had been in our possession still.’
It remains to relate the unimportant happenings on this front during
the evening. At the moment when the French attack on Wellington’s
centre failed, about 7 o’clock or soon after, Clausel sent to Foy,
whose division still lay behind Calvarisa de Ariba, covering the way to
the Huerta fords, the order to retire. His instructions were to cover
the flank of the line of retreat of the broken army, and to take up
successive detaining positions on its right, on the eastern side of the
brook and ravine which lie between the two Arapiles and the village
of Utrera. These orders Foy carried out skilfully and well. He fended
off the Light Division, which had moved out in pursuit of him, with
a heavy rearguard of light troops, always giving way when pressed.
His concern was almost entirely with this British unit, for the 1st
Division had started too late to get near him. The Light Division and
its battery kept him on the run, but never came up with his main body.
‘Night alone saved my division, and the troops that I was covering,’
wrote Foy, ‘without it I should probably have been crushed, and the
enemy would have arrived at Alba de Tormes before the wrecks of our
seven routed divisions got there. An hour after dark the English
cavalry was still pushing charges home against my regiments, which I
had placed in alternate chequers of line and column. I had the luck to
keep the division in hand till the last, and to steer it in the right
direction, though many routed battalions kept pressing in upon my left,
and threatened to carry disorder into my ranks. The pursuit ceased near
Santa Maria de Utrera[586].’
[586] Foy, _Vie militaire_, pp. 176-7.
It is difficult to make out what became of the heavy dragoons of
Bock during this long retrograde movement of Foy’s division: they
were certainly not the cavalry of which the French general speaks as
charging him during his retreat, for they returned no single man or
horse killed or wounded that day[587]. Perhaps, far away to the left,
they may have been driving in from position to position, the one
regiment of Boyer’s dragoons which had been left to cover Foy’s extreme
outer flank. More probably they may have been pushing their march
towards the fords of Huerta, in the vain hope of finding masses of
disbanded enemies on the way, and ultimately cutting them off from the
river. This hypothesis is borne out by the fact that the bivouac of the
heavy German brigade was that night in front of Pelabravo, much to the
north-east of the resting-places of the rest of the army, and in the
general direction of the fords[588].