On the morning of March 4th, when the allied troops should have crossed

the Guadiana, Beresford was brought the untoward news that the river

had risen three feet in the night, had swept away the trestles, and

forced the engineers to draw back the five pontoon boats in the central

stream to the Portuguese bank. The squadron beyond the river was cut

off from the army, and communication with it was only restored during

the day, by rigging up a flying bridge composed of a raft and a rope.

The cavalry ford above the destroyed bridge was of course impassable.

Throughout the 4th and 5th the water continued to rise, from storms

higher up the river apparently, for there was no rain at Jerumenha.

The position was exasperating to the highest degree. ‘Establishing a

permanent bridge is out of the question,’ writes D’Urban, the chief

of the staff, in his journal. ‘The means are anything but secure

either for passing the army (tedious beyond measure, too, no doubt),

or for establishing a communication afterwards for supplies and other

purposes. Nevertheless the general state of things, and above all

Lord Wellington’s reiterated orders received this morning, render it

necessary to pass[335].’ The engineers, put upon their mettle, finally

made the five Spanish pontoon boats into two flying bridges worked by

ropes. On these a battalion of infantry was passed across the river,

and stockaded itself on the other side. Later in the day (April 5) some

small tin pontoons arrived from Lisbon, and out of these, helped by

all the wine-casks of the neighbouring villages, collected in haste,

a floating bridge was constructed, ‘not very substantial, but, upon

trial, found capable of admitting infantry to pass in file[336].’ It

was not ready till noon on the 6th, but by the two flying bridges the

whole 2nd Division and three squadrons of cavalry were passed on the

night of the 5th-6th. What might have happened it Latour-Maubourg

had concentrated at Olivenza, and fallen on the first two or three

battalions that crossed with a force of all arms, we had better not

inquire[337]. A disaster on a small scale might very possibly have

occurred. But not a Frenchman was seen.

[335] This must have been Wellington’s Celorico dispatch of March

30, saying that ‘between chevalets (trestles), boats, Spanish and

English pontoons, and a ford, I should hope that the Guadiana may

be passed in safety’ (_Dispatches_, vii. 414.)

[336] D’Urban’s _Narrative_, p. 10.

[337] Beresford maintained that troops on the right bank could

be protected by the fire of the guns of Jerumenha, which is in

a lofty position, commanding the Spanish shore. But they would

have been of little use if the French had attacked at night.

(_Strictures on Napier_, p. 177.)

During the 6th Hamilton’s Portuguese passed with infinite slowness

on the flying bridges, and the cask and pontoon bridge being at last

completed, Cole’s 4th Division and Long’s cavalry began to file over

it at dusk, an operation so tedious that the last of them were not

over till the following dawn. Ere they were all across a ‘regrettable

incident’ occurred: the advanced cavalry pickets were formed on the

night of the 6th-7th by Major Morris’s squadron of the 13th Light

Dragoons. Owing to bad staff work in the placing of them (as D’Urban

and General Long both assert), the main guard of this squadron was

surprised by French cavalry in the dusk of the morning, and captured

almost entire, two officers and fifty men being taken. The assailants

found that they had run into the camp of a whole army, and promptly

retired before they could be touched.

At last Latour-Maubourg had given signs of life; this reconnaissance

had been conducted by a flying column of two cavalry regiments and

four battalions, under General Veilland, sent out to Olivenza from the

camp of Girard’s division, with the very tardy purpose of hindering

Beresford’s passage. Veilland reported to his chief that the enemy was

across in such strength that he could do nothing. The appearance of

20,000 men on the Spanish bank of the Guadiana, so far to the south

of Badajoz, placed Latour-Maubourg in a very delicate position: if he

stayed twenty-four hours longer in his present camp close to Badajoz,

he lost his communications with Andalusia, and might be pushed eastward

up the Guadiana, out of touch with Soult, and having no retreat save

towards the distant Army of the Centre. It was even possible that a

rapid advance of the Allies might drive him into Badajoz, the last

thing that he would desire. Accordingly he concentrated at Albuera,

twelve miles south of that fortress, as a preliminary move, and

prepared to fall back from thence by the great southern _chaussée_,

towards Llerena and the Sierra Morena, where he would preserve, and

shorten, his line of communication with Soult. Phillipon was left

with 3,000 men in Badajoz, which was now quite beyond danger from a

_coup de main_, and able to take care of itself for some weeks, till

reinforcements should come up from Andalusia for its relief. With great

unwisdom Latour-Maubourg left Olivenza garrisoned also; it was, as

had been shown in January, contemptible as a fortress, even when held

by a large force, and the French general placed in it only a single

weak battalion of under 400 men. There were still on the walls the

few guns that had been taken from the Spaniards--no more than fifteen

were mounted, and several of these only on makeshift carriages. Why

Latour-Maubourg chose to sacrifice a battalion it is hard to see;

Napoleon wrote to Soult a month later to condemn the policy of small

garrisons in the strongest terms[338]. At the best Olivenza, when

so weakly held, could not hold out for more than a few days, and if

Beresford had tried to rush it by escalade, when first he arrived

before its walls, he must undoubtedly have succeeded, for 400 men

cannot defend three miles of enceinte against a serious assault. There

were some magazines in the place, and a small hospital of sick, who

could not be removed[339]. But it was obviously absurd to throw away a

battalion of sound men to keep them from capture for a few days. It has

been suggested that Latour-Maubourg merely wanted to gain time[340];

but the time gained was trifling--Olivenza only held out five days--and

might have fallen much sooner.

[338] _Correspondance_, xxi. 146: ‘Vous voyez que ce que j’avais

prévu est arrivé, qu’on a eu la simplicité de laisser du monde

dans Olivenza, et de faire prendre là 300 hommes,’ &c. This

was alluding to an earlier order to Soult not to make small

detachments, and to blow up Olivenza.

[339] Ninety-eight sick attended by sixteen surgeons were

comprised in the surrender on April 15th.

[340] This is Lapéne’s view, who says that the 400 gallant men

were knowingly sacrificed in this hope: ‘L’intérêt de l’armée a

demandé le sacrifice’ (p. 146).

Beresford’s train and guns having joined him beyond the river on

March 8th, he moved to Olivenza on the 9th, in an order of march

ready to deploy into an order of battle in case Latour-Maubourg

should turn up with his small field force. The town was summoned on

the same afternoon, and when the governor refused to surrender, the

4th Division, still almost unable to move for want of the shoes which

were daily expected from Lisbon, was left to besiege it, with the aid

of heavy guns to be brought from Elvas, only fifteen miles away. The

extreme weakness of the garrison was not known, or the Marshal would

not have wasted time by ordering regular approaches to be made. The

rest of the army bivouacked on the Badajoz road a few miles beyond

Olivenza, and on the following day occupied Valverde, and pushed its

cavalry to Albuera, cutting the _chaussée_ between Badajoz and Seville.

No enemy could be found, and it was ascertained that Latour-Maubourg’s

rearguard was at Santa Marta, ten miles to the south, and the rest

of his troops far beyond it. On the 11th the infantry, minus the 4th

Division, were at Albuera, while the bulk of the cavalry marched to

find out how far southward the enemy was ready to withdraw.

Central Estremadura, at any rate, was now in Beresford’s hands, and

he was in a position to carry out Wellington’s orders to drive the

5th Corps over the Sierra Morena and invest Badajoz. In accordance

with his instructions he had seen Castaños on March 30th, and settled

with him that the wrecks of the old Army of Estremadura--now about

1,000 horse and 3,000 foot--should join in the campaign. Castaños, who

showed himself both eager and obliging, had promised that his infantry

should seize the bridge of Merida, and that, when it was occupied,

his cavalry, under Penne Villemur, should join in the movement to

sweep Latour-Maubourg over the mountains, operating on the eastern

road (Merida-Ribera-Usagre-Llerena), while the allied cavalry took

the western one (Albuera-Los Santos-Fuente Cantos-Monasterio). These

promises were carried out: Morillo’s infantry division occupied

Merida on the 10th, and next day Penne Villemur’s cavalry had reached

Almendralejo.

The siege of Olivenza gave little trouble. The only difficulty was the

improvising of a siege-train, even on the very modest scale required to

deal with such a weak place. It was invested, as we have seen, on the

9th. On the 10th Major Alexander Dickson of the Portuguese artillery,

and Captain Squire of the Engineers reconnoitred the place, and

determined that the proper starting-point for the attack was the same

ruined lunette, outside the walls, which the French had chosen as their

first base in January. On the night of the 11th this point was occupied

with the loss of one man only, killed by the enemy’s ill-directed fire.

A battery for six guns was constructed in the gorge of the ruined work,

but the pieces themselves, which Dickson went to choose from Elvas, did

not arrive till the 14th; the cask-bridge at Jerumenha being too weak

to bear them, they and their ammunition had to be ferried over on the

flying bridges. The six 24-pounders were placed in position that same

night. At daybreak they opened, and by the time that they had fired

seventy rounds each, long ere noon, a practicable breach was made in

the nearest bastion. Thereupon the governor, seeing that to have stood

an assault with his handful of men would have been madness, surrendered

at discretion. He marched out with only 9 officers and 357 men under

arms, giving up also 96 sick, and some commissaries and medical

officers. Several of his miserable stock of fifteen guns were found to

be practically useless save to make a noise, for (as has already been

mentioned) they were fixed not on proper carriages, but on the main

timbers and wheels of ox-carts, and could not be elevated or depressed.

The governor deserves some credit for having held out five days; if the

Allies had been aware of the weakness of the garrison, they would have

swamped it at once by an escalade.

On the next morning (April 16th) Cole and the 4th Division, who had

at last received their much-needed supply of shoes, marched to join

the rest of the army. A Portuguese garrison was thrown into Olivenza,

but there was no intention to hold it, if the enemy should come up

again. It was only a man-trap. Beresford might now have invested

Badajoz, if it had pleased him so to do. But he thought it better to

drive Latour-Maubourg completely out of Estremadura, and across the

Sierra Morena, before taking the siege in hand. The main reason for his

resolve was that it was clear that a week or ten days at least would be

required to organize a battering-train at Elvas, for the bombardment

and breaching of the fortress, and he thought it more profitable to

spend this interval in pushing the French as far from Badajoz as

possible, rather than in sitting down before it to no purpose, and

waiting for the appearance of the siege-train. It was apparently an

omission on Wellington’s part not to have ordered General Leite, the

governor of Elvas, to begin making preparations for the gathering of a

park and the collection of a large body of artillerymen, on the same

day that he finally launched Beresford’s[341] force into Estremadura

(March 16). But this had not been done, and it was not till April 18th

that Major Alexander Dickson, who had already learnt what was available

in Elvas while organizing the little train required for the capture

of Olivenza, was directed to take in hand the much larger and more

difficult task of collecting the men and material destined for the

siege of a first-class fortress[342]. This delay seems extraordinary:

did Wellington think on March 16th that Badajoz, only five days in

the hands of the French at the moment, would be incapable of defence

when Beresford should appear in front of it about the 25th of that

same month? It is quite possible that this would have been the case,

and that the French would have blown it up, if the Jerumenha bridge

had been standing ready for the passage of the army on the next day,

as Wellington had supposed. The _Dispatches_ give us no help on this

point; Wellington speaks of investing Badajoz, but gives no hint as

to how the investment was to be followed up, till March 27th, when he

observes to Beresford that ‘Elvas must supply the means for the attack

on Badajoz, if possible; if it has them not, I must send them there;

this will take time, but that cannot be avoided[343].’

[341] Dickson’s _Journals_, recently published by Major Leslie,

R.A., are the first and most important source in which to study

the two early British sieges of Badajoz, as well as the smaller

matter of Olivenza. I am using them perpetually all through the

following pages.

[342] This date is that given by D’Urban’s _Journal_.

[343] _Dispatches_, vii. 407. From Gouvea, March 27.

Elvas, as matters turned out, did ‘supply the means,’ but the resources

to be found there were so limited that, as was wittily said at the time

by Picton, Wellington, both in May and in June 1811, ‘sued Badajoz _in

forma pauperis_,’ and if the place had fallen it would have been almost

a miracle, for no sufficient material to ensure its capture had been

collected even by the month of June. The main difficulty arose from the

fact that Wellington had never been provided by his Government with a

siege-train. Looking upon the war in Portugal as essentially defensive

in character, the Home authorities had forgotten that it might have

offensive episodes, and that a great siege might not impossibly be one

of them. The British army in Portugal possessed nothing in the way of

artillery save the ordinary horse and field batteries (or ‘troops’ and

‘companies’ as they were then called), with their 3, 6, and 9-pounder

guns. If a few hundred men were told off to heavy pieces in the Lisbon

lines during the preceding autumn, it was not that they were intended

for such service--they were parts of incomplete or unhorsed batteries,

which had not taken the field when the campaign of 1810 began, and

were waiting to complete their equipment. The British army in Portugal

was absolutely destitute of artillery destined for and trained to the

working of siege-guns. The only British pieces of heavy calibre used

in the spring of 1811 were ships’ cannon lent by the commander of the

squadron in the Tagus.

For such work as was now before them, therefore, the Allies had to

depend entirely on what the Portuguese arsenals could supply. But

all that could be found in them was now mounted on the interminable

redoubts of the Lisbon lines, save such as had been sent to strengthen

Elvas, Abrantes, and Peniche. Practically every gun in Portugal was

defending some work, small or great; they had all been requisitioned

down to the most antique and imperfect pieces. The walls of Elvas were

a perfect museum of ancient artillery: among the heaviest pieces,

carefully sorted out because of their calibre, and chosen for the

siege-train that was to batter Badajoz, were to be seen not only many

24-pounders bearing the arms and cyphers of the earliest kings of the

house of Braganza, João and Affonso, but still older brass guns of

enormous length, showing the names of Philip III and IV of Spain, and

dating back to the years before 1640, when Portugal was a discontented

province of the Hapsburg kings[344]. It seems almost incredible, but

is actually a fact, that some of the cannon used by Wellington’s men

against Badajoz were just two hundred years old. Those that were

not quite so antique were mainly pieces of early eighteenth-century

pattern, without the later improvements invented by the French

scientific artillerymen of the days of Louis XV and Louis XVI: for the

Lisbon arsenal had persisted in using old models long after they had

been dropped in the larger countries of Europe.

[344] Dickson, in his _Journal_, p. 448, specially mentions this

curious fact, and notes the name of Philip III and the dates

1620, 1636, 1646, 1652 on some of the guns he used.

The gunners for the siege were of course mainly Portuguese, though

a few were afterwards drawn from the imperfect British companies at

Lisbon[345]. Those first employed were borrowed from the garrison

of Elvas; they comprised a great number of recruits only partially

trained, but did their best. It was the guns, not the men, that were at

fault--or rather, both the guns and the ammunition, for the Portuguese

cannon-balls in store, dating from all ages, varied much in size, and

Dickson had to sort each convoy of 24 lb. or 12 lb. shot into batches,

some of which were rather small and some rather large, and to apportion

them to particular pieces. The old brass seventeenth-century guns,

being generally worn from long use, needed the biggest shot, and even

these were so large in the bore that the balls fitted loosely, and

the discharge suffered from ‘windage.’ The impact of such shot was

not half what it should have been[346]. With such tools to employ, it

is not wonderful that the Anglo-Portuguese artillery made a poor show

at the first siege of Badajoz. But worst of all was the fact that the

number of pieces was at first far too small--Elvas could only spare a

certain part of the armament of its walls, and it was not till some

weeks had passed that guns, British and Portuguese, could be brought

up from Lisbon, and with them drafts of artillerymen of both nations.

But twenty-three guns and 400 artillerymen were all that Dickson could

collect for the first siege, and these were not ready till April was

out; indeed, it was no small achievement to organize a siege-train of

any sort between April 18th and May 6th, from the sole resources of

the fortress of Elvas. Of the additional hindrance caused by the small

numbers and the inexperience of the engineer officers, and the total

lack of trained sappers, we shall speak in the proper place.

[345] These were the companies of Bredin, Baynes, Raynsford, and

Glubb; see vol. iii. p. 559.

[346] Dickson, _Journal_, pp. 405, 448.

The space of time before the siege-train for Badajoz could be got ready

was employed by Beresford in clearing southern Estremadura of the

enemy. Having left a brigade of the 2nd Division at Talavera Real, a

battalion of the Lusitanian Legion (from Cole’s division) in Olivenza,

and some squadrons of Portuguese cavalry round the southern front of

Badajoz, to watch the garrison, the army marched for Santa Marta and

Zafra, on the high-road to Seville, with its own cavalry in front, and

Penne Villemur’s Spanish squadrons on the left (April 16th-18th). The

bulk of the infantry went no further forward, because Latour-Maubourg

withdrew into the Sierra Morena on the rumour of its approach. The

cavalry continued the pursuit--at Los Santos on the 16th its leading

regiment, the 13th Light Dragoons, had a smart affair with the French

rearguard (2nd Hussars), and routed it with the loss of three officers

and many men[347]. After this Latour-Maubourg never stopped till he had

reached Guadalcanal, on the borders of Andalusia, evacuating Llerena

and the other towns on the Estremaduran slope of the mountains (April

19th). Beresford thereupon left his British cavalry at Zafra, and

Penne Villemur at Llerena, to watch the passes, while he drew back his

infantry divisions to take in hand the siege of Badajoz (April 20th),

with the exception of the brigade of Colborne, which was sent out with

some Spanish horse to demonstrate against Latour-Maubourg, and to drive

him still further southward if he showed signs of irresolution.

[347] Long says that the 13th took about 150 prisoners

(_Vindication_, p. 104), but the French accounts do not

acknowledge anything like such loss.

While these operations were in progress, there was a short and

unexpected diversion in the extreme south-west corner of Estremadura,

caused by the appearance of an outlying French column in that quarter,

which had no connexion with Latour-Maubourg. A word as to this is

necessary, since its result was to bring a new Spanish force into

Beresford’s sphere of operations. When Soult returned to Andalusia

in the middle of March, his first care was to drive off Ballasteros

and the other detachments which had been threatening Seville in his

absence. They gave back into the Condado de Niebla, as has already been

mentioned. But at the end of the month the situation was complicated

by the news that an expedition from Cadiz, the division of Zayas,

had landed at Moguer, in the estuary of the Rio Tinto, and seemed

about to join Ballasteros. If this junction had been made, the force

collected in the west would have been too large to be safely neglected.

Wherefore Soult sent out General Maransin and the Prince of Aremberg,

the former with seven battalions of Gazan’s division, and the latter

with two cavalry regiments, to attack the Spaniards. At the approach

of this column of 4,500 men Zayas re-embarked, losing 300 men from

his rearguard in so doing (April 1). Ballasteros retired into the

mountains. Maransin thought it his duty to endeavour to make an end

of this active and elusive adversary, whose constant appearances and

reappearances on the flank of Seville had caused so much trouble.

Sending back his cavalry and guns, he plunged into the hills with

his infantry, and for twelve days hunted Ballasteros up and down the

rugged upper valleys of the Odiel and the Rio Tinto. On April 12th

Ballasteros, gradually pushed northward, came down to Fregenal, on the

borders of Estremadura, where he offered battle, but was beaten, and

fled to Xeres de los Caballeros. Maransin pursued, and reached that

place on the 11th, while Ballasteros retired to Salvatierra de los

Barros, not far from Santa Marta, and close on the flank of Beresford’s

army. Maransin, who had long been cut off from touch with other French

detachments, was wholly unaware that he had run into the neighbourhood

of a British force, and would have been captured, or defeated, if he

had stayed a day longer at Xeres, for Ballasteros had called for help

to Beresford, and the latter was preparing to throw two divisions upon

his flank and rear[348]. Letters from Latour-Maubourg to Maransin,

to warn him of his danger, were intercepted by the guerrilleros and

sent to the British camp[349]. But an _Afrancesado_, one of the

principal inhabitants of Xeres, warned the French general just before

it was too late: and, hastily leaving his position at night, Maransin

retired into Andalusia via Fregenal and Aracena, and ultimately joined

Latour-Maubourg by a circuitous route.

[348] D’Urban visited Ballasteros’s camp on the 14th and settled

with him all the details of a joint march against Maransin

(whom they wrongly supposed to be d’Aremberg, not knowing that

the latter had returned to Seville with the cavalry). ‘If

d’Aremberg takes the bait, and follows Ballasteros, he must be

lost altogether; even if he halts at Xeres we ought to get hold

of him,’ writes D’Urban in his diary. But Maransin fled on the

morning of the 15th.

[349] D’Urban’s diary under the 17th April.

Ballasteros stayed behind in Estremadura, and the allied force in

that province was strengthened by his 3,500 men. But this was not

all: the Regency at Cadiz resolved to place a considerable army in

this direction, their own city being more than amply garrisoned, and

expeditions to the south being unpopular since the fiasco that followed

Barrosa. On April 25th General Blake took the two divisions of Zayas

and Lardizabal (both of which had fought at Barrosa), and landed with

them at Ayamonte, the port in the mouth of the Guadiana. From thence he

moved up along the Portuguese frontier, and joined Ballasteros near

Xeres de los Caballeros about a fortnight later. Between them they had

over 10,000 infantry and about 800 cavalry, but few guns, for Blake

found it difficult to horse the batteries that he had brought with

him, and left all save six pieces behind, at Ayamonte, to follow when

they could procure teams. They had not rejoined him four weeks later,

when the battle of Albuera was fought. The presence of Blake was not

altogether an unmixed benefit, for he was independent of Castaños,

who commanded the ‘5th Army’ or old Estremaduran force, and the two

generals were ancient rivals and did not seem likely to co-operate with

any cordiality. But if Soult was to make his appearance for the relief

of Badajoz, it was as well that the Allies should be as strong as

possible on the front by which he must attack.

Before, however, Blake had arrived in Estremadura, the investment of

Badajoz had begun. It was directed by Wellington himself, who dropped

suddenly into the middle of the campaign on the 20th, when he arrived

at Elvas. Having seen Masséna retreat to Salamanca, and break up his

army into cantonments, he now considered that it was safe for him to

pay the visit to the south which he had always projected. Leaving

Sabugal on April 16th, he rode across country by Castello Branco and

Niza, and reached Elvas on the fifth night. The next day but one he

conducted a reconnaissance of Badajoz, escorted by a brigade newly

landed at Lisbon, which he had ordered to join Beresford--Alten’s two

light battalions of the King’s German Legion. The examination of the

defences of the fortress was made under some difficulties, for at the

moment when Wellington was riding round the walls a large working

party of the garrison, which had been dispatched to cut timber in

the woods to the south, was returning into the place. Phillipon, the

governor, thinking that Wellington’s escort was a detachment sent

to cut off his workmen, came hastily out of the fortress with three

battalions, and swept off the high-road two companies of the Germans

who were accompanying the head-quarters’ staff, with the loss of fifty

or sixty men. The working party hurried to join their friends, and got

into the gate before the main body of Alten’s brigade could come up.

This interruption being over, Wellington completed his survey of the

whole circuit of Badajoz, and on the next day (April 23rd) issued

elaborate orders to Beresford, concerning the policy to be observed in

Estremadura during the siege. He had never intended to stay more than a

few days in the south, to supervise affairs, and on the 25th a dispatch

received from Sir Brent Spencer, the senior officer left with the

main army in the north, reported such activity of the French in that

direction that he rode hard for the frontiers of Leon, where he arrived

on the 29th.

The orders dictated to Beresford governed the whole course of the

campaign in Estremadura during the next month, and were of the highest

importance. Wellington directed that the siege of Badajoz should be

begun the moment that the guns and material were ready, but warned

his colleague that its commencement would infallibly bring Soult

to the relief of the place, with every available man that he could

scrape together from Andalusia. It was impossible to calculate what

the strength of his army would be: if he raised the siege of Cadiz or

evacuated Granada, so that he could bring a very large force with him,

Beresford was to retire behind the Guadiana, and assume a defensive

position on the Caya river in front of Elvas. If forced from thence,

he must retire even as far as Portalegre should it be necessary. But

if Soult (as was more likely) came up with a force which was not

absolutely overwhelming in numbers, ‘Marshal Beresford will consider

of and decide upon the chance of success, according to a view of the

relative number of both armies, and making a reasonable allowance for

the number of Spanish troops which will co-operate with him.... If

he should think his strength sufficient to fight a general action to

save the siege of Badajoz, he will collect his troops to fight it. I

believe that, upon the whole, the most central and advantageous place

to collect the troops will be at Albuera.... All this must of course

be left to the decision of Sir William Beresford. I authorize him to

fight the action if he should think proper, or to retire if he should

not[350].’

[350] _Dispatches_, vii. 491-2.

The co-operation of the Spaniards was the crucial point. Unless it were

assured, Wellington considered that Beresford must assume the more

cautious and defensive attitude. If it were secured, the bolder policy

might be pursued. The lines which Wellington laid down were in the

main those which had already been suggested by Beresford: (1) Castaños

must undertake to keep the horse of Villemur in the Sierra Morena,

closely observing Latour-Maubourg, but forbid him to engage in any

fighting; he must retire if pressed; the infantry of the 5th army must

stay at Merida, as at present, but be ready to join Beresford if Soult

invaded Estremadura. (2) Ballasteros was to take a similar position on

the other flank, with his head quarters at Burguillos (near Zafra)[351]

and his advanced posts at Fregenal and Monasterio; if Soult moved

forward, he was to join Beresford without attempting to fight. (3) When

Blake’s army had landed, it was to pass up the Guadiana, and take post

at Xeres de los Caballeros; on any alarm from Soult, it was (like the

other Spanish troops) to join Beresford at once. If these arrangements

worked, at least 15,000 Spaniards would be in line at Albuera, the

chosen position, to assist in holding back Soult. And, as we shall

see, the scheme did work exactly as Wellington had designed, and the

whole force was collected. (4) Lastly, and this was all-important,

when the allied forces were concentrated, they must be placed under a

single commander, and not worked with divided authority and divided

responsibility, as had been the case in the Talavera campaign of 1809.

Concerning Blake there could be no difficulty, as he was junior to

Castaños, and the latter had consented to place himself at Beresford’s

disposition when they met at Jerumenha on March 30th. Too much praise

cannot be given to his reasonable and conciliatory conduct, which alone

rendered possible the co-operation of all the allied forces during the

ensuing campaign.

[351] Not to be confused with another Burguillos on the

Guadalquivir, north of Seville.

Wellington therefore, as is clear, foresaw the whole course of

subsequent operations, and even fixed the exact battle-spot on which

the fate of Soult’s attempt to relieve Badajoz would be decided. The

only point left to Beresford’s decision was whether the strength of the

French army was such as to render a successful resistance possible.

And when we come to consider the respective forces at the disposition

of the two parties, it can hardly be urged that Beresford was wrong to

accept battle. That his victory was a hard-fought and costly one came

from minor tactical circumstances, which will be explained in their due

place.

As to the details of the projected siege of Badajoz, Wellington

laid down an equally clear policy. All guns and material were to be

collected in Elvas, Campo Mayor, and Olivenza, and not to move till

everything was ready. The main communications of the army were to be

across a floating bridge to be constructed at the junction of the

Caya and the Guadiana, five miles below Badajoz and six from Elvas.

The permanent bridge of Merida and the temporary bridges at Jerumenha

would be subsidiary resources. Lastly, and here was the most important

point, the general scheme to be pursued was that the besiegers should

first reduce the outlying defences of Badajoz, Fort San Cristobal on

the north bank of the Guadiana, the Pardaleras and the Picurina on the

south bank. Only when all these were taken would operations against the

city itself be begun. To quote the concluding paragraph of Wellington’s

memorandum: ‘When the British army shall be in possession of San

Cristobal, Picurina and Pardaleras, Marshal Beresford will determine

upon the point at which he will attack the body of the place. It is

believed that, upon the whole, one of the south faces will be the most

advantageous.’

There can be no doubt that all the mishaps of the two first British

sieges of Badajoz had their origin in these original orders of

Wellington, which were drawn up on the advice of his chief engineer,

Colonel Fletcher. The great mistake was the choosing of the almost

impregnable fort of San Cristobal as one of the three first points

of attack, and the making all subsequent operations depend upon its

capture. No doubt the possession of this lofty and commanding work

would render the fall of Badajoz certain, since it overlooked the

castle and all the northern end of the city. But it was the strongest

part of the whole defences, and when the miserable and antiquated train

of artillery at Beresford’s disposition is taken into consideration,

and it is remembered that the siege was to be conducted ‘against time’

as it were, i. e. with the hope that it might be concluded before Soult

could collect a relieving force, it is clear that San Cristobal ought

to have been left alone. The other points designated by Wellington, the

Pardaleras and Picurina, were much more accessible, and the capture

of one or other of them would have brought the besiegers close to the

walls, though neither of them commanded the whole city in the same

fashion as San Cristobal. The best commentary on the sieges of 1811

is that a year later, at the third and successful leaguer, Wellington

left the high-lying fort on the other side of the Guadiana entirely

alone. The original orders of 1811 gave three separate and distinct

objectives, and none of these were to be mere ‘false attacks,’ since

it is distinctly said that operations against the enceinte were only

to begin when all three of the forts were in British hands. Wellington

was not a trained engineer; he was dependent on the advice of the

officers of that arm, and it seems that they gave him bad counsel, as

they certainly did to Beresford during the subsequent weeks. The most

puzzling thing is to make out why Colonel Fletcher and his colleagues

ignored Soult’s precedent; the French engineers had concentrated their

attack on the Pardaleras front as their sole objective, for their

other operations were false attacks. The English engineers, instead of

concentrating their efforts in the same way, wasted their work on three

separate points, which was all the more inexcusable because they knew

that the resources which their comrades of the artillery arm had at

their disposition were most inadequate for a great siege. Hence came a

very costly and deplorable series of failures.

On the day of Wellington’s departure from Elvas heavy rain fell, and

the Guadiana rose high, not merely washing away the cask-bridge at

Jerumenha, but rendering the working of the flying bridges impossible.

This was a serious matter; not only did it put a temporary stop to the

communications between Elvas and the army, but it raised the question

as to what might happen if a similar mischance were to occur when

Soult was invading Estremadura. For if the Jerumenha bridges should

break when the Allies were concentrated at Albuera, they would have no

line of retreat and an impassable river behind. Beresford, with this

possibility in his eye, ordered an alternative line of communication

to be established via Merida, and sent a brigade of the 2nd Division

thither to reinforce the Spaniards of Morillo, and a day later the

whole 4th Division. His anxiety on this point did not cease till,

on the 5th of May, a strong pontoon bridge had been built at the

point selected by Wellington, the place where the Caya falls into the

Guadiana. By this time the Jerumenha bridges were again in working

order, but it was clear that it would be a mistake to trust the whole

safety of the army to them.

It was only on this same day (May 5) that Colonel Fletcher and

Major Alexander Dickson reported to Beresford that they were ready

to produce the means for the attack on Badajoz: the former had his

stock of platforms, fascines, and gabions prepared; the latter had

organized the first convoy of artillery and ammunition from Elvas. On

the 6th, therefore, the investment of Badajoz on the south side of the

Guadiana was completed by the British brigades of Lumley and Alten

and the Portuguese brigade of Fonseca, while on the following day the

brigade of Kemmis and the 17th Portuguese (part of the garrison of

Elvas) appeared opposite San Cristobal, and shut in the place on the

northern bank of the river. The rest of the infantry[352] encamped

as a support of the besieging force in the woods between Badajoz and

Albuera, but the cavalry still remained in southern Estremadura,

and Colborne’s brigade had been for some days (April 30th-May 11th)

executing a demonstration in the Sierra Morena, with the object of

keeping Latour-Maubourg employed. This last operation, owing to

Colborne’s skilful management of his column of 2,000 infantry and

two squadrons each of Spanish and Portuguese horse, had been very

successful. On hearing of British infantry in his front, the French

general evacuated his posts on the crest of the mountains, Guadalcanal,

Fuente Ovejuna, Azuaga, and Monasterio, and fell back south-eastward

towards Constantina on the Cordova road, abandoning the direct line

of retreat on Seville, which he had hitherto covered. Colborne, after

clearing all these places, extended his march eastward into a very wild

and unexplored country, and summoned the isolated castle of Benalcazar,

the only French garrison left north of the Sierra Morena. When it

refused to listen to a summons, he had to leave it, having neither guns

to batter it nor time to waste. From thence he returned by a circular

sweep through Campanario to Almendralejo, where he once more was in

touch with the British army (May 11th).

[352] Hoghton’s brigade of the 2nd Division, Myers’s and Harvey’s

brigades of the 4th Division, Campbell’s brigade of Hamilton’s

Portuguese division.

The first episodes of the siege of Badajoz were not very encouraging to

the besiegers. On the 8th trenches were opened opposite all the three

points of attack designated by Wellington, the Picurina and Pardaleras

forts on the south side, and San Cristobal on the north. In each case

the first parallel was started at about 400 yards from the walls;

Dickson had told off fourteen 24-pounders and two 8-inch howitzers for

the work on the left bank, five 24-pounders and two other howitzers for

the attack on San Cristobal. More energy was displayed in this last

quarter than in the others, apparently from the notion that if this

commanding work could be subdued the rest of the siege would be an

easy matter. But the results were disappointing: on the stony slopes

of San Cristobal there was little earth to throw up, and the spade

gritted against rock at three inches from the surface. At the end of

the first night’s digging the trench was but a seam, and there was only

one section at which about ten men could work under cover. The rest had

to be abandoned during daylight, for the enemy kept up a furious fire,

not merely from the fort, but from the citadel on the other side of the

river, whose flank battery enfiladed the projected trench. Three out

of nine engineer officers present on this front were killed or wounded

in the first twenty-four hours, and many of the workers from Kemmis’s

brigade and the 17th Portuguese. It soon became obvious that the

trenches would have to be built with earth from a distance and gabions,

rather than excavated. Nevertheless, a battery for Dickson’s five

24-pounders was sketched out, and began to be visible to the enemy. On

the night of the 10th Phillipon sent up a reserve battalion into San

Cristobal, and executed a sortie upon the British works. It penetrated

into the trenches, but was driven out after a sharp struggle by the

covering party. But, pursuing too far, the British came under the guns

of San Cristobal, and had to retire to their trenches with lamentably

heavy loss[353]. Next day the battery was completed, despite of a

deadly fire both from the fort and the castle, and opened upon its

objective. But it was completely overmastered, and before night four

of its five guns had been damaged or dismounted; three more engineer

officers were hurt, leaving only three surviving of the original nine.

It is said that the battery opened before it had been intended--a

fault of over-zeal on the part of the Portuguese major in command.

Beresford’s purpose had been to wait till the other attacks, on the

Picurina and Pardaleras, were ready, before beginning to batter San

Cristobal. These attacks had met with less difficulty, the ground being

easier to dig, and on the evening of the 11th the trenches in front

of the Picurina were well advanced, and the battery of ten guns there

opened upon the fort with some, but not great, effect.

[353] So D’Urban’s diary under May 11th. The loss was over 400

men, of whom 207 were in the 40th, 118 in the 27th, 75 in the

97th, and 38 in the 17th Portuguese. The French lost about 200

men only.

Seeing the San Cristobal attack faring so badly, the engineers got

leave to erect a second battery on that side, further down the hill,

which was intended to check the enfilading fire from the other side

of the Guadiana. More guns were brought up to the original battery,

to replace those that had been damaged. But both batteries were

overpowered and badly maltreated on the morning of the 12th. A few

hours later news arrived from the south, sent by Ballasteros, to

the effect that the French were in motion from Seville with a large

relieving army, and were marching hard across the Sierra Morena, just

as Wellington had expected; they had reached Santa Olalla on the 11th,

and were already in touch with Latour-Maubourg. Since their force was

estimated at only 23,000 men--not far from the real amount--Beresford

resolved to fight, and sent requests to Castaños, Ballasteros, and

Blake to concentrate on Albuera, the battle-ground selected by

Wellington. It was fortunate that Blake was now in close touch and

available--he had reached Fregenal on the 9th and Barcarrota on the

12th, so that his arrival was certain, unless some unforeseen accident

should occur. Without his aid it would have been doubtful policy to

wait for Soult and risk a general action: but with his 10,000 men in

line the Allies would have wellnigh 35,000 men available, if every unit

came complete to the field.

[Illustration: BADAJOZ The Two British Sieges (May & June 1811)]

Meanwhile, pending the confirmation of the news of the French advance,

Beresford’s engineers asked leave to open another parallel, and

1,400 men had been paraded for the purpose of starting it, when

complete details as to Soult’s progress came to hand. It had been so

rapid that the Marshal at once ordered all the siege operations to

be discontinued, though the engineers tried to persuade him to risk

two days’ more work, by the vain promise that they would undertake

to produce two practicable breaches in that space of time. Beresford

wisely refused to listen to them, and ordered that all the guns and

ammunition should be returned at once to Elvas, with such of the siege

stores as could be readily moved. But the mass of gabions and fascines

had to be burnt, as these would be profitable to the garrison, and

would certainly be carried into the town if they were left intact.

The troops, English, Portuguese, and Spanish (three battalions of

Castaños’s infantry had come up from Merida), were ordered to prepare

to march for Albuera in successive detachments, the 4th Division and

the Spaniards being left to the last in the trenches, to cover the

removal of the guns and stores.

Beresford’s total casualties in this mismanaged fragment of a siege,

from May 6th to May 12th, had been 533 British and 200 Portuguese, or

733 in all, lost in the trenches and in the sortie. It will be seen

that the sortie cost far more lives than the actual beleaguering work.

All the British loss save seven casualties was in Kemmis’s brigade of

the 4th Division[354], which lay on the Cristobal side, and suffered

both in the trench-building and in the sortie. The Portuguese loss was

partly in the 17th Line, which acted with Kemmis, partly among the

artillery.

[354] 3/27th, 1/40th, and 97th Foot.

SECTION XXVI: CHAPTER II

FUENTES DE OÑORO: PRELIMINARY OPERATIONS.

APRIL 12ND-MAY 3RD, 1811

The Army of Portugal, sullenly retiring far within the frontiers of

Spain, had been lost to Wellington’s sight on April 8th, when it passed

the Agueda and fell back in diverging columns towards various towns

of the kingdom of Leon--Salamanca, Toro, and Zamora--where it went

into cantonments. Only Drouet with the two divisions of Conroux and

Claparéde remained in observation of the Allies, with his head quarters

at San Muñoz. The British general was well aware of the dilapidated

state in which the enemy had reached his base, and calculated that it

would take many weeks for Masséna to get his army into fighting trim

again. He considered that he might even hope to gain possession of

Almeida before the French would be in a position to attempt its relief,

though it could only fall by famine, since there were no heavy guns to

form a battering-train for its siege nearer than Oporto, Abrantes, or

Lisbon. He had already inspected the place, and saw that it had been

put in such a good state of defence by the governor, Brennier, that all

external traces of the great explosion of August 1810 had disappeared.

That the town within was still a mass of ruins, with nearly every house

cut off sheer at the first story, was of no military importance, when

the enceinte and the bomb-proofs were in good order.

There was a short moment during which Wellington had some hopes of

being able to lay hands on Ciudad Rodrigo as well as Almeida. He had

learnt that the Spanish fortress was almost as depleted of food as the

Portuguese, and that Masséna’s troops had consumed 200,000 rations from

its stores when they reached the frontier; he thought that the extra

garrison which Junot had thrown into it, before he passed onward, would

only serve to exhaust the magazines so much the earlier. Accordingly

he not only requested that active and enterprising partisan Julian

Sanchez, to beset the roads between Salamanca and Rodrigo, in order

that no provisions might get through, but made preparations to throw

some British light troops across the Agueda to co-operate with him,

when the approach of a convoy should be reported. With this object

he moved up the Light Division and Arentschildt’s brigade of cavalry

close to the Agueda and within a few miles of Rodrigo. Their head

quarters were at Gallegos, their outposts extended from the bridge of

Barba del Puerco on the north as far as El Bodon on the south. It was

intended that, when Don Julian signalled the approach of the French,

the Light Division should make a dash across the fords of the Agueda,

and endeavour to intercept the convoy. This plan failed on the 13th

of April, owing, as Wellington held, to the slowness of Sir William

Erskine[355], who was still in command of the division, though news had

just arrived--to the great satisfaction of all the battalions--that its

old general, Craufurd, was daily expected at Lisbon on his way to the

front.

[355] Wellington to Beresford, April 14th: ‘Sir William Erskine

did not send a detachment across the Agueda in time, as I

had desired him, and the consequence is that the French got

their convoy into Ciudad Rodrigo yesterday morning.... It is

useless now to keep anybody on the other side of the Agueda.’

_Dispatches_, vii. 467.

Rodrigo having been revictualled, Wellington abandoned all hope of

molesting it further; to have invested it would have been useless,

when he had no siege-train. But Almeida he intended to reduce at his

leisure, being of the opinion that it would be starved out before

Masséna was in a position to take the field to relieve it. Nothing

short of his whole army would suffice for that operation--if that even

were enough. And knowing that the troops had just reached Salamanca

in a demoralized and discontented condition, without shoes, without

train, almost without ammunition, and with the remnant of their cavalry

and artillery horses dying off at the rate of several hundreds a day,

Wellington doubted if his adversary would be able to come out of his

cantonments before the summer was far spent. At any rate, he calculated

that he had a good many weeks before him, in which he was not likely

to find the Army of Portugal a serious danger. Accordingly he resolved

to put his own host into cantonments also, in such a position as to

block the road to Almeida, and to give it a well-earned rest while

that fortress was being starved out. He had, as we observed in a

previous chapter, no intention of assuming the offensive against the

French in Leon till he had organized his line of communication with

his new base at Coimbra, and established large intermediate dépôts

at Lamego, Celorico, and other conveniently placed localities. The

army was living from hand to mouth,--all the country about Almeida,

Guarda, and Sabugal having been thoroughly devastated,--on convoys

which were only struggling up at irregular intervals from the lower

Mondego. The horses especially were in very poor order, from want of

proper forage. ‘The regiments subsisted on the green corn, which was

dreadful to the inhabitants, and of little use to the horses, when they

had to work. There was nothing else, and we had to cut their rye....

How our army has been carried though this desolate abandoned country

is astonishing[356].’ Till there were dépôts and a regular service

established, it was impossible to concentrate the army, much less to

send it forward into Spain.

[356] Tomkinson’s (16th Light Dragoons) _Diary_, April 10th-11th

(p. 98).

Accordingly the allied troops were spread broadcast in the villages

between the Coa and the Agueda. The Light Division and two cavalry

regiments[357] were in front, holding the outposts facing Ciudad

Rodrigo, and in touch with Drouet’s corps, which lay along the Yeltes,

a stream that runs roughly parallel with the Agueda, at a distance

of from seven to fifteen miles to the north-east. The 5th Division

was in the villages around Fort Concepcion, in support of the Light

Division. The 6th Division, with Pack’s Portuguese, who had lately

come up from the Mondego, where they had been dropped during the

pursuit of Masséna[358], were blockading Almeida. The main body of the

army, the 1st, 3rd, and 7th Divisions, with Ashworth’s independent

Portuguese brigade[359], were cantoned in the valleys of the Dos Casas

and the Turon, tributaries of the Agueda, being distributed between

Nava de Aver, Fuentes de Oñoro, Pozo Bello, and other small places in

the neighbourhood. The cavalry, save that detached to the front, was

trying to keep its horses alive in the poor villages along the Coa,

from Castello Rodrigo to Alfayates[360]. The whole army, distributed

in a square of not more than twenty miles, was so placed that it could

concentrate at any point in one march. Wellington, even though he

judged Masséna unable to molest him, was determined not to be caught

with his troops in a state of dispersion.

[357] 14th Light Dragoons and 1st Hussars K.G.L.

[358] See above, p. 199.

[359] Sometimes called Pamplona’s brigade in Wellington’s

dispatches of this date, Colonel Pamplona having been in

temporary command during Ashworth’s absence.

[360] Barbaçena’s Portuguese on the lower Coa, below Almeida: the

British 1st Royals and 16th Light Dragoons on the upper Coa.

But considering that things were at present at a standstill on the

northern frontier, and that nothing serious could be undertaken

there, till the line of supplies was organized and Almeida captured,

Wellington now resolved to pay the long-deferred visit to Estremadura

which he projected as far back as the commencement of Masséna’s

retreat. ‘At this moment,’ he wrote to Lord Liverpool, ‘the first

object is certainly Badajoz.’ Till that place should have been

recovered and regarrisoned, he could never feel quite safe on his

southern flank. A diversion on the part of Soult in the Alemtejo,

threatening Lisbon from the south, would always be a dangerous and

tiresome possibility, until Badajoz was once more in the hands of the

Allies, and all Estremadura recovered and held by a competent force.

The future was inscrutable--for all Wellington knew the Emperor might

appear in person, before the summer was over, to take up the Spanish

problem; or, on the other hand, the affairs of Eastern Europe might

cause him to shut off all reinforcements from the Peninsula, and to

turn his attention to a Russian war. But whatever might happen, it was

well to have the Portuguese frontier properly covered in the south.

Supposing the French made another march on Lisbon, it was necessary to

be free of danger in the rear. Supposing that they showed weakness, and

dropped the offensive, the possession of Badajoz and Estremadura gave

facilities for disquieting the Army of Andalusia, perhaps for raising

the siege of Cadiz, which could not be secured in any other fashion.

Meanwhile Wellington formulated three possible courses[361] which

the French might pursue during the next two months, before new

reinforcements could reach them from France, or the Emperor make his

appearance--if so he should decide to do. These three possible courses

were: (_a_) Masséna might call on Bessières, and induce him to join the

Army of Portugal at once with all his disposable troops, in order that

they might save Almeida by driving off the British army. (_b_) Masséna

might allow his troops a long repose in cantonments, relieving the Army

of the North in its present charge of Old Castile, while Bessières,

with such part of his corps as he could collect, might invade Galicia,

to clear the French right flank. (_c_) Masséna might give his troops

the repose that they needed, and, after some interval, might pass south

into Estremadura, to join Soult in operations on the Guadiana, while

leaving Bessières in charge of the defence of the frontiers of Leon.

It will be seen that the French actually adopted first plan (_a_), the

endeavour to save Almeida by a junction of the Armies of Portugal and

the North, and then, a month later, plan (_c_), a concentration in

Estremadura to save Badajoz. Oddly enough, Wellington conceived that

the first plan was the least likely of the three, apparently because

he over-estimated the time which it would take Masséna to reorganize

his army and resume active operations. He did not make enough allowance

for the old Marshal’s obstinacy, and for the pride which forbade him

to allow Almeida to fall without any effort being made to relieve it.

But though he thought this scheme the least likely for the French to

adopt, he made full provisions for dealing with it, in case it should

be the one they selected. His second suggestion, that Bessières might

hand over the charge of Old Castile to Masséna, and proceed to invade

Galicia, was founded on an insufficient knowledge of the present

situation and difficulties of the Army of the North. Bessières, though

the gross amount of his forces was large (over 70,000 men), was much

too obsessed and worried by the guerrilleros to dream of concentrating

a force large enough to make a serious invasion of Galicia. We shall

find him, three weeks after the date of Wellington’s dispatch,

declaring that he could only collect 1,600 cavalry and one battery to

form a field force, because any movement of his infantry would imperil

the whole fabric of the French supremacy in northern Spain. If the

objection be raised that this plea of his was only put forth in order

to disoblige Masséna, and to save himself from responsibility, no

such objection can be made to his statement of June 6th--made after

Masséna’s recall--to the effect that if he were forced to concentrate

20,000 men for any purpose, all communications with France and Madrid

would be lost, and the whole of the country-side, from the Guadiana to

the Bay of Biscay, would blaze up in one general insurrection[362].

Supposing that Masséna and Bessières had been on the best of terms,

and that the former had proposed to take over the charge of the region

occupied by the latter, in order to set the Army of the North free for

field operations, Bessières must have replied that he would not be able

to produce enough men to ‘contain’ the British army, and at the same

time to attack Galicia. Wellington’s hypothesis therefore was faulty;

he undervalued the work of the guerrilleros, who were occupying, for

his benefit, the attention of a much greater part of the French army

than he supposed. The idea that the enemy might make a blow at Galicia

was inspired by his knowledge of the weakness of that province, where

Mahy had put everything out of gear, and Santocildes had not yet begun

the process of reorganization. Knowing how disastrous the appearance of

a French corps in this quarter might prove, he feared it more than was

necessary[363].

[361] The very interesting dispatch in which Wellington’s

forecast is stated is that to Castaños of April 15, written

in French. ‘En pensant à ce qu’ils doivent faire dans leurs

circonstances actuelles, je trouve que (1) ou ils feront

l’invasion de la Galice avec le corps de Bessières, pendant que

Masséna donnera du repos à ses troupes, dans les cantonnements

occupés jusqu’à présent par Bessières: (2) ou ils se joindront,

pour tomber sur mon corps sur la frontière de la Castille--ce qui

n’est pas très vraisemblable: (3) ou ils ne feront rien jusqu’à

ce que les troupes de Masséna soyent reposées et remises en état,

quand ils rassembleront une grande armée dans l’Estrémadure.’

_Dispatches_, vii. p. 470.

[362] Bessières to Berthier, from Valladolid, June 6, 1811.

[363] It is possible that there is some diplomatic intention

in the stress laid by Wellington on the likelihood of a French

invasion of Galicia. He was writing to Castaños, and it was his

object to get that general to stir up the Galicians. Hence,

perhaps, he exaggerated a possibility which was not so strong as

he stated.

If it be asked what were Napoleon’s views as to the proper scheme for

the French marshals to adopt, under the circumstances that existed on

April 15, we must not look (of course) to orders issued about that

time, when he was still working on data three weeks old. As late

as March 30th he had been sending instructions to Soult and other

commanders on the hypothesis that Masséna’s head quarters were at

Coimbra, and that Oporto was very possibly in French hands![364] On

April 9 he was telling the Prince of Essling to devote his energy to

the armament of Almeida, and to place himself so as to cover both that

place and Ciudad Rodrigo[365]--orders exquisitely inapplicable when

Almeida was already blockaded by Wellington, and Masséna’s troops had

just crawled past Ciudad Rodrigo, in a state of hopeless dilapidation,

on their retreat to Salamanca. The next advice sent to the Army of

Portugal was almost equally inappropriate: having heard of Wellington’s

flying visit to Estremadura by intelligence dated April 18th (the trip

had begun upon the 15th), he jumped to the conclusion that the English

general must have taken many troops with him. On May 7th he wrote,

‘the translations from English newspapers herewith enclosed show that

Lord Wellington had crossed the Tagus on April 18th. So it seems that

on the side of Castile there can now be only half the English army

left. The events which must already have taken place on the side of

Almeida will have shown the generals that this is the case, and will

have enabled them to make the proper corresponding move (_de prendre le

parti convenable_), viz. to begin to move towards the Tagus[366].’ On

the day when this was written, Wellington, who had not taken a man to

Estremadura, had been back on the frontier of Leon since April 28, and

had, at the head of the whole of his original army, defeated Masséna

and Bessières at Fuentes de Oñoro, on May 5th. As always, the imperial

orders, founded on data that had long ceased to be correct, or had

never been correct at all, arrived too late to direct the course of the

campaign.

[364] Memorandum for Berthier (_Correspondance_, 17,531), dated

March 30. ‘Le quartier général de l’armée de Portugal reste à

Coïmbre. Oporto est occupé par un détachement.... Le Prince

d’Essling tiendra à Coïmbre, menaçant Lisbonne, qui sera attaquée

après la récolte.’ At this moment Masséna’s army was just

reaching the Spanish frontier, in its final retreat from Guarda!

[365] _Correspondance_, 17,591. ‘Vous ferez connaître au Prince

d’Essling ... qu’il doit presser l’armament d’Almeida.... Il doit

prendre des mesures pour couvrir Almeida et Ciudad Rodrigo, et

d’un autre côté pour se mettre en communication avec Madrid et

Séville.’

[366] _Correspondance_, 17,701.

One most important measure, however, was taken at this time, by which

the Emperor did succeed in affecting the general course of affairs on

the frontier of Portugal. On April 20th he made up his mind to recall

Masséna, and to send a new chief to the Army of Portugal. Five days

before, Marshal Marmont, newly returned from commanding in Dalmatia,

had received orders to start at once for Spain, where he was to replace

Ney at the head of the 6th Corps. Whether the Emperor had already

made up his mind on the 15th that Marmont was to replace Masséna,

not to serve under him, it is impossible to say. But he at any rate

concealed his purpose from the younger Marshal, who had been some days

in Spain before he received on May 10th the dispatch of April 20th

which made him commander of the Army of Portugal[367]. Probably the

news that Masséna had failed in his design to hold Coimbra, which Foy

had elaborately explained to the Emperor, and had fallen back behind

Ciudad Rodrigo, had provoked his master to dismiss him from command.

Foy’s report had caused Napoleon to believe that Masséna could stop

on the Mondego and hold Wellington in check. The imperial dispatch of

March 30 (as we have already seen) speaks of Masséna’s stay at Coimbra

as a settled fact, and states that Oporto is or will soon be in his

hands. On April 9 Napoleon knew that the Marshal had lost Coimbra

and fallen back on Guarda[368], but continued to send him elaborate

instructions. It was apparently the receipt of Masséna’s dispatch of

March 31st from Alfayates, confessing that he was completely foiled,

and that he must retire beyond the Agueda, as far as Zamora and Toro,

since the spirit of the army was so broken that he dared not risk a

general action[369], which determined the Emperor to supersede him.

This document must have reached Paris about the 15th or 16th, and would

suffice to explain Napoleon’s anger. For a Commander-in-Chief who

confesses that he has lost the confidence of his army is a dangerous

person to retain in power. There was ample evidence from Masséna’s

earlier letters that he had quarrelled not only with Ney but with most

of his other superior officers; if the general feeling of the army

was also against him, he was not likely to get much good service out

of it. Possibly there may have been also a feeling of wounded _amour

propre_ in the Emperor’s breast, when he reflected how, relying on

Masséna’s assurances, he had informed Soult, King Joseph, and Bessières

that the Army of Portugal had its head quarters at Coimbra, and would

attack Lisbon in the autumn[370], so that ‘a hundred thousand men,

using Coimbra and Badajoz as their bases, would complete the conquest

of Portugal, a conquest which would drag England into a crisis that

would be of the highest interest.’ Napoleon did not like to be made

ridiculous before his subordinates, by having been induced to publish

an absurd misstatement of fact, leading up to a vainglorious prophecy

which appeared most unlikely to be realized.

[367] This we learn from Marmont’s letter to Berthier dated May

14, in which he says that the dispatch reached him only on May

10, and that its contents were unexpected. (Marmont’s _Mémoires_,

iv. p. 78.)

[368] _Correspondance_, 17,591.

[369] ‘Le désir que l’armée a manifesté depuis longtemps d’aller

se reposer ne me laisse aucun doute qu’il serait dangereux

d’attendre l’ennemi pour recevoir bataille ou pour la lui donner.’

[370] All this, of course, is from the Great Memorandum of March

30, which Berthier was to communicate to all the chiefs of the

Peninsular armies.

But though Masséna’s death-warrant, as commander-in-chief was signed on

April 20, and may have been decided upon as early as April 16, there

were still three weeks during which he was to make his last stroke for

revenge, and to lose his last battle, for it was not till May 12th that

Marmont presented his _lettres de service_ and took over the command.

Wellington, meanwhile, convinced that he had nothing to fear for some

little time from the Army of Portugal and its commander, left Villar

Formoso on the morning of April 15th, reached Sabugal that night,

Castello Branco on the 17th, and Elvas by the noon of the 20th. This

was marvellous travelling, considering the mountain roads that had to

be traversed, but Wellington was a mighty horseman, and accompanied

by only a few well-mounted staff officers flew like the wind over

hill and dale. He remained only four days in Estremadura; during that

short time he surveyed Badajoz, and issued compendious directions for

the siege[371]; he drew up a plan of campaign for the united armies of

Beresford, Blake, and Castaños, and then, returning as rapidly as he

had come, retraced his route to the frontiers of Leon, and was back at

Alameda on the 29th, having been less than a fortnight absent from his

army. This rapidity of movement, as we have already seen, completely

puzzled Napoleon, who, on receiving the intelligence that Wellington

was over the Tagus on the 18th, thought that he had gone with a strong

force to establish himself in Estremadura, and sent orders for the Army

of Portugal to move at once towards the south[372], a movement which at

that moment could not have been executed for want of train, transport,

and provisions.

[371] For all this see section xxvi. pp. 279-81, on Beresford’s

campaign in Estremadura.

[372] See above, p. 294.

During Wellington’s absence the command of the troops cantoned between

the Agueda and the Coa had been given over to Sir Brent Spencer, as

the senior division-commander present. Wellington did not think it

probable that Spencer would be much troubled by the enemy during his

short spell of responsibility, but left him directions that covered

every possible contingency. If, contrary to all expectation, Masséna

should make an effort to relieve Almeida within the fortnight for which

the Commander-in-Chief intended to be absent[373], Spencer was directed

to make a careful estimate of the force of the enemy; if it were but

small the line of the Agueda might be held; if it were great--it was

conceivable that Bessières might succour Masséna--Spencer was to

concentrate, not in front of Almeida, nor across the road from Rodrigo

to that place, but in a defensive position to the south of it, parallel

to the French line of advance and threatening it in flank. Only Pack’s

Portuguese infantry brigade, and Barbaçena’s cavalry brigade of the

same nation, were to keep up the investment of Almeida till the last

possible moment. The designated position was that in front of Rendo,

Alfayates, and Aldea Velha, which Wellington took up himself later in

the same year, during a subsequent movement of the French to relieve

Ciudad Rodrigo. No leave to fight a battle was given to Spencer,

though it was given to Beresford when the latter was placed in a

similar responsible position. Instead, he was ordered to send constant

information to his absent chief, who gave him a tabular statement of

the mileage of his journey and the place at which he was to be heard

of each day[374]. Wellington intended to return with his own peculiar

swiftness on the first threatening news, and thought that he could

reckon on being back in time, if he was properly advised of the first

ominous movements of the enemy. He apparently calculated that, if

Masséna came on in great force, and found the British army massed in a

strong mountain position, upon the flank of the route that he must take

towards Almeida, he would be unlikely to attack it--Bussaco being an

unpleasant memory. If the Marshal began to manœuvre he would lose time,

and he himself would be back before the crisis came.

[373] That he did not purpose to be longer away is shown by the

fact that he was already at Portalegre, on his return journey

from Elvas, when Spencer’s final warning that Masséna was on the

move reached him. _Dispatches_, vii. 50.

[374] See the three dispatches to Spencer on pp. 464-6, 473-4,

and 475 of _Dispatches_, vii, dated respectively April 14, April

16, and April 17, 1811.

As a matter of fact it was only towards the end of Spencer’s short

period of responsibility that matters began to grow interesting upon

the frontiers of Leon. There was, however, a slight alarm on the

15th-16th, just after Wellington’s departure. Masséna, not contented

with having passed a first convoy into Rodrigo on the 13th, had

followed it up with a second, which was escorted by Marchand’s division

of the 6th Corps--a unit which had seen more severe service during

March than any other part of the French army, yet was considered to

be in better order than its fellows. The same phenomenon, it will be

remembered, had been noted with Paget’s rearguard division during

Moore’s retreat to Corunna. Marchand was ordered, when he should

have lodged the convoy in Rodrigo, to make a reconnaissance toward

the Azava, and try to discover what was the force of the British in

that direction. He got into the fortress without hindrance, owing to

Erskine’s usual talent for bungling--on the approach of the convoy

the Light Division was concentrated at Molino de Flores, but Erskine

refused to send it over the fords, and watched Marchand defile into

the town. Some cavalry went across the Agueda, and cut off a flanking

party of three hundred French, who took shelter in a ruined village and

refused to surrender. Erskine sent no one to support the British horse,

and presently a French column came out of Rodrigo and released the

blockaded party. All this took place under the eyes of the disgusted

Light Division on the other side of the water[375] (April 16th).

[375] For details see the _Journal_ of George Simmons of the 95th

(_A British Rifleman_), pp. 164-5.

Some days later Marchand came out of Rodrigo with a regiment of

infantry and a squadron, to make the reconnaissance which he had been

directed to execute. At Marialva, five miles outside the fortress, he

ran into the pickets of the 95th and 52nd, and received such a warm

reception that he turned back at once, and sent the report to Masséna

that the British were established in strong force close above the

Agueda (April 22[376]). After this there were no further alarms at the

front till the 28th, the day on which Wellington returned from Elvas.

But Spencer’s account of the reconnaissance of the 22nd, which reached

Wellington at Portalegre on the 25th, undoubtedly contributed to hurry

the return journey of the Commander-in-Chief, for it was accompanied by

a report--which was perfectly correct--that information from the side

of Salamanca seemed to make it certain that Masséna was reconcentrating

his troops for a dash at Almeida, and that Bessières had been asked to

give help. The Salamanca secret correspondents (of whom the chief was

Doctor Curtis, the head of the Irish College in the University) had

always proved trustworthy, so that their reports could not be ignored,

and Wellington was glad that the French movement was reported at the

end, and not at the commencement, of his trip to Estremadura.

[376] Wrongly dated April 20 by Sprünglin in his generally

accurate diary (p. 477).

The fact was that Masséna was making a last desperate effort to save

the military reputation of which he was so proud, and to justify

himself to his master. If Almeida and Rodrigo were both to be lost,

as the final sequel to his retreat from Portugal, his whole year’s

command must be written down as a failure; if these early conquests of

1810 could be saved, he might yet claim to have added somewhat to the

French dominions in the Peninsula. His troops had not been a fortnight

in their cantonments before he was making preparations to reassemble

them for a last effort. In some respects that fortnight had made a

great difference in their condition: Salamanca and Valladolid, at the

moment of his arrival, were full of drafts of men, and accumulation of

stores, belonging to the Army of Portugal, which had been gathering

there for many months while the communications with that army were

cut. At one moment in the late winter, Thiébault, the governor of

Salamanca, had no less than 18,000 men of detachments belonging to

Masséna’s troops in his government[377]--partly convalescents, partly

small parties which had come up from the French dépôts to join their

regiments, and had been unable to do so. Though some of them had

ultimately gone forward with Foy and Gardanne, many still remained

to be absorbed. The numbers of ‘present under arms’ in the 2nd, 6th,

and 8th Corps went up at once, the mass of sick and exhausted men

which they discharged into hospital being replaced by the drafts and

convalescents. Masséna also took out of the 9th Corps the battalions

belonging to regiments of which the main bodies were already in the

old Army of Portugal, and sent them to join their comrades[378]. The

_cadres_ of one battalion in each regiment were then sent home to

France, and the other three raised to something like their original war

strength. This redistribution brought up the divisions of Reynier and

Loison to a figure which they had not known for many months, though

it depleted Drouet’s corps to a corresponding extent: his troops

now consisted of only eighteen battalions, or 10,000 infantry, all

consisting of fourth battalions belonging to regiments serving in

Andalusia. He had received orders that when the crisis on the frontiers

of Leon was over, he was to conduct these units to join their eagles

in Soult’s army. Drouet was anxious to get away from Masséna as soon

as possible, and would gladly have marched for Seville without delay;

but it was obvious that this was as yet impossible, and, as he was

technically under the command of the Marshal, he was compelled to play

his part in the ensuing campaign.

[377] Thiébault’s _Mémoires_, vol. iv. p. 448.

[378] The 6th Corps incorporated one battalion each of the 6th

Léger, 25th Léger, and the 27th Ligne from Conroux’s division,

and one each of the 39th, 59th, 69th, 76th from Claparéde’s. The

2nd Corps got a battalion of the 17th Léger only, besides drafts.

Solignac’s division, nominally 6,110 bayonets, was short of two

battalions (from the 15th and 65th), or 850 men, left in garrison

at Ciudad Rodrigo. In the same garrison had been left the whole

Régiment de Prusse (500 men), besides drafts. The junction of the

isolated battalions from Drouet’s corps took place on April 27.

(Fririon, p. 198.)

The net result of all the transferences of battalions and the picking

up of drafts was that on May 1, the 2nd Corps had in the ranks 1,200

more men than it had possessed on March 15, the 6th Corps 2,000 more,

Solignac’s division of the 8th Corps 800 more. On the other hand,

Clausel’s division of the last-named corps, originally composed almost

entirely of isolated ‘fourth battalions’ was practically ruined[379].

Masséna left it behind, when he mobilized the other divisions of the

old Army of Portugal for the May campaign. But the men available for

the field in the remaining divisions, including those of Drouet, now

amounted to 42,000 bayonets. Their ammunition had been replenished,

they had been reshod, though only to a small extent reclothed, and

they had received at the last moment several months’ arrears of pay.

Their morale still left much to be desired, for confidence in their

Commander-in-Chief had not been restored, and Ney was still regretted.

But a French army, however discontented, could always be trusted to

fight when duty called, and the Prince of Essling still hoped to redeem

his lost reputation.

[379] It had sunk on May 1 from an original strength of 6,800 men

to 3,073.

But the weak points in the Army of Portugal were the cavalry and

artillery. The greater part of the horses which had survived the

retreat from Santarem had only reached the plains of Leon to die. A

third of the troopers lacked horses altogether, the remainder had in

many cases mounts which must perish if asked to do another week’s work.

When the cavalry brigadiers of the 2nd and 6th Corps were directed

to send to the front all mounted men fit for service, Lamotte could

only show 319 sabres from a brigade which had counted 800 in March;

Pierre Soult (decidedly more fortunate) had 600 out of 900, though

one of his regiments (the 1st Hussars) could put only 103 men in the

saddle. Montbrun’s division of reserve dragoons, which had 2,400 sabres

a few weeks back, came to the front with 1,187. The most effective

cavalry unit in the army was the brigade of Fournier[380], belonging

to Drouet’s corps, which, not having shared in the winter campaign in

Portugal, could show 794 men in good state. Thus Masséna could bring

forward for the new campaign no more than 3,000 horsemen, and these not

in the best condition[381].

[380] For strange doings of this eccentric brigadier at Salamanca

during the winter, see Thiébault, vol. iv. pp. 435-7.

[381] These figures, differing much from those supplied by Koch,

are worked out from the return of May 1 in the Paris Archives

Nationales. The total of cavalry mounted and available seems to

have been 3,007, including Fournier. See tables in Appendix XIX.

With the artillery the case was even worse, for the class of horse had

been weaker, and the mortality proportionately greater. As we have

seen in a previous chapter, the batteries had for the most part just

succeeded in dragging back their guns to the Agueda, after destroying

nearly all their carts and caissons. It was doubtful whether for an

offensive campaign the whole army could now provide twenty guns with

the full complement of auxiliary vehicles, adequately horsed. Masséna,

in stating his difficulties to Berthier, went so far as to say that

each of the four corps could put about half a battery into the field

in proper order[382]. The state of the military train was quite as

bad--regimental and corps transport was reduced to such a state of

nullity, that when the army took the field it would have to be for a

few days at most, since, after loading the men with as many rations

as each could carry, the only extra supply was what could be drawn by

a few store carts found in Rodrigo and Salamanca. During the short

campaign that was imminent, the troops lived from hand to mouth, on

food daily brought up from the magazines of Rodrigo, after having been

compelled to eat the convoy that they had brought with them for the

supply of Almeida. There was nothing to be got from the country-side,

which was exhausted, by the constant passing to and fro of armies and

detachments, all the way from Salamanca to the frontier.

[382] Masséna to Berthier, April 30, 1811, from Ciudad Rodrigo.

The returns show that on May 1 twelve batteries had been left

behind with no horses at all, in order that the five remaining

might take the field with 425 horses.

Food at the base existed; when Masséna reached Salamanca he had

found there considerable accumulations, though not nearly so much as

he expected or required[383]. It was on this particular point that

he had started a lively dispute with Bessières the moment that he

reached Spain. The Duke of Istria had been for some months in charge

of the whole of Old Castile and Leon, and had come to look upon their

resources as so much his own private property that he greatly resented

the intrusion of 40,000 starving men into his governorship. Masséna

complained that he was fed with promises, and that when statistics of

food placed at his disposal were compared with what was actually handed

over, there was a lamentable discrepancy. He had been told that he

would find at Salamanca 10,000 _fanegas_ of wheat, and that 8,000 more

and 200,000 rations of biscuit for the garrison of Rodrigo would appear

in a few days; he stated that he could only discover 6,000 _fanegas_

and 39,000 rations of biscuit, and that the convoy sent to Rodrigo on

the 13th had only carried 20,000 rations at most. Bessières replied

that he was doing his best, that he had his own corps to feed, that the

arrival of the Army of Portugal was wholly unexpected--had he not been

told only a few weeks back, first that it was to stay at Coimbra, and

then that it was going off by a cross march to Plasencia and the Tagus?

For so Masséna had written from Guarda at the end of March. Moreover,

Old Castile was dreadfully exhausted, and the guerrilleros so active

that every convoy required an immense escort to guard it. All this was

perfectly true, yet it is probable that he might have done more if he

had chosen, and he presently received virulent rebukes from the Emperor

for lack of zeal.

[383] Masséna to Berthier, April 17th, from Salamanca.

But when recriminatory letters were already passing between the two

marshals on the food question, Bessières began to receive additional

demands for military help. On April 20th Masséna wrote that he was

bound in honour to march to the relief of Almeida, that he would

have his infantry reorganized by the 26th, but that his cavalry and

artillery were in such a hopeless state that he was forced to make a

formal request for aid to the Army of the North. The Duke of Istria

replied that his troops were so scattered, and the guerrilleros so

active, that he doubted if he could give any help at all. On the 22nd,

however, he wrote that by making a great effort he could collect some

cavalry and guns, and would be at Salamanca on the 26th. But on the

27th nothing had arrived from the Army of the North at that city.

Masséna replied in high wrath: ‘Vos lettres sont inconcevables. Je

vous ai demandé de l’artillerie et des attelages, et encore plus

positivement de la cavalerie--vous avez sous différents prétextes

éludé ma demande. Toutes les troupes qui sont en Espagne sont de la

même famille. Vous êtes, jusqu’à ce qu’il y ait de nouveaux ordres,

chargé de la défense et de l’approvisionnement des places de Rodrigo et

d’Almeida,’ &c.

Bessières, however, did not break his promise, as Masséna had for

a moment feared, he merely executed it a little late, and on the

smallest possible scale. He brought with him two small brigades of

cavalry, making between 1,600 and 1,700 sabres, that of Wathier (11th,

12th, 24th _Chasseurs à cheval_, and 5th Hussars), and that of Lepic,

which consisted of two squadrons each of the grenadiers, lancers, and

chasseurs of the Imperial Guard. He had also a horse artillery battery

of the Guard, and had brought thirty teams of gun-horses, which, when

distributed to the Army of Portugal, enabled it to put thirty-two

pieces and the corresponding caissons in the field. Masséna had asked

for Bessières’s cavalry and guns, but had not been at all anxious to

see his colleague in person appearing. ‘He would have done better,’

said the Prince to his staff, ‘to have sent me a few thousand men

more, and more food and ammunition, and to have stopped at his own

head quarters, instead of coming here to examine and criticize all my

movements[384].’ He got a cool reception, which did not prevent him

from following Masséna about during the whole campaign, volunteering

frequent advice, and expressing a polite curiosity at his colleague’s

smallest actions. Apparently he wanted to have credit for being present

at a victory--if one should occur--but was anxious to risk as few of

his own troops as possible, and not to take any responsibility. The

Emperor, three weeks later, wrote him a letter of bitter rebuke, saying

that he could well have brought up 10,000 men without disgarnishing any

important posts; an infantry division of the Guard and four batteries

might have been added to the 1,700 horse that he actually produced,

without leaving Valladolid, Burgos, or the frontier opposite Galicia

in any danger[385]. If the two marshals had collected some 55,000 men,

it is certain that Wellington would not have fought, and would have

allowed Almeida to be revictualled.

[384] So Marbot, ii. 457. If Marbot’s talents as a _raconteur_

make his authority doubtful, we may point out that Thiébault,

the governor of Salamanca, tells much the same story in his

_Mémoires_, iv. p. 478.

[385] Berthier to Bessières, May 19, 1811.

Masséna had reached Ciudad Rodrigo on April 26th, his four corps

concentrated there by the 29th, and Bessières came up with his cavalry

on the 1st of May. The whole force assembled consisted of 42,000

infantry, 4,500 cavalry, and 38 guns, a total, counting the auxiliary

arms, of about 48,000 men[386]. On the 30th Marchand was sent out with

six squadrons and his own infantry to make a reconnaissance in force

of the allied lines. He found the Light Division still in position

at Gallegos, with outposts along the Azava, and withdrew to Rodrigo

after having stayed for some hours opposite the height of Marialva.

On the next day but one (May 2) the French army began to pour in

an interminable stream across the Agueda, by the bridge of Ciudad

Rodrigo, dividing into two columns when it had passed--the 2nd Corps

on the Marialva road, more to the north, the 8th and 9th Corps on the

Carpio road, more to the south. The 6th Corps, forming the reserve and

crossing late, also took the left-hand Carpio road. Each column was

preceded by its corps-cavalry.

[386] Infantry. 2nd Corps, 10,292; 6th Corps, 16,816; 8th Corps

(1 division), 4,714; 9th Corps, 10,304; total, 42,126. Cavalry.

Masséna’s own, 3,007; Bessières, 1,665; Artillery, Sappers,

Train, &c., 1,400; total, 48,198. Masséna would only acknowledge

35,000 men, and put Wellington’s force (which was, as we shall

see, 37,000 men) at about 50,000. If Wellington had possessed

50,000 men, Fuentes de Oñoro would have been a very different

sort of battle.

Wellington was perfectly well prepared to meet the movement. He had

been back with his army since the 29th of April, and had been informed

on his arrival that Masséna had come to Ciudad Rodrigo in person two

days before, and that the roads from Salamanca westward were black with

French columns[387]. He had made up his mind to fight, though he had

denied Spencer the power to do so in his absence. The battle position

was already chosen, and the army was concentrated upon it, all save the

covering screen formed by the Light Division and the cavalry, which was

to hold its ground as long as possible before falling back on the main

body. The two cavalry regiments which had been sent to the rear in the

middle of the month had been brought up again to the Azava on the 28th,

so that the whole of the small force of that arm was available for

holding back the French advance.

[387] Masséna’s arrival was known, through deserters, the day

after it occurred. Diary of Simmons of the 95th, p. 166.

Wellington had less troops in line than he desired, mainly owing to

the dreadful depletion in the ranks of the Portuguese infantry, caused

by the inefficient way in which it was fed by its government, and

the slowness with which convalescents and detached parties rejoined

their colours[388]. Some of the regiments which ought to have shown

1,200 men in the ranks had only 500 or 700 men, and the twenty-five

battalions with the field army amounted in all to no more than 11,000

bayonets on May 1st, though they had shown 13,000 in the preceding

December, and had absorbed many drafts since that date. The single

Portuguese cavalry brigade with the army was in even worse state, the

two regiments showing but 312 sabres in line, though they had mustered

nearly 800 during the winter. The men were alive, but the chargers had

disappeared, owing (as Wellington maintained) to bad horse-mastership

on the part of the men and slack supervision on the part of the

regimental officers. As the four British cavalry corps, which had seen

the same service during the last two months, were only 200 horses

weaker in May than they were in March, the explanation is probably

correct.

[388] Complaints on this score fill up great parts of

Wellington’s letters of the 30th April and 1st May (_Dispatches_,

vii. 511-12, 516-17). They seem slightly to overstate the

deficiency, compared with morning states of May 1; but this

comes from his persistent habit of counting only rank and file,

omitting officers and sergeants. When he says that the total

infantry (including Pack) was only 11,000, while it works out

to over 12,000 when that detached brigade is counted, we must

remember that he is not reckoning anything but rank and file.

Wellington attributes most of the loss to (1) slackness at the

_depositos_ (dépôts) in forwarding drafts, (2) maladministration

of the hospitals, (3) insufficient food at the front for those

brigades still fed by the Portuguese government, and not taken on

to the British establishment.

The total force available for a general action on May 1st was 34,000

infantry, of which 23,000 were British, 1,850 cavalry, including the

312 Portuguese, and 1,250 artillery, sappers, &c. There were four

British and four Portuguese batteries, with 48 guns. This total does

not include the detachment blockading Almeida, which consisted of

Pack’s brigade and one British battalion. While only 8,000 weaker than

Masséna in infantry, it will be seen that Wellington’s army had hardly

more than a third of the number of his cavalry--1,850 to 4,500; in

guns there was a slight superiority--48 pieces to 38. In a mountain

position, such as that of Bussaco, the deficiency of cavalry would

have been of no importance. But the country-side between Almeida and

Rodrigo is mostly undulating plateau, practicable in most parts for

cavalry operations on a large scale. The only obstacles of importance

are the courses of the three small streams which cross the high-road,

the Azava, Dos Casas, and Turon, minor tributaries of the Agueda. All

three are insignificant brooks save after heavy rain, and though there

had been a downfall in the end of April, they were now going down and

resuming their usual proportions. Their waters were now a negligible

quantity, but in some parts of their course they flow in deep-cut

ravines, many feet below the general level of the plateau, and present

a serious hindrance to the movement of troops. This is especially the

case in their lower course; nearer the hills to the south, where they

rise, the ravines as well as the streams grow smaller, and can be

crossed anywhere.

The particular position which Wellington had selected as his

fighting-ground was the line of the Dos Casas, from the ruined Fort

Concepcion to the village of Fuentes de Oñoro. The ravine of the Dos

Casas is both wide and steep in the neighbourhood of the fort--perhaps

150 feet deep--but grows decidedly shallower towards Fuentes, and

above that place is no longer a notable feature in the country-side.

The stream itself is nowhere more than ten yards broad nor three feet

deep, so that, when its banks cease to be high and scarped, it can

be crossed anywhere by infantry, cavalry, or guns. Its valley above

Fuentes is partly arable, partly meadow-land in gentle grassy slopes,

much more like an English than a typical Spanish landscape. Standing

on the higher ground behind the village, the observer sees a marked

contrast between the rocky ravine down-stream, and the broad undulating

bottom to his right. The ridge, however, on which he is standing does

not entirely disappear to the south; it still remains as the watershed

between the little basin of the Dos Casas and that of its twin-stream

the Turon, which flows exactly parallel with it less than two miles to

the west. Up-stream the view is closed by woods surrounding the village

of Pozo Bello (or Posovelho as the neighbouring Portuguese call it) on

the right or further bank of the Dos Casas, and by the rounded hill

of Nava de Aver, below which the river is flanked on both sides by a

stretch of boggy ground, only to be crossed by some invisible paths.

There are five miles from Fort Concepcion to Fuentes de Oñoro village,

and this was Wellington’s original position, entirely covered in front

by a well-marked ravine. But the two further miles from Fuentes to Pozo

Bello, which he proceeded to take in for defence when the enemy showed

signs of turning his right, may be described as open ground, with no

protection on its flank save the morass by Nava de Aver, which could

obviously be turned by any enemy who chose to make a sufficiently wide

circuit, and might be crossed by infantry at some points, after careful

exploration of its depths.

Fuentes de Oñoro itself stands on the western bank of the Dos Casas,

at the point where the heights begin to sink and the ravine ceases.

Its lower houses are almost level with the stream, but the village

slopes uphill to two points a little higher than the general summit

of the plateau, one of which is crowned by its church, the other by a

cross on a large rock. On the opposite side of the stream there are

no buildings but a chapel and a single farm-steading. Past these the

high-road from Ciudad Rodrigo ascends on a gentle slope, commanded for

some hundred yards by the heights on which the village stands, so that

any force advancing to attack Fuentes comes under fire early, and has

no cover whatever. The eligibility of the place as a post is much

increased by the fact that the houses are surrounded by numerous stone

walls, making crofts and gardens, which are of a height and strength

suitable for giving excellent cover to infantry in skirmishing order.

Nor can it easily be turned, since to the left it is protected by the

ravine of the Dos Casas, ever growing deeper down-stream, while on the

right the houses trend back for a long distance up the slopes, and

the stone walls continue their line for some distance. In short, it

is an admirable point on which to rest the flank of an army in battle

order, and Wellington had well marked its strength, and was serene and

content, so long as the French ranged their forces parallel to his own.

The trouble only came when, on the second day of battle, they extended

their southern wing to Pozo Bello, so that Fuentes became the right

centre instead of the right flank-guard of the allied army.

The general position behind the Dos Casas has only one serious defect:

it has in its rear, at a distance of some six or seven miles, the

ravine of the Coa, passable at only a limited number of points for

artillery and wheeled vehicles, though there are many more at which

infantry or cavalry can get across. Of bridges within a reasonable

distance from the position there are only those of (1) Ponte Sequeiro,

ten miles to the right rear; (2) of Castello Bom, six miles to the

direct rear of Fuentes village; and (3) of Almeida, eight miles to the

left rear[389]. If the army should be constrained by any misfortune

to retreat, its transport and artillery would have to pass over one

or more of these three defiles, of which the first is inconveniently

placed because it is too far off to the flank, while the third had

been broken by the French and only hastily repaired. It may be added

also that it was dangerously close to Almeida, though out of sight

of that fortress, and completely beyond the range of its cannon. But

to have sent baggage or guns across it might have appeared a little

hazardous. The only really convenient line of retreat from the Fuentes

position was that across the bridge of Castello Bom, a structure of no

great breadth, and liable to become congested or blocked in a moment

of hurry. It was only wheeled traffic, however, that might become

difficult; above and below the Castello Bom bridge are good fords for

infantry and cavalry at San Miguel and Algeirenos, besides numerous

other points where troops could get across at a pinch. Evidently,

however, if Wellington failed to hold his chosen position, he ran the

risk of losing some or all of his _impedimenta_, supposing that he

were vigorously pursued and compelled to retreat in haste. A caisson

overturned on the descent towards the bridge might force him to abandon

whole batteries, jammed in the narrow road. Of this danger he was

well aware, but judged it worth risking, in view of the importance of

holding the best possible position for covering the siege of Almeida.

No battle-ground that was ever chosen is destitute of some fault. And,

at the worst, the infantry and cavalry would not be endangered, since

the fords could not fail them, and the Coa (though its ravine is often

steep) is by no means a large river. But Wellington did not believe

that he could be beaten by the force which Masséna was able to bring

against him, and though he thought over orders for a retreat, was

strongly under the impression that he would never have to issue them.

[389] Not to speak of the bridge of Sabugal, six miles above the

Ponte Sequeiro and hopelessly out on the flank.

On May 2nd, as we have already mentioned, the whole French army

advanced from Ciudad Rodrigo, one column on the Marialva-Gallegos road,

the other on the southern or Carpio road. The Light Division, and the

four cavalry regiments accompanying it, began to retire, according

to their directions, not making more haste than was necessary, and

turning to bay occasionally to fight a small rearguard action. The

country-side was somewhat dangerous for a small ‘detaining force,’

being passable for cavalry in many directions and thickly wooded. It

had to be remembered that the enemy, using the cover of the woods, and

hiding himself behind the undulations of the ground, might easily break

through the screen of cavalry and light troops unless great care and

caution were shown. Fortunately the Light Division was well skilled in

keeping touch along the line, and in avoiding risks, and a whole day of

skirmishing in retreat led to no regrettable incidents. On the night

of the 2nd of May the covering force bivouacked behind Gallegos and

Espeja, both of which villages were occupied by the advanced guards of

the enemy.

On the 3rd Masséna resumed his advance, and drove in the Light

Division and the cavalry upon Wellington’s chosen position. They

retired skirmishing, till they came to the main body, when the four

cavalry regiments wheeled into line on the right rear of the village of

Fuentes de Oñoro, while the Light Division, crossing the bridge at that

place, placed itself in reserve on the heights, behind the front crest.

In the afternoon the whole French army became more or less visible from

the Allies’ position. It was now in three columns: the right column was

formed by the 2nd Corps, which had taken the route Gallegos-Alameda,

and displayed itself on the heights opposite Wellington’s left, facing

towards Fort Concepcion and San Pedro, with the deepest part of the

ravine of the Dos Casas in front of it. The centre column was formed by

the single division of the 8th Corps (Solignac), which posted itself to

the left of the 2nd, south of Alameda. The heaviest and most important

mass of the enemy, however, was on the left, where Montbrun’s cavalry,

which had been engaged all the morning in pushing back the British

horse, came up directly opposite Fuentes de Oñoro, and on finding

that village occupied in force by the Allies took ground to its left,

facing the squadrons which it had been pursuing, on the other side of

the Dos Casas. When the cavalry had wheeled aside, the front of the

infantry of the 6th Corps became visible on the high-road, division

behind division. The 9th Corps, still out of sight in the rear, was

behind the 6th, so that five of the eight infantry divisions forming

Masséna’s army were concentrated opposite Fuentes de Oñoro. The front

of the French did not extend for more than a short distance south of

that village, so that it looked as if Wellington was to be assailed

precisely in the strong position that he had selected.

The allied army had been arrayed at leisure on the ground chosen by

its chief, who had ample time to make all his dispositions while the

covering force was being driven in. His line was formed as follows: the

5th Division (Erskine) was posted just to the south of Fort Concepcion,

with Barbaçena’s handful of Portuguese cavalry (only 300 sabres)

watching its flank. Next to the south of Erskine lay the 6th Division

(Campbell), in front of San Pedro. These two units faced Reynier and

Junot respectively, with the deep ravine protecting their front. The

1st, 3rd, and 7th Divisions and Ashworth’s Portuguese brigade were

arrayed on the heights behind Fuentes de Oñoro, and the Light Division

had taken post in their reserve. The houses and crofts of the village

were occupied by a strong force of picked troops, composed of the light

companies of Nightingale’s, Howard’s, and Löwe’s brigades of the 1st

Division, and of Mackinnon’s, Colville’s, and Power’s (Portuguese)

brigades of the 3rd Division--28 companies in all[390]--with the 2/83rd

from Colville’s brigade in support. The senior officer in the village

was Lieut.-Colonel Williams, of the 5/60th. He had under him about

1,800 men of the light companies, all chosen shots, besides the 460

of the 2/83rd. To the south and rear of Fuentes, some way behind the

village, were the four British cavalry regiments, only 1,500 sabres in

gross, and reduced to a somewhat lower figure by detachments[391]. It

will thus be seen that Wellington, like Masséna, had strengthened his

southern wing. He had four and a half divisions of infantry--24,000

men--facing the 6th and 9th Corps, with their 27,000 bayonets and

3,500 horse, in and about Fuentes, while the 2nd Corps was observed

by Erskine’s 5,000 men, and the 8th Corps by Campbell with a similar

number[392]. In the northern end of the field the immense strength of

the position behind the ravine enabled Wellington to be economical of

troops; if it should chance that the French made a serious attack in

that direction, there were ample reserves to be spared from the mass of

infantry behind the right wing.

[390] viz. the light companies of 17 British and 4 Portuguese

battalions, plus 4 companies of the 5/60th, 1 of the 3/95th, and

2 extra light companies of the K.G.L. attached to Löwe’s brigade.

[391] Both Napier (iii. p. 150) and Tomkinson (p. 100) say that

the British cavalry, nominally 1,520 sabres, had only about 1,000

in line that day, owing to details, orderlies, &c., absent from

the ranks. This is probably an over-great deduction.

[392] See tables at end, Appendix IX. 1st Division, 7,565 men;

3rd Division, 5,480 men; 7th Division, 4,600 men; Light Division,

3,815 men; Ashworth’s Portuguese, 2,539 men, or 23,999.

Masséna, having surveyed Wellington’s position in the early afternoon,

recognized without difficulty that the village of Fuentes was the key

of the whole, and that the northern front was too formidable, from the

nature of the ground, to be lightly meddled with. It was impossible to

make out the disposition of the allied troops, for (in accordance with

his usual practice) their general had placed his battle-line behind

the crest, so that nothing could be made out save the skirmishers

all along the heights, and the garrison of Fuentes itself, which was

sufficiently visible on the slope. In a manner which somewhat suggests

his old method of Bussaco[393], Masséna ordered the leading division

of the 6th Corps, Ferey’s ten battalions, to storm the village by

direct frontal attack, while Reynier made a mere demonstration against

the 5th Division on the extreme northern end of the position. The

latter movement led to nothing, save that, when it seemed threatening,

Wellington sent off the Light Division to strengthen his right

wing--but, since the 2nd Corps never closed, it was not needed there,

and halted behind the crest till nightfall.

[393] The statement made by several French authors that Masséna

did not order Ferey to attack Fuentes on the 3rd, and that Loison

and Ferey acted without orders, is directly contradicted by the

Marshal’s own dispatch, in which he takes all responsibility:

‘J’espérais enlever Fuentes et m’y maintenir; je le fis attaquer,

et il fut bientôt occupé.’

In Fuentes village, however, there was a sharp conflict: the first

brigade of Ferey’s division charged across the easily fordable brook

under heavy fire, and got possession of some of the houses on the

lower slope. From these the French were dislodged by the charge of the

reserves of which Colonel Williams could dispose. The second brigade

was then thrown into action by Ferey, and, coming on to the British

while they were in the disorder caused by a charge among houses and

walls, beat them back, and pursued them up to the top of the village.

Here the light companies rallied, by the church and among the rocks,

but the enemy remained for a moment master of all that part of Fuentes

which lies on the slope and in the bottom by the brook. Wellington was

determined that the French should make no lodgement in his line, and

late in the afternoon sent three fresh battalions of the 1st Division

to clear the village. Cadogan with the 1/71st, supported by the 1/79th

and 2/24th, made a determined advance through the tangle of houses,

lanes, and walls, and at considerable cost drove Ferey’s men right over

the brook and up their own slope. Masséna then ordered the defeated

troops to be supported by four battalions from Marchand’s division,

and with this aid they once more advanced and got possession of the

chapel and the few other buildings on the east side of Dos Casas, but

could not make their way across the water again, or into the main body

of the village.

The combat only stopped with the fall of night, though the fusillade

across the brook was of course objectless, when neither side made

any further definite attack. It had cost the French 652 men--mostly

in Ferey’s division[394], of whom 3 officers and 164 men were

prisoners, taken when the village was re-stormed by Cadogan. The

Allies, being on the defensive, and under cover, save at the moment of

their counter-attack, only had 259 killed and hurt, of whom 48 were

Portuguese. Colonel Williams, the original commander of the village,

was severely wounded, but no other officer above the rank of captain

was hit[395].

[394] But some in Marchand’s, which must have been fairly heavily

engaged, judging from the casualty list of officers in Martinien.

[395] For an excellent account of the first day’s fighting

in Fuentes village, see the diary of ‘J. S.’ of the 71st in

Constable’s _Memorials of the late War_, i. 87-9. The regiment

charged right up the French slope after recovering the place, and

was attacked ineffectually by cavalry. Marbot (ii. p. 459) has a

story that the second attack of the French would have succeeded

if the Hanoverian Legion, in its red coats, had not been fired

into from the rear in mistake by the 66th Ligne, which took them

for British.

SECTION XXVI: CHAPTER III

THE BATTLE OF FUENTES DE OÑORO. MAY 5th, 1811

Masséna’s attempt to ‘take the bull by the horns’--for the phrase used

at Bussaco may well be repeated for the attack on Fuentes village--had

failed with loss. It was clear that he had hit upon a strong point in

Wellington’s well-hidden line, and he had paid dearly for his brutal

methods. It remained to be seen whether he might not also find, as at

Bussaco, some way of turning his adversary’s position by a wide flank

movement. Down-stream the ground looked very impracticable, and the

ravine of the Dos Casas seemed to grow more and more formidable as it

neared its junction with the Agueda. The Marshal therefore ordered

Montbrun to make reconnaissances in every direction towards the right,

on the side of Pozo Bello and Nava de Aver, and to report on the roads

and the character of the ground, as well as on the disposition of the

flank-guards of the enemy. The whole of the 4th of May was taken up

in this fashion--there being no shots fired save in Fuentes de Oñoro

itself, when Ferey’s troops in the morning exchanged a lively fusillade

across the brook with the British regiments occupying the main block

of the village. The firing died down before noon, neither side being

inclined to take the offensive[396].

[396] Masséna, in his dispatch describing the battle, says that

on the morning of the 4th the Allies made a serious attempt to

turn Ferey out of the houses beyond the brook which he occupied.

But we have no trace of any regular fighting in any of the

British narratives; there was certainly some bickering across the

brook, but apparently nothing more.

Montbrun’s reports came in during the afternoon, and were very

important. The enemy, he said, had no more than a screen of cavalry

pickets to the south of Fuentes, with a single detached battalion

in the village of Pozo Bello. The end of his line had been found at

Nava de Aver; it was composed only of the guerrilla band of Julian

Sanchez. There was nothing to prevent a frontal attack on Pozo Bello by

infantry, though the place was enclosed in woods and somewhat difficult

to approach. There was accessible ground between Pozo Bello and Nava

where cavalry might act, nor was the morass by the latter village, on

which the extreme right of the Allies rested, impassable.

On this report Masséna based his new scheme of operations[397]. He

resolved to turn Wellington’s right with three infantry divisions and

nearly the whole of his cavalry, while detaining him in his present

position by attacks more or less pressed home. The striking-force

was to be composed of Marchand’s and Mermet’s divisions of the 6th

Corps with Solignac’s division of the 8th Corps in support, and of

all the horsemen save the skeleton squadrons attached to the 2nd

and 6th Corps, viz. Montbrun’s division of dragoons and the cavalry

brigades of Fournier, Wathier, and Lepic, a mass of 17,000 infantry

and 3,500 sabres. Reynier, opposite Wellington’s left, was to make

demonstrations, which were to be turned into a serious attack only if

the Allies showed weakness in this direction. But in the centre there

was to be a vigorous onslaught launched against Fuentes de Oñoro, when

the turning movement was seen to be in progress to the south. For this,

not only Ferey’s division, already in position opposite the village,

was told off, but also Drouet’s two divisions of the 9th Corps. The

place was to be carried at all costs, while Wellington was busy on his

right, and a breach was thus to be made in the line of the Allies at

the same moment that their wing was turned. Fourteen thousand infantry

were concentrated opposite Fuentes for this purpose.

[397] See his Orders for the day, in Appendix XIII.

After dusk had fallen the French army made the preliminary movements

required by the new plan. Montbrun’s cavalry rode out far to the south,

one brigade to the foot of the hill of Nava de Aver, the others to the

ground east of Pozo Bello. To this latter point Marchand’s and Mermet’s

infantry proceeded, with Solignac’s division following them. Drouet

brought the 9th Corps to the ground formerly occupied by the 6th Corps,

while Reynier drew in a little southward, leaving one division opposite

Fort Concepcion, but moving the other to the position in front of

Alameda lately occupied by Solignac. A large detachment of sappers

went out with Montbrun, to mend the paths across the morass which his

flanking brigade had to cross.

[Illustration: FUENTES DE OÑORO. Positions on the first day (May 3rd

1811).]

Wellington had not been unaware that the want of movement on Masséna’s

part during the 4th probably covered some design against his flanks,

and since his left flank was practically impregnable, he suspected that

his right might be in danger, a suspicion which was made into certainty

by reconnaissances which detected the French stirring among the marshy

woods. The whole of his cavalry was thrown out in this direction,

but the four regiments could only cover the ground inadequately, and

being scattered in squadrons along three miles of front were weak

everywhere. The most serious movement that he made was to detach the

7th Division as an outlying force to cover his right: two battalions

were put into the village of Pozo Bello[398] and the wood in front of

it; the remaining seven occupied a position on the slope to the west

of that little place. This was a somewhat dangerous expedient--the 7th

Division was the smallest and weakest unit in Wellington’s army--it

only contained two British battalions[399], and these were new-comers

just landed at Lisbon. It was thrown out two miles from the main

position, and on open ground not presenting any particular advantage

for defence--indeed, if the enemy should attack in strength, it

would be compelled to act as a mere detaining and observing rather

than a fighting force. For though it was well placed for foiling a

mere attempt to turn the Fuentes position by a small detachment and

a short lateral movement[400], yet if the enemy’s flanking manœuvre

were made by a large body and far afield, it was clear that the 7th

Division would have to retreat in haste towards the main position. This

being so, one wonders that Wellington did not select one of his best

divisions--the 3rd or the Light--for such a responsible post. But he

apparently did not foresee the whole plan of Masséna. ‘Imagining,’ he

writes in his dispatch describing the battle, ‘that the enemy would

endeavour to obtain possession of Fuentes de Oñoro and of the ground

occupied by the troops behind that village, by crossing the Dos Casas

at Pozo Velho, I moved the 7th Division under Major-General Houston to

the right, in order to protect, if possible, that passage.’ But Masséna

was set not only on attacking Pozo Bello, but on turning it, and taking

it in the rear by a wide sweep of his whole disposable cavalry force.

Over 20,000 men were on the move, and Houston had but 4,000 infantry,

with 1,400 horse to guard his flank.

[398] 85th and 2nd Caçadores.

[399] 51st and 85th, the other regiments being foreign

(_Chasseurs Britanniques_ and Brunswick Oels) or Portuguese.

[400] Its position, from this point of view, might be compared to

that of Pakenham and the 3rd Division at Salamanca.

The other preparation which Wellington made for a possible battle on

the 5th was to draw back the Light Division at dusk from the left wing

to its original position behind Fuentes village in reserve. He also

withdrew the numerous light companies which had formed the original

garrison of that place, and left there only two battalions, the 1/71st

and 1/79th, with the 2/24th to support them at the top of the hill.

The fighting on the 5th of May began very early. Just at daybreak the

extreme right flank of Wellington’s cavalry screen was attacked by the

outermost of the enemy’s turning columns, composed of two regiments

of Montbrun’s dragoons[401]. This took place under the hill of Nava

de Aver, where Julian Sanchez with his guerrilleros had been posted

on the 3rd, while two squadrons of the 14th Light Dragoons had been

moved up to his support on the night of the 4th. The guerrilleros

kept a bad look-out, and in the dusk of the morning were surprised

by the enemy--they drew off hastily to the south without making any

resistance. Not so the two British squadrons under Major Brotherton

of the 14th, who fought a running fight for two miles, showing front

repeatedly, till their flank was on each occasion turned by the vastly

superior numbers of the enemy. They were driven in at last upon Pozo

Bello, where lay two battalions of the 7th Division, whose extreme

right picket, placed in a wood, stopped the enemy’s pursuit by a

volley. The main body of the French cavalry seems to have started a

little later than the flanking force which assailed Nava de Aver, as

its leading regiments only attacked the British cavalry screen to

the right of that village some time after Brotherton’s squadrons had

begun to be driven in. Here the line of observation was furnished by a

squadron of the 16th Light Dragoons and another of the 1st Hussars of

the King’s German Legion, who drew together, and gallantly, but rather

rashly, attempted to stop the enemy’s advance at a defile between two

woods. The squadron of the 16th, charging into a mass of the enemy,

suffered heavily and had its commanding officer captured[402]. The

Germans then took their turn, but were also driven back with loss. The

broken troops had to fall back in all haste till, like Brotherton’s

detachment, they came in upon the flank of the village of Pozo Bello,

and formed up there. The French cavalry, extending over the slopes

when they were clear of the woods, appeared in overpowering numbers,

and showed an evident intention to turn the right flank of the British

force, which they were strong enough to do even when the whole twelve

squadrons of Wellington’s cavalry, falling back from various points of

the line which they had been observing, were concentrated on the flank

of the woods and enclosures of Pozo Bello.

[401] The accusation against Montbrun, made by Napier and several

French writers, of having waited for two hours after dawn, and

then of having suffered himself to be delayed for another hour

by the pursuit of a mere Spanish irregular band, is clearly

groundless. We have the diaries of two officers of the squadrons

of the 14th (Major Brotherton and Cornet F. Hall) who prove

that the attack was made in the dusk of early dawn. ‘Just at

daybreak,’ says the former, ‘I requested Don Julian to show me

where his pickets were placed. He pointed out to me what he

said was one of them, but I observed to him that in the dusk of

morning it looked too large for a picket. The sun rising rapidly

dispelled the fog, and the illusion at the same time, for Don

Julian’s picket proved to be a whole French regiment dismounted.

They now mounted immediately and advanced against us.’ (See the

Diary in Hamilton’s _History of the 14th Hussars_.)

[402] Captain Belli, who had joined the regiment from England

only the night before. A sergeant and six men were killed in

trying to rescue him. See Tomkinson’s diary, p. 101. This officer

of the 16th accuses Major Meyer of the Hussars of having lost

the right moment for a charge by indecision. But the K.G.L.

narratives (see Schwertfeger) show that Meyer fought hard, and

was an enterprising officer.

Up to this moment, an hour after daybreak, only French cavalry had been

seen, but the infantry now joined in. The two divisions of Marchand and

Mermet had been moved in the night to a point opposite Pozo Bello: when

the skirmishing to the right of that place was growing hot, the leading

division, that of Marchand, charged in upon the wood in front of the

village, cleared out of it the skirmishers of the 85th regiment and

the 2nd Caçadores, and then stormed the village also, driving out of

it the two battalions, which vainly tried to maintain themselves there

against the crushing superiority of the attack. As they were emerging

from among the houses in great disorder, they were fallen upon and

ridden over by a French light cavalry regiment, which had pushed round

their flank unobserved. Both battalions suffered heavily: between them

they lost over 150 men, of whom 85 were killed and wounded and some

70 unwounded prisoners. It is marvellous that the two corps were not

entirely destroyed--but they were saved by a charge of two squadrons

of the German Hussars, and succeeded in forming up with promptness and

moving away in the direction of the main body of the 7th Division,

which was visible a mile to the west, on the opposite slope of the

bottom in which Pozo Bello lies.

The next hour was a very dangerous one: the French infantry divisions,

emerging from the captured village and the woods, began to form up in

heavy columns, threatening both to attack the Fuentes de Oñoro position

on its right flank, and to cut in between the isolated 7th Division and

the rest of the army. Montbrun’s cavalry, displaying regiment after

regiment, came on in hot pursuit of the troops that had escaped from

Pozo Bello and of the British squadrons that were covering them. They

were already outflanking the 7th Division on the right, by means of the

detachment which had come from Nava de Aver.

Wellington was surprised at the strength of the turning force--its

numbers were far greater than he had foreseen, and he was forced

to take a new resolution and form a fresh battle-order. The most

important thing was to save the 7th Division from being cut off, and

to bring it back into line with the rest of the army. Accordingly

he directed a chosen unit--the Light Division, now once more under

the indomitable Craufurd, who had joined on the preceding night--to

advance from its position in reserve behind Fuentes, and to move

out along the slope of the low heights to the right, so as to come

into touch with Houston and the cavalry, and to help them to get

home. Meanwhile the rest of the centre of the army--the 1st and 3rd

Divisions and Ashworth’s Portuguese[403], formed a new line of battle,

_en potence_ to the original right flank of the British position. They

were drawn up along the dominating ground between the rocky hillocks

that overhang the village of Fuentes and the descent into the valley

of the Turon brook. This is the last of the high ground--to the right

of it (as has been before mentioned) the watershed between the Dos

Casas and the Turon ceases to be composed of a commanding ridge,

and sinks into gentle slopes[404]. Thus Fuentes de Oñoro became the

projecting point of a battle-order thrown back at right angles to the

original position--where the 5th and 6th Divisions still continued to

occupy their old post opposite Reynier. Formations _en potence_ are

proverbially dangerous, because of the liability of the angle to be

enfiladed and crushed by artillery fire. But in this case the danger

was less than usual, since Wellington for once in his life had more

guns than the French, and the lie of the plateau was such that the

lower parts of Fuentes village might be enfiladed, but not the ground

above it by the church and rocks, nor the plateau behind it, where the

ground occupied by the 3rd Division was out of sight of the French on

the lesser heights. Indeed, the holding of the houses in the bottom

was of comparatively little importance to Wellington, so long as he

kept his grip on the upper end of the straggling village. Here, on the

double-headed height crowned by the church and the rocks, was the real

pivot of the position.

[403] 1st Division in four brigades on the right; then Ashworth;

then the 3rd Division next to Fuentes village.

[404] Along which the modern railway line is conducted from

Villar Formoso to Ciudad Rodrigo. Fuentes de Oñoro station is

a mile from the village, and only a few hundred yards from the

Portuguese customs-station of Villar Formoso.

Wellington had ample time to move the 1st and 3rd Divisions with

Ashworth’s Portuguese into the new position--none of them had much

over a mile to march, since all had been concentrated behind Fuentes

when the alarm came. The enemy’s approach was slow, partly because his

infantry had to disentangle itself from the houses of Pozo Bello and

the surrounding wood, and to form in a fresh front, partly because his

cavalry became wholly absorbed in a running fight with the Light and

7th Divisions, and had no attention to spare for any other direction.

Masséna’s plan, when he had got his left wing out of the woods, soon

became clear. He was intending to break in with his cavalry between

the 7th Division and the rest of the army, while Marchand and Mermet

were to attack the new front of the 1st and 3rd Divisions, and the 9th

Corps, with Ferey’s division, was to smash in the projecting point

of Wellington’s position, by storming Fuentes village and the height

behind it. Reynier, as on the 3rd of May, was to demonstrate against

the allied left, but not to attack till success in the centre seemed

assured. From the course of the action it is evident that the Marshal’s

main intention was to beat Wellington by hard fighting, and to break up

his army--not merely to manœuvre him into a bad strategical position

and to cut his more available lines of communication, so as to force

him into a difficult and dangerous retreat. If the last had been

Masséna’s intention--as some authors suggest--the course of the battle

would have been different. But he made no attempt to send cavalry to

intercept the roads to Castello Bom, still less to detach infantry

against Wellington’s rear. Having turned his enemy’s flank, and forced

him to make a new front, he showed no further desire to manœuvre, but

proceeded to batter away at the troops in front of him, trusting that

numbers and impetus would secure him the victory.

The fight fell for some time into two absolutely distinct sections--an

attempt by Drouet’s and Ferey’s three divisions to carry Fuentes de

Oñoro village and break Wellington’s centre, and an attempt to cut up,

by the cavalry arm alone, the 7th Division and its attendant squadrons,

before they could be succoured and drawn back into Wellington’s new

line of defence. It was only after some time that these two combats

became joined, by an attempt--which was never pressed home--to attack

that part of the British position which lay to the right rear of

Fuentes de Oñoro.