Wellington’s nomination as Generalissimo of the Spanish armies had

been voted by the Cortes on September 22nd, and conveyed to him before

Burgos on October 2nd. He had every intention of accepting the offer,

though (as he wrote to his brother Henry[76]) the change in his

position would not be so great in reality as in form, since Castaños

and most of the other Spanish generals had of late been wont to consult

him on their movements, and generally to fall in with his views.

There had been exceptions, even of late, such as Joseph O’Donnell’s

gratuitous forcing on of battle at Castalla, when he had been specially

asked to hold back till the Anglo-Sicilian expedition began to work

upon the East Coast. But it would certainly be advantageous that,

for the future, he should be able to issue orders instead of advice.

Meanwhile he could not formally accept the post of general-in-chief

without the official leave of the Prince Regent, and prompt information

of the offer and a request for permission to accept it, were sent to

London. The Cortes, foreseeing the necessary delay, had refrained from

publishing the decree till it should be certain that Wellington was

prepared to assume the position that was offered him. But the fact

soon became known in Cadiz, and was openly spoken of in the public

press. Wellington continued to write only letters of advice to the

Spanish generals, and did not assume the tone of a commander-in-chief

as yet, but his advice had already a more binding force. There was

no opposition made to him, save in one quarter--but that was the

most important one. Ballasteros, as Commander of the 4th Army and

Captain-General of Andalusia, burst out into open revolt against the

Cortes, the Regency, and the commander-in-chief elect.

This busy and ambitious man had taken up his abode in Granada, after

Soult’s departure on September 23rd, and since then had not stirred,

though Wellington had repeatedly asked him to advance into La Mancha

with his available force, and to put himself in touch with Elio,

Penne Villemur, and Hill. But Ballasteros was suffering from an acute

attack of megalomania: after years of skulking in the mountains and

forced marches, he was now in the position of a viceroy commanding

the resources of a great province. Though Andalusia had been cleared

of the French by no merit of his, but as a side-effect of the battle

of Salamanca, he gave himself the airs of a conqueror and deliverer,

and fully believed himself to be the most important person in Spain.

As an acute observer remarked, ‘Ballasteros wanted to begin where

Bonaparte ended, by seizing supreme authority, though he had performed

no such services for his fatherland as the French general. He spared

no effort to attach his army to his person, and to win its favour

sacrificed without hesitation the whole civil population. The land was

drained of all resources, but he found new means of extorting money.

His officers went from town to town exacting a so-called “voluntary

contribution” for the army. Those who gave much were put in his white

book as patriots--those who did not were enrolled in his black book

as supporters of King Joseph. He wanted to collect all the troops in

Andalusia into a great army, with himself as commander. But the Regency

directed him, in accordance with Wellington’s advice, to march at once

with the troops immediately available and take post in La Mancha[77].’

Then came the news of Wellington’s nomination as commander-in-chief.

Ballasteros thought the moment favourable for an open bid for the

dictatorship. Instead of obeying the orders sent, he issued on October

23rd a manifesto directed to the Regency, in which he declared that

Wellington’s appointment to supreme power was an insult to the Spanish

nation, and especially to the Spanish Army. He openly contemned the

decree, as dishonourable and debasing--Spaniards should never become

like Portuguese the servants of the foreigner. If--what he could not

believe--the national army and the nation itself should ratify such

an appointment, he himself would throw up his post and retire to his

home. At the same time there was an outburst of pamphlets and newspaper

articles inspired by him, stating that England was to be feared as an

oppressor no less than France; and all sorts of absurd rumours were put

about as to the intentions of the British Government and the servility

of the Cortes.

Ballasteros, however, had altogether mistaken his own importance

and popularity: budding Bonapartes must be able to rely on their

own troops, and he--as the event showed--could not. The Cortes took

prompt measures for his suppression: one Colonel Rivera, a well-known

Liberal, was sent secretly to Granada to bear to Virues, the second in

command of the 4th Army, orders to arrest his chief, and place him in

confinement. And this was done without any difficulty, so unfounded

was the confidence which Ballasteros had placed in his omnipotence

with the army. Virues and the Prince of Anglona, his two divisional

generals, carried out the arrest in the simplest fashion. On the

morning of October 30th they ordered out their troops for a field day

on the Alcalá road, save a battalion of the Spanish Guards, who had not

belonged to Ballasteros’s old army, and had no affection for him. This

regiment surrounded his residence, and when he issued out the picquet

refused him passage, and Colonel Rivera presented him with the warrant

for his arrest. There was some little stir in Granada among the civil

population, but the army made no movement when Virues read the decree

of the Cortes to them. Before he well understood what had happened,

Ballasteros was on his way under a guard to the African fortress of

Ceuta. He was afterwards given Fregenal in Estremadura as the place of

his detention.

But all this happened on October 30th, and meanwhile the Army of

Andalusia had remained motionless, though Wellington had believed

that it had marched for La Mancha as early as October 5th[78]. Nearly

a month had been lost by Ballasteros’s perversity, and when he was

finally arrested and his troops became available, it was too late; for

Hill had been forced to retreat, and Madrid was about to fall into the

hands of the French, who had advanced through La Mancha unmolested.

The Fourth Army was put under the command of the Duke del Parque, the

victor of Tamames, but the vanquished of Alba de Tormes in the campaign

of 1809. It marched early in November to its appointed position at

Alcaraz; but it was of no use to have it there when the enemy had

changed all his positions, and had driven Hill beyond the Guadarrama

into the valley of the Douro.

Wellington’s arrangements for the defence of Madrid were therefore

insufficient as the event proved, for three reasons. The diversion from

Alicante was too weak--Suchet alone was able to keep Maitland in check.

The main Spanish force which was to have co-operated with Hill never

put in an appearance, thanks to the disloyal perversity of its general.

And, thirdly, the autumn rains, which had so incommoded Wellington

before Burgos, turned out to be late and scanty in New Castile. The

Tagus and its affluents remained low and fordable almost everywhere.

As late as the 17th October Wellington had no fears about Hill’s

position. The probability that the enemy from Valencia would advance

upon Madrid, as he wrote on that morning, seemed diminishing day

by day--reinforcements were coming up from the South to Hill, and

Ballasteros was believed to be already posted in La Mancha, ‘which

renders the enemy’s movement upon the Tagus very improbable[79].’ On

the 19th, when his last assault on the Castle of Burgos had just been

beaten off, and he was thinking of retreat, came much less satisfactory

news from Hill. The enemy seemed to be drawing together: they had laid

siege to the Castle of Chinchilla, and it was not impossible that

they were aiming at Madrid, perhaps only with a view of forcing the

abandonment of the siege of Burgos, perhaps with serious offensive

intention. If so, Wellington might be caught with not one but both

of the halves of his army exposed to immediate attack by a superior

enemy, who was just assuming the offensive. And the total force of the

French was appalling--50,000 men on the Northern field of operations,

60,000 on the other--while the united strength of all the available

troops under Wellington’s orders was about 80,000, of whom 25,000 were

Spaniards, whose previous record was not in many cases reassuring. He

had often warned the ministers at home that if the French evacuated

outlying provinces, and collected in great masses, they were too many

for him[80]. But that ever-possible event had been so long delayed,

that Wellington had gone on, with a healthy and cheerful opportunism,

facing the actual situation of affairs without taking too much thought

for the morrow. Now the conjunction least to be desired appeared to be

at length coming into practical existence and it remained to be seen

what could be done.

As for his own army, there was no doubt that prompt retreat, first

beyond the Pisuerga, then beyond the Douro, was necessary. Souham had

already made his first preliminary forward movement. On the evening

of October 18th a strong advance guard, consisting of a brigade of

Maucune’s division, pushed in upon the front of the allied army at the

village of Santa Olalla, and surprised there the outlying picket of

an officer and thirty men of the Brunswick-Oels, who were nearly all

taken prisoners. The heights above this place commanded the town of

Monasterio, wherefore Wellington directed it to be evacuated, and drew

in its line to a position slightly nearer Burgos, for it was clear that

there were heavy forces behind the brigade which had formed the French

attacking force[81].

On the 19th he was in order of battle with all his army except the

troops left before Burgos--Pack’s Portuguese, a brigade of the 6th

Division, and three weak battalions from the 1st Division. The position

extended from Ibeas on the Arlanzon, through Riobena to Soto Palacios,

and was manned by the 1st, 5th, and 7th Divisions, two brigades of

the 6th, Bradford’s Portuguese, Castaños’s Galicians, and all the

cavalry--about 30,000 men. Wellington expected to be attacked on the

20th, and was not prepared to give back till he had ascertained what

force was in his front. He knew that the Army of Portugal had been

reinforced, but was not sure whether the report that Caffarelli had

come up with a large portion of the Army of the North was correct or no.

Souham’s movement on the 18th had been intended as the commencement

of a general advance: he brought up his whole force to Monasterio,

and he would have attacked on the 20th if he had not received, before

daybreak, and long ere his troops were under way, a much-delayed

dispatch from King Joseph. It informed him that the whole mass of

troops from Valencia was on the march for Madrid, that this movement

would force Wellington to abandon the siege of Burgos and to fall back,

and that he was therefore not to risk a general action, but to advance

with caution, and pursue the allied force in front of him so soon as it

should begin to retreat, when it might be pressed with advantage.[82]

He was to be prepared to link his advance with that of the armies from

the South, which would have columns in the direction of Cuenca. Souham

was discontented with the gist of this dispatch, since he had his whole

army assembled, while Caffarelli was close behind, within supporting

distance, at Briviesca. He thought that he could have fought with

advantage, and was probably right, since he and Caffarelli had a marked

superiority of numbers, though Wellington’s positions were strong.

Balked of the battle that he desired, he resolved to make a very

strong reconnaissance against the allied centre, to see whether the

enemy might already be contemplating retreat, and might consent to be

pushed back, and to abandon Burgos. This reconnaissance was conducted

by Maucune’s and Chauvel’s (late Bonnet’s) divisions and a brigade of

light cavalry: it was directed against Wellington’s centre, in front

of the villages of Quintana Palla and Olmos, where the 7th division

was posted. Maucune’s troops, forming the front line of the French,

were hotly engaged in this direction, when Wellington, seeing that

the main body of the enemy was very remote, and that the two vanguard

divisions had ventured far forward into his ground, directed Sir Edward

Paget with the 1st and 5th divisions--forming his own left wing--to

swing forward by a diagonal movement and take Maucune in flank. The

French general discovered the approaching force only just in time,

and retreated in great haste across the fields, without calling in

his tirailleurs or forming any regular order of march. Each regiment

made off by its own way, just early enough to escape Paget’s turning

movement. The British horse artillery arrived only in time to shell the

last battalions; the infantry was too far off to reach them. Dusk fell

at this moment, and Paget halted: if there had been one hour more of

daylight Maucune and Chauvel would have been in an evil case, for they

were still some distance from their own main body on the Monasterio

position, and the British cavalry was coming up in haste. The

reconnaissance had been pushed recklessly and too far--in accordance

with the usual conduct of Maucune, who was (as his conduct at Salamanca

had proved) a gallant but a very rash leader. The losses on both sides

were trifling--apparently about 80 in the French ranks[83], and 47 in

the British 7th division. Paget’s troops did not come under fire.

On the morning of the 21st Wellington received a letter of Hill’s,

written on the 17th, which made it clear to him that he must delay no

longer. It reported that the enemy were very clearly on the move--the

whole of Drouet’s corps was coming forward from Albacete, the castle

of Chinchilla had fallen into the hands of the French on Oct. 9th,

and--what was the most discomposing to learn--Ballasteros had failed

to advance into La Mancha: by the last accounts he was still at

Granada. He would certainly come too late, if he came at all. The only

compensating piece of good news was that Skerrett’s brigade from Cadiz

was at last near at hand, and would reach Talavera on the 20th. Elio,

from his forward position at Villares, reported that Suchet’s troops

opposite Alicante were drawing back towards Valencia; possibly they

were about to join Soult and King Joseph, who were evidently coming

forward. Hill was inclined to sum up the news as follows: ‘The King,

Soult, and Suchet having united their armies are on the frontiers of

Murcia and Valencia, and appear to be moving this way. It is certain

that a considerable force is advancing toward Madrid, but I think it

doubtful whether they will attempt to force their way to the capital.’

Meanwhile he had, as a precautionary measure, brought up the troops in

cantonments round Madrid to Aranjuez and its neighbourhood, and had

thrown forward a cavalry screen beyond the Tagus, to watch alike the

roads from Albacete and those from Cuenca.

The mere possibility that Soult and the King were advancing on Madrid

was enough to move Wellington to instant retreat: if he waited for

certainty, he might be too late. And his own position in front of

Souham and Caffarelli was dangerous enough, even if no more bad news

from the South should come to hand. Accordingly on the afternoon of

the 21st orders were sent to Pack to prepare to raise the siege of

Burgos, when the main army in its backward movement should have passed

him. The baggage was to be sent off, the stores removed or burned

in the following night. The divisions in line opposite Souham were

to move away, after lighting camp fires to delude the enemy, in two

main columns, one on each side of the Arlanzon. The northern column,

composed of the 5th Division, two-thirds of the Galician infantry,

the heavy dragoons of Ponsonby (late Le Marchant’s brigade) and the

handful of Spanish regular cavalry, was to skirt the northern side

of the city of Burgos, using the cross-roads by Bivar and Quintana

Dueñas, and to retire to Tardajos, beside the Urbel river. The southern

and larger column, consisting of the 1st, 7th, and 6th Divisions

(marching in that order), of Bradford’s Portuguese and the remainder

of the Galicians, was to move by the high road through Villa Fria, to

cross the town-bridge of Burgos (with special caution that silence

must be observed, so as not to alarm the garrison of the Castle) to

Frandovinez and Villa de Buniel. Here they would be in touch with the

other column, which was to be only two miles away at Tardajos. Anson’s

cavalry brigade was to cover the rear of this column, only abandoning

the outposts when the infantry should have got far forward. They were

to keep the old picquet-line till three in the morning. Bock’s German

dragoons and the cavalry of Julian Sanchez formed a flank guard for the

southern column: they were to cross the Arlanzon at Ibeas, five miles

east of Burgos, and to retire parallel to the infantry line of march,

by a circuit on cross-roads south of Burgos, finally joining the main

body at Villa de Buniel[84].

All this complicated set of movements was carried out with complete

success: the army got away without arousing the attention of the French

of Souham, and the column which crossed the bridge of Burgos, under the

cannon of the Castle[85], was never detected, till a Spanish guerrilla

party galloped noisily across the stones and drew some harmless shots.

Since the enemy was alarmed, the rear of the column had to take a

side-path. Pack filed off the troops in the trenches, and got away

quietly from the investment line. In the morning the two infantry

columns were safely concentrated within two miles of each other at

Tardajos and Villa de Buniel. There being no sign of pursuit, they were

allowed some hours’ rest in these positions, and then resumed their

retreat, the northern column leading, with the 5th Division at its

head, the southern column following, and falling into the main road by

crossing the bridge of Buniel. The 7th Division formed the rearguard

of the infantry; it was followed by Bock’s dragoons, Anson and Julian

Sanchez bringing up the rear. On the night of the 22nd the army

bivouacked along the road about Celada, Villapequeña, and Hornillos;

the light cavalry, far behind, were still observing the passages of the

Arlanzon at Buniel and of the Urbel at Tardajos.

The French pursuit was not urged with any vigour on this day. The

departure of Wellington had only been discovered in the early morning

hours by the dying down of the camp fires along his old position[86].

At dawn Souham advanced with caution; finding nothing in front of it,

his vanguard under Maucune entered Burgos about 10 o’clock in the

morning, and exchanged congratulations with Dubreton and his gallant

garrison. The light cavalry of the Army of Portugal pushed out along

the roads north and south of the Arlanzon: those on the right bank

found the three broken 18-pounders of Wellington’s battering train

a few miles outside of Burgos, and went as far as the Urbel, where

they came on the rear vedettes of the Allies. Those on the left bank

obtained touch with Anson’s outlying picquet at San Mames, and drove it

back to the Buniel bridge.

The 23rd October, however, was to be a day of a much more lively

sort. Souham and Caffarelli, having debouched from Burgos, brought

all their numerous cavalry to the front, and at dawn it was coming up

for the pursuit, in immense strength. There were present of the Army

of Portugal Curto’s light horse, Boyer’s dragoons, and the brigade

formerly commanded by Chauvel now under Colonel Merlin of the 1st

Hussars. These, by the morning state of October 15th, made up 4,300

sabres. The Army of the North contributed the bulk of its one--but

very powerful--cavalry brigade, that of Laferrière, 1,650 strong.[87]

Thus there were nearly 6,000 veteran horsemen hurrying on to molest

Wellington’s rear, where the covering force only consisted of Anson’s

and Bock’s two brigades and of the lancers of Julian Sanchez--1,300

dragoons British and German[88], and 1,000 Spaniards admirable for

raids and ambushes but not fit to be placed in battle line. Ponsonby’s

dragoons and the regular squadrons of the Galician army were far away

with the head of the column. To support the cavalry screen were the

two horse-artillery batteries of Downman and Bull, and the two Light

Battalions of the German Legion from the 7th Division, under Colonel

Halkett, which were left behind as the extreme rearguard of the

infantry.

All day the main marching column of the allied army laboured forward

unmolested along the muddy high road from Celada del Camino to

Torquemada, a very long stage of some 26 miles: Wellington seldom

asked his infantry to make such an effort. What would have happened to

Clausel’s army if the British had marched at this rate in the week

that followed the battle of Salamanca? Behind the infantry column,

however, the squadrons of the rearguard were fighting hard all day

long, to secure an unmolested retreat for their comrades. This was the

most harassing and one of the most costly efforts that the British

cavalry was called upon to make during the Peninsular War. The nearest

parallel to it in earlier years was the rearguard action of El Bodon in

September 1811[89]. But there the forces engaged on both sides had been

much smaller.

The French advanced guard consisted of Curto’s light cavalry division

of the Army of Portugal, supported by Maucune’s infantry division. It

had started at dawn, and found the British cavalry vedettes where they

had been marked down on the preceding night, at the bridge of Villa

Buniel. They retired without giving trouble, being in no strength,

and the morning was wearing on when the French came upon Wellington’s

rearguard, the horsemen of Anson and Julian Sanchez, and Halkett’s two

German battalions, a mile or two east of Celada, holding the line of

the Hormaza stream. Anson was in position behind its ravine, with a

battalion of the light infantry dispersed along the bushes above the

water, and the cavalry in support. Julian Sanchez was visible on the

other side of the Arlanzon, which is not here fordable, beyond Anson’s

right: on his left, hovering on hills above the road, was a small

irregular force, the guerrilla band of Marquinez[90]. The ground along

the Hormaza was strong, and the infantry fire surprised the enemy,

who were stopped for some time. They came on presently in force, and

engaged in a bickering fight: several attempts to cross the ravine were

foiled by partial charges of some of Anson’s squadrons. Wellington

says in his dispatch that the skirmishing lasted nearly three hours,

and that Stapleton Cotton, who had recently come up from the Salamanca

hospital cured of his wound, made excellent dispositions. But the

odds--more than two to one--were far too great to permit the contest

to be maintained for an indefinite period; and when, after much

bickering, the French (O’Shee’s brigade of Curto’s division) at last

succeeded in gaining a footing beyond the Hormaza, Anson’s squadrons

went off in good order. The ground for the next five or six miles was

very unfavourable for a small detaining force, as the valley of the

Arlanzon widened out for a time, and allowed the enemy space to deploy

his superior numbers. Nevertheless the light dragoons turned again and

again, and charged with more or less success the pursuing Chasseurs.

While Curto’s division was pressing back the British brigade in front,

Merlin’s brigade, pushing out on the French right, ascended the hills

beyond Anson’s left flank, and there found and drove off the partida of

Marquinez. The fugitive guerrilleros, falling back for support towards

the British, came in upon the flank of the 16th Light Dragoons with

French hussars in close pursuit, and mixed with them. The left squadron

of the 16th was thrown into confusion, and suffered heavily, having

some thirty casualties; and the commander of the regiment, Colonel

Pelly, and seven of his men were taken prisoners. As Curto was pushing

on at the same time, Anson’s brigade was much troubled, and was greatly

relieved when it at last came in sight of its support, Bock’s German

Heavy Dragoons and Bull’s battery, posted behind a bridge spanning a

watercourse near the lonely house called the Venta del Pozo. The two

battalions of Halkett, who had been retiring under cover of Anson’s

stubborn resistance, were now some little way behind Bock, near the

village of Villadrigo. On seeing the obstacle of the watercourse in

front of them, and the British reserves behind it, the cavalry of the

Army of Portugal halted, and began to re-form. Anson’s harassed brigade

was permitted to cross the bridge and to join Bock.

At this moment there came on the scene the French cavalry reserves,

Boyer’s dragoons and the three regiments of the Army of the North,

which were commanded that day not by their brigadier Laferrière (who

had been injured by a fall from his horse) but by Colonel Faverot of

the 15th Chasseurs. Souham, who had arrived in their company as had

Caffarelli also, gave orders that the pursuit was not to slacken for

a minute. While the cavalry of Curto and Merlin were re-forming and

resting, the newly arrived squadrons were directed to drive in the

British rearguard from its new position. The brigade of Faverot was to

attack in front, the dragoons of Boyer were to turn the hostile line,

by crossing the watercourse some way to their right, and to fall on

its flank and rear. So great was the superiority in numbers of the

attacking party that they came on with supreme confidence, ignoring

all disadvantages of ground. Faverot’s brigade undertook to pass the

bridge in column, in face of Bock’s two regiments drawn up at the head

of the slope, and of Bull’s battery placed on the high road so as to

command the crossing. Boyer’s dragoons trotted off to the right, to

look for the first available place where the water should allow them a

practicable ford.

What followed was not in accordance with the designs of either party.

Souham had intended Boyer and Faverot to act simultaneously; but the

former found the obstacle less and less inviting the farther that he

went on: he rode for more than a mile without discovering a passage,

and finally got out of sight of Souham and the high road[91]. Meanwhile

Faverot had advanced straight for the bridge, and had begun to cross

it. Of his three regiments the Berg lancers led, the 15th Chasseurs

came next, the Legion of Gendarmerie brought up the rear. They were ten

squadrons in all, or some 1,200 sabres. As each squadron got quit of

the bridge it formed up in line, the first to pass to the right of the

road, while those which followed successively took ground to the left,

between the chaussée and the bank of the Arlanzon. Eight squadrons had

got into position before the British line gave any signs of movement on

the hillside above.

It is clear that to cross a bridge in this fashion was a reckless

manœuvre. If Bock had charged when two or three squadrons only had

passed[92], he must have crushed them in the act of deployment, and

have jammed the rest of the French column at the bridgehead in a

position of helpless immobility. That no such charge was made resulted

from a curious chance. Stapleton Cotton, who was still conducting the

retreat, had placed Bull’s battery at a point on the slope where he

judged that it fully commanded the bridge, with Bock’s four squadrons

on its right. Then Anson’s brigade, not in the best of order after

its long pursuit by the enemy, trotted over the bridge and came up

the slope. Cotton intended that it should deploy on the left of the

guns, but the retreating regiments, before the directions reached

them, turned to the right and began to form up behind Bock’s line. The

general at once sent them orders to cross to the left and prolong the

line on the other side of Bull’s battery. By some extraordinary blunder

the leading regiment (perhaps to shorten its route) passed to the

left in front of the guns, instead of moving behind them. It was thus

masking the battery just at the moment that the French, to the surprise

of every one, began to cross the bridge. There was considerable

confusion in changing the march of the light dragoons, and before they

were cleared off and the front of the battery was free, several French

squadrons were across the ravine and forming up. The artillerymen then

opened, but in their hurry they misjudged the elevation, and not one

shot of the first discharge told. The second did hardly better; more

French were passing every moment, and Cotton then directed the cavalry

to charge, since the enemy was becoming stronger and stronger on the

near side of the bridge.

The charge was delivered in échelon of brigades; Bock’s two regiments,

who had been awaiting orders for some time, got away at once, and fell

upon the left of the French--the gendarmes and the left squadrons

of the Chasseurs. Anson’s six squadrons started somewhat later, and

having tired horses--after their long morning’s fight--came on at a

much slower pace. They found themselves opposed to the Lancers and the

right squadrons of the Chasseurs. There was such a perceptible space

between the two attacks, that some of the French narratives speak of

the British charge as being made by a front line and a reserve. The

numbers engaged were not very unequal[93]--probably 1,200 French to

1,000 British--but the former were all fresh, while the larger half of

the latter (Anson’s brigade) were wearied out--man and horse--by long

previous fighting.

All accounts--English and French--agree that this was one of the most

furious cavalry mêlées ever seen: the two sides broke each other’s

lines at various points--the 1st K.G.L. Dragoons rode down their

immediate opponents, the 2nd got to a standing fight with theirs:

Anson’s regiments, coming on more slowly on their jaded mounts, made no

impression on the Lancers and Chasseurs opposite them. The whole mass

fell into a heaving crowd ‘so completely mixed that friend could hardly

be distinguished from foe--the contest man to man lasted probably a

long minute, during which the ground was strewn with French, and our

own loss was heavy in the extreme.’ General Bock was at one time seen

defending himself against six Frenchmen, and was barely saved by his

men. Beteille, the Colonel of the French Gendarme Legion, received, it

is said, twelve separate wounds, and was left for dead. The combat was

ended by the intervention of the two rear squadrons of the Gendarmes,

who had not crossed the bridge when the charge began; they came up

late, and fell upon the flank and rear of the 2nd Dragoons of the

K.G.L. This last push settled the matter, and the British brigades

broke and fell back[94].

They were not so disheartened, however, but that they rallied half a

mile to the rear, and were showing fight when Boyer’s dragoons came

tardily upon the scene--they had at last found a passage over the

ravine, and appeared in full strength on the flank. It was hopeless

to oppose them, and the wrecks of the two British brigades fell back

hastily towards their infantry support, Halkett’s two Light Battalions

of the German Legion, which had been retreating meanwhile towards

Villadrigo, marching in column at quarter distance and prepared to

form square when necessary. The need now came--the leading regiment of

Boyer’s Dragoons turned upon the rear battalion--the 1st--and charged

it: the square was formed in good time, and the attack was beaten off.

The battalion then retired, falling back upon the 2nd, which had

nearly reached Villadrigo. Both then retreated together, covering the

broken cavalry, and had gone a short distance farther when the French

renewed the attack. Both battalions formed square, both were charged,

and both repulsed the attack of the dragoons with loss. The enemy,

who had still plenty of intact squadrons, seemed to be contemplating

a third charge, but hesitated, and finally Bock’s and Anson’s men

having got back into some sort of order, and showing a front once more,

the squares retired unmolested, and marched off in company with the

cavalry. The French followed cautiously and gave no further trouble. It

was now dark, and when the pursuit ceased the rearguard halted for two

hours, and resuming its march about ten o’clock, finally reached the

bridge of Quintana del Puente, outside Torquemada, at two o’clock next

morning.

Thus ended a costly affair, which might have proved much more perilous

had the French been better managed. But though their troopers fought

well enough, their generals failed to get such advantage as they

should out of their superior numbers. It is to be noted that both

Curto and Boyer have very poor records in the memoirs of Marmont, Foy,

and other contemporary writers, who speak on other occasions of the

‘inertie coupable’ and ‘faute de décision’ of the one, and call the

other ‘bon manœuvrier, mais n’ayant pas la réputation qui attire la

confiance aveugle du soldat’: Napoleon once summed them up as ‘mauvais

ou médiocres[95], along with several other generals. It seems clear,

at any rate, that they should have accomplished more, with the means

at their disposal. The damage inflicted on the British rearguard was

much smaller than might have been expected--only 230 in all, including

5 officers and 60 men taken prisoners[96]. It is probable indeed that

the pursuers suffered no less; for, though their official report spoke

of no more than about a hundred and fifty casualties, Faverot’s Brigade

alone had almost as many by itself, showing a list of 7 killed and 18

officers and 116 men wounded. But the regimental lists give 35 French

cavalry officers in all disabled that day, 5 in Curto’s division, 5 in

Merlin’s Brigade, 5 in Boyer’s Dragoons, and 2 on the staff, beside

the 18 in Faverot’s Brigade. This must indicate a total loss of nearly

300, applying the very moderate percentage of casualties of men to

officers that prevailed in Faverot’s regiments to the other corps.

The engagement had been most honourable to the two cavalry brigades

of Wellington’s rearguard, and not less so to the German Legion light

infantry. An intelligent observer--not a soldier--who saw the whole of

the fighting that day remarked, ‘I twice thought Anson’s Brigade (which

was weak in numbers and much exhausted by constant service) would have

been annihilated; and I believe we owe the preservation of that and of

the heavy German brigade to the admirable steadiness of Halkett’s two

Light Battalions.... We literally had to fight our way for four miles,

retiring, halting, charging, and again retiring. I say _we_ because I

was in the thick of it, and never witnessed such a scene of anxiety,

uproar, and confusion. Throughout the whole of this trying occasion

Stapleton Cotton behaved with great coolness, judgement, and gallantry.

I was close to him the whole time, and did not observe him for an

instant disturbed or confused[97].’ At the end of the fight one officer

in a jaded regiment observed to another that it had been a bad day. His

friend replied that it had been a most honourable day for the troops,

for at nightfall every unwounded man on an efficient horse was still in

line and ready to charge again. There had been no rout, no straggling,

and no loss of morale.

While the combat of Venta del Pozo was in progress the main body of

the army had been resting in and about Torquemada, undisturbed by

any pursuit, so well had the rearguard played its part. Next morning

(October 24th) it marched off and crossed the Carrion river by the

bridges of Palencia, Villamuriel, and Dueñas. Behind this stream

Wellington was proposing to check the enemy for at least some days.

He chose it, rather than the Pisuerga, as his defensive line for

tactical reasons. If he had stayed behind the Pisuerga, he would have

had the Carrion and its bridges in his immediate rear, and he was

determined not to fight with bridge-defiles behind him. In the rear

of the Carrion there were no such dangerous passages, and the way was

clear to Valladolid. It was fortunate that, after the lively day on the

23rd, the French made no serious attempt at pursuit upon the 24th, for

there were many stragglers that morning from the infantry. Torquemada

was the centre of a wine-district and full of barrels, vats, and even

cisterns of the heady new vintage of 1812; many of the men had repaid

themselves for a twenty-six mile march by over-deep potations, and it

was very hard to get the battalions started next morning.[98] Napier

says that ‘twelve thousand men at one time were in a state of helpless

inebriety:’ this is no doubt an exaggeration, but the diaries of

eye-witnesses make it clear that there was much drunkenness that day.

Wellington’s new position extended from Palencia on the Carrion to

Dueñas on the Pisuerga, below its junction with the first-named river.

He intended to have all the bridges destroyed, viz. those of Palencia,

Villa Muriel, and San Isidro on the Carrion, and those of Dueñas and

Tariego on the Pisuerga. He placed one of the Galician divisions

(Cabrera’s) in Palencia and south of it, supported by the 3/1st from

the 5th Division. Another Galician division (Losada’s) continued the

line southward to Villa Muriel, where it was taken up by the 5th

Division--now under General Oswald who had recently joined. The 1st,

6th, and 7th Divisions prolonged the line down the Pisuerga. Behind

the rivers, all the way, there was a second line of defence, formed by

the dry bed of the Canal of Castile, which runs for many miles through

the valley: it was out of order and waterless, but the depression of

its course made a deep trench running parallel with the Carrion and

Pisuerga, and very tenable. It must be noted that Palencia lay to

the wrong side of the Carrion for Wellington’s purpose, being on its

left or eastern bank. It had, therefore, either to be held as a sort

of _tête de pont_, or evacuated before the enemy should attack. The

Spanish officer in command resolved to take the former course, though

the town was indefensible, with a ruinous mediaeval wall: he occupied

it, and made arrangements for the blowing up of the bridge only when

his advanced guard should have been driven out of Palencia and should

have recrossed the river.

Souham, who had pushed his head-quarters forward to Magaz this day,

resolved to try to force the line of the Carrion. Two divisions under

Foy--his own and that of Bonté (late Thomières)--were to endeavour to

carry Palencia and its bridge. Maucune, with the old advanced guard,

his own division and that of Gauthier[99], was to see if anything

could be done at the bridges of Villa Muriel and San Isidro. Foy had

Laferrière’s cavalry brigade given him, Maucune retained Curto’s light

horse. The main body of the army remained in a mass near Magaz, ready

to support either of the advanced columns, if it should succeed in

forcing a passage.

Unfortunately for Wellington, everything went wrong at Palencia. Foy,

marching rapidly on the city, drove away the few squadrons of Galician

cavalry which were observing his front, and then burst open one of

its rickety gates with artillery fire, and stormed the entry with

Chemineau’s brigade. The Galician battalions in the town, beaten in

a short street fight, were evicted with such a furious rush that the

British engineer officer with the party of the 3/1st, who were working

at the bridge, failed[100] to fire the mine, whose fuse went wrong.

Most of them were taken prisoners. Colonel Campbell of the 3/1st, who

had been sent to support the Spaniards, fell back towards Villa Muriel,

judging the enemy too strong to be resisted, and the routed Galicians

had to be covered by Ponsonby’s heavy dragoons from the pursuit of the

French cavalry, who spread over the environs of Palencia and captured

some baggage trains, British and Spanish, with their escorts.

Thus Souham had secured a safe passage over the Carrion and it

mattered little to him that his other attack farther south had less

decisive success. Here Maucune, always a very enterprising--not to say

reckless--commander had marched against the two bridges of Villa Muriel

and San Isidro. He led his own division towards the former, and sent

that of Gauthier against the latter. The 5th Division had an infantry

screen of light troops beyond the river--this was pushed in, with some

loss, especially to the 8th Caçadores. Both bridges were then attacked,

but each was blown up when the heads of the French columns approached,

and a heavy fire, both of artillery and of musketry, from the other

bank checked their further advance. Gauthier then turned east in search

of a passage, and went coasting along the bank of the Pisuerga for

some miles, as far as the bridge of Tariego (or Baños, as the British

accounts call it). This had been prepared for destruction like the

other bridges, but the mine when exploded only broke the parapets and

part of the flooring. The French charged across, on the uninjured crown

of the arch, and captured some 40 of the working party[101]: they

established themselves on the opposite bank, but advanced no farther;

here the British had still the lower course of the Pisuerga to protect

them, while Gauthier had no supports near, and halted, content to have

captured the bridge, which he began to repair.

Meanwhile, the bridge of Villa Muriel having been more efficiently

blown up, Maucune dispersed his voltigeur companies along the

river-bank, brought his artillery up to a favourable position, and

entered on a long desultory skirmish with Oswald, which lasted for

some hours. During this time he was searching for fords--several were

found[102], but all were deep and dangerous. About three o’clock in

the afternoon a squadron of cavalry forded one of them, apparently

unobserved, reached the western bank, and rolled up a company of

the 1/9th which it caught strung out along the river bickering with

the skirmishers on the other side. An officer and 33 men were taken

prisoners[103]. This passage was followed by that of eight voltigeur

companies, who established themselves on the other side, but clung to

the bank of the river, the British light troops having only retired

a few score of yards from it. Having thus got a lodgement beyond

the Carrion, Maucune resolved to cross in force, in support of his

voltigeurs. Arnauld’s brigade passed at the ford which had first been

used, Montfort’s at another, to the left of the broken bridge, farther

down the stream. The French seized the village of Villa Muriel, and

established themselves in force along the dry bed of the canal, a

little to its front. Wellington had expected that Maucune would come on

farther, and intended to charge him with the whole 5th Division when

he should begin to ascend the slope above the canal. But when, after

an hour or more, the enemy made no advance, it became necessary to

assume the offensive against him, since Foy was now across the Carrion

at Palencia, and, if he commenced to push forward, he might drive the

Spanish troops between him and Villa Muriel into Maucune’s arms. The

latter must be expelled before this danger should arise: wherefore at

about 4 o’clock a brigade of Losada’s Spaniards was sent against the

right of the French division, while Pringle’s brigade attacked its

front along the bed of the canal. The Spaniards made no progress--they

were indeed driven back, and rallied with difficulty by Wellington’s

friend General Alava, who was severely wounded. To replace them the

British brigade of Barnes was brought up, and told to storm Villa

Muriel--Spry’s Portuguese supporting. After a stiff fight Pringle and

Barnes swept all before them: the enemy yielded first on the right,

but held out for some time in the village, where he lost a certain

number of prisoners. He finally repassed the fords, and sought safety

in the plain on the eastern bank, where the French reserves were now

beginning to appear in immense force. ‘Their numbers were so great that

the fields appeared to our view almost black[104].’ Wellington wrote

home that he had hitherto under-estimated Souham’s force, and only now

realized that the Army of the North had brought up its infantry as well

as its cavalry. He, naturally, made no attempt to pursue the enemy

beyond the Carrion, and the fight died down into a distant cannonade

across the water[105].

The combat of Villa Muriel cost the 5th Division some 500

casualties--not including 43 men of the 3/1st, hurt or taken in

the separate fight at Palencia, or a few casualties in Ponsonby’s

dragoons in that same quarter. Maucune’s losses were probably not

far different--they must certainly have exceeded the ‘250 killed or

wounded, 30 prisoners and 6 drowned’ of the official report: for

one of Maucune’s regiments--the 15th Line--had 200 casualties by

itself[106]. Foy at Palencia lost very few men--though his statement of

‘three or four’ as their total can hardly be correct. He had taken 100

prisoners (27 of them British), and killed or wounded 60 more, mostly

Galicians[107]. The balance of the day’s losses was certainly against

the Allies.

Moreover, despite of Maucune’s repulse, the result of the day’s

fighting was much to Wellington’s detriment, since (though the loss of

the bridge of Tariego mattered little) the capture of Palencia ruined

his scheme for defending the line of the Carrion. Souham’s whole army

could follow Foy, and turn the left flank of the Allies behind that

river. Wherefore Wellington first threw back the left flank of the 5th

Division _en potence_, to make a containing line against Foy, while

its right flank still held the line of the river about Villa Muriel.

Under cover of this rearguard, the remainder of the army evacuated

its positions on each side of Dueñas at dawn on the 26th, and marched

down the Pisuerga to Cabezon, where it passed the river at the bridge

of that place and retired to the opposite side. The 5th Division

followed (unmolested by the enemy) in the early morning: at night

the entire allied army had retired across the broad stream, and was

lining its left bank from Valladolid upward, with that city (held by

the 7th Division) as the supporting point of its southern flank, and

its northern resting on the Cubillas river. This was one of the most

surprising and ingenious movements that Wellington ever carried out.

On the 23rd he was defending the right bank of the Pisuerga--on the

24th he was on the other side and defending its left bank in a much

stronger position. He was in no way sacrificing his communications

with Portugal or Madrid, since he had behind him two good bridges over

the Douro, those of Tudela and Puente Duero, with excellent roads

southward and westward to Medina del Campo, Arevalo, and Olmedo. The

enemy might refuse to attack him, and march down the west bank of the

Pisuerga towards the Douro, but Wellington had already provided for

the destruction of the three bridges of Simancas, Tordesillas, and

Toro, and the Douro was now a very fierce and broad barrier to further

progress, twice as difficult to cross as the Pisuerga. On the other

hand, if Souham should make up his mind to come down the Pisuerga on

its eastern bank, by the restored bridge of Tariego, there was an

excellent fighting position along the Cubillas river. But the roads on

this side of the Pisuerga were bad, and the country rough, while on the

western bank the ground was flat and fertile, and the line of march

easy.

Souham, therefore, advanced as was natural from Palencia southward, on

the right bank of the Pisuerga; on the 26th he withdrew Maucune and

Gauthier to that side, and on the 27th felt the position of Cabezon,

which he decided to be impregnable, and left alone. He placed the

infantry of the Army of the North opposite it, and moved southward with

the rest of his forces. On the 28th he tried the passage of Valladolid,

after driving out a battalion of Portuguese caçadores from the suburb

beyond the Pisuerga, and cannonading the 51st across the bridge. Here

too the obstacles looked most formidable, and the French, pursuing

their march, came to the bridge of Simancas, which was blown up in

their faces by Colonel Halkett, whose brigade of the 7th Division had

been placed in this part of the British line. Halkett then sent on one

of his three battalions (the Brunswick-Oels) to Tordesillas.

This was all quite satisfactory to Wellington, who had been able to

give his troops two days’ rest, and who saw that the enemy, despite of

his superior numbers, seemed to be brought to a nonplus by the position

behind the Pisuerga. But the next evening (October 29) brought very

untoward news. Foy’s division now formed the advance-guard of the Army

of Portugal: it reached and occupied Tordesillas, where the bridge

(like that of Simancas) had its main arch destroyed. A mediaeval tower

on the south bank of the ruined structure was held by a half-company

of the Brunswick-Oels infantry as an outlying picquet: the rest of

the battalion was encamped in a wood some hundreds of yards behind.

Considering that the river was broad and swift, and that all boats

had been carefully destroyed, it was considered that the passage

was impossible. Foy thought, however, that it was worth making the

hazardous attempt to cross: he called for volunteers, and collected

11 officers and 44 men, who undertook to attempt to ford the Douro

by swimming and wading. Their leader was Captain Guingret of the 6th

Léger, one of the minor historians of the war. They placed their

muskets and ammunition on a sort of raft formed of planks hastily

joined, which certain good swimmers undertook to tow and guide. At 4

o’clock in the afternoon the 55 adventurers pushed off the raft, and

plunged into the water, striking out in a diagonal direction. Meanwhile

Foy brought down his divisional battery to the shore, and began

shelling the tower at the bridge-end. The starting-point had been well

chosen, and the raft and swimmers were borne across the stream with

surprising speed, and came ashore a few yards from the tower, which,

all naked and with arms many of which had been soaked in the water and

would not fire, they proceeded to attack. The lieutenant in charge

of the Brunswick picquet and his men lost their heads in the most

disgraceful fashion; perhaps they were demoralized by the artillery

playing on them--at any rate, after firing some ill-directed shots,

they ran off--two were captured in the tower, nine others outside it.

The swimmers, now shivering with cold, for the afternoon was bleak,

took possession of the bridgehead, and Foy’s sappers at the other

end of the broken arch began to hurry forward ropes to establish a

communication with the captured tower[108].

The major in command of the Brunswick battalion, half a mile off,

behaved as badly as the subaltern at the tower. He should have come

down in force and thrown the handful of naked men into the river.

Instead of doing so he put his corps under arms in the edge of the

wood, and sent information to his brigadier asking for orders. By the

time that Halkett heard of the matter, a rough communication had been

made across the shattered bridge, and the French were streaming over.

Nothing was done, save to move reinforcements from the 7th Division to

block the two roads that diverge from the bridgehead south and west.

This extraordinary feat of Guingret’s party, one of the most dashing

exploits of the Peninsular War, altered Wellington’s position, much

for the worse. The enemy had now secured a crossing on the Douro

opposite his extreme left wing. He had already begun to move troops

in this direction, when he saw Foy pushing forward past Simancas, and

on the morning of the 29th had resolved to leave Valladolid and make

a general shift westward, parallel to the enemy. Soon after dawn the

bridge of Cabezon was blown up, and the British right wing retired,

under cover of the troops still holding Valladolid. When the right

wing (the 5th Division and the Galicians) had passed to the rear of

that city, and were nearing the Douro bridges (Tudela and Puente de

Duero) behind it, the centre of the British line (1st, 6th, and Pack’s

Portuguese) followed, and finally the left (two brigades of the 7th

Division) evacuated Valladolid after destroying the Pisuerga bridge,

and passed the Douro in the wake of the centre. All this was done with

no molestation from the enemy, and at nightfall on the 29th every man

was on the south of the Douro, and its bridges had been blown up after

the rearguards had passed.

Wellington had been intending to hold the line of that great river

till he should have certain news of how Hill--of whose operations the

next chapter treats--was faring in the south. Since he knew that the

troops from Madrid were coming to join him, he had purposed to maintain

himself behind the Douro till Hill came up to the Adaja. The news of

the passage of Foy at Tordesillas was therefore very vexatious; but

his counter-move was bold and effective. Before the enemy had fully

repaired the bridge, or got any large force across it, he marched to

Rueda with the 1st, 6th, and 7th Divisions, and advanced from thence

to the heights opposite Tordesillas, where he formed line of battle

only 1,200 yards from the Douro, and threw up a line of redoubts, so

strong that the enemy dared not push on. The first brigade to move out

from the bridge would obviously be destroyed, and there was no room for

large forces to deploy and attack. The enemy saw this, and instead of

debouching constructed a defensive bridgehead at Tordesillas[109].

Souham indeed, having occupied Valladolid and drawn up to the line

of the Douro, remained quiescent for six days. It looked as if his

offensive movement had come to an end. The main cause of his halt was

that Caffarelli, having assisted him in driving Wellington back to the

Douro, refused to follow him further, declaring that he must go back

at once to the North, from whence the most unsatisfactory news was

reaching him day by day. Both about Pampeluna, and round Bilbao, which

the Spaniards had once more seized, things were in a most dangerous

condition. After barely visiting Valladolid he turned on his heel,

and marching fast was back at Burgos again on November 6th[110].

Deprived of the strong cavalry brigade and the two infantry divisions

of the Army of the North, Souham was no longer in a condition to press

Wellington recklessly. He had now well under 40,000 men, instead of

nearly 50,000, with which to assail the Allies in their new and strong

position. Wherefore, he resolved to wait till he had news that Soult

and King Joseph were drawing near from the South. The King’s dispatches

had told him to avoid a general action, and to wait for the effect of

the great diversion that would soon be developing against Wellington’s

rear. Hence, mainly, came the halt, which caused his adversary to think

for some days that he might be able to draw at the line of the Douro

the limit of the French advance.

The first half of the retreat from Burgos was now at an end. To

understand the manœuvres of the second half, we must first explain the

doings of Soult, King Joseph, and General Hill in New Castile during

the last week of October.

SECTION XXXIV: CHAPTER IV

HILL’S RETREAT FROM MADRID

The crisis in front of Madrid, where Hill stood exposed to attack from

the mass of French forces in the kingdom of Valencia, developed late.

We have already seen that the first dispatch from the South which

disquieted Wellington only reached him on the 19th October, and that it

was not till the 21st that he realized that all his plans for hindering

a French advance on Madrid were ineffective, and that Hill was in

serious danger.

The long delay in Soult’s evacuation of Andalusia was--as has been

already remarked--the ultimate cause of the late appearance of the

advancing columns of the enemy in front of Madrid. It was not till

September 30 that the advanced cavalry of the Army of the South got

into touch with the outlying vedettes of Treillard’s dragoons, at

Tobarra near Hellin. Four days later Soult was in conference with King

Joseph, and the Marshals Jourdan and Suchet who had come out to meet

him, at Fuente la Higuera, some fifty miles farther on the road toward

Valencia. They met with various designs, though all were agreed that

the Allies must be driven out of the capital as soon as possible.

Suchet was mainly anxious to get the Army of the South, and the King

also, out of his own viceroyalty. Joseph’s troops were wasting his

stores, and harrying the peasantry, whose shearing he wished to reserve

for himself. Soult’s men were notoriously unruly, and at the present

moment half famished, after their long march through a barren land. The

Duke of Albufera was anxious to see them all started off for Madrid

at the earliest possible moment. His only personal demand was that he

should be allowed to borrow a division from one or the other army;

for, when they should be gone, he thought that he would have barely

enough men to hold off Mackenzie and the Spaniards of the Murcian

army. He promised, and produced, large convoys of food for the service

of the Armies of the South and Centre, but pleaded that in order to

make his only base and arsenal--the city of Valencia--quite safe,

it was necessary that they should leave him 5,000 extra troops: in

especial he pleaded for Palombini’s division, which had originally been

borrowed from his own army of Aragon. Jourdan--as he tells us in his

memoirs[111]--maintained that it was necessary to turn every possible

man upon Madrid, and that Suchet could defend himself against his old

enemies with his own army alone. He might, if hard pressed, call down

some troops from Catalonia.

But the real quarrel was between Soult and King Joseph. The first

was in a sullen and captious mood, because the King had caused him

to evacuate his much-prized viceroyalty in Andalusia, by refusing to

join him there in September. But Joseph was at a much higher pitch of

passion; not only did he still remember all Soult’s disobedience in

July and August, which (as he thought) had led to the unnecessary loss

of Madrid, but he had a new and a much more bitter grievance. Some time

before the Army of the South reached Valencia, he had become possessed

of the dispatch to the minister of war which Soult had written on

August 12th, in which he hinted that the King was meditating treachery

to his brother the Emperor, and had opened up negotiations with the

Cortes in order to betray the French cause[112]. This document--as has

been explained above--had been given by Soult to a privateer captain

bound from Malaga to Toulon, who had been forced to run into the

harbour of Valencia by the British blockading squadron. Not knowing the

contents of the document, the captain had handed it over to the King,

when he found him at Valencia. Thus Joseph was aware that the Marshal

had accused him, on the most flimsy evidence, of betraying his brother.

He was justly indignant, and had contemplated, in his first outburst

of rage, the arrest and supersession of Soult. His next impulse had

been to send off his confidential aide-de-camp Colonel Deprez, to seek

first the minister of war at Paris, and then the Emperor himself in

Russia[113], with his petition for vengeance. ‘Je demande justice. Que

le Maréchal Soult soit rappelé, entendu, et puni[114].’ If his enemy

had appeared at Valencia early in September, he would probably have

taken the most extreme measures against him. But three weeks had gone

by, his anger had had time to cool, and he could realize the danger

of attempting to seize and deport a marshal whose army was double the

size of his own and Suchet’s combined, and who had a powerful faction

to support him among his own generals. Joseph hoped that a mandate

for Soult’s recall and disgrace would soon be on its way from Russia,

and meanwhile curbed his temper, ignored the Marshal’s recent charges

of treachery, and contented himself with treating him with coldness,

and overruling many of his proposals, on the mere formal ground of

discipline. He was the commander-in-chief, and could accept or reject

the suggestions of a subordinate as he pleased. Soult was no longer

three hundred miles away, as he had been in June, and orders given

by a superior on the spot could be enforced, unless the Marshal were

prepared to break out into open insubordination.

There was no difference of opinion as to the necessity for marching on

Madrid. But wrangling arose as to the amount of troops that would be

needed for the operation. Soult said that every possible man would be

required, and wished to march with the entire Army of the South on San

Clemente and Ocaña, while he suggested that the King, with the Army

of the Centre and a large detachment taken from Suchet, should move

by Requeña and Cuenca. Suchet protested in the most vigorous fashion

against being stripped of any of his divisions, and maintained that it

was rather necessary that he should be lent 5,000 men from the Armies

of the Centre of the South. The King and Jourdan refused to consider

the latter proposition, but agreed that Suchet would require all his

own troops, and that none should be taken from him. Yet approving of

the double movement on Madrid, they declared that the Army of the

Centre was too small to operate by itself, and that Soult should make

over to it Barrois’s division and a brigade of light cavalry, to bring

it up to the necessary strength. Soult protested loudly: the Emperor

had entrusted the army of the South to him; he was responsible for it;

it was one and indivisible, and so forth[115].

Joseph then put the matter to him in the form of a simple order to set

these troops on a certain route on a certain day. The Marshal did not

dare to disobey, but stated that he regarded them as still belonging to

his army, and should continue to expect reports from their commanders.

This left him with a force of five infantry and three cavalry

divisions, disencumbered of his sick, and of 2,000 old, weakly, or

time-expired men, who marched to Valencia to join the next convoy that

Suchet should send to France. Their total (omitting Barrois and the

cavalry taken off by Joseph) made up 30,000 infantry, 6,000 horse, and

with engineers, artillery, train, &c., just 40,000 men. The Army of the

Centre on October 15th showed (including Palombini, the King’s Guard

and the Spaniards) about 15,000 present under arms, to which must be

added Barrois and the two cavalry regiments that accompanied him[116],

making 6,000 men between them. Thus the total force with which Joseph

and Soult marched on Madrid was over 60,000 men[117].

The object of dividing the advancing army into two columns was not

merely to make it more easy for the troops to find food in a desolate

country, but much more to carry out a strategical plan. If the whole

army had moved by the high road through La Mancha, it would have had

no power to communicate with the Army of Portugal. The King’s idea was

that the northern column, which marched by Cuenca, and which he himself

accompanied, would ultimately get into touch with Souham, who had been

directed--by dispatches which reached him too late or not at all--to

follow Wellington in such a way that he would be able to outflank

him on the Upper Douro, and open up communications by the route of

Aranda, the Somosierra Pass, and Guadalajara, with the main French

Army. But Souham, when he commenced his advance against Wellington

on October 18th, had no order from the King later than a letter of

October 1st, written before Soult had arrived in the kingdom of

Valencia. He received no more dispatches while engaged in his pursuit

of Wellington, and was unaware of Joseph’s later plans, so that when he

reached Valladolid he made no endeavour to feel to his left, towards

Aranda, but rather extended himself to his right, in the direction of

Tordesillas and Toro, a movement which took him entirely away from

the direction in which the King hoped to find him. They did not get

into touch, or combine their operations in any way, till November

had arrived. At the same time the advance of a large body of troops

by the route of Cuenca turned out most profitable in the end to the

French strategy, for it was precisely this flanking column, of great

but unknown strength, which compelled Hill to abandon his intention

of defending the lines of the Tagus or the Tajuna. However he might

place himself opposite Soult’s army coming from the South, he had this

threatening force beyond his eastern flank, turning his positions by

roads too remote for him to guard.

King Joseph had proposed to commence his march upon Madrid at the

earliest possible moment--at the interview with the three marshals

at Fuente la Higuera he had named the 9th October as the date for

starting. But Soult declared, after a few days, that this was

impossible, owing to the necessity for collecting the convoys that

Suchet was sending him, replenishing his ammunition, and bringing up

his rearmost troops. The division of Conroux had picked up the yellow

fever, by plundering out of its route, during the march through Murcia.

It had been left in quarantine, some days behind the rest of the army,

and would take time to come up. It is probable that Soult was not

really wasting time of set purpose; but the King was certainly under

the impression that he was doing so, and their correspondence was most

acrimonious[118]. Special offence was given by Joseph’s withdrawing

Drouet from the Army of the South, and entrusting him with the command

of that of the Centre. But when Soult murmured at this and other

things, the King sent him a laconic letter of ten lines, telling him

that if he refused to obey orders he had better resign his command

and go to Paris, where he would have to give account for all his

doings. The Marshal, as on previous occasions when the question of his

resignation had been pressed home[119], avoided this simple solution of

the problem, and yielded a grudging obedience in the end.

Soult’s army was at this time cantoned with its right wing about

Almanza, Yecla, and Fuente la Higuera, and its left wing--now about to

become its advanced guard--in and around the large town of Albacete.

A detachment from this wing had been for the last ten days attacking

the isolated rock-fortress of Chinchilla, the only inland stronghold

which was held by the Spaniards in the kingdom of Murcia. It was a

Gothic donjon on an inaccessible cliff, only formidable because of its

position, and manned by a trifling garrison. It might have held out

indefinitely, having a resolute governor, a certain Colonel Cearra.

But on October 9th, in a frightful thunderstorm, lightning struck the

donjon, killed 15 soldiers, wounded many more, set the place on fire,

and disabled the governor[120]. The garrison capitulated in sheer

dismay, and the use by the French of the high road between Albacete

and Almanza was no longer incommoded by the existence of this petty

fortress.

King Joseph with the Army of the Centre marched out from Valencia

on October 17th, and had his head-quarters at Requeña on the road

to Cuenca on the 19th. On the 23rd he reached that ancient and much

dilapidated city, and found it already in the hands of Drouet, who

had arrived there on the 20th with Barrois’s division and the cavalry

brigade of Avy from the Army of the South: he had expelled from it

Bassecourt’s 3,000 Murcian troops. Soult had started on the 15th from

Albacete, and had sent off Drouet’s detachment from San Clemente to

Cuenca, while he himself marched by Belmonte on Tarancon and Santa

Cruz de la Zarza, which he reached on October 25th. He had not got

into real touch with the enemy till, on the last-named day, the

cavalry on the right of his advance came into contact with Freire’s

Murcian horse in front of Tarancon, and those on his left ran into the

vedettes of Long’s British dragoons in front of Ocaña. During the time

of his advance these troops had been retiring in front of him, from

Consuegra, Toboso, Almonacid, Belmonte, and other places in La Mancha,

where they had been providing a long screen of posts to observe his

movements. They had, by Hill’s orders, retired from the 18th onward

before the French cavalry, without allowing themselves to be caught

up. It was only immediately in front of the Tagus that they slackened

down their pace, and allowed the French to discover them. There was a

smart skirmish in front of Ocaña on October 25th, between Bonnemain’s

brigade and the 9th and 13th Light Dragoons and 10th Portuguese

cavalry. The allied squadrons were pushed back towards Aranjuez with

the loss of some 30 men, Erskine, who was in command of the cavalry

division, refusing to make a stand or to bring up his reserves. His

management of the troops was (not for the first time) much criticized

by eye-witnesses[121], but it must be remembered that Hill had directed

him not to commit himself to a serious action. On the same day Freire’s

horse were turned out of Tarancon by Perreymond’s chasseurs.

The position of the commander of Wellington’s detached corps in front

of Madrid had become a very responsible one between the 15th, when

Soult’s advance began, and the 24th, when the enemy came up to the line

of the Tagus and developed his attack. Fortunately Hill was in close

touch with his chief: so well was the line of communication between

them kept up, that it only took two days for a letter from Burgos

to reach Madrid--and vice versa. When the army had come back from

the Arlanzon to the Douro, the time became even shorter. Wellington

received at Cabezon on the evening of October 27th dispatches that Hill

had written on the morning of the 26th[122]. This contrasts wonderfully

with the slow travelling of French correspondence--Souham got at

Briviesca on October 17 a letter written by King Joseph at Valencia on

October 1st. It had been obliged to travel by the absurdly circuitous

route of Tortosa, Saragossa and Tudela. Truly the guerrilleros made

concerted movements of French armies singularly difficult.

On the 17th October Hill had already got off his first letter of alarm

to Wellington, saying that Soult was certainly on the move; by the

19th he knew that there was a column moving upon Cuenca, as well as

the larger force which was advancing by San Clemente and Belmonte. He

asked for orders, but meanwhile had to issue his own, in consonance

with earlier directions received from Wellington. These presupposed

two conditions which had not been realized--that the fords of the

Tagus would be impassable, and that Ballasteros’s Andalusian army

would already have crossed the Sierra Morena to Alcaraz and be lying

on Soult’s flank. But their general directions were still practicable:

the line of the Tagus was to be defended unless the enemy were in

overwhelming strength: if (contrary to Wellington’s expectation) the

whole French force in Valencia should advance, and its numbers prove

greater than Hill could hope to check, he had been directed to evacuate

Madrid, and to fall back beyond the Guadarrama, in order to join his

chief on the Adaja, south of Valladolid, in Old Castile[123]. The

first thing necessary was to discover the strength of the enemy--all

accounts sent in by the Spaniards agreed that it was very great, and

in particular, that the column going by Cuenca was no mere detachment,

but a solid and considerable force. Meanwhile Wellington, even as late

as October 12[124], had been informing Hill that his design of marching

down on Madrid with three divisions, when the siege of Burgos should be

either successfully concluded or else abandoned, was still retained.

Any morning a dispatch might come to say that the commander-in-chief,

with 15,000 men, was on his way to Valladolid; and therefore the army

in front of Madrid must be ready for him, concentrated and in marching

order. For if he came in person with such a reinforcement, Soult and

King Joseph could be fought and beaten, whenever they made their

appearance.

On October 15th, when the French advance had actually begun, the

allied troops in New Castile were disposed with an outer screen,

mainly consisting of Spanish troops, and a central nucleus of Hill’s

own Anglo-Portuguese placed in cantonments between Madrid and the

Tagus. Bassecourt was at Cuenca with 3,000 men; Elio, with Freire’s

Murcian horse and a weak division of infantry--5,000 men in all--was

watching the high roads from Albacete and Requeña to Madrid, in front

of Tarancon. Penne Villemur’s cavalry with Morillo’s infantry--3,500

men at the most--lay across the great chaussée from Andalusia,

about Herencia and Madridejos[125]. These troops formed the outer

screen--not taking account of the Empecinado, who was (as usual) on

the borders of New Castile and Aragon, worrying Suchet’s garrisons in

the latter kingdom. Behind Penne Villemur, and south of the Tagus,

were Long’s British and H. Campbell’s Portuguese cavalry brigades,

in La Mancha, at Toboso, Villacanas, and other places. All the rest

of the British troops were north of the Tagus, in the triangle

Madrid-Toledo-Fuentedueñas, as were also D’Urban’s Portuguese horse and

Carlos de España’s Spanish infantry division. When the advance of Soult

and King Joseph developed itself, Hill drew everything back behind

the Tagus, save Bassecourt’s division at Cuenca, which being evicted

from that place by Drouet on the 20th did not retire towards Madrid,

but went up into the mountains, and ultimately by circuitous routes

rejoined the Alicante army.

On the 25th October, when Soult’s advanced cavalry had driven Long and

Freire from Ocaña and Tarancon, Hill had his whole force, British,

Portuguese and Spanish, arrayed in what he intended to be his

preliminary fighting position along the Tagus. The extreme right was

formed by Skerrett’s 4,000 men from Cadiz, who had got up to the front

just in time to take their share in the fighting. They lay at Toledo

and Añover. Then came the four brigades of the British 2nd Division,

two of them at Aranjuez--which was held as a sort of _tête de pont_

south of the river--and two at Colmenar de Orija. The line beyond them

was prolonged by Penne Villemur and Morillo about Belmonte de Tajo and

the fords of Villamanrique. Elio and Freire, who had retired across

the bridge of Fuentedueñas after being driven out of Tarancon, was

in charge of the upper Tagus from that point to Sacedon. Behind this

front line lay the reserves--the 3rd and 4th Divisions close together

at Valdemoro and Cienpozuelos, behind Aranjuez; the Light Division at

Arganda; Carlos de España at Camporeal; Hamilton’s Portuguese division

at Chinchon. Of the cavalry, Long and Campbell’s Portuguese, after

being turned out of Ocaña, had fallen back on Aranjuez: D’Urban’s

Portuguese were at Arganda, Slade’s brigade at Morata, Victor Alten’s

at Getafe[126]. One march would concentrate the whole of the Allies,

horse and foot--save Elio and Skerrett’s detachment alone--to defend

the passage of the Tagus at either Aranjuez or Fuentedueñas, the

two crossing-places which Hill judged that Soult would take into

consideration, when he attempted to force the line of the river. About

36,000 men would be available, of whom 28,000 were Anglo-Portuguese and

8,000 Spaniards.

Soult, however, kept perfectly quiescent in front of Aranjuez and

Fuentedueñas on the 26th-27th. He had still his cavalry to the front,

but his infantry divisions were only coming up in succession: Conroux’s

in especial, being still in quarantine owing to the yellow fever, was

very far behind. But it was not merely the late arrival of his rear

that kept Soult motionless: he was waiting for the Cuenca column to

bring pressure to bear upon Hill’s flank, and did not intend to commit

himself to any important engagements until the whole French army was

in line. He expressed to King Joseph his opinion that the Allies were

drawn out upon too long a front, and that a bold thrust at Aranjuez

would probably succeed, when the attention of Hill should be drawn away

to the East by the appearance of the Cuenca column in the direction

of Fuentedueñas. Meanwhile he proceeded to make his preparations for

attacking Aranjuez on the 28th.

Such an attack was never delivered, because Hill, on the evening of the

27th, made up his mind that he must not fight upon the Tagus[127]. For

this determination there were three causes. The first was that the

river still remained so low, the autumn rains having been very scanty

hitherto, that it was fordable in many places. The mere breaking of

the bridges at Aranjuez and Fuente Dueñas did not make it impassable,

as Wellington and Hill himself had expected would be the case by the

end of October. Secondly, if the line of the Tagus were forced at any

point, the troops strung out along it had a very dangerous retreat

before them, owing to the fact that the Tajuna, a stream not much

smaller than the Tagus itself in this part of its course, runs behind

it and parallel to it at a distance of only eight or ten miles. The

number of spots where the Tajuna could be crossed, by fords, bridges,

or ferries, were very few, and it was to be feared that bodies of

troops abandoning positions on the Tagus, and retreating to the next

line, might find themselves pressed against the Tajuna at impassable

sections of its course, and so might be destroyed or captured if the

enemy pursued with vigour. Thirdly--as Soult expected--the movement of

the King and the column from Cuenca had now begun to exercise pressure

on Hill’s mind. He had already moved two British brigades of the 2nd

Division to Fuente Dueñas, replacing them at Aranjuez by Skerrett’s

force, which left Toledo. But what if the King should cross the Tagus

not at Fuente Dueñas but above it, where the river was only observed by

Elio’s Murcians? They certainly could not stop him, and the whole Tagus

line would be turned.

Hill’s resolve was now to defend not the Tagus but the line, running

North and South, of the Henares and the Jarama (the river formed by

the union of the Tajuna and Manzanares), from Guadalajara to the

point near the Puente Larga where the Jarama falls into the Tagus. On

the 28th Skerrett evacuated Aranjuez, and all the other troops fell

back in similar fashion. This position left the allied army still

covering Madrid, and with a safe retreat to the passes above it, should

things go ill. The new disposition of forces was as follows: Toledo

had been handed over to the _partida_ of El Medico, since no French

reconnaissances had come in this direction, and it was clear that the

enemy had no serious intentions on this flank. The extreme right wing

of the army was formed by the 4th Division, now once more under General

Cole, who had come up, cured of his wound, from the Salamanca hospital.

It lay at Añover, behind the point where the Jarama flows into the

Tagus, with its flank covered by the Gunten river and some of Long’s

dragoons. Next in line, six miles to the North, was Skerrett’s force,

holding the Puente Larga, the main passage over the Jarama river,

two miles north of Aranjuez. Beyond him were the 3rd Division and

Hamilton’s Portuguese about Valdemoro and St. Martin de la Vega. Then

came the Light Division at Alcalá de Henares[128]: Carlos de España’s

and Morillo’s Spaniards were in their company. Elio’s Murcians were

directed to fall back on Guadalajara. So much for the infantry: the

cavalry was kept out in front, with orders to keep a line of vedettes

on the Tagus till they should be driven in, and then to hold the course

of the Tajuna in a similar fashion, before breaking its bridges and

falling back on to the Henares and Jarama, the real fighting line. But

nothing was to be risked, and the main body of each brigade was to keep

itself in front of a practicable crossing, by which it could retreat

when the enemy should have shown himself in force. ‘Sir Rowland,’

wrote his Quartermaster-General, ‘wishes you to keep the posts on the

Tajuna, and those in front of it (on the Tagus), as long as you can

with safety. Cover the line of the Henares _as long as you can_.’[129]

Slade’s, Long’s, and Campbell’s Portuguese squadrons had the right,

covering the river bank from Aranjuez to Villamanrique with their

vedettes, D’Urban, Victor Alten, and Penne Villemur held the left, from

Villamanrique up stream.

On Oct. 28th the French cavalry, having detected the disappearance

of Hill’s infantry, crossed the Tagus both at Aranjuez and Fuente

Dueñas in force, whereupon the allied horse retired behind the Tajuna

and broke all of its bridges. Soult at once commenced to repair the

bridges of Aranjuez, and brought an infantry division forward into the

town on the 29th, but made no serious effort to feel Hill’s position

behind the Jarama and Tajuna, being determined not to involve himself

in heavy fighting till King Joseph and the column from Cuenca were up

in line. The head of the Army of the Centre, however, reached Fuente

Dueñas this same day, and began to pass[130], meeting (of course) with

no opposition. But the reconstruction of the bridge took some time,

and D’Erlon’s infantry was not across the Tagus in any force till the

next day. The King himself rode to Ocaña, conferred there with Soult,

and made arrangements for a general forward movement upon the 30th.

There would have been heavy fighting upon the 30th-31st, if Hill had

been permitted to make a stand on his chosen position with the 40,000

men whom he had placed in line between Alcalá and Añover. He had now

all his troops concentrated except Elio’s Murcians, who lay out in the

direction of Guadalajara with no enemy in front of them. But on the

morning of the 29th Hill received a dispatch from Wellington, dated

from Cabezon on the night of the 27th, which upset all the arrangements

made hitherto. The important paragraph of it ran as follows: ‘The enemy

are infinitely superior to us in cavalry, and from what I saw to-day

very superior in infantry also. We must retire, and the Douro is no

barrier for us. If we go, and cannot hold our ground beyond the Douro,

your situation will become delicate. We certainly cannot stand against

the numbers opposed to us in any situation, and it appears to me to be

necessary that you, as well as we, should retire. The only doubt which

I entertain is about the road which you should take, and that doubt

originates in the insufficiency of this army to stop the army opposed

to it for a sufficient time to allow you to reach the Adaja. I propose

to remain on the Pisuerga to-morrow (October 28) and as long as I can

upon the Douro, and then to retire by Arevalo. God knows whether I

shall be able to remain on either river!; and if I cannot, your retreat

should be by the valley of the Tagus. If I can remain, we should

join as arranged by previous letters. If I can remain on the Pisuerga

to-morrow, I shall pass the Douro on the 29th, and shall probably be

able to prevent the enemy from crossing in force till the 1st November,

in which case I shall reach Arevalo on the 3rd. You will not receive

this letter till the 29th. You will arrive at the Escurial, probably

on the 31st, at Villacastin on the 2nd, at Arevalo on the 4th....

If I should not be able to hold my ground either on the Pisuerga or

the Douro, I shall apprise you of it at the first moment, and shall

suggest your line of retreat.... Your march, as proposed (i.e. via the

Guadarrama) at least as far as Villacastin, would be secure, whereas

that by Talavera, &c., would not, till you shall cross the Tagus. Do

not order the bridge at Almaraz to be taken up or destroyed, till you

are certain you do not want it.’[131] The dispatch ended by directing

Hill to bring on with him Carlos de España’s, Morillo’s, and Penne

Villemur’s Spaniards, but to order Freire, Elio, and Bassecourt to join

Ballasteros by the route of Toledo, while the Empecinado had better go

to his old haunts in the mountains beyond Guadalajara.

This was a most alarming dispatch for Hill. Just as he had assumed

his fighting position, and was expecting to be attacked by Soult on

the following day, he received orders to retire without a moment’s

delay. And what was worst of all, he was told that the line of

retreat indicated to him would not improbably prove dangerous or

impossible, and that he might, within the next day or so, get a

counter-order, directing him to retire by the line of the Tagus and

Almaraz, since a junction with Wellington behind the Adaja might prove

impossible. But a retreat across the front of the enemy, on the route

Navalcarnero-Talavera-Almaraz, would clearly be most dangerous, since

the left wing of the Army (the Light Division, D’Urban, Alten and the

Spaniards) would have forty miles to march before they were clear of

the advancing columns of the French, debouching from Aranjuez. And to

make matters worse, the enemy was terribly strong in cavalry, and the

countryside south of Madrid was very favourable to the mounted arm. If

the army should march at once for the road by the Guadarrama, and when

it had reached the neighbourhood of Madrid or the Escurial should get

the news that the route to Villacastin and Arevalo had been blocked,

it would be almost impossible to turn off on to the Tagus line or

to make for Almaraz. The only chance left would be to take the bad

mountain-road to Avila, and thence to the upper Tormes, a choice that

no officer could contemplate without dismay in October.

There was one plea that might have been urged in favour of an instant

move toward Talavera and the Tagus route (the right wing to march by

Illescas and Fuensalida, the left by Madrid and Navalcarnero), but it

was a plea of which neither Wellington nor Hill seems to have thought.

Supposing that Hill’s 40,000 men after uncovering and evacuating Madrid

should place themselves behind the Alberche, in and about Talavera,

it was difficult to believe that Soult and King Joseph would dare to

march north to join Souham and to trouble Wellington. They could hardly

leave 40,000 men behind them uncontained, and would probably have to

halt and to face toward Hill, so as to cover the capital. This threat

to their flank and their rear might force the enemy to come to a stop,

and might secure Wellington’s rear as effectually as a junction with

him at Arevalo behind the Adaja. But on the other hand there were

two considerations which tended to make any use of the Tagus route

undesirable, save on compulsion and as a _pis aller_. The first was

that the whole valley from Toledo to Almaraz was in a state of dreadful

exhaustion, with half its land untilled and its population living on

the edge of starvation. To subsist there would be difficult. The second

and more important was that the enemy might conceivably leave Soult

and the Army of the South to hold Madrid and contain Hill’s force, and

then would still possess 20,000 men--of the Cuenca column--who might be

sent by the Guadarrama and Villacastin to take Wellington in the rear.

It would be of little use to bring the enemy to a standstill in the

direction of Madrid, if he could still spare a detachment which would

make Wellington’s position in Old Castile hopelessly untenable, and

might even put him in grave danger of being overwhelmed.

But ‘sufficient for the day is the evil thereof’ was no doubt the

reflection of Rowland Hill, a pious man well acquainted with his Bible.

He had for the present a clear order to march for the Escurial,

the Guadarrama, and Arevalo. That it might be cancelled if certain

circumstances, over which he had no control, should occur on the Douro,

was an unpleasant possibility, which did not come into consideration on

the 29th of October. Accordingly he gave orders for instant retreat.

There was little immediate danger to his left wing, since the French

column in front of it, at Fuente Dueñas, had to pass first the defiles

of the Tajuna and then those of the Jarama, and all the bridges on

both were destroyed or ready for destruction. The right wing was in

a much more delicate situation, since it was separated from Soult at

Aranjuez only by the Jarama. The outposts of the two armies were in

close touch with each other at the Puente Larga, with nothing but the

river between; and the 4th Division at Añover had to pass behind the

force holding the Puente Larga in order to get into the Madrid road.

Supposing that bridge were forced too soon, Cole would be driven off in

an eccentric line of retreat toward Toledo and Talavera.

While, therefore, all the rest of the army was set in motion for the

Escurial at dawn on the 30th, Skerrett was ordered to stand still at

the Puente Larga, and to hold it at all costs till the rest of the

allied right wing should have got clear. Meanwhile the troops about

Alcalá (the Light Division, España and Morillo) marched round the north

side of Madrid without entering the city, and continuing their course

all day and part of the night, were on the upper Manzanares, about

the palace of El Pardo by 12 p.m. At the same time the troops about

Valdemoro (3rd Division, Hamilton’s Portuguese, and the bulk of the

cavalry) retired past the south side of Madrid, and reached Aravaca,

on its west side two miles out, by night. Here Hill established his

head-quarters. The 4th Division, from Añover, which had the longest

march of all, had been started off before the bulk of the army, on

the night of the 29th, not at dawn on the 30th like the rest. It fell

into the main road at Valdemoro before daybreak, much fatigued; while

halting there the weary men discovered more wine than was good for

them--the population had fled and left their cellars exposed for the

first comer. There was a terrible amount of drunkenness, and so much

straggling, when the division marched off at noon, that many hundreds

of men, hidden in houses in a state of absolute incapacity to move,

were left behind[132]. The division, minus its drunkards, joined the

rest of the right wing at Aravaca that night. Cole remained behind

himself--while his troops marched on--to supervise the defence of the

Puente Larga. He had been told to take on Skerrett’s brigade as a part

of his division till further orders, and naturally stopped with the

rearguard.

By the night of the 30th all the army was concentrated beyond Madrid,

without having seen an enemy or suffered any molestation, save

Skerrett’s detachment, which was fighting all day at the Puente Larga

for the protection of the rest. Soult, as Hill had expected, had

resolved to force the line of the Jarama and Tajuna that day. But

while on the right his cavalry felt forward only to the Tajuna and its

broken bridges, on the left he was already in touch with his enemy, for

the Puente Larga is only two miles outside Aranjuez, from which the

approach to it lies along one of the great avenues of planes that form

part of the royal Park between the Tagus and Jarama.

The Puente Larga is an immensely long bridge of 16 arches, for the

Jarama in winter is a very broad river. Its southern end is commanded

by a slight rising ground, its northern lies in the flat and ends in

a causeway, by which the road finally mounts up on to the plateau of

Valdemoro. Thus it would have been easier to defend from the south than

from the north, as Skerrett had to do. An attempt had been made to blow

up one of the centre arches of the bridge, but though two mines had

been laid, their explosion on the morning of the 30th did not make a

complete breach, one parapet and a broad section of the footway beside

it remaining intact. The engineer officer in charge, holding that

there was no time to make another mine, had a breastwork covered by an

abattis thrown up across the northern end of the bridge. Here then was

a sort of terrace with balustrades and stone seats, where the bridge

and causeway met. Behind the breastwork and the terrace Skerrett placed

his two companies of the 95th Rifles and part of the 2/47th, while

behind the nearer part of the causeway there was room for the supports,

the rest of the 47th and the 2/87th in close column. The ridge of the

causeway almost completely sheltered them from fire from the French

side of the river, even from the most elevated ground. Three guns of

Braun’s Portuguese battery were prepared for action on the right end of

the terrace, behind the hastily extemporized breastwork. Half a mile

to the rear, at the north end of the causeway, was Skerrett’s reserve,

composed of the 3rd batt. of the First Guards, the 20th Portuguese,

and the remaining three pieces of Braun’s battery. The whole defending

force of five battalions and six guns was somewhat under 4,000 strong.

Soult was not certain whether Hill was intending to fight on the line

of the Jarama, or whether he had merely to drive in a rearguard. The

day was very misty from dawn onward, and at 9 o’clock in the morning

rain began, and fell continuously till night. Thus the Marshal could

not see in the least what sort of a force was opposed to him, and his

cavalry, exploring up and down the river bank, were unable to find any

practicable fords, or to give him any information as to whether there

were allied troops holding the entire course of the Jarama. After some

hours, therefore, Soult sent forward Reymond’s division[133] with

orders to force the Puente Larga, as he had been informed that it was

still passable owing to the failure of the mines. A battery took post

on the rising ground at the south end of the bridge, and shelled the

breastwork and the Portuguese guns, while the voltigeur companies

of the 12th Léger strung, themselves out along the river bank, and

commenced a long bickering fusillade with Skerrett’s men across the

water. The artillery and musketry fight went on for some hours, till

Braun’s three pieces ceased firing for want of ammunition. Thinking

this a favourable moment, Soult sent part of the 12th Léger against the

bridge--the head of the column never reached the narrow pass at the

half-broken eighth arch, suffering so much from the musketry that it

fell back in disorder before getting half-way across. Another regiment,

or the same re-formed, attempted a similar rush a few minutes later,

and was repulsed in the same fashion. Thereupon Soult ordered the

attack to cease, ‘seeing,’ as he says in his dispatch, ‘that we were

wasting ammunition to no effect.’ He drew off both his guns and his

voltigeurs, and the combat came to an end. A French officer appeared

on to the bridge with a white flag a little later, and got permission

to remove the many wounded lying at its south end. After dark Skerrett

withdrew very quietly, leaving dummy sentries on the bridge head and

the causeway, who were only detected as straw-stuffed great-coats at

dawn next morning. The brigade, therefore, had an undisturbed march all

night, and halted next morning on the Prado of Madrid, where it was

allowed a few hours of rest. Its loss had been about 3 officers and 60

men killed and wounded, of whom 40 were in the 2/47th and 11 in the

rifle companies. The French had five officers and about 100 men killed

and wounded[134]. The whole fight was much what the combat of the Coa

would have been in 1810, if Craufurd had fought behind and not before

the bridge of Almeida.

Soult had deduced, from the stubborn way in which the Puente Larga was

defended, that Hill was standing to fight a general action behind the

Jarama. He made during the night preparations for bringing up much

artillery and constructing bridges, but discovered at dawn that his

exertions had been unnecessary. Cavalry under Pierre Soult were pushed

out as far as Valdemoro, and captured there some 300 drunken stragglers

belonging to the 4th Division, who had not thought fit to follow

Skerrett when he passed through. The day was one of dense fog, and the

younger Soult never got in touch with Hill’s rearguard, but picked up

a rumour that Wellington was expected at Madrid that day, with two

divisions from Burgos, and that the whole allied army was prepared to

deliver battle in a position outside the capital. In consequence, his

brother the Marshal held back, and contented himself with bringing up

the entire Army of the South to the Jarama, while he sent his false

news to King Joseph and Jourdan. He proposed that the Cuenca column

should make no attempt to force the higher course of the Tajuna, where

all the bridges were broken, and behind which lay the equally tiresome

obstacle of the Henares, but should come round to Aranjuez and cross

by the Puente Larga. Jourdan advised compliance, remarking that the

forcing of the lines of the Tajuna and Henares and the making of

bridges upon them might take many days. To save time the right wing

came round to join the left[135].

This was a godsend to Hill, as it resulted in no pursuit being made

on the 31st; the French advanced cavalry only entered Madrid on the

1st November, and the second of that month had arrived before any

infantry reached the capital. By that day the allied army was over

the Guadarrama, and well on its way to Villacastin and Arevalo. The

evacuation of Madrid was accompanied with many distressing incidents:

the people were in despair at seeing themselves about to fall back once

more into the power of the ‘Intrusive King’. Many of the notables had

committed themselves so openly to the patriotic cause that they thought

it wise to depart in company with Hill’s army. An order to burn the

considerable stores of provisions which could not be brought off led

to a riot--the lower classes were on the edge of starvation, and the

sight of good food being wasted led them to make a disorderly rush on

the magazines, to drive away the commissaries, and to carry off the

flour and salt meat which was being destroyed. Probably it would have

been wise to permit them to do so without making difficulties; as the

stores, once dispersed, could hardly have been gathered in again by

the enemy. The explosion of the Arsenal in the Retiro fort was a more

absolute necessity, but the Madrileños murmured greatly that the large

building of La China, the porcelain manufactory, was blown up along

with the surrounding earthworks. The mines, it may be incidentally

remarked, were so carelessly laid that two commissariat officers were

killed by the first of them that went off, and the last nearly made an

end of Captain Cleeves, K.G.L., the artillery officer in charge of

the business. He was severely scorched, and barely escaped with his

life[136].

The rearguard of the British Army quitted the mourning city by noon on

the 31st October: the head of the column was already on that day at the

Escurial. On November 1st the passage of the Guadarrama began, and on

the 3rd the last cavalry brigade, bringing up the rear, was over the

mountains. Not a sign had been seen of the enemy, whose advanced light

cavalry only reached Galapagar, five miles south of the Escurial upon

the 2nd. The weather, however, was very bad, rain falling day after

day, and this must serve as an inadequate excuse for the fact that

straggling had already begun, and that a certain number of men dropped

so far behind that they fell into the hands of the tardily-appearing

enemy. But the loss of these laggards, for the most part the selected

bad characters of each battalion, was a small price to pay for an

unmolested retreat. Hill’s spirits rose, hour by hour, as he received

no letter from Wellington to say that the retreat to Arevalo had become

impossible, or that the line of the Douro had been lost. These terrible

possibilities might--so far as he knew--have come into existence at any

moment on the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd of November. On the 4th the whole army

from Madrid was concentrated at Villacastin, so close to Wellington’s

position behind the Douro at Rueda that dispatches could now get

through from him to Hill in less than twelve hours. The cavalry of the

extreme rearguard--the 2nd Hussars K.G.L., who had left the Escurial

only on the 3rd, had barely seen the enemy’s advanced vedettes on that

day, and were not overtaken by them till late on the 4th. The pursuit

was slow, cautious, and not executed by any very large body of horse.

Hill, therefore, granted his troops a very necessary rest of twelve

hours at Villacastin.

At last, however, on the evening of November 4th, when the worst

possibilities seemed to have passed by, and nothing could any longer

prevent Hill from joining Wellington, discouraging news, so long

expected, at last came to hand. A dispatch from Rueda informed Hill

that his chief had determined to retreat from the line of the Douro,

for reasons which will be explained in the next chapter, and that the

position in which he intended to fight was that in front of Salamanca,

where he had faced and beaten Marmont in July. This being so, there was

no reason to bring up Hill’s corps to Arevalo. Since a junction between

the two halves of the army was now secure, the troops from Madrid

should save themselves an unnecessary détour to the north, by turning

off the _chaussée_ to Valladolid and taking the cross-road by Belayos,

Villanueva de Gomez, and Peñaranda. This would bring them to Alba de

Tormes, where they would find themselves in touch with Wellington’s

own troops, which would move, by La Nava and Cantalpino, to the San

Cristobal position outside Salamanca.

This march therefore Hill executed. On the 4th he had at last heard of

the appearance of Soult’s cavalry, and that same evening his extreme

rearguard, the 2nd Hussars of the K.G.L. had a slight engagement with

French squadrons near Villacastin. But nothing was known of the main

body of the enemy’s infantry, nor was it even certain whether the Army

of the South and the Army of the Centre were both pursuing by the route

of the Guadarrama. Soult, as a matter of fact, had only made up his

mind to cross the mountains by that route on the 3rd, and nothing but

the light cavalry of his brother was near Hill’s rear. On the 4th, 5th,

and 6th November his main body was coming up, and he was in force at

Arevalo on the last-named day. Only the horse of his advanced guard had

followed Hill on the Peñaranda road. The object of the move on Arevalo

was to seek for the Army of Portugal, of which no certain news had yet

been obtained. The Duke of Dalmatia supposed however that it had to be

looked for on the side of Tordesillas, and wished to communicate with

it before he pressed Hill too closely. For if the latter had united

with Wellington--as was very possible--he might have found himself

in face of more than 60,000 men, and he had but 40,000 of his own,

since the Army of the Centre was not yet up in line. The King himself

with his Guards followed Soult after a short interval, but the three

infantry divisions (Barrois, Palombini, Darmagnac) which had formed the

column that marched from Cuenca, were far behind. Palombini’s division,

which had been told off to act as the rearguard, was observing the

accumulation of Spanish troops near Guadalajara, where Elio and

Freire had now been joined by the Empecinado, who had come in from

the direction of Aragon. They had united at the Puente de Aunion and

Sacedon, a few miles south-east of Guadalajara, on the upper Tagus.

There were now 8,000 or 9,000 enemies in this quarter, still quite

close to Madrid, and Joseph and Jourdan had to come to a difficult

decision. If a garrison were left in Madrid, and a strong column sent

to evict Elio from his position, the Army of the Centre would have few

troops left who could follow Soult in the pursuit of Wellington. But

if the whole Army of the Centre marched by the Guadarrama, there was

nothing to prevent Elio from coming down to reoccupy Madrid, and the

political effect of the evacuation of the capital would be detestable,

for it would look as if the whole French army was but a flying column

incapable of holding what it had won[137]. After some hesitation

the King and Jourdan resolved that the military necessity of taking

forward every available man to crush Wellington was all-important. If

Soult alone joined the Army of Portugal in Old Castile the French in

this direction would not outnumber the combined forces of Wellington

and Hill, and might be brought to a stand--perhaps even beaten. The

20,000 men of the Cuenca column must be brought forward at all costs

to secure a numerical superiority for the French arms in the North.

Madrid therefore must be abandoned, and the infantry of the King’s army

marched out of it on the 6th and 8th November, Palombini bringing up

the rear once more. Even the sick and Joseph’s Spanish courtiers had to

be taken on, with a comfortless assurance that they might in the end

be dropped at Valladolid[138]. On the 8th the leading division of the

Army of the Centre reached Villacastin by forced marches, the rear

did not get up till the 10th[139]. Thus it is clear that on November

5th, when Hill executed his flank movement on Fontiveros and Peñaranda,

there was nothing near him save Soult’s advanced cavalry, supported at

an interval by the infantry of the Army of the South, while the Army of

the Centre had not even left Madrid. If Wellington had but known this,

it might have brought about a change in his orders; but--as cannot too

often be repeated--the ‘fog of war’ sometimes lies very thick around a

general at the moment when he has to make his crucial decision, and on

these two days the enemy _might_ have been closed up, instead of being

strung out in detachments over a hundred miles of mountain roads. A

few days after the French left Madrid the Empecinado came down to the

capital and occupied it--Elio had gone off, according to Wellington’s

original orders, to place himself in communication with the Army of

Andalusia (now no longer under Ballasteros) and took post in La Mancha.

Bassecourt reoccupied Cuenca. There was not a French soldier left in

New Castile, and all communication between Soult and King Joseph on one

side and Suchet in Valencia on the other, were completely broken off.

SECTION XXXIV: CHAPTER V

THE BURGOS RETREAT. THE OPERATIONS ROUND SALAMANCA. NOVEMBER 1-NOVEMBER

15, 1812

When we turned aside to narrate the operations round Madrid, and

Hill’s retreat across the Guadarrama Pass, we left Wellington and his

army on November 1st drawn up on the south side of the Douro, with

head-quarters at Rueda. Their right flank was covered by the Adaja,

the cavalry of their left flank was opposite Toro, where the French

were visible in some force, and were known to be repairing the bridge

which had been destroyed on October 30th. It was evident that the

main body of the enemy still lay about Tordesillas, Simancas, and

Valladolid, but its exact strength was not ascertainable. A rumour

had crossed the river that Caffarelli and the Army of the North were

already returning to their own regions beyond Burgos; it was a true

rumour, but Wellington could get no confirmation for it[140]. Till the

facts were ascertained, he was bound to consider it probable that the

whole body of the enemy--nearly 50,000 strong--which had pursued him

since October 22nd was still in his front[141]. With such a force he

considered himself unable to cope, if once it crossed the river whose

line he was defending. ‘They are infinitely superior to us in cavalry,

and from what I saw to-day (October 27) were superior in infantry

also. We must retire therefore, and the Douro is no barrier for us.’

He held on however in the position that he had taken up on October 30

till November 5, partly because he was wishing to cover as long as

possible Hill’s march to join him from Madrid, partly because Souham

made no attempt for some days to debouch in force across the bridges of

Tordesillas or Toro.

Meanwhile the near approach of Hill and the force from Madrid, with

Soult’s army in pursuit, was modifying the position from day to day.

By November 4th Hill, as we have already seen, was at Villacastin with

all his five infantry divisions, and the 7,000 or 8,000 Spaniards of

Morillo and Carlos de España. He was being followed by the French, but

reported that day that he had so far seen no more than four regiments

of cavalry and two battalions of infantry. Was this the advanced

guard of the whole 60,000 men whom Soult and King Joseph had brought

against Madrid, or was it a mere corps of observation? ‘I do not think

it clear,’ wrote Wellington to Hill, at 9 o’clock on the morning of

November 5th, ‘that the enemy is following you in force. I conceive

these four regiments and two battalions to have been sent only to see

what you are doing.’[142] This day Wellington could have united himself

to Hill without any fear of being hindered by either of the French

armies, and could have had the whole of his 65,000 men concentrated

between Medina del Campo and Arevalo within thirty-six hours. The

enemy, though their two armies taken together outnumbered him by more

than 25,000 men, could not possibly unite within a similar time. He

had, therefore, the position which enterprising generals most desire,

that of lying between the two fractions of a hostile force, which

cannot combine easily, and of being able to bring superior numbers

against either one of them. One can speculate without much difficulty

as to what Napoleon would have done in a similar posture of affairs.

But Wellington, after mature consideration, resolved that it would not

be prudent to unite the two halves of his army and to march against

one or other of his enemies. It is fortunate that he has left a record

of the reasons which prevented him from doing so. They are contained

in a dispatch to Lord Bathurst dated November 8th, when he had already

committed himself to a wholly different policy. If he were to march

with his own army, he wrote, to join Hill about Arevalo, with the

object of falling upon the heads of Soult’s columns as they debouched

on Villacastin, Souham could cross the Douro unopposed behind him at

Toro, whose bridge was now repaired, and get behind his left flank.

While he was engaged with Soult and the King, who might conceivably

have 50,000 men at the front[143], and be able to offer a good

resistance, Souham could close in on his rear, and after cutting him

off from Salamanca and his magazines, could attack him, while he was

committed to the contest with the army from Madrid.

On the other hand, if he took the second alternative, and brought

Hill’s column up to Medina del Campo and Tordesillas, Souham would keep

north of the Douro, and could not be assailed: ‘the enemy would not

attempt to pass so long as we remained in our position.’ But meanwhile

Soult and the King, being unopposed by Hill, might cut him off from his

base and magazines, because the line Villacastin-Fontiveros-Salamanca

is shorter than that from Tordesillas to Salamanca. ‘The enemy would

have had the shortest line to the Tormes by Fontiveros, if they had

preferred to march in that direction rather than to follow the march of

Sir Rowland Hill’s troops.’

This last argument, it must be confessed, seems disputable,

for not only are the roads Rueda-Fuentesauco-Salamanca and

Rueda-Pitiegua-Salamanca as a matter of fact no longer than the road

Villacastin-Fontiveros-Peñaranda-Salamanca[144], but they were in all

respects better roads, through a level country, while the route which

Wellington assigns to the enemy (and which Hill actually pursued)

passes through much more difficult and hilly regions, and was but a

cross-country line of communications. It would seem doubtful also

whether there was any probability that the enemy, granting that he

had his whole force concentrated at the front, would dare to take

this route, since it was the one which made a junction with Souham

and the Army of Portugal most difficult to him. Soult and Joseph were

very badly informed as to the exact situation of their friends from

the North, but it was clear that they would have to be looked for

rather in the direction of Tordesillas and Valladolid than in that of

Salamanca. As a matter of fact, even after Wellington’s retreat, Soult

took the trouble to move on Arevalo, instead of marching on Fontiveros

and Peñaranda, for the sole purpose of getting into communication with

Souham, whose co-operation was all-important to him.

But putting this particular objection aside, it seems certain that if

Wellington had concentrated opposite Souham, behind the Douro, Soult

and the King could not have been prevented from getting into touch

with the Army of Portugal by taking the route Villacastin, Segovia,

Olmedo, keeping the Adaja between them and the Allies, and making for

the upper passages of the Douro (Tudela, &c.), which Wellington had

surrendered to Souham on October 30th. This fact is conclusive against

the policy of drawing up Hill to Rueda and making a move against the

northern enemy. Though a march by Soult and Joseph against Salamanca

was improbable, there were perfectly sound reasons for rejecting this

particular combination.

As much cannot be said on purely strategical grounds for Wellington’s

resolution to retreat on Salamanca instead of making a blow at

Soult--his old original plan of September and October. Supposing that

he had left nothing more than a screen along the Douro to ‘contain’

Souham--say the Galicians and a little cavalry--he could have joined

Hill at or near Arevalo on the 5th or 6th, and have calculated on a

couple of days’ start before the Army of Portugal could have followed

him--it had to concentrate from scattered cantonments and to cross on

one or other of two ill-repaired bridges. Meanwhile Soult would have

been caught on the 6th with his 40,000 men strung out on many miles of

mountain road, and with his supports (the Army of the Centre) still

at Madrid--they did not even start for the Guadarrama till that same

day. It is clear that the Duke of Dalmatia would have had to retreat in

haste, under pain of suffering a disaster: his advance guard might very

possibly have been cut up and maltreated, and he would have had to

fall back on the passes, where food was unobtainable, and long sojourn

impossible.

This would have been the Napoleonic method of dealing with the

situation. But it would be absurd to blame Wellington for not adopting

such a plan. Now, as always, he had to play the safer game, simply

because he could not afford to take risks. Napoleon could face with

indifference the loss of 5,000 or 10,000 men from a forced march in

bad weather, ending in an operation that miscarried--such had been

his march against Sir John Moore in December 1808. Wellington could

not. The season at the moment was singularly unfavourable for a sudden

offensive stroke, involving rapid movement. The troops were almost worn

out: Hill’s column had only just terminated a fatiguing retreat, the

troops from Burgos had only been granted five days’ rest since the end

of a similar march. The number of sick (about 17,000) was alarming,

and many battalions were already reduced to 250 or 300 bayonets.

What was worse, straggling had shown itself in the most vexatious

form, not only among the troops of Wellington’s own column, but among

Hill’s divisions, which ought to have done better after their long

sojourn in quiet cantonments round Madrid. A sudden dash to surprise

Soult by forced marches upon Villacastin would have been very costly,

even before the fighting began. And if the Marshal refused to stand,

and simply retired in haste toward the Army of the Centre, it would

be impossible to push him far. Meanwhile Souham would be across the

Douro, and threatening Salamanca, or approaching Wellington’s own rear.

After all there remained the cardinal fact that the enemy had a great

numerical superiority: it was even over-estimated in Wellington’s own

mind, since he thought that Caffarelli and the Army of the North were

still at Valladolid.

Hence came his final decision to retreat by easy marches toward the

strong positions about Salamanca, leaving the offensive to the enemy,

and granting them the opportunity of uniting their two long-separated

armies. Wellington’s own plea in favour of this resolve must be

quoted--‘The two corps of this army, particularly that which has been

in the North, are in want of rest. They have been continually in the

field, and almost continually marching, since the month of January

last; their clothes and equipments are much worn, and a period in

cantonments would be very useful to them. The cavalry likewise are weak

in numbers, and the horses rather low in condition. I should wish to

be able to canton the troops for a short time, and I should prefer the

cantonments on the Tormes to those farther in the rear. I do not know

exactly what the force of the enemy is. The Army of Portugal have about

36,000 men, of which 4,000 is cavalry[145]. The Army of the North have

10,000 men, of which 1,200 is cavalry. It is hard to judge of the exact

extent of Soult’s force. It is reported that the enemy brought from

Valencia to the Tagus from 40,000 to 45,000 men, but I should consider

this to be rather below the number that the Armies of Andalusia and the

Centre could bring up, without any troops from the Armies of Aragon and

Valencia[146]. Soult is particularly strong in good cavalry, and there

are several more regiments in the Army of the Centre. It will remain

to be seen what number of troops can be brought to operate against our

position (on the Tormes): as unless Madrid should be again abandoned to

its fate by the King, he must make arrangements to resist the attacks

which Elio and the guerrilleros (the Empecinado, El Medico, &c.) will

make on that city, even if General Ballasteros should not move forward

in La Mancha. I propose therefore to wait at present on the Tormes,

till I shall ascertain more exactly the extent of the enemy’s force. If

they should move forward, I can either bring the contest to a crisis on

the positions of San Christoval, or fall back to the Agueda, according

to what I shall at the time consider to be best for the cause[147].’

Wellington’s estimate of a total force for the enemy of rather

more than 90,000 men was not far out, for if he wrongly supposed

that Caffarelli might still be at the front with his 10,000 men,

he underrated the total of the Armies of the South and Centre very

considerably. They had not merely the something over 45,000 men of

which he wrote, but nearly 60,000. But he was under the impression that

King Joseph would probably leave a large detachment to defend Madrid;

and if the enemy came forward against the line of the Tormes with

anything less than 70,000 men, he was prepared to defend it. His own

force, counting Hill, but allowing for the losses on the retreats from

Burgos and Madrid, which would amount to about 2,000 at the most, would

be not far below that same figure, including 18,000 Spaniards. But the

strength of the position would compensate for the inferior value of

these auxiliaries in line of battle. Just at this moment Wellington was

not at all contented with the Galicians, whose conduct at Palencia and

Villa Muriel had irritated him. ‘I was sorry to observe,’ he wrote to

Lord Bathurst, ‘that in the affair of the 25th October, although the

Spanish soldiers showed no want of spirit or of disposition to engage

the enemy, they were totally unable to move with the regularity and

order of a disciplined body--by which alone success can be hoped for in

any contest with the French[148].’

There were three possibilities before Wellington when he had made up

his mind to retire to the Tormes. The French might be contented with

having driven him out of New Castile and away from the Douro, and

press him no farther. This would be quite probable, if they had made

up their minds to detach a large force to hold Madrid. Or, secondly,

they might come up against him to Salamanca, with a force no greater

than his own. In this case he was prepared to fight, and hoped to come

well out of the business. Thirdly, there was the chance that they

might bring forward every available man, and try to evict him from his

chosen position: if they were in very great strength he must yield,

and go back to the Agueda and the shelter of Ciudad Rodrigo, much

contrary to his desire. But he was not intending to give way, and to

involve himself in the difficulties of a retreat during the cold and

rainy month of November, until he should be convinced that the French

were too strong for him and that a rearward move was inevitable. In

the Salamanca positions he could force them to show their strength,

and yet have the power to draw off if that strength proved to be

overpowering.

The retreat towards Salamanca commenced on November 5th, when

Wellington both directed Hill to move on Fontiveros and Flores de

Avila instead of on Arevalo, and also began to shift his own troops

south-westward from the position about Rueda. On this day the 5th

Division and Ponsonby’s cavalry brigade marched for Alaejos. The rest

of the Army were warned that their movement would begin next day[149].

It was well to keep Souham beyond the Douro, by continuing to show

great strength in his front, till Hill should have got some way

westward. There was no sign of activity in the enemy’s cantonments,

save that troops seemed to be moving towards Toro along the road on

the north bank parallel with the river[150]. The retreat was therefore

carried out in a leisurely fashion on the 6th-7th-8th: on the 6th

Wellington’s head-quarters were at Torrecilla de la Orden, on the 7th

and 8th at Pitiegua. The divisions, covered by a cavalry rearguard, and

with other cavalry on their flank, thrown out to observe the French

at Toro, marched by several converging roads, some going through

Alaejos, others through Castrejon and Vallesa, others by Fresno and

Cantalpino[151]. There was no hurry, as there was no pursuit, and by

the evening of the 8th all were safely placed in their old positions

of June, north of the Tormes, in a semicircle from Aldea Lengua to San

Cristobal. The weather being still very cold and rainy, as many of the

troops were quartered in the villages as possible, and some as far back

as Salamanca town; but many had to bivouac in the open. After several

nights spent in position, dysentery and rheumatism, which had already

been thinning the ranks, became more common than ever.

Hill’s column, meanwhile, having left the main road at Villacastin on

the 4th and having followed the bad cross-paths between Belayos and

Fontiveros, got into a better route at the latter place, which it

reached after a very fatiguing march on the night of the 5th. D’Urban’s

Portuguese horse, covering the north flank of the retreat, had a

narrow escape of being cut off from the main column, near Villanueva

de Gomez, by Soult’s advanced cavalry, which was pushing up northward

to Arevalo, but D’Urban got across their front in time. Hill’s Spanish

divisions did not follow the same road as the British, but had moved

from Villacastin to Arevalo on the 4th, covered by their own cavalry

(Penne Villemur): on the 5th they marched from Arevalo to Fontiveros

and rejoined Hill’s head-quarters[152]. They had moved along two sides

of a triangle, the British only along the base--but the advantage of a

good road as opposed to a very bad one compensated for the difference

of miles covered. Presumably the order to Hill to take the wretched

by-paths that he followed was dictated by the idea that, if these

routes were neglected, Soult might send a column along them, and

anticipate Hill on the upper Tormes. Nothing of the kind was attempted;

the Marshal’s only preoccupation at this time was that he must at all

costs look for the Army of Portugal, and his explorations were directed

north, toward Arevalo. Hill’s rear was only followed by a vanguard of

light cavalry, which behaved with great caution, and contented itself

with gathering up stragglers, who fell behind the column by their

own fault or from exhaustion. Soult claims to have taken some 600 of

them[153], a figure which English authorities reduce by about half:

some scores of drunkards were undoubtedly captured in the wine vaults

of Villacastin[154].

On the 6th Hill’s column marched from Fontiveros to Peñaranda, the

Light Division and Morillo forming the infantry rearguard, covered at a

distance by Long’s and Victor Alten’s squadrons. On the 7th the stage

covered was from Peñaranda to Coca (not far from Garcia Hernandez)

within easy reach of the Tormes, whose passage it was evident would

be made without any interference by the enemy. On the 8th, the day

on which Wellington entered the San Cristobal position, Hill crossed

the Tormes at Alba, leaving Howard’s brigade of the 2nd Division and

Hamilton’s Portuguese to hold that town, which lies on the east bank

of the river. It was intended to maintain Alba as a sort of _tête de

pont_ to cover the bridge. Though dominated by heights a few hundred

yards away[155], it was extremely suitable for defence against an

enemy unprovided with heavy artillery. It was surrounded by an old

Moorish wall, with gaps that could easily be blocked, and its castle,

a solid donjon, completely commanded and protected the bridge. Slade’s

cavalry brigade remained out as a screen in front of Alba, to watch

for the approach of the enemy. When the rest of the troops had crossed

the Tormes, Wellington directed Hill to send him the 3rd, 4th, and

Light Divisions, España’s Spaniards, and Victor Alten’s and D’Urban’s

cavalry. The force left under his lieutenant was now to consist, as in

the early summer, of nothing more than the old Estremaduran corps--the

2nd Division, Hamilton’s Portuguese, the British cavalry of Slade and

Long, the Portuguese cavalry of Campbell and the Spanish squadrons of

Penne Villemur--about 20,000 men of the three nations. These remained

behind Alba, in the woods above the Tormes. The troops requisitioned

from Hill moved up to Calvarisa de Arriba, Machacon, and other villages

in the angle of the Tormes facing Huerta, from whence they could be

drawn into the San Cristobal position, by the fords of Aldea Lengua

and Santa Marta, if necessary. The whole army, not much under 70,000

strong, was now formed in line from San Cristobal to Alba, waiting to

see whether the advance of the enemy would be by the eastern or the

northern bend of the river.

The French were slow in making their appearance, and still slower in

developing their intentions. For some days there was little more than

cavalry seen in front of Wellington’s position. The reason of their

tardy appearance was that Soult had carried out his design of uniting

with the Army of Portugal before attempting to press the Allies. On

the 8th he was still at Arevalo in person, with the main body of his

infantry: light cavalry alone had followed Hill. Only on the preceding

night had his scouts, pushing out in the direction of Medina del

Campo, succeeded in discovering Souham, who had crossed the bridge of

Tordesillas on the 6th, after Wellington’s departure from Rueda, and

had sent reconnaissances in all directions to look for the Army of the

South, whose approach had come to his knowledge not by any dispatch

received but only by the vague rumours of the countryside. Meanwhile,

he had held back his infantry, being not too sure that Wellington

might not have evacuated Rueda only as a trick, to lure him forward:

it was possible that he had been joined by Hill, and was waiting a few

miles back from the Douro, with the object of falling upon the Army

of Portugal with superior strength, as it should be debouching from

the bridge of Tordesillas. But the roads were found empty in every

direction, and presently Souham’s cavalry came in touch with Soult’s,

and both sides discovered the exact situation.

Soult, Jourdan, and the King agreed that their best policy was to bring

every man forward from all the three armies, and to force Wellington to

battle, if he could be induced to stand his ground. But matters must

not be pressed till the Army of the Centre, which had only started from

Madrid on the 6th, should come up into line; and some of the divisions

of the Army of the South were still far to the rear, having halted

about Villacastin and Arevalo. Accordingly, it was not till the 10th

that Wellington saw any serious force accumulating before the Salamanca

positions, and even then it was the advanced guard alone of the enemy

which had arrived. On the 9th Soult’s head-quarters were at Peñaranda,

those of the King at Flores de Avila, those of Souham at Villaruela.

On the 10th Soult was in person before Alba de Tormes, but had only

his cavalry and two infantry divisions in hand; the rest were still in

the rear. The Army of the Centre had its vanguard at Macotera; that of

the Army of Portugal had reached Babilafuente[156]. The troops were

much tried by the weather, and those of Soult’s army in particular

were feeling their privations. They had been almost continually on the

march since September, having halted but a few days on the borders

of Valencia. The bitter November cold of the plateau of Old Castile

was felt almost unbearable by men who had been for three years lodged

in Andalusia, whose climate is almost sub-tropical and never suffers

the extremes that are usual in Northern Spain[157]. Soult’s Army,

too, had the worst roads during the last days of the advance, and its

commissariat arrangements had gone wrong, while little could be gleaned

from the countryside. The horses began to fail, and stragglers to drop

behind.

On the 10th Soult resolved to see whether Wellington was disposed to

hold Alba de Tormes, or whether the detachment there would blow up the

bridge and retire when attacked. Operations began by the driving in of

the pickets of Long’s Light Dragoons, who had been kept as far forward

as possible till the last moment. They lost a few men in retiring.

Soult then placed three batteries on the hill to the east of the town,

and commenced to shell it at about two o’clock in the afternoon;

shortly afterwards twelve voltigeur companies of the Fifth Division

deployed in long lines, and began to press up towards the place, taking

every possible advantage of cover, while the heavy columns of the

regiments to which they belonged, and of Daricau’s division in support,

were visible in the rear.

Alba was held by Howard’s brigade of the 2nd Division (1/50th, 1/71st,

1/92nd); on the other side of the water, as a reserve, were Hamilton’s

Portuguese (2nd, 4th, 10th, and 14th Line) and the batteries of Arriaga

and Braun, placed in a position from which they could flank any attacks

on the bridge. The town had been prepared for defence, the gaps in its

walls having been filled up with rough palisading, and its non-existent

gates built up with barricades of stone and timber. Each of the three

British regiments held one-third of the circumference of the wall,

with half its companies in firing-line and the others in reserve

under shelter. From two till five, when dusk fell, Soult continued to

batter the town; but ‘notwithstanding the shower of shot and shell

which plunged and danced about the streets in every direction[158]’

the losses of the defenders were quite moderate: they had been given

time on the 9th to extemporize good shelter with barricades and

traverses, and kept under cover. Thrice during the afternoon the lines

of voltigeurs, who had thrown themselves into the ravines and ditches

around the walls, received orders to charge in; but on each occasion

the bickering fire which they had hitherto received burst out into a

blaze as they approached the walls, and their losses were so great that

they had to run back into cover. Hamilton reinforced the garrison at

dusk with two of Da Costa’s Portuguese battalions (of the 2nd and 14th

Line). At nightfall the French had accomplished absolutely nothing.

Next morning at dawn (about 6 o’clock) the cannonade recommenced,

and the French skirmishers once more pushed up towards the walls. Da

Costa’s light companies were used against them, as well as those of

the three British battalions. But the attack was not pressed home,

and after a few hours Soult desisted: the guns were drawn off, the

infantry retired. The Marshal wrote to King Joseph that it was no use

pressing on: he had thrown 1,500 shot into the place without effect: by

persisting ‘_nous y perdrions du monde sans résultat_[159].’ Wellington

had to be attacked, but the way to reach him was certainly--as it

appeared--not to be over the bridge of Alba. From the 11th to the

14th Howard’s and da Costa’s brigades held the place without further

molestation. Their modest casualty list, on the afternoon of the

10th and the morning hours of the 11th, had been 21 men killed and 3

officers and 89 men wounded: 8 killed and 36 wounded were Portuguese.

The 1/92nd with 38 men hit was the battalion that suffered most[160].

The French loss had been a little greater--apparently 2 officers killed

and 6 wounded[161], with some 150 casualties in the rank and file: the

45th Ligne with 5 officers hurt contributed the largest total to the

list.