"And nearer, fast and nearer,
Doth the red whirlwind come;
And louder still, and still more loud,
From underneath that rolling cloud,
Is heard the trumpet's war-note proud,
The trampling and the hum.
And plainly, and more plainly,
Now through the gloom appears,
Far to left and far to right,
In broken gleams of dark-blue light,
The long array of helmets bright,
The long array of spears."
--MACAULAY.
Albuera is the fiercest, bloodiest, and most amazing fight in the mighty
drama of the Peninsular war. On May 11, 1811, the English guns were
thundering sullenly over Badajos. Wellington was beyond the Guadiana,
pressing Marmont; and Beresford, with much pluck but little skill, was
besieging the great frontier fortress. Soult, however, a master of war,
was swooping down from Seville to raise the siege. On the 14th he
reached Villafranca, only thirty miles distant, and fired salvos from his
heaviest guns all through the night to warn the garrison of approaching
succour. Beresford could not both maintain the siege and fight Soult;
and on the night of the 13th he abandoned his trenches, burnt his gabions
and fascines, and marched to meet Soult at Albuera, a low ridge, with a
shallow river in front, which barred the road to Badajos. As the morning
of May 16, 1811, broke, heavy with clouds, and wild with gusty
rain-storms, the two armies grimly gazed at each other in stern pause,
ere they joined in the wrestle of actual battle.
All the advantages, save one, were on the side of the French. Soult was
the ablest of the French marshals. If he had not Ney's _élan_ in attack,
or Massena's stubborn resource in retreat, yet he had a military genius,
since Lannes was dead, second only to that of Napoleon himself. He had
under his command 20,000 war-hardened infantry, 40 guns, and 4000
magnificent cavalry, commanded by Latour Maubourg, one of the most
brilliant of French cavalry generals. Beresford, the British commander,
had the dogged fighting courage, half Dutch and half English, of his name
and blood; but as a commander he was scarcely third-rate. Of his army of
30,000, 15,000 were Spanish, half drilled, and more than half
starved--they had lived for days on horse-flesh--under Blake, a general
who had lost all the good qualities of Irish character, and acquired all
the bad ones peculiar to Spanish temper. Of Beresford's remaining troop
8000 were Portuguese; he had only 7000 British soldiers.
Beresford ought not to have fought. He had abandoned the siege at
Badajos, and no reason for giving battle remained. The condition of
Blake's men, no doubt, made retreat difficult. They had reached the
point at which they must either halt or lie down and die. The real force
driving Beresford to battle, however, was the fighting effervescence in
his own blood and the warlike impatience of his English troops. They had
taken no part in the late great battles under Wellington; Busaco had been
fought and Fuentes de Onoro gained without them; and they were in the
mood, both officers and men, of fierce determination to fight _somebody_!
This was intimated somewhat roughly to Beresford, and he had not that
iron ascendency over his troops Wellington possessed. As a matter of
fact, he was himself as stubbornly eager to fight as any private in the
ranks.
The superiority of Soult's warlike genius was shown before a shot was
fired. Beresford regarded the bridge that crossed the Albuera and the
village that clustered at the bridge-head as the key of his position. He
occupied the village with Alten's German brigade, covered the bridge with
the fire of powerful batteries, and held in reserve above it his best
British brigade, the fusileers, under Cole, the very regiments who, four
hours later, on the extreme right of Beresford's position, were actually
to win the battle. Soult's sure vision, however, as he surveyed his
enemies on the evening of the 15th, saw that Beresford's right was his
weak point. It was a rough, broken table-land, curving till it looked
into the rear of Beresford's line. It was weakly held by Blake and his
Spaniards. Immediately in its front was a low wooded hill, behind which,
as a screen, an attacking force could be gathered.
In the night Soult placed behind this hill the fifth corps, under Gerard,
the whole of his cavalry, under Latour Maubourg, and the strength of his
artillery. When the morning broke, Soult had 15,000 men and 30 guns
within ten minutes' march of Beresford's right wing, and nobody suspected
it. No gleam of colour, no murmur of packed battalions, no ring of
steel, no sound of marching feet warned the deluded English general of
the battle-storm about to break on his right wing. A commander with such
an unexpected tempest ready to burst on the weakest point of his line was
by all the rules of war pre-doomed.
At nine o'clock Soult launched an attack at the bridge, the point where
Beresford expected him, but it was only a feint. Beresford, however,
with all his faults, had the soldierly brain to which the actual thunder
of the cannon gave clearness. He noticed that the French battalions
supporting the attack on the bridge did not press on closely. As a
matter of fact, as soon as the smoke of artillery from the battle raging
at the bridge swept over the field, they swung smartly to the left, and
at the double hastened to add themselves to the thunderbolt which Soult
was launching at Beresford's right. But Beresford, meanwhile, had
guessed Soult's secret, and he sent officer after officer ordering and
entreating Blake to change front so as to meet Soult's attack on his
flank, and he finally rode thither himself to enforce his commands.
Blake, however, was immovable through pride, and his men through sheer
physical weakness. They could die, but they could not march or deploy.
Blake at last tried to change front, but as he did so the French attack
smote him. Pressing up the gentle rise, Gerard's men scourged poor
Blake's flank with their fire; the French artillery, coming swiftly on,
halted every fifty yards to thunder on the unhappy Spaniards; while
Latour Maubourg's lancers and hussars, galloping in a wider sweep,
gathered momentum for a wild ride on Blake's actual rear.
[Illustration: Battle of Albuera, 16th May, 1811. From Napier's
"Peninsular War."]
Beresford tried to persuade the Spaniards to charge as the French were
thus circling round them. Shouts and gesticulations were in vain. He
was a man of giant height and strength, and he actually seized a Spanish
ensign in his iron grip, and carried him bodily, flag and all, at a run
for fifty yards towards the moving French lines, and planted him there.
When released, however, the bewildered Spaniard simply took to his heels
and ran back to his friends, as a terrified sheep might run back to the
flock. In half-an-hour Beresford's battle had grown desperate.
Two-thirds of the French, in compact order of battle, were perpendicular
to his right; the Spaniards were falling into disorder. Soult saw the
victory in his grasp, and eagerly pushed forward his reserves. Over the
whole hill, mingled with furious blasts of rain, rolled the tumult of a
disorderly and broken fight. Ten minutes more would have enabled Soult
to fling Beresford's right, a shattered and routed mass, on the only
possible line of retreat, and with the French superiority in cavalry his
army would have been blotted out.
The share of the British in the fight consisted of three great attacks
delivered by way of counter-stroke to Soult's overwhelming rush on the
hill held by Blake. The first attack was delivered by the second
division, under Colborne, led by General Stewart in person. Stewart was
a sort of British version of Ney, a man of vehement spirit, with a daring
that grew even more flame-like in the eddying tumult and tempest of
actual battle. He saw Soult's attack crumpling up Blake's helpless
battalions, while the flash of the French artillery every moment grew
closer. It was the crisis of the fight, and Stewart brought on
Colborne's men at a run. Colborne himself, a fine soldier with cool
judgment, wished to halt and form his men in order of battle before
plunging into the confused vortex of the fight above; but Stewart, full
of breathless ardour, hurried the brigade up the hill in column of
companies, reached the Spanish right, and began to form line by
succession of battalions as they arrived.
At this moment a wild tempest of rain was sweeping over the British as,
at the double, they came up the hill; the eddying fog, thick and slab
with the smoke of powder, hid everything twenty yards from the panting
soldiers. Suddenly the wall of changing fog to their right sparkled into
swiftly moving spots of red; it shone the next instant with the gleam of
a thousand steel points; above the thunder of the cannon, the shouts of
contending men, rose the awful sound of a tempest of galloping hoofs.
The French lancers and hussars caught the English in open order, and in
five fierce and bloody minutes almost trampled them out of existence!
Two-thirds of the brigade went down. The 31st Regiment flung itself
promptly into square, and stood fast--a tiny island, edged with steel and
flame, amid the mad tumult; but the French lancers, drunk with
excitement, mad with battle fury, swept over the whole slope of the hill.
They captured six guns, and might have done yet more fatal mischief but
that they occupied themselves in galloping to and fro across the line of
their original charge, spearing the wounded.
One lancer charged Beresford as he sat, solitary and huge, on his horse
amid the broken English regiments. But Beresford was at least a
magnificent trooper; he put the lance aside with one hand, and caught the
Frenchman by the throat, lifted him clean from his saddle, and dashed him
senseless on the ground! The ensign who carried the colours of the 3rd
Buffs covered them with his body till he was slain by a dozen
lance-thrusts; the ensign who carried the other colours of the same
regiment tore the flag from its staff and thrust it into his breast, and
it was found there, stiff with his blood, after the fight. The
Spaniards, meanwhile, were firing incessantly but on general principles
merely, and into space or into the ranks of their own allies as might
happen; and the 29th, advancing to the help of Colborne's broken men,
finding the Spaniards in their path and firing into their lines, broke
sternly into volleys on them in turn. Seldom has a battlefield witnessed
a tumult so distracted and wild.
The first English counter-stroke had failed, but the second followed
swiftly. The furious rain and fog which had proved so fatal to
Colborne's men for a moment, was in favour of Beresford. Soult, though
eagerly watching the conflict, could not see the ruin into which the
British had fallen, and hesitated to launch his reserves into the fight.
The 31st still sternly held its own against the French cavalry, and this
gave time for Stewart to bring up Houghton's brigade. But this time
Stewart, though he brought up his men with as much vehemence as before,
brought them up in order of battle. The 29th, the 48th, and the 57th
swept up the hill in line, led by Houghton, hat in hand. He fell,
pierced by three bullets; but over his dead body, eager to close, the
British line still swept. They reached the crest. A deep and narrow
ravine arrested their bayonet charge; but with stubborn valour they held
the ground they had gained, scourged with musketry fire at pistol-shot
distance, and by artillery at fifty yards' range, while a French column
smote them with its musketry on their flask. The men fell fast, but
fought as they fell. Stewart was twice wounded; Colonel Dutworth, of the
48th, slain; of the 57th, out of 570 men, 430, with their colonel,
Inglis, fell. The men, after the battle, were found lying dead in ranks
exactly as they fought. "Die hard! my men, die hard!" said Inglis when
the bullet struck him; and the 57th have borne the name of "Die hards"
ever since. At Inkerman, indeed, more than fifty years afterwards, the
"Die hard!" of Inglis served to harden the valour of the 57th in a fight
as stern as Albuera itself.
But ammunition began to fail. Houghton's men would not yield, but it was
plain that in a few more minutes there would be none of them left, save
the dead and the wounded. And at this dreadful moment Beresford,
distracted with the tumult and horror of the fight, wavered! He called
up Alten's men from the bridge to cover his retreat, and prepared to
yield the fatal hill. At this juncture, however, a mind more masterful
and daring than his own launched a third British attack against the
victorious French and won the dreadful day.
Colonel Hardinge, afterwards famous in Indian battles, acted as
quartermaster-general of the Portuguese army; on his own responsibility
he organised the third English attack. Cole had just come up the road
from Badajos with two brigades, and Hardinge urged him to lead his men
straight up the hill; then riding to Abercrombie's brigade, he ordered
him to sweep round the flank of the hill. Beresford, on learning of this
movement, accepted it, and sent back Alten's men to retake the bridge
which they had abandoned.
Abercrombie's men swept to the left of the hill, and Cole, a gallant and
able soldier, using the Portuguese regiments in his brigade as a guard
against a flank attack of the French cavalry, led his two fusileer
regiments, the 7th and 23rd, straight to the crest.
At this moment the French reserves were coming on, the fragments of
Houghton's brigade were falling back, the field was heaped with carcases,
the lancers were riding furiously about the captured artillery, and with
a storm of exultant shouts the French were sweeping on to assured
victory. It was the dramatic moment of the fight. Suddenly through the
fog, coming rapidly on with stern faces and flashing volleys, appeared
the long line of Cole's fusileers on the right of Houghton's staggering
groups, while at the same exact moment Abercrombie's line broke through
the mist on their left. As these grim and threatening lines became
visible, the French shouts suddenly died down. It was the old contest of
the British line--the "thin red line"--against the favourite French
attack in column, and the story can only be told in Napier's resonant
prose. The passage which describes the attack of the fusileers is one of
the classic passages of English battle literature, and in its syllables
can still almost be heard the tread of marching feet, the shrill clangour
of smitten steel, and the thunder of the musketry volleys:--
"Such a gallant line," says Napier, "arising from amid the smoke, and
rapidly separating itself from the confused and broken multitude,
startled the enemy's masses, which were increasing and pressing forward
as to assured victory; they wavered, hesitated, and then, vomiting forth
a storm of fire, hastily endeavoured to enlarge their front, while the
fearful discharge of grape from all their artillery whistled through the
British ranks. Myers was killed. Cole and the three colonels--Ellis,
Blakeney, and Hawkshawe--fell wounded, and the fusileer battalions,
struck by the iron tempest, reeled and staggered like sinking ships.
Suddenly and sternly recovering, they closed on their terrible enemies,
and then was seen with what a strength and majesty the British soldier
fights. In vain did Soult, by voice and gesture, animate his Frenchmen;
in vain did the hardiest veterans break from the crowded columns and
sacrifice their lives to gain time for the mass to open on such a fair
field; in vain did the mass itself bear up, and, fiercely striving, fire
indiscriminately on friends and foes, while the horsemen, hovering on the
flanks, threatened to charge the advancing line.
"Nothing could stop that astonishing infantry. No sudden burst of
undisciplined valour, no nervous enthusiasm weakened the stability of
their order; their flashing eyes were bent on the dark columns in front,
their measured tread shook the ground, their dreadful volleys swept away
the head of every formation, their deafening shouts overpowered the
dissonant cries that broke from all parts of the tumultuous crowd as
slowly and with a horrid carnage it was driven by the incessant vigour of
the attack to the farthest edge of the hill. In vain did the French
reserves mix with the struggling multitude to sustain the fight; their
efforts only increased the irremediable confusion, and the mighty mass,
breaking off like a loosened cliff, went headlong down the ascent. The
rain flowed after in streams discoloured with blood, and 1800 unwounded
men, the remnant of 6000 unconquerable British soldiers, stood triumphant
on the fatal hill."
The battle of Albuera lasted four hours; its slaughter was dreadful.
Within the space of a few hundred feet square were strewn some 7000
bodies, and over this Aceldama the artillery had galloped, the cavalry
had charged! The 3rd Buffs went into the fight with 24 officers and 750
rank and file; at the roll-call next morning there were only 5 officers
and 35 men. One company of the Royal Fusileers came out of the fight
commanded by a corporal; every officer and sergeant had been killed.
Albuera is essentially a soldier's fight. The bayonet of the private,
not the brain of the general, won it; and never was the fighting quality
of our race more brilliantly shown. Soult summed up the battle in words
that deserve to be memorable. "There is no beating those troops," he
wrote, "_in spite of their generals_!" "I always thought them bad
soldiers," he added, with a Frenchman's love of paradox; "now I am sure
of it. For I turned their right, pierced their centre, they were
everywhere broken, the day was mine, and yet _they did not know it_, and
would not run!"