[604] ‘The general sentiment of the army appears to be contempt

for the Junta and the present form of government, great

confidence in Cuesta, and a belief that he is too powerful for

the Junta, and will overturn that government. This sentiment

appears to be so general that I conceive that the Duke of

Albuquerque must entertain it equally with others: but I have not

seen him.’ Wellesley to Frere from Plasencia, July 13.

[605] Wellesley to Castlereagh, Talavera, Aug. 1.

[606] Wellesley to his brother the Marquis Wellesley, Deleytosa,

Aug. 8.

The British Commander-in-chief had indeed many moral and mental

experiences to go through between the interview at Mirabete on July

10, and the retreat from Talavera on August 2!

SECTION XVI: CHAPTER IV

THE MARCH TO TALAVERA: QUARREL OF WELLESLEY AND CUESTA

Having returned to his army on July 12, Wellesley gave orders for

the whole force to get ready for a general advance on the morning of

the eighteenth, the day which had been chosen for the commencement

of operations at the conference of Almaraz. It would have been in

every way desirable to have moved out at once, and not to have waited

for these six days. If the march against Victor had been fixed for

the thirteenth or fourteenth, the French would have been caught

unprepared, for as late as the seventeenth King Joseph and his

adviser Jourdan were under the impression that the force at Plasencia

consisted of nothing more than a Portuguese division of 10,000 men,

and it was only on the twenty-second that they received the definite

information that the whole British army was upon the Tietar[607].

It is clear that, by advancing five days earlier than he actually

did, Wellesley might have caught the enemy in a state of complete

dispersion--the 4th Corps being on July 20 still at Madridejos in La

Mancha, and the King with his reserves at Madrid. If attacked on the

seventeenth or the eighteenth, as he might well have been, Victor

would have found it impossible to call up Sebastiani in time, and

must have fallen back in haste to the capital. The allies could then

have cut him off from the 4th Corps, which must have retreated by a

circuitous route, and could not have rejoined the main body of the

French army in time for a battle in front of Madrid.

[607] See Jourdan’s _Mémoires_, and his letter to Soult of July

17, in which no sign whatever appears of the knowledge of the

advance of the British from Portugal.

It would appear that Wellesley had fixed the date of his advance

so late as the eighteenth mainly because of the difficulty as to

the collection of provisions, which was now looming before him in

larger proportions than ever. But it is possible that the necessity

for allowing some days for the transmission of the plan of campaign

to Venegas also counted for something in the drawing up of the

time-table. It would have been rash to start before the army of La

Mancha was prepared to take its part in the joint plan of operations.

So much depended upon the diversion which Venegas was to execute,

that it would have been a mistake to move before he could break

up from his distant cantonments at Santa Cruz de Mudela. No word,

however, concerning this appears in Wellesley’s correspondence. From

July 13 to July 18 his dispatches show anxiety about nothing save his

food and his transport. Every day that he stayed at Plasencia made

him feel more uncomfortable concerning the all-important question

of supplies. The corn which the Alcaldes of the Vera had promised

to secure for him had begun to come in, though in driblets and

small consignments, but there was no means of getting it forward:

transport was absolutely unprocurable[608]. Wellesley sent officers

to scour the country-side as far as Bejar and Ciudad Rodrigo, but

they could procure him neither mules nor carts. He also pressed

the Spanish commissary-general, Lozano de Torres, to hunt up every

animal that could be procured, but to small effect. The fact was

that Estremadura was not at any time rich in beasts or vehicles, and

that the peasantry had sent away most of those they owned while the

French lay at Almaraz, lest they should be carried off by the enemy.

Wellesley, who did not understand the limited resources of this part

of Spain, was inclined to believe that the authorities were hostile

or even treacherous. The Central Junta had promised him transport in

order to make sure of his starting on the campaign along the Tagus,

and when transport failed to appear, he attributed it to ill-will

rather than to poverty. No doubt he was fully justified in his view

that an army operating in a friendly country may rationally expect

to draw both food and the means to carry it from the regions through

which it is passing. But sometimes the provisions or the transport

are not forthcoming merely because the one or the other is not to

be found. It is certain that both Estremadura and the valley of the

central Tagus were at this moment harried absolutely bare: Victor’s

despairing letters from Caceres in May and from La Calzada in June

are sufficient proof of the fact. In a district where the Marshal

said that ‘he could not collect five days’ provisions by any manner

of exertion,’ and that ‘his men were dropping down dead from actual

starvation, so that he must retire or see his whole corps crumble

away[609],’ it is clear that the Central Junta could not have created

food for the British army. Cuesta’s troops were living from hand to

mouth on supplies sent forward from Andalusia, or they could not

have continued to exist in the land. The only district which was

intact was that between Coria and Plasencia, and this was actually

at the moment feeding the British army, and had done so now for ten

days or more. But unfortunately the Vera could give corn but no

draught animals. If Wellesley had known this, he must either have

exerted himself to procure more transport before leaving Abrantes--a

difficult task, for he had already drained Portugal of carts and

mules--or have refused to march till the Spaniards sent him wagon

trains from Andalusia. It would have taken months for the Junta to

collect and send forward such trains: they had dispatched all that

they could procure to Cuesta. The campaign on the Tagus, in short,

would never have been fought if Wellesley had understood the state of

affairs that he was to encounter.

[608] That food was coming in, but no transport, is clearly

proved by Wellesley’s letter to the Junta of Plasencia on July

18: ‘Upon entering Spain I expected to derive that assistance

in provisions and other means [i.e. transport] which an army

invariably receives from the country in which it is stationed,

more particularly when it has been sent to aid the people of

that country. _I have not been disappointed in the expectation

that I had formed of receiving supplies of provisions, and I am

much obliged to the Junta for the pains they have taken._ I am

convinced that they did everything in their power to procure us

the other means we required [transport], although I am sorry to

say that we have not received them.’

[609] See pp. 443 and 459.

The causes, therefore, of the deadlock that was about to occur

were partly the light-hearted incompetence of the Central Junta in

promising the British army the use of resources which did not exist,

partly Wellesley’s natural ignorance of the miserable state of

Central Spain. He had never entered the country before, and could

not know of its poverty. He had trusted to the usual military theory

that the country-side ought to provide for a friendly army on the

march: but in Spain all military theories failed to act. Napoleon

committed precisely similar errors, when he directed his army corps

to move about in Castile as if they were in Germany or Lombardy, and

found exactly the same hindrances as did the British general. In

later years Wellesley never moved without a heavy train, and a vast

provision of sumpter-beasts and camp-followers. In July 1809 he had

still to learn the art of conducting a Spanish campaign.

Meanwhile he was beginning to feel most uncomfortable about the

question of provisions. His anxiety is shown by his letters to

Frere and Beresford; ‘it is impossible,’ he wrote, ‘to express the

inconvenience and risk that we incur from the want of means of

conveyance, which I cannot believe the country could not furnish,

_if there existed any inclination to furnish them_. The officers

complain, and I believe not without reason, that the country gives

unwillingly the supplies of provisions that we have required ...

and we have not procured a cart or a mule for the service of

the army[610].’ But to O’Donoju, the chief of the staff of the

Estremaduran army, he wrote in even more drastic terms, employing

phrases that were certain to provoke resentment. He had, he said,

scoured the whole region as far as Ciudad Rodrigo for transport, and

to no effect. ‘If the people of Spain are unable or unwilling to

supply what the army requires, I am afraid that they must do without

its services.’ He had been forced to come to a painful decision, and

‘in order to be fair and candid to General Cuesta’ he must proceed

to inform him that he would execute the plan for falling upon Victor

behind the Alberche, but that when this had been done he would

stir no step further, and ‘begin no new operation till he had been

supplied with the means of transport which the army requires[611].’

[610] Wellesley to Frere, Plasencia, July 16.

[611] Wellesley to O’Donoju, Plasencia, July 16.

After dispatching this ultimatum, whose terms and tone leave

something to be desired--for surely Cuesta was the last person to be

saddled with the responsibility for the pledges made by his enemies

of the Central Junta--Wellesley issued orders for the army to march.

He had been joined at Plasencia by the last of the regiments from

Lisbon, which reached him in time for Talavera[612], but had been

forced to leave 400 sick behind him, for the army was still in a

bad condition as regards health. It was therefore with little over

21,000 men that he began his advance to the Alberche. It was executed

with punctual observance of the dates that had been settled at the

interview at Almaraz. On July 18 the army crossed the Tietar on a

flying bridge built at Bazagona, and lay at Miajadas. On the next

night the head quarters were at Centinello; on the twentieth the

British entered Oropesa. Here Cuesta joined them with his whole army,

save the two battalions lent to Wilson, and the two others under

the Marquis Del Reino which had been sent to the Puerto de Baños.

Deducting these 2,600 bayonets and his sick, he brought over 6,000

horse and 27,000 foot to the rendezvous. The junction having taken

place on the twenty-first, the advance to Talavera was to begin next

morning. Oropesa lies only nineteen miles from that town, and as

Victor’s cavalry vedettes were in sight, it was clear that contact

with the enemy would be established during the course of the day.

Accordingly the allied armies marched with caution, the Spaniards

along the high-road, the British following a parallel path on the

left, across the slopes of the hills which divide the valley of the

Tietar from that of the Tagus.

[612] The 1/61st Foot and 23rd Light Dragoons.

About midday the Spaniards fell in with the whole of the cavalry

division of Latour-Maubourg, which Victor had thrown out as a

screen in front of Talavera. He had ascertained on the evening of

the preceding day that Cuesta was about to move forward, and was

anxious to compel him to display his entire force. Above all he

desired to ascertain whether the rumours concerning the presence of

British troops in his front were correct. Accordingly he had left

two battalions of infantry in the town of Talavera, and thrown out

the six regiments of dragoons in front of it, near the village of

Gamonal. The Spaniards were advancing with Albuquerque’s cavalry

division as an advanced guard. But seeing Latour-Maubourg in his

front the Duke refused to attack, and sent back for infantry and

guns. Cuesta pushed forward the division of Zayas to support him, but

even when it arrived the Spaniards made no headway. They continued

skirmishing for four hours[613] till the British light cavalry began

to appear on their left. ‘Though much more numerous than the enemy,’

wrote an eye-witness, ‘they made no attempt to drive him in, but

contented themselves with deploying into several long lines, making a

very formidable appearance. We had expected to see them closely and

successfully engaged, having heard that they were peculiarly adapted

for petty warfare, but we found them utterly incapable of coping

with the enemy’s _tirailleurs_, who were driving them almost into a

circle.’

[613] ‘And,’ adds Lord Munster, from whom this quotation is taken

(p. 199), ‘it is my belief that they would have continued _till

now_ if we had not aided them.’

On the appearance, however, of Anson’s cavalry upon their flank the

French went hastily to the rear, skirted the suburbs of Talavera, and

rode off along the great Madrid _chaussée_ to the east, followed by

the British light dragoons. As they passed the town two small columns

of infantry came out of it and followed in their rear. Albuquerque

sent one of his regiments against them, but could not get his men to

charge home. On three separate occasions they came on, but, after

receiving the fire of the French, pulled up and fell into confusion.

The impression made by the Spanish cavalry on the numerous British

observers was very bad. ‘No men could have more carefully avoided

coming to close quarters than did the Spaniards this day[614],’ wrote

one eye-witness. ‘They showed a total lack not only of discipline but

of resolution[615],’ observes another.

[614] Londonderry, i. 392.

[615] Lord Munster, p. 200.

After crossing the plain to the north of Talavera the French, both

cavalry and infantry, forded the Alberche and halted on the further

bank. On arriving at the line of underwood which masks the river the

pursuers found the whole of Victor’s corps in position. The thickets

on the further side were swarming with _tirailleurs_, and two

batteries opened on Anson’s brigade as it drew near to the water, and

sent balls whizzing among Wellesley’s staff when he pushed forward to

reconnoitre the position.

It was soon seen that Victor had selected very favourable

fighting-ground: indeed he had been staying at Talavera long enough

to enable him to get a perfect knowledge of the military features of

the neighbourhood. The 1st Corps was drawn up on a range of heights,

about 800 yards behind the Alberche, with its left resting on the

impassable Tagus, and its right on a wooded hill, behind which the

smaller river makes a sharp turn to the east, so as to cover that

flank. The position was formidable, but rather too long for the

22,000 men who formed the French army. Having learnt from the people

of Talavera that the enemy had received no reinforcements up to that

morning, from Madrid or any other quarter, Wellesley was anxious to

close with them at once. The afternoon was too far spent for any

attempt to force the passage on the twenty-second, but on the next

day (July 23) the British general hoped to fight. The Alberche was

crossed by a wooden bridge which the enemy had not destroyed, and was

fordable in many places: there seemed to be no reason why the lines

behind it might not be forced by a resolute attack delivered with

numbers which were as two to one to those of the French.

Accordingly Wellesley left the 3rd division and Anson’s light horse

in front of the right wing of Victor’s position, and encamped the

rest of his army some miles to the rear, in the plain between

Talavera and the Alberche. In the same way Albuquerque and Zayas

halted for the night opposite the bridge on the French left, while

the main body of the Spaniards occupied the town in their rear. In

the evening hours Wellesley endeavoured to urge upon Cuesta the

necessity for delivering an attack at dawn: he undertook to force

the northern fords and to turn the enemy’s right, if his colleague

would attack the southern fords and the bridge. The Captain-General

‘received the suggestion with dry civility,’ and asked for time to

think it over. After a conference with his subordinates, he at last

sent word at midnight that he would accept the proposed plan of

operations.

At 3 o’clock therefore on the morning of the twenty-third, Wellesley

brought down Sherbrooke’s and Mackenzie’s divisions to the ground

opposite the fords, and waited for the arrival of the Spanish columns

on his right. They did not appear, and after long waiting the

British general rode to seek his colleague. He found him opposite

the bridge of the Alberche, ‘seated on the cushions taken out of

his carriage, for he had driven to the outposts in a coach drawn by

nine mules, the picture of mental and physical inability.’ The old

man murmured that the enemy’s position had not been sufficiently

reconnoitred, that it would take time to get his army drawn out

opposite the points which it was to attack, that he was not sure

of the fords, that the bridge over which his right-hand column

would have to advance looked too weak to bear artillery, and many

other things to the same effect--finally urging that the forcing

of the Alberche must be put off to the next day. As he had not got

his troops into battle order, it was clear that the morning would

be wasted, but Wellesley tried to bargain for an attack in the

afternoon. The Captain-General asked for more time, and would listen

to no arguments in favour of fighting on that day. After a heated

discussion Wellesley had to yield: he could not venture to assail the

French with his own army alone, and without any assistance from the

Spaniards. Accordingly it was agreed that the advance should not be

made till the dawn of the twenty-fourth.

In the afternoon the pickets sent back information that Victor seemed

to be on the move, and that his line was growing thin. Cuesta was

then persuaded to go forward to the outposts; he was hoisted on to

his horse by two grenadiers, while an aide-de-camp stood on the other

side to conduct his right leg over the croup and place it in the

stirrup. Then, hunched up on his saddle, he rode down to the river,

observed that the greater part of the enemy were still in position,

and refused to attack till next morning.

At dawn, therefore, on the twenty-fourth the allied army moved

forward to the Alberche in three columns, and found, as might have

been expected, that the French had disappeared. On seeing the masses

of redcoats opposite his right upon the previous day, Victor had

realized at last that he had before him the whole British army. He

had sent his train to the rear in the afternoon, and drawn off his

entire force after dusk. By dawn he was more than ten miles away, on

the road to Santa Ollala and Madrid. It was useless to pursue him

with any hope of forcing him to a battle. The chance of crushing him

before he should receive any further reinforcements had disappeared.

It is not at all to his credit as a general that he had held his

ground so long; if he had been attacked on the twenty-third, as

Wellesley had desired, he must certainly have suffered a disaster.

He had but 22,000 men; and it is clear that, while the Spaniards

were attacking his left and centre, he could not have set aside men

enough to hold back the assault of the solid mass of 20,000 British

troops upon his right. He should have vanished on the twenty-second,

the moment that Latour-Maubourg reported that Wellesley’s army was in

the field. By staying for another day on the Alberche he risked the

direst disaster.

The British general would have been more than human if he had not

manifested his anger and disgust at the way in which his colleague

had flinched from the agreement to attack, and sacrificed the

certainty of victory. He showed his resentment by acting up to the

terms of his letter written from Plasencia five days before, i.e. by

announcing to Cuesta that, having carried out his pledge to drive

the French from behind the Alberche, he should now refuse to move

forward, unless he were furnished with transport sufficient to make

it certain that the army could reach Madrid without any privations.

He was able to state with perfect truth that he had already been

forced to place his troops on half-rations that very morning: to

the 10,000 men of Sherbrooke’s and Mackenzie’s divisions and of

Anson’s light cavalry, he had only been able to issue 5,000 rations

of bread[616]. Nothing, of course, could be found at Talavera, where

the French had been quartered for many days. Victor had only been

maintaining his troops by the aid of biscuit sent down from Madrid,

and by seizing and threshing for himself the small amount of corn

which had been sown in the neighbourhood that spring. Wellesley was

wrong in supposing that the 1st Corps had been supporting itself

with ease from the country-side[617]. He was equally at fault when

he asserted that the ‘Spanish army has plenty to eat.’ Cuesta was at

this moment complaining to the Junta that he was short of provisions,

and that the food which he had brought forward from the Guadiana was

almost exhausted. Meanwhile every exertion was being made to collect

flour and transport from the rear: Wellesley wrote to O’Donoju that

he had at last hopes of securing some wagons from the Plasencia

district within three days, and that ‘in the meantime he might get

something to eat.’ He had some days before sent orders back even so

far as Abrantes, to order up 200 Portuguese carts which had been

collected there, and the Central Junta had informed him that a train

for his use had already started from Andalusia. But ‘there was no

very early prospect of relieving the present distress[618].’

[616] Wellesley to Sherbrooke, Talavera, July 24.

[617] Wellesley to Castlereagh, July 24.

[618] Wellesley to Beresford, from Plasencia, July 14.

Cuesta was, as might have been expected, as angry with Wellesley for

refusing to move forward from Talavera, as Wellesley was with Cuesta

for missing the great opportunity of July 23. When informed that the

British army was not about to advance any further, he announced that

he for his part should go on, that Victor was in full flight, and

that he would pursue him to Madrid. ‘In that case’ dryly observed

Wellesley, ‘Cuesta will get himself into a scrape; but any movement

by me to his assistance is quite out of the question. If the enemy

discover that we are not with him, he will be beaten, or must return.

The enemy will make this discovery to-day, if he should risk any

attempt upon their rearguard at Santa Ollala[619].’ In reply to the

Captain-General’s declaration that he should press Victor hard, his

colleague only warned him that he would be wiser ‘to secure the

course of the Tagus and open communication with Venegas, while the

measures should be taken to supply the British army with means of

transport[620].’ The Spaniard would not listen to any such advice,

and hurried forward; though he had been for many weeks refusing to

fight the 1st Corps when it lay in Estremadura, he was now determined

to risk a second Medellin. Apparently he was obsessed by the idea

that Victor was in full retreat for Madrid, and would not make a

serious stand. Underlying his sudden energy there was also some

idea that he would disconcert his masters of the Central Junta by

recovering the capital: he had discovered, it would seem, that

the Junta had sent secret orders to Venegas, directing him to take

charge of the city on its reconquest, and giving him authority to

nominate the civil and military officers for its administration. If

the Army of Estremadura seized Madrid, while the Army of La Mancha

was still lingering on the way thither, all these plans would be

frustrated[621].

[619] Wellesley to Frere, Talavera, July 25.

[620] Ibid.; and also Wellesley to O’Donoju, July 25.

[621] Cf. Arteche, vi. 358, with Wellesley’s remarks on the

inexplicable eagerness of Cuesta to be in Madrid on an early day.

Accordingly Cuesta pushed on very boldly on the afternoon of the

twenty-fourth, dividing his army into two columns, of which one

marched on Santa Ollala by the high-road to the capital, while the

other moved by Cevolla and Torrijos on the side-road to Toledo. He

was uncertain whether Victor had retired by one or by both of these

routes: if all his corps had taken the former path, the natural

deduction was that he was thinking only of Madrid: if the Toledo

road had also been used, there was reason for concluding that the

Marshal must be intending to join Sebastiani and the 4th Corps, who

might be looked for in that direction. Late in the day the Spanish

general ascertained that the main body of Victor’s army had taken the

latter route: he proceeded to follow it, placing his head quarters

that night at Torrijos, only fifteen miles from Toledo. Next morning

he learnt to his surprise and dismay that he had in front of him not

only the 1st Corps, but also Sebastiani and the King’s reserves from

Madrid: for just at this moment the whole French force in New Castile

had been successfully concentrated, and nearly 50,000 men were

gathered in front of the 33,000 troops of the Army of Estremadura.

Venegas’s diversion had utterly failed to draw off the 4th Corps

to the East; the King had come down in haste from Madrid, and thus

the whole plan of campaign which the allied generals had drawn up

had been foiled--partly by the sloth of Venegas, partly by Cuesta’s

inexplicable and perverse refusal to fight on July 23 upon the line

of the Alberche.

SECTION XVI: CHAPTER V

CONCENTRATION OF THE FRENCH ARMIES: THE KING TAKES THE OFFENSIVE:

COMBATS OF TORRIJOS AND CASA DE SALINAS

It is now necessary to turn to the French camp, in order to realize

the course of events which had led to the concentration of such a

formidable force in the environs of Toledo. Down to the twenty-second

of July Joseph and his adviser Jourdan had remained in complete

ignorance of the advance of Wellesley upon Plasencia, and seem to

have been perfectly free from any apprehension that Madrid was in

danger. Since their return from their fruitless pursuit of the

army of La Mancha, they had been spending most of their energy in

a controversy with Soult. The Duke of Dalmatia, not content with

the command of the three army corps which Napoleon had put at his

disposal, had been penning elaborate dispatches to the King to demand

that the greater part of the remaining French troops in Spain should

be used to co-operate in his projected campaign against the English

in Portugal. He wrote on July 13 to urge on Joseph the necessity (1)

of drawing large detachments from the armies of Aragon and Catalonia,

in order to form a corps of observation in the kingdom of Leon to

support his own rear; (2) of placing another strong detachment at

Plasencia to cover his flank; (3) of transferring every regiment that

could be spared from Madrid and New Castile to Salvatierra on the

Tormes, just south of Salamanca, in order to form a reserve close in

his rear, which he might call up, if necessary, to strengthen the

60,000 men whom he already had in hand. He also demanded that Joseph

should send him at once 200,000 francs to spend on the fortification

of Zamora, Toro, and other places on the Douro, as also 500,000

francs more for the present expenses of the 2nd, 5th, and 6th Corps.

If this were granted him, together with 2,000,000 rations of flour,

and a battering-train of at least forty-eight heavy guns for the

sieges of Ciudad Rodrigo and Almeida, he thought that he should be

in a position to deliver a serious attack on Northern Portugal, and

ultimately to drive the British army into the sea[622].

[622] Soult to Joseph, July 13. Compare with this Jourdan to

Soult of July 17, the reply to these modest demands.

On the day upon which the Duke of Dalmatia made these comprehensive

demands upon King Joseph, the British army had been for ten days in

Spain, and was preparing to advance from Plasencia on Madrid. It was

therefore an exquisitely inappropriate moment at which to demand

that the greater part of the King’s central reserve should be sent

off from the capital to the neighbourhood of Salamanca. There were

other parts of Soult’s lists of requisitions which were equally

impracticable. It is clear that Suchet could not have spared a man

from Aragon, and that St. Cyr, with the siege of Gerona on his hands,

would have found it absolutely impossible to make large detachments

from Catalonia. Even if he and Suchet had been able to send off

troops to Leon, they would have taken months to reach the Galician

frontier. The demand for 700,000 francs in hard cash was also most

unpalatable: King Joseph was at this moment in the direst straits

for money: his brother could send him nothing while the Austrian war

was in progress, and as he was not in proper military possession of

any large district of Spain, he was at this moment in a condition of

hopeless bankruptcy. He confessed to Soult that he was living from

hand to mouth, by the pitiful expedient of melting down and coining

the silver plate in the royal palace at Madrid.

Jourdan therefore replied, in the King’s behalf, to Soult that he

must do his best with the 60,000 men already at his disposition,

that no troops from Catalonia, Aragon, or Madrid could be spared,

and that money could not be found. All that could be given was the

battering-train that had been demanded, 600,000 rations of biscuit,

and an authorization to raise forced contributions in Old Castile.

For the protection of his flanks and his communications the Marshal

must utilize Kellermann’s dragoons and the other unattached troops in

the valley of the Douro, a force which if raised to 12,000 men by

detachments from the 5th or 6th Corps could keep La Romana and the

Galicians in check[623].

[623] Jourdan to Soult, July 17, 1809, from Madrid.

It is curious to note how entirely ignorant both Soult and the King

were as to the real dangers of the moment. Soult had drawn up, and

Joseph acceded to[624], a plan for the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo,

and an invasion of Northern Portugal--operations which would take

long weeks of preparation--at the time when Madrid was in imminent

danger from the combined armies of Wellesley, Cuesta, and Venegas.

The Marshal’s plan was perfectly correct from the point of view of

the higher strategy--the main objective of the French was certainly

the British army, and it would have been highly advisable to invade

Northern Portugal with 60,000 men in the front line, and 40,000

in support, if the circumstances of the moment had permitted it.

But these circumstances were hidden alike from Soult and the King,

owing to the impossibility of obtaining accurate information of

the movements of the allies. The fundamental difficulty of all

French operations in the Peninsula was that the commanders could

never discover the whereabouts of the enemy till he actually came

in contact with their outposts. Hence it chanced that Soult was

planning, and Joseph approving, a campaign on the borders of Northern

Portugal, at the precise moment when the British were on the march

for Talavera.

[624] ‘Le roi pense, comme vous, qu’il est important de s’emparer

de Ciudad Rodrigo; cette place servira de place d’armes aux

troupes qui seront dans le cas d’entrer en Portugal.’--Ibid.

It was actually not until July 22 that the King’s eyes were at last

unsealed. Victor having come into collision with the cavalry of

Wellesley’s advanced guard, sent news to Madrid that the British army

had joined Cuesta, and had reached the Alberche. On the same day,

by a fortunate chance, there also arrived in the capital another

emissary of Soult, with a message much less impracticable than that

which had last been sent. This was General Foy, whom the Duke of

Dalmatia had dispatched on July 19, after receiving very definite

rumours that the British were moving in the valley of the Tagus,

and not approaching Old Castile[625]. The Marshal sent word that

in this case he must of course concert a common plan of operations

with the King, and abandon any immediate action against Portugal. He

suggested that his best plan would be to concentrate his three corps

at Salamanca, and to march against the flank and rear of the English

by way of Bejar and the Puerto de Baños. If the King could cover

Madrid for a time with the 1st and 4th Corps, he would undertake to

present himself in force upon Wellesley’s line of communications, a

move which must infallibly stop the advance of the allies towards the

capital. If they hesitated a moment after his arrival at Plasencia,

they would be caught between two fires, and might be not merely

checked but surrounded and destroyed. Soult added, however, that he

could not move till the 2nd Corps had received the long-promised

provision of artillery which was on its way from Madrid, and till he

had rallied Ney’s troops, who were still at Astorga, close to the

foot of the Galician mountains.

[625] Compare Le Noble’s account of Soult’s proposals (pp. 312-3)

with Jourdan’s _Mémoires_, and with the _Vie Militaire du Général

Foy_, p. 83.

Napoleon, at a later date, criticized this plan severely, declaring

that Soult ought to have marched on Madrid to join the King, and

not on Plasencia. He grounded his objections to the scheme on the

strategical principle that combined operations on external lines

should be avoided. ‘The march of Marshal Soult,’ he wrote, ‘was

both dangerous and useless--dangerous, because the other army might

be beaten (as happened at Talavera) before he could succour it, so

that the safety of all my armies in Spain was compromised: useless,

because the English had nothing to fear; they could get behind the

Tagus in three hours; and whether they crossed at Talavera or at

Almaraz, or anywhere else, they could secure a safe line of retreat

on Badajoz.’ Against this criticism the defence made by both Soult

and King Joseph was that it would have required a much longer time

to bring the three corps from the Douro to Madrid than to Plasencia;

that it would have taken them at least ten days to reach Madrid, and

that during those days the King and his army might have been beaten

and driven out of the capital by the united forces of Wellesley,

Cuesta, and Venegas. It was, of course, impossible to foresee on

July 22 that Wellesley would refuse to pursue Victor beyond Talavera,

or that Venegas would let Sebastiani slip away from him. Accordingly

King Joseph and Jourdan fell in with Soult’s suggestion, because

they thought that he would come sooner into the field if he marched

on Plasencia, and would remove the pressure of the British army from

them at a comparatively early date. As a matter of fact, he took a

much longer time to reach Plasencia than they had expected: they had

hoped that he might be there on July 27, while his vanguard only

reached the place on August 1, and his main body on the second and

third[626]. But it seems clear that the expectation that he would

intervene on the earlier date was far too sanguine. Soult dared not

move till his three corps were well closed up, and since Ney had to

come all the way from Astorga, it would have been impossible in any

case to mass the army at Plasencia much earlier than was actually

done. Napoleon’s remark that Soult could not hope to catch or

surround the British army seems more convincing than his criticism

of the march on Plasencia. If the passes of the Sierra de Gata had

been properly held, and prompt news had been transmitted to Talavera

that the French were on the move from the valley of the Douro,

Wellesley would have had ample time to cover himself, by crossing

the Tagus and transferring his army to the line of operations,

Truxillo-Badajoz. The British general always defended himself by this

plea: and complained that those who spoke of him as being ‘cut off

from Portugal,’ by the arrival of Soult at Plasencia, forgot that he

had as good a base at Elvas and Badajoz as at Abrantes.

[626] For the controversy about the expected date of Soult’s

arrival at Plasencia, see Joseph’s and Jourdan’s letter to

Napoleon, in Ducasse’s _Mémoires du Roi Joseph_, and on the other

side Le Noble’s _Campagne de 1809_.

But we must not look too far forward into the later stages of the

campaign. It is enough to say that Jourdan and Joseph sent back

Foy to rejoin Soult, on the same day that he had reached Madrid,

bearing the orders that the Marshal was to collect his three corps

with the greatest possible haste, and to march by Salamanca on

Plasencia, where they trusted that he might present himself on the

twenty-seventh or twenty-eighth of the current month. Meanwhile it

was necessary to hold back Cuesta and Wellesley till the Duke of

Dalmatia’s operations in their rear began to produce their effect.

The only possible way of doing this was to concentrate in all haste

every available man in New Castile, and to cover Madrid as long

as possible. This massing of the French forces turned out to be

perfectly feasible, since Venegas had neglected to press in upon

Sebastiani, so that it was possible to withdraw the whole 4th Corps

from in front of him, and to send it to reinforce Victor, without

any immediate danger. Accordingly, the 1st Corps was directed to

fall back from its perilous advanced position on the Alberche, and

to draw near to Toledo: Sebastiani was told to abandon Madridejos

and La Mancha, and to hasten by forced marches toward the same

point: while the King himself resolved to leave Madrid with the

slenderest of garrisons, and to carry the rest of the central reserve

to the general rendezvous. Accordingly, he left only one brigade

of Dessolles’ division, with a few of his untrustworthy Spanish

levies, to hold the capital: the total did not amount to much over

4,000 men, and General Belliard, the governor of the city, was

warned that he must be prepared to retreat into the Retiro forts,

with his troops and the whole body of the _Afrancesados_ and their

families, if anything untoward should occur. For it was possible

that an insurrection might break out, or that Venegas might succeed

in slipping into Madrid by the roads from the east, or again, that

Wilson (whose column had been heard of at Escalona and was believed

to be much larger than was actually the case), might attempt a _coup

de main_ from the west. Leaving Belliard in this dangerous and

responsible position, the King marched out upon the twenty-third

with the remaining brigade of Dessolles’s division, the infantry and

cavalry of his French Guard, two squadrons of chasseurs and fourteen

guns, a force of some 5,800 men[627]. He had reached Navalcarnero,

with the intention of joining Victor on the Alberche, when he

received the news that the Marshal had retired towards Toledo, and

was lying at Bargas behind the Guadarrama river. Here Joseph joined

him on the morning of July 25.

[627] The whole consisted of:

Infantry of the Guard 1,800

_Chevaux-Légers_ of the Guard 250

Godinot’s Brigade of Dessolles’s Division 3,350

27th Chasseurs (two squadrons) 250

Artillery (two batteries) 200

-----

Total 5,850

On their concentration a force of 46,000 men was collected, Victor

having brought up 23,000, the King 5,800, and Sebastiani 17,500. The

latter had placed four of the six Polish battalions of Valence’s

division in Toledo, and was therefore short by 3,000 bayonets of

the total force of his corps. With such a mass of good troops at

their disposition, Joseph, Jourdan, and Victor were all agreed that

it was right to fall upon the Spaniards without delay. They were

astonished to find that the British army was not in their front, but

only Cuesta’s troops. They had expected to see the whole allied host

before them, and were overjoyed to discover that the Estremadurans

alone had pushed forward to Torrijos and Santa Ollala. Instead,

therefore, of being obliged to fight a defensive battle behind the

river Guadarrama, it was in their power to take the offensive.

This was done without delay: on the morning of July 26 the French

army advanced on Torrijos, with the 1st Corps at the head of the

column. But Cuesta, when once he had discovered the strength of the

force in his front, had resolved to retreat. Victor found opposed

to him only the division of Zayas and two cavalry regiments, which

had been told off to cover the withdrawal of the Estremaduran army.

The Marshal sent out against this rearguard the chasseurs of Merlin

and the dragoons of Latour-Maubourg, who drove in the Spanish horse,

almost exterminating the unfortunate regiment of Villaviciosa, which,

in retiring, chanced to blunder against the high stone walls of some

enclosures from which exit was difficult[628]. Zayas then went to

the rear, and retired towards the cavalry division of Albuquerque,

which Cuesta hastily sent to his assistance. The French cavalry

took some time to re-form for a second attack, and their infantry

was still far off. The Spanish rearguard therefore, covered by

Albuquerque’s horse, had time enough to fall back on the main body,

which was already in full retreat. Their cavalry then followed, and

being not very strenuously pursued by Merlin and Latour-Maubourg, got

off in safety. The whole army, marching at the best of its speed,

and in considerable disorder, finally reached the Alberche without

being caught up by the enemy. Cuesta found the British divisions of

Sherbrooke and Mackenzie guarding the river: Wellesley had sent them

forward when he heard of the approach of the French, and had placed

the former on the hills above the further side of the bridge, to

cover the passage, and the latter in reserve. He rode out himself to

meet the Spanish general, and begged him to carry his army beyond

the Alberche, as it would be extremely dangerous to be caught with

such an obstacle behind him, and no means of retreat save a long

bridge and three fords. But Cuesta tempted providence by declaring

that he should encamp on the further bank, as his troops were too

exhausted to risk the long defile across the bridge after dark. His

sullen anger against Wellesley for refusing to follow him on the

twenty-fourth was still smouldering in his breast, and the English

were convinced that he remained on the wrong side of the river out

of pure perversity, merely because his colleague pressed him to put

himself in safety. He consented, however, to retreat next morning to

the position which Wellesley had selected in front of Talavera.

[628] ‘The cavalry regiment of Villaviciosa, drawn up in an

enclosure with but one exit, was penned in by the enemy and cut

to pieces without a possibility of escape. A British officer

of engineers, present with them, saved himself by his English

horse taking at a leap the barrier which the Spanish horses were

incapable of clearing.’ Lord Munster, p. 208.

The French made no appearance that night, though they might well have

done so, and the Spanish army, bivouacing confusedly in the narrow

slip of flat ground between the heights and the Alberche, enjoyed

undisturbed rest during the hours of darkness. It is impossible not

to marvel at the slackness with which Victor conducted the pursuit:

he had twelve regiments of splendid cavalry to the front[629], and

could undoubtedly have pressed the Estremadurans hard if he had

chosen to do so. Cuesta’s retreating columns were in such a state of

confusion and disorder that a vigorous assault on their rear might

have caused a general _débandade_. But after driving in Zayas in the

early morning, Victor moved very slowly, and did not even attempt

to roll up Albuquerque’s cavalry rearguard, though he could have

assailed it with very superior numbers. When taxed with sloth by

Marshal Jourdan, he merely defended himself by saying that the horses

were tired, and that the infantry was still too far to the rear to

make it right for him to begin a combat which might develop into a

general engagement. But it is hard to see that he would have risked

anything by pressing in upon Albuquerque, for if Cuesta had halted

his whole army in order to support his rearguard, there was nothing

to prevent the French cavalry from drawing off, and refusing to close

till the main body of the 1st Corps should come up.

[629] He had six regiments of Latour-Maubourg’s dragoons, 3,200

sabres, four regiments of Merlin’s Division, 1,007 sabres, two

regiments of Beaumont’s (corps-cavalry of 1st Corps) 980--a total

of over 5,000 men.

Thanks to Victor’s slackness the Spaniards secured an unmolested

retreat across the Alberche on the following morning. It is said

that Cuesta, in sheer perversity and reluctance to listen to any

advice proffered him by Wellesley, delayed for some hours before

he would retreat, and that when at last he yielded to the pressing

solicitations of his colleague he remarked to his staff ‘that he had

made the Englishman go down on his knees’ before consenting.

All through the morning hours of the twenty-seventh the Army of

Estremadura was pouring across the bridge and the fords, not in the

best order. They had almost all passed, when about noon the French

cavalry began to appear in their front. When the enemy at last began

to press forward in strength, Wellesley directed Sherbrooke’s and

Mackenzie’s divisions to prepare to evacuate their positions on the

eastern bank, which they did as soon as the last of the Spaniards had

got into safety. The first division passed at the bridge, the third

at the fords near the village of Cazalegas: then Sherbrooke marched

by the high-road towards Talavera, while Mackenzie, who had been told

off as the rearguard, remained with Anson’s light horse near the

ruined Casa de Salinas, a mile to the west of the Alberche.

It may seem strange that Wellesley made no attempt to dispute the

passage of the river, but the ground was hopelessly indefensible. The

left bank (Victor’s old position of July 22) completely commands the

right, the one being high, the other both low and entirely destitute

of artillery positions. Moreover, a great part of the _terrain_

was thickly strewn with woods and olive plantations, which made it

impossible to obtain any general view of the country-side. They

would have given splendid cover for an army advancing to storm the

heights on the French bank, but were anything but an advantage to

an army on the defensive. For, unable to hold the actual river bank

because of the commanding hills on the further side, such an army

would have been forced to form its line some way from the water, and

the tangled cover down by the brink of the stream would have given

the enemy every facility for pushing troops across, and for pressing

them into the midst of the defender’s position without exposing them

to his fire. Wellington had examined the line of the Alberche upon

the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth, and had pronounced it absolutely

untenable; ‘no position could be worse,’ he wrote to O’Donoju[630],

but he had discovered one of a very different kind a little to the

rear, and had already settled the way in which it was to be occupied.

It presented so many advantages that even Cuesta had consented to

accept it as a good fighting-ground, and the Estremaduran army was

at this very moment occupied in arraying itself along that part of

the line which had been allotted to it. Sherbrooke’s division was

retiring across the plain to fall into the section which Wellesley

had chosen for it, and Hill’s and Campbell’s troops were moving to

their designated ground. Only Mackenzie and the light cavalry had yet

to be established in their post.

[630] Wellesley to O’Donoju, from Cazalegas, July 25.

In the act of withdrawing, this division became involved in an

unfortunate combat, which bid fair for a moment to develop into a

disaster. Its two brigades had been halted close to the ruined house

called the Casa de Salinas, in ground covered partly with underwood

and partly with olive groves. The cavalry had been withdrawn to the

rear, as it was impossible to use it for vedettes in such a locality.

The infantry was supposed to have a chain of pickets thrown out in

its front, but it would appear that they must have been badly placed:

as one eye-witness confesses, ‘we were by no means such good soldiers

in those days as succeeding campaigns made us, and sufficient

precautions had not been taken to ascertain what was passing in the

wood[631],’ and between it and the ford below Cazalegas. French

cavalry alone had hitherto been seen, and from cavalry Mackenzie’s

troops were certainly safe in the tangled ground where they were now

lying.

[631] Lord Munster, p. 210.

But already Victor’s infantry had reached the front, and its leading

division, that of Lapisse, had forded the Alberche far to the north,

and had entered the woods without being observed by the outlying

pickets of Mackenzie’s left brigade[632]. It had even escaped the

notice of Wellesley himself, who had just mounted the roof of the

ruined Casa de Salinas, the only point in the neighbourhood from

which anything like a general view of the country-side could be

secured. While he was intent on watching the heights above the

Alberche in his front, and the cavalry vedettes descending from them,

the enemy’s infantry was stealing in upon his left.

[632] Several eye-witnesses declare that Lapisse’s division

escaped notice owing to a curious chance. Before abandoning the

further bank of the Alberche, Mackenzie’s troops had set fire to

the huts which Victor’s corps had constructed on the Cazalegas

heights, during their long stay in that position. The smoke from

the burning was driven along the slopes and the river bottom

by the wind, and screened one of the fords from the British

observers in the woods; over this ford came Lapisse’s unsuspected

advance.

Lapisse had promptly discovered the line of British outposts, and

had succeeded in drawing out his division in battle order before it

was observed. He had deployed one regiment, the 16th Léger, as a

front line, while the rest of his twelve battalions were coming on in

support.

While, therefore, Wellesley was still unconscious that the enemy was

close upon him, a brisk fire of musketry broke out upon his left

front. It was the French advance driving in the pickets of Donkin’s

brigade. The division had barely time to stand to its arms--some

men are said to have been killed before they had risen from the

ground--and the Commander-in-chief had hardly descended from the

roof and mounted his charger, when the enemy was upon them. The

assault fell upon the whole front of Donkin’s brigade, and on the

left regiment (the 2/31st) of that of Mackenzie himself. So furious

and unexpected was it, that the 87th, 88th, and 31st were all broken,

and driven some way to the rear, losing about eighty prisoners. It

was fortunate that the French advance did not strike the whole line,

but only its left and centre. The 1/45th, which was just outside the

limit of Lapisse’s attack, stood firm, and on it Wellesley re-formed

the 31st, while, a little further to the north, the half-battalion of

the 5/60th also held its ground and served as a rallying-point for

the 87th and 88th. The steadiness of the 1/45th and 5/60th saved the

situation; covered by them the division retired from the woods and

formed up in the plain, where Anson’s light horsemen came to their

aid and guarded their flanks. The French still pressed furiously

forward, sending out two batteries of horse artillery to gall the

retreating columns, but they had done their worst, and during the

hours of the late afternoon Mackenzie’s infantry fell back slowly and

in order to the points of the position which had been assigned to

them. Donkin’s brigade took post in the second line behind the German

Legion, while Mackenzie’s own three regiments passed through the

Guards and formed up in their rear. Their total loss in the combat

of Casa de Salinas had been 440 men--the French casualties must have

been comparatively insignificant--probably not 100 in all[633].

[633] Unfortunately the French returns do not separate the losses

of the twenty-seventh from those of the twenty-eighth of July.

Only the 16th Léger can have suffered any appreciable damage.

From the moment when the fray had begun in the woods till dusk,

the noise of battle never stopped, for on arriving in front of the

allied position, the French artillery drew up and commenced a hot,

but not very effective, fire against those of the troops who held the

most advanced stations. As the cannonade continued, the different

regiments were seen hurrying to their battle-posts, for, although the

arrangements had all been made, some brigades, not expecting a fight

till the morrow, had still to take up their allotted ground.

‘The men, as they formed and faced the enemy, looked pale, but the

officers riding along their line, only two deep, on which all our

hopes depended, observed that they appeared not less tranquil than

determined. In the meanwhile the departing sun showed by his rays

the immense masses moving towards us, and the last glimmering of the

light proved their direction to be across our front, toward the left.

The darkness, only broken in upon by the bursting shells and the

flashes of the French guns, closed quickly upon us, and it was the

opinion of many that the enemy would rest till the morning[634].’

[634] Lord Munster, p. 212.

Such, however, was not to be the case: there was to be hard fighting

in front of Talavera before the hour of midnight had arrived.

SECTION XVI: CHAPTER VI

THE BATTLE OF TALAVERA: THE PRELIMINARY COMBATS

(JULY 27-28)

The position which Wellesley had selected as offering far better

ground for a defensive battle than any which could be found on the

banks of the Alberche, extends for nearly three miles to the north

of the town of Talavera. It was not a very obvious line to take

up, since only at its northern end does it present any well marked

features. Two-thirds of the position lie in the plain, and are only

marked out by the stony bed of the Portiña, a brook almost dried up

in the summer, which runs from north to south and falls into the

Tagus at Talavera. In the northern part of its course this stream

flows at the bottom of a well-marked ravine, but as it descends

towards the town its bed grows broad and shallow, and ceases to be

of any tactical or topographical importance. Indeed, in this part of

the field the fighting-line of the allies lay across it, and their

extreme right wing was posted upon its further bank.

The town of Talavera, a place of 10,000 souls, which had been a

flourishing industrial centre in the sixteenth century, but had long

sunk into decay, lies in a compact situation on the north bank of

the Tagus. It possesses a dilapidated bridge of forty-five arches,

the only passage across the river between Arzobispo and Toledo. Its

site is perfectly flat, save for a low knoll crowned by the chapel of

Nuestra Señora del Prado, just outside the eastern, or Madrid, gate,

and overlooking the _Alameda_ (public promenade) and the neighbouring

gardens. The place had no suburbs, but was surrounded by a broad

belt of olive groves and enclosures, which extend for a full mile to

the north and east, and hide the houses and walls from the traveller

approaching from either of those directions. When the allies entered

Talavera they found it deserted by most of its inhabitants, who had

fled up into the villages of the Sierra de Toledo during the French

occupation. Many, however, descended to reoccupy their homes when the

enemy departed. Victor’s men had plundered most of the houses, and

turned many of the churches into barracks or stables: hence the town

presented a picture of abject desolation[635].

[635] ‘The French troops during their stay had been guilty of

great excesses: a number of houses were completely destroyed,

and the furniture burnt for fuel. In every quarter were to be

seen marks of the devastation they had committed. The Cathedral,

a handsome modern building, was uninjured, the enemy having

contented himself with carrying off all the splendid ornaments

used in the ceremonies of religion. But in the church of San

Antonio the French had destroyed everything, and converted it

into a barrack,’ &c. Stothert’s _Narrative of the Campaigns of

1809-11_, pp. 81-2.

For a mile and a half beyond the northern wall of Talavera the

ground covered by gardens and olive groves is perfectly flat; it

then commences to rise, and swells up into a long hill, the Cerro de

Medellin. This height runs from east to west, so that its front, and

not the full length of its side, overhangs the Portiña ravine. Its

loftiest point and its steepest face are presented to that declivity,

while to the west and south it has gentle and easily accessible

slopes, sinking gradually down into the plain. This hill, the most

commanding ground in the neighbourhood of Talavera, had been chosen

by Wellesley as the position of his left wing. It formed, including

its lower slopes, about one-third of the line which he had determined

to occupy, the rest of the front lying in the low ground among the

olives and gardens. North of the Cerro de Medellin is a narrow

lateral valley, only half a mile broad, separating this hill from the

main chain of the Sierra de Segurilla, the mountains which form the

watershed between the basin of the Tagus and that of the Tietar. The

British general had intended at first that his position should extend

no further north than the hill, but in the course of the action he

was compelled to lengthen his front, and to post troops both in the

valley and on the mountain spurs beyond it.

By the agreement made with Cuesta, at the conference near the bridge

of the Alberche on the evening of the twenty-sixth, it was settled

that the Spanish army should hold the town of Talavera and the

wooded and enclosed ground for a mile beyond it. The British had

their right among the olive groves, but their centre and left on

the open slopes of the Cerro de Medellin. This order of battle was

the only one which it was possible to adopt. Wellesley had already

discovered that the army of Estremadura could not manœuvre, and

would be much safer behind walls and enclosures than in the open,

and Cuesta had gladly accepted the proposal that he should occupy

this part of the position. Having only a little more than a mile of

front to defend, he was able to provide a double and triple line with

his 32,000 men[636]. His Vanguard and 1st division, under Zayas,

occupied the eastern outskirts of the town, with a battery placed

upon the knoll crowned by the chapel of Nuestra Señora del Prado. A

brigade of cavalry (four regiments) was deployed in the open ground

of the Prado, close to the bank of the Tagus. The 2nd division, that

of Iglesias, held Talavera, whose ancient walls, though imperfect in

many places, were still quite defensible. The 3rd and 4th divisions

(Manglano and Portago) were ranged in a double line among the gardens

and enclosures to the north of the town, as far as a low hillock

called the Pajar de Vergara, where they touched Wellesley’s left.

Behind them were the rest of Cuesta’s cavalry (ten regiments) and the

5th division (Bassecourt) forming the reserves.

[636] The Spaniards had lost 1,000 men, mainly by dispersion, in

the retreat from Torrijos on the twenty-sixth.

The Spanish position was immensely strong. The front was completely

screened by groves and enclosures occupied by skirmishers: the

first line was drawn up along the slightly sunken road leading from

Talavera to the north, which provided the men with an excellent

parapet and good cover[637]. The second line was equally well placed

behind the Portiña rivulet, which was bordered by trees along its

whole front. The only good artillery position was that outside the

Madrid gate, in front of Zayas’ division, but three other batteries

were planted in the least defective emplacements that could be found

in the front line. The rest of the Spanish guns were in reserve, in

line with Bassecourt and the cavalry.

[637] Cf. Londonderry, i. 403; and Arteche, vi. 293.

The northern half of the position had its strong points, but also

its defects. For the first half mile beyond the Spanish left it was

still covered by groves and gardens, and had on its right front the

little eminence of the Pajar de Vergara. On this knoll a redoubt had

been commenced, but no more had been done than to level a space,

eighty yards long and twenty feet broad, on its summit, and to throw

up the excavated earth in front, thus forming a bank three or four

feet high. In this work, indifferently well protected, lay Lawson’s

battery of 3-pounders, the lightest guns of Wellesley’s artillery.

Beside and behind them were the five battalions of the 4th division,

Campbell’s brigade in the front line, Kemmis’s in the second, to the

rear of the Portiña.

On the left of the 4th division the enclosed ground ended, and cover

ceased. Here, forming the British centre, were drawn up the eight

battalions of Sherbrooke’s division, in a single line. The Guards’

brigade, under Henry Campbell, was in perfectly flat level ground,

without shade or cover. Next to them, where there is a gentle

ascent towards the foot of the Cerro de Medellin, were Cameron’s

two battalions; while the two weak brigades of the King’s German

Legion, under Langwerth and Low, continued the front on to the

actual hill, with the Portiña, now flowing in a well-marked ravine,

at their feet[638]. The whole of this part of the British line was

bare rolling ground covered with long dry grass and scattered shrubs

of thyme. There was no cover, and before the Guards’ and Cameron’s

brigades the front was not defined by any strong natural feature. On

the other hand, the _terrain_ on the opposite side of the Portiña was

equally bare, and gave no advantage to an enemy about to attack.

[638] Thus, counting from right to left, the front of

Sherbrooke’s brigade was composed as follows: 1st Coldstream

Guards, 1st Scots Fusilier Guards, 61st, 83rd, 1st Line K. G. L.,

2nd ditto, 5th ditto, 7th ditto.

It was otherwise in the portion of the front where the four German

battalions of Langwerth and Low were placed. They had a steep ravine

in front of them, but on the opposite side, as a compensating

disadvantage, the rolling upland swells into a hill called the

Cerro de Cascajal, which, though much less lofty than the Cerro

de Medellin, yet afforded good artillery positions from which the

English slopes could be battered.

Behind Sherbrooke’s troops, as the second line of his centre,

Wellesley had drawn up his 3rd division and all his cavalry. Cotton’s

light dragoons were in the rear of Kemmis’s brigade of the 4th

division. Mackenzie’s three battalions supported the Guards: then

came Anson’s light and Fane’s heavy cavalry, massed on the rising

slope in the rear of Cameron. Lastly Donkin’s brigade, which had

suffered so severely in the combat of Casa de Salinas, lay high up

the hill, directly in the rear of Low’s brigade of the King’s German

Legion.

It only remains to speak of the British left, on the highest part

of the Cerro de Medellin. This section of the front was entrusted

to Hill’s division, which was already encamped upon its reverse

slope. Here lay the strongest point of the position, for the hill

is steep, and well covered in its front by the Portiña, which now

flows in a deep stony ravine. But it was also the part of the

British fighting-ground which was most likely to be assailed, since

a quick-eyed enemy could not help noting that it was the key of the

whole--that if the upper levels of the Cerro de Medellin were lost,

the rest of the allied line could not possibly be maintained. It

was therefore the part of the position which would require the most

careful watching, and Wellesley had told off to it his most capable

and experienced divisional general. But by some miscalculation, on

the evening of the twenty-seventh Hill’s two brigades were not lying

on their destined battle-line, but had halted half a mile behind

it--Richard Stewart’s battalions on the left, Tilson’s on the right

flank of the reverse slope. It is difficult to see with whom the

responsibility lay, for Wellesley was far to the right, engaged

in planting Mackenzie’s troops in their new position behind the

centre, while Hill had ridden over towards Talavera to search for

his Commander-in-chief and question him about details, and returned

rather late to give his brigadiers the exact instruction as to the

line they were to take up at nightfall[639]. There were piquets on

the crest, and the greater part of the front slopes were covered by

Low’s two battalions of the King’s German Legion, but the actual

summit of the Cerro was not occupied by any solid force, though the

brigades that were intended to hold it lay only 800 yards to the

rear. It was supposed that they would have ample time to take up

their ground in the morning, and no one dreamt of the possibility of

a night attack.

[639] It would seem, on the whole, that the responsibility for

the absence of the division from its destined fighting-ground

lay with Hill, generally the most cautious and reliable of

subordinates. He says, in a memorandum drawn up in 1827, in

answer to an inquiry about Talavera, that he had gone to dine in

Talavera, and then saw Mackenzie’s division come back into the

line. Returning to his own troops, he found them moving out of

their bivouac, but not on their fighting-ground. He was getting

them into line, when the firing suddenly began in his front.

These details I give from the valuable (unpublished) map by

Lieut. Unger of the K. G. L. artillery, which Colonel Whinyates

has been good enough to place at my disposition. It carefully

marks the emplacement of every British battery. Elliott was at

this moment in command of the battery which had been under Baynes

during the Oporto campaign, while Sillery had that which had been

under Lane.

Of the very small force of artillery which accompanied the British

army, we have already seen that Lawson’s light 3-pounder battery

had been placed in the Pajar de Vergara entrenchment. Elliott’s and

Heyse’s were in the centre of the line; the former placed in front

of the Guards, the latter before Langwerth’s brigade of the German

Legion. Rettberg’s heavy 6-pounders were on the Cerro de Medellin,

with Hill’s division: at dusk they had been brought back to its

rear slope and were parked near Richard Stewart’s brigade. Finally

Sillery’s battery was in reserve, between the two lines, somewhere

behind Cameron’s brigade of Sherbrooke’s division. This single

unit was the only artillery reserve of which Wellesley could dispose.

The precise number of British troops in line was 20,194, after

deducting the losses at Casa de Salinas; that of the Spaniards was

within a few hundreds of 32,000. The French, as we have already seen,

had brought a little more than 46,000 men to the field, so that the

allies had a superiority of some 6,000 in mere numbers. If Wellesley

could have exchanged the Army of Estremadura for half their strength

of British bayonets, he might have felt quite comfortable in his

strong position. But his confidence in the value of his allies, even

when firmly planted among walls and groves, was just about to receive

a rude shock.

It was about seven o’clock when the heads of Victor’s columns,

following in the wake of the horse artillery which had been galling

Mackenzie’s retreat, emerged from the woods on to the rolling plateau

facing the allied position. Ruffin appeared on the right, and

occupied the Cascajal hill, opposite the Cerro de Medellin. Villatte

followed, and halted in its rear. More to the left Lapisse, adopting

the same line that had been taken by Mackenzie, halted in front of

the British centre: the corps-cavalry, under Beaumont, was drawn

up in support of him. Latour-Maubourg’s six regiments of dragoons,

further to the south, took ground in front of the Spaniards. The King

and Sebastiani were still far to the rear: their infantry was only

just passing the Alberche, though their advanced cavalry under Merlin

was already pushing forward in the direction of Talavera down the

high-road from Madrid[640].

[640] All these details are from the report drawn up by Sémélé,

the chief of the staff of the 1st Corps, at Talavera on Aug. 10.

If Napoleon, or any other general who knew how to make himself

obeyed, had been present with the French army, there would have been

no fighting on the evening of July 27. But King Joseph counted for

little in the eyes of his nominal subordinates, and hence it came to

pass that the impetuous Victor took upon himself the responsibility

of attacking the allies when only half the King’s army had come

upon the field. With no more object, as it would seem, than that of

harassing the enemy, he sent to the front the batteries belonging

to Ruffin, Lapisse, and Latour-Maubourg, to join in the cannonade

which his horse artillery had already begun. At the same time

Merlin’s light horse pressed forward in the direction of Talavera,

to feel for the front of the Spaniards, whose exact position was

hidden by the olive groves. The British artillery replied, but no

great harm was done to either side. Yet in the Spanish part of the

line a dreadful disaster was on the point of occurring. When the

artillery fire began, and the French light horse were seen advancing,

the Estremaduran troops between Talavera and the Pajar de Vergara

delivered a tremendous salvo of infantry fire along the whole line,

though the enemy was too far off to take any damage. But, immediately

after, four battalions of Portago’s division, which formed part of

the left of Cuesta’s line and touched Campbell’s right, suddenly

shouted ‘treason!’ broke, and went off to the rear in complete

disorder. Wellesley, who, as it chanced, was behind Campbell’s

troops, and witnessed the whole rout, declared that he could

conceive no reason for their behaviour except that they must have

been frightened by the crash of their own tremendous volley[641].

Two of these four battalions were troops who had never been in

action before: the other two had been badly cut up at Medellin,

and brought up to strength by the incorporation of a great mass of

recruits[642]. This might have excused a momentary misconduct, but

not a prolonged rush to the rear when the enemy was still half a mile

off, still less the casting away of their arms and the plundering

of the British camp, through which the multitude fled. Cuesta

sent cavalry to hunt them up, and succeeded in hounding back the

majority to their ranks, but many hundreds were still missing on the

following morning. They fled in small bands all down the valley of

the Tagus, dispersing dismal information on all sides. It is sad to

have to acknowledge that in their rush through the British camp they

carried away with them some commissaries and a few of the baggage

guard, who did not halt till they got to Oropesa, twenty miles from

the field[643]. Strange to say, this panic had no appreciable ill

effects: the French were not in a position to take advantage of it,

having no troops, save a few light horse, in front of the spot where

it occurred. The Spaniards to the right and rear of the absconding

regiments did not flinch, and as the second line held firm, there was

no actual gap produced in the allied position. But Wellesley noted

the scene, and never forgot it: of all that he had witnessed during

the campaign, this was the sight that struck him most, and most

influenced his future conduct. Cuesta also took account of it in his

own fashion, and at the end of the battle of the next day proposed

to decimate in the old Roman fashion, the battalions that had fled!

He actually chose by lot some 200 men from the fugitives, and after

trying them by court-martial prepared to shoot them. His British

colleague begged off the majority, but the old Captain-General

insisted on executing some twenty-five or thirty who were duly put to

death on the morning of the twenty-ninth[644].

[641] Wellesley to Castlereagh, Aug. 25: ‘Two thousand of them

ran off on the evening of the twenty-seventh, not 100 yards from

where I was standing, who were neither attacked, nor threatened

with an attack, and who were only frightened by the noise of

their own fire. They left their arms and accoutrements on the

ground, their officers went with them, and they plundered the

baggage of the British army, which had been sent to the rear.

Many others went, whom I did not see.’

[642] The panic-stricken regiments were Leales de Fernando VII,

which had been garrisoning Badajoz when Medellin was fought,

Badajoz (two batts.) which had been in the battle, and Toledo.

[643] ‘I wish I could assert with truth that this retrogression

was confined to our Spanish allies. But the truth must be told,

and I regret to say that stragglers from the British army were

among them, taking a similar direction to the rear. As they

passed, they circulated reports of a most disheartening nature.’

Col. Leach’s _Rough Sketches_, p. 81. He was with Craufurd’s

brigade, then coming up by forced marches from Plasencia,

which met the fugitives near Oropesa on the morning of the

twenty-eighth. ‘The road was crowded with fugitives, Spaniards

innumerable, and lots of English commissary clerks, paymasters

and sutlers, to say nothing of a few soldiers who said they were

_sick_.’ _Autobiography_ of Sir George Napier, p. 108.

[644] ‘Early in the morning some twenty-five Spanish soldiers,

dressed in white, attended by several Popish priests, were

marched up to the front of our regiment and shot. One, a young

lad of nineteen or twenty years, dropped before the party fired,

but to no use. For after the volley at ten paces, the firing

party ran forward and shooting them in the head or breast

completed their horrid work. These unfortunates belonged to

regiments that had given way in the late battle.’ _Diary_ of

Cooper (of the 7th Fusiliers), pp. 25-6.

After the panic had died down, Victor gradually withdrew his

batteries[645], but it was with no intention of bringing the combat

to a real termination. He had resolved to deliver a night attack on

the key of the British position, when the whole of his corps should

have reached the front. Having reconnoitred the allied lines, and

noted the distribution of their defenders, he had determined to

storm the Cerro de Medellin in the dark. During his long stay at

Talavera he had acquired a very thorough knowledge of its environs,

and understood the dominating importance of that height. If he

could seize and hold it during the night, he saw that the battle of

the next day would be already half won. Accordingly, still without

obtaining King Joseph’s leave, he determined to assail the Cerro. He

told off for the storm his choicest division, that of Ruffin, whose

nine battalions were already ranged on the front of the Cascajal

heights. At the same time Lapisse’s division was to distract the

attention of the British centre by a noisy demonstration against its

front.

[645] That the panic took place at dusk, and not during the

night attack, is completely proved by the _Journal_ of General

Sémélé, where it is noted as occurring in consequence of Victor’s

earliest demonstration; as also by Wellesley’s note.

Night attacks are proverbially hazardous and hard to conduct, and

it cannot be disputed that Victor showed an excessive temerity in

endeavouring to deliver such a blow at the steady British troops, at

an hour when it was impossible to guarantee proper co-operation among

the attacking columns. But for an initial stroke of luck he ought not

to have secured even the small measure of success that fell to his

lot.

At about nine o’clock, however, Ruffin moved down to the attack.

Each of his three regiments was formed in battalion columns, the 9th

Léger in the centre, the 96th on its left, the 24th on its right.

The first-named regiment was to deliver a frontal attack, the other

two to turn the flanks of the hill and attack over its side-slopes.

At the appointed moment the three regiments descended simultaneously

into the ravine of the Portiña, and endeavoured to carry out their

respective sections of the programme. The 9th, chancing on the place

where the ravine was most easily negotiable, crossed it without much

difficulty, and began to climb the opposite slope. On mounting half

way to the crest, it suddenly came on Low’s brigade of the German

Legion, lying down in line, with its pickets only a very small

distance in advance of the main body. It is said that the brigadier

was labouring under the delusion that some of Hill’s outposts were

in his front, and that he was screened by them. It is at any rate

clear that he was taken wholly unprepared by the midnight attack of

the French. His sentries were trampled down in a moment, and the

9th Léger ran in upon the Germans, firing into them point blank and

seizing many of them as prisoners almost ere they were awake. The

7th K. G. L. was completely broken, and lost 150 men--half of them

prisoners--in five minutes. The 5th, the right-hand battalion of

Low’s brigade, came off better, as it was not in the direct path of

the French; but it was flung sideways along the southern slope of

the hill, and could not be re-formed for some time. Meanwhile the

three French columns, somewhat separated from each other in this

first clash of arms, went straight on up the Cerro, and in a few

minutes were nearing its crest. The two leading battalions actually

reached and crowned it, without meeting with any opposition save

from the outlying picket of Richard Stewart’s brigade. The third was

not far behind, and it seemed almost certain that the position might

be won. At this moment General Hill, who was occupied in drawing

out his division on the rear slope, but had not yet conducted it

to its fighting-ground, interfered in the fight. He had seen and

heard the sudden outbreak of musketry on the frontal slopes, as

the French broke through Low’s brigade. But when it died down, he

was far from imagining that the cause was the complete success of

the enemy. Nevertheless, he directed his nearest brigade, that of

Richard Stewart, to prepare to support the Germans if necessary. He

was issuing his orders to the colonel of the 48th, when he observed

some men on the hill top fire a few shots in his direction. ‘Not

having an idea,’ he writes, ‘that the enemy were so near, I said to

myself that I was sure it was the old Buffs, as usual, making some

blunder.’ Accordingly he galloped up the hill, with his brigade-major

Fordyce, shouting to the men to cease firing. He rode right in among

the French before he realized his mistake, and a voltigeur seized

him by the arm and bade him surrender. Hill spurred his horse, which

sprang forward and got clear of the Frenchman, who lost his hold but

immediately raised his musket and fired at three paces’ distance,

missing the General but hitting his charger. Hill escaped in the

midst of a scattering volley, which killed his companion Fordyce, and

got back as fast as he could to Richard Stewart’s brigade. Without

delaying for a moment, even to change his wounded horse, he led on

the nearest regiments to recover the hill top. So great was the

confusion, owing to the sudden attack in the dark, that Stewart’s

men moved forward, not in their proper order, but with the 1st

Battalion of Detachments on the right, the 29th in the centre, and

the 1/48 on the left. This arrangement brought the first-named unit

first into touch with the enemy. The Detachments came into immediate

collision with the leading battalions of the French, who were now

somewhat in disorder, and trying to re-form on the ground they had

won. The two forces opened a furious fire upon each other, and both

came to a standstill[646]. But Hill, coming up a moment later at the

head of his centre regiment, cleared the hill top by a desperate

charge: passing through the Detachments, the 29th delivered a volley

at point-blank range and closed. The enemy broke and fled down the

slope that they had ascended. The 29th wheeled into line and followed

them, pouring in regular volleys at short intervals. But before

they had gone far, they became dimly conscious of another column to

their left, pushing up the hill in the darkness. This was the rear

battalion of the 9th Léger, which had fallen somewhat behind its

fellows. It was moving up diagonally across the front of the British

regiment, with drums beating and loud shouts of _vive l’Empereur_.

Taken in flank by the fire of the right companies of the 29th, it

could make no effective resistance, and ere long broke and rolled

back in disorder into the bed of the Portiña, where it met with the

wrecks of the rest of the regiment, and retired in company with them

up the slopes of the Cerro de Cascajal.

[646] The Battalion of Detachments was decidedly checked. They

got somewhat into confusion, and halted. ‘The soldiers seemed

much vexed,’ writes Leslie of the 29th, ‘we could hear them

bravely calling out “There is nobody to command us! Only tell us

what to do, and we are ready to dare anything.” There was a fault

somewhere.’ Leslie, p. 144.

The remainder of Ruffin’s division took little or no part in the

fighting. The three battalions of the 24th, which ought to have

mounted the hill on the right, lost their way in the darkness and

wandered up the valley between the Cerro de Medellin and the northern

mountains: they never came into action. The 96th, on the left of the

attack, chanced upon a part of the Portiña ravine which was very

precipitous: they found it difficult to descend, were very late in

reaching the other side, and then fell into a futile bickering fight

with the 5th and 2nd battalions of the King’s German Legion, which

terminated--with small damage to either party--when the main attack

in the centre was seen to have failed.

The loss of the French in this night battle was about 300 men,

almost all in the 9th Léger. It included sixty-five prisoners, among

whom was the colonel of the regiment, who was left on the ground

desperately wounded. The British casualties were somewhat heavier,

entirely owing to the disaster to the 5th and 7th battalions of

the K. G. L., which suffered when surprised, a loss of 188 men,

eighty-seven of whom were made captives. Richard Stewart’s brigade,

which bore the brunt of the fighting and decided the affair, had only

125 killed and wounded[647].

[647] Though the French official reports of casualties do not

give any officers of the 9th Léger as prisoners, it is certain

that Colonel Meunier was taken. See Leslie, p. 143. Being

recovered, along with the other wounded prisoners, when Talavera

was evacuated, his name did not get down among the list of

missing, which was only drawn up on Aug. 10.

Thus ended, in well-deserved failure, Victor’s night attack, of which

it may suffice to say that even its initial success was only due to

the gross carelessness of Low’s brigade in failing to cover their

front with a proper screen of outlying pickets. To attack in the dark

across rugged and difficult ground was to court disaster. The wonder

is not that two-thirds of the division went astray, but that the

other third almost succeeded in the hazardous enterprise to which it

was committed. Great credit is due to the 9th Léger for all that it

did, and no blame whatever rests upon the regiment for its ultimate

failure. The Marshal must take all the responsibility.

The wrecks of the French attacking columns having rolled back beyond

the ravine, and the flanking regiments having abandoned their futile

demonstrations, the Cerro de Medellin was once more safe. The troops

occupying it were rearranged, as far as was possible, in the dark.

The front line on its left and highest part was now formed by Richard

Stewart’s brigade, ranged, not in its proper order of seniority,

but with the 29th on the left, the 1st Battalion of Detachments in

the centre, and the 1/48 on the right. Tilson’s brigade, the other

half of Hill’s division, was to the south of Stewart, continuing his

line along the crest. Low’s battalions of the King’s German Legion

were drawn off somewhat to the right, closing in towards Langwerth’s

brigade, so as to leave the central slopes of the Cerro de Medellin

entirely to Hill’s men. Donkin’s brigade of Mackenzie’s division lay

close behind them. After the warning that had been given by Victor’s

first assault, the greatest care was taken to make a second surprise

impossible. Stewart’s and Low’s brigades threw forward their pickets

to the brink of the Portiña ravine, so close to the enemy that all

night they could hear the _Qui vive_ of the sentries challenging

the visiting rounds, only two or three hundred yards above them. On

several occasions the outposts opened fire on each other, and the

word ‘stand to your arms,’ ran along the whole line. In front of

Sherbrooke’s division, about midnight, there was a false alarm, which

led to a whole brigade delivering a volley at an imaginary column of

assault, while their own pickets were still out in front, with the

result that two officers and several men were killed or wounded[648].

A similar outbreak of fire, lasting for several minutes, ran along

the front of the Spanish lines an hour later. It seems to have been

caused by French foragers, in search of fuel, blundering against the

Estremaduran pickets on the edge of the olive groves.

[648] See the Diary of Boothby of the R. E., one of the victims

of this unhappy fusilade, p. 5.

Altogether the night was not a peaceful one, and the troops were much

harassed by the perpetual and unnecessary calls to stand to their

arms. Many of them got little sleep, and several British diarists

have left interesting impressions on record of their long vigil.

There was much to keep them awake: not only the repeated blaze

of fire running along parts of the allied line, but the constant

signs of movement on the French side of the Portiña. Some time

after midnight long lines of torches were seen advancing across

and to the right of the Cerro de Cascajal; these were markers with

flambeaux, sent out to fix the points on which Victor’s artillery

were to take up their positions, as was soon shown by the rattling of

gun-carriages, the noise of wheels, and the cracking of whips, which

were plainly heard in the intervals of stillness, when the hostile

pickets ceased their bickering musketry fire. The French were pushing

up their guns into the very front of their line, and when the dawn

began to break they were visible only 600 or 800 yards away from the

British lines. A few deserters came over during the night, mainly

from Leval’s German division; all agreed that the enemy was about to

deliver a second attack in the early morning.

The dawn was an anxious moment: with the growing light it was

possible to make out broad black patches dotting the whole of the

rolling ground in front of the British army. Every instant rendered

them more visible, and soon they took shape as French regiments

in battalion columns, ranged on a front of nearly two miles, from

the right end of the Cerro de Cascajal to the edge of the woods

facing the Pajar de Vergara. The object which drew most attention

was an immense solid column at the extreme right of the hostile

line, on the lower slopes above the Portiña, with a thick screen of

_tirailleurs_ already thrown out in its front, and evidently ready

to advance at the word of command. The other divisions lay further

back: in front of them artillery was everywhere visible: there were

four batteries on the midslope of the Cascajal hill, and six more

on the rolling ground to the south. In the far distance, behind the

infantry, were long lines of cavalry dressed in all the colours of

the rainbow--fifteen or sixteen regiments could be counted--and far

to the rear of them more black masses were slowly rolling into view.

It was easily to be seen that little or nothing lay in front of the

Spaniards, and that at least five-sixths of the French army was

disposed for an attack on the British front. There were 40,000 men

visible, ready for the advance against the 20,000 sabres and bayonets

of Wellesley’s long red line[649].

[649] There are admirable narratives of the night-vigil and the

dawn of Talavera, in the narratives of Leslie, Leith-Hay, and

Lord Munster.

An attack was imminent, yet there were many things which might have

induced the French generals to hold back. Was it worth while to

assail the allies in the admirable position which they now held, when

it was possible to drive them out of it without risking a battle?

Orders had been sent to Soult, six days before, to bid him fall on

Wellesley’s communications by way of Plasencia. It was believed that

he must have started ere now, and that the news of his approach would

reach the enemy within the next forty-eight hours. This intelligence

would compel them to go behind the Tagus, and to abandon the Talavera

position. Both Jourdan and King Joseph were doubtful of the policy

of risking a general action. But the initiative was taken out of

their hands by Victor. He had already placed his corps so close

to the British lines that it would have been hard to withdraw it

without an engagement. He had also, during the night, sent a dispatch

to the King, stating that he should storm the Cerro de Medellin at

dawn unless he received counter-orders. He appeared so confident of

success that Joseph and his adviser Jourdan did not venture to bid

him desist. They were, as the latter confessed, largely influenced by

the knowledge that if they refused, Victor would delate them to the

Emperor for culpable timidity in letting the British army escape[650].

[650] ‘Le duc de Bellune rendit compte au roi du résultat de sa

première attaque, et le prévint qu’il la renouvellerait au point

du jour. Peut-être aurait on dû lui donner l’ordre d’attendre....

Mais ce maréchal, étant resté longtemps aux environs de Talavera,

devait connaître parfaitement son terrain, et il paraissait si

sûr du succès, que le roi le laissait libre d’agir comme il le

désirait.... Il sentait que s’il adopterait l’avis du Maréchal

Jourdan le duc de Bellune ne manquerait pas d’écrire à l’empereur

“qu’on lui avait fait perdre l’occasion d’une brillante victoire

sur les Anglais”.’ Jourdan’s _Mémoires_, pp. 256 and 259.

The Duke of Belluno was still persisting in his idea that it might

be possible to seize the key of Wellesley’s position by a partial

attack, without engaging the rest of his corps till it had already

been won. Accordingly he gave orders to his subordinates Lapisse

and Villatte that they were not to move till Ruffin, with the

first division, should have gained the Cerro de Medellin. In a

similar way the King made the advance of the 4th Corps conditional

on the preliminary success of Victor’s right. This seems to have

been bad policy, as it left Wellesley free to devote the whole

of his attention to the point where the first attack was to be

delivered. It was clear that the threatening column on the lower

slopes of the Cerro de Cascajal would start the game. Victor had

drawn up his troops in the following order. Ruffin on the extreme

left, and considerably in advance, was to attack the Cerro on its

north-eastern and eastern fronts. Behind him on the summit of the

Cascajal hill, were Villatte’s twelve battalions, and in rear of

all the two regiments of Beaumont, the Marshal’s corps-cavalry. To

Villatte’s left, but on lower ground opposite Sherbrooke’s line, lay

Lapisse’s division, with Latour-Maubourg’s six regiments of dragoons

in support. This completed the array of the 1st Corps: on their left

stood Sebastiani and his 4th Corps, facing the Guards, Campbell,

and the northernmost battalions of the Spanish army, opposite the

Pajar de Vergara. Sebastiani’s French division was on his right, his

German division on his left, while the stray Polish brigade (the

only part of Valence’s division that was on the field) supported the

Germans. In second line was Merlin’s light horse, while Milhaud’s six

regiments of dragoons lay out on the extreme left, observing the town

of Talavera. King Joseph and his reserve--the Guards and the brigade

of Dessolles--were far to the rear, just outside the woods round the

Casa de Salinas.

At about five in the morning the watchers on the Cerro de Medellin

saw the smoke of a gun curl up into the air from the central battery

in front of Villatte’s division. The ensuing report was the signal

for the whole of Victor’s artillery to open, and twenty-four guns

spoke at once from the Cascajal heights, and thirty more from the

lower ground to their right. The cannonade was tremendous, and the

reply wholly inadequate, as Wellesley could only put four batteries

in line, Rettberg’s on the summit of the Cerro, Sillery’s from the

lower slope near Donkin’s position, and those of Heyse and Elliott

from the front of Sherbrooke’s division. The French fire was both

accurate and effective, ‘they served their guns in an infinitely

better style than at Vimiero: their shells were thrown with

precision, and did considerable execution[651].’ Wellesley, who stood

in rear of Hill’s line on the commanding height, at once ordered

Richard Stewart’s and Tilson’s brigades to go back from the sky-line,

and to lie down. But no such device was practicable in Sherbrooke’s

division, where the formation of the ground presented no possibility

of cover, and here much damage was done. After a few minutes the

English position was obscured, for the damp of the morning air

prevented the smoke from rising, and a strong east wind blew it

across the Portiña, and drove it along the slopes of the Cerro[652].

So thick was the atmosphere that the defenders heard rather than saw

the start of Ruffin’s division on its advance, and only realized its

near approach when they saw their own skirmishers retiring up the

slope towards the main line. The light companies of Hill’s division

came in so slowly and unwillingly, turning back often to fire, and

keeping their order with the regularity of a field-day. The general,

wishing to get his front clear, bade the bugles sound to bring them

in more quickly, and as they filed to the rear in a leisurely way was

heard to shout (it was one of the only two occasions on which he was

known to swear), ‘D--n their filing, let them come in anyhow[653].’

[651] Eliott’s Narrative, in his _Defence of Portugal_, p. 238.

[652] Lord Munster, p. 226.

[653] Leslie, p. 147. The other occasion on which Hill used

strong language was at the battle of St. Pierre in 1814, when

Wellington remarked: ‘If Hill is beginning to swear we had better

get out of the way.’

When the light companies had fallen back, the French were at last

visible through the smoke. They had mounted the lower slopes of the

Cerro without any loss, covered by their artillery, which only ceased

firing at this moment. They showed nine battalions, in three solid

columns: Victor had arranged the divisions with the 24th in the

centre, the 96th on the left, and the 9th Léger, which had suffered

so severely in the night-battle, upon the right. This arrangement

brought the last-named regiment opposite their old enemies of the

29th, and the Battalion of Detachments, while the 1/48th and 2/48th

had to deal with the French centre, and the Buffs and 66th with

their left. When Ruffin’s columns had got within a hundred yards of

the sky-line, Hill bade his six battalions stand to their feet and

advance. As they lined the crest they delivered a splendid volley,

whose report was as sharp and precise as that of a field-day. The

effect was of course murderous, as was always the case when line met

column. The French had a marked superiority in numbers; they were

nearly 5,000 strong, Hill’s two brigades had less than 4,000[654].

But there was the usual advantage that every British soldier could

use his weapon, while the French, in column of divisions, had the

normal mass of useless muskets in the rear ranks. The first volley

brought them to a standstill--their whole front had gone down at the

discharge--they lost the impetus of advance, halted, and kept up a

furious fire for some minutes. But when it came to a standing fight

of musketry, there was never a doubt in any Peninsular battle how the

game would end. The French fire began ere long to slacken, the front

of the columns shook and wavered. Just at this moment Sherbrooke,

who had noted that the divisions in his own front showed no signs

of closing, took the 5th battalion of the King’s German Legion out

of his left brigade[655], and sent it against the flank and rear

of Ruffin’s nearest regiment--the 96th of the line. When the noise

of battle broke out in this new quarter, the French lost heart and

began to give ground. Richard Stewart, at the northern end of the

British line, gave the signal to his brigade to charge, and--as a

participator in this fray writes, ‘on we went, a wall of stout hearts

and bristling steel. The enemy did not fancy such close quarters, and

the moment our rush began they went to the right-about. The principal

portion broke and fled, though some brave fellows occasionally faced

about and gave us an irregular fire.’ Nothing, however, could stop

Hill’s division, and the whole six battalions rushed like a torrent

down the slope, bayonetting and sweeping back the enemy to the line

of black and muddy pools that marked the course of the Portiña. Many

of the pursuers even crossed the ravine and chased the flying French

divisions right into the arms of Villatte’s troops, on the Cascajal

hill. When these reserves opened fire, Hill’s men re-formed on the

lower slope of the Cerro, and retired to their old position without

being seriously molested, for Victor made no counter-attack.

[654] Ruffin had 5,200 men, minus about 300 lost on the previous

night, while Hill had 3,853, minus 138 lost in that same battle

in the dark.

[655] This operation is described in the narrative of the K. G.

L. officer, printed by Beamish (p. 212). The narrator, however,

mistakes the French regiment’s number, and says twenty-six for

ninety-six.

Ruffin’s three regiments had been terribly punished: they had lost,

in forty minutes’ fighting, 1,300 killed and wounded, much more

than a fourth of their strength. Hill’s brigades had about 750

casualties[656], including their gallant leader, who received a wound

in the head, and had to go to the rear, leaving the command of his

division to Tilson. The loss of the German battalion which had struck

in upon the French rear was insignificant, as the enemy never stood

to meet it.

[656] These losses can be accurately ascertained. Ruffin’s

whole loss in the two days of fighting was 1,632, of whom 300

of the 9th Léger had fallen on the night of July 27. He was

not seriously engaged during the rest of the day, so must have

lost 1,300 in this fight. Hill’s total loss on July 28 was 835,

but much of it was suffered in the afternoon, when (though not

attacked by infantry) his division was under a heavy shell fire.

Thus was Victor’s second attempt to storm the Cerro de Medellin

rebuked. It was a rash and unscientific operation, and received a

merited chastisement. The Marshal should have sent in all his corps,

and attacked the whole British line, if he wished to give his men a

fair chance. He obviously underrated the troops with which he had to

deal--he had never seen them before the combat of Casa de Salinas

on the previous day--and had no conception of the power of the line

against the column. Even now baffled rage seems to have been his

main feeling, and his only desire was to make the attempt again with

larger forces.

The whole engagement had taken about an hour and a half, and the

morning was still young when the Marshal re-formed his line, and

reported his ill-success to the King. After the cannonade died down

he bade his men take their morning meal, and the British on the

Cerro could see the whole 1st Corps turn to cooking, behind their

strong line of pickets. A sort of informal armistice was established

in a short time; both parties wished to use the stagnant water of

the Portiña, and after a little signalling hundreds of men came

down with their canteens from either side, and filled them with the

muddy fluid. In spite of the heavy fighting which had just ended,

all parties agree that a very friendly spirit was shown. The men

conversed as best they could, and were even seen to shake hands

across the pools. Many of the officers came down a little later,

and after a short colloquy agreed that either party might take off

its wounded without molestation. As there were hundreds of French

lying on the west bank of the Portiña, and a good many English on

its further side, there was a complete confusion of uniforms as the

bearers passed and repassed each other at the bottom of the ravine.

But no difficulties of any sort arose, and for more than two hours

the two parties were completely mixed. This was the first example of

that amicable spirit which reigned between the hostile armies all

through the war, and which in its later years developed into that

curious code of signals (often described by contemporaries), by which

French and English gave each other notice whenever serious work was

intended, refraining on all other occasions from unnecessary outpost

bickering or sentry-shooting.

SECTION XVI: CHAPTER VII

THE BATTLE OF TALAVERA: THE MAIN ENGAGEMENT

(JULY 28)

The informal armistice which had followed the combat of the early

morning had drawn to an end, when at about 10 o’clock the British

observers on the Cerro de Medellin saw a large and brilliant staff

riding along the French line from right to left. It finally halted,

and took post on the most commanding point of the Cascajal heights.

This was the entourage of King Joseph and Marshal Jourdan, who had

determined to make a careful examination of the allied lines before

committing themselves to any further action. When they halted on the

summit of the hill, from which the best general view was obtainable,

Victor came to meet them, and a council of war was held.

It soon developed into a lengthy and animated dispute; lasting for

more than an hour. Jourdan was of opinion that, considering the

strength of the hostile position, and the decisive way in which the

1st Corps had been repulsed, it would be unwise to proceed with

another attack. He pointed out that Wellesley would now be perfectly

aware that his left was the point which must be assailed, and that

movements visible behind the British line showed that it was already

being reinforced. The only good move now available was to endeavour

to turn the Cerro by the little valley to its north-east, which

separates it from the Sierra de Segurilla: but it was clear that the

enemy realized this as well as themselves. A considerable body of

cavalry was already appearing at its southern end. If the Duke of

Belluno, instead of delivering two frontal assaults, had been prudent

enough to push men down this valley under cover of the darkness, so

as to have a lateral attack ready at dawn, something might have been

done. But now the imperial troops would have to win the valley by

hard fighting, before they could use it as a starting-point for the

assault on the hill. If a general attack were delivered, and the army

were once more repulsed, it risked its line of communication and its

retreat on Madrid. For the whole Spanish host might come out of the

woods and fall upon its flank, while it was engaged with the British,

and in that case the Madrid road would be cut, and the King would

have to retreat on Avila, sacrificing his capital and his arsenals.

On the whole Jourdan held that it would be wise and prudent to assume

a defensive posture, and either to hold the present position or to

retire to the more favourable ground behind the Alberche, four miles

to the rear. In a few days the enemy would hear of Soult’s operations

upon their line of communication, and would be forced to break up and

retire.

Very different, as might have been expected, were Victor’s views. He

declared that the British position was far from impregnable, and that

the prestige of the French army would be destroyed if it retired,

after two partial checks, from in front of an enemy who had not been

seriously attacked. The only fault in the preceding operations had

been that the whole army had not joined in, at the moment when the

Cerro had been stormed. If the King would undertake to use the 4th

Corps against the allied centre, he pledged himself to break their

right with his own three divisions of infantry. He would not only

assail the Cerro from in front, but would turn it from both flanks.

If such an attack did not succeed _il faudrait renoncer à faire la

guerre_. This phrase he dinned into Joseph’s and Jourdan’s ears so

repeatedly that they both saved it up for future use, and taunted him

with it in the acrimonious correspondence which followed the battle.

King Joseph would have preferred to follow Jourdan’s cautious plan,

and to hold back. Sebastiani, whose opinion he asked, agreed with

him. But both seem to have been terrorized by the Marshal’s stormy

tirades, and still more by the thought of what the Emperor would

say, if he heard that battle had been refused, contrary to Victor’s

advice. The ultimate decision was still in the balance, when two

pieces of news were received: the first was a dispatch from General

Valence, the Governor of Toledo, to effect that the army of Venegas,

whose position had hitherto been unknown--for nothing had been heard

of him since Sebastiani had escaped from his front--had at last come

on the scene. His advanced guard had presented itself before the

bridges of Toledo, and was already skirmishing there. The second item

of intelligence was a dispatch from Soult, acknowledging the receipt

of the orders which had been sent to him upon the twenty-second, and

stating his intention of carrying them out at the earliest possible

moment. But he complained that the promised train of artillery had

not yet reached the 2nd Corps, and declared that he could not move

till it had come to hand, and till he had brought down the 6th Corps

from Astorga. He was therefore of opinion that he could not possibly

reach Plasencia till August 3, perhaps not till two days later.

This news was decisive: it was now clear that the Duke of Dalmatia

would not be able to bring pressure to bear upon the rear of the

allies for some six or seven days. Meanwhile Venegas was within two

marches of Madrid, and had nothing in front of him save the four

Polish battalions at Toledo. If the King refused to fight, and took

up a defensive position on the Alberche, he would have to detach

15,000 men to hold back the army of La Mancha from the capital.

This would leave him with only 30,000 men to resist Wellesley and

Cuesta, and it was clear that such a force would be overmatched

by the allies. If he kept a larger number in their front, Venegas

would be able to capture Madrid, the thing of all others which

Joseph was resolved to prevent. Accordingly the King and Jourdan

reluctantly fell in with Victor’s plans, and consented to fight in

the afternoon. If they defeated the British and the Estremadurans on

the twenty-eighth, the army of La Mancha could easily be disposed of

upon the twenty-ninth or thirtieth.

This decision once made, it only remained to settle the details

of the attack. The King determined to assail the British centre

and right with the infantry of Sebastiani’s corps--twenty-three

battalions in all, or some 14,000 men. Victor with the three infantry

divisions of the 1st Corps--thirty-three battalions, still over

16,000 strong in spite of their losses--undertook to fall upon the

English left, to storm the Cerro de Medellin and also to turn it on

its northern side, so as to envelop Wellesley’s flank. The Spaniards

were to be left alone behind their walls and orchards--only Milhaud’s

dragoons were told off to watch the exits from Talavera. Of the rest

of the cavalry a few could be utilized in Victor’s turning movement

in the valley below the Sierra de Segurilla: but the main body--all

Beaumont’s and Latour-Maubourg’s eight regiments--were ranged in

a second line, to act as a reserve for the frontal attack of the

infantry, and to aid it if it were checked. The King’s Guards and

the brigade of Dessolles were to be kept back, and only utilized to

clinch the victory or to retrieve a repulse.

The 30,000 men who were to deliver the grand assault on the allied

position were drawn up as follows. Leval’s Germans advanced on the

left, taking as their objective the battery on the Pajar de Vergara.

They faced Campbell’s British division, and slightly overlapped

it, so as to cover the three or four battalions on the extreme

northern wing of Cuesta’s line. In their rear as supports followed

the two Polish battalions from Valence’s division. On Leval’s right,

Sebastiani’s four French regiments continued the line: this was the

strongest division on the field and counted over 8,000 bayonets. It

faced the Guards and the right battalion of Cameron’s brigade. Here

ended the troops of the 4th Corps: beyond them Victor’s 2nd division,

that of Lapisse, was about to assail the German Legion and Cameron’s

left-hand regiment, the 83rd. Still further north Villatte’s division

lay opposite the steepest slopes of the Cerro de Medellin. This

position looked more formidable in the eyes of the Duke of Belluno

since he had seen his first two assaults upon it fail. It was now

heavily manned: Tilson’s, Richard Stewart’s, and Donkin’s brigades

were all visible upon its crest. After some hesitation the Marshal

resolved to leave it alone for the present, and not to attack it

till some impression should have been made upon other parts of

Wellesley’s line. Accordingly he left in front of it only Villatte’s

second brigade--the six battalions of the 94th and 95th regiments.

The other brigade--the 27th and 63rd--was directed to join in the

flanking movement to the north of the Cerro, which was to encompass

Wellesley’s extreme left. But the main force told off for this

advance consisted of the much-tried remnants of Ruffin’s division,

now not more than 3,700 strong. The employment of these troops for

such a critical operation seems to have been a mistake--they had

already received two bloody checks, and had lost more than a third

of their officers and 1,500 men in the late fighting. Though good

regiments, they could now be considered as little more than ‘a spent

force.’ This fact sufficiently explains the feebleness of the French

advance upon this part of the field during the afternoon hours.

Behind the French infantry of the 4th and 1st Corps were deployed no

less than twelve regiments of horse: Latour-Maubourg’s three brigades

of dragoons were drawn up in the rear of Lapisse and Sebastiani:

Beaumont supported Villatte, and lastly the four regiments of

Merlin’s (late Lasalle’s) division followed Ruffin in his turning

movement. Far to the rear Dessolles and Joseph’s Guards took up a

position facing the British centre, from which they could support the

right or the left of their own front line as might be necessary.

The drawing up of this line of battle took time, and while the French

were shifting their positions and establishing their new front,

Wellesley had ample leisure to provide against the oncoming storm. He

had established himself upon the crest of the Cerro, and from thence

could overlook every movement of the enemy. Of the new dispositions

the only one which struck him as likely to cause trouble was the

extension of Ruffin and Villatte to the northward. It was clear that

they were intending to advance up the valley that separates the

Sierra de Segurilla from the Cerro de Medellin, in order to take

the hill in the flank, and assail the 2nd Division from the side.

It was therefore necessary to make arrangements for checking this

manœuvre. Wellesley’s first order was that Fane’s and Anson’s cavalry

should move round the back of the Cerro, and take up new ground at

the head of the valley. From this position they would be able to

charge in the flank any force that might push up the trough of the

depression, in order to get behind Hill’s line. He also withdrew half

Rettberg’s battery from the front of the height, and placed it on

a projecting lateral spur from which it could enfilade the valley.

Nor were these his only precautions; he sent a hasty message to

Cuesta, pointing out that the greater part of the Spanish line was

not threatened, and asking if he could spare reinforcements for the

left wing. The Spanish general behaved in a more liberal fashion than

might have been expected from his previous conduct. He consented to

lend Wellesley his reserve division, that of Bassecourt, about 5,000

strong, and also put at his disposition a battery of twelve-pounders,

heavier guns than any which the British army possessed. The French

were so slow in moving that there was ample time, before the battle

grew hot, to send Bassecourt’s division round the rear of the British

line, and to place it on the lower slopes of the Sierra de Segurilla,

so as to continue to the northward the front formed by the British

cavalry. Of the Spanish guns placed at Wellesley’s disposition,

four were put into the Pajar de Vergara redoubt, by the side of

Lawson’s battery: the other two accompanied Bassecourt’s infantry,

and were placed on the northern spur of the Cerro de Medellin, near

Rettberg’s six-pounders. Somewhat later the Duke of Albuquerque

brought round the whole of his cavalry division--six regiments and

a horse-artillery battery--to the same quarter, and drew them up in

two lines to the rear of Anson’s and Fane’s brigades. But before he

arrived the battle had already begun.

When the whole of the French infantry was ready, at about two o’clock

in the afternoon, the King gave orders for the artillery to open,

and eighty guns of the 1st and 4th Corps began to play upon the

British line. In some places the troops were only some 600 yards

from the enemy’s batteries, and the loss in many regiments was very

appreciable before a single musket had been fired. Only thirty

British and six Spanish pieces could reply: they were overwhelmed

from the first by the superior number of the French guns. It was

therefore with joy that Wellesley’s infantry saw that the artillery

engagement was not to last for long. All along the hostile line the

battalion-columns of Ruffin, Lapisse, Sebastiani, and Leval were

moving up to the attack, and when they reached the front, and threw

out their screen of tirailleurs, the guns grew silent. Only from the

Cerro de Cascajal, where Villatte was hanging back in obedience to

Victor’s orders, did the cannonade against Hill’s brigades continue.

The first troops to come into collision with the allies were Leval’s

Germans, upon the extreme left of the French line. This, it is said,

was contrary to the King’s orders; he had intended to hold this

division somewhat back, as it was in danger of being outflanked by

the Spaniards if it made a premature advance[657]. But Leval had a

tangled terrain of vines and olive groves in his front: when once he

had entered it he lost sight of the troops on his right, and fearing

to be late on account of the obstacles in his front, committed the

opposite fault. He came rushing in upon Campbell’s outpost line

half an hour before the other divisions had closed with the British

centre, the time being then 2.30 in the afternoon.

[657] See Jourdan’s _Mémoires_, p. 260.

The nine battalions of the German division were arrayed in a single

line of battalion columns[658], with a thick screen of tirailleurs in

their front. But their order had been so much broken up by the walls

and thickets that the 4,500 bayonets appeared to the British like

one confused mass of skirmishers. They came on fast and furiously,

chasing the pickets of the 7th and 53rd before them, till they

emerged into the comparatively open ground in front of the Pajar de

Vergara[659]. Here the defence was standing ready for them: Campbell

had brought up one battalion of his rear brigade into his front

line, so that the 40th, as well as the 53rd and 7th, were facing the

attack. On his right lay the redoubt with its ten guns: further to

the south the two left-hand units of the French division were opposed

to troops of Cuesta’s army. Hence it came that while the Nassau and

Dutch regiments faced the British infantry, the Baden regiment was in

front of the guns, while the Hessians and the Frankfort battalion had

to do with the Spaniards.

[658] Their order from left to right was as follows:

Frankfort-Hesse (two batts.), Baden (two batts.), Holland (two

batts.), Nassau (two batts.).

[659] There is a legend which occurs in all French narratives of

Talavera--starting with the contemporary accounts, and including

Desprez’s and Jourdan’s _Mémoires_. It is to the effect that

Leval’s division, in its first advance, came upon an English

battalion, which several writers call the 45th, lying in front

of the rest of the allied line. It is alleged that the Nassau

regiment surrounded and almost captured it--that they would have

taken it prisoner indeed _en masse_, if the troops on their

left (Holland and Baden) had held firm. But at least ‘on lui

prit une centaine d’hommes, le major, le lieutenant-colonel, et

le colonel--ce dernier mourut de ses blessures’ (Jourdan). No

such incident can have occurred, for (1) no English regiment

lost more than twenty-one ‘missing’ on this side of the field.

(2) No English officer of higher rank than a captain was taken

prisoner in the battle. (3) Only one officer was killed in the

whole of Campbell’s division, and he was a lieutenant of the 7th

Fusiliers. (4) The 45th was not engaged with Leval’s men, but lay

to the left and supported the Guards in resisting Sebastiani: it

lost one officer (a captain) and twelve men missing, but this

was in the great _mêlée_ in the centre, at the end of the day’s

fighting: it had no officer killed. I am driven to conclude

that the whole is some gross exaggeration of the surprise of

Campbell’s pickets in the vineyards, and that instead of a

‘battalion’ we should read the light companies of the division.

Cooper of the 7th Fusiliers, who was in the skirmishing line,

says that the Germans got close among them by calling out

‘Españoles’ and pretending to be Spaniards. A few prisoners

(twenty-six in all) were lost in this way.

When the Germans surged out from among the olive groves into the

comparatively open ground in front of the Pajar de Vergara, the

musketry opened along both lines at a distance of about 200 yards,

the assailants delivering a rolling fire, while the defenders of

the position answered with regular battalion volleys. Several times

Leval’s men advanced a few score paces, and the distance between

the two divisions was growing gradually less. But the attacking

force was evidently suffering more than the allies: in the centre

especially, where the ten guns of the redoubt were firing canister

into the disordered mass, the casualties of the Baden battalions were

terrible: they could not bear up against the blasts of _mitraille_,

and after their colonel, von Porbeck, had fallen, they broke and

began to recoil. Seeing part of the enemy’s line falling into

disorder, General Campbell ordered his front line to charge. Then

Colonel Myers of the 7th, seizing the King’s colour of his regiment,

ran out in front of the line and calling ‘Come on, Fusiliers,’ led

the advance[660]. His own battalion, the 40th and the 53rd, at once

closed with the Nassau and Dutch regiments, who shrank back into the

thickets and melted away from the front. The victors pursued them for

some distance, capturing in their onward career a whole battery of

six guns, which was being brought forward to reply to the artillery

of the redoubt, but had failed to reach the clearing before the line

in front of them gave way. The three battalions on Leval’s extreme

left, which had the Spaniards in front of them, had been exchanging

volleys with their opponents without notable advantage on either

side, when the rest of the division broke. When their companions

retired they also were forced to draw back, in order to prevent

themselves from being turned on both flanks. Campbell was cautious

enough to stop his men before they had gone far forward among the

thickets, and brought them back to their old position: he spiked the

guns that he had taken, and left them in the clearing in front of

the redoubt. His losses had been very small, owing to his admirable

self-restraint in calling back his charging regiments before they got

out of hand.

[660] This was the Myers who fell in storming the famous hill of

Albuera in 1811. See Cooper (of the 7th), p. 22.

Leval therefore was able to rally his division at leisure, upon the

two Polish battalions which formed its supports. He had lost in the

three-quarters of an hour during which he was engaged some six or

seven hundred men. The battle was raging by now all down the line,

and when the Germans were re-formed, they received orders to advance

for a second time, to cover the flank of Sebastiani’s division,

now hotly engaged with Sherbrooke’s right brigades. Neglecting

chronological considerations, in order to finish the narrative of

the action in this quarter, it may suffice to say that Leval’s

second attack was made at about 4 o’clock in the afternoon: it was

not delivered with so much energy as had been shown in his first. It

encountered the same obstacles, and could not surmount them. Once

more the advance rolled up through the olive groves, and reached the

clearing in front of the battery. Again the head of the attacking

masses withered away under the musketry fire and the salvos from the

English and Spanish guns, and the whole finally went to the rear

in disorder. Campbell, in repelling this attack, used his second

brigade as well as his first, and pushed the enemy further back than

he had done during the earlier fighting: the Spaniards also came out

of their line and continued to flank the retreating enemy with two

or three battalions and a half-battery[661]. As the Hessians and

Frankforters in their front began to give way, they were assailed

by one of Henestrosa’s cavalry regiments, the _Regimiento del Rey_,

which charged with great spirit, and cut up many men before they

could form square. The bulk of the two battalions, however, clubbed

together in a mass and retired into the woods, defending themselves

as best they could. The victorious Spanish horsemen while following

them, came upon a second French battery which (like that captured

by the British brigade on their left) was being brought forward by

a narrow lane between two olive groves. They cut down the gunners

and took four pieces, which were dragged back into the redoubt. This

was by far the best piece of work done by Spanish cavalry during the

whole of the first years of the war, and did much to atone for the

panic of the previous night in the eyes of the British observers upon

the right wing.

[661] ‘Another lull in the storm, and fresh formation. “Here they

come again” said many voices: so they did, but we were ready

and gave them such a warm reception that they speedily went to

the right-about. As in their first attack they now left behind

several pieces of cannon, which we secured as before. After these

two attacks and sharp repulses we were not troubled with their

company any more.’ Cooper, p. 23.

The repulse of Leval’s division was complete, and its wrecks, once

more rallied upon the two Polish battalions in their rear, drew

back into the plain, and were completely put out of action. In this

attack they lost not only the four guns taken by the Spaniards, but

seven more pieces of artillery. Convinced that he could not carry

the Pajar de Vergara position unless he could bring guns to bear

upon the redoubt, and check the ravages of its salvos of canister,

Leval had tried to push his remaining two batteries into the firing

line. Again, as in the first attack, they were left helpless when

the infantry broke, and became the prey of the pursuers. It would

seem that he lost on this day seventeen guns in all[662]. The total

of the casualties in his division were 1,007, nearly a quarter of

its force: the colonels of the Baden and Frankfort regiments and the

major commanding the Dutch battery had been left on the field[663].

Campbell had suffered on a very different scale--he had only lost 236

men, and it is improbable that the Spaniards on his right had more

than 150 or 180 casualties, since they only fought with one wing of

the attacking force. Wellesley, not without reason, gave the highest

praise in his dispatch to Campbell, for the admirable and cautious

defence which he had made. The management of the 4th Division,

indeed, contrasted strongly with that of the troops to its left,

where Sherbrooke’s brigades--as we shall see--risked the loss of the

battle by their rash pursuit of the enemy, far beyond the limits of

the position which had been given them to defend.

[662] There can be no rational doubt that the total number of

guns taken was seventeen, as set forth in Charles Stewart’s

report to Wellesley, as Adjutant-general, viz. ‘four

eight-pounders, four six-pounders, one four-pounder, one six-inch

howitzer, taken by Brigadier-general A. Campbell’s brigade,

with one six-inch howitzer and six other guns left by the enemy

and found in the woods’ of which four were in the hands of the

Spaniards. Wellesley, in his dispatch, made the error of stating

that twenty guns had been taken, being under the impression that

the Spaniards had captured seven pieces, while they themselves

only claim four--a Captain Piñero was mentioned in Eguia’s

dispatch for causing them to be brought back to the Spanish line.

The British took thirteen guns: three days after the battle

Wellesley made them over to his allies. He writes to O’Donoju

[Talavera, Aug. 1]: ‘We have got thirteen pieces of French

artillery, which I wish to give over to the Spanish army--the

other seven [four] you have already got. I shall be obliged if

you will urge General Cuesta to desire the commanding officer

of his artillery to receive charge of them from the officer

commanding the British artillery.’ This is surely conclusive as

to the numbers.

Jourdan in his _Mémoires_ acknowledges the loss of apparently

_all_ Leval’s guns--three batteries. ‘L’artillerie du général

Leval, qu’on avait imprudemment engagée au milieu des bois, des

vignes et des fosses, ayant eu la plupart de ses chevaux tués,

ne put pas être retirée; événement fâcheux qu’on eut le tort

impardonnable de cacher au roi’ [p. 261]. Desprez says that _six_

pieces only were lost: Thiers allows _eight_.