in Napoleon’s correspondence with his brother Joseph. On Aug.
25, the Emperor writes in hot anger to say that he sees from
the English newspapers that Joseph had lost twenty guns, a
fact concealed in the King’s dispatch. He desires to be told
at once the names of the batteries that were captured and the
divisions to which they belonged. Jourdan replies in the King’s
behalf on Sept. 15, that _no_ guns have been lost--four pieces
of Leval’s artillery had been for a moment in the hands of the
British, but they were recaptured. Joseph himself writes to the
same effect next day: ‘Wellesley n’a pris aucune aigle, il n’en
montrera pas plus que de canons.’ On the nineteenth, Jourdan
writes to Clarke, the Minister of War, to say that he has just
found out that _two_ guns had been lost by Leval. Sénarmont,
the artillery chief of the 4th Corps, explains to Jourdan, in a
letter of September 27, that _ten_ pieces had been lost in the
olive groves, but that all were recovered save _two_, one Dutch
six-pounder, and one French eight-pounder. The truth comes out in
Desprez’s narrative. He says that the King, hearing that Leval
had left guns abandoned in front of the Pajar de Vergara, ordered
Sebastiani to have them brought in: ‘Le général assura que déjà
elles avaient été reprises. Cette assertion était inexacte. Le
général Sebastiani était-il lui-même en erreur? Ou les ordres
donnés lui paraissaient-ils inexécutables? Je n’ai jamais eu
le mot de l’énigme: quoi qu’il en soit, les pièces tombèrent
le lendemain au pouvoir de l’ennemi. Le Général Sénarmont, qui
commandait l’artillerie, ne rendit pas compte de cette perte. Le
général Sebastiani l’avait prié avec instance de la cacher. Aussi
dans son rapport sur la bataille Joseph déclara-t-il positivement
qu’on n’avait pas perdu un canon. Plus tard les journaux anglais
firent connaître la vérité. L’Empereur, qui savait apprécier
leur exactitude, reprocha à son frère de l’avoir trompé. Joseph
eut assez de délicatesse pour accepter ces reproches et ne point
déclarer de quelle manière les choses s’étaient passées’ [p. 491].
In short, Sebastiani and Sénarmont conspired to hide the truth,
and Joseph, who liked them both (see his letters in Ducasse,
especially vi. 456, where on Sept. 30 he sends Sénarmont a gold
box as a sort of ‘consolation prize’), hushed the matter up in
their interests. The most curious part of the matter is that on
Sept. 27, Sénarmont was able to say with literal exactness that
only two pieces were missing, for fifteen of the lost guns had
been retaken on August 5, behind the bridge of Arzobispo, during
the retreat of Cuesta’s army. They had been given back to their
owners long before September, so were no longer missing. But this
can hardly be called ‘the whole truth and nothing but the truth.’
[663] The losses were killed: officers six, men ninety-seven:
wounded, officers twenty-four, men 803: prisoners, seventy-seven
men. Campbell lost killed: officers one, men thirty-two: wounded,
officers six, men 171: missing, officers one, men twenty-five--a
total of 236. The Spaniards may have had 150 casualties--it is
difficult to see that they can have suffered much more, as they
had only two hostile regiments in front of them.
We must now turn to their doings--the most desperate fighting that
occurred during the day. Sherbrooke’s eight battalions had to
endure the preliminary cannonade for more than half an hour after
Campbell’s men were closely engaged with the enemy. It was not till
three o’clock that the two French divisions opposed to them began
to descend towards the Portiña, in an orderly and imposing array.
Each of the French generals had drawn up his twelve battalions in
two lines--the front line deployed in column of divisions, the
supporting line in solid column of battalions. But there was this
difference in their arrangements, that Lapisse had placed his
brigades one behind the other, while Sebastiani had preferred to work
his brigades side by side, each with one regiment in first and one
in second line. The former therefore had Laplannes’ brigade (16th
Léger and 45th Line) opposed to Low’s and Langwerth’s regiments of
the German Legion and Cameron’s 2/83rd. The latter had the 28th of
Rey’s and the 58th of Liger-Bellair’s brigades ranged over against
the 1/61st and the British Foot-Guards. When the cannonade of the
French batteries ceased, the twelve battalions of their first line,
preceded by the usual swarm of _tirailleurs_, moved down toward the
Portiña. They crossed the brook and pressed on towards the red line
that stood awaiting their approach, driving before them with ease
the comparatively insignificant screen of light troops that lay in
front of the British centre. Sherbrooke, who was responsible for the
whole line of the defence, since his division exactly covered the
ground on which the French attack was delivered, had issued orders
that the troops were not to fire till the enemy came within fifty
yards of them, and that they were then to deliver a single volley and
charge. This programme was executed with precise obedience: though
suffering severely from the enemy’s musketry, the division held in
its fire till the hostile columns were close upon them, and then
opened with one tremendous discharge which crashed out simultaneously
along the whole eight battalions. The leading ranks of Lapisse’s and
Sebastiani’s front line went down in swathes,--one French witness
says that the infantry of the regiments of the 4th Corps lost a third
of their numbers in less than ten minutes. When the charge which
Sherbrooke had ordered followed close upon the blasting musketry
fire, the enemy retired in disorder and fell back beyond the Portiña.
The divisional general had apparently forgotten to caution his
colonels against the danger of carrying their advance too far.
Instead of contenting themselves with chasing the broken enemy as
far as the brook, and then returning to their positions, the four
brigades of the 1st division all crossed the water and pursued the
French into their own ground; the German Legion on the left actually
began to push them up the lower slopes of the Cerro de Cascajal,
while the Guards on the right went forward far into the rolling plain
in front of them. Cameron halted his two battalions not far beyond
the Portiña; but on each side of him the pursuit was pressed with
reckless energy, and without any remembrance of the fact that the
enemy had strong reserves.
Thus it came to pass that a disaster followed the first success of
Sherbrooke’s division. Both the Germans on the left and the Guards on
the right found themselves in face of intact troops, behind whom the
broken front line of the enemy took refuge. They were in no condition
to begin a new combat, for they were in complete disorder, and there
was a broad gap on the inner flank of each brigade, owing to the fact
that Cameron had halted and refused to push forward into danger.
Hence came a perilous crisis: the French reserves moved forward,
the guns on the Cascajal height enfiladed the German Legion, while
two regiments of Latour-Maubourg’s dragoons moved in upon the right
flank of the Guards. The whole of the six battalions that had joined
in the reckless advance were forced to recoil, fighting desperately
but losing ground every moment, and pressed into clumps and masses
that presented no trace of their former line of battle. When they
fell back to the point where Cameron had stopped, the 61st and 83rd
became involved in their retreat, and were forced to repass the
Portiña in their company. The French followed with shouts of victory,
pushing their advantage to the utmost and slaughtering the disordered
battalions by hundreds. The disaster was worst on the left, where
half the strength of the 2nd Line Battalion of the German Legion--387
men--was destroyed in twenty minutes, and the 5th battalion of that
same corps lost over 100 prisoners. The Guards suffered almost as
heavily: out of their 2,000 men 611 went down killed or wounded: but
they left no prisoners behind.
It seemed that the day might well be lost, for Wellesley’s reserves
were small. Such as they were, however, they were at once put into
action. Mackenzie brought forward his brigade to the ground which the
Guards had originally covered, and drew them up to withstand the rush
of Sebastiani’s division--the 2/24th on the right, the 2/31st on the
left, with the 1/45th between them. The disordered household troops
passed through their intervals, and rallied behind them with splendid
promptness: ‘their good humour and determination after such dreadful
losses’ says an eye-witness, ‘was shown by their giving a loud hurrah
as they took up their new ground[664].’ At the same time Cotton
brought up the single brigade of light cavalry which was in reserve,
and drew them up on Mackenzie’s right, so as to cover his flank.
Sebastiani came up with great boldness against the fresh front thus
presented to him, and for twenty minutes there was a furious musketry
battle in the British right centre. Mackenzie himself fell, and his
three battalions lost 632 men out of about 2,000: but they held their
own, and finally the enemy recoiled. They were helped somewhat in
their inclination to retreat by a charge of the Light Dragoons upon
the flank of their left-hand regiment, the 75th, which had about 150
men sabred[665]. Thus on this point the battle was saved: the main
credit must go to Mackenzie’s brigade, which has never received the
praise that was its due, for its general was killed, and thus no
report from the 3rd division was sent in to Wellesley, who omitted
all mention of its doings in his Talavera dispatch[666]. It is never
too late to do homage to forgotten valour, and to call attention to
a neglected feat of arms. The services of the 24th, 31st, and 45th
saved the day for Britain[667].
[664] Lord Munster, p. 231.
[665] General Desprez, relating the doings of Sebastiani’s
division, says that the 75th were cut up by _Spanish_ light
horse: but there were no cavalry of that nation in this part of
the field, and it would seem that the French were misled by the
blue uniforms of the Light Dragoons.
[666] Except that he mentioned the colonels of the 31st and 45th
among the officers who had done well in the battle.
[667] The only place where a good account of the doings of
Mackenzie’s brigade is to be found is in the excellent regimental
history of the 24th. I fully share the indignation expressed by
its author at the unmerited oblivion in which its splendid doings
have been lying for so many years. [See Paton’s _Annals of the
24th Regiment_.]
Sebastiani therefore drew back terribly mauled: his division had
lost _all_ its four colonels, seven of its twelve battalion-chiefs,
seventy other officers and 2,100 rank and file--including some sixty
prisoners. There was no more fight left in them. They recoiled into
the plain, and drew up at last not far from the wrecks of Leval’s
division, a full mile beyond the Portiña.
Meanwhile, however great may have been the danger in the British
right-centre, that in the left-centre was even greater. Cameron’s,
Low’s, and Langwerth’s brigades were all in the most desperate
position: the former, not having pushed so far to the front as the
four German battalions, had suffered least of the three--though it
had lost 500 men out of 1,400. But the Legionary troops were in far
worse case--Langwerth had been killed, and his brigade was reduced
from 1,300 to 650 bayonets--just fifty per cent. of the men had been
lost. Low had gone into action with only 950 rank and file, owing to
the heavy casualty-list of the preceding night. Of these he now lost
350, including 150 made prisoners in the disorderly retreat down the
slope of the Cerro de Cascajal. That these troops ever rallied and
made head at all, when they had recrossed the Portiña, is much to
their credit.
The situation was saved by Wellesley’s own prescience. The moment
that he saw the rash attack on the French line to which Sherbrooke
had committed himself, he looked round for supports which might
be utilized to stay the inevitable reaction that must follow.
Mackenzie’s brigade was available on the right-centre, and was used
as we have seen. But there were no infantry reserves behind the
left-centre: it was necessary to send down troops from the Cerro
de Medellin. Villatte was then threatening its front, Ruffin was
marching to turn its northern flank, and Wellesley did not dare
to detach a whole brigade from the key of the position. He took,
however, Richard Stewart’s strongest battalion, the 1/48th under
Colonel Donnellan (which had still over 700 bayonets in line even
after its losses in the morning) and sent it at full speed down the
southern slope of the Cerro. It arrived in time to take position on
the old ground of the British line, at the moment that the retreating
masses came rolling back across the Portiña. If the 48th had been
carried away in the general backward movement, the day would have
been lost: but the regiment stood firm, and allowed Cameron’s and
Langwerth’s troops to pass by its flanks and form up in its rear.
While it was holding back Lapisse’s central advance, the defeated
brigades rallied and re-formed with admirable celerity, and the
battle was restored. Here, as further to the right, the fighting now
resolved itself into a furious musketry-combat between enemies both
of whom were now spent and weakened by their previous exertions[668].
In such a duel the line had always the advantage over the column in
the end. The French, when once brought to a standstill by the 1/48th,
lost their _élan_, and stood heaped together in disorderly masses,
keeping up a rolling fire but gaining no ground. Howorth turned
upon them the batteries on the Cerro de Medellin, which enfiladed
their flank and added to their confusion. General Lapisse himself
was killed at this moment, as he was trying to urge on his men to
a final advance. It was probably, however, not his death--on which
all the French accounts lay great stress--but rather the defeat
of Sebastiani’s division on their immediate right which finally
shook the _morale_ of the French regiments, and induced them to
move back, first at a slow pace, then in undisguised retreat. The
shattered remnants of the German Legion and of the 1/48th, 1/61st,
and 2/83rd were in no condition to follow. Seldom have two combatants
so thoroughly mauled each other as had the twelve French and the
seven allied battalions which fought in this part of the field. Of
the 6,800 men of Lapisse’s division, the general, sixty-nine other
officers, and 1,700 men were _hors de combat_. Of 4,300[669] British
and German troops opposed to them almost exactly the same number had
been lost--a general (Langwerth), seventy-seven officers, and 1,616
men. That the smaller force should ever have held its ground after
losing more than a third of its number is almost miraculous. There
was no such a victory as this during the whole war, save Albuera.
[668] In most modern English narratives of Talavera it is stated
that the 1/48th supported the Guards. This must be a mistake,
caused by a misreading of Wellesley’s dispatch. It is certain
that the Guards fell back on Mackenzie’s brigade. Contemporary
accounts by officers of the 2/24th speak of the Coldstreams
passing through them to re-form: the Scots Fusiliers therefore
must have had the 2/31st and 1/45th behind them. Donnellan and
the 1/48th really supported Langwerth’s German battalions, as
Lord Londonderry (the only historian who has got the facts right)
clearly shows (i. p. 410). It is curious that the historians of
the battle have not seen that the Germans, in their dreadfully
mauled condition, could not have been rallied without external
aid: this aid was given by Donnellan, while Mackenzie was saving
the Guards.
[669] The figures are (after deducting the losses of the earlier
combats): Low’s brigade 964, Langwerth’s 1,315, Cameron’s 1,306,
1/48th 700, a total of 4,285. The losses were: Low 326, Langwerth
721, Cameron 547, 1/48th _about_ 100, a total of 1,694, including
officers. (See tables in Appendix.)
While the main stress of the battle had been rolling across the
lower slopes, above the middle course of the Portiña, matters had
been comparatively quiet on the Cerro de Medellin. Victor, it will
be remembered, had ordered that Villatte was to make no serious
attack on the height until the divisions to his left had made some
impression upon the British centre. But Lapisse and Sebastiani, in
spite of their temporary successes, had never broken into Wellesley’s
position. The assault on the Cerro therefore was never made, though
a furious artillery fire was kept up against its garrison throughout
the afternoon. The handful of British guns upon the crest could
make no adequate reply: hence the three brigades of Tilson, Richard
Stewart, and Donkin were suffering very serious losses from the long
cannonade. Wellesley had made them shelter themselves, as far as was
possible, behind the sky-line. Nevertheless the storm of shot and
shell that beat upon the position was not without effect. In Donkin’s
brigade no one, save the light companies skirmishing along the lower
slopes, discharged a musket that afternoon, yet the casualties in its
ranks were no less than 195[670]. Hill’s two brigades, though better
covered, had still many killed and wounded. That the return-fire of
the British artillery and skirmishers was not altogether ineffective
is shown by the fact that the two regiments of Villatte’s second
brigade, which held the opposite slope, lost 185 men, and even the
squadrons of Beaumont in its rear had a few troopers disabled[671].
Nevertheless the fighting in this part of the field was not only
indecisive but comparatively innocuous to both sides, when compared
with the awful slaughter that was going on to their right.
[670] For a description of the sufferings of the 88th, whose
battalion companies did not fire a single shot, during the
cannonade of the afternoon, see Grattan’s _Connaught Rangers_,
vol. iii. p. 91.
[671] For these losses, see the Talavera Appendix.
It only remains to tell of the combat to the north of the Cerro, in
the narrow valley that separated the British position from the Sierra
de Segurilla. Here the engagement began at a much later hour than in
the centre. All the observers on the hill speak of the first contest
of Campbell and Leval as being concluded, and of that of Sherbrooke
and Sebastiani as being at its height, before the French right wing
began to move.
The French troops in this direction, it will be remembered, were the
three regiments of Ruffin, now mere wrecks of their former selves,
and the first brigade of Villatte’s division, that of Cassagne. The
six battalions of the latter force were near the Cerro de Medellin,
while Ruffin’s men stood further to the north, under the Sierra de
Segurilla. In support of them both lay Merlin’s division of light
cavalry.
At the moment when Victor had received permission to turn the flank
of the Cerro, it had appeared that he would meet little opposition.
But long ere the French were ready to advance, they had seen allied
troops arriving in haste and taking up their position at the southern
end of the valley. First Fane’s and Anson’s cavalry had drawn up on
the level ground, then Bassecourt’s Spanish infantry had appeared on
the rocky slopes of the Sierra, and had thrown out a long skirmishing
line opposite Ruffin’s right. Lastly Albuquerque’s whole cavalry
division had ridden round from the rear of the centre, and taken post
behind Anson and Fane. There were now over 5,000 bayonets and 5,000
sabres in face of the French brigades.
It was clear that any attempt to storm the northern face of the Cerro
would expose the troops that attempted it to a flank attack from
the allied troops in the valley. It was this that made Ruffin and
Villatte (who was present in person with Cassagne’s brigade) very
chary of molesting Hill’s position. On the other hand if the French
advanced up the valley to attack the cavalry at its southern end,
they would expose themselves to a flanking fire from the guns on the
Cerro and from Hill’s right-hand infantry brigade.
Nevertheless, when the roar of the invisible battle on the other side
of the Cascajal height was at its loudest, the two French generals
began a cautious advance towards the front. They at once came under
a tiresome flanking artillery fire from the Cerro: half Rettberg’s
battery of the German Legion had been placed on a spur from which
it enfiladed Villatte’s nearest regiment. Two heavy Spanish
twelve-pounders opened from another part of the slope[672], and
Albuquerque had also placed his horse-artillery guns in a position
from which they bore up the valley. The pieces that accompanied the
French advance, being in the trough of the depression, could do
little harm in return.
[672] Hartmann of the K.G.L. artillery has a note on these
pieces: they were useful because of their heavy calibre, none
of the British guns being heavier than six-pounders. They were
bright new brass cannon from the arsenal at Seville: their
machinery for sighting and elevation was of a most primitive
type--a century out of date. The lieutenant in command seemed
unable to hit anything with them, whereupon Hartmann got off his
horse, himself laid a gun, and had the luck to dismount a French
piece in the valley. After this the Spaniards fired better and
did very good service.
After advancing as far as the path which leads from Talavera to
Segurilla, Ruffin deployed his right regiment, the much depleted
9th Léger, and sent it up the Sierra to form a screen opposite
Bassecourt’s infantry. The other six battalions, the 24th and 96th,
advanced in column along the valley, with the 27th from Cassagne’s
brigade on their left; presently the whole came level with the
northern slope of the Cerro, just reaching the farm of Valdefuentes
at its foot.
At this moment Lapisse’s attack had already been beaten off, and
Wellesley was able to turn his attention from the centre to the flank
of his line[673]. Crossing the crest of the Cerro, he studied for
a moment the situation of the French regiments, and then sent down
orders for Anson’s brigade of light dragoons to charge them, with
Fane’s heavy cavalry in support. The moment that the British horsemen
were seen to be advancing the enemy hastily formed squares--the
24th and 96th slightly to the west of the Segurilla road, the 27th
in a more advanced position just under the walls of the farm of
Valdefuentes. A battalion of _grenadiers réunis_, and the 63rd of the
Line, which formed Villatte’s supports, also fell into square far to
the rear. The concentration of the French regiments in vast masses
of three battalions each gave a great opportunity to the allied
artillery, which found easy targets in the square blocks of men at
their feet.
[673] That the charge of Anson’s light dragoons came after
victory had been secured in the centre is clear from several
eye-witnesses, e.g. Leith-Hay of the 29th, who was on top of
the Cerro, and close to Wellesley, writes: ‘The favourable
termination of the battle in the centre created great excitement:
the cheer, which had been re-echoed from the height had hardly
died away, when a scene of another character was in preparation.
The movements of the divisions Ruffin and Villatte had during
the late contest been vacillating and uncertain. Formed to all
appearance to attack the height, they had even advanced some
distance towards its base. Sir Arthur crossed with rapid steps
from the right of the 29th to the part of the hill looking down
on Anson’s brigade. It was immediately known that a charge would
take place’ (i. p. 158).
As Anson’s brigade advanced, the right regiment, the 23rd Light
Dragoons, found itself opposite the large square of the 27th
Léger, while the 1st Light Dragoons of the German Legion faced the
smaller masses of the 24th and 96th. The ground seemed favourable
for a charge, and though an attack on unbroken infantry is always
hazardous, the squadrons came on with great confidence and were soon
closing in at headlong speed upon the hostile line.
An unforeseen chance of war, however, wrecked the whole plan. The
long dry waving grass of the valley seemed to show a level surface,
but the appearance was deceitful. About a hundred and fifty yards in
front of the French squares was a narrow but deep ravine, the bed of
a small winter-torrent which discharges its waters into the Portiña
during the rainy season. It was about fifteen feet broad and ten feet
deep in the northern part of the field, a little narrower in its
southern course. There were many places at which it could be crossed
with ease by a horseman moving alone and at a moderate pace. But for
squadrons riding knee to knee at headlong speed it was a dangerous
obstacle, and indeed a trap of the most deadly sort. It was wholly
invisible to the horsemen till they came upon it. Colonel Elley, the
second in command of the 23rd, who rode two lengths ahead of the
front line of his regiment, mounted on a grey horse, and conspicuous
to every observer on the Cerro de Medellin, was the first man to
discover the peril[674]. His charger cleared it at a bound; but
knowing that the inferior mounts of the rank and file would certainly
come to grief, he wheeled round on the further bank, threw up his
hand and tried to wave back his followers. It was too late: the two
squadrons of the front line were on the brink of the ravine before
they could understand his action. Some of the troopers cleared the
obstacle in their stride; some swerved in time and refused to take
the leap; others scrambled into and over the less difficult points
of the ditch: but many fell horse and man into the trap, and were
then crushed by the rear rank falling in on top of them. There were
several broken necks, and scores of broken arms and legs in the
leading squadrons. The second line got warning of the obstacle by
seeing the inexplicable disorder into which their fellows had fallen.
They slackened their pace, but were borne into the confused mass at
the ravine before they could entirely bring themselves to a stand.
Meanwhile the front face of the square formed by the 27th Léger
opened fire on the unhappy regiment.
[674] Leith-Hay, p. 159.
The German light dragoons, on the northern side of the valley, came
upon the fatal cutting at a point where it was somewhat shallower and
broader than in front of the 23rd--one of their officers estimates it
in his narrative at eighteen feet in width and six or eight in depth.
Their disaster therefore was not so complete as that of their British
comrades. But many troopers of the first line were unhorsed, and
others, though keeping their saddles, could not manage to scramble up
the further side of the ravine. The rear squadrons came up in time
to add to the confusion, and reined up among the survivors of the
front[675].
[675] Napier, ii. 176, has a story that Col. Arentschildt of the
German dragoons discovered the ravine in time, and checked his
line, crying, ‘I will not kill my young mans’--thereby saving
his regiment and taking no part in the charge. This is entirely
disproved by the narratives of the officers of the 1st K.G.L.
Dragoons, quoted in Beamish’s _History of the King’s German
Legion_. The evidence of Colonel von der Decken alone suffices to
show that the regiment fell into the trap, suffered severe losses
therein, and then executed a disorderly and ineffective charge on
Ruffin’s squares, after which it returned to its old position,
with a loss of nearly forty men. Napier seems to have been misled
by the statement of Major Ponsonby of the 23rd, to the effect
that the Germans turned back at the ravine. He also says that
Seymour, Colonel of the 23rd, was wounded, but that officer’s
name does not appear in the casualty list.
The two regiments were now in utter confusion, and had already
suffered severe loss both by the fall into the ravine and by the
French musketry which had opened upon them. Their colonels would
have been wise to give up the attempt to advance and to fall back in
their old position. How could squadrons in such a disordered state
hope to break into French squares? But both Seymour of the 23rd and
Arentschildt were officers of high mettle, and throwing prudence to
the winds they collected such of their men as had leaped or scrambled
over the ravine, and led them against the hostile infantry. Probably
little more than half of either corps took part in the final charge.
Be this as it may, both the 23rd and the Legionary dragoons made an
attempt to gallop in upon the squares in their front. The Germans
rode at that of the 24th regiment, received its fire, and were
repulsed, though a few men fell close in upon the bayonets. They then
galloped off and fell back up the valley. Far more disastrous was the
fate of the English regiment. The survivors of the two left squadrons
charged the square of the 27th Léger, were repulsed with heavy loss,
recrossed the ravine, and struggled back to the British lines. But
Colonel Elley and the right squadrons, having no enemy immediately in
their front, rode furiously between the French square and the farm of
Valdefuentes, and charged a line of cavalry which was visible a few
hundred yards to the rear[676]. This was the leading brigade [10th
and 26th Chasseurs] of Merlin’s division, which was acting in support
of Villatte and Ruffin. The squadrons in front of the 23rd swerved
to the side when charged[677], but on passing them the British
dragoons found another regiment of Merlin’s second line opposed to
them[678]. They dashed at it, whereupon the regiment that had evaded
them swung round and fell upon their rear. Encircled by fivefold
numbers the remnant of Drake’s and Allen’s squadrons of the 23rd
were annihilated. Only a few well-mounted officers[679], including
their leader Elley, and two or three troopers cut their way through
the enemy, rode off to the northward, and ultimately escaped to
Bassecourt’s Spanish line on the Sierra de Segurilla. The total loss
of the regiment was 207 killed, wounded and missing out of 450 sabres
who took the field in the morning. Of these, three officers and 105
men were prisoners--most of them wounded.
[676] In this charge they carried away with them, and almost
captured, Generals Villatte and Cassagne, who had failed to take
refuge in the square of the 27th, and were caught outside it.
[Sémélé’s Report.]
[677] In the French official reports it is said that General
Strolz, the brigadier, drew aside the 10th Chasseurs, in order
to fall upon the British dragoons from the flank. Rocca (p. 104)
says that the regiment was charged and broke, but rallied again.
_Victoires et Conquêtes_ has: ‘le 10me de chasseurs ne pouvait
soutenir cette charge, ouvrit ses rangs, mais bientôt rallié il
chargea ses adversaires en queue.’ As the regiment only lost five
killed it does not seem likely that it was broken. The French
records do not give the number of its wounded.
[678] This was the Westphalian _Chevaux-légers_ regiment.
[679] Among the other officers who cut their way through was
Lord George William Russell, desperately wounded by a cut on the
shoulder. Only three officers (two wounded) were taken prisoners
from these two squadrons: two others were killed: it would
seem therefore that out of twelve present with the two right
squadrons, several succeeded in getting out of the trap. Elley
says that the whole body that followed him did not exceed 170
sabres, and that seven or eight only cut their way through the
enemy.
It was late in the afternoon when the survivors of the 23rd found
their way back to the western end of the valley, and the battle in
the centre had long died down to a cannonade. Ruffin and Villatte
now had it in their power to advance again, but did not do so. If
they had gone further forward they would have lent their flank still
more to Hill’s troops upon the Cerro, and would have had to deploy,
a movement which would have exposed them, when no longer protected
by formation in square, to charges from the mass of allied cavalry
still visible in their front--Fane’s brigade and Albuquerque’s
strong division. Bassecourt’s Spaniards were holding their ground
against the flank-guard which had been sent up on to the Sierra de
Segurilla, and to drive them back Ruffin would have had to detach
more battalions from his main column. News had been received that
the central attack had completely failed. It was natural, therefore,
that after some hesitation the French right wing retired, and fell
back up the valley of the Portiña. Villatte’s two regiments had lost
about 200 men while standing in square under the fire of the guns on
the Cerro. They could no longer be regarded as fresh troops fit for
a prolonged advance, while the wrecks of Ruffin’s battalions, having
now been under fire three separate times in eighteen hours, were
utterly exhausted. It is clear that Victor could not have dared to
risk a serious attack upon the British left with these forces.
[Illustration: BATTLE OF TALAVERA
THE MAIN ENGAGEMENT
3 TO 5 P.M. JULY 28TH 1809]
The battle had now come to a standstill: of the five French infantry
divisions in the front line those of Leval, Sebastiani, and Lapisse
were reforming their diminished ranks in the plain, far to the east
of the Portiña, while Villatte and Ruffin had fallen back on to the
slopes of the Cerro de Cascajal. The only intact infantry still
remaining at the disposition of the King were his own 1,800 Guards,
and the 3,300 bayonets of Dessolles. With these and with Villatte’s
two brigades, which had only lost 400 men, it would have been
possible to prepare one more assault upon the British position.
Victor, raging with anger at his third repulse, was anxious to
continue the action, though he had lost nearly one man in four of
his infantry, and had not won an inch of ground. The King was less
hopeful: the frightful slaughter had subdued his spirits, and he
asked himself whether the 5,000 men of his reserve would suffice to
break the thin red line against which the whole of the 1st and 4th
Corps had hurled themselves in vain. For a moment he seemed inclined
to risk his last stake, and the Guards and Dessolles were ordered
to move forward. But they had not gone far when a counter-order was
sent to check them: Milhaud, whose dragoons had spent the whole day
in observing the Spanish lines, had sent in a message to the effect
that Cuesta was at last showing signs of life, and that he could see
numerous troops pushing to the front among the olive groves in front
of the town. The news was not true, for nothing more than vedettes
and small exploring parties had been sent out by the Spanish general.
But the very suspicion that the Army of Estremadura might at last
be preparing to take the initiative was enough to damp the very
moderate ardour of King Joseph. If he committed himself to one final
dash at the English, and engaged both his reserve and the rallied
divisions of his front line, in an attack upon their allied centre
and left, what could he do in the event of the sudden appearance of
the whole Spanish army in the act of turning his southern flank?
Twenty-five thousand men, or more, might suddenly sally out from
the screen of groves, and fling themselves upon the left flank of
Sebastiani’s corps. To hold them back nothing would be available but
the 5,000 sabres of Milhaud and Latour-Maubourg; of infantry not one
man would be left to parry such a stroke. The King could not flatter
himself that anything but a disaster could ensue. Even if it were
not true that the Spaniards were already in motion, there was every
reason to believe that they might deliver an attack when they saw
the last French reserves put into action against the British. Few
generals would have resisted such a tempting opportunity. It was to
be remembered also that some of the Spaniards had actually come out
of their lines, and fallen upon Leval’s flank, when the last assault
had been pressed against the Pajar de Vergara. A third advance in
this quarter might yet rouse the whole Estremaduran army out of its
apathy, and induce it to charge home upon Sebastiani’s left wing.
Jourdan and most of the members of Joseph’s staff were convinced
that it would be mad to deliver a last attack on the British line,
in face of the possible consequences of an advance by the Spaniards.
The Marshal declared that[680] it was impossible to proceed with any
further scheme of advance, and that the only safe course was to draw
back the whole army towards the Alberche. His master was relieved to
find a good reason for ending a battle which had been begun without
his permission, and continued under his very reluctant sanction.
Orders were sent along the whole line, directing both the 1st and the
4th Corps to abandon their fighting-ground and fall back to their
old position of the twenty-seventh. The cavalry divisions of Merlin,
Latour-Maubourg, and Milhaud were to cover the retreat.
[680] The best account of all this comes from the _Mémoire_ of
General Desprez, who was riding with the head-quarters staff at
this moment.
Victor was furious at receiving these directions. He averred to the
officer who bore the King’s dispatch that from his point of vantage
on the Cascajal he could command a view of the whole Spanish army,
and that he was positive that not a Spaniard had moved. He even
pretended to observe signs of a retreat in Wellesley’s lines, and
persisted that the mere demonstration of a fourth attack would induce
the allies to abandon their position. How he came to form any such
conclusion it is hard to see, for the whole British army was still
preserving its old ground, and no one from the Commander-in-chief
down to the youngest private was dreaming of a movement to the rear.
It would indeed have been insane to desert a strong position, in
order to retreat across the open in face of an army possessing 7,000
excellent cavalry! But Victor, still loth to withdraw and to own
himself beaten, sent word to the King that he took it upon himself to
remain on the slopes of the Cascajal till he should receive further
orders, and that he yet hoped that the reserve might be sent forward
and the battle renewed.
When Victor’s message reached the King, it had already been
discovered that all the rumours concerning the advance of the
Spaniards were false. But the hour was now late, and (as Jourdan
observed) if the army were to gain a final success--a most
problematical occurrence--there would be no daylight left in which
to push it to its legitimate end. He thought it better to take the
prudent course, to refuse to risk the reserve, whose defeat would
have the most fatal consequences, and to prepare for a retreat. The
orders were accordingly issued that the army should fall back to
its old camping-ground of the morning, deferring the passage of the
Alberche till the next day[681].
[681] All this is again derived from Desprez, who both carried
the King’s orders to Victor, and bore back Victor’s remonstrances
to the King.
While the French commanders were in controversy concerning their
movements, the battle had died down into a cannonade, kept up with
great vehemence by the batteries on the Cerro de Cascajal. The
British and German guns never ceased their reply, but--as had been
the case during the whole day--they were far too few to subdue the
enemy’s fire: considering how they were overmatched, it is wonderful
that there was but one piece disabled, and that only sixty-six
gunners were put _hors de combat_. The opposing batteries were hit
almost as hard, for the artillery of the 1st Corps had sixty-four
casualties.
A distressing accident took place during this final strife between
the hostile batteries: a large area of dry grass on the lower
slopes of the Cerro de Medellin took fire, from smouldering wadding
fanned by the wind. Many of the severely wounded of both sides
were scorched, and some burnt to death, by the short but devouring
conflagration that ran along the hillside[682].
[682] Lord Munster, p. 235; Leith-Hay, p. 162.
By dusk the whole of the 4th Corps was rolling to the rear, and the
last rays of daylight showed Wellesley the welcome view of a general
retreat opposite his right and centre. Victor clung obstinately to
the Cerro de Cascajal till far into the hours of darkness. But at
last the cold fit supervened, his spirits sank, and he withdrew at
3 A.M. full of resentment, and well stocked with grievances for
the acrimonious correspondence with Joseph and Jourdan in which he
indulged for the next six weeks.
There can be little doubt that Jourdan was right in refusing to
fall in with the younger marshal’s plans for a fourth assault on
the British. Wellesley was well settled into his fighting-ground:
at the southern end of his line Campbell was perfectly safe at the
Pajar de Vergara redoubt. He had lost no more than 236 men, so that
his whole division was practically intact. Hill’s brigades on the
Cerro were also in perfectly good order--they had not been attacked
since the morning, and would have been quite competent to defend
themselves at five o’clock in the afternoon. The cannonade which they
had been enduring had done some harm, but there were still 3,000
men in line, to hold a most formidable position. The only point of
the British front on which the French could have hoped to make any
impression was the centre. Here the Guards and Cameron’s brigade had
suffered heavily, and the four battalions of the German Legion even
worse--they had lost a full fifty per cent. of their numbers. But
Mackenzie’s division was now in line with Sherbrooke’s, its first
brigade supporting the Guards, its second (Donkin’s) linked to the
Germans. Considering the way in which the British centre had dealt
with the 15,000 bayonets of Sebastiani and Lapisse during the main
engagement, the French critics who hold that they would have given
way before the 5,000 men of Dessolles and the Royal Guard, even when
backed by the rallied divisions, show a very optimistic spirit.
Moreover when the battle had waxed hot in this quarter, the French
would have had no certainty that Campbell and the Spaniards might not
have fallen upon their flank. For Leval’s much depleted division was
no longer in front of the British right--it had been withdrawn behind
Sebastiani[683], and there was nothing to prevent the reserve-brigade
of the 4th division from going to the aid of Sherbrooke’s men. The
chances of war are incalculable, but there seems no reason to believe
that Victor’s judgement as to the probability of success was any
better at five o’clock in the afternoon than it had been at five
o’clock in the morning. Jourdan was the wiser man.
[683] See Jourdan’s _Mémoires_, p. 262.
Thus ended the battle of Talavera, in which 16,000 British supported
and repulsed the attack of 26,000 French infantry--omitting from the
total of the assailants the division of Villatte, which was only
slightly engaged. The Cerro de Medellin was strong ground, but not
so strong as to counterbalance a superiority of 10,000 men. The real
fighting power of Wellesley’s foot-soldiery was shown in the lower
parts of the field, where Sherbrooke’s and Mackenzie’s 8,000 bayonets
achieved their marvellous success over the 15,000 men of Lapisse
and Sebastiani. Doomed to apparent ruin by their own rash valour
in pursuing the enemy across the Portiña, they yet recovered their
line, re-established the battle, and finally won an almost incredible
victory. The ‘First Division’ of the Peninsular army,--the Guards
and the German Legion who fought side by side throughout the whole
war,--had many proud days between 1809 and 1814, but surely Talavera
was the most honourable of them all. Yet probably Mackenzie’s brigade
and Donnellan’s 48th must claim an even higher merit--it was their
prompt and steady help which gave their comrades time to re-form, and
warded off the possibility of disaster at the critical moment.
The Spaniards had little to do upon July 28, but what little they
had to do was well done. The charge of the cavalry regiment Rey was
well timed and gallantly delivered. The few battalions engaged near
the Pajar de Vergara and in Bassecourt’s division behaved steadily.
The artillery sent to aid the British was manfully worked and did
good service. But if only the Spanish army had been able to manœuvre,
what a difference there must have been in the battle! When Leval,
Sebastiani, and Lapisse fell back in disorder at 4 P.M., what would
have been the fate of the French if Cuesta could have led out 25,000
men upon their flank and rear? He did not attempt to do so, and
probably he was right. Yet it was hard for a British army to have to
fight in line with allies who were perfectly useless for any large
offensive movement.
The losses of Talavera, as we have already shown, were tremendous
on both sides. Adding together the casualties of the twenty-seventh
and the twenty-eighth, the British lost 5,365 men, 801 killed, 3915
wounded, and 649 missing. Of the last-named 108 belonged to the
unfortunate 23rd Dragoons, and nearly 300 to the German Legion.
Two generals, Mackenzie and Langwerth, had been killed, and three
colonels, Ross of the Coldstream Guards, Donnellan of the 48th, and
Gordon of the 83rd.
The French losses were decidedly heavier, though the percentage in
the regiments was in most cases far lower than that in the victorious
British force. The total was 7,268, of whom 761 were killed, 6,301
wounded, and 206 missing[684]. General Lapisse and von Porbeck of the
Baden regiment, one of Leval’s brigadiers, were the only officers
of distinction slain. But the number of field-officers wounded was
enormous--in Sebastiani’s division _all_ the colonels, and seven out
of twelve of the battalion commanders were disabled.
Cuesta never issued any proper return of his casualties. He stated
in one of his dispatches that they amounted to 1,201 men. This
figure cannot possibly represent killed and wounded alone. Only one
cavalry regiment, five or six battalions, and three batteries were
engaged, none of them heavily. The British troops which fought in
their neighbourhood had very modest losses, which made it incredible
that the comrades in line with them should have suffered to the
extent of more than 400 or 500 men. The balance must represent the
missing from the stampede of Portago’s division upon the night of
the twenty-seventh. Major-General Manglano, who commanded one of
the divisions near the Pajar de Vergara, and de Lastra, the gallant
colonel of the _regimiento del Rey_, were wounded.
The only trophies taken on either side were the seventeen guns of
Leval’s division captured by Campbell and the Spanish cavalry.
[684] These ‘missing’ do not include the French wounded taken on
the field, and recovered when Victor came back to Talavera on
Aug. 6 and captured the British hospitals. The French return was
drawn up only after Aug. 18, when these men had been released.
N.B.--I have used of British sources mainly Lord Londonderry, Lord
Munster, Leslie and Leith-Hay of the 29th, Stothert of the Guards,
Cooper of the 2/7th, Hawker of the 14th Light Dragoons, and letters
of Elley and Ponsonby of the 23rd Light Dragoons. Of French sources I
have found Jourdan’s _Mémoires_, Victor’s dispatches and controversial
letters with King Joseph, Sémélé’s journal of the 1st Corps, and
Desprez’s narrative the most useful. From Colonel Whinyates I have
received an unpublished map, drawn on the spot by Unger of the K.G.L.,
which fixes all the artillery position with admirable accuracy.
NOTES ON THE TOPOGRAPHY OF TALAVERA
I looked over the proofs of the last three chapters, seated on the
small square stone that marks the highest point of the Cerro de
Medellin, after having carefully walked over the whole field from end
to end, on April 9, 1903. The ground is little changed in aspect,
but the lower slopes of the Cerro, and the whole of its opposite
neighbour the Cascajal hill, are now under cultivation. The former
was covered with barley nine inches high, and the rough vegetation
of thyme and dry grass, which the narratives of 1809 describe, was
only to be seen upon the higher and steeper parts of the hill, and
on the sides of the ravine below. The latter is steep but neither
very broad nor particularly difficult to negotiate. Even in April the
Portiña had shrunk to a chain of pools of uninviting black water.
The ditch fatal to the 23rd Light Dragoons, in the northern valley,
is still visible. In its upper part, where the German regiment met
it, the obstacle is practically unchanged. But nearer to the farm of
Valdefuentes it has almost disappeared, owing to the extension of
cultivation. There is only a four-foot drop from a field into a piece
of rough ground full of reeds and bent-grass, where the soil is a
little marshy in April. I presume that when the field was made, the
hollow was partly filled up, and the watercourse, instead of flowing
in a well-defined narrow ditch, has diffused itself over the whole
trough of the ground.
In the central parts of the field the Portiña forms a boundary, but
not an obstacle. Where Cameron and the Guards fought Sebastiani’s
8,000 men, the ground is almost an exact level on both sides of the
little stream. There is no ‘position’ whatever on the English bank,
which is, if anything, a little lower than the French. The Pajar
de Vergara is a low knoll twenty feet high, now crowned by a large
farmhouse, which occupies the site of the old battery. The ground in
front of it is still covered with olive groves, and troops placed
here could see nothing of an advancing enemy till he emerges from
the trees a hundred yards or so to the front. On the other hand
an observer on the summit of the Cerro de Medellin gets a perfect
bird’s-eye view of this part of the ground, and could make out the
enemy all through his progress among the olives. Wellesley must have
been able to mark exactly every movement of Leval’s division, though
Campbell could certainly not have done so. In the Spanish part of
the line the groves have evidently been thinned, as there are now
many houses, forming a straggling suburb, pushed up to and along
the railway, which now crosses this section of the line. In 1809
Talavera was still self-contained within its walls, which it has now
overstepped. The Cascajal is practically of the same height as the
main eastern level of the Cerro de Medellin: but the triple summit of
the latter is much loftier ground; and standing on it one commands
the whole of the Cascajal--every one of Villatte’s battalions must
have been counted by Wellesley, who could also mark every man along
the whole French front, even into and among the olive groves occupied
by Leval’s Germans. Victor on the Cascajal could get no such a
general view of the British position, but could see very well into
Sherbrooke’s line. Hill’s troops, behind the first crest of the Cerro
de Medellin, and Campbell’s in the groves must have been much less
visible to him. There is a ruined house, apparently a mill, in the
ravine between the two Cerros. As it is not mentioned in any report
of the battle, I conclude that it was not in existence in 1809. The
Pajar de Vergara farm is also modern, and the only building on the
actual fighting-ground which existed on the battle-day was evidently
the farm of Valdefuentes, which is alluded to by several narrators,
French and English.
SECTION XVI: CHAPTER VIII
THE RETREAT FROM TALAVERA
When the dawn of July 29 had arrived, the plain and the rolling hills
in front of the allied position were seen to be absolutely deserted.
No trace of the French army was visible save the heaps of dead upon
the further side of the Portiña: the wounded had been carried off,
with the exception of those who had fallen within the British lines,
and so become prisoners of war. It was soon discovered that the
enemy had left a screen of cavalry along the western bank of the
Alberche: but whether his main body lay close behind the stream, or
had retired towards Madrid, could not be ascertained without making
a reconnaissance in force. Such an operation was beyond Wellesley’s
power on the morning after the battle. He was neither able nor
willing to send out a large detachment to beat up the enemy’s camps,
with the object of ascertaining his situation and intentions. The
British army was utterly exhausted: on the preceding day the men
had fought upon half-rations: when the contest was over they had
found that only a third of a ration had been issued: this scanty
pittance was sent up to the regiments in the evening, as they still
lay in battle-order on the ground that they had held during the day.
Water was almost equally deficient: it was difficult to procure:
nothing but the wells of the few houses in the rear of the position
being available. Only on the morning of the twenty-ninth, when the
departure of the enemy had become certain, were the troops allowed to
return to their old bivouacs in the rear, and there to seek repose.
Even then it was only a minority of the men who could be spared from
duty. The gathering in of the vast numbers wounded--French as well
as English--and their removal into Talavera demanded such enormous
fatigue-parties that the larger number of the survivors had to be
told off to this work and were denied the rest that they had so well
earned.
It is certain that the British army could have done nothing upon the
twenty-ninth even if their commander had desired to push forward
against the enemy. The men were not only tired out by two days of
battle, but half-starved in addition. But Wellesley was far from
feeling any wish to pursue the French. His infantry had suffered so
dreadfully that he could not dream of exposing them to the ordeal
of another engagement till they had been granted a respite for the
refreshment of body and spirit. Of his divisions only that of A.
Campbell--the smallest of the four--was practically intact. The
others had suffered paralysing losses--in Hill’s ranks one man out
of every four had been stricken down, in Mackenzie’s one man in
every three, while Sherbrooke’s frightful casualty-list showed that
nearly two men out of five were missing from the ranks. Never, save
at Albuera, was such slaughter on the side of the victors seen again
during the whole course of the Peninsular War. ‘The extreme fatigue
of the troops,’ wrote Wellesley, ‘the want of provisions, and the
number of wounded to be taken care of, have prevented me from moving
from my position[685].’
[685] Wellesley to Castlereagh, Aug. 1, _Wellington Dispatches_,
iv. p. 553.
On the morning of the twenty-ninth the depleted strength of the
army was partly compensated by the arrival of the first of those
reinforcements from Lisbon which Wellesley had been anxiously
expecting. At about six o’clock Robert Craufurd came upon the scene
with the three regiments of his Light Brigade--all old battalions
who had shared in Moore’s Corunna campaign. He was accompanied by
a battery of horse artillery (A troop), the first unit of that arm
which came under Wellesley’s command. But the Light Brigade were
almost as weary as their comrades who had fought in the battle: they
had only reached Talavera by a forced march of unexampled severity.
Hearing at Navalmoral that the two armies were in presence, Robert
Craufurd had hurried forward with almost incredible swiftness.
Dropping his baggage and a few weakly men at Oropesa he had marched
forty-three miles in twenty-two hours, though the day was hot and
every soldier carried some fifty pounds’ weight upon his back. All
day long the cannon was heard growling in the distance, and at short
intervals the brigade kept meeting parties of Spanish fugitives,
interspersed with British sutlers and commissaries, who gave the
most dismal accounts of the progress of the fight. In spite of his
desperate efforts to get up in time Craufurd reached the field
thirteen hours too late, and heard to his intense chagrin that the
battle had been won without his aid[686]. Weary though his men were,
they were at once hurried to the front, to relieve A. Campbell’s
division on the line of advanced posts. There they found plenty
of employment in burying the dead, and in gathering up the French
wounded, whom it was necessary to protect from the fury of the
Spanish peasantry.
[686] For excellent accounts of this forced march see Col. Leach
(95th), _Rough Sketches of the Life of an Old Soldier_ (pp.
81-2), and Sir George Napier’s _Autobiography_, pp. 108-10.
The distance was forty-three miles, not as W. Napier states
sixty-two. That all the stragglers met on the way were not
Spaniards is unfortunately evident from both narratives. Nor were
all the British stragglers non-combatants.
The arrival of Craufurd’s brigade did something towards filling up
the terrible gap in the ranks of the British infantry, but was far
from enabling Wellesley to assume the offensive. Indeed the advent
of fresh troops only accentuated the difficulty of feeding the army.
Corn was still almost unobtainable; the supplies from the Vera
de Plasencia showed no signs of appearing, and even oxen for the
meat-ration, which had hitherto been obtainable in fair quantities,
were beginning to run short. Nothing was to be had from Talavera
itself, where Victor had exhausted all the available food many weeks
before, nor could any assistance be got from the Spanish army, who
were themselves commencing to feel the pinch of starvation.
All Wellesley’s hopes at this juncture were founded on the idea that
the diversion of Venegas upon the Upper Tagus would force the French
host in his front to break up, in order to save Madrid from an attack
in the rear. The army of La Mancha had failed to keep Sebastiani in
check, and to prevent him from appearing on the field of Talavera.
But since the enemy had concentrated every available man for the
battle, it was certain that Venegas had now no hostile force in his
front, and that the way to the capital was open to him. If he had
pushed on either by Aranjuez or by Toledo, he must now be close to
the capital, and King Joseph would be obliged to detach a large force
against him. That detachment once made, the army behind the Alberche
would be so much weakened that it would be unable to face the British
and Cuesta. If it offered fight, it must be beaten: if it retired,
the allies would follow it up and drive it away in a direction which
would prevent it from rejoining the troops that had been sent against
Venegas. On the twenty-ninth Wellesley was under the impression that
the army of La Mancha had already brought pressure to bear upon the
French, for a false report had reached him that on the previous day
it had captured Toledo. His dispatches written after the arrival of
this rumour indicate an intention of moving forward on the thirtieth
or thirty-first. The King, he says, must now detach troops against
Venegas. This being so, it will be necessary to induce Cuesta to
advance, supporting him with the British army ‘as soon as it shall be
a little rested and refreshed after two days of the hardest fighting
that I have ever been a party to. We shall certainly move towards
Madrid, if not interrupted by some accident on our flank[687].’
[687] Wellington to Beresford, Talavera, July 29, 1809.
The last words of this sentence are of great importance, since
they show that already upon the day after Talavera Wellesley was
beginning to be uneasy about his left flank. Some time before the
battle he had received news from the north, to the effect that
both Ney and Kellermann had returned to the valley of the Douro,
after evacuating Galicia and the Asturias[688]. He had therefore
to take into consideration the chance that the enemy might move
southward, and fall upon his line of communication with Portugal,
not only with the corps of Soult, but with a large additional force.
Unfortunately the information that had reached him from the plains
of Leon had been to the effect that Ney’s and Kellermann’s troops
were much reduced in numbers and efficiency, so that even when they
had joined Soult the total of the French field army upon the Douro
would not much exceed 20,000 men[689]. This misconception affected
all his plans: for if the hostile force about Salamanca, Zamora,
and Benavente was no greater than was reported, it followed that
any expedition sent against his own communications could not be
more than 12,000 or 15,000 strong, since Soult would be forced to
leave a containing force in front of Beresford and Del Parque, who
now lay in the direction of Almeida and Ciudad Rodrigo. Any French
advance against Bejar and Plasencia, therefore, would, as Wellesley
supposed, be a mere raid, executed by a comparatively small force.
He doubted whether Soult dared undertake such an operation: ‘the
enemy,’ he wrote, ‘would not like to venture through the passes into
Estremadura, having me on one side of him, and you [Beresford] and
Romana upon the other[690].’ He was therefore not much disturbed
in mind about the movements of the French in the valley of the
Douro. If he had but known that not 20,000 men but 50,000 men were
now concentrating at Salamanca, his feelings would have been far
different. But it was not till some days later that it began to
dawn upon him that Soult was far stronger than he had supposed, and
that there might be serious danger to be feared from this quarter.
Meanwhile he hoped to prevent any advance of the French in the
direction of Plasencia, by causing a strong demonstration to be
made in the valley of the Douro. He wrote to Beresford that he must
contrive to arrange for joint action with La Romana and the Army of
Galicia. If they appeared in strength in the direction of Ciudad
Rodrigo, the Duke of Dalmatia might be deterred from making any
movement to the south. If, however, the Spaniards proved helpless or
impracticable, the Portuguese army would have to confine itself to
the defence of its own frontier.
[688] On July 14 Wellesley writes to Beresford that he does not
believe that Ney has quitted Galicia [_Wellington Dispatches_,
iv. 510], because of the tenour of the captured dispatches of
Soult to King Joseph. These, of course, had been written under
the idea that the 6th Corps was still holding on to Corunna and
Lugo: it was not till some days later that Soult learned of
his colleagues’ unexpected move. But Wellesley knew of Ney’s
move before the battle of Talavera, as is shown by _Wellington
Dispatches_, iv. 545.
[689] ‘The enemy have on the Douro and in the neighbourhood not
less than 20,000 men, being the remains of the Corps of Soult,
Ney, and Kellermann.’ To Frere, July 30.
[690] To Beresford, from Talavera, July 29, 1809.
On the morning of July 30 Wellesley received the first definite
information which led him to conclude that the French forces from the
north were actually contemplating the raid upon his communications
which on the preceding day he had regarded as doubtful. The Marquis
Del Reino, whom, as it will be remembered, Cuesta had sent to the
Puerto de Baños with two weak battalions, reported that troops
from the Douro valley were threatening his front. At the same time
messages were received from the Alcaldes of Fuente Roble and Los
Santos, places on the road between Salamanca and Bejar, to the effect
that they had received orders from Soult to prepare 12,000 and 24,000
rations respectively, for troops due to arrive on July 28. The
numbers given counted for little in Wellesley’s estimation, since
it is the commonest thing in the world for generals to requisition
food for a far larger force than they actually bring with them. But
at least it seemed clear that some considerable detachment from
Salamanca was on its way towards the Puerto de Baños. In consequence
of this fact Wellesley wrote to the Spanish government, and also
informed Cuesta, that in the event of a serious attempt of the enemy
to cut his communications, he should ‘move so as to take care of
himself,’ and do his best to preserve Portugal[691]--in other words,
that he should abandon the projected march on Madrid which had been
his main purpose on the preceding day. He was still, however, under
the impression that Soult had no very large force with him, as is
sufficiently shown by the fact that on the thirty-first he suggested
to Cuesta that it would be well to detach one of his divisions--say
5,000 men--to strengthen the insignificant force which was already
in position at the Puerto de Baños. ‘I still think,’ he wrote, ‘that
the movements of General Beresford with the Portuguese army on the
frontier, and that of the Duque del Parque from Ciudad Rodrigo,
combined with the natural difficulties of the country, and the
defence by the Marquis Del Reino, may delay the enemy’s advance till
the arrival of your division[692].’ It is clear that when he wrote
in these terms Wellesley was still labouring under the delusion that
Soult’s advance was a mere raid executed by one or two divisions, and
not a serious operation carried out by a large army.
[691] Wellesley to Frere, July 30. ‘My first duty is to attend
to the safety of Portugal: at all events if my flank and
communication with Portugal are not secured for me, while I am
operating in the general cause, I must move to take care of
myself, and then the general cause will suffer.’
[692] Wellesley to O’Donoju, July 31, 1809.
While Wellesley was spending the three days which followed the battle
of the twenty-eighth in resting his men and pondering over his next
move, the enemies whom he had defeated at Talavera were in a state
of even greater uncertainty and indecision. By daylight on July 29,
as we have already seen, the whole French army had retired behind
the Alberche, leaving only a screen of cavalry upon its western
bank. The King was under the impression that Wellesley and Cuesta
would probably follow him up ere the day had passed, and drew up
his whole force along that same line of heights which Victor had
occupied upon the twenty-second and twenty-third of the month. But
when nothing appeared in his front during the morning hours save a
few vedettes, he realized that he might count upon a short respite,
and took new measures. After sending off to his brother the Emperor
a most flagrantly mendacious account of the battle of Talavera[693],
he proceeded to divide up his army. As Wellington had foreseen,
he detached a large force to hold back Venegas and the army of La
Mancha, who were at last coming into the field upon his flank. He was
bound to do so, under pain of imperilling the safety of Madrid.
[693] A few lines of this astounding document may be worth
quoting--‘Sire, hier l’armée anglaise a été forcée dans ses
positions. Outre les 25 à 30 mille Anglais de Wellesley, nous
avons eu affaire à l’armée de Cuesta, qui s’élevait de 35 à
40 mille hommes. Le champ de bataille _sur lequel nous sommes
établis_ (!) est jonché de leurs morts.... Je me mets en marche
pour secourir Madrid, qui est menacé par un corps de Portugais
arrivés à Navalcarnero, et par l’armée de Venegas, qui tente de
pénétrer par Aranjuez.... J’ai un regret, sire, c’est celui de
n’avoir pas fait prisonnière toute l’armée anglaise.’ _Mémoires
de Joseph_, vi. 284. Napoleon, not deceived for a moment by this
rhodomontade, sent back a scathing rebuke to his brother for
endeavouring to hide the truth from him. (Napoleon to Jourdan,
Aug. 21.)
It is time to cast a glance at the operations of the incompetent
general whose sloth and disobedience had wrecked the plan that
Wellesley and Cuesta had drawn out at their conference near
Almaraz. On July 16 Venegas had begun to move forward from El
Moral, Valdepeñas, and Santa Cruz de Mudela, in accordance with
the directions that had been sent him. He occupied Manzanares and
Daimiel, and then came into collision with Sebastiani’s cavalry at
Villaharta and Herencia, for the 4th Corps had not yet begun to
withdraw towards Madrid. Owing to the profound ignorance in which the
enemy still lay as to the advance of Wellesley and Cuesta, Sebastiani
had not, on the nineteenth, received any order to fall back or to
join Victor and the King. Thus, when pressed by the advanced troops
of Venegas, he did not retire, but held his ground, and showed every
intention of accepting battle. Learning from the peasantry that he
had the whole of the 4th Corps in front of him, and might have to
deal with nearly 20,000 men, the Spanish general halted, and refused
to advance further. In so doing he was fulfilling the spirit of the
instructions that had been sent him, for Cuesta and Wellesley had
wished him to detain Sebastiani and keep in touch with him--not
to attack him or to fight a pitched battle. They had taken it for
granted that the Frenchman would receive early news of their own
advance, and would already be in retreat before Venegas came up with
him. But it was not till July 22, as we have already seen, that
Victor and King Joseph obtained certain intelligence of the march of
the allies upon Talavera. Until the orders for a retreat arrived from
Madrid, the 4th Corps was kept in its old position at Madridejos,
and courted rather than avoided an engagement with the army of La
Mancha[694].
[694] For these operations I am relying on General Arteche’s
excerpts from the _Vindicacion de los Agravios_, published by
Venegas in his own defence.
Venegas, after summoning his divisional generals to a council of war,
refused to attack Sebastiani, and wisely, for his 23,000 men would
certainly have been beaten by the 20,000 Frenchmen who still lay in
front of him. From the nineteenth to the twenty-second the two armies
faced each other across the upper Guadiana, each waiting for the
other to move. Late on the twenty-third, however, Sebastiani received
his orders to evacuate La Mancha, and to hasten to Toledo in order to
join Victor and the King, in a combined assault upon Wellesley and
Cuesta.
It was on the next day that Venegas committed the ruinous error which
was to wreck the fate of the whole campaign. On the morning of the
twenty-fourth the 4th Corps had disappeared from his front: instead
of following closely in the rear of Sebastiani with all speed,
and molesting his retreat, as his orders prescribed, he made no
attempt to prevent the 4th Corps from moving off, nor did he execute
that rapid flanking march on Aranjuez or Fuentedueñas which his
instructions prescribed. He moved forward at a snail’s pace, having
first sent off to Cuesta an argumentative letter, in which he begged
for leave to direct his advance on Toledo instead of on the points
which had been named in his orders. On the twenty-sixth he received
an answer, in which his Commander-in-chief authorized him to make his
own choice between the route by Aranjuez and that by Toledo.
Venegas had already committed the fatal error of letting Sebastiani
slip away unmolested: he now hesitated between the idea of carrying
out his own plan, and that of obeying Cuesta’s original orders, and
after much hesitation sent his first division under General Lacy
towards Toledo, while he himself, with the other four, marched by
Tembleque upon Aranjuez. So slow and cautious was their advance
that Lacy only arrived in front of Toledo on July 28--the day that
the battle of Talavera was fought, while Venegas himself occupied
Aranjuez twenty-four hours later, on the morning of the twenty-ninth.
He had taken six days to cross the sixty miles of open rolling plain
which lie between the Guadiana and the Tagus, though he had been
absolutely unopposed by the enemy whom he had allowed to slip away
from his front. Sebastiani had marched at the rate of twenty miles
a day when he retired from Madridejos to Toledo, Venegas and Lacy
followed at the rate of ten and twelve miles a day respectively. Yet
the special duty imposed on the army of La Mancha had been to keep in
touch with the 4th Corps. Further comment is hardly necessary.
On the morning of the day when Wellesley was assailed by the forces
of Victor and King Joseph, General Lacy appeared in front of Toledo.
The town was held by 3,000 men of Valence’s Polish division: it is
practically impregnable against any attack from the south, presenting
to that side a front of sheer cliff, overhanging the river, and
accessible only by two fortified bridges. To make any impression on
the place Lacy would have had to cross the Tagus at some other point,
and then might have beset the comparatively weak northern front
with considerable chances of success. But he contented himself with
demonstrating against the bridges, and discharging some fruitless
cannon-shot across the river. General Valence, the Governor of
Toledo, reported to Jourdan that he was attacked, and his message,
reaching the battle-field of Talavera after Victor’s second repulse,
had a certain amount of influence on the action of King Joseph. The
place was never for a moment in danger, as Lacy made no attempt to
pass the Tagus in order to press his attack home.
On the following morning (July 29) Venegas reached the other great
passage of the Tagus, at Aranjuez, with two of his divisions, and
occupied the place after driving out a few French vedettes. He
pressed his cavalry forward to the line of the Tajuna, and ere
nightfall some of them had penetrated almost as far as Valdemoro, the
village half way between Aranjuez and Madrid. No signs of any serious
hostile force could be discovered, and secret friends in the capital
sent notice that they were being held down by a very weak garrison,
consisting of no more than a single French brigade and a handful of
the King’s Spanish levies. There was everything to tempt Venegas to
execute that rapid march upon the capital which had been prescribed
in his original orders, but instead of doing so this wretched officer
halted for eight whole days at Aranjuez [July 29 to August 5].
On the day after Talavera Jourdan and Joseph had not yet discovered
the whereabouts of the main body of the army of La Mancha: but Lacy
had made such a noisy demonstration in front of Toledo that they
were inclined to believe that his chief must be close behind him.
Accordingly the garrison of Toledo was reinforced by the missing
brigade of Valence’s Polish division, and raised to the strength of
4,700 men. The King, with the rest of Sebastiani’s corps and his own
Guards and reserves, marched to Santa Ollala, and on the next day
[July 30] placed himself at Bargas, a few miles in rear of Toledo.
In this position he would have been wholly unable to protect Madrid,
if Venegas had pressed forward on that same morning from Aranjuez,
for that place is actually nearer to the capital than the village
at which Joseph had fixed his head quarters. The sloth displayed by
the Spanish general was the only thing which preserved Madrid from
capture. On August 1, apprised of the fact that the main body of
the army of La Mancha was at Aranjuez and not before Toledo, Joseph
transferred his army to Illescas, a point from which he would be able
to attack Venegas in flank, if the latter should move forward. Only
Milhaud’s division of dragoons was thrown forward to Valdemoro, on
the direct road from Aranjuez to Madrid: it drove out of the village
a regiment of Spanish horse, which reported to Venegas that there was
now a heavy force in his front. For the next four days the King’s
troops and the army of Venegas retained their respective positions,
each waiting for the other to move. The Spaniard had realized that
his chance of capturing Madrid had gone by, and remained in a state
of indecision at Aranjuez. Joseph was waiting for definite news of
the movements of Wellesley and Cuesta, before risking an attack on
the army of La Mancha. He saw that it had abandoned the offensive,
and did not wish to move off from his central position at Illescas
till he was sure that Victor was not in need of any help. Yet he was
so disturbed as to the general state of affairs that he sent orders
to General Belliard at Madrid to evacuate all non-combatants and
civilians on to Valladolid, and to prepare to shut himself up in the
Retiro.
The doings of Victor, during the five days after he had separated
from the King, require a more lengthy consideration. Left behind
upon the Alberche with the 1st Corps, which the casualties of the
battle had reduced to no more than 18,000 men, he felt himself in a
perilous position: if the allies should advance, he could do no more
than endeavour to retard their march on Madrid. Whether he could
count on any further aid from the King and Sebastiani would depend
on the wholly problematical movements of Venegas. Somewhat to his
surprise Wellesley and Cuesta remained quiescent not only on the
twenty-ninth but on the thirtieth of July. But an alarm now came from
another quarter: it will be remembered that the enterprising Sir
Robert Wilson with 4,000 men, partly Spaniards, partly Portuguese of
the Lusitanian Legion, had moved parallel with Wellesley’s northern
flank during the advance to Talavera. On the day of the battle he had
‘marched to the cannon’ as a good officer should, and had actually
approached Cazalegas, at the back of the French army, in the course
of the afternoon. Learning of the results of the fight, he had
turned back to his old path upon the twenty-ninth, and had entered
Escalona on the upper Alberche. At this place he was behind Victor’s
flank, and lay only thirty-eight miles from Madrid. There was no
French force between him and the capital, and if only his division
had been a little stronger he would have been justified in making a
raid upon the city, relying for aid upon the insurrection that would
indubitably have broken out the moment that he presented himself
before its gates.
It was reported to Victor on the thirtieth not only that Wilson was
at Escalona, but also that he was at the head of a strong Portuguese
division, estimated at 8,000 or 10,000 men. The Marshal determined
that he could not venture to leave such a force upon his rear while
the armies of Wellesley and Cuesta were in his front, and fell back
ten miles to Maqueda on the high road to Madrid. On the following
day, still uneasy as to his position, he retired still further, to
Santa Cruz, and wrote to King Joseph that he might be forced to
continue his retreat as far as Mostoles, almost in the suburbs of
Madrid [Aug. 2]. He was so badly informed as to the movements of the
allies, that he not only warned the King that Wilson was threatening
Madrid, but assured him that the British army from Talavera had
broken up from its cantonments and was advancing along the Alberche
towards the capital[695]. Joseph, better instructed as to the actual
situation of affairs, replied by assuring him that Wellesley and
Cuesta were far more likely to be retreating on Almaraz than marching
on Madrid, as they must have heard ere now of Soult’s advance on
Plasencia. He ordered the Marshal to fall back no further, and to
send a division to feel for Wilson at Escalona. On detaching Villatte
to execute this reconnaissance [Aug. 5] Victor was surprised to find
that Sir Robert’s little force had already evacuated its advanced
position, and had retreated into the mountains. For the last four
days indeed Victor had been fighting with shadows--for the British
and Estremaduran armies had never passed the Alberche, while Wilson
had absconded from Escalona on receiving from Wellesley the news that
Soult had been heard of at the Puerto de Baños. In consequence of the
needless march of the 1st Corps to Maqueda and Santa Cruz, the allied
generals were able to withdraw unmolested, and even unobserved, from
Talavera, and were far upon their way down the Tagus before their
absence was suspected. The erratic movements of Victor may be excused
in part by the uniform difficulty in obtaining accurate information
which the French always experienced in Spain. But even when this
allowance is made, it must be confessed that his operations do not
tend to give us any very high idea of his strategical ability. He was
clearly one of those generals, of the class denounced by Napoleon,
_qui se font des tableaux_, who argue on insufficient data, and take
a long time to be convinced of the error of their original hypothesis.
[695] Jourdan to Belliard, Aug. 3, from Illescas: ‘Le duc de
Belluno dit que toute l’armée anglaise marche sur la rive droite
de l’Alberche, et qu’hier elle était à une lieue d’Escalona.’
Neither Victor nor King Joseph, therefore, exercised any influence
over the doings of Wellesley and Cuesta at Talavera between the 29th
of July and the 3rd of August. The allies worked out their plans
undisturbed by any interference on the part of the old enemies whom
they had beaten on the battle day. Down to August 1 the British
general had been unconvinced by the rumours of Soult’s approach,
at the head of a large army, which were persistently arriving from
the secret agents in the direction of Salamanca[696]. It was only
on the evening of that day that he received news so precise, and so
threatening, that he found himself forced to abandon for the moment
any intention of pushing on towards Madrid, in consequence of the
impending attack on the line of his communications with Portugal. It
was announced to him that the vanguard of the French army from the
north had actually entered Bejar on the twenty-ninth and was driving
in the trifling force under the Marquis Del Reino, which Cuesta had
sent to the Puerto de Baños.
[696] There are two letters of Wellington to Castlereagh, written
on Aug. 1; both indicate that Wellesley was still unconvinced
as to Soult’s intention, and the second states that he does
not believe that the French will pass the Puerto de Baños. The
definite news came at night.
Whatever might be the force at Soult’s disposal--and Wellesley was
still under the delusion that it amounted at most to a single corps
of 12,000 or 15,000 men--it was impossible to allow the French to
establish themselves between the British army and Portugal. If they
were at Bejar on the twenty-ninth they might easily reach Plasencia
on the thirty-first. On receiving the news Cuesta, who had hitherto
shown the greatest reluctance to divide his army, detached his 5th
division under Bassecourt, with orders to set out at the greatest
possible speed, and join the Marquis Del Reino. This move was tardy
and useless, for it is four long marches from Talavera to Plasencia,
so that Bassecourt must arrive too late to hold the defiles. If he
found the French already established on the river Alagon, his 5,000
men would be utterly inadequate to ‘contain’ double or triple that
number of Soult’s troops. As a matter of fact the enemy had entered
Plasencia on the afternoon of August 1, before the Spanish division
had even commenced its movement to the west[697].
[697] Napier seems to have the dates wrong here: he says that
the 5th Corps seized Plasencia on July 31 [vol. ii. p. 184],
But Soult’s official report to the Minister of War, dated Aug.
13, says that his vanguard forced the Puerto de Baños on the
twenty-ninth, but only captured Plasencia on Aug. 1. If Plasencia
had fallen on the thirty-first, Wellesley and Cuesta would have
known the fact on the second: but as it was captured on the first
only, they were still in ignorance when their conference took
place.
On the morning of August 2 Wellesley and Cuesta held a long and
stormy conference. The Captain-General proposed that Wellesley
should detach half his force to assist Bassecourt, and stay with the
remainder at Talavera, in order to support the Army of Estremadura
against any renewed attack by Victor and King Joseph[698]. The
English commander refused to divide his force--he had only 18,000
effectives even after Craufurd had joined him, and such a small body
would not bear division. But he offered either to march against Soult
with his entire host, or to remain at Talavera if his colleague
preferred to set out for Plasencia with his main body. Cuesta chose
the former alternative, and on the morning of the third Wellesley
moved out with every available man, intending to attack the enemy
at the earliest opportunity. He was still under the impression that
he would have to deal with no more than a single French corps,
and was confident of the result. His only fear was that Victor
might descend upon Talavera in his absence, and that Cuesta might
evacuate the place on being attacked. If this should happen, the
English hospitals, in which there lay nearly 5,000 wounded, might
fall into the hands of the enemy. On halting at Oropesa he sent
back a note to O’Donoju, the chief of the staff of the Estremaduran
army, begging him to send off westward all the British wounded who
were in a condition to travel. He asked that country carts might be
requisitioned for their assistance, if no transport could be spared
by the Spanish troops[699].
[698] Wellesley’s letters in these critical days are full of
complaints as to his colleague’s impracticability: ‘I certainly
should get the better of everything,’ he writes to Castlereagh,
‘if I could manage General Cuesta: but his temper and disposition
are so bad that this is impossible.’ _Wellington Dispatches_, iv.
p. 553.
[699] Wellesley to O’Donoju, from Oropesa, afternoon of Aug. 3.
Wellesley was setting out with 18,000 men to attack not the mere
15,000 men that he believed to be in his front, but three whole
_corps d’armée_, with a strength of 50,000 sabres and bayonets.
In his long career there were many dangerous crises, but this was
perhaps the most perilous of all. If he had remained for a little
longer in ignorance of the real situation, he might have found
himself involved in a contest in which defeat was certain and
destruction highly probable.
The real situation in his front was as follows. On receiving the
dispatch from Madrid which permitted him to execute his projected
march upon Plasencia, Soult had begun to concentrate his army [July
24]. Mortier and the 5th Corps were already in march for Salamanca
in pursuance of earlier orders: they arrived in its neighbourhood
the same day on which Foy brought the King’s orders to his chief.
The 2nd Corps was already massed upon the Tormes, and ready to move
the moment that it should receive the supply of artillery which had
been so long upon its way from Madrid. Ney and the 6th Corps from
Benavente and Astorga had far to come: they only reached Salamanca
on July 31; if we remember that the distance from Astorga to the
concentration point was no less than ninety miles we cease to wonder
at their tardy arrival.
Soult had strict orders from the Emperor to march with his troops
well closed up, and not to risk the danger of being caught with his
corps strung out at distances which would permit of their being met
and defeated in detail[700]. He was therefore entirely justified in
refusing to move until the 6th Corps should be in supporting distance
of the rest of his army, and the 2nd Corps should have received the
cannon which were needed to replace the pieces that they had lost
in Portugal. For this reason we must regard as unfounded all the
vehement reproaches heaped upon him by Joseph and Jourdan during
the acrimonious correspondence that followed upon the end of the
campaign. It would have been wrong to start the 5th Corps upon its
way to Plasencia till the 2nd Corps was ready to follow, and the much
needed guns only came into Salamanca on the twenty-ninth, though
their approach had been reported on the preceding day.
[700] Orders of Napoleon from Schönbrunn, June 12: ‘Les trois
corps doivent fournir 50 à 60 mille hommes. Si cette réunion a
lieu promptement les Anglais doivent être détruits; mais il faut
se réunir, _et ne pas marcher par petits paquets_. Cela est le
principe général pour tous les guerres, mais surtout pour un pays
où l’on ne peut pas avoir de communication.’
We cannot therefore blame Soult for sloth or slackness when we find
that he started Mortier upon his way on July 27, and followed him
with his own corps upon July 30, the day after the guns arrived, and
the day before Ney and his troops were due to reach Salamanca from
the north.
The order of march was as follows: the vanguard was composed of
the whole corps of Mortier, nearly 17,000 strong[701], reinforced
by three brigades of dragoons under Lahoussaye and Lorges with a
strength of 2,000 sabres. The 2nd Corps followed; though it started
three days later than the 5th it was gradually gaining ground on
the vanguard all through the march, as it had no fighting to do or
reconnaissances to execute. Hence it was only twenty-four hours
behind Mortier in arriving at Plasencia. Its strength was 18,000 men,
even after it had detached the brigades of dragoons to strengthen
the vanguard, and placed five battalions at the disposal of General
Kellermann[702]. During its stay at Zamora and Toro it had picked up
a mass of convalescents and details, who had not taken part in its
Galician campaign. The rear was formed by Ney’s troops, which started
from Salamanca only one day behind the 2nd Corps. The infantry was
not complete, as a brigade of 3,000 men was left behind on the Douro,
to assist Kellermann in holding down the kingdom of Leon. Hence, even
including a brigade of Lorges’ dragoons, the 6th Corps had only some
12,500 men on the march. The whole army, therefore, as it will be
seen, was about 50,000 strong.
[701] By the return of July 15, the 5th Corps had 16,916 men, the
attached brigades of dragoons, 1,853: the 2nd Corps had 18,740
(deducting Lorges and Lahoussaye): the 6th Corps 15,700, of whom
one brigade of infantry (3,200 bayonets) was left behind. The
total then was 50,009.
[702] The Marshal had dissolved one of his four divisions, that
of Mermet, making over the 122nd of the line, reduced to two
battalions, and the Swiss units to Kellermann, and distributing
the other regiments between Merle, Delaborde, and Heudelet.
Just before he marched from Salamanca Soult had heard that
Beresford’s Portuguese were commencing to show themselves in force
in the direction of Almeida, while Del Parque’s small division at
Ciudad Rodrigo was beginning to be reinforced by troops descending
from the mountains of Galicia. Trusting that the danger from this
quarter might not prove imminent, the Marshal left in observation of
the allies only the remains of the force that Kellermann had brought
back from the Asturias--the 5th division of dragoons and a few
battalions of infantry, strengthened by the five battalions from the
2nd Corps and the one brigade detached from Ney. The whole did not
amount to more than 9,000 or 10,000 men, scattered along the whole
front from Astorga to Salamanca. It was clear that much was risked in
this direction, for Beresford and Del Parque could concentrate over
20,000 troops for an attack on any point that they might select. But
Soult was prepared to accept the chances of war in the Douro valley,
rightly thinking that if he could crush Wellesley’s army on the Tagus
any losses in the north could easily be repaired. It would matter
little if the Spaniards and Portuguese occupied Salamanca, or even
Valladolid, after the British had been destroyed.
Mortier, starting on July 27, on the road by Fuente Roble and Los
Santos, made two marches without coming in touch with any enemy. It
was only on the third day that he met at La Calzada the vedettes
of the trifling force under the Marquis Del Reino which Cuesta had
sent to hold the Puerto de Baños. After chasing them through Bejar,
the Marshal came upon their supports drawn up in the pass [July
30]. Del Reino thought himself obliged to fight, though he had but
four battalions with a total of 2,500 or 3,000 bayonets[703]. He
was of course dislodged with ease by the overwhelming numbers which
Mortier turned against him--the first division of the 5th Corps alone
sufficed to drive him through the pass. Thereupon he retired down the
Alagon, and after sending news of his defeat to Cuesta fell back to
Almaraz, where he took up the bridge of boats and removed it to the
southern bank of the Tagus.
[703] Cuesta, in a dispatch in the _Deposito de la Guerra_,
which seems unpublished, says that Del Reino fought with four
battalions. He had started with no more than two, so must have
rallied two others. I can find no trace of what they were, but
conclude that they must have been some of those battalions of
the Army of Estremadura which are not named in the _Ordre de
Bataille_ of the divisions present at Talavera. As I have shown
in my Talavera Appendix, there were eight regiments which had
belonged to Cuesta’s army in March but do not appear in the
divisional return of July. Most of these were in garrison at
Badajoz: but two or three may well have been sent to guard the
passes when the army advanced from the Guadiana in the end of
June.
Having cleared the passes upon the thirtieth, the 5th Corps advanced
to Candelaria and Baños de Bejar upon the thirty-first, and entered
Plasencia on the first of August. Here Mortier captured 334 of
Wellesley’s sick, who had been left behind as being incapable of
removal. On the preceding day the town had been full of British
detachments: the place was the half-way house between Portugal
and Talavera, and many commissaries, isolated officers going to
or from the front, and details marching to join their corps, had
been collected there. Captain Pattison, the senior officer present,
withdrew to Zarza, with every man that could march, when he heard
of Mortier’s approach, taking with him a convoy which had recently
arrived from Abrantes. But he was obliged to leave behind him a
considerable amount of corn, just collected from the Vera, which had
been destined for Wellesley’s army. The whole civil population of
Plasencia fled to the hills, in obedience to an order of the local
Junta, and the British soldiers in the hospital were the only living
beings whom the French vanguard found in the city. The men of the 5th
Corps plundered the deserted houses, as was but natural, but behaved
with much humanity to the captured invalids[704].
[704] For details of Mortier’s march see the memoir of Naylies,
of Lahoussaye’s Dragoons, who was with the vanguard. According to
the _Diary_ of Fantin des Odoards, Soult pushed his kindness to
the British invalids so far as to leave with them a small supply
of muskets, with which to defend themselves against guerrillas.
After seizing Plasencia Mortier halted for a day, in obedience to
Soult’s orders, that he might allow the 2nd Corps to close up before
he pressed in any further towards Wellesley. The Duke of Dalmatia
was determined to run no risks, when dealing with an adversary so
enterprising as his old enemy of Oporto. On August 2 he himself and the
leading divisions of his corps reached Plasencia: the rest were close
behind. On the same afternoon, therefore, the advance could be resumed,
and Mortier set out on the high road towards Almaraz and Talavera,
having eight regiments of horse--3,000 men--in his front. He slept that
night at Malpartida, seven miles in advance of Plasencia, and moved on
next morning to the line of the Tietar and the village of Toril. One of
his reconnoitring parties approached the bridge of Almaraz and found it
broken: another reached Navalmoral. He was now drawing very close to
Wellesley, who had encamped that day at Oropesa, and was only thirty
miles away: indeed the British and the French cavalry came in contact
that evening in front of Navalmoral.
On August 3, by a curious coincidence, each Commander-in-chief was
at last informed of his adversary’s strength and intentions by a
captured dispatch. A Spanish messenger was arrested by Soult’s
cavalry, while bearing a letter from Wellesley to General Erskine
dated August 1. In this document there was an account of the battle
of Talavera, which had hitherto been unknown to Soult. But the most
important clause of it was a request to Erskine to find out whether
the rumours reporting the advance of 12,000 French towards the Puerto
de Baños were correct. The Duke of Dalmatia thus discovered that his
adversary, only two days before, was grossly underrating the numbers
of the army that was marching against his rear. He was led on to hope
that Wellesley would presently advance against him with inferior
numbers, and court destruction by attacking the united 2nd and 5th
Corps[705].
[705] See Le Noble, p. 320.
This indeed might have come to pass had not the allies on the same
day become possessed of a French dispatch which revealed to them the
real situation of affairs. Some guerrillas in the neighbourhood of
Avila intercepted a friar, who was an agent of King Joseph, and was
bearing a letter from him to Soult. They brought the paper to Cuesta
on August 3: it contained not only an account of the King’s plans and
projects, but orders for the Marshal, which mentioned Ney and the 6th
Corps, and showed that the force marching on Plasencia was at least
double the strength that Wellesley had expected[706]. This letter
Cuesta sent on to his colleague with laudable promptness; it reached
the British commander in time to save him from taking the irreparable
step of marching from Oropesa to Navalmoral, where the vanguard of
Mortier’s cavalry had just been met by the vedettes of Cotton’s light
horse. Wellesley had actually written to Bassecourt to bid him halt
at Centinello till he himself should arrive, and then to join him
in an attack on the French[707], when he was handed the intercepted
letter which showed that Soult had at least 30,000 men in hand.
[706] See Arteche, vi. 342, and _Wellington Dispatches_, iv.
561; the letter itself is not published by Gurwood, but Lord
Londonderry, then on Wellesley’s staff, gives an analysis of it.
It contained, according to him, orders to Soult to hasten his
march, and to bring up Ney’s corps with all speed, while the king
himself undertook to threaten Talavera again with Victor’s forces
[Londonderry, i. p. 416].
[707] Wellesley to Bassecourt, from Oropesa, August 3. So
confident was the British commander at this moment, that he
wrote to Beresford on the same morning, telling him that Soult
when assailed would probably retire at once, either by the pass
of Perales or that of Baños. He wished his lieutenant to send
Portuguese troops to the outlets of those defiles, to intercept
the retreating enemy.
This unpalatable news changed the whole prospect of affairs: it
would be mad to assail such an enemy with a force consisting of no
more than 18,000 British troops and Bassecourt’s 5,000 Spaniards.
Wellesley had therefore to reconsider the whole situation, and to
dictate a new plan of campaign at very short notice, since his
cavalry were actually in touch with the enemy at the distance of a
single day’s march from Oropesa. On the morrow he must either fight
or fly. The situation was made more complicated by the fact that
Cuesta, when forwarding the French dispatch, had sent information
to the effect that he considered his own situation at Talavera so
much compromised that he was about to retreat at once, with the
design of crossing the Tagus at Almaraz, and of taking up once more
his old line of communications, which ran by Truxillo to Badajoz.
It may be asked why the Captain-General did not adopt the simpler
course of crossing the Tagus at Talavera, and moving under cover of
the river, instead of executing the long flank march by Oropesa to
Almaraz on the exposed bank, where the French were known to be in
movement. The answer, however, is simple and conclusive: the paths
which lead southward from Talavera are impracticable for artillery
and wheeled vehicles. Infantry alone could have retreated by the
route which climbs up to the Puerto de San Vincente, the main pass
of this section of the Sierra de Guadalupe: nor was the track along
the edge of the river from Talavera to Arzobispo any better fitted
for the transport of a large army. It is this want of any adequate
communication with the south which makes Talavera such a dangerous
position: no retreat from it is possible save that by the road to
Oropesa, unless the retiring army is prepared to sacrifice all its
impedimenta.
Cuesta has been criticized in the most savage style by many English
writers, from Lord Londonderry and Napier downwards, for his hasty
departure from Talavera. It is fair to state in his defence the fact
that if he had tarried any longer in his present position he might
have been cut off not merely from Almaraz--that passage was already
impracticable--but also from the bridge of Arzobispo, the only other
crossing of the Tagus by which artillery and heavy wagons can pass
southward. If he had started on the fourth instead of the third he
might have found Mortier and Soult interposed between him and this
last line of retreat. He would then have been forced to abandon all
his _matériel_, and to hurry back to Talavera, in order to take the
break-neck track to the Puerto de San Vincente. But there was every
reason to believe that Victor might arrive in front of Talavera on
the evening of the fourth or the morning of the fifth, so that this
last road to safety might have been already blocked. Thus the Spanish
army, if it had started on the fourth for Oropesa, might have found
itself caught between the two French corps, and vowed to inevitable
destruction. As a matter of fact Victor moved slowly and cautiously,
and only reached Talavera on the sixth--but this could not possibly
have been foreseen. We cannot therefore blame Cuesta’s precipitate
departure upon the night of August 3.
His main body marched under cover of the darkness to Oropesa, where
they arrived, much wearied and in some disorder, on the following
morning. He left Zayas’s division and Albuquerque’s horse as a
rearguard, to hold Talavera till midday on the fourth, with orders
to make a semblance of resistance and to detain Victor for a few
hours if he should appear. But no hostile force showed itself: by
his unwise retreat to Santa Cruz the Marshal had drawn back so far
from the enemy that he could not take advantage of their retrograde
movement when it became known to him. Villatte’s division and
Beaumont’s cavalry only reached Talavera on the morning of the sixth.
The departure of the Estremaduran army had one deplorable result. It
exposed the English hospitals at Talavera, with their 4,000 wounded,
to capture by the enemy. Wellesley, before he had marched off, had
given orders that all the men capable of being moved should be sent
off towards Plasencia and Portugal as soon as possible. But he had no
transport that could cope with the task of transferring such a mass
of invalids towards his base. He wrote from Oropesa begging Cuesta
to requisition carts from the country-side for this purpose[708].
But it was notorious that carts were not to be had--all Wellesley’s
letters for the last three weeks were full of complaints to the
effect that he could not procure them by money or by force. When
the Spaniards were themselves departing, bag and baggage, it was an
inopportune moment at which to ask them to provide transport: yet
since the British wounded had been left to their care they were bound
in honour to do all that could be done to save them. It is said that
Cuesta made over[709] no more than seven ox-carts and a few mules to
Colonel Mackinnon, the officer charged with the task of evacuating
the hospitals. These and about forty vehicles of various kinds
belonging to the British themselves were all that could be procured
for the use of the wounded. They could only accommodate a tithe of
the serious cases: the men with hurts of less consequence were forced
to set out upon their feet. ‘The road to Oropesa,’ writes one of
their fellow sufferers, ‘was covered with our poor limping bloodless
soldiers. On crutches or sticks, with blankets thrown over them, they
hobbled woefully along. For the moment panic terror lent them a force
inconsistent with their debility and their fresh wounds. Some died
by the road, others, unable to get further than Oropesa, afterwards
fell into the hands of the enemy[710].’ The rest trailed onward to
the bridge of Arzobispo, where Wellesley provided transport for many
of them by unloading baggage-wagons, and ultimately reached Truxillo,
at which place the new hospitals were established. Of the whole 4,000
about 1,500 had been left at Talavera as hopeless or dangerous cases,
and these became the captives of the French: 2,000 drifted in, at
various times, to Truxillo: the remaining 500 expired by the wayside
or were taken by the French in the villages where they had dropped
down[711].
[708] Wellesley to O’Donoju, Aug. 3, 1809.
[709] I am bound to say that after reading the Spanish
narratives, I doubt whether Cuesta had at his disposal the large
amount of spare vehicles of which Londonderry and Napier speak.
[710] Boothby, _A Prisoner of France_, p. 40. For the adventures
of two wounded officers on their weary way to Truxillo see the
_Diary_ of Hawker, and the narrative of Colonel Leslie. The
latter made a personal appeal to Cuesta, whose carriage he had
met by the roadside. The old general sent for the Alcalde, and
made him provide a mule--though it turned out to be a very bad
one--for the wounded officer. This small fact to his credit needs
recording, after the copious abuse heaped on him.
[711] The invalids were admirably cared for by the enemy. See
Boothby.
Long before Cuesta and his host had arrived at Oropesa, Wellesley
had made up his mind that the only course open to him was to abandon
the march towards Navalmoral and Almaraz, and to turn aside to the
bridge of Arzobispo. As the French were known to be at Navalmoral,
it would have been impossible to force a passage to Almaraz without
a battle. If the enemy were to be estimated at two corps, or 30,000
men, according to the indications of the intercepted letter, they
would probably be able to detain the Anglo-Spanish army till Victor
should arrive from the rear. For, without accepting a pitched battle,
they would be strong enough to harass and check the allies, and to
prevent them from reaching Almaraz till the 1st Corps should come
upon the scene. ‘I was not certain,’ wrote Wellesley to Beresford
two days later, ‘that Ney was not with Soult: and I _was_ certain
that, if not with him, he was at no great distance. We should
therefore have had a battle to fight in order to gain the road to
Almaraz--Plasencia was then out of the question--and if Victor had
followed Cuesta, as he ought to have done, another battle, probably,
before the bridge could be re-established[712]. Then it was to be
considered that, Cuesta having left Talavera, the bridge of Arzobispo
would have been open to the enemy’s enterprise: if they had destroyed
it, while we had failed in forcing Soult at Navalmoral, we were
gone.’
[712] The Marquis del Reino (it will be remembered) had broken
the boat-bridge of Almaraz on August 2, after abandoning the
Puerto de Baños.
It is impossible not to bow before Wellesley’s reasoning. The French
critics object that only Mortier was at Navalmoral on August 4,
Soult being twenty miles behind him at Bazagona on the Tietar, so
that it would have been possible for the British army to have driven
back the 19,000 men of the Duke of Treviso, and to have forced its
way to Almaraz[713]. But even if Wellesley had fought a successful
action with Mortier on August 4, Soult would certainly have joined
his colleague on the fifth, before the bridge could have been
repaired, or at any rate before the whole Anglo-Spanish army and all
its impedimenta could have crossed the Tagus. If attacked during
their passage by the 37,000 men of the 2nd and 5th Corps they would
have fared badly. Wellesley was perfectly correct in his decision;
indeed the only point in which he was deceived was that he believed
the enemy in his front to be Soult’s and Ney’s Corps, whereas
they were in reality those of Soult and Mortier. Ney only reached
Plasencia on August 4, and did not join the main body of the army
till two days later.
[713] See for example, Le Noble, pp. 339-40.
When Wellesley and Cuesta met at Oropesa, early on the morning
of August 4, they found themselves as usual engaged in a heated
controversy. The British general had directed his divisions to hold
themselves ready to march on the bridge of Arzobispo without further
delay. Cuesta on the other hand had been attacked by a recrudescence
of his old disease, the mania for fighting pitched battles[714]. He
proposed that the allied armies should remain on the north bank of
the Tagus, adopt a good defensive position, and defy Soult to attack
them. Wellesley would not listen for a moment to this project, and
finally declared that in spite of all arguments to the contrary, he
should cross the Tagus that day at the head of his army. The two
generals parted in wrath, and at six o’clock the British commenced
their march to Arzobispo, only nine miles distant; the whole force
crossed its bridge before evening, and established itself in bivouac
on the south side of the river.
[714] ‘As usual, General Cuesta wanted to fight general actions,’
writes Wellesley to Beresford, from Arzobispo, on the afternoon
of this same day.
Cuesta remained at Oropesa for the whole day of August 4, and was
there joined both by Bassecourt, who had fallen back from Centinello,
and by Zayas and Albuquerque, who had evacuated Talavera at noon
and made a forced march to join their chief. He appeared disposed
to fight even though his ally had abandoned him. In the afternoon
Mortier’s cavalry pressed in against him. He turned fiercely upon
them, deployed a whole division of infantry and 1,200 horse in their
front, and drove them back towards their supports. This vigorous
action had a result that could not have been foreseen: Mortier jumped
to the conclusion that he was himself about to be attacked by the
whole Spanish army--perhaps by Wellesley also[715]. He halted the
5th Corps in advance of Navalmoral, and wrote to implore Soult to
come up to his aid without delay. The Duke of Dalmatia hurried up
with all speed, and on August 5 brought the 2nd Corps to Casatejada,
only six miles in the rear of his colleague. Ney, following with a
like promptness, advanced that day to Malpartida, a march behind the
position of Soult.
[715] ‘M. le Maréchal duc de Trévise crut qu’il serait attaqué,’
says Soult in his report of August 13. He therefore held back,
and sent for the 2nd Corps. Hence came Cuesta’s salvation.
On the sixth, therefore, the whole army from the Douro was
practically concentrated, and Soult and Mortier advanced against
Cuesta with Ney close in their rear. They found that they were too
late: after remaining in battle order in front of the bridge of
Arzobispo during the whole of the fifth, courting the attack which
Mortier had been too cautious to deliver, the Captain-General had
crossed the Tagus that night, and had occupied its further bank. He
had left in front of the bridge only a small rearguard, which retired
after a skirmish with the advanced cavalry of the 5th Corps. For
once Cuesta had found luck upon his side; if Mortier had ventured to
assail him on the fifth, and had forced him to an engagement, in a
position from which retreat was difficult, and with the Tagus at his
back, his situation would have been most perilous. For even if he had
kept the 5th Corps at bay, he could not easily have withdrawn in face
of it, and Soult would have been upon him on the next morning. In
escaping across the narrow bridge of Arzobispo his losses must have
been terrible: indeed the greater part of his army might have been
destroyed.
Finding, on the evening of August 6, that both the British and the
Estremaduran armies were now covered by the Tagus, whose line they
appeared determined to defend, Soult was forced to think out a new
plan of campaign. His original design of taking the allies in the
rear and cutting off their retreat had miscarried: he must now either
halt and recognize that his march had failed in its main purpose, or
else deliver a frontal attack upon the line of the Tagus. The bridge
of Almaraz was broken, and troops (the detachment of the Marquis
Del Reino) were visible behind it. The bridge of Arzobispo was not
destroyed, but the Spaniards were obviously ready to defend it. It
was barricaded, the mediaeval towers in its midst were manned by
a detachment of infantry, and a battery for twelve guns had been
placed in an earthwork erected on a knoll thirty yards in its
rear, so as to sweep all the approaches. Considerable forces both
of cavalry and of infantry were visible on the hillsides and in the
villages of the southern bank. Cuesta, in fact, while proposing
to fall back with his main body to Meza de Ibor and Deleytosa, in
order to recover his communication with his base at Badajoz, had
left behind a strong rearguard, consisting of Bassecourt’s infantry
division and Albuquerque’s six regiments of cavalry, a force of 5,000
bayonets and nearly 3,000 sabres. They were ordered to defend the
bridge and the neighbouring ford of Azutan till further orders should
reach them. The ground was very strong; indeed the ford was the one
perilous point, and as that passage was narrow and hard to find,
Cuesta trusted that it might be maintained even against very superior
numbers. So formidable did the defence appear that Soult halted
during the whole day of August 7, while he took stock of the Spanish
positions, and sought up-stream and down-stream for means of passage
other than the bridge. He was not at first aware of the existence
of the ford: it was only revealed to him by the imprudence of the
Spanish cavalry, who rode their horses far into the stream when
watering them, thus showing that there were long shallows projecting
from the southern bank. By a careful search at night the French
intelligence-officers discovered that the river was only deep for
a few yards under their own bank[716]: for the rest of its breadth
there were only two or three feet of water. Having found the point,
not far from the bridge, where the more dangerous part of the channel
was fordable, they advised the Marshal that the passage of the
river would present no insurmountable difficulties. Soult resolved
to deliver an assault both on the bridge and on the ford upon the
morning of August 8. Nor was it only at Arzobispo that he determined
to force the line of the Tagus. He directed Ney, who was bringing up
his rear at the head of the 6th Corps, to turn aside to the broken
bridge of Almaraz, and to endeavour to cross the river by aid of a
ford which was said to exist in that neighbourhood. Sketch-maps were
sent to the Marshal in order to enable him to locate the exact point
of passage--it would seem that they must have been very faulty.
[716] General Arteche, who has examined the ford, notes that the
main channel, narrow but with a rocky bottom, is close under the
northern, i.e. the French, bank. The remaining two-thirds of the
breadth of the river has a hard sandy bottom and is in August
extremely shallow. If once, therefore, the deep water under the
nearer bank was crossed, the French had no difficulties before
them.
Meanwhile Wellesley had passed the Tagus four days and Cuesta three
days before the Marshal’s attack was ready, and both had been granted
time to proceed far upon their way. It was fortunate that they were
not hurried, for the road from Arzobispo to Meza de Ibor and thence
to Deleytosa and Jaraicejo, though passable for guns and wheeled
vehicles, was steep and in a deplorable condition of disrepair.
It took Wellesley two days to march from the bridge to Meza de
Ibor, a distance of only seventeen miles, because of the endless
trouble caused by his artillery. There were places where he had
practically to remake the roadway, and others where whole companies
of infantry had to be turned on to haul the cannon up slopes where
the half-starved horses could make no headway. These exertions were
all the more exhausting because the men were falling into a state of
great bodily weakness from insufficient supplies. Even at Talavera
they had on many days received no more than half rations: but after
passing Oropesa regular distributions of food ceased altogether for
some time: there were still a few slaughter-oxen with the army, but
bread or biscuit was unobtainable, and the troops had to maintain
themselves on what they could scrape up from the thinly peopled and
rugged country-side. A diet of overripe _garbanzos_, parched to the
hardness of bullets, was all that many could obtain. Better foragers
eked them out with honeycomb stolen from the peasants’ hives, and
pork got by shooting the half-wild pigs which roam in troops among
the woods on the mountain side. Many, in the ravenous eagerness
of hunger, ate the meat warm and raw, and contracted choleraic
complaints from their unwholesome feeding[717].
[717] For details of these privations see the diary of Leach of
the 95th, p. 92.
Divining that Soult would probably make a dash at Almaraz as well as
at Arzobispo, Wellesley sent on ahead of his main body the brigade
of Robert Craufurd, to which he attached Donkin’s much depleted
regiments, in order to make up a small division. As they were
unhampered by guns or baggage this detachment reached Almaraz on the
sixth, after a fifteen hours’ forced march on the preceding day. They
took over charge of the broken bridge and the ford from the Spanish
troops of the Marquis Del Reino, and proceeded to entrench themselves
in the excellent positions overlooking the point where the river
was passable. Thus Ney, when he reached Almaraz on the following
day, found the enemy already established opposite him, and ready to
dispute the crossing. About 4,000 British troops and 1,500 Spanish
troops were holding the river bank: immediately at their backs
was the narrow and eminently defensible defile of Mirabete, which
completely commands the road to Truxillo: it was an even stronger
position than that which covered the ford and the ruined bridge.
On August 7 therefore Wellesley considered himself in a comparatively
satisfactory situation. The passage at Almaraz was held by a
vanguard consisting of the best troops in the army. Two divisions,
the cavalry, and all the guns had traversed the worst part of the
road, and had reached Deleytosa, only nine miles behind Craufurd’s
position. If the French should attack on the following day, the
main body could reinforce the light brigade in a few hours. One
division, in the rear, was holding the position of Meza de Ibor,
which Wellesley did not wish to evacuate until the Spanish army was
ready to occupy it. He had discovered that there were points between
Arzobispo and Almaraz where the passage of the Tagus was not wholly
impracticable for small bodies of infantry[718], and dreaded that the
enemy might throw a detachment across the stream to make a dash for
the Meza. If this position had been lost the communication between
the two armies would have been broken.
[718] Wellesley to O’Donoju, from Deleytosa, Aug. 7.
Cuesta, meanwhile, was engaged in the steep and stony mountain road
over which Wellesley had toiled on the 5th and the 6th of August.
His vanguard was now close to Meza de Ibor: the rest of the army was
strung out between that point and Val de la Casa: the Captain-General
himself had his head quarters on the night of the seventh at Peraleda
de Garbin, ten miles west of Arzobispo. Bassecourt and Albuquerque
were still covering the rear, with Mortier’s corps now plainly
visible in their front. On their steadiness depended the safety
of the whole army, for Cuesta had more baggage and more guns[719]
than Wellesley, and therefore the road over the hills was even
more trying to him than to his colleague. There was a congestion
of wheeled transport at certain spots on the road which created
hopeless confusion, and barred the march of the cavalry and even
of the infantry divisions. It was only removed by setting whole
battalions to work to drag the wagons out of the way. Cuesta’s
ultimate destination was the Meza de Ibor, a position of unparalleled
strength, which could be held even after the enemy had crossed the
Tagus. That they would ultimately win their way over the river was
certain, for already news had arrived that Victor, after reaching
Talavera on Aug. 6, had pushed infantry over its bridge on the road
to Herencia and Aldea Nueva. Troops coming from this direction would
outflank the Arzobispo position, and compel Albuquerque to abandon
it. Even without cavalry or guns this detachment of the 1st Corps
would be strong enough to dislodge the guard of the bridge, by
falling upon its rear, while Mortier was attacking it in front. As
the cavalry of Victor and Soult had met, half way between Oropesa and
Talavera, upon the afternoon of the seventh, the two marshals were
now in full communication, and able to concert any plans that they
might please for joint operations.
[719] Beside his own thirty guns he had the seventeen captured
French pieces which had been won at Talavera. Wellesley, it will
be remembered (p. 543), had handed them over to him.
The Duke of Dalmatia, however, preferred to win all the credit for
himself, and attacked without allowing his colleague’s troops time
to approach the Spanish position. It was fortunate for Albuquerque
that the rivalry of the two hostile commanders saved him from the
joint assault, which would have been far more ruinous to him than the
actual combat of Aug. 8 was destined to prove.
Having full knowledge of the existence and the locality of the ford
of Azutan, Soult had resolved to launch his main attack upon this
point, while directing only a subsidiary attack upon the fortified
bridge. This last was only to be pushed home in case the troops sent
against the ford should succeed in making good their footing upon the
further bank. A careful observation of the Spanish lines showed that
both Albuquerque and Bassecourt were holding back the main body of
their divisions at some distance from the water’s edge, in the groves
around the three villages of Pedrosa, Burgillo, and Azutan. There
was only a single regiment of cavalry watching the river bank, and
two or three battalions of infantry manning the towers of the bridge
of Arzobispo and the redoubt in its rear. The Spaniards showed every
sign of a blind confidence in the strength of their position behind
the broad but shallow Tagus.
Knowing their habits, Soult selected for the moment of his attack
the hour of the _siesta_. It was between one and two o’clock in the
afternoon when he bade his columns, which had been drawn up under
cover, and at some distance from the water’s edge, to advance to
force the passage. For the assault upon the ford he had collected the
whole of his cavalry, no less than twelve regiments. Lahoussaye’s
dragoons formed the van, then came Lorges’ brigade, then the
division of light horse belonging to the 2nd Corps, in the rear the
corps-cavalry of Mortier. This mass of 4,000 horsemen was to be
followed by the first brigade of Girard’s infantry division of the
5th Corps, while its second brigade was to assault the bridge, when
Lahoussaye and Lorges should have won the passage of the ford and
have established themselves on the flank of the Spanish defences.
Gazan’s division, the second of the 5th Corps, was to support
Girard, while the masses of the infantry of the 2nd Corps remained
in reserve. All the light artillery of the army was to gallop down
to the water’s edge at various selected points, when the attacking
columns were first put in movement, and to distract the attention of
the enemy’s guns so far as lay in their power.
At about 1.30 P.M. Caulaincourt’s brigade of Lahoussaye’s dragoons,
a force of about 600 sabres, sallied out from its cover behind
the village of Arzobispo, and moved down to the ford at a sharp
trot. It plunged into the water, had passed the deeper part of the
channel almost before the Spaniards had guessed its intention, and
soon reached the shallows on the opposite bank. The only hostile
force ready to meet it was a single regiment (the 1st Estremaduran
Hussars) which was watching the ford, and a battalion of infantry
which Bassecourt sent down in haste from the redoubt behind the
bridge. A fierce charge of Caulaincourt’s dragoons dispersed and
routed the Spanish horse; after they had been driven off the victors
turned upon the battalion, which tried to form square on their
approach, but was late in finishing its manœuvre. It was assailed
before the rear side had been formed, broken up, and cut to pieces.
Soult had thus gained a precious half-hour, during which the
remainder of his cavalry, squadron after squadron, came pouring over
the ford, and began to form up on the southern bank. When several
regiments had passed he also let loose the infantry brigade which
was to attack the bridge. So narrow was the approach that only a
single battalion (the 1st of the 40th of the line) could deliver the
assault. But the _tirailleur_ companies of several other battalions,
and two batteries of horse artillery, opened a lateral fire from
various points of the northern bank, to distract the Spaniards
from the frontal attack. The fraction of Bassecourt’s division
which was in position at the bridge and the redoubt had already
been completely cowed by seeing Lahoussaye’s cavalry forming up in
their flank and rear. If they waited to resist the infantry attack,
it was clear that they would be cut off from their sole line of
retreat by the dragoons. They abandoned their positions after firing
a couple of scattering volleys, and fled eastward along the river
bank towards the village of Azutan. The heavy guns in the redoubt
were left behind, and fell into the hands of Caulaincourt. Girard’s
infantry was therefore able to cross the river almost without loss,
two regiments at the bridge, two at the ford which the cavalry had
already utilized. A few men were drowned in the second column, having
strayed into deep water by swerving to the right or left of the
proper route.