Passage of the Douro--Talavera--Combat of Salinas--First Combat of
Talavera--Second Combat of Talavera--Battle of Talavera.
Napoleon having failed to cut off the English army, returned to France,
leaving precise instructions with his lieutenants for the invasion of
Portugal. Marshal Ney, who reached Coruña three days after the battle,
was to hold Gallicia. Soult was to march by Oporto upon Lisbon. General
Lapisse, previously directed on Ciudad Rodrigo with twelve thousand
men, was to connect Soult’s invasion with another, to be conducted
south of the Tagus by Marshal Victor, who had thirty thousand troops.
Soult had twenty-five thousand, and, after several battles with the
Portuguese of the northern provinces, stormed Oporto in March; but
he could hear nothing of Lapisse or Victor, and, his own progressive
strength being then exhausted, he endeavoured to establish himself
solidly until new combinations could be formed.
Lapisse took no pains to open a communication with Soult, and after
several weeks of inactivity suddenly made for Alcantara, crossed the
Tagus there and joined Victor. The Portuguese and Spaniards, thinking
he was flying, rose along his line of march on both sides of the
frontier and cut off all communication between Victor and Soult. The
former was however little disposed to act. He had defeated the Spanish
general Cuesta in a great battle at Medellin, and only accidentally
failed to obtain Badajos by treason; but then he took quarters at
Merida, sullenly resistant of his orders to enter Portugal. This
enabled Cuesta, who had all the resources of Andalusia, to reappear in
Estramadura with an army of thirty thousand infantry and six thousand
cavalry--and at the same time a new force sprung up in Portugal.
Previous to this period the English ministers, without resolution
or capacity to adopt any judicious course, at one time looking to
Portugal, at another negotiating for the occupation of Cadiz, had
during these events displayed only infirmity of purpose and ignorance
of the real state of affairs; but after four months of vacillation,
subsequent to the battle of Coruña, they decided to act in Portugal,
where the Regency had accepted General Beresford as their field
marshal. The British troops in that country were then largely
reinforced, and Sir Arthur Wellesley, assuming the supreme military
command of both nations, commenced that series of victories which has
placed him amongst the truly great generals of the world--and they are
few, though the vanity of nations would make them many.
Soult was then in Oporto, Victor at Merida, but the frontier
insurrection debarred all intercourse between them; and Sir Arthur,
after making arrangements to cover Lisbon from Victor, marched against
Soult, in whose army there was a conspiracy of officers to deliver him
to the English. One D’Argenton twice secretly visited head-quarters on
this subject, yet the treason, though of weight as an accessory, was
not permitted to affect the British preparations or movements, which
were carefully concealed.
On the 7th of May Beresford was detached with a mixed force, six
thousand being Portuguese, to operate on the side of Lamego.
On the 8th, sixteen thousand British troops, fifteen hundred being
cavalry, with twenty-four guns, moved from Coimbra under Sir A.
Wellesley’s personal command towards the Vouga river.
Up to this time Soult was ignorant that such a force had been
assembled, but hearing nothing of Lapisse or Victor he had decided to
make a flank march into the Salamanca country, and had pushed his light
cavalry under Franceschi to the Vouga, supporting it with Mermet’s
division of infantry. Loison’s division, six thousand strong, was then
beyond the Tamega at Pezo de Ragoa, and Lorge’s heavy cavalry was on
the Lima, watching the Portuguese insurgents.
In this scattered state the French on the Vouga were surprised and
driven fighting upon the Douro, which they crossed in the night of
the 11th and destroyed the boat bridge. Soult, who had discovered the
conspiracy on the 9th, was thus suddenly beset with perils. Treason in
his army which he could not probe, a powerful enemy suddenly springing
up in front, an active insurrection on his rear; his troops parcelled
from the Vouga to the Lima and Tamega, and under officers necessarily
suspected while the extent of the conspiracy was unknown! He did not
quail. Directing Lorge to abandon the Lima and make for the Tamega, he
ordered Loison to hold Amarante on that river, as the only means of
concentration and safety for the army; he sent his stores and most of
the heavy guns towards that place on the 10th and night of the 11th;
and when the troops from the Vouga came pouring in, the remaining heavy
guns and the baggage were also put in movement, Mermet’s division
following them as far as Vallonga, with orders to secure the boats on
the Douro and vigilantly patrol up the bank. All the craft from Oporto
to the mouth of the river was then drawn to the right bank, guards
were set, and Soult, thinking his position secure, decided to hold
Oporto another day, to give Lorge’s dragoons and other detachments
time to reach Amarante: he was however curiously misled. In the recent
operations, an English column, moving in boats up the Lake of Ovar,
which runs parallel with the coast, had disembarked on Mermet’s flank,
who thought it had landed from the ocean; hence Soult, expecting the
empty vessels would enter the Douro to effect a passage, directed his
attention entirely to the lower river, while on the upper his orders
were neglected and false reports made of their execution, for the
conspirators were many and busy.
PASSAGE OF THE DOURO. (May, 1809.)
Before eight o’clock on the morning of the 12th the British army was
secretly concentrated behind a rocky height, on which stood a convent
immediately facing Oporto. The Douro rolled in front, and the French
on the other side could with two marches gain the Tamega, secure their
retreat, and defeat Beresford in passing; for that general had been
sent over the Douro, above the confluence of the Tamega, merely to
infest Soult’s line of march towards the Salamanca country, and thus
induce him to take the rugged Chaves road leading to Gallicia, and that
could not be risked unless the main army under Sir Arthur was closely
pressing the French rear; hence his safety, and the forcing Soult into
Gallicia, alike called for an immediate passage of the Douro. Yet how
pass a river, deep, swift, more than three hundred yards wide, and
in the face of ten thousand veterans guarding the opposite bank? The
Macedonian hero might have turned from it without shame.
The stream came with an elbow round the convent height, which barred
sight of the upper water from the place where Soult was watching for
ships which did not exist; and he knew not that the British army was
behind the frowning rock above, nor that a great captain was on its
summit, searching with an eagle glance the river, the city, and the
country around. Horses and baggage that captain saw on the Vallonga
road, and the dust of distant columns as in retreat, but no large force
near the river; the guards also were few and widely spread, the patrols
not vigilant--an auspicious negligence seeming to prevail. Suddenly a
large unfinished building called the Seminary caught his eye; it was
isolated, had an easy access from the water, and was surrounded by a
high wall which extended to the river bank on each side, inclosing
space enough for two battalions, the only egress being an iron gate
opening on the Vallonga road. This structure commanded everything
around, except one mound, within cannon-shot, but too pointed to hold
guns; there were no French posts near the building, and as the direct
line across the water was entirely hidden from the city by the rock,
Sir Arthur, with a marvellous hardihood, instantly resolved to force
a passage there in face of a veteran army and a renowned general, his
means being as scanty as his resolution was great, yet with his genius
they sufficed.
Colonel Waters, an officer on his staff, a quick-witted, daring man,
discovered a poor barber, who had come over the river the night before
in a small skiff and readily agreed to go back; he was accompanied by
the Prior of Amarante, who gallantly offered his services: thus Waters
crossed unperceived and returned with three large barges. Meanwhile
eighteen guns had been placed in battery on the convent rock, and
General John Murray was detached with a brigade of German infantry, the
14th Dragoons, and two guns, to seek a passage at the Barca de Avintas,
three miles up the river: he was reinforced with other troops when the
barges were secured, and then also the head of the army cautiously
approached the water.
At 10 o’clock, the French being tranquil and unsuspicious, the British
wondering and expectant, Sir Arthur was told that one boat was ready.
_Well! Let the men cross_ was the reply, and a quarter of an hour
afterwards an officer and twenty-five British soldiers were silently
placed on the other side of the Douro in the midst of the French
army! The Seminary was thus gained, all remained quiet, and a second
boat passed. No hostile stir succeeded, no sound of war was heard;
but when the third boat passed, tumultuous noises rolled through
Oporto, the drums beat to arms, shouts arose, the citizens, vehemently
gesticulating, made signals from their houses, and confused masses of
troops rushing out from the higher streets threw forward swarms of
skirmishers, and came furiously down on the Seminary.
Secrecy was then no longer valuable and the army crowded to the river
bank. Paget’s and Hill’s divisions pressed to the point of passage,
Sherbrooke’s to where the bridge had been cut away the night before.
Paget himself passed with the third boat, but on the roof of the
Seminary was deeply wounded. Hill took his place, and the musketry,
sharp and voluble from the first, augmented as the forces accumulated
on each side; yet the French attack was eager and constant, their
fire increased more rapidly than that of the English, and their guns
soon opened against the building. The English battery on the convent
rock swept the inclosure on each side and confined the attack to the
front; but Murray did not come down the right bank, and the struggle
was such that Sir Arthur was only restrained from crossing by the
remonstrances of those about him, and the confidence he had in Hill.
Soon, however, some citizens were seen bringing over several great
boats to Sherbrooke, while a prolonged shout from the streets, and the
waving of handkerchiefs from the windows, gave notice that the enemy
had abandoned the lower town: Murray also was then descried on the
right bank.
Three battalions were now in the Seminary, the attack slackened, and
the French began to hurry across the front of the inclosure by the
Vallonga road, and Hill, advancing to the inclosure wall, was pouring
a heavy fire into the disordered masses as they passed his front, when
suddenly five guns galloped out of the city on his left, but appalled
at the terrible stream of musketry pulled up: while thus hesitating a
volley from behind stretched most of the artillerymen in the dust, and
the rest dispersing left the guns on the road. It was from Sherbrooke,
who had passed through the streets, this volley came, and he now
pressed the French rear while Hill sent his damaging fire into their
flank, and the guns from the rock deeply searched their masses. The
passage was thus won, the allies were on the right bank of the Douro,
and if Murray had fallen on the disordered crowd, approaching him,
the discomfiture would have been complete. He however suffered column
after column to pass, and seemed to fear they would step aside to push
him into the river. General C. Stewart and Major Harvey, impatient of
this timidity, took two squadrons of the 14th Dragoons, and riding over
the French rear in a narrow way unhorsed General Laborde and wounded
General Foy; but having no support from Murray fought their way back
with loss, and Harvey lost his arm. Of the English twenty were killed,
one general and nearly a hundred men wounded on the day; the French
lost a general and five hundred men killed or wounded, and they left
several hundreds in hospital. Five guns were taken in the fight; and
stores of ammunition with fifty pieces of artillery, the carriages of
which had been burned, were found in the arsenal. The overthrow was
great, but Napoleon’s veterans were so inured to war that no troops so
readily recovered from a surprise. Before they reached Vallonga their
order was restored, a rear-guard was formed, and in the night was
rejoined by a detachment from the mouth of the Douro, which had been
guided by some friendly Portuguese: then Soult, believing Loison held
Amarante, thought himself well out of his difficulties. He was soon
undeceived.
Sir Arthur Wellesley now brought his baggage, stores, and artillery
over the Douro; but this was not effected until the evening of the
13th, and though Murray’s Germans were sent in pursuit on the morning
of that day, they did not advance more than ten miles. “_An enemy once
surprised should never be allowed time to recover_,” is a great maxim,
and so proved on this occasion: yet there were sound reasons for the
halt. Part of the troops were still on the left bank of the Douro, and
the whole had outmarched provisions, baggage and spare ammunition,
having made more than eighty miles of rough ground in four days,
besides fighting. Men and animals required rest, and nothing was known
of Beresford, whose proceedings had been of far greater importance than
either he or Sir Arthur knew at the time.[7]
Loison had fallen back from Pezo de Ragoa on the Douro the 10th when
Beresford crossed that river. The latter was then in the position
required for turning Soult on to the Chaves road; but Loison again
retreated on the 11th, and Beresford, finding him timid, followed
briskly, while a Portuguese insurgent force under General Sylveira
closed on his flank. The 12th his outposts were driven into Amarante,
and next day he abandoned that place.
These events were unknown to Sir Arthur on the 13th, but he heard Soult
had destroyed guns and ammunition near Penafiel, and judging that to
be a result of Beresford’s operations, reinforced Murray with cavalry,
ordering him to push on to Penafiel, and if Loison lingered near
Amarante to open a communication with Beresford--the latter was then to
ascend the Tamega and intercept the French at Chaves.
On the 14th Sir Arthur had moved forward himself, and the 15th reached
Braga; Beresford was then near Chaves, Sylveira marching towards
Salamonde, and Soult’s capture seemed inevitable to his pursuers;
he was however beyond their toils, having by a surprising effort
extricated himself from perils as fearful as ever beset a general.
While retreating towards Amarante he was between the Douro and the
Sierra de Catalina, both said to be impassable, and the road was very
narrow and very rugged. His design was to pass the Tamega and march
on Braganza; failing in that, he could from Amarante and Guimaraens
reach Braga by a good road leading behind the Catalina ridge; in either
case however Amarante was to be first gained, and his safety depended
on Loison holding that place. But that general had relinquished it
to Beresford on the 13th, and marched on Guimaraens, though a staff
officer, sent by Soult on the 12th, was in his camp protesting against
the movement: the retreat from Oporto being also known to him. He thus
deliberately abandoned his general and two-thirds of the army to what
appeared certain destruction; for Beresford could not be forced, and
if Murray only had come up on the French rear, and he was not far off,
Soult must have laid down his arms.
This calamity was made known to that marshal as he was passing the
rugged bed of the Souza, a cross torrent falling into the Douro. The
weather was boisterous, the troops worn with fatigue and recently
defeated were dismayed, voices were heard calling for capitulation,
and all things tended to ruin: but in that hour of peril the Duke of
Dalmatia justified fortune for having raised him to such dignity. He
had fallen from his horse and severely injured his hip, broken before
by a shot at the siege of Genoa, yet neither pain nor bodily weakness
nor danger could abate his resolution. A Spanish pedlar told him of
a path leading up that bank of the Souza which he had just left, by
which he could scale the Catalina ridge and reach the Guimaraens road
to Braga: whereupon, with a haughty commandment he silenced the murmurs
of treacherous officers and fearful soldiers, destroyed his guns,
abandoned his military chest and baggage, loaded the animals which had
carried them with sick men and ammunition, and repassed the Souza to
follow his Spanish guide. Torrents of rain descended and the path was
wild and rough as the desolate region it threaded, yet with a fierce
domination he forced his troops over the mountain, and descending on
Guimaraens, refound Loison: Lorge’s dragoons came in at the same time
from Braga, and thus almost beyond hope the whole army was concentrated.
Soult’s energy had been great, his sagacity was now as conspicuous. The
slackness of pursuit, after passing Vallonga, made him judge Sir Arthur
was pushing for Braga and would reach it first; a fighting retreat and
the loss of guns and baggage would then ensue, and perhaps fatally
depress the soldiers’ spirit; it would also favour the malcontents,
and already one general, apparently Loison, was urging a convention.
Soult replied by destroying the guns, ammunition, and baggage of the
divisions he found at Guimaraens, and again taking to the mountains
crossed them to Carvalho d’Este, thus gaining a day’s march and
baffling the combination to surround him. Next morning he drew up his
twenty thousand men on the position they had occupied two months before
at the battle of Braga, an imposing spectacle, and on the scene of a
recent victory, by which he aroused the sinking pride of the French
soldier. It was a happy reach of generalship!
Now he reorganized his army, giving Loison the advanced guard and
taking the rear himself; at which, says the French historian of
this expedition, “the whole army was astonished.” As if it were not
consummate policy to oppose the British pursuit with men under the
General-in-Chief, while the van, having to fight insurgents, was
led by an officer whose very name called forth execrations from the
natives--_Maneta, the one-handed_, as Loison was called, however
willing, dared not surrender to a Portuguese force.
From Carvalho the French made for Salamonde, whence there were two
lines of retreat; the one by Ruivaens to Chaves, the other, shorter
and more rugged, by the Ponte Nova to Montelegre. The scouts said the
bridge at Ruivaens was broken, the passage defended by twelve hundred
insurgents with artillery; moreover, that men had been all the morning
working to destroy the Ponte Nova. The breaking of the first blocked
the road to Chaves, the breaking of the second would, if completed, cut
the army off from Montelegre.
Night was setting in, the soldiers were harassed, barefooted, and
starving, the ammunition was injured by rain, which had never ceased
since the 13th, and was now accompanied by storms of wind, with the
morning the British army would be on the rear, and if the Ponte Nova
could not be secured the hour of surrender was come! In this extremity,
Major Dulong, justly reputed as one of the most daring men in the
French ranks, was thus addressed by Soult: “_I have chosen you from the
whole army to seize the Ponte Nova, which has been cut by the enemy.
Take a hundred grenadiers and twenty-five horsemen, surprise the guards
and secure the passage. If you succeed, say so, but send no other
report; your silence will suffice._”
Dulong, favoured by the storm, reached the bridge, killed the sentinel
without any alarm being given, and being followed by twelve grenadiers,
crawled along a narrow slip of masonry which had not been destroyed.
The Cavado river was flooded and roaring in its deep rocky channel
below, and one of the grenadiers fell into the gulf, but the waters
were much louder than his cry, and the others surprised the nearest
guards; then the main body rushed on, and some crossing the broken
bridge while others ascended the heights, shouting and firing, scared
the insurgents away.
At four o’clock the bridge was repaired and the troops filed slowly
over; but the road beyond was only a narrow cut in the side of a
mountain, an unfenced precipice yawned on the left for several miles,
and the way was finally crossed by the Misarella torrent, rolling in
a deep chasm and only to be passed by the _Saltador_ or _leaper_, a
bridge so called because it was a single arch, high and boldly thrown,
which admitted only three persons abreast: it was not cut, but was
intrenched, and the rocks on the further side were occupied by some
hundred armed insurgents. Here the good soldier Dulong again saved the
army. For when two assaults had been repulsed he won the passage with
a third, in which he fell deeply wounded; yet his admiring soldiers
carried him forward in their arms, and then the head of the long French
column poured over the Saltador. It was full time, for the English guns
were thundering on the rear and the restored Ponte Nova was choked with
the dead.
Sir Arthur Wellesley, quitting Braga in the morning of the 16th,
overtook Soult’s rear-guard in the evening, at Salamonde, before it
could cross the Ponte Nova; it was in a strong position, but men
momentarily expecting an order to retire seldom stand firmly. Some
light troops turned their left, Sherbrooke assailed their front, and
after one discharge they fled by their right to the Ponte Nova. It was
dusk, the way to the bridge was not that of apparent retreat, and for
a while the French were lost to view; they thus gained time to form a
rear-guard, but ere their cavalry could pass the bridge the English
guns opened, sending men and horses crushed together into the gulf,
and the bridge and the rocks and the defile beyond were strewed with
mangled carcasses.
This was the last infliction by the sword in a retreat signalized by
many horrid and many glorious actions; for the peasants in their fury
tortured and mutilated the sick and straggling soldiers who fell into
their hands, the troops in revenge shot the peasants, and the marches
could be traced from afar by the smoke of burning houses.
TALAVERA. (July, 1809.)
When Soult saved himself in Gallicia Sir Arthur Wellesley marched to
Abrantes on the Tagus, from whence, thinking the French marshal’s army
so ruined it could be of no weight in the war for several months, he
designed to make a great movement against Madrid, in concert with the
Spanish generals Cuesta and Venegas. He was at the time incredulous of
the Spaniards’ failings, thinking Sir John Moore had misrepresented
them as apathetic and perverse; but this expedition taught him to
respect that great man’s judgment, both as to the people and the nature
of their warfare.
His plan of operations, as might be expected from so great a general,
was bold, comprehensive, and military, according to the data presented:
but he accepted false data. He under-calculated the French in the
Peninsula by more than a hundred thousand men, he overrated the
injury inflicted on Soult; and while slighting the personal energy
and resources of that marshal, relied on Spanish politicians, Spanish
generals, Spanish troops, and Spanish promises. The time was indeed one
of riotous boasting and ill-founded anticipations with the Spanish,
Portuguese, and British governments. Their agents and partisans were
incredibly noisy, their newspapers teemed with idle stories of the
weakness, misery, fear and despondency of the French armies, and of the
successful fury of the Spaniards; the most inflated notions of easy
triumph pervaded councils and camps, and the English general’s judgment
was not entirely proof against the pernicious influence.
Victor, relinquishing the south side of the Tagus, was then in position
at Talavera, and behind him King Joseph had his own guards, a great
body of horsemen, and Sebastiani’s army corps. Thus more than fifty
thousand men, seven thousand being cavalry, covered Madrid.
Cuesta, following Victor’s movements, had taken post at Almaraz, with
thirty thousand infantry, seven thousand cavalry, and seventy pieces of
artillery.
Venegas was in La Mancha with twenty-five thousand men.
Sir Arthur Wellesley had eighteen thousand infantry, and three thousand
cavalry, with thirty guns; eight thousand men, recently landed from
England, were on the march to join him, and both the Spanish government
and generals gave him the strongest assurances of co-operation and
support. He had made contracts with the alcaldes in the valley of the
Tagus for a supply of provisions, and, confiding in those promises and
contracts, entered Spain the latter end of June, with scanty means of
transport and without magazines, to find every Spanish promise broken,
every contract a failure. When he remonstrated, all the Spaniards
concerned, political or military, vehemently denied that any breach
of engagements had taken place, and as vehemently offered to make new
ones, without the slightest intention to fulfil them.
A junction with Cuesta was effected the 18th of July.
He was sullen, obstinate, and absurdly prompt to display contempt for
the English general; he marched with him, yet rejected his counsels,
and after reaching Talavera, from whence Victor had retired, pushed
on alone, thinking in his foolish pride to enter Madrid. But King
Joseph, who had concentrated fifty thousand men and ninety guns on
the Guadarama stream, drove him back the 26th with the loss of four
thousand men, and his army would have dispersed, if Sherbrooke, who
was in advance of the English forces, had not interposed his division
between the scared troops and the enemy.
Sir Arthur Wellesley, whose soldiers were starving, from the failures
of the Spanish authorities, had not passed the Alberche, and was intent
to retire from Spain; yet now, seeing the disorder beyond that river,
judged that a great battle was at hand, and being convinced that in a
strong position only would the Spaniards stand, besought their general
to withdraw to Talavera, where there was ground suited for defence.
Cuesta’s uncouth nature then broke out. His troops, beaten, dispirited,
fatigued, and bewildered, were clustering in fear on a low narrow slip
of land, between the Alberche, the Tagus, and the heights of Salinas.
The first shot must have been the signal for dispersion; yet when
entreated to avoid the fall of the rock thus trembling overhead, he
replied, that his army would be disheartened by further retreat--he
would fight where he stood: had the French advanced his ruin would have
ensued. At daybreak Sir Arthur renewed his solicitations, but they
were fruitless, until the enemy’s cavalry came in sight and Sherbrooke
prepared to retire; then indeed the sullen old man yielded, yet with
frantic pride told his staff, “_he had first made the Englishman go
down on his knees_.” Having vented this stupid folly, he retired
to a lumbering coach which attended his head-quarters, while _The
Englishman_, by virtue of an imperious genius, assumed command of
both armies, and leaving one division with a brigade of cavalry under
General M^cKenzie on the Alberche to mask his movements, retired six
miles to Talavera; having before chosen a field of battle there, and
strengthened it with some field-works on a line perpendicular to the
Tagus.
The country in front was a plain, open near this position, but beyond
it covered with olive and cork trees up to the Alberche. A series of
unconnected hills, steep, yet of moderate height, and running parallel
with the Tagus at a distance of two miles, bounded this plain on the
left, and half a mile beyond them was a mountain-ridge, from which they
were separated by a rugged valley.
Sir Arthur posted the Spanish infantry in two lines on the right,
having their flank resting on the town of Talavera, which touched the
river.
Their left was closed by a mound crowned with a large field redoubt,
behind which a brigade of British cavalry was posted.
Their front was protected by a convent, by ditches, mud walls,
breastworks, and felled trees; their cavalry was behind their line, and
in rear of all, nearly touching on the town, was a wood with a large
house, well placed for and designed by the English general to cover
a retreat on the main roads leading from Talavera to Arzobispo and
Oropesa.
From the large redoubt, on the mound closing the Spanish left, the
line was prolonged by the British army. Campbell’s division, in two
lines, touched the Spaniards; Sherbrooke’s touched Campbell’s, but
arrayed in one line only, M^cKenzie’s division, then on the Alberche,
being to form the second. Hill’s division should have closed the left,
by taking post on the highest of the isolated heights which bounded
the plain, but from some error only the flat ground was occupied, and
the height was left naked, an error afterwards felt. The English left
wing was covered in front by a watercourse, which, shallow at first,
went deepening and widening as it passed the round hill, and became a
formidable chasm in the valley. The cavalry, originally placed along
the front, was destined to take post, partly behind the British left
wing, partly behind the redoubt on the Spanish left, and the whole
front of battle was two miles long. The Spaniards, reduced by their
recent action to thirty-four thousand combatants, but still having
seventy guns, occupied one-third of it, and were nearly inattackable
from the nature of the ground. The British and Germans held the
remainder of the position, and the weakest part, although they were but
nineteen thousand sabres and bayonets with thirty guns. The combined
armies therefore, with forty-four thousand infantry, ten thousand
cavalry, and one hundred pieces of artillery, offered battle to the
king, who was coming on with eighty guns and fifty thousand men, seven
thousand being cavalry.
Before daylight the French were in march to attack, and at one o’clock
Victor reached the heights of Salinas overhanging the Alberche, from
whence he could see the dust raised by taking up the position, though
the forest masked the dispositions. The ground was however known to
him, and the king, at his instance, sent Sebastiani at once against
the allies’ right, the cavalry against the centre, and Victor himself
against the left-supporting the two first with his guards and the
reserve.
COMBAT OF SALINAS. (July, 1809.)
Victor first marched on the _Caza de Salinas_, a house situated in the
plain below. To reach it he had to ford the Alberche and penetrate two
miles through the forest, yet the position of M^cKenzie’s division
was indicated by the dust, and as the British cavalry had sent no
patrols, the post was surprised. England was then like to have lost her
great commander, for Sir Arthur, who was in the house for observation,
very hardly escaped capture; for the French charged so hotly that the
English brigades were separated, fired on each other, and were driven
in disorder through the forest into the open plain. In the midst of
this confusion the 45th, a stubborn old regiment, accompanied by some
companies of the 60th Riflemen, kept good array, and on them Sir Arthur
rallied the others and checked the enemy, covering his retreat with
cavalry; yet he lost four hundred men, and the retrograde movement was
hastily made in face of both armies.
M^cKenzie with one brigade now took post behind the Guards in the
centre, but Colonel Donkin, seeing the hill on the extreme left
unoccupied, crowned it with the other brigade, and thus accidentally
filled the position. Meanwhile Victor, issuing from the forest in fine
martial order, rapidly crossed the plain, seized another isolated
hill, opposite to that held by Donkin, and opened a heavy cannonade:
at the same time Sebastiani approached the Spanish line, and pushed
forward his light cavalry to make Cuesta show his order of battle;
whereupon happened one of those events which show what a chance-medley
thing a battle is, even in the hands of a great captain. The French
horsemen, riding boldly up, commenced a pistol skirmish, to which the
Spaniards replied with one general discharge of musketry, and then ten
thousand infantry, with all the artillerymen, as if deprived of their
senses, broke and fled away in confused heaps; the gunners carried away
their horses, the footmen threw away their arms, the Adjutant-General
O’Donoghue was foremost in flight, and even Cuesta went off some
distance in his coach: the panic was spreading wide, and the elated
horsemen charged down the Royal road, but Sir Arthur instantly flanked
them with some English squadrons, the ditches on the opposite side
were impracticable, the Spaniards who stood fast began to use their
firearms, and those daring troopers had to retreat.
Most of the Spanish runaways made for Oropesa, saying the allies were
defeated, the French in hot pursuit. Incredible disorder followed.
The English commissaries went off with their animals, the paymasters
carried away their money-chests, the baggage was scattered, and the
alarm spread along the rear even to the frontier of Portugal. Cuesta
indeed, having recovered his presence of mind, sent several thousand
horsemen to head the fugitives and drive them back, and some of the
artillerymen and horses were thus recovered; many of the infantry also,
but in the next day’s battle the Spanish army was less by six thousand
fighting men than it should have been, and the great redoubt in the
centre was silent for want of guns.
While this disgraceful flight was being perpetrated on the right,
the left of the English line displayed the greatest intrepidity. The
round hill at the extremity was of easy ascent in rear, but steep and
rugged towards the French, and was also protected there by the deep
watercourse at the bottom. Nevertheless Victor, seeing Donkin’s brigade
was not numerous, and the summit of the hill still naked of troops,
thought to seize the latter by a sudden assault.
FIRST COMBAT OF TALAVERA. (July, 1809.)
The sun was sinking, but the twilight and the confusion amongst the
Spaniards appeared so favourable to the French marshal, that, without
informing the king, he directed Ruffin’s division to attack, Villatte’s
to follow in support, and Lapisse to assail the German Legion as a
diversion for Ruffin, without engaging seriously. The assault was
vigorous, and though Donkin beat back the French in his front, many
of them turned his left and won the height in his rear. General Hill
had been previously ordered to reinforce him, and it was not quite
dark when that officer, while giving orders below, was shot at by men
on the highest point; thinking they were English stragglers firing at
the enemy, he rode up, followed by his brigade-major Fordyce, and in a
moment found himself in the midst of the French. Fordyce was killed,
Hill’s horse was wounded, and a grenadier seized his bridle, but
spurring hard he broke the man’s hold and galloping down met the 29th
Regiment, which he led up with so strong a charge the enemy could not
sustain the shock.
When the summit was thus happily recovered, the 48th Regiment and a
battalion of detachments were brought forward, and in conjunction with
the 29th and Donkin’s brigade presented a formidable front and in good
time; for the troops beaten back were but part of a regiment forming
the van of Ruffin’s division, the two other regiments having lost their
way in the watercourse; the attack had therefore only subsided, Lapisse
soon opened fire against the Germans, and Ruffin’s regiment in one
mass again assailed the hill. The fighting then became vehement, and
in the darkness the opposing flashes of musketry showed how resolutely
the struggle was maintained, for the combatants were scarcely twenty
yards asunder, and the event seemed doubtful; but the charging shout
of the British soldier was at last heard above the din of arms, and
the enemy’s broken troops went down once more into the ravine below:
Lapisse, who had made some impression on the Germans, then abandoned
his false attack and the fighting of the 27th ceased. The British lost
eight hundred men, the French a thousand.
Now the bivouac fires blazed up and the French and British soldiers
were quiet, but at midnight the Spaniards opened a prodigious peal
of musketry and artillery without cause or object; and during the
remainder of the night, the line was frequently disturbed with
desultory firing, which killed several men and officers.
From the prisoners Victor ascertained the exact position of the
Spaniards, until then unknown, and when reporting his own failure
proposed a second attack for next morning on the hill. Marshal Jourdan,
chief of the king’s staff, opposed this as a partial enterprise leading
to no great result; yet Victor was so earnest for a trial, urging his
intimate knowledge of the ground, that he won Joseph’s assent. Then
he placed all his guns in one mass on the height to the English left,
from whence they could plunge into the great valley on their own right,
range the summit of the hill in their front, and obliquely search the
whole British line as far as the great redoubt between the allied
armies. Ruffin was in front of the guns, Villatte in rear, yet having
one regiment close to the watercourse; Lapisse occupied low table-land,
opposite Sherbrooke; Latour Maubourg’s cavalry formed a reserve for
Lapisse; Beaumont’s cavalry a reserve for Ruffin.
On the English side, Hill’s division was concentrated on the disputed
height; the cavalry was massed in a plain behind; the park of artillery
and the hospitals were between the cavalry and Hill.
SECOND COMBAT OF TALAVERA. (July, 1809.)
About daybreak Ruffin’s troops again menaced the English hill, moving
against the front and by the great valley on their own right, thus
embracing two sides. Their march was rapid and steady; they were
followed by Villatte’s men, and the assault was preceded with a burst
of artillery that rattled round the height and swept away the English
ranks by sections; the sharp chattering of musketry succeeded, and then
the French guns were pointed towards the British centre and right. Soon
their grenadiers closed, the height sparkled with fire, and, as the
inequalities of ground broke the formation, on both sides small bodies
were seen, here and there, struggling for the mastery with all the
virulence of a single combat. In some places the French were overthrown
at once, in others they would not be denied and reached the summit, yet
the English reserves always vindicated their ground and no permanent
footing was obtained. Still the conflict was maintained with singular
obstinacy. Hill himself was wounded and his men were falling fast, but
the enemy suffered more and gave way, step by step at first and slowly
to cover the retreat of their wounded, yet finally, unable to sustain
the increasing fury of their opponents and having lost above fifteen
hundred men in the space of forty minutes, the whole mass broke away in
disorder, sheltered by the renewed play of their powerful artillery.
To this destructive fire no adequate answer could be made, for the
English guns were few and of small calibre, and when a reinforcement
was demanded from Cuesta he sent two pieces! useful however they were,
and the Spanish gunners fought them gallantly.
Most of the repulsed troops had gone off by the great valley, and a
favourable opportunity for a charge of horse occurred, but the English
cavalry, having retired during the night for water and forage, were
too distant to be of service. However, these repeated efforts of the
French against the hill, and the appearance of their light troops on
the mountain beyond the valley, taught the English general that he
should prolong his flank on that side; wherefore he now posted a mass
of cavalry with the leading squadrons looking into the valley, and sent
a Spanish division of infantry to the mountain itself. At this time
also, the Duke of Albuquerque, discontented with Cuesta’s arrangements,
came with his cavalry to the left and was placed behind the British: a
formidable array of horsemen, six lines in depth, was thus presented.
Joseph, after examining the position from left to right, demanded of
Jourdan and Victor if he should deliver a general battle. The former
replied that when the great valley and the mountain were unoccupied on
the 27th, Sir Arthur Wellesley’s attention should have been drawn to
the right by a feint on the Spaniards: that during the night the whole
army should have been silently placed in column at the entrance of the
great valley, ready at daybreak to form line of battle to its left on a
new front, and so have attacked. Such a movement would have compelled
the allies to change their front also, and during the operation they
might have been assailed with success. This project could not then
be executed. The English, aware of their mistake, had occupied the
valley and the mountain, and were, front and flank alike, inattackable.
_Hence, the only prudent line was to take up a position on the
Alberche, and await the effect of Soult’s operations on the English
rear._
Victor opposed this counsel. He engaged to carry the hill on the
English left notwithstanding his former failures, provided Sebastiani
would attack the right and centre at the same moment, finishing his
argument thus: “_If such a combination failed, it was time to renounce
making war._”[8]
The king was embarrassed. His own opinion coincided with Jourdan’s,
yet he feared Victor would make the emperor think a great opportunity
had been lost, and while thus wavering a despatch arrived from Soult,
saying his forces could only reach Placencia between the 2nd and 5th
of August; intelligence also came that a detachment from the army
of Venegas had appeared near Toledo, and his van was approaching
Aranjuez. This made the king tremble for Madrid. The stores, reserve
artillery, and general hospitals of all the armies in Spain were there,
and the tolls received at the gates formed almost the only pecuniary
resource of his court: so narrowly did Napoleon reduce the expenditure
of the war. These considerations overpowered his judgment; rejecting
the better counsel, he resolved to succour the capital, yet first to
try the chance of battle.
While the French chiefs were thus engaged in council, the wounded
were carried to the rear on both sides; but the English soldiers
were suffering from hunger, regular service of provisions had ceased
for several days, and a few ounces of wheat in the grain formed the
subsistence of men who had fought and were yet to fight so hardly.
The Spanish camp was full of confusion and distrust. Cuesta inspired
terror by his ferocity, but no confidence; and Albuquerque, from
conviction or momentary anger, just as the French were coming on to the
final attack, sent one of his staff to inform the English commander
that Cuesta was betraying him. This message was first delivered to
Colonel Donkin, who carried it to Sir Arthur, then seated on the hill
intently watching the movements of the advancing enemy; he listened
without turning his head, and drily answering--_Very well, you may
return to your brigade_--continued his survey of the French. Such was
his imperturbable resolution and quick penetration, and his conduct
throughout the day was such as became a general upon whose vigilance
and intrepidity the fate of fifty thousand men depended.
The dispositions of the French were soon completed. Ruffin’s division,
on the extreme right, was destined to cross the valley and move by the
foot of the mountain to turn the British left.
Villatte was to menace the key hill with one brigade, and guard the
valley with another, thus connecting Ruffin’s movement with the main
attack.
Lapisse, supported by Latour Maubourg’s dragoons and the king’s
reserve, was to fall with half his infantry upon Sherbrooke; the other
half, connecting its attack with Villatte’s brigade, was to make a
third effort to master the twice-contested hill.
Milhaud’s dragoons were placed in front of Talavera to keep Cuesta in
check; the rest of the heavy cavalry was brought into the centre behind
Sebastiani, who was to assail the right of the British army.
Part of the French light cavalry supported Villatte’s brigade in the
valley, part remained in reserve, and many guns were distributed among
the divisions; but the principal mass remained on Victor’s hill with
the reserve of light cavalry, where also the Duke of Belluno took post
to direct the movements of his corps.
BATTLE OF TALAVERA. (July, 1809.)
From nine o’clock in the morning until mid-day there was no appearance
of hostility, the weather was intensely hot, and the troops on both
sides descended and mingled without fear or suspicion to quench their
thirst at a brook separating the positions; but at one o’clock the
French soldiers were seen to gather round their eagles, and the roll of
drums was heard along their whole line. Half an hour later, Joseph’s
guards, the reserve, and Sebastiani’s corps were descried in movement
to join Victor’s corps, and at two o’clock, the table-land and the
height on the French right, even to the great valley, were covered with
dark lowering masses of men.
At this moment, some hundreds of English soldiers employed to carry
the wounded to the rear returned in one body, and were by the French
supposed to be a detached corps rejoining the army; nevertheless,
the Duke of Belluno gave the signal for battle, and eighty pieces of
artillery sent a tempest of bullets before the light troops, who came
on with the swiftness and violence of a hail-storm, and were closely
followed by the broad black columns in all the majesty of war.
Sir Arthur Wellesley had from the summit of the hill a clear view of
the whole field of battle. First he saw Sebastiani’s troops rushing
forwards with the usual impetuosity of French soldiers, clearing the
intersected ground in their front and falling upon Campbell’s division
with infinite fury; yet that general, assisted by Mackenzie’s brigade
and two Spanish battalions, withstood their utmost efforts; for the
English regiments, putting the French skirmishers aside, met the
advancing columns with loud shouts, broke their front, lapped their
flanks with fire, and giving no respite pushed them back with a
terrible carnage. Ten guns were taken, but as Campbell would not break
his line by a pursuit, the French, rallying on their supports, made
head for another attack; yet the British guns and musketry played so
vehemently on their masses while a Spanish cavalry regiment charged
their flank, that they again retired in disorder and the victory was
secured in that quarter.
During this fight Villatte, preceded by chosen grenadiers and supported
by two regiments of light cavalry, advanced up the great valley, and
Ruffin was discovered marching towards the mountain, whereupon Sir
Arthur directed Anson’s cavalry, composed of the 23rd Light Dragoons
and 1st German hussars, to charge the head of Villatte’s column. Going
off at a canter and increasing their speed as they advanced, these
regiments rode against the enemy, but soon came upon the brink of
the water-course, which, descending from the hill, was there a chasm
though not perceptible at a distance; the French, throwing themselves
into squares behind it, opened their fire, and then the German Colonel
Arentschildt, an officer whom forty years’ service had made a master
in his art, reined up at the brink, exclaiming, in his broken phrase,
_I will not kill my young mens_! Higher up however, facing the 23rd,
the chasm was more practicable, and that regiment plunged down, men and
horses rolling over each other in horrible confusion, the survivors
ascending the opposite bank by twos and threes; their colonel, Seymour,
was wounded, but Frederick Ponsonby, a hardy soldier, rallied all who
came up, passed through Villatte’s columns, which poured fire from each
side, and fell with inexpressible violence upon a brigade of French
_chasseurs_ in the rear. The combat was fierce yet short, for Victor
had before detached his Polish lancers and Westphalian light horse
to support Villatte, and these fresh troops coming on when the 23rd,
already over-matched, could scarcely stand against the _chasseurs_,
entirely broke them: those who were not killed or taken made for the
Spanish division on the mountain, leaving behind more than two hundred
men and officers.
During this time the hill, the key of the position, was again
attacked, while Lapisse, having crossed the watercourse, pressed hard
upon the English centre, where his artillery, aided by the great
battery on Victor’s hill, opened large gaps in Sherbrooke’s ranks,
and his columns went close up in the resolution to win. They were
vigorously encountered and yielded in disorder, but the English Guards,
quitting the line and following with inconsiderate ardour, were met
by the French supporting columns and dragoons, whereupon the beaten
troops turned, while heavy batteries pounded the flank and front of the
Guards, who, thus maltreated, drew back, and coincidently, the German
Legion being sorely pressed, got into confusion.
At this time Hill’s and Campbell’s divisions stood fast on each
extremity of the line, yet the centre of the British was absolutely
broken, and victory inclined towards the French, when suddenly Colonel
Donellan was seen advancing with the 48th through the midst of the
disordered masses. It seemed as if this regiment must be carried away
with the retiring crowds, but wheeling back by companies it let them
pass through the intervals, and then resuming its proud and beautiful
line struck against the right of the pursuing enemy, plying such a
destructive musketry and closing with such a firm countenance that his
forward movement was checked. The Guards and Germans then rallied, a
brigade of light cavalry came up from the second line at a trot, the
artillery battered the flanks without intermission, the French wavered,
and the battle was restored.
In all actions there is one critical and decisive moment which offers
victory to the general who can seize it. When the Guards made their
rash charge, Sir Arthur, foreseeing the issue, had sent the 48th down
from the hill, although a rough battle was going on there, and at the
same time directed the light cavalry to advance. This made the British
strongest at the decisive point, the French relaxed their fighting
while the English fire grew hotter, and their ringing shouts--sure
augury of success--were heard along the whole line. In the hands of
a great general, Joseph’s guards and the reserve might have restored
the combat, but combination was over with the French. Sebastiani’s
corps, beaten on the left with the loss of ten guns, was in confusion;
the troops in the great valley on the right, amazed at the furious
charge of the 23rd, and awed by four distinct lines of cavalry still in
reserve, remained stationary, and no impression had been made on the
hill; Lapisse was mortally wounded, his division had given way, and the
king retired to his original position.
This retrograde movement was covered by skirmishers and an increasing
fire of artillery; the British, exhausted by toil and want of food, and
reduced to less than fourteen thousand sabres and bayonets, could not
pursue, and the Spanish army was incapable of any evolution: at six
o’clock hostilities ceased, yet the battle was scarcely over when the
dry grass and shrubs took fire, and a volume of flames passing with
inconceivable rapidity across a part of the field, scorched in its
course both the dead and the wounded!
Two British generals, Mackenzie and Langworth, thirty-one officers of
inferior rank, seven hundred and sixty-seven sergeants and soldiers
were killed. Three generals, a hundred and ninety-two officers, three
thousand seven hundred and eighteen sergeants and privates were
wounded; nine officers, six hundred and forty-three sergeants and
soldiers were missing: making a total loss of six thousand two hundred
and sixty-eight in the two days’ fighting, of which five thousand four
hundred and twenty-two fell on the 28th.
On the French side, nine hundred and forty-four, including two
generals, were killed. Six thousand two hundred and ninety-four were
wounded, one hundred and fifty-six made prisoners; giving a total of
seven thousand three hundred and eighty-nine men and officers, of which
four thousand were of Victor’s corps: ten guns were taken and seven
left in the woods by the French. The Spaniards returned twelve hundred
men killed and wounded, but the correctness of their report was very
much doubted.
Early on the 29th the French quitted their position for the heights
of Salinas behind the Alberche; and that day General Robert Craufurd
reached the English camp with the 43rd, 52nd and 95th regiments, and
immediately took charge of the outposts. These troops, after a march of
twenty miles, were in _bivouac_ near Malpartida de Placencia when the
alarm caused by the Spanish fugitives spread to that part. Craufurd,
fearing the army was pressed, allowed his men to rest for a few hours,
and then withdrawing fifty of the weakest marched with a resolution not
to halt until he reached the field of battle. As the brigade advanced
it met crowds of the runaways, not all Spaniards, but all propagating
the vilest falsehoods: _the army was defeated--Sir Arthur Wellesley
was killed--the French were only a few miles distant_: some, blinded
by their fears, pretended even to point out the enemy’s posts on the
nearest hills! Indignant at this shameful scene the troops pressed on
with impetuous speed, and leaving only seventeen stragglers behind, in
twenty-six hours crossed the field of battle, a strong compact body,
having during that time marched sixty-two English miles in the hottest
season of the year, each man carrying from fifty to sixty pounds
weight. Had the historian Gibbon known of such an effort, he would have
spared his sneer about the delicacy of modern soldiers![9]
The desperate fighting of the English soldier, responding to his
general’s genius, had now saved the army from the danger imposed by
Cuesta’s perverseness and the infirmity of the Spanish troops; but
Sir A. Wellesley had still to expiate his own errors as to Spanish
character, Spanish warfare, and the French power and resources.
Soult, after his retreat, had so promptly reorganized his force as
to be co-operating with Ney against the Gallician insurgents, when
in the British camp he was supposed to be wandering, distressed, and
shirking every foe. Meanwhile Napoleon, foreseeing with intuitive
sagacity that the English general would operate by the valley of the
Tagus, and Gallicia consequently be abandoned, gave Soult authority to
unite in Leon the troops of Mortier, Ney and Kellermann to his own,
above fifty thousand fighting men in all. With them he was to fall
on the British communications, by crossing the Gredos mountains and
entering the valley of the Tagus; but Ney, discontented at being under
Soult’s command, was dilatory, and the latter only passed the Gredos
the 31st instead of the 29th as he designed; the allies thus escaped
being inclosed between two French armies, each an overmatch for them in
numbers and power of movement.
Sir A. Wellesley had heard on the 30th that Soult was likely to cross
the mountains, yet, thinking him weak, only desired Cuesta to reinforce
some Spanish troops previously posted at the pass of Baños, which had
however been already forced by the French; but on the 2nd of August
it became known that Soult had descended upon Placencia and taken all
the English stores there; news which aroused both generals; then they
agreed that Sir Arthur should march against him, while Cuesta remained
at Talavera to watch the king--promising to bring off the men in the
British hospitals if forced to retreat. Sir Arthur, relying on this,
marched the 3rd, still thinking Soult had only fifteen thousand men,
the remnant of his former army; but he had fifty-three thousand, and on
the morning of the 4th the English general found himself with seventeen
thousand half-starved soldiers at Oropesa, Soult being in his front,
Victor menacing his rear, and Cuesta, false to his word, close at hand,
having left fifteen hundred British sick and wounded to the enemy. The
fate of the Peninsula was then hanging by a thread which could not
support the weight for twelve hours, and only one resource remained:
the bridge of Arzobispo was near, and the army crossed the Tagus,
leaving the French with all the credit of the campaign.
On the mountains beyond that river, the English general maintained a
defensive position until the 20th against the enemy; but against the
evil proceedings of the Spanish government and Spanish generals he
could not hold his ground, and therefore retired into Portugal; having
during his short campaign lost by sickness and in battle, or abandoned,
three thousand five hundred gallant soldiers and nearly two thousand
horses, fifteen hundred of which died of want.