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W Napier

Lieu^t.-General Sir W. Napier. Pinx^t. W.H. Egleton, sculp^t.

ENGLISH
BATTLES AND SIEGES
IN THE
PENINSULA.

EXTRACTED FROM HIS ‘PENINSULA WAR.’

BY

LIEUT.-GEN. SIR WILLIAM NAPIER, K.C.B.,
&c. &c.

LONDON:
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.
1855.

LONDON: PRINTED BY W. CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET,
AND CHARING CROSS.

NOTICE.

In this publication, the combats of Roriça, Vimiero, and Coruña, and the character of Sir John Moore, have been entirely recomposed. The other battles and sieges are, with more or less compression of details, transcripts from the History of the Peninsula War. Thus arranged they will perhaps most effectually exhibit the constant energy of the British soldier, and draw attention in their neighbourhoods to the veterans who still survive. Few of those brave men have more than a scanty provision, many have none; and nearly all, oppressed with wounds, disease, and poverty, sure attendants on an old soldier’s services, feel life a burthen, so heavy as to make them envy the lot of comrades who threw it off early on the field of battle.

For the authenticity of the events the reader has this guarantee. The author was either an eye-witness of what he relates, or acquired his knowledge from those who were. Persons of no mean authority. Commanders-in-chief, generals, and other officers on both sides; private official correspondence of the English envoys; military journals and reports of the French leaders; the correspondence of the intrusive King Joseph, and his ministers, and the private military notes and instructions of the Emperor Napoleon, have all contributed to establish the truth of the facts and motives of action.

For the great Captain who led the British troops so triumphantly, this record gives no measure of ability. To win victories was the least of his labours. Those who desire to know what an enormous political, financial, and military pressure he sustained, what wiles he circumvented, what opposing skill he baffled, what a powerful enemy he dealt with and overcame, must seek the story in the original History from which this work has been extracted. For the soldiers it is no measure of their fortitude and endurance: it records only their active courage. But what they were, their successors now are—witness the wreck of the Birkenhead, where four hundred men, at the call of their heroic officers, Captain Wright and Lieutenant Girardot, calmly and without a murmur, accepted death in a horrible form rather than endanger the women and children already saved in the boats. The records of the world furnish no parallel to this self-devotion!

CONTENTS.

BATTLES AND SIEGES
OF THE
PENINSULA.

BOOK I.

Combat of Roriça—Battle of Vimiero—Coruña—Battle of Coruña.

In the year 1808 Sir Arthur Wellesley marched from the Mondego river with twelve thousand three hundred men, and eighteen guns, to attack General Junot who was in military possession of Portugal. The French troops were scattered, but General Laborde had been detached with a division to cover their concentration, and watch the English movements. This led to the first fight between the French and English in the Peninsula.

Combat of Roriça. (Aug. 1808.)

Fourteen hundred Portuguese, under Colonel Trant, a military agent, joined the British on the march, and the French were felt the 15th of August at Brilos, in front of Obidos, where some men fell in a skirmish. Sir A. Wellesley then entered the Valley of Obidos, in the middle of which Laborde occupied isolated ground of moderate elevation, near the village of Roriça; he had only five thousand men and six guns, little more than one-third of the English numbers, but he had five hundred cavalry, had chosen his position well, and could handle troops with dexterity.

On his right was a lofty mountain ridge, on his left lower but very rough ground, and the valley behind him was closed, not only by the commingling of the hills in a mountainous knot, but by a rocky projection called the Zambugeira or Columbeira heights, which, at less than a mile, stood like a citadel in his rear, and was so covered with copses, wild evergreens and forest trees, and so rugged that only by paths leading up deep clefts and hollows could it be ascended.

The British general marched from the town of Obidos on the 17th with fourteen thousand men and eighteen guns in order of battle. His right, composed of Trant’s Portuguese, turned the French left; his centre, nine thousand infantry with twelve guns, moved against their front; his left, one division with six guns, having gained the crest of the mountain ridge by a wide movement from Obidos, turned the French right, and was to oppose any counter attack from General Loison, who had been heard of on that side, and might come up during the action with a division six thousand strong of all arms. Such an order of battle, with such superior numbers, forbade Laborde to maintain his ground at Roriça, and after a cannonade, during which his skirmishers vigorously disputed the approaches, he, with a nice calculation of time and distance, retreated under the protection of his cavalry to the rocks of Zambugeira, and then turned to fight, still hoping to be joined by Loison.

This masterly movement compelled Sir Arthur Wellesley to show all his forces, and imposed a change in disposition. His left was then reinforced on the mountain, because each passing hour rendered Loison’s arrival more likely; Trant was more closely to menace the French heights on the right, and the centre was to break in on the front when the strength of the position should be shaken by the progress of the wings.

In war, however, error is the rule not the exception. Some mistake caused the left to move directly against the French right instead of passing the flank to take them in rear, and as Trant was distant and too feeble to give uneasiness, the centre dashed prematurely against the crags of Zambugeira on a front of less than a mile. The advantage of superior numbers was thus lost, and that of ground was entirely with the enemy. Only four thousand British could be thrust into the fight, and though the remainder were at hand, the foremost combatants had to win their way against an equal force of brave and active troops, defending rocks which vigorous men only could scale unopposed. Very crowded also were the assailing columns in the narrow paths, which only admitted a few men abreast, and hence no positive connection could be maintained between the different attacks, nor could any unity of power be insured: but the skirmishers soon covered the face of the ascent, and the noise and flashing of their musketry, with the smoke bursting up through the foliage, enabled the English general to mark the progress of the battle and govern his masses: it was soon manifest that the position would be finally forced, but within that flame-shooting, smoking labyrinth, rough work was being done and various turns of fortune had place.

Laborde, unable to hold his ground alone against the great force opposed, sought to gain time for Loison’s junction by clinging tenaciously to the side from whence that general was expected, and gradually drawing off his troops from the left as the battle approached. While thus operating, two English regiments, the 9th and 29th, were by a false movement suddenly thrown into his hands. Forming with the 5th regiment one column of attack, they were to have united with Trant on the left of the French, but with a fierce neglect of orders had taken a path leading more directly to the enemy: the head of the 29th thus reached the table-land above at a point where Laborde was concentrating his left wing on his centre, and as some of the former were still coming in, the regiment was assailed in front and flank. Colonel Lake fell, many men went down with him, and the French on the English right, few in number and thinking they should be cut off, furiously broke through the disordered mass, carrying with them a major and many other prisoners.

Then, dropping below the brow of the hill, the oppressed troops rallied on their left wing and on the 9th Regiment, and all rushing up together, regained the table-land, presenting a confused front, which Laborde vainly endeavoured to destroy: yet many brave men he struck down, and mortally wounded Colonel Stewart of the 9th, fighting with great vehemence. Soon the 5th Regiment, which had not deviated from the true path, appeared on his left, while the skirmishers of the other attacks emerged thickly from the crags and copses of the ascent: the left flanking column had now also turned his right, had cut off the line of communication with Loison, and was so rapidly advancing, as to render a retreat imperative and difficult. His situation was indeed critical in the extreme, and he was wounded, but with unyielding resolution he made the movement along a narrow table-land leading from his position to the knot of mountains behind, checking pursuit by partial charges of cavalry, until he reached the village of Zambugeira: there the ground opened, and the danger from the flanking force being fended off by deep ravines, he turned and made another stand, but was finally forced to seek refuge in the higher mountains, having lost three guns and six hundred men killed and wounded: the British loss being nearly five hundred.

Battle of Vimiero. (Aug. 1808.)

Laborde was not pursued, his retreat was inland, and to keep near the coast was essential to the English general, because he expected reinforcements by sea, and desired to insure their disembarkation and receive provisions from the ships. In this view he designed to march by his right on Torres Vedras, which would bring him near the ocean, give command of the great road to Lisbon, and throw off Loison and Laborde from that capital; but in the night came intelligence that a large fleet, conveying two brigades of infantry, was on the coast, and to protect their landing he made for Vimiero, a village near the sea, nine miles from Torres Vedras: there the brigades from the ocean augmented his force to sixteen thousand British soldiers. Junot, meanwhile, having rallied Laborde’s and Loison’s troops, had forestalled him at Torres Vedras, with fourteen thousand good soldiers and twenty-three guns of small calibre; and while his powerful cavalry prevented the scouts from making observations, he prepared to march in the night of the 20th and attack on the 21st. Sir Arthur had also projected a march for the night of the 20th, to turn Junot’s left and gain Mafra in his rear, without assailing Torres Vedras, which, though shrouded by the horsemen, was known as a strong position. The armies would thus have changed places without encountering, if the English ministers had not appointed three generals senior to Sir Arthur to act in Portugal, one of whom, Sir Harry Burrard, had arrived. He did not land and assume command, but he forbade the projected march, and thus deprived the English army of the initiatory movement, giving it to the French: moreover, as the ground at Vimiero had been taken temporarily and for ease, the troops were not in fighting order, thus violating the maxim which prescribes constant readiness for battle when near an enemy. It was thus posted.

On the right a mountain ridge, trending from the sea inland, ended abruptly on a small plain in which the village of Vimiero was situated, and the greater part of the army was heaped on the summit.

On the other side of the plain the same line was continued by a ridge of less elevation, narrow, yet protected by a ravine almost impassable, and being without water had only one regiment and some picquets posted there.

In front of the break between these heights and within cannon-shot, was an isolated hill of inferior elevation, yet of good strength, masking the village and plain of Vimiero, and leaving only narrow egress from the latter on the right. On this hill six guns and two brigades of infantry, Fane’s and Anstruther’s, were posted, the former on the left: behind them in the plain the commissariat and artillery stores were parked.

All the cavalry with the army—a single squadron under Col. Taylor—was placed at the egress from the plain, on the direct road to Torres Vedras; but from the counter hills, facing the position, another road, running from Torres Vedras to Lourinham, led at the distance of two miles round the left, and by it an enemy could gain the ridge where the picquets were posted, seize the artillery and commissariat stores in the plain, and take the central hill and right-hand mountain in reverse.

In the night of the 20th a German officer of cavalry aroused Sir Arthur Wellesley, saying the French army, twenty thousand strong, was within an hour’s march. Incredulous of this tale, the bearer of which was in evident consternation, he merely took some additional precautions; and at sunrise all eyes were turned southward, seeking an enemy who was not to be seen. Nevertheless the German’s report was only an exaggeration.[1] Junot had been in march all night with fourteen, not twenty, thousand men, designing to fall on at daybreak; but the rugged ways had retarded his progress, and his vanguard of cavalry did not crown the hills facing the English position before eight o’clock—the dust of its march having been discovered an hour before. Had he arrived by daybreak this dust could not have been observed, and an hour of preparation would have been lost to the English general, which, with a good plan of battle, would have enabled the French to gain the left-hand ridge, by the Lourinham road, before the troops on the right could cross to occupy that part of the position.

Junot employed little time to note his adversary’s ground and dispositions, and entirely neglected the mountain on the English right, as being refused to his line of march; but as the left-hand ridge appeared naked of troops, he resolved to seize it by a detachment, and take the English central hill in reverse while he attacked it in front with his main body, thinking he should find the bulk of the army there. In this view he directed General Brennier with a brigade across the ravine covering the ridge, and Laborde with another against the central hill, supporting the latter with Loison’s division, a reserve of grenadiers under Kellermann, and the cavalry, thirteen hundred strong, under Margaron.

To act on conjecture is dangerous in war. Junot conjectured falsely, and his entire disregard of the English right was a great error; for when his cavalry crowned the counter hills, Sir A. Wellesley, seeing the movements did not menace that part of his position, retained there one brigade under General Hill to serve as a support to the centre, while four other brigades were sent across the plain to occupy the left-hand ridge, and a fifth, reinforced with Trant’s Portuguese, moved to a parallel ridge in rear, where they could watch the Lourinham road.

All these movements were hidden from Junot by the central hill, and two brigades reached their ground before the action commenced; yet, knowing the ravine in front to be impracticable, they looked for an attack from the left, and formed two lines across the ridge, trusting to a chain of skirmishers to protect their right. The two other brigades were to have furnished a third line, but while they were passing the plain below the battle was begun in the centre with great fury.

In front of the English position the ground was so broken and wooded that the movements of the French, after they passed the counter hills, could not be discerned until they burst upon the centre in attack; and though their artillery was most numerous, the tormented ground impeded its action, while the English guns, of heavier metal, had free play: their infantry, inferior in number, would therefore have fought at great disadvantage, even if Junot’s combinations had not failed; but soon that general discovered the mischief of over-haste in war. Brennier found the bottom of the ravine impracticable, and floundering amidst rocks and the beds of torrents was unable to co-operate with Laborde; hence Junot had to reinforce the latter with Loison’s infantry, and detach another column of all arms under General Solignac to turn the English flank by the Lourinham road. But he did not perceive that Sir Arthur, anticipating such an effort, had there, not a flank but a front, three lines deep, while the fifth brigade and Trant’s Portuguese were so disposed, that Solignac, whose movement was isolated, could be cut off and placed between two fires.

Laborde and Loison opened three attacks, one principal, with minor bodies on the flanks. The first, being well led and covered by skirmishers, forced its way up with great vehemence and power, but with great loss also; for General Fane had called up the reserve artillery under Colonel Robe to reinforce the six guns already on the platform, and while they smote the column in front, another battery, belonging to one of the brigades then ascending the left-hand ridge, smote it in the right flank, and under this conjoint fire of artillery and a wasting musketry the French reached the summit, there to sustain a murderous volley, to be charged by the 50th Regiment, overturned, and driven down again.

Of the other two columns, the one assailing Anstruther’s brigade was beaten quickly, and that general had time to reinforce Fane’s left with the second battalion of the 43rd in opposition to Kellermann’s grenadiers, half of whom now reinforced the third column on that side. This regiment, posted in a churchyard on the edge of the declivity, had one or two companies in advance amongst some trees, and from thence the first burst of the grenadiers drove them upon the main body; but then Robe’s battery so smote the left of the French that they dipped into the ravine on their right, where the battery from the ridge caught them on the other flank; the moment was happily seized by the 43rd to pour down in a solid mass, and with ringing shouts it dashed against the column, driving it back with irrecoverable disorder: yet not without the fiercest fighting. The loss of the regiment was a hundred and twenty, and when the charge was over, a French soldier and the Sergeant Armourer, Patrick, were found grimly confronting each other in death as they had done in life, their hands still clutching their muskets, and their bayonets plunged to the sockets in each manly breast! It is by such men that thousands are animated and battles won.

Broken by these rough shocks, the French, to whom defeat was amazement, retired in confused masses and in a slanting direction towards the Lourinham road, and while thus disordered Colonel Taylor rode out upon them doing great execution; but as suddenly Margaron came down with his strong cavalry, and the gallant Englishman fell with most of his horsemen. However, half of Junot’s army was now beaten with the loss of seven guns, and though Margaron’s powerful cavalry, and that moiety of Kellermann’s grenadiers which had not been engaged, interposed to prevent pursuit, the line of retreat left the shortest road to Torres Vedras uncovered—a great fault which did not escape the English general’s rapid comprehension.

Brennier, unable to emerge from the rocks and hollows where he was entangled, had been of no weight in this action, but Solignac, having turned the ravine, appeared on the left about the time Taylor’s charge terminated the fight in the centre, and his division, strongly constituted with all arms, was advancing impetuously along the narrow ground, when General Ferguson, who was there in opposition, met him with a counter attack, so fierce, so rapid and sustained, that the French, though fighting stubbornly, bent to the strong pressure. Solignac was wounded, his cavalry, artillery and infantry, heaped together and out-flanked, were cut off from their line of retreat and forced into low ground on their right with a loss of six guns. These pieces, placed under guard of the 71st and 82nd while Ferguson continued his course, were again lost by one of those events which make battles the property of fortune; for Brennier, after long struggling, having worked up the ravine by his right to an accessible place, had ascended the ridge, and, unexpectedly falling upon the two regiments in charge of the captured guns, beat them back. He thus got behind Ferguson, and had time been given to reform his troops and assail that general’s rear mischief would have ensued; but the English regiments were disordered only for a moment; they rallied on higher ground, poured in their fire, broke the French brigade with a charge and made Brennier, who was wounded, a prisoner. Solignac’s division was then without resource, when suddenly another and more decisive change came over this fitful battle.

Junot’s left wing and centre had been so discomfited, that only half of Kellermann’s grenadiers and Margaron’s cavalry remained unbroken, and the road of Torres Vedras, the shortest to Lisbon, was uncovered; Brennier’s column was entirely broken; Solignac’s division was in confusion on low ground, cut off from Junot, and menaced front and rear. But of the English army, Hill’s brigade had not fired a shot; neither had the brigade conjoined with Trant’s Portuguese, and it was then marching to take Solignac’s division in rear. The two brigades of Ferguson’s third line had lost only a few men, and those on the central hill had not been hardly handled; there was therefore a powerful force in hand for further operations. Now Brennier, when first taken, eagerly asked if the reserve had attacked, and the other prisoners being questioned on this point replied in the affirmative,[2] wherefore the English general, judging the French power exhausted, and the moment come for rendering victory decisive, with the genius of a great captain resolved to make it not only decisive on the field but of the fate of Portugal.

Expecting Solignac’s division to lay down its arms, he designed to push his own right wing and centre, under Hill, on Torres Vedras, to which they were two miles nearer than any part of the French army; that stroke was sure, and Junot would have been cut off from Lisbon. Meanwhile Sir Arthur meaned in person vigorously to drive him across the Baragueda mountain on to the Tagus, by which he would lose his remaining artillery, and have with disorganised and dispirited troops to seek refuge under the guns of one of the frontier fortresses. This great project was stifled as soon as conceived. General Burrard had arrived on the field of battle, he could not comprehend such a stroke of war, and not only stopped the execution but ordered Ferguson to halt. Then Solignac’s division, with the alacrity which distinguished Napoleon’s soldiers, instantly rejoined Junot, who as promptly recovered his original ground, and being joined by twelve hundred fresh men from Lisbon regained Torres Vedras. The battle of Vimiero thus terminated impotently. Nevertheless, Burrard’s decision, with exception of the unaccountable order to arrest Ferguson’s career, was not without a military justification, admitted to be of weight by Sir Arthur, but it was that of an ordinary general in opposition to a great captain.

Coruña. (Jan. 1809.)

The battle of Vimiero, in which the French lost thirteen guns and about two thousand killed or wounded, the British eight hundred, was followed by a convention which relieved Portugal, and the English Government then sent an army into Spain under Sir John Moore. Great success was looked for by the ministers, yet they took no measures to render it even probable; and the incredible absurdity of the Spaniards, who were overthrown in every quarter before the English could reach them, made that which was improbable impossible. Moore found himself alone in the midst of a French army commanded by Napoleon, of which the cavalry alone counted twelve thousand more than the whole British force! Compelled to retreat, he was pursued by the Emperor, who made a prodigious march to cut him off at Astorga, and failing of that, launched Marshal Soult on his traces with one army, supported by another under Marshal Ney. Through the mountains of Gallicia the three armies passed like a tempest, yet Moore, with unflinching resolution, amidst winter rains and appalling difficulties, and without one gleam of good fortune to nourish energy, reached Coruña with a gain of two marches on his pursuers. His retreat was one of suffering, of privation and fatigue, but he met with no disaster in arms, and in many combats taught the enemy to beware of his sword. At Rueda his cavalry, under C. Stewart,[3] surprised a French post and made eighty prisoners. Near Valladolid Major Otway[4] in a sharp action took a colonel, and more prisoners than he had men to guard them with. At Sahagun Lord Paget[5] overthrew six hundred dragoons, killed twenty, and took thirteen officers and one hundred and fifty men. At Mayorga the same nobleman killed as many, and took a hundred prisoners; and at Benevente defeated the light cavalry of the Imperial Guard, capturing General Lefebre and seventy men. At Calcavallos Moore, in person, repulsed a serious attack in which the French general Colbert was killed. At Constantino he repulsed another attack, and at Lugo checked the enemy with a loss of four hundred men.

At Coruña his design was to embark without fighting, but the ships did not arrive in time, and he had to accept battle in a bad position. The ground he desired to take was a rocky range abutting on the Mero, a tidal river, but it being too extensive for his troops, he was compelled to adopt a similar yet lower range, likewise abutting on the Mero, yet inclosed on two sides by the greater heights, which were left for the enemy. Neither of these ranges were crested, and on the inferior one Moore had to display a front in opposition to the superior range, from whence the French not only commanded most of the English line in front within cannon-shot, but could flank it also on the right. Soult’s ground was indeed in every way advantageous. His left rested on a clump of rocks overlooking both ranges, and all the country immediately about; and in the night of the 15th he placed there eleven heavy guns which, from their elevation, could oppress the right of the English line and send their bullets raking even to the centre.

Between the two positions the ground was comparatively easy of passage, though broken and laced with stone inclosures; and as both ridges ended abruptly on a narrow valley running perpendicular to their range, there was a seeming facility from their proximity at that flank for the French to envelop the British right with superior numbers. On the far side of this valley also was a mountainous chain of hills on which all Soult’s cavalry were posted, his light horsemen being pushed far behind the British rear, while his heavy dragoons dismounted to act as infantry. Thus the French army seemed to be surrounding the English, but Moore, comprehending all the defects of his position, had adopted a counteracting order of battle, evincing his own martial vigour, and the confidence a long career of glorious and successful service had given him in the stern valour of the British soldier.

To receive battle on the inferior ridge was of necessity, but to extend his line athwart the narrow valley on his right to the height occupied by the French cavalry would only have placed more men under the rock battery, and his flank would still be exposed to the dismounted French dragoons. Wherefore he merely stretched a thin line of skirmishers across, and placed a battalion on the lower falls of the hills on their right, to check the horsemen on the summit. This disposition, and a scanty manning of the main ridge, where he posted only two divisions, Hope’s and Baird’s, the latter on the right, gave him two divisions of reserve, Paget’s and M^cKenzie Frazer’s. The last he placed on rising ground closely covering Coruña, to watch a road leading round the heights where the French cavalry were, and which Soult, whose movements could not be seen, might use to turn the British and cut them off from the town and harbour.

Paget’s division, the best in the army, remained, and with it Moore resolved to strike for victory. He kept it in mass behind the right of his main line, on a moderate elevation, from whence it commanded a full view of the narrow valley, and could support the screen of light troops without being exposed to the fire of the eleven-gun battery. Thus, while the main ridge, strong in itself though ill presented to the enemy, was offered in defence, with protected flanks, two other divisions remained in hand to meet the changes of battle—a fine result to obtain for an inferior army occupying unfavourable ground. But Moore meaned more than defence. Confident that Baird and Hope would repel every attack on the ridge, he designed, when time should be ripe, if the French did not join infantry to their cavalry on the other side of the valley, to pour down the latter with Paget’s division, reinforcing it with Frazer’s, and thus carry in one course the rock battery; then changing from the defensive to the offensive with all his troops, to drive the enemy into the Mero: it was the conception of a daring man and a great commander, and only with such potent soldiers as the British could a like stroke be made. And only a general who had proved their quality in many a desperate fight could have expected this effort from his men, after a distressing winter retreat, with a strong enemy in front and the sea behind! But general and soldiers were of England’s best. No suffering, no danger could quell their courage, or shake his confidence in them: and it was so proved in that hour, for many of the principal officers, appalled at the superior force of the enemy, the disadvantage of ground, and the difficulty of embarkation, proposed negotiations, which Moore rejected with cold disdain, trusting as he had ever done to his gallant troops.

Belonging to the French position, and occupied by them in force, were two villages, Palavia Abajo in front of their right, Portosa in front of their centre.

Belonging to the English position, though rather too much advanced, the village of Elvina covered the right flank, and was occupied by the picquets of the 50th Regiment.

These features dictated Soult’s order of attack. Forming three columns of infantry, which he supported with all his light artillery, he directed two by Palavia and Portosa against the left and centre of Moore’s line—those villages serving as intermediate supports in case of disaster—while the third and strongest column was destined to carry Elvina and then lap round Baird’s right.

Battle of Coruña. (Jan. 1809.)

On the 16th of January, 1809, at two o’clock in the afternoon, twenty thousand French veterans opened this battle against fourteen thousand British, who, having but nine six-pounders to oppose to a numerous light artillery, were also galled by eleven heavy guns on the rocks: and soon that formidable battery opened the fight with a slaughtering fire, sending its bullets crashing through the English ranks from right to centre. Then the columns of infantry, throwing out clouds of skirmishers, descended from their strong ridge to the fight. Those coming from Palavia and Portosa, having some distance to march, did not immediately engage, but the third dashed at once against Elvina, and there was the stress of battle; the picquets were driven in heaps out of the village, and when that was passed the French mass divided, one portion advancing against Baird’s front, the other turning his right by the valley, where it was only opposed by the screen of light troops.

Sir John Moore sent the 42nd and 50th Regiments against the half column at Elvina, and wheeling back the 4th Regiment on the extremity of his right, poured a fire into the flank of the mass penetrating by the valley, where it was also stoutly opposed by the light troops, and soon abated of its vehemence in attack. Then the English general knew that his adversary’s whole force and order of battle was unfolded. No infantry menaced the valley from where the French cavalry stood, and the number in front showed that no body of strength for mischief was behind those heights: it was evident that Soult offered a close rough trial of arms, without subtlety, trusting to the valour of his veterans. Eagerly the gallant Moore accepted the challenge. The moment for his counter-stroke had arrived, and at once he called up Frazer’s division in support of Paget, giving the latter, who was previously well instructed, the signal to descend into the valley: the French column on his flank being thus provided with opponents, he turned to observe the progress of the fight at Elvina, for as yet the battle had but slightly touched his centre and left.

The 42nd and 50th had driven the enemy back into the village, and the last-named regiment, entering the streets with the repulsed disordered mass and giving no respite, forced it through and broke out, still fighting, on the other side. To support this advance the general now sent a battalion of the Guards down, whereupon the 42nd, thinking it a relief and not a reinforcement, retired, with exception of the grenadier company. Some confusion thus occurred, the village was not occupied, and the 50th, still accompanied by the 42nd Grenadiers, were engaged without support beyond the houses, their array being quite broken by stone inclosures and the disorder of the street fight. At that critical moment the French were strongly reinforced, retook the offensive and forced the regiment back into Elvina, having killed beyond it the second Major, Stanhope, a nephew of Mr. Pitt, and made prisoner the commanding officer, Major Napier, known since as the conqueror of Scinde; encompassed by enemies, and denied quarter, he received five wounds, but he still fought and struggled for life until a French drummer with a generous heat and indignation forcibly rescued him from his barbarous assailants. Meanwhile Sir John Moore, observing the error of the 42nd, had galloped down and with a fiery exhortation sent it back to the village, where the 50th notwithstanding the loss of their commander was successfully sustaining a very violent conflict: then with heroic anticipations from the development of his counter-combination, he returned to the ridge from whence he could view the whole action.

Elvina was now his centre of battle and pivot of movements, for on his left the battle had then become general and furious, yet the French made no progress against Hope’s division; and on the right, in the valley, the attacking column was at bay, wavering under a double fire in front and flank: everywhere the signs of coming victory were bright, when the gallant man, the consummate commander, who had brought the battle to this crisis, was dashed from his horse to the earth. A cannon-shot from the rock battery had torn away all the flesh from his left breast and shoulder, and broken the ribs over a heart undaunted even by this terrible this ghastly mortal hurt; for with incredible energy he rose to a sitting posture, and with fixed look and unchanged countenance continued to regard the fight at Elvina until the Frenchmen’s backward steps assured him the British were victorious: then sinking down he accepted succour.

Being placed in a blanket for removal, an entanglement of his belts caused the hilt to enter the wound and Captain Hardinge[6] attempted to take away the weapon altogether; but with martial pride the stricken man forbade the alleviation—he would not part with his sword in the field! Epaminondas, mortally wounded at Mantinea, was anxious for the recovery of his shield. Moore, mortally wounded at Coruña, sustained additional torture rather than part with his sword!

The Theban hero’s fall dismayed and paralyzed his victorious troops. It was not so with the British at Coruña. They saw Baird, second in command, carried from the field as the General-in-Chief had been, and they would have seen all their generals fall one after another without abating their battle; hence it was not long before the French were entirely driven from Elvina, while on the left, they were not only repulsed from the ridge, but pursued and assailed in their own villages; that of Palavia, defended by the since celebrated General Foy, was taken. Meanwhile Paget, pouring into the valley with conquering violence, overthrew everything in his front, and driving off the dismounted French dragoons who had descended to the lower falls on his right, made for the great rock battery, which he would certainly have stormed if the counter-attack had been continued, and Frazer’s division been thrown, as Moore designed, into the fight. The French would thus have been wrecked; for their ammunition of which the rapid marches through Gallicia had only allowed them to bring up a small supply, was exhausted, the river Mero was in full tide behind them, and only one bridge remained for retreat. But this want of ammunition was unknown to the English general Hope, on whom the command had devolved, and he, judging a night action, for it was then dark, too hazardous, profited from the confusion of the French to embark the army without loss and sailed for England. The heroic spirit of Moore went with the troops, his body rested with the enemy.

For some hours after receiving his hurt that great man had lived painfully, but with a calm fortitude that excited the admiration of those about him. Several times he expressed his satisfaction at having won the battle, and his last words were to express a hope “that his country would do him justice!”

Full justice has not been done, because malignant faction has strived hard to sully his reputation as a general—but thus he died, and the record of his worth will be as a beacon to posterity so long as heroic virtue combined with great capacity is reverenced, for in any age, any nation, any conjuncture, Sir John Moore would have been a leading man. Tall he was and vigorous of person, and of a very comely noble aspect, indicating penetration which no subtlety could deceive, valour which no danger could appal, and withal a dignity of mind which awed while it attracted admiration and confidence. With him indeed, all commanding qualities seemed to be united to and inseparable from estimable sentiments. Integrity, honour, generosity, patriotism, adorned the whole course of his existence, and his death furnished an irrefragable test of the sincerity of his life: for both he may claim a place with the greatest men of antiquity.

BOOK II.

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.

BOOK III.

Combats on the Coa and Agueda—Barba de Puerco—Combat of Almeida—Anecdotes of British Soldiers—Battle of Busaco.

Combats on the Coa and Agueda. (July, 1810.)

“I have fished in many troubled waters, but Spanish troubled waters I will never try again.”

Thus said Sir A. Wellesley after the campaign of Talavera, by which he had acquired the title of Viscount Wellington, and a thorough knowledge of the Spanish character. Looking then to Portugal as his base for future operations, he conceived and commenced the gigantic lines of Torres Vedras as a depository for the independence of the Peninsula—a grand project, conceived and enforced with all the might of genius. But while preparing this stronghold he did not resign the frontier, and when Massena, Prince of Essling, menaced Portugal in 1810 with sixty-five thousand fighting men in line, besides garrisons and reserves, he found a mingled British and Portuguese army ready to oppose him.

This defensive force was disposed in two distinct masses. One under General Hill opposed invasion by the line of the Tagus, the other under Lord Wellington opposed it by the line of the Mondego; they were however separated by the great Estrella mountain and its offshoots, and Massena, when he took Ciudad Rodrigo, could concentrate his whole army on either line, moving in front of the Estrella by a shorter and easier road than the English general could concentrate his troops behind that mountain. Lord Wellington opened indeed a military road which shortened the line of co-operation with Hill; yet this was only an alleviation, the advantage remained with the French, and Wellington had to trust his own quickness and the strength of intermediate positions for uniting his army in the lines of Torres Vedras. Yield ground without force however he would not, and therefore had, previous to the fall of Ciudad Rodrigo, detached General Robert Craufurd with the light division, two regiments of cavalry, and six pieces of horse-artillery, to the Agueda, in observation of the French army. On that advanced position they sustained several actions. The first at Barba de Puerco, a village, between which and the opposite French post of San Felices yawned a gloomy chasm, and at the bottom, foaming over huge rocks, the Agueda swept along beneath a high narrow bridge. This post, held by the English riflemen, was of singular strength, yet scarcely was the line of the Agueda taken when General Ferey, a bold officer, desirous to create a fear of French enterprise, attempted a surprise.

Secretly placing six hundred grenadiers below, at an hour when the moon, rising behind him, cast long shadows from the rocks deepening the darkness of the chasm, he silently passed the bridge, surprised and bayoneted the sentinels, ascended the opposite crags with incredible speed, and fell upon the picquets so fiercely that all went fighting into the village while the first shout was still echoing in the gulf behind. So sudden was the attack, so great the confusion, that no order could be maintained, and each soldier encountering the nearest enemy fought hand to hand, while their colonel, Sidney Beckwith, conspicuous from his lofty stature and daring action, a man capable of rallying a whole army in flight, exhorting, shouting, and personally fighting, urged all forward until the French were pushed down the ravine again in retreat.

After this combat Craufurd kept his dangerous position for four months, during which several skirmishes took place. The one of most note was at the village of Barquilla, where he surprised and captured some French horsemen, but afterwards rashly charging two hundred French infantry under Captain Gouache, was beaten off with the loss of the cavalry colonel, Talbot, and thirty-two troopers.

Combat of Almeida on the Coa. (July, 1810.)

Soon after this skirmish Ciudad Rodrigo fell, and Ney advanced towards Almeida on the Coa. Craufurd’s orders were to recross that river, yet from headstrong ambition he remained with four thousand British and Portuguese infantry, eleven hundred cavalry and six guns to fight thirty thousand French on bad ground; for though his left, resting on an unfinished tower eight hundred yards from Almeida, was protected by the guns of that fortress, his right was insecure; most of his cavalry was in an open plain in front, and in his rear was a deep ravine, at the bottom of which, more than a mile off, was the Coa with only one narrow bridge for a retreat.

A stormy night ushered in the 24th of July, and the troops, drenched with rain, were under arms before daylight expecting to retire when some pistol-shots in front, followed by an order for the cavalry reserves and guns to advance, gave notice of the enemy’s approach; then the morning cleared, and twenty-four thousand French infantry, five thousand cavalry, and thirty pieces of artillery, were observed in march beyond the Turones. The British line was immediately contracted and brought under the edge of the ravine, but Ney had seen Craufurd’s false disposition, and came down with the stoop of an eagle—four thousand horsemen and a powerful artillery swept the English cavalry from the plain, and Loison’s infantry, rushing on at a charging pace, made for the centre and left of the position.

While the French were thus pouring down, several ill-judged changes were made on the English side; a part of the troops were advanced, others drawn back; the 43rd Regiment was placed within an inclosure of solid masonry ten feet high, near the road, about half-musket-shot down the ravine and having but one narrow outlet! The firing in front became heavy, the cavalry, the artillery and Portuguese caçadores successively passed this inclosure in retreat, the sharp clang of the rifles was heard along the edge of the plain above, and in a few moments the imprisoned regiment would have been without a hope of escape, if here, as in every other part of the field, the battalion officers had not remedied the faults of the general. The egress was so narrow that some large stones were loosened, a powerful simultaneous effort of the whole line then burst the wall, and the next instant the regiment was up with the riflemen. There was no room for array, no time for anything but battle, every captain carried off his company independently, joining as he could with the riflemen and 52nd, and a mass of skirmishers was thus presented, acting in small parties and under no regular command, yet each confident in the courage and discipline of those on his right and left, and all keeping together with surprising vigour.

It is unnecessary to describe the first burst of French soldiers, it is well known with what gallantry the officers lead, with what vehemence the troops follow, with what a storm of fire they waste a field of battle. At this moment, with the advantage of ground and numbers, they were breaking over the edge of the ravine, their guns, ranged along the summit, pouring down grape, while their hussars galloped over the glacis of Almeida and along the road to the bridge sabreing everything in their way. Ney, desirous that Montbrun should follow the hussars with the whole of the French cavalry, sent five officers in succession to urge him on, and so mixed were friends and enemies, that only a few guns of the fortress dared open, and no courage could have availed against such overwhelming numbers: but Montbrun enjoyed an independent command, and as the attack was made without Massena’s knowledge he would not stir. Then the British regiments, with singular intelligence and discipline, extricated themselves from their perilous situation. Falling back slowly and stopping to fight whenever opportunity offered, they retired down the ravine, tangled as it was with crags and vineyards, in despite of their enemies; who were yet so fierce and eager that even their horsemen rode amongst the inclosures, striking at the soldiers as they mounted the walls or scrambled over the rocks.

Soon the retreating troops approached the river, and the ground became more open, but the left wing, hardest pressed and having the shortest distance, arrived while the bridge was crowded with artillery and cavalry, and the right was still distant! Major M‘Leod of the 43rd instantly rallied four companies of his regiment on a hill to cover the line of passage, he was joined by some riflemen, and at the same time the brigade-major Rowan[10] posted two companies on another hill to the left, flanking the road: these posts were maintained while the right wing was filing over the river, yet the French gathering in great numbers made a rush, forcing the British companies back before the bridge was cleared, and when part of the 52nd was still distant from it. Very imminent was the danger, but M‘Leod, a young man endowed with a natural genius for war, turned his horse, called on the troops to follow, waved his cap, and rode with a shout towards the enemy, on whom the suddenness of the thing and the animating gesture of the man produced the effect designed, for the soldiers rushed after him, cheering and charging as if a whole army had been at their backs: the enemy’s skirmishers not comprehending this stopped short, and before their surprise was over the 52nd passed the river, and M‘Leod followed at speed: it was a fine exploit!

As the infantry passed the bridge they planted themselves in loose order on the side of the mountain, the artillery went to the summit, and the cavalry observed the roads to the right; this disposition was made to watch some upper fords two miles off, and the bridge of Castello Bom; for it was to be apprehended that while Ney attacked in front, other troops might pass by those fords and bridge of Castello Bom and so cut off the division from the army: the river was however rising fast with the rain, and it was impossible to retreat farther until nightfall.

Soon the French skirmishers opened a biting fire across the water: it was returned as bitterly; the artillery on both sides played vigorously, the sounds were repeated by numberless echoes, and the smoke slowly rising, resolved itself into an immense arch, spanning the whole gulf and sparkling with the whirling fuzes of the flying shells. Fast and thickly the French gathered behind the high rocks, and a dragoon was seen to try the depth of the upper stream above, but two shots from the 52nd killed horse and man, and the carcasses floating down between the contending forces intimated that the river was impassable save by the bridge. Then the monotonous tones of a French drum were heard, the head of a noble column darkened the long narrow bridge, a drummer and an officer, the last in a splendid uniform, leaped together to the front and the whole rushed on with loud cries. The depth of the ravine so deceived the English soldiers’ aim at first, that two-thirds of the passage was won ere a shot had brought down an enemy; yet a few paces onwards the line of death was traced, and the whole of the leading French section fell as one man; the gallant column still pressed forward, but none could pass that terrible line, and the killed and wounded rolled together until the heap rose nearly even with the parapet, while the living mass behind them melted away rather than gave back.

The shouts of the British now rose loudly, yet they were confidently answered, and in half an hour another column, more numerous than the first, again crowded the bridge: this time the range was far better judged, and ere half the passage was gained the multitude was again torn, shattered, dispersed or slain: only ten or twelve men crossed to take shelter under the rocks at the brink of the river. The skirmishing was then renewed, yet a French surgeon, coming to the very foot of the bridge, waved a handkerchief and commenced dressing the wounded under the hottest fire; nor was the brave man’s touching appeal unheeded, every musket turned from him, although his still undaunted countrymen were preparing for a third attempt, a last effort, which was made indeed, yet with fewer numbers and less energy, for the impossibility of forcing the passage was become apparent. The combat was however continued. By the French as a point of honour, to cover the escape of those who had passed the bridge; by the English from ignorance of their object. One of the enemy’s guns was dismantled, a field magazine exploded, and many continued to fall on both sides until about four o’clock, when torrents of rain caused a momentary cessation of fire, the men amongst the rocks then escaped to their own side, the fight ceased and Craufurd retired in the night behind the Pinhel river. Forty-four Portuguese, two hundred and seventy-two British, including twenty-eight officers, were killed, wounded, or taken; and it was at first supposed that half a company of the 52nd, posted in the unfinished tower, were captured; but their officer, keeping close until the night, had passed the enemy’s posts, and crossed the Coa. The French lost above a thousand men, and the slaughter at the bridge was fearful to behold.

During the combat General Picton came up from Pinhel alone, and Craufurd asked him for the support of the third division; he refused, and they separated after a sharp altercation.[11] Picton was wrong, for Craufurd’s situation was one of extreme danger; he could not then retire, and Massena might, by the bridge of Castello Bom, have taken the division in flank and destroyed it between the Coa and Pinhel rivers. Picton and Craufurd were however not formed by nature to agree. The stern countenance, robust frame, saturnine complexion, caustic speech and austere demeanour of the first promised little sympathy with the short thick figure, dark flashing eyes, quick movements and fiery temper of the second: nor did they often meet without a quarrel. Nevertheless, they had many points of resemblance in their characters and fortunes. Both were harsh and rigid in command; both prone to disobedience, yet exacting entire submission from inferiors; alike ambitious and craving of glory, they were both enterprising, yet neither was expert in handling troops under fire. After distinguished services both perished in arms, and being celebrated as generals of division while living, have been, since their deaths, injudiciously spoken of as rivalling their great leader in war.

That they were officers of mark and pretension is unquestionable—Craufurd far more so than Picton, because the latter never had a separate command and his opportunities were more circumscribed—but to compare either to the Duke of Wellington displays ignorance of the men and of the art they professed. If they had even comprehended the profound military and political combinations he was then conducting, the one would have carefully avoided fighting on the Coa, and the other, far from refusing, would have eagerly proffered his support.

* * * * *

Here some illustrations of the intelligence and the lofty spirit of British soldiers will not be misplaced.

When the last of the retreating troops had passed the bridge, an Irishman of the 43rd, named Pigot, a bold turbulent fellow, leaned on his firelock, regarded the advancing enemy for some time, and then in the author’s hearing thus delivered his opinion of the action.

“General Craufurd wanted glory, so he stopped on the wrong side of the river, and now he is knocked over to the right side. The French general won’t be content until his men try to get on the wrong side also, and then they will be knocked back. Well! both will claim a victory, which is neither here nor there, but just in the middle of the river. That’s glory!” Then firing his musket he fell into the ranks. Even to the letter was his prediction verified, for General Craufurd published a contradiction of Massena’s dispatch.

This sarcasm was enforced by one of a tragic nature. There was a fellow-soldier to Pigot, a north of Ireland man, named Stewart but jocularly called the Boy because of his youth, being only nineteen, and of his gigantic stature and strength. He had fought bravely and displayed great intelligence beyond the river, and was one of the last men who came down to the bridge, but he would not pass. Turning round, he regarded the French with a grim look, and spoke aloud as follows. “So! This is the end of our boasting. This is our first battle and we retreat! The boy Stewart will not live to hear that said.” Then striding forward in his giant might he fell furiously on the nearest enemies with the bayonet, refused the quarter they seemed desirous of granting, and died fighting in the midst of them!

Still more touching, more noble, more heroic was the death of Sergeant Robert M‘Quade. During M‘Leod’s rush this man, also from the north of Ireland, saw two Frenchmen level their muskets on rests against a high gap in a bank, awaiting the uprise of an enemy; the present Sir George Brown, then a lad of sixteen, attempted to ascend at the fatal point, but M‘Quade, himself only twenty-four years of age, pulled him back, saying with a calm decided tone “You are too young Sir to be killed,” and then offering his own person to the fire fell dead, pierced with both balls!

Battle of Busaco. (Sept. 1810.)

Soon after Craufurd’s combat, Almeida was betrayed by some Portuguese officers, and Massena, who had previously menaced both lines of invasion, adopted that of the Mondego. This river, flowing between the Estrella mountain and the Sierra de Caramula, is separated by the latter from the coast, along which the Royal road runs from Oporto to Lisbon. The roads on each side of the river were very rugged, and at the southern end of the valley crossed by two mountain ridges, namely, the Sierra de Murcella on the left bank, the Sierra de Busaco on the right bank. Wellington had prepared the former for battle, and General Hill was coming to it by the military road, but Massena, aware of its strength, crossed to the right of the Mondego, and moved by Viseu, to turn Wellington’s flank and surprise Coimbra; he however knew nothing of Busaco, which covered that city, and so fell into the worst road and lost two days waiting for his artillery. Meanwhile his adversary also passed the Mondego, and sending troops to the front broke the bridges on the Criz and Dão, mountain torrents crossing the French line of march.

Coimbra could not then be surprised, yet Massena could from Viseu gain the Royal coast-road and so reach Coimbra, turning the Busaco position; he could also repass the Mondego and assail the Murcella; wherefore the allied army was necessarily scattered. Hill had by forced marches reached the Murcella; Spencer was detached to watch the Royal coast-road; the light division, Pack’s Portuguese, and the cavalry, were in observation on the Viseu road; the remainder of the army was in reserve at the fords of the Mondego, to act on either side. In this state of affairs happened a strange incident. The light division had established its bivouac towards evening in a pine-wood, but a peasant advised a removal, saying it was known as the Devil’s wood, that an evil influence reigned, and no person who slept there had ever escaped it. He was laughed at, yet he did not fable. In the night all the troops, men and officers, seized as it were with sudden frenzy, started from sleep and dispersed in all directions: nor was their strange terror allayed until voices were heard crying out that the enemy’s cavalry were amongst them, when the soldiers mechanically ran together and the illusion was dissipated.

After some delay Massena moved down the Mondego and Busaco was then occupied by the English general. His line was eight miles long, flanked on the right by the river, and on the left connected with the Caramula by ridges and ravines impervious to an army. A road along the crest furnished easy communication, and the ford of Pena Cova, behind the right, gave direct access to the Murcella ridge. Rugged and steep the face of Busaco was, yet the summit had space for the action of a few cavalry and salient points gave play to the artillery, while the counter-ridge offered no facility to the enemy’s guns. When it was first adopted some generals expressed a fear that the Prince of Essling would not attack—“But if he does I shall beat him” was Wellington’s reply: he knew his obstinate character.

Massena had three army corps, Ney’s, Junot’s, and Reynier’s, with a division of heavy cavalry under Montbrun; and as he knew nothing of the Torres Vedras lines, and despised the Portuguese, he was convinced the English would retreat and embark. A great general in dangerous conjunctures, he was here, from age and satisfied ambition, negligent, dilatory, and misled by some Portuguese noblemen in his camp. Instead of marching with his whole army compact for battle he retained Junot and Montbrun in the rear, while Ney and Reynier, restoring the bridges over the Criz, drove the English cavalry into the hills, forced back the light division with a sharp fight, and crowned the counter-ridges in front of Busaco.

Ney seeing that Busaco was a crested mountain and could not hide strong reserves, that it was only half-occupied and the troops were moving about in the disorder of first taking up unknown ground, wished to attack at once; but Massena was ten miles in rear, and an officer sent to ask his assent was kept two hours without an audience and then sent back with an order to await the prince’s arrival.[12] A great opportunity was thus lost, for Spencer had not then come in, Leith was only passing the Mondego, Hill was on the Murcella, scarcely twenty-five thousand men were in line, and there was unavoidable confusion and great intervals between the divisions.

Ney and Reynier wrote in the night to Massena, advising an attack at daybreak, yet he did not come up until midday with Junot’s corps and the cavalry, and then proceeded leisurely to examine the position. It was now completely manned. Hill had the extreme right, Leith was next in line, Picton next to Leith. Spencer’s division and a regiment of dragoons were on the highest crest in reserve, having on their left the convent of Busaco. In front of Spencer a Portuguese division was posted half-way down the mountain, and on his left, in front of the convent, was the light division, supported by a German brigade and the 19th Portuguese Regiment. Cole’s division closed the extreme left, on a line with the light division and covered, flank and front, by impassable ravines. There were long intervals in the line, but the spaces between were unassailable, artillery was disposed on all the salient points, skirmishers covered all the accessible ground, and so formidable did the position appear that Ney now strongly objected to an attack. Reynier however, a presumptuous man, advised one, and Massena made dispositions for the next morning.

His ground did not permit any broad front of attack, and two points were chosen. Reynier was to fall on Picton; Ney was to assail the light division. These attacks, governed by the roads, were about three miles asunder, and as Junot’s corps and Montbrun’s cavalry were held in reserve, only forty thousand men were employed to storm a mountain on which sixty thousand enemies were posted; yet the latter, from the extent of their ground and the impossibility of making any counter attack, were the weakest at the decisive points.

The light division was on a spur, or rather brow of ground, overhanging a ravine so deep that the eye could scarcely discern troops at the bottom, yet so narrow that the French twelve-pounders ranged across. Into the lowest parts of this ravine their light troops towards dusk dropped by twos and threes, and endeavoured to steal up the wooded dells and hollows, close to the picquets of the division; they were vigorously checked, yet similar attempts at different points kept the troops watchful, and indeed none but veterans tired of war could have slept beneath that serene sky, glittering with stars above, while the dark mountains were crowned with innumerable fires, around which more than a hundred thousand brave men were gathered.

Before daybreak on the 27th, five columns of attack were in motion, and Reynier’s troops, having comparatively easier ground, were in the midst of the picquets and skirmishers of Picton’s division almost as soon as they could be perceived; the resistance was vigorous and six guns played along the ascent with grape, yet in half an hour the French were close to the summit of the mountain, with such astonishing power and resolution did they overthrow everything that opposed their progress! The right of the third division was forced back, the 8th Portuguese Regiment broken, the highest part of the crest was gained between Picton and Leith, and the leading battalions established themselves amongst some crowning rocks, while a following mass wheeled to the right, designing to sweep the summit of the sierra. Lord Wellington immediately opened two guns loaded with grape upon their flank, a heavy musketry was poured into their front, and the 88th Regiment, joined by a wing of the 45th, charged furiously; fresh men could not have withstood that terrible shock; the French, exhausted by their efforts, opposed only a straggling fire, and both parties went mingling together down the mountain side with a mighty clamour and confusion, their track strewed with the dead and dying even to the bottom of the valley.

Meanwhile the battalions which had first gained the crest formed to their left, resting their right on a precipice overhanging the reverse side of the sierra: the position was thus won if any reserve had been at hand; for the greatest part of Picton’s troops were engaged elsewhere, and some of the French skirmishers actually descended the back of the ridge. A misty cloud capped the summit, and this hostile mass, ensconced amongst the rocks, could not be seen except by Leith; but that officer had put a brigade in motion when he first perceived the vigorous impression made on Picton, and though two miles of rugged ground were to be passed on a narrow front before it could mingle in the fight, it was coming on rapidly; the Royals were in reserve, the 38th were seeking to turn the enemy’s right, and the 9th, under Colonel Cameron, menaced his front: the precipice stopped the 38th, but Cameron, hearing from a staff-officer how critical was the affair, formed line under a violent fire, and without returning a shot run in upon the French grenadiers and drove them from the rocks with irresistible bravery; then he plied them with a destructive musketry as long as they could be reached, yet with excellent discipline refrained from pursuit lest the crest of the position should be again lost; for the mountain was rugged, and to judge the general state of the action difficult. Hill however now edged in towards the scene of action, Leith’s second brigade joined the first, and a great mass of fresh troops was thus concentrated, while Reynier had neither reserves nor guns to restore the fight.

Ney’s attack had as little success. From the mountain-spur where the light division stood the bottom of the valley could be discerned, the ascent was much steeper than where Reynier had attacked, and Craufurd in a happy mood of command made masterly dispositions. The platform which he held was scooped so as to conceal the 43rd and 52nd Regiments, though in line, and hence the German infantry who were behind them, being on higher ground, appeared the only solid force for resistance. Some rocks overhanging the descent furnished natural embrasures, in which the divisional guns were placed, and the riflemen and Portuguese caçadores, planted as skirmishers, covered the slope of the mountain.

While it was still dark a straggling musketry was heard in the deep ravine, and when light broke, three heavy masses, entering the woods below, threw forward a swarm of light troops. One column, under General Marchand, on emerging from the dark chasm, turned to its left, and seemed intent to turn the right of the division; a second under Loison made straight up the face of the mountain by a road leading to the convent; the third remained in reserve. General Simon’s brigade was at the head of Loison’s attack, and it ascended with a wonderful alacrity; for though the skirmishers plied it unceasingly with musketry, and the artillery bullets swept through it from front to rear, its order was not disturbed, nor its speed abated. The English guns were worked with great rapidity, yet their range was contracted every round, the enemy’s musket-balls came singing up in a sharper key, and soon the British skirmishers, breathless and begrimed with powder, rushed over the edge of the ascent—the artillery then drew back, and the victorious cries of the French were heard within a few yards of the summit.

Craufurd, standing alone on one of the rocks, had silently watched the attack, but now, with a quick shrill cry, called on the two regiments to charge! Then a horrid shout startled the French column, and eighteen hundred British bayonets went sparkling over the brow of the hill: yet so sternly resolute, so hardy was the enemy, that each man of the first section raised his musket, and two officers with ten soldiers of the 52nd fell before them—not a Frenchman had missed his mark! They could do no more: the head of their column was violently thrown back upon the rear, both flanks were overlapped, three terrible discharges at five yards’ distance shattered the wavering mass, and a long trail of broken arms and bleeding carcasses marked the line of flight. The main body of the British stood fast, but some companies followed down the mountain, whereupon Ney threw forward his reserved division, and opening his guns from the opposite heights, killed some of the pursuers: thus warned, they recovered their own ground, and the Germans were brought forward to skirmish: meanwhile a small flanking detachment had passed round the right, and rising near the convent, was defeated by the 19th Portuguese Regiment under Colonel M‘Bean.

Loison did not renew the fight, but Marchand, having gained a pine-wood half-way up the mountain, on the right of the light division, sent a cloud of skirmishers up from thence about the time General Simon was beaten: the ascent was however so steep that Pack’s Portuguese sufficed to hold them in check, and higher up Spencer showed his line of foot-guards in support; Craufurd’s artillery also smote Marchand’s people in the pine-wood; and Ney, who was there in person, after sustaining this murderous cannonade for an hour relinquished that attack. The desultory fighting of light troops then ceased, and before two o’clock parties from both armies were, under a momentary truce, amicably mixed searching for wounded men.

Towards evening a French company with signal audacity seized a village half musket-shot from the light division, and refused to retire; whereupon Craufurd, turning twelve guns on the houses, overwhelmed them with bullets; but after paying the French captain this distinguished honour, recovering his temper, he sent a company of the 43rd down, which cleared the village in a few minutes. Meanwhile an affecting incident, contrasting strongly with the savage character of the preceding events, added to the interest of the day. A poor orphan Portuguese girl, seventeen years of age and very handsome, was seen coming down the mountain, driving an ass loaded with all her property through the midst of the French army. She had abandoned her dwelling in obedience to the proclamation, and now passed over the field of battle with a childish simplicity, totally unconscious of her perilous situation, and scarcely understanding which were the hostile and which the friendly troops, for no man on either side was so brutal as to molest her.

This battle was fought unnecessarily by Massena, and by Wellington reluctantly, being forced thereto from the misconduct of the Portuguese government. It was however entirely to the disadvantage of the French, who had a general and eight hundred men killed, two generals wounded, and one, Simon, made prisoner. Their whole loss may be estimated at four thousand five hundred men, while that of the allies did not exceed thirteen hundred.

Massena now judged Busaco impregnable, and as it could not be turned by the Mondego, because the allies might pass that river on a shorter line, it was proposed in council to return to Spain; but at that moment a peasant told him of a road leading over the Caramula and he resolved to turn the allies’ left. To mask this movement the skirmishing was renewed on the 28th so warmly that a general battle was expected; yet an ostentatious display of men, the disappearance of baggage, and the casting up of earth indicated some other design. In the evening, the French infantry were sensibly diminished, the cavalry was descried winding over the distant mountains towards the allies’ left, and the project was then apparent. Wellington arrived from the right, and observed the distant columns for some time with great earnestness; he seemed uneasy, his countenance bore a fierce and angry expression, and suddenly mounting his horse he rode off without speaking—one hour later and the army was in movement to abandon Busaco, for Massena had threaded the defiles of the Caramula and was marching upon Coimbra.

Wellington’s plan was to lay the country waste before the enemy, but only the richest inhabitants had quitted Coimbra; that city was still populous when the enemy’s approach left no choice but to fly or risk the punishment of death and infamy announced for remaining: then a scene of distress ensued that the most hardened could not behold without emotion. Mothers with children of all ages, the sick, the old, the bedridden, and even lunatics, went or were carried forth, the most part with little hope and less help, to journey for days in company with contending armies. Fortunately for this unhappy multitude the weather was fine and the roads firm, or the greatest number must have perished in the most deplorable manner: but all this misery was of no avail, for though the people fled, the provisions were left and the mills were but partially and imperfectly ruined.

On the 1st of October, the allied outposts were driven from a hill north of Coimbra, and the French horsemen entered a plain, where they suffered some loss from a cannonade. The British cavalry were there drawn up on open ground in opposition, and as the disparity of numbers was not very great, the opportunity seemed fair for a good stroke; yet they withdrew across the Mondego, and so unskilfully that some of the hindmost were cut down in the middle of the river, and the French were only prevented from forcing the passage of the ford by a strong skirmish in which fifty or sixty men fell.

This untoward fight compelled the light division to march hastily through the city to gain the defile of Condeixa, which commenced at the end of the bridge; all the inhabitants who had not before quitted the place then rushed out with what could be caught up in hand, driving animals loaded with sick people and children on to the bridge, where the press became so great the troops halted. This stoppage was close to the prison, from whence the jailer had fled with the keys, and the prisoners, crowding to the windows, strived to tear the bars off with their hands, and even with their teeth, bellowing in the most frantic manner. Then the bitter lamentations of the multitude increased, and the pistol-shots of the cavalry engaged at the ford below were distinctly heard; it was a shocking scene; but William Campbell, a staff officer of heroic strength and temper, broke the prison doors and freed the wretched inmates. The troops now forced a way over the bridge, yet at the other end, the defile was cut through high rocks, and so crowded that no passage could be made, and a troop of French dragoons, having passed an unwatched ford, hovered close to the flank: one regiment of infantry could have destroyed the whole division, wedged as it was in a hollow way, unable to retreat, advance, or break out on either side.

Three days Massena halted at Coimbra, the fourth he advanced, leaving behind his sick and wounded with a garrison, in all five thousand men, who were suddenly captured four days later by a small militia force under Colonel Trant! This “heavy blow and great discouragement”[13] did not stop the French prince, and during his pursuit thirty-six French squadrons fell on ten British squadrons, but in a severe fight did not gain five miles in as many hours; yet a few days after his cavalry had the advantage in a greater action, and finally the allies entered the lines of Torres Vedras, the existence of which was first made known to Massena by the bar they offered! Several skirmishes, in which the English general Harvey was wounded and the French general St. Croix killed, were necessary to convince him they could not be stormed; but though he was without magazines, he continued to hold his menacing position until the country behind him was a desert: then falling back two marches, he took a defensive position at Santarem, and was in turn blockaded by Lord Wellington.

BOOK IV.

Matagorda—Battle of Barosa—Massena’s Retreat—Combat of Redinha—Cazal Nova—Foz d’Aronce—Sabugal—Fuentes Onoro—Battle of Fuentes Onoro—Evacuation of Almeida.

Matagorda. (March, 1811.)

Before Massena invaded Portugal king Joseph had subdued Andalusia, except the Isla de Leon where Cadiz stands. He left Soult in that province with a large army, of which a part under Sebastiani held Granada, while another part under Victor blockaded the Isla with immense works; the remainder, under Soult in person, formed a field-force to war against insurrections and the numerous Spanish troops, which in separate bodies acted against him. The Spaniards, after long demurring, admitted an auxiliary British and Portuguese force into Cadiz, under General Graham,[14] whose arrival was signalized by the cannonade of Matagorda. This small fort, without ditch or bomb-proof, was held for fifty-four days by a garrison of seamen and soldiers, under Captain M‘Lean,[15] close to the French lines at the Trocadero. A Spanish seventy-four, and a flotilla, had co-operated in the resistance until daybreak on the 21st of March, but then a hissing shower of heated shot made them cut their cables and run under the works of Cadiz, while the fire of forty-eight guns and mortars of the largest size, was turned upon the fort, whose feeble parapet vanished before that crashing flight of metal, leaving only the naked rampart and undaunted hearts of the garrison for defence. The men fell fast, and the enemy shot so quick and close, that a staff bearing the Spanish flag was broken six times in an hour; the colours were then fastened to the angle of the work itself, but unwillingly by the men, especially the sailors, all calling out to hoist the British ensign, and attributing the slaughter to their fighting under a foreign flag!

Thirty hours this tempest lasted, and sixty-four men out of one hundred and forty had fallen, when Graham, finding a diversion he had projected impracticable, sent boats to carry off the survivors. With these boats went Major Lefebre, an engineer of great promise, but to fall there, the last man whose blood wetted the ruins thus abandoned: and here be recorded an action of which it is difficult to say whether it were most feminine or heroic. A sergeant’s wife, named Retson, was in a casemate with wounded men, when a young drummer was ordered to fetch water from the well of the fort; seeing the child hesitate, she snatched the vessel from him, braved the terrible cannonade, and when a shot cut the bucket-cord from her hand, recovered it and fulfilled her mission.

Battle of Barosa. (March, 1811.)

After Matagorda was abandoned, the Spaniards in Cadiz became so apathetic that General Graham bitterly said of them “They wished the English would drive away the French, that they might eat strawberries at Chiclana.” However, in December, Soult was ordered to co-operate with Massena, and when his departure was known in January, 1811, Victor’s force being then weak, Graham undertook, in concert with La Peña, captain-general at the Isla, to raise the blockade by a maritime expedition. Contrary winds baffled this project, and in February Victor was reinforced; nevertheless ten thousand infantry and six hundred cavalry were again embarked, being to land at Tarifa, march upon Chiclana, and take the French lines in reverse. Meanwhile General Zayas, who remained with the Spanish forces left in the Isla, was to cast a bridge near the sea-mouth of the Santi Petri, a ship-canal joining the harbour to the sea and cutting off the Isla from the continent; Ballesteros was to menace Seville; the Partidas were to keep Sebastiani in check, and insurrections were expected in all quarters.

The British troops, passing their port in a gale the 22nd, landed at Algesiras and marched to Tarifa, being there joined by the garrison. Somewhat more than four thousand men, including two companies of the 20th Portuguese, and one hundred and eighty German hussars, were thus assembled under Graham, good and hardy troops, and himself a daring old man of a ready temper for battle. La Peña arrived the 27th with the Spanish contingent, and Graham, to preserve unanimity, ceded the command, although contrary to his instructions. Next day the whole moved forward twelve miles, passing some ridges, which, descending from the Ronda to the sea, separate the plains of San Roque from those of Medina and Chiclana. The troops were then reorganized. General Lardizabal had the vanguard, the Prince of Anglona the centre; the reserve, of two Spanish regiments and the British troops, was confided to Graham, and the cavalry of both nations was given to Colonel Whittingham, an English officer in the Spanish service.

At this time a French covering division, under General Cassagne, was at Medina, with outposts at Vejer de la Frontera and Casa Vieja. La Peña stormed the last the 2nd of March, and then General Beguines, coming from San Roque, augmented his force to twelve thousand infantry, eight hundred horsemen, and twenty-four guns. The 3rd, hearing Medina was intrenched, he turned towards the coast and drove the French from Vejer de la Frontera. In the night of the 4th he continued his movement, and on the morning of the 5th, after a skirmish, in which his advanced guard of cavalry was routed by a French squadron, he reached the Cerro de Puerco, called by the English the heights of Barosa, four miles from the sea-mouth of the Santi Petri.

This Barosa ridge, creeping in from the coast for a mile and a half, overlooked a broken plain, which was bounded on the left by the coast cliffs, on the right by the forest of Chiclana, in front by a pine-wood, beyond which rose a long narrow height called the Bermeja, to be reached by moving through the pine-wood, or by the beach under the cliffs. Graham, foreseeing Victor would come out of his lines to fight, had previously obtained La Peña’s promise to make short marches, and not approach the enemy except in a mass. In violation of this promise the march from Casa Vieja had been one of fifteen hours on bad roads, and the night march to Barosa was still more fatiguing. The troops therefore straggled, and before all had arrived, La Peña, as if in contempt of his colleague, neither disclosing his own plans nor communicating by signal or otherwise with Zayas, sent Lardizabal straight to the mouth of the Santi Petri. Zayas had there cast his bridge on the 2nd, but he was surprised in the night and driven into the Isla; Lardizabal had therefore to win his way with a sharp fight, in which three hundred Spaniards fell, yet he forced the French posts and effected a junction.

La Peña directed Graham to follow the vanguard, but the latter desired to hold Barosa, arguing justly that Victor could not attack Lardizabal and Zayas, as no general would lend his flank to an enemy by assailing the Bermeja while Barosa was occupied: Lascy, chief of the Spanish staff, controverted this, and La Peña peremptorily commanded Graham to march. With great temper he obeyed this discourteous order, leaving only the flank companies of the 9th and 82nd regiments under Major Brown to guard his baggage. He moved however in the persuasion that La Peña would remain at Barosa with Anglona’s division and the cavalry, because a Spanish column was still behind near Medina: yet scarcely had he entered the pine-wood when La Peña carried off the corps of battle and the cavalry by the sea-road to Santi Petri, leaving Barosa crowded with baggage and protected only by a rear-guard of four guns and five battalions.

During these events Victor kept close in the forest of Chiclana, the patrols could find no enemy, and Graham’s march of only two miles seemed safe—but the French marshal was keenly watching the movement. He had recalled Cassagne from Medina when La Peña first reached Barosa and hourly expected his arrival; yet he felt so sure of success, as to direct most of his cavalry, then at Medina and Arcos, upon Vejer and other points to cut off the fugitives after the battle. He had in hand fourteen pieces of artillery and nine thousand excellent soldiers, commanded by Laval, Ruffin, and Villatte. From this force he drafted three grenadier battalions as reserves, two of which and three squadrons of cavalry he attached to Ruffin, the other to Laval. Villatte with two thousand five hundred men, originally on the Bermeja, now covered the works of the camp against Zayas and Lardizabal; but Cassagne was still distant when Victor, seeing Graham in the pine-wood, Zayas and Lardizabal on the Bermeja, a third body and the baggage on the Barosa height, a fourth in movement by the coast, a fifth still on the march from Vejer, poured at once into the plain and began the battle. Laval confronted the British force, while Victor, leading Ruffin’s men in person, ascended the rear of the Barosa height, and having thus intercepted the Spanish column on the Medina road, drove the rear-guard off the hill towards the sea, dispersed the baggage and followers, and took three Spanish guns.

Major Brown, who had kept his troops in good order, being unable to stem the torrent, slowly retired into the plain and sent for orders to Graham, who was then near Bermeja. Fight! was the laconic answer, and facing about himself he regained the open plain, expecting to find La Peña and the cavalry on the Barosa hill. But when the view opened, he beheld Ruffin’s brigade, flanked by the two grenadier battalions, near the summit on the one side, the Spanish rear-guard and the baggage flying towards the sea on the other, the French cavalry following the fugitives in good order, Laval close upon his own left flank, and La Peña nowhere!

In this desperate situation, feeling that a retreat upon Bermeja would bring the enemy pell-mell with the allies on to that narrow ridge and be disastrous, he resolved to make a counter-attack, although the key of the battle-field was already in the enemy’s possession. Ten guns under Major Duncan instantly opened a terrific fire against Laval’s column, and Colonel Andrew Barnard[16] running vehemently out with his riflemen and some Portuguese companies, commenced the fight; the rest of the troops, without attention to regiments or brigades, so sudden was the affair, formed two masses, with one of which General Dilkes marched against Ruffin while Colonel Wheatley led the other against Laval. Duncan’s guns ravaged the French ranks, Laval’s artillery replied vigorously, Ruffin’s batteries took Wheatley’s column in flank, and the infantry on both sides closed eagerly and with a pealing musketry; but soon a fierce, rapid and prolonged charge of the 87th Regiment overthrew the first line of the French, and though the latter fought roughly, they were dashed so violently upon the second line that both were broken by the shock and went off, their retreat being covered by the reserve battalion of grenadiers.

Meanwhile Graham’s Spartan order had sent Brown headlong upon Ruffin, and though nearly half his detachment went down under the first fire, he maintained the fight until Dilkes’ column, having crossed a deep hollow, came up, with little order indeed but in a fighting mood. Then the whole ran up towards the summit, and there was no slackness, for at the very edge of the ascent their gallant opponents met them and a dreadful and for some time a doubtful combat raged; but soon Ruffin, and Chaudron Rousseau who commanded the chosen grenadiers fell, both mortally wounded, the English bore strongly onward, and their incessant slaughtering fire forced the French from the hill with the loss of three guns and many brave soldiers. All the discomfited divisions then retired concentrically from their different points, and thus meeting, with infinite spirit endeavoured to renew the action, but the play of Duncan’s guns, close, rapid and murderous, rendered the attempt vain: Victor quitted the field, and the British, who had been twenty-four hours under arms without food, were too exhausted to pursue.

While these terrible combats of infantry were being fought, La Peña looked idly on, giving no aid, not even menacing Villatte who was close to him and comparatively weak. The Spanish Walloon guards, the regiment of Ciudad Real, and some Guerilla cavalry, turning without orders, came up indeed just as the action ceased, and it was expected that Colonel Whittingham, an Englishman commanding a strong body of Spanish horse, would have done as much; yet no stroke of a Spanish sabre was that day given, though the French cavalry did not exceed two hundred and fifty men, and the eight hundred under Whittingham would have rendered the defeat ruinous. So certain was this, that Frederick Ponsonby, drawing off his hundred and eighty German hussars, reached the field of battle, charged the French squadrons in their retreat, overthrew them, took two guns, and even attempted though vainly to sabre Rousseau’s chosen grenadiers. Such was the fight of Barosa. Short, for it lasted only one hour and a half; violent and bloody, for fifty officers, sixty sergeants, eleven hundred British soldiers, and more than two thousand French were killed and wounded; and six guns, an eagle, two generals, both mortally wounded, with four hundred other prisoners fell into the hands of the victors.

Graham remained several hours on the height, still hoping La Peña would awake to the prospect of success and glory which the extreme valour of the British had opened. Four thousand fresh men and a powerful artillery had come over the Santi Petri; he had therefore twelve thousand infantry and eight hundred cavalry, while before him were only the remains of the French line of battle, retreating in the greatest disorder upon Chiclana; but military spirit was extinct with the Spaniard, Graham could no longer endure his command and leaving the dastard on the Bermeja filed the British troops into the Isla.

Massena’s Retreat. (March, 1811.)

Soon after the Barosa fight, Wellington and Massena were again pitted in attack and defence. Massena had kept Santarem until the 6th of March expecting Soult’s co-operation, yet retreated when that marshal after defeating twenty thousand Spaniards on the Gebora, and taking Olivenza, Badajos, Albuquerque and Campo Mayor, was coming to his aid; of this however he was ignorant, because Wellington’s forces on the south bank of the Tagus had intercepted all communication. Hence when Soult was invading Portugal on one side of that river, Massena abandoned the other side and was pursued by the allied army. He left however a desert behind him, and soon a horrible spectacle disclosed all the previous misery of the inhabitants. In the hills was found a house where thirty women and children were lying dead from hunger, and sitting by the bodies fifteen or sixteen living beings—only one a man—so enfeebled by want they could not devour the food offered to them. All the children were dead; none were emaciated, but the muscles of their faces were invariably dragged transversely, as if laughing, and unimaginably ghastly. The man was most eager for life, the women patient and resigned, and they had carefully covered and laid out the dead! A field of battle strewed with bloody carcasses would have been a solacing sight by comparison!

Strong positions crossed Massena’s line of retreat, which was confined by mountains, every village being a defile; and Ney, governing the rear-guard, lost no advantage. He was driven by the light division with a sharp skirmish from Pombal the 10th, but on the 11th he offered battle at Redinha with five thousand infantry, some cavalry and guns; his wings were covered by pine-woods which, hanging on the brow of the table-land he occupied, were filled with light troops; the deep bed of the Soure protected his right, his left rested on the Redinha, which flowed also round his rear; behind his centre the village of Redinha, lying in a hollow, masked a narrow bridge, and on a rugged height beyond a reserve was so posted as to seem a great force.

Combat of Redinha. (March, 1811.)

The light division under Sir William Erskine soon won the wooded slopes covering Ney’s right, and the skirmishers pushed into the open plain, but were there checked by a heavy rolling fire, and a squadron of hussars, charging, took fourteen prisoners. Erskine then formed his line, which, outflanking the French right, was reinforced with two regiments of dragoons. Picton had also seized the wood covering the French left, and Ney’s position was laid bare; but he, observing that Wellington, deceived by the reserve beyond the bridge, was bringing all the allied troops into line, would not retire; he even charged Picton’s skirmishers and held his ground, though the third division was nearer to the bridge than his right, and there were troops and guns enough on the plain to overwhelm him. In this posture both sides remained an hour, but then three cannon-shots fired from the British centre, gave the signal for a splendid spectacle of war. The woods seemed alive with troops, and suddenly thirty thousand men, presenting three gorgeous lines of battle, were stretched across the plain, bending on a gentle curve and moving majestically onwards, while horsemen and guns, springing simultaneously from the centre and left, charged under a general volley from the French battalions, who were thus covered with smoke, and when that cleared away none were to be seen! Ney, keenly watching the progress of this grand formation, had opposed Picton’s skirmishers with his left, while he withdrew the rest of his people so rapidly as to gain the village before even the cavalry could touch him, the utmost efforts of the light troops and horse-artillery only enabling them to gall the hindmost with fire.

One howitzer was dismounted, but the village of Redinha was in flames between it and the pursuers, and Ney in person carried off the injured piece; yet with a loss of fifteen or twenty men and great danger to himself; for the British guns were thundering on his rear, and the light troops, chasing like heated bloodhounds, almost passed the river with his men; his reserve beyond the bridge then opened a cannonade, but fresh dispositions soon made it fall back ten miles. Twelve officers and two hundred men were killed and wounded in this combat. Ney lost as many, but he might have been destroyed, Wellington paid him too much respect.

Condeixa, where the French now took position, commanded two roads, one behind their right leading to Coimbra; the other on their left, leading to the Sierra de Murcella. The first offered the Mondego as a permanent line of defence, with the power of seizing Oporto by a detachment. The second presented only a rugged narrow line of retreat up the left bank of the Mondego, and involved the evacuation of Portugal; for that river was not fordable at the season and the Portuguese militia were in force on the other side. Massena first detached Montbrun to ascertain the state of Coimbra, which was really defenceless, yet Trant with a few militia-men made such show of resistance that it was reported inattackable; whereupon the French prince set fire to Condeixa and adopted the position of Cazal Nova on the Murcella road: not however without a skirmish in which he narrowly escaped capture.

No orders were given in the night to attack, nevertheless, next morning, although an impenetrable mist covered the French position and the dull sound of a stirring multitude came from its depths, Sir W. Erskine, with astounding indifference, and against the opinion of all the officers about him, ordered the 52nd Regiment to plunge in column of sections, without even an advanced guard, into the sea of fog below him. The road dipped suddenly and the regiment was instantly lost in the mist, which was so thick that, the troops, unconsciously passing the enemy’s out-posts, nearly captured Ney, who slept with his pickets. The rest of the division was about to descend into the same gulf, when the rattling of musketry and the booming of round shot were heard, the vapour rose slowly, and the 52nd was seen on the slopes of the opposite mountain, closely engaged in the midst of an army!

Combat of Cazal Nova. (March, 1811.)

Wellington arrived. His design was to turn the French left, for their front was strong, and they held mountain-ridges in succession to the Deuca river and the defiles of Miranda de Corvo. He had sent Cole by a circuit towards the sources of the Deuca and Ceira, Picton more directly to menace the French flank, and the main body was coming up, when Erskine forced the light division prematurely into action. Ney’s ground was extensive, his skirmishers so thick and well supported, that the light division offered only a thread of battle, closely engaged in every part, without any reserve; nor could it then present an equal front, until Picton sent some riflemen to prolong the line. Some advantages were indeed gained, but the main position was not shaken, until Picton near and Cole further off, had turned the left, and three divisions, with the heavy cavalry and artillery, came up in the centre. Then Ney, covering his rear with guns and light troops, retired from ridge to ridge without confusion until midday, when the guns got within range of his masses and his retreat became more rapid and less orderly, yet he reached the strong pass of Miranda de Corvo, where Massena was in position. The light division lost eleven officers and a hundred and fifty men; the French loss was greater, and a hundred prisoners were taken.

Combat of Foz d’Aronce. (March, 1811.)

Massena, fearing Cole would get in his rear, set fire to the town of Miranda, crossed the Ceira in the night, and being then crowded in a narrow way between the sierras and the Mondego, destroyed ammunition and baggage, and directed Ney to cover the movement with a few battalions, but charged him not to risk an action: Ney, however, little regarding his orders, kept the left bank with ten or twelve battalions, a brigade of cavalry and some guns, and thus provoked a combat. His right was on rugged ground, his left at the village of Foz d’Aronce; the weather was obscure and rainy, the allies did not come up until evening, and little expecting an action kindled their fires; but Wellington, suddenly directing the light division and Pack’s brigade to hold the French right in check, sent the third division against their left, and the horse-artillery on the gallop to rising ground, whence it opened with a surprising effect.

Ney’s left wing was soon overthrown by the third division, and fled in such confusion towards the river that many men rushed into the deeps and were drowned, while others madly crowding the bridge were crushed to death. On the other flank the ground was so rough the action resolved itself into a skirmish, and Ney sent some battalions to stop the pursuit of his left; but then darkness fell and the French troops in their disorder fired on each other. Four officers and sixty men fell on the side of the British; the enemy lost above five hundred, one half drowned, and an eagle was afterwards found in the bed of the river. Massena retired in the night behind the Alva. Ney kept his post on the Ceira until every encumbrance had passed, and then blowing up seventy feet of the bridge, remained with a weak rear-guard. Wellington halted.

Up to this point of the retreat the French prince had displayed infinite ability, with a ruthless spirit. The burning of some towns and villages protected his rear, but Leiria and the convent of Alcobaça were off the line yet given to the flames by express orders and in a spirit of vengeance. But every horror that could make war hideous attended this retreat. Distress, conflagrations, death, in all modes from wounds, from fatigue, from water, from the flames, from starvation! On all sides unlimited violence, unlimited vengeance. I myself saw a peasant hounding on his dog to devour the dead and dying, and the spirit of cruelty smote even the brute creation; for the French general, to lessen encumbrances, ordered beasts of burden to be destroyed, and the inhuman fellow charged with the execution hamstringed five hundred asses and left them to starve; they were so found by the British, and the mute, sad, deep expression of pain and grief visible in the poor creatures’ looks, excited a strange fury in the soldiers: no quarter would have been given at that time: humane feelings would have thus led direct to cruelty. But all passions are akin to madness.

From this quarter, Lord Wellington, who had before detached troops with the same view, now sent Cole’s division to join Beresford in the Alemtejo, where the latter had been left to oppose Soult’s progress.

Combat of Sabugal. (April, 1811.)

The pursuit of Massena was soon resumed. He attempted to hold the Guarda mountain on the flank of the Estrella, and being driven from thence with the loss of three hundred prisoners descended the eastern slopes to take a position behind the Coa. There being reinforced, he disposed his troops on two sides of a triangle, the apex at Sabugal, where Reynier commanded. Both wings were covered by the river, which had a sharp bend at Sabugal, and the right had free communication with Almeida, on which side the craggy ravine of the Coa forbade an attack. Above Sabugal it was easier, and Wellington, after menacing the right for two days, suddenly, at daybreak on the 3rd of April, sent Slade’s cavalry and the light division to pass the upper stream by a wide movement and penetrate between the left wing and centre of the French. The third division moved at the same time to cross the river by a closer movement, yet still above the bridge of Sabugal, which the fifth division and the artillery were to force. Two other divisions were in reserve, and it was hoped Reynier, whose main body was some distance above bridge, would be thus turned surrounded and crushed before the wings could succour him: one of those accidents so frequent in war marred this well-concerted scheme.

A thick fog prevented the troops gaining their points of attack simultaneously, and Erskine took no heed to put the light division in a right direction; his columns were not even held together, and he carried off the cavalry without communicating with Colonel Beckwith, who commanded his first brigade. That officer thus left without instructions halted at a ford, until one of the general staff came up and rudely asked why he did not attack; the thing appeared rash, yet with an enemy in front, Beckwith could only reply by passing the river, which was deep and rapid. A very steep wooded hill was on the other side and four companies of riflemen ascended, followed by the 43rd Regiment, but the caçadores of the brigade had joined another column which was passing the river higher up and moving independently to the right, on the true point of direction. At this time very heavy rain was falling, all was obscure, and none of the other divisions had yet reached their respective posts; Beckwith’s attack was therefore premature, partial, dangerous, and at the wrong point; for Reynier’s whole corps was in front, and one bayonet-regiment, with four companies of riflemen, were assailing more than twelve thousand infantry supported by cavalry and artillery!

Scarcely had the riflemen reached the top of the hill when a strong body of French drove them back upon the 43rd, the weather cleared at the instant, and Beckwith saw and felt all the danger, but his heart was too big to quail. With one fierce charge he beat back the enemy, and he gained, and kept the summit of the hill, although two French howitzers poured showers of grape into his ranks, while a fresh force came against his front, and considerable bodies advanced on either flank. Fortunately, Reynier, little expecting to be attacked, had for the convenience of water placed his main body in low ground behind the height on which the action commenced; his renewed attack was therefore up-hill, yet his musketry, heavy from the beginning, soon increased to a storm, and his men sprung up the acclivity with such a violence and clamour it was evident that desperate fighting only could save the British from destruction, and they fought accordingly.

Captain Hopkins, commanding a flank company of the 43rd, running out to the right, with admirable presence of mind seized a small eminence, close to the French guns and commanding the ascent up which the French troops turning the right flank were approaching. His first fire threw them into confusion; they rallied and were again disordered by his volleys; a third time they made head; but a sudden charge shook them, and then two battalions of the 52nd Regiment, attracted by the fire, entered the line. The centre and left of the 43rd were all this time furiously engaged, and wonderfully excited; for Beckwith, with the blood streaming from a wound in the head, rode amongst the skirmishers, praising and exhorting them in a loud cheerful tone as a man sure to win his battle; and though the bullets flew thicker and closer, and the fight became more perilous, the French fell fast and a second charge again cleared the hill. A howitzer was taken by the 43rd, and the skirmishers were descending in eager pursuit when small bodies of cavalry came galloping in from all parts and compelled them to take refuge with the main body, which had reformed behind a low stone wall; one French squadron however, with incredible daring rode close to this wall, and were in the act of firing over it with pistols when a rolling volley laid nearly the whole lifeless on the ground. A very strong column of infantry then rushed up and endeavoured to retake the howitzer, which was on the edge of the descent, fifty yards from the wall, but no man could reach it and live, so deadly was the 43rd’s fire. Two English guns now came into action, and the 52nd charging violently upon the flank of the enemy’s infantry again vindicated the possession of the height; nevertheless fresh squadrons of cavalry, which had followed the infantry in the last attack, seeing the 52nd men scattered by this charge, flew upon them with great briskness and caused some disorder before they were repulsed.

Reynier, convinced at last that he should not use his troops piece-meal, then put all his reserves, six thousand infantry with artillery and cavalry, in motion, and outflanked the English left, resolute to storm the contested height. But at that moment the fifth division passed the bridge of Sabugal, the British cavalry appeared on the hills beyond the French left, and, emerging from the woods close on Reynier’s right, the third division opened a fire which instantly decided the fate of the day. The French general, fearing to be surrounded, hastily retreated, and meeting the right wing of the army, which had also retired, both fell back, pursued by the English cavalry.

In this bloody encounter, which did not last quite an hour, nearly two hundred British were killed and wounded, and the enemy’s loss was enormous: three hundred dead bodies were heaped together on the hill, the greatest part round the captured howitzer, and more than twelve hundred were wounded, so unwisely had Reynier handled his masses, and so true and constant was the English fire. It was no exaggeration of Lord Wellington to say, “this was one of the most glorious actions British troops were ever engaged in.”

Massena retreated on Ciudad Rodrigo, and the 5th crossed the frontier of Portugal, when the vigour of French discipline was surprisingly manifested. Those men who had for months been living by rapine, whose retreat had been one continued course of violence and devastation, having passed a conventional line became the most orderly of soldiers. Not the slightest rudeness was offered to any Spaniard, and everything was scrupulously paid for, although bread was sold at two shillings a pound! Massena himself also, fierce and terrible as he was in Portugal, always treated the Spaniards with gentleness and moderation.

During these events Trant crossed the Lower Coa with four thousand militia near Almeida, but the river flooded behind him, the bridges had been broken by Massena, and there was a French brigade close at hand; hence, constructing a temporary bridge with great difficulty, he was going to retire, but there came a letter from Wellington, desiring him to be vigilant in preventing communication with Almeida, and fearless, because next morning a British force would be up to his assistance. Boldly then he interposed between the fortress and the French brigade, yet the promised succour did not appear, and the advancing enemy was within half a mile. His destruction appeared inevitable, when suddenly two cannon-shots were heard to the southward, the French hastily formed squares to retire, and six squadrons of British cavalry with a troop of horse-artillery came up like a whirlwind in their rear; military order however marked their perilous retreat, and though the bullets fearfully ploughed through their masses while the horsemen flanked their line of march, they got over the Agueda by Barba de Puerco, with the loss of only three hundred men killed wounded and prisoners.

A few days after this, Colonel Waters, the boat-finder at Oporto, who had been taken prisoner, escaped by an effort of extraordinary daring. Confident in his own resources he refused parole, but having rashly mentioned his intention of escaping to the Spaniard in whose house he was lodged at Ciudad Rodrigo, the man betrayed counsel; his servant, detesting the treachery, secretly offered his own aid, but Waters only told him to get the rowels of his spurs sharpened, no more, for his design was one of open daring. Guarded by four gens d’armes, he was near Salamanca when the chief, who rode the only good horse of the party, alighted, whereupon Waters gave the spur to his own mare, a celebrated animal, and galloped off. They were on a wide plain, and for many miles the road was covered with the French columns, his hat fell off, and thus marked he rode along the flank of the troops, some encouraging him, others firing at him, the gens d’armes being always, sword in hand, close at his heels. Suddenly he broke at full speed between two of the columns, gained a wooded hollow, baffled his pursuers, and the third day reached head-quarters, where Lord Wellington had caused his baggage to be brought, observing that he would not be long absent!

Fuentes Onoro. (May, 1811.)

On the Agueda Massena could not subsist. He retired to Salamanca, where he was in communication with Marshal Bessières, who commanded a great force called the Army of the North. Wellington then invested Almeida, thinking it was provisioned only for a fortnight, yet it was still resistant the latter end of April, when the Prince of Essling, having reorganized his army and obtained cavalry and guns from Bessières, came down to raise the blockade. The English general, not expecting this interference, had gone southwards to superintend the operations of Marshal Beresford, but he returned rapidly when he heard of the French movement, and fixed on a field of battle between the Agueda and Coa. There the ground, though open and fit for cavalry, was traversed from east to west by three nearly parallel rivers, the Azava, Duas Casas, and Turones; the first considerable, and all having, in common with the Agueda and Coa, this peculiarity, their channels deepen as the water flows: mere streams with low banks in their upper courses, they soon become foaming torrents rushing along rocky gulfs.

Almeida, situated on high table-land between the Turones and Coa, was closely blockaded, the light division and the cavalry were on the Azava covering the investment, the rest of the army was cantoned in the villages behind them. Swollen and unfordable was the Azava, and two thousand French attempted to seize the bridge of Marialva on the 24th, but the ground was strong, and they were vigorously repulsed by Captain Dobbs of the 52nd, though he had but a single bayonet-company and some riflemen. Next day Massena reached Ciudad Rodrigo in person, and the 27th he felt the light division posts from Espeja to Marialva. On the 28th Wellington arrived, and took position behind the Duas Casas.

The Azava was still difficult to ford, and Massena continued to feel the outposts until the 2nd of May, when the waters subsided and his army came out of Ciudad Rodrigo. The light division, after a slight skirmish of horse at Gallegos, retired from that place and Espeja upon the Duas Casas, a delicate operation, for though the country behind those villages was a forest, an open plain between the woods offered the enemy’s powerful cavalry an opportunity of cutting off the retreat; the French neglected the advantage and the separated brigades of the division remained in the woods until the middle of the night, and then safely crossed the Duas Casas at Fuentes Onoro, a beautiful village which had been uninjured during the previous warfare although occupied alternately for above a year by both sides. Every family was well known to the light division, and it was with deep regret and indignation they found the preceding troops had pillaged it, leaving shells of houses where three days before a friendly population had been living in comfort. This wanton act was felt indeed so much by the whole army, that eight thousand dollars were subscribed for the inhabitants, yet the injury sunk deeper than the atonement.

Wellington did not wish to risk much for the blockade, and he knew Massena could bring down superior numbers; for so culpably negligent was the Portuguese government that their troops were starving under arms, the infantry abandoning their colours or dropping from extenuation by thousands, the cavalry useless: it was even feared that a general dispersion would take place. Nevertheless, when the trial came, he would not retreat, although his troops, reduced to thirty-two thousand infantry, twelve hundred cavalry in bad condition, and forty-two guns, were unable to oppose the enemy’s numerous horsemen in the plain. His position was on the table-land between the Turones and the Duas Casas, his left being at Fort Conception, his centre opposite the village of Alameda, his right at Fuentes Onoro. The whole distance was five miles, and the Duas Casas, here flowing in a deep ravine, protected the front of the line.

Massena dared not march by his own right upon Almeida, lest the allies, crossing the ravine at the villages of Alameda and Fuentes Onoro, should fall on his flank and drive him upon the Lower Agueda; hence, to cover the blockade, maintained by Pack’s brigade and an English regiment, it was sufficient to leave the fifth division near Fort Conception, and the sixth division opposite Alameda, while the first and third concentrated on a gentle rise cannon-shot distance behind Fuentes Onoro, and where a steppe of land turned back on the Turones, becoming rocky as it approached that river.

Combat of Fuentes Onoro. (May, 1811.)

On the 3rd of May the French came up in three columns abreast. The cavalry, the sixth corps, and Drouet’s division, threatened Fuentes, while the eighth and second corps moved against Alameda and Fort Conception, menacing the allies’ left, which caused the light division to reinforce the sixth. Loison, without orders, now fell upon Fuentes, in which were five battalions detached from the first and third divisions. Most of the houses were in the bottom of the ravine, but an old chapel and some buildings on a craggy eminence behind offered a prominent point for rallying, and all the low parts were vigorously defended; yet the attack was so violent and the cannonade so heavy the British abandoned the streets, and could scarcely maintain the upper ground about the chapel; the commanding officer fell badly wounded, and the fight was being lost, when the 24th, the 71st, and 79th regiments, coming down from the main position, charged the French and drove them quite over the Duas Casas. During the night the detachments were withdrawn, the three succouring regiments keeping the village, where two hundred and sixty British and somewhat more of the French had fallen.

On the 4th Massena arrived, accompanied by Bessières, who brought up twelve hundred cavalry and a battery of the imperial guard. Designing to fight next morning he resolved to hold the left of the allies in check with the second corps, and turn their right with the remainder of the army. Forty thousand French infantry and five thousand horse, with thirty pieces of artillery, were under arms, and they had shown their courage was not abated; it was therefore a very daring act of the English general to receive battle; for though his position, as far as Fuentes Onoro, was strong and covered his communication across the Coa by the bridge of Castello Bom, the plain was continued on his right to Nava d’Aver, where a round hill, overlooking all the country, commanded the roads leading to the bridges of Seceiras and Sabugal. Massena could therefore have placed his army at once in battle-array across the right flank and attacked the army between the Duas Casas, the Turones, the Coa and the fortress of Almeida: the bridge of Castello Bom alone would then have been open for retreat. To prevent this, and cover his communications with Sabugal and Seceiras, Wellington, yielding to Spencer’s suggestions, stretched his right wing out to the hill of Nava d’Aver, where he placed Julian Sanchez, supporting him with the seventh division under General Houstoun. This line of battle was above seven miles, besides the circuit of blockade; and above Fuentes Onoro the Duas Casas ravine became gradually obliterated, resolving itself into a swampy wood, which extended to Poço Velho, a village half-way between Fuentes and Nava d’Aver.

Battle of Fuentes Onoro. (May, 1811.)

Massena’s intention was to attack at daybreak, but a delay of two hours occurred and all his movements were plainly descried. The eighth corps, withdrawn from Alameda and supported by all the French cavalry, was seen marching to turn Poço Velho and the swampy wood, both occupied by Houstoun’s left, his right being thrown back on the plain towards Nava d’Aver. The sixth corps and Dronet’s division were likewise taking ground to their left, yet keeping a division to menace Fuentes Onoro. At this sight the light division and the cavalry hastened to the support of Houstoun, while the first and third divisions made a movement parallel to that of the sixth corps; the latter, however, drove the seventh division from Poço Velho, and was gaining ground in the wood also, when the riflemen of the light division arrived there and restored the fight.

The French cavalry, after passing Poço Velho, formed an order of battle on the plain between the wood and the hill of Nava d’Aver, whereupon Sanchez retired across the Turones, partly in fear, more in anger, because his lieutenant, having foolishly ridden close up to the enemy, making violent gestures, was mistaken for a French officer and shot by a soldier of the Guards before the action commenced. Montbrun lost an hour observing this partida, but when it disappeared he turned the right of the seventh division and charged the British cavalry; the combat was unequal; for by an abuse too common, so many men had been drawn from the ranks as orderlies to general officers, and other purposes, that not more than a thousand English troopers were in the field. The French therefore with one shock drove in all the outguards, cut off Norman Ramsay’s battery of horse-artillery, and came sweeping in upon the reserves and the seventh division.

Their leading squadrons, approaching in a loose manner, were partially checked by the British, and then a great commotion was observed in their main body. Their troopers were seen closing with disorder and tumult towards one point, where a thick dust arose, and where loud cries and the sparkling of blades and flashing of pistols indicated some extraordinary occurrence. Suddenly the crowd became violently agitated, an English shout pealed high and clear, the mass was rent asunder, and Norman Ramsay burst forth sword in hand at the head of his battery, his horses, breathing fire, stretched like greyhounds along the plain, the guns bounded behind them like things of no weight, and the mounted gunners followed close, with heads bent low and pointed weapons in desperate career. At this sight Brotherton[17] of the 14th Dragoons, instantly galloping to his aid with a squadron, shocked the head of the pursuing troops, and General Charles Stewart,[18] joining in the charge, took the French colonel Lamotte, fighting hand to hand. However the main body came forward rapidly, and the British cavalry retired behind the light division, which was thrown into squares; the seventh division, which was more advanced, endeavoured to do the same, but the horsemen were too quickly upon them, and some were cut down; the remainder stood firm, and the Chasseurs Britanniques, ranged behind a loose stone wall, poured such a fire that the French recoiled and seemed bewildered.

While these brilliant actions were passing, the enemy had made progress in the wood of Poço Velho, and as the English divisions were separated and the right wing turned, it was abundantly evident the battle would be lost if the original position above Fuentes Onoro was not quickly regained. To effect this Wellington ordered the seventh division to cross the Turones and move down the left bank to Frenada, while the light division and the cavalry retired over the plain; he also withdrew the first and third divisions, and the Portuguese, to the steppe of land before mentioned, as running perpendicularly from the ravine of Fuentes Onoro to the Turones.

Craufurd, who had now resumed command of the light division, covered the passage of the seventh over the Turones, and then retired slowly along the plain in squares. The French horsemen outflanked him and surprised a post of the Guards under Colonel Hill, taking that officer and fourteen men prisoners, but continuing their course against the 42nd Regiment were repulsed. Many times, this strong cavalry made as if it would storm the light division squares, yet always found them too formidable, and happily so, for there was not during the war a more perilous hour. The whole of that vast plain was covered with a confused multitude of troops, amidst which the squares appeared as specks, and there was a great concourse of commissariat followers, servants, baggage, led horses, and peasants attracted by curiosity, and all mixed with broken picquets and parties coming out of the woods: the seventh division was separated by the Turones, while five thousand French horsemen, with fifteen pieces of artillery, were trampling, bounding, shouting, and impatient to charge; the infantry of the eighth corps being in order of battle behind them, and the wood on their right filled with the sixth corps. If the latter body, pivoting upon Fuentes, had come forth while Drouet’s division fell on that village, if the eighth corps had attacked the light division and all the cavalry had charged, the loose crowd encumbering the plain, driven violently in upon the first division, would have intercepted the latter’s fire and broken its ranks: the battle would have been lost.

No such effort was made. The French horsemen merely hovered about Craufurd’s squares, the plain was soon cleared, the British cavalry took post behind the centre, and the light division formed a reserve to the first division, the riflemen occupying the rocks on its right and connecting it with the seventh division, which had arrived at Frenada and was again joined by Julian Sanchez. At sight of this new front, perpendicular to the original one and so deeply lined with troops, the French army stopped short and commenced a cannonade, which did great execution amongst the close masses of the allies; but twelve British guns replied with such vigour that the enemy’s fire abated, their cavalry drew out of range, and a body of infantry attempting to glide down the ravine of the Turones was repulsed by the riflemen and the light companies of the Guards.

All this time a fierce battle was going on at Fuentes Onoro. Massena had directed Drouet to carry this village when Montbrun’s cavalry first turned the right wing, it was however two hours later ere the attack commenced. The three British regiments made a desperate resistance, but, overmatched in number and unaccustomed to the desultory fighting of light troops, they were pierced and divided; two companies of the 79th were taken, their Colonel, Cameron, mortally wounded, and the lower part of the town was carried: the upper part was however stiffly held and the musketry was incessant.

Had the attack been made earlier, and all Drouet’s division thrown frankly into the fight, while the sixth corps from the wood of Poço Velho closely turned Fuentes Onoro, the latter must have been forced and the new position falsified. But Wellington, having now all his reserves in hand, detached considerable masses to support the fight, and as the French reinforced their troops, the whole of the sixth corps and part of Drouet’s were finally engaged. At one time the fighting was on the banks of the stream and the lower houses, at another on the heights and around the chapel, and some of the enemy’s skirmishers even penetrated towards the main position; yet the village was never entirely abandoned by the defenders, and in one charge against a heavy mass on the chapel eminence a great number of French fell. Thus the fight lasted until evening, when the lower part of the town was abandoned by both parties, the British holding the chapel and crags, the French retiring about cannon-shot distance from the stream.

After the action a brigade of the light division relieved the regiments in the village, a slight demonstration by the second corps, near Fort Conception, was checked by a battalion of the Lusitanian legion, and both armies remained in observation. Fifteen hundred men and officers, of which three hundred were prisoners, constituted the loss of the allies. That of the enemy was estimated at the time to be near five thousand, but this was founded on the supposition that four hundred dead were lying about Fuentes Onoro. Having had charge to bury the carcasses at that point, I can affirm, that about the village not more than one hundred and thirty bodies were to be found, more than one-third of which were British.

Evacuation of Almeida. (May, 1811.)

Massena retired on the 10th across the Agueda, and was relieved in his command by Marmont. The fate of Almeida was then decided, yet its brave governor, Brennier, who had been exchanged after the battle of Vimiero, carried off the garrison. He had fifteen hundred men and during the battle had skirmished boldly with the blockading force, while loud explosions, supposed to be signals, were frequent in the place. When all hope of succour vanished, a French soldier, named Tillet, penetrated in uniform through the posts of blockade, carrying an order to evacuate the fortress and rejoin the army by Barba de Puerco. Meanwhile the British general, placing the light division in its old position on the Azava with cavalry-posts on the Lower Agueda, had desired Sir William Erskine to send the 4th Regiment to Barba de Puerco, and directed General Alexander Campbell to continue the blockade with the sixth division and Pack’s brigade. Campbell’s dispositions were negligently made and negligently executed. Erskine transmitted no orders to the 4th Regiment, and Brennier resolved to force his way through the blockading troops. An open country and a double line of posts greatly enhanced the difficulty of the enterprise, yet he was resolute not only to cut his own passage but to render the fortress useless. In this view he had mined the principal bastions, and destroyed his guns by a singular expedient, firing several at the same moment with heavy charges but placing the muzzles of all but one against the sides of the others; thus while some shots flew towards the besiegers others destroyed the pieces without attracting notice: these were the explosions supposed to be signals.

At midnight on the 10th he sprung his mines and in a compact column broke through the picquets, passing between the quarters of the reserves with a nicety proving his talent and his coolness. Pack, following with a few men collected on the instant, plied him with a constant fire, yet could not shake or retard his column, which in silence gained the rough country leading upon Barba de Puerco, where it halted just as daylight broke. Pack still pursued, and knowing some English dragoons were a short distance off sent an officer to bring them out upon the French flank, thus occasioning a slight skirmish and consequent delay. The other troops had paid little attention to the explosion of the mines, thinking them a repetition of Brennier’s previous practice, but Pack’s fire had roused them, the 36th Regiment was now close at hand, and the 4th also, having heard the firing, was rapidly gaining the right flank of the enemy. Brennier drove off the cavalry and was again in march, yet the infantry, throwing off their knapsacks, overtook him as he descended the deep chasm of Barba de Puerco and killed or wounded many, taking three hundred, but the 36th Regiment rashly passing the bridge was repulsed with a loss of forty men. Had Erskine given the 4th Regiment its orders, the French column would have been lost, and Lord Wellington, stung by this event, and irritated by previous examples of undisciplined valour, issued this strong rebuke. “The officers of the army may depend upon it that the enemy to whom they are opposed is not less prudent than powerful. Notwithstanding what has been printed in gazettes and newspapers, we have never seen small bodies unsupported successfully opposed to large; nor has the experience of any officer realized the stories which all have read of whole armies being driven by a handful of light infantry and dragoons.”

BOOK V.

Combat of Campo Mayor—First English Siege of Badajos—Battle of Albuera—Renewed Siege of Badajos—First Assault of Christoval—Second Assault on Christoval.

Combat of Campo Mayor. (May, 1811.)

It has been shown how Beresford was sent to oppose Soult beyond the Tagus, but the latter, disturbed by the battle of Barosa, which put all Andalusia in commotion, had returned to Seville, leaving Mortier to continue the operations. Campo Mayor surrendered the 21st of March, and four days after, Latour Maubourg, having to bring away the battering train and a convoy of provisions, issued from the gates with nine hundred cavalry, three battalions of infantry, some horse-artillery and sixteen heavy guns, all in column of march, just as Beresford emerged from an adjacent forest with twenty thousand infantry, two thousand cavalry and eighteen field-pieces. An astonishing apparition this was to the French, for so adroitly had Wellington, while seemingly absorbed in the pursuit of Massena, organized this army, that its existence was only made known by its presence.

All Beresford’s cavalry, supported by a field battery and a detachment of infantry under Colonel Colborne,[19] were close up ere the enemy knew of their approach, and the horsemen, sweeping by their left round the town and moving along gentle slopes, gradually formed a crescent about the French, who were retreating along the road to Badajos. Colborne was then coming up at a run, a division was seen behind him, and the French infantry formed squares, supported by their cavalry, while their battering guns and baggage hurried on. General Long, holding back his heavy cavalry, directed some Portuguese squadrons, and the 18th Light Dragoons under Colonel Head, to charge. Head, galloping forward under a fire from the square, was met half-way by the French hussars with loose reins, and fiercely they came together, and many went down on both sides, yet those who kept the saddle drove clean through each other, re-formed, and again charged in the same fearful manner! Desperately all struggled for victory, but Head’s troopers riding close and on better chargers overthrew horse and man, and the hussars dispersed, yet still fighting in small bodies with the Portuguese, while the British squadron, passing under the fire of the square without flinching, rode forward, hewing down the gunners of the battering train and seeking to head the long line of convoy.

They thought the heavy dragoons, the infantry and the artillery, marching behind them, would suffice to dispose of the enemies they passed, but Beresford took a different view. He stopped a charge of the heavy dragoons; he suffered only two guns to open when six were at hand; he even silenced those two after a few rounds, and let the French recover their battering train, rally their hussars, and retreat in safety. Meanwhile the 13th and some of the Portuguese dragoons reached the bridge of Badajos and there captured more guns, but were repulsed by the fire of the fortress, and being followed by Mortier and met by Latour Maubourg’s retreating column lost some men, but passing by the flanks they escaped, to be publicly censured by Beresford! The admiration of the army consoled them. One hundred of the allies were killed, or hurt, and seventy taken; the French lost only three hundred and a howitzer, but the colonel of hussars, Chamorin, a distinguished officer, fell in single combat with a trooper of the 13th Dragoons, an Irishman of astonishing might, whose sword went through helmet and head with a single blow.

First English Siege of Badajos. (May, 1811.)

Mortier now resigned the command to Latour Maubourg, who spread his foragers fifty miles abroad to gather provisions for Badajos, which General Phillipon, one of the best governors that ever defended a fortress, was with scanty means striving to prepare for a siege. Beresford, by adopting a wrong line of operations, lost time, his first bridge was swept away by floods, he passed the Guadiana with some difficulty at Jerumenha, and a squadron of the 13th Dragoons was carried off bodily by the French at that place; but he reduced Olivenza, drove Latour Maubourg into the Morena, and defeated two regiments of cavalry near Usagre: he however neglected to restrain the garrison of Badajos, by which he gave Phillipon time and license to prepare for resistance—a great error and pregnant with terrible consequences. His field operations were inadequate to his means, for he was not only master of the open country with his own troops, but had been joined by the captain-general Castaños with the fifth Spanish army, and was in communication with Ballesteros and Blake, co-operating Spanish generals, at the head of considerable bodies. In this state he was first reinforced with a German brigade from Lisbon under General Alten, and then Wellington arrived from the north.

He came the 21st of April and immediately changed the direction of the warfare. Looking to Badajos, and feeling the value of time, he instantly forded the Guadiana and pushed close to it with the German troops and some Portuguese cavalry, to take a convoy going into the place, but the governor sallied, the convoy escaped, and the allies lost a hundred men. Beresford had been contemptuous of Soult’s power and resolution to disturb the siege; but Wellington had learned to respect that marshal’s energy and resources, and knowing well he would come with strength and danger, refused to invest the place until the Spanish generals consented to the following co-operation. Blake to bring his army from Ayamonte, and in concert with Ballesteros and the cavalry of Castaños to watch the passes of the Morena. Castaños, furnishing three battalions for the siege, to support the other Spanish generals. The British covering troops to be in second line having their point of concentration for battle at Albuera, a village centrically placed with respect to the roads leading from Andalusia to Badajos. While awaiting the Spaniards’ consent he prepared the means of siege, yet under great difficulties.

The Portuguese government had reported that guns, provisions, boats, stores and means of carriage had been actually collected for the operation: this was false. The battering train and stores for the attack had therefore to be taken from Elvas, and as it was essential for the safety of the fortress to preserve its armament, and the Guadiana had again carried away the bridge at Jerumenha, that direct line of communication was given up for the circuitous one of Merida, where a stone bridge rendered all safe. But then political difficulties arose. The Portuguese government was on the point of declaring war against Spain, which made the Spanish generals delay assent to the plan of co-operation, and in the midst of this confusion Massena’s advance recalled Wellington to fight the battle of Fuentes Onoro.

As Latour Maubourg still held on to Estremadura and foraged the fertile districts, Colonel Colborne, a man of singular talent for war, was sent with a brigade of infantry, some horsemen and guns to curb his inroads. In concert with Count Penne Villemur, a commander of Spanish cavalry, he intercepted several convoys, forced the French troops to quit many frontier towns, and acted with so much address, that Latour Maubourg went into the Morena, thinking a great force was at hand. Colborne then attempted to surprise the fortified post of Benelcazar. Riding on to the drawbridge in the grey of the morning, he summoned the commandant to surrender, as the only means of saving himself from a Spanish army which was coming up and would give no quarter; the French officer was amazed at the appearance of the party, yet hesitated, whereupon Colborne, perceiving he would not yield, galloped off under a few straggling shot and soon after rejoined the army without loss. During his absence, the Spanish generals had acceded to Wellington’s proposition, Blake was in march, the Guadiana had subsided and the siege was undertaken.

General William Stewart invested Badajos the 5th of May, on the left bank of the Guadiana, where the principal features were an ancient castle and some out-works.

On the 8th General Lumley invested Christoval, an isolated fort or citadel, on the other bank of the Guadiana, which commanded the bridge; but this operation was not well combined, and sixty French dragoons, moving under the fire of the place, maintained a sharp skirmish beyond the walls.

Thus the first serious siege undertaken by the British army in the Peninsula was commenced, and, to the discredit of the English government, no army was ever worse provided for such an enterprise. The engineers were zealous, and some of them well versed in the theory of their business, but the ablest trembled at their utter destitution. Without sappers and miners, or a soldier who knew how to carry on an approach under fire, they were compelled to attack a fortress defended by the most practised and scientific troops of the age; hence the best officers and boldest soldiers were forced to sacrifice themselves in a lamentable manner, to compensate for the negligence and incapacity of a government always ready to plunge into war without the slightest care for what was necessary to obtain success. The sieges carried on by the British in Spain were a succession of butcheries, because the commonest materials and means necessary for their art were denied to the engineers.

To breach the castle, while batteries established on the right bank of the Guadiana took it in reverse, and false attacks were made against the out-works, was the plan adopted; but San Christoval was to be reduced before the batteries against the castle could be constructed; wherefore on the night of the 8th, the captain of engineers, Squire, was ordered to break ground there at a distance of four hundred yards. The moon shone bright, he was ill provided with tools, and exposed to a destructive fire of musketry from the fort, of shot and shells from the town; hence he worked with loss until the 10th, and then the French in a sally entered his battery; they were driven back, but the allies pursued too hotly, were caught with grape and lost four hundred men. Thus five engineers and seven hundred officers and soldiers of the line were already inscribed upon the bloody list of victims offered to this Moloch, and only one small battery against an outwork was completed! On the 11th it opened, and before sunset the fire of the enemy had disabled four of its five guns and killed many soldiers. No other result could be expected. The concert essential to success in double operations had been neglected by Beresford. Squire was exposed to the undivided fire of the fortress before the approaches against the castle were even commenced, and the false attacks scarcely attracted the notice of the enemy.

To check future sallies a second battery was erected against the bridge-head, yet this was also overmatched, and Beresford, having received intelligence that the French army was again in movement, then arrested the progress of all the works. On the 12th, believing this information premature, he directed the trenches to be opened against the castle; but the intelligence was confirmed at twelve o’clock in the night, and measures were taken to raise the siege.

Battle of Albuera. (May, 1811.)

Soult had resolved to succour Badajos the moment he heard that Beresford was in Estremadura, and the latter’s tardiness gave him time to tranquillise his province and arrange a system of resistance to the allied army in the Isla during his absence. Beresford believed he was trembling for Andalusia. Nothing could be more fallacious. He had seventy thousand fighting men there, and Drouet, who had quitted Massena immediately after the battle of Fuentes Onoro, was in march for that province with eleven thousand, by the way of Toledo.

On the 10th of May Soult quitted Seville with three thousand heavy dragoons, thirty guns, and two strong brigades of infantry under the generals Werlé and Godinot.

The 13th a junction was effected with Latour Maubourg, who assumed the command of the heavy cavalry, resigning the fifth corps to General Girard.

On the 14th, having reached Villa Franca, thirty miles from Badajos, Soult caused his heaviest guns to fire salvos in the night to notify his approach to the garrison. This expedient failed, but on the evening of the 15th the whole French army was concentrated at Santa Marta.

Beresford had raised the siege in the night of the 12th, against the wish of the chief engineer, who promised him the place in three days! This promise was nought, and had it been good Soult would yet have surprised him in his trenches: his firmness therefore saved the army, and his arrangements for carrying off the stores were well executed. By twelve o’clock on the 15th the guns and stores were on the left bank of the Guadiana, the gabions and fascines were burnt, the flying-bridge removed; all being so well masked by the fourth division, which in concert with the Spaniards continued to maintain the investment, that a sally on the rear-guard, in which some Portuguese picquets were roughly treated, first told the French the siege was raised—of the cause they were still ignorant.

Beresford held a conference with the Spanish generals at Valverde on the 13th, and the chief command was ceded to him by the management of Castaños, to the discontent of Blake, who soon showed his ill-will. It was agreed to receive battle at the village of Albuera. Ballesteros’ and Blake’s corps had then united, and Blake engaged to bring them into line before twelve o’clock on the 15th. Meanwhile, Badajos being the centre of an arc sweeping through Valverde, Albuera and Talavera Real, it was arranged that Blake should watch the roads on the right; the British and fifth Spanish army those leading upon the centre, and Madden’s Portuguese cavalry those on the left. The main body of the British could thus reach Albuera by a half march, as no part of the arc was more than four leagues from Badajos, and the enemy was still eight leagues from Albuera: Beresford therefore, thinking he could not be forestalled on any point of importance, kept the fourth division in the trenches.

On the 14th Colborne rejoined the army, Madden took post at Talavera Real, Blake was in march and his dragoons had joined the Anglo-Portuguese cavalry under General Long, who was at Santa Marta.

In the morning of the 15th the Anglo-Portuguese army occupied the left half of the Albuera position, a ridge four miles long, having the stream of the Aroya Val de Sevilla in rear and the Albuera in front. The ascent from the last river was easy for cavalry and artillery, and in advance of the centre were the bridge and village of Albuera—the former commanded by a battery, the latter occupied by Alten’s Germans. Behind Alten, the second division, under William Stewart, formed one line, the right on a commanding hill over which the Valverde road passed, the left on the road of Badajos, beyond which the array was continued on two lines by the Portuguese troops under Hamilton and Collins.

The right of the ground being roughest, highest, and broadest, was left open for Blake, because Beresford, thinking the hill on the Valverde road the key of the position as covering the only line of retreat, was desirous to secure it with his own troops. The fourth division and the infantry of the fifth Spanish army were still before Badajos, but had orders to march on the first signal.

About three o’clock on the evening of the 15th, Beresford being on the left, the whole mass of the allied cavalry, closely followed by the French light horsemen, came pouring in from Santa Marta, and finding no infantry beyond the Albuera to support them passed that river in retreat. The wooded heights on the right bank being thus abandoned to the enemy, his force and dispositions were effectually concealed and the strength of the position was already sapped. Beresford was disquieted, he formed a temporary right wing with his cavalry and artillery, stretched his picquets along the road by which Blake was expected, and sent officers to hasten his movements; that general had only a few miles of good road to march and promised to be in line at noon, yet did not even bring up his van before eleven at night, nor his rear before three in the morning.

Cole and Madden were now called up. The order failed to reach Madden; but Cole brought the infantry of the fifth army, two squadrons of Portuguese cavalry, and two brigades of his own division to Albuera between eight and nine o’clock on the morning of the 16th: his third brigade having invested San Christoval was unable to pass the Guadiana above Badajos, and was in march by Jerumenha. Cole’s Spanish troops joined Blake on the right, the two brigades of the fourth division were drawn up in columns behind the second division, the Portuguese squadrons reinforced Colonel Otway, whose horsemen, of the same nation, were pushed forwards in front of the left wing: all the rest of the allied cavalry was concentrated behind the centre, and Beresford, dissatisfied with General Long, gave Lumley the chief command.

Thirty thousand infantry, more than two thousand cavalry, and thirty-eight pieces of artillery, eighteen being nine-pounders, were now in line; but one brigade of the fourth division was still absent, the British infantry, the pith and strength of battle, did not exceed seven thousand, and already Blake’s arrogance was shaking Beresford’s authority. The French had forty guns, four thousand veteran cavalry and nineteen thousand chosen infantry: obedient to one discipline, animated by one national feeling, their composition compensated for the want of numbers, and their general’s talent was immeasurably greater than his adversary’s.