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WELLINGTON’S BLOCKADE OF CIUDAD RODRIGO.
AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 1811
When Marmont, before the end of the second week of July, had taken his departure from the valley of the Guadiana, and had begun to disperse his army in cantonments on both sides of the Tagus, Wellington was able to review his own situation at leisure, and to think out a new plan of operations. The Army of Portugal had settled down in a central position, from which it could transfer itself with equal facility to reinforce the 5th Corps in Estremadura, if the Allies should make another move against Badajoz, or the troops of Dorsenne in the kingdom of Leon, if any attempt were made to strike at Ciudad Rodrigo and Salamanca. Marmont had placed one division (Foy’s) and a cavalry brigade at Truxillo, to keep up the communication across the mountains with the 5th Corps. He had established his own head quarters at Navalmoral, near Almaraz, and had three divisions in his immediate neighbourhood along the Tagus. The remaining two, which completed his army, were placed, one at Plasencia, the other in the province of Avila, somewhat more to the north, so as to command the passes into the kingdom of Leon, by which the army would have to move to join the Army of the North, supposing that Wellington took the offensive on the Agueda and the Tormes. In this position the Marshal remained, in an expectant attitude, for some ten weeks. The period of repose was very grateful to him, since he had taken his army to the relief of Badajoz in haste, before it was fully reorganized, and was anxiously expecting the arrival of the drafts and convalescents whom he had left behind him, and—what was still more important—a great supply of remounts to strengthen his depleted cavalry, and of gun teams to bring his batteries up to the total of eighty pieces, which had been prescribed by the Emperor as his proper complement. He was aware that orders had been issued from Paris that the Army of the North was to make over to him 500 artillery horses, and that nearly a thousand cavalry were coming from Bayonne, whither the 3rd and 4th squadrons of each of his dragoon regiments had been sent back in May to pick up new chargers. General Vandermaesen, as he was informed by a dispatch from Berthier dated July 10th, was to be at Burgos by August 15th, with 850 remounted dragoons, 1,100 artillery horses, and 6,000 drafts and recruits for the infantry. But, as so often happened in Spain, this great reinforcement had not turned up even by the middle of September; for though the troops had started from Bayonne, great numbers of them were detained on the way, not only by Dorsenne, but by mere post-commanders and chiefs of small garrisons, who presumed to lay hands on them because they thought themselves threatened by some movement of the Navarrese or Cantabrian guerrilleros. Vandermaesen got to Burgos, but could not collect more than half of the column which he was directed to take to the Army of Portugal, and so did not start. The divisions in the field received no appreciable reinforcements till September was far advanced. Meanwhile Marmont used the troops which lay immediately round his head quarters to construct an important group of permanent fortifications about Almaraz, the chief passage of the Tagus. The flying-bridge there was replaced by a strong bridge of boats, protected at each end by a closed work, partly in stone, partly in earth; the one was called Fort Ragusa, the other Fort Napoleon. In addition, the defile in the mountains, by which the road descends on to Almaraz, was protected by a third structure called Fort Mirabete, from the neighbouring village. This group of works gave the French a stronger hold on the central Tagus than they had ever possessed before, and the permanent bridge was invaluable, since it permitted troops to go south or north at a much greater rate than had been possible when, as hitherto, they had to be ferried over on a mere pontoon worked with ropes. Orders came from Paris that a similar passage, protected by a fortified post, was to be established at Alcantara, sixty miles further down the river, where the broken Roman bridge invited repair. But this was quite beyond Marmont’s power—the position was far too near the Portuguese border to be maintained save by a large garrison, which would have required revictualling at frequent intervals, for the neighbouring region, always desolate, was now absolutely depeopled. When Wellington had large bodies of troops at Castello Branco and Portalegre, while there was no solid force of the Army of Portugal nearer than Navalmoral, it would have been too risky to expose a detachment at Alcantara. The ruined remains of the mediaeval fortress there, which had been knocked to pieces in the old War of the Spanish Succession, could not have been patched up so as to resist artillery of the lightest sort.
Marmont had the greatest difficulty in maintaining his army in the region which it now occupied. The western part of the kingdom of New Castile was (as Wellington had found in the Talavera campaign) almost incapable of feeding a large force. The Vera of Plasencia was the only district which sufficed for itself even in time of peace. Normally food would have been drawn from the direction of Toledo, Aranjuez, and Madrid. But this district was in the occupation of the Army of the Centre, and King Joseph protested in the most lively fashion at being expected to furnish all the supplies for Marmont’s force, over which he was denied control, and with which he seems to have felt himself little concerned. New Castile barely sufficed for his own needs, and when an Imperial decree proclaimed that the districts of Toledo, Avila, and Talavera were removed from his sphere of command and placed at the disposition of the Army of Portugal, he considered that his brother had broken the pledges which had been made to him during his short visit to Paris, for in this bargain it had been stipulated that armies entering his sphere of activity came under his command. Before evacuating the ceded districts, he withdrew all the movable stores and munitions; Marmont declares that at Toledo the royal officials sold all the corn in the magazines to private persons, just before the arrival of his own commissaries, and handed over empty vaults to the new-comers.
Even with the resources of the provinces of Avila and Toledo at its disposition, the Army of Portugal only lived from hand to mouth, and was unable to accumulate magazines of any importance. The transport of the food-stuffs was the great problem; the army had practically no vehicles left—as Marmont observed in one of his dispatches to Berthier, he had received over from Masséna about ten waggons only—all the rest that had belonged to the three corps that had marched into Portugal had been left behind on the mountain roads between Santarem and Sabugal in March. Country carts might have been requisitioned in the valley of the Tagus at an early stage of the war, but by 1811 they had entirely disappeared, along with the oxen that had drawn them. The population had mostly vanished, and the fraction that remained was in a condition of abject misery from Talavera as far as the Portuguese border. Marmont calls the country from Almaraz to Merida ‘a horrible wilderness.’ He calculated that the whole of the Avila-Plasencia-Talavera region could barely feed 15,000 men, and that the rest of his army only subsisted by drawing on the comparatively intact Toledo district.
Of all this trouble on the part of his immediate adversary Wellington was aware, through intercepted dispatches, as well as through the reports sent in to him by the Spaniards. And the facts that Marmont had been forced to disperse his army into cantonments extending from Truxillo to Avila, and had no magazines of any size, formed important data in his calculations. It would clearly take many days to assemble the whole Army of Portugal—whether it were required on the Guadiana or on the Tormes. At the same time Marmont, by his march in June to join Soult, had shown himself a general of energy and decision, and it must be taken for granted that, if there was good reason for him to move, he would do so, as quickly as the difficulties of supply would permit him. His force, which Wellington very accurately calculated at about 30,000 infantry and 3,500 horse, or some 36,000 men of all arms, was the central fact in all future operations. Clearly it would be moved south or north whenever necessary.
As to Soult, he had now so much on his hands in Andalusia that he was not to be feared for the present. It was known that he had left nothing in Estremadura save the 5th Corps, now under Drouet, and five or six regiments of dragoons. The troops drawn from Cordova and Granada had been taken back to Andalusia. But two divisions were hunting Blake and Ballasteros in the Condado de Niebla. The disposable remainder must be very small. Soult therefore might be neglected as an enemy capable of taking the offensive. If, however, the Anglo-Portuguese army were to invade Andalusia, an operation which some of Wellington’s subordinates had suggested to him as a possibility, the Duke of Dalmatia would certainly raise the siege of Cadiz, probably abandon Granada, and march against the Allies with a force which, including the 5th Corps, would be 60,000 strong. Wherefore offensive action in this quarter could not be thought of, all the more so because Marmont, if nothing was left opposite him on the Tagus, might come down by Merida, threaten Elvas and Abrantes, and perhaps take the Allies in the rear after they had crossed the Sierra Morena.
Nor was the idea of renewing the siege of Badajoz, during Soult’s absence, tempting. The place could certainly be beset; but in ten days or so Marmont and the 12,000 men of the 5th Corps would have united to relieve it, and their joint force would be nearly equal in total numbers to the Anglo-Portuguese and superior to them in cavalry. ‘Any success which we might derive from a general action, to which I might bring the Army of Portugal and the 5th Corps, would not be very decisive; on the other hand the loss which we would sustain by the heat of the weather, and by the length of the marches which we should be obliged to make would be very great.’ But the main objection to a renewal of the siege of Badajoz was not the prospect of a pitched battle, but the impossibility of sitting down to a leaguer in the valley of the Guadiana at a time when it was known to be absolutely pestilential. Already on the Caya the army had begun to suffer from the well-known Guadiana fever, and its spread had only been stopped by moving the troops back to the healthy towns in the highlands.
Wellington therefore ruled out of the list of possible operations any movement to the south of the Tagus. There remained only the chance of making another attempt on Ciudad Rodrigo, and from the end of July onward this was the project which was engrossing his attention. To make a move in this direction would certainly draw Marmont from the Tagus, and cause him to unite with the Army of the North for the relief of the fortress. But Wellington thought that he would prefer this combination among his enemies to the other one, which would ensue if he were to make his stroke in Estremadura. He gave three reasons to Lord Liverpool for the preference: the first was that in a campaign on the frontiers of Leon he would have the assistance of all the militia of northern Portugal for subsidiary operations. The second was that the ground would be much more in his favour—he would have behind him not the broad plains of the Alemtejo, but the rugged spurs of the Serra da Estrella, where strong positions abounded, and where the numerous French cavalry would be as useless as they had proved during the campaign of Bussaco in the preceding year. The third advantage was that to draw Marmont into Leon separated him from Soult by the whole breadth of central Spain, and disconnected the operations of the two main French forces. For the Army of the North was a less formidable body than the Army of Andalusia, because it was scattered over an even greater extent of territory. Nor were its distractions less than those of Soult: the Galicians and Asturians, Longa, Porlier, and Mina, and all the guerrilleros of Old Castile, were in existence to keep this French force constantly harassed. In their way they were more effective as irritants than Blake, Ballasteros, and the Murcians had proved to be in the south.
Wellington was not at this moment, the end of July, aware that the Army of the North was about to receive reinforcements, which would make it far more formidable in the autumn. He could not yet know that the divisions of Souham, Reille, and Caffarelli were about to be thrown across the Pyrenees, and that the first of them would be in the front line during the operations of September. Even by August he was only aware in a vague fashion that more French troops were expected at Vittoria from Bayonne, and supposed them to be about 10,000 or 11,000 strong, while they were really three full divisions of over 30,000 men. By the end of the month he was better informed—but by that time his operations had begun, and it was too late to make a change.
Even from the first, however, Wellington was disposed to believe that no great results would follow from a move against Ciudad Rodrigo. ‘I am tempted to try this enterprise,’ he wrote to Lord Liverpool before he had begun his march, ‘but I beg your Lordship to observe that I may be obliged to abandon it. When the relative force of the two armies will be so nearly balanced as in this, and particularly in an operation in the Peninsula of Spain, it is impossible for me to foresee all the events which may lead to this result. But the arrival of reinforcements to the enemy, or further information, which may show them to be stronger than I now imagine, or a falling off in the strength of our army owing to sickness, would necessarily oblige me to abandon the enterprise.’ Later comments are in the same cautious tone: on August 9 Wellington thinks it ‘more than ever doubtful whether he will be in a situation to undertake the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo’—but the movement may afford an opportunity of striking an advantageous blow, and cause the enemy, at least, to draw off troops from corners of the Peninsula where they are badly wanted.
Long before the army began to move towards the Agueda and the frontiers of Leon, Wellington had given the preliminary order which committed him to the project of attacking Rodrigo. He had at last received from England the heavy battering-train of siege artillery, which would have been invaluable in May for the breaching of Badajoz. It was on shipboard in Lisbon harbour. He directed it to be taken round by sea to Oporto, sent up the Douro in boats as far as Lamego—where lay the limit of river navigation—and then to be sent forward by detachments to Trancoso, in the northern Beira, where he intended to establish his base dép?t. Nearly 400 pairs of draught bullocks and about 900 country carts were to be collected at Lamego for the transport. The charge of the whole operation was given to Alexander Dickson, whose energetic management of the very inefficient siege artillery at Badajoz had inspired Wellington with a strong belief in his resourcefulness, and his power of getting the largest possible amount of work out of the Portuguese, military and civilians alike.
Dickson started at once for Oporto, where he found two companies of British artillery which had been sent from Lisbon, and picked up somewhat later 300 Portuguese gunners, who were also placed at his disposition. With their aid he began shipping up to Lamego the guns and ammunition from the transports. So long as the transport was by water, matters went slowly but easily, but the land voyage from Lamego onwards turned out a heart-rending business, from the badness of the roads and the difficulty of collecting cattle for draught. Dickson prevailed upon Wellington in the end to make Villa da Ponte, rather than Trancoso, his central dép?t—the town in the hills proving less convenient than the large village fifteen miles further north. All through August and September material was accumulating at Villa da Ponte, but it was never sent forward, because, as the campaign worked out, no regular siege of Ciudad Rodrigo ever became possible. Wellington would not show his battering-train until it was certain that he could turn it to good use, and kept it hidden far to the rear of his fighting-line. It was only gradually that part of it began to be moved up to Almeida, ostensibly to serve for the re-armament of that fortress, where the damage done by the two explosions carried out by Brennier and Pack had been repaired. It was not to be till December that the guns landed at Oporto in August were employed. But all through the autumn Wellington’s movements were greatly influenced by the fact that he had now a large and efficient siege-train ready, in a position from which it could be sent forward the moment that a fair opportunity should offer itself. It was the existence of Dickson’s park at Villa da Ponte, as much, or more, than any other factor in the situation, that kept Wellington on the frontiers of Leon watching for his chance. It would seem that his caution was justified—the French never quite realized that he was ready to attack Rodrigo in the most effective style, when they should give him the opportunity that he lacked, by dispersing their armies in a way which rendered rapid concentration impossible.
The march of the seven divisions which were destined for service on the Agueda and the Azava began in the first week of August. The Light Division and Arentschildt’s cavalry, moving up from Castello Branco, were at Sabugal on the 8th and occupied Martiago, beyond the Agueda and close to Rodrigo, on the 10th. On the following day Wellington in person led a reconnaissance right up to the walls of the fortress, and drove in all the French outposts. The blockade was then established by the Light Division on the left bank of the Agueda, and the 3rd Division on the right, the head quarters of the former being at Carpio, those of the latter at Martiago. The road north-eastward to Salamanca was only cut by means of cavalry posts and Julian Sanchez’s guerrilla bands, and the infantry did not approach within some miles of Rodrigo. Wellington’s purpose was merely to prevent the entry of provisions into the place: he had no intention of drawing close up to it and opening a siege, till he should have learnt that his battering-train should have reached Trancoso: and it would obviously be a matter of many weeks before the guns got up from Oporto. It might perhaps be argued that it would have been better not to demonstrate at all against Rodrigo, or to call the attention of Marmont and Dorsenne in this direction, till there was some possibility of opening siege-operations. For to famish the garrison must infallibly lead to a concentration of the enemy at Salamanca for its relief, and draw together a large army. Marmont was less dangerous in his scattered cantonments about the Tagus than with his forces massed on the Tormes. And there was little hope of reducing Rodrigo by famine alone; clearly the enemy would mass and fight, rather than allow it to fall unaided.
Meanwhile Wellington moved his head quarters to Fuente Guinaldo, sixteen miles south of Ciudad Rodrigo, on August 12th, and kept them there till September 24th. The divisions not engaged in the blockade were cantoned at various points to the rear. The first division lay about Penamacor: it was no longer commanded by Spencer, who had so long led it. He had gone home, ostensibly on sick leave, really because he was annoyed that General Graham had recently been ordered up from Cadiz, and was for the future to take charge of the whole left wing of the army whenever the Commander-in-Chief was absent. This responsibility had hitherto fallen to Spencer, and Wellington was not alone in thinking that he had not discharged it over well. The arrival of Graham (August 8th) was welcomed by all ranks, and for the future he assumed charge, nominally of the 1st Division, really of all the troops in the north which were not actually under the master’s eye. At any rate Graham could never be accused of dullness of apprehension or indecision, the two charges habitually made against Spencer by Wellington himself, no less than by many diarists of the time.
Not far off from the 1st Division was the 4th, under Cole, at Pedrog?o, twenty miles north-east from Castello Branco. The 5th Division, meanwhile, lay at Perales, Payo, and Navas Frias watching the passes of the Sierra de Gata, in case Marmont’s division at Plasencia should make an unexpected forward movement towards Leon by the shortest route. The 7th Division was at Villar Mayor near Sabugal and Fuente Guinaldo. Lastly, the 6th Division, more to the left and forming the northernmost section of the army, was cantoned between the Coa and the lower Agueda, from Nava de Aver as far as the bridge of Barba del Puerco. Of the cavalry, Alten’s brigade was covering the Light and 3rd Divisions in front of Ciudad Rodrigo, while the others, De Grey’s, Slade’s, and Anson’s were watching the frontier eastward from Castello Branco, with observing parties in the passes but the main bodies placed some way to the rear. The head quarters of the second brigade was at Soita near Sabugal, that of the last-named at Idanha Nova. These cantonments, it will be observed, were somewhat scattered, there being no less than eighty miles between Barba del Puerco in the north and Penamacor in the south, but Wellington calculated that he would always have long notice of any concentration of the enemy in his front, and three marches would suffice to unite the army on its centre, between Fuente Guinaldo and Alfayates, or four to concentrate it on a wing, if the French (a thing not very probable) should show signs of operating either south of the Sierra de Gata or on the lower Agueda.
It should be noted that about this time Wellington, for the first time since 1810, obtained the assistance of a Spanish force on the Beira frontier. General Casta?os, busy in reorganizing the ruined Army of Estremadura, sent Carlos de Espa?a with the cadres of several infantry regiments to the frontier of Leon, to fill them up with recruits from the province of Salamanca. The rest of his troops, under Morillo and Penne Villemur, were kept in Estremadura and continued to co-operate with Hill. But Carlos de Espa?a fixed himself at Ledesma, where he joined hands with the great partisan Julian Sanchez, and soon collected some 3,000 men, who though useless for action, being raw and not properly furnished with uniforms or arms, yet served to hold a position in front of the lower Agueda, and gave much trouble to Thiébault, the governor of Salamanca, by their sallies and incursions into his district.
For some weeks after the arrival of the army on the Beira frontier there was little stirring. The fact that Ciudad Rodrigo had been cut off from communication with Salamanca did not at first provoke the French to action, for the place was in no immediate danger of starvation. A large convoy had been thrown into the place only two days before the blockade was formed, and it was known that the allied army had no siege-train in its company. Throughout the month of August Dorsenne was much more troubled by the operations of the Galicians than by Wellington’s demonstration, while Marmont, knowing that Rodrigo was provisioned up to October, saw no reason for moving till it should be drawing nearer to the end of its resources. It was only about the middle of September that he got tardy news that there was a siege-train making its way up from Oporto, and that the British divisions behind the Agueda were making gabions and fascines. He then was stimulated to activity, and concerted a junction with Dorsenne without further delay—of which more hereafter. In August he found full occupation in the organization of the provinces of New Castile, which the Emperor had handed over to him, and was more worried by the difficulty of raising taxes and collecting magazines, and by incessant wrangles with King Joseph’s officials, than by military difficulties. All that he did was to move his head quarters to the neighbourhood of Plasencia, and to shift some of the brigades cantoned along the Tagus to the north of that river, in view of the fact that a march to relieve and revictual Ciudad Rodrigo would ultimately become necessary. Foy’s division was kept, however, at Truxillo—far to the south—till the middle of September, in order that touch might not be lost with Drouet and the Army of Andalusia. The Marshal, very rightly, scouted the idea, which some of his subordinates had formed, that Wellington’s appearance on the Beira frontier might portend a dash at Salamanca. To gain some further knowledge of the disposition of the Anglo-Portuguese he sent out several cavalry reconnaissances from Plasencia towards the Sierra de Gata. They found British outposts all along the passes, and could not get forward, though one party succeeded in capturing a picket of the 11th Light Dragoons at San Martin de Trebejos, near the Puerto de Perales, on August 14th.
The news that Marmont was shifting troops northward, towards the passes into the kingdom of Leon, induced Wellington to make a corresponding movement with his own troops, and on August 27th the 1st and 4th Divisions were ordered to prepare to move from Penamacor and Pedrog?o to the neighbourhood of Fuente Guinaldo, close to head quarters. The notion that the Army of Portugal would, at some not very distant date, march to raise the blockade of Rodrigo, was made even more certain by the capture of a dispatch in cipher from Foy to Girard, warning him that he was under orders to follow Marmont across the Tagus and abandon Truxillo. But Foy made no move for a fortnight more, and Wellington rightly concluded that he need be under no apprehension as to the concentration of the enemy, till he had received news that Truxillo had been evacuated. It was also clear that Marmont intended that Dorsenne should co-operate with him, and since that general, with all the disposable troops of the Army of the North, was beyond Astorga at the end of August, campaigning against the Galicians, there was no need to feel any alarm till this force should be known to have turned southward towards the Douro. On the third of September things began to look a little more exciting, when Dorsenne was reported to be starting from Astorga on his return journey: he made forced marches for Salamanca, where it was known that a convoy for the supply of Rodrigo was being organized. But provisions were hard to collect in Leon, and Marmont had refused to begin his march of concentration till it should be certified to him that Dorsenne was nearly ready, and that the convoy had been got together.
Hence it was not till September 17th that the time of crisis began. On this day Wellington received the news that Foy had evacuated Truxillo on the 15th, and that Montbrun’s cavalry was crossing the sierra by the Puerto de Ba?os, with infantry columns following in its rear. On the previous day an intercepted letter informed him that the Salamanca convoy was to be ready on September 21st. If Dorsenne had stopped in front of the Galicians, or if Marmont had been moving with only part of his troops, Wellington would have prepared to fight a battle beyond the Agueda. But it was clear from several intercepted dispatches that the Armies of Portugal and the North were about to unite in full force, and, as the British general remarked in a letter which lapsed into unwonted jocularity, ‘The devil is in the French for numbers’. He had got to know that Souham’s strong division had come to the front to join Dorsenne, and that the guard-divisions, of Roguet and Dumoustier, with their attendant cavalry and artillery made up 15,000 men, and not 7,000 as he had hitherto supposed. It was possible, nay probable, that the Army of the North would put at least 25,000 men into the field for the combined movement now pending, and Marmont, if he came in full force, might bring 35,000 more. It was impossible to stop such a mass of men in the plain east of Rodrigo, where the ground was all suited to cavalry operations, and where no good defensive positions were to be found. If the enemy were determined to relieve the place he could certainly accomplish his desire.
Wellington had a little more than 46,000 men under his hand at this moment. The total should have been higher, but all the newly arrived detachments had been in the Walcheren expedition, and the heat of the Spanish summer had brought out the fever which lurked in the bodies of the men who had served in that pestilential spot. Battalions which had landed at Lisbon in June with 700 or 800 men had gone down to 400 or 500 bayonets in September, though the marches had not been heavy. Nor had the old Peninsular regiments escaped a touch of Guadiana fever during their stay near Elvas in July. Wherefore there were no less than 14,000 sick in the British army at this moment, and the force present under arms in the seven divisions on the Beira frontier was (excluding the Portuguese) only 29,000 sabres and bayonets. Of the Portuguese the seven infantry and two cavalry brigades serving with the main army made up about 17,000 men more. With 46,000 men Wellington refused to offer battle beyond the Agueda to the combined French forces, which might well amount to 60,000 men, and could not be less than 53,000 or 55,000. But he was determined not to retire an inch further from Rodrigo than was necessary, being convinced that the enemy could only remain concentrated for a few days, and could have no serious intention of invading Portugal. Though he might not be able to fight in the open plain, he was prepared to defend himself in the skirts of the mountains, if the French should push out beyond Rodrigo. Here he had two positions already selected, the first at Fuente Guinaldo, where the rugged ground begins, the second by Rendo and Alfayates, in front of Sabugal, which was far more formidable: this was the ground which Spencer had been told to take up in April, when he had been left opposite Masséna during Wellington’s absence at Badajoz. The Guinaldo position, being less defensible by nature, was to be rendered strong by art. During its stay there in September the 4th Division sketched out an entrenched camp along the hills, but only two redoubts and some long lines of trench had been completed when the crisis came at the end of the month.
Meanwhile Wellington did not intend to retire on Guinaldo, much less on the Rendo-Alfayates position, unless he were forced to do so. He thought it likely that Marmont and Dorsenne would content themselves with relieving Rodrigo, and would push no further. Wherefore he directed that Picton and Craufurd, the generals in command of the two blockading divisions, should leave the Salamanca road open, when the French appeared in strength, but should not give back from the immediate neighbourhood of the fortress unless they were attacked in force. Craufurd might get behind the Vadillo, a torrent which falls into the Agueda five miles above Rodrigo. Picton was to occupy the isolated plateau on which lie the villages of El Bodon and Pastores, five or six miles south of Rodrigo. Here they were to stand, and to see what the enemy intended to do; probably they would have to retreat no further. This disposition, which was founded on a false psychological estimate of the character of Marmont, was to lead to trouble. The Marshal was more enterprising than Wellington had calculated, and (as affairs turned out) it would have been safer to concentrate the whole army on the Fuente Guinaldo position the moment that the Armies of Portugal and the North appeared in front of Ciudad Rodrigo.
EL BODON AND ALDEA DA PONTE.
SEPTEMBER 1811
The long-threatened advance of the French for the relief of Ciudad Rodrigo began at last on September 22nd, when Marmont brought all the infantry of the Army of Portugal, save the single division of Foy, across the Sierra de Gata, and appeared with his vanguard at Tamames, the little town on the Leonese side of the mountains where del Parque had beaten Marchand in 1809. Foy alone had been left in New Castile, with orders to demonstrate from his base at Plasencia against Wellington’s posts between Castello Branco and Sabugal, where (as it will be remembered) the 5th Division was lying, placed on this side for the express purpose of warding off any attempt to strike at the communications of the allied army.
On the day that Marmont with five divisions of infantry and Montbrun’s cavalry began to debouch from Tamames, his colleague Dorsenne had brought forward the disposable portion of the Army of the North to San Mu?oz, a long march in front of Salamanca, and was in easy touch with the Army of Portugal. Dorsenne had concentrated four divisions of infantry—the two of the Imperial Guard under Roguet and Dumoustier, Souham’s newly arrived battalions, and the division so long commanded by Serras, but now under General Thiébault, the governor of Salamanca, which had been lying about the Esla and the Orbigo ever since 1809. He had also with him two brigades of cavalry, Lepic’s 800 sabres of the Imperial Guard, and Wathier’s chasseurs. The two armies joined on the 23rd, and showed a formidable total, larger than that which Masséna had collected for the battle of Fuentes de O?oro. For Marmont had brought 25,000 foot and over 2,500 horse, and Dorsenne a slightly larger contingent, about 27,000 infantry and 2,000 sabres. This heavy force of 58,000 men, if artillery be reckoned in, was, as Wellington had always foreseen, more than the Anglo-Portuguese army could face. For including the division south of the Sierra de Gata, which was protecting the southern communications of the army, Wellington had with him as we have seen no more than 2,200 British and 900 Portuguese cavalry, about 25,000 British and 16,000 Portuguese infantry, or a total strength (including artillery, &c.) of about 46,000 officers and men of all arms. The risk of fighting in the open plain in front of Ciudad Rodrigo would clearly be too great, though by a retreat into the Portuguese mountains it would be possible to find a position which should compensate for the numerical deficiency of the allied army. If the French should press forward, it would clearly be necessary to retire on to better battle-ground, and Wellington’s ready eye had found two successive positions, as we have already stated, the one at Fuente Guinaldo on the foot-hills, the other between Rendo and Aldea Velha, in front of Sabugal, well within the mountains.
Meanwhile it remained to be seen whether the French, with the large force that they had collected, would content themselves with throwing a new convoy into Ciudad Rodrigo, a thing that could not be prevented, or whether they intended to press the allied army hard, and to endeavour to bring it to action—in which case the retreat into the hills would become necessary. On the morning of the 23rd Wellington, perfectly informed as to the position of the enemy, and fairly well able to estimate their numbers, wrote to Charles Stuart, ‘the French have not yet appeared, but I think they will before evening. I shall have my hands very full of business for the next three or four days.’ They were to be fuller than was convenient, and partly by his own fault.
On learning that Marmont and Dorsenne were at San Mu?oz with over 50,000 men, Wellington, if he had practised his accustomed caution, would have concentrated on Fuente Guinaldo, withdrawing the two divisions which lay close into Ciudad Rodrigo, the Light Division at Martiago, the 3rd Division on the heights by El Bodon and Pastores. It would have been sufficient to leave a cavalry screen as close to the blockaded fortress as was practicable. But for once he showed an unwonted tendency to take dangerous risks. He did not wish to fall back unless he were pressed, and he thought it extremely probable that the enemy had no further design than to revictual Rodrigo. Refusing to give up valuable ground unless he were forced to do so, he left Craufurd and Picton in their advanced positions all through the 23rd and 24th of September. He did not call Graham and the 1st and 6th Divisions in from the left, where their present position on the Azava covered the road to Almeida and the valuable accumulation of artillery stores at Villa da Ponte. Nor did he bring up the 7th Division to his head quarters at Fuente Guinaldo, where he lay for these two days with the 4th Division alone.
The cavalry at the head of the French column appeared in the plain beyond Ciudad Rodrigo on the 23rd, as Wellington had expected, and communicated with the place. It was in no way hindered, as the British cavalry fell back beyond the Agueda by order, and left the Salamanca road open. On the 24th a very large force was up—observers on the heights of Pastores saw a great mass of cavalry in the plain below them, and four divisions of infantry, one of which was made out by telescopes to belong to the Imperial Guard, from its high plumes and bearskins. It was presently discovered that an even larger mass was close behind, encamped on the Guadapero stream, beyond the low hills which lie east of Ciudad Rodrigo. But on this day the enemy, though he had some 4,000 cavalry in his front line, made no attempt to push forward either against Picton or against Craufurd. This quiescence on his adversary’s part evidently made Wellington conclude that he need fear nothing, that the French had come merely to revictual their garrison, not to take the offensive against the allied army. He left his divisions in the scattered posts which they were occupying, with sixteen miles between Graham on the left and Craufurd on the right. And he neglected the fact that his concentration point at Fuente Guinaldo was only fifteen miles from Ciudad Rodrigo, where the leading section of the French army, over 20,000 strong as he had seen, was already encamped. If it should march suddenly forward on the 25th, the 3rd Division was only five miles from its outposts, on the heights of Pastores and El Bodon, and there was no other division save the 4th placed directly to cover Fuente Guinaldo. If the flank divisions were called in on an alarm, Graham was fifteen miles from Fuente Guinaldo, Craufurd eleven, on the other side of a river with few fords. And by the time that they could concentrate, the French van might be supported by the large reserves which were known to be lying behind Ciudad Rodrigo. It is one of the best-known axioms of war that the concentration point of a scattered army must not be within one short march of the base from which the opponent can strike.
Wellington was so far right in his judgement of the enemy’s designs, that it was true that Marmont had come forward without any definite intention of forcing on a fight, or of advancing far into Portugal. His subsequent offensive move, however, was provoked by his discovery that the allied army was quite close to him, but wholly unconcentrated. On the morning of the 25th it occurred to the Marshal that it would be desirable to find out by reconnaissance whether Wellington had been making any provision for a regular siege of Ciudad Rodrigo—whether he had been collecting fascines and gabions in the neighbouring villages, or had brought up heavy artillery close to his blockading line. If this should turn out to be the case, the knowledge of it would have a serious effect on all the future movements of the Army of Portugal. For a siege is a different thing from a blockade, and, if Rodrigo were in danger of actual leaguer, his own army would have to canton itself in regions less remote from the Portuguese frontier than those which it had hitherto occupied.
Dorsenne was persuaded to assist the Army of Portugal in a great reconnaissance, which was to push back Wellington’s cavalry screen and see what lay behind it. In the morning of September 25th the two cavalry brigades of the Army of the North went out on the Carpio-Espeja roads to sweep the line of the Azava, with Wathier in command. At the same time Montbrun took the bulk of the cavalry of Marmont, two brigades of dragoons and two of light horse, and advanced along the southern road, that which runs from Ciudad Rodrigo past El Bodon towards Fuente Guinaldo. Only one infantry division, that of Thiébault, the weakest in the two armies, was put under arms to support the cavalry, and even these 4,000 men did not leave the immediate vicinity of Ciudad Rodrigo—they merely crossed the Agueda and halted. The two reconnaissances brought on two separate engagements, at a distance of ten miles from each other, of which one had no importance, immediate or ulterior, while the other led to sharp fighting and revealed to the French the weakness of Wellington’s position. The cavalry screen of the allied army was formed as follows: Madden’s Portuguese division lay along the line of the lower Agueda, which was not threatened this day. Anson’s brigade held the line of the Azava, and lay across the Carpio road. Alten’s brigade was strung out along the low hills from south of Carpio to the upper Agueda near Pastores, and had one of its squadrons detached with the Light Division beyond that river, in front of Martiago. Slade’s and De Grey’s brigades were far to the rear, behind Fuente Guinaldo, in Villar de Toro and other villages along the Coa river, and only came up to the front after midday on the 25th.
Wathier’s insignificant engagement on the lower Azava may be dealt with first. About eight in the morning the pickets of the 14th Light Dragoons detected a strong column of cavalry coming out of Rodrigo, and were forced to retire from Carpio and other posts beyond the stream. The enemy could be counted from the hills above, and it was noted that they left six squadrons beside Carpio in reserve, and were advancing with eight more. These crossed the river and felt their way cautiously towards the heights. They were coming straight against the front of the 6th Division, and Graham sent out the light companies of Hulse’s brigade to line the wood which covered the position which he was holding. The two British cavalry regiments (14th and 16th Light Dragoons) gave back to the edge of the wood also, and formed up close to their infantry supports. Misliking the look of the long belt of trees which hid all from him, Wathier halted four squadrons more on the flat ground just beyond the Azava, and moved the other four towards Graham’s unseen line. This advanced guard consisted of the Lancers of Berg and the 26th Chasseurs. When they were feeling their way up the slope their leading squadron was charged and driven back by a squadron of the 14th. The main body, however, picked up the beaten unit and advanced again: when they had got close to the wood, the light companies of the 11th, 61st, and 53rd fired a volley into them, and while they stood staggered by the unexpected salute four squadrons of the 14th and 16th charged them, broke them, and chased them for two miles down to and across the Azava. The French reserve left close to that stream retired at once, covering the broken squadrons. The French lost one officer and ten men killed, and five officers and thirty-two men taken, mostly wounded. The British loss was very small—an officer and ten men wounded and one man missing.
Wathier stayed in line at Carpio, without making a further advance, till evening, and reported that the English were in position with all arms beyond the Azava, and not inclined to give way. This was important news, for, if there were infantry so far north, it was clear that Wellington had not yet concentrated his army on the Fuente Guinaldo line.
Montbrun’s reconnaissance, along the Fuente Guinaldo road, turned out a much more lively and important affair. He started out with a heavy column consisting of two brigades of his own dragoons and two of light cavalry, which came into touch with the vedettes of Alten’s brigade almost the moment that it had crossed the Agueda, for the British outposts lay within two miles of Rodrigo. Driving straight before him, Montbrun pierced the screen, and pressing up the slope found himself in the middle of the scattered fractions of the 3rd Division, which Wellington had only just begun to draw together when he saw that the reconnaissance was being made by no less than 2,500 horse. There was not time to concentrate, because the posts of Picton’s battalions were too close to the enemy, and the position was unsatisfactory. Graham, who had surveyed it a few weeks before, remarks in his diary that it was ‘by no means favourable—extensive, yet very narrow, and the right thrown back across the plain towards the ford by Pastores, where there is little advantage of ground but a bank and a little water-run.’
At the moment when Montbrun broke through the cavalry screen, Picton’s infantry was strung out on a front of six miles—the 74th and three companies of the 5/60th were at Pastores, near the Agueda, the remainder of Wallace’s brigade (the 1/45th and 1/88th) was three miles south-west of Pastores in the village of El Bodon. Colville’s brigade and the Portuguese were equally split up—the 1/5th and 77th, with the 21st Portuguese in support, being on high ground across the road from Rodrigo to Fuente Guinaldo, in the centre, while the left section of the front of the division (94th, 2/83rd and 9th Portuguese) was on lower ground, two miles west of Colville, in the direction of Campillo. Alten’s cavalry brigade, having sent a squadron of the 11th Light Dragoons to watch Craufurd’s front, beyond the Agueda, and having strong pickets out to right and left, had only 500 sabres left as its main body. These five weak squadrons (three of the 1st Hussars K.G.L., two of the 11th Light Dragoons) were across the high-road, near the 5th and 77th, and with them the two Portuguese batteries under Major Arentschildt which formed the divisional artillery of Picton.
Marmont, on discovering the scattered position of the Allies, could hardly believe that they had nothing more in his front than what he saw—four groups of two or three battalions each, with huge gaps between them. He suspected that Wellington must have reserves close behind, not thinking it likely that he would have kept infantry so close to Ciudad Rodrigo unless he were in force to resist an attack. He accordingly resolved not to send for his infantry from the rear and engage in a serious action, but to direct Montbrun to drive in one section of the hostile front with his heavy column of cavalry, and so to discover the exact strength and position of the Allies. It was lucky for Wellington that the Marshal limited his ambitions to this modest scheme. Montbrun resolved to break in the allied centre, across the high-road, and advanced up it, leaving on his left the two fractions of Wallace’s brigade in Pastores and El Bodon. If he could pierce the centre, this wing would be in a disastrous plight, being cut off from its line of retreat and its power of rejoining Wellington at Fuente Guinaldo. Accordingly the whole of the French horse came up against the position across the road, where Colville’s two battalions and Arentschildt’s batteries blocked the way, while Alten’s five squadrons were covering their flank. The contest was of an abnormal sort, 2,500 horse with one battery attacking a smaller force of all arms—1,000 infantry, 500 sabres, and two batteries.
It was most important to Wellington that the detachment across the road should not be driven in, and he gave orders that it was to hold its ground to the last possible minute, in order to allow the battalions in Pastores and El Bodon time to escape from their compromised position, and to fall into the line of retreat behind the detaining force. His command was well obeyed, and a most gallant struggle was kept up for more than an hour, under the Commander-in-Chief’s own eyes.
Montbrun came on with three columns abreast, each formed of a brigade, while a fourth brigade formed his reserve. His left column tried to turn the right of Alten’s cavalry, his centre column attacked its front, his right column, supported by a horse-artillery battery, moved up against the Portuguese guns and their infantry supports. There was fierce fighting all along the line: the allied horse, aided by the steep slope in their favour, made a wonderful fight against the superior numbers of the enemy, who had to attack in each point on a narrow front, since only parts of the hillside were open ground suitable for cavalry movements. Each time that the leading French squadron neared the crest it was charged and thrown back. The 11th and one squadron of the Germans dealt with the flank attack, the rest of the legionary hussars with that in the centre. The defence was most desperate, consisting in a long series of partial charges, in which one or more of the defending squadrons beat back the head of the hostile advance, and then retired under cover of the others. Montbrun, having six or seven regiments with him, was always able to launch a new attack up the hillside the moment that the last had been foiled. The colonel of the German hussars wrote that from first to last the enemy came on nearly forty times, yet never was allowed to reach the crest: the individual squadrons of his regiment and of the 11th had charged eight or nine times each.
Meanwhile, to the right of the plateau which the cavalry defended so gallantly, the third French cavalry column had attacked the Portuguese batteries whose fire was sweeping down the road. A dragoon brigade, though suffering heavily from the grape poured into it as the range grew close, succeeded in making its way to the guns, and burst in among them, capturing four pieces; the artillerymen had held their ground to the last, and earned Wellington’s praise for their steadiness. But the pieces were not lost; close in support of them was the first battalion of the 5th regiment under Major Ridge, who, when the hostile horsemen halted for a moment around the captured guns, attacked them without hesitation in line. The battalion advanced firing, and with three volleys broke the dragoons, who were blown with their charge and in much disorder. They recoiled down the hill in complete rout, and the Portuguese gunners were able to get their pieces in action again and resume their very effective fire. This was a rare example of a successful attack on cavalry by infantry in line: it could not have been tried against intact squadrons, for there was no flank-support for the 5th, and an enemy in good order would have turned the battalion and cut it up from the side. But Ridge saw that the French were in complete disarray, and unfit for the moment to man?uvre, wherefore he was justified in trying the dangerous-looking movement which had such complete success.
The French at last gave up their frontal attacks; it is said that when the trumpets blew for one more advance, the Allies saw the regiment at the head of the column refuse to move forward. Montbrun thereupon tried a move which he might well have made half an hour earlier; he began to extend his hitherto concentrated brigades, and thrust one of them into the gap between the hill that he could not force and the village of El Bodon.
Wellington then gave back; Picton and the two battalions in El Bodon had by this time evacuated it, and were, as ordered, on their way to the rear. The still more compromised detachment in Pastores had also got away, and was making for Fuente Guinaldo by a very circuitous road: it forded the Agueda, went ten miles on its further side, where no French were as yet visible, and then recrossed again near Robleda, joining the 4th Division at dusk.
The second period of the combat of El Bodon—to give its usual name to the engagement—was less bloody than the first, but quite as exciting. Wellington’s order of retreat was that the two batteries of Arentschildt with a cavalry escort went first, then the 21st Portuguese, which had remained in reserve all through the earlier fighting, then the 5th and 77th in a single square, and lastly two squadrons of the German hussars, which remained on the position till the last moment. This column, retreating along the high-road, had in front of it, and ultimately caught up, the other fractions of the 3rd Division, Picton’s two battalions which had come in from the right, and the 94th, 2/83rd, and 9th Portuguese, which had fallen into the road from the left. But in the first hour of the retreat these detachments had not yet been overtaken.
Montbrun pressed on fiercely, the moment that he saw that the hill so long held against him had been abandoned, and beset the retreating column on all sides as it marched along the flat. The hussars in the rear were driven in by overwhelming numbers, and had to retire to the neighbourhood of the 21st Portuguese. This left the square composed of the 5th and 77th exposed to the full force of the enemy. Montbrun caused it to be charged on three sides at once; but the British infantry showed no disorder, reserved their fire till the enemy was within thirty paces, and then executed such a regular and effective series of volleys that the dragoons were beaten off with loss, and could not close at any point. The German squadrons then turned back and charged them as they retired in disorder.
This repulse checked the French for half an hour, but presently they were up again, not only hovering round the two squares, that of the 5th and 77th and that of the 21st Portuguese, which brought up the rear, but riding all down the side of the division, which now formed one long column of march. But they dared not charge again: Montbrun merely brought up his horse-artillery battery, and plied the enemy with fire from several successive positions. It was not ineffective, but the allied infantry refused to be troubled with it, and continued to march as hard as they could along the high-road. ‘For six miles across a perfect flat,’ writes an eye-witness, ‘without the slightest protection from any incident of ground, without their artillery, and almost without cavalry (for what were five squadrons against twenty or thirty?) did the 3rd Division continue its march. During the whole time the French cavalry never quitted them: six guns were taking the division in flank and rear, pouring in a shower of round shot, grape, and canister. This was a trying and pitiable situation for troops to be placed in, but it in no way shook their courage or confidence: so far from being dispirited or cast down the men were cheerful and gay. The soldiers of my own corps, the 88th, told their officers that if the French would only charge, every officer should have a nate horse to ride upon. General Picton conducted himself with his usual coolness. He rode on the left flank of the column, and repeatedly cautioned the different battalions to mind their quarter-distance and the “tellings off.” We had at last got close to the entrenched camp at Fuente Guinaldo when Montbrun, impatient that we should escape from his grasp, ordered his troopers to bring up their right shoulders and incline towards our marching column. The movement was not exactly bringing his squadrons into line, but the next thing to it, and they were within half pistol-shot of us. Picton took off his hat, and holding it over his eyes as a shade from the sun, looked sternly but anxiously at the French. The clatter of the horses and the clanking of the sabres was so great, when the right squadrons moved up, that many thought it the preliminary to a general charge. Some mounted officer called out, “Had we not better form square?” “No,” replied Picton, “it is only a ruse to frighten us, and it won’t do.”’
Montbrun’s bolt, indeed, was shot. For by this time troops were coming out from Fuente Guinaldo to cover the retreating division, De Grey’s heavy dragoons, who had just come up from the Coa, at the head of them. The French horse slackened their pace, and finally drew off. Half an hour later the retreating column had taken up its destined position in the half-completed entrenched camp where the 4th Division was awaiting it.
This long straggling fight cost the Allies only 149 casualties. The cavalry had lost 70 men in their long fight to hold the hill, which they so long guarded, on the flank. Of the infantry the 1/5th and 77th had lost 42 men, not by the sabres of the cavalry whom they had driven off so serenely, but by the artillery fire which followed. The other eight infantry battalions of the 3rd Division, British and Portuguese, had lost only 34 men in all, mostly, it is to be presumed, by the cannonade during the retreat. The Portuguese gunners had only 5 men hurt—a light loss considering that the enemy’s dragoons had been among their pieces for five minutes.
Montbrun’s loss is nowhere accurately stated, but was probably about 200 at the least. Thirteen officers had been hit in the four brigades engaged, and though cavalry was more heavily officered in proportion to its numbers than infantry, we can hardly suppose that where 13 officers fell less than 190 rank and file were killed or wounded.
Wellington was lucky to have paid no greater price for his rash maintenance of a position so dangerously close to the walls of Ciudad Rodrigo. If Marmont had brought up infantry close behind his great cavalry force, the 3rd Division would have suffered far more; it might even have been destroyed. But there was, as we have seen, only one French infantry division under arms on the morning of the 25th, that of Thiébault. Three more were encamped beyond Rodrigo, the rest were still some miles to the rear, halting by the Guadapero river. Marmont sent for Thiébault, when he had discovered the position and the weakness of Picton’s scattered brigades. But, luckily for the British, Dorsenne had also dispatched orders to this division, which formed part of his own Army of the North. He had been alarmed at the strength of the Allies on the Azava, which Wathier had discovered, and had told Thiébault to march to his right and support the cavalry on the Carpio road. When Masséna’s aide-de-camp arrived, to hurry up this infantry, it was found to have gone off some miles to the north-west; and though promptly recalled it did not reach the ground in front of Fuente Guinaldo till late in the evening. Deprived of Thiébault’s battalions by this chance—one of the many results of a divided command—Marmont summoned up the three divisions which lay on the other side of Rodrigo. Not having been warned for service on this day, they took some time to get under arms, and more to file over the narrow bridge over the Agueda. They only reached and joined the Marshal and Montbrun a short time before Thiébault arrived. Thus all day Marmont had no infantry in hand, with which to support his cavalry. But at nightfall he had 20,000 bayonets at the front, and the five rear divisions, left hitherto on the Guadapero, were also coming up, and had reached and passed the Agueda. There would be nearly 60,000 men at the front by noon on the 26th.
Wellington’s position at Fuente Guinaldo was therefore very hazardous. When night fell on the 25th he had only assembled in the half-finished entrenchments the 3rd and 4th Divisions, Pack’s independent Portuguese brigade, and the cavalry of Alten, De Grey, and Slade, or about 15,000 men. He had sent orders to the other fractions of his army to concentrate there, but it was certain that some, and possible that others, of them would not get up on the morning of the 26th. The concentration orders had gone out too late. Graham was directed to unite the 1st and 6th Divisions and McMahon’s Portuguese at Nava de Aver, abandoning the lower Azava to a rearguard composed of Anson’s cavalry. He was, as he wrote to his brother-in-law Cathcart, ‘amazingly relieved’ to have permission to draw in towards the centre; but the orders came late and did not go far enough—at Nava de Aver, which he reached at noon on the 26th, he had 13,000 men collected, but he was still twelve miles from Fuente Guinaldo, and the road to that point by Puebla de Azava was not out of reach of molestation by the French. It was only in the afternoon that he received a second dispatch, telling him not to move on Fuente Guinaldo, but to get behind the Villar Mayor stream, and march by a circuitous route, through Villar Mayor and Bismula, to join the main army at a point more to the rear. The Commander-in-Chief had resolved to evacuate Fuente Guinaldo.
Thus, by his own fault, Wellington was short of two divisions and a brigade from his left, in the perilous afternoon hours of the 26th. And on his right also he was weak, owing to the fact that he had deliberately left Craufurd upon the Vadillo, beyond the Azava, till the 25th. At the moment when the combat of El Bodon began, tardy directions were sent to Craufurd to move the Light Division to join the army, by the ford of Carros, near Robleda, high up the Azava. For it was no longer possible for him to use the easy passage by the ford of Zamorra, close under Pastores, since the French had gained possession of it when they thrust the 3rd Division southward. Craufurd, leaving only cavalry pickets along the Vadillo river, retreated that night to Cespedosa, a few miles south of his former post at Martiago. But he refused to make a night march to the ford of Carros, because the road was rough and difficult, and he thought it likely that his column might get astray and that some or all of his baggage might be lost. Very possibly he was right, but the result of his not starting from Cespedosa till the dawn of the 26th was that, all through the long morning hours and early afternoon of that day, he was not in line at Fuente Guinaldo, where his chief wished to have him. He only got there, after a fatiguing march of 16 miles along the upper Agueda and over the ford of Carros, at four o’clock, when dusk was drawing near. Meanwhile Marmont had been, for all the day, in a position to attack Wellington with very superior numbers.
It has often been remarked, especially by French critics, that Craufurd and his men were in grave danger on the afternoon of the 25th and the morning of the 26th, since if Marmont had sent out a heavy column on the right bank of the Agueda, to push the Light Division, it would not have been able to use the ford near Robleda, and must have fallen back into the rough country at the sources of the Agueda, where it might have been overtaken, and have suffered heavily for want of a road that would have served for its baggage. The danger has been exaggerated: though the baggage might very probably have been lost, there was nothing to prevent the troops from taking to the hill-paths, and getting to Payo or the passes of Gata by some circuitous route. All that a hot pursuit could have done would have been to make Craufurd unable to reach Fuente Guinaldo, as he actually did, upon the 26th. This would, no doubt, have been something of an advantage to the French. But Marmont would have lost the services of the force sent in pursuit, which would have had to be very strong, since no mere detachment would have been able to venture near the Light Division, on pain of being brought to action and defeated.
It seems that Marmont’s quiescence in front of the half-occupied camp of Fuente Guinaldo, during the perilous hours of the morning and noon of September 26th, was caused by a reluctance to tackle Wellington when he had taken up a position and was offering battle. He writes in his Mémoires that, ‘as the day wore on, I had 40,000 men assembled, within cannon-shot of the English front. But the enemy was known to have collected if not all, at any rate a very great part of his force, and was in an entrenched position. Much tempted to take advantage of the union of the Armies of Portugal and the North, and to make a stroke for victory, I passed the day in studying the English position. Attacks made without careful preparation during the recent campaigns had succeeded so badly that I was deterred from inconsiderate action. Moreover General Dorsenne, who was only under my command accidentally and by his own consent, had no wish for a battle, and this rendered the enterprise more delicate. Then, too, if we tried our luck and were successful, we were not in a condition to make profit of a successful engagement, by pursuing the English into Portugal if they were beaten. So finally I gave up the idea of forcing on a fight.’
There is an amusing picture of Marmont’s hesitation drawn by General Thiébault in his clever but malicious autobiography. In this a very different r?le is attributed to the commander of the Army of the North: ‘At nine o’clock the Marshal and General Dorsenne rode to the front with their glittering staffs. The troops were put under arms at once. But the great men descended from their horses and got out telescopes, with which they began to study the English position. “Yes,” began the Marshal, determined to see that which was not visible, as he peered through the large glass balanced on the shoulder of one of his aides-de-camp, “Yes, my information was correct. The right of the English line is flanked by an inaccessible declivity.” General Dorsenne and I had excellent telescopes, but we could not see any such precipice. Dorsenne told the Marshal as much. Taking no notice of his remark, Marmont continued, “The whole camp is protected by closed redoubts.” Dorsenne, after exchanging some words with me, replied that he could only make out a few points at which earthworks had been thrown up. The Marshal, ignoring the observations of his interlocutor, went on, “And, just as I have been told, these closed redoubts are armed with heavy guns of position forwarded from Almeida. Nothing can be done.” He forthwith adjourned his reconnoitring, and invited the generals to a heavy and sumptuous meal, served on silver plate in front of the line. After the feast Montbrun remarked, “The English position is impregnable—the thing that proves it so is that Wellington is offering us battle upon it. We shall never make an end of him by running at him head down; that would have no good result.” Marmont soon after delivered his decision that Rodrigo, having been relieved, and the position of the English being too strong, he intended to advance no further, and should retire next day.’
If Thiébault’s report of Montbrun’s words and Marmont’s attitude be correct, it is clear that Wellington had by mere ‘bluffing’ brought the enemy to a standstill. He was using the reputation for caution which he had gained in his former campaigns as a moral weapon. The syllogism, ‘Wellington never fights save when he has his army in hand, and has found a good position; he offers to fight now; therefore he feels himself safe against any attack,’ seemed a legitimate logical process to Marmont and Montbrun. So the English general had hoped; but he did not know how entirely successful his demonstration had been; and thought that the reconnaissance followed by a halt, which he had observed in the morning, meant that the enemy was going to bring up his last reserves before attacking. The rear divisions of the Army of Portugal were seen to arrive in the French lines when the day was far spent. Wellington supposed that Marmont had been waiting for them, and would use them for a great combined attack on the 27th. He had no intention of awaiting it, even though the Light Division had reached him, and instead of ordering the other absent units of his army to close in upon Fuente Guinaldo, sent orders to them all to place themselves in the second position, nine miles to the rear, which he had chosen as his real battle-ground.
The force at Fuente Guinaldo decamped after dusk, leaving the Light Division and the 1st Hussars K.G.L. to keep up the bivouac fires along the whole line till midnight. Marching in two columns, one by the direct road by Casillas de Flores and Furcalhos, the other by a secondary path through Aldea da Ponte, the whole reached the positions in front of Alfayates where Wellington was ready to make his real stand. On the morning of the 27th the main body was joined by the 5th Division, which came down from Payo in the Sierra de Gata, having found no enemy threatening the passes in that direction. The 7th Division also arrived from Albergaria. Meanwhile Graham, with the 1st and 6th Divisions and McMahon’s Portuguese, had arrived at Bismula and Rendo, and so was at last in close touch with the main body. The whole of Wellington’s 45,000 men were concentrated, and, well knowing the strength of the position which he had now reached, his mind was tranquil. The front was hidden by a strong cavalry screen, Alten’s brigade covering the right, De Grey’s and Slade’s the centre, and Anson’s the left, where Graham’s divisions lay.
Marmont was so far from guessing that his adversary would abandon the position of Fuente Guinaldo, that he had ordered his own army to retreat towards Rodrigo, at the very moment that the Allies were absconding from his front. During the early hours of the night of the 26th-27th, the two adversaries were marching away from each other! But at midnight Thiébault, who was in charge of the rearguard, noted that the fires in Wellington’s lines seemed few and flickering, and that his sentries had got out of touch with those of the British. A reconnaissance soon showed him that there was nothing left in his front. Prompt information was sent to Marmont, and the Marshal had to reconsider his position. He determined to follow up the retreating enemy, not with the fixed intention of bringing him to action, but rather that he might be ready to take advantage of any unforeseen chance that might occur. But the pursuit could not be rapid or effective, for during the night the bulk of the Army of Portugal had been marching back towards Ciudad Rodrigo. Montbrun’s and Wathier’s cavalry were still at the front, but only two infantry divisions, those of Souham and Thiébault, both belonging to the Army of the North. The Marshal dared not press his enemy too hard, lest Wellington should turn upon him, and find that only 11,000 infantry were up on the French side. While the countermarch of the other seven divisions was in progress, the vanguard must not commit itself unsupported to a general action.
Accordingly Wellington’s retreat was not seriously incommoded. Montbrun, followed by Souham’s division, took the road by Casillas de Flores and Furcalhos: Wathier, with Thiébault’s infantry in support, that by Aldea da Ponte. Montbrun ran about noon, against the Light and 5th Divisions and Alten’s horse, drawn up in position in front of Alfayates, and considered them too strongly placed to be meddled with. Wathier, on the western road, was stopped in front of Aldea da Ponte by the pickets of the 4th Division and of Slade’s dragoons. This village lay outside the intended line of battle of the allied army, but so close in front of it that Wellington had resolved not to let it go till he was pushed by a strong force, since it was the meeting-place of several roads and well placed for observation.
Wathier halted facing Aldea da Ponte, till Thiébault came up and assumed the command, being senior to the cavalry general. Seeing that the village was worth having, Thiébault resolved to attack it, and drove out the light companies of the Fusilier brigade by an advance of the three battalions of the 34th Léger, one of which cleared the village while the other two turned it on each flank. Wellington, observing that the enemy had only a single division on the ground, refused to allow Aldea da Ponte to be so lightly lost, and sent against the French the whole Fusilier brigade in line, flanked by a Portuguese regiment in column. This advance forced Thiébault’s first brigade back from the village, and thrust it northward some way upon the road. Here the French rallied upon their second brigade, and formed up with Wathier’s horse in support. Wellington would not push them further, and contented himself with having recovered Aldea da Ponte and the junction of the roads.
At dusk, however, Montbrun and Souham came up and joined Thiébault, with the column which had followed the Furcalhos road. Souham determined to try again the attack in which Thiébault had been checked, and assailed Aldea da Ponte just as the light was failing. The Fusiliers were driven out of the village, and Wellington refused to reinforce them, or to allow them to make a second counter-attack, because he did not wish to get entangled in heavy fighting in the dark, or to expend many lives upon keeping a place which was outside his line, and formed no essential part of it. There had been much skirmishing all through the afternoon between Slade’s two cavalry regiments and Wathier’s chasseurs, in which neither party had any appreciable losses, nor gained any marked advantage.
The Anglo-Portuguese casualties in this rearguard action were just 100, of which 71 were in the Fusilier brigade, 13 in the Portuguese battalions which had covered its flank, and 10 in Slade’s cavalry. Thiébault says that he lost 150 men, a very probable estimate; he adds that the British lost 500, and that he was engaged against 17,000 allied troops—which, considering that he fought no one save the three battalions of the Fusilier brigade, one regiment of Portuguese, and Slade’s horse—3,300 sabres and bayonets—seems sufficiently astounding. It may serve as a fair example of his method of dealing with figures.
Next morning Wellington’s line was drawn back into the position in which he had determined to fight, with the French column at Aldea da Ponte lying two miles in his front, on the lower ground. This position, which was about seven miles long, was covered on either flank by the ravine of the Coa, which here makes a deep hook or curve, with the town of Sabugal at its point. The right wing was formed of the 5th Division, holding the village of Aldea Velha on a steep hill by the source of the Coa. The right-centre, which projected somewhat, was composed of the 4th and Light Divisions ranged in front of the town of Alfayates, close by the convent of Sacaparte. From that point westward the line was taken up by Pack’s and McMahon’s Portuguese brigades on each side of the village of Nave. Finally, the left consisted of the 1st and 6th Divisions under Graham, reaching from near Rendo as far as the bridge of Rapoulla. This wing was covered in front by the ravine of a torrent flowing into the Coa. The central reserve was formed of the 3rd and 7th Divisions with De Grey’s and Slade’s dragoons, drawn up behind Alfayates. Alten’s light cavalry brigade was with the Light Division, its pickets thrown out on the Furcalhos road; Anson’s brigade was placed in front of Nave and Bismula, with its advanced vedettes watching the French in Aldea da Ponte. The position was well marked, high-lying, and masked by woods and ravines. Its only fault was that the Coa ran round its rear, with only two bridges, those of Sabugal and Rapoulla da Coa, though there were at least six or seven fords in addition, and the stream was low, and passable almost everywhere for infantry. A defeat, however, would probably have meant much loss of artillery and impedimenta, though Wellington had sent great part of his baggage over the Coa, and detached all his Portuguese horse and the Portuguese brigade of the 6th Division to cover its retreat. No position is perfect, but Wellington did not think he could possibly be evicted from this one, which was as strong as Bussaco and not nearly so long. ‘He wished to be attacked, being confident of success,’ wrote Graham three days later.
But his adversaries would not oblige him. After coming up to Aldea da Ponte, and rebuking Thiébault and Souham for engaging in a profitless skirmish on the preceding day, Marmont took a long survey of the position of the allied army, and refused to advance any further. The reasons which he had given for not attacking at Fuente Guinaldo on the 26th, when he still had a good chance of accomplishing great things, were doubly valid on the 28th. After reasserting to Dorsenne and the other generals that Wellington’s army was concentrated (which was now quite true) and that his position was far too strong to be meddled with, and adding that, even if there were a successful action, he could not pursue Wellington into the mountains for want of food, he gave his final orders for retreat. The main body of the army, which had not come further forward than Fuente Guinaldo, began to retire that same night towards Ciudad Rodrigo. The two infantry divisions at Aldea da Ponte and the cavalry of Montbrun and Wathier brought up and covered the rear. By the morning of the 29th the crisis was over, and Wellington was dictating orders for the breaking up of his army and its distribution into cantonments.
After retiring to Ciudad Rodrigo Marmont and Dorsenne parted company on October 1st, and each dispersed his troops into cantonments. The Army of Portugal recrossed the Sierra de Gata, and was distributed by divisions in the same regions of New Castile that it had occupied in September. On returning to his head quarters at Talavera, Marmont received the report of Foy, commanding the only section of his army which had not taken part in the recent campaign. That general had been ordered to demonstrate from Plasencia against Wellington’s rear during the revictualling of Ciudad Rodrigo. With six battalions and a regiment of light cavalry, about 2,800 men, he had taken the direction of the pass of Perales. He reached Moraleja at the foot of the mountains, near Coria, on September 27th, the day of the combat of Aldea da Ponte. Next morning he started to ascend the Sierra, and his advanced guard got to Payo on the 29th. There it was discovered that Marmont and Dorsenne had abandoned the offensive, and started on their retreat for Ciudad Rodrigo on the 28th, so that no French troops were anywhere in the neighbourhood, while Wellington’s whole army was near Alfayates, only fifteen miles away. Fearing to be discovered and overwhelmed, Foy returned to Plasencia by forced marches: his demonstration had been some days too late to be of any use. If he had appeared in the Perales pass on the 25th, while the 5th Division was still holding Payo, Wellington would have had to keep that force detached to protect his flank, and could not have withdrawn it to join the rest of his army on the Alfayates-Rendo position. But Foy came up only when the campaign was over, and his movements had no effect whatever.
The best commentary on this five days of man?uvring between El Bodon and Alfayates is that of the war-tried veteran Graham. ‘It was very pretty—but spun rather fine. Had the enemy behaved with common spirit on the 26th, we should not have got away so easily from Guinaldo. I should have preferred, after it was ascertained that the enemy’s force (54,000 infantry and 6,000 horse) was too formidable to be attacked beyond the Agueda, drawing back our infantry to the ultimate position (Aldea Velha, Alfayates, Rendo) which could have been made infinitely stronger during the interval. There would have been no risk whatever, nor any appearance to the troops of retreat. The enemy, as you can see, might have amused us before Fuente Guinaldo, and, by a night march from Ciudad Rodrigo, have massed at San Felices, and so have crossed the river in force by the plain of Fuentes de O?oro. Then, pushing on rapidly by Nava de Aver, he would have tumbled us back in confusion. I thought this would have been his course, from his superiority in cavalry and artillery—all that country is like Newmarket Heath for galloping across. However, all is well that ends well!’
The fact is that Wellington on the 25th made one of his rare slips. He judged that Marmont would not advance beyond Ciudad Rodrigo, and so left his troops dispersed along a vast front. When, contrary to his expectation, his enemy fell upon the 3rd Division, and pushed it back to Fuente Guinaldo, the chosen concentration point of the Allied army, he was for twenty-four hours in the gravest danger. For if Marmont had struck hard again at noon on the 26th, there was no mass of troops collected to oppose him. Craufurd and Graham would have been driven off sideways on eccentric lines of retreat, and the 3rd and 4th Divisions must surely have suffered considerable loss in the hasty retreat to Alfayates which would have been forced upon them. For on the 26th Marmont would not have been handicapped, as he was on the 25th, by having no infantry at the front to assist his numerous and daring cavalry. It may be added that, if the army had failed to concentrate at Alfayates, Almeida would have been in danger, and what was still more important, Dickson’s great siege-train at Villa da Ponte would have been exposed—unless indeed Graham, driven away from his proper line of movement, might have moved westward and covered it. But speculations as to the merely possible are fruitless.
THE END OF WELLINGTON’S CAMPAIGNS OF 1811.
ARROYO DOS MOLINOS. SEPTEMBER 1811
The moment that he had satisfied himself that the French were all in full retreat, and were clearly about to disperse to their old garrisons and cantonments, Wellington also broke up the army which had been lying on the Alfayates-Rendo position. On the 29th September Graham received orders to retire with the 1st and 6th Divisions to regular winter quarters in the interior of Beira, about Guarda, Celorico, and Freixadas. The 7th Division was sent southward to Penamacor. But the 3rd, 4th, and Light Divisions returned to the frontier of Spain, to establish the same sort of distant blockade (or rather observation) of Ciudad Rodrigo, which they had been keeping up in August and September. The Light Division once more crossed the Agueda, and occupied its old position at Martiago and Zamorra. The 4th Division watched the Agueda from Gallegos to Barba del Puerco; the 3rd Division, in reserve behind the other two, was cantoned at Aldea da Ponte and Fuente Guinaldo. The three light cavalry brigades of Anson, Alten, and Slade took in turns the charge of covering the front of the Light and 4th Divisions along the Agueda; the two brigades not on duty were kept twenty miles to the rear, about Freixadas, Goveias, and Castel Mendo. De Grey’s heavy dragoons and the head quarters of the cavalry division were close behind, at Alverca. Soon after the line of observation along the Agueda had been taken up, Wellington found it possible to send cavalry pickets forward to Tenebron and Santi Espiritus, on the other side of the Agueda, so as to block the road between Ciudad Rodrigo and Salamanca. But these were mere posts occupied by half a troop—there was no intention of risking any serious force in such advanced positions. Meanwhile a more effective hindrance to communication between Rodrigo and Salamanca was provided. Julian Sanchez and his guerrilleros were pushed forward to their old haunts along the Yeltes, and overran the whole country-side. Carlos de Espa?a’s Spanish infantry brigade also recrossed the Agueda, and took up a forward position facing Ledesma.
Thus the posture of affairs on the frontiers of Leon was restored to the same aspect that it had displayed in the early autumn. It was clear that when Ciudad Rodrigo again needed to be revictualled, it ought to be necessary for the French to make another great effort, and to concentrate once more an army of 50,000 men. Marmont had thrown a great convoy into the place, but his calculations as to the time that these stores would suffice to feed the garrison had been wrecked, by the fact that his own army and that of Dorsenne had lived on the magazines of Rodrigo for five days, and had consumed more than 200,000 rations. It had been intended that the convoy should feed Rodrigo for six months, but only two months’ food remained for its garrison of 2,000 men after this enormous deduction had been made. Meanwhile Wellington thought that there was nothing to be accomplished in the north for some time. His ultimate design was to make a serious blow at Ciudad Rodrigo, when he should learn that the disposition of the armies of Dorsenne and Marmont rendered such a blow practicable. As long as they lay so close together as to make their rapid concentration possible, he did not intend to press matters. But two indispensable preliminaries for the regular leaguer of Rodrigo were being perfected. Dickson’s great siege-train was being completed at Villa da Ponte, and the repairs to the walls of Almeida were at last finished. It was Wellington’s intention to transfer the siege-train to Almeida when that fortress was absolutely secure against an attack. Placed there, it would be in a position to move up against Rodrigo in two days, when the time for action should come. But it was not till November was far spent that the order to move forward reached Dickson; meanwhile the roads between Villa da Ponte, Pinhel, and Almeida were put in good order, by a corvée levied on the local peasantry.
The dispositions of the enemy remained the all-important factor in the situation, and for the next two months Wellington was scrutinizing them with the greatest care. The Army of Portugal, after it had recrossed the Sierra de Gata, had been distributed by divisions in much the same cantonments that it had occupied in September, save that no force was sent to the distant southern post of Truxillo, to keep up communications with Drouet in Estremadura. Foy’s division, which had held that town during the early autumn, was reduced to such a state of dilapidation, by its late march in the mountains, that Marmont sent it to rest at Toledo, in comfortable cantonments. He replaced it at Plasencia, its later base, by the troops of Brennier. The 2nd Division (Clausel) occupied Avila and its province; the remaining three divisions (Ferey, Maucune, Sarrut) settled down at Almaraz, Talavera, Bejar, Oropesa, and the intermediate places. Montbrun’s heavy cavalry remained near head quarters at Talavera; the light cavalry was placed with Brennier, along the line of the Alagon, to watch the frontier of central Portugal.
Dorsenne meanwhile executed a similar dispersion of his army. He left at Salamanca only Thiébault’s division, strengthened by some light cavalry, and one brigade of Souham’s. The other troops that he had taken to Ciudad Rodrigo in September were sent back to Valladolid, Benavente, Palencia, and other posts in the valley of the Douro. The Army of the North ceased to threaten either Portugal or Galicia: but there was one task that it had to execute in order to replace itself in the position that it had held in the summer. Napoleon had protested at the time against the evacuation of the central Asturias and Oviedo by Bonnet’s division, and had ordered that this region should be reoccupied as soon as was possible. The troops told off for its invasion were the same which had held it during the last twelve months, the division of Bonnet. To support their movement through the pass of Pajares, Dorsenne took to Leon one of his two divisions of the Guard, placing the other at Valladolid. Thiébault’s and Souham’s divisions alone were left in front line, facing towards Portugal and Galicia. Bonnet’s expedition against the Asturias was executed with complete success; indeed it met with hardly any opposition. General Losada, who had occupied Oviedo after its evacuation, with the 1st Division of the Army of Galicia, judged himself too weak to fight. He abandoned the pass of Pajares after a mere skirmish, and made hardly a greater effort to defend the passage of the Nalon, withdrawing westward towards Galicia as the French advanced. Bonnet occupied Oviedo on the 6th of November without any fighting, and its port of Gijon on the 7th. Finding that Losada had retreated behind the Narcea, he sent a brigade under Colonel Gauthier to pursue him. This column reached Tineo on November 12th, but soon had to retire, for the Spaniards had scattered themselves in small bands among the mountains, and had turned back to attack Gauthier’s line of communication with Oviedo, as well as that between Oviedo and the pass of Pajares. Bonnet found that to maintain himself in the central Asturias was all that was in his power. He could not at the same time provide garrisons for Oviedo, Gijon, and the neighbouring places, and also put in the field a force strong enough to menace Galicia. In fact his fine division of 8,000 men was practically immobilized in the district that it had seized. It is more than doubtful whether the Emperor was wise to direct that the central Asturias should be once more occupied. He deprived the Army of the North of one of its five fighting divisions, and left the force holding Leon and Old Castile too weak to restrain Wellington, when it had at the same time to contain the Army of Galicia and to hunt all the Spanish irregular forces. Julian Sanchez in the plains of Leon, and Porlier and Longa in the mountains of Cantabria, were enemies whom it was impossible to neglect. If left alone they executed feats of great daring—it will be remembered that the former had surprised and captured Santander in August, and though his ventures in the autumn were less fortunate, they kept many hostile columns busy. Sanchez, on October 15th, executed a very ingenious coup de main. The garrison of Ciudad Rodrigo possessed a herd of cattle, which was habitually sent under guard to graze a mile or two from the ramparts. Watching his opportunity, on a day when the governor, Renaud, was inspecting the beasts, he swooped down on him, and carried him off with his escort and his cattle, though they were barely out of cannon-shot of the fortress. Thiébault, who commanded in the province of Salamanca, had great difficulty in getting into Ciudad Rodrigo General Barrié, whom he chose as Renaud’s successor (November 1st, 1811).
Between the Tagus, therefore, and the Bay of Biscay matters had come once more to a deadlock after the short campaign of September 24th-29th, 1811. For the following three months neither the Allies nor the French made any serious movement, with the exception of Bonnet’s invasion of the central Asturias. The main armies on both sides were dispersed. Wellington, with his troops distributed into cantonments, was waiting his opportunity for another and more effective blow at Ciudad Rodrigo; Dorsenne was striving to put down the guerrilleros, by hunting them ineffectually with many small columns—a task which he found more difficult now that he was deprived of Bonnet’s powerful division. Marmont, with his troops dispersed from Plasencia to Toledo, was practically waiting on Wellington’s movements, and showed no signs of wishing to take the offensive. His quiescence was not in the least affected by an Imperial dispatch sent from Compiègne on September 18th, which reached him shortly after his return to the valley of the Tagus. In this document a most ambitious plan of operations was proposed to him. Berthier explained that the Emperor took it for granted that Ciudad Rodrigo would have been revictualled for three months before October 1st, and that the Army of Portugal would have received the cavalry drafts which General Vandermaesen was bringing from the north. When these had arrived Marmont would have 41,000 men present with the colours. Let him march with this force into Estremadura, pick up Drouet and the 5th Corps, which should be placed under his orders, and lay siege to Elvas. Soult should be asked to find him 3,000 cavalry, and he would have a force of 57,000 men, which would be more than Wellington would be able to face. For if the English general hurried to save Elvas, a course which he was almost bound to take, he would probably leave two divisions in front of Almeida to ‘contain’ Dorsenne and the Army of the North. Though he would pick up instead the corps of Hill, which had so long been lying in the Alemtejo, yet he would still have no more than 45,000 men of all nations, even including Casta?os’s Spanish levies. This would not be enough to cope with 57,000 French: if Wellington fought he would be beaten; if he did not, he would lose Elvas, the most important fortress of Portugal. ‘This is the only movement, M. le Maréchal, which can bring back honour to our arms, free us from the defensive attitude in which we lie, strike terror into the English, and take us a step forward to the end of the war.... The prospect of capturing a great fortress under the eyes of the English army, of conquering a province of Portugal which covers our Army of the South, of uniting to your forces 25,000 men of that army should serve you as incentives for glory and success.’ Berthier then grants that it is just possible that Wellington may refuse to march to the relief of Elvas, and reply to the menace against that fortress by invading Leon and falling upon Dorsenne, who would be too weak to face him. If he does this, the Army of the North may retire first to Salamanca, then to Valladolid, then even to Burgos. At the latter point, having called in all its detachments, it would be 50,000 strong, and able to ‘contain’ the allied forces, even if Wellington had brought forward every available man. But Marmont might take it for granted that his adversary would do nothing of the kind: he would hurry south to save Elvas and cover his base at Lisbon. If he left no troops behind him on the Coa, Dorsenne should dispatch 15,000 men of the Army of the North to Estremadura, and bring up the force before Elvas to a total of 62,000 men, a number which Wellington could not possibly resist. Elvas must infallibly fall. Only one caution was added to this scheme of campaign: Marmont must be sure that Wellington had not a siege-train at Almeida, or any other place near Ciudad Rodrigo. For if he were to answer the French movement on Elvas by laying formal siege to Rodrigo, Dorsenne would not be strong enough to prevent him from taking it, and the Army of Portugal would have to turn back to the rescue from its distant position in the Alemtejo.
This last caution was, in effect, a fatal block to the whole plan. For Marmont, during the El Bodon campaign, had heard of the existence of Wellington’s siege-park at Villa da Ponte. And he had also found in the cantonments of the 3rd and 4th Divisions a stock of gabions and fascines, whose preparation could only mean that the British had been contemplating regular siege operations at some future date. The wood and wickerwork had been burned, but there was nothing to prevent Wellington from replacing it at short notice.
Yet even if Marmont had not been aware of the existence of Dickson’s guns, the plan proposed to him was not so tempting at a second as at a first glance. He was well aware that such parts of it as depended on the loyal co-operation of his colleagues might not work out easily. Would not Soult find some excuse for refusing to send the 3,000 cavalry from Andalusia? Could Dorsenne be trusted to dispatch 15,000 men to the Alemtejo, if he discovered that Wellington had left no serious force on the Coa? And even if he did show such an unwonted self-abnegation as to detach two of his divisions to such a distant destination, would they get up in time for the crisis? For if Wellington marched promptly with his whole army, by Alfayates, Castello Branco, and the bridge of Villa Velha, he would be at Elvas many days before Dorsenne’s detachment, which would have to take the circuitous route by Bejar, the bridge of Almaraz, Truxillo, Merida, and Badajoz. Supposing that the whole allied army came down from the north, and picked up Hill and Casta?os, it would consist of well over 60,000 men, and the Army of Portugal when joined by Girard’s corps would only make 57,000 men if Soult sent his cavalry, or 54,000 if (as was more likely) he found some excuse for refusing his co-operation. Could 54,000 men lay siege to a first-class fortress, and at the same time provide a covering force strong enough to fend off 64,000 of the Allies? If they tried to do so, would not the covering force be beaten in all probability? And it was probable that Wellington would come to save Elvas with every available man, for he knew that Dorsenne was not able to make any serious irruption into northern Portugal. The Army of the North could not collect more than 27,000 men for field operations (as the late campaign had shown) and such a force, destitute of stores and acting at short notice, would not get far into the wilderness of the devastated Beira, much less threaten Lisbon.
These arguments, in all probability, must have occurred to Marmont, but we have no proof that he used them. In his reply to Berthier, written at Talavera on October 21st, he takes another line—he reports that the difficulties of supply are so great that he has, after returning from the relief of Ciudad Rodrigo, dispersed his army from Plasencia to Toledo. He is beginning to collect great central magazines at Navalmoral, near Almaraz, which will serve for his army when next it is massed either for offensive or defensive purposes. Meanwhile, till the magazines are formed, he asks for the Emperor’s leave to wait with his troops in their present positions. Wellington, he thinks, can do nothing serious for want of numbers, and the dispersion of his army into cantonments has been caused by the difficulty of feeding his men in the highlands, from which he has just retired. If, nevertheless, he tries some forward movement into Estremadura, the Army of Portugal is well placed for falling on him in the valley of the Guadiana. As for offensive plans, nothing can be done till magazines are formed, but he hopes to submit a scheme of his own to the Emperor when leave has been granted.
But meanwhile Napoleon’s mind had swerved away from the scheme for an attack on Elvas and the Alemtejo, which had been formulated in the Compiègne dispatch of September 18th. Just a month later Berthier writes, by his orders, from Amsterdam, to lay down a wholly new plan. This dispatch of October 18th contains the germ of the great central error which was to make possible Wellington’s sudden offensive move of the following midwinter, and the capture of Ciudad Rodrigo—the exploit which was to be the turning-point of the whole Peninsular War. Suchet had now started upon his long-projected march on Valencia, with which we shall deal in its proper place. He had made a good commencement, but had been brought to a stand before the walls of Saguntum. The Spaniards had begun to reinforce their eastern armies, and the Emperor realized that Suchet needed support. Therefore the army of Wellington ceased for a moment to be the central point on which his attention was fixed. ‘Le principal objet aujourd’hui est Valence,’ writes Berthier in obedience to his master’s changed opinion. And he thereupon instructs Marmont that the Army of the Centre will have to stretch itself eastward to Cuenca, to support Suchet, and that in consequence the Army of Portugal will have to ‘facilitate the task of the King of Spain,’ i. e. spare troops to occupy those parts of New Castile from which Joseph must withdraw men for the expedition to the Valencian border. This was but the beginning of the scheme, which was to end by distracting a great body of Marmont’s host to the shore of the Mediterranean, out of call of their commander. As we shall see, the Duke of Ragusa was finally ordered to make such a huge detachment to aid Suchet, that Wellington at last got his opportunity to strike, when the Army of Portugal was so lowered in numbers that it could not hope to restrain him. The first hint came in the above-cited orders of October 18th; in the second crucial dispatch, that of November 21st, Marmont is told not only that he will have to ‘facilitate the task’ of King Joseph, but that he must select a body of 12,000 men to march at once on Valencia, and set aside 3,000 more to keep up the line of communication with the expeditionary force. ‘We are informed,’ continues Berthier, ‘that the English army has 20,000 sick, and barely 20,000 able-bodied men with the colours, so that they cannot possibly try any offensive enterprise.’
This is a typical result of the endeavour to conduct the Peninsular War from Paris as head quarters. On the wholly false hypothesis that Wellington’s army is reduced to a skeleton, and can do nothing, the Emperor orders his lieutenant to detach a third of the Army of Portugal beyond the reach of recall. But the English, though indeed there were many sick, had not 20,000 but exactly 38,311 men with the colours at that moment, not to speak of 24,391 Portuguese, of whom the Emperor (as usual) took no account in his calculations. Wellington had been patiently waiting for months for the moment when the Army of Portugal should no longer be able to ‘contain’ him. The Emperor was obliging enough to provide the opportunity in December 1811, and when Montbrun had marched with two divisions of foot and one of horse to the other side of the Peninsula, Wellington struck, suddenly and successfully. ‘The movements of Marmont’s army towards Toledo, to aid Suchet as is supposed, have induced us to make preparations for the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo,’ wrote Wellington on the 28th of that month. On the 9th of January, 1812, the place was invested; on the 19th it fell; and then followed in rapid succession all the triumphs of 1812. There were other circumstances, to be mentioned in their due place, which facilitated Wellington’s advance: but the departure of Montbrun’s 15,000 men for Valencia, by the Emperor’s direct command, was the main governing fact. It is impossible to deny assent to Marmont’s bitter criticism on the orders that kept coming to him during the autumn and early winter of 1811. ‘Napoleon was at this period living in a non-existent world, created by his own imagination. He built structures in the air, he took his desires for realities, and gave orders as if ignorant of the true state of affairs, as if the actual facts had been purposely hidden from him.’ It was no use to tell him that magazines were non-existent, that numbers were low, that roads were impracticable, that communications were intercepted, that he had undervalued the enemy’s forces; he continued, with all serenity, to ignore tiresome hindrances, and to issue orders grounded on data many weeks old, often on data which had never been true at any moment, but which it suited him to believe. And so the catastrophe of 1812 came nearer.
We have now taken the operations of Wellington and his chief adversaries, Marmont and Dorsenne, down to the winter of 1811. But there still remains to be told the story of the autumn months in the secondary fields of operations in southern Spain. The doings of Soult in Andalusia have been followed no further than July and August, when, returning from the relief of Badajoz, he freed Seville from the menaces of Blake, and forced the Murcian army to take refuge with undignified haste within the boundaries of its own province. Nor has anything been said about the operations of Hill in Estremadura, where he lay opposite Drouet and the French 5th Corps from August to December. With these subsidiary affairs we now have to deal.
Soult’s victorious campaign on the border of Murcia, and the flight of Freire’s army homewards, had reaffirmed the French domination in eastern Andalusia, to the extent that the large towns and the main lines of communication were again safe. But the Alpujarras were still in arms, and Ballasteros was giving much trouble from his new base in the extreme south. Excited by his presence, the Serranos of the Sierra de Ronda spread their incursions on every side, as far as Osuna and Marbella, in spite of all the efforts of Godinot, who had been told off to crush them. The strength of Ballasteros’s position was that he had behind him two secure places of refuge—the old Spanish lines in front of Gibraltar, with the great fortress behind them, and, thirty miles away, the newly-repaired stronghold of Tarifa, which had been held since the late winter by a detachment of the British garrison of Gibraltar. Avoiding serious combats, and confining his ambition to the surprise of small posts and the cutting off of detachments, Ballasteros made himself such a nuisance to the French that Soult at last prepared a great combined scheme for surrounding him. Godinot’s force, operating from the north, was to work in unison with two other columns under Generals Barrois and Sémelé, sent out by Victor from the lines in front of Cadiz. The concentric advance only succeeded in driving Ballasteros southward, not in trapping him. He evacuated San Roque and Algesiras, and went under the protection of the cannon of Gibraltar, from which secure position he defied the enemy (October 14th-15th). For a moment 10,000 French lay before the English fortress, but they had not come prepared for a siege, and soon departed when their provisions failed. Godinot then made a dash at the much weaker walls of Tarifa, but was caught on the march along the seaside road—the only one that cannon could take—by a squadron of British warships, which did him so much damage that he drew off inland without even reaching his objective (October 18).
Meanwhile Ballasteros, slipping out from under the cover of Gibraltar the moment that his enemy was gone, followed Sémelé’s column, which was returning to the Cadiz lines by a separate route, and surprised it at Bornos (November 5). The French (1,500 men of the 16th Léger) cut their way through the enemy with the loss of only 100 men; but a Juramentado battalion which was accompanying them threw up the butts of its muskets and surrendered en masse or dispersed, and a howitzer was captured.
Soult was incensed at the failure of his great combined movement, and laid the blame on Godinot, who after a stormy interview with his chief at Seville committed suicide. The chase of Ballasteros began again, with a new set of hunters; but, as we shall see in a later chapter, was destined to prove fruitless. Nor did a serious attempt to beleaguer Tarifa with a heavy siege-train come to any good. But its siege, though commenced in the last days of the old year 1811, belongs rather to the campaign of 1812, and will be dealt with in the next volume of this work.
There remains only to be considered the state of affairs in Estremadura, where we left Hill with his two divisions, facing Drouet and the 5th Corps, in July. Their forces were not unequal, and each had been given by his commander a defensive rather than an offensive r?le. Soult had directed Drouet to see that Badajoz was not molested, to keep up communication, via Truxillo, with the Armies of Portugal and the Centre, and to risk nothing. If the Allies detached more troops into the Alemtejo, he was to make no attempt to face superior numbers, but to call without delay for help to his neighbours, and to retire on Merida or on Monasterio as seemed more suitable at the moment. But it was judged unlikely that Wellington would be able to make any serious detachment southward, so long as he was ‘contained’ by the Army of Portugal, which lay in the valley of the Tagus, ready to move towards Ciudad Rodrigo on the one hand, or Badajoz on the other, as necessity might dictate. Meanwhile here, as everywhere else in western Spain, the French had completely abandoned the offensive, and their plans contemplated the parrying of Wellington’s strokes, rather than the delivery of any blows of their own. The scheme for an attack on the Alemtejo, which Napoleon had suggested to Marmont, was never within any measurable distance of being put into practical operation. By this time the only part of the Peninsula in which the Imperial armies retained an offensive posture was the east coast. Suchet had started on that Valencian expedition which was to have such brilliant success in itself, but was to indirectly destroy the French hold on Spain, by calling away troops from opposite Wellington at the critical moment in the midwinter of 1811-12.
Hill’s orders from Wellington corresponded very closely to Drouet’s orders from Soult. That is to say, Hill was to content himself with ‘containing’ the French force opposite him; to see that Elvas and Campo Mayor were covered, to make no attempt on Badajoz, and to apply for aid to his chief in the event of an increase of the hostile force on the Guadiana. The summing up of the situation, in the original dispatch which Wellington wrote to Hill when he left for the north, is simply that the force in Estremadura must pair off against Drouet. ‘My wish is that you should observe the movements of the 5th Corps. If the 5th Corps should move off to cross the Tagus at Almaraz, you will then march to cross the Tagus at Villa Velha, and proceed on by Castello Branco to join this army.... If the 5th Corps should, instead of crossing the Tagus, man?uvre upon you in Alemtejo, I request you to move upon Portalegre, and there either stand their attack or not, as you may think proper, according to your notion of their force as compared with your own. If you cannot stand their attack, you will retire by Gavi?o towards Abrantes, and thence across the Zezere, taking the line of the Tagus, with Santarem on your right.’ It being possible, though not likely, that Marmont might make an advance against the central Portuguese frontier north of the Tagus, from the Zarza la Mayor and Coria district, Hill was directed to keep one British and one Portuguese brigade in the direction of Castello Branco, as a nucleus on which troops coming from north and south might concentrate, for serious opposition to an invasion. This precautionary move was made in August, and the detachment remained north of the Tagus till September, when Foy’s removal from Truxillo, and Marmont’s march to the relief of Ciudad Rodrigo, showed that there was no longer any possible danger in this direction. Meanwhile the main body of the allied force in Estremadura lay about Portalegre, Villa Vi?osa, and Santa Olalla, waiting for developments of the enemy’s plans which never came about. For Drouet kept very quiet, generally with his head quarters at Zafra, and a strong detachment at Merida, as anxiously expectant of Hill’s movements as Hill was of his.
All this time the space to the north of Hill’s cantonments was occupied by the small remains of the Spanish Army of Estremadura, still under Casta?os. Since the Captain-General had sent off Carlos de Espa?a to the borders of Leon, he remained with the rest of his troops in the hilly region between the Guadiana and the Tagus, with his head quarters at Valencia de Alcantara, and part of his infantry in Albuquerque, which fortress he was engaged in repairing. His advance lay at Ca?eres, observing the French garrison in Truxillo, with which it often bickered. But Casta?os occasionally sent a flying column out under Morillo or Penne Villemur to beat up the cantonments of the 5th Corps south of the Tagus. They ranged as far as La Serena and the Sierra del Pedroso, and on one occasion got even to Benalcazar on the very border of Andalusia, whose garrison Morillo surprised and captured. Such raids were profitable for distracting the enemy, and gave Drouet much trouble. But as Casta?os’s whole force did not amount to much more than 600 horse and 3,000 foot, the menace was not a serious one. In the thinly peopled region of northern Estremadura it was impossible to get recruits to fill the old cadres, and the army did not grow as the commander had hoped. The regiments remained mere skeletons.
The removal of Foy’s division from Truxillo in September, when Marmont drew him in to co-operate in the relief of Ciudad Rodrigo, had serious consequences in Estremadura. It will be remembered that, when the campaign of El Bodon was over, the Army of Portugal did not send back any detachment to reoccupy Truxillo—the connecting-point between the Armies of Portugal and of the South. The responsibility for keeping touch was thrown on to Drouet, who had already quite enough ground to cover with his 14,000 men. But he was forced to send a strong detachment northward from Merida, or his communication with Marmont would have been wholly intercepted by Morillo’s habitual raids. Accordingly Girard’s division of the 5th Corps was moved up to occupy the front between the Guadiana and the Tagus, leaving the whole stretch from the Guadiana southward to the Sierra Morena held by only one division, that of Claparéde, and two cavalry brigades.
Wellington, seeing the weakness of Drouet, and knowing that Soult had crushed the Murcian army in August, and therefore could find some reinforcements for Estremadura if he should please, was for some time under the belief that Hill would see new troops brought up against him from the south. He reiterated his old orders: ‘If you only had cavalry, you certainly have infantry in sufficient numbers to beat the 5th Corps out of Estremadura. But your cavalry is not sufficiently strong. I think, however, that you are able to prevent the 5th Corps from doing anything, even though Soult should add to it another division.... You must proceed with great caution, and endeavour to have the best intelligence of the force Soult brings with him.... Canton your troops (as soon as you find the enemy are serious in their advance upon Badajoz) nearly on the ground which we occupied with the army in the end of June and the beginning of July .... If you should find Soult collects in too great force for you, retire upon Portalegre, and thence, if necessary, upon Gavi?o and Abrantes. It appears to me, however, scarcely possible for Soult to bring such a force as to be able to attack you at Campo Mayor, or to cut your communications at the same time both with Elvas and with Portalegre.... If Soult should bring a large army into Estremadura, with the view to enable the Army of Portugal to co-operate in the invasion of Valencia, I shall reinforce your corps with some infantry and nearly all my cavalry—and I think we shall soon have back again the Army of Portugal. If Soult comes only to throw provisions into Badajoz, I am afraid we cannot prevent it under existing circumstances.’
Soult, however, neither came in person to Estremadura with a large force, nor even drafted another division into the province to succour Drouet, who got no reinforcements during the autumn. He was at this time wrapped up in the internal affairs of Andalusia, and had no intention of sending troops away, unless there was urgent necessity for it. Hill, therefore, seeing that the 5th Corps had received no succours, and remained spread out on the long front from the Tagus to the Sierra Morena, while its two divisions were not in supporting distance of each other, asked for leave to make a blow at Girard, whose position was decidedly dangerous, because of his remoteness from Drouet’s main body (October 15). Wellington saw the opportunity and gave instant consent: ‘I should approve of adopting the measure, which should be effectual, and should drive Girard from Ca?eres over the Guadiana, if you think you can do it without risking the safety of Campo Mayor and Ouguella. It appears to me you are too strong for Girard in every way, if the other division of the 5th Corps has not crossed the Guadiana.’
Circumstances were at this moment very much in Hill’s favour, for Girard, seeking new regions to plunder for food, and angered by the raids of Casta?os’s detachments on the road from Merida to Truxillo, had just marched to drive the Spaniards back. Sweeping them before him, he had advanced as far as Ca?eres, fifty miles from his base at Merida, and was raising contributions there. He had with him his own division of twelve battalions, a provisional brigade of cavalry under General Bron, and one battery—in all about 5,000 foot and nearly 1,000 horse. Hill could concentrate against him a much larger force, while still leaving something in front of Drouet, who (as he had taken pains to discover) was cantoned about Zafra with the rest of his corps—Claparéde’s division, and the bulk of the cavalry. He was not in a position to accomplish anything against Campo Mayor or Elvas, for his troops were scattered over the country-side, and he showed no signs of any intention to move.
On October 20th Hill wrote to Casta?os to say that he relied on the help of Morillo’s infantry and Villemur’s cavalry for a blow at Girard. He himself would bring up Howard’s and Wilson’s (late Abercrombie’s) brigades of the 2nd Division, nine battalions of Portuguese and Long’s cavalry brigade. The column would consist of 3,000 British and 4,000 Portuguese infantry, 900 horse and two batteries. To this Casta?os could add about 2,000 infantry and 600 horse, so that a striking force of 10,000 men would be collected. Meanwhile there would be left in Portugal, to make a front against Drouet, if he should move, the remaining brigade (Byng’s) of the 2nd Division, four battalions and two cavalry regiments of Portuguese, and a British cavalry brigade under Le Marchant recently arrived from home, which lay at Castello Branco, but could be called south if required.
The essential part of Hill’s scheme was that Girard should be attacked and brought to action before he was aware that there was anything in his front save the Spaniards whom he had just hunted out of Ca?eres. If he were to discover that there was a large Anglo-Portuguese force in his front, he would probably retire by forced marches upon Merida. It was therefore necessary to concentrate the striking force with suddenness, and to move it with the greatest possible speed. On October 22nd the three infantry and one cavalry brigades were collected at Portalegre. On the 23rd they made a tremendous march, thirty miles across the steep Sierra de San Mamed to the Spanish fortress of Albuquerque. Here Hill received news from Casta?os that Girard was still at Ca?eres, and had sent out flying parties to Arroyo del Puerco and other places, sweeping the country-side for food. The allied column at Albuquerque was as near Merida as the enemy, and had every chance of intercepting him if he continued quiescent. Morillo and Penne Villemur had moved to Aliseda, twenty miles from Albuquerque, and could join the British force next day. On the 24th Hill advanced to Aliseda and Casa de Santillana, and picked up the Spaniards. Next morning Penne Villemur’s horse drove the French outposts out of Arroyo del Puerco. When Girard’s cavalry screen had been driven in, Hill’s whole column made a night march to Malpartida, only eight miles from Ca?eres, but learnt, after some delays, on the morning of the 26th that Girard had left Ca?eres on the preceding afternoon by the Torremocha road, making a leisurely journey towards Merida. He had just received vague rumours that there was an Anglo-Portuguese force coming from Portugal, and thought it well to draw near to his base. Thus Hill’s precautions had not been altogether successful. Girard’s departure was tiresome to Hill, as the night-march to Malpartida had taken the allied columns too far to the north, and the enemy was now between them and his own base. But if it was too late to intercept him, there was still time to pursue and overtake him, unless he should chance to quicken his pace. Before dawn on the morning of the 27th Hill turned his face southward, and marched on Torremocha; but when he had reached the pass of Trasquillon he was informed by the peasantry that Girard had left Torremocha, marching for Arroyo dos Molinos on the other side of the Sierra de Montanches. The General called on his troops to make a final effort—if Girard halted at Arroyo dos Molinos it was possible to cut him off by continuing the long march. The men responded well to the appeal, and by nightfall on the 27th the two British brigades were at Alcuescar, five miles south-west of the camp of the French, and the Portuguese and Spaniards close behind at Don Antonio. Girard had only gone twelve miles that day—the Allies no less than twenty-eight, in abominable weather, across two rough mountain ranges. It is astonishing that the French general had not made more haste, and still more so that, with three cavalry regiments for reconnoitring, he had not hit upon the track of the Allies. Bron was evidently a poor director of cavalry—his 1,000 men should have sufficed to sweep the whole country-side. But it is said that Girard was convinced that Hill had gone to Ca?eres, and would listen to no warnings.
At half-past two o’clock on the morning of the 28th the weather was still tempestuous, as it had been for the last twenty-four hours, and Hill, covered by the driving rain, marched in the dark on Arroyo dos Molinos, and covered the five miles which separated his comfortless bivouac from the French head quarters without meeting a single hostile vedette. He was able to arrange his force within half a mile of the little town undiscovered, and to make his provisions for blocking all the three roads by which Girard might escape. Arroyo dos Molinos lies under the shoulder of the precipitous Sierra de Montanches, with no track going directly northwards from it, but with country roads to Truxillo, Medellin, and Merida diverging north-eastward, south-eastward, and south-south-westward. Hill directed Wilson’s brigade, supported by three Portuguese battalions, to march round the town on its southward side, and block the Truxillo road, while the rest of the infantry should attack the enemy in front, and the cavalry, both English and Spanish, should form a central column which should seize the Merida and Medellin roads and prevent the escape of Girard southward.
Not a Frenchman was seen till Howard’s brigade, leading the advance of the main body, ran upon a picket half a mile outside Arroyo, the men huddling together under trees with their faces away from the driving rain and the approaching enemy. Most of them were captured, but some escaped to warn Girard, who till this moment had no knowledge that a British column was within striking distance of him. As it chanced, the French general had been preparing to start early, and Remond’s brigades (the 64th and 88th of the line), escorted by one cavalry regiment, had marched an hour before on the Merida road, and were now three miles away. Girard had not, therefore, even his whole force assembled, but only the six battalions of Dombrouski’s brigade (34th and 40th of the line), two cavalry regiments and half a battery with him—not more than 4,000 men—while 10,000 of the Allies were converging upon him from three separate quarters. At the moment when the first shots were heard on the Alcuescar road, his infantry was just getting ready to march, his baggage and a rearguard of one battalion were still in the street of Arroyo dos Molinos, many of his horsemen had not yet saddled up, and he himself was breakfasting in the Alcaide’s house.
Within a few minutes of the first alarm the 71st and 92nd, at the head of Howard’s brigade, burst into the little town, drove out the battalion that was holding it, and captured the whole of Girard’s baggage and many prisoners. General Bron was taken in the doorway of the house which he had been occupying, just as he was about to mount. Hurrying out on the other side of the place, the advancing British found Dombrouski’s brigade hastily forming up for the march. Girard had ordered an instant retreat along the Merida road. The formation of his troops was soon disordered by the fire of the advancing 71st, followed by that of three guns of Arriaga’s battery, which galloped out to the town end and opened on the nearest regiment. The column, however, started off, and had gone a little way, when it discovered the allied cavalry advancing along the Merida road to meet it, Penne Villemur in front, Long in support. Girard, seeing this road blocked, bade his chasseurs and dragoons hold off the British and Spanish horse at all costs, and turned the infantry column towards the Truxillo road, which skirts the precipitous foot of the Sierra de Montanches. His cavalry became engaged in a confused fight, first with Penne Villemur’s Spaniards and then with the 9th Light Dragoons and the 2nd Hussars of the King’s German Legion. Being outnumbered, they were soon broken, many were taken, and the rest scattered and tried to get off in small parties.
The infantry, making the best speed that it could, but closely pursued by Howard’s regiments and the Spanish brigade in their rear, finally reached the spot where the Truxillo road turns the corner of the sierra, a mile and a half outside Arroyo dos Molinos. By this time the rain had ceased, and the mists dispersing showed the Frenchmen Wilson’s brigade marching hard to cut them off, and less than half a mile away. Both parties started to run, and the three light companies of the 28th, 34th, and 39th, who were well ahead of their regiments, reached the road just as the leading French battalion was pushing across their front. Only 200 men were up, but Blakeney (commanding the 28th company) saw that if the hostile column were closely attacked in flank, even by a small body, its progress would be stopped, and a few minutes’ delay would bring down both Wilson’s and Howard’s brigades upon it. Accordingly he led in person the charge of some scores of the men nearest him against the throat of the French column; they were not exterminated (as might have been expected), for Girard, who was present at the spot, told his men not to stop to fight, but to escape by leaving the road and dashing uphill along the rocks of the sierra above. He himself with the leading companies got clear, hitting on a place where the side of the precipice was not too steep to climb, though the officers had to turn loose their horses before they could start on the scramble. The main body of the column was less lucky. An absolutely impassable line of cliffs was above them, and after reaching its foot a thousand men, in two or three disorderly masses, had to halt and lay down their arms to the eager pursuers from both the British brigades, who were converging upon them. A few got away by incredibly dangerous climbing, and joined Girard on top of the sierra. Meanwhile Morillo’s Spanish infantry had taken an easier path up the heights, far to the left, and started in pursuit of the remnants of the French. They kept up the chase for eight leagues, and took or slew many stragglers. But Girard, Dombrouski, and four or five hundred men, bearing with them the eagles of the 34th and 40th, escaped eastward, and, after much wandering in the mountains, crossed the Guadiana at Orellana, beyond Medellin, and got back to join Drouet. Other small parties and many of the cavalry straggled in later, but Girard’s force had practically been destroyed. Nearly 1,300 prisoners had been taken, including General Bron, commanding the cavalry, the Prince of Aremberg, colonel of the 27th Chasseurs, the chef d’état major of the 5th Corps, and more than thirty other officers. In addition the French lost their three guns and a contribution of 5,000 dollars levied on Ca?eres a few days before. Hill’s loss was insignificant—seven men killed and seven officers and fifty-seven men wounded. Penne Villemur’s Spaniards, who had behaved with excellent spirit, had about thirty casualties.
After the fighting was over, Hill directed Long’s cavalry, with the Portuguese regiments, who had not been engaged, to march on Merida, supporting them with Howard’s brigade when it had rested. It was hoped that Remond’s column, which had escaped the disaster of Arroyo dos Molinos by its early march, might be caught up. But the French brigadier had a long enough start to render this impossible: warned by fugitive cavalry of the fate of his chief, he marched through Merida without halting, and retired towards Drouet by way of Almendralejo.
Hill, after following his vanguard to Merida on the 29th and stopping there two days, returned by Wellington’s orders to his old cantonments at Portalegre, which he reached on November 3rd.
‘It would have been useless,’ wrote Wellington, ‘for him to push on his operations beyond the Guadiana—for Drouet would simply have retired before him,—and equally so to remain at Merida.’ By this somewhat cryptic phrase the British commander-in-chief meant that if he had chosen to direct Hill, after his success at Arroyo dos Molinos, to march against Drouet’s main body, there can be no doubt that he might have driven it into the Sierra Morena. This would have caused Soult to come to its aid with all the available troops that could be collected in Andalusia. The reason why no such orders were issued was that the British general did not wish to provoke Soult to concentrate. Hill could do nothing against the Army of the South if it came against him in force. But if it continued disseminated through all the four kingdoms of Andalusia, as it was at present, with one mass of troops opposite Cadiz, another at Granada, and the small available field force busily engaged in hunting Ballasteros, it was not to be feared. As to the uselessness of stopping at Merida, Wellington meant that Hill, if posted there, would have been liable to be cut off from Elvas if Soult should come up in haste from Andalusia to reinforce Drouet—as was extremely likely. Wellington was contented with having broken up a French division, and cut the communication between the Armies of the South and of Portugal for a time. For when Girard was driven out of the space between the Tagus and the Guadiana, Soult could no longer communicate with Marmont.
Napoleon recalled Girard in disgrace, which he well deserved for his reckless want of caution: his maltreated division was given to General Barrois. But he was afterwards pardoned, and survived to die, still a general of division, doing good service at the battle of Ligny.
In the first moment of alarm, after hearing of Girard’s disaster, Soult had expected to be pressed, had sent 4,000 infantry to reinforce Drouet, and had begun to collect other troops at Seville. But finding that Hill had no further intention of striking at the 5th Corps, and that Badajoz was not even threatened, he reverted to his earlier plans, left Estremadura alone, and continued to hunt Ballasteros, and to make preparation for his next important move—the siege of Tarifa. Drouet, for his part, having recovered from the dismay into which Girard’s defeat had thrown him, once more began to move his troops northward with caution. On December 5th he reoccupied Almendralejo, on the 18th he pushed Dombrouski with a brigade to Merida, and once more opened up communication with the Army of Portugal by way of Truxillo. But the road was not to be long open. Just before the year 1811 was out (December 27th) Hill was sent forth a second time against the 5th Corps, with far more serious intentions than in October, for this expedition was part of Wellington’s preliminary movements for the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo. It will be dealt with in its proper place.
For all intents and purposes the march to Arroyo dos Molinos forms the last episode of the campaign of 1811. Its main interest was that it showed Wellington in offensive mood, ready to take advantage of the scattered condition of his enemy. It also made it clear that in Hill he had an executive officer of the highest merit—but this was known before to all who had studied the career of that much-loved and well-served general, for whom the 2nd Division would do anything. There was no more popular promotion during the whole war than that which made him a Knight of the Bath in reward for his little campaign.
December had now arrived—the fatal detachment of 15,000 of Marmont’s men to Valencia had been ordered by the Emperor. Wellington was ready for his long-projected blow at Ciudad Rodrigo. How sharply it was delivered will be told in another volume.
The End