CHAPTER I

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[675] 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[676], 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[677]. 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[678] 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.

[675] These divisions were those of Maucune, Sarrut, and Ferey.

[676] Clausel’s division in the province of Avila, Brennier at Plasencia.

[677] For an interesting account of the experiences of an officer sent to scrape together drafts and convalescents despite of the petty governors, see the diary of Sprünglin, pp. 484-5. He had special difficulties with Thiébault, the Governor of Salamanca.

[678] Correspondence from Berthier printed in Marmont’s _Autobiography_, iv. p. 122.

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[679]. 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[680] 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[681].

[679] See Joseph to Marmont in the correspondence of the latter, iv. pp. 150-6.

[680] See above, p. 219.

[681] Marmont’s _Mémoires_, iv. p. 58.

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[682]. 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[683].’ 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.

[682] Intercepted dispatch from Marmont to Berthier of August 5th, printed in _Supplementary Wellington Dispatches_, xiii. p. 690.

[683] _Mémoires_, iv. p. 55.

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[684], was the central fact in all future operations. Clearly it would be moved south or north whenever necessary.

[684] See Wellington to Lord Liverpool, _Dispatches_, vii. p. 115.

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[685], 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[686], 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.

[685] D’Urban in his diary often harps upon this project.

[686] ‘We should meet in Andalusia the whole force which lately obliged us to raise the siege of Badajoz, with the addition to it of the force which was left before Cadiz.... An attempt to relieve Cadiz would certainly not succeed.’ _Dispatches_, vii. p. 118.

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[687].’ 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.

[687] From the same letter to Lord Liverpool, _Dispatches_, vii. 118.

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[688]: 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.

[688] See the all-important dispatch of July 18, in which these three points are set forth. _Dispatches_, vii. 118.

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[689] that more French troops were expected at Vittoria from Bayonne, and supposed them to be about 10,000 or 11,000 strong[690], 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[691].

[689] _Dispatches_, vii. 184: ‘I should imagine that the reports have some foundation.’ August 9th.

[690] _Dispatches_, vii. p. 194. August 14th.

[691] By August 21st he has heard that the 5th Léger and other new regiments from the interior of France are over the Pyrenees. _Dispatches_, vii. p. 215.

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[692].’ 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.

[692] _Dispatches_, vii. 119, July 18th.

Long before the army began to move towards the Agueda and the frontiers of Leon, Wellington had given the preliminary order[693] 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 dépôt. 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.

[693] It is contained in the ‘Memorandum for Colonels Frampton and Fletcher’ of 19th July, dated the day after the dispatch to Lord Liverpool which sets forth the whole project.

Dickson started at once for Oporto, where he found two companies of British artillery[694] 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 dépôt--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.

[694] Bredin’s and Glubb’s, which had long been lying at Lisbon without horses, and had taken no part in the field operations of 1810 and 1811. Holcombe’s battery was soon afterwards substituted for Glubb’s. See Dickson’s _Diary_ (ed. Leslie) for months of August-October 1811.

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[695].

[695] Wellington saw this clearly enough; he writes to Lord Liverpool on August 27: ‘If we cannot maintain this blockade, the enemy must bring 50,000 men to raise it, and then they can undertake nothing else this year, for they must still continue to watch Rodrigo, and we shall so far save the cause. Meanwhile if they offer me a favourable opportunity of bringing any of them to action, I shall take it.’ _Dispatches_, viii. p. 232.

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[696]. 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.

[696] Mr. Fortescue sends me the subjoined note on Spencer from a suppressed letter of Wellington to Pole at Apsley House, not to be found in any of the editions of the _Dispatches_. ‘The person who is now here as second in command is very unfit for his situation. He is a good executive officer, but has no mind, and is incapable of forming any opinions of his own. He is the centre of all the vulgar and foolish opinions of the day. Thus you are aware that, from former experiences, I cannot depend upon him for a moment, for anything. He gives his opinion upon every subject, changes it with the wind, and if any misfortune occurs, or the act recommended by him is disapproved of, there is no effort to be looked for from him.’ This verdict does not much differ, save in strength of expression, from the opinion of minor contemporaries, such as Tomkinson and Stepney, e. g. ‘Sir Brent Spencer, a zealous gallant officer, had no great military genius. He was anxious and fidgety when there was nothing to do, but once under fire looked like a philosopher solving a problem--perfectly cool and self-possessed.’ (Stepney’s _Leaves from a Diary of an Officer of the Guards_, p. 80.) See also in Stepney for notes as to Spencer’s resentment at his supersession by Graham. This has value, as the diarist was a favourite of the general, who had offered to make him his aide-de-camp.

Not far off from the 1st Division was the 4th, under Cole, at Pedrogão, 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[697] was covering the Light and 3rd Divisions in front of Ciudad Rodrigo, while the others, De Grey’s[698], Slade’s[699], and Anson’s[700] 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.

[697] 11th Light Dragoons and 1st Hussars K.G.L.

[698] 3rd Dragoon Guards and 4th Dragoons. Properly belonging to Erskine’s cavalry division in the Alemtejo, but borrowed.

[699] 1st Royals and 12th Light Dragoons.

[700] 14th and 16th Light Dragoons.

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 Castaños, busy in reorganizing the ruined Army of Estremadura, sent Carlos de España 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[701], were kept in Estremadura and continued to co-operate with Hill. But Carlos de España 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.

[701] For whose actions see section xxix. p. 597.

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[702], 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[703]. All that he did was to move his head quarters to the neighbourhood of Plasencia[704], 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[705]. 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.

[702] Marmont to Berthier, _Correspondance_, p. 165, in the 4th vol. p. 163 of his _Mémoires_.

[703] See all the August correspondence of 1811 in his _Mémoires_, iv. pp. 143-62.

[704] On August 26th according to his narrative, iv. p. 61.

[705] Ibid., p. 60.

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 Pedrogão to the neighbourhood of Fuente Guinaldo, close to head quarters[706]. 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[707]. 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[708]. 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.

[706] Graham’s diary in his _Life_, by Delavoye, p. 577.

[707] Ibid., August 29th.

[708] Ibid., September 2nd, p. 582.

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 Baños, 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[709]. 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[710]’. He had got to know that Souham’s strong division had come to the front to join Dorsenne[711], 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[712]. 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[713], 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.

[709] Wellington to Graham, September 16, _Dispatches_, viii. 284.

[710] To Beresford, _Dispatches_, viii. p. 97.

[711] This is mentioned in his letters to Henry Wellesley of August 22 and to Craufurd of August 28.

[712] To Henry Wellesley on August 28; cf. to Lord Liverpool of same date.

[713] To Lord Liverpool, _Dispatches_, viii. 256.

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[714]. 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[715]. 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.

[714] Some typical regimental figures of September 15, 1811, may serve as illustrations. The 68th (only just landed) had 233 sick to 412 effective, the 51st (landed in April) 246 sick to 251 effective. The 77th landed on July 5th with 859 of all ranks, but had only 680 effective on August 5, and 560 on September 15. The 40th had, on September 15, 791 effective and 513 sick. The total sick on the last-named day were, ‘present’ 1,720, ‘hospitals’ 12,517, or 14,237 in all.

[715] Brigades of Pack and MacMahon, with the other five brigades incorporated in the 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th Divisions, and two weak cavalry brigades under Madden. See tables in Appendix XX.

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.

SECTION XXIX: CHAPTER II

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 Muñoz, 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 Oñoro. 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[716]. 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.

[716] Thiébault (_Mémoires_, iv. p. 510) gives the total at 48,000 infantry and nearly 4,000 cavalry. I imagine the real total to have been a little larger, about 58,000 in all. By the returns of the summer of 1811 the two guard-infantry divisions had 15,000 men, Serras’s (Thiébault’s) 4,000 men, Souham’s nearly 8,000.

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[717].’ They were to be fuller than was convenient, and partly by his own fault.

[717] Wellington to Charles Stuart, from Fuente Guinaldo, September 23rd. _Dispatches_, viii. p. 299.

On learning that Marmont and Dorsenne were at San Muñoz 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[718]. 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.

[718] According to Marmont (_Mémoires_, iv. p. 63) only one division, Thiébault’s, actually entered the town.

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[719]. 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.

[719] This reason for his great reconnaissances of September 25th is the only one given by Marmont (_Mémoires_, iv. p. 63).

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[720]. 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.

[720] This was the first time on which the British cavalry fought lancers (at Albuera it was only infantry which were charged by the Poles). Tomkinson of the 14th reports (_Diary_, p. 115): ‘They looked well and formidable till they were broken and closed with by our men, and then their lances were an encumbrance.... Many caught in the appointments of other men, and pulled them to the ground.’

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[721], 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[722].’

[721] That of Lamotte (1st and 3rd Hussars, 15th and 22nd _Chasseurs_) and that of Fournier (7th, 13th, 20th _Chasseurs_).

[722] Graham’s diary, in his _Life_ by Delavoye, p. 577.

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[723] 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.

[723] Wallace of the 88th was commanding the brigade vice Mackinnon, on sick leave in England.

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[724]. 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[725].

[724] ‘Comme la position des Anglais était très dominante, je ne pouvais juger quelles forces ils avaient en arrière: il était possible que ses premières troupes fussent soutenues par d’autres. Ne voulant pas risquer un engagement sérieux, en les faisant attaquer par la seule division d’infanterie qui fût à portée [Thiébault], je pris le parti de n’employer à l’attaque que de la cavalerie et de l’artillerie. Si l’ennemi était en force, elle en serait quitte pour se retirer.’ (_Mémoires_, iv. p. 64.)

[725] Not counting the 21st Portuguese, which came up later, and was not engaged in the actual combat.

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[726].

[726] The best account of this fine skirmish, carefully constructed from original authorities, is in Schwertfeger’s _History of the German Legion_, i. 337-9.

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[727]. 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 manœuvre, wherefore he was justified in trying the dangerous-looking movement which had such complete success.

[727] Arentschildt’s gunners did not suffer so much as might have been expected, and Wellington was inaccurate when, in his dispatch, he says that they were cut down at their guns. The Portuguese returns show that they lost only one man killed and four wounded.

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[728], 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.

[728] They only made up 1,000 bayonets between them, and the 77th, only 450 strong, would have made a very small square by itself.

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_.”[729]’

[729] Memoirs of Grattan of the 88th, pp. 116-17.

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[730] 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.

[730] 1st Hussars K.G.L. 5 killed, 2 officers and 32 men wounded, 5 men missing; 11th Light Dragoons 8 killed, 2 officers and 14 men wounded.

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[731].

[731] According to Martinien’s invaluable lists, the 25th Dragoons lost 3 officers, the 22nd _Chasseurs_ 4, the 6th and 15th Dragoons 2 each, the 8th and 10th Dragoons 1 each.

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[732]. 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.

[732] Marmont, in his _Mémoires_, iv. p. 65, says that he sent for Thiébault’s division when Montbrun was checked, but ‘l’ordre, envoyé lentement, fut exécuté plus lentement encore,’ and Thiébault only appeared at nightfall. The general himself gives the explanation (_Mémoires_, iv): the French right (i. e. the wing towards Carpio) seeming to be menaced, ‘they sent me off to a point where no enemy was to be found.’

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[733]; 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[734]. The Commander-in-Chief had resolved to evacuate Fuente Guinaldo.

[733] Graham to Cathcart, in his _Life_ by Delavoye, p. 598.

[734] Graham’s diary, ibid., August 26.

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[735]. 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[736]. Meanwhile Marmont had been, for all the day, in a position to attack Wellington with very superior numbers.

[735] For notes on this point see the life of Craufurd by his grandson, Rev. Alex. Craufurd, pp. 184-5. Wellington was vexed that the Light Division had not done the night march, and, according to Larpent’s _Journal_ (p. 85) observed to Craufurd, with some asperity, ‘I am glad to see you safe.’ The answer was, ‘Oh! I was in no danger, I assure you.’ ‘But I was, from your conduct,’ answered Wellington. Upon which Craufurd observed, ‘He’s d----d crusty to-day.’

[736] The account of the march of the Light Division on this day is quite satisfactory. I have Sir John Bell’s note that the idea that Craufurd thought for a moment of retreating by the Pass of Perales, because he feared being intercepted at Robleda, is ‘nonsense.’

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[737].

[737] Marmont (_Mémoires_, iv. p. 65) is very sure that he could have ‘isolated, turned, and enveloped’ Craufurd, and have destroyed him. But it is hard to see that he could really have done more than drive him on to an eccentric line of retreat.

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 [i. e. Bussaco and Fuentes de Oñoro] 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[738].’

[738] Thiébault, _Mémoires_, iv. p. 66.

There is an amusing picture of Marmont’s hesitation drawn by General Thiébault in his clever but malicious autobiography. In this a very different rôle 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[739].” 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.’

[739] Marmont, _Mémoires_, iv. pp. 513-14.

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[740].

[740] Thiébault, in his elaborate account of the skirmish (_Mémoires_, iv. pp. 522-5), says that he did not lose Aldea da Ponte, but I prefer to take Wellington’s definite statement that he did, supported by those of Vere (the Assistant-Quartermaster-General of the 4th Division) and Lord Londonderry--both eye-witnesses.

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[741]; 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.

[741] Thirty killed and 120 wounded. Martinien’s lists show 7 casualties among officers of Thiébault’s regiments (3 in the 34th Léger, 3 in the regiment of Neuchâtel, 1 in the 4th of the Vistula). This at the average rate of 20 or 22 officers per man seems just right. By a tiresome misprint Thiébault speaks of himself as commanding the 31st Léger in many places. It was really the 34th. The 31st was in the Army of Portugal, not in that of the North.

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[742]. 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[743].

[742] Note the curious misprint in the first line of p. 307 of _Wellington Dispatches_, vol. viii, of Light _Dragoons_ for Light _Division_. Unless the misprint is noticed, the reader will ask why Wellington has omitted Craufurd in describing his order of battle. Napier, I know not why, has altogether neglected to explain the distribution of the British army, in the short paragraph of vol. iii. p. 342 which describes this day’s operations.

[743] Graham to Cathcart, October 1, in Delavoye’s _Life of Lord Lynedoch_, p. 598.

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[744], 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.

[744] Thiébault’s feelings were much hurt at the skirmish being called a ‘scuffle.’ ‘Il se permit de dire que mon combat de la veille était une échauffourée. Je ne rappelle le mot que pour peindre l’arrogance d’un de ces hommes à qui leur titre de Maréchal défendait d’admettre aucun mérite en dehors d’eux-mêmes’ (_Mémoires_, iv. 528).

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 manœuvring 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 Oñoro. 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[745]!’

[745] Graham to Cathcart, in Delavoye’s _Life of Lord Lynedoch_, p. 599.

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.

SECTION XXIX: CHAPTER III

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[746]; 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 España’s Spanish infantry brigade also recrossed the Agueda, and took up a forward position facing Ledesma.

[746] There were changes in detail in November, for which see Vere’s _Marches of the 4th Division_, p. 21.

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[747].

[747] For all this see Dickson’s _Diary_, edited by Major Leslie, R.A., pp. 478-501. The order to start the first section of the siege-train for Almeida was only given on November 14. (Dickson, p. 505.)

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[748]. 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[749], 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).

[748] Afterwards replaced by one brigade of Dumoustier’s division of the Imperial Guard.

[749] See p. 472.

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[750]. 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[751]. 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 Castaños’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 [the 5th Corps and the cavalry] 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.

[750] It may be found in Belmas, Appendix to vol. i. pp. 585-8. Marmont, for reasons not hard to divine, does not print it among the many documents containing his correspondence with the Emperor which appear in the Appendix to his Book XV. (_Mémoires_, vol. iv.)

[751] See p. 546 above.

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[752], but there was nothing to prevent Wellington from replacing it at short notice.

[752] The destruction of these stores is mentioned in Marmont’s _Mémoires_, iv. p. 68.

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 Castaños, 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[753], 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.

[753] This may be found printed in Belmas, vol. i. Appendix, pp. 588-90.

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[754], 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[755], and barely 20,000 able-bodied men with the colours, so that they cannot possibly try any offensive enterprise.’

[754] Printed in Appendix to Marmont’s _Mémoires_, vol. iv. pp. 257-8.

[755] The sick have grown from 18,000 to 20,000 since the day before, which is the date of a less important dispatch, in which Marmont had been warned to set aside 6,000 men only for the Valencian expedition, because Wellington is absolutely unable to strike a blow.

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[756]. 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[757]. 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[758].’ 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.

[756] To be exact, Wellington’s Return of November 22, the day after Napoleon dictated this dispatch, was:--

British. Present, 38,311; Detached, 3,917; sick (present and absent), 16,000.

Portuguese. Present, 24,391; Detached, 2,087; sick (present and absent), 6,000.

[757] Memorandum, dated 28th December, 1811, at Freneda. (_Dispatches_, viii. pp. 518-19.)

[758] Note in Correspondence, Appendix of vol. iv of _Mémoires_, p. 259.

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[759]. 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.

[759] See pp. 474-82 above.

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[760]; 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.

[760] Martinien’s invaluable lists show only three officers wounded in the 16th.

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[761], and each had been given by his commander a defensive rather than an offensive rôle. 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[762], 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.

[761] For Hill’s force at this time see Appendix XXIII. He had 5,800 British infantry, 7,400 Portuguese infantry, 1,800 British cavalry (including Le Marchant’s brigade at Castello Branco), 650 Portuguese cavalry, and about 600 artillery, &c., about 16,000 in all. Drouet had the 9th Corps, now about 14,000 strong (it had been recruited by the return to the ranks of the convalescents of the 4,000 Albuera wounded), and six regiments of cavalry from the Army of the South, bringing up his force to much the same figure.

[762] See above, pp. 587-8.

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 [the main] army.... If the 5th Corps should, instead of crossing the Tagus, manœuvre 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 Gavião towards Abrantes, and thence across the Zezere, taking the line of the Tagus, with Santarem on your right[763].’ 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[764]. Meanwhile the main body of the allied force in Estremadura lay about Portalegre, Villa Viçosa, 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.

[763] Wellington to Hill, August 8th. (_Dispatches_, viii. pp. 180-2.)

[764] See for the recall the dispatch of October 4. (_Dispatches_, viii. p. 321.)

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 Castaños. Since the Captain-General had sent off Carlos de España 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 Caçeres, observing the French garrison in Truxillo, with which it often bickered. But Castaños 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[765]. Such raids were profitable for distracting the enemy, and gave Drouet much trouble. But as Castaños’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.

[765] For copious details see the _Life of Morillo_, by Don Antonio Villa, pp. 47-55 (Madrid, 1910).

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[766], and two cavalry brigades.

[766] At the breaking up of the 9th Corps in June, Claparéde took over Gazan’s old division in the 5th Corps, and Conroux that of Ruffin in the 1st Corps. But the 9th Corps battalions were not all redistributed into their regiments till Conroux came back from Soult’s campaign against the Murcians in August.

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[767]. 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 [the Caya position].... If you should find Soult collects in too great force for you, retire upon Portalegre, and thence, if necessary, upon Gavião 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[768].’

[767] See Wellington to Hill, October 4 and October 10. (_Dispatches_, viii. pp. 321, and 332-3.)

[768] Wellington to Hill, from Freneda, October 16. (_Dispatches_, viii. pp. 333-4.)

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 Caçeres 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[769].’

[769] Same to same, October 17, acknowledging Hill’s proposal made in a letter of October 15.

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 Castaños’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 Caçeres, 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[770], 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.

[770] Apparently 20th Dragoons, 27th _Chasseurs_, 10th Hussars.

On October 20th Hill wrote to Castaños 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[771] 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 Castaños 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[772], four battalions and two cavalry regiments of Portuguese[773], and a British cavalry brigade under Le Marchant recently arrived from home, which lay at Castello Branco, but could be called south if required.

[771] 4th and 10th Line (2 batts. each) from Hamilton’s division, 6th and 18th Line (2 batts. each) and 6th Caçadores from Ashworth’s Brigade.

[772] This was the brigade composed of the remnant of Colborne’s and Hoghton’s old regiments, viz. Buffs, 1/57th, 2/31st, 2/66th.

[773] The remainder of Hamilton’s division, 2nd and 14th Line, and the 5th and 8th Cavalry.

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 Caçeres. 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 Castaños that Girard was still at Caçeres, 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 Caçeres, but learnt, after some delays, on the morning of the 26th that Girard had left Caçeres 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 Caçeres, and would listen to no warnings[774].

[774] Hill in his dispatch says that the peasantry gave Girard no news of his approach. But in Blakeney’s interesting narrative of this campaign there is a story told that two _Afrancesados_ warned the Frenchman of Hill’s approach, and that he refused to credit them. This was told to Blakeney by his prisoner, Colonel the Prince of Aremberg, commanding the 27th _Chasseurs_. See Blakeney, p. 236.

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[775]), 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.

[775] The regiments, which were incomplete in July (see Appendix XVIII), had been joined before October by the battalion which each had contributed to the garrison of Badajoz.

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[776]; 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_,[777] 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 Caçeres 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.

[776] Blakeney’s account of his own exploit (pp. 228-9 of his book) is borne out by Hill’s recommendation of him, though he is not mentioned in the formal dispatch of October 30.

[777] This Rheinbund prince had been in great favour with Napoleon, and married Stephanie Tascher, niece of the Empress Josephine. He had raised the 27th _Chasseurs_ at his own cost.

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.

APPENDICES

I

THE FRENCH ARMY IN PORTUGAL, JAN. 1, 1811

[FROM A RETURN IN THE _ARCHIVES NATIONALES_, PARIS]

2nd CORPS. REYNIER. At and about Santarem:

Present under Arms. Detached. Sick. Total. Officers. Men.

1st Infantry Division, Merle 154 4,214 150 1,549 6,067 2nd Infantry Division, Heudelet 196 5,522 451 2,616 8,785 Cavalry Brigade, Pierre Soult 98 1,048 523 231 1,900 Artillery, Train, &c. 33 1,251 52 89 1,425 État-Major 65 -- -- -- 65 --- ------ ----- ----- ------ Corps Total 546 12,035 1,176 4,485 18,242

6th CORPS. NEY. Head quarters, Thomar: 1st Infantry Division, Marchand 182 4,805 529 1,121 6,637 2nd Infantry Division, Mermet 212 6,040 743 1,077 8,072 3rd Infantry Division, Loison 174 4,415 1,037[778] 3,291 8,917 Cavalry Brigade, Lamotte 48 604 663 117 1,432 Artillery, Train, &c. 34 1,735 47 165 1,981 État-Major 77 -- -- -- 77 --- ------ ----- ----- ------ Corps Total 727 17,599 3,019 5,771 27,116

8th CORPS. JUNOT. Head quarters, Torres Novas: 1st Infantry Division, Clausel 185 3,822 484 3,989 8,480 2nd Infantry Division, Solignac 236 4,761 1,958[779] 3,537 10,492 Cavalry Brigade 86 895 698 238 1,917 Artillery, Train, &c. 23 1,083 24 392 1,522 État-Major 69 -- -- -- 69 --- ------ ----- ----- ------ Corps Total 599 10,561 3,164 8,156 22,480

Reserve Cavalry, Montbrun 140 2,729 1,486[780] 178 4,533 Artillery Reserve, Génie, &c. 42 1,546 219 283 2,090 Gendarmerie 7 190 -- -- 197 General État-Major of the Army 66 -- -- -- 66 ----- ------ ----- ------ ------ Total 2,127 44,660 9,064 18,873 74,724

[778] Including 5/82nd, 528 strong, at Almeida.

[779] Including 4/15th and 3/86th, 1,451 strong, at Ciudad Rodrigo.

[780] Including five squadrons, 875 strong, left between Ciudad Rodrigo and Almeida.

Total present under arms of all ranks, 46,787 [Fririon gives only 45,131].

N.B.--The 9,064 detached include 2,854 men left at Rodrigo and Almeida, and 6,210 men left behind in Spain at Salamanca and elsewhere.

Note the terrible proportion of sick in the raw divisions of Junot and Loison, as compared with the lower percentage in the old divisions of Ney’s and Reynier’s Corps.

9th Corps. DROUET D’ERLON. Head quarters approaching Leiria:

1st Division of Infantry, Claparéde (at Guarda) 246 7,617 369 482 8,714 2nd Division of Infantry, Conroux (near Leiria) 225 7,367 447 1,299 9,338 Cavalry Brigade, Fournier (at the rear) 71 1,627 60 114 1,872 Artillery, Train, &c. 13 657 -- 72 742 État-Major 66 -- -- -- 66 --- ------ --- ----- ------ Corps Total 621 17,268 876 1,967 20,732

Only Conroux’s division being with the main army, its 7,592 effective men alone have to be added to Masséna’s force, making a grand total of 54,116 for the available strength of the Marshal on Jan. 1, 1811.

On March 15th the total of 46,787 effectives in the old Army of Portugal had gone down to 44,407 (according to the return in the Paris Archives--Fririon says to only 40,751), though 1,862 drafts were brought up to the front by Foy on Feb. 5. This shows a shrinkage of 4,242 men effective since Jan. 1. But the loss in the sick is terrible--on Jan. 1 there were 18,873; on March 15 only about 6,000 (5,424 in the three army corps; no figures preserved for artillery, train, engineers, gendarmerie, &c.). Apparently multitudes must have perished in hospital during these eleven weeks.

Conroux’s division had about 6,400 effectives on March 15, which would make Masséna’s effective fighting force on that day 50,807. Claparéde’s division (at Guarda and Celorico) was on March 15 about 6,000 strong.

On April 1 the total of 44,407 effectives of the old army on March 15 had gone down to 39,905 present with the colours, not including Conroux and Claparéde.

On April 15 (the retreat having ended on April 5) the total of effectives was 39,546, not including Conroux and Claparéde.

The states of May 1 (Paris Archives) will be found under the Table (No. XII) entitled ‘The French Army at Fuentes de Oñoro.’

II

SOULT’S ARMY IN HIS FIRST EXPEDITION OF ESTREMADURA (JAN.-MARCH 1811)

Officers and Men. 5th CORPS. Marshal MORTIER: 1st Infantry Division (Girard): 34th, 40th, 64th, 88th Line (three batts. each) 5,835 2nd Infantry Division (Gazan): 21st and 28th Léger, 100th and 103rd Line (three batts. each) 5,775 Corps-Cavalry (Briche), 21st Chasseurs, 10th Hussars. 971 From 1st CORPS: 63rd Line (three batts.) 1,450 4th, 14th, 26th Dragoons 1,332 2nd Hussars 405 From 4th Corps: 27th Chasseurs à Cheval 990 Artillery and Train 1,261 Engineers and Sappers 698 4th Spanish Chasseurs à Cheval 246 Gendarmerie 25 État-Major-General 22 ------ General Total 19,010

III

SPANISH TROOPS IN ESTREMADURA, MARCH, 1811

(A) ORIGINAL GARRISON OF THE PLACE

Officers. Men.

2nd of Majorca (two batts.) 43 466 1st of Badajoz (one batt.) 20 376 Provincial de Truxillo (one batt.) 27 694 Provincial de Plasencia (one batt.) 20 687 Dismounted Cavalry, organized in battalions 29 781 Artillery, and detachments lent to the artillery by various corps 45 979 Sappers 6 167 --- ----- Total 190 4,150

(B) MENDIZABAL’S ARMY OF SUCCOUR [Present with the Colours, Feb. 1, 1811]

Officers. Men. Vanguard Division, Brigadier-General Carlos de España: Principe (three batts.), 1st and 2nd of Catalonia, Gerona, Vittoria (one batt. each) 137 2,550

1st Division, Major-General Garcia: Leon (three batts.), Regimiento del General (three batts.), La Union (two batts.), 1st of Barcelona, Voluntarios Catalanes, Osuna, Zafra, Valladolid, La Serena (one batt. each), 2nd of Seville (two batts.) 357 5,594

2nd Division, Major-General Virues: Rey (two batts.), Princesa (two batts.), Lobera (three batts.), Toledo (two batts.), Zamora (two batts.), Hibernia (two batts.), Fernando 7º (two batts.), Tiradores de Castilla, Voluntarios de Navarra, 1st of Seville (one batt. each) 282 4,926

Cavalry, Major-General Butron: Carabineros Reales, Reina, Infante, Borbon, Algarve, Sagunto, Lusitania, Hussares de Estremadura, Perseguidores de Andalusia, Imperiales de Toledo, Granaderos de Llerena, Cruzada de Albuquerque [many regiments very weak] 387 3,361 [with 2,595 horses]

Artillery, divisional, four batteries [not including men in Badajoz] 19 498 ----- ------ Total 1,182 16,929

N.B.--This total force of 18,111 men did not appear before Badajoz with Mendizabal on February 5th. Fernando 7º, with 800 men, was garrisoning Albuquerque. The 800 dismounted cavalry were at Valencia de Alcantara, their dépôt. 2nd of Seville, with 34 officers and 582 men, had been thrown into Badajoz in January. About 400 cavalry were detached with Ballasteros. Two battalions were garrisoning Campo Mayor. It seems that the actual army of succour consisted of about 2,500 men of Carlos de España’s division, 8,500 from those of Garcia and Virues, 2,500 of Butron’s cavalry and 450 artillery; also 950 Portuguese dragoons under Madden.

Osuna, Zafra, Valladolid, and La Serena, with 132 officers and 2,559 men, were drafted into the garrison of Badajoz before the battle of the Gebora, in which they did not take part. The total force present at that light was about 9,000 infantry and 2,000 Spanish horse, besides Madden’s 900 Portuguese dragoons.

IV

GRAHAM’S ARMY AT BARROSA, AND ITS LOSSES

_Offi- _Killed._ _Wounded._ _Total._ cers._ _Men._ _O._ _M._ _O._ _M._

Dilkes’s Brigade: 1st Guards, 2nd batt. 24 587 1 33 8 177 219 Coldstream Guards, 2nd Batt. (2 comps.) 7 204 1 8 2 47 58 3rd Guards, 2nd Batt. (3 comps.) 8 314 1 14 2 85 102 2 comps. 2/95th Rifles 11 206 -- 6 -- 28 34 --- ----- -- -- -- --- --- Total of Brigade 50 1,311 3 61 12 337 413

Wheatley’s Brigade: 1/28th Foot (8 comps.) 20 437 -- 6 -- 80 86 2/67th Foot 23 504 -- 10 4 31 45 2/87th Foot 32 664 1 44 4 124 173 --- ---- -- -- -- --- --- Total of Brigade 75 1,605 1 60 8 235 304

Browne’s Flank Battalion (2 comps, each of 1/9th, 1/28th, 2/82nd) 22 514 -- 25 11 200 236

Barnard’s Flank Battalion (4 comps. 3/95th Rifles, 2 comps. 2/47th) 29 615 2 33 5 97 137

Flank Companies, 20th Portuguese 10 316 -- 9 5 42 56

Cavalry, 2 squadrons 2nd Hussars K.G.L. 13 193 -- -- 2 32 34

Artillery 20 342 -- 6 8 40 54

Royal Engineers 9 50 -- 1 -- 2 3

Staff Corps 2 35 -- -- -- 1 1 --- ----- -- --- -- --- ----- Total of Army 236 4,981 6 195 51 986 1,238

Total of force was: Infantry, 4,533; Cavalry, 206; Artillery, 362; Engineers, &c., 96 = Grand Total, 5,217.

N.B.--Of these troops on the field, Dilkes’s brigade _minus_ the 211 Coldstreamers, but _plus_ 260 of the 2/67th and Browne’s flank battalion, formed the right column, while Wheatley’s brigade, _minus_ one wing of the 2/67th, but _plus_ the two Coldstream companies and Barnard’s flank battalion, was on the left. All the guns were with the latter column. Thus Dilkes’s command must have been about 1,950 strong, Wheatley’s about 2,883. The cavalry were absent with Whittingham on the coast-road till nearly the end of the engagement.

V

VICTOR’S ARMY AT BARROSA, AND ITS LOSSES

(1) TROOPS ENGAGED AGAINST THE BRITISH

_Present._ _Killed._ _Wounded._ _Missing._ _Total._ _Off._ _Men._ _O._ _M._ _O._ _M._ _O._ _M._ DIVISION RUFFIN: 2/9th Léger 15 581 1 14 4 70 1 18 108 1/24th and 2/24th Ligne 37 1,156 2 33 7 214 3 21 280 1/96th Ligne 26 738 2 39 6 199 2 1 249 2 provisional batts. of see Grenadiers note[781] 1 20 5 136 1 59 222 -- ----- -- --- -- --- -- -- --- Divisional Total 78 2,475 6 106 22 619 7 99 859

DIVISION LAVAL: 1/8th and 2/8th Ligne 43 1,425 11 63 11 622 -- 19 726 1/45th Ligne 27 683 1 7 -- 44 -- 3 55 1/54th and 2/54th Ligne 42 1,281 3 26 10 284 -- -- 323

Grenadier companies of the 3rd batts. of the 8th, 45th, 54th, 24th, 96th Ligne, see and 9th Léger 19 530 -- -- -- -- note[782] -- --- ----- -- --- -- --- -- -- ----- Divisional Total 131 3,919 15 96 21 950 -- 22 1,104

CAVALRY, 1st Dragoons 21 377 -- 2 6 30 1 3 42 ARTILLERY, 2 batteries 8 161 1 16 3 31 1 -- 52 ÉTAT-MAJOR ? ? 2 -- 2 -- 1 -- 5 --- ----- -- --- -- ---- -- --- ----- General Total 238 6,932 24 220 54 1,630 10 124 2,062

[781] These two battalions were formed of the fourteen grenadier companies of the 1st and 2nd battalions of all the seven regiments of Laval’s and Ruffin’s divisions, including those of the 16th Léger, absent from the corps. The men are therefore all counted already in their battalions, save those of the 16th Léger, which would probably give 7 officers and 170 men to be added to the above total of 7,170. That these companies of the 16th were present is shown by the fact that two casualties of officers of the regiment are recorded in Martinien’s lists at Barrosa.

[782] Losses of these six companies are included among those of the other grenadiers in the return. They were little engaged, and probably lost only 20 or 30 men.

(2) TROOPS ENGAGED AGAINST THE SPANIARDS, IN THE COMBAT BY THE TORRE BERMEJA

_Present._ _Killed._ _Wounded._ _Missing._ _Total._ _Off._ _Men._ _O._ _M._ _O._ _M._ _O._ _M._

DIVISION VILLATTE: 1/27th and 3/27th Léger 43 982 1 20 7 150 2 21 201 1/94th Ligne 15 535 1 9 3 49 -- -- 62 2/95th and 3/95th Ligne 30 1,026 -- 1 -- 32 -- 1 34 CAVALRY, 2nd Dragoons 19 270 -- 3 -- 12 -- 4 19 ARTILLERY, 1 battery 3 75 -- -- -- --- -- -- -- ÉTAT-MAJOR ? ? -- -- 1 --- -- -- 1 --- ----- -- -- -- --- -- -- --- 110 2,881 2 33 11 243 2 26 317

N.B.--There were absent from their divisions:

(1) With Cassagne at Medina Sidonia--the 2/27th, 3/94th, 2/96th, 1/95th, and a battalion of _voltigeur_ companies from the 3rd battalion of the 8th, 24th, 45th, 54th, 96th, and 6th Léger; also the 5th Chasseurs à Cheval.

(2) Left in garrison in the Cadiz lines--the 1/9th Léger, 2/45th and 2/94th Ligne.

(3) Taken away by Soult--the 63rd Ligne and 16th Léger.

VI

BRITISH LOSSES DURING THE COMBATS 11TH-15TH MARCH, 1811

_Killed._ _Wounded._ _Missing._ _Total._ _Officers._ _Men._ _O._ _M._ _O._ _M._

POMBAL, March 11th: 1/95th Foot -- 1 1 4 -- -- 6 3rd Caçadores -- 10 1 20 -- -- 31 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- Total -- 11 2 24 -- -- 37

REDINHA, March 12th: Light Division: 1/43rd Foot -- -- -- 6 -- -- 6 1/52nd Foot -- 2 3 21 -- -- 26 1/95th Foot -- -- 1 24 -- 1 26 3rd Division: 2/5th Foot -- 3 1 5 -- -- 9 1/45th Foot -- -- 1 6 -- -- 7 5/60th Foot -- -- -- 10 -- 4 14 1/88th Foot -- -- 1 3 -- -- 4 1/94th Foot -- 2 1 13 -- -- 16 2/83rd Foot -- -- -- 1 -- -- 1 4th Division: 2/27th Foot -- -- -- 3 -- -- 3 1/40th Foot -- -- -- 8 -- -- 8 97th Foot -- 1 -- 6 -- -- 7 Cavalry: 1st Royal Dragoons -- -- -- 2 -- -- 2 4th Dragoons -- -- -- 1 -- -- 1 Horse Artillery -- -- -- 3 -- -- 3 Portuguese: From 1st, 3rd, 4th, and 6th Caçadores -- 9 3 51 -- 10 73 -- -- -- -- -- -- --- Total -- 17 11 163 -- 15 206

CAZAL NOVO, and other skirmishes of March 14th: Light Division: 1/43rd Foot -- -- 3 11 -- -- 14 1/52nd Foot 1 8 3 52 -- 1 65 1/95th Foot -- 3 2 10 -- -- 15 3rd Division: 2/5th Foot -- -- -- 8 -- -- 8 1/45th Foot -- 1 -- 9 -- 1 11 5/60th Foot -- -- 1 3 -- 1 5 74th Foot -- -- 1 4 -- -- 5 2/83rd Foot -- -- -- 1 -- -- 1 1/88th Foot -- -- -- 2 -- 1 3 1/94th Foot -- -- -- 4 -- -- 4 Portuguese -- 2 1 21 -- -- 24 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- Total 1 14 11 125 -- 4 155

FOZ DO AROUCE, March 15th: Light Division: 1/52nd Foot -- 2 -- 3 -- -- 5 1/95th Foot -- -- 2 17 -- -- 19 3rd Division: 2/5th Foot -- 1 -- 7 -- -- 8 1/45th Foot -- -- -- 1 -- -- 1 5/60th Foot 1 3 -- 8 -- -- 12 74th Foot -- -- -- 3 -- -- 3 2/83rd Foot -- -- -- 1 -- -- 1 1/88th Foot 1 -- -- 1 -- -- 2 1/94th Foot -- -- -- 6 -- -- 6 1st Division: 1/79th Foot -- 1 -- 6 -- -- 7 2/24th Foot -- -- -- 2 -- -- 2 2/42nd Foot -- -- -- 3 -- -- 3 Portuguese -- -- -- 2 -- -- 2 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- Total 2 7 2 60 -- -- 71

VII

BRITISH LOSSES AT SABUGAL, APRIL 3RD, 1811

_Killed._ _Wounded._ _Missing._ _Total._ _Officers._ _Men._ _O._ _M._ _O._ _M._ Light Division: 1/43rd Foot 1 7 5 67 -- -- 80 1/52nd Foot -- 3 2 18 -- -- 23 1/95th Foot 1 1 2 12 -- 1 17 2/95th Foot -- 1 -- 2 -- -- 3 3rd Division: 2/5th Foot -- -- 2 6 -- -- 8 1/45th Foot -- -- -- 2 -- 1 3 5/60th Foot -- 2 -- 2 -- 1 5 2/83rd Foot -- -- -- 1 -- 1 2 1/88th Foot -- -- -- 2 -- -- 2 2/88th Foot -- -- -- 3 -- -- 3 1/94th Foot -- -- -- 2 -- -- 2 Royal Horse Artillery -- -- -- 1 -- -- 1 1st Hussars K.G.L. -- -- -- 1 -- 1 2 Portuguese -- 1 -- 9 1[783] 11 -- -- -- --- -- -- --- Total 2 15 11 128 1 5 162

[783] This officer, Colonel Waters, of the Portuguese Staff, was taken prisoner on the Coa many miles from the battlefield, by the outposts of the French 6th Corps.

N.B.--Note that of all the 594 casualties in action during the period of Masséna’s retreat all but 65 were in the Light and 3rd Divisions. All the officers killed or wounded belonged to those divisions, except two in the 4th and 6th Portuguese Caçadores wounded at Redinha.

VIII

FRENCH LOSSES AT SABUGAL, APRIL 3RD, 1811 [FROM A RETURN IN THE MINISTÈRE DE LA GUERRE, PARIS]

_Killed. _Wounded. _Missing. _Total._ Officers. Men._ Officers. Men._ Officers. Men._ 2nd CORPS. MERLE’S Division: 2nd Léger 2 7 4 60 3 15 91 36th Ligne 1 8 5 63 1 18 96 4th Léger 1 1 5 57 1 19 84 HEUDELET’S Division: 17th Léger 3 13 12 118 -- 31 177 70th Ligne 6 9 11 122 -- 96 244 31st Léger 2 2 -- 6 -- -- 10 47th Ligne -- 1 -- 6 -- 1 8 Cavalry (PIERRE SOULT): 1st Hussars -- 7 -- 4 1 -- 12 8th Dragoons -- -- -- 1 -- -- 1 25th Dragoons -- -- -- 3 -- -- 3 22nd Chasseurs 1 4 -- 11 -- -- 16 Chasseurs Hanovriens -- 2 -- 6 -- -- 8 Artillery 1 1 1 7 -- -- 10 -- -- -- --- -- --- --- 17 55 38 464 6 180 760

N.B.--The disproportionate number of wounded to killed among rank and file, 464 to 55, or one to eight, while the normal proportion was about one to five, suggests that some of the numerous ‘missing’ were really killed. Note the excessive loss among officers, 61 to 699 rank and file, one to eleven instead of the usual one to twenty.

There is some reason to suppose that the figures are incomplete, as Martinien’s _Liste des officiers tués et blessés_ gives 19 killed and 46 wounded _by name_. We find in these tables the 1st Hussars with an officer killed and three wounded, and the 70th Ligne with seven killed and thirteen wounded, &c.

IX

FORCE OF WELLINGTON’S ARMY AT FUENTES DE OÑORO [FROM THE RETURN OF MAY 1]

CAVALRY

_Brigadier._ _Regiments._ _Officers._ _Sergeants, _Regimental _Brigade drummers, Total._ Total of and rank Effectives._ and file._

Slade {1st Dragoons 24 364 388} 766 {14th Light Dragoons 25 353 378}

Arentschildt {16th Dragoons 30 332 362} 776 {1st Hussars K.G.L. 30 384 414}

Portuguese {4th Line -- 104 104} Brigade, {10th Line -- 208 208} 312[784] Barbaçena { } ---- ------ ------ ------ Total Cavalry 109 1,745 1,854 1,854

INFANTRY

1st Division. Lieut.-General SIR BRENT SPENCER:

{3rd Guards, 1st batt. 24 935 959} Stopford {Coldstream G., 1st batt. 31 909 940} 1,943 {1 comp. 5/60th Foot 2 42 44}

{24th Foot, 2nd batt. 22 349 371} {42nd ” ” ” 26 419 445} Nightingale {79th ” 1st ” 39 883 922} 1,774 {1 comp. 5/60th Foot 1 35 36}

{50th Foot, 1st batt. 45 552 597} Howard {71st ” ” ” 42 455 497} 1,934 {92nd ” ” ” 41 723 764} {3/95th Foot, 1 comp. 3 73 76}

{1st Line Batt. K.G.L. 27 485 512} {2nd ” ” 30 454 484} Löwe {5th ” ” 29 393 422} 1,914 {7th ” ” 21 389 410} {2 Light Comps. ” 5 81 86} ---- ------ ------ ------ Total 1st Division 388 7,177 7,565 7,565

3rd Division. Major-General T. PICTON:

{45th Foot, 1st batt. 24 484 508} Mackinnon {74th Regiment 24 461 485} {88th Foot, 2nd batt. 30 657 687} 1,863 {3 comps. 5/60th Foot 6 177 183}

{5th Foot, 2nd batt. 28 476 504} Colville {83rd ” ” 33 427 460} 1,967 {88th ” ” 28 439 467} {94th Regiment 31 505 536}

Power’s {9th Line, 2 batts. -- 910[785] 910} Portuguese {21st ” ” -- 740[785] 740} 1,650 Brigade { }

Total 3rd Division 204 5,276 5,480 5,480

5th Division. Major-General SIR W. ERSKINE:

{1st Foot, 3rd batt. 39 633 672} Hay {9th ” 1st ” 28 599 627} 1,770 {38th ” 2nd ” 21 381 402} {1 comp. Brunswick Oels 3 66 69}

{4th Foot, 1st batt. 34 578 612} Dunlop {30th ” 2nd ” 23 484 507} {44th ” 3rd ” 27 410 437} 1,624 {1 comp. Brunswick Oels 3 65 68}

Spry’s {3rd Line, 2 batts. -- 724[785] 724} Portuguese {15th ” ” -- 556[785] 556} 1,764 Brigade {8th Caçadores, 1 batt. -- 484[785] 484}

Total 5th Division 178 4,980 5,158 5,158

6th Division. Major-General ALEX. CAMPBELL:

{11th Foot, 1st batt. 49 788 837} Hulse {53rd ” 2nd ” 21 438 459} 2,041 {61st ” 1st ” 31 666 697} {1 comp. 5/60th Foot 2 46 48}

Burne {2nd Foot 30 528 558} {36th ” 1st batt. 32 482 514} 1,072

Madden’s {8th Line, 2 batts. -- 915[785] 915} Portuguese {12th ” ” -- 1,222[785] 1,222} 2,137 Brigade { }

Total 6th Division 165 5,085 5,250 5,250

7th Division. Major-General HOUSTON:

{51st Foot, 2nd batt. 39 551 590} {85th Foot 22 365 387} Sontag. {Chasseurs Britanniques. 31 808 839} 2,409 {Brunswick Oels, 8 comps. 32 561 593}

Doyle’s (late{7th Line, 2 batts. -- 713[786] 713} Collins’s) {19th ” ” -- 1,026[786] 1,026} 2,181 Portuguese {2nd Caçadores, 1 batt. -- 442[786] 442} Brigade { }

Total 7th Division. 124 4,466 4,590 4,590

Light Division. Major-General R. CRAUFURD:

{43rd Foot, 1st batt. 27 727 754} Beckwith {95th ” 1st ” } { (4 comps.) 13 341 354} 1,184 {95th ” 2nd ” } { (1 comp.) 4 72 76}

{52nd Foot, 1st batt. 32 803 835} Drummond {52nd ” 2nd ” 32 510 542} 1,734 {95th ” 4th ” } { (4 comps.) 14 343 357}

Portuguese {1st Caçadores -- 450[786] 450} {3rd ” -- 447[786] 447} 897

Total Light Division 122 3,693 3,815 3,815

Ashworth’s {6th Line, 2 batts. -- 986[786] 986} Portuguese {18th ” ” -- 1,130[786] 1,130} 2,539 Brigade, {6th Caçadores -- 423[786] 423} unattached { }

ARTILLERY

English H. A. (Bull’s and Ross’s troops) 10 157 167} ” Field (Lawson’s and Thompson’s Companies) 10 260 270} 987 Portuguese (4 batteries) -- 550[786] 550}

ENGINEERS 10 30 40 40

TRAIN 15 211 226 226

[784] These Portuguese figures include the officers.

[785] These Portuguese figures include the officers.

[786] These Portuguese figures include the officers.

TOTAL

Cavalry 1,854 1st Division 7,565 3rd ” 5,480 5th ” 5,158 6th ” 5,250 7th ” 4,590 Light ” 3,815 Ashworth’s Portuguese 2,539 Artillery 987 Engineers 40 Train 226 ------ Grand Total 37,504

[Total of Infantry, 34,397.]

N.B.--Pack’s Portuguese Brigade and the 2nd regiment from the 6th Division were absent, in charge of the blockade of Almeida.

X

BRITISH AND PORTUGUESE LOSSES AT FUENTES DE OÑORO FIRST DAY, MAY 3RD, 1811

_Killed._ _Wounded._ _Missing._ _Off._ _Men._ _Off._ _Men._ _Off._ _Men._ _Total._ 1st DIVISION. Spencer:

Nightingale’s {24th Foot, 2nd batt. -- -- -- 2 -- -- 2 Brigade {42nd ” ” ” -- 1 1 6 -- 1 9 {79th ” 1st ” 1 4 2 18 -- -- 25

{30th Foot, 1st batt. -- -- 2 3 -- -- 5 Howard’s {71st ” ” 1 7 5 33 -- 6 52 Brigade {92nd ” ” -- -- 1 9 -- -- 10 {3/95th Foot, 1 comp. -- -- 1 9 -- -- 10

{1st Line batt. K.G.L. -- -- -- 4 -- -- 4 Löwe’s {2nd ” ” -- -- -- 4 -- -- 4 Brigade {5th ” ” -- -- -- 4 -- -- 4 {7th ” ” -- -- -- 3 -- -- 3 {Light comps. ” -- 3 -- 8 -- -- 11 ---- ---- ---- ----- ---- ---- ----- Divisional Total 2 15 12 103 -- 7 139 ---- ---- ---- ----- ---- ---- -----

3rd DIVISION. Picton:

{45th Foot, 1st batt. -- -- -- -- -- 2 2 Mackinnon’s {74th ” ” -- 1 -- 9 -- -- 10 Brigade {88th ” ” -- -- -- 5 -- -- 5 {5/60th Foot, 3 comps. -- 3 2 9 -- 8 22

{ 5th Foot, 2nd batt. -- -- -- 4 -- -- 4 Colville’s {83rd ” ” -- -- -- 9 -- 3 12 Brigade {88th ” ” -- -- -- 6 -- -- 6 {94th ” -- -- -- 3 -- -- 3 ---- ---- ---- ----- ---- ---- ----- Divisional Total -- 4 2 45 -- 13 64 ---- ---- ---- ----- ---- ---- -----

CAVALRY:

Slade’s {1st Dragoons -- -- -- -- -- -- -- Brigade {14th Light Dragoons -- 1 -- 1 -- 1 3

Arentschildt’s {16th Light Dragoons -- -- -- -- -- -- -- Brigade {1st Hussars K.G.L. -- -- 1 4 -- -- 5 ---- ---- ---- ----- ---- ---- ----- British General Total 2 20 15 153 -- 21 211

Portuguese loss (nearly all in 6th Caçadores of Ashworth’s Brigade) -- 14 6 27 -- 1 48 ---- ---- ---- ----- ---- ---- ----- General Total of Allied Loss 2 34 21 180 -- 22 259

XI

BRITISH AND PORTUGUESE LOSSES AT FUENTES DE OÑORO SECOND DAY, MAY 5TH, 1811

_Killed._ _Wounded._ _Missing._ _Off._ _Men._ _Off._ _Men._ _Off._ _Men._ _Total._ 1st DIVISION. Spencer:

Stopford’s {1st Coldstream Guards -- 4 2 49 1 7 63 Brigade {1st Scots Fusilier { Guards 1 5 1 52 1 12 72

{24th Foot, 2nd batt. 1 4 -- 19 1 4 29 Nightingale’s {42nd ” ” ” -- 2 -- 23 -- -- 25 Brigade {79th ” 1st ” -- 27 9 126 -- 94 256

{30th Foot, 1st batt. -- 3 -- 21 -- -- 24 Howard’s {71st ” ” 2 11 4 71 2 37 127 Brigade {92nd ” ” -- 7 1 34 -- -- 42 {3/95th Foot, 1 comp. 1 1 -- 2 -- 2 6

{1st Line batt. K.G.L. -- -- -- 2 -- 1 3 Löwe’s {2nd ” ” -- 2 2 11 -- 2 17 Brigade {5th ” ” -- -- -- 8 -- 3 11 {7th ” ” -- 1 1 5 -- 2 9 {Light comps. ” -- -- -- 3 -- 2 5 ---- ----- ---- ------ ---- ----- ------ Divisional Total 5 67 20 426 5 166 689 ---- ----- ---- ------ ---- ----- ------

3rd DIVISION. Picton:

{45th Foot, 1st batt. -- 3 -- 1 1 4 9 Mackinnon’s {74th ” ” 1 2 2 54 -- -- 59 Brigade {88th ” ” 1 1 2 47 -- 1 52 {5/60th Foot, 3 comps. -- -- 1 13 -- -- 14

{ 5th Foot, 2nd batt. -- -- -- 3 -- -- 3 Colville’s {83rd ” ” 1 5 1 28 -- -- 35 Brigade {88th ” ” -- -- -- -- -- -- -- {94th Foot -- -- 1 4 -- -- 5 ---- ----- ---- ------ ---- ----- ------ Divisional Total 3 11 7 150 1 5 177 ---- ----- ---- ------ ---- ----- ------

5th DIVISION. Erskine:

Hay’s { 1st Foot, 3rd batt. -- -- -- 9 -- -- 9 Brigade { 9th ” 1st ” -- -- -- 4 -- -- 4 {38th ” 2nd ” -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Dunlop’s { 4th Foot, 1st batt. -- -- -- -- -- -- -- Brigade {30th ” 2nd ” -- -- -- 4 -- -- 4 {44th ” ” ” -- -- -- 4 -- -- 4 ---- ----- ---- ------ ---- ----- ------ Divisional Total -- -- -- 21 -- -- 21

6th DIVISION. Campbell: No losses whatever -- -- -- -- -- -- -- ---- ----- ---- ------ ---- ----- ------

7th DIVISION. Houston:

{51st Foot, 2nd batt. -- -- -- 5 -- 1 6 Sontag’s {85th ” ” 1 12 3 36 -- 43 95 Brigade {Chasseurs Britanniques -- 30 4 17 -- 7 58 {Brunswick Oels -- 1 1 6 -- 10 18 ---- ----- ---- ------ ---- ----- ------ Divisional Total 1 43 8 64 -- 61 177 ---- ----- ---- ------ ---- ----- ------

LIGHT DIVISION. Craufurd:

Beckwith’s {43rd Foot, 1st batt. -- -- -- 9 -- -- 9 Brigade {1/95th Foot, 4 comps. -- -- -- 7 -- -- 7

{52nd Foot, 1st batt. -- 1 -- 6 -- -- 7 Drummond’s {52nd ” 2nd ” -- -- -- 14 -- -- 14 Brigade {2/95th Foot, 4 comps. -- 2 -- 4 -- -- 6 ---- ----- ---- ------ ---- ----- ------ Divisional Total -- 3 -- 40 -- -- 43 ---- ----- ---- ------ ---- ----- ------

CAVALRY. Stapleton Cotton:

Slade’s {1st Dragoons -- 4 1 36 -- -- 41 Brigade {14th Light Dragoons -- 3 5 27 -- 3 38

Arentschildt’s {16th Light Dragoons -- 7 2 16 1 1 27 Brigade {1st Hussars K.G.L. -- 2 2 39 -- -- 43 ---- ----- ---- ------ ---- ----- ------ Cavalry Total -- 16 10 118 1 4 149 ---- ----- ---- ------ ---- ----- ------

ARTILLERY. Howarth:

Horse -- 1 -- 1 -- -- 2 Field -- 5 3 18 -- -- 26

GENERAL STAFF -- -- 2 -- -- -- 2 ---- ----- ---- ------ ---- ----- ------ British General Total of May 5th 9 146 50 838 7 236 1286

Portuguese losses (mainly in the 2nd and 3rd Caçadores, and 6th and 21st Line) -- 50 7 151 -- 51 259 ---- ----- ---- ------ ---- ----- ------ Allied General Total of May 5th 9 196 57 989 7 287 1545 ---- ----- ---- ------ ---- ----- ------ Total of both days, May 3rd and 5th 11 230 78 1169 7 309 1804

XII

THE FRENCH ARMY AT FUENTES DE OÑORO, MAY 3-5, 1811

A. ARMY OF PORTUGAL, STATE OF MAY 1st

2nd CORPS. REYNIER.

_Officers._ _Men._ _Total._ Division Merle:

Brigade {2nd Léger (1st, 2nd, 3rd batts.) 55 1,812 Sarrut {36th Ligne (1st, 2nd, 3rd batts.) 55 1,595 4th Léger (1st, 2nd, 3rd batts.) 61 1,313 --- ----- 171 4,720 4,891

Division Heudelet:

Brigade {17th Léger (1st, 2nd, 3rd batts.) 58 1,166 Godard {70th Ligne (1st, 2nd, 3rd batts.) 52 1,026

Brigade {31st Léger (1st, 2nd, 3rd batts.) 55 1,528 Arnaud {47th Ligne (1st, 2nd, 3rd batts.) 60 1,546 --- ----- 225 5,266 5,491

Cavalry Brigade: 1st Hussars 9 94 22nd Chasseurs 27 336 8th Dragoons 13 203 --- ----- 49 633 682

For Artillery, Sappers, Train, &c., see Total of Army. Total of Corps 11,064

6th CORPS. LOISON.

Division Marchand:

Brigade {6th Léger (1st, 2nd, 4th batts.) 43 1,202 Maucune {69th Ligne (1st, 2nd, 4th batts.) 54 1,537

Brigade {39th Ligne (1st, 2nd, 4th batts.) 53 1,286 Chemineau {76th Ligne (1st, 2nd, 4th batts.) 64 1,633 --- ----- 214 5,658 5,872

Division Mermet:

Brigade {25th Léger (1st, 2nd, 4th batts.) 67 1,800 Ménard {27th Ligne (1st, 2nd, 4th batts.) 57 1,763

Brigade {50th Ligne (1st, 2nd, 4th batts.) 57 1,356 Taupin {59th Ligne (1st, 2nd, 4th batts.) 53 1,549 --- ----- 234 6,468 6,702

Division Ferey:

{26th Ligne (4th, 5th, 6th batts.) 57 958 {Légion du Midi (1 batt.) 16 369 {Légion Hanovrienne (1 batt.) 19 412

{66th Ligne (4th, 5th, 6th batts.) 63 1,307 {82nd Ligne (4th, 6th batts.[787]) 44 987 --- ----- 199 4,033 4,232

Light Cavalry Brigade Lamotte:

3rd Hussars 12 152 15th Chasseurs 13 157 -- --- 25 309 334

For Artillery, Sappers, Train, &c., see Total of Army.

Total of Corps 17,140

8th CORPS. JUNOT. [Clausel’s Division absent, guarding Communications.]

Solignac’s Division:

{15th Ligne (1st, 2nd, 3rd batts.[788]) 55 1,206 {86th Ligne (1st, 2nd, 3rd batts.) 60 1,440

{65th Ligne (1st, 2nd, 4th batts.[788]) 51 1,512 {Régiment Irlandais (1 batt.) 18 372 --- ----- 184 4,530 4,714

For Artillery, Train, Sappers, &c., see Total of Army.

9th CORPS. DROUET.

Claparéde’s Division:

{54th Ligne (1 batt.) 14 270 {21st Léger ” 16 613 {28th Léger ” 17 457

{40th Ligne ” 19 500 {63rd Ligne ” 19 499 {88th Ligne ” 18 635

{64th Ligne ” 20 563 {100th Ligne ” 15 499 {103rd Ligne ” 18 524 --- ----- 156 4,560 4,716

Conroux’s Division:

{16th Léger (1 batt.) 16 593 {9th Léger ” 21 739 {27th Léger ” 19 648

{8th Ligne ” 17 599 {24th Ligne ” 17 625 {45th Ligne ” 18 427

{94th Ligne ” 18 678 {95th Ligne ” 20 594 {96th Ligne ” 18 521 --- ----- 164 5,424 5,588

Fournier’s Cavalry Brigade: 7th Chasseurs 12 270 13th Chasseurs 20 250 20th Chasseurs 16 226 -- --- 48 746 794

For Artillery, Sappers, Train, &c., see Total of Army.

Total of Corps 11,098

Montbrun’s Reserve Cavalry: Cavrois’s Brigade: 3rd Dragoons 12 81 10th Dragoons 12 126 15th Dragoons 11 219 Ornano’s Brigade: 6th Dragoons 21 305 11th Dragoons 11 167 25th Dragoons 22 200 -- ----- 89 1,098

Total Reserve 1,187

[787] The 5th battalion of the 82nd was in garrison at Almeida.

[788] One battalion of the 15th Ligne, 585 strong, and one battalion of the 65th, 265 strong, and the Régiment de Prusse, 526 strong, were left in garrison at Ciudad Rodrigo. The cavalry brigade of the corps, composed of three provisional regiments of dragoons, was guarding communications.

ARTILLERY.

Twelve batteries with 31 officers and 931 men appear in the state of May 1 as totally destitute of horses, and were evidently left in cantonments. Five batteries were taken into the field, with 20 officers, 410 men, and 425 horses.

ENGINEERS, SAPPERS, TRAIN, ÉQUIPAGES MILITAIRES.

The total strength of the Engineers and Sappers was 34 officers, 1,418 men. Of the Train 17 officers, 1,175 men. Of the Équipages Militaires 6 officers, 361 men.

How many of these were taken into the field it is impossible to say, but if we take the same proportion as in the artillery, viz. about 30 per cent., the total would be about 17 officers and 880 men.

Total Army of Portugal: _Officers._ _Men._ 2nd Corps, infantry and cavalry 445 10,619 6th Corps, infantry and cavalry 672 16,468 8th Corps, infantry 184 4,714 9th Corps, infantry and cavalry 368 10,730 Reserve Cavalry 89 1,098 Artillery 20 410 Sappers, Train, &c. 17 880 ----- ------ Total 1,795 44,919

B. ARMY OF THE NORTH, MARSHAL BESSIÈRES

_Officers._ _Men._ Lepic’s Brigade of Guard-Cavalry: Lancers 30 340 Chasseurs 13 222 Mamelukes 10 69 Grenadiers à cheval 12 185 -- --- 65 816 Wathier’s Light Cavalry Brigade: 11th Chasseurs 11 220 12th Chasseurs 9 172 24th Chasseurs 7 193 5th Hussars 7 165 -- --- 34 750

One battery of Artillery 3 70

_Officers._ _Men._ _Of all Ranks._ Total Army of the North 102 1,636 Total Army of Portugal 1,795 44,919 ----- ------ General Total 1,897 46,555 48,452

N.B.--In Koch’s _Life of Masséna_ there is a table purporting to be the strength of the Army of Portugal at Fuentes, and making it out to be only about 40,000, excluding gunners, engineers, train, &c., or presumably under 42,000 with them. This is not the May 1st return of the Imperial muster-roll at the _Archives Nationales_, and I do not know what authority it has. The figures given above are those of the official return.

XIII

MASSÉNA’S ORDERS FOR FUENTES DE OÑORO DISPOSITIONS POUR LA JOURNÉE DU 5

Le 6me Corps se mettra en mouvement demain à 2 heures du matin, à l’exception de la 3me division, qui restera dans la position qu’elle occupe: les deux autres divisions, 1re et 2de, se remueront au soir, en deçà du grand mamelon de Nava de Aver, et en face de Pozzo Bello. Elles seront prêtes à marcher perpendiculairement sur la ligne de l’ennemi; les deux divisions auront leur artillerie avec elles, et se porteront à la petite pointe du jour, en colonne par divisions, sur le village de Pozzo Bello, pour attaquer l’ennemi dans la position qu’il occupe. La division Ferey, qui occupe une partie du village de Fuentes d’Onoro, fera ses dispositions comme si elle devrait attaquer l’ennemi sur ce point, sauf cependant rien hasarder.

Le 8me Corps se portera sur les hauteurs de Fuentes, et suivra la 2de division du 6me Corps, pour combattre dans le même ordre que ce corps; il aura avec lui toute son artillerie.

Le 2me Corps observera par sa droite l’important débouché d’Alameda qui conduit au Fort de la Conception: il fera cependant, pour seconder l’attaque de l’armée, une démonstration générale sur la ligne; il suivra l’ennemi dans tous ses mouvements, c’est-à-dire que si les forces qu’il a devant lui se porteraient au secours du gros de l’armée ennemie, qui est dans la direction de Fuentes d’Onoro, il le suivrait dans sa marche, pour le prendre par sa gauche: tandis que le gros de l’armée, qui l’aurait attaqué par Pozzo Bello, le prendrait par sa droite. Le Général Reynier fera éclairer, s’il le juge nécessaire, par la cavalerie la route du Fort de la Conception. S’il arrivait, ce qui n’est pas à présumer, que l’attaque de Pozzo Bello n’a pas tout le succès que l’on attend, et qu’elle fût repoussée, le Général Reynier ferait sa retraite sur Gallegos. Le Général en chef, qui se trouvera sur sa gauche, l’en ferait prévenir: mais ce serait toujours sur Gallegos, dans le cas où il n’en recevrait pas d’ordre, et après s’être bien assuré que le gros de l’armée serait en pleine retraite.

Le 9me Corps sera rendu avant le jour devant Fuentes d’Onoro, où il se mettra en bataille sur deux lignes, laissant une grande distance par régiment, pour donner à croire à l’ennemi que le 6me Corps occupe toujours la même position.

L’armée est prévenue que le Prince Général en chef se trouvera au 8me Corps.

M. le Général Montbrun, ayant sous ses ordres la réserve de dragons, la brigade Fournier, et la brigade Wathier, se placera à la gauche du 6me Corps, pour tourner les positions de l’ennemi et le prendre par la droite.

La Garde Impériale, qui est arrivée ce soir, coopérera demain à tous les mouvements de l’armée.

MASSÉNA.

XIV

FRENCH LOSSES AT FUENTES DE OÑORO

N.B.--I have been unable to find any detailed table by regiments in the _Archives de la Guerre_, or the _Archives Nationales_ at Paris, and can only give the subjoined table of losses by corps.

COMBAT OF MAY 3RD.

_Killed._ _Wounded._ _Missing._ _Total._ _Officers._ _Men._ _Officers._ _Men._ _Officers._ _Men._ 6th Corps (Divisions Ferey and Marchand) 7 69 17 392 3 164 652

BATTLE OF MAY 5TH.

2nd Corps (all in 31st Léger) -- 3 3 46 -- -- 52 6th Corps (Divisions Ferey, Marchand, Mermet) 12 95 47 757 -- 33 944 8th Corps (Division Solignac) -- 2 -- --- -- -- 2 9th Corps (Divisions Conroux and Claparéde) 15 103 48 669 -- -- 835 Montbrun’s Cavalry 1 36 25 283 1 13 359 ---- ----- ----- ------- ---- ----- ------- Total 35 308 140 2,147 4 210 2,844

So far as this return can be tested by Martinien’s _Liste des Officiers tués et blessés pendant les Guerres de l’Empire_, it appears to be very fairly accurate; Martinien accounts for 171 casualties, the return for 179. In detail the figures compare as follows:--

_Killed._ _Wounded._ _Killed._ _Wounded._ _Missing._

2nd Corps, Martinien 0 4 In return 0 3 -- 6th Corps, Martinien 22 63 In return 19 64 3 9th Corps, Martinien 14 41 In return 15 48 -- Cavalry, Martinien 1 26 In return 1 25 1 ---- ----- ---- ----- ---- Totals 37 134 35 140 4

XV

THE ALLIED ARMY AT ALBUERA, AND ITS LOSSES, MAY 16, 1811.

I. BRITISH TROOPS _Present._ _Killed._ _Wounded._ _Missing._ _Total _Officers._ _Men._ _Officers._ _Men._ _Officers._ _Men._ _Officers._ _Men._ Loss._

2nd DIVISION (William Stewart):

{1/3rd Foot 27 728 4 212 14 234 2 177 643 Colborne’s { 2/31st Foot 20 398 -- 29 7 119 -- -- 155 Brigade {2/48th Foot 29 423 4 44 10 86 9 190 343 {2/66th Foot 24 417 3 52 12 104 -- 101 272 ----- ------- ---- ----- ----- ------- ---- ----- ------- Total of Brigade 100 1,966 11 337 43 543 11 468 1,413 ----- ------- ---- ----- ----- ------- ---- ----- -------

{29th Foot 31 476 5 75 12 233 -- 11 336 Hoghton’s {1/48th Foot 33 464 3 64 13 194 -- 6 280 Brigade {1/57th Foot 31 616 2 87 21 318 -- -- 428 ----- ------- ---- ----- ----- ------- ---- ----- ------- Total of Brigade 95 1,556 10 226 46 745 -- 17 1,044 ----- ------- ---- ----- ----- ------- ---- ----- -------

{2/28th Foot 28 491 -- 27 6 131 -- -- 164 Abercrombie’s {2/34th Foot 28 568 3 30 4 91 -- -- 128 Brigade {2/39th Foot 33 449 1 14 4 77 -- 2 98 ----- ------- ---- ----- ----- ------- ---- ----- ------- Total of Brigade 89 1,508 4 71 14 299 -- 2 390 ----- ------- ---- ----- ----- ------- ---- ----- -------

Divisional Light Troops: 3 comps. 5/60th Foot 4 142 -- 2 1 18 -- -- 21 ----- ------- ---- ----- ----- ------- ---- ----- ------- Total 2nd Division 288 5,172 25 636 104 1,605 11 487 2,868 ----- ------- ---- ----- ----- ------- ---- ----- -------

4th DIVISION (Cole):

Myers’s {1/7th Fusiliers 27 687 -- 65 15 277 -- -- 357 Brigade {2/7th Fusiliers 28 540 2 47 13 287 -- -- 349 {1/23rd R. W. Fusiliers 41 692 2 74 11 246 -- 6 339 ----- ------- ---- ----- ----- ------- ---- ----- ------- Total of Brigade 96 1,919 4 186 39 810 -- 6 1,045 ----- ------- ---- ----- ----- ------- ---- ----- -------

Kemmis’s Brigade, detachment of one company each of 2/27th, 1/40th, 97th Foot 8 157 1 5 -- 14 -- -- 20 ----- ------- ---- ----- ----- ------- ---- ----- ------- Total 4th Division 104 2,076 5 191 39 824 -- 6 1,065 ----- ------- ---- ----- ----- ------- ---- ----- -------

Alten’s Independent Brigade:

1st Light Batt. K.G.L. 23 565 -- 4 4 59 -- 2 69 2nd ditto 19 491 1 3 1 31 -- 1 37 ----- ------- ---- ----- ----- ------- ---- ----- ------- Total of Brigade 42 1,056 1 7 5 90 -- 3 106

CAVALRY (Lumley):

De Grey’s {3rd Dragoon Guards 23 351 1 9 -- 9 -- 1 20 Brigade {4th Dragoons 30 357 -- 3 2 18 2 2 27

13th Light Dragoons 23 380 -- -- -- 1 -- -- 1 ----- ------- ---- ----- ----- ------- ---- ----- ------- Total Cavalry 76 1,088 1 12 2 28 2 3 48 ----- ------- ---- ----- ----- ------- ---- ----- -------

ARTILLERY:

British (Batteries of Lefebure and Hawker) 9 246 -- 3 1 10 -- 1 15

K.G.L. (Batteries of Cleeves and Sympher) 10 282 -- -- 1 17 1 30 49

STAFF ? ? 1 -- 7 -- -- -- 8 ----- ------- ---- ----- ----- ------- ---- ----- ------- Grand Total of British 529 9,920 33 849 159 2,574 14 530 4,159

II. PORTUGUESE TROOPS _Officers _Killed._ _Wounded._ _Missing._ _Total and Men._ _Officers._ _Men._ _Officers._ _Men._ _Officers._ _Men._ Loss._

Harvey’s {11th Regt. (2 batts.) 1,154 -- 2 2 4 -- 5 13 Brigade {23rd Regt. (2 batts.) 1,201 1 3 1 14 -- -- 19 (4th {1st Batt. L.L.L. (1 batt.) 572 -- 66 6 89 -- 10 171 Division)

{2nd Line (2 batts.) 1,225 -- 3 -- 5 -- -- 8 Hamilton’s {14th Line (2 batts.) 1,204 -- -- -- 2 -- -- 2 Division {4th Line (2 batts.) 1,271 -- 9 1 50 -- -- 60 {10th Line (2 batts.) 1,119 -- -- -- 11 -- -- 11

Collins’s {5th Line (2 batts.) 985 -- 10 4 36 -- 10 60 Brigade {5th Caçadores (1 batt.) 400 -- 5 -- 25 -- 1 31

{1st Regt. 327 -- -- -- -- -- -- Cavalry {7th Regt. 314 -- -- -- 2 -- -- 2 (Otway) {5th Regt. (1 squad.) 104 -- -- -- -- -- -- {8th Regt. (1 squad.) 104 -- -- -- -- -- --

Artillery (batteries of Arriaga and Braun) 221 -- 2 -- 8 -- -- 10

Staff ? 1 -- 1 -- -- -- 2 -------- ---- ----- ---- ----- ---- ---- ----- Grand Total of Portuguese 10,201 2 100 15 246 -- 26 389

GRAND TOTAL OF BERESFORD’S ARMY

Infantry British, 8,738; Portuguese, 9,131 = 17,869 Cavalry British, 1,164; Portuguese, 849 = 2,013 Artillery British, 255; Portuguese, 221 = 476 -------- Grand Total 20,358 of all arms.

General Total of Losses: British, 4,159; Portuguese, 389 = 4,548.

III. SPANISH TROOPS[789]

_Present._ _Killed._ _Wounded._ _Total (1) BLAKE’S ARMY _Officers._ _Men._ _Officers._ _Men._ _Officers._ _Men._ Loss._

VANGUARD DIVISION (Lardizabal):

Murcia (2 batts.), Canarias, 2nd of Leon, 107 2,291 4 59 13 215 291 Campo Mayor

3rd DIVISION (Ballasteros):

1st of Catalonia, Barbastro, Pravia, Lena, Castropol, Cangas de Tineo, Infiesto 154 3,371 3 64 15 193 275

4th DIVISION (Zayas):

2nd and 4th Spanish Guards, Irlanda, Patria, Toledo, Legion Estranjera, 4th Walloon Guards, Ciudad Real 197 4,685 -- 106 26 549 681[790]

CAVALRY (Loy):

Santiago, Husares de Castilla, Granaderos, Escuadron de Instruccion 93 1,072 -- 7 2 31 40 ARTILLERY (1 battery) 7 96 -- 2 -- 7 9 STAFF ? ? 2 -- 9 -- 11 ----- -------- ---- ----- ---- ------- ------- Total of Blake’s troops 558 11,515 9 238 65 995 1,307 ----- -------- ---- ----- ---- ------- -------

(2) CASTAÑOS’S ARMY

Carlos de España’s INFANTRY:

3 batts., Rey, Zamora, Voluntarios de Navarra, 1 company Sappers 57 1,721 -- -- 4 29 33

Penne Villemur’s CAVALRY:

Detachments of seven regiments, none over 1 squadron strong 87 634 -- 11 3 14 28

ARTILLERY (1 battery) 4 58 -- -- -- -- -- ----- -------- ---- ----- ---- ------- ------- Total of Castaños’s Troops 148 2,413 -- 11 7 43 61 ----- -------- ---- ----- ---- ------- ------- Grand Total of Spaniards 706 13,928 9 249 72 1,038 1,368

GRAND TOTAL OF THE ALLIED ARMY

British Present of all arms, 10,449 Losses, 4,159 Portuguese ” ” 10,201 ” 389 Spaniards ” ” 14,634 ” 1,368 -------- ------- Total 35,284 5,916

[789] The return of losses is confused, there being mixtures of units, and some errors between officers and rank and file. It seems unlikely that Zayas’s division had 26 officers wounded and none killed. I have endeavoured to reconstruct items as far as possible. For the confused table see Arteche, vol. x. p. 524.

[790] Of this 681 no less than 98 killed and 517 wounded are in the four battalions of the Spanish Guards and Irlanda, which fought so long against Girard’s division. The other five battalions only lost 66 men between them.

XVI

SOULT’S ARMY AT ALBUERA, AND ITS LOSSES

[The strength from a return of May 1st, filed under June 1st, in the _Archives Nationales_. The losses from a return in the _Archives de la Guerre_, dated July 19th.]

_Present._ _Killed._ _Wounded._ _Missing._ _Total _Officers._ _Men._ _Officers._ _Men._ _Officers._ _Men._ _Officers._ _Men._ Losses._ INFANTRY[791] 5th CORPS.

1st Division (Girard):

34th Line (2nd and 3rd batts.) 23 930 4 104[792] 13 298 -- -- 419 40th Line (1st and 2nd batts.) 35 778 4 35 9 226 1 73 348 64th Line (1st, 2nd, and 3rd batts.) 50 1,539 5 99 18 361 -- 168 651 88th Line (2nd and 3rd batts.) 21 878 -- -- 5 253 6 141[793] 405

[792] The 34th regiment returned, as is clear, all its missing as killed.

[793] The 88th regiment returned, as is clear, all its killed as missing.

2nd Division (Gazan):

21st Léger (2nd and 3rd batts.) 43 745 3 61 11 154 2 24 255 100th Line (1st and 2nd batts.) 33 705 4 50 8 152 2 51 267 28th Léger (1st, 2nd, and 3rd batts.) 62 1,305 7 53 10 313 1 112 496 103rd Line (1st, 2nd, and 3rd batts.) 38 1,252 4 48 10 148 3 74 287 ----- ------- ---- ----- ---- ------- ---- ----- ------- Total 5th Corps 305 8,132 31 450 84 1,905 15 643 3,128 ----- ------- ---- ----- ---- ------- ---- ----- -------

Werlé’s Brigade:

12th Léger (1st, 2nd, and 3rd batts.) 62 2,102 3 108 14 511 1 132 769 55th Line (1st, 2nd, and 3rd batts.) 58 1,757 4 68 6 235 -- 38 351 58th Line (1st, 2nd, and 3rd batts.) 55 1,587 6 23 15 258 2 24 328 ----- ------- ---- ----- ---- ------- ---- ----- ------- Brigade Total 175 5,446 13 199 35 1,004 3 194 1,448 ----- ------- ---- ----- ---- ------- ---- ----- -------

Godinot’s Brigade:

16th Léger (1st, 2nd, and 3rd batts.) 49 1,624 2 39 7 321 -- 12 381 51st Line (1st, 2nd, and 3rd batts.) 65 2,186 -- 2 -- 1 -- -- 3 ----- ------- ---- ----- ---- ------- ---- ----- ------- Brigade Total 114 3,810 2 41 7 322 -- 12 384 ----- ------- ---- ----- ---- ------- ---- ----- ------- 372 _Grenadiers Réunis_ of 45th, 63rd, 95th Line, of 1st Corps, and 4th (10 officers Poles of 4th Corps (11 comps.)[794] 33 1,000 Only gross total of losses given. and 362 men) ----- ------- ---- ----- ---- ------- ---- ----- ------- Total Infantry 627 18,388 46 690 126 3,230 18 849 5,332

CAVALRY (Latour-Maubourg).

Briche’s Brigade: 2nd Hussars 23 282 1 4 3 57 -- 8 73 10th Hussars 24 238 1 3 4 21 -- 3 32 21st Chasseurs 21 235 -- 3 3 19 -- -- 25

Bron’s Brigade: 4th Dragoons 21 385 3 27 1 38 -- 1 70 20th Dragoons 22 244 1 6 3 10 1 4 25 26th Dragoons 27 394 1 5 2 12 -- 1 21

Bouvier des Éclats’s Brigade: 14th Dragoons 17 299 -- 6 1 17 -- -- 24 17th Dragoons 17 297 -- 12 3 29 -- 1 45 27th Dragoons 14 235 -- 2 3 11 -- 3 19

Unattached Cavalry: 1st Lancers of the Vistula 28 563 1 41 9 78 1 -- 130 27th Chasseurs 22 409 -- 7 2 11 1 5 26 4th Spanish Chasseurs 14 181 -- 2 -- 4 -- -- 6 ----- -------- ---- ----- ----- ------- ---- ----- ----- Cavalry Total 250 3,762 8 118 34 307 3 26 496 ----- -------- ---- ----- ----- ------- ---- ----- -----

ARTILLERY GÉNIE TRAIN: Of 5th Corps 18 590 1 19 3 72 -- -- 95 Of other Units 25 600 No returns whatever. ? ÉTAT-MAJOR ? ? 5 -- 8 -- -- -- 13 ----- -------- ---- ----- ----- ------- ---- ----- ----- Total of Army 920 23,340 60 827 171 3,610 21 875 5,936

Return of casualties is signed Mocquery, 19 Juillet 1811.

Total present, 24,260. Total losses, 5,936.

[791] The 1/34th, 3/40th, 1/88th, 1/21st Léger, 3/100th were separated from their regiments and garrisoned Badajoz.

[792] The 34th regiment returned, as is clear, all its missing as killed.

[793] The 88th regiment returned, as is clear, all its killed as missing.

[794] This assemblage of Grenadier companies can be identified, as to its units, by the fact that in Martinien’s lists of killed and wounded, we find names of officers of the 45th, 63rd, 95th, and 4th Poles, none of which were present at Albuera. He accounts from these regiments for 4 officers killed and 9 wounded (45th 5 officers, 63rd 2 officers, 95th 1 officer, Poles 5 officers).

N.B.--The losses cannot be quite complete. Not only is the return for artillery and engineers, &c., for all units except the 5th Corps missing, but Martinien’s lists, which are absolutely secure evidence, since they give the name and regiment of every officer hit, show much larger totals than this report, 362 casualties instead of 241. This enormous difference of 121 casualties among officers, reported in the regimental lists, but ignored by Soult, cannot be explained away by adding the 21 prisoners to his total of 241, granting that all the prisoners were wounded. This still leaves a balance of 100 unaccounted for. The details of difference and of total casualties are:--

_Soult._ _Martinien._ Staff 13 27 34th 17 15 40th 14 23 64th 23 26 88th 11 12 21st Léger 16 13 100th 14 20 28th Léger 18 30 103rd Ligne 17 18 12th Léger 18 29 55th 10 14 58th 23 24 16th Léger 9 17 Grenadiers 10 13 2nd Hussars 4 5 10th Hussars 5 7 21st Chasseurs 3 5 4th Dragoons 4 11 20th Dragoons 5 12 26th Dragoons 3 3 14th Dragoons 1 1 17th Dragoons 3 6 27th Dragoons 3 5 1st Lancers 11 14 27th Chasseurs 3 3 4th Spanish Chasseurs -- 3 Artillery Génie Train 4 6 --- --- 660 899

See notes in text above, p. 395.

XVII

STRENGTH OF THE SPANISH ARMIES IN THE SUMMER OF 1811

By the kindness of Commandant Figueras of the Department of Archives in the War Ministry at Madrid, I am able to give the following sets of figures for the armies in the summer campaign of 1811. Unfortunately there is none for the Army of Catalonia (‘1st Army’ or ‘Army of the Right’) whose main body was destroyed at Tarragona in July. The others work out as follows:--

2ND ARMY, OR ARMY OF VALENCIA. General Charles O’Donnell.

_Officers._ _Men._

1st Division: Major-General José Miranda 192 4,863 = 5,055 present under arms. 2nd Division: Major-General Conde de Romré 108 2,892 = 3,000 ” 3rd Division: Major-General Luis Bassecourt 47 2,006 = 2,053 ” 4th Division: Major-General José Obispo 226 4,933 = 5,159 ” Flying Column of the Empecinado ? 3,220 = 3,220 ” Reserve (new levies): Major-General B. Acuña 59 3,640 = 3,699 ” Artillery 22 472 = 494 ” Engineers 10 218 = 228 ” ---- ------ ------ June 1st, Field Army. Total 664 22,244 = 22,908 ”

Garrisons of Saguntum, Oropesa, Peniscola 55 1,944 = 1,999 ”

N.B.--The cavalry regiments were not brigaded, but distributed among the divisions, each having one regiment, save Miranda’s division, which had two. Total about 2,565 sabres.

3RD ARMY, OR ARMY OF MURCIA. General Manuel Freire.

_Officers._ _Men._

1st Division: Brigadier-Gen. A. La Cuadra 163 3,852 = 4,015 present under arms. 2nd Division: Brigadier-Gen. Juan Creagh 166 4,276 = 4,442 ” 3rd Division: Brigadier-Gen. Antonio Sanz 146 3,074 = 3,220 ” 1st Cavalry Division: Brigadier-Gen. M. Ladron 129 885 = 1,014 ” 2nd ditto: Brigadier-Gen. V. Osorio 80 629 = 709 ” Artillery 35 751 = 786 ” Engineers 22 245 = 267 ” ---- ------ ------ June 1st, Total Field Army 741 13,712 = 14,453 ”

Garrison of Cartagena 116 2,064 = 2,180 ”

5TH ARMY, OR ARMY OF ESTREMADURA. General Francisco Xavier Castaños.

_Officers._ _Men._

1st Division: Brigadier-Gen. Carlos de España 143 3,333 = 3,476 present under arms. Cavalry Brigade: Conde de Penne Villemur 79 618 = 697 ” Artillery 20 448 = 468 ” Engineers 2 98 = 100 ” ---- ------ ------ June 1st, Total Field Army 244 4,497 = 4,741 ”

Garrisons of Albuquerque, Valencia de Alcantara, &c. 165 2,688 = 2,853 ”

6TH ARMY, OR ARMY OF GALICIA. General Santocildes, vice General Abadia.

1st Division: Major-General Losada (Asturians) 5,459 present under arms. 2nd Division: Major-General Taboada 3,994 ” 3rd Division: Major-General Cabrera 2,567 ” Reserve at Lugo 2,654 ” Cavalry 631 ” ------ 15,305

No figures for garrisons of Ferrol, Vigo, and Corunna, but they are believed to have amounted to about 5,500 men.

XVIII

STRENGTH OF THE FRENCH ARMY IN SPAIN, JULY 15, 1811

[From the returns in the _Archives Nationales_, Paris.]

I. ARMY OF THE SOUTH. MARSHAL SOULT.

1ST CORPS. Marshal Victor (including battalions of 9th Corps incorporated on June 28).

Division Conroux: 9th Léger (4 batts.), 24th, 96th Ligne (3 batts. each) 5,905 present Division Godinot: 8th Ligne (4 batts.), 16th Léger, 45th, 54th Ligne (3 batts. each) 8,133 ” Division Villatte: 27th Léger, 63rd, 94th, 95th Ligne (3 batts. each) 5,802 ” Perreymond’s Light Cavalry: 2nd Hussars, 5th Chasseurs 1,015 ” Latour-Maubourg’s Dragoons: 1st, 2nd, 4th, 9th, 14th, 26th regiments 2,905 ” Artillery and Engineers, &c. 1,985 ” Marines and sailors of Cadiz Lines flotilla 1,456 ” ------ 27,201

Gross total of Corps with sick and detached added is 35,940.

4TH CORPS. General Sebastiani (including battalions incorporated from 9th Corps).

Division Ligier-Belair: 12th Léger (3 batts.), 32nd, 43rd, 58th Ligne (4 batts. each) 10,947 present Division Dembouski: 4th, 7th, 9th Poles (2 batts. each) 4,918 ” Ormancey’s Light Cavalry: 10th Chasseurs, 1st Lancers of the Vistula 1,595 ” Milhaud’s Dragoons: 5th, 12th, 16th, 20th, 21st regiments 2,484 ” Artillery and Engineers 886 ” ------ 20,830

Gross total of Corps with sick and detached added is 22,889.

5TH CORPS. Count Drouet D’Erlon (including battalions incorporated from 9th Corps).

Division Girard: 34th, 40th Ligne (2 batts. each), 64th, 88th Ligne (3 batts. each) 4,253 present Division Claparéde: 21st, 28th Léger, 100th, 103rd Ligne (3 batts. each) 4,183 ” [Not including 1 batt. each of 34th, 40th, 88th, 100th Ligne, and 21st Léger in garrison at Badajoz.] Briche’s Light Cavalry: 10th Hussars, 21st Chasseurs 515 ” Artillery and Engineers [not including Badajoz garrison] 618 ” Garrison of Badajoz (5 battalions and detachments of artillery, &c.) 2,887 ” ------ 12,456

Gross total of Corps with sick and detached added is 22,296.

N.B.--This enormous proportion of absentees is largely due to the Albuera wounded, who had not yet rejoined.

Troops not included in the three Corps: Brigade in the Kingdom of Cordova: 51st, 55th Ligne (3 batts. each) 5,017 present Unattached Cavalry: 17th, 27th Dragoons, 27th Chasseurs, 4th Spanish Chasseurs 1,942 ” Unattached Artillery, Engineers, Train, &c. 1,381 ”

Total Army of the South, 68,827 present under arms.

Gross total, including sick and detached, 90,186.

II. ARMY OF THE CENTRE. KING JOSEPH.

The King’s French Guards, no figures given, but about 2,500 present Spanish Division Hugo (10 battalions, 3 squadrons) 5,060 ” Brigade Dessolles: 75th Ligne (3 batts.), 28th Ligne (2½ batts.) 3,208 ” German Division: 2nd Nassau and Baden (2 batts. each), Frankfort (1 batt.), 123rd Ligne (late Dutch 2nd regt.)[795] 4,214 ” Treillard’s Light Horse: Westphalian and Nassau Chasseurs 663 ” Lahoussaye’s Dragoons: 13th, 18th, 19th, 22nd regts. 2,213 ” Artillery and Engineers, &c. 1,268 ” Drafts for Armies of South and Portugal at Madrid, &c. 4,013 ” ------ 23,139

Gross total of Army, with sick and detached, 25,537.

[795] Regiment of Hesse-Darmstadt about 1,000 bayonets is detached, on its way to join the Badajoz garrison.

III. ARMY OF PORTUGAL.[796] MARSHAL MARMONT, DUKE OF RAGUSA.

Division Foy: 6th Léger, 39th, 69th, 76th Ligne (3 batts. each) 5,541 present Division Clausel: 25th Léger, 27th, 50th, 59th Ligne (3 batts. each) 6,501 ” Division Ferey: 31st Léger, 47th, 70th Ligne (3 batts. each), 26th (2 batts.) 5,072 ” Division Sarrut: 2nd and 4th Léger, 36th Ligne (3 batts. each) 4,922 ” Division Maucune: 15th, 66th, 82nd, 86th Ligne (3 batts. each) 5,049 ” Division Brennier: 17th Léger (3 batts.), 22nd Ligne (4 batts.), 65th Ligne (3 batts.), Irlandais and Regiment de Prusse (1 batt. each) 5,332 ” Lamotte’s Light Cavalry: 1st and 3rd Hussars, 15th and 22nd Chasseurs 613 ” Fournier’s Light Cavalry: 7th, 17th, 20th Chasseurs 701 ” Wathier’s Light Cavalry: 11th and 24th Chasseurs, 5th Hussars 564 ” Montbrun’s Dragoons: 3rd, 6th, 8th, 10th, 11th, 15th, 25th regts. 1,463 ” Artillery, Train, Engineers, &c. 2,875 ” ------ Total 38,633

Gross Total of Army, with sick (12,668) and detached, 57,949.

[796] Garrison of Rodrigo (1 batt. each of 26th, 65th, 66th, Légion du Midi, and Regiment de Prusse, making 1,997 men) is included under the divisional figures above.

IV. ARMY OF ARAGON. MARSHAL SUCHET.

Division Musnier: 1st Léger, 114th and 121st Ligne (3 batts. each), 1st Vistula (2 batts.) 7,689 present Division Frère: 14th and 42nd Ligne (3 batts. each), 115th (4 batts.), 2nd Vistula (2 batts.) 7,826 ” Division Harispe: 7th Ligne (4 batts.), 116th (3 batts.), 44th, and 3rd Vistula (2 batts. each) 6,380 ” Division Habert: 5th Léger (2 batts.), 16th and 117th Ligne (3 batts. each) 4,433 ” Italian Division Peyri: 1st and 2nd Léger, 4th, 5th, and 6th Line (2 batts. each), Dragons Napoléon, Chasseurs Royaux (2 squadrons each) 4,892 ” Neapolitan Brigade Compère: 1st and 2nd Ligne, 1st Léger (1 batt. each), and 2 squadrons of Chasseurs 1,808 ” Boussard’s Cavalry Brigade: 13th Cuirassiers, 4th Hussars, 24th Dragoons 1,876 ” Artillery, Engineers, Train, &c. 3,645 present Garrisons 2,244 ” Drafts on the march 2,990 ” ------ Total 43,783

Gross Total of Army with sick and detached, 51,088.

V. ARMY OF THE NORTH. GENERAL DORSENNE.

(_a_) Imperial Guard, Divisions Dumoustier and Roguet, 4 regiments of Voltigeurs, 4 of Tirailleurs, 1 of Chasseurs, 1 of Fusiliers-Chasseurs, 1 _bataillon de marche_ 15,166 present Lepic’s Guard Cavalry 1,189 ” Cavalry attached (Lancers of Berg) 835 ” Guard Artillery, &c. 878 ”

(_b_) Navarre, Division Reille, 10th, 21st, 81st Ligne (4 batts. each), 60th Ligne (3 batts.) 8,221 ” Navarre, over and above Reille, garrisons, and drafts 1,623 ” Biscay, Division Caffarelli: 10th Léger (4 batts.), 5th Léger, 3rd, 52nd, 105th Ligne (3 batts. each) 7,543 ” Biscay, over and above Caffarelli, 130th Léger (3 batts.), and drafts, &c. 4,340 ” Burgos, Division Souham: 1st, 62nd, 101st Ligne (4 batts. each), 23rd Léger (2 batts.) 7,971 ” Burgos, over and above Souham, provisional battalions, garrisons, and drafts 8,714 ” Valladolid and Salamanca, Division Serras: 113th Ligne (2 batts.), 12th Léger, 2nd and 4th Swiss, Garde de Paris (1 batt. each), and cavalry, &c. 5,063 ” Valladolid and Salamanca, over and above Serras, 34th Ligne (3 batts.), 4th Vistula (2 batts.), Neuchâtel (1 batt.), 6 _bataillons de marche_, and cavalry attached 8,106 ” Asturias, Division Bonnet: 118th, 119th, 122nd Ligne (3 batts. each), 120th Ligne (4 batts.) 7,962 ” Artillery, Engineers, &c., in the five governments named above 2,367 ” Italian Division Severoli (destined for Suchet’s Army): 1st and 2nd Léger, 4th and 6th Ligne (1 batt. each), 1st and 7th Ligne (3 batts. each) 7,661 ” Italian Artillery, Engineer, and Cavalry Drafts with Severoli 803 ” ------ Total 88,442

Gross Total of Army, including sick and detached, 99,442.

VI. ARMY OF CATALONIA. MARSHAL MACDONALD.

Division Maurice Mathieu: 5th Ligne (3 batts.), 18th Léger, 23rd and 56th Ligne (1 batt. each), 1st of Nassau (2 batts.) 5,411 present Division Quesnel: 79th Ligne (3 batts.), 23rd Léger (2 batts.), 93rd Ligne(1 batt.), 29th Chasseurs (3 squadrons) 3,890 ” Division Plauzonne: 3rd Léger (4 batts.), 11th Ligne (3 batts.), 32nd Léger (1 batt.) 4,389 ” Brigade Petit: 67th Ligne (4 batts.), 16th and 81st Ligne (1 batt. each) 2,416 ” Brigade Lefebvre: 8th Léger, 37th and 60th Ligne (1 batt. each), regiment of Westphalia, and 3 provisional battalions 3,725 ” Garrison of Montlouis: Würzburg and 2nd Swiss (1 batt. each) 1,429 ” Garrison of Rosas 477 ” Garrison of Gerona: 102nd Ligne (2 batts.), Berg and Valais (1 batt. each) 1,429 ” Artillery, Engineers, &c. 824 ” ------ Total 23,590

Gross Total of Army, including sick and detached, 30,259.

GENERAL TOTAL OF FRENCH ARMY IN SPAIN

_Present under Arms._ _Gross Total._

Army of the South 68,827 90,186 Army of the Centre 23,139 25,537 Army of Portugal 38,633 57,949 Army of Aragon 48,783 51,088 Army of the North 88,442 99,442 Army of Catalonia 23,590 30,259 -------- --------- 291,414 354,461

Not including General Monthion’s ‘Reserve of the Army of Spain’ at Bayonne, with 251 officers and 8,047 men.

XIX

THE FRENCH AND SPANISH FORCES AT THE SIEGE OF TARRAGONA

I. SUCHET’S ARMY

N.B.--The divisional and brigade organization is provisional; compare for theoretical organization, p. 640.

Frère’s Division: 1st Léger (3 batts.), 1st of the Vistula (2 batts.), 14th Ligne (1 batt.), 42nd Ligne (3 batts.) 4,821 present

Harispe’s Division: 7th and 16th Ligne (3 batts. each), Italian 2nd Léger and 4th, 5th, 6th Ligne (2 batts. each) 6,561 ”

Habert’s Division: 5th Léger, 116th and 117th Ligne (2 batts. each) 3,088 ”

Abbé’s Brigade (arrived in June): 114th, 115th, 121st Ligne (2 batts. each) 3,657 ” ------ Total Infantry 18,127

Boussard’s Cavalry: 24th Dragoons, 13th Cuirassiers (3 squadrons each), 4th Hussars, Italian Dragons de Napoléon (2 squadrons each) 1,447 ”

Artillery and Artillery Train 1,352 ”

Engineers and Train 708 ” ------ General Total 21,634

II. THE SPANISH GARRISON

There are unfortunately no figures forthcoming at Madrid for the Army of Catalonia between December 10th, 1810, and August 1811, all apparently having been lost or destroyed at the siege of Tarragona. In December the Army of Catalonia had consisted of--Sarsfield’s Division, 5,462 men present; Courten’s, 4,791 men present; Eroles’s, 2,538 men present; garrisons (Tortosa, Tarragona, Seu d’Urgel, &c.), 13,040 = Total 25,651.

Of these there seem to have been present in Tarragona, in May and June, the whole of Courten’s division, presumably still somewhat under 5,000 men (regiments of America, Granada, Almanza, and Almeria, 9 batts.), a sedentary garrison composed of 6 battalions of the new Catalan ‘sections’ or local line and a few other troops, and the greater part of Sarsfield’s division, sent in by Campoverde on June 10th, with some small succours sent from Valencia and elsewhere. The whole must have made up some 15,000 men, though such a number was not present at any one time within the walls. According to Suchet’s surrender-roll of the garrison (see Belmas, iii. 601) there were still 8,000 men surviving at the moment of the storm, June 28th, 1811, viz.:--

Courten’s Division: America 351 Almanza 613 Almeria 464 Granada 365 ------ 1,793

Sedentary Garrison: Catalan ‘Sections’ 1,936 Tarragona 125 Artillery 793 Sappers and Engineers 166 ------- 3,020

Other Troops (mainly from Sarsfield’s Division): Santa Fé 343 2nd of Savoia 655 Iliberia 368 Saragossa 280 Gerona 241 1st of Savoia 502 Cazadores de Valencia 664 Grenadiers 164 Miscellaneous detachments and isolated officers 70 Cavalry 166 ------- 3,453

General Total 8,266

XX

WELLINGTON’S ARMY ON THE BEIRA FRONTIER [FROM THE RETURN OF SEPTEMBER 15, 1811.]

BRITISH CAVALRY (STAPLETON COTTON)

Slade’s Brigade {1st Royal Dragoons 406 {112th Light Dragoons 372

Alten’s Brigade {11th Light Dragoons 377 {1st Hussars K.G.L. 413

Anson’s Brigade {14th Light Dragoons 344 {16th Light Dragoons 373

De Grey’s Brigade[797]{3rd Dragoon Guards 369 {4th Dragoons 358

Total British Cavalry, 161 officers, 2,851 men = 3,012.

[797] De Grey’s brigade properly belonged to Erskine’s 2nd Cavalry Division, absent with Hill in Estremadura. But Wellington had called it up to the main army when Le Marchant’s heavy dragoons arrived at Lisbon, and sent the latter to Castello Branco, as part of Hill’s corps.

BRITISH INFANTRY

1ST DIVISION. Lieut.-General Sir THOMAS GRAHAM.

H. Campbell’s {1st Coldstream Guards 877 Brigade {1st Scots Fusilier Guards 886 {1 comp. 5/60th Foot 48

{2/24th Foot 300 {1/26th Foot 538 Stopford’s {2/42nd Foot 368 Brigade {1/79th Foot 374 {1 comp. 5/60th Foot 38

{1st Line battalion K.G.L. 533 Löwe’s {2nd ditto 502 Brigade {5th ditto 462

Total 1st Division = 4,926.

3RD DIVISION. Major-General T. PICTON.

{1/45th Foot 444 Wallace’s (vice {74th Foot 519 Mackinnon) {1/88th Foot 935 Brigade {3 companies 5/60th Foot 243

{2/5th Foot 462 Colville’s {77th Foot 560 Brigade {2/83rd Foot 401 {94th Foot 424

Total 3rd Division, 207 officers, 3,781 men = 3,988.

4TH DIVISION. Major-General LOWRY COLE.

{3/27th Foot 770 Kemmis’s {1/40th Foot 877 Brigade {97th Foot 279 {1 comp. 5/60th Foot 37

{1/7th Fusiliers 552 Pakenham’s {1/23rd R.W. Fusiliers 554 Brigade {1/48th Foot 383 {1 comp. Brunswick Oels 49

Total 4th Division, 155 officers, 3,346 men = 3,501.

5TH DIVISION. Brigadier-General DUNLOP (for LEITH).

{3/1st Foot 682 Hay’s {1/9th Foot 626 Brigade {2/38th Foot 263 {1 comp. Brunswick Oels 63

{1/4th Foot 525 Dunlop’s {2/30th Foot 388 Brigade {2/44th Foot 392 {1 comp. Brunswick Oels 52

Total 5th Division, 162 officers, 2,829 men = 2,991.

6TH DIVISION. Major-General A. CAMPBELL.

{1/11th Foot 740 {2/53rd Foot 417 Hulse’s Brigade {1/61st Foot 624 {1 comp. 5/60th Foot 40

{2nd Foot 543 Burne’s Brigade {1/32nd Foot 794 {1/36th Foot 460

Total 6th Division, 181 officers, 3,437 men = 3,618.

7TH DIVISION. Major-General SONTAG.

{1st Light Batt. K.G.L. 602 V. Alten’s Brigade {2nd Light Batt. K.G.L. 516 {Brunswick Oels (9 comps.) 536

{51st Foot 309 Sontag’s Brigade {68th Foot 479 {85th Foot (5 comps.) 166 {_Chasseurs Britanniques_ 671

Total 7th Division, 161 officers, 3,118 men = 3,279.

LIGHT DIVISION. Major-General R. CRAUFURD.

{1/43rd Foot 1,005 Barnard’s Brigade {4 comps. 1/95th 317 {1 comp. 2/95th 86 {detachment 3/95th 297

{1/52nd Foot 771 2nd Brigade {2/52nd Foot 432 {4 companies 1/95th 339

Total Light Division, 148 officers, 3,099 men = 3,247.

ARTILLERY[798]:

British: Bull’s, Ross’s, and Macdonald’s Troops R.H.A., Lawson’s and Bredin’s companies R.A. (including drivers) 464 German: Sympher’s company K.G.L. 77

ENGINEERS[798] 143

WAGGON TRAIN[798] 136

[798] The artillery and engineer returns, both British and Portuguese, are given in bulk for the whole army, including Hill’s force in Estremadura and units left at Lisbon. Distributing the numbers proportionately, the above figures would result; they cannot be far wrong.

TOTAL BRITISH ARMY

Cavalry 3,012 1st Division 4,920 3rd Division 3,988 4th Division 3,501 5th Division 2,991 6th Division 3,018 7th Division 3,279 Light Division 3,247 Artillery 541 Engineers 143 Waggon Train 136 ------ Total 29,382

PORTUGUESE (officers and men together)

3rd Division: Palmeirim’s Brigade (9th and 21st Line) 1,289 4th Division: Collins’s Brigade (11th and 23rd Line, 7th Caçadores) 2,982 5th Division: Spry’s Brigade (3rd and 15th Line, 8th Caçadores) 2,014 6th Division: Madden’s Brigade (8th and 12th Line) 2,069 7th Division: Coleman’s Brigade (7th and 19th Line, 2nd Caçadores) 1,823 Light Division: 1st and 3rd Caçadores 953 Pack’s Independent Brigade (1st and 16th Line, 4th Caçadores) 2,206 McMahon’s Independent Brigade (13th and 22nd Line, 5th Caçadores) 2,489 Madden’s Cavalry (1st, 3rd, 4th, 7th regiments) 1,014 Artillery, 5 batteries 510 ------ Total 17,349

Total Allied Army = 46,731.

XXI

ALLIED LOSSES AT THE COMBAT OF EL BODON. SEPTEMBER 25, 1811

BRITISH LOSSES

_Killed._ _Wounded._ _Missing._ _Officers._ _Men._ _Officers._ _Men._ _Officers._ _Men._ _Total._

11th Light Dragoons -- 8 2 14 -- -- 24 1st Hussars, King’s German Legion -- 5 2 32 -- 5 44 2/5th Foot -- 5 1 13 -- -- 19 1/45th Foot -- -- -- -- -- 1 1 77th Foot -- 4 -- 14 -- 5 23 2/83rd Foot -- 5 -- 14 -- 5 24 1/88th Foot -- -- -- -- -- 5 5 94th Foot -- -- -- -- -- 1 1 ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----- -- 27 5 87 -- 22 141 Portuguese (Artillery and 21st Line) -- 1 -- 5 -- 2 8

Total Allied loss, 149.

On the same day there took place the separate combat of Carpio, in which the British loss was--

14th Light Dragoons -- -- 1 2 -- -- 3 16th Light Dragoons -- -- -- 8 -- 1 9

Total, 12 killed, wounded, and missing.

XXII

ALLIED LOSSES AT THE COMBAT OF ALDEA DA PONTE SEPTEMBER 28, 1811

BRITISH LOSSES _Killed._ _Wounded._ _Missing._ _Officers._ _Men._ _Officers._ _Men._ _Officers._ _Men._ _Total._ Royal Horse Artillery -- -- 1 -- -- -- 1 1st Royal Dragoons -- -- -- 3 -- 1 4 12th Light Dragoons -- -- -- 2 -- 4 6 1/7th Fusiliers -- 9 4 29 -- -- 42 1/23rd Fusiliers 1 2 2 13 -- 1 19 1/48th Foot -- -- 1 7 -- 2 10 5/60th -- -- 1 -- -- -- 1 Brunswick Oels -- 1 -- 3 -- -- 4 ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----- 1 12 9 57 -- 8 87 Portuguese Losses -- 1 -- 11 -- 1 13

Total loss of the Allied Army = 100.

XXIII

HILL’S FORCE IN ESTREMADURA SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 1811

_Officers._ _Men._ _Total._ 2nd Division: Byng’s Brigade: 1/3rd, 1/57th, 2/31st, 2/66th} Howard’s Brigade: 1/50th, 1/71st, 1/92nd } 306 5,548 5,854 Wilson’s Brigade: 1/28th, 1/34th, 1/39th } Hamilton’s Portuguese Division: 2nd, 4th, 10th, 14th Line (2 batts. each) 224 4,858 5,082 Ashworth’s Portuguese Brigade: 6th and 18th Line and 6th Caçadores (5 batts.) 81 2,338 2,419 CAVALRY. Major-General Sir W. ERSKINE: Long’s Cavalry Brigade: 9th and 13th Light Dragoons, 2nd Hussars K.G.L. 50 803 853 Le Marchant’s Brigade: 3rd Dragoons, 4th Dragoon Guards 36 929 965 Brigade of Portuguese Cavalry (5th and 8th regts.) 57 591 648 [799]Artillery, British: Lefebure’s Troop R.H.A., Hawker’s and Meadows’s Companies R.A., about 20 320 340 [799]Artillery, Portuguese: 2 companies (Arriaga and Braun), about 10 220 230 [799]Engineers and Train, about 13 80 93 --- ------ ------ General Total 797 15,687 16,484

[799] For figures of Artillery, Engineers, &c., see note to previous Appendix, No. XX.

XXIV

BRITISH AND PORTUGUESE ARTILLERY IN THE CAMPAIGN OF 1811

Major J. H. Leslie, R.A., the editor of the ‘Dickson Manuscripts,’ has been good enough to compile and annotate the following list of the Artillery units which served in the various campaigns of the year 1811.

I. ROYAL HORSE ARTILLERY

The following Troops were serving in the Peninsula in 1811:--

_Troop._ _Under the command of._ _Arrived in _Designation in 1911._ Peninsula._

A Captain H. D. Ross July 1809 ‘A’ Battery, R.H.A. D Captain G. Lefebure March 1810 ‘V’ Battery, R.H.A.[800] E Captain R. Macdonald August 1811 ‘E’ Battery, R.H.A. I Captain R. Bull August 1809 ‘I’ Battery, R.H.A.

[800] D troop was reduced in 1816, and re-formed in 1900, under its present designation.

‘A’ and ‘I’ Troops served with Wellington’s Army during Masséna’s retreat in the spring of 1811, and in the campaign of Fuentes de Oñoro.

In that battle ‘A’ Troop was with the left wing, and did not come into action, but ‘I’ Troop was hotly engaged, and it was whilst in charge of two guns of the Troop that 2nd Captain W. Norman Ramsay performed his celebrated exploit.

‘D’ Troop was with Beresford’s Army and present at Albuera, May 16.

‘E’ Troop did not arrive from England until the autumn, and was then attached to the 7th Division of the Army.

II. ROYAL (FOOT) ARTILLERY

The 14 companies shown in the following tables were serving in the Peninsula in 1811.

NOTE.--In 1811 there were 10 battalions of Royal (Foot) Artillery, the companies of which were always designated by the names of the commanding officer, whether he was actually present with his company or not.

_Battalion._ _Under the command of._ _Arrived in _Designation in 1911._ Peninsula._

1st Captain J. May March 1809 2nd Battery, R.F.A. 4th Captain (Brevet Major) October 1810 72 Company, R.G.A. J. Hawker 7th Captain G. Thompson March 1809 18th Battery, R.F.A. 8th Captain (Brevet Major) August 1808 27th Battery, R.F.A. A. Bredin 8th Captain R. Lawson August 1808 87th Battery, R.F.A. 8th Captain P. Meadows October 1810 Reduced in 1819.

Thompson’s and Lawson’s Companies served with Wellington’s Army during Masséna’s retreat into Spain in the spring of 1811, and in the campaign of Fuentes de Oñoro.

Later in the year--August--Thompson’s Company was withdrawn from the front, owing to continued sickness, and replaced by Bredin’s Company.

Hawker’s Company served with Beresford’s Army. It was present at the battle of Albuera, and at the two unsuccessful sieges of Badajoz (May-June 1811).

Meadows’s Company went to the front late in the year, replacing Cleeves’s Company of the King’s German Legion.

May’s Company (under the command of 2nd Captain H. Baynes, May being employed on the Staff) accompanied the Army, in charge of the Reserve Ammunition.

The other eight companies did not join the Army at the front, except Raynsford’s for a short period.

_Battalion._ _Under the command of._ _Arrived in _Designation in 1911._ Peninsula._

5th Captain F. Glubb March 1809 48 Company, R.G.A. 6th Captain H. F. Holcombe April 1811 102 Company, R.G.A. 8th Captain R. T. Raynsford April 1811 78 Company, R.G.A. 5th Captain H. Owen January 1810 60 Company, R.G.A. 9th Captain P. J. Hughes January 1810 Reduced in 1819 10th Captain W. Roberts March 1810 68 Company, R.G.A. 10th Captain A. Dickson[801] April 1810 21 Company, R.G.A. 10th Captain W. H. Shenley April 1810 11 Company, R.G.A.

[801] This company was actually commanded by Captain R. H. Birch, as Dickson was serving in the Portuguese Artillery.

Glubb’s and Holcombe’s Companies were attached during the latter part of 1811 to the siege-train, which was being equipped on the Douro by Major A. Dickson, for the proposed siege of Ciudad Rodrigo.

Raynsford’s Company took part in the second siege of Badajoz--May 30 to June 10.

The other five companies were stationed in Cadiz and the Isla de Leon.

III. KING’S GERMAN LEGION ARTILLERY

Two of the three companies of the Legion Foot Artillery (Nos. 2 and 4, commanded by Captains Andrew Cleeves and Frederick Sympher), which had been in the Peninsula for the last two years, accompanied Beresford on his Estremaduran expedition, and were present at the battle of Albuera. Cleeves’s was so cut up that it was sent to the rear in June, Meadows’s British Company taking its place at the front. The third company, that of Gesenius, was left at Lisbon.

IV. PORTUGUESE ARTILLERY

(The details are taken from Captain Teixeira Botelho’s _Subsidios_.)

(_a_) Five Portuguese field-batteries accompanied Wellington in his pursuit of Masséna and in the Fuentes de Oñoro campaign.

Two of these batteries, brigaded together under Major V. von Arentschildt, came from the 2nd regiment and were attached to Picton’s Division; they were commanded by Lieutenants J. C. de Sequeira and 2nd Lieut. J. C. Rosado.

A third, also from the 2nd regiment, under the command of Captain F. C. Pinto, was attached to Pack’s Portuguese brigade.

One battery from the 1st regiment, under the command of Captain J. da Cunha Preto, was attached to the 5th Division in these campaigns.

Another battery of the same regiment (Captain Pedro de Rozierres) was attached to the 6th Division.

(_b_) Two batteries, brigaded under Major Alexander Dickson, accompanied Beresford’s Army to Estremadura and fought at Albuera, viz. one from the 2nd regiment under Captain W. Braun, and one from the 1st regiment under Captain S. J. de Arriaga.

(_c_) For the two sieges of Badajoz in May and June, the 2nd regiment supplied a half-company under Captain F. A. de Sequeira; the 1st regiment a company under Captain F. Pedrosa Barreto; and the 3rd regiment three companies, the captains’ names of which are not preserved, save one, José de Sampayo.

(_d_) The 4th regiment supplied Silveira with two batteries under Captains F. J. de Mariz and D. G. Ferreri, which were engaged in his combats with Claparéde in the early part of the year.

(_e_) The half-company which defended Campo Mayor in March came from the 3rd regiment and was commanded by Lieut. J. J. Leál Morteira.

INDEX

Abadia, Francisco Xavier, general, supersedes Santocildes, 469; retires before Dorsenne’s advance, 470, 473.

Abbé, general, at siege of Tortosa, 230, 235, 246; at siege of Tarragona, 511; at storm of Montserrat, 533.

Abrantes, Duke of, _see_ Junot.

Alacha, Major-General Lilli, Conde de, governor of Tortosa, 232; capitulates, 237; tried and condemned by Junta, 240.

Albuera, Wellington’s choice of the position, 280; battle of, 372-94.

Albuquerque, disgraceful surrender of, 256.

Alcantara, orders of Napoleon concerning its bridge, 544.

Alcina, Commissary, his plot to seize Monjuich, 244; shot, 245.

Alcobaça, monastery of, wrecked by French, 135.

Aldea da Ponte, combat of, 578-9.

Alfayates, Wellington’s chosen position at, 298, 409, 557, 579.

Almada, Lines of, constructed by Wellington, 73.

Almaraz, bridge of, fortified by Marmont, 543.

Almeida, Drouet at, 18; endangered by Masséna’s retreat, 181; blockaded by Wellington, 201; defence of, by Brennier, 288-9; Masséna fails to relieve, 342; blown up and evacuated by Brennier, 351-6; destroyed a second time by Pack, 437; repaired and re-garrisoned, 550, 584.

Almenara, José Hervas, Marquis of, King Joseph’s envoy to Paris, 215.

Almeria, evacuated by the French, 477; Blake lands at, 478; reoccupied by Soult, 482.

Alten, Major-General V., defends Albuera village, 378, 389.

Alva, river, Wellington forces the line of the, 163-5.

Andalusia, Soult’s position in, 26-31; troubles in, during his absence, 57-8; Graham’s and La Peña’s campaign in, 90-125; Soult returns to, 129; invaded by Blake, 475; Soult drives the Murcians from, 480-4; insurrections in, during the autumn, 593-4.

Anglona, Prince of, in Tarifa expedition, 99, 102.

Anson, George, major-general, 8; operations of his cavalry, 439, 450, 463, 572, 580.

Aragon, operations in, by Suchet’s lieutenants, 246, 486, 507, 535.

Aremberg, Prosper, Prince of, operations of in Andalusia, 277-8; taken prisoner at Arroyo dos Molinos, 605.

Arroyo dos Molinos, Hill surprises Girard at, 603-5.

Artillery, table of the British in the Peninsula in 1811, _see_ pages 650-1.

Astorga, destroyed and evacuated by the French, 466; reoccupied, 471.

Asturias, operations in, 210-11; evacuated by Bonnet (June), 465-6; reoccupied by Bonnet (November), 585-6.

Baccelar, Manuel, general, commander of Portuguese forces in the north, 19, 20, 211.

Badajoz, besieged by Soult, 38-58; surrenders, 61; Wellington’s remarks on, 249; first siege of, by Beresford, 274-9, 287; second British siege of, 404-31; relief of, by Marmont, 446; regarrisoned by Drouet, 457.

Balaguer, San Felipe de, seized by the French, 242; Campoverde fails to recover it, 245.

Ballasteros, Francisco, 24; encounters Mortier, 33; driven by Gazan into Portugal, 33, 34, 93; defeats Remond on the Rio Tinto, 58, 128; and at La Palma, 129; pursued by Maransin, 277-8; informs Beresford of Soult’s move on Badajoz, 369; at Albuera, 377-94; with Blake, 475; retires before Conroux, 476; his successes against Godinot, 483; sustains the revolt in Southern Andalusia, 593-4.

Baraguay d’Hilliers, Achille, commands French force in Northern Catalonia, 484, 493-5, 538.

Barba del Puerco, Brennier’s skirmish at, 353-4.

Barcelona, conspiracy in, 244-5.

Barnard, Andrew, colonel, at Barrosa, 111.

Barrosa, Victor defeated at, by Graham, 106-25.

Batalha, monastery, wrecked by French, 135.

Baza, operations of Soult against the Murcian army near, 480-1.

Beckwith, Colonel S., his exploits at Sabugal, 191.

Beguines, general, joins Tarifa expedition, 95, 98 _note_, 101, 107, 110, 117, 124, 127.

Belpuig, captured by the Catalans, 541.

Belveder, Conde de, forced out of the pass of Manzanal by Dorsenne, 470.

Benalcazar, threatened by Colborne, 284; captured by Morillo, 597.

Beresford, William Carr, marshal, takes command of detached forces beyond the Tagus, 5; sent to the relief of Badajoz, 60, 89; in pursuit of Masséna, 86; leads expedition into Estremadura, 160, 248; marches on Campo Mayor, 252; at combat of Campo Mayor, 263, 264; unfortunate delay in crossing Guadiana, 265-70; invests Badajoz, 279; raises siege, 287; prepares for Soult’s advance, 369; wins battle of Albuera, 372-94; gives up command of Estremaduran army, 415.

Bessières, Jean Baptiste, Duke of Istria, marshal, appointed head of the ‘Army of the North’, 208; in Old Castile, 209; his reports to Napoleon, 209; quarrels with Masséna, 303; joins Masséna at Ciudad Rodrigo, 304; at Fuentes de Oñoro, 329-48; tries to keep Marmont from joining Soult, 434; takes over the charge of frontier of Leon, 434, 461-4, 466, 467; recalled by Napoleon, 468.

Bevan, colonel, misfortunes of at Almeida, 353, 356.

Blake, Joachim, general, joins Ballasteros in Estremadura, 279; with Beresford before Albuera, 371; at battle of Albuera, 372-98; Wellington’s strictures on, 399; in pursuit of Soult, 411; moves to threaten Seville, 444, 475; retires before Conroux, 476; joins Army of Murcia, 478, 482.

Blakeney, Robert, his account of Barrosa, 110, 113, 114, 116; at Arroyo dos Molinos, 604.

Blakeney, J., colonel of 7th Fusiliers, describes Albuera, 391, 392.

Blunt, general, commands at Peniche, 7, 22.

Bonnet, general, in Asturias, 211, 462; ordered to fall back to Leon, 465; opposed by Santocildes, 468; in Leon, 469, 473; reconquers the Asturias, 585-6.

Bornos, combat of, 594.

Brennier, Antoine François, general, governor of Almeida, 288; evacuates Almeida, 351-4; promoted by Napoleon, 357; receives command of a division, 361.

Bron, general, defeated at Usagre, 413-14; captured at Arroyo dos Molinos, 603.

Browne, John Frederick, colonel, his exploits at Barrosa, 109-10, 112.

Bushe, colonel, commands Portuguese at Barrosa, 111-17; mortally wounded, 118.

Cabrera, general, in Galicia, 213, 466.

Cadiz, operations round, 93-125.

Caffarelli, Louis Marie, general, commands division in Army of the North, 225, 474.

Cagigal, Major-General José, his disgraceful surrender of Albuquerque, 256.

Cameron, colonel of 79th, killed at Fuentes de Oñoro, 335.

Campbell, general, commanding at Gibraltar, sends troops to Graham, 94, 95.

Campbell, Alex., general, takes command of Portuguese blockading Almeida, 351; allows Brennier to escape, 353-6.

Campo Mayor, siege of, 254, 255; combat of, 258-64.

Campoverde, Marquis of, captain-general of Catalan army, 240, 243; fails to surprise Monjuich, 245; his unfortunate operations round Figueras, 494-495; returns to Tarragona, 501; leaves it, 505; his feeble attempts to relieve it, 507-11; resigns his command, 529.

Carpio, combat of, 563.

Casal Novo, combat of, 151.

Casas Viejas, skirmish of, 101.

Cassagne, general, holds Medina Sidonia, 101, 105; operations of, 125-6.

Castañon, general, in Galicia, 466-7; forced out of pass of Fuencebadon, 470.

Castaños, Xavier, general, succeeds La Romana as captain-general, 46, 212; promises to aid Beresford, 272, 281; retires before Soult’s advance, 369; co-operates at Albuera, 371; operations of, in Estremadura, 597.

Castillejos, combat of, 34.

Catalonia, campaigns in, 227-46, 484-541.

Caya, Wellington’s position on the, June-July 1811, 443-50.

Celorico, operations around, during Masséna’s retreat, 167, 173.

Cervera, captured by Lacy, 541.

Ciudad Rodrigo, blockaded by Wellington, 547-8; relieved by Marmont and Dorsenne, 560; again blockaded, 583; its governor captured by Julian Sanchez, 587.

Claparéde, general, commands division under Drouet, 17; routs Silveira, 21; at Fuentes, 333.

Clausel, Bertrand, general, commanding a division of the 8th Corps, 8, 13; commanding a division under Marmont, 361.

Cochrane, Colonel Basil, his rash charge at the bridge of Barba del Puerco, 354-6.

Codrington, British commodore, co-operates in defence of Tarragona, 501, 515, 519-20; ships off a Valencian division, 529-30.

Cogorderos, combat of, 467.

Coimbra, Masséna fails to seize, 140, 149.

Colborne, John, colonel, operations of, in Estremadura, 284; at Albuera, 376; heavy losses of his brigade, 384.

Cole, Lowry, general, sent to join Army of Estremadura, 161, 172; with Beresford in Estremadura, 257, 269, 273; at battle of Albuera, 372; leads charge of Fusilier Brigade, 380-1; his share in the victory, 401-3.

Condeixa, Wellington and Masséna’s operations round, 144-5.

Conroux, Nicolas, general, with Drouet’s 9th Corps, 17; at Fuentes, 333; pursues Blake, 476.

Contreras, Juan Senen, general, governor of Tarragona, 506-7; his efforts to defend the place, 509-10; his quarrel with Campoverde, 518; wounded and taken prisoner, 524; escapes from France, 527.

Cooke, general, takes over command of the troops at Cadiz from Graham, 130.

Copons, Francisco, general, at Cadiz, 93, 94.

Coupigny, Marquis, supersedes La Peña, 130.

Courten, general, tries to surprise Monjuich, 245; defends Tarragona, 496; taken prisoner, 524.

Craufurd, Robert, general, on leave in England, 135; his return to the Peninsula, 289; commands the Light Division at Fuentes, 320, 324, 337; his operations round Ciudad Rodrigo, 572-3.

Cristobal, San, Fort at Badajoz, 38; Beresford vainly attacks, 285-6; disastrous attempts to storm, 421-7.

Cruz Murgeon, general, mistakes of, at Barrosa, 107-9, 117.

Daricau, general, governor of Seville, 57; joins Remond against Ballasteros, 128, 129; dangers of, in Seville, 368; threatened by Blake, 475.

Dickson, Major Alexander, commands Portuguese artillery at siege of Olivenza, 272; collects siege-train for Badajoz, 273-6; at siege of Badajoz, 284-7; at second siege, 419, 422; conducts Wellington’s siege-train to Villa da Ponte, 549-50; and to Almeida, 584.

‘Die-hards’, the, 57th regiment, at Albuera, 386.

Dilkes, general, at Barrosa, 111.

Dombrouski, general, escapes from Arroyo dos Molinos, 602, 604; at Merida, 606.

Dorsenne, General Count, commanding at Burgos, 467, 468; succeeds Bessières, 468; invades Galicia, 469-71; helps Marmont to relieve Ciudad Rodrigo, 558-60; at Fuente Guinaldo, 575; operations of, in the late autumn, 585-6.

Doyle, General Charles, British Commissioner in Catalonia, 519.

Drouet, Jean Baptiste, Comte d’Erlon, leads 9th Corps to join Army of Portugal, 17-20; meets Masséna, 21; at Leiria, 22, 63; detached by Masséna and sent to Spanish frontier, 139, 178; reports on state of Almeida, 181, 202, 301; at Fuentes de Oñoro, 316-48; goes to Andalusia, 407; joins Soult, 441; left with 5th Corps under Marmont, 455-6; faces Hill in the late autumn, 595-7; operations of, in December, 606.

Drummond, colonel, operations of his brigade at Sabugal, 194.

Dumoustier, general, commands division in Army of the North, 463, 467, 469.

Duncan, major, commands artillery at Barrosa, 112-17, 119.

D’Urban, Sir Benjamin, his notes on the Portuguese commissariat, 70; on Wellington’s plan for attacking Masséna, 83 _note_; appreciation of Talaya, 256; on crossing the Guadiana, 269; at Albuera, 372; remarks on second siege of Badajoz, 418; on Soult’s inaction, 454; and see _passim_.

Eblé, Jean Baptiste, general, builds bridge equipage at Punhete, 15.

El Bodon, combat of, 565-9.

El Medico (Dr. Juan Palarea), guerrillero chief, 213.

Empecinado, the, guerrillero chief, 213, 246.

Eroles, Baron, commands a division in Catalonia, 493-4, 511, 520, 540; defeated at Montserrat, 532.

Erskine, Sir William, general, commands Light Division in Craufurd’s absence, 135; at Pombal, 139; at combat of Casal Novo, 151, 152; at Foz do Arouce, 156-8; his mistakes at Sabugal, 191-6, 200; fails to intercept convoys for Rodrigo, 289, 298, 299; at Fuentes de Oñoro, 311; fails to intercept French leaving Almeida, 352-6; transferred to a cavalry division, 458.

España, Carlos de, general, serves near Abrantes, 16, 17; moves to Estremadura, 43; at Badajoz, 48, 49; escapes after battle of Gebora, 54; at battle of Albuera, 372; his raids in Leon, 553, 584.

Estremadura, Soult’s expedition into, 23-61; Beresford’s campaign in, 246-87; Soult’s second invasion of, 363-95; Wellington’s first campaign in, 404-58; Hill’s operations in, 595-606.

Eugenio, general (Orsatelli), defeated and slain at Pla, 243.

Fane, captain R.N., his disastrous raid on Palamos, 241.

Fenwick, major, mortally wounded at Obidos, 7.

Ferey, general, his useless expedition beyond the Zezere, 15; at Fuentes de Oñoro, 313-48; commands one of Marmont’s divisions, 361.

Figueras, surprised by Rovira and the miqueletes, 491-2; fighting round, 494-5; gallant defence of, by Martinez, 535-7; its surrender, 538.

Fletcher, Richard, colonel, commanding engineer at the siege of Badajoz, 282, 284, 287; at second siege, 417, 432.

Fonte Cuberta, Masséna’s adventure at, 147.

Foy, Maximilien, general, sent by Masséna to Napoleon, 10, 28, 206; his return with dispatches to Masséna, 75; again sent to Paris, 177; his report to the Emperor, 295; carries letter of recall to Masséna, 357; his estimate of Marmont, 359-60; receives command of a division, 361; his diversion during the El Bodon campaign, 581.

Foz do Arouce, combat of, 155-8.

Freire, Manuel, general, commands Army of Murcia, advances against French, 477; joined by Blake, 478; retreats before Soult’s advance, 481.

Fririon, François, chief of the staff to Masséna, his evidence cited, 10, 17, 71, 147, 148, 167, 172, 176, 197, 343-8.

Fueute Guinaldo, Wellington’s position at, its dangers, 572-5.

Fuentes de Oñoro, position of, 307-10; battle, 310-48.

Galicia, state of, in the spring of 1811, 212; operations on the borders of, 465-72; Army of, under Santocildes, 465-8; and Abadia, 469-71; Wellington’s views on, 292-3, 473-4.

Gasca, colonel, his circuitous retreat to Valencia, 531.

Gazan, Honoré, general, his pursuit of Ballasteros, 33, 34, 93; at Badajoz, 41; returns to Andalusia with Soult, 129; at Albuera, 380.

Gebora, battle of the, 51-5.

George III, political results of the insanity of, 65.

George, Prince Regent, continues Perceval ministry, 66.

Gibraltar, threatened by the French, 594.

Gijon, occupied by the French, 210, 586.

Girard, Jean Baptiste, general, operations of, 35-9, 48-50; at Albuera, 379-402; surprised by Hill at Arroyo dos Molinos, 601-5.

Godinot, general, his operations at Albuera, 378, 389; sent against Blake, 454, 478; defeats J. O’Donnell at Zujar, 480; chases Ballasteros, 593; his failure, commits suicide, 594.

Golegão, Masséna’s conference at, 77-80.

Gor, the Murcian army at, 479; driven from the position, 480.

Gough, Hugh, major, leads Irish Fusiliers at Barrosa, 120.

Graham, Thomas, general, at Cadiz, 93; his plan for an attack on Victor, 94, 95; his career and character, 96, 97; at Barrosa, 107-27; his controversy with La Peña, 129-30; transferred to Army of Portugal, 130; commands Wellington’s left wing, 552-63, 572, 579; criticism of, on the September campaign, 581-2.

Granada, insurrections in the kingdom of, 478, 483-4.

Grant, colonel, operations of his irregular force, 75.

Grattan, William, of the 88th, describes devastation of Portugal by French, 135-6; Masséna’s retreat, 171; Fuentes de Oñoro, 333.

Guadiana, the, Beresford’s difficult passage of, 207-10.

Guarda, Masséna retreats on, 179; combat of, 185, 186.

Guerrilleros, importance of the operations of, 206-7, 210, 213, 463-4, 472, 483.

Guingret, captain, his authority quoted, 12.

Habert, general, commands a division under Suchet, 241, 487, 490, 500; leads the stormers at Tarragona, 522.

Hamilton, general, commands a Portuguese division, 4, 5; at Albuera, 370.

Hardinge, Colonel Henry, urges Cole to charge at Albuera, 390, 391.

Harispe, general, commands a division under Suchet, 487, 497, 500, 516.

Herck, Manuel, governor of Olivenza, his disgraceful surrender, 36, 37.

Heudelet, general, at Santarem, 82-3; at Sabugal, 195.

Hill, Lieut.-Col. J., captured at Fuentes de Oñoro, 328.

Hill, Rowland, general, commands 2nd Division, 4, 5; invalided by fever, 6; returns and takes command of two divisions, 416, 457-9; his autumn operations in Estremadura, 595-7; routs Girard at Arroyo dos Molinos, 605.

Hoghton, general, his charge at Albuera and death, 385-7; heavy losses of his brigade, 387, 388.

Houston, general, at Fuentes de Oñoro, 317-20; at Badajoz, 424.

Imaz, General José, succeeds Menacho as governor of Badajoz, 56; surrenders, 58-61; Wellington’s remarks on, 249, 250.

Iremonger, colonel, his blunders at Almeida, 352.

Istria, Duke of, _see_ Bessières.

Jaca, Suchet opens route to France by, 488.

Jerumenha, bridges constructed at, 267, 283.

Joseph Bonaparte, King of Spain, quarrels with Bessières, 210; his Army of the Centre, 213; Napoleon’s intention to deprive him of Catalonia and give him Portugal, 215; proposes to abdicate, 217; travels to Paris, 218; his complaints against Bessières, 468.

Jourdan, Jean Baptiste, marshal, returns to Madrid, 219.

Junot, Andoche, general, Duke of Abrantes, his position north of Santarem, 9, 13; at skirmish of Rio Mayor, 75; at council of Golegão, 78; movements of, during Masséna’s retreat, 131, 132, 164, 179, 180; at Belmonte, 186; reaches Sabugal, 187, 202; at Fuentes de Oñoro, 311-48; returns to France, 360.

Lacy, General Luis, takes command of the Catalan army, 531; his difficulties, 539; makes head against Macdonald, 541.

La Carrera, Martin, general, at Badajoz, 54.

La Cuadra, general, chased by Soult, 477, 479, 481.

Lahoussaye, general, operations of, 214.

La Peña, Manuel, general, commands Tarifa expedition, 95, 99; his failure to help Graham at Barrosa, 124; retires on Cadiz, 127; his controversy with Graham, 129; deprived of his command, 130.

La Romana, José Caro, Marquis of, serves under Wellington in Portugal, 24, 32; death of, 44; his character and career, 45-6.

Lardizabal, Manuel, general, in Tarifa expedition, 99, 101; at Barrosa, 107; with Blake joins Ballasteros, 278, 279; at Albuera, 377; joins Army of Murcia, 478.

Las Vertientes, combat of, 481.

Latour-Maubourg, Marie Charles, in Estremadura, 32; at siege of Badajoz, 46-7, 49, 51; summons and takes Albuquerque, 256; at combat of Campo Mayor, 258-64; succeeds Mortier in command, 268; retires from Estremadura, 276, 277, 284; joins Soult in marching to relieve Badajoz, 286, 363, 369; at Albuera, 403; at combat of Usagre, 412-15; at combat near Elvas, 447; routs the Murcian army, 481.

Leal, J. C., Portuguese artilleryman, his good service at Coimbra, 149.

Leiria, Drouet at, 22, 64; burnt by the French, 135.

Leite, general, governor of Elvas, 273, 456.

Leon, operations of Bessières and Dorsenne in, 466-71.

Leval, Jean François, general, at Cadiz, 105, 106; at Barrosa, 108-25; takes command of the 4th Corps, 477; retires before Freire’s advance, 478, 479.

Lilli, major-general, Conde de Alacha, governor of Tortosa, _see_ Alacha.

Liverpool, Robert Jenkinson, Earl of, his correspondence with Wellington, 65-9.

Loison, Louis Henri, general, commands division at Santarem, 8, 14, 146; supersedes Ney in command, 177; retreats from Guarda, 185; at combat of Sabugal, 190-6, 202, 349; returns to France, 360.

Long, R. B., general, at combat of Campo Mayor, 259-62; retires before Soult’s advance on Badajoz, 369; retreats too hastily, 372; blamed by Wellington for cavalry disaster near Elvas, 447, 448, 450; takes command of 2nd Cavalry Division, 458.

Longa, guerrillero chief, 207, 210, 211, 463, 468, 469, 474.

Losada, general, commanding Army of Asturias, 463, 586.

Lumley, Hon. W., general, commands cavalry at Albuera, 372, 403; at combat of Usagre, 412-15; goes home on sick leave, 458.

Lusitanian Legion, at Albuera, 390-1.

Macdonald, Étienne, marshal, Duke of Tarentum, on the lower Ebro, 229, 241; his march on Lerida, 242; checked at Pla, 243; his march from Lerida to Barcelona, 485-6; blockades Figueras, 496; his long siege of that place, 535-9; returns to France, 541.

Madden, brigadier-general, leads Portuguese cavalry to relief of Badajoz, 43-6; his disaster at the Gebora, 53.

Mahy, Nicolas, captain-general of Galician army, recalled, 212.

Manresa, taken and burnt by Macdonald, 486.

Maransin, Jean Pierre, general, pursues Ballasteros, 277, 278.

Marbot, Marcellin, colonel, his authority quoted or doubted, 12, 147, 153, 157, 304, 348.

Marchand, Jean Gabriel, commands rearguard in Masséna’s retreat, 162; escorts convoy to Rodrigo, 298, 299; with Masséna’s advance on Fuentes, 305; at Fuentes, 314.

Marcognet, general, his skirmish with Wilson at Espinhal, 7; encounters Drouet’s advanced guard, 17.

Marmont, Auguste Frédéric, marshal, Duke of Ragusa, replaces Masséna as commander of Army of Portugal, 295, 357; his career and character, 358-60; reorganizes the Army of Portugal, 360-2, 404, 432; marches south, 433; meets Soult, 445; relieves Badajoz, 446; returns to the valley of the Tagus, 457; his quarrels with King Joseph, 544-5; marches to relieve Ciudad Rodrigo, 559; his campaign against Wellington, Sept. 1811, 561-80; hesitates to attack Fuente Guinaldo, 575; retires to cantonments, 585; his correspondence with Napoleon, 587-9.

Masséna, André, marshal, Prince of Essling, his position about Santarem, 1-57; receives orders from Napoleon by General Foy, 75, 76; holds a conference at Golegão, 77-80; retreats from Santarem, 82, 131-97; surprised at Fonte Cuberta, 147; quarrels with Ney, 148; retreats towards Plasencia, 162; his difficulties, 173-5; supersedes Ney, 176-8; abandons his plan of going to Plasencia, 181; crosses the Coa, 187; retreats on Ciudad Rodrigo, 197; causes of his failure, 203-5; recalled by Napoleon, 295; reorganizes his army, 301; quarrels with Bessières, 303; defeated at Fuentes de Oñoro, 310-48; withdraws garrison from Almeida, 349-54; receives his recall, 357.

Masterson, sergeant, captures an eagle at Barrosa, 121.

Mathieu, Maurice, governor of Barcelona, defeats attempt of Campoverde to surprise Monjuich, 245.

Medina Sidonia, combats at, 98, 127.

Menacho, Rafael, general, governor of Badajoz, 40; his gallant defence, 55; his death, 56.

Mendizabal, general, retreats on Badajoz, 32; garrisons Olivenza, 35; and Badajoz, 40; leads a force to relieve Badajoz, 43-4; his failure, 47-9; routed at the Gebora, 53.

Merle, Pierre Hugues, general, at combat of Sabugal, 192.

Mermet, Julien, his engagements during Masséna’s retreat from Portugal, 138-9, 142, 157; at Fuentes de Oñoro, 316, 319, 322.

Mina, Francisco, guerrillero chief in Navarre, 207; joins Longa and Porlier, 468.

Miot de Melito, André, courtier of King Joseph, 217-18.

Miranda, José, general, lands in Catalonia to support Campoverde, 507; his feeble actions, 517; insists on returning to Valencia, 528; embarks, 530.

Monjuich, fortress of, failure of Campoverde to surprise, 245.

Montbrun, Louis Pierre, general, 55; at Pombal, 137; fails to seize Coimbra, 140, 149; on the Alva, 163; at El Bodon, 198; with Masséna, 302; at Fuentes de Oñoro, 315-48; with Marmont’s advance on Badajoz, 437, 446; operations of, in front of Elvas, 446; commands at the combat of El Bodon, 566-70.

Montijo, Conde de, his irregular warfare in Granada, 478-82.

Montserrat, stormed by Suchet, 533-4; recovered by the Spaniards, 541.

Morillo, Pablo, general, exploits of, 597.

Mortier, Edouard, marshal, in the expedition to Estremadura, 30; skirmishes with Ballasteros, 33; at Badajoz, 48, 52, 54; left in command at Badajoz by Soult, 62, 247; marches against and takes Campo Mayor, 253-5; rescues Latour-Maubourg after combat of Campo Mayor, 263, 264; recalled to Paris, 268.

Murcia, Army of, its unsuccessful campaign against Soult, 477-81.

Myers’s Fusilier Brigade, exploits of, at Albuera, and death of its commander, 390-3.

Napier, Sir William, his strictures on the Perceval Cabinet, 67; on Wellington at Redinha, 143; on cavalry pursuit at Campo Mayor, 264; describes doings of the Light Division at Fuentes de Oñoro, 326; criticism of Wellington’s action at Fuentes de Oñoro, 343-8; on topography of Albuera, 374; on battle of Albuera, 385, 386, 398, 401; his remarks on Soult’s strategy in September, 454; on Dorsenne’s advance into Galicia, 471; on Contreras’s conduct at Tarragona, 510, 513.

Napoleon, Emperor, his orders to Drouet, 18, 19; to Soult, 23; his failure to understand situation of affairs in Spain and Portugal, 228, 93, 94, 204, 205; approves of Masséna’s superseding Ney, 178; establishes a single military commander in Northern Spain, 207; threatens to annex Spain, 215-16; refuses Joseph command over the troops in Spain, 219-20; supersedes Masséna, 295, 357; his criticism of Bessières, 305; his orders to Soult, 363-5; his criticism on Marmont, 435; his orders to Suchet for the conquest of Catalonia, 485; orders the reconquest of the Asturias, 585; directs Marmont to invade the Alemtejo, 587-8; his projects for the conquest of Valencia, 591-2.

Ney, Michel, marshal, Duke of Elchingen, commands 6th Corps, 8, 9; his advice to Masséna at council of Golegão, 78; retreats from Leiria, 131, 132, 134; commands rearguard at Pombal, 138; at Redinha, 142, 143; at Condeixa, 146; his quarrel with Masséna, 148; at Foz do Arouce, 155-8; on the Alva, 164, 171; quarrels with Masséna and is removed from command, 176-8.

Niebla, the Condado of (W. Andalusia), operations in, 30, 34, 58, 128; invaded by Blake, 444, 474-5.

O’Donnell, Charles, general, serves under La Romana, 43; commands in Valencia, 46; sends succours to Tarragona, 507.

O’Donnell, Henry, general, retires from command in Catalonia, 240.

O’Donnell, Joseph, general, defeated by Godinot, 480; retires before Soult’s advance, 481.

Olivenza, fortress, taken by Soult, 35, 36; besieged and taken by Beresford, 271-3; evacuated by Wellington, 446; blown up by Godinot, 454.

Olivo, Fort, at Tarragona, storm of, 503.

Orbigo, combats on the, 467.

O’Ronan, colonel, leads the attack on Fort Olivo, 505.

Ouguella, fortress, in Wellington’s position on the Caya, 449.

Oviedo, evacuated by Bonnet, 466; recaptured by him, 586.

Pack, Denis, general, commanding a Portuguese brigade, 3; skirmishes with Junot at Rio Mayor, 75; pursues Junot, 86, 133; at Redinha, 142; Casal Novo, 151; on the Mondego, 199; blockading Almeida, 290; gives up command to Campbell, 351; pursues Brennier, 353; blows up fortifications at Almeida, 437.

Palacio, Marquis of, commanding in Valencia, 479.

Palamos, surprised by landing party from British frigates, 241.

Pelet, Jean Jacques, colonel, his evidence as to Masséna’s campaign quoted, 140, 147, 174, 177, 338, 347.

Peniche, fortress of, its importance, 7.

Penne Villemur, Count, Spanish cavalry general, 272, 276, 377, 412, 597.

Perceval, Spencer, prime minister, his correspondence with Wellington, 65-9.

Phillipon, Armand, general, governor of Badajoz, 253, 270, 279; defends the town against Beresford, 285-7, 363, 397, 416; against Wellington, 427-30; siege raised, 431; relieved by Marmont, 446; receives new garrison, 457.

Picton, Thomas, general, commanding 3rd Division, 3; his description of the devastation of Portugal, 135; at Pombal, 138; at Redinha, 142; at Casal Novo, 151; Foz do Arouce, 155-8; at Guarda, 184-6; at combat of Sabugal, 190-6; at Fuentes de Oñoro, 330; at Badajoz, 408, 419; at Campo Mayor, 449; his management of the 3rd Division at El Bodon, 569-70.

Pla, combat of, 243.

Polish Lancers, 1st, charge of the, at Albuera, 383-4.

Pombal, combat of, 136, 137, 138.

Porlier, Juan Diaz, guerrillero chief, 207, 210, 211, 463, 468, 469; storms Santander, 472, 474.

Pozo Bello, fighting at, during the battle of Fuentes de Oñoro, 317-18.

Punhete, French bridge and dockyard at, 16; burnt by Loison, 86.

Quintanilla de Valle, combat of, 467.

Ramsay, Norman, captain, his exploit at Fuentes de Oñoro, 327.

Redinha, combat of, 139-43.

Regency, the Spanish, deprives La Peña of his command, 130.

Reille, Honoré Charles, general, enters Spain with reinforcements, 225.

Rémond, general, defeated by Ballasteros on the Rio Tinto, 58, 128; and at La Palma, 129; opposed by the Conde de Montijo, 483.

Renaud, General, governor of Ciudad Rodrigo, captured by Julian Sanchez, 587.

Reynier, Jean Louis Ebenezer, general, commands division at Santarem, 9, 13; at council of Golegão, 78-81; his line of retreat, 131, 132; rejoins Masséna, 153; advises Masséna not to march on Plasencia, 180; at Sabugal, 182, 190-6, 202; at Fuentes de Oñoro, 311-48; with Marmont, 440.

Ridge, major, commanding 5th Fusiliers, his exploit at El Bodon, 567.

Rio Mayor, skirmish at, 75.

Rio Tinto, Ballasteros defeats Rémond on the, 58, 128.

Rogniat, general, Suchet’s chief engineer, 499.

Roguet, general, commands division in Bessières’ Army of the North, 462, 463; sent on into Galicia by Dorsenne, 469.

Romana, La, Marquis of, Pedro Caro, _see_ La Romana.

Rouget, general, driven from Santander by Porlier, 472.

Rovira, doctor, miquelete chief, 484; organizes the surprise of Figueras, 491-3; his operations, 494, 496; seeks help at Cadiz, 535; returns to Catalonia, 537.

Ruffin, general, defeated and mortally wounded at Barrosa, 110-16.

Sabugal, combat of, 189-96.

Saint-Cyr-Nugues, colonel, his part in the surrender of Tortosa, 237.

Sanchez, Julian, chief of guerrilleros, his raids near Salamanca, 201, 207, 213, 289; at Fuentes de Oñoro, 316, 318; before Ciudad Rodrigo, 472, 474; captures its governor, 587.

Santa Fé, Mariano, Duke of, his fruitless embassy to Paris, 215.

Santander, stormed by Porlier, 472.

Santarem, Masséna at, 1-22; evacuated by Masséna, 57, 82; occupied by Wellington, 88.

Santocildes, José, general, interim commander-in-chief in Galicia, 212, 293; his activity, 465; opposes Bonnet, 467, 468, 474.

Sarsfield, general, defeats French at combat of Pla, 243, 246; operations of, round Figueras, 494-5; enters Tarragona, 506; leaves it, 512-13; opposes evacuation of Catalonia, 529.

Sebastiani, Horace, general, at Granada, 30, 31.

Serras, general, commands division at Benavente, 463; checked by Cabrera, 467; by Santocildes, 468.

Seville, weakness of, 31, 368; threatened by Ballasteros, 57-8; threatened by Blake, 444, 475-6.

Silveira, Francisco, general, at Trancoso, 19; routed by Claparéde, 21; in Tras-os-Montes, 461.

Skerret, colonel, his fruitless expedition to Tarragona, 519-21.

Slade, general, cavalry operations of, 166, 187, 437, 439, 450.

Souham, Joseph, general, joins Army of Portugal, 225; lends reinforcements to Army of the North, 464; at Burgos, 469; engaged in combat of Aldea da Ponte, 577-8.

Soult, Nicolas, marshal, Duke of Dalmatia, commands Army of Andalusia, 9; his expedition into Estremadura, 23, 91, 92; takes Olivenza, 35-7; besieges and takes Badajoz, 38-61; returns to Seville, 62, 129, 247; marches to relieve Badajoz, 286; his orders from Napoleon, 363-5; advances and fights at Albuera, 377-94; his dispatch to Napoleon, 395-6; retreats, 397, 410; meets Marmont, 445; relieves Badajoz, 446; marches for Seville, 455; drives Blake from the Condado de Niebla, 475, 476; disperses Murcian army, 481; his operations against the insurgents of Andalusia, 593-4.

Soult, Pierre, general, at combat of Sabugal, 193-6; pursues Freire’s army, 481.

Sousa, José Antonio, member of the Portuguese Regency, Wellington’s suspicions of, 71.

Spencer, General Sir Brent, commands troops between the Agueda and Coa, 297; at Fuentes de Oñoro, 330; in charge of northern frontier of Portugal, his instructions from Wellington, 408; retires before Marmont’s advance, 436, 437; superseded by Graham, his character, 551-2.

Squire, captain, engineer officer with Beresford, 266; at Olivenza, 272.

Stewart, William, general, 5; takes over Hill’s command, 5; superseded by Beresford, 5, 16; his blunder at Albuera, 376-400.

Suchet, Louis Gabriel, marshal, commands in Aragon, 225; besieges and takes Tortosa, 230-40; ordered to take Tarragona by Napoleon, 485; his march thither, 487; besieges the place, 497-512; captures the lower city, 513; and the upper city, 525; marches to Barcelona, 530; captures Montserrat, 531; ordered to subdue Valencia, 591.

Taboada, general, commands a division of the Army of Galicia, 466-7.

Tagus river, the, Ney’s and Reynier’s plans for passing, 15, 78-80; Wellington’s precautions to prevent a passage, 73-4.

Talaya, Major José Joaquim, commander of Campo Mayor, 254; his gallant defence, 256-7.

Tarifa, held by the British, 98, 593, 594.

Tarragona, besieged by Suchet, 497-525; fall of the lower city, 513-14; of the upper city, 523-5.

Teruel, beset by the Valencian army, 507; by the Aragonese insurgents, 535.

Thiébault, Paul Charles, general, governor of Salamanca, fails to catch Julian Sanchez, 201; supplies reinforcements to Masséna’s army, 300; his views on Marmont, 359; commands a division in the El Bodon campaign, 563, 571; accuses Marmont of weakness, 575; fights the combat of Aldea da Ponte, 577-9.

Thomar, operations around, 86-8.

Tillet, André, carries Masséna’s dispatch to Almeida, 350.

Tortosa, importance of, 227, 228; siege of, by Suchet, 230-8; capitulation of, 238-40.

Trancoso, combat of, 21.

Trant, Nicholas, colonel, commands militia brigade at Coimbra, 7, 19, 133; defends Coimbra against Montbrun, 140-1; operations of, 161, 189; attacks Claparéde near Almeida, 199.

Truxillo, occupied by Lahoussaye, 214; by Foy, 542.

Usagre, combat of, 412-15.

Valazé, engineer colonel, at Coimbra bridge, 137.

Valencia, the Army of, 227-8; Blake in command of, 478-9; Suchet’s precautions against, 486; sends succours to Tarragona, 507.

Valencia, kingdom of, Napoleon’s designs against, 539, 591-2.

Valencia de Alcantara, evacuated by Spaniards, taken by Latour-Maubourg, 256; head quarters of Castaños, 597.

Valladolid, attacked by partidas, 467.

Valletaux, brigadier, defeated and slain at combat of Cogorderos, 466, 467.

Velasco, general, second in command at Tarragona, 512; his escape, 524; votes to abandon Catalonia, 529.

Victor, Claude Perrin, marshal, Duke of Belluno, at Cadiz, 30; forced to supply reinforcements to Soult, 93; learns of the advance of the allied forces near Cadiz, 103; defeated at Barrosa, 108-25; retires behind the Saltillo, 126; sends troops to Soult, 307.

Vigo-Roussillon, colonel, his account of Barrosa, 118-20.

Villacampa, general, commands Aragonese insurgents, 246, 535.

Villa da Ponte, combat of, 21; Wellington’s battering-train at, 550, 584.

Villanueva de Sitjes, captured by Suchet, 528.

Villatte, general, opposes the Spaniards at the battle of Barrosa, 105-7.

Villa Velha, bridge of, its importance in Wellington’s communications, 408, 438-9.

Wathier, general, at Fuentes de Oñoro, 316, 322; at combat of Carpio, 563; at Aldea da Ponte, 577-8.

Wellesley, Hon. Henry, Ambassador at Cadiz, correspondence with, 129, 184, &c.

Wellington, Arthur, Viscount, disposition of his forces in Portugal, 1-6; correspondence with Lord Liverpool on the cost of the war, 65-9; his plan for attacking Masséna, 83; occupies Santarem, 86; his letter to Graham after the battle of Barrosa, 125; his plan for pursuing Masséna, 131-5; at skirmish of Redinha, 143; at Foz do Arouce, 155-8; crosses the Alva, 165; his tactics, 169-72; on the Coa, 189; blockades Almeida, 201; remarks on the surrender of Badajoz, 249; on combat of Campo Mayor, 265; directs investment of Badajoz, 279; at Elvas, 296; prepares for Masséna’s advance, 305; battle of Fuentes de Oñoro, 310-48; criticism on, 343-8; his anger at Brennier’s escaping from Almeida, 355-6; his remarks on Albuera, 399; goes to besiege Badajoz, 405; raises siege, 431; expects Marmont’s advance, 435, 436; his position on the Caya, 442-53; retires with his army into the Beira, 457; his plans for the autumn, 546-8; blockades Ciudad Rodrigo, 551-3; raises the blockade, 561; surprised by Marmont at El Bodon, 565; retires to Fuente Guinaldo, 571; and to Alfayates, 577; his errors in this campaign, 581-2; resumes the blockade of Rodrigo, 583; his plans for the winter, 584, 591.

Wheatley, colonel, at Barrosa, 111.

Whigs, their factious opposition to the Peninsular War, 66.

Whittingham, Samuel, colonel, in Tarifa expedition, 99; at Barrosa, 108-9, 117, 123.

Wilson, John, general, commands militia brigade at Espinhal, 6, 7; driven back by Marcognet, 20; on the Mondego, 161; on the Coa, 189; south of the Douro, 461.

Yranzo, general, refuses command of the Catalan army, 240.

Yriarte, brigadier-general, second in command at Tortosa, 232, 235; his gallant defence, 238, 239.

Zayas, José, general, at Cadiz, 103; attacks Villatte, 107, 124; at Rio Tinto, 277; joins Ballasteros, 278, 279; at Albuera, 377-400; at Niebla, 475; joins Army of Murcia, 478.

Zezere, river, French raids along its banks, 15.

END OF VOL. IV

Oxford: Horace Hart, M.A., Printer to the University