[633] Unfortunately the French returns do not separate the losses of the twenty-seventh from those of the twenty-eighth of July. Only the 16th Léger can have suffered any appreciable damage.

[634] Lord Munster, p. 212.

[635] ‘The French troops during their stay had been guilty of great excesses: a number of houses were completely destroyed, and the furniture burnt for fuel. In every quarter were to be seen marks of the devastation they had committed. The Cathedral, a handsome modern building, was uninjured, the enemy having contented himself with carrying off all the splendid ornaments used in the ceremonies of religion. But in the church of San Antonio the French had destroyed everything, and converted it into a barrack,’ &c. Stothert’s Narrative of the Campaigns of 1809-11, pp. 81-2.

[636] The Spaniards had lost 1,000 men, mainly by dispersion, in the retreat from Torrijos on the twenty-sixth.

[637] Cf. Londonderry, i. 403; and Arteche, vi. 293.

[638] Thus, counting from right to left, the front of Sherbrooke’s brigade was composed as follows: 1st Coldstream Guards, 1st Scots Fusilier Guards, 61st, 83rd, 1st Line K. G. L., 2nd ditto, 5th ditto, 7th ditto.

[639] It would seem, on the whole, that the responsibility for the absence of the division from its destined fighting-ground lay with Hill, generally the most cautious and reliable of subordinates. He says, in a memorandum drawn up in 1827, in answer to an inquiry about Talavera, that he had gone to dine in Talavera, and then saw Mackenzie’s division come back into the line. Returning to his own troops, he found them moving out of their bivouac, but not on their fighting-ground. He was getting them into line, when the firing suddenly began in his front.

These details I give from the valuable (unpublished) map by Lieut. Unger of the K. G. L. artillery, which Colonel Whinyates has been good enough to place at my disposition. It carefully marks the emplacement of every British battery. Elliott was at this moment in command of the battery which had been under Baynes during the Oporto campaign, while Sillery had that which had been under Lane.

[640] All these details are from the report drawn up by Sémélé, the chief of the staff of the 1st Corps, at Talavera on Aug. 10.

[641] Wellesley to Castlereagh, Aug. 25: ‘Two thousand of them ran off on the evening of the twenty-seventh, not 100 yards from where I was standing, who were neither attacked, nor threatened with an attack, and who were only frightened by the noise of their own fire. They left their arms and accoutrements on the ground, their officers went with them, and they plundered the baggage of the British army, which had been sent to the rear. Many others went, whom I did not see.’

[642] The panic-stricken regiments were Leales de Fernando VII, which had been garrisoning Badajoz when Medellin was fought, Badajoz (two batts.) which had been in the battle, and Toledo.

[643] ‘I wish I could assert with truth that this retrogression was confined to our Spanish allies. But the truth must be told, and I regret to say that stragglers from the British army were among them, taking a similar direction to the rear. As they passed, they circulated reports of a most disheartening nature.’ Col. Leach’s Rough Sketches, p. 81. He was with Craufurd’s brigade, then coming up by forced marches from Plasencia, which met the fugitives near Oropesa on the morning of the twenty-eighth. ‘The road was crowded with fugitives, Spaniards innumerable, and lots of English commissary clerks, paymasters and sutlers, to say nothing of a few soldiers who said they were sick.’ Autobiography of Sir George Napier, p. 108.

[644] ‘Early in the morning some twenty-five Spanish soldiers, dressed in white, attended by several Popish priests, were marched up to the front of our regiment and shot. One, a young lad of nineteen or twenty years, dropped before the party fired, but to no use. For after the volley at ten paces, the firing party ran forward and shooting them in the head or breast completed their horrid work. These unfortunates belonged to regiments that had given way in the late battle.’ Diary of Cooper (of the 7th Fusiliers), pp. 25-6.

[645] That the panic took place at dusk, and not during the night attack, is completely proved by the Journal of General Sémélé, where it is noted as occurring in consequence of Victor’s earliest demonstration; as also by Wellesley’s note.

[646] The Battalion of Detachments was decidedly checked. They got somewhat into confusion, and halted. ‘The soldiers seemed much vexed,’ writes Leslie of the 29th, ‘we could hear them bravely calling out “There is nobody to command us! Only tell us what to do, and we are ready to dare anything.” There was a fault somewhere.’ Leslie, p. 144.

[647] Though the French official reports of casualties do not give any officers of the 9th Léger as prisoners, it is certain that Colonel Meunier was taken. See Leslie, p. 143. Being recovered, along with the other wounded prisoners, when Talavera was evacuated, his name did not get down among the list of missing, which was only drawn up on Aug. 10.

[648] See the Diary of Boothby of the R. E., one of the victims of this unhappy fusilade, p. 5.

[649] There are admirable narratives of the night-vigil and the dawn of Talavera, in the narratives of Leslie, Leith-Hay, and Lord Munster.

[650] ‘Le duc de Bellune rendit compte au roi du résultat de sa première attaque, et le prévint qu’il la renouvellerait au point du jour. Peut-être aurait on dû lui donner l’ordre d’attendre.... Mais ce maréchal, étant resté longtemps aux environs de Talavera, devait connaître parfaitement son terrain, et il paraissait si sûr du succès, que le roi le laissait libre d’agir comme il le désirait.... Il sentait que s’il adopterait l’avis du Maréchal Jourdan le duc de Bellune ne manquerait pas d’écrire à l’empereur “qu’on lui avait fait perdre l’occasion d’une brillante victoire sur les Anglais”.’ Jourdan’s Mémoires, pp. 256 and 259.

[651] Eliott’s Narrative, in his Defence of Portugal, p. 238.

[652] Lord Munster, p. 226.

[653] Leslie, p. 147. The other occasion on which Hill used strong language was at the battle of St. Pierre in 1814, when Wellington remarked: ‘If Hill is beginning to swear we had better get out of the way.’

[654] Ruffin had 5,200 men, minus about 300 lost on the previous night, while Hill had 3,853, minus 138 lost in that same battle in the dark.

[655] This operation is described in the narrative of the K. G. L. officer, printed by Beamish (p. 212). The narrator, however, mistakes the French regiment’s number, and says twenty-six for ninety-six.

[656] These losses can be accurately ascertained. Ruffin’s whole loss in the two days of fighting was 1,632, of whom 300 of the 9th Léger had fallen on the night of July 27. He was not seriously engaged during the rest of the day, so must have lost 1,300 in this fight. Hill’s total loss on July 28 was 835, but much of it was suffered in the afternoon, when (though not attacked by infantry) his division was under a heavy shell fire.

[657] See Jourdan’s Mémoires, p. 260.

[658] Their order from left to right was as follows: Frankfort-Hesse (two batts.), Baden (two batts.), Holland (two batts.), Nassau (two batts.).

[659] There is a legend which occurs in all French narratives of Talavera—starting with the contemporary accounts, and including Desprez’s and Jourdan’s Mémoires. It is to the effect that Leval’s division, in its first advance, came upon an English battalion, which several writers call the 45th, lying in front of the rest of the allied line. It is alleged that the Nassau regiment surrounded and almost captured it—that they would have taken it prisoner indeed en masse, if the troops on their left (Holland and Baden) had held firm. But at least ‘on lui prit une centaine d’hommes, le major, le lieutenant-colonel, et le colonel—ce dernier mourut de ses blessures’ (Jourdan). No such incident can have occurred, for (1) no English regiment lost more than twenty-one ‘missing’ on this side of the field. (2) No English officer of higher rank than a captain was taken prisoner in the battle. (3) Only one officer was killed in the whole of Campbell’s division, and he was a lieutenant of the 7th Fusiliers. (4) The 45th was not engaged with Leval’s men, but lay to the left and supported the Guards in resisting Sebastiani: it lost one officer (a captain) and twelve men missing, but this was in the great mêlée in the centre, at the end of the day’s fighting: it had no officer killed. I am driven to conclude that the whole is some gross exaggeration of the surprise of Campbell’s pickets in the vineyards, and that instead of a ‘battalion’ we should read the light companies of the division. Cooper of the 7th Fusiliers, who was in the skirmishing line, says that the Germans got close among them by calling out ‘Españoles’ and pretending to be Spaniards. A few prisoners (twenty-six in all) were lost in this way.

[660] This was the Myers who fell in storming the famous hill of Albuera in 1811. See Cooper (of the 7th), p. 22.

[661] ‘Another lull in the storm, and fresh formation. “Here they come again” said many voices: so they did, but we were ready and gave them such a warm reception that they speedily went to the right-about. As in their first attack they now left behind several pieces of cannon, which we secured as before. After these two attacks and sharp repulses we were not troubled with their company any more.’ Cooper, p. 23.

[662] There can be no rational doubt that the total number of guns taken was seventeen, as set forth in Charles Stewart’s report to Wellesley, as Adjutant-general, viz. ‘four eight-pounders, four six-pounders, one four-pounder, one six-inch howitzer, taken by Brigadier-general A. Campbell’s brigade, with one six-inch howitzer and six other guns left by the enemy and found in the woods’ of which four were in the hands of the Spaniards. Wellesley, in his dispatch, made the error of stating that twenty guns had been taken, being under the impression that the Spaniards had captured seven pieces, while they themselves only claim four—a Captain Piñero was mentioned in Eguia’s dispatch for causing them to be brought back to the Spanish line. The British took thirteen guns: three days after the battle Wellesley made them over to his allies. He writes to O’Donoju [Talavera, Aug. 1]: ‘We have got thirteen pieces of French artillery, which I wish to give over to the Spanish army—the other seven [four] you have already got. I shall be obliged if you will urge General Cuesta to desire the commanding officer of his artillery to receive charge of them from the officer commanding the British artillery.’ This is surely conclusive as to the numbers.

Jourdan in his Mémoires acknowledges the loss of apparently all Leval’s guns—three batteries. ‘L’artillerie du général Leval, qu’on avait imprudemment engagée au milieu des bois, des vignes et des fosses, ayant eu la plupart de ses chevaux tués, ne put pas être retirée; événement fâcheux qu’on eut le tort impardonnable de cacher au roi’ [p. 261]. Desprez says that six pieces only were lost: Thiers allows eight.

But the most interesting point of the controversy comes out in Napoleon’s correspondence with his brother Joseph. On Aug. 25, the Emperor writes in hot anger to say that he sees from the English newspapers that Joseph had lost twenty guns, a fact concealed in the King’s dispatch. He desires to be told at once the names of the batteries that were captured and the divisions to which they belonged. Jourdan replies in the King’s behalf on Sept. 15, that no guns have been lost—four pieces of Leval’s artillery had been for a moment in the hands of the British, but they were recaptured. Joseph himself writes to the same effect next day: ‘Wellesley n’a pris aucune aigle, il n’en montrera pas plus que de canons.’ On the nineteenth, Jourdan writes to Clarke, the Minister of War, to say that he has just found out that two guns had been lost by Leval. Sénarmont, the artillery chief of the 4th Corps, explains to Jourdan, in a letter of September 27, that ten pieces had been lost in the olive groves, but that all were recovered save two, one Dutch six-pounder, and one French eight-pounder. The truth comes out in Desprez’s narrative. He says that the King, hearing that Leval had left guns abandoned in front of the Pajar de Vergara, ordered Sebastiani to have them brought in: ‘Le général assura que déjà elles avaient été reprises. Cette assertion était inexacte. Le général Sebastiani était-il lui-même en erreur? Ou les ordres donnés lui paraissaient-ils inexécutables? Je n’ai jamais eu le mot de l’énigme: quoi qu’il en soit, les pièces tombèrent le lendemain au pouvoir de l’ennemi. Le Général Sénarmont, qui commandait l’artillerie, ne rendit pas compte de cette perte. Le général Sebastiani l’avait prié avec instance de la cacher. Aussi dans son rapport sur la bataille Joseph déclara-t-il positivement qu’on n’avait pas perdu un canon. Plus tard les journaux anglais firent connaître la vérité. L’Empereur, qui savait apprécier leur exactitude, reprocha à son frère de l’avoir trompé. Joseph eut assez de délicatesse pour accepter ces reproches et ne point déclarer de quelle manière les choses s’étaient passées’ [p. 491].

In short, Sebastiani and Sénarmont conspired to hide the truth, and Joseph, who liked them both (see his letters in Ducasse, especially vi. 456, where on Sept. 30 he sends Sénarmont a gold box as a sort of ‘consolation prize’), hushed the matter up in their interests. The most curious part of the matter is that on Sept. 27, Sénarmont was able to say with literal exactness that only two pieces were missing, for fifteen of the lost guns had been retaken on August 5, behind the bridge of Arzobispo, during the retreat of Cuesta’s army. They had been given back to their owners long before September, so were no longer missing. But this can hardly be called ‘the whole truth and nothing but the truth.’

[663] The losses were killed: officers six, men ninety-seven: wounded, officers twenty-four, men 803: prisoners, seventy-seven men. Campbell lost killed: officers one, men thirty-two: wounded, officers six, men 171: missing, officers one, men twenty-five—a total of 236. The Spaniards may have had 150 casualties—it is difficult to see that they can have suffered much more, as they had only two hostile regiments in front of them.

[664] Lord Munster, p. 231.

[665] General Desprez, relating the doings of Sebastiani’s division, says that the 75th were cut up by Spanish light horse: but there were no cavalry of that nation in this part of the field, and it would seem that the French were misled by the blue uniforms of the Light Dragoons.

[666] Except that he mentioned the colonels of the 31st and 45th among the officers who had done well in the battle.

[667] The only place where a good account of the doings of Mackenzie’s brigade is to be found is in the excellent regimental history of the 24th. I fully share the indignation expressed by its author at the unmerited oblivion in which its splendid doings have been lying for so many years. [See Paton’s Annals of the 24th Regiment.]

[668] In most modern English narratives of Talavera it is stated that the 1/48th supported the Guards. This must be a mistake, caused by a misreading of Wellesley’s dispatch. It is certain that the Guards fell back on Mackenzie’s brigade. Contemporary accounts by officers of the 2/24th speak of the Coldstreams passing through them to re-form: the Scots Fusiliers therefore must have had the 2/31st and 1/45th behind them. Donnellan and the 1/48th really supported Langwerth’s German battalions, as Lord Londonderry (the only historian who has got the facts right) clearly shows (i. p. 410). It is curious that the historians of the battle have not seen that the Germans, in their dreadfully mauled condition, could not have been rallied without external aid: this aid was given by Donnellan, while Mackenzie was saving the Guards.

[669] The figures are (after deducting the losses of the earlier combats): Low’s brigade 964, Langwerth’s 1,315, Cameron’s 1,306, 1/48th 700, a total of 4,285. The losses were: Low 326, Langwerth 721, Cameron 547, 1/48th about 100, a total of 1,694, including officers. (See tables in Appendix.)

[670] For a description of the sufferings of the 88th, whose battalion companies did not fire a single shot, during the cannonade of the afternoon, see Grattan’s Connaught Rangers, vol. iii. p. 91.

[671] For these losses, see the Talavera Appendix.

[672] Hartmann of the K.G.L. artillery has a note on these pieces: they were useful because of their heavy calibre, none of the British guns being heavier than six-pounders. They were bright new brass cannon from the arsenal at Seville: their machinery for sighting and elevation was of a most primitive type—a century out of date. The lieutenant in command seemed unable to hit anything with them, whereupon Hartmann got off his horse, himself laid a gun, and had the luck to dismount a French piece in the valley. After this the Spaniards fired better and did very good service.

[673] That the charge of Anson’s light dragoons came after victory had been secured in the centre is clear from several eye-witnesses, e.g. Leith-Hay of the 29th, who was on top of the Cerro, and close to Wellesley, writes: ‘The favourable termination of the battle in the centre created great excitement: the cheer, which had been re-echoed from the height had hardly died away, when a scene of another character was in preparation. The movements of the divisions Ruffin and Villatte had during the late contest been vacillating and uncertain. Formed to all appearance to attack the height, they had even advanced some distance towards its base. Sir Arthur crossed with rapid steps from the right of the 29th to the part of the hill looking down on Anson’s brigade. It was immediately known that a charge would take place’ (i. p. 158).

[674] Leith-Hay, p. 159.

[675] Napier, ii. 176, has a story that Col. Arentschildt of the German dragoons discovered the ravine in time, and checked his line, crying, ‘I will not kill my young mans’—thereby saving his regiment and taking no part in the charge. This is entirely disproved by the narratives of the officers of the 1st K.G.L. Dragoons, quoted in Beamish’s History of the King’s German Legion. The evidence of Colonel von der Decken alone suffices to show that the regiment fell into the trap, suffered severe losses therein, and then executed a disorderly and ineffective charge on Ruffin’s squares, after which it returned to its old position, with a loss of nearly forty men. Napier seems to have been misled by the statement of Major Ponsonby of the 23rd, to the effect that the Germans turned back at the ravine. He also says that Seymour, Colonel of the 23rd, was wounded, but that officer’s name does not appear in the casualty list.

[676] In this charge they carried away with them, and almost captured, Generals Villatte and Cassagne, who had failed to take refuge in the square of the 27th, and were caught outside it. [Sémélé’s Report.]

[677] In the French official reports it is said that General Strolz, the brigadier, drew aside the 10th Chasseurs, in order to fall upon the British dragoons from the flank. Rocca (p. 104) says that the regiment was charged and broke, but rallied again. Victoires et Conquêtes has: ‘le 10^me de chasseurs ne pouvait soutenir cette charge, ouvrit ses rangs, mais bientôt rallié il chargea ses adversaires en queue.’ As the regiment only lost five killed it does not seem likely that it was broken. The French records do not give the number of its wounded.

[678] This was the Westphalian Chevaux-légers regiment.

[679] Among the other officers who cut their way through was Lord George William Russell, desperately wounded by a cut on the shoulder. Only three officers (two wounded) were taken prisoners from these two squadrons: two others were killed: it would seem therefore that out of twelve present with the two right squadrons, several succeeded in getting out of the trap. Elley says that the whole body that followed him did not exceed 170 sabres, and that seven or eight only cut their way through the enemy.

[680] The best account of all this comes from the Mémoire of General Desprez, who was riding with the head-quarters staff at this moment.

[681] All this is again derived from Desprez, who both carried the King’s orders to Victor, and bore back Victor’s remonstrances to the King.

[682] Lord Munster, p. 235; Leith-Hay, p. 162.

[683] See Jourdan’s Mémoires, p. 262.

[684] These ‘missing’ do not include the French wounded taken on the field, and recovered when Victor came back to Talavera on Aug. 6 and captured the British hospitals. The French return was drawn up only after Aug. 18, when these men had been released.

[685] Wellesley to Castlereagh, Aug. 1, Wellington Dispatches, iv. p. 553.

[686] For excellent accounts of this forced march see Col. Leach (95th), Rough Sketches of the Life of an Old Soldier (pp. 81-2), and Sir George Napier’s Autobiography, pp. 108-10. The distance was forty-three miles, not as W. Napier states sixty-two. That all the stragglers met on the way were not Spaniards is unfortunately evident from both narratives. Nor were all the British stragglers non-combatants.

[687] Wellington to Beresford, Talavera, July 29, 1809.

[688] On July 14 Wellesley writes to Beresford that he does not believe that Ney has quitted Galicia [Wellington Dispatches, iv. 510], because of the tenour of the captured dispatches of Soult to King Joseph. These, of course, had been written under the idea that the 6th Corps was still holding on to Corunna and Lugo: it was not till some days later that Soult learned of his colleagues’ unexpected move. But Wellesley knew of Ney’s move before the battle of Talavera, as is shown by Wellington Dispatches, iv. 545.

[689] ‘The enemy have on the Douro and in the neighbourhood not less than 20,000 men, being the remains of the Corps of Soult, Ney, and Kellermann.’ To Frere, July 30.

[690] To Beresford, from Talavera, July 29, 1809.

[691] Wellesley to Frere, July 30. ‘My first duty is to attend to the safety of Portugal: at all events if my flank and communication with Portugal are not secured for me, while I am operating in the general cause, I must move to take care of myself, and then the general cause will suffer.’

[692] Wellesley to O’Donoju, July 31, 1809.

[693] A few lines of this astounding document may be worth quoting—‘Sire, hier l’armée anglaise a été forcée dans ses positions. Outre les 25 à 30 mille Anglais de Wellesley, nous avons eu affaire à l’armée de Cuesta, qui s’élevait de 35 à 40 mille hommes. Le champ de bataille sur lequel nous sommes établis (!) est jonché de leurs morts.... Je me mets en marche pour secourir Madrid, qui est menacé par un corps de Portugais arrivés à Navalcarnero, et par l’armée de Venegas, qui tente de pénétrer par Aranjuez.... J’ai un regret, sire, c’est celui de n’avoir pas fait prisonnière toute l’armée anglaise.’ Mémoires de Joseph, vi. 284. Napoleon, not deceived for a moment by this rhodomontade, sent back a scathing rebuke to his brother for endeavouring to hide the truth from him. (Napoleon to Jourdan, Aug. 21.)

[694] For these operations I am relying on General Arteche’s excerpts from the Vindicacion de los Agravios, published by Venegas in his own defence.

[695] Jourdan to Belliard, Aug. 3, from Illescas: ‘Le duc de Belluno dit que toute l’armée anglaise marche sur la rive droite de l’Alberche, et qu’hier elle était à une lieue d’Escalona.’

[696] There are two letters of Wellington to Castlereagh, written on Aug. 1; both indicate that Wellesley was still unconvinced as to Soult’s intention, and the second states that he does not believe that the French will pass the Puerto de Baños. The definite news came at night.

[697] Napier seems to have the dates wrong here: he says that the 5th Corps seized Plasencia on July 31 [vol. ii. p. 184], But Soult’s official report to the Minister of War, dated Aug. 13, says that his vanguard forced the Puerto de Baños on the twenty-ninth, but only captured Plasencia on Aug. 1. If Plasencia had fallen on the thirty-first, Wellesley and Cuesta would have known the fact on the second: but as it was captured on the first only, they were still in ignorance when their conference took place.

[698] Wellesley’s letters in these critical days are full of complaints as to his colleague’s impracticability: ‘I certainly should get the better of everything,’ he writes to Castlereagh, ‘if I could manage General Cuesta: but his temper and disposition are so bad that this is impossible.’ Wellington Dispatches, iv. p. 553.

[699] Wellesley to O’Donoju, from Oropesa, afternoon of Aug. 3.

[700] Orders of Napoleon from Schönbrunn, June 12: ‘Les trois corps doivent fournir 50 à 60 mille hommes. Si cette réunion a lieu promptement les Anglais doivent être détruits; mais il faut se réunir, et ne pas marcher par petits paquets. Cela est le principe général pour tous les guerres, mais surtout pour un pays où l’on ne peut pas avoir de communication.’

[701] By the return of July 15, the 5th Corps had 16,916 men, the attached brigades of dragoons, 1,853: the 2nd Corps had 18,740 (deducting Lorges and Lahoussaye): the 6th Corps 15,700, of whom one brigade of infantry (3,200 bayonets) was left behind. The total then was 50,009.

[702] The Marshal had dissolved one of his four divisions, that of Mermet, making over the 122nd of the line, reduced to two battalions, and the Swiss units to Kellermann, and distributing the other regiments between Merle, Delaborde, and Heudelet.

[703] Cuesta, in a dispatch in the Deposito de la Guerra, which seems unpublished, says that Del Reino fought with four battalions. He had started with no more than two, so must have rallied two others. I can find no trace of what they were, but conclude that they must have been some of those battalions of the Army of Estremadura which are not named in the Ordre de Bataille of the divisions present at Talavera. As I have shown in my Talavera Appendix, there were eight regiments which had belonged to Cuesta’s army in March but do not appear in the divisional return of July. Most of these were in garrison at Badajoz: but two or three may well have been sent to guard the passes when the army advanced from the Guadiana in the end of June.

[704] For details of Mortier’s march see the memoir of Naylies, of Lahoussaye’s Dragoons, who was with the vanguard. According to the Diary of Fantin des Odoards, Soult pushed his kindness to the British invalids so far as to leave with them a small supply of muskets, with which to defend themselves against guerrillas.

[705] See Le Noble, p. 320.

[706] See Arteche, vi. 342, and Wellington Dispatches, iv. 561; the letter itself is not published by Gurwood, but Lord Londonderry, then on Wellesley’s staff, gives an analysis of it. It contained, according to him, orders to Soult to hasten his march, and to bring up Ney’s corps with all speed, while the king himself undertook to threaten Talavera again with Victor’s forces [Londonderry, i. p. 416].

[707] Wellesley to Bassecourt, from Oropesa, August 3. So confident was the British commander at this moment, that he wrote to Beresford on the same morning, telling him that Soult when assailed would probably retire at once, either by the pass of Perales or that of Baños. He wished his lieutenant to send Portuguese troops to the outlets of those defiles, to intercept the retreating enemy.

[708] Wellesley to O’Donoju, Aug. 3, 1809.

[709] I am bound to say that after reading the Spanish narratives, I doubt whether Cuesta had at his disposal the large amount of spare vehicles of which Londonderry and Napier speak.

[710] Boothby, A Prisoner of France, p. 40. For the adventures of two wounded officers on their weary way to Truxillo see the Diary of Hawker, and the narrative of Colonel Leslie. The latter made a personal appeal to Cuesta, whose carriage he had met by the roadside. The old general sent for the Alcalde, and made him provide a mule—though it turned out to be a very bad one—for the wounded officer. This small fact to his credit needs recording, after the copious abuse heaped on him.

[711] The invalids were admirably cared for by the enemy. See Boothby.

[712] The Marquis del Reino (it will be remembered) had broken the boat-bridge of Almaraz on August 2, after abandoning the Puerto de Baños.

[713] See for example, Le Noble, pp. 339-40.

[714] ‘As usual, General Cuesta wanted to fight general actions,’ writes Wellesley to Beresford, from Arzobispo, on the afternoon of this same day.

[715] ‘M. le Maréchal duc de Trévise crut qu’il serait attaqué,’ says Soult in his report of August 13. He therefore held back, and sent for the 2nd Corps. Hence came Cuesta’s salvation.

[716] General Arteche, who has examined the ford, notes that the main channel, narrow but with a rocky bottom, is close under the northern, i.e. the French, bank. The remaining two-thirds of the breadth of the river has a hard sandy bottom and is in August extremely shallow. If once, therefore, the deep water under the nearer bank was crossed, the French had no difficulties before them.

[717] For details of these privations see the diary of Leach of the 95th, p. 92.

[718] Wellesley to O’Donoju, from Deleytosa, Aug. 7.

[719] Beside his own thirty guns he had the seventeen captured French pieces which had been won at Talavera. Wellesley, it will be remembered (p. 543), had handed them over to him.