[318] Sprünglin’s Journal, pp. 444-5.
[319] There is a good account of this interview in Sprünglin’s Journal, p. 445, the diarist having accompanied Pelet into the town.
[320] The First Portuguese Legion, which served against Austria in 1809, was composed of the troops drafted out of the Peninsula by Junot in 1808 during his domination at Lisbon.
[321] D’Urban’s diary reports that 450 men and 18 officers of the 24th of the Line came in between the 2nd and 4th of September to Silveira’s outposts; a still larger number reached Wellington’s.
[322] D’Urban has most gloomy remarks on the subject in his diary, under the date Aug. 30.
[323] To Chas. Stuart, from Celorico, Aug. 31.
[324] To Chas. Stuart, from Celorico, Sept. 11.
[325] Wellington to Masséna, Sept. 24. ‘Votre excellence s’est engagée que les officiers et les soldats de la milice retourneraient chez eux: malgré cet engagement vous en avez retenu 7 officiers et 200 soldats de chaque régiment, pour en faire un corps de pionniers. La capitulation d’Almeida est donc nulle, et je suis en droit d’en faire ce que je voudrais. Mais je puis vous assurer qu’il n’y a pas un seul soldat de la milice qui était en Almeida au service.’
[326] For details of all this, including the curious terms of the Portuguese sentence for high treason, see Soriano da Luz, iii. 80-109, and 719-22. The attempts to exculpate Barreiros seem inadequate. Da Costa was shot, not for treason, but for cowardice and mutiny.
[327] See Wellington to Hill of Aug. 31, Sept. 1, Sept. 4, Sept. 6. The Commander-in-Chief was much worried by a false rumour that Reynier was already in force at Sabugal on Aug. 31, and then by an equally false one that the whole 2nd Corps had marched south towards the Tagus, and was about to cross it near Alcantara (see the letter to La Romana of Sept. 6). As a matter of fact, Reynier made no definite move from Zarza till Sept. 10, though he had made feints, in both the directions indicated, with small forces.
[328] That this possibility was in Wellington’s mind is shown by the letter to La Romana of Sept. 6, from Gouvea, in which he writes, ‘Vous aurez appris les mouvements du corps de Regnier de la part du Général Hill. Ou l’ennemi va faire le mouvement sur notre droite (dont je vous ai écrit) ou il va faire le siège de Badajoz. On dit que du canon a passé d’Almeida à Sabugal, et de là vers Regnier, mais je ne sais pas si c’est vrai, ou si c’est du canon de siège.... Vous savez ce qu’il faut faire si on se met entre nous deux, en passant le Tage à Villa Velha, ou au-dessous de la jonction.’
[329] Suchet in his Mémoires (i. 77) says that in Jan. 1810 his corps was only 20,000 strong. But the imperial muster-rolls show that it had 23,000 présents sous les armes, besides 1,819 men in hospital and 973 detached, in that month.
[333] Whether the Conde de Pozoblanco and the other persons executed were really traitors is very doubtful. Napier takes them as such (ii. 303), Suchet denies it (p. 100); Schepeler says (iii. 627) that proclamations of King Joseph and treasonable letters were found in the Count’s house. Toreno (ii. 124) remains doubtful, but points out that Caro and Pozoblanco were old enemies, and thinks that, at any rate, there was personal spite in the matter.
[334] Dated from Compiègne on April 9 and April 20. See Correspondance, xx. 284 and 299.
[335] In January, Verdier’s French and Westphalian divisions could only show 6,000 men in line and 7,000 in hospital. Muster roll of Jan. 15 in the Archives Nationaux.
[336] The text of this bloodthirsty document may be found in Belmas, i. 429. There are details of its execution in Barckhausen, who mentions that several priests were among the victims.
[338] Duhesme, or the friend writing under his name, gives himself most handsome and unconvincing testimonials in the narrative printed in 1823, as part of the Mémoires sur la Guerre d’Espagne. They contrast strangely with Arteche’s quotations from Barcelonese local writers.
[339] Napoleon to Clarke, Compiègne, April 24, 1810.
[340] 1st Léger (three batts.), 42nd Ligne (three batts.), 93rd Ligne (one batt.), and 7th Ligne (one batt.). Meanwhile the other battalion of the 7th Ligne and that of the 3rd Léger were holding back the miqueletes. The cavalry were the 24th Dragoons, 3rd Provisional Chasseurs (soon afterwards rechristened the 29th Chasseurs), and half the Italian ‘Dragoons of Napoleon.’
[341] This regiment had been formed on the ‘cadre’ of the old Swiss regiment of Beschard, by means of deserters from the German and Italian troops of the French Army of Catalonia.
[342] Martinien’s lists show 29 officers killed and wounded, which, at the usual rate, presupposes about 600 or 700 casualties. Napier, Schepeler, and Arteche all three state the French loss at 1,000 or 1,200—evidently too high.
[343] Correspondance, 16411. From Compiègne, 24 April, 1810.
[344] Severoli’s division alone numbered 6,900 foot and 900 horse, at the moment.
[345] Napoleon to Clarke, Feb. 19, from Paris. Cf. another dispatch of Feb. 26, no. 16294 of the Correspondance.
[346] See vol. i. pp. 309-11.
[347] The Lippe-Bückeburg officer Barckhausen says in his diary that only 20 officers and 620 men were lost. But Martinien’s lists show 30 officers of the Nassau, ducal Saxon, and Anhalt-Lippe regiments killed or wounded at or near Manresa on the 2nd-5th of April.
[348] For details of Villatte’s expedition see Vacani, iv. 140-1.
[349] According to Spanish accounts this included much ill-gotten property belonging to the Marshal himself, and other superior officers. Ferrer (see Arteche, viii. 203) declares that Augereau carried off all the furniture of the Royal Palace.
[350] For a defence of the Marshal on these lines, see Victoires et Conquêtes, vol. xx. pp. 52-3.
[351] About 56,000 in all, but 10,000 were in hospital or detached.
[352] One battalion of Iliberia (or 1st of Granada) and one tercio of levies from the province of Gerona: total strength about 1,200 bayonets.
[353] See Correspondance, 16411, Napoleon to Clarke, of April 24, and 16500, same to same of May 23.
[354] It was with a detachment of this column that Severoli’s flanking party under Villatte got into communication on April 4, as detailed above, page 296.
[355] For his strength at this moment, see the table which he gives in his Mémoires, vol. i, Appendix 4. His figures cannot always be trusted: for instance, purporting in this table to give his whole force, present at Lerida or detached in Aragon, he omits the six squadrons of gendarmerie which were guarding his rear [37 officers, 1,121 men] and the four battalions of Chasseurs des Montagnes, who were garrisoning Jaca, Venasque, &c. [about 2,000 men].
[356] Suchet says that he took 5,600 prisoners, a figure that appears quite impossible, as Schepeler rightly remarks (iii. 649). Ibarrola’s division had only 4,000 bayonets, and of that of Pirez only the one Swiss battalion was seriously engaged. Moreover, Ibarrola’s division was not absolutely exterminated, for O’Donnell on April 26 issued an order of the day, in which he thanks the division for its courage, and praises the battalions which kept their ranks and re-formed behind those of Pirez, ‘returning in good order to occupy the position (Juneda), from which they had started at dawn.’ See the document, printed in Arteche’s Appendix, no. 12 of vol. viii. I should doubt if 2,000 prisoners were not nearer the mark than 5,600.
[357] Figures probably correct. Martinien’s lists show one officer killed and two wounded; of the latter, one was the cavalry general Boussard.
[358] One or two cases can also be quoted from the European Middle Ages.
[359] Suchet, Mémoires, i. pp. 147-8.
[360] Napier, ii. 322.
[361] Napoleon to Berthier, Correspondance, May 29, 1810.
[362] To please the Catalans, who hated the idea of long service, the enlistment in the Legions was made for two years only, and the men were to be entitled to fifteen days’ leave during each half-year of service.
[363] Though not always. See the case of the revenue from the quicksilver mines, in Correspondance, no. 17,076.
[364] Cf. ibid., July 10, to Soult.
[365] There was desperate quarrelling with Madrid when Soult tried to get hold of the port-revenues—small as these were, owing to the English blockade—and when he tried to nominate consuls on his own authority. See Ducasse’s Correspondance du Roi Joseph, vol. vii. p. 337.
[366] 3rd and 4th Chasseurs à Cheval, both present at Albuera and other fights in Estremadura in 1810-12. They seem to have gone to pieces on the evacuation of Andalusia in the autumn of 1812.
[367] Cazadores de Jaen, Francos de Montaña, &c. There was a company of this sort in Badajoz when it was taken in 1812. The Spanish government shot the officers after trial by court martial.
[368] Cf. Observations by his aide-de-camp St. Chamans, in his Memoirs, pp. 203-5, as to the Marshal’s administration. It may serve as an example of the liberal way in which the superior officers were allowed to draw in money, that Soult gave his ex-aide-de-camp 1,500 francs a month, when he was commanding in the town of Carmona, besides his pay and free food and quarters. It is small wonder that he and other governors began, as he said, ‘à trancher du grand seigneur.’ Cf. Arteche, viii. 109, for Spanish views on Soult’s administration.
[369] There is a good account of the desperate life of the garrison of Matagorda during the bombardment in the Eventful Life of a Scottish Soldier, by Sergeant Donaldson of the 94th.
[370] See the letter of Charles Vaughan deploring the ‘beastly necessity of firing into the poor devils’ quoted by Napier in his Appendix, vol. ii. p. 482. For a narrative by one of the escaping French officers see the Mémoires of Colonel Chalbrand.
[371] Nothing can be more distressing reading than the chronicles of the Cabrera prisoners, Ducor, Guillemard, Gille and others. Actual cannibalism is said to have occurred during the longest of the spells of fasting caused by the non-arrival of provisions. [See Gille, p. 240.]
[374] See Wellington Dispatches, v. p. 292, &c., and Stanhope’s Conversations with the Duke of Wellington, pp. 10 and 23.
[375] For strange and scandalous details of Sebastiani’s doings in Murcia, see Schepeler, iii. pp. 566-7.
[376] Martinien’s lists show that the 40th regiment of Girard’s division lost four officers at Albondonates, and the 64th the same number at Grazalema—so the skirmishes must have been fairly vigorous.
[377] That Lacy’s force was not so entirely destroyed as Napier implies is shown by the fact that many of the same regiments could be utilized for the subsequent expedition to the Condado de Niebla.
[378] For illustrative anecdotes of warfare in the Serrania de Ronda, see the autobiography of Rocca of the 2nd Hussars, who was busy in this region in the spring and summer of 1810.
[380] Not marked in any contemporary map that I have seen. It is situated, however, opposite the junction of the River Almonte with the Tagus, about eighteen miles above Alcantara, near the ancient ruined bridge of Mantible.
[382] See Wellington, Dispatches, vi. p. 343. ‘I am a little anxious about Mortier’s movement into Estremadura, not on account of the progress he can make, but because I think that the Marquis de la Romana is inclined to fight a battle. If we could only avoid a disaster for some time, I hope we may do some good at last.’ Cf. also vi. pp. 348 and 393.
[383] The brigade consisted of three squadrons each of the 5th and 8th regiments, and two of the 3rd. Beresford’s report to Wellington speaks of their behaviour in the highest terms. See Soriano da Luz, vol. iii. pp. 66-7.
[384] Dissatisfied with all his cavalry officers, La Romana had removed La Carrera to the command of the horse, making over his old infantry division to Carlos d’España.
[385] The 4th Corps was now a little stronger than it had been in the spring, the 32nd regiment, 2,000 strong, having joined from Madrid. But it was still short of its German division, which now lay in La Mancha, but had never crossed the Sierra Morena.
[387] Lord Blayney, a humorous person save when the absurdities of his own generalship were in question, wrote an interesting narrative of his ‘Forced Journey to France,’ which contains one of the best accounts of the state of Madrid under King Joseph’s government, as well as some curious notes on the state of the English prisoners at Verdun in 1811-13.
[388] From the 32nd and 58th Line, Rey’s brigade of Sebastiani’s corps. The 88th, in Victoires et Conquêtes, xx. 127, and Arteche is a misprint. That regiment was with Girard in the Sierra Morena, 150 miles away.
[389] The 8th Corps had in its ranks the 4th battalions of the following regiments whose first three battalions were in the south of Spain, and belonged to the 1st, 4th, or 5th corps—the 28th, 34th, and 75th. But the 9th Corps was almost entirely composed of 4th battalions of the corps of Victor, Sebastiani, and Mortier, including those of the 8th, 24th, 45th, 54th, 63rd, 94th, 95th, 96th Line, and 16th and 27th Léger, of the 1st corps, and of the 17th Léger, and 40th, 88th, 100th and 103rd Line of the 5th Corps.
[390] 28th and 75th, the remaining brigade of the 1st Division of the 4th Corps, which never joined Sebastiani in Andalusia.
[391] 26th Chasseurs and 3rd Dutch Hussars.
[392] 17th, 18th, 19th, and 27th Dragoons, only two squadrons each—only 1,300 men.
[393] As a sample of their behaviour it may be mentioned that the whole guard of the south gate of Toledo once marched off to join the insurgents, officers and all.
[394] Wellington to Masséna, Sept. 9 and Sept. 24.
[395] Masséna to Wellington, Sept. 14, from Fort Concepcion (Archives du Ministère de la Guerre).
[397] For details see the Tables in the Appendix. All the troops left behind have been rigidly deducted. The figures given by Fririon, 59,806, are not quite exact, see proofs in Appendix: he makes some troops enter Portugal which were left as garrisons, and on the other hand omits whole battalions which marched, as if they had never existed.
[398] The troops left behind were the fifth battalion of the 82nd, the fourth battalions of the 15th and 86th, and a provisional battalion of convalescents, or about 2,000 infantry; a squadron of the 3rd Dragoons (157 men), the whole of the 10th Dragoons (718 men) under Gardanne, and some 800 men belonging to the siege-train and park.
[399] To Cotton and to Leith, both dated Sept. 17.
[400] For a most interesting article on these maps, and all that they show, see Mr. T. J. Andrews’s article in the English Historical Review for 1901. The maps, captured at Vittoria, are now in the Library of Queen’s College, Belfast.
[401] Mémoires of Col. Noël, pp. 112-13.
[402] A lively account of this affair may be found in Marbot, ii. 378; details may not be all trustworthy, but the general narrative agrees with Trant’s report, printed in Soriano da Luz, vol. vii, Appendix.
[403] Report of Lambert, Intendant-General, dated Vizeu, Sept. 23.
[404] Wellington to Lord Liverpool, from Lorvão, Sept. 20.
[405] Indeed, an exploring party under Captain Somers Cocks, of the 16th Light Dragoons, had dogged the steps of the detachment, and counted every battalion. See Tomkinson’s Diary, pp. 39-40.
[406] Wellington to Charles Stuart, Sept. 18.
[407] Wellington to Lord Liverpool, Sept. 20.
[408] Ibid., Sept. 20.
[409] Wellington to Stapleton Cotton, Sept. 21.
[410] See the orders in the Archives du Ministère de la Guerre.
[411] It is this interchange of troops which makes all the figures of the Army of Portugal so divergent. Fririon, for example, ignores it, as do most French statisticians. But see Masséna’s orders (14), and the ‘situations’ in the Archives of Sept. 14 and Sept. 27 respectively.
[412] According to Napier (iii. 22-3) Craufurd risked his division somewhat in their skirmish. But this criticism is not made by D’Urban, Leach, and other eye-witnesses.
[413] The Light Division had been first divided into brigades on Aug. 8, when the 1st was constituted of the 43rd, four companies of the 95th, and the 1st Caçadores, under Beckwith: the 2nd of the 52nd, four companies of the 95th, and the 3rd Caçadores, under Barclay. See Atkinson’s lists of the Peninsular Army in the Eng. Hist. Rev.
[414] There are two monuments: this simple weather-beaten obelisk on the culminating height where the 1st Division stood, a point where no fighting took place, and the modern column lower down and close to the high-road, behind the spot where Craufurd fought. Here the Portuguese to this day maintain a small military post, and hoist a flag to do honour to the victory.
[415] Which makes astounding Fririon’s statement that it was only three-quarters of a league long (p. 46).
[416] Archibald Campbell’s and Fonseca’s brigades, forming Hamilton’s Portuguese Division, which was attached to the British 2nd Division throughout the war, and shared with it the triumphs of Albuera, Vittoria, and St. Pierre.
[417] This is the feature which Napier, somewhat hyperbolically, describes as ‘a chasm so profound that the naked eye could hardly distinguish the movement of troops in the bottom, yet so narrow in parts that 12-pounders could range across (iii. 21).’ It does not, as he says, separate the Serra de Bussaco from the last ridge in front of it, that which the French held, as it only lay in front of Craufurd and Pack. There is no chasm between Spencer’s, Picton’s, Leith’s, or Hill’s position and the French knolls.
[419] See Marbot, ii. p. 384—if that lively writer may be trusted.
[420] See Foy’s account of his interview with the Emperor in his Vie Militaire, p. 108.
[421] This unpublished document from the Archives du Ministère de la Guerre seems to have escaped all historians.
[423] So Fririon in his Campagne de Portugal, p. 47. But his enemy Pelet says (Vic. et Conq., xxi. p. 321) that Ney, like Reynier, ‘demanda la bataille à grands cris.’ Cf., for what it is worth, Marbot’s tale, ii. 384.
[424] All this is told at great length in Koch’s Vie de Masséna, vii. p. 192, where the Council of War is described with many details.
[425] Grattan’s Adventures with the 88th, pp. 28-9, and Leith Hay, i. 231.
[426] Masséna’s orders for the battle call Reynier’s attack one on ‘la droite de l’armée ennemie,’ but it was really on the right-centre, Hill and Leith extending for four miles south of the point assailed.
[427] The Mémoires of Lemonnier Delafosse, a captain in the 31st Léger, give an excellent and clear account of its sufferings, see pp. 69-70 of his work.
[428] Grattan’s Adventure with the Connaught Rangers, p. 35.
[429] Picton to Wellington, Supplementary Dispatches, vi. p. 635. I do not know whether Wallace really descended from the famous Sir William, but Craufurd of the Light Division (as his descendant and biographer has pointed out to me) chanced to have a connexion with the Knight of Ellerslie.
[430] Leith’s nephew and aide-de-camp, Leith Hay, had explored all the villages in this direction on the previous afternoon, with a squadron of Portuguese horse, see his Narrative, i. 381.
[431] Picton and Leith each rather slur over the part taken by the other in their parallel narratives of the crisis. Picton says that he took command of Leith’s troops: ‘at this moment Major-General Leith’s aide-de-camp came up to report the arrival of that general and his division, on which I rode from the post of San Antonio to the road of communication, and directed the leading regiment of the brigade to proceed without loss of time to the left, as I had no occasion for assistance. General Leith’s brigade, in consequence, moved on and arrived in time to join the five companies of the 45th and the 8th Portuguese in repulsing the enemy’s last attempt.’ Leith, on the other hand, speaks of having taken command of some of Picton’s troops, as if the latter had not been present, and says nought of their conversation. ‘Major-General Leith thereupon directed a movement of succession, ordering Colonel Douglas with the right battalion of the 8th Portuguese to support the point attacked. He also directed the 9th Portuguese under Colonel Sutton (belonging to Major-General Picton’s division) to move up to the support of General Picton’s division,’ and again, ‘He (General Leith) ordered the 8th and 9th Portuguese to support the point attacked, and where the enemy were fast gaining ground.’ Each general speaks as if he had been in command, and I fear that each is using undue reticence as to the other’s doings. See note at the end of this chapter.
[432] Napier calls it a ‘precipice,’ but this is not the right word. I found that I could walk freely about on it, but no formed body of men could have passed up the slope.
[433] Foy’s diary, pp. 103-4, tallies exactly with Leith’s narrative in Wellington Supplementary Dispatches, vi. 678, and Cameron’s letter in Napier, Appendix to vol. vi.