[540] See for example those noted in Dispatches, vi. 545, and a whole series copied out in D’Urban’s journal in October and November, 1810.
[541] A most modest estimate, for the returns of sick for the second half of October in a document at the Archives de la Guerre give a total of 10,897 men in hospital.
[542] An allusion to a phrase in one of the captured dispatches.
[543] Wellington to Liverpool, October 27, pp. 545 and 555 of vol. vi.
[544] Fririon’s confidential report to Masséna, night of 8th–9th of November.
[545] Viz. 39th (3 batts.) and 69th (3 batts.) of Marchand’s division at Thomar and Torres Novas, with Loison’s 66th (3 batts.), 82nd (2 batts.), and 26th (3 batts.). It will be remembered that Reynier was, at the same time, minus the 4/47th, sent as escort with Foy to Ciudad Rodrigo.
[546] Delagrave, p. 123 and note.
[547] Londonderry, ii. pp. 51-2.
[548] His first dispatch, that to Craufurd, is dated at 10.20.
[549] See Leach’s Diary, p. 178.
[550] Wellington to Fane, Nov. 15: ‘The enemy retreated last night. He intends either to retire across the Zezere into Spain, or across the Tagus into Spain, or across the Zezere to attack Abrantes. The last is possible, as I last night received an account that on the 9th they had a considerable reinforcement coming on the frontier at Beira Alta.’
[552] All from the orders issued at 10.30 in the morning ‘from the hill in front of Sobral’. Dispatches, vi. 623.
[553] All from the orders issued at 10.30 in the morning ‘from the hill in front of Sobral’. Dispatches, vi. 623.
[554] Leach’s Journal, p. 179.
[555] George Simmons’s Journal, pp. 121-2.
[556] For a full description of the doings of the 16th on this day, see Tomkinson, pp. 59-60.
[557] Leach thinks, with William Napier (iii. 41), that Wellington acted wisely in refusing Craufurd leave to attack (p. 180). Tomkinson, another eye-witness, thinks that an opportunity was missed (pp. 60, 61).
[558] Having now received the Brunswick Oels Jägers, the Light Division was six battalions strong, not its usual five. Its strength about this time was some 4,000 bayonets. Merle’s division was about 5,000 strong: it had dwindled to 4,200 effectives before December was out. Thus the English and Caçadore battalions averaged 650 men, the French 450 only, so that the strength was not very unequal. But only 2,500 of Craufurd’s troops were British.
[559] There its main body was now joined by Ferey’s brigade, which had been detached for some weeks.
[560] Probably Ferey’s brigade marching to join Loison and trains following it, and certainly Reynier’s trains which he had sent off towards Golegão. See Dispatches, vi. 629.
[561] The Diary of the Marches of the 4th Division, by its Assistant Quarter-Master, Charles Vere, settles the date. For Leith’s start on the same morning, see Leith-Hay’s Narrative, i. p. 269.
[562] Napier, however, dates the General’s escapade wrongly. It took place on the night of the 18th-19th, where it is duly related in the diary of George Simmons (p. 117), and not on the 21st as Napier implies. I have a copy of Delagrave’s Campagne de Portugal, which once belonged to Napier; he has written a sarcastic note on the bottom of page 111, commenting on the ridiculous account of the event which appeared in the French narratives. He adds that the sergeant’s name was McCurry, and that ‘the sergeant had sense enough to hold his tongue, but Craufurd spoke out, and so drew the fire of the enemy’s picket.’
[563] The emplacement of the Anglo-Portuguese army is given as follows by Beresford’s Quarter-Master-General, D’Urban, on the night of the 18th-19th, showing its complete dislocation:—
[564] It was their march, visible from the other side of the Tagus, which helped to deceive Fane as to the general movements of the French army.
[565] See Delagrave, 128-30, and Gachot’s excellent notes thereon.
[566] Wellington to Liverpool, Nov. 26, 1810.
[567] Notably the column of Gardanne, of which we shall speak presently.
[568] Including sick in each case, and excluding reinforcements received later.
[569] Dispatches, vii. 59.
[570] D’Urban’s Diary, under Nov. 24.
[571] Belmas’s figures (i. 137) given here must be about correct, not the 2,000 of Fririon, and Victoires et Conquêtes. For the two Rodrigo battalions were 1,500 strong, Foy’s escort 600, and Gardanne took with him some of his own dragoon regiment, beside the convalescents.
[572] Dispatches, vii. p. 20, to Craufurd.
[573] Ibid., p. 36, to Lord Liverpool.
[577] Viz. 113th Line (2 batts.), 4th of the Vistula (2 batts.), one battalion each of the 12th Léger and 32nd and 58th Line, four ‘provisional battalions’ (Nos. 2, 4, 5, 7), and two provisional regiments of dragoons. Total on Sept. 15, 9,524 men, of whom 1,000 were cavalry.
[578] Two Swiss battalions, one battalion of the Garde de Paris, and the 5th and 17th dragoons. Total, 1,300 cavalry and 1,700 infantry.
[579] Line regiments (each of 4 batts.), Nos. 118, 119, 120, 122, and a squadron of the 21st Chasseurs, 9,298 men.
[580] See Correspondance, xxi. 106. On Sept. 13, the date of the dispatch creating Caffarelli’s division, one of its regiments was forming at Limoges, another at Blois, another at Bordeaux, the fourth at Orleans.
[581] Viz. Kellermann, 3,000; Serras, 9,000; Bonnet, 8,000; Young Guard, 11,500; Biscay, 8,000; Navarre, 8,500; Santander, 3,500; 9th Corps, 18,000; Masséna’s Garrisons, 2,500.
[582] As being nephew to the Marquis of La Romana.
[585] See for this verdict both Arteche and Toreno.
[588] See Mina’s Extracto de su Vida, published in London, during his exile, in 1825.
[589] Mina’s Breve Extracto, p. 39.
[590] Martinien’s lists show seven officers hit in the 44th Équipage de Marine, which joined Masséna in the next month, and six in the Bataillon D’Espagne, which was on its way to Cadiz.
[591] See Arteche, ix. 241.
[593] Correspondance under May 29.
[594] Correspondance under Sept. 16.
[597] For details see Arteche, ix. 267, Schepeler, iv. 659-60, and Suchet’s Mémoires, vol. i. p. 193. The dictator’s own brother, General Juan Caro, was one of those who deposed him.
[598] Vice Souham, wounded at Vich, and Augereau recalled.
[599] See Suchet’s Mémoires, i. 196-7, and the dispatch from Napoleon’s Correspondance of July 25, 1810.
[600] For details see Vacani, iv. pp. 307-8.
[601] See vol. i. p. 311.
[603] Only about eighteen miles distant.
[604] The best narrative of Schwartz’s disaster may be found in the diary of the Lippe-Bückeburg officer Barkhausen, one of the prisoners, pp. 110-15.
[605] Martinien’s invaluable lists show only three Italian and one French officer hurt, which agrees well enough with Vacani’s estimate of 80 to 100 hors de combat.
[606] See especially Napier, iii. 199.
[607] Suchet, Mémoires, i. 205.
[608] See previous page.
[611] Joseph to Napoleon. Ducasse’s Correspondance du Roi Joseph, vii. 278-9. The Emperor gave Avila back to the King in September, see Nap. Correspondance, xxi. 126.
[612] See Miot de Melito’s Diary, Sept. 8, 1810.
[613] Joseph to Napoleon, Aug. 25, 1810. Ducasse, vii. 321, and ibid., p. 332 of Sept. 12.
[614] Joseph to Napoleon, Aug. 9, Ducasse, vii. 307.
[615] Correspondance, xxi. p. 213.
[616] For a specimen, see the plate of coins in vol. ii, facing p. 478.
[617] Napoleon to Champagny, Sept. 9, 1810.
[618] I cannot find anywhere any authority for Napier’s strange statement (iii. p. 261) that it was Almenara, and not Napoleon, who started the idea that Portugal should be exchanged for the Ebro Province. The nearest thing to it is that ‘M. d’Almenara déclare formellement qu’il ne consente à aucune cession de territoire espagnol, que cette compensation [Portugal] ne soit pas stipulée et garantie; mais comme il est dans l’intention formelle du roi de ne pas consentir à aucun démembrement, même avec une compensation plus avantageuse, il n’aurait jamais ratifié un pareil traité.’ Ducasse, Correspondance, vii. 190.
[619] Napoleon to Laforest, ambassador at Madrid, Nov. 7.
[620] Joseph to the Queen of Spain, Oct. 12. Ducasse, Correspondance, vii. 355.
[621] See his letters to his wife in December 1810 and January 1811, about his brother’s ‘mauvaises dispositions à mon égard.’
[622] He writes that at his most splendid State banquets nothing but china is now to be seen on his table.
[623] The question of the Consuls and Soult (mentioned in an earlier chapter) crops up again in Joseph to Berthier, Nov. 28.
[624] Napoleon to Berthier, Oct. 4, orders Digeon’s brigade of Lahoussaye’s dragoons to cross the Sierra Morena, thus leaving the king only four regiments of French cavalry in New Castile.
[625] Ducasse, Correspondance, vii. p. 361.
[626] Argüelles, Cortes de Cadiz, p. 160.
[627] For details see Schepeler, iii. p. 691. The goods must also be carried in Spanish vessels, so the grant was not a very liberal one!
[628] Liberal clergy of the type of the journalist Blanco-White (Leucadio Doblado) were rare exceptions.
[629] Doblado’s Letters, p. 392.
[630] Motion by one Francisco Maria Riesco, deputy, and formerly Inquisitor, at Llerena in Estremadura. Argüelles’s Las Cortes de Cadiz, p. 209.
[632] He was of the same branch as the Countess of Chinchon, Godoy’s wife, being son of Luis, youngest child of Philip V, by a quasi-morganatic marriage with a lady of the name of Vallabriga.
[633] ‘Que la nación era soberana con el rey, desde luego prestaría el juramento pedido. Pero si se entendía que la nación era soberana sin el rey, y soberana de su mismo soberano, nunca se sometería á tal doctrina.’ See more of his argument in Toreno, ii. 225.
[634] Compare Toreno’s insinuation against the Regent Lardizabal (ii. 213), to whom he ascribes a definite plot, with Arteche’s defence and eulogy of the late Regency, ix. 109-11.
[635] Toreno, ii. pp. 222-3.
[636] See Wellington to Henry Wellesley, Nov. 4, 1810:—‘If the Princess of the Brazils be the person appointed regent, the Court will be inundated with intriguers of all nations, and attended by other evils.’
[637] See Galiano, quoted by Arteche, ix. 76.
[638] Wellington to Henry Wellesley, from Cartaxo, Nov. 21, 1810.
[639] Charles Vaughan to Charles Stuart, Feb. 27, 1811.
[640] This Provisional regiment received the name of ‘2nd of Algarve’ in December.
[641] Not stated separately. All the Artillery of the Army of Portugal is placed under one head in the return of March 15, and not distributed to the corps.
[642] The 82nd had detached its 5th battalion, 575 strong, to form part of the garrison of Almeida.
[643] Some fractions of the general artillery reserve had been transferred to the corps since Sept. 15, hence the rise in numbers.
[644] By March 15 these six battalions had got so weak that their cadres had been sent back to France, and the remaining rank and file were being drafted into the regiments of the 2nd Corps.
[645] These regiments had detached their 4th battalions, 578 and 873 strong respectively, to form the garrison of Ciudad Rodrigo.
[646] Like the 6th Corps, the 8th had received part of the General Park of the army, and absorbed it.
[647] About 17 officers and 150 men had been drafted into the garrisons of Almeida and Rodrigo.
[648] The 3rd Dragoons left one squadron, 157 men, at Almeida.
[649] The 10th Dragoons, the other regiments of this brigade, 718 strong, had been left at Ciudad Rodrigo under General Gardanne.
[650] About 300 artillerymen left at Ciudad Rodrigo and Almeida.
[651] This includes not only the original reserve artillery, park, &c., of the army, but the whole of the artillery of the three corps, which is not distributed among them in the return of March 15, 1811.
[652] In the Portuguese regiments the officers are counted in with the men.
[653] Leith in his report (Wellington, Supplementary Dispatches, vi. 636) gives the above brigading. The Portuguese official list of troops present (given by Soriano da Luz, iii) puts Eben as commanding an imperfect brigade, consisting of the 8th Line only, while the Lusitanian legion is given as a separate force under Lieut.-Col. Grant.
[654] In the Portuguese regiments the officers are counted in with the men.
[655] This figure includes two batteries not present, but detached with Lecor’s division beyond the Mondego. The totals can not be distinguished.
[656] A strange phrase. How could the enemy ‘advance in order to make movement of retreat’?
[657] The greater part of the losses of this battalion were in the companies attached to other brigades, but the total is inserted here.
[658] An extraordinary coincidence in the total losses of the two nations!
[659] These two brigades, forming Hamilton’s division, were always acting with Hill’s British Division.
[660] Forming part of Leith’s 5th Division.
[661] Forming part of Alex. Campbell’s 6th Division.
[662] Forming part of Picton’s 3rd Division.
[663] Forming part of Cole’s 4th Division.
[664] This regiment, with the 13th Line, formed Bradford’s brigade of Lecor’s Portuguese division. But the 13th was absent, in garrison at Abrantes.
[665] The 5th Caçadores, which had formed part of Bradford’s brigade and Lecor’s division, was in October and November outside the lines, on the south side of the Tagus, observing Santarem, and under the orders of the Cavalry-General Fane.
[666] The companies of the battalions R.A. were not numbered in 1810, but only designated by their captains’ names. The numbers here given, for purposes of easier identification, are those given to these companies when numeration was introduced about 1822.
[667] Captain Birch commanded this company from June 1810 to July 1812, vice Captain Alex. Dickson, employed with the Portuguese army.