[200] Wellington to Beresford. (Dispatches, vii. 375-6.)
[201] ‘Rien ne nous empêchait,’ says Masséna’s biographer Koch, ‘de passer à gué le Mondégo, et de nous rendre maîtres de la Sierra de Alcoba, d’où nous menacerions Coïmbre et toute la contrée comprise entre le Mondégo, le Duero et la mer.’ But there was a hindrance—or rather three hindrances—the Mondego was not fordable at the moment, and what was more important, the starving army could not have lived on the country-side north of the Mondego. Moreover the passage of the Mondego with a lively enemy at his heels would have been too dangerous for Masséna, who had already refused to accept such conditions on the day of Condeixa.
[202] From Masséna’s dispatch to Berthier, March 19.
[203] Diary of George Simmons of the 95th, p. 146.
[204] Napier says, ‘by an ingenious raft contrived by the staff-corps’ (iii. 126), but Tomkinson of the 16th Light Dragoons and Simmons speak of a wooden bridge.
[205] So the diary of Captain Stothert of the 3rd Guards, p. 250. He puts the crossing later in the afternoon than the French sources, but the whole 1st Division was across by dark. Several French critics (e. g. Delagrave) blame Reynier for not stopping the small force that first crossed.
[206] These movements are best given in Fririon’s diary: Sprünglin gives some help for the 6th Corps.
[207] Tomkinson’s diary, p. 87.
[208] Dispatches, vii. p. 375.
[209] Simmons’s diary, p. 148.
[210] Masséna to Berthier, from Maceira, March 19th.
[211] Fririon’s Campagne de Portugal, p. 176.
[212] According to Fririon’s diary the H.A. guns arrived in time to shell the rear battalion and kill one officer.
[213] Tomkinson, p. 87: ‘Every one talked loudly of Slade’s conduct through the day.’
[214] Simmons of the 95th, diary, p. 148.
[215] Tomkinson’s diary, p. 88.
[216] Ney remained quiet at Cortiço and Carapichina this day, but was only ten miles from Celorico, and so may be considered as part of the same body as the 8th Corps.
[217] Noël, Souvenirs militaires, p. 141.
[218] Grattan’s With the Connaught Rangers, 1809-13, p. 58.
[219] The student must he specially warned against Fririon’s figures for French losses. Though he was Masséna’s aide-de-camp, and wrote a quasi-official account of the whole retreat, his numbers are wholly untrustworthy. He states (p. 149) that the 6th Corps only lost 179 killed and wounded between March 1 and March 15. The actual losses were Pombal, 63; Redinha, 227; Casal Novo, at least 55; Foz do Arouce, at least 250 = 600. Similarly he states the loss at Sabugal at 250; the official casualty list sent in to the Marshal gives a total of 750. Fririon, from his position, must have seen, or at least could have seen, these figures.
[220] Dispatch to Berthier, from Maceira, of that date.
[221] Pelet’s Appendice sur la Guerre d’Espagne in Victoires et Conquêtes, 21, p. 336.
[222] Captured at Vittoria, they were long after given to Belfast University.
[223] All these interesting figures come from the diary of Colonel Noël, commanding the artillery of Clausel’s division; see his memoirs, pp. 137 and 146.
[225] The three letters are all printed in full in Fririon’s Memoir, and the second of them in Belmas’s Pièces justificatives, p. 507.
[226] Ney’s aide-de-camp Sprünglin says in his diary (p. 474) that Ney hesitated for some time before rejecting the idea of a coup de main against Masséna, which was hotly urged upon him, and opines that it would have been successful and most popular with the army.
[227] Foy to Masséna, April 8, 1811: ‘J’ai dit à Sa Majesté que vous paraissiez être dans l’intention de porter votre quartier général à Guarda, mais que (ne pouvant pas vivre dans cette position) vous seriez probablement obligé de descendre jusqu’à Alcantara. Cette position a paru à l’Empereur propre à protéger également le midi et le nord de l’Espagne.’
Some parts of this interview of Foy with Napoleon, related in his usual vivid style, are too good to omit. ‘Did Masséna really intend to force the passage of the Tagus? He did? Well then, he would have destroyed his army if he had tried. But I was not worried about it; I knew he would never try to cross. Would Masséna pass the Tagus, he who in the Isle of Lobau [Wagram campaign of 1809] would not try to pass a mere brook! The moment you told me that he had returned from in front of Torres Vedras I knew that he would come back, and refuse to risk a general engagement.... Wellington is a cleverer man than Masséna: he kept his eye fixed on Claparéde’s division; if Claparéde had been brought forward, the English would have expected to be attacked, would have gone back into their Lines.... Portugal is too far off—I can’t go there myself. The business would take six months, and in that six months everything would be hung up in Europe,’ &c. See Foy’s Vie Militaire, pp. 139-40.
[228] Fririon, Campagne de Portugal, p. 175.
[229] For all this see Koch’s Vie de Masséna, pp. 413-20.
[230] This was a gross exaggeration, as it turned out that there was forty days’ food in hand. Masséna accused Drouet of drawing on the rations for his own 9th Corps to an inexcusable extent.
[231] Masséna to Berthier, March 31, from Alfayates.
[232] When Reynier marched from Coria to Guarda in September 1810, he had been obliged to make the vast circle Coria-Alfayates-Sabugal-Guarda, in order to avoid the miserable mountain roads.
[233] Both dispatches are dated from Santa Marinha, March 25th.
[234] Pack’s Portuguese were so exhausted and sickly that they were left behind for a rest, and to wait for more food, at Mangualde on the upper Mondego.
[235] ‘General Slade had been in Celorico the whole of yesterday,’ complains Tomkinson of the 16th, ‘and yet had not the least idea where the French had retired to.’ Diary, p. 89.
[236] Wellington to Henry Wellesley, March 27, from Gouvea.
[237] Napier (iii. 129) is wrong in saying that the movement was ‘Supported by the 1st, 5th, and 7th Divisions.’ These only reached Celorico that day, and were fifteen miles from the field. See Diary of Stothert of the Guards, p. 232. Napier was misled by the vague wording of Wellington’s dispatch to Lord Liverpool (vii. 425), from which it might be supposed that these divisions were up.
[238] The 3rd Division arrived some time before the 6th and the Light were in actual touch with the enemy.
Picton writes about this: ‘Masséna with full 20,000 men was on the heights, and in the city of Guarda, when I made my appearance at 9 in the morning, with three British and two Portuguese regiments.... He ought immediately to have attacked me, but allowed me to remain within 400 yards of his main body for about two hours, before the other columns came up. But of course their movements were alarming him, and decided him not to hazard an attack, the failure of which would have probably brought on the total discomfiture of his army.’ Letter in Robinson’s Life of Picton, vol. ii. pp. 3, 4.
[239] See Tomkinson’s Diary, p. 90.
[240] Wellington to Beresford, from Celorico, March 30: ‘Yesterday we manœuvred the French out of Guarda. Masséna was there, some say with his whole army, I think certainly with two corps: not a shot was fired.’ (Dispatches, vii. 412.) Same day to Charles Stuart: ‘They were much stronger than we: I had only three divisions on the hill.’ (Dispatches, vii. 418.)
[241] Napier’s statements (iii. 129) are quite borne out by Tomkinson’s Diary: ‘In the rear of Pega is an open plain of two miles which the enemy had to pass: as usual we looked at them for half an hour: then the guns were ordered up, and in place of firing at the main body could only get within range of their pickets ... we continued to follow, and, although they had no cavalry, our general was afraid to go into the plain to get the guns in range of the infantry: they of course got clear off.’ (Diary, p. 91.)
[242] As late as May 1 the regimental statistics show that the 3rd Dragoons had only 139 available horses, sick or sound, and the 10th Dragoons only 233, They had started the campaign with 563 and 535 respectively.
[243] We cannot say ‘four British battalions,’ for two of them were foreign corps, the Chasseurs Britanniques and the Brunswick Oels Light Infantry. The two line regiments were the 51st and 85th.
[244] 7th and 19th Line and 2nd Caçadores, forming Collins’s brigade.
[245] viz. 2/88th for 3rd Division, 2/52nd for Light Division, 1/36th for the 6th Division.
[246] Including Pack’s whole brigade.
[247] Details may be verified in Wellington, Supplementary Dispatches, xiii. p. 611.
[248] Wellington’s orders were to cross 2 miles at least above Sabugal. The actual crossing was only 1¼ miles above.
[249] This fact comes from a MS. note by Sir John Bell of the 52nd, in my possession. He writes: ‘Just as the 2nd Brigade changed its direction, the General, being at some distance, sent an order for it not to engage. But the staff officer who carried it, and Drummond, seeing how matters stood, took the liberty of forgetting the message, so that Beckwith should have the full benefit of the support at hand. No question was ever asked as to the non-delivery of the order.’
[250] This statement is made by Tomkinson in his diary on April 3, p. 94.
[251] Many details in this narrative of the combat of Sabugal will be found to differ from those given in earlier histories. I have been relying for the French movements largely on the life of General Merle, the officer who was in charge of most of the fighting, and had the best chance of giving a correct story. [Braquehay’s Le Général Merle, pp. 160-1.]
[252] See the tables of the French and British losses in Appendix No. VI. Fririon, as chief of the staff, must have seen and passed the French return giving 750 casualties, yet in his narrative allows for only 250, saying, ‘On a beaucoup exagéré les pertes: les chiffres que nous donnons sont très exacts.’ This is only one example of his habit of falsifying figures, in which he rivalled Masséna and Soult.
[253] In the Diary of Tomkinson of the 16th Light Dragoons there is a curious note as to the capture of a ‘caravan’ or large coach belonging to the head-quarter staff, and more especially to Masséna’s Portuguese adviser, the Marquis d’Alorna, on April 7th. Sixty-five infantry were captured by the regiment on the same day.
[254] See letters to Beresford of April 6th and to Charles Stuart of April 8th, in Dispatches, vii. pp. 430-5.
[255] Napier (iii. 135) says that the French lost 300 men, which contrasts strangely with the official numbers given by the French. Probably Drouet gave only the actual loss in action, while the British accounts speak of all the stragglers taken that day as if they had been captured in the fight. The 16th certainly got 65 prisoners from a convoy guard.
[256] Wellington, Dispatches, vii. p. 448.
[257] But, as he wrote to Beresford on April 14, ‘I was not very sanguine of the results of the blockade of that place, and had indeed determined not to make it in any strength: and now it is useless to keep anybody on the other side of the Agueda save for food and observation.’ (Dispatches, vii. 457.)
[258] For the state of semi-blockade in which Sanchez had kept Ciudad Rodrigo, see the Memoirs of the Duchess of Abrantes (vii. pp. 275-7), who was beleaguered there while her husband was in Portugal. For the hunts organized against him by Thiébault, see the latter’s Memoirs, iv. 449-51, &c. Sanchez intercepted numbers of dispatches which were of great use to Wellington, as they kept him informed of the state of the French in northern Spain.
[259] See vol. iii, Appendix, p. 543.
[260] When Foy went back from Thomar on March 5 to Rodrigo his escort was taken from the 9th Corps, not from the Army of Portugal, so does not count. See Pièces Justificatives, No. 45, in Foy’s Vie Militaire, p. 357.
[261] See pp. 167-8 of vol. iii.
[262] Dispatch printed in Fririon, p. 157.
[264] Bessières to Berthier, printed in the Appendix to Belmas, vol. i. p. 562.
[266] Bessières soon after his arrival put a garrison in Santoña, between Santander and Bilbao.
[267] See vol. iii. pp. 486-7.
[268] Correspondance, no. 17,785, 8th June, 1811.
[269] Since the disaster at Puebla de Senabria (vol. iii. p. 270) Serras had drawn in his left flank and abandoned the Galician foot-hills.
[270] The King in all his dispatches seems to understate his own force. He sometimes calls it only 15,000 men. But a muster roll of the Army of the Centre, which I have copied from the Archives de la Guerre, for February 15, 1811, shows a total of 20,000, viz. Dessolles, 3,300, German Division, 5,200, Spaniards, 4,200, Lahoussaye, 2,500, Treillard’s Light Cavalry, 1,400, Artillery Train, Sappers, &c., 1,500, Royal Guards, 2,000 of all arms. In addition there were 5,000 drafts for Soult detained in New Castile, but about to start for Seville.
[271] Which had only seven battalions, the rest being with Soult in Andalusia.
[272] Composed of two cavalry regiments of Marisy’s brigade, three German battalions from La Mancha, and two French battalions.
[273] Napoleon in a dispatch of 22 March (Correspondance, xxi. 496) blames Lahoussaye for not stopping in northern Estremadura, in touch with Soult.
[274] See Miot de Melito’s Mémoires, iii. 153-6.
[275] See vol. iii. pp. 506-7.
[276] See Miot’s Mémoires, iii. 160, for the discouraging results of this embassy.
[277] All this from the letter of the Queen of Spain, detailing her interview with the Duc de Cadore, who sent for her in the Emperor’s name on January 15, 1811, and administered this bitter message to her, for her husband’s benefit. See the letter given in Miot’s Mémoires, iii. 171-2. Cf. Napoleon’s dispatch to Laforest, ambassador at Madrid, Correspondance, 17,111.
[278] Miot’s Mémoires, iii. 176.
[279] Napoleon to Berthier, from Caen, May 27. Correspondance, no. 17,752.
[280] See Miot de Melito’s Mémoires, iii. 197-8, and compare it with the actual terms of Napoleon’s concession given in his letter to Berthier quoted above.
[281] All from the Caen memorandum for Berthier quoted above.
[282] For dispatches concerning this, and notes as to the troops and ships to be employed, see Correspondance, 17,824, 17,875, &c. The project seems to have been seriously thought over, the Emperor wrongly believing that England was stripped of regular troops.
[283] ‘Le Portugal est trop loin: je ne peux pas y aller; il faudrait six mois. Pendant six mois tout est suspendu: l’Europe est sans direction: les Russes peuvent se déclarer, les Anglais débarquer au nord. En vérité, quand on voit la différence qu’un homme met aux événements, il est impossible de ne pas avoir de l’amour propre.’ 30th March, 1811. Napoleon’s interview with Foy, reported by the latter in Vie Militaire du Général Foy, p. 140.
[284] For a similar hint of danger in 1809, see above, vol. i. pp. 560-61.
[285] Sometimes on absolutely false information, due to the Emperor’s vast distance from the theatre of war leading him to make hypotheses which had been falsified, because of the mistaken premises on which he grounded them. For example, on March 30, 1811, he told Berthier that Masséna’s head quarters were at Coimbra, and that a detachment of his army occupied Oporto, and these ‘news’ were to be sent on to Soult (Correspondance, 17,531). On that day Masséna was already behind the Coa on his retreat to Ciudad Rodrigo.
[286] Compare the dispatches of March 30, where it is demonstrated that Soult has nothing to fear for Badajoz, because Wellington cannot detach more than 15,000 men against it, and that of December 12, where it is demonstrated that Soult having 80,000 men should be ashamed of himself for allowing the ‘affront’ of Arroyo dos Molinos to be put upon him by Hill and 6,000 British.
[287] ‘Il ne faut pas se diviser: il faut réunir ses forces, présenter des masses imposantes: toutes les troupes qu’on laisse en arrière courent le risque d’être battues en détail, ou forcées d’abandonner les postes,’ &c. Napoleon to Soult, Correspondance, December 6, 1811.
[288] Napoleon to Berthier; orders for Bessières and Marmont of May 26, 1811.
[289] See Correspondance, 17,784, Napoleon to Clarke, 8th June, 1811. The divisions were composed as follows:—
Souham. 1st Line (4 batts.) and 62nd Line (4 batts.), from Turin and Marseilles; 23rd Léger (2 batts.), from Auxonne; 101st Line (4 batts.), from Turin and Spezzia. About 7,000 men.
Caffarelli. 5th Léger (2 batts.), from Cherbourg; 3rd and 105th Line (each 2 batts.), from Rennes; 10th Léger (4 batts.), from Rennes; 52nd Line (2 batts.), from Toulon. About 6,000 men.
Reille. 81st Line (2 batts. at Pampeluna, 1 from Genoa); 10th Line and 20th Line (4 batts. each), already at Pampeluna; 60th Line (4 batts.), from Toulon. About 7,500 men.
Italian Division. 1st Line (4 batts.); 7th Line (4 batts.). About 4,000 men.
[290] Correspondance, no. 16,910, of September 10, 1810.
[291] See vol. iii. p. 494.
[292] See vol. iii. p. 503.
[293] Napier’s ‘Tenaxas’ and Belmas’s ‘Tenailles’ = ‘the Pinchers.’
[294] The strength of the garrison raises a conflict of authorities. The Spanish official figures are those given above, which are followed by Schepeler and Arteche. But Suchet says that he captured 9,461 prisoners, including the wounded in the hospitals, and that several hundred men more had perished before the surrender. He gives a muster roll of the garrison purporting to bear out his figures (Mémoires, i. p. 359), which Belmas copies. Since Suchet’s Spanish totals are often more than doubtful (cf. vol. iii. p. 304) I accept the figures given by his adversaries. The December figures of the Spanish Army of Catalonia show 13,040 men in all distributed in garrisons, including those of Tarragona, Tortosa, Seu de Urgel, Cardona, and smaller places. I think that 7,000 for Tortosa is probable.
[295] See vol. ii. p. 6.
[296] This narrative of the fall of Tortosa is mainly derived from the sources given by Arteche, especially Yriarte’s narrative, and from Schepeler and Vacani. These in some details differ from Suchet’s story repeated by Belmas, though there is no fundamental discrepancy. But it is clear that Alacha was even more to blame than the French versions would give us to understand.
[297] Vacani, iv. 420-1.
[298] The figures of 400 killed and wounded given by Belmas seem very low, but are borne out by the invaluable lists in Martinien, who shows that only some thirty officers were killed or wounded at Tortosa, of whom twelve belonged to the engineers, artillery, and sappers. Thirty officers hit imply (at the usual rate of one to twenty men) 600 casualties, but it is very possible that there were no more than 400 and odd, for the engineer officers, of whom six were killed or hurt, ran special risks.
[299] For all this see Wimpffen’s reports printed in the Appendix to Suchet’s Mémoires, i. 359.
[300] His name was really Orsatelli, but he always appears in the reports as Eugenio.
[301] Vacani says only 266 (v. 26), including 3 officers killed and 13 wounded, but Martinien’s lists show 3 officers killed and 24 wounded; it is impossible that 27 officers should be hit and only 239 men—the proportion of 1 to 9 is incredible, and the loss must have been more like 600. Schepeler and the Spaniards put it at 1,200, which is too high.
[302] See vol. iii. p. 24.
[303] See below, sect. xxviii. chap. i.
[304] Suchet, Mémoires, i. 266.
[305] The eleven battalions of Girard’s division, and from Gazan’s the 100th of the Line, and a battalion of the 21st Léger put in garrison at Badajoz.
[306] 26th Dragoons, 2nd and 10th Hussars, 21st Chasseurs à cheval, 4th Chasseurs Espagnols. Only the 10th Hussars and the 21st Chasseurs belonged to the 5th Corps.
[307] Nothing could be done in Estremadura without the 2nd Division, and D’Urban’s diary shows that the orders for the 2nd Division to march into the Alemtejo were only given on the 12th. Beresford’s chief of the staff notes on that day, ‘Orders to General Stewart [commanding 2nd Division] to fix his head quarters at Tramagal, to move the 13th to Crato or Carragueira [both in the Alemtejo south from Abrantes], and to let the troops remain as at present—unless it should become necessary to concentrate for the protection of the Bridge of Tancos.’ This shows that Wellington’s statement to Lord Liverpool on March 14th (Dispatches, vii. 360) that ‘troops had marched from Thomar on the 9th, and that part of Sir William Beresford’s division, which had not passed the Tagus, was put in motion, and that their head had arrived within three marches of Elvas,’ can apply at most to Hamilton’s Portuguese.
[308] Wellington to Lord Liverpool, March 14. Dispatches, vii. 360-1.
[310] Cole actually reached Portalegre on the 22nd, so could have been in front of Badajoz on the 24th.
[311] Wellington to Beresford, March 18th (Dispatches, vii. 372), ‘You had better lose no time in moving up to Portalegre, and attack Soult, if you can, at Campo Mayor. I will come to you if I can, but if I cannot do not wait for me. Get Castaños to join you from Estremos with any Spanish troops he can bring. You must be two days marching from Portalegre to Campo Mayor, I believe.’
[312] Wellington to Beresford, March 20 (Dispatches, vii. 374-5); some details added from D’Urban’s diary, which do not appear in this dispatch.
[313] All these details are from D’Urban’s Journal.
[314] The consumption of the Estremos magazines by Mendizabal’s men will be found mentioned in the pamphlet (written under Beresford’s direction) called ‘Strictures on Napier’s Peninsular War’ [London, 1832]. ‘When the Marshal (Beresford) put his corps in motion from the Tagus he was informed that the British Commissary in the Alemtejo had from 200,000 to 300,000 rations in store for his use. But this officer had also been ordered to supply the Spanish division lately in that province, and (most incautiously) issued for its service whatever its commander required. Owing to this inadvertence on the part of the Commissary (whose name, I think, was Thompson), when Marshal Beresford arrived the store was absolutely empty’ [p. 61]. His name was Thompson, and he was immediately superseded by Wellington’s order (Dispatches, vii. 426).
[315] Soriano da Luz, iii. pp. 531-2.
[316] Colonel Dickson met Talaya only two days after the surrender and had an interesting interview with him. See Dickson’s Journal, i. p. 366. He can find no praise high enough for the old engineer officer. D’Urban also speaks of him in most appreciative terms.