[317] There is great difficulty in making out what were the French cavalry regiments, but Martinien’s lists show losses in the 26th Dragoons (eight officers) and 2nd Hussars, and Long speaks positively of the 10th Hussars as present also.
[318] D’Urban, reconnoitring with one, was sighted and chased a little way by French hussars. See C. E. Long’s vindication of his uncle, General Long’s Military Reputation [London, 1832], pp. 74-5.
[319] Belmas says that it had started déjà, and must be right: while Lapéne, who thinks that it was loaded up and sent off after the alarm, fails to account for its being six miles along the road when surprised. Heavy guns travel slowly. Beresford corroborates Belmas.
[320] This is Long’s account of the orders given by Beresford (p. 75 of the Vindication of the Military Reputation of the late General Long, by C. E. Long), in a letter from the general to General Le Marchant. This agrees pretty well with Beresford’s version of the facts, and is no doubt correct.
[321] A squadron was absent with Colborne’s column and another troop on distant reconnaissance work, and the regiment was not much over 200 sabres.
[322] Napier’s story that they charged through each other, formed up front to rear, and then charged each other again is strongly denied by Beresford as ‘purely supposititious’ (Strictures, pp. 152-3), and not confirmed by Long or any other eye-witness.
[323] See vol. i. p. 119.
[324] Belmas, iii. p. 557.
[325] So, at least, I gather from Long’s narrative: he says that ‘he sent an order for the advance of De Grey’s brigade’ (p. 34), and in another place (p. 53), that ‘it was only necessary to charge and throw into confusion the cavalry at their (the French) head and rear, and the object was accomplished.’ The object is defined as the ‘annihilation’ of the French column, which Long thinks would have surrendered.
[326] This regiment lost one officer and ten men killed, and thirty-two wounded, beside some prisoners, in the abortive advance. The French statement that the 2nd Hussars made ‘de belles charges’ is therefore evidently justified. But it was the flanking infantry fire which demoralized the Portuguese (Long’s Vindication, p. 49).
[327] By all accounts this was Baron Trip, a Dutch émigré officer, who was serving on Beresford’s staff. The statement was very astounding, even incredible, considering that the country was open and undulating. But it was almost equally incredible that the 13th and 7th Portuguese should have pursued the French dragoons completely out of sight, six miles away, without leaving a man behind.
[328] Colonel Gabriel, a staff officer of the 2nd Division, says that Colborne’s brigade was only 500 yards in rear of the heavy dragoons, and the French still in sight when Beresford ordered the final halt. See Long’s Vindication, p. 65.
[329] Except three wounded in the 3rd Dragoon Guards in skirmishes with the hussars of the French rearguard.
[330] One killed, six wounded, one prisoner. For names see Martinien’s lists and supplement thereto.
[331] Belmas says 175, but this is too low.
[332] Wellington to Beresford, from Celorico, March 28 (Dispatches, vii. 412). By an odd error Wellington wrote the 1st Portuguese, but it was the 7th which joined in the hunt.
[333] Napier censures Beresford for not crossing at Merida, thirty miles east of Badajoz. But (1) Wellington’s orders directed him to use Jerumenha; (2) to march to Merida would have been to pass across the front of an enemy who had a bridge-head at Badajoz, from which he could push out detachments to cut the line of communication, Campo Mayor to Merida; (3) Elvas was the only possible base, and the only place where magazines could be safely formed, or munitions, siege artillery, &c., procured; (4) the road Campo Mayor-Merida was very bad; (5) Merida was within reach of the French Army of the Centre, which had detachments at Truxillo and Almaraz.
[334] These notes as to Beresford’s difficulties are taken partly from the Journal of his chief of the staff, D’Urban, partly from the latter’s detailed report on the Estremaduran campaign, published in 1832, but written in 1811, partly from the Strictures on Napier’s History, vol. iii, written under Beresford’s eye. The latter might be considered suspicious if they were not completely borne out by the two former, as well as by Wellington’s Dispatches, vii. 414, 426, 432.
[335] This must have been Wellington’s Celorico dispatch of March 30, saying that ‘between chevalets (trestles), boats, Spanish and English pontoons, and a ford, I should hope that the Guadiana may be passed in safety’ (Dispatches, vii. 414.)
[336] D’Urban’s Narrative, p. 10.
[337] Beresford maintained that troops on the right bank could be protected by the fire of the guns of Jerumenha, which is in a lofty position, commanding the Spanish shore. But they would have been of little use if the French had attacked at night. (Strictures on Napier, p. 177.)
[338] Correspondance, xxi. 146: ‘Vous voyez que ce que j’avais prévu est arrivé, qu’on a eu la simplicité de laisser du monde dans Olivenza, et de faire prendre là 300 hommes,’ &c. This was alluding to an earlier order to Soult not to make small detachments, and to blow up Olivenza.
[339] Ninety-eight sick attended by sixteen surgeons were comprised in the surrender on April 15th.
[340] This is Lapéne’s view, who says that the 400 gallant men were knowingly sacrificed in this hope: ‘L’intérêt de l’armée a demandé le sacrifice’ (p. 146).
[341] Dickson’s Journals, recently published by Major Leslie, R.A., are the first and most important source in which to study the two early British sieges of Badajoz, as well as the smaller matter of Olivenza. I am using them perpetually all through the following pages.
[342] This date is that given by D’Urban’s Journal.
[343] Dispatches, vii. 407. From Gouvea, March 27.
[344] Dickson, in his Journal, p. 448, specially mentions this curious fact, and notes the name of Philip III and the dates 1620, 1636, 1646, 1652 on some of the guns he used.
[345] These were the companies of Bredin, Baynes, Raynsford, and Glubb; see vol. iii. p. 559.
[346] Dickson, Journal, pp. 405, 448.
[347] Long says that the 13th took about 150 prisoners (Vindication, p. 104), but the French accounts do not acknowledge anything like such loss.
[348] D’Urban visited Ballasteros’s camp on the 14th and settled with him all the details of a joint march against Maransin (whom they wrongly supposed to be d’Aremberg, not knowing that the latter had returned to Seville with the cavalry). ‘If d’Aremberg takes the bait, and follows Ballasteros, he must be lost altogether; even if he halts at Xeres we ought to get hold of him,’ writes D’Urban in his diary. But Maransin fled on the morning of the 15th.
[349] D’Urban’s diary under the 17th April.
[350] Dispatches, vii. 491-2.
[351] Not to be confused with another Burguillos on the Guadalquivir, north of Seville.
[352] Hoghton’s brigade of the 2nd Division, Myers’s and Harvey’s brigades of the 4th Division, Campbell’s brigade of Hamilton’s Portuguese division.
[353] So D’Urban’s diary under May 11th. The loss was over 400 men, of whom 207 were in the 40th, 118 in the 27th, 75 in the 97th, and 38 in the 17th Portuguese. The French lost about 200 men only.
[354] 3/27th, 1/40th, and 97th Foot.
[355] Wellington to Beresford, April 14th: ‘Sir William Erskine did not send a detachment across the Agueda in time, as I had desired him, and the consequence is that the French got their convoy into Ciudad Rodrigo yesterday morning.... It is useless now to keep anybody on the other side of the Agueda.’ Dispatches, vii. 467.
[356] Tomkinson’s (16th Light Dragoons) Diary, April 10th-11th (p. 98).
[357] 14th Light Dragoons and 1st Hussars K.G.L.
[359] Sometimes called Pamplona’s brigade in Wellington’s dispatches of this date, Colonel Pamplona having been in temporary command during Ashworth’s absence.
[360] Barbaçena’s Portuguese on the lower Coa, below Almeida: the British 1st Royals and 16th Light Dragoons on the upper Coa.
[361] The very interesting dispatch in which Wellington’s forecast is stated is that to Castaños of April 15, written in French. ‘En pensant à ce qu’ils doivent faire dans leurs circonstances actuelles, je trouve que (1) ou ils feront l’invasion de la Galice avec le corps de Bessières, pendant que Masséna donnera du repos à ses troupes, dans les cantonnements occupés jusqu’à présent par Bessières: (2) ou ils se joindront, pour tomber sur mon corps sur la frontière de la Castille—ce qui n’est pas très vraisemblable: (3) ou ils ne feront rien jusqu’à ce que les troupes de Masséna soyent reposées et remises en état, quand ils rassembleront une grande armée dans l’Estrémadure.’ Dispatches, vii. p. 470.
[362] Bessières to Berthier, from Valladolid, June 6, 1811.
[363] It is possible that there is some diplomatic intention in the stress laid by Wellington on the likelihood of a French invasion of Galicia. He was writing to Castaños, and it was his object to get that general to stir up the Galicians. Hence, perhaps, he exaggerated a possibility which was not so strong as he stated.
[364] Memorandum for Berthier (Correspondance, 17,531), dated March 30. ‘Le quartier général de l’armée de Portugal reste à Coïmbre. Oporto est occupé par un détachement.... Le Prince d’Essling tiendra à Coïmbre, menaçant Lisbonne, qui sera attaquée après la récolte.’ At this moment Masséna’s army was just reaching the Spanish frontier, in its final retreat from Guarda!
[365] Correspondance, 17,591. ‘Vous ferez connaître au Prince d’Essling ... qu’il doit presser l’armament d’Almeida.... Il doit prendre des mesures pour couvrir Almeida et Ciudad Rodrigo, et d’un autre côté pour se mettre en communication avec Madrid et Séville.’
[366] Correspondance, 17,701.
[367] This we learn from Marmont’s letter to Berthier dated May 14, in which he says that the dispatch reached him only on May 10, and that its contents were unexpected. (Marmont’s Mémoires, iv. p. 78.)
[368] Correspondance, 17,591.
[369] ‘Le désir que l’armée a manifesté depuis longtemps d’aller se reposer ne me laisse aucun doute qu’il serait dangereux d’attendre l’ennemi pour recevoir bataille ou pour la lui donner.’
[370] All this, of course, is from the Great Memorandum of March 30, which Berthier was to communicate to all the chiefs of the Peninsular armies.
[373] That he did not purpose to be longer away is shown by the fact that he was already at Portalegre, on his return journey from Elvas, when Spencer’s final warning that Masséna was on the move reached him. Dispatches, vii. 50.
[374] See the three dispatches to Spencer on pp. 464-6, 473-4, and 475 of Dispatches, vii, dated respectively April 14, April 16, and April 17, 1811.
[375] For details see the Journal of George Simmons of the 95th (A British Rifleman), pp. 164-5.
[376] Wrongly dated April 20 by Sprünglin in his generally accurate diary (p. 477).
[377] Thiébault’s Mémoires, vol. iv. p. 448.
[378] The 6th Corps incorporated one battalion each of the 6th Léger, 25th Léger, and the 27th Ligne from Conroux’s division, and one each of the 39th, 59th, 69th, 76th from Claparéde’s. The 2nd Corps got a battalion of the 17th Léger only, besides drafts. Solignac’s division, nominally 6,110 bayonets, was short of two battalions (from the 15th and 65th), or 850 men, left in garrison at Ciudad Rodrigo. In the same garrison had been left the whole Régiment de Prusse (500 men), besides drafts. The junction of the isolated battalions from Drouet’s corps took place on April 27. (Fririon, p. 198.)
[379] It had sunk on May 1 from an original strength of 6,800 men to 3,073.
[380] For strange doings of this eccentric brigadier at Salamanca during the winter, see Thiébault, vol. iv. pp. 435-7.
[381] These figures, differing much from those supplied by Koch, are worked out from the return of May 1 in the Paris Archives Nationales. The total of cavalry mounted and available seems to have been 3,007, including Fournier. See tables in Appendix XIX.
[382] Masséna to Berthier, April 30, 1811, from Ciudad Rodrigo. The returns show that on May 1 twelve batteries had been left behind with no horses at all, in order that the five remaining might take the field with 425 horses.
[383] Masséna to Berthier, April 17th, from Salamanca.
[384] So Marbot, ii. 457. If Marbot’s talents as a raconteur make his authority doubtful, we may point out that Thiébault, the governor of Salamanca, tells much the same story in his Mémoires, iv. p. 478.
[385] Berthier to Bessières, May 19, 1811.
[386] Infantry. 2nd Corps, 10,292; 6th Corps, 16,816; 8th Corps (1 division), 4,714; 9th Corps, 10,304; total, 42,126. Cavalry. Masséna’s own, 3,007; Bessières, 1,665; Artillery, Sappers, Train, &c., 1,400; total, 48,198. Masséna would only acknowledge 35,000 men, and put Wellington’s force (which was, as we shall see, 37,000 men) at about 50,000. If Wellington had possessed 50,000 men, Fuentes de Oñoro would have been a very different sort of battle.
[387] Masséna’s arrival was known, through deserters, the day after it occurred. Diary of Simmons of the 95th, p. 166.
[388] Complaints on this score fill up great parts of Wellington’s letters of the 30th April and 1st May (Dispatches, vii. 511-12, 516-17). They seem slightly to overstate the deficiency, compared with morning states of May 1; but this comes from his persistent habit of counting only rank and file, omitting officers and sergeants. When he says that the total infantry (including Pack) was only 11,000, while it works out to over 12,000 when that detached brigade is counted, we must remember that he is not reckoning anything but rank and file. Wellington attributes most of the loss to (1) slackness at the depositos (dépôts) in forwarding drafts, (2) maladministration of the hospitals, (3) insufficient food at the front for those brigades still fed by the Portuguese government, and not taken on to the British establishment.
[389] Not to speak of the bridge of Sabugal, six miles above the Ponte Sequeiro and hopelessly out on the flank.
[390] viz. the light companies of 17 British and 4 Portuguese battalions, plus 4 companies of the 5/60th, 1 of the 3/95th, and 2 extra light companies of the K.G.L. attached to Löwe’s brigade.
[391] Both Napier (iii. p. 150) and Tomkinson (p. 100) say that the British cavalry, nominally 1,520 sabres, had only about 1,000 in line that day, owing to details, orderlies, &c., absent from the ranks. This is probably an over-great deduction.
[392] See tables at end, Appendix IX. 1st Division, 7,565 men; 3rd Division, 5,480 men; 7th Division, 4,600 men; Light Division, 3,815 men; Ashworth’s Portuguese, 2,539 men, or 23,999.
[393] The statement made by several French authors that Masséna did not order Ferey to attack Fuentes on the 3rd, and that Loison and Ferey acted without orders, is directly contradicted by the Marshal’s own dispatch, in which he takes all responsibility: ‘J’espérais enlever Fuentes et m’y maintenir; je le fis attaquer, et il fut bientôt occupé.’
[394] But some in Marchand’s, which must have been fairly heavily engaged, judging from the casualty list of officers in Martinien.
[395] For an excellent account of the first day’s fighting in Fuentes village, see the diary of ‘J. S.’ of the 71st in Constable’s Memorials of the late War, i. 87-9. The regiment charged right up the French slope after recovering the place, and was attacked ineffectually by cavalry. Marbot (ii. p. 459) has a story that the second attack of the French would have succeeded if the Hanoverian Legion, in its red coats, had not been fired into from the rear in mistake by the 66th Ligne, which took them for British.
[396] Masséna, in his dispatch describing the battle, says that on the morning of the 4th the Allies made a serious attempt to turn Ferey out of the houses beyond the brook which he occupied. But we have no trace of any regular fighting in any of the British narratives; there was certainly some bickering across the brook, but apparently nothing more.
[397] See his Orders for the day, in Appendix XIII.
[398] 85th and 2nd Caçadores.
[399] 51st and 85th, the other regiments being foreign (Chasseurs Britanniques and Brunswick Oels) or Portuguese.
[400] Its position, from this point of view, might be compared to that of Pakenham and the 3rd Division at Salamanca.
[401] The accusation against Montbrun, made by Napier and several French writers, of having waited for two hours after dawn, and then of having suffered himself to be delayed for another hour by the pursuit of a mere Spanish irregular band, is clearly groundless. We have the diaries of two officers of the squadrons of the 14th (Major Brotherton and Cornet F. Hall) who prove that the attack was made in the dusk of early dawn. ‘Just at daybreak,’ says the former, ‘I requested Don Julian to show me where his pickets were placed. He pointed out to me what he said was one of them, but I observed to him that in the dusk of morning it looked too large for a picket. The sun rising rapidly dispelled the fog, and the illusion at the same time, for Don Julian’s picket proved to be a whole French regiment dismounted. They now mounted immediately and advanced against us.’ (See the Diary in Hamilton’s History of the 14th Hussars.)
[402] Captain Belli, who had joined the regiment from England only the night before. A sergeant and six men were killed in trying to rescue him. See Tomkinson’s diary, p. 101. This officer of the 16th accuses Major Meyer of the Hussars of having lost the right moment for a charge by indecision. But the K.G.L. narratives (see Schwertfeger) show that Meyer fought hard, and was an enterprising officer.
[403] 1st Division in four brigades on the right; then Ashworth; then the 3rd Division next to Fuentes village.
[404] Along which the modern railway line is conducted from Villar Formoso to Ciudad Rodrigo. Fuentes de Oñoro station is a mile from the village, and only a few hundred yards from the Portuguese customs-station of Villar Formoso.
[405] 51st Foot, Chasseurs Britanniques, the incomplete battalion of Brunswick Oels (short of two companies detached), and the 7th and 19th Portuguese, commanded on this day by Doyle, colonel of the 19th.
[406] Unpublished Diary of Hall of the 14th Light Dragoons.
[407] See Journal of Wheeler of the 51st, pp. 13-14.
[408] The 51st lost 6 men; Brunswick Oels, 18; Chasseurs Britanniques, 58; 7th Portuguese, 8 men; 19th, 2 men—of these 92 only 19 were prisoners, so that it is clear that the French cavalry never got in among them, or cut them up in the style described by Pelet, Fournier, Fririon, or Masséna himself. When a body of 4,000 infantry attacked by cavalry has only 90 casualties, we know that no part of it can have been ridden over or seriously broken.
[409] Leach (of the 95th), Life of an Old Soldier, p. 214.
[410] By some error Napier says the 8th Corps, but the only division of that corps present (Solignac) was in reserve far off.
[411] Napier, iii. 152.
[412] See Brotherton’s Memoir, in Hamilton’s History of the 14th Light Dragoons, pp. 84-5: ‘At Fuentes d’Oñoro we had a very fine fellow, Captain Knipe, killed through his gallant obstinacy, if I may so call it. We had, the night before, been discussing the best mode for cavalry to attack batteries in the open field. He maintained, contrary to us all, that they ought to be charged in front, instead of by gaining their flank and avoiding their fire. The experiment next day was fatal to him. He had the opportunity of charging a French battery, which he did by attacking immediately in front. Their discharge of round shot he got through with little loss, but they most rapidly reloaded with grape, and his party got a close and murderous discharge, which almost entirely destroyed it—he himself receiving a grape shot through the body.’ As Montbrun had not got up his guns during the first cavalry charges, this must have been during Craufurd’s fight.
[413] Napier makes two serious errors—he represents Ramsay as having a whole battery, instead of two guns only: and he underrates the assistance given by the cavalry, which is detailed in Brotherton’s memoir, as well as in the regimental history of the Royals (p. 118).
[414] The account of this in Wellington’s dispatch is hopelessly obscure, because instead of writing ‘the pickets of the 1st Division under Lieut.-Col. Hill,’ he wrote by a slip of the pen ‘the regiments of the 1st Division under Lieut.-Col. Hill.’ Hill of course (being a regimental major though a titular Lieut.-Colonel, after the Guards system) did not command whole regiments, as Wellington’s words imply, but simply the skirmishing line of pickets. The facts are made quite clear by Stepney of the Coldstreams and Stothert’s diary (who calls them ‘the pickets of the Guards’), Grattan (who calls them ‘the advance,’ or ‘the light troops of the 1st Division’), and Hall’s unpublished diary, which gives the whole story in a nutshell: ‘The enemy made a dart at the pickets of the 1st Division, with the expectation of sweeping off the line before our cavalry could support them. They succeeded in part, by coming up unexpectedly, but when they were perceived the men, by collecting into knots (or ‘hiving’ as they called it) repulsed them with the bayonet. A troop of the 14th Light Dragoons and some of the Royals were ordered out to the skirmish and suffered some loss.’
It is this incident which General Fournier, who led the charge, transforms in his dispatch (in the Archives de la Guerre) into the breaking two squares of the Light Division and taking General Craufurd prisoner—a wild story. Fririon makes the charge capture ‘300 Hussars of the English Royal Guard!’ Both say that three battalions of the Guards laid down their arms.
[415] Deducting the regiments in Fuentes de Oñoro (71st and 79th) the 1st Division lost about 400 men in the whole day, of whom probably 100 in this petty disaster.
[416] One was repelled by the 42nd, which met it in line.
[417] Of this episode, only hinted at by Fririon, and not mentioned at all by Masséna in his official dispatch, we have a vivid description in Marbot, which might be doubted if it were not borne out by hints in Napier and Thiébault and by the direct statement of Marshal Jourdan in his memoirs. If Lepic had charged, it is hard to see what effect he could have produced, for all Peninsular experience went to prove that infantry in battle order on a good position could not be broken by cavalry, however daring. The 1st and 3rd Divisions were well established on their ground, with a steep slope below them, and could not have been moved. Lepic’s refusal to charge, however, always takes a prominent part in the description of Fuentes de Oñoro by French writers, not eye-witnesses, who are anxious to prove that Wellington ought to have lost the battle.
[418] To Lord Liverpool, 8th May. Dispatches, vii. p. 531.
[419] 2/24th and 1/79th from Nightingale’s brigade, and the 1/71st from Howard’s, in all 1,850 bayonets, leaving the remainder of the 1st Division with 5,700 bayonets, the 3rd Division with 5,400, and Ashworth with 2,500 as the main line holding the plateau, with 3,700 of Craufurd’s Light Division in reserve.
[420] Masséna’s dispatch, see Appendix, no. XIII. Drouet is therefore wrongly blamed by French critics who say that he attacked an hour or two late—he had to wait to see the turning movement in successful progress.
[421] British narratives persistently state that infantry of the Imperial Guard fought in Fuentes village. But it is absolutely certain that there were none of those troops with Masséna’s army. The explanation lies in the fact that the grenadier company in a French regiment wore bearskins, and that a mass of grenadier companies therefore could easily be mistaken for Guards. All 71st and 79th diaries speak of fighting with ‘the Imperial Guards’ for this reason.
[422] Masséna’s dispatch speaks only of Claparéde’s division as being put in, but as Martinien’s lists show, Conroux must have been still more heavily engaged, for his division lost 31 officers killed and wounded, Claparéde’s only 25. Moreover, it was one of Conroux’s battalions (9th Léger) with which the 88th were engaged mainly, and this battalion alone lost 8 officers. About three battalions of each division remained in reserve and had few or no casualties, viz. the 64th, 88th, 95th, 96th, 100th, 103rd of the Line.
[423] Grattan of the 88th; see his Adventures, &c., pp. 66-7.