[424] This again from Grattan, who tells how his colonel, Wallace of Bussaco fame, said that he would rather have to retake Fuentes than to cover a retreat to the Coa.

[425] It is unfortunately impossible to disentangle the losses of the various battalions of the 9th Corps, as there is no regimental return, but only a corps return of its losses available. But some aid is given by Martinien’s invaluable Liste des officiers tués et blessés pendant les Guerres de l’Empire, which shows that the battalions that suffered most were the 4/9th Léger with 8 officers hurt out of 21 present, the 4/63rd Ligne with 7 out of 19, the 4/24th Ligne and 4/28th Léger, each with 6 out of 17, and the 4/16th Léger with 6 out of 16. These, clearly, were the units that were most engaged. Some belonged to Conroux’s, some to Claparéde’s division.

[426] Six guns of the cavalry, fourteen of the 6th Corps, four of the 8th Corps.

[427] Bull’s horse artillery troop, Thompson’s and Lawson’s companies, and three Portuguese batteries, those of Sequeira, Rosado, and Preto.

[428] Fririon notes that they suffered more than was necessary from being in dense masses (p. 207). These two divisions had on the 3rd and 5th May 14 officers killed and 38 wounded, according to Martinien’s lists. As the total loss of the corps on both days was 59 officers and nearly 900 men, and we have to allow for Ferey’s loss of 400 men in Fuentes village, it seems that Marchand and Mermet must have lost at least as many more.

[429] Masséna to Napoleon, Fuentes de Oñoro, May 7: the main battle-report.

[430] Save the few voltigeur companies from Mermet sent down to skirmish with the 95th rifles in the ravine of the Turon, as mentioned just above.

[431] Pelet, Appendice sur la Guerre d’Espagne, p. 341.

[432] Masséna’s orders (Archives de la Guerre) were that Reynier ‘fera pour seconder l’attaque de l’armée une démonstration générale sur la ligne, et suivra l’ennemi dans tous ses mouvements—c’est-à-dire que si les forces qu’il a devant lui se porteraient au secours du gros de l’armée ennemie, qui est dans la direction de Fuentes d’Oñoro, il les suivrait dans sa marche, pour les prendre par la gauche.’

[433] See Rogerson’s regimental history of the 53rd, p. 58.

[434] The 8th Caçadores, according to Wellington’s dispatch, partly crossed the ravine and fought on the other side. Note that he calls them the ‘2nd battalion Lusitanian Legion,’ though that had now ceased to be their official designation.

[435] Marchand’s division shows in Martinien’s lists surprisingly heavy casualties, considering that it was but partially engaged on the 3rd in support of Ferey, and on the 5th was only actively employed in storming Pozo Bello. It had 13 officers killed and 31 wounded, which ought to imply at least 600 or 700 casualties among the rank and file. Apparently there was a disproportionate loss in officers, as the whole casualties of the 6th Corps on May 5 were only 944 men, of whom at least 400 were in Ferey’s division.

[436] Only 9 hurt in the 43rd, 21 in the 52nd, 13 in the Rifles, 24 in the two Caçador battalions. And many of these were undoubtedly lost in skirmishing, not in the retreat in squares.

[437] The blockade of Almeida and the siege of Badajoz by Beresford.

[438] Dispatches, vii. 515.

[439] See p. 298 above.

[440] Both by Napier, iii. 152, and by Fririon, p. 207.

[441] See his dispatch in the Appendix to Belmas, i. p. 539.

[442] Moreover, Marchand’s leading brigade, that of Maucune, must have been in great disorder, after having driven the British advanced guard out of the woods and the village, and would need time to re-form.

[443] Pelet thinks that ‘l’excessive supériorité du général anglais lui donnait le moyen de tout entreprendre. Il s’est montré, dans cette campagne, et même ailleurs, fort étranger à la stratégie comme à la tactique.’ He concludes that Wellington with his superior numbers should have attacked the French centre or Reynier! He was ‘plus fort des deux cinquièmes que les Français.’ (Appendice sur la Guerre d’Espagne, pp. 340-2.) Fririon states as an incontestable fact that the French cavalry was inferior to the English in numbers (Journal historique de la Campagne de Portugal, p. 207). Marbot, on the other hand, thinks that Wellington was over rash in fighting at all on such a position (Mémoires, ii. 460), coming to much the same conclusion as Napier. Belmas’s arguments, like those of Pelet, are all vitiated by his giving Wellington 45,000 men—9,000 more than he actually possessed. Delagrave thinks, like Pelet, that Wellington showed ‘timidity which passed into cowardice.’ Yet he allows that Masséna had 41,000 infantry and cavalry, without counting gunners or sappers, and Wellington only 40,000 (p. 239).

[444] Wellington says (to Lord Liverpool, May 15): ‘Sir W. Erskine was dining with Sir Brent Spencer at head quarters, and received his orders about 4 o’clock. He says that he sent them off forthwith to the 4th regiment, which was stationed between Aldea de Obispo and Barba del Puerco.... The 4th regiment, it is said, did not receive their orders before midnight, and, though they had only 2½ miles to march, missed the road, and did not arrive at Barba del Puerco till after the French.’ (Dispatches, vii. 566.) Tomkinson’s contemporary comment on this is (pp. 102-3 of his diary): ‘The order reached Sir W. Erskine’s quarters about 2 p.m.: he put it in his pocket, and did not dispatch the letter to Colonel Bevan before midnight, and to cover himself, when required to explain by Lord Wellington, said that the 4th unfortunately missed its way, which was not the case.’ Many years later (1836) in his Conversations with Lord Stanhope (which see, p. 89) Wellington said that he believed Bevan had his orders ‘about four or five in the afternoon, but the people about him said “Oh! you need not march till daybreak,” and so by his fault the French got to Barba del Puerco.’ Napier (History, iii. p. 156) says plainly that ‘Erskine sent no order to the 4th regiment.’ Colonel Bevan always maintained that he got nothing from Erskine till nearly midnight.

[445] Marbot’s well-known narrative of this disaster (ii. 473) errs in exaggerating the numbers, but Reynier’s dispatch shows that there was a solid foundation for what might otherwise have appeared a rather lurid picture.

[446] Colonel Iremonger to Campbell, printed in History of the 2nd Regt., vol. iii. p. 190.

[447] Wellington to Lord Liverpool, vii. p. 566.

[448] Supplementary Dispatches, vii. p. 123.

[449] Counting the 4th Division, which was hardly, however, part of the ‘blockading force.’

[450] For statements showing that every one believed Erskine to be the responsible person see Stepney, p. 105: ‘instead of promulgating the orders the general, it is said, put them in his pocket and forgot them.’ George Simmons (p. 174): ‘Bevan was too late owing to Sir W. Erskine, by accident, not sending him an order in time.’ Charles Napier (Diary, p. 173), ‘It is said that Sir Wm. Erskine is to blame, and next to him General Campbell.’

[451] See Foy’s Vie Militaire, p. 114, and Appendix no. 49.

[452] See pp. 295-6 above.

[453] ‘Son tapis chargé de pâtés et d’autres pièces froides très belles, servis sur des plats d’argent, était entouré d’assiettes, de gobelets, de couverts du même métal. On dîna debout—ce qui ne suffit pas pour donner à ce repas de luxe un caractère suffisamment militaire.’ Thiébault, iv. p. 514.

[454] Parquin, who served for some time in his escort squadron, calls him ‘très aimé pour les soins qu’il prenait du soldat’ (Mémoires, p. 298), and rather admires him for having nothing but silver plate with him when on campaign.

[455] Foy’s Vie Militaire, p. 171.

[456] Ibid., p. 177, note (1).

[457] But, for reasons unknown, the 17th Léger, from the original division of Heudelet, changed places with the 26th Line from Loison’s old division, and went into the new 6th Division.

[458] Marmont to Berthier, May 14, from Salamanca.

[459] Memorandum from Berthier of March 30.

[460] Which belonged to the 5th Corps, and joined it before Soult concentrated at Seville.

[461] Including Alten’s brigade, added later.

[462] The force under Beresford comprised (figures of March): British—2nd Division, 5,500; 4th Division, 4,200; Alten’s brigade, 1,100; Cavalry, 1,200; Artillery, &c., 500. Total, 12,500. Portuguese—Hamilton’s division, 5,000; Harvey’s brigade of the 4th Division, 2,900; Collins’s brigade (an extemporized unit of which more anon) 1,400; Otway’s and Madden’s cavalry, 1,000; Artillery, 250. Total, 10,550. The whole, therefore, was about 23,000 instead of the 16,000 on which Napoleon calculated. At Albuera there were absent from the above one British brigade (Kemmis of the 4th Division) and one Portuguese cavalry brigade (Madden), nearly 2,000 men in all. Yet Beresford put 20,000 Anglo-Portuguese in line.

[463] viz. 16th Léger (3 batts.), grenadiers réunis (1 batt.), 4th and 14th Dragoons. The 2nd Hussars and 26th Dragoons were already with Latour-Maubourg, never having returned to the 1st Corps since January. The grenadiers réunis were formed of the six grenadier companies of the 45th, 63rd, and 95th of the Line.

[464] viz. 58th Ligne (3 batts.), one battalion of grenadiers réunis (Poles), 1st Lancers of the Vistula, 20th Dragoons, and 27th Chasseurs.

[465] viz. 12th Léger, 51st and 55th Line (3 batts. each), 17th and 27th Dragoons.

[466] Godinot had the 16th Léger and 51st Line, Werlé the 55th, 58th Line, and 12th Léger. The two grenadier battalions made a general reserve of 1,000 men.

[467] N.B.—For further details as to the composition of Soult’s army see Appendix XVI.

[468] I cannot find any proper account of these ‘compagnies helvétiques’ who were not part of the organized Swiss troops in French service. But they are several times mentioned in narratives of 1811. See for example Lapéne, p. 238. Presumably they were in King Joseph’s service.

[469] For details of the allocution to the officers ‘rangés en cercle,’ see Lapéne, p. 145.

[470] I cannot exactly make out on what day Madden’s weak cavalry brigade (4 squadrons 5th and 8th Portuguese) joined Beresford. It was not with him at Campo Mayor on March 25th, but was up by April 10. Probably it joined before April 1st, as it had been at Elvas since the battle of the Gebora.

[471] For these movements the best authority is Long’s journal, on pp. 109-11 of C. B. Long’s Vindication of his relative.

[472] D’Urban in his narrative points out seven, but four of these were practically impossible.

[473] This brigade, which appears for the Albuera campaign, was composed of the 5th Line (2 batts.) from the garrison of Elvas, joined by the 5th Caçadores, a detached light battalion which had been serving with the cavalry south of the Tagus since last November (see vol. iii. p. 557). This temporary brigade must not be confused with other units headed by Collins before and after.

[474] In a private letter to Sir H. Taylor, D’Urban uses even stronger language: ‘Our cavalry instead of retiring leisurely, had fallen back (indeed I may say fled) rapidly before the advanced guard of the enemy. The left bank of the Albuera was given up without the slightest attempt at dispute. This error on the part of the officer commanding the cavalry was so completely of a piece with his conduct upon more than one previous occasion, that it became imperatively necessary to relieve him.’ (D’Urban MSS.)

[475] This account of the Albuera position was written on the spot, and involved a good deal of walking on a blazing April day. See note at end of the chapter.

[476] Either Napier never saw the ground of Albuera (as Beresford suggests in the Strictures on Napier’s History, p. 207) or else he had forgotten it. The only good plan available was D’Urban’s, and this Napier used (a copy of it is among his portfolio of maps in the Bodleian Library), memory or hypothesis exaggerating into hills and ravines the very gentle ups and downs shown on the map.

[477] Strictures on Napier’s History, vol. iii. pp. 233-4.

[478] Who took over Lumley’s brigade when the latter was promoted to command the cavalry that morning.

[479] The remainder of Murillo’s division of 3,000 men, which formed the infantry of the 5th Army, was at Merida, save one battalion in garrison at Olivenza.

[480] In his dispatch to Berthier, written before leaving Seville, he spoke confidently of cutting in ahead of Blake, and surmised that the latter would find himself in a very compromising position, when he arrived in southern Estremadura, on learning that Beresford had already been driven across the Guadiana. On the 15th spies brought him the statement that Blake was timed to join Beresford only on the 17th. His battle-dispatch distinctly says that his first news of the junction having already taken place was got from prisoners during the course of the action.

[481] The battery was that of Captain Arriaga.

[482] The difference in strength was caused by the fact that two brigades had contributed two, and one other brigade one, battalion each to the garrison of Badajoz.

[483] Those at the War Ministry, not the Archives Nationales.

[484] Beresford suggests that Colborne asked Stewart to allow him to put the right wing of the Buffs into square or column, so as to protect the flank of the brigade, but that Stewart refused. Colborne’s short letter on the battle does not say so; but as he was on very friendly terms with Stewart, he may have refrained from writing the fact. He only says that the order of attack adopted was not his, and that he had no responsibility for it. See Beresford’s Further Strictures on Napier, vol. iii. p. 159.

[485] I published Major Brooke’s diary in Blackwood for 1908, with an account of his almost miraculous subsequent escape from Seville, under the title of ‘A Prisoner of Albuera.’

[486] See History of the 66th Regiment in Cannon’s Series.

[487] Napier is quite wrong in saying that this small diversion was successful, iii. 167. The prisoners were Captains Phillips and Spedding.

[488] The writer of the Strictures on Napier’s History, vol. iii, gives as an eye-witness the following anecdote: ‘As a Spanish soldier in the ranks close to the Marshal was looking to the rear, a Spanish-Irish officer in that service cried to him, “To-day is not the day to fly, when you are fighting as the comrades of the British.” The poor fellow replied, “No, señor, mas los Ingleses nos tiraron por atrás.”’ The Spanish never at any moment fired into the British, as Napier asserts. The mistake was remedied by Beresford’s aide-de-camp Arbuthnot, who rode, at great risk, along the front of the 29th, and stopped their fire.

[489] It was here that the 57th earned the well-known nickname of the Die-hards, from their splendid answer to Colonel Inglis’s adjuration.

[490] This was an Anglo-Swiss officer, Major Roverea, whose memoirs have lately been published.

[491] It appears that the three stray companies from Kemmis’s absent brigade which had reached the field, were put into the square at the right flank also.

[492] What exactly passed between Cole and Hardinge is thoroughly worked out by the correspondence between them printed in the United Service Journal for 1841.

[493] Quoted in the Cole-Hardinge correspondence in the United Service Journal for 1841.

[494] Of which no less than 171 were in the battalion of the Lusitanian Legion which formed Cole’s flank-guard on the left: it suffered terribly from artillery fire.

[495] See Appendix XVI.

[496] For details see Appendix XVI.

[497] D’Urban in his diary under the 17th first speaks of an attack by Soult being possible, and then concludes it impossible; Kemmis’s arrival he thinks will have cured the Marshal of any idea of returning to the fight.

[498] His intention to come appears in his letter to Beresford of May 13th, received May 17th. The statement that the 3rd Division and other troops had actually started for Estremadura is in his letter of May 14th, received May 18th. Wellington Dispatches, vii. 549 and 555.

[499] Of whom more than 200 escaped, and joined their regiments during the next four days, for their guards were too exhausted to keep good watch.

[500] If any one wants an example of such a battle, he may take the first great fight of Frederick the Great, who had been driven ten miles off the battlefield with the wreck of his cavalry when news came to him that his infantry, in his absence and without his leadership, had won the battle for him.

[501] Peninsular War, iii. p. 175.

[502] Such as the statement that Zayas had given way before Colborne arrived at the front, which the evidence of Beresford himself, D’Urban, Schepeler, Moyle Sherer, and many other witnesses proves to be quite wrong. Also the tale (p. 167) that the Spaniards fired into the British (see Strictures, pp. 247-8, and Schepeler). Also the statement that Lumley’s cavalry diversion to help Colborne was successful—when it merely resulted in the repulse of the two squadrons that made it, with the loss of their two commanding officers (Captains Spedding and Phillips) taken prisoners.

An astonishing bit of arithmetic is the note (iii. p. 181) that on the night of the battle only 1,800 unwounded British infantry were left standing—the real figures being: Abercrombie, 1,200; Alten, 1,100; remains of Myers’s brigade, 1,000; remains of Colborne’s brigade, 600; ditto of Hoghton’s, 600. Total, 4,500. Napier had apparently forgotten Abercrombie and Alten.

[503] Strictures, p. 243.

[504] See p. 388 above.

[505] See pp. 280-1.

[506] To Lord Liverpool, May 23.

[507] To Beresford, May 14. The 30,000 total allows for Spencer and four divisions being left in the North.

[508] To Lord Liverpool, May 24.

[509] To Lord Liverpool, May 23.

[510] Apparently on April 10, according to Schwertfeger’s History of the German Legion, i. 329.

[511] He outrode his own estimate, since according to a letter to Charles Stuart (Dispatches, vii. 572) he had intended not to reach Elvas till the 21st, ‘unless I see reason on the road to go a little quicker.’

[512] Memorandum for Spencer, dated May 15th, the night before Wellington’s departure. Dispatches, vii. p. 567.

[513] To Spencer, May 24. Dispatches, vii. p. 602.

[514] This is mentioned by Wellington himself (Stanhope’s Conversations, p. 90): ‘He could not stand the slaughter about him and the vast responsibility: the letter was quite in a desponding tone. It was brought me by Arbuthnot while I was at dinner at Elvas, and I said, “This won’t do: write me down a victory.” So the dispatch was altered accordingly.’

[515] Wellington to Beresford, May 19, 4.30 p.m.

[516] Bron’s brigade was composed of the 4th, 20th, 26th Dragoons, Bouvier’s of the 14th, 17th, 27th Dragoons, Vinot’s of the 2nd Hussars and 27th chasseurs, Briche’s of the 10th Hussars and 21st chasseurs.

[517] 1st, 5th, 7th, 8th of the Line, only 9 squadrons altogether, and slightly over 1,000 sabres.

[518] Apparently a squadron each of Borbon and Reyna, the rest of the Spanish cavalry being on the Monasterio Road. Penne Villemur was sick at Villafranca. Strength about 300 sabres.

[519] Lumley in his very modest dispatch (Wellington, Supplementary Dispatches, xiii. pp. 654-6) under-estimates the damage he had done to the enemy. He states his 78 prisoners, and notes that 29 French dead had been counted, but only speaks of 50 wounded. There were really over 200. In combats with the arme blanche, the number of killed is always very small compared with that of the wounded, which here was about 8 to 1—not at all an unusual proportion in cavalry fights. A good account from the French side may he found in Picard’s Histoire de la Cavalerie, 1792-1815, vol. ii. pp. 315-16.

[520] Only two squadrons strong, because the remainder of the regiment was at Cadiz: it had (as will be remembered) done good service under Graham at Barrosa.

[521] It arrived by June 1st, according to Mr. Atkinson’s useful list of Wellington’s divisional organization.

[522] Mulcaster’s company, the first to arrive, reached Spain some weeks later. By the time of the third siege of Badajoz in 1812 there were so many as 115(!) military artificers available.

[523] Refer back to pp. 283-4 for details.

[524] D’Urban’s diary under June 10th, when the siege was just developing into an acknowledged failure.

[525] 30 brass 24-pounders, 4 16-pounders, 4 ten-inch howitzers, 8 eight-inch ditto, according to Dickson’s letter of May 29. See his papers, ed. Leslie, p. 394. I follow him rather than Jones’s Sieges of the Peninsula, where they differ, as he is absolutely contemporary authority, and was the officer in charge of everything.

[526] Dickson Papers, ed. Leslie, p. 405.

[527] Jones, Sieges of the Peninsula, i. p. 54.

[528] Jones, Sieges of the Peninsula, i. p. 57.

[529] This decision was the result of the report of an engineer officer, Lieutenant Forster, who crept up to the edge of the ditch during the night of the 5th-6th, and saw much rubble therein.

[530] Details of the orders for the assault may he found on pp. 62-3 of Jones’s Sieges, vol. i.

[531] 51st Regiment: 3 killed, an officer and 35 men wounded, 3 missing = 42.

85th Regiment: 2 officers and 6 men wounded = 8.

17th Portuguese: 9 killed, 2 officers and 26 men wounded = 37.

Chasseurs Britanniques and Brunswick Oels: 7 wounded.

Engineers: 1 officer mortally wounded. Jones says (i. 65) 12 killed and 90 wounded, but D’Urban gives the number stated above, and the figures of the returns bear him out.

[532] Lamare, p. 193.

[533] The forlorn hope was again led by Dyas of the 51st.

[534] For details see Houston’s orders on pp. 77-9 of Jones’s vol. i.

[535] French observers in the fort noted one attempt made by men of their own nationality, from the Chasseurs Britanniques. A young officer, calling ‘Je monte, suivez-moi,’ got to the top of the ladder with two or three of his soldiers, ran some feet forward up the lip of the breach, and was then bayoneted. This must have been Lieutenant Dufief of the C.B., the only officer of the corps returned as hurt in the storm. See Lapéne’s Campagne de 1810-11 dans le Midi de l’Espagne, p. 210.

[536] The losses were, according to the report:—