[537] Lamare, p. 179.
[538] Lapéne, p. 212. Cf. Lamare, p. 203.
[539] See Burgoyne’s Diary, i. p. 135: ‘There is an account current that his Lordship says if he undertakes another siege he will be his own engineer. Whatever faults were committed at Badajoz I suspect he was not aware of them, and I think it very doubtful whether he even knows them now. It appears to me probable that he did say so, by the mystery affected about our [the engineer] head quarters respecting the siege.’ Burgoyne, an engineer with his feelings hurt, under-values Wellington’s intelligence.
[541] These figures, given by Marmont in his Mémoires, iv. pp. 40-1, are borne out by the official states.
[542] Bessières writes to Berthier on May 23 that he has 4,000 men of the Army of Portugal, convalescents and drafts, in his government, who could be sent forward if there were officers to take charge of them. In reality the figures were even greater. There were also some 4,000 sick in the hospitals of the army at Salamanca, &c.
[543] Soult to Marmont, May 27th, printed in Marmont’s Mémoires, iv. 93-5. It contains much rhodomontade on the ‘successful’ action of Albuera, to which Marmont appends a caustic note, ‘Excellente plaisanterie que de représenter comme une victoire une bataille offensive dont le but n’a pas été atteint!’
[544] Mémoires, iv. [p]. 100.
[545] See especially Berliner to Marmont of May 27.
[546] Berthier to Marmont, 10th May, 1811.
[547] Berthier to Marmont, June 17th.
[548] Howard’s brigade consisted of the 1/50th, 1/71st, 1/92nd, and a rifle company of the 5/60th.
[549] The battalions which went home were the 2/28th, 29th, 2/48th, 2/39th.
[550] Light Division diaries (Simmons) show these to be the correct days.
[551] Wellington to Spencer, 2nd of June, Dispatches, vii. p. 633.
[552] Marmont says only one division, and I follow him here, as the best authority, though Foy in his Mémoires says two divisions.
[553] Slade’s and Barbaçena’s brigades. The other British cavalry brigade (Anson’s) had marched for the south on June 1, and was at this moment at Caria, near Castello Branco.
[554] Wellington was still more angry with Spencer for authorizing Pack to blow up the place, for the brigadier had very properly asked definite leave to do so from his immediate superior. Wellington argued that a proper reading of his dispatches would have showed Spencer that the destruction was only to be made in case Marmont actually marched on Almeida. See Dispatches, viii. p. 1.
[555] See Napier, iii. p. 312; Ainslie’s History of the Royals, pp. 120-1; Tomkinson, p. 105.
[557] Napier says that Spencer on his southern march ‘detached a division and his cavalry to Coria as flankers’ (iii. 312). I think this statement that the British flank-guard was pushed forward into Spain is an error, caused by the similarity of names between the Spanish Coria and Caria in Portugal, between Sabugal and Castello Branco. For it is certain that Anson’s cavalry brigade were at Caria June 3rd-9th, and then went on to Castello Branco and Villa Velha, while Slade’s cavalry were from the 7th to the 15th between Alfayates and Castello Branco. See the regimental histories.
[558] See Leach, p. 221.
[559] Napier’s statement (iii. p. 312) that ‘the Light Division did not leave a single straggler behind’ is contradicted by the note of Leach of the 95th (p. 221) that ‘on June 11 many hundreds of men were left by the wayside quite exhausted by the intense heat, which compelled us to make frequent halts by day and to proceed by night.’ Tomkinson also notes that the Light Division lost men, who fell dead from sunstroke while marching up the steep ascent to Niza on June 13th (p. 106). He says that the Light Division men were so willing that they marched on till the last possible moment, and reeled over to die.
[560] Foy’s Mémoires, ed. Girod de L’Ain, p. 146.
[561] According to a report brought to Wellington by a British intelligence-officer in that direction, as early as the 13th. But this is probably an error of a day. Dispatches, viii. p. 37.
[562] The regiments which received a battalion were the 40th, 64th, 88th, 100th, 103rd, 21st and 28th Léger of the 5th Corps, and the 16th Léger. The cavalry regiments which received squadrons were the 4th, 14th, 26th Dragoons.
[563] The 4th batts. of the 8th, 54th, 63rd, 24th, 45th, 94th, 95th, and 96th Line, and the 9th and 27th Léger. There were also odd squadrons of the 1st, 2nd, and 9th Dragoons.
[564] I follow Scovell, as an eye-witness, when he says that the bulk of the infantry crossed by the fords. Napier says they went over the flying-bridge below Badajoz (iii. p. 313). But Moyle Sherer (p. 167) says that the 2nd Division forded the Guadiana, and Vere’s Marches of the 4th Division (p. 17) says the same of Cole’s brigades.
[565] ‘The principal ford is by Porta de Coito, but there are five or six between that spot and Badajoz.’ Scovell’s diary, June 17.
[566] Dispatches, vii, last two pages of the volume.
[567] Dispatches, viii. pp. 3-4, 19, 20.
[568] See for his confidence in the combination his dispatch to Lord Liverpool of June 27. (Dispatches, viii. p. 57.)
[569] ‘Il était dans l’ivresse de la joie et de la reconnaissance,’ says Marmont (Mémoires, iv. p. 45). Soult’s letters to Berthier give Marmont a handsome testimonial.
[570] The French reports show that Wellington was wrong in thinking (Dispatches, vol. viii, June 22) that the enemy got no glimpse of the British infantry. They apparently detected the 3rd and 7th Divisions.
[571] The remainder under Major von Busche was still at Cadiz. It will be remembered that it took a distinguished part in the battle of Barrosa.
[572] The loss was 8 killed, 1 officer and 20 men wounded, 1 officer and 35 men unwounded prisoners.
[573] There are two good accounts of this skirmish near Quinta de Gremezia, one in a letter by Captain von Stolzenburg of the hussars (in Schwertfeger’s History of the K.G.L., ii. 247), the other by George Farmer, a trooper of the 11th Light Dragoons, whose little autobiography was published by Gleig in 1844, under the title of The Light Dragoon, see vol. i. pp. 92-7. Farmer says that the French dragoons in their rear were taken at first for Portuguese squadrons coming up from Elvas to reinforce the line.
[574] Wellington to Lord Liverpool, Dispatches, viii. p. 58.
[575] Wellington to Erskine (then commanding the cavalry division to which the 11th belonged), June 22. Dispatches, viii. p. 40.
[576] They exist in the D’Urban papers, though not printed in the Wellington dispatches, and fall into three sections: What is to be done if the French attack (1) the left (near Campo Mayor); (2) the centre (along the Caya); (3) the right (by Elvas).
[577] This description of the allied position differs, it may be noted, from Napier’s (iii. p. 314), where it is said that the 1st Division was retained at Portalegre as a general reserve. I think that this is an error for the 5th Division—perhaps a printer’s error perpetuated through many editions—like some others in his great work. For the journals of the Guards’ brigade of the 1st Division (Stothert, p. 259; Stepney, p. 130) show that it left Portalegre on the 19th, and was at Santa Olalla near Elvas on the 23rd. Oddly enough, Lord Londonderry makes the same mistake (ii. 170), saying that Spencer was kept back at Portalegre with his whole corps (i. e. the 1st, 5th, 6th Divisions). Gomm’s diary (p. 226) vouches for the 5th and 6th being near Portalegre on the 24th.
[578] The last morning states of the army, those of mid June, give a total for the British of 1,843 officers and 33,205 men of all arms fit for service. Roughly the details are: Cavalry, 3,600; 1st Division, 5,000; 2nd Division, 4,100; 3rd Division, 3,300; 4th Division, 3,300; 5th Division, 3,200; 6th Division, 3,100; 7th Division (including Alten’s brigade), 3,000; Light Division, 2,900; Artillery, Engineers, &c., 2,300. Portuguese units: three weak cavalry brigades (Madden, Otway, Barbaçena), 1,400; nine and a half infantry brigades (Ashworth, Pack, Power, Spry, Collins, Campbell, Fonseca, Harvey, Coleman, and Elder’s Caçadores) varying from 1,500 to 2,200 bayonets, 17,000; Artillery, 800. I cannot understand Napier’s statement that there were only 14,000 Portuguese present, 17,000 seeming the lowest possible figure. Wellington (to Lord Liverpool, June 24) says that he has 41,000 effective rank and file of infantry; adding (as usual) one-eighth more for officers, sergeants, and staff, we get 46,000 total for infantry. Now 29,000 being certainly British (as by return above) there must be 17,000 Portuguese of all ranks, which tallies with the figure above. The artillery details are from the Dickson Papers, ed. Leslie, i. p. 407. D’Urban, under July 15th (when a regiment or two, e. g. the 68th, had joined from Lisbon), says that the allied total of rank and file was: Infantry, 44,600; Cavalry, 4,200; Artillery, 2,200 = 51,000 in all, or adding officers and sergeants, &c., about 57,500. This seems a high estimate for the infantry, but low for the cavalry and artillery.
[579] All these details are set out in full in the orders copied in D’Urban’s diary.
[580] These two noteworthy dispatches are accessible in the Appendix to vol. i of Belmas, to those who have not time to visit the Paris Archives.
[581] vol. iii. p. 316.
[582] Napier (iii. p. 317) suggests that since the stores of Elvas had run low, and its ammunition reserve in especial had been much depleted by the expenditure of shot and shell before Badajoz, the place was in such a dangerous condition that ‘Soult (had he known this state of affairs) might have passed the Guadiana by the fords, and by means of his pontoons from Badajoz, might have overpowered the Allies’ right, invested Elvas, and covered his army by lines, unless indeed the English general, anticipating the attempt, defeated him between the Caya and Elvas. This might not have been easy in an open country, which offered every advantage to the overwhelming cavalry and artillery of the French.’ With all humility, I must express my doubts as to the wisdom or practicability of this course. An army of 60,000 men, with another of 54,000 in its front, cannot, surely, venture to form the siege of a first-class fortress unless it has previously beaten the covering army in a general action. Napier suggests that Soult should push back Wellington’s right and surround Elvas. But the attempt must have brought on a general action, close under the walls of Elvas, in which the Allies would have had every advantage of position.
[583] Soult’s dispatch of June 24 says that he has just heard that Blake has gone off southward.
[584] Four battalions, two cavalry regiments, and a battery had been lent for the field army.
[585] Of the four regiments garrisoning that region three (12th Léger, 51st, 55th) had joined the Albuera army. Sebastiani had to lend several battalions to take their place.
[586] See Mémoires, iv. p. 47.
[587] i. e. two infantry divisions, and Briche’s light cavalry, 14,000 men, since the drafts had come under Drouet.
[588] When a siege seemed probable General Leite demolished a number of houses and trees too close to the walls, improved the works by clearing the ditch and strengthening parapets, and did his best to draw in all available provisions. This last was hard, when so large a friendly army was close at hand, eating up the country-side.
[589] Elaborate marching arrangements, and timing for all these destinations, are found in D’Urban’s diary under July 18.
[590] Dispatches, vii. p. 503.
[591] The new arrivals were (see Atkinson’s ‘British Army in the Peninsula’ in English Historical Review for 1907): 2nd Hussars K.G.L. (15th April), 11th Light Dragoons (by June 1), 12th Light Dragoons (by July 1), 9th Light Dragoons (by August 1), 3rd Dragoons and 4th Dragoon Guards (before September 1). The brigading became—1st Division (Stapleton Cotton): Slade’s brigade, 1st Royals and 12th Light Dragoons; Anson’s brigade, 14th and 16th Light Dragoons; Alten’s brigade, 11th Light Dragoons, 1st Hussars K.G.L.; Le Marchant’s brigade, 3rd Dragoons and 4th Dragoon Guards. 2nd Division (Erskine): Long’s brigade, 2nd Hussars K.G.L., 9th and 13th Light Dragoons; De Grey’s brigade, 3rd Dragoon Guards, 4th Dragoons.
[593] To go into details, the 1st Division not only gave over Howard’s brigade (50th, 71st, 92nd) to Hill, but sent home the 7th Line battalion of the K.G.L., whose rank and file were drafted into the three senior Line battalions of that corps. From the 2nd Division the 2/28th, 29th, 2/39th, 2/48th went home, and the 1/48th was transferred to the 4th Division: but the 1/28th and 1/39th came out to Portugal and joined. The 3rd Division got one new battalion (77th) in July. In the 4th Division the 1/7th and 2/7th were amalgamated, but the number of battalions was kept as before by the transference of the 1/48th from the 2nd Division. The 6th Division got one new unit, the 2/32nd. The 7th Division took over Alten’s K.G.L. light battalions, and received the 68th, but sent home the 85th, after it had been only seven months in the Peninsula. Wellington refused to keep this regiment, which on its return to England went through a series of court-martials, testifying to grave internal faults.
[594] This was done by an Imperial decree issued on December 13th through Berthier.
[595] Silveira had only one infantry regiment of regulars (no. 24) and two squadrons of regular dragoons, as also two batteries of old artillery. Wilson had one squadron of regular dragoons.
[596] See especially Berthier to Bessières, of May 19, from Rambouillet.
[597] See especially Wellington to General Walker (British attaché with the Army of Galicia), Dispatches, vii. p. 648, where the siege of Astorga and the troubling of Bonnet in Asturias are the operations recommended. Castaños was still titular Captain-General in Galicia as well as in Estremadura.
[598] The 113th were a new Tuscan regiment, raised in 1809, which had been practically destroyed in Catalonia, and sent home to recruit. The 32nd Léger was Genoese.
[599] For details of its movements see Napoleon’s Correspondance, 17,784, June 8th, 1811.
[600] This was a newly created regiment, formed out of a number of provisional battalions, which had been doing garrison duty in Biscay for the last year.
[601] Bessières grossly underrated his own force in a letter to Berthier of June 6th, in which he stated the whole at only 44,000 men.
[602] See Bessières to Berthier of June 6th, from Valladolid.
[603] I cannot discover which of the passes west of Pajares Castañon used. They are all difficult.
[604] The brigade (119th, 122nd Line) lost fourteen officers on June 23rd, which would argue total casualties of about 300 at the usual rate. But the Spaniards say that they took many prisoners and give the total French loss at 450.
[605] See especially his dispatch to Berthier of June 6: ‘On fait illusion à l’Empereur—tout le monde connaît le mode vicieux de nos opérations, &c.’—it is most free-spoken.
[606] For Thiébault’s character of Dorsenne see his Mémoires vol. iv. pp. 401-2.
[607] See Dispatches, vii. p. 648, for an account of Abadia’s good intentions, and viii. p. 128, for Wellington’s disappointment at their non-fulfilment.
[608] Our old acquaintance of Gamonal and Tamames.
[609] ‘Galicia was helpless, and Dorsenne would have taken Coruña and Ferrol if the arrival of Wellington on the Coa had not alarmed him,’ iii. p. 330. This statement shows a misconception of the situation.
[610] This general is not to be confused with Roguet, the Guard commander, though they were operating in regions close to each other, and often get mixed in contemporary narratives.
[611] From the Memoirs of Sir Howard Douglas, British commissioner with Abadia’s army, pp. 122-3.
[612] History of the Peninsular War, iii. p. 186.
[613] His troops had plundered the Portuguese peasantry freely during their rapid march, and actually came to skirmishing with the local Ordenança. For anecdotes by an eye-witness, Schepeler, see his book, i. p. 304.
[614] For which see Schepeler, p. 307. On a false alarm the troops began to embark on the transports without orders, and in great disarray. Blake, according to Schepeler, made a ridiculous spectacle of himself, by wading a long way through shallow water to get out to a small boat. There were no French within many miles.
[615] See table of the Army of Murcia (3rd Army) on June 1st, in Appendix XVII.
[616] See vol. iii. pp. 4 and 104.
[617] The Marquis had only taken over charge of Valencia from Charles O’Donnell a few weeks before.
[618] This provisional division of 9th Corps troops (see p. 445) had already sent off some of its battalions to join Victor before Cadiz, since the units belonged to the 1st Corps.
[619] There is a good account of this obscure campaign by Schepeler, an eye-witness, in his Spanische Monarchie, pp. 558-62, and a longer one in Arteche, vol. x.
[620] Schepeler (p. 460) mentions that during his short halt on the frontier of Murcia, Soult court-martialled and shot a French émigré officer in the Spanish service captured on the 9th—Charles Cléry, the son of the faithful servant of Louis XVI, who was so long with his master in the Temple prison. As he had been out of France for many years, first in the Austrian and then in the Spanish army, this was a cruel stretch of the idea of treason.
[622] One battalion each of the 44th and 115th Ligne and 1st of the Vistula, and the Italian Dragons de Napoléon.
[623] At Saragossa one battalion each of the 5th Léger and 117th Ligne; at Calatayud two battalions of 14th Ligne.
[624] Two battalions of the 44th, two of the 2nd of the Vistula.
[625] Three battalions of the 114th and two of the 121st, with two squadrons of cuirassiers.
[626] Two battalions of the 115th Ligne.
[627] Two battalions of the 121st Ligne.
[628] One battalion of the 115th, one of the 3rd of the Vistula, and apparently some of the Neapolitans.
[629] Down to this winter Suchet could only communicate with France up the Ebro and sent messengers via Tudela and Pampeluna, but he had just opened a somewhat shorter route for himself via Jaca and Oleron, which saved three days. Even so, communications were intolerably slow. See Suchet’s Mémoires, ii. p. 9.
[630] As Suchet remarks (ii. p. 17) the Emperor at Paris could have the news of the fall of Figueras on April 15th or 16th, while he himself only got it on April 21st.
[631] For all these arguments and others see Suchet’s Mémoires, ii. pp. 5-18.
[632] See vol. i. p. 37.
[633] Vacani, iii. p. 25, says that the best part of the garrison had been out on an expedition in the hills all the day, seeking for the bands who were said to be threatening the French frontier. They returned late at night tired out, and slept the sleep of the weary, while recruits and convalescents were furnishing the few guards considered necessary in such a strong place. A picket of Neapolitans who were in charge of the main gate were captured without resistance, being attacked, to their surprise, from the inside of the fortress.
[634] Napier suggests (iii. 222) that Peyri might have tried to assail San Fernando before the enemy was properly settled down into it. This seems a most doubtful criticism: he had only 650 men of drafts with him; neither he nor they knew the topography of the fortress; it was pitch dark; the strength of the enemy was unknown. The garrison had succumbed in a few minutes despite of all its advantages of position. To attack would have been foolhardy.
[635] See Napoleon, Correspondance, xxii. no. 17,644. Plauzonne’s regiments were the 3rd Léger, 11th and 79th Line, and four battalions of the 67th Line and one of the 16th Léger also crossed the frontier.
[636] So the French narratives. Martinien’s lists show three officers killed and thirteen wounded on May 3 before Figueras. The regiments which suffered most were the 3rd and 23rd Léger, each with one officer killed and four wounded.
[637] The regulars left in San Fernando were two battalions of Voluntarios de Valencia, one of Ultonia, and two of Antequera.
[638] The composition of the divisions of the Army of Catalonia was shifting, and hard to follow, but (as far as I can make out) Courten’s division consisted of three battalions of Granada, two each of Almanza, Almeria, and America, while the sedentary garrison contained four or five battalions of the new Catalan ‘Sections’ or ‘local line,’ besides a battalion of Voluntarios de Tarragona.
[639] Apparently there was in 1811 no road of this sort, up the steep slope above the railway station of to-day; the main chaussée from Valencia entered the upper city at its north-western end, and there was no good road for carriages up the south-western point, as there is now (the so-called Despeñaperros).
[640] Long since built over. The line of the old fortifications of the upper city is now marked by a broad promenade, the Rambla de San Juan.
[641] It is a stiff climb up a very steep ascent to enter the upper city by its ‘Barcelona Gate.’
[642] The regiments that landed with Campoverde seem to have been the 2nd of Savoia (2 battalions), Voluntarios de Gerona, and two of the Andalusian regiments which had formed the core of Reding’s old Granadan division, which marched to Catalonia in 1808, viz. Iliberia and Santa Fé, the first three battalions strong, the other with two.
[643] This discovery was the work of the Italian engineer officer Vacani, whose work on the campaign of the Italian troops of Napoleon in Spain is one of the most valuable of our original sources. See his vol. v. pp. 175-6. He was with the assaulting column.
[644] Three battalions of Iliberia were holding the fort on the 29th; they had been much tried, and two battalions of the sister-regiment of Almeria were coming up to relieve them.
[645] Vacani is very positive that the stormers at the aqueduct got into the fort before those at the gorge.
[646] Suchet says that except 70 officers and 1,000 men taken prisoners ‘the whole of the rest of the garrison had perished’ (ii. 60). Belmas (iii. 502) speaks of 970 prisoners and says that 1,200 were killed, but acknowledges that ‘some of the Spaniards’ got away. Vacani (v. 187) says that ‘many’ Spaniards escaped, but that the bulk of six battalions were destroyed, 1,000 being captured and 1,200 slain. The governor, Contreras, says that there were 4,000 men in the fort, and that somewhere about 2,000 were killed or wounded (p. 248). But the figures must have been lower: Iliberia was about 1,500 strong, Almeria about 1,200: there were also 200 gunners in the fort: the total garrison therefore was about 3,000. But at the end of the siege, a month later, Iliberia surrendered 368 unwounded men, and Almeria 464. They must have lost many hundreds during the last six weeks of the leaguer, yet were still 832 strong. It is hard to see that they can have lost more than 1,200 or 1,300 between them on May 29, and very probably Toreno and Arteche are right in putting the total loss at only 1,100 and odd. If so, the killed, including the gunners, must have been only between 300 and 400. The ever-accurate Schepeler gives 1,200 for the total loss (p. 433), and I suspect is nearest of all to the truth. Napier, as usual, merely reproduces Suchet’s figures.
[647] See his pamphlet on the defence of Tarragona and his own responsibilities, printed in the 3rd volume of Mémoires sur la Guerre d’Espagne.
[648] Apparently 3rd battalion of Cazadores de Valencia, and 1st battalion of the First regiment of Savoia. This last must be carefully distinguished from the 1st battalion of the Second regiment of Savoia, which belonged to the Catalan army, and had already been brought into Tarragona on May 10th by Campoverde. See the history of the two in the Conde de Clonard’s colossal work on the regimental histories of the Spanish line.