[260] Details in a dispatch to Colonel Austin of March 15, Dispatches, viii, p. 666. General scheme in a letter to Castaños of Feb. 16. Ibid., p. 614.
[261] ‘Something too like a panic was occasioned at the head of the 7th by the appearance of the few French dragoons and the galloping back of the staff and orderlies. A confused firing broke out down the column without object! Mem.—Even British troops should not be allowed to load before a night attack.’ D’Urban’s diary, March 26.
[262] For details of this forgotten campaign I rely mainly on D’Urban’s unpublished diary. As he knew Estremadura well, from having served there with Beresford in 1811, he was lent to Graham, and rode with his staff to advise about roads and the resources of the country.
[263] The letter may be found in King Joseph’s Correspondance, viii. pp. 345-6. See also Girod de l’Ain’s Vie militaire du Général Foy, pp. 368-9.
[264] This man is mentioned in Wellington’s Dispatches, viii. p. 609: ‘The Sergent-major des Sapeurs and Adjudant des travaux and the French miner may be sent in charge of a steady non-commissioned officer to Estremoz, there to wait till I send for them.’
[265] This renegade’s name must have been Bonin, or Bossin: I cannot read with certainty his extraordinary signature, with a paraphe, at the bottom of his map. The English engineers used it, and have roughly sketched in their own works of the third siege on top of the original coloured drawing.
[266] When he commanded the 1st Division of the 1st Corps under Vandamme, and was present when that corps was nearly all destroyed on Aug. 30, 1813, at Culm.
[267] Jones, Sieges of the Peninsula, i. p. 163.
[268] These swords were those of the large body of Spanish dismounted cavalry which had surrendered at the capitulation in March 1811.
[269] This fact, much insisted on by Jones, is disputed by certain Light Division witnesses, but does not seem to be disproved by them.
[270] My attention was called to this letter, found among Lord Liverpool’s papers in 1869, by Mr. F. Turner, of Frome.
[271] Printed in Belmas, iv, Appendix, p. 369, and dated March 26.
[272] The story may be found in Kincaid, p. 114, and in several other sources.
[273] Document in Belmas, iii. p. 287.
[274] Ibid., p. 442.
[275] Published in the collection of Mémoires sur la guerre d’Espagne in 1821.
[276] By Colonel Callwell, in an article in Blackwood’s Magazine for September 1913.
[277] See Belmas, ii. p. 381.
[278] Ibid., ii. pp. 844-5.
[279] Text in the Defence of Tarifa, p. 64, and in Arteche.
[280] Belmas, iv. p. 202.
[281] Kincaid, p. 39.
[282] Leith Hay, ii. pp. 256-7.
[283] Memoirs of Donaldson of the 94th, p. 158.
[284] Wellington, Supplementary Dispatches, vii. p. 311.
[285] It is said on good first-hand authority that all the inmates of an asylum for female lunatics were raped. See Lettow-Vorbeck, Geschichte des Krieges von 1806-7, ii. p. 384.
[286] Hodenberg of the K.G.L. See his letters published in Blackwood’s Magazine for March 1913, by myself.
[287] Recollections of Col. P. P. Nevill, late Major 63rd [but with the 30th at Badajoz], pp. 15-16.
[288] Donaldson of the 94th, p. 159.
[289] The letter is printed in Marmont’s Correspondance, iv. pp. 304-5.
[290] This Soult quotes in his recriminatory letter to Marmont of April 8, and in his angry dispatch to Berthier of the same date (printed in King Joseph’s Correspondance, viii. p. 355).
[291] The date is proved by the letter from Soult to Marmont of March 11, printed in Marmont’s Mémoires, iv. p. 359.
[292] The date is proved by Soult’s letter to the Emperor of that date from Santa Maria, in which he announces his intention to start, and says that he is writing to Marmont, to get him to unite the armies as soon as possible.
[293] See his Mémoires, p. 377.
[294] To be exact, 7,776 officers and men on March 1. He also brought with him some ‘bataillons d’élite’ of grenadier companies from Villatte’s division.
[295] The 55th, three battalions about 1,500 strong, the fourth being left at Jaen. Soult says in his dispatch of April 8 that he took a whole brigade from Leval, but the states of April 14 show the 32nd and 58th regiments of Leval’s division, and three of the four battalions of the 43rd, all left in the kingdom of Granada. Apparently three battalions of the 55th and one of the 43rd marched, about 2,200 strong.
[296] Though he calls them only 21,000 in his dispatches. But the figures [see Appendix no. VIII] show 23,500. The total in the monthly reports indicate 25,000 as more likely.
[297] The orders to Hill issued by Wellington on April 4 and 5 (Dispatches, ix. p. 30) contemplate two possibilities: (1) Soult is marching with his whole force on Villafranca, and Foy is remaining far away: in this case Hill is to move en masse on Albuera. This is the case that actually occurred; (2) if Foy is moving toward the Upper Guadiana, and Soult is showing signs of extending to join him, Howard’s British and Ashworth’s Portuguese brigades and Campbell’s Portuguese horse will stay at Merida as long as is prudent, in order to prevent the junction, and will break the bridge at the last moment and then follow Hill.
Wellington, when he wrote his first orders of the 4th to Hill, was intending to storm Badajoz on the 5th, and knew, by calculating distances, that Soult could not be in front of Albuera till the 7th. He ultimately chanced another day of bombardment, running the time limit rather fine. But there was no real risk with Graham and Hill at Albuera: Soult could not have forced them.
[298] He says in his letter to Berthier of April 8 that he had intended (but for the fall of Badajoz) to move by his right that morning, to the lower course of the Guadajira river—which would have brought on an action near Talavera Real, lower down the stream of the Albuera than the battle-spot of May 1811.
[299] See chapter ii above, pp. 54, 55.
[300] Berthier to Soult, Feb. 11. The same date as the fatal dispatch sent to Marmont, who was given a copy of that to Soult as an enclosure.
[301] More probably he would have brought only two divisions from north of the mountains, as he had to leave Bonnet to look after the Asturians, and Souham’s single division would hardly have sufficed to contain the Galicians, the Portuguese, and the Guerrilleros.
[303] Infantry divisions of Cruz Murgeon (5,400 men) and the Prince of Anglona (4,300 men) and five squadrons of horse, besides irregulars.
[304] Wellington to Col. Austin from Badajoz, April 9.
[305] Napier, I know not on what authority, says that Osuna was only defended by ‘Juramentados’ who made a gallant resistance against their own countrymen. But Soult, in a letter to Berthier dated April 21 from Seville, says that Osuna was held by some companies of the 43rd Line and a detachment of the 21st Dragoons. He cannot be wrong. Moreover, the 43rd shows losses at Osuna, April 13, in Martinien’s tables.
[306] Martinien’s tables show three officers killed and nine wounded at ‘Alora near Malaga’ on this date, in the 43rd, 58th Line, and 21st Dragoons. Soult’s dispatch makes out that only Rey’s advanced guard under Maransin was cut up, and that the main body defeated the Spaniards. If so, why did they retreat on Malaga?
[307] Soult to Berthier from Seville, April 17, 1812.
[308] This officer was in command of the brigade of Anson, then absent on leave, which at this time consisted of the 12th, 14th, and 16th Light Dragoons.
[309] There is a good account of all this in the admirable diary of Tomlinson of the 16th, which I so often have had to cite. He has an interesting note that the 16th in their charge found a stone wall in their way, and that the whole regiment took it in their stride, and continued their advance in perfect order (p. 150).
[310] Soult only acknowledges a loss of three officers and about 110 men in his dispatch of April 21 to Berthier, adding the ridiculous statement that the British had 100 killed and many more wounded, and that the 5th Dragoon Guards had been practically destroyed. Martinien’s tables show four French officers wounded and one killed, but (of course) take no account of unwounded prisoners. The British lost two missing, men who had ridden ahead in the pursuit into the French infantry.
[311] This was the brigade formerly under Barbaçena, 4th and 10th regiments.
[312] Mes dispositions étant faites pour une marche de quinze jours sur l’Agueda, déjà commencée, je continue ce mouvement, sans cependant (je le répète) avoir une très grande confiance dans les résultats qu’il doit donner.’ Marmont to Berthier, March 27.
[313] Wellington to V. Alten, April 18, ‘You were desired “not to be in a hurry,” to give them (España and General Baccelar) your countenance so far as might be in your power, and to tell them that you were left in the front for a particular object.... I beg you to observe that if you had assembled the 1st Hussars at Pastores on March 30 and April 1, the Agueda being then scarcely fordable for cavalry, you could have kept open the communications between Almeida and Ciudad Rodrigo.... You wrote on the seventh from Castello Branco that you knew nothing about the enemy! and instead of receiving from you (as I had expected) a daily account of their operations, you knew nothing, and, from the way in which you made your march, all those were driven off the road who might have given me intelligence, and were destined to keep up the communication between me and Carlos de España.’
[314] For complaints by Le Mesurier as to the defects of the place when he took over charge of it on March 18, see his letter of the 28th of the same month, to Wellington, in the Appendix to Napier, iv. pp. 450-1.
[315] The observation comes from D’Urban’s unpublished Journal.
[316] Wellington to Alten, Dispatches, ix. p. 69. ‘You were positively ordered by your instructions to go to Castello Branco and no farther. The reason for this instruction was obvious. First the militia of Lower Beira would be there in the case supposed [that of Marmont’s making an invasion south of the Douro], and they were there. Secondly, as soon as I should be informed of the enemy’s approach to the Coa, it would be necessary for me to assemble a force at Castello Branco—of which the foundation would be the 1st Hussars K.G.L. Yet notwithstanding my orders you marched from Castello Branco on the 8th, and crossed the Tagus on the 9th. Till I received your letter I did not conceive it possible that you could so far disregard your instructions.’
[317] I cannot resist quoting here, as an example of Trant’s over-daring and reckless temperament, his letter to Wilson, urging him to co-operate in the raid, which was lent me by Wilson’s representative of to-day:—
Guarda, 11th April, 1812.
My dear Wilson,—I arrived last night. Hasten up your division: there never was a finer opportunity of destroying a French corps, in other words and in my opinion, their 2nd Division: but I have no certainty of what force is the enemy. At any rate send me your squadron of cavalry, or even twenty dragoons. I am very ill-treated by Baccelar in regard to cavalry. Push on yourself personally. You know how happy I shall be in having you once more as the partner of my operations. Order up everything you can from Celorico to eat: here there is nothing.—Yrs. N. T.
The French 2nd Division was Clausel’s, as it chanced, the one that was precisely not at Sabugal, but executing the raid on Castello Branco.
[318] Wellington to Trant, Dispatches, ix. p. 73.
[319] Narrative of Trant in Napier’s Appendix to vol. iv. p. 451.
[320] There is an account of this rout from the French side in the Mémoires of Parquin, of the 13th Chasseurs, an officer mentioned in Marmont’s dispatch as having taken one of the flags. Parquin calls it that of the regiment of Eurillas. There was no such corps: those which lost standards were Aveiro, Oliveira, and Penafiel. A lengthy account may be found also in Beresford’s Ordens do Dia for May 7, where blame and praise are carefully distributed, and the curious order is made that the disgraced regiments are to leave their surviving flags at home, till they have washed out the stain on their honour by good service in the field.
[321] Marmont to Berthier: Fuente Guinaldo, April 22. ‘Les rapports des prisonniers sont que trois divisions de l’armée anglaise reviennent sur le Coa. Mais cette nouvelle ayant été donnée avec affectation par les parlementaires, et n’ayant vu jamais autre chose que le seul 1er de Hussards Allemands, qui était précédemment sur cette rive, et point d’infanterie, ni rien qui annonce la présence d’un corps de troupes, je suis autorisé à croire que c’est un bruit qu’on a fait courir à dessein, et qu’il n’y a pas d’Anglais en présence. Je suis à peu près certain qu’il a parti de Portalègre deux divisions, qui se sont portées à Villa Velha: mais il me paraît évident qu’elles ne se sont beaucoup éloignées du Tage.’ The actual situation was 1st Hussars K.G.L. Quadraseyes in front of Sabugal: Light Division, Sabugal: 3rd Division, Sortelha: 4th Division, Pedrogão, 5th Division, Alpedrinha; 1st, 6th, 7th Divisions, Losa: Pack’s Portuguese, Memoa. The map will show what a fearful situation Marmont would have been in had he halted for another day.
[322] Wellington to Liverpool, April 7, Dispatches, ix. p. 43.
[323] Wellington to Henry Wellesley, April 4, Dispatches, ix. p. 29.
[324] Wellington to Alten, April 18, Dispatches, ix. p. 68, ‘I beg to observe that if you had assembled the 1st Hussars at Pastores on the 30th March and 1st April ... you would have kept open the communication between Almeida and Ciudad Rodrigo, and the convoy would probably have got into the latter place.’
[325] The date can be fixed from D’Urban’s Journal: ‘Marmont has blockaded Rodrigo, reconnoitred Almeida, and has now made an inroad as far as Fundão: all this obliges a movement toward him. April 11.’
[326] 5th and 17th from Elvas, 22nd from Abrantes.
[327] All these movements are taken from the elaborate tables in D’Urban’s Journal for these days.
[329] Letter in the D’Urban Papers.
[330] See the Life of Surgeon-General Sir Jas. McGrigor, pp. 284-96. I have before me, among the Scovell papers, Grant’s original signed parole as far as Bayonne, witnessed by General Lamartinière, the chief of Marmont’s staff. It was captured by Guerrilleros in Castile, and sent to Wellington. Accompanying it is the General’s private letter, commending Grant to the attention of the French police, with the explanation that he was only not treated as a spy because he was captured in British uniform, though far in the rear of the French outpost line.
[331] Wellington to Graham, Castello Branco, April 18, Dispatches, ix. p. 70.
[332] Marmont to Berthier, Fuente Guinaldo, April 22 [original intercepted dispatch in Scovell Papers]: ‘J’ai eu la plus grande peine à faire arriver mon artillerie sur la rive droite de cette rivière. Les ponts que j’avais fait construire sur l’Agueda ayant été détruits par les grandes crues d’eau, et n’ayant pas la faculté de les rétablir, je n’ai su d’autre moyen que de la diriger par les sources de cette rivière, et les contreforts des montagnes.’ The wording of Wellington’s intercepted copy differs slightly from that of the duplicate printed in Ducasse’s Correspondence of King Joseph, viii. pp. 404-10.
[333] Intercepted dispatch in the Scovell Papers, Fuente Guinaldo, April 22, quoted above.
[334] See Marmont’s Mémoires, iv. p. 202. Jardet’s long report to Marmont was captured on its journey out to Salamanca from Paris, and lies among the Scovell Papers.
[335] King Joseph had been prepared for the formal proposal by a tentative letter sent off to him about three weeks earlier, on February 19, inquiring whether it would suit him to have Jourdan as his Chief-of-the-Staff, supposing that the Emperor went off to Russia and turned over the command in Spain to him. See Ducasse’s Correspondence, ix. p. 322.
[336] This is proved by Berthier’s letter to King Joseph of April 16 (Ducasse’s Correspondence of King Joseph, viii. p. 382), which says that he has just received Marmont’s dispatch of March 30 acknowledging his own of March 16, and that the Marshal now knows that he must obey orders from Madrid.
[337] Soult to Berthier from Seville, April 17.
[338] A copy of this print is among the Scovell Papers: it does credit to the Valencian press by its neat appearance.
[339] The question about the Army of the North is a very curious one. The authorized copy of the dispatch of May 16, printed in Napoleon’s correspondence and in Ducasse’s Correspondence of King Joseph, certainly omits its name. But the King declared that in his original copy of it Dorsenne and his army were mentioned as put under his charge. In one of the intercepted dispatches in the Scovell Papers, Joseph writes angrily to Berthier, giving what purports to be a verbatim duplicate of the document, and in this duplicate, which lies before my eyes as I write this, the Army of the North is cited with the rest.
[340] One of Marmont’s colonels in the province of Segovia was at this moment threatening to use armed force against the King’s troops for resisting his requisitions. See Miot, iii. p. 222.
[341] See Miot de Melito’s Mémoires, iii. p. 215.
[342] Jourdan’s Mémoires, p. 384.
[343] Oddly enough this letter was in duplicate, and while one copy fell into Joseph’s hands, the other was captured by guerrilleros and sent to Wellington. The cipher was worked out by Scovell, and the contents gave Wellington useful information as to the relations between Soult and the King. See below, pages 530-39.
[344] Printed whole in Jourdan’s Mémoires, pp. 386-94.
[345] i. e. for the collection of troops in the valley of the Tagus, to join Foy and operate for the relief of Badajoz.
[346] See Jourdan to Berthier of April 3, 1812.
[347] See Jourdan’s Mémoire, quoted above, p. 304.
[348] Jourdan to Suchet, April 9, 1812.
[349] Jourdan’s Mémoires, pp. 395-6.
[351] Dispatches, ix. p. 173.
[352] The cipher-originals are all in the Scovell papers, worked out into their interpretation by that ingenious officer: Wellington only kept the fair copies for himself. The dispatches are dated Sabugal, 11 April (to Brennier about the Agueda bridge); Sabugal, April 16 (to Berthier); Fuente Guinaldo, April 22 (to Berthier). The last two are full of the most acrimonious criticism of Napoleon’s orders for the invasion of Beira. Scovell made out much, but not all, of the contents of these letters.
[353] All the originals are in the Scovell Papers.
[354] It is the one printed in Ducasse’s Correspondence of King Joseph, viii. pp. 413-17.
[356] Original in the Scovell Papers. Place of capture uncertain, but clearly taken by guerrilleros between Seville and Madrid.
[357] See above, pp. 269-70.
[358] Wellington to Graham, Fuente Guinaldo, May 4, Dispatches, ix. p. 114.
[359] Ibid., p. 101.
[360] D’Urban’s unpublished diary, under May 6.
[361] Minus, of course, the 13th Light Dragoons.
[362] Erskine was the senior officer left with the corps—a dangerous experiment. One marvels that Wellington risked it after previous experience.
[363] Wellington to Graham, May 7, Dispatches, ix. p. 128.
[364] This was the Tilson of 1809: he had lengthened his name.
[365] Captain MacCarthy of the 50th.
[366] The statement in Jones’s Sieges, i. p. 259, that the enemy were unaware of the turning column is disproved by the official reports of the surviving French officers Sêve and Teppe.
[367] The berm is the line where the scarp of the ditch meets the slope of the rampart: the scarp should be perpendicular, the rampart-slope tends backward, hence there is a change on this line from the vertical to the obtuse in the profile of the work. The berm should have been only a foot or so wide and was three.
[368] The official report of the French captain, Sêve of the 6th Léger, accuses the grenadiers of the 39th of giving way and bolting at the critical moment, and this is confirmed by the report of the chef de bataillon Teppe of the 39th, an unwilling witness.
[369] According to Teppe’s narrative they left the walls, and many hid in the bakehouses, while most of the officers headed the rush for the bridge.
[370] Foy says that the centre link of the bridge was not a regular pontoon but a river boat, which could be drawn out when the garrison wanted to open the bridge for any purpose, and being light it collapsed under the feet of the flying crowd (p. 163).
[371] The 92nd and the right wing of the 71st reached the tête-de-pont just as the fugitives from Fort Napoleon entered it, and swept away the garrison. They only lost two wounded.
[372] Gardyne’s history of the 92nd gives the names of two of these gallant men, Gauld and Somerville.
[373] Hill’s total of casualties is 2 officers and 31 men killed: 13 officers and 143 wounded. The second officer killed was Lieutenant Thiele of the Artillery of the K.G.L., accidentally blown up by a mine on the day of the evacuation. But two of the wounded officers died.
[374] Teppe by name, whose narrative, written in captivity, is our best source for the French side. It is a frank confession of misbehaviour by the troops—particularly the 4th Étranger.
[375] D’Armagnac also sent the battalion of Frankfort for the same purpose, which arrived late with less excuse. See Foy, p. 375.
[376] Dispatches, ix. p. 189.
[377] To both on June 1. Dispatches, ix. p. 197. Erskine’s name is the blank to be filled up.
[378] See vol. iv. pp. 133 and 191.