[379] Marmont to Foy, June 1.
[380] See Jourdan’s Mémoires, pp. 399-400.
[381] See vol. ii. p. 444.
[382] An officer probably better remembered by the general reader as the husband of Sarah Curran, Robert Emmet’s sometime fiancée, than as the executor of some of Wellington’s most important engineering works. He fell before Bayonne in 1814.
[383] See Wellington to Graham, 23rd and 24th May. Dispatches, ix. pp. 163-5.
[384] The best and most elaborate account of this is in Leith Hay, i. pp. 300-1.
[385] See Wellington to Henry Wellesley at Cadiz, June 7. Dispatches, ix. p. 219.
[386] An extraordinary case of Abadia’s ill will occurred in this spring: a damaged transport, carrying British troops to Lisbon, having put in to Corunna to repair, permission was refused for the men to land: apparently it was suspected that they were trying to garrison Corunna.
[387] For all this Galician business see the Life of Sir Howard Douglas, pp. 120-60.
[389] Chaves, Braganza, Miranda, Villa Real.
[390] Silveira already had Nos. 11 and 12, D’Urban brought up No. 1, which had not hitherto operated on this frontier.
[391] See Thiébault, Mémoires, v. p. 561.
[392] See vol. iii. pp. 486-7.
[394] See Lord Wellesley to Lord W. Bentinck, December 27, 1811, in Wellington’s Supplementary Dispatches, vii. p. 249.
[395] Bentinck to Lord Liverpool, January 25, 1812, ibid., pp. 290-1.
[396] Liverpool to Bentinck, March 4. Wellington’s Supplementary Dispatches, vii. p. 300.
[397] Liverpool to Wellington, March 5, ibid., p. 301.
[398] Bentinck to Wellington, February 23, ibid., p. 296.
[399] The answer to Lord Liverpool went off on March 20, that to Bentinck on March 24th.
[400] Whither the 2/67th, a company of artillery, and five companies of De Watteville’s Swiss regiment had been sent, on the news of Blake’s disasters before Valencia. Dispatches, viii. p. 448.
[401] The best source of information about these subsidized corps is the life of Sir Samford Whittingham, who raised and disciplined one of them in Majorca, on the skeletons of the old regiments of Cordova, Burgos, and 5th Granaderos Provinciales. He had only 1,500 men on January 1, 1812, and 2,200 on February 21, but had worked them up to over 3,000 by April. Roche, who had to work on the cadres of Canarias, Alicante, Chinchilla, Voluntarios de Aragon, 2nd of Murcia, and Corona, had 5,500 men ready on March 1, and more by May. Whittingham maintains that his battalions always did their duty far better than other divisions, commanded by officers with unhappy traditions of defeat, and attributes the previous miserable history of the Murcian army to incapacity and poor spirit in high places.
[402] Henry Wellesley to Wellington. Supplementary Dispatches, vii. p. 320.
[403] See as evidence of eagerness Whittingham’s letter to Pellew of May 28 in the former’s Memoirs, p. 161.
[404] Liverpool to Bentinck, 4th March, quoted above.
[405] See Wellington to Lord W. Bentinck in Dispatches, ix. pp. 60-1.
[406] That veritable ‘stormy petrel of politics,’ Sir Robert Wilson, was passing through Sicily in May, and seems to have acted a mischievous part in visiting the Queen, and allowing her to set before him all her grievances against Bentinck, and the ‘Jacobin Parliament’ that he was setting up. She told Wilson that Bentinck ‘went to jails and took evidence of miserable wretches, actual malefactors or suspects, inducing them to say what he wished for his plans, and acting without any substantiating facts.’ As to the army Wilson gathered that ‘the Neapolitan soldiery hate us to a man, the Germans would adhere to us, the native Sicilians at least not act against us.’ But there were only 2,000 Sicilians and 1,900 Germans, and 8,000 Neapolitans and other Italians, eminently untrustworthy. [So untrustworthy were they, indeed, that the Italian corps sent to Spain in the autumn deserted by hundreds to the French.] See Wilson’s Private Diary, 1812-15, pp. 35-62.
[407] For details, see table in Appendix no. XIII.
[408] Suchet’s correspondence (in the Archives of the French War Ministry) begins to be anxious from July 6 onward. On that date he hears that ships are at Alicante to take Roche on board, who is to join a very large English force, and 15,000 (!) men from Majorca. On July 13th he hears that Maitland is to have 17,000 men, though only 3,000 British regulars.
[409] Wellington to Lord Bathurst, July 14: ‘I have this day received a letter from Lord W. Bentinck of the 9th of June, from which I am concerned to observe that his Lordship does not intend to carry into execution the operation on the east coast of the Peninsula, until he shall have tried the success of another plan on the coast of Italy. I am apprehensive that this determination may bring upon us additional forces of the Army of Aragon: but I still hope that I shall be able to retain at the close of this campaign the acquisitions made at its commencement.’ Dispatches, ix. p. 285.
[410] No silver crowns had been coined since 1760 at the Mint. They weighed 463 grains: the Spanish dollar only 415 grains.
[411] See Wellington to Lord Bathurst. Dispatches, vii. p. 370.
[412] Ibid., vii. p. 319.
[413] Wellington to Lord Liverpool, April 22. Supplementary Dispatches, vii. p. 318.
[414] Campbell to Shawe. Supplementary Dispatches, vii. p. 362.
[415] Wellington to Bathurst. Dispatches, ix. p. 277.
[416] The itinerary of this march in detail may be found in the excellent Diary of Tomkinson of the 16th Light Dragoons.
[417] Foy, who had been drawn away from the Tagus after the affair at Almaraz, had to march from Avila, Clausel from Peñaranda, Ferey from Valladolid, Sarrut from Toro, Maucune and Brennier had been at Salamanca, Thomières came from Zamora. Boyer’s dragoons were at Toro and Benavente, Curto’s light cavalry division had been with Maucune and Brennier at Salamanca. Valladolid, Avila, and Benavente were the most distant points: but the troops from them were all up by the 19th. Nor was it possible for Wellington to interfere with the concentration, though possibly he might have forced Foy from Avila to make a détour, if he had followed Marmont very close.
[418] Nor do we reckon the regiment of Sarrut’s division (130th) permanently detached at Santander.
[419] See tables of the armies of both sides in the Appendix no. IX.
[420] See Caffarelli to Marmont of June 10 and June 14th in Marmont’s Mémoires, iv. pp. 408-10.
[421] Jourdan to Marmont, June 14th, in Mémoires, iv. pp. 411-12.
[422] Tomkinson’s Diary, p. 162.
[423] Jones, Sieges, i. p. 269.
[424] At any rate Dickson was not, as he was with the howitzers that were coming up from Elvas, and had not started from Rodrigo with the army.
[425] Burgoyne’s diary in his Life, i. p. 192.
[426] Letter of F. Monro, R.A., lent me by his representative. See Fortnightly Review for July 1912.
[427] Nos. 2 and 3 in the map respectively.
[428] Of course a few rounds more for the howitzers could have been borrowed from the field-batteries with the divisions. For the 18-pounders, the really important guns, there was no such resource for borrowing.
[429] Acting vice G. Anson, absent.
[430] The 68th lost four officers and 46 men killed and wounded, and one officer taken prisoner. For a good account of the fight see the Memoirs of Green of the 68th, pp. 89-90.
[431] See Tomkinson’s Diary, p. 165.
[432] Tomkinson’s Diary, p. 166.
[433] Wellington to Liverpool, Salamanca, June 25, in Dispatches, ix. p. 252.
[434] The first two were great fire-eaters, and always urged action.
[435] Foy’s Vie militaire, ed. Girod de l’Ain, pp. 165-6.
[436] The 51st lost 3 killed and an officer and 20 men wounded: the 68th 2 killed and 6 wounded, the K.G.L. Light Battalions 3 killed and 3 officers and 17 men wounded. There are narratives of the combat in the Memoirs of Green of the 68th, and Major Rice and Private Wheeler of the 51st.
[437] Marmont to Joseph, night of the 22nd June, from bivouac before San Cristobal. Intercepted dispatch in the Scovell Papers.
[438] Jones, i. p. 281.
[439] The regimental history of the 53rd says that the ladders were so badly made, of green wood, that many of them came to pieces in the hands of their carriers long before they got near the fort.
[440] The loss has got exaggerated in many reports, because the casualties in the 7th Division at Morisco on the preceding day are added to the total.
[442] I find the name Ribera de Pelagarcia only in the more modern Spanish maps: contemporary plans do not give it.
[443] Tomkinson, p. 170: ‘Just before they began to retire, I thought that their advance looked serious. Our position was good, and if they had fought with what had crossed, our force would have been the greater.’
[444] This is one of the many cipher dispatches in the Scovell Papers, which I have found so illuminating in a period when Marmont’s writings, printed or in the French archives, are very few.
[445] Jones, Sieges of the Peninsula, i. p. 285.
[446] The total given by the governor to Warre of Beresford’s staff (see his Letters, ed. Dr. Warre, p. 270) were 3 officers and 40 men killed, 11 officers and 140 men wounded. Martinien’s lists show 12 officers hit, 5 in the 65th, 2 each in the 15th and 17th Léger, 1 each in 86th, artillery, and engineers. But these admirable lists are not quite complete.
[447] This is said to have been the result of the escort’s smoking round the store!
[448] Printed in Marmont’s Mémoires, iv. p. 410.
[449] If Marmont had marched for Alba de Tormes on the 28th, as he intended to do, Wellington would have had the 6th Division in hand, as well as the rest of his troops, for a battle on the 29th: for the forts fell early on the 27th June.
[450] See his explanation of his intentions in Mémoires, iv. pp. 219-20.
[451] In this dispatch and that of July 6 following, Marmont seems to understate his own force at the moment, saying that he can dispose of only 30,000 infantry, and 2,000 cavalry or a trifle over. Allowing for the artillery, engineers and sappers, gendarmerie and train, which the monthly returns show, this would give an army of some 35,000 or 36,000 in all. But the returns (see Appendix) indicate a higher figure for the infantry; after all deductions for detachments, garrisons, and sick have been made, it looks as if there must have been 33,000 or even 34,000 available. Generals with a ‘point to prove’ are always a little easy with their figures.
[452] This is again one of the Scovell intercepted cipher-dispatches, captured and brought to Wellington a day or two after it was written. It was a duplicate, and presumably the other copy reached Madrid.
[453] See Wellington to Lord Liverpool, June 25. Dispatches, ix. pp. 253-4, and to Hill, ix. pp. 256-7, and again to Lord Liverpool, ix. pp. 261-2.
[454] See Wellington to Lord Liverpool, June 18. Dispatches, ix. p. 241, and June 25, p. 253. There was also in Wellington’s hands an intercepted letter of Joseph to Soult of May 26, distinctly saying that if Marmont is attacked in June, D’Erlon must pass the Tagus and go to his help. This is in the Scovell ciphers.
[455] Wellington to Hill, July 11. Dispatches, ix. p. 281. The idea that Joseph might operate on his own account begins to emerge in the correspondence on the 14th. Dispatches, ix. p. 283.
[456] By no fault of his own, according to D’Urban. The orders for him to move were, by some delay at head-quarters, only forthcoming on June 8th. Only two of the four Tras-os-Montes militia regiments were then mobilized, and it took a long time to collect the rest and the transport needed for moving across the frontier.
[457] D’Urban’s manœuvres on both sides of the Douro are detailed at great length in his very interesting diary, and his official correspondence, both of which have been placed at my disposal. He worked on both sides of the Douro, but went definitely north of it after July 1.
[458] Two battalions of 23rd Léger and one of 1st Line from Thomières’s division.
[459] For the curious story of their ignorance of their own resources see Sir Howard Douglas’s Life, pp. 156-7.
[460] Dispatches, ix. p. 274.
[461] Ibid., ix. p. 276.
[462] An interesting dispatch from D’Urban to Beresford describes the information he had got on the 5th by a daring reconnaissance along Marmont’s rear: there was not that morning any French force west of Monte de Cubillos, six miles down-stream from Pollos.
[464] The 122nd Line had been in Mermet’s division, in January 1809, but they had been in reserve at Corunna, and had not fired a shot in that battle.
[465] Mémoires of Lemonnier-Delafosse of the 31st Léger, pp. 177-8.
[466] Wellington to Bathurst. Dispatches, ix. p. 284.
[467] Caffarelli to Marmont, in the latter’s Mémoires, iv. p. 417.
[468] Ibid., pp. 421-2.
[469] He sent finally only two regiments, not three as he had originally promised.
[470] Caffarelli to Marmont, in the latter’s Mémoires, iv. p. 425, announcing their departure.
[471] Original is in the Scovell ciphers. It seems to be unpublished.
[473] Joseph to Marmont, June 18, in Ducasse’s Correspondance, ix. pp. 28-39.
[474] Two battalions, the 1/38 and 1/5th, joined before the battle of the 22nd, bringing up the total force by 1,500 bayonets more.
[475] See the letter of Clarke to Marmont enclosing the Emperor’s indictment, in Marmont’s Mémoires, iv. pp. 453-4.
[476] See Supplementary Dispatches, xiv. p. 68.
[477] See Dispatches, ix. p. 294.
[478] Wellington to Clinton, July 16, 7 a.m. Dispatches, ix. p. 291.
[479] See report of one of the officers commanding patrols, Tomkinson of the 16th L.D. in the latter’s Memoirs, p. 180.
[480] Belonging one to the cavalry, the other to the Light Division.
[481] Tomkinson, p. 188.
[482] Compare Tomkinson’s narrative of this incident (pp. 180-1) with Napier’s vivid and well-told tale (iv. pp. 254-5). Both agree that the French were inferior in numbers to the two squadrons, and that there was deplorable confusion.
[483] See Vere’s Marches and Movements of the 4th Division, p. 28. Napier’s statement that the Light Division was more exposed than the 4th or 5th during the retreat, seems to be discounted by the fact that it had not one man killed or wounded—the 5th Division had only two (in the 3rd Royal Scots), the 4th Division over 200; and though most of them fell in the last charge, a good number were hit in the retreat.
[484] Vere’s Marches and Movements of the 4th Division, p. 28.
[485] Brotherton of the 14th L.D. says with the right échelon advanced (Hamilton’s History of the 14th, p. 107), but I fancy that the German Hussars’ version that the left échelon led is correct, as the right squadron of their regiment would have been in the middle of the brigade, not on a flank. See narrative in Schwertfeger, i. pp. 368-9.
[486] These are the official returns. The regimental histories give only 45 and 56 respectively.
Martinien’s lists show six casualties in officers in the two French regiments, and two more were taken prisoners, General Carrié and a lieutenant of the 25th Dragoons.
[487] Brotherton says that the first two squadrons which charged the French dragoons made no impression, and that it was the impact of the third, led by himself, which broke them.
[488] This was the 25th Léger.
[489] The exact figures, save for officers, are as usual missing. But Martinien’s invaluable lists show that of 41 French officers killed, wounded, or taken that day, 35 belonged to the four infantry regiments (17th and 25th Léger, 22nd and 65th Line) and the two cavalry regiments (15th and 25th Dragoons) which fought at Castrillo.
[490] For dismay expressed by Wellington at this news see dispatches to Henry Wellesley dated Rueda, July 15, and to Lord Bathurst (Dispatches, ix. pp. 285 and 287).
[491] See Wellington to Hill, Dispatches, ix. p. 290.
[492] Not July 17th, as Napier says. D’Urban’s diary proves that he recrossed the Douro on the 18th.
[493] He left one squadron near Zamora, to serve as covering cavalry for Silveira’s militia, who remained waiting for Santocildes’s advance, which they were to observe and support. His force was therefore reduced to 700 men.
[494] He adds in his Mémoires, iv. pp. 251-2, that if he had not succeeded in getting ahead of Wellington’s van, he had a counter-project of trying to get round his rear, but the British marched so exactly parallel with him that he got no chance of this.
[495] Marmont describes the formation (Mémoires, iv. p. 252) as ‘gauche en tête, par peloton, à distance entière: les deux lignes pouvaient être formées en un instant par à droite en bataille.’
[496] There is an excellent description of the parallel march in Leith Hay, ii. pp. 38-40, as well as in Napier.
[497] This swerve and its consequence are best stated in Vere’s Marches of the 4th Division, p. 30.
[498] Marmont says that if he had possessed a superior cavalry he could have made great captures, but he dared attempt nothing for want of sufficient numbers: he alleges that he took 300 stragglers—certainly an exaggeration as the British returns show very few ‘missing.’ Mémoires, iv. p. 233.
[499] The heavy cavalry in the British army were still wearing the old cocked hat, the new-pattern helmet with crest was not served out till 1813. The light dragoons were still wearing the black-japanned leather headdress with the low fur crest: in 1813 they got shakos, much too like those of French chasseurs.
[500] Napier says that this move was made on the night of the 20th, under cover of the smoke of the already-lighted camp-fires of the army. This is contradicted by Vere’s journal of march of the 4th Division, by Leith Hay’s Journal [’at daylight we marched to the Heights of San Cristoval’], by Tomkinson’s diary, and D’Urban, Geo. Simonds, and many others who speak of the move as being early on the 21st.
[501] This was the division of Sarrut.
[502] That the British cavalry were still at dawn so far forward as Calvarisa de Abaxo is shown by Tomkinson’s diary (p. 185), the best possible authority for light cavalry matters. The 4th Division camped in the wood just west of Nuestra Señora de la Peña (Vere, p. 31), the 5th on high ground in rear of Calvarisa de Ariba (Leith Hay, p. 45), the 7th a little farther south, also in woody ground (diary of Wheeler of the 51st).
[503] Leith Hay, ii. p. 46.
[504] Diary of Green of the 68th, p. 98.
[505] Marmont to Berthier, July 31, printed in Mémoires, iv. p. 443.
[506] Marmont, Mémoires, iv. p. 237.
[507] Dispatches, ix. p. 299, July 21st.
[508] Wellington to Bathurst, July 24. Dispatches, ix. p. 300.
[509] Again from dispatch to Bathurst, July 21st. Dispatches, ix. p. 296.