FOOTNOTES
[1] August 23, from Madrid, Dispatches, ix. p. 374.
[2] Certainly Carlos de España and Morillo, probably some of the Galicians, and even some of Elio’s or Ballasteros’ troops from the South, if they proved able to feed themselves and march.
[3] Dispatches, ix. p. 424, to General Dumouriez, to whom Wellington often sent an illuminating note on the situation.
[4] Dispatches, ix. pp. 390-1. Alten had the 3rd, 4th, Light, and España’s divisions.
[5] Dispatches, ix. p. 377.
[6] Ibid., ix. pp. 383-4 and 386-7.
[7] Ibid., ix. p. 398.
[8] The best account of all this is in the diary for August of Tomkinson of the 16th Light Dragoons, who was in charge of the outlying party that went to Valtanas.
[9] The actual numbers (as shown in the tables given in vol. v, Appendix xi—which I owe to Mr. Fortescue’s kindness) were July 15, 49,636; August 1, 39,301. The deficiency of about 600 cavalry lost had been more than replaced by Chauvel’s 750 sabres. There was a shortage of twenty guns of the original artillery, but Chauvel had brought up six.
[10] Dispatch printed in King Joseph’s Correspondence, ix. p. 64.
[11] Clausel to Clarke, August 18th, 1812.
[12] The 2nd, 4th, 6th, and 25th Léger, the 1st, 15th, 36th, 50th, 62nd, 65th, 118th, 119th, 120th Line had to cut themselves down by a battalion each: the 22nd and 101st, which had been the heaviest sufferers of all, and had each lost their eagle, were reduced from three to one battalion each. There had been seventy-four battalions in the Army of Portugal on July 1st: on August 1st there were only fifty-seven.
[13] See ‘Memorandum for General Santocildes’ of August 5. Dispatches, ix. pp. 344-5.
[14] Dispatches, ix. pp. 389-90.
[15] The best account of all this is not (as might have been expected) in Foy’s dispatches to Clausel, but in a memorandum drawn up by him in 1817 at the request of Sir Howard Douglas, and printed in an appendix at the end of the life of that officer (pp. 429-30). Sir Howard had asked Foy what he intended to do on the 23rd-27th August, and got a most interesting reply.
[16] Diary of Foy, in Girod de l’Ain’s Vie militaire du Général Foy, p. 182.
[17] Wellington to Bathurst, August 18th.
[18] Wellington to Castaños, September 2. Dispatches, ix. p. 394.
[19] See especially Sir Howard Douglas’s Memoirs, pp. 206-7, and Tomkinson’s diary, p. 201. Napier is short and unsatisfactory at this point, and says wrongly that Clausel abandoned Valladolid on the night of the 6th. His rearguard was certainly there on the 7th.
[20] Castaños’s explanation was that Wellington’s letter of August 30, telling him to march on Valladolid, did not reach him till the 7th September, along with another supplementary letter to the same effect from Arevalo of September 3.
[21] ‘The proclamation was made from the town-hall in the square: few people of any respectability attended.’ Tomkinson, p. 202.
[22] Tomkinson, p. 203.
[23] Wellington to Henry Wellesley, Magaz, September 12. Dispatches, ix. p. 422.
[24] Napier, iv. p. 335.
[25] Napier was not with the main army during this march, the Light Division being left at Madrid. On the other hand Clausel had been very polite to him, and lent him some of his orders and dispatches (Napier, iv. p. 327). I fancy he was repaid in print for his courtesy. The diaries of Tomkinson, Burgoyne, D’Urban, and Sir Howard Douglas do not give the impression that the French ever stayed to manœuvre seriously, save on the 16th.
[26] Head-quarters were at Valladolid, September 9; Cigales, September 10; Dueñas, September 11; Magaz, September 12; Torquemada, September 13; Cordovilla, September 14; Villajera, September 15; Pampliega, September 16; Tardajos, September 17; Villa Toro, September 18. Ten stages in about 80 miles!
[27] Wellington to Sir E. Paget, September 20. Dispatches, ix. p. 436.
[28] One of the regiments withdrawn to the north after suffering at Arroyo dos Molinos, see vol. iv. p. 603.
[29] Wellington to Castaños. Dispatches, ix. p. 394.
[30] Wellington to George Murray. Dispatches, ix. p. 398.
[31] Wellington to Lord Bathurst. Dispatches, ix. p. 442.
[32] Jones, History of the Peninsular Sieges, i. p. 473.
[33] There were eight rank and file of the Royal Military Artificers only, of whom seven were hit during the siege, and five R.E. officers in all.
[34] By an odd misprint in Wellington’s Supplementary Dispatches, xiv. p. 120, the order is made to allot the flank-battalions instead of the flank-companies to the task.
[35] This narrative of the assault, not very clearly worked out in Napier—is drawn from the accounts of Burgoyne, Jones, the anonymous ‘Private Soldier of the 42nd’ [London, 1821], and Tomkinson, the latter the special friend and confidant of Somers Cocks.
[36] Wellington to Lord Bathurst. Dispatches, ix. pp. 443-4.
[37] For a dispute between the chief engineer, Burgoyne, who blamed the Portuguese, and some officers in the Portuguese service who resented his words, see Wellington, Supplementary Dispatches, xiv. p. 123.
[38] Clarke to Marmont of August 18, and to Masséna of August 19.
[39] Napoleon to Clarke, Moscow, September 12.
[40] See Wellington to Hill of October 2. Dispatches, ix. p. 463.
[41] Jones, i. p. 329.
[42] Indeed the besiegers had largely depended on a dépôt of French picks and shovels found by chance in the town of Burgos, after the siege had begun.
[43] See especially Tomkinson, an old comrade of Cocks in the 16th Light Dragoons, pp. 211-17.
[44] Wellington says 18 prisoners in his return. Dubreton claimed to have taken 2 officers and 36 men in his report. Possibly the difference was mortally wounded men, who were captured but died.
[45] Dispatches, ix. p. 450.
[46] Ibid., ix. p. 465.
[47] See Wellington to Castaños of 7 October. Dispatches, ix. p. 477.
[48] See Napier, iv. p. 412, who had the fact from Sir Edward Pakenham’s own mouth.
[49] Howard Douglas’s proposal to get up big guns at once on September 20 is detailed at length in his biography, pp. 210-11. Napier has a good deal to say on it. Jones and Burgoyne tell nothing about it, but they were evidently nettled at the idea that Douglas, who had no official position in the army, should have raised a proposal and got Wellington to listen to it. I fancy that Douglas is one of the officers alluded to by Burgoyne (Correspondence, i. p. 234) as unauthorized persons, who volunteered useless advice. Gomm, p. 287, says, ‘we have set to work idly without having the means we might have commanded.’
[50] Burgoyne, i. p. 220.
[51] Ibid., i. p. 233.
[52] Alexander Dickson remarks in his diary, p. 772, ‘This was done to please General Clinton, and had nothing to do with the attack.’ Clinton’s troops were opposite this side of the Castle, and had as yet not been entrusted with any important duty.
[53] Jones, i. p. 357.
[54] For this dialogue, told at length, see Burgoyne’s Correspondence, ed. Wrottesley, i. p. 235.
[55] So I make out from the returns, but Beamish’s and Schwertfeger’s Histories of the K.G.L. both give the lesser figure of 75—still sufficiently high!
[56] Wellington to Lord Bathurst, October 26.
[57] Burgoyne’s Correspondence, i. p. 236.
[58] Dubreton and Belmas speak of a ‘grand nombre d’Anglais écrasés,’ the latter says 300! (Belmas, iv. pp. 501 and 548). Putting aside the fact that there were no English here at all, we may remark that Burgoyne (i. p. 226) says that three Spaniards were buried in the ruins, and that the loss of the Portuguese in the whole affair is put at 8 killed, 44 wounded, and 2 missing in Wellington’s report.
[59] By knocking off their remaining trunnions, which made them permanently useless. Some of the captured French field-guns from the hornwork were also destroyed.
[60] For detailed losses see table in Appendix I.
[61] See vol. v. pp. 255-6.
[62] Burgoyne commanding, John Jones the historian, Captain Williams, and Lieutenants Pitts and Reid.
[63] Burgoyne, i. p. 230.
[64] Ibid., i. p. 233. There is much more in this interesting page of Burgoyne’s explanation of the failure, which I have not space to quote.
[66] Pringle was commanding the 5th Division (Leith being wounded); Bernewitz the 7th (Hope having gone home sick on September 23): Campbell, in charge of the 1st since Graham was invalided, was off duty himself for illness when relieved by Paget. Bock commanded the Cavalry Division vice Stapleton Cotton, wounded at Salamanca.
[67] Clearly expressed in letters as late as that to Hill of October 12.
[68] Viz. (figures of the Imperial Muster Rolls for October 15) Army of Portugal 32,000 infantry, 3,400 cavalry; Army of the North: Chauvel’s cavalry brigade (lent to the Army of Portugal since July) 700 sabres, Laferrière’s cavalry brigade 1,600 sabres, parts of Abbé’s and Dumoustier’s divisions 9,500 infantry. Allowing another 2,000 for artillery, sappers, &c., the total must have reached 53,000. Belmas says that Caffarelli and Souham had only 41,000 men. Napier gives them 44,000. Both these figures are far too low. No one denies that Caffarelli brought up about 10,000 men; and the Army of Portugal, by the return of October 15, had 45,000 effectives, from whom there are only to be deducted the men of the artillery park and the ‘équipages militaires.’ It must have taken forward 40,000 of all arms. See tables of October 15 in Appendix II.
[69] Wellington on the 11,000 Galicians, Hill on Carlos de España (4,000 men), Penne Villemur and Murillo (3,500 men), and the Murcian remnants under Freire and Elio, which got separated from the Alicante section of their Army and came under Hill’s charge, about 5,000.
[70] i. e. if they brought up Suchet’s troops from Valencia, beside their own armies.
[71] Wellington to Hill, October 10. Dispatches, ix. p. 82.
[72] Wellington to Hill, October 12. Ibid., p. 485.
[73] Wellington to Popham, October 12. Ibid., p. 486.
[74] Wellington to Mackenzie, October 13. Dispatches, ix. p. 487.
[75] See Wellington to Hill of October 14, and Wellington to Popham of October 17. Ibid., pp. 490 and 495.
[76] Dispatches, ix. p. 467.
[77] Schepeler, pp. 672-3.
[78] Wellington to Hill, October 5. Dispatches, ix. p. 469: ‘I do not write to General Ballasteros, because I do not know exactly where he is: but I believe he is at Alcaraz. At least I understand he was ordered there [by the Regency]. Tell him to hang upon the left flank and rear of the enemy, if they move by Albacete toward the Tagus.’
[79] Wellington to Popham. Dispatches, ix. p. 494.
[81] Wellington says in his Dispatch to Lord Bathurst of October 26 that the Brunswick officer disobeyed orders, and was taken because he did not retire at once, as directed.
[82] Souham to Clarke, October 22.
[83] This is the figure given by Colonel Béchaud in his interesting narrative of the doings of Maucune’s division (Études Napoléoniennes, ii. p. 396). Martinien’s lists show 3 casualties of officers only, all in the 86th of Maucune’s division.
[84] For details see Wellington’s Order of March in Supplementary Dispatches, xiv. pp. 144-5.
[85] The wheels of the artillery were all muffled with straw. The cavalry went at a walk.
[86] So Colonel Béchaud’s narrative, quoted above, and most valuable for all this retreat.
[87] These figures look very large—and exceed Napier’s estimate of 5,000 sabres. But I can only give the strength of the French official returns, viz. Curto’s division 2,163, Boyer’s division 1,373, Merlin’s brigade 746, Laferrière’s brigade 1,662; total 5,944. All these units were engaged that day, as the French narrative shows, except that 4 only of the 6 squadrons of gendarmerie in Laferrière’s brigade were at the front.
[88] Owing to losses at Garcia Hernandez and Majadahonda the Germans were only 4 squadrons, under 450 effective sabres. The Light Dragoons of Anson, all three regiments down to 2-squadron strength, made up about 800.
[89] See vol. iv. pp. 565-9.
[90] Who was not himself any longer at their head, having been killed in a private quarrel some weeks before. His men were this day under his lieutenant Puente (Schepeler, p. 680).
[91] To Caffarelli’s high disgust: see his dispatch to Clarke of October 30, where he calls Boyer’s action a ‘fatalité que l’on ne peut conçevoir.’
[92] As Lumley did at Usagre against L’Allemand, see vol. iv. p. 412.
[93] Anson’s brigade fought, it is said, with only 600 sabres out of its original 800, owing to heavy losses in the morning, and to the dropping behind of many men on exhausted horses, who did not get up in time to form for the charge. Bock’s brigade was intact, but only 400 strong. Of the French brigade 1,600 strong on October 15 by its ‘morning state’ two squadrons out of the six of gendarmes were not present, so that the total was probably 1,250 or so engaged.
[94] Most of this detail is from the admirable account of von Hodenberg, aide-de-camp to Bock, whose letter I printed in Blackwood for 1913. There is a good narrative also in Martin’s Gendarmerie d’Espagne, pp. 317-19.
[95] In a conversation with Foy (see life of the latter, by Girod de l’Ain, p. 141) when he said that all the cavalry generals of the Army of Portugal except Montbrun, Fournier, and Lamotte were ‘mauvais ou médiocres’—these others being Curto, Boyer, Cavrois, Lorcet, and Carrié.
[96] Details are worth giving. The 2nd Dragoons K.G.L. had 52 casualties, the 1st 44. In Anson’s brigade the 11th Light Dragoons lost 49, the 12th only 20, the 16th 47. The officers taken prisoners were Colonel Pelly and Lieutenant Baker of the 16th, Major Fischer (mortally wounded) of the 1st Dragoons K.G.L., and Captain Lenthe and Lieutenant Schaeffer of the 2nd Dragoons K.G.L. The two infantry battalions had 18 casualties, of whom 13 were men missing, apparently skirmishers cut off in the fight earlier in the day on the Hormaza, or footsore men who had fallen behind.
[97] H. Sydenham to Henry Wellesley, printed in Wellington Supplementary Dispatches, vii. pp. 464-5. Sydenham understates, however, the available force when he says that Anson had only 460 sabres and Bock only two squadrons. Hodenberg diminishes less, but still too much, when he gives Bock 300 sabres and Anson 600. The real numbers are given above.
[98] Napier, iv. p. 361. Corroboration may be had on p. 120 of the Journal of Green of the 68th, who says that his colonel was much puzzled to know how so many men had succeeded in getting liquor, and that one soldier was drowned in a vat, overcome by the fumes of new wine.
[99] This was Bonnet’s old division: Chauvel had been commanding it since Bonnet was disabled at Salamanca. But he had been wounded by a chance shot at Venta del Pozo on the 23rd, and Gauthier, his senior brigadier, had taken it over.
[100] Some 27 men of the 3/1st, taken prisoners here, represent this party in the casualty list of October 25. The battalion was not otherwise seriously engaged.
[101] Who were drawn from the 4th, 30th, and 44th.
[102] For a romantic story of how one was discovered see Napier, iv. p. 363, a tale which I have not found corroborated in any other authority.
[103] I had not been able to make out how the 1/9th came to lose these prisoners till I came on the whole story in the Autobiography of Hale of the 1/9th, printed at Cirencester 1826, a rare little book, with a good account of this combat. He is my best source for it on the British side.
[104] Hale, p. 95, quoted above.
[105] I have been using for the French side mainly the elaborate and interesting narrative of Colonel Béchaud of the 66th, recently published in Études Napoléoniennes, ii. pp. 405-11.
[106] See Béchaud, p. 410.
[107] These modest figures of Foy’s report to Souham are much exaggerated in most French narratives of the affair.
[108] There is a full account of this business in Foy’s dispatch to Souham of the next morning, in which occur all the facts given by Guingret in his own little book. That officer’s narrative must be taken as fully correct.
[109] All this from Burgoyne, i. p. 244. Napier does not mention the earthworks, which were batteries for six guns each.
[110] There he wrote his dispatch, concerning the late combats, to Clarke. Napier never mentions Caffarelli’s departure—a curious omission.
[111] p. 437.
[112] See vol. v. pp. 538-9.
[113] Deprez, travelling with great speed, reached Paris and interviewed Clarke on September 21. The Minister, who was no friend of Soult’s, told him that neither he himself nor the King could dare to depose the Marshal without the Emperor’s permission. Deprez then posted on to Moscow, and overtook the Emperor there on October 18. Napoleon in his reply practically ignored the quarrel, contented himself with administering a general scolding to all parties, and directed them to ‘unite, and diminish as far as possible the evils that a bad system had caused.’ But who had inaugurated the system? He himself!
[114] Joseph to Clarke, September 7.
[115] See Soult to Joseph of October 11, and other days.
[116] Which were the 27th Chasseurs and 7th Polish Lancers.
[117] For details see Table of the Army of Spain of the date October 15th, in Appendix II to this volume.
[118] Joseph to Soult, Valencia, October 12.
[119] See above, vol. v. p. 332.
[120] Napier and Jourdan say that Cearra was killed; but he only suffered concussion of the brain, and survived to tell Schepeler (p. 688) how his sword and its sheath were melted into one rod of metal by the lightning which ran down the side of the couch on which he was lying at the moment.
[121] See, e. g., Schepeler (p. 689), who was present.
[122] See Dispatches, ix. p. 518.
[123] This is clearly stated in Wellington’s note to Hill of October 10. Dispatches, ix. p. 481.
[124] Ibid., p. 485.
[125] When Penne Villemur moved in, and went behind the Tagus, I cannot make out exactly. But it was before October 25th, as at that time Erskine’s British cavalry had no longer any screen in front of them.
[126] All these dispositions come from a table of routes sent to D’Urban by Jackson, Hill’s chief of the staff (Quartermaster-general), on the 24th.
[127] Jackson, Q.M.G., to D’Urban, 27th night: ‘Sir Rowland has determined to concentrate behind the Jarama, on account of the state of the fords upon the Tagus, and their number,’ &c.
[128] They had been at Arganda behind the Tajuna on the previous day, when Hill was still thinking of defending the line of the Tagus. See Diary of Leach, p. 287.
[129] Jackson to D’Urban, October 27: ‘Keep your patrols on the Tagus as long as they can with prudence stay there, with orders to follow the march of your main body.’ On the next day the order is varied to that quoted above.
[130] Owing to disgraceful carelessness on the part of a brigadier of the British 2nd Division much of the boat-bridge of Fuente Dueñas (which had been brought over to the north bank) had not been burnt when the troops retired. Many boats were intact; some of the French swam over, and brought back several of them. (D’Urban MSS.)
[131] Wellington to Hill, Cabezon, October 27. Dispatches, ix. pp. 518-19.
[132] See for this Wachholz (of the Fusilier brigade), Schepeler, Purdon’s history of the 47th, &c. Wachholz’s Brunswick Company straggled so that of 60 men he found only 7 with him at night. Several were lost for good. Wellington put the colonel of the 82nd under arrest, because he had lost 80 men this day.
[133] D’Erlon’s old division now commanded by this brigadier.
[134] Always a reckless falsifier of his own losses (he said that he had only lost 2,800 men at Albuera!), Soult wrote in his dispatch that he had only about 25 wounded at the Puente Larga. The figure I give above is that of the staff-officer d’Espinchel, whose memoirs are useful for this campaign. By far the best English account is that of H. Bunbury of the 20th Portuguese (Reminiscences of a Veteran, i. pp. 158-63). I can only trace three of the five French officers in Martinien’s lists—Pillioud, Caulet, Fitz-James, but do not doubt d’Espinchel’s figures though his account of the combat is hard to fit in with any English version. He speaks with admiration of the steadiness of the defence.
[135] All this from Soult’s dispatch to the King of October 31, from Valdemoro, and Jourdan’s to Clarke from Madrid of November 3rd.
[136] See Diary of Swabey, R.A., p. 428, in Journal of the Artillery Institution, vol. xxii.
[137] The importance of the second evacuation of Madrid is brought out by no historian of the war except Vacani, vi. pp. 188-90. Napier barely mentions it. A curious story of the fate of certain English prisoners of Hill’s army, who were forgotten in prison, and came out again to liberty when the French army moved on, may be found in the autobiography of Harley of the 47th Regiment.