Chapter XIV: Section XXIV: Chapter II (2)

At this moment assistance at last arrived--the 2nd Brigade of the Light Division under Drummond appeared on the scene. It consisted of the two battalions of the 52nd, the 1st Caçadores, and four companies of the 95th, about 2,000 bayonets. Having lost touch of the 1st Brigade at the ford, it had taken a route much more like that originally intended by Wellington to be employed, and had come up the back slope of the heights, far to the right of Beckwith, without meeting any enemy. The noise of the combat attracted Drummond to his left; he changed his direction, and was coming over the hillside and approaching Beckwith when he received a most ill-advised order from Erskine--who was with the cavalry some way to his right rear--directing him not to advance or engage[249]. But to have held back would have meant to allow the 1st Brigade to be destroyed. Disregarding the order, Drummond deployed the 1/52nd, the Caçadores, and the 95th on the right of the enclosures where Beckwith was fighting, with the 2/52nd in reserve, and advanced firing. This attack by a fresh force was too much for the French 2nd and 36th, who had suffered severely in the earlier fighting. They gave way, and Drummond, with Beckwith following in échelon on his left, regained the crest of the heights and recaptured the French howitzer. The two brigades were still engaged in a fierce struggle with Merle’s division when Reynier brought up the 2nd Brigade of Heudelet’s division, the seven battalions of the 17th Léger and 70th Ligne, which had formed the centre of his original line of battle. These troops attacked the left flank of the Light Division, Beckwith’s men, and put them in grave danger, for the much-tried 43rd and 3rd Caçadores were in great disorder. At the same time the two French squadrons charged again upon the flank of the 52nd. Fortunately a stray squadron of the 16th Light Dragoons came up and assisted in repulsing them. This was the only aid given by the cavalry this day; Erskine contrived to keep them useless, countermarching in the mist, some way from the fighting front.

[249] This fact comes from a MS. note by Sir John Bell of the
52nd, in my possession. He writes: ‘Just as the 2nd Brigade
changed its direction, the General, being at some distance, sent
an order for it not to engage. But the staff officer who carried
it, and Drummond, seeing how matters stood, took the liberty of
forgetting the message, so that Beckwith should have the full
benefit of the support at hand. No question was ever asked as to
the non-delivery of the order.’

At this moment the fog suddenly lifted, and both Wellington and Reynier were able to make out the face of the battle. The sight was not altogether comforting to either of them: Wellington could see the Light Division on the crest, opposed by a very superior enemy (the proportion was about five to three at this moment) and with their left flank turned by the column which had just come up. Reynier, on the other hand, saw the masses of Picton’s and Dunlop’s divisions halted close above the fords, at and below Sabugal, and just preparing to cross. He had so stripped his centre and right, while bringing up troops to crush the Light Division, that only the two regiments forming Heudelet’s 1st Brigade, the eight weak battalions of the 31st Léger and 47th Ligne, about 3,300 bayonets, were left to occupy two miles of slope on each side of the town of Sabugal. Reynier saw that they must be scattered by the approaching onset, for 10,000 men were hurrying down towards the fords, and gave instant orders for a general retreat. The intact brigade was to abandon Sabugal and the heights, concentrate, and go off at the double, to take up a position a mile to the rear, on the road to Alfayates. Merle’s shattered troops on the crest, facing the Light Division, were directed to make off in such order as they might, taking the artillery with them, and to seek refuge behind this reserve. To prevent Beckwith and Drummond from pursuing them, the 2nd Brigade of Heudelet, the 17th Léger and 70th, were ordered to keep up a defensive fight upon the heights where they had just come into action.

This brigade was thereby exposed to grave danger, for while it was doing its best to ‘contain’ the Light Division, Picton, coming up from the river at a furious pace, with the 5th Fusiliers deployed in his front, rushed in upon its flank, and drove its battalions one upon another. The 17th and 70th were overwhelmed and thrust down the back of the hill with a loss of 400 men, of whom 120 were unwounded prisoners. Their wrecks took refuge with the other brigades, which retired as rapidly as they could along the Alfayates road, with the 31st Léger and 47th Ligne, the only intact body, covering the flight of the rest. The British 5th Division had crossed at Sabugal without meeting opposition or losing a man, but was too far to the left to be of any use in urging the pursuit. That duty fell to Picton, who was pressing the French rearguard when the rain, which had been falling for almost the whole morning, became absolutely torrential, and hid the face of the country-side so thoroughly that Wellington commanded the whole army to halt. It is said that this order was given on the false intelligence that the 8th Corps was visible coming up from Alfayates to join Reynier[250], a report for which there was no foundation whatever. Erskine and the cavalry never touched the retreating force, save one squadron of the German hussars, who happed upon the French transport column, and captured the private baggage of Reynier himself and General Pierre Soult[251].

[250] This statement is made by Tomkinson in his diary on April
3, p. 94.

[251] Many details in this narrative of the combat of Sabugal
will be found to differ from those given in earlier histories. I
have been relying for the French movements largely on the life
of General Merle, the officer who was in charge of most of the
fighting, and had the best chance of giving a correct story.
[Braquehay’s _Le Général Merle_, pp. 160-1.]

So ended, in comparative disappointment, an operation which would have had glorious results if the fog had not intervened, and which might, even with that drawback, have been much more decisive if Sir William Erskine had shown ordinary prudence and ability. The actual combat, as Wellington truly observed, ‘was one of the most glorious that British troops were ever engaged in,’ for the Light Division, with its 3,500 bayonets, had fought the whole of the 2nd Corps save one brigade, and had punished its adversaries in the most exemplary style, without suffering any corresponding loss. ‘Really these attacks in column against our line are very contemptible,’ wrote Wellington to Beresford next morning. The chief glory lay with the 43rd, who fought three separate contests with three successive bodies of opponents, and counted very nearly half of the total British loss in their ranks. Beckwith, their brigadier, was the admired of all beholders; eye-witnesses relate with pride how he rode first in the advance and last in the retreat, with blood streaming from a wound on his temple, keeping the men in rank, checking those who showed a tendency to quicken the pace, and directing the fire with perfect coolness. It was in a great degree the confidence inspired by his cheerful and resourceful leading which enabled the brigade to keep up the fight against impossible odds, down to the moment of the arrival of Drummond and the supports upon the scene.

The total loss of the French was 61 officers and 689 men; this fearful proportion of losses in the commissioned ranks was due to the gallantry with which they threw away their lives in bringing up to the front the shaken and demoralized soldiers, who could not face the English musketry. One gun and 186 unwounded prisoners were taken. The British loss was only 169--that of their Portuguese companions no more than 10. Of the total of 179 no less than 143 were men of the Light Division, of whom 80 belonged to the 43rd; Picton’s troops, only engaged for a few minutes at the end of the combat, had twenty-five casualties. The horse artillery lost one, the German hussars two men wounded. It is sufficiently clear from these figures who had done the fighting that day[252].

[252] See the tables of the French and British losses in Appendix
No. VI. Fririon, as chief of the staff, must have seen and passed
the French return giving 750 casualties, yet in his narrative
allows for only 250, saying, ‘On a beaucoup exagéré les pertes:
les chiffres que nous donnons sont très exacts.’ This is only one
example of his habit of falsifying figures, in which he rivalled
Masséna and Soult.

On the afternoon following the combat of Sabugal, Masséna abandoned the line of the Coa, drawing back the 6th Corps to join the other two at Alfayates. Next morning (April 4) at early dawn the whole army made a forced march to the rear, for there seemed every probability that Wellington would appear, to force on a general action, during the course of the day, and it was necessary to avoid the chance of being thrust against the Sierra de Gata, and cut off from Ciudad Rodrigo. Accordingly the 2nd Corps covered more than twenty miles, and did not halt till it had reached Fuentes de Oñoro; the 6th Corps, marching a less distance, halted at Fuente Guinaldo on the direct road to Ciudad Rodrigo. The 8th Corps, on a road between the other two, stopped at Campillo; the reserve cavalry of Montbrun, which was in such bad condition that it had to be covered by the infantry, instead of acting as their screen, drew back to El Bodon, and other villages in the immediate vicinity of Rodrigo. By this movement Masséna recovered his communication with the 9th Corps, which still lay on the Turon near Almeida, for the 2nd Corps was now within fifteen miles of Drouet’s head quarters at Val de Mula, while the 6th and 8th Corps covered the roads to Ciudad Rodrigo. On the following day (April 5) the two last-named corps drew back to Carpio, Marialva, and other places within a few miles of that fortress, but the 2nd Corps remained at Fuentes de Oñoro, in order to keep touch with the 9th till the latter should have evacuated a position which had now become dangerous and over-advanced. For if Masséna went back to the Agueda, Drouet could not linger near Almeida, lest he should be cut off from the main army.

Meanwhile Wellington had occupied on the 4th Masséna’s old head quarters at Alfayates, and sent forward his cavalry to Albergaria, Alamedilla, and other villages, where they came in touch with the outposts of the 2nd and 8th Corps. The Light Division felt for any traces of the French at Val de Espinha and Quadraseis, and finding none pushed on to Alfayates. The 1st and 3rd Divisions came to that place also on the next day. By that evening (April 5) it was certain that Masséna was falling back to Ciudad Rodrigo, perhaps even further to the rear. The state of his army, of which Wellington had ample evidence from the capture of more sick, stragglers, and baggage during this and the two next days[253], rendered it extremely likely that the French would not be able to halt till they reached their magazines at Salamanca. The British general had no intention of following the enemy far into Spain; he had again outmarched his supplies, for the new base at Coimbra had only just been established, and convoys from it were coming in slowly and with great delays, since they had to be brought up over the wasted and depopulated region which the French had just evacuated. Till he had some magazines accumulated nearer the frontier, he could not dream of a serious offensive movement into Leon. His letters at this time are full of laments as to the state of the Portuguese troops, especially of the brigades which were fed by their own commissariat. They had dropped so many sick and stragglers in the advance, that on April 8th they were 2,500 short of the number with which they had started from the Lines of Torres Vedras: the brigade in the 5th Division had fallen to 1,061 rank and file from 1,400 with which it had set out--that in the 3rd Division to 1,190 from 1,319. Pack’s brigade had been left behind on the Mondego from sheer inability to march, and had not been able to join in the Guarda and Sabugal operations[254]. It was necessary to wait till the ranks were fuller--the men were not lost but left behind exhausted, and could be collected when a systematic supply of food was procurable. The allied army could not dream of entering Spain with the intention of living by plunder and requisitions, as the French habitually did.

[253] In the Diary of Tomkinson of the 16th Light Dragoons there
is a curious note as to the capture of a ‘caravan’ or large coach
belonging to the head-quarter staff, and more especially to
Masséna’s Portuguese adviser, the Marquis d’Alorna, on April 7th.
Sixty-five infantry were captured by the regiment on the same day.

[254] See letters to Beresford of April 6th and to Charles Stuart
of April 8th, in _Dispatches_, vii. pp. 430-5.

Wellington’s ambition at the moment did not go beyond the hope of recovering Almeida, which he conceived to be doomed to fall, and possibly Ciudad Rodrigo also, if the enemy should be forced to fall back towards Salamanca. But Almeida, at least, he was determined to make his own, and the first necessity was to clear away the 9th Corps from its neighbourhood. He was convinced that Drouet would retreat when he heard that Masséna had retired to the Agueda, and thought that his motions might be quickened by a demonstration. The 6th Division and Pack’s Portuguese were destined for the blockade of Almeida, but they would not be up for some days, and meanwhile Trant’s Militia, which was already on the lower Coa, was directed to push in boldly upon the place, and promised the support of Slade’s cavalry brigade on the 7th. Trant, always daring and full of enterprise, pressed forward to Val de Mula, on the further side of Almeida, and met there Claparéde’s division on its way towards the Agueda--Conroux had already departed. The Militia engaged in an irregular fight with the French, who turned promptly round upon them, and seemed likely to make havoc of them near the village of Aldea do Obispo. But just as the attack grew threatening Slade’s dragoons appeared from the south, with Bull’s horse artillery battery, and drew up on the flank of the enemy’s troops. The artillery were already beginning to enfilade them, when Claparéde, forming his division into battalion squares, made a hasty retreat towards the Agueda, and passed it at the bridge of Barba del Puerco. Erskine, who was in command of the expedition, did not press him hard, and the French, according to their own account, only lost 7 killed and 4 officers and 24 men wounded, all by cannon shot, for the dragoons were not allowed to charge home[255]. Slade captured, however, some baggage and a good many stragglers, marauders, and guards of small convoys, who were surprised in the open rolling country before they could get over the Agueda.

[255] Napier (iii. 135) says that the French lost 300 men, which
contrasts strangely with the official numbers given by the
French. Probably Drouet gave only the actual loss in action,
while the British accounts speak of all the stragglers taken that
day as if they had been captured in the fight. The 16th certainly
got 65 prisoners from a convoy guard.

Wellington could now surround and blockade Almeida; he had been nourishing some hopes that the French might evacuate it, when Drouet departed from its neighbourhood, for he was aware that its stores had run very low. But when it became evident that the place was not to be abandoned, he realized that it would take some weeks to reduce it, for he had no battering-train whatever, indeed there were no heavy guns nearer than Oporto and Abrantes. It was not till the following autumn that a proper siege-train was organized for the Anglo-Portuguese army. Almeida could only be attacked by the weapon of famine; Badajoz, which was beleaguered at the same time, had to be battered with a few guns borrowed from the ramparts of the neighbouring fortress of Elvas. The British army had now been two years in Portugal, yet Wellington still lacked the materials for conducting the smallest offensive operation against strongholds in the hands of the French.

It was known, however, that the stores in Almeida had run low, for the 9th Corps had been consuming them while it lay close by, in spite of Masséna’s strict directions to the contrary. But starvation knows no laws. As a matter of fact there were still over thirty days’ rations in the magazines, though it had been reported both to Wellington and to Masséna that the stock had run down much lower;[256] Drouet had falsely stated on one occasion that there was only enough to last for fifteen days. The British general fancied that four weeks’ blockade might reduce the place, and thought that he was quit of the Army of Portugal for a much longer space of time. He even hoped to effect something against Ciudad Rodrigo[257], which was also under-victualled, for on reaching the frontier Masséna had been forced to indent upon it for supplies for his broken host. If the French retired to Salamanca, as seemed quite probable, Wellington had hopes that he might be able to starve out Rodrigo. But he was not intending to throw his troops around it; they were to remain on the Dos Casas and the Azava, covering the siege of Almeida, but only observing the Spanish fortress with cavalry. For the cutting of the road between it and Salamanca only irregular forces were to be used: Wellington would not send any of his own divisions forward beyond Rodrigo, but requested the daring and resourceful guerrillero chief Julian Sanchez to throw his bands in this direction, the moment that the French army should have retired from the Agueda. Sanchez had been for many months already occupied in similar work, having spent all the winter in raids to cut off convoys and small parties passing from Salamanca to Ciudad Rodrigo, or from that place to Almeida. He had been hunted, often but vainly, by General Thiébault, the governor of the province, whose columns he had usually succeeded in avoiding, while he was always at hand to fall on weak or incautious detachments on the march[258].

[256] Wellington, _Dispatches_, vii. p. 448.

[257] But, as he wrote to Beresford on April 14, ‘I was not very
sanguine of the results of the blockade of that place, and had
indeed determined not to make it in any strength: and now it is
useless to keep anybody on the other side of the Agueda save for
food and observation.’ (_Dispatches_, vii. 457.)

[258] For the state of semi-blockade in which Sanchez had kept
Ciudad Rodrigo, see the Memoirs of the Duchess of Abrantes (vii.
pp. 275-7), who was beleaguered there while her husband was in
Portugal. For the hunts organized against him by Thiébault, see
the latter’s _Memoirs_, iv. 449-51, &c. Sanchez intercepted
numbers of dispatches which were of great use to Wellington, as
they kept him informed of the state of the French in northern
Spain.

On April 8th, as Wellington had expected, the Army of Portugal resumed its march into the interior of the kingdom of Leon, all the three corps passing the Agueda, and retiring, Reynier to San Felices el Grande, Junot to Santi Espiritus, Loison to Alba de Yeltes. Junot, while passing, had been ordered to send into Rodrigo a reinforcement for the garrison; he detached a battalion of the 15th and another of the Irish Legion, which brought up the troops in the place to 3,000 men. From the 8th to the 11th the retreat continued, till at last the 6th Corps went into cantonments at Salamanca, Alba de Tormes, and other neighbouring places, the 2nd at and about Ledesma, and the 8th at Toro, behind the others. Drouet and his two divisions held the line of observation against the Anglo-Portuguese, with head quarters at San Muñoz. So ended, fifty miles within the borders of Spain, the movement that had begun at Santarem and Punhete.

The effective of Masséna’s army, was on April 15th 39,546 sabres and bayonets. It had started in September 1810 with 65,050 officers and men, and had numbered 44,407 on March 15th. The exact loss, however, was not the mere difference between its force of September 15, 1810, and of April 15, 1811 (25,504), for it had received at midwinter two drafts under Gardanne and Foy, amounting to 3,225 men in all[259]. On the other hand, the figures of April 15th do not include two convoys of sick sent back into Spain, one of 82 officers and 833 men dispatched under the charge of Drouet from the Alva on March 11, and a second and larger one sent back from Celorico to Almeida on March 22, along with which went some dismounted cavalry, and some artillery which could no longer follow the army. The whole may have amounted to 3,000 men. Both of these convoys dropped large numbers of dead and stragglers by the way, but it is impossible to ascertain their total. We must also deduct the escort of an officer, Major Casabianca, sent from the front to Ciudad Rodrigo on 21st January, who took 400 men[260] with him and never returned. Deducting the 4,315 thus sent back to Spain, and setting them against the 3,225 received from thence, it appears that Masséna’s total loss must have been just under 25,000 men, or 38 per cent. of his original force. Of these Wellington had some 8,000 as prisoners, including the 4,000 captured in the hospital of Coimbra on October 7th, 1810. The remainder had perished--not more than 2,000 in action, the rest by the sword of famine. Wellington’s scheme had justified itself, though its working out had taken many more weeks than he expected. Nor was the mere loss in men all that the Army of Portugal had suffered. It returned to Leon stripped of everything--without munitions, uniforms, or train. It had lost 5,872 horses of the 14,000 which it had brought into Portugal, and practically all its wheeled vehicles; there were precisely 36 waggons left with the army. The men were still ready to fight fiercely when they saw the necessity for it, but were sulky, discontented, and perpetually carping against the Commander-in-Chief, whose last unhappy inspiration--the projected march from Guarda to Plasencia--had filled up the measure of their wrath. And indeed they had good reason to be disgusted at it, for it was wholly insane and impracticable. But every misfortune of the last six months--the bloody repulse at Bussaco, the loss of the hospitals and magazines at Coimbra, the long starvation at Santarem, the slow and circuitous course of the retreat, was imputed to Masséna’s account by his chief subordinates as well as by his rank and file. What the generals muttered in the morning was loudly discussed around every camp-fire at night. The whole army had lost in morale from six months of systematic marauding, was quite out of hand in the way of discipline, and had no confidence in its leader, who was absolutely detested. The departure of Ney, who was liked and admired by all ranks, had been a great discouragement, because his skilful handling of the rearguard during the retreat had been understood and appreciated, while Masséna was cried down as a tactician no less than as a strategist on the general results of the campaign. A general whose troops no longer rely on him cannot get the best out of his army, and for this reason alone Napoleon was justified in removing the old Marshal from his command in April, when the full tale of the retreat had reached him.

[259] See vol. iii, Appendix, p. 543.

[260] When Foy went back from Thomar on March 5 to Rodrigo
his escort was taken from the 9th Corps, not from the Army of
Portugal, so does not count. See _Pièces Justificatives_, No. 45,
in Foy’s _Vie Militaire_, p. 357.

Yet there can be no doubt that Masséna was hardly treated. That the expedition of Portugal failed was, in the main, no fault of his. Neither he nor his master, nor any one else on the French side, had foreseen Wellington’s plans--the devastation of the country-side, which rendered it impossible for the invader to live long by marauding, and the systematic fortification of the long front of the Lisbon Peninsula. For the actual game that was set before him, Masséna had not been given sufficient pieces by the Emperor. As Wellington had said more than a year before[261], the French could not turn him out of Portugal with less than 100,000 men, and Napoleon had only provided 65,000. Moreover, as the British general had added, he should so manage affairs that 100,000 French could not live in the country if they did appear; and this was no vain boast.

[261] See pp. 167-8 of vol. iii.

Masséna, then, was sent to accomplish an impossible task, and his merit was that he came nearer to his end than Wellington had believed possible, before he was forced to recoil. Many of the French marshals would never have got to Coimbra: certainly none of them would have succeeded in holding on at Santarem for three months. There can be no doubt that the Prince of Essling did not exaggerate when he wrote to Berthier[262], on March 31st, that it was his own iron will alone which had kept the army so long and so far to the front--that but for him it would have recoiled on to Spain many weeks earlier. His heroic obstinacy gave his adversary many an uneasy day, while it seemed in January and February as if the calculation for famishing the French had failed. Masséna, in short, had done all that was possible, and the general failure of the campaign was not his fault, any more than it was that of Soult, on whom the blame has always been laid by the elder marshal’s advocates. We have shown in an earlier chapter[263] that Soult did all and more than all that Napoleon had directed him to accomplish. If he had literally obeyed the tardy orders that reached him from Paris he would only have exposed the 5th Corps to defeat, if not to destruction. The _ex post facto_ rebukes that the Emperor sent him were unjust. We are once more driven back to our old conclusion that the determining factors in the failure of the campaign of Portugal were firstly that Napoleon refused to appoint a single commander-in-chief in the Peninsula, to whose orders all the other marshals should be strictly subordinate, and secondly that he persisted in sending plans and directions from Paris founded on facts that were seven weeks late, or more, when his dispatches reached the front. On this we have enlarged at sufficient length on an earlier page.

[262] Dispatch printed in Fririon, p. 157.

[263] See above, pp. 24-5.

SECTION XXV

EVENTS IN NORTHERN, EASTERN, AND CENTRAL SPAIN