Chapter XVI: Section XXXII: Chapter V (1)

OPERATIONS OF THE FRENCH DURING THE SIEGE OF BADAJOZ

Before proceeding to demonstrate the wide-spreading results of the fall of the great Estremaduran fortress, it is necessary to follow the movements of the French armies which had been responsible for its safety.

Soult had been before Cadiz when, on March 11, he received news from Drouet that troops were arriving at Elvas from the North, and on March 20 the more definite information that Wellington had moved out in force on the 14th, and invested Badajoz on the 16th. The Marshal’s long absence from his head-quarters at Seville at this moment, when he had every reason to suspect that the enemy’s next stroke would be in his own direction, is curious. Apparently his comparative freedom from anxiety had two causes. The first was his confidence that Badajoz, with its excellent governor and its picked garrison, could be relied upon to make a very long defence. The second was that he was fully persuaded that when the time of danger arrived he could count on Marmont’s help--as he had in June 1811. On February 7 he wrote to his colleague[289] that he had just heard of the fall of Rodrigo, that Wellington’s next movement would naturally be against Badajoz, and that he was glad to learn that Montbrun’s divisions, on their return from Alicante, were being placed in the valley of the Tagus. ‘I see with pleasure that your excellency has given him orders to get in touch with the Army of the South. As long as this communication shall exist, the enemy will not dare to make a push against Badajoz, because at his first movement we can join our forces and march against him for a battle. I hope that it may enter into your plans to leave a corps between the Tagus and the Guadiana, the Truxillo road, and the Sierra de Guadalupe, where it can feed, and keep in touch with the troops which I keep in the Serena [the district about Medellin, Don Benito, and Zalamea, where Daricau was cantoned]. I am persuaded that, when the campaigning season begins, the enemy will do all he can to seize Badajoz, because he dare attempt nothing in Castille so long as that place offers us a base from which to invade Portugal and fall upon his line of communications.... I am bound, therefore, to make a pressing demand that your left wing may be kept in a position which makes the communication between our armies sure, so that we may be able, by uniting our disposable forces, to go out against the enemy with the assurance of success.’

[289] The letter is printed in Marmont’s _Correspondance_, iv.
pp. 304-5.

This was precisely what Marmont had intended to do. He was convinced, like Soult, that Wellington’s next move would be against Badajoz, and he placed Montbrun and the divisions of Foy, Brennier, and Sarrut about Talavera, Monbeltran, and Almaraz, precisely in order that they might be in easy touch with Drouet. On February 22 he wrote to his colleague explaining his purpose in so doing, and his complete acquiescence in the plan for a joint movement against Wellington, whenever the latter should appear on the Guadiana[290]. His pledge was quite honest and genuine, and in reliance on it Soult made all his arrangements. These, however, appear to have been rather loose and careless: the Marshal seems to have felt such complete confidence in the combination that he made insufficient preparations on his own side. No reinforcements were sent either to Badajoz or to Drouet, whose 12,000 men were dispersed in a very long front in Estremadura, reaching from Medellin and Don Benito on the right to Fregenal on the left. This is why Graham, when he moved forward briskly on March 17th, found no solid body of the enemy in front of him, but only scattered brigades and regiments, which made off in haste, and which only succeeded at last in concentrating so far to the rear as Fuente Ovejuna, which is actually in Andalusia, and behind the crest of the Sierra Morena. We may add that having been advised by Drouet as early as March 11th[291] that British troops were accumulating behind Elvas, Soult ought to have taken the alarm at once, to have moved back to Seville from Santa Maria by Cadiz, where he lay on that date, and to have issued orders for the concentration of his reserves. He did none of these things, was still in front of Cadiz on March 20[292], and did not prescribe any movement of troops till, on that day, he received Drouet’s more definite and alarming news that Wellington was in person at Elvas, and had moved out toward Badajoz on the 16th. Clearly he lost nine days by want of sufficient promptness, and had but himself to blame if he could only start from Seville with a considerable field-force on March 30. All that he appears to have done on March 11 was to write to Marmont that the long-foreseen hypothesis of a move of Wellington on Badajoz was being verified, and that they must prepare to unite their forces. Jourdan has, therefore, some justification for his remark that he does not see why Soult should have been before Cadiz, amusing himself by throwing shells into that place[293] as late as March 20th.

[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.

From the 20th to the 30th of that month Soult was busily engaged in organizing the relief-column which, after picking up Drouet on the way, was to march to the succour of Badajoz. He could not venture to touch the divisions of Conroux and Cassagne, which together were none too strong to provide for the manning of the Cadiz Lines and the fending off of Ballasteros from their rear. But he called off the whole division of Barrois, nearly 8,000 strong[294], Vichery’s brigade of infantry from Leval’s division in the province of Granada[295], and six regiments of Digeon’s and Pierre Soult’s dragoons. This, with the corresponding artillery, made a column of some 13,000 men, with which the Marshal started from Seville on the 30th March, crossed the Guadalquivir at Lora del Rio next day, and moved on Constantina and Guadalcanal. An interesting complication would have been caused if Graham had been allowed to stop with his 19,000 men at Azuaga and Llerena, where he was directly between Soult and Drouet’s position at Fuente Ovejuna, and if Hill from Merida had moved against Drouet’s corps. But as Wellington had withdrawn Graham’s column to Villafranca on March 31, there was nothing left to prevent Drouet from coming in from his excentric position, and joining his chief at Llerena on April 4th, with the 12,000 men of his own and Daricau’s divisions. This gave the Marshal some 25,000 men[296] in hand, a force which would be manifestly incapable of raising the siege of Badajoz, for he knew that Wellington had at least 45,000 men in hand, and, as a matter of fact, the arrival of the 5th Division and other late detachments had raised the Anglo-Portuguese army to something more like 55,000 sabres and bayonets.

[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.

Wellington’s orders, when he heard that Soult was in the passes, and that Drouet was moving to join him, directed Graham to fall back on the Albuera position, and Hill to join him there by the route of Lobon and Talavera Real, if it should appear that all the French columns were moving directly to the relief of Badajoz, and none of them spreading out eastward towards the Upper Guadiana[297]. These conditions were realized, as Soult moved in one solid body towards Villafranca and Fuente del Maestre: so Hill evacuated Merida, after destroying its bridge, and joined Graham on the old Albuera ground on April 6th. They had 31,000 men, including four British divisions and four British cavalry brigades, and Wellington could have reinforced them from the lines before Badajoz with two divisions more, if it had been necessary, while still leaving the fortress adequately blockaded by 10,000 or 12,000 men. But as Soult did not appear at Fuente del Maestre and Villafranca till the afternoon of April 7th, a day after Badajoz had fallen, this need did not arise. The Marshal, learning of the disaster, hastily turned back and retired towards Andalusia, wisely observing that he ‘could not fight the whole English army.’ It is interesting to speculate what would have happened if he had lingered five days less before Cadiz, had issued his concentration orders on the 14th or 15th instead of the 20th March, and had appeared at Villafranca on the 2nd instead of the 7th of the next month. His dispatch of April 17 states that he had intended to fight, despite of odds, to save Badajoz: if he had done so, and had attacked 40,000 Anglo-Portuguese with his 25,000 men, he must inevitably have suffered a dreadful disaster. He must have fought a second battle of Albuera with much the same strength that he had at the first, while his enemy would have had six British divisions instead of two, and an equal instead of a wholly inferior cavalry. The result of such a battle could hardly have failed to be not only a crushing defeat for the French, but the prompt loss of all Andalusia; for thrown back on that kingdom with a routed army, and unable to gather in promptly reserves scattered over the whole land, from the Cadiz Lines to Granada and Malaga, he must have evacuated his viceroyalty, and have retreated in haste either on La Mancha or on Valencia.

[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.

It is most improbable, however, that Soult would really have ventured to attack the Albuera position[298], in spite of the confident language of his ex-post-facto dispatches. His whole plan of operations depended on his being joined by the Army of Portugal, in accordance with Marmont’s promise of February 22nd. And he was well aware, by a letter sent by Foy to Drouet on March 31st, and received on April 6th, that he could expect no help from the North for many weeks, if any came at all. That Badajoz was never relieved was due, not to Soult’s delay in concentrating (though this was no doubt unwise), nor to his over-confidence in Phillipon’s power of resistance, which was (as it turned out) misplaced. He wrote to Berthier that ‘the garrison wanted for nothing--it had still food for two months, and was abundantly provided with munitions: its total strength was 5,000 men: it had victoriously repulsed three assaults: the men were convinced that, however great a hostile force presented itself before the breaches, it would never carry them: Phillipon had been informed on March 28th that I was marching to his help: the troops were in enthusiastic spirits, though they had already lost 500 men in successful sorties: my advanced guard was at only one long day’s march from the place, when it succumbs!’ It was indeed an _évènement funeste_!

[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.

But Soult’s late arrival and miscalculation of the time that the siege would take, were neither of them the causes of the fall of Badajoz. It would have fallen none the less if he had arrived on the Albuera upon April 2nd. The fate of the place was really settled by Napoleon’s dispatches to Marmont, with which we dealt at great length in an earlier chapter[299]. The orders of February 11 and February 21 (received by the Duke of Ragusa on February 26 and March 2 respectively) forbade him to worry about Badajoz, ‘a very strong fortress supported by an army of 80,000 men,’ and told him to withdraw to Salamanca two of the three divisions which he was keeping in the valley of the Tagus, and to reply to any movement of Wellington into Estremadura by invading Northern Portugal. The plan which Soult and Marmont had concerted for a joint relief of Badajoz was expressly forbidden by their master, on his erroneous hypothesis that a thrust at Ciudad Rodrigo and Almeida must bring Wellington home again. Marmont’s promise of co-operation, sent off on February 22nd to Seville, was rendered impossible--through no fault of his--by the imperial dispatch received four days later, which expressly forbade him to stand by it. ‘The English will only go southward if you, by your ill-devised scheme, keep two or three divisions detached on the Tagus: that reassures them, and tells them that you have no offensive projects against them.’ So Marmont, protesting and prophesying future disaster, was compelled to withdraw two divisions from the central position on the Tagus, and to leave there only Foy’s 5,000 men--a negligible quantity in the problem. Nor was this all--he was not even allowed to send them back, since the whole Army of Portugal was ordered to march into the Beira.

[299] See chapter ii above, pp. 54, 55.

Soult, therefore, was justified in his wrath when he wrote to Marmont that he had been given a promise and that it had been broken, ‘if there had been the least attempt to concert operations between the armies of Portugal and the South, the English army would have been destroyed, and Badajoz would still be in the power of the Emperor. I deplore bitterly the fact that you have not been able to come to an arrangement with me on the subject.’ But the wrath should have been directed against the Emperor, not against his lieutenant, who had so unwillingly been forced to break his promise. The only censure, perhaps, that can be laid upon Marmont is that he should have made it more clear to Soult that, by the new directions from Paris, he was rendered unable to redeem his pledge. Soult was not, however, without warnings that something of the kind might happen: Berthier had written to him on February 11th, and the letter must have arrived by the middle of March, that the Emperor was displeased to find him appealing for troops of the Army of Portugal to be moved to Truxillo, and that he ought to be more dependent on his own strength[300]. It would have been better if the Emperor’s trusty scribe had explained to Soult that Marmont was expressly forbidden, in a dispatch written that same day, to keep more than one division on the Tagus, or to worry himself about the danger of Badajoz.

[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.

Marmont’s original plan for joining Soult via Almaraz might have failed--he himself confesses it in one of his replies to Berthier. But it was the only scheme which presented any prospect of success. By making it impossible Napoleon rendered the fall of Badajoz certain. For it is no defence whatever to point out that his dispatch of March 12th, which reached Salamanca on March 27, finally gave Marmont the option of going southward. By that time it was too late to try the move:--if the Duke of Ragusa had marched for Almaraz and Truxillo next morning, he would still have been many days too late to join Soult before April 6th, the date on which Badajoz fell.

Summing up the whole operation, we must conclude that Wellington’s plan, which depended for its efficacy on the slowness with which the French always received information, and the difficulty which they always experienced in concentrating and feeding large bodies of troops in winter or early spring, was bound to be successful, unless an improbable conjunction of chances had occurred. If Marmont and Soult had both taken the alarm at the earliest possible moment, and had each marched with the strongest possible field army, Soult with the 25,000 men that he actually collected, Marmont with the three divisions that lay on the Tagus on March 1st, and three more from Castile[301], they might have met east of Merida somewhere about the last days of March. In that case their united strength would have been from 50,000 to 55,000 men: Wellington had as many, so that he would not have been bound down to the mere defensive policy that he took up on the Caya in June-July 1811, when his numbers were decidedly less than now. But the chance that both Marmont and Soult would do the right thing in the shortest possible time was unlikely. They would have had terrible difficulties from the torrential rains that prevailed in the last ten days of March, and the consequent badness of the roads. Marmont’s (if not Soult’s) food-problem would have been a hard one, as he himself shows in several of his letters. Soult got his first definite alarm on March 11th: Marmont could hardly move till he had learnt that Wellington had started for Estremadura in person: till this was certain, he could not be sure that the main body of the Anglo-Portuguese army was not still behind the Agueda. Wellington only left Freneda on March 5th, and Marmont did not know of his departure till some days later. If the two marshals had each issued prompt concentration orders on March 11, it still remains very doubtful if they would have met in time to foil Wellington’s object. As a matter of fact Soult (as we have seen) delayed for nine days before he determined to concentrate his field-force and march on Badajoz, and this lateness would have wrecked the combination, even if Marmont had been more ready than his colleague.

[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.

Still there was some chance that the armies might have joined, if Napoleon had not intervened with his misguided refusal to allow Marmont to keep three divisions in the valley of the Tagus or to ‘worry about affairs that did not concern him.’ Wellington could not know of these orders: hence came his anxieties, and his determination to hurry the siege of Badajoz to a conclusion at the earliest possible date. He was never--as it turned out--in serious danger, but he could not possibly be aware of the fact that Marmont was fettered by his instructions. It was only the gradual accumulation of reports proving that the Army of Portugal was moving against Ciudad Rodrigo, and not on Almaraz, that finally gave him comparative ease of mind with regard to the situation. As to Soult, he somewhat over-estimated his force, taking it at 30,000 or even 35,000 men rather than the real 25,000: this was, no doubt, the reason why he resolved to fight with his ‘covering army’ ranged on the Albuera position, and not farther forward. If he had known that on April 1 Soult had only 13,000 men at Monasterio, and was still separated from Drouet, he might possibly have been more enterprising.

No signs of Marmont’s arrival being visible, Wellington could afford to contemplate with great equanimity Soult’s position at Villafranca on April 7th. If the Marshal moved forward he would be beaten--but it was almost certain that he would move back at once, for, as it will be remembered, precautions had been taken to give him an alarming distraction in his rear, by means of the operations of Penne Villemur and Ballasteros[302]. This combination worked with perfect success, far more accurately than Blake’s similar raid on Seville had done in June 1811. Ballasteros, it is true, did much less than was in his power. He started from his refuge under the guns of Gibraltar, passed down from the Ronda mountains, and reached Utrera, in the plain of the Guadalquivir less than twenty miles from Seville, on April 4. But he then swerved away, having done more to alarm than to hurt the French, though he had a force of 10,000 infantry and 800 horse[303], sufficient to have put Seville in serious peril. But Penne Villemur and Morillo, though they had not half the numbers of Ballasteros, accomplished all that Wellington required: having slipped into the Condado de Niebla almost unobserved, they pushed rapidly eastward, and occupied San Lucar la Mayor, only twelve miles from Seville, on April 4, the same day that Ballasteros appeared at Utrera. Their cavalry pushed up so boldly toward the suburbs that they had to be driven off by cannon-shot from the _tête-de-pont_ at the bridge of Triana. General Rignoux, governor of Seville, had a very motley and insufficient garrison, as Wellington had calculated when he sent Penne Villemur forth. The only organized units were a battalion of ‘Swiss’ Juramentados--really adventurers of all nations--and a regiment of Spanish horse, making 1,500 men altogether: the rest consisted of convalescents and weakly men belonging to the regiments in the Cadiz Lines, and of 600 dismounted dragoons. These made up some 2,000 men more, but many were not fit to bear arms. In addition there were some companies of the recently raised ‘National Guards.’ The enormous size of Seville, and the weakness of its old wall, compelled Rignoux to concentrate his force in the fortified Cartuja convent, leaving only small posts at the gates and the bridge. He sent at once, as Wellington had hoped, pressing appeals to Soult, saying that he was beset by 14,000 men, and that the citizens would probably rise and let in the enemy.

[302] See above, p. 229.

[303] Infantry divisions of Cruz Murgeon (5,400 men) and the
Prince of Anglona (4,300 men) and five squadrons of horse,
besides irregulars.

On the 6th Ballasteros received false news that Conroux was marching against him with the troops from the Cadiz Lines, and drew back into the mountains. It is said that he was wilfully deceived by persons in the French interest; at any rate he must have been badly served by his cavalry and intelligence officers, who ought to have been able to tell him that there was no foundation for the report. Penne and Morillo, however, though disappointed at failing to meet their colleague’s army, made a great parade of their small force under the walls of Seville, and skirmished with the French at the bridge-head of Triana, and under the walls of the Cartuja, so boldly that Rignoux expected a serious attack. They could only have accomplished something more profitable if the people of Seville had risen, but no disturbance took place. After remaining in front of the place all the 7th and 8th of April, they disappeared on the 9th, having received news of the fall of Badajoz, and drawn the correct deduction that Soult would turn back to hunt them when freed from his other task. Wellington, indeed, had written to give them warning to that effect on the very morning that they retired[304]: but they anticipated the danger, and were safely behind the Rio Tinto when Soult turned up in hot haste at Seville on the 11th, after four days of exhausting forced marches.

[304] Wellington to Col. Austin from Badajoz, April 9.

The Marshal had left the two divisions of Drouet and Daricau with Perreymond’s cavalry in Estremadura, to act as an observing force, and had marched with his remaining 13,000 men to save Seville, which owing to Ballasteros’s timidity had never been in any real danger. But the Spanish diversion had nevertheless had precisely the effect that Wellington had expected and desired. During Soult’s short absence of twelve days great part of the open country of Andalusia had fallen out of his control, the communications with La Mancha and King Joseph had been cut off, and the guerrilleros had blockaded all the smaller French posts. The hold of the invaders upon the kingdom was never so secure as it had been before the fall of Badajoz.

Ballasteros, after his fiasco in front of Seville, made two fruitless attempts against isolated French garrisons. He failed at the Castle of Zahara on April 11th. One of his columns in an assault on Osuna two days later got into the town and killed or captured 60 of the defenders, but failed to take the citadel, where the remainder defended themselves till Pierre Soult was reported to be at hand, and the Spaniards withdrew[305]. He ended his campaign of raids, however, with a more successful stroke. Hearing that the brigadier Rey, with three battalions and some dragoons, was marching from Malaga to relieve the garrison of Ronda, he fell upon him at Alhaurin on the 14th with his main body, encompassed him with fourfold strength, and drove him in rout back to Malaga, capturing his two guns and inflicting more than 200 casualties upon him[306]. Ballasteros then hoped to seize on Malaga, where the French were much alarmed, and prepared to shut themselves up in the citadel of Gibalfaro. But the news that Pierre Soult and Conroux were approaching with a strong column caused the Spaniards to retire to the mountains above Gibraltar [April 19th]. Thus the operations in Andalusia, which had opened with Soult’s march to Badajoz, came to an end, with no ruinous disaster to the French, but with a diminution of their prestige, and a distinct weakening of their hold on the kingdom. In the Condado de Niebla Soult made no attempt to reoccupy lost ground, and east of Granada his line of posts had recoiled considerably on the Murcian side: Baza and Ubeda had been abandoned for good. It was but a vain boast when the Marshal wrote to Berthier that, after he had set all things to rights in the central parts of Andalusia, he intended to organize a general concentration to crush Ballasteros, and that his next task would be to lay siege for a second time to Tarifa, ‘the loss of which place would be more injurious to the English and the Insurgents than that of Alicante, or even that of Badajoz--against which last-named fortress I ought to make no attack till I shall have finished matters on the Tarifa side, and so have nothing to fear on my left flank[307].’

[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.

To complete the survey of the fortunes of the Army of the South in April, it only remains that we should mention the doings of Drouet, now left once more with his two old divisions to form the ‘corps of observation’ opposite the Anglo-Portuguese. Soult during his retreat had dropped his lieutenant at Llerena, with orders to give back on Seville without fighting any serious action, if the enemy should pursue him in force, but if he were left alone to hold his ground, push his cavalry forward, and keep a strong detachment as near the Upper Guadiana as possible. For only by placing troops at Campanario, Medellin, and (if possible) Merida, could communication be kept up via Truxillo and Almaraz with the Army of Portugal.

As it turned out, Drouet was not to be permitted to occupy such a forward position as Soult would have liked. He was closely followed by Stapleton Cotton, with Le Marchant’s and Slade’s heavy and Ponsonby’s[308] light cavalry brigades, who brought his rearguard to action at Villagarcia outside Llerena on April 11th. This was a considerable fight. Drouet’s horse was in position to cover the retirement of his infantry, with Lallemand’s dragoons in first line, and Perreymond’s hussars and chasseurs in support. Lallemand evidently thought that he had only Ponsonby’s brigade in front of him, as Le Marchant’s was coming up by a side-road covered by hills, and Slade’s was far out of sight to the rear. Accordingly he accepted battle on an equal front, each side having three regiments in line. But, just as the charge was delivered, the 5th Dragoon Guards, Le Marchant’s leading regiment, came on the ground from the right, and, rapidly deploying, took the French line in flank and completely rolled it up[309]. The enemy went to the rear in confusion, and the pursuit was continued till, half-way between Villagarcia and Llerena, the French rallied on their reserve (2nd Hussars) behind a broad ditch. Cotton, who had not let his men get out of hand, re-formed Anson’s brigade and delivered a second successful charge, which drove the French in upon Drouet’s infantry, which was in order of battle to the left of Llerena town. It was impossible to do more, as three cavalry brigades could not attack 12,000 men of all arms in a good position. But a few hours later the whole French corps was seen in retreat eastward: it retired to Berlanga and Azuaga on the watershed of the Sierra Morena, completely abandoning Estremadura.

[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).

The French (outnumbered, if Slade’s brigade be counted, but it was far to the rear and never put in line) lost 53 killed and wounded and 4 officers and 132 rank and file taken prisoners. Cotton’s casualties were 14 killed and 2 officers and 35 men wounded: he insisted that his success would have been much greater if Ponsonby had held back a little longer, till the whole of Le Marchant’s squadrons came on the field--Lallemand would then have been cut off from Llerena and his line of retreat, and the greater part of his brigade ought to have been captured, though the light cavalry in the second line might have got off[310]. However, the affair was very creditable to all concerned.

[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.

Hill’s infantry did not follow the retreating French, and had halted about Almendralejo and Villafranca, only the cavalry having gone on in pursuit to Llerena. The rest of the Anglo-Portuguese army was already in movement for the North, as Wellington had given up the idea, which had somewhat tempted him at first, of pursuing Soult to Seville and trying to upset the whole fabric of French power in Andalusia. Of this more in its due place. Suffice it to say here that he fell back on his old partition of forces, leaving Hill in Estremadura as his ‘corps of observation’, with precisely the same force that he had been given in 1811, save that one British cavalry brigade (that of Slade) was added. The rest of the corps consisted of the 2nd Division, Hamilton’s two Portuguese brigades, Long’s British and John Campbell’s Portuguese horse[311]. The whole amounted to about 14,000 men, sufficient not only to hold Drouet in check, but also to keep an eye upon the French troops in the valley of the Tagus, against whom Wellington was now meditating a raid of the sort that he had already sketched out in his correspondence with Hill in February.

[311] This was the brigade formerly under Barbaçena, 4th and 10th
regiments.

So much for the Army of Andalusia and its fortunes in April 1812. We must now turn to those of Marmont and the Army of Portugal during the same critical weeks.

The Duke of Ragusa, as it will be remembered, had been caught at Salamanca, on March 27th, by Napoleon’s dispatch giving him an over-late option of detaching troops to the relief of Badajoz. But being already committed to the invasion of Portugal prescribed by the Emperor’s earlier letters, and having his field-force and his magazines disposed for that project, he had resolved to proceed with it, though he had no great belief in the results that would follow from his taking the offensive[312]. As he informed his master, there was nothing at which he could strike effectively. ‘It would seem that His Majesty thinks that Lord Wellington has magazines close behind the frontier of northern Portugal. Not so. These magazines are at Abrantes, or in Estremadura. His hospitals are at Lisbon, Castello Branco, and Abrantes. There is nothing of any importance to him on the Coa.’ And how was Almeida or Ciudad Rodrigo to be assailed in such a way as to cause Wellington any disquietude, when the Army of Portugal had not a single heavy gun left? ‘General Dorsenne had the happy idea of leaving in Rodrigo, a fortress of inferior character on the front of our line, the whole siege-train prepared for this army at great expense, so that new guns of large calibre must actually be brought up from France.’

[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.

Marmont’s striking force was not so large as he would have wished. Bonnet was, by the Emperor’s orders, beginning his advance for the reoccupation of the Asturias. Foy was in the valley of the Tagus. Souham had to be left on the Esla, to observe the Army of Galicia. This left five divisions for active operations: but the Marshal came to the conclusion that he must split up one more (Ferey’s) to hold Valladolid, Salamanca, Zamora, Toro, Avila, Benavente, and other places, which in an elaborate calculation sent to Berthier he showed to require 4,910 men for their garrisons. He therefore marched with four infantry divisions only [Clausel, Maucune, Sarrut, Brennier] and 1,500 light cavalry, about 25,000 men in all: his division of dragoons was left behind in Leon, to keep open communication between his various garrisons. A rather illusory help was sought by sending to Foy, who then lay at Almaraz, orders to the effect that he might push a detachment to Plasencia, and give out that he was about to join the main army by the pass of Perales. But Foy’s real concern, as he was told, was to keep up communication with the Army of the South, and to give any help that was possible on the side of Truxillo, if (by some improbable chance) the Army of the Centre should be able to lend him the aid of any appreciable number of battalions.

On the 30th the French army appeared in front of Rodrigo, and Carlos de España, leaving 3,000 men as garrison there, under General Vives, retired with the small remainder of his division towards the Portuguese frontier. He was pursued and molested by the enemy’s cavalry, not having been covered or assisted, as Wellington had directed, by Victor Alten’s regiment of German Hussars. That officer, neglecting his orders in the most flagrant fashion, did not retire slowly and in a fighting posture, when the French drove in his line of vedettes in front of Rodrigo, but collected his regiment and rode hard for Castello Branco, without concerning himself in the least as to the safety of the Spanish and Portuguese forces in his neighbourhood, or the procuring of intelligence as to the strength and the purpose of the French army. His carelessness or shirking of responsibility, which was to be displayed in still worse form as the campaign went on, drew on him such a sharp and bitter rebuke from Wellington that it is a wonder that he was not sent home forthwith[313].

[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.’

Marmont looked at Rodrigo, but refused to attempt anything against it, though he was informed that the garrison was undisciplined and dispirited. Without siege artillery he held that it was useless to attack the place. After sending in a formal summons to Vives (who gave the proper negative answer in round terms), and throwing into the streets a few shells from the howitzers attached to his field-batteries, he told off Brennier’s division to blockade Rodrigo, as also to guard a flying bridge which he cast across the Agueda at La Caridad, a few miles up-stream.

His next move was to send forward Clausel with two divisions to investigate the state of Almeida. He had heard that its walls were unfinished, and thought that there might be some chance of executing a _coup-de-main_ against it. The general, however, came back next day, reporting that he thought the scheme impossible. He had apparently been deterred from pressing in upon the place both by the defiant attitude of the governor, Le Mesurier, whose outposts skirmished outside the walls for some time before allowing themselves to be driven in, and still more by the sight of a considerable force of Portuguese troops encamped close to the town on the other side of the Coa. This was Trant’s militia, the first detachment that had got to the front of the various bodies of troops which Wellington had told off for the defence of the Beira. They had taken up the strong position behind the bridge of the Coa, which Craufurd had so obstinately defended against Ney in July 1810.

On the alarm being given on March 29th that Marmont was marching against that province, and not against Galicia or the Tras-os-Montes, Wellington’s orders suiting that contingency were carried out with more or less accuracy. Silveira, with the Tras-os-Montes militia and his small body of regular cavalry, began to move on Lamego, where Baccelar, the chief commander in the North, had concentrated the regiments from the Oporto region and the Beira Alta, even before Marmont had left Salamanca. General Abadia had been requested to press forward against the French on the Esla, so as to threaten the flank and rear of the invading army. He did not accomplish much, being convinced that the forces left opposite him were too strong to be lightly meddled with. But he directed a raid to be made from the Western Asturias towards the city of Leon, and the division at Puebla de Senabria threatened Benavente. Both movements were executed too late to be of any importance in affecting the course of the campaign.

Baccelar had been ordered to avoid committing himself to a general action with any large body of the enemy, but to show such a mass of troops concentrated that Marmont would have to keep his main body together, and to act cautiously on the offensive. His primary duty was to cover, if possible, the large magazines at São João de Pesqueira and Lamego on the Douro, and the smaller ones at Villa da Ponte, Pinhel, and Celorico. To these Wellington attached much importance, as they were the intermediate dépôts from which his army drew its sustenance when it was on the northern frontier, and he knew that he would be requiring them again ere many weeks had passed. As long as Marmont remained near Almeida, it was necessary to keep a force as far forward as possible, behind the very defensible line of the Coa, and Trant was advanced for this purpose, though he was directed not to commit himself. His presence so close to Almeida was very valuable, as he would have to be driven off before the Marshal formally invested the place. Le Mesurier, the governor, was not at all comfortable as to his position: though he had a proportion of British artillery left with him, the whole of the infantry of the garrison consisted of Beira militia, who had no experience under arms. On taking over charge of the place, on March 18, the governor had complained that though the walls were in a sufficient state of repair, and there were plenty of guns forthcoming, yet few or none of them were mounted ready for service, the powder magazines were insufficiently sheltered, and many details of fortification (palisades, platforms, &c.) had to be completed in a hurry[314]. However, the place looked so sound for defence when Clausel reconnoitred it, that--as we have seen--he made no attempt to invest it, and promptly withdrew, reporting to his chief that Almeida was not to be taken by a _coup-de-main_.

[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.

Marmont then made the move which Wellington had most desired, and which in his dispatch to Baccelar he had specified as the happiest thing that could come about. Instead of sitting down before Almeida or Ciudad Rodrigo, or making a push against the dépôts on the Douro, he turned southward towards the Lower Beira, and (leaving Brennier behind to guard communications) marched with three divisions to Sabugal via Fuente Guinaldo. This policy could have no great results--the Marshal might ravage the country-side, but such a movement with such a force could not possibly alarm Wellington overmuch, or draw him away from the siege of Badajoz if he were determined to persevere in it. There was nothing of importance to him in central Beira--only minor dépôts at Celorico and Castello Branco, much less valuable than the larger ones at Lamego and São João de Pesqueira on the Douro. ‘He can do no more,’ as an acute observer on the Portuguese staff remarked, ‘than drive off some cattle, burn some cottages, and ruin a few wretched peasants[315].’ For the country about the sources of the Zezere and round Castello Branco is one of the most thinly peopled districts of Portugal.

[315] The observation comes from D’Urban’s unpublished Journal.

To meet Marmont’s southern move Baccelar brought up Trant’s and Wilson’s militia by a parallel march to Guarda, while Le Cor, with the two regiments of the Beira Baixa, held on at Castello Branco till he should be evicted from it. To Wellington’s intense disgust[316], Victor Alten, whose orders directed him to fall back no farther than that town, continued his precipitate retreat with the German Hussars to the bridge of Villa Velha on the Tagus, and began to take measures to destroy that all-important link of communications between north and south. Fortunately he was stopped before he had done the damage. The bridge was only taken over to the south bank, not committed to the flames.

[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.’

Halting at Sabugal, on April 8th, Marmont sent out flying columns, which ravaged the country-side as far as Penamacor, Fundão, and Covilhão, and dispatched Clausel with a whole division against Castello Branco, the one important place in the whole region. Le Cor evacuated it on April 12th, after burning such of the magazines as could not be removed in haste: and Clausel--who occupied it for two days--did not therefore get possession of the stores of food which his chief had hoped to find there. In revenge the town and the small proportion of its inhabitants who did not take to the hills were badly maltreated: many buildings, including the bishop’s palace, were burnt.

Hearing that Marmont had dispersed the larger portion of his army with flying columns, and was lying at Sabugal, on the 12th, with only a few thousand men, Trant conceived the rash idea that it would be possible to surprise him, at his head-quarters, by a night march of his own and Wilson’s combined divisions from Guarda. The distance was about twenty miles over mountain roads, and the scheme must have led to disaster, for--contrary to the information which the militia generals had gathered--the Marshal’s concentrated main body was still stronger than their own, despite of all his detachments[317]. ‘You could not have succeeded in your attempt, and you would have lost your division and that of General Wilson[318],’ wrote Wellington to Trant, when the scheme and its failure were reported to him a week later. It was fortunately never tried, owing to Baccelar’s having made objections to his subordinate’s hare-brained plan.

[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.

But the best comment on the enterprise is that on the very night (April 13-14) which Trant had fixed for his march, he was himself surprised by Marmont, so bad had been his arrangements for watching the country-side. The Marshal had learnt that there was an accumulation of militia at Guarda threatening his flank, and resolved to give it a lesson. He started with a brigade each from Sarrut’s and Maucune’s divisions and five squadrons of light cavalry--about 7,000 men--and was, at dawn, on the 14th, at the foot of the hill of Guarda, where he had the good luck to cut off all Trant’s outposts without their firing a shot--so badly did the militia keep their look-out. ‘Had he only dashed headlong into the town he might have captured Wilson’s and my divisions without losing probably a single man,’ wrote Trant. But the ascent into Guarda was long and steep, and Marmont, who had only cavalry up, did not guess how careless were his adversaries. He took proper military precautions and waited for his infantry: meanwhile the Portuguese were roused, almost by chance as it seems. ‘My distrust of the militia with regard to the execution of precautions,’ continues Trant, ‘had induced me at all times to have a drummer at my bedroom door, in readiness to beat to arms. This was most fortunately the case on the night of April 13, 1812, for the first intimation that I had of the enemy being near at hand was given me by my servant, on bringing me my coffee at daybreak on the 14th. He said that there was such a report in the street, and that the soldiers were assembling at the alarm rendezvous. I instantly beat to arms, and the beat being as instantly taken up by every drummer in the place, Marmont, who was at that very moment with his cavalry at the entrance of the town, held back. I was myself the first man out of the town, and he was not then 400 yards away[319].’

[319] Narrative of Trant in Napier’s Appendix to vol. iv. p. 451.