Chapter XXII: Section XXXIII: Chapter V (1)

MARMONT TAKES THE OFFENSIVE. JULY 1812

On July 2nd Wellington had arrived at the end of the first stage of his campaign. He had cleared the French out of the whole of southern Leon as far as the Douro, had taken the Salamanca forts, and had beaten off with ease Marmont’s attempts to meddle with him. All this had been accomplished with the loss of less than 500 men. But the success, though marked, was not decisive, since the enemy’s army had not been beaten in the open field, but only manœuvred out of the considerable region that it had evacuated. The most tangible advantage secured was that Marmont had been cut off from Madrid and the Army of the Centre: he could now communicate with King Joseph only by the circuitous line through Segovia. All the guerrilleros of Castile, especially the bands of Saornil and Principe, were thrown on the Segovia and Avila roads, where they served Wellington excellently, for they captured most of the dispatches which were passing between King Joseph and Marmont, who were really out of touch with each other after the Marshal’s retreat from the Tormes on June 27th.

But till Marmont had been beaten in action nothing was settled, and Wellington had been disappointed of his hope that the Army of Portugal would attack him in position, and allow him to deal with it in the style of Bussaco. The Marshal had retired behind the Douro with his host intact: it was certain that he would be joined there by Bonnet’s division from the Asturias, and very possible that he might also receive succour from the Army of the North. The junction of Bonnet would give him a practical equality in numbers with the British army: any considerable reinforcement from Caffarelli would make him superior in force. And there was still a chance that other French armies might intervene, though hitherto there were no signs of it. For it was only during the first fortnight of the campaign that Wellington could reckon on having to deal with his immediate adversary alone. He was bound to have that much start, owing to the wide dispersion of the French, and their difficulty in communicating with each other. But as the weeks wore on, and the enemy became more able to grasp the situation, there was a growing possibility that outlying forces might be brought up towards the Douro. If Marmont had only been defeated on June 21st this would have mattered little: and Wellington must have regretted more and more each day that he had not taken the obvious opportunity, and attacked the Army of Portugal when it placed itself, incomplete and in a poor position, beneath the heights of San Cristobal.

Now, however, since Marmont had got away intact, everything depended on the working of the various diversions which had been prepared to distract the other French armies. One of them, Sir Home Popham’s, had succeeded to admiration, and had so scared Caffarelli that not a man of the Army of the North was yet in motion toward the Douro. And this fortunate expedition was to continue effective: for another three weeks Marmont got no succours from the army that was supposed to constitute his supporting force by the instructions of the Emperor and of King Joseph. But Wellington--not having the gift of prophecy, though he could see further into the fog of war than other men--was unable to rely with certainty on Caffarelli’s continued abstinence from interference. As to Soult, there were as yet no signs of any trouble from Andalusia. The Duke of Dalmatia had somewhat reinforced D’Erlon’s corps in Estremadura, but not to such an extent as threatened any real danger to Hill, who reported that he could keep D’Erlon in check on the Albuera position, and was not certain that he might not be able to attack him at advantage--a move for which he had his chief’s permission[453]. If only Wellington had been fortunate enough to receive some of Soult’s letters to King Joseph, written in the second half of June, he would have been much reassured: for the Marshal was (as we shall see) refusing in the most insubordinate style to carry out the orders sent him to move troops northward. Two minor pieces of intelligence from the South were of no primary importance--though vexatious enough--one was that Ballasteros had ventured on a battle at Bornos on June 1, and got well beaten: but his army was not destroyed. The second was that General Slade had suffered a discreditable check at Maguilla on June 11th in a cavalry combat with Lallemand’s dragoons. But neither of these events had much influence on Soult’s general conduct at the time, as we shall show in the proper place.

[453] See Wellington to Lord Liverpool, June 25. _Dispatches_,
ix. pp. 253-4, and to Hill, ix. pp. 256-7, and again to Lord
Liverpool, ix. pp. 261-2.

There remained one quarter from which Wellington had received information that was somewhat disturbing. An intercepted letter from King Joseph to D’Erlon showed that the latter had been directed to move towards the Tagus, and that the King himself was evidently thinking of bringing succour to Marmont, so far as his modest means allowed[454]. But since this projected operation seemed to depend on assistance being granted by Soult, and since it was doubtful in the highest degree whether Soult would give it, Wellington was not without hopes that it might come to nothing. ‘I have requested the Empecinado,’ he writes to Lord Liverpool, ‘to alarm the King for the safety of his situation about Madrid, and I hope that Marshal Soult will find ample employment for his troops in the blockade of Cadiz, the continued operations of General Ballasteros, and those in Estremadura of Lieut.-General Hill, whose attention I have called to the probable march of this corps of the Army of the South through Estremadura.’ As a matter of fact Soult prevented D’Erlon from giving any help to the King or Marmont; but a contingency was to arise of which Wellington, on July 1st, could have no expectation--viz. that, though refused all help from the South, Joseph might come to the desperate but most soldier-like determination to march with his own little army alone to the Douro, in order to bring to bear such influence as he possessed on what was obviously a critical moment in the war. The King and Jourdan were the only men in Spain who showed a true appreciation of the crisis: but they made their move too late: the fault was undoubtedly Soult’s alone. However, on July 1st, Wellington was justified in doubting whether any danger would arise on the side of Madrid. Joseph could not move the Army of the Centre to the Douro, without risking his capital and abandoning all New Castile. As late as July 11th Wellington suspected that he would not make this extreme sacrifice, but would rather push a demonstration down the Tagus to alarm central Portugal, a hypothesis which did not much alarm him[455]. The King and Jourdan knew better than to make this indecisive move, and marched where their 14,000 men might have turned the whole course of the campaign--but marched too late.

[454] See Wellington to Lord Liverpool, June 18. _Dispatches_,
ix. p. 241, and June 25, p. 253. There was also in Wellington’s
hands an intercepted letter of Joseph to Soult of May 26,
distinctly saying that if Marmont is attacked in June, D’Erlon
must pass the Tagus and go to his help. This is in the Scovell
ciphers.

[455] Wellington to Hill, July 11. _Dispatches_, ix. p. 281.
The idea that Joseph might operate on his own account begins to
emerge in the correspondence on the 14th. _Dispatches_, ix. p.
283.

There was still a chance that Suchet might be helping the King--this depended entirely on an unknown factor in the game, the diversion which Lord William Bentinck had promised to execute on the coast of Catalonia. If it had begun to work, as it should have done, by the second half of June, there was little chance that any troops from the eastern side of Spain would interfere in the struggle on the Douro. But no information of recent date was yet forthcoming: it was not till July 14th that the vexatious news arrived that Lord William was faltering in his purpose, and thinking of plans for diverting his expeditionary force to Italy.

The situation, therefore, when Marmont went behind the Douro on July 1st, had many uncertain points: there were several dangerous possibilities, but nothing had yet happened to make ultimate success improbable. On the whole the most disappointing factor was the conduct of the Army of Galicia. It will be remembered that Wellington had arranged for a double diversion on Marmont’s flank and rear. Silveira, with the militia of the Tras-os-Montes and D’Urban’s Portuguese cavalry brigade, was to cross the Esla and besiege Zamora. Santocildes, with the Army of Galicia, had been directed to attack Astorga with part of his force, but to bring the main body forward to the Esla and overrun the plains of northern Leon. Silveira had but a trifling force, and the task allotted to him was small: but on July 1st he had not yet reached Zamora with his infantry, and was only at Carvajales on the Esla[456]. On the other hand D’Urban’s cavalry had pushed boldly forward in front of him, had swept the whole north bank of the Douro as far as Toro, and reported that all the French garrisons save Astorga, Zamora, and Toro had been drawn in--that Benavente, Leon, and all the northern plain were unoccupied. On July 2 D’Urban was at Castronuevo, north of Toro, right in the rear of Marmont’s flank--a very useful position, since it enabled him to keep up communication between Silveira and the Galicians, as well as to report any movement of the French right. Moreover, though his force was very small, only 800 sabres, it was enough to prevent any foraging parties from Marmont’s rear from exploiting the resources of the north bank of the Douro. Some such appeared, but were driven in at once, so that the Marshal had to live on his magazines and the villages actually within his lines: in the end these resources would be exhausted, and the old choice--starvation or dispersion--would once more be presented to the Army of Portugal[457].

[456] By no fault of his own, according to D’Urban. The orders
for him to move were, by some delay at head-quarters, only
forthcoming on June 8th. Only two of the four Tras-os-Montes
militia regiments were then mobilized, and it took a long time to
collect the rest and the transport needed for moving across the
frontier.

[457] D’Urban’s manœuvres on both sides of the Douro are detailed
at great length in his very interesting diary, and his official
correspondence, both of which have been placed at my disposal. He
worked on both sides of the Douro, but went definitely north of
it after July 1.

But as a military body neither D’Urban’s 800 horse nor Silveira’s 4,000 militia had any threatening power against Marmont’s rear. They might almost be neglected, while the real pressure which Wellington had intended to apply in this quarter was not forthcoming. He had hoped that, by the time that he and Marmont were at close quarters, the Army of Galicia would have been taking a useful part in the campaign. It was not that he intended to use it as a fighting force: but if it could have appeared in the French rear 15,000 strong, it would have compelled Marmont to make such a large detachment for the purpose of ‘containing’ it, that he would have been left in a marked numerical inferiority on the Douro.

Unfortunately the Galicians moved late, in small numbers, and with marked timidity. They exercised no influence whatever on the course of the campaign, either in June or in July. Yet after Bonnet evacuated the Asturias and went off eastward on June 15th, the Army of Galicia had no field-force of any kind in front of it. The only French left in its neighbourhood were the 1,500 men[458] who formed the garrison of Astorga. Castaños, who had moved up to Santiago in June, and assumed command, did not take the field himself, but handed over the charge of the troops at the front to Santocildes. The latter sat down in front of Astorga with his main body, and only pushed forward a weak division under Cabrera to Benavente, where it was still too remote from Marmont to cause him any disquiet. The siege of Astorga was only a blockade till July 2nd, as no battering-train was brought up till that date. First Abadia, and later Castaños had pleaded that they had no means for a regular siege, and it was not till Sir Howard Douglas pointed out a sufficient store of heavy guns in the arsenal of Corunna, that Castaños began to scrape together the battering-train that ultimately reached Astorga[459]. But this was not so much the weak point in the operations of the Galician army, as the fact that, of 15,000 men brought together on the Orbigo, only 3,800 were pushed forward to the Esla, while the unnecessarily large remainder conducted a leisurely siege of the small garrison of Astorga. Wellington had reckoned on having an appreciable force, 10,000 or 12,000 men, at the front, molesting Marmont’s flank; this would have forced the Marshal to make a large detachment to keep it off. But not a man appeared on the east bank of the Esla, and the operations of D’Urban’s small brigade were of far more service to the main army than that of the whole of the Galicians. Marmont ignored the presence of the few thousand men pushed forward to Benavente, and was justified in so doing. Meanwhile Santocildes, with an optimism that proved wholly unjustifiable, sent messages that Astorga would be taken within a few days, and that he would then move forward with his main body. As a matter of fact the place held out till the 18th of August.

[458] Two battalions of 23rd Léger and one of 1st Line from
Thomières’s division.

[459] For the curious story of their ignorance of their own
resources see Sir Howard Douglas’s _Life_, pp. 156-7.

Wellington, therefore, was building on a false hypothesis when he wrote to Lord Bathurst, on July 7, that he was surveying all the fords of the Douro, and waiting till the river should have fallen a little and made them more practicable. ‘By that time I hope that the Army of Galicia under General Santocildes will have been able to advance, the siege of Astorga having been brought to a conclusion[460].’ Two days later he added, ‘it would not answer to cross the river at all in its present state, unless we should be certain of having the co-operation of the Galician troops[461].’ His delay in making an attempt to force the line of the Douro, therefore, may be attributed in the main to the tiresome conduct of Santocildes, who played to him much the same part that Caffarelli played to Marmont.

[460] _Dispatches_, ix. p. 274.

[461] Ibid., ix. p. 276.

While remaining in this waiting posture, Wellington placed his troops opposite the various passages of the Douro, on a line of some fifteen miles. His left, consisting of the 3rd Division, Pack’s and Bradford’s Portuguese, and Carlos de España’s Spaniards, with Le Marchant’s and Bock’s heavy dragoons, lay near the point where the Trabancos falls into the Douro, holding the ford of Pollos, where the favourable configuration of the ground enabled them to be sure of the passage, the enemy’s line being perforce drawn back to some distance on the north bank. It was always open to Wellington to use this ford, when he should determine on a general advance. The Light, 4th, 5th, and 6th Divisions, forming the right wing, lay opposite Tordesillas, with Rueda and La Seca behind them. Their front was covered by Alten’s cavalry brigade, their right (or outer) flank by Anson’s. The reserve was formed by the 1st and 7th Divisions quartered at Medina del Campo, ten miles to the rear. The whole could be assembled for an offensive or a defensive move in a day’s march.

Marmont was drawn up, to face the attack that he expected, in an almost equally close and concentrated formation: his front, extending from the junction of the Pisuerga with the Douro near Simancas on his left, to the ground opposite the ford of Pollos on his right, was very thickly held[462]; but on the 5th he rightly conceived doubts as to whether it would not be easy for Wellington to turn his western flank, by using the ford of Castro Nuño and other passages down-stream from Pollos. He then detached Foy’s division to Toro and the neighbourhood, to guard against such a danger: but this was still an insufficient provision, since Toro is fifteen miles from Pollos, and a single division of 5,000 men would have to watch rather than defend such a length of river-line, if it were attacked in force. Therefore when Bonnet, so long expected in vain, arrived from the North on July 7th, Marmont placed him in this portion of his line, for the assistance of Foy. He still retained six divisions massed around Tordesillas, whose unbroken bridge gave him a secure access to the southern bank of the Douro. With this mass of 35,000 men in hand, he could meet Wellington with a solid body, if the latter crossed the Douro at or below Pollos. Or he might equally well take the more daring step of assuming a counter-offensive, and marching from Tordesillas on Salamanca against his adversary’s communications, if the allies threatened his own by passing the river and moving on Valladolid.

[462] An interesting dispatch from D’Urban to Beresford describes
the information he had got on the 5th by a daring reconnaissance
along Marmont’s rear: there was not that morning any French force
west of Monte de Cubillos, six miles down-stream from Pollos.

A word to explain the tardiness of Bonnet’s arrival in comparison with the earliness of his start is perhaps required. He had evacuated Oviedo and Gijon and his other posts in the Asturias as early as June 14th, the actual day on which Wellington commenced his offensive campaign. This he did not in consequence of Marmont’s orders, which only reached him when he had begun to move, but on his own responsibility. He had received correct information as to the massing of the allied army round Ciudad Rodrigo, and of the forward movement of the Galicians towards Astorga. He knew of the dispersed state of Marmont’s host, and saw the danger to himself. Should the Marshal concentrate about Salamanca, he could never join him, if the whole Army of Galicia threw itself between. Wherefore not only did he resolve to retreat at once, but he did not move by the pass of Pajares and Leon--the obvious route to rejoin the Army of Portugal. For fear that he might be intercepted, he took the coast-road, picking up the small garrisons that he had placed in one or two small ports. He reached Santander on the 22nd, not molested so much as he might have been by the bands of Porlier and Longa (whose haunts he was passing), because the bulk of them had gone off to help in Sir Home Popham’s raid on Biscay. From Santander he turned inland, passed Reynosa, in the heart of the Cantabrian Sierras, on the 24th June, and arrived at Aguilar del Campo, the first town in the province of Palencia, on the 29th. From thence he had a long march of seven days in the plains, before he reached Valladolid on the 6th, and reported himself at Marmont’s head-quarters on the 7th of July. He brought with him a strong division of 6,500 infantry, a light field-battery, and a single squadron of Chasseurs--even 100 sabres[463] were a welcome reinforcement to Marmont’s under-horsed army. It was an odd fact that Bonnet’s division had never before met the English in battle, though one of its regiments had seen them during the last days of Sir John Moore’s retreat in January 1809[464]. For the three years since that date they had always been employed in the Asturias.

[463] Ninety-four to be exact. See 28th Chasseurs in table of
Marmont’s army in Appendix.

[464] The 122nd Line had been in Mermet’s division, in January
1809, but they had been in reserve at Corunna, and had not fired
a shot in that battle.

The arrival of Bonnet brought up the total of Marmont’s infantry to 43,000 men, and his guns to 78. The cavalry still remained the weak point: but by a high-handed and unpopular measure the Marshal succeeded, during his stay on the Douro, in procuring nearly 1,000 horses for the dismounted dragoons who were encumbering his dépôt at Valladolid. In the French, as in the British, Peninsular army it had become common for many of the junior officers of the infantry to provide themselves with a riding-horse; most captains and many lieutenants had them. And their seniors, _chefs de bataillon_ and colonels, habitually had several horses more than they were entitled to. Marmont took the heroic measure of proclaiming that he should enforce the regulations, and that all unauthorized horses were confiscated. He paid, however, a valuation for each beast on a moderate scale--otherwise the act would have been intolerable. In this way, including some mounts requisitioned from doctors, commissaries, and suttlers, about 1,000 horses in all were procured. The number of cavalry fit for the field had gone up by July 15th from about 2,200 to 3,200--a total which was only 300 less than Wellington’s full strength of British sabres. It occurs to the casual observer that the horses, having never been trained to squadron drill or to act in mass, must have been difficult to manage, even though the riders were competent horsemen. This may have something to do with the very ineffective part played by the French cavalry in the next fortnight’s campaigning.

A quaint anecdote of the time shows us General Taupin, an old Revolutionary veteran, with all the officers of his brigade called together in a village church. ‘He ascended the pulpit and thundered against the abuse of horses in the infantry: he would make an end of all baggage carried on mules or asses, but most especially of the officers’ riding-horses. “Gentlemen,” he cried, “in 1793 we were allowed a haversack as our only baggage, a stone as our only pillow.” Well--it was a long time since 1793: we were in 1812, and the speaker, this old and gallant soldier, had _six_ baggage mules himself[465].’

[465] _Mémoires_ of Lemonnier-Delafosse of the 31st Léger, pp.
177-8.

During the first ten days after the deadlock on the Douro began, the French were much puzzled by Wellington’s refusal to continue his advance. Foy, the ablest of them, noted in his diary that he must conclude either that the enemy was not numerous enough to take the offensive--his strength might have been over-valued--or else that he was waiting for Hill to bring up his corps from Estremadura. This last idea, indeed, was running in the brains of many French strategists: it obsessed Jourdan and King Joseph at Madrid, who were well aware that Hill, marching by Alcantara and the passes of the Sierra de Gata, could have got to the Douro in half the time that it would have taken his opponent, D’Erlon, who would have had to move by Toledo, Madrid, and Segovia. But the simple explanation is to be found in Wellington’s dispatch to Lord Bathurst of July 13. ‘It is obvious that we could not cross the Douro without sustaining great loss, and could not fight a general action under circumstances of greater disadvantage.... The enemy’s numbers are equal, if not superior, to ours: they have in their position thrice the amount of artillery that we have, and we are superior in cavalry alone--which arm (it is probable) could not be used in the sort of attack we should have to make[466].’ He then proceeds to demonstrate the absolute necessity of bringing forward the Army of Galicia against Marmont’s rear. Its absence was the real cause of the deadlock in which he found himself involved. All offensive operations were postponed--meanwhile the enemy might receive reinforcements and attack, since he had not been attacked. ‘But I still hope that I shall be able to retain, at the close of this campaign, those acquisitions which we made at its commencement.’

[466] Wellington to Bathurst. _Dispatches_, ix. p. 284.

Meanwhile Marmont, having had a fortnight to take stock of his position, and having received reinforcements which very nearly reached the figure that he had named to King Joseph as the minimum which would enable him to take the offensive, was beginning to get restless. He had now realized that he would get no practical assistance from Caffarelli, who still kept sending him letters exaggerating the terrors of Sir Home Popham’s raid on Biscay. They said that there were six ships of the line engaged in it, and that there was a landing-force of British regulars: Bonnet’s evacuation of the Asturias had allowed all the bands of Cantabria to turn themselves loose on Biscay--Bilbao was being attacked--and so forth. This being so, it was only possible to send a brigade of cavalry and a horse artillery battery--anything more was useless to ask[467]. This was written on June 26th, but by July 11th not even the cavalry brigade had started from Vittoria, as was explained by a subsequent letter, which only reached Marmont after he had already started on an offensive campaign[468]. As a matter of fact, Caffarelli’s meagre contribution of 750 sabres[469] and one battery actually got off on July 16th[470]. Marmont may be pardoned for having believed that it would never start at all, when it is remembered that a month had elapsed since he first asked for aid, and that every two days he had been receiving dispatches of excuse, but no reinforcements. He had no adequate reason for thinking that even the trifling force which did in the end start out would ever arrive.

[467] Caffarelli to Marmont, in the latter’s _Mémoires_, iv. p.
417.

[468] Ibid., pp. 421-2.

[469] He sent finally only two regiments, not three as he had
originally promised.

[470] Caffarelli to Marmont, in the latter’s _Mémoires_, iv. p.
425, announcing their departure.

Nor, as he demonstrates clearly enough in his defence of his operations, had he any more ground for believing that Joseph and Jourdan would bring him help from Madrid. They resolved to do so in the end, and made a vigorous effort to collect as large a force as was possible. But the announcement of their intention was made too late to profit Marmont. The dispatch conveying it was sent off from Madrid only on July 9th[471], and never reached the Marshal at all, for the two copies of it, sent by separate messengers, were both captured by guerrilleros between Madrid and Valladolid, and came into Wellington’s instead of into Marmont’s hands. This was a consequence of the insecurity of the communication via Segovia, the only one route open when the Army of Portugal retired behind the Douro. On July 12th the last piece of intelligence from Madrid which Marmont had received was a dispatch from Jourdan dated June 30th--it had taken twelve days to get 150 miles, which shows the shifts to which its bearer had been exposed. This letter is so important, as showing what the King and Jourdan opined at the moment, that its gist is worth giving.

[471] Original is in the Scovell ciphers. It seems to be
unpublished.

Jourdan begins by complaining that on June 30 the last dispatch from the Army of Portugal to hand was sixteen days old, of the date of June 14th. It is clear, then, that no copies of the reports sent by Marmont on June 22 and June 24 had got to Madrid--a circumstance to be explained by the fact that Wellington had them instead of their destined recipient[472]. Jourdan then proceeds to say that he is informed that Wellington has 50,000 men, but only 18,000 of them British. ‘The King thinks that if this is so, you are strong enough to beat his army, and would like to know the motives which have prevented you from taking the offensive. He charges me to invite you to explain them by express messenger.’ In the South it was known that Hill, with 18,000 men, was advancing on June 18th against D’Erlon. That officer was to be reinforced from Seville, and was probably at close quarters with Hill. The King had sent orders that D’Erlon was to move northward into the valley of the Tagus, if Hill marched up to join Wellington. But, it being probable that the order would not be very promptly executed, ‘his Majesty would like you to take advantage of the moment, when Wellington has not all his forces in hand, to fight him. The King has asked for troops from Marshal Suchet, but they will never be sent. All that His Majesty can do at present is to reinforce the garrison of Segovia, and order its governor, General Espert, to help the garrison of Avila, if necessary, and to supply it with food.’

[472] They are both in the Scovell ciphers, and quoted above, p.
370.

This letter, which clearly gives no hope of immediate help for the Army of Portugal from Madrid, and which might be taken as a direct incitement to bring Wellington to action at once, must be read in conjunction with the last epistle that Marmont had received from the same quarter. This was a letter of the King’s dated June 18. The important paragraph of it runs as follows:--

‘If General Hill has remained with his 18,000 men on the left (south) bank of the Tagus, you ought to be strong enough to beat the English army, more especially if you have received any reinforcements from the Army of the North. You must choose your battlefield, and make your best dispositions. But if Hill joins the main English army, I fancy they are too strong for you. In that case you must manœuvre to gain time. I should not hesitate to give you a positive order to defer fighting, if I were certain that Count D’Erlon and his 15,000 men, and a division from the Army of Aragon, were on their way to you: for on their arrival the English army would be seriously compromised. But being wholly uncertain about them, I must repeat to you that if General Hill is still on the south side of the Tagus, you should choose a good position and give battle with all your troops united: but if General Hill joins Lord Wellington, you must avoid an action as long as possible, in order to pick up the reinforcements which will certainly reach you in the end[473].’

[473] Joseph to Marmont, June 18, in Ducasse’s _Correspondance_,
ix. pp. 28-39.

I think that there can be no doubt in the mind of any honest critic that on the strength of these two dispatches from his Commander-in-Chief, Marmont was justified in taking the offensive against Wellington, without waiting for that help from Madrid which the King had not offered him. Hill being far away, and Wellington having no more than his own seven divisions of Anglo-Portuguese, Marmont is decidedly authorized to bring him to action. The sole factor which the second Madrid dispatch states wrongly, is the proportion of British troops in the allied army: Jourdan guesses that there are 50,000 men, but only 18,000 British. As a matter of fact there were 49,000 men at the moment[474], but about 30,000 were British. This made a difference, no doubt, and Marmont, if he had been determined to avoid a battle, might have pleaded it as his justification. But he was not set on any such timid policy: he had wellnigh attacked Wellington at San Cristobal on June 21st, when he had not yet received his own reinforcements. When Bonnet had come up, and the British had obtained no corresponding addition to their strength, he was eager to take the offensive, and Joseph’s and Jourdan’s dispatches distinctly authorized him to do so.

[474] Two battalions, the 1/38 and 1/5th, joined before the
battle of the 22nd, bringing up the total force by 1,500 bayonets
more.

After the disaster of Salamanca, Napoleon drew up an indictment of Marmont, of which the three chief heads were:

(1) He took the offensive without waiting for reinforcements which were to join him.

(2) He delivered battle without the authorization of his Commander-in-Chief.

(3) He might, by waiting only two days longer, before he committed himself to a general action, have received at least the cavalry and guns which he knew that Caffarelli had sent him[475].

[475] See the letter of Clarke to Marmont enclosing the Emperor’s
indictment, in Marmont’s _Mémoires_, iv. pp. 453-4.

The very complete answer to these charges is that:

(1) When the Marshal took the offensive he had no reason to suppose that any reinforcements were coming. Caffarelli had excused himself: the King had promised succour only if Hill joined Wellington, not otherwise. Hill had never appeared: therefore no help was likely to come from the southward.

(2) He had clear permission from Joseph to give battle, unless Hill should have joined Wellington.

(3) The succours from Caffarelli, a weak cavalry brigade and one battery, were so small that their arrival would have made no practical difference to the strength of the army. But to have waited two days for them, after the campaign had commenced, would have given Wellington the opportunity of concentrating, and taking up a good position. It was only after the manœuvring had begun [July 15th] that this little brigade started from Vittoria, on July 16th. The Army of Portugal had already committed itself to offensive operations, and could not halt for two days in the midst of them, without losing the initiative.

From his own point of view, then, Marmont was entirely justified in recrossing the Douro and assuming the offensive. He had got all the reinforcements that he could count upon: they made his army practically equal to Wellington’s in numbers: in homogeneity it was far superior. If he had waited a little longer, he might have found 12,000 men of the Army of Galicia at his back, setting all Old Castile and Leon aflame. Moreover Astorga was only victualled up to August 1st, and might fall any day. He could not have foreseen King Joseph’s unexpected march to his aid, which no dispatch received before July 12th rendered likely. His misfortune (or fault) was that he undervalued the capacity of Wellington to manœuvre, his readiness to force on an offensive battle, and (most of all) the fighting value of the Anglo-Portuguese army.

It cannot be denied that Marmont’s method of taking the offensive against Wellington was neat and effective. It consisted in a feint against his adversary’s left wing, followed by a sudden countermarch and a real attack upon his right wing.

On July 15th Foy and Bonnet, with the two divisions forming the French right, received orders to restore the bridge of Toro, to drive in Wellington’s cavalry screen in front of it, and to cross to the south bank of the Douro. At the same time the divisions of the French centre, opposite the fords of Pollos, made an ostentatious move down-stream towards Toro, accompanied by the Marshal himself, and those on the left, near Tordesillas, shifted themselves towards Pollos. Almost the whole French army was clearly seen marching westward, and the two leading divisions were actually across the river next morning, and seemed to be heading straight for Salamanca by the Toro road.

Wellington was deceived, exactly as Marmont had intended. He drew the obvious conclusion that his adversary was about to turn his left flank, and to strike at Salamanca and his line of communications. It would have been in his power to make a corresponding move against Valladolid, Marmont’s base. But his own line of communications meant much more to him than did Marmont’s. There was a great difference between the position of an army living by transport and magazines, and that of an army living on the country by plunder, like that of the French marshal. Wellington had always been jealous of his left wing, and as early as July 12 had drawn up an elaborate order of march, providing for the contingency of the enemy crossing the Douro at Toro and the ford of Castro Nuño. If his entire force seemed on the move, the whole British army would make a corresponding shift westward--if only a division or two, the mass transferred would be less in similar proportion. He had no idea of defending the actual course of the river: in a letter written a few days later to Lord Bathurst, he remarked that ‘it was totally out of my power to prevent the enemy from crossing the Douro at any point at which he might think it expedient, as he had in his possession all the bridges [Toro and Tordesillas] and many of the fords[476].’ His plan was to concentrate against the crossing force, and fight a defensive action against it, wherever a good position might be available.

[476] See _Supplementary Dispatches_, xiv. p. 68.

There were two reasons for which Wellington regarded a genuine offensive move of Marmont by Toro and Castro Nuño as probable. The first was that he had received King Joseph’s dispatch of July 9th, captured by guerrilleros, which gave him the startling news that the King had resolved to evacuate all New Castile save Madrid and Toledo, and to march with his field-force of some 14,000 men to join the Army of Portugal[477]. Wellington wrote to Graham (who was now on his way home) early on the 16th, that either the Galicians’ approach on his rear had induced Marmont to collect his troops near Toro, or he had heard that Joseph was gathering the Army of the Centre at Madrid, and was threatening the allied left ‘in order to prevent us from molesting the King.’ It was clear that if Wellington had to shift westward to protect his line of communications, he could make no detachment to ‘contain’ King Joseph, who would be approaching from the south-east. Another letter, written an hour or so later, says, ‘these movements of Marmont are certainly intended to divert our attention from the Army of the Centre (which is collecting at Madrid), if he knows of this circumstance, _which I doubt_[478].’ The doubt was well grounded.

[477] See _Dispatches_, ix. p. 294.

[478] Wellington to Clinton, July 16, 7 a.m. _Dispatches_, ix. p.
291.

That the whole movement on Toro was a feint did not occur to Wellington, but his orders of the 16th, given in the evening, after he had heard that two French divisions were actually across the Douro on his left, provide for the possibility that some serious force may still remain at Tordesillas and may require observation.

The orders direct the transference of the great bulk of the allied army to a position which will cover the road Toro-Salamanca. They were issued in the evening to the following effect. The reserve (1st and 7th Divisions) was to march from Medina del Campo to Alaejos beyond the Trabancos river, and subsequently to Canizal and Fuente la Peña behind the Guarena river. The left wing, which was watching the fords of Pollos (3rd Division, Bock’s cavalry, Bradford’s and Carlos de España’s infantry), to Castrillo on the Guarena. Of the right wing the 6th Division and two regiments of Le Marchant’s horse were to move on Fuente la Peña, the 5th Division on Canizal. Alten’s cavalry brigade was to follow the 1st Division. This left the 4th and Light Divisions and Anson’s cavalry still unaccounted for. They were set aside to act as a sort of rearguard, being directed to move westward only as far as Castrejon on the Trabancos river, ten miles short of the concentration-point on the Toro road, to which the rest of the army was ordered to proceed. It is clear (though Wellington does not say so) that they would serve as a containing force, if the enemy had left any troops at Tordesillas, and brought them over the Douro there, or at the fords of Pollos.

All these moves were duly executed, and on the morning of the 17th Wellington’s army was getting into position to withstand the expected advance of the enemy on Salamanca by the Toro road. This attack, however, failed to make itself felt, and presently news came that the two divisions of Foy and Bonnet, which had crossed the Douro at Toro, had gone behind it again, and destroyed their bridge. What Marmont had done during the night of the 16th-17th was to reverse the marching order of his whole army, the rear suddenly becoming the head, and the head the rear. The divisions to the eastward, which had not yet got near Toro, countermarched on Tordesillas, and crossed its bridge, with the light cavalry at their head. Those which had reached Toro brought up the rear, and followed, with Foy and Bonnet, at the tail of the column. This was a most fatiguing march for all concerned, the distance from Toro to Tordesillas being about twenty miles, and the operation being carried out in the night hours. But it was completely successful--during the morning of the 17th the vanguard, consisting of Clausel’s and Maucune’s divisions and Curto’s _chasseurs à cheval_, was pouring over the bridge of Tordesillas and occupying Rueda and La Seca, which the British had evacuated fifteen hours before. The rest followed, the two rear divisions cutting a corner, and saving a few miles, by crossing the ford of Pollos. This was a safe move, when the cavalry had discovered that there were none of Wellington’s troops left east of the Trabancos river. By night on the 17th the bulk of the French army was concentrated at Nava del Rey, ten miles south-west of Tordesillas. In the afternoon Wellington’s rearguard, the 4th and Light Divisions, and Anson’s cavalry had been discovered in position at Castrejon, where their commander had halted them, when he discovered that he had been deceived as to his adversary’s purpose. The rest of the British army had concentrated, according to orders, in the triangle Canizal-Castrillo-Fuente la Peña, behind the Guarena river and in front of the Toro-Salamanca road.

Wellington’s first task was to drawback his rearguard to join his main body, without allowing it to become seriously engaged with the great mass of French in its front. This he undertook in person, marching at daylight with all his disposable cavalry, the brigades of Bock and Le Marchant, to join the force at Castrejon, while he threw out the 5th Division to Torrecilla de la Orden to act as a supporting échelon on the flank of the retiring detachment. The remaining divisions (1st, 3rd, 6th, 7th) took up a position in line of battle on the heights above the Guarena, ready to receive their comrades when they should appear.

The charge of the rearguard this day was in the hands of Stapleton Cotton, the senior cavalry officer with the army, who outranked Cole and Charles Alten, the commanders of the 4th and Light Divisions. He had received no orders during the night, and his last, those of the preceding afternoon, had directed him to halt, till his chief should have discovered the true position and aim of the French army. Wellington explained, in his next dispatch home, that the various details of intelligence, which enabled him to grasp Marmont’s whole plan, did not reach him till so late on the 17th that it was useless to send Cotton orders to start. They could only be carried out at dawn, and he himself intended to be present with the rearguard before the sun was far above the horizon. He arrived at seven o’clock in the morning, in time to find his lieutenant already engaged with the French van, but not committed to any dangerous close fighting. Cotton had, very wisely, sent out patrols before daylight to discover exactly what was in front of him; if it was only a trifling body he intended to drive it in, and advance towards La Nava and Rueda[479]; if Marmont was in force he would take up a defensive position at Castrejon, and wait for further orders.

[479] See report of one of the officers commanding patrols,
Tomkinson of the 16th L.D. in the latter’s _Memoirs_, p. 180.

The patrols soon ran into French cavalry advancing in force, and were driven back upon Anson’s brigade, which was drawn up on a long front in advance of the village of Castrejon. On seeing it, the enemy brought up two batteries of horse artillery, and began to play upon the scattered squadrons. Bull’s and Ross’s troops[480] were ordered out to reply, and did so with effect, but the total strength of the French cavalry was too great, and Anson’s regiments had presently to give way, though not so much owing to the pressure on their front as to the sight of a large column of French infantry turning the left of their line, and marching on Alaejos, with the obvious intention of getting round to their left rear and molesting their retreat towards the Guarena, where the main body of the British army was awaiting them.

[480] Belonging one to the cavalry, the other to the Light
Division.

Wellington was involved in person in the end of the cavalry bickering, and in no very pleasant fashion. He and Beresford, with their staffs, had arrived on the field about seven o’clock, in advance of the two heavy cavalry brigades, who were coming up to reinforce Cotton. He rode forward to the left of the skirmishing line, where two squadrons, one of the 11th and one of the 12th Light Dragoons, were supporting two guns of Ross’s troop, on high ground above the ravine of the Trabancos river. Just as the Commander-in-Chief came on the scene, a squadron of French cavalry, striking in from the flank, rode at the guns, not apparently seeing the supporting troops. They met and broke the squadron of the 12th Light Dragoons, which came up the hill to intercept them. ‘Some of Marshal Beresford’s staff, seeing this, and conceiving the guns to be in danger, rode up to the retiring squadron calling “Threes about[481]!”’ This unfortunately was heard by the supporting squadron of the 11th, who, imagining the order to be directed to themselves, went about and retired, instead of advancing to relieve their broken comrades above. Therefore the mass of pursuers and pursued from the combat on the flank, came hurtling down on the guns, and on the head-quarters staff just behind them. Wellington and Beresford and their followers were swept away in the rout, and had to draw their swords to defend themselves. Fortunately the misdirected squadron of the 11th soon saw their mistake; they halted and turned, and falling on the scattered and exhausted French dragoons drove them back with great loss; few, it is said, except their _chef d’escadron_, who showed uncommon gallantry, got away[482]. It was a dangerous moment for the allied army--a chance thrust in the _mêlée_ might have killed or disabled Wellington, and have thrown the command into the hands of Beresford or Stapleton Cotton.

[481] Tomkinson, p. 188.

[482] Compare Tomkinson’s narrative of this incident (pp.
180-1) with Napier’s vivid and well-told tale (iv. pp. 254-5).
Both agree that the French were inferior in numbers to the two
squadrons, and that there was deplorable confusion.

Wellington had no sooner detected the flank movement of Marmont’s infantry towards Alaejos, than he ordered the 4th and Light Divisions to retire towards the Guarena, covered by G. Anson’s brigade, while Bock’s and Le Marchant’s heavy dragoons, farther to the left, drew up in front of the infantry of the turning column, and detained it, retiring, when pressed, by alternate brigades. Marmont’s whole army was now visible, moving on in two long columns, of which the more southern followed the 4th and Light Divisions, in the direction of Torrecilla de la Orden, and tried to come up with their rear, while the other, passing through Alaejos, made by the high-road for Castrillo on the Guarena, where the British reserves were posted.

There was a long bickering fight across the eight miles of rolling ground between the Trabancos and the Guarena, not without some exciting moments for Wellington’s rearguard. After passing Torrecilla de la Orden, and picking up there the 5th Division, which had been waiting as a supporting échelon to cover their southern flank, all the British infantry had to march very hard, for troops diverging from the northern French column got close in upon their right, and, moving parallel with them, bid fair to reach the Guarena first. In the retreat the 4th Division moved on the right, and was therefore most exposed, the Light Division next them, the 5th Division farther south and more distant from the turning column of the French. The cavalry pursuit in the rear of the retreating force was never really dangerous: it was held off by Le Marchant’s Heavy and Anson’s Light Dragoons without any great difficulty, and the 5th and Light Divisions only suffered from some distant shelling by the French horse artillery. But the 4th Division, though covered from the pursuit in their direct rear by Bock’s German squadrons, found a dangerous point about a mile on the near side of the Guarena, where two batteries from the French turning column had galloped forward to a knoll, commanding the ground over which they had to pass, and opened a teasing fire upon the flank of the brigades as they marched by. General Cole, however, threw out his divisional battery and all his light companies to form a screen against their attack, and moved on, protected by their fire, without turning from his route. The covering force fell in to the rear when the defiling was over, and the division suffered small loss from its uncomfortable march[483].

[483] See Vere’s _Marches and Movements of the 4th Division_, p.
28. Napier’s statement that the Light Division was more exposed
than the 4th or 5th during the retreat, seems to be discounted
by the fact that it had not one man killed or wounded--the 5th
Division had only two (in the 3rd Royal Scots), the 4th Division
over 200; and though most of them fell in the last charge, a good
number were hit in the retreat.

Wellington allowed all the three retreating divisions to halt for a moment on the farther side of the stream, at the bottom of the trough in which it runs. ‘The halt near the water, short as it was, gave refreshment and rest to the troops, after a rapid march over an arid country in extremely hot weather[484].’ But it could not be allowed to last for more than a very few minutes, for the pursuing enemy soon appeared in force at several points on the heights above the eastern bank of the Guarena, and many batteries opened successively on the three divisions, who were of necessity compelled to resume their march up the slope to the crest, on their own side of the water. Here they fell into position on Wellington’s chosen defensive fighting-ground, the 4th Division forming the extreme northern section of the battle array, by the village of Castrillo, the Light and 5th Divisions falling in to the line of troops already drawn up in front of Canizal, while the 1st and 7th Divisions were extended to the south, to form the new right wing, and took their place on the heights of Vallesa, above the village and ford of El Olmo.

[484] Vere’s _Marches and Movements of the 4th Division_, p. 28.

Some anxious hours had been spent while the retreat was in progress, but Wellington was now safe, with every man concentrated on an excellent position, where he was prepared to accept the defensive battle for which he had been waiting for the last month. It seemed likely at first that his wish might be granted, for the French made a vigorous attack upon his left wing, almost before it had got settled down into its appointed ground. It would appear that General Clausel, who commanded the more northerly of the two great columns in which the French army was advancing (while Marmont himself was with the other), thought that he saw his chance of carrying the heights above Castrillo and turning the allied left, if he attacked at once, before the 4th Division had been granted time to array itself at leisure. Accordingly, without wasting time by sending to ask permission from his chief, he directed a brigade of dragoons to outflank Cole’s left by crossing the Guarena down-stream, while Brennier’s division passed it at Castrillo and assailed the front of the 4th Division. Clausel’s own division advanced in support of Brennier’s.