Chapter XI: Book VII (2)

The cannonade became heavy, and the spectacle surprisingly beautiful. The lighter smoke and mist, mingling and curling in fantastic pillars, formed a huge and glittering dome tinged with many colours by the rising sun, and through the gross vapour below the restless horsemen were seen or lost, as the fume thickened from the rapid play of the artillery; the bluff head of land beyond the Trabancos, now covered with French troops, appeared by an optical deception close at hand, dilated to the size of a mountain, and crowned with gigantic soldiers, who were continually breaking off and sliding down into the fight. Suddenly a dismounted English cavalry officer stalked from the midst of the smoke towards the line of infantry; his gait was peculiarly rigid, and he appeared to hold a bloody handkerchief to his heart; but that which seemed a cloth was a broad and dreadful wound: a bullet had entirely effaced the flesh from his left shoulder and breast and carried away part of his ribs, his heart was bared and its movement plainly discerned. It was a piteous and yet a noble sight, for his countenance though ghastly was firm, his step scarcely indicated weakness, and his voice never faltered. This unyielding man’s name was Williams. He died a short distance from the field of battle, it was said in the arms of his son, a youth of fourteen, who had followed his father to the Peninsula in hopes of obtaining a commission, for they were not in affluent circumstances.

Cotton maintained this exposed position until seven o’clock, when Wellington and Beresford came up, and both were like to have been slain together. For a squadron of French cavalry, breaking away from the head of land beyond the Trabancos, had just before come with such speed across the valley that it was for a moment thought they were deserting; but with headlong course they mounted the table-land on which Cotton’s left wing was posted, and drove a whole line of British cavalry skirmishers back in confusion. The reserves then came up from Alaejos, and these furious swordmen, scattered in all directions, were in turn driven away or cut down; yet thirty or forty, led by their gallant officer, suddenly appeared above the ravine separating the British wings, just as Wellington and Beresford arrived on the slope beneath them. Some infantry picquets were in the bottom, higher up were two guns covered by a squadron of light cavalry disposed in perfect order, and when the French officer saw this squadron he reined in his horse with difficulty, his men gathering in a confused body round him; they seemed lost, but their daring leader waving his sword soused down with a shout on the English troopers, who turning, galloped through the guns, and the whole mass, friends and enemies, went like a whirlwind to the bottom, carrying away in the tumult Wellington and Beresford. The French horsemen were now quite exhausted and a reserve of heavy dragoons cut most of them to pieces; yet their invincible leader, assaulted by three enemies at once, struck one dead from his horse, and with surprising exertions saved himself from the others, though they rode hewing at him on each side for a quarter of a mile.

Scarcely was this over when Marmont, having ascertained that a part only of Wellington’s army was before him, crossed the Trabancos in two columns, and penetrating between the light and fourth divisions marched straight upon the Guarena. The British retired in three columns, the light division being between the fifth division and the French, close to the latter, the cavalry on the flanks and rear. The air was extremely sultry, the dust rose in clouds, and the close order of the troops was rendered very oppressive by a siroc wind; but where the light division marched the military spectacle was strange and grand. Hostile columns of infantry, only half musket-shot from each other, were marching impetuously towards a common goal, the officers on each side pointing forwards with their swords, or touching their caps and waving their hands in courtesy, while the German cavalry, huge men, on huge horses, rode between in a close compact body as if to prevent a collision: at times the loud tones of command to hasten the march were heard passing from the front to the rear on both sides, and now and then the rush of French bullets came sweeping over the columns, whose violent pace was continually accelerated.

Thus moving for ten miles, yet keeping the most perfect order, both parties approached the Guarena, and the enemy seeing the light division, although more in their power than the others, was yet outstripping them in the march, increased the fire of their guns and menaced an attack with infantry: the German cavalry instantly drew close round, the column plunged suddenly into a hollow dip of ground on the left, and ten minutes after the head of the division was in the stream of the Guarena between Osmo and Castrillo. The fifth division entered it at the same time higher up on the left, and the fourth division passed on the right. The soldiers of the light division, tormented with thirst yet long used to their enemy’s mode of warfare, drunk as they marched; those of the fifth division, less experienced, stopped a few moments, and on the instant forty French guns gathering on the heights above sent a tempest of bullets amongst them. So nicely timed was the operation.

The Guarena, flowing from four distinct sources which united below Castrillo, offered a very strong line of defence; yet Marmont, hoping to carry it in the first confusion, brought up all his artillery and pushed the head of his right column over an upper branch. Wellington, expecting this, had previously ordered up the other divisions of his army, and they were in line before Marmont’s infantry, oppressed with heat and long marches, could gather strength to attempt the passage of the other branch. Carier’s brigade of cavalry first crossed, and was followed by a column of infantry, just as the fourth division had gained the table-land above. Carier’s horsemen entered the valley on the left, the infantry in one column menaced the front, but the sedgy banks of the stream would have been difficult to force, if Victor Alten, slow to perceive an advantage, had not suffered the French cavalry to cross first in considerable numbers without opposition. Then he assailed them by successive squadrons instead of regiments, and when the 14th and German Hussars were hard-pressed, brought up the 3rd Dragoons, who were however driven back by the fire of the infantry, and many fell. Finally Carier being wounded and taken, the French retired, and meanwhile the 27th and 40th Regiments, coming down the hill, broke the enemy’s infantry with an impetuous bayonet charge: Alten’s horsemen then sabred some of the fugitives.

Marmont lost a general and five hundred soldiers by this combat, but, though baffled at one point, and beaten at another, he concentrated his army and held both banks of the branch he had gained. Wellington also concentrated, and as the previous operations had only cost him six hundred men and the French but eight hundred, the day being still young, the positions open and within cannon-shot, a battle was expected. Marmont’s troops had however been marching for two days and nights, and Wellington’s plan did not admit of fighting unless in defence, or with such advantage as that he could crush his opponent and keep the field afterwards against the king.

The French marshal had passed a great river, surprised the allies’ right, and pushed it back above ten miles: he had nevertheless failed as a general. His aim had been, by menacing the communication between Salamanca and Rodrigo, to draw the allies back; yet on the evening of the 16th, having passed the Duero at Toro, he was nearer to Salamanca than they were, and, persisting, Wellington must have fought him at disadvantage, or passed the Tormes at Huerta to regain the road of Rodrigo. Marmont however relinquished this stroke to march eighty miles in forty-eight hours, and after many nice evolutions, in which he lost a thousand men by the sword and fatigue, found his adversary on the 18th facing him in the very position he had turned on the evening of the 16th!

On the 19th the armies were quiet until evening, when the French were suddenly concentrated in one mass on their left. Wellington made a corresponding movement on the tableland above, which caused the light division to overlook the enemy’s main body, then at rest round the bivouac fires; it would have remained so if Sir Stapleton Cotton coming up had not turned a battery upon a group of French officers. At the first shot they seemed surprised--for it was a discourteous and ill-considered act--at the second their gunners run to their pieces, and a reply from twelve heavier guns wounded an artillery-officer, killed several British soldiers, swept away a whole section of Portuguese, and compelled the division to withdraw in a mortifying manner to avoid unnecessary blood-spilling.

Wellington now expected a battle, because the heights he occupied trended backwards to the Tormes on the shortest line, and as he had thrown a Spanish garrison into the castle of Alba de Tormes he thought the French could not turn his right; if they attempted it, he could shoulder them off the Tormes at the ford of Huerta. At daybreak however, instead of crossing the Guarena in front to dispute the high land, Marmont marched rapidly up the river and crossed the stream, though the banks were difficult, before any disposition could be made to oppose him. He thus turned the right and gained a new range of hills trending also towards the Tormes, and parallel to those which Wellington possessed. Then commenced a scene similar to that of the 18th but on a greater scale. The allies moving in two lines of battle within musket-shot of the French endeavoured to cross their march, the guns on both sides exchanged rough salutations as the accidents of ground favoured their play, and the officers, like gallant gentlemen who bore no malice and knew no fear, made their military recognitions, while the horsemen on each side watched with eager eyes for an opening to charge: but the French, moving as one man along the crest of the heights, preserved the lead and made no mistake.

Soon it became evident that the allies would be outflanked, wherefore Wellington, falling off a little, made towards the heights occupied by Marmont during the siege of the forts, intending to halt there while an advanced guard, forcing a march, secured the position and fords of Christoval. But he made no effort to seize the ford of Huerta, for his own march had been long, the French had passed over nearly twice as much ground, and he thought they could not reach the Tormes that day. When night approached he discovered his error. His second line had indeed got the heights of Vellosa, but his first line was heaped up in low ground near the French army, whose fires, crowning all the opposite hills, showed they commanded the ford of Huerta. Wellington then ordered the bivouac fires to be made with much smoke, under cover of which he filed the troops off with great celerity towards Vellosa; but the Portuguese cavalry, coming in from the front, were mistaken for French and lost some men by cannon-shot ere they were recognised.

Very much disquieted by this day’s operations was the English leader. Marmont, perfectly acquainted with the country, had outflanked and outmarched him, and gained the command of the Tormes, thus securing his junction with the king’s army, and enabled to fight or wait for reinforcements, while the scope of the allies’ operations would hourly become more restricted. Meanwhile Caffarelli having finally detached eighteen hundred cavalry with guns to aid Marmont, they were coming on, and the king also was taking the field; hence though a victory should be won, unless it was decisive, Wellington’s object would not be advanced. That object was to deliver the Peninsula by a course of solid operations, incompatible with sudden and rash strokes unauthorized by anything but hope; wherefore, yielding to circumstances, he resolved to retreat on Portugal and abide his time; yet with a bitter spirit, nothing soothed by the recollection that he had refused to fight at advantage exactly one month before upon the very hills he now occupied. Nevertheless that steadfast temper which then prevented him from seizing an adventitious chance would not now let him yield to fortune more than she could ravish from him: he still hoped to give the lion’s stroke, and resolved to cover Salamanca and the communication with Ciudad Rodrigo to the last moment. The uncertainty of war was now shown. This inability to hold his ground was made known to Castaños by a letter, which Marmont intercepted, and immediately decided to push on without waiting for the king, who afterwards announced this accident as a subtle stroke by Wellington to draw on a premature battle!

On the 21st, the allies being on San Christoval, the French threw a garrison into Alba de Tormes, from whence the Spaniards had been withdrawn by Carlos España, without the knowledge of the English general. Marmont then passed the Tormes by the fords, between Alba and Huerta, and moving up the valley of the Machechuco encamped at the outer edge of a forest. Wellington also passed the Tormes in the evening by the bridge of Salamanca and the fords of Santa Marta and Aldea Lengua; but the third division and D’Urban’s cavalry remaining on the right bank, intrenched themselves, lest the French, who had left a division on the heights of Babila Fuente, should recross the Tonnes in the night and overwhelm them.

When the light division descended the rough side of the Aldea Lengua mountain to cross the river night had come down suddenly, and with more than common darkness, for a storm, that usual precursor of a battle in the Peninsula, was at hand. Torrents of rain deepened the ford, the water foamed and dashed with increasing violence, the thunder was frequent and deafening, and the lightning passed in sheets of fire close over the column, playing upon the points of the bayonets. One flash falling amongst the cavalry near Santa Marta killed many men and horses, while hundreds of frightened animals, breaking loose and galloping wildly about, were supposed to be the enemy charging in the darkness, and some of their patrols were indeed at hand, hovering like birds of prey: but nothing could disturb the beautiful order in which the serene veterans of the light division were seen by the fiery gleams to pass the foaming river, pursuing their march amidst this astounding turmoil, alike regardless of the storm and the enemy.

The position now taken was nearly the same as that occupied by General Graham a month before, when the forts of Salamanca were invested. The left wing rested in low ground on the Tormes, having a cavalry post in front. The right wing was extended on a range of heights, which ended also in low ground, near the village of Arapiles: this line, perpendicular to the Tormes from Huerta to Salamanca, was parallel to it from Alba to Huerta, and covered Salamanca. Meanwhile the enemy, extending his left along the edge of the forest, menaced the line of communication with Rodrigo; and in the night advice came that General Chauvel, bringing up Caffarelli’s horsemen and twenty guns, had reached Pollos the 20th, and would join Marmont the 22nd or 23rd. Hence Wellington, feeling he must now retreat to Rodrigo, and fearing the French cavalry thus reinforced would hamper his movements, determined, unless they attacked him or committed some flagrant fault, to retire before Chauvel’s horsemen could arrive.

At daybreak on the 22nd, Marmont called the troops at Babila Fuente over the Tormes, brought Bonet’s and Maucune’s divisions out of the forest, and took possession of the ridge of Calvariza Ariba; he also occupied in advance of it on his right, a wooded height on which was an old chapel called Nuestra Señora de la Pena. But at a little distance from his left and from the English right, stood a pair of solitary hills, called indifferently the _Arapiles_ or the _Hermanitos_. Steep and savagely rugged, about half cannon-shot from each other, their possession would have enabled Marmont to cross Wellington’s right, and force a battle with every advantage. Nevertheless they were neglected by the English at first, until Colonel Waters, having observed an enemy’s detachment stealing towards them, informed Beresford, who thought it of no consequence, but Waters then rode to Wellington who immediately sent troops to seize them. A combat similar to that which happened between Cæsar and Afranius at Lerida now ensued; for the French, seeing this detachment, broke their own ranks and running to the encounter gained the first Arapiles and kept it, yet were repulsed in an endeavour to seize the second. This skirmish was followed by one at Nuestra Señora de la Pena, half of which was gained, the enemy keeping the other half: Victor Alten, aiding the attack with a squadron of German hussars, was there wounded by a musket-shot.

The loss of the distant Arapiles rendered a retreat difficult to the allies during daylight; for though the one gained was a fortress in the way of the French army, Marmont, by extending his left and gathering a force behind his own rock, could frame a dangerous battle during the movement. Wellington therefore extended his troops on the right of his own Hermanito, placing the light companies of the Guards at the village of Arapiles in low ground, and the fourth division, with exception of the 27th Regiment, on a gentle ridge behind them. The fifth and sixth divisions he gathered in one mass upon the internal slope of the English Hermanito, where the ground being hollow, hid them from the enemy. During these movements a sharp cannonade was exchanged from the tops of those frowning hills, on whose crowning rocks the two generals sat like ravenous vultures watching for their quarry.

Marmont’s project was not yet developed. His troops from Babila Fuente were still in the forest some miles off, and he had only two divisions close up. The occupation of Calvariza Ariba and Nuestra Señora de la Pena might be therefore only a daring defensive measure to cover the formation of his army; but the occupation of the Hermanito was a start forward for an advantage to be afterwards turned to profit, and seemed to fix the operations on the left of the Tormes. In this doubt Wellington brought up the first and light divisions to confront the French on Calvariza Ariba, and calling the third division and D’Urban’s cavalry over the river, posted them in a wood near Aldea Tejada, entirely refused to the enemy and unseen by him, yet securing the main road to Rodrigo. Thus the position was suddenly reversed. The left now rested on the English Hermanito, the right on Aldea Tejada; that which was the rear became the front, the interval between the third and fourth divisions being occupied by Bradford’s Portuguese infantry, a Spanish division, and the British cavalry.

Breaks and hollows so screened the men that few could be seen by the French, and those seemed pointing to the Rodrigo road in retreat; moreover, the commissariat and baggage had been ordered to the rear and the dust of their march was seen many miles off: nothing indicated an approaching battle. Such a state of affairs could not last long. At twelve o’clock Marmont, thinking the important bearing of his Hermanito on Wellington’s retreat would induce the latter to drive him thence, brought up Foy’s and Ferey’s divisions in support, placing the first, with some guns, on a wooded height between the Hermanito and Nuestra Señora de la Pena; the second, with Boyer’s dragoons, on a ridge behind Foy. Nor was this ill-timed, for Wellington, thinking he could not insure a safe retreat in daylight, was going to attack, but on the approach of these troops gave counter-orders lest he should bring on a general battle disadvantageously.

The French from Babila Fuente had not then reached the edge of the forest, yet Marmont resolved to fight, and fearing the allies would retreat before his own dispositions were completed, ordered Thomières’ division, covered by fifty guns and supported by the light cavalry, to make a flank movement by its left and menace the Rodrigo road. Then hastening the march of his other divisions, he watched when Wellington should move in opposition to Thomières, designing to fall upon him by the village with six divisions of infantry and Boyer’s dragoons, which he now ordered to take fresh ground on the left of the Hermanito rock, leaving only one regiment of cavalry with Foy.

In these new circumstances the two armies embraced an oval basin, formed by different ranges of hills that rose like an amphitheatre, the Arapiles rocks appearing like the doorposts. Around this basin, which was more than a mile from north to south and more than two miles from east to west, the hostile forces were grouped. The northern and western half formed the allies’ position; the eastern heights were held by the French right; their left, consisting of Thomières’ division, the artillery and light cavalry, moved along the southern side of the basin, but with a wide loose march; for there was a long space between Thomières’ division and those in the forest destined to form the centre; a longer space between him and the divisions about the French Hermanito. The artillery, fifty guns, massed on Thomières’ right flank, opened its fire grandly, taking ground to the left by guns in succession as the infantry moved on; and these last marched eagerly, continually contracting their distance from the allies and bringing up their left shoulders as if to envelope Wellington’s position and embrace it with fire. At this time also, Bonet’s troops, one regiment of which held the French Arapiles, carried the village of that name, and although soon driven from the greatest part of it again maintained a fierce struggle.

Marmont’s first arrangements had occupied several hours, but as they gave no positive indication of his designs, Wellington, ceasing to watch them, had retired from his Hermanito; but when he was told the French left was in motion pointing towards the Ciudad Rodrigo road, he returned to the rock and observed their movements for some time with a stern contentment. Their left wing was entirely separated from the centre, the fault was flagrant, and he fixed it with the stroke of a thunderbolt. A few orders issued from his lips like the incantations of a wizard, and suddenly the dark mass of troops which covered the English Hermanito, as if possessed by some mighty spirit, rushed violently down the interior slope of the mountain and entered the great basin, amidst a storm of bullets which seemed to shear away the whole surface of the earth over which they moved. The fifth division instantly formed on the right of the fourth, connecting the latter with Bradford’s Portuguese, who hastened forward at the same time from the right of the army, and then the heavy cavalry, galloping up on the right of Bradford, closed this front of battle. The sixth and seventh divisions, flanked on the right by Anson’s light cavalry, were ranged at half cannon shot on a second line, which was prolonged by the Spaniards in the direction of the third division; and this last, reinforced by two squadrons of the 14th Dragoons, and D’Urban’s Portuguese horsemen, formed the extreme right of the army. Behind all, on the highest ground, the first and light divisions and Pack’s Portuguese were disposed in heavy masses as a reserve.

When this grand disposition was completed, the third division and its attendant horsemen, formed in four columns and flanked on the left by twelve guns, received orders to cross Thomières’ line of march. The remainder of the first line, including the main body of the cavalry, was to advance when the attack of the third division should be developed; and as the fourth division must in this forward movement necessarily lend its flank to the enemy’s troops stationed on the French Hermanito, Pack was to assail that rock the moment the left of the British line passed it. Thus, after long coiling and winding, the armies came together, and drawing up their huge trains like angry serpents mingled in deadly strife.

BATTLE OF SALAMANCA. (July, 1812.)

Marmont from his Hermanito saw the country beneath him suddenly covered with enemies at a moment when he was in the act of making a complicated evolution, and when, by the rash advance of his left, his troops were separated into three parts too dispersed to assist each other, those nearest the enemy being neither strong enough to hold their ground nor aware of what they had to encounter. The third division was however still hidden by the western heights, and he hoped the tempest of bullets in the basin beneath would check the British line until he could bring up his other divisions and by the village of Arapiles fall on what was now the left of the allies’ position. But even this his only resource for saving the battle was weak, for there were in reserve the first and light divisions and Pack’s Portuguese, in all twelve thousand troops, with thirty pieces of artillery; the village was also well disputed, and the English rock stood out as a strong bastion of defence. However, nothing daunted, Marmont despatched officer after officer, some to hasten the troops from the forest, others to stop the progress of his left wing; and with a sanguine expectation he still looked for victory, until Pakenham shot with the third division like a meteor across Thomières’ path; then pride and hope alike died within him, and desperately he was hurrying in person to that fatal point, when an exploding shell stretched him on the earth with a broken arm and two deep wounds in his side. Confusion ensued, and the troops, distracted by ill-judged orders and counter-orders, knew not where to move, whom to fight, or whom to avoid.

It was five o’clock when Pakenham fell upon Thomières; and it was at a moment when that general, whose column had gained an open isolated hill, expected to see the allies in full retreat towards the Rodrigo road, closely followed by Marmont from the Arapiles. The counter-stroke was terrible! Two batteries of artillery, placed on the summit of the western heights, suddenly took his troops in flank, Pakenham’s massive columns, supported by cavalry, were in his front, and two-thirds of his own division, lengthened out and unconnected, were still in a wood, where they could hear but could not see the storm now bursting; from the chief to the lowest soldier all felt they were lost, and in an instant Pakenham, the most frank and gallant of men, commenced the battle.

As the British masses came on, forming lines while in march, the French gunners, standing up manfully, sent out showers of grape, and a crowd of light troops poured in a fire of musketry, under cover of which the main body endeavoured to display a front. But bearing onwards through the skirmishers with the might of a giant Pakenham broke the half-formed lines into fragments, and sent the whole in confusion upon the advancing supports; one only officer remained by the artillery; standing alone he fired the last gun at the distance of a few yards, but whether he lived or there died could not be seen for the smoke. Some squadrons of light cavalry fell on the right of the third division; the 5th Regiment repulsed them, and then D’Urban’s Portuguese horsemen, reinforced by two squadrons of the 14th Dragoons under Felton Harvey, gained the enemy’s flank, while the Oporto regiment, led by the English Major Watson, charged his infantry, but Watson fell deeply wounded and his men retired.

Pakenham continued his tempestuous course against the remainder of Thomières’ troops, which were now arrayed on the wooded heights behind the first hill, yet imperfectly and offering two fronts; the one opposed to the third division and its attendant horsemen, the other to the fifth division, Bradford’s brigade, and the main body of cavalry and artillery, all of which were now moving in one great line across the basin. Meanwhile Bonet, repulsed from the village of Arapiles, was sharply engaged outside with the fourth division, Maucune kept a menacing position behind the French Hermanito, Clausel’s division came up from the forest, and the connection of the centre and left was in some measure restored: two divisions were however yet in the rear, and Boyer’s dragoons were still in march. Thomières had been killed, Bonet succeeding Marmont was disabled, hence more confusion; but the command then devolved on Clausel, and he was of a capacity to sustain this terrible crisis, which may be thus described. The fourth and fifth divisions and Bradford’s brigade, hotly engaged, were steadily gaining ground on the English left; the heavy cavalry, Anson’s light dragoons, and Bull’s troop of artillery were next in line, advancing at a trot on Pakenham’s left, and on that general’s right D’Urban’s horsemen overlapped the enemy. Thus in less than half an hour, and before an order of battle had even been formed by the French, their commander-in-chief and two other generals had fallen, and the left of their army was turned, thrown into confusion and enveloped.

Clausel’s division had now joined Thomières’, and a new front had been spread on the southern heights, yet loosely and unfit to resist; for the troops were, some in double lines, some in columns, some in squares, a powerful sun struck on their eyes, and the light soil, stirred up and driven forward by a breeze, which arose in the west at the moment of attack, came mingled with smoke full upon them in such stifling volumes, that scarcely able to breathe and quite unable to see their fire was given at random. In this situation, while Pakenham, bearing onward with conquering violence was closing on their flank, and the fifth division advancing with a storm of fire on their front, the interval between the two attacks was suddenly filled with a whirling cloud of dust, moving swiftly forward and carrying within its womb the trampling sound of a charging multitude. As it passed the left of the third division, Le Marchant’s heavy horsemen, flanked by Anson’s light cavalry, broke out at full speed, and the next instant twelve hundred French infantry, formed in several lines, were trampled down with a terrible clangour and tumult. Bewildered and blinded they cast away their arms and run through the openings of the British squadrons, stooping and demanding quarter, while the dragoons, big men on big horses, rode onward, smiting with their long glittering swords in uncontrollable power, and the third division, following at speed, shouted as the French masses fell in succession before this dreadful charge.

Nor were these valiant swordsmen yet exhausted. Le Marchant and many officers had fallen, but Cotton and all his staff were still at their head, and with ranks confused and blended in one mass, still galloping forward, they sustained from a fresh column an irregular stream of fire which emptied a hundred saddles; yet with fine courage and downright force, the survivors broke through this the third and strongest body of men that had encountered them, and Lord Edward Somerset, continuing his course at the head of one squadron with a happy perseverance, captured five guns. The French left was thus entirely broken, more than two thousand prisoners were taken, their light horsemen abandoned that part of the field, and Thomières’ division no longer existed as a military body. Anson’s cavalry, which had passed quite over the hill and had suffered little in the charge, was now joined by D’Urban’s troopers and took the place of Le Marchant’s exhausted men; the heavy German dragoons followed in reserve, forming with the third and fifth divisions and the guns one formidable line, two miles in advance of where Pakenham had first attacked: and that impetuous officer with unmitigated strength still pressed forward spreading terror and disorder on the enemy’s left.

But while these signal events, which occupied about forty minutes, were passing on the allies’ right, a terrible battle raged in the centre. For when the first shock of the third division had been observed, the fourth division, moving in a line with the fifth, had passed the village of Arapiles under a prodigious cannonade, and vigorously driving Bonet’s troops step by step to the southern and eastern heights, had compelled them to mingle with the broken remains of Clausel’s and Thomières’ divisions. This combat having opened the French Hermanito about the time of the cavalry charge, enabled Pack’s Portuguese to assail that rock, and the front of battle was thus completely defined, for Foy’s division was then exchanging a distant cannonade with the first and light divisions. However Bonet’s troops, notwithstanding Marmont’s fall and the loss of their own general, fought strongly, and Clausel made a surprisingly vigorous effort and beyond all men’s expectations to restore the battle. Soon a great change was visible. Ferey’s division, drawn off from the height of Calvaraza, arrived in the centre behind Bonet’s men; the light cavalry, Boyer’s dragoons, and two divisions of infantry from the forest, were also united there; and on this mass of fresh men Clausel rallied the remnants of his own and Thomières’ division. Thus Sarrut’s, Brennier’s and Ferey’s unbroken divisions, supported by all the cavalry, were suddenly massed to cover the line of retreat on Alba de Tormes, while Maucune still held the French Hermanito, having Foy on his right.

But Clausel, not content with having thus got the army together in a condition to effect a retreat, attempted to turn the tide of victory, founding hope on a misfortune which had befallen Pack. For that officer, ascending the French Hermanito in one heavy column, was within thirty yards of the summit, believing himself victorious, when the enemy leaped suddenly forward from the rocks upon his front and upon his left flank; the hostile masses closed, there was a thick cloud of smoke, a shout, a stream of fire, and the side of the hill was covered with the dead, the wounded and flying Portuguese. They were unjustly scoffed at for this failure, no troops could have withstood that crash upon such steep ground, and the propriety of attacking the hill at all seems questionable. The result went nigh to shake the whole battle. For the fourth division had just then reached the southern ridge of the basin, and one regiment had actually gained the summit when twelve hundred French, arrayed on the reverse slope, charged up hill when the British were quite breathless and disordered by the previous fighting; the French came up resolutely and without a shot won the crest, and even pursued down the other side until two supporting regiments below checked them.

This counter-blow took place at the moment of Pack’s defeat, and then Maucune, no longer in pain for the Hermanito, menaced the left flank and rear of the fourth division with skirmishers, until a wing of the 40th Regiment, wheeling about with a rough charge, cleared the rear. Maucune would not engage more deeply at that time, yet Ferey’s troops pressed vigorously against the front of the fourth division, and Brennier did the same by the first line of the fifth division; Boyer’s dragoons also came on rapidly, and the allies outflanked and overmatched lost ground. Fiercely and fast the French followed, and the fight once more raged in the basin below. General Cole had before this fallen deeply wounded, Leith had the same fortune, but Beresford promptly drew Spry’s Portuguese brigade from the second line of the fifth division, and thus flanked the advancing columns of the enemy: yet he also fell desperately wounded, and Boyer’s dragoons came freely into action, because Anson’s cavalry had been checked, after Le Marchant’s charge, by a heavy fire of artillery.

Now the crisis of battle arrived, victory was for the general who had the strongest reserves in hand, and Wellington, seen that day at every point where and when his presence was most required, brought up the sixth division, and turned the scale by a charge, rough, strong, and successful. Nevertheless the struggle was no slight one. Hulse’s brigade, which was on the left, went down by hundreds, and the 61st and 11th Regiments won their way desperately and through such a fire as British soldiers only can sustain. Some of Boyer’s dragoons also, breaking in between the fifth and sixth divisions, slew many men and caused some disorder in the 53rd; yet that brave regiment lost no ground, nor did Clausel’s impetuous counter-attack avail at any point, after the first burst, against the steady courage of the allies. The southern ridge was thus regained, the French generals Menne and Ferey were wounded, the first severely, the second mortally; Clausel himself was hurt, Boyer’s reserve of dragoons, coming on at a canter, were met and broken by the fire of Hulse’s noble brigade, and the current of the fight once more set for the British. The third division continued to outflank the enemy’s left, Maucune abandoned the Hermanito, Foy retired from Calvariza, and the allied host, righting itself as a gallant ship after a sudden gust, again bore onwards in blood and gloom: for though the air, purified by the storm of the night before, was peculiarly clear, one vast cloud of smoke and dust rolled along the basin, and within it was the battle with all its sights and sounds of terror.

When Wellington had thus restored the fight in the centre, he directed the first division to push between Foy and the rest of the French army, which would have rendered it impossible for the latter to rally or escape; but this order was not executed, and Foy’s and Maucune’s divisions were skilfully used by Clausel to protect his retreat. Foy, posted on undulating ground and flanked by dragoons, covered the roads to the fords of Huerta and Encina; Maucune, reinforced with fifteen guns, was on a steep ridge in front of the forest, covering the road to Alba de Tormes; and behind this ridge, the rest of the army, then falling back in disorder before the third, fifth and sixth divisions, took refuge. Wellington immediately sent the light division in two lines, flanked by dragoons, against Foy, and supported them with the first division in columns, flanked on the right by two brigades of the fourth division, which he drew from the centre when the sixth division had restored the fight. The seventh division and the Spaniards followed in reserve, the country was covered with troops, and a new army seemed to have arisen out of the earth.

Foy, throwing out a cloud of skirmishers, retired by wings, firing heavily from every rise of ground upon the light division, which returned no shot, save by its skirmishers; for three miles this march was under his musketry, occasionally thickened by a cannonade, but the French aim was baffled by the twilight and rapid gliding of the lines. Meanwhile the French general Desgraviers was killed, the flanking brigades from the fourth division penetrated between Maucune and Foy, and it seemed difficult for the latter to extricate his troops. Yet he did so thus. Augmenting his skirmishers on the last defensible ridge, along the foot of which run a marshy stream, he redoubled his musketry and made a menacing demonstration with his horsemen just as the darkness fell; the British guns immediately opened, a squadron of dragoons galloped forwards from the left, the infantry impetuously hastened to the summit of the hill, and a rough shock seemed at hand, but there was no longer an enemy: the main body had gone into the forest on their left during the firing, and the skirmishers fled swiftly after covered by the smoke and coming night.

Maucune was now maintaining a noble battle. He was outflanked and outnumbered, yet the safety of the French army depended on his courage, he knew it, and Pakenham, marking his bold demeanour, advised Clinton, who was immediately in his front, not to assail him until the third division should have turned his left. Nevertheless Clinton plunged his troops into action under great disadvantage; for after remaining some time unnecessarily under Maucune’s batteries, which ploughed heavily through their ranks, they were suddenly directed to attack the hill, and aided by a brigade of the fourth division they rushed up; but in the darkness of the night the fire showed from afar how the battle went. On the English side a sheet of flame was seen, sometimes advancing with an even front, sometimes pricking forth in spear heads, now falling back in waving lines, anon darting upwards in one vast pyramid, the apex of which often approached yet never gained the actual summit of the mountain; but the French musketry, rapid as lightning, sparkled along the brow of the height with unvarying fulness, and with what destructive effects the dark gaps and changing shapes of the adverse fire showed too plainly: meanwhile Pakenham turned the left, Foy glided into the forest, and Maucune’s task being then completed, the effulgent crest of the ridge became black and silent and the whole French army vanished as it were in the darkness.

During this fight Wellington in person made the light division advance towards the ford of Huerta, having the forest on his right; for he thought the Spanish garrison was still in the castle of Alba, and that the enemy must be found at the fords. For this final stroke he had strengthened his left wing; nor was he diverted from it by Foy’s retreat into the forest, because it pointed towards the fords of Encina and Gonzalo, where the right wing of the allies would find him; moreover a squadron of French dragoons, bursting from the forest soon after dark and firing their pistols, had passed at full gallop across the front of the 43rd Regiment towards the ford of Huerta, indicating great confusion in the defeated army, and confirming Wellington’s notion as to the direction: yet the troops were then marching through standing corn, where no enemy could have preceded them!

Had the castle of Alba been held the French could not have carried off a third of their army; nor would they have been in much better plight if Carlos España, who soon discovered his error in withdrawing the garrison, had informed Wellington of the fact; but he suppressed it and suffered the colonel who had only obeyed his orders to be censured. The left wing therefore reached the fords without meeting any enemy, and, the night being far spent, was there halted. The right wing, exhausted by long fighting, halted after the action with Maucune, and thus the French gained Alba unmolested; yet the action did not terminate without two remarkable accidents. While riding close behind the 43rd Regiment, Wellington was struck in the thigh by a spent ball which passed through his holster; and in the night Sir Stapleton Cotton, who had gone to the ford of Huerta, was, in returning, shot through the arm by a Portuguese sentinel whose challenge he disregarded. These were the last events of this famous battle in which the English general, to use a French officer’s expression, _defeated forty thousand men in forty minutes_! Yet he fought it as if his genius disdained such trial of its strength. Late in the evening of that great day I saw him behind my regiment, then marching towards the ford. He was alone, the flush of victory was on his brow, his eyes were eager and watchful, but his voice was calm and even gentle. More than the rival of Marlborough, for he had defeated greater generals than Marlborough ever encountered, he seemed with prescient pride only to accept the victory as an earnest of greater glory.

COMBAT OF LA SERNA. (July, 1812.)

During the few hours of darkness succeeding the battle of Salamanca, Clausel with a wonderful diligence passed the Tormes at Alba; but Wellington also crossed that river with his left wing at daylight, and moving up stream overtook the French on the Almar rivulet, near the village of La Serna, and launched his cavalry against them. Their squadrons fled from Anson’s troopers, abandoning three battalions of infantry, who in separate columns were making up a hollow slope, hoping to gain the crest of some heights before the pursuing cavalry could fall on, and the two foremost did reach the higher ground and there formed squares; the last, when half-way up, seeing Bock’s heavy German dragoons galloping hard on, faced about and commenced a disorderly fire, and the squares above also plied their muskets on the Germans, who, after crossing the Almar, had to pass a turn of narrow road and clear rough ground before opening a charging front. They dropped fast under the fire. By twos, by threes, by tens, by twenties they fell, yet the mass, surmounting the difficulties of the ground, hurtled on the column and went clean through it: then the squares above retreated and several hundred prisoners were made by those able and daring horsemen.

This charge was successful even to wonder, and the victors standing in the midst of captives and admiring friends seemed invincible; yet those who witnessed the scene, nay the actors themselves remained with the conviction of the military truth,--that cavalry are not able to cope with veteran infantry, save by surprise. The hill of La Serna offered a frightful spectacle of the power of the musket. The track of the Germans was marked by their huge bodies. A few minutes only had the combat lasted, and above a hundred had fallen--fifty-one were killed outright. In several places man and horse had died simultaneously, and so suddenly, that falling together on their sides they appeared still alive, the horse’s legs stretched out as in movement, the rider’s feet in the stirrups, the bridle in hand, the sword raised to strike, and the large hat fastened under the chin, giving to the grim yet undistorted countenance a supernatural and terrible expression.

When the French found their rear-guard attacked they turned to its succour, but seeing the light division coming up recommenced the retreat, and were soon joined by Caffarelli’s horsemen and guns, under General Chauvel: too late they joined for the battle, yet covered the retreat with a resolution that deterred the allied cavalry from meddling with them. Clausel then carried his army off with such celerity that his head-quarters were that night forty miles from the field of battle.

King Joseph was at this time at Blasco Sancho, one short march from the beaten army: he came to aid Marmont with fourteen thousand men, and so early as the 24th could easily have effected a junction, but he then knew only of Marmont’s advance from the Duero, not of his defeat. Next day he received, from that marshal and Clausel, letters describing the battle and saying the army must go over the Duero to establish new communications with the Army of the North. A junction with them was still possible, but the king retreated in haste, leaving behind two officers and twenty-seven horsemen, who were next day attacked and captured by seven troopers of the 14th Dragoons led by Corporal Hanley,[25] a noble soldier, thus described by an officer under whom he had many times charged. “A finer fellow never rode into the field. His feats, besides the one at Blasco Sancho, were extraordinary. He was a very handsome man, rode magnificently, and had altogether such a noble bearing before the enemy as is not often seen.”

Clausel marched upon Valladolid, abandoning the garrisons of Toro, Tordesillas and Zamora, and, being still pressed by the British, went up the Arlazan river. Then the king passed over the Guadarama mountains to Madrid and Wellington entered Valladolid, where he found large stores, seventeen pieces of artillery, and eight hundred sick and wounded men. This terminated the Salamanca operations, which present the following remarkable results. On the 18th of July Marmont’s army, forty-two thousand sabres and bayonets with seventy-four guns, passed the Duero to attack the allies. On the 30th it repassed that river in retreat, having in those twelve days marched two hundred miles, fought three combats, and a general battle, in which one marshal of France, seven generals, and twelve thousand five hundred men and inferior officers were killed, wounded or taken, together with two eagles, several standards and twelve guns, exclusive of those found at Valladolid. In the same period the allies, who had forty-six thousand sabres and bayonets, with sixty guns, the excess of men being Spanish, marched one hundred and sixty miles, and had one marshal, Beresford, four generals and six thousand men and officers killed or wounded.