Chapter LVIII: Section 2

FRENCH PAPERS RELATING TO SOULT’S AND
MARMONT’S OPERATIONS.

_Translated. Extracts from Soult’s intercepted despatches._

“_Seville, April 14, 1812._

“I enclose copies of a letter from the duke of Ragusa, dated 22d February, and another from general Foy, dated Velvis de Jara, 28th February, which announced positively that three divisions of infantry and one division of cavalry of the army of Portugal would join me if Badajos was attacked; but those divisions, fifteen days afterwards, marched into Old Castile at the moment when they knew that all the English army was moving upon Badajos, and at the instant when I, in virtue of your highness’s (Berthier’s) orders, had sent five regiments of infantry and two of cavalry, and my skeleton regiments to Talavera. It is certain that if those three divisions had remained in the valley of the Tagus the enemy would not have attacked Badajos, where they could have been fought to advantage.

“The contrary has arrived. I have been left to my own forces, which have been reduced by fifteen thousand men, as I have stated above, and not even a military demonstration has been made, much less succour, because the attack on Beira could not influence the siege, and did not.”——“Badajos fell by a ‘_coup de fortune_,’ because it was not in human foresight to think that five thousand men defending the breach successfully, would suffer a surprise on a point where no attack was directed, and when I was within a few marches with twenty-four thousand men strongly organized.

“If I had received your highness’s letter when I was before the English, I might, although unaided by M. Marmont and numerically inferior, have given battle to save Badajos; but I should probably have been wrong, and I should have lost the force I left in Andalusia, where not only Seville was invested and my communications cut, but a general insurrection was commencing. Happily I heard in time of the fall of Badajos; but I have not even yet opened my communications with New Castile, Grenada, or Malaga. I have, however, prepared in time to deliver a great battle on my own ground—Andalusia.

“The emperor, of course, cannot foresee all things, and in his orders naturally meant that his generals should act with discretion on such occasions; hence if Marmont had only made demonstrations on Beira with a part of his army, and had crossed the Tagus to unite with my troops, the siege would have been raised before the breach was practicable. Marmont had nothing before him, and he knew Wellington had passed the Guadiana and commenced the siege: I say that all the English army had passed the Guadiana, and this was its disposition.

“General Graham commanding the first corps of observation had the sixth and seventh divisions of infantry and Cotton’s cavalry two thousand five hundred strong, with thirty guns. This corps pushed my right wing to Granja and Azagua at the ‘_debouche_’ of Fuente Ovejuna, while Hill, with the second and third divisions, twelve hundred cavalry under Erskine, and twelve guns, moved on my extreme right in the direction of La Lerena from Belendenzer.

“Wellington carried on the siege in person, having the fourth division, part of the third division, a Portuguese corps; and I am assured he has also two or three thousand Spaniards, which made round the place eighteen thousand men.

“The fifth division remained at first on the right bank of the Tagus with a brigade of cavalry; but they were also called up and came to Elvas on the 4th or 5th of April. The best accounts gave Wellington thirty thousand men, and some make him as high as forty thousand, at the moment when I was before him at Villalba; and if the army of Portugal had joined me with twenty-five thousand men, Badajos would have been saved or retaken: and a great victory would throw the English back into their lines. I was not strong enough alone; and besides the loss I should have suffered, I could not have got back in time to save my troops in Andalusia.

“The English did not hide their knowledge that Marmont was gathering in Leon; but they knew he had no battering-train, and that the wasted state of the country would not permit him to penetrate far into Portugal. So measured, indeed, were their operations, that it is to be supposed they had intercepted some despatch which explained the system of operation and the irresolution of Marmont.

“Your highness tells me I ‘should not have left Hill after his last movement in December on Estremadura, nor have permitted him to take my magazines:’ I say he has taken nothing from me. The advanced guard at Merida lived from day to day on what was sent to them from La Lerena. I know not if some of this has fallen into his hands; but it can be but little. But at this period Wellington wished to besiege Badajos, and only suspended it because of the rain, which would not let him move his artillery, and because three divisions of the army of Portugal were in the valley of the Tagus. If they had remained the siege would not have been undertaken, and Marmont knew this; for on the 22d February he wrote to me to say that, independent of those three divisions under Foy, which he destined to send to the aid of Badajos, he himself would act so as to surmount the difficulties which the state of his munitions opposed to his resolution to defeat the enemy’s projects.

“If your highness looks at the states of the 14th April, you will see that I had not, as you suppose by your letter of 19th February, forty thousand men; I had only thirty-five thousand, including the garrison of Badajos, out of which I had brought with me twenty-four thousand, the rest being employed before Cadiz at Seville, in Grenada and Murcia, and against Ballesteros. You must consider that fifteen days before the English passed the Guadiana I had sent five regiments of infantry, two of cavalry, and many skeletons upon Talavera, in all fifteen thousand men; and since two years I have sent many other skeleton regiments to France, being more than fifteen thousand men changing their destination or worn out, without having yet received the troops from the interior destined for my army, although these are borne on the states: besides which, I have four thousand men unfit for the field, who ought to go to France, but I am forced to employ them in the posts. Ballesteros has, besides the army of Murcia, ten thousand men; and in Murcia the Spaniards are strong, because the fugitives from Valencia had joined two divisions which had not been engaged there, and thus, including the garrisons of Alicant and Carthagena, they had fifteen thousand men. Suchet’s operations have certainly produced great results, but for _the moment_ have hurt me, because all who fly from him come back upon my left flank at a moment when I have only three battalions and four hundred cavalry to oppose them at Grenada only. I have sent my brother there in haste to support them. The English, Portuguese, and Spanish at Cadiz, Gibraltar, and on the ocean could also at any time descend with ten or twelve thousand men on any part of my line, and I want at least as many to oppose them and guard my posts. I may therefore be accused of having carried too many men to the relief of Badajos; and that army was not strong enough, though excellent in quality.

“I cannot hold twenty thousand men, as your highness desires, on the Guadiana, unless I am reinforced, especially since the fall of Badajos; but as soon as I know the English have repassed that river, all my right under d’Erlon, _i.e._ nine regiments of infantry and four of cavalry, and twelve guns, shall march into the interior of Estremadura, and occupy Medellin, Villafranca, and even Merida, and, if possible, hold in check the garrison of Badajos and the English corps left in Alemtejo, and so prevent any grand movement up the valley of the Tagus against Madrid.

“Since my return here the demonstrations of the English appear directed to invade Andalusia so far as to have obliged me to unfurnish many points, and even in a manner raise the siege of Cadiz, Graham has come to Llerena, and Cotton to Berlanga, where we had an affair and lost sixty men.” “I have ordered d’Erlon to repass the Guadalquivir and come to me to fight the English if they advance; if not, he shall go on again, and I think the English general will not commit the fault of entering the mountains, though he says he will!”

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No. IX.