SECTION XXVI FUENTES DE O?ORO AND ALBUERA CHAPTER I

BERESFORD’S CAMPAIGN IN ESTREMADURA. THE FIRST SIEGE OF BADAJOZ. MARCH-APRIL 1811

On the 11th of March, as it will be remembered, Imaz—the deplorable successor of the gallant Menacho—surrendered Badajoz to Marshal Soult, despite of the messages which he had received that an Anglo-Portuguese corps was on its way for his relief. On the 14th the conqueror, appalled at the news of the battle of Barrosa and the danger of Seville, marched back to Andalusia, taking with him a brigade of dragoons and the greater part of Gazan’s infantry division. He left behind him in Estremadura Mortier with a force of some 11,000 men, composed of fifteen battalions of the 5th Corps[305], five cavalry regiments[306], and a heavy proportion of artillerymen and engineers, who were required for the garrisoning of the fortress of Badajoz no less than for the siege of the small places in its vicinity, whose capture Soult had delegated to Mortier as his parting legacy.

This was a small force to leave behind, charged not only with the occupation of an extensive province, but with the duty of continuing the offensive, by attacking Campo Mayor and Albuquerque. Elvas the Marshal can hardly have hoped to assail—it was a fortress as large and in some ways stronger than Badajoz, with a garrison composed of Portuguese troops of the line. Any idea of an invasion of the Alemtejo was useless, now that it was known that Masséna had departed from his old position on the Tagus. The Emperor had ordered Soult to undertake it[p. 248] merely for Masséna’s assistance, and the ‘Army of Portugal’ was no longer needing such help: for good or for ill it had moved away on its own business. It remained to be seen whether Mortier would be able to carry out the orders given him, for no one in the French camp could tell whether the British relieving force for Badajoz, whose existence had been known since March 8th, had actually started for Estremadura, or had joined in the pursuit of Masséna, when it received the news that Imaz had made his disgraceful capitulation. If this force were on its way, and proved to be strong in numbers, Mortier would be thrown at once on the defensive. His duty would be to hold off the Allies till Badajoz was in a state of defence: and the repairing of the fortress would take some time, even though the greater part of its fortifications were intact, and only the Pardaleras Fort and the ruined bastions behind it required reconstruction. If the Allies came on in great force, and without delaying for a moment, it was even possible that Mortier would have to blow up Badajoz and withdraw its garrison, for it would be absurd to leave behind, in an untenable post, such a large body of men as would be required for the holding of its extensive enceinte.

The actual course of affairs in Estremadura followed logically from Wellington’s orders to Beresford on the 9th and the 15th of March. On the 8th, as it will be remembered, Beresford had been directed to march to the relief of Badajoz with the 2nd and 4th Divisions and Hamilton’s Portuguese, some 18,000 men. On the 9th these orders had been countermanded, on a false report that Masséna had concentrated and was offering battle behind Thomar. The 4th Division and one brigade (Hoghton’s) of the 2nd were called off, and marched to join Wellington’s main body. The rest of the 2nd Division and Hamilton’s Portuguese stood halted, in or near Abrantes, till the intentions of the French should be discovered. It was not till March 12th that Wellington, reassured as to his adversaries’ intentions, thought it possible once more to take the relief of Badajoz in hand[307].[p. 249] The troops about Abrantes were ordered to prepare to march for the Guadiana in successive brigades; the absent brigade of the 2nd Division, which had reached Thomar, was directed to retrace its steps and join the main body of that unit. But the 4th Division had gone on much further; it was well on its way towards Coimbra, and was engaged in the Pombal-Redinha operations. It was not till the 15th that Wellington thought himself able to dispatch it, along with De Grey’s brigade of dragoons, to cross the Tagus in the wake of the 2nd Division. Beresford himself, who had joined the main army for a few days by Wellington’s own orders, was not given his final instructions and sent off to the south till the following morning.

But before the moment at which Beresford started, the whole face of affairs had been changed by the news, received on the 14th, that Badajoz had surrendered on the 11th. Wellington was not prepared for this blow. ‘I had received on the 9th,’ he wrote to Lord Liverpool, ‘accounts of a most favourable nature, from which I was induced to believe not only that the place was in no danger, but that it was in fact untouched: that its fire was superior to that of the enemy, that it was in no want of provisions and ammunition, had sustained no loss, excepting that of the governor Menacho, and was able and likely to hold out for a month. General Imaz, a person of equally good reputation, had succeeded to the command, and great confidence was reposed in him.... I had called up to the army the 4th Division of infantry and the brigade of heavy cavalry, under the conviction that Badajoz would hold out for the time during which it would be necessary to employ them. Experience has shown that I could not have done without these troops, and it is also clear that, if I had left them behind, they could not have saved Badajoz, which the governor surrendered on the day after he received my assurances[p. 250] that he should be relieved, and my entreaties that he would hold out to the last moment[308].’

As far as the argument from time goes, it is clear that Wellington is stating indisputable facts. Supposing that he had not countermanded on the 9th of March the orders to Beresford which he had given on the previous night, and that the three divisions designated for service in Estremadura had marched with unrelaxing vigour, the head of their column could not have been further forward than Arronches (if they took the Portalegre road) or Estremos (if they took the Elvas road) at the moment when Imaz surrendered. As the former of these points is about twenty-five and the latter about thirty miles from Badajoz, the capitulation would not have been prevented. For the governor was determined to surrender, and did so in full knowledge of the fact, transmitted by semaphore from Elvas[309], that a relieving expedition was in hand. Whether the nearest allied troops were (as was actually the case) at Abrantes or (as might have been the case) at Estremos, would not have affected him. For, as the proceedings recorded at his council of war show, he concealed from his officers the news that succour was promised, and allowed one of them to put down in the procès verbal of the proceedings the statement that ‘there was no official news whatever that any army of succour was in movement.’ Such official news Imaz possessed, through the semaphore messages sent on by General Leite at Elvas, so that it is evident that he kept them from the knowledge of his subordinates.

If Badajoz had held out for a fortnight after March 9th,—and Wellington supposed that it was well able to defend itself for a whole month—the relieving column would have been in good time. The dispatch of March 12th set in motion two divisions from near Abrantes, that of the 15th sent on the third from the banks of the Ceira. Steady marches of twenty miles a day, or a little less, would have brought Stewart and Hamilton to the neighbourhood of Badajoz on the 17th, and Cole with the 4th Division and the dragoon brigade on the[p. 251] 24th[310]. If, as is probable, Beresford had waited for the arrival of the last-named force before presenting himself in front of the French lines, the 24th of March would have been the critical day. It is hard to believe that Soult could have fought to advantage, since he must have left so many men to blockade Badajoz that he could not have faced Beresford with more than 12,000 sabres and bayonets, numbers inadequate to hold off the 18,000 Anglo-Portuguese who formed the allied Army of Estremadura. It is quite probable that he might have raised the siege, and offered battle with his whole army, somewhere south of Badajoz. But into these possibilities it is profitless to inquire.

Since, however, Wellington and Beresford knew on the night of the 14th that Imaz had surrendered, there was no longer the same need for haste that existed down to this moment, and the advance of the Anglo-Portuguese army was made at a moderate pace. Hamilton’s Portuguese were at Portalegre by the 17th, the 2nd Division came in on the 19th and 20th. Beresford himself appeared on the latter day, having ridden through from the neighbourhood of Coimbra in four days. The 4th Division, which had made an admirable march, a hundred and ten miles of mountain road in six days, came up on the 22nd. On this day, therefore, the whole 18,000 men of the expeditionary force were collected within forty miles of Badajoz, and Beresford had to make up his mind as to the course of his campaign. The orders given to him by Wellington had been to concentrate at Portalegre and attack the French, who (as it had now been ascertained) were moving out to besiege the little Portuguese fortress of Campo Mayor, just across the frontier. The small Spanish force under Casta?os at Estremos—the wrecks of the old Army of Estremadura—was to be called up to assist[311]. Wellington, who did not know of Soult’s departure for Seville,[p. 252] thought that he could not possibly collect enough men, after garrisoning Badajoz and Olivenza, to enable him to face Beresford. In a supplementary dispatch he told his colleague that he thought it most likely that the Marshal would go south of the Guadiana without accepting battle. In that case the allied army must be careful, when following him, not to trust its communications and line of advance or retreat to any temporary bridge, but must use the Portuguese riverside fortress of Jerumenha as its base, and construct there a bridge composed of twenty Spanish pontoon-boats, which (as Wellington was informed) had been floated down from Badajoz before the siege of that place began. Beresford was to construct a strong tête-du-pont on the Spanish bank to cover this bridge[312], and might then move forward and invest Badajoz if he were able.

A most prescient note occurs in this dispatch, which seems as if it were written in prophetical foresight of what was to happen at Campo Mayor five days later. ‘The cavalry is the most delicate arm we possess. We have few officers who have practical knowledge of the mode of using it, or who have ever seen more than two regiments together. To these circumstances add that the defeat of, or any great loss sustained by, our cavalry in these open grounds would be a misfortune, amounting almost to a defeat of the whole; you will therefore see the necessity of keeping your cavalry as much as possible en masse, and in reserve, to be thrown in at the moment when opportunity offers for striking a decisive blow.’ It looks almost as if Wellington knew that General Long, who commanded Beresford’s cavalry, was going to make the very mistakes that he actually committed on the first collision with the enemy.

The moment that the 4th Division and De Grey’s dragoons reached Portalegre, Beresford began his march on Campo Mayor (March 22) sending out Colborne’s and Lumley’s brigades of the 2nd Division to Arronches, and the Portuguese cavalry brigade of Otway to Azumar. This last-named unit had been watching the frontier between the Tagus and the Guadiana ever since Masséna’s retreat from Santarem, and joined the 2nd Divi[p. 253]sion on the 20th of March. Hamilton’s Portuguese infantry division was to follow next day, the 4th Division was to be allowed two days’ rest after its fatiguing march from the Ceira, and was only to start on the 24th[313]. On the 25th the whole army was to be in front of Campo Mayor.

It remains to speak of the position in which the enemy was found. Between the 14th of March, when Soult departed from Seville, and the 25th, when Beresford’s army made its sudden and quite unexpected descent into the middle of the French forces, only eleven days elapsed; but Mortier had turned them to good account, and had more than fulfilled all that had been expected of him. On the very day that Soult started for Seville he marched against Campo Mayor, with nine battalions of infantry, a cavalry brigade, and part of the siege-train which had just captured Badajoz. One other battalion was left as garrison in Olivenza, the six that remained from the corps were told off for Badajoz, where General Phillipon had been appointed governor. With the aid of three companies of sappers they were already busily engaged in levelling their own old siege-works, and commencing the repairs to the battered front of the walls. Mortier conceived that there could not be any danger in carrying out the orders that Soult had left, for he could find no traces of any hostile force in his vicinity, save the Portuguese garrison of Elvas, and the 4,000 men who formed the wrecks of Mendizabal’s army. This demoralized force had rallied at Campo Mayor, but on receiving the news of the fall of Badajoz retired in haste to Estremos, twenty miles within the Portuguese frontier. Their presence there was a danger rather than a defence to the Alemtejo, for not only did they consume some magazines collected there by Wellington’s orders for the use of the expeditionary force, but they plundered recklessly in the neighbouring villages, and committed such outrages that the Portuguese Government was almost forced to take military measures against them[314]. Mortier had nothing to fear from this quarter, while he could hear no news of the approach of any British force from the direction of the Tagus. The 2nd Division and Hamilton’s Portuguese, it will be remembered, had only been ordered to resume their movement towards Estremadura on the 13th, by Wellington’s dispatch of the 12th, and when Mortier started from Badajoz they were only just commencing their advance from the neighbourhood of Abrantes towards Crato and Portalegre, and were very nearly a hundred miles away, so that it was impossible that he should get any information concerning them.

[p. 254]Campo Mayor was an old-fashioned fortress, which had not been remodelled since the War of the Spanish Succession, its greatest weakness was that an outlying fort (S?o Jo?o), only 200 yards from the walls in a commanding position, had been dismantled, but not blown up and levelled to the ground. It overlooked one of the bastions of the place, and had only to be seized in order to provide an admirable starting-place for operations against the enceinte. No serious attention had been paid to Campo Mayor of late, the much stronger place of Elvas, only eleven miles away, having absorbed all the attention of the Portuguese government. The Spaniards had been garrisoning it for the last six months, but when they hastily departed the Governor of Elvas threw into it half a battalion of the Portalegre Militia (about 300 men) and a company of artillery. This handful of men, aided by the Ordenan?a of the place, were all that were at the disposition of the very gallant and resourceful old engineer officer, Major José Joaquim Talaya, who was left in charge of the place. As the population was under 3,000 souls, the levy of the Ordenan?a cannot have amounted to more than 300 men, and many of these (as was still the case in most parts of Portugal) had no firearms, but only pikes. But the chief[p. 255] magistrate (juiz de fora), José Carvalho, served at the head of them with great energy, and we are assured that (contrary to what might have been expected) the citizens took a more creditable part than the militiamen in the defence[315].

With no regulars save the company of artillery, and no more than 800 men in all to protect a long enceinte, it might have been expected that Talaya could make no defence at all—indeed he might have evacuated the place without any blame. But being a man of fine resolution, and recognizing the fact that he was doing the greatest possible service by detaining 7,000 French before his walls, and thereby covering Elvas and allowing time for Beresford to arrive, he resolved to hold out as long as possible. The French seized Fort S?o Jo?o on the night of their arrival (March 14th) and opened trenches on each side of it, commencing at the same time three batteries, of which two were sheltered by the dismantled work. Next morning two of these works were in a position to open fire on the town, since the heavy guns for them had only to come from Badajoz, a mere nine miles away.

Despite of this Talaya held out for seven days of bombardment and open trenches (15th-21st March). He concentrated all his artillery on the approaches and the breaching-batteries, and for some time held his own. On the 19th a breach was opened in the projecting bastion (de Concelho), but the Governor refused a summons to surrender, and actually beat off an assault that night. On the following day the whole face of the bastion began to crumble, and, since further resistance was hopeless, Talaya accepted the terms offered him by Mortier—viz. that the garrison should lay down its arms if not relieved within twenty-four hours, the Militia and Ordenan?a not to be regarded as prisoners of war, but to be allowed to stay in or retire to their homes, on condition that they should not again bear arms against the French. A similar favour was extended to the Governor himself, who was allowed, ‘on account of his great age,’ says the capitulation, to retire to his own residence on giving his word of honour not to serve again[316]. As the whole[p. 256] garrison, save the artillery, were irregular troops, Mortier took over less than 100 prisoners. Some fifty guns, many of them of very antique and useless fabric, and 10,000 rations of biscuit were captured. The delay of twenty-four hours in the surrender of the town turned out very unluckily for Mortier, as it just gave time for Beresford and his army to arrive, only four days after the surrender, before the place had been dismantled or injured.

The eight-day defence of the absolutely untenable Campo Mayor contrasts in the strongest fashion with that of the neighbouring Spanish fortress of Albuquerque. This, too, was a very neglected and antiquated place, but it possessed a citadel on a high crag, which might have been held for some days against anything but heavy artillery, and it would have taken some time to erect batteries which could effectively reach it. When, however, Latour-Maubourg, with two cavalry regiments, summoned it, on March 15, the Governor at once began to parley, and on being told that infantry and guns were coming forward, actually opened his gates next day, before the two battalions and two guns sent by Mortier arrived. This demoralized officer was Major-General José Cagigal; his garrison consisted of two battalions of the Estremaduran regiment of Fernando VII, about 800 men, and a few artillerymen with seventeen brass guns of position. This was, on the whole, the most disgraceful surrender made during the whole Peninsular War—it can only be compared to the celebrated capitulation of Stettin in 1806, when the Prussian general, in an exactly similar fashion, yielded a fortress to a brigade of hussars who were impudent enough to summon it. But Stettin was a far worse case than Albuquerque—since it was a modern stronghold with a garrison of no less than 6,000 men.

After the surrender of Albuquerque, Latour-Maubourg sent on a regiment of dragoons to Valencia de Alcantara, the last fortified place in Spanish hands between the Guadiana and the Tagus. The small garrison evacuated it, and the dragoons, after bursting seven guns found within its walls, and blowing up its gates (March 17), returned to Badajoz.

[p. 257]The news of the loss of the one Portuguese and the two Spanish fortresses did not detain Beresford a moment in his advance, indeed he was only anxious to attack the enemy before he should have either repaired and garrisoned, or else dismantled and destroyed, Campo Mayor. On the 24th, Cole’s 4th Division, having had its two prescribed days of rest, marched from Portalegre to Arronches, where it caught up the cavalry and the other two divisions. Nothing had been discovered of the French, save some hussar vedettes only three miles north of Campo Mayor. It seems that Beresford’s approach came as a complete surprise to Mortier, who had made no preparations to meet it. He had withdrawn the greater part of the troops who had formed the siege corps to Badajoz, and had left Latour-Maubourg to dismantle the place—for he had made up his mind not to hold it. The cavalry general retained three of his own regiments (26th Dragoons and 2nd and 10th Hussars), one infantry regiment (the 100th of the Line), a half-battery of horse artillery, with a large detachment of the military train, who were in charge not only of the siege-guns lately used, but of thirty pieces from the walls of Campo Mayor, which it was intended to bring over to Badajoz. The rest of the Portuguese guns were to be burst, as useless and antiquated. The engineers were selecting sections of the enceinte, which were to be mined and blown up. The whole French force was about 900 sabres and 1,200 bayonets, plus the detachments of the auxiliary arms—perhaps 2,400 men in all[317]. There was a very fair chance of capturing it entire, owing to the careless way in which Latour-Maubourg kept watch. The presence of scouting parties of Portuguese dragoons had been reported to him[318]. But probably he attached little importance to their presence in this direction. There had been cavalry of that nation on the Estremaduran frontier ever since January.

[p. 258]At half-past ten o’clock on the very rainy morning of the 25th, Beresford’s army was advancing on Campo Mayor in three converging columns, the bulk of the 2nd Division preceded by De Grey’s dragoons on the high-road, Hamilton’s Portuguese division on a by-path over a ridge to the east of the road, with the 13th Light Dragoons and two Portuguese squadrons in their front, Colborne’s brigade and the remaining Portuguese horse on a corresponding ridge, some way to the western or right side of the chaussée. Cole followed a mile in the rear as reserve. The French outposts were found as on the preceding day, only three miles outside the town. General Latour-Maubourg chanced to be visiting them, probably in tardy consequence of the reports of the previous day. When attacked they retired skirmishing, to delay as far as possible the advance of Beresford’s leading squadrons. Latour-Maubourg, seeing that the Allies were coming up on a broad front, and at least 15,000 strong, rode back hastily into the town, ordered the drums to beat, and directed infantry and cavalry alike to abandon their baggage, and to form up without a moment’s delay on the glacis outside the southern gate for a retreat. A column of sixteen heavy guns from the walls of Campo Mayor and the siege-train, with practically no escort, had started some little time back, and was on its way to Badajoz along the high-road before the alarm was given[319]. The allied cavalry, on coming in sight of the town from the ridge to its north, discovered the enemy just moving off, the infantry regiment in column of route on the road, with one hussar regiment in front of it and another in rear, while the 26th Dragoons, some little way ahead, was covering the rest from being intercepted on the high-road, for Latour-Maubourg had seen that his danger lay in the probability that Beresford would strike in, with the horse of his van, between him and Badajoz, and so force him to fight his way through, under pain of being surrounded and captured if he failed. This indeed was Beresford’s intention, but being impressed with Wellington’s warning not to risk or lose his cavalry, he had[p. 259] ordered General Long, who was in command of the division of that arm, not to commit himself against a superior force, and ‘to wait for the infantry to come up if he were in any doubt; yet if the opportunity to strike a blow occurs he must avail himself of it[320].’ The whole cavalry force with the army was only eleven British squadrons and five Portuguese, the latter very weak, and the total number of sabres was about 1,500, a very small allowance for an army of over 18,000 men, and therefore very precious.

When Latour-Maubourg saw the British divisions coming on in the distance, he marched off with all possible speed, and had such a start that his column, whose pace was set by the quick step of the infantry, had got nearly three miles from Campo Mayor before it was seriously threatened. General Long had, by Beresford’s orders, directed his squadrons to sweep east of the walls of the town, out of gunshot, in case there should chance to have been a garrison left behind. The sweep was a long one, because a ravine was discovered which forced the regiments to turn further eastward than was at first intended. They came up in two detachments, one formed by the 13th Light Dragoons and Otway’s Portuguese, more to the left (east), the other of De Grey’s dragoons further to the right (west). The first body was nearly level with the dragoon regiment which was moving ahead of the French column, the other was not so far to the front, being 400 or 500 yards away from the rear flank of the French. The nearest British infantry and guns, Colborne’s brigade and Cleeves’s German battery accompanying it, were out of sight, two miles to the rear, hidden by undulations of the ground; so was Beresford himself and his staff, who were riding ahead of the main body.

Seeing a fight forced on him, Latour-Maubourg resolved to accept it. He had a force of all arms, and thought himself strong enough to beat off cavalry unsupported by infantry or guns, even though they outnumbered his own horsemen in the proportion of five to three. Accordingly he suddenly halted[p. 260] and formed his infantry in battalion squares on the high-road, with the hussars flanking them in deep order, while the dragoon regiment, with its right wing drawn back and its left wing not far from the leading hussars, formed a line at an obtuse angle to the main body, ready to deliver a flanking charge on the British and Portuguese if they should attack the infantry.

Long, considering, as he says, that he was strong enough to attempt the ‘blow’ of which Beresford had spoken, resolved first to drive off the French dragoon regiment which threatened his flank, and then to fall upon the hussars and infantry. He sent orders to De Grey and the heavy dragoons to close in upon the rear and left flank of the French, from whom they were still separated by a ridge, but to hold off till the rest of the troops had disposed of the covering cavalry. He then advanced with the light squadrons, English and Portuguese, to get beyond the French dragoons—his line was formed with two Portuguese squadrons (7th regiment) on the extreme left, then the two and a half squadrons of the 13th British Light Dragoons[321], and to the right the three remaining Portuguese squadrons (1st regiment).

Seeing that Long was man?uvring to outflank him, Latour-Maubourg ordered the 26th Dragoons to charge before the movement was far advanced. The British 13th formed to their front, and started to meet them; the two lines met with a tremendous crash, neither giving way, and were mingled for a few moments in desperate hand to hand fighting[322], in which Colonel Chamorin, the French brigadier, was slain in a personal combat with a corporal named Logan of the 13th. Presently the French broke, and fled in disorder along and beside the Badajoz road. Then followed one of those wild and senseless pursuits which always provoked Wellington’s wrath, and induced him to say in bitterness that the ordinary British cavalry[p. 261] regiment was ‘good for nothing but galloping[323].’ General Long says in his account of the affair that he found it impossible to stop or rally the Light Dragoons, and therefore sent after them the two squadrons of the 7th Portuguese, to act as a support. But the Portuguese put on a great pace to come up with the 13th, got excited in pursuing stray knots of French dragoons, broke their order, and finally joined in the headlong chase as recklessly as their comrades.
Portrait of Marshal Beresford

Enlarge  Field Marshal Sir William Carr Beresford

The ride was incredibly long and disorderly, quite in the style of Prince Rupert at Edgehill. It was continued for no less than seven miles; four miles from the place where it had started, the Light Dragoons came on the artillery convoy of sixteen heavy guns which had left Campo Mayor in the early morning, and had crawled on almost to the gates of Badajoz; the small escort was dispersed, and the drivers were cut down or chased off the road. Many of the Portuguese stopped to make prize of the horses—most valuable personal plunder—and went off with them in small parties towards the allied camp. The pursuers should have stopped here. There was no object in chasing any further the few surviving French dragoons, who were scattered broadcast. The guns, with a long train of caissons and carts, were left standing beside the road, but little attention was paid to these valuable trophies. One or two were rehorsed and turned towards the British lines by some officers of the 13th. The main body of the pursuers, however, did not stop with the convoy, but, still sabring at the routed French, rode two miles and a half further, till they hurtled against the bridge-head fortifications of Badajoz. They were only stopped by being shelled from Fort San Cristobal, and fired on by the garrison of the tête-du-pont. It is said by one French authority[324] that the leading dragoons actually reached the barrier-gate of the covered way of the latter work, and were shot there. Marshal Mortier, learning what had happened, sallied out of the fortress with a cavalry regiment and four battalions, captured quite a number of straggling dragoons, whose horses had fallen or given out in the wild ride, and found the bulk of the artillery convoy standing lonely and teamless by the wayside. It was dragged[p. 262] along into Badajoz, save one howitzer and six caissons, which were left behind on the approach of Beresford’s main body. Mortier also picked up near the place where the convoy was lying, and brought into Badajoz, Latour-Maubourg’s column, whose further fortunes need to be detailed.

When the 13th Light Dragoons and the 7th Portuguese went off on their mad escapade, General Long found himself left in front of the main French force, with only the three squadrons of the 1st Portuguese cavalry, which had formed his reserve, and the Heavy Brigade, distant half a mile from him, and on the other side of the French line. It was apparently his intention to charge the enemy with these troops, a most hazardous experiment, for the French with a regiment of 1,200 infantry in square, flanked by four squadrons of hussars, were dangerous to deal with. In all the Peninsular War there was only one occasion (at Garcia Hernandez in 1812) where formed squares of either side were broken by the cavalry of the other, and the 100th Ligne on this occasion had 500 hussars to support them. There was some delay while Long was sending an aide-de-camp to the Heavy Brigade to bid them prepare to attack[325], and, seeing him holding back, Latour-Maubourg started off his column once more along the high-road, the infantry marching in square, with two squadrons of hussars in front and two behind. To stop him from moving on, Long brought forward the 1st Portuguese to check the hussars. But when they advanced toward them, and were about to engage, the front side of the leading French battalion square opened a distant fire against their flank. Surprised by this, for they had not realized that they were within effective range of the hostile infantry, the three Portuguese squadrons broke and galloped off, pursued by the hussars for some little way[326].

[p. 263]At this moment Marshal Beresford and his staff came upon the scene, on the ridge near De Grey’s brigade, and saw the three Portuguese squadrons rallying at a distance, and still in disorder, while the heavy dragoons were preparing to attack. On inquiring what had become of the 13th and the rest of the Portuguese, Beresford was told by one of his staff[327] that they had been cut off and were believed to have been captured. Horrified at this news, which brought to his mind all Wellington’s warnings, Beresford forbade the Heavy Brigade to charge, and bade them hold off, till some infantry and guns should come up. He was indubitably right in so doing, for, as all previous and later experience proved, it was most unlikely that they would have broken the French squares.

He sent back for the nearest infantry, which was Colborne’s brigade, and some guns. Meanwhile the enemy continued moving off at a great pace, followed at a distance by the heavy dragoons, while Long and the three rallied Portuguese squadrons marched parallel with their flank. The two parties had proceeded several miles in this way, when the 13th Light Dragoons came in sight, returning from the direction of Badajoz, and their Portuguese companions with them. Soon after, two guns of Cleeves’s battery got up, unlimbered, and opened a fire at long range against the rear of the French. It had some effect, but the enemy kept his ranks and continued to move on as fast as possible, leaving his dead and wounded in the road. The artillery horses were exhausted and unable to keep up, wherefore Beresford ordered the whole force to halt, saying that without infantry there was nothing more to be done. At this moment Colborne’s brigade was no more than half a mile behind according to Long and certain other witnesses[328]. But on the[p. 264] other hand, Mortier with 2,000 infantry and a cavalry regiment from Badajoz was visible, waiting for Latour-Maubourg near the spot where the dismantled convoy was standing. The two French forces joined, and retired into the fortress with nearly all the recaptured guns—only one and some caissons remained to be picked up by Beresford’s advance.

The loss of the British on this occasion, all in the 13th Light Dragoons[329], was 10 killed, 3 officers and 24 men wounded, and 22 prisoners; among the Portuguese 1st and 7th cavalry an officer and 13 men killed, 40 wounded, and 55 prisoners—a total of over 150. The French suffered more—the 26th Dragoons alone had 8 officers[330] and over 100 men killed, wounded, and taken, the train and artillery had been dreadfully cut up at the capture of the convoy, and the infantry had lost 3 officers and many men by the fire of Cleeves’s guns. The total casualties were over 200[331]. But the moral effect of a combat is not judged by a mere comparison of losses, and the British officers were much disappointed. Beresford and his friends held that Long had by mismanagement wasted 150 precious cavalrymen—Long declared that if Beresford had not taken the command out of his hands he would have captured the whole French column. This last claim was absolutely unreasonable: it is far more likely that he would merely have caused severe loss to the two heavy dragoon regiments by persisting. The Marshal and the General were on bad terms from this moment onward, and the former took the next opportunity given him to remove the latter from the chief command of the allied cavalry. The most curious comment on the combat of Campo Mayor is Napier’s statement that ‘the 13th Light Dragoons were severely reprimanded for pursuing so eagerly. But the unsparing admiration of the whole army consoled them!’ Pursuing eagerly is a mild expression for riding seven[p. 265] miles off the battlefield, and on to the glacis of a hostile fortress. Wellington’s comment was that ‘the undisciplined ardour of the 13th Dragoons and the 7th regiment of Portuguese cavalry is not of the description of the determined bravery of soldiers confident in their discipline and their officers. Their conduct was that of a rabble galloping as fast as their horses could carry them, after an enemy to whom they could do no further mischief when they were broken: the pursuit was continued for an unlimited distance, and sacrificed substantial advantages, and all the objects of the operation, by want of discipline[332].’ A similar reproof was published in a General Order, to be read to the cavalry.

The only really satisfactory result of the combat of Campo Mayor was that Beresford recovered the town intact, with some guns which had not yet been sent off to Badajoz, and a considerable amount of stores, including 8,000 rations of biscuit. The place was at once re-garrisoned with the Faro regiment of militia from Elvas, who rapidly repaired the breach. It was tenable again in a few days.

On the 26th Beresford discovered that the French had withdrawn entirely beyond the Guadiana, keeping nothing north of it save the bridge-head and Fort San Cristobal at Badajoz. All accounts agreed that after deducting the garrison of that place Mortier could not have more than 8,000, or at the most 10,000, men available for the field, so that there was no reason why Wellington’s orders to thrust him out of Estremadura, and besiege Badajoz, should not be carried out. It was particularly directed in those orders that the expeditionary force should cross the Guadiana at Jerumenha, and make a bridge at that place, only a few miles from the strong fortress of Elvas, the base of its line of communications[333]. Accordingly the 2nd Division and[p. 266] Hamilton’s Portuguese marched to Elvas on the 26th, leaving Cole and the 4th Division (still much fatigued by their long march) for a day at Campo Mayor. There can be no doubt that if Beresford had been able to cross at Jerumenha on the 27th or 28th he would have compelled the French to retire southward at once, and might have invested Badajoz, then not yet fully repaired, as soon as he chose. But a most tiresome series of hindrances, for which it seems unjust to blame the Anglo-Portuguese commander, now began to crop up. The first and most fatal was that the stock of Spanish pontoon boats which, as he had been told by Wellington, would be found at Elvas or Jerumenha, was not forthcoming. Only five were discovered: two complete bridge-equipages had been kept by Imaz at Badajoz, and were now in the hands of the French. But twenty large pontoons, as the engineers declared, was the least number which would suffice to bridge the Guadiana. An attempt was made to seek for river-craft to eke out the pontoons. But by Wellington’s orders all the boats on the river for many miles had been destroyed, when Soult entered Estremadura in January. Some Portuguese pontoons were ordered from Lisbon, but it would be a week or so before they could be carted across the Alemtejo. Meanwhile Captain Squire, the engineer charged with the bridge-building, offered to lay trestles across the shallower part of the bed of the Guadiana on either bank, and to moor the five pontoons in the deep channel in the middle to join them. To this Beresford assented, and the bridge-place was selected on the 30th: Squire promised that the whole should be completed on the 3rd of April; he could not finish it earlier, as the wood for the trestles had to be found, cut down, and shaped ab initio.

The delay of a week thus caused was of the less importance, however, because of another contretemps. There were no stores ready to feed the army when it should cross the Guadiana. The 200,000 rations at Estremos which Wellington (as it will be remembered) had promised to Beresford, were found to have been entirely consumed by the wreck of Mendizabal’s army,[p. 267] who had been lying there for the last three weeks. There was nothing to lade upon the mules and carts of the expeditionary force; the troops were in great difficulties from day to day, ate the 8,000 rations at Campo Mayor, and were finally forced to indent upon the stores of the garrison of Elvas, which ought to have been sacred to the defence of the town.

Lastly, and this was perhaps the most important of all, the shoes of the 4th Division, which had marched continuously from the 6th to the 22nd of March, first from the Lines to Espinhal, and then from Espinhal to Portalegre, were completely worn out. Cole protested against the division being moved till it was reshod. No footgear could be found at Elvas, and though an immediate requisition was sent to Lisbon, the convoy bringing the shoes would obviously take a week or so to get up[334]. From the 26th of March to the 3rd of April Beresford was perforce immovable. This loss of eight days was apparently the reason why Badajoz did not fall into his hands a little later, for the fortifications, which were still in a dangerous state of disrepair on the 25th, were practically tenable by the second week in April. The stores in the fortress were a less important matter. Imaz when he surrendered had over a month’s rations for 9,000 men, which, even when a certain amount had been consumed by Soult’s field army, left a nucleus sufficient to keep the garrison of 3,000 men placed in the town by Mortier out of need for many weeks. In addition, cattle had been requisitioned all over Estremadura. The small movable force of 8,000 men which was available for observing Beresford, was now living entirely on the country-side, in order to spare the stores of Badajoz.

Beresford’s delay in crossing the Guadiana, therefore, was unfortunate, but apparently inevitable, and there seems no reason to blame him for it. On April 3rd the engineers reported that the bridge at Jerumenha would be ready that evening, and[p. 268] the three divisions concentrated on the left bank: the water was low, and a difficult ford for cavalry had been found above the bridge, by which a squadron of dragoons passed, and established a chain of pickets on the Spanish side. No French were seen abroad, though it was discovered that they still had a garrison in Olivenza, only six miles away. It is difficult to make out why no attempt was made to obstruct the building of Beresford’s bridge—the enemy had five regiments of cavalry in Estremadura, and 6,000 infantry of Girard’s division were available for field service. Even a small detachment with some guns would have made it impossible for the British engineers to complete their work. But the Allies found a great advantage in the fact that Mortier had just received orders to return to Paris, and had on March 26th handed over the command of all the troops on the Guadiana to Latour-Maubourg, who was a good divisional general on the battlefield, but a very indifferent strategist. All his man?uvres during the following month were weak and confused. How it came that from the 30th of March to the 7th of April no French cavalry were seen opposite Jerumenha, much less any serious force sent to disturb the bridge-building, it is impossible to conceive. By all accounts the horsemen who should have been in front of Olivenza were at this time mainly employed in scouring the villages of Central Estremadura for cattle and corn, and escorting what they could seize into Badajoz and the camp of Girard’s division.

On the morning of March 4th, when the allied troops should have crossed the Guadiana, Beresford was brought the untoward news that the river had risen three feet in the night, had swept away the trestles, and forced the engineers to draw back the five pontoon boats in the central stream to the Portuguese bank. The squadron beyond the river was cut off from the army, and communication with it was only restored during the day, by rigging up a flying bridge composed of a raft and a rope. The cavalry ford above the destroyed bridge was of course impassable. Throughout the 4th and 5th the water continued to rise, from storms higher up the river apparently, for there was no rain at Jerumenha.

The position was exasperating to the highest degree. ‘Establishing a permanent bridge is out of the question,’ writes[p. 269] D’Urban, the chief of the staff, in his journal. ‘The means are anything but secure either for passing the army (tedious beyond measure, too, no doubt), or for establishing a communication afterwards for supplies and other purposes. Nevertheless the general state of things, and above all Lord Wellington’s reiterated orders received this morning, render it necessary to pass[335].’ The engineers, put upon their mettle, finally made the five Spanish pontoon boats into two flying bridges worked by ropes. On these a battalion of infantry was passed across the river, and stockaded itself on the other side. Later in the day (April 5) some small tin pontoons arrived from Lisbon, and out of these, helped by all the wine-casks of the neighbouring villages, collected in haste, a floating bridge was constructed, ‘not very substantial, but, upon trial, found capable of admitting infantry to pass in file[336].’ It was not ready till noon on the 6th, but by the two flying bridges the whole 2nd Division and three squadrons of cavalry were passed on the night of the 5th-6th. What might have happened it Latour-Maubourg had concentrated at Olivenza, and fallen on the first two or three battalions that crossed with a force of all arms, we had better not inquire[337]. A disaster on a small scale might very possibly have occurred. But not a Frenchman was seen.

During the 6th Hamilton’s Portuguese passed with infinite slowness on the flying bridges, and the cask and pontoon bridge being at last completed, Cole’s 4th Division and Long’s cavalry began to file over it at dusk, an operation so tedious that the last of them were not over till the following dawn. Ere they were all across a ‘regrettable incident’ occurred: the advanced cavalry pickets were formed on the night of the 6th-7th by[p. 270] Major Morris’s squadron of the 13th Light Dragoons. Owing to bad staff work in the placing of them (as D’Urban and General Long both assert), the main guard of this squadron was surprised by French cavalry in the dusk of the morning, and captured almost entire, two officers and fifty men being taken. The assailants found that they had run into the camp of a whole army, and promptly retired before they could be touched.

At last Latour-Maubourg had given signs of life; this reconnaissance had been conducted by a flying column of two cavalry regiments and four battalions, under General Veilland, sent out to Olivenza from the camp of Girard’s division, with the very tardy purpose of hindering Beresford’s passage. Veilland reported to his chief that the enemy was across in such strength that he could do nothing. The appearance of 20,000 men on the Spanish bank of the Guadiana, so far to the south of Badajoz, placed Latour-Maubourg in a very delicate position: if he stayed twenty-four hours longer in his present camp close to Badajoz, he lost his communications with Andalusia, and might be pushed eastward up the Guadiana, out of touch with Soult, and having no retreat save towards the distant Army of the Centre. It was even possible that a rapid advance of the Allies might drive him into Badajoz, the last thing that he would desire. Accordingly he concentrated at Albuera, twelve miles south of that fortress, as a preliminary move, and prepared to fall back from thence by the great southern chaussée, towards Llerena and the Sierra Morena, where he would preserve, and shorten, his line of communication with Soult. Phillipon was left with 3,000 men in Badajoz, which was now quite beyond danger from a coup de main, and able to take care of itself for some weeks, till reinforcements should come up from Andalusia for its relief. With great unwisdom Latour-Maubourg left Olivenza garrisoned also; it was, as had been shown in January, contemptible as a fortress, even when held by a large force, and the French general placed in it only a single weak battalion of under 400 men. There were still on the walls the few guns that had been taken from the Spaniards—no more than fifteen were mounted, and several of these only on makeshift carriages. Why Latour-Maubourg chose to sacrifice a battalion it is hard to see; Napoleon wrote to Soult a month later to condemn the[p. 271] policy of small garrisons in the strongest terms[338]. At the best Olivenza, when so weakly held, could not hold out for more than a few days, and if Beresford had tried to rush it by escalade, when first he arrived before its walls, he must undoubtedly have succeeded, for 400 men cannot defend three miles of enceinte against a serious assault. There were some magazines in the place, and a small hospital of sick, who could not be removed[339]. But it was obviously absurd to throw away a battalion of sound men to keep them from capture for a few days. It has been suggested that Latour-Maubourg merely wanted to gain time[340]; but the time gained was trifling—Olivenza only held out five days—and might have fallen much sooner.

Beresford’s train and guns having joined him beyond the river on March 8th, he moved to Olivenza on the 9th, in an order of march ready to deploy into an order of battle in case Latour-Maubourg should turn up with his small field force. The town was summoned on the same afternoon, and when the governor refused to surrender, the 4th Division, still almost unable to move for want of the shoes which were daily expected from Lisbon, was left to besiege it, with the aid of heavy guns to be brought from Elvas, only fifteen miles away. The extreme weakness of the garrison was not known, or the Marshal would not have wasted time by ordering regular approaches to be made. The rest of the army bivouacked on the Badajoz road a few miles beyond Olivenza, and on the following day occupied Valverde, and pushed its cavalry to Albuera, cutting the chaussée between Badajoz and Seville. No enemy could be found, and it was ascertained that Latour-Maubourg’s rearguard was at Santa Marta, ten miles to the south, and the rest of his troops far beyond it. On the 11th the infantry, minus the 4th Division,[p. 272] were at Albuera, while the bulk of the cavalry marched to find out how far southward the enemy was ready to withdraw.

Central Estremadura, at any rate, was now in Beresford’s hands, and he was in a position to carry out Wellington’s orders to drive the 5th Corps over the Sierra Morena and invest Badajoz. In accordance with his instructions he had seen Casta?os on March 30th, and settled with him that the wrecks of the old Army of Estremadura—now about 1,000 horse and 3,000 foot—should join in the campaign. Casta?os, who showed himself both eager and obliging, had promised that his infantry should seize the bridge of Merida, and that, when it was occupied, his cavalry, under Penne Villemur, should join in the movement to sweep Latour-Maubourg over the mountains, operating on the eastern road (Merida-Ribera-Usagre-Llerena), while the allied cavalry took the western one (Albuera-Los Santos-Fuente Cantos-Monasterio). These promises were carried out: Morillo’s infantry division occupied Merida on the 10th, and next day Penne Villemur’s cavalry had reached Almendralejo.

The siege of Olivenza gave little trouble. The only difficulty was the improvising of a siege-train, even on the very modest scale required to deal with such a weak place. It was invested, as we have seen, on the 9th. On the 10th Major Alexander Dickson of the Portuguese artillery, and Captain Squire of the Engineers reconnoitred the place, and determined that the proper starting-point for the attack was the same ruined lunette, outside the walls, which the French had chosen as their first base in January. On the night of the 11th this point was occupied with the loss of one man only, killed by the enemy’s ill-directed fire. A battery for six guns was constructed in the gorge of the ruined work, but the pieces themselves, which Dickson went to choose from Elvas, did not arrive till the 14th; the cask-bridge at Jerumenha being too weak to bear them, they and their ammunition had to be ferried over on the flying bridges. The six 24-pounders were placed in position that same night. At daybreak they opened, and by the time that they had fired seventy rounds each, long ere noon, a practicable breach was made in the nearest bastion. Thereupon the governor, seeing that to have stood an assault with his handful of men would have been madness, surrendered at discretion. He marched out[p. 273] with only 9 officers and 357 men under arms, giving up also 96 sick, and some commissaries and medical officers. Several of his miserable stock of fifteen guns were found to be practically useless save to make a noise, for (as has already been mentioned) they were fixed not on proper carriages, but on the main timbers and wheels of ox-carts, and could not be elevated or depressed. The governor deserves some credit for having held out five days; if the Allies had been aware of the weakness of the garrison, they would have swamped it at once by an escalade.

On the next morning (April 16th) Cole and the 4th Division, who had at last received their much-needed supply of shoes, marched to join the rest of the army. A Portuguese garrison was thrown into Olivenza, but there was no intention to hold it, if the enemy should come up again. It was only a man-trap. Beresford might now have invested Badajoz, if it had pleased him so to do. But he thought it better to drive Latour-Maubourg completely out of Estremadura, and across the Sierra Morena, before taking the siege in hand. The main reason for his resolve was that it was clear that a week or ten days at least would be required to organize a battering-train at Elvas, for the bombardment and breaching of the fortress, and he thought it more profitable to spend this interval in pushing the French as far from Badajoz as possible, rather than in sitting down before it to no purpose, and waiting for the appearance of the siege-train. It was apparently an omission on Wellington’s part not to have ordered General Leite, the governor of Elvas, to begin making preparations for the gathering of a park and the collection of a large body of artillerymen, on the same day that he finally launched Beresford’s[341] force into Estremadura (March 16). But this had not been done, and it was not till April 18th that Major Alexander Dickson, who had already learnt what was available in Elvas while organizing the little train required for the capture of Olivenza, was directed to take in hand the much larger and more difficult task of collecting the[p. 274] men and material destined for the siege of a first-class fortress[342]. This delay seems extraordinary: did Wellington think on March 16th that Badajoz, only five days in the hands of the French at the moment, would be incapable of defence when Beresford should appear in front of it about the 25th of that same month? It is quite possible that this would have been the case, and that the French would have blown it up, if the Jerumenha bridge had been standing ready for the passage of the army on the next day, as Wellington had supposed. The Dispatches give us no help on this point; Wellington speaks of investing Badajoz, but gives no hint as to how the investment was to be followed up, till March 27th, when he observes to Beresford that ‘Elvas must supply the means for the attack on Badajoz, if possible; if it has them not, I must send them there; this will take time, but that cannot be avoided[343].’

Elvas, as matters turned out, did ‘supply the means,’ but the resources to be found there were so limited that, as was wittily said at the time by Picton, Wellington, both in May and in June 1811, ‘sued Badajoz in forma pauperis,’ and if the place had fallen it would have been almost a miracle, for no sufficient material to ensure its capture had been collected even by the month of June. The main difficulty arose from the fact that Wellington had never been provided by his Government with a siege-train. Looking upon the war in Portugal as essentially defensive in character, the Home authorities had forgotten that it might have offensive episodes, and that a great siege might not impossibly be one of them. The British army in Portugal possessed nothing in the way of artillery save the ordinary horse and field batteries (or ‘troops’ and ‘companies’ as they were then called), with their 3, 6, and 9-pounder guns. If a few hundred men were told off to heavy pieces in the Lisbon lines during the preceding autumn, it was not that they were intended for such service—they were parts of incomplete or unhorsed batteries, which had not taken the field when the campaign of 1810 began, and were waiting to complete their equipment. The British army in Portugal was absolutely destitute of artillery destined for and trained to the working of siege-guns.[p. 275] The only British pieces of heavy calibre used in the spring of 1811 were ships’ cannon lent by the commander of the squadron in the Tagus.

For such work as was now before them, therefore, the Allies had to depend entirely on what the Portuguese arsenals could supply. But all that could be found in them was now mounted on the interminable redoubts of the Lisbon lines, save such as had been sent to strengthen Elvas, Abrantes, and Peniche. Practically every gun in Portugal was defending some work, small or great; they had all been requisitioned down to the most antique and imperfect pieces. The walls of Elvas were a perfect museum of ancient artillery: among the heaviest pieces, carefully sorted out because of their calibre, and chosen for the siege-train that was to batter Badajoz, were to be seen not only many 24-pounders bearing the arms and cyphers of the earliest kings of the house of Braganza, Jo?o and Affonso, but still older brass guns of enormous length, showing the names of Philip III and IV of Spain, and dating back to the years before 1640, when Portugal was a discontented province of the Hapsburg kings[344]. It seems almost incredible, but is actually a fact, that some of the cannon used by Wellington’s men against Badajoz were just two hundred years old. Those that were not quite so antique were mainly pieces of early eighteenth-century pattern, without the later improvements invented by the French scientific artillerymen of the days of Louis XV and Louis XVI: for the Lisbon arsenal had persisted in using old models long after they had been dropped in the larger countries of Europe.

The gunners for the siege were of course mainly Portuguese, though a few were afterwards drawn from the imperfect British companies at Lisbon[345]. Those first employed were borrowed from the garrison of Elvas; they comprised a great number of recruits only partially trained, but did their best. It was the guns, not the men, that were at fault—or rather, both the guns[p. 276] and the ammunition, for the Portuguese cannon-balls in store, dating from all ages, varied much in size, and Dickson had to sort each convoy of 24 lb. or 12 lb. shot into batches, some of which were rather small and some rather large, and to apportion them to particular pieces. The old brass seventeenth-century guns, being generally worn from long use, needed the biggest shot, and even these were so large in the bore that the balls fitted loosely, and the discharge suffered from ‘windage.’ The impact of such shot was not half what it should have been[346]. With such tools to employ, it is not wonderful that the Anglo-Portuguese artillery made a poor show at the first siege of Badajoz. But worst of all was the fact that the number of pieces was at first far too small—Elvas could only spare a certain part of the armament of its walls, and it was not till some weeks had passed that guns, British and Portuguese, could be brought up from Lisbon, and with them drafts of artillerymen of both nations. But twenty-three guns and 400 artillerymen were all that Dickson could collect for the first siege, and these were not ready till April was out; indeed, it was no small achievement to organize a siege-train of any sort between April 18th and May 6th, from the sole resources of the fortress of Elvas. Of the additional hindrance caused by the small numbers and the inexperience of the engineer officers, and the total lack of trained sappers, we shall speak in the proper place.

The space of time before the siege-train for Badajoz could be got ready was employed by Beresford in clearing southern Estremadura of the enemy. Having left a brigade of the 2nd Division at Talavera Real, a battalion of the Lusitanian Legion (from Cole’s division) in Olivenza, and some squadrons of Portuguese cavalry round the southern front of Badajoz, to watch the garrison, the army marched for Santa Marta and Zafra, on the high-road to Seville, with its own cavalry in front, and Penne Villemur’s Spanish squadrons on the left (April 16th-18th). The bulk of the infantry went no further forward, because Latour-Maubourg withdrew into the Sierra Morena on the rumour of its approach. The cavalry continued the pursuit—at Los Santos on the 16th its leading regiment, the 13th Light[p. 277] Dragoons, had a smart affair with the French rearguard (2nd Hussars), and routed it with the loss of three officers and many men[347]. After this Latour-Maubourg never stopped till he had reached Guadalcanal, on the borders of Andalusia, evacuating Llerena and the other towns on the Estremaduran slope of the mountains (April 19th). Beresford thereupon left his British cavalry at Zafra, and Penne Villemur at Llerena, to watch the passes, while he drew back his infantry divisions to take in hand the siege of Badajoz (April 20th), with the exception of the brigade of Colborne, which was sent out with some Spanish horse to demonstrate against Latour-Maubourg, and to drive him still further southward if he showed signs of irresolution.

While these operations were in progress, there was a short and unexpected diversion in the extreme south-west corner of Estremadura, caused by the appearance of an outlying French column in that quarter, which had no connexion with Latour-Maubourg. A word as to this is necessary, since its result was to bring a new Spanish force into Beresford’s sphere of operations. When Soult returned to Andalusia in the middle of March, his first care was to drive off Ballasteros and the other detachments which had been threatening Seville in his absence. They gave back into the Condado de Niebla, as has already been mentioned. But at the end of the month the situation was complicated by the news that an expedition from Cadiz, the division of Zayas, had landed at Moguer, in the estuary of the Rio Tinto, and seemed about to join Ballasteros. If this junction had been made, the force collected in the west would have been too large to be safely neglected. Wherefore Soult sent out General Maransin and the Prince of Aremberg, the former with seven battalions of Gazan’s division, and the latter with two cavalry regiments, to attack the Spaniards. At the approach of this column of 4,500 men Zayas re-embarked, losing 300 men from his rearguard in so doing (April 1). Ballasteros retired into the mountains. Maransin thought it his duty to endeavour to make an end of this active and elusive adversary, whose constant appearances and reappearances on the flank of Seville had[p. 278] caused so much trouble. Sending back his cavalry and guns, he plunged into the hills with his infantry, and for twelve days hunted Ballasteros up and down the rugged upper valleys of the Odiel and the Rio Tinto. On April 12th Ballasteros, gradually pushed northward, came down to Fregenal, on the borders of Estremadura, where he offered battle, but was beaten, and fled to Xeres de los Caballeros. Maransin pursued, and reached that place on the 11th, while Ballasteros retired to Salvatierra de los Barros, not far from Santa Marta, and close on the flank of Beresford’s army. Maransin, who had long been cut off from touch with other French detachments, was wholly unaware that he had run into the neighbourhood of a British force, and would have been captured, or defeated, if he had stayed a day longer at Xeres, for Ballasteros had called for help to Beresford, and the latter was preparing to throw two divisions upon his flank and rear[348]. Letters from Latour-Maubourg to Maransin, to warn him of his danger, were intercepted by the guerrilleros and sent to the British camp[349]. But an Afrancesado, one of the principal inhabitants of Xeres, warned the French general just before it was too late: and, hastily leaving his position at night, Maransin retired into Andalusia via Fregenal and Aracena, and ultimately joined Latour-Maubourg by a circuitous route.

Ballasteros stayed behind in Estremadura, and the allied force in that province was strengthened by his 3,500 men. But this was not all: the Regency at Cadiz resolved to place a considerable army in this direction, their own city being more than amply garrisoned, and expeditions to the south being unpopular since the fiasco that followed Barrosa. On April 25th General Blake took the two divisions of Zayas and Lardizabal (both of which had fought at Barrosa), and landed with them at Ayamonte, the port in the mouth of the Guadiana. From thence he moved up along the Portuguese frontier, and joined[p. 279] Ballasteros near Xeres de los Caballeros about a fortnight later. Between them they had over 10,000 infantry and about 800 cavalry, but few guns, for Blake found it difficult to horse the batteries that he had brought with him, and left all save six pieces behind, at Ayamonte, to follow when they could procure teams. They had not rejoined him four weeks later, when the battle of Albuera was fought. The presence of Blake was not altogether an unmixed benefit, for he was independent of Casta?os, who commanded the ‘5th Army’ or old Estremaduran force, and the two generals were ancient rivals and did not seem likely to co-operate with any cordiality. But if Soult was to make his appearance for the relief of Badajoz, it was as well that the Allies should be as strong as possible on the front by which he must attack.

Before, however, Blake had arrived in Estremadura, the investment of Badajoz had begun. It was directed by Wellington himself, who dropped suddenly into the middle of the campaign on the 20th, when he arrived at Elvas. Having seen Masséna retreat to Salamanca, and break up his army into cantonments, he now considered that it was safe for him to pay the visit to the south which he had always projected. Leaving Sabugal on April 16th, he rode across country by Castello Branco and Niza, and reached Elvas on the fifth night. The next day but one he conducted a reconnaissance of Badajoz, escorted by a brigade newly landed at Lisbon, which he had ordered to join Beresford—Alten’s two light battalions of the King’s German Legion. The examination of the defences of the fortress was made under some difficulties, for at the moment when Wellington was riding round the walls a large working party of the garrison, which had been dispatched to cut timber in the woods to the south, was returning into the place. Phillipon, the governor, thinking that Wellington’s escort was a detachment sent to cut off his workmen, came hastily out of the fortress with three battalions, and swept off the high-road two companies of the Germans who were accompanying the head-quarters’ staff, with the loss of fifty or sixty men. The working party hurried to join their friends, and got into the gate before the main body of Alten’s brigade could come up. This interruption being over, Wellington completed his survey of the whole circuit of Badajoz, and on the[p. 280] next day (April 23rd) issued elaborate orders to Beresford, concerning the policy to be observed in Estremadura during the siege. He had never intended to stay more than a few days in the south, to supervise affairs, and on the 25th a dispatch received from Sir Brent Spencer, the senior officer left with the main army in the north, reported such activity of the French in that direction that he rode hard for the frontiers of Leon, where he arrived on the 29th.

The orders dictated to Beresford governed the whole course of the campaign in Estremadura during the next month, and were of the highest importance. Wellington directed that the siege of Badajoz should be begun the moment that the guns and material were ready, but warned his colleague that its commencement would infallibly bring Soult to the relief of the place, with every available man that he could scrape together from Andalusia. It was impossible to calculate what the strength of his army would be: if he raised the siege of Cadiz or evacuated Granada, so that he could bring a very large force with him, Beresford was to retire behind the Guadiana, and assume a defensive position on the Caya river in front of Elvas. If forced from thence, he must retire even as far as Portalegre should it be necessary. But if Soult (as was more likely) came up with a force which was not absolutely overwhelming in numbers, ‘Marshal Beresford will consider of and decide upon the chance of success, according to a view of the relative number of both armies, and making a reasonable allowance for the number of Spanish troops which will co-operate with him.... If he should think his strength sufficient to fight a general action to save the siege of Badajoz, he will collect his troops to fight it. I believe that, upon the whole, the most central and advantageous place to collect the troops will be at Albuera.... All this must of course be left to the decision of Sir William Beresford. I authorize him to fight the action if he should think proper, or to retire if he should not[350].’

The co-operation of the Spaniards was the crucial point. Unless it were assured, Wellington considered that Beresford must assume the more cautious and defensive attitude. If it were secured, the bolder policy might be pursued. The lines which[p. 281] Wellington laid down were in the main those which had already been suggested by Beresford: (1) Casta?os must undertake to keep the horse of Villemur in the Sierra Morena, closely observing Latour-Maubourg, but forbid him to engage in any fighting; he must retire if pressed; the infantry of the 5th army must stay at Merida, as at present, but be ready to join Beresford if Soult invaded Estremadura. (2) Ballasteros was to take a similar position on the other flank, with his head quarters at Burguillos (near Zafra)[351] and his advanced posts at Fregenal and Monasterio; if Soult moved forward, he was to join Beresford without attempting to fight. (3) When Blake’s army had landed, it was to pass up the Guadiana, and take post at Xeres de los Caballeros; on any alarm from Soult, it was (like the other Spanish troops) to join Beresford at once. If these arrangements worked, at least 15,000 Spaniards would be in line at Albuera, the chosen position, to assist in holding back Soult. And, as we shall see, the scheme did work exactly as Wellington had designed, and the whole force was collected. (4) Lastly, and this was all-important, when the allied forces were concentrated, they must be placed under a single commander, and not worked with divided authority and divided responsibility, as had been the case in the Talavera campaign of 1809. Concerning Blake there could be no difficulty, as he was junior to Casta?os, and the latter had consented to place himself at Beresford’s disposition when they met at Jerumenha on March 30th. Too much praise cannot be given to his reasonable and conciliatory conduct, which alone rendered possible the co-operation of all the allied forces during the ensuing campaign.

Wellington therefore, as is clear, foresaw the whole course of subsequent operations, and even fixed the exact battle-spot on which the fate of Soult’s attempt to relieve Badajoz would be decided. The only point left to Beresford’s decision was whether the strength of the French army was such as to render a successful resistance possible. And when we come to consider the respective forces at the disposition of the two parties, it can hardly be urged that Beresford was wrong to accept battle. That his victory was a hard-fought and costly one came[p. 282] from minor tactical circumstances, which will be explained in their due place.

As to the details of the projected siege of Badajoz, Wellington laid down an equally clear policy. All guns and material were to be collected in Elvas, Campo Mayor, and Olivenza, and not to move till everything was ready. The main communications of the army were to be across a floating bridge to be constructed at the junction of the Caya and the Guadiana, five miles below Badajoz and six from Elvas. The permanent bridge of Merida and the temporary bridges at Jerumenha would be subsidiary resources. Lastly, and here was the most important point, the general scheme to be pursued was that the besiegers should first reduce the outlying defences of Badajoz, Fort San Cristobal on the north bank of the Guadiana, the Pardaleras and the Picurina on the south bank. Only when all these were taken would operations against the city itself be begun. To quote the concluding paragraph of Wellington’s memorandum: ‘When the British army shall be in possession of San Cristobal, Picurina and Pardaleras, Marshal Beresford will determine upon the point at which he will attack the body of the place. It is believed that, upon the whole, one of the south faces will be the most advantageous.’

There can be no doubt that all the mishaps of the two first British sieges of Badajoz had their origin in these original orders of Wellington, which were drawn up on the advice of his chief engineer, Colonel Fletcher. The great mistake was the choosing of the almost impregnable fort of San Cristobal as one of the three first points of attack, and the making all subsequent operations depend upon its capture. No doubt the possession of this lofty and commanding work would render the fall of Badajoz certain, since it overlooked the castle and all the northern end of the city. But it was the strongest part of the whole defences, and when the miserable and antiquated train of artillery at Beresford’s disposition is taken into consideration, and it is remembered that the siege was to be conducted ‘against time’ as it were, i. e. with the hope that it might be concluded before Soult could collect a relieving force, it is clear that San Cristobal ought to have been left alone. The other points designated by Wellington, the Pardaleras and Picurina,[p. 283] were much more accessible, and the capture of one or other of them would have brought the besiegers close to the walls, though neither of them commanded the whole city in the same fashion as San Cristobal. The best commentary on the sieges of 1811 is that a year later, at the third and successful leaguer, Wellington left the high-lying fort on the other side of the Guadiana entirely alone. The original orders of 1811 gave three separate and distinct objectives, and none of these were to be mere ‘false attacks,’ since it is distinctly said that operations against the enceinte were only to begin when all three of the forts were in British hands. Wellington was not a trained engineer; he was dependent on the advice of the officers of that arm, and it seems that they gave him bad counsel, as they certainly did to Beresford during the subsequent weeks. The most puzzling thing is to make out why Colonel Fletcher and his colleagues ignored Soult’s precedent; the French engineers had concentrated their attack on the Pardaleras front as their sole objective, for their other operations were false attacks. The English engineers, instead of concentrating their efforts in the same way, wasted their work on three separate points, which was all the more inexcusable because they knew that the resources which their comrades of the artillery arm had at their disposition were most inadequate for a great siege. Hence came a very costly and deplorable series of failures.

On the day of Wellington’s departure from Elvas heavy rain fell, and the Guadiana rose high, not merely washing away the cask-bridge at Jerumenha, but rendering the working of the flying bridges impossible. This was a serious matter; not only did it put a temporary stop to the communications between Elvas and the army, but it raised the question as to what might happen if a similar mischance were to occur when Soult was invading Estremadura. For if the Jerumenha bridges should break when the Allies were concentrated at Albuera, they would have no line of retreat and an impassable river behind. Beresford, with this possibility in his eye, ordered an alternative line of communication to be established via Merida, and sent a brigade of the 2nd Division thither to reinforce the Spaniards of Morillo, and a day later the whole 4th Division. His anxiety on this point did not cease till, on the 5th of May, a strong pontoon[p. 284] bridge had been built at the point selected by Wellington, the place where the Caya falls into the Guadiana. By this time the Jerumenha bridges were again in working order, but it was clear that it would be a mistake to trust the whole safety of the army to them.

It was only on this same day (May 5) that Colonel Fletcher and Major Alexander Dickson reported to Beresford that they were ready to produce the means for the attack on Badajoz: the former had his stock of platforms, fascines, and gabions prepared; the latter had organized the first convoy of artillery and ammunition from Elvas. On the 6th, therefore, the investment of Badajoz on the south side of the Guadiana was completed by the British brigades of Lumley and Alten and the Portuguese brigade of Fonseca, while on the following day the brigade of Kemmis and the 17th Portuguese (part of the garrison of Elvas) appeared opposite San Cristobal, and shut in the place on the northern bank of the river. The rest of the infantry[352] encamped as a support of the besieging force in the woods between Badajoz and Albuera, but the cavalry still remained in southern Estremadura, and Colborne’s brigade had been for some days (April 30th-May 11th) executing a demonstration in the Sierra Morena, with the object of keeping Latour-Maubourg employed. This last operation, owing to Colborne’s skilful management of his column of 2,000 infantry and two squadrons each of Spanish and Portuguese horse, had been very successful. On hearing of British infantry in his front, the French general evacuated his posts on the crest of the mountains, Guadalcanal, Fuente Ovejuna, Azuaga, and Monasterio, and fell back south-eastward towards Constantina on the Cordova road, abandoning the direct line of retreat on Seville, which he had hitherto covered. Colborne, after clearing all these places, extended his march eastward into a very wild and unexplored country, and summoned the isolated castle of Benalcazar, the only French garrison left north of the Sierra Morena. When it refused to listen to a summons, he had to leave it, having neither guns to batter it nor time to waste. From thence he returned by a circular sweep through Campanario to Almendralejo, where he once more was in touch with the British army (May 11th).

[p. 285]The first episodes of the siege of Badajoz were not very encouraging to the besiegers. On the 8th trenches were opened opposite all the three points of attack designated by Wellington, the Picurina and Pardaleras forts on the south side, and San Cristobal on the north. In each case the first parallel was started at about 400 yards from the walls; Dickson had told off fourteen 24-pounders and two 8-inch howitzers for the work on the left bank, five 24-pounders and two other howitzers for the attack on San Cristobal. More energy was displayed in this last quarter than in the others, apparently from the notion that if this commanding work could be subdued the rest of the siege would be an easy matter. But the results were disappointing: on the stony slopes of San Cristobal there was little earth to throw up, and the spade gritted against rock at three inches from the surface. At the end of the first night’s digging the trench was but a seam, and there was only one section at which about ten men could work under cover. The rest had to be abandoned during daylight, for the enemy kept up a furious fire, not merely from the fort, but from the citadel on the other side of the river, whose flank battery enfiladed the projected trench. Three out of nine engineer officers present on this front were killed or wounded in the first twenty-four hours, and many of the workers from Kemmis’s brigade and the 17th Portuguese. It soon became obvious that the trenches would have to be built with earth from a distance and gabions, rather than excavated. Nevertheless, a battery for Dickson’s five 24-pounders was sketched out, and began to be visible to the enemy. On the night of the 10th Phillipon sent up a reserve battalion into San Cristobal, and executed a sortie upon the British works. It penetrated into the trenches, but was driven out after a sharp struggle by the covering party. But, pursuing too far, the British came under the guns of San Cristobal, and had to retire to their trenches with lamentably heavy loss[353]. Next day the battery was completed, despite of a deadly fire both from the[p. 286] fort and the castle, and opened upon its objective. But it was completely overmastered, and before night four of its five guns had been damaged or dismounted; three more engineer officers were hurt, leaving only three surviving of the original nine. It is said that the battery opened before it had been intended—a fault of over-zeal on the part of the Portuguese major in command. Beresford’s purpose had been to wait till the other attacks, on the Picurina and Pardaleras, were ready, before beginning to batter San Cristobal. These attacks had met with less difficulty, the ground being easier to dig, and on the evening of the 11th the trenches in front of the Picurina were well advanced, and the battery of ten guns there opened upon the fort with some, but not great, effect.

Seeing the San Cristobal attack faring so badly, the engineers got leave to erect a second battery on that side, further down the hill, which was intended to check the enfilading fire from the other side of the Guadiana. More guns were brought up to the original battery, to replace those that had been damaged. But both batteries were overpowered and badly maltreated on the morning of the 12th. A few hours later news arrived from the south, sent by Ballasteros, to the effect that the French were in motion from Seville with a large relieving army, and were marching hard across the Sierra Morena, just as Wellington had expected; they had reached Santa Olalla on the 11th, and were already in touch with Latour-Maubourg. Since their force was estimated at only 23,000 men—not far from the real amount—Beresford resolved to fight, and sent requests to Casta?os, Ballasteros, and Blake to concentrate on Albuera, the battle-ground selected by Wellington. It was fortunate that Blake was now in close touch and available—he had reached Fregenal on the 9th and Barcarrota on the 12th, so that his arrival was certain, unless some unforeseen accident should occur. Without his aid it would have been doubtful policy to wait for Soult and risk a general action: but with his 10,000 men in line the Allies would have wellnigh 35,000 men available, if every unit came complete to the field.
Map of the British Sieges of Badajoz in May and June 1811

Enlarge  BADAJOZ The Two British Sieges (May & June 1811)

Meanwhile, pending the confirmation of the news of the French advance, Beresford’s engineers asked leave to open another parallel, and 1,400 men had been paraded for the[p. 287] purpose of starting it, when complete details as to Soult’s progress came to hand. It had been so rapid that the Marshal at once ordered all the siege operations to be discontinued, though the engineers tried to persuade him to risk two days’ more work, by the vain promise that they would undertake to produce two practicable breaches in that space of time. Beresford wisely refused to listen to them, and ordered that all the guns and ammunition should be returned at once to Elvas, with such of the siege stores as could be readily moved. But the mass of gabions and fascines had to be burnt, as these would be profitable to the garrison, and would certainly be carried into the town if they were left intact. The troops, English, Portuguese, and Spanish (three battalions of Casta?os’s infantry had come up from Merida), were ordered to prepare to march for Albuera in successive detachments, the 4th Division and the Spaniards being left to the last in the trenches, to cover the removal of the guns and stores.

Beresford’s total casualties in this mismanaged fragment of a siege, from May 6th to May 12th, had been 533 British and 200 Portuguese, or 733 in all, lost in the trenches and in the sortie. It will be seen that the sortie cost far more lives than the actual beleaguering work. All the British loss save seven casualties was in Kemmis’s brigade of the 4th Division[354], which lay on the Cristobal side, and suffered both in the trench-building and in the sortie. The Portuguese loss was partly in the 17th Line, which acted with Kemmis, partly among the artillery.