SECTION XXVI: CHAPTER IV

BRENNIER’S ESCAPE FROM ALMEIDA. MAY, 1811

The 6th of May went by without any sign of movement on the part of the French. Wellington watched with anxiety for the indications of an extension of the enemy’s front to north or south. But not even a cavalry picket was shown to the right of Nava de Aver, or to the left of Fort Concepcion; reconnaissance on the flank showed that the French remained concentrated in their old positions. It was clearly improbable that Masséna was about to risk another frontal attack: and if, as was more likely, he was intending to try some other way of reaching Almeida than that which runs through Fuentes de O?oro, it was odd that he should not start upon it at once. On the 8th, however, it became obvious that the enemy considered himself beaten, and was already retreating; at dawn it was found that the 6th and 9th Corps had disappeared from in front of Fuentes de O?oro and the entrenched position to its right. Only part of the 2nd Corps was still keeping its ground in front of Alameda. The columns of Drouet and Loison were detected by exploring officers in the woods towards Espeja and Gallegos; Reynier was acting as a covering force to protect their withdrawal, and would have vanished at once if he had been attacked in force.

Masséna, in fact, had only lingered on the fighting-ground during the 6th and 7th in order to organize his retreat. He had ordered the great convoy of food, which had been brought up to Gallegos, to be distributed among the corps, since there was no longer any hope of throwing it into Almeida, and had sent back his artillery caissons to Rodrigo to be refilled. They were not to return, as he intended to pick them up during his retreat. But the main reason why the army had remained near Fuentes for two days was that an effort had been made[p. 350] to communicate with General Brennier by stealth, since force had not availed. By offering a reward of 6,000 francs, the Marshal had succeeded in finding three soldiers who volunteered to attempt to pass through the British lines by night bearing a cipher dispatch. Chance has preserved their names, Zaniboni, Lami, and Tillet. The first two disguised themselves as Spanish peasants, but were both detected and shot as spies. The third, a private in the 6th Léger, retained his uniform and crawled for some miles down the bed of the Dos Casas ravine in the dark, only emerging from it when he got some way beyond Fort Concepcion. From thence he made his way to Almeida before dawn, by creeping on all fours though fields of corn. The dispatch which he bore to the governor directed him to evacuate the place and escape as best he could; he was recommended to try a northerly line, and to make for the bridge of Barba del Puerco, where Reynier’s corps was to be placed from the 8th onward. By taking this route he would avoid the main body of the allied army, as there seemed to be nothing but cavalry vedettes north of Fort Concepcion. Brennier was instructed to acknowledge the receipt of the message, by firing three heavy salvos at five minutes’ intervals from his heaviest guns at 10 o’clock at night. This he did, and it was their sound which enabled Masséna to retreat during the dark hours which followed, with a knowledge that his orders had been received and that the garrison would try to escape. During the next day (May 8th) the 6th and 9th Corps recrossed the Azava and retired to Ciudad Rodrigo. Reynier with the 2nd Corps, moving later, and taking a separate route, marched by the bridge of Barba del Puerco, further down the Agueda, and placed himself at San Felices, just beyond the stream.

Wellington, on seeing the French fall back to their point of starting, thought that Almeida and its garrison were now his own—and so they should have been if his subordinates had acted with common ability. He pushed forward his advanced posts to the Azava and the Agueda in face of the retiring enemy, but sent back the whole 6th Division to relieve Pack’s Portuguese in the task of blockading Almeida. General Campbell took over the command from Pack on the 10th, and disposed his three brigades round the place in what he considered a[p. 351] satisfactory and scientific fashion. It appears, however, that he cantoned them, for convenience sake, much too far out, and neglected the usual precaution of pushing pickets close up to the walls every night, to watch the garrison during the dark hours. The regiments were placed in villages three or four miles from the town, and the connecting screen of pickets between them was thin. Pack’s Portuguese were moved by Campbell to Cinco Villas, four miles north-west of Almeida. Of Burne’s brigade the 2nd regiment was nearest Almeida, on the road that goes out towards the north, the 36th at Malpartida close by. The other British brigade (Hulse’s) was facing the south side of the fortress at a considerable distance; the Portuguese of the division (Madden’s brigade) were at or near Junca on the east front.

Brennier was determined to do his very best to carry out the dangerous task which had been set him. Not only would he carry off his garrison, but he would leave Almeida a wreck behind him. The 8th and 9th of May were employed in driving mines into the whole of the enceinte, and in disabling as much of the artillery as was possible in the time. Some of the pieces were merely spiked, others had their bores choked also; many were disabled by the ingenious plan of firing several pairs of guns simultaneously, with the muzzles of some placed at right angles to those of the others, so that while half the shots flew outwards, the other half struck and disabled the guns against which they were aimed. The besiegers had detected that there was something odd in these salvos, but thought that they were signals to Masséna—as indeed the firing on the night of the 7th had actually been.

At about 11.30 on the night of the 10th, the French came out of the north gate of Almeida in two columns, one formed of the battalion of the 82nd Line, the other of the provisional battalion, artillery, and sappers who formed the larger half of the garrison, which numbered something over 1,300 men. The two columns, which marched close together, parallel with each other, struck the cordon of the blockading line near the point where the pickets of the 1st Portuguese, belonging to Pack’s brigade, joined with those of the 2nd Queen’s of Burne’s. Rushing violently on, they pierced the line, with nothing more than a splutter of musketry from the few Portuguese sentries imme[p. 352]diately opposed to them, who were trampled down or driven off. Five minutes after, a tremendous series of explosions from Almeida startled the whole of the blockading force: the mines left behind by Brennier had worked, and the greater part of the eastern and northern fronts of the place had been blown up. On the south side something had gone wrong with the fuses, and little damage was done: but the fortress was effectively ruined.

Brennier should have been caught if the officers entrusted with the blockade had shown ordinary wisdom, for he was plunging into the midst of 6,000 men, and, if Wellington’s orders had been properly carried out, he could never have reached his destination. The main blame for his successful evasion seems to rest on the shoulders of Colonel Iremonger of the Queen’s regiment, and General Erskine. The former, who was nearest of all the blockading battalions to the point of Brennier’s exit, merely put his men under arms, and sent out patrols both towards Almeida and to right and left. They came back after long delay, reporting that the town seemed to have been evacuated, and that the French had apparently got off to the north and were out of sight. Even at dawn Colonel Iremonger had made no movement, yet his battalion of all the division had the best chance of pursuing the enemy. Erskine’s responsibility is still heavier: he had been directed by a written order, on the afternoon of the 10th, to extend the line of the 4th Division as far as the bridge of Barba del Puerco, and in particular to send the 4th regiment under Colonel Bevan to the rocky defile which overhangs that bridge.[444] Having, apparently, received[p. 353] the dispatch at four o’clock, he detained it (unopened according to some accounts) till long after dusk, when he forwarded directions to the 4th regiment to move to Barba del Puerco. Colonel Bevan, not receiving the order till late at night, took upon himself the responsibility of ordering that the battalion should only move at daybreak. Wherefore there were no troops holding the defile at the critical moment.

For the first few miles of his retreat Brennier was followed only by General Pack, who had caught up eighty men of the main picket of the 1st Portuguese, and hurried after the retreating columns, after sending word to Campbell at Malpartida of the enemy’s general direction. Pack kept up a running fire for several hours, and took many stragglers and all the French baggage; but, by the orders of their commander, the retreating columns did not wait to beat off the teasing force which pursued them, or even fire a shot in return. Towards daybreak Pack found himself near Villa de Ciervo, with only a major and eleven men left in his company, but still close on the heels of the French. In this village there was a troop of the 1st Royals, watching the line of the Agueda; they turned out on hearing the firing, demonstrated against the flying enemy, and detained him for a few useful minutes; but fifty dragoons could do nothing against two battalion columns. However, with the growing light, more British troops were seen hurrying up. General Campbell, on getting Pack’s message, had come on rapidly with the 36th regiment from Malpartida, and was within a mile of Brennier, when the latter turned down to the defile which leads to the bridge of Barba del Puerco. At the same time the 4th, so unhappily absent up to this moment, were perceived approaching from the south, parallel with the course of the Agueda, while a squadron of Barba?ena’s dragoons and some Portuguese infantry were visible in a north-westerly direc[p. 354]tion. If Brennier had allowed himself to be detained for half an hour longer, at any moment in his retreat, he would have been a lost man. But, as it was, his leading column was nearing the bridge before the British got within touch of him.

General Campbell had ordered the 36th to throw off their packs and run, when he saw how close the French were to safety, and the regiment, followed by the 4th, which came up a minute later, struck the second French column just as it was descending to the bridge. Fired upon and charged on the steep road, the battalion broke, and many men, trying to find short cuts down the precipitous hillside, lost their footing, and fell down the rocks. There were some broken necks and many broken limbs, while other fugitives fell into the river and were drowned. Meanwhile a heavy fire was opened on the pursuers from the opposite bank. Reynier, who (as he had been ordered) kept a good watch on the bridge from San Felices, had sent down three battalions of the 31st Léger and some guns to receive the flying garrison. They had lined the bank, and were ready to defend the defile. Colonel Cochrane, of the 36th, without Campbell’s orders, took upon himself to try to force a passage through the covering force, and led a mixed mass of his own regiment and the 4th across the bridge, and up the opposite slope. They were repulsed with loss by the 31st Léger; the casualties in this rash enterprise were the only ones suffered by the British that morning, and amounted to eighteen killed and wounded, and an officer and sixteen men taken prisoners. Pack’s Portuguese had lost some fifteen men when their picket line was forced at midnight, so that the total casualties of the Allies were about fifty.

Brennier’s columns had of course suffered far more—but it was a scandal that a single man had escaped. He states his loss in his report to Marmont at 360 men out of 1,300, of whom over 200 were prisoners and 150 killed or wounded. The commandant de place of Almeida and twelve other officers were taken. Reynier says that when General Campbell had withdrawn his troops from the water’s edge, and up the cliff, out of the range of the French cannon, he sent a party across the bridge to bring in the wounded, and that they found quite a heap of men with broken limbs at the foot of the precipice,[p. 355] whom they dragged out from among the dead and brought back with them. There were some few English and Portuguese in this ghastly pile, who had lost their footing in reckless pursuit of the flying enemy and had fallen with them[445].

Wellington gave it as his opinion that the escape of the garrison of Almeida was ‘the most disgraceful military event’ that had yet occurred to the British army in the Peninsula, and it is easy to understand his wrath. Campbell had been warned that Brennier might very probably attempt to escape; Erskine had been told to guard the defile of Barba del Puerco. The former kept his troops too far back from the place, and so disposed them that there was nothing directly behind the cordon of pickets, at the point where Brennier broke out, save the main-guard of the 1st Portuguese. He also watched the south and west sides of Almeida with unnecessary numbers—for it was unlikely that the governor would choose either of those points for his sortie. But he clearly did his best to pursue when the alarm came, and was the first to appear at Barba del Puerco with the 36th. The colonel of the 2nd regiment was much more to blame than his chief, since he was close to the original point where the French appeared, but merely collected his battalion at its head quarters and made no attempt to pursue. In his exculpatory letter to General Campbell he ‘thinks that he has explained everything satisfactorily[446],’ but he clearly does not show that he made an adequate attempt to face the situation, which demanded a rapid pursuit. An extraordinary chance happened to another regiment of the 6th Division: Colonel Douglas, with the 8th Portuguese, was at Junca, some way to the east of Almeida. He started off at the first alarm, and with proper military instinct marched for Barba del Puerco. Having good guides he reached the bridge before daybreak, but could see nothing of Brennier (who was still some miles away near Villa de Ciervo). Finding the defile all quiet, and no French visible save Reynier’s cavalry picket on the other side of the[p. 356] water, he concluded that he had come upon the wrong track, and turned back across the Dos Casas to look for the garrison elsewhere[447]. If he had been a trifle less prompt, he would have found Brennier running into his arms. This was sheer bad luck. But clearly the main blame lay with Erskine, who kept an important order back for six or seven hours, and was the person directly responsible for the fact that the bridge of Barba del Puerco was not watched, according to the precise direction issued by the Commander-in-Chief.

Wellington summed up the affair in a confidential letter to his brother[448] with the bitter words: ‘I begin to be of the opinion that there is nothing so stupid as “a gallant officer.” They (the blockading force) had about 13,000 men[449] to watch 1,400, and on the night of the 10th, to the infinite surprise of the enemy, they allowed the garrison to slip through their fingers and escape.... There they were, sleeping in their spurs even, but the French got off.’ The two officers who bore the brunt of their chief’s wrath were not—as might have been expected—Erskine and Iremonger, but Cochrane and Bevan. The former, for his ill-advised attempt to cross the bridge, got a withering rebuke in a general order. The latter found that his statement that Erskine’s dispatch did not reach him till midnight was disbelieved: threatened with being brought before a court of inquiry, he committed suicide at Portalegre, while the army was on its march to the south a few weeks later. Public opinion in the army held that he had been sacrificed to the hierarchical theory that a general must be believed before a lieutenant-colonel[450].

[p. 357]

It will have been noted that Brennier’s report of his hazardous exploit, for which Napoleon very deservedly promoted him to the rank of general of division, was sent in, not to Masséna but to Marmont. The Prince of Essling had ceased to command the Army of Portugal a few hours before the explosion at Almeida. It will be remembered that the Emperor had made up his mind to supersede the old Marshal on April 20, and had entrusted the dispatch to General Foy, who (travelling with his usual headlong speed) reached Ciudad Rodrigo on the afternoon of May 10th. Marmont, who declares that he had no idea that he was to take over any charge greater than that of the 6th Corps, had reached Rodrigo two days before, and had reported his arrival to Masséna when the latter entered the fortress on May 8th. When Foy delivered the fatal dispatch to his old chief, the latter vented himself in loud outbursts of wrath, and declared that he had been maligned to the Emperor[451]. He accused Foy of having given an ill account of his late campaign to their master, and so of having caused his fall. And he added insult to injury by pointing out that the envelope of the dispatch was torn, and insinuating that the bearer had picked it open, in order to read its contents on his journey. Aghast at these accusations, which seem to have been no more than the angry inspirations of the moment, Foy wrote a long letter of remonstrance and self-justification to the Marshal, but got no satisfaction thereby. Masséna’s own character was such that it was natural for him to suspect double dealing and dishonourable conduct on the part of others. The reasons which probably brought about his recall at this particular moment have been explained in an earlier chapter[452]. They were the Emperor’s verdict on the campaign of Portugal. His lieutenant had failed and had lost the confidence of his army, therefore he must be recalled. Masséna had done far more than any other general could have accomplished, and he had, in effect, been sent to essay the impossible. His master far more than himself was responsible for the failure; but this the Emperor could not, or perhaps would not, see. The recall was now necessary,[p. 358] for the old Marshal’s bolt was shot, and it was clear that after Fuentes de O?oro he could not have got any more good work out of his army.

His successor, Marmont, was a far younger man, aged only thirty-six, and promoted to his marshalship so late as 1809. He was one of Napoleon’s earliest followers, and had seen his first service under him as lieutenant of artillery at Toulon. Having fought all through the Italian campaign of 1796-7, he had followed his chief to Egypt, and had been one of the few officers selected to accompany him in his surreptitious return to France in 1799. He had served in the campaigns of Marengo, Austerlitz, and Wagram, but not in the Prusso-Russian War of 1806-7, during which he had been acting as Governor of Dalmatia. It was his good service both as general and organizer in that province which had won him his Illyrian title of ‘Duke of Ragusa.’ Personally Marmont was the exact antithesis of his predecessor in command: he was no rough and unscrupulous adventurer, but a well-educated and cultured gentleman, whose ancestors had served the old monarchy in the army and the law. Of all the marshals, he and St. Cyr are the only two whose writings give the impression of real literary ability. His autobiography displays his character in all its strength and weakness; it shows him brilliant, active, ingenious, and plausible, but absurdly vain and self-satisfied. The Spanish chapters of it form one of the best and most convincing indictments of Napoleon’s policy in the Peninsula, and he supports every deduction by original documents in the true historical method. But he is such a whole-hearted admirer of himself and his achievements that he can never realize his own faults and failures. Nothing that he ever did was wrong—even the loss of the battle of Salamanca, entirely his own work, can be shifted on to the shoulders of his subordinates. And he has no sympathy and admiration for any other person in the world. As a bitter critic remarked at the time of the publication of his bulky memoirs, ‘Marmont is not only autolatrous, but his autolatry is exclusive and intolerant. Many conceited men are not incapable of recognizing merit in others; they can adjust themselves to their equals and respect them. Marmont gets irritated and angry whenever he runs against another man of parts. He[p. 359] is a self-lover who has become a general misanthrope; the iconoclast of the reputations of all other notable persons.’

But Marmont’s jealousy was reserved for those who were important enough to be considered as rivals. To his subordinates and inferiors he was kindly and considerate in a patronizing sort of manner. The diarists who served under him speak with amusement rather than anger of his grand airs, his elaborate parade and pomp, and the ostentatious splendour of his field equipage[453]. He was clearly not disliked as Masséna had been, for he took care of his men as well as of himself, and was not considered a hard master[454].

The military capacity of this clever, vain, ostentatious young marshal has often been undervalued. He was an excellent strategist, who could grasp and face a situation with firmness and rapidity. He could form a good plan of campaign, and man?uvre his troops skilfully, as was sufficiently shown in his movements in June 1811 and July 1812. As an organizer he cannot be too highly praised: the way in which he refitted the Army of Portugal within a month of Fuentes, and made it efficient for a long and difficult march across central Spain, was deserving of the highest approval. His weak point was in tactical execution. When he had got his army to the striking point, he was seized with irresolution, which contrasted strangely with the skill and decision which he had shown up to that moment. In personal courage he was the equal of any of his colleagues—but he could not keep a clear head on a battle morning. Foy, who served under him during the whole of his command in Spain, sums him up as follows in his diary: ‘Bold and enterprising till the moment of danger, he suddenly becomes cold and apathetic when the armies are in presence. In discussion he will not face the difficulty, but tries to evade it. He is a good, estimable,[p. 360] and respectable man, but he himself (and many others) have been entirely deceived as to the value of his talents. He was never born to be the general of an army. His face expresses too faithfully the hesitation of his mind. He asks advice too often, too publicly, and of too many persons. A witty friend said to me in 1806: “Marmont is like Mont Cenis: in good weather his brow is high and imposing, in times of storm the clouds wrap it completely round[455].” ... Yet so mobile is his imagination that, when the crisis is over, he forgets all his indecision and mental anguish, he effaces from his memory past facts, and turns to his profit and glory all that has happened, even events that were unfortunate and disgraceful[456].’

Marmont had commanded an army corps with credit; he had even conducted a little campaign of his own against the Austrians on the Dalmatian frontier, in 1809, so as to bring it to a satisfactory conclusion. But he was very far from being fit to contend with Wellington, who was as good a strategist as himself and a practical tactician of a very different class of merit. He lacked both the imperturbable coolness and the iron resolution of his opponent—and the first time that they met in serious combat he was ‘found out,’ and dashed to destruction.

Meanwhile Marmont’s first seven weeks of command were infinitely creditable to him. He reorganized the Army of Portugal with a rapidity that disarranged Wellington’s calculations, and he led it to the strategical point where it was needed, with great swiftness and skill—as we shall presently see.

The Emperor, in the dispatch which explained to Marmont his duties, had bidden him drop the organization into corps on which the Army of Portugal had been hitherto formed, and send home the superfluous corps-commanders, and any other generals whose absence he desired more than their presence. Such advice squared with the Duke of Ragusa’s own ideas, for he disliked to have about him officers who were too high in rank and seniority to be his humble assistants. Junot and Loison went back to France at once, and with them nearly all the old divisional generals: Marmont worked the army with promoted brigadiers. We hear for the future nothing more of many[p. 361] familiar names—Marchand, Merle, Mermet, Heudelet, &c. Of the old divisional commanders only Clausel and Solignac remained. The rest of the new divisions, into which the old corps were redistributed, were given to men who had entered Portugal in 1810 at the head of brigades only—Ferey, Brennier, Sarrut, Foy, Maucune. Reynier stopped a few months more with the army and went off in July, there being no place for him in the new system. Of the old superior officers only Montbrun, commanding all the cavalry, remained with Marmont till the end of the campaign of 1811—there was no one who could be substituted for him in command of that arm.

In the reorganization of the army the old regimental association in brigades and divisions were mainly adhered to. The two senior divisions of the 6th Corps (Marchand’s and Mermet’s original commands) simply became the 1st and 2nd Divisions of the Army of Portugal, under Foy and Clausel. The two divisions of the 2nd Corps (late Merle’s and Heudelet’s) became the 4th and 3rd Divisions of the new organization, under Sarrut and Ferey[457]. The 8th Corps and Loison’s original division of the 6th Corps were amalgamated, and made into the 5th and 6th Divisions (Maucune and Brennier). A few small abnormal units, such as the Légion du Midi and the Hanoverian Legion, horse and foot, were disbanded, and ceased to exist. All the isolated fourth battalions of the old 8th Corps had gone down to skeleton units of 200 or 300 strong—their rank and file were drafted into other regiments, their cadres sent home to France to recruit. In each Line regiment Marmont reduced the number of field battalions to three or two, and, having filled them up to a strength of 700 men each, sent back the cadres and the small remainder of rank and file from the junior battalions to their dép?ts. A fortnight after Fuentes there were not more than 28,000 infantry with the eagles in the Army of Portugal, but there was a great mass of convalescents in the base hospitals, and of newly arrived drafts in the governments of Leon and Old Castile, whom Marmont strove, not at first with great success, to draw to himself and embody in their regiments. It[p. 362] was hard to get them forward, when every officer commanding a small post in the rear detained drafts to strengthen his garrison, and when the Governors of Salamanca and Valladolid wanted to keep as many recovered convalescents with them as they could retain, because their governments were undermanned.

The cavalry units were in a far worse state than those of the infantry. Already at Fuentes most of the regiments had shown only two squadrons for want of horses, and had left behind them in their cantonments dismounted men in vast numbers. Marmont, seeing it was impossible to find chargers for them in Spain, was forced to send them all back on foot to Bayonne, to draw horses from the interior of France. In June he could put only 2,500 mounted men in the field. The artillery in a similar fashion was hopelessly short of teams: it could produce only 36 guns (six batteries) properly horsed, though Masséna had started from Santarem in March with more than 100. Marmont says that the army returns showed that Masséna had entered Portugal in 1810 with 4,200 artillery horses—of these only 1,400 survived the retreat, and of them in May only 400 were fit for service[458]. As to the train, it had vanished altogether, so far as horses and waggons went; the Marshal says that precisely four waggons were fully horsed and ready for work when he took over the command. But rest, the return to a land where food was to be got with ease and regularity, and the opening up of the dép?ts of Salamanca and Valladolid, where uniforms, boots, and pay had been accumulating, soon did wonders for the army, under the Marshal’s careful and judicious supervision. By June he was able to take the field with an army that was restored in morale, and fit for good service.