SECTION XXVII WELLINGTON’S FIRST ESTREMADURAN CAMPAIGN CHAPTER I

THE SECOND BRITISH SIEGE OF BADAJOZ.
MAY-JUNE 1811

The short ten-day campaign of Fuentes de O?oro had not been without important results, but it had left the general strategical aspect of affairs in the Peninsula unaltered. Almeida had fallen, and it had been demonstrated that the French Army of Portugal was not strong enough to force back Wellington from the frontier, where he had taken post. On the other hand, it was equally clear that Wellington was far too weak to dream of taking the offensive in the valley of the Douro, or marching on Salamanca. Such a movement would have brought 20,000 men from the Army of the North to the aid of the Army of Portugal, and the allied army on the northern frontier was barely superior in numbers to the latter alone, even when the 9th Corps had departed for Andalusia. To provoke the enemy to concentrate would have been insane; if he were left alone, however, it was improbable that he would prove dangerous for many a day. Marmont had to complete the reorganization of the army which he had just taken over from Masséna; it would be some months before he could replace the lost cavalry and artillery, fill up his magazines, and finish the reclothing of his tattered regiments. Bessières was so much occupied with the guerrilleros that he would not draw his troops together, unless he were obliged to do so by an advance of the Allies towards his territory. He had, moreover, to keep covering forces out to north and west, in order to watch Abadia’s Galician army, and Longa and Porlier, who still made head against him in the Cantabrian Mountains. It was probable,[p. 405] therefore, that the French in Leon and Old Castile would keep quiet for some time unless they were provoked. Wellington resolved to leave them unmolested, and to endeavour to strike a blow in the south.

On the day when the battle of Fuentes de O?oro was fought, Beresford, with the 20,000 men who had been detached to Estremadura, was, as Wellington knew, just about to commence the siege of Badajoz. It was certain that this enterprise would bring Soult and his Army of Andalusia to the succour of the fortress. The line of conduct which Beresford was to pursue when Soult should appear had been already settled—he was to fight if the enemy were weak, to retire behind the Guadiana if he were strong[505]. But meanwhile it was now possible to reinforce Beresford with 10,000 men, since Marmont and Bessières would be out of the game for many weeks. Leaving nearly 30,000 men on the Dos Casas and the Coa, to protect the Portuguese frontier and to guard the repairing of Almeida, Wellington could march to join the Army of Estremadura with the balance of his army. He thought that two divisions could be spared, and chose the 3rd and the 7th. If he marched rapidly across the Beira with this force, he might arrive in time to join Beresford for the battle against Soult which was inevitable. It might take place south of the Guadiana, if the French Marshal had delayed his advance, or north of it, if he had come up in great force and had compelled Beresford to give back toward Elvas, and to abandon the siege of Badajoz. But in either case Beresford’s army, reinforced by 10,000 men, would be strong enough to beat Soult. The only possible contingency to be feared was that the Duke of Dalmatia might abandon Granada and the Lines before Cadiz, concentrate 50,000 men, and let Andalusia shift for itself while he marched on Badajoz. Wellington judged, and rightly, that it was most improbable that he would make this desperate move, and evacuate three-fourths of his viceroyalty, in order to make certain of saving Badajoz. Knowing the strength of Beresford and Casta?os, he would come with the 20,000 or 25,000 men that he could collect without disgarrisoning any points of primary importance. In such a case, supposing that he came with the higher figure,[p. 406] Beresford had 20,000 Anglo-Portuguese, 10,000 more were coming down from the Beira, and there were the Spaniards of Blake and of Casta?os to be taken into consideration. Soult would find himself faced by 45,000 men, and could not possibly prevent the siege of Badajoz from proceeding. If the place could be taken promptly, there would be no time for reinforcements to reach the Marshal from the Army of Portugal or the Army of the Centre: and should he finally resolve to draw up further forces from Andalusia, he must abandon either the kingdom of Granada or the Cadiz lines, or both. To force him to give up his grasp on either of these points would be a great end in itself, and a sufficient reward for a successful campaign.

But everything depended on swift movement and the economy of time. Should Soult refuse to fight, and resolve to appeal for help to the other French armies, it was certain that 50,000 men might be gathered to his aid within a month or five weeks. All the Anglo-Portuguese troops combined, supposing that every man were drawn in from the north to join Beresford, would not make up over 60,000 sabres and bayonets. On the other hand, a junction between the Armies of Andalusia and Portugal, with aid lent by Bessières and the Army of the Centre, could certainly produce 80,000 men, perhaps more. Wherefore it might be argued that if Badajoz could be taken in a month a great success might be scored. But if the siege were to linger on over that time, the enemy would be able to concentrate in such force that the enterprise might become impracticable. The game was worth trying.

Wellington’s dispatches to Lord Liverpool and other correspondents between the 14th and the 25th of May make it perfectly clear that these were his views. ‘Fortunately for me,’ he wrote, ‘the French armies have no communications, and one army has no knowledge of the position or of the circumstances in which the others are placed, whereas I have a knowledge of all that passes on all sides. From this knowledge I think I may draw troops from Beira for my operations against Badajoz. But I cannot venture further south till I shall get Ciudad Rodrigo, without exposing all to ruin[506].’ Again, ‘I do not think it possible for me to undertake more in the south, under[p. 407] existing circumstances, than the siege of Badajoz. I cannot, by any effort I can make, increase the British and Portuguese [in that quarter] beyond 30,000 men, to which the Spanish force may add 8,000 or 10,000 more[507].’ He was perfectly aware that a concentration against him was possible, but that it would take a long time to come about. ‘I do not know when Marmont can be ready to co-operate with Soult; however, as the siege of Badajoz can be raised with ease and without loss, whenever it may be necessary, I have thought it best to lose no time, and to adopt every means to get that place, if I can, before the enemy’s troops can join. If I cannot get it, I may raise the siege and fight a battle or not, as I may find most proper, according to the state of our respective forces[508].’ It is clear, then, that Wellington’s utmost ambition was to take Badajoz, and that he foresaw that he must take it within a limited time, under penalty of seeing the scheme fail owing to the concentration of the enemy. His letters show that he knew that Drouet and the 9th Corps had started for Andalusia immediately after Fuentes de O?oro, and in calculating Soult’s utmost available force in June he takes Drouet into account[509], though he somewhat under-values his numerical strength.

The garrison of Almeida had made its escape on the night of May 10th-11th; the French army had drawn back beyond Ciudad Rodrigo, and dispersed itself into cantonments, on May 12th. As early as the morning of May 14th the column destined for Estremadura set out upon its march. It consisted, as has been already mentioned, of the 3rd and 7th Divisions, with the artillery attached to them. For the purpose of providing cavalry for scouting and exploration, the 2nd Hussars of the King’s German Legion were attached. This corps was the first cavalry reinforcement that Wellington had received for more than a year. It had landed at Lisbon in April[510], and had marched up to Celorico; from thence it was ordered to strike across country, to join the column marching for the valley[p. 408] of the Guadiana, and to place itself at the disposition of Picton, its senior officer. They met at Belmonte, and went on their southward way in company. The route lay through Castello Branco, the boat-bridge of Villa Velha, Niza, and Portalegre. Picton reached Campo Mayor, in the immediate vicinity of Badajoz, on May 24th, having taken ten days only to cross the roughest and most thinly peopled corner of Portugal. The average of marching had been fifteen miles a day, an excellent rate when the character of the roads is taken into consideration.
British Army crossing the Tagus at Villa Velha

Enlarge  THE THIRD DIVISION CROSSING THE TAGUS AT VILLA VELHA, MAY 20, 1811

Wellington himself started from Villar Formoso two days after the departure of the troops, on May 16th, and riding with his accustomed headlong speed reached Elvas on the afternoon of May 19th[511]. He had passed Picton between Sabugal and Belmonte. Before quitting the line of the Agueda, he drew up elaborate instructions for Sir Brent Spencer, who was left, as usual, in charge of the army on the northern frontier. The force entrusted to Spencer consisted of the 1st, 5th, 6th, and Light Divisions, Pack’s and Ashworth’s Portuguese brigades, and the cavalry of Slade, Arentschildt, and Barba?ena, altogether about 26,000 foot and 1,800 horse. The directions left were much the same as those which had been issued during Wellington’s earlier visit to Estremadura in April. ‘It is probable that some time will elapse before the French army in this part of Spain will be capable of making any movement against the Allies.’ Yet the unexpected might happen, and Spencer was told that, while so large a detachment was absent in the south, he must adopt a purely defensive attitude in the unlikely event of Marmont’s taking the field against him. For the present he was to hold the line of the Azava, facing Ciudad Rodrigo, with his advanced posts. The divisions were to be cantoned between Almeida and Nava de Aver, so that they could be concentrated in a single day. If the enemy should advance with a large force, as if intending a serious invasion, Almeida was to be evacuated, since it would be impossible that the repairs to its ruined ramparts should have got far enough to render the place tenable. The army was to fall back, not westward towards Almeida and[p. 409] Guarda, but southwards, firstly to the position before Alfayates which had already been marked out in April, then to a second position at Aldea Velha and Rendo, then to a third beyond the Coa. In case Marmont should push even further, the line of retreat was to be from Sabugal to Belmonte, and finally by the mountain road of the Estrada Nova towards the Zezere. ‘But the strong country between Belmonte and the Zezere must not be given up in a hurry[512].’ All this was pure precaution against the improbable: Wellington was convinced, and quite rightly, that Marmont would be incapable for some weeks, probably for some months, of any serious offensive action against Portugal. To invade the Beira he would have to collect a store of provisions such as the exhausted kingdom of Leon could not possibly give him. His magazines were known to have been empty after Fuentes de O?oro, and his troops had been dispersed because there was no possibility of feeding them while they were concentrated. Spencer could be in no possible danger for many a day; so strongly did Wellington feel this, that when he reached Elvas he wrote back to his lieutenant on May 24th that he intended to borrow from him Howard’s British and Ashworth’s Portuguese brigades, and thought that this could be done without any risk. But if, ‘notwithstanding my expectations to the contrary,’ Marmont seemed to be on the move, the brigades might be stopped[513].

Just before starting on his ride from Villar Formoso to Elvas Wellington received Beresford’s dispatches of May 12, which informed him that Soult (as had been expected) was on the march from Seville to relieve Badajoz, and that, according to the instructions that had been given, the allied army of Estremadura would fight him, if he were not too strong to be meddled with. It was the news that battle was impending which made the Commander-in-Chief quicken his pace to fifty miles a day, in hopes that he might be in time to take charge of the troops in person. He galloped ahead, and on the morning of the 19th heard, between Niza and Elvas, that there had been a pitched battle on the 16th, and that Soult had been repulsed. The[p. 410] details met him at Elvas, where Arbuthnot, Beresford’s aide-de-camp, handed him the Albuera dispatch. He read it through, and struck out some paragraphs before sending it on to the Ministry at home. The reason for these erasures was that he considered that Beresford’s tone was a little too desponding, and that he had laid too much stress on the terrible loss of the British troops, and too little on the complete check to Soult’s designs[514]. He wrote to the Marshal to hearten him up, to tell him that the result achieved had been worth the cost. ‘You could not be successful in such an action without a large loss, and we must make up our mind to affairs of this kind sometimes—or give up the game[515].’

With the military situation that he found in existence on May 19th Wellington professed himself satisfied. Hamilton’s Portuguese division had reinvested Badajoz on the preceding day. Soult was in full retreat, with the allied cavalry in pursuit of him. It was uncertain whether he would fall back on Seville or halt at the line of the Sierra Morena; but at any rate his bolt was shot: he could give no trouble for some weeks, and would only become dangerous if he strengthened his army by calling up Sebastiani and Victor, and evacuating the Cadiz Lines and Granada. This Wellington rightly believed that he would not think of doing. He would rather cry for aid to his neighbours, and it would take a long time for reinforcements to reach him from the Army of Portugal or from Madrid. There was a month in hand, and Badajoz must be captured if possible within that space.

The first thing necessary was to push Soult as far back as he would go, and from the 20th to the 26th Beresford was engaged in following him up. At first only the cavalry was available for pursuit: Hamilton’s division had been sent back to Badajoz; the 2nd and 4th were allowed five days of repose on the battlefield of Albuera. Not only were they absolutely exhausted, but[p. 411] all their transport was engaged in the heart-rending task of forwarding to Elvas convoy after convoy of British wounded. The French, of whom the last were not collected till three days after the battle, were packed in an extemporized hospital at Albuera village, where they suffered much for lack of surgeons. It would have been possible to send Blake’s army to support the British cavalry if he had possessed provisions, but he reported that his men were starving, and that he must disperse them to procure food; accordingly they were sent to Almendral, Barcarrota, and the neighbouring villages, to gather stores as best they might.

Soult meanwhile gave back slowly, being hampered by his immense convoys of wounded. On the 20th he retired from Solana to Almendralejo and Azeuchal, on the 21st to Villafranca and Fuente del Maestre; on the 22nd he was in march for Usagre and Llerena, so that it was evident that he was retiring on the Sierra Morena by the Llerena and not by the Monasterio road. It was only on this last day that Beresford’s infantry were able to start in support of the cavalry advanced guard, which had been cautiously following on Soult’s track. The Albuera divisions were sad wrecks of their former selves; the 2nd had but 2,500 bayonets in its three brigades, the 4th about 2,200 British and 2,500 Portuguese; Alten’s German brigade was less than 1,000 strong, so that the whole did not make up much more than 8,000 men. But Blake was requested to move on Feria and Zafra, parallel to the advance of the British column, and did so, having collected a few days’ provisions in his cantonments. The whole force was sufficient to move Soult back, since his troops were in a despondent humour, and did not amount to more than 13,000 or 14,000 men, for he had been forced to detach a brigade under Gazan to escort his immense train of wounded back to Seville. But the allied infantry never came up with the retreating French; by the time that it had reached Villalba and Fuente del Maestre Soult was at Llerena, thirty miles ahead.

The last day of his retreat was marked by a vigorous cavalry action, the most satisfactory of its kind that the British horse in the Peninsula had been engaged in since the combats of Sahagun and Benavente. Having reached Llerena, where he intended to[p. 412] stop if he were allowed, Soult determined to find out what was the force which was pursuing him, and more especially if it were accompanied by infantry. He instructed Latour-Maubourg to turn back, to attack the allied horse, and to drive it in upon its supports. Accordingly the French cavalry general took the four brigades of Bron, Bouvier des éclats, Vinot, and Briche[516], some 3,000 sabres in all, and began to advance along the high-road. He found in Villa Garcia the enemy’s advanced vedettes, composed of Penne Villemur’s Spaniards, drove them out, and pursued them for five miles, till he came to the town of Usagre, where he caught a glimpse of supports in position. He had run against the main body of the allied horse, though he could not make out either its strength or its intentions.

General Lumley, who was thus thrown upon the defensive, had with him his three original British cavalry regiments (3rd Dragoon Guards, 4th Dragoons, 13th Light Dragoons), four small regiments of Madden’s and Otway’s Portuguese[517], and a detachment of Penne Villemur’s Spanish horse under General Loy[518], about 2,200 sabres in all, so that his position was a dangerous one. But the fighting-ground was propitious. Usagre lies on the south bank of the stream, which flows in a well-marked ravine; on the north bank there are two rolling heights a few hundred yards back from the water, with a definite sky-line. Troops placed behind them were invisible to an enemy coming up from the town, and the French, if they wished to attack, would have to defile on a narrow front, first through the main street of Usagre, and then across the bridge.

On hearing of Latour-Maubourg’s approach, Lumley sent the 13th Light Dragoons and Otway’s Portuguese across the ravine to the left of the town, and Madden’s Portuguese in like manner on the right, each using a ford which had been previously discovered and sounded. The heavy dragoons remained facing the[p. 413] town, behind the sky-line, with Lefebure’s battery, guarding the high-road. Both the flanking forces reported that the enemy was coming up the road in great strength—Lumley was told that thirteen regiments had been counted, though there were really only ten. Wherefore he ordered Otway and Madden to recross the stream by their fords, which they did without loss, and to watch these passages, while keeping well under cover behind the sky-line.

Latour-Maubourg could not make out the force or the intentions of the Allies; he had seen clearly only the Spanish vedettes which he had driven out of Usagre; but Madden’s and Otway’s squadrons had not escaped notice altogether, though they retired early, so that he was aware that a hostile force of some strength was lying behind the heights. He therefore resolved not to debouch from Usagre along the high-road with his main body, across the defile at the bridge, till he had got a flanking force across the stream, to threaten and turn Lumley, if he were intending to defend the line along the water. Briche’s brigade of light horse was told off for this purpose, with orders to go to the right, down-stream, and to pass the river at the ford which Otway’s Portuguese had been seen to use in their retreat. Meanwhile the other three French brigades waited in Usagre, deferring their advance till the chasseurs should have time to get on Lumley’s flank.

The two forces did not keep touch. Briche went for a mile along the river, and found the ford; but Otway was guarding it, and he did not like to try the passage of a steep ravine in face of an enemy in position. Wherefore he moved further off, looking for a more practicable and unguarded crossing; but the banks grew steeper and steeper as he rode northward, and he found that he was losing time. He was long absent, and apparently committed the inexcusable fault of omitting to send any report explaining his long delay. After waiting for more than an hour Latour-Maubourg became impatient, and fell into an equally grave military error. Taking it for granted that the chasseurs must now be in their destined position, he ordered his division of dragoons to debouche from the town and cross the stream and the defile. Bron’s brigade led; the two regiments in front, the 4th and 20th, trotted over the bridge, and deployed[p. 414] on the other side, on an ascending slope, to cover the passage of the remainder of the division. The third regiment of the brigade, the 26th, was just crossing the bridge, when suddenly the whole sky-line in front was covered with a long line of horsemen charging downwards. Lumley had waited till the propitious moment, and had caught his enemy in a trap, with one-third of his force across the water, and the remainder jammed in the defile of bridge and street. The 4th Dragoons charged Bron straight in front, the 3rd Dragoon Guards took him somewhat in flank, while Madden’s Portuguese supported on the right, and Penne Villemur’s Spaniards on the left. The two deployed French regiments were hurled back on the third, at the bridge-foot, and all three fell into most lamentable confusion. The Allies penetrated into the mass, and broke it to pieces, with great slaughter. The survivors, unable to pass the encumbered bridge, dispersed right and left, far along the banks of the stream, where they were pursued and hunted down in detail. Latour-Maubourg could do no more than dismount the leading regiment of his second brigade and set them to fire from the houses along the water-side, while four horse artillery guns opened upon the enemy’s main body. But the guns were promptly silenced by Lefebure’s battery, which Lumley had put in action on the slope above, and Latour-Maubourg had to watch the destruction of Bron’s brigade without being able to give effective help. More than 250 dragoons were killed or wounded, and 6 officers, including the colonel of the 4th, with 72 men were led away prisoners[519]. The British loss was insignificant—not twenty troopers—for the enemy had been caught in a position in which they could offer no effective resistance. Lumley made no attempt to attack Usagre town, which would indeed have been insane, and drew off at leisure with his prisoners.[p. 415] Latour-Maubourg sent to recall Briche, and remained halted on his own side of the stream till evening.

At Usagre the two armies drew their line of demarcation for nearly a month. Soult stopped at Llerena, since he found that he was not to be pressed; his advanced cavalry continued to hold Usagre and Monasterio, on the two roads from Badajoz and Seville. Beresford, by Wellington’s orders, did not move further forward: it was not intended that Andalusia should be invaded, or a second battle with Soult risked. The cavalry formed a line from Hinojosa to Fuente Cantos, facing the French, the Anglo-Portuguese forming the left, the Spanish the right of the screen. Some of Blake’s infantry moved up to Zafra in support, but the main body remained further to the rear, about Santa Marta and Barcarrota. The British 2nd and 4th Divisions were placed further back, at Almendralejo and the neighbouring villages, with the bulk of Lumley’s cavalry in front of them at Ribera, in support of the left half of the screen, which its advanced squadrons supplied. On the 27th May Beresford relinquished the command of the separate army of Estremadura, which had been merged in a larger unit when the 3rd and 7th Divisions came up to Campo Mayor on the 24th. Wellington had announced his intention of assuming permanent charge of the force in the south, which was henceforth considered as the main army, and the seat of head quarters, while Spencer’s four divisions on the frontier of Leon were now to be regarded as the subsidiary force.

In his letters home Wellington spoke of Beresford’s removal from active command in the field as necessary because of the unsatisfactory state into which the Portuguese army had fallen during his absence; his strong and methodical hand had been much missed, and matters of detail had all gone wrong. But there can be no doubt that this was a secondary consideration; the real cause of his supersession was that his chief had not been satisfied with his conduct of the Estremaduran campaign in March and April. Though there were excuses and explanations to be found for each one of his individual acts, yet the general effect of his leadership had not been happy. The best commentary on it was that every one, from Wellington to the simplest soldier in the ranks, was delighted to hear that[p. 416] Rowland Hill had landed at Lisbon on May 24, and was on his way to the front to resume command of the 2nd Division. He was at once placed in the same position that he had held in 1810, i. e. entrusted with the command not only of his own division but of the whole wing of the army which was detached to the south. The force put at his disposition to observe Soult and cover the leaguer of Badajoz, consisted of precisely the same units that had formed Beresford’s Albuera army—with the exception that Hamilton’s and Collins’s Portuguese had been drawn off to the siege operations. Hill had charge of the 2nd and 4th Divisions, Alten’s detached German brigade, and De Grey’s and Madden’s cavalry, the whole about 10,000 strong. When he arrived at Elvas on May 31st, and then went forward to establish himself at Almendralejo, Wellington felt a degree of security that he had not known for months. It was certain that nothing would be risked, that there would be neither delays nor mistakes, while this kindly, cheerful, and resolute old soldier, the idol of his troops, who called him in affection ‘Daddy Hill,’ was in charge of the covering corps.

Meanwhile Wellington himself took the siege operations in hand, and employed in them the troops he had brought from the Beira, the 3rd and 7th Divisions, together with Hamilton’s and Collins’s Portuguese. The whole, including about 700 British and Portuguese artillerymen, mainly the same companies that had served in Beresford’s siege, made up about 14,000 men—a force even smaller than that with which Soult had attacked Badajoz in January; but the French Marshal had had to deal with a garrison of 9,000 men, while General Phillipon, the resourceful governor now in charge of the place, had but a little over 3,000—a difference which made Wellington’s position much more advantageous than Soult’s had been. The cavalry which had come down from the Beira along with Picton, the 2nd Hussars of the K. G. L.[520], was sent to join the rest of the horse, and went to form a new brigade, being added to the 13th Light Dragoons, a regiment hitherto unbrigaded. By June 1st there[p. 417] was another mounted corps to hand—the 11th Light Dragoons,[521] which also went to join Lumley, so that the British cavalry in Estremadura rose from three to six regiments during the summer.

There were two deficiencies, however, which made Wellington’s task in besieging Badajoz a hard, nay an almost hopeless one. His artillery material, if not so ludicrously inadequate as that of Beresford during the first siege, was still utterly insufficient. And to this we must add that his engineer officers were still both few and unpractised in their art. They repeated the same mistakes that had been seen in the early days of May. Of trained rank and file in the engineering branch there were practically none—only twenty-five ‘royal military artificers.’ The home authorities apparently grudged sending out to Portugal men of this small and highly trained corps, and preferred to keep them in England. It is impossible to speak with patience of the fact that there was not even one company of them in the Peninsula, after the war had been going on for three years[522]!

It was the miscalculations of the engineers—Colonel Fletcher was presumably the responsible person, as Wellington’s chief technical adviser—rather than the deplorable weakness of the artillery resources—which made the second British siege of Badajoz as disastrous as the first. Untaught by the experiences of the first week in May, the engineers advised Wellington to direct his efforts against the two strongest points in the defences, the rocky hill crowned by the fort of San Cristobal on one bank of the Guadiana, and the Castle on its steep slope upon the other. The arguments used seem to have been the same as before—time being limited, it was necessary to strike at the most decisive points. If either San Cristobal or the Castle could be breached and stormed, the rest of the fortress would be dominated and would become untenable. If, on the other hand, one of the southern fronts, where the French had made their attack, were[p. 418] to be chosen as the objective, the Castle and San Cristobal, forming independent defences, might hold out long after the enceinte had been pierced and carried. Moreover, it was urged, San Cristobal was an isolated fort, so placed that it could get no help from the flank fires of other works, save from a few guns on the Castle; its other neighbour, the fort at the bridge-head, was too low-lying to be of any help.

Practically the only difference between the engineers’ plans for the first[523] and the second siege of Badajoz was that in the latter more attention was paid to the attack on the south side, and the whole force of the besiegers was not concentrated on San Cristobal, as it had been in early May. A serious attempt was made to breach the Castle, not a mere demonstration or false attack. Yet, as matters turned out, all the stress of the work once more fell upon the San Cristobal front, where two desperate assaults were made and repulsed, while on the Castle front matters never got to the point of an attempted storm. Summing up the siege in the words of D’Urban, Beresford’s chief of the staff, who watched it ruefully, we can only echo his conclusion ‘that the fact is that the engineers began upon the wrong side[524].’ Two geological peculiarities of the ground were fatal to success: the first was that on San Cristobal the soil is so shallow—three inches only on top of the hard rock—that it was impossible to construct proper trenches. The second was that the Castle hill is composed of a clay-slate which does not crumble, however much battered, and that the wall there was simply a facing to the native soil. Its stones might be battered down, but the hillside stood firm when the stones had fallen, and remained perpendicular and inaccessible. The latter fact could not be known to Wellington’s engineers; but the former was fully within their cognizance, owing to their experience in the first siege. There can be no doubt that they ought to have selected for battering the south front—either the point where Soult worked during February, or still better the walls nearer the river, by the bastion of San Vincente, where the ground is equally favourable and there is no flanking external defence like the Pardaleras[p. 419] fort. If every gun had been concentrated on this section, and every available man set to trench-work against it, there can be little doubt that Wellington would have got Badajoz within the scant four weeks that were at his disposal.

Though the blockade had been resumed on May 18th, the actual siege did not recommence for some days later, since the troops from the Beira, who were to conduct it, did not get up till a week had passed. On May 25th Houston’s division arrived from Campo Mayor, and took position on the heights beyond San Cristobal; they were there joined by the 17th Portuguese from the garrison of Elvas, and two regiments of Algarve Militia (Tavira and Lagos) were assigned for transport and convoy duty between the trenches and Elvas. Picton and the 3rd Division came up two days later (May 27th), crossed the Guadiana by the ford above the city, and joined Hamilton’s Portuguese on the southern bank. An earlier arrival of the Beira divisions would have been of no great use, since it was only on the 29th that Colonel Alexander Dickson, who had once more been entrusted with the artillery arrangements, had sent off his great convoy of guns from Elvas. This time that indefatigable officer had collected a siege-train twice as large as that which he had prepared for Beresford four weeks earlier—there were forty-six guns in all[525] instead of twenty-three. But unhappily the pieces were the same as those used in the first siege, or their equals in age and defects. The large majority were the old brass 24-pounders of the seventeenth century which had already given so much trouble from their irregularity of calibre, their tendency to droop at the muzzle when much used, and their tiresome habit of ‘unbushing’ (i. e. blowing out their vent fitting). Six iron ship-guns, ordered up from Lisbon, only arrived when the siege was far advanced, and were the sole weapons of real efficiency with which Dickson was provided. It is clear that head quarters might have done something in the way of ordering up better guns early in May, the moment that[p. 420] the first siege had shown the deficiencies of the Elvas museum of artillery antiquities. The gunners, like the guns, were about doubled in number since Beresford’s fiasco: there were now over 500 Portuguese, and one company of British (Raynsford’s), 110 strong, who arrived from Lisbon on the 30th, riding on mules which had been provided at Estremos to give them a rapid journey. To aid the twenty-one engineers on the spot, eleven officers from line battalions had been taken on as assistant engineers, while the twenty-five military artificers had to train 250 rank and file, selected from the 3rd and 7th Divisions, to act as carpenters, miners, and sappers. The work of these amateurs was, as might have been expected, not very satisfactory, and the make of their gabions and fascines left much to be desired.

On May 29th the siege work began, by the opening up of the old trenches opposite the Pardaleras fort, which the French had filled in on the day of Albuera. This was merely done to draw the attention of the garrison away from the real points of attack, for there was no intention of approaching the place from the south. It would have been better for the Allies had this been a genuine operation, and if the Castle and San Cristobal attacks had been false! It attracted, as was intended, much notice from the garrison.

On the night of the 30th the serious work began. On the Castle side 1,600 men from the 3rd Division commenced at dusk a long trench, on the same ground that had been dug over during the first siege, and three zigzag approaches to it from the rear. This trench, the first parallel, was no less than 800 yards from the Castle. The attention of the enemy was so much drawn to other points, and the soil was so soft, that by daybreak there had been formed a trench 1,100 yards long, with a parapet three feet high, and a depth of three feet in the ground: the approaches were also well advanced. On San Cristobal, at the other attack, everything went very differently. The ground chosen for the first parallel was, owing to the exigencies of the contour of the hill, only 400 yards from the fort. The working parties were discovered at once, and a heavy fire was directed on them, not only from San Cristobal, but from the Castle, across the river. It was found that there was no soil to dig in—what little once existed had been used in building the old trenches of the first[p. 421] siege, and the French governor, during his days of respite, May 15-18, had ingeniously ordered that all this earth should be carted away, and thrown down the steep towards the river. All that could be done was to place a row of gabions along the intended line of trench, and to begin to bring up earth from below to stuff them. At daylight there was not more than two feet of earth thrown up along the more important points in the parallel, where it was intended that three batteries should be placed. The enemy’s fire soon knocked over the gabions, and the working parties had to be withdrawn from a great part of the front. Practically nothing had been accomplished, and there had been many casualties.

Things continued to go on in the same fashion during the succeeding days. The parallel opposite the Castle was easily completed with little loss; a great battery for twenty guns was thrown up in the middle of it, and received its pieces, sixteen brass 24-pounders and four howitzers, on the night of the 2nd-3rd. No attempt was made to begin a second parallel nearer the Castle, from which it could be battered at short range. On the other hand the San Cristobal attack encountered heart-rending difficulties from the want of soil; the screen of gabions was knocked about, the two batteries opposite the fort made little progress, and the only thing completed was a third battery, at the extreme edge of the hill, which was far enough away to escape destruction, but also too far away (1,200 yards) to do much damage. It seemed so hopeless to work on the bare rock that Wellington ordered ￡400 worth of wool-packs to be bought in Elvas, and when these were brought up on June 2 they proved impermeable to shot, and a solid start could be made for the parapets of the batteries. But the enemy kept dropping shells, from mortars in the Castle, among the working parties, with great accuracy, and the casualties were many. On June 2nd two small batteries, for five and eight guns respectively, had at last been erected about 450 yards from the fort, and a third behind them, in support, for four more guns, which were to shoot over the parallel.

At half-past nine in the morning of June 3rd the batteries on both fronts began to play on their chosen objectives. The fire was at first wild, owing to the eccentric behaviour of the old[p. 422] seventeenth-century brass guns, every one of which had its tricks and deficiencies. As the gunners began to learn and humour them, some effect began to be produced, especially on the Castle. Here great flakes of masonry began to fall in the evening, but it was noticed that behind the stone facing there was a core of clay-slate, the natural soil of the Castle hill, which remained perpendicular when the masonry crumbled. On San Cristobal, the south-east front of the fort, the one selected for breaching, was somewhat damaged, and the guns nearly silenced by evening. But the besiegers’ artillery had already begun to fall off in strength: only one piece had been disabled by the French, but four others had gone out of action owing to their own faults, ‘unbushing,’ ‘muzzle drooping,’ or carriages shaken to pieces by recoil. The second day of fire (June 4th) was hardly more satisfactory in its results: against the Castle the guns made better practice so far as accurate hitting the mark went, but the balls seemed to have no effect: the core of soil behind the breached masonry remained nearly as perpendicular as on the preceding evening. ‘Eight-inch shells fired against it would not penetrate it,’ wrote the disgusted Alexander Dickson, ‘but absolutely dropped back, and burst below among the rubbish[526].’ Meanwhile one more gun in this attack was disabled by the French fire, two by ‘muzzle drooping,’ and three howitzer carriages were so shaken that they had to be withdrawn for repairs. Only thirteen guns out of the original twenty were firing at sunset, and ‘the failure of the old brass pieces was becoming so alarming that an interval of seven to eight minutes was ordered between each round, to give the metal time to cool[527].’ A new battery was constructed at the right end of the parallel, near the river, at a point somewhat nearer to the Castle than the original battery, in the hope that fire from a distance shorter by a hundred yards might have better effect, and five guns were moved into it under cover of the night.

On San Cristobal the second day’s fire was a little better in results, the flank of the fort which was selected for breaching having its parapet knocked to pieces, and much debris having fallen into the ditch. But unknown to the besiegers, whose view[p. 423] could not command the bottom of the ditch, the French removed most of the stones and rubbish during the night, so that the accumulation at the bottom, on which the practicability of the future breach depended, was much smaller than was supposed by the British engineers. Two more guns and two howitzers in this attack were out of action by the evening—all owing to their own defects, not to the fire from the fort. The batteries were much incommoded by an enfilading fire across the river from the Castle, where some guns had been placed on a high ‘cavalier’ to bear on the slopes below Cristobal.

On June 5 affairs went on much in the same style: the breaching of the Castle was an absolute failure: ‘the practice was extremely good, but the bank of earth at the breach still remained perpendicular[528].’ It was discovered, however, that the French were so far alarmed at the results of the battering that they were constructing elaborate inner retrenchments behind the breach. On Cristobal the prospects looked more promising; so much of the wall as was visible over the edge of the ditch along the attacked front was demolished for a distance of many yards. With another day’s fire it was decided that the breach would be practicable[529].

Accordingly the batteries on both sides of the river thundered away for the whole day on the 6th, the Castle attack with fourteen guns out of its original twenty, the Cristobal attack with seventeen remaining out of twenty-three. On the former front the results were somewhat more satisfactory than those of the three first days of battering: the seam in the castle wall appearing much wider, and the accumulation of rubbish at its foot beginning to look appreciable. Observers in the trenches held that a single man, climbing unhindered, might get up to the top, but of course there was a great difference between such a scrambling place and a ‘practicable breach.’ Nothing, at any rate, could yet be done on this side in the way of assault. There were, it must be remembered, 800 yards of open ground between the parallel from which a storming-column must start and the[p. 424] foot of the damaged wall, not to speak of the muddy bed of the Rivillas brook, which had to be forded in order to reach the Castle hill.

The San Cristobal breach, on the other hand, was judged ripe for assault, though the condition of its lower part was not accurately known. According to French accounts it was probably practicable at dusk, but the moment that night fell sixty men went down into the ditch, and began clearing away the débris with such energy that there was a sheer seven-foot drop once more, at midnight, between the bottom of the excavation and the lip of the battered wall above it. The garrison also stuffed up the breach with chevaux de frise, and carts turned upside down and jammed together, while the sappers in the fort prepared a quantity of fourteen-inch bombs, to be thrown by hand into the ditch when an assault should be made. It is probable that the delay of over four hours between dark (7.30) and midnight, when the storm came, just sufficed to provide defences strong enough to render the attack hopeless. The governor of the fort, Captain Chauvin of the 88th Line, deserves all credit for his admirable activity and resource.

The arrangement of the assault fell to General Houston, whose division was to deliver it. The regiments from which volunteers were picked were the 1/51st, 2/85th, and 17th Portuguese. The forlorn hope of twenty-five men was conducted by the engineer, Lieutenant Forster, who had explored the ditch on the preceding night, and led by Lieutenant Dyas of the 51st. The main body of the assaulting column was composed of 155 grenadiers, led by Major Mackintosh of the 85th; they were divided into two companies; the leading company carried ten ladders, for use in case it should be found that the ditch was cleared and the ascent to the breach steep. Detachments from the guards of the trenches were to move out, and cut the communication between San Cristobal and the works near the bridge-head, from which reinforcements might come[530].
Fort San Cristobal

Enlarge  FORT SAN CRISTOBAL FROM THE SOUTH BANK OF THE GUADIANA

At midnight the stormers broke out of the trenches, and ran, as fast as was possible in the obscurity, up the 400 yards of bare hillside which separated them from the fort. They suffered no[p. 425] great loss in the early moments of their rush, for though the garrison detected them at once, and plied them both with grape and with musketry, the darkness was a good protection. The forlorn hope crossed the counterscarp with no difficulty—it was only four feet deep in front of the breach-and leaped down into the ditch. There they came to a stand at once, for there were seven feet of sheer ascent from the hole in which they stood to the lowest point of the lip of the breach, and they saw that the gap itself had been stopped with the carts, chevaux de frise and other obstacles. Their officers called them off, and they were retiring with little loss, when the main body of the storming party came leaping down into the ditch. Getting news that the breach was impracticable, the officers in command of the two grenadier companies made a gallant but ill-judged series of attempts to escalade the unbreached parts of the scarp with the ten ladders that their men carried. The ascent being twenty feet high everywhere, and the ladders only fifteen feet long, it was bound to fail. But, refusing to be discomfited by a first failure, the stormers carried the ladders round to several other points of the ditch, looking in vain for a place where the walls might prove lower. The French garrison plied them incessantly with musketry, and kept rolling down among them the live shells that had been prepared for the occasion. At last the losses had grown so great that the wearied assailants, after spending nearly an hour in the ditch, had to withdraw. Out of 180 men employed there were no less than 12 dead and about 80 wounded[531], a sufficient testimony to the obstinacy of the assault. How hopeless it was may be judged from the fact that the French had only 1 man killed and 5 wounded. Everything seems to have been miscalculated in this unhappy affair—especially the number of the stormers—180 men of all ranks were wholly inadequate for the assault.

[p. 426]The failure against San Cristobal convinced Wellington’s engineers that it was useless to try force till the works had been more severely battered, and three further days of artillery work were put in, before a second storm was tried. The old guns from Elvas continued to disable themselves, and on the 9th only thirteen were in proper order on the Cristobal attack. Things would have been still worse opposite the Castle if six good iron ship-guns from Lisbon had not come up on the 7th. These were put into a new battery on the extreme right, and worked very well. But, including them, there were only twenty pieces playing on the Castle breach on the 8th and 9th. Of the original forty-six guns and howitzers only twenty-seven survived!

The net result of these last three days of bombardment on the Castle side was still unsatisfactory. The ship-guns had at last brought down a good deal of earth and rubble, which was lying in a heap at the foot of the battered wall. But on each of the mornings of the 8th and 9th it was found that the French had, during the dark hours, scarped the front of the breach, and thrown aside so much of the débris that there was still a perpendicular face of six or seven feet high, between the top of the heap of broken earth and masonry and the bottom of the seam of broken wall. This work had been carried out by the garrison under great difficulties, for the British batteries had been throwing grape against the foot of the breach all night, for the purpose of preventing any such activity. But the French, trusting to the cover of the darkness, had continued to work on manfully, and, though some men were hit, the task had on each night been more or less carried out. On the 9th the engineers came to the conclusion that they dared not advise any attempt to storm on this side, considering the enormous distance—600 yards from the wall—at which the columns of attack would have to start, even if they debouched from the part of the parallel which was nearest to the Castle. There was also the bed of the Rivillas to cross, and the guns from that part of the Castle which was uninjured, and from the flank of San Cristobal, would cut up the stormers by enfilading fire. The engineers reluctantly concluded that nothing could be done against the Castle till San Cristobal had fallen, or till a second parallel had been pushed forward much nearer to the place. This was a confession that all their original plans[p. 427] had been erroneous, and that the immense store of shot and shell lavished on the Castle breach had been wasted.

All therefore depended on the result of a second attempt to storm San Cristobal. Here there were now two breaches, a large and a small one; the parapets were completely knocked to pieces, and the fort looked a mere battered heap; its fire had been nearly silenced—so much so that not a single casualty occurred in the trench before it during the last twelve hours of bombardment. Nevertheless the breaches were not very practicable, for here (as at the Castle) the garrison had, by hard work during the nights, cleared away great part of the débris below the breach; they could not be prevented from doing so, because the besiegers’ batteries were so far away that they were unable to command the dead ground in the bottom of the ditch. On each morning the battered parapet was found to have been replaced with sandbags and wool-packs, and the breach itself stopped with chevaux de frise. These were swept away again by continual battering, both on the 8th and the 9th, but the gallant garrison began to replace them on each evening the moment that dusk fell. Nor could this be prevented, because, contrary to all the rules of siegecraft, the besiegers had not sapped up close enough to the walls to enable them to prevent repairs from being carried out. General Phillipon had doubled the garrison of the fort, which now consisted of two companies instead of the one that had held it on the 6th. The men were furnished with three muskets each, and a great store of grenades, fire-balls, and live shell, prepared for throwing by hand, had been sent up into the work.

The 7th Division delivered its second assault on the night of the 9th, three hours earlier than on the previous occasion, and only ninety minutes after dark had fallen. This moment had been chosen in order that the French might have less time to do repairs. But nine o’clock was still too late an hour; rough preparations to receive the stormers had already been made when they arrived. The French narratives state that an assault by daylight in the late afternoon would have been much more likely to succeed[532]. But this idea, though it had been mooted in the English camp, was rejected because of the distance which the[p. 428] attacking column would have to advance, fully visible in the open, under fire, and uphill. Once more the fact that the parallel was too far from the fort had become all important as a hindrance; on the San Cristobal heights approaches could not be driven any nearer, for want of earth to dig in. This had been known from the first, and should have been held sufficient reason for not attacking at all upon this stony height.

General Houston told off for the assault a force twice as great as that which had been sent forward on the 6th, 400 men instead of 180, and (a precaution neglected on the previous occasion) 100 picked shots were told off to line the outer edge of the ditch and keep up a fire against the enemy lining the breach. The assaulting column was guided by Lieutenant Hunt, R.E., and commanded by Major McGeechy of the 17th Portuguese[533]. The volunteers forming it were taken from all the regiments of Sontag’s brigade, the 51st, 85th, Chasseurs Britanniques, and Brunswick Oels, and also from the 17th Portuguese. There being now two breaches, the column was to divide into two halves, one making for that in the salient angle, the other for that in the curtain. The former carried six ladders, the latter ten[534].

The men were paraded in the ravine behind the parallel, and came out into the open at 9 o’clock. They were seen at once, and came under a rapid fire of musketry as they breasted the slope. The guiding engineer, Hunt, and the commander of the column, McGeechy, were both killed before the ditch was reached, with many others. But the forlorn hope sprang down and made for the breaches, followed a moment later by the supports. It appears that, as on June 6th, there was found to be a gap between the top of the rubble in the ditch and the lips of both breaches, six or seven feet high. The ladders were therefore brought forward, and many of them were reared; but the musketry fire knocked over nearly every man who tried to ascend them, and the few who got a footing in the breach were met and bayoneted by the garrison, who showed splendid courage, running down the slope of the breach and charging any small knot[p. 429] of men who struggled on from the ladders[535]. Meanwhile the mass in the ditch, who could not press forward to the breach-foot, were pelted with stones, hand-grenades, bags of powder, and fire-balls. Finally, after nearly an hour of unavailing effort, all the ladders were broken or thrown down, the assailants had lost 5 officers and 49 men killed, and 8 officers and 77 men wounded, and the column recoiled to the trenches[536]. The breaches and glacis were so strewn with their wounded that the artillery dared not fire to cover the retreat, and the French, descending into the ditch, took up to the fort two wounded officers as prisoners, removed the ladders, and threw aside much of the débris, so that the breach-foot was completely cleared.

The losses suffered, one man in three, and the time for which the stormers persisted in the attempt, some fifty minutes, prove that there was no want of courage shown on this disastrous night. The fact seems to be that, as on the 6th, the breach was not really practicable, that an attack could hardly succeed when the column had to cross 400 yards of exposed ground before reaching the fort, and that a storm should never have been tried, when the besieger had not sapped up to the edge of the ditch and placed himself in a position to command it. It may be mentioned that such a ditch as this, hewn in the live rock and very deep, was particularly hard to deal with. Its edges could[p. 430] not become abraded, and it was easy for the defenders to shovel away the débris that fell into it, because the bottom was solid and hard, and the masonry that had been knocked down lay on it, instead of sinking into its floor.

On the morning of the 10th the fire against the Castle was continued with vigour, but on San Cristobal there was a six hours’ truce, which was asked and granted, in order that the many wounded scattered along the slope below the fort might be gathered in. The French, being able to work unmolested at repairs during the cessation of fire, had every reason for giving a polite and humane answer to the request made by the besiegers.

Everything seemed now to depend on the attack against the Castle, since that on the other side of the river had come to such a disastrous conclusion. The fire of the newly arrived iron ship-guns was still very effective, and the breach looked larger and less steep. In fact French accounts state that it was now for the first time thoroughly practicable—but it was 800 yards from the British parallel, and the artillery on the neighbouring bastions and even on the Castle itself was still intact. Phillipon was in no wise freed from care by the successful repulse of the two attempts to storm San Cristobal. He had just had to reduce his troops to half-rations, and even on this scale there were only ten days more of food in the place: no provisions had been got in since Beresford’s first siege began in April. The garrison, though its losses in killed and wounded had not been great, had many sick, and the strain of being constantly under arms expecting an assault was beginning to be felt. There was no news from outside, save that brought by two or three deserters from the foreign corps in the British 7th Division, who reported that Soult was still in the Sierra Morena[537], and that they had heard nothing of the approach of a relieving army, though there was a rumour that Victor was going to raise the siege of Cadiz in order to join his chief. Phillipon was forced to contemplate the double possibility of his provisions running short and of a successful assault on the Castle front. Wherefore he resolved that preparations should be made to bring off the garrison by a sally, if the worst came to the worst. If no[p. 431] relief came, or if the walls were forced, the whole available body of his men were to cross the river to the Cristobal side under cover of the night, and to dash at the lines of the besiegers, in order to cut their way through by the road to Montijo and Merida. But this was not to be tried before the day of absolute necessity should arrive: the council of war called by the governor decided that the topic of evasion need not be broached for five days more[538]. Before those five days had expired they were out of danger and sure of relief.

It was at noon on June 10th that Wellington made up his mind that the siege must be abandoned. Calling together the divisional commanders, and the senior officers of artillery and engineers, he gave them a short address. It had been proved, he said, that it was impossible to storm San Cristobal without sapping up to the crest of the glacis, which was a practically impossible task on the bare rock. There was now a breach in the Castle, but it was too remote from the parallel, and the route to it was commanded both by the guns on the flank of San Cristobal and those on the lunette of San Roque and other parts of the southern enceinte. It was known that it had been elaborately retrenched behind, by ditches and palisades. But these were not his sole or the main reasons for stopping the siege. He had news that Marmont and the 9th Corps would both join Soult in a few days: and the allied army must not be caught in the trenches, and forced to fight superior numbers in an unfavourable position. It would be possible to stop five days more and to continue the battering for that time, but on the 15th the French armies might be concentrated and a general action forced upon him. This he would not risk, but had decided to order the whole siege-train to be withdrawn into Elvas at once, while the army would keep up the blockade of Badajoz till the enemy drew near, and would then retire beyond the Guadiana at its leisure, and take up a position on the Portuguese frontier which he had already chosen. As soon as it was dark the guns should be withdrawn from the batteries, and the sending of stores, tools, &c., back to Elvas must commence. He would have risked a couple of days more battering if he had thought it likely to lead to a storm. But it was his opinion that there[p. 432] was no prospect of immediate success against the place, and he was therefore resolved to give up the siege even before he was actually forced to do so. Rumour adds that he muttered more or less to himself that ‘next time he would be his own engineer[539].’ But he did not speak publicly in censure of the mistakes of Fletcher and his colleagues: the men who had planned and built the Lines of Torres Vedras were not to be disgraced lightly, even if they had failed in their last task.

The approaching concentration of the French armies had been very carefully watched by Wellington, who was in constant touch with Spencer, and had been keeping a most vigilant eye on all his reports. He had also been helped by several intercepted dispatches, taken on the way between the Armies of Portugal and Andalusia, and by reports from the guerrillero chiefs of Castile and his own secret correspondents in Salamanca. Marmont had been much more rapid in his movements, and had shown more willingness to help a colleague in distress, than was usual among the French commanders in Spain. He was new to command, and very zealous; it is certain that a year later, when he had gained more experience of co-operation with Soult, he would not come so fast and so eagerly to his aid.

The Duke of Ragusa had conducted the Army of Portugal back to Salamanca on May 15th, and had (as has been already related[540]) spent the next fortnight in breaking up the old corps into six new divisions of infantry and five brigades of cavalry. The regiments had all sent back to France the cadres of their 3rd battalions and their 3rd and 4th squadrons. The infantry battalions had been completed up to about 700 men each: and the six divisions had by May 25th about 28,000 men present with the colours[541], besides sick and detachments, who were very[p. 433] numerous[542]. There were only 2,500 cavalry fit for service, and six batteries of artillery; great drafts of horses were promised from France, by which it was hoped that the former would ere long be able to show 5,000 sabres, and the latter to put 60 guns in the field. Meanwhile there were not more than 33,000 men of all arms fit to march.

Soult, before starting on his Albuera campaign, had written to Masséna (whose deposition was unknown to him) to state that if he failed in his attempt to deliver Badajoz at the head of his own expeditionary force, he might have to ask for aid from the Army of Portugal. This letter was delivered to Marmont on May 14th, when he had just assumed command. He replied (May 16) that he recognized the importance of Badajoz, and would move all or a part of his army southward if it were really required. Soult received the dispatch from the hands of his colleague’s aide-de-camp Fabvier at Llerena on May 27th, and was overjoyed at its contents. He wrote to acknowledge the offer in terms of effusive politeness, and begged Marmont to march not with a detachment but with his whole army.[543] Though he was expecting to be joined by Drouet and the 9th Corps within ten days, he was doubtful whether that reinforcement would make him strong enough to face Wellington. But, with 30,000 men of the Army of Portugal placed in the valley of the Guadiana, there would be a force amply sufficient to sweep the Allies back into Portugal. On hearing that Marmont had started, he would extend his troops toward Merida, where the head of his colleague’s column, coming by Truxillo and Almaraz, would probably appear.

Long before Soult’s Llerena dispatch came to hand, Marmont had already begun to move some of his divisions towards the[p. 434] Tagus, as a precautionary measure, in case his offer should be accepted. But it was apparently the news of Albuera which made him resolve to betake himself to Estremadura with every available man, and not Soult’s appeal, which only reached him after he had started. He was anxious to hand over the charge of the whole frontier of Leon, and of the fortress of Ciudad Rodrigo, to Bessières. But the Duke of Istria protested in the most vehement style against having this responsibility thrust upon him. Until he had learnt of the Albuera check, he kept preaching to Mortier on the text that Soult was well able to take care of himself, and ought to draw rather on Drouet and Madrid for reinforcements than on the Army of Portugal. Marmont might move a division to Ba?os and Bejar, and two more to Plasencia, but this was all that honour and prudence demanded. The main body of his troops ought to be left in or near Salamanca, to observe the British force in front of Ciudad Rodrigo. The Army of the North could not spare a man to relieve Marmont’s troops on the Douro and the Tormes, if they marched away; what with the Galicians, the Cantabrian bands of Longa and Porlier, and the guerrilleros, it had so much upon its hands that it could not find one brigade to occupy Salamanca. The Army of Portugal was so much in need of rest and reinforcement that it would perish by the way, or never reach Badajoz, if its commander persisted in carrying out his quixotic plan, &c.

All these arguments were hollow: Bessières disliked Soult, and not only would not stir a finger himself to aid him, but wished to discourage Marmont from doing so. When the news of Albuera came, he made shift to protect the frontiers of Leon, despite of all his previous allegations. His estimate of the impossibility of the march to Badajoz was absolutely falsified: the Army of Portugal accomplished it in fifteen days without any appreciable loss in men or material. Marmont deserves, as he himself remarks[544], great credit for his move, which was made contrary to his colleague’s advice, and without any orders from Paris. For Napoleon’s dispatches, based, as usual, on facts three weeks or a month old, were coming in at this time with notes as to the resting and reorganization of the army, and spoke of[p. 435] a battle near Ciudad Rodrigo, to keep Wellington from besieging that place, as the next task which would probably fall to the Duke of Ragusa[545]. Marmont had as directions nothing but a vague precept to ‘act for the general interest of the Imperial armies in Spain’ and to keep an eye on Andalusia, where the progress of affairs would be better known to him than it could be in Paris[546]. These directions he most certainly carried out, but on his own responsibility, and without any detailed instructions from his master. Indeed, his dispatch of May 31st, in which he informed the Emperor that he was about to march for the Tagus, brought down on him a scolding from Berthier for moving with only thirty-six pieces of artillery, and for not having sent back to Bayonne a mass of men of the train, who were to pick up horses there[547]. If Marmont had waited to procure more teams from the rear, he would never have joined Soult in time to raise the siege of Badajoz. It was the quickness of his movement which forced the Allies to abandon that enterprise.

Wellington had been from the first convinced that Marmont would move southward on hearing of Soult’s check at Albuera. It was for this reason that he made no scruple of depleting Spencer’s corps of reinforcements for the army in Estremadura: not only detachments, but probably the whole force would ere long have to be drawn to join the main army. On May 24th, as has been already mentioned, he ordered Howard’s British[548] and Ashworth’s Portuguese brigades to move towards him via Sabugal, Castello Branco, and the bridge of Villa Velha. Howard’s 1,500 men were to be taken away permanently from the 1st Division and added to the second, replacing in it three battalions which, owing to the carnage of Albuera, had to be sent home to recruit[549]. By June 8th Howard had reached Talavera Real, near Badajoz, and had formally been placed on the roll of the 2nd Division, which then rose once more to 4,000 men.

In compliance with his chief’s general directions that, if the[p. 436] French Army of Portugal turned southward, he himself was to make a corresponding movement, Spencer moved the Light and 1st Divisions from their cantonments towards Sabugal, on a rumour (which turned out to be premature) that Marmont had already started on the 26th of May. Learning that he had been misinformed, he brought them back again to their old cantonments between the Azava and the Coa on the 27th[550]. On the next day there arrived detailed and certain news from secret correspondents in Salamanca, to the effect that Marmont was concentrating his troops in two bodies, one, under his own command, at Salamanca itself, the other about Alba de Tormes and Tamames. The natural deduction from this information was that one column would march by the Puerto de Ba?os over the mountains to the Tagus, and the other by Ciudad Rodrigo and the Puerto de Perales. Wellington, on receiving the Spanish notes forwarded by Spencer, was delighted to find that his forecast was almost certainly right. ‘You will see by my letter yesterday,’ he wrote on June 2nd, ‘that I did not make a bad guess at the enemy’s probable movement, as described in the letters from our friends of the 28th, enclosed in yours of the 31st[551].’ His own dispatch of June 1st, to which he refers, had already told Spencer that the moment Marmont moved he was to bring up his right to Penamacor, and his left to Sabugal, leaving only a screen in front of Ciudad Rodrigo. But since it was not quite certain that the Marshal might not be projecting a mere raid into the Beira, either by the Almeida or the Sabugal road, no definite move was to be made till it was clear that the French columns were heading for the passes. This caution against over-hasty deductions kept Spencer very much in his original position till June 4th, the day on which Marmont’s movements became clear.

The Marshal had concentrated one division (Foy’s[552]) and all his cavalry at Salamanca on June 1st, while Reynier with two divisions, followed at a day’s distance by three more, moved from[p. 437] Tamames for the eastern pass, the Puerto de Ba?os. On the 3rd the Marshal and the smaller column started from Salamanca on the Rodrigo road, for the purpose of making a demonstration against Almeida, which was intended to hold Spencer in his present position, while Reynier and the main body of the French army should get two or three days’ start. Marmont reached Rodrigo on the 5th, and sallied out from it, cavalry in front, on the following morning. He was exposing himself to some danger, since Spencer had four divisions within call, though his cavalry was weak—only two British and two Portuguese regiments[553]. But, uncertain as to the strength of his enemy, Spencer gave way; the Light Division and Slade’s cavalry being drawn back from the line of the Azava, while the other three divisions marched for Sabugal under the cover of this screen. The road to Almeida being thus left unguarded, Pack, who was lying there with his Portuguese brigade, blew up such part of the enceinte as remained intact after Brennier’s explosion, and retired westward. For this both he and Spencer were blamed by Wellington, who said that they should have waited till the French actually made a move towards Almeida before destroying it. Its subsequent repair was made much more difficult by the supplementary damage needlessly carried out[554].

Marmont’s force, 5,000 foot and 2,500 cavalry, advanced in pursuit of Spencer by both the Gallegos and the Carpio roads. It was only on the latter, however, that any serious skirmishing occurred. Montbrun’s squadrons in overwhelming numbers pressed hard on the British cavalry screen, composed on this front of the 1st Dragoons and a squadron of the 14th Light Dragoons, under Slade. That brigadier, always, if his subordinates are to be trusted, a little over-slow in movement, allowed himself to be outflanked while executing a series of[p. 438] demonstrations to cover the rear of the infantry, and only got off without serious loss through the gallantry of a squadron of the Royals, who charged the turning force at an opportune moment, and gained time for the rest of the regiment to retire with some difficulty across the marsh of Nava de Aver[555]. A dangerous movement was got over with the loss of only four men killed and nine wounded.

Spencer’s whole force had reached Alfayates by the night of the 6th, retiring before a French column of not a third of its own strength. On the next day he received from Colonel Waters, one of Wellington’s great intelligence officers, news which cleared up the situation for him. Waters, who came in from a tour in the Sierra de Gata, reported that an immense French column was already passing the Puerto de Ba?os, thirty miles to the east, and that the force in front of the British did not apparently exceed the single division of infantry and the four brigades of horse which had been already seen and noted. There was no need therefore to retire towards the Zezere and the Estrada Nova, for Marmont was not making a serious raid into Portugal, but only covering the march of his main body by a demonstration. The truth of this intelligence was soon verified, for the Marshal, instead of pressing the British rear on the 7th, wheeled eastward, and went off by the Pass of Perales, leaving Spencer entirely unmolested.

Wellington’s original orders thus became valid and practicable, and Spencer was able to march his whole four divisions towards Badajoz and the main army, with the certainty that he was moving parallel to Marmont’s route, and that he could join his chief many days before the French columns could unite with Soult. For the invaluable bridge of Villa Velha now became of primary importance. It provided a good passage over the Tagus, leading straight to Estremadura by a short line, while the French, having no bridge lower down the river than Almaraz, were compelled to make a much longer detour, and to spend several days more than the British in transferring themselves to the southern seat of war.

The head of Spencer’s marching column was now formed by[p. 439] Anson’s light cavalry, who had moved (as it will be remembered) towards Castello Branco before the rest of the army[556]. Then came the infantry divisions, while Slade remained to cover the rear, and only marched on when the main body had already crossed the Tagus[557]. The route lay from Alfayates by Penamacor, S?o Miguel d’Arche, Castello Branco, Villa Velha, Niza, and Portalegre. Anson crossed the Tagus at the bridge of Villa Velha on June 11th, the Light Division on June 12th, the 1st Division on the 14th-15th, Pack’s Portuguese and the 6th Division on June 15th-16th. Slade’s cavalry, who had waited behind near Castello Branco till it should be certain that no French were showing in this direction, only came over the river on the 19th. All this was rough marching, in hot weather, over bad roads, and the troops suffered somewhat from sunstroke and from occasional lack of water in the mountains. But the transport worked fairly well in spite of all difficulties, and food only once failed to be distributed regularly[558]. By dint of moving as far as was possible in the early morning and the evening hours, the divisions made good time, and the distances covered exceeded on several days twenty miles in the twenty-four hours[559].

On the 13th the head of the infantry column was at Niza, only[p. 440] twenty miles from Portalegre, and fifty from Badajoz, while its rear had passed Castello Branco and was nearing the Tagus. Wellington was therefore able to contemplate the situation with serenity. Spencer’s whole force would be able to join him long before Marmont could unite with Soult. He ordered that each of the divisions, as it reached Portalegre, should take several days’ rest before moving on to Campo Mayor and Elvas.

The French army meanwhile had endured a much longer and more fatiguing march. The head of Reynier’s column, moving by Fuente Roble, Ba?os, and Bejar across the chain of the Sierra de Gata, reached Plasencia on the 9th and Almaraz on the 11th. Marmont and the smaller column which had demonstrated against Spencer fell into the rear of the main body at Malpartida near Plasencia on the 14th[560]. The passage of the Tagus at Almaraz took longer than had been expected, because pontoons which had been ordered down from Madrid had failed to appear, and the whole army had to be ferried over by driblets on the flying-bridge already existing there. But though strung out over fifty miles of road by this mischance, the Army of Portugal at least got the advanced squadrons of its light cavalry to Truxillo on the 14th[561] and to Merida on the 17th. The head of the infantry column was a day’s march behind, and reached Merida on the 18th, with the main body trailing down the mountain road from Truxillo behind it. Soult’s advanced guard was already in possession of the town and bridge of Merida, and the junction of the Armies of Andalusia and Portugal was secured.

But meanwhile Wellington had retired from their neighbourhood. On the afternoon of the 10th the orders had been issued for the withdrawing of all the guns from the siege-batteries before Badajoz, and by the next morning many of them were already en route for Elvas. All through the 11th and 12th convoys of ammunition, platforms, fascines, wool-packs, &c., were being sent to the rear, and by the night of the last-named day[p. 441] there was nothing left in the trenches or the camps save a small daily store for the troops, who were kept to blockade the fortress as long as was prudent. For it was well that the garrison should be straitly shut in, and forced to consume as much of their provisions as possible; Wellington knew that they were only rationed up to the 20th, and there was a bare chance that Soult or Marmont might be delayed by some unforeseen mishap. Nothing of the kind happened, however, and on the 13th Soult began to stir. He had been joined by Drouet’s long-expected corps on that morning; it had accomplished a most circuitous march from Valladolid, by Madrid, Toledo, the pass of Despe?aperros and Cordova, in which it had consumed more than a month (May 11th-June 13th). All Drouet’s corps was composed of 4th battalions of regiments belonging to the 1st or 5th Corps, and the provisional brigade of cavalry which accompanied him consisted of 3rd and 4th squadrons belonging to dragoon regiments of the Army of the South. These were at once treated as drafts, and amalgamated with the depleted units which had been so much cut up at Albuera. The 5th Corps and the other regiments present with Soult had 4,000 men drafted into their ranks[562], and once more became strong. There remained over one provisional division, 5,000 strong, which consisted of 4th battalions whose regiments were absent with Victor before Cadiz[563]. Drouet’s arrival gave Soult a total force of some 28,000 men, which made him still unable to face Wellington with his own unaided strength; but he knew that he could count on Marmont’s approach with 30,000 more within a week.

If he pressed in upon Badajoz before the junction took place, he would risk the very real danger that Wellington might march against him with every available man, and force him to another battle. He therefore first sent cavalry along the high[p. 442]roads towards Villafranca and Los Santos, and only when they reported that there was no British infantry in front of them, moved up his main body to Villafranca and Almendralejo (June 16th). Reconnaissances were pushed towards the bridges of Merida and Medellin, where the Army of Portugal was to be expected. As he kept very far from Wellington’s front, Soult’s march was unmolested; the British general had concentrated the 4th and 2nd Divisions and Hamilton’s Portuguese on the old Albuera position on the 14th of June, and could have brought up the 3rd and 7th and Ashworth’s Portuguese to join them in a few hours. But he was not going to take offensive action, and since Soult kept well away from him, he waited till he had news that the two French armies would get in touch at Merida on the 17th, and retired with his whole army beyond the Guadiana on that day.