Years of Victory 1802 - 1812 (64 page)

¹
It had just debated a motion for excommunicating the entire population of Valencia "as rebels unworthy of partaking of the blessings enjoyed under the present government." —Jackson, II,
458.

²
Fortescue, VII,
217.
None the less, he wrote to Sherbrooke, pointing out that, however well-founded his resentment against officers of the Commissariat, "it would be infinitely better and more proper if all neglects and faults of theirs were reported to me by whom they can be dismissed rather than that they should be abused by the general officers of the army."—Gurwood,
15th
July,
1809.

and Perales securely held by the Spaniards, little harm seemed likely to come of them. Even if the worst came to the worst, the British could always withdraw to the south bank of the Tagus and trust to that broad river to delay the French. Behind him Wellesley knew that the Light Brigade—3000 of the finest troops in Europe—were hurrying after him from Lisbon by river and road. His victories had given his youthful army faith in him, and he believed in himself. Unlike his fellow generals, he felt no fear of the politicians at home, for he was almost one of them himself.

On July 16th, 1809, the British moved forward from Plasencia. The heat was intense and clouds of dust marked the line of columns moving eastwards over the rolling, barren plains. During the next few days the most popular figures in the army were the lemonade vendors—large, muscular men from Valencia of swarthy complexion, bushy eyebrows and gigantic sombreros, who followed the march with barrels slung on their backs, promenading the thirsty lines at every halt with shouts of "Limonada! Limonada fresca!"
¹
By the evening of the 20th the troops had covered the sixty miles to Oropesa. Here on the following day the Spanish general and his staff reviewed them, staring in astonishment at their rigid, silent lines. The British were much less favourably impressed: the sight of the aged Captain-General—"that deformed-looking lump of pride, ignorance and treachery," as Rifleman Costello called him— glaring at them from the cushions of his mule-drawn coach inspired no confidence. Nor did the sprawling march and easy discipline of his followers: the lolling, chattering groups in the uniforms of half a dozen different reigns smoking their cigarillas by the roadside, the interminable siestas, the chaotic antiquity that overhung the Spanish army like a cloud of garlic.
²

On July 22nd the allies, advancing together, reached Talavera. Here the immense, snow-capped wall of the Sierra de Gredos, with its forest slopes shimmering in the heat, inclined southwards to within a few miles of the Tagus. The Spanish cavalry—blue dragoons followed by green—went clattering through the streets after the French outposts, sending up showers of sparks, while the inhabitants ye
lled, "Viva Espana! Viva Espan
a!" and made cutthroat signs, the priests particularly distinguishing themselves by their fanatically truculent attitudes.
³
Beyond the town, however, the advance guard came up against strong artillery posted on the banks of the Alberche, and there was a check. But in the July

¹
Leslie,
126, 134.

2
Costello,
23;
Schaumann,
168, 174-5;
Leslie,
136.
³
Schaumann,
169,

drought the river was only knee-deep,
¹
and a great opportunity opened out before the allies. For so well had the guerrillas done their work of blanketing French communications that Victor's army, outnumbered by two to one, had been taken completely by surprise.

Yet the chance was lost by Cuesta's obstinacy. All next day, while the hungry British waited impatiently for the word to attack, he resisted Wellesley's entreaties with excuse after excuse. Only on the morning of "the 24th, after the enemy, recovering their senses, had vanished eastwards along the Madrid highroad, did he announce his readiness to advance. Then, though Wellesley pointed out that there were at least 50,000 French in the neighbourhood of the capital who, now that the alarm had been raised, would immediately concentrate, and reminded him that nothing had been received of Venegas's advance from the south, he became as reckless as he had formerly been prudent. Nothing would content the old gentleman but to launch his army in headlong pursuit on the capital. All that day the astonished British watched it pour past—a bewildering kaleidoscope of turbulent half-armed brigands emerging from clouds of dust, regular regiments in blue and scarlet marching in perfect order, of cavalry staff officers, priests, musicians, women, carts, guns and artillery wagons, and herds of sheep, pigs and cattle.
²
It looked like the last army of the Middle Ages pouring out to do battle with the French Revolution.

Wellesley, who was still awaiting the carts, supplies and mules promised by the Junta and whose men had been on half rations for the past two days, refused to accompany Cuesta. He was beginning to realise the fatal nature of the venture on which he had embarked his army. To advance farther into so inhospitable a hinterland in the face of a superior enemy without any certainty of being able to feed his troops would be insanity. The most he would consent to do was to send two infantry brigades and a small force of cavalry beyond the Alberche to maintain contact with his uncontrollable allies. With the rest of his army he took up the best defensive position he could find between the Tagus and the mountains, and there awaited, with such patience as he could, the inevitable return of the Spaniards.

They were not long. On the afternoon of the 26th they came streaming back down the great highway in a confused mob, shouting that the French were after them. Having reached Torrijos, thirty

¹
Anderson,
33.

²
In other words "a Spanish army—ill-commanded, ill-appointed, moderately disciplined and in most respects inefficient."—Leith Hay, I,
145-6
.

miles to the east, they had come up against a force of
46
,000 men formed by the junction of Victor's First and Sebastiani's Fourth Corps with the bulk of the Madrid garrison which King Joseph had rushed out to the rescue. The concentration had been made possible by the insubordination of Venegas who, detesting Cuesta almost as much as the French, had halted at Aranjuez instead of pinning down Sebastiani's 17,000 men in defensive operations south of the capital. Discovering that his plan had miscarried, Cuesta retired with such haste that only the slackness of Victor's pursuit and the prompt deployment of the British advance guard beyond the Alberche averted a rout.

But when he reached the river, the old Spaniard perversely halted and refused to cross, though the British were waiting in the only possible defensive position three miles to the west. Repeated entreaties produced no result. Not till five o'clock next morning when Wellesley—conscious that a disaster faced both armies—visited his headquarters and went down on his knees, did the stubborn old hidalgo relent. Thereafter throughout the greater part of July 27th —a very hot day—the Spanish army trailed back into Talavera, where Wellesley had allotted it a position of almost impregnable strength, stretching from the Tagus along the town walls and thence for about a mile to the north through embanked gardens and olive groves. Here its 32,000 men were able to dispose themselves in triple lines with powerful reserves of cavalry in support.

It was otherwise with the British, whose lines extended for a farther two miles to the north where the plain ended in a stony ravine at the foot of the Sierra de Segurilla. Their right and centre were in open country without shade or cover, their left on a steep conical hill called the Cerro de Medellin which, climbing gradually up a scrubby, rolling ridge from the Talavera plain, fell precipitously into the narrow mountain valley to the north. To hold this against 46,000 veteran troops—for the Spaniards, being incapable of manoeuvre, could be easily contained—Wellesley had little more than 17,000 British and 3000 Germans. Even when drawn up only two deep, they barely covered the ground. With the exception of the 29th and 48th—the Worcesters and Northamptons—few were seasoned troops, and the artillery—thirty field pieces mostly of light calibre—were hopelessly overweighted by the enemy's eighty guns.

Even before the Spaniards reached Talavera trouble began. The brigades which had been sent forward to cover their retreat, falling back through the olive groves to the west of the Alberche, were. almost overwhelmed by the speed of Victor's advance. Wellesley himself, supervising from the roof of a farm the withdrawal of some young troops, only escaped capture by a last-minute dash to his waiting horse. The situation was restored by a counter-attack by the 45th (the Nottinghamshires) and some German companies of the 60th who both displayed admirable steadiness. But this preliminary fighting cost the British nearly 500 men whom they could ill afford.

The situation for the British Commander could hardly have been more uncomfortable. His men were half starving, and behind them lay a wasted and barren countryside. Retreat in the presence of the enemy's immense strength in cavalry was out of the question for, once the Spaniards abandoned the shelter of the walls and ditches of Talavera, pandemonium would break out on the single highway to the west. The only hope was to fight it out. If the French chose to attack—and there was every sign that they meant to do so— only the courage and coolness of the fighting man could avert disaster. Scarcely since the morning of Agincourt had a British army been in a more perilous position.

So certain was Victor of his prey that he did not even wait till next day. As soon as it was dark, without troubling to consult Joseph and his Chief of Staff, Marshal Jourdan, he launched exploratory attacks against the British. After a preliminary cavalry
demonstration in front of Talavera—which provoked a tremendous discharge of musketry along the whole Spanish line and the instantaneous flight of four Spanish regiments—he attempted to seize Wellesley's two main strong-points. That nearest the allied centre, a formidable redoubt on a knoll just clear of the olive groves, was too stoutly held by Colonel Donkin's brigade for the French to be able to make any impression. But farther north, where, owing to inadequate staff work and the confused retirement of the afternoon, the defenders' lines were still undefined, a division under General Ruffin penetrated through the piquets of the King's German Legion to the top of the Cerro de Medellin. Major-General Rowland Hill, the commander of the division appointed to hold the height on the morrow, was returning from Talavera, where he had been dining, when he was attracted by the sound of firing. Remarking unkindly to his brigade-major that he supposed it was the old Buffs making some blunder as usual, he was halfway to the summit when he found a Frenchman's hand on his bridle. Setting spurs to his horse —his companion was shot dead at his side—he collected the 29th and led it in line up the hill to drive the enemy out before they could consolidate. Losing all cohesion in the darkness, the latter, though greatly outnumbering the Worcesters, were unable to withstand their well-directed volleys, and, after half an hour's fighting, were flung back into their own lines.

No further attempt was made against the British that night. In the stillness nervous sentries could hear the French officers going their rounds on the opposite hillside, while the sounds of wheels and cracking whips and the light of torches showed where cannon were being placed in preparation for the morrow. Wellesley, who scarcely dared to delegate anything to his inexperienced Staff, spent most of the night supervising the movement of artillery which he had now ordered to the top of the Cerro de Medellin. That another attempt would be made on the hill he could not doubt, for its capture would spell his army's doom. The question in his own and every other mind was would his men hold.

Few who witnessed it ever forgot the dawn of July 28th, 1809, as it rose over the French lines. It was like the morning of St. Crispin four hundred years before. As it grew light more than 40,000 troops could be seen in serried columns beyond the Portina brook, which flowed from north to south between the rival armies. The greatest concentration was on the sloping hillside to the east of the'^erro de Medellin. In front hundreds of
tirailleurs
were waiting the signal to advance. Farther back on the skyline regiment after regiment of cavalry were drawn up in gleaming casque and multi-coloured uniform. Only opposite the thirty thousand Spaniards around Talavera was the ground comparatively deserted. Every man in the British army could see where the attack would fall. As the officers rode along the lines—stretching two deep like a scarlet snake over the rolling hills and plain—they noticed how un-wontedly pale and silent their men were.
¹