Read Ebook: A History of the Peninsular War Vol. 4 Dec. 1810-Dec. 1811 Massena's Retreat Fuentes de Oñoro Albuera Tarragona by Oman Charles

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While Drouet was on the march to Leiria, his lieutenant, Clapar?de, the moment that he was no longer under his superior's eye, had gone off on a bold and rather hazardous raid of his own. Finding that Silveira's militia were sticking closely to his skirts, he resolved to make an attempt to surprise them by a forced march. Concentrating at Trancoso on December 30th, he fell upon the enemy on the following day at Ponte do Abbade, and routed them with a loss of 200 men. Silveira, notwithstanding this check, adhered to his orders to keep close to Clapar?de, and retired no further than Villa da Ponte, some seven miles away. But the French general made a second sudden sally from Trancoso on January 11th, beat the Portuguese much more decisively, and pursued them as far as Lamego on the Douro. Silveira crossed the river in great disorder on the 13th, and the news of his defeat brought terror to Oporto. Baccelar at once ordered not only the brigade from Vizeu , but Trant from Coimbra, and Wilson from Pe?acova, to fall back and join him. They concentrated at Castro Daire, ten miles south of Lamego, with a force of 14,000 bayonets, whereupon Clapar?de, who had only 6,000 men with him, began to fear that he would be cut off from Almeida and isolated in a difficult position. He evacuated Lamego and returned to Trancoso by forced marches, having accomplished nothing save the destruction of a few hundred militia and the spreading of panic as far as Oporto . Shortly after he left Trancoso and moved southward to Celorico and Guarda, where he commanded the two roads to the Tagus, yet was not too far from Almeida and his base. But he was still completely cut off from Mass?na, and the Portuguese at once resumed their old positions around him--Trant returning to Coimbra, Wilson to Pe?acova on the Mondego, while Baccelar with the reserves lay more to the rear, at S?o Pedro do Sul on the Vouga. Clapar?de's movement would have been dangerous for the allies if he had possessed a heavier force, but 6,000 men were too few for a serious march on Oporto, and if the column had not retreated in haste it would probably have suffered complete disaster.

Chaby, ii. p. 272, gives January 5th as the date of the combat of Villa da Ponte, but all the other authorities place it on the 11th.

According to Thi?bault, then commanding at Salamanca, Clapar?de's rather wild excursion was due to mere desire for plunder; he accuses him of having raised, and put into his private purse, great contributions at Moimento, Lamego, and other towns which he occupied for a few days.

Date uncertain, perhaps January 22, as Wellington knew he was there on January 26.

The only use which Mass?na could make of Drouet and the division of Conroux was to cover more ground for foraging by their means. When placed at Leiria they much restricted the activities of Blunt at Peniche and Trant at Coimbra, who could no longer push their advanced posts so far to the front, and had to cede to the enemy all the land about the Sour? and Alcoa rivers. Here Drouet collected enough food both to feed himself and to give help to Ney; but the resources of the district were, after all, limited, and within a few weeks the men of the 9th Corps were living on the edge of daily starvation like their fellows. The Army of Portugal had got no solid help from this quarter. It remained to be seen whether they would obtain better aid from the other side from which Mass?na had hoped to be reinforced--the Army of Andalusia.

SOULT'S EXPEDITION INTO ESTREMADURA. JANUARY-MARCH 1811. THE BATTLE OF THE GEBORA AND THE FALL OF BADAJOZ

In his original scheme for the invasion of Portugal, Napoleon had given no part to the Army of Andalusia, judging that Mass?na, supported by the 9th Corps, would be amply strong enough to drive the English into the sea. It is not till the 29th of September that the imperial correspondence begins to show signs of a desire that Soult should do something to help the Army of Portugal. But the assistance which was to be given is defined, in the dispatch of that date, as no more than a diversion to be made against Estremadura by Mortier and the 5th Corps, with the object of preventing La Romana from giving any aid to Wellington. Soult is directed to see that Mortier keeps the Spanish Army of Estremadura in check: he is always to be on its heels, so that it will have no opportunity of sending troops towards the Tagus. Nothing is said about making a serious attack on Estremadura, or of threatening Badajoz with a siege. On the 26th of October comes the next allusion to this subject: the Emperor had learnt from the English newspapers--always his best source of intelligence--that La Romana with a large part of his forces has marched on Lisbon to join Wellington, and that he has been able to do so without molestation. That this should have happened was, he thought, due to direct disobedience on Soult's part: the Marshal cannot have kept in touch with the enemy. And he is directed in vague terms to 'faire pousser sur La Romana,' whatever exactly that may mean. An interpretation for the phrase, however, turns up in the next imperial dispatch--Mortier and the 5th Corps ought to have followed the Spanish general march for march, and to have presented themselves on the Lower Tagus in face of Lisbon shortly after the arrival of La Romana in the Portuguese capital.

Soult had little difficulty in proving that this scheme was absolutely impossible. It argued, indeed, a complete misconception of the situation in Estremadura and Andalusia. To talk lightly of pushing Mortier and the 5th Corps, which comprised at this moment just 13,000 men, right across Estremadura to the mouth of the Tagus, 'en talonnant La Romana,' was futile. The Spanish General had gone off to join Wellington with some 7,000 or 8,000 men. But he had left behind him in Estremadura two strong infantry divisions, those of Mendizabal and Ballasteros, with 12,000 bayonets, 6,000 more infantry in garrison at Badajoz, Olivenza, and Albuquerque, and the whole of his cavalry, 2,500 sabres. In addition there were interposed between Mortier and the Tagus about 8,500 Portuguese--a cavalry brigade under Madden which had been lent to the Spaniards, and, near Badajoz, a regular infantry brigade at Elvas, and four militia regiments, forming the garrisons of the last-named place, of Campo Mayor, and of Jerumenha. That is to say, there lay before Mortier, after La Romana's departure, a field army which, if concentrated, would make up 18,000 men, and in addition six fortresses containing garrisons amounting to 11,000 men more, and covering all the main strategical points of the country. How could he have pursued La Romana? If he had followed, he would have found himself at once involved in a campaign against superior forces in a region studded with hostile strongholds. 'On this frontier,' as Soult wrote to Berthier, 'there are six fortified places--Badajoz, Olivenza, Jerumenha, Elvas, Campo Mayor, Albuquerque, in which there are at least 20,000 infantry and 2,500 cavalry. It is clear to me that if I thrust a body of 10,000 men forward to the Tagus, as his majesty has directed, that body would never reach its destination, and would be cut off and surrounded before I could get up to its aid.' This was indisputably correct: Mortier might have beaten Mendizabal and Ballasteros in the open field, if they chose to offer him battle; but if they preferred to concentrate on Badajoz or Elvas, and defied him from under the shadow of those great fortresses, he could not ignore them and march by in pursuit of La Romana. The moment that he was past their positions, they would cut him off from Andalusia, and he would find himself with their whole force at his back, and in front of him anything that Wellington might have sent to the south bank of the Tagus. In December this would have meant 14,000 men under Hill, at the New Year about 16,000 under Beresford. As Soult truly said, the expedition would have been encompassed, and probably destroyed, long before Mass?na heard of its having got anywhere near him. Nevertheless the Commander-in-Chief of the Army of Portugal was told to expect this diversion as a matter of certainty: in the dispatch that Foy took back to him he was given the precise statement that the 5th Corps was to be looked for somewhere in the direction of Montalv?o and Villaflor, on the Tagus above Abrantes, at no distant date.

The total of the troops available against Mortier in December would have been, giving net totals, with sick and detached men all deducted:--

Ballasteros's Division 5,000 Mendizabal's Division 6,000 Permanent garrison of Badajoz 4,200 5 battalions left behind by La Romana at Albuquerque, Olivenza, &c. 2,000 Carlos de Espa?a's brigade on the Tagus near Abrantes 1,500 Cavalry of the Army of Estremadura 2,600 Artillery 500

Brigade of Line Regiments, Nos. 5 and 17, at Elvas 2,500 Brigade of Cavalry under Madden, 3rd, 5th, 8th regiments 950 Hamilton's Division , 2nd, 4th, 10th, 14th Line 4,800 Portuguese Militia, 4 regiments, Beja, Evora, Villa Viciosa, Portalegre, in Elvas, Jerumenha, and Campo Mayor 4,000 5th Ca?adores 450 Fane's Cavalry , 1st, 4th, 7th, 10th regiments 1,200 Artillery 600

Mortier had in the 5th Corps 11,500 infantry, 1,200 cavalry, and about 700 artillery in his 7 batteries.

After having, as he thought, demonstrated to his master that it would be useless to send Mortier alone, with 10,000 or 12,000 men, to make an impossible dash at the Tagus, Soult made another proposal. He would undertake not a mere raid, but the capture of Badajoz, the conquest of Estremadura, and the destruction of the army of that province; but he must take with him a force much greater than the mere 5th Corps. 'The enterprise is a big one, but ought to succeed--at least it will produce a happy diversion in favour of the imperial army in Portugal.' It would call back La Romana from Lisbon, and possibly cause Wellington to detach troops in his aid, and Mass?na would have less in front of him in consequence, and might resume the offensive.

Soult to Berthier, December 1, 1810, from Seville.

This dispatch of March 29 , which must have reached Soult about the end of April, when Mass?na had long retired to Spain, told him that he should have withdrawn all the 4th Corps from Granada save the six Polish battalions, and have drawn in Godinot's brigade from Cordova, i. e. have abandoned the whole eastern half of Andalusia, and have tried to hold nothing but the siege lines of Cadiz and the city of Seville. But this was 'wisdom after the event.' In December Napoleon was harping upon a diversion with 10,000 men to Montalv?o and Villaflor, not ordering the evacuation of the greater part of Andalusia.

Soult to Berthier, from the siege lines in front of Olivenza, dated January 22.

He calls it 'la d?termination que j'avais prise sur de simples avis indirects.' To Berthier, January 25.

For the explanation of all this see Soult to Berthier, already quoted, from Seville, December 1, acknowledging the receipt of the imperial orders of October 26th.

The collection of a field army of 20,000 men, which was to cut itself loose from Andalusia for a time, imposed some tiresome problems on Soult. Since he had resolved not to evacuate Granada or Malaga on the one hand, nor the posts west of the Guadalquivir on the other, and since he was drawing off the 5th Corps, which had hitherto provided for the safety of Seville and found detachments for the Condado de Niebla, he had to make provision for the filling of the gap left behind him. Hence we find him calling upon Victor to spare men from in front of Cadiz--a demand which the Duke of Belluno took very ill--since he truly declared that he had no more troops in the 1st Corps than sufficed to man the lines and to keep posts of observation in his rear. The garrison of Cadiz was always increasing, and included a strong nucleus of British troops. How could he face sorties, or disembarkations in his rear, if he was cut down to a mere 18,000 men in place of the 24,000 on which he had hitherto reckoned? Nevertheless, he was forced to provide a detachment to hold Xeres, as a half-way house to Seville, and to send out a cavalry regiment and one battalion west of the Guadalquivir. Similarly, the brigade of Godinot in the kingdom of Cordova was required to find a skeleton garrison for Seville, which was raised to a somewhat higher figure, in appearance, by the doubtful aid of some 'juramentado' companies of Spaniards, and of the d?p?ts and convalescents of the 5th Corps. The great city, with a turbulent population of 100,000 souls, which formed the centre of his viceroyalty, became at this time Soult's weakest point--he left it so inadequately held that it was at the mercy of any considerable hostile force which might approach it--and such a force was ere long, as we shall see, to make its appearance. Godinot had also to look after the insurgent bands of the central Sierra Morena, who often blocked the post road to Madrid. Sebastiani was left with his 4th Corps intact, and his duty was unchanged--to watch the Spanish army of Murcia, and to suppress the guerrilleros of the Sierra de Ronda and the eastern coast--an unending task from which Soult thought that he ought not to be distracted. Napoleon, wise after the event, wrote in March that Soult should have left no more than the Polish division of the 4th Corps in the direction of Granada, and have brought the remainder of it to strengthen or support the troops at Seville and in the lines before Cadiz. In that case the Poles would certainly have had to move westward also ere long, since there were but 5,000 of them, and all Eastern Andalusia would have had to be evacuated. But this idea had never struck Soult as practicable, and Sebastiani's whole corps was left in its old posts in the kingdom of Granada.

Belonging to that division of the Army of the Centre under Dessolles which Soult had borrowed for the conquest of Andalusia, and which King Joseph, despite of many demands, could never get back.

The invasion of Estremadura was carried out in two columns of about equal strength, which used the two main passes between Western Andalusia and the valley of the Guadiana. The right column under Latour-Maubourg took the route by Guadalcanal, Llerena, and Usagre; it was composed of his own regiments of dragoons from the 1st Corps, and of Girard's infantry division of the 5th Corps, which latter had been cantoned in Llerena since the autumn, and was now picked up and taken forward by the cavalry. The left column, which was accompanied both by Soult and by Mortier, was composed of Briche's light cavalry and Gazan's division of the 5th Corps. It had to escort the slowly moving siege-train of 34 guns, which was drawn by 2,500 draught oxen, requisitioned along with their drivers from the province of Seville. This column took the route Ronquillo, Sta Olalla, Monasterio, which, if less steep and better made than the Llerena-Guadalcanal road, is longer, and passes through an even more desolate and resourceless country. It was intended that the two columns should join at Los Santos or Almendralejo, in the Estremaduran plain, and lay siege at once to Badajoz, the enemy's most formidable stronghold. Its fall, so Soult hoped, would lead to the easy conquest of the minor fortresses.

But the two columns did not meet with equal fortune. That commanded by Latour-Maubourg met practically no resistance in its first stages. On arriving at Usagre on January 3, it found in its front almost the whole of the allied cavalry in Estremadura--Butron with 1,500 Spaniards, Madden with nearly 1,000 Portuguese. But this was merely a screen thrown out to cover the retreat beyond the Guadiana of Mendizabal and the division of Spanish infantry which had been cantoned in this region. That officer had been ordered by his chief, La Romana, to break the bridge of Merida, after retiring over it, and then to attempt to hold the line of the Guadiana. He did neither; precipitately marching on Merida, he passed through it in great haste, but forgot to see that the bridge was duly destroyed, and then retired along the north bank of the Guadiana to Badajoz. Latour-Maubourg, according to his directions, did not cross the river, but halted near Almendralejo, to wait for the other column, which was not forthcoming. Only Soult himself and Briche's light cavalry appeared at Zafra on the 5th, and joined Latour-Maubourg on the 6th of January. Gazan's infantry and the siege-train were far away, and unavailable for many a day. The plans of the left invading column had miscarried. For when its head reached Monasterio, at the summit of the long pass, its tail, the siege-train, was dragging far behind. In the desolate stages about Ronquillo and Sta Olalla it had met with tempestuous rains, as might have been expected at the season. Many of the oxen died, the unwilling Spanish drivers deserted wholesale, and there was much delay and considerable loss of vehicles. The train and its small escort got completely separated from Gazan's infantry. At this moment Soult's cavalry reported to him that a formidable column of hostile infantry was lying a few miles to the west of Monasterio, on the bad cross-road to Calera, and was apparently moving round his flank, either to fall upon the belated convoy or perhaps to make a dash at Seville.

This column was the 5,000 infantry of Ballasteros, who, as it chanced, had begun to march southward at the same moment that Soult had started northward. The Spanish general had just received orders from Cadiz bidding him cut himself loose from the Estremaduran army, and move into the Condado de Niebla, where he was to unite with the local levies under Copons, drive out the weak French detachment there stationed, and threaten Seville from the west if it should be practicable. These orders had been given, of course, before Soult's plan for invading Estremadura was suspected at Cadiz. But though unwise in themselves--it was not the time to deplete Estremadura of troops--they had the effect of bringing Soult's great manoeuvre to a standstill for some weeks. The Marshal determined that he must free his flank from this threatening force before continuing his march, and ordered Mortier to attack Ballasteros without delay. This was done, but the Spaniard, after a running fight of two hours, retired to Fregenal, fifteen miles further west, without suffering any serious harm . He was still in a position to threaten the rear of the convoy, or to slip round the flank of the French column towards Seville. Soult therefore resolved to go on with his cavalry and join Latour-Maubourg, but to drop Gazan's infantry in the passes, with the order to head off Ballasteros at all costs, and to cover the siege-train in its journey across the mountains. Gazan therefore took post at Fuentes de Leon, but soon heard that Ballasteros had moved south again from Fregenal towards the Chanza river, and was apparently trying to get round his flank. Leaving a detachment to help the convoy on its slow and toilsome route, Gazan resolved to pursue the Spanish column and destroy it at all costs. This determination led him into three weeks of desperate mountain-marching and semi-starvation, at the worst season of the year. For Ballasteros, who showed considerable skill in drawing his enemy on, moved ever south and west towards the lower Guadiana, and picked up Copons's levies by the way. He at last turned to fight at Villanueva de los Castillejos on January 24th. Gazan, who had been joined meanwhile by the small French detachment in the Condado de Niebla, brought his enemy to action on the 25th. The Asturian battalions which formed Ballasteros's division made a creditable resistance, and when evicted from their position retired across the Guadiana to Alcoutim in Portugal, without having suffered any overwhelming loss. Gazan therefore resolved to pursue them no further--indeed he had been drawn down into one of the remotest corners of Spain to little profit, and realized that Soult must be brought to a standstill one hundred miles away, for want of the 6,000 infantry who had now been executing their toilsome excursion in the mountains for three weeks.

Certainly not with the loss of 1,500 men as Gazan alleged, still less with that of 3,000 as stated by Napier.

Accordingly, the French general bade Remond, the commander of the Niebla detachment, watch Ballasteros, and himself returned to Estremadura by a most painful march through Puebla de Guzman, El Cerro, Fregenal, and Xeres de los Caballeros. He reported his return to Soult at Valverde on February 3rd. His services had been lost to his chief for a month all but two days, a fact which had the gravest results on the general course of the campaign of Estremadura.

For the Duke of Dalmatia, when he had joined Latour-Maubourg on January 6th, found that he had at his disposition 4,000 cavalry but only the 6,000 infantry of Girard, while the siege-train was still blocked in the passes by Monasterio. With such a force he did not like to beleaguer a place so large and so heavily garrisoned as Badajoz. Accordingly, he was forced to abandon his original intention of forming its siege, and to think of some lesser enterprise, more suited to his strength. After some hesitation, he determined to attack the weak and old-fashioned fortress of Olivenza, the southernmost of all the fortified places on the Spanish-Portuguese frontier. To cover his movement he sent Briche's cavalry to Merida, which they occupied on January 7th, almost without resistance, finding the bridge intact. From thence they sought for Mendizabal on the north side of the Guadiana, and discovered that he had withdrawn to Albuquerque, twenty miles north of Badajoz. Meanwhile Latour-Maubourg with four dragoon regiments took post at Albuera to watch the garrison of Badajoz, while Soult marched with Girard's infantry and one cavalry regiment to attack Olivenza, before whose walls he appeared on January 11th, 1811.

Olivenza ought never to have been defended. For since its cession by Portugal to Spain after Godoy's futile 'War of the Oranges' in 1801, it had been systematically neglected. The breach made by the Spaniards at its siege ten years before had never been properly repaired--only one-third of the masonry had been replaced, and the rest of the gap had been merely stopped with earth. Its one outlying work, a lunette 300 yards only from its southern point, was lying in ruins and unoccupied. The circuit of its walls was about a mile, but there were only eighteen guns to guard them. The garrison down to the 5th of January had consisted of a single battalion left there by La Romana, when he marched for Portugal in October. But Mendizabal, apparently in inexcusable ignorance of the condition of the place, had ordered a whole brigade of his infantry to throw themselves into it when Soult began to press forward. He sacrificed, in fact, 2,400 out of the 6,000 bayonets of his division by bidding them shut themselves up in an utterly untenable fortress. The governor, General Manuel Herck--an old Swiss officer--was ailing and quite incapable; a man of resources might have done something with the heavy garrison placed under his orders, even though the walls were weak and artillery almost non-existent; but Herck disgraced himself.

Soult reports eighteen guns surrendered: but Herck says in his dispatch that only eight were serviceable.

The original garrison was Voluntarios de Navarra, 1,150 bayonets properly belonging to O'Donnell's division, which was at Lisbon with La Romana. The reinforcements thrown in at the last moment were four battalions, 2,400 bayonets, from the regiments Merida, Truxillo, Barbastro, and Monforte--the two former part of the original army of Estremadura, the two latter part of Del Parque's old army from the north.

When Soult arrived in front of Olivenza on January 11th, his engineers informed him that the place, weak as it was, was too strong to take by escalade, but that a very few days of regular battering would suffice to ruin it. Unfortunately for him, there was as yet no heavy artillery at his disposition, but only the divisional batteries of Girard's two brigades; the siege-train was still stuck in the passes. However, the outlying lunette opposite the south front was at once seized, and turned into a battery for four field-guns, which opened their fire on the next day. The old Spanish breach of 1801, obviously ready to fall in on account of its rickety repairs, was visible in the north-west front, the bastion of San Pedro. Opposite this sites for two more batteries were planned, and a first parallel opened. The trench-work went on almost unhindered by the Spaniards, who showed but few guns and shot very badly, but under considerable difficulties from the rainy weather, which was perpetually flooding the lower parts of the lines. But in ten days approaches were pushed right up to the edge of the counterscarp, and mines prepared to blow it in. The siege artillery began to arrive on the 19th, in detachments, and continued to drop in for several days. On the 21st the batteries, being completed, were armed with the first 12-pounders that came up. On the 22nd the fire began, and at once proved most effective: the bastion of San Pedro began to crumble in, and the old breach of 1801 revealed itself, by the falling away of the rammed earth which alone stopped it up. The arrangements for a storm had not yet been commenced when the garrison hoisted the white flag. Mortier refused all negotiations and demanded a surrender at discretion. This the old governor hastened to concede, coming out in person at one of the gates, and putting the place at the disposition of the French without further argument. Soult and Mortier entered next day, and 4,161 Spanish troops marched out and laid down their arms before the 6,000 infantry of Girard, who had formed the sole besieging force. The total loss of the French during the siege was 15 killed and 40 wounded--that of the besieged about 200. The figures are a sufficient evidence of the disgraceful weakness of the defence.

Herck's miserable exculpatory dispatch may be found in Chaby, iv. pp. 200-1.

When one reflects what was done to hold the unfortified town of Saragossa, and the mediaeval enceinte of Gerona, it is impossible not to reflect what a determined governor might have accomplished at Olivenza. The place was short of guns, no doubt--but the enemy was worse off till the last days of the siege, since he had nothing but twelve light field-pieces until the siege-train began to arrive. General Herck made no sorties to disturb the works--though he had a superabundant garrison; he made no serious attempt to retrench the breach, and he surrendered actually ere the first summons had been sent in before the storm. At the worst he might have tried to cut his way out between the French camps, which were scattered far from each other, owing to the extremely small numbers of the besieging army, who only counted three men to the defenders' two. Altogether it was a disgraceful business. The place, no doubt, ought never to have been held; but if held it might at least have been defended--which it practically was not.

Soult was placed in a new difficulty by the surrender of Olivenza. Though his siege-train had begun to come up, he had no news of Gazan, and his infantry was still no more than a single division. He had to spare two battalions to escort the 4,000 prisoners to Seville, and to put another in Olivenza as garrison. This left him only eleven battalions--5,435 bayonets, to continue the campaign, though he had the enormous force of 4,000 cavalry at his disposition, and a siege-train that was growing every day, as more belated pieces came up from the rear. He might probably have waited for Gazan, for whom messages had been vainly sent, if he had not received, on the day that Olivenza fell, one more of Berthier's peremptory letters, dated 22 December, in which he was told to send the 5th Corps to join Mass?na on the Tagus without delay. This letter came at an even more inappropriate moment than usual, as Gazan, with half that corps, was lost to sight in the mountain of the Condado de Niebla, more than a hundred and twenty miles away. But it was clear that something immediate must be done, or the Emperor would be more discontented than before; accordingly Soult resolved to take the very hazardous step of laying siege to Badajoz at once with the small infantry force at his disposition. For this move would undoubtedly provoke alarm at Lisbon, and lead Wellington to send off La Romana's army to succour it, and perhaps some Anglo-Portuguese troops also, so that the mass opposed to Mass?na would be more or less weakened.

The regiment sent back with the prisoners was the 63rd, the one borrowed from Victor: it had not been at the siege, but supporting Latour-Maubourg at Albuera. The garrison left in Olivenza was one battalion of the 64th.

Accordingly on the 26th of January Soult marched against Badajoz, which is only twelve miles north-west of Olivenza, with under 6,000 infantry, ten companies of artillery, and seven of sappers, to invest the southern side of Badajoz, while Latour-Maubourg, with six regiments of cavalry, crossed the Guadiana by a ford, and went to blockade the place on its northern front.

The city of Badajoz is built on an inclined plane, sloping down from the Castle, which stands on a lofty hill with almost precipitous grass slopes, at the north-east end of the place, down to the river on the north and the plain on the south and west. The castle-hill and San Cristobal between them form a sort of gorge, through which the Guadiana, narrowed for a space, forces its way, to broaden out again at the immensely long bridge with its thirty-two arches and 640 yards of roadway. Below the castle the Rivillas, a stagnant brook with hardly any current,--the home of frogs and the hunting-ground of the city storks,--coasts around the walls, and finally dribbles into the river. The front of the place from the river to the castle was composed of eight regular bastions; along the river edge there lies nothing more than a single solid wall without relief or indentations: but this side of the place is wholly inaccessible owing to the water. There are two outlying works, which cover heights so close into the place that it is necessary to hold them, lest the enemy should establish himself too near the enceinte. These are the Picurina lunette beyond the Rivillas, and the much larger Pardaleras fort, a 'half-crown-work,' opposite the south point of the city, which covers a well-marked hill that commands that low-lying part of the place, and is a position impossible to concede to the besieger, since it is only 250 yards from the nearest bastion. It was ill-designed, having a very shallow ditch, and being incompletely closed at its gorge by a mere palisade.

The eight bastions which form the attackable part of the enceinte of Badajoz have a height of about thirty feet from the bottom of the ditch to the rampart, while the curtains between them are somewhat lower, about twenty-two feet only. The ditch was broad, with a good counterscarp in masonry seven feet high; beyond it each bastion was protected in front by a rather low and weak demi-lune.

Except the two nearest the river, San Vincente and San Jos?, which are a little lower.

The garrison, not more than enough for such an extensive place, consisted at the New Year of 4,100 men; but Mendizabal threw in two battalions more before he retired to the borders of Portugal, so that the figure had risen to 5,000 before Soult appeared in front of the walls. The governor was a very distinguished soldier, General Rafael Menacho, who had served through the old French war of 1792-5, and had commanded a regiment at Baylen. He was in the full vigour of middle age and abounding in spirit, resolution, and initiative, as all his movements showed down to the unhappy day of his death.

But despite of the rain February 3 was a day of joy for the French, for on its morning Gazan reported his arrival at Valverde, ten miles away, and at 3 o'clock his division of 6,000 men marched into camp and doubled the force of the besieging army. Their arrival was a piece of cruel ill-luck for the Spaniards, for on that same afternoon, at dusk, Menacho sent out a formidable sortie of 1,500 men--all that he could safely spare from the ramparts--who came out of the river-side gate and stormed the first parallel, driving out the workers and the three companies of their covering party. The Spaniards had already filled up a considerable section of the trench, when they were charged by two battalions of Gazan's newly-arrived troops, and driven out again, before they had finished their task. The serious nature of the attack may be judged from the fact that the French lost 188 killed and wounded--including eight officers--in repelling it. If only one brigade of Girard had been in the Cerro del Viento camps, instead of Gazan's entire division, it is probable that the whole first parallel and the batteries behind it would have been destroyed. While the damage was being repaired, on February 4, Soult began to bombard the town from these batteries, but with no good effect. The result, indeed, was rather to the profit of the Spaniards, for a great portion of the civil population fled at the first sign of bombardment, and escaped by night down the Guadiana bank towards Elvas. The provisions left in their deserted houses added appreciably to Menacho's stores.

Ibid., vii. 165, where a letter to Henry Wellesley fixes the resolve to send off these troops to 'yesterday,' i. e. January 19th.

Viz.

Wellington calls the disease 'spasms of the chest'; the Spanish authorities term it an aneurism.

See vol. i. pp. 371-4.

See vol. iii. pp. 6-7.

Ibid., 40.

See vol. iii. p. 325.

As early as January 28th Soult had directed Latour-Maubourg with four regiments of light cavalry to make a reconnaissance in the direction of the Portuguese frontier, and by this movement had become aware that Mendizabal was at Portalegre, with his own infantry and Butron's cavalry. It was no surprise to the Marshal, therefore, to find, a week later, that a considerable force was pressing in his posts on the north of the Guadiana. The presence of Madden's Portuguese dragoons in the advanced guard showed that the enemy had been reinforced. Latour-Maubourg's cavalry-screen was driven in without much fighting, and the French general retired to Montijo, nine miles up the river . That night Mendizabal's army, nearly 15,000 strong, camped on the heights of San Cristobal, and communicated with Badajoz freely, the blockade being broken so far as the northern bank of the Guadiana was concerned.

Wellington and La Romana, when the return of the Spanish troops from Lisbon to Estremadura was ordered, had settled upon a regular plan of campaign, which had been communicated to Mendizabal. It required some slight modification when the fall of Olivenza became known, and when Soult's intention to besiege Badajoz declared itself. But in its essentials it was well applicable to the situation of affairs upon February 6th. After a solemn warning to the Spanish generals that the Army of Estremadura is 'the last body of troops which their country possesses,' and must not be risked in dangerous operations, the memorandum suggests that an entrenched camp capable of holding the entire army should be prepared on the heights which lie between Campo Mayor and Badajoz, and which end in the high bluff of San Cristobal above the latter town. That if possible an attempt should be made to break the bridges of Medellin and Merida, so as to restrict the French to the southern bank of the Guadiana. That the Regency should be asked to send back Ballasteros's division to join the Army of Estremadura, and that the bridge of boats in store at Badajoz should, if possible, be floated down to Jerumenha, to give the Portuguese garrison of Elvas the power of crossing the Guadiana below Badajoz. The last suggestion was impracticable, because the French, when the dispatch reached Mendizabal, were so close to the river that the bridge could not have been transferred. The other three suggestions were all valuable, but none of them were carried out--least of all the most important of them, that which prescribed the entrenching of the San Cristobal heights, and their occupation by the whole of the Spanish army.

Mendizabal had a plan of his own--he resolved not to fortify himself on the heights beyond the river, as Wellington suggested, but to throw a great part of his infantry into Badajoz, and make with them a grand sortie against the French lines. The bulk of his cavalry remained below San Cristobal, and had a skirmish of evil omen with Latour-Maubourg, who drove them in with ease, and pursued them beyond the Gebora to the foot of the heights. But Madden's Portuguese horse filed into town across the bridge, to join in the sally of the infantry.

At three o'clock on the afternoon of the 7th of February the sortie was made. While Madden's dragoons and a small infantry support threatened the left of the French lines, without closing, a large force composed of all Carlos de Espa?a's 'vanguard division,' with picked battalions from the others, delivered a vigorous--indeed a desperate--assault upon Soult's right, the entrenchments on the hill of San Miguel. There were apparently four columns, each of two battalions, and making 5,000 men: they came out from the Trinidad gate, drew up under the wing of the Picurina lunette, and then marched straight at the French camp. They pierced the line of entrenchments in their first rush, swept away the guard of the trenches, carried the three batteries which were inserted in them, and then became engaged in a fierce fight with Phillipon's brigade of Girard's division, the troops encamped behind this part of the lines. Mortier, who was on the other flank, detecting that the movements in front of him were only a demonstration, promptly sent several battalions eastward to succour the threatened point. These fell upon the Spaniards' flank, and threatened to cut them off from their retreat into the fortress, whereupon Carlos de Espa?a, who was slightly wounded, ordered a retreat, finding that forces equal to his own had now been concentrated against him. His troops suffered severely in fighting their way back into Badajoz--their loss was about 650 men; that of the French, whose front line had been very severely handled, came to about 400. But the besieged could spare the larger number better than the besiegers the smaller, since they had the whole army of succour to draw upon, while Soult had no reserves nearer than Seville. It is hard to see why Mendizabal, if he was resolved upon a sortie, did not double the force engaged in it, as he might easily have done without depleting any part of the enceinte. For, counting the garrison, he had 15,000 infantry--a larger number than the French could dispose of. To send out 5,000 only seems to have been a half-measure, which ensured ultimate failure when the besiegers should have drawn together. The fighting of Carlos de Espa?a's men was most creditable, but there were not enough of them.

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