CHAPTER III. The king goes to Illescas with the fourth corps and reserve-Sir Robert Wilson advances to Escalona-Victor retires to Maqueda-Conduct of the Spaniards at Talavera—Cuesta's cruelty-The allied generals hear of Soult's movement upon Baños-Bassecour's division marches towards that point-The pass of Baños forced-Sir Arthur Wellesley marches against Soult-Proceedings of that marshal-he crosses the Bejar, and arrives at Placencia with three corps d'armée-Cuesta abandons the British hospitals, at Talavera, to the enemy, and retreats upon Oropesa-Dangerous position of the allies-Sir Arthur crosses the Tagus at Arzobispo-The French arrive near that bridge-Cuesta passes the Tagus-Combat of Arzobispo Soult's plans overruled by the king-Ney defeats Sir Robert Wilson at Baños, and returns to France. THE French rested the 29th at Salinas, but in the night, the king marched with the fourth corps and the reserve to St. Olalla, from whence he sent a division to relieve Toledo. The 31st, he halted. The 1st of August he marched to Illescas, a central position, from whence he could interpose between Venegas and the capital. The Duke of Belluno, with the first corps, remained on the Alberche, having orders to fall upon the rear-guard of the allies, when the latter should be forced to retire by Soult's operations. Meantime, Sir Robert Wilson, who during the action was near Cazalegas, returned to Escalona, and Victor displaying an unaccountable dread of this small body, which he supposed to be the precursor of the allied army on that side, immediately retired, first to Maqueda, and then to Santa Cruz del Retamar; he was even proceeding to Mostoles, when a retrograde movement of the allies recalled him to the Alberche. But the British army was so weak, and had suffered so much, that the 29th and 30th were passed, by Sir Arthur, in establishing his hospitals at Talavera, and in fruitless endeavours to procure provisions and the necessary assistance to prevent the wounded men from perishing. Both Cuesta and the inhabitants of Talavera possessed the means, yet would not render the slightest aid, nor would they even assist to bury the dead: the corn secreted in Talavera was sufficient to support the army for a month, yet the starving troops were kept in ignorance of it, although the inhabitants, who had fled across the Tagus with their portable effects, at the beginning of the battle, had now returned. It is not surprising that in such circumstances men should endeavour to save their property, especially provisions; but the apathy with which the Spaniards beheld the wounded men dying for want of aid, and those who were found sinking from hunger, did in nowise answer Mr. Frere's description of them, as men who "looked upon the war in the light of a crusade, and carried it on with all the enthusiasm of such a cause." This conduct left an indelible impression on the minds of the English soldiers. From that period to the end of the war their contempt and dislike of the Spaniards were never effaced; and long afterwards, Badajoz and St. Sebastian suffered for the churlish behaviour of the people of Talavera. The strongest spring of action with the Spaniards was personal rancour; hence those troops who had behaved so ill in action, and the inhabitants, who withheld alike, their sympathy and their aid, from the English soldiers to whose bravery they owed the existence of their town, were busily engaged after the battle, in beating out the brains of the wounded French as they lay upon the field; and they were only checked by the English soldiers, who in some instances fired upon the perpetrators of this horrible iniquity. Cuesta also gave proofs of his ferocious character. He who had shown himself alike devoid of talent and real patriotism, he whose indolence and ignorance of his profession had banished all order and discipline from his army, and whose stupid pride had all but caused its destruction, now assumed the Roman general, and proceeded to decimate the regiments that had fled in the panic on the 27th. Above fifty men he slew in this manner; and if his cruelty, so contrary to reason and the morals of the age, had not been mitigated by the earnest intercession of Sir Arthur Wellesley, more men would have been destroyed in cold blood, by this savage old man, than had fallen in the battle. Hitherto the allied generals had thought little of the Duke of Dalmatia's movements, and their eyes were still fixed on Madrid; but the 30th information was received at Talavera, that twelve thousand rations had been ordered, for the 28th, at Fuente Dueñas, by that marshal, and twenty-four thousand at Los Santos, a town situated between Alba de Tormes and the pass of Baños. Cuesta, conscious of the defenceless state of the latter post, suggested that Sir Robert Wilson should be sent there; but Sir Arthur Wellesley wished Wilson to remain at Escalona, to renew his intercourse with Madrid, and proposed that a Spanish corps should go: indeed, he still slighted the idea of danger from that quarter, and hoped that the result of the battle would suffice to check Soult's march. Cuesta rejected this proposal at the moment, and again, on the 31st, when Sir Arthur renewed his application;* but on the 1st of August it was known that Soult had entered Bejar; and on the 2d, General Bassecour was detached by Cuesta to defend the Puerto de Baños, from which he was absent four long marches, while the enemy had been, on the 31st, within one march. The day that Bassecour marched, intelligence arrived that Soult had entered Placencia. Baños had been abandoned to the enemy without a shot, for the battalions from Bejar had dispersed, and those sent by Cuesta had been withdrawn to Almaraz by their general, the Marquis de la Reyna, who also proclaimed that he would destroy the boat-bridge at that place. This news roused Cuesta, and he proposed that half the allied army should march to the rear and attack Soult; Sir Arthur Wellesley refused to divide the English army, yet offered to go or stay with the whole; and when the other desired him to choose, he answered that he would go, and Cuesta appeared satisfied. On the night of the 2d of August, letters were received from Wilson, announcing the appearance of the French near Nombella, whither he, unconscious of the effect produced by his presence at Escalona, had retreated with his infantry, sending his artillery to St. Roman near Talavera. As Sir Arthur Wellesley could not suppose that Sir Robert Wilson's corps alone would cause the first corps to retire, he naturally concluded that Victor's design was to cross the Alberche at Escalona, crush Wilson, and operate a communication with Soult by the valley of the Tietar. And as such a movement, if persisted in, would necessarily dislodge Cuesta from Talavera, Sir Arthur, before he commenced his * Sir Arthur Wellesley's Correspondence; Parliamentary Papers, 1810 march, obtained the Spanish general's promise that he would collect cars, for the purpose of transporting as many of the English wounded as were in a condition to be moved, from Talavera, to some more suitable place. This promise, like all the others, was shamefully violated; but the British general had not yet learned the full extent of Cuesta's bad faith, and thinking that a few days would suffice to drive back Soult, marched, on the 3d of August, with seventeen thousand men, to Oropesa, intending to unite with Bassecour's division, and to fight Soult, whose force he estimated at fifteen thousand. Meanwhile, that marshal being, by the return of General Foy, on the 24th of July, assured of the king's concurrence in the combined movements to be executed, ordered Laborde, Merle, and La Houssaye, to march from Zamora and Toro upon Salamanca and Ledesma, and to scour the banks of the Tormes. The sixth corps was also directed upon the same place, and the 25th Soult repaired to Salamanca in person, intending to unite the three corps there. Hearing, however, of Victor's retrograde movement from the Alberche to the Guadarama, he desired Marshal Mortier to march on the 28th to Placencia, by Fuente Roble and Bejar, and he placed La Houssaye's and Lorges' dragoons under his command; the remainder of the second corps and the light cavalry were to follow when the sixth corps should be in motion. This done, Soult wrote to the king, saying, “My urgent desire is that your majesty may not fight a general battle before you are certain of the concentration of all my forces near Placencia. The most important results will be obtained, if your majesty will abstain from attacking until the moment when a knowledge of my march causes the enemy to retrace his steps, which he must do, or he is lost."* The 29th, the fifth corps was at Fuente Roble; and information being received that Beresford had reached Almeida with an army on the 27th, the march was covered by strong detachments on the side of Ciudad Rodrigo. The long-expected convoy. of artillery and ammunition for the second corps had, however, arrived in Salamanca the 29th; and Ney wrote, from Toro, that he also would be there the 31st. The 30th, the fifth corps drove the Marquis de la Reyna from the pass of Baños, and took post at Aldea Nueva del Camina and Herbas; the second corps, quitting Salamanca, arrived, the same day, at Siete Carrera. The 31st, the fifth corps entered Placencia; the second corps reached Fuente la Casa, Fuente Roble, San Estavan, and Los Santos. Placencia was full of convalescents, detachments, and non-combatants, and when the French arrived, about two thousand men, including five hundred of the Lusitanian legion, evacuated the town, taking the road to Moraleja and Zarza Mayor; yet four hundred sick men, following the enemy's accounts, were captured, together with a few stores. During these rapid marches, the French were daily harassed by the Spanish peasantry, the villages were deserted, the cavalry wandered far and near to procure subsistence, and several slight skirmishes and some pillage took place. The 1st of August, the second corps passed the Col de Baños, and the head of it entered Placencia, which was, like other places, deserted by the greatest part of the inhabitants. Vague reports that a battle had been fought between the 26th and 29th was the only intelligence that * S.: Journal of Operations, 2d corps, MS. could be procured of the situation of the allies; and on the 2d the advanced guard of the army marched to the Venta de Bazagona, while scouting parties were, at the same time, directed towards Coria, to acquire news of Marshal Beresford, who was now said to be moving along the Portuguese frontier. The 3d of August, the fifth corps and the dragoons passed the Tietar and reached Toril, the outposts being pushed to Cazatejada and Sierra de Requemeda; but the second corps remained at Placencia, awaiting the arrival of the sixth corps, the head of which was now at Baños. Hence, on the 3d of August, the king and Sebastiani being at Illescas and Valdemoro, Victor at Maqueda, Cuesta at Talavera, Sir Arthur Wellesley at Oropesa, and Soult on the Tietar, the narrow valley of the Tagus was crowded in its whole length by the contending troops. The allies held the centre, being only one day's march asunder, but their force when concentrated, was not more than forty-seven thousand men. The French could not unite under three days, but their combined forces exceeded ninety thousand men, of which fifty-three thonsand were under Soult. This singular situation was rendered more remarkable by the ignorance in which all parties were as to the strength and movements of their adversaries. Victor and the king, frightened by Wilson's partisan corps of four thousand men, were preparing to unite at Mostoles, while Cuesta, equally alarmed by Victor, was retiring from Talavera. Sir Arthur Wellesley was supposed, by Joseph, to be at the head of twenty. five thousand British; the former, calculating on Soult's weakness, was marching with twenty-three thousand Spanish and English, to engage fifty-three thousand French; meanwhile Soult, unable to ascertain the exact situation of either friends or enemies, little suspected that the prey was rushing into his jaws. At this moment the fate of the Peninsula hung by a thread, which could not bear the weight for twenty-four hours, yet fortune so ordained that no irreparable disaster ensued. At five o'clock in the evening of the 3d, it was known at the English head-quarters that the French were near Naval Moral, and consequently between the allies and the bridge of Almaraz. At six o'clock, letters from Cuesta advised Sir Arthur, that the king was again advancing, and that, from intercepted despatches addressed to Soult, it appeared that the latter must be stronger than was supposed; wherefore Cuesta said, that wishing to aid the English general, he would quit Talavera that evening: in other words, abandon the British hospitals! To this unexpected communication, Sir Arthur replied, that the king was still some marches off, and that Venegas should be directed to occupy him on the upper Tagus; that Soult's strength was exceedingly overrated, and Victor's movements not decided enough to oblige the Spanish army to quit Talavera; wherefore he required that Cuesta should at least wait until the next morning to cover the evacuation of the English hospitals. But before this communication reached Cuesta, the latter was in march, and at daybreak on the 4th the Spanish army was descried moving in several columns down the valley towards Oropesa; Bassecour's division soon after joined it from Centinello, and at the same time the cavalry patroles found the French near Naval Moral. Sir Arthur Wellesley having by this time seen the intercepted letters himself, became convinced that Soult's force was not overrated at thirty Appendix, No. XXX. § iv. thousand; and the Duke of Dalmatia, who had also intercepted some English letters, learned that, on the 1st of August, the allies were still at Talavera, and ill-informed of his march. Thus the one general perceived his danger and the other his advantage at the same moment. Mortier was immediately ordered, by the Duke of Dalmatia, to take a position with the fifth corps at Cazatejada, to seize the boat-bridge at Almaraz, if it was not destroyed, and to patrole towards Arzobispo; the second corps was likewise directed upon the same place, and the head of the sixth corps entered Placencia. The further progress of the allies was thus barred in front; the Tagus was on their left; impassable mountains on their right; and it was certain that Cuesta's retreat would immediately bring the king and Victor down upon their rear. The peril of this situation was apparent to every soldier in the British ranks, and produced a general inquietude. No man felt the slightest confidence in the Spaniards, and the recollection of the stern conflict at Talavera, aided by a sense of exhaustion from long abstinence, depressed the spirits of men and officers; the army was indeed ready to fight, but all persons felt that it must be for safety, not for glory. In this trying moment, Sir Arthur Wellesley abated nothing of his usual calmness and fortitude. He knew not indeed the full extent of the danger; but assuming the enemy in his front to be thirty thousand men, and Victor to have twenty-five thousand others in his rear, he judged that to continue the offensive would be rash, because he must fight and beat those two marshals separately within three days, which with starving and tired troops, inferior in number, was scarcely to be accomplished. To remain where he was on the defensive was equally unpromising, because the road from Talavera to Arzobispo led through Calera, in the rear of Oropesa, and thus Victor could intercept the only line of retreat; a battle must then be fought in an unfavourable position, against the united forces of the enemy, estimated, as we have seen, to be above fifty thousand men. One resource remained. To pass the bridge of Arzobispo immediately, and take up a line of defence behind the Tagus, before the French could seize the Col de Mirabete, and so cut off the road to Truxillo and Merida—a hard alternative; but the long-cherished error relative to Soult's weakness had dried up the springs of success, and left the campaign like a withered stem, without fruit or foliage. Cuesta doggedly opposed this project, asserting that Oropesa was a position suitable for a battle, and that he would fight there. Further concession to his humours would have been folly, and Sir Arthur sternly declared that he would move forthwith, leaving the Spanish general to do that which should seem meet to him; and assuredly this decided conduct saved the Peninsula, for not fifty, but ninety thousand enemies were at hand. It was now six o'clock in the morning, the baggage and ammunition were already in motion for the bridge of Arzobispo; but the army which had been re-enforced by a troop of horse-artillery and some convalescents that escaped from Placencia, remained in position for several hours, to cover the passage of stores and wounded men who had just arrived from Talavera at Calera and in the most pitiable condition. About noon the road was clear, the columns marched to the bridge, and at two o'clock on the 4th, the whole army was in position at the other side, the immediate danger was averted, and the combinations of the enemy were baffled. During the passage, several herds of swine which, following the custom of the country, had been feeding in the woods under charge |