The Confrontation at Salamanca

by Geoffrey Watson

  No further pursuit was undertaken by the cavalry or the following light infantry. A brigade of light cavalry had arrived to escort the survivors to relative safety. This brigade proclaimed the success of Wellington’s wider strategy. It was the only reinforcement sent by any other French general in Spain. The brigade was a belated contribution from Caffarelli in the north; a generous gesture by a general who had quite enough troubles of his own. Even so, they arrived only in time to cover the withdrawal of beaten units.

  Vere and the German/Portuguese brigade found that only a few prisoners could be secured to the southeast of the bridge at Alba. The main escape route for the French was towards the east or northeast. The two score prisoners that they returned with had been only too anxious to surrender to escape the attentions of guerrilla bands, swarming out of the Sierra de Avila. Anything was better than falling into the hands of guerrilleros with several years of oppression to avenge.

  Although the army of Portugal had been soundly beaten, over thirty thousand men had managed to escape across the river. The commanders of those men would have only one thing on their minds. Losses of arms, equipment and supplies meant that they could not prevail if they stopped and tried to regroup against their pursuers. Their only hope was to run for it and try and find support from either the Army of the North or King Joseph’s Army of the Centre.

  The king’s army was a reserve of ten to fifteen thousand men and was intended mainly as a royal guard and protection for the capital. Put together with the remnants of the Army of Portugal, it still could not match Wellington’s force and would be foolish to try.

  Caffarelli’s Army of the North, only a year ago, was thought to number a hundred thousand men when it had more territory to control. Since then it had given up territory to the Army of Portugal. With it had gone large numbers of soldiers and more had been withdrawn for Napoleon’s Russian adventure. It is probable that fifty thousand could be regarded as a sensible estimate and most of those would be used in garrison duties and fire fighters to quell the growing guerrilla insurgency and Admiral Popham’s raids.

  They remained, however, an army in being that could provide sanctuary for whatever remnants of the Army of Portugal that was able to reach them.

  In Welbeloved’s opinion, that was where Clausel would be taking the remains of his army and his first objective would be to get back over the River Duero, most likely at Valladolid. It was seventy or eighty miles northeast of where they were now, but what was certain was that the allied army would be unable to keep pace with them. No army in Europe could march as quickly as the French when they put their minds to it.

  Welbeloved, Addenbrooke and Quintana rode together. The Hornet Third Battalion was divided into its separate companies, advancing in a line five miles across and gradually diverging as they advanced. The general standard of Quintana’s Spaniards was improving all the time and the Hornets had long ago accepted them as equals, particularly after their exemplary service during the recent battle.

  Don Luis was bursting with pride at the general recognition of his men’s achievements, but was always the first to acknowledge their cadet status to the real Hornets. He was content in the knowledge that his men were the best cavalry and the best skirmishers in Europe, after the Hornets.

  Four of his squadrons were now riding together with the companies of the Avispónes, effectively merged as a unit, although each troop and platoon remained independent. The command structure was such that each Hornet commander was regarded as senior, but as orders were almost always given as ‘suggestions’, there was never any question of sensitive pride having any part of the proceedings.

  Quintana had five squadrons in his battalion and the fifth rode as headquarters escort, much to Welbeloved’s amusement. At the end of each day they would change places with one of the squadrons riding with the Hornets.

  It was a large and substantial body of horse soldiers, probably the equivalent of four regiments of cavalry in any of the armies. Very soon they came upon stragglers, small squads of marching men with occasional walking wounded.

  All of them surrendered and handed over their weapons without demur. All were left to be collected on the way back and every group was given a written statement proclaiming their status as prisoners of the Avispónes. It ought to be adequate. Every guerrilla band knew about the Hornets by now. Even the most brutal ones would hesitate before molesting prisoners with such a laisser passé.

  The second day was half gone before any of the Hornet ‘regiments’ caught up with substantial numbers of marching men. The first group they found was marching along the road to Tordesillas and the River Duero. It was a mixture of light and line infantry; refugees from several different regiments in two columns, each of about two hundred men; accompanied by a squadron of chasseurs à cheval.

  Captain Ramon Hickson was leading his combined regiment, making no effort to conceal the presence of his men, but not hurrying until he could be sure of what the French reaction would be. The infantry and cavalry together numbered over five hundred, almost twice his strength.

  He drew up his regiment in line of troops and platoons, moved himself alongside Captain Ruiz of the Spanish dragoons, and waited.

  The chasseurs were not inclined to challenge his numbers, seeing that he had double their strength, but neither were they going to desert their infantry. They retired behind the hastily formed square and also waited.

  For a mixed bunch of light and heavy infantry from various regiments, the French had made good practice in getting into a double ranked square with fifty pairs of men on each side.

  Hickson turned to Ruiz. “I have seen General Welbeloved negotiate the surrender of a square before now, Alberto. Those chasseurs are a complication though.” He studied the ground on the approach to the square and found it suitable. “I shall take the Avispónes to the ground over there, leaving the horses here. If the chasseurs do nothing, we shall fire on the closest face of the square and your lads can go straight in.

  If the chasseurs can be tempted to fight by seeing us go to ground and are then shown your dragoons only in separate troops and in echelon, we can deal with them and then go and talk to the infantry.”

  Ruiz nodded. “That sounds sensible, Ramon. Your company has many rifles, has it not?”

  “About sixty, Alberto. Enough for what is needed.”

  He blew his whistle and the Hornets dismounted and followed him to a position, two hundred yards from the square and between the chasseurs and Alberto’s men, who had arranged themselves in four troop echelons.

  A lot now depended on whether these chasseurs had come up against the Hornets before. If they had, there was little chance that they would charge through the skirmishers to attack the relatively ineffective-seeming Spanish dragoons, sitting quietly, waiting to be thrashed.

  Even if they hadn’t had that experience, the temptation offered may look too good to be true: always a situation to be treated with the greatest suspicion.

  They hadn’t! They were also desperate to continue their retreat and were being offered an opportunity to smash enemy horsemen and capture invaluable replacement mounts.

  Temptation won. Seconds before Hickson was about to blow the whistle for the assault to start, the chasseurs swept out from behind the square. They were already at the canter and aiming for the waiting troops of horsemen, only four hundred yards distant; a mere twenty seconds at the charge.

  Only recently had the Hornets been getting accustomed to fighting equal numbers of opponents. For the past three years they had almost always had to contend with two or three times their strength.

  Hickson had the luxury of waiting until the chasseurs were inside point blank range, just before they broke into a gallop before impact. He blew his whistle and a single split volley emptied four out of five saddles, leaving less than twenty survivors to turn and flee and the Spanish squadron to trot forward sedately and harvest the riderless mounts. It was a very welcome harvest of remounts after the few inevitable loss
es in the recent battle.

  In ten minutes, the haze of powder smoke had drifted away and all the horses had been rounded up and cleared from the area between the Hornets and the square. Quintana’s men were back in position, waiting in a line of four troops.

  Hickson removed his kerchief and tied it to the barrel of his Ferguson. It was not white, but the same colour as his uniform. Nevertheless, nobody would argue that it was not a request for a parley when he held it up in front of him.

  A major of voltigeurs stepped out of the square as he approached, raising his hand to his hat in response to Hickson’s doffed bonnet.

  “I am Commandant Levoisin, senior officer in command, Monsieur.”

  “And I call myself Captain Hickson, commanding the Spanish companies of what may be known to you as the Frelons Bruns, Monsieur le Commandant.” Hickson’s command of french was not fluent, but he threw in words of spanish and hoped that they would be understandable.

  “Let me not waste time, Monsieur. You have witnessed what has been done to your chasseurs and you have seen a company of Frelons settled two hundred paces away in that direction, well out of range of your weapons.

  This rifle,” he held up his Ferguson, “can kill four men in one minute at four hundred paces.” He was now speaking loudly and he paused to let his words be understood. “In one minute, my men can kill every French soldier here. It shall not be a fight but an execution. If this is not to happen, please instruct your men to pile their weapons here and sit down over there. We are part of the British Naval Division and guarantee the safety of all prisoners.”

  Commandant Levoisin looked shocked, but the matter was out of his hands. The ranks behind had heard what Hickson had said and seen what had happened to the chasseurs.

  A few men left the ranks, threw their muskets on the ground and walked off to sit and wait for the Hornets. The pile of discarded muskets grew and the whole of the ground was covered with seated men.

  Having secured a bloodless surrender, Hickson was at somewhat of a loss to know what to do with them. He got their officers organised to arrange collection and burial parties for the dead chasseurs and primitive medical treatment for those that were only wounded.

  The situation was rescued by Welbeloved. He had heard the shooting that brought about the massacre of the chasseurs and had brought the reserve squadron of dragoons to see what was going on. They took over and allowed the Hickson-Ruiz detachment to continue its advance.

  Several miles to the east was a big, long hill with its extensive summit covered with trees and saplings. A full battalion of line and light infantry was hurrying past it when D Company and its supporting Spanish squadron caught up.

  Captain Dai Evans and Captain Pablo Echevario called an immediate halt, when a regular cavalry regiment would have piled into the rearguard columns before they could have organised themselves.

  Dai had found that pausing to allow them to form square was the easiest way to deal with them, using the superiority of his company’s weapons. His past exertions had ensured that all his men now had the modified, breech-loading Bakers and every one was a practised marksman, trained to Dai’s own high, demanding level.

  In this particular instance, with the advantage of hindsight, it may have been better to go straight in. Perhaps the commander had seen the Hornets in action before, because commands were shouted as soon as they came into sight and the whole battalion turned sharply to the right and rushed up the slope of the hill to give themselves the cover of the treeline, the advantage of the slope and a problem of enormous proportions to anyone hoping to prise them out.

  “Duw! Pablo. That commander must have seen us before, because he is using his head. The treeline up there is almost as good as a battlement. I do not want to think about what it is likely to cost us to get them out of there. Whatever it is, our men are far too valuable to think of mass suicide. We too have to use our heads.

  Shall you send half the men to ride around the hill and check all the ways in and out. I am going to send for help. C Company and more of your dragoons are only a mile to the west and the Condesa with four mortars is riding with General Welbeloved and another of your squadrons. We just have to stop them moving from there until we get a few more brains working on the problem.”

  When Captain Diego Blanco arrived an hour later with C Company of Avispónes and their squadron of Spanish dragoons, Evans had the hill completely surrounded, with one of his platoons covering each quadrant and spread over the slopes, finding cover occasionally within fifty yards of the trees.

  The French had started to try and line the trees with muskets and had learned very quickly that any part of a body not completely hidden, became a casualty and any shako that was visible had a dead body under it.

  This happened around the whole circumference of their stronghold, incurring a penalty of at least fifty casualties. This was increased by twenty or thirty voltigeurs who had thought to stage a quick sortie at a point where several of their comrades had been killed and where the give-away powder smoke lingered particularly close to the trees.

  Welbeloved and the Condesa arrived shortly after C Company. “Just because yew are the best shot in the Hornets, Dai; possibly as good as I am now that I am getting older; there is absolutely no excuse for yew to allow the Frogs to go to ground just to give yorself a greater challenge.”

  Evans had been ribbed by Welbeloved over the years about his special skills. He was even able to deliver a suitable riposte on occasion. “True it is, Sir Joshua, Sir. The great responsibility I am having to bear, I lay entirely at your door and little time it allows me, my perfect marksmanship to maintain. Grateful I am that some of my boyos a great deal of promise are showing in order to keep pristine my reputation.

  Certain I am that the French have heard of D Company and into cover have scampered without so much as kiss my hand.

  About six hundred mixed infantry are in that wood and secure they thought they were until tiny pieces of themselves they showed. Decimated they now are. It must be about one in ten that we have shot.”

  He waved his hand towards them and held it to his ear. “Their lesson they have now learned and few shots can you hear. A week it shall take to get the rest of them, therefore thinking I am that no rain has fallen here for weeks. Dry as tinder it is in that wood and the breeze up there from the southwest blows.”

  He looked straight at Mercedes. “Does the Condesa think that a few of her fireworks dropped in that area may start a fire big enough to embarrass the enemy?”

  Mercedes looked straight back at him. “Why do you not ask the Condesa yourself, Dai Evans? You know it is permitted and she has now known you long enough that she can even understand the strange way that you speak english.”

  Evans blushed. “Sorry I am, My Lady. Do you think some merit is in the suggestion?”

  She borrowed her husband’s telescope and studied the wood. “The idea has merit, Dai. It may be more effective if the shells fall at the edge of the trees where there is still evidence of dry grass that ought to catch fire easily. Shall you warn your men to watch for Frenchmen who may wish to beat it out?”

  Evans glanced at Welbeloved and got a nod in blessing. He hurried off and the Condesa got the four mortars in position within minutes.

  Soon, the edge of the wood had shells exploding every few minutes and the long, dry grass and brushwood in front of the trees was blazing well. The flames were then blown into the wood by the light breeze that soon became a strong wind feeding a furnace.

  Anticipating that the French might try to break out with a fat column, rushing down the slope, Evans recalled all the skirmishers to the base of the hill, from where they could still cover the edge of the wood. At the same time, he had eight troops of Spanish dragoons ready and waiting all round the hill. Any two of these were quite able to converge on any single escape attempt.

  At this stage, with the southern quarter of the wood blazing away merrily and an obvious and deadly cordon covering every possible w
ay out, it may have seemed reasonable to see cloths waved as a preliminary to surrender, but the French were not inclined to oblige.

  Instead, Evans got the breakout attack that he had prepared for. It was not the fat column that he had anticipated, however. It was several ranks of soldiers, almost shoulder to shoulder over the entire side of the hill, hundreds erupting together from the trees and charging straight down the hill.

  Against them were about a hundred Hornets who were in a position to fire into this spread out mass of men, perhaps getting away two shots each before they were trampled under foot and bayoneted by the swarm of very angry infantry following on behind.

  The situation appeared desperate, but the attack had stuttered before it got under way. The Hornets had been shooting at any uniform that showed itself. The French made the mistake of gathering momentarily at the edge of the wood before rushing out. Easily fifty of them fell before they got into their charge and all the Hornets were shooting as quickly as they could before the French could gather momentum.

  Also, Quintana had been waiting and hoping that something might happen that would give him the chance to bring his dragoons into the action. His bugles sounded a fraction of a second after he saw the first Hornet volley and the masses of men rushing out of the wood.

  Using them solely as cavalry, he brought a troop in from either side. They paused briefly to negotiate the skirmish line and crashed into the flanks of the charging French by the time they were only half way down the slope.

  The Hornets concentrated on shooting the centre out of the mass of men while the dragoons played havoc with the men on both flanks. Welbeloved and Evans both joined in and got away three shots each, initially seeking out high ranking officers in the rear, but both of them using their last shot to stop an infantryman who had managed to get within feet of the skirmish line.

  The last one that Evans shot, actually fell on top of one of his men, bringing forth a stream of spanish invective that added to their already extensive vocabulary of swear words.