Years of Victory 1802 - 1812

by Arthur Bryant

  Though the Highland charge was finally held on the west of the village by a French counter-attack,, and firing continued among the tumbled houses and gardens till after midnight, Fuentes remained in British hands. By the end of the day Massena had lost 652 men, including 160 prisoners, to Wellington's 259 casualties without having achieved anything. Next morning in beautiful weather, the two armies faced one another across the river, but the attack was not resumed. After a little mild cannonading, both sides occupied themselves in collecting their wounded, with the usual spontaneous outbreak of fraternising. The French then fell to parading, marching and band-playing in order to impress the British, and the British, characteristically, to playing football.

  Meanwhile both Generals were engaged in more serious business. Massena, as after Bussaco, was probing to the left with his cavalry to discover whether there was a way round the British flank. Wellington, knowing that there was and anticipating the move, was extending his right to meet it. The newly-arrived 7th Division, consisting of 900 untried British infantry, 2200 Portuguese and 1500 foreign auxiliaries,2 was moved towards Pozo Bello, a village in the plain two miles beyond Fuentes. There was danger in tin's, for it offered scope to the French cavalry, but there was no other way in which Wellington could both cover Almeida and prevent Massena from cutting his communications across the Coa. The troops who in happier circumstances would have extended his right beyond his adversary reach—as at Bussaco—were far away in the Guadiana valley, trying to recover Badajoz.

  As soon as darkness fell Massena began to move his men southwards towards Pozo Bello and the woods beyond. His plan was to turn the right of the allied line with three infantry divisions and

  1 Journal of a Soldier, 107. 2 Oman, IV, 620.

  four brigades of cavalry—some 17,000 bayonets and 4000 sabres in all. Then, at the critical moment, when the British were rushing reserves to their threatened flank, three more divisions under General Drouet of the 9th Corps were to renew the frontal attack on Fuentes, and, in conjunction with the sweep from the south, break the back of Wellington's line. Meanwhile Reynier's 2nd Corps, by a demonstration across the Dos Casas, was to prevent the British 5th and 6th Divisions from moving to the aid of their engulfed right and centre.

  The test began at dawn when the French cavalry emerged from the woods beyond Pozo Bello and fell on the small force of British and Hanoverian horse guarding the extreme right of the army. The latter, displaying great coolness and gallantry, fell slowly back on the village, where the French infantry joined in the attack about an hour after daylight. Here two isolated battalions of Major-General Houston's 7th Division were severely mauled and forced to retreat on their main body to the north-west. They were only saved by the self-sacrifice of a regiment of German Hussars which repeatedly showed front and charged. By this time Massena's intention was clear. His horsemen were ranging over the. open plain south of Fuentes with the obvious intention of cutting off the 7th Division, while dense columns of infantry were emerging from the woods beyond the captured village of Pozo Bello.

  Wellington, who always seemed to see clearest in a crisis, at once altered his dispositions. Realising from the numbers deploying against his right that nothing very formidable was to be feared on his original front, he moved the 3rd and ist Divisions southwards to form a new line at right angles' to the old, pivoting it on the rocky hillside about Fuentes de Onoro. By doing so he temporarily sacrificed his communications with Portugal, but their retention was no longer compatible with the blockade of Almeida. Seeing war as an option of difficulties, he yielded the lesser object for the greater. For so long as he held the heights between Fuentes and the Coa, the French would still be unable to relieve Almeida without storming his lines. Nor could they remain astride his communications for long without exposing their own to his counter-attack. And not even a French army could exist in those wasted mountains without supplies.

  At the same time Wellington ordered the 7th Division to fall back to the right of his new position. To prevent the French from cutting it off he moved the Light Division down on to the plain. By a happy chance Craufurd had arrived from England on the previous evening, and the light infantry, delighted to be rid of Erskine's galling rule, were in the highest spirits.1 They set out on their mission with complete confidence in their ability to cope with Montbrun's cavalry. By brilliant mancevring and steady, deadly fire, they closed the gap between the army and their imperilled comrades, enabling the latter to continue their withdrawal without molestation. They then started, with the help of Cotton's cavalry, to fall back to the British lines.

  The full weight of the French attack now turned on them. Robbed of their expected prey, four brigades of cavalry closed in on the Light Division and its four attendant regiments of British dragoons and German hussars.2 With more than a mile to cover, Craufurd's 2900 British and 900 Portuguese seemed doomed. But though Montbrun's splendid horsemen, "trampling, bounding, shouting for the word to charge," worked themselves into a frenzy of excitement,3 riding at times almost up to the British bayonets, they made no impression on those cool customers, the riflemen. Instead of breaking, as so many Spanish and European armies had done when charged on the open plain, the Light Division moved with the precision of a field-day slowly and steadily back in a line of bristling battalion squares, while Cotton's cavalry,, retiring by alternate squadrons, repeatedly charged and so immobilised the French guns. Between the marching squares Major Bull's troop of horse artillery kept unlimbering and opening up at the French cavalry. It was a magnificent professional spectacle, enacted before the admiring gaze of both armies. William Napier, who was present, drew it many years later for posterity. "There was not during the war," he wrote, "a more dangerous hour for England."

  Yet the Light Division reached the rocky ground between Fuentes and Frenada with the loss of only sixty-seven men. Very few were killed and none taken prisoner. The cavalry suffered most, 157 falling out of 1400. At one moment two guns under Captain Norman Ramsay, lingering too long to keep the French at bay, were cut off by a horde of cuirassiers. " A thick dust arose," wrote Napier, " and loud cries and the sparkling of blades and flashing of pistols indicated some extraordinary occurrence. Suddenly the multitude became violently agitated, an English shout pealed high and clear, the mass was rent asunder and Norman Ramsay burst

  1 No one was more pleased than the Portuguese Cacadores. The moment Craufurd appeared, they began shouting, to the hilarious joy of the Rifles, "Long live General Craufurd who takes care of our bellies!"—Costello, 79. See also Smith, I, 49.

  2The 1st Dragoons (The Royals), the 14th and 16th Light Dragoons, and the 1st Hussars of the King's German Legion.

  3 According to Sir Walter Scott's notes to The Vision of Don Roderick, brandy was distributed among the troopers, those who fell into British hands being almost all intoxicated.

  forth, sword in hand, at the head of his battery,, his horses breathing fire, stretched like greyhounds along the plain, the guns bounded behind them like things of no weight, and the mounted gunners followed close, with heads bent low and pointed weapons, in desperate career." Simultaneously a squadron of the 14th Light Dragoons and another of the Royals bore down to the rescue. A few minutes later, as the last of the light infantry were nearing the shelter, of the rocks, an incident revealed the extent of the peril through winch they had passed. Three companies of the 3rd Foot Guards, extended on the slope in front of the army, failed to form square at the approach of the French cavalry and were crumpled up in a minute. Nearly half of them were cut down or taken prisoner, including their commanding officer.

  The three-mile withdrawal from Pozo Bello was over, and the French wheeling from the south were now faced like their comrades in the east with a solid box of guns and muskets strongly entrenched on rocky ground. Attention now veered to Fuentes de Onoro where a fierce battle was raging immediately in front of the angle in the new British line. Breaking into the village two hours after daybreak, 5000 infantry of the French 6th Corps a
nd three battalions of picked Grenadiers from the 9th gradually forced back the 71st and 79th Highlanders through the barricaded streets and stone-walled gardens. But, though losing more than a third of their number, including their leader, Colonel Cameron, the Highlanders contested every inch of the way. Reinforced by the 24th and the light companies of the ist and 3rd Divisions, they still clung to the church and graveyard and the upper part of the village.

  About midday, with the flanking movement held up in front of Wellington's new line, Massena threw the greater part of Drouet's 9th Corps into the village. Charging across the Dos Casas and up the narrow, corpse-heaped streets, two divisions reached the church and the highest houses in an irresistible torrent of shouting, cheering manhood. The survivors of the Highlanders were forced on to the open hillside, where they continued firing sullenly at the dense columns forming between them and the village. Behind them at the top of the hill stood Mackinnon's Reserve Brigade of the 3rd Division, composed of the 45th, 74th and 88th Foot. At that moment Edward Pakenham, the Deputy Adjutant-General, galloped up to Colonel Wallace of the 88th, who was intently watching the combat. "Do you see that, Wallace," he said. "I do," replied the Colonel grimly, "and I would sooner drive the French out than cover a retreat across the Coa." On Pakenham's observing that he supposed the Commander-in-Chief could not think the village tenable, Wallace passionately protested his regiment's ability to take it and keep it too. Whereupon Pakenham rode off to consult Wellington.1

  A few minutes later he returned. "He says you may go—come along!" On this the whole of Mackinnon's brigade moved down the hill to the attack, led by the Rangers in column of sections with fixed bayonets. As they drew level with the torn and blackened Highlanders, the latter gave them a cheer, but the Connaughts passed on in grim silence. When they came in sight of the French 9th Regiment drawn up outside the church, Captain Grattan, at the head of the leading company, turned to look at his men. At which, he recorded, "they gave me a cheer that a lapse of many years has not made me forget."2 Then the whole martial concourse—Irish, Scottish and English—went forward after the 88th in a surge that swept the. huddled columns away with it. Crowded together in the narrow streets the French were powerless to resist. By two o'clock the whole village down to the riverside was clear of the enemy.

  Massena made no further attempt to recapture Fuentes or to assault Wellington's flank. He had had enough. Two thousand two hundred of his men had fallen, or three casualties to every two of the allies.3 For the next two days he paraded his army in front of the British trenches with much beating of drums and flaunting of colours. But it made no impression on the stolid islanders, who merely congratulated themselves on having withstood the attack of such fine-looking fellows. On May 8th the French, growing hungry, began to withdraw eastwards; on the 10th they recrossed the Agueda and retired to Salamanca. On the strength of their having driven in Wellington's flank for three miles, the Paris newspapers claimed a victory. But as Wellington's sole object in fighting had been to prevent their relieving Almeida, which remained unrelieved, the victory seemed clearly his.

  Yet he made no vaunt, of his success. It had been far too uncomfortable and near-run an affair to linger over with satisfaction. "If Boney had been there," he told his brother, "we should have been beaten." He might have added, however, that, had Boney been there, he would not have fought at such odds. In his letters home he dwelt more on the price that had been paid for victory than on victory itself. "I hope you will derive some consolation," he wrote to Major-General Cameron on the death of his son, "from the reflection that he fell in the performance of his duty at the head of your

  1 Grattan, 67.

  2 Grattan, 68. See also Journal of a Soldier, 110-12; Oman, IV, 330-5; Fortescue, 168-75; Schaumann, 303-4. Oman, IV, 340.

  brave regiment, loved and respected by all that knew him." To the Government, appealing for subscriptions for the homeless villagers, he observed in his usual laconic style that the village of Fuentes de Onoro, having been the field of battle, had not been much improved by the circumstances. His chief concern seemed to be to impress on the country the strength of his adversary and the magnitude of the task ahead. If he was to swing the tide of war from the defensive to the offensive, he knew he would need every man and pound that could be spared.

  For though the band of the 52nd marched off the burning and vulture-ridden plain playing the ' British Grenadiers '—" a little like dunghill cock-crowing," noted Charles Napier, "but the men like it" —and though the count of British dead was less than two hundred and fifty, no one knew better than Wellington the toll the summer's campaign was likely to take of his little army. Already scores of wounded were dying in the crowded, gangrenous hospitals; Captain Grattan of the 88th saw two hundred soldiers lying in an open farmyard waiting for the surgeons to amputate.1 And because, under his cold, undemonstrative exterior, he was aware that the cost of a Peninsula battle only began on the battlefield, Wellington grudged anything that diminished, by however little, the gains which had to be purchased at so dear a price. Of all the great captains, none ever husbanded his men so frugally or counted their triumphs more carefully.

  The aftermath of Fuentes de Onoro tried his parsimonious temper high. Five days after the battle, when General Brennier's starving men in Almeida were at their last gasp, the negligence of two senior British officers allowed them to escape in the night. 900 out of 1300 got through to the defile of Barba del Puerco and ultimately to Massena's lines, after destroying the fortifications. Such carelessness caused Wellington to write bitterly that there was nothing on earth so stupid as a gallant officer.2 "I am obliged," he complained, "to be everywhere and, if absent from any operation, something goes wrong."

  With the north secured, he now turned his attention again to Badajoz. Aware that Soult would make every effort to relieve the fortress, he gave orders for the 3rd and 7th Divisions to march for the Guadiana and reinforce Beresford. They set out on May 14th, leaving 29,000 men to guard the Coa. Wellington followed next day, passing them on the way. But before he could reach Elvas, he learnt that he was too late. Beresford, hearing that Soult was hastening

  1 Grattan, 71, 75-8; Simmons, 171; Schaumann. Supplementary Dispatches, VII, 566.

  northwards, had raised the siege and placed himself in his way at Albuera. A great and bloody battle had been fought there on the 16th.

  Beresford's efforts to reduce Badajoz had not been happy. His tools for doing so had been inadequate, and they had been concentrated—on Wellington's faulty orders—against the wrong objects. The investment had begun on May 5th—the day of battle at Fuentes de Onoro—and the trenches were opened on the 8th. But nothing went right; the antiquated cannon from Elvas did more damage to themselves than to the ramparts, and the inexperienced sappers and working-parties in the trenches suffered severely both from foe and weather. Instead of concentrating, as Soult had done, on the weaker and easier objectives, they endeavoured to throw their siege-works round the Castle and the great fort of San Cristobal on the north bank of the river. These were wholly beyond their means. They had made little impression when on May 12th it became known that Soult was marching north across the Sierra Morena and was already at Santa Ollala, scarcely eighty miles away. Next day reports of his progress became so alarming that Beresford decided to call off the siege and ordered the immediate return of the battering guns to Elvas. By the night of the 13th he was on his way to meet the French Marshal at Albuera.

  Beresford's decision to fight south of the Guadiana was based partly on reports of Soult's numbers, partly on the strength of the Spanish forces which he could call on. Three Spanish armies, amounting in all to 15,000 men, were operating in southern Estremadura, They included two divisions under Blake from the garrison of Cadiz—freed from danger by Graham's victory at Barrosa—which had recently landed at the mouth of the Guadiana and joined Ballesteros at Xeres de los Caballeros, twenty miles south of Albuera. As at Wellington's instance Castanos, the Spanish Commander-in-Chief, had pl
aced himself in the most commendable way under Beresford's command, the latter was able to order the immediate concentration of 37,000 men, including 10,000 British and 12,000 Portuguese.

  Soult's strength had been reported to him as 23,000. Actually it was slightly higher. Its size had given the Marshal much anxious thought; anything larger, he feared, would reduce his garrisons in Andalusia below safety-point, and anything less would be too small to relieve Badajoz. His calculations, however, had been based on the usual French assumption that the allied forces were weaker than they were. The Revolutionary faith that impassable obstacles could