Science And Human Values

Science and Human Values was originally a lecture by Jacob Bronowski

at MIT in 1953. Published five years later, it opens unforgettably
with Bronowski's description of Nagasaki in 1945: 'a bare waste of
ashes', making him acutely aware of

Author: Jacob Bronowski

ISBN: 9780571281251
Category: Philosophy & Social Aspects
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.
[191] D’Urban to Wilson, and Trant to Wilson, after two unfortunate incidents in
1812, when the militia had been more or less under arms for two whole years.
The former are in D’Urban’s, the latter in Wilson’s correspondence.

[192] Dumouriez, State of Portugal, page 22. There was, however, one notable
combat at Villa Pouca in the Tras-os-Montes where a whole Spanish column of
3,000 men was defeated by the Ordenança.

[193] Unlike the many French writers who content themselves with denouncing
Wellington’s inhumanity, Pelet (Masséna’s chief confidant) confesses that the
English general’s plan was perfectly logical. In his Aperçu de la Campagne de
Portugal, he writes, ‘On a critiqué sans raison son système de guerre. Il était à
peu près infaillible contre un ennemi inférieur en nombre. Mais peu de généraux
oseront “sauver un pays” d’une telle manière.’

[194] Continuation of Vertot’s History of Portugal, ii. 51.

[195] Dumouriez’s State of Portugal, p. 21, n.

[196] For these officers and their duties see vol. ii. pp. 221-2.

[197] Wellington to Beresford, Vizeu, Feb. 28, 1810, long before the actual
invasion.

[198] D’Urban says in his diary (Dec. 8, 1809): ‘Inspected Peniche. The isthmus
over which the peninsula is approached is covered with water at high tide, and
from the line of works describing a sort of arc, very powerful cross-fires may be
established upon every part of it. There are nearly 100 good guns upon the work,
the brass ones especially good. This is the most favourable position that can he
conceived for embarking the British army, should it ever be necessary to do so.
The circumference abounds with creeks and clefts in the rocks, inside which there
is always smooth water, and easy egress for boats. They are out of the reach of
fire from the mainland: indeed, there is sufficient room to encamp a large force
perfectly beyond the range of the enemy. If it should be thought worth while, this
peninsula could be held by England, even if Portugal otherwise were in the power
of the enemy. There is abundance of water. If it be the wish of Lord Wellington he
can retire upon Lisbon, give battle in front of it, and, if the day go against him,
retreat upon Peniche and defend it so long as he pleases.’

[199] D’Urban has a long disquisition on Abrantes in his diary. Its weak points,
he says, were an outlying hill on the Punhete road, which gave a favourable
position for hostile batteries, and the friable nature of the gravelly soil, which did
not bind well in trenches and outworks.
[200] For these views of Aug. and Sept. 1809, see vol. ii. p. 610.

[201] Wellington to Lord Liverpool, Dispatches, vi. p. 435.

[202] A man of whom all Portuguese writers speak with respect; even Napier
notes him (ii. 386) as ‘a man of talent and discretion.’ But Wellington seems to
have disliked him. ‘The admission of Dr. Raymundo Nogueira to the Regency, and
the reasons of his admission, were truly ludicrous ... his appointment is to be
agreeable to the lower orders—from among whom he is selected!’ (Wellington to
Charles Stuart, Celorico, Aug. 4, 1810.)

[203] ‘Faites-moi connaître la marche que vous faites faire aux 66e, 82e, 26e,
etc., etc.: lorsque j’entrerai en Espagne cela me pourra faire une force de 18,000
hommes.’ Napoleon to Clarke, Schönbrunn, July 18.

[204] Napoleon to Clarke, Schönbrunn, Sept. 7.

[205] Napoleon to Clarke, memoranda for King Joseph, Oct. 3, 1809.

[206] Same to same, Oct. 7, 1809.

[207] Napoleon to Berthier, Nov. 28.

[208] Napoleon to Clarke, Dec. 5. Minute for the Privy Council dated Dec. 15, in
the Correspondance.

[209] The civil ceremony took place on the first, the religious on the second of
these two days.

[210] Napoleon to Berthier, Paris, Feb. 12.

[211] On Feb. 16: see Napoleon to King Joseph, Paris, Feb. 23.

[212] Napoleon to Clarke, April 22, 1810. Not in the Correspondance, but given
at length by Ducasse in his Memoirs of King Joseph, vii. 275.

[213] Note that the 4th Corps had left behind in Madrid 6,000 men of its 1st
division (the 28th Léger, 32nd and 75th Line) and taken on instead 8,000 men of
the division Dessolles, properly forming part of the ‘Army of the Centre.’

[214] Loison’s division of the 6th Corps received these stray battalions, which
were united to those of the same regiments which had crossed the Pyrenees with
him. They consisted of a battalion each of the Légion du Midi, of the Légion
Hanovrienne, the 26th, 66th, 82nd of the line, and the 32nd Léger.
[215] All these figures are inclusive of men sick and detached, the former about
16,000, the latter 44,000.

[216] Junot’s original corps was reinforced by the 22nd of the line (4 batts.)
drawn from the Prussian fortresses, and by some units which had hitherto been
doing garrison duty in Navarrese and Biscayan fortresses, where they were now
replaced by the Young Guard. Among these were the Irish Brigade (2 batts.) and
the Prussian regiment which had formed the original garrison of Pampeluna.

[217] For details of this corps and its services see the monograph, La
Gendarmerie en Espagne et Portugal, by E. Martin, Paris, 1898.

[218] Nine battalions as follows: Two of Nassau, the others from Gotha, Weimar,
Altenburg, Waldeck, Reuss, Schwarzburg, Anhalt, and Lippe; strength about
6,000 men.

[219] The 4th battalions ultimately retained in Junot’s corps did not for the most
part belong to regiments of the Spanish army, but to regiments in Germany or the
colonies. They are over and above the 66 fourth battalions accounted for in the
list above. For details of the whole set of reinforcements see Tables in Appendix.

[220] Over and above the ordinary death-rate for French troops quartered in
Spain, which was very high, we have to allow for the losses at Tamames, Ocaña,
the conquest of Andalusia, the sieges of Astorga, Gerona, Ciudad Rodrigo, and
Almeida, and all smaller engagements.

[221] This division had charge of the Provinces of Leon, Zamora, and
Salamanca, which were not a ‘military government.’

[222] Roughly, on May 15, 2nd Corps 20,000 men, 6th ditto 35,000, 8th ditto
26,000, Cavalry reserve 5,000, effectives present under arms, besides the sick,
who made up about 12,000 more, and some 6,000 men detached. See Tables in
Appendix.

[223] The Emperor once confiscated 3,000,000 francs which Masséna had
collected by selling licences to trade with the English at Leghorn and other Italian
ports. See the Memoirs of General Lamarque, who carried out the seizure.

[224] See Thiébault, iv. 375; Marbot, ii. 380-1; Duchesse d’Abrantes, viii. 50. All
these may be called scandal-mongers, but the lady’s presence, and the troubles
to which it gave rise, are chronicled by more serious authorities.

[225] See Foy’s complaints on p. 114 of his Vie Militaire (ed. Girod de L’Ain) as to
the way in which the Marshal suspected him of undermining his favour with the
Emperor.

[226] See Lord Stanhope’s Conversations with the Duke of Wellington, p. 20.

[227] This comes from an eye-witness with no grudge against Masséna, Hulot,
commanding the artillery of the 8th Corps. See his Mémoires, p. 303.

[228] Foy, p. 101. The Emperor, a notoriously bad shot, lodged some pellets in
the Marshal’s left eye while letting fly at a pheasant. Napoleon turned round and
accused his faithful Berthier of having fired the shot: the Prince of Neuchâtel was
courtier enough to take the blame without a word, and in official histories
appears as the culprit (see e. g. Amic’s Masséna, p. 272); for other notes see
Guingret, p. 250. What is most astonishing is that Masséna was complaisant
enough to affect to blame Berthier for the disaster.

[229] See the admirable summary of all this in Foy’s diary (Girod de L’Ain), p.
101. Marbot gives the same views at bottom, but with his usual exaggeration,
and with ‘illustrative anecdotes,’ occasionally of doubtful accuracy.

[230] Note Pelet’s Aperçu sur la Campagne de Portugal, nearly forty pages in the
Appendix to Victoires et Conquêtes, vol. xxi: for his disputes with Baron Fririon
see the Spectateur Militaire for 1841. Pelet says, ignoring the chief of the staff
entirely, ‘qu’il était investi de la confiance absolue du maréchal: qu’il faisait seul
auprès de lui tout le travail militaire et politique, qu’il dirigeait la haute
correspondance avec le major-général (Berthier) et les chefs de corps, etc., etc.’
For Fririon’s comparative impotence see a story on p. 387 of Marbot’s vol. ii,
which may or may not be true—probably the former.
Pelet’s writings give a poor impression of his brain-power and his love of exact
truth. He says, for example, in his Aperçu that Masséna had only 40,000 men in
his army of invasion, when it is certain that he had 64,000. See Baron Fririon’s
remarks on him in Spectateur Militaire, June 1841, pp. 1-5.

[231] Napoleon to Clarke, Oct. 30, 1809.

[232] See for example Jan. 20, 1810, to Berthier; Jan. 31, to same; Feb. 12, to
same.

[233] Correspondance, vol. xx, Napoleon to Berthier, Feb. 12, 1810.

[234] Soult had given up the 2nd Corps when he became King Joseph’s Major-
General: Reynier, appointed to command it, had not yet appeared.

[235] ‘Il faut prévoir que les Anglais peuvent marcher sur Talavera pour faire
diversion,’ wrote Napoleon on Jan. 31 to Berthier. But Heudelet had been moved
before his caution could reach Madrid.

[236] Hill’s division, two brigades strong at Talavera in August, had received a
third brigade in September under Catlin Craufurd, consisting of the 2/28th,
2/34th, and 2/39th.

[237] Composed of the 2nd, 4th, 10th, and 14th regiments, each two battalions
strong, with 4,500 bayonets.

[238] 1st and 4th Portuguese cavalry.

[239] He had 7,094 men with the colours, besides sick and detached, by the
imperial muster rolls of Jan. 15, 1810.

[240] I cannot understand Napier’s narrative of this little campaign, on pages

352-4 of his vol. ii. It runs as follows, and seems to have no relation to the facts
detailed by Belmas, Toreno, Arteche, or any other historian. No mention is made
of the four captures of Oviedo!
‘Mahy was organizing a second army at Lugo and in the Asturias. D’Arco [Arce]
commanded 7,000 men, 3,000 of whom were posted at Cornellana under General
Ponte.... Bonnet, from the Asturias, threatened Galicia by the Concija d’Ibas:
having destroyed Ponte’s force at Potes de la Sierra [30 miles from Colombres,
where the actual fight took place], he menaced Galicia by the pass of Nava de
Suarna [a place which his vanguard did not approach by a matter of 40 miles]....
But he did not pass Nava de Suarna, and General D’Arco rallied the Asturian
fugitives at Louarca. It seems probable that while Bonnet drew the attention of
the Galician army towards Lugo [he was never within 100 miles of that place],
Junot thought to penetrate by Puebla Senabria. But finally Junot, drawing a
reinforcement from Bonnet, invested Astorga with 10,000 infantry,’ &c. [No troops
from Bonnet’s force ever appeared before Astorga.]
This last blunder is apparently borrowed from Victoires et Conquêtes, xx. 12,
which states that General Bonnet detached Jeannin’s brigade, the 46th and 65th,
to Astorga. But these regiments did not belong to Bonnet, but were, from the first
to the last, parts of Junot’s own corps, and never entered the Asturias. Compare
Napoleon, Correspondance, xx. 21, the muster rolls of Jan. 1, Feb. 15, and
Belmas, iii. p. 46.

[241] Napoleon to Berthier, Jan. 11, 1810.

[242] See p. 76.

[243] For the letters of Loison to Santocildes and the reply of the Spanish
brigadier, see the correspondence in Belmas, iii. pp. 53-6.
[244] Loison to Berthier, Feb. 16, from La Baneza.

[245] For notes as to the cause and execution of this abortive movement, see
the diary of Ney’s aide de camp, Sprünglin, pages 402-3.

[246] Wellington to Craufurd, Feb. 16. Compare similar remarks in Wellington to

Beresford, from Vizeu, Feb. 21, 1810.

[247] Even the 8th Corps had to leave guns behind at Bayonne for want of
horses, Belmas, ii. 13.

[248] There are good narratives in the autobiographies of Noël and Hulot of the
artillery, beside the excellent account in Belmas, vol. iii.

[249] Only consisting of four 24-pounders, one 16-pounder, four 12-pounders,

eight 6-inch howitzers, and one 6-inch mortar. See Belmas, iii. 28.

[250] ‘Les Espagnols rispostèrent avec vivacité; on s’étonnait d’autant plus que,
le parapet étant en pierres sèches, chaque boulet qui le frappait en faisait jaillir
de nombreux éclats.’ Belmas, iii. 34.

[251] Two officers and forty-nine men killed, ten officers and ninety-nine men
wounded, according to his official report to the Junta, in which all details are duly
given.

[252] See the figures in Junot’s dispatch, given on pages 66-7 of Belmas, vol. iii.

[253] Napoleon to Berthier, May 29, 1810.

[254] Serras’ division consisted of the 113th Line, a Tuscan regiment originally
employed in Catalonia, which had been so cut up in 1809 that it had been sent
back to refill its cadres; also of the 4th of the Vistula (two battalions), a Polish
regiment raised in 1810, with four provisional battalions, and three stray
battalions belonging to regiments in the South, which had not been allowed to go
on to join Soult [4th battalions of the 32nd and 58th Line and of 12th Léger]: his
total strength was 8,000 men.

[255] See the curious dispatch no. 16651, of July 14, directing Suchet to be
ready to send half his corps to Valladolid after he should have taken Tortosa.

[256] The head quarters of the 43rd during January and February were at
Valverde, above the Coa, those of the 52nd at Pinhel, those of the 95th at Villa
Torpim.
[257] On Craufurd’s complaint that the 2nd Caçadores were badly commanded
and too full of boys. He repeatedly asked for, and ultimately obtained, the 3rd
battalion in place of the 2nd, because of his confidence in Elder.

[258] Note especially Wellington’s explanatory dispatch to Craufurd of March 8,

where he even goes so far as to give his subordinate a free hand as to the choice
of his line: ‘You must be a better judge of the details of this question than I can
be, and I wish you to consider them, in order to be able to carry the plan into
execution when I shall send it to you.’ In another letter Wellington writes:
‘Nothing can be of greater advantage to me than to have the benefit of your
opinion on any subject.’

[259] ‘I intend that the divisions of Generals Cole and Picton should support you
on the Coa, without waiting for orders from me, if it should be necessary, and
they shall be directed accordingly.’ 8th March, from Vizeu.

[260] It should not be forgotten that Picton, no less than Craufurd, was at this
time living down an old disaster. But Picton’s misfortune had not been military. It
was the celebrated case of Rex v. Picton. He had been tried for permitting the use
of torture to extract evidence against criminals while governor of the newly
conquered island of Trinidad, and convicted, though Spanish law (which was still
in force in Trinidad) apparently permitted of the practice. After this Picton was a
marked man. The story of Luisa Calderon, the quadroon girl who had been
tortured by ‘picketing,’ had been appearing intermittently in the columns of every
Whig paper for more than three years.

[261] His elder brother, Sir Charles Craufurd, was Deputy-Adjutant-General, and
M.P. for Retford. Windham, the Secretary for War, was his devoted friend.

[262] Though senior in the date of his first commission to nearly all the officers
of the Peninsular army, Craufurd was six years junior to Picton, and one year
junior to Hope. Graham, much his senior in age, had only entered the army in
1793.

[263] Such as Shaw-Kennedy, William Campbell, Kincaid, and Lord Seaton.

[264] For Craufurd’s life and personality see his biography by his grandson the
Rev. Alex. Craufurd, London, 1890. The most vivid picture of him is in Rifleman
Harris’s chronicle of the Corunna retreat, a wonderful piece of narrative by a
writer from the ranks, who admired his general despite of all his severity, and
acknowledges that his methods were necessary. Though Napier as a historian is
on the whole fairly just to his old commander, whose achievements were bound
up indissolubly with the glories of the Light Division, as a man he disliked
Craufurd: in one of his hooks which I possess (Delagrave’s Campagne de
Portugal) he has written in the margin several bitter personal remarks about him,
very unlike the language employed in his history. The unpublished Journal of
Colonel McLeod of the 43rd is (as Mr. Alex. Craufurd informs me) written in the
same spirit. So is Charles Napier’s Diary.

[265] As an Appendix to Lord F. Fitz-Clarence’s Manual of Outpost Duties.

[266] One of the most curious points in Shaw-Kennedy’s Diary [p. 218] is that
from the reports of deserters Craufurd succeeded in reconstructing the exact
composition of Ney’s corps, in brigades and battalions, with a final error of only
one battalion and 2,000 men too few.

[267] Shaw-Kennedy, Diary, pp. 142 and 147.

[268] Herrasti’s report gives 1st of Majorca 706 officers and men, Avila and
Segovia militia 857 and 317 respectively, three battalions of volunteers of Ciudad
Rodrigo 2,242, Urban guard 750, artillery 375, sappers 60; total, with some
details added, 5,510, not including Sanchez’s Partida. See Belmas, iii. 314.

[269] See Sprünglin’s Journal, p. 417.

[270] May 2, to Craufurd.

[271] On June 1 Craufurd calculated the troops in front of Ciudad Rodrigo, by

counting regiments and battalions, at over 25,000 men. There were really 30,000,
and the under-estimate came from allowing only 550 men to a battalion, while
they really averaged 650. About the same time Craufurd estimated the parts of
Junot’s corps in the neighbourhood to be 13,000 men: they were really nearly
17,000. The cause of error was the same. See Shaw-Kennedy’s Diary, pages 190-
5. The estimates are corrected, on fuller information, early in July, see ibid., p.
220.

[272] To Charles Stuart, June 8, and to Hill, June 9.

[273] This movement, unchronicled elsewhere, appears in D’Urban’s diary, April

26. ‘The Portuguese ordered to the front, consisting of two brigades of artillery,
4th and 6th Caçadores, 1st and 16th (Pack), 7th and 19th (Coleman), 6th and
18th (Alex. Campbell), 11th and 23rd (Collins), 9th and 21st (Harvey) of the Line.
They all go into march on the 28th, and will arrive by successive brigades at
Celorico in four days.’

[274] At this moment the total force of the allied army was:—

1st Division (all British) 6,000 bayonets.

 3rd Division British 2,500 with Harvey’s Portuguese 1,800
4th Division British 4,000 with Collins’s Portuguese 2,500
Light Division British 2,500 with 2 Caçador Batts. 1,000
Pack’s, Campbell’s, and Coleman’s Portuguese brigades 8,000
Cavalry (British) 2,100 Portuguese 700
Artillery (British) 1,000 Portuguese 600
18,100 14,600

[275] Dispatches, vi. p. 172.

[276] D’Urban, for example, wrote in his journal on June 18 that he took the
daring step of suggesting a surprise attack on Ney to the General. No notice was
taken of his suggestion.

[277] Picton summed up the situation in a letter to a friend [see Robinson’s Life
of Picton, i. 273] very clearly: ‘If we attempt to relieve the place the French will
drive us out of Portugal: while if they get possession of it, they will lose time,
which is more important to them than Ciudad Rodrigo. But they have got to find
this out.’

[278] A slight under-estimate, as it would seem, for with La Carrera’s force the
whole would have been 36,000 sabres and bayonets. Of the 3,000 cavalry 700
were Portuguese and 300 Spaniards.

[279] Wellington to Henry Wellesley, June 20.

[280] Wellington to Craufurd, June 24.

[281] Wellington to Hill, July 9.

[282] These were Napoleon’s dispatches nos. 16,505, 16,519-20, and 16,504, as
is shown by the excellent analysis of them given by D’Urban in his diary. He read
them over with Beresford on July 1. No. 16,519 was very valuable, as giving the
exact strength of the 2nd, 6th, and 8th Corps—the first absolutely certain analysis
of them that Wellington obtained.

[283] These were the 3/1st, 1/9th, 2/38th, which arrived at Lisbon April 1-8.
Leith’s division was formally constituted only on July 15, but really existed since
June.

[284] See the Emperor’s dispatches to Berthier of May 27 and May 29.

[285] Masséna came up from Salamanca this day to inspect the bombardment,
and made (as was his wont) a rather mendacious report thereon to the Emperor,
declaring that the French loss had been 12 killed and 41 wounded, whereas it had
exceeded 100 [see Belmas, iii. p. 233], and that the defence of the place was
seriously impaired—which it was not as yet.

[286] Belmas, iii. 245, July 2.

[287] See Shaw-Kennedy’s Diary, pp. 208-9 and 211.

[288] Belmas, iii. 250. For the conduct of the Hussars see Beamish’s German
Legion, i. pp. 274-6. Martinien’s lists show that the 1st French dragoons lost one,
the 2nd three, and the 4th one officer on this day.

[289] See the criticisms in Belmas, iii. 259. Compare the views of the
artilleryman Hulot, pages 306-9 of his autobiography.

[290] Viz. three squadrons of the 14th, one (Krauchenberg’s) of the 1st Hussars
K.G.L., and two of the 16th. The other two squadrons of the hussars, and the 4th
squadron of the 14th, were holding the outpost line to right and left.

[291] It is certain that both charged, and both were beaten off. But the
regimental diarists of the two regiments each mention only the repulse of the
squadron from the other corps. See Tompkinson (of the 16th), Diary, p. 31, and
Von Linsingen’s letter (from the 1st Hussars), printed in Beamish, i. 279-80.

[292] Von Grüben’s squadron of the K.G.L. Hussars, and the fourth squadron of
the 14th Light Dragoons, neither of which formed part of Craufurd’s little
expedition. The former had been watching Villa de Ciervo, the latter was on
outpost duty.

[293] Charles Napier in his diary [Life, i. p. 132] and Tomkinson [p. 31] accuse
Craufurd of reckless haste. Harry Smith, in his autobiography [i. p. 22], holds that
the Rifles could have got up in time to force the square to surrender. Leach [p.
142] makes much the same comment. All these were eye-witnesses. Yet it would
have taken some time to bring up the guns or the infantry, and the French were
near broken ground, over which they might have escaped, if not immediately
assailed. See also Craufurd’s Life by his grandson, pp. 114-16.

[294] Among these officers was General Stewart, the adjutant-general, see
Wellington to Craufurd, from Alverca, July 23, a very interesting letter,
commented on in the Life of Craufurd, pp. 117-20.

[295] Hulot (p. 36) says that he met the square retiring, and noticed that
numbers of the bayonets and gun-barrels had been cut and bent by the blows of
the English dragoons, as they tried to force their way in. See Masséna’s dispatch
to Berthier of Aug. 10, in Belmas’s Pièces Justificatives.

[296] Wellington to Craufurd from Alverca, July 16.

[297] Wellington to Craufurd from Alverca, July 22, 8 p.m.

[298] The 43rd on the left, the two Caçador battalions in the centre, the 52nd
on the right, while the Rifles were partly dispersed along the front, partly with the
43rd.

[299] Simmons’s Journal of a British Rifleman, p. 77.

[300] Of this, O’Hare’s Company of the 1/95th, sixty-seven strong, an officer and
eleven men were killed or wounded and forty-five were taken prisoners.

[301] Leach’s Reminiscences, pp. 149-50.

[302] The Chasseurs de la Siège formed of picked marksmen from all the
regiments of the 6th Corps.

[303] That Ney himself was the person responsible for this mad adventure
seems proved by the journal of Sprünglin, who writes ‘À midi je reçus de M. le
Maréchal lui-même l’ordre d’emporter à tout prix le pont de la Coa, d’où deux
compagnies de Grenadiers venaient d’être repoussés. J’avais 300 hommes; je
formai mon bataillon en colonne et abordai les Anglais à la baïonnette, et au cri
de Vive l’Empereur. Le pont fut emporté, mais j’eus 4 officiers et 86 soldats tués,
et 3 officiers et 144 soldats blessés. Le 25 le bataillon, étant détruit, fut dissous.’
That the bridge was ‘emporté’ in any other sense than that a score or so of
survivors got to the other side, and then returned, is of course untrue. Sprünglin,
p. 439.

[304] For an interesting description of this incident, see George Napier’s

autobiography, p. 131.

[305] Thirty-six killed, 189 wounded, 83 missing. See Tables in Appendix.

[306] Martinien’s invaluable lists show 7 officers killed and 17 wounded, which at
the normal rate of 22 men per officer, exactly corresponds to the actual loss of
117 killed and 410 wounded (Koch, vii. 118).

[307] It is a curious fact that in the draft of Masséna’s dispatch in the Archives
du Ministère de la Guerre, we actually catch him in the act of falsifying returns.
There is first written ‘Nous leur avons pris 100 hommes et deux pièces de canon.
Notre perte a été de près de 500 hommes tant tués que blessés.’ Then the figures
100 are scratched out and above is inserted ‘un drapeau et 400 hommes,’ while
for the French loss 500 is scratched out and 300 inserted. Ney, whose dispatch
was lying before Masséna, had honestly written that Craufurd ‘a été chassé de sa
position avec une perte considérable de tués et de blessés, nous lui avons fait en
outre une centaine de prisonniers.’ Ney reported also a loss of about 500 men,
which Masséna deliberately cut down to 300. Belmas (iii. 379) has replaced the
genuine figures in his reprint of Masséna’s dispatch, though both the draft in the
Archives and the original publication in the Moniteur give the falsifications.
Masséna says nought of the check at the bridge, though Ney honestly wrote ‘au
delà du Coa, une réserve qu’il avait lui permis de se reconnaître, et il continue sa
retraite sur Pinhel la nuit du 24.’ As to the guns captured, it was perfectly true
that some cannon were taken that day, but not in fighting, nor from Craufurd.
The governor of Almeida was mounting two small guns (4-pounders) on a
windmill some way outside the glacis. They had not been got up to their position,
but were lying below—removed from their carriages, in order to be slung up more
easily on to the roof. The mill was abandoned when Ney came up, and the
dismounted cannon fell into his hands. He said not a word of them, any more
than he did of the imaginary flag alleged by Masséna to have been captured. But
the Prince of Essling brought in both, to please the imperial palate, which yearned
for British flags and guns. His dispatch, published some weeks later in the
Moniteur, came into Craufurd’s hands in November, and provoked him to write a
vindication of his conduct, and a contradiction of ‘the false assertions contained in
Marshal Masséna’s report of an action which was not only highly honourable to
the Light Division, but positively terminated in its favour, notwithstanding the
extraordinary disparity of numbers. For a corps of 4,000 men performed, in the
face of an army of 24,000, one of the most difficult operations of war,—a retreat
from a broken and extensive position over one narrow defile, and defended
during the whole day the first defensible position that was to be found in the
neighbourhood of the place where the action commenced.’ For the whole letter
see Alex. Craufurd’s Life of Craufurd, pp. 140-1.

[308] See the letter to Craufurd in the Dispatches, dated July 26 and 27. His
letter to Lord Liverpool of July 25 offers, indeed, excuses for Craufurd. But in that
to Henry Wellesley of July 27, and still more in that to his relative Pole of July 31,
he expresses vexation. ‘I had positively forbidden the foolish affairs in which
Craufurd involved his outposts, ... and repeated my injunction that he should not
engage in an affair on the right of the river.... You will say in this case, “Why not
accuse Craufurd?” I answer, “Because if I am to be hanged for it, I cannot accuse
a man who I believe has meant well, and whose error was one of judgement, not
of intention.”’

[309] See Craufurd’s Life, pp. 149-50.

[310] This interview was denied by Robinson in his Life of Picton (i. 294) on the
mere allegation of some of Picton’s staff that they had not heard of it, or been
present at it. But the evidence of William Campbell, Craufurd’s brigade-major,
brought forward by Napier at Robinson’s challenge, is conclusive. See Napier, vi.
pp. 418-19, for the ‘fiery looks and violent rejoinders’ witnessed by Campbell.
Picton had been specially ordered to support Craufurd if necessary. See
Wellington Dispatches, v. pp. 535 and 547.

[311] This came from the extreme hardness of the soil, which induced the
builders of the 18th-century enceinte to put less earth into the glacis than was
needed, since it had to be scraped up and carried from a great distance, owing to
the fact that the coating of soil all around is so thin above the rock.

[312] Wellington to Hill, Alverca, July 27, ‘There is not the smallest appearance
of the enemy’s intending to attack Almeida, and I conclude that as soon as they
have got together their force, they will make a dash at us, and endeavour to
make our retreat as difficult as possible.’

[313] For details of this combat see Foy’s observations on p. 97 of his Vie
Militaire, ed. Girod de L’Ain.

[314] For a narrative of these obscure campaigns see Schaller’s Souvenirs d’un
officier Fribourgeois, pp. 29-37.

[315] See ibid., pp. 32-3.

[316] For a narrative of these interesting but obscure movements, see

Schepeler, iii. 596-9. It is impossible to give a full account of them here, but
necessary to mention them, to show the Sisyphean character of Bonnet’s task.

[317] This version of the cause of the disaster is given by Soriano da Luz (iii. 73)
from the mouth of an artillery officer (one José Moreira) who had it from the only
man in the castle-yard who escaped. This soldier, seeing the train fired, jumped
into an oven-hole which lay behind him, and chanced not to be killed.

[318] Sprünglin’s Journal, pp. 444-5.

[319] There is a good account of this interview in Sprünglin’s Journal, p. 445,

the diarist having accompanied Pelet into the town.

[320] The First Portuguese Legion, which served against Austria in 1809, was
composed of the troops drafted out of the Peninsula by Junot in 1808 during his
domination at Lisbon.
[321] D’Urban’s diary reports that 450 men and 18 officers of the 24th of the
Line came in between the 2nd and 4th of September to Silveira’s outposts; a still
larger number reached Wellington’s.

[322] D’Urban has most gloomy remarks on the subject in his diary, under the
date Aug. 30.

[323] To Chas. Stuart, from Celorico, Aug. 31.

[324] To Chas. Stuart, from Celorico, Sept. 11.

[325] Wellington to Masséna, Sept. 24. ‘Votre excellence s’est engagée que les
officiers et les soldats de la milice retourneraient chez eux: malgré cet
engagement vous en avez retenu 7 officiers et 200 soldats de chaque régiment,
pour en faire un corps de pionniers. La capitulation d’Almeida est donc nulle, et je
suis en droit d’en faire ce que je voudrais. Mais je puis vous assurer qu’il n’y a pas
un seul soldat de la milice qui était en Almeida au service.’

[326] For details of all this, including the curious terms of the Portuguese
sentence for high treason, see Soriano da Luz, iii. 80-109, and 719-22. The
attempts to exculpate Barreiros seem inadequate. Da Costa was shot, not for
treason, but for cowardice and mutiny.

[327] See Wellington to Hill of Aug. 31, Sept. 1, Sept. 4, Sept. 6. The
Commander-in-Chief was much worried by a false rumour that Reynier was
already in force at Sabugal on Aug. 31, and then by an equally false one that the
whole 2nd Corps had marched south towards the Tagus, and was about to cross
it near Alcantara (see the letter to La Romana of Sept. 6). As a matter of fact,
Reynier made no definite move from Zarza till Sept. 10, though he had made
feints, in both the directions indicated, with small forces.

[328] That this possibility was in Wellington’s mind is shown by the letter to La
Romana of Sept. 6, from Gouvea, in which he writes, ‘Vous aurez appris les
mouvements du corps de Regnier de la part du Général Hill. Ou l’ennemi va faire
le mouvement sur notre droite (dont je vous ai écrit) ou il va faire le siège de
Badajoz. On dit que du canon a passé d’Almeida à Sabugal, et de là vers Regnier,
mais je ne sais pas si c’est vrai, ou si c’est du canon de siège.... Vous savez ce
qu’il faut faire si on se met entre nous deux, en passant le Tage à Villa Velha, ou
au-dessous de la jonction.’

[329] Suchet in his Mémoires (i. 77) says that in Jan. 1810 his corps was only
20,000 strong. But the imperial muster-rolls show that it had 23,000 présents
sous les armes, besides 1,819 men in hospital and 973 detached, in that month.
[330] See p. 123 of this volume.

[331] See p. 222.

[332] See p. 200.

[333] Whether the Conde de Pozoblanco and the other persons executed were
really traitors is very doubtful. Napier takes them as such (ii. 303), Suchet denies
it (p. 100); Schepeler says (iii. 627) that proclamations of King Joseph and
treasonable letters were found in the Count’s house. Toreno (ii. 124) remains
doubtful, but points out that Caro and Pozoblanco were old enemies, and thinks
that, at any rate, there was personal spite in the matter.

[334] Dated from Compiègne on April 9 and April 20. See Correspondance, xx.
284 and 299.

[335] In January, Verdier’s French and Westphalian divisions could only show
6,000 men in line and 7,000 in hospital. Muster roll of Jan. 15 in the Archives
Nationaux.

[336] The text of this bloodthirsty document may be found in Belmas, i. 429.
There are details of its execution in Barckhausen, who mentions that several
priests were among the victims.

[337] See pp. 62, 63 of this volume.

[338] Duhesme, or the friend writing under his name, gives himself most
handsome and unconvincing testimonials in the narrative printed in 1823, as part
of the Mémoires sur la Guerre d’Espagne. They contrast strangely with Arteche’s
quotations from Barcelonese local writers.

[339] Napoleon to Clarke, Compiègne, April 24, 1810.

[340] 1st Léger (three batts.), 42nd Ligne (three batts.), 93rd Ligne (one batt.),
and 7th Ligne (one batt.). Meanwhile the other battalion of the 7th Ligne and that
of the 3rd Léger were holding back the miqueletes. The cavalry were the 24th
Dragoons, 3rd Provisional Chasseurs (soon afterwards rechristened the 29th
Chasseurs), and half the Italian ‘Dragoons of Napoleon.’

[341] This regiment had been formed on the ‘cadre’ of the old Swiss regiment of
Beschard, by means of deserters from the German and Italian troops of the
French Army of Catalonia.

[342] Martinien’s lists show 29 officers killed and wounded, which, at the usual
rate, presupposes about 600 or 700 casualties. Napier, Schepeler, and Arteche all
three state the French loss at 1,000 or 1,200—evidently too high.

[343] Correspondance, 16411. From Compiègne, 24 April, 1810.

[344] Severoli’s division alone numbered 6,900 foot and 900 horse, at the
moment.

[345] Napoleon to Clarke, Feb. 19, from Paris. Cf. another dispatch of Feb. 26,
no. 16294 of the Correspondance.

[346] See vol. i. pp. 309-11.

[347] The Lippe-Bückeburg officer Barckhausen says in his diary that only 20
officers and 620 men were lost. But Martinien’s lists show 30 officers of the
Nassau, ducal Saxon, and Anhalt-Lippe regiments killed or wounded at or near
Manresa on the 2nd-5th of April.

[348] For details of Villatte’s expedition see Vacani, iv. 140-1.

[349] According to Spanish accounts this included much ill-gotten property

belonging to the Marshal himself, and other superior officers. Ferrer (see Arteche,
viii. 203) declares that Augereau carried off all the furniture of the Royal Palace.

[350] For a defence of the Marshal on these lines, see Victoires et Conquêtes,
vol. xx. pp. 52-3.

[351] About 56,000 in all, but 10,000 were in hospital or detached.

[352] One battalion of Iliberia (or 1st of Granada) and one tercio of levies from
the province of Gerona: total strength about 1,200 bayonets.

[353] See Correspondance, 16411, Napoleon to Clarke, of April 24, and 16500,
same to same of May 23.

[354] It was with a detachment of this column that Severoli’s flanking party
under Villatte got into communication on April 4, as detailed above, page 296.

[355] For his strength at this moment, see the table which he gives in his
Mémoires, vol. i, Appendix 4. His figures cannot always be trusted: for instance,
purporting in this table to give his whole force, present at Lerida or detached in
Aragon, he omits the six squadrons of gendarmerie which were guarding his rear
[37 officers, 1,121 men] and the four battalions of Chasseurs des Montagnes,
who were garrisoning Jaca, Venasque, &c. [about 2,000 men].
[356] Suchet says that he took 5,600 prisoners, a figure that appears quite
impossible, as Schepeler rightly remarks (iii. 649). Ibarrola’s division had only
4,000 bayonets, and of that of Pirez only the one Swiss battalion was seriously
engaged. Moreover, Ibarrola’s division was not absolutely exterminated, for
O’Donnell on April 26 issued an order of the day, in which he thanks the division
for its courage, and praises the battalions which kept their ranks and re-formed
behind those of Pirez, ‘returning in good order to occupy the position (Juneda),
from which they had started at dawn.’ See the document, printed in Arteche’s
Appendix, no. 12 of vol. viii. I should doubt if 2,000 prisoners were not nearer the
mark than 5,600.

[357] Figures probably correct. Martinien’s lists show one officer killed and two
wounded; of the latter, one was the cavalry general Boussard.

[358] One or two cases can also be quoted from the European Middle Ages.

[359] Suchet, Mémoires, i. pp. 147-8.

[360] Napier, ii. 322.

[361] Napoleon to Berthier, Correspondance, May 29, 1810.

[362] To please the Catalans, who hated the idea of long service, the enlistment
in the Legions was made for two years only, and the men were to be entitled to
fifteen days’ leave during each half-year of service.

[363] Though not always. See the case of the revenue from the quicksilver
mines, in Correspondance, no. 17,076.

[364] Cf. ibid., July 10, to Soult.

[365] There was desperate quarrelling with Madrid when Soult tried to get hold
of the port-revenues—small as these were, owing to the English blockade—and
when he tried to nominate consuls on his own authority. See Ducasse’s
Correspondance du Roi Joseph, vol. vii. p. 337.

[366] 3rd and 4th Chasseurs à Cheval, both present at Albuera and other fights
in Estremadura in 1810-12. They seem to have gone to pieces on the evacuation
of Andalusia in the autumn of 1812.

[367] Cazadores de Jaen, Francos de Montaña, &c. There was a company of this
sort in Badajoz when it was taken in 1812. The Spanish government shot the
officers after trial by court martial.
[368] Cf. Observations by his aide-de-camp St. Chamans, in his Memoirs, pp.
203-5, as to the Marshal’s administration. It may serve as an example of the
liberal way in which the superior officers were allowed to draw in money, that
Soult gave his ex-aide-de-camp 1,500 francs a month, when he was commanding
in the town of Carmona, besides his pay and free food and quarters. It is small
wonder that he and other governors began, as he said, ‘à trancher du grand
seigneur.’ Cf. Arteche, viii. 109, for Spanish views on Soult’s administration.

[369] There is a good account of the desperate life of the garrison of Matagorda
during the bombardment in the Eventful Life of a Scottish Soldier, by Sergeant
Donaldson of the 94th.

[370] See the letter of Charles Vaughan deploring the ‘beastly necessity of firing
into the poor devils’ quoted by Napier in his Appendix, vol. ii. p. 482. For a
narrative by one of the escaping French officers see the Mémoires of Colonel
Chalbrand.

[371] Nothing can be more distressing reading than the chronicles of the
Cabrera prisoners, Ducor, Guillemard, Gille and others. Actual cannibalism is said
to have occurred during the longest of the spells of fasting caused by the non-
arrival of provisions. [See Gille, p. 240.]

[372] See pp. 213-14 of this volume and p. 246.

[373] See pp. 215-16 of this volume.

[374] See Wellington Dispatches, v. p. 292, &c., and Stanhope’s Conversations

with the Duke of Wellington, pp. 10 and 23.

[375] For strange and scandalous details of Sebastiani’s doings in Murcia, see
Schepeler, iii. pp. 566-7.

[376] Martinien’s lists show that the 40th regiment of Girard’s division lost four
officers at Albondonates, and the 64th the same number at Grazalema—so the
skirmishes must have been fairly vigorous.

[377] That Lacy’s force was not so entirely destroyed as Napier implies is shown
by the fact that many of the same regiments could be utilized for the subsequent
expedition to the Condado de Niebla.

[378] For illustrative anecdotes of warfare in the Serrania de Ronda, see the
autobiography of Rocca of the 2nd Hussars, who was busy in this region in the
spring and summer of 1810.

[379] See pp. 246-7 of this volume.

[380] Not marked in any contemporary map that I have seen. It is situated,
however, opposite the junction of the River Almonte with the Tagus, about
eighteen miles above Alcantara, near the ancient ruined bridge of Mantible.

[381] Which had just rejoined him from the north, after the fall of Ciudad
Rodrigo. See p. 253.

[382] See Wellington, Dispatches, vi. p. 343. ‘I am a little anxious about

Mortier’s movement into Estremadura, not on account of the progress he can
make, but because I think that the Marquis de la Romana is inclined to fight a
battle. If we could only avoid a disaster for some time, I hope we may do some
good at last.’ Cf. also vi. pp. 348 and 393.

[383] The brigade consisted of three squadrons each of the 5th and 8th
regiments, and two of the 3rd. Beresford’s report to Wellington speaks of their
behaviour in the highest terms. See Soriano da Luz, vol. iii. pp. 66-7.

[384] Dissatisfied with all his cavalry officers, La Romana had removed La
Carrera to the command of the horse, making over his old infantry division to
Carlos d’España.

[385] The 4th Corps was now a little stronger than it had been in the spring, the
32nd regiment, 2,000 strong, having joined from Madrid. But it was still short of
its German division, which now lay in La Mancha, but had never crossed the
Sierra Morena.

[386] See p. 328 of this chapter.

[387] Lord Blayney, a humorous person save when the absurdities of his own
generalship were in question, wrote an interesting narrative of his ‘Forced Journey
to France,’ which contains one of the best accounts of the state of Madrid under
King Joseph’s government, as well as some curious notes on the state of the
English prisoners at Verdun in 1811-13.

[388] From the 32nd and 58th Line, Rey’s brigade of Sebastiani’s corps. The
88th, in Victoires et Conquêtes, xx. 127, and Arteche is a misprint. That regiment
was with Girard in the Sierra Morena, 150 miles away.

[389] The 8th Corps had in its ranks the 4th battalions of the following
regiments whose first three battalions were in the south of Spain, and belonged
to the 1st, 4th, or 5th corps—the 28th, 34th, and 75th. But the 9th Corps was
almost entirely composed of 4th battalions of the corps of Victor, Sebastiani, and
Mortier, including those of the 8th, 24th, 45th, 54th, 63rd, 94th, 95th, 96th Line,
and 16th and 27th Léger, of the 1st corps, and of the 17th Léger, and 40th, 88th,
100th and 103rd Line of the 5th Corps.

[390] 28th and 75th, the remaining brigade of the 1st Division of the 4th Corps,
which never joined Sebastiani in Andalusia.

[391] 26th Chasseurs and 3rd Dutch Hussars.

[392] 17th, 18th, 19th, and 27th Dragoons, only two squadrons each—only
1,300 men.

[393] As a sample of their behaviour it may be mentioned that the whole guard
of the south gate of Toledo once marched off to join the insurgents, officers and
all.

[394] Wellington to Masséna, Sept. 9 and Sept. 24.

[395] Masséna to Wellington, Sept. 14, from Fort Concepcion (Archives du

Ministère de la Guerre).

[396] In the Archives du Ministère de la Guerre, see Appendix to this vol.

[397] For details see the Tables in the Appendix. All the troops left behind have
been rigidly deducted. The figures given by Fririon, 59,806, are not quite exact,
see proofs in Appendix: he makes some troops enter Portugal which were left as
garrisons, and on the other hand omits whole battalions which marched, as if
they had never existed.

[398] The troops left behind were the fifth battalion of the 82nd, the fourth
battalions of the 15th and 86th, and a provisional battalion of convalescents, or
about 2,000 infantry; a squadron of the 3rd Dragoons (157 men), the whole of
the 10th Dragoons (718 men) under Gardanne, and some 800 men belonging to
the siege-train and park.

[399] To Cotton and to Leith, both dated Sept. 17.

[400] For a most interesting article on these maps, and all that they show, see
Mr. T. J. Andrews’s article in the English Historical Review for 1901. The maps,
captured at Vittoria, are now in the Library of Queen’s College, Belfast.

[401] Mémoires of Col. Noël, pp. 112-13.

[402] A lively account of this affair may be found in Marbot, ii. 378; details may
not be all trustworthy, but the general narrative agrees with Trant’s report,
printed in Soriano da Luz, vol. vii, Appendix.
[403] Report of Lambert, Intendant-General, dated Vizeu, Sept. 23.

[404] Wellington to Lord Liverpool, from Lorvão, Sept. 20.

[405] Indeed, an exploring party under Captain Somers Cocks, of the 16th Light
Dragoons, had dogged the steps of the detachment, and counted every battalion.
See Tomkinson’s Diary, pp. 39-40.

[406] Wellington to Charles Stuart, Sept. 18.

[407] Wellington to Lord Liverpool, Sept. 20.

[408] Ibid., Sept. 20.

[409] Wellington to Stapleton Cotton, Sept. 21.

[410] See the orders in the Archives du Ministère de la Guerre.

[411] It is this interchange of troops which makes all the figures of the Army of
Portugal so divergent. Fririon, for example, ignores it, as do most French
statisticians. But see Masséna’s orders (14), and the ‘situations’ in the Archives of
Sept. 14 and Sept. 27 respectively.

[412] According to Napier (iii. 22-3) Craufurd risked his division somewhat in
their skirmish. But this criticism is not made by D’Urban, Leach, and other eye-
witnesses.

[413] The Light Division had been first divided into brigades on Aug. 8, when
the 1st was constituted of the 43rd, four companies of the 95th, and the 1st
Caçadores, under Beckwith: the 2nd of the 52nd, four companies of the 95th, and
the 3rd Caçadores, under Barclay. See Atkinson’s lists of the Peninsular Army in
the Eng. Hist. Rev.

[414] There are two monuments: this simple weather-beaten obelisk on the
culminating height where the 1st Division stood, a point where no fighting took
place, and the modern column lower down and close to the high-road, behind the
spot where Craufurd fought. Here the Portuguese to this day maintain a small
military post, and hoist a flag to do honour to the victory.

[415] Which makes astounding Fririon’s statement that it was only three-
quarters of a league long (p. 46).

[416] Archibald Campbell’s and Fonseca’s brigades, forming Hamilton’s

Portuguese Division, which was attached to the British 2nd Division throughout
the war, and shared with it the triumphs of Albuera, Vittoria, and St. Pierre.
[417] This is the feature which Napier, somewhat hyperbolically, describes as ‘a
chasm so profound that the naked eye could hardly distinguish the movement of
troops in the bottom, yet so narrow in parts that 12-pounders could range across
(iii. 21).’ It does not, as he says, separate the Serra de Bussaco from the last
ridge in front of it, that which the French held, as it only lay in front of Craufurd
and Pack. There is no chasm between Spencer’s, Picton’s, Leith’s, or Hill’s position
and the French knolls.

[418] See the letter quoted on page 358.

[419] See Marbot, ii. p. 384—if that lively writer may be trusted.

[420] See Foy’s account of his interview with the Emperor in his Vie Militaire, p.
108.

[421] This unpublished document from the Archives du Ministère de la Guerre

seems to have escaped all historians.

[422] These orders are printed in the Appendix.

[423] So Fririon in his Campagne de Portugal, p. 47. But his enemy Pelet says
(Vic. et Conq., xxi. p. 321) that Ney, like Reynier, ‘demanda la bataille à grands
cris.’ Cf., for what it is worth, Marbot’s tale, ii. 384.

[424] All this is told at great length in Koch’s Vie de Masséna, vii. p. 192, where
the Council of War is described with many details.

[425] Grattan’s Adventures with the 88th, pp. 28-9, and Leith Hay, i. 231.

[426] Masséna’s orders for the battle call Reynier’s attack one on ‘la droite de
l’armée ennemie,’ but it was really on the right-centre, Hill and Leith extending for
four miles south of the point assailed.

[427] The Mémoires of Lemonnier Delafosse, a captain in the 31st Léger, give an
excellent and clear account of its sufferings, see pp. 69-70 of his work.

[428] Grattan’s Adventure with the Connaught Rangers, p. 35.

[429] Picton to Wellington, Supplementary Dispatches, vi. p. 635. I do not know

whether Wallace really descended from the famous Sir William, but Craufurd of
the Light Division (as his descendant and biographer has pointed out to me)
chanced to have a connexion with the Knight of Ellerslie.

[430] Leith’s nephew and aide-de-camp, Leith Hay, had explored all the villages
in this direction on the previous afternoon, with a squadron of Portuguese horse,
see his Narrative, i. 381.

[431] Picton and Leith each rather slur over the part taken by the other in their
parallel narratives of the crisis. Picton says that he took command of Leith’s
troops: ‘at this moment Major-General Leith’s aide-de-camp came up to report the
arrival of that general and his division, on which I rode from the post of San
Antonio to the road of communication, and directed the leading regiment of the
brigade to proceed without loss of time to the left, as I had no occasion for
assistance. General Leith’s brigade, in consequence, moved on and arrived in time
to join the five companies of the 45th and the 8th Portuguese in repulsing the
enemy’s last attempt.’ Leith, on the other hand, speaks of having taken command
of some of Picton’s troops, as if the latter had not been present, and says nought
of their conversation. ‘Major-General Leith thereupon directed a movement of
succession, ordering Colonel Douglas with the right battalion of the 8th
Portuguese to support the point attacked. He also directed the 9th Portuguese
under Colonel Sutton (belonging to Major-General Picton’s division) to move up to
the support of General Picton’s division,’ and again, ‘He (General Leith) ordered
the 8th and 9th Portuguese to support the point attacked, and where the enemy
were fast gaining ground.’ Each general speaks as if he had been in command,
and I fear that each is using undue reticence as to the other’s doings. See note at
the end of this chapter.

[432] Napier calls it a ‘precipice,’ but this is not the right word. I found that I
could walk freely about on it, but no formed body of men could have passed up
the slope.

[433] Foy’s diary, pp. 103-4, tallies exactly with Leith’s narrative in Wellington
Supplementary Dispatches, vi. 678, and Cameron’s letter in Napier, Appendix to
vol. vi.

[434] Viz. British: Mackinnon’s 1/88th, 1/45th, 74th, Barnes’s 3/1st, 1/9th,
2/38th. Portuguese: Champlemond’s 9th Line (2 batts.) and 21st Line (1 batt.),
with the 8th from Leith’s division (2 batts.). Spry’s brigade and the Lusitanian
Legion from Leith were never under fire, and did not lose a man. Picton’s left
brigade (Lightburne) was never engaged, save that the light companies of the 5th
and 83rd, far down the slope, lost eight and four men respectively. The Thomar
militia bolted before coming under fire.

[435] A passage of Napier’s account of the movements of the Light Division (iii.
27) has puzzled many readers. ‘Eighteen hundred British bayonets went sparkling
over the brow of the hill. Yet so hardy were the leading French that every man of
the first section raised his musket, and two officers and ten soldiers (of the 52nd)
fell before them. Not a Frenchman had missed his mark!’ This passage looks as if
the whole French division had been conceived by Napier as moving in a single
column with a front of only twelve men. An eye-witness, Sir John Bell, of the
52nd, who owned the copy of the book which I now have before me, has written
Bosh! in the margin against the words. Of course the enemy was advancing with
each battalion in column of companies, with a front of thirty at least. What Napier
seems to have had in his head was an anecdote told by his brother George
(Autobiography, p. 143). ‘My company met the very head of the French column,
and immediately calling to my men to form column of sections, in order to give
more force to our rush, we dashed forward. I was in front of my men a yard or
two, when a Frenchman made a plunge at me with his bayonet, and at the same
time received the contents of his musket under my hip and fell. At the same
instant they fired upon my front section, consisting of about nine men in the front
rank, all of whom fell, four dead, the rest wounded.’ But this does not imply that
the French column was only twelve broad.

[436] Sprünglin, Ney’s aide-de-camp, gives an account of his being detached

with these voltigeurs, on p. 450 of his diary. He lost 142 men. It must have been
in contending with these companies that the 1st Division (excluding the German
brigade, occupied elsewhere) got the 89 casualties returned by Wellington, as
also the 5/60 their 24 casualties. The only one of the British battalions in this
quarter which had an appreciable number of men hurt was the 1/79th. Its
regimental history says that its light company was almost cut off at the
commencement of the day. The captain was taken prisoner—being the only
British officer captured that day—with six men, and there were over 40 other
casualties. Stopford’s brigade lost two men—Lord Blantyre’s seven.

[437] This too in a dispatch to Berthier dated Coimbra, Oct. 4, three days after
the returns had been placed before him.

[438] For these returns, see Appendix, no. xiii. They are certainly incomplete,
omitting (1) losses of the cavalry of the 2nd Corps (where Martinien’s invaluable
tables show that three officers were wounded), (2) losses of the 8th Corps, which
caught a few shells as it stood on the heights by Moura and had (as again shown
by Martinien’s tables) six officers hit, which must imply some hundred men. (3)
Some casualties in the infantry omitted in the returns, for while the report
accounts for 253 killed and wounded officers, Martinien names 275. Deducting
the cavalry and 8th Corps losses mentioned above, there are still fifteen officers
(and therefore presumably 250 men) too few given in the reports sent in to
Masséna; e.g. for the 2nd Léger the report has eighteen officers hit, Martinien
gives the names of twenty-two.

[439] Viz. all Reynier’s Corps, save the 47th, twenty-two battalions; Marchand
eleven battalions, Loison twelve battalions—total 26,000 men. See Tables in
Appendix.
[440] Viz. the brigades of Mackinnon and Champlemond of the 3rd Division: the
1st, 9th, 38th, British, and the 8th Portuguese of Leith, Craufurd’s five battalions,
Pack’s five battalions, three battalions of Coleman—total 14,000 men. See Tables
in Appendix.

[441] As a matter of fact, the modern railway from Coimbra and Pampilhosa to
the upper Mondego does not use the pass of Bussaco, but goes north of it, round
the left flank of Wellington’s position, by Luso, far south of the Boialvo road to
Mortagoa.

[442] The firing commenced soon after 12 noon. See Tomkinson, p. 44.

[443] This was imagined to be the case by some observers, who overrated
Masséna’s loss, and thought he had 10,000 casualties on the 27th.

[444] See, for example, Fririon, pp. 55-6, Toreno, ii. 164. Thiers, and even
Napier, iii. 32-3.

[445] Dispatches, vi. 460. Had he proposed to blast away sections, so as to

make it impassable for wheel traffic, as he did with the Estrada Nova?

[446] Dispatches, vii. pp. 306-7.

[447] See Tomkinson, p. 44, and von Linsingen’s Diary, in Beamish, i. 292.
Fririon and the other French narratives speak of the difficulties of transporting the
wounded, but do not mention that any were abandoned.

[448] Unless some of Reynier’s rearguard cavalry may have looked in at Bussaco
on the 30th, when Craufurd had gone. This is possible. Trant’s Portuguese were
back in the place on Oct. 4.

[449] This seems proved by the ‘Table of Damages committed by the French
Army in 1810-11,’ published by the Coimbra authorities in 1812, which gives the
number of houses burnt and persons killed in each rural-deanery (arcyprestado)
of the bishopric of Coimbra. Omitting the rural-deaneries south of the Mondego,
where the damages were mainly done during the retreat of the French in March
1811, and taking only those north of the river, where no hostile column appeared
after October 1810—the district having been protected by Trant and Wilson
during Masséna’s return march,—we find the following statistics:—

Deanery of villages and 47 isolated

murders
Mortagoa 108 19 houses burnt.
Deanery of
murders houses burnt.
Oliveirinha 102 100
 Deanery of Arazede 99 murders 124 houses burnt.
Deanery of Coimbra
murders houses burnt.
city 14 7

The figures for the deaneries south of Mondego (Soure, Arganil, Redinha, Miranda
do Corvo, Sinde, Cea) are enormously higher. See Soriano da Luz, iii. 203.

[450] I cannot resist quoting here Trant’s account of the engagement. He was a
man of quaint humour, and the all too few letters from him to General J. Wilson,
which have come into my hands by the courtesy of Wilson’s representative,
Captain Bertram Chambers, R.N., inspire me with regret that I have not his whole
correspondence. ‘I have once more been putting my fellows to a trial—my
Caçadore battalion did not do as it ought, and had about thirty killed, wounded,
and prisoners, without making scarcely any resistance—a pleasant business. On
the 30th I was still at Agueda (Sardão and Agueda are one village, properly
speaking, but divided by a bridge), though I was aware that the French principal
force of cavalry was at Boyalva, only a league from Agueda, and I was completely
cut off from the army. On that morning I had withdrawn the infantry to the
Vouga, but placed my dragoons close to Agueda to observe the French, with the
Caçadores at a half-way distance to support them. I put them in the most
advantageous possible position, protected by a close pine wood, through which
the French cavalry must pass. I had been from three in the morning till one
o’clock, making my arrangements, and had just sat down to eat something, in a
small village on the left of the Vouga, when a dragoon came flying to inform me
that the French were coming on with two columns of cavalry in full speed. My
coffee was not ready, and remained for the French to amuse themselves with. I
had only time to get the Penafiel regiment over the bridge when the French
arrived—five minutes sooner and I had been nabbed! I drew up in a good
position, but the French did not cross the Vouga, and I returned to Oliveira
without molestation—but not without a damned false alarm and panic on the part
of the dragoons who were covering my rear. They galloped through the infantry,
and carried confusion and all the comforts of hell to Oporto! Lieutenant-Colonel
‘Bravoure Bombasto,’ who commanded the Caçadores, ordered his men to fire,
but thought that enough for his honour, as he instantly left them to shift for
themselves, and never looked behind till he reached Oporto. I put this fellow, with
four of the leading dragoons, into the common dungeon of this place, and am
about to inflict some divisional punishment, for I daren’t report such conduct to
the Marshal (Beresford), who does not punish by halves! My regiments of infantry
—this is the brighter side of the picture—showed no agitation, notwithstanding
the attack on their nerves. The enemy’s force, I now ascertain, was 800 cavalry,
two pieces, and two infantry regiments. The cavalry alone would have done my
business if they had crossed the Vouga! But they contented themselves with
driving in the dragoons and the Caçadore battalion from Agueda. God bless you.
N.T.’

[451] Tomkinson, p. 47.

[452] Lord Londonderry, ii. p. 12.

[453] See Beamish’s History of the King’s German Legion, i. 293-4, and
Tomkinson, p. 46.

[454] De Grey’s brigade, though it had no regular fighting, lost five prisoners
and one trooper wounded in this same retreat. The total loss of the cavalry that
day was thirty-four men.

[455] Colonel Noël’s Souvenirs Militaires, pp. 120-1.

[456] The authority for this statement is the Portuguese renegade General
Pamplona, who served on the Marshal’s staff. See p. 155 of his Aperçu sur les
campagnes des Français en Portugal. Pamplona adds that Ney refused to take the
present of a large telescope, which Masséna sent him as a propitiatory gift. A less
certain authority says that the Marshal caught in the street a plunderer with a
barrel of butter, and another with a chest of wax candles, and let them off
punishment on condition that they took them to his own quarters! Soriano da
Luz, iii. p. 198.

[457] Fririon, in his account of these debates (pp. 72-3), forgets that the
existence of the Lines of Torres Vedras was still unknown both to Masséna and his
subordinates. So does Delagrave (pp. 93-4). But Pelet, Masséna’s confidant, is
positive that they were first heard of from prisoners taken at Pombal on Oct. 5,
two days after the advance had recommenced.

[458] Foy’s minutes of his conversation with the Emperor on Nov. 22, sent by
him to Masséna, in his letter of Dec. 4. See Appendix to Foy’s Vie Militaire by
Girod de L’Ain, p. 348.

[459] So Guingret, of the 6th Corps, who mentions that his own regiment
received notice that no garrison was to be left, only just in time to enable it to
pick up its slightly wounded and footsore men, who would otherwise have
remained behind. (Memoirs, p. 79.)

[460] The best summing up of the Marshal’s resolve may be found in Foy’s
minute presented to Napoleon on Nov. 22: ‘Le prince n’a pas pu se résoudre à
faire un fort détachement lorsqu’il devait livrer sous peu de jours une bataille
décisive à une armée déjà victorieuse et deux fois plus nombreuse[!] que la
notre. Les dangers que couraient ses malades ont affligé son cœur, mais il a
pensé que la crainte de perdre l’hôpital ne devait pas arrêter la campagne.’ (Foy’s
Vie Militaire, Appendix, p. 348.)

[461] Though Slade’s brigade had the rearguard on the 7th, and was engaged
on the 8th also, Anson’s only was in touch with the French on the 4th-6th, and
again on the 9th-10th.

[462] This was the case with Picton’s division, despite its splendid services and
heavy loss at Bussaco, only ten days back. Leith’s British brigade and the
Lusitanian Legion are also specially upbraided for straggling. See General Orders
for 1810, pp. 173-4.

[463] The brigade was not complete, the Feira battalion having—somehow or
other—got to Lisbon. But Porto, Penafiel, Coimbra, Aveiro, Maia, and a combined
battalion of light companies were apparently present.

[464] See Trant’s dispatch to Beresford in Soriano da Luz, vii, Appendix, p. 221.

[465] As for example Delagrave, p. 197, and Fririon, p. 75.

[466] Trant delivered nearly 400 British and Portuguese wounded, whom
Wellington had been obliged to leave behind at Coimbra, as non-transportable.

[467] Sprünglin writes, under Oct. 7, in his Diary: ‘Lorsque le sort des
malheureux abandonnés à Coimbre fut connu dans l’armée, on murmura
hautement contre le Prince d’Essling. On qualifia de coupable entêtement et de
barbarie sa conduite à Busaco et l’abandon des blessés à Coimbre. Il faut avouer
que le maréchal Ney, le général Reynier et le duc d’Abrantes ne firent rien pour
faire cesser ces murmures. Dès lors l’armée perdit de sa force, parce que le
général-en-chef n’avait plus la confiance de ses soldats.’ Cf. Guingret, p. 79.

[468] ‘Rather a new style of war, to place guns in a village and the troops
protecting them a mile in the rear.’—Tomkinson, p. 51.

[469] Readers interested in cavalry work should read Beamish, i. 298-301, and
Tomkinson, 52-3, who have admirable accounts of this rearguard fighting.

[470] For this reason the dismal picture of the situation drawn by Napier (iii. 38-
9) must be considered exaggerated. The French main army was further off than
he imagines; it had not passed Alcoentre. The cavalry could have done nothing
against the heights, and Taupin’s brigade would have been crushed if it had
endeavoured to enter the gap. But it never came within ten miles of the exposed
point on the 10th and 11th, not having passed Alemquer. The Light Division
diarists do not treat seriously the position which Napier paints in such gloomy
colours. See Leach, p. 172, and Simmons, p. 111. The Light Division
countermarched from Sobral to Arruda and reached their proper post long before
midnight. There they picked up a detachment of 150 convalescents and recruits
from Lisbon, who, had been waiting for them. Among these were Harry Smith
and Simmons, who have accounts of the arrival of the division ‘after dark,’ and of
its relief at finding large fires already lighted and provisions prepared by the draft.

[471] For Sousa’s arguments, see Soriano da Luz, iii. pp. 130-44. That author
thinks the Principal’s arguments weighty, and sees no harm in the fact that he set
them forth in public and private. Cf. Wellington, Dispatches, vi. 430.

[472] See Wellington to Charles Stuart, Sept. 9, and to Lord Liverpool, Sept. 13,
1810, Dispatches, vol. vi. pp. 420-30.

[473] See Soriano da Luz, iii. 90-9, for a list of them, and Wellington’s
Dispatches, vi. 433, for the protest against the deportation; also ibid. 528-9.

[474] Dispatches, vi. p. 493.

[475] Dispatches, vi. 521. ‘When they have got mules and carriages, by
injudicious seizure, they do not employ them, but the animals and people are
kept starving and shivering, while we still want provisions.’

[476] Ibid., vi. p. 506.

[477] See Soriano da Luz, iii. p. 142. For text of it his Appendix, vii. 178-9. The
answer was only written on Feb. 11, 1811, and only got to Wellington in April
when the crisis was over.

[478] Or two vintems Portuguese money.

[479] Or six, and afterwards ten, vintems. See Jones, Lines of Torres Vedras, p.
77.

[480] Jones, p. 79.

[481] Id., p. 107.

[482] Major Jones to Col. Fletcher, the chief engineer, then absent on a visit to
Wellingtons head quarters. See Jones, Lines of Torres Vedras, p. 187.

[483] Jones, Lines, p. 26.

[484] Afterwards, when Masséna had arrived, increased to sixteen redoubts with
seventy-five guns. See Jones, p. 113.

[485] Jones, Lines, p. 173. ‘An extent of upwards of 2,000 yards on the left has
been so cut and blasted along its summit as to give a continuous scarp,
everywhere exceeding 10 feet in height, and covered for its whole length by both
musketry and cannon.’

[486] By an astonishing blunder the camp of Torres Vedras is placed by Napier in

his map (and apparently in his text also) south of the river Zizandre, on the main
line of heights, while in reality it was a great tête-du-pont covering the only
passage from north to south over the stream and its bogs.

[487] See note to that effect in Jones, p. 21.

[488] The third division (Picton) only, behind Torres Vedras. Behind the
Alhandra-Arruda section were the 2nd (Hill), Hamilton’s Portuguese, and the Light
Division; in the central part the 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th Divisions and three unattached
Portuguese brigades (Pack, Coleman, and Al. Campbell).

[489] About 5,800 rank and file, with 250 officers and 350 sergeants and
drummers, by mid-winter return.

[490] For all these changes see Atkinson’s admirable ‘Composition of the British
Army in the Peninsula,’ printed in the English Historical Review.

[491] The 12th and 13th line regiments and the 5th Caçadores, not much over
2,500 bayonets in all.

[492] Idanha, Castello Branco, Covilhão.

[493] Thomar, Leiria, Santarem; the fourth battalion (Tondella) was in garrison
at Peniche, as was also a considerable body of dépôt troops from the line, half-
trained recruits, &c.

[494] 1, 2, 3, and 4 of Lisbon, and Torres Vedras.

[495] Feira and Vizeu, properly belonging to Trant’s corps, but somehow
separated from it.

[496] Setubal and Alcaçer do Sul.

[497] Who had now resigned the command of the cavalry, and gone back to his
old infantry division.
[498] The ‘Vanguard’ and 2nd Division of his army.

[499] Dispatches, vi. p. 544.

[500] Correspondance, xxi. pp. 273, 295.

[501] Dispatches, vi. 502, to Craufurd.

[502] Wellington to Spencer, afternoon of Oct. 11, Dispatches, vi. 505.

[503] Wellington to Craufurd, same day, Dispatches, vi. 504.

[504] Wellington to Chas. Stuart, Dispatches, vi. 506. D’Urban’s invaluable diary
has the note. ‘Oct. 11: ’Tis difficult to account for all this, which must be
vexatious to the Commander-in-Chief, who, aware of the importance of the
heights in front of Sobral, must have wished to keep them for the present.... Oct.
12: In the morning the enemy was no more to be seen, and what we should
never have given up, we were fortunately permitted to re-occupy. But at nightfall
the French, with about six battalions, retook the height and town of Sobral.’

[505] Of the nineteen casualties, nine belonged to the newly-landed 71st, four
to the German Legion, six to the company of the 5/60th attached to Erskine. See
Return in Record Office.

[506] Sainte-Croix had been the Marshal’s chief-of-the-staff during the Wagram
campaign, and was generally reputed to have been responsible for some of the
boldest moves made by Masséna’s army during that period.

[507] That Fririon is correct in dating Sainte-Croix’s death on the 12th, and
Delagrave and others wrong in placing it on the 16th, is proved by an entry in
D’Urban’s diary of Oct. 15, stating that it had just been discovered that the
general killed in front of Alhandra was called Sainte-Croix. Clearly then he was
dead before the 16th.

[508] For his dispositions for resisting the suspected attack see Dispatches, vi.
pp. 507-9 of Oct. 13. The line running from right to left was (1) Pack’s Portuguese
in the great redoubt facing Sobral, (2) 1st Division between the redoubt and
Zibreira, (3) Picton touching Spencer’s left, (4) Cole touching Picton’s left, (5)
Campbell (new 6th Division) on Cole’s left, reaching to the Portello redoubts. Each
of these divisions had one brigade in reserve. A separate general reserve was
formed by Leith behind the right, and Coleman’s and Alex. Campbell’s Portuguese
behind the left.

[509] I find in the note to Gachot’s excellent editions of Delagrave’s Campagne

de Portugal that the losses of the French on this day were 157 men, those of the
allies 139. The last statement, one sufficiently probable in itself, cannot be
verified from any British source that I have found: Wellington, annexed to the
document on page 511 of vol. vi of the Dispatches, gives the loss of Cole’s British
brigades in detail—they amount to twenty-five men only. But he does not give
details of Hervey’s Portuguese, though he mentions that the brigadier was
wounded, and that the two regiments (Nos. 11 and 23 of the Line) distinguished
themselves. They may well have lost the 124 men mentioned by Gachot, but I
have no proof of it. Vere’s usually accurate ‘Marches of the 4th Division’ gives no
figures for this day, nor does D’Urban’s Diary. Wellington remarks that ‘the attack
of this day on General Cole’s pickets near Sobral was without much effect.’ It is
certain, however, that the British lost a little ground in front of the heights.
Martinien’s Liste des officiers tués et blessés, which I so often find of use, shows
that Junot’s corps lost two officers killed and seven wounded. This, at the usual
average, would imply 150-180 casualties.

[510] For his position and character, see p. 209 of this volume.

[511] This figure is, of course, a ludicrous exaggeration. Masséna had still more
than 50,000 men. Even on Jan. 1, 1811, after suffering two months more of
untold privation, the Army of Portugal was still 44,000 strong, plus sick and men
detached.

[512] Pelet’s Appendice sur la Guerre d’Espagne, p. 323 of vol. xxi of Victoires et
Conquêtes.

[513] Delagrave, p. 100.

[514] Of the sixty-seven British casualties, thirty-eight were in the 71st, the rest
in the neighbouring brigades of the 1st Division. Noël—who had charge of the
battery at Sobral, estimates the French loss at 120—very probably the correct
one, as Martinien’s lists show one officer killed and six wounded, all in Ménard’s
brigade. This should mean 120-150 casualties. Delagrave gives the higher figure
of 200 killed and wounded, probably an overstatement.

[515] Masséna was clearly seen from the British Lines. Leith Hay, a staff-officer
of the 5th Division, noted ‘a crowd of officers on horseback, dragoons with led
horses, and all the cortége of a general-in-chief’ (Narrative, p. 249), and saw the
Marshal dismount by the windmill above Sobral. He was watching from Pack’s
redoubt, on the hill just opposite, through his telescope, about 2,000 yards from
the French front. It is Jones who, on p. 40 of his Lines of Torres Vedras, gives the
anecdote about the Marshal’s salute.

[516] See Foy’s Vie Militaire, Appendix, p. 343.

[517] Wellington to Craufurd, Dispatches, vi. p. 517.

[518] D’Urban’s Journal, under Oct. 15.

[519] For the miseries and dangers of life in Rodrigo, see the Memoirs of the
Duchesse d’Abrantes. Her letter to Junot, intercepted by Wellington, tells the
same tale: it is to be found in D’Urban’s collection of documents.

[520] See Correspondance, vol. xxi. pp. 262, 280, 338, &c.

[521] See Fririon, pp. 57-8.

[522] See above, p. 277.

[523] Ferey’s brigade, which had already faced Craufurd at Bussaco.

[524] According to Fririon, p. 98, the morning state of Nov. 1 showed only
46,591 men effective. But the figures of that officer are always a little lower than
what I have found in the official documents.

[525] The first morning note of D’Urban’s diary in November is nearly always
‘more deserters arrived.’

[526] See Wellington to Lord Liverpool, Dispatches, vi. 554.

[527] See especially the longer dispatch of Nov. 3, on pp. 582-3 ibid.

[528] Loison, to whom Ferey’s brigade belonged, had gone to the rear with his
other brigade.

[529] The whole dispatch may be found in Fririon, pp. 96-7. That officer quite
saw the danger of the position: see his comments on pp. 99-100.

[530] Wellington also, on Lobo’s report, thought (Dispatches, vi. 604) that Foy’s
and Montbrun’s object had been to seize the bridge of Villa Velha.

[531] Only part of Claparéde’s division had as yet even reached Salamanca. Foy
to Masséna, Nov. 8, from Rodrigo.

[532] échauffourée.

[533] This is the order in Correspondance, 17,097. It goes on to give Drouet

detailed orders as to what he should do ‘aussitôt que les Anglais seront
rembarqués.’
[534] This had been sent off the day before Foy arrived, Nov. 20, it is
Correspondance, 17,146.

[535] Correspondance, 17,172, dated Nov. 28.

[536] Berthier to Soult, Dec. 4, 1810.

[537] See above, p. 458.

[538] See pp. 201 and 284 above.

[539] See the above-quoted conversation with Foy, in the latter’s Vie Militaire, p.
109.

[540] See for example those noted in Dispatches, vi. 545, and a whole series
copied out in D’Urban’s journal in October and November, 1810.

[541] A most modest estimate, for the returns of sick for the second half of
October in a document at the Archives de la Guerre give a total of 10,897 men in
hospital.

[542] An allusion to a phrase in one of the captured dispatches.

[543] Wellington to Liverpool, October 27, pp. 545 and 555 of vol. vi.

[544] Fririon’s confidential report to Masséna, night of 8th–9th of November.

[545] Viz. 39th (3 batts.) and 69th (3 batts.) of Marchand’s division at Thomar
and Torres Novas, with Loison’s 66th (3 batts.), 82nd (2 batts.), and 26th (3
batts.). It will be remembered that Reynier was, at the same time, minus the
4/47th, sent as escort with Foy to Ciudad Rodrigo.

[546] Delagrave, p. 123 and note.

[547] Londonderry, ii. pp. 51-2.

[548] His first dispatch, that to Craufurd, is dated at 10.20.

[549] See Leach’s Diary, p. 178.

[550] Wellington to Fane, Nov. 15: ‘The enemy retreated last night. He intends
either to retire across the Zezere into Spain, or across the Tagus into Spain, or
across the Zezere to attack Abrantes. The last is possible, as I last night received
an account that on the 9th they had a considerable reinforcement coming on the
frontier at Beira Alta.’
[551] See p. 457 above.

[552] All from the orders issued at 10.30 in the morning ‘from the hill in front of
Sobral’. Dispatches, vi. 623.

[553] All from the orders issued at 10.30 in the morning ‘from the hill in front of
Sobral’. Dispatches, vi. 623.

[554] Leach’s Journal, p. 179.

[555] George Simmons’s Journal, pp. 121-2.

[556] For a full description of the doings of the 16th on this day, see Tomkinson,
pp. 59-60.

[557] Leach thinks, with William Napier (iii. 41), that Wellington acted wisely in
refusing Craufurd leave to attack (p. 180). Tomkinson, another eye-witness,
thinks that an opportunity was missed (pp. 60, 61).

[558] Having now received the Brunswick Oels Jägers, the Light Division was six
battalions strong, not its usual five. Its strength about this time was some 4,000
bayonets. Merle’s division was about 5,000 strong: it had dwindled to 4,200
effectives before December was out. Thus the English and Caçadore battalions
averaged 650 men, the French 450 only, so that the strength was not very
unequal. But only 2,500 of Craufurd’s troops were British.

[559] There its main body was now joined by Ferey’s brigade, which had been
detached for some weeks.

[560] Probably Ferey’s brigade marching to join Loison and trains following it,
and certainly Reynier’s trains which he had sent off towards Golegão. See
Dispatches, vi. 629.

[561] The Diary of the Marches of the 4th Division, by its Assistant Quarter-
Master, Charles Vere, settles the date. For Leith’s start on the same morning, see
Leith-Hay’s Narrative, i. p. 269.

[562] Napier, however, dates the General’s escapade wrongly. It took place on
the night of the 18th-19th, where it is duly related in the diary of George
Simmons (p. 117), and not on the 21st as Napier implies. I have a copy of
Delagrave’s Campagne de Portugal, which once belonged to Napier; he has
written a sarcastic note on the bottom of page 111, commenting on the ridiculous
account of the event which appeared in the French narratives. He adds that the
sergeant’s name was McCurry, and that ‘the sergeant had sense enough to hold
his tongue, but Craufurd spoke out, and so drew the fire of the enemy’s picket.’