CHAPTER XIII

THE FIGHT AT TALAVERA

THE story of Talavera is crowded with dramatic

and stirring incident, and few battles have ever

been waged with sterner courage or more dreadful slaughter. Writing six months after the fight, Wellington himself, who never strayed into idle superlatives, wrote: "The battle of Talavera was the hardest-fought of modern times. The fire at Assaye was heavier while it lasted, but the battle of Talavera lasted for two days and a night!" The great tactical feature of the fight was the circumstance that, practically, the Spaniards took no part in it. Their single contribution was an attempt to effect a general stampede!

It is idle to deny the quality of courage to the Spaniards. Spanish infantry under Alva's iron discipline was once the terror of Europe. But throughout the struggle in the Peninsula Spanish valour was of an eccentric quality. It came and went in spasms. At Talavera it was a vanishing quantity! The Spanish regiments stood behind their almost impregnable position and watched, no

doubt with keen interest, but without much active participation, the swaying fortunes of the battle betwixt the English and the French. Hill, the most just-minded of men, says that at Talavera "there really appeared something like a mutual agreement between the French and the Spaniards not to molest each other!" But this practically resolved the fight into a struggle between some 21,000 British and German troops with thirty guns, as against 55,000 French veterans with eighty guns.

The feature of the French tactics, and perhaps the secret of their failure, was the unrelated and scattered character of the attacks they delivered. At three o'clock on July 27, the foremost French battalions came upon the outposts of the British left. The 87th and 88th, who formed these outposts, consisted of young soldiers, who were clumsily handled, fired in the confusion upon each other, and were sadly shaken. Wellington himself, in the tumult of the fight, was well-nigh made a prisoner. The 45th, “a stubborn old regiment," with the 60th Rifles, checked the eager French, and the British fell sullenly back, with a loss of 400 men. Colonel Donkin with his brigade now occupied the hill on the extreme British left.

At this stage of the fight the French light cavalry rode forward on that part of the line held by the Spanish, and began a pistol skirmish, with a view of discovering Cuesta's formation. The

Spaniards were nerve-shaken. They fired one farheard and terrific volley into space, and then before its sound had died away, no less than 10,000 of them, or nearly a third of Cuesta's entire force, betook themselves to flight! The infantry flung away their muskets, the gunners cut their traces and galloped off on their horses; baggage carts and ammunition waggons swelled the torrent of fugitives. One-third of Wellington's battle line seemed tumbling, at the crack of a few French pistols, into mere ruin! The Spanish adjutant-general led the fugitives; Cuesta himself, in his carriage drawn by nine mules, brought up their rear. The unexaggerative Wellington says these flying Spaniards were "frightened only by the noise of their own fire. Their officers went with them." It may be added that in all their terror these breathlessly flying Spaniards retained composure enough to plunder the baggage of the British army as they fled to the rear, while its British owners were fighting and dying for Spain at the front!

The spectacle of 10,000 infantry all running away at once might well have shaken the composure of any general; but Wellington launched some squadrons of English cavalry on the advancing French; such of the Spaniards as still held their position opened a brisk fire, and the French in their turn fell back. Cuesta, by this time fallen into a paroxysm of rage, sent his cavalry at a gallop to head

the fugitives and drive them back to their position. Some 6000 Spanish infantry, however, had run too fast and too far to be recalled.

Meanwhile Victor, who knew the ground well and was of an impatient spirit, saw that the hill on the British left was weakly occupied and was the key of the whole position, and resolved to make a dash at it. The French came on at the quick-step, and stormed up the steep slope with magnificent courage. Ruffin's division led, Villatte's was in support.

The British fought stubbornly, but the French were not to be denied, and their numbers were so great that they swept round the flank of the British regiments and seized the summit. Hill was in command of this part of the line, and a curious incident marked the beginning of the struggle. As Hill tells the story, he was standing by Colonel Donnellan of the 48th, when in the dusk he saw some men come over the hilltop and begin to fire at them. "I had no idea,'" says Hill, Hill, "the enemy were so near.' I said to Donnellan, 'I was sure it was the old Buffs, as usual, making some blunder."" Hill rode off to stop the firing, and found that he had ridden into a French regiment! His aide-de-camp, Fordyce, was shot, Hill's own bridle was seized by a French soldier. But breaking roughly loose, Hill galloped down the slope of the hill, and brought up the 29th to support the 48th.

The 29th came on coolly, but with great resolution. The French were before them in the dusk, a black and solid mass, from which came a tempest of shouts. The 29th went forward till almost at bayonet-touch with the enemy, and then delivered a murderous volley. The sudden flash of the muskets lit up the faces of the French soldiers and their gleaming arms, and the long line seemed to crumble under that fierce blast of musketry fire. Then with a triumphant shout the 29th drove the French down the hill-slope by actual bayonet-push. The gallant Frenchmen came on again and yet again. The hill rose in the darkness a black and vaguely defined mass. But those who watched the fight from the distance could see sparkling high in the air on the hill-slope the two waving lines of incessantly-darting flashes, that now seemed to approach each other, and then drew farther apart; now crept higher in the darkness, and then sank lower. Towards midnight the battle died away; but in that stubborn contest-often waged hand to hand-the British lost 800 men, the French 1000.

During the night Wellington brought some guns to this hill, realising that the fate of the battle hung on its possession. Victor, on the other hand, grown only more obstinate from failure, persuaded Joseph to allow him to make a fresh attack in the morning. All night from the hill the listening English heard the rumble of guns in front of them. Victor was