CHAP. VI 1811. rations for the following day. The consequence was, that the caissons set out at daybreak, with orders to bring up, not ammunition, but bread; all thoughts of renewing the battle or relieving Almeida were laid aside, and the army retreated at all points towards Ciudad Rodrigo, after remaining a day inactive on the field, during the 6th, as if to give him some ground for claiming the 540-543. victory, which he took credit for in a proclamation to his troops.1 1 Koch, vii. The battle of Fuentes d'Onore was the most critical in which Lord Wellington was engaged in the whole war, and in which the chances of irreparable defeat were most against the British army. Sir Charles Stewart has left the following judicious reflections on this battle: "Massena's superiority to us, both in cavalry and artillery, was very great; whilst the thick woods in our front afforded the most convenient plateau which he could have desired for the distribution of his columns unseen, and therefore disregarded. Had he rightly availed himself of this advantage, he might have poured the mass of his force upon any single point, and perhaps made an impression before we could have had time to support it. Had he commenced his attack with a violent cannonade, it must have produced some havoc, and probably considerable confusion, in our line. He might then have moved forward his cavalry en masse, supporting it by strong columns of infantry; and had either the one or the other succeeded in piercing through, our situation would have been by no means an enviable one. Had he thrown his cavalry round our right flank-a movement which we should have found it no easy matter to prevent -crossed the Coa, advanced upon our lines of communication, and stopped our supplies, at the moment when, with his infantry, he threatened to turn us; then pushed upon Sabugal and the places near, he might have compelled us to pass the Coa with all our artillery at the most disadvantageous places, and cut us off from our and CHAP. VI. 1811. 10. renewal of literally bore down everything before them; though severely galled by a murderous fire of musketry and grape, they regained Fuentes d'Onore in triumph with their trophy." It proved, however, to be only a tumbril.* After this desperate shock the French army remained quiet for a day, leaving the British in possession of their Arrival of the Imperial hard-won conquest. They were awaiting the arrival of Guard, and Marshal Bessières with the redoubtable horsemen of the the battle. Guard, eight hundred strong, who, on the evening of the 4th, made their appearance on the ground with six guns, and excited a great sensation in both armies. At three on the following morning the French columns were all in motion, and at six they had reached the British light troops, and commenced the attack at all points. The weight of the enemy's attack was directed, under Loison, with the 6th, Ney's old corps, on the British right, beyond May 5. Nava d'Aver, where the ground, being level, afforded an advantageous field for the employment of their numerous and magnificent cavalry. Montbrun, with the reserve cavalry and a powerful artillery, was placed in the rear and on the left of the 6th corps, with orders to charge whenever a suitable opportunity might occur; and on the right of the same corps stood the 9th corps under Drouet, who, along with Ferrey's division detached from the 6th corps, was to make a false attack on Fuentes d'Onore, in order to distract the attention of the enemy, and hinder him from sending succours to his right, where the principal effort was to be made. Meanwhile the convoy intended for the relief of Almeida, escorted by twelve hundred men, was to be held in readiness to * A keen contest arose on this conflict in Fuentes d'Onore as to the crossing of bayonets, which was carried on in the pages of that able journal, the Army and Navy Gazette, in consequence of a statement similar to that given above having been given in the author's History of Europe, chap. lxiii. § 91. It was closed by the statement of an officer (Grattan) who saw the thing, and which, coupled with Lord Londonderry's testimony above given, who was also an eyewitness, is decisive of the point. The author was in error in saying that it was the Imperial Guard which was borne backward at the bayonet's point in the shock, for it was Bessières's cavalry of that body which alone was in the battle. VL CHAP. fitted for a high situation, partly diplomatic, partly military, which, it was foreseen, might ere long require to be 18:1. filled up at the northern courts. Chivalrous and highbred in his manners, he was as well calculated to insure the favour of the sovereigns and elevated officers with whom he might be there brought in contact, as, from his just military coup d'ail, he was to command the respect of the generals, and by his personal gallantry and daring, to win the confidence of the private soldiers with whom he might be called upon to act. Fortune, or rather his own high deserts, were in consequence preparing for Sir Charles Stewart a more elevated sphere of action than he had hitherto enjoyed; and it was among the rocks of Busaco, and the cavalry fight of Fuentes d'Onore, that the qualities were developed which shone forth with such lustre in the redoubts of Dresden and on the field of Leipsic. 17. orders to evacuate Almeida. May 10. But though the battle of Fuentes d'Onore was attended Massena's with such important consequences personally to Sir Charles Brennier to Stewart, as well as generally to the war, it was at the moment attended by an event in the highest degree mortifying. For some days after the battle it was not positively known whether the attempt to raise the blockade of Almeida would not be resumed, and the army was busily employed in strengthening the defensive position they had assumed at the close of the fight to maintain it. On the 10th, however, unequivocal symptoms of a retreat on the part of the French army were manifest, as there was only a screen of light troops left in their position. The British officers and soldiers in consequence deemed the capture of Almeida now certain, as it was known it had only provisions to the 15th; and they looked forward to this conquest with great complacency, both as a trophy of the campaign, and as affording a solid basis for future operations. In these expectations the Commander-inChief fully concurred, and he only awaited the surrender of this fortress to hasten to the south and prosecute his this, and deeming it necessary to move in order to cover the retreat of the foot-soldiers, as well as to hinder themselves being outflanked, the cavalry descended from a commanding position, in which they had been drawn up, into the plain. They were immediately charged in the low ground by the enemy's horse; but the assailants were driven back by the leading squadron of the British horse under Sir Charles Stewart, who made Colonel La Motte, of the 13th Chasseurs, prisoner in single combat. The enemy, however, succeeded in establishing themselves on the heights which had been abandoned, and from them opened so heavy a fire from some pieces of horse-artillery which they brought up, that the position of the troops on that part of the line was no longer tenable, and a retrograde movement to draw the foot-soldiers out of the range became indispensable. A retreat, accordingly, was commenced, but how to effect it on level ground, and in the face of a powerful cavalry, to which the Allies had nothing of equal strength to oppose, was a matter of no small difficulty. The light division, which had advanced to support the cavalry, now hard pressed, finding the post already evacuated, wheeled to the right, and moved towards Houston's division, which was slowly retiring, firing all the way. During this movement, however, they were repeatedly and fiercely charged by Montbrun's dragoons, and one small body formed by the rallying of the skirmishers in front, who had not time to get into the regimental square, was broken, thirty men cut down, and several prisoners taken, among whom was Colonel Hill of the 3d Guards. The main body, however, retreated in squares in the finest order, alternately halting and firing ; and the Chasseurs Britanniques exhibited a rare example of discipline and valour by taking post behind a long ruined wall, where they received a charge of cavalry in line, which they repulsed by a steady and well-directed fire, which secured the retreat of the division, which before that had been endangered. The horse-artillery guns CHAP. VI. 1811. VI. 1811. CHAP. leading direct from the fortress to the French lines, he watched with attention only the right face of the town, from which no movement was likely to be made. So obvious was this misconception, that on the 11th the 4th Regiment from Erskine's division was ordered up to occupy the heights above that place: but it was too late; the enemy had already passed. Marching under the best direction, without a light and in profound silence, between the British pickets, they contrived to pass undiscovered for two hours, until the explosion at Almeida awakened every one in the army. They were then discerned, and a small body of cavalry attacked them on the right, while Pack on the left was redoubling his pace to reach Barba del Puerco before them. It was a race in the dark who should first get there; and when the French uniforms in the grey of the dawn were first seen emerging from the gloom, General Heudelet, who commanded the troops placed near the bridge to receive them, advanced in double-quick time, and met the leading companies, whom they conducted across the bridge in safety. But the rearguard was not equally fortunate. Brennier had purposely put the waggons and baggage in the rear, in order to serve as a decoy to draw off the first of the pursuers, and this succeeded with some Portuguese squadrons, who broke, and began plundering; but some British horse soon came up, and Pack occupied in force the heights overhanging a gorge on the other side through which they had to pass before reaching the bridge. Heudelet's chasseurs lent them a powerful hand here, and the fusillade was soon extremely 1 Koch, vii. Warm between the tirailleurs on the opposite sides; but Lond. ii. meanwhile a heavy plunging fire was kept up from the Wellington top of the rocks on the column below, which sustained to Lord Liv- very heavy loss. Two hundred and thirty French were 14, 1811 driven over a precipice with forty Portuguese, the most 548, 549. of whom perished miserably; two hundred privates and ten officers were made prisoners; and fifty were slain on 553-555; 114-117; erpool, May Gurw. vii. 1 |