The Confrontation at Salamanca

by Geoffrey Watson

  He spent a long time with his Dolland glass, observing the hill itself and the French troops that were marching past it and forming up opposite the village of Arapiles. The question being asked was, would they advance to the attack or was it to be just another feint to disguise Marmont’s intentions?

  George Vere jumped down beside him. “All the horses and Quintana’s men are on the northern side of this hill, on the lower slopes. I have told Günther to stay there as well. His men have mostly been up all night and shall appreciate an hour or two relaxing.

  I climbed back around the eastern slope and was able to see columns of French troops still marching toward that southern hill. What cannot be seen from here is that only some of them are marching directly to join that division that is deploying on our right. Many; perhaps most of them are moving around the back of the hill.

  I can understand why Marmont would not wish to march many of his men right across our front, but there are more of his troops disappearing from view than are coming around the hill to join the deployment that I just mentioned. I estimate that must be due south of the Arapiles village; something over a mile away from him.

  ”Welbeloved was frowning in concentration. “Marmont has at least seven divisions in his army, possibly eight. Lord Wellington has only just left here and tells me that he is reducing his force north of this hill to the Light Division and the First Division. I deduce that he is guessing that no more than three divisions remain against us, north of here.

  That leaves four or five divisions to be accounted for and we can see one of them a mile to our right. There is room for two more to fit into the area between the Greater Arapiles and that division that is already deployed. That surely means that one division, probably two, possibly three are not accounted for, most likely hidden somewhere behind yonder hill.

  See if yew can find Dodds, George. Explain our conclusions and send him to warn Wellington. Pom was his protégé. He can bring him back with him to keep us informed.”

  An hour later, Dodds returned with Captain Pom and Marmont obliged by making his first move against the southern front. The division deployed south of the Arapiles village suddenly attacked with artillery and swarms of skirmishers.

  Welbeloved, Vere and Pom watched in fascination from their privileged perch as the whole areas in front of the village came alive with greens, browns, flashes of red and tall black shakos, walking running and leaping forward in a wide funnelled area to avoid the enfilading fire of batteries of guns hammering the defenders.

  Leith’s Fifth Division received them with enthusiasm and soon there was a heated exchange going on, but noticeably after a while, observable from their high vantage point, no columns of line infantry advancing in a serious attack.

  Pom made the first comments, after thanking them on behalf of Wellington for their previous observations. “His Lordship anticipates a serious attack on Arapiles village, Sir Joshua. The Seventh Division of General Hope is now moving out of reserve, north of this hill, to support the resistance in that area.

  Shall you permit me to express my opinion however? I do not think that Lord Wellington shall regard this attack as the serious one. The French do not appear to be using their line infantry at all.”

  Vere broke in. “Feel free to offer your opinions at any time, Li, if they are all as shrewd as that one. You are absolutely correct. As yet, that assault is no more than a feint to occupy our attention. Look around and see if you can spot what else is happening that they hope we shall not notice.”

  Welbeloved was busy using his glass on other areas. “Do not concentrate on any one place, Li. They are making one obvious move that may indicate a serious attempt on Arapiles. Yew can see one of their missing divisions moving from behind yonder hill and starting to deploy in the gap to the right of the division that has started the bickering.

  If that develops then we may become involved, but put yor glass on that ridge running west, behind the division that is fighting.”

  Pom did as he was told, but without success. “I fear that my glass is only as good as my pocket allowed, Sir Joshua. May I beg the use of yours for a few seconds?”

  Welbeloved exchanged his own and put Pom’s to his eye, grimaced and waited for Pom to study the ridge. He took his time and looked serious when he handed it back. “I should not have seen without the use of your glass, Sir Joshua. It appears to be another division moving behind the fighting and marching westward.”

  “That is exactly what it is, Li. They are hoping to conceal it, but it is really only the continuation of Marmont’s attempts to turn our flank.

  I shall wager that Lord Wellington shall not be surprised to know about it, but he may not yet have noticed, as there is plenty of wooded cover along that ridge.

  Yew should return to him now and report on the actions of both these divisions. Perhaps yew may most tactfully offer as my opinion that Marmont is become not entirely prudent. His army appears to be stretched over a distance approaching five miles from the north of us, around the southern Arapiles as a pivot and on to the west.”

  Once Pom had left, all the combatants seemed to decide on a pause in the proceedings. The fighting south of the Arapiles village subsided into a few desultory exchanges south of the village: a period when the directors of the performance could take a light luncheon before they decided what to do next.

  Welbeloved and Vere observed the build-up of not one division, but two in the area between the bickering south of Arapiles village and the Greater Arapiles hill itself. There was no effort made to start an attack. They appeared to be waiting in readiness, expecting something momentous to happen.

  Wellington was actually eating his lunch, or at least a cold chicken leg, when he made what was to be the fateful decision. Possibly warned by Pom’s message from Welbeloved, he was watching the half-hearted fighting in front of Arapiles village and trying to follow the progress of the French division that had broken away and was apparently marching west by itself to try and outflank him.

  Finally, he was able to make them out and hardly able to credit that that the normally cautious Marmont would permit such a great gap to develop between two of his divisions. He mounted his horse and galloped off personally to set an attack in motion.

  Five hundred dragoons of D’Urban’s Portuguese Brigade of cavalry were the first to attack. They and General Pakenham’s Third Division hurried forward, quite unseen by Thomières isolated division, who were more intent on trying to achieve a surprise coup of their own.

  The French division was caught quite unprepared marching in column. In the short time available to them after spotting the cavalry, they struggled ineffectually to deploy into square. While they were neither one thing nor the other the Third Division arrived and ploughed straight in, giving them no time to recover and routing them comprehensively and completely.

  The French cavalry with them rushed to help and managed to fend off some of D’Urban’s horsemen temporarily, but as the Hornets had been finding, their horses were young and only partially trained, quite ineffective for any sort of manoeuvring. The fled the scene in minutes, leaving D’Urban and Pakenham to run riot.

  Within minutes, the division ceased to exist. Their general was killed, over half the men were dead, wounded or captured. The rest were fleeing and all the guns were taken.

  When Wellington ordered D’Urban and Pakenham into action, he had then set his Fourth and Fifth Divisions loose in front of the Arapiles village. Cole’s and Leith’s divisions moved forward against the division that had started the battle, General Maucune’s and the two that had deployed alongside it, commanded by General Clausel and General Bonnet, the general that Welbeloved had frustrated for so long in the foothills of the Cantabrians.

  Standing on the slopes of the lesser Arapiles, Welbeloved and the Hornets had heard the sudden outbreak of musket fire from three miles away that had started the all-out assault. They had watched the divisions of Cole and Leith moving forward to challenge the French and they h
ad done nothing, because there seemed nothing useful that they could contribute at that time.

  Not so the Condesa. She had her mortars hidden on the forward slope in a naturally formed emplacement. As she had told Wellington, they were all trained on the slopes of the Greater Arapiles.

  Whether or not the onset of the allied divisions caused consternation at Marmont’s headquarters, there was a sudden flurry of activity among a group of beplumed and gold braided officers, about two thirds of the way to the top.

  She had no way of knowing who was in the party, but they all had to be high ranking officers and she was not about to let her opportunity slip.

  There were twelve mortars in the batteries of the three battalions. They all fired spaced salvoes and the area close to the gorgeous uniforms was bracketed by exploding shells.

  There were several obvious casualties and the lucky ones ran for cover, recovering the wounded after the salvoes stopped.

  Five minutes later, a few guns on the French hill tried to target the mortars, aiming for the drifting clouds of smoke. The Condesa did not reply. She had made her point and the rest of her supply of contact-explosive shells would be used as directed by her husband.

  In the valley and on the small plateau below and to the right of the Hornets, there were two battles being fought. To the southwest of the Arapiles village, Leith’s Fifth Division sent swarms of skirmishers up against General Maucune’s division.

  All the French skirmishers withdrew behind their lines of infantry, who marched into squares, expecting cavalry to follow the skirmishers onto their plateau. Instead, lines of infantry followed their skirmishers, marching up onto the level plain and delivered controlled and lethal volleys of musketry that caught the squares at a disadvantage and forced them to attempt to reform and retreat.

  In the middle of the ensuing disorganisation, an entirely opportune moment came for General Le Marchant. He led a thousand of his heavy dragoons onto the plateau and into Maucune’s disordered division. All things in such a battle generally tended to move in slow motion, but it was minutes only before Maucune’s troops were irretrievably shattered and fleeing for their lives.

  While the Fifth Division and two of the dragoon regiments were gathering prisoners, the survivors of Maucune’s division fled eastwards. Le Marchant pursued them with the Third Dragoons until, bursting through and scattering crowds of fugitives, they caught General Brennier’s divisional vanguard in column of march. Resistance was momentary and fruitless and scores more prisoners were taken.

  There was a brief period when some of them rallied but the dragoons charged again and broke them for good. A brilliant, opportune victory, but both the leaders, Leith and Le Marchant were killed in achieving it.

  With three divisions on the left broken and in flight, only General Clausel and General Bonnet had their troops in action on the southern front.

  Cole and the Fourth Division had advanced on Clausel and both sides were standing practically toe to toe, pouring fire into each other.

  On Cole’s left was Pack’s Portuguese brigade of two and a half thousand men. Without realising it, they had picked a fight with Bonnet’s division, holding the Greater Arapiles and the ground to the northwest of the hill.

  It was a fateful decision for Pack. He was up against six and a half thousand men and the French made the most of their opportunity, smashing their way through his forces and turning smartly left into the startled and wounded Cole. Attacked from the front and the side, the Fourth Division recoiled from over double its numbers and fled to the rear.

  Watching from the Lesser Arapiles, Welbeloved was able to observe almost the exact moment of decision for Clausel. At the time, he couldn’t know that this general was now commanding the whole French army, as both Marmont and Bonnet had been wounded by exploding shells on the slopes of the Greater Arapiles.

  The decision before Clausel was whether to retire and cover the retreat of a beaten army, or press on into the centre of the allied army to try and reverse French fortunes.

  As was to be expected of one of Napoleon’s generals, he decided to attack and the now combined divisions plunged onwards towards Arapiles village.

  Welbeloved had also made up his mind that it was time for the Hornets to play their full part. He led his two brigades down from the hill and made for the rear of the attacking French columns, still coming down from the slopes of the Greater Arapiles.

  The Spanish and the Portuguese Second and Third Battalions were on foot. A thousand men spread out when they reached the valley between the two hills, moving smartly west against the flanks and rear of Clausel’s and Bonnet’s divisions.

  Quintana’s Spaniards and Roffhack’s Fourth Battalion were mounted and worked together against any marching bodies of men. It was almost sadistic how they dawdled until the regiment or battalion they were stalking had been frightened into forming square against them.

  First the Germans would dismount and revert to skirmishing, to destroy one side of the square, letting the Spaniards in to destroy it utterly. Next, the Spaniards would do exactly the same for the Germans.

  It could have developed into a routine, but stopped after only two attacks. For a start, they had collected five or six hundred prisoners and secondly, they discovered that Campbell’s First Division had marched smartly round to the east of the Lesser Arapiles, skirting the Hornet’s part of the fight to assault the Greater Arapiles.

  Clausel may have been on the attack still, but all his reserves were held up. The Hornets had stopped them in their tracks. Expecting an attack from the east, they had faced right and been forced to form lines facing the hidden Hornets, who were quite casually shooting them to pieces.

  Then they were all running to supposed safety as Clausel was in full retreat from the Third, Sixth and Seventh Divisions that Wellington had brought against him.

  The whole of the Army of Portugal was now destroyed or in precipitous retreat, but with isolated groups rallying together to try and stem the rout. Foy’s division marched south to help with this and Ferey sacrificed his life and a thousand men of his Third Division to let the remnants get away.

  They were helped by the onset of darkness and utter fatigue in many parts of Wellington’s army. Pursuit was undertaken in the direction of Huerta, but Clausel and Foy had led the survivors toward the bridge at Alba de Tormes. The remains of the Army of Portugal crossed during the night and fled eastwards.

  CHAPTER 20

  The Hornets, General Sir Joshua Welbeloved’s Naval Division, was on the move once more, after most of the night spent in helping to clear up after the overwhelming victory in the hills and ridges and valleys south of Salamanca.

  Overwhelming it had certainly been. Allied losses in killed and wounded were nearly five thousand and the count was still incomplete. Estimates of enemy casualties had already reached six thousand, and more than that number was held as prisoners.

  It had been dark at the end of the battle, when the shattered columns had fled the field. It could be seen as the only good fortune for the French forces that successfully crossed over the River Tormes by the bridge at Alba de Tormes and avoided losing double the number of prisoners.

  Welbeloved doubted whether the onset of night would have made all that much difference. The Army of Portugal was badly beaten, but not routed. They conducted a fighting withdrawal and daylight would only have added to the number of casualties on both sides.

  Wellington’s allied army had itself been marching and fighting all day and was mostly too exhausted to do other than secure its prisoners and tend its own wounded as well as those of the French.

  With the dawn, every cavalry unit in the allied army had crossed the Tormes and spread out to follow the retreating French, hoping to inflict as much additional damage as they could. Wellington himself was riding, surrounded by his regular cavalry units and heading east, following the trail of abandoned kit left by exhausted and desperate men.

  The two Hornet brigades flanked them. Welbeloved
took the Iberican Brigade and rode northeast. Vere went southeast with the German and Portuguese Brigade.

  On the distant heels of the cavalry came General Alten’s Light Division. Although they had spent the whole of the previous day bickering with General Foy’s division on the eastern front, it was felt that they were possibly the least exhausted of any of the infantry divisions.

  They would not be needed in the pursuit, other than as escorts to the additional prisoners accumulated by the horsemen. Although they were light infantry and could march much more quickly than any others in the allied army, they were still no match for the French infantry soldier when necessity drove him.

  Even the cavalry only caught up with elements of General Foy’s division that was acting as rearguard for the fleeing army. Nevertheless it was a remarkable encounter. A regiment of dragoons of the King’s German Legion came suddenly upon one of Foy’s line regiments drawn up in square and were fired upon, losing several troopers.

  Understandably, they were not best pleased and broke all the rules by attacking a well formed square. It was generally accepted that cavalry did not attack infantry squares with any hope of success, but in this case a charging horse was shot and killed while at the gallop. Its momentum carried it sliding on to punch a gap in the side of the square; a hole that allowed the German dragoons to pour through and left the French with no option but to surrender.

  The adjacent French column tried to march off during this action, but there were enough dragoons free to pursue and wreak havoc among the rear companies, who scattered and fled forward, quite spoiling the attempt by the front of the column to form square.

  Nearly a thousand prisoners were taken, but the dragoons also lost over a hundred men when they tried to do the same thing to two more regimental squares. These presented an impenetrable wall of bayonets and blasted them with volleys of musket fire at short range.