The enemy had his right routed, and the corps that composed it fled dispersed towards the centre, where they could unite behind the English regiments that were coming in great haste from the left… from the summit descend two ravines, very rocky and difficult. Lord Wellington filled these ravines with tiralleurs, stationed on the back part a good deal of artillery… Before our infantry could arrive, the enemy had had time to cover the summit… with several lines of English infantry.266
Despite their inexperience, the 7th Division had performed well under fire and endured a hazardous retreat that would have broken most troops. Their escape had seemed impossible, yet the French infantry lingered around the villages instead of quickly following up their cavalry’s success. Loison was advancing slowly, but Mermet’s Division spent far too long around Pogo Velho, exchanging fire with skirmishers instead of ignoring their fire and advancing swiftly to take advantage of the situation.
Massena realised he had a chance here to cut off the Allied line of communications through Castello Bom and possibly destroy Wellington’s right flank. He sent word for Lepic’s Brigade of Imperial Horse Grenadiers to exploit his success, but was mortified when Lieutenant Oudinot brought Lepic’s insolent reply: ‘Where is the guard Cavalry?’ shouted Massena. ‘General Lepic will not move, Prince,’ replied the aide, ‘he says he can only take orders from the Duke of Istria.’267 There was some delay while Marshal Bessières was found and Massena was infuriated at the waste of time, every minute seeing the beleaguered Divisions slipping further away.
Lieutenant Freer recorded how the artillery of Bull and Ramsay’s batteries continually played upon the enemy, covering the withdrawal. Ramsay’s horse artillery had fallen back steadily over the plain, pausing at various stages to fire into the enemy masses before hitching up the guns and riding to another firing point. However, he lingered too long and his battery was surrounded as the cavalry swept by them. Undeterred, Captain Ramsay calmly ordered the gunners to limber up the cannon to their teams and: ‘The guns when passed by, by the enemy, succeeded in escaping by charging through them and joining the (British) cavalry.’268 The French cut at the gun teams as they rode by and the gunners fought their way through, though unaccustomed to using their swords in such a mêlée, as their guns skidded and jolted behind them. British cavalry rode to their assistance, holding back the enemy horsemen as the gunners careered past the infantry starting to form on the rocky slope. They were met with rousing cheers, this narrow escape becoming one of the most famous incidents of the battle.
The two Divisions now took up position along the slope between the villages as the French began to deploy before them. William Stuart of the 30th Regiment recalled how the Allied position had changed: ‘…our right towards the heights of Villa Formosa – our line was now formed into two sides of a triangle: from Fort Conception to Fuentes D’Onoro…’269 The right flank had essentially swung back like a door, forming the southern half with the village of Fuentes jutting out at the point of this triangle. Wellington must have been mortified at the reverse on his right but, due to the skill and discipline of his troops, the Allies had retrieved the situation, performing this incredibly dangerous manoeuvre successfully.
The 85th had suffered a mauling, losing about a quarter of their number in Poço Velho and during the retreat, as had the 2nd Caçadores, but the rest of 7th Division suffered only ninety-two casualties during the hazardous withdrawal with the Light Division losing only sixty-seven. However, the cavalry had lost heavily, with 140 casualties of all ranks and 100 horses. Their heroism had saved the infantry from worse, but their losses should have been far higher considering the numbers matched against them. Montbrun was finally reinforced by the infantry but did not feel strong enough to force the new Allied position. Kincaid recorded the first French attempt:
The enemy followed our movement with a heavy column of infantry; but when they came near enough to exchange shots, they did not seem to like our looks, as we occupied a low ridge of broken rocks, against which even a rat could scarcely have hoped to advance alive; and they again fell back and opened a tremendous fire of artillery…270
The French attack had stalled and, seeing their inaction, Wellington felt confident enough to withdraw the Light Division to their former place behind and to the right of the village. However, as 7th Division adjusted their positions on the new defensive line, the Guards of Stopford’s Brigade became overconfident and sent out skirmishers. Observing this, the French cavalry charged the men strung out in open order and around a hundred men were killed or taken prisoner, Colonel Hill being among the captives. Grattan of the 88th had a clear view of the action and recorded his frustration at the sight:
Our division was posted on the high ground just above the plain; a small rugged ravine separated us from our comrades; but although the distance between us was short, we were, in effect as far from them as if we were placed on the Rock of Lisbon. We felt much for their situation, but could not afford them the least assistance, and we saw them rode down and cut to pieces without being able to… even discharge a musket in their defence.271
The battle had now reached its crucial point. Things were going well for the French in the village but the action on the right was coming to a halt, with Montbrun demanding reinforcements and limiting his attacks to the cannonade against the ridgeline. The British responded in kind, gradually getting the better of the artillery duel with their advantage in guns. Both sides mounted unsuccessful cavalry charges on their opponent’s batteries to little effect. Captain Knipe of the 14th was mortally wounded charging French guns in front as the gunners switched loads and flayed the approaching dragoons with grapeshot.
Above the village, Wellington observed that the attack on his right was bogged down and the skirmishing on his left was no cause for alarm. Had Montbrun continued to press home his assaults, in conjunction with a renewed French attack on his centre being prepared in Fuentes, the situation would have been very serious, but now he only had one threat to counter. The 88th and the 74th were positioned above Fuentes de Onoro as Pakenham rode up to Colonel Wallace and commented on the fugitives pouring out of the village and the French forming up there:
…when Sir Edward Pakenham galloped up to him, and said, ‘Do you see that, Wallace?’ – ‘I do,’ replied the Colonel, ‘and I would rather drive the French out of the town than cover a retreat across the Coa.’ – ‘Perhaps,’ said Sir Edward, ‘his Lordship don’t think it tenable…’ ‘I shall take it with my regiment, and keep it too.’ – ‘Will you?… I’ll go tell Lord Wellington so; see, here he comes.’272
Pakenham soon returned, along with General Mackinnon, who would lead the attack. The 88 th and 74th advanced silently at first, well aware that they were in full view of the French and most of the Allied army and that much depended on this assault. As they crested the ridge they were met by sporadic musketry fire from the houses and observed men of the French 9th Line forming line with bayonet-tipped muskets outstretched, preparing to receive them. Grattan led the advance company and:
…I turned round to look at the men of my company; they gave me a cheer that a lapse of many years has not made me forget, and I thought that that moment was the proudest of my life. The soldiers did not look as men usually do going into close fight – pale; the trot down the road had heightened their complexions, and they were the picture of everything that a chosen body of troops ought to be.273
Weary after fighting uphill through the village, yard by bloody yard, the French proved no match for the wild Irishmen of the 88th, who were fresh and eager for a fight. After a brief but vicious contest around the church, the 9th Regiment began to give ground. Grenadiers of the Young Imperial Guard opposed the redcoats’ onslaught but were gradually pushed back through the streets. During the chaotic fracas one group of about a hundred guards fled into a cul-de-sac by mistake, becoming trapped. Grattan recorded:’…the result is easily imagined;troops advancing to assault a town, uncertain of success, or flushed with victory, ha
ve no great time to deliberate. every man was put to death…’274 The two battalions harried the French back through the streets unmercifully, even pursuing them over the Dos Casas until French artillery began to fire upon them, halting their advance.
Massena was now approaching the end of his resources. Most regiments were down to five cartridges a man and he sent back to Ciudad Rodrigo for more ammunition. Riding up and down the line, he despaired of his attack on the Allied flank. It had gone so well initially, but now his brigade commanders were hesitating and some were even refusing to obey orders. Riding northwards he found that Reynier had attempted very little there, achieving nothing except tying down the two divisions opposed to him. Both of these were fresh and an attack by II Corps stood little chance of success with the difficult ground in front of them. In the centre he had lost at least 1,400 men during the day’s fighting, but the divisions of Ferey, Claparede and Conroux were exhausted and to mount another attack was folly. Wellington was still far from being defeated and Almeida was certainly beyond his reach for now.
Once again the French artillery resumed its bombardment of Fuentes de Onoro. Its defenders took cover in houses and behind walls as round shot crashed and ricocheted around them. Pakenham rode along the streets shouting encouragement to the soldiers, but every time he paused, the ground about him would be torn up by cannon fire as the gunners tried to target him. Colonel Cameron of the 79th was killed at this time and Wallace was knocked down and covered with stones and dust as a wall he was sheltering behind was blown in. Though several of his companions were killed, he emerged unhurt. The streets were strewn with dead and wounded and:
…this proceeding was attended with little loss to us, and was fatal to many of their wounded, who lay in a helpless state in the different streets, and could not be moved from their situation without great peril to our men – and they were torn to pieces by the shot of their own army.275
Crouching in the streets and houses, the town’s new defenders endured the cannonade in the heat and dust until dusk, but the Allied line had held and the battle was over.
In the evening a truce was agreed and men of both armies entered Fuentes de Onoro to begin the sad task of removing the dead and wounded. They lay piled in the streets or within the houses, where many wounded had crawled to escape the cannon fire raining down on them. The Highlanders of the 79th had suffered in particular, yet the men of many regiments lay sprawled in the dusty, rubble strewn lanes, the manner of their fall clearly evident:
Among the dead that covered the streets of Fuentes, it was quite a common thing to see an English and a French solider with their bayonets still in each others’ bodies, and their fists convulsively grasping the butt ends of their muskets, lying on top of each other. At one spot in the village I saw seven, and at another, five, French officers killed by bayonet wounds. 276
In the savage street fighting the French officers had led by example and suffered accordingly. The loss of officers from the Army of Portugal was almost triple that of their enemies, with twenty-eight killed and 158 wounded compared to nine killed and fifty-seven wounded on the Allied side.277
On both sides the field hospitals were filled to overflowing. Many had suffered horrific injuries in the close-quarter fighting in Fuentes and the vicious cavalry clashes on the plain. Wounds from splintered stone were commonplace after the long artillery bombardments on the village and many had lost limbs from the passage of round shot. Parquin had been shot in the mouth, but was relatively lucky compared to some of the wounded, recording with a cavalryman’s nonchalance:
When the major learned that I had been wounded he was kind enough to send a message enquiring how I was. I took a pencil and wrote a note for him saying that my wound would not be serious, but to take six of my teeth seemed excessive on the part of the English. 278
Field hospitals had been established in many of the surrounding villages and Grattan visited one at Villa Formosa, where many of the 88th’s casualties had been taken, where he witnessed terrible sights. Peering through a grating in the wall of the quinta (yard) of a large house he observed more than 200 men waiting to have limbs amputated, whilst more were constantly carried in:
…their limbs were swollen to an enormous size. Some were sitting upright against a wall, under the shade of a number of chestnut trees. The streams of gore, which had trickled down their cheeks, were quite hardened with the sun, and gave their faces a glazed and copper coloured hue; their eyes were sunk and fixed… they resembled more a group of bronze figures than anything human – there they sat, silent and statue-like, waiting for their turn.279
Watching and in one case assisting the surgeons conducting the dreadful work of sawing off shattered and infected arms and legs, Grattan saw the horrific human cost of the battle. Outside the hospital he found an enormous pit being filled with corpses, twelve to fifteen at a time, who were earthed over before more were flung in. Vultures were already beginning to hover, turning the pretty village of Villa Formosa into a ghastly charnel house.
Prisoners from both sides were marching disconsolately into captivity, Schaumann seeing many being led past him at his post near the bridge of Castello Bom. A French Chasseur Colonel complained to him that he had not been fed by his guards:
’Sacré dieu,’ he cried, ‘our men have as much meat, bread and wine as they can possibly carry in their haversacks; but you beggars have nothing.’ I pointed out to him somewhat resentfully that, unlike the French army, we English did not live on spoil and plunder, and that an English soldier could not therefore be expected with his ration to entertain a chasseur colonel to a meal. ‘March!’ I added… In a great rage he drew his bearskin down over his eyes and walking angrily across the bridge, muttered. ‘Bien, en avant donc!’280
Wellington had withdrawn the fatigued troops from the town and committed the Light Division to its defence. He half expected an attack the next day as the French had not moved, but this was not to be. Massena still felt obliged to carry out his Emperor’s instructions if he could. He felt that another attempt to push Wellington off his ridge was likely to be futile, but the presence of the army might aid the withdrawal of Almeida’s garrison. He offered 6,000 francs to any man brave enough to try to get through the Allied lines to the beleaguered town. Three men volunteered and under instructions to masquerade as deserters if caught, they were given tiny dispatches about two inches by one inch and told to swallow them in the event of capture. Two were taken but André Tillet of the 6th Light Infantry got through to General Brenier.281
Brenier’s orders were to slight his defences and to attempt a retreat by way of Barba de Puerco. To confirm that he had received the message he was to fire four salvos from his heaviest guns at ten o’clock the following evening. This being done, Brenier spiked his guns and placed charges under some of the fortress defences with timed fuses. Massena’s army remained before Fuentes for five days but on the 10th they withdrew and that evening they heard the muffled report of heavy explosions from the north-west. The Allies carried out a tentative, half-hearted pursuit, the vast superiority the French enjoyed in cavalry making them too strong a quarry for the Allies as they withdrew across the plains. Almeida’s garrison had crept out in the night and, to the amazement of both armies, managed to evade the blockading troops and cross the border into Spain, a key bridge having been left unguarded. Wellington was livid:
I was then quite sure of having Almeida; but I begin to be of the opinion… that there is nothing on earth so stupid as a gallant officer. They had about 13,000 men to watch 1,400; and in the night of the 10th, to the infinite surprise of the enemy, they allowed the garrison to slip through their fingers and to escape, after blowing up some of the works of the place! There they were all sleeping in their spurs even…282
Many, such as Grattan and Wheeler, believed that the troops blockading Almeida had been negligent and they were subjected to some ridicule in the Anglo-Portuguese Army. However, Wellington was so incensed that he ordered official inquiries t
o be made and Lieutenant Colonel Charles Bevan, whom he held accountable for the debacle, eventually committed suicide over his disgrace.
Though the battle had been a stalemate rather than a decisive Allied victory, the French had been thwarted in their aims, neither relieving the garrison nor defeating Wellington’s army. Furthermore, during the three-day battle the French had lost an estimated 2,844 casualties compared to 1,800 sustained by the Allies. Both sides claimed the battle as a victory but Massena had lost his last chance of restoring his reputation. He gained some satisfaction from the fact that Almeida had been partially slighted, with the garrison escaping, and used these factors to claim a success, though his euphoria was short lived.
The performance of both Wellington and Massena at Fuentes de Onoro remains contentious. Parquin believed that his commander-in-chief barely emerged from his command tent during the battle, despite the initial successes his army gained, citing the cavalry actions on 5 May in particular. In the eyes of many, Massena was a tired old man, well past his prime and living on his former glories. Parquin did not mourn his departure, commenting: ‘…the Duc de Raguse arrived to take over as the marshal commanding the army; everyone was glad of his arrival.’283
In contrast Thiebault believed that his former mentor had been beset by innumerable problems, especially amongst his own high command, and that it was remarkable that he had achieved as much as he did. Had it not been for the inertia on the French left during the outflanking manoeuvre, he could and should have beaten Wellington. He placed the blame squarely on the commander’s subordinates:
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