CHAPTER 3
The Affair at Villagarcia 11 April 1812
Having given up hopes of a quick move south to catch Soult, who had withdrawn too far for that purpose, and with Marmont now running a little too freely around and to the south of Ciudad Rodrigo (which was provisioned only for another two weeks), four days after Badajoz fell Lord Wellington necessarily turned north – possibly a temporary measure at this stage – to deal with Marmont’s Army of Portugal. The French had reached Rodrigo, to the garrison’s horror, by 30 March, but without a siege train, of course; Marmont sent Clausel west to see if Almeida could be snatched and, that proving too big a task, south to Castelo Branco (halfway to Badajoz), which he reached by 12 April. Marmont himself raided across to Guarda. Hearing on 15 April of the fall of Badajoz, and especially the crossing the next day of the Tagus at Villa Velha by Lord Wellington’s advance guard, the entire French force concentrated back to Sabugal. Marmont was unaware, however, that Wellington’s far superior force was en route, and the latter took pains not to over-frighten his enemy, at whose back ran the swollen Agueda. He remained for one week, until 22 April, when, his rationing having become quite desperate, he withdrew in the nick of time. He did so without fully appreciating how his four divisions of 20,000 had had 40,000 men closing fast upon their backs.
Meanwhile, Hill with some 14,000 men of the 2nd Division, and Hamilton’s two Portuguese brigades, together with his cavalry, was left as an anti-Soult blocking and observing force three marches south-east of Badajoz, around Almendralejo and Villafranca.
Wellington’s movement from Badajoz on 11 April had been led by the 11th Light Dragoons. That same day fellow dragoons in the 12th, 14th and 16th Light Dragoons, together with their heavier brethren in the 5th Dragoon Guards, and with the 3rd and 4th Dragoons not far behind, all took part, sixty miles away, in as neat a cavalry action as could be wished.
So after our previous muddy and bloody pages in the confines of Badajoz, it will do the reader good to mount up and leap a few walls and ditches, wind in his hair, and chase the French over a nearly five mile point. And we shall be in the company of Major General John Le Marchant, who will feature so stunningly three months later at Salamanca. It is no bad thing to get an early flavour of the important role to be played there by Wellington’s British and Portuguese cavalry, particularly as the arm was so much stronger, with the reinforcements sent out to the Peninsula the previous summer and autumn – his Lordship now had fifteen regiments compared to seven in 1811.
Wellington was by background and necessity an infantry general, with the low opinion of the mounted arm which can only come from a superb horseman. Peninsular experience to date of disorderly conduct at Vimiero and Talavera (where he was present) outweighed stories of glory at Benavente, Sahagun and Usagre (where he was not), together with the misreported Campo Major, and formed a conviction that they were
So inferior to the French from want of order, that although I considered one of our squadrons a match for two French, yet I did not care to see four British opposed to four French, and still more so as the numbers increased, and order of course became more necessary. They could gallop, but could not preserve their order. (Letter to Sir John Russell, 31 July 1826.)
It is true that at Vimiero the 20th Light Dragoons’ Colonel Taylor ‘Rode that day a horse which was so hot that not all his exertions would suffice to control it, and he was carried head long upon the bayonets of the French’. (Sergeant Landsheit.) It was true also that his two squadrons hilariously then jumped into an enclosure which ‘Was fenced round to a great height, and had but a single aperture which . . . the enemy immediately closed’ and were saved from complete annihilation only by the coincidental advance of the 50th. And at Talavera, as any foxhunting man knows when suddenly confronted by a hidden ditch, order does loosen somewhat; yet it is also true that not everyone of sound mind would then continue, first failing in a charge against the 27th Ligne in four-deep square, then thrusting on with two squadrons – 160 men? – to charge the 10th Chasseurs, the 26th Chasseurs, the Polish Vistula Lancers and the Westphalian Light Horse – a mere 1,200 horsemen. Since just seven (not surprisingly) of the 23rd Light Dragoons survived to make it back up that Balaclava-like valley, watched no doubt by Sir Arthur from the Medellin, he of course had his prejudice strengthened.
And Campo Major? ‘Mischiefs ... disorder . . . undisciplined ardour ... rabble . . . If the 13th Dragoons are again guilty of this conduct, I shall take their horses from them, and send the officers and men to do duty in Lisbon’ (to Beresford, 30 March 1811, who was of course himself to blame for throwing away, by over-cautious inaction, the just desserts of a splendid charge and pursuit). Sir John Fortescue said the truth of it all: ‘I know of nothing finer in the history of the British cavalry . . . If he [Colonel Head, 13th Light Dragoons] had been supported and his trophies been secured, the action would no doubt have become a classic in the annals of cavalry.’ Wellington’s severe and public – in a General Order – censure was partly mitigated later when given a fairer version of events by the field officers of the 13th, but he would not retract his reprimand. The 13th’s consolation, as Napier wrote, was ‘The unsparing admiration of the whole army’. For hundreds upon hundreds of infantry officers, mounted on their unfit narrow old screws, and boringly shackled to the three miles per hour of their marching companies, could well fantasise a rapid seven mile pursuit to the gates of Badajoz. What fun! Let’s transfer to the 13th!
Charles Oman, of course, was pretty priggish about all this, unlike Fortescue, and his grudging account of Campo Major makes depressing reading; unfortunately, his views on the natural exuberance of British cavalry have coloured many subsequent accounts, so at least we must be grateful that of Villagarcia he managed to say ‘The affair was very creditable to all concerned’. Wellington himself was typically not bowled over by Villagarcia – in forwarding to Lord Liverpool Sir Stapleton Cotton’s report ‘I have only,’ he said, ‘to add my commendation of the conduct of Lt – General Sir Stapleton Cotton, Major-General Marchant and the officers and troops under their command’ which surely qualifies as coldly damning with the faintest of praise. Of course he was quite right to lack enthusiasm; his implied suspicion that Villagarcia was an exception that proved the rule was to be justified only weeks later at a place called Maguilla. For if Villagarcia stands high in the annals of horsed encounters, Maguilla – as we shall see – took the all-time biscuit for incompetence. And that lack of consistency much irritated the Peer and for good reason: it showed he could not rely on his cavalry not to get into scrapes. He did like best those he could rely upon.
Now, as to the events on 11 April, we really need the previous day to have been helped by a Lieutenant Penrice and two of his dragoons to climb the church steeple in Bienvenida, a modest town fifteen miles from Llerena. This observation post in late afternoon allowed the telescopes of Lieutenant General Cotton and his AAG Lieutenant Colonel John Elley to spot French cavalry ten miles away around a wood, in front of the village of Villagarcia. The newly-promoted Sir Stapleton Cotton had nine regiments in his 1st Cavalry Division, currently behind him by up to twenty miles in the triangle Los Santos – Villafranca – Ribera. Major General John Le Marchant had a Heavy Brigade comprising the 3rd and 4th Dragoons, and the 5th Dragoon Guards; Major General Sir John (Mad Jack) Slade’s Heavy Brigade comprised the 1st (Royal) Dragoons, and the 3rd and 4th Dragoon Guards; and Lieutenant Colonel the Hon Frederick Ponsonby (vice Anson, who was at home on leave) the 12th, 14th and 16th Light Dragoons.
What the telescopes showed was a gap of several miles between the enemy cavalry and its supporting infantry and artillery, back around Llerena; the flat rolling terrain was inter-cut by some hill lines and would be quite familiar to Cotton and Elley. They saw the possibility of a surprise attack, in keeping with Wellington’s supposed further move southwards. In particular a ridge of broken ground ran between the Villagarcia-Llerena and the Bienvenida-Llerena roads i.e. to the south of Villaga
rcia, and Cotton’s developing plan was to send Le Marchant on a wide right hook to get behind the French cavalry, cutting them off from Llerena, whilst holding their attention in front with his light regiments. That idea was now forming in his mind.
The French cavalry were Marshal Soult’s eyes, operated by Drouet D’Erlon, acting much the same role as Hill with two infantry divisions and Pierre Soult’s division of dragoons around Llerena, of which a strong brigade under Lallemand and Peyremmont were four miles in advance at Villagarcia, comprising the 2nd Hussars, the 17th and 27th Dragoons. Drouet’s orders were to fall back towards Seville should the British press hard, but preferably to remain, so as to keep up communications via Medellin, Truxillo and the Tagus with the Army of Portugal. Hill and Cotton, in furtherance of the Peer’s wish to give the impression he was looking south to invade Andalucia, and not moving north on Marmont, were to push forward.
Thus Ponsonby, with the 12th and 14th, was ordered up to Usagre ‘And to occupy it this evening, if the enemy does not occupy it . . . Should he, you will bivouac in view of the town, and advance at daylight the following morning’. The two heavy brigades were ordered to Bienvenida, and the 16th (who had not completed rationing) were to join Cotton at the latter place. Modern readers who are themselves horsemen may at this point be reminded of — and admire – Cotton’s physical diligence in making these simple arrangements: he and Elley had already ridden twenty miles forward to the steeple; now twelve miles back to Zafra, there to tumble Le Marchant out of bed and give him his marching orders; fifteen miles to Villafranca and ditto Ponsonby, and finally twenty-two miles back to the steeple: a round trip of nearly seventy miles, of which the final fifty were in darkness! Quite a hack! There is little doubt such an energetic outing was evidence of a man eager for glory. It is said that Cotton had been present a month earlier at the dinner given by Lord Wellington at which Generals Graham and Hill were both presented with the insignia of the Bath. Cotton still smarted at his exclusion.
On the approach march, however, came news to Cotton that the French cavalry were no longer about Villagarcia. He accordingly sent a note to Ponsonby by hand of Lieutenant Wheeler, 16th Light Dragoons, ‘I wish we had been allowed to follow them this day. I fear it is too late. The enemy have left Villagarcia. Push Cocks on in the morning to Villagarcia, and let him send on patrols to feel the enemy, whose rear I think he will find in Berlanga.’ (Ten miles east of Llerena, on the Cordova road.) Now Frederick Ponsonby would interpret this quite plainly: his commander regretted earlier delays and wanted Cocks to locate the French even if this required a patrol of fourteen or fifteen miles to Berlanga, i.e. a potentially thirty-mile round trip to bring back information – certainly another three-hour delay. So, Ponsonby, you had better act now. Off went Major Charles Cocks, 16th Light Dragoons, with a squadron each from the 12th and 14th, and at first light he found and drove in the French vedettes from the hill above Villagarcia.
Meanwhile a second message to Ponsonby, carried by Captain Luard, 4th Dragoons, was on its way from Cotton. This was to delay entering Villagarcia, second thoughts suggesting the French (if they were still nearby) might thereby be forced prematurely back before the right hook from Le Marchant could come in behind them, and cut the road to Llerena. But, too late, for Ponsonby’s two squadrons under Cocks clattered through the village at dawn and, progressing out the other side, ran into the main French force. In his despatch, Cotton says, ‘I desired Colonel Ponsonby would show only three squadrons and endeavour to amuse the enemy in front’; by which we may assume Charles Cocks’ two squadrons out front by themselves was a mistake, confronted now by the 17th and 27th Dragoons under Lallemand, with the 2nd Hussars under General Peyremmont coming up from support. That is 200 sabres being pushed by 2,000. Thus, far from amusing the French, Ponsonby hastened to save Cocks by joining him with the other four squadrons of the 12th and 14th, making six light squadrons against – we don’t know for sure – between twelve and eighteen heavy squadrons. Enough anyway for General Peyremmont to be quite confident in pushing Lallemand forward.
Cotton himself with the 16th Light Dragoons was coming up between Ponsonby and Le Marchant anxious to join the former, who was now in trouble. Behind Ponsonby, in a defile, were several enclosures with stone walls which would limit movement. Le Marchant watched from the right on the edge of the olive groves as the six light squadrons faced the much more numerous French heavies, 400 yards apart. The 5th Dragoon Guards had just made a forced night march of over twenty miles, after more than the same again the previous day ‘And the last four miles at a brisk pace through a country abounding with obstructions’ says their Records. Le Marchant had taken them through a defile over the hills bordering the east of the plain, stumbling in single file up tortuous gullies strewn with boulders. Guided by Colonel Elley he had found his way down to the south-west of Villagarcia, and was hidden in rough terrain behind the ridge overlooking the plain, across which ran the road from Villagarcia south-east to Llerena. Only the 5th were with him, the 3rd and 4th Dragoons being not immediately available.
There is a nice reference in Le Marchant’s Memoirs of 1841, written up by his second son Dennis, of some of the red-coated 5th Dragoons being spotted by General Lallemand emerging
From an olive grove in his rear, and pushed boldly towards him across the plain. They were evidently no more than three hundred or four hundred men, and he could not see any troops near to support them. For a moment he supposed them to be a detachment who had mistaken their orders or lost their way; but on closer observation, their compactness and precision with which they moved, aroused in his mind suspicions which he deemed prudent to communicate to General Peyremmont ... A few minutes elapsed before Lallemand could find Peyremmont; and when he did his suggestions were ill-received. Peyremmont insisted that the officer commanding the British detachment must be a blockhead, and was throwing himself upon certain destruction.
Lallemand apparently muttered something about if the British Commander was not a blockhead, he must be no ordinary soldier, to which remark Peyremmont smiled contemptuously and turned dismissively away – briefly – for then the redcoats surged forward, Le Marchant in advance of the centre squadron, each squadron in echelon, forming line as they went. Peyremmont checked his further movement towards Ponsonby’s light troopers, prior to changing his position; some confusion reigned, and at this point the separate British regiments combined with unusual skill. Behind and to Ponsonby’s right over a low hill appeared the 16th Light Dragoons. A wall lay between them and the plain. ‘The French paid little attention to this reinforcement,’ wrote Cotton’s biographer in 1866, ‘For between them and the enemy ran at the bottom of the hill a low stone wall, which appeared to render a direct advance of the 16th impossible.’ The twenty-year-old Captain William Tomkinson rode that day with the 16th:
When we came on the top of the hill, there were the 12th and 14th on our left, close in front of Villa Garcia. The enemy formed a quarter of a mile from them, and a small stone wall betwixt the 16th (our regiment) and the French. We came down the hill in a trot, took the wall in line, and were in the act of charging when the 5th Dragoon Guards came down on our right, charged, and completely upset the left flank of the enemy, and the 12th, 14th and 16th advancing at the same moment, the success was complete. The view of the enemy from the top of the hill, the quickness of the advance on the enemy, with the spirit of the men in leaping the wall, and the charge immediately afterwards, was one of the finest things I ever saw.
There was little the French commanders could do – Generals Lallemand and Peyremmont had walked into a trap which now closed as the three Light Regiments turned about and surged forward. Le Marchant, the designer of the light cavalry’s sabre (1796 pattern) in use that day was to see its effectiveness (Tomkinson tells us of a ‘French Dragoon . . . his head nearer cut off than I ever saw before; it was by a sabre cut at the back of the neck’).
It is not clear if either side had a formal second line in support. While
Peyremmont’s 2nd Hussars was probably up in his three regiment line, Le Marchant’s 3rd and 4th Dragoons are only referred to as being ‘In support’ rather loosely, i.e. at a distance, to conform to his Lordship’s best practice. ‘The 4th Dragoons returned one man as wounded, detached with the skirmishers’, as explained by Le Marchant, but otherwise were not present. Slade certainly was absent – unsurprisingly a late starter again.
The moral advantage lay with the British. For every Frenchman felt the wretched foolishness, and anger, that always follows being caught out and while their right arms were adrenalin-strong for a while, the inclination grew to turn and run, towards their infantry and guns some five miles back around Llerena. Thus there developed a splendid and no doubt exhilarating pursuit across the plain, halted temporarily when the French made use of a ditch, around the halfway mark, daring Cotton to charge over the obstacle. There was a hesitation at this point amongst the pursuers’ leaders, as we shall comment upon later, but the immediate cause of delay was that Cotton was brought down, in a heavy fall, when his horse (which had covered such distances that day) fell at the ditch, dislocating a shoulder and having to be shot. Cotton suffered severe contusions, according to his biography. However, all that overcome, he first sent two squadrons of the 16th down the Llerena road around the French left, whilst charging with three squadrons of the 12th, and the French again turned and ran, until safely back inside their lines the other side of Llerena. Tomkinson again:
Salamanca 1812- Wellington’s Year of Victories Page 20