The enemy stood and fired little. They were very firm until within fifty or sixty paces, when our fellows gave them the bayonet with cheers, routed the column and left the French with about eighty dead and one hundred prisoners besides wounded. Our men charged at too great a distance, their ranks were a confusion and they were so breathless and exhausted when they came up with the French, that they could scarcely use the bayonet. (Lieutenant Thomas Browne, 23rd.)
Both Clausel and Carrie were repulsed (the latter being captured) with losses totalling possibly 800 men. Alten had watched and waited for Carrie to cross and form up, before sweeping down the hillside, taking nearly 100 prisoners, and causing another sixty casualties. It was neatly done. His 14th Light Dragoons and 1st Hussars KGL then rode on to herd back more prisoners from the failed infantry attack – six officers and 240 men, and harried Taupin’s retreat across the river. Alten lost 138 men, and with a trifling loss in the 3rd Dragoons, who also helped (some say came to their rescue). The same number of casualties applied to the 3rd/27th (Inniskillings) and 1st/40th (Somersets) from Anson’s brigade.
In this affair at Castrillo, the lapping of the thin red line around the blue column sounds similar to Solignac’s brigade climbing the east hill near Vimiero in 1808, to be met by Ferguson’s brigade. (The 1st/40th (Somersets) were present on both occasions.)
It had been a long night and day for both sides, the British being the fresher. Marmont wisely chose to rest his men during the heat of the remains of the day, sensing perhaps that Taupin’s regiment had exhibited the plain exhaustion felt by everyone. He had every reason to be pleased, however. Not only had he levered open and crossed a bridge guarded the previous day by four British divisions, he had very nearly cut off two of them. Wellington too showed his accomplishments: forethought in preparing the Guarena line as a fall-back position, and resolution and leadership in extricating the 4th and Light, whose discipline on the march back evoked memories of Fuentes D’Onoro.
At some point during Sunday 19 July, while his tired men rested under the scorching sun, Marmont came to an easy decision: not to attack his enemy. He would again rely upon his swift marching pace, and try his luck on the open plain to the south-west. The river Tormes ran in a right-angled loop through the far side of the plain, and ten miles along the western curve lay the city of Salamanca. Beyond that lay the main road to Ciudad Rodrigo. Since both the city and the road were important to his enemy, his apparently defensive-minded enemy, the more ground Marmont could make, the more likely Lord Wellington might therefore be encouraged to fall back to guard his new possessions. He could not possibly allow Marmont to sit on his line of communication, along which flowed sustenance of all natures. That, said Wellington to Earl Bathurst two days later, ‘would distress us very materially’ especially since ‘The wheat harvest in Castille has not yet been reaped, and even if we had the money, we could not now procure anything from the country.’ That is, without copying the French and laying waste ‘whole districts for a scanty subsistence of unripe wheat’. So Marmont’s instincts were surely right. Wellington would not willingly fight, but the road to Rodrigo might force a confrontation on him, to Marmont’s advantage.
The blue regiments fell in at 4pm and marched a few miles south near Terazona. On his side of the Guarena, Wellington could only side-step likewise, onto the tableland beyond Vallesa and there he got ready for the night. Napier was able to look down onto the French bivouac fires, and was clearly aghast when earlier the peace had been disturbed by ‘Sir Stapleton Cotton coming up ... ordered Captain Ross to turn his battery of six pounders upon a group of French officers . . . in a few minutes a reply from twelve eight pounders showed the folly of provoking a useless combat’ and which resulted in enough casualties to cause the Light Division to ‘withdraw several hundred yards in a mortifying manner’. Cooke tells us it was Marmont himself Cotton had spotted. As the Division withdrew from the counter-fire, the handful of Spanish who had been enlisted only weeks earlier into the British regiments started ‘from the left . . . I never saw them again . . . and the flight in disorder of these patriots was ludicrous’.
The 20th dawned fine and promised a blistering sun. The red regiments stood to, an hour before first light. Like many others, Private Green, 68th
Expected that in a few minutes we should have been sharply engaged; but instead of this, the enemy broke camp, formed column, and marched to a ridge of hills, their bands and drums playing as though they were going to a general field-day. I saw the head of their column ascend the hill and march in the direction of Ciudad Rodrigo. We marched in two lines parallel to them.
Lord Wellington apparently agreed with Private Green that Marmont would cross the Guarena and take issue there and then, and every preparation was made for the expected action on the plain of Vallesa. Wellington moved his lines forward to the bank of the Guarena ravine, and even sent a brigade of cavalry halfway up the French ridge opposite to ‘entice them to show front and to develop their movements’. (Cooke) But to no avail. The two fighting lines of the allied army were turned smartly to the right and stepped off after Marmont, bands and drums hard at it in musical competition, the wives and other baggage settling into the rear, ahead of them twenty long miles of sun, dust and occasional cannonading. In every soldier’s usual search to keep the high ground, Marmont headed south-east initially towards Cantalpiedra, before switching south-west towards Cantalpino, from which ran the good road to the bridge over the Tormes at Huerta.
The allied army’s (now) three columns, comprised (nearest the French) the 1st, 4th, 5th and Light Divisions; the centre was the 6th and 7th Divisions together with Pack’s and Bradford’s Portuguese brigades; the outside column was the 3rd Division and Espana’s Spanish. The light cavalry led, the heavies followed at the rear and D’Urban’s small Portuguese cavalry brigade shepherded the baggage and stragglers. Across the Guarena the French were marching a mirror image, in two columns, each of four divisions and, like the British, their light cavalry were in the van, all the heavies at the rear. Simply by wheeling left or right, each army could show front and be ready to engage.
As the day wore on the red and blue columns converged slightly following the westerly turn of the French. It was a memorable scene, especially for those in the inner columns – the others probably saw little through the long dust clouds. Marmont’s Memoires said he had never in all his long service seen such a magnificent spectacle: a parallel march of over 80,000 men, sometimes a few hundred yards apart. ‘At times,’ said the 88th’s Grattan ‘the French and British were within musket shot of each other: the soldiers of both in momentary expectation of being engaged, yet not one shot was fired by either.’ John Aitchison, 3rd Guards, wrote:
As the enemy continued to advance on the high ground the British army moved forward on the road in a parallel direction and for the space of three hours there were the most beautiful movements perhaps ever witnessed of two armies of 40,000 men each trying to arrive at a certain point first.
And that really was the object. Marmont was trying – and succeeding – to out-march Wellington, to win a tactical success by manoeuvre without fighting, just as he had on the Douro. He achieved this aim some way past the village of Cantalpino, where the two columns had looked set to converge. The light cavalry and Henry Campbell’s 1st Division had just cleared the village, Cole’s 4th Division following closely on, when Marmont brought several batteries into action against the leading battalion. Cole’s orders from the Peer were to not respond, but with a swerve to the south-west to skirt the village, away from the cannonading. The entire allied army conforming, and Marmont continuing south and south-west, in effect Wellington had stepped off the dance floor. Marmont was left free to do what he liked. The remaining afternoon passed with the march ceasing to be parallel, widening until contact was lost. Wellington had decided to spend the night on the nearest defensible position which lay around Cabeza Vellosa and Aldea Rubia. Marmont himself had chosen these features when he withdrew from b
efore the San Cristoval ridge, so he knew their strength. But he really wasn’t interested in being drawn north or west. His choice for the night was Villa Ruela and Babila Fuente, which latter place was just two miles from the fords over the Tormes at Huerta and Encinas. Thanks to his Lordship’s decision, it was a fine end to a tiring day – at least twenty miles at speed, and that following four similar marches. Marmont was now in a position effectively beneath Wellington’s southern flank. One more rapid march would surely force a battle, or the abandonment of Salamanca, and put Marmont across Wellington’s communications with Portugal.
His Lordship, who believed the French to be much exhausted and unlikely to make the Tormes, was said to be furious. ‘Lord Wellington was amazingly angry when he found that the enemy had reached the river, and I believe that if there had been more daylight he would have attacked them then.’ (Charles Cathcart to Graham, 21 July.)
He would have been even angrier if he had known that the previous afternoon, the Spanish battalion guarding the bridge in Alba de Tormes had been withdrawn by a nervous Espana; it would be two days before that guilty gentleman deigned to break the news, with what effect we shall see.
Earlier on 21 July the allied army marched to the San Cristoval ridge. We have already quoted part of the letter his Lordship wrote that day to Bathurst, concerning the vital importance pre-harvest of the allied supply lines from Rodrigo. He expressed also the impossibility of turning the tables, since the ability of his foe to live off the land meant he had no supply lines to cut. He also re-iterated that no battle should be fought unless ‘The army would be able to maintain the field, while those of the enemy should not.’ Thus it seems clear that abandoning Salamanca and withdrawing to Rodrigo was now an active option.
Marmont also was pondering, but his hesitation ceased when news arrived of the abandoned bridge at Alba. His orders were issued at 10am to march south to that place, to cross the Tormes, and to deploy back towards the north. Foy and Clausel persuaded him rather to cross immediately at Huerta, with no time loss and with less chance of interference. At noon the crossings began, a rearguard division left to face Wellington at Babila Fuente, and subsequently a second at Huerta. By last light his cavalry and Foy’s light troops reached Calvarrasa de Arriba, on the Alba-Salamanca road, and which lay a little to the east of the chapel of Nuestra Senhora de la Pena. The individual divisions bivouacked in the woods to the south-east. Wellington had received cavalry reports of the gradual build-up west of the river throughout the first part of the day, having remained static that morning, and thus allowing his troops to rest. In the afternoon he crossed in two columns over the fords at Cabrerizos and Santa Marta, leaving Pakenhan’s 3rd Division and D’Urban’s Portuguese cavalry near Cabrerizos, should any threat appear down the right bank of the Tormes. By nightfall he had his early warning outposts adjacent to the French: British cavalry held Calvarrasa de Abajo and Pelabravo, with light troops up around the Chapel. The mass of infantry was behind the three mile ridge running down from Santa Marta, facing the ravine of a small stream called the Pelagarcia. Below the high ground lay the village of Los Arapiles.
That evening Wellington heard of the passage the previous day from Pollos, up on the Douro, of Marmont’s long-awaited reinforcements from Caffarelli’s Army of the North – twenty guns and 2,000 horse, it was said (but Wellington believed nearer half). He expected therefore that next day or on the 23rd at the latest, Marmont would have a cavalry advantage over him. Therefore there was no time to be lost. He wrote to Bathurst:
I determined that, if circumstances should not permit to attack him on the 22nd, I would move towards Ciudad Rodrigo without further loss of time, as the difference of the numbers of cavalry might have made a march of manoeuvre, such as we have had the last four or five days, very difficult and its result doubtful.
Well, that’s plain enough. Tomorrow looked like being his last chance. Hence his overheard exclamation next day of ‘By God! That will do!’ when he saw that chance at last present itself on a plate.
After dark, around 10pm on that Tuesday evening, the sultry heat of the long day resulted in an electrical storm of gigantic strength – neither the first nor last such which the gods of war would fling down before a Wellington victory. Grattan tells us:
Later in the night a storm arose, and the wind howled in long and bitter gusts. This was succeeded by peals of thunder and flashes of lightning, so loud and vivid that the horses of the cavalry, which were ready saddled, took alarm, and forcing the picquets which held them, ran away affrighted in every direction. The thunder rolled in rattling peals, the lightning darted through the black and almost suffocating atmosphere, and presented to the view of the soldiers of the two armies the horses as they ran about from regiment to regiment, or allowed themselves to be led back to their bivouac by the troopers to whom they belonged. The vivid flashes of lightning, which seemed to rest upon the grass, for a few moments wholly illuminated the plain, and the succeeding flashes concurred with such rapidity that a constant blaze filled the space occupied by both armies. It was long before the horses could be secured, and some in the confusion ran away amongst the enemy’s line and were lost. By midnight the storm began to abate, and towards morning it was evidently going farther: the lightning flashed at a distance through the horizon; the rain fell in torrents, and the soldiers of both armies were drenched to the skin before the hurricane had abated.
Tomkinson tells us that the 5th Dragoon Guards’ horses
Ran away over the men sleeping at their heads, by which eighteen in the brigade were wounded, and thirty-one horses not found the following morning . . . Colonel and Mrs Dalbiac (that redoubtable lady) of the 4th Dragoons were sitting on the ground in front of the brigade; he had just time to carry her under a gun, which stopped the horses and saved them both.
Next day, some foot-sore French officers, their horses having been commandeered by Marmont, were seen happily mounted on British dragoon horses.
And what of the two commanders that night? Was the storm raging in their heads, as well as outside their tents? Marmont, certainly, slept easy. Had he not run rings round the English for the last week? Was he not within a day’s march of the Rodrigo road? Was not the wheat and barley harvest as good as ready? Was not General Chauvel about to arrive with a brigade of horse? Well, he would dine again tonight in Salamanca: Kincaid tells us ‘Instructions were sent to his previous landlord in the city, to have the usual dinner ready for 6pm.’
Not so his Lordship. Things had gone wrong ever since the poor intelligence on the strength of the Salamanca forts. Should he after all have seized that fleeting chance on San Cristoval? Could he have stopped Marmont on the Douro or the Guarena? Should he have edged Marmont away from the Huerta road? When would Chauvel arrive? And King Joseph with his 14,000 men? And what about his baggage train – when should it go back? What of Salamanca? At least he knew the men’s spirit was one of irritation, not despondency or lack of confidence in themselves (or in him); and that they looked forward keenly to do something about it. Kincaid again:
There was assuredly never an army so anxious as ours was to be brought into action on this occasion. They were a magnificent body of well-tried soldiers, highly equipped, and in the highest health and spirits, with the most devoted confidence in their leader and an invincible confidence in themselves. The retreat of the four preceding days had annoyed us beyond measure, for we believed that we were nearly equal to the enemy in point of numbers; and the idea of retiring before an equal number of any troops in the world was not to be endured with common patience.
Before bed in his headquarters at La Pinilla, some three miles down from the Santa Marta ford, Wellington gave orders for the baggage train to leave at dawn for Rodrigo, escorted by one of D’Urban’s three Portuguese dragoon regiments. There were a lot of panicking Spaniards in Salamanca that night, and no doubt some who were quietly rejoicing.
The victor of Salamanca: Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington. After Salamanca he
was created Earl Wellington. This image was painted in 1814 by Sir Thomas Lawrence.
Marshal Auguste de Marmont, defeated by Wellington at Salamanca. He was wounded badly in the course of the battle and the French command passed to Bertrand Clausel.
General Bertrand Clausel who took over command from the wounded Marmont although injured himself. He conducted a skilful withdrawal of the French army from Salamanca and was later to knock Wellington back at Burgos.
General Maximilien Sébastien Foy. A divisional general he covered the retreat of the French army from Salamanca and later in the year at Burgos, when Wellington had raised the siege, he took prisoners and artillery from the British army as it retired to the Douro.
Richard Caton Woodville’s depiction of the storming of Badajoz by the 88th Connaught Rangers, the ‘Devil’s Own’. The defenders were from the French 88th Ligne and the painting is an accurate illustration of the storming of a fortress.
Salamanca. Sir Edward Pakenham’s 3rd Division charges General Jean Guillaume Thomières’s division in the course of the battle. Thomières was wounded fatally during the battle and is commemorated on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.
Salamanca 1812- Wellington’s Year of Victories Page 26