We ought unquestionably to have possessed ourselves of them the very first thing, but through some unaccountable Carelessness, they remained unoccupied. The French saw the importance of these Heights, but did not give us jealousy for them by sending at once a Large Body against them. They sent out some straggling parties in different directions which when they got near the foremost height ran together and got to the summit before a small part of the Portuguese caçadores which had been sent to prevent them could arrive. They were only in time to save the other height which was immediately occupied in Force by the 4th Division.
(Yet Leith Hay categorically states ‘the nearest of the Arapiles . . . had been occupied by the allies on the preceeding night.’)
It was about 8am when the 7th Caçadores from Stubb’s Portuguese Brigade in Cole’s Division were sent posthaste to claim the Greater. Major John Lillie led them and claimed later not to know they were either in a race, or indeed that there were any French units in the offing. Lillie recounts to Napier a surreal meeting with the French, actually riding with them through the wheat, to confront his own men:
I received orders through the Duke of Richmond to occupy . . . on arriving close to it I found it was too steep to ascend on horseback, and consequently rode round, while my men made the best of their way directly to the top. [It did not seem to occur to him to dismount!] I was not aware of any enemy being in the immediate vicinity, as some Spaniards had been there a short time previous; thus, when I came suddenly on some troops advancing from the opposite direction, I took them for Spaniards, and questioning them in Spanish, they replied that they were Spanish: they were partly covered by the high corn and the uneven ground, and I rode up in the same direction with them until we met our men at the top of the hill, when all doubts on the subject were removed by their opening fire on us at a few paces distance. We contested the point so long as anything like an equality of numbers permitted us; but as their numbers rapidly increased, and we found that we were encountering the head of a brigade, we were overpowered and closely pursed in the direction of the other Arapiles, for which the enemy made a push, and which they would have succeeded in taking had not the fusilier brigade and the Duke himself been sufficiently near to arrive the first.
The Lesser had the 3rd/27th (Inniskillings) moving to the summit with two 9-pounder guns from Sympher’s KGL battery, with the 1st/40th (Somersets) in rear, both battalions from William Anson’s brigade. Cole’s other brigade, Ellis’ Fusilier Brigade of three battalions, was 1,000 yards away to the west, on the Teso de San Miguel (just above the village of Arapiles) with Sympher’s other four guns. Stubb’s Portuguese Brigade and Pack’s Independent Portuguese Brigade filled the gap. Wellington left the Lesser saying to the Inniskillings’ Colonel John McClean ‘You must defend this position so long as you have a man.’
Over on the Greater Arapile, Bonnet had at least one of the 120th’s three battalions on the crest, with the balance in rear, as were Bonnet’s other three regiments, totalling another nine battalions. Guns were laboriously manhandled to the crest by Grenadier parties, the barrels detached – four or six pieces but probably not more. It offered a superb artillery platform, safe from cavalry, and just about within effective range of the Lesser and its wide-open surrounding country. The two snags were the dead ground immediately beneath the guns’ maximum depression angle – but attacking infantry would have to make it through a killing zone first – and the impossibility of affecting a quick exit off the hill in case of need.
That the one-eyed Bonnet, twenty-six years a soldier, had eleven battalions formed up behind the French Arapile is worth contemplating. That is all of 6,000 men, a positive blue host stretching in neat battalion columns across the slopes in rear, and largely visible from the British Arapile and from the Teso, a mile away. At that range a decent telescope will pick out individuals and make head counts entirely accurate. Thus Wellington would deduce the importance placed on continued possession of this hill – it was worth an eighth of his enemy’s infantry. Or, assuming he meant to maintain the two divisions in rear of the Chapel, a sixth. So he now had five divisions free for other purposes.
Which were now on the move. Around 9am Marmont ordered Maucune, Clausel, Taupin (Brennier’s) and (possibly) Sarrut to move west into the long line of woods to the south-east of their Arapile, and Thomières to a modest height at the edge of the woods, due south (presumably points 912 and 913 on current Spanish maps).
His Lordship reacted, though whether on catching sight of this movement or of Bonnet’s, is unclear. Either or both obviously indicated a continuation of Marmont’s flank marches of previous days, the object of which was plain and undesirable. To re-balance his north-south army was therefore necessary and, thanks to his interior lines behind his Arapile, could be done without committing to any assumptions which might still prove wrong. He brought Leith’s 5th, Clinton’s 6th, Espana’s Spanish and Bradford’s Portuguese down around the village of Las Torres, behind the Arapile village. He replaced the 7th by the Light, the former also going into reserve, and took the two light companies from Campbell’s Guards to deploy on the forward edge of the Arapile village. The rest of the 1st Division were in support of the Light. Alton, Anson and Le Marchant moved from the left flank into reserve near the 6th Division, leaving Bock’s two KGL dragoon regiments and two squadrons of Alton’s 14th Light Dragoons to cover Boyer’s dragoons, on the original left, above the Chapel.
Most of these adjustments were finalised by mid-morning – say 10.30am. At about the same time Edward Pakenhan’s 3rd Division got underway from Cabrerizos, having been instructed to cross the Tormes and form around Aldea Tejada. Pakenham had been left on the north bank should any threat develop there, but it was clear now to Wellington that he could re-join. With Pakenhan went D’Urban’s two remaining Portuguese dragoon regiments (1st and 7th), the 12th absent of course escorting the baggage. It is thought Pakenham chose not to cross entirely by the old Salamanca bridge, but also by the ford, and then marched across country. According to John Cooke, raising ‘clouds of dust as they passed along the rear of our army . . . near 1pm the 3rd Division were passing within a mile in rear of us (the Light Division)’. They would reach their destination about 2pm and then be some three miles north-west of Arapiles village. Pakenham and D’Urban rested along the mile-long road between Aldea Tejada and La Pinilla, and which was screened to the south-east by trees and hill slopes. There is a prominent long box-shaped feature just east of the former village.
His Lordship needed Pakenham there or thereabouts, just as he needed the Light Division on his extreme left: if the worst transpired, the latter would become – not for the first time – the army’s rearguard, and the former a support position to fall back on en route to the Rodrigo road. Whether any more optimistic use was in Wellington’s mind at this stage is impossible to know. It would take an hour to close the 3rd Division on the Arapiles, should he wish it. But then he already had a mass of unengaged troops under his hand, and an enemy who, at the Chapel, had shown no determined forward signs. It was quite hard to know what the French meant for in this first half of the morning there stood two full divisions all on their own, at the Chapel and on the Arapile, in isolation. That could not be the sum total of his enemy’s plans. The optical advantage lay with Marmont, whose troops Wellington in the main could scarcely see, whereas Marmont from his Arapile could see red coats only too well. Apart from those in dead ground immediately behind the Lesser (Anson’s 1st/40th), Marmont’s telescope gave him the red guardsmen in Arapile village, Ellis’ red fusiliers, Pack’s and Stubb’s brown Portuguese this side of the Teso, together with much of the 5th and 6th Divisions between there and Las Torres – and perhaps even the Spanish the other side, some two miles away.
Halfway through the morning, with no sign of any French movement, and with no activity bar the occasional shot by marksmen around the Chapel, and the odd random cannon fire between the Arapiles, Wellington now gave in to uncharacteristic temptation. Not su
rprisingly, his Despatch is silent on this lapse to human frailty – albeit a brief one. We cannot know whether it was to be a limited action, or the pre-cursor to a general action. No doubt he would not have known either.
He was going to attack Bonnet on the Greater Arapile.
CHAPTER 8
Salamanca — The Middle of the Day Wednesday 22 July 1812
Henry Campbell, commanding the 1st Division, three days after the battle wrote:
The French had got on a very commanding hill close to our front, from which they could see all that we did, and behind which they were playing the old game again and stretching away to turn our right. Lord Wellington at one time determined to attack them, and sent for me, and told me to move forward in two columns up the hill in front of our right, where this Division then was, and attack their left, while the 4th Division was to attack them in front; but I had hardly put the columns in motion before I received a counter-order and moved back to the ground I had quitted.
One of his officers, John Aitchinson, 1st/3rd Guards, wrote:
Lord Wellington immediately issued orders for the 1st Division to attack. We moved therefore into the village of Arapiles, but had hardly entered it when the order was countermanded ... It was now noon and the enemy were seen moving large bodies under cover of a distant wood upon our right, and they occupied with artillery all the eminences on our front.
John Mills, 1st Coldstream: ‘At 11 o’clock the 1st Division was moved from the left of the line to the village, being ordered to attack the height the enemy occupied. They were, however, countermanded.’
So it did nearly happen. There are two obvious curiosities here: why the order, and why the counter-order? Given Wellington’s stipulation that any action would require ‘very advantageous circumstances’, one wonders quite what these were. The 1st and 4th Divisions between them, less the 27th and 40th who secured the home Arapile, comprised twelve battalions, but then so did Bonnet. Granted the 1st’s were well above-average in strength, yet a thousand-man superiority was hardly a sure-fire guarantee of a successful outcome of whatever the Peer had in mind. And unless Bonnet could be overcome quickly, other French Divisions would soon join the fray, the action becoming general.
Tomkinson of the 16th Light Dragoons says the Light Division were also ordered to the attack, along with the 1st (no mention of the 4th). However, none of the 95th’s scribbling diarists left any such record, bar possibly a tangential reference by Kincaid: ‘We were kept the whole of the forenoon in the most torturing state of suspense through contradictory reports, one passing officer telling us that he had just heard the order given to attack, and the next asserting with equal confidence that he had just heard the order to retreat.’ One must assume Henry Campbell, having been told he would have one role and the 4th another, would have mentioned in his letter if his Lordship had allocated a third to the Light. So it was to be just the 1st and 4th.
It would perhaps seem Wellington saw Bonnet as a fleeting chance to bloody Marmont’s nose, to pinch him off the landscape and to gain the Greater Arapile; but no more than that. Yet Marmont could still march around it. Had his ambitions been wider, the order to Campbell would surely have been followed immediately by others to the cavalry, and to other adjacent divisional commanders. And in his shoes, after so many days of backwards manoeuvring and parallel marching, most soldiers’ red blood would have pounded a little at such temptation, however fleeting. A rare show of normality by the Peer? For he was on the verge of surrendering Salamanca back to Marmont, and without a fight at that: a frustrating position.
By general report it was Beresford who persuaded him otherwise. Indeed, Wellington himself said so, in conversation with Marmont years later, according to Oman, that the attack ‘was put off in consequence of the representation of Beresford, who had counselled delay’. We have earlier commented on Beresford’s post-Albuera caution – on the San Cristobal position. It has been suggested that on the Arapile his latest caution may have been seconded by Cotton, and in all fairness in this case it was probably a very appropriate caution. Yet that his Lordship paid attention and gave in, remains a puzzle, since if ever there was a general absolutely not given to consultation, nor to welcoming the tactical opinion of others, it was the very self-contained Arthur Wellesley. As Tomkinson commented, ‘His attending to the Marshal was considered singular’ and it remains so today.
While the 1st Division marched to, then fro, and Marmont watched no doubt with staring eyes as the red-coated company columns halted en route to the attack and then turned about, two other large bodies of troops were continuing their movements. Firstly there were his own divisions now emerging from the wood line up on the Sierro, having at last come around to the far south of his Arapile. Secondly, there was Edward Pakenham’s 3rd Division, some 3,500 bayonets, as they too crossed in rear of their army in another long cloud of dust which, just like that of the baggage train, was heading generally west beneath Salamanca.
This movement, together with the aborted attack, convinced Marmont his enemy was now in the process of retreat. He explained the various factors, together with what seemed to him the logical deduction, in his self-serving Memoires. With the change of mind on Bonnet, he wrote:
Wellington renounced his intention of fighting, and from that moment he had to prepare to draw away, for if he had remained in his present position I should from the next day have threatened his communications, by marching on to my left. His withdrawal commenced at midday . . . He had to retreat by his right, and consequently he had to begin by strengthening his right. He therefore weakened his left, and accumulated troops on his right. Then his more distant units and his reserves commenced to move, and in succession drew off towards Tejares (Aldea Tejada). His intention was easy to discern . . . The enemy having carried off the bulk of his force to his right, I had to reinforce my left, so as to be able to act with promptness and vigour, without having to make new arrangements, when the moment should arrive for falling upon the English rearguard.
Now from Marmont’s viewpoint one cannot argue with all this. It’s what he thought he saw. His Lordship was indeed all set to go backwards. He had been all morning. Or forwards, given a chance. Earlier, after the greater Arapile was lost, with common prudence he had caused his acting Quartermaster General the American-born Lieutenant Colonel William de Lancey, to prepare the route orders for the divisions to withdraw, when necessary, to the heights of Aldea Tejada. These included instructions for the prior movement of the commissariat and baggage. Commissary J. E. Daniels received his copy at 10am. Needless to say, that news quickly got around the divisions, adding to earlier disappointments. Being ready to withdraw, however, was no more than a prudent act of good generalship. The French would have to make further progress around the allied right before such a move became necessary. The order had not been given. What Marmont misinterpreted as a movement of withdrawal was actually part re-balancing (including the 3rd Division’s approach) and part misidentification of the baggage train.
The country the French would cross was perfectly open and without impediments. There were then no walls, fences or real ditches, bar those cut by the rains. These in places were ‘so deep and broad that it took a good spring to leap over’ (Corporal Douglas, 1st (Royals)). So basically we are concerned with an area of grassland nearly three miles east-west and a mile and a half going away from the village of Arapiles. This was the Monte de Azan. As the 4th and 5th Divisions looked to their front, the land rose gently to a convex crest, beyond which lay an upper flattish plateau ending, a mile from the village, in another rising slope, edging into extensive woodland. The western half of the Monte de Azan is a mile and a half of open slopes, narrowing gradually into something resembling a vague ridge, and which eventually becomes a flat-topped sixty-yard-wide feature with steepish slopes. This is the Pico de Miranda, taking the name of the hamlet Miranda de Azan which lay 100 feet or so beneath its south-western end. Finally, one should mention a low ridge running north at a right angle f
or over a mile beside, and in front of, the track from Aldea Tejada.
Clearly the Monte de Azan proffered Marmont an ideal route to continue turning the allies right: three miles and he would then be just four miles from the heights beyond Aldea Tejada and the Rodrigo road. He could almost feel the end of the turning journey, begun so many days before. And each day had shown that the British did not mean to fight. This Wellington was indeed a man for defensive actions. Apart from at Roliça, four years previously, he had never yet been known to attack. He had even aborted one that very morning! So let’s get on with it, with due prudence, of course. Let’s progress along the Monte de Azan in considered steps, fixing the British as we go. At some point Foy and Ferey must close up as we sidestep westwards, for it is all of six miles from their location to Miranda de Azan, and that’s way too much front to cover. Let’s start by seizing the nearer end of the plateau, opposite Arapiles village and alongside Bonnet, before Wellington regains his courage and has a second bite at that cherry.
Marmont’s despatch to Paris:
It was indispensable to occupy it, seeing that the enemy had just strengthened his centre, from whence he could push out en masse on to this plateau, and commence an attack by taking a possession of this important ground. Accordingly I ordered the 5th Division (Maucune) to move out and form up on the right end of the plateau, where his fire would link on perfectly with that from the (Great) Arapile: the 7th Division (Thomières) was to place itself in second line as a support, the 2nd Division (Clausel) to act as a reserve to the 7th. The 6th Division (Brennier) was to occupy the high ground in front of the wood, where a large number of my guns were still stationed. I ordered General Bonnet at the same time to occupy with the 122nd regiment a knoll intermediate between the plateau and the hill of the (Great) Arapile, which blocks the exit from the village of the same name. Finally, I directed General Boyer to leave only one regiment of his dragoons to watch Foy’s right, and to come round with the other three to the front of the wood, beside the 2nd Division. The object of this was that, supposing the enemy should attack the plateau, Boyer could charge in on their right flank, while my light cavalry could charge in on their left flank.
Salamanca 1812- Wellington’s Year of Victories Page 28