by Rory Muir
Pakenham's formation only makes sense if his division marched across the direction of the French advance and then wheeled into line (in a manoeuvre similar to the naval ‘crossing the T’). However, given the difficulty of relating the formation to the actual ground at the Pico de Miranda, it is worth pausing to consider the alternatives. There are two main possibilities: he may have swung his division in a wider arc and approached the Pico de Miranda from the west, but this does nothing to make the troops fit on to the ground more comfortably, while contradicting the evidence of his formation. The second possibility is considerably more interesting, if ultimately unconvincing. According to this theory, Pakenham crossed the north–south ridge and attacked the Monte de Azan from the north. Campbell's evidence of the division's formation must be put aside, and the assumption made that the troops advanced with each brigade in a line of battalion columns which deployed into line before climbing the hill. Thomières's men would still have been flustered by the sudden appearance of such a large force emerging unexpectedly from behind the ridge, and the line of Wallace's brigade would still extend beyond the flanks of the French even if their four available battalions were formed in column along the crest of the hill. The advantage of this theory is that the troops will fit onto the ground quite easily, while the actions of D'Urban, Arentschildt and Curto are not hard to reconcile with it. However, it requires that we discard not only Campbell's detailed account of the formation of the division, but also all the maps and other evidence which refer to Pakenham turning the French flank, rather than simply overthrowing the troops that formed the extreme left of the French army. Furthermore, if the thrust of Pakenham's advance was to the south rather than the east, it would require his division to change direction abruptly in the moment of victory, and abandon the pursuit of Thomières in order to press along the plateau to take Maucune in the flank. This presents serious difficulties, although even in conventional interpretations of the battle the role of the Third Division in the later phases is very sketchy.
An alternative interpretation of Pakenham's attack. This is highly speculative; some of the evidence fits it quite neatly, but the weight of probability is rather against it.
Grattan's account of the division's advance fits this theory surprisingly neatly. The following comes from his article in the United Service Journal for 1834 and, as with other quotations from it, I have substituted Thomières's name for Foy's:
When all was in readiness, Pakenham departed at the head of ten battalions and two brigades of guns, to force the left of the enemy. Three battalions, the 45th, 74th and 88th, under Colonel Alexander Wallace, of the 88th, composed the first line; the 9th and 21st, Portuguese of the line, under the Portuguese Colonel, De Champlimond, formed the second line; while two battalions of the 5th, the 77th, the 83d and 94th, British, were in reserve. Such was the disposition of the third division …
No sooner was Pakenham in motion towards the heights, when the ridge he was about to assail was crowned with twenty pieces of cannon, while in the rear of this battery were seen Thomières's division endeavouring to regain its place in the combat. A flat space, 1,000 yards in breadth, was to be crossed before Pakenham could reach the heights. The French batteries opened a heavy fire, while the two brigades of artillery, commanded by Captain Douglas, posted on a rising ground behind the third division, replied to them with much warmth. Pakenham's men might thus be said to be within two fires; that of their own guns firing over their heads, while the French balls passed through their ranks, ploughing up the ground in every direction; but the veteran troops which composed the third division were not to be shaken even by this.
Wallace's three regiments advanced in open column until within 250 yards of the ridge held by the French infantry. Thomières's column, 5,000 strong, had by this time reached their ground, while in their front, the face of the hill had been hastily garnished with riflemen. All were impatient to engage … but Pakenham, who was naturally of a boiling spirit and hasty temper, was on this day perfectly cool. He told Wallace to form line from open column without halting, and thus the different companies, by throwing forward their right shoulders were in line without the slow manoeuvre of a deployment.25
Against this must be set the accounts of Campbell and, for what it is worth, Moggridge:
The division was soon under arms, and moved off rapidly in open column, right in front, the 45th regiment leading. … We soon descended into a kind of valley, or rather hollow, and having brought up our left shoulders a little, we pushed on at a quick pace, but in excellent order, to the right; the side of the hollow towards the enemy concealing our movements from their sight.
The whole scene was now highly animating. The left brigade, headed by the 5th regiment, was, I saw, marching parallel to the right, so as to be ready to form a second line. The Portuguese brigade followed the right, and the whole of the left flank of the columns was covered by a cloud of sharpshooters, composed of light infantry companies, and riflemen of the 5th battalion, 60th regiment.
Having moved a considerable distance in this order, (field officers and adjutants prolonging the line of march,) the head of the column, by bringing up the right shoulder, began gradually to ascend the hill, on the top of which we expected to find the enemy still extending to their left. At length, having fairly outflanked the French left, the whole formed line, and with Sir Edward Pakenham in front, hat in hand, the brigades advanced in beautiful style, covered by our sharpshooters, the right of the first line admirably supported by the left brigade.26
And
The ground through which our route lay was low, and sheltered from observation by the neighbouring heights, and we passed on unobstructed and unobserved by the enemy. In this manner we marched on for a considerable distance, when, emerging into ground higher and more open, we suddenly became exposed to a heavy fire of artillery, which occasioned considerable loss in the ranks.
This, however, did not interrupt our march, and, proceeding onward, I remember we turned somewhat unexpectedly to the right, and entered a narrow valley which ran in a direction nearly at right angles with the course we had hitherto pursued. Having continued our advance in this manner for some time, we halted for a few minutes, and having formed in separate columns of regiments, we were ordered to advance up the heights by which the valley was bounded to the left.27
But the most decisive evidence on the point comes from the words chosen by Wellington and Pakenham when describing the advance in letters written within days of the battle. Wellington wrote: ‘I ordered Major Gen. the Hon. E. Pakenham to move forward with the 3d division … to turn the enemy's left on the heights. … The attack upon the enemy's left was made in the manner above described, and completely succeeded. Major Gen. the Hon. E. Pakenham formed the 3d division across the enemy's flank, and overthrew everything opposed to him.’ Pakenham wrote: ‘At three in the afternoon the 3rd Division received instructions to move in double column across the Enemy's Left, which was advantageously placed upon some strong heights, there to form line, carry the heights and sweep everything before it.’28 It is difficult to see how these terms could have been used to describe a frontal attack on the north face of the Monte de Azan.
D'Urban's description of the charge of his brigade comes not from his contemporary journal, but from a later narrative which he wrote to support his friend Sir Henry Watson's complaints about Napier's History. It is not printed with the published journal, so we must rely on the quotations and paraphrases given by Oman. The most obvious problem with the incident is that it is difficult to understand why the French battalion was so isolated from the rest of Thomières's division and why it was unscreened by Curto's cavalry. A related question is where the encounter occurred. D'Urban implies that it was on the lower slopes of the Monte de Azan, but also says that the French were already beyond the right flank of the advancing British infantry, which rather suggests that the French battalion had advanced beyond the Pico de Miranda onto the low rise to its west. However, this makes Thom
ières's manoeuvres – already difficult to reconstruct – completely inexplicable. Nor are the details of the actual encounter clear, for Napier, in an appendix, quotes two letters: the first, from Watson, states that the French were in square and that the charge was completely successful; the second, from Colonel Townsend, 14th Light Dragoons, says he was ‘almost positive the French were not in square but in line’, and that he had no doubt that the charge failed, leaving Watson badly wounded on the field. D'Urban, of course, supports Watson's account, and Oman follows them, although we cannot tell which of the details he gives come from D'Urban and which are his own attempts to reconcile Watson's and Townsend's versions. Oman has the French neither in square nor in line, but in column with the front two companies closed together so as to be six ranks deep; he makes the frontal attack fail while the right-hand squadron breaks in on the defenceless flank.29
Thomières's force and deployment are even more obscure, and there are no first-hand French accounts of this part of the battle. The version commonly given is that he advanced beyond Maucune's left flank and ‘continued moving in a westerly direction along the summit of the plateau … before [he] stopped he had gone nearly three miles.’30 As D'Urban encountered a French battalion moving hastily westwards, the implication is that the French had only just arrived, breathless and flurried, after a long march. But Thomières did not have nearly as far to go as Pakenham (less than one and a half miles compared to three) and began his march sooner, so it seems likely that he halted for some time on the way. Indeed, he probably never intended to push so far west, and only rushed to seize the Pico de Miranda when he finally discovered Pakenham's advance. Why the French reconnaissance should have been so poor, and Curto's cavalry so ineffective, remains a mystery.
As for Thomières's force, Oman observes that because the division was advancing to the left, the senior regiment would have been in the rear. This is confirmed by the casualty figures, for while the 62nd and 101st Regiments were almost destroyed in the battle (losing 77 and 82 per cent respectively, even on Lamartinière's figures), the 1st Ligne suffered comparatively little (only 13 per cent). Clearly its experience differed greatly from that of the other two regiments, and Sarramon plausibly suggests that it had been left behind as a link (albeit an inadequate one) between Thomières's advance guard and Maucune's division.31
None of the primary sources gives details of Thomières's death, and the secondary sources are not particularly helpful. Fortescue declares that he ‘fell early on this day’; Young and Lawford that he ‘died, vainly trying to rally his men’; while Oman says that he ‘died within the English lines after the battle’; and Sarramon refers to the ‘mortal wound received by General Thomières at the critical moment of the combat’.32 Other aspects of the main infantry attack are fully discussed in the main text.
The account of Curto's charge on the British flank requires rather more elaboration. This follows Oman's interpretation that it was the 1/45th in Wallace's brigade which threw back three companies at an angle and drove off the French cavalry, while the 1/5th in the second brigade were caught in the flank and thrown into confusion. This is well supported by the heavy losses of the 1/5th, while the 1/45th lost scarcely more heavily than the 74th, the regiment on the other flank of Wallace's brigade (the 1/45th lost 55 casualties, or 12.4 per cent of its strength; the 74th lost 49 casualties, or 11 per cent). There is also the testimony of Sergeant Donaldson of the 94th in the second brigade: ‘The 5th regiment, in attacking a body of infantry posted on a small height, were furiously charged by the enemy's cavalry, and thrown into some confusion …’ But the other first-hand accounts do not fit this interpretation so neatly: Private Brown, whose graphic account of the resulting melee is quoted in the narrative, served not in the 1/5th, but the 1/45th; while Sergeant Morley of the 1/5th admits that his regiment was broken, but attributes this to the stubborn resistance from French infantry and makes no mention of French cavalry, although he does add that ‘at this distance of time, I do not pretend to give a faithful account of the particulars’. This is disconcerting enough and Captain Campbell's account only adds to the uncertainty: ‘at this critical moment some of the enemy's cavalry charged in turn, and most gallantly, the right flank of the 45th regiment, but a well directed fire from the 5th, which had been brought up, so as to be close at hand, removed all the apprehensions at that point.’ Even Moggridge's account, which appears to support Oman's interpretation completely, is undermined by uncertainty as to whether he is referring to the first or second brigades. All that is really clear is that the 1/45th were not cut up, that their losses do not justify the lurid language of Brown's description and that their attack was not checked. Equally the 1/5th did suffer much more heavily than the other regiments in its brigade; although it is just possible that this was not owing to Curto's attack, but as a consequence of heavy fighting with the French infantry later in the day.33
The account of the cavalry melee is based on Arentschildt's official report, as printed in Beamish. It is strange that Wellington in his dispatch refers only to two squadrons of the 14th Light Dragoons accompanying D'Urban and ignores the German Legion Hussars. The suggestion that Curto had only one of his two brigades present is based on the results of the action. Arentschildt believed that he faced ‘six to seven squadrons’, while Sarramon puts the force which charged the British infantry at two or three squadrons. One of Curto's brigades had eight squadrons, the other ten, averaging one hundred men per squadron. However, there is no evidence for the location or activity of Curto's other brigade.34
The difficulties of establishing what happened in Pakenham's attack are greater than with most of the rest of the battle, for the sources are relatively few, and either prove unreliable (Grattan and Moggridge) or lack detail. Even Campbell's account, on which so much of the interpretation given above is based, was written many years after the battle and is not without problems. The lack of a good French eyewitness account is particularly unfortunate, although this is a complaint that will recur frequently. Visiting the battlefield and walking over the terrain can often resolve problems, but here only makes them worse. The most that can honestly be done is to lay out the evidence, explain the problems and point to possible solutions, for any simple, straightforward narrative of this episode must make too many unwarrantable assumptions and leave too many important questions unasked. In other words, we must admit that there is much that we do not know.
Chapter Five
Leith and Maucune
The Fifth Division under Lieutenant-General James Leith was the strongest in Wellington's army, with some 6,700 men in eight British and five Portuguese battalions. It had begun the day as part of the mass of troops which Wellington kept in reserve, hidden in the low ground between Carbajosa and Las Torres; but during the morning it had been brought into the front line, occupying a space immediately north of the Lesser Arapile, which had previously been held by Pack's Portuguese brigade. Here it could see French troops moving south in the skirts of the forest as they followed the advance that Bonnet had already made. Captain Lawson, commander of the division's battery of 6-pounder foot artillery, ventured some long shots into the French columns but was soon compelled to withdraw when the French guns replied in superior force. A little later, Leith thought that the French were massing to attack his position and sent his ADC Andrew Leith Hay with a message to Wellington. Wellington inspected the French positions and sent the leading battalion in Greville's brigade, 3/1st Foot, forward to test the French response. The French guns opened fire, making the British infantry very uncomfortable, but there was no further French reaction, and Wellington, concluding that they did not intend an attack on this side, soon withdrew the 3/1st, much to its relief.1
An hour or two later, probably a little after 2 o'clock, orders arrived from Wellington for the Fifth Division to withdraw from this part of the line and march west to take up a new position beyond the right flank of Cole's Fourth Division. This extension of the allied line was in response to
Maucune's advance onto the Monte de Azan, and in turn the appearance of Leith's troops may have encouraged Maucune to abandon his attack on the village and move further west to face this new enemy. Leith's division deployed in two lines, each of two ranks, giving it a frontage of about nine hundred yards when allowance is made for the light companies and caçador battalion, who were detached to skirmish in front, and the officers and sergeants who stood behind the main line. Its left was behind the western half of the village of Los Arapiles, and its right extended into open ground where the hill dwindled away, leaving it exposed to the French bombardment.
For more than an hour (from about 3 o'clock to about 4.30, but the times are very uncertain), the division remained stationary under fire, the men lying down behind the crest of the gently swelling ground. Major Gomm, one of Leith's staff, described it as ‘the heaviest cannonade I have ever been exposed to’, while John Douglas, a corporal in the Royal Scots (3/1st), recalled the way soldiers typically made light of a particularly gruesome incident: ‘On the 2nd Brigade forming a man of the 44th was killed and lay for a few minutes, when a shell fell under him and exploding drove him into the air. His knapsack, coat, shirt, body and all flew in every direction. A Dublin lad lying on my right looks up and exclaims with the greatest gravity, “There's an inspection of necessaries.” ’2
A shiver of excitement must surely have passed along the line when Wellington, accompanied by his staff, rode up at a gallop, spent a few minutes in conversation with General Leith, then rode on towards Cole's division. Wellington had come from the right of the army, where he had set D'Urban and Pakenham in motion; now he gave Leith his orders ‘in a clear, concise, and spirited manner’.3 The Fifth Division was to wait until Pakenham's men were engaged, then advance across the shallow valley and attack Maucune's division on the Monte de Azan. Cole would advance on Leith's left; while on his right, linking him to Pakenham, were to be Bradford's brigade of Portuguese infantry, España's division, Le Marchant's heavy dragoons and Anson's light cavalry; and in the rear would be the Seventh Division, ready to support Leith if he needed assistance. By the time Leith was assaulting Maucune's front line, Pakenham – if all went well – would have turned the French flank and would be advancing along the plateau, threatening Maucune's flank and rear. The Fifth Division would be formed in two lines, with Greville's strong brigade in front (3/1st, 1/9th, 1/38th, 2/38th, about 2,600 men) together with the 1/4th Regiment from Pringle's brigade, to equalize the two lines; the second line would be composed of the remainder of Pringle's brigade, and all of Spry's Portuguese brigade. Wellington's instructions concluded ‘with commands that the enemy should be overthrown, and driven from the field’.4