Salamanca, 1812

by Rory Muir

  Equally, Oman's account fails to explain the enormous losses of the 62nd and 101st Regiments, which are attributed simply to the initial attack by D'Urban and Wallace. Their attack was certainly important, but it is not credible that a frontal attack by a single brigade of British infantry, supported by a few hundred Portuguese dragoons, could kill, wound or capture over two thousand men. It may be that Le Marchant's charge cut off the escape of the fleeing remnants of these regiments, causing many of them to surrender; or that they had already begun to rally upon their supports and were broken a second time by Le Marchant's charge. This second version is adopted in the narrative because it fits more closely with Grattan's account,36 but the evidence is tenuous and either may be true. However, it is hard to escape the conclusion that the already demoralized men of the 62nd and 101st were among the first victims of the charge.

  The remaining regiment in Thomières's division, the 1st Ligne, presents insoluble problems. Where was it? How did it escape so lightly when all around it units were losing half or more of their strength? It suffered 230 casualties, or 13 per cent of its strength, and we can do little more than presume that by good fortune it escaped the main impact of Le Marchant's charge (but how?) and that it then retained enough cohesion to retreat successfully from the field. Other theories might be devised, but there is a lack of evidence on which to base them.

  The dreadful fate of the 22nd Ligne, the leading regiment in Taupin's division whose two battalions were reduced to forty-seven men at the end of the day, also requires explanation; but again there is little evidence. If it was still some distance to the rear, advancing to support Maucune and Thomières, it should have had time to recognize the danger and form square. Perhaps it was already in the front line, providing cover behind which the 62nd and 101st might rally? The smoke, the dust, the setting sun and the musketry exchange with Wallace's infantry would explain why it was taken by surprise by the cavalry, and the 1st Ligne may have formed on its left, or southern flank, beyond the line of Le Marchant's cavalry. This is a tempting hypothesis. Grattan identifies his opponent as the 22nd Regiment, but this is less useful than it seems, for he is referring to the initial clash on the Pico de Miranda, not to this second round of fighting; and the number of the regiment is probably fixed in his memory by the capture of its Eagle by the caçadores of the division. And unfortunately, the memoirs of Lieutenant-Colonel Castel, Clausel's ADC, count against this idea (see below).37

  Jean Sarramon, in his excellent modern study La Bataille des Arapiles, suggests a completely different arrangement of the French troops when Le Marchant charged. He believes that Maucune, seeing the threat posed to his flank by the defeat of Thomières and the advance of Pakenham and Le Marchant, had sent his first brigade (15th and 66th Ligne) to guard his flank and rear, leaving only the second brigade (82nd and 86th Ligne) to face Leith. The first brigade joined with the remnants of the 62nd and 101st, and with the main body of the 1st Ligne, to form a new line running north-east to south-west across the plateau. Although formed in some disorder – with some units in line, others in column or square – they succeeded in checking Wallace's advance and repulsed a charge by one of D'Urban's regiments of cavalry. Leith had by now defeated Maucune's second brigade, and was advancing on the flank of the new French line, but at this moment Taupin's division began to arrive and enabled the line to be reconstructed. Pakenham was now in some danger of being defeated, but Le Merchant's cavalry arrived in time to rescue him by charging the 66th, then the 15th, and finally the 22nd Regiments – in other words, when it comes to the actual charge, Sarramon follows Oman's description based on the United Service Journal article.38

  This account is based on familiar, mostly British, sources; and while it is interesting, there are too many problems for it to be ultimately convincing. The whole story of Maucune detaching his first brigade – despite being faced by the steady advance of Leith's strong division – is both implausible and unnecessary. Nor does it shed any light on the role of the 1st Ligne: if this was present with its full three battalions (1,700 men), it would have been quite sufficient to check Wallace's advance either by itself (Wallace's men were breathless and rather disordered, and they had outpaced the rest of Pakenham's division), or with the aid of those parts of the 62nd and 101st which were in reasonable order. Sarramon does not put the 22nd Ligne in the front line, and yet says that the arrival of Taupin's division (of which it was the leading regiment) allowed the line to be rearranged – apparently for the express purpose of making the 66th Regiment expose its flank to the impending charge of the British dragoons. No hypothesis can solve all the difficulties related to the charge, but this raises fresh problems without solving the old ones.

  The root of the problem is the absence of reliable first-hand French accounts of this part of the battle. Other than Parquin's anecdote quoted in the narrative and the odd scrap of useful information – such as Captain Mottier's defence of the Eagle of the 82nd – there are only the memoirs of Colonels Girard and Castel. As Maucune's chief of staff, Girard should be most enlightening, but his account is infuriatingly vain and transparently unreliable. For what it is worth, he claims that the French infantry were in the act of repulsing Leith's attack when the British cavalry caused some disorder, and all the heroic efforts of the senior officers were unable to rally their men. As chief of staff his duty was then to save the artillery, and a fanciful account follows of how he did so:

  I formed the caissons into square and double-loaded our guns and collected passing infantry and positioned them between the guns. We were not long in this order when the English squadrons arrived at a gallop. But their charge, despite being impetuous and directed against two sides of the square, failed to close on us, although Commandant Blanzot was knocked over by an enemy cavalryman who was himself unhorsed by the servant who fought at his side.39

  Castel's memoir is much more interesting, but full of difficulties and often confusing. It was written forty years after the event and includes some obvious errors, but also information which appears nowhere else and which seems plausible. Although he was Clausel's aide-de-camp, it was Marmont who sent him with orders for Taupin to move forward to support Maucune, shortly before the French commander was wounded. Castel reached Taupin's division, but was unable to find Taupin himself. Riding forward, he saw that Maucune's division was heavily engaged, so he hurried back and conveyed his orders to the colonel of the 22nd Regiment. Responding to this, the 22nd advanced in two columns, but the other brigade in the division did not follow and soon began to fall back. Here Castel found Taupin, who told him that Curto's cavalry had been driven back ‘and that he believed it was prudent to conform to this movement’. Castel remonstrated with him and forced him to halt his retreat by implying that he, Castel, was speaking on the authority of a senior officer. This halt gave some protection to the fleeing troops of Maucune's division, but the first line was already shattered and the 22nd Regiment destroyed. The implication is that if Taupin had acted more positively the 22nd might have been saved, although Castel acknowledges that his retreat preserved the other brigade.40

  Neither of these memoirs gives any support to Sarramon's suggestion that Maucune re-deployed his division, while, if Castel's account is accepted, the tempting idea outlined earlier, that the 22nd were in the front line and so bore the initial impact of Le Marchant's charge, must also be abandoned.

  The official French return states that the artillery in Thomières's division lost four guns: three 8 pounders and one 4-pounder, while Taupin's division also lost an 8-pounder, possibly in this part of the battle. Neither the cavalry nor Maucune's division admitted the loss of any guns. On the whole this return appears credible,41 even though individual British claims would suggest a higher figure. For example, Lord Edward Somerset is supposed to have taken five guns, and Arentschildt claimed that his brigade captured four. It is impossible to work out exactly what happened, but there was always a tendency for claims of captures to become inflated, while acknowledged
losses would be minimized as much as possible.42

  Another problem relating to the effects of the charge on the French also needs to be mentioned here: how many Eagles were lost, and by which regiments? Lamartinière's return admits the loss of two Eagles, those of the 22nd and 101st, which fits well with the course of the battle and with Wellington's claim to have captured two Eagles. Nonetheless, some authorities disagree: Fortescue suggests that the Eagle of the 66th may also have been captured, while Sarramon follows older British accounts and substitutes the Eagle of the 62nd for that of the 101st. Pierre Charrié, author of the standard reference work on the subject, states that the 22nd and 62nd certainly lost their Eagles in the battle, while the 101st may also have done so. This is sufficient to create a lingering doubt, although the presumption must be that Lamartinière is correct.43

  By July 1812 only the first battalions of infantry regiments were supposed to carry Eagles – the other battalions carrying only fanions. The 22nd, 62nd and 101st Regiments all had their first battalion in the field at Salamanca, but the 66th and 82nd (both in Maucune's division) did not. This rather undermines Fortescue's suggestion that the 66th lost an Eagle, but it also throws doubt on the story of Captain Mottier's gallant defence of his Eagle. Either the regimental history was mistaken and Mottier defended a fanion, not an Eagle, or the regiment – like some others – had been slow to return its surplus Eagles to the depot: the decree ordering this was only issued a few months before.44

  Fortunately, there are fewer problems with British casualty figures. One British officer is listed as killed and three wounded in the regimental tables: Lieutenant William Selby, 3rd Dragoons (killed); Lieutenant Norcliffe Norcliffe, 4th Dragoons (severely wounded); Captain Francis Aicken, 5th Dragoon Guards (severely wounded); and Lieutenant Braithwaite Christie, 5th Dragoon Guards (severely wounded). To these need be added General Le Marchant (killed), Captain William White, DAQMG to the brigade (mortally wounded, dying on the following day) and Lieutenant-Colonel John Elley AAG to the brigade, who was slightly wounded.45 It is noteworthy that the 5th Dragoon Guards suffered much more heavily than either of the other regiments in the brigade: 56 casualties compared to 20 in the 3rd Dragoons and 29 in the 4th Dragoons, all the regiments being of approximately equal strength. However, much of the excess may be owing to the stampede of horses on the previous night, in which 18 men were said to have been injured, rather than their service in the battle, for Tomkinson says that the horses lost owing to the storm were recorded as lost in the battle.46

  Chapter Seven

  Collapse and Recovery in the Centre

  While the French left was being so comprehensively routed, the battle in the centre was hard-fought, with fluctuating fortunes. Here, Wellington's front line consisted of Cole's Fourth Division and Pack's Independent Portuguese brigade, supported by the Sixth Division with the First Division further back in reserve. Cole's division was one of the weakest in the allied army: some 5,200 officers and men on 15 July, while the week's campaigning and the fighting on the 18th, in which it played a prominent part, had probably reduced it to just under five thousand men. Half of these were Portuguese in Stubbs's brigade; the remainder formed two weak British brigades under William Anson and Henry Ellis. Both British brigades had seen much service: Anson's brigade (3/27th and 1/40th) had lost very heavily in the storm of Badajoz (421 casualties between two regiments); while Ellis's Fusilier brigade (1/7th, 1/23rd and 1/48th) had not only suffered at Badajoz (504 casualties), but had also been cut to pieces the previous year at Albuera. Stubbs's Portuguese had also been at Albuera: the two line regiments (11th and 23rd) had suffered little – only thirty-two casualties – but the 7th Caçadores had lost 171 casualties or 30 per cent of their strength. However, the Portuguese had not been engaged much since, for they had not taken part in the storming of either Ciudad Rodrigo or Badajoz.1

  Cole himself had been wounded at Albuera, then fell ill towards the end of 1811 and spent six months recuperating in England. He returned to the Peninsula at the beginning of June, but was not in good spirits: ‘I am once more embarked in the business, and if I keep my health and present resolution shall not quit till it is over. … The fact is, I nearly despair of being able to gratify the first wish of my heart, viz. to be able to settle and live comfortably near you all … I have lost almost every friend and every good officer with at least a third of the Division at the siege of Badajos.’2

  Early on the day of battle, William Anson's brigade had been committed to the defence of the Lesser Arapile, while soon afterwards the Fusilier brigade occupied the Teso de San Miguel. The wide gap between the two British brigades was filled by Stubbs's Portuguese and Pack's Independent Portuguese brigade, meaning that in this part of the line the normal proportion of two British soldiers to one Portuguese was reversed. Nor were these brigades numerically strong enough to allow Cole to form his men in two lines, as Leith did to his right. Indeed, one of the few criticisms which can legitimately be made of Wellington's handling of the battle is that he did not replace Pack's brigade with either the First or Sixth Division in the front line, and consolidate Cole's division either behind the village or near the Lesser Arapile.

  No one recorded Wellington's orders to Cole, but they must have been similar to those he gave Leith, except that Cole's troops advanced in a single line (two ranks deep), the three battalions of Fusiliers on the right, the four Portuguese battalions on the left. They had a frontage of about a thousand yards and were preceded by the usual strong screen of light infantry: the light companies from the three British battalions, the company of Brunswick Oels attached to their brigade, and the 7th Caçadores – perhaps seven hundred men in all. Their advance probably began a little after Leith's, and seems to have been further delayed when the Fusiliers passed through the village. According to Charles Vere, who was Assistant Quartermaster General to the division, the infantry ‘went through the village of Aripeles [sic] by files from the right of companies, covered by the Light Troops; and when through, the companies formed up upon their Sergeants regularly sent out; and then the line advanced in great order and regularity.’3

  A British officer who had recently joined the 23rd Portuguese, Captain Barralier (or Barailler), records that, when the advance was about to begin, his entire regiment went down on their knees, offered a short prayer and then rose with great firmness and resolution. And Captain Wachholtz of the Brunswick Oels company wrote in his journal with disarming honesty: ‘Cole came to me, “You will go in front with the Portuguese caçadores; move on!” “Very well,” I said, but thought, “It's not ‘very well’|”; however it's no use being afraid.’4

  The division advanced with rapid steps, flags flying and bayonets fixed, past the village, up the hillside and across the open plateau beyond. The French responded with heavy artillery fire, but it seems that when Cole's advance began, there may have been no French infantry on the opposite heights to support the guns, although Clausel's division was approaching rapidly and soon took its place in the line. Evidently it formed some distance to the south-east of Maucune's division, while a gap had also opened in the allied line between Leith and Cole, so that each division fought independently.

  As he advanced, Cole was much more concerned with his left flank than his right. On his left, Pack's brigade faced the Greater Arapile, but Cole could see further bodies of French infantry massed behind the height, while a single French regiment (the 122nd Ligne of Bonnet's division) occupied a gentle rise halfway between the Greater Arapile and the plateau. This regiment posed the most immediate threat to the allied flank, and Cole sent the 7th Caçadores – probably supported by part, or even all, of Stubbs's main line – to drive it back. Faced with this advance, the French regiment fell back, apparently without much fighting. The 122nd was a strong regiment, 1,600 men in three battalions, but it may have felt isolated and lacking in support. The 7th Caçadores were left to watch it and the rest of Bonnet's division, while Cole's infantry continued its advance.5

 
Having crossed the plateau, the allied line climbed the hillside which bounded it to the south. Just beyond the crest it was met by Clausel's 2nd brigade, the 50th and 59th Ligne, five battalions, almost three thousand officers and men, so that the French were only slightly outnumbered. One British account claims that the French were deployed, ‘in line, ready formed to open their fire on our four [sic] battalions as soon as they should crown the hill’; although a French authority states that they were in a line of columns with artillery in the intervals.6 What followed is not entirely clear – the sources on this stage of the combat are very meagre – but it seems that there was probably a sustained exchange of musketry before the French fell back in some confusion, but far from broken. The British and Portuguese did not pursue and were themselves rather disordered and shaken. It was probably in this fighting that Cole fell: ‘A musquet ball struck him a little below the left shoulder, broke the rib and passed out through the breast-bone – the lungs are very slightly touched.’7 Another painful convalescence lay ahead, but he was able to resume his command in the middle of October.