Salamanca, 1812

by Rory Muir

  Commentary

  It is rather frustrating that the sources for Foy's retreat and the advance of the allied Light and First Divisions are so much more complete and coherent than those for many more interesting aspects of the battle. Foy's account, as well as being inherently convincing, is corroborated by those of Duplan and Marcel, while there are good sources for the advance of both the Light and First Divisions. Unfortunately, this rich seam of material does not extend to other events which were occurring at the same time. For example, the suggestion that Wellington ordered the Sixth and Third Divisions to advance on Alba de Tormes that night appears only in a single source: the normally reliable diary of Captain Tomkinson. It seems strange that the Sixth Division, which had seen so much fighting, should be ordered to lead the advance, but we know too little about the incident, or even the relative position of the other divisions, to be able to judge the question fairly. Tomkinson, however, clearly believed that Cotton's withdrawal of the cavalry was a mistake.23

  Fortescue's criticism of Henry Campbell may not be wholly unfounded, for there is a hint of discontent at missed opportunities in at least one well-informed letter written soon after the battle from an officer in the First Division. Napier goes much further and says that when Wellington ‘had restored the fight in the centre he directed the first division to push between Foy and the rest of the French army, which would have rendered it impossible for the latter to rally or escape; but this order was not executed.’24 However, the only confirmation of this story comes in the recollections of an anonymous corporal in the 42nd Highlanders, who clearly could have had no direct knowledge of Wellington's orders to Campbell and whose account simply reflects the gossip in the division at the time:

  It was said, that the general who commanded our division, that was Major-Gen. Campbell, received orders from Wellington to bring the division into action at the time the battle was raging with such fury. We were to have dashed forward, they said, and formed in some large fields of wheat, in front of those heights, the enemy having a very strong line at the farther side of them.

  The light companies of our brigade were sent out to skirmish on our new position; but it was long ere we were marched from the high ground. I think General Campbell took his own time to form the division on this new position, knowing that there would be a great deal of bloodshed, had he obeyed the orders sent him by Wellington. This is what was said at the time in the division; and I report what I saw and what I heard from those who looked farther than I did perhaps. The truth is, General Campbell saw the victory was our's without this movement and sacrifice; it was then complete in his eyes; but it would have been a perfect annihilation of the enemy if our division had been pressed forward at the moment Wellington commanded us to move. We should then have had the brunt of the battle in its close, and the French would have been overthrown inevitably. At last, our brigade marched, and formed line in the wheatfields, but did not advance, as the enemy's line had fallen back.

  By this time the French army was all in confusion, making the best of its way from the field of battle; and now it was almost sun-set. But our division having received orders to pursue the retreating foe, we were marched off the wheat-fields; yet it was not marching, it was rather running. … We continued in this manner till a little before daylight next morning, when we were halted, expecting, as the day dawned on us, to behold a great many of the enemy surrounded by our division; but, to our great surprise, we were a long way out of our course. General Campbell had a guide, but I could never learn whether he or the guide was in fault. The general in a few days more quitted the division, and went home to England, they said.25

  Whether or not this story has any foundation – and it may simply reflect the discontent of the troops at not having taken a more active part in the victory – it is clear that it refers to an episode before the pursuit began, not to any lack of enthusiasm for the chase.

  The description of the Light Division's advance shows clearly that Wellington's infantry did not always act in line. The division had spent most of the day in open column, and it retained this formation at the beginning of its advance, then changed into close columns – ‘column of quarter distance’ – only deploying into line when it approached the French position. Whether it then remained in line for the rest of the evening or reverted to columns is open to dispute. William Napier, writing on 25 July, is clear: ‘Although we had not as much as we wished of the battle, yet I am much pleased with the conduct of the regiment, which marched in line near three miles under a disagreeable fire from the French, with a degree of correctness that I never could persuade them to do on a field day.’26 However, George Hennell's more detailed description, written on 10 August, gives a different idea:

  By this time it was quite dark [and] our skirmishers (3rd Caçadores) opened upon them upon the brow of a hill and the French immediately returned it which passed mostly over our heads. We had express orders not to fire until ordered. Our regiment was well prepared to give them an excellent charge but they had received another lesson that afternoon that they will not forget in a twelvemonth. Had they stayed still till we came up twenty yards further they might have given us a most destructive volley but they rapidly fired a volley or two that passed mostly over our heads and they ran away. Both the sergeants of my company were slightly wounded.

  We advanced in line 1/2 a mile over corn and ploughed land. Then [we] formed sections of a company, keeping our distance & marched 2 or 3 miles over bushes and ploughed lands. On passing a wood our skirmishers, who were always about 300 yards in advance, opened a fire. We were in a good line in 5 minutes (it was only a few cavalry in a wood) & advanced dressing by the Colours over horrid roads with numerous pebbles another league. We halted and slept.27

  Several sources, including Napier and Sarramon, state that when Foy checked the allied advance at the ravine, the French left flank was threatened by the advance of the Fourth Division. There is nothing intrinsically improbable about this, but it is difficult to discover the origins of the idea, for neither Foy nor Vere – the obvious Fourth Division source – mentions it. The suggestion may have arisen from the Fourth Division's role in turning Ferey's right, although in fact the two episodes were quite separate: perhaps two miles apart, and probably not simultaneous. Still, Napier was himself a witness and had many sources that have never appeared in print, so his account cannot be lightly dismissed. Here is the relevant paragraph, which delicately combines intense pride in his own division with respect and admiration for Foy's ability:

  Foy, throwing out a cloud of skirmishers, retired slowly by wings, turning and firing heavily from every rise of ground upon the light division, which marched steadily forward without returning a shot save by its skirmishers, and for two miles this march continued under musketry, which was occasionally thickened by a cannonade, yet very few men were lost, the French aim being baffled by the twilight and by the even order and rapid gliding of the lines. The French general Desgraviers was however killed, and the flanking brigades from the fourth division having now penetrated between Maucune [sic – Ferey] and Foy, it seemed difficult for the latter to extricate his troops from the action, nevertheless he did it with great dexterity. For having increased his skirmishers on the last defensible ridge, along the foot of which run[s] a marshy stream, he redoubled his fire of musketry and made a menacing demonstration with his horsemen just as the darkness fell, whereupon the British guns immediately opened, a squadron of dragoons galloped forwards from the left, the infantry crossing the marshy stream with an impetuous pace gained the summit of the hill and a rough shock seemed at hand; but the main body of the French had gone into the thick forest on their own left during the firing, and the skirmishers fled swiftly after, covered by the smoke and darkness.28

  Napier barely mentions the part played by the British cavalry in the pursuit of Foy's division; Foy, on the other hand, is surely exaggerating when he writes, ‘For an hour after sunset the English cavalry continued its charges on my regimen
ts’, just as he stretches the truth when he says that he was opposed by 1,500 horsemen.29 Bock's brigade are said to have bivouacked near Pelabravo, to the south-west of Calvarrasa de Abajo, which does not suggest that they had advanced far or seen Foy's troops since the French began their retreat. Ponsonby's light dragoons had, of course, been in action, and a letter from his proud mother gives some third-hand, and probably unreliable, details:

  Lady Bathurst was told by Lord Clinton [Wellington's aide who brought home the dispatch announcing the victory] that Lord W. order'd F[rederick Ponsonby] to command the three squadrons he mentions – 12th, and 5th and 1st – and to accompany him and take his orders directly from himself. Ld. Clinton added: Never were orders more clearly given or more correctly executed, and that two charges particularly Lord Wellington quite exclaim'd at, and said, ‘That is gallantly done – nothing can be better.’ Is not this a delightful thing to hear – to know that F. had the advantage of being directed by the greatest general that ever liv'd, and the glory of being approv'd by him?30

  This need not be taken too seriously, and only adds to the confusion of what cavalry were under Ponsonby's command; but it is a significant moment when a great Whig hostess such as Lady Bessborough calls Wellington ‘the greatest general that ever liv'd’.

  However, not everyone was as satisfied with the pursuit. Many officers followed Wellington's lead in blaming Carlos de España for the evacuation of the castle at Alba de Tormes. For example, Alexander Gordon told his brother Lord Aberdeen: ‘If we had had two hours more daylight & Don Carlos had not withdrawn the Garrison from Alba de Tormes, I really believe we should have destroyed their whole Army.’31 But Thomas Henry Browne, writing years later, took a more sceptical, independent view:

  The night & the woods thro' which the road to Alba de Tormes lays, made it difficult to follow up our victory, & the best way to avoid the uncertainty of night operations even against a defeated enemy, appeared, it was understood, to Ld. Wellington to move by his left upon Huerta, at the angle of the Tormes, by which he had a shorter road than the enemy, to fall upon him the next morning – the justice of this movement may be seen on the map, & that our line was shorter than that of the French to Peñaranda. The light Division which led, had no guide, & after marching till near midnight found itself at Calvarasca d'Abaxa [Calvarrasa de Abajo] where it was halted for the night. Some Officers were of opinion, that if the whole army had marched upon Huerta, the enemy must have been brought to action the next day, or if he had been followed up, by pressing with all our force upon the Alba de Tormes road, that he could not have crossed the river without great difficulty & loss. Ld. Wellington's arrangement of intercepting the French Army by moving upon Huerta seemed an Excellent combination, but it failed, for want of guides.32

  Edward Cocks also complains of a lack of guides: ‘But for the darkness I believe the battle of Salamanca would have completely dispersed the enemy's army but night and darkness impeded our pursuit. Not a peasant could be met with for a guide, the enemy fled through the woods where we blundered till midnight.’33 No doubt the absence of guides was a problem, although hardly a decisive one. Advancing at night through broken country with the possibility of stumbling into an enemy rearguard at any moment was sufficiently unnerving with or without a guide.

  Several commentators on the battle have criticized Wellington for persisting in his march on the fords when, they claim, the lack of stragglers and of human and material flotsam, must have made it obvious that he was not following the route of a defeated army.34 There is some merit in this argument, but it is less compelling that it initially appears. First, the Light Division did encounter scattered parties of French troops in its advance: for example, Napier describes how ‘a squadron of French dragoons … bursting from the woods in front of the advancing troops soon after dark fired their pistols and then passed at full gallop towards the ford of Huerta, thus indicating great confusion in the defeated army, and confirming the notion that its final retreat would be in that direction.’35 Second, Wellington's line of advance was not identical to the presumed line of French retreat, but rather converged upon it, so that he would not expect to find the debris of a whole army upon it. And finally, what alternative did he have, even if he realized that the French were not heading for the fords? It was simply impractical suddenly to re-direct the advance of the Light and First Divisions from north-east to south-east in the middle of the night when advancing over unknown country: such a move might cause untold confusion and lead to fighting between allied units who failed to recognize each other in the dark. In any case, if the infantry was too weary to reach the fords, they certainly would not have had the energy to reach Alba. With hindsight Wellington might have organized the pursuit differently, but the whole question is more complicated than it first appears.

  Finally, we may quote the description of the French retreat given by Colonel Girard, Maucune's chief of staff. Part of this is obviously wrong, and part plainly self-interested; but whether there is a residue of fresh material when these elements are discounted, or whether the whole is worthless, is open to question. Girard is not a particularly credible witness, and if there were better sources for this aspect of the battle it would be easy to ignore his account, but where there is so little evidence, one is reluctant to throw any aside.

  Wellington moved against this position in strength but could not force us to abandon it. He renewed his attack with even greater force but still failed to gain any advantage. We fought until the barrels of our muskets were touching the chests of the men in the first rank. When we advanced to cross bayonets with the enemy he retreated, abandoning the ground which was covered with thousands of dead and wounded.

  We ourselves were almost completely hors de combat and in a most critical situation for our only line of retreat was across the Tormes a little below Alba. The enemy might easily have seized the bridge. Fortunately he spent the night collecting his forces and preparing to pursue on the following day. General Clausel took advantage of this to get his troops across the river, and in order to ensure that this was achieved without confusion, he placed General Maucune at the head of the bridge until the army was assembled on the further bank.

  In order to protect the passage, General Maucune and I – the only senior officers remaining! – had with great effort collected a thousand or 1,200 men and Blanzat's battery, now reduced to ten guns. Our advanced posts were so close to the enemy that we heard their voices. Wellington might, in the course of the night, have got some of his cavalry across the Tormes and attacked us simultaneously at both ends of the bridge. But fortunately he did nothing. It was dawn before his advance guard prepared to attack us. Our army was safely across the river, but it had not had enough time to reform and be ready for battle.

  General Maucune told me to cross the river and help rally the bulk of our troops. I asked to leave this until we had halted the enemy's advance by our volleys and artillery fire, and so forced him to deploy. We would still have time to disengage and retreat across the bridge, while our cannonade would alert the general that the enemy had begun their advance. Maucune accepted all my suggestions, and it turned out as I predicted.36

  Chapter Eleven

  The Victory

  The battle of Salamanca was the greatest French defeat for over a decade. Other reverses had cost more men, for example, the capitulation of Bailen, or the failure of Masséna's invasion of Portugal; or had involved Napoleon more closely, such as the repulse suffered at Aspern-Essling. But not since the dark days of 1799 had a French army of almost fifty thousand men been broken in open battle and fled into the night. Equally, it was the greatest British victory, not just of the Peninsular War, or even of the whole Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars to date, but for more than a century, and officers on both sides drew the inevitable comparisons with Marlborough. ‘Certainly the greatest [victory] that has been gained by any British army since the days of Marlborough’; ‘this Victory is certainly the most splendid he [Wellington] has gaine
d and is more decisive than any we have had since Blenheim’; ‘this most glorious victory, which revives the recollection of, and equals the glory of, the Victories of Marlborough’; and, finally, Foy's well-known tribute:

  the battle of Salamanca is the most masterly, the most considerable, allowing for the number of troops, and the most important in its results, battle that the English have gained in modern times. It raises Wellington almost to the heights of the Duke of Marlborough. Previously one recognized his prudence, his choice of positions, his ability in using them; at Salamanca he showed himself a great and able manoeuvrer; he kept his dispositions hidden almost all day; he watched our movements in order to determine his own; he fought in oblique order; it was like one of Frederick the Great's battles.1

  There are no precise figures for the French casualties, but Marmont's army appears to have lost about 12,500 men killed, wounded or taken prisoner in the battle, or one-quarter of its strength. (The figure of fourteen thousand casualties which is often given includes the fighting on the Guarena and at Garcia Hernandez on 23 July.) Not surprisingly, the heaviest losses were on the left, where, even following Lamartinière's figures, Thomières's division lost over 50 per cent of its strength, Maucune's division almost 35 per cent and Taupin's division almost 30 per cent.2 Four regiments in the French army lost more than half their strength in the battle:

  66th Ligne in Maucune's division suffered 50,3 per cent casualties

  22nd Ligne in Taupin's division suffered 60.0 per cent casualties

  62nd Ligne in Thomières's division suffered 77.3 per cent casualties