by Rory Muir
On the afternoon of the 23rd July Clausel was joined by Chauvel's brigade of cavalry from the Army of the North, which was able to cover Foy's retreat more effectively than Curto's chasseurs. Nonetheless, the French made no attempt to stand or even to delay the allied pursuit. On the following morning the allied advanced guard entered Peñaranda, only to find that the French had left it at dawn. Their rearguard was briefly sighted a few miles beyond the town, but escaped before any horse artillery, let alone infantry, could be brought up. The following day, at Flores de Avila, Wellington abandoned the chase. The French had always been able to outmarch the allies and now, by discarding most of their equipment and heavy vehicles, they had succeeded in making their escape. The allied troops were weary and outpacing their supplies. If another blow could be struck at the French it would be worth pressing on, but it was now clear that this was most unlikely, and there was little point in exhausting the army simply to harass Clausel's already broken units and gather in a few hundred more prisoners. Not everyone agreed with the decision, either at the time or since, but Wellington evidently feared that a sustained pursuit without proper supplies would undermine the health and discipline of his troops. He may also have been influenced by the lack of a trustworthy and enterprising cavalry commander to lead the chase, for, with Cotton wounded and Le Marchant dead, the command had devolved onto Bock, who was very gallant, but also short-sighted and inexperienced at this level.5
Wellington therefore gave the army a day's rest and then advanced more slowly, entering Valladolid on 30 July. He was received with loud acclamations from the populace, despite their reputation for sympathizing with the French. Here he captured Marmont's base hospital with nearly a thousand sick and wounded soldiers, a considerable magazine of reserve ammunition and seventeen cannon. But even before he entered the city, his attention was turning south, for he had received reports that King Joseph's army, rather than securing its retreat across the Guadarramas, was lingering at Segovia. It will be remembered that Joseph had scraped together an army of fourteen thousand men and marched to assist Marmont. He had left Madrid on 21 July and was within a march or two of Peñaranda when he learnt of the defeat on the morning of the 25th. If he had advanced sooner, or if French communications or luck had been better, he might have prevented Marmont's defeat; but equally, if his luck had been worse, he might have been caught up in the disaster, advancing into the midst of the allied army before he learnt what had happened. Instead, the news arrived in time for the small French army to fall back into the shadow of the mountains after only a slight clash between outposts. However, having secured his retreat, Joseph hesitated to use it and marched to Segovia, misled, it is said, by an over-optimistic letter from Marmont. Wellington attempted to cut off his retreat, but after waiting for three days at Segovia, Joseph's army escaped across the Guadarrama pass and back to Madrid.6
This was the first time, since Wellington's advance to Talavera three years before, that the capital of the Bonaparte Kingdom of Spain had been seriously threatened, and the war, which had seemed comparatively distant and irrelevant to daily life, suddenly assumed a pressing urgency. Joseph's army was far too weak to hope to oppose Wellington's main force, while Suchet and Soult were too far away to lend immediate assistance. There was no alternative but flight, despite the blow this would strike against the authority of the regime, and the destruction it would cause to the little domestic support it had been able to gather. Orders were hurriedly issued to collect what could be salvaged, and the government's supporters faced the unenviable choice of either following their French master into an uncertain exile, or remaining and facing the retribution of the patriotic authorities. Several thousand chose to escape with their families, dependants and, often, much of their worldly goods, creating a vast, cumbersome, ill-prepared civilian convoy. At first they headed south, reaching Aranjuez on 13 August, where they turned east, taking the road to Valencia. The march which followed was one of great suffering, for the convoy had insufficient supplies, including water, and the midsummer heat was intense. Guerrillas and other scavengers were attracted by the promise of rich pickings and, of course, the march was not conducted by hardened soldiers, but by civilians of all ages, including many women and children. The exhausted refugees finally reached Valencia on 31 August.7
Meanwhile Wellington had entered Madrid on 12 August to an extraordinary welcome. ‘When Ld. Wellington approached with his staff, in the group of which I rode,’ recalled one British officer,
a deputation of the principal Authorities & inhabitants came out to meet him, amidst loud & continued acclamations from thousands who had joined this procession. They had already found time to decorate the gate thro' which he was to enter, as a triumphal arch. The streets were lined with well dressed persons of both sexes, waving handkerchiefs and vociferating, ‘Vivan los Ingleses’, & ‘Viva Fernando settimo’. The windows & balconies were filled with people, principally females elegantly dressed, repeating the acclamations of their friends below in the streets. Garlands & tapestry were suspended from all parts of the houses; the stirrups of the Officers, as they rode along, were taken hold of, & they were gently stopped to be saluted with every possible expression of good will & joy. Many were taken into the ice and lemonade shops by the rejoicing citizens of this delivered capital, & made to partake abundantly of these delicacies, nor would any money be received in payment. The inhabitants contended with each other, who should take British Officers into their houses. … For three successive nights the city was brilliantly illuminated, & British Officers were seen in all directions with Spanish Ladies leaning on their arms, who were pointing out to them, the different habitations of their Grandees by the light of the lamps. Priests & Monks too joined in this festive scene. Portuguese & Spanish Officers also, mixed abundantly in it, & the whole presented one of the most curious & interesting spectacles I ever beheld. The whole city was in a sort of confusion of joy for several days.8
Jonathon Leach of the 95th records the regimental point of view more succinctly: ‘Few of us were ever so caressed before, and most undoubtedly never will be again.’9 Wellington's triumph appeared complete.
At the same time as the allied army was advancing from Salamanca to Madrid, the news of its victory was spreading. On the night of the battle there were spontaneous celebrations in the streets of Salamanca. While some inhabitants nursed the wounded or took supplies out to the weary troops, others formed joyful crowds. One British officer remembered: ‘Guitars sounded in the streets, patriotic sequidillas were composed and sung, the lively noise of castanets proclaimed the progress of the fascinating bolero. The town exhibited an appearance of the gayest carnival.’10 A few days later Wellington was to complain that many of his soldiers who had assisted wounded comrades into the town had remained there, eating, drinking and taking part in the rejoicings rather than returning to their units.11
Other parts of unoccupied Spain greeted the news with similar festivities. In Ferrol, for example, there were processions in the streets, with illuminations and fireworks in the evening; the guns of the fortress were fired in salute, and a special high mass was performed. In Cadiz an enthusiastic crowd formed outside the house of the British ambassador, Sir Henry Wellesley, hailing Wellington as the saviour of Spain; while the Cortes, which had already made Wellington Duque de Ciudad Rodrigo, now conferred upon him Spain's highest honour, the Order of the Golden Fleece.12
Rumours and vague stories of a battle circulated widely in England from the beginning of August. On 3 August, The Times was able to report only that dispatches from Sir Home Popham announcing a victory were said to have reached Falmouth, but that the Admiralty telegraph (a form of semaphore) had been interrupted by fog before confirmation or any details could be received. It was not until 5 August that the paper could report the news more fully, and even then the accounts of the battle were unofficial, being based on brief letters from Wellington to Castaños and other officers. Lord Bathurst wrote to Wellington that, after they had bee
n in a state of suspense for days, the arrival of Popham's dispatches had ‘now thrown us into a tumult of joy’, and The Times declared that it would ‘be absurd’ to indulge in any further scepticism on the subject of the victory. But this was no comfort to those with friends or relatives in the army, whose anxiety could only be relieved when the dreaded casualty lists arrived with Wellington's formal dispatch. On 8 August Granville Leveson Gower wrote to Lady Bessborough, Frederick Ponsonby's mother: ‘The suspense in which we are kept as to the battle is really terrible, and I fear that some days more may elapse before we have any official dispatch.’13
This uncertainty continued for more than another week, with the papers reduced to printing daily variations of the simple fact that there was no fresh news. The sight of the Admiralty telegraph in operation, reports that a ship had arrived from Lisbon and other portents were eagerly grasped, only to prove erroneous or irrelevant. The days dragged by until Sunday 16 August, when Captain Lord Clinton, Wellington's aide-de-camp, arrived in London in a chaise and four at about 10 o'clock in the morning:
the drivers and horses were decorated with laurel. The eagles and flags were displayed out of the windows of the chaise. One of the eagles is besmeared with blood, supposed to be in consequence of the Ensign's head who held it being shot away. His Lordship drove to Lord Bathurst's residence, in Mansfield street. The state of the chaise soon spread the report throughout the neighbourhood, and a great concourse of people were collected in a few minutes. The glad tidings spread to Lady Wellington's, who resides near the spot, in Harley street. Her Ladyship ran with all possible speed to Lord Bathurst's house, with a naturally anxious desire to enquire after the welfare of her husband. Lord Clinton of course paid every possible attention to her Ladyship's enquiries; and on her receiving a satisfactory account, she was so much overwhelmed with joy, that she nearly fainted. The eagles and flags were left in Lord Bathurst's house.14
Bathurst abandoned his breakfast and took Clinton to the War Department in Downing Street, where they arrived just before 11 o'clock. A large crowd soon assembled, Wellington's dispatches were read, and then Bathurst and Clinton set off across the park on foot, to take the news to the Prince Regent at Carlton House, followed by a mass of people cheering and huzzahing.
The next few days were filled with celebrations in London and throughout the country as the news spread. Houses were lit up: sometimes with lights forming patriotic mottos or illuminated transparencies painted with scenes of battle. Some of the festivities got out of hand: late on the Monday night, or rather in the early hours of Tuesday morning, a crowd of ‘idle apprentice-boys and fellows of the lowest description’ invaded the West End, letting off fireworks, blunderbusses and muskets, and demanding that the houses in Piccadilly and St James's Street, most of which had doused their lights about 1 o'clock, be re-illuminated. A number of windows were broken, including those of Sir Francis Burdett, the prominent radical and critic of the war, who only two years before had been the hero of the London mob.15
Somewhat earlier in the evening Lord Wellesley had ventured into the streets in a plain carriage to view the illuminations. He was recognized in Charing Cross and the crowd insisted upon unhorsing his carriage and drawing it along the Strand and Fleet Street to St Paul's, then on to the Mansion House, and then all the way back to Apsley House. This triumphal progress was followed by an enormous throng which halted frequently to cheer Wellington and his brother who made many brief impromptu speeches extolling Wellington and thanking the crowd. So good-humoured were the people that they even cheered the Prince Regent, and heartily followed Wellesley's lead in cheering the King, the Duke of York and the army. What Wellington thought of his wife and his brother thus separately making public spectacles of themselves does not survive, but his disdain for the favour of the mob is well known and would prove to be amply justified by the many fluctuations in his own popularity over the next forty years.16
Similar, if less exuberant, scenes were repeated in other parts of the country. The artist Joseph Farington left London for Norwich and Cromer on the morning of 16 August, and so carried the news with him, recording in his diary the delight it produced. At Wymondham even a Quaker (‘a very respectable looking man’) appeared to be filled with pleasure by the announcement, and in Norwich the church bells were rung to welcome the tidings. In Scotland, Sir Walter Scott assembled some forty or fifty locals and workmen around a bonfire on the banks of the Tweed and plied them with ‘an ocean of whiskypunch’ to celebrate.17 And Charles Knight, remembering the days of his youth in Windsor, recalls that, on the evening the news arrived, he had been struggling to compose some verses on the death-song of a Spanish guerrilla:
Suddenly, from the not distant barracks, rose the burst of ‘God Save the King’, and the cheers of a multitude. I rushed to the town. The 29th Regiment was marching out of Park Street along the Frogmore Road to the inspiriting tune which revolutionary Frenchmen call ‘ça ira’, but which loyal Englishmen translated into ‘The Downfall of Paris’. The Extraordinary Gazette, containing Wellington's despatches relating to the great victory of Salamanca, had been published on that Sunday morning, and had arrived at Windsor, to demand from the enthusiasm of the moment this hasty night march. I followed the measured tramp of the soldiery, in common with the great mass of our population, unknowing what was to be done, and yet filled with the passionate desire of the hundreds around me to give expression to the belief that the tide had turned – that England might shout for a mighty victory by land, as she had shouted for the Nile and for Trafalgar.18
The government naturally encouraged this enthusiastic spirit. The Archbishop of Canterbury prepared a special prayer of thanks for the success in Spain which was read in every church in England and Ireland. Liverpool and Bathurst both wrote to Wellington lavishly praising the victory and his skill. The Prime Minister declared that, ‘whilst it reflects the highest lustre upon every individual who was engaged in it, [it] redounds so peculiarly to the Commander by whose foresight, decision, and science those operations were conducted which have led to a result of such incalculable importance.’ He added that he had never seen such popular excitement as the news had produced.19 The cabinet and Prince Regent eagerly agreed on raising Wellington to the rank of marquess, with a grant of £100,000 to support the honour. (‘An income of nine or ten thousand is after all a poor support for a marquess,’ wrote Liverpool, who was himself only an earl.) However, the Horse Guards succeeded in blocking a suggestion, supported by Liverpool, Bathurst and the Wellesley family, that Wellington should be made a field marshal, arguing that it would only exacerbate the jealousy which a number of senior officers already felt towards him.20
The celebrations were brought to a formal climax on the last day of September when, with an elaborate ceremony, the captured Eagles and colours were deposited in Whitehall Chapel. The three regiments of Foot Guards, and the two regiments of Life Guards, with their bands, together with contingents from other regiments in the capital, took part, watched by the Queen and her daughters. At 10.30, mounted on a white charger, and attended by the Dukes of York and Kent and a suite of officers and courtiers, the Prince Regent arrived. After he had inspected the soldiers, the parade commenced with the trooping of the colours. The Eagles and French flags made obeisance before the Regent and the Royal Family, to the acclamations of the thousands of spectators; and the favoured few then proceeded into the chapel to hear divine service. Catching the mood of the moment, The Times reflected that ‘It was impossible to view, without feelings of exultation, those trophies which bore witness to the prowess of British soldiers, and which were won from no despicable enemy, but from troops whose military reputation stands so high in Europe.’21
Liverpool took advantage of the patriotic mood, which coincided with a good harvest and the end of the Luddite disturbances, to go to the polls. Elections at this period did not decide governments, but rather allowed the ministers in power at the moment to consolidate their position through the use of of
ficial patronage. Liverpool's weak administration was strengthened by the election, while some of the most vociferous Whig critics lost their seats and temporarily found themselves out of Parliament. The ministry was not yet quite secure – it would have to endure a concerted onslaught by Canning and Lord Wellesley in December and January – but it was rapidly gaining assurance, and would go on to endure for no fewer than fifteen years. Thus Salamanca helped to confirm in office the ministers who would guide Britain to victory in the war against Napoleon; its effect was probably not decisive, but if Wellington had been defeated by Marmont, the ministry would surely have fallen, although no one can say for certain what would have taken its place.
On the other side of Europe the news of Salamanca was less welcome. Captain Fabvier set out with Marmont's dispatch on 5 August and rode for thirty-two days before he reached Napoleon' headquarters on the eve of Borodino. Napoleon was naturally preoccupied with the impending battle with the Russians and affected to dismiss the news as of no account: ‘The English have their hands full there. They cannot leave Spain and go to make trouble for me in France and Germany. That is all that matters.’22 But the regency council in Paris could not dismiss the matter so lightly. It worried that the French armies in Spain might be defeated in detail and driven across the Ebro, or even the Pyrenees, and that Wellington might threaten the sacred soil of France, while Napoleon was thousands of miles away, deep in Russia. In desperation it recalled Marshal Masséna from retirement and ordered him to take command of the Army of Portugal and halt the allied advance on the Duero. Masséna reached Bayonne before he fell ill – or had second thoughts – and resigned the command on 26 August.23 The fears of the French regency, like the hopes of the British government, proved exaggerated, or at least premature. Nonetheless, General Savary (the Due de Rovigo), the Minister of Police, records that the defeat had a considerable effect on French public opinion, shaking confidence and making even loyal supporters of Napoleon anxious and eager for some decisive news from Russia. Borodino and the occupation of Moscow brought only muted joy, and it was not long before fresh and greater doubts arose. Napoleon's domestic support was already beginning to be eroded, even before the retreat from Moscow began.24