Salamanca, 1812 Page 3

  Wellington was delighted with Marmont's advance and quickly occupied a strong defensive position on the heights of San Cristobal just to the north of the town. Late on the afternoon of 20 June Marmont appeared at the foot of this position and there was some skirmishing, including a spirited fight for control of the village of Morisco. Marmont was certainly rash in approaching the allied position so closely: two of his seven divisions had yet to join, so that he was out-numbered by about three to two, even allowing for the fact that most of the allied Sixth Division remained in Salamanca in front of the forts. Wellington is said to have been tempted to attack, but refrained because he expected Marmont to attack him on the following morning, and that this would lead to a more certain and less costly victory. Before the campaign began he had told Lord Liverpool that he intended ‘to bring Marmont to a general action’ and expressed his confidence in its outcome; but now he declined an excellent opportunity for doing so.2 The broken ground at the foot of his position could have hampered such an attack, while in the unlikely event of a defeat the army's retreat, with a town and a river in its rear, would have been extremely difficult. His early confidence had also been sapped by captured papers which indicated that the French forces were generally stronger than he had expected; he was surprised and dismayed that Marmont had flouted Napoleon's order to leave Bonnet's division in the Asturias; and he had begun to doubt the effectiveness of the diversions he had organized.3 But these reasons, while significant in their way, were hardly sufficient to account for his caution; and there was some surprise and murmuring in the army that he had let an opportunity slip.4

  Marmont did not attack on the 21st, although his two trailing divisions arrived and he reconnoitred the allied position. He seems to have given little thought to the danger that Wellington might attack him, and Wellington's restraint would only have added to his confidence. That night he called a council of war of his senior commanders and listened as some (including Maucune and Ferey) advocated an attack, while others (Clausel, the senior divisional commander, and Foy) reminded him of the failure of previous such attacks at Vimeiro, Coruña and Busaco. According to Foy's rather hostile account, Marmont was inclined to favour the attack, but would not press forward against such articulate opposition; clearly the summoning of the council of war was itself an indication of uncertainty.5

  Marmont was probably encouraged to wait by the fact that the siege of the forts was suspended on the 21st, which he naturally attributed to the presence of his army, although in fact it was because the allies had used almost all the ammunition for their siege guns and fresh supplies would not arrive from Almeida for some days. Over the next few days Marmont manoeuvred around Salamanca, transferring part of his army from one side of the Tormes to the other, hoping to force the allies into a mistake. Wellington countered these manoeuvres with relative ease, but was not tempted to take the offensive himself, while his efforts to press forward the siege of the forts with inadequate means led to a costly repulse on the night of the 23rd. The slow progress of the allies encouraged Marmont to hope that Caffarelli's reinforcements might reach him in time to save the forts, but these hopes were dashed on the 26th, when news arrived that Caffarelli was so alarmed by the activity of the guerrillas and Popham's naval squadron that he would not be able to spare any men for some time. With no prospect of reinforcements, Marmont at once embarked on an extremely dangerous attempt to raise the siege. However, before he could fully commit his army, the forts had fallen, thanks to the arrival of fresh supplies of ammunition. This left the French with no reason to remain so far forward, and over the next few days they made a well-executed withdrawal to the Duero, where they would be closer to Bonnet's division and any reinforcements which could ultimately be extracted from the Army of the North. Wellington followed; he had achieved his initial objectives, but had not brought Marmont to battle, nor had it been a particularly convincing opening to the campaign.

  The Salamanca campaign.

  The two armies remained quietly on the Duero for a fortnight. At first Wellington was full of confidence, reconnoitring the fords and talking of attacking the French as soon as the river fell a little. But Bonnet's division joined Marmont on 7 July, bringing the two armies to nearly equal numbers: Wellington had the stronger cavalry, but the French artillery was far superior and occupied strong positions guarding the crossings of the river. Indeed, the more closely Wellington inspected the French positions, the less he liked the prospect of a direct attack, while any attempt to turn Marmont's flank risked exposing his own lines of communication. The best chance was to bring forward the Spanish army, which was besieging Astorga, in the hope that its threat to Marmont's flank and rear would lead to a rearrangement of French forces which might open a way for an attack. But the siege of Astorga dragged on and the Spanish generals appeared unable either to take the town, or to convert the siege into a blockade and advance with the bulk of their force. Meanwhile Wellington was receiving reports that King Joseph was collecting his men with the intention of aiding Marmont, and that he had also ordered Drouet to leave Estremadura and join him. This made Wellington despondent enough to tell Hill, ‘I am apprehensive that, after all, the enemy will be too strong for me.’ But worse was to come, for on the following day he learnt that Bentinck had decided to send his expedition to the Italian mainland rather than to eastern Spain. Wellington told his brother Henry that this was ‘fatal to the campaign’, and his staff echoed his despair in letters home which denounced Bentinck's decision in violent terms. In fact, there was never much danger that Suchet would send any aid to Marmont, while Bentinck's decision was soon reversed and his expedition went ahead without appreciable loss of time.6

  The troops in both armies seem to have found this lull in the campaign pleasant. William Napier, the future historian, who was commanding the 43rd Light Infantry in the Light Division at the time, evokes those midsummer days with some nostalgia:

  The weather was fine, the country rich, the troops received full rations, and wine was so plentiful it was hard to keep the soldiers sober: the caves of Rueda, either natural or cut in the rock below the surface of the earth, were so immense and so well stocked, that the drunkards of two armies failed to make any sensible diminution in the quantity. Many men of both sides perished in that labyrinth, and on both sides the soldiers, entering the river to bathe, held amicable intercourse, rallying each other about the battles yet to be fought, and the camps on the banks of the Duero seemed at times to belong to one army: so difficult is it to make brave men hate each other.

  However, he goes on to say: ‘The officers of the allies were anxious to receive the signal of battle, they were discontented at its being delayed, and many amongst them murmured that the French had been permitted to retreat from Christoval. Hence had Wellington been finally forced back to Portugal his reputation would have been grievously assailed by his own people’7 The first point is confirmed in the journal of Charles Boutflower, a surgeon in the Fourth Division, who describes large numbers of men from both armies bathing together in the river while the cavalry brought down their horses to be watered. But it is seldom possible to please everyone, and Major Rice of the 51st wrote home to a friend on 6 July: ‘We have been wretchedly off for this some time; scanty fare, bad biscuit, etc. The weather dreadfully hot by day and cold by night – beyond what I ever experienced. We are lying in cornfields without the smallest covering. How the men stand this severe work is to me astonishing.’8

  While Wellington's confidence gradually ebbed and the soldiers bathed in the Duero, Marmont considered his position. Although Caffarelli continued to promise some support, if only a brigade of cavalry and a battery of horse artillery, there was no sign that the troops were on their way. The guerrillas and Popham were constantly harassing the Army of the North, and by the second week of July Marmont had despaired of receiving any practical help from Caffarelli. Nor were his latest despatches from King Joseph any more encouraging. In fact, Joseph and Jourdan were already collecting every ma
n they could while still leaving a garrison in Madrid – altogether a field force of about fourteen thousand men – with the intention of marching to Marmont's aid. But the retreat behind the Duero had severed Marmont's direct line of communication with Madrid and, although Joseph sent duplicates and triplicates of his carefully coded letters, they were all intercepted by the guerrillas, and most found their way to Wellington's headquarters, where Major Scovell painstakingly deciphered them. Not for the first time, Wellington knew more of the French plans than did his immediate opponent.9

  It was natural, therefore, for Marmont to conclude that he had little to gain by waiting, and there was the risk that the strategic balance might worsen. The Galician army might capture Astorga and advance to join Wellington, adding fifteen thousand men, albeit of inferior quality, to the allied forces. Or Wellington might summon Hill's eighteen thousand men from Estremadura and so gain an overwhelming, if temporary, superiority, for even if Drouet set out immediately he could not arrive until some days after Hill. This was an alarming prospect, although with hindsight we can see that it was a manoeuvre more characteristic of Napoleon than of Wellington, who was much less inclined to stake everything on a single throw of the dice.

  On the other hand, Marmont was encouraged by the arrival of Bonnet's strong division, which completed his army and brought it up almost to Wellington's strength. Like most French soldiers, he was firmly convinced that a French army should be capable of defeating any opponent on reasonably equal terms. Busaco and earlier defeats had instilled a degree of respect for British troops defending a strong position, but he could not doubt the immense superiority of French troops manoeuvring and fighting in open country. Twenty years of glorious victories (the defeats in the Revolutionary Wars had been quietly forgotten) and Napoleon's prestige and propaganda had created a spirit which went far beyond pride and became arrogance. This confidence permeated the army and was, in itself, an enormous aid to victory; nor did it often blind French generals to danger or make them foolishly rash – they were too professional for that – but they did operate in a context where their subordinates (and Napoleon) expected enterprise and success. Marmont's failure to rescue the garrisons of the Salamanca forts, his fruitless manoeuvres before San Cristobal and his retreat to the Duero, had produced some discontent in the French army, and the resulting pressure, added to the fear that Wellington might be reinforced, encouraged him to take the initiative.10

  Although the French controlled the bridges and most of the fords over the Duero, crossing the river in the face of the allied army was still a potentially difficult operation. Wellington had had a fortnight to survey the country and make his plans: he might already have chosen a strong position in his rear in which he could meet the French on his own terms, or he might intend to attack the French army as soon as part of it was across the river and destroy it piecemeal. Marmont devised an ingenious plan to avoid these dangers while exploiting the capacity of his troops to make rapid marches. On 10 July he began repairing the bridge at Toro, at the western end of his line and the point closest to Salamanca. Over the next few days increasing numbers of French troops shifted towards Toro, attracting Wellington's attention and arousing his concern for his communications with Salamanca. On 16 July two French divisions crossed the Duero at Toro and established themselves on the southern bank; Wellington received the news about 7 o'clock that evening and issued orders to move the army to the west where it could form across the Toro to Salamanca road.11 But that night the whole French army reversed its line of march; the divisions which had crossed at Toro withdrew and blew up the bridge behind them; the bulk of the army crossed the river more than twenty miles to the east at Tordesillas, while the rear divisions, those which had been at Toro and had the longest march, were able to take a short-cut through the fords of Polios. By nightfall on the 17th the French army was safely across the Duero and well established between Rueda and Nava-del-Rey. Wellington had been completely wrong-footed and was now in some danger, for two of his divisions (the Light and the Fourth) were still around Alaejos and Castrejon, alarmingly close to the French main force and far from support.

  COMBATS OF CASTREJON AND THE GUARENA, 18 JULY 1812

  On the morning of 18 July Wellington's first objective was to secure the safe withdrawal of these two divisions over some eight miles of open country to the line of the River Guarena, which ran north at right angles to the Duero at Toro, and which would form Wellington's new line. This delicate operation was made easier because the allied cavalry was much stronger than the French, and also because the French troops were weary after their long marches. Wellington brought forward the Fifth Division to Torrecilla de la Orden to cover the southern flank of the retreating troops and to give them some support as they fell back, while their more exposed northern flank would be protected by the heavy cavalry brigades of Bock and Le Marchant.

  Wellington reached the divisions about 7 am to find them already skirmishing with the enemy. Sir Stapleton Cotton, the cavalry commander, had taken charge as the senior officer present and had sent out patrols before dawn, which soon discovered that the French were in force. Some skirmishing followed and both sides brought up batteries of artillery and opened fire. Napier remembered:

  Now the cannonade became heavy and the spectacle surprisingly beautiful. The lighter smoke and mist curling up in fantastic pillars formed a huge and glittering dome tinged of many colours by the rising sun; and through the grosser vapour below the restless horsemen were seen or lost as the fume thickened from the rapid play of the guns, while the high bluff head of land beyond Trabancos, covered with French troops, appeared by an optical deception close at hand, dilated to the size of a mountain, and crowned with gigantic soldiers who were continually breaking off and sliding down into the fight.12

  Wellington and his staff were unexpectedly caught up in this skirmishing when a party of French cavalry suddenly charged two squadrons of the 11th and 12th Light Dragoons who were guarding two guns of Ross's horse artillery – the famous Chestnut Troop. The British cavalry broke – according to Captain Tomkinson, because a staff officer gave them a wrong order – and for a little while all was confusion as generals, staff, horse artillery and cavalry alike had to draw their swords to defend themselves. Fortunately other supports were close at hand, the senior officers and staff found refuge behind some nearby infantry and the French were soon driven off. Captain Kincaid of the 95th Rifles remembered the aftermath:

  I was highly interested, all this time, in observing the distinguished characters which this unlooked-for turn-up had assembled around us. Marshal Beresford and the greater part of the staff remained with their swords drawn, and the Duke himself did not look more than half-pleased, while he silently despatched some of them with orders. General Alten, and his huge German orderly dragoon, with their swords drawn, cursed, the whole time, to a very large amount; but, as it was in German, I had not the full benefit of it.13

  The allied troops now began their retreat to the Guarena, with the French pressing after them and constantly trying to turn their flank. On several occasions the French were able to bring forward artillery and open fire, inflicting some casualties, while the allied stragglers, whether overcome by the heat or footsore, had to be abandoned. Yet losses were generally low, and the good discipline of the infantry and the protection afforded by the cavalry ensured that the retreat succeeded without giving the French an opening to strike a serious blow. They reached the Guarena in the early afternoon and, although accounts differ, it seems that the Fourth and Fifth Divisions halted for some time on the further bank to drink and rest. Light Division sources, however, say that the French opened fire as soon as they reached the stream, and that they could do no more than snatch a mouthful of water as they waded through, before climbing the further bank and taking cover.14

  Wellington's army was now collected in quite a good, although not a formidable, position running north–south on the western bank of the Guarena – a small river at that time of the
year and readily fordable in most places. His most vulnerable point appeared to be his right flank around Vallesa, where the tributary streams of the Guarena had yet to join and where a successful French advance would again threaten his communications with Salamanca. Marmont recognized this, but he could see that Wellington's troops were already well posted while his own men were badly in need of rest, so he decided to halt for the remainder of the day.

  This was not the end of operations on 18 July however, for before Marmont could make his intentions known throughout the army, his northern wing under Clausel had brought on an action. The details of what followed are far from clear, with the sources being unusually patchy and inclined to contradiction. However, it seems that Clausel reached the Guarena with the 2nd and 6th Divisions opposite Wellington's extreme left, and believed that by attacking at once he could turn the allied position and secure a foothold on the western side of the Guarena. Clausel ordered the 6th Division under Brigadier Taupin (French sources all state that he, not Brennier, was in command of the division throughout the campaign) to swing a little further north, ford the river and secure a hill which dominated the position. Protecting their outer, northern flank, rode Carrié's brigade of dragoons. Meanwhile Clausel's own 2nd Division would have time to arrive and could then cross the river and support Taupin, catching any opposition between two fires.15