Cevolla, and concentrated two divisions of infantry behind the Alberche. The 22d, the allies moved in two columns, to drive the French posts from Talavera, and Cuesta, marching by the high road, came first up with the enemy's rear-guard, near the village of Gamonal. Now commenced a display of ignorance, timidity, and absurdity, that has seldom been equalled in war; the past defeats of the Spanish army were rendered quite explicable, the little fruit derived from them by marshal Victor quite inexplicable. General Latour Maubourg, with two thousand dragoons, came boldly on to the table-land of Gamonal, and, sustaining a cannonade, not only checked the head of the Spanish leading column, but actually obliged general Zayas, who commanded it, to display his whole line consisting of fifteen thousand infantry and three thousand cavalry; nor did the French horsemen give back at all, until the appearance of the red uniforms on their right informed them that it was time to retire. Then, and not till then, Latour Maubourg being supported by some infantry, retreated behind the Alberche, and without loss, although many batteries, and at least six thousand Spanish horse, were close on his rear. The latter could never be induced to make even a partial charge, however favourable the opportunity, and by two o'clock the whole French army was safely concentrated on its position. Ruffin's division on the left touched the Tagus, and protected the bridge over the Alberche, which was more immediately defended by a regiment of infantry and fourteen pieces of artillery. Villatte's and Lapisse's divisions, drawn up in successive lines, on some high ground which overlooked the surrounding country, formed the right; the heavy cavalry were in second line near the bridge; and in this situation Victor rested the 22d and 25d.

It was at all times difficult to obtain accurate information from the Spaniards by gentle means; hence, the French were usually better supplied with intelligence than the British, while the native generals never knew anything about the enemy, until they felt the weight of his blows. Up to this period, sir Arthur's best sources of information had been the intercepted letters of the enemy; and now, although the latter had been in the same position, and without any change of numbers since the 7th, the inhabitants of Talavera could not, or would not, give any information of their strength or situation; nor could any reasonable calculation be formed of either, until the English general crossed the Tagus, and, from the mountains on the left bank of that river, saw the French position in The outline of an attack was, however, agreed upon for the next morning, but the details were unsettled, and when sir Arthur came to arrange these with Cuesta, the latter was gone to bed! The British troops were under arms at three o'clock the next morning, Cuesta's staff were not aroused from slumber until seven o'clock, and the old man finally objected to fight that day. But there was something more than

reverse.

inertness in these proceedings. Victor, who was not ignorant of the weak points of his own position, remained tranquil the 23d, being well assured that no attack would take place; for it is certain that he had a correspondence with some of the Spanish staff, and the secret discussions between sir Arthur Wellesley and Cuesta, at which only one staffofficer of each party was present, became known to the enemy in twentyfour hours after; indeed Cuesta was himself suspected of treachery by many, yet apparently without reason.

In the course of the 23d, the Spanish officer commanding the advanced posts, reported, that the French guns were withdrawn, and that it was evident they meant to retreat; Cuesta then became willing to attack, and proposed, in concert with sir Arthur Wellesley, to examine Victor's position. To the surprise of the English commander, the Spaniard arrived in a coach, drawn by six horses, to perform this duty, and as the inequalities of the ground obliged him to descend from his vehicle, he cast himself at the foot of a tree, and in a few moments went to sleep: yet he was always ready to censure and to thwart every proposal of his able coadjutor. This time, however, he consented to fall upon the enemy, and the troops were in motion early in the morning of the 24th; but the duke of Belluno was again duly informed of their intention, and having withdrawn his moveable column from Escalona, and relinquished the road to Madrid, retreated during the night to Torrijos. Thus the first combination of the allies failed entirely, and each hour the troops of the enemy were accumulating round them; for Venegas, who should have been at Fuente Dueñas, high up on the Tagus, had not even passed Damyel, and the king was collecting his whole strength in front, between Toledo and Talavera, while Soult was fast gathering his more formidable power behind the mountains of Bejar.

The English general was indeed still ignorant of the danger which threatened him from the Salamanca country, or he would, doubtless, have withdrawn at once to Placencia, to secure his communications with Lisbon and with Beresford's troops. And other powerful reasons were not wanting to prevent his further advance. Before he quitted Placencia he had completed contracts with the alcades, in the Vera de Placencia, for two hundred and fifty thousand rations of forage and provisions; this, together with what he had before collected, would have furnished supplies for ten or twelve days, a sufficient time to beat Victor and carry the army into a fresh country. But distrustful as he had reason to be of the Spaniards, he again gave notice to Cuesta and the junta, that BEYOND THE ALBERCHE he would not move, unless his wants were immediately supplied; for hitherto the rations contracted for had not been delivered, and his representations to the junta and to Cuesta were by both equally disregarded. There were no means of transport provided; the troops were already on less than half allowance, absolute

famine approached; and when the general demanded food for his soldiers, at the hands of those whose cause he came to defend, he was answered with false excuses, and insulted by false statements. Under any circumstances this would have forced him to halt, but the advance having been made in the exercise of his own discretion, and not at the command of his government, there could be no room for hesitation : wherefore, remonstrating warmly, but manfully, with the supreme junta, he announced his resolution to go no farther, nay, even to withdraw from Spain altogether.1

It is evident that, without these well-founded reasons for pausing, Cuesta's conduct, and the state of his army, offered no solid ground for expecting success by continuing the forward movement; yet the faithless and perverse conduct of the supreme junta, although hidden as yet from sir Arthur Wellesley, far exceeded the measure even of Cuesta's obdurate folly. That body, after having agreed to the plan upon which the armies were acting, concluded, in the fulness of their ignorance, that the combined troops in the valley of the Tagus would be sufficient to overthrow Joseph, and therefore secretly ordered Venegas not to fulfil his part; arguing to themselves, with a cunning stupidity, that it would be a master-stroke of policy to save him from any chance of a defeat, and thus preserve a powerful force under one of their own creatures, to maintain their own power. This was the cause why the army of La Mancha had failed to appear on the Tagus : and thus the welfare of millions was made the sport of men who were never tired of praising themselves, and have not failed to find admirers elsewhere.

As the Spaniards are perfect masters of the art of saying everything, and doing nothing, sir Arthur's remonstrances drew forth many official statements, plausible replies, and pompous assertions, after their manner, but produced no amelioration of the evils complained of. Mr. Frere also, thinking it necessary to make some apology for himself, asserted that the evil was deep-rooted, and that he had had neither time nor power to arrange any regular plan for the subsistence of the English armies. But all the evils that blighted the Spanish cause were deepseated, and Mr. Frere, who could not arrange a plan for the subsistence of the troops, that indispensable preliminary to military operations, and which was really within his province, thought himself competent to direct all the operations themselves, which were in the province of the generals. He had found leisure to meddle in all the intrigues of the day; to aim at making and unmaking Spanish commanders; to insult sir John Moore; to pester sir John Cradock with warlike advice; and to arrange the plan of campaign for sir Arthur Wellesley's army without that officer's concurrence.

Sir Arthur Wellesley's correspondence; Parliamentary Papers, 1810.

CHAPTER II.

Cuesta passes the Alberche-Sir Arthur Wellesley sends two English divisions to support him-Soult is appointed to command the second, fifth, and sixth corps-He proposes to besiege Ciudad Rodrigo and threaten Lisbon-He enters Salamanca, and sends general Foy to Madrid to concert the plan of operations-The king quits MadridUnites his whole army - Crosses the Guadarama river, and attacks Cuesta-Combat of Alcabon-Spaniards fall back in confusion to the Alberche-Cuesta refuses to pass that river-His dangerous position-The French advance-Cuesta recrosses the Tietar --Sir Arthur Wellesley draws up the combined forces on the position of TalaveraThe king crosses the Tictar-Skirmish at Casa de Salinas-Combat on the evening of the 27th-Panic in the Spanish army-Combat on the morning of the 28th-The king holds a council of war-Jourdan and Victor propose different plans-The king follows that of Victor-Battle of Talavera-The French recross the Alberche-General Craufurd arrives in the English camp-His extraordinary march-Observations.

THE English general's resolution to halt at Talavera made little impression upon Cuesta. A French corps had retreated before him, and Madrid, nay, the Pyrenees themselves, instantly rose on the view of the sanguine Spaniard. He was resolved to be the first in the capital, and he pushed forward in pursuit, reckless alike of military discipline and of the friendly warnings of sir Arthur, who vainly urged him to open his communications as quickly as possible with Venegas, and to beware how he let the enemy know that the British and Spanish armies were separated. In the fulness of his arrogant vanity Cuesta crossed the Alberche on the 24th, and being unable to ascertain the exact route of the French, pursued them, by the road of Toledo, as far as Cebolla, and, by the road of Madrid, as far as El Bravo; on the 25th, still inflated with pride, he caused the troops at Cebolla to move on to Torrijos, and marched himself to St. Olalla, as if chasing a deer, but the 26th he discovered that he had been hunting a tiger. Meanwhile sir Arthur Wellesley, foreseeing the consequence of this imprudence, had sent general Sherbrooke, with two divisions of British infantry, and all the cavalry, across the Alberche, to Cazalegas, where, being centrically situated, with respect to Talavera, St. Olalla, and Escalona, he could support the Spaniards, and at the same time hold communication with sir Robert Wilson, who had been at the latter town since the 23d. But a great and signal crisis was at hand, the full importance of which cannot be

VOL. 1.

36

well understood, without an exact knowledge of the situation and proceedings of all the armies involved in this complicated campaign.

The 30th of June, Soult, then at Zamora, had received a despatch from the emperor, dated near Ratisbon, and conferring on him the supreme command of the second, fifth, and sixth corps, with orders to concentrate them and act decisively against the English. "Wellesley," said Napoleon, "will probably advance, by the Tagus, against Madrid; in that case, pass the mountains, fall on his flank and rear, and crush him;’› even at that distance, and without other information than what his own sagacity supplied, this all-knowing soldier foresaw the leading ope. rations as soon, and as certainly, as those who projected them. The duke of Dalmatia immediately imparted these instructions to the king, and at the same time, made known his own opinions and designs with respect to the probable projects of the allies. He was ignorant of the precise object and exact position of sir Arthur Wellesley, but judging, from the cessation of hostility in the north, that the English were in march, with the design of joining Cuesta, to act by the line of the Tagus, he proposed to concentrate the third corps at Salamanca, besiege Ciudad Rodrigo, and menace Lisbon, which he justly observed, would bring the English army back to the northern provinces of Portugal. And if, as some supposed, the intention of sir Arthur was to unite at Braganza with Romana, and open the campaign to the north of the Duero, the French army would still be in a suitable position to oppose them.

In pursuance of this opinion, Soult ordered Mortier to approach Ciudad Rodrigo, with the double view of preparing for the siege, and covering the quarters of refreshment so much needed by the second corps after its fatigues; Ney also was directed to march with the sixth corps, by the left bank of the Esla, to Zamora. But the spirit of discord was strong, and it was at this moment that the king, alarmed by Sebastiani's report, drew the fifth corps to Villa Castin, while marshal Ney, holding it imprudent to uncover Astorga and Leon, mortified also at being placed under the orders of another marshal, refused to move to Zamora. Soult, crossed by these untoward circumstances, then sent the division of light cavalry, under his brother, and one of infantry, commanded by Heudelet, from Zamora and Toro to Salamanca, with orders to explore the course of the Tormes, to observe Alba and Ledesma, and especially to scour the roads leading upon Ciudad Rodrigo and Placencia. These troops relieved a division of dragoons, belonging to Kellerman, who was still charged with the general government of the province; but on the 10th of July, the march of the British upon Placencia becoming known, it was manifest that sir Arthur had no design to act north of the Duero. The duke of Dalmatia then advanced with the remainder of the second corps to Salamanca ; and partly by authority, partly by address, obliged Ney to put the sixth corps in movement for Zamora, leaving Fournier's