CHAPTER III

THE SIEGE OF BADAJOZ. MARCH-APRIL 1812

In narrating the troubles of the unlucky Duke of Ragusa, engaged in fruitless strategical controversy with his master, we have been carried far into the month of March 1812. It is necessary to return to February 20th in order to take up the story of Wellington’s march to Estremadura. We have seen that he commenced his artillery preparations in January, by sending Alexander Dickson to Setubal, and dispatching a large part of his siege-train southward, partly by sea, partly across the difficult mountain roads of the Beira.

The Anglo-Portuguese infantry and cavalry, however, were not moved till the guns were far on their way. It was Wellington’s intention to show a large army on the frontier of Leon till the last possible moment. He himself kept his old headquarters at Freneda, near Fuentes de Oñoro, till March 5th, in order that Marmont might be led to persist in the belief that his attention was still concentrated on the North. But, starting from February 19th, his divisions, one by one, had made their unostentatious departure for the South: on the day when he himself followed them only one division (the 5th) and one cavalry brigade (V. Alten’s) still remained behind the Agueda. The rest were at various stages on their way to Elvas. Most of the divisions marched by the route Sabugal, Castello Branco, Villa Velha, Niza. But the 1st Division went by Abrantes, in order to pick up there its clothing for the new year, which had been brought up the Tagus in boats from Lisbon to that point. Some of the cavalry and the two independent Portuguese brigades of Pack and Bradford, whose winter cantonments had been rather to the rear, had separate routes of their own, through places so far west as Thomar[243] and Coimbra. The three brigades of the 2nd Division, under Hill, which had been brought up to Castello Branco at the beginning of January, were at the head of the marching army, and reached Portalegre, via Villa Velha, long before the rest of the troops were across the Tagus. Indeed, the first of them (Ashworth’s Portuguese) started as early as February 2nd, and was at Castello de Vide, near Elvas, by February 8th, before the troops behind the Agueda had begun to move[244].

[243] This was the case with G. Anson’s brigade and Bradford’s Portuguese infantry. Pack went by Coimbra, Slade’s cavalry brigade by Covilhão, and the horse artillery of Bull and McDonald with it.

[244] Nothing is rarer, as all students of the Peninsular War know to their cost, than a table of the exact movements of Wellington’s army on any march. For this particular movement the whole of the detailed orders happen to have been preserved in the D’Urban Papers. The starting-places of the units were:--

1st Division--Gallegos, Carpio, Fuentes de Oñoro.

3rd Division--Zamorra (by the Upper Agueda).

4th Division--San Felices and Sesmiro.

5th Division--Ciudad Rodrigo.

6th Division--Albergaria (near Fuente Guinaldo).

7th Division--Payo (in the Sierra de Gata).

Light Division--Fuente Guinaldo.

Bradford’s Portuguese--Barba del Puerco.

Pack’s Portuguese--Campillo and Ituero.

The marches were so arranged that the 7th Division passed through Castello Branco on Feb. 26, the 6th Division on Feb. 29, the Light Division on March 3, the 4th Division on March 5. All these were up to Portalegre, Villa Viçosa, or Castello de Vide, in touch with Elvas, by March 8. The 1st Division, coming by way of Abrantes, joined on March 10. Pack and Bradford, who had very circuitous routes, the one by Coimbra, the other by Thomar, were not up till several days later (16th). The 5th Division did not leave Rodrigo till March 9.

The lengthy column of infantry which had marched by Castello Branco and the bridge of Villa Velha was cantoned in various places behind Elvas, from Villa Viçosa to Portalegre, by March 8th: the 1st Division, coming in from the Abrantes direction, joined them on March 10th, and halted at Monforte and Azumar. Only the 5th Division and the two Portuguese independent brigades were lacking, and of these the two former were expected by the 16th, the latter by the 20th. With the exception of the 5th Division the whole of Wellington’s field army was concentrated near Elvas by the 16th. Only the 1st Hussars of the King’s German Legion, under Victor Alten, had been left to keep the outpost line in front of Ciudad Rodrigo, in order that the French vedettes in Leon should not detect that all the army of Wellington had disappeared, as they were bound to do if only Portuguese or Spanish cavalry showed at the front[245]. Counting Hill’s corps, now long returned to its old post in front of Badajoz, there were now nearly 60,000 troops nearing Elvas, viz. of infantry, all the eight old Anglo-Portuguese divisions, plus Hamilton’s Portuguese division[246], and Pack’s and Bradford’s independent Portuguese brigades. Of cavalry not only were all the old brigades assembled (save Alten’s single regiment), but two powerful units now showed at the front for the first time. These were the newly-landed brigade of German heavy dragoons under Bock[247], which had arrived at Lisbon on January 1st, and Le Marchant’s brigade of English heavy dragoons[248], which had disembarked in the autumn, but had not hitherto been brought up to join the field army. Of Portuguese horse J. Campbell’s brigade was also at the front: the other Portuguese cavalry brigade, which had served on the Leon frontier during the preceding autumn, had been made over to General Silveira, and sent north of the Douro. But even after deducting this small brigade of 900 sabres, Wellington’s mounted arm was immensely stronger than it had ever been before. He had concentrated it on the Alemtejo front, in order that he might cope on equal terms with the very powerful cavalry of Soult’s Army of Andalusia.

[245] The other regiment of V. Alten’s brigade (11th Light Dragoons) was on March 12 at Ponte de Sor, on its way to the South.

[246] Which lay at Arronches and Santa Olaya.

[247] 1st and 2nd Heavy Dragoons K.G.L.

[248] 3rd Dragoons, 4th and 5th Dragoon Guards. They had been lying during the winter in the direction of Castello Branco.

The Commander-in-Chief himself, travelling with his wonted speed, left his old head-quarters at Freneda on March 5th, was at Castello Branco on the 8th, at Portalegre on the 10th, and had reached Elvas, his new head-quarters, on the 12th. Before leaving the North he had made elaborate arrangements for the conduct of affairs in that quarter. They are contained in two memoranda, given the one to Castaños, who was still in command both of the Galician and the Estremaduran armies of Spain, and the other to Generals Baccelar and Silveira, of whom the former was in charge of the Portuguese department of the North, with head-quarters at Oporto, and the other of the Tras-os-Montes, with head-quarters at Villa Real[249].

[249] Dated Feb. 24 and 27, _Dispatches_, viii. pp. 629 and 638.

It was a delicate matter to leave Marmont with nothing save the Spaniards and Portuguese in his front. Of the former the available troops were (1) the Army of Galicia, four weak field divisions, making about 15,000 men, of whom only 550 were cavalry, while the artillery counted only five batteries. There were 8,000 garrison and reserve troops in Corunna, Vigo, Ferrol, and other fortified posts to the rear, but these were unavailable for service[250]. Abadia still commanded the whole army, under the nominal supervision of Castaños. He had one division (3,000 men under Cabrera) at Puebla Senabria on the Portuguese frontier, two (9,000 men under Losada and the Conde de Belveder) at Villafranca, observing the French garrison of Astorga and Souham’s division on the Esla, which supported that advanced post, and one (2,500 men under Castañon) on the Asturian frontier watching Bonnet. (2) The second Spanish force available consisted of that section of the Army of Estremadura, which lay north of the Sierra de Gata, viz. Carlos de España’s division of 5,000 men, of whom 3,000 had been thrown into Ciudad Rodrigo, so that the surplus for the field was small, and of Julian Sanchez’s very efficient guerrillero cavalry, who were about 1,200 strong and were now counted as part of the regular army and formally styled ‘1st and 2nd Lancers of Castille.’

[250] These figures are those of January, taken from the ‘morning state’ in _Los Ejércitos españoles_, the invaluable book of 1822 published by the Spanish Staff.

The Portuguese troops left to defend the northern frontier were all militia, with the exception of a couple of batteries of artillery and the cavalry brigade of regulars which had been with Wellington in Leon during the autumn, under Madden, but was now transferred to Silveira’s charge, and set to watch the frontier of the Tras-os-Montes, with the front regiment at Braganza. Silveira in that province had the four local regiments of militia, of which each had only one of its two battalions actually embodied. Baccelar had a much more important force, but of the same quality, the twelve regiments forming the divisions of Trant and J. Wilson, and comprising all the militia of the Entre Douro e Minho province and of northern Beira. Three of these regiments were immobilized by having been told off to serve as the garrison of Almeida. Farther south Lecor had under arms the two militia regiments of the Castello Branco country, watching their own district. The total force of militia available on the whole frontier must have been about 20,000 men of very second-rate quality: each battalion had only been under arms intermittently, for periods of six months, and the officers were for the most part the inefficient leavings of the regular army. Of the generals Silveira was enterprising, but over bold, as the record of his earlier campaigns sufficiently demonstrated--Trant and Wilson had hitherto displayed equal energy and more prudence: but in the oncoming campaign they were convicted of Silveira’s fault, over-confidence. Baccelar passed as a slow but fairly safe commander, rather lacking in self-confidence.

Wellington’s very interesting memoranda divide the possibilities of March-April into three heads, of which the last contains three sub-sections:--

(1) Marmont may, on learning that Badajoz is in danger, march with practically the whole of his army to succour it, as he did in May-June 1811. If this should occur, Abadia and Carlos de España will advance and boldly take the offensive, laying siege to Astorga, Toro, Zamora, Salamanca, and other fortified posts. Silveira will co-operate with his cavalry and infantry, within the bounds of prudence, taking care that his cavalry, which may support Abadia, does not lose communication with, and a secure retreat upon, his infantry, which will not risk itself.

(2) Marmont may leave a considerable force, perhaps the two divisions of Souham and Bonnet, in Leon, while departing southward with the greater part of his army: ‘this is the operation which it is probable that the enemy will follow.’ What the Army of Galicia can then accomplish will depend on the exact relative force of itself and of the French left in front of it, and on the state of the fortified places on the Douro and Tormes [Toro, Zamora, Salamanca] and the degree of equipment with which General Abadia can provide himself for siege-work. But España and Julian Sanchez must make all the play that they can, and even Porlier and Longa, from distant Cantabria, must be asked to co-operate in making mischief. Silveira and Baccelar will support, but risk nothing.

(3) Marmont may send to Estremadura only the smaller half of his army, and keep four or five divisions in the north, a force strong enough to enable him to take the offensive. He may attack either (_a_) Galicia, (_b_) Tras-os-Montes, or (_c_) the Beira, including Almeida and Ciudad Rodrigo.

(_a_) If Marmont should invade Galicia, Abadia had better retreat, but in the direction that will bring him near the frontiers of Portugal (i. e. by Puebla Senabria) rather than on Lugo and Corunna. In that case Silveira and Baccelar will be on the enemy’s flank and rear, and will do as much mischief as they can on his communications, always taking care that they do not, by pushing too far into Leon, lose their communication with the Galicians or with Portugal. In proportion as the French may advance farther into Galicia, Baccelar will take measures to collect the whole of the militia of the Douro provinces northward. Carlos de España and Julian Sanchez ought to have good opportunities of making trouble for the enemy in the Salamanca district, if he pushes far from his base.

(_b_) If Marmont should invade Tras-os-Montes [not a likely operation, owing to the roughness of the country], Baccelar and Silveira should oppose him in front, while Abadia would come down on his flank and rear, and annoy him as much as possible. ‘Don Carlos and the guerrillas might do a great deal of mischief in Castille.’

(_c_) If Marmont should attack Beira, advancing by Ciudad Rodrigo and Almeida, both these fortresses are in such a state of defence as to ensure them against capture by a _coup-de-main_, and are supplied with provisions to suffice during any time that the enemy could possibly remain in the country. Baccelar and Silveira will assemble all the militia of the northern provinces in Upper Beira, and place themselves in communication with Carlos de España. They will endeavour to protect the magazines on the Douro and Mondego [at Celorico, Guarda, Lamego, St. João de Pesqueira], and may live on the last in case of urgent necessity, but not otherwise, as these stores could not easily be replaced. An attempt should be made, if possible, to draw the enemy into the Beira Baixa (i. e. the Castello Branco country) rather than towards the Douro. Abadia will invade northern Leon; what he can do depends on the force that Marmont leaves on the Esla, and the strength of his garrisons at Astorga, Zamora, Toro, &c. Supposing Marmont takes this direction, Carlos de España will destroy before him all the bridges on the Yeltes and Huebra, and that of Barba del Puerco, and the three bridges at Castillejo, all on the Lower Agueda.

It will be seen that the alternative (2) was Marmont’s own choice, and that he would have carried it out but for Napoleon’s orders, which definitively imposed upon him (3_c_) the raid into northern Beira. With the inconclusive operations resulting from that movement we shall deal in their proper place. It began on March 27th, and the Marshal was over the Agueda on March 30th. The last British division had left Ciudad Rodrigo three weeks before Marmont advanced, so difficult was it for him to get full and correct information, and to collect a sufficiently large army for invasion. On the 26th February he was under the impression that two British divisions only had yet marched for Badajoz, though five had really started. On March 6th, when only the 5th Division remained in the North, he still believed that Wellington and a large fraction of his army were in their old positions. This was the result of his adversary’s wisdom in stopping at Freneda till March 5th; as long as he was there in person, it was still thought probable by the French that only a detachment had marched southward. Hence came the lateness of Marmont’s final advance: for a long time he might consider that he was, as his master ordered, ‘containing’ several British divisions and the Commander-in-Chief himself.

Meanwhile, on taking stock of his situation at Elvas on March 12th, Wellington was reasonably satisfied. Not only was the greater part of his army in hand, and the rest rapidly coming up, but the siege material had escaped all the perils of storms by sea and rocky defiles by land, and was much where he had expected it to be. The material which moved by road, the sixteen 24-lb. howitzers which had marched on January 30th, and a convoy of 24-pounder and 18-pounder travelling-carriages and stores, which went off on February 2, had both come to hand at Elvas, the first on February 25th, the second on March 3, and were ready parked on the glacis. This was a wonderful journey over mountain roads in the most rainy season of the year. The sea-borne guns had also enjoyed a surprising immunity from winter storms; Dickson, when he arrived at Setubal on February 10th, found that the 24-pounders from Oporto had arrived thirty-six hours before him, and on the 14th was beginning to forward them by river-boat to Alcacer do Sal, from where they were drawn by oxen to Elvas, along with their ammunition[251]. The only difficulty which arose was that Wellington had asked Admiral Berkeley, commanding the squadron at Lisbon, to lend him, as a supplementary train, twenty 18-pound ship guns. The admiral sent twenty Russian guns (leavings of Siniavins’s squadron captured in the Tagus at the time of the Convention of Cintra). Dickson protested, as these pieces were of a different calibre from the British 18-pounder, and would not take its shot. The admiral refused to disgarnish his own flagship, which happened to be the only vessel at Lisbon with home-made 18-pounders on board. Dickson had to take the Russian guns perforce, and to cull for their ammunition all the Portuguese stores at Lisbon, where a certain supply of round shot that fitted was discovered, though many thousands had to be rejected as ‘far too low.’ On March 8th the whole fifty-two guns of the siege-train were reported ready, and the officer commanding the Portuguese artillery at Elvas announced that he could even find a small supplement, six old heavy English iron guns of the time of George II, which had been in store there since General Burgoyne’s expedition of 1761, besides some Portuguese guns of similar calibre. The old brass guns which had made such bad practice in 1811 were not this time requisitioned--fortunately they were not needed. The garrison of Elvas had for some weeks been at work making gabions and fascines, which were all ready, as was also a large consignment of cutting-tools from the Lisbon arsenal, and a train of twenty-two pontoons. Altogether the material was in a wonderful state of completeness.

[251] For details see Jones, _Sieges of the Peninsula_, Appendix in vol. i. pp. 421-5, and the _Dickson Papers_, ed. Leslie, for Feb. 1812.

For the service of the siege Wellington could dispose of about 300 British and 560 Portuguese artillerymen, a much larger force than had been available at the two unlucky leaguers of 1811. Colonel Framingham was the senior officer in this arm present, but Wellington had directed that Alexander Dickson should take charge of the whole service of the siege, just as he had been entrusted with all the preparations for it. There were fifteen British, five German Legion, and seventeen Portuguese artillery officers under his command. The Portuguese gunners mostly came from the 3rd or Elvas regiment, the British were drawn from the companies of Holcombe, Gardiner, Glubb, and Rettberg.[252] Under Colonel Fletcher, senior engineer officer, there were 115 men of the Royal Military Artificers present at the commencement of the siege, and an additional party came up from Cadiz during its last days. But though this was an improvement over the state of things in 1811, the numbers were still far too small; there were no trained miners whatever, and the volunteers from the line acting as sappers, who were instructed by the Artificers, were for the most part unskilful--only 120 men of the 3rd Division who had been at work during the leaguer of Ciudad Rodrigo were comparatively efficient. The engineer arm was the weak point in the siege, as Wellington complained in a letter which will have to be dealt with in its proper place. He had already been urging on Lord Liverpool the absolute necessity for the creation of permanent units of men trained in the technicalities of siege-work. Soon after Rodrigo fell he wrote, ‘I would beg to suggest to your lordship the expediency of adding to the Engineer establishment a corps of sappers and miners. It is inconceivable with what disadvantage we undertake a siege, for want of assistance of this description. There is no French _corps d’armée_ which has not a battalion of sappers and a company of miners. We are obliged to depend for assistance of this sort upon the regiments of the line; and, although the men are brave and willing, they want the knowledge and training which are necessary. Many casualties occur, and much valuable time is lost at the most critical period of the siege[253],’

[252] For details see Duncan’s _History of the Royal Artillery_, ii. pp. 318-19.

[253] Wellington, _Dispatches_, viii. p. 601.

The situation on March 12th, save in this single respect, seemed favourable. It was only fourteen miles from Elvas, where the siege-train lay parked and the material was ready, to Badajoz. Sufficient troops were already arrived not only to invest the place, but to form a large covering army against any attempt of Soult to raise the siege. There was every reason to believe that the advance would take the French unawares. Only Drouet’s two divisions were in Estremadura, and before they could be reinforced up to a strength which would enable them to act with effect some weeks must elapse. Soult, as in 1811, would have to borrow troops from Granada and the Cadiz Lines before he could venture to take the offensive. Unless he should raise the siege of Cadiz or evacuate Granada, he could not gather more than 25,000 or 30,000 men at the very most: and it would take him three weeks to collect so many. If he approached with some such force, he could be fought, with very little risk: for it was not now as at the time of Albuera: not three Anglo-Portuguese infantry divisions, but eight were concentrated at Elvas: there would be nine when the 5th Division arrived. Not three British cavalry regiments (the weak point at Albuera), but fourteen were with the army. If Soult should push forward for a battle, 40,000 men could be opposed to him, all Anglo-Portuguese units of old formation, while 15,000 men were left to invest Badajoz. Or if Wellington should choose to abandon the investment for three days (as Beresford had done in May 1811) he could bring 55,000 men to the contest, a force which must crush Soult by the force of double numbers, unless he should raise the siege of Cadiz and abandon Granada, so as to bring his whole army to the Guadiana. Even if he took that desperate, but perhaps necessary, measure, and came with 45,000 men, leaving only Seville garrisoned behind him, there was no reason to suppose that he could not be dealt with.

The only dangerous possibility was the intervention of Marmont with five or six divisions of the Army of Portugal, as had happened at the time of the operations on the Caya in June 1811. Wellington, as we have seen in his directions to Baccelar and Castaños, thought this intervention probable. But from the disposition of Marmont’s troops at the moment of his own departure from Freneda, he thought that he could count on three weeks, or a little more, of freedom from any interference from this side. Two at least of Marmont’s divisions (Souham and Bonnet) would almost certainly be left in the North, to contain the Galicians and Asturians. Of the other six only one (Foy) was in the valley of the Tagus: the rest were scattered about, at Salamanca, Avila, Valladolid, &c., and would take time to collect[254]. Wellington was quite aware of Marmont’s difficulties with regard to magazines; he also counted on the roughness of the roads, the fact that the rivers were high in March, and (most of all) on the slowness with which information would reach the French marshal[255]. Still, here lay the risk, so far as Wellington could know. What he could not guess was that the movement which he feared had been expressly forbidden to Marmont by his master, and that only on March 27th was permission granted to the Marshal to execute the march to Almaraz. By that time, as we have already seen, it was too late for him to profit by the tardily-granted leave.

[254] For Wellington’s speculations (fairly correct) as to Marmont’s distribution of his troops, see _Dispatches_, viii. p. 618, Feb. 19, to Graham.

[255] Wellington to Victor Alten, March 5, _Dispatches_, viii. p. 649, makes a special point of ‘the difficulties which the enemy experiences in getting intelligence’ as a means of gaining time for himself.

But it was the possibility of Marmont’s appearance on the scene, rather than anything which might be feared from Soult, which made the siege of Badajoz a time-problem, just as that of Ciudad Rodrigo had been. The place must, if possible, be taken somewhere about the first week in April, the earliest date at which a serious attempt at relief was likely to be made[256].

[256] Napier (iv. p. 98) tries to make out that Wellington’s siege began ten days later than he wished and hoped, by the fault of the Portuguese Regency. I cannot see how Badajoz could have been invested on the 6th of March, when (as the route-directions show) the head of the marching column from the Agueda only reached Portalegre on the 8th. The movement of the army was not delayed, so far as I can see, by the slackness of Portuguese management at Lisbon or Elvas. But Wellington certainly grumbled. Did he intend that Hill alone should invest Badajoz, before the rest of the army arrived?

On March 14th, every preparation being complete, the pontoon train, with a good escort, moved out of Elvas, and was brought up to a point on the Guadiana four miles west of Badajoz, where it was laid without molestation. On the next day Le Marchant’s heavy dragoons crossed, but (owing to an accident to one of the boats) no more troops. On the 16th, however, the 3rd, 4th, and Light Divisions passed, and invested Badajoz without meeting any opposition: the garrison kept within the walls, and did not even prevent Colonel Fletcher, the commanding engineer, from approaching for purposes of reconnaissance to the crest of the Cerro de San Miguel, only 200 yards from the _enceinte_. The investing corps of 12,000 bayonets was under Beresford, who had just returned from a short and stormy visit to Lisbon, where he had been harrying the regency, at Wellington’s request, upon financial matters, and had been dealing sternly with the Junta de Viveres, or Commissariat Department[257]. The situation had not been found a happy one. ‘After a perfect investigation it appears that the expenditure must be nearly £6,000,000--the means at present are £3,500,000! A radical reform grounded upon a bold and fearless inquiry into every branch of the revenue, expenditure, and subsidy, and an addition to the latter from England, can alone put a period to these evils. To this Lord Wellington, though late, is now turning his eyes. And when the Marshal, in conjunction with our ambassador, shall have made his report, it must be _immediately_ acted upon--for there is no time to lose[258].’

[257] D’Urban’s diary, Feb. 7-16: he accompanied Beresford, being his Chief-of-the-Staff.

[258] I spare the reader the question of Portuguese paper money and English exchequer bills, which will be found treated at great length in Napier, iv. pp. 97-9. Napier always appears to think that cash could be had by asking for it at London, in despite of the dreadful disappearance of the metallic currency and spread of irredeemable bank-notes which prevailed in 1812.

The investment was only part of the general movements of the army on the 16th. The covering-force was proceeding to take up its position in two sections. Graham with the 1st, 6th, and 7th Divisions, and Slade’s and Le Marchant’s horse, crossed the Guadiana, and began to advance down the high road to Seville, making for Santa Marta and Villafranca. Hill with the other section, consisting of his own old troops of the Estremaduran army, the 2nd Division and Hamilton’s Portuguese, Long’s British and Campbell’s Portuguese cavalry, marched by the north bank of the Guadiana, via Montijo, towards Merida, which had not been occupied by either party since January 17th. These two columns, the one 19,000, the other 14,000 strong, were to drive in the two French divisions which were at this moment cantoned in Estremadura--Drouet was known to be lying about Zafra and Llerena, covering the Seville _chaussée_, Daricau to have his troops at Zalamea and Los Hornachos, watching the great passage of the Guadiana at Merida. As each division with its attendant cavalry was not much over 6,000 strong, there was no danger of their combining so as to endanger either of the British columns. Each was strong enough to give a good account of itself. Hill and Graham were to push forward boldly, and drive their respective enemies before them as far as the Sierra Morena, so that Soult, when he should come up from Seville (as he undoubtedly would in the course of a few weeks), should have no foothold in the Estremaduran plain to start from, and would have to manœuvre back the containing force in his front all the way from the summit of the passes to Albuera.

In addition to these two columns and the investing corps at Badajoz, Wellington had a reserve of which some units had not yet come up, though all were due in a few days, viz. the 5th Division, Pack’s and Bradford’s independent Portuguese brigades, and the cavalry of Bock and Anson--about 12,000 men--: the last of them would be up by the 21st at latest.

There was still one more corps from which Wellington intended to get useful assistance. This was the main body of the Spanish Army of Estremadura, the troops of Penne Villemur and Morillo, about 1,000 horse and 4,000 foot[259], which he destined to play the same part in this campaign that Blake had played during the last siege of Badajoz. By Castaños’s leave this little force had been moved from its usual haunts by Caçeres and Valencia de Alcantara, behind the Portuguese frontier, to the Lower Guadiana, from whence it was to enter the Condado de Niebla. It passed Redondo on March 17th on its way towards San Lucar de Guadiana, feeding on magazines provided by its allies; Penne Villemur’s orders were that he should establish himself in the Condado (where there was still a small Spanish garrison at Ayamonte), and strike at Seville, the moment that he heard that Soult had gone north towards Estremadura. The city would be found ill-garrisoned by convalescents, and _Juramentados_ of doubtful loyalty: if it were not captured, its danger would at any rate cause Soult to turn back, just as he had in June 1811, for he dared not lose his base and arsenal. It was hoped that Ballasteros with his roving corps from the mountain of Ronda would co-operate, when he found that the troops usually employed to ‘contain’ him had marched off. But Ballasteros was always a ‘law unto himself,’ and it was impossible to count upon him: he particularly disliked suggestions from a British quarter, while Castaños was always sensible and obliging[260].

[259] The Conde had 1,114 horse and 3,638 foot on Jan. 1, not including two of Morillo’s battalions then absent. The total force used for the raid was probably as above.

[260] Details in a dispatch to Colonel Austin of March 15, _Dispatches_, viii, p. 666. General scheme in a letter to Castaños of Feb. 16. Ibid., p. 614.

Before dealing with the operations of the actual siege of Badajoz, which require to be studied in continuous sequence, it may be well to deal with those of the covering corps.

Graham marched in two columns, one division by Albuera, two by Almendral. He ran against the outposts of Drouet at Santa Marta, from which a battalion and a few cavalry hastily retired to Villafranca, where it was reported that Drouet himself was lying. Graham judged that the French general would probably retire towards Llerena by the main road, and hoped to harass, if not to surprise him, by a forced night march on that place. This was executed in the night of the 18th-19th, but proved a disappointment: the vanguard of the British column entered Llerena only to find it empty--Drouet had retired not southward but eastward, so as to get into touch with Daricau’s division at Zalamea--he had gone off by Ribera to Los Hornachos. Graham thereupon halted his main body at Zafra, with the cavalry out as far as Usagre and Fuente Cantos. A dispatch from Drouet to his brigadier Reymond was intercepted on the 21st, and showed that the latter, with four battalions at Fregenal, had been cut off from his chief by the irruption of the British down the high-road, and was ordered to rejoin him by way of Llerena. Graham thought that he might catch this little force, so withdrew his cavalry from Llerena, in order that Reymond might make his way thither unmolested, and be caught in a trap by several British brigades converging upon him by a night march. This operation, executed on the night of the 25th, unfortunately miscarried. The French actually entered Llerena, but as the columns were closing in upon them an unlucky accident occurred. Graham and his staff, riding ahead of the 7th Division, ran into a cavalry picket, which charged them. They came back helter-skelter on to the leading battalion of the infantry, which fired promiscuously into the mass, killed two staff officers, and nearly shot their general[261]. The noise of this outburst of fire, and the return of their own dragoons, warned the 1,800 French in Llerena, who escaped by a mountain path towards Guadalcanal, and did not lose a man.

[261] ‘Something too like a panic was occasioned at the head of the 7th by the appearance of the few French dragoons and the galloping back of the staff and orderlies. A confused firing broke out down the column without object! Mem.--Even British troops should not be allowed to load before a night attack.’ D’Urban’s diary, March 26.

Improbable as it would have been judged, Drouet had abandoned the Seville road altogether, and gone off eastward. His only communication with Soult would have to be by Cordova: clearly he had refused to be cut off from Daricau: possibly he may have hoped to await in the direction of Zalamea and Castuera the arrival of troops from the Army of Portugal, coming down by Truxillo and Medellin from Almaraz. For Soult and his generals appear to have had no notice of the Emperor’s prohibition to Marmont to send troops to Estremadura. On the other hand the Duke of Ragusa had written, in perfect good faith, before he received the imperial rescript, that he should come to the aid of Badajoz with four or five divisions, as in June 1811, if the place were threatened.

On the 27th Graham resolved to pursue Drouet eastward, even hoping that he might slip in to the south of him, and drive him northward in the direction of Merida and Medellin, where he would have fallen into the arms of Hill’s column. He had reached Llera and La Higuera when he intercepted another letter--this time from General Reymond to Drouet; that officer, after escaping from Llerena on the night of the 25th-26th, had marched to Azuaga, where he had picked up another detachment under General Quiot. He announced that he was making the best of his way towards Fuente Ovejuna, behind the main crest of the Sierra Morena, by which circuitous route he hoped to join his chief.

Graham thought that he had now another opportunity of surprising Reymond, while he was marching across his front, and swerving southward again made a second forced night march on Azuaga. It failed, like that on Llerena three days before--the French, warned by _Afrancesados_, left in haste, and Graham’s exhausted troops only arrived in time to see them disappear.

Reymond’s column was joined next day at Fuente Ovejuna by Drouet and Daricau, so that the whole of the French force in Estremadura was now concentrated--but in an unfavourable position, since they were completely cut off from Seville, and could only retire on Cordova if further pressed. Should Soult wish to join them with his reserves, he would have to march up the Guadalquivir, losing four or five days.

Graham and his staff were flattering themselves that they had won a considerable strategical advantage in this matter, when they were disappointed, by receiving, on March 30, a dispatch from Wellington prohibiting any further pursuit of Drouet, or any longer stay on the slopes of the Sierra Morena. The column was ordered to come back and canton itself about Fuente del Maestre, Almendralejo, and Villafranca. By April 2nd the three divisions were established in these places. Their recall would seem to have been caused by Wellington’s knowledge that Soult had by now concentrated a heavy force at Seville, and that if he advanced suddenly by the great _chaussée_, past Monasterio and Fuente Cantos, Graham might be caught in a very advanced position between him and Drouet, and find a difficulty in retreating to join the main body of the army for a defensive battle on the Albuera position[262].

[262] For details of this forgotten campaign I rely mainly on D’Urban’s unpublished diary. As he knew Estremadura well, from having served there with Beresford in 1811, he was lent to Graham, and rode with his staff to advise about roads and the resources of the country.

Meanwhile Hill, with the other half of the covering army, had been spending a less eventful fortnight. He reached Merida on March 17 and found it unoccupied. Drouet was reported to be at Villafranca, Daricau to be lying with his troops spread wide between Medellin, Los Hornachos, and Zalamea. Hill crossed the Guadiana and marched to look for them: his first march was on Villafranca, but Drouet had already slipped away from that point, avoiding Graham’s column. Hill then turned in search of Daricau, and drove one of his brigades out of Don Benito near Medellin. The bulk of the French division then went off to the south-east, and ultimately joined Drouet at Fuente Ovejuna, though it kept a rearguard at Castuera. Hill did not pursue, but remained in the neighbourhood of Merida and Medellin, to guard these two great passages of the Guadiana against any possible appearance of Marmont’s troops from the direction of Almaraz and Truxillo. Wellington (it will be remembered) had believed that Marmont would certainly come down with a considerable force by this route, and (being ignorant of Napoleon’s order to the Marshal) was expecting him to be heard of from day to day. As a matter of fact only Foy’s single division was in the Tagus valley at Talavera: that officer kept receiving dispatches for his chief from Drouet and Soult, imploring that Marmont should move south without delay. This was impossible, as Foy knew; but he became so troubled by the repeated requests that he thought of marching, on his own responsibility, to try to join Drouet. This became almost impracticable when Drouet and Daricau withdrew southward to the borders of Andalusia: but Foy then thought of executing a demonstration on Truxillo, on his own account, hoping that it might at least distract Wellington. On April 4 he wrote to Drouet that he was about to give out that he was Marmont’s advanced guard, and to march, with 3,000 men only, on that point, leaving the rest of his division in garrison at Talavera and Almaraz; he would be at Truxillo on the 9th[263]. If he had started a week earlier, he would have fallen into the hands of Hill, who was waiting for him at Merida with four times his force. But the news of the fall of Badajoz on the 6th reached him in time to prevent him from running into the lion’s mouth. Otherwise, considering Hill’s enterprise and Foy’s complete lack of cavalry, there might probably have been something like a repetition of the surprise of Arroyo dos Molinos.

[263] The letter may be found in King Joseph’s _Correspondance_, viii. pp. 345-6. See also Girod de l’Ain’s _Vie militaire du Général Foy_, pp. 368-9.

So much for the covering armies--it now remains to be seen how Wellington dealt with Badajoz, in the three weeks during which Graham and Hill were keeping the peace for him in southern and eastern Estremadura.

On surveying the fortress upon March 16th the British engineers found that it had been considerably strengthened since the last siege in June 1811. Fort San Cristobal had been vastly improved--its glacis and counterscarp had been raised, and a strong redoubt (called by the French the Lunette Werlé, after the general killed at Albuera) had been thrown up on the rising slope where Beresford’s breaching batteries had stood, so that this ground would have to be won before it could be again utilized. On the southern side of the Guadiana the Castle had been provided with many more guns, and some parts of the precipitous mound on which it stood had been scarped. The breach of 1811 had been most solidly built up. No danger was feared in this quarter--it was regarded as the strongest part of the defences. The approach toward the much more accessible bastions just below the Castle had been made difficult, by damming the Rivillas stream: its bridge near the San Roque gate had been built up, and the accumulated water made a broad pool which lay under the bastions of San Pedro and La Trinidad; its overflow had been turned into the ditch in front of San Pedro, and, by cutting a _cunette_ or channel, a deep but narrow water obstruction had been formed in front of the Trinidad also--the broad dry ditch having a narrow wet ditch sunk in its bottom just below the counterscarp. This inundation was destined to give great trouble to the besiegers. The Pardaleras fort had been connected with the city by a well-protected trench between high earthen banks. Finally the three bastions on the south side next the river, San Vincente, San José, and Santiago, had been strengthened by demi-lunes, which they had hitherto lacked, and also by driving a system of mines from their counterscarps under the glacis: these were to be exploded if the besiegers should push up their trenches and breaching batteries close to the walls on this side, which was one of the weakest in the city, since it was not covered, as were the other fronts, by outlying works like the Pardaleras and Picurina forts or the San Roque lunette. The existence of this series of mines was revealed to the besiegers by a French sergeant-major of sappers, a skilful draughtsman, who had been employed in mapping out the works. Having been insulted, as he conceived, by his captain, and refused redress by the governor, he fled to the British camp in a rage, and placed his map (where the mines are very clearly shown) and his services at the disposition of Wellington[264]. The identical map, a very neat piece of work, lies before me as I write these lines, having passed into the possession of General D’Urban, the chief of the Portuguese staff. It was in consequence of their knowledge of these defences that the British engineers left the San Vincente front alone[265].

[264] This man is mentioned in Wellington’s Dispatches, viii. p. 609: ‘The _Sergent-major des Sapeurs_ and _Adjudant des travaux_ and the French miner may be sent in charge of a steady non-commissioned officer to Estremoz, there to wait till I send for them.’

[265] This renegade’s name must have been Bonin, or Bossin: I cannot read with certainty his extraordinary signature, with a _paraphe_, at the bottom of his map. The English engineers used it, and have roughly sketched in their own works of the third siege on top of the original coloured drawing.

The garrison on March 15th consisted of five battalions of French regulars, one each from certain regiments belonging to Conroux, Leval, Drouet, and Daricau (2,767 men), of two battalions of the Hesse-Darmstadt regiment of the Rheinbund division of the Army of the Centre (910 men), three companies of artillery (261 men), two and a half companies of sappers (260 men), a handful of cavalry (42 men), a company of Spanish Juramentados, and (by casual chance) the escort of a convoy which had entered the city two days before the siege began. The whole (excluding non-combatants, medical and commissariat staff, &c.) made up 4,700 men, not more than an adequate provision for such a large place. The governor, Phillipon, the commandants of artillery and engineers (the last-named, Lamare, was the historian of the three sieges of Badajoz), and nearly all the staff had been in the fortress for more than a year. The battalions of the garrison (though not the same as those who had sustained the assaults of 1811) had been many months settled in the place, and knew it almost as well as did the staff. They were all picked troops, including the German regiment, which had an excellent record. But undoubtedly the greatest factor in the defence was the ingenuity and resource of the governor, which surpassed all praise: oddly enough Phillipon did not show himself a very skilful mover of troops in the field, when commanding a division in the Army of Germany in 1813, after his capture and exchange: but behind the walls of Badajoz he was unsurpassable[266].

[266] When he commanded the 1st Division of the 1st Corps under Vandamme, and was present when that corps was nearly all destroyed on Aug. 30, 1813, at Culm.

The scheme of attack which Wellington, under the advice of his engineers, employed against Badajoz in March 1812 differed entirely from that of May-June 1811. The fact that the whole was a time-problem remained the same: the danger that several of the French armies might, if leisure were granted them, unite for its relief, was as clear as ever. But the idea that the best method of procedure was to assail the most commanding points of the fortress, whose capture would make the rest untenable, was completely abandoned. Fort San Cristobal and the lofty Castle were on this occasion to be left alone altogether. The former was only observed by a single Portuguese brigade (first Da Costa’s and later Power’s). The second was not breached, or even battered with any serious intent. This time the front of attack was to be the bastions of Santa Maria and La Trinidad, on the south-eastern side of the town. The reason for leaving those of San Vincente and San José, on the south-western side, unassailed--though they were more accessible, and defended by no outer forts--was apparently the report of the renegade French sergeant-major spoken of above; ‘they were countermined, and therefore three or four successive lodgements would have to be formed against them[267].’ To attack Santa Maria and the Trinidad a preliminary operation was necessary--they were covered by the Picurina fort, and only from the knoll on which that work stands could they be battered with effect. The Picurina was far weaker than the Pardaleras fort, from whose site a similar advantage could be got against the bastions of San Roque and San Juan. It must therefore be stormed, and on its emplacement would be fixed the batteries of the second parallel, which were to do the main work of breaching. The exceptional advantage to be secured in this way was that the counterguard (inner protective bank) within the _glacis_ of the Trinidad bastion was reputed to be so low, that from the Picurina knoll the scarp of the bastion could be seen almost to its foot, and could be much more effectively battered than any part of the defences whose upper section alone was visible to the besieger.

[267] Jones, _Sieges of the Peninsula_, i. p. 163.

Despite, therefore, of the need for wasting no time, and of the fact that the preliminary operations against the Picurina must cost a day or two, this was the general plan of attack adopted. The investment had been completed on the evening of the 16th: on the same day 120 carts with stores of all kinds marched from Elvas, and on the 17th these were already being deposited in the Engineers’ Park, behind the Cerro de San Miguel, whose rounded top completely screened the preparations from the sight of the garrison.

The besieged had no notion whatever as to the front which would, on this third attempt, be selected for the attack of the British. The elaborate fortifications and improvements made in the Castle and San Cristobal tend to show that these old points of attack were expected to be once more assailed. Hence the besiegers got the inestimable advantage of an unmolested start on the night of March 17th. Colonel Fletcher had risked the dangers of drawing the first parallel at a very short distance from the Picurina fort. On a night of tempestuous rain and high wind, a parallel 600 yards long was picketed out, on a line ranging only from 160 to 200 yards from the covered-way of the work, and 1,800 workmen in the course of the night threw up the parallel, and 4,000 feet of a communication-trench, leading backward to the head of a ravine in the hill of San Miguel, which gave good cover for bringing men and material up from the rear. Not a shot was fired by the French all through the night, and at dawn the parallel and approach were already 3 feet deep and 3 feet 6 inches wide--a good start.

With daylight the enemy discovered what had been done, and opened a furious fire both of cannon and musketry upon the trenches. The three nearest bastions of the fortress joined in with their heavy guns, but the 18th was a day of such constant rain that even at a distance of only 500 or 600 yards it was impossible to see much, or take accurate aim at the trenches. The working parties went on deepening and improving the parallel and the communication behind it, without suffering any great loss.

During the night of the 18th-19th they were able to trace out and begin two batteries, destined to breach the Picurina, in the line of the parallel, and to extend it at both ends, from the Rivillas on one side to the foot of the hill of San Miguel on the other.

This was visible on the following morning, and Phillipon thought the prospects of the fort so bad that he resolved to risk a sortie, to destroy at all costs the trenches which were so dangerously near to their objective. At midday two battalions--1,000 men--starting from the lunette of San Roque, dashed up the hill, got into the north end of the parallel, and drove out the working parties for a distance of some 500 yards: they carried off many entrenching tools, for which the governor had offered the _bonus_ of one dollar a piece. But they had no time to do any serious damage to the parallel, for the guard of the trenches and the working parties, rallying fifty yards up the hill, came down on them in force, within a quarter of an hour, and evicted them again after a sharp tussle. The loss on the two sides was very different--the British lost 150 men, the besieged 304, of whom many were drowned in the inundation, while trying to take short cuts through it to the gates. The effect of the sortie had been practically _nil_, as far as destroying the works went. During this skirmish Colonel Fletcher was wounded in the groin by a ball, which hit his purse, and while failing to penetrate further, forced a dollar-piece an inch into his thigh. He was confined to his tent for some fourteen days, and his subordinates, Majors Squire and Burgoyne, had to take up his duty, though Wellington ordered that he should still retain nominal charge of the work, and consulted him daily upon it.

On the next night (March 20th) the parallel and approach against the Picurina being practically complete, and only the battery emplacements in it requiring to be finished, the engineers of the besieging army resolved to continue the line of trenches into the flat ground in front of the Bastion of San Pedro and the Castle, it being intended that batteries should be constructed here to play on the Trinidad and the neighbouring parts of the fortress, when the Picurina should have fallen. It would save time to have everything ready on this side, when the fort should have been mastered. Trouble at once began--not only from the enemy’s fire, which swept all this low ground, but still more from the continuous bad weather. The rain which had easily run away from the sloping trenches on the Cerro de San Miguel, lodged in the new works, could not be drained off, and melted away the earth as fast as it was thrown up. Mud cast into the gabions ran off in the form of slimy water, and the parapets could only be kept upright by building them of sandbags. The men were actually flooded out of the trenches by the accumulated water, which was almost knee deep. In the rear the Guadiana rose, and washed away the two bridges which connected the army with its base at Elvas. The deluge lasted four days and was a terrible hindrance, it being impossible to finish the parallel in the low ground, or to begin moving the battering-guns, even those destined for the long-completed batteries on the Cerro de San Miguel.

It was not till the afternoon of the 24th that fine weather at last set in; this permitted the guns to be brought at once into the two batteries facing the Picurina, and, after herculean efforts, into other batteries (nos. 4 and 5) in the low ground also. Three days at least had been lost from the vile weather.

On the morning of the 25th all the batteries opened simultaneously, ten guns against the Picurina, eighteen against the parts of the fortress behind it. The fort was completely silenced, as was the little lunette of San Roque. Not much damage appeared to have been inflicted on the Picurina beyond the breaking of many of its palisades, and the degradation of its salient angle. But Wellington ordered that it should be stormed that night, in order that he might make up for the lost time of the 20th-24th.

The storm was duly carried out by General Kempt and 500 men of the Light and the 3rd Divisions, at ten o’clock that night. It was a desperate affair, for the ditch was deep, and not in the least filled with rubbish, and the scarp was intact save at the extreme salient angle. Though the garrison’s guns had been silenced, they kept up a furious fire of musketry, which disabled 100 men before the stormers reached the ditch. The main hope of the assault had been that two turning columns might break in at the gorge: but it was found so strongly closed, with a double row of palisades and a cutting, that all efforts to force an entrance were repelled with loss. Baffled here, one party tried the desperate expedient of casting three long ladders, not into, but _across_ the ditch on the right flank of the fort, which though deep was not so broad but that a 30-foot ladder would reach from its lip to the row of fraises, or projecting beams, ranged horizontally at the top of the scarp some feet below the brim of the parapet. The ladders sagged down but did not break, and some fifty men headed by Captain Oates of the 88th ran across on the rungs and got a lodgement inside the fort. At the same moment General Kempt launched the reserve of the storming party--100 men, mostly from the 2/83rd and headed by Captain Powys of that regiment--at the exact salient of the fort, the only place where it was seriously damaged, and succeeded in breaking in. The garrison, who made a stubborn resistance, were overpowered--83 were killed or wounded, the governor, Colonel Gaspard-Thierry, and 145 taken prisoners, only 1 officer and 40 men escaped into the town. The losses of the stormers had been over 50 per cent. of the men engaged! Four officers and 50 rank and file were killed, 15 officers and 250 men wounded, out of a little over 500 who joined in the assault. Phillipon tried a sortie from the lunette of San Roque, just as the fort fell, in hopes to recover it: but the battalion which came out was easily beaten off by the fire of the men in the trenches to the right, and lost 50 killed and wounded.

The last stage of the siege had now been reached. By capturing the Picurina on its commanding knoll, the British had established themselves within 400 yards of the Trinidad and 450 yards of the Santa Maria bastions, which they could batter with every advantage of slope and ground. But it was a very costly business to make the necessary lodgement in the ruined fort, to demolish it, and throw its earth in the reverse direction, and to build in its gorge the two batteries (nos. 8, 9), which were to breach the body of the place. The fire of three bastions bore directly on the spot where the batteries were to be placed, and there was also a most deadly enfilading fire from the high-lying Castle, and even from the distant San Cristobal. Though the three batteries in the flat ground (to which a fourth was presently added) endeavoured to silence this fire, they only succeeded in doing so very imperfectly, for the French kept replacing one gun by another, from their ample store, when any were disabled. From the 26th to the 30th four days were employed in building the Picurina batteries, with great loss of life all the time, which fell mainly on the engineer officers who were directing the work and on the sappers under their orders. The French covered the whole of the Picurina knoll with such a hail of projectiles that no amount of cover seemed to guarantee those labouring in it from sudden death. When the batteries had been completed, the bringing forward of the guns and the ammunition cost many lives more. Twice there were considerable explosions of powder, while the magazines in the batteries were being filled.

At last, however, on March 30, one of the two new batteries in the gorge of the Picurina was able to open, and on the 31st the other followed suit, supported by a third supplementary battery (no. 7), planned under the left flank of the fort. The practice was excellent, but at first the effect was not all that had been hoped: the Trinidad and the Santa Maria bastions were solidly built and resisted well. On April 2, however, both began to show considerable and obvious injury, and it was clear that a few days more would ruin them. But there was one serious _contretemps_: the inundation between the Picurina and the fortress showed no signs of going down--it had been swollen by the rains of the 20th-24th, and could not flow away so long as the dam at the lunette of San Roque kept it back. While the water was held up, the breaches, soon about to develop, could only be got at by a narrow and curved route, between the inundation and the steep slope on which stands the Pardaleras. It had been intended that the assault should be delivered from the trenches, but this was impossible till the Rivillas should have fallen to its usual insignificant breadth and depth. Hence efforts were made to burst the dam at all costs, but neither did artillery fire suffice, nor a venturesome expedition on the night of the 2nd of April by the engineer Lieutenant Stanway and 20 sappers, who slipped down the ravine and laid powder-bags against the dam, despite of the French fire. The powder exploded, but did not do its work. For several days an attempt was made to sap down to the dam from the second parallel. But it cost so many lives at the head of the sap, and the zig-zags advanced so slowly, that on the 3rd of April the attempt was given up, and it was determined that the breaches must be assaulted from the west bank of the Rivillas only.

Meanwhile the two breaches, the larger one in the front of the Trinidad bastion, the smaller in the flank of the Santa Maria, began to be very apparent, and gave good hope to the besiegers. The French, however, delayed their progress by the most gallant efforts: 200 men worked in the ditch after dark, to clear away the débris that was falling into it. This they did under constant artillery fire from the batteries, which played on the ditch with grape at intervals in the night, and killed scores of the workmen. They also deepened the ditch at the foot of the counterscarp, till it was 18 feet from the covered-way to the bottom of its level. The ruined parapets were built up every night with earth and wool-packs, only to be destroyed again every morning. The garrison began to feel uncomfortable, for not only was the loss of life great, but the furious fire, by which they strove to keep down the efficiency of the siege-batteries, had begun to tell so much on their reserves of ammunition that, by April 3, there was no common shell left, and very little grape--of the round-shot much more than half had been expended. Phillipon was obliged to order the artillerymen to be sparing, or a few days more would leave him helpless. As the French fire slackened, that of the besiegers grew more intense, and Wellington put forward the last twelve guns of his siege-park, hitherto reserved, to form some new supplementary batteries on the right of his line [nos. 10, 11, 12].

On April 4th the breaches were both growing practicable, and news from the South warned Wellington that he must hurry; Soult was at last over the Sierra Morena with all the troops that he could scrape together from Andalusia. It was lucky indeed that Marmont was not marching to join Soult, but was executing a raid into central Portugal, not by his own wish but by the special orders of the Emperor, as has already been explained elsewhere. His irruption into the Beira was absolutely disregarded by Wellington: for as long as the two French armies were not united, the British commander did not much fear either of them. Still, if Soult came close up to Badajoz, it would be necessary to send part of the siege-troops to join the covering force--and this would be inconvenient. Wherefore Wellington resolved to strike at once, while Soult was still four or five marches away.

On the 4th the breaches, both in the Trinidad and in Santa Maria, looked practicable--on the morning of the 5th they were certainly so. But the question was raised as to whether the mere practicability of the breaches was enough to ensure success--it was clearly made out that the garrisons were building a semicircular inner retrenchment among the houses of the town, which would cut off the breaches, and give a second line of resistance. Moreover Colonel Fletcher, who was just out of bed, his wound of the 19th March being on the mend, reported from personal observation that it was clear that all manner of obstacles were being accumulated behind both breaches, and every preparation made for a desperate defence of them. Wherefore Wellington ordered the storm to be put off for a day, and turned two batteries on to a new spot, where Spanish informants reported that the wall of the curtain was badly built, between Santa Maria and the Trinidad. So true was this report, that a very few hours battering on the morning of the 6th made a third breach at this point, as practicable as either of the others.

To prevent the enemy from getting time to retrench this third opening into the town, the storm was ordered for 7.30 o’clock on the same evening--it would have been well if the hour had been kept as first settled.

SECTION XXXII: