EVENTS IN THE SOUTH OF SPAIN. THE BATTLE OF BARROSA.
JANUARY-MARCH 1811

In the second chapter of this volume we dealt with Soult’s expedition to Estremadura and its results, but had to defer for later consideration the events which brought him back in haste to Andalusia the moment that Badajoz had fallen (March 12th). These must now be explained.

When his 20,000 men, collected from all the three corps which formed the Army of the South, set out on the last day of the old year 1810, Soult left behind him three problems, each of which (as he was well aware) might assume a dangerous aspect at any moment. We have already indicated their character[127]. Would Victor, with 19,000 men left to him for the blockade of Cadiz, be able to hold with security the immense semicircle of lines and batteries which threatened the island stronghold of the Cortes? Would the provisional garrison which had been patched up for Seville prove strong enough to defend that capital and its arsenals against any possible attack of roving Spanish detachments, from the mountains of the west and south? Would Sebastiani and the 4th Corps be able to beat back any attempt by the Army of Murcia to trespass upon the limits of the broad and rugged province of Granada? We may add that it was conceivable that all these three problems might demand a simultaneous solution. For if all the Spanish forces had been guided by a single capable brain, nothing would have been more obvious to conceive than a plan for setting them all to work at once. If a sortie from Cadiz were taken in hand, it would have the best chance of success supposing that Sebastiani were to be distracted by an invasion of Granada, and Seville threatened by any force that could be collected in the Condado de Niebla, or the mountains above Ronda.

[p. 92]Soult, as Napoleon pointed out to him two months later[128], had committed a considerable fault by not putting all the divisions left behind in Andalusia under a single commander, responsible for all parts of the kingdom alike. Victor was given no authority over Sebastiani, nor even over Daricau, who had been left as governor of Seville, or Godinot, whose depleted division occupied the province of Cordova. Napoleon, always suspicious of Soult, accused him of having neglected this precaution because he was jealous of Victor, and would not make him as great as himself[129]. Whether this was so or not, it is at any rate clear that the position was made much more dangerous by the fact that each of the three problems named above would be presented to a different commander, who would be prone to think of his own troubles alone, and to neglect those of his colleagues. If all three dangers became threatening at the same moment, each general would regard his own as the most important, and bestow comparatively little care on those which menaced the others. As a matter of fact, Victor was almost destroyed, because Sebastiani did not come to his help, when the sally from Cadiz took place early in March; and Seville was in serious danger a few days later, because there was no one who could order Godinot to march to its aid from Cordova without delay.

Soult was fully aware of all the possible perils of his absence. Apparently he thought Sebastiani was in the greater danger, for he requisitioned only a few cavalry and artillery from the 4th Corps, and left it practically intact to defend the province of Granada against the Army of Murcia. As to Seville, he considered that it could only be endangered by Ballasteros, and for that reason did his best to destroy that general’s division, by causing Gazan to hunt it as far as the borders of Portugal—a diversion which nearly wrecked the Estremaduran expedition for[p. 93] lack of infantry[130]. When Gazan had driven Ballasteros over the Guadiana, after the action of Castillejos (January 25), the Marshal thought that the Spaniard was out of the game, and no longer in a position to do harm—in which he erred, for this irrepressible enemy was back in Andalusia within a few weeks, and was actually threatening Seville early in March.

But the greatest danger was really on the side of Cadiz, where Victor, deprived of nearly all his cavalry and one regiment of infantry for the Estremaduran expedition, had also to furnish outlying detachments—a garrison for Xeres and the column with which General Remond was operating in the Condado de Niebla, far to the west[131]. He had only 19,000 men left for the defence of the Lines, of which a considerable proportion consisted of artillery, sappers, and marine troops, needed for the siege but useless for a fight in the open, if the enemy should make a sally by sea against his rear. The Duke of Belluno was anxious, and rightly so: for the nearest possible succours were Sebastiani’s troops in Granada and Malaga, many marches away, while the garrison of Cadiz was very strong, and indeed outnumbered his own force. At the beginning of February it comprised, including the urban militia, nearly 20,000 Spanish troops; Copons had just been withdrawn from the west to join it. There was also an Anglo-Portuguese division. General Graham had been left a considerable force, even after Wellington withdrew certain regiments to join in the defence of the Lines of Torres Vedras. He had two composite battalions of the Guards, the 2/47th, 2/67th, 2/87th, a half battalion of the 2/95th, the two battalions of the 20th Portuguese, and a provisional battalion of German recruits[132], as also two squadrons of the 2nd Hussars of the King’s German Legion, and two field batteries. The whole amounted to between 5,000 and 6,000 men. It is curious to note that Napoleon, in the dispatch by which he spurred Soult on to his Estremaduran expedition, assured him ‘that there had never been more than three English regiments at Cadiz, and that they had all gone to Lisbon,’ so that the Isle of Leon and city were only defended[p. 94] by ‘ten thousand unhappy Spaniards without resolution or power to resist[133].’ When the Emperor’s directions were based upon information so utterly incorrect as this, it was hard for his generals to satisfy him!

Within a few days of the withdrawal of the detachment taken by Soult from Victor, the news came to Cadiz that the 1st Corps had been weakened: and when the destination of the expedition was known, it seemed probable that no reserves had been left at Seville on which the besieging force could count. The idea of an attack on Victor was at once broached by the Regency, and accepted by General Graham; after some discussion, it was considered best not to assail the lines by a disembarkation from the Isle of Leon, but to land as large a force as could be spared in the rear of the enemy, at Tarifa, Algesiras, or some other point of Southern Andalusia which was in the hands of the Allies. Such a movement, if properly conducted, would compel Victor to draw backward, in order to hold off the Allies from the Lines. He would have to fight at some distance inland, leaving a minimum garrison to protect his forts and batteries, and it was proposed that the fleet and the troops left in Cadiz should fall upon them during his enforced absence.

The execution of this plan was deferred for some weeks, partly because of the difficulty of providing transport by sea for a large expeditionary force, partly because Gazan was unexpectedly drawn back into Andalusia by Ballasteros’s division, and was at the end of January in a position from which he might easily have reinforced Victor. When he had gone off to Estremadura, in the wake of Soult, the problem became simpler. After drawing back Copons’s division from the Condado de Niebla to Cadiz (as has already been mentioned), the Regency found themselves able to provide 8,000 men for embarkation, while leaving 7,000 regulars and the urban militia to hold Cadiz. Graham was ready to join in, with all his troops save the battalion companies of the 2/47th and the 20th Portuguese, and the doubtfully effective German battalion, which were to remain behind, for he did not wish to withdraw the whole British force from Cadiz at once. But he procured the aid of an almost equivalent number of bayonets from an external source: he wrote to General Campbell, com[p. 95]manding at Gibraltar, begging him to spare reinforcements from the garrison of that fortress and of the minor stronghold of Tarifa, at the extreme southern point of Europe, which was then maintained as a sort of dependency of Gibraltar. Campbell eagerly consented to take part in the plan and promised to lend 1,000 infantry. This assistance would bring up the British contingent to 5,000 men. The Spaniards were also to collect some small reinforcements: there was an irregular force under General Beguines operating in the Ronda mountains, and basing itself on Gibraltar. It was ordered to join the expedition when it should come to land, and (as we shall see) actually did so, with a force of three battalions or 1,600 men. The total of the troops whom it was proposed to collect amounted, therefore, to 9,600 Spaniards and 5,000 British, a force almost equal in numbers to Victor’s depleted corps. But it was clear that the Marshal would have to leave some sort of a garrison in the Lines before Cadiz, and that the Allies would have a numerical superiority, if they could force on a fight at a distance from the sea and the French base.

One cardinal mistake was made in planning the expedition. Its command was to be entrusted to General Manuel La Pe?a, then the senior officer in Cadiz, a man with a talent for plausible talking and diplomacy, but one who had already shown himself a selfish colleague and a disloyal subordinate. This was the same man who in 1808, nearly three years back, had sacrificed his chief Casta?os at the disastrous battle of Tudela[134], by refusing to march to the sound of the guns, and securing a safe retreat for himself and his 10,000 men, while the main army was being crushed, only four miles away, by Marshal Lannes. Though not personally a coward, he was a shirker of responsibilities, and incapable of a swift and heroic decision. He was ambitious enough to aspire to and intrigue for a post of importance, but collapsed when it became necessary to discharge its duties. He treated Graham in 1811 precisely as he had treated Casta?os in 1808, and it was not his fault that the sally from Cadiz failed to end in a disaster[135]. The English lieutenant-general had dis[p. 96]cretionary authority from his Government to refuse to act in any joint expedition of which he was not given the command. But anxious to bring matters to a head, and deceived by La Pe?a’s mild plausibility, he consented to take the second place, on the ground that the Spaniard contributed the larger body of troops to the enterprise.

If Graham himself had headed the united force, it is certain that the siege of Cadiz would have been raised for the moment, though what would have followed that success no man can say, for it would have brought about such a convulsion in Andalusia, and such a concentration of the French troops, that the whole of the conditions of the war in the south would have been altered. Graham had all the qualities which La Pe?a lacked—indomitable resolution, swift decision, a good eye for topography, the power of inspiring enthusiastic confidence in his troops. He was no mere professional soldier, but a crusader with a mission; indeed his personal history is one of extraordinary interest. When the French Revolution broke out he was a civilian of mature years, a Whig Member of Parliament, aged forty-four, mainly known as a great sportsman[136] and a bold cross-country rider. Yet certainly if the war of 1793 had not come to pass, he would only be remembered now as the husband of that beautiful Mrs. Graham whose portrait is one of Gainsborough’s best-known masterpieces.
Portrait of Lieutenant-General Thomas Graham

Enlarge  Lieutenant-General Thomas Graham

Driven to the Riviera in 1792 by the failing health of his wife, who died at Hyères, Graham was an eye-witness of the outbreak of violence and blind rage in France which followed Brunswick’s invasion. He himself was arrested—his wife’s coffin was torn open by a mob which insisted that he was smuggling ‘arms for aristocrats’ therein. He narrowly escaped with his life, and returned to England convinced that the French had[p. 97] become a nation of wild beasts, hostes humani generis. ‘I had once deprecated,’ he wrote at the time, ‘the hostile interference of Britain in the internal affairs of France, but what I have seen in my journey through that country makes me consider that war with her has become just and necessary in self-defence of our constitution[137].’ Widowed and childless, he thought it his duty to go to the front at once, despite of his forty-four years and his lack of military training. He devoted all his available funds to the raising, in his own county, of the 90th Foot, the ‘Perthshire volunteers,’ of which he became the honorary colonel. He could not take command of the corps, because he had no substantive military rank, but he could not keep at home. He went out to the Mediterranean as a sort of volunteer aide-de-camp to Lord Mulgrave, and afterwards, being found useful owing to his gift of languages—he knew not only Italian but German, a rare accomplishment in those days—he was entrusted with a special mission to the Austrian army of Italy. He served through all the disasters of Beaulieu and Würmser, starved in Mantua, and froze in the Tyrolese Alps.

From that time onward we find him wherever there was fighting against the French to be done—in Sicily, Minorca, Malta, Egypt, Portugal. So great were his services that, contrary to all War Office rules, his honorary colonelship was changed to a regular commission on the staff, and in 1808-9 he served first as the British attaché with Casta?os’s army, and later as one of Sir John Moore’s aides-de-camp. In reward for brilliant service in the Corunna campaign he was given in 1810 the command of the British force at Cadiz. And so it came about that this Whig Member of Parliament, who had commenced soldiering at forty-four (like Oliver Cromwell and Julius Caesar), was at sixty-two leading a British division in the field. He had an iron frame[138], and his spirit was as firm as his body—the crusade had to be fought out to the end, though the enemy was now the Corsican Tyrant, not the Atheist Republic against which he had first drawn his sword. It was in keeping with all[p. 98] his previous career that he consented to take the second place in the Tarifa expedition; to get the army started was essential—his personal position counted for nothing with him. Before a month was out he had good reason to regret that he had been so self-denying.

After many tiresome delays[139] the English contingent sailed from Cadiz on February 21st, but met with such fierce west winds, when it neared Cape Trafalgar, that the convoy could not make the difficult harbour of Tarifa, and was blown past it into Gibraltar Bay, where Graham landed on the 23rd at Algesiras. Here he found waiting for him a ‘flank battalion’ of 536 bayonets, which General Campbell had made up for him out of the six flank companies of the 1/9th, 1/28th, and 2/82nd. From Algesiras the troops marched on the 24th to Tarifa, where they picked up another reinforcement provided by Campbell, the eight battalion companies of the 1/28th, which had been doing garrison duty in that little fortress—460 men in all. Having now just 5,196 men, Graham divided the infantry into two brigades. The first under General Dilkes numbered 1,900 bayonets: it was composed of the two composite battalions of the Guards, together with the flank battalion from Gibraltar and two companies of the 95th Rifles. The second brigade, under Colonel Wheatley, had 2,633 bayonets, and consisted of the 1/28th, 2/67th, 2/87th, and another ‘flank battalion’ under Colonel Barnard, composed of the two light companies of the 20th Portuguese (the only troops of that nation which served in the expedition), those of the 2/47th, with four more companies of the 95th Rifles. There were only 206 cavalry—two squadrons of the 2nd Hussars of the King’s German Legion—and ten guns under Major Duncan.

[p. 99]The Spanish contingent had sailed three days after Graham, had met with the same rough weather, and had been much beaten about. But the troops began to arrive at Tarifa on the 26th, and were all ashore on the 27th. La Pe?a assumed command, was all politeness, and made over to Graham two unbrigaded battalions of his own, to bring up the force of the two small British brigades to a higher figure[140]. The rest of his troops were organized in two divisions under Lardizabal and the Prince of Anglona, the first five, the second six battalions strong[141]; he had brought fourteen guns, and four squadrons of horse under an English colonel in the Spanish service, Samuel Whittingham, an officer who did not add to his laurels during this expedition.

On arriving at the bridge of Facinas and the village of Bolonia, ten miles outside Tarifa, La Pe?a had to make up his mind whether he would march against the rear of the French lines before Cadiz by the track nearer to the coast, which passes through Vejer de la Frontera, Conil, and Chiclana, or by the inland road through the mountains, which runs past Casas Viejas to Medina Sidonia. The two roads at their bifurcation are separated by the long lagoon of La Janda, a very shallow sheet of water, seven miles long, which nearly dries up in summer, but was at this moment full to overflowing from spring rains[142]. To take the inland route across the mountains was by far the better course. The road was not good, but if the Allies could reach Medina Sidonia with their army intact, Victor[p. 100] would be forced to come out and attack them, at a great distance from his Lines. For it would be practically impossible for the Marshal to allow La Pe?a and Graham to establish themselves at Medina, in the rear of his head quarters, and backed by the Sierra de Jerez, from whose skirts they could send out as many detachments as they pleased, to cut the communication between Seville and the Lines. There was little danger of being taken in the rear by troops sent by the distant Sebastiani, whose nearest forces were at Marbella, eighty miles away, and whose attention was at this moment fully taken up by the local guerrilleros, who had been turned loose on him. Indeed, Sebastiani for some time thought that the expedition was directed against himself, and was preparing to concentrate and take the defensive. The only drawbacks to the Medina Sidonia route were there would be no chance of communicating along it with the garrison of Cadiz, and that the question of provisions might grow serious if the campaign were protracted, for the region was barren and the army ill provided with transport. But a few days would settle the affair—Victor would be compelled to come out at once and fight, with every man that he could bring, and while he was engaged at Medina, there would be nothing to prevent the 7,000 Spaniards in Cadiz from crossing the harbour and destroying the ill-garrisoned Lines. This in itself, even if the Allies failed to hold back the Marshal, would have an immense effect all over Andalusia[143].

La Pe?a originally intended to take the right-hand road, and ordered Beguines, who was now in the high hills to the east, about Ximena, to join him with his roving brigade at Casas Viejas. The column left Facinas late in the evening, for La Pe?a had a great and misplaced belief in night marches, by which he always hoped to gain time on the enemy, since his moves could not be discovered or reported till the next morning. He overlooked the corresponding disadvantage of the extreme slowness of progress over bad roads in rugged country, the very real danger that the troops (or some of them) might miss their way in the dark, and the inevitable fatigue to the men from losing their proper hours of sleep. Graham’s laconic diary shows how[p. 101] this worked out. ‘Marched in the evening, very tedious from filing across water (the stream which fills the head of the lagoon of La Janda) and other difficulties. Misled by the guides on quitting the Cortigo de la Janda (farm at the head of the lagoon): the counter-march made a most fatiguing night.... It was twelve noon before the troops halted, having been nineteen hours under arms.’

The troops of Lardizabal, at the head of the column, had reached Casas Viejas in the morning, but the English division in the rear of the army had got no further than the northern end of the lagoon, some thirteen miles from their starting-place at Puente de Facinas. There was a violent east wind, the night had been very cold, and the men were much fatigued.

Lardizabal on reaching Casas Viejas had found the convent, which was the only solid building there, occupied by a French post, two companies sent out by General Cassagne from Medina Sidonia to watch the high-road. Thinking at first that he was only about to be worried by guerrilleros, the French captain shut himself up behind his barricades, instead of retreating at once. When he found out his mistake, and saw that a whole army was about him, it was too late to get off without loss. La Pe?a ordered that the convent should be left alone, as he did not wish to waste time in battering and storming it. The whole of his troops had come up, including the roving force of 1,600 men from the hills under Beguines, when the French unwisely made a bolt eastward, in the hope of escaping. The little column was pursued and cut up by a squadron of Busche’s German Hussars, many being killed and captured. From the prisoners and Beguines’s scouts La Pe?a learnt that Medina Sidonia was (contrary to his expectation) held by a serious force of French—Cassagne’s detachment being now composed of five battalions of infantry, a battery, and a cavalry regiment, about 3,000 men. The walls had been repaired, it was said, and the place was in a state of defence.

The Spanish general should have rejoiced to learn that Victor had sent an appreciable part of his army so far afield—fifteen miles from Chiclana—and by advancing he could have forced the Marshal to come to this distance from his lines in order to support Cassagne. A battle would no doubt have followed[p. 102]—but it was for a battle that the army had sailed to Tarifa. And by drawing Victor’s whole fighting force so far away from Cadiz, La Pe?a would have given a unique opportunity to the garrison to come out and destroy the siege-works. Meanwhile, if the French lost the battle they would be annihilated, being off their line of retreat; if they won it, they would return to find the greater part of the siege-works destroyed.

But this was not the line of thought that guided La Pe?a; he was, as his previous record showed, a shirker of responsibilities, and the prospect of a battle on the morrow, or the day after, seems to have paralysed him. To every one’s surprise he gave orders that the army, waiting till dusk had come on, should leave the Medina road, and march across country by a bad bridle-path to Vejer, on the other route from Tarifa to Cadiz. Graham protested against a second night march, after the experience of the first, and rightly, for news came in ere night that the road along the north side of the Barbate river, which La Pe?a had intended to use, was absolutely under water from inundations. La Pe?a therefore consented to wait till the next morning (March 3rd) and to use another country road, that between the north end of the La Janda lagoon and the river into which it falls. The army marched at 8 o’clock—Lardizabal as before in front, the English division in the rear. But on reaching the intended crossing-place, it was found that this road, like that north of the river, was flooded, the lagoon having overflowed at its northern end, and joined itself in one shallow sheet of water to the Barbate. Graham, on arriving at the passage, found the Spaniards halted at the edge of the flood, and apparently at a nonplus. The energetic old man took the business out of La Pe?a’s hands—he and his staff rode into the water, and sought personally for the track of the submerged causeway, which they fortunately found to be nowhere more than three feet under the surface of the flood. He placed men along the track at intervals, to guide those who should follow, and sat on his horse in the middle of the ford encouraging the troops as they marched past him. ‘I set the example of going into the water,’ he remarks in his diary, ‘which was followed by Lacy, the Prince of Anglona, and others. The passage lasted three hours, and would have taken double that time but for the[p. 103] exertions made to force the men to keep the files connected.’ It was 12 o’clock at night before the army reached Vejer—having taken fifteen hours to cover ten miles, owing to the delays at the inundation. Every one was wet through and much fatigued, for the weather was still very cold.

It remained to be seen what the enemy would make of this move; a squadron of French dragoons had been found in Vejer by the advanced guard, and driven out, so that it was certain that Victor would get prompt news that at any rate some part of the allied army had now appeared on the western road. The Marshal, as a matter of fact, was puzzled. On the night of the 2nd he had heard from Cassagne that the enemy was in force on the Medina Sidonia road, and had cut up the post at Casas Viejas. He accordingly sent orders to Cassagne to bid him stand firm, and promised to support him with his whole disposable force. But before dawn on the 4th he got news, from the dragoons expelled from Vejer, that there was a heavy force on the western road. Had La Pe?a transferred himself from one route to another, or were the Allies operating in two columns? Cassagne reported a little later that the column opposed to him had advanced no further, but that there were still Spanish troops on the Casas Viejas road; and this was true, for La Pe?a had left a battalion and some guerrilla horse at that place, to give him news of Cassagne, if the latter should move.

But there was also the garrison of Cadiz to be watched, and it was showing signs of activity. On the night of the 2nd-3rd, when the field army had been lying at Casas Viejas, General Zayas had, in accordance with the scheme of times left with him, thrown his bridge of boats across the Santi Petri creek, and passed a battalion across it, which entrenched itself on the mud-flat, facing the French works that cut off the peninsula of the Bermeja. They threw up a strong tête-du-pont, undisturbed, being under the protection of the heavy guns in the castle of Santi Petri, and other batteries on the Isle of Leon. The move could only mean that the garrison of Cadiz intended to come out. Accordingly Victor resolved to stop its egress; waiting for the dusk on the night of the 3rd-4th, he sent six companies of picked voltigeurs to storm the tête-du-pont. This they accomplished, the heavy guns failing to stop them in the dusk: the[p. 104] Spanish battalion in the work (Ordenes Militares) was nearly annihilated, losing 13 officers and 300 men killed or taken. But the bridge itself was saved by the prompt sinking of two of its boats, and was hastily floated back to the island, where Zayas laid it up for further use. He had been much chagrined at seeing and hearing nothing of allied forces behind the French, which he had been told to look for on March 3rd[144].

Putting together the movement of Zayas, and the fact that some at least of the allied army was now on the Vejer road, the Marshal came to the correct conclusion that the army in the field was intending to get into communication with Cadiz and its garrison. Accordingly he made a new plan to suit this hypothesis: of his three divisions one, that of Villatte, was to block the neck of the peninsula along which the track from Vejer and Conil leads to the Santi Petri creek and the Isle of Leon. The other two, concentrated at Chiclana, were to wait till the allied force had found itself blocked in front by Villatte, and then to fall upon its flank, in the space of three miles that lies between the hill of Barrosa and the position where Villatte had been posted. This plan would place the intercepting division in obvious danger, since, while attacked in front by the head of the allied army, it might find Zayas attempting once more to lay his bridge, and to take it in the rear. Such a movement by the garrison could not be stopped, because the end of the peninsula, by the bridge-place, was under the guns of several heavy batteries. But Victor directed Villatte not to fight to the last, but to be contented with holding the Allies in check long enough to enable the main body to fall on their flank. The sound of his guns would be the signal for the two striking divisions to move out from the wood of Chiclana, and dash at the long column whose head would be engaged with Villatte, while its tail would still be coming along the coast many miles to the rear. For 14,000 men had only the single line of communication along which to move.
General Map of the Barrosa Campaign

Enlarge  THE BARROSA CAMPAIGN

[p. 105]Meanwhile Cassagne, at Medina Sidonia, was sent orders to find out exactly what was in front of him, and if there was no solid force, to march to join the main body on the morning of the 5th. He must have received the order to do so somewhere in the afternoon of the 4th.

Victor’s force was not so large as he would have wished. Soult had taken from him six battalions of infantry and three cavalry regiments, reducing the total of the 1st Corps left at or near Cadiz to twenty-three battalions of infantry, three regiments of cavalry, and four or five field batteries, about 15,000 men in all. There were also present in the lines 3,500 men more not belonging to the corps, viz. about 1,000 artillery and 800 engineers and sappers belonging to the siege train, and 1,600 marine troops from the flotilla which had been constructed in Cadiz bay. These of course were useless for field operations; but they served to man the lines, with the addition of three battalions—2,000 men—from the fighting force, the least that Victor thought he could spare. For the garrison of Cadiz and the English fleet might attack in force any point of the Lines during the absence of the main body. This left 13,000 men available for field operations: but Cassagne was still absent at Medina Sidonia, with five battalions, a battery, and one of the three cavalry regiments, making 3,100 men in all. There were therefore only 10,000 men left to face La Pe?a and Graham, till Cassagne should come up. Victor, according to his own dispatch, much over-estimated the force of the Allies, which he states as 8,000 English and 18,000 Spaniards, so that he went to work in rather a desperate mood, thinking that he had to fight very superior numbers, and that his only chance was to make a sudden and resolute attack when he was not expected. As a matter of fact he overstated the enemy by nearly a half, since there were really marching from Vejer only 5,000 English and under 10,000 Spaniards altogether, and no help could come to them from Cadiz till Villatte should be driven off.

Each of the three divisions which Victor had under his hand was short of several battalions; Ruffin’s, the 1st Division, and Leval’s, the 2nd, had each a battalion in the Lines and another detached with Cassagne at Medina. Villatte’s, the 3rd, had one in the Lines and three with Cassagne. Hence they took the[p. 106] field, Ruffin and Leval with six battalions each, Villatte with five only. The respective forces were 3,000, 3,800, and 2,500 bayonets[145]: each unit had its divisional battery with it. Of the two cavalry regiments, the 1st Dragoons, 400 sabres, was with Ruffin, the 2nd Dragoons, 300 sabres, with Villatte. On the evening of the 4th Ruffin’s and Leval’s men were concentrated at Chiclana, hidden behind the woods which cover it; Villatte was on the ridge of the Torre Bermeja, between the Almanza creek and the sea, right across the track leading from Vejer to Cadiz, and looking both backward and forward, with his attention ready for Zayas as much as for La Pe?a.

Meanwhile the Allies were marching straight into the middle of the trap which Victor had prepared for them. After passing Conil, the road on which their army was moving turns inland towards Chiclana, while a mere track follows the beach towards the Santi Petri. It was along this that La Pe?a was intending to move. But in the dark the head of the column followed the main road, and went several miles along it. At dawn the error was discovered, and the army, cutting across an open heath, got down to the beach[146].

The point which the allies had now reached was a mile or so south-east of the coast-guard tower of Barrosa, where an isolated eminence called the Cerro del Puerco (Boar’s Hill), crowned by a ruined chapel, looks out upon the heathy plain of Chiclana to the north, and a scrubby pine wood (covering much of the ground towards the beach) to the west[147]. The advanced cavalry got upon the hill unhindered soon after daybreak, and met no enemy, nor did patrols sent into the wood discover him for some time. Presently, however, news came back from the front[p. 107] that a French force had been discerned, drawn up between the Almanza creek and the sea, and blocking the way to Cadiz. Being outside the wood it was very visible, and seemed to be about a strong brigade of infantry with a squadron or two of horse. This was, of course, Villatte, waiting for the advance of the Allies. No other hostile troops were to be seen.

La Pe?a now told Graham that, despite of the fact that the men had been under arms for fourteen hours, and had marched as many miles in the dark, he was about to thrust this French force out of the way without a moment’s delay. Lardizabal, with the vanguard division, was to attack it at once, while the rest of the army took up a position to cover him from any possible movement of the enemy from the direction of Chiclana.

About nine in the morning Lardizabal with his five battalions reached Villatte’s front, deployed and attacked him. The forces were about equal, and the attack was repulsed with some loss; La Pe?a then ordered up the leading brigade of Anglona’s division to support the vanguard. A sharp engagement was going on, when a new fire broke out behind Villatte. Zayas, from the Isle of Leon, had recast his bridge across the Santi Petri, and was advancing to take the French in the rear. Villatte saw his danger, gave up his position across the peninsula, and hastily fell back towards the passage of the shallow Almanza creek, near the mill of the same name. He recrossed it, not without some difficulty, and then drew up to defend the passage. Lardizabal was prevented by La Pe?a from pursuing him, and halted opposite. The skirmish had been hot: Villatte had lost 337 men, the Spaniards a few more. But they had achieved their purpose, and the connexion with Cadiz had been duly established.

About noon La Pe?a sent orders to Graham to evacuate the Barrosa position, and draw in closer to the Almanza creek, to join the rest of the army. Meanwhile he would be relieved on the hill by five battalions of Cruz Murgeon and Beguines[148], to which rearguard there was added one British battalion, Browne’s composite unit consisting of the six flank companies of the 9th,[p. 108] 28th, and 82nd. Whittingham and the cavalry were to flank this force on the coast track, somewhere near the tower of La Barrosa. This force was to move off in its turn, when Graham should have reached the main body, for the Spanish general had resolved not to hold the Cerro, considering that an army of 14,000 men should not be spread out over four miles of ground, but be kept more concentrated. Graham entirely disagreed with this movement; if the Allies came down and crammed themselves into the narrow peninsula between the sea and the Almanza creek, there was nothing to prevent Victor from seizing the Barrosa heights, and placing himself across their front, in a way which would block them into the cramped position which they had assumed. The move practically threw them back on Cadiz, and sacrificed all the results of the toilsome flank march in which they had been so long engaged. Graham had in the morning urged on La Pe?a the all-importance of retaining the hill, but now saw his advice rejected. Obeying orders, however, he set his column in march towards the Torre Bermeja and the Almanza creek, through the pine wood. At the same time the rearguard under Beguines and Cruz Murgeon ascended the Cerro, and took up the post which the British division had left.

The British column did not descend to the rough track along the coast, but used a fair wood path right through the middle of the pine forest, which saved them a couple of miles of détour, and was practicable for artillery. They were soon filing along between the pines, lost to sight, and themselves unable to see a hundred yards in any direction.

At this moment, about 12.30 p.m., Victor suddenly broke out of the woods in front of Chiclana with the 7,000 men of Ruffin’s and Leval’s divisions. He was tired of waiting for Cassagne, for he had now got news that the force at Medina had started late in the morning, instead of at dawn, and would not be up for two or three hours more. His cavalry had just reported to him that the Cerro seemed to be abandoned, and that the troops formerly holding it were marching across his front through the forest. Since the main body of the enemy had been located opposite Villatte, on the Almanza creek, there seemed to be a good chance of seizing the important Barrosa position unopposed, and of striking the rear division of the Allies while it was defiling,[p. 109] strung out helplessly in a wood road, across the front of the advancing French. The orders given by the Marshal sent his cavalry regiment (three squadrons of the 1st Dragoons) to turn the heights by their south-eastern flank, and seize the coast track, while Ruffin ascended the Cerro by its gently sloping northern front, and Leval struck at the troops known to be in the wood. The French, being quite fresh, came on at a great pace; the Marshal had explained to his subordinates that haste was everything. They were clearly visible to the rearguard left on the heights, partly visible to La Pe?a, who could see their flank up the trough of the Almanza creek, but wholly invisible to Graham and his troops in the wood.

A great responsibility now fell on the Spanish officers on the Cerro; they were under orders to evacuate the heights when Graham should have got away westward. What were they to do when it suddenly became clear that they were themselves about to be attacked? They might attempt to defend the hill with the one British and five Spanish battalions which lay, unseen to the French, under the seaward slope of the Cerro: or they might simply obey orders, and retire towards the main body, abandoning their dominating position. The latter course was the one taken. The five Spanish battalions streamed down the seaward face of the hill in no very good order, and fell in there with the baggage of the whole army. All together began to retire northward; there was a block on the beach, the baggage mules were driven right and left, and many got loose and bolted. Meanwhile Whittingham with the cavalry (three Spanish[149] and two K.G.L. squadrons) ranged himself across the track, where he was soon faced by the French dragoons, who had galloped round the south-eastern face of the heights with remarkable celerity.

Whittingham’s retreat was not made without a protest against it by Colonel Browne, who urged, firstly, that it was madness to abandon the height, secondly that he had Graham’s orders to stand there, and could obey no others. The cavalry general replied that, for his part, he had resolved to retire, and offered to lend Browne one of his squadrons to cover his retreat towards[p. 110] the British division, if he would not follow him to the coast track. The fiery colonel made no reply, but turned to his battalion and ordered it to occupy the ruined chapel on the top of the Cerro and the neighbouring thickets, and to prepare for action. But in half an hour, seeing Whittingham’s column far off at the foot of the hill, and six French battalions coming in upon him, Browne gave way and descended into the pine wood in search of Graham[150]. The French—Ruffin’s division—took possession of the heights, and planted a battery upon them.

Meanwhile we must return to Graham, concealed in the wood, and marching (as it were blindfold) across the front of Leval’s approaching column. He had no cavalry with him, but presently two mounted guerrilleros rode up in haste, and told him that the French were close on his flank. Riding back to the rear of his division, he saw from the edge of the forest Beguines’s troops pouring down the near side of the Cerro, and Ruffin’s mounting its northern ascent. Leval was also visible to the left.

Graham’s mind was made up in a moment: ‘A retreat in the face of the enemy,’ he writes, ‘who was already in reach of the easy communication by the sea-beach, must have involved the whole allied army in the danger of being attacked during the unavoidable confusion, while the different corps would be arriving on the narrow ridge of Bermeja at the same time,’ i. e. he saw that he himself coming out of the wood, Whittingham and Beguines from the shore track, and the main body returning from the Almanza creek bridge, would meet in disorder on the narrow neck of the peninsula by the Torre Bermeja, and would be unable to form an orderly line of battle. Even if they did, and then held their ground, the object of the whole expedition was lost, and the French, in possession of the Cerro del Puerco, once more blocked the army into Cadiz.

The alternative was to take the offensive before the two French columns had united, and to attack them while they were still coming upon the ground, and before they had drawn up in any regular order. It was evident that they were hurrying forward without any notion that they were liable to be thrown[p. 111] on the defensive at a moment’s notice. In three minutes Graham had made up his mind to attack himself, instead of allowing himself to be chased into the Bermeja position. The wood, in which his division lay concealed, enabled him to hide his movement, though it made that movement perilously disorderly. The orders given were simple: the leading brigade, that of Colonel Wheatley, was to push straight through the wood till it reached the northern edge, and then form there, and attack Leval. The rear brigade, that of General Dilkes, was to counter-march down the wood-path on which it was engaged, till it too cleared the wood, and then to form up and attack Ruffin on th............