A history of the Peninsular War, Vol. 4, Dec. 1810-Dec. 1811 : $b Massena's retreat, Fuentes de Oñoro, Albuera, TarragonaOman, Charles
History
A history of the Peninsular War, Vol. 4, Dec. 1810-Dec. 1811 : $b Massena's retreat, Fuentes de Oñoro, Albuera, Tarragona
Oman, Charles
Peninsular War, 1807-1814
The exhausted victors halted for a short time to re-form, and were in
a more orderly line than they had hitherto shown when they commenced
to follow the enemy down the slope. The casualties in this part of
the field may now be stated, for neither party was to lose many more
men in the last episode of the fight. Dilkes’s brigade and Browne’s
flank battalion had gone up the hill with 76 officers and 1,873 men.
They lost 25 officers and 588 men--about 10 men out of every 31 in the
fight. The French loss was positively more, proportionately not quite
so great. In the six battalions of Ruffin and Chaudron Rousseau there
seem to have been about 108 officers and 3,000 men present; of these 36
officers and 840 men were left on the hill, i. e. 10 men in every 35.
The trophies remaining with the victors were two guns and 107 unwounded
prisoners, beside the multitude of disabled men left on the slope[154].
[154] For further details see the letters of General Dilkes,
Colonels Norcott, Stanhope, and Onslow, and Major Acheson, in
Wellington’s _Supplementary Dispatches_, vii. pp. 127-31.
While this bloody business had been going on upon the Cerro del
Puerco, it may be asked what were the Spaniards on the coast road
doing--Whittingham’s squadrons and the five battalions of Cruz Murgeon
and Beguines. The last named, with his three battalions, shepherding
what was left of the baggage-train, quietly marched off along the sea,
and joined La Peña by the Torre Bermeja. Whittingham was of a little
positive use; he continued all through the fight to ‘contain’ and
occasionally to bicker with the French cavalry regiment (1st Dragoons)
that faced him near the Torre Barrosa. The two battalions of Cruz
Murgeon supported him. This force certainly did not do its share--180
German Hussars, 300 Spanish horse, and 1,000 Spanish foot simply kept
out of action 400 French horse. This was something, but not much,
for the dragoons could not have interfered very effectively on the
hill against Dilkes’s advance, because the south side of the Cerro
is too precipitous for horsemen. In short, Whittingham’s statement
in his report to La Peña, that ‘all the cavalry fulfilled its duty
brilliantly’ is a sad overstatement of the case.
Let us turn now to the other half of the fight, where Wheatley’s
brigade and Duncan’s guns were facing Leval on the open plain just
outside the edge of the wood. At the moment when Browne attacked the
Cerro, Barnard’s rifles and Bushe’s Portuguese were throwing themselves
in a no less resolute fashion upon the six French battalions in their
front. They had the advantage of being invisible to the enemy till
they emerged from the wood, only 300 yards in his front, and of being
supported, within a few minutes of their arrival, by Duncan’s ten guns,
while Browne had no artillery assistance whatever, and was seen by the
French for half a mile before he got near them.
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