Battle of Talavera

“ The battle of Talavera was certainly the hardest fought of modern days.... It is lamentable that, owing to the miserable inefficiency of the Spaniards,... the glory of the action is the only benefit which we have derived from it.... ”

“ Because in the battle of Talavera, though eminently distinguished by those splendid proofs of discipline and valour which his Majesty’s troops have never failed to display, we cannot recognize those unequivocal characteristics of victory which can alone form an adequate title to the thanks of this House. ”

“ Talavera was a very different stamp of fight to anything in which our troops had been previously engaged in the Peninsula. We had but 20,000 men present, and our losses amounted to 4,000 killed and wounded, those of the French to over 7,000. The full fruits of the victory were lost owing to the failure of our Spanish allies to afford us proper support, and the British army was compelled to retire on the following day, leaving its wounded in the hands of the French. ”

“ We, in England,” said sir Arthur, “never hear of their defeats and flights, but I have heard Spanish officers telling of nineteen or twenty actions of the description of that at the bridge of Arzobispo, accounts of which, I believe, have never been published.” “In the battle of Talavera,” he continued, “in which the Spanish army, with very trifling exception, was not engaged,—whole corps threw away their arms, and run off, when they were neither attacked nor threatened with an attack. When these dastardly soldiers run away they plunder every thing they meet. ”

“ The British army as usual has been deprived of the fruits of their glorious victory; for Soult, Ney, and Mortier, having penetrated from Castille to Placencia with 34,000 men, added to the impossibility of placing any dependance upon the Spaniards, who during and after the battle of Talavera had remained, except their Artillery, entirely spectators, with 20,000 men, exposing the British army to finding itself between two fires, besides entirely cutting off its retreat and communications with Portugal, obliged Sir Arthur to retire by the bridge of Arçobispo to the other side of the Tagus ”

“ After taking part in the pursuit of the French army through mountainous districts to the confines of Portugal, the FIFTY-THIRD retired to Oporto, where they halted one day; they afterwards proceeded to Coimbra, and in the early part of June to Abrantes.
Advancing into Spain, the FIFTY-THIRD shared in the operations which preceded the battle of Talavera, and suffered, in common with other corps, great privation from the want of supplies, the soldiers having no food, on many occasions, excepting corn gathered from the fields. ”

“ Aware that the armies were in presence of each other, and apprised that a battle was inevitable, an ardent wish to share the glory of the field stimulated these soldiers to exertions that hunger, fatigue, and thirst could not abate; and though efforts almost beyond belief failed to bring them to the battle-ground before the struggle terminated, the rapidity of their march, and the fine condition in which they joined the army, justly obtained for them the admiration of the victors of Talavera. ”

“ It is true that we captured 17 guns, but the fact of our retreat, coupled with the abandonment of the sick and wounded, have induced the French to claim Talavera as a French victory. Marshal Victor was created Duke of Talavera by King Joseph, while Sir Arthur Wellesley was raised to the peerage under the title of Lord Wellington,—of Wellington, in the county of Somerset, and of Talavera. The fighting was exceedingly severe, and on more than one occasion matters looked very doubtful. ”

“ He had written three days before Talavera: "With or without a battle we shall be at Madrid soon." But his allies now failed him utterly: they did not hold the mountain passes which confronted Soult in his march from Salamanca into the valley of the Tagus; and they left the British forces half starving.—"We are here worse off than in a hostile country," wrote our commander; "never was an army so ill used: we had no assistance from the Spanish army: we were obliged to unload our ammunition and [pg.199] our treasure in order to employ the cars in the removal of our sick and wounded." ”

“ The enemy had no success on any other ground, and were terribly beat after I joined the troops at Sorauren. Their loss cannot be less than 15,000 men, and I am not certain that it is not 20,000 men. We have about 4,000 prisoners. I never saw such fighting as on the 27th and 28th of July, the anniversary of the battle of Talavera, nor such determination as the troops showed. ”

“ Neither Cuesta nor the inhabitants of Talavera, although possessing ample means, would render the slightest aid, nor would they even assist to bury the dead. The corn secreted in Talavera was alone sufficient to support the army for a month; but the troops were starving, although the inhabitants, [411] who had fled across the Tagus with their portable effects at the beginning of the battle, had now returned. It is not surprising that, in such circumstances, men should endeavour to save their property, especially provisions ”

“ With such troops as allies, no wonder that Sir Arthur wrote: “The position of Talavera was well calculated for the troops that were to occupy it. The ground in front of the British army was open; that in front of the Spanish army was covered with olive-trees, intersected by roads, ditches, &c.” In other words, the offensive part of the battle was to fall on the British, while a masterly and imposing inactivity was reserved for the Spaniards. ”

“ Neither Victor nor King Joseph, therefore, exercised any influence over the doings of Wellesley and Cuesta at Talavera between the 29th of July and the 3rd of August. The allies worked out their plans undisturbed by any interference on the part of the old enemies whom they had beaten on the battle day. Down to August 1 the British general had been unconvinced by the rumours of Soult’s approach, at the head of a large army, which were persistently arriving from the secret agents in the direction of Salamanca [696] . ”

“ When both the teacher and the taught are young,
As was the case, at least, where I have been,"
etc.
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Footnote 4:
The battle of Talavera, July 27 and 28, 1809, in which Sir Arthur Wellesley defeated Marshal Victor. In Cuesta's despatch to the Spanish Government, dated Seville, August 7, the British loss is mentioned as 260 officers and 5000 men. ”

“ Two days after the battle, intelligence was brought to Talavera that 12,000 rations had been ordered at Fuente Duenas for the 28th, and 24,000 at Los Santos on the same day, for a French army, which it was supposed was on its march to the Puerto de Baños. Cuesta upon this discovered some anxiety respecting that post, and proposed that Sir R. Wilson with his corps should be sent thither. This could not be assented to, for his corps was stationed in the mountains towards Escalona, still keeping up a communication with the people of Madrid, ... an advantage too important to be foregone. ”

“ The Spanish army, after the deduction of men in hospital or detached, amounted to about 23,000 men, of whom nearly 3,000 were horse: it had forty guns. The King and Sebastiani had some 21,000 sabres and bayonets, but of these nearly 4,000 were cavalry, so that the French army enjoyed its usual preponderance in that arm, in numbers no less than in efficiency. Two of its infantry divisions, those of Leval and Sebastiani, had suffered heavily at Talavera: the rest of the infantry—Valence’s Poles and the King’s guards and reserves—had not been engaged in that battle ”

“ These ‘Missing’ do not include the French wounded who were left within the British lines on the night of July 28, and became prisoners, but were freed again on Aug. 6 when Victor reoccupied Talavera and captured the British hospitals. They must have been numerous in the divisions of Ruffin, Lapisse, and Sebastiani. The French returns are those made up for the Emperor’s use, some weeks after the battle—those of the 4th Corps as late as Sept. 19. The men in question therefore appear as ‘wounded,’ but not as ‘prisoners.’ ”

“ La Romana’s starving hordes, and Cuesta’s evasive and demoralized battalions were the samples from which the whole Spanish army was judged. In the Talavera campaign, the first in which English and Spanish troops stood side by side, there can be no doubt that the latter (with few exceptions) behaved in their very worst style. They often did much better; but few Englishmen had the chance of watching a defence like that of Saragossa or Gerona. Very few observers from our side saw anything of the heroically obstinate resistance of the Catalonian miqueletes and somatenes. ”

“ The "Buffs" had already lost 27 killed and 208 wounded, and 7 missing, at Talavera. The 57th, Middlesex Regiment, who were called upon by their dying Colonel Inglis to "die hard," went into action 570 strong, but when the battle was over, 23 officers and 400 rank and file "were lying as they had fought, in ranks, with every wound in the front."
The battle was fought on May 16th, 1811, the Spanish leaders agreeing that Marshal Beresford should have supreme command, and to receive battle in the village of Albuera. The allied army consisted of 32,000 infantrymen and 2,000 cavalry, with 38 guns ”

“ No one could have imagined the ignorance and the irrational pride of their commanders, or the amazing assurance with which government and generals alike gave elaborate undertakings which they never meant to fulfil. At the same time the slaughter of Talavera was not wasted: the victory gave the English cabinet, and still more the nation, confidence alike in their general and in his troops. Talavera was the first distinct defeat sustained by a French army of any size since Napoleon had appeared on the scene. ”

“ Thus the Talavera campaign came to an end. There was now a long pause in the movements both of the allies and of the French. The subsequent fighting in October belongs to a totally independent series of operations. The combatants who had been engaged in July and August rested in September: Soult was left at Plasencia, Mortier at Talavera and Navalmoral, Ney at Salamanca; Victor’s head quarters were at Daymiel in La Mancha, Sebastiani lay along the Tagus from Aranjuez to Toledo. Of the allied troops Wellesley’s army was cantoned about Badajoz and Merida. ”

“ In every place the British were victorious—and had one forward movement of the Spaniards been made, Talavera would have proved the most decisive defeat that ever the French armies on the Peninsula had sustained—for a rapid flanking march from Cuesta’s right upon the Alberche must have compromised half the French army. ”

“ The further progress of the allies was thus barred in front; the Tagus was on their left; impassable mountains on their right; and it was certain that Cuesta’s retreat would immediately bring the king and Victor down upon their rear. The peril of this situation was apparent to every soldier in the British ranks, and produced a general inquietude. No man felt the slightest confidence in the Spaniards, and the recollection of the stern conflict at Talavera, aided by a sense of exhaustion from long abstinence, depressed the spirits of men and officers. ”

“ We were first told that it was to give the artillery, which rolled heavily over the snow, time to come up; subsequently we were informed that the Marquis of Romana either mistook or wilfully failed in his engagements to co-operate, and that the attack must consequently be postponed. Thenceforward a hatred and contempt of the Spaniards in arms filled the breast of every British soldier. This feeling was renewed at Talavera and confirmed at Barossa, and for similar causes was kept alive so long as a British soldier remained in the Peninsula. ”

“ The Talavera campaign only failed of success because the 2nd and the 6th Corps were withdrawn from the Galician hills just in time to concentrate at Salamanca and fall upon the rear of the victors. If they had been wandering around Monterey or Mondonedo at the end of July, instead of being cantoned in the plains of Leon, the capital of Spain would undoubtedly have been recovered by Wellesley and Cuesta—though whether those ill-assorted colleagues could have held it for long is another question. Into such possibilities it is useless to make inquiry. ”

“ A few days later the divisions of Sebastiani and Valence were pushed on to Talavera, as if to form the advanced guard of an expedition against Estremadura, while that of Leval remained in Madrid [540] . Talavera had been occupied, before the Duke of Dantzig’s arrival, by the cavalry of Lasalle and Milhaud, who drove out of it without difficulty the demoralized troops that had murdered San Juan. This mob, now under the orders of Galluzzo, the Captain-General of Estremadura, fled behind the Tagus and barricaded the bridges of Arzobispo and Almaraz, to cover its front. ”

“ This was the army that was to co-operate with Wellesley in the campaign of Talavera.
‘In any other country of Europe,’ wrote Marshal Jourdan, ‘the gaining of two such successes as Medellin and Ciudad Real would have reduced the country-side to submission, and have enabled the victorious armies to press forward to new conquests. In Spain the reverse was the case: the greater the disaster suffered by the national troops, the more willing were the population to rise and take arms. ”