The Battle of Albuera 1811: Glorious Fields of Grief

THE BATTLE OF

ALBUERA 1811

THE BATTLE OF

ALBUERA 1811

‘Glorious Field of Grief’

by

Michael Oliver

and Richard Partridge

First published in Great Britain in 2007 by

Pen & Sword Military

an imprint of

Pen & Sword Books Ltd

47 Church Street

Barnsley

South Yorkshire

S70 2AS

Copyright © Michael Oliver and Richard Partridge 2007

ISBN 978 1 84415 461 6

The right of Michael Oliver and Richard Partridge to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is

available from the British Library

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the Publisher in writing.

Typeset in Sabon by

Phoenix Typesetting, Auldgirth, Dumfriesshire

Printed and bound in England by

Biddies Ltd, King’s Lynn

Pen & Sword Books Ltd incorporates the Imprints of Pen & Sword Aviation, Pen & Sword Maritime, Pen & Sword Military, Wharncliffe Local History, Pen & Sword Select, Pen & Sword Military Classics and Leo Cooper.

For a complete list of Pen & Sword titles please contact

PEN & SWORD BOOKS LIMITED

47 Church Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, S70 2AS, England

E-mail: [email protected]

Website: www.pen-and-sword.co.uk

Contents

List of Plates

List of Maps

Acknowledgements

Introduction by Jesús Maroto

Chapter 1. Napoleonic Warfare and the Peninsular War

Background

The War up to 15 May 1811

Napoleonic Warfare

Chapter 2. The Participants and their Commanders

Spain

Teniente-General Francisco Xavier de Castaños y Aragorri

Teniente-General Joachin Blake

Mariscal de Campo José Lardizabal

Mariscal de Campo José de Zayas

Teniente-General Francisco López Ballesteros

France

Marechal ‘Nicolas’ Jean de Dieu Soult, Duc de Dalmatie

Général de Division Baron Jean Baptiste Girard

Général de Division Deo Gratias Nicolas, Baron Godinot

Général de Division Comte Honoré Théodore Maxime Gazan

General Marie-Victor Nicolas de Fay Latour-Maubourg

Britain

Marshall Sir William Carr Beresford

Major General the Honourable William Stewart

Major General Galbraith Lowry Cole

Major General Karl von Alten

Major General William Lumley

Portugal

Chapter 3. The Battle

Terrain

Deployment

Introduction

Initial dispositions

Opening Moves (8 a.m.)

Zayas Stands Firm (8.30–9.45)

Stewart Counter-Attacks (9.45–10.30)

The Charge of the Polish Lancers (10.30)

The 2nd Division Renews the Firefight (11.00)

A Timely Intervention (12.30)

The Beginning of the End (13.00 hours)

Chapter 4. Aftermath and Analysis

Appendix 1. Orders of Battle

Appendix 2. Zayas’s ‘Instrucciones sobre el buen orden militar’

Appendix 3. Introductión en Español para Sr Jesús Maroto

Notes

Index

List of Plates

Plates are found between pp. 112 and 113.

1.

The so-called ‘Conical Hill’ which was the left flank of Stewart’s initial position.

2.

The bridge commanded by Sympher’s guns.

3.

A view of the bridge from upstream.

4.

The second bridge, downstream (north) of and seen from the main bridge.

5.

The distance to be covered by 2nd Division when they were ordered to march to the relief of Zayas.

6.

The ground over which the French approached the battlefield.

7.

The view from the approximate first Spanish position.

8.

The view from the second Spanish position..

9.

Looking from the ridge where the French artillery was sited.

10.

The view Girard’s men would have had as they approached Zayas.

11.

The ‘road’ from Albuera that Stewart used to reach Zayas.

12.

Possible area in which the Lancers and Hussars were hidden.

13.

Positions of the Portuguese artillery and Ballesteros and Lardizabal.

14.

The line of the Valdesevillas stream.

15.

An aspect of the battlefield in May 2004.

16.

The obelisk which is the site of an annual service of commemoration and the memorial located in the centre of the town.

List of Maps

1.

Spain and Portugal during the Peninsular War

2.

The Albuera battlefield – terrain

3.

Initial dispositions

3.

Spanish deployment

4.

Zayas realigns

5.

Battle joined

6.

2nd Division arrives

7.

Colborne deploys

8.

The Poles attack

9.

No quarter

10.

2nd Division reforms

11.

Cole forms up

12.

4th Division advances

13.

Cole’s attack

Acknowledgements

We have received assistance from numerous people and organizations in doing our research on this book and that help has been invaluable. So our thanks go to members of the ‘Napoleon Series’ internet group, the hospitable people of the village of Albuera – particularly Macarena, who looks after the Information Centre – the monks at Ciudad Rodrigo seminary, who allowed us access to a full set of pristine first edition volumes of Toreno and asked us to talk to their young students about the Peninsular War. Thirty years ago, Michael Oliver wrote a manuscript about Albuera for another publisher but publication was cancelled due to the 1974 miners’ strike. The research done at that time was useful in seeing this current version complete and we must thank the then Lt Col Chard of the Fusilier Brigade for allowing Mike access to the regimental records and a sight of the contents of the ‘Albuera Chest’.

In particular, we would like to thank Mark S Thompson whose book The Fatal Hill was an inspiration when we visited the battlefield and afterwards. We contacted Mark and have had several illuminating exchanges with him. He has provided copies of several original documents without demur and was kind enough to cast his eye over our manuscript before publication. We share his mystification as to the reasons for the absence of General Madden during the battle and wonder whether an explanation will ever surface.

Sr Miguel Angel Martin Mas, expert on the Battle of Salamanca, author of a number of excellent publications on Napoleonic troops and the War of Independence and curator of the Museum at Los Arapiles has assisted us in his typical unstinting manner. He accompanied us on three of our visits to Spain, organized our hotels and transport and opened many doors to relevant facilities we had not even dreamed existed – including the council offices at Bailén where some magnificent paintings of the war hang – and the Ciudad Rodrigo seminary. He has assisted with translations, arranged meetings and is now a great friend.

Sr Jesús Maroto, who wrote the Introduction to this book for our potential Spanish readers, plied us with copies of original manuscripts and maps from Spanish and French archives, profiles of some of the Spanish generals and memoirs and reports from people we had not appreciated had written about their experiences – among them Jean-Baptiste Heralde, the French surgeon-general. Sr Maroto is doing a considerable amount of work in Spain to rekindle interest in their military heritage generally and the War of Independence in particular.

The maps have been provided by Cartography Services (www.cartography-services.co.uk).

Finally we would like to acknowledge the generosity of the family of the late Hugh Lambrick who sadly passed away before his own work on Albuera could be published. His research was made available to us and assisted in our work. The family is planning to have his book published on the internet and we believe it will be at www.lambrick.co.uk. It covers a wider canvas and gives a fuller examination of Sir William Beresford and the Badajoz campaign than is intended in this history.

This book is dedicated to all who lost their lives at or

because of the Battle of Albuera. Most did not find

marked graves, many were far from their homes; to

some, Albuera was their home but denied to them

through no fault of their own.

Three hosts combine to offer sacrifice;

Three tongues prefer strange orisons on high;

Three gaudy standards flout the pale blue skies;

The shouts are France, Spain, Albion, Victory!

The foe, the victim, and the fond ally

That fights for all, but ever fights in vain,

Are met – as if at home they could not die –

To feed the crow on Talavera’s plain,

And fertilize the field that each pretends to gain.

There shall they rot – Ambition’s honour’d fools!

Yes, Honour decks the turf that wraps their clay!

Vain Sophistry! in these behold the tools,

The broken tools, that tyrants cast away

By myriads, when they dare to pave their way

With human hearts – to what? – a dream alone.

Can despots compass aught that hails their sway?

Or call with truth one span of earth their own,

Save that wherein at last they crumble bone by bone?

Oh, Albuera! glorious field of grief!

As o’er thy plain the Pilgrim prick’d his steed,

Who could foresee thee, in a space so brief,

A scene where mingling foes should boast and bleed!

Peace to the perish’d! may the warrior’s meed

And tears of triumph their rewards prolong!

Till others fall where other chieftains lead

Thy name shall circle round the gaping throng,

And shine in worthless lays, the theme of transient song!

(Lord Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage,

stanzas XLI to XLIII)

THE BATTLE OF

ALBUERA 1811

Introduction*

Jesús Maroto

An important highway, N-432, takes vehicles that leave the city of Badajoz by a route that passes near the locality of Albuera. If the traveller is driving quickly, he will probably not notice a mural at the entrance to the village on which can be read the first verse of a poem by Lord Byron: ‘Oh Albuera, Glorious Field of Grief!’ In the same place one can see, in addition, an effigy of four soldiers: a Spaniard, a Briton, a Portuguese and a Frenchman. Underneath each one of them, in the language of his nationality, the inscription continues: ‘In rows, just as they fought, they lay like hay in the open countryside …’

On the other hand, if the traveller is curious and crosses the road with the thought of discovering new places, the sight of so particular a mural will surely make him stop his vehicle and enter the streets of the town. In the main square his curiosity will be further aroused when approaching a commemorative monument of the battle that was fought in the fields nearby on 16 May 1811: a pedestal crowned by a bust of General Castaños, the victor of another battle which happened three years before – the famous Battle of Bailén. To each side of the bust, two small columns are raised on whose bases the names of several allied generals appear: Blake, Lardizabal, Ballesteros, Zayas, Carlos de Espana and Penne for Spain; Beresford, Hamilton, Lumley, Cole, Stewart and Alten for Britain and Portugal.

Outside the little village is a small obelisk that commemorates fallen Spanish officers of the General Staff in the battle; another memorial – rather larger and of more recent construction – remembers the British dead. In addition, next to the church is a centre interpreting the battle that, by means of a diorama and diverse maps and engravings, gives an account of all that occurred in the fields of Albuera that tragic day in 1811. In the display cabinets are different objects found by farmers when working the fields – projectiles, clasps, buckles, fragments of sabres and muskets – that can produce a shiver that accompanies the visitor for many hours after leaving the place.

Every year, towards the middle of May, several thousand people – up to 20,000 on occasion – go to the village to experience the spectacle of a recreation of the battle. Volunteers come from different countries and join the greater part of the inhabitants of Albuera, for a few days becoming soldiers of the time of the Napoleonic wars; they march, shoot and mount fearsome cavalry charges. This event, incorporated in 1965, lasts three days and has grown to about nine hundred participants on the battlefield. In addition, about three hundred neighbours present a play with the title ‘Albuera: history of love and death’. People who are present at these activities soon come to realize that this is not a celebration, but the commemoration of an event of the past that caused the small town of Badajoz to enter the history of Europe. Everyone that has been present at re-enactments of this type knows the objective: to recall past battles and conflicts so that such errors are not committed again; to promote friendship between towns and to teach history by means of making that history accessible.

Amongst the public, some will identify with one side or the other or perhaps a military unit that fascinates them. However, between the re-enactors it matters little what a frightening Polish lancer or a soldier of the British Middlesex regiment imagines about killing an enemy in the battle because, at the end of the day, everyone will gather in Wellington Park¹ to pay tribute to the fallen of the Battle of Albuera.

At this point, I would expect to be asked what Albuera represents for Spaniards interested in the history of the War of Independence. It is important to recognize that, although several articles in specialized magazines have been published, a deep study of the battle has still not been published in Spain. However, in the United Kingdom, several works do exist. You have in your hands the third or fourth. However, in our country, there are several dedicated to Bailén and, in lesser amounts, to the Battles of Talavera and of the Arapiles (Salamanca), as well as isolated works dedicated to the Battles of Barrosa, Ocaña and Sagunto, and that these two last, as is well known, were two catastrophic battles for the Spanish armies involved.

The Battle of Albuera was the fourth battle in which the Spanish and British armies participated as allies. In the first of the previous occasions, the soldiers of Sir John Moore saw the rest of the army of the Marques Romana marching after them in the tragic retreat towards La Coruna, soon to end up losing sight of them in the mountain ranges of Galicia. Spanish armies, comprising sick and inadequately uniformed soldiers, gave a poor impression to their British companions. One such was a Spanish army that had suffered a resounding defeat in the battle of Espinosa de los Monteros. At first it was formed from trained soldiers, but after the fiasco of the battle and several days of a terrible retreat through the mountains of the northern Peninsula, they thought only about surviving and fleeing as far as possible from the lethal French cavalry. In addition, to further demoralize these troops, the news arrived that two other Spanish armies had been defeated at Tudela and Gamonal. After the eventual evacuation of the British troops from the ports of La Coruna and Vigo, any allied nation would have sued for peace because, technically, Spain had already lost the war. However the Spanish continued resisting, and this would offer new opportunities to fight again shoulder to shoulder with the British.

The second encounter took place at Talavera. New units had been created and combined with the remnants of the old ones and, once more, Spaniards took themselves to the battlefield. One army, that of Extremadura, under the command of General Cuesta, was united to Sir Arthur Wellesley’s British force. However, morale could not be very high among men who had been defeated and who had seen so many of their comrades desert. In addition, they lacked training. At Talavera, the main weight of the French attack fell on the well-trained British troops. At the same time, several battalions of inexperienced Spanish troops fled when hearing the roar caused by the firing of muskets coming from their own side. Although Cuesta severely punished those who were apprehended, some even with death, the impression that this episode caused among the British troops could not have been worse. Spain had not been able to provide promised food and transport to the British army; if the Spaniards were additionally untrustworthy on the battlefield, it made little sense for the British army to remain in Spain. Logically, Wellesley decided to retire to Portugal to put his men, who now faced a massive advance from three French armies converging on the allies, out of danger. Despite the victory achieved, everything was a disaster. Bitterness seized the hearts of British officers, who lamented that so little came out of that campaign after so many sacrifices. From their point of view, the Spanish were cowardly and took advantage of British heroism. However, from the Spanish point of view, the British had left their allies to meet the unstoppable advance of the more numerous and much better quality armies of the French.

In the previous year, the somewhat fortunate victory