The Spanish Bride

6

“The worst arranged battle there could be: nothing but mistakes!’ That was Colonel Colborne’s verdict on the battle of Toulouse.

It began at five in the morning, with a demonstration by Hill against the outer lines beyond the St Cyprien bridge; and it did not end until five in the afternoon, when the daylight was failing. Freire’s Spaniards, having demanded the place of honour in the attack, failed to carry the Mont Rave heights; Picton turned a false attack into a real one, and once more got his division cut up; and Beresford, playing the chief part, was forced to undertake a long, arduous flanking movement, with his columns exposed all the way to the French artillery-fire from the heights.

‘I think Lord Wellington almost deserved to have been beaten,’ Colborne said. The Light division of course thought that the battle would have been won much sooner had they been more actively employed, adding a rider to the effect that if Picton had refrained from attacking (as usual) where he ought not to have done, it would have been helpful. The Light Bobs were drawn up rather more than half a mile from the Matabiau bridge across the Royal Canal, with General Freire’s divisions on their left, by the hill of Pujade. This hill, beyond which, to the east, Beresford’s flanking movement began, was dominated by the northern end of the Mont Rave heights, upon which the French General Villatte was strongly entrenched. General Freire having, after the customary Spanish fashion, claimed the right of holding the place of honour, Lord Wellington rather surprisingly gave him the task of storming the slope of Mont Rave, and dislodging the French from their redoubts and entrenchments. The attack was not to be made until Beresford had come up on the Spaniards’ left, but General Freire, a trifle elated, launched it before even the head of Beresford’s column had shown itself. He led the attack himself, and so gallantly did the Galicians charge up the hill that sceptical observers in the Light division said that they really looked as if they intended to do the thing handsomely.

Barnard’s brigade was the nearest to the Spaniards’ right flank, and from the start Colonel Colborne expected nothing but disaster. ‘I should be sorry to have to do it with two Light divisions,’ he said, when an optimistic officer cried, by God, Freire would do the business after all!

A withering fire from the heights met the Spanish advance, but they struggled on with great courage, until the sunken road leading to Peyrolle was reached.

‘Oh, the devil!’ exclaimed Harry, his glass fixed on the slopes of Mont Rave. ‘Their officers will never get ’em out of that!’

He was quite right; the hollow road was the Spaniards’ undoing. Scrambling down into it, they found that its high banks protected them from the artillery-fire. They lost the impetus of their first gallant rush; courage had time to cool; and not all the exertions of the officers could force them to face the murderous fire again. As soon as Villatte saw that they were not going to continue their advance, he sent his infantry forward from the trenches to pour a deadly musketry-fire into the hollow road. This was more than the Spaniards could bear. One regiment only, of Morilla’s division, stood its ground; the rest flew back pell-mell to the slopes of the Pujade.

Major George Napier, of the 52nd, seeing the rout descending upon his regiment, shouted: ‘Stop them! Stop them! Don’t let them go!’

Colborne, himself slightly wounded in the flesh of his arm by a splinter of shell, called out: ‘Yes, yes, let them go, and clear our fronts! Quick, George! Throw the regiment into open column of companies, and let the Spaniards pass through!”

This was done; Barnard flung his brigade forward to cover the retreat, and the French, seeing the Light division moving to the attack, abandoned the pursuit, and retired again to their entrenchments.

‘By God, won’t old Douro be in a rage!’ exclaimed Charlie Beckwith. But his lordship, watching the rout of the Spaniards with his brother-in-law, the Adjutant-General, beside him, had given a whoop of sudden laughter, and slapped his thigh. ‘Well, damme if ever I saw ten thousand men run a race before!’ he declared. ‘Now, what’s to be done? There I am, with nothing between me and the enemy!’

‘Well, I suppose you’ll order up the Light division now!’ said Pakenham. ‘I’ll be hanged if I do!’ replied his lordship. It took the Spaniards two hours to re-form, but re-form they did, and, to their credit, attacked the heights again. Freire led them in person, but they were repulsed with a good deal of loss, while the Light Bobs swore long and fluently at their own inactivity. ‘By God, I can’t stand this!’ Harry said, in a fret of impatience. ‘If we were pushed forward now, on the Spaniards’ flank, they would succeed! It’s murder to send ’em without support! Damn Alten!’

‘Wellington’s orders,’ grunted Barnard.

‘Serve Freire right for clamouring to be allowed to start the battle!’ said Digby unsympathetically. ‘They always do it, and they’ve never yet finished anything they’ve begun. To hell with ’em!’

By the time the Spaniards fell back for the second time, Beresford, having completed his long march at the foot of the eastern slopes of Mont Rave, was fast winning the battle from the south. He forced his way up on to the heights, defeating Harispe, and began to shell Villatte’s position from the rear, just as Barnard’s brigade was at last moved forward to support the Spaniards.

Soult ordered Villatte to retire. It was not yet dark, but after twelve hours of fighting both armies were tired out, and the Allied artillery was temporarily exhausted. French and British bivouacked where they stood, Beresford and Freire occupying the heights of Mont Rave, and the French having retreated behind the barrier of the Royal Canal.