The Peninsular War: The Spanish Perspective by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 0000000000000
Published: 2024-02-25T14:05:58+00:00

The battle

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After a few days of marching, on 27 November the Duke of Parque halted his Army of the Left at Alba de Tormes, a town about 25km (15 miles) southeast of Salamanca. He found it a favourable place for his troops to rest and, trusting that the French Army was still a great distance behind, he made the crucial mistake of dividing his troops between the two banks of the Tormes river, leaving the 3rd and 5th Divisions on the right bank and the Vanguard, 1st and 2nd Divisions, together with the cavalry and the baggage train, on the left. According to García Fuertes (2006), he ordered the Prince of Anglona to send his horsemen out on patrol to watch for any indication of a French advance, but either through negligence or passivity the cavalry units did not deploy (see Map 8).

On the morning of 28 November, the troops of the Army of the Left were scattered around Alba de Tormes, resting after their long march. Suddenly, to their horror, they saw 4,000 French horsemen bearing down on them. The cavalry of Generals Lorcet and Kellerman were on the attack. With their formations broken, they had no time to organize their defence. Panic-stricken, they tried to cross the only bridge across the Tormes river, and the most desperate of them threw themselves into the cold water, while the French horsemen slaughtered the Galician and Asturian recruits without difficulty. Losada and Castelar’s divisions, the 1st and 2nd respectively, suffered the most. The Duke of Parque, from the opposite bank of the river, could do little more than be a desperate spectator of the slaughter. The bridge, blocked by the baggage train, hardly allowed any traffic across. The Prince of Anglona tried to throw in his cavalry to repel the French, but his troops were outnumbered 4 to 1 and were quickly routed.

General Kellerman had been very skilful. His cavalry division, along with Lorcet’s Hussars, had advanced ahead of the bulk of Marchand’s infantry. Arriving in the vicinity of Alba de Tormes, he saw that the Spanish troops were unprepared for an attack. Without hesitating, he organized his horsemen into lines, with Lorcet’s Hussars in the front, followed by two lines of his Dragoons, and then the rest of his cavalry. He had it in his hands to annihilate the Army of the Left.

However, the slaughter had given the rest of Castelar’s men and Martín de la Carrera’s Vanguard Division precious time to prepare themselves. The energetic General Mendizábal, the Duke of Parque’s lieutenant, who was on the riverbank under attack, managed to organize infantry squares on the slopes of the Tejares hill. Now the second phase of the battle began. Kellerman and Lorcet regrouped their horsemen and threw themselves on the Spanish squares. For the first time in the entire war the Spanish infantry squares were able to repel French cavalry charges without dispersing or fleeing in panic. Kellerman launched three cavalry charges and all three hit the Spanish wall.

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