Craven's War: The Fatal Blow, page 21
The sun was rising, and with it revealed a British Hussar cavalry brigade galloping on at their flank and towards a French dragoon screen, which were swept away without a fight to clear a path for the Spanish advance. Amongst the brigade was the 18th Hussars, which the Salford Riles cheers for. The Spanish ahead of them came to a halt at a village called La Pujade. It meant little to Craven, though he could see the place was being used as a final staging ground whilst the Spanish division awaited the development of the many prongs of Wellington’s attack. La Pujade was elevated, sitting directly across a shallow, muddy saddle from the main French fortifications, and so they were in full view of the enemy.
The civilian population of the village had long since fled. The sturdy, red brick walled farmhouses and outbuildings had been hastily looted or damaged by French pickets before they pulled back to the main redoubts. The wooden shutters hung loose or taken for firewood, and the narrow dirt lanes between the houses were churned into a thick soup by the passage of retreating French cavalry and carts. The village was relatively small, making it a claustrophobic bottleneck for the thousands of Spanish soldiers, beside which the Salford Rifles was a modest force. Freire was trying to cram two entire divisions of Spanish infantry into the narrow lanes, walled gardens, and the immediate surrounding fields to form them up for the assault. The air was thick with the frantic shouting of sergeants trying to dress their lines in a space not built for an army.
The most defining feature of La Pujade that morning was what the men could see from it. The village offered a perfectly clear, unobstructed, and horrifying view of the French defences, and especially the Great Redoubt atop the Calvinet ridge. It was a massive, angular earthwork bristling with heavy artillery. From La Pujade, the Spanish soldiers could look directly up the hill and see the French gunners standing with lit matches, waiting for them. They could see the dark blue masses of French infantry lining the trenches, their muskets resting on the parapets. A position which must be overcome if the city was to be assaulted. Though it seemed as though that dire task had been given to Beresford. Looking South from the edge of the village, the ground dipped down into a shallow valley before rising steeply again towards a crest. This dip was a muddy, open expanse completely devoid of cover. It was a perfect glacis, a killing ground designed by Soult’s engineers.
Halting an army in full view of the enemy’s guns was a psychologically punishing manoeuvre and the first great test of the Spanish division, for it would take great courage and willpower to not run upon such a sight. The men had just marched in the freezing morning air. Now, they were ordered to halt and stand perfectly still. Adrenaline surged though their bodies. Some shivered, as much from the horror before them as the cold, others vomited on the ground before them. Yet none ran.
Despite the sheer number of men crammed into the village, a terrifying quiet descended, the only sounds the whistling of the cold spring wind through the bare trees and the nervous, wet stamping of horses’ hooves. Wellington’s orders were for Freire to wait at La Pujade, that much was clear from the messengers galloping back and forth.
“What do we wait for, Sir?” Paget asked.
“For Marshal Beresford’s British divisions to complete their march, I imagine.”
Freire’s men had to stand in the freezing mud, staring up at the French guns as they watched Beresford’s divisions, which did not assault the heights. Instead, they turned South and ran the length of them. French artillery opened fire upon them, but there was also a great deal of activity atop the ridge as the French frantically tried to reposition. For the British advance had not made a direct assault on them, and now they were thrown into chaos.
For the ragged Spanish soldiers gripping their muskets in the ruined gardens of La Pujade, the village was a pressure cooker of freezing misery, offended national pride, and mounting terror. A great eruption of cannon fire drew their attention to the Western side of the city. For all of their efforts to seize the North and the East, nobody had paid attention to the West. Musket fire followed as British infantry poured into the French suburb on the West bank of the Garonne, joined to the main city by a large stone bridge. Craven smiled at the sight.
“What is it, Sir?”
“A well-timed diversion,” he declared as he watched French soldiers be diverted from the Eastern side of the city and be pulled away to face this new threat. A great battle erupted in the streets whilst cannon fire continued to pour down onto the Eastern edge of the city where Beresford’s force pressed on. The ground was difficult, due to the extensive heavy rain over the previous days, and the artillery following them was falling far behind.
Wellington himself arrived nearby and took up post on the edge La Pujade village near the Spanish division to follow the progress of his attack. Craven nodded at his own assessment, for he could see this was where the main attack was manifesting. They were relieved to see Spanish artillery pieces being dragged past them as General Freire saw to their deployment. It did not take long for them to be unlimbered and readied to fire. A cannonade erupted on the French positions around the Great Redoubt, smashing into the walls. One of the French guns was struck, its carriage obliterated. A great cheer ignited, for it was a small victory, but a victory, nonetheless.
Next it was Picton’s turn to advance to the West of Wellington’s position on the East side of the Garonne. Craven felt most helpless as he watched the battle ensue, and yet he must wait his turn, for he had promised the Spanish General he would assist him.
Picton’s division pressed forward against twin bridges over a canal.
The target Picton was facing was not merely a waterway; Marshal Soult’s engineers had turned it into a lethal meatgrinder. The canal was a sheer, steep-sided trench, completely unfordable for infantry. At the bridgehead itself, the French had constructed a massive earthen redoubt. It was protected by a deep ditch and ringed with a heavy timber palisade. The approaches to the bridge were completely flat, open ground, entirely swept by French artillery firing canister shot and hundreds of entrenched French Infantry whose muskets rested securely on the parapets. Picton’s force engaged with the enemy in a ranged duel with their skirmishers, battling it out with a great deal of noise, but to no great effect for either side.
“When will our time come!” Birback roared.
A number of the Salford men laughed at his impatience.
“It will come soon enough. We need not wish it any sooner,” insisted Amyn.
“Is this the last battle of the war, do you think?” Caffy asked wearily.
He was exhausted. They all were. For their winters had provided little rest from the hard campaigns and been frequently cut short to start a new amid miserable conditions. Wellington’s army was one falling apart at the seams from fatigue, sickness, and an ever-increasing number of battlefield wounds.
“Our time will come soon,” declared Matthys as he could see the Spanish General was getting anxious and impatient.
Chapter 17
The air in the abandoned village of La Pujade was thick with an agonising, freezing tension. For over an hour, General Manuel Freire and his eight thousand Spanish soldiers had stood shivering in the mud, staring up the valley at the earthen walls of the Great Redoubt. They were clearly waiting for Marshal Beresford’s British columns to finish their two-mile march through the swamp below to the East of the heights so that they might attack the heights from both flanks. Beresford to the South end of the ridge and a Spanish assault to the North of it. A great pincer movement which would stretch the French soldiers’ resources thin. Beresford’s advance was a surprising one, for he had not made a direct attack, nor travelled the dangerous line between the heights and the city walls, but he had skirted around the heights.
General Freire looked eager to do battle. But Craven knew the General was a cavalryman, and patience was not in his blood. Freire sat upon his gaunt Andalusian horse near the edge of the village, the freezing Pyrenean wind snapping at his heavy cloak. From the South, two miles away, the dull, rhythmic thudding of artillery echoed up the river valley. Beresford’s men were taking fire as they marched. To Freire, every distant cannon shot felt like an accusation against Spanish courage. The British were bleeding whilst the Spanish stood hiding in the ruins. He could not bear the shame of being ridiculed for standing by and doing nothing. Through his spyglass, he stared at the French lines atop the Heights of Calvinet. Whether it was a genuine redeployment of French troops shifting to face Beresford, or the shifting powder smoke playing tricks on his eyes, Freire convinced himself the French were beginning to fall back, or at least that is what he wanted to believe.
The Spanish General carried the pride of Spain upon his shoulders, and his blood was boiling over. He turned to his staff officers. His face, weathered by six years of war and British condescension, was tight with fury. He would not let the British claim the glory of taking the heights whilst the Spanish were relegated to spectators. Freire drew his heavy sabre. The harsh, metallic shriek of the blade leaving its scabbard cut through the low murmuring of the shivering infantry. It was a sound that instantly rippled through the tightly packed ranks in the village lanes.
He stood in his stirrups, pointing the tip of his blade directly at the massive, fortified hill looming above them. He did not issue a complex tactical manoeuvre. He simply roared, his voice cracking with emotion.
“Adelante! Viva España! Viva el Rey!”
The order was not delivered with cold, calculated staff-work. It was a visceral eruption of martial pride. Craven needed no translation for his words, as a great cheer erupted from the Spanish soldiers who were awoken from their cold slumber.
The drummers instantly began beating their drums. Every Spanish officer drew their sword and began beckoning their men forward. The columns surged out from the meagre protection of La Pujade’s brick walls and shattered orchards. As the first ranks stepped out from the village, they crossed an invisible threshold. They left the claustrophobia of the ruins and stepped into the vast, terrible openness of the valley floor. Between them and the Great Redoubt lay hundreds of yards of uphill, muddy terrain. There were no trees, no stone walls, no ditches to hide in. It was a perfect, sweeping killing ground entirely sighted by French artillery. Craven led his Salford Rifles on in support, leaving their horses behind in the protection of the village.
Despite the frantic beating of the drums, the men did not immediately scream. They marched with their muskets shouldered, their heads bowed against the wind and the terrifying anticipation. Atop the hill, the French gunners of Soult’s artillery watched the massive colourful columns of Spanish infantry emerge from the village.
They had been waiting for this exact moment all morning. They pressed onwards, marching with purpose and soon began to spread out around the base of the redoubt. One column was led personally by General Freire himself. Ever the cavalryman, he could not stand to have others launch an attack whilst he watched from the sidelines. The order soon came to make the assault as thousands of Spanish infantry swarmed up the slope.
The French artillery officers waited until the Spanish were fully committed, completely exposed in the centre of the muddy bowl. Then, the matches were touched to the touchholes. The entire crest of the Heights of Calvinet seemed to violently lift off the earth. A deafening, continuous roar shattered the morning. A massive cloud of dirty white smoke blew out from the redoubts. A split-second later, a shrieking storm of solid iron round shot and canister tore down the hill, ripping massive, bloody lanes directly through the tightly packed Spanish ranks. The battle had truly begun, and ’s men were instantly trapped in a horrific crossfire.
French cannons were firing canister shot directly into the face of the Spanish vanguard. Entire files of men, dozens at a time, were instantly swept away. There was no time to flinch or brace; the front ranks disintegrated into a spray of blood, shattered muskets, and shredded wool. Behind the vanguard, the deeper ranks of the column were subjected to the horrific downpour of solid iron round shot. A twelve-pound solid iron cannonball fired into a dense column of infantry did not stop when it hit a man. It ploughed completely through him, and the man behind him, and the man behind him. It created deep bloody lanes straight down the length of the Spanish formation.
Beneath the deafening roar of the cannons was a sickening, wet, percussive thudding, the sound of iron smashing through bone and human tissue at supersonic speeds. As the front ranks fell, the momentum of the thousands of men marching behind them pushed forward. The living were shoved directly on top of the dead and the thrashing wounded. Craven and his companions could hardly believe what they were seeing ahead. The Spanish ranks were being slaughtered, and yet still those behind them pressed on with immense bravery. The clinging, knee-deep mud of the valley floor was instantly slicked with blood.
Within minutes, the heavy, sulphurous smoke from the French guns rolled down the hillside, settling in the damp valley. The Spanish soldiers were blinded. They could not see the enemy; they could only see the man next to them being violently torn apart by invisible projectiles. Verbal orders became physically impossible. Officers screamed themselves hoarse trying to dress the lines or order the men to deploy into a wider line to minimise the artillery damage, but their voices were entirely swallowed by the thunder of the guns and the horrific, high-pitched shrieking of the wounded.
Courage and national pride evaporated in the face of mathematical annihilation. The Spanish infantry realised with terrifying clarity that they could not reach the top of the hill. The tipping point came suddenly. A murmur of terror swelled into a collective, panicked scream. What was left of the rigid geometry of the columns instantly dissolved. Men who had shown immense bravery just moments before now turned their backs to the French guns and began running wildly back down the bloody slope towards the safety of the British lines. It was no longer an army. It was a terrified, fleeing mob, scrambling desperately through the mud whilst the French gunners mercilessly continued pouring iron into their backs.
Craven and the Salford Rifles hurried forward to try and lend some support. Moxy and a dozen others opened fire with well-aimed shots, which struck a number of Frenchman atop the redoubt, and more followed as the skirmishers continued their work. And yet their small number could not stop the outpour of fire from the top. They were so close now, Craven felt as though they could make it over the earthen parapet in a single sprint, and yet the ferocity of fire coming back down the hill made it feel impossible. The Salford Rifles had barely even got into the fight, for the columns ahead of them had fallen into chaos and panic. All they could do was retreat with the Spanish division or suffer the same wrath of the French guns.
Even Birback looked downtrodden by the bedraggled sight of their allies. Craven looked Westward to Picton’s position. For a few hours he had obeyed Wellington’s orders to launch only a feint. His light companies skirmished with the French pickets. But as the morning wore on, he seemed incited by the thunder of ’s Spanish guns attacking to the East, and the distant guns engaging Beresford’s men to the South. Characteristically aggressive, Picton now pressed his soldiers on hard as he turned his feint into a full assault against heavily fortified positions in front of the city walls. Standing in the mud, Picton could not bear the thought that the rest of the army was fighting whilst his famous Third Division, the men who had stormed the breaches at Badajoz, were merely putting on a noisy show. Craven watched as Wellington sent multiple messengers towards the General, but to no avail, for nobody would stop the hot-headed Welshman.
Abandoning all tactical restraint, Picton drew his sword and ordered the Third Division to form attack columns as he attempted take the French fortifications by sheer, brute force.
“He means to attack that?” Paget asked in amazement at the fortifications before them.
The men of the Third Division emerged from cover and charged across the open ground towards the canal. Instantly, the French redoubt erupted in flame. Because the British were packed into tight columns, the French artillery could not miss. Solid iron round shot ploughed through the ranks, taking off heads and limbs, whilst the French infantry poured devastating, continuous volleys into the advancing redcoats. Despite horrific casualties, the vanguard of the British infantry actually reached the French defences. But there, the attack physically died. They hit the deep ditch and the sharpened wooden palisade. Picton had brought no scaling ladders, for this was never intended to be an assault. There was absolutely no way to climb over the timber wall, and the heavy wooden gates of the bridge were locked and barricaded.
The British soldiers were trapped in the ditch, desperately hacking at the thick wooden palisades with their bayonets and musket butts. The French defenders stood above them on the earthworks, pointing their muskets down into the packed mass of men, and fired at point-blank range. Realising the sheer impossibility of the task, the surviving officers of the Third Division finally called the retreat. They began pulling back across the same bloody, open ground, leaving behind nearly four hundred dead and wounded British soldiers. It was a testament to the staggering bravery of the British infantry and the lethal foolishness of their commander.
Craven shook his head, for it had been a senseless loss, but they had more pressing matters to deal with. Wellington galloped towards them with great concern on his face. Craven peered around to see the cause of it. French infantry poured down the slope in pursuit, and the collapse of the Spanish division had left a gaping hole in the centre of Wellington’s army, one which the French might pierce and cause a collapse of their entire force. Craven turned back to the charging French and paused as he stopped breathing upon the sight of a man he recognised. He threw his sword down and lifted his rifle into his shoulder. Down his sights he found himself looking upon the Spanish traitor Jacabo, in the uniform of a French officer.
