Next day, April 1, the army crossed the frontier and encamped on Spanish territory. It still included more than 45,000 effectives, and had sent more than 10,000 sick and wounded to Rodrigo and Salamanca. We had entered Portugal with 60,000 combatants, besides the division of the 9th corps which had joined us. During this long campaign, therefore, we had lost about 10,000 men killed, dead of illness, and prisoners.

The army took post round Almeida, Ciudad Rodrigo, and Dora. Masséna was thus in a most awkward position, for the two fortresses and the surrounding country were under the authority of Bessières, to whom the Emperor had entrusted the command of a new army, called the 'Northern,' entirely composed of troops belonging to the Young Guard. Hence arose a conflict of authority between the two marshals, Bessières wishing to keep all the supplies for his troops, while Masséna reasonably maintained that his army, which had endured so many hardships in Portugal, had a right to at least an equal share in the distribution of provisions. The Emperor, usually so farsighted, had not given any orders to meet the case of Masséna's army being forced to evacuate Spain. Great perplexity, therefore, prevailed on the frontier, especially as to the defence of Ciudad Rodrigo and Almeida. These two fortresses, though in different countries, are so near that it was unnecessary to hold both, and the Emperor had ordered the withdrawal of the garrison of Almeida and the destruction of the ramparts, already much shattered by the explosion of the previous year. But just when the governor, General Brénier, was taking steps for the destruction of the place, he had received a counter-order from the War Minister, so that Masséna, who meantime arrived from Portugal, could not decide anything. However, as the troops could not subsist in the sterile neighbourhood of Almeida, he was obliged to take them away, and abandon the place to its own resources. These consisted of a weak garrison victualled for twenty-five days. If positive orders had been received, a week during which the army was present would have sufficed to destroy the fortifications; but as soon as it was gone, the English hastened to invest the place, and next month an expedition had to be undertaken for its relief which cost many lives, and did not attain its object.

The order placing the Count of Erlon and his force under Masséna's command came at length, three months too late. After cantoning his army between Rodrigo, Zamora, and Salamanca, the marshal, on April 9, fixed his headquarters in the last-named town. While we were there an event occurred not very creditable to the English army. Colonel Waters, a member of Wellington's staff, had been taken prisoner by our troops; and as he gave his parole, Masséna allowed him to retain his sword and his horse, and to lodge each night in a private house. He thus travelled at liberty, in company with our columns, till one day when they were halted in the wood of Matilla, he seized the moment when all were reposing, and putting his excellent horse into a gallop, disappeared. Three days later he rejoined Wellington, who seemed to find the trick highly amusing. 2When Masséna complained that the Portuguese militia had been massacring French prisoners, and recently a colonel, the same Wellington replied, 'That he had to employ all his resources to repel a war of invasion, and could not answer for the excesses into which the peasants were led.'

Rest and good care at Salamanca soon cured me; but my satisfaction at this was alloyed by a vexatious incident which caused me much trouble. My good friend Ligniville left us in consequence of a serious difference with Masséna. The marshal had entrusted him the laborious duties of chief equerry, which he performed, I may say, quite voluntarily, and out of good-nature. Fond as he was of horses, he had much difficulty in feeding them in Spain and Portugal, but he made the best of it. It had been ascertained that in order to convey all the utensils and baggage of the headquarters, thirty mules were required, and Ligniville, before entering on the campaign, had proposed to obtain them; but Masséna, not wishing to bear the cost himself, had ordered the commissary-general to get them for him. He had these pack animals with him throughout. Now the Spaniards have a good habit of shaving their mules' backs, so that the hair may not work into lumps under the pack, and make them sore. The operation can only be done by experts, and is pretty costly. Masséna, therefore, proposed to Ligniville to make the Mayor of Salamanca pay the cost out of the local funds; but Ligniville refused to be a party to what he thought an exaction, and a scene ensued. Finally my friend told the marshal that as he showed so little gratitude for his condescension in acting as equerry he would not only vacate the post, but offer his resignation, and rejoin the 18th Dragoons, to which he belonged. In vain did Masséna try every means to make him stay; Ligniville, a calm but very determined man, was inflexible, and fixed the day for his departure. Major Pelet being away on service, I was doing the duty of senior aide-de-camp, and in that capacity I assembled all the staff officers, and proposed to them that we should show our esteem for our good comrade by riding with him a league from the town. My suggestion was accepted, and in order that Prosper Masséna should not seem to be finding fault with his father, we were careful to tell him off to remain in the ante-room while we escorted Ligniville. Our farewell was cordial, for we all liked him. Though our action was perfectly honourable, Masséna was angry at it, and accused me of instigating it; and from that time his grudge against me revived, though my behaviour during the campaign had restored his confidence and interest in me.

Meanwhile the garrison of Almeida, invested by the English, and almost out of provisions, was on the point of surrendering, and the Emperor, in order to deprive the English of this triumph, had ordered Masséna to march his whole forces to the place and blow up the ramparts. But this operation had, as I have said, now become a very delicate one, since a considerable force was blockading Almeida and we should have to fight a battle. There was another not less serious difficulty. Masséna's army, distributed through the province of Salamanca, was not exactly living in the arms of plenty. Still every cantonment could supply the small body quartered in it, while if we were to march on the English, we must concentrate our troops and provide supplies which we had no sufficient means of storing or transporting.

As governor of the province, Marshal Bessières could dispose of all its resources, but he reserved them for the regiments of the guard. He had plenty of cavalry and a formidable artillery, while Masséna, though his infantry was still respectable, was short of horses. He therefore asked Bessières to lend him some, and all the letters which he received from him abounded in the most encouraging protestations. As, however, they remained without result, and Almeida was known to be at the last gasp, Masséna no longer contented himself with writing to his colleague, whose headquarters were at Valladolid, but resolved to send an aide-de camp, who could explain the gravity of the position, and press him to send support. The commander-in-chief selected me to discharge this duty. Having been severely wounded on March 14, I was, five weeks later, not exactly in condition to ride post-haste over roads covered with guerrillas. In any other circumstances I should have remarked as much to the marshal, but as he was cross with me, and as I had, through excessive zeal, asked leave to resume my duties (not expecting to have such a severe job in the course of the next few days) I did not care to throw myself on Masséna's pity, so I started in spite of the remonstrances of my comrades and my brother, who offered to take my place. In order to perform the duty I had to gallop the whole way on post horses; the wound in my side reopened and caused me much pain, still I reached Valladolid. Marshal Bessières, to prove outright that he cherished no grudge against me in regard to the quarrel between Marshal Lannes and himself on the battlefield of Essling, in which I was so innocently involved, received me very kindly. Complying with Masséna's reiterated request, he promised to send several regiments and three batteries of field artillery as well as abundant provisions. In such haste was I to report this good news to Masséna that I started back after a few hours' rest. At one moment I thought I was going to be attacked, but at the sight of the pennons on the lances of our escort, the guerrilleros, who had a particular dread of that arm, took to their heels, and I got back to the marshal without any trouble. Satisfied as he was with the result of my mission, he did not say a single good-natured word about the zeal which I had shown. It must be admitted that the many annoyances which he had all around him did a good deal to embitter his naturally vindictive temper. He had to undergo another and crowning one. Our war in the Peninsula being directed from Paris, many strange anomalies resulted. For instance, just as the chief of the staff was directing Masséna to bring all his troops together and hasten to the relief of Almeida he was ordering the Count of Erlon, whose corps formed part of Masséna's army, to repair at once to Andalusia and join Soult. Ordered thus in two contrary directions, and knowing that his troops would be better off in fertile Andalusia than in sterile Portugal, Erlon was making ready to start for Seville. But as his departure would have deprived Masséna of two fine infantry divisions, and made it impossible for him to relieve Almeida, according to the Emperor's instructions, he declined to allow it. The other insisted, and the wretched squabbles which we had already witnessed in the past winter with regard to the corps were revived. At length, under pressure from Masséna, the Count of Erlon agreed to remain till the blockade of Almeida was raised. That a commander-in-chief should have thus to entreat his subordinate was quite unreasonable, and could only injure military discipline.

Meanwhile Bessières' promised reinforcements, not having arrived by the 21st, Masséna, reckoning only on his own resources to make his way to Almeida, concentrated his army on the 26th at Ciudad Rodrigo. But in order to feed the assembled forces, it was necessary to draw upon the supplies of Rodrigo, and thus compromise the future fate of that important place. We were only three leagues from the English who were surrounding Almeida. We could not communicate with the place, and we did not know their strength. But we knew that Wellington had gone beyond Badajos with a strong detachment, and Masséna, trusting that he would be unable to be back for eight or ten days, wished to take advantage of his absence and accomplish the re-victualling of Almeida. Wellington, however, hearing of the movements of the French, returned promptly on his tracks and was in front of us on May 1st. This was a great misfortune, for it was probable that General Spencer, who was in temporary command of the English army, would not have ventured to take the responsibility of engaging such an adversary as Masséna, and Almeida might have been re-victualled without trouble.

Great was the joy of our soldiers, who, though they had lived some days on half rations of bread and less of meat, were yet eager to fight, when, on the morning of the 2nd, they saw a weak column of Marshal Bessières' troops approaching, and took it for an advance-guard. But the reinforcement so pompously announced, and so long awaited, was confined to 1,500 cavalry, 6 guns, and 30 good teams. Bessières was bringing neither ammunition nor provisions. It was a regular hoax. Masséna was horrified, but very soon grew angry at seeing that Bessières was himself in command of this feeble succour. Indeed, the presence of that Marshal was calculated to annoy him. The Army of Portugal was, it is true, in a province subject to the jurisdiction of Bessières, but it was independent of him, and solely under Masséna's orders, nor was there any reason, because Bessières was lending a few soldiers, that he should come in person to control in some measure his colleague's actions. Masséna understood this, and said to us, 'He would have done much better to have sent me a few more thousand men with ammunition and provisions, and to have remained at the centre of his province than to come examining and criticizing what I am going to do.' Bessières was therefore very coldly received, but this did not hinder him from following Masséna during the short campaign and giving him his advice. The army started on the afternoon of May 2, and hostilities began the next day. A new series of mistakes commenced, arising from the ill-will of certain generals towards Masséna, and the want of understanding which prevailed among the rest.

We fell in with the Anglo-Portuguese army on the frontier posted in front of Almeida, and blockading the place. The troops were occupying a broad plateau between the stream of the Turones and the one which flows in the deep gorge called Dos Casas. Lord Wellington's left was near the ruined Fort Concepcion, his centre towards the village of Alameda, and his right posted at Fuentes d'Oñoro was prolonged towards the marsh of Nave de Avel, whence flows the stream which some call Dos Cases and others d'Oñoro; this brook covered his front. The French came up in three columns by the Ciudad Rodrigo road; the 6th and 9th corps, under Loison, formed the right [left] wing, facing Fuentes; the 8th corps, under Junot, and Montbrun's cavalry, were in the centre; General Reynier, with the 2nd corps, watched Alameda and Fort Concepcion on the right. Several picked battalions, the lancers of the guard, and some batteries formed the reserve; it was commanded by General Lepic, famous for his brilliant conduct at Eylau.

Our troops were hardly in their respective positions when General Loison, without awaiting Masséna's orders for a concerted movement, charged the village of Oñoro, occupied by the Highlanders and some picked battalions. Their attack was so brisk that the enemy, although entrenched in solid stone houses, were compelled to abandon the position. But they retired into an old chapel on the top of the huge rocks which command Oñoro, and it was impossible to dislodge them. Masséna, therefore, gave orders for the moment only to occupy the village and to garnish all the houses with troops. But the order was badly executed for Ferey's division to whom the duty fell, carried away by the ardour of a first success, formed in a mass outside Oñoro, thus exposing itself to an artillery and musketry fire from the English at the chapel. Finally, to complete our disasters, our troops were thrown into disorder by a deplorable occurrence, which should have been foreseen. In Ferey's division there was a battalion of the Hanoverian legion in the French service. Their uniform was red, like the English, but they had the usual grey overcoat of the French soldier, and accordingly their commander, who had had several men killed by our people at Busaco, asked leave for his men to wear their greatcoats instead of rolling them up, as the order was. But General Loison replied that he must follow the order given to the whole corps. The result was a cruel blunder. The 66th Regiment, having been sent to support the Hanoverians, who were in the fighting line, mistook them in the smoke for an English battalion, and fired into them, while our artillery, equally misled by the red coats, played on them with grape. I must do the brave Hanoverians the justice to say that, placed as they were between two fires they endured them for a long time without recoiling a step but after losing 100 men killed and many wounded, the battalion was compelled to retire, passing along one side of the village. Another regiment, which was entering the village at that moment, seeing the red coats on their flank supposed that the position had been turned by an English column, and the enemy cleverly took advantage of the resulting confusion to recapture Fuentes d'Oñoro, which would not have happened if the generals had followed Masséna's order to line the windows with infantry. Night put an end to this first engagement, in which we had 600 men disabled; the enemy's loss was about the same, and fell chiefly upon their best troops, the Highlanders. Colonel Williams was killed.

I could never understand how Wellington consented to await the French in so unfavourable a position as that in which General Spencer's incapacity had placed the troops. The allies had in fact in their rear not only the fortress of Alameda barring their only good line of retreat, but also the Coa, a stream with steep banks and difficult approaches, which might have caused the entire loss of the army if it had been compelled to retreat. It is true that the steep and deep ravine of the Dos Casas protected the English front from Fort Concepcion to Nave de Avel, but beyond that point the sides of the ravine fall away and sink to a marsh which is easy to cross. Even so, Wellington might have used it to cover his extreme right if he had defended it with a good regiment supported by artillery, but forgetting the harm which had resulted at Busaco from assigning to Trant's irregulars the task of preventing the French from making a flank march by Boialva, he fell into the same error again when he entrusted the defence of the marsh to the irregular bands of Don Julian, who were quite unfit to resist troops of the line. On hearing of this negligence through a cavalry patrol, Masséna ordered everything to be got ready for crossing the marsh at daybreak the next morning, in order to take the enemy's right wing in rear. Plenty of fascines were constructed during the night, and the 8th corps, with part of the 9th, marched in silence towards Nave de Avel, Ferey's division remaining before Oñoro, which was still occupied by the enemy.

At daybreak on May 5 a company of light infantry slipping through the willows and the reeds, crossed the marsh noiselessly and, passing the fascines along, filled up the bad places, which turned out to be much fewer in number than we had supposed. Don Julian and his guerrillas, deeming themselves secure behind the marsh, kept such a bad watch that our people found them asleep and killed some thirty of them. All the rest of the band, instead of keeping up a smart fire, if only to warn the English, took to its heels and fled beyond the Turones, and Don Julian, brave as he was, could not keep his undisciplined soldiers in hand. Profiting by Wellington's negligence, our troops hastened to cross the marsh, and we had on the other side four divisions of infantry, all Montbrun's cavalry with several batteries, and were in possession of Nave de Avel before the English found it out. This was one of the finest movements which Masséna ever devised, the last flicker of an expiring lamp.

By our passage of the marsh the enemy's right was completely out-flanked, and Wellington's situation became extremely difficult. Not only had he to execute a huge change of front to meet those of our divisions which were occupying Nave de Avel and Pozo Velho, but he was compelled to leave part of his troops before Fuentes d'Oñoro and Alameda to check Erlon's and Reynier's corps, which were making ready to cross the Dos Casas and attack the enemy during their evolutions. Lord Wellington had so fully believed his extreme right wing to be sheltered by the marsh, that he had only left a few cavalry scouts at that point, but seeing that wing turned he made haste to send forward towards Pozo Velho the first infantry brigade that came to hand. This advanced guard was overthrown and cut to pieces by our cavalry under Montbrun. General Mancune, following up this advance, flung himself into the wood of Pozo Velho, driving from it the Highlanders with a loss of 250 prisoners and 100 killed. Thus everything was promising a brilliant victory for the French when a discussion arose between Generals Loison and Montbrun, and the latter stayed the march of the cavalry reserve under the plea that the batteries of the Guard which had been promised him had not yet come up. In point of fact, Marshal Bessières had detained them without letting Masséna know, and he, learning of the difficulty too late, sent several guns to Montbrun. The delay, however, was doubly fatal to us, first because Loison's infantry, seeing that it was no longer supported by Montbrun's cavalry, hesitated to engage in the plain, while in the second place this disastrous halt gave Wellington time to bring up all his cavalry to support Houstoun's and Craufurd's divisions, which alone were as yet in position before us. Meantime, by Masséna's orders, General Montbrun, covering his artillery with some squadrons of hussars, advanced afresh, and, suddenly unmasking his guns, tore up Houstoun's division, and when it began to waver charged it with Wathiez' and Fournier's brigades. These cut the 51st regiment almost entirely to pieces, and completely routed the rest of Houstoun's division. The fugitives reached Villa Formosa on the left bank of the Turones, and owed their safety solely to the regiment of chasseurs Britanniques, who, ranged behind a long and stout stone wall, stayed the dash of our troopers by a fire no less well sustained than aimed.

In this part of the field Wellington had now only Craufurd's division and the cavalry, the rest of his army, which had been taken in rear, not having as yet completed the immense change of front necessary to bring them into line against the French. As the ground on which they were now fighting had been, until we crossed the marsh, the least exposed part, the English commissariat and the wounded, the servants, baggage and led horses, the soldiers who had got separated from their regiments, were crowded together there, and the vast plain as far as the Turones was covered with a disorderly multitude, in the midst of which the three squares formed by Craufurd's infantry looked like mere specks; and there we had, within cannon-shot, and all ready to charge the enemy, the corps of Loison and Junot, 5,000 cavalry, and 4 field-batteries into the bargain. The 8th corps was already clear of the wood of Pozo Velho, the 9th was vigorously attacking the village of Fuentes d'Oñoro by the right bank of the Dos Casas, and General Reynier had orders to debouch by Alameda, and take the English in the rear. We had only to march forward. Indeed, Napier, who was present at this battle, admits that, during the whole war, there was no moment of such danger for the British army. But blind Fortune decided otherwise. General Loison, instead of marching by the left bank to take Fuentes d'Oñoro in rear, while Drouet d'Erlon attacked in front, lost much time and made false movements which allowed Wellington to reinforce that important point—the key, indeed, of the position. General Reynier, on his side, did not carry out Masséna's orders; for, under the plea that he had too strong a force in front of him, he never went beyond Alameda, and took scarcely any part in the action. In spite of all these mishaps, so great were our advantages that it was yet possible to win the battle. Montbrun's cavalry, having beaten that of the enemy, soon found itself in presence of Craufurd's infantry. It charged and broke two squares, cutting one literally to pieces. The men of the 2nd threw down their arms and fled to the plain; Colonel Hill surrendered his sword to Staff-Adjutant Dulimberg of the 13th Chasseurs, and we took 1,500 prisoners. The third English square held firm. Montbrun caused Fournier's and Wathiez' brigades to attack it, and they had pierced one of the faces when both generals had their horses killed under them and all the colonels were wounded, so that there was nobody to take charge of the victorious regiments. Montbrun hastened up, but the enemy's square had been reformed, and, in order to attack it, he would have to reform his own squadrons. While he was thus engaged, Masséna sent an aide-de-camp to General Lepic, in command of the reserve cavalry of the Guard, with orders to charge. But Lepic, biting his sword blade in desperation, replied, with much regret, that his immediate chief, Marshal Bessières, had forbidden him to take the Guard into action without his order. Ten aides-de-camp went off in every direction to look for Bessières; but he, after being for some days always at Masséna's side, had now disappeared. This was not owing to any want of courage, but of set design, or from a jealousy which made him unmindful of the interest of France and unwilling to send a single man under his command in order to secure a victory the credit of which would fall to his comrade. At last, after a quarter of an hour, Bessières was discovered at a distance from the field of battle, wandering on the further side of the marsh, and examining the construction of the fascines which had been used in the morning. He hastened up with a show of earnestness, but the decisive moment had been missed, through his fault, and did not recur. The English had recovered from the disorder caused by Montbrun's charge, and had brought up a powerful artillery which was playing our squadrons with grape, while their men were recapturing the prisoners whom we had taken. In short, Lord Wellington's change of front was completed, and his army in its new position on the plateau, with its right resting on the Turones, its left on Fuentes d'Oñoro. 3

At the sight of this new and solidly-constituted line, Masséna halted his troops and opened a heavy cannonade, causing much destruction in the enemy's ranks. A general charge of our cavalry might have crushed them, and Masséna hoped that Bessières would at last allow the regiment of the Guard to take part in this ' pull all together,' which would infallibly have given us the victory. But Bessières refused saying that he was responsible to the Emperor for any loss which his Guard might incur, as if all the army were not in the Emperor's service, and the essential point with him were not to hear that the English had been driven out of the Peninsula! All the soldiers, those of the Guard most of all, were indignant at Bessières' decision, wanting to know what that marshal had come before Almeida for, if he did not wish his troops to take part in the fighting which was to save the place. This unexpected mishap changed the complexion of affairs at once; every moment the English were receiving reinforcements, and one of their divisions, coming from the force blockading Almeida, had just crossed the Turones, and was forming in the plain. The position of the two armies lying thus altered, Masséna's dispositions had to be altered likewise. He resolved, therefore, to move the bulk of his troops towards Almeida, and, joining Reynier, to fall upon the right and rear of the enemy. This was the counterpart of the previous night's movement on Nave de Avel; but a new obstacle hindered its execution. General Eblé, commanding the artillery, hurried up with the news that he had, at the artillery park, not more than four cartridges per man, which, with those left in their pouches, gave not more than a score to each soldier. This was an insufficient supply with which to renew the struggle against a foe who was sure to resist desperately, and Masséna ordered every wagon to be sent instantly to Rodrigo for ammunition. But the commissary-general reported that he had made use of them to fetch from the same place the bread required for the morrow's supply. Having no other means of transport, Masséna asked Bessières to lend him the Guard's ammunition-wagons for a few hours; but he replied that his teams were already tired, and that a night march over bad roads would finish them— he could not lend them till the next day. Masséna flew into a rage, exclaiming that victory was being snatched from him a second time; but Bessiéres maintained his refusal, and a violent scene took place between the two marshals.

At daybreak on the 6th, Bessières' wagons started for Rodrigo; but they moved so slowly that the cartridges did not come till the afternoon, and Wellington had employed the twenty-four hours in entrenching his new position, especially the upper part of the village of Fuentes d'Oñoro. It could not now be taken save at the expense of torrents of French blood, and the opportunity of victory was hopelessly lost to us.