Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 60.djvu/188

 Wellesley command to Marmont, who had been sent to succeed him, and who withdrew most of the troops to Salamanca.

The siege of Badajoz had been begun on 8 May 1811, but Soult advanced to raise it. He was defeated by Beresford at Albuera, owing to the extraordinary tenacity of the English infantry, but at the cost of nearly two-thirds of them (Journal of United Service Institution, xxxix. 903); and he retired to Llerena. On the 16th, the day on which the battle was fought, Wellington had set out to join Beresford, and he arrived at Elvas on the 19th, followed by two British divisions. The siege of Badajoz was begun afresh; but the means were scanty, the guns bad, and on 10 June it had to be raised, for Marmont was marching southward to join Soult. The two marshals met at Merida on the 18th, and next day their combined armies reached Badajoz. Wellington had retired across the Guadiana, and taken a position near Elvas, where he was joined on the 24th by Spencer with the rest of his troops. He was prepared to accept battle, though he had only fifty thousand men to meet sixty-four thousand. The French contented themselves, however, with relieving Badajoz. Soult was drawn back to Andalusia by threats against Seville, and in the middle of July Marmont retired across the Tagus to Plasencia.

Wellington determined to try a stroke at Ciudad Rodrigo, believing that he would not find the enemy in such force in the north. Leaving Hill with fourteen thousand men south of the Tagus, he marched back to the neighbourhood of that fortress and invested it in the beginning of August. A powerful siege-train, newly come from England, was secretly sent up the Duero to Lamego. But he was again confronted by a combination more powerful than he had reckoned on, and confined himself to a blockade. In the middle of September, when the supplies of Rodrigo began to run short, Marmont and Dorsenne (who commanded the army of the north) advanced to revictual it with sixty thousand men. Wellington had only forty-four thousand, and could not prevent them; but, wishing to make them show their force, he stood his ground southwest of the fortress, his troops being extended over twenty miles. A vigorous attack would have been disastrous to him; but he took the measure of his adversary, and showed a bolder front than circumstances warranted. His centre was forced back at El Bodon on the 25th, but he retired slowly, making a stand at Guinaldo and at Aldea Ponte, and so gained time to concentrate his troops on the Coa (cf., Mémoires, iv. 62; , Mémoires, iv. 510). Marmont then fell back, and returned to the valley of the Tagus.

Wellington's plans had been baffled, but he had engaged the attention of the enemy's main armies and had saved Galicia. He had found great difficulty in feeding his men; he was obliged to import wheat from Egypt and America, and to use commissariat bills as a paper currency in default of specie, to pay the muleteers on whom he depended for his transport. The British troops in the Peninsula had been raised to nearly sixty thousand men, but one-third of them were sick. The Portuguese suffered even more, for their government would make no exertions. It considered all danger past, and regarded the war as the concern of England, not Portugal (Desp. 13 Sept.) Yet Wellington, hard pressed for means as he was, still continued to strengthen the works for the defence of Lisbon, to meet a possible turn of fortune. He was given the local rank of general on 5 Aug., and received the grand cross of the Portuguese order of the Tower and Sword, with the title of Conde de Vimeiro.

At the end of the year French troops to the number of sixty thousand men were withdrawn from Spain, the military divisions were rearranged, and Marmont was told to send troops to help Suchet in Valencia. This favoured an enterprise for which Wellington had been secretly preparing. He had brought his siege-train to Almeida, as if for the armament of that place, and on 8 Jan. 1812 he appeared before Ciudad Rodrigo. That night a redoubt on a hill from which the walls could be breached at a range of six hundred yards was stormed. Batteries were built there, and on the 19th, there being two practicable breaches, a general assault was made at five points. At the main breach the defence was obstinate, but the defenders were taken in rear by the men of the light division, who had carried the smaller breach. Along with the fortress, and its garrison of seventeen hundred men, Marmont's siege-train fell into Wellington's hands. The loss of the besiegers was thirteen hundred. Marmont, whose headquarters were now at Valladolid, was not aware of the siege till the 15th, and by the time he had assembled his army he learnt that the place had fallen. In reward for this brilliant stroke Wellington was made an earl (18 Feb.), and received the thanks of parliament (10 Feb.), with an additional annuity of 2,000l. The Spanish government created him Duke of Ciudad Rodrigo and a grandee of the first class.