Читать книгу Battlefields - Michael Rayner - Страница 32

Leith’s division crossed the valley and climbed the slopes opposite; the light companies driving off their French counterparts and their support artillery. Having Allied cavalry on his flank, and seeing Leith had more cavalry in support, Maucune retired from the ridgeline and formed squares. Leith’s line crested the ridge. The French fired, but being in square their fire was severely reduced, and their guns were too far back and partially masked. Leith’s men volleyed and charged. ‘No struggle for ascendancy took place; the French squares were penetrated, broken and discomfited’ reported Major Leith Hay in A Narrative of the Peninsular War. At this juncture Wellington ordered Le Marchant to ‘charge at all hazards’. The heavies and Anson’s lights went in, and utterly destroyed Maucune’s division.

The unformed Allied cavalry then charged again; this time into the hastily brought-up leading battalions of Brennier’s division. They, too, were in square and ready to fire. Firing at close range they brought down many of the dragoons but the impetus of the charge carried it forward into the French who momentarily resisted, then broke under the force of the big horses and the jabs and slashes of the heavy sabres. Le Marchant fell with a musket ball in his spine, but the Allies had destroyed three whole French divisions in just 40 minutes!