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Soult had resolved to succour Badajos the moment he heard that Beresford was in Estremadura, and the latter’s tardiness gave him time to tranquillise his province and arrange a system of resistance to the allied army in the Isla during his absence. Beresford believed he was trembling for Andalusia. Nothing could be more fallacious. He had seventy thousand fighting men there, and Drouet, who had quitted Massena immediately after the battle of Fuentes Onoro, was in march for that province with eleven thousand, by the way of Toledo.

On the 10th of May Soult quitted Seville with three thousand heavy dragoons, thirty guns, and two strong brigades of infantry under the generals Werlé and Godinot.

The 13th a junction was effected with Latour Maubourg, who assumed the command of the heavy cavalry, resigning the fifth corps to General Girard.

On the 14th, having reached Villa Franca, thirty miles from Badajos, Soult caused his heaviest guns to fire salvos in the night to notify his approach to the garrison. This expedient failed, but on the evening of the 15th the whole French army was concentrated at Santa Marta.

Beresford had raised the siege in the night of the 12th, against the wish of the chief engineer, who promised him the place in three days! This promise was nought, and had it been good Soult would yet have surprised him in his trenches: his firmness therefore saved the army, and his arrangements for carrying off the stores were well executed. By twelve o’clock on the 15th the guns and stores were on the left bank of the Guadiana, the gabions and fascines were burnt, the flying-bridge removed; all being so well masked by the fourth division, which in concert with the Spaniards continued to maintain the investment, that a sally on the rear-guard, in which some Portuguese picquets were roughly treated, first told the French the siege was raised—of the cause they were still ignorant.

Beresford held a conference with the Spanish generals at Valverde on the 13th, and the chief command was ceded to him by the management of Castaños, to the discontent of Blake, who soon showed his ill-will. It was agreed to receive battle at the village of Albuera. Ballesteros’ and Blake’s corps had then united, and Blake engaged to bring them into line before twelve o’clock on the 15th. Meanwhile, Badajos being the centre of an arc sweeping through Valverde, Albuera and Talavera Real, it was arranged that Blake should watch the roads on the right; the British and fifth Spanish army those leading upon the centre, and Madden’s Portuguese cavalry those on the left. The main body of the British could thus reach Albuera by a half march, as no part of the arc was more than four leagues from Badajos, and the enemy was still eight leagues from Albuera: Beresford therefore, thinking he could not be forestalled on any point of importance, kept the fourth division in the trenches.

On the 14th Colborne rejoined the army, Madden took post at Talavera Real, Blake was in march and his dragoons had joined the Anglo-Portuguese cavalry under General Long, who was at Santa Marta.

In the morning of the 15th the Anglo-Portuguese army occupied the left half of the Albuera position, a ridge four miles long, having the stream of the Aroya Val de Sevilla in rear and the Albuera in front. The ascent from the last river was easy for cavalry and artillery, and in advance of the centre were the bridge and village of Albuera—the former commanded by a battery, the latter occupied by Alten’s Germans. Behind Alten, the second division, under William Stewart, formed one line, the right on a commanding hill over which the Valverde road passed, the left on the road of Badajos, beyond which the array was continued on two lines by the Portuguese troops under Hamilton and Collins.

The right of the ground being roughest, highest, and broadest, was left open for Blake, because Beresford, thinking the hill on the Valverde road the key of the position as covering the only line of retreat, was desirous to secure it with his own troops. The fourth division and the infantry of the fifth Spanish army were still before Badajos, but had orders to march on the first signal.

About three o’clock on the evening of the 15th, Beresford being on the left, the whole mass of the allied cavalry, closely followed by the French light horsemen, came pouring in from Santa Marta, and finding no infantry beyond the Albuera to support them passed that river in retreat. The wooded heights on the right bank being thus abandoned to the enemy, his force and dispositions were effectually concealed and the strength of the position was already sapped. Beresford was disquieted, he formed a temporary right wing with his cavalry and artillery, stretched his picquets along the road by which Blake was expected, and sent officers to hasten his movements; that general had only a few miles of good road to march and promised to be in line at noon, yet did not even bring up his van before eleven at night, nor his rear before three in the morning.

Cole and Madden were now called up. The order failed to reach Madden; but Cole brought the infantry of the fifth army, two squadrons of Portuguese cavalry, and two brigades of his own division to Albuera between eight and nine o’clock on the morning of the 16th: his third brigade having invested San Christoval was unable to pass the Guadiana above Badajos, and was in march by Jerumenha. Cole’s Spanish troops joined Blake on the right, the two brigades of the fourth division were drawn up in columns behind the second division, the Portuguese squadrons reinforced Colonel Otway, whose horsemen, of the same nation, were pushed forwards in front of the left wing: all the rest of the allied cavalry was concentrated behind the centre, and Beresford, dissatisfied with General Long, gave Lumley the chief command.

Thirty thousand infantry, more than two thousand cavalry, and thirty-eight pieces of artillery, eighteen being nine-pounders, were now in line; but one brigade of the fourth division was still absent, the British infantry, the pith and strength of battle, did not exceed seven thousand, and already Blake’s arrogance was shaking Beresford’s authority. The French had forty guns, four thousand veteran cavalry and nineteen thousand chosen infantry: obedient to one discipline, animated by one national feeling, their composition compensated for the want of numbers, and their general’s talent was immeasurably greater than his adversary’s.

Soult examined Beresford’s position without hindrance on the evening of the 15th. He knew the fourth division was then before Badajos, heard that Blake would not arrive before the 17th, and resolved to attack next morning, having detected all the weakness of the English order of battle. The hill in the centre, commanding the Valverde road, was undoubtedly the key of the position if an attack was made parallel to the front; but Soult saw that on the right, the rough broad heights trended back towards the Valverde road, looking into the rear of Beresford’s line, and if he could suddenly place his masses there he might roll up the right on the centre and push it into the valley of the Aroya: the Valverde road could then be seized, the retreat cut, and his strong cavalry would complete the victory.

Beresford’s right and Soult’s left were only divided by a hill about cannon-shot from each. Separated from the allies by the Albuera, from the French by a rivulet called the Feria, this height was neglected by Beresford: but Soult in the night placed behind it the greatest part of his artillery under General Ruty, the fifth corps under Girard, the heavy cavalry under Latour Maubourg; thus concentrating fifteen thousand men and thirty guns within ten minutes’ march of Beresford’s right wing: and yet that general could not see a man, or draw a sound conclusion as to the plan of attack. The light cavalry, the brigades of Godinot and Werlé, and ten guns remained. These were placed in the woods which lined the banks of the Feria towards its confluence with the Albuera. Werlé was in reserve, Godinot was to attack the village and bridge, bear strongly against Beresford’s centre, attract his attention, separate his wings, and double up his right when the principal attack should be developed.

Blake and Cole brought up more than sixteen thousand men, the first joining in the night, the second at nine o’clock in the morning after the action was begun; yet so defectively had Beresford occupied his position that Soult, though he saw how the allied army had been reinforced, made no change of disposition. At nine o’clock Godinot emerged from the woods with his division in one heavy column, preceded by a battery of ten guns; he was flanked by the light cavalry, followed by Werlé’s division, and made straight for the bridge of Albuera, attempting with a sharp cannonade and musketry to force a passage. General Briché, being on his right, now led two hussar regiments down the river in observation of Otway’s horsemen, while the French lancers passed the stream above bridge. The 3rd Dragoon Guards drove the lancers back, and Dickson’s Portuguese guns, from a rising ground above the village, ploughed through Godinot’s column, which crowded towards the bridge although the water was fordable above and below.

These feints along the front did not deceive Beresford, he saw Werlé did not follow Godinot closely, and felt the principal effort would be on the right; he therefore desired Blake to throw part of his first and all his second line across the broad part of the hills, at right angles to their actual front. Then drawing the Portuguese infantry of the left wing to the centre, he sent a brigade to support Alten at the bridge, and directed Hamilton to hold the others in hand as a general reserve. The 13th Dragoons he posted near the river above bridge, and sent the second English division to support Blake. The horse-artillery, and cavalry under Lumley, and Cole’s division, took ground to their right, the two first on a small plain behind the Aroya stream, the last about half musket-shot behind them. This done, Beresford galloped to Blake, who had refused to change his front, and with great heat told Colonel Hardinge, the bearer of the order, the real attack was at the village and bridge; he was entreated to obey, but was obstinate until Beresford arrived in person, and then only assented because the enemy’s columns were appearing on his flank, acting however with such pedantic slowness, that Beresford, impatient of his folly, took the direction in person.

Great was the confusion and delay thus occasioned, and ere the troops were formed the French were amongst them. For scarcely had Godinot engaged Alten’s brigade, when Werlé, leaving only a battalion of grenadiers to support the former, and some squadrons to watch the 13th Dragoons and connect the attacks, countermarched and gained the rear of the fifth corps as it was mounting the hill on the right of the allies. The light cavalry, also quitting Godinot, crossed the Albuera above bridge, ascended the left bank at a gallop, and sweeping round the rear of the fifth corps joined Latour Maubourg, who was already in face of Lumley’s squadrons! Half-an-hour had thus sufficed to render Beresford’s position nearly desperate; for two-thirds of the French had been thrown in order of battle across his right, while his army, disordered and of different nations, was still in the act of changing its front. Vainly he strove to get the Spaniards forward and make room for Stewart’s division, the French guns opened, their infantry threw out a heavy musketry fire, their cavalry menaced different points, and the Spaniards, falling fast, drew back. Soult thought the whole army was yielding, he pushed forward his columns, his reserves came up the hill, and General Ruty placed all the French batteries in position.

At this moment William Stewart reached the foot of the height with the brigade under Colborne, and that able officer, seeing the confusion above, desired to form in order of battle previous to mounting; but Stewart, whose boiling courage generally overlaid his judgment, heedlessly led up in column of companies, passed the Spanish right and attempted to open a line as the battalions arrived: he could not do it, for so galling was the French fire that the foremost troops impatiently charged, heavy rain obscured the view, and four regiments of hussars and lancers, which, unseen, had gained the right flank, immediately galloped upon the rear of the disordered brigade and slew or took two-thirds: the 31st only, being still in column, escaped this charge and maintained its ground, while the French horsemen, riding violently over everything else, penetrated to all parts and captured six guns. The tumult was great, and a lancer fell upon Beresford, but he, a man of great strength, putting the spear aside, cast the trooper from his saddle, and then a shift of wind blowed aside the smoke and mist, whereupon Lumley, seeing the mischief from the plain below, sent four squadrons up against the straggling hussars and cut many off. Penne Villemur’s Spanish cavalry was at the same time directed to charge some French horsemen in the plain, but when within a few yards of their foes they turned and shamefully fled.

Great was the disorder on the hill. The shrinking Spaniards were in one part blindly firing, though the British troops were before them, and in another part, flying before the lancers, would have broken through the 29th, then advancing to the succour of Colborne; but, terribly resolute, that regiment smote friends and foes without distinction in their onward progress: meanwhile Beresford urging the main body of the Spaniards to advance in his heat seized an ensign by the breast and bore him and his colours by main force to the front, yet the troops did not follow, and the coward ran back when released from the marshal’s iron grasp.

In this crisis, the weather, which had ruined Colborne’s brigade, saved the day, for Soult could not see the whole field of battle and kept his troops halted in masses when the decisive blow might have been struck. His cavalry indeed, began to hem in that of the allies, yet the fire of the horse-artillery enabled Lumley, covered by the bed of the Aroya and supported by the fourth division, to check them; Colborne still kept the height with the 31st Regiment, and the British artillery, under Julius Hartman, was coming fast into action; William Stewart, also, having escaped the lancers, was again mounting the hill with Houghton’s brigade, which he brought on with the same vehemence but in a juster order of battle. The day now cleared and a dreadful fire poured into the thickest of the French columns taught Soult the fight was yet to be won.

Houghton’s regiments reached the height under a heavy cannonade, and the 29th, after breaking through the fugitive Spaniards, was charged in flank by the French lancers, but two companies, wheeling to the right, foiled this attack; and then the third brigade of Stewart’s division came up on the left, and the Spaniards under Zayas and Ballesteros moved forward. Hartman’s artillery had made the enemy’s infantry recoil, yet, soon recovering, they renewed the battle with greater violence than before, and the cannon on both sides discharged showers of grape at half-range, while the play of musketry was incessant and often within pistol-shot; but the crowded columns of the French embarrassed their battle, and the British line would not yield them an inch of ground or a moment of time to open their ranks. Their fighting was however fierce and dangerous. Stewart was twice wounded, Colonel Duckworth was slain, and the gallant Houghton, having received many wounds without shrinking, fell and died in the act of cheering on his men.

Still the struggle continued with unabated fury. Colonel Inglis, twenty-two officers, and more than four hundred men, out of five hundred and seventy, fell in the 57th alone, and the other regiments were scarcely better off, not one-third were standing in any; their ammunition failed, and as their fire slackened the enemy established a column in advance upon the right flank, which the play of the artillery could only check for a time, and in that dreadful crisis Beresford wavered! Destruction stared him in the face, his personal resources were exhausted and the unhappy thought of a retreat rose in his agitated mind. He had before posted Hamilton’s Portuguese with a view to a retrograde movement, and now sent Alten orders to abandon the bridge of Albuera, to rally the Portuguese artillery on his Germans, and take ground to cover a retreat by the Valverde road. But while the commander was thus preparing to resign the contest, Colonel Hardinge, using his name, had urged Cole to bring up the fourth division, and then riding to the third brigade of Stewart’s division, which, under Colonel Abercrombie, had hitherto been only slightly engaged, directed it also to push forward. The die was thus cast, Beresford acquiesced, Alten received orders to retake the village, and this terrible battle was continued.

Two brigades of the fourth division were present, one of Portuguese under General Harvey, the other under Sir William Myers, composed of the 7th and 23rd Regiments, was called the fusileer brigade. Harvey, pushing between Lumley’s cavalry and the hill, was charged by some French horse and beat them off, while Cole led the fusileers up the contested height. At this time six guns were in the enemy’s possession, Werlé’s reserve was pressing forward to reinforce the French front, and the remnant of Houghton’s brigade could no longer maintain its ground, the field was heaped with carcasses, the lancers were riding furiously about the captured artillery on the upper parts of the hill, and Hamilton’s Portuguese and Alten’s Germans, withdrawing from the bridge, seemed to be in full retreat. Soon however Cole’s fusileers, flanked by a battalion of the Lusitanian legion under Colonel Hawkshawe, surmounted the hill, drove off the lancers, recovered five guns and one colour, and passed the right of Houghton’s brigade, precisely as Abercrombie passed its left.

Such a gallant line, issuing from the midst of the smoke and rapidly separating itself from the confused and broken multitude, startled the enemy’s masses, then augmenting and pressing onwards as to an assured victory; they wavered, hesitated, and vomiting forth a storm of fire hastily endeavoured to enlarge their front, while a fearful discharge of grape from all their artillery whistled through the British ranks. Myers was killed, Cole, the three colonels, Ellis, Blakeney and Hawkshawe fell wounded, and the fusileer battalions, struck by the iron tempest, reeled and staggered like sinking ships: but suddenly and sternly recovering they closed on their terrible enemies, and then was seen with what a strength and majesty the British soldier fights. In vain did Soult with voice and gesture animate his Frenchmen; in vain did the hardiest veterans, breaking from the crowded columns, sacrifice their lives to gain time for the mass to open out on such a fair field; in vain did the mass itself bear up, and fiercely striving fire indiscriminately upon friends and foes, while the horsemen hovering on the flank threatened to charge the advancing line. Nothing could stop that astonishing infantry. No sudden burst of undisciplined valour, no nervous enthusiasm weakened the stability of their order, their flashing eyes were bent on the dark columns in their front, their measured tread shook the ground, their dreadful volleys swept away the head of every formation, their deafening shouts overpowered the dissonant cries that broke from all parts of the tumultuous crowd, as slowly and with a horrid carnage it was pushed by the incessant vigour of the attack to the farthest edge of the height. There the French reserve, mixing with the struggling multitude, endeavoured to restore the fight but only augmented the irremediable disorder, and the mighty mass giving way like a loosened cliff went headlong down the steep: the rain flowed after in streams discoloured with blood, and eighteen hundred unwounded men, the remnant of six thousand unconquerable British soldiers, stood triumphant on the fatal hill!

While the fusileers were battling above, the cavalry and Harvey’s brigade advanced, and Latour Maubourg’s dragoons, battered also by Lefebre’s guns, retired before them, yet still threatening the fusileers with their right, and with their left preventing Lumley falling on the defeated infantry. The crisis was however past, and Beresford, seeking to profit from the circumstances of the moment, made Alten retake Albuera, supported him with Blake’s first line, which had not been engaged, and quickly brought up Hamilton’s and Collins’s Portuguese, ten thousand fresh men, to strengthen the fusileers and Abercrombie’s brigade. But so rapid was the execution of the last, the enemy was never attained by these reserves, which yet suffered severely, for Ruty having set the French guns altogether, worked them with prodigious activity while the fifth corps was still making head, and when the day was irrevocably lost, he regained the other side of the Albuera and protected the passage of the broken infantry.

Beresford, too hardly handled to pursue, now formed a front with the Portuguese parallel to the heights where Soult’s troops were rallying, and though the action continued a short time after at the bridge, all was terminated before three o’clock. The serious fighting had endured only four hours, and in that time seven thousand allies and above eight thousand of their adversaries were struck down. Three French generals were wounded, two slain, and eight hundred soldiers so badly hurt as to be left on the field. On Beresford’s side only two thousand Spaniards and six hundred Germans and Portuguese were killed or wounded, and with what resolution the pure British fought was thus made manifest, for they had but eighteen hundred men left standing! The laurel is nobly won when the exhausted victor reels as he places it on his bleeding front. The French took five hundred unwounded prisoners, a howitzer and several stand of colours. The British had no trophy to boast of, but the horrid piles of carcasses within their lines told with dreadful eloquence who were the conquerors, and all that night the rain poured down, and the river and the hills and the woods resounded with the dismal clamour and groans of dying men.

Beresford was oppressed with the number of his wounded, far exceeding the sound amongst the British soldiers. When the picquets were posted few remained to help the sufferers, and in this cruel distress he sent Hardinge to demand assistance from Blake; but wrath and mortified pride were predominant with that general; he refused, saying, it was customary with allies for each to take care of their own men. Yet the British had fought for Spain.

Morning came and both armies remained in their respective situations, the wounded still covering the field of battle, the hostile lines still menacing and dangerous. The greater number had fallen with the French, the best soldiers with the allies, and Soult’s dark masses of cavalry and artillery, covering all his front, seemed able alone to contend again for victory. The right of the French appeared also to threaten the Badajos road, and Beresford in gloom and doubt awaited another attack; soon however the third brigade of the fourth division came up from Jerumenha, and then the second division retook its old ground between the Valverde and Badajos roads: on the 18th Soult retreated.

He left to English generosity several hundred men too deeply wounded to be removed, but all those who could travel he had, in the night of the 17th, sent by the royal road of Monasterio to Seville; and now, protecting his movements with his horsemen and six battalions of infantry, he filed his right on to the road of Solano. When this flank march was completed, Latour Maubourg covered the rear with the heavy dragoons, while Briché protected the march of the wounded men by the royal road.

Beresford sent Hamilton to re-invest Badajos, and the whole of his cavalry, supported by Alten’s Germans, after the French; but soon Wellington, hurrying from the north, reached the field of battle and directed him to follow the enemy cautiously in person, while the third and seventh divisions, just come down from the Coa, completed the reinvestment of the fortress.

Soult now took a permanent position at Llerena, to await the junction of Drouet’s division and reinforcements from Andalusia, resolved to contend again for Badajos. Meanwhile his cavalry advanced to Usagre designing to scour the country beyond; but the only outlet from that place was a bridge over a river with steep banks, which the French general Bron passed rashly with two regiments and being charged by General Lumley lost two hundred men. This terminated Beresford’s operations. The miserable state to which the Regency had reduced the Portuguese troops required his presence at Lisbon and General Hill succeeded to his command.