The Age of Elegance by Arthur Bryant

half a dozen frigates, a battalion of marines and a company of marine artillery was to keep the coastline from Gijon to the French frontier in an uproar. So sustained, the guerrillas of the Basque country and Navarre—the most serious of all the thorns in King Joseph's flesh— were to make it impossible for the harassed Caffarelli to reinforce Marmont. At the same time the Spanish Army of Galicia was to take the offensive against the latter's northern wing, lay siege to Astorga and prevent even the Army of Portugal from concentrating.
    On June 13 th Wellington crossed the Agueda with 51,000 men, including 18,000 Portuguese and 3000 Spaniards. Marmont, with
    1 By April, 1812, such was the concentration of troops for the impending march to Moscow, only one French division remained in Italy. Oman, V, 342.
    one division in the Asturias and the rest of his army dispersed, could offer little immediate resistance. Ordering a concentration, he fell back across the Tormes. As the British entered Salamanca on the 17th, a surge of ecstatic humanity broke over the red-coated columns in the sun-bathed Palaza Mayor. It was the first Spanish city to be liberated in three years. Even Wellington, as he sat writing orders on his sabretache, was almost unhorsed by a charge of ladies. 1
    He remained, however, cautious. During the next ten days he blockaded three small forts which Marmont had built outside Salamanca. He made no attempt to bring the French to battle. Instead he covered the siege and awaited their attack in one of those innocent-looking but carefully chosen positions which had so often proved fatal to them. But Marmont, taught by experience, was cautious, too. After several half-hearted attempts at relief, he allowed the forts and their garrisons to fall.
    Thereafter he fell back for thirty miles across the rolling Leon plain to the Douro. Here with his army concentrated and almost equal in size to Wellington's, and with ample reserves behind, he had only to hold the crossings from Toro to Tordesillas to bring the British offensive to an end. If he could stay there until the harvest was gathered, the French position in northern Spain would be secure for another year. For a fortnight at the beginning of July, while far away Napoleon's interminable columns drove through Lithuania into Russia, the two armies faced one another across the shallow, sunlit Douro. Then on the 16th, seeing nothing to stop him, Marmont recrossed the river at Tordesillas and feinted at Wellington's right flank. Next day, as the latter parried the stroke, he deftly shifted his forces eastwards and, crossing again at Toro, struck at his left. Like a true son of the Revolution and a Marshal of France, he was in search of glory: to survive he had to outshine his rivals.
    To the disgust of his army Wellington promptly retreated. Unlike his adversary, who could live by plundering the country, he was dependent on his commissariat wagons. Rather than risk his communications with Portugal, he fell back towards the hillier and more barren terrain whence he had come and where he would have Marmont once more at a disadvantage. For the next six days the two armies within easy striking distance of one another marched and
    1 Tomkinson, 162. See also Gomm, 272; Kincaid, 150; Oman, V, 36 0; Simmons, 236.
    manoeuvred under a burning sun, steadily moving south-westwards as Marmont tried to cut off Wellington from his base and Wellington gave ground to prevent him. Both, like skilful fencers, kept their forces closely concentrated, neither for a moment lowering his guard. On July 18 th, when there was some skirmishing, and again on the 20th, the two armies marched within gunshot all day in parallel columns, their accoutrements glittering in the sunlight, while swarms of vultures cruised overhead. 1
    The French, who were slightly the better marchers, reached the Tormes first, crossing the river at the ford of Huerta, ten miles east of Salamanca, at midday on the 21st. Wellington