Wellington, soldier and statesman, and the revival of the military power of England . eresford, whoexpected the support of one of the Spanish attack, however, had hardly begun, when Soultmarched from Seville to the relief of the fortress atthe head of about 24,000 good troops: the Marshalhad his eyes always fixed on his late conquest. Well-ington, who, I have said, had left the main armyfor Estremadura, was not on the scene; Beresfordraised the siege on the 12th and 13th of March, andadvanced to Albuera, where he was joined by Blakeand Castanos, with from 15,000 to 20,000 Spaniards,
Wellington, soldier and statesman, and the revival of the military power of England . eresford, whoexpected the support of one of the Spanish attack, however, had hardly begun, when Soultmarched from Seville to the relief of the fortress atthe head of about 24,000 good troops: the Marshalhad his eyes always fixed on his late conquest. Well-ington, who, I have said, had left the main armyfor Estremadura, was not on the scene; Beresfordraised the siege on the 12th and 13th of March, andadvanced to Albuera, where he was joined by Blakeand Castanos, with from 15,000 to 20,000 Spaniards,to offer battle to the enemy at hand. The alliedarmy was perhaps 35,000 strong; but the British in-fantry did not exceed 7000 men ; the Portuguese werenot more than 8000; the French army was very su-perior in really effective strength. These operationsled to the battle of Albuera, in itself not of supremeimportance, but perhaps the most desperately con- 1 The figures I have above given are, of course, largely conjectural;but I have taken pains to make them as accurate as Badajoz 15 1 tested of the Peninsular War. The French Marshalon the morning of the 16th of March, 1811, flung hisleft wing against Beresfords right and endeavouredto seize an eminence which was the key of the wholeposition ; the Spaniards occupied this part of theline; but though they made for a time a brave re-sistance, their ill-disciplined masses could not man-oeuvre ; when directed to make a change of frontin retreat, they lost all order, and fell into utter con-fusion. The French were now masters of the de-cisive point: Soult collected his reserves to makevictory certain, but Beresford called on his Britishinfantry, and this nobly restored the conflict, thoughpressed by largely superior numbers. A disaster,however, soon occurred which would have been fatalto less stubborn and confident soldiers. Under thecover of a tempest of rain which darkened the air, alarge body of French cavalry fell sudden
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