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On the 11th of March the army arrived at Elvas, and on the 15th a pontoon bridge was thrown across the Guadiana. The following day the British troops crossed the river, and invested Badajos, with fifteen thousand men, while Hill and Graham, with thirty thousand more moved forward, so as to act as a covering army, in case the French should advance to raise the siege.
After this no more was said about resigning the staff appointment, which gave them plenty of hard work, and constant change of scene, whereas had they remained with the regiment they would often have been stationed for months in one place without a move. The great triumphs of Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajos did not lead to the rapid successes which Wellington had hoped.
These soldiers, who are ready to march steadily against vollied fire, against belching cannon, up fortress heights, or to beat their heads against bristling bayonets, as they did at Badajos, were once tailors, shoemakers, mechanics, delvers, weavers, and ploughmen; with mouths gaping, shoulders stooping, feet straggling, arms and hands like great fins hanging by their sides; but now their gait is firm and martial, their figures are erect, and they march along, to the sound of music, with a tread that makes the earth shake.
Such were the circumstances under which the eventful year 1812 began. Capture of Ciudad Rodrigo and of Badajos Battle of Salamanca State of Napoleon's Foreign Relations His Military Resources Napoleon at Dresden Rupture with Russia Napoleon's conduct to the Poles Distribution of the Armies Passage of the Niemen Napoleon at Wilna.
Santa Anna said: "'The Alamo was taken by storm. The usages of war permitted the slaughter. "'We live in the nineteenth century, President. We profess to be Christians. "'I have to remind you, General Houston, of the storming of San Sebastian, Ciudad, Riego and Badajos, by the Duke of Wellington. "'That was in Spain. There may have been circumstances demanding such cruelty.
The well tried soldier, the gallant commander at Badajos, at Corunna, the hero of many fierce conflicts, and the firm friend and favourite of the Duke of Wellington, listened to the conversation of his daughter with as much keenness as a question involving the strongest points of diplomacy. "Papa, this garden will fully repay you for your labour.
This stroke, if delivered with energy, Lord Wellington could parry; but only at the cost of renouncing a success on which he had set his heart, the capture of Badajos. Already he had sent forward the bulk of his troops with his siege-train on the march to that town, while he kept his headquarters to the last moment in Ciudad Rodrigo as a blind.
They saw but little of them, however, for they were constantly on the road to Lisbon with despatches, every branch of the service being now strained to get the battering-train destined for the attack on Badajos to the front, while orders were sent to Silviera, Trant, Wilson, Lecca, and the other partisan leaders, to hold all the fords and defiles along the frontier, so as to prevent the French from making a counter-invasion of Portugal.
I was born two years later." "All born in Badajos?" "All in Badajos, sir. My brothers will be there still, if they're living." "But these delusions " "I'm coming to them. My father must have been hurt, somehow hurt in his head.
And this Englishman, without the moral courage of a louse, will risk his neck for fun fifty times every winter in the hunting field, and at Badajos sieges and the like will ram his head into a hole bristling with sword blades rather than be beaten in the one department in which he has been brought up to consult his own honor.