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Updated: May 6, 2025
From Badajos he intended to take the diligence on to Madrid, which he decided to make his headquarters. At first he was overwhelmed with a sense of loneliness, and experienced a great desire for someone with whom to talk. There was no one to be seen he was hemmed in by desolation and despair. One adventure befel him that might have ended in tragedy.
Up and down the Spanish Peninsula, Irish blood was shed in abundance in the armies of Wellington. Never was more brilliant fighting done than that which stands to Irish credit from the lines of Torres Vedras to Badajos and Toulouse. Of the Waterloo campaign volumes have been written in praise of Irish valor.
Spain had always appealed most strongly to Borrow's imagination. Whilst standing at the door of the Inn of the Three Nations on the day following his arrival at Badajos, meditating upon the deplorable state of the country he had just entered, Borrow recognised in the face of one of two men who were about to pass him the unmistakable lineaments of Egypt.
Lord Galway and General Fagel had been beaten by Marshal Tesse before Badajos, and the allied army had retreated into Portugal, leaving the French and Spanish adherents of Philip free to turn their whole attention against the allies in Catalonia. Weary weeks passed on before Lord Peterborough could overcome the apathy and obstinacy of the Germans and Dutch.
"And at Badajos." Left alone with the sound of his own stern voice in his ears, he sat down to consider, What shall I do, and how shall I tell him?
Thus there were, on both sides, movements of advance and retirement. During the time that had elapsed since the battles of Fuentes d'Onoro and Albuera, Badajos had been again besieged by the British, but ineffectually; and in August Wellington, taking advantage of Marmont's absence in the south, advanced and established a blockade of Ciudad Rodrigo. This had led to some fighting.
In a harder age Wellington was able to survey four thousand bodies piled in the narrow compass of the breach of Badajos, but his resolution was sustained by the knowledge that the military end for which they fell had been accomplished. Had his task been unfinished it is doubtful whether even his steadfast soul would not have flinched from its completion.
The capture of Sizeboli in 1828, the unsuccessful attack of General Petrasch upon Kehl in 1796, the remarkable surprises of Cremona in 1702, of Gibraltar in 1704, and of Berg-op-zoom in 1814, as well as the escalades of Port Mahon and Badajos, give an idea of the different kinds of coup de main. Some are effected by surprise, others by open force.
By a curious chance they happened to be very near the line, and, with the inaccurate maps of the period, a pretty subject of quarrel was afforded between the Portuguese and Spanish commissioners who met at Badajos to determine the question.
General Hill's force of five thousand men and three hundred horses for the artillery arrived at an opportune moment. The storming of Oporto, the approach of Victor to Badajos, after totally defeating Cuesta's Spanish army, killing three-fifths of his men, and capturing thousands of prisoners, while Lapisse was advancing from the east, had created a terrible panic in Portugal.
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