Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 27, 2025
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.
Wellington, after the battles of Fuentes d'Onoro and Albuera, had been compelled to fall back again to the frontier in the face of greatly superior forces, and had maintained his old position on the Coa till the approach of winter compelled the French to retire into the interior, where they had their magazines and depots.
Having reorganized his force, procured fresh horses for his guns, and rested the troops for a few days; Massena advanced to cover Ciudad Rodrigo, and to raise the siege of Almeida which Wellington had begun without loss of time and, with upwards of 50,000 men, Massena attacked the British at Fuentes d'Onoro.
So I pass over the details of the retreat of the French, and the great battle of Fuentes D'Oñoro. In the storming of Ciudad Rodrigo, that death struggle of vengeance and despair, I gained some notoriety in leading a party of stormers through a broken embrasure, and found myself under Lord Wellington's displeasure for having left my duties as aide-de-camp.
We had a line from Dicky, the day before he started; and mighty unkind we have thought it that neither of you have sent us a word since then, and you with nothing to do at all, at all; while we have been marching and countermarching, now here and now there, now backwards and now forwards, ever since Fuentes d'Onoro, till one's legs were ready to drop off one."
While this was going on, the attack upon Fuentes d'Onoro was continued with unabated vigor. The three British regiments in the lower town were pierced by the French tirailleurs, who poured upon them in overwhelming numbers; the Seventy-ninth were broken, ten companies taken, and Cameron, their colonel, mortally wounded.
Farther to the right again, the column destined for the attack of Fuentes d'Onoro were forming, and we could see that, profiting by their past experience, they were bent upon attacking the village with an overwhelming force.
When he appeared before me, an air of most business-like alacrity had succeeded to his late appearance, and having taken my orders to get the horses in readiness, he left me at once, and in less than half an hour we were upon the road. As I rode along towards Fuentes d'Onoro, I could not help feeling provoked at the absurd circumstances in which I was involved.
Both sides laid claim to the victory; the French, because, having taken the village of Poço Velho, they had pierced the British line, and compelled them to fall back and assume a new position; the British, because the attack upon Fuentes d'Onoro has been successfully resisted, and the blockade of Almeida the real object of the battle maintained.
His name's Ramsay, and he's just out of arrest. 'What has he done? 'A many things, first and last. At Fuentes d'Onoro the whole French cavalry cut him off him and his battery and he charged back clean through them; ay, lad, through 'em like a swathe, with his horses belly-down and the guns behind 'em bounding like skipjacks; not a gun taken, and scarce a gunner hurt. That's the sort of man.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking