Note 662 — SECTION XVI: CHAPTER VII

There can be no rational doubt that the total number of guns taken was seventeen, as set forth in Charles Stewart’s report to Wellesley, as Adjutant-general, viz. ‘four eight-pounders, four six-pounders, one four-pounder, one six-inch howitzer, taken by Brigadier-general A. Campbell’s brigade, with one six-inch howitzer and six other guns left by the enemy and found in the woods’ of which four were in the hands of the Spaniards. Wellesley, in his dispatch, made the error of stating that twenty guns had been taken, being under the impression that the Spaniards had captured seven pieces, while they themselves only claim four—a Captain Piñero was mentioned in Eguia’s dispatch for causing them to be brought back to the Spanish line. The British took thirteen guns: three days after the battle Wellesley made them over to his allies. He writes to O’Donoju [Talavera, Aug. 1]: ‘We have got thirteen pieces of French artillery, which I wish to give over to the Spanish army—the other seven [four] you have already got. I shall be obliged if you will urge General Cuesta to desire the commanding officer of his artillery to receive charge of them from the officer commanding the British artillery.’ This is surely conclusive as to the numbers.

Jourdan in his Mémoires acknowledges the loss of apparently all Leval’s guns—three batteries. ‘L’artillerie du général Leval, qu’on avait imprudemment engagée au milieu des bois, des vignes et des fosses, ayant eu la plupart de ses chevaux tués, ne put pas être retirée; événement fâcheux qu’on eut le tort impardonnable de cacher au roi’ [p. 261]. Desprez says that six pieces only were lost: Thiers allows eight.

But the most interesting point of the controversy comes out in Napoleon’s correspondence with his brother Joseph. On Aug. 25, the Emperor writes in hot anger to say that he sees from the English newspapers that Joseph had lost twenty guns, a fact concealed in the King’s dispatch. He desires to be told at once the names of the batteries that were captured and the divisions to which they belonged. Jourdan replies in the King’s behalf on Sept. 15, that no guns have been lost—four pieces of Leval’s artillery had been for a moment in the hands of the British, but they were recaptured. Joseph himself writes to the same effect next day: ‘Wellesley n’a pris aucune aigle, il n’en montrera pas plus que de canons.’ On the nineteenth, Jourdan writes to Clarke, the Minister of War, to say that he has just found out that two guns had been lost by Leval. Sénarmont, the artillery chief of the 4th Corps, explains to Jourdan, in a letter of September 27, that ten pieces had been lost in the olive groves, but that all were recovered save two, one Dutch six-pounder, and one French eight-pounder. The truth comes out in Desprez’s narrative. He says that the King, hearing that Leval had left guns abandoned in front of the Pajar de Vergara, ordered Sebastiani to have them brought in: ‘Le général assura que déjà elles avaient été reprises. Cette assertion était inexacte. Le général Sebastiani était-il lui-même en erreur? Ou les ordres donnés lui paraissaient-ils inexécutables? Je n’ai jamais eu le mot de l’énigme: quoi qu’il en soit, les pièces tombèrent le lendemain au pouvoir de l’ennemi. Le Général Sénarmont, qui commandait l’artillerie, ne rendit pas compte de cette perte. Le général Sebastiani l’avait prié avec instance de la cacher. Aussi dans son rapport sur la bataille Joseph déclara-t-il positivement qu’on n’avait pas perdu un canon. Plus tard les journaux anglais firent connaître la vérité. L’Empereur, qui savait apprécier leur exactitude, reprocha à son frère de l’avoir trompé. Joseph eut assez de délicatesse pour accepter ces reproches et ne point déclarer de quelle manière les choses s’étaient passées’ [p. 491].

In short, Sebastiani and Sénarmont conspired to hide the truth, and Joseph, who liked them both (see his letters in Ducasse, especially vi. 456, where on Sept. 30 he sends Sénarmont a gold box as a sort of ‘consolation prize’), hushed the matter up in their interests. The most curious part of the matter is that on Sept. 27, Sénarmont was able to say with literal exactness that only two pieces were missing, for fifteen of the lost guns had been retaken on August 5, behind the bridge of Arzobispo, during the retreat of Cuesta’s army. They had been given back to their owners long before September, so were no longer missing. But this can hardly be called ‘the whole truth and nothing but the truth.’