Note 134 — SECTION XXXIV: CHAPTER IV

Always a reckless falsifier of his own losses (he said that he had only lost 2,800 men at Albuera!), Soult wrote in his dispatch that he had only about 25 wounded at the Puente Larga. The figure I give above is that of the staff-officer d’Espinchel, whose memoirs are useful for this campaign. By far the best English account is that of H. Bunbury of the 20th Portuguese (Reminiscences of a Veteran, i. pp. 158-63). I can only trace three of the five French officers in Martinien’s lists—Pillioud, Caulet, Fitz-James, but do not doubt d’Espinchel’s figures though his account of the combat is hard to fit in with any English version. He speaks with admiration of the steadiness of the defence.