Observations on
Deployments at Salamanca, 1812

A Question of Unrecognized SOPs at Work?

French

by Howie Muir, Burkina Faso

The SOP

The grounds for deducing the guiding principle for the French army are shakier, but it would seem that the order of regimental numerical order, numbering from the right, provided the basis, with the light regiments taking precedence of over the line. The Lead Up

During the days leading up to the battle, it would appear that Marmont's dispositions mirrored his enemy's, being similarly prepared for instant battle with the British forces to their right. On 20 July, the Marshal himself described his deployment in his Memoires (iv. P. 252) as: "left at the head, by peleton, at full distance: the two lines could be formed in an instant by a 'to the right in battle-array'" (Oman, p. 411). On the evening of 21 July, Sarrut's Division was left the task of holding the rear, remaining north of the Tormes between Babila Fuente and Huerta (Oman, p. 415), where the front line column had crossed.

French cavalry outposts were at Machacon on the right and Calvarisa de Ariba on the left, with the main army "concentrated in the wooded area south of those villages" (Oman, p. 416). Napier and Oman appear to emphasise different aspects of the army's disposition on the fateful morning of 22 July. Napier notes that Bonnet's and Maucune's Divisions were closest to what would become the battlefield, and thus were positioned to play pivotal roles (Napier, p. 59). Oman, drawing on General Foy's memoirs, places that general's Division just behind Calvarisa de Ariba, "ahead of the rest of the army" as dawn came (Oman, p. 420). Nevertheless, it was Bonnet's Division upon which Marmont drew for the morning's race for the Arapiles.

With the seizure of the Greater Arapiles, Marmont had grasped what was to be, in Oman's quotation from Marmont's Memoires: "the 'pivot on which the flanking movement should be made,' the 'point d'appui of the right of the army' when it should reach its new position" (Oman, pp. 423-4). Then, during the middle part of the morning, five Divisions, those of Clausel, Brennier, Maucune, Thomières, and Sarrut ("when the latter arrived late from Babila Fuente" [Oman, p. 424]) were put in motion to the left, and apparently disposing them in the woods to the rear of the Greater Arapile, "where they remained for some time in a threatening mass, without further movement" (Oman, p. 424).

The French Shift to the Left

Oman places Marmont's ascent to an observation point on the Greater Arapile at around 11 o'clock, asserting that not long after noon, Marmont determined his course of action. Believing that the British had commenced a withdrawal by the right, the French Marshal felt that it was time "to reinforce my left, so as to be able to act with promptness and vigour, without having to make new arrangements, when the moment should arrive for falling upon the English rearguard" (Marmont's Memoires, iv, p. 257, quoted in Oman, p. 424.).

Marmont used, to echo Oman, the Greater Arapile as a hinge on which to swing his army to the west of his previous line of march. Oman detects a divergence between Marmont's subsequent and "plausible" apologia to Berthier in his post-battle despatch which stresses preparation for a set-piece battle and the actual guidance or train of events one might presume shaped the evolving deployment of the French divisions with the intention to pursue the apparently retreating British army. The left appears to have begun an extension just before 2:00 pm, composed of Maucune's, Thomières', and Clausel's Divisions.

Bonnet's Division (8th Div.)

Bonnet's dispositions after the morning's race for possession of the Greater Arapile found the 120e on the hill and 122e Ligne on a knoll to left (the anticipated relationship); the 118e & 119e Ligne, the first brigade, was in reserve behind. This deployment implies that the Divisional left in was originally in front resulting in the second brigade being placed first and the senior brigade coming up to form the reserve. Unfortunately, Oman offers no details of Bonnet's attack on Cole's left and the subsequent drive toward the Lesser Arapile.

Brennier's Division (6th Div.)

This Division, under command of its senior brigadier, Taupin, seems to have eventually been the fourth division out of the woods, and it suffered the unfortunate timing of arriving to support Maucune just as the British struck. Still in columns, the 22e Ligne was leading. The brigading is not clear from Oman's text. Yet the appendices do show that the 17e Léger and 65e Ligne composed the first brigade, while the 22e was brigaded with the Régiment de Prusse – although it is not clear from Oman that this latter regiment participated in the battle (Oman, pp. 601-5) and it had only reported 88 effectives present a week earlier.

Thus, it seems that the Division was advancing with its left in front: the 22e led in closed column and quite probably was followed by the 65e, with the 17e Léger bringing up the rear.

Clausel's Division (2nd Div.)

Clausel was the third French Division out of the centre wood destined, according to Marmont, to act as a reserve for Thomières who was to support Maucune as a second line. Clausel was well to the rear of Thomières and chose to support Maucune by deploying to the 5th Division's right. At the moment of Cole's arrival, it appears to have had two regiments posted in its front line and two in support, although whether this was by brigade (which I suspect as each line was of five battalions and each brigade was similarly composed), or if each brigade had one regiment forward is not clear from Oman, nor is the internal deployment of the regiments. I will risk the hypothesis that the second brigade was forward (as would be the result of arriving with the Divisional left in front) with the 59e Ligne on the left and the 50e on the right: these two regiments lost most heavily in the subsequent engagement as would be expected among units engaged in a prolonged fire-fight as well as the following Divisional counterattack.

This would have left the first brigade in reserve, possibly with the 27e Ligne on the left and the 25e on the right.

Ferey's Division (3rd Div.)

This Division was left in support of Foy at the opening of the day (as were Boyer's dragoons). It was later drawn to the left in the Sarrut's wake and arrived on the main field to become the French army's last reserve. It then, by Clausel's order, became a forlorn hope of a rearguard – a task at which it succeeded admirably. Deployed with a battalion square on each flank and the other seven battalions in line, the 70e Ligne was on the left and the 31er Léger on the right, suggesting that the Division arrived with its left in front – as one would have anticipated. Neither Oman nor Napier specify where the 26e or 47e Ligne were located, but I shall hazard a guess that the Division's left-right deployment was 70e - 47e - 26e - 31er, which reflects the regimental brigading shown in Oman's appendices.

Maucune's Division (5th Div.)

This Division led off Marmont's fateful extension of the French left, marching west from the tree-line behind (south of the Greater Arapile) and out along the broad ridge line trending further westward. Maucune evidently deployed his Division perhaps a mile west of the Greater Arapile, and a quarter of a mile beyond the road to Alba de Tormes, in apparent conformity to Marmont's orders, sent forward his skirmishers and placed his divisional battery to co-ordinate crossfire with that of Bonnet's artillery around the Greater Arapile. Unhurried and unthreatened, this Division should have had plenty of time to deploy as desired. Maucune appears indeed to have led with his first brigade, and thus the right brigade in front (perhaps leading and following brigades had been regularly rotated to share the unpleasantness of the dust-laden tail of the Divisional column?), yet the brigade itself appears to have marched with the left in front and deployed it's regiments to the right in the expected fashion: 66e – 15e Ligne (Oman cites the 66e as the first to fall to Le Marchant's cavalry charge from its flank, followed by the next regiment, the 15e Ligne, pp. 450-1).

I cannot find evidence for the internal order of the second brigade, but the SOP would have suggested it to have been thus: 86e – 82e Ligne. In this way, the Fates of SOP destined the 66e to fall first to Le Marchant's dragoons who so suddenly crested the ridge line to the right of the British 5th Division.

Sarrut's Division (4th Div.)

Sarrut would seem to have spent much of the day on the march, crossing from the extreme right of the French line beyond the Alba de Tormes to arrive on the field as Clausel's Division went over to the offensive sometime after 6:00 pm. They soon found themselves in the unhappy position of serving as a rallying point for the disintegrating French left at a point to the rear of Maucune's Division as its remnants came stumbling back with Thomières'. On the remarkably slim evidence of Oman's appendices and the Division's orientation on Oman's map (after p. 481), it might be that Sarrut eventually shook his Division out with the first brigade on the right, placing the 2e Léger to the right of the 36e Ligne, and the single-regiment second brigade to the left (the 4e Léger) – which might just account for the latter's light losses, but this is purely surmise (subsequent private information from RM indicated a French source, Sarramon, to confirm this).

Thomières' Division (7th Div.)

Thomières' Division emerged from under cover of the woods to pass behind Maucune's deployed Division sometime after the cannonade in the centre blossomed. After the battle, Marmont alleged that Thomières was supposed to have provided a second line of support to Maucune. Whatever the case, Thomières' continued his march another mile-and-a-half beyond before halting, receiving no recall from his commanding Marshal. It is this movement upon which hung Wellington's decision to commit fully to an offensive rather than defensive engagement.

Thomières, too, would have had sufficient occasion to order his column of march in whatever fashion he deemed suitable. At this point, his Division had its left in front, as might have been expected (and is pointed out by Oman is his footnote on page 442): 101e Ligne led (its sister regiment in the Second Brigade, the 23e Léger, was absent), followed by the first brigade with the 62nd and the 1er Ligne. Again, it would seem that the Fates of SOP determined which regiment would be on point for the disaster about to befall the French Army.

More Observations on Salamanca 1812

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