3. The Battle of Maida (8)
Victory on the Right Wing, a Rear-Guard Action on the Left
We must now return to the plain by the Lamato. At the very minute when the 1st Léger had begun to break up and retire, the second echelon on each side had come into action. Acland with the 78th and 81st got level with Kempt’s original front at the very moment that the French 42nd Ligne came up on the flank of the 1st Léger. Here the British brigade had the advantage in numbers, having 1,300 men against 1,050, so that the victory of the line over the column would have been much more easy even if the disaster to Compere’s first echelon had not had its effect. The firing began at 300 yards; the French battalions advanced till they had received two shattering volleys, and then broke up and fell back, demoralized, as it appears, as much by the sight of the disaster to the 1st Léger on the left as by their own losses. Reynier merely writes that “the 42nd saw the flight of the 1st Léger, and at a moment when they were only at a very short distance from the enemy commenced to hesitate, and followed the example of the other regiment”. They had not suffered nearly so much. Of 1,046 bayonets present they had 656 left at the next regimental muster—much more than half. They had three officers killed and nine wounded out of forty-three present. Of the men, it seems that 379 were lost, of whom 250 were left wounded on the field—figures that show a far less bitter fight than that of the 1st Léger.
The 42nd retired, not like its left-hand neighbour up the hillside, but along the Catanzaro road, directly in its own rear. Acland, following the routed regiment for some way, soon came into contact with its supports, the three foreign battalions—900 Poles and 600 Swiss, a fresh force outnumbering him by 200 men. Here he had a second but a very short fight to sustain—the Poles broke at the first shock, though Reynier himself had ridden up to them and was using all his efforts to keep them steady. Their rout was disgraceful—their casualty list shows only one officer hit but four taken prisoners unwounded: of the men, it would appear that nearly 250 were captured, nearly all without a wound. This was the work of the 81st, while the Highland regiment at their side got engaged with the Swiss. This battalion was dressed in red, like all the other Swiss corps in the French army. According to the regimental history of the 78th, they were at first mistaken by the Scots for de Watteville’s Swiss regiment of the British force, whose uniform was very similar. They were allowed to approach within a very short distance, and their first volley did the 78th much harm and even forced it to recoil.
But after ten minutes of close fighting the Swiss gave back—though not in disorder, and fell off towards their right. Acland did not pursue them, and they took refuge with Digonet’s troops on the west end of the field, where they rallied and re-formed. Acland was prevented from moving after them by the French cavalry. According to Bunbury, he was threatened at this moment by one or two squadrons of chasseurs à cheval and two guns. His battalions being much disordered by the two fights that they had gone through, the brigadier bade them form squares, and kept them halted for some time under artillery fire, by which they sustained some loss. When the French cavalry moved off, it was found that the battle on the left, no less than on the right, was over. Acland’s brigade suffered, in its two successive victories over the 42nd and the three foreign battalions, a heavier loss than any other part of the British army. The 2/78th had eighty-five killed and wounded, the 1/81st eighty-four—together more than half the total loss at Maida, which only came to 327 casualties.
We must now pass on to the left wing. Cole’s brigade, composed of the 27th and the six grenadier companies, had been detained in its advance by the demonstration of the French cavalry, and therefore only reached the battle-ground twenty minutes after Kempt and Acland had come into action. Cole then found himself in front of Reynier’s right, which had been delayed, like himself, by the distance it had to cover in descending from the camp. This body consisted of the two battalions of the 23rd Léger, 1,260 bayonets, and (unless I am mistaken) of the rallied Swiss battalion which had retired from Acland’s front. Here, too, were French cavalry and four horse guns. Cole had with him about 1,300 men and the three field guns of the army. He had also in his rear Oswald’s reserve, eight companies of the 58th and four of de Watteville’s regiment, which were available for his help as they were not needed elsewhere. In this part of the field, therefore, the British, when Oswald came up a quarter of an hour later, had a slight superiority of numbers, apparently 2,200 infantry and three guns, against 1,800 infantry, two squadrons (about 200 men) of cavalry, and four guns.
But they were terribly handicapped by their entire want of horse. Every time the Chasseurs threatened a charge Cole had to prepare to form square and lost time. Digonet, the French officer who commanded in this part of the field, had deployed the 23rd on one side of his guns, the Swiss battalion on the other, and stood on the defensive on a slightly rising ground. He threw his two tirailleur companies into the rough bushy ground on his right, and tried to encircle with them the left flank of the 27th regiment, while a squadron of cavalry followed the tirailleurs to protect them from any scattered advance of Cole’s skirmishers. There resulted a fierce frontal fire-engagement between the 27th and grenadiers on one side and the two battalions of the French 23rd on the other; both suffered severely. Presently Oswald came up with his 850 men and into a similar bicker with the Swiss. The four French and three English guns seem to have paired off against each other, while the 9th Chasseurs were threatening Cole’s left. The battle seemed to be standing still; yet Reynier was, as a matter of fact, only fighting a rear-guard action, as he himself confesses, in order to allow his routed left time to get off. If he had ordered an advance, or tried to turn the English left, he says that the 23rd Léger would have been smashed up (abîmé).
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