eresford's right was his
weak point. It was a rough, broken table-land, curving till it looked
into the rear of Beresford's line. It was weakly held by Blake and his
Spaniards. Immediately in its front was a low wooded hill, behind which,
as a screen, an attacking force could be gathered.

In the night Soult placed behind this hill the fifth corps, under Gerard,
the whole of his cavalry, under Latour Maubourg, and the strength of his
artillery. When the morning broke, Soult had 15,000 men and 30 guns
within ten minutes' march of Beresford's right wing, and nobody suspected
it. No gleam of colour, no murmur of packed battalions, no ring of
steel, no sound of marching feet warned the deluded English general of
the battle-storm about to break on his right wing. A commander with such
an unexpected tempest ready to burst on the weakest point of his line was
by all the rules of war pre-doomed.

At nine o'clock Soult launched an attack at the bridge, the point where
Beresford expected him, but it was only a feint. Beresford, however,
with all his faults, had the soldierly brain to which the actual thunder
of the cannon gave clearness. He noticed that the French battalions
supporting the attack on the bridge did not press on closely. As a
matter of fact, as soon as the smoke of artillery from the battle raging
at the bridge swept over the field, they swung smartly to the left, and
at the double hastened to add themselves to the thunderbolt which Soult
was launching at Beresford's right. But Beresford, meanwhile, had
guessed Soult's secret, and he sent officer after officer ordering and
entreating Blake to change front so as to meet Soult's attack on his
flank, and he finally rode thither himself to enforce his commands.
Blake, however, was immovable through pride, and his men through sheer
physical weakness. They could die, but they could not march or deploy.
Blake at last tried to change front, but as he did so the French attack
smote him. Pressing up the gentle rise, Gerard's men scourged poor
Blake's flank with their fire; the French artillery, coming swiftly on,
halted every fifty yards to thunder on the unhappy Spaniards; while
Latour Maubourg's lancers and hussars, galloping in a wider sweep,
gathered momentum for a wild ride on Blake's actual rear.

[Illustration: Battle of Albuera, 16th May, 1811. From Napier's
"Peninsular War."]

Beresford tried to persuade the Spaniards to charge as the French were
th