THREE:Sir Arthur knew that at least one hundred thousand French were on the march to take him at once in flank and front; that Soult was advancing from Salamanca, Mortier from Valladolid; and, besideswhich he did not knowNey was en route from Astorga. He must, therefore, retreat at once or fight, and the enemy saved him the trouble of deciding. King Joseph, afraid of Sir Robert Wilson being joined by General Venegas, who had shown himself on the road towards Aranjuez, and of then falling on Madrid, ordered Victor to attack Wellesley at once, without waiting for any further reinforcements. Accordingly, Sir Arthur was attacked by Victor in front of Talavera. He had placed Cuesta and his Spaniards on his right, abutting on the Tagus, and protected by old enclosure walls and olive gardens; and his own troops on the left, on the open plain. The attack began on the evening of the 27th of July, on the outposts, which gradually fell back, and the battle was renewed the next day. The position of the Spaniards being found unapproachable, the whole fury of the French fell on the British, and the contest was kept up till it was pitch dark.[577] About midnight there was a tremendous firing on the Spanish side, and Sir Arthur rode there to ascertain the cause. No cause was visible, but the Spaniards were flying in great haste, and it was with difficulty that he and Cuesta could stop the rout. Next day the British line was attacked on all points by the troops of both Victor and Sebastiani, but they were repelled, and driven down the hills at the point of the bayonet. At one time the British centre was driven in, but it was re-established by the 48th, while the 23rd Dragoons, by a reckless charge, paralysed a whole division of the French army. In the words of Sir Arthur, the British everywhere maintained their positions gloriously, and gave the French a terrible beating. Out of the fifty thousand pitched against the less than twenty thousand Britishfor the Spanish were scarcely engaged at allthey lost in killed and wounded seven thousand men. General Lapisse was killed, and many prisoners were taken, besides seventeen pieces of artillery, with tumbrils and ammunition complete. The British lost eight hundred and fifty-seven killed, and had three thousand nine hundred and thirteen wounded. Major-General Mackenzie and Brigadier-General Langworth were killed.On receiving the Emperor Alexander's decisive reply that no terms could be entered into with Napoleon till he had evacuated both Pomerania and Prussia, Buonapartewho professed to be greatly insulted by the demandimmediately set out from Paris for the northern army, on the 9th of May, and left his passports for the Russian Ambassador, which were delivered two days afterwards. Buonaparte, accompanied by Maria Louisa, proceeded immediately to Dresden, to which place he had invited, or rather summoned, all his allied and vassal monarchs to meet him. There, accordingly, were assembled the Emperor and Empress of Austriathe Empress being the sister of the expelled Duke of Modena, and mother-in-law of the Empress of the French,the solitary King of Prussia (whose queen had perished under the calumnies and insults of Napoleon), and a crowd of lesser German monarchs. Whilst Napoleon was playing the host to these crowned heads, and treating them to banquets, plays, and operas, he was closeted with his cabinet, still planning fresh humiliations for them when he had utterly extinguished Russia. He declared to them that he should take Galicia from Austria, and Silesia from Prussia. He summoned the Abb de Pradt, now Archbishop of Malines, and bade him go and promise the Poles the restoration of their kingdom, so as to induce them to follow him in a mass to Russia. "I will," he said, "put all Poland on horseback! I am on my way to Moscow. Two battles there will do the business! I will burn Thoula! The Emperor Alexander will come on his knees; and then Russia is disarmed. All is ready, and only waits my presence. Moscow is the heart of their empire. Besides, I make war at the expense of the blood of the Poles! I will leave fifty thousand of my Frenchmen in Poland. I will convert Dantzic into another Gibraltar."
