“The three British Divisions engaged, overthrew all obstacles, and the battle might be said to be won, had Pack’s formidable brigade (formidable in numbers, at least) fulfilled their part--but these men totally failed in their effort to take the height occupied only by a few hundred Frenchmen, and thus gave the park of artillery that was posted with them, full liberty to turn its efforts against the rear and flank of Cole’s soldiers. Nothing could be worse than the state in which the 4th Division was now placed, and the battle, which ought to have been and had been in a manner won, was still in doubt.
“Bonnet, seeing the turn which Pack’s failure had wrought in his favour, re-formed his men, and advanced against Cole, while the fire from the battery and small arms on the Aripeles height completed the confusion. Cole fell wounded; half of his division were cut off; the remainder in full retreat, and Bonnet’s troops pressing on in a compact body, made it manifest that a material change had taken place in the battle, and that ere it was gained some ugly up-hill work was yet to be done.
[Illustration: Charge of Pakenham’s Third Division at Salamanca
“Marshal Beresford, who arrived at this moment, galloped up to the head of a brigade of the 5th Division, which he took out of the second line, and for a moment covered the retreat of Cole’s troops; but this force--composed of Portuguese--was insufficient to arrest the progress of the enemy, who advanced in the full confidence of an assured victory, and at this moment Beresford was carried off the field wounded. Bonnet’s troops advanced, uttering loud cheers, while the entire of Cole’s division and Spry’s brigade of Portuguese were routed. Our centre was thus endangered. Boyer’s dragoons, after the overthrow of the French left, countermarched, and moved rapidly to the support of Bonnet; they were also close in the track of his infantry; and the fate of this momentous battle might be said to hang by a hair. The fugitives of the 7th and 4th French Divisions ran to the succour of Bonnet, and by the time they had joined him, his force had, indeed, assumed a formidable aspect, and thus reinforced it stood in an attitude far different from what it would have done, had Pack’s brigade succeeded in its attack.