The exhausted condition of his army prevented Wellesley from following the enemy, but as Venegas was on the move and threatening Madrid, this was not regarded as of consummate importance. Of more immediate concern was the alarming intelligence received by the Commander-in-Chief a few hours later that Soult’s army was no longer in Galicia, but marching to intercept the British communications with Portugal.
“_If I fail, God will, I hope, have mercy upon me, for nobody else will._”
Soult, joined by Mortier and Ney, had some 50,000 men with which to face the victor of Talavera. Had Cuesta guarded the mountain passes as he was supposed to do, Wellesley would not have found himself in so awkward a predicament. Both his front and rear were threatened, the former by Victor and Sebastiani and the latter by Soult. While his ranks were sadly depleted, those of the French were augmented. By great good fortune General Craufurd and his celebrated Light Division arrived on the morning of the 29th July, the day following the conclusion of the battle.
Rumour proved on this occasion a powerful ally of the Commander-in-Chief, for had not Craufurd heard of the supposed death of Sir Arthur, it is scarcely likely that he would have urged his men, each loaded with forty pounds weight on his back, to march forty-three English miles in twenty-two hours. Wellesley made up his mind to advance against Soult, but was forced to abandon the idea when he heard that the enemy had entered Plasencia in great force, thereby severing the British communications with Lisbon. A retreat “to take up the defensive line of the Tagus” became eminently necessary. “We were in a bad scrape,” he writes on the 8th August, “from which I think I have extricated both armies; and I really believe that, if I had not determined to retire at the moment I did, all retreat would have been cut off for both.” “Both,” of course, includes the Spaniards, whose “train of mismanagement,” added to Soult’s advance, were contributing causes of his withdrawal.
The Spaniards promised to remain at Talavera to watch the movements of the enemy and to assist the wounded. No sooner was Wellesley out of the way than Cuesta felt that the position was untenable, with the result that many British soldiers, rendered unable to keep up with the Spanish troops by reason of their wounds, were made prisoners by Victor, who soon afterwards took possession of the town.