On March 15, therefore, Leval’s Germans crossed the Tagus by the bridge of Talavera, with some of Lasalle’s cavalry, while on the next morning Victor himself passed at Arzobispo with the divisions of Villatte and Ruffin. The combined column pushed westward by a bad road on the hillside overhanging the river, in a difficult country of rocks and woods, seamed with countless ravines, where cavalry could barely act and artillery would have been perfectly useless. Cuesta, on hearing of this movement to turn his flank, threw back his right wing, and bade it make a stand behind the ravine of the little river Ibor, which falls into the Tagus half-way between Arzobispo and Almaraz. His force in this direction consisted of the division of the Duke del Parque, about 5,000 strong, with six guns. On the seventeenth Victor’s columns, with the Germans of Leval at their head, arrived before the defiles of Meza de Ibor, and found themselves confronted by the Duke, who was firmly established on the other side of the ravine, in a fine position, with his guns on a projecting rock which enfiladed the high-road. Victor directed Leval’s eight[167] battalions to cross the ravine, and storm the heights on the other side. This they did in very gallant style, but not without heavy losses, for the Estremadurans, confident in the strength of their rugged fighting-ground, made a long and vigorous resistance, till the Germans actually came to close quarters with them and ran in with the bayonet. Del Parque’s line then crumpled up, and dispersed over the hillsides: finding it impossible to bring off his guns, he cast them over the precipice into the ravine below. The Germans lost seventy killed and 428 wounded while climbing the difficult slopes: Del Parque’s men probably suffered far less, as they absconded when the enemy closed, and had been under cover till that moment. The supposition of some French authorities that the defenders of Meza de Ibor lost 1,000 men is most improbable. The country was one exactly suited for a cheap defence, and for an easy scattering over the hills in the moment of defeat.
[167] One Hessian battalion was still absent, in garrison at Segovia, so the total of the division was not much over 3,000.
