[176] The column comprised the following troops:--
Two battalions of Reserve Grenadiers 1,100 12th Léger (3rd batt.) 1,253 15th Léger (3rd batt.) 1,305 58th Line (3rd batt.) 1,428 86th Line, twelve companies of the 1st and 2nd batts. 1,667 1st Hanoverian Legion 804 4th and 5th Provisional Dragoons 1,248
Deducting 1,200 for detached grenadier companies, &c., the whole was well over 7,000. For details, see Thiébault’s _Expédition de Portugal_.
[177] The figures of the Portuguese historian, Accursio das Neves, reproduced in Arteche (ii. 35), seem indubitable, as they go into minute accounts of the regiments and fractions of regiments present. It seems clear that the allies had nothing like the 5,000 regular troops of which Foy speaks (iv. 267-8).
Loison’s first charge broke the weak line of the allied army; the Spanish cavalry fled without crossing swords with the French, and General Leite left the field with equal precipitation. But the bulk of the infantry fell back on Evora and aided the peasantry to defend its ruined mediaeval walls. They could not hold out, however, for many minutes; the French forced their way in at four or five points, made a great slaughter in the streets, and ended the day by sacking the city with every detail of sacrilege and brutality. Foy says that 2,000 Spaniards and Portuguese fell; his colleague Thiébault gives the incredible figure of 8,000. Even the smaller number must include a good many unarmed inhabitants of Evora massacred during the sack. The French lost ninety killed and 200 wounded [July 29].
On the third day after the fight Loison marched for Elvas, and drove away the hordes which were blockading it. He was then preparing to push a reconnaissance in force against Badajoz, when he received from his commander-in-chief orders to return at once to Lisbon. The long-expected English invasion of Portugal had at last begun, for on August 1 Sir Arthur Wellesley was already disembarking his troops in Mondego Bay. Junot was therefore set on concentrating in order to fight, and Loison’s expeditionary force was too important a part of his army to be left out of the battle. Dropping the battalion of the Hanoverian Legion as a garrison at Santarem, Loison brought the rest of his 7,000 men to his commander’s aid.