SECTION XXVI: CHAPTER V

THE BATTLE OF ALBUERA. MAY 16th, 1811

Soult, it will be remembered, had quitted Estremadura, and handed over the charge of the troops left therein to Mortier, on March 14th. He received the news of Beresford’s irruption into the province and of the combat of Campo Mayor on March 30th, so that from the beginning of April onward² he was aware that it would be incumbent³ on him to support the 5th Corps⁴ and to relieve Badajoz within a few weeks. That he was not forced to march back from Seville to the north at once was due to the breaking of the Jerumenha bridges, which (as we have seen) delayed Beresford’s advance and the investment of Badajoz for many days. But by the end of April the danger had grown pressing: Latour-Maubourg had been thrust out of Estremadura, and (deceived by the movements of Colborne) reported that the Allies were about to invade Andalusia also. He had fallen back to Constantina, well within the limits of that kingdom, and not over forty miles from Seville. Nothing definite had been heard of Badajoz and its garrison⁶, since the communications between that fortress⁷ and the south had been cut by Beresford’s cavalry⁸ on April 10th. Though its governor, Phillipon, was known to be a man of resource, and though provisions and military stores (the leavings of Imaz) were abundant, yet the garrison was small for such a large place, and Soult was not aware how far the damaged fortifications had been repaired since his departure. It was clear that he must strike at Beresford without delay, or the news that Badajoz had been attacked and captured might come to hand some black morning.

The Marshal’s situation, therefore, on May 1st was not unlike what it had been at the end of the preceding December, when by the Emperor’s orders he had been directed to make his first irruption into Estremadura. He must once more collect[p. 364] from the 70,000 men of the 1st, 4th, and 5th Corps a force sufficient to beat whatever number of troops the Allies had placed in that province. The task would clearly be more difficult than it had been in January, for, instead of 16,000 or 20,000 Spaniards, there were now in Estremadura some 20,000 Anglo-Portuguese¹⁰, besides the 8,000 men of whom Ballasteros and Casta?os could dispose. Moreover, there was Blake to be taken into consideration; but the Marshal—badly informed as to the movements of that general and his corps—thought that he was still so far from the rest of the Allies that he would not be able to join Beresford for battle, if the attack upon the latter was pressed with great swiftness and decision. The only favourable¹¹ feature in the situation was that Badajoz was now in French hands, and could not be used (as in February) for a general rallying-place for the Allies. Campo Mayor and Olivenza would be of little or no use to Beresford, and, if he made Elvas his point d’appui, he must first evacuate¹² all that lay on the south bank of the Guadiana. The only alternative for the British general would be to concentrate and fight at some point where he could cover the siege of Badajoz. This was the probable course for him to adopt, and Soult had to calculate the force that he would require in order to make victory reasonably certain. He fixed¹³ it at about 25,000 men—too low an estimate, as it turned out. It is interesting to note that at the very moment when Soult was ordering his concentration at Seville, a dispatch was on the way to him from Napoleon at Paris, dictating¹⁴ the course which he ought to pursue under the exact circumstances which had now arisen. ‘Wellington,’ wrote the Emperor on March 30th, ‘has only 32,000 British troops: he cannot make a detachment of more than 8,000 or 9,000 of them, with 5,000 or 6,000 Portuguese added. It is necessary to keep permanently¹⁵ about Badajoz the value of 15,000 men of all arms, in good state and of the best regiments¹⁷, so that at the least movement of the English on this side the Duke of Dalmatia, taking with him 8,000 or 10,000 men, should be able to concentrate in Estremadura a total of from 25,000 to 30,000 men. If this exceptional crisis arises, only a corps of observation must be left on the side of Granada, and it must be placed under the orders of the Duke of Belluno (Victor). The Duke of[p. 365] Dalmatia must keep in correspondence, via Madrid, with the Army of Portugal and the Army of the Centre. The King ought always to keep a division of 6,000 men between the Tagus and Badajoz, ready to unite with the Duke of Dalmatia, if it becomes necessary to resist a movement of the English against Andalusia. But to arrive at this result it is necessary that the country-side should be entirely¹⁸ disgarrisoned, that all hospitals and magazines should be concentrated in Seville, and that Cadiz, Seville, and Badajoz should be the only points to guard, with a corps of observation at Granada. In this case the Duke of Belluno would take command of the troops at Seville and Granada, as well as of the force besieging²⁰ Cadiz, and the Duke of Dalmatia would only have charge of the army opposed to the English. Counting the division from the Army of the Centre, he can easily unite 30,000 to 35,000 men.... In this case he would be able to resist even 30,000 English, if Lord Wellington marched against him with his entire army. But this supposition can never be realized; because, if it happened, the Prince of Essling (Masséna) would be able to march on Lisbon, and the English would find themselves cut off from that place, and between two fires[459].’

From the first part of Napoleon’s calculations it is clear that he thought Soult would require about 25,000 men—the 15,000 who were to be left about Badajoz and the 10,000 who were to be brought up from Andalusia: they are increased to 30,000 by erroneous addition only. As a matter of fact Soult, in order to cover Seville and to rescue Victor, had left only 11,000 men in Estremadura on March 14th, and 3,000 of these were now shut up in Badajoz. But on the other hand he collected from Andalusia (including Maransin’s column)[460] 16,000 men, so that his fighting force was within a few hundreds of the 25,000 named by the Emperor. The 35,000 spoken of in a later sentence would only be required, so Napoleon thought, if Wellington came down to invade Andalusia with all his British troops. We may point out, by the way, that the Imperial calculations were all wrong in detail, as was bound to be the case when they were made at[p. 366] Paris on data many weeks old. Wellington, owing to the reinforcements which had landed at Lisbon in the first days of March, had now nearly 40,000 British troops. He had detached 12,000 of them under Beresford[461], and these were accompanied not by 6,000 Portuguese at the most, as the Emperor guessed, but by a full 10,000. There was therefore a serious miscalculation. We may add that if Wellington had taken the unlikely step of concentrating his whole army against Andalusia, he would have had not only 38,000 British troops with him, but nearly 25,000 Portuguese troops of good quality[462]. The united force could have smashed up in one morning’s work the 35,000 French under Soult, whom the Emperor thought enough to restrain them. But, as Napoleon truly observed, it was practically impossible for Wellington to make this move, so long as Masséna’s force was still opposed to him in the north. It was only when the Army of Portugal moved down to the Guadiana in June that the British general concentrated practically his whole force in one line, behind the Caya, in the southern sphere of operations. And when he had done so the Armies of Portugal and Andalusia united, though about 60,000 strong, did not dare to attack him. But of this more anon.

In early May Soult, under-valuing Beresford’s fighting force, thought that 25,000 men would suffice to sweep him behind the Guadiana, even when he had the help of Casta?os and Ballasteros. The force was collected in the following fashion: Latour-Maubourg at Constantina had 8,000 men, who had just been rejoined by Maransin’s column, thus the 5th Corps was once more concentrated and complete (with the exception of five[p. 367] battalions²¹ in Badajoz, and one or two more which Soult was bringing up from Seville). When all came in, the corps amounted to 10,000 men of all arms. The remaining part of the expedition was made up by requisitioning from Victor’s 1st Corps and the lines before Cadiz four battalions and two regiments of cavalry[463], and from Sebastiani’s 4th Corps four battalions and three regiments of cavalry[464]. Of the independent division under Godinot, which garrisoned¹⁹ the kingdom of Cordova, Soult took nearly the whole—nine battalions and two regiments of cavalry[465]. The borrowed troops were divided into two large brigades (one might better have been called a small division) under Generals Godinot and Werlé[466], and three provisional brigades of cavalry. They took five batteries (thirty guns) with them, to add to the eighteen guns of Latour-Maubourg, and some companies of sappers and train. The total force available came to just under 25,000 men, unequally divided in numbers between the 5th Corps and the Andalusian reserves. The cavalry was very strong in proportion, about 4,400 sabres[467].

It will be noted²³ that Soult had (as in January) refrained from adopting the general plan which Napoleon favoured, that of abandoning all Andalusia save Seville and the Cadiz Lines, and leaving only a corps of observation at Granada. It is true that the Duke of Dalmatia took very little from Victor, and left the 1st Corps almost intact in the lines, but Sebastiani’s 4th Corps was also left only slightly diminished, and was expected to hold down all eastern Andalusia, instead of being[p. 368] requisitioned for 10,000 men and reduced to a flying column as the Emperor would have wished. The unit that had been most heavily drawn²⁴ upon was the garrison of the kingdom of Cordova, and the result of this was that (as in January) very few troops could be detailed²⁵ for the defence of Seville, since nearly all that had been in its neighbourhood were summoned off to Estremadura. The great city which formed Soult’s base was once more left inadequately²⁶ defended by dép?ts and drafts, and Juramentados of doubtful fidelity²⁷. The Marshal had lately raised some companies of so-called Swiss[468], deserters of all nations, and these were also utilized²⁸. But the total left under General Daricau was dangerously small. So keenly was this realized that the governor was directed to retire within the great fortified³⁰ enclosure of the Carthusian convent (La Cartuja) if pressed, and all the military stores had been placed in this immense building, which had been surrounded with a bastioned enceinte, and armed with cannon³¹, so as to form a sort of citadel³². The Castle of the Inquisition at Cordova in a similar fashion had been fortified, and converted into a work that could be held against any irregular force, and similar precautions had been taken at Jaen, Andujar, Ronda, Alcala Real, and Niebla, to provide centres of resistance against possible assaults by guerrilleros. Probably, however, Napoleon was right, and if the minor³³ places and eastern Andalusia had been evacuated³⁴, Soult might have brought 10,000 more infantry³⁵ against Beresford, in which case the latter would never have dared to fight him, and must have retired³⁶ behind the Guadiana. There would have been no battle of Albuera—but on the other hand all the evacuated districts would have flared³⁷ up into insurrection, and it is difficult to see how Soult could have reconquered them, since he was to be for several months tied up in operations against the British, from which he could not have withdrawn³⁸ a man.

But having taken another decision, and resolved to surrender nothing, the Marshal had only gathered 12,000 men to reinforce[p. 369] the 5th Corps. They required many days to concentrate, and it was only on May 8th that he reviewed them in their new provisional brigading at Seville, and delivered an allocution in which he announced to them that they were destined³⁹ to save Badajoz and drive the British from Estremadura, and that the force would march at midnight on the 10th[469]. This threat did not escape the Spanish patriots⁴⁰ in the city, who passed the news on so swiftly that Ballasteros was able to forward it to Beresford by the afternoon of the 12th.

Having once started, Soult hoped to surprise his enemy by the swiftness of his movements. The head of the column which marched at 12 p.m. on the night of the 9th-10th was at Santa Olalla, more than thirty miles away, on the 11th. The pace had to slacken in crossing the Sierra Morena, but on the 12th head quarters were at Monasterio (fifteen miles further on) from which Ballasteros’s scouts⁴¹ withdrew. Latour-Maubourg and the 5th Corps, far away to the right, had advanced at the same time from Cazalla and Constantina, and driven Casta?os’s advanced posts from Guadalcanal and then from Llerena. On the 13th the two French forces joined at Fuente Cantos, and their leading cavalry squadrons reached Los Santos, from which the 13th Light Dragoons retired. As Wellington had directed, nearly a month before, in his Elvas memorandum⁴², the Spaniards made no attempt to check the advance: their cavalry withdrew as the French pushed forward; their infantry were prepared to fall back on the rendezvous⁴³ at Albuera.

From the 13th the British cavalry as well as the Spanish were in touch with Soult; General Long had been lying about Villafranca and Los Santos till that day, with three British and four Portuguese regiments[470]. He retired to Fuente del Maestre, and then to Santa Marta, contenting himself with reporting the successive advances of the French to Beresford,[p. 370] who was apparently⁴⁴ not over well contented⁴⁵ with his operations on this and the two following days, and thought that he might have gone back more slowly, and have compelled the leading squadrons of the enemy to deploy⁴⁶ and lose time. At Fuente del Maestre the allied⁴⁷ cavalry split itself up, Madden with two Portuguese regiments covering the roads to Almendralejo and Solana, while Long and the main body stayed on the high-road to Badajoz via Santa Marta and Albuera[471].

Having such long warning of his adversary⁴⁸’s movements, Beresford was able to carry out the concentration of his fighting force at leisure. There was still some uncertainty⁴⁹ as to which road the enemy might choose, three[472] being open to him when his advance had reached Los Santos, viz. (1) the obvious central and shortest route by Albuera-Badajoz, (2) the eastern route Solana-Talavera Real-Badajoz, (3) the western route Almendral-Valverde-Badajoz. The former was rather circuitous⁵¹, its main advantage to the French being that it was all across open flat country, where their superior cavalry would have had excellent ground; but the Albuera route was not perceptibly inferior in this respect, as subsequent operations showed. To take the third or western road, that by Almendral-Valverde (though this is not so long as that by Solana) would have forced Soult to execute a flank march across Beresford’s front, and (what probably weighed more with the French Marshal) would have fixed the decisive spot, where the fate of the campaign would be settled, nearer to the point towards which Blake’s army was known to be marching: and Soult still hoped to fight his battle in that general’s absence.

On the 13th of May Beresford marched out from his lines in front of Badajoz to Valverde, a point convenient for occupying a position across two of the possible roads, and not very remote from the third and least likely one. He took with him the 2nd Division and Hamilton’s Portuguese, with three batteries. The rest of the army remained before Badajoz, covering the removal of artillery⁵² and stores, but ready to come up at any[p. 371] moment. On the same afternoon he had a conference with General Blake, who rode over from Barcarrota. On the following day Soult’s movement seemed to be growing much slower—the heads of his columns only reached Fuente del Maestre and Villafranca. The fact, duly reported to Beresford, that part of the French army had reached the latter place, which is off the main chaussée to the right, seemed to make it possible that Soult was, after all, going to move by Talavera Real. Beresford waited for a more precise indication of his adversary’s final route, and sent pressing orders to Madden to cover with his scouts all the open country between Talavera Real and Almendralejo. Blake on this day, finding that his cavalry could discover no signs of the French in his front, to the west of the great chaussée, drew in from Barcarrota to Almendral, as he promised to do when he met Beresford at Valverde on the 12th.

It being perfectly⁵³ clear by this time that the French were not about to take the western route, Beresford on the 15th marched the 2nd Division and Hamilton’s Portuguese to Albuera, where they were joined by more troops from in front of Badajoz, Alten’s German brigade, and a provisional brigade of Portuguese under Colonel Collins[473]. Only the 4th Division and the Spanish brigade belonging to Casta?os, lately arrived from Merida, now remained in front of the fortress—all on the south bank save Kemmis’s brigade of the first-named unit. The last of the stores were moved on this day from the trenches⁵⁴ to Elvas, and the flying bridge opposite the mouth of the Caya was taken up. This last proved a mistake—it was intended that Kemmis should join the army by using a ford¹ below Badajoz, which had been practicable for the last ten days; but on the night of the 15th-16th the water rose, and the brigade was forced to march round by the next passage, that at Jerumenha, which involved a circuit of thirty miles, and made it late for the[p. 372] battle. Only three companies, which chanced to be on the south bank of the Guadiana when the freshet came down, were able to march off with Cole and the rest of the division, when the order came.

About 15,000 men were already in line at Albuera when Soult’s intention at last became perfectly clear: his chasseurs and hussars vigorously attacked Long’s horsemen at Santa Marta, and began to drive them along the chaussée. Long made no stand, though, having three British and two Portuguese regiments (Otway) besides some 600 of Casta?os’s cavalry, he was in considerable strength. ‘He was driven rather faster than one could have wished, and retiring precipitately⁵⁵ crossed the Albuera stream, and gave up the whole right bank to the enemy. This haste is a bad thing, because the woods there mask all the enemy’s movements,’ wrote D’Urban in his diary. Beresford was so vexed⁵⁶ with him that he that night assigned to the command of the cavalry of the whole allied army General Lumley, who was Long’s senior, leaving the latter in nominal⁵⁷ command of the British horse alone. Lumley, though then in charge of an infantry brigade in the 2nd Division, was an old light dragoon, and showed himself next day well able to manage a mass of mounted men[474].

No enemy, save Briche’s light cavalry, came up during the 15th—Soult’s infantry were far behind, and bivouacked that night at Santa Marta. Beresford was therefore able to complete his concentration at leisure. Blake’s army was directed to march up in the afternoon from Almendral, only five miles away; Cole and the Spanish brigade of Carlos de Espa?a, Casta?os’s only infantry force, were directed to break up from the Badajoz lines and march at 2 a.m. to Albuera. The Spaniards, for some unknown reason, were very late; Blake only arrived at 11 p.m., and his troops, encamping in the dark, could not[p. 373] take up the position assigned to them till daylight. However, he had arrived, which was the main thing, bringing with him the three infantry divisions of Zayas, Ballasteros, and Lardizabal, and 1,000 horse under Loy, but only one battery. Cole reported that he would be on the ground soon after dawn, but that Kemmis was cut off from him by the rise of the river, so that he could only bring two brigades instead of three. Orders were also sent to Madden to close up with his Portuguese horse—but he could not be found, having most unaccountably crossed the Guadiana to Montijo with the bulk of his brigade, an eccentric and unjustifiable movement. Two of his squadrons, however, were met, and sent to join Otway that night.

The position of Albuera is not a strong or a well-marked one, yet it is far the best that can be discovered across the Seville chaussée for many miles south of Badajoz. It consists of a long rolling line of low hills, extending for several miles along the brook⁵⁸ which takes its name from the village. This stream is in spring an insignificant⁵⁹ thread of water, fordable anywhere by infantry or cavalry, and allowing even guns and waggons⁶⁰ to pass at many points, though there are occasionally long stretches of bank with an almost precipitous drop of ten or twelve feet, which would stop anything on wheels. The ground on the south-east or French bank slopes up in a very gentle rise, and is covered in many places with groves⁶¹ of olives, which make it impossible to take any general view of the country-side, or to get more than vague and partial notions as to any movements of troops that may be going on in it. On the north-west or English bank the rolling heights are completely bare of trees; except at the village of Albuera there is neither house, wall, nor bush upon them—nothing taller than a few withered⁶² shrubs⁶³ three feet high[475].

The so-called heights of Albuera are simply an undulation along the bank of the stream, which rises very slightly above the level of the plateau that stretches from the position to the descent into the valley of the Guadiana, thirteen miles away. This ridge⁵ or undulation extends in either direction as far as[p. 374] the eye can reach, with varying altitude, sometimes only 60 feet, sometimes perhaps 150 feet above the water’s edge. There are therefore many ‘dips’ on the summit of the position. The main battle-spot was on the two slopes of one of these dips, where, between two of the higher knolls⁶⁴ of the ridge, there is a depression perhaps a third of a mile in width. The back-descent of the heights, to the north-west, in the direction of Badajoz, is even gentler than that towards the Albuera stream. The ‘ravine of the Arroyo⁶⁶ river,’ marked in Napier’s and other maps, is an absurd exaggeration. There is simply a slightly curved ‘bottom,’ where a lush growth of grass along a certain line may indicate the course of a rivulet⁶⁷ in very wet weather. This line has no marked banks, and is as much like a high-road as a ravine: it would not, even after rain, present any obstacle to infantry or cavalry moving in mass[476], and it is a mistake to make it take any prominent part in the history of the battle.

There is no ravine or ‘dead ground’ of any kind anywhere on either the French or the English side of the Albuera. The slopes are so gentle that any spot can be seen from any other. But the French side is wooded, so that movements of troops are hard to follow, while the other bank is absolutely bare. There is, however, a ‘sky-line’ on the English heights, between the dip where the main battle took place and Albuera village. An observer standing⁶⁸ on the point where Soult formed his front of battle cannot get a view of the English line near the village—to do so he must ride sideways down towards the water, to look along the trough of the depression. Hence Soult during the battle cannot have seen a good deal of what was going on behind the allied front line, but Beresford, on the sky-line above the north-eastern edge of the dip, could make out all Soult’s dispositions⁷⁰ when the battle smoke did not hinder him.

Albuera is a big well-built village, with a disproportionately high church tower. It stands on a knoll⁶⁵ of its own, in front of[p. 375] the main line of the ridge, to which it serves as an outwork, as Hougoumont did to Wellington’s position at Waterloo. It is well away from the river bank, perhaps 150 or 200 yards from it; the bridge which brings the Seville chaussée across the stream is not exactly opposite the village, but decidedly to the south-east of it.

The Albuera stream is formed by two minor brooks⁷², the Nogales and the Chicapierna, which meet a little south of the village. Between them is a low wooded hill, which conceals⁷³ from an observer on the British heights the upper course of the Nogales, and part of the woods beyond, in which the French formed their order of battle. It was behind this long low knoll that Soult hid his main attacking column. But the elevation⁷⁴ itself is insignificant, and much less effective than the more distant woods in covering his movement.

Beresford drew up his army on the hypothesis that Soult’s aim would be to pierce his centre, by capturing Albuera village, and storming the heights beyond, over which the high-road passes. Years after the battle had become a matter of history he still maintained[477] that this would have been his adversary’s best policy, since the place where the road crosses the position is the lowest and weakest part of the heights, and a blow piercing the centre of a hostile army is always more effective than the mere⁷⁵ tactical success of turning one of his flanks, which still leaves everything to be decided⁷¹ by hard fighting, if the attacked party throws back his threatened wing, and stands to defend himself in the new position. The ground on the allied right wing he held, on the other hand, to be higher and stronger: and even if the French got upon the crest⁷⁶ of the heights, the range gave, by reason of its successive dips, several positions on which a new line could well be formed. I leave these considerations to the critic, and am not fully⁷⁷ convinced by them.

Beresford’s line was drawn up as follows: on the extreme left, to the north-east of Albuera, were Hamilton’s Portuguese division, with Collins’s brigade in support, amounting to eleven strong battalions in two lines. Beyond them, to guard the flank, were Otway’s weak Portuguese cavalry brigade and the two stray squadrons of Madden’s. The whole made only 800 sabres.

[p. 376]The centre was formed of William Stewart’s English division, the 2nd, comprising the three brigades of Colborne, Hoghton, and Abercrombie[478], ten battalions. In front of them Alten’s two German battalions occupied Albuera village. The 2nd Division was drawn up across the high-road, on the reverse slope of the heights; Beresford had learned from Wellington to hide his men till the actual moment of conflict, and, as he says with some pride, not a man of Stewart’s or Hamilton’s divisions was visible, and the only troops under the enemy’s eye were Otway’s cavalry and the two German battalions in Albuera.

In the rear of Stewart, as general reserve, was Cole’s division from the siege of Badajoz, which had marched at 2 o’clock a.m. according to orders and reached the field at 6.30 in the morning. There was some error in ‘logistics’ here, for Cole ought to have been earlier on the field. He had fifteen miles to cover, and should have been started sooner, for preference on the preceding evening, so as to allow his men time to rest and cook on reaching the position. Having marched till dawn they then had to lie down in formation, and eat as best they might, for the French were on the move not very long after they came up. The division, as already mentioned, consisted only of Myers’s fusilier brigade (1 and 2/7th Royal Fusiliers and 1/23rd Royal Welsh Fusiliers) and Harvey’s Portuguese brigade (11th, 23rd, and 1st battalion²² Lusitanian Legion). Kemmis with the other British brigade, save three companies which had followed Myers, was making a fruitless march against time, round by Jerumenha. With Cole there had also come up Casta?os’s sole contribution of infantry—the weak brigade of Carlos de Espa?a, three battalions with 1,700 bayonets[479].

The right wing of Beresford’s position, the part of it which he thought least likely to be attacked, was held by Blake’s 12,000 men. Having encamped anyhow on the hillside, when they arrived at midnight, they had to be collected and rearranged[p. 377] with much loss of time after morning broke. Indeed, they had formed their line only about an hour before the battle began. The three infantry divisions of Lardizabal, Ballasteros, and Zayas were arranged in succession from left to right, each with one brigade in first and one in second line. The 1,100 horse of Loy were out on the extreme right, corresponding to Otway’s Portuguese on the extreme left. Of the rest of the allied cavalry, De Grey’s 700 heavy dragoons and 600 horse of Casta?os’s Estremaduran force, under Penne Villemur, were in reserve near Cole’s 4th Division. The 13th Light Dragoons, separated from the other two British regiments, were watching the course of the Albuera from the bridge upwards⁷⁸, in front of Blake’s line.

Soult had come prepared to fight on the morrow, as soon as his infantry should arrive on the field. At nightfall only one brigade of them was up. The main body had bivouacked at Santa Marta, from whence they broke up before dawn and marched eleven miles to the battlefield. Werlé’s reserve, forming the tail of the column, was not closed up till seven or eight o’clock in the morning. The Marshal was still under the impression that Blake had not yet arrived, and that Beresford could not have more than 20,000 men in line opposite him[480]. It is one of the ironies⁷⁹ of history to read in his dispatch that his great flank attack, which so much surprised Beresford, and caused so much confusion in the allied army at the commencement of the action, was made with the intention of cutting in between Beresford and Blake, whom he believed to be still on the march from the direction of Almendral, some miles to the south. The Spanish army, having arrived after dark, had never been seen; and at Beresford’s request Blake had ranged it behind the sky-line on the crest, so that nothing was visible save Loy’s horse far on the right. Soult thought these were Penne Villemur’s squadrons,[p. 378] belonging to Casta?os, which had been accompanying the British cavalry for some days.

The Marshal could make out very little of his enemy’s force or position. All that could be guessed was that Otway’s and Loy’s cavalry, both well visible, covered the two ends of the line. Soult’s scheme of attack was ingenious, though founded on an utterly⁸⁰ wrong hypothesis. He resolved to demonstrate with one infantry and one cavalry brigade against the village of Albuera, so as to attract his enemy’s attention to his centre, while carrying the rest of his army far to the left, under cover of the woods and the low hill between the Nogales and Chicapierna brooks, to a point from which they could turn Beresford’s right, by crossing the two streams and ascending⁸² the plateau somewhere beyond the point where Loy’s cavalry were visible.

The details of the execution of this plan were very well worked out. Godinot’s brigade (the 3,500 muskets⁸³ of the 12th Léger and 51st Ligne) marched upon Albuera, flanked by Briche’s light cavalry, and supported by the fire of two batteries. They became at once hotly engaged with Alten’s German battalions, and with two battalions of Spaniards whom Blake sent down to give the village flank support. A Portuguese battery above the village swept the approaches to the bridge very effectively[481]. Meanwhile, on Godinot’s left, Soult showed two brigades of dragoons and Werlé’s strong brigade of 6,000 men drawn up on the edge of the wood, and apparently about to attack Blake’s line in front. But deep in the olives to the left the two divisions of the 5th Corps, Girard and Gazan, were executing a circular sweep, with a cavalry brigade in front of them, quite out of sight. They were covered not only by the trees but by the height between the Nogales and Chicapierna brooks.

Beresford and Blake prepared to resist an attack on their centre and right, and felt reasonably confident of giving a good account of themselves. But the frontal attack seemed somehow to hang fire, and suddenly a new development came: four regiments of French cavalry, far to the right, galloped⁸⁴ out of the woods, across the two brooks, and up the slopes far beyond Beresford’s right. Loy’s Spanish cavalry, who lay in that direction, naturally gave way before them. Immediately afterwards the[p. 379] head of a long infantry column came marching up from the same point, making for the heights at a place some way beyond Blake’s extreme right. It is curious to note that they did not aim at attacking Blake’s actual flank, but rather at getting on top of the heights beyond him, so as to be able to move against him on the level of the plateau, without having to climb the hill in face of opposition⁸⁶.

Beresford rode hastily along the line to meet Blake, and requested him to deal with this unexpected flank attack by drawing off one of his two lines, and placing it at right angles to the original position, across the summit of the heights. He himself would take care of the frontal attack. Blake promised to do this, but sent only one brigade of Zayas’s division, four battalions, and his only battery, to execute the required movement. He was still not convinced that the front attack might not be the main one. Beresford meanwhile went back to his own troops, to direct Stewart’s division to prepare to support the Spaniards when necessary, and Lumley’s cavalry to move off to join Loy on the extreme right.

The next half-hour served to develop the whole face of the battle in its second aspect. The French cavalry at the head of the turning column spread themselves out on the rolling plateau to the west of the heights so as to flank their infantry. The 5th Corps formed itself in a column of extraordinary depth on the undulating summit of the ridge, and began to move on toward Blake’s flank. The responsibility for the order of battle adopted must apparently be laid on the shoulders of Girard, the senior division-commander, who was placed that day at the head of the whole corps; Latour-Maubourg, who had led it during the last two months, had been taken away to assume general charge of the cavalry. Girard, as it seems, intended to beat down the hastily formed line of defence, which the Spaniards were opposing to him, by the impetus⁸⁷ of an immensely heavy column. His force consisted of two divisions, each of two brigades, and each brigade composed of from four to six battalions[482]. I had long sought for an exact description of his array, of which[p. 380] the French historians and Soult’s dispatch only say that it was a colonne serrée de bataillons. At last I found the required information in the Paris archives[483], in the shape of an anonymous⁸⁸ criticism on Soult’s operations, drawn up (apparently for Napoleon’s eye) by some officer who had been set to write a report on the causes of the loss of the battle.

This document says that ‘the line of attack was formed by a brigade in column of attack [i. e. a column formed of four battalions in column of double companies, one battalion behind the other]. To the right and left the front line was in a mixed formation, that is to say, on each side of the central column was a battalion deployed⁸⁹ in line, and on each of the two outer sides of the deployed battalions was a battalion or a regiment¹⁶ in column, so that at each end the line was composed of a column ready to form square, in case the hostile cavalry should try to fall upon one of our flanks—which was hardly likely, since our own cavalry was immensely superior to it in number.’

This formation disposed of the nine battalions of Girard’s division, which, as we see, advanced with a front consisting of three battalions in column and two in line. Gazan’s, the 2nd Division of the corps, followed very close behind Girard, the four regiments each in column with their two (or three) battalions one behind the other. The 2nd Division had been intended to attack as an independent supporting line, but ultimately worked up so close to the 1st Division that it could not easily be drawn off or disentangled, and to the Allies the whole 8,400 men looked like one vast column, with a front of about 500 men only, which, allowing for battalion intervals⁹¹, just stretched across the top level of the heights, which is here about 700 yards broad.

Three batteries of field artillery belonging to the 5th Corps accompanied the 1st Division; a fourth, of horse artillery, was with the cavalry which covered the left flank of the column. Two more were in company with Werlé’s brigade. The remaining two stopped with Godinot opposite Albuera.

When Blake realized the strength of the turning force, he began to detach more troops from his front line to strengthen Zayas, whose four battalions would obviously be no more than[p. 381] a mouthful for the 5th Corps. They went in haste, four battalions from Ballasteros, two from Lardizabal, but failed to reach Zayas before the fighting began. Meanwhile a majestic⁹² movement changed the whole aspect of the French front. The two brigades of dragoons which had hitherto formed the French right-centre wheeled into column of squadrons, and galloped off in beautiful order along the side of the Albuera brook till they reached the 5th Corps; passing behind it they joined the cavalry on its left, which now became 3,500 strong. Latour-Maubourg was with them in person. At the same moment Werlé’s 6,000 infantry performed a slower and shorter circular march and joined the rear of the 5th Corps, to which they now acted as a reserve. Thus Soult had all his infantry save Godinot’s brigade of 3,500 men, and all his cavalry save Briche’s two regiment of light horse, 550 sabres, massed opposite Blake’s new ‘refused’ right flank.

The sight of this sweep to the south on the part of the French caused Beresford to make a complete change in his disposition⁶⁹. The whole 2nd Division, one brigade following the other, in the order Colborne-Hoghton-Abercrombie, marched along the top of the heights to reinforce Zayas. Hamilton’s Portuguese were to move in, to take up the ground evacuated by the 2nd Division. Lastly, Cole’s 4th Division, Myers’s British and Harvey’s Portuguese brigades, forming the reserve, were moved a full mile to the right, and placed behind the English and Spanish cavalry, facing Latour-Maubourg’s great mass of horse. It was the sight of these eight solid battalions in column, ready to form square, which alone prevented the French cavalry general from ordering a general charge upon the 2,300 allied horse in his front, whom he outnumbered in the proportion of three to two, and of whom only De Grey’s 700 sabres were British. For the 13th Light Dragoons, the third regiment in the field, was covering the other wing of the new front, down by the Albuera stream.

Zayas’s Spaniards, having a much shorter way to move than the French turning column, were in line of battle long before the 5th Corps came up against them. But the reinforcements tardily⁹³ sent by Blake were still coming up, and forming on Zayas’s flanks in much confusion, when the fighting began. Most of them prolonged the line down the slope of the heights[p. 382] above the Chicapierna brook. Beresford was personally occupied in posting and aligning⁹⁴ them at the moment of the first clash.

Zayas, whose behaviour all through the day was most creditable, had found a very good point at which to draw up his brigade and battery. The summit of the heights is not level, but undulating; he had chosen the deepest dip in their summit, about a mile to the south of Albuera village, and drew up his small force in line on the hither side of it, so that the enemy had to attack him slightly uphill. His four battalions exactly occupied the top of the plateau; the troops under Ballasteros, which were now coming up, were not on the top, but on the descending⁹⁵ slope towards the stream.

Girard’s two divisions advancing along the summit had a front about equal to that of Zayas, but four times as deep. Opposite the rest of the Spanish line, Ballasteros’s battalions, they sent out nothing but skirmishers. But Girard’s division, with a line of tirailleurs in front, descended⁹⁶ their own side of the dip, and then began to ascend⁸¹ that occupied by the Spaniards. When they had reached a point on the gentle up-slope about sixty yards from the Spaniards, the French tirailleurs cleared off to right and left, and the battalions behind them began to open up their fire, slowly advancing between each volley. The musketry was hot, and both sides were falling freely, when the first British troops arrived on the battle-spot. These were the four battalions of Colborne’s brigade, at the head of the 2nd Division: the 1/3rd, 2/48th, 2/66th, and 2/31st, counting in that order from right to left. With them was the divisional commander, William Stewart.

Beresford, in his account of the battle, says that he had intended to draw up the whole 2nd Division in a single line in support of Zayas, and to advance with it against the French when all was in order. But William Stewart, though he had received no order to attack, and had been only directed to support the Spaniards, took upon himself to assume the offensive. The position indeed was rather a tempting⁹⁷ one: the enemy was engaged with Zayas on an equal front, and had no flank guard of any kind within a quarter of a mile. He could obviously be assailed⁹⁸ at great advantage by a force which should pass round and through Zayas’s right, and place itself perpendicular⁹⁹ to Girard’s long unprotected[p. 383] flank. This movement Stewart took upon himself to execute; as each of the battalions of the 1st Brigade came up, it was extended and sent forward, apparently in a sort of échelon, the Buffs leading, far to the flank, and the 48th and 66th passing actually through Zayas’s right battalions. But the 31st, the left regiment, had not come up or deployed when the other three went forward into action[484]. Along with Colborne there was coming up Cleeves’s battery of the King’s German Legion. The leading four guns got into action, just to Zayas’s front, at the same moment that the British infantry went forward.

The French column, thus unexpectedly attacked in flank both by artillery and infantry fire, was naturally thrown into dreadful confusion. The two battalions in column which formed its left section faced outwards¹⁰⁰, and opened a rolling fire three deep, the front rank kneeling. But they could not stand the volleys poured into them from a distance of sixty paces, and soon began to break—the men were seen trying to go to the rear, and the officers beating them back with their swords. Colborne’s line cheered, and went forward to complete its victory with the bayonet.

At this moment a dreadful catastrophe¹⁰¹ occurred: Latour-Maubourg had been watching the struggle on the hillside before him, and, when he saw it going badly for his friends, directed his nearest cavalry regiments, which chanced to be the 1st Lancers of the Vistula and the 2nd Hussars, to charge along the slopes against the exposed outer flank of Colborne’s brigade. At this moment the morning, which had been fair at first but had been growing darker every hour, was disturbed by a blinding shower of rain and hail coming from the north. It is said to have been largely in consequence of this accident that the approach of the 800 horsemen was unnoticed by any of the British infantry—but Colborne’s men were also smothered¹⁰² in their own smoke, and[p. 384] entirely concentrated on the work before them. At any rate the charge took the Buffs in flank, rolled them up, and then swept down the back of the other two battalions, and on to Cleeves’s battery. It is hardly exaggeration to say that Colborne’s three leading battalions were annihilated¹⁰³ in five minutes. Fifty-eight officers out of 80, 1,190 men out of 1,568 were slain¹⁰⁴, wounded, or captured. The number of killed was out of all proportion to the wounded: in the Buffs there were 212 dead to 234 hurt. This ghastly slaughter¹⁰⁵ is said to have been due to the fact that the savage¹⁰⁶ Polish lancers not only refused to accept surrender from the unhappy infantry, but deliberately¹⁰⁷ speared the wounded as they lay. Nor can I refuse credit to the general statement of contemporary British authorities after reading the journal of Major Brooke, commanding the 2/48th, who relates how, after he had surrendered and was being taken to the rear by two French infantry soldiers, a Pole rode up to him and deliberately cut him down, after which the ruffian made his horse trample¹⁰⁸ over him and left him for dead[485]. In the regimental annals of the 66th two officers are named as having been wounded by the lance, while already disabled and lying on the ground[486]. Peninsular tradition tells that the 2nd Division after Albuera swore to give no quarter to Poles.

But not all the victorious¹⁰⁹ horsemen were so inhumane; 479 prisoners, many wounded, were driven off to the French lines. The brigade lost five of its six colours; and the four guns of Cleeves’s battery, which had accompanied it, were captured. Only one howitzer, however, was dragged off by the victors—the other three were left behind for want of horses. The 2/31st, somewhat to the left rear of its comrades, had time to form square, and beat off without difficulty the rush of the remnant of the lancers who got so far as its position. Marking too late the awful catastrophe on his left, General Lumley sent two squadrons of the 4th Dragoons to fall upon the flank and rear of the Poles—but they were intercepted¹¹⁰ by a French hussar regiment which Latour-Maubourg sent out to cover the retreat of the lancers,[p. 385] and were beaten back with the loss of both their squadron leaders wounded and taken prisoners[487].
Map of the battle of Albuera, about 10 a.m.

Enlarge  ALBUERA. No 1 (About 10 a.m.)

Note.—The front line of the French attacking force is not correctly represented. It consisted of a column of four battalions in the centre, flanked by two deployed battalions, and with battalions in column placed outside the two deployed battalions on either side (see p. 380). In the French reserve there should be only two, not three, battalions of Grenadiers. The right flank of Zayas’s line is two battalions too long.

It may be remarked that the loss of the victorious cavalry was very heavy, though not out of proportion to their success. The lancers lost 130 men out of 580—the hussars who charged in support of them 70 out of 300. It was a curious evidence of the headlong nature of their charge that some scores of the Poles, after passing by and failing to break the square of the 2/31st, actually rode down the rear of Zayas’s Spanish line, sweeping¹¹¹ aside that general and his staff, and coming into collision soon after with Beresford and his—the Marshal actually parried a lance-thrust, and cast the man who dealt it from his saddle, and his aides-de-camp had to fight for their lives.

At this moment the head of Hoghton’s brigade was just coming up from the rear—and its leading regiment opening fire on the scattered¹¹² lancers shot a great many men of the rear rank of Zayas’s Spaniards in the back. Notwithstanding this, and to their eternal credit, the Spaniards did not break, and continued their frontal contest with Girard’s division, which had not slackened for a moment during Colborne’s disastrous¹¹³ fight[488].

There was a distinct pause, however, in the battle after this bloody¹¹⁴ episode. The leading division of French infantry had been so much shaken and driven into disorder¹¹⁵, by Colborne’s momentary¹¹⁶ pressure on their flank, that the whole column had lost its impetus, and stood wavering below the Spanish line. Girard, regarding his own division as practically a spent force, ordered up Gazan’s two brigades to relieve it. There was fearful confusion while the new columns were thrusting their way to the front, and they were never properly formed. For the rest of the[p. 386] battle the two divisions formed a dense¹¹⁷ mass of 8,000 men, which looked like one solid clump¹¹⁸, without much vestige¹¹⁹ of regular formation.

While this confused change of front-line was being carried out by the French, Beresford had leisure to deploy Hoghton’s brigade in the rear of Zayas, and Abercrombie’s in rear of Ballasteros, lower down the slope. He then proceeded to bring them forward to relieve the Spaniards. The latter, it is due to them to explain, had behaved extremely well. Beresford bears witness that Zayas’s four battalions, on the edge of the undulation which marked the front of battle ‘did not even to the end break their line or quit the field, as Napier alleges¹²⁰. After having suffered very considerable loss they began to crowd together in groups, and it was then that the second line (Hoghton and Abercrombie) was ordered up.’ The losses of the two battalions of Irlanda, and the 2nd and 4th Spanish Guards, were indeed the best testimonial to their good service. They had 615 officers and men killed and wounded out of 2,026 present, over 30 per cent.—all lost by musketry or artillery fire without a foot of ground having been yielded, in a close struggle that had lasted over an hour.

With the coming up of Gazan’s division on one side, and of Hoghton’s and Abercrombie’s brigades on the other, the second stage of the battle was reached. The clash was confined to the top of the plateau, the French having only a skirmishing line opposite Abercrombie on the slope, though the central backbone¹²¹ of the ridge was crowded with their dense columns. Hence it may be said that for the next half-hour Hoghton’s men, assisted by the 2/31st, the sole survivors¹²² of Colborne’s brigade alone, were fighting the entire 5th Corps—a line of 1,900 men two deep opposed to a mass of 8,000 twelve deep, on an equal front. This was the hardest and most splendid fighting done that day, not even excepting the glorious advance of the Fusiliers half an hour later. The three battalions, 29th, 1/48th, and 1/57th, absolutely died in line[489], without yielding an inch. Their losses speak for themselves—56 officers and 971 men killed and[p. 387] wounded out of 95 officers and 1,556 men present. The best account of this part of the action that I know is in the reminiscences of Moyle Sherer of the 1/48th:—

‘When we arrived near the retiring Spaniards, and formed our line to advance through them towards the enemy, a very noble-looking young Spanish officer rode up to me, and begged me, with a sort of proud anxiety, to take notice that his countrymen were ordered to retire, not flying. Just as our line had entirely cleared the Spaniards, the smoke of battle was for one moment blown aside, by the slackening of the fire, and gave to our view the French grenadier caps, their arms, and the whole aspect of their frowning masses. It was a grand, but a momentary sight; a heavy atmosphere of smoke enveloped¹²³ us, and few objects could be discerned at all—none distinctly. The best soldier can make no calculation of time, if he be in the heat of an engagement, but this murderous contest of musketry lasted long. At intervals a shriek¹²⁴ or a groan¹²⁵ told that men were falling around me; but it was not always that the tumult¹²⁶ of the contest suffered me to catch individual sounds. The constant “feeling to the centre” and the gradual diminution¹²⁷ of our front more truly bespoke¹²⁸ the havock of death. We were the whole time progressively advancing upon and shaking the enemy. As we moved slowly, but ever a little in advance, our own killed and wounded lay behind us; we arrived among those of the Spaniards who had fallen in the first onset¹²⁹, then among those of the enemy. At last we were only twenty yards from their front.’ The brigade had lost nearly two-thirds of its numbers, the brigadier had been killed; of the three battalion commanders one was killed and two wounded. The front of the shrinking line no longer covered that of the French mass before it. But the enemy was in no condition to profit by the exhaustion¹³⁰ of the British. The fire of the line had, as always, been more effective than that of the column. The front of the enemy was one deep bank of dead and wounded; the 5th Corps lost 3,000 men that day, and there can be no doubt that 2,000 of them fell during this murderous exchange of musketry.

Meanwhile it is strange to find that both commanders allowed this duel¹³¹ of the many against the few, on the plateau, to go on undisturbed. Soult had still eleven battalions intact in reserve[p. 388]—Werlé’s brigade and two battalions of grenadiers réunis: his cavalry was also doing nothing, save observe Lumley’s much inferior force. Beresford had still of intact troops the 4th Division, the three brigades of Hamilton’s and Collins’s Portuguese, and the 4,000 Spaniards who had remained on their original position. None of those forces on either side were being utilized during the crisis of the battle.

The explanation is to be found in the narratives¹³² of the two hostile generals. Soult says in his dispatch to the Emperor, ‘When I ascended¹³³ the heights, at the moment that the enemy’s second line advanced and began to press in our front, I was surprised to notice their great numbers. Immediately afterwards I learned from a Spanish prisoner that Blake had already joined Beresford, so that I had 30,000 men to deal with. The odds¹³⁴ were not fair, and I resolved at once to give up my original project, and to aim at nothing more than retaining the ground already won.’ The Marshal therefore changed his plan from an offensive to a defensive¹³⁵ battle, and refused to engage his reserves, or to bid his cavalry charge—a most half-hearted resolve.

As to Beresford, he was anxious to succour Hoghton, but he did not wish to move the 4th Division, which (he thought) was playing its part in ‘containing’ Latour-Maubourg’s enormous mass of cavalry, and covering the Valverde and Badajoz road—the line of communication of the allied army. He sent back instead to order up Hamilton’s Portuguese to the hilltop—4,800 fresh infantry. But it took a much greater time to bring them up than Beresford had expected. Some of the aides-de-camp sent to summon them were wounded on the way; but the main delay was caused by the fact that Hamilton, instead of taking up Stewart’s original position, had gone down closer to Albuera, to support Alten’s brigade at the village against Godinot’s attack, which had become a very fierce one. It was only after many precious minutes had been wasted that he was found, and Fonseca’s and Collins’s brigades did not start for half an hour after the order had been sent to them. Campbell’s brigade remained to give Alten help, if he should need it.

Meanwhile Beresford was trying to utilize²⁹ the troops already at hand: Abercrombie’s brigade was told to wheel inward and attack the right flank of the 5th Corps, while the Marshal him[p. 389]self tried to move up Carlos de Espa?a’s Spanish brigade to the place where Colborne had fought so unsuccessfully a little earlier, on the left flank of the French mass. But this brigade, demoralized relics¹³⁶ of the lost army of the Gebora, refused to face the fire, though the Marshal went to lead it on in person, seized one colonel by the epaulettes, and tried to drag him to the front of his battalion. As this brigade only lost 33 men out of 1,700 present, it is clear that it misbehaved.

At last Beresford grew so anxious at the sight of Hoghton’s gallant¹³⁷ brigade shrinking away to nothing, while no succour appeared from the rear, that he actually sent orders to Alten’s Germans to evacuate Albuera village, and to come in haste to strengthen the centre. They were to be relieved by a brigade of the Spaniards who still held the old position above the village. The legionaries were disentangled from the village with some difficulty, and the French 16th Léger got into it before the Spaniards had taken Alten’s place. If Godinot had been in force, the position here would have been very dangerous; but he had only six battalions, 3,500 men in all, and was hopelessly outnumbered, for Hamilton had left Campbell’s Portuguese brigade opposite him, and 3,000 Spaniards came down from the heights. As a matter of fact Alten never had to go to the front; the crisis on the heights was over before he got far from the village, and he was sent back to retake it half an hour after he had given it up. This he accomplished¹³⁸ with a loss of 100 men, long after the more important business on the heights was over.

The stroke which ended the battle came from a direction where Beresford had intended to keep to the defensive, and was delivered by the one part of his army which he had refused to utilize—the 4th Division. Cole and his eight battalions had been standing for an hour and a half supporting the allied cavalry, opposite Maubourg’s threatening squadrons. He was himself doubting whether he ought not to take a more active part, and sent an aide-de-camp to Beresford to ask for further orders[490]; but this officer was badly wounded on the way, and the[p. 390] message was never delivered. If it had been, the answer would undoubtedly¹³⁹ have been in the negative.

But at this moment there rode up to the 4th Division Henry Hardinge, then a young Portuguese colonel, and Deputy Quarter-master-general of the Portuguese army. He had no orders from Beresford, but he took upon himself to urge Cole to assume the responsibility of advancing, saying (what was true enough) that Hoghton’s brigade on the heights above could not hold out much longer, and that there were no British reserves behind the centre. Cole hesitated for a moment—the proposal that he should advance across open ground in face of 3,500 French cavalry, without any adequate support of that arm on his own side, was enough to make any man think twice. But he had already been pondering over the move himself, and after a short conference with Lumley, his colleague in command of the cavalry, determined¹⁴⁰ to risk all.

The 4th Division was ordered to deploy from columns into line, and to strike obliquely¹⁴¹ at the French flank. Entirely conscious of the danger from the twenty-six squadrons of French horse before him, Cole flanked his deployed battalions with a unit in column at either end: at the right flank, where Harvey’s Portuguese brigade was drawn out, he placed a provisional battalion made up of the nine light companies of all his regiments, British and Portuguese; at the left extremity¹⁴², on the flank of his British Fusilier brigade—the two battalions of the 7th, and the 23rd Royal Welsh Fusiliers—was a good Portuguese unit—Hawkshaw’s battalion of the Loyal Lusitanian Legion[491]. The line made up 5,000 bayonets—2,000 British, 3,000 Portuguese. The whole of the English and Spanish cavalry advanced on his flank and rear, Lefebure’s horse-artillery battery accompanying the extreme right[492].

The sight of this mile of bayonets moving forward showed Soult that he must fight for his life—there was no drawn battle[p. 391] possible, but only dire⁹ disaster, unless Cole were stopped. Accordingly he told Latour-Maubourg to charge the Portuguese brigade, while the whole nine battalions of Werlé’s reserve were sent forward diagonally to protect the flank of the 5th Corps, moving along the upper slope of the heights so as to thrust themselves between the Fusilier brigade and the flank of Girard and Gazan. Soult had now no reserve left except the two battalions of grenadiers réunis, which he held back for the last chance, on his right rear, keeping up the connexion with Godinot.

The story of what happened at the right end of Cole’s line is simple: Latour-Maubourg sent four regiments of dragoons at the middle of the Portuguese brigade, thinking to break it down, as he had done often before with deployed infantry in Spanish battles. But Harvey’s four battalions, keeping absolutely steady, delivered a series of volleys which completely shattered the advance of the charging squadrons. It was a fine achievement for troops which had never before taken part in the thick of a battle—for the 11th and 23rd Portuguese Line had not been engaged at Bussaco or any previous action of importance. Owing to their excellent behaviour the flank of the British brigade was kept perfectly safe from cavalry assaults during the next half-hour.

Myers’s three Fusilier battalions, therefore, with the Lusitanian Legion battalion that guarded their left rear, came into collision with Werlé’s three regiments without any interference from without. They were outnumbered by over two to one—2,000 British and 600 Portuguese against 5,600 French. But Werlé had adopted the same vicious formation which had already hampered¹⁴³ the 5th Corps—his nine battalions were in three columns of regiments, each with a front of only two companies and a depth of nine, i. e. he was opposing in each case a front of about 120 men in the first two ranks, capable of using their muskets, to a front of about 500—the fact that there were 16 men in depth, behind the 120 who could fire, was of no profit to him. Three separate regimental duels¹⁴⁴ followed—the 23rd and the 1st and 2nd battalions of the 7th Fusiliers each tackled a column, as Blakeney, the colonel of the last-named unit, tells in his letter[493]. In each case the stress for the moment[p. 392] was tremendous. Blakeney may be quoted for its general character:—

‘From the quantity of smoke,’ he writes, ‘I could perceive very little but what went on in my own front. The 1st battalion of the 7th closed with the right column of the French: I moved on and closed with the second; the 23rd took the third. The men behaved most gloriously, never losing their rank, and closing to the centre as casualties occurred. The French faced us at a distance of about thirty or forty paces. During the closest part of the action I saw their officers endeavouring to deploy their columns, but all to no purpose. For as soon as the third of a company got out, they would immediately run back, to be covered by the front of their column.’ This lasted for some minutes—possibly twenty—when suddenly the enemy broke, and went up the hillside in three disorderly clumps¹⁴⁵, which presently splayed out into a mass of running men. The Fusiliers followed, still firing, until they crowned the ridge: the end of their movement was under a terrible artillery fire from Soult’s reserve batteries, which were used till the last possible moment to cover the flying infantry. The fusiliers lost more than half their numbers—1,045 out of 2,015 officers and men. Their gallant brigadier, Myers, was among the slain. Werlé’s three regiments had casualties of well over 1,800 out of 5,600 present—a bigger total but a much smaller percentage—one in three instead of the victors’ one in two.

The rout⁵⁰ of the French reserves would have settled the fate of the battle in any case; but already it was won on the summit of the plateau also. For at the same moment when the Fusiliers closed, Abercrombie’s brigade had wheeled in upon the right of the much-disordered mass that represented the 5th Corps, and, when they followed up their volleys with a charge, Girard’s and Gazan’s men ran to the rear along the heights, leaving Hoghton’s exhausted¹⁴⁶ brigade lying dead in line in front of them. The fugitives¹⁴⁷ of the 5th Corps mingled¹⁴⁸ with those from Werlé’s brigade, and all passed the Chicapierna brook in one vast horde¹⁴⁹.

There was practically no pursuit: Latour-Maubourg threw his squadrons between the flying mass and the victorious Allies and the British and Portuguese halted on the heights that they[p. 393] had won. Soult’s last infantry reserve, the two grenadier battalions, were also drawn out on the nearer side of the Chicapierna, and suffered severely¹⁵⁰ from the artillery fire of the Allies, losing 370 men out of 1,000 in twenty minutes. But Lumley’s cavalry could not meddle¹⁵¹ with Latour-Maubourg’s double strength, and it was not till some time had passed that Beresford brought up three Portuguese brigades in line—Collins, Fonseca, and Harvey—and finally pushed the enemy over the brook. By this moment Soult had got nearly all his artillery—forty guns—in line on the height between the two brooks, and their fire forbade further progress, unless Beresford were prepared to storm that position with the Portuguese. He refused to try it, and wisely; for though the enemy’s infantry were completely out of action, it is a formidable thing to deliver a frontal attack on six batteries flanked by 3,500 horse.

So finished the fight of Albuera; a drenching¹⁵² rain, similar to that which had been so deadly to Colborne’s brigade, ended the day, and made more miserable¹⁵³ the lot of the 10,000 wounded who lay scattered over the hillsides. The British had hardly enough sound men left in half the battalions to pick up their own bleeding comrades, much less to bear off the mounds¹⁵⁴ of French wounded, who lay along the slopes of the gentle dip where the battle had raged hardest. It was two days before the last of these were gathered in.

That Albuera was the most bloody of all the fights of the Peninsular War, in proportion to the numbers engaged, everybody knows. But the exact table of the losses on each side has never, I believe, been fully worked out. After studying the French returns in the Archives of the Paris Ministry¹⁵⁵ of War and the Spanish figures at Madrid, no less than Beresford’s report, we get to the results which I have printed in the XVth Appendix to this volume.

Summarizing them, we find that the British, including Alten’s German battalions, had 10,449 men on the field. Their total loss was 206 officers and 3,953 men. Of these 882 were killed, 2,733 wounded, and 544 missing. Of this frightful¹⁵⁶ casualty list no less than five-sixths belonged to the three brigades of Colborne, Hoghton, and Myers, for the cavalry and artillery, with Alten’s and Abercrombie’s brigades of infantry, though all[p. 394] seriously engaged, lost but 618 out of nearly 4,500 men present. The remaining 3,502 casualties all came from the ranks of the three first-named brigades, whose total strength on the field was but 5,732. Colborne’s brigade lost, in an instant as it were, under the charge of the lancers and hussars, seven-tenths of its numbers, 1,400 men out of 2,000. Of the 600 who were left standing, nearly half belonged to the 2/31st, the battalion which was not broken by the cavalry charge, and survived to join in Hoghton’s advance. The brigades of Hoghton and Myers were not, like Colborne’s, annihilated in one awful moment of disaster, but used up in continuous fighting at short musketry range, with an enemy of far superior numbers. The former (29th, 1/48th, 2/57th) took 1,650 officers and men into the field, and lost 1,044. The latter (the two battalions of the 7th Royal Fusiliers and the 1st battalion of the Welsh Fusiliers) had 2,015 combatants present, and lost 1,045. Hoghton’s troops, therefore, lost five-eighths, Myers’s one-half of their strength, and these were victorious units which hardly left a single prisoner in the enemy’s hands, and finally drove their adversaries¹⁵⁷ from the field in spite of a twofold inequality of numbers. Truly Albuera is the most honourable¹⁵⁸ of all Peninsular blazons¹⁵⁹ on a regimental flag.

Of the 10,000 Portuguese, only Harvey’s brigade was seriously engaged; it had over 200 casualties[494] out of the 389 suffered on that day by troops of that nation, and established a most honourable record by its defeat of Latour-Maubourg’s dragoons. The other men killed or hurt were distributed in fives and tens over the battalions of Fonseca, Collins, and Campbell, which only came under fire in the last stage of the battle.

The Spaniards returned 1,368 casualties out of 14,000 present, of which (as we have already seen) no less than 615 were in those four battalions of Zayas’s division which held out so stubbornly against the 5th Corps, till Hoghton’s men came up to relieve them. Of the rest, Ballasteros’s and Lardizabal’s divisions, with under 300 casualties each, had only suffered from[p. 395] skirmishing or distant artillery fire. The losses of Carlos de Espa?a and the cavalry were insignificant.
Map of the battle of Albuera, about 11.30 a.m.

Enlarge  ALBUERA. No 2 (About 11.30 a.m.)

Note.—There should be only two, not three, battalions of Grenadiers placed as reserve behind Girard and Gazan’s troops.

The French losses can be made out with reasonable certainty after careful comparison of different returns in the Paris Archives. Soult had the shamelessness to assert in his dispatch to the Emperor that he had only 2,800 killed and wounded! But a tardily prepared and incomplete list drawn up on July 6th gave 6,000 casualties, of whom 900 were missing—wounded prisoners left on the allied position. Unfortunately this return, on examination, turns out to be far from satisfactory. Soult gives 262 officers killed, wounded, or missing, but the regimental returns when compiled show a much higher figure—359—and cannot possibly be wrong, since the name and rank of every officer hit is carefully recorded for documentary and official purposes.[495] But if 262 casualties among officers correspond (as the return of July 6th states) to 5,744 among the rank and file, then 362 officers hit must imply 7,900 men disabled, and this, we may conclude, was very near the real figure. Belmas and Lapéne, the most trustworthy French historians of the campaign, agree in giving 7,000, a thousand more than Soult conceded in his tardy¹⁶¹ and incomplete return. This proportion out of 24,000 men put in the field is sufficiently¹⁶² heavy, though exceeded so terribly by the 4,150 men lost out of 10,450 among the British troops. The units which suffered most heavily were the two divisions of the 5th Corps, which must have lost nearly 4,000 out of 8,400 present; Werlé’s reserve had probably close on 2,000 casualties, out of 5,600 bayonets; Godinot’s column and the cavalry had very considerable losses, but were the only troops fit for action next day. The 5th Corps was absolutely wrecked¹⁶³; in some battalions there were only three or four officers unhurt, and the losses were similar to those in Myers’s or Hoghton’s British brigades[496]. Two or three others had fared comparatively better, having been in the flank or rear at the time when the desperate musketry duel in the front was in progress. But the corps as a whole could not have been put in action on the 17th.

On the morning of that day each army sullenly¹⁶⁴ formed line on[p. 396] its own side of the Albuera brook, but made no further movement. Beresford was prepared to fight another defensive battle, in the unlikely event of its being forced upon him[497], but was not willing to attack an enemy hidden behind a screen of woods, and possessed¹⁶⁵ of a superior and still effective cavalry and artillery. Such an attack must have been delivered mainly by the Spanish and Portuguese infantry, since of the British only Abercrombie’s and Alten’s five battalions were fit for immediate⁸⁵ service. The missing brigade of Kemmis arrived during the day, after a fatiguing¹⁶⁶ march over the Jerumenha bridge, and added 1,400 bayonets more, but even so there would have been only 4,000 British infantry in full fighting trim; the sad relics of Hoghton’s and Colborne’s brigades were organized into two provisional battalions of 600 men each, where whole regiments were represented by one, two, or, at the most, three companies. Myers’s brigade had 1,000 men left, so was better off, but no general would have dreamed of using any of these troops for offensive action on the day after the battle. An attack would have had to be delivered by the 9,000 Portuguese infantry, backed by the Spaniards and Abercrombie, Alten, and Kemmis. Beresford refused to try it, even though he knew that Soult’s losses had been greater than his own, so far as mere numbers went; probably, he argued, Soult would retire covered by his cavalry and artillery if he were assailed. Covered by the woods, he could get off as he pleased. But Soult was certain to retire in any case, as news had now come to hand that Wellington was coming down to Elvas with two divisions[498], and might be expected there immediately—he actually arrived on the 19th; the head of his column had marched on the 14th, and reached Elvas on the 23rd. To risk anything in order to get Soult on the move a few days earlier was not worth while.

The French marshal was even further than Beresford from[p. 397] the idea of renewing operations on the 17th; he had shot his bolt and failed—the battle, so he declared, would never have been fought if he had known that Blake had joined the British on the night of the 15th. His main object in keeping his ground for a day was to organize the transport of a column of 5,000 wounded on to Seville; if he had retired at once, the greater part of them would have had to be abandoned. As it was, his transport was used up, and several hundreds of severe cases had to be left to the mercy of the Allies, in and about the chapel¹⁶⁷ in the wood of Albuera. Beresford found them there on the morning of the 18th, for Soult commenced his retreat before dawn, some thirty-six hours after the battle was over. Gazan (himself wounded) and some 2,000 men from the regiments which had been most cut up guarded the convoy¹⁶⁸ (which included the 500 British prisoners)[499], southward along the great chaussée. Soult himself, with the rest of the army, now reduced to 14,000 men at the most, retired by a more circuitous route, by Solana and Fuente del Maestre towards Llerena and the Sierra Morena. Beresford’s cavalry followed, but was unable to do anything in face of Latour-Maubourg’s preponderant squadrons. The allied infantry remained behind to resume the siege of Badajoz; on the 18th Hamilton’s division and Madden’s cavalry were sent back to invest the place, which was shut in again at dawn on the 19th, after having been relieved of the presence of the Allies for only three days (16th-17th-18th May). General Phillipon had employed this short respite¹⁶⁹ in the useful task of levelling the allied trenches and batteries outside his works. He found nothing in them of which he could make booty, save the heavy wood employed for the gun-platforms before San Cristobal. The more valuable stores had all been removed to Elvas, the gabions and fascines burned by the 4th Division before it gave up the investment on the night of the 15th May.

That Albuera, with all its slaughter, was a battle in which both sides committed serious errors is generally acknowledged; but few are the general actions in which there is nothing to criticize on the part of the victor—much more of the vanquished¹⁷⁰.[p. 398] We must, however, protest against Napier’s sweeping assertion that ‘no general ever gained so great a battle with so little increase of military reputation as Marshal Beresford[500]. His triumph was disputed by the very soldiers who followed his car. Their censures¹⁷¹ have been reiterated¹⁷² without change and without abatement¹⁷³ to this hour, and a close examination (while it detects many ill-founded observations and others tainted¹⁷⁴ with malice) leaves little doubt that the general feeling was right[501].’ Napier then proceeds to argue that Beresford ought to have refused battle, and retired beyond the Guadiana, that his concentration was over-tardy, and that, considering the doubtful quality of Blake’s troops, he was too bold in fighting. His tactical dispositions were bad; ‘he occupied the position so as to render defeat almost certain’; he brought up his reserves in a succession of separate attacks, and hesitated too long to move the 4th Division. ‘Hardinge caused Cole and Abercrombie to win the victory;’ the guidance of a commanding mind was nowhere seen.

Napier was Beresford’s bitter enemy, and it is clear that his eloquent¹⁷⁵ denunciations of the Marshal were inspired by a personal animosity which clouded his judgement. His account of Albuera is one of the finest pieces of military writing in the English language, but it bristles¹⁷⁶ with mistakes, many of them worked in so as to throw additional discredit¹⁷⁷ on his enemy’s capacity[502].[p. 399] One turns naturally to investigate Wellington’s observations on the fight, made when he had ridden over the field on May 21st, only five days after the battle. In one private letter he writes, ‘We had a very good position, and I think should have gained a complete victory without any material loss, if the Spaniards could have man?uvred; but unfortunately they cannot.’ In another he says, ‘The Spanish troops behaved admirably, I understand. They stood like stocks while both parties were firing into them, but they were quite immovable, and this was the great cause of all our losses. After they had lost their position, the natural thing to do would have been to attack it with the nearest Spanish troops, but these could not be moved. The British troops [2nd Division] were next, and they were brought up (and must in such cases always be brought up), and they suffered accordingly.’

Wellington’s opinion therefore was that Blake’s slowness in guarding against the flank attack was the real cause of all the trouble. Considering the gallant way in which Zayas’s four battalions fought, when once they were in line, it certainly seems that if thrice the force which that officer was given had been thrown back en potence¹⁷⁸ across the heights, as Beresford desired, at the moment that Soult’s movement was detected, they would have held their own so effectively that the British 2nd Division could have come up at leisure, and in order, to support the Spaniards. As it was, the reinforcements sent over-late by Blake to help Zayas arrived by driblets, and gave him little help, falling into a mere tiraillade with the French light troops on Zayas’s left, instead of engaging in the main battle.

After Blake’s slowness the main cause of loss was William Stewart’s over-haste. Beresford had given orders that the whole 2nd Division was to form up in a second line behind Zayas, and go into action simultaneously¹⁷⁹, outflanking the massed 5th Corps on either wing. Stewart, combining over-zeal¹⁸⁰ and want of discipline, attacked with the first brigade that came up, while the second and the third were still remote. He also, if several contemporaries are to be trusted, refused to listen to Colonel Colborne’s request to be allowed to keep a unit in square or[p. 400] column, to protect the flank of the 1st brigade when it started out to make its attack[503], and it was the want of this flank-guard alone which made the charge of the Polish lancers so effective. As Beresford’s vindicator¹⁸¹ writes, ‘The Marshal had directed Sir William Stewart to form the second line; he could not distrust an officer of his experience, zeal, and knowledge of the service.’ That his subordinate should be struck with sudden battle-fury, and attack the French flank with one isolated¹⁸² brigade, contrary to his orders, cannot be imputed¹⁸³ as a crime to Beresford, who was in no way responsible for it. The move, and the disaster that followed within a few minutes, took place without his knowledge. As he was endeavouring to put in line the Spanish battalions which were coming up to reinforce Zayas, he was surprised by being charged in the midst of his staff by a knot of the lancers, who a minute before had ridden over Colborne’s men on his right. It is clear that if the three brigades of the 2nd Division had been properly arranged and put into action simultaneously, as Beresford intended, the 5th Corps would have been driven from the heights an hour before it actually yielded. Girard’s division had already wellnigh exhausted itself upon Zayas’s stubborn resistance, and it was only the interval⁹⁰ in the allied attack, caused by the destruction of Colborne’s brigade, which permitted Gazan’s troops to get up into the front line, in such order as they could, in time to fight Hoghton and Abercrombie. If Stewart’s advance had been made at the proper time, he would have come upon the two French divisions at the very moment when they were making their confused change of front. They could not have resisted the assault, considering the disorder in which they were mingled. Soult, who had just made up his mind to discontinue the offensive battle in which he was engaged[504], would certainly have used Werlé’s reserve only to cover his retreat, and would have withdrawn from a position which had become desperate, covered by his cavalry.

The one point in which Napier’s charges against Beresford have some foundation is that there was undoubtedly much delay in putting Cole and the 4th Division into action. This, as we have shown above, was caused by Beresford’s wish to strike the[p. 401] final blow at the 5th Corps with Hamilton’s Portuguese, whom he had ordered to the front after Colborne’s disaster, and who did not make their appearance, partly because the first aide-de-camp sent for them was wounded on the way, partly because Hamilton had changed his position, and was not found at once by later messengers. When it became evident that the delay was growing dangerous, Beresford would have done well to send Cole orders to advance at once, and to have directed Abercrombie also to charge. Napier is right in saying that ‘Hardinge caused Cole to win the victory,’ for Cole’s advance was made without Beresford’s orders, and even contrary to his intention, since he had sent for Alten and the Portuguese to make the final stroke. But while they were being collected, Hoghton’s brigade had been practically used up, and there was nothing but Zayas’s reformed but exhausted battalions in Hoghton’s rear, to form the allied centre. It is true, however, that, supposing the last relics of the ‘Die-hards’ and their comrades had finally recoiled¹⁸⁴, there would have been no push or impetus left in their opponents of the 5th Corps, who were a spent force, in complete disorder, and with hardly one man in two left standing. While they were disentangling themselves for a final effort, Collins’s and Fonseca’s Portuguese, perfectly trustworthy troops and absolutely fresh, would have been getting into position. It is practically certain that Soult would have made no further attempt to go forward. His own dispatch states that he had abandoned all offensive intentions. This much Beresford’s advocates may plead; but it remains¹⁸⁵ true that the moral impression of Albuera would have been very different if the charge of the Fusilier brigade had never taken place. It was their triumphant¹⁸⁶ sweeping away of Werlé’s reserve which struck dismay into the enemy. If it had never occurred, Soult would have retired, foiled indeed, but in good order, and with two or three thousand fewer casualties than he actually suffered.

In criticizing the operations of the French, the main point which strikes us is that Soult stands self-convicted of hesitation¹⁸⁷ and divided purpose in the crisis of the battle. His attack had been admirable; the movement which threw four-fifths of his available force unexpectedly on to Beresford’s flank was beautifully designed and carried out. But when, in the check and[p. 402] pause that followed the incident of Colborne’s disaster, he realized (as he himself says) that he had 30,000 men and not 20,000 to fight, and that ‘the odds were no longer fair,’ he should have made up his mind either to withdraw under cover of his splendid cavalry, or else to risk all, and throw his infantry reserves straight into the fight, before the enemy’s line was reformed. He did neither, but, as he says, ‘giving up his original project, aimed at nothing more than retaining the ground already won.’ What use was half a mile of hillside to him, if he had failed to break the Allies and drive them off the position which covered the road to Badajoz? He deserved the beating that he got for this extraordinary resolve.

As to the details of the French tactics, Girard was responsible for the dense order of the 5th Corps, which told so fatally on his men. But in arranging them as he did, he was but adopting the method that most other French generals were wont¹⁸⁸ to use. Accustomed to break through the lines of Continental¹⁸⁹ armies by the impetus of a solid mass, and not by musketry fire, he prepared to employ the normal shock-tactics of the ‘column of divisions.’ It may be even noticed that, more enlightened than many of his comrades, he used the ordre mixte recommended by Napoleon, in which some battalions in three-deep line were interspersed¹⁹⁰ among the columns. His array was better than that of Victor at Barrosa or Talavera, or that of Reynier and Ney at Bussaco. But he had never met the British line before—this was the first time that the 5th Corps saw the red-coats—and he did not know the unwelcome truth that Reille told Napoleon before Waterloo: ‘Sire, l’infanterie anglaise en duel c’est le diable.’ There was, no doubt, extra confusion caused by the fact that the 2nd Division of the corps closed up too near to the first, so that the passage des lignes, when it was brought up to the front with the idea of passing it through the intervals of the shattered regiments of the van, was even more disorderly than was necessary. But the crucial mistake, repeated by every French general throughout the war, was to come on in column at all against the British line. Girard did no worse than his contemporaries, and the gallant obstinacy¹⁹¹ of his troops enabled him to inflict¹⁹² very heavy losses upon the victors.

Latour-Maubourg has sometimes been accused of making[p. 403] insufficient¹⁹³ use of his great mass of cavalry. But till the last stage of the battle he had in front of him not merely Lumley’s squadrons, but the whole 4th Division. To attack a force of all arms, in a good position, with cavalry alone would have been dangerous. If he had failed, the flank of the 5th Corps would have been laid open in the most disastrous fashion. Probably he was right to be satisfied in ‘containing’ with his 3,500 horse 7,000 men, 5,000 of them good infantry, belonging to the enemy. His brilliant stroke at Colborne’s brigade is enough to save his reputation as a battle-general, though (as we have said before) he was no strategist. By this alone he had done more for Soult than any other French officer upon the field.

The real hero, most undoubtedly, of the whole fight was Sir Lowry Cole, who showed as much moral courage in striking in, on his own responsibility, at the critical moment, as he did practical skill in conducting his two brigades against the enemy opposed to him—a most formidable adversary who showed twenty-six squadrons of cavalry opposed to one of his wings, and the 5,600 bayonets of Werlé’s infantry opposed to the other. With Harvey’s Portuguese he drove off the cavalry charge, with Myers’s Fusiliers he beat to pieces the heavy columns of the French reserve. It was a great achievement, and the General was worthy¹⁶⁰ of his soldiers, no less than the soldiers of their General. He was well seconded by Lumley, who justified¹⁹⁴ in the most splendid way his sudden appointment to the command of the cavalry of the whole army only a few hours before the battle.

    The result of a four hours’ visit to the field of Albuera, on a very hot day in April 1907, was to prove to me that Napier had no idea of its topography, while Beresford in his Strictures on Colonel Napier’s History, 1833, describes it very well. I could see no trace of several things on which Napier lays stress, especially the ‘ravine’ behind the British position. Nearly the whole of the field is now arable—it was covered thickly with small red poppies, when I visited it, in which four ploughs were cutting long seams, turning up a thin soil of a chocolate brown hue¹⁹⁵.

1 Ford   

n.浅滩，水浅可涉处；v.涉水，涉过

参考例句：

• They were guarding the bridge,so we forded the river.他们驻守在那座桥上，所以我们只能涉水过河。
• If you decide to ford a stream,be extremely careful.如果已决定要涉过小溪，必须极度小心。

2 onward   

adj.向前的，前进的；adv.向前，前进，在先

参考例句：

• The Yellow River surges onward like ten thousand horses galloping.黄河以万马奔腾之势滚滚向前。
• He followed in the steps of forerunners and marched onward.他跟随着先辈的足迹前进。

3 incumbent   

adj.成为责任的，有义务的；现任的，在职的

参考例句：

• He defeated the incumbent governor by a large plurality.他以压倒多数票击败了现任州长。
• It is incumbent upon you to warn them.你有责任警告他们。

4 corps   

n.(通信等兵种的)部队；(同类作的)一组

参考例句：

• The medical corps were cited for bravery in combat.医疗队由于在战场上的英勇表现而受嘉奖。
• When the war broke out,he volunteered for the Marine Corps.战争爆发时，他自愿参加了海军陆战队。

5 ridge   

n.山脊；鼻梁；分水岭

参考例句：

• We clambered up the hillside to the ridge above.我们沿着山坡费力地爬上了山脊。
• The infantry were advancing to attack the ridge.步兵部队正在向前挺进攻打山脊。

6 garrison   

n.卫戍部队；驻地，卫戍区；vt.派(兵)驻防

参考例句：

• The troops came to the relief of the besieged garrison.军队来援救被围的守备军。
• The German was moving to stiffen up the garrison in Sicily.德军正在加强西西里守军之力量。

7 fortress   

n.堡垒，防御工事

参考例句：

• They made an attempt on a fortress.他们试图夺取这一要塞。
• The soldier scaled the wall of the fortress by turret.士兵通过塔车攀登上了要塞的城墙。

8 cavalry   

n.骑兵；轻装甲部队

参考例句：

• We were taken in flank by a troop of cavalry. 我们翼侧受到一队骑兵的袭击。
• The enemy cavalry rode our men down. 敌人的骑兵撞倒了我们的人。

9 dire   

adj.可怕的，悲惨的，阴惨的，极端的

参考例句：

• There were dire warnings about the dangers of watching too much TV.曾经有人就看电视太多的危害性提出严重警告。
• We were indeed in dire straits.But we pulled through.那时我们的困难真是大极了，但是我们渡过了困难。

10 Portuguese   

n.葡萄牙人；葡萄牙语

参考例句：

• They styled their house in the Portuguese manner.他们仿照葡萄牙的风格设计自己的房子。
• Her family is Portuguese in origin.她的家族是葡萄牙血统。

11 favourable   

adj.赞成的，称赞的，有利的，良好的，顺利的

参考例句：

• The company will lend you money on very favourable terms.这家公司将以非常优惠的条件借钱给你。
• We found that most people are favourable to the idea.我们发现大多数人同意这个意见。

12 evacuate   

v.遣送；搬空；抽出；排泄；大(小)便

参考例句：

• We must evacuate those soldiers at once!我们必须立即撤出这些士兵！
• They were planning to evacuate the seventy American officials still in the country.他们正计划转移仍滞留在该国的70名美国官员。

13 fixed   

adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的

参考例句：

• Have you two fixed on a date for the wedding yet?你们俩选定婚期了吗？
• Once the aim is fixed,we should not change it arbitrarily.目标一旦确定，我们就不应该随意改变。

14 dictating   

v.大声讲或读( dictate的现在分词 )；口授；支配；摆布

参考例句：

• The manager was dictating a letter to the secretary. 经理在向秘书口授信稿。 来自辞典例句
• Her face is impassive as she listens to Miller dictating the warrant for her arrest. 她毫无表情地在听米勒口述拘留她的证书。 来自辞典例句

15 permanently   

adv.永恒地，永久地，固定不变地

参考例句：

• The accident left him permanently scarred.那次事故给他留下了永久的伤疤。
• The ship is now permanently moored on the Thames in London.该船现在永久地停泊在伦敦泰晤士河边。

16 regiment   

n.团，多数，管理；v.组织，编成团，统制

参考例句：

• As he hated army life,he decide to desert his regiment.因为他嫌恶军队生活，所以他决心背弃自己所在的那个团。
• They reformed a division into a regiment.他们将一个师整编成为一个团。

17 regiments   

（军队的）团( regiment的名词复数 )； 大量的人或物

参考例句：

• The three regiments are all under the command of you. 这三个团全归你节制。
• The town was garrisoned with two regiments. 该镇有两团士兵驻守。

18 entirely   

ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The fire was entirely caused by their neglect of duty. 那场火灾完全是由于他们失职而引起的。
• His life was entirely given up to the educational work. 他的一生统统献给了教育工作。

19 garrisoned   

卫戍部队守备( garrison的过去式和过去分词 )； 派部队驻防

参考例句：

• The town was garrisoned with two regiments. 该镇有两团士兵驻守。
• A hundred soldiers were garrisoned in the town. 派了一百名士兵在城里驻防。

20 besieging   

包围，围困，围攻( besiege的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• They constituted a near-insuperable obstacle to the besieging infantry. 它们就会形成围城步兵几乎不可逾越的障碍。
• He concentrated the sun's rays on the Roman ships besieging the city and burned them. 他把集中的阳光照到攻城的罗马船上，把它们焚毁。

21 battalions   

n.（陆军的）一营（大约有一千兵士）( battalion的名词复数 )；协同作战的部队；军队；（组织在一起工作的）队伍

参考例句：

• God is always on the side of the strongest battalions. 上帝总是帮助强者。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• Two battalions were disposed for an attack on the air base. 配置两个营的兵力进攻空军基地。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

22 battalion   

n.营；部队；大队(的人)

参考例句：

• The town was garrisoned by a battalion.该镇由一营士兵驻守。
• At the end of the drill parade,the battalion fell out.操练之后，队伍解散了。

23 noted   

adj.著名的，知名的

参考例句：

• The local hotel is noted for its good table.当地的那家酒店以餐食精美而著称。
• Jim is noted for arriving late for work.吉姆上班迟到出了名。

24 drawn   

v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的

参考例句：

• All the characters in the story are drawn from life.故事中的所有人物都取材于生活。
• Her gaze was drawn irresistibly to the scene outside.她的目光禁不住被外面的风景所吸引。

25 detailed   

adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的

参考例句：

• He had made a detailed study of the terrain.他对地形作了缜密的研究。
• A detailed list of our publications is available on request.我们的出版物有一份详细的目录备索。

26 inadequately   

ad.不够地；不够好地

参考例句：

• As one kind of building materials, wood is inadequately sturdy. 作为一种建筑材料，木材不够结实。
• Oneself is supported inadequately by the money that he earns. 他挣的钱不够养活自己。

27 fidelity   

n.忠诚，忠实；精确

参考例句：

• There is nothing like a dog's fidelity.没有什么能比得上狗的忠诚。
• His fidelity and industry brought him speedy promotion.他的尽职及勤奋使他很快地得到晋升。

28 utilized   

v.利用，使用( utilize的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• In the19th century waterpower was widely utilized to generate electricity. 在19世纪人们大规模使用水力来发电。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The empty building can be utilized for city storage. 可以利用那栋空建筑物作城市的仓库。 来自《简明英汉词典》

29 utilize   

vt.使用，利用

参考例句：

• The cook will utilize the leftover ham bone to make soup.厨师要用吃剩的猪腿骨做汤。
• You must utilize all available resources.你必须利用一切可以得到的资源。

30 fortified   

adj. 加强的

参考例句：

• He fortified himself against the cold with a hot drink. 他喝了一杯热饮御寒。
• The enemy drew back into a few fortified points. 敌人收缩到几个据点里。

31 cannon   

n.大炮，火炮；飞机上的机关炮

参考例句：

• The soldiers fired the cannon.士兵们开炮。
• The cannon thundered in the hills.大炮在山间轰鸣。

32 citadel   

n.城堡；堡垒；避难所

参考例句：

• The citadel was solid.城堡是坚固的。
• This citadel is built on high ground for protecting the city.这座城堡建于高处是为保护城市。

33 minor   

adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修

参考例句：

• The young actor was given a minor part in the new play.年轻的男演员在这出新戏里被分派担任一个小角色。
• I gave him a minor share of my wealth.我把小部分财产给了他。

34 evacuated   

撤退者的

参考例句：

• Police evacuated nearby buildings. 警方已将附近大楼的居民疏散。
• The fireman evacuated the guests from the burning hotel. 消防队员把客人们从燃烧着的旅馆中撤出来。

35 infantry   

n.[总称]步兵(部队)

参考例句：

• The infantry were equipped with flame throwers.步兵都装备有喷火器。
• We have less infantry than the enemy.我们的步兵比敌人少。

36 retired   

adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的

参考例句：

• The old man retired to the country for rest.这位老人下乡休息去了。
• Many retired people take up gardening as a hobby.许多退休的人都以从事园艺为嗜好。

37 Flared   

adj. 端部张开的, 爆发的, 加宽的, 漏斗式的 动词flare的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• The match flared and went out. 火柴闪亮了一下就熄了。
• The fire flared up when we thought it was out. 我们以为火已经熄灭，但它突然又燃烧起来。

38 withdrawn   

vt.收回；使退出；vi.撤退，退出

参考例句：

• Our force has been withdrawn from the danger area.我们的军队已从危险地区撤出。
• All foreign troops should be withdrawn to their own countries.一切外国军队都应撤回本国去。

39 destined   

adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的

参考例句：

• It was destined that they would marry.他们结婚是缘分。
• The shipment is destined for America.这批货物将运往美国。

40 patriots   

爱国者，爱国主义者( patriot的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Abraham Lincoln was a fine type of the American patriots. 亚伯拉罕·林肯是美国爱国者的优秀典型。
• These patriots would fight to death before they surrendered. 这些爱国者宁愿战斗到死，也不愿投降。

41 scouts   

侦察员[机，舰]( scout的名词复数 )； 童子军； 搜索； 童子军成员

参考例句：

• to join the Scouts 参加童子军
• The scouts paired off and began to patrol the area. 巡逻人员两个一组，然后开始巡逻这个地区。

42 memorandum   

n.备忘录，便笺

参考例句：

• The memorandum was dated 23 August,2008.备忘录上注明的日期是2008年8月23日。
• The Secretary notes down the date of the meeting in her memorandum book.秘书把会议日期都写在记事本上。

43 rendezvous   

n.约会，约会地点，汇合点；vi.汇合，集合；vt.使汇合，使在汇合地点相遇

参考例句：

• She made the rendezvous with only minutes to spare.她还差几分钟时才来赴约。
• I have a rendezvous with Peter at a restaurant on the harbour.我和彼得在海港的一个餐馆有个约会。

44 apparently   

adv.显然地；表面上，似乎

参考例句：

• An apparently blind alley leads suddenly into an open space.山穷水尽，豁然开朗。
• He was apparently much surprised at the news.他对那个消息显然感到十分惊异。

45 contented   

adj.满意的，安心的，知足的

参考例句：

• He won't be contented until he's upset everyone in the office.不把办公室里的每个人弄得心烦意乱他就不会满足。
• The people are making a good living and are contented,each in his station.人民安居乐业。

46 deploy   

v.（军）散开成战斗队形，布置，展开

参考例句：

• The infantry began to deploy at dawn.步兵黎明时开始进入战斗位置。
• The president said he had no intention of deploying ground troops.总统称并不打算部署地面部队。

47 allied   

adj.协约国的；同盟国的

参考例句：

• Britain was allied with the United States many times in history.历史上英国曾多次与美国结盟。
• Allied forces sustained heavy losses in the first few weeks of the campaign.同盟国在最初几周内遭受了巨大的损失。

48 adversary   

adj.敌手，对手

参考例句：

• He saw her as his main adversary within the company.他将她视为公司中主要的对手。
• They will do anything to undermine their adversary's reputation.他们会不择手段地去损害对手的名誉。

49 uncertainty   

n.易变，靠不住，不确知，不确定的事物

参考例句：

• Her comments will add to the uncertainty of the situation.她的批评将会使局势更加不稳定。
• After six weeks of uncertainty,the strain was beginning to take its toll.6个星期的忐忑不安后，压力开始产生影响了。

50 rout   

n.溃退，溃败；v.击溃，打垮

参考例句：

• The enemy was put to rout all along the line.敌人已全线崩溃。
• The people's army put all to rout wherever they went.人民军队所向披靡。

51 circuitous   

adj.迂回的路的，迂曲的，绕行的

参考例句：

• They took a circuitous route to avoid reporters.他们绕道避开了记者。
• The explanation was circuitous and puzzling.这个解释很迂曲，让人困惑不解。

52 artillery   

n.(军)火炮，大炮；炮兵(部队)

参考例句：

• This is a heavy artillery piece.这是一门重炮。
• The artillery has more firepower than the infantry.炮兵火力比步兵大。

53 perfectly   

adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
• Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。

54 trenches   

深沟，地沟( trench的名词复数 )； 战壕

参考例句：

• life in the trenches 第一次世界大战期间的战壕生活
• The troops stormed the enemy's trenches and fanned out across the fields. 部队猛攻敌人的战壕，并在田野上呈扇形散开。

55 precipitately   

adv.猛进地

参考例句：

• The number of civil wars continued to rise until about 1990 and then fell precipitately. 而国内战争的数量在1990年以前都有增加，1990年后则锐减。 来自互联网
• His wife and mistress, until an hour ago and inviolate were slipping precipitately from his control. 他的妻子和情妇，直到一小时前还是安安稳稳、不可侵犯的，现在却猛不防正从他的控制下溜走。 来自互联网

56 vexed   

adj.争论不休的；（指问题等）棘手的；争论不休的问题；烦恼的v.使烦恼( vex的过去式和过去分词 )；使苦恼；使生气；详细讨论

参考例句：

• The conference spent days discussing the vexed question of border controls. 会议花了几天的时间讨论边境关卡这个难题。
• He was vexed at his failure. 他因失败而懊恼。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

57 nominal   

adj.名义上的；(金额、租金)微不足道的

参考例句：

• The king was only the nominal head of the state. 国王只是这个国家名义上的元首。
• The charge of the box lunch was nominal.午餐盒饭收费很少。

58 brook   

n.小河，溪；v.忍受，容让

参考例句：

• In our room we could hear the murmur of a distant brook.在我们房间能听到远处小溪汩汩的流水声。
• The brook trickled through the valley.小溪涓涓流过峡谷。

59 insignificant   

adj.无关紧要的，可忽略的，无意义的

参考例句：

• In winter the effect was found to be insignificant.在冬季，这种作用是不明显的。
• This problem was insignificant compared to others she faced.这一问题与她面临的其他问题比较起来算不得什么。

60 waggons   

四轮的运货马车( waggon的名词复数 )； 铁路货车； 小手推车

参考例句：

• Most transport is done by electrified waggons. 大部分货物都用电瓶车运送。

61 groves   

树丛，小树林( grove的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The early sun shone serenely on embrowned groves and still green fields. 朝阳宁静地照耀着已经发黄的树丛和还是一片绿色的田地。
• The trees grew more and more in groves and dotted with old yews. 那里的树木越来越多地长成了一簇簇的小丛林，还点缀着几棵老紫杉树。

62 withered   

adj. 枯萎的，干瘪的，（人身体的部分器官）因病萎缩的或未发育良好的 动词wither的过去式和过去分词形式

参考例句：

• The grass had withered in the warm sun. 这些草在温暖的阳光下枯死了。
• The leaves of this tree have become dry and withered. 这棵树下的叶子干枯了。

63 shrubs   

灌木( shrub的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The gardener spent a complete morning in trimming those two shrubs. 园丁花了整个上午的时间修剪那两处灌木林。
• These shrubs will need more light to produce flowering shoots. 这些灌木需要更多的光照才能抽出开花的新枝。

64 knolls   

n.小圆丘，小土墩( knoll的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• He carefully surveyed the ridges and knolls once more, and also the ravines and gullies. 他又注意地巡视着那些梁和峁，还有沟和壑。 来自互联网

65 knoll   

n.小山，小丘

参考例句：

• Silver had terrible hard work getting up the knoll.对于希尔弗来说，爬上那小山丘真不是件容易事。
• He crawled up a small knoll and surveyed the prospect.他慢腾腾地登上一个小丘，看了看周围的地形。

66 arroyo   

n.干涸的河床，小河

参考例句：

• She continued along the path until she came to the arroyo.她沿着小路一直走到小河边。
• They had a picnic by the arroyo.他们在干枯的河床边野餐过。

67 rivulet   

n.小溪，小河

参考例句：

• The school is located near the rivulet.学校坐落在小河附近。
• They passed the dry bed of a rivulet.他们跨过了一道干涸的河床。

68 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

69 disposition   

n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署

参考例句：

• He has made a good disposition of his property.他已对财产作了妥善处理。
• He has a cheerful disposition.他性情开朗。

70 dispositions   

安排( disposition的名词复数 )； 倾向； （财产、金钱的）处置； 气质

参考例句：

• We got out some information about the enemy's dispositions from the captured enemy officer. 我们从捕获的敌军官那里问出一些有关敌军部署的情况。
• Elasticity, solubility, inflammability are paradigm cases of dispositions in natural objects. 伸缩性、可缩性、易燃性是天然物体倾向性的范例。

71 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

72 brooks   

n.小溪( brook的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Brooks gave the business when Haas caught him with his watch. 哈斯抓到偷他的手表的布鲁克斯时，狠狠地揍了他一顿。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Ade and Brooks exchanged blows yesterday and they were severely punished today. 艾德和布鲁克斯昨天打起来了，今天他们受到严厉的惩罚。 来自《简明英汉词典》

73 conceals   

v.隐藏，隐瞒，遮住( conceal的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• He conceals his worries behind a mask of nonchalance. 他装作若无其事，借以掩饰内心的不安。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Drunkenness reveals what soberness conceals. 酒醉吐真言。 来自《简明英汉词典》

74 elevation   

n.高度；海拔；高地；上升；提高

参考例句：

• The house is at an elevation of 2,000 metres.那幢房子位于海拔两千米的高处。
• His elevation to the position of General Manager was announced yesterday.昨天宣布他晋升总经理职位。

75 mere   

adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过

参考例句：

• That is a mere repetition of what you said before.那不过是重复了你以前讲的话。
• It's a mere waste of time waiting any longer.再等下去纯粹是浪费时间。

76 crest   

n.顶点；饰章；羽冠；vt.达到顶点；vi.形成浪尖

参考例句：

• The rooster bristled his crest.公鸡竖起了鸡冠。
• He reached the crest of the hill before dawn.他于黎明前到达山顶。

77 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。

78 upwards   

adv.向上，在更高处...以上

参考例句：

• The trend of prices is still upwards.物价的趋向是仍在上涨。
• The smoke rose straight upwards.烟一直向上升。

79 ironies   

n.反语( irony的名词复数 )；冷嘲；具有讽刺意味的事；嘲弄

参考例句：

• It was one of life's little ironies. 那是生活中的一个小小的嘲弄。
• History has many ironies. 历史有许多具有讽刺意味的事。 来自《简明英汉词典》

80 utterly   

adv.完全地，绝对地

参考例句：

• Utterly devoted to the people,he gave his life in saving his patients.他忠于人民，把毕生精力用于挽救患者的生命。
• I was utterly ravished by the way she smiled.她的微笑使我完全陶醉了。

81 ascend   

vi.渐渐上升，升高；vt.攀登，登上

参考例句：

• We watched the airplane ascend higher and higher.我们看着飞机逐渐升高。
• We ascend in the order of time and of development.我们按时间和发展顺序向上溯。

82 ascending   

adj.上升的，向上的

参考例句：

• Now draw or trace ten dinosaurs in ascending order of size.现在按照体型由小到大的顺序画出或是临摹出10只恐龙。

83 muskets   

n.火枪，（尤指）滑膛枪( musket的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The watch below, all hands to load muskets. 另一组人都来帮着给枪装火药。 来自英汉文学 - 金银岛
• Deep ditch, single drawbridge, massive stone walls, eight at towers, cannon, muskets, fire and smoke. 深深的壕堑，单吊桥，厚重的石壁，八座巨大的塔楼。大炮、毛瑟枪、火焰与烟雾。 来自英汉文学 - 双城记

84 galloped   

（使马）飞奔，奔驰( gallop的过去式和过去分词 )； 快速做[说]某事

参考例句：

• Jo galloped across the field towards him. 乔骑马穿过田野向他奔去。
• The children galloped home as soon as the class was over. 孩子们一下课便飞奔回家了。

85 immediate   

adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的

参考例句：

• His immediate neighbours felt it their duty to call.他的近邻认为他们有责任去拜访。
• We declared ourselves for the immediate convocation of the meeting.我们主张立即召开这个会议。

86 opposition   

n.反对，敌对

参考例句：

• The party leader is facing opposition in his own backyard.该党领袖在自己的党內遇到了反对。
• The police tried to break down the prisoner's opposition.警察设法制住了那个囚犯的反抗。

87 impetus   

n.推动，促进，刺激；推动力

参考例句：

• This is the primary impetus behind the economic recovery.这是促使经济复苏的主要动力。
• Her speech gave an impetus to my ideas.她的讲话激发了我的思绪。

88 anonymous   

adj.无名的；匿名的；无特色的

参考例句：

• Sending anonymous letters is a cowardly act.寄匿名信是懦夫的行为。
• The author wishes to remain anonymous.作者希望姓名不公开。

89 deployed   

（尤指军事行动）使展开( deploy的过去式和过去分词 )； 施展； 部署； 有效地利用

参考例句：

• Tanks have been deployed all along the front line. 沿整个前线已部署了坦克。
• The artillery was deployed to bear on the fort. 火炮是对着那个碉堡部署的。

90 interval   

n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息

参考例句：

• The interval between the two trees measures 40 feet.这两棵树的间隔是40英尺。
• There was a long interval before he anwsered the telephone.隔了好久他才回了电话。

91 intervals   

n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息

参考例句：

• The forecast said there would be sunny intervals and showers. 预报间晴，有阵雨。
• Meetings take place at fortnightly intervals. 每两周开一次会。

92 majestic   

adj.雄伟的，壮丽的，庄严的，威严的，崇高的

参考例句：

• In the distance rose the majestic Alps.远处耸立着雄伟的阿尔卑斯山。
• He looks majestic in uniform.他穿上军装显得很威风。

93 tardily   

adv.缓慢

参考例句：

• Notice came so tardily that we almost missed the deadline. 通知下达的太慢了，我几乎都错过了最后期限。 来自互联网
• He always replied rather tardily to my letters. 他对我的信总是迟迟不作答复。 来自互联网

94 aligning   

n. (直线)对准 动词align的现在分词形式

参考例句：

• There are signs that the prime minister is aligning himself with the liberals. 有迹象表明首相正在与自由党人结盟。
• ToolTips provide textual hints that assist in drawing lines and aligning objects. 工具提示提供了协助画线和对象对齐的文本提示。 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓

95 descending   

n. 下行 adj. 下降的

参考例句：

• The results are expressed in descending numerical order . 结果按数字降序列出。
• The climbers stopped to orient themselves before descending the mountain. 登山者先停下来确定所在的位置，然后再下山。

96 descended   

a.为...后裔的，出身于...的

参考例句：

• A mood of melancholy descended on us. 一种悲伤的情绪袭上我们的心头。
• The path descended the hill in a series of zigzags. 小路呈连续的之字形顺着山坡蜿蜒而下。

97 tempting   

a.诱人的, 吸引人的

参考例句：

• It is tempting to idealize the past. 人都爱把过去的日子说得那么美好。
• It was a tempting offer. 这是个诱人的提议。

98 assailed   

v.攻击( assail的过去式和过去分词 )；困扰；质问；毅然应对

参考例句：

• He was assailed with fierce blows to the head. 他的头遭到猛烈殴打。
• He has been assailed by bad breaks all these years. 这些年来他接二连三地倒霉。 来自《用法词典》

99 perpendicular   

adj.垂直的，直立的；n.垂直线，垂直的位置

参考例句：

• The two lines of bones are set perpendicular to one another.这两排骨头相互垂直。
• The wall is out of the perpendicular.这墙有些倾斜。

100 outwards   

adj.外面的，公开的，向外的；adv.向外；n.外形

参考例句：

• Does this door open inwards or outwards?这门朝里开还是朝外开？
• In lapping up a fur,they always put the inner side outwards.卷毛皮时，他们总是让内层朝外。

101 catastrophe   

n.大灾难，大祸

参考例句：

• I owe it to you that I survived the catastrophe.亏得你我才大难不死。
• This is a catastrophe beyond human control.这是一场人类无法控制的灾难。

102 smothered   

（使）窒息， （使）透不过气( smother的过去式和过去分词 )； 覆盖； 忍住； 抑制

参考例句：

• He smothered the baby with a pillow. 他用枕头把婴儿闷死了。
• The fire is smothered by ashes. 火被灰闷熄了。

103 annihilated   

v.（彻底）消灭( annihilate的过去式和过去分词 )；使无效；废止；彻底击溃

参考例句：

• Our soldiers annihilated a force of three hundred enemy troops. 我军战士消灭了300名敌军。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• We annihilated the enemy. 我们歼灭了敌人。 来自《简明英汉词典》

104 slain   

杀死，宰杀，杀戮( slay的过去分词 )； (slay的过去分词)

参考例句：

• The soldiers slain in the battle were burried that night. 在那天夜晚埋葬了在战斗中牺牲了的战士。
• His boy was dead, slain by the hand of the false Amulius. 他的儿子被奸诈的阿缪利乌斯杀死了。

105 slaughter   

n.屠杀，屠宰；vt.屠杀，宰杀

参考例句：

• I couldn't stand to watch them slaughter the cattle.我不忍看他们宰牛。
• Wholesale slaughter was carried out in the name of progress.大规模的屠杀在维护进步的名义下进行。

106 savage   

adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人

参考例句：

• The poor man received a savage beating from the thugs.那可怜的人遭到暴徒的痛打。
• He has a savage temper.他脾气粗暴。

107 deliberately   

adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地

参考例句：

• The girl gave the show away deliberately.女孩故意泄露秘密。
• They deliberately shifted off the argument.他们故意回避这个论点。

108 trample   

vt.踩，践踏；无视，伤害，侵犯

参考例句：

• Don't trample on the grass. 勿踏草地。
• Don't trample on the flowers when you play in the garden. 在花园里玩耍时,不要踩坏花。

109 victorious   

adj.胜利的，得胜的

参考例句：

• We are certain to be victorious.我们定会胜利。
• The victorious army returned in triumph.获胜的部队凯旋而归。

110 intercepted   

拦截( intercept的过去式和过去分词 )； 截住； 截击； 拦阻

参考例句：

• Reporters intercepted him as he tried to leave the hotel. 他正要离开旅馆，记者们把他拦截住了。
• Reporters intercepted him as he tried to leave by the rear entrance. 他想从后门溜走，记者把他截住了。

111 sweeping   

adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的

参考例句：

• The citizens voted for sweeping reforms.公民投票支持全面的改革。
• Can you hear the wind sweeping through the branches?你能听到风掠过树枝的声音吗？

112 scattered   

adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的

参考例句：

• Gathering up his scattered papers,he pushed them into his case.他把散乱的文件收拾起来，塞进文件夹里。

113 disastrous   

adj.灾难性的，造成灾害的；极坏的，很糟的

参考例句：

• The heavy rainstorm caused a disastrous flood.暴雨成灾。
• Her investment had disastrous consequences.She lost everything she owned.她的投资结果很惨，血本无归。

114 bloody   

adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染

参考例句：

• He got a bloody nose in the fight.他在打斗中被打得鼻子流血。
• He is a bloody fool.他是一个十足的笨蛋。

115 disorder   

n.紊乱，混乱；骚动，骚乱；疾病，失调

参考例句：

• When returning back,he discovered the room to be in disorder.回家后，他发现屋子里乱七八糟。
• It contained a vast number of letters in great disorder.里面七零八落地装着许多信件。

116 momentary   

adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的

参考例句：

• We are in momentary expectation of the arrival of you.我们无时无刻不在盼望你的到来。
• I caught a momentary glimpse of them.我瞥了他们一眼。

117 dense   

a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的

参考例句：

• The general ambushed his troops in the dense woods. 将军把部队埋伏在浓密的树林里。
• The path was completely covered by the dense foliage. 小路被树叶厚厚地盖了一层。

118 clump   

n.树丛，草丛；vi.用沉重的脚步行走

参考例句：

• A stream meandered gently through a clump of trees.一条小溪从树丛中蜿蜒穿过。
• It was as if he had hacked with his thick boots at a clump of bluebells.仿佛他用自己的厚靴子无情地践踏了一丛野风信子。

119 vestige   

n.痕迹，遗迹，残余

参考例句：

• Some upright stones in wild places are the vestige of ancient religions.荒原上一些直立的石块是古老宗教的遗迹。
• Every vestige has been swept away.一切痕迹都被一扫而光。

120 alleges   

断言，宣称，辩解( allege的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• The newspaper article alleges that the mayor is corrupt. 报纸上断言该市长腐败。
• Steven was tardy this morning and alleges that his bus was late. 史提芬今天早上迟到的说词是公车误点了。

121 backbone   

n.脊骨，脊柱，骨干；刚毅，骨气

参考例句：

• The Chinese people have backbone.中国人民有骨气。
• The backbone is an articulate structure.脊椎骨是一种关节相连的结构。

122 survivors   

幸存者，残存者，生还者( survivor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The survivors were adrift in a lifeboat for six days. 幸存者在救生艇上漂流了六天。
• survivors clinging to a raft 紧紧抓住救生筏的幸存者

123 enveloped   

v.包围，笼罩，包住( envelop的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• She was enveloped in a huge white towel. 她裹在一条白色大毛巾里。
• Smoke from the burning house enveloped the whole street. 燃烧着的房子冒出的浓烟笼罩了整条街。 来自《简明英汉词典》

124 shriek   

v./n.尖叫，叫喊

参考例句：

• Suddenly he began to shriek loudly.突然他开始大声尖叫起来。
• People sometimes shriek because of terror,anger,or pain.人们有时会因为恐惧，气愤或疼痛而尖叫。

125 groan   

vi./n.呻吟，抱怨；(发出)呻吟般的声音

参考例句：

• The wounded man uttered a groan.那个受伤的人发出呻吟。
• The people groan under the burden of taxes.人民在重税下痛苦呻吟。

126 tumult   

n.喧哗；激动，混乱；吵闹

参考例句：

• The tumult in the streets awakened everyone in the house.街上的喧哗吵醒了屋子里的每一个人。
• His voice disappeared under growing tumult.他的声音消失在越来越响的喧哗声中。

127 diminution   

n.减少；变小

参考例句：

• They hope for a small diminution in taxes.他们希望捐税能稍有减少。
• He experienced no diminution of his physical strength.他并未感觉体力衰落。

128 bespoke   

adj.（产品）订做的；专做订货的v.预定( bespeak的过去式 )；订（货）；证明；预先请求

参考例句：

• His style of dressing bespoke great self-confidence. 他的衣着风格显得十分自信。
• The haberdasher presented a cap, saying,"Here is the cap your worship bespoke." 帽匠拿出一顶帽子来说：“这就是老爷您定做的那顶。” 来自辞典例句

129 onset   

n.进攻，袭击，开始，突然开始

参考例句：

• The drug must be taken from the onset of the infection.这种药必须在感染的最初期就开始服用。
• Our troops withstood the onset of the enemy.我们的部队抵挡住了敌人的进攻。

130 exhaustion   

n.耗尽枯竭，疲惫，筋疲力尽，竭尽，详尽无遗的论述

参考例句：

• She slept the sleep of exhaustion.她因疲劳而酣睡。
• His exhaustion was obvious when he fell asleep standing.他站着睡着了，显然是太累了。

131 duel   

n./v.决斗；(双方的)斗争

参考例句：

• The two teams are locked in a duel for first place.两个队为争夺第一名打得难解难分。
• Duroy was forced to challenge his disparager to duel.杜洛瓦不得不向诋毁他的人提出决斗。

132 narratives   

记叙文( narrative的名词复数 )； 故事； 叙述； 叙述部分

参考例句：

• Marriage, which has been the bourne of so many narratives, is still a great beginning. 结婚一向是许多小说的终点，然而也是一个伟大的开始。
• This is one of the narratives that children are fond of. 这是孩子们喜欢的故事之一。

133 ascended   

v.上升，攀登( ascend的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He has ascended into heaven. 他已经升入了天堂。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The climbers slowly ascended the mountain. 爬山运动员慢慢地登上了这座山。 来自《简明英汉词典》

134 odds   

n.让步，机率，可能性，比率；胜败优劣之别

参考例句：

• The odds are 5 to 1 that she will win.她获胜的机会是五比一。
• Do you know the odds of winning the lottery once?你知道赢得一次彩票的几率多大吗？

135 defensive   

adj.防御的；防卫的；防守的

参考例句：

• Their questions about the money put her on the defensive.他们问到钱的问题，使她警觉起来。
• The Government hastily organized defensive measures against the raids.政府急忙布置了防卫措施抵御空袭。

136 relics   

[pl.］n.遗物，遗迹，遗产；遗体，尸骸

参考例句：

• The area is a treasure house of archaeological relics. 这个地区是古文物遗迹的宝库。
• Xi'an is an ancient city full of treasures and saintly relics. 西安是一个有很多宝藏和神圣的遗物的古老城市。

137 gallant   

adj.英勇的，豪侠的；(向女人)献殷勤的

参考例句：

• Huang Jiguang's gallant deed is known by all men. 黄继光的英勇事迹尽人皆知。
• These gallant soldiers will protect our country.这些勇敢的士兵会保卫我们的国家的。

138 accomplished   

adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的

参考例句：

• Thanks to your help,we accomplished the task ahead of schedule.亏得你们帮忙,我们才提前完成了任务。
• Removal of excess heat is accomplished by means of a radiator.通过散热器完成多余热量的排出。

139 undoubtedly   

adv.确实地，无疑地

参考例句：

• It is undoubtedly she who has said that.这话明明是她说的。
• He is undoubtedly the pride of China.毫无疑问他是中国的骄傲。

140 determined   

adj.坚定的；有决心的

参考例句：

• I have determined on going to Tibet after graduation.我已决定毕业后去西藏。
• He determined to view the rooms behind the office.他决定查看一下办公室后面的房间。

141 obliquely   

adv.斜； 倾斜； 间接； 不光明正大

参考例句：

• From the gateway two paths led obliquely across the court. 从门口那儿，有两条小路斜越过院子。 来自辞典例句
• He was receding obliquely with a curious hurrying gait. 他歪着身子，古怪而急促地迈着步子，往后退去。 来自辞典例句

142 extremity   

n.末端，尽头；尽力；终极；极度

参考例句：

• I hope you will help them in their extremity.我希望你能帮助在穷途末路的他们。
• What shall we do in this extremity?在这种极其困难的情况下我们该怎么办呢？

143 hampered   

妨碍，束缚，限制( hamper的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The search was hampered by appalling weather conditions. 恶劣的天气妨碍了搜寻工作。
• So thought every harassed, hampered, respectable boy in St. Petersburg. 圣彼德堡镇的那些受折磨、受拘束的体面孩子们个个都是这么想的。

144 duels   

n.两男子的决斗( duel的名词复数 )；竞争，斗争

参考例句：

• That's where I usually fight my duels. 我经常在那儿进行决斗。” 来自英语晨读30分（初三）
• Hyde Park also became a favourite place for duels. 海德公园也成了决斗的好地方。 来自辞典例句

145 clumps   

n.（树、灌木、植物等的）丛、簇( clump的名词复数 )；（土、泥等）团；块；笨重的脚步声v.（树、灌木、植物等的）丛、簇( clump的第三人称单数 )；（土、泥等）团；块；笨重的脚步声

参考例句：

• These plants quickly form dense clumps. 这些植物很快形成了浓密的树丛。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The bulbs were over. All that remained of them were clumps of brown leaves. 这些鳞茎死了，剩下的只是一丛丛的黃叶子。 来自《简明英汉词典》

146 exhausted   

adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的

参考例句：

• It was a long haul home and we arrived exhausted.搬运回家的这段路程特别长，到家时我们已筋疲力尽。
• Jenny was exhausted by the hustle of city life.珍妮被城市生活的忙乱弄得筋疲力尽。

147 fugitives   

n.亡命者，逃命者( fugitive的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Three fugitives from the prison are still at large. 三名逃犯仍然未被抓获。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Members of the provisional government were prisoners or fugitives. 临时政府的成员或被捕或逃亡。 来自演讲部分

148 mingled   

混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系]

参考例句：

• The sounds of laughter and singing mingled in the evening air. 笑声和歌声交织在夜空中。
• The man and the woman mingled as everyone started to relax. 当大家开始放松的时候，这一男一女就开始交往了。

149 horde   

n.群众，一大群

参考例句：

• A horde of children ran over the office building.一大群孩子在办公大楼里到处奔跑。
• Two women were quarrelling on the street,surrounded by horde of people.有两个妇人在街上争吵，被一大群人围住了。

150 severely   

adv.严格地；严厉地；非常恶劣地

参考例句：

• He was severely criticized and removed from his post.他受到了严厉的批评并且被撤了职。
• He is severely put down for his careless work.他因工作上的粗心大意而受到了严厉的批评。

151 meddle   

v.干预，干涉，插手

参考例句：

• I hope he doesn't try to meddle in my affairs.我希望他不来干预我的事情。
• Do not meddle in things that do not concern you.别参与和自己无关的事。

152 drenching   

n.湿透v.使湿透( drench的现在分词 )；在某人（某物）上大量使用（某液体）

参考例句：

• A black cloudburst was drenching Siena at midday. 中午，一场天昏地暗的暴风雨在锡耶纳上空倒下来。 来自辞典例句
• A drenching rain poured down and the rising hurricane drove it in sheets along the ground. 一阵倾盆大雨泼下来了，越来越大的狂风把它顺着地面刮成了一片一片的雨幕。 来自辞典例句

153 miserable   

adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的

参考例句：

• It was miserable of you to make fun of him.你取笑他，这是可耻的。
• Her past life was miserable.她过去的生活很苦。

154 mounds   

土堆，土丘( mound的名词复数 )； 一大堆

参考例句：

• We had mounds of tasteless rice. 我们有成堆成堆的淡而无味的米饭。
• Ah! and there's the cemetery' - cemetery, he must have meant. 'You see the mounds? 啊，这就是同墓，”——我想他要说的一定是公墓，“看到那些土墩了吗？

155 ministry   

n.(政府的)部；牧师

参考例句：

• They sent a deputation to the ministry to complain.他们派了一个代表团到部里投诉。
• We probed the Air Ministry statements.我们调查了空军部的记录。

156 frightful   

adj.可怕的；讨厌的

参考例句：

• How frightful to have a husband who snores!有一个发鼾声的丈夫多讨厌啊！
• We're having frightful weather these days.这几天天气坏极了。

157 adversaries   

n.对手，敌手( adversary的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• That would cause potential adversaries to recoil from a challenge. 这会迫使潜在的敌人在挑战面前退缩。 来自辞典例句
• Every adversaries are more comfortable with a predictable, coherent America. 就连敌人也会因有可以预料的，始终一致的美国而感到舒服得多。 来自辞典例句

158 honourable   

adj.可敬的；荣誉的，光荣的

参考例句：

• I don't think I am worthy of such an honourable title.这样的光荣称号，我可担当不起。
• I hope to find an honourable way of settling difficulties.我希望设法找到一个体面的办法以摆脱困境。

159 blazons   

v.广布( blazon的第三人称单数 )；宣布；夸示；装饰

参考例句：

160 worthy   

adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的

参考例句：

• I did not esteem him to be worthy of trust.我认为他不值得信赖。
• There occurred nothing that was worthy to be mentioned.没有值得一提的事发生。

161 tardy   

adj.缓慢的，迟缓的

参考例句：

• It's impolite to make a tardy appearance.晚到是不礼貌的。
• The boss is unsatisfied with the tardy tempo.老板不满于这种缓慢的进度。

162 sufficiently   

adv.足够地，充分地

参考例句：

• It turned out he had not insured the house sufficiently.原来他没有给房屋投足保险。
• The new policy was sufficiently elastic to accommodate both views.新政策充分灵活地适用两种观点。

163 wrecked   

adj.失事的，遇难的

参考例句：

• the hulk of a wrecked ship 遇难轮船的残骸
• the salvage of the wrecked tanker 对失事油轮的打捞

164 sullenly   

不高兴地，绷着脸，忧郁地

参考例句：

• 'so what?" Tom said sullenly. “那又怎么样呢？”汤姆绷着脸说。
• Emptiness after the paper, I sIt'sullenly in front of the stove. 报看完，想不出能找点什么事做，只好一人坐在火炉旁生气。

165 possessed   

adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的

参考例句：

• He flew out of the room like a man possessed.他像着了魔似地猛然冲出房门。
• He behaved like someone possessed.他行为举止像是魔怔了。

166 fatiguing   

a.使人劳累的

参考例句：

• He was fatiguing himself with his writing, no doubt. 想必他是拼命写作，写得精疲力尽了。
• Machines are much less fatiguing to your hands, arms, and back. 使用机器时，手、膊和后背不会感到太累。

167 chapel   

n.小教堂，殡仪馆

参考例句：

• The nimble hero,skipped into a chapel that stood near.敏捷的英雄跳进近旁的一座小教堂里。
• She was on the peak that Sunday afternoon when she played in chapel.那个星期天的下午，她在小教堂的演出，可以说是登峰造极。

168 convoy   

vt.护送，护卫，护航；n.护送；护送队

参考例句：

• The convoy was snowed up on the main road.护送队被大雪困在干路上了。
• Warships will accompany the convoy across the Atlantic.战舰将护送该船队过大西洋。

169 respite   

n.休息，中止，暂缓

参考例句：

• She was interrogated without respite for twenty-four hours.她被不间断地审问了二十四小时。
• Devaluation would only give the economy a brief respite.贬值只能让经济得到暂时的缓解。

170 vanquished   

v.征服( vanquish的过去式和过去分词 )；战胜；克服；抑制

参考例句：

• She had fought many battles, vanquished many foes. 她身经百战，挫败过很多对手。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• I vanquished her coldness with my assiduity. 我对她关心照顾从而消除了她的冷淡。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

171 censures   

v.指责，非难，谴责( censure的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• With such censures I cannot profess that I completely agree. 对于这些指责，我不能说我完全同意。 来自辞典例句
• This is a review containing unfair censures of a new book. 这是对一本新书进行非难的文章。 来自互联网

172 reiterated   

反复地说，重申( reiterate的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• "Well, I want to know about it,'she reiterated. “嗯，我一定要知道你的休假日期，"她重复说。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹
• Some twenty-two years later President Polk reiterated and elaborated upon these principles. 大约二十二年之后，波尔克总统重申这些原则并且刻意阐释一番。

173 abatement   

n.减(免)税，打折扣，冲销

参考例句：

• A bag filter for dust abatement at the discharge point should be provided.在卸料地点应该装设袋滤器以消除粉尘。
• The abatement of the headache gave him a moment of rest.头痛减轻给他片刻的休息。

174 tainted   

adj.腐坏的；污染的；沾污的；感染的v.使变质( taint的过去式和过去分词 )；使污染；败坏；被污染，腐坏，败坏

参考例句：

• The administration was tainted with scandal. 丑闻使得政府声名狼藉。
• He was considered tainted by association with the corrupt regime. 他因与腐败政府有牵连而名誉受损。 来自《简明英汉词典》

175 eloquent   

adj.雄辩的，口才流利的；明白显示出的

参考例句：

• He was so eloquent that he cut down the finest orator.他能言善辩，胜过最好的演说家。
• These ruins are an eloquent reminder of the horrors of war.这些废墟形象地提醒人们不要忘记战争的恐怖。

176 bristles   

短而硬的毛发，刷子毛( bristle的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• the bristles on his chin 他下巴上的胡楂子
• This job bristles with difficulties. 这项工作困难重重。

177 discredit   

vt.使不可置信；n.丧失信义；不信，怀疑

参考例句：

• Their behaviour has bought discredit on English football.他们的行为败坏了英国足球运动的声誉。
• They no longer try to discredit the technology itself.他们不再试图怀疑这种技术本身。

178 potence   

n.力量，权力，能力；效力

参考例句：

• The drug has lost its potence by being exposed to moisture. 这药因受潮失去了效力。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• Someone after money, someone after potence, but all of them after happiness. 有人追求钱财有人追求权力但所有的人都追求幸福。 来自互联网

179 simultaneously   

adv.同时发生地，同时进行地

参考例句：

• The radar beam can track a number of targets almost simultaneously.雷达波几乎可以同时追着多个目标。
• The Windows allow a computer user to execute multiple programs simultaneously.Windows允许计算机用户同时运行多个程序。

180 zeal   

n.热心，热情，热忱

参考例句：

• Revolutionary zeal caught them up,and they joined the army.革命热情激励他们，于是他们从军了。
• They worked with great zeal to finish the project.他们热情高涨地工作，以期完成这个项目。

181 vindicator   

n.维护者，辩护者，辩明者

参考例句：

182 isolated   

adj.与世隔绝的

参考例句：

• His bad behaviour was just an isolated incident. 他的不良行为只是个别事件。
• Patients with the disease should be isolated. 这种病的患者应予以隔离。

183 imputed   

v.把（错误等）归咎于( impute的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• They imputed the accident to the driver's carelessness. 他们把这次车祸归咎于司机的疏忽。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• He imputed the failure of his marriage to his wife's shortcomings. 他把婚姻的失败归咎于妻子的缺点。 来自辞典例句

184 recoiled   

v.畏缩( recoil的过去式和过去分词 )；退缩；报应；返回

参考例句：

• She recoiled from his touch. 她躲开他的触摸。
• Howard recoiled a little at the sharpness in my voice. 听到我的尖声，霍华德往后缩了一下。 来自《简明英汉词典》

185 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

186 triumphant   

adj.胜利的，成功的；狂欢的，喜悦的

参考例句：

• The army made a triumphant entry into the enemy's capital.部队胜利地进入了敌方首都。
• There was a positively triumphant note in her voice.她的声音里带有一种极为得意的语气。

187 hesitation   

n.犹豫，踌躇

参考例句：

• After a long hesitation, he told the truth at last.踌躇了半天，他终于直说了。
• There was a certain hesitation in her manner.她的态度有些犹豫不决。

188 wont   

adj.习惯于；v.习惯；n.习惯

参考例句：

• He was wont to say that children are lazy.他常常说小孩子们懒惰。
• It is his wont to get up early.早起是他的习惯。

189 continental   

adj.大陆的，大陆性的，欧洲大陆的

参考例句：

• A continental climate is different from an insular one.大陆性气候不同于岛屿气候。
• The most ancient parts of the continental crust are 4000 million years old.大陆地壳最古老的部分有40亿年历史。

190 interspersed   

adj.[医]散开的；点缀的v.intersperse的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• Lectures will be interspersed with practical demonstrations. 讲课中将不时插入实际示范。
• The grass was interspersed with beds of flowers. 草地上点缀着许多花坛。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

191 obstinacy   

n.顽固；（病痛等）难治

参考例句：

• It is a very accountable obstinacy.这是一种完全可以理解的固执态度。
• Cindy's anger usually made him stand firm to the point of obstinacy.辛迪一发怒，常常使他坚持自见，并达到执拗的地步。

192 inflict   

vt.(on)把…强加给，使遭受，使承担

参考例句：

• Don't inflict your ideas on me.不要把你的想法强加于我。
• Don't inflict damage on any person.不要伤害任何人。

193 insufficient   

adj.(for，of)不足的，不够的

参考例句：

• There was insufficient evidence to convict him.没有足够证据给他定罪。
• In their day scientific knowledge was insufficient to settle the matter.在他们的时代，科学知识还不能足以解决这些问题。

194 justified   

a.正当的，有理的

参考例句：

• She felt fully justified in asking for her money back. 她认为有充分的理由要求退款。
• The prisoner has certainly justified his claims by his actions. 那个囚犯确实已用自己的行动表明他的要求是正当的。

195 hue   

n.色度；色调；样子

参考例句：

• The diamond shone with every hue under the sun.金刚石在阳光下放出五颜六色的光芒。
• The same hue will look different in different light.同一颜色在不同的光线下看起来会有所不同。