de Gonneville回忆录也说是过河后追得太远遭遇伏击，North可能是把两次渡河弄混了（是被赶过Elsa河时损失不小）
https://books.google.com/books?id=3lREAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA195
另外，Daumesnil传记也有详细描写
By Christmas Day, the Guard was at Tordesillas, from which Soult’s men had been driven by Moore ten days previously, but there was no time for thoughts of peace on earth. At 5:30 that afternoon, the Guard foot and cavalry were again on the move, following Ney’s troops, headed for Medina del Rio Seco, since the Emperor’s latest reports had placed the British in the Leon-Sahagun area. But Moore was proving to be an elusive quarry, and by the 27th his whereabouts were still not clear. Then Ney’s cavalry scouts found the British at Mayorga, and once again Napoleon shifted the direction of Ney’s advance toward Valderas, in order to swing behind and around Moore. Then, learning that the British were in Benavente, Napoleon wrote to Lefebvre-Desnoëttes, telling him to press ahead with the Chasseurs to make contact with the enemy, and to attempt by harassing actions to fix them until the rest of the army could come up. Finally, he sent the Polish Light Horse to support Lefebvre-Desnoëttes.
In his Carnets, Guyot provides a baldly factual account of the ill-advised and disastrous action into which Lefèbvre-Desnoëttes impetuously plunged the Chasseurs. Arriving in Castro Gonsalvo on the late afternoon of the 28th, well in advance of the General Headquarters, Lefebvre-Desnoëttes sent an advance guard of Chasseurs to scout out British activity in the vicinity of Benavente, on the opposite side of the Esla, a small river flowing southwest and emptying into the Duoro. The Chasseurs observed some British troops engaging in demolishing the wooden bridge leading across the Esla to Benavente, and a brief exchange of musket fire took place, resulting in the fatal wounding of one of the Mameluke officers, Azaria.
At 6:00 the next morning, the young general had his regiment in the saddle, and was looking for a means of crossing the river in order to continue the reconnaissance to Benavente and beyond. By that time, the bridge had been rendered impassable, and any effort to repair it in the face of the enemy, who could be seen on the far bank observing the French movements, was out of the question. As it happened, at virtually the same time Napoleon was writing to Lefebvre-Desnoëttes, telling him not to compromise the Guard cavalry and not to push the matter, if the bridge was guarded by infantry.
Apparently without having received the Emperor’s instructions, and having located a ford opposite Castro Gonsalvo, Lefebvre-Desnoëttes led his 400 Chasseurs through the rapid-flowing, powerful currents of the Esla, swollen by snow and rain, and the regiment’s advance guard galloped off in pursuit of the forty British cavalry, who had been posted near the bridgehead. Having pursued the enemy for several kilometers, right up to the gates to Benavente, the Chasseurs were driven back by the British main guard. Lefebvre then sent forward the first and fifth companies to support the advance guard, but those men were immediately set upon by three British squadrons coming out of Benavente.
Guyot was then ordered to take the second and sixth companies to disengage the men of the regiment from their assailants so that they might withdraw, but the continuing increase in the numbers of British cavalry being fed into the fray was making the regiment’s position increasingly perilous. At the head of the second and sixth companies, Guyot charged a dense column of cavalry approaching his line of battle, breaking up several of its squadrons. In a few moments, he had 30 to 40 prisoners to deal with, and a number of wounded on the field of battle. Some 60 riderless British horses were running loose through the regiment’s ranks.
Guyot managed to amalgamate his two companies with the first and fifth and to get them in a line of battle, but by now there were 19 British squadrons facing him, and he was forced to retreat. At that point Lefebvre-Desnoëttes sent Major Thiry, with the last 150 men of the final companies, to Guyot’s aid, but that weak reinforcement could only fire on the mass of British cavalry, without having an appreciable effect. Lord Paget, commanding the British cavalry, ordered his men to charge the French, and they succeeded in pushing the Chasseurs back to the ford across from Castro Gonsalvo, despite a stubborn resistance on the latter’s part. The colonel of the 7th Light Dragoons and a major were killed, and some 200 British troopers wounded, of whom 27 died either on the field of battle or in Benavente the next day.
In their precipitate retreat, the Chasseurs had lost two officers and six troopers killed, and another 35 men, whose horses were too worn and exhausted to go on, had been captured. It was at the ford, through which the regiment had passed just one hour previously, that Lefebvre-Desnoëttes was captured, as he vainly attempted to keep the men of the regiment from returning to the left bank of the river. Guyot comments that it was a very good thing that he was unable to do so, because if the Chasseurs had retreated down that bank of the Esla, they would have fallen into the hands of another eight squadrons of British cavalry, who were covering the right flank of the retreating British column.
Guyot concludes his account by saying that, once he had regained the left bank with the surviving 300 Chasseurs, they remained there, and the British made no attempt to pursue them through the ford. He sent a report of the affair to the Emperor, who was still at Valderas, and by three that afternoon Napoleon had arrived at Castro Gonsalvo. Guyot’s resentment over Lefebvre-Desnoëtte’s having been given command of the regiment in preference to himself was undoubtedly heightened by the rash and disastrous conduct of his commander on this occasion. Guyot commented that Lefebvre-Desnoëttes was made a prisoner, together with three other officers, because he abandoned the regiment at the height of the retreat.
The losses to the regiment were severe: two lieutenants and six Chasseurs killed, and six officers and 62 Chasseurs wounded. When Napoleon learned how roughly his favorite regiment had been handled, he was furious, but he ended up by seemingly approving their commander’s conduct. Dupont comments that, in order to make it clear to every one that he did not harbor any resentment against the young general for his ill-considered action, Napoleon declared that the position of regimental commander would remain vacant until Lefebvre-Desnoëttes’ return. One can imagine the effect that that decision had on Guyot, who would, by reason of that decision, remain as the acting regimental commander until Lefebvre’s return in 1812.17 Although he never realized his ambition to command the regiment in which he had played such an important role, Guyot became a général de division in December 1811, and was given command of the Horse Grenadiers in November of 1813.
Napoleon's Shield & Guardian, p. 179-181
作者应当是看过Guyot, Général Comte, Carnets de campagnes (1792–1815)，可能是目前英文里最详尽的法方描述 |
楼主: 朔风
楼主
发表于 2017-6-6 08:40:12
发表于 2017-6-6 18:52:20
