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Title: A history of the Peninsular War, Vol. 4, Dec. 1810-Dec. 1811
Massena's retreat, Fuentes de Oñoro, Albuera, Tarragona

Author: Charles Oman

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A HISTORY OF
THE PENINSULAR WAR, VOL. 4, DEC. 1810-DEC. 1811 ***

Transcriber's note
Table of Contents
List of Maps
List of Illustrations
Index

Major General Sir Thomas Picton

A HISTORY OF THE
PENINSULAR WAR
BY
CHARLES OMAN
M.A. Oxon., Hon. LL.D. Edin.
FELLOW OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY
CHICHELE PROFESSOR OF MODERN HISTORY
FELLOW OF ALL SOULS COLLEGE
CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE REAL ACADEMIA
DE LA HISTORIA OF MADRID, OF THE ACADEMY OF LISBON
AND THE ACADEMY OF SAN LUIS OF SARAGOSSA

Vol. IV
Dec. 1810-Dec. 1811
MASSÉNA’S RETREAT FUENTES DE OÑORO
ALBUERA TARRAGONA

WITH MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS

OXFORD
AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
1911

HENRY FROWDE, M.A.
PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
LONDON, EDINBURGH, NEW YORK
TORONTO AND MELBOURNE

PREFACE

I n this volume are contained the annals of all the many campaigns of 1811,
with the exception of those of Suchet’s Valencian expedition in the later
months of the year, which for reasons of space have to be relegated to
Volume V. It was impossible to exceed the bulk of 660 pages, and the
operations on the Mediterranean coast of Spain can be dealt with separately
without any grave breach of continuity in the narrative, though this
particular Valencian campaign affected the general course of the war far
more closely than any other series of operations on the Eastern side of the
Peninsula, as I have been careful to point out in the concluding chapters of
Section XXIX.
The main interest of 1811, however, centres in the operations of
Wellington and his opponents, Masséna, Soult, and Marmont. In the
previous year the tide of French conquest reached its high-water mark,
when Soult appeared before the walls of Cadiz, and Masséna forced his way
to the foot of the long chain of redoubts that formed the Lines of Torres
Vedras. Already, before 1810 was over, Masséna’s baffled army had fallen
back a few miles, and this first short retreat to Santarem marked the
commencement of a never-ceasing ebb of the wave of conquest on the
Western side of the Peninsula. Matters went otherwise on the Eastern coast
in 1811, but all Suchet’s campaigns were, after all, a side issue. The
decisive point lay not in Catalonia or Valencia, but in Portugal.
When Masséna finally evacuated Portugal in March 1811, forced out of
his cantonments by Wellington’s skilful use of the sword of famine, a new
stage in the war began. The French had lost the advantage of the offensive,
and were never to regain it on the Western theatre of war. All through the
remainder of 1811 it was the British general who dealt the strokes, and the
enemy who had to parry them. The strokes were feeble, because of
Wellington’s very limited resources, and for the most part were warded off.
Though Almeida fell in May, the siege of Badajoz in June, and the blockade
of Ciudad Rodrigo in August and September, were both brought to an end

by the concentration of French armies which Wellington was too weak to
attack. But the masses of men which Soult and Marmont gathered on the
Guadiana in June, and Dorsenne and Marmont gathered on the Agueda in
September, had only been collected by a dangerous disgarnishing of the
whole of those provinces of Spain which lay beneath the French yoke. They
could not remain long assembled, firstly because they could not feed
themselves, and secondly because of the peril to which their concentration
exposed the abandoned regions in their rear. Hence, in each case, the French
commanders, satisfied with having parried Wellington’s stroke for the
moment, refused to attack him, and dispersed their armies. That the spirit of
the offensive was lost on the French side is sufficiently shown by the fact
that when their adversary stood on the defensive upon the Caya in June, and
at Alfayates in September, they refused to assail his positions.
We leave the allied and the French armies at the end of the autumn
campaign of 1811 still in this state of equipoise. Wellington had made two
successive attempts to strike, and had failed, though without any grave loss
or disaster, because the forces opposed to him were still too great. His third
stroke in January 1812 was to be successful and decisive, but its history
belongs to our next volume.
The main bulk of the seven sections herewith presented consists of a
narrative of the successive phases of the long deadlock between Wellington
and his enemies along the Portuguese frontier: but I have endeavoured to
give as clear a narrative as I can compile of all the side-campaigns of the
year, in Andalusia, Murcia, Estremadura, Galicia, the Asturias, and
Catalonia, and to show their bearings on the general history of the great
Peninsular struggle.
I must apologize for the long space of time—three years—that has
elapsed between the appearance of the third and the fourth volumes of this
work. But it was impossible to produce these sections till I had taken two
more voyages over the more important fighting-grounds of 1811—one
round Catalonia, the other along the line of Masséna’s retreat from Portugal.
It was only in the last days of September 1910 that I was able to accomplish
the latter journey. It was made under the happiest conditions, for the
government of King Manuel kindly lent me a motor-car, and put at my
disposition the services of Captain Teixeira Botelho, an admirable specialist
on the artillery side of the Peninsular War. Guided by him, and

accompanied by my friend Mr. Rafael Reynolds of Barreiro, I was able to
study the topography of Pombal, Redinha, Condeixa, Casal Novo, and Foz
do Arouce, not to speak of many other picturesque spots of military interest.
Hence my survey of the main fighting-grounds of 1811 has been fairly
complete—I spent long days at Fuentes de Oñoro and Albuera, walked all
round Badajoz and the field of the Gebora, and studied Tarragona and other
Catalan sites. Barrosa alone, I regret to say, I have not been able to visit.
I have to offer grateful thanks to many possessors of documents, who
have been good enough to place them at my disposition. The most
important of all were the D’Urban papers, lent to me by Mr. W. S. M.
D’Urban, of Newport House, near Exeter; the diary and official
correspondence of his grandfather, Sir Benjamin D’Urban, Beresford’s
Chief-of-the-staff during the Estremaduran campaigns of 1811, were simply
invaluable for the comprehension of those operations. I had already
acknowledged my indebtedness to the D’Urban papers in my narrative of
1810; but in the following year, when Beresford was acting as the leader of
an independent army, they were even more important—as my constant
references to them in notes will show.
A new source of high value came to my knowledge last year, through
the kindness of Mr. G. Scovell, of Hove, who placed in my hands the papers
of his grandfather, Major Scovell, who acted in 1811-12-13 as Wellington’s
cipher-secretary. Not only was this officer’s personal diary of great use to
me, but the file of the intercepted French dispatches in cipher, with the
interpretation of them worked out with infinite pains, proved as valuable as
it was interesting. Many of the originals, written on small scraps of the
thinnest paper, and folded into such minute shapes that they could be sewed
on to a button, or hidden in a coatseam, had evidently been taken on the
persons of emissaries of the French generals, who had been captured by the
guerrilleros, and had probably in most cases cost the bearers their lives. The
ciphers were of two sorts: in the more complicated every word was in
cipher; in the less complicated only names of persons and places and the
numbers of troops or dates were disguised, the bulk of the dispatch being in
plain French. In the key to these last there were several hundred arbitrary
numbers used, and it was Major Scovell’s task to make out from the
context, or the repetition of the same figures in many documents, what the
individual numbers meant. By the end of his researches he had identified

four-fifths of the names, and those which he had not all belonged to
unimportant persons or places, infrequently mentioned.
A much shorter but quite interesting file of diary and letters placed at
my disposal were those of Cornet Francis Hall of the 14th Light Dragoons.
They practically covered only the year 1811, but were very full, and written
in an animated descriptive style, very different from that of many dry and
short journals. They contained by far the best account of the cavalry part of
the fighting at Fuentes de Oñoro that I have ever seen, and I am exceedingly
obliged to the writer’s granddaughter Miss E. G. Hall for allowing me to
utilize them.
I am still occasionally using notes of 1811 made from two collections of
unpublished letters, of which I had occasion to speak in my last preface,
those of General Le Marchant, now in the hands of Sir Henry Le Marchant
of Chobham, and those of General John Wilson belonging to Commander
Bertram Chambers R.N. To both of the courteous possessors of these files
of correspondence I owe my best thanks.
I must mention, as in previous volumes, much kind help given me by
those connected with the military archives of Paris, Madrid, and Lisbon.
Once more I must acknowledge the unfailing kindness of M. Martinien at
the French War Ministry, who did so much to make easy for me endless
searches through the overflowing cartons of its Library. At Madrid
Commandant Juan Arzadun of the Artillery Museum placed much
suggestive material at my disposal, and found me one or two scarce books,
while Major Emilio Figueras at the War Ministry searched out and copied
for me a number of unpublished ‘morning states’ of the various Spanish
Armies. I must also recur to the name of Captain Teixeira Botelho of the
Portuguese Artillery, my companion on the line of Masséna’s retreat, who
furnished me with a rich mine of information in his unpublished subsidios
para a historia da Artilheria Portugueza.
Among my English helpers I must give a special word of thanks to
Major John Leslie, R.A., to whose researches I owe all that I know about
the British artillery in the Peninsular War. His ‘Dickson Papers’ are always
at my elbow, and I owe him particular gratitude for the Artillery Appendix
XXIV, which he has been good enough to compile for me. To the Hon. John
Fortescue, the historian of the British Army, whom we were proud to

welcome at Oxford as Ford Lecturer this year, I am deeply indebted for his
answers to my queries on many dark points, and most especially for his
notes as to several suppressed parts of the Wellington Correspondence. Mr.
Rafael Reynolds of Barreiro, who shared in my September tour of last year,
has obtained for me in Lisbon a number of rare Portuguese volumes, most
especially a complete set of Marshal Beresford’s Ordens do Dia for the
whole Peninsular War—an almost unprocurable collection, containing
every general order, report of a court martial, list of promotions, and
statistical paper, which was issued to the Portuguese Army. It is absolutely
invaluable for identifying names and dates, and settling questions of
organization. The Rev. Alexander Craufurd, grandson of the famous
commander of the Light Division, has continued, as in previous years, to
place his store of information concerning the campaigns of that hard
fighting unit at my disposal.
Lastly, the compiler of the index, a weary task executed under many
difficulties, must receive my heartfelt thanks for much loving labour.
I must apologize to readers for some occasional discrepancies in
spelling which may be discovered in the text and maps. They are mainly
due to the fact that all along the Portuguese-Spanish frontier every town and
village is spelt differently by its own inhabitants and by its close neighbours
of the other nationality. I find it impossible to avoid the occasional intrusion
of a Portuguese spelling of a Spanish locality, and vice versa. Matters are
made still more hard by the fact that the spelling of local names in Portugal
(less so in Spain) seems to have been much changed since 1811. It is
difficult to avoid occasionally an archaic, or on the other hand a too-
modern, form for a name. These slight errors, or discrepancies between
names as spelled in the text and in the maps, were nearly all caused by
alterations between the received spelling of 1811, followed in the maps I
used, and that of 1911. I do not think that they will cause any difficulty to
the reader, who will not e. g. find it hard to recognize that Foz do Arouce is
the same as Foz de Arouce or Casal Novo as Cazal Novo.
In a few cases the critic may find a slight difference in the numbers of
troops, or of killed and wounded, which are given in the text and in the
appendices. In almost all cases this results from the fact that the official
totals quoted in the text turned out not to work out in exact agreement with
the detailed list of items in the ‘morning states’ or the complete casualty

lists. These errors, always trifling, could not be discovered till the arithmetic
of the appendices had been verified, sometimes when the text had already
been printed off. The most frequent discrepancies were found in comparing
Wellington’s totals of Portuguese strengths or casualties with the detailed
official figures. In all instances the differences are small, but the
Appendices must be taken to give the more exact numbers.

C. OMAN.
Oxford:
July 1, 1911.

CONTENTS

SECTION XXIII
The Winter Campaign of 1810-11
CHAPTER PAGE
I. Masséna at Santarem. The deadlock on the
Lower Tagus. December 1810-January 1811 1
II. Soult’s Invasion of Estremadura. January-March
1811. The Battle of the Gebora and the Fall
of Badajoz 23
III. Masséna’s Last Weeks at Santarem. January-
March 1811 64
IV. Events in the South of Spain. The Battle of
Barrosa. January-March 1811 91

SECTION XXIV
Masséna’s Retreat from Portugal
I. Santarem to Celorico. March 9th-22nd, 1811 131
II. Guarda and Sabugal. March 22nd-April 12th,
1811 173

SECTION XXV
Events in Northern, Eastern, and Central Spain
I. King Joseph and his Troubles 206
II. Suchet on the Ebro. The Fall of Tortosa.
December 1810-March 1811 227

SECTION XXVI

Fuentes de Oñoro and Albuera
I. Beresford’s Campaign in Estremadura. The First
British Siege of Badajoz. March-May 1811 247
II. Fuentes de Oñoro: Preliminary Operations. April
12th-May 3rd, 1811 288
III. The Battle of Fuentes de Oñoro. May 5th, 1811 315
IV. Brennier’s Escape from Almeida. May 1811 349
V. The Battle of Albuera. May 16th, 1811 363

SECTION XXVII
Wellington’s First Estremaduran Campaign
I. The Second British Siege of Badajoz. May-June
1811 404
II. Wellington on the Caya. June-July 1811 443
III. Events in the North of Spain during the
concentration on the Caya. Dorsenne and the
Galicians. June-August 1811 461
IV. Soult’s Troubles in Andalusia, July-September
1811 475

SECTION XXVIII
Operations in Eastern Spain in the Spring, Summer, and Autumn
of 1811
I. Figueras and Tarragona. April-May 1811 484
II. The Siege and Fall of Tarragona. May-June
1811 497
III. The Fall of Figueras and the Autumn Campaign
in Catalonia. July-October 1811 528

SECTION XXIX
Wellington’s Autumn Campaign of 1811

I. Wellington’s Blockade of Ciudad Rodrigo.
August-September 1811 542
II. El Bodon and Aldea da Ponte. September 1811 559
III. The End of Wellington’s Campaigns of 1811.
Arroyo dos Molinos. September 1811 583

APPENDICES
I. The French Army in Portugal, Returns of
January-April 1811 608
II. Soult’s Army in his First Expedition to
Estremadura, January-March 1811 610
III. Spanish Troops in Estremadura, March 1811 610
IV. Graham’s Army at Barrosa, and its Losses 612
V. Victor’s Army at Barrosa, and its Losses 613
VI-VII. British Losses at Pombal, Redinha, Casal Novo,
Foz do Arouce, and Sabugal, March-April
1811 614-616
VIII. French Losses at Sabugal, April 3rd, 1811 617
IX. Force of Wellington’s Army at Fuentes de
Oñoro, May 3-5, 1811 618
X. British and Portuguese Losses at Fuentes de
Oñoro, First Day, May 3 622
XI. British and Portuguese Losses at Fuentes de
Oñoro, Second Day, May 5th, 1811 623
XII. The French Army at Fuentes de Oñoro 625
XIII. Masséna’s Orders for Fuentes de Oñoro 629
XIV. French Losses at Fuentes de Oñoro 630
XV. The Allied Army at Albuera, and its Losses,
May 16, 1811 631
XVI. Soult’s Army at Albuera, and its Losses 634
XVII. Strength of the Spanish Armies in the Summer
of 1811 636

XVIII. Strength of the French Army in Spain, July 15,
1811 638
XIX. French and Spanish Forces at the Siege of
Tarragona 643
XX. Wellington’s Army on the Beira Frontier,
September 15 644
XXI. Allied Losses at the Combat of El Bodon 648
XXII. Allied Losses at the Combat of Aldea da Ponte 648
XXIII. Hill’s Force in Estremadura, September-October
1811 649
XXIV. The British Artillery in the Peninsula during the
Campaign of 1811 650

INDEX 653

MAPS AND PLANS
PAGE
I. Badajoz and the Battle of the Gebora To face 54
II. General Map of the Barrosa Campaign ” 104
III. The Battle of Barrosa ” 124
IV. Combat of Redinha ” 144
V. Combat of Casal Novo ” 152
VI. Combat of Foz do Arouce ” 158
VII. Masséna’s Retreat. Leiria to the Alva
River ” 166
VIII. Combat of Sabugal ” 196
IX. Masséna’s Retreat. Celorico to Ciudad
Rodrigo ” 200
X. Plan of the Siege of Tortosa ” 238
XI. The British Sieges of Badajoz in May and
June 1811 ” 286
XII. Battle of Fuentes de Oñoro (two plates) ” 316, 338
XIII. Battle of Albuera (two plates) ” 384, 394

XIV. General Map of Estremadura ” 452
XV. Plan of the Siege of Tarragona ” 524
XVI. General Map of Catalonia ” 538

ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
Portrait of General Picton Frontispiece
Portrait of General Graham To face 96
Portrait of Marshal Beresford ” 260
British Army crossing the Tagus at Villa Velha ” 408
Fort San Cristobal ” 424

SECTION XXIII
THE WINTER CAMPAIGN OF 1810-11

CHAPTER I
MASSÉNA AT SANTAREM. THE DEADLOCK
ON THE LOWER TAGUS. DECEMBER 1810-
JANUARY 1811

On the 18th of November, 1810, Masséna had completed the movement
to the rear which he had commenced on the 14th. His army no longer
threatened the Lines of Torres Vedras: he had abandoned the offensive for
the defensive. Concentrated in the triangle Santarem-Punhete-Thomar, with
his three corps so disposed that a march of twenty miles would suffice to
concentrate everything save outlying detachments, he waited to see whether
his enemy would dare to attack him; for he still hoped for a battle in the
open field, and was prepared to accept its chances. At Bussaco, so he
reasoned, his defeat had been the result of an over-bold attack on a strong
position. The event might go otherwise if he threw the responsibility of the
offensive on Wellington. He had secured for himself an advantageous
fighting-ground: his left flank was protected by the formidable
entrenchments around Santarem; his front was covered by the rain-sodden
valley of the Rio Mayor, which during the winter season could be crossed
only at a few well-known points. His right wing could not be turned, unless
his adversary were ready to push a great force over villainous roads towards
Alcanhede and the upper course of the Rio Mayor. And if Wellington should
risk a large detachment in this direction, it might be possible to burst out
from Santarem, against the containing force which he would be compelled

to leave on the banks of the Tagus, about Cartaxo, and to beat it back
towards the Lines—a movement which would almost certainly bring back
the turning column from the North. For the English general could not dare
to leave Lisbon exposed to the chances of a sudden blow, when there was
little but Portuguese militia left to occupy the long chain of defensive works
from Alhandra to Torres Vedras. For some weeks after his retreat to his new
position at Santarem, Masséna lived in hopes that Wellington would either
deliver an attack on his well-protected front, or undertake the dangerous
turning movement towards his left.
No such chance was granted him. His adversary had weighed all the
arguments for and against the offensive, and had made up his mind to rely
rather on his old weapon—starvation—than on force. In several of his
December dispatches he sums up the situation with perfect clearness; on the
2nd he wrote to Lord Liverpool, ‘It would still be impossible to make any
movement of importance upon the right flank of the enemy’s position at
Santarem without exposing some divisions of troops to be insulated and cut
off. The enemy having concentrated their army about Torres Novas, &c., I
do not propose to make any movement by which I incur the risk of
involving the army in a general action, on ground less advantageous than
that which I had fixed upon to bring this contest to an issue [i. e. the Lines].
The enemy can be relieved from the difficulties of their situation only by
the occurrence of some misfortune to the allied army, and I should forward
their views by placing the fate of the campaign on the result of a general
action on ground chosen by them, and not on that selected by me. I
therefore propose to continue the operation of light detachments on their
flanks and rear, to confine them as much as possible, but to engage in no
serious affair on ground on which the result can be at all doubtful[1].’ At the
end of the month he simply restates his decision: ‘Having such an enemy to
contend with, and knowing (as I do) that there is no army in the Peninsula
capable of contending with the enemy, excepting that under my command;
that there are no means of replacing any large losses I might sustain; and
that any success acquired by a large sacrifice of men would be followed by
disastrous consequence to the cause of the allies, I have determined to
persevere in the system which has hitherto saved all, and which will, I hope,
end in the defeat of the enemy[2].’

Accordingly Wellington’s main army was kept for the three winter
months of December, January, and February almost precisely on the same
ground on which it had been placed in the last week of November. The
three British cavalry brigades formed a line in front of the whole, reaching
from Porto de Mugem on the Tagus to São João de Ribiera on the upper Rio
Mayor[3]. The infantry divisions (save the 2nd) were arranged in successive
lines of cantonment behind them, watching the course of the Rio Mayor,
while the reserves had retired as far as the Lines of Torres Vedras.
Practically the whole force could be concentrated in a single march—or a
march and a half at most—in case Masséna should take the improbable—
but still conceivable—step of sallying out from Santarem to resume the
offensive. When the first French reinforcements began to come up—about
the New Year of 1810-11—such a sally seemed to Wellington quite worth
guarding against[4]. The disposition of the infantry was as follows: On the
right, near the Tagus, lay the Light Division, immediately in front of
Santarem, quartered in Valle and other villages. On the left the front line
was formed by Pack’s Portuguese, who lay at Almoster, on heights
overlooking the middle course of the Rio Mayor. In support of the Light
Division, but five miles to the rear, at Cartaxo and other places, was the
large and powerful 1st Division, 7,000 bayonets. The 4th Division lay at an
equal distance behind the 1st, at Azambuja and Aveiras da Cima. Behind
Pack, on the inland or Leiria road, Picton and his 3rd Division were placed
at Alcoentre. Their support was the 5th Division at Torres Vedras in the old
Lines, seventeen miles to the rear, from which a circuitous road led to
Alcoentre. Finally the newly-formed 6th Division was placed at the other
end of the Lines, but just outside them, at Alemquer and Arruda, with Le
Cor’s Portuguese division immediately behind, at Alhandra.
In all the main army consisted of about 48,000 men of all arms; but this
did not compose the whole of Wellington’s available resources. He had
transferred a considerable detachment to the southern bank of the Tagus, to
protect the Alemtejo against any possible descent by the French. It will be
remembered that as early as the beginning of November[5] he had sent
across the river Fane’s Portuguese cavalry and a battalion of Caçadores,
who were directed to watch the road along the further bank, to prevent any
trifling force of French from crossing in search of provisions, and to keep
open the communications with Abrantes. As long as Masséna was
threatening the Lines of Torres Vedras, there was no danger that he would

throw anything more than a raiding party across the Tagus; he would want
every man for the great assault. But when the Marshal gave up the offensive
and retired to Santarem, the aspect of affairs was changed; it was quite
possible that, with his army in a state of semi-starvation, he might venture
to send a considerable detachment over the river, to gather the food which
was so necessary to him. Nor was it unlikely that he might have a still more
cogent reason for invading the Alemtejo. If, as Wellington thought
probable[6], the army of Andalusia were to be ordered up to assist the army
of Portugal, it would be of great importance for the latter to possess a
footing on the left bank of the Tagus, as the communication with Soult’s
troops must certainly be made in this direction. Accordingly there was good
reason for securing the line of the river, and for cooping up Masséna in his
limited sphere on its western bank. On the 19th-20th of November, Hill and
the 2nd Division, attended as usual by Hamilton’s two Portuguese brigades,
and with the 13th Light Dragoons attached, crossed the Tagus in boats a
little to the north of Salvaterra, to reinforce Fane’s detachment. This was a
serious force—10,000 men—which Wellington could ill spare, and he made
elaborate arrangements to enable it to return in haste, in the event of
Masséna’s once more taking the offensive on the western bank of the Tagus.
The flotilla of gunboats and river craft, which had been guarding the river,
was to be kept ready at Alhandra to bring back the 2nd Division, at the first
alarm of a movement of the French from Santarem. Meanwhile Hill moved
up the river and established his head quarters at Chamusca, a little north of
Santarem, from which point he could both observe the main body of the
French and impede any attempt that they might make to cross the river, and
also could keep in touch with Abrantes, and reinforce it, supposing that
Masséna showed any signs of molesting it. The British brigades of the 2nd
Division were distributed along the river, William Stewart’s at Pinheiros
and Tramagal most to the north, Hoghton’s at Chamusca, Lumley’s at
Almeirim, exactly facing Santarem. Hamilton’s two Portuguese brigades
continued the line southward, Fonseca’s brigade at Mugem, Campbell’s at
Salvaterra. Fane’s four regiments of Portuguese cavalry, and the British
13th Light Dragoons, were strung out by squadrons along the whole front
from the neighbourhood of Abrantes to Almeirim, patrolling the river bank
with unceasing care[7].
On the 29th of November Hill was disabled by a severe attack of fever,
and the control of all the troops beyond the Tagus devolved on his senior

brigadier, William Stewart. Wellington only allowed this hard-fighting but
somewhat too venturesome officer to retain his very responsible command
for a few weeks. Troubled by Stewart’s constant requests to be allowed to
make offensive movements against the French, which did not enter into his
own plans[8], and dreading the consequences of his enterprise, the
Commander-in-Chief superseded him, by sending over Beresford to take
the charge of all the forces on the Alemtejo bank of the Tagus (December
30). He would have preferred to give the duty to Hill, who had in the
preceding summer carried out a similar task with complete success, while
he watched Reynier from Castello Branco[9]. But Hill’s fever lingered on for
many weeks, and when he was convalescent the medical men insisted that
he must return to England for change of air. This he did in February, and we
miss his familiar name in the records of the Peninsular War for a space of
three months, till his reappearance at the front in May.
Beresford therefore began, with the New Year, to exercise a semi-
independent command over the detached force beyond the Tagus, which he
was to retain for nearly six months. The experiment of giving him this
responsible duty was not altogether a happy one; and after his unsuccessful
operations in Estremadura, and his ill-fought victory at Albuera, Wellington
withdrew him to other duties in June, and once more handed over the troops
south of the Tagus to the cautious yet capable hands of Hill.
The main force, meanwhile, faced the front of Masséna’s army;
Beresford’s detachment observed its left flank along the Tagus. But this was
not all; Wellington had also taken his precautions to cast around the rear of
the irregular parallelogram held by the French a screen of light troops,
which effectually cut their communications with Spain, and restricted,
though they could not altogether hinder, their marauding raids in search of
provisions. This screen was weakest beyond Abrantes, on the line of the
Zezere; but here the land was barren, and the enemy had little or nothing to
gain by plundering excursions. The Castello Branco country was only
guarded by its own Ordenança levy, which was trifling in force, as the
whole ‘corregedoria’ from the Zezere to the Elga had only 40,000 souls, and
it had sent its two militia regiments within the Lisbon lines. But, save in the
small upland plain about Castello Branco itself, there was practically
neither population nor tillage. The less barren and deserted mountain land
between the Zezere and the Mondego was much more worth plundering,

and was protected by the militia brigade of John Wilson, who lay at
Espinhal on the Thomar-Coimbra road, with a force of four battalions,
which ought to have numbered 3,000 men, but often shrank down to 1,500.
For the militiamen, unpaid and ill-fed, deserted freely during the winter
season, and as their homes lay far northward, by the Douro, it was not easy
to gather them back to their colours. But Wilson had always a sufficient
nucleus about him to check any marauding party that fell short of a
regiment, and was a real restraint on the foragers of the 6th Corps, when
they pushed out from Ourem or Thomar to gather food. He was only once
seriously engaged, when, on December 23rd, General Marcognet, with two
battalions and a cavalry regiment, came up against him, drove him out of
Espinhal after some skirmishing, and pushed a reconnaissance as far as the
Mondego, of which we shall hear in its due place.
Beyond Wilson to the west, the line of observation was taken up by
Trant’s militia brigade, which lay at Coimbra, to which town many of its
fugitive inhabitants had by this time returned. He had a larger force than
Wilson—seven militia regiments, whose strength varied from day to day
but seldom fell below 3,000 men. With this irregular force he watched the
line of the lower Mondego, keeping pickets out some way to the south of
the river, as far as Louriçal and Redinha. They were only once driven in,
when on Dec. 6th-8th one of Montbrun’s dragoon regiments pushed up the
high road, and verified the fact that all the passages of the lower Mondego,
including the bridge of Coimbra, were guarded.
The last link in the chain of detachments which Wellington had cast
around the French was the garrison of the sea-girt fortress of Peniche, half-
way between Lisbon and the mouth of the Mondego. It was held by the
dépôts of several infantry regiments of the regular army, under General
Blunt of the Portuguese service, not by any single organized unit. But there
were some 2,000 or 3,000 recruits, more or less trained, in the place, and
the enterprising Major Fenwick, whom Blunt had put in charge of his
outpost-line, kept large pickets out in the direction of Caldas and Obidos,
which frequently came in contact with the raiding parties of the 8th Corps,
and did them much harm. Fenwick was mortally wounded in action near
Obidos on Dec. 4th[10], but the forward position of these outposts of the
Peniche garrison was maintained, and the French could never forage in the
coast-land for a radius of some fifteen miles around that fortress, though

they moved as they pleased about Leiria and the deserted abbeys of Batalha
and Alcobaça. The Portuguese outposts at Caldas were in close and regular
touch with Anson’s cavalry pickets from São João de Ribiera on the Rio
Mayor.
It will be seen therefore that the limited space in which Masséna’s army
could seek its living was a parallelogram, bounded by the Tagus on the
south, the lower Zezere on the east, the Rio Mayor and the Alcoa (the river
of Alcobaça) on the west, and on the north by an irregular line drawn from
Leiria through Pombal to Cabaços near the Zezere. Outside these limits
food could only be got by large detachments, moving with all military
precautions, and obliged to keep up a constant running fight with the
Portuguese militia. The profit from such expeditions, whose march was
necessarily very slow, was so small that Masséna sent out very few of them,
since the peasantry got off with their flocks into the hills, whenever the first
skirmishing shots along the high road were heard. The sustenance of the
French was mainly obtained by harrying and re-harrying the area bounded
by the limits stated above, where they could work their will without
meeting with any resistance. There was very little change in the
cantonments of Masséna’s army during the three months of their stay
between the Tagus and the Zezere. Of the 2nd Corps both divisions were in
the Santarem fortifications, holding the town and the banks of the Rio
Mayor to the west of it. Close in touch with the 2nd Corps came the 8th,
with Clausel’s division in front line from Tremes to Alcanhede and
Abrahão, and Solignac’s in second line at Torres Novas, Pernes, and the
adjacent villages. Both corps had their cavalry brigades out in front of them,
along the line of the Rio Mayor. Ney and the 6th Corps formed the general
reserve of the army, having Mermet’s division at Thomar (the Marshal’s
head quarters), and Marchand’s at Golegão near the Tagus; Loison’s, the
third division of the corps, was detached on the Zezere, guarding the bridge
which had been established across that river at Punhete, and watching the
garrison of Abrantes. Its front post was at Montalvão beyond the Zezere,
only five miles from the Portuguese fortress; its remaining battalions were
ranged along the river from Punhete as far north as Dornes. Montbrun and
the cavalry reserve (less certain squadrons lent to Loison), lay at Chão-de-
Maçans on the northern skirts of the plain of Thomar; they had one infantry
regiment (lent by Ney) to support them, at Cabaços, and their main duty

was to watch and restrain Trant and Wilson, with whose advanced posts
they were always bickering.
The situation of the French army was remarkably compact: Ney’s
division at Golegão was only one long march (eighteen miles) behind
Reynier; his second division at Thomar was less than two marches (twenty-
six miles) behind Junot. Only Loison could not have been brought up at
short notice, supposing that Wellington had attacked the line of the Rio
Mayor. If, on the other hand, an Anglo-Portuguese force had debouched
from Abrantes to attack Loison—no impossible plan, and one that William
Stewart had strenuously urged Wellington to adopt—the division at Punhete
could have been reinforced from Golegão and Thomar in one march, since
the former of these places is about thirteen miles from the Zezere, and the
latter not more than ten.
Masséna’s dispositions, as can be seen at a glance, were purely
defensive. They could not be otherwise, when his army had dwindled down
by the beginning of December to 45,000 efficient sabres and bayonets,
while his hospitals were encumbered by 8,000 or 9,000 sick. All that he
aspired to do was to hold on in the Santarem-Rio Mayor position, pinning
his adversary down to the neighbourhood of Lisbon, till he should be
restored to the power of taking the offensive once more, by the arrival of
reinforcements; his aid must come on one side from Soult and the Army of
Andalusia, on the other from Drouet’s 9th Corps, whose services had been
promised to him by the Emperor long before the invasion of Portugal
began. But down to the end of the year he had not the slightest breath of
information as to whether this assistance was close at hand, or whether it
had, perchance, not even begun to move in his direction. Since he had cut
himself loose from the frontier of Spain in September, not a single dispatch
had reached him, not even a secret emissary had penetrated to his head
quarters. For all that he knew Napoleon might be dead, or engaged in a new
war with some continental enemy. It is an astonishing testimony to the
efficiency of the screen of Portuguese Ordenança and militia, which
Wellington had cast round the French army, to find that nothing had slipped
through. And the Marshal’s attempts to send out news of himself had been
almost equally well foiled; all his messengers had been intercepted save
Foy, who (as it will be remembered) had forced his way over the
unfrequented Estrada Nova road on October 31st[11]. And Foy had got

through to Ciudad Rodrigo because he had been given such a large escort—
600 men—that no mere gathering of local Ordenança could stop him.
Masséna, down to the end of December, did not know in the least
whether Foy or any other of his emissaries had got through. He had simply
to wait till news should penetrate to him. Meanwhile the one governing
preoccupation of his life was to get food for his army, since if food failed he
must be driven to the disastrous winter retreat, across flooded streams and
between snow-clad mountains, to which Wellington hoped to force him.
The English general’s forecast of the time which would be required to
starve out the French army was wrong by some eight or nine weeks. He
thought that they would have consumed every possible morsel of food that
could be scraped together by December—as a matter of fact they held out
till the end of February, in a state of constantly increasing privation. It
seems that Wellington underrated both the capacity for endurance that the
enemy would show, and still more the resources which were available to
him. The Portuguese government had ordered the peasantry to destroy all
food-stuffs that they could not carry off, when the country-side was
evacuated in October, and the people retired within the Torres Vedras lines.
Ostensibly the decree had been carried out; but it was impossible to induce
these small cultivators to make away with good food, the worst of crimes to
the peasant’s mind. The large majority hid or buried, instead of burning,
their stores, trusting to recover what they had concealed when the French
should have departed. Many of the hiding-places were very ingenious—in
some cases caves in the hills had been used, and their mouths plastered up
with stones and earth. In others, pits or silos had been dug in unlikely
places, and carefully covered up, or cellars had been filled, and their
entrances bricked up and concealed. The ingenuity that is bred by an empty
stomach soon set the French on the search for these hoards. When it was
once discovered that there was much hidden grain and maize in the country,
every man became a food-hunter. Whole villages were pulled down in the
search for secret places in their walls or under their floors. Parties scoured
every ravine or hillside where caves might lurk. We are told that one
effective plan was for detachments to go about with full barrels in fields
near houses, and to cast water all over the surface. Where the liquid sank in
suddenly, there was a chance that a silo lurked below, and the spade often
turned up a deposit of hundreds of bushels. But more drastic methods than
these were soon devised. In the sort of no-man’s-land between the actual

cantonments of the French army and the outposts of Wilson, Trant, and
Blunt, the population had not entirely disappeared. Though the large
majority had retired, some of the poorest or the most reckless had merely
hidden themselves in the hills for a week or two, and came down cautiously
when the French had marched by towards Lisbon. A sprinkling of miserable
folk lived precariously in or near their usual abodes, always ready to fly or
to conceal themselves when a foraging party was reported in the
neighbourhood. Hence came the horrid business that one French diarist
calls the ‘chasse aux hommes’; it became a regular device for the marauders
to move by night, hide themselves, and watch for some unwary peasant.
When he was sighted he was pursued and often caught. He was then offered
the choice between revealing the hiding-places of himself and his
neighbours, and a musket-ball through the head. Generally he yielded, and
the party went back with their mules loaded with grain, or driving before
them some goats and oxen. Sometimes he was himself starving, could
reveal nothing, and was murdered. We are assured by more than one French
narrator of these hateful times that it was discovered that torture was more
effective than the mere fear of death. If the prisoner could or would
discover nothing, he was hung up for a few minutes, and then let down and
offered a second chance of life. Sometimes this led to revelations; if not he
was strung up again for good[12]. Torture by fire is also said to have been
employed on some occasions.
Naturally these atrocities were not practised under the eyes of the
officers commanding regular foraging parties[13]. But when a company had
dispersed in search of plunder, the men who were separated in twos or
threes without control acted with such various degrees of brutality as suited
themselves. Moreover, there was a floating scum of unlicensed marauders,
who had left their colours without leave, and were in no hurry to rejoin
them. These were responsible for the worst crimes: sometimes they
gathered together in bands of considerable strength, and it is said that they
were known to fire on regular foraging parties who tried to arrest or restrain
them[14], and that one troop, several hundred strong, fought a desperate
skirmish with a whole battalion sent to hunt them down. But it was not
these fricoteurs, as they were called, who were the sole offenders; many
horrors were perpetrated within the limits of the cantonments by the
authorized raiding companies. Guingret of the 39th, in Ney’s corps,
mentions in his diary that he had seen such a detachment return to camp,

after having surprised a half-deserted village, with a number of peasant
girls, whom they sold to their comrades, some for a couple of gold pieces,
others for a pack-horse[15], and assures us that rape was habitual when such
a surprise had succeeded. It was in vain that Masséna and the corps-
commanders issued general orders prohibiting misconduct of any kind, and
even executed one or two offenders caught flagrante delicto. For the
regimental officers, who depended on the individual efficiency of their men
in marauding for their daily food, were not too eager to make inquiries as to
what had passed outside their own vision, and the soldier who brought
home much booty was not too closely questioned as to the manner in which
he had obtained it. When a foraging party had turned over many bushels of
wheat or maize, or a hundred sheep, to the store of their battalion, it could
hardly be expected that their colonel would show his gratitude by inquiring
whether the happy find had been procured by torture or by simple murder.
Of the three corps which formed Masséna’s army, that of Reynier, in the
Santarem entrenchments, seems to have suffered most, because it was
concentrated on a narrow position, with no unexhausted country around it,
and with other troops immediately in its rear, who had sucked dry the
resources of the plain of Golegão. Its foraging parties had to go thirty miles
away before they had a chance of finding ground that had not been already
picked over most carefully by the men of the 6th or the 8th Corps. Junot’s
men were a little better off, as they had the Leiria-Alcobaça country
immediately on their flank, and could plunder there without molestation,
unless they pressed in too closely upon the outposts of Trant’s or Blunt’s
detachments. Nevertheless the 8th Corps lost more men by disease than
either of the others during this hard winter. It was composed to a great
extent of conscript battalions new to Spain, young and unacclimatized,
whose men died off like flies from cold, dysentery, and rheumatism.
Clausel’s division, which contained all these raw units, sank from 6,700 to
4,000 men in the three months that preceded the New Year, without having
been engaged in any serious fighting—a loss of forty per cent.: while the
case-hardened troops of Reynier, who had been in the Peninsula since 1808,
and had already gone through the privations of Soult’s marches to Corunna
and Oporto, only shrank from 17,000 to 12,000 bayonets in the same three
months. Moreover, of the 5,000 lost by them, 2,000 were the casualties of
Bussaco, not the victims of Wellington’s scheme of starvation. Ney’s corps
and the cavalry reserve were better off than either Junot’s or Reynier’s

troops, having at their disposition the fertile country between Golegão,
Thomar, and Abrantes, where, at the commencement of their sojourn, food
was to be got with comparative ease—many fields of maize were still
standing unreaped when they first arrived, and it was not till after the New
Year of 1811 that they began to be seriously pinched, and to be driven far
afield, up the valley of the Zezere and into the mountains in the direction of
Espinhal and Coimbra. The 6th Corps was still 18,000 strong out of its
original 24,000 on January 1st, and of the 6,000 missing, 2,000 represented
Bussaco casualties in actual fighting.
It must be confessed that the French army displayed splendid fortitude
and ingenuity in maintaining itself on the Tagus so long beyond the period
of Wellington’s estimate. That it did not altogether dissolve, when it was
living from hand to mouth, with a fifth or a quarter of the men habitually
absent on foraging expeditions, is surprising. Desertions to the allied lines,
save from the foreign battalions in Loison’s and Solignac’s divisions, were
very rare; the native French gave many recruits to the marauding fricoteurs,
but seldom passed over to the enemy. The regimental officers succeeded in
organizing a regular system by which the exploitation of the country-side
was made as effectual as could be managed. They repaired and set going the
ruined mills, discovered and rebuilt the bakers’ ovens of every village and
town, and in most cases organized regimental food-reserves which made
them independent of the general commissariat[16]. For there was little or
nothing to be got from head quarters. Shoes proved the greatest difficulty,
but the men learnt to make rude mocassins or ‘rivlins’ of untanned hide,
which served fairly well, though they needed constant replacing[17]. In some
regiments a third of the men might be seen wearing this primitive footgear.
Another weak point was ammunition—there had been no great
consumption of it since Bussaco, or the state of the army would have been
perilous indeed, since it had to depend on what it had originally brought
down from Spain in September. No more had been received, and attempts
to establish a powder factory at Santarem failed for lack of saltpetre. If
Masséna had been forced to fight two or three general engagements, his
stores would have been so depleted that he would have had to abscond at
once, lest the army should be left without cartridges. Meanwhile he hung on
to his position, conscious that his power of endurance was limited, but
hoping at any moment to see reinforcements break through from the north
or the east, to refill his ranks and bring him the needful convoys.

Of military operations, as opposed to mere raids by detachments in
search of food, hardly anything was undertaken by the Army of Portugal
down to the end of the year. Between the 22nd and the 29th of December,
General Ferey, with five battalions and a cavalry regiment, carried out a
useless excursion beyond the Zezere, into the desolate region of Castello
Branco as far as Cortiçada; apparently he had been sent out because of
rumours that a French force was operating in this direction, and he was told
to get into touch with it. But these reports were idle—they were tardy
echoes of Gardanne’s unhappy march on the Estrada Nova[18] a full month
before. The brigade returned, wearied and more than half-starved, on the
seventh day, equally destitute of news and of the plunder that it had hoped
to find in a hitherto untouched district. The only fruitful action, indeed,
which the French carried out in this month was the completion of the great
bridge-equipage at the mouth of the Zezere, which Masséna had ordered
General Eblé to construct many weeks back[19]. His object was to have at his
disposition means for crossing the Tagus, in case he should wish to invade
the Alemtejo, or to co-operate with any friendly troops that might appear
from that direction. Originally he had intended to make Santarem his
crossing-point, but, after some boats had been built there, with immense
difficulties owing to the entire lack of appliances, he determined that the
place was too near the British lines, and too much exposed to attacks by
Wellington’s river flotilla. Obviously a serious attempt to cross the Tagus
near Santarem, even if its initial stages succeeded, and the larger part of the
army got over, would expose the rear divisions to almost certain
destruction, since Wellington could throw 30,000 men upon them within the
next twelve hours. There is no more certain way of ruining an army than to
allow it to be caught divided into two halves by a broad river spanned by
one or two precarious bridges. On the other hand, the mouth of the Zezere
was very remote from Wellington’s main army, and a crossing made
opposite to it could only be opposed by a part of Beresford’s force, which
was not very large, and was spread along fifty miles of the river front.
Moreover, the corps executing the passage would not have any great danger
on its flank or rear, since there was only the Portuguese garrison of
Abrantes to molest it. It was an additional advantage that a bridge-equipage
at Punhete could be kept in perfect safety a mile or two up the Zezere, out
of range of guns on the further bank of the Tagus, and could be floated
down at the last moment: while at Santarem the boats had to be stored on

the actual bank of the Tagus, exposed to attacks from the side of the water
by Wellington’s gunboats. One effort to sink or fire them by a bombardment
and the use of Congreve rockets had already been made[20].
Accordingly Masséna resolved that if he made any attempt to cross into
the Alemtejo, he would take Punhete and the estuary of the Zezere as his
starting-point. Here he established his dockyard, and hither he transferred
most of the busy workers from Santarem. In the course of a month they got
ready for him the materials for two bridges broad enough to span the Tagus,
besides ninety flat-bottomed boats. The mouth of the Zezere was protected
by a number of batteries, to keep down the fire of any guns that Beresford
might bring up to sink the bridges when they were being cast across.
These preparations did not long escape Wellington’s notice; he saw that
the ground opposite Punhete was the most crucial point in Beresford’s long
front, and bade him close up his troops toward it. The detachment beyond
the Tagus was reinforced by a Spanish brigade under Carlos de España,
drawn from La Romana’s army, which was placed at Barca just opposite the
mouth of the Zezere, with William Stewart’s brigade of the 2nd Division
close by at Santa Margarida, Tramagal, and Pinheiros. Three batteries were
established on the Tagus bank opposite Punhete, and armed with six-
pounders; but as these were overmatched by the French guns across the
water, nine-pounders were requisitioned from Lisbon[21]. The rest of the 2nd
Division and Hamilton’s two Portuguese brigades were to be ready to
march to support Carlos de España and Stewart at the shortest notice. These
dispositions were sufficient to keep Masséna quiet; he had no real intention
of crossing the Tagus unless he heard of Soult’s approach from the direction
of the Alemtejo[22].
On that side all was tranquil—as indeed it was destined to remain for
many a week more. But just at the end of the month of December the
isolation in which the Army of Portugal had so long been living at last came
to an end, and reinforcements and news were at last received, though the
news was disheartening and the reinforcements inadequate. On the 26th the
reconnoitring party under General Marcognet, which had just beaten up
Wilson’s quarters at Espinhal, was surprised by the appearance of a party of
regular cavalry pushing towards them on the road from Ponte de Murcella.
The uniforms were soon seen to be those of French dragoons, and a joyful
meeting took place[23]. The new-comers announced that they were the

advanced guard of Drouet’s 9th Corps, which was pushing down the valley
of the Mondego in search of the Army of Portugal, but had no exact
knowledge of where it was to be found.
The 9th Corps, it will be remembered, was a promiscuous assembly of
some twenty newly-raised fourth battalions, belonging to the regiments
which were already in Spain. Eleven were fractions of corps serving in
Soult’s Army of Andalusia, five of regiments of Ney’s 6th Corps, the rest of
units under Reynier’s and Junot’s command. Drouet had been originally
ordered to do no more than conduct these battalions, which were little better
than a mass of drafts, to join the regiments to which they belonged. They
were divided into two provisional divisions under Generals Conroux and
Claparéde. Thrust, as it were, into Spain without any regular organization,
destitute of battalion transport, and with an improvised and insufficient
staff, they had made very slow progress since they crossed the Pyrenees,
mainly owing to difficulties of commissariat. When Foy passed Salamanca
on November 10th, the head of Claparéde’s division had only just entered
that city; the tail of the corps was struggling up from Valladolid and Burgos.
It is not surprising, therefore, to find that Claparéde only reached the
neighbourhood of Almeida on the 15th of November, and that Drouet had
not concentrated his whole force at that place till December 14th. He had
about 16,000 men, having left three of his own battalions to garrison
Ciudad Rodrigo, and picked up instead the remains of Gardanne’s column,
which had retreated on to the Spanish frontier in such disorder at the end of
the preceding month[24]. This detachment, by reason of its losses during its
disastrous flight, had been reduced to about 1,400 men fit for service—
about the same number that Drouet had left behind him from his own corps.
Drouet was acting under stringent orders from the Emperor to move
forward at the earliest possible moment[25], and open up communication
with Masséna. His original instructions had been to go no further forward
than Almeida himself, but to send a column under Gardanne, 6,000 strong,
to clear and keep open the way to the Tagus. The march and failure of
Gardanne have been already related, and Drouet saw that to carry out the
Emperor’s orders he must use a larger force. At the same time his
dispatches told him that he must at all costs keep in touch with Almeida,
and not merely join Masséna and allow himself to be cut off from Spain[26].

Drouet’s solution of the problem was that with Conroux’s division and
Gardanne’s detachment, some 8,000 men, he would march down the
Mondego by Celorico and Ponte de Murcella, and cut his way to join
Masséna, but that he would leave his second division under Claparéde
behind him, about Celorico and Trancoso, to keep in touch with Almeida
and maintain his communications. This was about as much as could be done
to carry out Napoleon’s instructions, which were essentially impossible to
execute. For the Portuguese militia, with which the 9th Corps had to deal,
were, when properly managed, a very intangible enemy, who could retire
whenever a column passed, and return to block the way when it had gone
by. It is impossible to see how Drouet could have kept open the whole road
from Almeida to Thomar, without leaving all along the way a couple of
battalions, entrenched in a good position, at distances of fifteen or twenty
miles from each other. And if he had done this, he would have had no force
left at the moment when he joined Masséna. It was useless for Napoleon to
tell him in one breath to keep the road open from end to end, and in the next
to forbid him to make any small detachments[27]. But the Emperor neither
fully understood the military situation in Portugal, nor grasped the relative
merits of its roads or the relative resources of its various regions. In a
dispatch sent out to Masséna on December 4th (but not delivered till
February) he advised that Marshal to try to open his communications with
Spain by the awful mountain road from the Zezere by Cardigos and
Belmonte to Guarda, and at the same time to use the desolate Castello
Branco country ‘pour faire des vivres.’ Ferey’s fruitless expedition up that
very road and into that very region, carried out a fortnight before the
Emperor’s dispatch was even written, had sufficiently proved the futility of
the suggestion.
But to return to Drouet: he left Almeida on December 14th, and crossed
the Coa with both his divisions and Gardanne’s detachment. The only
enemy near him was Silveira, who with his six militia regiments and the
reorganized 24th of the Line (the absconding garrison of Almeida, which
had eluded its forced oath to Masséna in the preceding autumn[28]) was lying
at Trancoso. To that place the Portuguese general had retired (abandoning
the blockade of Almeida) when the 9th Corps arrived on the frontier. Of the
other militia brigades of the north Miller with four battalions was at Vizeu,
Trant with seven at Coimbra; Baccelar, the Commander-in-Chief, lay at
Oporto with the small remainder.

Drouet, copying Masséna’s first dispositions in the preceding autumn,
marched from Almeida in two columns; he himself took the high road by
Celorico; Claparéde was sent along the more difficult mountain route by
Trancoso, which place Silveira evacuated on his approach. At Celorico
Drouet cut himself loose from his lieutenant, who (in accordance with
Napoleon’s orders) was to stay behind, to remain in touch with Almeida,
and (vain thought!) to keep open the communications. Taking Conroux and
Gardanne with him, he marched south of the Mondego, past Chamusca and
Moita, as far as Ponte de Murcella, which he reached on the 24th. He met
with no opposition, for Baccelar, anxious only for Oporto, had told Silveira
to keep in front of Claparéde, and Miller to stay at Vizeu, but both to be
ready to fall back on Oporto if Drouet’s advance turned out to have that city
as its objective. Similarly Trant was to hold on to Coimbra unless the
French column took the northern road, in which case he too might be called
back to Oporto[29]. Between Drouet, therefore, and Masséna’s army there
was only left the weak brigade of John Wilson at Espinhal, and this force
had been driven out of its usual position by Marcognet’s flying column on
November 23rd, and had retired to Peñacova beyond the Mondego, below
the heights of Bussaco. On the 26th Drouet’s advance cavalry came into
touch with Marcognet, as has been already related, at Espinhal, just as the
latter was preparing to retire to Thomar, with the report that there was
nothing stirring in the north.
Thus Drouet’s 8,000 men came into the sphere of Masséna’s operations;
but he did not at first seem to realize the fact. He sent on Gardanne’s
detachment (which mostly belonged to the 2nd Corps) to join the Marshal,
but halted Conroux’s division at Espinhal, and only went forward in person
as far as Thomar, where he stopped for two days conferring with Ney.
Instead of reporting himself to Masséna, he merely sent on a dispatch, to
say that he had opened the communications, and was under orders from the
Emperor to keep them safe. With this purpose he intended to return to the
Mondego, and get back into touch with Claparéde. Masséna was in no small
degree irritated at this pretension of Drouet to act as an independent
commander, and sent him a peremptory order to come to head quarters to
make his report, and to send on Conroux’s division from Espinhal to occupy
Leiria. After some slight friction Drouet obeyed. The communications with
Almeida, re-established for a moment, were thus broken again after four
days, for John Wilson, the instant that Conroux began to break up from

Espinhal, came boldly back towards that place, attacked the French
rearguard on December 30th, and, after doing it some little harm, blocked
the high-road to the north once more[30]. Drouet was completely cut off from
Claparéde, and his arrival brought no profit to Masséna beyond his 8,000
men and the moderate train of ammunition which he had escorted. It was
not with such a reinforcement that the Marshal could hope to resume the
offensive. Indeed, as Wellington sagely remarked[31], if nothing more came
up to join him, his retreat looked more certain and necessary than ever.
While Drouet was on the march to Leiria, his lieutenant, Claparéde, the
moment that he was no longer under his superior’s eye, had gone off on a
bold and rather hazardous raid of his own. Finding that Silveira’s militia
were sticking closely to his skirts, he resolved to make an attempt to
surprise them by a forced march. Concentrating at Trancoso on December
30th, he fell upon the enemy on the following day at Ponte do Abbade, and
routed them with a loss of 200 men. Silveira, notwithstanding this check,
adhered to his orders to keep close to Claparéde, and retired no further than
Villa da Ponte, some seven miles away. But the French general made a
second sudden sally from Trancoso on January 11th[32], beat the Portuguese
much more decisively, and pursued them as far as Lamego on the Douro.
Silveira crossed the river in great disorder on the 13th, and the news of his
defeat brought terror to Oporto. Baccelar at once ordered not only the
brigade from Vizeu (Miller was just dead and no longer commanded it), but
Trant from Coimbra, and Wilson from Peñacova, to fall back and join him.
They concentrated at Castro Daire, ten miles south of Lamego, with a force
of 14,000 bayonets, whereupon Claparéde, who had only 6,000 men with
him, began to fear that he would be cut off from Almeida and isolated in a
difficult position. He evacuated Lamego and returned to Trancoso by forced
marches, having accomplished nothing save the destruction of a few
hundred militia and the spreading of panic as far as Oporto (January 18th)
[33]
. Shortly after he left Trancoso and moved southward to Celorico and
Guarda[34], where he commanded the two roads to the Tagus, yet was not too
far from Almeida and his base. But he was still completely cut off from
Masséna, and the Portuguese at once resumed their old positions around
him—Trant returning to Coimbra, Wilson to Peñacova on the Mondego,
while Baccelar with the reserves lay more to the rear, at São Pedro do Sul
on the Vouga. Claparéde’s movement would have been dangerous for the
allies if he had possessed a heavier force, but 6,000 men were too few for a

serious march on Oporto, and if the column had not retreated in haste it
would probably have suffered complete disaster.
The only use which Masséna could make of Drouet and the division of
Conroux was to cover more ground for foraging by their means. When
placed at Leiria they much restricted the activities of Blunt at Peniche and
Trant at Coimbra, who could no longer push their advanced posts so far to
the front, and had to cede to the enemy all the land about the Souré and
Alcoa rivers. Here Drouet collected enough food both to feed himself and to
give help to Ney; but the resources of the district were, after all, limited,
and within a few weeks the men of the 9th Corps were living on the edge of
daily starvation like their fellows. The Army of Portugal had got no solid
help from this quarter. It remained to be seen whether they would obtain
better aid from the other side from which Masséna had hoped to be
reinforced—the Army of Andalusia.

SECTION XXIII: CHAPTER II
SOULT’S EXPEDITION INTO ESTREMADURA.
JANUARY-MARCH 1811. THE BATTLE OF THE
GEBORA AND THE FALL OF BADAJOZ

In his original scheme for the invasion of Portugal, Napoleon had given
no part to the Army of Andalusia, judging that Masséna, supported by the
9th Corps, would be amply strong enough to drive the English into the sea.
It is not till the 29th of September that the imperial correspondence begins
to show signs of a desire that Soult should do something to help the Army
of Portugal. But the assistance which was to be given is defined, in the
dispatch of that date, as no more than a diversion to be made against
Estremadura by Mortier and the 5th Corps, with the object of preventing La
Romana from giving any aid to Wellington[35]. Soult is directed to see that
Mortier keeps the Spanish Army of Estremadura in check: he is always to
be on its heels, so that it will have no opportunity of sending troops towards
the Tagus. Nothing is said about making a serious attack on Estremadura, or
of threatening Badajoz with a siege. On the 26th of October comes the next
allusion to this subject[36]: the Emperor had learnt from the English
newspapers—always his best source of intelligence—that La Romana with
a large part of his forces has marched on Lisbon to join Wellington, and that
he has been able to do so without molestation. That this should have
happened was, he thought, due to direct disobedience on Soult’s part: the
Marshal cannot have kept in touch with the enemy. And he is directed in
vague terms to ‘faire pousser sur La Romana,’ whatever exactly that may
mean. An interpretation for the phrase, however, turns up in the next
imperial dispatch[37]—Mortier and the 5th Corps ought to have followed the
Spanish general march for march, and to have presented themselves on the
Lower Tagus in face of Lisbon shortly after the arrival of La Romana in the
Portuguese capital.

Soult had little difficulty in proving that this scheme was absolutely
impossible. It argued, indeed, a complete misconception of the situation in
Estremadura and Andalusia. To talk lightly of pushing Mortier and the 5th
Corps, which comprised at this moment just 13,000 men, right across
Estremadura to the mouth of the Tagus, ‘en talonnant La Romana,’ was
futile. The Spanish General had gone off to join Wellington with some
7,000 or 8,000 men. But he had left behind him in Estremadura two strong
infantry divisions, those of Mendizabal and Ballasteros, with 12,000
bayonets, 6,000 more infantry in garrison at Badajoz, Olivenza, and
Albuquerque, and the whole of his cavalry, 2,500 sabres. In addition there
were interposed between Mortier and the Tagus about 8,500 Portuguese—a
cavalry brigade under Madden which had been lent to the Spaniards, and,
near Badajoz, a regular infantry brigade at Elvas, and four militia
regiments, forming the garrisons of the last-named place, of Campo Mayor,
and of Jerumenha. That is to say, there lay before Mortier, after La
Romana’s departure, a field army which, if concentrated, would make up
18,000 men, and in addition six fortresses containing garrisons amounting
to 11,000 men more, and covering all the main strategical points of the
country. How could he have pursued La Romana? If he had followed, he
would have found himself at once involved in a campaign against superior
forces in a region studded with hostile strongholds. ‘On this frontier,’ as
Soult wrote to Berthier, ‘there are six fortified places—Badajoz, Olivenza,
Jerumenha, Elvas, Campo Mayor, Albuquerque, in which there are at least
20,000 infantry and 2,500 cavalry. It is clear to me that if I thrust a body of
10,000 men forward to the Tagus, as his majesty has directed, that body
would never reach its destination, and would be cut off and surrounded
before I could get up to its aid[38].’ This was indisputably correct: Mortier
might have beaten Mendizabal and Ballasteros in the open field, if they
chose to offer him battle; but if they preferred to concentrate on Badajoz or
Elvas, and defied him from under the shadow of those great fortresses, he
could not ignore them and march by in pursuit of La Romana. The moment
that he was past their positions, they would cut him off from Andalusia, and
he would find himself with their whole force at his back, and in front of him
anything that Wellington might have sent to the south bank of the Tagus. In
December this would have meant 14,000 men under Hill, at the New Year
about 16,000 under Beresford. As Soult truly said, the expedition would
have been encompassed, and probably destroyed, long before Masséna

heard of its having got anywhere near him[39]. Nevertheless the Commander-
in-Chief of the Army of Portugal was told to expect this diversion as a
matter of certainty: in the dispatch that Foy took back to him (dated Dec. 4)
he was given the precise statement that the 5th Corps was to be looked for
somewhere in the direction of Montalvão and Villaflor, on the Tagus above
Abrantes, at no distant date.
After having, as he thought, demonstrated to his master that it would be
useless to send Mortier alone, with 10,000 or 12,000 men, to make an
impossible dash at the Tagus, Soult made another proposal. He would
undertake not a mere raid, but the capture of Badajoz, the conquest of
Estremadura, and the destruction of the army of that province; but he must
take with him a force much greater than the mere 5th Corps. ‘The enterprise
is a big one, but ought to succeed—at least it will produce a happy
diversion in favour of the imperial army in Portugal[40].’ It would call back
La Romana from Lisbon, and possibly cause Wellington to detach troops in
his aid, and Masséna would have less in front of him in consequence, and
might resume the offensive.
There was of course another course possible: Soult might have marched
for Estremadura not with the 13,000 men of the 5th Corps alone, nor yet
with the 20,000 men whom he actually took thither in January, but with the
greater part of the French Army of Andalusia, 35,000 or 40,000 men. To do
so he would have had to abandon Granada, Malaga, and Jaen on the one
side, and his hold on the Condado de Niebla and the west upon the other.
He might even possibly have had to raise the siege of Cadiz, though this is
not quite certain. Many months after, in the end of March, when all chance
of the conquest of Portugal was over, the Emperor told him that this would
have been his proper course, and read him an ex-post-facto lecture on the
advantages that might have followed, if he had evacuated two-thirds of his
viceroyalty and taken an imposing force to sweep across the Alemtejo and
assail Lisbon from the southern side[41]. But it must be remembered that in
December and January all the orders that were sent him directed him to
move no more than a small corps—in one dispatch the Emperor calls it only
10,000 men. A supreme commander-in-chief present on the spot might have
seen his way to make the temporary sacrifice of the provinces which had
cost so many men to conquer and to hold, in order that every available man
might be sent against Lisbon, and the English might at last be expelled from

the Peninsula. But Soult was not such a commander-in-chief; he was only
one of the many viceroys whom Napoleon preferred to a single omnipotent
lieutenant. Was it likely that he would sacrifice half his own territory, when
no order to do so lay before him, in order that a colleague, sent on a
separate task with forces no less than his own, might have every possible
advantage? Soult is often blamed for not having seen that the crushing of
Wellington’s army was the end to which all others should have been
subordinated, and that it would have been cheap in the end to surrender half
or three-quarters of Andalusia, and even to raise the siege of Cadiz, in order
to secure that point. He might have replied that his master was no less blind
than himself: dispatch after dispatch had ordered him to send a trifling
detachment towards the Tagus, not to mass every available man and march
on Lisbon, leaving Seville and the Cadiz lines exposed to all manner of
dangers. He was primarily responsible for the retention of the Andalusia
that he had conquered; it was for the Emperor, not for himself, to order the
evacuation of much or all of that great realm. The Emperor gave no such
directions: from September to January his whole series of dispatches spoke
of nothing more than the movement of a moderate force; those of January
25th and February 6th approved of the course which Soult had actually
chosen, and took it for granted that he would not move towards the Tagus
till he should have captured Badajoz[42]. It was not till March, when he
began to see that all his arrangements were going wrong, and that his
scheme of times was erroneous, that the Emperor began suddenly to launch
out into criticisms of Soult, and to complain that ‘to try to hold every point
at a moment of crisis leads to possible disaster,’ that ‘Seville, Badajoz, and
the Cadiz lines were the only necessary things,’ and that the Marshal ought
to have 30,000 men or more with him at Badajoz instead of the 20,000 men
whom he had actually taken thither[43]. If so, why had the orders not been
given to that effect early in December, when Napoleon had just learnt from
Foy the state and position of the Army of Portugal, which had so long been
hidden from him behind Wellington’s screen of Ordenança?
If we seek deep enough, we find the cause of all misdirections in the
fact that the Emperor persisted in guiding the movements of all his army
from Paris, and would not appoint an independent commander-in-chief of
all the Spanish armies, who should be able to issue orders that would be
promptly obeyed by every separate marshal or general in each province. A
moment’s reflection shows that the data as to the details of the situation in

the Peninsula, from which Napoleon had to construct his scheme of
operations, always came to him a month late. And when he had issued the
dispatch which dealt with the situation, it reached its destination after the
interval of another month, and had long ceased to have any bearing on the
actual position of affairs. A single example of how the system worked may
suffice. Masséna started Foy for Paris, with his great report on the state of
the Army of Portugal, on October 29. Foy reached Paris and saw the
Emperor on November 22 and the succeeding days. The detailed dispatches
to Masséna and Soult, consequent on Foy’s report, were not sent off till
December 4. On January 22nd Soult acknowledges the receipt of the
dispatch of that date, along with that of two others dated November 28 and
December 10, all of which arrived together, because the guerrilleros of La
Mancha had stopped the posts between Madrid and Seville for a full
fortnight after the New Year[44]. Of what value to Soult on January 22 could
be orders based on the condition and projects of Masséna on October 29?
The data at the base of the orders were three months old—while Soult had
been already for more than a month engaged on a campaign undertaken on
his own responsibility, without any knowledge of the exact requirements of
Masséna, or of the intentions of the Emperor.
The Estremaduran expedition of January-March 1811, therefore, must
be looked upon as the private scheme of the Duke of Dalmatia[45],
undertaken with the general object of giving indirect assistance to Masséna,
because the last orders that he had received from Paris (those of October
26), telling him to give direct assistance, by sending Mortier to the Tagus,
were impossible of execution[46]. Soult had two leading ideas in his mind
when he planned out his campaign. The first was that he was going into a
country thickly set with fortresses; the second was that, when once the
skirts of the Sierra Morena have been passed, Estremadura is a ‘cavalry
country,’ a land of heaths and of unenclosed tillage-fields of vast area.
Accordingly he intended to march with a very large force of cavalry, and
with a heavy siege-train. At Seville he had at his disposition the greatest
arsenal of Spain; but for many months all that it produced had been going
forward to Cadiz: no less than 290 pieces had been sent to arm the vast lines
in front of the blockaded city. Accordingly it took some time to get ready
the heavy guns, and to manufacture the ammunition required for such a big
business as the siege of the six fortresses, small and great, into whose midst
he was about to thrust himself. The personnel for the siege-train had also to

be collected: requisitions were sent, both to Victor at Cadiz and to
Sebastiani at Granada, to detach and send into Seville nearly all their
sappers, and the men of several companies of artillery. They were also to
send to the expeditionary force many regiments of cavalry. Mortier had
only two (10th Hussars and 21st Chasseurs), which had sufficed when he
was engaged in the heights of the Sierra Morena, but were insufficient when
he was about to descend into the plain of the Guadiana. Accordingly half
the cavalry of Victor’s 1st Corps was called up—four regiments (4th, 14th,
26th Dragoons, 2nd Hussars), while Sebastiani gave up one (27th
Chasseurs); to these was added an experimental Spanish cavalry regiment
of ‘Juramentados’ recently organized at Seville. Only one infantry regiment
was requisitioned, the 63rd Line, from Victor’s 3rd Division. The putting
together of these resources gave a force in which the proportions of the
arms were very peculiar—4,000 cavalry, 2,000 artillery and sappers, to only
13,500 infantry; the last, all save the above-mentioned 63rd regiment,
drawn from Mortier’s 5th Corps. The orders for the concentration of the
troops were issued early in December, but owing to the time required for
drawing in units from Granada and Cadiz, and for the preparation of the
siege-train, it was not till the last day of the old year that the Marshal took
his departure from Seville.
The collection of a field army of 20,000 men, which was to cut itself
loose from Andalusia for a time, imposed some tiresome problems on Soult.
Since he had resolved not to evacuate Granada or Malaga on the one hand,
nor the posts west of the Guadalquivir on the other, and since he was
drawing off the 5th Corps, which had hitherto provided for the safety of
Seville and found detachments for the Condado de Niebla, he had to make
provision for the filling of the gap left behind him. Hence we find him
calling upon Victor to spare men from in front of Cadiz—a demand which
the Duke of Belluno took very ill—since he truly declared that he had no
more troops in the 1st Corps than sufficed to man the lines and to keep
posts of observation in his rear. The garrison of Cadiz was always
increasing, and included a strong nucleus of British troops. How could he
face sorties, or disembarkations in his rear, if he was cut down to a mere
18,000 men in place of the 24,000 on which he had hitherto reckoned?
Nevertheless, he was forced to provide a detachment to hold Xeres, as a
half-way house to Seville, and to send out a cavalry regiment (9th
Dragoons) and one battalion west of the Guadalquivir. Similarly, the

brigade of Godinot in the kingdom of Cordova[47] was required to find a
skeleton garrison for Seville, which was raised to a somewhat higher figure,
in appearance, by the doubtful aid of some ‘juramentado’ companies of
Spaniards, and of the dépôts and convalescents of the 5th Corps. The great
city, with a turbulent population of 100,000 souls, which formed the centre
of his viceroyalty, became at this time Soult’s weakest point—he left it so
inadequately held that it was at the mercy of any considerable hostile force
which might approach it—and such a force was ere long, as we shall see, to
make its appearance. Godinot had also to look after the insurgent bands of
the central Sierra Morena, who often blocked the post road to Madrid.
Sebastiani (save for the cavalry and artillery borrowed from him) was left
with his 4th Corps intact, and his duty was unchanged—to watch the
Spanish army of Murcia, and to suppress the guerrilleros of the Sierra de
Ronda and the eastern coast—an unending task from which Soult thought
that he ought not to be distracted. Napoleon, wise after the event, wrote in
March that Soult should have left no more than the Polish division of the
4th Corps in the direction of Granada, and have brought the remainder of it
to strengthen or support the troops at Seville and in the lines before Cadiz.
In that case the Poles would certainly have had to move westward also ere
long, since there were but 5,000 of them, and all Eastern Andalusia would
have had to be evacuated. But this idea had never struck Soult as
practicable, and Sebastiani’s whole corps was left in its old posts in the
kingdom of Granada.
The invasion of Estremadura was carried out in two columns of about
equal strength, which used the two main passes between Western Andalusia
and the valley of the Guadiana. The right column under Latour-Maubourg
took the route by Guadalcanal, Llerena, and Usagre; it was composed of his
own regiments of dragoons from the 1st Corps, and of Girard’s infantry
division of the 5th Corps, which latter had been cantoned in Llerena since
the autumn, and was now picked up and taken forward by the cavalry. The
left column, which was accompanied both by Soult and by Mortier, was
composed of Briche’s light cavalry and Gazan’s division of the 5th Corps. It
had to escort the slowly moving siege-train of 34 guns, which (with the
60,000 kilos of powder belonging to it) was drawn by 2,500 draught oxen,
requisitioned along with their drivers from the province of Seville. This
column took the route Ronquillo, Sta Olalla, Monasterio, which, if less
steep and better made than the Llerena-Guadalcanal road, is longer, and

passes through an even more desolate and resourceless country. It was
intended that the two columns should join at Los Santos or Almendralejo, in
the Estremaduran plain, and lay siege at once to Badajoz, the enemy’s most
formidable stronghold. Its fall, so Soult hoped, would lead to the easy
conquest of the minor fortresses.
But the two columns did not meet with equal fortune. That commanded
by Latour-Maubourg met practically no resistance in its first stages. On
arriving at Usagre on January 3, it found in its front almost the whole of the
allied cavalry in Estremadura—Butron with 1,500 Spaniards, Madden with
nearly 1,000 Portuguese. But this was merely a screen thrown out to cover
the retreat beyond the Guadiana of Mendizabal and the division of Spanish
infantry which had been cantoned in this region. That officer had been
ordered by his chief, La Romana, to break the bridge of Merida, after
retiring over it, and then to attempt to hold the line of the Guadiana. He did
neither; precipitately marching on Merida, he passed through it in great
haste, but forgot to see that the bridge was duly destroyed, and then retired
along the north bank of the Guadiana to Badajoz. Latour-Maubourg,
according to his directions, did not cross the river, but halted near
Almendralejo, to wait for the other column, which was not forthcoming.
Only Soult himself and Briche’s light cavalry appeared at Zafra on the 5th,
and joined Latour-Maubourg on the 6th of January. Gazan’s infantry and the
siege-train were far away, and unavailable for many a day. The plans of the
left invading column had miscarried. For when its head reached
Monasterio, at the summit of the long pass, its tail, the siege-train, was
dragging far behind. In the desolate stages about Ronquillo and Sta Olalla it
had met with tempestuous rains, as might have been expected at the season.
Many of the oxen died, the unwilling Spanish drivers deserted wholesale,
and there was much delay and considerable loss of vehicles. The train and
its small escort got completely separated from Gazan’s infantry. At this
moment Soult’s cavalry reported to him that a formidable column of hostile
infantry was lying a few miles to the west of Monasterio, on the bad cross-
road to Calera, and was apparently moving round his flank, either to fall
upon the belated convoy or perhaps to make a dash at Seville.
This column was the 5,000 infantry of Ballasteros, who, as it chanced,
had begun to march southward at the same moment that Soult had started
northward. The Spanish general had just received orders from Cadiz

bidding him cut himself loose from the Estremaduran army, and move into
the Condado de Niebla, where he was to unite with the local levies under
Copons, drive out the weak French detachment there stationed, and threaten
Seville from the west if it should be practicable. These orders had been
given, of course, before Soult’s plan for invading Estremadura was
suspected at Cadiz. But though unwise in themselves—it was not the time
to deplete Estremadura of troops—they had the effect of bringing Soult’s
great manœuvre to a standstill for some weeks. The Marshal determined
that he must free his flank from this threatening force before continuing his
march, and ordered Mortier to attack Ballasteros without delay. This was
done, but the Spaniard, after a running fight of two hours, retired to
Fregenal, fifteen miles further west, without suffering any serious harm
(January 4th). He was still in a position to threaten the rear of the convoy, or
to slip round the flank of the French column towards Seville. Soult
therefore resolved to go on with his cavalry and join Latour-Maubourg, but
to drop Gazan’s infantry in the passes, with the order to head off Ballasteros
at all costs, and to cover the siege-train in its journey across the mountains.
Gazan therefore took post at Fuentes de Leon, but soon heard that
Ballasteros had moved south again from Fregenal towards the Chanza river,
and was apparently trying to get round his flank. Leaving a detachment to
help the convoy on its slow and toilsome route, Gazan resolved to pursue
the Spanish column and destroy it at all costs. This determination led him
into three weeks of desperate mountain-marching and semi-starvation, at
the worst season of the year. For Ballasteros, who showed considerable skill
in drawing his enemy on, moved ever south and west towards the lower
Guadiana, and picked up Copons’s levies by the way. He at last turned to
fight at Villanueva de los Castillejos on January 24th. Gazan, who had been
joined meanwhile by the small French detachment in the Condado de
Niebla, brought his enemy to action on the 25th. The Asturian battalions
which formed Ballasteros’s division made a creditable resistance, and when
evicted from their position retired across the Guadiana to Alcoutim in
Portugal, without having suffered any overwhelming loss[48]. Gazan
therefore resolved to pursue them no further—indeed he had been drawn
down into one of the remotest corners of Spain to little profit, and realized
that Soult must be brought to a standstill one hundred miles away, for want
of the 6,000 infantry who had now been executing their toilsome excursion
in the mountains for three weeks.

Accordingly, the French general bade Remond, the commander of the
Niebla detachment, watch Ballasteros, and himself returned to Estremadura
by a most painful march through Puebla de Guzman, El Cerro, Fregenal,
and Xeres de los Caballeros. He reported his return to Soult at Valverde on
February 3rd. His services had been lost to his chief for a month all but two
days, a fact which had the gravest results on the general course of the
campaign of Estremadura[49].
For the Duke of Dalmatia, when he had joined Latour-Maubourg on
January 6th, found that he had at his disposition 4,000 cavalry but only the
6,000 infantry of Girard, while the siege-train was still blocked in the
passes by Monasterio. With such a force he did not like to beleaguer a place
so large and so heavily garrisoned as Badajoz. Accordingly, he was forced
to abandon his original intention of forming its siege, and to think of some
lesser enterprise, more suited to his strength. After some hesitation, he
determined to attack the weak and old-fashioned fortress of Olivenza, the
southernmost of all the fortified places on the Spanish-Portuguese frontier.
To cover his movement he sent Briche’s cavalry to Merida, which they
occupied on January 7th, almost without resistance, finding the bridge
intact. From thence they sought for Mendizabal on the north side of the
Guadiana, and discovered that he had withdrawn to Albuquerque, twenty
miles north of Badajoz. Meanwhile Latour-Maubourg with four dragoon
regiments took post at Albuera to watch the garrison of Badajoz, while
Soult marched with Girard’s infantry and one cavalry regiment to attack
Olivenza, before whose walls he appeared on January 11th, 1811.
Olivenza ought never to have been defended. For since its cession by
Portugal to Spain after Godoy’s futile ‘War of the Oranges’ in 1801, it had
been systematically neglected. The breach made by the Spaniards at its
siege ten years before had never been properly repaired—only one-third of
the masonry had been replaced, and the rest of the gap had been merely
stopped with earth. Its one outlying work, a lunette 300 yards only from its
southern point, was lying in ruins and unoccupied. The circuit of its walls
was about a mile, but there were only eighteen guns[50] to guard them. The
garrison down to the 5th of January had consisted of a single battalion left
there by La Romana, when he marched for Portugal in October. But
Mendizabal, apparently in inexcusable ignorance of the condition of the
place, had ordered a whole brigade of his infantry to throw themselves into

it when Soult began to press forward. He sacrificed, in fact, 2,400 out of the
6,000 bayonets of his division by bidding them shut themselves up in an
utterly untenable fortress[51]. The governor, General Manuel Herck—an old
Swiss officer—was ailing and quite incapable; a man of resources might
have done something with the heavy garrison placed under his orders, even
though the walls were weak and artillery almost non-existent; but Herck
disgraced himself.
When Soult arrived in front of Olivenza on January 11th, his engineers
informed him that the place, weak as it was, was too strong to take by
escalade, but that a very few days of regular battering would suffice to ruin
it. Unfortunately for him, there was as yet no heavy artillery at his
disposition, but only the divisional batteries of Girard’s two brigades; the
siege-train was still stuck in the passes. However, the outlying lunette
opposite the south front was at once seized, and turned into a battery for
four field-guns, which opened their fire on the next day. The old Spanish
breach of 1801, obviously ready to fall in on account of its rickety repairs,
was visible in the north-west front, the bastion of San Pedro. Opposite this
sites for two more batteries were planned, and a first parallel opened. The
trench-work went on almost unhindered by the Spaniards, who showed but
few guns and shot very badly, but under considerable difficulties from the
rainy weather, which was perpetually flooding the lower parts of the lines.
But in ten days approaches were pushed right up to the edge of the
counterscarp, and mines prepared to blow it in. The siege artillery began to
arrive on the 19th, in detachments, and continued to drop in for several
days. On the 21st the batteries, being completed, were armed with the first
12-pounders that came up. On the 22nd the fire began, and at once proved
most effective: the bastion of San Pedro began to crumble in, and the old
breach of 1801 revealed itself, by the falling away of the rammed earth
which alone stopped it up. The arrangements for a storm had not yet been
commenced when the garrison hoisted the white flag. Mortier refused all
negotiations and demanded a surrender at discretion. This the old governor
hastened to concede, coming out in person at one of the gates, and putting
the place at the disposition of the French without further argument.[52] Soult
and Mortier entered next day, and 4,161 Spanish troops marched out and
laid down their arms before the 6,000 infantry of Girard, who had formed
the sole besieging force. The total loss of the French during the siege was

15 killed and 40 wounded—that of the besieged about 200. The figures are
a sufficient evidence of the disgraceful weakness of the defence.
When one reflects what was done to hold the unfortified town of
Saragossa, and the mediaeval enceinte of Gerona, it is impossible not to
reflect what a determined governor might have accomplished at Olivenza.
The place was short of guns, no doubt—but the enemy was worse off till
the last days of the siege, since he had nothing but twelve light field-pieces
until the siege-train began to arrive. General Herck made no sorties to
disturb the works—though he had a superabundant garrison; he made no
serious attempt to retrench the breach, and he surrendered actually ere the
first summons had been sent in before the storm. At the worst he might have
tried to cut his way out between the French camps, which were scattered far
from each other, owing to the extremely small numbers of the besieging
army, who only counted three men to the defenders’ two. Altogether it was
a disgraceful business. The place, no doubt, ought never to have been held;
but if held it might at least have been defended—which it practically was
not.
Soult was placed in a new difficulty by the surrender of Olivenza.
Though his siege-train had begun to come up, he had no news of Gazan,
and his infantry was still no more than a single division. He had to spare
two battalions to escort the 4,000 prisoners to Seville, and to put another in
Olivenza as garrison[53]. This left him only eleven battalions—5,435
bayonets, to continue the campaign, though he had the enormous force of
4,000 cavalry at his disposition, and a siege-train that was growing every
day, as more belated pieces came up from the rear. He might probably have
waited for Gazan, for whom messages had been vainly sent, if he had not
received, on the day that Olivenza fell, one more of Berthier’s peremptory
letters, dated 22 December, in which he was told (as usual) to send the 5th
Corps to join Masséna on the Tagus without delay. This letter came at an
even more inappropriate moment than usual, as Gazan, with half that corps,
was lost to sight in the mountain of the Condado de Niebla, more than a
hundred and twenty miles away. But it was clear that something immediate
must be done, or the Emperor would be more discontented than before;
accordingly Soult resolved to take the very hazardous step of laying siege to
Badajoz at once with the small infantry force at his disposition. For this
move would undoubtedly provoke alarm at Lisbon, and lead Wellington to

send off La Romana’s army to succour it, and perhaps some Anglo-
Portuguese troops also, so that the mass opposed to Masséna would be more
or less weakened.
Accordingly on the 26th of January Soult marched against Badajoz,
which is only twelve miles north-west of Olivenza, with under 6,000
infantry, ten companies of artillery, and seven of sappers, to invest the
southern side of Badajoz, while Latour-Maubourg, with six regiments of
cavalry, crossed the Guadiana by a ford, and went to blockade the place on
its northern front.
Badajoz, though owning some defects, was still a stronghold of the first
class, in far better order than most of the Peninsular fortresses. It belonged
to that order of places whose topography forces a besieger to divide his
army by a dangerous obstacle, since it lies on a broad river, with the town
on one side and a formidable outwork on the other. Indeed the most striking
feature of Badajoz, whether the traveller approaches it from the east or the
west, is the towering height of San Cristobal, crowned by its fort, lying
above the transpontine suburb and dominating the whole city. Any enemy
who begins operations against the place must take measures to blockade or
to attack this high-lying fort, which completely covers the bridge and its
tête-du-pont, and effectively protects ingress or egress to or from the place.
But San Cristobal is not easy to blockade, since it is the end-bluff of a very
steep narrow range of hills, which run for many miles to the north, and
divide the country-side beyond the Guadiana into two separate valleys,
those of the Gebora and the Caya, which are completely invisible from each
other.
The city of Badajoz is built on an inclined plane, sloping down from the
Castle, which stands on a lofty hill with almost precipitous grass slopes, at
the north-east end of the place, down to the river on the north and the plain
on the south and west. The castle-hill and San Cristobal between them form
a sort of gorge, through which the Guadiana, narrowed for a space, forces
its way, to broaden out again at the immensely long bridge with its thirty-
two arches and 640 yards of roadway. Below the castle the Rivillas, a
stagnant brook with hardly any current,—the home of frogs and the
hunting-ground of the city storks,—coasts around the walls, and finally
dribbles into the river. The front of the place from the river to the castle was
composed of eight regular bastions; along the river edge there lies nothing

more than a single solid wall without relief or indentations: but this side of
the place is wholly inaccessible owing to the water. There are two outlying
works, which cover heights so close into the place that it is necessary to
hold them, lest the enemy should establish himself too near the enceinte.
These are the Picurina lunette beyond the Rivillas, and the much larger
Pardaleras fort, a ‘half-crown-work,’ opposite the south point of the city,
which covers a well-marked hill that commands that low-lying part of the
place, and is a position impossible to concede to the besieger, since it is
only 250 yards from the nearest bastion. It was ill-designed, having a very
shallow ditch, and being incompletely closed at its gorge by a mere
palisade.
The eight bastions which form the attackable part of the enceinte of
Badajoz have (they remain to-day just as they were in 1811, for the place
has never been modernized) a height of about thirty feet[54] from the bottom
of the ditch to the rampart, while the curtains between them are somewhat
lower, about twenty-two feet only. The ditch was broad, with a good
counterscarp in masonry seven feet high; beyond it each bastion was
protected in front by a rather low and weak demi-lune.
The garrison, not more than enough for such an extensive place,
consisted at the New Year of 4,100 men; but Mendizabal threw in two
battalions more (1st and 2nd of the Second Regiment of Seville) before he
retired to the borders of Portugal, so that the figure had risen to 5,000
before Soult appeared in front of the walls. The governor was a very
distinguished soldier, General Rafael Menacho, who had served through the
old French war of 1792-5, and had commanded a regiment at Baylen. He
was in the full vigour of middle age (forty-four years old) and abounding in
spirit, resolution, and initiative, as all his movements showed down to the
unhappy day of his death.
Soult’s engineers, after surveying the situation of Badajoz, reported that
under ordinary circumstances the most profitable front to attack would
certainly be the western—that between the Pardaleras fort and the river; but
at the same time they decided that it had better be left alone. For the army
was so weak that it could not properly invest the whole city, and if the north
bank of the Guadiana were left practically unoccupied, as must necessarily
be the case, the Spaniards would be able to seize the ground beyond the
bridge-head, and establish batteries there, which would effectually enfilade

the trenches which would have to be constructed for approaching the west
side of the place. The castle and the north-east angle of the town were too
high-lying to be chosen as the point of attack, and the Rivillas and its boggy
banks were better avoided. They therefore advised that the south front
should be chosen as the objective, and that the first operation taken in hand
should be the capture of the Pardaleras fort, for that work appeared weak
and ill-planned, while its site would make the most advantageous of
starting-points for breaching the enceinte of the town itself. It was the most
commanding ground close in to the walls which could be discovered. Soult
and Mortier concurred, and placed the army in the best position for utilizing
this method of attack. The camps of Girard’s division were placed on and
around two low hills, the Cerro de San Miguel on the right of the Rivillas,
and the Cerro del Viento on its left. On the former height, about 1,800 yards
from the town, nothing was done save the construction of a rough
entrenchment—to face the Picurina and restrict possible sallies—in which
three small batteries were afterwards inserted. The Cerro del Viento, which
is about 1,200 yards from the Pardaleras, was to be the real starting-point of
the attack, and under its side the siege-park and engineers’ camp were
established. Two batteries in front of it were marked out and begun on the
first night of ‘open trenches’ (January 28-9), but it was not till the third
night (January 30-1) that the first parallel was commenced, on the
undulating ground to the west of the Rivillas. When the work became
visible next day, the governor directed a vigorous sortie against it,
composed of 800 men. The trenches were occupied for a moment, but soon
recovered by the French supports. A small body of Spanish cavalry which
had taken part in the sally rode right round the rear of the camp, and sabred
the chef-de-bataillon Cazin, the chief engineer, and a dozen of his sappers
on the Cerro del Viento. But the total loss of the besiegers was only about
seventy killed and wounded, while the men of the sortie suffered much
more heavily, while they were being driven back across the open ground
towards the city. Their commander, a Colonel Bassecourt of the 1st
Regiment of Seville—the corps which furnished the sallying force—was
killed. Next day the siege-works were so little injured that the artillery was
able to put guns into the first batteries that had been marked out. On the
first three days of February incessant and torrential rains stopped further
work—the whole of the first parallel was inundated, and the flying bridge

by which alone Soult could communicate with Latour-Maubourg on the
other side of the Guadiana was washed away.
But despite of the rain February 3 was a day of joy for the French, for
on its morning Gazan reported his arrival at Valverde, ten miles away, and
at 3 o’clock his division of 6,000 men marched into camp and doubled the
force of the besieging army. Their arrival was a piece of cruel ill-luck for
the Spaniards, for on that same afternoon, at dusk, Menacho sent out a
formidable sortie of 1,500 men—all that he could safely spare from the
ramparts—who came out of the river-side gate (Puerto de las Palmas) and
stormed the first parallel, driving out the workers and the three companies
of their covering party. The Spaniards had already filled up a considerable
section of the trench, when they were charged by two battalions of Gazan’s
newly-arrived troops, and driven out again, before they had finished their
task. The serious nature of the attack may be judged from the fact that the
French lost 188 killed and wounded—including eight officers—in repelling
it. If only one brigade of Girard had been in the Cerro del Viento camps,
instead of Gazan’s entire division, it is probable that the whole first parallel
and the batteries behind it would have been destroyed. While the damage
was being repaired, on February 4, Soult began to bombard the town from
these batteries, but with no good effect. The result, indeed, was rather to the
profit of the Spaniards, for a great portion of the civil population fled at the
first sign of bombardment, and escaped by night down the Guadiana bank
towards Elvas. The provisions left in their deserted houses added
appreciably to Menacho’s stores.
The work of extending the first parallel diagonally toward the
Pardaleras was still going on, when, on February 5th, the whole situation
before Badajoz was changed by the appearance in the neighbourhood of a
Spanish army of succour. Even before Soult had started from Seville at the
New Year, Wellington had been aware of the imminence of the invasion of
Estremadura, and had been consulting with his colleague La Romana as to
the measures that it would be necessary to take[55]. As early as the 2nd of
January La Romana had sent orders to Mendizabal, to tell him that if the
French should cross the Sierra Morena in force, he was to evacuate
Southern Estremadura, break the bridges of Medellin and Merida, and
endeavour to defend the line of the Guadiana[56]. By later instructions
(January 8) Mendizabal was directed to retire into the Sierra de San Mamed

if the enemy crossed the river above Badajoz, but to throw himself upon
their rear, and to hang on to them, if they crossed below, and seemed to be
making for Elvas and Portugal. On the 12th, Wellington, hearing that Soult
seemed to be heading towards Olivenza rather than Merida, conceived
doubts as to whether he might not be intending to abandon his
communications with Seville, to leave the fortresses behind him, and to
march to the Tagus to co-operate with Masséna upon the Alemtejo bank of
that river. On the 14th arrived the more comfortable news that the French
had sat down to beleaguer Olivenza, a sure sign that they did not propose to
cut themselves loose from their base and to join Masséna as a flying
column. As a matter of fact, as we have seen, Soult, having been deprived
of Gazan’s assistance, was too weak at this moment to dream of an
incursion into Portugal, and had attacked Olivenza because he could find
nothing else to do for the present.
Accordingly, since the enemy had apparently settled down to besiege
the Estremaduran fortresses, Wellington and La Romana determined to
reinforce Mendizabal up to a strength which would enable him to act as a
serious check upon Soult, probably even to foil him completely. On January
14th La Romana ordered Carlos de España and his brigade of some 1,500
or 1,800 men, from opposite Abrantes, to join the small existing remnant of
the Army of Estremadura[57]. On the 19th[58], the more important resolve was
taken of sending the remainder of the Spanish troops from the Lisbon lines
on the same errand—they amounted to about 6,000 men, the rest of La
Carrera’s division, and the whole of that of Charles O’Donnell. Starting on
the 20th they reached Montemor o Novo on the 24th—where they heard of
the disgraceful capitulation of Olivenza,—and Elvas on the 29th. To the
same point came in Mendizabal, who, with the remains of his own infantry
division—something over 3,000 men, and Butron’s cavalry, had moved
from his original post at Albuquerque to Portalegre on the Portuguese
border, and had there been joined by Carlos de España’s brigade. Madden’s
Portuguese cavalry had already moved back to Campo Mayor and Elvas
when Soult first undertook the siege of Olivenza. By the accumulation of all
these forces an army of about 11,000 infantry and over 3,000 cavalry was
put together[59].
La Romana himself had intended to take charge of the expedition,
which under his prudent leadership would probably have achieved its

desired end, and have held Soult completely in check. But he was prevented
from starting with his troops on the 20th by an indisposition which was not
judged to be serious—a ‘spasm in the chest[60],’ apparently a preliminary
attack of angina pectoris. He appeared convalescent on the 22nd, but died
suddenly of a recurrence of the complaint early on the afternoon of the
23rd, after he had already sent forward his secretary and staff to prepare
quarters for him on the way towards the army. His death was a real disaster
to the cause of the allies, for two main reasons. The first was that, unlike
most of his contemporaries in the Spanish service, he was a very cautious
general, who avoided risks and preferred to manœuvre rather than to fight,
unless he had a good chance of success. His long marches and many
retreats had won him the punning nickname of the ‘Marqués de las
Romerías’—the Marquis of Pilgrimages: but even a long ‘pilgrimage’ is
better than a defeat, and he had never destroyed an army, like Cuesta,
Blake, or Areizaga. The other reason which made him valuable to the allied
cause was that, being a man of great tact and obliging manners, he had won
Wellington’s personal regard, and always lived on the best terms with him.
Indeed, the Marquis was the only Spanish general, save Castaños, who
never had any difficulties with his English colleague; and it may be added
that Wellington thought much more of his capacity than of that of Castaños,
whom he regarded as well-meaning but weak. He wrote of him, in words
that may be regarded as entirely genuine and heartfelt, and which were not
intended for Spanish eyes, that he was the brightest ornament of the Spanish
army, an upright patriot, a strenuous and zealous defender of the cause of
European liberty, a loyal colleague, a useful councillor[61].
That the Marquis was not a man of brilliant genius, nor a general of the
first rank, is sufficiently evident from the account of his campaigns, duly
detailed in the first three volumes of this work. But he had a very high and
meritorious record; of all the old nobles of Spain he was the one who served
his country best in the day of her distress. His energy and determination
were displayed in his romantic escape from Denmark in 1808[62]. Having
once unsheathed his sword in the national cause, he never faltered or
despaired even in the day of the worst disaster. If his life had been spared he
would have fought on undismayed to the end of the war. Though he became
involved in the unhappy disputes which preceded the fall of the Supreme
Junta, in the winter of 1809-10[63], and did not disdain to accept a command
from the illegal Seville government in the January of the latter year[64], he

was neither a self-seeker nor a frondeur. If his words or acts sometimes
appeared factious, they were inspired by a genuine discontent at the
incapacity of the ruling powers, not by a desire for self-advancement; and
there seems to be no evidence to connect him with the unwise and
autocratic proceedings of his brother José Caro in Valencia. During the last
year of his life he was discharging a very invidious task while he
commanded in Estremadura under the control of the last regency, which
treated him with neglect and regarded him with suspicion. His death is said
to have been hastened by scurrilous accusations made against his loyalty in
pamphlets and newspapers published at Cadiz[65], which drove him to
distraction, for he was a man of a sensitive disposition, keenly affected by
any criticism. Albuquerque, it will be remembered, is said to have been
helped towards his grave by similar means[66].
The death of La Romana, and the transfer at this same date of Charles
O’Donnell to another sphere of operations, caused a general rearrangement
of the commands in the Army of Estremadura. Mendizabal, as the sole
Lieutenant-General in the province, succeeded to the place and
responsibilities of the Marquis, but only as a provisional chief; the Regency,
justly doubting his abilities, nominated Castaños as Captain-General.
Unfortunately, as we shall see, the victor of Baylen reached Estremadura
just in time to hear that his locum tenens had destroyed the army, and left
hardly a wreck of it behind him. Meanwhile Mendizabal made over his own
old division to a Major-General Garcia, while that of Charles O’Donnell fell
to another officer new to us, Major-General José Virues. La Carrera became
chief of the staff, or practically second in command, and his ‘vanguard
division’ passed to his old brigadier Carlos de España.
As early as January 28th Soult had directed Latour-Maubourg with four
regiments of light cavalry to make a reconnaissance in the direction of the
Portuguese frontier, and by this movement had become aware that
Mendizabal was at Portalegre, with his own infantry and Butron’s cavalry.
It was no surprise to the Marshal, therefore, to find, a week later, that a
considerable force was pressing in his posts on the north of the Guadiana.
The presence of Madden’s Portuguese dragoons in the advanced guard
showed that the enemy had been reinforced. Latour-Maubourg’s cavalry-
screen was driven in without much fighting, and the French general retired
to Montijo, nine miles up the river (February 5th-6th). That night

Mendizabal’s army, nearly 15,000 strong, camped on the heights of San
Cristobal, and communicated with Badajoz freely, the blockade being
broken so far as the northern bank of the Guadiana was concerned.
Wellington and La Romana, when the return of the Spanish troops from
Lisbon to Estremadura was ordered, had settled upon a regular plan of
campaign[67], which had been communicated to Mendizabal. It required
some slight modification when the fall of Olivenza became known, and
when Soult’s intention to besiege Badajoz declared itself. But in its
essentials it was well applicable to the situation of affairs upon February
6th. After a solemn warning to the Spanish generals that the Army of
Estremadura is ‘the last body of troops which their country possesses,’ and
must not be risked in dangerous operations, the memorandum suggests (1)
that an entrenched camp capable of holding the entire army should be
prepared on the heights which lie between Campo Mayor and Badajoz, and
which end in the high bluff of San Cristobal above the latter town. (2) That
if possible an attempt should be made to break the bridges of Medellin and
Merida, so as to restrict the French to the southern bank of the Guadiana.
(3) That the Regency should be asked to send back Ballasteros’s division to
join the Army of Estremadura, and (4) that the bridge of boats in store at
Badajoz should, if possible, be floated down to Jerumenha, to give the
Portuguese garrison of Elvas the power of crossing the Guadiana below
Badajoz. The last suggestion was impracticable, because the French, when
the dispatch reached Mendizabal, were so close to the river that the bridge
could not have been transferred. The other three suggestions were all
valuable, but none of them were carried out—least of all the most important
of them, that which prescribed the entrenching of the San Cristobal heights,
and their occupation by the whole of the Spanish army.
Mendizabal had a plan of his own—he resolved not to fortify himself on
the heights beyond the river, as Wellington suggested, but to throw a great
part of his infantry into Badajoz, and make with them a grand sortie against
the French lines. The bulk of his cavalry remained below San Cristobal, and
had a skirmish of evil omen with Latour-Maubourg, who drove them in
with ease, and pursued them beyond the Gebora to the foot of the heights.
But Madden’s Portuguese horse filed into town across the bridge, to join in
the sally of the infantry.

At three o’clock on the afternoon of the 7th of February the sortie was
made. While Madden’s dragoons and a small infantry support threatened
the left of the French lines, without closing, a large force composed of all
Carlos de España’s ‘vanguard division,’ with picked battalions from the
others, delivered a vigorous—indeed a desperate—assault upon Soult’s
right, the entrenchments on the hill of San Miguel. There were apparently
four columns, each of two battalions, and making 5,000 men: they came out
from the Trinidad gate, drew up under the wing of the Picurina lunette, and
then marched straight at the French camp. They pierced the line of
entrenchments in their first rush, swept away the guard of the trenches,
carried the three batteries which were inserted in them, and then became
engaged in a fierce fight with Phillipon’s brigade of Girard’s division, the
troops encamped behind this part of the lines. Mortier, who was on the
other flank, detecting that the movements in front of him were only a
demonstration, promptly sent several battalions eastward to succour the
threatened point. These fell upon the Spaniards’ flank, and threatened to cut
them off from their retreat into the fortress, whereupon Carlos de España,
who was slightly wounded, ordered a retreat, finding that forces equal to his
own had now been concentrated against him[68]. His troops suffered severely
in fighting their way back into Badajoz—their loss was about 650 men; that
of the French, whose front line had been very severely handled, came to
about 400. But the besieged could spare the larger number better than the
besiegers the smaller, since they had the whole army of succour to draw
upon, while Soult had no reserves nearer than Seville. It is hard to see why
Mendizabal, if he was resolved upon a sortie, did not double the force
engaged in it, as he might easily have done without depleting any part of the
enceinte. For, counting the garrison, he had 15,000 infantry—a larger
number than the French could dispose of. To send out 5,000 only seems to
have been a half-measure, which ensured ultimate failure when the
besiegers should have drawn together[69]. The fighting of Carlos de España’s
men was most creditable, but there were not enough of them.
On the next day but one Mendizabal withdrew from Badajoz the
divisions of Carlos de España and Virues, and part of that of Garcia[70],
leaving the original garrison strengthened by the remainder of the last-
named unit up to a force of 7,000 men. The field army retired across the
river, and encamped on the strong position of the heights of San Cristobal,
its right wing resting on the fort, while the remainder of its camps lay along

the reverse slope of the range for a distance of a mile and a half. There were
some 9,000 infantry on the position, and the 3,000 horse of Butron and
Madden were encamped behind it in the plain of the Caya. By some
inconceivable folly Mendizabal made no attempt to use this large force of
cavalry, which he should have sent forward to seize and hold the valley of
the Gebora, in front of his position. All beyond that stream, which flows at
the very foot of the San Cristobal heights, was abandoned to Latour-
Maubourg. It seems certain that the French cavalry general could have been
driven to a respectful distance if a force of all arms had been sent against
him, for he had on the north of the Guadiana only five regiments of horse
and not a single battalion of infantry. But the Spaniard allowed himself to
be cooped up on the hill, and kept no guard of cavalry far out in the plain to
shield his front and report the motions of the enemy. What was worse, he
made no attempt to entrench the long hillside, though this was a point on
which Wellington and La Romana had given very clear and definite
instructions. The position was strong, but as no care was taken to keep the
enemy at a distance, it was always possible that he might make a sudden
dash at it, and the Spanish army—scattered in its camps—would require
time to take up its ground and form its fighting-line.
For some days after the sortie, however, Soult paid little attention to
Mendizabal, and concentrated all his efforts against the fortress. Having
completed the first parallel, and established several new batteries in it, he
proceeded with his operations against the Pardaleras fort. His plan was very
daring—not to say hazardous—for on the afternoon of the 11th of February,
when the work was much battered but still quite defensible, he determined
to try to capture it by escalade. At dusk two columns, making about 500
men, issued from the trenches and dashed at the Pardaleras: the left-hand
column coasting round its flank made for the gorge, which was only
defended by a row of palisades. These were so weak that they were broken
down or hewn to pieces by the assailants without much difficulty. At the
same time the right column, which had entered the ditch, found an open
postern into which it made its way. Attacked on two sides, the garrison
evacuated the work, and fled into the city, leaving 60 men killed or
prisoners behind them. The French, who had lost only 4 killed and 32
wounded in this reckless venture, established themselves in the Pardaleras.
But the governor turned against the fort all the guns of the next two
bastions, and the captors had to burrow and lie low, till on the night of the

12th-13th a trench was run out from the first parallel, which gave safe
ingress and egress. During the intervening day the besiegers lost more men
in holding the work than they had in storming it[71], and the Pardaleras, close
though it was to the walls, proved to be ground from which it was most
difficult to push forward while the artillery fire of the town was unsubdued.
To transform the open gorge in its rear into a base for new approaches was a
slow and expensive business, and the siege made a much less rapid progress
than had been hoped.
Meanwhile Soult resolved to make a blow at Mendizabal and his field
army, which was visible day after day encamped on the San Cristobal
heights, in a position imposing but unfortified and ill-watched. The Marshal
had intended to cross the Guadiana and deliver his attack even before the
Pardaleras was taken, but much rain was falling, and the river had
overflowed its banks, so that access to the point where the French flying-
bridge had been established, a mile above Badajoz, was difficult. Moreover
the Gebora was also in flood, and reported to be unfordable, though usually
a slender stream. The only thing which the Marshal was able to do between
the 11th and the 18th of February was to shell the nearer end of the heights
of San Cristobal from the batteries in his right attack, with the object of
inducing the Spanish battalions there encamped to move further from the
protection of the fort, which effectually covered their right flank. On
February 13th this plan was seen to have been effective: the Spaniards had
withdrawn from the neighbourhood, and had left half a mile unoccupied
between San Cristobal and their new camp.
On the afternoon of the 18th it was reported to Soult that both the rivers
had fallen, and that the Gebora had again become fordable. He made no
delay, and at dusk his striking-force began to cross the Guadiana—the
operation was slow, since only two flying-bridges and a few river-boats
were available. But at dawn nine battalions[72], three squadrons, and two
batteries were on the north bank, while Latour-Maubourg had come up from
his usual post at Montijo with six cavalry regiments more. The whole force
assembled in the angle between the Guadiana and the Gebora amounted to
no more than 4,500 infantry[73] and 2,500 horse, with twelve guns, a total so
much below Mendizabal’s 9,000 infantry and 3,000 cavalry that the
adventure seemed most hazardous. But fortune often favours the audacious,
and on this day Soult chanced on the unexpected luck of a very foggy

morning. He was practically able to surprise the enemy, for the first
warning that a battle was at hand only came to Mendizabal when, shortly
after dawn, his picket at the broken bridge of the Gebora—a short mile or
so in front of the heights—was driven in by masses of French infantry. At
the same moment a tumult broke out on his left rear: the 2nd Hussars, sent
on by Latour-Maubourg to discover and turn the Spanish northern flank,
had been able to mount the heights unseen and unopposed, by making a
long détour, and rode unexpectedly into the camp of one of Carlos de
España’s regiments. Mendizabal’s troops flew to arms, and began hastily to
form their line upon the heights, but they had no time to get into good order,
for the enemy was upon them within a few minutes.
Mortier, to whom Soult had committed the conduct of the battle,
showed great tactical skill. On reaching the line of the Gebora, infantry and
cavalry poured across it without a moment’s delay; all the three fords of
which the French knew proved to be practicable, though on the
southernmost one, near the bridge, the infantry had to cross with the chilly
water up to their waists. The order of battle was very simple: the right wing,
composed of the whole of the cavalry, was to pass by the most northern ford
and ascend the heights beyond the Spanish left. Arrived at the crest, one
brigade was to push along it, and fall on the flank of the hostile line, while
the other descended into the valley of the Caya, and charged into the
Spanish camps, so placing itself directly in Mendizabal’s rear. Of the
infantry three battalions (the 100th regiment) were to ascend the hillside in
the gap between the fort of San Cristobal and the nearest Spanish camp, a
gap which had been caused (as it will be remembered) by the withdrawal of
the Spaniards from the southernmost heights under the stress of
bombardment six days before. This column was to risk the fire of the fort,
which it had to disregard, and fall on the hostile flank. Meanwhile the
centre—very weak and composed only of six battalions of infantry (34th
and 88th regiments)—was to attack the Spanish front, when the two turning
movements were well developed.
The San Cristobal heights are a most formidable position, two miles of
smooth steep slopes with an altitude of 250-300 feet, overlooking the whole
plain of the Gebora and with hardly any ‘dead ground’ in their sides. They
form an excellent glacis for an army in position ready to defend itself by its
fire, for the assailant must come up the hill at a slow pace and utterly

exposed. Cavalry could only climb at a walk, and with difficulty; but
Mortier had sent all his horse far to the north, where they ascended, and
partly crossed, the range at its lowest point, beyond the extreme flank of the
enemy. Just at this moment the fog rose, and everything became visible. On
gaining the heights unopposed, Briche’s light cavalry formed up across
them, and commenced to move along the summit towards the Spanish left
wing, while Latour-Maubourg, with three dragoon regiments, descended the
reverse slope and moved towards the hostile camp, in front of which
Butron’s Spanish horse and Madden’s Portuguese could be seen hastily
arraying their squadrons.
It may be said that the battle of the Gebora was lost almost before a shot
had been fired, for on seeing themselves threatened in flank and about to be
charged by Latour-Maubourg, the Spanish and Portuguese horse broke in
the most disgraceful style, disregarding the orders of their commanders, and
went off in a disorderly mass across the plain of the Caya, towards Elvas
and Campo Mayor. They outnumbered the enemy, and could have saved the
day if they had fought even a bad and unsuccessful action, so as to detain
the French dragoons for a single hour. But the cavalry of the Army of
Estremadura had a bad reputation—they were the old squadrons of
Medellin and Arzobispo, of which Wellington preserved such an evil
memory, and Madden’s Portuguese this day behaved no better[74]. They
escaped almost without loss, for Latour-Maubourg let them fly, and turned
at once against the flank and rear of Mendizabal’s infantry.
The combat on the southern part of the heights had not yet assumed a
desperate aspect. Though the column which was formed by the 100th
regiment had got up the hillside under the fort of San Cristobal, and had
penetrated into the gap between that work and its extreme left, the Spanish
infantry was still holding its own. The fog having cleared, they were able to
estimate the smallness of the number of the hostile infantry, and stood to
fight without showing any signs of failing. But the fusilade was only just
beginning all along the hillside when the victorious French cavalry came
into action. Briche’s light horse came galloping along the crest of the
heights, while Latour-Maubourg’s dragoons were visible in the plain
behind, well to the rear of the Spanish line. Mendizabal, horrified at the
sight, ordered his men to form squares, not as usual by battalions, but vast
divisional squares, each formed of many regiments, and with artillery in

their angles. If the French cavalry alone had been present, it is possible that
in this formation the Spaniards might have saved themselves. But Mortier’s
infantry was also up, and well engaged in bickering with Mendizabal’s men.
The squares, when formed with some difficulty, found themselves exposed
to a heavy fire of musketry from the front at the same moment that the
cavalry blow was delivered on their flank. Briche’s hussars penetrated
without much difficulty through battalions already shaken by the volleys of
the French infantry. First the northern and soon afterwards the southern
square was ridden through from the flank and broken. The disaster that
followed was complete: some of the Spanish regiments dispersed, many
laid down their arms in despair, a limited number clubbed together in heavy
masses and fought their way out of the press towards the plain of the Caya
and the frontier of Portugal. General Virues and three brigadiers were taken
prisoners, with at least half of the army. Mendizabal and two other generals,
La Carrera and Carlos de España, got away, under cover of the battalions
which forced their passage through toward the west. In all about 2,500
infantry escaped into Badajoz[75], and a somewhat smaller number towards
Portugal[76]. The rest were destroyed—only 800 or 900 had been killed or
wounded, but full 4,000 were taken prisoners, along with seventeen guns—
the entire artillery of the army—and six standards. The French loss, though
under-estimated by Soult in his dispatch at the ridiculous figure of 30 killed
and 140 wounded, was in truth very small—not exceeding 403 in all. It fell
almost entirely on the cavalry—who had done practically the whole of the
work. The regimental returns show that only four officers in the infantry
were killed or wounded, to thirteen in the mounted arm. In proportion this
battle was more disastrous to the vanquished and less costly to the victors
than even Medellin or Ocaña. It is difficult to write with patience of the
culpable negligence of Mendizabal, in allowing himself to be surprised in
such a position, when he was amply provided with cavalry, or of the
conduct of the Spanish and Portuguese horse in abandoning their infantry
without striking a single blow, when even a show of resistance might at
least have given their comrades time to save themselves. For the battalions
on the heights could have escaped into Badajoz, or even have retreated
along the Guadiana without desperate loss, if they had been granted an
hour’s respite: while if the French cavalry could have been detained till the
infantry battle on the heights was decided, it is quite clear that Mendizabal

in his splendid fighting position, and with double numbers, could have held
his own and driven off the attack of the nine battalions of Mortier.

BADAJOZ. The French Siege (Jan.-March 1811),
& the Battle of the Gebora (Feb. 19th 1811).

The Army of Estremadura having been practically destroyed,—the
demoralized remnant of 4,000 horse and foot which escaped into Portugal
counted for nothing,—Soult could at last besiege Badajoz from both sides

of the river, and reckon on being undisturbed in his operations. He left three
battalions, a battery, and five regiments of Montbrun’s cavalry on the north
bank, to invest the fort of San Cristobal, and returned, with the rest of the
force that had won the battle, to his lines. There was still much to be done,
for the governor Menacho was resolute, and the garrison had been raised to
over 8,000 men by the influx of Mendizabal’s fugitives. The siege was
destined to last three weeks longer, and might have been prolonged to a far
greater duration if Menacho had not been killed on March 4; as long as he
lived the defence was vigorous and honourable.
Though Soult could concentrate all his attention on the approaches
towards the curtain between the bastions of Santiago and San Juan, they did
not progress very rapidly. Menacho brought up all the artillery that could be
readily moved on the threatened front, and continued to pound the ruins of
the Pardaleras and the trenches leading up to it. It was only on the night of
the 24th February that a battery was at last completed under the right flank
of the fort, and another under its left, to keep down the fire of the defenders.
Nor was it till the 28th of the same month and the 1st of March that the
zigzags began to creep forward from the second parallel towards the body
of the place. On the 2nd of March the approaches reached the demi-lune
outside the bastion of San Juan, and the French could look down into the
ditch, but they found the counterscarp in good order, and the palisades
intact. On the 3rd they commenced mining, with the object of blowing in
the counterscarp and filling the ditch. But their work was stopped by a
vigorous sortie, the last which Menacho sent out. A small column of
Spaniards passed out of the left bastion, seized and demolished the
advanced trenches, and spiked the twelve guns which armed the two nearest
batteries. The progress of the besiegers was checked for a day—but at a
disastrous cost, for the governor himself, while watching the effect of the
sortie from the ramparts, was killed by a chance shot. His place was taken
by the senior brigadier in the place, José Imaz, a man of desponding heart
and utterly lacking in energy. It was a thousand pities that, when the rout of
the Gebora took place, neither La Carrera nor Carlos de España had been
driven back into Badajoz, for both these officers were men of desperate
resolution, who would have played out a losing game to the last moment
with stubborn courage. The French narratives note that from the moment of
Menacho’s death the defence slackened; it became partly passive, and was
no longer conducted with common skill. No more sorties were made, and

there seemed to be a lack of ingenuity in the measures taken to resist the
completion of the approaches[77]. All that was done was to keep up a hot fire
on the head of the French sap, and to replace one disabled gun by another
upon the walls.
On the 4th of March the besiegers had lodged themselves solidly in the
demi-lune of the bastion of San Juan, and had commenced on the very edge
of the ditch a battery for six heavy guns (24-pounders), which were to work
upon the curtain between San Juan and Santiago, the place selected for the
breaching. On the 5th the embrasures were completed, on the 7th the guns
were got into position, on the 8th the counterscarp was blown in by a mine,
and the battery began to play upon the walls at a distance of only sixty
yards. Though the besieged kept up a terrible fire upon it, and killed many
gunners, its effect was all that the French had desired. The ramparts began
to crumble, and on the morning of the 10th there was a breach seventy feet
wide in the curtain, near the bastion of Santiago, while the ditch was half
filled with débris. The engineers pronounced that an assault was practicable,
though another day’s fire would be desirable to finish the business. The
Spanish guns on the front attacked were all silenced, but from the flanking
bastions a fire was still kept up, which would obviously be very murderous
to the storming columns. It was clear that it would be better to subdue it,
and to batter the breach into an easier slope, before the assault should be
delivered.
Soult, however, was anxious to press matters, for he had received on the
8th two pieces of news which completely changed the strategical situation.
The first was that Masséna had given orders for the evacuation of Santarem
and his other positions on the Tagus five days before, and had already
commenced his retreat towards the north. There was no longer any chance
of joining the Army of Portugal and attacking Wellington. Indeed, it was
probable that the English general would find himself free to make a large
detachment against the besiegers of Badajoz, and that, if the town should
not fall within the next ten days, Beresford’s 15,000 men from the south
bank of the Tagus would appear at Elvas or Campo Mayor, ready to attack
the siege-lines in the rear. And Soult from his experiences of 1809 was quite
aware that to meet an Anglo-Portuguese army would not be a business like
that of the Gebora.

But this was not all. News of the most disquieting kind had just arrived
from Andalusia. Victor reported from in front of Cadiz that a large
expeditionary force, comprising an English division, had landed at
Algesiras and Tarifa on February 25th-26th, had moved into the inland, and
was evidently about to attack his siege-lines from the rear. He expressed
grave doubts as to the situation. Daricau, the Governor of Seville, had even
a worse report to make: the roving division of Ballasteros, which had been
driven into Portugal by Gazan on January 25th, had recrossed the Spanish
frontier the moment that its pursuers had retired, had invaded the Condado
de Niebla, and had inflicted a severe defeat on Remond, whose small corps
had been left to cover that region, on the Rio Tinto (March 2nd). Daricau
reported that the Spaniards were marching on Seville, and that, after leaving
a skeleton garrison of convalescents and Juramentados in the city, he was
moving out with a field force of no more than 1,600 bayonets to rally
Remond’s men, and fight at San Lucar la Mayor for the protection of the
capital of Andalusia. Ballasteros was believed to have a considerable force,
and the result was doubtful.
On the morning of the 10th of March, therefore, Soult was in no small
distress concerning the fate of Daricau and Victor, whose last dispatches
were now six or seven days old, and who might have suffered disasters, for
all that he knew, since those dispatches were written. If modern methods of
communication had existed in 1811, he would have known already that
Victor had suffered a complete and bloody defeat at Barrosa on March 5th.
He was therefore prepared to take great risks at Badajoz, in order to have
his army free at any cost for the succour of Andalusia. Mortier was ordered
to get all ready for a storm during the course of the afternoon, but
meanwhile, when a few hours’ battering after dawn had somewhat
improved the slope of the breach, a parlementaire was sent into Badajoz at
9 a.m. to summon Imaz to capitulate. The letter which he bore was couched
in such elaborate terms of politeness, complimenting the Spaniards on their
long and gallant resistance, and intimating that the most honourable terms
would be granted, that the governor should have suspected that Soult was
not sure of his ground. But to a man cowed in spirit and weighed down by a
responsibility too great for him, such hints were useless. Imaz summoned a
council of war, the regular refuge of weak commanders, and called into it a
veritable crowd of councillors, not only the three generals and four
brigadiers present in the city, the chief engineer, and two artillery officers,

but nearly a score of lieutenant-colonels and majors commanding all the
battalions represented in the garrison. Unfortunately the engineer colonel,
Julian Alvo, who led off the discussion, was the most downhearted man of
all: he reported that the breach was from thirty to thirty-two ells (varas)
broad, and accessible, as it had an angle of forty-five to fifty degrees; that
there had been great difficulty in throwing up retrenchments and inner
defences behind it, because at this point the ground-level of the streets of
the town was much lower than that of the ramparts. He pointed out that to
garrison the whole enceinte with a minimum force would absorb 5,000
men, which would leave only 2,000 to defend the breach. ‘As to the number
and morale of the troops, the regimental officers would be able to speak
with better knowledge than himself.’ But he held that if the first assault
were repulsed, the fall of the town would only be delayed two or three days.
If there were evidence that the place might be relieved from outside within
that time, it was proper to resist to the last. If not, he thought that the heroic
garrison and the city ought not to be sacrificed. For they had fully done
their duty, and Badajoz as a fortress was full of defects[78].
Twelve colonels and majors gave their opinions in almost the same
terms as the engineer, many repeating his actual phrases, some adding that
the rank and file were demoralized[79], others that they were few in number
[they actually were only 1,800 less than the infantry of the besieging force].
On the other hand, the commanding artillery officer, Joaquin Caamano, set
forth a very different case. ‘The enemy has not yet subdued the fire of the
place; the bastions flanking the breach are intact, and have their guns in
order; the breach itself has been mined, and a parapet behind it has been
thrown up during the last night; in spite of the arguments of the commander
of the engineers the assault ought to be resisted, or as an alternative the
garrison ought to try to cut its way out by the north bank, towards Elvas or
Campo Mayor.’ Caamano was supported by the vote of another
artilleryman, the Portuguese João de Mello, commanding a company which
Beresford had sent into the city in the preceding year[80], and two major-
generals, Garcia and Mancio.
Then came the oddest part of the proceedings. The Governor gave as his
opinion that ‘though an inner line of defence has not been contrived, and
though very few guns still remain serviceable in the bastions of Santiago,
San José, and San Juan, and though we have no succour for sustaining the

assault, I think we should defend the place with valour and constancy to our
last breath.’ After which he at once commenced negotiations with the
French parlementaire, in direct contradiction to his own vote! Apparently
he thought that thirteen votes for surrender against four for resistance
among his councillors covered his ignominy. The worst part of his conduct
was that he was aware that an army of succour was on the march to help
him. For Badajoz had semaphore communication with Elvas, and on the
preceding day the Portuguese General Leite had telegraphed to him, by
Wellington’s orders, that Beresford had been detached with two divisions to
hasten to his aid on March 8th[81]. As a matter of fact, Beresford’s
movement into Estremadura was retarded, and his corps did not move off
for some days later, but Imaz did not know this, and he was certainly guilty
of concealing from his officers that prompt succour had been promised, and
was actually upon its way. The whole responsibility for the surrender falls
on him, because he allowed Alvo, and the other voters for capitulation, to
produce uncontradicted the statement that no relief was probable, while he
knew himself that it had been promised. It is impossible to deny that this
was pusillanimity reaching into and over the border of treason.
After making some foolish hagglings for eighteenth-century ceremonial
of honour—the garrison was to march out by the breach, drums beating,
with two cannons at its head, with lighted matches, &c.—Imaz surrendered
at 3 o’clock in the afternoon, and the lofty San Cristobal and the bridge-
head fort were occupied by the French before dusk. Next day the troops
came forth, not by the breach, because it was found impossible to scramble
down it, but by the Trinidad gate, and laid down their arms[82]. They
numbered 7,880 men, and there were 1,100 sick and wounded in the
hospitals; the total loss in the town during the siege had been 1,851
casualties, almost the same as that of the French, which came to just under
2,000. But the 800 killed and wounded, and 4,000 prisoners of the Gebora
must, of course, be added to the balance.
Badajoz was found by the victors to contain rations for 8,000 men
sufficient to last for over a month, more than 150 serviceable cannon,
80,000 lb. of powder, 300,000 infantry cartridges, and two bridge
equipages. There is not the slightest doubt that if Menacho had lived the
place would have held out till it was relieved by Beresford. For the latter,
who was finally ordered to move to its relief on March 12th, would have

reached its neighbourhood on the 18th, if he had not been checked on the
first day of his start by the news that the city had fallen[83]. After the need
for hurry had been removed by this disheartening intelligence, he moved
slowly, but was in front of Campo Mayor, less than ten miles from Badajoz,
on the 24th.
There is hardly ever an excuse for a governor who surrenders without
having withstood at least one assault, and Napoleon laid down the general
rule that any officer so doing should be sent before a court martial. Imaz
with his large garrison, his immense artillery resources, and his certainty of
being relieved in ten days was least of all men in a condition to plead
justification. It is only necessary to compare him with Alvarez at Gerona,
who with a smaller garrison and a far weaker fortress held out for three
months, after not one but three large breaches had been made in his weak
mediaeval enceinte. The Regency very properly ordered Imaz to be put on
his trial, but the proceedings, which only commenced when the French
liberated him, dragged on interminably, and had not come to an end when
the war ceased in 1814. If ever there was a case where an example in the
style of Admiral Byng, pour encourager les autres, could have been
rightfully made, this was one.
Soult, relieved from desperate anxiety by Imaz’s surrender, had no other
thought than to return as quickly as possible to Andalusia. Leaving Mortier
at Badajoz with sixteen battalions and five regiments of cavalry, about
11,000 men, he started back for Seville on the third day after the
capitulation, taking with him two regiments of dragoons and the bulk of
Gazan’s division[84]. As he marched he was in fear that any hour might bring
the news that Daricau had lost Seville, or that Victor had been forced to
abandon the siege of Cadiz, for the report of the bloody defeat of Barrosa
(March 5) had reached him on the 12th of March, and heightened his
anxiety. But he reached Seville on March 20th, to find that the situation
might yet be saved, and that Andalusia was still his own.
His achievements during the two months of his Estremaduran campaign
had indeed been splendid. With an army not exceeding 20,000 men, and
operating in the worst of weather, he had taken two fortresses, won a battle
in the open field, and captured 16,000 prisoners. The Spanish Army of
Estremadura, which had seemed so powerful at the commencement of his
campaign, was almost exterminated, and the frontier of Portugal was laid

open. Soult had redeemed his promise to make a powerful diversion in
favour of Masséna, and it is hard to see how he could have done more. For
he could not have moved to the Tagus before Badajoz fell, and (thanks to
the courage of Menacho) that city had held out till eight days after the date
on which Masséna ordered the Army of Portugal to commence its retreat to
the north. Wellington’s plan of starvation had, after all, achieved its effect,
and Masséna had been driven out of his position before Soult was in a
position to come to his aid. Even if Masséna had stayed a little longer at
Santarem, it seems hard to believe that Soult could have joined him,
considering that Elvas, a place stronger than Badajoz, was in his front, and
that the news from Andalusia spelt utter ruin unless he should return to save
it. He must have done so, even if on March 11 the Army of Portugal had
still been in its old position.

SECTION XXIII: CHAPTER III
MASSÉNA’S LAST WEEKS AT SANTAREM
JANUARY-MARCH 1811

After the arrival of Drouet and his division of the 9th Corps at Leiria in
the early days of the New Year, there was no serious movement of any part
of the French or the British armies for some weeks. The weather was bad,
and the troops on both sides remained in their cantonments, save such of the
French as were detailed for the perpetual marauding parties up the line of
the Zezere or in the southern slopes of the Serra da Estrella by which alone
the army was kept alive. The ranks of Masséna’s battalions continued to
grow thinner, but not at such a rate as in November and December—for the
weakly men had already been weeded out by the dreadful mortality of the
preceding period. Provisions had daily to be sought further and further
afield, but they were not wholly exhausted. The Marshal waited anxiously
for further news from Paris, and for tidings that the Army of Andalusia was
coming to his aid. But after the arrival of Drouet’s column no further
information got through for five weeks, for Wilson and Trant were blocking
the northern roads with their militia as effectually as in the time before the
9th Corps started from Almeida.
Wellington, for his part, was waiting for his great scheme of starvation
to work out to its logical end. He had, as has already been observed,
somewhat underrated the time for which the French would be able to live
on the resources of the country that he dominated. More than once in
December and January he thought that he had detected the signs of a
coming retreat, and had been disappointed[85]. The enemy still remained in
his old cantonments, and nothing more than petty movements of small units
had taken place. This anxious waiting was, as might have been expected,
trying to Wellington’s temper. He was not shaken in his belief that he had
made the right decision, but it was exasperating to see the deadlock on the
Tagus continuing far beyond his expectations, and the Estremaduran

campaign developing behind his back. During the long weeks of tension the
strain on his mind vented itself in criticism, reasonable and unreasonable, of
the authorities with whom he had to work—the British and Portuguese
Governments.
The administration of Spencer Perceval had done its best to maintain the
war and to support its general, under great difficulties. It had not shrunk
from making financial exertions of the most unprecedented kind in order to
keep up the war in Portugal. As Lord Liverpool pointed out to
Wellington[86], the army in the Peninsula had cost £2,778,796 in 1808,
£2,639,764 in 1809; in 1810 the sum asked for had risen to £6,061,235—
more than double the total of either of the preceding years. And this did not
include either ordnance stores, supplies sent out in kind, or the hire of
transports, which were calculated to make out £2,000,000 more. The
Government had provided these sums in face of a bitter and carping
opposition on the part of the Whigs, and despite of much lukewarmness
among their own followers, of whom many considered that the limit of
reasonable expense had been reached. As Lord Liverpool observed, the
increase of the Portuguese subsidy, and the taking into British pay of the
larger half of the Portuguese army, had been ‘carried by a small and
unwilling majority[87].’ The Government had driven the money bills through
the House of Commons only by smart cracking of the whip of party loyalty.
They had promised Wellington that his army should be increased by 14,000
men during the course of the winter, and the promise was in the course of
fulfilment. Many regiments had already arrived; all were to reach the Tagus
before March was out. This had been done in a time of dire distress to the
Tory party, George III had been prostrated by his last attack of insanity,
which was destined to be permanent, in October 1810. As it became certain
that his recovery was not to be looked for, the appointment of the Prince of
Wales as Regent was the obvious and necessary corollary. But the Prince
was still reckoned a Whig, and it was believed with reason that his first act
on coming into power would be to dismiss the Perceval Ministry, and to call
upon Grey, Grenville, and Sheridan to form an administration. The Tories
all through the winter thought that they were destined to immediate
expulsion from office, and had before them a long strife with the Crown. It
was only at the beginning of February 1811 that the younger George, who
had taken the oath as Regent on the 6th of that month, announced, to the
general surprise of the nation, that he had no intention of dismissing the

Ministry, and was prepared to work with them. Perceval and Liverpool,
during the three preceding months, were doing their best for the army in
Portugal while they believed that a political disaster was hanging over their
heads. They did not yet realize that the Prince’s Whig principles had worn
thin of late, and that he was tired of the dictatorial manners which Grey and
Grenville had adopted towards him.
It is terrible to contemplate the results which might have followed had
the Whigs come into office at this juncture. They were pledged to the theory
that the Peninsular War was hopeless and ought to be abandoned. Grey and
Grenville had stated that Wellington was a failure; they had denied that
Talavera was a victory. Brougham had summarized the feelings of the party
in a savage attack upon both Government and general in the Edinburgh
Review. At this very moment—February 1811—Ponsonby, the leader of the
opposition in the House of Commons, was preaching that ‘France cannot be
prevented from overrunning Spain by continuing a war in Portugal, ... so
that neither in Spain or Portugal has anything happened that can give reason
to believe that the war will ever terminate to our advantage[88].’ Freemantle,
another leader, maintained that ‘Bonaparte, having conquered the rest of the
Continent, must also conquer the Peninsula, because he has greater numbers
to bring up after every defeat, and therefore defeat of one of his armies was
vain[89].’ Every Whig journal was prophesying the expulsion of Wellington
from Portugal within a few weeks, as indeed they had been doing ever since
October 1809.
All honour, therefore, is due to the statesmen who continued in the
midst of all their own troubles, constitutional and financial, to give a steady
support to Wellington, and to redeem the pledges which they had made to
him. When Napier in his great history declares that the Ministry betrayed
Wellington, that ‘Perceval had neither the wisdom to support nor the
manliness to put an end to the war in the Peninsula; his crooked
contemptible policy was shown by withholding what was necessary to
continue the contest and throwing upon the General the responsibility of
failure,’ he is merely venting the malignant folly of the Whigs of his day,
which ought to have been forgotten by the time that he took his pen in hand,
long after the war was over.
It is unfortunately true that Wellington, in the stress of waiting hours
during the winter of 1810-11, used querulous and captious language

concerning his supporters at home. The main point of his complaint was
that he was not supplied rapidly enough with specie, that bills were sent
him when he wanted dollars or guineas, and that so the pay of the army was
falling into arrears. The fact was deplorable; but on a consideration of the
condition of the English monetary system at this date it is hard to see how
the difficulty could have been avoided. Since the suspension of the coinage
of guineas in 1797, and the introduction of an almost unlimited issue of
bank-notes, gold had gradually become an almost invisible commodity in
Great Britain[90]. The guinea, when seen, commanded an ever-increasing
premium; by 1809 it was worth £1 5s., or more, in paper. British silver was
equally deficient; there had been none coined at the Mint since 1787, and
the internal trade of the country was being transacted with difficulty, by
means of Spanish dollars or half-dollars stamped with the king’s head, or by
local tokens struck by banks and corporations, which only served in the
immediate neighbourhood of their place of issue[91]. The Bank of England
dollar, the only coin which circulated generally, passed for 5s., though it
had only the value of 4s. 2d. in its weight of silver. When Great Britain
could find no specie for its own internal business, the Government was
required to send enormous remittances in cash to the Peninsula, because all
transactions therein were made in silver or gold, and English paper was not
negotiable[92]. That the coin was sent at all seems marvellous, rather than
that it was sent late and in insufficient quantities. The worst time of all was
in the early spring of 1811, when there was a severe commercial crisis at
home, and the Government was issuing exchequer bills, to the amount of
£6,000,000, as an advance to merchants and manufacturers to stave off
general bankruptcy in London[93].
It was certainly an unhappy thing that Wellington could look upon the
whole situation as one in which ‘the Government chooses to undertake
large services, and not to supply us with sufficient pecuniary means[94],’ and
could write that the present ministers complained so much of the expense of
the war, that he considered it not impossible that the army might be recalled
bag and baggage—a remark made not in February but in March, when
Masséna had actually retreated from the Tagus[95]. This rather unjustifiable
complaint was probably the direct result of Lord Liverpool’s letter of
February 20, in which he had set forth at length the enormous burden of the
war, and expressed his doubts as to whether the augmentation of the
Peninsular army by 14,000 men, for which he had just provided, could be

permanently kept up[96]. He suggested that when the ‘present crisis’ (i. e.
Masséna’s presence at the gates of Lisbon) had come to an end, the army
should send home some of its less effective regiments, and that the ideal of
30,000 effective rank and file (not including the garrison of Cadiz) would
probably have to be kept in mind. But long before the dispatch of February
20 Wellington thought that he had detected an intention on Liverpool’s part
to bring the whole Peninsular War to an end, on financial grounds, and
wrote most bitterly to his kinsman Pole, accusing the Secretary of State of
being half-hearted, and showing a deep-rooted distrust of his influence in
the Cabinet[97]. All this was forgotten when the firmness of the Ministry in
support of the war became evident, and in later years Wellington wrote to
acknowledge in the most handsome style the support that he had received
from the Perceval administration[98].
During all these weeks of waiting Wellington was also troubled by
problems with regard to the internal state of Portugal. Two main sources of
worry can be traced in his correspondence. The first was the inefficiency of
the Portuguese commissariat, which bid fair to cause absolute starvation
among those brigades of the national army which were not incorporated
with British divisions and supplied from the British stores. Slow and
irregular forwarding of provisions to the corps stationed in advanced or
remote positions led to a dreadful increase in the number of sick. We find
Wellington complaining that regiments which had 1,200 men in line at
Bussaco could only show 1,000 or 900 under arms in February, although
they had received considerable drafts from their dépôts at midwinter.
D’Urban’s daily notes bear out the statements of the Commander-in-Chief.
He asserts with indignation that by ‘the villany of commissaries,’ the same
quantity of flour which provided 15½ rations for the British soldier was
returned as having given only 9 to the Portuguese—the balance having been
embezzled. Allowances, of course, must be made for the difficulties of a
government of whose territory a good third had been depopulated by the
orders of Wellington. But the trouble does not seem to have been so much
the actual want of food-stuffs at head quarters[99]—great quantities were got
from the Alemtejo and the north—as the inefficiency of distribution, which
left outlying brigades sometimes foodless for two or three days at a time.
Clothing and shoes were also very slow in arriving at the front. At the
bottom the cause of all this inefficiency was probably (as Wellington
observes in one letter[100]) the want of money to keep up an adequate

transport service, and it might be pleaded that in the distressful condition of
the country the deficit was no fault of the government, but unavoidable.
Wellington’s view was that with greater economy in civil expenses, and
more careful supervision of commissaries and contractors, there was money
enough to pay for all necessary military objects. He was probably right, but
there is small wonder if a provisional government like the Regency found it
hard to introduce administrative reforms in the midst of a crisis, and with
the enemy almost at the gates of the capital. After all, the effort which
Portugal had made was splendid, and the whole nation had accepted the
awful necessity of the depopulation of its central provinces with a loyalty
that was surprising, if we consider the magnitude of the sacrifice.
There was, however, a small minority of traitors still left in Portugal,
and their intrigues seem to have given Wellington much concern, not
because there was any danger from their personal action, but because they
conveyed to Masséna the intelligence as to the condition of affairs in
Lisbon, and in Europe at large, which he could not obtain in any other way,
owing to the strict blockade kept up around his rear. On the last day of the
old year four officers, two colonels and two majors, had fled out of Lisbon
and joined the French[101]. They were all men who had quarrelled with
Beresford, and deserted in revenge: but that four field officers could turn
traitors at once was a most distressing sign. Wellington had fears of a
general plot against the English, and was inclined to suspect the Bishop of
Oporto and President Sousa of knowing more about it than befitted
members of the Regency. He was apparently mistaken, though their
petulance and intermittent protests against all his actions seemed to him to
justify any doubts. But minor persons in Lisbon, old friends of Alorna and
his Francophil policy, had contrived to open up communication with the
renegade General Pamplona, and to send him newspapers, reports of the
movement of troops, and other miscellaneous information, using as their
intermediaries smugglers, who passed the lines at night to sell coffee, sugar,
and other luxuries to the French[102]. For there was a ready market for such
things in the army of Masséna. Fortunately this illicit correspondence was
of little importance, since there was no solid party in Portugal in favour of
Napoleon, and the information conveyed by newspapers as to affairs in
Lisbon was not, at this time, at all encouraging to the French; while that as
to events in England or remote parts of Spain was too old in date to be of
any great profit to them.

Meanwhile Wellington regarded his position as secure for the moment.
The Army of Portugal, even after Drouet’s arrival, was too weak to attack
him. Soult’s movement from Andalusia at first caused him some uneasiness,
for he had conceived a notion that the expedition from Andalusia, leaving
Badajoz and Elvas on its left, and ignoring the Spanish Army of
Estremadura, might be intending to march by Merida and Truxillo to
Almaraz, and from thence to join Masséna by the circuitous route through
Coria and Castello Branco[103]. He was reassured as to this possibility when
the news came that Soult, unable to undertake anything bold so long as
Gazan had not joined him, had sat down to besiege Olivenza on January
11th. If the Marshal intended to take all the Estremaduran fortresses before
moving on, occupation could be found for him for many a week, and when
La Romana’s two divisions had been sent to join Mendizabal on January 22,
Wellington imagined that he might regard the situation on this side as
secure. It will be remembered that he gave Mendizabal elaborate advice as
to the course that he was to pursue, and he was justified in believing that if
that advice was followed Badajoz would never fall, and Soult for the
moment would become an almost negligible quantity.
There was always the chance, however, that Soult might turn against the
Alemtejo after all, and that Masséna might make a desperate effort to cross
the Tagus and join him. Hence Wellington spent much thought in devising
means to prevent this danger from coming into being. Beresford received
elaborate orders as to the conduct that he was to pursue, with his corps
south of the Tagus, in case Masséna attempted a passage, or Soult appeared
before Elvas. In the latter case the French would be fought by an army
composed of Mendizabal’s Estremadurans, Beresford’s corps, and the
brigade of Portuguese line troops in Elvas, a mass of over 30,000 men. This
force ought to suffice, but if the worst came, and a defeat were suffered, the
army south of the Tagus would try to defend first the passages of the Zatas
river (or the Benevente river as Wellington usually calls it), then those of
the Almansor, and lastly the line across the neck of the Setubal peninsula,
opposite Lisbon, where there was a short front of ten miles from Setubal
itself (which was fortified) past the castle of Palmella to Moita on the Tagus
estuary. But behind this again was the strongest defensive position of all, a
Lines of Torres Vedras on a small scale[104]. The works erected here were an
afterthought: they had formed no part of the original scheme for the
fortification of Lisbon, but when it had been proved to Wellington that

batteries on the Heights of Almada, beyond the broad Tagus mouth, might
incommode the shipping in the harbour, and possibly the town itself [the
range was 2,300 yards], he had ordered, early in December, that the
Portuguese labourers set free from work on the old lines by Masséna’s
departure should be transferred to the Almada front[105]. Here a line of 8,000
yards from sea to sea was marked out, and strengthened with no less than
seventeen closed redoubts, connected by a covered way. Eighty-six guns
were allotted to them, and their defence was to be given over to the marines
of the fleet, and the local militia and trained Ordenança (Atiradores
nacionaes) of Lisbon. It was calculated that Beresford would find a garrison
of 7,500 men already placed in these forts if he were ever forced back on to
them. It seemed impossible that such a short front, so strongly held, could
ever be broken through.
But all this was a precaution designed to face a very unlikely—if a
possible—situation of affairs. It was much more probable that Masséna
would try to pass the Tagus higher up, than that Soult would fight his way
to its mouth across the Alemtejo, and every precaution was taken to give
Masséna a hot reception if he should make the attempt. It was clear that his
starting-point for such an enterprise must be Punhete and the mouth of the
Zezere, for there were collected the ninety boats and the materials for the
floating bridges which had been created by the energy of General Eblé. At
Santarem, the other place where Masséna had boats, the stock of them was
known to be too small for a passage in force. Beresford, it will be
remembered, had already established batteries which commanded the
mouth of the Zezere, and had several times stopped small explorations by
the French boats. Only on one occasion did a few succeed in running past
down-stream. On the whole it was considered unlikely that Masséna would
attempt such a serious matter as the crossing of the Tagus opposite Punhete.
D’Urban, Beresford’s chief of the staff, reported ‘It is altogether improbable
that he will commit himself, unless in combination with the army arriving
from the south. The stream is very rapid. The boats cannot return to the
original point of embarkation for a second load of men, nor to the second
point for a third load, but must cross at each time to a point lower down,
owing to the current. This must and will occasion great disunion and
scattering among the parts of the division who first pass, all the more
because they will be vigorously opposed from the beginning. It appears to
me that no attempt of the kind can succeed. The Zezere-mouth alone is their

place d’armes, and leaves little else for us to watch: hence arises for them a
difficulty of accomplishing this enterprise that would appear almost
unsurmountable.’[106] It is most interesting to compare this judgement from
the English side with the discussion of the problem by the French generals,
which followed a few days later, and with which we shall presently have to
deal[107].
Meanwhile both parties were decidedly nervous as to the possible
movements of their adversaries. If Wellington sometimes thought that
Masséna might make an attempt to cross the Tagus, Masséna was very
reasonably suspicious that Wellington might make a surprise-attack upon
Junot’s corps along the upper Rio Mayor, and try to cut it off, before it
could be succoured by Ney from Thomar and Golegão. This suspicion led
to the only skirmish that marked the month of January. On the 19th the
Marshal ordered Junot to make a reconnaissance in force beyond the river,
along the Alcoentre road, to see whether a rumour that an English division
had been brought up behind Pack’s Portuguese outposts were true. The
Duke of Abrantes conducted the affair himself, at the head of 3,000 infantry
of Clausel’s division and 500 horse. He pressed in the cavalry screen in
front of Pack, consisting of a squadron of the 1st Hussars of the King’s
German Legion, and occupied the village of Rio Mayor, from which he
drove out two Portuguese companies. Discovering nothing in reserve save
Pack’s brigade, drawn up for resistance on the heights to the rear, and
noting no red-coated battalions, the French withdrew after a little
skirmishing, and returned to their lines. During this trifling affair Junot
received a painful but not dangerous wound from the carbine of a hussar
vedette. The ball struck him on the side of the nose, broke the bone there,
and lodged in his cheek; but it was extracted with no difficulty, and he was
able to resume command of his corps within a few days[108]. Nothing further
occurred on this front till February 10, when the English cavalry paid a
return visit to the French outlying picket east of the Rio Mayor, drove it in,
and retired with an officer and ten men prisoners.
On February 5th the third and final period of Masséna’s stay on the
Tagus may be said to have begun, with the arrival of the last orders from
Paris which he was destined to receive. He had been more than a month
without any official intelligence of what was going on behind him, the latest
dispatches to hand having been those brought by Drouet at the end of the

old year. But General Foy now appeared with the orders which the Emperor
had issued on December 22nd. He had cut his way from Ciudad Rodrigo
across the eastern mountains, and along the Estrada Nova, at the head of a
column of 1,800 men, mostly composed of drafts belonging to the 2nd
Corps, which he had found waiting on the Spanish frontier. The rains had
been continuous, the badness of the road was notorious, and Colonel Grant
with a small party of local Ordenança hung about the route of the column
for the last five days of its march, and slew or captured more than a hundred
stragglers. The total loss by fatigue and sickness was much greater[109].
The orders brought by Foy were not particularly comforting to Masséna.
He was bidden to hold on to his position till he had received succour from
the Army of the South, and also from the Army of the Centre. Mortier’s
corps, as he had already been assured, would at some not-distant date make
its appearance on the Tagus, in the direction of Montalvão and Villaflor. A
column from the Army of the Centre was to advance to Plasencia, and
communicate with the Marshal via Coria and Castello Branco. He was not
expected to take the offensive till he should have received these
reinforcements, but he must use Drouet’s troops to keep open
communications with Almeida, and ‘regularize’ the war. There was no order
for him to cross the Tagus into the Alemtejo in search of Mortier: it was
Mortier who was to come to him. Practically all this amounted to a
command to wait and endure—the initiative was to come from outside, with
the arrival of reinforcements from the south and east. ‘L’empereur appelait
son armée à une lutte de fatigue et de persévérance,’ as Foy commented.
But this ‘strife of toil and perseverance’ had already been going on since
November, the dispatch was forty-four days old when it reached Masséna,
and the co-operation by the Armies of the South and Centre, which it
promised, showed no signs of coming to pass. As a matter of fact, when Foy
arrived, Mortier’s divisions were absorbed in the siege of Badajoz, and
Soult, with Mendizabal upon his hands, could have moved neither a
detachment nor the whole 5th Corps to the Tagus. The promised assistance
from the Army of the Centre, a mere column of 3,000 men under
Lahoussaye, had advanced first to Truxillo and then to Plasencia, as was
promised, but had turned back for want of provisions long before reaching
the Portuguese frontier. Masséna pushed several reconnaissances towards
the upper Tagus, in the hope of getting information as to the appearance of

friendly troops on either side of the river, but could learn nothing. He says
that he judged from the tranquillity shown by the English south of the Tagus
that there could be no French force near enough to cause them disquietude.
Meanwhile the power of the Army of Portugal to live by plundering the
country-side was being reduced every day. The distance at which food had
to be sought was ever increasing, and the loss suffered by the parties which
were cut off while raiding was growing daily more serious. The number of
prisoners taken by the British cavalry on Junot’s flank and Drouet’s front
amounted to several hundreds in January and February[110]. Many more were
destroyed by the Ordenança, who were goaded to ferocious activity by the
ever-growing cruelty of the marauders, and dogged every expedition that
set out with an ever-increasing skill. They avoided the main bodies, but
trapped and shot small parties that strayed more than a few hundred yards
from the column, with patient persistence.
After waiting for a fortnight after the arrival of Foy and the imperial
dispatches, and learning nothing of any approach of the long-promised
troops of Mortier, Masséna assembled the corps leaders and certain other
generals at Golegão on February 19th, at a meeting which he carefully
refrained from calling a council of war. That he should do so was in itself a
sign of flagging confidence; he had shown himself very autocratic hitherto,
and had asked the advice of none of his lieutenants. Now he regarded the
situation as so desperate that he thought that he must either give up the
game and retreat from the Tagus, or risk an attack on the allied forces south
of that river, with the object of crossing into the Alemtejo and going off to
join Soult. His own mind was practically made up in favour of the former
alternative; but he knew that if he took it without consulting his lieutenants,
they would probably report him to the Emperor as having despaired before
all was lost. The council of war was really called for the purpose of arguing
them down, and committing them to the policy of retreat[111], so that they
should not be able to protest against it at a later date.
The three corps-commanders came to the meeting each with a scheme
of his own to develop. Ney proposed to pass the Tagus by force, with the
whole army, to abandon Portugal for the moment, and to join Soult. The
united armies should establish themselves on the Guadiana, complete the
conquest of Estremadura, and then, after calling in all possible
reinforcements, take in hand the invasion of the Alemtejo, and an attack on

Lisbon from the south. Junot hotly combated this scheme: to pass into the
Alemtejo meant the surrender of all Portugal to Wellington, who would
chase the 9th Corps out of the Beira; it would be ‘giving up the whole
game.’ He wished to establish a bridge-head on the other side of the Tagus,
but not to send the whole army across, merely to occupy it with a strong
detachment, and then to wait for Mortier’s promised appearance. Reynier’s
scheme was a variant of Junot’s, but infinitely more dangerous, for he was a
general of second-rate capacity. He would throw one corps across the
Tagus, to scour the Alemtejo for provisions, and to try to find Mortier. The
other two should hold on at Santarem, in the entrenched positions which
had already checked Wellington for three months. The English general, he
said, was timid, and would never dare to assault these formidable works,
even in the absence of one-third of the army.
Masséna had no difficulty in demolishing this last proposal. The
passage of the Tagus would be a dangerous and difficult operation in face of
an enemy who was upon the alert, who had fortified all the obvious
landing-places on the opposite bank, and who was known to have
established a perfect system of signals and communications. It might very
probably end in a bloody repulse. But granting that it succeeded, and that a
corps of 15,000 men got over into the Alemtejo, victory would have
consequences more disastrous than failure. For Wellington would fall upon
the two corps left north of the Tagus with his main force, perhaps 60,000
men; and when separated from the troops detached in the Alemtejo the
Army of Portugal would have only 30,000 in line. ‘N’est-il pas à craindre
que cette portion de l’armée, séparée de l’autre, ne soit attaquée, battue,
détruite, par un ennemi à qui, pour nous faire beaucoup de mal, il ne
manque que de le vouloir?’ This was absolutely irrefutable logic; nothing
could be more insane than Reynier’s proposal to separate the French army
into two parts by the broad stream of the Tagus. Wellington could have
destroyed with ease the two-thirds of it left north of the river, unless that
portion should be ready to evacuate all else that it held and shut itself up to
be besieged in Santarem—the only possible centre of resistance. But to be
shut up in Santarem meant starvation on a worse scale than had been
hitherto endured. For the army, losing its old broad foraging-ground, would
be compelled to live entirely upon what might be sent it from the northern
Alemtejo by the detached corps; and that region was known to be barren
and thinly peopled, and had probably already been stripped of its resources

by Wellington’s orders. (As a matter of fact such orders had been issued
some time back.) ‘Faut-il pour un intérêt si modique que celui de manger un
mois dans l’Alemtejo risquer une pareille opération?’ asked the Marshal.
And any dispassionate judge must decide that his question could only be
answered in the negative. Ney’s proposal, to take the whole army across the
Tagus into the Alemtejo, was not quite so easy to dispose of. But there
stood against its first necessary preliminary—the passage of the river—the
same objections that were registered against Reynier’s plan. The passage
might end in a repulse, and the position of the army would be very bad if,
having concentrated at Punhete (or at Santarem) for the crossing, it found
itself encircled by all Wellington’s forces, which would march in upon it the
moment that Ney’s and Junot’s corps were withdrawn from their present
cantonments. The Marshal disliked the idea of having to fight a battle, with
the Tagus at his back, and all his possible lines of retreat intercepted[112]. Or
again, the crossing might succeed, so far as the throwing of a vanguard
across to the Alemtejo bank went. But Wellington would close in upon the
army while it was actually passing, and might easily destroy its rearguard,
or even its larger half, by attacking when the rest was across the water, and
unable to return with sufficient promptness.
If the army were so lucky as to get off entire into the barren Alemtejo,
and to unite with the 5th Corps on the Guadiana, Wellington, as Junot had
pointed out, would have a free hand in northern and central Portugal, and
would sweep Claparéde out of it, while he need not be seriously alarmed at
any attack on Lisbon from the south of the Tagus, for the city was covered
by the Almada lines[113] and could not be harassed from this quarter.
Meanwhile the Army of Portugal would be cut off from all the supplies and
reinforcements which were accumulating for it on the frontier of Spain, at
Ciudad Rodrigo and Salamanca; ‘it would be going off to a distance from
its real line of operations and of communications.’
Masséna then came to the point: having argued down the schemes of
Reynier and Ney, he developed his own determination, which was to hold
on for the few days more that seemed possible. The marauding operations
that fed the army were rapidly growing less productive, and the moment
was approaching when the daily plunder would no longer meet the daily
consumption, and then, in case the long-expected Soult did not appear, the
army must retire on to the line of the Mondego[114]. There, in a country

comparatively undamaged, Masséna hoped to hold out some fifty or sixty
days at the least: the whole 9th Corps would be available for opening and
maintaining the communications with Almeida and Ciudad Rodrigo, and
reinforcements and stores would easily be brought forward[115]. But no
further offensive movements could be contemplated; the army was
exhausted and needed a long rest; in the end it would probably have to
retire within the borders of Spain—perhaps to Alcantara on the Tagus,
perhaps into Leon.
Ney and Reynier seem to have retired from the conference rather talked
down than convinced, and the latter sent in to his Commander-in-Chief a
sort of protest, taking the form of a précis of the meeting, in which the
arguments used and the result arrived at were so misrepresented that
Masséna caused a formal document to be drawn up and signed by five other
generals present at the council, in which it was declared that the précis was
wholly incorrect. Apparently Reynier had intended to get his protest to the
Emperor’s hands, in order to free himself from any responsibility in
approving a retreat which he thought that his master would condemn[116].
The few weeks for which the Army of Portugal retained its position
after the conference at Golegão, were spent by all its units as a mere period
of preparation for the retreat, for the generals had long made up their minds
that Soult would never appear on the Tagus. They seem even to have
thought that he might have retired from Estremadura, for the distant thunder
of the bombardment of Badajoz, which had been audible at Punhete during
the first half of February, seemed to have ceased. This must have been due
to some change of atmospheric conditions, for it was going on with
redoubled energy in the last days of the month. But Masséna and his
lieutenants argued that either the siege had been raised, or else Soult had
taken the place, and yet was not marching to the Tagus. They seem to have
regarded his doings as a negligible quantity, when coming to their final
resolve.
During the last days of February all the corps received preliminary
orders, which could have no other meaning than that a retreat had been
decided upon. The divisions were ordered to send their parks and heavy
baggage to the rear, and the divisional batteries were told to complete as
many gun-teams with good serviceable horses as was possible, by
destroying caissons, and drafting their animals on to the guns. In some

cases batteries had to be reduced to three or four pieces, even when half the
caissons had been burnt. The 8th Corps destroyed fifty-one caissons on the
24th-27th February, yet still could find only four horses each for those
remaining, including animals that were sick or barely fit for service[117]. But
the transport of food was even more important than that of artillery
material; in the central magazines there was gathered together some fifteen
days’ of biscuit for the whole army, the flour for which had been procured
with the greatest difficulty in small quantities, and had been hoarded to the
last. This was issued to the regiments, with stringent orders not to use it till
the actual retreat began. Some units were so pressed by starvation that they
began to consume it, and ultimately started with only eight or ten days
consumption in their packs or on their waggons. The whole of the transport
was in a deplorable state; if the cavalry and artillery had lost 5,088 horses
since November, the train had been depleted of draught-beasts in a still
greater proportion, since they were both weaker to start with, and less
carefully kept. Some regiments had no longer any horses attached to them,
and could only show a few pack-mules and asses, quite insufficient for
carrying their reserve ammunition and food[118]. Two things were certain—
the one that if the army could not pick up provisions on the way by
marauding, it would ultimately have to retire to its base within the frontiers
of Spain. And no food could be collected for some days, since the first five
stages of the retreat would be through a region already stripped bare. The
second was that the ammunition might suffice for one general engagement,
supposing that there was heavy fighting during the retreat, but that it would
hardly be able to serve for two.
On March 3rd Masséna issued the orders which marked his
determination to retreat at once. Ney was directed to march on the next day
from Thomar, with Marchand’s division and some cavalry, and join Drouet
at Leiria in the rear—they were ultimately to be the covering force of the
retiring army. On the 5th Reynier was directed to send back his first
division (Merle) from Santarem towards the rear, while the second division
(Heudelet) continued to hold the old lines. On this same day Ney’s second
division (Mermet) evacuated Torres Novas, and marched northward to
Ourem near Leiria, while one of Junot’s divisions (Solignac) massed itself
at Pernes, to await the arrival of the other (Clausel), which was to hold the
outposts till the last moment. This was the critical day of the concentration,
for of the eight divisions forming the Army of Portugal five had started off,

leaving three (Heudelet at Santarem, Clausel on the Rio Mayor, Loison at
Punhete) to hold the old positions. If Wellington had attacked in force on
the 5th, it seems certain that he must have destroyed these covering forces,
which in their scattered position could not possibly have held their ground.
But the British general, as we shall see, was engaged in a scheme of his
own, and did not at first detect the full meaning of the French movements.
For Wellington at this moment was busy in developing an encircling
attack on the whole of the French positions, and it was not yet ready[119]. On
February 23rd he had made up his mind to strike the moment that a large
body of reinforcements, already overdue from England and the
Mediterranean, should have arrived. The plan was that the main army, while
holding Reynier in check at Santarem with one or two divisions, should
attack Junot on the Rio Mayor with the bulk of its force. At the same time
Beresford, drawing his corps to the north of the Tagus by the boat-bridge at
Abrantes, was to fall upon Loison at Punhete, and (as it was hoped) thus
distract Ney, whose duty would be divided between the succouring of Junot
and that of the division on the Zezere. But, even if he turned most of the
reserves in the direction of the Rio Mayor, the long distance would prevent
them from arriving in time. Junot would almost certainly be overwhelmed
by superior numbers, while Reynier was being ‘contained,’ and while Ney’s
columns were still far off.
Preparations and reconnaissances in view of this great attack began to
be made, but the reinforcements were slow to arrive. Six thousand men
were due, mainly the troops which afterwards formed the 7th Division and
the second British brigade of the 6th. But on March 1 only the Chasseurs
Britanniques from Cadiz, and half of the 51st had yet landed[120]. Of the
other expected regiments the bulk turned up in Lisbon harbour on the 4th-
6th March, viz. the 2nd, 85th, 1/36th, 2/52nd, but the light infantry brigade
of the King’s German Legion did not come in till the 21st of the same
month. It was undoubtedly the accidental delay of a few days in the arrival
of these seven battalions that caused Wellington to hold back; if Masséna
had postponed his move for a week more, all would have been in line save
the two belated German battalions, and the attack would have been
delivered about the 10th-12th of March.
Set on the carrying out of his own plan, which could not begin to work
for a few days more, Wellington was evidently not fully prepared for the

suddenness of Masséna’s retreat. On the 4th of March, the day when Ney’s
corps began to file to the rear, he wrote to Beresford, ‘I think it likely that
the enemy is about some move, but have been so frequently disappointed
that it is impossible to be certain. There is no alteration whatever in their
front.’ This was true, for Junot and Reynier had not moved on a man upon
the 4th. On the next—the critical—day he himself made a survey of
Reynier’s lines in front of Santarem, found them still manned by Heudelet’s
division, but thought that he could detect that the artillery in the French
works was less numerous than on the previous day. There were no
howitzers in the great work across the high road, but only what appeared to
be pieces of small calibre. He could not perceive guns any longer upon the
main heights in front of Santarem; bushes seemed to have been laid to cover
the stations which they had occupied. But the outposts were the same, and
he did not observe any other change on the heights, excepting that all the
troops visible upon them were fully accoutred. He concluded that no
general movement of Reynier’s corps had taken place. ‘It is probable that
baggage and heavy artillery may have been sent off, but the effective part of
the army still remains in position.’ There was no obvious alteration visible
along Junot’s front, where Clausel was that day holding all the outposts,
Solignac having marched back to Pernes.
If Wellington had attacked at once that day, with the troops that were up
in his front line, the Light Division and the 1st Division, in front of
Santarem, while demonstrating with Pack’s Portuguese and the cavalry
brigades along the Rio Mayor to detain Clausel, it is probable that he might
have made great havoc of Heudelet’s division, which was holding a front
too long for its strength, and had no supports, since the rest of the 2nd
Corps was a march to the rear by now. But he was still thinking of his own
plan; the fleet, with the bulk of the expected battalions, was reported at the
mouth of the Tagus, and one regiment had actually landed. Wherefore he
wrote to Beresford, ‘the reinforcements have arrived, and we shall be able
in a few days to attack the enemy, if he retains this position, or possibly to
attack him in any other which he may take up.’ Meanwhile the rear
divisions of the army were ordered to close in; on the evening of March 5th
Cole (4th Division) was brought up to Cartaxo, while Campbell (6th
Division) moved out from the old lines to Azambuja, which Cole had left.
The 3rd Division was ordered up from Alcoentre to join Pack’s Portuguese
on the Rio Mayor. Beresford was directed to bring the 2nd Division across

the Tagus at Abrantes, and to attack the French on the Zezere (Loison’s
division) the moment that he saw any signs of their being about to move
off[121].
But all this was too late: the only chance of destroying Masséna’s
rearguard would have been to have attacked on the morning of the 5th with
the troops that were already on the spot. And this Wellington would not do,
because he thought that Reynier and Junot were still in position ‘with the
effective part of the army.’ On the following morning it was too late:
Heudelet had evacuated Santarem, and Clausel the line of the Rio Mayor,
after dusk; and each having made a long night-march, the one was at Ponte
de Almonda near Golegão, the other near Torres Novas, before noon on the
6th. Heudelet had blown up the bridge of Alviella, Clausel that of Pernes, to
detain the pursuers. The enemy had gained a full march upon the British in
this direction. On the other flank Beresford brought the 2nd Division over
the Tagus on the 6th, but finding that Loison had made no movement had
not attacked him, his orders being to fall on only when he saw the enemy
break up from his positions.
On the early morning of the same day Wellington had found that
Santarem was empty and occupied it. The Light Division and Pack were
sent in pursuit of Junot, and reached Pernes: the 1st Division followed
Reynier, and had the head of its column at the broken bridge of the Alviella
by the afternoon. The 4th and 6th Divisions, coming up from the rear,
entered Santarem, while the 3rd Division reached the line of the Rio Mayor
and followed the Light Division. The 5th Division and Campbell’s
Portuguese were still far to the rear. On this day Wellington made up his
mind, from the signs before him, that Masséna was in full march for
Coimbra and the north, and did not intend to fight a battle[122]. The only
puzzling sign was that Loison’s division still remained stationary on the
Zezere. Was it even now possible that the other corps were going to join
him for an attack on Abrantes, an attempt to cross the Tagus near it, or a
retreat into Spain via the Castello Branco road? This was not likely: for if
such had been Masséna’s plan, Ney would have arrived to join Loison
already, and they would have commenced their movement beyond the
Zezere. Wellington, however, did not feel quite certain as to what was the
French scheme till Loison burnt his boats and bridges on the night of the
6th-7th, and moved off towards Thomar, in the same direction as the rest of

the French army. It is clear that if Beresford had been ordered to fall upon
Loison in force upon the afternoon of the 6th, he might have done him
much harm, for there lay upon the Zezere only a single French infantry
division and a cavalry brigade, while Beresford had at Abrantes, beside the
garrison, an English and a Portuguese division of infantry, and as much
cavalry at least as Loison possessed.
On the 7th Ney and Drouet were halted at Leiria to cover the arrival of
the rest of the army. Reynier marched from Golegão to Thomar; Junot from
Torres Novas to Chão de Maçans; Loison was at dawn close to Thomar,
after a night march, leaving his boats and bridges blazing behind him as a
beacon for Beresford’s benefit. It was clear that the French were all making
for the Coimbra roads, and had no designs west of the Zezere. The English
cavalry, following on the heels of both Reynier’s and Junot’s columns,
informed Wellington that the enemy was apparently about to use both roads
towards the Mondego, that by Leiria and Pombal, and that by Chão de
Maçans and Ancião. The British general expressed some surprise at this,
remarking in a letter to Beresford that the latter road was so bad that he
marvelled that everything had not gone by the infinitely superior Leiria
chaussée, the main road to the north[123]. Meanwhile, of his own troops
Beresford had crossed the Zezere, but did not reach Thomar; Nightingale’s
brigade of the 1st Division moved on from the bridge of the Alviella to
Atalaya beyond Golegão, the Light Division from Pernes advanced to Arga
and La Marosa on the Torres Novas-Thomar road. The 4th and 6th
Divisions reached Golegão in the afternoon. But hearing of Ney’s and
Drouet’s concentration at Leiria, and doubtful whether he would not find
that the rest of the enemy was about to take shelter behind them, Wellington
resolved not to push any more troops in the Thomar direction, but to keep a
large mass upon the Santarem-Leiria-Coimbra road. The bulk of the 1st
Division (all save Nightingale’s brigade) and the 3rd Division were halted
at Alcanhede and Pernes, and thither too the 5th Division and the
Portuguese brigades from the rear were directed. It must be confessed that
this was not a very rapid or vigorous pursuit: Wellington was waiting on the
enemy’s movements, rather than forcing them to take such directions as
best suited himself. But it must be remembered that he had been compelled
to advance ere yet his own preparations were made, four or five days before
he had intended to make his great concentric attack, and two factors were
against him. The first was the eternal food-problem; the divisions had

marched unexpectedly, with such supplies as they had in hand; they were
unable to get anything from the country, which the French had stripped bare
during the last three months. The rations for them were being brought up
from the rear, but if they outmarched them they must starve: hence there
were reasons against hurry. The second cause of delay was that Wellington
wished to have his whole army in hand, if the enemy should turn and show
fight, and the divisions which had started from the Torres Vedras Lines on
the first notice of Masséna’s departure on the 5th were still far to the rear,
viz. the 5th and the Portuguese battalions which had once been Le Cor’s
and was now under Campbell. The new 7th Division, which had just
landed, had not yet commenced its march from Lisbon.
The aspect of the region through which the army was marching was
piteous in the extreme. Santarem town was a wreck, ‘the houses torn and
dilapidated, the streets strewn with household furniture half-burnt and
destroyed, many streets quite impassable with filth and rubbish, with an
occasional man, horse, or donkey rotting, and corrupting the air with
pestilential vapours: a few miserable inhabitants like living skeletons[124].’
The country-side was worse—cottages burnt and unroofed, and corpses of
murdered peasants, some fresh, some mere heaps of bones, lying in every
ravine. The survivors were just emerging from woods or caverns to cut up
the French sick and stragglers. A single quotation may suffice to give some
idea of the wayside sights of this distressing march. It comes from a 3rd
Division chronicler, who is describing the village of Porto de Mos, south of
Leiria: ‘When we entered the place, there was a large convent fronting us,
which, as well as many of the houses, had been set on fire by the French. I
never before witnessed such destruction: floors torn up, beds cut in pieces,
their contents thrown about intermixed with kitchen utensils, broken
mirrors, china, &c. There was a large fire in the chapel, on which had been
heaped broken pieces of the altar, wooden images, picture frames, and the
ornamental woodwork of the organ. Searching for a clean place to put down
bags of biscuit, we found a door leading to a chamber apart from the chapel.
It was quite dark, so I took up a burning piece of wood to inspect it. It was
full of half-consumed human bodies, some lying, others kneeling or leaning
against the walls. The floor was covered with ashes, in many places still
red-hot. Such an appalling sight I have never witnessed. Of those who had
sunk on the floor nothing remained but bones: those who were in a kneeling
or standing posture were only partially consumed. The expression of their

scorched faces was horrible beyond description. In a bag lying at the upper
end of the apartment was the dead body of a young child, who had been
strangled: the cord used was still tight about its little neck[125].’
It was on the morning that followed his arrival at Torres Novas (March
8th) that Wellington, encouraged by the reports of his cavalry scouts, to the
effect that the French were marching day and night, and showed no wish to
fight, issued the orders already alluded to in a previous chapter, which bade
Beresford turn back the 2nd Division, and march with it and the 4th to the
relief of Badajoz[126]. The report of Menacho’s death and of the rapid
advance of the French siege-works had just reached him. Beresford was to
take with him Hamilton’s Portuguese division, which had not yet passed the
Tagus, and De Grey’s cavalry brigade. The boat-bridge at Abrantes was
floated down to Tancos near Punhete, in order to save the 2nd and 4th
Divisions some miles of march in their journey to the Alemtejo. These
troops turned back, and were nearing Tancos on the following day, when
they received orders to halt. The French, so the advanced cavalry reported,
after marching hitherto day and night, had come to a stand at Pombal, north
of Leiria, where Ney, Junot, and Drouet were now all massed. Though
Reynier was said to have taken another road, that by Espinhal, Wellington
was not sure that Masséna did not intend to fight, and if so, he wished to
have the 4th Division with him, and De Grey’s heavy dragoons. ‘In this
case it is desirable,’ he writes, ‘that I should be a little stronger, and as
Badajoz is not yet pressed ... I have sent to Cole to desire that his division
and the dragoons march to-morrow for Cacharia. I shall then be as strong as
the enemy, or very nearly.’ The 2nd Division was to halt and wait further
orders. It was not till the 12th that it was let loose, and told to resume its
march to the Alemtejo: Cole and De Grey were not sent back from the main
army till the 16th. Meanwhile Badajoz, as we have already seen, fell by
Imaz’s pusillanimity on March 10—a date too early for Beresford to have
saved it, even if he had continued the march originally prescribed to him on
the 8th of that month.
Before Wellington sent on their southward journey the three divisions
which were to form the future Army of Estremadura, stirring events had
begun to occur on the Leiria-Coimbra road, and the general course of
Masséna’s retreat had already been settled.

SECTION XXIII: CHAPTER IV
EVENTS IN THE SOUTH OF SPAIN. THE
BATTLE OF BARROSA.
JANUARY-MARCH 1811

In the second chapter of this volume we dealt with Soult’s expedition to
Estremadura and its results, but had to defer for later consideration the
events which brought him back in haste to Andalusia the moment that
Badajoz had fallen (March 12th). These must now be explained.
When his 20,000 men, collected from all the three corps which formed
the Army of the South, set out on the last day of the old year 1810, Soult
left behind him three problems, each of which (as he was well aware) might
assume a dangerous aspect at any moment. We have already indicated their
character[127]. Would Victor, with 19,000 men left to him for the blockade of
Cadiz, be able to hold with security the immense semicircle of lines and
batteries which threatened the island stronghold of the Cortes? Would the
provisional garrison which had been patched up for Seville prove strong
enough to defend that capital and its arsenals against any possible attack of
roving Spanish detachments, from the mountains of the west and south?
Would Sebastiani and the 4th Corps be able to beat back any attempt by the
Army of Murcia to trespass upon the limits of the broad and rugged
province of Granada? We may add that it was conceivable that all these
three problems might demand a simultaneous solution. For if all the
Spanish forces had been guided by a single capable brain, nothing would
have been more obvious to conceive than a plan for setting them all to work
at once. If a sortie from Cadiz were taken in hand, it would have the best
chance of success supposing that Sebastiani were to be distracted by an
invasion of Granada, and Seville threatened by any force that could be
collected in the Condado de Niebla, or the mountains above Ronda.

Soult, as Napoleon pointed out to him two months later[128], had
committed a considerable fault by not putting all the divisions left behind in
Andalusia under a single commander, responsible for all parts of the
kingdom alike. Victor was given no authority over Sebastiani, nor even over
Daricau, who had been left as governor of Seville, or Godinot, whose
depleted division occupied the province of Cordova. Napoleon, always
suspicious of Soult, accused him of having neglected this precaution
because he was jealous of Victor, and would not make him as great as
himself[129]. Whether this was so or not, it is at any rate clear that the
position was made much more dangerous by the fact that each of the three
problems named above would be presented to a different commander, who
would be prone to think of his own troubles alone, and to neglect those of
his colleagues. If all three dangers became threatening at the same moment,
each general would regard his own as the most important, and bestow
comparatively little care on those which menaced the others. As a matter of
fact, Victor was almost destroyed, because Sebastiani did not come to his
help, when the sally from Cadiz took place early in March; and Seville was
in serious danger a few days later, because there was no one who could
order Godinot to march to its aid from Cordova without delay.
Soult was fully aware of all the possible perils of his absence.
Apparently he thought Sebastiani was in the greater danger, for he
requisitioned only a few cavalry and artillery from the 4th Corps, and left it
practically intact to defend the province of Granada against the Army of
Murcia. As to Seville, he considered that it could only be endangered by
Ballasteros, and for that reason did his best to destroy that general’s
division, by causing Gazan to hunt it as far as the borders of Portugal—a
diversion which nearly wrecked the Estremaduran expedition for lack of
infantry[130]. When Gazan had driven Ballasteros over the Guadiana, after
the action of Castillejos (January 25), the Marshal thought that the Spaniard
was out of the game, and no longer in a position to do harm—in which he
erred, for this irrepressible enemy was back in Andalusia within a few
weeks, and was actually threatening Seville early in March.
But the greatest danger was really on the side of Cadiz, where Victor,
deprived of nearly all his cavalry and one regiment of infantry for the
Estremaduran expedition, had also to furnish outlying detachments—a
garrison for Xeres and the column with which General Remond was

operating in the Condado de Niebla, far to the west[131]. He had only 19,000
men left for the defence of the Lines, of which a considerable proportion
consisted of artillery, sappers, and marine troops, needed for the siege but
useless for a fight in the open, if the enemy should make a sally by sea
against his rear. The Duke of Belluno was anxious, and rightly so: for the
nearest possible succours were Sebastiani’s troops in Granada and Malaga,
many marches away, while the garrison of Cadiz was very strong, and
indeed outnumbered his own force. At the beginning of February it
comprised, including the urban militia, nearly 20,000 Spanish troops;
Copons had just been withdrawn from the west to join it. There was also an
Anglo-Portuguese division. General Graham had been left a considerable
force, even after Wellington withdrew certain regiments to join in the
defence of the Lines of Torres Vedras. He had two composite battalions of
the Guards, the 2/47th, 2/67th, 2/87th, a half battalion of the 2/95th, the two
battalions of the 20th Portuguese, and a provisional battalion of German
recruits[132], as also two squadrons of the 2nd Hussars of the King’s German
Legion, and two field batteries. The whole amounted to between 5,000 and
6,000 men. It is curious to note that Napoleon, in the dispatch by which he
spurred Soult on to his Estremaduran expedition, assured him ‘that there
had never been more than three English regiments at Cadiz, and that they
had all gone to Lisbon,’ so that the Isle of Leon and city were only defended
by ‘ten thousand unhappy Spaniards without resolution or power to
resist[133].’ When the Emperor’s directions were based upon information so
utterly incorrect as this, it was hard for his generals to satisfy him!
Within a few days of the withdrawal of the detachment taken by Soult
from Victor, the news came to Cadiz that the 1st Corps had been weakened:
and when the destination of the expedition was known, it seemed probable
that no reserves had been left at Seville on which the besieging force could
count. The idea of an attack on Victor was at once broached by the
Regency, and accepted by General Graham; after some discussion, it was
considered best not to assail the lines by a disembarkation from the Isle of
Leon, but to land as large a force as could be spared in the rear of the
enemy, at Tarifa, Algesiras, or some other point of Southern Andalusia
which was in the hands of the Allies. Such a movement, if properly
conducted, would compel Victor to draw backward, in order to hold off the
Allies from the Lines. He would have to fight at some distance inland,
leaving a minimum garrison to protect his forts and batteries, and it was

proposed that the fleet and the troops left in Cadiz should fall upon them
during his enforced absence.
The execution of this plan was deferred for some weeks, partly because
of the difficulty of providing transport by sea for a large expeditionary
force, partly because Gazan was unexpectedly drawn back into Andalusia
by Ballasteros’s division, and was at the end of January in a position from
which he might easily have reinforced Victor. When he had gone off to
Estremadura, in the wake of Soult, the problem became simpler. After
drawing back Copons’s division from the Condado de Niebla to Cadiz (as
has already been mentioned), the Regency found themselves able to provide
8,000 men for embarkation, while leaving 7,000 regulars and the urban
militia to hold Cadiz. Graham was ready to join in, with all his troops save
the battalion companies of the 2/47th and the 20th Portuguese, and the
doubtfully effective German battalion, which were to remain behind, for he
did not wish to withdraw the whole British force from Cadiz at once. But he
procured the aid of an almost equivalent number of bayonets from an
external source: he wrote to General Campbell, commanding at Gibraltar,
begging him to spare reinforcements from the garrison of that fortress and
of the minor stronghold of Tarifa, at the extreme southern point of Europe,
which was then maintained as a sort of dependency of Gibraltar. Campbell
eagerly consented to take part in the plan and promised to lend 1,000
infantry. This assistance would bring up the British contingent to 5,000
men. The Spaniards were also to collect some small reinforcements: there
was an irregular force under General Beguines operating in the Ronda
mountains, and basing itself on Gibraltar. It was ordered to join the
expedition when it should come to land, and (as we shall see) actually did
so, with a force of three battalions or 1,600 men. The total of the troops
whom it was proposed to collect amounted, therefore, to 9,600 Spaniards
and 5,000 British, a force almost equal in numbers to Victor’s depleted
corps. But it was clear that the Marshal would have to leave some sort of a
garrison in the Lines before Cadiz, and that the Allies would have a
numerical superiority, if they could force on a fight at a distance from the
sea and the French base.
One cardinal mistake was made in planning the expedition. Its
command was to be entrusted to General Manuel La Peña, then the senior
officer in Cadiz, a man with a talent for plausible talking and diplomacy,

but one who had already shown himself a selfish colleague and a disloyal
subordinate. This was the same man who in 1808, nearly three years back,
had sacrificed his chief Castaños at the disastrous battle of Tudela[134], by
refusing to march to the sound of the guns, and securing a safe retreat for
himself and his 10,000 men, while the main army was being crushed, only
four miles away, by Marshal Lannes. Though not personally a coward, he
was a shirker of responsibilities, and incapable of a swift and heroic
decision. He was ambitious enough to aspire to and intrigue for a post of
importance, but collapsed when it became necessary to discharge its duties.
He treated Graham in 1811 precisely as he had treated Castaños in 1808,
and it was not his fault that the sally from Cadiz failed to end in a
disaster[135]. The English lieutenant-general had discretionary authority from
his Government to refuse to act in any joint expedition of which he was not
given the command. But anxious to bring matters to a head, and deceived
by La Peña’s mild plausibility, he consented to take the second place, on the
ground that the Spaniard contributed the larger body of troops to the
enterprise.
If Graham himself had headed the united force, it is certain that the
siege of Cadiz would have been raised for the moment, though what would
have followed that success no man can say, for it would have brought about
such a convulsion in Andalusia, and such a concentration of the French
troops, that the whole of the conditions of the war in the south would have
been altered. Graham had all the qualities which La Peña lacked—
indomitable resolution, swift decision, a good eye for topography, the
power of inspiring enthusiastic confidence in his troops. He was no mere
professional soldier, but a crusader with a mission; indeed his personal
history is one of extraordinary interest. When the French Revolution broke
out he was a civilian of mature years, a Whig Member of Parliament, aged
forty-four, mainly known as a great sportsman[136] and a bold cross-country
rider. Yet certainly if the war of 1793 had not come to pass, he would only
be remembered now as the husband of that beautiful Mrs. Graham whose
portrait is one of Gainsborough’s best-known masterpieces.

Lieutenant-General Thomas Graham

Driven to the Riviera in 1792 by the failing health of his wife, who died
at Hyères, Graham was an eye-witness of the outbreak of violence and blind
rage in France which followed Brunswick’s invasion. He himself was
arrested—his wife’s coffin was torn open by a mob which insisted that he
was smuggling ‘arms for aristocrats’ therein. He narrowly escaped with his
life, and returned to England convinced that the French had become a
nation of wild beasts, hostes humani generis. ‘I had once deprecated,’ he
wrote at the time, ‘the hostile interference of Britain in the internal affairs of
France, but what I have seen in my journey through that country makes me
consider that war with her has become just and necessary in self-defence of
our constitution[137].’ Widowed and childless, he thought it his duty to go to
the front at once, despite of his forty-four years and his lack of military
training. He devoted all his available funds to the raising, in his own county,
of the 90th Foot, the ‘Perthshire volunteers,’ of which he became the
honorary colonel. He could not take command of the corps, because he had
no substantive military rank, but he could not keep at home. He went out to
the Mediterranean as a sort of volunteer aide-de-camp to Lord Mulgrave,
and afterwards, being found useful owing to his gift of languages—he knew
not only Italian but German, a rare accomplishment in those days—he was
entrusted with a special mission to the Austrian army of Italy. He served
through all the disasters of Beaulieu and Würmser, starved in Mantua, and
froze in the Tyrolese Alps.
From that time onward we find him wherever there was fighting against
the French to be done—in Sicily, Minorca, Malta, Egypt, Portugal. So great
were his services that, contrary to all War Office rules, his honorary
colonelship was changed to a regular commission on the staff, and in 1808-
9 he served first as the British attaché with Castaños’s army, and later as
one of Sir John Moore’s aides-de-camp. In reward for brilliant service in the
Corunna campaign he was given in 1810 the command of the British force
at Cadiz. And so it came about that this Whig Member of Parliament, who
had commenced soldiering at forty-four (like Oliver Cromwell and Julius
Caesar), was at sixty-two leading a British division in the field. He had an
iron frame[138], and his spirit was as firm as his body—the crusade had to be
fought out to the end, though the enemy was now the Corsican Tyrant, not
the Atheist Republic against which he had first drawn his sword. It was in
keeping with all his previous career that he consented to take the second
place in the Tarifa expedition; to get the army started was essential—his

personal position counted for nothing with him. Before a month was out he
had good reason to regret that he had been so self-denying.
After many tiresome delays[139] the English contingent sailed from Cadiz
on February 21st, but met with such fierce west winds, when it neared Cape
Trafalgar, that the convoy could not make the difficult harbour of Tarifa,
and was blown past it into Gibraltar Bay, where Graham landed on the 23rd
at Algesiras. Here he found waiting for him a ‘flank battalion’ of 536
bayonets, which General Campbell had made up for him out of the six flank
companies of the 1/9th, 1/28th, and 2/82nd. From Algesiras the troops
marched on the 24th to Tarifa, where they picked up another reinforcement
provided by Campbell, the eight battalion companies of the 1/28th, which
had been doing garrison duty in that little fortress—460 men in all. Having
now just 5,196 men, Graham divided the infantry into two brigades. The
first under General Dilkes numbered 1,900 bayonets: it was composed of
the two composite battalions of the Guards, together with the flank battalion
from Gibraltar and two companies of the 95th Rifles. The second brigade,
under Colonel Wheatley, had 2,633 bayonets, and consisted of the 1/28th,
2/67th, 2/87th, and another ‘flank battalion’ under Colonel Barnard,
composed of the two light companies of the 20th Portuguese (the only
troops of that nation which served in the expedition), those of the 2/47th,
with four more companies of the 95th Rifles. There were only 206 cavalry
—two squadrons of the 2nd Hussars of the King’s German Legion—and ten
guns under Major Duncan.
The Spanish contingent had sailed three days after Graham, had met
with the same rough weather, and had been much beaten about. But the
troops began to arrive at Tarifa on the 26th, and were all ashore on the 27th.
La Peña assumed command, was all politeness, and made over to Graham
two unbrigaded battalions of his own, to bring up the force of the two small
British brigades to a higher figure[140]. The rest of his troops were organized
in two divisions under Lardizabal and the Prince of Anglona, the first five,
the second six battalions strong[141]; he had brought fourteen guns, and four
squadrons of horse under an English colonel in the Spanish service, Samuel
Whittingham, an officer who did not add to his laurels during this
expedition.
On arriving at the bridge of Facinas and the village of Bolonia, ten
miles outside Tarifa, La Peña had to make up his mind whether he would

march against the rear of the French lines before Cadiz by the track nearer
to the coast, which passes through Vejer de la Frontera, Conil, and Chiclana,
or by the inland road through the mountains, which runs past Casas Viejas
to Medina Sidonia. The two roads at their bifurcation are separated by the
long lagoon of La Janda, a very shallow sheet of water, seven miles long,
which nearly dries up in summer, but was at this moment full to
overflowing from spring rains[142]. To take the inland route across the
mountains was by far the better course. The road was not good, but if the
Allies could reach Medina Sidonia with their army intact, Victor would be
forced to come out and attack them, at a great distance from his Lines. For
it would be practically impossible for the Marshal to allow La Peña and
Graham to establish themselves at Medina, in the rear of his head quarters,
and backed by the Sierra de Jerez, from whose skirts they could send out as
many detachments as they pleased, to cut the communication between
Seville and the Lines. There was little danger of being taken in the rear by
troops sent by the distant Sebastiani, whose nearest forces were at Marbella,
eighty miles away, and whose attention was at this moment fully taken up
by the local guerrilleros, who had been turned loose on him. Indeed,
Sebastiani for some time thought that the expedition was directed against
himself, and was preparing to concentrate and take the defensive. The only
drawbacks to the Medina Sidonia route were there would be no chance of
communicating along it with the garrison of Cadiz, and that the question of
provisions might grow serious if the campaign were protracted, for the
region was barren and the army ill provided with transport. But a few days
would settle the affair—Victor would be compelled to come out at once and
fight, with every man that he could bring, and while he was engaged at
Medina, there would be nothing to prevent the 7,000 Spaniards in Cadiz
from crossing the harbour and destroying the ill-garrisoned Lines. This in
itself, even if the Allies failed to hold back the Marshal, would have an
immense effect all over Andalusia[143].
La Peña originally intended to take the right-hand road, and ordered
Beguines, who was now in the high hills to the east, about Ximena, to join
him with his roving brigade at Casas Viejas. The column left Facinas late in
the evening, for La Peña had a great and misplaced belief in night marches,
by which he always hoped to gain time on the enemy, since his moves could
not be discovered or reported till the next morning. He overlooked the
corresponding disadvantage of the extreme slowness of progress over bad

roads in rugged country, the very real danger that the troops (or some of
them) might miss their way in the dark, and the inevitable fatigue to the
men from losing their proper hours of sleep. Graham’s laconic diary shows
how this worked out. ‘Marched in the evening, very tedious from filing
across water (the stream which fills the head of the lagoon of La Janda) and
other difficulties. Misled by the guides on quitting the Cortigo de la Janda
(farm at the head of the lagoon): the counter-march made a most fatiguing
night.... It was twelve noon before the troops halted, having been nineteen
hours under arms.’
The troops of Lardizabal, at the head of the column, had reached Casas
Viejas in the morning, but the English division in the rear of the army had
got no further than the northern end of the lagoon, some thirteen miles from
their starting-place at Puente de Facinas. There was a violent east wind, the
night had been very cold, and the men were much fatigued.
Lardizabal on reaching Casas Viejas had found the convent, which was
the only solid building there, occupied by a French post, two companies
sent out by General Cassagne from Medina Sidonia to watch the high-road.
Thinking at first that he was only about to be worried by guerrilleros, the
French captain shut himself up behind his barricades, instead of retreating
at once. When he found out his mistake, and saw that a whole army was
about him, it was too late to get off without loss. La Peña ordered that the
convent should be left alone, as he did not wish to waste time in battering
and storming it. The whole of his troops had come up, including the roving
force of 1,600 men from the hills under Beguines, when the French
unwisely made a bolt eastward, in the hope of escaping. The little column
was pursued and cut up by a squadron of Busche’s German Hussars, many
being killed and captured. From the prisoners and Beguines’s scouts La
Peña learnt that Medina Sidonia was (contrary to his expectation) held by a
serious force of French—Cassagne’s detachment being now composed of
five battalions of infantry, a battery, and a cavalry regiment, about 3,000
men. The walls had been repaired, it was said, and the place was in a state
of defence.
The Spanish general should have rejoiced to learn that Victor had sent
an appreciable part of his army so far afield—fifteen miles from Chiclana—
and by advancing he could have forced the Marshal to come to this distance
from his lines in order to support Cassagne. A battle would no doubt have

followed—but it was for a battle that the army had sailed to Tarifa. And by
drawing Victor’s whole fighting force so far away from Cadiz, La Peña
would have given a unique opportunity to the garrison to come out and
destroy the siege-works. Meanwhile, if the French lost the battle they would
be annihilated, being off their line of retreat; if they won it, they would
return to find the greater part of the siege-works destroyed.
But this was not the line of thought that guided La Peña; he was, as his
previous record showed, a shirker of responsibilities, and the prospect of a
battle on the morrow, or the day after, seems to have paralysed him. To
every one’s surprise he gave orders that the army, waiting till dusk had
come on, should leave the Medina road, and march across country by a bad
bridle-path to Vejer, on the other route from Tarifa to Cadiz. Graham
protested against a second night march, after the experience of the first, and
rightly, for news came in ere night that the road along the north side of the
Barbate river, which La Peña had intended to use, was absolutely under
water from inundations. La Peña therefore consented to wait till the next
morning (March 3rd) and to use another country road, that between the
north end of the La Janda lagoon and the river into which it falls. The army
marched at 8 o’clock—Lardizabal as before in front, the English division in
the rear. But on reaching the intended crossing-place, it was found that this
road, like that north of the river, was flooded, the lagoon having overflowed
at its northern end, and joined itself in one shallow sheet of water to the
Barbate. Graham, on arriving at the passage, found the Spaniards halted at
the edge of the flood, and apparently at a nonplus. The energetic old man
took the business out of La Peña’s hands—he and his staff rode into the
water, and sought personally for the track of the submerged causeway,
which they fortunately found to be nowhere more than three feet under the
surface of the flood. He placed men along the track at intervals, to guide
those who should follow, and sat on his horse in the middle of the ford
encouraging the troops as they marched past him. ‘I set the example of
going into the water,’ he remarks in his diary, ‘which was followed by Lacy,
the Prince of Anglona, and others. The passage lasted three hours, and
would have taken double that time but for the exertions made to force the
men to keep the files connected.’ It was 12 o’clock at night before the army
reached Vejer—having taken fifteen hours to cover ten miles, owing to the
delays at the inundation. Every one was wet through and much fatigued, for
the weather was still very cold.

It remained to be seen what the enemy would make of this move; a
squadron of French dragoons had been found in Vejer by the advanced
guard, and driven out, so that it was certain that Victor would get prompt
news that at any rate some part of the allied army had now appeared on the
western road. The Marshal, as a matter of fact, was puzzled. On the night of
the 2nd he had heard from Cassagne that the enemy was in force on the
Medina Sidonia road, and had cut up the post at Casas Viejas. He
accordingly sent orders to Cassagne to bid him stand firm, and promised to
support him with his whole disposable force. But before dawn on the 4th he
got news, from the dragoons expelled from Vejer, that there was a heavy
force on the western road. Had La Peña transferred himself from one route
to another, or were the Allies operating in two columns? Cassagne reported
a little later that the column opposed to him had advanced no further, but
that there were still Spanish troops on the Casas Viejas road; and this was
true, for La Peña had left a battalion and some guerrilla horse at that place,
to give him news of Cassagne, if the latter should move.
But there was also the garrison of Cadiz to be watched, and it was
showing signs of activity. On the night of the 2nd-3rd, when the field army
had been lying at Casas Viejas, General Zayas had, in accordance with the
scheme of times left with him, thrown his bridge of boats across the Santi
Petri creek, and passed a battalion across it, which entrenched itself on the
mud-flat, facing the French works that cut off the peninsula of the Bermeja.
They threw up a strong tête-du-pont, undisturbed, being under the
protection of the heavy guns in the castle of Santi Petri, and other batteries
on the Isle of Leon. The move could only mean that the garrison of Cadiz
intended to come out. Accordingly Victor resolved to stop its egress;
waiting for the dusk on the night of the 3rd-4th, he sent six companies of
picked voltigeurs to storm the tête-du-pont. This they accomplished, the
heavy guns failing to stop them in the dusk: the Spanish battalion in the
work (Ordenes Militares) was nearly annihilated, losing 13 officers and 300
men killed or taken. But the bridge itself was saved by the prompt sinking
of two of its boats, and was hastily floated back to the island, where Zayas
laid it up for further use. He had been much chagrined at seeing and hearing
nothing of allied forces behind the French, which he had been told to look
for on March 3rd[144].

Putting together the movement of Zayas, and the fact that some at least
of the allied army was now on the Vejer road, the Marshal came to the
correct conclusion that the army in the field was intending to get into
communication with Cadiz and its garrison. Accordingly he made a new
plan to suit this hypothesis: of his three divisions one, that of Villatte, was
to block the neck of the peninsula along which the track from Vejer and
Conil leads to the Santi Petri creek and the Isle of Leon. The other two,
concentrated at Chiclana, were to wait till the allied force had found itself
blocked in front by Villatte, and then to fall upon its flank, in the space of
three miles that lies between the hill of Barrosa and the position where
Villatte had been posted. This plan would place the intercepting division in
obvious danger, since, while attacked in front by the head of the allied
army, it might find Zayas attempting once more to lay his bridge, and to
take it in the rear. Such a movement by the garrison could not be stopped,
because the end of the peninsula, by the bridge-place, was under the guns of
several heavy batteries. But Victor directed Villatte not to fight to the last,
but to be contented with holding the Allies in check long enough to enable
the main body to fall on their flank. The sound of his guns would be the
signal for the two striking divisions to move out from the wood of Chiclana,
and dash at the long column whose head would be engaged with Villatte,
while its tail would still be coming along the coast many miles to the rear.
For 14,000 men had only the single line of communication along which to
move.

THE BARROSA CAMPAIGN

Meanwhile Cassagne, at Medina Sidonia, was sent orders to find out
exactly what was in front of him, and if there was no solid force, to march
to join the main body on the morning of the 5th. He must have received the
order to do so somewhere in the afternoon of the 4th.
Victor’s force was not so large as he would have wished. Soult had
taken from him six battalions of infantry and three cavalry regiments,
reducing the total of the 1st Corps left at or near Cadiz to twenty-three
battalions of infantry, three regiments of cavalry, and four or five field

batteries, about 15,000 men in all. There were also present in the lines 3,500
men more not belonging to the corps, viz. about 1,000 artillery and 800
engineers and sappers belonging to the siege train, and 1,600 marine troops
from the flotilla which had been constructed in Cadiz bay. These of course
were useless for field operations; but they served to man the lines, with the
addition of three battalions—2,000 men—from the fighting force, the least
that Victor thought he could spare. For the garrison of Cadiz and the
English fleet might attack in force any point of the Lines during the absence
of the main body. This left 13,000 men available for field operations: but
Cassagne was still absent at Medina Sidonia, with five battalions, a battery,
and one of the three cavalry regiments, making 3,100 men in all. There
were therefore only 10,000 men left to face La Peña and Graham, till
Cassagne should come up. Victor, according to his own dispatch, much
over-estimated the force of the Allies, which he states as 8,000 English and
18,000 Spaniards, so that he went to work in rather a desperate mood,
thinking that he had to fight very superior numbers, and that his only
chance was to make a sudden and resolute attack when he was not
expected. As a matter of fact he overstated the enemy by nearly a half, since
there were really marching from Vejer only 5,000 English and under 10,000
Spaniards altogether, and no help could come to them from Cadiz till
Villatte should be driven off.
Each of the three divisions which Victor had under his hand was short
of several battalions; Ruffin’s, the 1st Division, and Leval’s, the 2nd, had
each a battalion in the Lines and another detached with Cassagne at
Medina. Villatte’s, the 3rd, had one in the Lines and three with Cassagne.
Hence they took the field, Ruffin and Leval with six battalions each, Villatte
with five only. The respective forces were 3,000, 3,800, and 2,500
bayonets[145]: each unit had its divisional battery with it. Of the two cavalry
regiments, the 1st Dragoons, 400 sabres, was with Ruffin, the 2nd
Dragoons, 300 sabres, with Villatte. On the evening of the 4th Ruffin’s and
Leval’s men were concentrated at Chiclana, hidden behind the woods which
cover it; Villatte was on the ridge of the Torre Bermeja, between the
Almanza creek and the sea, right across the track leading from Vejer to
Cadiz, and looking both backward and forward, with his attention ready for
Zayas as much as for La Peña.

Meanwhile the Allies were marching straight into the middle of the trap
which Victor had prepared for them. After passing Conil, the road on which
their army was moving turns inland towards Chiclana, while a mere track
follows the beach towards the Santi Petri. It was along this that La Peña was
intending to move. But in the dark the head of the column followed the
main road, and went several miles along it. At dawn the error was
discovered, and the army, cutting across an open heath, got down to the
beach[146].
The point which the allies had now reached was a mile or so south-east
of the coast-guard tower of Barrosa, where an isolated eminence called the
Cerro del Puerco (Boar’s Hill), crowned by a ruined chapel, looks out upon
the heathy plain of Chiclana to the north, and a scrubby pine wood
(covering much of the ground towards the beach) to the west[147]. The
advanced cavalry got upon the hill unhindered soon after daybreak, and met
no enemy, nor did patrols sent into the wood discover him for some time.
Presently, however, news came back from the front that a French force had
been discerned, drawn up between the Almanza creek and the sea, and
blocking the way to Cadiz. Being outside the wood it was very visible, and
seemed to be about a strong brigade of infantry with a squadron or two of
horse. This was, of course, Villatte, waiting for the advance of the Allies.
No other hostile troops were to be seen.
La Peña now told Graham that, despite of the fact that the men had been
under arms for fourteen hours, and had marched as many miles in the dark,
he was about to thrust this French force out of the way without a moment’s
delay. Lardizabal, with the vanguard division, was to attack it at once, while
the rest of the army took up a position to cover him from any possible
movement of the enemy from the direction of Chiclana.
About nine in the morning Lardizabal with his five battalions reached
Villatte’s front, deployed and attacked him. The forces were about equal,
and the attack was repulsed with some loss; La Peña then ordered up the
leading brigade of Anglona’s division to support the vanguard. A sharp
engagement was going on, when a new fire broke out behind Villatte.
Zayas, from the Isle of Leon, had recast his bridge across the Santi Petri,
and was advancing to take the French in the rear. Villatte saw his danger,
gave up his position across the peninsula, and hastily fell back towards the
passage of the shallow Almanza creek, near the mill of the same name. He

recrossed it, not without some difficulty, and then drew up to defend the
passage. Lardizabal was prevented by La Peña from pursuing him, and
halted opposite. The skirmish had been hot: Villatte had lost 337 men, the
Spaniards a few more. But they had achieved their purpose, and the
connexion with Cadiz had been duly established.
About noon La Peña sent orders to Graham to evacuate the Barrosa
position, and draw in closer to the Almanza creek, to join the rest of the
army. Meanwhile he would be relieved on the hill by five battalions of Cruz
Murgeon and Beguines[148], to which rearguard there was added one British
battalion, Browne’s composite unit consisting of the six flank companies of
the 9th, 28th, and 82nd. Whittingham and the cavalry were to flank this
force on the coast track, somewhere near the tower of La Barrosa. This
force was to move off in its turn, when Graham should have reached the
main body, for the Spanish general had resolved not to hold the Cerro,
considering that an army of 14,000 men should not be spread out over four
miles of ground, but be kept more concentrated. Graham entirely disagreed
with this movement; if the Allies came down and crammed themselves into
the narrow peninsula between the sea and the Almanza creek, there was
nothing to prevent Victor from seizing the Barrosa heights, and placing
himself across their front, in a way which would block them into the
cramped position which they had assumed. The move practically threw
them back on Cadiz, and sacrificed all the results of the toilsome flank
march in which they had been so long engaged. Graham had in the morning
urged on La Peña the all-importance of retaining the hill, but now saw his
advice rejected. Obeying orders, however, he set his column in march
towards the Torre Bermeja and the Almanza creek, through the pine wood.
At the same time the rearguard under Beguines and Cruz Murgeon
ascended the Cerro, and took up the post which the British division had left.
The British column did not descend to the rough track along the coast,
but used a fair wood path right through the middle of the pine forest, which
saved them a couple of miles of détour, and was practicable for artillery.
They were soon filing along between the pines, lost to sight, and themselves
unable to see a hundred yards in any direction.
At this moment, about 12.30 p.m., Victor suddenly broke out of the
woods in front of Chiclana with the 7,000 men of Ruffin’s and Leval’s
divisions. He was tired of waiting for Cassagne, for he had now got news

that the force at Medina had started late in the morning, instead of at dawn,
and would not be up for two or three hours more. His cavalry had just
reported to him that the Cerro seemed to be abandoned, and that the troops
formerly holding it were marching across his front through the forest. Since
the main body of the enemy had been located opposite Villatte, on the
Almanza creek, there seemed to be a good chance of seizing the important
Barrosa position unopposed, and of striking the rear division of the Allies
while it was defiling, strung out helplessly in a wood road, across the front
of the advancing French. The orders given by the Marshal sent his cavalry
regiment (three squadrons of the 1st Dragoons) to turn the heights by their
south-eastern flank, and seize the coast track, while Ruffin ascended the
Cerro by its gently sloping northern front, and Leval struck at the troops
known to be in the wood. The French, being quite fresh, came on at a great
pace; the Marshal had explained to his subordinates that haste was
everything. They were clearly visible to the rearguard left on the heights,
partly visible to La Peña, who could see their flank up the trough of the
Almanza creek, but wholly invisible to Graham and his troops in the wood.
A great responsibility now fell on the Spanish officers on the Cerro;
they were under orders to evacuate the heights when Graham should have
got away westward. What were they to do when it suddenly became clear
that they were themselves about to be attacked? They might attempt to
defend the hill with the one British and five Spanish battalions which lay,
unseen to the French, under the seaward slope of the Cerro: or they might
simply obey orders, and retire towards the main body, abandoning their
dominating position. The latter course was the one taken. The five Spanish
battalions streamed down the seaward face of the hill in no very good order,
and fell in there with the baggage of the whole army. All together began to
retire northward; there was a block on the beach, the baggage mules were
driven right and left, and many got loose and bolted. Meanwhile
Whittingham with the cavalry (three Spanish[149] and two K.G.L. squadrons)
ranged himself across the track, where he was soon faced by the French
dragoons, who had galloped round the south-eastern face of the heights
with remarkable celerity.
Whittingham’s retreat was not made without a protest against it by
Colonel Browne, who urged, firstly, that it was madness to abandon the
height, secondly that he had Graham’s orders to stand there, and could obey

no others. The cavalry general replied that, for his part, he had resolved to
retire, and offered to lend Browne one of his squadrons to cover his retreat
towards the British division, if he would not follow him to the coast track.
The fiery colonel made no reply, but turned to his battalion and ordered it to
occupy the ruined chapel on the top of the Cerro and the neighbouring
thickets, and to prepare for action. But in half an hour, seeing
Whittingham’s column far off at the foot of the hill, and six French
battalions coming in upon him, Browne gave way and descended into the
pine wood in search of Graham[150]. The French—Ruffin’s division—took
possession of the heights, and planted a battery upon them.
Meanwhile we must return to Graham, concealed in the wood, and
marching (as it were blindfold) across the front of Leval’s approaching
column. He had no cavalry with him, but presently two mounted
guerrilleros rode up in haste, and told him that the French were close on his
flank. Riding back to the rear of his division, he saw from the edge of the
forest Beguines’s troops pouring down the near side of the Cerro, and
Ruffin’s mounting its northern ascent. Leval was also visible to the left.
Graham’s mind was made up in a moment: ‘A retreat in the face of the
enemy,’ he writes, ‘who was already in reach of the easy communication by
the sea-beach, must have involved the whole allied army in the danger of
being attacked during the unavoidable confusion, while the different corps
would be arriving on the narrow ridge of Bermeja at the same time,’ i. e. he
saw that he himself coming out of the wood, Whittingham and Beguines
from the shore track, and the main body returning from the Almanza creek
bridge, would meet in disorder on the narrow neck of the peninsula by the
Torre Bermeja, and would be unable to form an orderly line of battle. Even
if they did, and then held their ground, the object of the whole expedition
was lost, and the French, in possession of the Cerro del Puerco, once more
blocked the army into Cadiz.
The alternative was to take the offensive before the two French columns
had united, and to attack them while they were still coming upon the
ground, and before they had drawn up in any regular order. It was evident
that they were hurrying forward without any notion that they were liable to
be thrown on the defensive at a moment’s notice. In three minutes Graham
had made up his mind to attack himself, instead of allowing himself to be
chased into the Bermeja position. The wood, in which his division lay

concealed, enabled him to hide his movement, though it made that
movement perilously disorderly. The orders given were simple: the leading
brigade, that of Colonel Wheatley, was to push straight through the wood
till it reached the northern edge, and then form there, and attack Leval. The
rear brigade, that of General Dilkes, was to counter-march down the wood-
path on which it was engaged, till it too cleared the wood, and then to form
up and attack Ruffin on the slopes of the Cerro del Puerco. The ten guns, in
the centre of the marching column, were to push up a side track which
seemed passable, and to form on Wheatley’s right, in the centre between the
two brigades. Meanwhile these movements would take some time to
execute, and the French were coming closer to the wood every minute. It
was necessary to hold them back at all costs till a line could be formed.
With this object Graham resolved to throw forward on each front a light
infantry force, which should engage the enemy, regardless of order and of
losses, till the main body got up. On the left Barnard’s four companies of
the 95th Rifles and the two companies of the 20th Portuguese under
Colonel Bushe, about 700 men in all, were ordered to break through the
wood directly before them, without any attempt at formation, and when
they reached its edge, to sally straight out at Leval’s front, in the best
skirmishing line they could make. On the right there was a force already to
the front—Browne’s flank battalion, 536 muskets, which had just
descended unwillingly from the Cerro, and was visible at its foot.

This last force was near Graham as he sat on his horse among the trees
at the wood’s end. He cantered up to Browne, and asked him why the Cerro
had been abandoned. ‘Because five battalions of Spaniards went off before
the enemy came within cannon-shot,’ was the reply. ‘Well, it’s a bad
business, Browne; you must instantly turn round again and attack.’ The
flank battalion began to extend into skirmishing order, when Graham, after
a moment’s reflection, said, ‘I must show something more serious than
skirmishing. Close the men into compact battalion! And then attack in your
front and immediately.’ Dilkes’s brigade was coming up, but was still a mile
away in the wood, and Browne came out of the trees into the open
absolutely isolated, to attack uphill six battalions and a battery with a two-
deep line of just 536 men[151]. Blakeney says that his colonel rode into action
singing the old naval song—
‘Now cheer up, my lads, ’tis to glory we steer,’

a tune to which he was much addicted at all times in and out of season.
About the same time, or a few minutes later, Barnard’s and Bushe’s
scattered and uneven line burst out of the northern edge of the wood a mile
away, and found themselves facing Leval’s division at the distance of only
some 400 yards. This force, quite unaware that any enemy was yet near,
was advancing in two columns each of three battalions, the right one
composed of the 54th regiment and a battalion of grenadiers réunis, the left
of the 8th regiment followed by a single battalion of the 45th. Their
divisional battery was following on their left rear. Barnard, who got a little
further to the front than the Portuguese, was facing the French 54th, Bushe,
who was drawn back a little in échelon, was opposite the French 8th. They
had hardly opened their fire, which had great effect because the enemy had
no screen of voltigeurs out to cover him, and was caught unprepared for an
infantry fight, when Duncan’s ten guns, which had made extraordinary
good pace through the wood, appeared, and unlimbering at its edge began
to fire shrapnel into the leading battalions of the French. Behind them the
two companies of the 47th, which properly belonged to Barnard’s
provisional battalion, took post as their supports.
Thus the battle was suddenly begun on both fronts, but Graham had
only 500 men up on one side, and 900 with the guns on the other. The main
body was coming on through the wood behind in an extraordinarily mixed

order. When Graham gave orders to Wheatley’s brigade to face to their right
flank and push through the wood northward, and to Dilkes’s brigade to turn
about on the road and return to the Cerro by the way they had come, there
was no small confusion. By some misunderstanding the rear companies of
the 67th, which was the last battalion in Wheatley’s brigade, faced about
and followed Dilkes, though the leading companies went off with their
proper companions, the 28th and 87th. On the other hand, by a
compensating mistake, the two companies of the Coldstream Guards, which
belonged to Dilkes, turned north into the wood and followed Wheatley[152].
The brigades exchanged, as it were, 250 men with each other. In addition
the battalions, owing to the sudden inversion of their column of march,
were all out of their proper order in their brigades, and went into action
‘almost anyhow.’
But while a line of some sort was being formed, the screen of light
troops which Graham had thrown forward, to detain the enemy, during the
deployment of the main body, had done its duty by allowing itself to be
knocked to pieces while attacking fivefold numbers. It had to be sacrificed
to gain time, and carried out its orders completely. We will take the fortunes
of the right-hand force first.
Browne’s composite battalion had started from a position close under
the edge of the pine wood; it had first to cross a broad but shallow ravine,
and then to climb the gentle slope of the Cerro, where it became fully
visible to the enemy, though there was a little cover here and there upon the
hillside, in the form of scattered bushes and slight dips in the ground. The
French allowed the line to advance a little way up the ascent, and then
opened upon it both with a field battery placed close to the chapel on the
summit, and with the musketry fire of the three battalions which formed
their right wing. Blakeney, our ever-useful authority for this side of the
battle, says that the first salvo of the French knocked over more than 200
officers and men out of 536 forming the line. Browne ordered the men to
close to the centre, and endeavoured to continue his climb; this was done
with much difficulty, but, before the advance could be resumed, more than
fifty men more were killed or wounded. All the exertions of the colonel
could not form a third line—fourteen officers out of twenty-one were down,
and more than half the rank and file. The remainder now scattered; the men
did not retreat, but threw themselves down, and commenced independent

firing from behind bushes, hillocks, and any other cover they could find.
The French made no attempt to fall upon them by descending the hill, as
would have seemed natural. The reason was that by the time that the flank
battalion had been disposed of, the main body of Dilkes’s brigade had come
out of the wood, and was visible forming up at the foot of the hill to deliver
the real assault.
The Guards had obtained the necessary time to come up and choose
their ground through the absolute martyrdom of the flank battalion. Dilkes
did not repeat the attack on the same slope over which Browne had
advanced, but pushed some distance to the right, where the hillside showed
more cover in the way of scattered bushes and trees, and some dead ground
hid the men by its steepness from the fire of the battery on the crest above.
Blakeney describes them as strung out on a most irregular front, a confused
mass rather than a formed line. The whole, while advancing, kept taking
ground to their right, so as to come up the hillside opposite Ruffin’s left
wing. Their extreme flank was covered by Norcott’s two companies of rifles
in more extended order. Partly owing to the cover, partly to the difficulty
found by the French guns in getting their fire to bear, Dilkes’s brigade got
wellnigh to the top of the hill before it suffered any very serious losses. But
on clearing the last underwood, and reaching smooth ground, it was charged
by the four battalions of Ruffin’s left—two of the 24th Line supported by
the two reserve battalions of grenadiers réunis. This was the crisis of the
battle in the southern half of its progress. By all the rules of French military
art four battalion columns, fresh and well ordered, charging down hill,
should have been able to break through a disordered line of decidedly
inferior strength pushing upwards against them. Dilkes had only 1,400 men,
the four French battalions just over 2,000. Nevertheless, the impossible
happened. When the two columns of the 24th Ligne came down, with
drums beating and levelled bayonets, against the centre of the firm, if
disorderly, line in front, they were checked by the furious fire that broke out
against them from the semicircle into which they had pushed. This was one
more example of the fact established at Maida five years before, and
reaffirmed at Vimiero, Talavera, and Bussaco, that no column could break
the British line by mere impetus. In this case the French had every
advantage, since they were absolutely intact troops, and had the ground
entirely in their favour, while the Guards and the wing of the 67th opposed
to them had marched two miles in haste, had then climbed a steep 200-foot

slope under fire, had lost their order, and were firing up hill. But the fire
was delivered with astounding accuracy, considering that the men were
blown with their climb and dreadfully exhausted. The whole head of each
of the descending columns was blown to pieces. The rest came to a
standstill, and crowding together in a disorderly clump, opened an irregular
fire against the British line.
The Marshal, who was present in person on the top of the Cerro, then
brought up his reserve, the two battalions of grenadiers under General
Chaudron Rousseau. He himself and the brigadier were both distinctly seen
leading on the column, the Marshal waving his large white-plumed hat over
his head. This charge was delivered against the right of Dilkes’s line, where
the 3rd Guards and wing of the 67th lay, that of the 24th Ligne had been
more against the centre and the 1st Guards. But the result was the same,
though the contest was more long and bloody. The grenadiers are said to
have struggled forward, losing heavily at each step, till their front was
within a very few yards of Dilkes’s line: it was only then that they halted
and began to fire—a fatal step in such a contest, where impetus was the sole
chance of the attacking mass, and superiority in musketry fire (owing to the
longer front) was on the side of the English line. This of course was a
terribly murderous business to both sides, as the figures presently to be
quoted will show. But as in all similar contests during the Peninsular War,
the line hit harder than the column. The four French battalions began at last
to give way, and could not be kept together. Then Victor tried to bring in the
two left battalions of his line to their aid, but these two units were pestered
and impeded, when they began to move off from their first position, by the
remains of Browne’s flank battalion, which (though reduced to under 300
muskets) began to press forward again, when the troops hitherto in their
front commenced to move off to the right. ‘They darted from behind trees,
briars, brakes, and out of hollows,’ says Blakeney. ‘I could imagine myself
like Roderick Dhu upon Benledi’s side—it was a magic effect. We
confidently advanced up the hill and, unlike most advances, in this one our
numbers increased as we proceeded, soldiers of the flank battalion joining
at every step.’ This scattered little force hung on to the flank of Victor’s
right, and prevented it from rallying the broken force now recoiling from in
front of Dilkes. The flankers had even the good fortune to capture a
howitzer from the left of Victor’s battery placed by the chapel on the
hilltop; another gun was taken by the 1st Guards in their forward progress.

It must have been just at this crisis that the whole French mass broke;
up to this moment it had been recoiling sullenly, still keeping up some fire
from its rear. But now the observer saw[153], ‘with loud and murmuring
sounds, Ruffin’s division and Rousseau’s chosen grenadiers rolling with a
whirling motion down into the valley below, leaving their two brave
generals mortally wounded on the hill, which was left in possession of their
bloodstained conquerors.’
The exhausted victors halted for a short time to re-form, and were in a
more orderly line than they had hitherto shown when they commenced to
follow the enemy down the slope. The casualties in this part of the field
may now be stated, for neither party was to lose many more men in the last
episode of the fight. Dilkes’s brigade and Browne’s flank battalion had gone
up the hill with 76 officers and 1,873 men. They lost 25 officers and 588
men—about 10 men out of every 31 in the fight. The French loss was
positively more, proportionately not quite so great. In the six battalions of
Ruffin and Chaudron Rousseau there seem to have been about 108 officers
and 3,000 men present; of these 36 officers and 840 men were left on the
hill, i. e. 10 men in every 35. The trophies remaining with the victors were
two guns and 107 unwounded prisoners, beside the multitude of disabled
men left on the slope[154].
While this bloody business had been going on upon the Cerro del
Puerco, it may be asked what were the Spaniards on the coast road doing—
Whittingham’s squadrons and the five battalions of Cruz Murgeon and
Beguines. The last named, with his three battalions, shepherding what was
left of the baggage-train, quietly marched off along the sea, and joined La
Peña by the Torre Bermeja. Whittingham was of a little positive use; he
continued all through the fight to ‘contain’ and occasionally to bicker with
the French cavalry regiment (1st Dragoons) that faced him near the Torre
Barrosa. The two battalions of Cruz Murgeon supported him. This force
certainly did not do its share—180 German Hussars, 300 Spanish horse, and
1,000 Spanish foot simply kept out of action 400 French horse. This was
something, but not much, for the dragoons could not have interfered very
effectively on the hill against Dilkes’s advance, because the south side of
the Cerro is too precipitous for horsemen. In short, Whittingham’s statement
in his report to La Peña, that ‘all the cavalry fulfilled its duty brilliantly’ is a
sad overstatement of the case.

Let us turn now to the other half of the fight, where Wheatley’s brigade
and Duncan’s guns were facing Leval on the open plain just outside the
edge of the wood. At the moment when Browne attacked the Cerro,
Barnard’s rifles and Bushe’s Portuguese were throwing themselves in a no
less resolute fashion upon the six French battalions in their front. They had
the advantage of being invisible to the enemy till they emerged from the
wood, only 300 yards in his front, and of being supported, within a few
minutes of their arrival, by Duncan’s ten guns, while Browne had no
artillery assistance whatever, and was seen by the French for half a mile
before he got near them.
The confusion in Leval’s division on being suddenly attacked by an
unexpected swarm of skirmishers pouring out of the wood was extreme. So
much were they taken aback, that Vigo-Roussillon of the 8th Line assures
us in his memoirs that a false alarm of cavalry was raised, and that his
regiment, and the first battalion of the 54th, formed square before the
mistake was recognized, and caught some shells from Duncan’s guns in that
uncomfortable situation, before they had time to deploy for action against
infantry. This they had to do under a heavy fire from Barnard’s riflemen,
who had advanced quite close to them. Leval’s fighting formation was the
usual ‘column of divisions,’ i. e. a front of two companies and a depth of
three in each battalion, or (since these units averaged 650 men each, and the
companies over 100 bayonets) a front of seventy-two men and a depth of
nine. The length of Barnard’s skirmishing line, with his 400 rifles, seems to
have covered the front of the right battalion of the 54th and the left battalion
of the 8th—some 1,300 men. The 95th did considerable execution on them
while they were getting out of square formation: but when the columns
advanced firing, the skirmishing line had to fall back. Its loss was heavy—
sixty-five killed and wounded; among the latter Barnard, commanding the
battalion. The next troops whom the French encountered were the flank
companies of the 20th Portuguese—330 men only, who had advanced on
the right rear of the 95th, supporting them in échelon. This was a new corps,
which had been sent to Cadiz the moment it was raised in 1809, and had
never been under fire before. Considering their hopeless position, alone in
front of an advancing division, the Portuguese behaved very well; they held
their ground for some time, while their colonel, Bushe, as is recorded by an
eye-witness, rode slowly backward and forward behind them with his
spectacles on, crying as the balls whistled past, ‘Que bella musica,’ to

encourage his men. But he was soon mortally wounded[155], and after his fall
the line melted away and drifted to the rear, after having kept a battalion of
the French 8th engaged for some minutes: proportionately its loss was much
the same as that of the Rifles—56 killed and wounded out of 332 present—
one man in six.
The first act of the drama on this front was thus complete; the detaining
force sent out by Graham had been, as he expected, driven in with loss,
though not an appalling loss of 50 per cent., such as Browne’s gallant
flankers had suffered on the Cerro. But the main body was now up, and had
formed in the edge of the wood, to the left of Duncan’s guns, with no loss
or interruption, since it had been well covered all the time. There were now
some 1,400 men in line: the 28th, 450 strong, on the left, then the 211
bayonets of the Coldstreamers, the 87th, nearly 700 strong, in the centre;
beyond them the right wing of the 67th, about 250 bayonets, next to the
guns, which were still under the protection of the flank companies of the
47th which served as their escort throughout the fight. The broken screen of
light troops which had just retired was by no means out of action; the 95th
formed up again behind the 28th, the Portuguese behind the 87th, and both
were used again before the battle was over.
The formation of the French at this moment was an uneven line of four
battalion columns,—counting from their left, 1/8th, 2/8th, 2/54th, 1/54th;
the other two battalions were in reserve, the 1/45th behind the French
battery, which was now engaged with Duncan’s guns, the provisional
battalion of grenadiers more to the right, and some distance behind the 54th
regiment. The whole was advancing, but slowly: the battalions in the front
line were firing; the centre was a little more to the front than the wings, the
2/8th being ahead of the other battalions because (as its chef de bataillon
remarks in his memoir) he only allowed his men to fire volleys by order,
while the units on his right and left were using independent fire. All had
suffered in the previous fight with Barnard and the Portuguese, and much
needed time to re-form, which was not granted them, because the English
main line charged the moment that the light troops had cleared off from its
front. It is curious to note in the French memoirs that the authors all write as
if they had an oppressive feeling that the superiority of numbers was against
them, and that they were being led to a forlorn hope. This was caused partly
by the immense extent of the British line in proportion to its depth, still

more by the happy existence of the wood behind Wheatley’s brigade. It had
already vomited out two lively attacking lines, and the enemy presupposed
a third in reserve; nearly all the French narratives definitely say that they
were attacked by three lines, while really there was only one, with the
screen of light troops, which had already been used up. As to the complaint
concerning inferior numbers, it is certain that Leval’s division had 3,800
men, and Wheatley’s brigade only 2,500. The only superiority of the British
was that, in the artillery duel now going on to the right of the line, they had
ten guns to six, and soon crushed the French battery, so that it gave no
effective support to its infantry. Only one of the French battalions attempted
to deploy into line—this was the 2nd of the 54th, which lay opposite the
British 28th—the others kept on from first to last in column of divisions. An
eye-witness (Surtees of the 95th) remarks, ‘they never got into line, nor did
they ever intend to do so, I believe, but advanced in solid bodies, firing
from their front[156].’
The fight, owing to the French centre being slightly advanced, began a
little earlier there than on the wings, the first clash being between the
column of the French 2/8th, led by Vigo-Roussillon, and the line of the
2/87th, led by that enthusiastic fighter, Major Gough. We have narratives
from both of them, and each insists that he kept down the fire of his men till
they were within a very short distance of the enemy—sixty yards, says
Vigo-Roussillon, twenty-five, says Gough. There was then a single volley
exchanged, and the French column, much the harder hit of the two, broke
up. ‘As they were in column when they broke,’ says Gough, ‘they could not
get away. It was therefore a scene of most dreadful carnage, and I must own
my weakness; as I was in front of the regiment I was in the very middle of
them, and I could not cut down one, though I might have twenty, they
seemed so confounded and confused[157].’ There was indeed a fearful
crowding and mêlée here, for the 1st battalion of the French 8th, yielding
before the fire of the British guns and the troops to the right of Gough, the
wing of the 67th, fell back sideways against their own second battalion, and
became mixed in one mass with them. Thus the 87th were sweeping before
them, and ploughing through, a crowd of some 1,400, or allowing for
previous losses, 1,200 men, while the companies of the 67th were firing
into its flank and rear. The 8th Ligne suffered worse losses than any other
troops on the field that day, save Browne’s heroic flank battalion, losing
about 50 per cent. of the men who went into action—726 killed, wounded,

and taken out of 1,468 present. The colonel, Autié, was killed, and one of
the two battalion chiefs, Lanusse, while the other, Vigo-Roussillon, was
wounded and taken prisoner. The eagle was captured from the middle of the
1st battalion after a desperate struggle with the colours-guard; Ensign
Keogh of the 87th, who first got hold of it, was bayonetted twice and killed;
Sergeant Masterson[158] then ran the aquilifère through with his pike,
dragged the eagle away, and kept it during the rest of the mêlée. This was
the first eagle captured by the British during the Peninsular War, and its
arrival in London was rightly made an occasion of considerable pomp and
ceremony. The eagle was presented to the Prince Regent in person, who
granted to the 87th the right to bear an eagle and a laurel wreath above the
harp on the regimental colours and appointments, and the title of the ‘Prince
of Wales’s Own Irish Regiment.’ Gough was given a brevet lieutenant-
colonelcy at once, and Sergeant Masterson, who had captured the eagle,
received a commission in his own regiment; he and his descendants have
served in it almost throughout the nineteenth century.
The rout of the 8th Ligne was not the last triumph of the 87th on that
day; driving the remains of that unfortunate corps in front of them, they
came upon the battalion of the 45th Ligne, which had hitherto been standing
in reserve behind the French battery, and which Leval had just ordered up to
support the broken first line. Gough, with the greatest difficulty, succeeded
in forming about half his scattered though victorious regiment to face this
new enemy. But there was hardly a collision: all the other French units were
broken by this time, and the 45th hesitated. ‘After firing until we came
within about fifty paces of them,’ writes Gough, ‘they (for us fortunately)
broke and fled, for had they done their duty, fatigued as my men were at the
moment, they might have cut us to pieces.’ That this battalion cannot have
behaved well is sufficiently shown by the casualty list—out of 700 men
present it only lost 55—far the smallest proportional loss in the whole
French army that day. Probably the weakness of its resistance is partly to be
accounted for by the fact that it was being outflanked by the wing of the
67th, who must have been extending in this direction at the moment,
prolonging the line of the 87th eastward. In its double victory the 87th lost
173 men out of 700 in the field. There remains the left wing of this fight to
be dealt with. Here the French 54th, in two battalion columns, was facing
the British 1/28th and the 200 Coldstreamers on their right. This was the
only part of the field in which the French tried at all to manœuvre: the right

battalion of the 54th began to deploy and to turn the British flank, by
moving westward into the edge of the pine wood, but with little effect. We
have a short account of this fight in the memoirs of Cadell of the 28th.
‘We had formed line under cover of the 95th, and then advanced to meet
their right wing, which was coming down in close column—a great
advantage—and here the coolness of Colonel Belson was conspicuous: he
moved us up without firing a shot, close to their right battalion, which just
then began to deploy. The Colonel then gave orders to fire by platoons from
centre to flanks, and low; “Fire at their legs and spoil their dancing.” This
was kept up for a short time, with dreadful effect. The action being now
general all along the line, we twice attempted to charge. But the enemy,
being double our strength (since our flank companies were away), only
retired a little on each occasion. Finally, giving three cheers, we charged a
third time, and succeeded: the enemy gave way and fled in every direction.’
Of all Leval’s division there now remained unbroken only the single
battalion of grenadiers réunis under Colonel Meunier behind the right rear.
The routed 54th fled diagonally to take cover behind it. Belson did not
pursue very rapidly, and this wing of the beaten division moved off to the
flank, covered by the grenadiers, and presently met the wrecks of the 8th
and the 45th not far north of the Laguna del Puerco, the pool which lies
beyond the heath, to the east. It may not be out of place to give the losses:
the 54th, with 1,300 men present, lost 323—about one man in four. The
grenadiers hardly suffered at all, never having come into close action. Of
the British opposite them, the 28th, with 450 men in the field, had 86
casualties; the Coldstream companies lost 58 out of 211[159].
Just as Leval’s division arrived near the Laguna, it was joined by the
wrecks of Ruffin’s, descending in disorder from the northern slope of the
Cerro. It says much for the resolution of Victor that he succeeded in halting
the two disorganized masses, and deployed two or three comparatively
intact battalions and the ten guns which remained to him, to cover the
rallying of the rest. At the same moment his cavalry, the 1st Dragoons,
which had galloped away round the east side of the Cerro when Ruffin was
beaten off it, came in and drew up on the right and left of the whole. It was
a bold bid to secure an unmolested retreat, for no more could be hoped.
Some time was available for rallying the troops, for Graham had also to get
his exhausted men into order. They came up at last, Wheatley’s brigade on

the left, Dilkes’s on the right, the guns in the centre. The latter were set to
play on the new front of the French, which they did with great effect, the
enemy being in a cramped mass. The skirmishers went forward, and a third
separate engagement seemed about to begin, when a small new force
intervened. This was one of the two squadrons of German hussars, which
had followed the French dragoons around the back of the Cerro, not on the
orders of Whittingham, who made no haste to pursue, but on those of
Graham’s aide-de-camp Ponsonby, who had carried them off on his own
responsibility. Coming like a whirlwind across the lower slope of the hill,
this squadron upset the French squadron of the 1st Dragoons which formed
Victor’s flank guard on this side, and drove it in upon the infantry. Small
though the shock was, it sufficed to upset the equilibrium of the
demoralized French divisions. They went off in a sudden rush, leaving
behind them two more guns, and streamed across the plain towards
Chiclana.
The battle was over; there was no pursuit, for the cautious Whittingham
came up ten minutes too late with the rest of the cavalry, in time to see the
last of the enemy disappearing in the woods. With him came up also the two
infantry battalions under Cruz Murgeon, and these were the only Spanish
troops that Graham saw during the battle.
It may be noted that we have hitherto not had occasion to say one word
of General La Peña or his two infantry divisions since the main action
began. On being informed, at the same time as Graham, of the approach of
Victor from Chiclana, La Peña had no thought save to defend the isthmus
by the Torre Bermeja against the approaching enemy. He drew up his own
eleven battalions across it in a double or treble line, while Zayas, with those
which had come out of Cadiz, watched Villatte across the Almanza creek.
When Beguines appeared from the Cerro by the coast-track, he was put into
the same mass, which must have risen to something like 10,000 men.
Presently news came from the wood that Graham had faced about and was
fighting the French. La Peña, as his own dispatch shows, concluded that the
English must inevitably be beaten, and refused to stir a man to support them
or to bring them off. Zayas repeatedly asked leave to march up to join
Wheatley’s flank, or to cross the Almanza and to attack Villatte, but was
refused permission. The first report, to the effect that Graham was driving
the French back, La Peña refused to credit. It was not till the fugitives of

Leval’s division were seen retreating past the head of the Almanza creek,
that he could be got to accept the idea that Graham was victorious. And
when pressed to join in the pursuit by Zayas, he merely said that the men
were tired, and the day far spent. The reaping of the fruits of victory might
be left for the morrow.
When it is remembered that La Peña was only two miles from
Wheatley’s fighting-ground, and three from the Cerro, his conduct seems
astounding as well as selfish. Graham’s fight lasted nearly two hours. La
Peña could have ridden over, to see what was going on, in a quarter of an
hour. He refused to stir, and deliberately sacrificed his allies, because he had
got a comfortable, almost an impregnable, position across the narrow
isthmus, and would not move out of it, whatever might happen to Graham.
This timid and selfish policy was an exact repetition of his betrayal of
Castaños at Tudela in 1808. With his 10,000 men he could have crushed
Villatte if he had advanced on one front, or have annihilated the remnants of
Ruffin and Leval, if he had chosen to act on the other.

BARROSA

He had his reward: next morning Graham, after collecting his wounded
and his trophies, recrossed into the Isle of Leon, formally giving notice that
in consequence of yesterday’s proceedings, he was forced to withdraw his
consent, given in February, to serve under La Peña, and to fall back on the
discretional orders given by the British Government not to undertake any
operations in which he was not himself in chief command. It is impossible
to blame him; no one could deny, after what had happened on the 5th, that it
was absolutely unsafe to go out in La Peña’s company. Wellington sent his
complete approval to Graham, well remembering his own experiences with
Cuesta in 1809. ‘I concur in the propriety of your withdrawing to the Isla on
the 6th,’ he wrote, ‘as much as I admire the promptitude and determination
of your attack on the 5th[160].’
The division marched back into the Isla with only 4,000 men in the
ranks; 1,238 had fallen or been disabled at Barrosa—almost one casualty
among every four men in the field. But Victor had been hit much harder;
out of 7,300 men in the divisions of Leval and Ruffin much more than one
in four, viz. no less than 2,062, were hors de combat; 262 had been killed,
1,694 wounded, 134 unwounded prisoners were taken, along with the eagle
and five guns[161]. The units that had fought in the Cerro and on the heath by
the wood were absolutely demoralized; it would have been impossible to
put them in line again for several days.
If the slightest push forward had been made on the 6th, it is certain that
the siege would have been raised. Victor had rallied the broken troops
behind the wood of Chiclana on Villatte’s comparatively intact division, and
had been joined in the late afternoon by Cassagne’s 3,000 men, who had at
last come up from Medina Sidonia. But there was panic all along the Lines:
while the battle had been going on, English and Spanish gunboats had
threatened their garrison, and had made small disembarkations at one or
two points; a battery had been captured near Santa Maria. If a more serious
attack were made from the sea next morning, it was clear that the line
would break at some point. ‘The sinister phrases “destruction of the forts”
and “abandonment of the position” flew from mouth to mouth[162].’ Victor
called a council of war, and proposed to offer a second battle behind
Chiclana; but he found little support among the generals. It was finally
decided that, if the Allies should come on in full force next morning, only
such resistance should be made as would allow time to blow up most of the

forts, and burn the stores and the flotilla. The 1st Corps would retreat on
Seville. Victor proposed that one or two positions, where there were solid
closed works, like Fort Sénarmont and the Trocadero, should be left
garrisoned, and told to defend themselves until the army should return,
strengthened by Soult and Sebastiani, to relieve them. It is doubtful whether
he would really have risked this move, since the time of his return would
have been most uncertain, and he might very probably have been making a
present to the enemy of any troops left behind in isolated posts.
On the morning of the 6th the French retired behind the Saltillo river,
leaving the 3rd Division (now commanded by Cassagne, for Villatte had
been wounded) on the further side, with orders to retire when seriously
attacked, and to issue a signal for the blowing up of all the forts of the south
wing of the Lines, at the moment that the retreat should begin. Cassagne
was then to rejoin the Marshal behind the Rio San Pedro, beyond Puerto
Real, skirmishing as he went. But no trace of the Allies was to be seen on
the morning of the 6th, and Cassagne was not forced to move back, though
by mistake one battery was blown up without the signal being given[163].
The only sign of life on the part of the enemy was that a swarm of English
gunboats and launches appeared at the north end of the lines, and threw
ashore 600 seamen and marines, who occupied Puerto Santa Maria for
some hours, and destroyed all the smaller batteries between that place and
Rota unhindered. For the French had concentrated in the fort of Santa
Catalina and abandoned all their minor posts. But the flotilla withdrew at
dusk, leaving Victor much puzzled as to the purpose of his adversaries. On
the morning of March 7th he sent out a cavalry reconnaissance of several
squadrons, which brought back the astonishing news that it had explored
the whole of the country between Chiclana and the sea, including the
battlefield, and had seen no hostile troops, save a large encampment on the
Bermeja isthmus, just above the bridge of boats leading into the Isla de
Leon.
What had happened was that La Peña had determined to give up the
expedition and retire to Cadiz. He had declined to listen to a proposition
made by Graham and Admiral Keats that he should advance cautiously
towards Chiclana, while the British naval and land forces made a combined
attack upon the Trocadero[164]. He did not even send out cavalry patrols to
discover what had become of Victor; if they had gone forth, they would

have found that the Marshal had retired beyond the Saltillo, and would have
discerned his preparations for a general retreat. But after remaining
encamped by the Torre Bermeja during the whole of the 6th and the greater
part of the 7th, the Spanish army crossed the bridge of boats into the Isla,
and took it up behind them. Only Beguines and his three battalions were left
on the continent, with orders to return to their old haunts in the Ronda
mountains. This little force retired to Medina Sidonia on the 8th, and
repulsed there a French column of 600 men which came up to occupy the
town. But next day a whole brigade marched against them, whereupon
Beguines evacuated Medina and went off towards San Roque and Algesiras.
Victor was therefore able on the 8th to reoccupy the evacuated southern
wing of his lines, and to issue an absurd dispatch, in which he claimed that
Barrosa had been a victory. But for the loss of 2,000 men, and a severe
shock inflicted on the morale of his troops, he was in exactly the same
position that he had held on the 4th. The whole fruits of the battle of
Barrosa had been lost. What they might have been it is possible up to a
certain point to foresee. Supposing that Graham and not La Peña had been
in command, the army, raised to nearly 20,000 men by the junction of
Zayas and of the 2,000 Anglo-Portuguese still in Cadiz, would have
marched on Chiclana upon the 6th. Victor would have blown up the Lines
and retired towards Seville, but there would have been no reinforcements
for him there, and he could only have been brought up to fighting strength
by the calling in of Sebastiani and Godinot. But, if these generals came up
to his aid, Granada and Cordova would have had to be evacuated, and the
insurgents would have swept all over Eastern Andalusia. The Allies could
not have held the field, for even before Soult’s return from Badajoz there
were still 50,000 French troops south of the Sierra Morena. The siege of
Cadiz would ultimately, no doubt, have been recommenced, Granada and
Cordova reoccupied. But meanwhile the immense work spent on the Lines
would have had to be recommenced de novo, and the ascendancy of the
French arms in the south would have received a rude shock. Possibly Soult
might have blown up Badajoz after its fall on March 12th, instead of
holding it, for he would have required all his strength to reconquer
Andalusia. But further than the immediate result of the inevitable raising of
the siege of Cadiz it is useless to make speculations.

The alarms of the French in Andalusia did not end with Victor’s
reoccupation of the lines. Another episode was still to be played out before
matters settled down. The indefatigable Ballasteros, having rested for a
short time in Portugal, came back into the Condado de Niebla in the end of
February with 4,000 men. He defeated on the Rio Tinto General Remond,
whose weak column was the only French force left west of the
Guadalquivir since Gazan’s departure (March 2). He then marched
promptly on Seville, having good information of the weakness of the
garrison that had been left there. On March 5th, the day of Barrosa, he was
at San Lucar la Mayor, only twenty miles from the great city. The governor,
Daricau, came out against him and joined Remond with 1,600 men and
three guns, all that he could dispose of, leaving Seville in the hands of a
miserable garrison, composed of convalescents and Juramentados of
doubtful faith. If Daricau had been beaten, the city and all its establishments
must have been lost in a day. But Ballasteros refused to fight, and retired
behind the Rio Tinto, having had false news that a force sent from
Estremadura by Soult was on his flank. Daricau returned to Seville on
March 9th, leaving Remond to observe Ballasteros, and was joined by some
detachments sent very tardily by Godinot to strengthen the garrison. But he
had received such alarming accounts of the results of the battle of Barrosa,
that he sent these troops on to Victor, and remained with a very weak force
in the city. But on March 9th Ballasteros, suddenly coming back from the
Rio Tinto, surprised Remond at La Palma, took two guns from him, and
drove him back into Seville. On the 11th the Spanish general was back at
San Lucar, and causing great dismay to Daricau, who sent urgent demands
for help to Soult. Since Barrosa he could look for no help from elsewhere.
He was saved by the rumour of the capitulation of Badajoz, which
frightened Ballasteros away, for the Spaniard rightly judged that Soult
could, and must, send a considerable force against him, now that his hands
were freed.
When, therefore, the Marshal, as we have already seen[165], came back in
haste to Andalusia with Gazan’s division, fearing that he might find
Ballasteros in Seville, and Graham pursuing Victor from the evacuated lines
of Cadiz, he was agreeably surprised to find that both dangers had been
avoided, and that the crisis in Andalusia was at an end. His further
movements belong to a different campaign, and will be related in their due
place.

Meanwhile Graham and La Peña were engaged in a violent controversy.
The British general had sent the most scathing comments on his colleague’s
conduct to the ambassador, Henry Wellesley, and to Wellington, and made
his complaints also to the Regency. La Peña on the other hand claimed the
credit of the victory of Barrosa for his own skilful management; according
to his magniloquent dispatches all had gone well, till Graham spoilt the
campaign by taking his division back to Cadiz. The Regency seemed partly
to believe him, as they conferred on him the Grand Cross of the Order of
Charles III, though at the same time they offered Graham the title of a
grandee of Spain, which he refused, for he would not be honoured in such
company. But Spanish as well as British public opinion was so much
against La Peña, that he was almost immediately deprived of his command,
which was given to the Marquis Coupigny; while Graham, whose strong
language had made it impossible for him to be left in contact with the
Regency, was withdrawn to serve with Wellington in Portugal, and made
over the charge of the Anglo-Portuguese troops at Cadiz to General Cooke.
Summing up the results of the Barrosa campaign, we may say that all it had
accomplished was so to alarm Soult that he came back in haste from
Estremadura, leaving there under Mortier a force far too weak to threaten
any harm to Wellington and Portugal. But even if Barrosa had never been
fought, Soult would have been harmless in any case, because Masséna was
gone from Santarem before Badajoz fell.

SECTION XXIV
MASSÉNA’S RETREAT FROM PORTUGAL

CHAPTER I
SANTAREM TO CELORICO. MARCH 9TH-22ND,
1811

On the 9th of March Wellington began at last to discover the real
position of the various French corps; till their rear was well past Thomar, it
had been difficult to divine the main trend of their movements, for the
various columns had been crossing each other’s routes in a very puzzling
fashion. But it now became clear that Masséna was intending to use all the
three lines of communication which lead from the plain of the Tagus to the
lower valley of the Mondego. Reynier and the 2nd Corps, after passing
Thomar, had taken the bad mountain road by Cabaços and Espinhal, far to
the east, and would come down on to the Mondego near the Ponte de
Murcella, a little above Coimbra. The 8th Corps had taken the central road,
that by Chão de Maçans and Ameiro, which joins the main Lisbon-Coimbra
chaussée at Pombal. Loison and his division, having crossed the route of
Reynier, fell into the Chão de Maçans road behind Junot. Ney, after holding
Leiria till the 9th, with the divisions of Marchand and Mermet, fell back on
that day a march along the great road in the plain (the Lisbon-Coimbra
chaussée mentioned above), and then halted. In front of him was marching
Drouet with Conroux’s division of the 9th Corps, escorting the main train of
the army, such as it was; it reached Travaço do Baixo, five miles south of
Pombal, on the night of the 9th. Montbrun’s reserve cavalry was all with
Ney. Of the three columns Reynier’s was 11,000 strong, that formed by
Junot with Loison in his rear had about 16,000 men, that of Ney and

Montbrun, with Conroux in front of them, comprised over 20,000 sabres
and bayonets. The main fact to be borne in mind by the British general was
that Reynier had been sent on an external road, separated by a very difficult
mountain chain from those followed by the other two columns, but that Ney
and Junot would undoubtedly unite at Pombal, where their roads met, so
that a mass of 35,000 men would be collected at that important centre of
communication on the 10th or the 11th. But Reynier could not join them till
the columns should have got down to the Mondego, some days later[166].
Masséna was, rightly enough, trying to use as many roads as possible, both
to avoid overcrowding of troops and trains on a single road, and also in
order that wider foraging might be possible, when the army should get out
of the devastated region north of Thomar, and descend into the valley of the
Mondego, where it was hoped that food would be far more procurable. But
the result of the disposition was that Reynier would not be available for
several days, if the British threw their main force on to the rear of Ney and
Junot and brought them to action.
The road Leiria-Coimbra was moreover both the best and the shortest of
all those that led from the position now reached by Wellington’s marching
columns to the valley of the Mondego. By following it, and hustling hard
the French column that had taken it, the commander of the Allies might
hope to reach Coimbra in time to prevent the French from taking up a
secure position on the lower Mondego, and establishing themselves in
cantonments on its banks. For it was his main object to turn them away
from Coimbra and the coast-plain, and to force them up into the eastern
mountains and towards the borders of Spain. At first he did not think that
the line of the Mondego could be held against the retreating French by the
trifling Portuguese militia force that lay behind it—Trant’s seven battalions
at Coimbra, Wilson’s four at Peñacova, which did not amount together to
more than 5,000 or 6,000 troops of very inferior quality. He issued orders to
those generals to retire, without committing themselves to an attempt to
defend the line of the river—Trant had better go behind the Vouga, Wilson
might retire on Vizeu; both would ultimately join the northern reserves
under Baccelar, and co-operate with that general in defending the city of
Oporto[167]. But Wellington hoped that matters would never reach the point
at which the safety of Oporto came in question, for he thought that he
would be pressing the rear of the French so hard in a few days, that they
would be thinking of other things than taking the offensive against northern

Portugal. He would do his best to thrust them north-eastward, towards the
frontiers of Spain. As a matter of fact we shall see that he more than
fulfilled his own forecast, for the French were so hotly pursued that they
never succeeded in crossing the Mondego or seizing Coimbra. When they
had reached its gates, Masséna refused to take the risk of passing the river
at a moment when his rear was in such dire trouble that the whole army
would have been in danger of destruction, if he had been attacked when the
actual operation of passage was in progress.
Meanwhile the original movement of Reynier, Junot, and Loison
towards Thomar had caused Wellington to spread his pursuing troops more
towards the east than was convenient, when it turned out that only Reynier
was taking the mountain road towards Espinhal, and that the other columns
were going to join Ney on the Leiria-Coimbra road. Originally only the
Light Division and Pack’s Portuguese had followed Ney, and they formed
the only body of troops available for the pursuit of what was now detected
to be the largest body of the enemy, until the other divisions should come
up from the rear, or be marched westward from the Thomar region.
On the 9th Wellington’s total available force, minus the 2nd Division
and Hamilton’s Portuguese, now halted about Abrantes and destined for
Estremadura, and minus also the regiments just landed at Lisbon, was about
46,000 men[168]. Of these the Light Division and Pack’s Portuguese, with
Anson’s cavalry brigade (now under Arentschildt), were at Leiria, in close
touch with Ney’s retreating corps. But the 1st, 4th, and 6th Divisions and
De Grey’s heavy dragoons were at Thomar, two full marches east of the
Light Division; Picton with the 3rd Division was at Porto de Mos on the
Santarem-Leiria chaussée, a day’s journey behind the vanguard. The 5th
Division and the independent Portuguese brigade of Ashworth were a
march behind Picton, about Alcanhede.
If Ney were to be joined by Junot and Loison, as now seemed probable,
in the direction of Pombal, it would take one full day for the 3rd Division to
join the vanguard, two full days for the rest of the army to come up. It
would not be till the 11th that a mass of combatants would be collected
sufficient to attack the enemy, if he held the Pombal position. And this
concentration had to be carried out for safety’s sake; it would have been
insane to bid the Light Division and Pack, the only troops immediately
available, to fall upon Ney and Junot and their 35,000 men. Accordingly

Wellington directed the 3rd and 5th Divisions to close up rapidly upon the
vanguard along the chaussée, while the mass of troops around Thomar was
to follow the Chão de Maçans road in Junot’s track and unite with the other
column in front of Pombal on the 11th. Only Nightingale’s brigade of the
1st Division was detached, with one squadron of dragoons, to follow
Reynier on his ‘eccentric’ line of retreat, along the rough mountain road to
Espinhal. Forty-three thousand men out of the 46,000 which formed the
disposable total of Wellington’s army were sent in pursuit of Masséna’s
main body.
The bringing up of the rear divisions took time. Meanwhile the Light
Division with Pack’s Portuguese and the attached cavalry, now united under
the temporary control of Sir William Erskine (for Robert Craufurd, the
natural commander of such a vanguard, was on leave in England), kept
close to Ney’s heels, and on the 10th were at Venda Nova, immediately in
front of his position at Pombal. The 4th Division were at Cacharia on the
same night, the 1st and 6th at Acentis and other villages near Thomar, the
3rd at Leiria, the 5th at Porto de Mos. All these marches were executed
through a country full of scenes of horror: Picton, not a man easily to be
moved by sentiment, wrote, ‘Nothing can exceed the devastation and
cruelties committed by the enemy during his retreat: he has set fire to all the
villages and murdered all the peasantry for leagues on each flank of his
march[169].’ The large town of Leiria was burning in five places when the
Light Division reached it. The great historic monasteries of Alcobaça and
Batalha had been wrecked in mere spite—the former, according to
Wellington, by direct order from the French head quarters. Every by-road
and ravine was strewn with corpses; a note from Grattan’s interesting
journal of the marches of the 88th gives an average picture of what the
British army saw. ‘At the entrance of a cave,’ he writes, ‘lay an old man, a
woman, and two young men, all dead. The cave, no doubt, had served them
as an asylum in the preceding winter, and appearances warranted the
supposition that these poor creatures, in a vain effort to save their little store
of provisions, fell victims to the ferocity of their murderers. The clothes of
the young peasants were torn to atoms, and bore testimony that they did not
lose their lives without a struggle. The hands of one were dreadfully
mangled, as if in his last efforts he had grasped the sword which ultimately
dispatched him. Beside him lay his companion, his brother perhaps, covered
with wounds. A little to the right was the old man: he lay on his back with

his breast bare; two large wounds were over his heart, and the back of his
head was beaten to pieces. Near him lay an old rusty bayonet lashed to a
pole; one of his hands grasped a bunch of hair, torn no doubt from the head
of his assassin; the old woman had probably been strangled, as no wound
appeared on her body. At some distance from the spot were two wounded
soldiers of the French 4th Léger, abandoned by their comrades. These poor
wretches were surrounded by half a dozen Portuguese, who were taking on
them the horrible vengeance common during this contest. On our approach
they dispersed and fled: both the Frenchmen were still alive, and asked us
to shoot them. We dared not, and when we had passed on, we could
perceive the peasants descending from the hill, like vultures who have been
scared from their prey, but return with redoubled voracity.’
Before the marching divisions came up from the rear, there was a
cavalry skirmish in front of Pombal between Arentschildt’s Light Horse
(16th and 1st Hussars of the K.G.L.) and some of Montbrun’s dragoons,
which was of little importance as to results, but assumes such a different
complexion in the narratives of the combatants on the opposite sides that it
is hardly possible to believe that they are writing of the same event[170].
During the hours on the 10th of March, while the English columns were
toiling up from the rear to join the Light Division, Ney’s and Junot’s corps
remained stationary, the former at the town of Pombal, the latter at Venda
da Cruz, five miles behind it, resting, and seeking (mostly in vain) for
provisions. Masséna was determined not to move backward before he
should be obliged. Montbrun’s dragoons reconnoitred as far as the bridge of
Coimbra, which they found with two of its arches broken, and cannon
visible on the further side. The small force in sight was the rearguard of
Trant’s Militia brigade, which (in accordance with Wellington’s orders) was
preparing to draw back towards the Vouga, but held on to Coimbra till a
serious attack should be delivered. Masséna thereupon ordered his engineer,
Colonel Valazé, to search for a convenient spot below the town, at which a
flying bridge might be thrown across the Mondego. On this day Reynier
and the 2nd Corps, far off on the eastern mountain road, reached Espinhal,
the first village beyond the Serra da Estrella. As that place has a by-road
leading to Coimbra, this detached body was getting nearer to a possible
reunion with the main body.

On the morning of March 11th the 3rd Division joined Wellington’s
vanguard after a toilsome march, and the 4th Division, heading the column
which came from Thomar, was reported to be in supporting distance. Ney,
apparently having detected the arrival of British reinforcements, then drew
back one of his divisions, and left the other (Mermet) in position on the
heights behind the town, with a single battalion holding the lofty but ruined
castle which dominates the place. Wellington, on perceiving that the enemy
was drawing back, ordered Elder’s battalion of Caçadores[171], supported by
two companies of the 95th Rifles, to charge across the bridge and occupy
the town, while the rest of the Light Division advanced in support, and
Picton moved to the left, to cross the stream lower down. The attacking
force passed the narrow bridge under fire, cleared the nearer streets and
assailed the castle and the small force left there. Seeing his rearguard in
danger of being cut off, and noting that Elder’s force was small, Ney came
down from the heights with four battalions of the 6th Léger and the 69th
Ligne, thrust back the Caçadores and the supporting rifle companies, and
brought off the troops in the castle. He barricaded the main street, and set
fire to the houses along it in several places before departing; these
precautions detained for some minutes the main column of the Light
Division, which was hurrying up to reinforce its van. The French were all
retiring up the hill before they could be got at, and only suffered a little
from Ross’s guns, which were hurried up to play upon the retreating
column, as it re-formed in the position beyond Pombal. By the time that the
Light Division had disentangled itself from the burning town, and Picton
had crossed the stream on the left, the day was far spent; and Ney retired at
his leisure after dark, without having been further incommoded. The British
followed, and encamped on the further side of the water, ready for pursuit
next morning. Ney was much praised for the tactical skill which he had
shown in saving his rearguard, and Erskine was thought to have handled the
Light Division clumsily. The French losses, trifling as they were, much
exceeded those of the Allies—they lost four officers and fifty-nine men, all
in the 6th and 69th. The Caçadores lost ten rank and file killed, and an
officer and twenty men wounded—the two companies of the 95th had an
ensign and four men wounded—a total of thirty-seven, little more than half
the French loss.
Late on this day the 4th Division came up, and the 5th, 6th, and 1st were
reported to be close behind, so that Wellington had his main body at last

collected. He started the decisive operations on the following morning at 5
o’clock, advancing in three columns towards Venda da Cruz, where Ney
had been located on the previous night by the cavalry scouts. Picton and the
3rd Division were on the right, Pack’s Portuguese in the centre, the Light
Division on the left, with the 4th Division supporting on the high-road, and
the rest following behind. But the enemy had retired at an equally early
hour, and was not to be found at Venda da Cruz. He had gone back to
Redinha, where there is a bridge over the Souré river, forming a defile
behind the village, and a high plateau flanked by woods in its front.
Mermet’s division formed on the plateau, with Marchand’s in support,
while the rest of the French were not far off, Loison’s division being at
Rabaçal, three miles to the east, and Junot’s corps at Condeixa, five miles
behind Redinha. Drouet, with Conroux’s division, had started during the
night on the road for Ponte de Murcella and the Spanish frontier, escorting a
convoy of 800 sick and wounded and the small remains of the reserve park
of the army. He had orders to clear the chaussée and to get into touch with
Claparéde, who was now lying with the other division of the 9th Corps at
Celorico. This detachment would have revealed to Wellington, had he
known of it, that Masséna was more anxious to secure his line of
communication with Spain than to seize Coimbra and establish himself on
the line of the Mondego. For a good general, intending to take risks in a
general action, does not detach 5,000 men on the eve of the decisive day. It
is only second-rate commanders who (like King Joseph at Vittoria in 1813)
commit such mistakes.
It is clear that if Masséna had intended to make a serious blow at
Coimbra, he ought to have done so at latest on the 10th or 11th, before the
English army was close enough to hinder him. Junot’s corps, which was
entirely covered by Ney and the rearguard, was well placed for a blow at
the city, as it was little more than ten miles from the Mondego and the
broken bridge. But Masséna did not march Junot in this direction, but kept
him in a position to support Ney, while only some squadrons of Montbrun’s
cavalry were sent against Coimbra. That general’s proceedings showed
great timidity and feebleness. On the afternoon of the 10th, according to
Trant’s dispatch, his advanced guard appeared on the Monte de Esperança,
the height opposite Coimbra, and was seen to send down reconnoitring
parties towards the banks of the river, both above and below the city,
leaving unmolested the broken bridge, behind which were the guns placed

in the battery which Trant had thrown up to protect his retreat. Much rain
had fallen on the preceding night, the river was full, and Montbrun’s scouts
reported to him and to his companion the Engineer-colonel Valazé that they
could not find the fords which, as they had been told, were situated at the
spots that they had visited. On the following day (March 11th), while the
skirmish of Pombal was going on, Montbrun moved in nearer to the city,
showing artillery and a cavalry brigade at the Cruz dos Moroiços, and
occupying the convent of Santa Clara, which lies less than a mile from the
bridge. One of his squadrons tried to pass at the ford of Pereira, five miles
below the city, but owing to the strength of the current failed completely,
the men who first tried the water regaining with difficulty the bank from
which they had started. Nothing more was done by the French that day, and
Montbrun reported to Masséna that he had received information that the
whole of the brigades of Trant and Silveira were in Coimbra, and that he
had seen artillery in position at the bridge[172]. The real force opposed to him
was seven battalions of Militia, some 3,000 men, and six guns. This was the
last day on which it would have been possible for the French to seize
Coimbra, for from the 12th onward Wellington was pressing them so hard
that, if they had set themselves to force the passage, and had succeeded,
their rearguard, and probably a great portion of their main body, would have
been destroyed. For Ney, with all his tactical skill, could not have shaken
off his pursuers in such a way as to allow 30,000 men to file over a single
bridge, hastily repaired, when the Allies were in hot pursuit. The French
engineers, indeed, reported that it would take several days to mend the
bridge, even when the Portuguese had been driven away from the further
bank. The main comment suggested by all this is that, since Masséna was
intending to hold out on the Mondego, and to occupy its northern bank,
according to his own dispatch sent to Napoleon, he ought to have taken
measures to secure a safe passage many days back—at the first moment
when his retreat began on the 5th of March. Part of the mass of troops
accumulated at Leiria ought to have marched for Coimbra on March 6th. It
was altogether too late to send a mere flying cavalry force to appear in front
of the place on March 10th.
On March 12th Montbrun was prowling ineffectively along the south
bank of the Mondego, and setting his horse artillery to engage in a futile
exchange of fire with Trant’s guns, while a battalion of infantry borrowed
from Junot tried to creep upon the bridge, but was detected and driven off

by grape. But Ney was already engaged in such sharp fighting at Redinha
that he could not have drawn his troops off, or have escaped towards
Coimbra, even if the passage of the Mondego had been forced. Wellington,
it will be remembered, was advancing towards the 6th Corps in the
morning, when he found that it had retired from Venda da Cruz on to
another position. His cavalry discovered that not only was he in presence of
the 6th Corps, but that another French column was on his flank at Rabaçal
(this was Loison’s division). Moreover, the 8th Corps was known to be not
far off, for stragglers and sick from it had been picked up upon the
preceding day. Seeing therefore that he might be called upon to face some
30,000 men, the British general resolved not to open the fight over hastily.
When his three leading columns came up, Pack in the centre, Picton on the
right, the Light Division on the left, they were halted in front of Mermet’s
line, and deployed; but no attack was made till the 4th Division had reached
the front line and joined Pack, while the 1st and 5th were close behind.
Then, at two o’clock in the afternoon, an encircling attack was made on
Mermet’s rearguard, the wings being thrown forward, while the centre was
somewhat held back. The 3rd Division, entering the woods on the French
left, the Light Division those on their right, advanced as quickly as they
could through difficult ground. Pack and the 4th Division halted beyond
musket-range of the centre, but suffered a little from artillery fire while
waiting for the flank attacks to develop. After some twenty minutes of hot
skirmishing among the trees, Mermet’s flanks were turned by Picton on the
side of the hills, and by the Light Division on the side of the plain, and Ney
hastily drew back his front line behind the stream and the defile, where
Marchand’s division was waiting in support. The retreating battalions were
somewhat jammed at the bridge, and lost heavily, while passing it only a
few yards in front of the skirmishers of the Light Division. Picton tried to
ford the stream higher up, in order to cut off the retreating force before it
could reach its supports, but failed, the water turning out too deep and rapid
for passage[173].
It took some time to file the Light and 3rd Divisions over the bridge,
and to make a new line in face of Ney’s second position on the ridge two
miles beyond the stream. But when the two divisions once more went
forward, each turning, as before, the enemy’s flank opposed to it, while
Pack and the 5th Division formed up again in the centre, Ney gave back
without any very strenuous resistance, and, abandoning his second position,

fell back upon Condeixa, a village with a defile in front of it, five miles
north of Redinha on the great Coimbra chaussée.
The day’s work had been a very pretty piece of manœuvring on both
sides. Ney hung on to his two successive positions just so long as was safe,
and absconded on each occasion at the critical moment, when his flanks
were turned. A quarter of an hour’s more delay would have been ruin, but
the retreat was made just in time. The two stands had delayed Wellington
for a day, and his army had only advanced ten miles in the twenty-four
hours. Yet it is unjust to accuse the British general of over-caution, as
Napier and all the French annalists have done. He was quite right not to
attack with the first division that came up, and to wait till he had three and a
half in line. For he was aware that great strength lay in front of him, and, for
all he knew, the troops of Mermet might have been supported not only by
Marchand, as was actually the case, but by the whole of Junot’s corps. In
that case an early attack would have meant a bloody check, and an enforced
wait, till the 3rd, 4th, 1st, and 5th Divisions should have come up. As it was,
the French rearguard was dislodged with a very modest loss on the part of
the Allies, 12 officers and 193 men, of whom the large majority were in the
Light and 3rd Divisions, the troops which had done the work. But the 4th
Division and Pack’s Portuguese suffered some casualties, while waiting
under cannon-fire for the flanking movement to take effect[174]. The French
loss was 14 officers and 213 men, nearly all from Mermet’s division, as that
of Marchand was little engaged[175].
During this day the 6th Division, moving apart from the rest of the
army, marched north-westward to Souré, and so got upon the western route
to Coimbra. It was apparently Wellington’s intention to push this
detachment round the western or seaward flank of the French army, so as to
threaten with it the right wing of any position that the enemy might take up
across the Coimbra chaussée. Indeed, having found no hostile force of any
sort in front of it, the 6th Division was able to push in quite close to
Coimbra on the next day, and to take up a position at Ega, which menaced
Ney and Junot’s march across its front if they should still continue their
retreat in the original direction. It was probably the movement of this
division which caused the French to believe that Wellington had landed a
detached force from ships at the mouth of the Mondego, and was pushing it

forward towards Coimbra: an account of the march of this imaginary corps
is to be found in several narratives[176].
Condeixa, to which Ney had retired on the evening of the combat of
Redinha, is a most important strategical point, since here the chaussée
leading to Coimbra is joined by the last crossroad which meets it south of
the Mondego, that which runs eastward to the Ponte de Murcella and the
Spanish frontier. As long as the French held Condeixa, they were in a
position to choose between an attack on Coimbra and a retreat up the south
bank of the river towards Almeida and their base. And with Wellington at
his heels, Masséna had now to make his choice between the two courses.
His dispatch of March 19th to Berthier informs us that he resolved for a
moment to offer battle to the Allies at Condeixa, with the 6th and 8th Corps,
calling in perhaps (though he does not mention it) the 2nd Corps from
Espinhal, which is no more than twenty miles away. The reasons which he
gives for not doing so are firstly, that, since the departure of Drouet and his
division on the 11th, his whole force was no more than half that of
Wellington; as a matter of fact he had still 45,000 men, his adversary just
about the same number. Secondly, that the morale of the army was impaired
by long privations and short rations. Thirdly, that the stock of ammunition
was dangerously low, and the artillery horses could hardly move. Fourthly,
that he was hampered by the fact that his lieutenants (he is alluding to Ney
in especial) were set on abandoning Portugal, ‘which contributes in no
small degree to a lack of that harmony which ought to reign in an army.’
Fifthly, that a defeat at Condeixa would mean the inevitable loss of all his
artillery, train, wounded, and baggage, while a success would not seriously
injure Wellington, who could always retire on to the Lines of Torres Vedras.
Sixthly, that being in the midst of a population roused to fury by the ravages
of his army, he found that he could gather in little or no food, and was fast
using up the stock that he had brought with him. Taking all these points into
consideration, and being informed by Montbrun that, even if he succeeded
in seizing Coimbra, its bridge would take two days to repair, he had
resolved to avoid a general action, to abandon any attempt to pass the
Mondego, and to draw back towards the 9th Corps and the Spanish frontier,
where he could find the food and the new equipment which the army
needed.

REDINHA

Accordingly, on the early morning of March 13th the decisive step
which committed Masséna to a retreat towards Celorico and the 9th Corps
was taken. The 8th Corps was marched off, covering the train, along the

road which leads by Miranda de Corvo to the Ponte de Murcella and the
upper Mondego, instead of toward Coimbra, now only eight miles away. To
cover its flank Loison’s division was moved from Rabaçal, where it had lain
on the day of the combat of Redinha, to Fonte Cuberta. Ney remained
behind at Condeixa with his two old divisions, to cover the fork of the
roads, and to detain the Allies as long as possible, while Junot and the trains
were toiling along the bad and mountainous road towards Miranda de
Corvo. The 2nd Corps was still kept at Espinhal, where it was observed by
Nightingale’s brigade, which had dogged its steps at a cautious distance
since the 9th.
These arrangements did not work very well, for Ney was turned out of
the Condeixa position, much earlier than he or Masséna had expected, by
Wellington’s skilful manœuvres. The movement used against him was much
the same as at Redinha; the 3rd Division marched by a mountain path to
turn his left, while the 6th Division, coming in from Souré by a wide sweep,
appeared at Ega, almost behind his right wing, and threatened to get
between him and Coimbra. Meanwhile the 4th and Light Divisions, with the
rest of the army behind them, were halted on distant heights in his front,
ready to attack when the turning movements should become pronounced.
Ney was, very properly, anxious about his retreat, for he could not any
longer (as at Pombal and Redinha) give back to his rear, but was forced to
take a side direction, in order to follow the 8th Corps on the Miranda de
Corvo road. The moment that he saw Picton making for this road, to cut
him off from the rest of the French, he set fire to the town of Condeixa and
moved off in great haste, just avoiding Picton, to Casal Novo, a village five
miles east of his first position, where he formed up again at dusk. The day’s
operations had been almost bloodless; nothing more than a few musket
shots were exchanged by the skirmishers of the two sides. But they had
been of the highest strategical importance, since they ended in the complete
abandonment of the attempt to reach Coimbra by the French.
Incidentally, the rapid fashion in which Ney had been evicted from the
cross-roads at Condeixa nearly led to disaster some of the outlying fractions
of the French army. Masséna himself had halted at Fonte Cuberta, six miles
to the south-east, with his staff and Loison’s division, which was escorting
the reserve artillery of the 6th and 8th Corps. He was intending to cover
Ney’s left from any wide turning movement by the British. The road on

which this village lies falls into that from Condeixa to Miranda de Corvo
about three miles from the first-named place. Ney, when preparing to
evacuate Condeixa, sent an aide-de-camp to advise the Commander-in-
Chief that he was about to retire. But the officer charged with the message
lost his way, and only arrived at Fonte Cuberta late in the afternoon with the
dispatch[177]. By this time Ney had already reached Casal Novo, some
distance beyond the point at which the Fonte Cuberta road fell into his line
of retreat. Masséna and the division in his company were therefore cut off
from their proper route for retiring on to the main army. Within a few
minutes after the arrival of Ney’s messenger, a patrol of the German hussars
arrived at the village, and nearly rode into Masséna and his staff, who were
dining in the open air under a tree outside its entrance. There was a mutual
surprise; the Marshal’s escort of fifty men ran to their arms, while the
hussars halted, not understanding what they had come upon. If they had
charged, Masséna might have been taken or slain, as several French
narrators assert. He mounted and galloped back in haste towards Loison’s
infantry, who were camped in and beyond the village. The hussars went off
to report to their squadron commander that Fonte Cuberta was still occupied
—it had been with the object of obtaining information on this point that the
reconnaissance had been sent out. Masséna hastened to put Loison’s men
under march for Casal Novo, by a very rugged side-track, called up
Clausel’s division to cover him, and got off in the dusk unhindered, save by
a few flank skirmishers belonging to Picton’s division, who came upon him
in the dark and were brushed away with ease[178].
This incident led to a furious quarrel between Masséna and Ney, for the
former asserted, as it seems, that the latter had promised to hold Condeixa
for a whole day or more, and had moved off at noon out of mere malice, so
as to leave his chief in an exposed position. If we may believe the narrative
of Masséna’s aide-de-camp, Fririon, he asserted that Ney had deliberately
wished to get him captured, and had executed his retreat
‘clandestinement’[179]. It was impossible to persuade him to the contrary, and
he saved up his wrath for the next occasion when he should be able to
convict Ney of open disobedience, and not of mere errors of judgement.
There can be no doubt that he was doing an injustice to his lieutenant in
suspecting him of such a monstrous plot: Ney was a man of honour;
Masséna had himself such a doubtful record for probity that we can well
understand his suspicion of others. In truth, what happened was that the

younger Marshal had promised to defend Condeixa longer than was really
possible, when Wellington (as on this day) was in his happiest mood, and
manœuvring with a skill which made a long resistance impracticable.
But Loison’s division was not the only French force which was in
serious danger on March 13. Montbrun had lingered in front of Coimbra,
till his retreat also was imperilled by the loss of Condeixa and its all-
important bifurcation of roads. At eight o’clock in the morning he had made
his last vain attempt to win his way into the city—this time by negotiation.
He sent a parlementaire on to the broken bridge, with a demand that Trant
should give up the place, and a promise that the citizens should suffer no
harm, and the garrison should be allowed free egress. This last was really
not his to grant, for during the night Trant had removed everything from the
city except a battalion of Militia and the two guns at the bridge. The
sergeant in command of these pieces (a certain José Correia Leal, whose
name the Portuguese have very properly preserved) adroitly wasted time by
detaining the French officer. He told him that he must wait till an answer
came from Trant, whose absence he kept concealed, and then, after some
hours, said that his commander had gone to visit a distant point of the river
defences, from which he would not be back till the next morning[180].
Meanwhile, if any attempt were made to attack the bridge, he had orders to
blow up several more arches, which were mined. Time drifted on, and
meanwhile Montbrun received at noon the news that Ney was forced to
give up Condeixa[181], i. e. that there was no more prospect of using Coimbra
as a crossing-point. Moreover his own retreat was in danger, if an English
detachment should march straight from Condeixa towards the bridge, a
distance of only eight miles. The French general was obliged to abscond,
and the only route open to him, since the chaussée was lost, was a rough
path which, after coasting along the south bank of the Mondego for some
time, turns up into the valley of the Eça[182], and so reaches Miranda de
Corvo. After blowing up many of his wheeled vehicles, Montbrun hastened
to take this track, and escaped by it, though he was discovered and pursued
by some of Wellington’s cavalry patrols, who pressed his rearguard and
made many prisoners. But the division of dragoons, with the infantry
battalion attached, and the two horse artillery batteries—their caissons had
to be destroyed because of the badness of the road—ultimately reached
Miranda with no great loss.

This was a truly important day, the most critical in the whole campaign,
since at its end Coimbra was safe, and the whole French army had been
turned on to the road towards Spain. Wellington was satisfied, and had no
reason to be otherwise. The accusation made against him by many critics of
over-caution, which is said to have prevented him from destroying Loison’s
and Montbrun’s detachments, seems unjustifiable. The cardinal fact that he
was not superior in numerical strength to the army that he was pursuing is
too often forgotten; indeed, the French writers from Masséna down to to-
day have nearly always credited him with 50,000 or 60,000 men, whereas
he had barely 45,000, of whom only 32,000 were British, and the
Portuguese were still in great part untried troops; for though those of them
who had passed the test of battle (Pack’s and Power’s[183] brigades, the
Caçadores in the Light Division, and the artillery) had done admirably
hitherto, there were still four whole brigades which had never been in
serious action since they were reorganized in 1809[184]. Nothing was to be
risked, and partial attacks by unsupported vanguards were to be eschewed,
when (as Wellington remarked in his dispatch of March 14) ‘the whole
country affords advantageous positions to a retreating army, of which the
enemy has shown that he knows how to avail himself. They are leaving the
country, as they entered it, in one solid mass, covering their rear on every
march by one (or sometimes two) corps d’armée, in the successive
positions which the country affords, which corps d’armée are closely
supported by the rest.’ A general action against equal or superior numbers
ranged on a strong hill-position was clearly inadvisable, and the plan of
manœuvring the enemy out of each line that he took up by a short flanking
movement was infinitely preferable. Flanking movements take time, and
unless the enemy is very slow or very rash, have effective rather than
brilliant results. But Wellington never ‘played to the gallery’; he was no
vendor of bulletins; he had a small army which it was difficult to reinforce,
and he could not afford to waste his precious men in hazardous combats. It
would have been of little profit to him if he had destroyed a division or two
of the enemy, and had then arrived on the Spanish frontier with an army
diminished by 10,000 men. The enemy had unlimited supports behind him;
he had practically none. For when he had taken out his field army, and had
detached Beresford to Estremadura, there were no regular troops left in
Portugal save the newly formed 7th Division, which was coming up from
Lisbon to join the main body.

CASAL NOVO

That Wellington’s system was sound was sufficiently proved by an
incident of the next morning’s march, when the army suffered the only
check which it was destined to meet during the campaign, and lost more
men than on any other day of this eventful month. At early dawn on the
14th there was a dense fog; notwithstanding this, Sir William Erskine, who
was commanding the vanguard, composed of the Light Division, Pack’s
Portuguese, and Arentschildt’s cavalry brigade, thought fit to march straight
at the enemy, his orders of the preceding night being to stick to Ney’s heels.
The French rearguard, Marchand’s division, was holding the village of

Casal Novo[185], a strong post on a rising ground, surrounded with stone
walls and enclosures, while the rest of the 6th and 8th Corps were defiling
along the road to Chão de Lamas and Miranda de Corvo. The Light
Division, heading the advancing column, ran into the pickets of the French,
whereupon Erskine ordered out three companies of the 52nd and sent them
forward to clear the way. They were soon heavily engaged, for Marchand
was in force. When the fog lifted daylight showed the five battalions of the
Light Division clubbed on the road, under the front of the enemy’s line of a
battery and eleven battalions, ranged on the height of Casal Novo. Pack’s
Portuguese and the 3rd Division were some distance off, coming along the
defile which leads from Condeixa. The Light Division had to extend and
fight hard in order to keep its ground, while the main body was coming up
and developing a flanking movement against the French. It lost heavily of
necessity, and was only released from a dangerous position by the
movement of Picton and the 3rd Division to the right, which forced the
French to abscond. Marchand’s division then fell back behind Mermet’s,
which was in position two miles to the rear, between the villages of Casal
de Azan and Villa Seca[186]. This second position was properly turned, and
carried without loss, if with some delay. Then the enemy was discovered in
the afternoon in a third and still more formidable post, on the heights of
Chão de Lamas. This was treated in the same fashion, the Light Division
and Pack’s Portuguese turning its left, Picton its right, while the main body,
coming up from the rear, halted opposite its centre. Ney then gave up his
position, and fell back six miles down hill, towards Miranda de Corvo on
the banks of the Eça river, where the 8th Corps and Montbrun’s cavalry
were waiting for him. The pursuers, tired out by a running fight of twelve
hours, during which they had gained fourteen miles of ground, halted in
front of him. Their loss had been 11 officers and 119 men in the British, and
25 in the Portuguese ranks, a total of 155. More than half fell in the
mismanaged business of the early morning, in which the 43rd, 52nd, and
95th lost 9 officers and over 80 men, in an utterly unnecessary combat. This
was the first of two exhibitions of wrongheadedness by which the newly
arrived general, William Erskine, lost Wellington’s confidence. The second,
on April 3rd, was (as we shall see) to be a still more discreditable affair. The
French loss at Casal Novo and in the succeeding skirmishes of the day was
apparently much smaller than that of the British, though the official figure
of 55 killed and wounded seems very low[187]. On this morning the British,

for the first time during the retreat, began to take prisoners on a
considerable scale; there were more than 100 captured between Casal Novo
and Miranda de Corvo, partly skirmishers cut off during the long bickering
in woods and enclosures which filled the day, partly stragglers and
marauders, who were taken in the country-side while wandering away from
their colours.
On this evening Reynier and the 2nd Corps, so long divided from the
rest of the French army, joined the main column. From March 10th to
March 13th they had lain at Espinhal, resting after the difficult passage of
the mountains, and endeavouring, without much success, to scrape together
food to fill their depleted stores. Being closely observed, though not
attacked, by Nightingale’s brigade, they could not scatter very far for
marauding. But on the 14th Wellington, during the Casal Novo fighting,
threw out Cole’s 4th Division far to his right to Penella, where it got into
touch with Nightingale. Seeing that there was now a serious force in front
of Reynier, and that it might thrust itself between him and the rest of the
army, Masséna bade his lieutenant break up without delay, and come in to
Miranda de Corvo. This was easily done by a ten-mile march in the
afternoon, and the 2nd Corps camped on the further side of the Eça river
that night. Thus the whole French army, save Conroux’s division, was
concentrated, and 44,000 men under arms, dragging behind them a
baggage-train that was still considerable, and over 5,000 sick and wounded,
were gathered in the defile and the little plain north of it, with a most
forbidding mountain range in their front, and the pursuing columns of
Wellington in their rear.
The situation appeared so grave to Masséna that he resolved to lighten
his army so far as was possible, in order to allow it to march faster. On this
night there was a general destruction not only of all wheeled vehicles, save
a minimum of ammunition waggons, but of all the baggage of the army,
regimental as well as personal. Ney set the example by burning his own
carriages, and abandoning all that could not be carried on pack mules[188].
The sick and wounded were transferred from waggons on to beasts of
burden—a change which caused the death or abandonment of many
hundreds of them during the next two days. A strict inspection was made of
all the surviving draught and pack animals, and when those still in a fair
state had been set aside for the carriage of the sick and the ammunition, an

order was issued that all the rest should be put to death. To avoid the noise
which would have been caused by shooting them, the officer charged with
this duty caused them all to be hamstrung, a cruel device which was surely
unnecessary, for they could have been killed as easily as mutilated by the
sword or knife. The horrid sight of more than 500 live horses, mules, and
asses sprawling or hobbling in a bleeding mass, just outside the village of
Miranda de Corvo, was never forgotten by those who witnessed it[189] in the
pursuit of the following morning.
The sacrifice of the baggage was the preliminary to a desperate and
fatiguing night march. The 2nd Corps started off first, then the 8th, leaving
the 6th as usual to bring up the rear. After firing Miranda de Corvo, in order
that the conflagration in the narrow street leading up from the bridge might
delay the advance of the Allies, Ney followed the rest of the army at one in
the morning. All marched slowly in the dark for ten miles of an uphill road,
and before noon reached the long descent into the valley of the Ceira, at the
village of Foz do Arouce[190]. The 2nd and 8th Corps crossed the stream with
much delay, at a bridge which had been somewhat injured by the local
Ordenança but was still serviceable. They deployed on a range of
commanding heights on the further side, and encamped. Ney, always eager
to carry on the detaining process which he had hitherto practised with such
skill, only sent three of his six brigades across the river[191], though Masséna
had ordered him to pass, and to destroy the bridge. He remained with the
rest and Lamotte’s light cavalry, posted on two long hills with the village of
Foz between them, on the hither side of the water. Though he had a good
position, yet the defile to the rear was a dangerous thing for such a large
body of troops, since the Ceira was in flood, and every man had to retire
over the single damaged bridge. Moreover the troops, tired by the night
march, guarded themselves badly; in especial the cavalry, which ought to
have watched every road, with vedettes out for many miles to the front,
huddled together near the river for the convenience of water and grazing:
General Lamotte indeed crossed the Ceira with great part of his men, and
seems to have kept no look-out whatever[192].
Wellington’s pursuit this morning started very late. The burning of the
French baggage and of the town of Miranda had been noted in the last hours
of the night. But at dawn a heavy fog arose, and Wellington refused to move
his masses till it was certain that the French were not still in position on the

heights beyond the river with all their 44,000 men. For if Masséna were
seeking a battle, as was quite possible, now that he had concentrated all his
three corps, it would be reckless to attack him when every man of the allied
army had to file over a narrow bridge. It was not till reconnaissances had
pushed across the Eça, and had explored the burning town, and the ground
beyond for some miles, that orders were issued for the army to march on.
Even then the fog had not lifted, and the morning was some hours old
before the 3rd and Light Divisions were on their way. They followed the
retreating French up the long ascent, picking up many sick and stragglers,
and at about four o’clock in the afternoon came in sight of the enemy in
their new position behind the Ceira, with a formidable front extending for
several miles along the hills, and Ney’s rearguard visible on the lower
eminences on the hither side of the stream. Picton and Erskine halted,
thinking that it was too late in the afternoon to undertake a serious attack,
and that Wellington would wait, as usual, for his supports to come up. They
had directed their divisions to encamp and thrown out their pickets, when
the Commander-in-Chief rode up, not long before dusk. Surveying the
enemy, and seeing that few battalions were under arms, and that Ney was
evidently expecting no fighting—his cavalry indeed had given him no
proper warning of the approach of the Allies—Wellington resolved to strike
at once, though his nearest reserve, the 6th Division, was still some way off.
Picton was told to attack the French left, the Light Division their right. The
first blow was very effective and partook of the nature of a surprise, for the
enemy was caught unprepared. Some companies of the 95th Rifles,
penetrating down a hollow road, arrived almost unopposed in the village of
Foz, quite close to the bridge, while the rest of the Light Division was
holding Marchand’s troops engaged in a frontal fight, and Picton was
making good way against the brigade belonging to Mermet, which formed
the French left. The noise of close combat breaking out almost in their rear,
at a spot which seemed to indicate that the bridge was in danger, and their
retreat cut off, caused a panic in the French right-centre, and the 39th
regiment broke its ranks and hurried towards the bridge, where it met and
became jammed against Lamotte’s cavalry, who were hastily returning to
take up the position from which they had unwisely retired an hour or two
before. Finding the passage impossible, the fugitives turned to a deep ford a
little down-stream and plunged into it, where many were drowned and the
regimental eagle was lost[193], while their colonel was taken prisoner. Ney

saved the situation, which had arisen through his own disobedience to
Masséna’s orders, by charging, with the third battalion of the 69th
regiment[194] the rifle companies which had got into Foz do Arouce and were
threatening the bridge. They were driven back on to their support, the 52nd
regiment, and the passage having been cleared by the Marshal’s exertions,
the troops to the left and right crossed it in some disorder, and took refuge
on the opposite bank. They were shelled during their defile, not only by
Ross’s and Bull’s horse artillery batteries, but by some guns belonging to
their own 8th Corps, which in the deepening twilight failed to distinguish
between pursuers and pursued. By the time that night had fully set in, the
French rearguard was all over the river, and the bridge was blown up. If the
attack had been delivered an hour earlier, it is probable that Ney would have
suffered losses far greater than he actually endured—perhaps 250[195] men
killed, wounded, drowned, or taken—for the British divisions were
prevented by the failing light from acting as effectively as they otherwise
might against the masses hastily recrossing the bridge. Wellington’s loss
was trifling—4 officers and 67 men, nearly a third of them in the rifle
companies which had broken the French centre for a moment, and had then
been driven back by Ney. The small remainder of the baggage of Marchand
and Mermet was captured on this occasion, including some biscuit, which
proved most grateful to the Light Division, as it had, like the rest of the
British army, outmarched its transport.
It may not be out of place to note that the combat of Foz do Arouce bore
a singular resemblance to Craufurd’s combat on the Coa of July 24, 1810.
In each case a rearguard was tempted to stay too long beyond an unfordable
river and a narrow bridge, by the defensible nature of the position in which
it found itself, and nearly suffered a complete disaster. The only difference
was that Ney had at least double as strong a force as Craufurd, and had also
a whole army in line beyond the river to support him, while the British
general had no reserves near. In each case the endangered detachment got
away by dint of hard fighting, with appreciable but by no means crushing
losses. It is curious that the tables were exactly turned between pursuer and
pursued in these two fights—in 1810 it was Ney who by a sudden assault
hustled the Light Division over the Coa. In 1811 the Light Division was at
the head of the striking force which thrust Ney over the Ceira, If Craufurd
had been in command instead of the incapable Erskine, there can be little

doubt that the matter would have been pushed to a more decisive
conclusion, despite of the dusk.

FOZ D’AROUCE

On the morning of March 16th, the hills beyond the Ceira, where a
whole army had been visible on the preceding day, were now seen to be
almost void of defenders—only a trifling rearguard was visible watching
the broken bridge from a distance. Wellington sent scouts over the river to
reconnoitre, but did not cross it in force. He had accomplished his main

design of thrusting the French off the Coimbra road and into the mountains,
and he had entirely outmarched his provisions. He had now got so far from
his base at Lisbon that food sent up from thence had far to travel, and he
had not yet succeeded in setting up an intermediate dépôt at Coimbra,
though store-ships were already ordered from Lisbon to its port of
Figueira[196], now that there was no danger of the enemy crossing the lower
Mondego. During the last week the army had used up all that it carried with
it, and the Portuguese brigades, badly supplied by the native commissariat,
had run short even before the British. Pack’s and Ashworth’s men had
received no regular rations for four days[197], and had only kept up to the
front by gleaning in the deserted bivouacs of the French, and borrowing the
little that the British commissariat could spare. Everything had run dry by
the 16th, and Wellington considered that no great harm would be suffered
by waiting a day on the Ceira, for the first convoy to come up from the rear,
since the French were now in rugged ground, where they could not make
any long attempt to stand for sheer want of food. They must continue their
retreat or starve in a depopulated country. Accordingly Wellington settled
down at Lousão and took stock of the general position of affairs: the result
of his halt was an immense discharge of arrears of correspondence—he had
written only one dispatch between the 10th and 16th of March, but got off
seventeen on the last-named day. Some of these are very important, as
showing that he regarded the crisis as over, and the ultimate evacuation of
Portugal by the French as certain. The most notable are two orders to
Beresford[198], making over to him once more the 4th Division and De
Grey’s heavy dragoons for the expedition into Estremadura, which now had
as its object not the relief of Badajoz (whose capitulation was known) but
the holding back of Soult from Campo Mayor and Elvas.
It will be remembered that the 2nd Division and Hamilton’s Portuguese
had been left behind near Abrantes when Wellington determined, on March
9th, not to send an expedition against Soult, till he could make it up to a
force sufficient to cope with the army that was beleaguering Badajoz. They
were not to commit themselves to any offensive operations, or to cross the
Portuguese frontier, till the reinforcements arrived, but were to move a stage
on their way toward the south. Accordingly the head quarters of the 2nd
Division were at Tramagal on the 14th, with its attached cavalry (the 13th
Light Dragoons) at Crato in advance, while the Portuguese horse of Otway
had been sent to watch the roads to Elvas by Portalegre and Estremos. Here

there was a halt for a week, Beresford being absent with Wellington for five
days, and it was not till the 17th that the movement towards Estremadura
began again, on his return. Meanwhile Masséna, oddly enough, knowing of
the existence of a considerable allied force at Abrantes, and not feeling it on
his own flank, formed a theory that it must have been sent in a long sweep
up by the Zezere, to drop into the upper Mondego valley and cut him off
from Spain. Nervousness as to this imaginary movement had no small effect
on his main operations[199].
By sending off Cole and De Grey to join the future Army of
Estremadura, on the 16th March, Wellington reduced the force about him by
7,000 men, and had no more than 38,000 left on the Ceira. The newly
formed 7th Division, which was marching up from Lisbon, and would
ultimately replace Cole with the main army, was at this moment only
reaching Santarem; it did not come up to the front till March was at its end.
For the rest of his operations against Masséna, therefore, Wellington was
more than ever in a state of numerical inferiority, and forced to be cautious.
But he was in a confident mood, foreseeing that the enemy could not now
stop in Portugal, and must be starved into a prompt retreat over the frontier.
His conviction that the crisis was over is shown by another dispatch of
the 20th March, in which he directs that the whole of the Lisbon Militia and
Ordenança be dismissed to their homes, the former on furlough, the latter
for good. The Militia of the lower Beira (the Castello Branco country) and
of northern Estremadura were also to return to their native districts, to be
sent on leave or kept under arms according as further events might
determine[200]. Thus the Lines of Torres Vedras were left ungarrisoned, there
being no further danger to be feared in the direction of Lisbon.
There was still much work, however, for the Militia of the North,
Trant’s and Wilson’s brigades, who were brought down to the middle
Mondego, and sent successively to Peña Cova, Mortagoa, and Fornos, to
guard the fords and restrain the French from endeavouring to raid the north
bank of the river. It was unlikely that they would make a serious attempt to
cross in force into the barren country under the Serra de Alcoba, when they
were in such a desperate plight for food, and would have the allied army
close behind them, for the troops were to march again on the 17th. The
middle Mondego, it must be remembered, was bridgeless, and in flood from
the spring rains: even if Masséna had driven off Trant and Wilson, it would

have taken him a long time to build a bridge (since he had no pontoons) and
Wellington would have been pressing him in the rear before he had got
more than a vanguard over the water. The Marshal seems never to have
contemplated at this date a movement on to Coimbra or Oporto by the north
bank of the Mondego, such as is suggested as possible by some of the
commentators on the campaign: after the day of Condeixa a retreat eastward
was always in his mind[201]. His army was too dilapidated to make the least
offensive stroke. ‘I think it necessary for the interests of his Imperial
majesty,’ wrote Masséna on the 19th, ‘to bring the troops back nearer to our
base of operations by our fortresses [Almeida and Rodrigo], in order to let
them recover a little from their fatigues and long privations, and to allow
me to replace so much equipment which is now entirely lacking[202].’
On the 16th, the day after the combat of Foz do Arouce, the 2nd and 8th
Corps marched before dawn, in drenching rain, and retired as far as the
Alva river, where the bridge of Ponte de Murcella, repaired for a moment
by Drouet when he passed it a few days before, had again been broken by
Wilson’s Militia. It took all the day to repair it, and by the evening only the
artillery had been sent across. The divisions of Mermet and Loison followed
at a distance, leaving behind the much-tried battalions of Marchand, which
Ney had once more chosen to form his rearguard. He drew them up across
the road a few miles from the Ceira, expecting to be attacked once more in
the morning. But to his surprise Wellington did not cross the river, and only
sent a few scouts to discover the position of the Marshal. Meanwhile his
engineers mended the bridge at Foz.
On the 17th, at dawn, Masséna sent the 8th Corps across the repaired
bridge of Ponte de Murcella, after which it halted at Cortiça, Moita, and
other villages beyond the Alva river, whose passage it was prepared to
defend. But the 2nd Corps was marched up-stream to Sarzedo, the next
ford, and placed there in position, with a detachment beyond the river at the
town of Arganil on its south bank. The 6th Corps, following the other two,
crossed the Alva at Ponte de Murcella later in the day, and joined the 8th; it
left a small detachment beyond the bridge to observe the expected arrival of
the Allies. Of the horsemen, Montbrun’s heavy dragoons watched the lower
course of the Alva, from Ponte de Murcella to its junction with the
Mondego, while Junot’s corps-cavalry was sent up the Alva eastward, to
hold the fords beyond Arganil.

These dispositions seemed to indicate an intention to make a serious
stand behind the Alva, where the positions are very strong. The river is a
fierce mountain torrent in a deep bed, with precipitous banks, and very few
fords. Wellington had fixed on this line, during the Bussaco campaign in the
preceding autumn, as the position where he should await the French if they
advanced by the south bank of the Mondego, and had thrown up earthworks
on each side of the Ponte de Murcella. These were, of course, useless to
Masséna, since they looked the wrong way; but the river line was almost as
defensible from the north bank as from the south, and presented a very
formidable obstacle to the pursuing enemy.
By the evening of the 17th Wellington was once more in touch with the
enemy. The cavalry brigades of Slade and Arentschildt had crossed the
bridge of Foz do Arouce, and followed the 6th Corps to the Alva, with the
6th and Light Divisions behind them. The infantry, however, did not show
themselves, but encamped in the hills, some miles from the Ponte de
Murcella. They found the road strewn with dead or dying mules and horses,
and took a certain number of French sick and stragglers.
But Wellington had no intention of forcing the Ponte de Murcella
position; while two divisions took this road, the rest of the army (1st, 3rd,
5th Divisions, and the Portuguese independent brigades) were marched
eastward by the steep road along the top of the watershed between the Ceira
and the Alva, the route Furcado-Arganil, towards the fords of the upper
Alva. They drove out of the last-named place Reynier’s observing
detachment, which reported that it had seen the Allies in great force
marching up-stream. This news convinced Masséna that his adversary was
intending either to cross the ford of Sarzedo and attack Reynier, or to move
still further up the valley, and to pass the Alva in its upper course, so
throwing himself across the main road to Celorico, by which the Army of
Portugal was intending to retreat. Nothing but cavalry scouts having been
seen opposite the Ponte de Murcella, it was supposed that Wellington’s
whole army was marching on Arganil.
Accordingly, on the afternoon of the 17th, Masséna ordered the 8th
Corps to break up hastily from its camps and to march all night to Galliges,
on the high road beyond Reynier’s left. This was done, and Junot hurried
off, leaving hundreds of foragers scattered on the slopes towards the
Mondego, whither they had been sent out in search of food during the day.

Ney remained behind at the Ponte de Murcella, to keep the passage as long
as possible; he was uncertain, as was Masséna, whether there was in his
front only a cavalry screen or a serious force of all arms.
On the morning of the 18th this problem was solved, for the Light
Division came down to the river, drove Ney’s rearguard across it, and
opened a cannonade against the troops of the 6th Corps visible on the
opposite bank. No serious attempt was made to pass, the intention being
only to hold Ney to his ground as long as possible by demonstrations, while
the real crossing was made far up-stream. This plan had the desired result.
In the afternoon Ney received the news that the Allies had begun to cross
the Alva at the ford of Pombeiro, from which they had driven off one of
Reynier’s battalions. If any considerable force got over the river at this
point, the 6th Corps was cut off from the rest of the army; accordingly the
Marshal ordered his three divisions to march off without a moment’s delay;
‘I never saw Johnny go off in such confusion,’ says a Light Division
diarist[203]. The cavalry brigade of Arentschildt sent out reconnoitring
parties, who forded the river, while the engineers rigged up a temporary
wooden bridge close to the Ponte de Murcella[204], by which the 6th and
Light Divisions were able to cross at dawn on the following day.
On the left the decisive crossing at Pombeiro had been made by the
Guards’ brigade of the 1st Division[205]: Reynier made no attempt to support
the single battalion at the ford, but called it in, and drew up in battle order
on the Serra de Moita some distance above the river. There was no fighting
here, and after dusk the 2nd Corps decamped, taking the road Galliges-
Chamusca-Gouvea-Celorico, which runs parallel to and above the Alva; the
6th Corps fell in behind the 2nd; the 8th, which had already got further to
the east during the march of the preceding night, led the column and was
beyond Galliges in the afternoon[206].
On the night of the 18th-19th and the following morning the whole
French army made a most protracted and fatiguing march, which cost them
many stragglers and much material. This was the longest stage which
Masséna made during the whole retreat, more than twenty miles of
mountain road being covered in one stretch. On the evening of the 19th the
head of the 8th Corps was at Pinhanços, that of the 2nd at Çaragoça and
Sandomil, that of the 6th at Chamusca. The British cavalry in pursuit picked
up an immense number of prisoners this day, mainly small parties of

foragers belonging to the 6th and 8th Corps, who had been marauding in the
direction of the Mondego when their regiments received sudden orders to
march: they returned towards their camps to fall into the hands of the
British cavalry. Arentschildt’s brigade alone took 200 this day[207], and the
total according to Wellington’s dispatch was 600 men[208]. Among them
were an aide-de-camp of Loison’s and several other officers. Some droves
of oxen were captured from the foragers and from the rear of the 6th Corps,
and this was the only food which the British vanguard got that day, for once
more, as several diarists ruefully note, ‘biscuit was out.’ The pursuers state
that ‘quantities of tumbrils, carts, waggons and other articles were
abandoned by the enemy’[209], and no doubt were right, though Masséna
wrote that evening from Maceira, ‘Nous n’avons pas laissé en arrière un
malade, un blessé, ni la moindre voiture d’artillerie ou de bagages’[210]. But
his dispatches frequently contained what he knew that Napoleon would
desire to see rather than the truth. Considering the difficulties of the retreat,
and the skilful way in which he had conducted it, he might have been
contented with his actual achievements, and need not have padded out his
reports with ‘terminological inexactitudes’. It must be confessed that his
aide-de-camp Fririon played a good second to him when he wrote in his
journal that between the 15th and 31st of March the Army of Portugal left
behind only twenty prisoners and fifty men lost while marauding[211].

THE LOWER MONDEGO.
To illustrate the First Stage of Masséna’s Retreat.

On the morning of the 20th March Wellington’s army was all across the
Alva, but only the cavalry and the Light, 3rd, and 6th Divisions continued
the pursuit. The small convoy received on the 17th was exhausted, and what
little food remained was made over to the three divisions named above,
while the 1st, 5th, and Pack’s and Ashworth’s Portuguese halted for five
days at Moita and the neighbouring villages, till the first train of provisions
sent up from Coimbra should arrive. Of the troops which could still be fed,
the Light Division pushed on as far as Galliges that night, the 3rd and 6th
were behind them. The French, thanks to their desperate night march, were
already a long way ahead, and it was late on the 20th before the cavalry
overtook, near Cea, their extreme rearguard, two battalions of Heudelet’s
division and a hussar regiment. General Slade, whose brigade was leading,
refused to attack them until infantry and guns came up to his aid, and the
French slipped away before Elder’s Caçadores and Bull’s battery reached
him[212]. ‘This was the second day without bread, and the third without corn
for the horses, and we had marched nearly five leagues,’ explains a cavalry
diarist[213]. The pursuers were as harassed as the pursued, and could go no
further, but Slade was thought to have shown weakness. He picked up a
good many stragglers and sick, and found the road strewn with broken
vehicles and dying mules.
Meanwhile Masséna had divided his army into two columns at the fork
of the roads near Maceira. The 2nd Corps, taking, on the right hand, the
southern and more hilly route, reached Gouvea. The 8th Corps, taking the
northern fork, got to Villacortes, and sent its cavalry on ahead to the bridge
of Fornos, which they found broken and guarded by Trant’s Militia. The 6th
Corps, following the 8th, lay at Pinhanços. Since leaving the Ponte de
Murcella the French were a little less pressed for food: the district through
which they were now passing was fertile, and had not been raided before;
most of the peasantry had returned to it during the winter. Hasty plundering
on both sides of the road brought in a certain amount of food, especially in
the way of cattle, which had been sent up into the hills, but were often
discovered by skilled marauders. There was continual bickering with the
Ordenança, one party of whom, only 300 strong, tried, with more courage
than discretion, to defend the village of Penalva against the advanced guard
of the 2nd Corps. All along the road the pursuing Light Division found the
dead bodies of peasantry, mixed with those of the French sick who had
fallen by the way.

On the 21st the 8th Corps reached Celorico, where Drouet was found in
position with Conroux’s division of the 9th Corps. The 6th Corps reached
Carapichina and Cortiça. The 2nd, turning off at Villacortes on the Guarda
road, had a most distressing mountain march to Villamonte. The pursuing
infantry of the Light and 3rd Divisions reached Pinhanços and Maceira,
with the cavalry five miles in front, at the convent of Vinho. They had now
dropped fifteen miles behind the French rear, and were quite out of touch
with it, but continued to pick up stragglers—200 men are said to have been
taken on that day[214]. Like the enemy, they were now commencing to get a
little food from the country. ‘The peasants, who had all fled to the
mountains on the enemy’s retreat, on seeing us come down, baked bread for
the troops, and gave us whatever they had left. They had suffered a good
deal, all the principal houses had been burnt, and those left a good deal
destroyed, but the [French] troops had not been able to discover all the corn,
&c., concealed[215].’
On the 22nd the French army had reached the end of the main retreat.
Two corps were concentrated in and near Celorico[216], the other (Reynier)
reached Guarda, where it found Claparéde’s division of Drouet’s corps,
which had been there for some weeks. They were now only three marches
from Almeida and four from Ciudad Rodrigo; communication with these
two places was open, for Drouet and the 9th Corps had now come into
touch again with the Commander-in-Chief, and were available for keeping
the roads safe. The English had been outmarched, and Masséna might have
retired to Almeida and Rodrigo practically unmolested, by a good chaussée.
But this was not to be the end of the campaign, as every one in the French
army, save its Commander-in-Chief, fervently desired. For generals and
rank and file alike were tired out, and yearned for a cessation of mountain
marches, and a rest in well-provisioned cantonments, before they should be
called upon for another effort. But another and a most unexpected episode
was to take place before the weary columns reached Rodrigo. Masséna
made one more attempt to ‘save his face,’ and to avoid being thrust over the
Spanish frontier, along the road on to which his adversary had forced him.
This led to a fortnight more of manœuvres in the mountains, and to the
combats of Guarda and Sabugal, after which the French Marshal had to
pocket his pride and acquiesce in the inevitable. These operations are of a
character so different from those which preceded them that they must be
treated as a separate story. The retreat from Santarem really ended at

Celorico. The events between March 22nd and April 4th must be dealt with
apart, since they practically amounted to a belated attempt on the part of
Masséna to seize the offensive once more, and to shift the scene of war
without his adversary’s consent. The project failed, and (as we shall see)
was hopeless from the first.
Before dealing with it, a few remarks on the general character of the
operations that had taken place between March 9th and March 22nd must
be made. When reading in succession two narratives of Masséna’s retreat
from Santarem to Celorico, one by an English and one by a French eye-
witness, it is often difficult to realize that the two writers are describing the
same series of operations. Most of the French conceive the retreat to have
been a series of triumphant rearguard actions, in which their army got off
practically unmolested, under cover of the skilful operations of a small
covering force. On the other hand, the English tell the tale as if the whole
French army was easily hunted out of Portugal by inferior numbers, foiled
in repeated attempts to occupy a permanent position in the valley of the
Mondego, and finally thrust back in a direction which it did not intend to
take. Where the French tell of nothing but an orderly retreat and small
losses, the English speak of the capture of hundreds of prisoners, and the
destruction of the whole baggage-train of the retiring army.
To a certain extent the mental attitudes of both sets of narrators can be
understood and justified by the impartial student. When a rearguard action
takes place, the covering force left behind by the retiring army always
thinks of itself as being opposed to the whole pursuing host. It considers
itself to be braving the assault of immensely superior forces, and if it holds
its own for a time and gets off without crushing losses, is well satisfied with
its own conduct. This is both justifiable and comprehensible. But to the
pursuer the same rearguard action presents an entirely different moral
aspect. The few squadrons and battalions forming the head of his advance
find themselves suddenly brought to a check by a considerable hostile force
arrayed in a formidable position. They are forced to halt till their supports
begin to come up, from five, ten, or fifteen miles in the rear. Then, when a
body of reserve has begun to accumulate behind them, they launch
themselves upon the enemy, who gives ground after more or less fighting
and retires. The leading brigade or division of the pursuers considers that it
has victoriously driven the whole hostile army from its strong position, and

is no less satisfied with itself than is the force to which it has been opposed.
In short, all rearguard actions begin with a check to the pursuers; they all
end with the retreat of the defenders. This is their necessary course; both
parties, if their generals play the game properly, may be content with
themselves; the one has gained time for the escape of the main body of the
retreating host, the other has cleared the way for the progress of the
pursuing army. The only method in which their relative merits can be tested,
is by asking whether the rearguard detained the advanced guard as long as
might have been expected, inflicted disproportionate losses upon it, and got
away with the minimum of loss to itself, or whether, on the other hand, the
advanced guard evicted its opponents from their position at a rapid rate,
with small sacrifices, and with considerable punishment inflicted on the
enemy. The mere facts that the rearguard held back the pursuers for some
hours, and that the advanced guard ultimately carried the enemy’s position,
are obligatory incidents of such fights. When we come to examine the
details of the combats which took place between the 11th and 19th of
March, we shall neither hold with the French narrators that for many days
Ney and two divisions of the 6th Corps fought and held back Wellington’s
whole army, nor with the English narrators that the Light and 3rd Divisions,
unassisted by their comrades, hunted 40,000 French out of the valley of the
lower Mondego. Yet it is true that of forty-four French infantry officers,
who were killed or wounded in Portugal between these dates, no less than
thirty-seven belonged to the divisions of Marchand and Mermet, while,
similarly, of twenty-nine British and Portuguese officers hit in the same
period, no less than nineteen belonged to the Light Division and eight more
to the 3rd. Clearly therefore Ney did not contend with the whole British
army, but only with its two leading divisions, and those two divisions did
not contend with the whole French army, but only with the two units which
formed its rearguard. Fine writing on both sides, as to struggles against
overwhelming odds, must be disregarded. Still more so may the
exaggerated estimates as to loss inflicted on the enemy which are to be
found in the narratives of most of the first-hand writers. What they are
worth may be guessed from Marbot’s statement that the British lost 1,000
men at Redinha—Noël raises this liberal estimate to 1,800[217]—the real
casualty list being 240. Similarly Grattan tells us that the French had 1,000
men hors de combat at Foz do Arouce[218], when their actual loss seems to
have been about 250.

The accusations of timidity and over-caution which these contemporary
chroniclers lavish upon each other’s generals are equally absurd. Wellington
is always rallied by the French for want of courage and enterprise, because
he did not at once dash the first two or three battalions that came up against
a division in position, but waited for his supports. And Ney is criticized by
both English and French writers for having sometimes withdrawn from the
fight over early, because at Condeixa and on the Alva he hastened to get out
of a dangerous situation. Both generals, in reality, acted with perfect tactical
correctness; armies do not meet for the purpose of putting in the maximum
of fighting, without regard for ends or consequences, and the commander
who attacks before he has a sufficient force collected is blameworthy just in
the same degree as the commander who holds out too long in a hazardous
position.
Most of the French criticism on Wellington is based on the false
hypothesis that his army outnumbered Masséna’s during the whole retreat,
and that he therefore should have achieved greater results. As a matter of
fact, as we have seen, he was never stronger than the enemy, because he had
been forced to detach Beresford’s two divisions against Soult before he
started. And when, in the later stages of the retreat, the French were short of
Conroux’s division of the 9th Corps, which had gone on to Celorico ahead
of the main army, it must be remembered that Wellington from March 16th
onwards was deprived of Cole’s division and the heavy dragoons, who had
been sent off southward to join Beresford. A pursuing army dealing with a
superior retreating army must act with the greatest caution, lest it should
suddenly run up against the enemy’s whole force, and find itself committed
to an offensive action against greater numbers in a strong position.
Wellington never fell into this trap; he manœuvred the French out of every
line which they took up, without incurring any danger, or allowing his
adversary any chance of harming him. While giving all credit to Ney for the
brilliant rearguard tactics by which he often held back the pursuers for half
a day, it is necessary to give equal credit to Wellington for having fought his
way through half a dozen formidable lines of defence, with a minimum of
loss, and without once exposing himself to the chance of a serious check.
After all, his object was to drive Masséna away from the Mondego and
towards Spain, and that object he achieved in the most triumphant fashion.
[219]

SECTION XXIV: CHAPTER II
GUARDA AND SABUGAL.
MARCH 22nd-APRIL 12th, 1811

At noon on March 22nd, the day following that on which the French
head quarters had reached Celorico, Masséna issued a new set of orders,
entirely contradictory to those which he had been giving during the last
fifteen days. Though on the 19th he had stated his intention of ‘falling back
closer to his base of operations on the fortresses [Almeida and Rodrigo],
and giving the army a rest after its fatigues and privations[220],’ he now
proposed to plunge back once more into the mountains, and to swerve aside
from his places of strength and his dépôts. The commanders of the corps
received the astounding news that it was the intention of the Commander-
in-Chief to turn south-eastward, towards the Spanish frontier and the central
Tagus, with the object of taking up a position in the Coria-Plasencia
country, from which he would threaten central Portugal on a new front. This
necessitated a march from Celorico through the mountains of Belmonte and
Penamacor, and then across the Sierra de Meras, into the thinly-peopled
plateau of northern Estremadura.
Supposing that the centre of the Iberian peninsula had been a fertile
plain resembling Lombardy or Flanders, there would have been something
to say for this plan. Still more might it have been advisable if the French
army had been a fresh and intact force just opening a campaign. Pelet,
Masséna’s chief aide-de-camp, tries to justify the proposal by saying that ‘it
was more conformable to the general rules of strategy; we should have
connected ourselves with the 5th Corps in Estremadura, with the Army of
the Centre, and the general pivot of operations at Madrid; we should have
brought Lord Wellington back to the position that he had quitted; we should
have kept the results of the advantages recently won in Estremadura, which
were so soon to be lost; we should also have had the means to menace once
more Central Portugal and the Lines of Torres Vedras[221].’ This is all very

plausible, but it omits the crucial facts that the Army of Portugal was tired
out, destitute of munitions, and almost destitute of food, and that it was
proposed to lead it across two difficult ranges of mountains full of gorges
and defiles, into a region which was one of the most thinly peopled and
desolate in all Spain, where there was not a single French soldier, much less
a dépôt of any sort. This was the same district in which Victor had starved
in 1809, and in passing through which Wellington had suffered so many
privations on the way to Talavera. It had been visited in February by a
flying column under Lahoussaye, sent out from Talavera, which had got as
far as Plasencia and Alcantara, and then retired, because it was absolutely
impossible for 3,000 men to live in it.
Masséna’s maps were very bad—the actual set used by his head-
quarters staff is in existence, and can be seen at Belfast[222]. But his
intelligence department must have been worse than his maps, if he was
unaware of the character of the country on the border of Portugal and Spain,
and of that lying beyond, in northern Estremadura. He might have asked
information about it from Reynier and Ney, who had both crossed it, but he
did not. Most striking of all, however, is the ignorance shown in these
orders of the physical and moral state of the French army. If it had ever
reached Plasencia, it would have got there without a gun or a baggage mule
—the caissons and carriages were almost all gone already. A single set of
figures may serve to show the situation: the artillery of the 8th Corps started
from Almeida in September 1810 with 142 wheeled units—guns, caissons,
waggons, &c., and 891 horses. It got back to Ciudad Rodrigo on April 4,
1811, with 49 guns and caissons drawn by 182 horses, having lost 93
vehicles and 709 horses. Forty-one of the caissons and waggons had been
destroyed before the commencement of the retreat, the rest had been
dropped between Thomar and Celorico[223]. There were left at the end of
March only 24 guns with 25 caissons of ammunition, to draw which
required all the horses remaining. How long could this artillery have fought
with only one caisson of ammunition per gun left? How many horses would
have been alive after another hundred miles of mountain roads? Even if
some guns had got to Plasencia, how long would it have taken to get them
ammunition from Salamanca or Madrid, the nearest dépôts? The same
question would be no less forcible with regard to infantry ammunition,
which was depleted to an equal extent with that of the artillery.

But it is even more important to remember that the Army of Portugal
was also in desperate straits for boots and clothing. In many regiments a
third or a quarter of the men had no footgear but ‘rivlins,’ or mocassins
made every few days from the hides of cattle. The uniforms were in rags;
many soldiers had nothing that recalled the regulation attire but the capote
that covered everything.
Yet the main thing of all was the moral aspect of affairs. The army
would fight when it was its duty, as French armies always have done, but it
was discontented, sulky, angry with the Marshal, to whom it attributed its
miseries—though its indignation might have been more justly reserved for
the Emperor, who had set his lieutenant an impossible task. The rank and
file had sunk low in discipline, as must be always the case when troops
have been living by daily plunder for six months. And this same want of
discipline was most evident among the generals, who, now that Masséna
had failed, openly criticized him before their staffs, and often neglected his
orders. Masséna suspected Ney, Junot, and Reynier alike of intending to
denounce him to the Emperor as a blunderer. It will be remembered that he
had already detected Reynier in a trick of this description[224]. Ney had been
girding at his orders with fury ever since the retreat began, and was telling
all who cared to listen that a hasty return to Spain was the only possible
policy, and that the dream of holding out on the Mondego or the Alva was
absurd.
It was probably not on mere strategic grounds, but because he was
determined to assert himself, to prove that he was master of his own
movements, and that he was not yet a beaten man or a failure, that Masséna
issued orders on the 22nd for the 2nd Corps to make ready to move
southward, not northward, from Guarda, and for the 6th and 8th to prepare
to follow on the same route. This provoked an explosion of wrath on the
part of Ney, who in the course of four hours of the afternoon wrote three
successive letters to his commander, in terms of growing irritation. In the
first, which was sent off before receiving the detailed orders for the new
movement, he merely set forth all the objections to it, and inquired whether
Masséna had the Emperor’s leave for such a general change of plans. In the
second, after he had received and read the orders, he protested formally
against them, and said that, unless positive instructions from Paris
authorizing the new scheme had been received, the 6th Corps should not

march. He gave many arguments, and they were incontestably true. ‘The
army has need to rest behind the shelter of Almeida and Ciudad Rodrigo, in
order to receive the clothing and shoes which are absolutely necessary, and
which must be brought up from the magazines. Your Excellency is mistaken
in thinking that food can be got in abundance in the region of Coria and
Plasencia. I have marched through that country [during the attempt to cut
off Wellington’s retreat from Talavera in 1809], and it is impossible to
exaggerate its sterility or the badness of its roads. Your Excellency will not
get one single gun so far, with the teams that we have brought out of
Portugal. Moreover this manœuvre, so singular at this particular moment,
would entirely uncover Old Castile, and compromise all our operations in
Spain. I am fully aware of the responsibility which I take upon myself in
making formal opposition to your intentions, but, even if I were destined to
be cashiered or condemned to death, I could not execute the march on Coria
and Plasencia directed by your Highness, unless (of course) it has been
ordered by the Emperor[225].’
Within two hours of the second letter Ney sent in the third, which was
no mere protest, nor even a mere refusal to move, but an open declaration
of his intention to march back to Almeida. ‘I warn your Excellency that to-
morrow I shall leave my positions of Carapichina and Cortiço, and échelon
my troops from Celorico to Freixadas, and on the day after they will be
between Freixadas and Almeida. This disposition is forced on me, in order
to prevent the whole force from disbanding, under the pretext of searching
for the food necessary for its subsistence, for food is now absolutely
lacking.’
Unless he was to surrender his authority altogether, and obey his
subordinate, Masséna had now to strike. Ney had put himself absolutely in
the wrong in the way of military subordination, though he was as absolutely
in the right in the way of strategy. And the Commander-in-Chief had every
technical justification when he formally deposed him from the command of
the 6th Corps, and directed him to leave for Valladolid without delay, and
there await the orders of the Emperor. Loison, the senior of the three
divisional generals of the 6th Corps, was ordered to take over its command
next morning. Several of Ney’s partisans urged him to refuse obedience, to
seize the person of Masséna, and to declare himself Commander-in-Chief of
the Army of Portugal. We are assured that he would have been backed in the

step by the whole of his own corps, and would have met no resistance from
the others, for Masséna was universally disliked, and every man wished to
continue the retreat on Almeida of which Ney was the advocate[226]. But he
shrank from levying open war upon his chief, and departed among the tears
of the whole 6th Corps, of which he knew every officer and many men by
sight. It had been under him, without a break, since he first formed it at the
camp of Montreuil, near Boulogne, in 1804.
Masséna started off his aide-de-camp Pelet for Paris next day, with
orders to get to the Emperor without delay, and explain the situation before
Ney could tell his tale. This his emissary succeeded in doing, and his
representations to Napoleon were backed by those of Foy, who had borne
Masséna’s earlier message of March 9, and was still in Paris. The Emperor
seems to have approved of Masséna’s stringent dealing with his
subordinate, and even to have expressed his satisfaction with the new plan
for marching the Army of Portugal to the middle Tagus[227]. He also declared
that corps-commanders of the type of Ney and Junot were a mistake, and
that to avoid further friction he would cut up the whole army into divisions,
and abolish the corps altogether. But at the same time he allowed Ney to
return to Paris, gave him a mere formal reproof, and then continued to
employ him in posts of the highest importance. Next year the Marshal was
to win his last title of ‘Prince of the Moscowa’ under his master’s eye, on
the field of Borodino.
Ney having been superseded and banished, Masséna could carry out his
wild plan for a march towards northern Estremadura through the midst of
the Portuguese mountains. On the 23rd the 6th Corps was brought into
Celorico, and its artillery moved forward as far as Ratoeiro on the Guarda
road. The 8th Corps left Celorico and moved in the same direction, with its
cavalry at Ponte do Ladrão in advance. Drouet with Conroux’s division had
already gone back towards Almeida, with the sick and wounded of the
whole army; he was ordered to take post at Val-de-Mula on the Turon,
between Almeida and Ciudad Rodrigo. His other division, that of
Claparéde, was sent from Guarda to join him on the same day. Drouet,
according to some versions of the events of this critical week, had moved
back of his own accord without waiting for Masséna’s orders. But it is clear
that there was absolute necessity to tell off some covering force for the
frontiers of Leon, if the main army was to be drawn away to the central

Tagus, lest Wellington should send off a detachment to attack Almeida and
Ciudad Rodrigo, and find nothing to hinder him.
For the next five days the march southward and eastward was
continued. After a rest of only two nights at Guarda, the 2nd Corps moved
on the 24th of March by two bad parallel roads through the hills, and
encamped with its first division at Sortelha and its second at Aguas Bellas: a
flanking detachment of cavalry occupied Belmonte, further to the west, in
order to keep a look-out on the valley of the Zezere. The 8th Corps took up
the position which the 2nd had evacuated at Guarda: it is recorded to have
lost many of its already depleted stock of horses in climbing the steep
ascent into that town, which stands on the very summit of the Serra da
Estrella, at a height of over 3,400 feet above sea-level. No other town in
Portugal lies so high. The 6th Corps followed the 8th, but halted short of
Guarda, to cover the slow progress of its artillery, which had to be dragged
up the defile with doubled teams, so that half the guns and vehicles had to
wait at the bottom, while their beasts were assisting to draw the first section
to its lofty destination.
The 25th saw the head of the 2nd Corps at Val de Lobos on the road to
Penamacor; the main body painfully trailed along behind. Junot and the 8th
Corps left Guarda, but took, not the path that Reynier had followed, but an
equally difficult one leading to Belmonte. But the guns could not proceed
with the infantry divisions. They had to be left at Guarda, the Belmonte
road being pronounced absolutely impracticable for them: this was a serious
check to Masséna, who had counted on using this route for the whole corps.
Of the 6th Corps one division (Marchand) entered Guarda, a second
(Loison’s old division, now commanded by Ferey) halted at Rapoulla, at the
foot of the great mountain on which that town lies. The other division
(Mermet) had taken a flanking turn, more in the plain, and lay at Goveias,
fifteen miles north-east from Guarda, with a rearguard at Freixadas on the
road to Almeida.
On the 26th, the last day on which it can be said that Masséna’s insane
scheme for marching to Estremadura was still being carried out, the whole
6th Corps closed up on Guarda; the 8th Corps at Belmonte sent out
reconnaissances towards Covilhão, Manteigas, and the Zezere; but the 2nd,
which was heading the column of march, was completely stuck in the
mountains between Sortelha and Penamacor. It must have seemed a bitter

piece of irony to Reynier when he received orders ‘to profit by his stay in
his position to collect grain, and bake bread and biscuit[228],’ for he was in an
almost entirely uninhabited country, on the watershed between the sources
of the Coa and the Zezere, with the Sierra de Meras, the frontier-range
between Spain and Portugal, in front of him.
Next morning (March 27) Reynier, though he had the example of Ney’s
fate before him, was driven by sheer necessity into sending an
argumentative dispatch to the Commander-in-Chief, who had now got as far
as Guarda. He begged him to give up his great plan: ‘no food could be
procured for the whole way from Guarda to Plasencia; if the corps ever got
to the latter place, it would find no resources there, for the Coria-Plasencia
country does not grow its own corn, but is fed in ordinary times from the
valley of the Tietar and other distant regions.’ This Reynier knew from his
own experiences in that region, when he had been observing Hill in the
preceding summer. He also warned Masséna that he was taking the army
into an impasse, for the Tagus is a complete barrier between northern and
southern Estremadura, and could not be crossed save at the ferry of
Alconetar, where there were now no boats, the bridge of Alcantara (now
broken), and that of Almaraz, where there was only a flying bridge of
pontoons[229].
At the same time Junot was writing from Belmonte to say that he could
go no further; not only had he been forced to leave all his guns behind at
Guarda, but ‘les troupes meurent de faim, et ne peuvent pas se présenter en
ligne.’ He had scoured the country as far as Covilhão with his cavalry, in
search of food, with the sole result of ruining the few horses that were still
in passable condition.
In short, the game was up—it ought never to have been begun—and
Ney’s remonstrances (though not his insubordination) were completely
vindicated. On March 28th Masséna reluctantly conceded that a prompt
retreat into Spain was the only course possible. But he chose to base his
change of plans not on the true ground, viz. that he had ordered the army to
perform an impossibility, but on two other facts. A report had just been
received from Drouet; that general, on reaching the neighbourhood of
Almeida, had sent word that the fortress was in the utmost danger, for it had
only fifteen days’ food[230], and, if the 9th Corps had to retire, it would fall
from starvation in a fortnight. The state of Ciudad Rodrigo was little better.

He therefore besought the Prince of Essling not to expose these two all-
important places, by carrying the Army of Portugal off to the valley of the
Tagus. This gave a strategical reason for surrendering the new scheme of
campaign, but there was also a moral one. ‘Lassitude reigns in the Army of
Portugal: many of its regiments were in the expeditions of the Duke of
Dalmatia [Soult’s Oporto campaign of 1809] or that of the Duke of
Abrantes [Junot’s Vimeiro campaign of 1808]. The officers murmur, and, as
I must again repeat, the army must have two or three months of rest to
recover itself. I was the only soul who was determined to hold on in
Portugal, and unless I had set my will to it in the strongest fashion, we
should not have stopped fifteen days therein.... The troops are good, but
they need repose. Living by marauding, even though it was organized
marauding, such as we have been compelled to authorize, has in no small
degree weakened discipline, which is in the greatest need of restoration[231].’
All this was very true, but it had been equally true on March 22nd, when
Masséna gave his orders for the march on Plasencia. The root of his failure
lay neither in the state of Almeida, nor in the demoralized condition of the
army, but in the fact that he had directed his troops to execute a movement
which was impossible without magazines to live upon, or roads to march
upon[232].
On March 29 Masséna gave the orders which marked the abandonment
of his great plan, and commenced his retrograde movement towards Ciudad
Rodrigo. Reynier and the 2nd Corps, abandoning the mountain roads, came
down by a lateral march to Sabugal in the upper valley of the Coa: they
were to stop there till Junot and the 8th Corps, coming in from Belmonte,
should have reached them and passed behind them. The 6th Corps
meanwhile was to halt at Guarda till the 8th Corps had extricated itself from
the mountains, but it was ordered to throw back one division (Ferey’s) to
Adão on the Sabugal road, eight miles to the south-east, as the first échelon
of its forthcoming movement of retreat towards the Coa. Masséna himself
and the head quarters of the army moved from Guarda on the morning of
the 29th to Pega, a village some miles nearer the Coa than Adão.
On this morning the British army, of which Masséna had heard
practically nothing for eight days, put in its appearance in the most forcible
fashion, falling upon the enemy just as he was in the midst of a complicated

movement, with his three corps separated from each other by distances of
some twenty miles.
Wellington, it will be remembered, had halted about half of his army on
the Alva upon March 20th, for sheer want of provisions, sending on only
the two light cavalry brigades and the 3rd, 6th, and Light Divisions to
pursue Masséna on the Celorico road. He had no doubt that the enemy was
about to retire from Celorico and Guarda towards the Spanish frontier with
the smallest delay—the policy of Ney and of every one else in the French
army save Masséna himself. On the 24th, Slade’s dragoons occupied
Celorico, and reported that the enemy had left it on the preceding day; two
columns were traced: the larger [6th and 8th Corps] had gone towards
Guarda, the smaller [Drouet with Conroux’s division of the 9th Corps] had
taken the high-road towards Freixadas and Almeida. There was nothing yet
to indicate to Wellington Masséna’s intention of proceeding in the direction
of Estremadura and the middle Tagus. He wrote on the 25th to General
Spencer, ‘The French have retired from Celorico, and appear to intend to
take up a line on the Coa. Their left has gone by Guarda, apparently for
Sabugal’—and to Beresford, ‘The French have gone towards the Coa: their
left will cross at Sabugal, I should think, and their right about Pinhel and
Almeida[233]’.
On this day (March 25) the first convoy of provisions from the new base
established at Coimbra reached the camps on the Alva, and Wellington was
at last able to set the 1st and 5th Divisions and Ashworth’s Portuguese in
motion[234]. They started on the Celorico road, and reached Galliges that
night. No news had yet come in of the southward movement of the French
from Guarda, which had begun on the preceding day. The vanguard of the
army had now established itself in Celorico, which was reached by the
Light and 3rd Divisions on the 25th-26th: they had come up very slowly,
being sadly distressed for food, and therefore forced to make very short
stages. Only one ration of bread had been given out in the last four days.
On the 26th the cavalry pushed out from Celorico[235], Arentschildt’s
brigade took the Almeida road, Hawker’s (this colonel was in temporary
command of the 1st and 14th, while Slade managed the whole vanguard)
pushed towards Guarda. Each swept the villages on the flanks of its route.
The result of the exploration was to show that a very large body of the
enemy had retired on Guarda, and a very small body on Almeida. A patrol

of the 16th Light Dragoons hit on Mermet’s rearguard and took an officer
and eighteen men from it. The reports of the following day came to much
the same—it began to be clear that almost the whole French army must
have gone to Guarda, and at last Wellington began to have the first news of
Masséna’s southward movement, though he did not yet grasp its meaning.
‘The French appear to stick about Guarda,’ he wrote to Beresford, ‘and
yesterday they had some people well on towards Manteigas: but I have
heard nothing of them from Grant [the famous scout and intelligence
officer] and I conclude they were only a patrol.’ Now Manteigas is at the
source of the Zezere, near Covilhão, and this ‘patrol’ was nothing less than
Junot’s flank cavalry, exploring out from Belmonte, which the 8th Corps
had reached on the preceding day. But so little did Wellington guess what
was running in Masséna’s mind, that he wrote on this day that he was
proposing to take a short turn to the Alemtejo to supervise Beresford’s
operations (which were hanging fire in the most discouraging fashion), as
soon as the French were over the frontier[236].
Meanwhile Wellington made up his mind that, since the enemy persisted
in lingering at Guarda, he must manœuvre them out of that lofty city. But
imagining that two, if not three, corps were concentrated in its
neighbourhood, he would not attack till his rear had come up from the Alva
to Celorico. This did not happen till the 29th, when the 1st Division reached
that place, with the 5th close behind. But on the previous day he had
already started off Picton to cross the Serra da Estrella by the mountain road
by Prados, and the Light Division with Arentschildt’s cavalry to take the
longer route on the other bank of the Mondego, which goes to Guarda via
Baracal, Villa Franca, and Rapoulla. A flanking detachment, composed of a
wing of the 95th Rifles, came upon a small rearguard left behind by Mermet
at Freixadas, and turned them out of the village, taking a few prisoners
(March 28).
On the 29th the Light Division and the two cavalry brigades moved in
upon Guarda from Rapoulla, while Picton closed in from the west, on the
side of the higher hills, and General Alexander Campbell, with the 6th
Division, advanced between the other two columns, by the road on the east
side of the Mondego which passes through Ramilhosa[237]. The three
converging columns appeared upon the heights around Guarda within a few
hours of each other, Picton being first on the spot. The French had hardly

any warning, for the cavalry screen had kept the British hidden till the last.
Picton found Mermet’s and Marchand’s divisions on the plateau of Guarda,
with Ferey’s at its foot on the eastern side, already starting on its march for
Adão, which was to be the commencement of the general retreat that
Masséna contemplated on the next day. It seems clear, from French sources,
that Loison was practically taken by surprise. Fririon, the chief of the staff
of the Army of Portugal, says that, visiting Guarda to see how the 6th Corps
was arranged, he found Maucune’s brigade encamped in a ravine dominated
on all sides, with only one battalion on the hill on which Picton appeared a
few minutes later, and the rest in a position where they were perfectly
helpless. There was no other covering force at all out in front of the town.
Hence, when the British closed in, Loison got flurried, and, seeing the Light
Division threatening to press in on his rear, absconded at once without
fighting. As his force was still nearly 15,000 strong, and Wellington had as
yet only three divisions, of no greater numbers, in front of the formidable
hill of Guarda, it seems that the flight of the 6th Corps from such a position
was somewhat ignominious. Ney would undoubtedly have fought a brilliant
detaining action with his rearguard[238].
Loison went off in great haste on the two roads open to him, both
leading south-east towards the Coa: one by Adão and Pega towards
Sabugal, the other by Villa Mendo and Marmeleiro to Rapoulla da Coa. The
British infantry could never come up with him. The cavalry pressed his rear,
and made many prisoners, mainly foraging parties which were straggling in
to join the main body. A patrol of the 16th Light Dragoons captured 64 men
in one party, and took 150 sheep and 20 oxen[239]. The total number of
prisoners was between two and three hundred. But the French rearguard of
three battalions of infantry kept well together, and was in too good order to
be broken by unsupported squadrons of cavalry. The main body of the 6th
Corps marched all day towards the fords of the Coa, but had not reached
that river at nightfall. One of its columns encamped at Pega, the other at
Marmeleiro.
On the next morning (March 30) Masséna was in a very dangerous
situation: his three corps were still unconcentrated, and Junot was lingering
at Belmonte, from which he only moved that morning towards Sabugal. If
Wellington had known of the isolated position of the 8th Corps, he might,
by pushing down a column from Celorico, have cut off its line of retreat

towards the Coa, where the 2nd Corps was awaiting it. But by ill-luck no
reports came to hand about Junot, and Wellington was under the impression
that two, and not one, corps had been holding Guarda when he attacked
it[240]. He was aware that Reynier was at Sabugal, but did not apparently
receive any information which demonstrated that there was another heavy
column in this direction, now commencing to move straight across the front
of his own advanced guard. Junot was able to extricate himself by two
painful marches over villainous cross-roads in the mountains, from
Belmonte to Urgueira (March 30) and from Urgueira to Sabugal (March
31). He was only able to win salvation because he had left all his artillery
behind him at Guarda, and was therefore able to go wherever infantry could
climb. His guns had been given in charge to the 6th Corps, and formed part
of the column under Ferey that marched by Pega to the Coa.
Meanwhile the 6th Corps had to complete its retreat to the line of the
Coa, and reached it in the afternoon, harassed but not seriously damaged by
the two British cavalry brigades, of which Hawker’s followed the column
on the northern and Arentschildt’s that on the southern of the two parallel
roads on which Loison was moving. All accounts agree that General Slade,
who was directing both brigades, showed over-caution, and missed several
fair opportunities of attacking the enemy’s rearguard, in open ground very
favourable to cavalry and horse-artillery tactics[241]. He only picked up a few
stragglers, and the enemy was safely across the Coa by nightfall,
Marchand’s division at Ponte Sequeiro, Ferey’s and Mermet’s at Bismula,
seven miles further to the south, where they were now only eight miles
from Reynier’s right wing at Sabugal. The British had not yet detected
Junot’s flank march, which was hourly bringing him nearer to safety.
On the 31st the 8th Corps escaped from its dangers, reached Sabugal,
and, passing behind Reynier, pushed on ten miles further to Alfayates,
where it halted for a much-needed rest. The troops were reduced to the last
extreme by exhaustion and hunger. At Alfayates, within three miles of the
Spanish frontier, and only two marches from Ciudad Rodrigo, they at last
began to receive regular provisions, and had nearly got out of the mountains
into the rolling upland of southern Leon.
Why Masséna, the moment that he knew that Junot was safe, did not
continue to retreat on to his magazines it is hard to say. But he remained for
two days more behind the upper Coa, and thereby exposed himself to

continued danger, for his army was strung out on too thin a line, watching
twenty miles of the river. Apparently he thought, from seeing no British
infantry on the 30th and 31st, that Wellington had halted at Guarda, and did
not intend to continue the pursuit on Sabugal. His own forces continued in
their old positions throughout the 1st and 2nd of April, save that all
Montbrun’s reserve cavalry was sent to the rear, to the valleys of the
Agueda and the Azava, to rest and recover itself, the larger proportion of the
surviving horses being quite unserviceable. The corps-cavalry of Reynier,
Junot, and Loison also sent back many dismounted men, and hundreds more
whose mounts were incapable of use for the present, so that the brigade of
light horse attached to each was reduced to a few hundred sabres, many of
the regiments having only one efficient squadron left, and none more than
two[242]. The retreat from Santarem had practically disabled the French
cavalry.
Wellington, meanwhile, having discovered by the explorations of his
horse, that the enemy was standing firm on the Coa, resolved to dislodge
them from their last hold on Portugal. To do this he required his whole
force, and the 1st and 5th Divisions moved onward from Celorico to
Freixadas on the 31st, to come up into line with the 3rd, 6th, and Light
Divisions. With them there was now present the long-expected 7th
Division, which reached the front at the end of the month, though
incomplete. For the light brigade of the German Legion had arrived at
Lisbon more than a fortnight late, and only four battalions in the British
service[243] and five of Portuguese[244] were at present allotted to the newly
formed unit. But in addition several newly landed battalions[245] came up
and joined the old divisions, so that nearly 6,000 infantry in all were added
to the army. After deducting many men left behind from sickness or
exhaustion[246], during his advance over the wasted regions of Beira,
Wellington had now about 38,000 men with him, a force very nearly equal
to that of the enemy, which on the 1st of April had sunk to 39,905 including
officers, if the 9th Corps, now in the vicinity of Almeida, be omitted.
The plan which Wellington evolved for the final eviction of the French
from Portugal was to turn their left wing on the side of Sabugal, while
containing their right wing (the 6th Corps) on the central Coa. Occupation
was at the same time found for the 9th Corps, as Wilson’s and Trant’s
Militia brigades were directed to cross the Coa near its confluence with the

Douro, and to threaten Almeida from the north side, a move which could
not fail to have the effect of keeping Drouet pinned down to his present
position, since his special task was the protection of that place. It is a little
difficult to make out why Wellington chose to break in upon the French left
rather than their right. From the strategical point of view it would have been
preferable to cross the Coa north of the flank of the 6th Corps, and to throw
the whole weight of the British army so as to drive the French southward,
towards Sabugal and Alfayates. For they would thus be separated from the
9th Corps, thrust into the barren and nearly roadless mountain district of the
Sierra de Gata and the Sierra de Meras, and cut off from Almeida and even
from Ciudad Rodrigo, which they were desirous of covering. Whereas to
turn their left wing would only have the effect of pushing them back on
their natural line of retreat towards Rodrigo, and would press them towards
rather than away from the 9th Corps. The British general’s course seems,
however, to have been guided by tactical rather than by strategical
considerations. He thought that he had a good opportunity of catching the
2nd Corps at Sabugal in an isolated position, and crushing it, before the 6th
or the 8th could come up to its help. And but for a chance of the weather it
seems that he might have accomplished this design with complete success.
Sabugal, a little walled place with a ruined Moorish castle, lies in a
projecting bend or hook of the Coa, which turns back just above the town at
right angles to its original course, which is directly from east to west. The
river is not far from its source, and though its banks are steep its waters are
narrow, and there are many fords both above and below Sabugal. If a strong
turning column, concealing itself in the hills, passed along the south bank of
the Coa, and crossed the river some miles above the town, it could throw
itself upon the rear of the 2nd Corps and cut it off from its retreat on
Alfayates. Meanwhile a general attack by Wellington’s main body would
drive it from its position straight into the arms of the turning column, and
there would be a good chance of inflicting a crushing defeat upon the corps,
perhaps of capturing it wholesale. If the attack were delivered by surprise at
dawn, the whole matter ought to be completed before either the 6th or the
8th Corps could get up to the support of Reynier. When at last they could
appear on the field, the 2nd Corps would be already demolished, and
Wellington was prepared to risk a general action.

It was with this design that his movements of the 1st and 2nd of April
were planned. The 1st, 5th, and 7th Divisions were brought up from
Celorico to Guarda, and from thence to join the Light, 3rd, and 6th
Divisions which were already lying along the Coa over against the French
lines. The 6th Division was left at Rapoulla de Coa, facing Loison’s centre,
and a single battalion of the 7th Division observed the bridge of Sequeiro
opposite his northern flank. These troops showed themselves freely, and
kept Loison anxious, for nothing seemed more likely than that the general
attack would be directed against him. Meanwhile the whole of the rest of
the army, five divisions and two cavalry brigades, over 30,000 men, was
launched against Reynier. The turning column was to be formed by the
Light Division and the two cavalry brigades, who were to ford the Coa at
two separate points two and three miles respectively above Sabugal. If
Erskine, who was to command it, so decided, the column might cross even
higher up: it was intended that it should appear far beyond Reynier’s left
wing, and should strike over the hills of Quadraseis to the village of Torre
on the Alfayates road, where it would be placed across his line of retreat.
The ground in that direction was open and favourable for cavalry.
Meanwhile the enemy was to be given no chance of falling upon this
detachment, since he was to be attacked in front with very superior forces.
Picton and his division were to cross an easy ford a mile south of Sabugal,
the 5th Division was to assail the town-bridge at the same moment. The 1st
and 7th Divisions were a few miles behind, ready to support the two leading
columns in the front attack. It was intended that the turning force should
cross the Coa first, but only so far ahead of the frontal attacking force as to
make it certain that it should not get engaged with the main body of the
enemy, before the 3rd and 5th Divisions were coming into action. The
French pickets having been pushed close back to the river on the preceding
day by the cavalry, it was certain that they would see nothing of the
movements till they were well developed.
Unfortunately the morning of the 3rd of April was one of dense fog—
good for concealing the march of the troops, but bad in that it prevented the
troops from discovering their objective. Both Picton and Dunlop (who was
commanding the 5th Division in Leith’s absence on leave) resolved not to
move, and sent to Wellington, who was hard by, for orders. Not so the rash
and presumptuous Erskine, who repeated this day the precise mistake that
he had made at Casal Novo three weeks back. Without coming himself to

the front, he sent an aide-de-camp to the Light Division, to bid it descend to
the river and cross at the ford which had been assigned to it in the general
scheme. The cavalry were also ordered to move forward and take the other
ford, more to the right, by which they were to get into the enemy’s rear.[247]
Beckwith’s brigade, the leading one of the Light Division, consisted of
the 1/43rd, Elder’s Caçadores (the 3rd of that arm), and four companies of
the 1/95th Rifles. It was waiting in column, on the road above the river,
when Erskine’s aide-de-camp rode up, and asked the brigadier in a
peremptory tone ‘why he did not cross.’ Beckwith at once struck off in the
direction where he supposed the ford to be, but, missing his line in the fog,
did not march sufficiently far to the right, and reached the Coa not at the
true ford but at a hazardous passage nearly a mile nearer to Sabugal[248],
where the water came up to the men’s arm-pits. Drummond’s brigade
followed at a distance, and used the same wrong path. The cavalry, to whom
Sir William Erskine had joined himself, taking their bearings from the Light
Division, came down to the river not very far to its right, at a point some
two miles more to the west than was intended. They lost much time in
searching for a ford; by the time that they found one, the Light Division was
already heavily engaged, and the passage ultimately discovered was so
close to that force that the Dragoons came up almost in Drummond’s rear,
instead of far out on his flank.
Reynier’s pickets were close to the water’s edge, and opened a
scattering fire on the head of Beckwith’s column while it was still
struggling across the river. But they were easily driven off, and the brigade
formed up on the further side, in the usual order of the Light Division, with
a very strong skirmishing screen, composed of four companies of the 95th
and three of Elder’s Caçadores. The 43rd and the other half-battalion of the
Portuguese came on in line, a few hundred yards behind the riflemen. They
were still smothered in the fog, and could discover nothing more than that
they were pursuing the French pickets up a gentle slope, mostly unenclosed
waste ground, but cut up by a few fields with low stone walls. Pushing
forward briskly, they presently came upon a French regiment, which was
already under arms, and preparing to show a front against them. What had
happened in the mist was that the Light Division, instead of getting round
the flank of Reynier’s position, had struck directly against it. The 2nd Corps
had been established on the long hill behind Sabugal and above the Coa,

ready to resist a frontal attack, with Merle’s division on the left and
Heudelet’s on the right, above the town. Beckwith had struck upon the 4th
Léger, the left regiment of the left-hand division of the corps. Merle,
warned by the fire of the pickets, was making a new front, en potence to the
general line of the French army, and had just got the four battalions of the
extreme flank regiment drawn out. They were, as usual, in column of
divisions, (double companies), with a weak skirmishing line in front, which
was at once driven in by the Rifles and Caçadores. Merle then led down his
four columns against the screen of light troops which covered Beckwith’s
line, and drove them back with considerable loss to himself, and little to his
opponents, since he had only skirmishers to shoot at, while his own
compact battalion columns were very vulnerable. The light troops fell back
to each flank of the line presented by the 43rd and the formed companies of
the Caçadores, and then halted and turned upon the enemy. The balance of
numbers was now in favour of Beckwith’s brigade, for though he had only
two and a half battalions and the enemy four, the French units were very
weak, the 4th Léger having only 1,100 men, while the 43rd alone was a
strong battalion of 750 bayonets and its auxiliary light troops were at least
600 more. It was not surprising, therefore, that the French regiment soon
went to the rear, badly hit, after a short sharp exchange of volleys. Beckwith
followed, pushing the enemy through a small chestnut wood, till he arrived
at the southern summit of the ridge on which the French line had been
drawn out. Here he found himself confronted by the seven battalions of the
36th of the Line, and the 2nd Léger, the remaining regiments of Merle’s
division, which were hurrying along the crest to the assistance of their
comrades of the 4th Léger.
Blinding rain came on at this moment, and much diminished the
efficacy of the British fire. Attacked by double numbers of fresh troops,
Beckwith’s brigade was thrust back for some distance. But they rallied
behind some stone walls of enclosures, just as the shower ceased, and after
an obstinate contest of musketry, stopped the French regiments, who, falling
into disorder, retired up the slope to re-form. Though conscious that he was
now engaged against hopeless odds, and though he could see nothing of
Drummond’s brigade or the British cavalry, which ought by this time to
have come up to his support, Beckwith went up the hill a second time in
pursuit. When he reached the crest he came upon the divisional battery of
Merle, drove it off, and captured one howitzer. Immediately after, he was

outflanked on his left by infantry, apparently the rallied 4th Léger, while on
the right he was charged by two squadrons of chasseurs and hussars, all that
the depleted cavalry brigade of Pierre Soult could put in line that day. The
43rd and their comrades were hardly pressed, and had to give ground, but
sheltering once more among the enclosures, refused to relinquish their
position on the slope. The captured howitzer lay out in their front, in an
open space swept by the musketry of both parties. Desperate attempts were
made by groups on each side to rush out and bring it in, but to no effect, as
the cross-fire was too heavy. Beckwith’s brigade was in a most dangerous
position, only preserved from annihilation by the fact that the mist and rain
prevented the enemy from recognizing the smallness of the force opposed
to him—two and a half battalions against eleven, or 1,500 men against
3,500.
At this moment assistance at last arrived—the 2nd Brigade of the Light
Division under Drummond appeared on the scene. It consisted of the two
battalions of the 52nd, the 1st Caçadores, and four companies of the 95th,
about 2,000 bayonets. Having lost touch of the 1st Brigade at the ford, it
had taken a route much more like that originally intended by Wellington to
be employed, and had come up the back slope of the heights, far to the right
of Beckwith, without meeting any enemy. The noise of the combat attracted
Drummond to his left; he changed his direction, and was coming over the
hillside and approaching Beckwith when he received a most ill-advised
order from Erskine—who was with the cavalry some way to his right rear—
directing him not to advance or engage[249]. But to have held back would
have meant to allow the 1st Brigade to be destroyed. Disregarding the order,
Drummond deployed the 1/52nd, the Caçadores, and the 95th on the right
of the enclosures where Beckwith was fighting, with the 2/52nd in reserve,
and advanced firing. This attack by a fresh force was too much for the
French 2nd and 36th, who had suffered severely in the earlier fighting. They
gave way, and Drummond, with Beckwith following in échelon on his left,
regained the crest of the heights and recaptured the French howitzer. The
two brigades were still engaged in a fierce struggle with Merle’s division
when Reynier brought up the 2nd Brigade of Heudelet’s division, the seven
battalions of the 17th Léger and 70th Ligne, which had formed the centre of
his original line of battle. These troops attacked the left flank of the Light
Division, Beckwith’s men, and put them in grave danger, for the much-tried
43rd and 3rd Caçadores were in great disorder. At the same time the two

French squadrons charged again upon the flank of the 52nd. Fortunately a
stray squadron of the 16th Light Dragoons came up and assisted in
repulsing them. This was the only aid given by the cavalry this day; Erskine
contrived to keep them useless, countermarching in the mist, some way
from the fighting front.
At this moment the fog suddenly lifted, and both Wellington and
Reynier were able to make out the face of the battle. The sight was not
altogether comforting to either of them: Wellington could see the Light
Division on the crest, opposed by a very superior enemy (the proportion
was about five to three at this moment) and with their left flank turned by
the column which had just come up. Reynier, on the other hand, saw the
masses of Picton’s and Dunlop’s divisions halted close above the fords, at
and below Sabugal, and just preparing to cross. He had so stripped his
centre and right, while bringing up troops to crush the Light Division, that
only the two regiments forming Heudelet’s 1st Brigade, the eight weak
battalions of the 31st Léger and 47th Ligne, about 3,300 bayonets, were left
to occupy two miles of slope on each side of the town of Sabugal. Reynier
saw that they must be scattered by the approaching onset, for 10,000 men
were hurrying down towards the fords, and gave instant orders for a general
retreat. The intact brigade was to abandon Sabugal and the heights,
concentrate, and go off at the double, to take up a position a mile to the rear,
on the road to Alfayates. Merle’s shattered troops on the crest, facing the
Light Division, were directed to make off in such order as they might,
taking the artillery with them, and to seek refuge behind this reserve. To
prevent Beckwith and Drummond from pursuing them, the 2nd Brigade of
Heudelet, the 17th Léger and 70th, were ordered to keep up a defensive
fight upon the heights where they had just come into action.
This brigade was thereby exposed to grave danger, for while it was
doing its best to ‘contain’ the Light Division, Picton, coming up from the
river at a furious pace, with the 5th Fusiliers deployed in his front, rushed in
upon its flank, and drove its battalions one upon another. The 17th and 70th
were overwhelmed and thrust down the back of the hill with a loss of 400
men, of whom 120 were unwounded prisoners. Their wrecks took refuge
with the other brigades, which retired as rapidly as they could along the
Alfayates road, with the 31st Léger and 47th Ligne, the only intact body,
covering the flight of the rest. The British 5th Division had crossed at

Sabugal without meeting opposition or losing a man, but was too far to the
left to be of any use in urging the pursuit. That duty fell to Picton, who was
pressing the French rearguard when the rain, which had been falling for
almost the whole morning, became absolutely torrential, and hid the face of
the country-side so thoroughly that Wellington commanded the whole army
to halt. It is said that this order was given on the false intelligence that the
8th Corps was visible coming up from Alfayates to join Reynier[250], a report
for which there was no foundation whatever. Erskine and the cavalry never
touched the retreating force, save one squadron of the German hussars, who
happed upon the French transport column, and captured the private baggage
of Reynier himself and General Pierre Soult[251].
So ended, in comparative disappointment, an operation which would
have had glorious results if the fog had not intervened, and which might,
even with that drawback, have been much more decisive if Sir William
Erskine had shown ordinary prudence and ability. The actual combat, as
Wellington truly observed, ‘was one of the most glorious that British troops
were ever engaged in,’ for the Light Division, with its 3,500 bayonets, had
fought the whole of the 2nd Corps save one brigade, and had punished its
adversaries in the most exemplary style, without suffering any
corresponding loss. ‘Really these attacks in column against our line are very
contemptible,’ wrote Wellington to Beresford next morning. The chief glory
lay with the 43rd, who fought three separate contests with three successive
bodies of opponents, and counted very nearly half of the total British loss in
their ranks. Beckwith, their brigadier, was the admired of all beholders; eye-
witnesses relate with pride how he rode first in the advance and last in the
retreat, with blood streaming from a wound on his temple, keeping the men
in rank, checking those who showed a tendency to quicken the pace, and
directing the fire with perfect coolness. It was in a great degree the
confidence inspired by his cheerful and resourceful leading which enabled
the brigade to keep up the fight against impossible odds, down to the
moment of the arrival of Drummond and the supports upon the scene.

SABUGAL

The total loss of the French was 61 officers and 689 men; this fearful
proportion of losses in the commissioned ranks was due to the gallantry
with which they threw away their lives in bringing up to the front the
shaken and demoralized soldiers, who could not face the English musketry.
One gun and 186 unwounded prisoners were taken. The British loss was
only 169—that of their Portuguese companions no more than 10. Of the
total of 179 no less than 143 were men of the Light Division, of whom 80
belonged to the 43rd; Picton’s troops, only engaged for a few minutes at the
end of the combat, had twenty-five casualties. The horse artillery lost one,
the German hussars two men wounded. It is sufficiently clear from these
figures who had done the fighting that day[252].
On the afternoon following the combat of Sabugal, Masséna abandoned
the line of the Coa, drawing back the 6th Corps to join the other two at
Alfayates. Next morning (April 4) at early dawn the whole army made a
forced march to the rear, for there seemed every probability that Wellington
would appear, to force on a general action, during the course of the day, and
it was necessary to avoid the chance of being thrust against the Sierra de
Gata, and cut off from Ciudad Rodrigo. Accordingly the 2nd Corps covered
more than twenty miles, and did not halt till it had reached Fuentes de
Oñoro; the 6th Corps, marching a less distance, halted at Fuente Guinaldo
on the direct road to Ciudad Rodrigo. The 8th Corps, on a road between the
other two, stopped at Campillo; the reserve cavalry of Montbrun, which was
in such bad condition that it had to be covered by the infantry, instead of
acting as their screen, drew back to El Bodon, and other villages in the
immediate vicinity of Rodrigo. By this movement Masséna recovered his
communication with the 9th Corps, which still lay on the Turon near
Almeida, for the 2nd Corps was now within fifteen miles of Drouet’s head
quarters at Val de Mula, while the 6th and 8th Corps covered the roads to
Ciudad Rodrigo. On the following day (April 5) the two last-named corps
drew back to Carpio, Marialva, and other places within a few miles of that
fortress, but the 2nd Corps remained at Fuentes de Oñoro, in order to keep
touch with the 9th till the latter should have evacuated a position which had
now become dangerous and over-advanced. For if Masséna went back to
the Agueda, Drouet could not linger near Almeida, lest he should be cut off
from the main army.

Meanwhile Wellington had occupied on the 4th Masséna’s old head
quarters at Alfayates, and sent forward his cavalry to Albergaria,
Alamedilla, and other villages, where they came in touch with the outposts
of the 2nd and 8th Corps. The Light Division felt for any traces of the
French at Val de Espinha and Quadraseis, and finding none pushed on to
Alfayates. The 1st and 3rd Divisions came to that place also on the next
day. By that evening (April 5) it was certain that Masséna was falling back
to Ciudad Rodrigo, perhaps even further to the rear. The state of his army,
of which Wellington had ample evidence from the capture of more sick,
stragglers, and baggage during this and the two next days[253], rendered it
extremely likely that the French would not be able to halt till they reached
their magazines at Salamanca. The British general had no intention of
following the enemy far into Spain; he had again outmarched his supplies,
for the new base at Coimbra had only just been established, and convoys
from it were coming in slowly and with great delays, since they had to be
brought up over the wasted and depopulated region which the French had
just evacuated. Till he had some magazines accumulated nearer the frontier,
he could not dream of a serious offensive movement into Leon. His letters
at this time are full of laments as to the state of the Portuguese troops,
especially of the brigades which were fed by their own commissariat. They
had dropped so many sick and stragglers in the advance, that on April 8th
they were 2,500 short of the number with which they had started from the
Lines of Torres Vedras: the brigade in the 5th Division had fallen to 1,061
rank and file from 1,400 with which it had set out—that in the 3rd Division
to 1,190 from 1,319. Pack’s brigade had been left behind on the Mondego
from sheer inability to march, and had not been able to join in the Guarda
and Sabugal operations[254]. It was necessary to wait till the ranks were fuller
—the men were not lost but left behind exhausted, and could be collected
when a systematic supply of food was procurable. The allied army could
not dream of entering Spain with the intention of living by plunder and
requisitions, as the French habitually did.
Wellington’s ambition at the moment did not go beyond the hope of
recovering Almeida, which he conceived to be doomed to fall, and possibly
Ciudad Rodrigo also, if the enemy should be forced to fall back towards
Salamanca. But Almeida, at least, he was determined to make his own, and
the first necessity was to clear away the 9th Corps from its neighbourhood.
He was convinced that Drouet would retreat when he heard that Masséna

had retired to the Agueda, and thought that his motions might be quickened
by a demonstration. The 6th Division and Pack’s Portuguese were destined
for the blockade of Almeida, but they would not be up for some days, and
meanwhile Trant’s Militia, which was already on the lower Coa, was
directed to push in boldly upon the place, and promised the support of
Slade’s cavalry brigade on the 7th. Trant, always daring and full of
enterprise, pressed forward to Val de Mula, on the further side of Almeida,
and met there Claparéde’s division on its way towards the Agueda—
Conroux had already departed. The Militia engaged in an irregular fight
with the French, who turned promptly round upon them, and seemed likely
to make havoc of them near the village of Aldea do Obispo. But just as the
attack grew threatening Slade’s dragoons appeared from the south, with
Bull’s horse artillery battery, and drew up on the flank of the enemy’s
troops. The artillery were already beginning to enfilade them, when
Claparéde, forming his division into battalion squares, made a hasty retreat
towards the Agueda, and passed it at the bridge of Barba del Puerco.
Erskine, who was in command of the expedition, did not press him hard,
and the French, according to their own account, only lost 7 killed and 4
officers and 24 men wounded, all by cannon shot, for the dragoons were not
allowed to charge home[255]. Slade captured, however, some baggage and a
good many stragglers, marauders, and guards of small convoys, who were
surprised in the open rolling country before they could get over the Agueda.
Wellington could now surround and blockade Almeida; he had been
nourishing some hopes that the French might evacuate it, when Drouet
departed from its neighbourhood, for he was aware that its stores had run
very low. But when it became evident that the place was not to be
abandoned, he realized that it would take some weeks to reduce it, for he
had no battering-train whatever, indeed there were no heavy guns nearer
than Oporto and Abrantes. It was not till the following autumn that a proper
siege-train was organized for the Anglo-Portuguese army. Almeida could
only be attacked by the weapon of famine; Badajoz, which was beleaguered
at the same time, had to be battered with a few guns borrowed from the
ramparts of the neighbouring fortress of Elvas. The British army had now
been two years in Portugal, yet Wellington still lacked the materials for
conducting the smallest offensive operation against strongholds in the hands
of the French.

map to illustrate the LAST STAGE of MASSÉNA’S RETREAT

and the CAMPAIGN of FUENTES de OÑORO

It was known, however, that the stores in Almeida had run low, for the
9th Corps had been consuming them while it lay close by, in spite of
Masséna’s strict directions to the contrary. But starvation knows no laws. As
a matter of fact there were still over thirty days’ rations in the magazines,
though it had been reported both to Wellington and to Masséna that the
stock had run down much lower;[256] Drouet had falsely stated on one
occasion that there was only enough to last for fifteen days. The British
general fancied that four weeks’ blockade might reduce the place, and
thought that he was quit of the Army of Portugal for a much longer space of
time. He even hoped to effect something against Ciudad Rodrigo[257], which
was also under-victualled, for on reaching the frontier Masséna had been
forced to indent upon it for supplies for his broken host. If the French
retired to Salamanca, as seemed quite probable, Wellington had hopes that
he might be able to starve out Rodrigo. But he was not intending to throw
his troops around it; they were to remain on the Dos Casas and the Azava,
covering the siege of Almeida, but only observing the Spanish fortress with
cavalry. For the cutting of the road between it and Salamanca only irregular
forces were to be used: Wellington would not send any of his own divisions
forward beyond Rodrigo, but requested the daring and resourceful
guerrillero chief Julian Sanchez to throw his bands in this direction, the
moment that the French army should have retired from the Agueda.
Sanchez had been for many months already occupied in similar work,
having spent all the winter in raids to cut off convoys and small parties
passing from Salamanca to Ciudad Rodrigo, or from that place to Almeida.
He had been hunted, often but vainly, by General Thiébault, the governor of
the province, whose columns he had usually succeeded in avoiding, while
he was always at hand to fall on weak or incautious detachments on the
march[258].
On April 8th, as Wellington had expected, the Army of Portugal
resumed its march into the interior of the kingdom of Leon, all the three
corps passing the Agueda, and retiring, Reynier to San Felices el Grande,
Junot to Santi Espiritus, Loison to Alba de Yeltes. Junot, while passing, had
been ordered to send into Rodrigo a reinforcement for the garrison; he
detached a battalion of the 15th and another of the Irish Legion, which
brought up the troops in the place to 3,000 men. From the 8th to the 11th

the retreat continued, till at last the 6th Corps went into cantonments at
Salamanca, Alba de Tormes, and other neighbouring places, the 2nd at and
about Ledesma, and the 8th at Toro, behind the others. Drouet and his two
divisions held the line of observation against the Anglo-Portuguese, with
head quarters at San Muñoz. So ended, fifty miles within the borders of
Spain, the movement that had begun at Santarem and Punhete.
The effective of Masséna’s army, was on April 15th 39,546 sabres and
bayonets. It had started in September 1810 with 65,050 officers and men,
and had numbered 44,407 on March 15th. The exact loss, however, was not
the mere difference between its force of September 15, 1810, and of April
15, 1811 (25,504), for it had received at midwinter two drafts under
Gardanne and Foy, amounting to 3,225 men in all[259]. On the other hand,
the figures of April 15th do not include two convoys of sick sent back into
Spain, one of 82 officers and 833 men dispatched under the charge of
Drouet from the Alva on March 11, and a second and larger one sent back
from Celorico to Almeida on March 22, along with which went some
dismounted cavalry, and some artillery which could no longer follow the
army. The whole may have amounted to 3,000 men. Both of these convoys
dropped large numbers of dead and stragglers by the way, but it is
impossible to ascertain their total. We must also deduct the escort of an
officer, Major Casabianca, sent from the front to Ciudad Rodrigo on 21st
January, who took 400 men[260] with him and never returned. Deducting the
4,315 thus sent back to Spain, and setting them against the 3,225 received
from thence, it appears that Masséna’s total loss must have been just under
25,000 men, or 38 per cent. of his original force. Of these Wellington had
some 8,000 as prisoners, including the 4,000 captured in the hospital of
Coimbra on October 7th, 1810. The remainder had perished—not more than
2,000 in action, the rest by the sword of famine. Wellington’s scheme had
justified itself, though its working out had taken many more weeks than he
expected. Nor was the mere loss in men all that the Army of Portugal had
suffered. It returned to Leon stripped of everything—without munitions,
uniforms, or train. It had lost 5,872 horses of the 14,000 which it had
brought into Portugal, and practically all its wheeled vehicles; there were
precisely 36 waggons left with the army. The men were still ready to fight
fiercely when they saw the necessity for it, but were sulky, discontented,
and perpetually carping against the Commander-in-Chief, whose last
unhappy inspiration—the projected march from Guarda to Plasencia—had

filled up the measure of their wrath. And indeed they had good reason to be
disgusted at it, for it was wholly insane and impracticable. But every
misfortune of the last six months—the bloody repulse at Bussaco, the loss
of the hospitals and magazines at Coimbra, the long starvation at Santarem,
the slow and circuitous course of the retreat, was imputed to Masséna’s
account by his chief subordinates as well as by his rank and file. What the
generals muttered in the morning was loudly discussed around every camp-
fire at night. The whole army had lost in morale from six months of
systematic marauding, was quite out of hand in the way of discipline, and
had no confidence in its leader, who was absolutely detested. The departure
of Ney, who was liked and admired by all ranks, had been a great
discouragement, because his skilful handling of the rearguard during the
retreat had been understood and appreciated, while Masséna was cried
down as a tactician no less than as a strategist on the general results of the
campaign. A general whose troops no longer rely on him cannot get the best
out of his army, and for this reason alone Napoleon was justified in
removing the old Marshal from his command in April, when the full tale of
the retreat had reached him.
Yet there can be no doubt that Masséna was hardly treated. That the
expedition of Portugal failed was, in the main, no fault of his. Neither he
nor his master, nor any one else on the French side, had foreseen
Wellington’s plans—the devastation of the country-side, which rendered it
impossible for the invader to live long by marauding, and the systematic
fortification of the long front of the Lisbon Peninsula. For the actual game
that was set before him, Masséna had not been given sufficient pieces by
the Emperor. As Wellington had said more than a year before[261], the French
could not turn him out of Portugal with less than 100,000 men, and
Napoleon had only provided 65,000. Moreover, as the British general had
added, he should so manage affairs that 100,000 French could not live in
the country if they did appear; and this was no vain boast.
Masséna, then, was sent to accomplish an impossible task, and his merit
was that he came nearer to his end than Wellington had believed possible,
before he was forced to recoil. Many of the French marshals would never
have got to Coimbra: certainly none of them would have succeeded in
holding on at Santarem for three months. There can be no doubt that the
Prince of Essling did not exaggerate when he wrote to Berthier[262], on

March 31st, that it was his own iron will alone which had kept the army so
long and so far to the front—that but for him it would have recoiled on to
Spain many weeks earlier. His heroic obstinacy gave his adversary many an
uneasy day, while it seemed in January and February as if the calculation
for famishing the French had failed. Masséna, in short, had done all that
was possible, and the general failure of the campaign was not his fault, any
more than it was that of Soult, on whom the blame has always been laid by
the elder marshal’s advocates. We have shown in an earlier chapter[263] that
Soult did all and more than all that Napoleon had directed him to
accomplish. If he had literally obeyed the tardy orders that reached him
from Paris he would only have exposed the 5th Corps to defeat, if not to
destruction. The ex post facto rebukes that the Emperor sent him were
unjust. We are once more driven back to our old conclusion that the
determining factors in the failure of the campaign of Portugal were firstly
that Napoleon refused to appoint a single commander-in-chief in the
Peninsula, to whose orders all the other marshals should be strictly
subordinate, and secondly that he persisted in sending plans and directions
from Paris founded on facts that were seven weeks late, or more, when his
dispatches reached the front. On this we have enlarged at sufficient length
on an earlier page.

SECTION XXV
EVENTS IN NORTHERN, EASTERN, AND
CENTRAL SPAIN

CHAPTER I
KING JOSEPH AND HIS TROUBLES

While following the fortunes of Wellington and Masséna, during the
first four months of 1811, we have been compelled to leave almost
untouched the sequence of events in the rest of Spain; not only the doings
of Suchet and Macdonald in the far east, which had no practical connexion
with the campaign of Portugal, but also the minor affairs of the southern
and central provinces. Only Soult’s expedition to Estremadura, which came
into close touch with Wellington, has been dealt with. It is time to explain
the general posture of the war in the Peninsula, during the time when its
critical point lay between Lisbon and Abrantes, where Masséna and
Wellington stood face to face, each waiting for the other to move.
What was going on in Portugal was, as we have already seen,
practically a secret to the French in Spain. For the Portuguese Ordenança
and the Spanish guerrilleros had done their work of blocking the roads so
well, that no accurate information penetrated to Madrid, Valladolid, or
Seville from Santarem. It was only at rare intervals, when Foy and other
officers cut their way through this ‘fog of war’ that the condition of affairs
on the Tagus became known for a moment. The fog descended again when
they had passed through on their way to Paris, and given their information
as to the fortunes of the Army of Portugal during the weeks that preceded
their departure. The gaps in the narrative were very long—nothing got

through between the departure of Masséna from Almeida on September 15,
1810, and Foy’s first arrival at Ciudad Rodrigo on November 8th. There
was another lacuna in the knowledge of the situation between that date and
the passage of Masséna’s second successful messenger, Casabianca, from
Santarem to Rodrigo in the earliest days of February. And after Casabianca
had passed by, the next news came out through Foy’s second mission, when
he started to announce the oncoming retreat on March 5, and got to the
borders of Leon on March 13. The only way in which King Joseph at
Madrid, or the generals of the ‘military governments’ of Old Castile, or
Soult in Andalusia, felt the course of the war on its most important theatre,
was that they were for many months freed from any anxiety about the
movements of Wellington. He was ‘contained’ by Masséna, and, however
he might be faring, he had no power to interfere by armed force in the
affairs of Spain. The French for all this time had to deal only with the
armies of the Cortes, and with their old and irrepressible enemies the
guerrilleros of the mountains.
While the fate of the Portuguese expedition was still uncertain, while it
seemed possible to Napoleon that Masséna might cling to his position at
Santarem till Soult came up to join him on the Tagus, a considerable change
was made with regard to the French troops in northern Spain. Convinced at
last there was little to be said in favour of that system of many small
‘military governments’, in Old Castile and the neighbouring provinces,
which he had created in 1810, the Emperor resolved to put them all under a
single commander. This would give him six less independent generals to
communicate with, and would ensure for the future a much better co-
operation between the divisions which occupied the valley of the Douro and
the Pyrenean regions. The six military governors had been each playing his
own game, and taking little notice of that of his neighbours. Their enemies
were mostly the guerrillero bands of the Cantabrian hills and of Navarre.
Each general did his best to hunt these elusive enemies out of his own
department, but took little heed of their trespasses on his neighbours’
territory. Evasive and indomitable partisans like Mina in Navarre, Julian
Sanchez in Old Castile, and Porlier and Longa in the Cantabrian sierras,
found it comparatively easy to shift their positions when the pressure on
one region was too great for them, and to move on into another—they were
sure that the hunt would soon slacken, and that they could return at their
leisure to their old haunts. The Emperor thought that it would be possible to

make an end of them, if all his garrisons and movable columns in northern
Spain were put under a single commander and moved in unison under a
single will. Hence came the decree of January 8, 1811, creating the ‘Army
of the North,’ and handing it over to Marshal Bessières, whose name was
still remembered in those regions owing to his old victory of Medina de Rio
Seco. His authority extended over the troops stationed in Navarre, Biscay,
Burgos, Valladolid, Salamanca, the Asturias, and Santander, including not
only the regular garrisons of those provinces but the two divisions of the
Young Guard, which had replaced Drouet’s corps in Old Castile, and the
division under Serras which watched Galicia from the direction of
Benavente and Astorga. The total of the forces placed under his orders
amounted to 70,000 men, of whom 59,000 were ‘présents sous les armes,’
the rest being in hospital, or detached outside the limits of the territory
assigned to the Army of the North.
Considerable as was this force, it did not accomplish all that the
Emperor hoped, even when directed by a single commander of solid
military talents. Bessières, though a capable officer, was not a genius, and
the tasks assigned to him were so multifarious that after a short time he
began to grow harassed and worried, and to cavil at every order that was
sent him. He was directed to ‘suppress brigandage,’ i. e. to put down the
guerrilleros, to support the Army of Portugal against Wellington whenever
necessary, to keep an eye upon the Spanish regular forces in Galicia and the
Asturias. This, he declared, was more than could be accomplished with the
forces at his disposal. ‘If I concentrate 20,000 men all communications are
lost, and the insurgents will make enormous progress. The coast would be
lost as far as Bilbao. We are without resources, because it is only with the
greatest pains that the troops can be fed from day to day. The spirit of the
population is abominably bad: the retreat of the Army of Portugal has
turned their heads. The bands of insurgents grow larger, and recruit
themselves actively on every side.... The Emperor is deceived about Spain:
the pacification of Spain does not depend on a battle with the English, who
will accept it or refuse it as they please, and who have Portugal behind them
for retreat. Every one knows the vicious system of our operations. Every
one allows that we are too widely scattered. We occupy too much territory,
we use up our resources without profit and without necessity: we are
clinging on to dreams. Cadiz and Badajoz absorb all our means—Cadiz
because we cannot take it, Badajoz because it requires a whole army to

support it. We ought to blow up Badajoz, and to abandon the siege of Cadiz
for the present. We ought to draw in, get solid bases for our magazines and
hospitals, and regard two-thirds of Spain as a vast battlefield, which a battle
may give us or cause us to lose, till the moment that we change our system
and take in hand the real conquest and pacification of the country,’ &c.[264]
All this means that Bessières found it impossible to pacify the North,
and concluded that it was useless to try to complete the conquest of
Andalusia or Portugal, when that of Navarre and Santander was so far from
being secure that no small party could go two miles from a garrison town,
without a large probability of being cut off by the insurgents. He would
have had his master abandon Andalusia and Estremadura, in order to
concentrate such masses of troops in the north that the guerrilleros should
be smothered by mere numbers, that every mountain village should have its
garrison. There was small likelihood that his views would find favour at
Paris; the Emperor knew well enough the effect on his prestige that would
result from the abandonment of the siege of Cadiz, following upon the
retreat of Masséna from Santarem. It would look like a confession of defeat,
a renunciation of the great game of conquest; if the French armies retired
beyond the Sierra Morena, the results of eighteen months of victorious
campaigning in the south would be lost, and the Cortes at Cadiz would once
more have a realm to administer. Hence all that Napoleon did for Bessières
was to send him in June two new divisions for the strengthening of the
garrisons of the North[265], and to bid him fortify every important station on
the high-road to Madrid, and even the main bridges of the upper Ebro. A
few months later he recalled him, partly because he considered him a
pessimist, partly because Bessières quarrelled with King Joseph, who was
continually soliciting his removal. But before the Duke of Istria departed he
had many more troubles to go through, as will be seen.
The main difficulties of the Army of the North arose from geographical
facts. While the plains of Leon and Old Castile could be scoured by cavalry,
and easily traversed by flying columns, so that it was not impossible to keep
some sort of order in them, this flat upland was bordered on the north by the
long chain of the Cantabrian sierras and their foot-hills, broad, rugged, and
nearly roadless. Behind these again lay the narrow and difficult coast-land
of Asturias and Santander, cut up into countless petty valleys each drained
by its own small river, and parted from its neighbours by spurs of the great

sierras. How was this mountain region, seventy miles broad and two
hundred long, to be dealt with? The French had no permanent garrisons on
the coast between Gijon, the port of Oviedo, which was generally occupied
by a detachment of Bonnet’s division, and Santander, not far from the
borders of Biscay[266]. This last Bessières describes as ‘a bad post from
every point of view, only to be defended by covering it with large bodies of
troops,’ and only accessible by a series of difficult defiles. In the Cantabrian
highlands dwelt Longa and Porlier, with bands which had assumed the
proportions of small armies; they could communicate with the sea at any
one of a dozen petty ports, and draw arms and supplies from the British
cruisers of the Bay of Biscay. Even Mina would occasionally get in touch
with the sea through this coast-land, though his main sphere of operations
was in Navarre. There were dozens of smaller bands, each based on its own
valley, but capable of joining its neighbours for a sudden stroke. Again and
again French columns worked up into these sierras from the plain of the
Douro, and went on a hunt after the patriots. Sometimes they caught them
and inflicted severe loss; more often they were eluded by their enemies,
who fled by paths that regular troops could not follow, into some distant
corner of the mountains. It was impossible to garrison each upland valley
with a force that could resist a general levy of the insurgents. Even little
towns like Potes, in the Liebana, Longa’s usual head quarters, which were
repeatedly taken, could not be kept. The ‘Army of the North’ would have
required 150,000 men instead of the 70,000 whom Bessières actually
commanded, if it was to master the whole of this difficult region. Indeed,
Cantabria could only have been conquered by an enemy possessing a sea
force to attack it in the rear, and occupy all its little ports, as well as an
overwhelming land army operating from all sides. To the end of the war
Longa and Porlier, often hunted but never destroyed, maintained themselves
without any great difficulty in their fastnesses. Nothing but the general
despair and demoralization that might have followed the extinction of the
patriotic cause in the whole of the rest of Spain, could have brought the war
in this region to an end. Nothing of the kind occurred: the Cantabrians kept
a high spirit; they won many small successes, and they were perpetually
helped by the British from the side of the sea. Bessières had a hopeless
problem before him in this quarter, considering the size of his army.
But this was not his only trouble; Bonnet in Asturias was holding
Oviedo and the district immediately round it with a strong division, which

varied at one time and another from 6,000 to 8,000 men. He was very useful
in his present position, because he cut the Spanish line of defence along the
north coast in two, and because he seemed to threaten Galicia from the
north-east. The threat was not a very real one, for he had not enough men to
deliver an attack on eastern Galicia and at the same time to hold Oviedo and
its neighbourhood. But he was a source of trouble as well as of strength to
his superiors, for it was very difficult to keep in touch with him through the
pass of Pajares, and if he were to be attacked at once by the Galicians and
by a British landing-force, his position would be a very dangerous one. He
had been put to great trouble by Renovales’s naval expedition in October
1810[267], though this was but a small force and had not received any real
help from Galicia along the land side. Bessières, after he had been a few
months in authority, was inclined to withdraw Bonnet to the south side of
the sierras, and to abandon Oviedo, but was warned against such a move by
his master, who said that this would be ‘a detestable operation,’ as it would
relieve Galicia from the threat of invasion, allow of the re-formation of a
Junta and an army in Asturias, and necessitate a heavy concentration at
Santander[268]. Nevertheless the Marshal did at one crisis withdraw the
division from Oviedo.
Between Bonnet in the Asturias and Ciudad Rodrigo, the long front
against Galicia was occupied by a single weak French division, that of
Serras, whose head quarters were at Benavente, his advanced post at
Astorga, and his flank-guards at Leon and Zamora[269]. If the army of
Galicia had been in good order this force would have been in great danger,
for it was not strong enough to hold the ground allotted to it. But when Del
Parque in 1809 drew off to Estremadura the old Army of the North, he had
left behind him only a few skeleton corps, and the best of these had been
destroyed in defending Astorga in the following year. The formation of a
new Galician army of 20,000 men had been decreed, and the cadres left
behind in the country had been filled up in 1810, but the results were not
satisfactory. The Captain-General, Mahy, was a man of little energy, and
spent most of it in quarrels with the local Junta, whom he accused of
conspiracy against him, and charged with secret correspondence with La
Romana and his party. He seized their letters in the post and imprisoned two
members, whereupon riots broke out, and complaints were sent to the
Regency at Cadiz. This led to Mahy’s recall, and the captain-generalship
was given to the Duke of Albuquerque, then on his mission to London. He

died without having returned to Spain, so that the appointment was
nugatory, and the Regency then gave it to Castaños, who was at the same
time made Captain-General of Estremadura, after the death of La Romana
and the disaster at the Gebora. Castaños went to the Tagus, to rally the poor
remnants of the Estremaduran army, and while retaining the nominal
command in Galicia never visited that province, but deputed the command
in it to Santocildes, the young general who had so bravely defended Astorga
in the preceding spring. He had been sent prisoner to France, but was adroit
enough to escape from his captivity, and to make his way back to Corunna.
His appointment was popular, but he got no great service out of the Galician
army, which was in a deplorable condition, and hopelessly scattered. The
Junta kept many battalions to garrison the harbour-fortresses of Corunna,
Vigo, and Ferrol, and the main body, whose head quarters lay at Villafranca
in the Vierzo, did not amount to more than 7,000 men, destitute of cavalry
(which Galicia could never produce) and very poorly provided with
artillery. There was another division, under General Cabrera, some 4,000
strong, at Puebla de Senabria, and a third under Barcena and Losada on the
borders of the Asturias, opposite Bonnet. The whole did not amount to
16,000 raw troops—yet this was sufficient to hold Serras in observation and
to watch Bonnet, who was too much distracted by the Cantabrian bands to
be really dangerous. But in the spring of 1811 the Galicians could do no
more, and Wellington was much chagrined to find that he could get no
effective assistance from them, after he had driven Masséna behind the
Agueda, and so shaken the hold of the French on the whole kingdom of
Leon. It was not till June that Santocildes found it possible to descend from
the hills and threaten Serras. This led to a petty campaign about Astorga and
on the Orbigo river, which will be narrated in its due place.
While affairs stood thus in the north, King Joseph and his ‘Army of the
Centre’ were profiting for many months from the absence of any danger
upon the side of Portugal. Indeed, the period between September 1810 and
April 1811 were the least disturbed of any in the short and troublous reign
of the Rey Intruso, so far as regular military affairs went. There was no
enemy to face save the guerrilleros, yet these bold partisans, of whom the
best known were the Empecinado and El Medico (Dr. Juan Palarea) on the
side of the eastern mountains, and Julian Sanchez more to the west, on the
borders of Leon, sufficed to keep the 20,000 men of whom King Joseph
could dispose[270] in constant employment. Such a force was not too much

when every small town, almost every village, of New Castile had to be
provided with a garrison. Roughly speaking, each province absorbed a
division: the Germans of the Rheinbund occupied La Mancha, Lahoussaye’s
dragoons and the incomplete division of Dessolles[271] held Toledo and its
district, the King’s Spaniards the Guadalajara country, leaving only the
Royal Guards and some drafts and detachments to garrison the capital. It
was with considerable difficulty that Joseph collected in January 1811 a
small expeditionary force of not over 3,500 men[272], with which Lahoussaye
went out, partly to open up communications with Soult in Estremadura, but
more especially to search for any traces of the vanished army of Masséna in
the direction of the Portuguese frontier. Lahoussaye started from Talavera
on February 1, communicated by means of his cavalry with Soult’s outposts
between Truxillo and Merida, and then went northward across the Tagus to
Plasencia, from which his cavalry searched in vain, as far as Coria and
Alcantara, for any news of the Army of Portugal. From Plasencia he was
soon driven back to Toledo by want of supplies. Joseph had directed him to
seize Alcantara, re-establish its broken bridge, and place a garrison there;
but this turned out to be absolutely impossible, for it would have been
useless to leave a small force in this remote spot, when it was certain that it
must ere long retire for lack of food, and might well be cut off by the
guerrilleros before it could reach Talavera, the nearest occupied point[273].
The Army of the Centre just sufficed to occupy the kingdom of New
Castile, and was unable to do more. At least, however, it could maintain its
position, and was in no danger. The King was even able to make state visits
to places in the close neighbourhood of Madrid, such as Alcala and
Guadalajara[274], and seems to have regarded the possibility of such a modest
tour as a sign of the approaching pacification of this region.
But just at the moment when Joseph Bonaparte’s military situation was
safe, if not satisfactory, he was passing through a diplomatic crisis which
absorbed all his attention and reduced him to the verge of despair. We have
already alluded, in an earlier chapter, to Napoleon’s insane resolve to annex
all Spain beyond the Ebro to the French Empire[275], in return for which he
was proposing to hand over Portugal, when it should be conquered, to his
brother. The proclamation announcing this strange resolve, which was to
make Frenchmen of Mina and all the guerrilleros of Navarre, no less than of
the Catalan armies which were still striving so hard against Macdonald, was

delayed in publication. For the Emperor wished to wait till Lisbon was in
the hands of Masséna, before he made known his purpose. But Joseph was
aware that the proclamation had been drawn up, and had been sent out to
the governors of the northern provinces, who were only waiting for orders
to issue it. The news that the English had evacuated Portugal might any day
arrive, and would be the signal for the dismemberment of Spain. He had
sent in succession to Paris his two most trusted Spanish adherents, the Duke
of Santa-Fé and the Marquis of Almenara, to beg the Emperor to forgo his
purpose; all was to no effect. Santa-Fé came back in December absolutely
crushed by the reception that he had been given; the Emperor had delivered
to him an angry diatribe, in which he complained that his brother forgot that
he was a French prince, and remarked that ‘many other European
sovereigns, who had received much harder measure, did not make nearly so
much noise about it as the King of Spain[276].’ Almenara reached Madrid
about a week later to report an equally characteristic interview with
Napoleon. He had been directed to inform his master that he should be
given one more chance. Let him open negotiations with the Cortes at Cadiz,
making them the offer that if they would recognize him as King of Spain,
he would recognize them as lawful representatives of the nation, and rule
them according to the constitution drawn up at Bayonne. Cadiz and the
other fortresses held by the troops of the Regency must open their gates,
and Napoleon would then promise to make no annexations of Spanish soil;
he would even guarantee the integrity of the kingdom. If the Cortes refused
to treat, the Emperor would regard himself as free from any previous
engagements made with his brother or the Spanish nation. The provinces
beyond the Ebro would become part of France. He added that if affairs in
Portugal went badly, it would not be wise to open negotiations with Cadiz
at all, for fear that the Spaniards might take the mere fact that proposals had
been made to them as a token of growing fear and depression on the part of
Joseph.
The King and his ministers knew well the impracticability of making
any offer to the government of Cadiz, which (with all its faults and internal
dissensions) was determined to fight to the death, and had never shown the
least intention of recognizing Napoleon’s nominee as King of Spain. They
looked upon the scheme as merely a preliminary to the publication of the
edict for the annexation of the provinces beyond the Ebro. King Joseph was
to be made to demonstrate his own futility, since he would receive an angry

and contemptuous reply, or no reply at all, and it would then be open to his
brother to declare that the attempt to govern a united Spain by a king had
failed, and that it was necessary to dismember it—perhaps to cut it up into a
number of French military governments. This seems to have been Joseph’s
own impression; in the council at which the Emperor’s proposal was
discussed, he broke out into violent reproaches and bitter complaints against
his brother, and explained with tears to his ministers that he and they were
betrayed. He was now for abdicating, and this would have been the most
dignified course to take. He talked of buying an estate in France, and
settling down, far from Paris, as a private person. He had indeed charged his
wife’s nephew, Marius Clary, to cross the Pyrenees, and purchase a castle
and lands for him in Touraine or the South, where he might hide his
disgrace and disappointment.
This move provoked Napoleon’s wrath. He signified his displeasure.
‘The members of the Imperial family could not legally make any
acquisition of land in France without the formal consent of the Emperor. In
addition, it was impossible for the King of Spain, or the commander of the
Army of the Centre, to quit his post without having received the Imperial
authorization. Painful as the declaration must be, if the King took such a
hazardous step, he should be arrested at Bayonne on crossing the frontier.
There must be no more talk about the constitution of Bayonne: the Emperor
could dispose of Spain at his good pleasure, and in the interests of the
French Empire alone.’ If Joseph persisted in the idea of abdication, he must
first make a formal statement to that effect to the French ambassador at
Madrid, and, provided that it was considered that the step would cause no
dangerous results, nor give rise to any slanderous reports, he might come to
his estate of Morfontaine near Paris and ‘finish the matter en règle[277].’
Joseph at first seemed inclined to accept any terms by which he might
emerge from his present ignominious position, and actually had several
interviews with Laforest, in which they discussed the drafting of a deed of
abdication. But it seemed that Napoleon would prefer the prolongation of
the present state of affairs, and for his own purposes intended that a puppet
king should continue at Madrid. By the ambassador’s advice the document
ultimately took the shape of a letter in which Joseph, instead of abdicating
in definitive form, merely stated his wish to do so, and referred it to his
brother. His confidant, Miot de Melito, with whom he talked over the whole

matter, expresses his opinion that at the last moment the fascination of the
crown overpowered his master’s full sense of resentment. ‘The King’s note
was a good piece of writing, but I consider that it did not state clearly
enough that the course to which he inclined, and which he preferred to all
others, was abdication. I wished that he had made a stronger affirmation of
this, and told him so, but to no effect. It was easy to see that the name of
King had still a powerful attraction, from which Joseph could not escape,
and I wondered at the glamour and intoxication which (as it seems) hangs
about supreme power, since the mere shadow of that power could
overweigh with him so many rebuffs and so much resentment[278].’
Napoleon made no reply to his brother’s declaration; he had no
intention of taking over the formal responsibility for the government of
Spain, and preferred to leave another to answer for all its obvious injustices
and oppressions. Affairs were at a standstill for some months, till in April
Joseph, taking the opportunity of a formal invitation to become one of the
godfathers of the newly-born King of Rome, the heir of the Empire, made a
sudden and unauthorized sally to Paris. He started from Madrid on April 23,
accompanied by nine of his courtiers and ministers, and crossed the
Bidassoa into France on May 10. He made no halt at Bayonne, lest he
should be stopped there by orders from his brother, and when, at Dax in
Gascony, he received an Imperial dispatch forbidding him to quit Spain, he
was able to plead that it was too late to act upon it. Pursuing his journey
night and day, he presented himself at Paris on May 15th, and announced to
Napoleon that he was come to discharge in person the honourable duties of
god-parent at the approaching baptism of his nephew.
Though annoyed at the King’s arrival, for refusals and evasions of a
brother’s petitions are transacted more easily by letter than face to face, the
Emperor thought it well to make no open show of displeasure, and accepted
all the explanations given to him. There followed a series of interviews at
Rambouillet, in which Joseph allowed himself to be talked out of his project
of abdication: for the Emperor declared that he found him useful in his
present position, and informed him that it was his duty, as a brother and a
French prince, to obey the directions of the head of his house. In return
Napoleon promised to make many arrangements which would render the
King’s position less intolerable than it had been for the last year. He would
provide him with a monthly subsidy of a million francs from the French

treasury, of which half would be for the sustenance of his court and
ministers, and the other half for the pay of the Army of the Centre. Orders
were issued to Soult, commanding the Army of Andalusia, Bessières,
commanding the newly-formed Army of the North, and Suchet, so far as the
Army of Aragon was concerned (but not for Catalonia), by which they were
directed to pay over to a commissary appointed by Joseph one quarter of the
gross revenues which they were raising in the districts which they occupied.
They were also directed to leave the law courts in the King’s hands, and not
to allow judgements to be given in the name of the Emperor. It was this last
practice, frequently adopted by Kellermann in Castile, which had irritated
Joseph more than any other misdemeanour of the local commandants.
What Joseph most desired, a real directing power over the movements
of all the French troops in Spain, was not given him. But he was granted a
sort of illusory superintending authority: if he was at the head quarters of
any of the armies, he was to be given the honours of supreme command; all
the marshals and generals commanding armies were to send him frequent
reports, and not to undertake any operations without informing him of them.
‘The King must have reports of everything that happens; he must know
everything, and be able to act in his central position as a sort of agency for
transmitting information to the generals. This communication of
intelligence, observations, and advice may even take place through his
Spanish Minister of War[279],’ wrote the Emperor. The King flattered himself
that this meagre concession gave him something like a directing authority
over the armies. He told his courtiers that he was given the position of
General-in-Chief[280], and used his brother’s permission to send advice in
reams to each of the local commanders. Unfortunately there was no way of
making them take this advice; they answered more or less politely, showing
reasons why they could not follow it, and went on their own ways as before.
It was to no effect that Joseph got leave to have his old friend Marshal
Jourdan sent back to him, first as governor of Madrid, and later as chief of
the staff. He flattered himself that his dispatches would be taken more
seriously by Soult or Suchet when they came countersigned by a marshal of
France. But he erred, for the younger commanders looked upon Jourdan as
effete and past his prime—nor were they altogether wrong.
Nothing can be more curious than the Emperor’s memorandum to
Berthier, which directs him to lay these conditions before Joseph. ‘I am

thus,’ he writes, ‘satisfying the desires which the King expressed to me,
save on the single point of the supreme command over my troops. I cannot
give away that supreme command, because I do not see any man capable of
managing the troops, and yet the command ought to be one and indivisible.
In the note which the King gave me, all the arrangements were complex and
confused. It is in the nature of things that if one marshal were placed at
Madrid, and directed all operations, he would want to have all the glory
along with all the responsibility. The commanders of the Armies of the
South and of Portugal would think themselves under the orders not so much
of the King as of that marshal, and in consequence would not give him
obedience.... My intention is to make no change whatever in the military
command, neither with the Army of the North, nor the Army of Aragon, nor
the Army of the South, nor the Army of Portugal, save so much as is
necessary to secure for the King reports from them all.... I want to do all
that I can to give the King a new prestige on his return to Spain, but nothing
that may in any way disorganize the Army of Andalusia, or any of the other
armies[281].’
It is clear that we have in these few sentences the key to all Napoleon’s
difficulties in conducting the Spanish war. He did not wish to ‘have a
marshal at Madrid who would want to have all the glory along with all the
responsibility,’ i. e. he refused to make one of his servants dangerously
great. Soult’s intrigues for kingship at Oporto in 1809 were not forgotten,
and Soult would have been the obvious candidate for supreme command,
now that Masséna had been tried and found wanting. The Emperor
preferred to go on with the hopeless system that was already working, by
which he himself directed operations from Paris, basing his orders on facts
that were often a month old when he learnt of them, and sending out those
orders to reach their destination another month later. He was aware of the
evils of this arrangement, but anything was better than to hand over
supreme power over 300,000 soldiers to a single lieutenant. It is strange that
he did not resolve to descend into Spain himself during the summer of
1811, for European politics were at the moment so quiet that he was
actually thinking of concentrating 80,000 men at Boulogne, for a real or a
threatened descent on the British Isles[282], a project which he had not been
able to dream of since Trafalgar. The tension between France and Russia,
which was to increase in a dangerous fashion during the autumn, was not so
great in May or June as to make the idea of a Spanish campaign impossible.

If it was possible to think of an invasion of England at this moment, it was
surely equally feasible to consider the advantages of a descent on Lisbon or
Cadiz. But apparently it was the physical distance between Paris and the
further end of the Peninsula which deterred the Emperor from seizing what
turned out to be the last available opportunity for a sally beyond the
Pyrenees. As he himself observed on another occasion, he would be at the
end of the world in Portugal, and a crisis might arise behind his back before
he got any adequate news of it[283]. This was different from campaigning in
central Europe; when at Vienna or Berlin he was still in touch with Paris.
The only parallel to an invasion of Portugal would be an invasion of Russia,
and it will be remembered that Napoleon’s apprehensions were absolutely
justified by what occurred in the autumn of 1812 during his absence at
Moscow. The astounding conspiracy of General Malet was within an ace of
succeeding, because it was possible to put about all manner of false
rumours, when the Emperor was lost to sight on the steppes. A handful of
plotters—we might almost say a single plotter, Malet himself—with no
assets save impudence and reckless courage, seized the imperial ministers,
mustered an armed force, and almost established a provisional government
and mastered Paris. This was only possible because the Emperor and the
grand army had got so far off that the touch between them and France had
been lost, and absence of news for many days had set the tongue of rumour
loose[284]. Under such circumstances almost anything might happen, for
imposing as was the Colossus of the French Empire, it stood on no firm
base, its feet were of clay. Napoleon hoped to build a permanent structure,
but there can be no doubt that all through his reign its stability depended on
his own life and strength. If he had been cut off suddenly by a cannon-ball
at Jena or Wagram, or by the knife of a fanatic such as Staps—Spain could
have produced such enthusiasts by the score—chaos would have
supervened in France. When once the rumour was set about that the
Emperor was dead, anything became possible in Paris. No one knew this
better than himself; in his cynical moments he would remark to his
confidants that he was well aware that if sudden death came to him the
public feeling would be one of relief rather than of sorrow. It was the
constraining force of his own indomitable will alone which kept everything
together, and if he removed himself to some very remote corner of Europe,
from which his orders could not be transmitted continuously and at short
intervals, there was grave danger that the machine might run down.

Hence it may perhaps be said that the Peninsula was saved from the
presence of the Emperor in 1811 because of the necessary limitations of a
one-man power. He dared not remove himself from the centre of affairs; he
would not make one of his jealous and ambitious lieutenants over-great, by
giving him supreme command. This being so, the bad old system had to go
on, and that system of over-late orders grounded on over-late
information[285], and followed (or not followed) by over-late execution, was
bound to fail, when the enemy’s movements were guided by the cool and
resolute brain of Wellington. More than once Napoleon wrote in a petulant
mood to complain that it was absurd that all his Spanish armies should be
detained and kept in check by a mere 30,000 British troops[286]; he refused
for a long time to take the Portuguese seriously, and would only reckon the
Spanish guerrilleros as ‘brigands’ or ‘canaille.’ What he failed to see was
that a small army worked by a general on the spot, who had minute local
knowledge and admirable foresight, was necessarily superior to a much
larger force directed by orders from a distance, and commanded by several
marshals who were bitterly jealous of each other. Moreover he never
thoroughly comprehended the way in which the movements of his armies
were delayed by the fact that they were moving in a country where every
peasant was their enemy, where provisions could only be collected by
armed force, and where no dispatch would reach its destination unless it
were guarded by an escort of from 50 to 250 men. And he refused to see
that a division or an army corps was in Spain practically no more than the
garrison of the province which it occupied—that, if it moved, that province
immediately became hostile soil again, and would have to be reconquered.
He was always prescribing the concentration of large bodies of men, by
means of the evacuation of places or regions of secondary importance[287].
His marshals, knowing the practical inconveniences of such evacuations,
were loth to carry them out. To disgarrison a region meant that all
communications were cut off, and that the nearest posts were at once
blockaded by guerrillero bands. Whenever the Army of Andalusia
concentrated, it ceased to receive its dispatches or its convoys from Madrid,
and soon learned that Granada and Seville were being menaced. Whenever
the Army of the North concentrated, the road between Vittoria and Burgos
was cut, and the partidas descended from the Cantabrian mountains to
threaten all the posts in Old Castile. And the concentration, when made,
could only continue for a few days for lack of food, for there is hardly a

region in Spain where a very large army, 80,000 or 100,000 men, can live
on the country for a week. It was this, and no mere jealousy of rival
generals, which forced Soult and Marmont to part, as we shall see, in June
1811, and Marmont and Dorsenne in September of the same year, and
which in November 1812 prevented the immense body formed by the
united Armies of the South, Centre, North, and Portugal, from pursuing
Wellington to Ciudad Rodrigo. If such a force as 80,000 men were
concentrated, it had to be fed; after a few days of living on the country it
would be forced to ask for convoys. But convoys coming from long
distances were the destined prey of the guerrilleros; if not captured they
were at least delayed ad infinitum. Meanwhile the army in front would run
out of provisions, and be forced to scatter itself once more in order to live.
After Masséna’s venture no French marshal ever dared to think of plunging
into Portugal, where he knew that he would find before him a country
systematically devastated. No one was better aware of this limitation of the
French power than Wellington. He had written as early as 1809 that the
enemy could not turn him out of the Peninsula with anything less than
100,000 men, and that he could make such arrangements that an army of
that number could not live in the country. The prophecy was fulfilled over
and over again. With the enormous strength of the imperial armies it was
not impossible to collect 80,000 or 100,000 men—but it was impossible to
feed them. All concentrations must be but temporary. When the enemy was
massed, the Anglo-Portuguese army might have to give ground, or only to
accept an action under the most favourable conditions. But the French
would soon have to scatter, and then Wellington regained his freedom of
action.
It was useless, therefore, for the Emperor to reiterate his orders that his
marshals were to join their armies and ‘livrer enfin une belle bataille’
against Wellington[288]. It takes two sides to fight a battle, and Wellington
was determined never to accept a general action, when the numbers were
hopelessly against him. He would give back into Portugal, and the enemy
could not follow him for more than a march or two.
Meanwhile, though he could not undertake to descend himself into
Portugal, Napoleon did not cease to pour troops across the Pyrenees. It is
often said that after Masséna’s expedition of 1810 he began to neglect the
Peninsula, and to turn all his thoughts towards the growing tension with

Russia. This is not correct; it ignores the fact that the French armies in
Spain rose to their highest numbers during the year 1811. While not ceasing
to send their regular drafts to all the corps there engaged, the Emperor
dispatched three new divisions of his best troops to the front during the
summer. These were no collections of newly-raised fourth battalions or
régiments de marche, but old units of high reputation, drawn partly from the
Army of Italy, partly from the garrisons of the coasts of France. One
division, under General Souham, ultimately went to join the Army of
Portugal, the second, under General Caffarelli, was absorbed in the Army of
the North, the third, under General Reille, was sent to reinforce the garrison
of Navarre and Aragon, where Suchet wanted fresh troops to occupy the
land behind him, when he was pushing forward towards Catalonia and
Valencia. In addition, two fresh regiments of Italian troops were
requisitioned from the Viceroy Eugène Beauharnais for service in eastern
Spain[289]. The total reinforcement to the armies beyond the Pyrenees
amounted to some 25,000 men, in addition to the regular annual draft of
conscripts. The deficit in the strength of the French forces caused by
Masséna’s losses in Portugal was more than made up, and the gross total in
October 1811 amounted to no less than 368,000 men. Nothing was
withdrawn from the Peninsula till the following winter.

SECTION XXV: CHAPTER II
SUCHET ON THE EBRO. THE FALL OF
TORTOSA.
DECEMBER 1810-MARCH 1811

In the last pages of the third volume of this work we brought the history
of the campaigns of Suchet and Macdonald in Aragon and Catalonia as far
as December 12th, 1810, the day on which the Marshal came down to the
lower Ebro at the head of the field-divisions of the 7th Corps, in order to
cover the long-delayed siege of Tortosa, which his colleague, the
commander of the Army of Aragon, was about to take in hand.
For five months, ever since August 1810, as it will be remembered,
Suchet had been waiting to commence the attack on Tortosa, which he was
not strong enough to conduct with his own resources, since the besieger
would have not only to execute his own operations, but to fend off at the
same time all attempts by the Spanish armies of Catalonia and Valencia to
relieve a fortress which was equally important to each of them. For Tortosa
commanded the one land route by which Catalonia and Valencia were still
able to communicate with each other; no other bridge on the Ebro was in
Spanish hands. It was highly desirable to keep the line of defence in eastern
Spain unbroken, and Tortosa lay at its narrowest and most dangerous point.
The Emperor Napoleon attached an immense importance to its capture, and
considered that after its fall, and that of Tarragona, the conquest of Valencia
and the termination of the war on this side of the Peninsula would be at
hand. Already in September 1810 he was looking forward to all these events
as matters of the near future[290]. But though Tortosa was actually to be
captured in January 1811, Tarragona in June, and Valencia in December, the
long-foreseen consummation was never to come to pass. For two years
more, down to the very end of the war, the indomitable Catalans were

destined to maintain their independence, despite of all the successes of the
French arms.
Tortosa was not quite so indispensable in reality as it looked on the
map. For though it would have been a point of absolutely vital importance
to the Spaniards, if they had been compelled to conduct all their operations
by land, it must not be forgotten that the British command of the
Mediterranean gave an alternative route for communication between north
and south, which the French could never touch. Long after Tortosa had
fallen, troops were repeatedly and easily transferred from Catalonia to
Valencia, and vice versa, despite of the fact that Suchet had completely
mastered all the land routes. Indeed it may be said that the sea passage from
one to the other was always preferable to the route through Tortosa, for the
country about both banks of the lower Ebro was rugged, barren, and thinly
peopled, and Tortosa itself—a decayed city of 10,000 inhabitants—was the
only place in this region which presented resources of any kind for an army
on the march. It is, moreover, twenty miles from the sea, and not a port;
strange to say, there is no decent harbour at the mouth of the Ebro. Though
the river is intermittently navigable for a good many miles in its lower
course, its estuary has never been a point through which trade discharges
itself to the sea. The commerce of southern Catalonia goes to Tarragona,
sixty miles to the north of the Ebro mouth, that of Northern Valencia to
Peniscola, thirty miles to its south. Tortosa, indeed, was more important to
the French than to the Spaniards, since Napoleon’s armies were tied down
to land routes, and, if ever they were to make a lodgement in Valencia,
would find the possession of that city and its bridge absolutely necessary, if
they were to keep in touch with the troops left in Catalonia.
At last, in December 1810, Macdonald had accomplished the
preliminary duties which rendered it possible for him to move on Tortosa.
He had revictualled Barcelona, so that it would be safe for some months
from famine, and he had repaired the gap in the French lines in northern
Catalonia, which had been caused by Henry O’Donnell’s daring expedition
to La Bispal in the preceding September. Though the Spanish army had not
been crushed, nor indeed seriously injured, it had been thrust aside for the
moment: Macdonald had brought down three divisions, over 15,000 men, to
Mora on the Ebro, some twenty-five miles to the north of Tortosa, and with
them he was prepared to act as a covering force to the projected siege. He

was strong enough to render any attempt at relief by the Catalan army
impossible, for a force sufficient to beat him could not be collected by the
enemy, unless they abandoned all their outlying posts; and this was
practically impossible, for local feeling in the Principality was too strong to
allow of the withdrawal of the smaller Spanish detachments from the
various valleys and small towns which they covered. There was still the
Valencian army to be considered; but Suchet considered that he could
himself deal with that unfortunate and oft-defeated force; he had already
proved its weakness at the series of engagements in August[291] in which he
had so effectually scattered the levies of the dictator José Caro. One
division would probably suffice to keep the Valencians at bay, while with
two others the actual siege of Tortosa could be taken in hand. It was the
Catalan army alone which had made Suchet anxious, and he was now to be
relieved of all care on that side by Macdonald.
The preparations for the siege, it will be remembered, had long been in
progress; ever since August magazines and material had been accumulating
at Xerta. They had been brought down the Ebro from Mequinenza,
whenever the water was high enough to allow of navigation—not without
much difficulty, and occasional petty disasters when the Catalan miqueletes
made a pounce upon an exposed convoy[292]. Fifty-two heavy guns were
now lying ready at Xerta, with 30,000 rounds of ammunition for them, and
90,000 lb. more of powder. To set in motion the besieging army and this
very large battering-train, it only required that the covering forces on each
side of the Ebro should take up their positions. When Macdonald had
brought up his troops to Mora, and undertaken to move them to Perello, the
junction point of the two roads from Tortosa to Tarragona, nothing more
remained to be settled. If the Catalan army should try to attack him it would
certainly be beaten, being far too weak to face 15,000 French troops
concentrated in one body. For the restraining of the Valencians, on the other
side of the Ebro, General Musnier with 7,000 men was placed at Uldecona,
twelve miles beyond Tortosa on the great road to the south.
These arrangements being made, Suchet crossed the Ebro at Xerta by
his pontoon bridge on December 15th with twelve battalions, and made a
sweeping circular march to shut in Tortosa on the northern side, while five
battalions more, under General Abbé, moved by the other bank to block the
bridge-head, by which the city communicates with Valencia and the south.

The operation was completed without resistance, save at the Col de Alba,
where a post of 600 Catalans, placed to cover the road between Tortosa and
the pass of Balaguer, was discovered. This small force was driven into
Tortosa after a skirmish; two small convoys on their way from Tarragona by
sea had to turn back, because the way into the city was closed.
The siege of Tortosa was remarkable for its swift progress and complete
success—it can only be compared with Wellington’s capture of Ciudad
Rodrigo, just a year later, in this respect. The Army of Aragon arrived in
front of the city on December 16th—the surrender took place on January
2nd. At first sight the problem set before Suchet appeared by no means
likely to receive such a rapid solution, for Tortosa as a fortress had many
strong points. The city lies on and around the end of a spur of the Sierra de
Alba, which runs down to the bank of the Ebro. This spur at its termination
is many-headed: three ravines divide it into four separate hills, of which the
highest is that crowned by the castle. The other three die down into
undulations, and leave between them and the Ebro a comparatively flat
space, on which the lower part of the town is built. Its higher quarters lie on
the slopes where the various hills begin to rise from the level. The old
enceinte of Tortosa had consisted of a mediaeval wall running across the
hills and down the ravines between them, so as to enclose nothing but the
inhabited parts of the city. But after a famous siege during the War of the
Spanish Succession (1708), a number of outer works had been constructed
to crown the culminating summit of each hill, and keep future besiegers at a
distance, while part of the inner ancient fortifications had been transformed
into a series of bastions, so far as the ground allowed.
The outer works were: (1) Starting from the river, on the extreme north-
east front, a large hornwork called Las Tenazas[293], crowning the hill which
lies most to the left, protecting the suburb of Remolinos, and commanding
the flat ground as far as the river, from which it is only 400 yards distant.
(2) A second hornwork covered the outer side of the castle hill: this was
called El Bonete; there was a deep ravine on each side of it. (3) A sort of
outer enceinte with three bastions (La Victoria, El Cristo, and Cruces) runs
along the summit of the fourth hill, which is broader than the rest and
expands into a plateau; the old town wall formed a second line in rear of
this advanced front. (4) The last hill, that most towards the south-east, was
crowned by a strong closed fort, named after the Duke of Orleans, the

general who had captured the city for Philip V in the year 1708. Between
the Orleans hill and the river there was no high ground; this was the only
open front of the city which was approachable on a level without any
natural hindrances. Here the enceinte had no outer works; it consisted of
two large bastions, San Pedro and San Juan, with a demi-lune named El
Temple projecting between them. This last was a low work of no great
strength: the curtain behind it, which joined San Pedro and San Juan, was a
mere shell with no terrace or room for guns. The other (south-western) side
of the city was sufficiently protected by the broad and swift river, 300 yards
in width; behind it was only the ancient wall, but, as this was wholly
inaccessible, its weakness did not matter. In the middle of the river front,
which was 1,200 yards long, was a gate leading to the great bridge of boats.
This was protected on the further bank by a little tête-du-pont, built in the
form of a ravelin and well armed with artillery.
The garrison consisted, when the siege began, of 7,179 men, including
600 artillery and a weak battalion of Urban Guards. The regiments were
drawn partly from the Catalonian and partly from the Valencian army, there
being seven battalions from the former and four from the latter[294]. The
governor was Major-General Lilli, Conde de Alacha, an old officer who had
won some credit, two years back, by bringing off his small corps intact after
the battle of Tudela, when he had been cut off by the French in the
mountains[295]. Unfortunately it is impossible to argue that because an
officer has made a skilful retreat he is a good fighting-man. Lilli, indeed,
proved the reverse on this occasion—all that can be said in his defence is
that he was old and in bad health. His conduct during the siege was
vacillating and inexplicable; he more than once declared that he would give
over charge of the defence to the second in command, Brigadier-General
Yriarte. But he would then appear again, and countermand all Yriarte’s
orders. In the end he capitulated on his own account, against the wishes and
without the knowledge of the brigadier.
The problem in poliorcetics set before Suchet and his engineers at
Tortosa had some resemblance to that which was to confront Wellington at
Badajoz a few months later. Given a town to besiege which is partly built
on heights crowned by forts and partly in the flat, is it better to attack one of
the forts, which if taken commands the whole town, or to start against the
lower front? The latter will be easier to assail, but after its fall the

strongholds on the heights may hold out as independent fortresses. Whereas
if a dominating work on a high-lying hill is taken in hand, it may make a
very hard and long resistance, but, if once it is captured, the whole city is
overlooked by it and must surrender. The answer to the problem seems to be
that all depends on the governor and the garrison; if he and they are weak, it
will suffice to attack the easier front, for when the lower town has fallen the
morale will be so shaken that they will surrender, without attempting to
hold the upper works. But if they are active and obstinate, it may be worth
while to aim at the most commanding position, which, if captured,
absolutely compels the capitulation of the whole place. Yet there remains
the danger that the crucial fort may be so strong that no effort can take it
from a determined defender. This happened to Wellington at the two earlier
sieges of Badajoz; the fall of San Cristobal would have brought about most
inevitably the surrender of the city. But it proved too hard a nut to crack, in
the time and with the means at the English general’s disposal. Suchet at
Tortosa struck at the easiest front, taking the risk that he might have to
conduct a second siege of the upper works (as he had to do at Tarragona, his
next leaguer). When he had breached the weakest point, but before a storm
had been tried, the imbecile governor capitulated.
The weak front of Tortosa was the bastion of San Pedro and the demi-
lune of El Temple on its flank. They were not properly supported or flanked
by any works on higher ground, for Fort Orleans (on the nearest hill) did
not command all the flats in front of San Pedro, and moreover Suchet
intended to give this fort so much business on its own account that its
gunners would have little attention to spare for the attack on the lower
ground to their right. There were two additional advantages: the soil in front
of San Pedro was soft river mould, very easy to dig; and moreover this
bastion could be enfiladed by batteries on the other side of the Ebro. Such
batteries had nothing to fear, if properly constructed, from the guns of the
little tête-du-pont; while on the river front of the city there were no cannon
at all—they could not be mounted on the mediaeval walls.
On the 16th, 17th, and 18th Suchet was employed in bringing up his
siege-guns, choosing the emplacements of his camps, and constructing
flying-bridges across the river, both above and below the fortress. On the
19th active operations started, with the development of a false attack on
Fort Orleans, whose attention it was necessary to distract. The construction

of a first parallel against this work was begun with some ostentation, and
had to be carried out under a furious fire from its artillery. On the night of
the 20th-21st the real business commenced: 2,300 men crept across the flat
ground by the river opposite San Pedro, and threw up an entrenchment
within 160 yards of its ditch. They were undiscovered and unopposed, for
the night was dark and windy, and the Spaniards had no outposts beyond
the walls, and kept bad watch. At dawn 500 paces of trench had been
constructed, and a safe access to the parallel had been contrived, by
connecting one of its ends with a ravine which cuts across the flat a little to
the rear, and whose bottom could not be searched by the guns of the place.
The trench was sloped away on the right, so as not to be enfiladed by
downward fire from Fort Orleans, which would have commanded it
supposing it had been drawn exactly parallel to the front of San Pedro. This
was a tremendously advantageous start; seldom has a besieger been able to
begin his works at such a short distance from his objective.
Next morning the new trench became visible to the Spaniards, who
turned all the artillery of the neighbouring front upon it, but to little effect,
for the soil was soft and the French had dug deep. A sortie was made from
the demi-lune of El Temple, but was driven off with loss. The only
successful effort of the Spaniards on this day was that the guns of Fort
Orleans succeeded in destroying part of the trenches of the false attack in
front of them, and drove out the workers. This was of little consequence, as
Suchet was not really aiming at the fort. On the 22nd and 23rd December
the main attack was urged with a celerity that seemed appalling to the
defenders; despite of a heavy fire of musketry as well as of artillery,
approaches were pushed forward from the first parallel, to within 80 yards
of the bastion of San Pedro and 110 yards of the Temple demi-lune. The
works opposite Fort Orleans were repaired and extended. On the 24th the
two approaches in the plain were connected by a long trench, which formed
the second parallel, only 60 yards from the walls. On the 25th new zigzags,
thrown out from this line, reached the glacis of San Pedro. The garrison
made two sorties in the night to hinder this advance at all hazards, but
failed, being driven off by the musketry from the second parallel without
much difficulty: the force employed, 300 men, was too small. Meanwhile
the artillery and sappers were constructing ten batteries, four—and these the
largest—in the main frontal attack, but four others on the heights over
against Fort Orleans, and two beyond the river, whose special purpose was

to enfilade the front of San Pedro, and also to play upon the bridge of boats
which joined the city to the tête-du-pont. The trenches on the heights before
Fort Orleans were also strengthened, and a second parallel constructed in
front of the first, at some loss of life; but it was necessary to keep the enemy
on this front employed, or he would have interfered too much with the real
attack in the plain.
All this had been accomplished before the French had fired a single
gun; there is hardly another instance to be quoted of a siege in which the
assailants got up to the glacis, and crowned the covered way, without any
assistance from their artillery. It seems that the gunnery of the defence must
have been exceptionally bad, and the sorties hitherto had been small and
feeble—quite insufficient to interfere with, much less to destroy, the
approaches. Noting batteries sketched out on several points and
approaching completion, Yriarte saw that he must at all costs try to delay
the opening of the adversary’s fire, and on the night of the 27th-28th made
two sallies in considerable force—600 men came out of the Rastro gate,
beyond Fort Orleans, to attack the upper trenches, as many more issued
from San Pedro against the main attack. The first-named sortie was an
entire failure—most of the men lay down and began to skirmish with the
trench-guard before they had got near the works; a very few reached them,
and were killed on the parapet. But the attack in the plain was a serious one,
and pressed home. The lodgement in the covered way was captured and
destroyed, and the Spaniards penetrated to the second parallel, and captured
part of it for a time. They were finally driven out by a reserve of four
battalions commanded by General Abbé, but not before they had done
considerable damage. The besiegers had to spend the following day and
night (28-29 December) in repairing the trenches and parapets, and getting
a fresh lodgement in the covered way. On the morning of the latter day the
ten siege-batteries opened simultaneously with 45 guns, and very soon
gained a marked superiority over the fire of the defence. The cannon of Fort
Orleans and the bastion of San Juan were silenced, as were also those of the
Temple demi-lune and San Pedro. The bridge of boats was nearly
destroyed. Next night, the Spanish fire being crushed, the third parallel was
constructed on the very brink of the ditch of San Pedro, and within 25 yards
of the wall of the bastion. The mortar batteries were employed in
distributing a rain of projectiles in the streets behind the attacked front, to
prevent the besieged from constructing defences and barricades on which

they might fall back when the wall was breached. Though not altogether
successful—for the Spaniards succeeded in building some traverses and in
blocking and loopholing many houses—the bombardment caused many
casualties, and cowed the population, who evacuated this quarter and
sought refuge in the interior of the town. The interior of Fort Orleans was
also shelled with some effect: its garrison retired to their bomb-proofs, and
kept very quiet, making little attempt to repair the injuries to its outer wall,
or to replace the injured cannon.
On the night of the 30th the French succeeded in getting down from the
third parallel into the ditch of San Pedro, with the object of mining the scarp
and blowing down sufficient debris to fill the ditch. Their first party was
driven out again by the fire of two guns which had been brought up to
enfilade the ditch from the extreme flank of the bastion. But on the
following morning all the siege-batteries were turned on to these guns, and
destroyed them. Meanwhile the Spaniards had abandoned the tête-du-pont,
taking the men away by boat, and throwing the guns into the water, except
three injured and spiked pieces. The ditch was occupied during the day
(December 31st) and the miners got to work, so little incommoded by the
fire of the defenders, who were hardly visible on the wall, that they lost
only two men killed while establishing themselves in their dangerous
position. Their most serious hindrance came from the good quality of the
masonry which they were attacking—it was mediaeval work and as hard as
iron. The decisive stroke at this point, however, was to be given by the
artillery, and on the night of the 31st a battery for four 24-pounders was
commenced in the third parallel—only 25 yards away from the ramparts of
San Pedro. It had not yet opened when, at ten o’clock on the morning of
January 1st, 1811, the governor hoisted the white flag, and sent a Colonel
Veyan into Suchet’s camp, to treat for surrender. The proposals, however,
were quite inadmissible, as Alacha only covenanted to evacuate Tortosa if it
were not relieved in fifteen days, and demanded that the garrison should not
be prisoners of war, but should be allowed to march to Tarragona with arms
and baggage. Suchet refused to treat (as was natural) but was delighted with
the aspect of affairs—a garrison which begins to parley before there is a
practicable breach in its walls is obviously demoralized, and needs only a
little further persuasion by the strong arm. He sent back with the Spanish
parlementaire his own chief of the staff, Colonel Saint Cyr-Nugues, with
orders to impress on the governor the futility of further demands such as

those he had just made. He announced that he should storm the place next
morning unless one of the upper forts were placed in his hands as a pledge
of complete submission. The governor therefore called and consulted a
council of war: some of the officers and notables assembled voted that an
attempt must be made to defend the breach, others that the garrison should
retire into the castle and forts, and abandon the town as untenable. But there
were some despairing voices raised: the representatives of the municipality
spoke with terror of the bombardment of the last few days; some of the
officers complained that their troops were completely demoralized, and
were leaving their posts to hide in the town. Suchet’s proposals,
nevertheless, were rejected.
Only a little more persuasion, however, was required to break down
Alacha’s nerve. On the morning of the 2nd of January the 4-gun battery
opposite San Pedro opened with the best effect; by the afternoon there was
a breach 15 yards broad, and the miners reported that they had got deep
enough into the lower walls to make an explosion profitable. The curtain at
the back of the Temple demi-lune had also been much battered, and was
crumbling—but an assault here was not practicable, as the intervening work
was still in the hands of the Spaniards. For a second time the governor
hoisted the white flag, but Suchet ordered the fire to continue at the breach,
and began to collect his storming columns in the shelter of the parallels,
while his mortar batteries played on the town at large. He was afraid that
the enemy was scheming for a suspension of arms, during which they
would clandestinely repair and retrench the broken wall. The answer that he
sent back, when a second parlementaire came out to him, was that he must
have a simple and complete capitulation, and that one of the upper forts
must be placed in his hands before he would allow the bombardment to
cease.

TORTOSA

Alacha continued to keep the white flag flying on the citadel and to
exchange messages with Suchet, while the fire was still going on at the
breach of San Pedro, where Yriarte was doing his best to keep his men
together, though he had his doubts as to the result of the threatened assault.
Meanwhile the French general took an extraordinary resolution: gathering
from the confused and wavering replies of the governor that the old man
was at his wit’s end, and ready to yield to pressure, he came to the castle
gate himself, with his staff and a company of grenadiers, and sent for the
officer on guard—who did not order his men to fire because the white flag
was flying, and messengers continually passing to and fro. Suchet told the
astonished subaltern that hostilities were at an end, and that he must see the
governor without delay. When Alacha came down to him, he assumed a
peremptory tone, said that further resistance was criminal, that the assault
was about to take place at once, and that the garrison would be put to the
sword if resistance continued. He bade the governor ratify on the spot the
terms of capitulation which had been sent in upon the previous afternoon.
Utterly cowed, the old man obeyed at once, called for a pen, and signed the
document upon the carriage of a gun. The company of grenadiers which had
accompanied Suchet occupied the castle, and orders were sent down to the
city to cease all resistance. The first notice that Yriarte got of what had
happened was by hearing French drums beating in the streets behind him, as
a column descended from the citadel to force the defenders of the breach to
lay down their arms[296]. When they had withdrawn, the storming column
ran into the gap, and sacked the quarter adjoining, despite of the cries and
remonstrances of their officers. They would not be cheated out of what they
considered their lawful prey[297].
In this disgraceful way fell Tortosa, after only eighteen days of siege,
twelve of open trenches, and four of bombardment. The French lost no
more than 400 men, nearly half of them among the sappers and
artillerymen[298], for the infantry only suffered in repelling the sorties. The
Spaniards had about 1,400 killed and wounded, but as the garrison marched
out only 3,974 strong and had started with 7,179, it is clear that there had
been other wastage. During the last days of the siege the Urban Guard
disappeared, and the commanders of the regular troops were complaining
bitterly of desertion among their men. Indeed, from the governor
downwards, there seems to have been too much demoralization in all ranks.
The second in command, Yriarte, and many other officers did their duty, but

the defence was not what might have been expected from Catalans, with the
example of Gerona before their eyes. From the start Suchet had the mastery,
and largely owing to the mismanagement of his adversaries; if (for
example) they had kept proper watch, he would never have been able to
start his first parallel at the distance of only 160 yards from the walls—this
piece of luck saved him many days of work. But if the defence was
unskilful, and anything rather than resolute, the main responsibility falls on
the governor, whose conduct was calculated to discourage even the most
zealous subordinates. For he sometimes pleaded his age and infirmity, and
declared that he handed over all responsibility to the second in command,
shutting himself up in the castle for whole days at a time; but on other
occasions he interfered in details, countermanded orders, and practically
resumed charge of the defence. But to call a council of war, to receive its
opinion in favour of protracted defence, and then to capitulate behind its
back was worst of all. Such conduct was absolutely ignominious, and it was
not without reason that the Catalan Junta ordered him to be tried (in his
absence) for cowardice and treason. He was condemned to death, and the
sentence (grotesquely enough) carried out upon his effigy, while he was
safe in France, a prisoner on parole.
That nothing was done from outside to save Tortosa was mainly due to
the rapidity of Suchet’s operations. The Junta of Catalonia was busily
engaged in concerting measures for concentrating a relieving army, had sent
to Cadiz for arms and (if possible) reinforcements, and had opened
negotiations with the Valencians and with the irregular forces of Carbajal
and Villa Campa in the Aragonese mountains. But who could calculate that
the defence would last only eighteen days? Before any general scheme had
been worked out the place had fallen[299]. The only organized force in the
neighbourhood was the section of the Catalan army which lay in and about
Tarragona. The responsibility here lay no longer with the active Henry
O’Donnell, who had thrown up the command in December, and sailed to
the Balearic Islands to give his gangrened wounds time to heal. General
Yranzo, as the senior officer in the principality, ought to have taken over the
charge of operations; but he called a council of war at Tarragona, and
declared himself unwilling to assume the position that had fallen to him. He
was unpopular, and the Catalans were holding violent meetings in favour of
the Marquis of Campoverde, who enjoyed much local popularity at the
moment. This ambitious officer finally obtained the interim command,

owing to the abnegation of his seniors; but Tortosa had fallen before he was
seated in the saddle, for he was finally recognized as chief only upon
January 6th, four days after the capitulation.
But even a capable officer, enjoying undisputed control over all the
Catalan forces, could have done little during the few days that the siege of
Tortosa lasted. The covering army under Macdonald was too strong to be
meddled with by the two divisions based on Tarragona. On the first day of
the siege (as we have already seen) he marched from Mora with his 15,000
men: on the 18th he came up to Perello, where meet the two roads from
Tortosa to the north, thus absolutely barring any attempt to approach the
place. After some days he found it impossible to feed his troops in this
rugged spot, and divided them, placing one division of 6,000 men under
Frère on the Tarragona-Amposta road, in the direct rear of the besieging
army, while with the other two he retired to Ginestar on the Ebro, twenty
miles due north of Tortosa, from whence he could reinforce Suchet in a
single march if the Spaniards made any movement. But no one came
against him: the existence of his army in this quarter sufficed to paralyse the
modest force then lying in the neighbourhood of Tarragona. Campoverde
took one division to the Fort of Balaguer, covering the coast road, from
which he observed Frère at a distance; while Yranzo with the other
occupied Macdonald’s old head quarters at Momblanch. But they knew that
they were too weak to risk an advance from these points, and while they
remained quiet Tortosa fell. The only diversions carried out during the siege
were in corners of Catalonia, where even a considerable success would
have had no effect on the course of affairs on the lower Ebro. A French
foraging party of 650 cavalry was cut up at Tarrega, near Lerida, on January
1, by a detachment from Momblanch. On December 25, a landing party
from the British frigates on the Catalan station surprised the post of
Palamos, and destroyed there two gunboats and eight transports which were
coasting down from Cette towards Barcelona. But remaining on shore too
long they were surprised by a French flying column, and driven back to
their boats with a loss of over 200 men, including Captain Fane of the
Cambrian, the officer in command.
On the news of the fall of Tortosa the Spanish divisions drew back
towards Tarragona. Suchet left General Habert in charge of the captured
city, dispersed Musnier’s troops to Morella, Alcañiz and Mequinenza, and

left the Neapolitan brigade lent him by Macdonald at Mora. Harispe’s
division escorted the Spanish prisoners to Saragossa, and was accompanied
by Suchet himself, who had much to settle in Aragon before he took in hand
the siege of Tarragona, the next task imposed upon him by the Emperor,
who had informed him that ‘he would find his Marshal’s bâton within its
walls’. Before leaving the neighbourhood of Tortosa Suchet ordered four
battalions of Habert’s division to execute a coup de main upon the little fort
of San Felipe de Balaguer, on the coast defile of the Col de Balaguer so
often mentioned of late. It was completely successful—after a short
bombardment, part of the garrison escaped along the Tarragona road; the
governor with ninety men surrendered [January 8, 1811]. The fort was a
trifling work, but its strategic position was eminently important, as it blocks
the only road along the sea from Tarragona to the regions of the Ebro
mouth.
Macdonald, being no longer needed in the direction of Tortosa, resolved
to return to Lerida, at the same time that Suchet went off to Saragossa. They
were to meet again in the spring for the great enterprise against Tarragona.
For reasons not easy to fathom, the Marshal made his march to his base not
by the direct road, but past Tarragona via Reus and Valls. Probably he was
desirous of clearing the country-side of the outlying Spanish troops as a
preliminary to the siege, and perhaps he had some idea of destroying any
magazines that might lie in this direction. That he could have no serious
intention of blockading Tarragona was shown by the fact that he had sent
back all his cavalry, save one regiment, and most of his guns, to Lerida.
Since he had also lent his Neapolitan brigade to Suchet, his column was not
much over 12,000 strong.
Macdonald was usually unlucky in his Catalonian campaigning; though
he had won great reputation in mountain warfare against the Austrians in
his early days, he does not seem to have been able to apply his knowledge
of it to Spain. Marching from Ginestar by Falset, he reached and occupied
the large town of Reus, only ten miles from Tarragona, on January 12th.
From thence he set his army in motion for Valls on the 15th, marching
across the front of the fortress, with which he clearly had no intention of
interfering. His vanguard was formed by the Italian division, which was
followed at a distance of three miles by his three French brigades and his
single regiment of cavalry. Meanwhile Campoverde, now in command at

Tarragona, had detached General Sarsfield with a division of 3,000 foot and
800 horse—all that the Army of Catalonia possessed—to observe the march
of the French, while he himself remained just outside Tarragona with the
remainder of his troops—some 8,000 men. Sarsfield had taken post at Pla,
some five miles north of Valls, which town he had evacuated on the
approach of the enemy. When Macdonald’s leading brigade reached Valls,
information was received that there was a Spanish force close in its front.
Without waiting for orders from the Marshal, who had merely directed that
Valls should be occupied, the commander of the vanguard, General
Eugenio[300], resolved to bring the enemy to action. Marching with five
Italian battalions and only thirty chasseurs—about 2,500 men in all—he ran
headlong into Sarsfield’s forces drawn up in a well-masked position, the
infantry occupying a ridge, the 800 cavalry hidden in a wood to the left.
Unable to estimate the enemy’s strength, and thinking that a brisk attack
might drive them off the ground, Eugenio—a man of reckless courage—
made a direct frontal charge against the enemy’s position in column of
battalions. He was completely beaten, his brigade fell back still fighting,
and he was himself mortally wounded. The recoiling mass was saved from
annihilation by the arrival on the field of the other Italian brigade, that of
Palombini, on which it rallied. But Sarsfield’s troops were determined to
finish appropriately the day that they had begun so well. They fell on the
newly formed line and broke it, the cavalry turning Palombini’s right and
sweeping it away. The whole Italian division would have been annihilated
but for the arrival of two squadrons of the 24th Dragoons under Colonel
Delort, who charged the victorious cavalry, and, though hopelessly
outnumbered, gave the Spaniards so much trouble that the routed infantry
of Eugenio and Palombini escaped into Valls, without much further loss.
Macdonald had refrained from bringing up the French brigades to help his
vanguard, because he had discovered a column under Campoverde coming
out of Tarragona to threaten his rear. This demonstration kept him occupied
while the Italians were being cut up by Sarsfield, whose operations were
extremely well managed and resolute. The Italian division and the dragoons
lost 600 men including a few prisoners[301]—the Spaniards only 160.
Next day (January 16th) Macdonald was in order of battle at Valls, with
two fronts, one facing towards Sarsfield and the north, the other towards
Campoverde and Tarragona. But the Spaniards wisely refused to commit
themselves to a general engagement, and Macdonald would not divide his

army by marching to assail one or the other of the two hostile columns. In
the night he retreated to Momblanch by a forced march, leaving the enemy
encouraged by the results of the combat of the 15th, and no less by the fact
that the Marshal had not tried to avenge his check by an attack on the
following day. The French retired to Lerida unmolested, and the Duke of
Tarentum began to make preparations for his approaching return to
Tarragona in company with Suchet’s corps, as had been ordered by the
Emperor. It is difficult to see that Macdonald gained anything by his curious
flank march, and he certainly lost heavily in prestige. Campoverde, exultant
at the good fortune of his first venture in arms, recovered from the
despondency caused by the fall of Tortosa, and dreamed of making a great
blow against the French by no less an achievement than the recapture of
Barcelona.
Ever since the commencement of the war plots and conspiracies had
been rife in that great city—it will be remembered that Duhesme had been
forced to punish the most important of them by a series of executions[302].
Discontent was as keen as ever, and a knot of patriots had formed a scheme
for opening to their friends without the gates of the fortress of Monjuich,
which dominates the whole place. This was to be done by the assistance of
a repentant ‘Juramentado,’ a Spanish commissary in the French service
named Alcina, who had access to the stronghold, and imagined that he had
corrupted the fort-major, a certain Captain Sunier, who for a great sum of
money undertook to leave one of its posterns open on the night of March
19th. Campoverde, who loved plots and intrigues, arranged to have his men
ready outside the ditch on the appointed night. Unfortunately the officer
who was supposed to be a traitor was only feigning discontent and treason,
and kept informing Maurice Mathieu, the governor of Barcelona, of all the
details of the plot. It was allowed to proceed, in order that a sharp blow
might be inflicted on the Spaniards. Before the appointed night
Campoverde suddenly marched the divisions of Sarsfield and Courten to
the immediate vicinity of Barcelona, and sent forward from them a body of
800 grenadiers, who were to execute the actual coup de main. They were
allowed to descend into the ditch of Monjuich, and to approach the postern,
when the whole of the ramparts were lighted up with cressets and fire-balls,
and a furious fire was opened upon them. The head of the column was
blown to pieces, a hundred men were killed and wounded at the first volley,
and four officers and many of the rank and file taken prisoners, before the

remainder could scramble off in the darkness. The supports hurriedly
retired, and the business was over—save that Maurice Mathieu caused the
commissary Alcina to be shot in public next morning as a warning to
traitors. Such plots seldom succeed, but that they must not be too much
disregarded as a source of danger was shown only a few weeks later, when
Figueras, the second fortress of Catalonia, was successfully surprised by the
Spaniards, as the result of a conspiracy exactly similar to that which failed
at Barcelona[303].
The unfortunate affair at Monjuich was not the only sign of the revived
activity of the Catalans under the leadership of Campoverde, a busy and
active man, but (as subsequent events showed) one lacking both resolution
and true strategic instinct. He was one of those who take many schemes in
hand, but fail for want of determination at the critical moment, and was a
very poor substitute for that hard fighter Henry O’Donnell, whose place he
had been so eager to seize. On March 3rd he made a vain attack to recover
the fort of San Felipe de Balaguer—marching with Courten’s division of
4,000 men he beat the French 117th out of Perello, where it was covering
Tortosa, and laid siege to the fort. But General Habert came up with a force
from the garrison to reinforce the 117th, and the attack had to be given up
almost as soon as it was begun. More fruitful were some attacks of the
somatenes of northern Catalonia on convoys passing between Gerona and
Hostalrich. And Sarsfield, pushing forward to Cervera, usefully restrained
the foraging of Macdonald’s cavalry in the region east of Lerida. But all this
came to little, and Campoverde’s efforts seemed to have no very visible
results, and certainly did nothing decisive to prevent Suchet and Macdonald
from completing their preparations for the siege of Tarragona.
It was much the same in Aragon, where Villacampa and Carbajal were
contending in the mountains of the south with the garrisons which held
Daroca, Alcañiz, Teruel, and the other chief towns of this rugged and thinly
peopled district. The fall of Tortosa had set free for the moment many
troops of the 3rd Corps, and Suchet employed them in scouring the country
between these posts, and endeavouring to clear away the partidas from their
chief rallying-places. Flying columns under Generals Paris and Abbé
marched up and down the sierras in the vile weather of February, expelled
the insurrectionary Junta of Aragon from Cuenca, which was at that time its
head quarters, and chased Carbajal to Moya, where the frontiers of Castile,

Aragon, and Valencia meet. The Empecinado came over the mountains,
from his usual beat in the Guadalajara country, to help the Aragonese, but
had small success. Yet the net result of all this hunting was little. ‘This
expedition,’ says Suchet himself, ‘which took two brigades over the border
into Castile for twelve days, procured us a few hundred prisoners; a more
useful thing was the destruction of some small manufactures of arms. But
we were to see ten times, nay a hundred times more, these partisans
appearing once again in the plains; they always surrounded us, were always
dispersed rather than defeated, and never grew discouraged[304].’

SECTION XXVI
FUENTES DE OÑORO AND ALBUERA

CHAPTER I
BERESFORD’S CAMPAIGN IN ESTREMADURA.
THE FIRST SIEGE OF BADAJOZ. MARCH-
APRIL 1811

On the 11th of March, as it will be remembered, Imaz—the deplorable
successor of the gallant Menacho—surrendered Badajoz to Marshal Soult,
despite of the messages which he had received that an Anglo-Portuguese
corps was on its way for his relief. On the 14th the conqueror, appalled at
the news of the battle of Barrosa and the danger of Seville, marched back to
Andalusia, taking with him a brigade of dragoons and the greater part of
Gazan’s infantry division. He left behind him in Estremadura Mortier with a
force of some 11,000 men, composed of fifteen battalions of the 5th
Corps[305], five cavalry regiments[306], and a heavy proportion of artillerymen
and engineers, who were required for the garrisoning of the fortress of
Badajoz no less than for the siege of the small places in its vicinity, whose
capture Soult had delegated to Mortier as his parting legacy.
This was a small force to leave behind, charged not only with the
occupation of an extensive province, but with the duty of continuing the
offensive, by attacking Campo Mayor and Albuquerque. Elvas the Marshal
can hardly have hoped to assail—it was a fortress as large and in some ways
stronger than Badajoz, with a garrison composed of Portuguese troops of
the line. Any idea of an invasion of the Alemtejo was useless, now that it
was known that Masséna had departed from his old position on the Tagus.

The Emperor had ordered Soult to undertake it merely for Masséna’s
assistance, and the ‘Army of Portugal’ was no longer needing such help: for
good or for ill it had moved away on its own business. It remained to be
seen whether Mortier would be able to carry out the orders given him, for
no one in the French camp could tell whether the British relieving force for
Badajoz, whose existence had been known since March 8th, had actually
started for Estremadura, or had joined in the pursuit of Masséna, when it
received the news that Imaz had made his disgraceful capitulation. If this
force were on its way, and proved to be strong in numbers, Mortier would
be thrown at once on the defensive. His duty would be to hold off the Allies
till Badajoz was in a state of defence: and the repairing of the fortress
would take some time, even though the greater part of its fortifications were
intact, and only the Pardaleras Fort and the ruined bastions behind it
required reconstruction. If the Allies came on in great force, and without
delaying for a moment, it was even possible that Mortier would have to
blow up Badajoz and withdraw its garrison, for it would be absurd to leave
behind, in an untenable post, such a large body of men as would be required
for the holding of its extensive enceinte.
The actual course of affairs in Estremadura followed logically from
Wellington’s orders to Beresford on the 9th and the 15th of March. On the
8th, as it will be remembered, Beresford had been directed to march to the
relief of Badajoz with the 2nd and 4th Divisions and Hamilton’s
Portuguese, some 18,000 men. On the 9th these orders had been
countermanded, on a false report that Masséna had concentrated and was
offering battle behind Thomar. The 4th Division and one brigade
(Hoghton’s) of the 2nd were called off, and marched to join Wellington’s
main body. The rest of the 2nd Division and Hamilton’s Portuguese stood
halted, in or near Abrantes, till the intentions of the French should be
discovered. It was not till March 12th that Wellington, reassured as to his
adversaries’ intentions, thought it possible once more to take the relief of
Badajoz in hand[307]. The troops about Abrantes were ordered to prepare to
march for the Guadiana in successive brigades; the absent brigade of the
2nd Division, which had reached Thomar, was directed to retrace its steps
and join the main body of that unit. But the 4th Division had gone on much
further; it was well on its way towards Coimbra, and was engaged in the
Pombal-Redinha operations. It was not till the 15th that Wellington thought
himself able to dispatch it, along with De Grey’s brigade of dragoons, to