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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
* Italics are denoted by underscores as in _italics_, and small caps
are represented in upper case as in SMALL CAPS.
* Obvious printer errors have been silently corrected.
* Original spelling was kept, but variant spellings were made
consistent when a predominant usage was found.
* To aid referencing places and names in present-day maps and
documents, outdated and current spellings of some proper names
follow:
Albaracin, now Albarracín,
Albuquerque, now Alburquerque,
Alemtejo, now Alentejo,
Algesiras, now Algeciras,
Almanza, now Almansa,
Arzobispo, now El Puente del Arzobispo,
Baccelar (Manuel), now Manuel Pinto de Morais Bacelar,
Ballasteros, now Ballesteros,
Barba del Puerco, now Puerto Seguro,
Baylen, now Bailén,
Bussaco, now Buçaco,
Caamano, now Caamaño,
Caçeres, now Cáceres,
Canonge, now La Canonja,
Çaragoça, now Zaragoza,
Cattlar, now El Catllar,
Cordova, now Córdoba,
Corunna, now La Coruña,
Douro, now Duero (in Spain),
Douro (in Portugal),
Estremadura, now Extremadura (in Spain),
Estremadura (in Portugal),
Estremos, now Estremoz,
Golegão, now Golegã,
La Baneza, now La Bañeza
La Bispal, now La Bisbal,
Lousão, now Lousã,
Majorca, now Mallorca,
Momblanch, now Montblanch,
Niza, now Nisa,
Ona (river), now Güeña (río),
Oña (river), now Oñar (río),
Ouguella, now Ouguela,
Pampeluna, now Pamplona,
Peñacova, now Penacova,
Peniscola, now Peñíscola,
Ripol, now Ripoll,
São João de Ribiera, now São João da Ribeira,
Saragossa, now Zaragoza,
Senabria, now Sanabria,
Sta Olalla, now Santa Olalla,
Tagus (river), now Tajo (Spanish), Tejo (Portuguese),
Tondella, now Tondela,
Torienzo, now Turienzo de los Caballeros,
Truxillo, now Trujillo,
Vierzo, now El Bierzo,
Vincente, now Vicente,
Vittoria, now Vitoria,
Xeres, now Jerez,
* Chapter headers and Table of contents have been made consistent.
* Footnotes have been renumbered into a single series. Each footnote
is placed at the end of the paragraph or the table that includes
its anchor.
* The anchor placements in the main text for footnotes [219], [247]
and [777] are conjectured. No anchors were found in the printed
original.
* Two anchors were found for footnote [160], both in p. 125; only
one has been retained.
* In p. 302, end of paragraph, the adjective “best” has been added
to obtain the more usual reading: “the best condition”.
[Illustration:_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
In 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