On the very day on which the vanguard marched out from Coimbra

upon the northern road, Wellesley received a second visit from the

conspirator Argenton, who had returned from consulting his friends

at Oporto and Amarante. He brought little news of importance: Soult

had not yet proclaimed himself king, and therefore the plotters

had taken no open steps against him. The French army had not begun

to move, but it appeared that the Marshal was pondering over the

relative advantages of the lines of retreat available to him, for

Argenton brought a memorandum given him by (or purloined from) some

staff-officer, which contained a long exposition of the various

roads from Oporto, and stated a preference for that by Villa Real

and the Tras-os-Montes[401]. He had a number of futile propositions

to lay before Wellesley, and especially urged him to make sure of

Villa Real and to cut off the Marshal’s retreat on Spain. The traitor

was sent back, with no promises of compliance; and every endeavour

was made to keep from him the fact that the allied army was already

upon the move. Unfortunately he had passed many troops upon the

road from Coimbra to the Vouga, and had guessed at what he had not

seen. On the following day he passed through the French lines on his

return journey, and by the way endeavoured to spread the propaganda

of treason. One of the infantry brigades which lay in support of

Franceschi’s cavalry was commanded by a general Lefebvre, with whom

Argenton had long served as aide-de-camp. Knowing that his old chief

was weak and discontented[402], the emissary of the malcontents

paid a midnight visit to him, revealed to him the outlines of the

conspiracy, and endeavoured to enroll him as a fellow plotter. He

had misjudged his man: Lefebvre listened to everything without

showing any signs of surprise or anger, but hastened to bear the

tale to Soult, and arranged for Argenton’s arrest on his return to

Oporto upon the following morning. Confronted with the Marshal, the

traitor held his head high, and boasted that he was the agent of a

powerful body of conspirators. He invited Soult to declare against

the Emperor, and deliver France from servitude. He also warned him

that Wellesley had arrived at Coimbra, and told him that 30,000

British troops of whom 3,000 at least were cavalry, would fall upon

Franceschi that day. Thus, owing to his conference with Argenton,

Wellesley lost the chance of surprising Soult, who was warned of the

oncoming storm exactly at the moment when it was most important that

he should still be kept in the dark as to the force that was marching

against him [May 8].

[401] Wellington to Beresford, from Coimbra, May 7, 1809.

[402] He told Wellesley that the general was ‘a man of weak

intellect,’ and that he thought that he had won him over to the

plot from the way in which he received the news of it. Wellesley

to Castlereagh, May 15, from Oporto.

Soult sent back Argenton to his prison, after threatening him with

death: but uncertain as to the number of the conspirators, he was

thrown for a moment into a state of doubt and alarm. He probably

suspected Loison and Lahoussaye of being in the plot against him, as

well as the real traitors--possibly Mermet also[403]. Feeling the

ground, as it were, trembling beneath his feet, he began to make

instant preparations for retreat: orders were sent to Franceschi to

fall back on Oporto, and not to risk anything by an attempt to hold

off Wellesley longer than was prudent. Loison was informed that he

must clear the road beyond Amarante, as the army was about to retire

by the Tras-os-Montes, and he would now form its advanced guard.

Lorges at Braga was directed to gather in the small fractions of

Heudelet’s division which had been left at Viana and other places

in the north, and to march in their company upon Amarante by the

way of Guimaraens. The Marshal saw, with some dismay, that these

isolated detachments would not be able to join the main body till the

fourteenth or fifteenth of May; it was necessary to hold Oporto as

long as possible in order to give them time to come up.

[403] This may be perhaps inferred from Soult’s letter to King

Joseph, written after the retreat, in which he says that he had

intended to pack off Lahoussaye and Mermet from the front: ‘À

cette époque j’ai voulu faire partir ces généraux, qui n’ont

pas toujours fait ce qui était de leur pouvoir pour le succès

des opérations; mais j’ai preféré attendre d’être arrivé à

Zamora, afin de ne pas accréditer les bruits d’intrigues et de

conspirations qui eurent lieu à Oporto, auxquels ils n’ont pas

certainement pris aucune part.’ [Intercepted letter in Record

Office.]

Next day Soult contrived to extort some more information from the

unstable Argenton. Receiving a promise of life for himself and pardon

for his fellow conspirators (which the Marshal apparently granted

because he thought that accurate information concerning the plot

would be worth more to him than the right to shoot the plotters), the

captain gave up the names of all the leaders. Much relieved to find

that none of his generals were implicated, Soult did no more than

arrest the two colonels, Lafitte and Donadieu, leaving the smaller

fry untouched[404]. He kept his promise to Argenton by hushing up

the whole matter. The colonels suffered no harm beyond their arrest:

Argenton escaped from custody (probably by collusion with the officer

placed in charge of his person)[405], and got back to the English

lines the day after the capture of Oporto[406]. Some months later he

secretly revisited France, was recognized, captured, and shot on the

Plain of Grenelle[407].

[404] Soult so far managed to forget the whole business that

he, two years later, sent the younger Lafitte to present to the

Emperor the English flags captured at Albuera! [See St. Chamans,

p. 133.]

[405] Most of this comes from Argenton’s confession to Wellesley

on May 13. See _Wellington Dispatches_, iv. p. 339. He said that

he slipped away from the gendarmes at the advice of Lafitte, who

told him that his friends would come to no harm if the chief

witness against them vanished.

[406] The extraordinary clemency shown to the conspirators by

Soult, the providential escape of Argenton, the favours which the

Marshal afterwards lavished on Lafitte, and the trouble which

he took to hush up the whole matter, led many of his enemies to

suspect that he himself had been in the plot, and had intended

to combine his scheme for Portuguese kingship with a rising

against Bonaparte at the head of his _corps d’armée_: Argenton’s

confession made this impossible.

[407] For further details on Argenton’s fate, see the Appendix.

At the very moment when Soult was cross-examining Argenton, issuing

hurried orders for the concentration of his troops, and preparing

for a retreat upon Amarante, Wellesley’s advanced guard was drawing

near the Vouga and making ready to pounce upon Franceschi. Two roads

lead northward from Coimbra, the main _chaussée_ to Oporto which

runs inland via Ponte de Vouga and Feira, and a minor route near the

coast, which passes by Aveiro and Ovar. Five of Wellesley’s brigades

and the whole of his cavalry marched by the former route. Moving

forward under the screen of Trant’s militia, which still held the

line of the Vouga, they were to fall on the enemy’s front at dawn

on May 10. The five squadrons of the 14th and 16th Light Dragoons

under Cotton led the advance: then followed the infantry of Edward

Paget--the two brigades of Murray and Richard Stewart. Sherbrooke’s

column marched in support, ten miles to the rear. It was intended

that the whole mass should rush in upon Franceschi’s pickets, and

roll them in upon his main body before the advance from Coimbra was

suspected. Unhappily Soult had already warned his cavalry commander

of the coming storm upon the ninth, and he was not caught unprepared.

Meanwhile the remaining two infantry brigades of Wellesley’s army,

those of Hill and Cameron, were to execute a turning movement against

Franceschi’s flank. Orders had been sent to the magistrates of the

town of Aveiro, bidding them collect all the fishing-boats which were

to be found in the great lagoon at the mouth of the Vouga--a broad

sheet of shallow water and sandbanks which extends for fifteen miles

parallel to the sea, only separated from it by a narrow spit of dry

ground. At the northern end of this system of inland waterways is

the town of Ovar, which lay far behind Franceschi’s rear. Hill was

directed to ship his men upon the boats, and to throw them ashore at

Ovar, where they were to fall upon the flank of the French, when they

should be driven past them by the frontal advance of the main body.

If all had gone well, the French detachment might have been

annihilated. Franceschi had with him no more than the four weak

cavalry regiments of his own division[408], not more than 1,200

sabres, with one light battery, and a single regiment of infantry.

But not far behind him was the rest of Mermet’s division, eleven

battalions of infantry with a strength of some 3,500 men. One

regiment, the 31st Léger, lay at Feira, near Ovar, while Ferrey’s

brigade was five miles further back, at Grijon.

[408] 1st Hussars, 8th Dragoons, 22nd Chasseurs and Hanoverian

Chevaux-légers.

On the night of the ninth the British advanced guard reached the

Vouga: after only a few hours’ repose the cavalry mounted again at 1

A.M., and pushed forward in order to fall upon the enemy at daybreak.

The night march turned out a failure, as such enterprises often do in

an unexplored country-side seamed with rocks and ravines. The rear

of the cavalry column got astray and fell far behind the leading

squadrons: much time was lost in marching and countermarching, and at

dawn the brigade found itself still some way from Albergaria Nova,

the village where Franceschi’s head quarters were established[409].

It was already five o’clock when they fell in with and drove back

the French outlying pickets: shortly after they came upon the whole

of Franceschi’s division, drawn out in battle array on a rough

moor behind the village, with a few companies of infantry placed

in a wood on their flank and their battery in front of their line.

General Cotton saw that there was no chance of a surprise, and very

wisely declined to attack a slightly superior force of all arms with

the 1,000 sabres of his two regiments. He resolved to wait for the

arrival of Richard Stewart’s infantry brigade, the leading part of

the main column. When Franceschi advanced against him he refused to

fight and drew back a little[410]. Thus some hours of the morning

were wasted, till at last there arrived on the field Lane’s battery

and a battalion of the 16th Portuguese, followed by the 29th and

the 1st Battalion of Detachments. Like the cavalry, the infantry

had been much delayed during the hours of darkness, mainly by the

impossibility of getting the guns up the rocky defile beyond the

Vouga, where several caissons had broken down in the roadway. It

was only after daylight had come that they were extricated and got

forward on to the upland where lies the village of Albergaria.

[409] For details of this fatiguing night march and its gropings

in the dark see Tomkinson’s (16th Dragoons) _Diary_, pp. 4-5, and

Hawker’s (14th Light Dragoons) _Journal_, p. 47.

[410] The Light Dragoons, says Hawker (_Journal_, p. 48),

‘finding ourselves opposed by a heavy column of cavalry, retired

a little.’ Their total loss was one officer and two men wounded,

and one man missing. On this slender foundation Le Noble founds

the following romance (p. 240). ‘Le général Franceschi charge à

la tête de sa division ceux qui l’attaquent en front, renverse

la première ligne, et tandis qu’elle se rétablit, se retire,

et fond avec 6 pièces et deux régiments sur la colonne qui le

tournait par sa droite. L’ennemi est culbuté, la colonne recule,

et le général se retire sur Oliveira avec quelques prisonniers.’

All this fuss produced _four_ casualties in the two English

regiments. See official report of casualties for May 10, 1809.

Wellesley himself came up along with Stewart’s brigade, and had

the mortification of seeing all his scheme miscarry, owing to the

tardiness of the arrival of his infantry. For at the very moment

when Franceschi caught sight of the distant bayonets winding up the

road, he hastily went to the rear, leaving the 1st Hussars alone in

position as a rearguard. This regiment was charged by the 16th Light

Dragoons, and driven in with some small loss. Under cover of this

skirmish the French division got away in safety through the town of

Oliveira de Azemis, which lay behind them, and after making two more

ineffectual demonstrations of a desire to stand, fell back on the

heights of Grijon, where Mermet’s infantry division was awaiting them.

The whole day’s fighting had been futile but spectacular. ‘I must

note,’ says an eye-witness, ‘the beautiful effect of our engagement.

It commenced about sunrise on one of the finest spring mornings

possible, on an immense tract of heath, with a pine wood in rear

of the enemy. So little was the slaughter, and so regular the

manœuvring, that it all appeared more like a sham-fight on Wimbledon

Common than an action in a foreign country[411].’ The picturesque

side of the day’s work must have been small consolation to Wellesley,

who thus saw the first stroke of his campaign foiled by the chances

of a night march in a rugged country--a lesson which he took to

heart, for he rarely, if ever again, attempted a surprise at dawn in

an unexplored region.

[411] Hawker, pp. 49-50. Tomkinson has words to much the same

effect, ‘it was more like a field-day than an affair with the

enemy: all the shots went over our heads, and no accident

appeared to happen to any one’ (p. 6).

An equal disappointment had taken place on the flank near the

sea. Hill’s brigade had marched down to Aveiro, where the local

authorities had worked with excellent zeal and collected a

considerable number of boats, enough to carry 1,500 men at a trip.

During the night of the ninth-tenth the flotilla was engaged in

sailing up the long lagoon which leads to Ovar. It was quite early

in the morning when the brigade came to land, and if Franceschi had

been driven in at an early hour he would have found Hill in a most

threatening position on his flank. But the French cavalry was still

ten or twelve miles away, engaged in its bloodless demonstration

against Cotton’s brigade. Finding from the peasants that there were

French infantry encamped quite close to him, at Feira, and that the

English main column was still at a distance, Hill kept his men within

the walls of Ovar, instead of engaging in an attempt to intercept

Franceschi’s retreat. He was probably quite right, as it would have

been dangerous to thrust three battalions, without cavalry or guns,

between Mermet’s troops at Feira and the retiring columns of the

French horsemen. Hill therefore sent back his boats to bring up

Cameron’s brigade from Aveiro, and remained quiet all the morning.

At noon his pickets were driven in by French infantry: Mermet had at

last heard of his arrival, and had sent out the three battalions of

the 31st Léger from Feira to contain him and protect Franceschi’s

flank. The _voltigeur_ companies of this force pressed in upon Hill,

but would not adventure themselves too far. The afternoon was spent

in futile skirmishing, but at last the retreating French cavalry went

by at a great pace, and the English Light Dragoons, following them

in hot pursuit, came up with the 31st Léger. Hill, seeing himself

once more in touch with his friends, now pushed out of Ovar in force,

and pressed on the French _voltigeur_ companies, which hastily

retired, fell back on their regiment, and ultimately retired with

it and rejoined Mermet’s main body on the heights above Grijon. The

skirmishing had been almost bloodless--Hill lost not a single man,

and the French infantry only half-a-dozen wounded[412].

[412] The best account of this little skirmish is in the

_Journal_ of Fantin des Odoards of the 31st Léger (p. 230).

Napier does not mention that the reason why Hill did not move

in the afternoon was simply that he was already ‘contained,’

and engaged with a force of French infantry of nearly his own

strength.

On the morning of May 11, therefore, Hill’s troops on the left

and Cotton’s and Paget’s on the right lay opposite the position

which Mermet and Franceschi had taken up. Sherbrooke was still more

than ten miles to the rear, having barely crossed the Vouga, while

Cameron had not yet sailed up from Aveiro. Wellesley had therefore

some 1,500 cavalry and 7,000 infantry under his hand, with which to

assail the 1,200 horse and 4,200 foot of the two French divisions.

The enemy were strongly posted: Grijon lies in a valley, with woods

and orchards around it and a steep hillside at its back. The French

_tirailleurs_ held the village and the thickly-wooded slopes on each

side of it: behind them the fifteen battalions of Mermet were partly

visible among the trees on the sky-line of the heights.

Wellesley was anxious to see whether the enemy intended to hold his

ground, or would retire before a demonstration: he therefore threw

the light companies of Richard Stewart’s brigade into the woods

on each side of Grijon. A furious fire at once broke out, and the

advancing line of skirmishers could make no headway. Realizing that

the French intended to fight a serious rearguard action, Wellesley

refused to indulge them with a frontal attack and determined to

turn both their flanks. While Cotton’s cavalry and the two English

battalions of Stewart’s brigade drew up opposite their centre,

Murray’s Germans marched off to the left, to get beyond Mermet’s

flank, while Colonel Doyle, with the battalion of the 16th Portuguese

which belonged to Stewart’s brigade, entered the woods on the extreme

right. Hill’s brigade, a mile or two to the left of Murray, pushed

forward on the Ovar-Oporto road, at a rate which would soon have

brought them far beyond the enemy’s rear.

The meaning of these movements was not long hidden from the French:

the 1st and 2nd battalions of the King’s German Legion, led by

Brigadier Langwerth, were soon pressing upon their right flank, while

the Portuguese battalion plunged into the woods on the other wing

with great resolution. Wellesley himself was watching this part of

the advance with much interest: it was the first time that he had

sent his native allies into the firing line, and he was anxious to

see how they would behave. They surpassed his expectations: the 16th

was a good regiment, with a number of students of the University

of Coimbra in its ranks. They plunged into the thickets without a

moment’s hesitation, and in a few minutes the retiring sound of the

musketry showed that they were making headway in the most promising

style. This sight was an enormous relief to the Commander-in-chief:

if the Portuguese could be trusted in line of battle, his task became

immeasurably more easy. ‘You are in error in supposing that these

troops will not fight,’ he wrote to a down-hearted correspondent:

‘one battalion has behaved remarkably well under my own eyes[413].’

[413] Wellesley to Mackenzie [the latter had written that

he dared not trust his Portuguese battalions], _Wellington

Dispatches_, iv. p. 350.

Mermet and Franceschi did not hesitate for long, when they saw their

flank guard beaten in upon either side, and heard that Hill was

marching upon their rear. They gave orders for their whole line to

retire without delay: the plateau behind them was so cut up with

stone walls enclosing fields, that the cavalry could be of no use in

covering the retreat, so Franceschi went to the rear first at a round

trot. Mermet followed, leaving the three battalions of the 31st Léger

to act as a rearguard[414].

[414] See Fantin des Odoards. Le Noble (incorrect as always) says

that the 47th brought up the rear.

The whole British line now pressed in as fast as was possible in the

woods and lanes: the infantry could never overtake the enemy, but

two squadrons of the 16th and 20th Light Dragoons, galloping along

the high road, came up with Mermet’s rear a mile beyond the brow of

the hill. Charles Stewart, who was leading them on, was one of those

cavalry officers who thoroughly believe in their arm, and think that

it can go anywhere and do anything. He at once ordered Major Blake of

the 20th to charge the enemy, though the French were retiring along

a narrow _chaussée_ bordered with stone walls. Fortunately for the

dragoons their opponents were already shaken in _morale_: the three

battalions were not well together, isolated companies were still

coming in from the flanks, and the colonel of the 31st had completely

lost his head. On being charged, the rearguard fired a volley, which

brought down the front files of the pursuing cavalry, but then

wavered, broke, and began scrambling over the walls to escape out of

the high road into the fields. There followed a confused _mêlée_, for

the English dragoons also leaped the walls, and tried to follow the

broken enemy among thickets and ploughland. Of those of the French

who fled down the high road many were sabred, and a considerable

number captured: indeed the eagle of the regiment was in considerable

danger for some time. But the British had no supports at hand; they

scattered in reckless pursuit of the men who had taken to the fields,

and many were shot down when they had got entangled among trees and

walls. However, the charge, if somewhat reckless, was on the whole

successful: the dragoons lost no more than ten killed, one officer

and thirty troopers wounded, with eight or ten missing, while the

French regiment into which they had burst left behind it over 100

prisoners and nearly as many killed and wounded[415].

[415] There are two excellent accounts of this charge in the

diaries of Tomkinson of the 16th Light Dragoons and Fantin des

Odoards of the 31st Léger. The former (pp. 9-11) holds that the

charge was indefensible, and blames Charles Stewart for ordering

it, and Major Blake for carrying it out. A different impression

is received from the French diarist, who speaks of it as a

complete rout of his regiment and very disastrous. ‘Assaillis

en détail nous avons été facilement mis en désordre, attendu

notre morcellement et la confusion que des charges audacieuses

de cavalerie mettaient dans nos rangs. Les trois bataillons ont

lâché pied et se sont enfuis à vau de route. Si le pays n’avait

pas offert des murs, des fossés et des haies, ils auraient été

entièrement sabrés.... Peu à peu les débris du régiment se sont

ralliés a la division, qui était en position à une lieue de

Porto. Notre perte a été considérable, mais notre aigle, qui a

couru de grands dangers dans cette bagarre, a fort heureusement

été sauvée.... Les dragons étaient acharnés a nous poursuivre,

et mal a pris ceux qui au lieu de gagner les collines out suivi

le vallon et la grande route’ (p. 231). It seems probable (a

thing extremely rare in military history) that Tomkinson and Des

Odoards, the two best narrators of the fight, actually met each

other. The former mentions that he chased an isolated French

infantry man, fired his pistol at his head, but missed, and that

he was at once shot in the shoulder by another Frenchman and

disabled. Then turning back, he was again fired at by several men

and brought down. Des Odoards says that he was chased by a single

English dragoon, who got up to him, fired at him point blank and

missed, whereupon a corporal of his company, who had turned back

to help him, shot the dragoon, who dropped his smoking pistol at

Des Odoards’ feet, and rolled off his horse. The narratives seem

to tally perfectly.

For the rest of the day Mermet and Franceschi continued to fall back

before the advancing British, without making more than a momentary

stand. At dusk they reached Villa Nova, the transpontine suburb of

Oporto, which they evacuated during the night. The moment that they

had crossed the bridge of boats Soult caused it to be blown up,

and vainly believed himself secure, now that the broad and rapid

Douro was rolling between him and his enemy. The total loss of the

French in the day’s fighting had been about 250 men, of whom 100

were prisoners. That of the British was two officers and nineteen

men killed, six officers and sixty-three men wounded, and sixteen

men missing. Nearly half the casualties were in the ranks of the

two squadrons of dragoons, the rest were divided between the light

companies of the 1st Battalion of Detachments, the 1st and 2nd

battalions of the German Legion, and the 16th Portuguese[416].

[416] The officers killed were Captain Detmering of the 1st K.

G. L., and a Portuguese ensign of the I/16th. Those wounded were

Captain Ovens and Lieutenant Woodgate of the 1st Battalion of

Detachments, Lieutenants Lodders and Lahngren of the K. G. L.,

Cornet Tomkinson of the 16th Light Dragoons, and a Portuguese

lieutenant of the 1/16th. It would seem that some of the fourteen

‘missing’ were infantry killed in the woods, whose bodies were

never found, but several belonged to the maltreated dragoon

squadrons, and were taken from having pursued too fast and far.

On the night of the eleventh-twelfth, when Mermet and Franceschi

had joined him, Soult had collected in Oporto the main body of his

army: he had in hand of cavalry Franceschi’s four regiments, and of

infantry fifteen battalions of Mermet’s division, seven battalions

of Merle’s (forming Reynaud’s brigade), and seven of Delaborde’s, a

force in all of about 10,000 bayonets and 1,200 sabres. Only a few

miles away, at Baltar, on the road to Amarante, were Caulaincourt’s

dragoons and the remaining regiment of Delaborde’s division, an

additional force of somewhat over 2,000 men. With 13,000 men at his

disposal and a splendid position behind the Douro, he imagined that

he might retreat at leisure, maintaining the line of the impassable

river for some days more. He intended to hold Oporto long enough to

enable Loison to clear the road to Villa Real, and to allow Lorges

and the belated troops from the north time to march in to Amarante.

He was somewhat vexed to have received no news from Loison for four

days, but, when last heard of [on May 7], that general was moving

forward into the Tras-os-Montes, with orders to push on and open

a way for the army as far as the Spanish border. Silveira having

retired to the south bank of the Douro, the Marshal had no doubt that

Loison would easily brush away the _Ordenanza_, and open for the

whole _corps d’armée_ the passage to Zamora and the plains of Leon.

Meanwhile the only danger which the Marshal feared was that Wellesley

might send forward the fleet of fishing-boats which had carried

Hill to Ovar, bring them to the estuary of the Douro, and use them

to pass troops across its lowest reach, just within the bar at

its mouth. Accordingly he told Franceschi to patrol carefully the

five miles of the river that lie between Oporto and the sea. The

infantry was comfortably housed in the city, with pickets watching

the quays: every boat on the river, as it was supposed, had either

been destroyed or brought over to the north bank. Wellesley would, as

Soult calculated, be compelled to spend several days in making his

preparations for passing the Douro, since he had no means of pushing

his army across the broad stream, save the fishing-smacks which he

might bring round from the lagoon of Ovar.

The Marshal therefore was quite at his ease, even though he knew that

Wellesley’s vanguard was at Villa Nova in force. He imagined that he

could count on ample time for the evacuation of Oporto, and began

to make arrangements for a leisurely retreat. His first care was to

send off eastward all his convalescents, his reserve ammunition,

and his wheeled vehicles, of which he had collected a fair supply

during his seven weeks’ halt at Oporto. These were to march, under

the convoy of Mermet’s division, during the course of the morning.

The other troops from Merle’s and Delaborde’s divisions, together

with Franceschi’s horse, were to watch the lower Douro and check any

attempt of the British to cross. The Marshal was himself lodged at a

villa on the high ground west of the city, from which he commanded

a fine view of the whole valley from Oporto to the sea: the view

up-stream was blocked by the hill crowned by the Serra Convent, where

the river makes a slight bend in order to get round the projecting

heights on the southern bank. So thoroughly were both Soult and his

staff impressed with the idea that Wellesley would endeavour to

operate below, and not above, the city, that while the lower reaches

of the Douro were watched with the greatest care, a very inefficient

look-out was kept on the banks above Oporto: there would seem to

have been but a single battalion placed in that direction, and this

small force was lying far back from the river, with no proper system

of pickets thrown forward to the water’s edge. Yet the opposite bank

was full of cover, of thickets, gardens and olive groves, screening

several lanes and by-paths that had led down to ferries. Such of the

boats as had not been scuttled had been brought over to the north

bank, but they were not all protected by proper guards. All this was

inexcusably careless--the main blame must fall on the Marshal for his

_parti pris_ in refusing to look up-stream: though some must also

be reserved for General Quesnel, the governor of Oporto, and for

Foy, the brigadier whose battalions were in charge of the eastern

suburb of the city. But the fact was that none of the French officers

dreamed of the possibility that Wellesley might make an attempt, on

the very morning of his arrival, to cross the tremendous obstacle

interposed in his way by the rolling stream of the Douro. That he

would deliver a frontal attack on them in full daylight was beyond

the limits of the probable. They had no conception of the enterprise

of the man with whom they had to deal.

There was this amount of truth in their view, that the British

General would not have made his daring stroke at Oporto, unless

he had ascertained that the carelessness of his adversaries had

placed an unexpected chance in his hands. By ten o’clock in the

morning Wellesley had concentrated behind Villa Nova the whole of

his force--the three columns of Paget, Hill, and Sherbrooke were now

up in line. They were kept out of sight of the enemy, some in the

lateral lanes of the suburb, but the majority hidden behind the back

slope of the hills, where orchards and vineyards gave them complete

cover from observers on the northern bank.

While the troops were coming up, Sir Arthur mounted the Serra

height, and reconnoitred the whole country-side from the garden

of the convent. He had with him Portuguese notables who were well

acquainted with Oporto and its suburbs, including several persons

who had come over the river on the preceding day, and could give him

some notion of the general disposition and emplacement of the French

army. Sweeping the valley with his glasses he could see Franceschi’s

vedettes moving about on the heights down-stream, and heavy columns

of infantry forming up outside the north-eastern gates of the city.

At eleven o’clock this body moved off, escorting a long train of

wagons--it was Mermet’s division starting for Amarante in charge of

Soult’s convoy of sick and reserve artillery. On the quays, below the

broken bridge, many French pickets were visible, ensconced at the

openings of the streets which lead down to the water. But turning

his glass to the right, Wellesley could note that up-stream matters

looked very quiet, the rocky banks above the deep-sunk river were

deserted, and nothing was visible among the gardens and scattered

houses of the south-eastern suburb. It was possible that French

troops might be ensconced there, but no sign of them was to be seen.

Many intelligence-officers had already been sent off, to scour the

southern bank of the river, and to ascertain whether by any chance

the enemy had overlooked some of the boats belonging to the riverside

villages. In a short time two valuable pieces of news were brought up

to the Commander-in-chief. The large ferry-boat at Barca d’Avintas,

four miles above the city, had been scuttled, but not injured beyond

the possibility of hasty repairs. It was already being baled out

and mended by the villagers. Nearer at hand a still more important

discovery was made. Colonel Waters, one of the best scouts in the

army, had met, not far south of the suburban village of Cobranloes,

an Oporto refugee, a barber by trade, who had crossed over from the

north bank in a small skiff, which he had hidden in a thicket. The

man reported that the opposite bank was for the moment unguarded by

the French, and pointed to four large wine-barges lying stranded

below the brink of the northern shore, with no signs of an enemy

in charge. Yet the position was one which should have been well

watched: here a massive building, the bishop’s Seminary, surrounded

by a high garden wall, lies with its back to the water. It was an

isolated structure, standing well outside the eastern suburb, in

fairly open ground, which could be easily swept by artillery fire

from the dominating position of the Serra heights. Waters had with

him as guide the prior of Amarante, and by his aid collected three or

four peasants from the neighbouring cottages. After some persuasion

from the ecclesiastic, these men and the barber consented to join the

British officer in a raid on the stranded barges on the further bank.

It was a hazardous undertaking, for one French picket had lately been

seen to pass by, and another might appear at any moment. But the

necessary half-hour was obtained; Waters and his fellows entered the

barber’s skiff, crossed the river unseen, got the four barges afloat,

and returned with them to the southern bank. They turned out to be

big clumsy vessels, capable of holding some thirty men apiece. The

explorer had noted that the Seminary buildings above were perfectly

empty.

On receiving this intelligence, Wellesley resolved to take the chance

which the fates offered him. If the French had shown themselves

alert and vigilant, he could not have dared to throw troops across

the river into their midst. But they seemed asleep at high noon, and

their manifest negligence encouraged him. His mind was soon made up:

he ordered Murray with two battalions of his brigade[417], two guns,

and two squadrons of the 14th Light Dragoons, to march hard for Barca

d’Avintas, cross on the ferry, and seize a position on the opposite

bank capable of being defended against superior numbers. But this

(as the small force employed sufficiently demonstrates) was only

intended as a diversion. The main blow was to be delivered nearer

at hand. Wellesley had resolved to endeavour to seize the abandoned

Seminary, and to throw his main body across the river at this point

if possible. The local conditions made the scheme less rash in fact

than it appears on the map. The east end of the Serra hill completely

commands all the ground about the Seminary: three batteries[418]

were quietly pushed into the convent garden and trained upon the

roads leading to that isolated building--one along the shore, the

other further inland. If the place could once be seized, it would

be possible to protect its garrison by fire across the water. There

were only two artillery positions on the French bank, from which

the Seminary could be battered: one, close to the water’s edge, was

completely under the guns of the Serra convent. The other, on the

heights by the chapel of Bom Fin, was rather distant, and could not

be used against boats crossing the river, as they would be invisible

to gunners working on this emplacement. Cannon placed there might

do some damage to the Seminary buildings, but could not prevent the

garrison from being reinforced. Realizing all this at a glance,

Wellesley hurried down Hill’s brigade to the water’s edge, and the

moment that the leading company of the Buffs had got on board the

barges, bade them push off. In a quarter of an hour the first vessel

was over, and a subaltern and twenty-five men rushed up into the

empty enclosure of the Seminary, and closed the big iron gate opening

into the Vallongo road, which formed its only land-exit. The men from

the other barges were just behind: they set themselves to lining the

garden wall and to piling up wood and earth against it, in order to

give themselves a standing-place from which they could fire over the

coping. The barges went back with all speed, and were again loaded

and sent off. Meanwhile Wellesley and his staff were looking down in

breathless anxiety on the quiet bend of the river, the silent suburb,

and the toiling vessels. At any moment the alarm might be given, and

masses of the enemy might debouch from the city and dash in upon the

Seminary before enough men were across to hold it. For the best part

of an hour the Commander-in-chief must have been fully aware that

his daring move might end only in the annihilation of two or three

companies of a good old regiment, and a check that would appear as

the righteous retribution for recklessness.

[417] 1st and 2nd Line battalions of the K.G.L., also a

detached company of rifles of the K.G.L.

[418] Lane’s and Lawson’s British guns, and one K.G.L., battery.

But no stir was seen in Oporto: the barges crossed for a second time

unmolested: on their third trip they carried over General Edward

Paget, whom Wellesley had placed in command of the whole movement.

More than half the Buffs had passed, and the Seminary was beginning

to be adequately manned, when at last some shots were heard outside

the gates, and a few minutes later a line of French _tirailleurs_,

supported by three battalions in column, came rushing down upon the

enclosures. A full hour had passed between the moment when the first

boatload of British soldiers had been thrown across the river, and

the time when the French discovered them!

[Illustration: WELLESLEY’S PASSAGE OF THE DOURO.

N.B. The trees on the cliff to the right are close outside the

enclosure of the Serra Convent: the roof of the Seminary is just

visible over the crest of the hill on the other bank. In the

background are the low slopes above Avintas.]

The fact was that the enemy’s commander was in bed, and his staff

breakfasting! The Duke of Dalmatia had sat up all night dictating

dispatches, and making his arrangements for a leisurely flitting,

for he intended to stay two days longer in Oporto, so as to cover

the march of his other divisions towards Amarante and Villa Real.

His desk-work finished, he went to bed at about nine o’clock[419],

in full confidence that he was well protected by the river, and that

Wellesley was probably engaged in the laborious task of bringing up

boats to the mouth of the Douro, which would occupy him for at least

twenty-four hours. The staff were taking their coffee, after a late

_déjeuner_, when the hoof-beats of a furious rider startled them,

and a moment later Brossard, the aide-de-camp of General Foy, burst

into the Villa shouting that the English had got into the town. Led

to the Marshal’s bedside, he hurriedly explained that Foy had just

discovered the enemy passing by boats into the Seminary, and was

massing his brigade for an attack upon them. The Marshal started

up, sent his staff flying in all directions to warn the outlying

troops, ordered all the remaining _impedimenta_ to be sent off on

the Vallongo road, and dispatched Brossard back to Foy to tell him

to ‘push the English into the river.’ He was hardly dressed and on

horseback, when the noise of a distant fusillade, followed by heavy

artillery fire, gave the news that the attack on the Seminary had

already begun.

[419] Soult’s doings on this day are best told by his

aide-de-camp St. Chamans, who was with him all the morning. No

attention need be paid to the narrative of his panegyrist Le

Noble, who tells a foolish story to the effect that a commandant

Salel came at six o’clock (more than four hours before the Buffs

began to pass), and assured some of Soult’s staff that the

English were already crossing the river. ‘On hearing this,’ says

Le Noble, ‘the Marshal sent for Quesnel, the governor of Oporto,

and asked if there was any truth in the rumour. The latter denied

it and Soult was reassured. If only Salel had been believed,

all the English who had then passed might have been killed or

captured,’ and a disaster avoided. As a matter of fact Quesnel

was right, and not a British soldier had yet crossed [_Campagne

de Galice_, p. 247].

It had been only at half-past ten that Foy, riding along the heights

by the Chapel of Bom Fin, had been informed that there were boats

on the river, filled with red-coated soldiery. It took him wellnigh

three-quarters of an hour to bring up his nearest regiment, the

17th Léger, and only at 11.30 did the attack on the Seminary begin.

The three battalions beset the northern and western sides of the

Seminary, and made a vigorous attempt to break in, while some guns

were hurried down to the river bank, just below the building, to fire

upon the barges that were bringing up reinforcements.

Wellesley, from his eyrie on the Serra heights, had been watching

for the long-expected outburst of the French. The moment that they

came pressing forward, he gave orders for the eighteen guns in the

convent garden to open upon them. The first shot fired, a round of

shrapnel from the 5½-inch howitzer of Lane’s battery, burst just

over the leading French gun on the further bank, as it was in the

act of unlimbering, dismounted the piece, and by an extraordinary

chance, killed or wounded every man and horse attached to it[420].

A moment later came the blast of the other seventeen guns, which

swept the level ground to the west of the Seminary with awful effect.

The French attack reeled back, and the survivors fled from the open

ground into the houses of the suburb, leaving the disabled cannon

behind them. Again and again they tried to creep forward, to flank

the English stronghold, and to fire at the barges as they went and

came, but on every occasion they were swept away by the hail of

shrapnel. They could, therefore, only attack the Seminary on its

northern front, where the buildings lay between them and the Serra

height, and so screened them from the artillery. But in half an

hour the 17th Léger was beaten off and terribly mauled; they had to

cross an open space, the Prado do Bispo, in order to get near their

adversaries, and the fire from the garden wall, the windows, and the

flat roof of the edifice, swept them away before they could close.

[420] This interesting fact I owe to the diary of Captain Lane,

still in manuscript, of which a copy has been sent me by Col.

Whinyates, R. A., a specialist on the history of the British

artillery in the Peninsula.

Meanwhile the English suffered little: the only serious loss

sustained was that of General Edward Paget, whose arm was shattered

by a bullet. He was replaced in command by Hill, who (like him) had

crossed in one of the earlier barges. The number of troops in the

building was always growing larger, the Buffs were all across, and

the 66th and 48th were beginning to follow.

After a short slackening in the engagement, General Delaborde came

up, with the three battalions of the 70th of the line, to support

his brigadier. This new force executed a far more sustained and

desperate attack on the Seminary than had their predecessors.

Hill in his letters home called it ‘the _serious_ attack.’ But it

had no better fortune than the last: a thousand English infantry,

comfortably ensconced behind stone walls, and protected on their

flanks by the storm of shot and shell from the opposite bank of the

river, could not easily be moved. So well, indeed, were they covered,

that in three hours’ fighting they only lost seventy-seven men[421],

while the open ground outside was thickly strewn with the dead and

wounded Frenchmen.

[421] Viz. 1/3rd, fifty men, 2/48th, seventeen men, 2/66th, ten

men, killed and wounded. The French 17th alone lost 177 [Foy’s

Dispatch].

Soult was now growing desperate: he ordered up from the city

Reynaud’s brigade, which had hitherto guarded the quays in the

neighbourhood of the broken bridge. His intention was to make one

more attack on the Seminary, and if that failed to draw off in the

direction of Vallongo and Amarante. This move made an end of his

chances; he had forgotten to reckon with the Portuguese. The moment

that the quays were left unguarded, hundreds of citizens poured out

of their houses and ran down to the water’s edge, where they launched

all the boats that had been drawn ashore, and took them over to the

English bank. Richard Stewart’s brigade and the Guards who had been

waiting under cover of the houses of Villa Nova, immediately began

to embark, and in a few moments the passage had begun. The 29th was

first formed up on the northern bank, and dashed up the main street

into the city, meeting little or no opposition; the 1st Battalion of

Detachments and the Guards’ brigade soon followed. In half an hour

they had come upon the flank of the French force which was attacking

the Seminary, and had taken in the rear and captured one of Soult’s

reserve batteries, whose horses were shot down before they could

escape along a narrow lane. As the British went pouring through

Oporto the whole population, half mad with joy, stood cheering at the

windows and on the roofs, waving their handkerchiefs and shouting

_Viva_. The rabble poured down into the streets, and began to attack

the French wounded, so that Sherbrooke had to detach a company to

protect them from assassination[422].

[422] All this is well described by Leslie of the 29th (p. 113),

Stothert of the Scots Fusilier Guards (p. 41), and Cooper of the

2/7th, who crossed later.

When Soult found himself thus attacked in the flank, he saw that

there was no more to be done, and bade the whole army retreat at

full speed along the road to Vallongo and Baltar. They went off in a

confused mass, the regiments all mingled together, and the artillery

jammed in the midst of the column. Hill came out of the Seminary and

joined in the pursuit, which was urged for three miles. ‘They made

no fight,’ writes an eye-witness, ‘every man seemed running for his

life, throwing away their knapsacks and arms, so that we had only

the trouble of making many prisoners every instant, all begging for

quarter and surrendering with great good humour[423].’

[423] Leslie, ibid.

The French army might have been still further mauled, and indeed

almost destroyed, if Wellesley’s detached force under Murray had

been well handled by its commander. The two battalions of the German

Legion, with their attendant squadrons of the 14th Light Dragoons,

had crossed the Douro at the ferry of Barca d’ Avintas wholly

unopposed. It was a slow business, but the detachment was over

long ere Soult had abandoned his attack on the Seminary. Advancing

cautiously along the river bank, Murray suddenly saw the whole French

army come pouring past him in total disorder on the line of the

Vallongo road. He might have made an attempt to throw himself across

their path, or at least have fallen upon their flank and endeavoured

to cut the column in two; but thinking them far too strong for his

small force, and forgetting their demoralization, he halted and

allowed them to go by. When all had passed, General Charles Stewart,

who had been sent in search of Murray by the Commander-in-chief,

came galloping up to the force, and took from it a squadron of the

14th[424], with which he made a dash at the enemy’s last troops. The

French had now formed a sort of rearguard, but the dragoons rode

into it without hesitation. The French generals were bringing up the

rear, and trying to keep their men steady. Delaborde was unhorsed

and for a moment was a prisoner, but escaped owing to his captor

being killed. Foy received a sabre cut on the shoulder. The infantry

broke, and nearly 300 of them were cut off and captured. But the

dragoons also suffered heavily; of about 110 men who took part in the

charge no less than thirty-five men were killed and wounded. Murray,

who watched the whole skirmish from his position on a neighbouring

hillside, gave no assistance to his cavalry, though the intervention

of his two battalions would have led to the capture of the whole of

Soult’s rearguard. It was to infantry of Sherbrooke’s division that

the dragoons turned over their prisoners before rejoining their other

squadron[425].

[424] So Hawker of that regiment, who took part in the charge,

and describes it well. In Wellesley’s dispatch, _two_ squadrons

are wrongly named.

[425] The best account of this charge is the diary of Hawker;

it runs as follows: ‘After going at full speed, enveloped in a

cloud of dust for nearly two miles, we cleared our infantry, and

that of the French appeared. A strong body was drawn up in close

column, with bayonets ready to receive us on their front. On each

side of the road was a stone wall, bordered outwardly with trees.

On our left, in particular, numbers of the French were posted

with their pieces resting on the wall, which flanked the road,

ready to give us a running fire as we passed. This could not but

be effectual, as our men (in threes) were close to the muzzles of

their muskets, and barely out of the reach of a _coup de sabre_.

In a few seconds the ground was covered with our men and horses.

Notwithstanding this we penetrated the battalion in the road, the

men of which, relying on their bayonets, did not give way till

we were close upon them, when they fled in confusion. For some

time the contest was kept up hand to hand. After many efforts

we succeeded in cutting off 300, of whom most were secured as

prisoners. But our loss was very considerable. Of fifty-two

men in the leading troop ten were killed, and eleven severely

wounded (besides others slightly), and six taken prisoners.’ (Of

the last all save one succeeded in slipping off and got back.)

Out of four officers engaged three were wounded: Hervey, the

major in command, lost an arm. Foy called the attack ‘une charge

incroyable.’

So ended the battle of Oporto, daring in its conception, splendidly

successful in its execution, yet not so decisive as it might have

been, had Murray but done his duty during the pursuit. The British

loss was astoundingly small--only twenty-three killed, ninety-eight

wounded, and two missing: among the dead there was not a single

officer: the wounded included a general (Paget) and three majors.

The casualties of the French were, as was natural, much greater:

the attacks on the Seminary had cost them dear. They lost about 300

killed and wounded and nearly as many prisoners in the field, while

more than 1,500 sick and wounded were captured in the hospitals of

Oporto[426]. The trophies consisted of the six field-pieces taken

during the fighting, a great number of baggage wagons, and fifty-two

Portuguese guns, dismounted but fit for further service, which were

found in the arsenal. Soult had destroyed, before retreating, the

rest of the cannon which he had captured in the Portuguese lines on

March 29.

[426] Fantin des Odoards (p. 233) says that the French left

1,800 men in the hospitals. This is probably a little too high

an estimate: there were only 2,150 French sick in Braga, Viana,

and Oporto on May 10--five-sixths of them at Oporto. But many

convalescents had marched with Mermet early on the eleventh.

Wellington in his first dispatch merely says that he had taken

700 sick in the hospitals. But three days later, in a letter

to Admiral Berkeley, he writes that he has 2,000 sick, wounded

and captured French in his hands, and must send them to England

at once (_Wellington Dispatches_, iv. 337). He therefore asks

for shipping for them at the rate of two tons per man. Allowing

for 300 unwounded prisoners at Oporto, and 100 at Grijon, there

remain 1,500, or somewhat more, for the men in hospital.

SECTION XIV: CHAPTER III

SOULT’S RETREAT FROM OPORTO

The headlong charge of Hervey’s squadron of the 14th Light Dragoons

was the last molestation which fell to the lot of Soult’s retreating

column on the afternoon of May 12. Marching till dark, the disordered

infantry encamped at Baltar, ten miles from Oporto, where they

fell in with the detached regiment of Delaborde’s division and

with Caulaincourt’s dragoons, who had been guarding this half-way

stage between Amarante and Oporto, ever since Loison had marched on

into the Tras-os-Montes ten days before. Of the rest of the French

army, Franceschi (always in the post of danger) covered the rear at

Vallongo, just west of Baltar. Mermet, with the division that had

marched from Oporto before Wellesley’s attack was developed, had

encamped on the Souza river, four miles ahead of the main column.

The Marshal had thus nearly 13,000 men concentrated, and proposed

next day to push on for Amarante, in the wake of Loison, who (as he

supposed) must now be well ahead in the Tras-os-Montes, clearing

for him the way into Spain. It was disquieting, however, to find

that no news from that general had yet come to hand--indeed he had

not been heard of since May 7, when he was just starting out on his

expedition. Wherever Loison might be, the Marshal was bound to follow

him in haste, since it was certain that Wellesley would be close at

his heels, and that no time was to be lost in lingering.

At half-past one in the morning Soult was roused from sleep, and

informed that the long-expected messenger from Loison had at last

arrived[427]. The news which he brought was nothing less than

appalling: the French detached corps had been not only checked but

beaten, the bridge of Amarante had been lost, and Loison was hastily

retreating to the north-west at the moment that his chief was moving

eastward to join him.

[427] See Le Noble, _Campagne de Galice_, pp. 250-2.

Beresford’s turning movement, in fact, had been completely

successful--far more so than Wellesley had thought likely; he had not

only succeeded in placing himself across the French line of retreat

into Spain, but had beaten Loison and thrown him back into Soult’s

arms.

What had happened was shortly this. On May 8 Beresford had picked

up Wilson’s detachment at Vizeu: on the tenth he had met Silveira

at Lamego. He had thus concentrated some 10,500 or 11,000 men, all

Portuguese save Tilson’s brigade and the single squadron of the

14th Light Dragoons. Learning at Lamego that, as late as the ninth,

Loison was still in the neighbourhood of Amarante, and had not yet

penetrated far into the Tras-os-Montes, Beresford resolved to take

the risk of passing the Douro and to throw his army directly across

the path of the advancing French. On the tenth, the same day on

which the force from Coimbra reached Lamego, he sent Silveira over

the river by the bridge of Peso da Regoa, which had never passed out

of the hands of the Portuguese and had a strong _tête-de-pont_ on

its northern side. Silveira had barely crossed when Loison, who had

spent the previous day at Mezamfrio, ten miles away on the Amarante

road, came up against him with Heudelet’s and Sarrut’s infantry and

Marisy’s dragoons--about 6,500 sabres and bayonets. Emboldened by

having entrenchments to help him, and by knowing that Beresford was

close behind, Silveira stood firm at the _tête-de-pont_ and accepted

battle.

Loison was somewhat discouraged by his adversary’s confidence, and

did not fail to note the masses of troops on the southern bank of

the Douro, which were moving up to the bridge to support Silveira.

However, late in the afternoon he attacked the Portuguese, but was

steadily met and beaten off with some loss[428]. Thereupon he drew

back and retired to Mezamfrio. On the following day (May 11) he

continued his retreat to Amarante, closely pursued by Silveira, who

kept driving in his rearguard wherever it attempted to make a stand.

[428] Loison reported to Soult that he lost only a _chef de

bataillon_ and eighty men, but that the horses of himself and

Generals Heudelet and Maransin were killed under them. The

figures given are probably an understatement.

Beresford meanwhile brought his own troops across the Douro on May

11, in the wake of Silveira’s division. On the twelfth he pushed

forward to Amarante, intending to fight Loison if the latter should

try to hold his ground beyond the bridge. But on his approach he

found that the French rearguard (Sarrut’s brigade) had already been

driven across the water by the Portuguese[429]. The bridge, however,

still remained in Loison’s hands, and as it was no less defensible

from the eastern than from the western bank, the army could get no

further forward.

[429] The British brigade of Tilson was to have led the attack.

They were burning for a fight. ‘I never witnessed so much

enthusiasm,’ writes an eye-witness, ‘as was shown by the men.

The advance was a perfect trot, but on our arrival we found the

enemy had fled.’ (From an unpublished letter of Lord Gough,

then colonel of the 87th regiment, which has been placed at my

disposal by the kindness of Mr. R. Rait of New College, who is

preparing a life of that officer.)

Matters were now at a deadlock, for if Beresford could not cross

the Tamega, it was clear that Loison, even if heavily reinforced

from Oporto, would not be able to force the imposing position on

the heights commanding the bridge, which was now held by 11,000

men, including a British brigade. But he might, and should, have

continued to hold the town and the bridge-head, till further orders

reached him from Soult. Instead of doing so, he made up his mind

to retreat at once, and marched off early on the evening of May 12

along the road to Guimaraens and Braga. Thus at the moment when

Soult was retiring on Amarante, Loison abandoned the position which

covered his chief’s chosen line of retreat. Moreover, he was so

tardy in sending news of his intentions to head quarters, that the

aide-de-camp who bore his dispatch only reached Baltar after midnight

on the twelfth-thirteenth: this was the first report that Soult had

received from him since May 8. It was a military crime of the highest

magnitude that he had neither informed his chief of the check at

Peso da Regoa on the tenth, nor of his retreat to Amarante on the

eleventh. Knowledge of these facts would have been invaluable to

the Marshal, since it would have shown him that the route through

the Tras-os-Montes was blocked, and that he must not count upon an

undisturbed retreat into Spain. If he had known of this, he would not

have evacuated Oporto by the Baltar road, but would have been forced

to march northward on Braga or Guimaraens, instead of due east. So

strange, in fact, was Loison’s slackness, that Soult’s advocates

have not hesitated to accuse him of deliberate treachery, and have

hinted that he was engaged in Argenton’s plot--a hypothesis which

would have explained his conduct clearly enough. But, as a matter

of fact, Argenton’s revelations to Wellesley show that this was not

the case, and that the conspirators looked upon Loison and Delaborde

as the two officers who were most likely to give them trouble. It

must therefore have been sheer military incapacity, and disgust at

the whole Portuguese expedition, which lay at the bottom of Loison’s

misbehaviour. Disbelieving in Soult’s plan of campaign, he was

probably bent on compelling his chief to retire to Braga, and was (of

course) quite ignorant of the fact that Wellesley’s capture of Oporto

had changed the whole face of affairs, and that the retreat in that

direction was no longer open.

Despondent, tired out by the work of the preceding day, and suffering

physically from a heavy fall from his horse during the retreat, Soult

was roused from his slumbers to read Loison’s disastrous dispatch.

When he had made out its full meaning he was appalled. All his plans

were shattered, and he was clearly in imminent danger, for Wellesley

from Oporto and Beresford from Amarante might converge upon him in

the morning, with nearly 30,000 men, if it should chance that they

had made out his position. No help could come from Loison, who,

having now reached Guimaraens, was separated from the main body by

the roadless expanse of the rugged Serra de Santa Catalina. Eastward

lay one hostile force, westward another, to the south was the

impassable Douro, to the north the inhospitable mountains. It was

useless to think of making a desperate dash at Beresford’s army: in

open ground an attack on the Portuguese might have been practicable,

but the bridge of Amarante was a post impossible to force in a hurry,

and while the attack on it was in progress, it was certain that

Wellesley would come up from the rear. The situation and the results

of Baylen would inevitably be reproduced.

Realizing this, the Duke of Dalmatia came to the conclusion that

the only course open to him was to abandon everything that could

not be carried on his men’s backs, and to make a desperate attempt

to cross the Serra de Santa Catalina before the news of his straits

had reached the enemy. He imagined that there must be some sort

of a footpath from Baltar or Penafiel to Guimaraens: in a thickly

peopled country like Northern Portugal, the hill-folk have short cuts

of their own--the only difficulty for the stranger is to discover

them. Hasty inquiries in the bivouac of the army produced a Navarese

camp-follower, who said that he knew the localities and could point

out a bad mule-track, which climbed the hillside above the Souza

torrent, and came down into the valley of the Avé, not far south of

Guimaraens[430]. It was the kind of path in which the army would meet

every sort of difficulty, and where the head of the column might be

stopped by a couple of hundred _Ordenanza_, if it should chance that

the Portuguese peasantry were on the alert. But it seemed the only

practicable way out of the situation, and the Marshal resolved to try

it.

[430] ‘Un de ces Navarrins, qui vont tous les ans en Portugal

parcourir les villages pour y couper les cochons qu’on veut

engraisser,’ says Le Noble [p. 254]. ‘Une espèce de contrebandier

que le général Dulauloi avait trouvé,’ says St. Chamans, Soult’s

aide-de-camp (p. 147).

At daybreak the army was warned of its danger; and wasting no time

on councils of war or elaborate orders, Soult sent round word that

the troops were to abandon everything that could not be carried on

the backs of men or horses, and to take to the hills. An immense mass

of baggage and plunder had to be left on the banks of the Souza,

including the whole of the heavy convoy which Mermet had escorted

out of Oporto on the previous day. The Marshal even decided that the

infantry should turn out of their knapsacks everything except food

and cartridges, an order which those who had in their possession

gold plate and other valuable plunder of small bulk took care to

disobey. The cannon were destroyed by being placed mouth to mouth

and discharged simultaneously in pairs. As much of the reserve

ammunition for infantry as could be packed in convenient bundles

was laden on the backs of the artillery horses. The rest, with all

the powder wagons, was collected in a mass, ready to be fired when

the army should have absconded. One curious circumstance, which

displays better than anything else the hurry of the retreat, is worth

mentioning. The military chest of the 2nd Corps was well filled--it

is said to have contained nearly £50,000 in Portuguese silver. The

Marshal ordered the paymaster-in-chief to serve out all that he could

to the regimental paymasters. Only two of these officials could be

found, and they were unable to carry off more than a fraction of the

money. Soult then ordered the treasure-chests to be broken open, and

sent word that the men, as they passed, might help themselves. But

hardly a soldier took advantage of the offer: they looked at the

bulky bags of _cruzados novos_, shook their heads, and hurried on.

Those who were tempted at first were seen, later in the day, tossing

the weighty pieces into the ravine of the Souza. Perceiving that

there was no way of getting rid of the mass of silver, Soult at last

ordered the _fourgons_ containing it to be dragged alongside of the

powder wagons. When the train was exploded, after the rearguard had

passed, the money was scattered to the winds. For years after the

peasants of Penafiel were picking up stray coins on the hillside[431].

[431] Several of the French diarists relate this curious

incident. ‘L’argent blanc ne tentait personne,’ says Fantin des

Odoards, p. 234, ‘à cause de sa pesanteur et de son inutilité

momentaire. On permit le pillage des fourgons du payeur, et chose

inouïe, il n’y fut presque pas touché. Les soldats regardaient

en passant les sacs, secouaient la tête et s’éloignaient sans y

mettre la main. Pour moi, je m’emparai d’un sac de 2,400 francs;

cette lourde somme m’embarassait: elle aurait blessé mon cheval,

et après l’avoir portée pendant une lieue je l’abandonnai’ [p.

234]. ‘Les grenadiers du 70e servaient d’escorte au trésor,’ says

Le Noble, ‘l’intendant-général les invita de prendre des fonds.

Ayant rencontré leur officier, le lieutenant Langlois, à Toro,

il lui demanda ce qu’avaient pu emporter ses soldats. “_Rien_,”

répliqua-t-il, “ils portaient la caisse à tour de rôle pour

quelque distance, et la jetèrent ensuite.”’ Naylies also mentions

the dispersion of the treasure. The reader will compare this

incident with the rolling of Moore’s treasure down the cliffs of

Herrerias during the Corunna retreat. Soult certainly scattered

his cash more widely.

As the French army was beginning its weary climb over the Serra de

Santa Catalina a heavy drenching rain commenced to fall. It lasted

for three days, and added much to the miseries of the retreat; but

it was not without its advantages to the fugitive host, for it kept

the Portuguese peasantry indoors, and it would seem that no one in

the mountain villages got wind of the movement for many hours. It

was not till the French had crossed the ridge and descended, late

in the dusk, on to the village of Pombeiro in the valley of the Avé

that they began to be molested by the _Ordenanza_. After a few shots

had been fired the peasants were driven off. Next morning [May 14]

Soult got into communication with Loison, who was still lying at

Guimaraens with all his troops. On the same day Lorges’ dragoons and

the garrison of Viana came in from the north, and the whole army,

still over 20,000 strong, was reconcentrated. The first danger, that

of destruction piecemeal, had been avoided. But Soult’s desperate

move had only warded off the peril for the moment: he had still to

fear that Wellesley and Beresford might close in upon him before he

could get clear of the mountains.

It remains to be seen how the two British generals had employed the

day during which the French were scaling the heights of the Serra

de Santa Catalina. Wellesley had crossed in person to Oporto long

ere the fighting was over, and had established his head quarters

in Soult’s villa on the heights, where he and his staff thought

themselves fortunate in finding ready for their consumption the

excellent dinner which had been prepared for the Marshal. As long

as daylight lasted the British infantry continued to be ferried

over to the city, but they were not all across when night fell. The

artillery, the train, and all the regimental baggage were still on

the wrong side of the river, and as the great bridge was destroyed

beyond hope of repair, all the _impedimenta_ had to be brought over

in boats and barges. It was mainly this fact that delayed Wellesley

from making an early move on the thirteenth. He could not advance

without his guns and his reserve ammunition, and did not receive them

till the day was far spent and the natural hour for marching was

past. There were other circumstances which hindered him from pressing

on as he would have liked to do. The infantry were tired out: they

had marched more than eighty miles during the last four days, and

had fought hard at Grijon and Oporto. Human nature could do no more

without a halt, and Wellesley was forced to grant it. Moreover,

there was the question of food to be taken into consideration. The

troops had outrun their supplies, and the provision wagons were still

trailing up from Coimbra. In Oporto no stores of any importance were

discovered, for Soult had stopped collecting more than he could

carry, the moment that he made up his mind to retreat, and had been

living from hand to mouth during the last few days of his sojourn in

the city. The only thing that abounded was port wine, and from that

the soldiers had to be kept away, or results disastrous to discipline

would have followed[432].

[432] When the troops got at the wine they drank only too well:

Hartmann in his _Journal_ records that twenty of his German

Legion gunners drank forty-one bottles of port at a sitting (p.

71).

With great reluctance, therefore, Wellesley resolved to halt for

a day, only sending forward Murray and the German Legion, with a

couple of squadrons, along the Baltar road. This brigade did not come

up with Soult’s rearguard, though they found ample traces of his

passage in the shape of murdered stragglers and abandoned plunder.

No doubt the Commander-in-chief would have directed them to push on

further, and have supported them with every battalion that could

still march ten miles, if only he had been aware of the fact that

Beresford had got possession of the bridge of Amarante, and that the

enemy was therefore in a trap. But he was only in communication with

his lieutenant by the circuitous route of Lamego and Mezamfrio, and

the last news that he had received of the turning column led him to

believe that it was still in the neighbourhood of Villa Real, and

that Loison continued to hold the passage of the Tamega. Writing to

Beresford on the night of the capture of Oporto, he desired him to

make every effort to hold on to Villa Real, and to keep Soult in

check till he himself could overtake him[433].

[433] _Wellington Dispatches_, iv. 327. To Marshal Beresford,

from Oporto, night of the twelfth.

It was not till the afternoon of the thirteenth that Wellesley

obtained information that put him on the right track. The

intelligence officer with Murray’s column[434] sent him back word

that heavy explosions had been heard at Penafiel, and that the smoke

of large fires was visible along the hillside above it. This gave

a strong hint of what was probably taking place in that direction,

but it was not till five in the afternoon that full information came

to hand. This was brought by the Portuguese secretary of General

Quesnel, who had deserted his employer and ridden back to Oporto,

to give the valuable news which would save him from being tried for

treason for serving the enemy. He gave an accurate and detailed

account of all that had happened to Soult’s column, and had seen it

start off on the break-neck path to Guimaraens. Only about Loison was

he uncertain--that officer, he said, was probably still at Amarante,

holding back Silveira and Beresford[435].

[434] A Captain Mellish, _Wellington Dispatches_, iv. 330 [to

Murray] and 332 [to Beresford].

[435] Deposition of the Secretary to the late Governor of

Oporto. _Wellington Supplementary Dispatches_, vi. 262 [May 13,

afternoon].

On receipt of this important intelligence Wellesley sent orders to

Murray to press on his small force of cavalry, and some mounted

rifles (if he could secure horses or mules) as far as Penafiel, to

verify the secretary’s information[436]. A later dispatch bade him

press on to Amarante, if Loison was still there, in order to take

that officer in the rear; but if he were gone, the Legionary brigade

was to follow Soult over the hills towards Guimaraens and Braga, and

endeavour to catch up his rearguard[437]. The orders arrived too

late: Murray, on the morning of the fourteenth, learnt that Loison

had long ago departed, and that Soult was far on his way. He followed

the Marshal across the Serra de Santa Catalina, but never got near

him, though he picked up many French stragglers, and saw the bodies

of many more, who had been assassinated by the peasantry[438].

[436] _Wellington Dispatches_, iv. 330, afternoon of May 13.

[437] Ibid. iv. 332, morning of May 14.

[438] It is astonishing to find that Murray succeeded in taking

two light three-pounder guns over this difficult path. The fact

reflects great credit on his gunners.

Meanwhile Beresford had acted with great decision, and with an

intelligence which he did not always display. When, on the morning

of the thirteenth, he found that the French had disappeared, and

that Amarante (after having been thoroughly sacked)[439] had been

abandoned to him, he did not waste time in a fruitless pursuit of

Loison in the direction of Guimaraens, but resolved to endeavour

to cut off the retreat of the whole French army towards the north.

If they had absconded by way of Braga, the chase would fall to

Wellesley’s share, but if they had taken the other road by Chaves,

all would depend on his own movements. Accordingly he resolved to

march at once on the last named town, without waiting for orders

from the Commander-in-chief. Having hastily collected three days’

provisions, he moved off himself by the high-road up the valley of

the Tamega, detaching Silveira and his division to strike across

country, and occupy the defiles of Ruivaens and Salamonde on the

Braga-Chaves road, where it would be possible to detain, if not to

stop, the retreating columns of Soult if they should take this way

[May 14]. While on his march Beresford received Wellesley’s letters,

which prescribed to him exactly the line of conduct that he had

already determined to pursue[440]. After three difficult marches in

drenching rain, which turned every rivulet into an almost impassable

torrent, and spoilt the inadequate provision of bread which had been

served out to the men, the division reached Chaves about 12 p.m.

on the night of the sixteenth-seventeenth. The men were absolutely

exhausted; though the distance covered had not exceeded some fourteen

or fifteen miles per day, yet the rain, the starvation, and the bad

road had much thinned the ranks, and those who had kept up with the

colours were dropping with fatigue. The slowness of the column’s

advance was certainly not Beresford’s fault; he had allowed only a

six hours’ halt each day on the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth,

and had been pushing on as hard as was, humanly speaking, possible.

Nevertheless he was too late: on the seventeenth, the all-important

day of the campaign, he held Chaves, but his troops were too tired

to start early or to march far. The bad weather which made the French

retreat so miserable, had at least saved the flying army from its

pursuers[441].

[439] The state of Amarante was dreadful. ‘I was never witness to

such a scene of misery and horror as here presented itself,’ says

Lord Gough in an unpublished letter to his father. ‘Every house

and public building of every description, with the exception of a

monastery which covered the passage of the bridge, a chapel, and

about five detached houses, was burnt to the ground, with many of

the late inhabitants lying dead in the streets.’

[440] The best testimony to Beresford’s good conduct is that

Wellesley (_Wellington Dispatches_, iv. 343) says that he had

exactly anticipated the instructions sent him, and carried them

out on his own initiative. Napier’s criticism (ii. 116-7) is

unfair and misleading.

[441] The best account of Beresford’s forced march is to be found

in the unpublished letter of Lord Gough (then major of the 87th)

which, as I have already mentioned, has been shown me by Mr. R.

Rait of New College. He says: ‘The business of crossing the river

took the Brigade (Tilson’s) four hours: the evening set in with

a most dreadful fall of rain, which continued all night, and the

next three days and nights. Our road lay over almost impassable

mountains, made more so by the rain that swelled the mountain

rivulets into rivers. In the dark many men lost the column,

several fell into pits excavated by the falling water: many lay

down in the road from fatigue and hunger, and the greater part

lost their shoes.... Next day we pursued our melancholy march at

five o’clock, the men nearly fainting with hunger: about twelve

we fell in with some cars of bread belonging to a Portuguese

division, which Gen. Tilson pressed for the men; this (with

some wine) enabled us to proceed, and that night at twelve we

reached Chaves, after a forced march of three days, with only

twelve hours’ halt. The men were without a shoe to their feet,

and hundreds fallen out from fatigue and hunger.... The 88th had,

of 700 with which they joined us, only 150 in the ranks.... Part

of the officers and nearly all the men had their feet cut to the

bone for want of shoes.’

Soult meanwhile had gathered in Loison and Lorges, and his whole army

was concentrated at Guimaraens on the morning of the fourteenth. From

the point where he now lay, in the upper valley of the Avé, there

are only two carriage roads, that to Amarante by which Loison had

arrived, and that to Braga. There was a bare chance that if Wellesley

had received his information late, and moved slowly, it might be

possible to escape from him by the road to Braga. If, however, he

had marched promptly from Oporto, he would be able to intercept the

retreating army at that place. Soult refused to take this risk, and

resolved instead to plunge once more into the mountains, and to cross

the watershed between the Avé and the Cavado by a rugged hill-path,

no better than that which had served him between Penafiel and

Guimaraens. It was accordingly necessary to sacrifice all the guns,

munitions, and baggage belonging to Loison and Lorges, just as those

of Mermet and Delaborde had been destroyed on the banks of the Souza.

The guns were burst, the ammunition exploded, the baggage piled in

heaps and burned. After this second holocaust the army struck up a

track by the Salto torrent, which ultimately brought them over the

crest, and down upon the village of Lanhozo, eight miles from Braga,

and just at the foot of the position which Eben had occupied during

his unhappy battle on March 20. The weather had been abominable, and

the rearguard had been forced to bivouac in misery on the hills,

the darkness having come down upon them before the descent into the

valley of the Cavado was completed.

Next morning Soult sent out Lahoussaye’s dragoons down the valley

of the Cavado towards Braga, to see if that city was already in

Wellesley’s hands or whether it was still possible to escape across

his front and gain the high road to Galicia. As the Marshal had

feared would be the case, they met British light cavalry pushing

briskly up the road towards them; it was clear that the pursuers were

already in Braga, and Soult at once ordered his columns to turn their

faces to the north-east, and follow the road up the Cavado towards

Salamonde and Ruivaens. The British were ere long visible in close

pursuit.

Sir Arthur had quitted Oporto on the fourteenth with his whole force

except the brigade of Murray, which had already gone forth on the

eastern line of pursuit, and the 20th Light Dragoons, which he had

been ordered to send back to Lisbon. On that day his army covered

twenty-two miles of road in vile weather, and slept at Villa Nova de

Famelicção. On the fifteenth the British started early, and their

vanguard had already marched twelve miles and reached Braga when

the French dragoons were descried. The latter, seeing themselves

forestalled, retired on their main body, and when Wellesley’s men

mounted the crest of the Monte Adaufé (Eben’s old position in the

battle of March 20), they caught a glimpse of the whole French

army retiring up the valley. Soult, immediately on hearing that

the pursuers were in Braga, had commenced a new retreat. He had

rearranged his order of march. Loison now led the column, with

Heudelet’s division and Lorges’ dragoons: then came the droves of

artillery horses and pack-mules, with the reserve ammunition and the

little baggage that had been saved, followed by Delaborde and Mermet.

Merle’s infantry and Franceschi’s horse were in the rear, under the

Marshal’s own command. In this order the French remounted the stream

of the Cavado as far as Salamonde, where the broad valley narrows

down to a defile. They were followed by the British light dragoons,

but the infantry of the pursuing column had not got far beyond Braga,

where Wellesley’s head quarters were established that night. Murray’s

German brigade, which had crossed the mountains from Guimaraens in

Soult’s wake, joined the main body on this evening.

On reaching Salamonde Soult was informed by the cavalry in his front

that they had been brought to stand at the bridge of Ponte Nova, a

few miles up the defile, by a body of _Ordenanza_, who had taken up

the wooden flooring of the bridge, torn down its balustrades, and

barricaded themselves upon the further side. Unless they could be

dislodged ruin stared the Marshal in the face: for the British were

close in his rear, and there was no lateral line of escape from the

precipitous defile. Surrender next morning must follow. In this

crisis Soult saw no chance of safety before him save a dash at the

half-demolished bridge. When darkness had fallen he sent for Major

Dulong, an officer of the 31st Léger, who enjoyed the reputation of

being the most daring man in the whole army, and told him that he

must surprise the Portuguese by a sudden rush at midnight, and win

the passage at all costs. He was allowed to pick 100 volunteers from

his own regiment for the enterprise.

The safety of a whole army has seldom depended upon a more desperate

venture than that which Dulong took in hand. Nothing remained of the

bridge save the two large cross-beams, no more than three or four

feet broad; they were slippery with continuous rain, and had to be

passed in complete darkness under the driving sleet of a bitter north

wind. Fortunately for the assailants the same cold and wet which

made their enterprise so dangerous had driven the _Ordenanza_ under

cover: they had retired to some huts a little way beyond the bridge.

If they left any one on guard, the sentinel had followed his friends,

for when Dulong and his party crept up to the passage they found it

absolutely deserted. They crossed in single file, and reached the

further side unobserved, losing one man who slipped and fell into the

fierce river below. A moment later they came on the Portuguese, who

were surprised in their sleep: many were bayonetted, the rest fled

in dismay--they were but a few score of peasants, and were helpless

when once the passage had been won.

For six hours Soult’s sappers were working hard to replace the

flooring of the ruined bridge with tree trunks, and boards torn from

the houses of the neighbouring village. At eight it was practicable,

and the troops began to cross. It was a long business: for 20,000

men with 4,000 cavalry horses and a great drove of pack-animals had

to be passed over the narrow, rickety, and uneven structure, whose

balustrades had not been replaced. All the day was spent in hurrying

the troops across, but they got forward so slowly that Soult saw

himself forced to place a strong rearguard in position, to hold back

the pursuers till the main body was safe. He left behind a brigade of

Merle’s division, and two of Franceschi’s cavalry regiments, ranged

behind a lateral ravine which crosses the road some distance below

the bridge. They were placed with their right on the rough river bank

and their left on the cliffs which overhang the road; orders were

given to the effect that they must hold on at all costs till the army

had completed the passage of the Ponte Nova. At half-past one the

British light dragoons arrived in front of the position, saw that

they could not force it, and started a bickering fire with the French

pickets, while they waited for the main body to come up.

Owing to the long distance which Wellesley’s infantry had to cover,

the day wore on without any serious collision on this point. But

meanwhile Soult found that another and more serious danger lay ahead

of him. After crossing the Cavado at the Ponte Nova there were two

paths available for the army--the main road leads eastward to Chaves

by way of Ruivaens, a branch, however, turns off north to Montalegre

and the sources of the Misarella, the main affluent of the Cavado.

The former was the easier, but there was a grave doubt whether Chaves

might not already be in the hands of Beresford and his turning

column--as a matter of fact it only arrived there a few hours after

Soult stood uncertain at the parting of the ways. Bearing this in

mind, the Marshal resolved to take the more rugged and difficult

path; but when Loison and the vanguard were engaged in it they found

that the bridge over the Misarella, the _Saltador_ as it was called

from the bold leap which its single arch makes across the torrent,

was held against them. Again it was only with _Ordenanza_ that the

army had to deal: Beresford had just reached Chaves, but his troops

were some miles further back; Silveira, who ought to have been at

Ruivaens that morning, had not appeared at all. But Major Warre,

an officer of Beresford’s staff, had ridden ahead to rouse the

peasantry, and had collected several hundred half-armed levies at

the _Saltador_ bridge, which he encouraged them to hold, promising

that the regulars would be up to support them before nightfall.

Unfortunately he could not persuade them to destroy the bridge, on

which all the cross-communications of the Misarella valley depend.

But they had thrown down its parapets, built an _abattis_ across its

head, and thrown up earthworks on each side of it so as to command

the opposite bank. This, unhappily, was not enough to hold back

20,000 desperate men, who saw their only way of salvation on the

opposite bank.

When Loison found his advance barred, he made an appeal to that same

Major Dulong who had forced the Ponte Nova on the preceding night.

Again that daring soldier volunteered to conduct the forlorn hope:

he was given a company of _voltigeurs_ to lead the column, and two

battalions of Heudelet’s division to back them. Forming the whole in

one continuous mass--there was only room for four men abreast--he

dashed down towards the bridge amid a spluttering and ineffective

fire from the Portuguese entrenchments on the opposite bank. The

column reached the arch, passed it, was checked but a moment while

tearing down the _abattis_, and then plunged in among the scared

_Ordenanza_, who fled in every direction, leaving the passage free.

Dulong was wounded, but no more than eighteen of his companions were

hit, and at this small sacrifice the army was saved. Late in the

afternoon the whole mass began to stream up the Montalegre road;

they had no longer anything more to fear than stray shots from the

scattered _Ordenanza_, who hung about on the hillsides, firing into

the column from inaccessible rocks, but doing little damage.

If Dulong had failed at the Saltador Soult would have been lost,

for just as the passage was forced the rumbling of cannon began to

be heard from the rear. Merle was attacked by the British, and was

being driven in. At five o’clock the Guards’ brigade, forming the

head of Wellesley’s infantry, had come up with the French rearguard.

It was formidably posted, but Sir Arthur thought that it might be

dislodged. Accordingly he placed the two three-pounders, which

accompanied the column, on the high road, and began to batter the

French centre, while he sent off the three light companies of the

brigade[442] to turn the French left flank on the cliffs to the

south. When the crackling of their musketry was heard among the

rocks, he silenced his guns and flung the Guards upon the enemy’s

main body. They broke, turned, and fled in confusion, though the

regiment on the road, the 4th Léger, was considered one of the best

in the French army[443].

[442] The brigade had a company of the 5/60th attached, so had

three instead of two light companies.

[443] ‘Il y avait à l’arrière-garde un excellent régiment

d’infanterie légère, qui (vu la nature du terrain) pouvait

facilement braver une armée entière: et bien, à l’apparition

de l’ennemi, il s’est débandé sans qu’on ait pu lui faire

entendre raison. La confusion qui a été le résultat de cette

terreur panique a été épouvantable. Fantassins et cavaliers se

précipitaient les uns sur les autres, jetaient leurs armes, et

luttaient à qui courrait le plus vite. Le pont étroit et sans

parapet ne pouvait suffire à l’impatience des fuyards, ils se

pressaient tellement que nombre d’hommes furent précipités et

noyés dans le torrent ou écrasés sous les pieds des chevaux. Si

les Anglais avaient été en mesure de profiter de cette épouvante,

je ne sais pas en vérité ce que nous serions devenus, tant la

peur est contagieuse, même chez les plus braves soldats.’ Fantin

des Odoards, p. 236.

The chase continued as far as the Ponte Nova, which the broken

troops crossed in a struggling mass, thrusting each other over the

edge (where the balustrades were wanting) till the torrent below was

choked with dead men and horses. The British guns were brought up

and played upon the weltering crowd with dreadful effect. But the

night was already coming on, and the darkness hid from the pursuers

the full effect of their own fire. They halted and encamped, having

slain many and taken about fifty prisoners, of whom one was an

officer. It was only at daybreak that they realized the terrors

through which the French had passed. ‘The rocky bed of the Cavado,’

says an eye-witness, ‘presented an extraordinary spectacle. Men and

horses, sumpter animals and baggage, had been precipitated into

the river, and literally choked its course. Here, with these fatal

accompaniments of death and dismay, was disgorged the last of the

plunder of Oporto. All kinds of valuable goods were left on the road,

while above 300 horses, sunk in the water, and mules laden with

baggage, fell into the hands of the grenadier and light companies of

the Guards. These active-fingered gentry found that fishing for boxes

and bodies out of the stream produced pieces of plate, and purses and

belts full of gold money. Amid the scenes of death and desolation

arose their shouts of the most noisy merriment[444].’

[444] Lord Munster’s _Campaign of 1809_, pp. 177-8.

On the night of the 17th Soult’s army poured into Montalegre, a

dilapidated old town on the edge of the frontier, from which all the

inhabitants had fled. Little or no food could be procured, and the

houses did not suffice to shelter more than a part of the troops.

Next morning the 2nd Corps took to its heels once more, and climbed

the Serra de Gerez, which lies just above the town. On descending

its northern slope they had at last entered Spain, and had reached

safety. But the country was absolutely desolate: for twenty miles

beyond Montalegre there was hardly a single village on this rugged

by-path. Still dreading pursuit, the Marshal urged on his men as fast

as they could be driven forward, and in two long marches at last

reached Orense.

Wellesley, however, had given up any hope of catching the 2nd

Corps, when once it had passed the Saltador and reached the Spanish

frontier. He had halted the British infantry at Ruivaens, and only

sent on in chase of the flying host the 14th Light Dragoons and the

division of Silveira, which had at last appeared on the scene late

in the evening of the seventeenth. What this corps had been doing

during the last forty-eight hours it is impossible to discover. It

had started from Amarante on the same day that Beresford marched for

Chaves, and ought to have been at Ruivaens on the sixteenth, when it

would have found itself just in time to intercept Soult’s vanguard

after it had passed the Ponte Nova. Apparently the same wild weather

and constant rain which had delayed Beresford’s column had checked

his subordinate. At any rate it is certain that Silveira, though he

had a shorter route than his chief, only got to Ruivaens late on

the seventeenth, while the other column had reached Chaves more than

twelve hours earlier.

The French had disappeared, and it was only next morning that

Silveira followed them up on the Montalegre road. He captured a few

laggards by the way, but on reaching the little town found that

Soult’s rearguard had quitted it two hours before his arrival[445].

By Wellesley’s orders he pushed on for one day more in pursuit, but

found that the enemy was now so far ahead that he could do no more

than pick up moribund stragglers. On the nineteenth, therefore, he

turned back and retraced his steps to Montalegre[446].

[445] The French rearguard actually saw Silveira arriving.

Naylies, p. 90.

[446] For this part of the pursuit see the diary of Hawker

[of the 14th Light Dragoons], who returned to Montalegre with

Silveira’s men.

Much the same fortune had befallen Beresford’s column. By Wellesley’s

orders Tilson’s brigade and their Portuguese companions marched from

Chaves by Monterey on the eighteenth, on the chance that Soult, after

passing the Serra de Gerez, might drop into the Monterey-Orense

road. But the Marshal had not taken this route: he had kept to

by-paths, and marched by Porquera and Allariz, to the left of the

line on which Beresford’s pursuit was directed. At Ginzo the cavalry

of the pursuing column picked up fifty stragglers, and came into

contact with a small party of Franceschi’s _chasseurs_, which Soult

had thrown out to cover his flank. Learning from the peasantry that

the French had gone off by a different route, Beresford halted and

returned to Chaves. His men were so thoroughly worn out, and the

strength of the column was so much reduced, that he could have done

little more even if he had come upon the main body of the enemy[447].

[447] These details are mainly from the letter of Gough of the

87th, which I have already had occasion to quote, when dealing

with Beresford’s movements. I cannot find any corroboration for

Napier’s account of Beresford’s and Silveira’s pursuit in ii. pp.

112-3 of his history.

[Illustration: NORTHERN PORTUGAL

TO ILLUSTRATE MARSHAL SOULT’S CAMPAIGN

OF MARCH TO MAY 1809]

On May 19 Soult’s dilapidated and starving host poured into Orense,

where they could at last take a day’s rest and obtain a decent meal.

The Marshal caused the troops to be numbered, and found that he had

brought back 19,713 men. As he had started from the Spanish frontier

with 22,000 sabres and bayonets, and had received 3,500 more from

Tuy, when Lamartinière’s column joined him, it would appear that he

had left in all some 5,700 men behind him. Of these, according to the

French accounts[448], about 1,000 had fallen in the early fighting,

or died of sickness, before Wellesley’s appearance on the Vouga.

About 700, mostly convalescents, had been captured at Chaves by

Silveira[449]. After the storm of Oporto the British army found 1,500

sick in the hospitals of that city, of Braga and of Viana[450]. They

also took some 400 unwounded prisoners at Oporto and at Grijon[451].

It results therefore that the losses of the actual retreat from

Baltar to Orense, between the thirteenth and the nineteenth of May,

must have been rather more than 2,000 men. But all these had been

able-bodied fighting-men--the sick, as we have seen, were abandoned

before the break-neck march over the mountains began: adding them and

the prisoners of the eleventh-twelfth, to the actual casualties of

the retreat, on the same principle which we used when calculating the

losses of Moore’s army in the Corunna campaign, we should get a total

of 4,000 for the deficiency in the French ranks during the nine days

which elapsed between Wellesley’s passage of the Vouga and Soult’s

arrival at Orense. Thus it would seem that about one-sixth of the

2nd Corps had been destroyed in that short time--a proportion almost

exactly corresponding to that which Moore’s force left behind it in

the retreat from Sahagun to Corunna, wherein 6,000 men out of 33,000

were lost.

[448] See mainly Le Noble’s calculation on pp. 353-4 of his

_Campagne de 1809_.

[449] The rest of Silveira’s prisoners were Hispano-Portuguese

‘legionaries,’ see p. 266.

[450] Napier (ii. 113) says, ‘1,800 at Viana and Braga, 700 at

Oporto,’ figures that should be reversed, for at the two last

places only the sick of Heudelet’s and Lorges’ divisions were

captured, while at Oporto the main central hospital fell into the

hands of the British. Le Noble says that there were 2,150 men in

hospital altogether on May 10.

[451] See p. 341.

In other respects these two famous retreats afford some interesting

points of comparison. Moore had an infinitely longer distance to

cover: in mere mileage his men marched more than twice as far as

Soult’s[452]: their journey occupied twenty days as against nine. On

the other hand the French had to use far worse roads. From Benavente

to Corunna there is a good _chaussée_ for the whole distance:

from Baltar to Orense the 2nd Corps had to follow impracticable

mule-tracks for more than half the way. As to the weather, there

was perhaps little to choose between the two retreats: the nine

days of perpetual rain, during which Soult effected his passage of

four successive mountain chains, was almost as trying as the cold

and snow through which the British had to trudge. Moore’s men were

not so hardly pressed by starvation as the 2nd Corps, and they were

moving through a country-side which was not actively hostile, if it

could scarcely be described as friendly. On the other hand they were

pursued with far greater vigour than the French: their rearguard

was beset every day, and had constantly to be fighting, while

Soult’s troops were hard pressed only on two days--the sixteenth and

seventeenth of May. This advantage the Marshal gained by choosing an

unexpected line of retreat over obscure by-paths: if he had taken

either of the high-roads by Braga and Chaves his fate would have been

very different. On this same choice of roads depends another contrast

between the two retreats: to gain speed and safety Soult sacrificed

the whole of his artillery and his transport. When he arrived at

Orense, as one of his officers wrote, ‘the infantry had brought

off their bayonets and their eagles, the cavalry their horses and

saddles--everything else had been left behind--the guns, the stores,

the treasure, the sick.’ Moore, in spite of all the miseries of his

march, carried down to Corunna the whole of his artillery, part of

his transport, and the greater number of his sick and wounded. If

he lost his military chest, it was not from necessity but from the

mismanagement of the subordinates who had charge of it. His army was

in condition to fight a successful battle at the end of its retreat,

and so to win for itself a safe and honourable departure.

[452] The respective distances seem to be about 255 and 120 miles.

Both generals, it will be observed, were driven into danger by causes

for which they did not regard themselves as responsible. Soult was

placed in peril by attempting to carry out his master’s impracticable

orders. Moore thought himself bound to run the risk, because he had

realized that there was a political necessity that the English army

should do something for the cause of Spain, for it could not with

honour retire to Portugal before it had struck a blow. In their

management of their respective campaigns both made mistakes. Moore

hurried his men too much, and did not take full advantage of the many

positions in which he could have held off the pursuer by judicious

rearguard actions. Soult’s faults were even greater: nothing can

excuse his stay at Oporto during the days when he should have been

directing Loison’s movements at Amarante. That stay was undoubtedly

due to his vain intrigues with the Portuguese malcontents; it was

personal ambition, not any military necessity, which detained him

from his proper place. Still more worthy of blame was his disposition

of his forces at the moment when the British troops crossed the

Vouga: they were scattered in a dangerous fashion, which made

concentration difficult and uncertain. But the weakest feature of his

whole conduct was that he allowed himself to be surprised in Oporto

by Wellesley on May 12. When an army in close touch with the enemy is

taken unawares at broad midday, by an irruption of its opponents into

the middle of the cantonments, the general-in-chief cannot shift the

blame on to the shoulders of subordinates. It was Soult’s duty to see

that his officers were taking all reasonable precautions to watch the

British, and he most certainly did not do so. Indeed, we have seen

that he turned all his attention to the point of least danger--the

lower reaches of the Douro--and neglected that on which the British

attack was really delivered. It was only when he found himself on

the verge of utter ruin, on May 13, that he rose to the occasion,

and saved his army, by the daring march upon Guimaraens which foiled

Wellesley’s plans for intercepting his retreat. To state that ‘his

reputation as a general was nowise diminished by his Portuguese

campaign’ is to do him more than justice[453]. It would be more true

to assert that he showed that if he could commit faults, he could

also do much towards repairing their consequences.

[453] Napier, ii. 113.

As to Wellesley, it is not too much to say that the Oporto campaign

is one of his strongest titles to fame. He had, as we have already

seen, only 16,400 British and 11,400 Portuguese troops[454], of

whom the latter were either untried in the field or demoralized by

their previous experiences beyond the Douro. His superiority in mere

numbers to Soult’s corps of 23,000 men was therefore small, and he

was lamentably destitute of cavalry and artillery. It was no small

feat to expel the enemy from Northern Portugal in nine days, and to

cast him into Galicia, stripped of his guns and baggage, and with a

gap of more than 4,000 men in his ranks. This had been accomplished

at the expense of no more than 500 casualties, even when the soldiers

who fell by the way from sickness and fatigue are added to the 300

killed and wounded of the engagements of May 11, 12, and 17. There is

hardly a campaign in history in which so much was accomplished at so

small a cost. Wellesley had exactly carried out the programme which

he had set before himself when he left Lisbon--the defeat of the

enemy and the deliverance of the two provinces beyond the Douro. He

had expressly disclaimed any intention or expectation of destroying

or capturing the 2nd Corps[455], which some foreign critics have

ascribed to him in their anxiety to make out that he failed to

execute the whole project that he had taken in hand.

[454] See p. 321.

[455] ‘In respect to Soult, I shall omit nothing that I can do

to destroy him--but I am afraid that with the force I have at my

disposal, it is not in my power to prevent him retreating into

Spain.’ Wellesley to Frere, May 9, 1809.

There was, it is true, one short moment at which he had it in his

power to deal Soult a heavier blow than he had contemplated. On the

night of May 12-13, when the Marshal in his bivouac at Baltar learnt

of Loison’s evacuation of Amarante, the main body of the 2nd Corps

was in a deplorable situation, and must have been destroyed, had

the British been close at hand. If Wellesley had pursued the flying

foe, on the afternoon of the victory of Oporto, with all his cavalry

and the less fatigued regiments of his infantry, nothing could have

saved the French. But the opportunity was one which could not have

been foreseen: no rational officer could have guessed that Loison

would evacuate Amarante, and so surrender his chief’s best line

of retreat. It was impossible that Wellesley should dream of such

a chance being thrown into his hands. He constructed his plans on

the natural hypothesis that Soult had still open to him the route

across the Tamega; and he was therefore more concerned with the idea

that Beresford might be in danger from the approach of Soult, than

with that of taking measures to capture the Marshal. His men were

fatigued with the long march of eighty miles in four days which had

taken them from the Mondego to Oporto: his guns and stores had not

yet passed the bridgeless Douro. It was natural, therefore, that he

should allow himself and his army a night’s rest before pressing on

in pursuit of Soult. It will be remembered that he did push Murray’s

brigade along the Baltar road in the tracks of the Marshal, but that

officer never came up with the French. If blame has to be allotted to

any one for the failure to discover the unhappy situation of the 2nd

Corps upon the morning of the thirteenth, it would seem that Murray

must bear the burden rather than the Commander-in-chief. He should

have kept touch, at all costs, with the retreating French, and if

he had done so would have been able to give Wellesley news of their

desperate plight.

As to the pursuit of Soult, between the fourteenth and the

eighteenth, it is hard to see that more could have been done than

was actually accomplished. ‘It is obvious,’ as Wellesley wrote to

Castlereagh, ‘that if an army throws away all its cannon, equipment,

and baggage, and everything that can strengthen it and enable it

to act together as a body; and if it abandons all those who are

entitled to its protection, but add to its weight and impede its

progress[456], it must be able to march by roads on which it can

not be followed, with any prospect of being overtaken, by an army

which has not made the same sacrifices[457].’ This puts the case in

a nutshell: Soult, after he had abandoned his sick and destroyed

his guns and wagons, could go much faster than his pursuers. The

only chance of catching him was that Beresford or Silveira might be

able to intercept him at the Misarella on the seventeenth. But the

troops of the former were so exhausted by their long march in the

rain from Amarante, that although they reached Chaves on the night

of the sixteenth-seventeenth, they were not in a condition to march

eighteen miles further on the following morning. Whether Silveira,

who had taken a shorter but a more rugged route than Beresford,

might not have reached Ruivaens ten or twelve hours earlier than

he did is another matter. Had he done so, he might have held the

cross-roads and blocked the way to Montalegre. We have no details of

his march, though we know that he had a bad mountain-path to traverse

in abominable weather. All military critics have joined in condemning

him[458], but without a more accurate knowledge of the obstacles that

he had to cross, and of the state of his troops, we can not be sure

of the exact amount of blame that should fall upon him. It is at any

rate clear that Wellesley was not responsible for the late arrival of

the Portuguese division at Ruivaens and the consequent escape of the

enemy.

[456] From Montalegre, May 18, 1809.

[457] i.e. its sick and wounded.

[458] Napier, Arteche, and Schepeler all agree in this, the

former only making the excuse that Silveira may not have fully

understood Beresford’s orders, owing to the difficulty of

language. But Beresford spoke and wrote Portuguese fluently.

[Erratum from p. xii: A dispatch of Beresford at Lisbon clears up my

doubts as to Silveira’s culpability. Beresford complains that the

latter lost a whole day by marching from Amarante to Villa Pouca

without orders; the dispatch directing him to take the path by Mondim

thus reached him only when he had gone many miles on the wrong road.

The time lost could never be made up.]

Beyond Montalegre it would have been useless to follow the flying

French. An advance into Galicia would have taken the British army

too far from Lisbon, and have rendered it impossible to return in

time to the Tagus if Victor should be on the move. That marshal, as

we shall see, was showing signs of stirring from his long spell of

torpidity, and it was a dispatch from Mackenzie, containing the news

that the 1st Corps was on the move, that made Wellesley specially

anxious to check the pursuit, and to draw back to Central Portugal

before matters should come to a head in Estremadura. He could safely

calculate that it would be months rather than weeks before Soult

would be in a condition to cause any trouble on the northern frontier.

N.B.--There are admirable accounts of the horrors of Soult’s retreat

in the works of Le Noble, St. Chamans, Fantin des Odoards, and

Naylies. The pursuit of the main body of the English army is well

described by four eye-witnesses--Lord Londonderry, Stothert, Hawker,

and Lord Munster. For the march of Beresford’s corps I have only the

details given by Lord Gough’s letter, cited heretofore.

SECTION XV

OPERATIONS IN NORTHERN SPAIN (MARCH-JUNE 1809)

CHAPTER I

NEY AND LA ROMANA IN GALICIA AND THE ASTURIAS

While following the fortunes of Soult and the 2nd Corps in Northern

Portugal, we have been constrained to withdraw our attention from

Galicia, where we left Marshal Ney busied in a vain attempt to beat

down the insurrections which had sprung up in every corner of the

kingdom, at the moment when the melting of the snows gave notice

that spring was at hand. It was with no good will that the Duke of

Elchingen had seen his colleague depart from Orense and plunge into

the Portuguese mountains. Indeed he had done his best to induce

Soult to disregard the Emperor’s orders, and to join him in a

strenuous effort to pacify Galicia before embarking on the march to

Oporto[459]. When he found that his appeal had failed to influence

the Duke of Dalmatia, and that the 2nd Corps had passed out of sight

and left the whole of Galicia upon his hands, he was constrained to

take stock of his position and to think out a plan of campaign.

[459] See p. 192.

Ney had at his disposal some 17,000 men, consisting of the

twenty-four infantry battalions of his own corps, which formed the

two divisions of Marchand and Maurice Mathieu, of the two regiments

of his corps-cavalry, and of Fournier’s brigade of Lorges’ dragoons,

which Soult, by the Emperor’s orders, had transferred to him before

crossing the Minho. Among his resources it would not be fair to count

the two garrisons at Vigo and Tuy which the 2nd Corps had left

behind it. They numbered more than 4,000 men, but were so placed as

to be more of a charge than a help to Ney. They failed to keep him in

touch with Soult, and their necessities distracted some of his troops

to their aid when he was requiring every man for other purposes.

On March 10, when he was left to his own resources, Ney had

concentrated the greater part of his corps in the north-western

corner of Galicia. He had placed one brigade at Lugo, a second with

Fournier’s dragoons at Mondonedo, in observation of the Asturias,

a third at Santiago, the remainder at Corunna and Ferrol. The

outlying posts had been called in, save a garrison at Villafranca,

the important half-way stage between Lugo and Astorga, where the

Marshal had left a battalion of the 26th regiment, to keep open his

communication with the plains of Leon. The insurgents were already so

active that touch with this detachment was soon lost, the peasants

having cut the road both east and west of Villafranca.

The whole month of March was spent in a ceaseless endeavour to keep

down the rising in Northern Galicia: the southern parts of the

kingdom had been practically abandoned, and the French had no hold

there save through the garrisons of Tuy and Vigo, both of which (as

we have seen in an earlier chapter) were blockaded by the local

levies the moment that Soult had passed on into Portugal.

Ney’s object was to crush and cow the insurgents of Northern Galicia

by the constant movement of flying columns, which marched out from

the towns when his brigades were established, and made descents on

every district where the peasantry had assembled in strength. This

policy had little success: it was easy to rout the Galicians and to

burn their villages, but the moment that the column had passed on

the enemy returned to occupy his old positions. The campaign was

endless and inconclusive: it was of little use to kill so many scores

or hundreds of peasants, if no attempt was made to hold down the

districts through which the expedition had passed. This could not

be done for sheer want of numbers: 16,000 men were not sufficient

to garrison the whole of the mountain valleys and coast villages of

this rugged land. The French columns went far afield, even as far

as Corcubion on the headland of Cape Finisterre, and Ribadeo on the

borders of Asturias: but though they scathed the whole region with

fire and sword, they made no impression. Moreover, they suffered

serious losses: every expedition lost a certain number of stragglers

cut off by the peasantry, and of foragers who had wandered too far

from the main body in search of food. All were murdered: for the

populace, mad at the burning of their homes and the lifting of their

cattle--their only wealth--never gave quarter to the unfortunate

soldiers who fell into their hands.

It is curious and interesting to compare Ney’s actual operations

with the orders which the Emperor had sent to him[460]. In these he

was directed to establish his head quarters at Lugo, and to leave no

more than a regiment at Ferrol and another regiment at Betanzos and

Corunna. He was to keep a movable column of three battalions at work

between Santiago and Tuy, to ‘make examples’ and prevent the English

from landing munitions for the insurgents. With the rest of his

corps, five regiments of infantry and a brigade of cavalry, he was

to establish himself at Lugo, and from thence to send out punitive

expeditions against rebellious villages, to seize hostages, to lend

aid if necessary to Soult’s operations in Portugal, and finally ‘to

utilize the months of March and April, when there is nothing to fear

on the Galician coasts, for an expedition to conquer the Asturias.’

Here we have all Napoleon’s illusions concerning the character of the

Peninsular War very clearly displayed. He supposes that a movable

column of one regiment can hold down a rugged coast region one

hundred miles long, where 20,000 insurgents are in arms. He thinks

that punitive expeditions, and the taking of hostages, will keep a

province quiet without there being any need to establish garrisons

in it. ‘Organize Galicia,’ he writes, ‘make examples, for severe

examples well applied are much more effective than garrisons....

Leave the policing of the country to the Spanish authorities. If you

cannot occupy every place, you can watch every place: if you cannot

hold every shore-battery to prevent communication with the English,

you can charge the natives with this duty. Your movable columns will

punish any of the people of the coast who behave badly.’

[460] Napoleon to Ney, from Paris, Feb. 18, 1809.

To Ney, when he received this dispatch, many weeks after it had been

written, all this elaborate advice must have appeared very futile.

Considering the present attitude of the whole population of Galicia,

he must have been much amused at the proposal that he should entrust

them with the task of keeping off the British, should ‘organize’

them, and ‘make them police themselves.’ As to ‘severe examples’ he

had now been burning villages and shooting monks and alcaldes for two

months and more: but the only result was that the insurrection flared

up more fiercely, and that his own stragglers and foragers were being

hung and tortured every day. As to the idea of movable columns, he

had (on his own inspiration) sent Maucune to carry out precisely the

operations that the Emperor desired in the country between Santiago

and Tuy. The column had to fight every day, and held down not one

foot of territory beyond the outskirts of its own camp. And now, in

the midst of all his troubles, he was ordered to attempt the conquest

of the Asturias, no small undertaking in itself. The Emperor’s letter

ended with the disquieting note that ‘no further reinforcements can

be sent to Galicia. It is much more likely that it may be necessary

to transfer to some other point one of the two divisions of the Sixth

Corps[461].’

[461] ‘Ne comptez sur aucun renfort: croyez plutôt qu’on pourrait

être dans le cas de porter ailleurs une de vos divisions.’

We have hitherto had little occasion to mention the two Spanish

regular armies on which Ney, in addition to all his troubles with

the insurgents, had to keep a watchful eye. The first was the force

in the principality of Asturias, which had been lost to sight since

the day on which it fled homeward after the battle of Espinosa. The

second consisted of the much-tried troops of La Romana, who since

their escape from Monterey had enjoyed some weeks of comparative

rest, and were once more ready to move.

The Asturian force was far the larger in point of numbers, and ought

to have made its influence felt long ere now. But even more than

the other Spaniards, the Asturians were given over to particularism

and provincial selfishness. In 1808 they had done nothing for

the common cause save that they had lent the single division of

Acevedo--comprising about half their provincial levy[462]--to

the army which Blake led to defeat in Biscay. After Espinosa this

corps had not retired with La Romana to Leon, but had fallen back

within the frontier of its native principality, and had joined the

large reserve which had never gone forward from Oviedo. During the

three winter months, the Asturians had contented themselves with

reorganizing and increasing the numbers of their battalions, and with

guarding the passes of the Cantabrian chain. They had refused to send

either men or money to La Romana, thereby provoking his righteous

indignation, and furnishing him with a grudge which he repaid in due

season. When he was driven away from their neighbourhood, and forced

to retire towards Portugal, they still kept quiet behind their hills,

and made but the weakest of attempts to distract the attention of the

enemy. There were at first no French forces near them save Bonnet’s

single division at Santander, which was fully occupied in holding

down the Montaña, and a provisional brigade at Leon consisting of

some stray battalions of the dissolved Eighth Corps[463]. As neither

of these forces had any considerable reserves behind them[464], when

once Ney and Soult had passed on into Galicia, it is clear that a

demonstration in force against Santander or Leon would have thrown

dismay along the whole line of the French communications, and have

disarranged all the Emperor’s plans for further advance.

[462] Acevedo’s division, deducting the regular troops [Hibernia

(two batts.), and Provincial of Oviedo], had some 6,000 men:

while 5,200 remained behind in Asturias. See pp. 632 and 637 of

vol. i.

[463] Apparently consisting in February of three battalions and a

Spanish Legion which Napoleon had organized out of the prisoners

of Blake’s and La Romana’s armies: 2,998 men in all. The

Legion waited till it had received arms and clothing, and then

deserted _en masse_ and went to join the insurgents. For angry

correspondence on this incident see Napoleon to King Joseph, Feb.

20, and King Joseph to Napoleon, March 7, 1809.

[464] The total of French troops in Old Castile, garrisoning

Valladolid, Soria, Palencia, and Burgos, &c., was only 5,342 men.

Nothing was disposable for field operations save Kellermann’s

division of dragoons. In Biscay, behind Bonnet, there were only

1,762 men, and in Alava 876. Practically nothing could have been

sent to reinforce Leon or Santander, till Mortier’s corps came up.

The only operation, however, which the Asturians undertook was a

petty raid into Galicia with 3,000 or 4,000 men, who went to beat

up Ney’s detachment at Mondonedo on April 10, and were driven off

with ease[465]. The Junta had fully 20,000 men under arms, but they

contrived to be weak at every point by trying to guard every point.

They had sent, to observe Bonnet, the largest body of their troops,

nearly 10,000 men, under General Ballasteros: he had taken up the

line of the Deba, and lay with his head quarters at Colombres,

skirmishing occasionally with the French outposts. At the pass of

Pajares, watching the main road that descends into the plain of

Leon, were 3,000 men, and 2,000 more at La Mesa guarded a minor

defile. Another division of 4,000 bayonets was at Castropol, facing

Ney’s detachment which had occupied Mondonedo: this was the column

which had made the feeble advance in April to which we have already

alluded. Finally, a Swiss Lieutenant-General named Worster lay at

Oviedo, the capital of the principality, with a small reserve of

2,000 men[466]. It does not seem that Cienfuegos, the Captain-General

of Asturias, exercised any real authority, as the Junta took upon

itself the settling of every detail of military affairs[467]. Thus

a whole army was wasted by being distributed all along the narrow

province, awaiting an attack from an enemy who was far too weak to

dream of advancing, and who, as a matter of fact, did not move till

May. La Romana might well be indignant that the Asturians had done

practically nothing for the cause of Spain from December to March,

especially since they had obtained more than their share of the

British arms and money[468] which had been distributed in the autumn

of 1808.

[465] For this fiasco see Toreno, i. pp. 400-1.

[466] These dispositions of the Asturian army, which have never

before been published, are taken from a dispatch from the Junta

at Oviedo, which Mr. Frere sent to Lord Castlereagh on March 24

[Record Office]. The regiments were:--

At Colombres, under Maj.-General F. Ballasteros:

Luanco, Castropol, Navia, Luarca, Villaviciosa, Llanes, Cangas

de Oñis, Cangas de Tineo, Don Carlos.

At Pajares and Farna, under Brigadier Don Christoval Lili:

Siero, Provincial of Oviedo, Covadonga.

At La Mesa, under Brigadier Don F. Manglano:

Riva de Sella, Pravia.

At Castropol, under Colonel T. Valdez:

Lena, Grado, Salas, Ferdinando VII.

At Oviedo, under Lieut.-General Worster:

Gijon, Infiesto.

The Junta report that they have over 20,000 men, the regiments

being very strong, some of them reaching 1,200 bayonets, or even

more.

[467] Carrol to La Romana, March 28, ‘The Junta, in fact, command

the armies in every respect. They have absolute power, and

have rendered themselves highly obnoxious to the people of the

province, and are at present entirely guided by the will and

caprice of three or four individuals...’

[468] Such also was the opinion of Captain Carrol, the British

representative at Oviedo. He writes to Castlereagh on Feb. 10 in

the following terms: ‘I am sorry to have to represent that the

supplies hitherto granted to this province have not been applied

(to use the mildest expressions) with that judgment and economy

that might have been expected, and that the benefits resulting to

this province and the common cause are by no means proportionate

to the liberality with which those supplies were granted by the

British Government’ [Record Office]. Toreno, as a patriotic

Asturian, hushes up all these scandals.

Ney’s new troubles in April did not spring from the activity of the

Asturian troops, but from that of the much-battered army of Galicia,

which was destined in this month to achieve the first success that

had cheered its depleted ranks since the combat of Guenes. When

La Romana, on March 8, had found himself free from the pursuit of

Franceschi’s cavalry, he had marched by leisurely stages to Puebla de

Senabria on the borders of Leon. He doubted for a moment whether he

should not turn southward and drop down, along the edge of Portugal,

to Ciudad Rodrigo, the nearest place of strength in Spanish hands.

But, after much consideration, he resolved to leave behind him the

weakest of his battalions and his numerous sick, together with his

small provision of artillery, and to strike back into Galicia with

the best of his men. It would seem that he was inspired partly by the

desire of cutting Ney’s communications, partly by the wish to get

into touch with the Asturians, whose torpidity he was determined to

stir up into action. Accordingly he left at Puebla de Senabria his

guns and about 2,000 men, the skeletons of many ruined regiments,

under General Martin La Carrera, while with the 6,000 infantry that

remained he resolved to cross the Sierra Negra and throw himself

into the upper valley of the Sil. The road by Corporales and the

sources of the Cabrera torrent proved to be abominable; if the army

had possessed cannon or baggage it could not have reached its goal.

But after several hard marches La Romana descended to Ponferrada on

March 16. He learnt that the insurrection had compelled the French to

concentrate all their small posts, and that there was no enemy nearer

than Villafranca on the one hand and Astorga on the other. Thus he

found himself able to take possession of the high-road from Astorga

to Lugo, and to make use of all the resources of the Vierzo, and

of Eastern Galicia. He might have passed on undisturbed, if he had

chosen, to join the Asturians. But learning that the French garrison

at Villafranca was completely isolated, he resolved to risk a blow at

it, in the hopes that he might reduce it before Ney could learn of

his arrival and come down from Lugo to its aid. He was ill prepared

for a siege, for he had but one gun with him--a 12-pounder which he

had abandoned in January when retreating from Ponferrada to Orense,

and which he now picked up intact, with its store of ammunition, at a

mountain hermitage, where it had been safely hidden for two months.

Marching on Villafranca next day he fell upon the French before

they had any conception that there was a hostile force in their

neighbourhood. He beat them out of the town into the citadel after a

sharp skirmish, and then surrounded them in their refuge, and began

to batter its gates with his single gun. If the garrison could have

held out for a few days they would probably have been relieved, for

Ney was but three marches distant. But the governor, regarding the

old castle as untenable against artillery, surrendered at the first

summons. Thus La Romana captured a whole battalion of the 6th Léger,

600 strong[469], together with several hundreds more of convalescents

and stragglers who had been halted at Villafranca, owing to the

impossibility of sending small detachments through the mountains[470]

when the insurgents were abroad[471].

[469] The number of unwounded prisoners was 574, that of killed

and wounded nearly 700.