to remain quiet, and check the advance of the English till Wellesley was
caught in the trap. But there was a second Spanish army apparently
threatening Madrid from the south. It might well be that before Soult's
arrival the capital would be lost, although, if Soult's plan answered,
it would be immediately regained. The King could not bring himself to
bear even the temporary loss of his capital, especially as the hospitals
and supplies for his army were there. He therefore rashly listened to
the advice of Victor, which was contrary to that of Jourdan, his proper
military adviser, and determined to attack the English. The position of
Talavera is about two miles in length, crossing the plain from the river
Tagus to a small range of hills which bounds the valley; beyond this
range is a second valley of about half a mile in extent, and then come
the mountains. The key of the position is the highest of the secondary
hills, and this Wellesley occupied. The Spaniards he placed behind
entrenchments in Talavera. Victor made a second error in making two
preliminary attacks upon the key hill. Though these attacks failed, he
still believed he could carry the position, and Joseph yielded to his
desire for a general engagement. This was fought on the 28th of July.
The advance of the French light dragoons so frightened the Spaniards
that many regiments at once turned and fled, carrying the news down the
valley that the English army was destroyed. Such as remained in their
strong position proved sufficient to hold it, and were not seriously
molested. The whole brunt of the battle fell upon the English in the
centre and left wing. At one moment the centre was broken through, and
disaster might have followed had not Wellesley at once seen what was
wanted, and sent the 48th regiment down from the hill, though the
fighting there was severe, and re-established the battle in the centre.
An extraordinary and reckless charge of the 23rd light dragoons across
an apparently impassable ravine, though carried out with the loss of
almost half their number, had the effect of paralyzing a whole division
of the French army, which was attempting to turn the English left by the
valley between the hills and the mountains. When the evening closed the
French had been defeated at all points, and the English remained masters
of their position.
But by that time Soult had come almost unopposed through the mountains
from Salamanca to Placentia and the direct road to Portugal was closed.
All hopes of rendering the victory useful were therefore gone, and
Wellesley was compelled to cross to the south of the Tagus, and take
refuge among the mountains. After considerable loss and much suffering
from the abominable usage he endured from the hands of the Spaniards, he
came to a fixed determination that he would never again act in concert
with them, that henceforward his first duty lay in saving Portugal, from
which, if events favoured him, he might ultimately advance with an
English and Portuguese army, and do for the Spaniards what they were
totally unable to do for themselves.
[Sidenote: Effect of the victory in England.]
The victory of Talavera was a great one, and the English ministry
recognized it as such by raising Wellesley to the Peerage as Viscount
Wellington. Nevertheless it was open to the cavils of the Opposition,
for it could be truly urged that it had not produced any permanent
advantage, and had been followed by a somewhat disastrous retreat. In
Parliament some Opposition speakers even went so far as to urge that the
name of the commander should be omitted from the vote of thanks to be
given to the army. But it was in fact the weak war administration in
England which rendered it useless. Our resources had been wasted in the
pompous and ridiculous Walcheren expedition, and in a second expedition,
almost as useless, which was despatched to Italy, where it was unable to
effect anything, and had to withdraw to Sicily.
[Sidenote: French victories. Nov. 1809.]
When Wellington withdrew from Talavera, after waiting some time on the
Guadiana, he took up his position in the more northern part of Portugal,
near Almeida, preparing for the defence of the country. During his
inactivity there the advance of the French was nearly unchecked. They
marched into Aragon and Catalonia, and defeated an army of 50,000
Spaniards at Ocana (Nov. 20), thus throwing open the province of La
Mancha, and obtaining an opportunity for further advance into
Andalusia. This province was also overrun, with the exception of Cadiz,
which was saved by General Albuquerque. The invasion thus formed itself
into three defined divisions; an army for the invasion of Portugal, an
army for the completion of the conquest of Andalusia, and an army in
Catalonia, while the King and his Imperial Guards formed an army in the
centre. Having thus borne down all opposition in Spain, Napoleon's
intention was to overrun Portugal in the following year. His army for
the purpose was placed under the command of Massena, while Soult was
intrusted with the operations next in importance, and directed against
Cadiz.
[Sidenote: Wellington fortifies the Lisbon promontory. 1810.]
The assault which Wellington had been long preparing to resist was now
to come. The ministers in England--in part despairing of his success, in
part unable to comprehend the greatness of his schemes--distinctly told
him that he must rely upon himself. But, with extraordinary
steadfastness and courage, he undertook the task. Ever since the October
of the preceding year he had foreseen what would happen; he had known
that in all probability his troops would be outnumbered, and that he
should be unable to make head against the vast armies which Napoleon
might set at motion against him. He had therefore designed a great
defensive scheme, so that if the worst came to the worst he might still
have some place to which to retire and avoid the necessity of evacuating
Lisbon. He had therefore turned the promontory between the Tagus and the
sea into a vast fortification. During the time of his delay on the
Guadiana, and while wintering near Almeida, thousands of Portuguese
workmen were turning the hills into impregnable fortresses. This great
work, known as the lines of Torres Vedras, was threefold. The outer
line, twenty-nine miles in length, extended from Alhandra on the Tagus
to the mouth of the little river Zizandra close to Torres Vedras. The
second, twenty-four miles in length, and which was intended originally
to be the strongest of the two, was from six to ten miles in rear of the
first, reaching from the Tagus at Quintella to the mouth of the St.
Lorenza. In addition to this, a small fortification was erected to cover
an embarkation in case the other two lines were forced. It enclosed an
entrenched camp and Fort St. Julian, and was two marches in rear of the
first line. Time had allowed Wellington so to strengthen the first line
that it subsequently proved sufficient for all purposes. The General's
great cares during the winter had been,--first, to instruct the
Portuguese authorities to insist upon the inhabitants destroying all
villages, mills, and crops in the course of the invading force when it
should appear; secondly, to get the half-trained militia of the country
over which he held command employed in such a manner as to oblige the
French to act in a mass and prevent detailed fighting; and thirdly, so
to arrange his troops that while spread abroad, for greater ease in
procuring provisions, they should yet be within easy distance for
concentration. He thus waited, fully prepared to carry out his great
scheme when Massena should think fit to strike the first blow. So
determined was he to adopt a waiting policy, that he even allowed the
great fortress of Ciudad Rodrigo, the key of that part of Spain, to be
taken before his eyes. Meanwhile he had to listen calmly to the
assertions of the Opposition in Parliament, that no British soldier
would leave the Peninsula but as a prisoner, and to see the City of
London addressing the throne to inquire into his conduct, and protesting
against conferring honours and distinctions on a general who had
exhibited nothing but useless valour.
[Sidenote: Massena advances against him. Sept. 1810.]
[Sidenote: Battle of Busaco. Sept. 29, 1810.]
[Sidenote: Massena retreats. Nov.]
Ciudad Rodrigo fell on the 11th of July. It was not till September that
the great attack began. Then Massena, with an army of 65,000 men, set
forward towards Lisbon by the valley of the Mondego, having been
informed by friendly Portuguese that the road was easy, and that there
was no important position between him and Coimbra, where he believed he
could forestall Wellington. An accident lost the English commander the
advantage that any opposition from the fortress of Almeida might have
given him. The explosion of a magazine rendered the capitulation of the
fortress necessary almost immediately. In spite of Massena's attempts to
deceive him as to the road he intended to pursue, in spite of the
distance at which some of the English troops were stationed, Wellington
contrived to collect his army and to place it between Massena and
Coimbra. Down the valley of the Mondego the march was continued. The
orders for the destruction of the property were carried out as far as
possible, and crowds of wretched fugitive peasants accompanied the army.
A panic began to spread in Portugal. The intriguing regency did not
carry out the orders for destruction with sufficient activity. There was
yet enough food left between Mondego and the lines to supply the French
during the ensuing winter. To raise the temper of the country, and to
excite the people to the voluntary destruction of their property,
Wellington was compelled (in entire opposition to his original plans) to
fight a great battle with the advancing French. He selected the ridge of
Busaco, which almost closes the valley of the Mondego, just north of
Coimbra, as his battlefield. The English and Portuguese there stood at
bay, and the French were completely defeated. The moral effect was all
that could be desired--the Portuguese troops thenceforward became
fitting comrades for the English, and the waning trust of the people was
restored; but as a military operation it effected nothing. Massena found
a pass through the hills upon his right, through which he withdrew with
his beaten forces, and Wellington, not attempting to attack him, fell
back, giving orders to the Portuguese militia to close upon the French
rear. Thus harassed in his progress, Massena arrived before the famous
lines (of the existence of which he had only heard five days before),
only to find them thoroughly occupied by the English troops. Against the
works he could do nothing; his operations were in fact reduced to a
blockade. Massena's object, therefore, was to feed his army till
reinforcements arrived, Wellington's, by closing up the Portuguese
militia behind the French army, rapidly to reduce it to starvation. The
expected reinforcements did not come, and on the 14th of November
Massena, who had lost upwards of 30,000 men since he had entered
Portugal, was obliged to draw off his army and begin a regular retreat.
He moved leisurely, hoping to strike another blow before he finally
withdrew, but when reinforcements arrived for the English he proceeded
with some haste to Almeida and Ciudad Rodrigo. The operations were
closed by the combat of Sabugal (April 3, 1811), where Massena was again
worsted, and after which he finally withdrew from Portugal.
While Massena was attacking Portugal, Soult had been vigorously
prosecuting the siege of Cadiz, and had there made dispositions which
would probably have ended in its capture, when he was ordered to assist
Massena, for the Emperor was more anxious to put an end to the regular
warfare in Portugal than to complete his conquests in Spain. Portugal is
assailable either by the northern line from Salamanca, which Massena had
already followed, a line covered by the fortress of Ciudad Rodrigo, or
by a line south of the Tagus through Estremadura and Alemtejo, which is
covered by Badajos and Elvas. In this latter direction Soult had
marched; the fruit of his operations were the victory of Gebora (Feb.
19), where the Spaniards were completely defeated, and the capture of
Badajos. The two great frontier fortresses between Spain and Portugal
were thus in the hands of France. But the departure of Soult from Cadiz
encouraged Graham, who commanded the English in that fortress, to
attempt to drive Victor, who was left in command, from his lines. A
combined force of about 12,000 men sailed from Cadiz southward,
intending to march upon the back of the French lines. Victor, marching
out to defend them, was defeated at Barosa (March 5) by the vigour and
generalship of Graham, La Peña, the Spanish commander, as usual, adding
nothing to the victory, and failing when the victory was won to put it
to any use. The battle was however so severe a threat that Soult, not
wishing to lose all the fruit of his former arrangements, withdrew from
his attack on Portugal. Yet, as both Badajos and Ciudad Rodrigo were in
the hands of the French, in the following campaign there were two scenes
of operation of which those fortresses were the centres.
[Sidenote: Wellington's great plans.]
[Sidenote: Battle of Albuera. May 16, 1811.]
[Illustration: Battle of Albuera.]
The ministry in England had at last begun to feel some confidence in
their general, but they would have been content with the successful
defence of Portugal. Not so Wellington; his mind was full of great
projects for the relief of Spain. The two points on which the French
pressure was strongest were Catalonia and Cadiz; and Wellington,
believing that Massena, although his troops had been again raised to
50,000 men, would not be in a fit state for immediate action, had it now
in his mind either to invest Almeida and Ciudad Rodrigo, betake himself
with much of his army to Badajos, unite with the English and Portuguese
troops there, and assault Soult in Andalusia; or to engage in a still
more magnificent plan,--to march his army right across Spain, taking
Madrid on the way, which would cut off the resources of Soult's army and
oblige it to withdraw, and then upon the eastern coast to enter into
communications with the English troops at that time in Sicily, and,
working from a new base of operations, to attack the French in
Catalonia. In either case the capture of Badajos was necessary, as its
possession by the French was a constant threat to the Spaniards in Cadiz
and to the southern provinces of Portugal. Wellington therefore, leaving
the blockade of Almeida in the hands of Spencer, went to Elvas to
arrange with Marshal Beresford, who commanded the troops in that
direction, for the siege of Badajos. Before his arrangements were
completed he was hastily summoned again to the north, where Massena had
unexpectedly shown signs of activity, and was moving to relieve Almeida.
Wellington was in time to check him at the hard-fought battle of Fuentes
Onoro (May 5), which was followed by the evacuation of the fortress. He
then returned to superintend the more important operation of the siege
of Badajos. But before he arrived the operations had been interrupted.
Soult had advanced to succour his late prize, and Beresford had thought
it necessary to fight a battle with him at Albuera. This battle, one of
the bloodiest ever fought, took place on the 16th of May. The English
and their allies had about 30,000 infantry and 2000 cavalry, but of
these only 7000 were English, and the Spaniards were not to be trusted.
Soult had with him only 19,000 good infantry and 4000 cavalry, but
Beresford's faulty arrangements almost neutralized the superiority in
forces. The English position was a ridge, in front of which ran the
Albuera river. In the centre were the village and bridge of Albuera,
through which ran the road to Valverde over the ridge. This road being
Beresford's only line of retreat, he regarded a hill in the centre which
defended it as the key of his position, and there put his best troops,
intrusting the right to the Spaniards under Blake. He also neglected to
place any troops across the river, and the enemy's movements were
entirely hidden by the wooded heights on that side. For a direct attack
Beresford's dispositions were correct, but upon his right a tableland
stretched so far back as to command the Valverde road and to look along
the back of the English position. Soult saw that by mastering this
height he would cut off the English from retreat, oblige them to form a
wholly new front, and in all probability destroy them. He therefore
secretly, under cover of the hills, massed his troops upon his own left,
and while a sufficiently important assault was made upon the bridge to
attract Beresford's attention, the bulk of the French army rapidly
proceeded to place itself at right angles to the English position upon
the tableland. The main point of the battle was in the struggle for the
possession of this vantage-ground. In vain Beresford entreated Blake to
change his front and cover the right. The Spanish general insisted that
the real attack was upon the village. Beresford himself took the command
of the Spanish troops, the change of front was effected, but even then
they could scarcely be induced to move. At length the English second
division moved from the centre and mounted the hill. But, brought too
recklessly into action, they suffered much. Scarcely a third of the
regiments remained standing, and Beresford was already thinking of
retreat when Colonel Hardinge induced Cole with the fourth division, and
Abercrombie with the third brigade of the second division, neither of
whom had been much engaged, to advance to the rescue. At the head of
6000 men Hardinge advanced to cover the hill. The crowded formation of
the French, who were in column, impeded their movements, and the advance
of the English was so irresistible, that at length, unable to open out,
they gave ground, and in the words of Napier, "slowly and with a horrid
carnage were pushed by the incessant vigour of the attack to the
furthest edge of the hill," and at length "the mighty mass, breaking off
like a loosened cliff, went headlong down the steep; the rain flowed in
streams discoloured with blood, and 1800 unwounded men, the remnant of
6000 unconquerable British soldiers, stood triumphant on the fatal
hill." In four hours nearly 7000 of the allies and 8000 French were
struck down. The victory was however won, and after occupying a
threatening position during the 17th, on the 18th Soult marched away.
The advantages of this bloody battle were little or none.
[Sidenote: Critical position of the French.]
Yet though the battles of Fuentes Onoro and Albuera produced little
result, although the French continued their successes in Catalonia, and
Spain seemed entirely at their disposal, their position was by no means
wholly prosperous. The broken armies of the Spanish had formed
themselves into guerilla bands, their useless generals were superseded
by daring partisan commanders, and troops wholly untrustworthy in
pitched battles proved masters of the art of wild irregular warfare. It
was only in large masses that the French were safe; yet, as Napoleon
always acted on the principle that war should support war, and allowed
only £80,000 for the maintenance of his armies in Spain, which at that
time amounted to more than 300,000 men, the dispersion of the forces
was an absolute necessity in order that food might be procured. No
courier could be despatched except under escort; letters to Paris were
guarded at first by 1400 dragoons, subsequently by 3000. Moreover,
Joseph, and the Emperor were not at one. The Spanish King did not wish
to rule only as the agent of his brother in a conquered country, and at
length the vexatious tyranny of Napoleon pressed so heavily upon him,
that he went to Paris and resigned his crown. He was induced to take it
back again, but the mere fact of his visit, coupled with Wellington's
success and the late victories, which were complete if not decisive,
raised the spirits of the patriots and increased the energy and number
of the guerillas. Moreover, affairs in Europe were beginning to take a
turn which compelled Napoleon to act with less vigour in the Peninsula.
His marriage with the Austrian archduchess was a deadly insult to the
Czar, for a princess of whose house he had previously been negotiating;
the Continental System was becoming almost unbearable, coupled as it was
with the French occupation of the northern ports of Germany; and the
addition of territory to the Duchy of Warsaw seemed to threaten a
restoration of the Polish kingdom, and to be a violation of the Treaty
of Tilsitt. The estrangement of the Czar was becoming so evident that
Napoleon's mind began to turn more and more towards an expedition
against Russia. The number of troops in Spain was lessened, and
first-rate soldiers withdrawn to give place to new conscripts.
[Sidenote: Position of Wellington.]
[Sidenote: The French refuse the battle at Caya. June, 1811.]
But, in spite of this relaxation, this year forms in the opinion of the
great historian of the war its most critical period. For Wellington was
miserably supplied from home, and sickness was rife among his troops, so
that he could not bring more than 8000 men into the field, while the
Portuguese Government, quarrelling with him, frequently refused
supplies, and so starved their own troops, that instead of 40,000
soldiers who had been available on Massena's advance, only 19,000
badly-fed men were now with the army, and against this weakened force a
new combination of the French had been arranged. The battle of Albuera
had been followed by a renewal of the siege of Badajos. Want of proper
material rendered the progress of the siege slow, and Marmont, who had
succeeded Massena in command of the army of Portugal, was ordered to
co-operate with Soult coming from the south to relieve it. Their
junction was effected and the siege was raised. To all appearance
therefore the battle of Albuera had been a French victory, and two
armies instead of one appeared to threaten Portugal by the southern
line. Wellington had brought his troops down and offered the combined
generals battle upon the Caya. But, ignorant of the weakness of the
English, and imposed upon by the confident front which Wellington with
astonishing boldness showed them, the battle, which might easily have
been decisive of the fate of the Peninsula, was refused by the French
generals, and Soult moved southward, while Marmont returned to occupy
the valley of the Tagus.
This critical year of 1811 was a bitter disappointment to Wellington. He
had hoped that his period of inactivity was over, that the defensive
might have been changed to an offensive warfare. The blunders of his
subordinates, the wretched jealousies of the Portuguese regency, and the
poor support he received from home, had rendered his efforts futile. He
still found himself when the year closed obliged to be contented with
preserving his defensive attitude in Portugal. It was even worse than
this. The French had succeeded in completing the conquest of the east of
Spain, and the army of Suchet had advanced as far as Valencia; while in
the north Asturias and Galicia had again fallen into their hands. Some
gleam of success had indeed been visible in the south, where Hill had
checked Drouet in Estremadura, and where Soult had been beaten off in
his attack upon the little fortress of Tarifa. But the reorganization of
the French army (especially of the great army of the centre), and the
threatened reappearance of Napoleon upon the scene, rendered the close
of the year one of gloom and despair.
[Sidenote: Threatened war between France and Russia.]