situated, however, opposite the junction of the River Almonte
with the Tagus, about eighteen miles above Alcantara, near the
ancient ruined bridge of Mantible.
Soult had now thrown upon his hands, to his immense disgust, the
task of containing the whole of La Romana’s force, which Reynier had
been keeping in check from March till July. Accordingly he called
back from the Sierra de Ronda the division of Girard, wishing to
reunite the whole 5th Corps for the protection of the northern
approaches to Seville. He was only just in time, for La Romana had
seen his opportunity, and had resolved to concentrate his army for
a demonstration against Andalusia, which seemed to offer great
temptations while nothing but the solitary division of Gazan stood
between him and Seville, and that division, moreover, was weakened by
the detachments under Remond and Aremberg which lay in the Condado de
Niebla. Accordingly the Marquis, leaving Charles O’Donnell to watch
Reynier on the Tagus, and another division to guard Badajoz, marched
with his cavalry and the infantry of La Carrera[381] and Ballasteros
to invade Andalusia. He also told Copons to come up to reinforce him
with his levies from the lower Guadiana. Even without the help of the
latter, who never succeeded in reaching him, he had 10,000 foot and
1,000 horse. But La Romana was always unlucky when he fought: just
as he started, Girard had returned from Ronda to Seville. On hearing
that the Army of Estremadura was on the move, Soult pushed the newly
returned division, strengthened by part of Gazan’s regiments and a
brigade of cavalry, out towards the passes of the Morena. On August
11, Girard, with about 7,000 bayonets and 1,200 sabres, encountered
La Romana at Villagarcia, just outside the town of Llerena. The
Spaniards were eager to fight, believing that they had only to deal
with some fraction of Gazan’s division; the news of Girard’s return
from Ronda had not yet reached them. They got involved in a severe
combat, were beaten, and were forced back to Zafra and Almendralejo,
with a loss of 600 men--triple that of the French.
[381] Which had just rejoined him from the north, after the fall
of Ciudad Rodrigo. See p. 253.
Soult then strengthened Girard’s column, placed Mortier in command,
and bade him push for Badajoz. But just as the Duke of Treviso was
preparing to advance, the news of Lacy’s disembarkation at Moguer
arrived. There were hardly any troops left in Seville, wherefore
Soult hastily recalled from Mortier such of Gazan’s regiments as
were with him, and nearly all the cavalry, and sent them off against
Lacy. Girard’s division retired from Zafra and took up a defensive
position in the passes covering Seville. Thus a dangerous crisis was
avoided, for if the whole 5th Corps had marched on Badajoz in August,
and had driven back La Romana into Portugal, Wellington’s flank in
the Alemtejo would have been left exposed. There was no longer a
British division south of the Tagus to support the Spanish Army of
Estremadura, since Hill had transferred himself to Castello Branco
in order to ‘contain’ Reynier. Of regular troops, indeed, Wellington
had nothing left on the Alemtejo frontier save Madden’s brigade of
Portuguese horse, and the two infantry regiments of the same nation,
who formed part of the garrison of Elvas. Hence he was much troubled
at La Romana’s tendency to take the offensive against Seville, and
repeatedly begged him to content himself with defensive operations,
and not to attract the notice of Soult. For the Duke of Dalmatia, if
left alone, had enough to occupy his attention in Andalusia, yet, if
provoked, might abandon some outlying part of his viceroyalty, in
order to concentrate a force which might crush the Estremaduran army,
and then execute that diversion against Portugal south of the Tagus
which Wellington so much dreaded[382].
[382] See Wellington, _Dispatches_, vi. p. 343. ‘I am a little
anxious about Mortier’s movement into Estremadura, not on account
of the progress he can make, but because I think that the Marquis
de la Romana is inclined to fight a battle. If we could only
avoid a disaster for some time, I hope we may do some good at
last.’ Cf. also vi. pp. 348 and 393.
Yet despite the warning that he had received at the combat of
Villagarcia, and, despite of his ally’s entreaties, La Romana
renewed in September the project that had cost him so dear in
August. Learning that the passes in front of Seville were once more
weakly held by the French, he began to move his army southward in
detachments, till he had gathered a heavy force at Guadalcanal and
Monasterio. Attributing his misfortunes in the last month to the
weakness of his cavalry, he brought down with him Madden’s Portuguese
horsemen, a weak brigade of 800 men[383], which Wellington had put
at his disposition, not foreseeing that its existence would add to
the inclination which the Marquis felt for offensive demonstrations.
The inevitable result followed. Disquieted by the activity of the
Estremaduran army--its raiding parties had already pressed as far
as Santa Olalla on the Seville road, and Constantina on the Cordova
road--Soult ordered Mortier to concentrate the main body of the 5th
Corps at Ronquillo, and to attack the enemy. La Romana gave back
at once, evacuating the passes, but his rearguard was overtaken at
Fuente Cantos, behind Monasterio, by the French horse (Sept. 15). His
cavalry, under La Carrera[384], turned to bay to cover the retreat,
but was charged and scattered with heavy loss by Briche’s Chasseurs,
who captured the battery that accompanied it, and enveloped a large
mass of the beaten horsemen, who would have been forced to surrender
if Madden’s Portuguese, charging at the right moment, and with great
vigour, had not checked the French advance, and given time for the
routed brigades to save themselves in the hills. Madden, though
pursued by the French reserves, made a steady and successful retreat,
with small loss. The Spaniards, however, left behind them six guns
and 500 killed and wounded, while the French loss had not exceeded
100.
[383] The brigade consisted of three squadrons each of the 5th
and 8th regiments, and two of the 3rd. Beresford’s report to
Wellington speaks of their behaviour in the highest terms. See
Soriano da Luz, vol. iii. pp. 66-7.
[384] Dissatisfied with all his cavalry officers, La Romana had
removed La Carrera to the command of the horse, making over his
old infantry division to Carlos d’España.
Mortier then pursued La Romana to Zafra, and pushed his advanced
cavalry as far as Fuente del Maestre, only thirty miles from Badajoz.
Thus the situation which Wellington most dreaded had come into
existence once again: a considerable French army was moving into
central Estremadura, and threatening the Alemtejo frontier south of
the Tagus, at a moment when every man of the Anglo-Portuguese field
army was fully employed in Beira by the advance of Masséna. But
again, as in August, Mortier did not push his advantage, though La
Romana actually retired behind the Tagus to Montijo, after raising
the garrison of Badajoz to its full strength, and left the Duke
of Treviso the opportunity of laying siege either to that city,
to Olivenza, or even to Elvas, if he should so please. But the
governing fact in all the operations of Soult and his lieutenants at
this period was, as we have already pointed out, that if any great
concentration of the French for offensive purposes took place, it
was only made by withdrawing the garrison troops from some one of
the many disturbed regions of Andalusia. When the whole 5th Corps
was united, and had advanced to Zafra, Western Andalusia was almost
stripped of troops. Indeed, at Seville itself, Soult had nothing
but his new Spanish levies, and the convalescents from his central
hospital, together with some detachments escorting convoys which
happened to be passing through the city, and had been detained in
order to add a few hundred bayonets to its garrison. When, therefore,
Copons began to make himself felt once more in the Condado de Niebla,
and a second raiding expedition from Cadiz landed at Huelva, Soult
felt very uncomfortable.
His perturbation of mind was increased by news from the East:
Sebastiani at this moment had been molested by demonstrations of
the Spanish Army of Murcia against his flank. Blake had returned in
August from Cadiz to inspect the section of his forces which he had
left behind under Freire, and which he had not seen since April. He
had pushed reconnaissances to Huescar in the kingdom of Granada,
had sent supplies to aid the insurgents of the Alpujarras, and was
beginning to stir up a new rising on the side of Jaen. This provoked
Sebastiani to concentrate the larger part of the 4th Corps, and to
march against him with 8,000 men[385]. Blake gave back before his
enemy as far as the neighbourhood of Murcia, where he had prepared
a fortified position by inundating the Huerta, or suburban plain,
which is watered by many canals drawn from the river Segura, and
by stockading all the villages. Fourteen thousand regulars, with
a powerful artillery, held the approaches, while a mass of armed
peasantry hung around Sebastiani’s flanks. The French, however, only
advanced as far as Lebrilla, twelve miles from Murcia, and then
halted (Aug. 28). Sebastiani, after reconnoitring Blake’s line,
thought it too powerful to be meddled with, and retired two days
later towards his base, much harassed by the peasantry on his way.
But during the three weeks that it took for the French general to
concentrate his field-force, to march on Murcia, and to return,
all had gone to wrack and ruin behind him. The insurgents of the
Alpujarras had captured the important seaport towns of Almunecar and
Motril, and had garrisoned their castles with the aid of English guns
sent from Gibraltar. The people of the Sierra de Alhama had cut the
roads between Malaga and Granada, and 4,000 mountaineers had attacked
Granada itself; they were defeated outside its gates by the garrison
on Sept. 4, but were still hanging about its vicinity.
[385] The 4th Corps was now a little stronger than it had been in
the spring, the 32nd regiment, 2,000 strong, having joined from
Madrid. But it was still short of its German division, which now
lay in La Mancha, but had never crossed the Sierra Morena.
The news of all these troubles had reached Soult while Sebastiani
was quite out of touch, lost to sight in the kingdom of Murcia. They
undoubtedly had their part in inducing the Marshal to recall Mortier
and the 5th Corps from Estremadura. He once more divided its two
divisions, drawing back Gazan to Seville to form his central reserve,
while Girard watched the passes as before. Meanwhile Copons had
already been beaten in the Condado by the column of General Remond
(Sept. 15), and Sebastiani on his return cleared the neighbourhood
of Granada and Malaga of insurgents, and drove the untameable bands
of the Alpujarras to take refuge in their mountains. Motril and
Almunecar were both recovered. Thus the storm passed, as soon as the
two French expeditionary forces under Mortier and Sebastiani returned
once more to their usual garrison-posts.
Only two more incidents remain to be chronicled in the Andalusian
campaign of 1810. Campbell, the governor of Gibraltar, had
resolved--somewhat too late--to lend a small detachment to aid the
Granadan insurgents. The plan which he concerted with the Spanish
governor of Ceuta was that Lord Blayney with two British battalions
from the Gibraltar garrison--the 82nd and 89th [_erratum_: “Lord
Blayney’s force had only a half-battalion, not a whole battalion of
the 89th, but contained 4 companies of foreign chasseurs”], and a
Spanish regiment (Imperial de Toledo) from Ceuta, 2,200 men in all,
should be thrown on shore at Fuengirola, twenty miles on the nearer
side of Malaga, where there was a small French garrison and a dépôt
of stores, which was serving for a brigade then engaged in the siege
of Marbella, the town which had been garrisoned by Lacy in June[386],
and which was still holding out gallantly in October.
[386] See p. 328 of this chapter.
It was calculated that, on hearing of a descent at Fuengirola,
Sebastiani would come with the larger part of the garrison of
Malaga to relieve the fort. But the moment that he was known to be
nearing the expeditionary force, Lord Blayney was to re-embark and
to make a dash at Malaga itself, which he could reach more swiftly
by water than Sebastiani by land. Secret partisans within the city
were ready to take arms, and the peasantry of the Sierra de Alhama
were also enlisted in the enterprise. The scheme seems liable to
many criticisms--the whole was at the mercy of the winds and waves
of stormy October: what would happen if the weather was too rough to
allow of re-embarkation, or of easy landing at Malaga? And if Malaga
were captured for the moment, for how long could 2,000 regulars,
backed by a mass of undisciplined insurgents, hold it against the
whole of Sebastiani’s corps, which would be hurled upon it at short
notice? The expedition, however, was not actually wrecked on either
of these dangers, but ruined by the folly of its chief. Lord Blayney
landed successfully on October 13, and laid siege to Fuengirola,
which was held by 150 Poles under a Captain Milokosiewitz. Instead of
making the attack a mere demonstration, he brought some 12-pounders
ashore, and set to work to batter the castle in all seriousness.
Finding its walls commencing to crumble, he held on for two days,
though, if he had reflected, he must have remembered that the
garrison of Malaga might be with him at any moment. He was busily
preparing for an assault, when Sebastiani suddenly fell upon him
with 3,000 men from the rear. Apparently the English commander had
neglected to keep up any watch on the side of the inland, and the
peasantry had failed to send any intelligence of the fact that the
French were on the move. The besiegers, taken entirely by surprise,
and distracted also by a sortie of the little garrison, were rolled
down to the sea-shore in confusion. Lord Blayney--a short-sighted
man--rode in among some French whom he mistook for Spaniards, and
was made prisoner in the most ignominious fashion. The Spanish
regiment got off with little loss: it had kept its ranks, and forced
its way to the boats after beating off an attack. The 82nd was
partly on shipboard at the moment of the combat, and the companies
which were on shore saved themselves by a steady rearguard action.
But the battalion of the 89th was half destroyed, losing over 200
prisoners besides some forty killed. The utter incapacity of the
British commander was best shown by the fact that if he had but
carried out the plan on which he was acting, he would certainly have
captured Malaga--for Sebastiani had left only 300 men in the city
when he marched on Fuengirola, and, if the expeditionary force had
re-embarked twenty-four hours before the disaster, it would have
found the place practically undefended, and Sebastiani a long day’s
march away, and incapable of returning in time to save it[387].
[387] Lord Blayney, a humorous person save when the absurdities
of his own generalship were in question, wrote an interesting
narrative of his ‘Forced Journey to France,’ which contains one
of the best accounts of the state of Madrid under King Joseph’s
government, as well as some curious notes on the state of the
English prisoners at Verdun in 1811-13.
The very last military event of the year 1810 on the Andalusian
side was a disaster far worse than that of Lord Blayney--suffered
by a general whose almost unbroken series of defeats from Medina
de Rio Seco down to Belchite ought to have taught him by this time
the advantages of caution, and the doubtful policy of risking a
demoralized army in a fight upon open ground. When Sebastiani retired
from the kingdom of Murcia in the first days of September, Blake had
brought back his army to its old positions on the frontier of that
realm. Seven weeks later, finding the French line in front of him
very weak, he resolved to try a demonstration in force, or perhaps
even a serious stroke against the force of the enemy in Granada. On
November 2 he crossed the Murcian border, with 8,000 foot and 1,000
horse, and occupied Cullar.
On the next day he was at the gates of Baza, where there were four
battalions of the French force which covered Granada[388]. But on
the next morning General Milhaud rode up with a powerful body of
horsemen, the greater part of his own division of Dragoons and the
Polish Lancers from Sebastiani’s corps-cavalry, some 1,300 men
in all. Though he had only 2,000 infantry to back him, Milhaud
determined to fight at once. Blake’s army invited an attack; it was
advancing down the high-road with the cavalry deployed in front, one
division of infantry supporting it, while a second division was some
miles to the rear, on the hills which separate the plain of Baza
from the upland of the Sierra de Oria. A rearguard of 2,000 men was
still at Cullar, ten miles from the scene of action. The situation
much resembled that of Suchet’s combat of Margalef, and led to the
same results. For Milhaud’s squadrons, charging fiercely along and
on each side of the road, completely routed Blake’s cavalry, and
drove it back on to the leading infantry division, which broke, and
was badly cut up before its remnants could take shelter with the
other division in reserve on the hill behind. Blake gave the order
for an instant retreat, and Milhaud could not follow far among the
rocks and defiles. But he had captured a battery of artillery and a
thousand prisoners, and killed or wounded some 500 men more, in the
few minutes during which the engagement lasted. The French cavalry
lost no more than 200 men. The infantry had hardly fired a shot.
Blake, not being pursued, retired only as far as the Venta de Bahul
on the other side of Cullar, and remained on the Murcian border,
cured for a time of his mania for taking the offensive at the head of
a demoralized army.
[388] From the 32nd and 58th Line, Rey’s brigade of Sebastiani’s
corps. The 88th, in _Victoires et Conquêtes_, xx. 127, and
Arteche is a misprint. That regiment was with Girard in the
Sierra Morena, 150 miles away.
Thus ended the inconclusive campaign of 1810 in Andalusia--the
French on the last day of the year held almost precisely the same
limits of territory that they had occupied on the 1st of March. They
had beaten the enemy in four or five considerable actions, yet had
gained nothing thereby. They were beginning to understand that Cadiz
was impregnable, and that the complete subjection of the mountains
of the South and East was a far more serious task than had been at
first supposed. Things indeed had come to a deadlock, and Soult kept
reporting to his master that another 25,000 men would be required to
enable him to complete his task. Almost as many battalions belonging
to the 1st, 4th, and 5th Corps as would have made up that force had
been sent by the Emperor into Spain. They were intended to join
their regiments in the end, but meanwhile they had been distracted
into the 8th and 9th Corps, and were marching in the direction of
Portugal, when Soult wished to see them on the Guadalquivir[389].
Very little of the mass of reinforcements which had been poured
into the Peninsula in the spring of 1810 had come his way. While the
whole battalions had been sent away with Junot or Drouet, the drafts
in smaller units had been largely intercepted by the generals along
the line of communication. There were 4,000 of such recruits detained
in New Castile alone, and formed into ‘provisional battalions’ to
garrison Madrid and its neighbourhood. King Joseph must not be
blamed too much for thus stopping them on their way: he had been
left with an utterly inadequate force, when the Emperor turned
off everything on to the direction of Portugal. During the summer
and autumn of 1810 there were with him only two French infantry
regiments[390], the same number of light cavalry regiments[391],
Lahoussaye’s weak division of dragoons[392], and the German division
of the 4th Corps less than 4,000 strong, over and above his own guard
and untrustworthy ‘juramentado’ battalions[393]. The royal troops
numbered about 7,000 men, the other units, including Soult’s detained
drafts, about 12,000: with them Joseph had to garrison Madrid, Avila,
Segovia, Toledo, and Almaraz, and hold down all New Castile and La
Mancha--which last province was described at the time as ‘populated
solely by beggars and brigands’. He had the duty of maintaining the
sole and very circuitous line of communication between Soult and
Masséna, which, after Reynier went north in July, had to be worked
via Almaraz. He was frequently annoyed not only by the Empecinado
and other guerrilleros, but by Villacampa, who descended from
higher Aragon into the Cuenca region, and by Blake’s cavalry, which
often raided La Mancha. But his great fear was lest La Romana or
Wellington should send troops up the vast gap left between Reynier at
Zarza and Coria and Mortier in the Sierra Morena; there was nothing
but Lahoussaye’s dragoons and two infantry battalions in the whole
district about Almaraz and Talavera, where such a blow would have
fallen. It was small wonder that he felt uncomfortable.
[389] The 8th Corps had in its ranks the 4th battalions of the
following regiments whose first three battalions were in the
south of Spain, and belonged to the 1st, 4th, or 5th corps--the
28th, 34th, and 75th. But the 9th Corps was almost entirely
composed of 4th battalions of the corps of Victor, Sebastiani,
and Mortier, including those of the 8th, 24th, 45th, 54th, 63rd,
94th, 95th, 96th Line, and 16th and 27th Léger, of the 1st corps,
and of the 17th Léger, and 40th, 88th, 100th and 103rd Line of
the 5th Corps.
[390] 28th and 75th, the remaining brigade of the 1st Division of
the 4th Corps, which never joined Sebastiani in Andalusia.
[391] 26th Chasseurs and 3rd Dutch Hussars.
[392] 17th, 18th, 19th, and 27th Dragoons, only two squadrons
each--only 1,300 men.
[393] As a sample of their behaviour it may be mentioned that the
whole guard of the south gate of Toledo once marched off to join
the insurgents, officers and all.
But military sources of disquietude formed only the smaller half of
King Joseph’s troubles at this date. His political vexations, which
engrossed a much larger portion of his time and energy, must be dealt
with elsewhere. They will be relegated to the same chapter which
treats of the new development of Spanish politics consequent on the
long-delayed meeting of the Cortes in the winter of 1810-11.
SECTION XXI
BUSSACO AND TORRES VEDRAS (SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER 1810)
CHAPTER I
MASSÉNA’S ADVANCE TO BUSSACO (SEPTEMBER 1810)
After the fall of Almeida Masséna waited much longer than Wellington
had anticipated. The reasons for his delay were the usual ones
that were always forthcoming when a French army had to advance
in the Peninsula--want of transport and penury of supplies. The
Marshal had just discovered that the country-side in front of
him had already been depopulated by Wellington’s orders, and
that the only inhabitants that were to be met would be the armed
Ordenança, who were already shooting at his vedettes and attacking
his foraging parties. He was inclined to treat them as brigands;
his Provost-marshal, Colonel Pavetti, having been surprised and
captured along with five gendarmes of his escort by the villagers
of Nava d’Avel on September 5, he caused the place to be burned,
shot the one or two male inhabitants who could be caught, and
issued a proclamation stating that no quarter would be given to
combatants without uniforms. This provoked two stiff letters from
Wellington[394], who wrote to say that the Ordenança were an integral
part of the Portuguese military forces, and that, if they wore no
uniforms, the Marshal should remember that many of the revolutionary
bands which he had commanded in the old war of 1792-7 were no
better equipped: ‘vous devez vous souvenir que vous-même vous avez
augmenté la gloire de l’armée Française en commandant des soldats qui
n’avaient pas d’uniforme.’ If Ordenança were shot as ‘brigands and
highway robbers’ in obedience to the proclamation of September 7,
it was certain that French stragglers and foragers would be knocked
on the head, and not taken prisoners, by the enraged peasantry. At
present the number of them sent in to the British head quarters by
the Portuguese irregulars proved that the laws of war were being
observed. Masséna replied that Pavetti had been ambushed by men who
hid their arms, and ran in upon him and his escort while he was
peaceably asking his way. His letter then went off at a tangent, to
discuss high politics, and to declare that he was not the enemy of
the Portuguese but of the perfidious British government, &c., &c.
Finally he complained that the Arganil and Trancoso militia, whom he
had sent home after the fall of Almeida, had taken up arms again; if
caught, ‘leur sort sera funeste’[395]. The last statement Wellington
denied; he said that the capitulation had been annulled by the French
themselves, when they debauched the 24th regiment, and detained 600
of the militia to form a battalion of pioneers, but stated that as
a matter of fact the militia battalions had not been re-embodied.
The French continued to shoot the Ordenança, and the Ordenança soon
began to reply by torturing as well as hanging French stragglers;
Wellington forbade but could not prevent retaliation.
[394] Wellington to Masséna, Sept. 9 and Sept. 24.
[395] Masséna to Wellington, Sept. 14, from Fort Concepcion
(_Archives du Ministère de la Guerre_).
In his dispatch to Berthier of September 8[396], Masséna explains
that the depopulation of the district in front of him, and the fact
that the Ordenança had taken arms throughout the country-side, have
compelled him to make an enormous provision of food for his army.
Since the land has been swept bare, he must collect fifteen or twenty
days’ rations for the 6th and 8th Corps. ‘Each day demonstrates the
necessity of this more clearly, but each day makes it more evident
that we are not obtaining as much as our activity deserves. The small
amount of transport available, and the destruction by the Spanish
brigands of several convoys of corn which were coming up from the
province of Valladolid, have occasioned delay in the accumulation
of the stores. An additional vexation is that while it was reported
that we had captured 300,000 rations of biscuit in Almeida, there
turn out really to be only 120,000 rations.’ But it was the loss
of draught-beasts that was the most serious trouble; to his great
regret Masséna had to cut down the artillery of each division from
twelve to eight guns, for want of horses, with a similar reduction
of the caissons. Every animal that could be procured was given over
to the train, yet it could not carry even the fifteen days’ food
which the Marshal considered the minimum that he could afford to
take with him. There was also a deficiency in cartridges for the
infantry, for whom 1,200,000 rounds were only procured by setting the
artificers of the train to make up as many as was possible from the
powder captured at Ciudad Rodrigo. Finally Masséna explains that the
losses in the two late sieges, the necessity for garrisoning Almeida
and Rodrigo, and the effects of a sickly summer, have reduced the
two corps and the reserve cavalry under his hand to 42,000 or 45,000
men, so that he must incorporate Reynier with his main army, in order
to get a sufficient force concentrated for the invasion. When this
has been done, he will have no force to leave behind to guard his
communications, and Kellermann and Serras are too much occupied to
spare a man for that purpose. The Spaniards will press in between
the army and Salamanca the moment that the troops have entered the
Portuguese mountains. He will advance, therefore, on September 15,
but only with grave apprehension for his rear, and he begs that
at all costs a division of the 9th Corps should be brought up to
Salamanca. He had been promised long ago that this should be done,
but no signs of Drouet’s arrival were yet visible.
[396] In the _Archives du Ministère de la Guerre_, see Appendix
to this vol.
Reynier accordingly was called up, at last, to join the main army; he
left Zarza and Penamacor on the 10th of September, crossed the Pass
of Perales, and on the 12th was at Alfayates, with cavalry in front
at Sabugal. Hill, always vigilant, perceived Reynier’s movement as
soon as it had taken place. On the 12th his corps quitted Sarzedas,
leaving nothing behind in the Castello Branco country save Lecor’s
Portuguese at Fundão, who were ordered to follow, unless Reynier
should send back any detachments to the south side of the Sierra de
Gata. Leith started from the banks of the Zezere three days later,
and on the 20th the two divisions were drawing near to Wellington’s
rear in the valley of the Mondego, Hill being at Espinhal that day,
and Leith (who had less distance to cover) a march further to the
front, at Foz d’Aronce. Wellington’s concentration on the Alva must
obviously be completed before the French could strike.
On September 15, 1810, Ney and Junot broke up from the encampments
in front of Almeida, while Reynier drew in close to the main body by
marching up from Sabugal towards Guarda. It was clear that the attack
of the French was to be delivered along the line of the Mondego, but
whether by its southern or its northern bank Wellington could not yet
be sure, though he was under the impression that the former would be
the chosen route, since the _chaussée_ from Almeida by Celorico and
Ponte de Murcella is good for a Portuguese road, while the mountain
track by Trancoso and Vizeu is abominable. Yet one of the three
columns of the French pointed from the first towards the north bank:
while Ney took his way by Freixadas and Alverca towards Celorico,
Junot was reported to have turned off from the main road at Valverde,
and to be marching by Pinhel westward or north-westward. What Reynier
would do after reaching Guarda remained yet to be seen.
The total force which Masséna had drawn together for the invasion
was 65,000[397] officers and men. He had left behind a regiment of
dragoons and four battalions of infantry to take care of Almeida
and Ciudad Rodrigo. In the latter place he had also deposited
his siege-train, with the considerable body of artillerymen
belonging to it. Brennier and Cacault commanded at the two places
respectively. They had between them some 3,500 men, a force which
perceptibly diminished the army of invasion, yet was insufficient
to do more than to hold the two fortresses. Gardanne, with five
squadrons of dragoons, was to maintain touch between them. Not
a man would be available from the garrisons for service against
Spanish or Portuguese insurgents--indeed both Almeida and Rodrigo
were practically under blockade from the moment that the main army
went forward, and were destined to learn nothing of its doings
for many days. Wellington’s _cordon_ of Ordenança proved perfectly
efficient[398].
[397] For details see the Tables in the Appendix. All the troops
left behind have been rigidly deducted. The figures given by
Fririon, 59,806, are not quite exact, see proofs in Appendix: he
makes some troops enter Portugal which were left as garrisons,
and on the other hand omits whole battalions which marched, as if
they had never existed.
[398] The troops left behind were the fifth battalion of
the 82nd, the fourth battalions of the 15th and 86th, and a
provisional battalion of convalescents, or about 2,000 infantry;
a squadron of the 3rd Dragoons (157 men), the whole of the 10th
Dragoons (718 men) under Gardanne, and some 800 men belonging to
the siege-train and park.
On the evening of the 15th the 2nd Corps had reached Guarda, from
which it drove out a picket of the 16th Light Dragoons, who retired
towards the Mondego. The 6th Corps bivouacked at Freixadas, having
pushed back from it two squadrons of the 14th Light Dragoons and the
German Hussars. The 8th Corps, which had to come up from the Azava,
passed Almeida and slept beyond the Coa. In its rear was Montbrun’s
reserve cavalry division, and behind this again the reserve artillery
of the whole army. This column, therefore, was by far the longest and
(owing to the amount of guns and caissons) the most unwieldy of the
three masses in which the French were marching.
On the 16th Wellington hoped to see Masséna’s designs unmasked. But
it proved a day of continued doubt: Reynier left Heudelet’s division
at Guarda, and moved on with Merle’s and the cavalry to Celorico.
Here he met Ney, who had marched from Freixadas to Celorico, and had
pushed his light cavalry through it in advance. One body of horsemen
took a hill road high up the side of the Serra da Estrella, and
reached Linhares, another followed the great _chaussée_ as far as
Carapichina, and detached a squadron or two from that point to seize
the bridge of Fornos d’Algodres, over which passes the bad side-road
from Celorico to Vizeu. Was the enemy about to turn aside on this
path, or to pursue the more probable policy of continuing along
the _chaussée_ to Ponte de Murcella? Nothing could yet be deduced
from Junot’s movements: his heavy column only reached Pinhel that
day: from thence he might either come down to Celorico (the most
probable course), or make a move towards Oporto, by the high-road
Pinhel-Marialva-St. João da Pesqueira, or (what seemed least likely)
follow the very bad mountain-road from Pinhel by Povoa d’el Rei to
Trancoso and Vizeu. Meanwhile Wellington ordered the continuation of
the retreat of his army towards Ponte de Murcella and the position
behind the Alva. The 1st, 3rd, and 4th Divisions retired at their
leisure along the great _chaussée_, by Saragoça and Chamusca: the
Light Division moved parallel to them by the mountain-road Gouvea-San
Martinho-San Romão. The appearance of Ney’s cavalry at Linhares on
this track made the Commander-in-Chief anxious to have it watched,
since it was possible that the 6th Corps might use it. The cavalry,
keeping the rear well guarded, lay this day at Pinhanços on the
_chaussée_ and San Martinho on the hill-road. Head quarters were
at Cea, on the latter line. The only troops now left north of the
Mondego, on the route which Junot might possibly follow from Pinhel,
were a few cavalry-pickets, wherefore the Commander-in-Chief,
conceiving it just possible that the 8th Corps might be intending
to make a dash at Oporto, while the other two kept him in check,
sent urgent letters to Trant, the officer in charge of the militia
of Northern Beira, and to Baccelar, who lay at Oporto with the
militia of the Entre-Douro-e-Minho, to take precautions against this
movement. Trant, from Moimento de Beira, was to feel for Junot’s
front and flank: Baccelar was to send out some picked battalions,
under J. Wilson, to the line of the Vouga, and to get into touch with
Trant on his left.
On the 17th Masséna’s intentions at last became clear to his
adversary. The cavalry of the 6th Corps crossed the bridge of Fornos,
which it had seized on the previous night, and the leading division
of infantry followed it to Juncaes, on the Mondego bank: nothing
came along the _chaussée_, all the French columns turning off it at
Carapichina, and pursuing the cross-road. Ney’s rear was still at
Celorico, to which place the whole of the 2nd Corps also came up that
day. In the evening the head of the cavalry of the 6th Corps was near
Mangualde, many miles along the road north of the Mondego. It seemed
probable therefore, that a transference of the whole French army to
the right bank, over the bridge of Fornos, was about to take place.
This became almost certain when the simultaneous news arrived that
Junot had marched that day from Pinhel not towards Celorico, nor on
the Oporto road (that by Marialva and St. João da Pesqueira), but by
the abominable cross-road by Povoa d’el Rei to Trancoso. The 8th and
6th Corps therefore were showing a tendency to converge on Vizeu.
If so, they must be aiming at reaching Coimbra without touching
Wellington’s chosen position of Ponte de Murcella, where he had hoped
to fight. This deduction once made, the British commander had to
recast his plans. ‘The 2nd and 6th Corps came to Celorico yesterday,’
he wrote to Leith that evening, ‘and a part of them crossed the
Mondego at Fornos. More have crossed this day, while no part of the
enemy’s army has moved this way [i. e. along the great _chaussée_
south of the river]. It is generally understood that their whole
army is between the Douro and the Mondego, and that they are about
to move on Coimbra. I shall have troops in Coimbra to-morrow[399].’
All the divisions were ordered back at once, so as to be ready on the
Lower Mondego to resist the French, when they should appear from the
direction of Vizeu. Only cavalry were left at Sampayo and Gouvea,
to watch the passage of the Mondego by the French army, and to make
certain that its rear (i. e. Reynier’s corps) might not be about to
use the main _chaussée_, a move which was even yet possible.
[399] To Cotton and to Leith, both dated Sept. 17.
Masséna’s resolve to use the route by the north bank of the Mondego
surprised all British and some French observers at the time, and has
been censured by most historical critics. He left a good for a bad
road: he imposed two extra marches on his army at a moment when it
was short of provisions. He gave Wellington ample time to call up
Hill and Leith, and to select a new position for battle to replace
that of Ponte de Murcella. The Bussaco hillsides, where the clash
was to come, were as formidable as those behind the Alva. But these
considerations were less obvious to Masséna in 1810 than they appear
to the critic of 1907. It must first be remembered that his maps were
abominable: the actual case of plans used by the staff of the Army of
Portugal is preserved[400]: it is that issued by Lopez in 1778, which
in the remoter parts of Portugal not only offers a mere travesty of
the natural features, but actually marks as existing roads that never
had been made, and omits others that were actually available. It
shows, moreover, no distinction between _chaussées_, country roads,
and mere mule tracts. Places of considerable importance are misplaced
by several miles, e. g. Almeida is placed on the Coa instead of two
miles from it: Vizeu is much too far north, as is also Bussaco.
As far as this map goes, the physical difficulties in the way of
an advance north of the Mondego look no greater than those on the
southern bank. But, it may be said, Masséna should have supplemented
the use of the map by collecting oral information, and by sending
reconnaissances in every direction. He did so, so far as was in
his power. But exploration far afield was only possible with large
bodies of men, since the Ordenança blocked every road to the isolated
staff-officer, and the only oral information which was forthcoming
was defective. Masséna asked for it from Alorna, Pamplona, and the
other Portuguese officers on his staff--there were no less than
eighteen of them in all. They were absolutely ignorant of their own
country,--a normal thing in the military men of the old Portuguese
army. Even Pamplona, whose estates lay in the neighbourhood of
Coimbra, gave hopelessly erroneous information about the routes
leading into that town. But, from natural _amour propre_ they avoided
confessing their ignorance, and, when taken into council by Masséna,
gave him copious but wholly misleading details. They assured him
that the roads Pinhel-Trancoso-Vizeu and Fornos-Mangualde-Vizeu
were no worse than other lines of communication, and that the great
_chaussée_ by Sampayo and Ponte de Murcella was crossed by so many
torrents and climbed so many slopes that it was not preferable to the
routes north of the river. The news that a formidable position behind
the Alva had been entrenched had reached the French head quarters;
hence Masséna had fair reasons for taking the route that he selected,
so far as strategy went. It undoubtedly enabled him to turn the line
of the Alva. Moreover, on it lay a large town--Vizeu--from which it
was hoped that much food would be procured, for the invaders were
still ignorant of the thoroughness with which Wellington’s plans for
devastating the country before them had been carried out. Even after
Celorico and Guarda had been found empty of inhabitants, they hardly
believed that such a large place as Vizeu, a town of 9,000 souls,
would be deserted.
[400] For a most interesting article on these maps, and all
that they show, see Mr. T. J. Andrews’s article in the _English
Historical Review_ for 1901. The maps, captured at Vittoria, are
now in the Library of Queen’s College, Belfast.
Masséna’s mistake became evident to his soldiers on the first day on
which he ordered his columns to quit the main-roads and take to the
by-paths. The infantry could still get forward, but the artillery
and waggon-train began to drag behind, to lose horses, and to see
vehicle after vehicle broken, disabled, or abandoned. On the 18th the
infantry of the 6th Corps got as far as Mangualde on the north bank
of the Mondego, but the artillery was so much delayed in the defile
after passing Juncaes that it could not catch up the rear of the
marching troops, and had to be parked at night not many miles beyond
the bridge of Fornos. The 2nd Corps on reaching this spot found the
road blocked, and bivouacked with one division beyond the Mondego,
and one still in the rear of the bridge. But the troubles of this
column were nothing to those of the 8th Corps on the miserable road
from Pinhel to Vizeu. The journal of the commandant of the artillery
of Junot’s first division, Colonel Noël, may be quoted as giving a
fair description of the marches of the 17th and 18th September:--
‘After passing the little town of Trancoso, with its battlemented
wall, all the country-side is mountain and rock. There is no road,
only a stony narrow dangerous track, which the artillery had all the
pains in the world to follow without meeting accidents. It is all
steep ups and downs. I had to march with a party of gunners ahead
of me, with picks and crowbars to enlarge the track. As each arm
only looked out for itself, the artillery soon got left to the rear,
and deserted by the infantry and cavalry. We only arrived at our
halting-places late at night, utterly done up. The guns were almost
always abandoned to themselves; we did not know what road to follow,
having no one to give us information but a few infantry stragglers,
who had themselves lost their way. At noon on the 18th I halted with
my two batteries after two hours of incessant uphill, to find myself
at the crest of a mountain, with a precipitous descent before me, and
beyond that another ascent winding upwards, as far as the eye could
reach. We were so exhausted that it was useless to go further that
day, but on the 19th, with a party of gunners always working in front
to enlarge the road, we moved over hill and vale, completely out of
touch with the army. I had to ride out with four mounted men to hunt
for any trace of it. At last, in a deserted village, we found an old
peasant who pointed out the road to Vizeu. But it was only on the
20th that we got there.’ Noël’s batteries, it may be remarked, were
moving all the time between the infantry, which was ahead, and the
Grand Park which was behind them, with Montbrun’s cavalry bringing
up the rear. Yet they were absolutely lost and had to shift for
themselves without orders or escort[401].
[401] _Mémoires_ of Col. Noël, pp. 112-13.
The Park fared even worse; when nearing Sotojal, on the 20th, it was
unexpectedly beset by Colonel Trant, who had come down from Moimenta
with a brigade of his militia and two squadrons of Portuguese regular
cavalry. The Park was escorted by one company of grenadiers, who
marched at its head, and a battalion of the Irish Legion, who were
far to the rear, while Montbrun’s immense cavalry column was quite
out of sight. Trant had a great opportunity, for the long file of
vehicles and guns, caught in a narrow road, was almost helpless. But
he failed to do all that was in his power; his cavalry charged the
company at the head of the column and was repulsed. He then filed
his battalions along the hillside, opened fire on the horses and
men of the train, and, descending into their midst, captured and
destroyed some caissons and took some eighty prisoners. But when
the escort-battalion came hurrying up from the rear, his levies
were stricken with panic and hastily retired, though they were
strong enough to have held off the five hundred Irish, and to have
smashed or rolled over the precipices the greater part of the guns
and waggons. Montbrun’s cavalry did not get up till all was over,
and would have been perfectly useless on the precipitous road, even
if they had arrived earlier. If Trant’s foray had been properly
carried out, Masséna might have lost his reserve artillery and most
of his provisions--a disaster which might have forced him to turn
back to Almeida. He deserved such a punishment for having marched
his all-important train on the extreme flank of his army, with an
insufficient escort[402].
[402] A lively account of this affair may be found in Marbot,
ii. 378; details may not be all trustworthy, but the general
narrative agrees with Trant’s report, printed in Soriano da Luz,
vol. vii, Appendix.
Though Junot’s infantry divisions reached the deserted walls of
Vizeu on Sept. 19th and there met the corps of Ney, the divisional
artillery did not arrive till next day, while the reserve artillery,
the trains and the heavy cavalry were struggling in upon the 21st and
22nd by detachments. For Montbrun had halted the great convoy after
Trant’s attack, and parked it, fearing that the Portuguese might
come back in greater numbers and give more trouble. When he started
it again, on the 21st, he took care to give it better marching
arrangements, and to attach cavalry escorts to each section. But
this caused much delay, and meanwhile the 8th Corps waited at Vizeu
‘marking time’ and unable to move. Even the 6th Corps remained there
two days, waiting while its gun-carriages and cannons were being
repaired; for the Fornos-Vizeu road, though infinitely less rough
than that which the 8th Corps and the park had followed, was still
bad enough to shake many vehicles to pieces. The Intendant-General
reported that nineteen caissons carrying 2,900 rations of biscuit
belonging to the 6th Corps broke down and had to be burnt; the
food was distributed among the regiments as they passed, with much
consequent waste[403]. All that Ney could do between the 18th of
September, when he reached Vizeu, and the 21st, was to push forward
an advanced guard to Tondella, fifteen miles down the Vizeu-Coimbra
road, with an infantry division in support at Fail. Meanwhile the 2nd
Corps, following in the wake of the 6th, had also made its way to
Vizeu. The bulk of Reynier’s force took the Fornos-Mangualde-Lagiosa
route, as Ney’s had done. But an advanced guard of all arms descended
the great _chaussée_ south of the river as far as Taboa, driving in
the pickets of the English cavalry, and then crossed the Mondego at
the bridge of Taboa, and fell into the rear of the rest of the corps
beyond Mangualde. This apparently was intended to keep Wellington
uncertain, as long as possible, as to whether part of the French
army was not intending, after all, to follow the _chaussée_ and
present itself before the position on the Alva[404]. But it was
executed by so small a force that the British general was not for
an hour deceived[405]. He was at this moment in a cheerful frame
of mind; Masséna had made a mistake in choosing his route, and was
merely wasting time when time was most precious. ‘There are certainly
many bad roads in Portugal,’ he wrote, ‘but the enemy has taken
decidedly the worst in the whole kingdom’[406]; and again, ‘I imagine
that Marshal Masséna has been misinformed, and has experienced more
difficulty in making his movement than he expected. He has certainly
selected one of the worst roads in Portugal for his march[407].’
Owing to the necessary delays of the enemy Wellington was now in a
position as strong as that on the Alva; his head quarters were at
the convent of Bussaco, his divisions, including Leith and Hill,
so placed that they could be concentrated on the Serra de Alcoba,
right across the Vizeu-Coimbra road, long before the French could
descend from Vizeu. ‘We have an excellent position here, in which I
am strongly tempted to give battle[408],’ he wrote on the evening of
the 21st, foreseeing six days ahead the probability of the engagement
which was to make Bussaco famous. There was a road by which his
position might be turned, but it was doubtful whether the enemy would
discover it, and ‘I do not yet give up hopes of discovering a remedy
for that misfortune[409].’
[403] Report of Lambert, Intendant-General, dated Vizeu, Sept. 23.
[404] Wellington to Lord Liverpool, from Lorvão, Sept. 20.
[405] Indeed, an exploring party under Captain Somers Cocks, of
the 16th Light Dragoons, had dogged the steps of the detachment,
and counted every battalion. See Tomkinson’s Diary, pp. 39-40.
[406] Wellington to Charles Stuart, Sept. 18.
[407] Wellington to Lord Liverpool, Sept. 20.
[408] Ibid., Sept. 20.
[409] Wellington to Stapleton Cotton, Sept. 21.
[Illustration: THE MONDEGO VALLEY]
Masséna, meanwhile, was chafing at his self-imposed delays, and
writing querulous letters from Vizeu to Berthier. ‘The grand park
and the baggage,’ he wrote on the 22nd, ‘are still in the rear,
and will only get up to-morrow. It is impossible to find worse
roads than these; they bristle with rocks; the guns and train have
suffered severely, and I must wait for them. I must leave them two
days at Vizeu when they come in, to rest themselves, while I
resume my march on Coimbra, where (as I am informed) I shall find
the Anglo-Portuguese concentrated. Sir, all our marches are across
a desert; not a soul to be seen anywhere; everything is abandoned.
The English push their barbarity to the point of shooting the
wretched inhabitant who tries to remain in his village; the women,
the children, the aged, have all decamped. We cannot find a guide
anywhere. The soldiers discover a few potatoes and other vegetables;
they are satisfied, and burn for the moment when they shall meet
the enemy.’ The plan of devastation was already beginning to work;
Masséna had exhausted seven of the thirteen days’ provisions which
his army carried, and it was not with the potatoes gleaned in the
fields of Vizeu, or the ripe grapes of its vineyards, that he could
refill the empty store-waggons. He must push on for Coimbra as fast
as possible; this, no doubt, was why he made up his mind to march
on that place, not by descending from Vizeu to Aveiro and entering
the coast plain, but by taking the direct road by Santa Comba Dao,
Mortagoa, and Bussaco. Even Lopez’s faulty map shows the ridge of
Bussaco as a serious physical feature, but the Marshal does not seem
to have reflected for a moment that Wellington might choose to defend
it. The orders drawn up on September 24th for the march on Coimbra
presuppose an unobstructed progress[410]. Having met no active
resistance as yet from the Anglo-Portuguese army, Masséna wrongly
took it for granted that he might count on the prolongation of this
good fortune.
[410] See the orders in the _Archives du Ministère de la Guerre_.
Before moving on from Vizeu the organization of the French army
was slightly modified. Junot’s corps contained a number of fourth
battalions, belonging to regiments whose three senior battalions were
serving in the 2nd Corps. The two corps had never met till both lay
at Vizeu. Masséna then ordered the fourth battalions of the 36th,
47th, 70th of the Line, and the 2nd and 4th Léger to join their
regiments in Reynier’s corps; this reduced the 8th Corps by 2,850
men; in return, however, Reynier was ordered to make over to Junot
two regiments of old troops, the 15th and 86th of the line (each of
three battalions) making in all 2,251 bayonets. Thus the two corps
were somewhat equalized in quality, the 2nd receiving five battalions
of recruits, while the 8th (in which there were too few veterans)
got in return six battalions which had served in Spain since the
commencement of the war. The net result was to make the 2nd Corps
a little stronger (17,024 men) and the 8th Corps a little weaker
(15,904 men)[411].
[411] It is this interchange of troops which makes all the
figures of the Army of Portugal so divergent. Fririon, for
example, ignores it, as do most French statisticians. But see
Masséna’s orders (14), and the ‘situations’ in the _Archives_ of
Sept. 14 and Sept. 27 respectively.
On September 21st the advance of the Army of Portugal was
recommenced, though the train and heavy baggage was not yet prepared
to start, and some of its rear detachments had not even reached
Vizeu. But on that day the advanced guard of the 6th Corps advanced
from Tondella, and found in front of it some light cavalry and two
Portuguese regiments--the first hostile troops that the French had
seen since the campaign began. The whole of the 2nd and 6th Corps
followed behind, and bivouacked that night at Casal-de-Maria,
Tondella, Sabugoça and other villages on the steep downward road from
Vizeu to Coimbra. The 8th Corps still remained at Vizeu, guarding
the belated reserve artillery and train. On the 22nd the 2nd Corps,
passing the 6th, which had hitherto taken the lead, crossed the Criz
and drove in the British outposts, who retired on Mortagoa. But Ney
and the 6th Corps remained stationary, and the 8th did not even yet
make a start. These delays seem extraordinary, but Masséna was still
paying for his evil choice of roads; the infantry had to wait for the
guns, and the guns could only creep forward as the sappers enlarged
and improved the roads for them.
Wellington, meanwhile, was recasting his dispositions at his leisure.
When Masséna’s march on Vizeu had become certain, the British
Commander-in-Chief thought at first that the enemy would take the
good _chaussée_ Vizeu-Aveiro, so as to descend into the coast-plain
and attack Coimbra from the easiest side. He therefore, on the 18th
moved the 1st Division back from Ponte de Murcella to Coimbra, where
it was joined by a new brigade from Lisbon, composed of the 1st
battalions of the 7th and 79th, newly landed. A. Campbell’s and
Coleman’s Portuguese also moved to the same point. The 3rd and 4th
Divisions remained at Ponte de Murcella in the entrenched position,
with the Light Division and Pack’s Portuguese in front of them at
Venda do Porco and Sampayo.
But on the 20th, when Ney’s advanced guard began to come out from
Vizeu on the Santa Comba Dao road, not on the Aveiro road, Wellington
discovered that it was on the mountain of Bussaco, and not on the
plain in front of Coimbra, that he would next meet the enemy.
Accordingly Pack’s Portuguese and the Light Division forded the
Mondego below Sampayo, as did the light cavalry, and a detaining
force was thus thrown across the Vizeu-Coimbra road. The Portuguese
brigade took post behind the Criz torrent, Craufurd’s men a little
to the rear at Mortagoa. At the same time the 1st Division and the
troops attached to it moved out from Coimbra to Mealhada on the
Aveiro road, a point from which they could easily be called up to
the Bussaco position, if no French columns were discovered coming
down the Aveiro road, as now seemed probable. This day, Leith’s
division, to Wellington’s intense satisfaction, arrived at San Miguel
de Payares behind the Alva, and so joined the main body. Hill was
reported to be a day’s march only to the rear, at Foz d’Aronce. Thus
the whole of the Anglo-Portuguese regular forces between Douro and
Tagus were neatly concentrated. At the same time Trant was told to
bring the militia of Northern Beira down the Oporto-Coimbra road to
Agueda and Sardão, and Baccelar was directed to support him with
Wilson’s militia brigade, in case Masséna should have some subsidiary
operation against Oporto in his mind.
On the 24th the first skirmish of the campaign took place; the 2nd
Corps, advancing into the plain in front of Mortagoa, found Pack’s
Portuguese facing them on the right, and Craufurd’s division on the
left, with a screen of cavalry in front. They pushed in the horsemen
upon the infantry, but halted when artillery opened upon them, and
made no further advance. On this day the belated 8th Corps, with the
reserve cavalry, at last started from Vizeu. Next morning Reynier
pressed on in force with two heavy columns each formed by a division,
and Craufurd was ordered by Wellington to retire, which he did with
some reluctance by alternate échelons of brigades[412]. The 95th and
43rd had some sharp skirmishing with the French van, and made a stand
by the village of Moura under the Bussaco heights, before retiring
up the high-road, and taking position upon the crest of the great
ridge[413], which they did at six o’clock in the evening.
[412] According to Napier (iii. 22-3) Craufurd risked his
division somewhat in their skirmish. But this criticism is not
made by D’Urban, Leach, and other eye-witnesses.
[413] The Light Division had been first divided into brigades on
Aug. 8, when the 1st was constituted of the 43rd, four companies
of the 95th, and the 1st Caçadores, under Beckwith: the 2nd of
the 52nd, four companies of the 95th, and the 3rd Caçadores,
under Barclay. See Atkinson’s lists of the Peninsular Army in the
_Eng. Hist. Rev_.
While the advanced guards of Reynier and Ney were driving in Craufurd
and Pack, the Anglo-Portuguese army was assembling on Wellington’s
chosen fighting-ground. Picton and Cole, with the 3rd and 4th
Divisions, had already taken up their quarters on the Bussaco ridge
on the 21st, the first across the road from San Antonio de Cantaro
to Palheiros, the second across the _chaussée_, behind the spot to
which the troops of Pack and Craufurd were retiring. Leith, who had
been brought over the Mondego by the fords of Peña Cova on the 23rd,
moved up on to the southern tract of the Bussaco heights on the
24th. Hill, who reached the line of the Alva on the 22nd, followed
in Leith’s wake, and on the 25th was at Peña Cova waiting for orders
to cross. The 1st Division with Campbell’s and Coleman’s Portuguese
alone were still absent, though not far off. They had started from
Mealhada, when it became clear that no French force was coming by the
Aveiro-Coimbra road, but on the night of the 25th were still some
eight miles away, and did not get into position between Cole and
Picton till between nine and ten o’clock on the morning of the 26th.
Nevertheless, nearly 40,000 men, composed of the Light, 3rd, 4th,
5th Divisions and their Portuguese auxiliaries, and of Hill on their
flank, only four miles away, were concentrated on the night of the
25th, when Reynier’s vanguard deployed in front of the heights.
Before ten o’clock on the following morning Spencer had arrived,
and Hill was over the fords and encamped along the rear slopes of
the heights. There seems to be no truth whatever in the allegation
that the British army was in a somewhat dangerous position on the
evening of the 25th, for the French had only their vanguard up, and
there were less than two hours of daylight left when Craufurd retired
from Moura, and Reynier and Ney obtained their first view of the
British position. Before the enemy could have collected in strength
sufficient for an attack, night would have set in.
NOTE ON THE SITUATION ON SEPT. 25
Napier wholly misrepresents the state of affairs in vol. iii. pp.
22-3. He writes as follows: ‘Before 3 o’clock 40,000 French infantry
were embattled on the two points (the _chaussée_ and the San Antonio
de Cantaro road), their guns trying the range above, while the
skirmishing clatter of musketry arose from the dark wooded chasms
below. Ney, whose military glance was sure, instantly perceived
that the mountain, a crested not a table one, could hide no great
reserves, that it was only half occupied, and that the allies were
moving with the disorder usual on the taking of unknown ground.
He wished therefore to attack, but Masséna was ten miles to the
rear, the officer sent to him waited two hours for an audience, and
then returned with orders to attend the Prince’s arrival. Thus a
great opportunity was lost, for Spencer was not up, Leith’s troops
were only passing the Mondego, and Hill was still behind the Alva.
Scarcely 25,000 men were in line, and with great intervals.’
Almost every statement here is incorrect.
(1) The French did not reach the ground in front of the heights till 5
o’clock: they were not up at 3 p.m. [D’Urban’s _Diary_: ‘At noon, the
heads of the French infantry columns having reached the lower falls
leading from the Mortagoa Valley, he pushed forward his cavalry and
began to skirmish with our pickets. It not being Lord Wellington’s
intention to dispute this ground, but rather to entice Masséna to
follow and attack him in his position of Boçaco, the Light Division was
gradually withdrawn, the 95th and 43rd covering the retreat and Ross’s
artillery playing upon the enemy’s advance from hill to hill, till at
5 o’clock they were halted by the fire of the 43rd before the village
of Sula. At about 6 the firing ceased, and our advance (heretofore
at Moura and Sula) took up their ground (as well as General Cole’s
division) upon the heights of Boçaco.’] This diary, _written that same
night_, cannot be wrong as to the dating of the hours. D’Urban was
riding with Beresford at Wellington’s side. Napier was writing from
memory twenty years after.
(2) Ney did not ‘perceive the mountain only half occupied, and wish
to attack,’ on the evening of the 25th. His reconnaissance was made
on the morning of the 26th, and it was _then_ that he expressed
his wish to attack, when Wellington had every man in line. This is
conclusively proved by the following note of Ney to Reynier, dated at
10.30 on the morning of the 26th, from his advanced posts, which lies
in the French archives:--
‘Je reçois à l’instant, mon cher général, votre lettre de ce jour.
Je pense qu’une grande partie de l’armée anglo-portugaise a passé
la nuit sur la crête des montagnes qui dominent la vallée de Moura.
Depuis ce matin l’ennemi marche par sa gauche, et semble diriger ses
colonnes principales sur la route d’Oporto. Cependant il tient encore
assez de monde à la droite du parc, qui couvre le couvent de Minimes
appelé Sako, et montre une douzaine de pièces d’artillerie. Le chemin
de Coimbre passe tout près de ce couvent. Si j’avais le commandement
j’attaquerais sans hésiter un seul instant. Mais je crois que vous
ne pouvez rien compromettre en vous échellonant sur la droite de
l’ennemi, et en poussant ses avant-postes le plus possible: car
c’est véritablement par ce point qu’il faudrait le forcer à faire sa
retraite.’ What Ney had seen, and wrongly took for a general movement
of the English army towards its left, was Cole taking ground to the
left on the arrival of Spencer, who came up between 8 and 10 that
morning, just before Ney was scribbling this hasty note to Reynier.
(3) The stretch of mountain opposite Ney and Reynier was _not_
‘crested’ but ‘table’--so much so that Wellington took two squadrons
of cavalry up to it, for use in the battle. The British general
_never_ took up a position where he had no space to hide his reserves.
(4) The time when Ney sent an officer to Masséna to ask leave to
attack was the morning of the 26th, not the evening of the 25th. How
could Ney have hoped to get the permission to fight and carry it out,
when the time when he reached Moura was 5 o’clock, and dusk falls at
6.30? The messenger had twenty miles to ride, to Mortagoa and back.
See Fririon’s note in his ‘Aperçu sur la Campagne de Portugal’ in
_Victoires et Conquêtes_, xxi. 320.
(5) Leith’s troops, so far from being ‘only passing the Mondego’
on the afternoon of the 25th, had passed it on the 23rd [_Journal_
of Leith Hay, aide-de-camp of Leith, i. 228]. On the night of the
22nd-23rd Wellington wrote to Hill, ‘Leith’s, Picton’s, and Cole’s
divisions are now on the Serra de Busaco’ [_Dispatches_, vi. 462].
Hill was not ‘behind the Alva,’ but massed at the fords of Peña Cova,
only four miles from the battlefield. He crossed at dawn on the 26th,
but could have been in action within two hours of the first shot, if
the attack had been made on the 25th.
(6) Wellington, including Hill’s division, had therefore 40,000 men,
not 25,000. But the latter number would have sufficed, for Ney and
Reynier had only their advanced guards up, and in the hour and a half
before dusk could not have brought up their whole corps by the bad
and narrow roads from behind. The _Diary_ of the 6th Corps mentions
that only the vanguard division (Loison) bivouacked in front of the
heights. The rearguard was as far back as Barril that night.
(7) The exact moment of the arrival of the British 1st Division may
be gauged from the fact that it passed Luzo, the village behind
Bussaco, at 8 a.m. on the 26th--Diary of Stothert (3rd Foot Guards),
p. 188. There is only two miles from Luzo to the position taken up by
the 1st Division.
SECTION XXI: CHAPTER II
THE BATTLE OF BUSSACO (SEPTEMBER 27, 1810)
It remains that we should describe the ground which Wellington had
chosen on the 21st, and on which he fought with such splendid success
upon the 27th. The ridge which takes its name from the convent of
Bussaco is one of the best-marked positions in the whole Iberian
Peninsula. A single continuous line of heights covered with heather
and furze, with the dull-red and dull-grey granite cropping up
here and there through the soil, extends from the Mondego on the
right--where it ends precipitously--to the main chain of the Serra
de Alcoba on the left. The ridge is very irregular in its altitude:
the two loftiest sections are one at a distance of two miles from
the Mondego, and the other to the immediate right of the convent
enclosure, where the original obelisk commemorating the battle was
set up[414]. Between these two culminating summits the ridge sinks
down, and is at its lowest where the country-road from San Antonio
de Cantaro to Palheiros passes over it. There are three other points
where it is crossed by lines of communication; two lie far to the
east, not far from the Mondego, where bad paths from San Paulo to
Palmazes and from Carvalhal to Casal exist. The third and most
important is in its left centre, where (close to the convent) the
_chaussée_ from Celorico to Coimbra, the main artery of the local
road-system, passes the watershed. It does so at a place which is
by no means the least lofty point of the ridge; but the line was
obvious to the road-making engineer, because a spur (the only one
of any importance in the heights) here runs gradually down from the
Serra into the lower ground. To lead the _chaussée_ up the side of
this spur, past the village of Moura, and so to the crest of the
ridge on gentle slopes, was clearly better than to make it charge the
main range, even at a less lofty point. The convent lies just to the
right of the spot where the _chaussée_ passes the sky-line, a few
hundred yards off the road. It was a simple, low quadrangle, with a
small chapel in its midst, standing in a fine wood of pine and oak,
surrounded by a ten-foot wall. The wood is sprinkled with hermitages,
picturesque little buildings hewn in the rock, where those of the
monks who chose practised the anchorite’s life. The outer wall
of the wood and the tops of its trees are just visible on the
sky-line of the main ridge: the convent is not, being well down the
reverse-slope. The point where the convent wood tops the heights is
the only section of them where trees are seen on the summit: the rest
of the line is bare heath, with occasional outbreaks of rock, falling
in slopes of greater or lesser steepness towards the broken wooded
foot-hills, where the French lay. On part of the left-centre there is
ground which it is no exaggeration to describe as precipitous, to the
front of the highest piece of the ridge, below the old obelisk. The
effect of the whole line of heights is not dissimilar to, though on a
smaller scale than, the Malvern Hills. The highest point on the Serra
is about 1,200 feet above sea-level--but much less, of course, above
the upland below.
[414] There are two monuments: this simple weather-beaten obelisk
on the culminating height where the 1st Division stood, a point
where no fighting took place, and the modern column lower down
and close to the high-road, behind the spot where Craufurd
fought. Here the Portuguese to this day maintain a small military
post, and hoist a flag to do honour to the victory.
The position of Bussaco is fully nine miles long[415] from end
to end, from the steep hill above the Mondego to Cole’s western
flank: this was a vast front for an army of 50,000 men to cover,
according to the ideas of 1810. There were absolute gaps in the line
at more than one place, especially above Carvalho, where about a
mile separated Leith’s left from his central brigade. The defence
of such a position could only be risked because of two facts: one
was that every movement of the enemy on the lower ground before
the ridge could be accurately made out from above: he could not
concentrate in front of any section of the heights without being
seen. His only chance of doing so would have been to take advantage
of the night; but even if he had drawn up for the attack before
dawn--a thing almost impossible in the broken, ravine-cut, wooded
bottoms--he could not have moved till full daylight, because the
face of the position presents so many irregularities, such as small
gullies and miniature precipices, that columns climbing in the dark
must undoubtedly have got lost and broken up on the wild hillside.
Moreover, there was a thick cordon of British pickets pushed forward
almost to the foot of the ridge, which would have given warning by
their fire and their preliminary resistance, if any advance had been
attempted in the grey dawn.
[415] Which makes astounding Fririon’s statement that it was only
three-quarters of a league long (p. 46).
The second advantage of the Bussaco position is that on its
left-centre and right-centre the ridge has a broad flat top, some
300 or 400 yards across, on which all arms can move laterally with
ease to support any threatened point. It is so broad that Wellington
even ventured to bring up a few squadrons of dragoons to the summit,
rightly arguing that a cavalry charge would be of all things the most
unexpected reception that an enemy who had breasted such a hillside
could meet at the end of his climb. As a matter of fact, however,
this section of the heights was never attacked by the French. The
right of the position is not flat-topped like the centre, but has
a narrow saddle-back, breaking into outcrops of rock at intervals:
but though here prompt motion from right to left, or left to right,
is not possible on the crest, there is a rough country-path, good
for infantry and available even for guns, a few hundred yards down
the reverse side of the slope. Along this troops could be moved
with ease, entirely out of sight of the enemy. It proved useful for
Leith’s division during the battle. Wellington calculated, therefore,
with perfect correctness, that he could count on getting an adequate
force of defenders to any portion of his long line before the enemy
could establish himself on the summit. The extreme left, where Cole’s
division lay, was the hardest part of his line to reinforce, for want
of good lateral communication: it was also a good deal lower than
Craufurd’s post; here, therefore, Wellington had placed the main mass
of his reserves; the German Legion, and two Portuguese brigades were
lying on his left-centre very close to the 4th Division, so that
they would be available at short notice, though they would have a
stiff climb if the French chose that section of the position as their
objective, and it had to be strengthened in haste.
The distribution of the army remains to be described. On the extreme
right, on the height of Nossa Senhora do Monte, just overhanging the
Mondego, was a battalion of the Lusitanian Legion, with two guns.
Next to them, on very high ground, lay Hill’s division, three British
and two Portuguese brigades[416], with a battery on each flank. Then
came a slight dip in the ridge, where the road from San Paulo to
Palmazes crosses it: athwart this path lay Leith’s newly constituted
5th Division, consisting of three British and seven Portuguese
battalions. The British brigade lay on the right, then came (after
a long interval) two battalions of the Lusitanian Legion, the only
troops guarding two miles of very rough ground. On Leith’s extreme
left, towards Picton’s right, was Spry’s Portuguese brigade, and
three unattached battalions (8th Line and Thomar militia). Beyond the
8th regiment, where the watershed sinks again, and is crossed by the
road from San Antonio de Cantaro to Palheiros, Picton’s line began.
On his right, across the road, was Arentschildt’s Portuguese battery,
supported by the 74th British regiment, and Champlemond’s Portuguese
brigade of three battalions. The 45th and 88th, the two remaining
battalions of the brigade of Mackinnon, were placed to the left of
the road, the former on the first spur to the north of it, the latter
nearly a mile to the left. Lightburne’s brigade, and Thompson’s
British battery were a short distance beyond the 88th. North of
Picton’s position the ridge rises suddenly again to its loftiest
section; along this almost impregnable ground, with its precipitous
front, were ranged the three British brigades of Spencer’s 1st
Division--the Guards on the right, Blantyre’s on the left, Pakenham’s
in the centre, 5,000 bayonets dominating the whole country-side
and the rest of the position. North of them again, where the ridge
falls sharply along the back wall of the convent wood, was Pack’s
Portuguese brigade, reaching almost to the high-road. Along the curve
of the high-road itself, in column, was Coleman’s Portuguese brigade,
and beside it A. Campbell’s Portuguese, with the German Legion
beyond them on the Monte Novo ridge. Coleman, Campbell, and the
Germans were the main reserve of the army, and were in second line,
for, far to the front of them, on a lower slope, along a curve of the
_chaussée_, lay Craufurd and the Light Division, looking down on the
village of Sula almost at the bottom of the heights. Between Craufurd
and his next neighbour to the right, Pack, was a curious feature of
the field, a long narrow ravine, with steep grassy sides, terraced
in some places into vineyards[417]. This cleft, between Sula on the
left and Moura on the right, cuts deep up into the hillside, its
head almost reaching the crest of the watershed below the convent.
In order to circumvent this precipitous gully, the _chaussée_, after
passing through the village of Moura, takes a semicircular curve to
the right, and goes round the head of the cleft. For half a mile
or more it overhangs the steep declivities on its right, while on
its left at this point it is dominated by a pine wood on the upper
slopes, so that it forms more or less of a defile. The gully is so
narrow here that guns on Craufurd’s position had an easy range on the
road, and enfiladed it most effectively. The battery attached to the
Light Division--that of Ross--had been placed in a sort of natural
redoubt, formed by a semicircle of boulders with gaps between;
some of the guns bore on the village of Sula, on the lower slope
below, others across the ravine, to the high-road. They were almost
invisible, among the great stones, to an enemy coming up the hill or
along the _chaussée_. Craufurd had got a battalion of his Caçadores
(No. 3) in the village, low down the slope, with his other Portuguese
battalion and the 95th Rifles strung out on the hillside above, to
support the troops below them. His two strong Line battalions, the
43rd and 52nd, were lying far above, in the road, at the point where
it has passed the head of the gully in its curve, with a little fir
wood behind them and a small windmill in their front. The road being
cut through the hillside here, they were screened as they stood, but
had only to advance a few feet to reach the sky line, and to command
the slope stretching upwards from the village of Sula.
[416] Archibald Campbell’s and Fonseca’s brigades, forming
Hamilton’s Portuguese Division, which was attached to the British
2nd Division throughout the war, and shared with it the triumphs
of Albuera, Vittoria, and St. Pierre.
[417] This is the feature which Napier, somewhat hyperbolically,
describes as ‘a chasm so profound that the naked eye could hardly
distinguish the movement of troops in the bottom, yet so narrow
in parts that 12-pounders could range across (iii. 21).’ It does
_not_, as he says, separate the Serra de Bussaco from the last
ridge in front of it, that which the French held, as it only
lay in front of Craufurd and Pack. There is no chasm between
Spencer’s, Picton’s, Leith’s, or Hill’s position and the French
knolls.
To the left rear of Craufurd’s position, and forming the
north-western section of the English line lay Cole’s 4th Division,
reaching almost to the villages of Paradas and Algeriz. Its
Portuguese brigade (11th and 23rd regiments) was thrown forward on
the left under Collins, its two English brigades were at the head of
the slope. The ground was not high, but the slope was very steep, and
as a matter of fact was never even threatened, much less attacked.
Sixty guns were distributed along the line of the Serra. Ross’s
horse artillery troop were with Craufurd, Bull’s with Cole; of the
field-batteries Lawson’s was with Pack, Thompson’s with Lightburne,
Rettberg’s [K.G.L.] with Spencer, Cleeves’ [K.G.L.] with Coleman.
There were also four Portuguese field-batteries; Arentschildt’s was
on the high-road with Picton, Dickson’s two batteries with Hill,
Passos’s with Coleman, alongside of Cleeves’ German guns. Counting
their artillerymen, and the two squadrons of the 4th Dragoons on
the summit of the plateau, Wellington had 52,000 men on the field.
Of the rest of his disposable army, the Portuguese cavalry brigade
(regiments 1, 4, 7, 8; 1,400 sabres under Fane) and one British
regiment (13th Light Dragoons) were beyond the Mondego, far to
the south-east, watching the open country across the Alva as far
as Foz Dao and Sobral. Their head quarters were at Foz de Alva.
To defend the Ponte de Murcella position against any possible
flanking force the French might have detached, Wellington had left
Le Cor’s Portuguese, two regular regiments (Nos. 12 and 13) and
three battalions of the Beira militia. All these troops were ten or
twelve miles from the nearest point at which a shot was fired, in a
different valley, and were alike unseeing and unseen. In a similar
fashion, far out to the west, on the other side of the watershed,
in the low ground by Mealhada, was the English cavalry, with the
exception of the one regiment at Foz de Alva and two squadrons on the
Convent ridge.
Reynier’s corps, pushing the English rearguard before it, had
arrived in front of the Bussaco position on the afternoon of
September 25th. When Ney’s corps came up at dusk Reynier edged
away to the left, and established himself on the low hills above
the hamlet of San Antonio de Cantaro, leaving the ground about the
high-road to the 6th Corps. The 8th and Montbrun’s cavalry were still
some way behind, beyond Barril. Masséna, for reasons which it is
hard to divine, had not come to the front, though he must have heard
the guns firing all through the afternoon, and had been informed by
Reynier that the English were standing at bay on the Bussaco ridge.
He came no further to the front than Mortagoa on the 25th. Ney on the
morn of the next day was busy reconnoitring the position; he sent
forward _tirailleurs_ to push in Craufurd’s outposts, and ventured
as far to the front as was possible. So well hidden was Wellington’s
line that the Marshal formed an entirely erroneous conception of
what was before him. At 10.30 in the morning he wrote to Reynier to
say that the whole English army seemed to be moving to its left,
apparently on the road towards Oporto, but that it had still a
rearguard, with a dozen guns, in position to the right of the park
which covers the convent. Apparently Cole’s division, taking ground
to its left on Spencer’s arrival, and Craufurd on the _chaussée_ was
all that he had made out. He had not discovered Leith and the 5th
Division, and could not, of course, know that Spencer was at this
moment arriving at the convent, and that Hill was across the Mondego
at Peña Cova.
The Marshal added that if he had been in chief command he should
have attacked whatever was in front of him without a moment’s
hesitation[418]. But things being as they were, he thought that
Reynier would risk nothing by pushing forward on the English right,
and thrusting back Wellington’s outposts, for it was desirable to
make him retreat towards his left. It is clear that Ney, if he had
possessed a free hand, would have brought on a battle, when he was
only intending to drive in a rearguard. For by 10.30 on the 26th
Wellington had every man upon the field whom he intended to use in
the fight, and would have welcomed an assault. Of the French, on the
other hand, Junot’s 8th Corps and the cavalry and artillery were
still far away to the rear. They only came up in rear of Ney on the
night of the 26th-27th.
[418] See the letter quoted on page 358.
Masséna, on receiving Ney’s report, rode up to the front at about
two o’clock on the 26th--a late hour, but he is said to have been
employed in private matters at Mortagoa[419]. When he had at last
appeared, he pushed forward as near to the foot of the British
position as was safe, and reconnoitred it with care. In the evening
he drew up orders for attacking the Bussaco heights at their most
accessible points--along the _chaussée_ that leads from Moura up to
the convent, and along the country-road from San Antonio de Cantaro
to Palheiros.
[419] See Marbot, ii. p. 384--if that lively writer may be
trusted.
The Prince of Essling had no hesitation whatever about risking a
battle. He had never seen the English before, and held concerning
them the same views as the other French officers who had no
experience of Wellington’s army. Some confused generalization from
the misfortunes of the Duke of York’s troops in 1794-5 and 1799
determined the action of all the marshals till they had made personal
acquaintance with the new enemy. The English were to be dealt with by
drastic frontal attacks pushed home with real vigour. It is curious,
as Napoleon remarked soon after[420], that Reynier, who had been
badly beaten by the English at Alexandria and Maida, had learnt no
more than the others, and committed exactly the same errors as his
colleagues. He, who had experience of his adversaries, and Ney, who
had not, adopted precisely the same tactics. These, indeed, were
indicated to them by Masséna’s order to attack in columns, each at
least a division strong, preceded by a swarm of _tirailleurs_. There
was no question of a general advance all along the line; the two
Corps-Commanders were directed to choose each his point, and to break
through the British army at it, by force of mass and impact. Only
two sections of Wellington’s nine-mile position were to be touched,
there being a long gap between the objectives assigned to Ney and
to Reynier. But by throwing 13,000 or 14,000 men in close order at
each of the two short fronts selected, Masséna thought that he could
penetrate the thin line of the defenders.
[420] See Foy’s account of his interview with the Emperor in his
_Vie Militaire_, p. 108.
As none of the historians of the battle have thought it worth while
to give the Marshal’s orders in detail, and many writers have
misconceived or mis-stated them, it is necessary to state them[421].
The attacks of the 2nd and 6th Corps were not to be simultaneous;
Reynier, having the easier ground before him, was told to move first.
He was to select the most accessible stretch of the hillside in his
front, and to climb it, with his whole corps in one or two columns,
preceded by a skirmishing line. Having gained the crest, and pierced
the British line, he was to re-form his men, and then drop down the
reverse slope of the heights on to the Coimbra road, along which he
was to press in the direction of the convent of Bussaco, toward the
rear of Wellington’s centre.
[421] This unpublished document from the _Archives du Ministère
de la Guerre_ seems to have escaped all historians.
Ney was directed not to move till he should have learnt that Reynier
had crowned the heights; but when he should see the 2nd Corps on the
crest, was to send forward two columns of a division each against
the British left-centre. One division was to follow the _chaussée_,
the other to mount the rough path up the spur on which the village
of Sula stands. Both columns, like those of the 2nd Corps, were to
be preceded by a thick line of skirmishers. They were to halt and
re-form when the crest of the English position should be carried, and
then to adapt their movements to suit those of Reynier’s corps.
Junot was to assemble his two infantry divisions behind Moura, and
to have them ready to reinforce either Ney or Reynier as might be
needed. His artillery was to be placed on the knolls on each side of
the _chaussée_, so as to be able to hold back the allied army if,
after repulsing Ney, it should attempt a forward movement. Montbrun’s
cavalry and the reserve artillery were to be placed on either side of
the _chaussée_ behind Junot’s centre[422].
[422] These orders are printed in the Appendix.
The horsemen were obviously useless, save that in the event of
Wellington being defeated they could be sent forward in pursuit. Nor
were the guns much more serviceable: they could sweep the lower parts
of the slopes of Bussaco, but could not reach its crest with their
fire. Indeed, the only French artillery used successfully on the
next day were two batteries which Ney’s columns of attack took with
them along the _chaussée_, as far as the elbow of road in front of
Moura. These were in effective range of Craufurd’s and Pack’s troops,
since the latter were on a level with them, and not on the highest
crest of the British position. Reynier’s guns could just reach the
summit of the pass of San Antonio de Cantaro, but not so as to play
upon it with any good result.
It is said that Junot and Reynier were in favour of trying the
frontal attack which Masséna had dictated, as was also Laszowski, the
Polish general who commanded the engineers of the army. Fririon, the
chief of the staff, and Eblé, commanding the artillery, spoke against
the policy of ‘taking the bull by the horns.’ Masséna, according to
Fririon, turned on the doubters with the words ‘You come from the
old Army of the Rhine, you like manœuvring; but it is the first time
that Wellington seems ready to give battle, and I want to profit by
the opportunity[423].’ Ney, too, as we read with some surprise, is
said to have given the opinion that it would have been feasible to
assault the heights yesterday, but that now, when Wellington had been
given time to bring up his reserves and settle his army down into
the most advantageous position, the policy of taking the offensive
had become doubtful. He therefore advised that the army should turn
aside and make a stroke at Oporto, which would be found unprotected
save by militia. Masséna, according to his official biographer,
announced ‘that the Emperor had ordered him to march on Lisbon, not
on Oporto. This was entirely correct: the capture of Lisbon would
end the whole war, that of Oporto would prolong it, and bring no
decisive result. Moreover, it was quite uncertain whether Wellington
would not be able to prevent such a move. He has troops échelloned
as far as the Vouga, and he could get to Oporto in three marches,
because he possesses the Oporto-Coimbra _chaussée_, while the French
army, moving by worse roads, would require five marches to reach
it.’ It is suggested that Ney’s policy was really to goad his
superior into making the frontal attack at Bussaco, by feigning to
believe it dangerous and to counsel its abandonment. For he thought
that Masséna would do precisely the opposite of what he was advised,
out of his personal dislike for himself, and general distaste for
having counsel thrust upon him. If this was so, the Duke of Elchingen
carried his point--to the entire discomfiture both of himself and his
commander-in-chief[424].
[423] So Fririon in his _Campagne de Portugal_, p. 47. But his
enemy Pelet says (_Vic. et Conq._, xxi. p. 321) that Ney, like
Reynier, ‘demanda la bataille à grands cris.’ Cf., for what it is
worth, Marbot’s tale, ii. 384.
[424] All this is told at great length in Koch’s _Vie de
Masséna_, vii. p. 192, where the Council of War is described with
many details.
[Illustration: BATTLE OF BUSSACO Sep. 27th, 1810.
_Position of the Troops at the commencement of the French Attack_]
On the 26th, after Masséna had retired to his head quarters at
Mortagoa, there was a little skirmishing on the English right-centre,
where Reynier’s advanced guard drove the light company of the 88th
off some knolls at the foot of the heights, opposite San Antonio de
Cantaro. Much about the same time there was some bickering on Ney’s
front: the pickets of Pack’s 4th Caçadores and Craufurd’s 95th were
attacked, but held their ground. The contest was never very serious
and the fire died down at dusk. That evening the British army slept
in order of battle, ‘each man with his firelock in his grasp at his
post. There were no fires, and the death-like stillness that reigned
throughout the line was only interrupted by the occasional challenge
of an advanced sentry, or a random shot fired at some imaginary foe.’
Below and in front, all the low hills behind Moura and San Antonio
were bright with the bivouac fires of the French, of which three
great masses could be distinguished, marking the position of the 2nd,
6th, and 8th Corps[425].
[425] Grattan’s _Adventures with the 88th_, pp. 28-9, and Leith
Hay, i. 231.
The dawn of the 27th was somewhat misty, but as soon as the light was
strong enough Reynier commenced his attack. He had chosen for his
objective, as was natural, the lowest point of the ridge opposite
him, the dip where the country-road from San Antonio de Cantaro
crosses the Serra. His two divisions, according to order, were drawn
up in two heavy columns preceded by a dense swarm of _tirailleurs_.
Heudelet’s division on the left was across the high-road, with the
31st Léger in front, then the two regiments of Foy’s brigade, the
70th and 17th Léger, with the 47th in reserve. The whole made 15
battalions, or 8,000 men. Merle’s division had the right, and was
to attack north of the road: of its eleven battalions, making 6,500
men, the 36th of the Line led, the 2nd Léger followed, the 4th Léger
brought up the rear. All the battalions were in serried column with a
front of one company only, and in each regiment the three, or four,
battalions were originally drawn up one behind the other. But the
involuntary swerving of the attack soon turned the two divisions into
an irregular échelon of battalion-columns, the right in every case
leading. And the roughness of the hillside soon broke the ordered
ranks of each column into a great clump of men, so that to the
British defenders of the ridge the assault seemed to be delivered
by a string of small crowds crossing the hillside diagonally. It
is curious that Reynier placed no troops to his left of the road;
a study of his orders (as of those of Masséna[426]) leads to a
suspicion that they had failed to discover Leith’s division, and
still more Hill’s, and imagined that the road was on the extreme
right, not in the right-centre, of the British position. Otherwise
Reynier would have taken some precaution to guard himself from a
flank attack from Leith, to which he was deliberately exposing his
left column.
[426] Masséna’s orders for the battle call Reynier’s attack one
on ‘la droite de l’armée ennemie,’ but it was really on the
right-centre, Hill and Leith extending for four miles south of
the point assailed.
There were, as has already been pointed out, several gaps in
the nine-mile British line. One was between the 8th regiment of
Portuguese, on Leith’s extreme left, and the rest of the 5th
Division. Another was between Picton’s troops at the pass of San
Antonio and his left wing--the 88th and Lightburne’s brigade.
Between the 45th and the 88th there was three-quarters of a mile of
unoccupied ground. The first gap led to no danger, the second caused
for a moment a serious crisis. Such was indeed almost bound to occur
when a line so long was held by such a small army. But this morning
there arose the special danger that fog hid the first movements of
the enemy from the eye, if not from the ear.
Merle’s division seems to have been the first of Reynier’s two
columns to move: at dawn, with the mist lying thick on the hillside,
it began to move up the steep slope some three-quarters of a mile to
the right of the San Antonio-Palheiros road. Here its _tirailleurs_
came in contact with the light companies of the 74th, 88th, and 45th
regiments, which were strung out along the front, and soon began
to push this thin line up hill. For some reason undetermined--a
trick of the mist, or a bend of the hillside--the three French
regiments all headed somewhat to their left, so as to pass across
the front of the 88th, and to direct their advance precisely to the
unoccupied piece of crest between that regiment and the troops placed
immediately above the pass of San Antonio. Their progress was slow:
the _tirailleurs_ left far behind them the eleven battalion-columns,
which were trampling through the dense matted heather which here
covers the hillside. Hearing the bicker of the skirmishing far to
his left, Picton took the alarm, and though he could see nothing
in the fog, detached first a wing of the 45th under Major Gwynne,
and then the two battalions of the 8th Portuguese, to fill the
unoccupied space which intervened between him and the 88th. If he
had suspected the strength of the column that was aiming at it he
would have sent more. But he was already distracted by the frontal
attack of Heudelet’s vanguard along the high-road. A column of four
battalions--the 31st Léger--was pushing up the road, and driving in
the skirmishers of Champlemond’s Portuguese brigade. Just at this
moment the mist began to lift, and Arentschildt’s guns opened on
the broad mass, and began to plough long lanes through it. It still
advanced, but was soon brought to a standstill by the fire of the
British 74th and Portuguese 21st, which were drawn up in line to
right and left, a little below the guns. The 31st Léger tried to
deploy, but with small success, each section being swept away by the
converging fire of the Anglo-Portuguese musketry, as it strove to
file out of the disordered mass. Nevertheless, the French regiment
gallantly held its ground for some time, shifting gradually towards
its right to avoid the fire of the guns, and gaining a little of the
hillside in that direction with its first battalion, while the other
three were tending to edge away from the road, and to break up into a
shapeless crowd[427].
[427] The _Mémoires_ of Lemonnier Delafosse, a captain in
the 31st Léger, give an excellent and clear account of its
sufferings, see pp. 69-70 of his work.
Picton soon saw that there was no danger here, handed over the
command at the Pass of San Antonio to Mackinnon, and started off
towards his left, where the firing was growing heavier every minute,
and the vast column of Merle’s division, climbing the hillside
diagonally, had become visible through the mist.
It was fortunate that the attack of Merle was made very slow by
the steepness of the hillside and the heather that clung about the
soldiers’ stumbling feet. For the leading regiment reached the crest
before there were any British troops yet established on the point at
which it aimed. It was lurching over the sky-line on to the little
plateau above, just as the defenders arrived--the 88th descending
from the British left, the wing of the 45th and the two battalions
of the 8th Portuguese coming along the hill-road from the right. If
the French had been granted ten minutes to rest from the fatigue of
their long climb, and to recover their order, they might have broken
the British line. But Wallace, the commander of the 88th, was one of
Wellington’s best colonels, the very man for the emergency. Seeing
that the French must be charged at once, ere they had time to make a
front, he threw out three of his companies as skirmishers to cover
his flanks, called to the wing of the 45th to fall in on his right,
and charged diagonally across the little plateau on to the flank of
the great disordered mass before him. At the same moment the 8th
Portuguese, a little further along the hilltop, deployed and opened
a rolling fire against the front of the enemy, while Wellington
himself, who had been called down from his post of observation on
the Convent height by the noise of the fighting, came up with two of
Thompson’s guns, and turned their fire upon the flank and rear of the
climbing mass, which was still surging up the hillside. Apparently
at the same instant the light companies of the 45th and 88th,
which had been engaged in the earlier skirmishing with the French
_tirailleurs_, and had been driven far away to their right, were
rallied by Picton in person, and brought up along the plateau, to the
right of the 8th Portuguese. They drew up only sixty yards from the
flank of the leading French regiment, and opened a rolling fire upon
it.
At any other juncture and on any other ground, four battalions would
have been helpless against eleven. But Wallace had caught the
psychological moment: the French 36th, dead beat from its climb, and
in hopeless disorder, was violently charged in flank by the Connaught
Rangers and the wing of the 45th, while it was just gathering itself
up to run in upon the Portuguese battalions that lay in its front.
The French had no time to realize their position, or to mark the
smallness of the force opposed to them, when the blow fell. The four
battalions of the 36th were rolled down hill and to their left by
the blasting fire of Wallace’s little force, followed by a desperate
bayonet charge. They were thrust sideways against the 2nd Léger,
which was just reaching the sky-line on their left, and was beginning
to struggle in among some rocks which here crown the crest of the
heights. Then the whole mass gave way, trampled down the 4th Léger in
their rear, and rushed down the slope. ‘All was confusion and uproar,
smoke, fire, and bullets, French officers and soldiers, drummers
and drums, knocked down in every direction; British, French, and
Portuguese mixed together; while in the midst of all was to be seen
Wallace fighting like his ancestor of old, and still calling to his
soldiers to “press forward.” He never slackened his fire while a
Frenchman was within his reach, and followed them down to the edge of
the hill, where he formed his men in line waiting for any order that
he might receive, or any fresh body that might attack him[428].’ This
was certainly one of the most timely and gallant strokes made by a
regimental commander during the war, and the glory was all Wallace’s
own, as Picton very handsomely owned. ‘The Colonel of the 88th and
Major Gwynne of the 45th are entitled to the whole of the credit,’
he wrote to Wellington, ‘and I can claim no merit whatever in the
executive part of that brilliant exploit, which your Lordship has so
highly and so justly extolled[429].’
[428] Grattan’s _Adventure with the Connaught Rangers_, p. 35.
[429] Picton to Wellington, _Supplementary Dispatches_, vi. p.
635. I do not know whether Wallace really descended from the
famous Sir William, but Craufurd of the Light Division (as his
descendant and biographer has pointed out to me) chanced to have
a connexion with the Knight of Ellerslie.
The victorious British troops followed the enemy far down the
hillside, till they came under the fire of Reynier’s artillery,
and were warned to retire to their former position. They thus
missed the last episode of Reynier’s attack, which occurred along
the hillside just to the left of the point at which their collision
with Merle’s battalions had taken place. The Commander of the 2nd
Corps, seeing his right column rolling down the slope, while the
31st was melting away, and gradually giving ground under the fire of
the Anglo-Portuguese troops at the Pass of San Antonio, hurried to
Foy’s brigade and started it up the hill to the right of the 31st.
Foy had been told to support that regiment, but had taken Reynier’s
orders to mean that he was to follow up its advance when it began
to make headway. His Corps-Commander cantered up to him shouting
angrily, ‘Why don’t you start on the climb? You could get the troops
forward if you choose, but you don’t choose.’ Whereupon Foy rode to
the leading regiment of his brigade, the 17th Léger, put himself at
its head, and began to ascend the heights, his other regiment, the
70th, following in échelon on his left rear. At this moment Merle’s
division was still visible, falling back in great disorder some way
to the right, and pursued by Wallace--a discouraging sight for the
seven battalions that were about to repeat its experiment. Foy chose
as his objective the first and lowest hilltop to the French right of
the pass of San Antonio, and took his string of columns, the right
always leading, up towards it at such pace as was possible over the
long heather, and among the occasional patches of stones. The troops
which were in front of them here were those sections of Picton’s
division which were neither far away on the English left with Wallace
and Lightburne, nor actively engaged on the road against the 31st
Léger, viz. the right wing of the British 45th under Colonel Meade,
and the Portuguese 8th of the Line which had just been aiding in the
repulse of Merle. These were soon afterwards joined by one battalion
of the 9th Portuguese from Champlemond’s brigade, and the unattached
battalion of Thomar militia, which Picton sent up the hill. Yet this
was still far too small a force to resist Foy’s seven battalions,
unless speedily supported.
But support in sufficient quantity was forthcoming. General Leith
had received orders from Wellington to close in to Picton’s right
if he saw no hostile troops in his own front. As it was clear that
Reynier had kept no reserves or flanking detachments to the south
of the high-road, it was possible for the 5th Division to move at
once[430]. While the fog was still hanging thickly along the crests
of the Serra, Leith ordered a general move of his brigades to the
left, while Hill detached troops from the southern end of the
position to occupy the heights which the 5th Division was evacuating.
This general move to the left was carried out along the rough but
serviceable country-road which passes along the rear of the plateau,
out of sight of the French. At the moment when Foy’s attack was
beginning, Leith had just reached the Pass of San Antonio, with
Spry’s Portuguese brigade at the head of his column, then the two
battalions of the Lusitanian legion, and lastly, Barnes’s British
brigade. One of Dickson’s Portuguese batteries was also with him. He
dropped the guns at the pass to aid Arentschildt’s battery, whose
fire was beginning to slacken from want of ammunition, and left Spry
in their rear and the Legionary battalions on the country-road hard
by, while he brought up Barnes’s brigade to the front, and reported
his arrival to Picton. The latter said, it appears, that he was
strong enough at the Pass, but would be obliged if Leith would attend
to the attack which was being made at this moment on the height to
its immediate left[431]. This movement of Foy’s was now becoming
dangerous: forcing his way to the summit under a destructive fire, he
had met on the edge of the plateau the three Portuguese battalions
and the wing of the British 45th, and had driven them back--the
Thomar militia broke and fled down the rear declivity of the heights,
and the 8th Portuguese, though they did not fly, gave way and fell
back in disorder. Just at this moment Leith, with Barnes’s three
battalions, came up along the communication-road at the back of the
plateau. ‘A heavy fire of musketry,’ writes Leith, ‘was being kept
up upon the heights, the smoke of which prevented a clear view of
the state of things. But when the rock forming the high part of the
Serra became visible, the enemy appeared to be in full possession of
it, and a French officer was in the act of cheering, with his hat
off, while a continued fire was being kept up from thence, and along
the whole face of the slope of the Serra, in a diagonal direction
towards its bottom, by the enemy ascending rapidly in successive
columns, formed for an attack upon a mass of men belonging to the
left battalion of the 8th and the 9th Portuguese, who, having been
severely pressed, had given way, and were rapidly retiring in
complete confusion and disorder. The enemy had dispersed or driven
off everything opposed to him--was in possession of the rocky
eminence of the Serra.’ A few of his _tirailleurs_ were even on the
upper edge of the rear slope.
[430] Leith’s nephew and aide-de-camp, Leith Hay, had explored
all the villages in this direction on the previous afternoon,
with a squadron of Portuguese horse, see his _Narrative_, i. 381.
[431] Picton and Leith each rather slur over the part taken by
the other in their parallel narratives of the crisis. Picton
says that he took command of Leith’s troops: ‘at this moment
Major-General Leith’s aide-de-camp came up to report the arrival
of that general and his division, on which I rode from the post
of San Antonio to the road of communication, and directed the
leading regiment of the brigade to proceed without loss of time
to the left, as I had no occasion for assistance. General Leith’s
brigade, in consequence, moved on and arrived in time to join the
five companies of the 45th and the 8th Portuguese in repulsing
the enemy’s last attempt.’ Leith, on the other hand, speaks of
having taken command of some of Picton’s troops, as if the latter
had not been present, and says nought of their conversation.
‘Major-General Leith thereupon directed a movement of succession,
ordering Colonel Douglas with the right battalion of the 8th
Portuguese to support the point attacked. He also directed the
9th Portuguese under Colonel Sutton (belonging to Major-General
Picton’s division) to move up to the support of General Picton’s
division,’ and again, ‘He (General Leith) ordered the 8th and 9th
Portuguese to support the point attacked, and where the enemy
were fast gaining ground.’ Each general speaks as if he had been
in command, and I fear that each is using undue reticence as to
the other’s doings. See note at the end of this chapter.
Leith, realizing that there was still time to save the position--for
only the head of the French column had crowned the rocky
knoll,--deployed his leading battalion, the 9th, across the summit of
the plateau, while sending on his second, the 38th, to get between
the enemy and the reverse slope of the position. This last move
turned out to be fruitless, for the rear face of the knoll is so
steep and so thickly covered with large boulders[432], that the 38th
was unable to climb it, and came back to fall in on the right of
the 9th. But before it could get back, the senior regiment had done
its work. Leith had led it diagonally across the plateau, so as to
place it along the flank of the leading battalions of Foy’s column,
of which the first was now ensconced on the summit of the heights,
while the others were struggling up to join it. The 9th opened with
a volley at 100 yards, and then advanced firing, receiving hardly
any return from the enemy, who seemed entirely disconcerted by the
appearance of a new force parallel with its flank. At twenty yards
from the French, the 9th lowered its bayonets and prepared to charge,
Leith riding at its head waving his plumed hat. Then the enemy gave
way. ‘My heroic column,’ writes Foy, ‘much diminished during the
ascent, reached the summit of the plateau, which was covered with
hostile troops. Those on our left made a flank movement and smashed
us up by their battalion volleys; meanwhile those on our front,
covered by some rocks, were murdering us with impunity. The head of
my column fell back to its right, despite my efforts; I could not
get them to deploy, disorder set in, and the 17th and 70th raced
down-hill in headlong flight. The enemy pursued us half-way to the
foot of the heights, till he pulled up on coming under effective fire
from our artillery[433].’
[432] Napier calls it a ‘precipice,’ but this is not the right
word. I found that I could walk freely about on it, but no formed
body of men could have passed up the slope.
[433] Foy’s diary, pp. 103-4, tallies exactly with Leith’s
narrative in _Wellington Supplementary Dispatches_, vi. 678, and
Cameron’s letter in Napier, Appendix to vol. vi.
The battle was now over on this side: Reynier had in reserve only
one regiment, the 47th of the Line. His other twenty-two battalions
had all been beaten to pieces; they had lost over 2,000 men,
including more than half their superior officers: Merle commanding
the 1st Division was wounded, his junior brigadier Graindorge was
killed; Foy, commanding the first brigade of the other division, was
wounded. Of the six colonels who had gone up the heights, those of
the 31st Léger, 2nd Léger, 4th Léger, and 70th had been hit: of the
twenty-three battalion commanders four were killed, seven wounded.
Of 421 officers in all who went into action, 118--more than one
in four--had been disabled. Of the 2,023 casualties, 350 men and
fifteen officers were prisoners in the hands of the British. And
these losses had been suffered without inflicting any corresponding
loss upon the defenders of the position: Picton’s division had 427
killed and wounded; Leith’s 160. The only regiments appreciably
diminished were the 45th, 88th, and Portuguese 8th--with 150, 134,
and 113 casualties respectively. The only superior officers hit were
the Portuguese brigadier Champlemond, and a major each in the 45th
and 88th. Of the 3rd and 5th Divisions only six British and five
Portuguese battalions had been engaged[434]--the superiority of force
against them had been about two to one. Yet Reynier complained in
his dispatch to Masséna of being crushed by ‘a triple superiority of
numbers’! As a matter of fact, it was the position that beat him, not
the imagined numbers of the allies. Wellington could risk much in
taking up a long line, when he had a good road of communication along
its rear, to shift troops from point to point, and when he could
descry every movement of the enemy half an hour before it began to
take effect.
[434] Viz. British: Mackinnon’s 1/88th, 1/45th, 74th, Barnes’s
3/1st, 1/9th, 2/38th. Portuguese: Champlemond’s 9th Line (2
batts.) and 21st Line (1 batt.), with the 8th from Leith’s
division (2 batts.). Spry’s brigade and the Lusitanian Legion
from Leith were never under fire, and did not lose a man.
Picton’s left brigade (Lightburne) was never engaged, save that
the light companies of the 5th and 83rd, far down the slope, lost
eight and four men respectively. The Thomar militia bolted before
coming under fire.
The other half of the battle of Bussaco was an even shorter business
than Reynier’s struggle with Picton and Leith, but no less bloody
and decisive. Ney exactly obeyed Masséna’s orders to attack, with
two divisions, the ground on each side of the Coimbra _chaussée_,
when he should see the 2nd Corps lodged on the crest beside the pass
of San Antonio de Cantaro. The many reproaches heaped upon him,
by critics who have not read his orders, for attacking too late,
and not at the same moment as Reynier, are groundless: he was told
to go forward only when his colleague ‘sera maître des hauteurs.’
He moved precisely when the dispersing mists showed Merle’s great
column massed on the edge of the plateau. Of his three divisions he
had, again in exact obedience to orders, placed Loison on the right,
Marchand on the left, while Mermet was in reserve, behind Moura.
The two fighting divisions were completely separated by the deep
and steep ravine of which we have had occasion to speak. The ground
in front of them was very different: Marchand had to advance, by
rather gentle slopes, along the _chaussée_, which curves up towards
the convent of Bussaco. Loison had to go up a hillside of a very
different sort, whose lower stretch, as far as the village of Sula,
is gentle, and much cut up by woods and orchards, but whose upper
half, beyond Sula, is extremely steep and absolutely destitute of
cover. There was no road here, only a rough mule-track.
Loison started a few minutes before Marchand: he had his two brigades
side by side, Simon’s (six battalions) on the right, Ferey’s (also
six battalions) on the left. Both started from the low ground in
front of Sula, each with a strong chain of _tirailleurs_ covering
an advance in serried battalion columns; the 26th regiment was the
leading regiment in Simon’s, the 66th in Ferey’s brigade. On leaving
the bottom, and advancing among the trees on the lower slope, both
brigades found their _tirailleurs_ at once checked by a very strong
skirmishing line. Pack had spread out the whole of the 4th Caçadores
on the hillside in front of his line battalions. Craufurd had thrown
out the 95th--more than 700 rifles--and the 3rd Caçadores--600 rifles
more--into the enclosures in front of Sula. The 43rd and 52nd, with
the 1st Caçadores, were lying down in the hollow road at the head of
the steep slope above that village, completely concealed from sight.
Of formed troops, Loison could only see the 1st Division far above
him on the left on the highest plateau of the Serra, and Cole far
away to his right on the lower hillsides towards Paradas. In order
to press in the obstinate light troops in front of him, Loison was
compelled to push forward whole battalions from his fighting-line: by
a strenuous use of these, the Caçadores and Rifles were evicted first
from the lower slopes, then from the village of Sula. But when the
latter had been captured, the French found themselves under a heavy
fire of artillery: Ross’s guns on the knoll above, between their
embrasures of rock, being carefully trained upon the exits of the
village, while Cleeves’ German battery joined in from its position at
the head of the ravine, and took Ferey in flank. It was impossible
to halt in Sula, and Loison ordered his brigadiers to push forward
the attack once more, taking Ross’s guns and the windmill near them
as their objective. The slope was now much steeper, the British
and Portuguese skirmishers had rallied once more above Sula, and
Craufurd had sent down the 1st Caçadores to feed the fighting-line.
It was only with a severe effort, and with much loss, that the French
battalions won their way up the culminating slope. Simon’s front
regiment, the 26th of the Line, stuck to the mule-path up the hill
from Sula, in one dense and deep column, with the front of a company
only, and a depth of three battalions. Ferey’s brigade, having no
track to follow, seems to have moved in a somewhat less vicious
formation along the slope further to the left, bordering on the
northern edge of the funnel-like ravine which formed the boundary of
Craufurd’s position. Both were in a very disordered condition, owing
to the fierce conflict which they had waged with the screen of Rifles
and Caçadores all up the hillside.
Lying in the hollow road parallel with the head of the ravine were
the two Line regiments of the Light Division, the 43rd on the right,
the 52nd on the left. They were very strong battalions, despite their
losses at the Coa, the one having 800 the other 950 bayonets. In
front of them, on the sky-line by the little windmill, to the right
of Ross’s guns, Craufurd had been standing all through the earlier
stages of the engagement, watching the gradual progress of the French
up the hillside. He waited patiently till the enemy’s two columns, a
few hundred yards apart, had reached the last steep of the hillside
below him. His recoiling skirmishers were at last thrust in upon
him--they passed, some to the flanks, some through the intervals
between the battalions and the guns, and the front was clear.
[Illustration: NEY’S ATTACK at BUSSACO.]
[Illustration: REYNIER’S ATTACK at BUSSACO.]
Then came the opportunity: the French, pulling themselves together,
were preparing to rush up the last twenty yards of the ascent and to
run in upon the guns, when Craufurd waved his hat to the battalions
lying in the road behind him, the appointed signal for action, and
(it is said) called to the men behind him ‘Now 52nd, revenge the
death of Sir John Moore.’ The crest was at once covered by the
long red line, and the fronts of the French brigades received such
a volley at ten paces as has been seldom endured by any troops in
war. The whole of the heads of their columns crumbled away in a
mass of dead and dying. The centre and rear stood appalled for
one moment; then Major Arbuthnot wheeled in three companies of the
52nd upon the right flank of Simon’s leading regiment, while Lloyd
of the 43rd did the same upon the extreme left, so as to produce a
semicircle of fire[435]. It was impossible to stand under it, and
the French broke and went hurtling down the hill, the wrecks of the
front battalions carrying the rear ones away with them. So steep was
the slope on their left that some are said to have lost their footing
and to have rolled down to the bottom of the ravine before they
could stop. The Light Division followed as far as Sula, and beyond,
not stopping till Loison’s people had taken refuge in the wooded
ground beyond that village, and the French guns by Moura had begun
to play upon their pursuers. The rush had carried away the whole
of the enemy, save one battalion upon Ferey’s extreme left, which
had moved so far down in the slope of the ravine that it had become
separated from the rest. This solitary column, pressing forward, came
to the sky-line not in front of Craufurd, but at the very head of the
ravine, below Cleeves’ battery. Here it was dealt with by the leading
unit of Coleman’s Portuguese brigade, which was standing in line
near the _chaussée_. The 1st battalion of the 19th regiment, under
Major McBean, charged it and rolled it back into the cleft, down
whose bottom it hastily recoiled, and joined the rest of the flying
division.
[435] A passage of Napier’s account of the movements of the Light
Division (iii. 27) has puzzled many readers. ‘Eighteen hundred
British bayonets went sparkling over the brow of the hill. Yet
so hardy were the leading French that every man of the first
section raised his musket, and two officers and ten soldiers
(of the 52nd) fell before them. Not a Frenchman had missed his
mark!’ This passage looks as if the whole French division had
been conceived by Napier as moving in a single column with a
front of only twelve men. An eye-witness, Sir John Bell, of the
52nd, who owned the copy of the book which I now have before
me, has written Bosh! in the margin against the words. Of
course the enemy was advancing with each battalion in column of
companies, with a front of thirty at least. What Napier seems
to have had in his head was an anecdote told by his brother
George (_Autobiography_, p. 143). ‘My company met the very head
of the French column, and immediately calling to my men to form
column of sections, in order to give more force to our rush, we
dashed forward. I was in front of my men a yard or two, when a
Frenchman made a plunge at me with his bayonet, and at the same
time received the contents of his musket under my hip and fell.
At the same instant they fired upon my front section, consisting
of about nine men in the front rank, all of whom fell, four dead,
the rest wounded.’ But this does not imply that the French column
was only twelve broad.
This made an end of Loison’s two brigades as a serious attacking
force. They reeled back to their original position, under cover of
the 25th Léger, which Mermet sent out to relieve them. But later in
the day they pushed some skirmishers up the hill again, and bickered
with Craufurd’s outposts. Wellington, seeing that the Light Division
was fatigued, sent the light companies of Löwe’s German brigade
and A. Campbell’s 6th Caçadores, from the reserves, to take up the
skirmishing. It stood still about Sula, but the French got a few men
into the village, whom Craufurd had to evict with a company of the
43rd.
Loison lost, out of 6,500 men used in the attack, twenty-one officers
killed and forty-seven wounded, with some 1,200 men. His senior
brigadier, Simon, was wounded in the face, and taken prisoner by a
private of the 52nd. The loss of the Light Division was marvellously
small--the 3rd Caçadores and the 95th, who had fought through the
long skirmish up the hill, had seventy-eight and forty-one casualties
respectively, but the 43rd and 52nd had the astounding record of only
three men killed, and two officers and eighteen men wounded. McBean’s
Portuguese battalion lost one officer and twenty-five men: the German
light companies had nearly fifty casualties, but this was later in
the day. Altogether, Loison’s attack was repelled with a loss of only
200 men to the allies.
It only remains to tell of one more section of the Battle of Bussaco;
it was entirely independent of the rest. When Ney started Loison to
his right of the deep ravine, he had sent forward Marchand’s division
to his left of it, along the great _chaussée_. On turning the sweep
of the road beyond Moura, the leading brigade of this column (6th
Léger and 69th Line, five battalions) came under a terrible artillery
fire from the three batteries which Wellington had placed at the
head of the ravine, those of Cleeves, Parros, and Lawson. They,
nevertheless, pushed along the road till they came level with a small
pine wood on their left, which was full of the skirmishers of Pack’s
Portuguese brigade--the whole of the 4th Caçadores had been sent
down into it from the height above. The flanking fire of these light
troops was so galling that the French brigade--apparently without
orders and by an instinctive movement--swerved to its left, and went
up the hillside to turn the Caçadores out of their cover. After a
sharp bickering they did so, and then emerging from the wood on to
the smooth slope of the height below the convent wall, got into a
desperate musketry duel with Pack’s four Line-battalions, who stood
in front of them. They were now in disorder, and their brigadier,
Maucune, had been wounded. But they made several attempts to storm
the hillside, which were all beaten back by the Portuguese musketry
and the fire of Lawson’s artillery on the right. The second brigade
of Marchand (that of Marcognet) pushed as far along the road as the
preceding brigade had gone, but stopped when it came under the fire
of Cleeves’ and Parros’s guns, to which that of Ross’s (from across
the ravine) was also added, when Loison’s attack had been beaten
off. Seeing that Marchand was making no headway, that Loison had
been routed, and that Reynier’s corps was out of action, Ney called
back his column, which fell back behind Moura. Maucune’s brigade had
suffered severely--it had lost its brigadier, the colonel of the 6th
Léger, and thirty-three other officers with some 850 men. The rear
brigade (Marcognet’s) had suffered less--its casualty list, however,
was fully 300 killed and wounded. There had been a little skirmishing
meanwhile opposite Wellington’s centre, for during the main attack
Ney had sent forward some voltigeur companies from his reserves to
occupy the line of skirmishers at the foot of the heights, which
Spencer’s 1st Division had thrown out. These two thin screens of
light troops paired off against each other, and contended all the
morning with some loss, but no appreciable advantage on either
side[436].
[436] Sprünglin, Ney’s aide-de-camp, gives an account of his
being detached with these voltigeurs, on p. 450 of his diary.
He lost 142 men. It must have been in contending with these
companies that the 1st Division (excluding the German brigade,
occupied elsewhere) got the 89 casualties returned by Wellington,
as also the 5/60 their 24 casualties. The only one of the British
battalions in this quarter which had an appreciable number of
men hurt was the 1/79th. Its regimental history says that its
light company was almost cut off at the commencement of the day.
The captain was taken prisoner--being the only British officer
captured that day--with six men, and there were over 40 other
casualties. Stopford’s brigade lost two men--Lord Blantyre’s
seven.
Masséna still had it in his power to attack again, for Mermet’s
division of the 6th Corps, and the whole of Junot’s 13,000 infantry
had not yet advanced and had hardly lost a man. But the result of
Ney’s and Reynier’s efforts had been so disheartening that the
Marshal refused to waste more lives on what was clearly a hopeless
enterprise. He could now see Wellington’s army concentrated on the
two points that had been attacked. Hill’s heavy column of 10,000
men had now lined the heights on Leith’s right: Cole had edged
the 4th Division close in to Craufurd’s left, and Coleman and the
Germans were visible in the rear. If Masséna had still 20,000 fresh
infantry, the English general had 33,000 who had not yet come up
into the fighting-line. It was useless to persist. Accordingly,
the skirmishing along Ney’s front was allowed to die down in the
afternoon, and the French divisions retired to their camps.
The total loss of Wellington’s army had been 1,252 officers and
men, of whom 200 were killed, 1,001 wounded, and fifty-one missing.
No officer over the rank of a major had been killed: and the only
senior officers wounded were the Portuguese brigadier Champlemond and
Colonel Barclay of the 52nd. Of the casualties, 626 were in the ranks
of the British, 626 in those of the Portuguese regiments--a strange
coincidence in the losses of the two allied armies. The Portuguese
line, indeed, had done their fair half of the fighting, as the return
showed--in no instance with discredit, in some with high merit. If
the 8th and 9th Portuguese had broken before Foy’s attack, it was
under severe stress, and when attacked by superior numbers. On the
other hand, Pack’s brigade, Coleman’s 19th, and the Caçadores of the
Light Division won the highest praises from their commanders, and had
taken a most distinguished part in the victory. Wellington now knew
exactly how far they could be trusted, and could estimate at last the
real fighting value of his army--at least, for a defensive battle in
chosen and favourable ground. It would be another matter to calculate
how far the allied host was capable of taking the offensive.
The total loss of the French, as shown by the return--which was not
quite complete--presented to Masséna on October 1, was 4,498, of whom
522 were killed, 3,612 wounded, and 364 missing (i.e. prisoners).
After his usual fashion he represented it to the Emperor as being
‘about 3,000[437].’ One general (Graindorge), two colonels, and
fifty-two other officers had been killed, four generals (Maucune,
Foy, Merle, Simon) were wounded--the last was also a prisoner; five
colonels and 189 other officers were wounded. The 2nd Corps in all
had lost at least 2,043 officers and men, the 6th Corps at least
2,455[438]. It may be remembered that of all the battles in the
Peninsular War this was the one in which the proportion of officers
to men hit on the French side was highest, one to sixteen--the
average being one to twenty-two in ordinary engagements. The
excessive proportion of casualties in the commissioned ranks bears
witness to a desperate attempt to lead on the men to an impossible
task, in which the officers sacrificed themselves in the most
splendid style.
[437] This too in a dispatch to Berthier dated Coimbra, Oct. 4,
three days after the returns had been placed before him.