certainly incomplete, omitting (1) losses of the cavalry of the
2nd Corps (where Martinien’s invaluable tables show that three
officers were wounded), (2) losses of the 8th Corps, which
caught a few shells as it stood on the heights by Moura and had
(as again shown by Martinien’s tables) six officers hit, which
must imply some hundred men. (3) Some casualties in the infantry
omitted in the returns, for while the report accounts for 253
killed and wounded officers, Martinien names 275. Deducting the
cavalry and 8th Corps losses mentioned above, there are still
fifteen officers (and therefore presumably 250 men) too few given
in the reports sent in to Masséna; e.g. for the 2nd Léger the
report has eighteen officers hit, Martinien gives the names of
twenty-two.
Masséna must not be too much blamed for his experiment. He had still
to ascertain the fighting value of Wellington’s army--and estimated
it too low, because of the extreme prudence which his adversary
had hitherto displayed. He was handicapped by the impossibility of
using his artillery effectively, and the position in front of him
was strong--even stronger than he guessed, because of the road of
communication along the rear of the plateau--but not too strong
to be forced, if the defenders did not fight well. Moreover, it
was immensely long--nine miles from end to end, so that two blows
delivered with a corps each in the centre might have pierced the
line before the enemy’s distant reserves could get up. Favoured by
the fog--as we have seen--Reynier actually won the heights for a
moment, though Ney never got near the crest. The mistake lay not so
much in making the trial as in under-rating the warlike efficiency of
the enemy. Strokes like Wallace’s charge with the 45th and 88th, or
Craufurd’s masterly advance with the 43rd and 52nd, are beyond the
common experiences of war. Masséna put forty-five battalions[439]
into his fighting-line--they were repulsed by twenty-four, for that
was the number of Anglo-Portuguese battalions which engaged more than
their light-companies[440]. This could not have been foreseen. But
the lesson was learnt. Before the lines of Torres Vedras, a fortnight
later, Masséna refused to take any more risks of the kind, and the
campaign assumed a very different character, because the invader had
learnt to respect his enemy.
[439] Viz. all Reynier’s Corps, save the 47th, twenty-two
battalions; Marchand eleven battalions, Loison twelve
battalions--total 26,000 men. See Tables in Appendix.
[440] Viz. the brigades of Mackinnon and Champlemond of the 3rd
Division: the 1st, 9th, 38th, British, and the 8th Portuguese of
Leith, Craufurd’s five battalions, Pack’s five battalions, three
battalions of Coleman--total 14,000 men. See Tables in Appendix.
(1) NOTE ON THE TOPOGRAPHY OF BUSSACO
I spent two days in April 1904 and two days in April 1906 in going
very carefully over the field--save that of its nine-mile length I
did not investigate closely either Cole’s position on the extreme
north, or Hill’s on the extreme south, no fighting having come near
either of them. The ground is so minutely described in the preceding
chapter that only a few additional points require notice.
(1) The ravine which lay between Pack and Craufurd, and between
Marchand and Loison, is a feature which no map can properly express,
and which no one who has not gone very carefully over the hillside
can fully picture to himself. It produces an absolute want of
continuity between the two fights which went on to its right and left.
(2) The Mondego is not visible from any point of the line of heights
till Hill’s position is reached. It is sunk far below the level of
the upland.
(3) The San Antonio-Palheiros road is a mere country track, barely
deserving the name of road, though practicable for artillery and
vehicles. The _chaussée_ Moura-Bussaco is a high-road of the first
class, admirably engineered. The paths across the Serra at Hill’s end
of it are wretched mule-tracks, not suitable for wheeled traffic. So
is the track from Sula up the slope to Craufurd’s standing-place.
(4) The view from the summit of the Serra is very extensive,
embracing on the one side all the slopes of the Estrella as far as
Guarda, and on the other the whole coast-plain of Coimbra as far
as the sea. But in each direction there is so much wood and hill
that many roads and villages are masked. The French army, both in
advance and retreat, was only intermittently visible. But enough
could be made out to determine its general movements with fair
precision. When it reached the foot-hills before the Serra every
detail of its disposition could be followed by an observer on any
part of the crest, save that below Sula woods in the bottom hide the
starting-point of Loison’s division.
(5) In the chapel by the side of the _chaussée_, just behind the
sky-line of the English position, the traveller will find a little
museum, including a very fine topographical map, with the position of
the allied troops, and more especially of the Portuguese regiments,
well marked. There are a few errors in the placing of the British
battalions, but nothing of consequence. The French army is only
vaguely indicated. But the map is a credit to the Portuguese engineer
officers who compiled it.
(6) As I have observed in the next chapter, the ground to the north,
along the Serras de Alcoba and de Caramula, is not so uniformly
lofty, or so forbidding in its aspect, as to cause the observer
to doubt whether there can be any pass across the watershed in
that direction. Indeed, the first idea that strikes the mind on
reaching the summit of the Serra, and casting a glance round the
wide landscape, is that it is surprising that any officer in the
French army can have believed that the Caramula was absolutely
impracticable. Moreover it is far less easily defensible than the
Bussaco ridge, because it is much more broken and full of cover. The
beauty of the Bussaco position is that, save on the Moura-Sula spurs,
it is entirely bare of cover on the side facing eastward. The smooth,
steep slope, with its furze and heather and its occasional outcrops
of rock, makes a splendid glacis. The reverse space would be a far
worse position to defend, against an enemy coming from Coimbra and
the coast-plain, because it is thickly interspersed with woods.
(7) With the possible exception of some of the Pyrenean
fighting-grounds, Bussaco gives the most beautiful landscape of
any of the British battlefields of the Peninsula. Albuera is tame,
Talavera is only picturesque at its northern end, Salamanca is
rolling ground with uninteresting ploughed fields, save where the two
Arapiles crop up in their isolated ruggedness. Fuentes d’Oñoro is
a pretty hillside, such as one may see in any English county, with
meadow below and rough pasture above. Vimiero is dappled ground, with
many trees but no commanding feature. But the loftiness, the open
breezy air, the far-reaching view over plain, wood, mountain, and
distant sea, from the summit of the Bussaco Serra is unique in its
beauty. It is small wonder that the modern Portuguese have turned it
into a health-resort, or that the British colony at Oporto have fixed
on the culminating plateau as the best golf-course in the Peninsula.
(2) NOTE ON THE CRISIS OF THE BATTLE OF BUSSACO
While there is no point of dispute concerning that part of the
Battle of Bussaco in which Craufurd, Pack, and Coleman were engaged
against the 6th Corps, there was bitter controversy on the exact
details of the repulse of Reynier’s corps by Picton and Leith.
Picton, and following him his subordinates of the 3rd Division,
thought that Leith’s part in the action was insignificant, that he
merely repulsed a minor attack after the main struggle was over.
Leith and his officers considered that they gave the decisive blow,
that Picton’s line would have been broken and the battle perhaps
lost, if Barnes’s brigade had not arrived at the critical moment
and saved the situation. All that Picton would allow was that Leith
‘aided the wing of the 45th and the 8th Portuguese in repulsing the
enemy’s last attempt.’ Grattan, who wrote an admirable narrative
of the defeat of Merle’s division by the 88th and the neighbouring
troops, denied that the 3rd Division was ever pressed, says that he
never saw Leith’s men till the action was over, and points out that
Barnes’s brigade, out of 1,800 bayonets, lost but 47 men altogether,
while the 45th regiment alone lost thrice, and the 88th more than
twice, as many killed and wounded out of their scanty numbers (150
and 134 out of 560 and 679 respectively). Other 3rd Division officers
suggest (see the letters in the Appendix to Napier’s sixth volume)
that Leith fought only with a belated body of French skirmishers,
or with men who had been cut off from the main attacking column by
the successful advance of Wallace. On the other hand Leith (see his
letter in Wellington, _Supplementary Dispatches_, vol. vi, p. 678)
speaks of coming on the ground to find a large French column crossing
the Serra, and the Portuguese 8th and 9th broken, and about to recoil
down the rear slope. His aide-de-camp, Leith-Hay, and Cameron of the
9th bear him out.
Napier has failed to make the situation clear, from not seeing that
there were two completely separate attacks of the French, divided by
an appreciable interval. He thinks that Foy was on the Serra as soon
as Merle, and calls his column (iii. p. 25) ‘the French battalions
which had first gained the crest,’ while as a matter of fact they had
only started after Wallace’s repulse of Merle was long over.
The real situation is made clear when Reynier’s and Heudelet’s
dispatches in the French Archives and Foy’s diary are studied. From
these it is clear that there were _two_ occasions on which the French
got to the top of the Serra, the first during Merle’s attack, the
second during Foy’s. I have quoted Foy’s narrative on p. 377 above;
but it may be well to give also his note showing the starting-time of
his column. ‘La première division (Merle) a gravi la montagne en se
jettant à droite. Mais à peine les têtes arrivaient sur le plateau,
qu’attaquées tout à coup par des troupes immensement supérieures en
nombre, fraîches et vigoureuses, elles ont été culbutées en bas de
la montagne dans le plus grand désordre. Ma brigade s’était portée
au pied de la montagne, devant soutenir le 31e Léger. Au moment de
l’échec de la 1re division j’ai fait halte un moment pour ne pas
être entraîné par les fuyards.’ It was only at this instant, when
the fugitives from Merle’s attack were pouring past him, that he got
his orders from Reynier to attack, and started to climb the slope.
There must, therefore, have been an interval of more than half an
hour--possibly of an hour--between the moment when Wallace thrust
Merle off the plateau, and that at which Foy crowned it, only to be
attacked and beaten by the newly arrived Leith. For it took a very
long time for the French 17th and 70th to climb the slope, and they
only reached the top with difficulty, the skirmishers of the 8th and
9th Portuguese and of Meade’s wing of the 45th having fought hard to
keep them back.
Reynier’s dispatch is equally clear as to his corps having made two
separate attacks. He adds that some of Sarrut’s men were rallied in
time to support Foy, a statement for which I find no corroboration
elsewhere.
Napier then has failed to grasp the situation, when he makes the
French crown the crest above the pass of San Antonio and the crest
opposite Wallace, 900 yards further north, at the same moment. And
the statement that Leith’s charge was directed against the other
flank of the same mass that was beaten by the 88th and 45th is
altogether erroneous.
Leith’s narrative of the business, in short, fits in with the French
story, and must be considered correct. Picton cannot be acquitted
of deliberate belittling of the part taken by his colleague in the
action. Foy’s attack, though made by only seven battalions, while
Merle had eleven, was the more dangerous of the two, and was defeated
by Leith alone, after the small fraction of Picton’s force in front
of it had been broken and thrust back.
SECTION XXI: CHAPTER III
WELLINGTON’S RETREAT TO THE LINES OF TORRES VEDRAS (OCTOBER 1810)
The dawn of September 28 brought small comfort to Masséna. His
desperate attacks of the preceding day had been repulsed with such
ease and such heavy loss, that neither he nor any of his subordinates
dreamed of renewing the attempt to force the line of the Serra. Only
three courses were open to him--to retreat on Almeida, giving up
the campaign as one too ambitious for the strength of his army, or
to change his objective and strike backwards at Oporto,--if Lisbon
were beyond his grasp,--or to endeavour to move Wellington out of
his position by turning his flank, since a frontal attack had proved
disastrous. The first course was advocated by more than one adviser,
but presented no attractions to the Marshal: he was both obstinate
and angry, and did not dream for a moment of spoiling his military
reputation by retreating tamely after a lost battle. The blow at
Oporto was equally unattractive: he had been told to drive the
English out of Portugal, and to capture Lisbon, not to make a mere
lodgement on the Douro. Moreover, as he had remarked to Ney before
the battle, if he marched on Oporto by the bad road via Vizeu, he
might find the British army once more in his front, when he drew
nearer to the city, since the Coimbra-Oporto _chaussée_ is both
shorter and better than the by-roads which he would have to follow.
There remained the third possibility--that of turning Wellington out
of the Bussaco position by flanking operations. The country-side did
not look very promising, but the attempt must be made.
Early on the 28th the French cavalry was sent out in both directions
to explore the whole neighbourhood--a task which Masséna should have
prescribed to it on the 25th and 26th, instead of keeping it massed
in his rear. The reconnaissances sent southward by Reynier’s light
cavalry brought no encouraging report: if the French army crossed the
Mondego, it would only run against Wellington’s carefully prepared
position behind the Alva. Fane’s cavalry were out in this direction,
and would give ample time of warning to allow the allied army to pass
the fords of Peña Cova and man the long series of earthworks. Only a
repetition of the Bussaco disaster could follow from an attempt to
take the offensive on this side. From the north, however, Montbrun,
who had ridden out with some of Sainte-Croix’s dragoons, brought far
more cheering news. This indeed was the flank where, on the first
principles of topography, some hope of success might have been looked
for. To any one standing either on the Bussaco heights or on the
lower ridge in front of them, and casting an eye over the dappled
and uneven country-side to the north, it seems incredible that there
should be no route whatever across the Serra de Caramula. Both the
seacoast-plain of Beira and the valley of the Oerins, the little
river which drains the plain of Mortagoa, were thickly populated. Was
it likely that there would be no means of getting from the one to the
other save by the _chaussée_ through Bussaco, or the circuitous road
far to the north, from Vizeu to Aveiro via Feramena and Bemfeita?
The maps, it is true, showed no other route: but every day that he
remained in Portugal was proving more clearly to the Marshal that his
maps, Lopez and the rest, were hopelessly inaccurate. The Serra de
Caramula, though rugged, is not one continuous line of precipices,
nor is it of any great altitude. On first principles it was probable
that there might be one or more passages in this stretch of thirty
miles, though it was conceivable that there might be no road over
which artillery could travel[441].
[441] As a matter of fact, the modern railway from Coimbra and
Pampilhosa to the upper Mondego does not use the pass of Bussaco,
but goes north of it, round the left flank of Wellington’s
position, by Luso, far south of the Boialvo road to Mortagoa.
There was, therefore, nothing astonishing in the fact that Montbrun
discovered that such a track existed, nine miles north of Bussaco,
running from Mortagoa, by Aveleira and Boialvo, to Sardão in the
valley of the Agueda, one of the affluents of the Vouga. There was
nothing particularly startling in the discovery, nor did it imply
any special perspicacity in the discoverers, as many of the French
narratives seek to imply. A peasant captured in one of the deserted
villages high up the Oerins, and cross-questioned by Masséna’s
Portuguese aide-de-camp Mascarenhas, who accompanied Sainte-Croix on
his reconnaissance, revealed the fact that this country-road existed.
He even, it is said, expressed to his compatriot his surprise that
the French had not taken it when first they arrived at Mortagoa,
since it was unguarded, while the whole allied army was lying
across the Bussaco _chaussée_. It was, he said, habitually used by
the ox-waggons of the peasantry: it was not a good road, but was a
perfectly practicable one.
With this all-important news Montbrun and Sainte-Croix returned to
Masséna about midday. The Marshal at once resolved to make an attempt
to utilize the Boialvo road. There was some danger in doing so,
since it was possible that Wellington might wait till the greater
part of the French army had retired from his front, and then descend
upon the rearguard and overwhelm it. Or, on the other hand, he might
have made preparations to hold the further end of the pass, so that
when the vanguard of the invaders was nearing Boialvo or Sardão they
might find 20,000 men, withdrawn from the Bussaco position in haste,
lying across their path at some dangerous turn of the road. Indeed,
we may confidently assert that if in 1810 the British general had
possessed the army that he owned in 1813, Masséna would have had
the same unpleasant experience that befell Soult at Sorauren, when
he attempted a precisely similar manœuvre--a flank march round the
allied army on the day after a lost battle.
But Masséna was prepared to take risks, and the risk which he was now
accepting was a considerably less perilous one than that which he
had incurred when he chose to make a frontal attack on the Bussaco
position on the preceding day. For though flank marches across an
enemy’s front are justly deprecated by every military authority, this
was one executed at a distance of nine or ten miles from the British
line, and not in a level country, on to which Wellington might
easily descend from his fastness, but in a broken wooded upland,
full of ridges on which the French might have formed up to fight if
assailed. If this fact did not remove the danger, it at any rate made
it infinitely less. If one of the two possible contretemps should
happen--if Wellington should come down with a sudden rush upon the
rearguard--that force would have to fight a defensive action on the
ridges below Bussaco, till the main body could turn back to help it.
In that case there would follow a pitched battle upon rolling and
uneven ground, which did not favour one side more than the other;
and this, at any rate, would be a more favourable situation for
the French than that in which they had fought on Sept. 27. If, on
the other hand, Wellington should send a strong detachment to hold
the western debouch of the Boialvo road, nothing would be lost--if
nothing would be gained. It was improbable that there would be any
position in that quarter quite so strong as the tremendous slope of
the Serra de Bussaco. The result of an attempt to force the defile
might be successful.
At any rate Masséna thought the experiment worthy of a trial.
Accordingly, on the afternoon of the 28th, ostentatious
demonstrations were made against the front of the Bussaco position,
which led to a good deal of objectless skirmishing[442]. Wellington
was not for a moment deceived. Indeed, the idea that another assault
was impending was negatived by the fact that both Reynier’s and Ney’s
men were seen to be throwing up _abattis_ and digging trenches on the
flanks of the two roads on which they lay. These could only be meant
for defensive use, and presumably must be intended to help the French
rearguard to hold the ridges, if the Anglo-Portuguese army should
descend upon them. Late in the afternoon officers furnished with good
telescopes, and stationed on the highest point of the Bussaco Serra,
reported that they could detect columns in movement from the French
rear in the direction of the north-west. These were Sainte-Croix’s
cavalry and the baggage-trains of Ney and Junot making their way to
the rear, in order to get into the Mortagoa-Boialvo road. At six
o’clock, dusk having still not come on, it was reported that Ney’s
infantry reserves were certainly moving in the same direction. Only
Loison’s division was still immovable on its old position opposite
Sula. At nightfall, therefore, the movement of the French was well
ascertained. It might mean merely a general retreat on Mortagoa and
an abandonment of the campaign[443], but this was most unlikely. Far
more probable was some march to turn the allied flank by the passes
of the Serra de Caramula. Wellington himself had no doubt whatever
that this was the enemy’s intention. As the dusk fell he stood for
some time on the summit of the Serra, watching the French columns
receding in the distance. He then rode back to his head quarters at
the convent of Bussaco, and dictated without delay a series of orders
which set his whole army in retreat for Coimbra and Lisbon. Before
daylight the position was deserted, only a rearguard being left on
it. He does not seem to have thought for a moment of attacking, on
the following morning, the 2nd Corps and Loison’s division, which
had been left in his front, nor of directing his right wing to
march on Sardão, which it could have reached long before the French
arrived there. Each of these courses was so obvious that critics have
lavished blame upon him for not adopting the one or the other[444].
[442] The firing commenced soon after 12 noon. See Tomkinson, p.
44.
[443] This was imagined to be the case by some observers, who
overrated Masséna’s loss, and thought he had 10,000 casualties on
the 27th.
[444] See, for example, Fririon, pp. 55-6, Toreno, ii. 164.
Thiers, and even Napier, iii. 32-3.
The explanation of his conduct is neither that he failed to see the
two alternatives which were in his power, nor that he showed (as
several French writers maintain) an excessive timidity. Still less is
it possible to urge, as some have done, that he was ruined by his own
neglect to occupy the Boialvo road. He knew of that pass, had taken
it into consideration, and in one of his dispatches speaks vaguely
of a means which he was hoping to discover to render it useless to
the enemy[445]. This remedy cannot mean, as some have supposed, the
moving thither of Trant’s corps of Portuguese militia. It is true
that Wellington had ordered this force to occupy Sardão some days
before. But it was neither large enough, nor composed of troops solid
enough, to resist, even in a strong position, the attack of a single
French brigade. Some other device must have been meant, though we
cannot determine what it may have been. The true key to Wellington’s
action is to remember the immense pains that he had taken in building
the Lines of Torres Vedras, and the elaborate arrangements that
had been made during the last few weeks to complete the system for
devastating Portugal in front of the enemy. It was by these means,
and not by fights in the open, that he had from the first designed
to defeat the invader. Bussaco had been an ‘uncovenanted mercy’: if
Masséna chose to run his head against that stone wall, it was worth
while to man it, and to permit him to break himself against its
granite boulders. But such an operation as descending into the plain
to attack the 2nd Corps on the 29th, or offering battle in front of
Sardão on that same day, was not within the scope of Wellington’s
intentions. If he had wished to engage in that sort of fighting,
he had already had ample opportunities to attack sections of the
French army during the last two months. But to get engaged with one
corps in a rolling upland, and then to have the other two converging
on him while the fight was in progress, he had never intended--nor
would he do so now. He gave his orders for the retreat of the army
on Coimbra actually before the French had possession of their own
end of the Boialvo pass, and at a moment when a single night march
would have sufficed to place Cole, Craufurd, and Spencer across the
western end of it, with ample time to choose a position before the
enemy could arrive in front. He explains his refusal to do so in his
‘Memorandum of Operations in 1810’ in the following terms: ‘It would
have been impossible to detach a corps from the army to occupy the
Serra de Caramula after the action of the 27th. That corps might have
been hard pressed and obliged to retreat, in which case it must have
retreated upon Sardão and the north of Portugal. It could not have
rejoined the army, and its services would have been wanting in the
fortified position in front of Lisbon. It was therefore determined
to rely upon Colonel Trant alone to occupy the Serra de Caramula,
as his line of operations and retreat was to the northward. Nothing
could have been done, except by detaching a large corps, to prevent
the French from throwing a large force across the Caramula. When,
therefore, they took that road, there was nothing for it but to
withdraw from Bussaco. And, after quitting Bussaco, there was no
position that we could take up with advantage, in which we could
be certain that we could prevent the enemy from getting to Lisbon
before us, till we reached the fortified positions in front of that
place[446].’ As to the other possibility, that of attacking the
French rearguard below Bussaco instead of endeavouring to stop its
vanguard at Sardão, Wellington only observes that ‘they had at least
12,000 or 14,000 more men than we had, and good as our position was,
theirs was equally good.’ If he had fallen upon Reynier, the latter
(he thought) could have detained him long enough to allow Ney and
Junot to return, and so he would have found himself committed to an
offensive action against superior numbers on unfavourable ground.
[445] _Dispatches_, vi. 460. Had he proposed to blast away
sections, so as to make it impassable for wheel traffic, as he
did with the Estrada Nova?
[446] _Dispatches_, vii. pp. 306-7.
These arguments are unanswerable when we consider Wellington’s
position. He _might_ have succeeded in checking Masséna at Boialvo
or Sardão; but, if he did not, ruin would ensue, since he might be
cut off from the detached corps, and then would not have men enough
to hold the Lines of Torres Vedras. He _might_ have crushed Reynier
before he was succoured, but if he failed to do so, and became
involved in a general action, a disastrous defeat was possible. In
short, considering what failure would mean--the loss of Lisbon,
the re-embarkation of the army, probably the end of the Peninsular
War--he rightly hesitated to take any risk whatever. At the same
time, we may suspect that if the allied army of 1810 had been the
army of 1813, Wellington might very possibly have played a more
enterprising game. But the Portuguese still formed the larger half of
his force, and though he had ascertained by their behaviour on the
27th that they were now capable of fighting steadily in a defensive
action on favourable ground, it was nevertheless very doubtful
whether he could dare to risk them in a battle fought under different
conditions. One cheering example of the courage and discipline of
these newly organized regiments did not justify him in taking it for
granted that they could be trusted under all possible conditions, as
if they were veteran British troops.
On the dawn of Sept. 29, therefore, the two armies were marching
away from each other. On the Bussaco position there remained only
Craufurd’s Light Division, strengthened by Anson’s cavalry brigade,
which was brought up behind the Serra, to form the mounted section
of the force which was for the next ten days to act as the rearguard
of the allied army. Opposite them only Reynier remained, and he had
drawn far back on to the Mortagoa road, where he stood in a defensive
position in the morning, but retired, brigade after brigade, in the
afternoon. The main body of Wellington’s army was retiring in two
columns: Hill, and Hamilton’s Portuguese division crossed the fords
of Peña Cova and marched for Espinhal and Thomar. The force which
had been left far out on the right behind the Alva--Fane’s cavalry
and Lecor’s Portuguese militia--joined Hill and accompanied him to
Lisbon. This column was absolutely unmolested by the enemy during
the whole twelve days of the retreat to the Lines. The French did
not so much as follow it with a cavalry patrol. The other and larger
column, formed of Spencer, Cole, Leith, and Picton, with Pack’s,
Coleman’s, and Alex. Campbell’s Portuguese, marched for Mealhada and
Coimbra. Craufurd and Anson started twelve hours later to bring up
the rear. During the hours while the Light Division was waiting its
orders to start, some of its officers explored the evacuated French
position, and found parked in an enclosure 400 desperately wounded
soldiers, whom Masséna had abandoned to the mercy of the Portuguese
peasantry. He had used up all available carts and mules to carry his
wounded, but had been forced to leave the worst cases behind. They
were picked up and moved into the convent of Bussaco[447]; on what
became of them afterwards it is well not to speculate. No friendly
column came that way again[448], and the Ordenança were daily growing
more exasperated at the conduct of the invading army. The French were
not only carrying out in an intermittent fashion Masséna’s edict of
Sept. 4, directing that all men with arms but without uniforms were
to be shot at sight, but burning every village that they passed, and
murdering nearly every peasant that they could hunt down, whether he
was bearing arms or no[449].
[447] See Tomkinson, p. 44, and von Linsingen’s Diary, in
Beamish, i. 292. Fririon and the other French narratives speak of
the difficulties of transporting the wounded, but do not mention
that any were abandoned.
[448] Unless some of Reynier’s rearguard cavalry may have looked
in at Bussaco on the 30th, when Craufurd had gone. This is
possible. Trant’s Portuguese were back in the place on Oct. 4.
[449] This seems proved by the ‘Table of Damages committed by the
French Army in 1810-11,’ published by the Coimbra authorities
in 1812, which gives the number of houses burnt and persons
killed in each rural-deanery (arcyprestado) of the bishopric
of Coimbra. Omitting the rural-deaneries south of the Mondego,
where the damages were mainly done during the retreat of the
French in March 1811, and taking only those north of the river,
where no hostile column appeared after October 1810--the district
having been protected by Trant and Wilson during Masséna’s return
march,--we find the following statistics:--
Deanery of Mortagoa 108 murders 19 villages and 47 isolated
houses burnt.
” Oliveirinha 102 ” 100 houses burnt.
” Arazede 99 ” 124 ”
” Coimbra city 14 ” 7 ”
The figures for the deaneries south of Mondego (Soure, Arganil,
Redinha, Miranda do Corvo, Sinde, Cea) are enormously higher. See
Soriano da Luz, iii. 203.
Meanwhile, on the 29th and 30th of September, the French army
was executing its flank march, practically unopposed, though not
unobserved. Sainte-Croix’s division of dragoons was at the head of
the line of march: then came the infantry of the 8th Corps, which
had been put in the vanguard because it had not suffered at Bussaco.
Next came the reserve cavalry of Montbrun, followed by the Grand
Park and the massed baggage of the 6th and 8th Corps, mixed with a
convoy of over 3,000 wounded. Ney’s troops brought up the rear of
the main column. Reynier was a day’s march to the rear; having spent
the 29th opposite the Bussaco heights, he only reached Mortagoa that
evening. Sainte-Croix’s cavalry on this same day had passed the
watershed and reached Avellans de Cima, where they met a patrol of
De Grey’s dragoons, who had sent parties out in all directions, from
their head quarters at Mealhada in the coast-plain. From this time
onward the French advanced guard was watched by the four regiments
of Slade and De Grey, who were directed to hold back its exploring
cavalry, and not to permit it to reach Coimbra an hour sooner than
could be helped. There was also a clash on the afternoon of the 30th
between part of Sainte-Croix’s dragoons and the Portuguese militia
of Trant in front of Sardão. Trant had been ordered to be at that
place on September 27: he only arrived there on the afternoon of
the 28th, not by his own fault, but because his superior officer
Baccelar, commanding the whole militia of the North, had ordered him
to move from Lamego to Sardão by the circuitous road along the Douro,
and then from Feira southward, instead of taking the straight road
across, the mountains north of Vizeu, where he might possibly have
been stopped by some outlying French detachment. Trant had at the
moment only a squadron of dragoons and four militia regiments with
him (Porto, Penafiel, Coimbra, and a battalion of light companies),
and these, from hard marching, and from desertion, were in all less
than 3,000 strong. Knowing that he was expected to hold the debouch
of the Boialvo road against anything short of a strong force, Trant
made an attempt to stand his ground. But his vanguard bolted at
the first shot fired, and with the rest he had to make a hurried
retreat beyond the Vouga, leaving the road free to the French[450].
Sainte-Croix had already pushed in between him and the British
cavalry, who now began to make a slow retreat towards Mealhada. At
that place, early on the 30th, Slade and De Grey were joined by
Anson’s eight squadrons, who had come in at the tail of Craufurd’s
division after the rearguard evacuated the Bussaco position. On
this day the main column of the British infantry marched through
Coimbra, leaving the Light Division alone in the city. Wellington’s
head quarters that night were at Condeixa six miles south of the
Mondego. The three cavalry brigades retired, bickering with the
French advanced guard all day, as far as Fornos, eight miles north of
Coimbra. Masséna’s infantry, after emerging from the Boialvo pass,
were now pushing south, and bivouacked on the night of the 30th,
Ney and Junot’s corps at Mealhada, Reynier’s at Barreiro, ten miles
behind the others. The biscuit which the French army had taken with
it from Almeida was now almost exhausted, and it was a great relief
to the troops to find, in the deserted villages of the plain of
Coimbra, considerable quantities of maize and rice, with which they
could eke out or replace the carefully hoarded rations.
[450] I cannot resist quoting here Trant’s account of the
engagement. He was a man of quaint humour, and the all too few
letters from him to General J. Wilson, which have come into my
hands by the courtesy of Wilson’s representative, Captain Bertram
Chambers, R.N., inspire me with regret that I have not his whole
correspondence. ‘I have once more been putting my fellows to a
trial--my Caçadore battalion did not do as it ought, and had
about thirty killed, wounded, and prisoners, without making
scarcely any resistance--a pleasant business. On the 30th I was
still at Agueda (Sardão and Agueda are one village, properly
speaking, but divided by a bridge), though I was aware that
the French principal force of cavalry was at Boyalva, only a
league from Agueda, and I was completely cut off from the army.
On that morning I had withdrawn the infantry to the Vouga, but
placed my dragoons close to Agueda to observe the French, with
the Caçadores at a half-way distance to support them. I put
them in the most advantageous possible position, protected by a
close pine wood, through which the French cavalry must pass. I
had been from three in the morning till one o’clock, making my
arrangements, and had just sat down to eat something, in a small
village on the left of the Vouga, when a dragoon came flying to
inform me that the French were coming on with two columns of
cavalry in full speed. My coffee was not ready, and remained for
the French to amuse themselves with. I had only time to get the
Penafiel regiment over the bridge when the French arrived--five
minutes sooner and I had been nabbed! I drew up in a good
position, but the French did not cross the Vouga, and I returned
to Oliveira without molestation--but not without a damned false
alarm and panic on the part of the dragoons who were covering my
rear. They galloped through the infantry, and carried confusion
and all the comforts of hell to Oporto! Lieutenant-Colonel
‘Bravoure Bombasto,’ who commanded the Caçadores, ordered his men
to fire, but thought that enough for his honour, as he instantly
left them to shift for themselves, and never looked behind till
he reached Oporto. I put this fellow, with four of the leading
dragoons, into the common dungeon of this place, and am about
to inflict some divisional punishment, for I daren’t report
such conduct to the Marshal (Beresford), who does not punish by
halves! My regiments of infantry--this is the brighter side of
the picture--showed no agitation, notwithstanding the attack
on their nerves. The enemy’s force, I now ascertain, was 800
cavalry, two pieces, and two infantry regiments. The cavalry
alone would have done my business if they had crossed the Vouga!
But they contented themselves with driving in the dragoons and
the Caçadore battalion from Agueda. God bless you. N.T.’
Meanwhile the city of Coimbra was full of distressing scenes. Though
Wellington had ordered the whole population of Western Beira to
leave their abodes as soon as the French reached Vizeu, yet only
the richest of the inhabitants of Coimbra had departed. The bulk
had still held to their houses, and the news of the victory of
Bussaco had encouraged them to hope that no evacuation would be
necessary. The Portuguese government, though it had consented to
carry out Wellington’s scheme of devastation, and had duly published
proclamations commanding its execution, had taken no great pains to
secure obedience to it. The sacrifice, indeed, that was demanded
of the citizens of a wealthy town such as Coimbra was a very great
one--far more bitter than that imposed on the peasantry, who were
told at the same moment to evacuate their flimsy cottages. It was
bitterly resented, and, despite of the proclamation, four-fifths
of the 40,000 inhabitants of Coimbra were still in their houses
when, on the night of the 28th-29th, arrived Wellington’s dispatch
stating that he was abandoning Bussaco, that the French would be in
the city by the 30th or on the 1st of October, and that force would
be used, if necessary, to expel people who still clung to their
dwellings. During the next two days the whole of the population of
Coimbra was streaming out of the place by the roads to the south, or
dropping down the Mondego in boats, to ship themselves for Lisbon
at the little port of Figueira. Even on the 1st of October, the day
when the French were reputed to be facing Fornos, only eight miles
away, all had not yet departed. Many of the poor, the infirm, and
the reckless remained behind to the last possible moment, and only
started when the distant cannonade on the northern side showed that
the British outposts were being driven in. Twenty miles of road were
covered by the dense column of fugitives, headed by those who had
started on the 29th and brought up behind by those who had waited
till the last moment. There was a great want of wheeled conveyances:
the richer folks had gone off with most of them, and others had been
requisitioned for the allied wounded. Hence, many could take off
nothing but what they could carry on their persons. An eye-witness
writes that he saw the whole _chaussée_ covered with respectable
families walking on foot with bundles on their heads, while in the
abandoned houses he noticed food of all sorts, table-linen, shirts,
and all manner of other property, which was left behind in disorder
because it was too heavy to be carried[451]. Another tells how ‘the
old and the infirm, no less than the young and robust, carrying with
them all their more valuable effects, covered the fields as well
as the road in every direction, and from time to time the weary
fugitives, unable to carry further the heavier articles that they
had endeavoured to save, dropped them by the wayside and struggled
onward, bereft of the remnant of their little property[452].’
Fortunately the weather for the first eight days after the evacuation
of Coimbra was warm and dry, so that the unhappy multitude had almost
reached Lisbon before they began to suffer any inconvenience from the
October rains.
[451] Tomkinson, p. 47.
[452] Lord Londonderry, ii. p. 12.
While this exodus was going on, Craufurd’s Light Division stood
under arms on the northern side of the city, while the six regiments
of British horse, in the extreme rearguard, were bickering with
Masséna’s squadrons in the plain toward Fornos. On this day the
Marshal had strengthened his van with almost the whole of his
cavalry, having added to Sainte-Croix’s division, which had hitherto
formed the advance, most of Montbrun’s reserve of dragoons, and
Lamotte’s light brigade from the 6th Corps. This body of thirty-four
squadrons was altogether too strong for Stapleton Cotton’s three
brigades, who had to give way whenever they were seriously pressed.
Two miles outside Coimbra the British horse was divided into two
columns: De Grey’s heavy dragoons crossed the Mondego at a ford
opposite Pereira, Slade and Anson’s light dragoons and hussars by
another at Alciada, nearer to the city. At the same moment the Light
Division, when the enemy’s horse came in sight, retired through
Coimbra, crossed the bridge, and pressed up the ascent towards
Condeixa, thrusting before them the rearguard of belated fugitives
who had only made up their minds to depart at the last possible
moment. It is said that the block in front of them was so great that
Craufurd’s regiments would have been in a situation of some danger,
if they had been closely followed by French infantry, and forced to
turn back to defend themselves. But nothing more than a troop of
dragoons watched their passage of the bridge and their retreat to
Condeixa, and not a shot had to be fired.
It was otherwise with the cavalry column composed of Slade’s and
Anson’s brigades: they were closely followed by the bulk of the
French cavalry, and had to turn at the ford to hold back their eager
pursuers. Two squadrons of the German Hussars and one of the 16th
Light Dragoons charged in succession to check the French vanguard,
while a fire was kept up by a line of dismounted skirmishers all
along the river bank. The hussars lost four men killed, and two
officers and thirteen men wounded, besides six prisoners; the
16th, two wounded and one missing in this skirmish. It could have
been avoided, according to critics on the spot, if the brigade had
retreated a little faster in the previous stage of its movement. But
Stapleton Cotton, forgetting the dangers of crossing such a defile
as a narrow ford, had been rather too leisurely in covering the
last three miles, considering that the French were so close behind
him[453]. The enemy’s loss was insignificant[454].
[453] See Beamish’s _History of the King’s German Legion_, i.
293-4, and Tomkinson, p. 46.
[454] De Grey’s brigade, though it had no regular fighting, lost
five prisoners and one trooper wounded in this same retreat. The
total loss of the cavalry that day was thirty-four men.
That night the British rearguard lay at Soure and Condeixa, while
head quarters and the rear of the main army were at Redinha. The
French did not cross the Mondego with more than a few cavalry
patrols, and made no attempt to incommode the retreating column.
Indeed they were otherwise employed. The entry of an army into a
deserted town is always accompanied by disorders: that of the army of
Masséna into Coimbra was an exaggerated example of the rule--and for
good reasons. The men had been living on bare rations for a month,
and suddenly they found themselves in a town of 40,000 souls, where
every door was open, every larder garnished, and every cellar full.
The very quays were littered with sacks of flour torn open, and
puncheons of rum stove in, for Wellington’s commissariat officers
had been to the last moment engaged in breaking up and casting into
the river the remains of the magazine which had been feeding the
army at Bussaco. The houses on every side were full of valuable
goods, for most of the inhabitants had only been able to carry off
their money and plate, and had left all else behind them. The first
division of the 8th Corps, the earliest French troops to enter the
place, consisted almost entirely of newly-formed fourth battalions,
composed of conscripts, and ill disciplined. They broke their ranks
and fell to plunder, only half-restrained by their officers, many
of whom joined in the sport. A late comer from the artillery says
that he saw one officer breaking open a door with a pickaxe, and
another placing a sentry at the door of a shop which he wished to
reserve for his own personal pillage[455]. There was wide-spread
drunkenness, some arson, and an enormous amount of mischievous and
wanton waste. It was afterwards said that Junot’s corps destroyed in
twelve hours an amount of food that would have sufficed to supply the
whole army for three weeks. It is at any rate certain that Coimbra
was full of provisions when the French arrived, and that, when order
was tardily restored, only a few days’ consumption could be scraped
together to fill the empty waggons before the host marched on.
Masséna raged against Junot for not having kept his men in hand, yet,
if Portuguese narratives are to be trusted, he set as bad an example
as any disorderly conscript, since he requisitioned for himself out
of the University buildings all the telescopes and mathematical
instruments, and distributed them among his staff[456]. The pillage
was as wanton and objectless as it was thorough; the tombs of the
kings in the church of Santa Cruz were broken open, the University
Museum and laboratories wrecked, and all the churches wantonly
damaged and desecrated. There was no attempt to restore order, or to
utilize the captured property for the general good of the army, till
the 6th Corps marched in on the next day. Even these later comers,
however, could not be restrained from joining in the plunder. The mob
of soldiers threatened to shoot the commissary-generals Lambert and
Laneuville, when they began to put guards over the nearly-emptied
storehouses.
[455] Colonel Noël’s _Souvenirs Militaires_, pp. 120-1.
[456] The authority for this statement is the Portuguese renegade
General Pamplona, who served on the Marshal’s staff. See p. 155
of his _Aperçu sur les campagnes des Français en Portugal_.
Pamplona adds that Ney refused to take the present of a large
telescope, which Masséna sent him as a propitiatory gift. A less
certain authority says that the Marshal caught in the street a
plunderer with a barrel of butter, and another with a chest of
wax candles, and let them off punishment on condition that they
took them to his own quarters! Soriano da Luz, iii. p. 198.
The state of his army on the 1st and 2nd October sufficiently
explains the conduct of Masséna in refraining from the pursuit of
Wellington’s rearguard. But he was also somewhat puzzled to determine
the policy which he must now adopt. Down to the last moment he
had thought that Wellington would have fought at Fornos, or some
other such position, to defend Coimbra. And even when Coimbra was
evacuated, he had imagined that he might find the enemy drawn up
to dispute the passage of the Mondego. But it was now clear that
Wellington was in full retreat for Lisbon. Since the Marshal was
still ignorant of the existence of the lines of Torres Vedras, which
was only revealed to him four days later, he was somewhat uncertain
how to interpret the conduct of his adversary. After the vigorous
stand that Wellington had made at Bussaco, it seemed dangerous to
argue that he must now be in headlong flight for his ships, and
about to evacuate Portugal. Yet the rapidity of his retreat seemed
to argue some such purpose. Ought he, therefore, to be pursued
without a moment’s delay, in order that his embarkation might be
made difficult? This course, it is said, was advocated by Reynier,
Montbrun, Fririon, and the Portuguese renegade d’Alorna. On the other
hand, Ney and Junot both advised a stay at Coimbra, to rest the army,
collect provisions, and, what was most important of all, to reopen
communications with Almeida, Ciudad Rodrigo, and the 9th Corps, which
was now due on the Spanish frontier. They pointed to the diminished
strength of the army, which, having lost 4,600 men at Bussaco, and
4,000 more by the hard marching and poor feeding of the last month,
was now reduced to some 57,000 men. The fighting-power of Wellington
was formidable, as he had shown at Bussaco, where many of the French
officers persisted in believing that he had shown numbers superior
to their own--in which they erred. A hasty advance, it was urged,
might bring the invaders in face of a second Bussaco, where there
was no chance of a turning movement. Would the commander-in-chief
wish to accept another battle of the same sort? It would be better to
establish a new base at Coimbra, to bring up the 9th Corps from the
rear, and only to move on when the army was thoroughly reorganized.
Meanwhile a detachment might demonstrate against Oporto, to distract
Wellington’s attention[457]. This was the policy that Napoleon,
two months after, declared that Masséna should have adopted. ‘Why,’
he asked, ‘did the Prince of Essling, after his failure at Bussaco,
pursue the march on Lisbon, instead of taking up a position on the
Mondego, and restoring his communications with Almeida? I had not
burdened him with orders or instructions, and he could see that the
English were not easy to beat.’ Masséna’s advocate, Foy, replied that
‘if the Army of Portugal had been halted on the Mondego, your Majesty
would have said to the Prince, Why did you not march on? The English
would have re-embarked, if they had been pressed.’ To which Napoleon,
with a broad smile, answered, ‘Very true; I probably should have said
so[458].’
[457] Fririon, in his account of these debates (pp. 72-3),
forgets that the existence of the Lines of Torres Vedras was
still unknown both to Masséna and his subordinates. So does
Delagrave (pp. 93-4). But Pelet, Masséna’s confidant, is positive
that they were first heard of from prisoners taken at Pombal on
Oct. 5, two days after the advance had recommenced.
[458] Foy’s minutes of his conversation with the Emperor on Nov.
22, sent by him to Masséna, in his letter of Dec. 4. See Appendix
to Foy’s _Vie Militaire_ by Girod de L’Ain, p. 348.
The problem presented to the Marshal, indeed, was not an easy one. If
he remained at Coimbra, his enemies would delate him to the Emperor
for timidity; if he advanced, he might find that he had undertaken a
task too great for his strength. The personal equation settled the
difficulty: Masséna was obstinate and enterprising to the verge of
temerity. He resolved to go on, at the earliest possible moment, in
the hope of forcing Wellington to a battle on ground less favourable
than Bussaco, or of compelling him to embark without any general
engagement at all. Two days only were spent at Coimbra. On October 3,
Montbrun’s cavalry, after making a reconnaissance as far as the sea
and the port of Figueira, crossed the Mondego to Villa Nova de Ancos,
while the 8th Corps, headed by Sainte-Croix’s dragoons, occupied
Condeixa: one division of Ney’s corps followed them. The rest of the
6th Corps and Reynier made ready to resume their advance.
A minor problem remained to be resolved. Should a large garrison
be left in Coimbra, and a new base for the army established there?
The Marshal had shot into the convent of Santa Clara 3,000 Bussaco
wounded, and 1,000 sick men. There was an accumulation of waggons of
the corps-trains and the Grand Park, which could push on no further,
for want of draught beasts, and all manner of other impedimenta.
If the army went on at full speed, in the hope of overtaking the
English, all this must be left behind. But if left unguarded, wounded
and all might become the victims of Trant’s militia, which was known
to have retired no further than the Vouga, or even of the Ordenança
of the hills. A strong garrison must be placed in Coimbra to make it
safe: rumour had it on October 2 that Taupin’s brigade and a regiment
of dragoons were to be set to guard the city[459]. But rumour was
wrong: Masséna, after some doubting, made up his mind that he could
not spare even 3,000 men. Every bayonet would be wanted if Wellington
once more turned to bay. Accordingly he took the extraordinary
step of telling off only a single company, 156 men, of the 44th
_Équipage de la Marine_--a naval unit which had been given him in
order that he might have a nucleus of sea-going people, in case he
succeeded in seizing the Portuguese arsenal at Lisbon. One would
have thought that such men would have been so valuable, if only the
enterprise had succeeded, that he would have chosen rather a company
of ordinary infantry. These sailors, with two or three hundred
footsore or convalescent men, organized into a couple of provisional
companies, were all that the Marshal placed at the disposition of
Major Flandrin, to whom he gave the high-sounding title of Governor
of Coimbra. That officer was told that every day would increase
his force, as more convalescents came out of hospital, and 3,500
muskets, belonging to the sick and wounded, were left with him. The
whole mass of disabled men was concentrated in the convent of Santa
Clara, a vast building outside the trans-pontine suburb of Coimbra,
on the south side of the Mondego. The garrison was so weak that it
could do no more than keep a guard at each of the exits of the town,
which was destitute of walls, with a post of thirty men, all that
could be spared, at Fornos, on the great north road facing Oporto.
To abandon his wounded to almost certain destruction was a reckless
act on the Marshal’s part: probably he said to himself that if he
could but catch and beat the Anglo-Portuguese army, a small disaster
in his rear would be forgiven him. Unlike Wellington, he was ‘taking
risks’[460].
[459] So Guingret, of the 6th Corps, who mentions that his
own regiment received notice that no garrison was to be left,
only just in time to enable it to pick up its slightly wounded
and footsore men, who would otherwise have remained behind.
(_Memoirs_, p. 79.)
[460] The best summing up of the Marshal’s resolve may be found
in Foy’s minute presented to Napoleon on Nov. 22: ‘Le prince n’a
pas pu se résoudre à faire un fort détachement lorsqu’il devait
livrer sous peu de jours une bataille décisive à une armée déjà
victorieuse et deux fois plus nombreuse[!] que la notre. Les
dangers que couraient ses malades ont affligé son cœur, mais il a
pensé que la crainte de perdre l’hôpital ne devait pas arrêter la
campagne.’ (Foy’s _Vie Militaire_, Appendix, p. 348.)
On October 4 the French army made its regular start from Coimbra;
the 6th Corps came out to Villa Pouca and Condeixa on the Pombal
road, the 2nd Corps to Venda do Cego on the Ancião road, which runs
parallel with the other, ten miles to the east, and joins it at
Leiria. Montbrun’s cavalry pushed in from Soure, to place itself in
front of the 8th Corps, which now moved on from Condeixa as the head
of the main infantry column. Its scouts that evening bickered in
front of Pombal with Anson’s light cavalry, which was covering the
retreat of the allied army. The two days which the French had spent
in plundering Coimbra had allowed the Anglo-Portuguese infantry to
get a start which they never lost: they never saw the enemy again
during the rest of the retreat. That night Wellington’s head quarters
were at Leiria, while Hill, unpursued by any hostile force, was at
Thomar. For the next six days the British pursued a leisurely course
towards the Lines, along the three roads Thomar-Santarem-Villafranca,
which was taken by Hill; Alcobaça-Caldas-Torres Vedras, which was
taken by Picton; and Leiria-Batalha-Alemquer, which was taken
by Spencer, Leith, and Cole. It was along the last-named, the
central, road, that Craufurd’s infantry and the three cavalry
brigades followed the main body, at the distance of a day’s march.
Anson’s light cavalry brought up the extreme rear, and was almost
the only unit which saw the enemy between the 4th and the 10th of
October[461]. The rest of the allied army had completely outmarched
Masséna. Its retreat was marked by some disorders: the sight of rich
monasteries like Alcobaça and Batalha, and large towns, like Thomar
and Leiria, standing empty, yet left full of all such property as
the inmates could not easily carry off, proved as tempting to the
British as the sight of Coimbra had been to the French. There was
much drunkenness, much looting, and some wanton mischief. Wellington
set himself to repress it by the strong hand. He hung at Leiria
two troopers of the 4th Dragoon Guards, who were caught plundering
a chapel, and a man of the 11th Portuguese infantry. Some of the
regiments which were found specially addicted to pillage were ordered
to bivouac in the open fields every night, and never to be quartered
in a village[462].
[461] Though Slade’s brigade had the rearguard on the 7th, and
was engaged on the 8th also, Anson’s only was in touch with the
French on the 4th-6th, and again on the 9th-10th.
[462] This was the case with Picton’s division, despite its
splendid services and heavy loss at Bussaco, only ten days back.
Leith’s British brigade and the Lusitanian Legion are also
specially upbraided for straggling. See _General Orders_ for
1810, pp. 173-4.
Anson’s brigade, alone among the allied troops, had an adventurous
career during the retreat to the Lines. It was always in touch with
a pursuing force of immense strength, for Masséna had constituted a
flying vanguard under Montbrun, whose orders were to push the enemy
at all costs, and to try to come up with his infantry. This force
consisted of Sainte-Croix’s dragoons, Pierre Soult’s cavalry from
the 2nd Corps, Lamotte’s from the 6th Corps, one brigade (Ornano’s)
of the Reserve Cavalry, and Taupin’s infantry from the 8th Corps.
Lamotte’s light horse had the place of honour, and endured most of
the hard knocks. They had lively skirmishing with Anson’s 1st German
Hussars and 16th Light Dragoons between Pombal and Leiria on the
5th October. The British brigade turned back twice, and drove their
pursuers back on to Taupin’s infantry, but always suffered when it
had to resume its inevitable retreat. The French lost eight killed,
seventeen wounded (including five officers) and twenty prisoners--the
British fifty in all, including two officers wounded, and one taken.
This combat would not have been worth mentioning, but for the fact
that it was from prisoners captured in it that Masséna got his first
news of the existence of the Lines of Torres Vedras. Some of the
troopers spoke freely of ‘the Lines’ as their point of destination,
not guessing that this was the first time that their captors had
heard of them. Hence the French generals learned that there were
now fortifications in front of Lisbon: but they had, of course, no
knowledge of their extent or character, and only expected to find
some field-works on which Wellington would turn to bay. In fact,
Masséna was encouraged by the news, thinking that he was now certain
of the battle which he desired.
On the 7th October the French infantry was all concentrated at
Leiria, Reynier’s corps having now rejoined the other two. Montbrun’s
cavalry spread out so far as Alcobaça--whose monastery it sacked--on
the coast-road, and Muliano on the central road. Vedettes were sent
out on the cross-road to Thomar also, but could find no trace of an
enemy in that direction. On the night that followed Masséna received
the disquieting intelligence that his deliberate taking of risks with
regard to Coimbra had already been punished. A mounted officer, who
had escaped, brought him news that his hospitals and their guard had
been captured at a single blow by Trant’s militia that same afternoon.
That enterprising partisan, it will be remembered, had been driven
behind the Vouga by Sainte-Croix’s dragoons on September 30th. Since,
however, none of the French turned aside to molest him, and all
marched across his front on the Coimbra road, he was not forced to
retire any further. And having his orders from Wellington to follow
the enemy with caution, and pick up his stragglers and marauders, he
came southward again when Masséna’s rearguard entered Coimbra. He
had advanced to Mealhada when it was reported to him, on the 6th,
that the rearguard of the French had left the city on the preceding
day. A few people who had returned from the mountains to their homes,
despite Wellington’s proclamation, sent him assurances that the
numbers of the garrison were absolutely insignificant, and that of
the wounded enormous. Judging rightly that it would have a splendid
moral effect to capture Masséna’s hospitals, and the commencement of
a base-magazine which was being formed at Coimbra, Trant resolved to
strike at once. If he had waited a little he could have got help from
J. Wilson and from Miller, who had descended into the Celorico-Vizeu
country, each with his brigade. They had been directed by Wellington
to cut the French communications with Almeida, and had already
carried out their orders.
But Trant dreaded delay, thinking that Masséna might send back troops
to Coimbra, when he found that Wellington was retiring as far as
Lisbon. Without waiting for his colleagues, he marched at midday from
Mealhada to Fornos on the 7th, and had the good fortune to surprise
and capture the insignificant French post at that village: not a man
escaped. He was now only eight miles from Coimbra, and was able to
rush down into the city in the early afternoon before his arrival
was known. He had with him one weak squadron of regular dragoons,
and six militia battalions, having been joined since September 29th
by all his stragglers and some outlying units. The whole made about
4,000 men[463]. Formed in two columns, they charged into Coimbra by
its two northern entrances, sweeping away the small French guards at
the gates. The squadron of cavalry then galloped along the street
parallel with the river, and seized the bridge, thus cutting off the
communication between the French in the town and those at the convent
of Santa Clara, where the wounded lay. The small grand-guard, which
the enemy kept inside the place, took refuge in the bishop’s palace,
but was forced to lay down its arms at the end of an hour. The men
at the convent, joined by many of the convalescents, kept up a fire
for a short time, but surrendered at discretion, on Trant’s promise
to protect them from the fury of his troops. He was, unfortunately,
not entirely able to redeem his promise: the Coimbra local regiment
was so enraged at the state in which it found its native town that
it mishandled some of the prisoners--eight are said to have been
slain[464]. The total loss of the Portuguese division was three
killed and one officer and twenty-five men wounded.
[463] The brigade was not complete, the Feira battalion
having--somehow or other--got to Lisbon. But Porto, Penafiel,
Coimbra, Aveiro, Maia, and a combined battalion of light
companies were apparently present.
[464] See Trant’s dispatch to Beresford in Soriano da Luz, vii,
Appendix, p. 221.
Wilson and Miller came up next day, and sweeping the roads towards
Condeixa and Pombal, picked up 300 more stragglers and marauders from
the tail of Masséna’s marching column. Trant handed over Coimbra to
them, and escorted his prisoners to Oporto with his own division:
there were 3,507 sick and wounded, of whom half could march, while
the rest were taken off in carts. Of able-bodied men not more than
400 soldiers were taken: but some hundreds of commissariat and
hospital employés and men of the train brought up the total figures
of the prisoners to 4,500 men. Trant has been accused by some French
writers[465] of deliberately exposing his captives to the fury of the
peasantry, and parading the wounded in an indecent fashion through
the streets of Oporto. But the handsome testimonial to his humanity
signed by a committee of French officers, which Napier prints in the
Appendix no. 5 to his third volume, is enough to prove that Trant
did his best for his prisoners, and that the unfortunate incident
which occurred just after the surrender must not be laid to his
account[466].
[465] As for example Delagrave, p. 197, and Fririon, p. 75.
[466] Trant delivered nearly 400 British and Portuguese wounded,
whom Wellington had been obliged to leave behind at Coimbra, as
non-transportable.
Masséna’s army received the news of the fall of Coimbra with
indignation. It produced a painful impression on every mind; and
while the rank and file murmured at the Marshal’s cruelty in
abandoning their comrades to death--for it was falsely reported that
the Portuguese had massacred them all--the officers blamed his blind
improvidence, and observed that a brigade might well have been spared
to protect not only the hospitals but the invaluable base-dépôt
behind them[467].
[467] Sprünglin writes, under Oct. 7, in his Diary: ‘Lorsque le
sort des malheureux abandonnés à Coimbre fut connu dans l’armée,
on murmura hautement contre le Prince d’Essling. On qualifia
de coupable entêtement et de barbarie sa conduite à Busaco et
l’abandon des blessés à Coimbre. Il faut avouer que le maréchal
Ney, le général Reynier et le duc d’Abrantes ne firent rien pour
faire cesser ces murmures. Dès lors l’armée perdit de sa force,
parce que le général-en-chef n’avait plus la confiance de ses
soldats.’ Cf. Guingret, p. 79.
There was heavy skirmishing between the British rearguard cavalry and
Montbrun’s advance, both on the 8th and 9th of October. On the first
of these days the horse-artillery troop attached to Anson’s brigade
was, by some extraordinary mistake, left encamped out in front of
the squadrons which were told off as its escort, and was nearly
surprised in Alcoentre by an irruption of Sainte-Croix’s dragoons
in a storm of rain[468]. Somers Cocks’s squadron of the 16th Light
Dragoons charged just in time to save the guns, and to jam the head
of the enemy’s column, as it was crossing the bridge which leads into
the village. Alcoentre was held till dusk, when Taupin’s infantry
came up, and Anson’s brigade retired, having lost only one trooper
wounded, while the French had sixteen disabled or taken.
[468] ‘Rather a new style of war, to place guns in a village and
the troops protecting them a mile in the rear.’--Tomkinson, p. 51.
From this day onward, the weather, which had been fine and dry since
the army left Coimbra, broke up for the autumn rains, and the last
three days of the retreat to the Lines were spent in torrential
downpour. This had the advantage of delaying the French; for while
the British infantry, who were two days ahead of them, reached
their destined position on the 9th (with the exception of the Light
Division and Pack’s Portuguese), the enemy was marching on flooded
roads from the 8th to the 11th.
On the 9th there was continual bickering in the rain, from Quinta da
Torre as far as Alemquer, between Lamotte’s light cavalry brigade,
which had again replaced Sainte-Croix’s dragoons at the head of the
pursuing column, and Anson’s two much-enduring regiments. On this
day the 1st Hussars of the King’s German Legion had the thick of the
work: Linsingen’s squadron of that admirable regiment, which formed
the rear detachment of the whole army, turned back to charge no less
than four times in five miles, and always with success. At dusk the
French infantry got up, and the allied cavalry retired on to Alemquer
after a fatiguing day of fighting, in which the hussars had lost two
killed, two officers and nine men wounded, and seventeen missing; the
supporting regiment, the 16th Light Dragoons, had one killed, three
wounded, and four missing, and the Royals of Slade’s brigade, who
only got engaged in the late evening, one wounded and four missing.
Lamotte’s loss was a little more--six killed, twenty-two wounded, and
twenty-one prisoners[469]. Three of his officers were hurt, one taken.
[469] Readers interested in cavalry work should read Beamish, i.
298-301, and Tomkinson, 52-3, who have admirable accounts of this
rearguard fighting.
On the next day (Oct. 10) the whole of the British cavalry marched
from Alemquer to within the Lines, distributing themselves to the
cantonments which had been arranged for them. But Craufurd’s and
Pack’s infantry, which had hitherto been completely covered by
the horsemen, did not follow their example with quite sufficient
promptitude, and got engaged in an unnecessary skirmish. The Light
Division should have withdrawn at noon, but Craufurd, believing the
French infantry to be still far away, and despising the cavalry
which hovered around him, remained in Alemquer, intending to spend
another night in a dry cantonment, for the torrential rain which
was falling promised a fatiguing march to his men. At four o’clock
Taupin’s infantry came up, and engaged the pickets of the Light
Division in a skirmish. Having been strictly forbidden by Wellington
to get entangled in a rearguard action, and remembering perhaps
his experience at the Coa, Craufurd tardily and unwillingly moved
off. But dusk coming on, his column missed its road, and instead
of retiring into the section of the Lines which it was destined
to occupy, between the Monte Agraça and the valley of Calandriz,
went too far to the west, and came in upon the position of the 1st
Division in front of Sobral. This would have been dangerous if the
French had had any infantry to the front, to take advantage of the
unoccupied gap in the lines. But Montbrun’s advanced guard had
pressed more than thirty miles in front of the main body of Masséna’s
army, and this force contained nothing but cavalry, save the single
brigade of Taupin--less than 3,000 men[470]. This force, such as it
was, did not pass Alemquer that night--Craufurd, in his retreat on
Sobral, was followed by cavalry alone. It was not till next morning,
when Montbrun sent out reconnaissances in all directions, that he
found himself in front of fortifications drawn across every road,
and gradually realized that he was in front of the famous ‘Lines of
Torres Vedras.’
[470] For this reason the dismal picture of the situation drawn
by Napier (iii. 38-9) must be considered exaggerated. The French
main army was further off than he imagines; it had not passed
Alcoentre. The cavalry could have done nothing against the
heights, and Taupin’s brigade would have been crushed if it had
endeavoured to enter the gap. But it never came within ten miles
of the exposed point on the 10th and 11th, not having passed
Alemquer. The Light Division diarists do not treat seriously the
position which Napier paints in such gloomy colours. See Leach,
p. 172, and Simmons, p. 111. The Light Division countermarched
from Sobral to Arruda and reached their proper post long before
midnight. There they picked up a detachment of 150 convalescents
and recruits from Lisbon, who, had been waiting for them. Among
these were Harry Smith and Simmons, who have accounts of the
arrival of the division ‘after dark,’ and of its relief at
finding large fires already lighted and provisions prepared by
the draft.
It must not be supposed that Wellington’s final arrangements for
the reception of the army of Masséna in front of Lisbon were made
at leisure, or at a moment when he had nothing to distract him.
Though the actual retreat of his army from the position of Bussaco
to the position of Torres Vedras was conducted at an easy pace,
and practically unmolested by the enemy, yet the days during which
it was being carried out were a time of political, though not of
military, storm and stress. Ever since the French had started from
Almeida, and made their first advance into the mountains of Beira,
Wellington had been engaged in an endless and tiresome controversy
with the Portuguese Regency. Though they had assented, long before,
to the scheme for devastating the country-side and bringing Masséna
to a check only in front of Lisbon, yet when the actual invasion
began, and the first hordes of fugitives were reported to be leaving
their homes, and burning their crops, and taking to the mountains,
several of the members of the Regency became appalled at the awful
sacrifices which they were calling upon the nation to endure. The
Principal Sousa put himself at the head of the movement, and was
supported by the Patriarch, the Bishop of Oporto, so famous in 1808.
Sousa brought before the Regency proposals that Wellington should
be formally requested to try the chances of a pitched battle on
the frontier, before retiring on Coimbra or Lisbon. In addition,
he was always maintaining in private company that the people
should not be required to take in hand the scheme of devastation
and wholesale emigration, till it was certain the allied army was
unable to stop Masséna somewhere east of the Serra da Estrella.
He also laid before the Regency documents intended to prove that
the system of devastation was physically impossible, and that it
would prove incapable of stopping the advance of the French, owing
to the difficulty that would be found in persuading the peasantry
to destroy instead of hiding their stores of food[471]. There was
a certain modicum of truth in this last argument, and the French
did succeed in living for a longer time in the evacuated districts
than Wellington had considered possible. On the other hand, the
Principal was hopelessly wrong in his contention that the French
would suffer little inconvenience. They were starved out of Portugal
by Wellington’s device, even though it took longer to work out
its results than he had calculated. There is no reason to suppose
that Sousa was in any way treacherously inclined: he and his whole
family stood or fell with the English alliance, and the victory
of the French would mean ruin to them. But his private and public
utterances and those of his satellites had a deplorable effect. In
the mouth of the common people it took the form of a widely-spread
rumour that Wellington had refused to fight at all, and intended to
re-embark the British army. This did not lead to any wish to submit
to Napoleon, but to a desperate determination to resist even if
deserted. Wellington’s dispatches are full of a riot which took place
in Lisbon on September 7th, when the militia proposed to seize on St.
Julian’s, the Citadel, and the Bugio fort because they were informed
that the English garrisons were about to evacuate them and put to
sea[472]. When Masséna had already passed Coimbra, Sousa was mad
enough to propose, at the Regency board, that the Portuguese troops
should not retire within the Lines, but remain outside and offer
battle in the open, even if the British refused to stand by them. The
nervous activity of the government had been shown some three weeks
before by the sudden arrest and deportation of some fifty persons in
Lisbon, who were suspected, rightly or wrongly, of ‘Jacobinism,’ and
had been accused of having secret communication with d’Alorna and
the other renegades in Masséna’s army. They included a few officers,
and a good many lawyers, doctors, merchants, and minor officials,
as well as some dependants and relatives of the exiles. The case
against most of them was so weak that Wellington protested against
their banishment, holding that the alarm caused by the arrests would
make the people of Lisbon unreasonably suspicious, and give rise to
a belief in wide-spread plots. But despite his letter to the Regency
all were shipped off to the Azores[473]. Some were ultimately allowed
to go to England, others to Brazil, but the majority were not allowed
to return to Portugal till 1816.
[471] For Sousa’s arguments, see Soriano da Luz, iii. pp. 130-44.
That author thinks the Principal’s arguments weighty, and sees no
harm in the fact that he set them forth in public and private.
Cf. Wellington, _Dispatches_, vi. 430.
[472] See Wellington to Charles Stuart, Sept. 9, and to Lord
Liverpool, Sept. 13, 1810, _Dispatches_, vol. vi. pp. 420-30.
[473] See Soriano da Luz, iii. 90-9, for a list of them, and
Wellington’s _Dispatches_, vi. 433, for the protest against the
deportation; also ibid. 528-9.
‘All I ask from the Government,’ wrote Wellington, on October 6th, in
the midst of the retreat, ‘is tranquillity in the town of Lisbon, and
provisions for their own troops[474].’ These two simple requirements
were precisely those which he did not obtain. The capital of Portugal
was kept disturbed by arbitrary arrests, by proclamations which
often contained false news, and sometimes pledged the Regency to
measures which the Commander-in-Chief disapproved, and by senseless
embargoes laid on vehicles and commodities, which were never turned
to use[475]. At the same time the Portuguese troops were not fed, and
the tents which had been ordered forward to the positions behind the
lines never started from the magazines of Lisbon[476].
[474] _Dispatches_, vi. p. 493.
[475] _Dispatches_, vi. 521. ‘When they have got mules and
carriages, by injudicious seizure, they do not employ them, but
the animals and people are kept starving and shivering, while we
still want provisions.’
[476] Ibid., vi. p. 506.
Wellington’s temper, tried to the uttermost by these distractions,
when his mind was entirely engrossed by military problems, grew
sharp and irritable at this time. He went so far as to write to
the Prince Regent at Rio de Janeiro, to declare that either he or
Principal Sousa must leave the country. He suggested that some post
as ambassador or special envoy should be found for the man who
troubled him so. The Patriarch, as ‘a necessary evil,’ he did not
wish to displace, but only to scare. Unfortunately, an appeal to
Brazil was hopeless, since the Regent was entirely in the hands of
the Principal’s brother, the Conde de Linhares. Much acrimonious
correspondence, delayed by the vast time which was consumed in
getting letters to and from Rio, only led in the end to a proposal
from Linhares that his brother should leave the Regency, if Charles
Stuart, the British Ambassador, was also withdrawn from it, and if
the War-Minister, General Miguel Forjaz, whom Wellington considered
a necessary person and the ablest man in Portugal, should also be
removed from his post[477]. To this proposal neither Wellington
nor the British government would consent, and as it only came in
when Masséna’s invasion had already been foiled, and the French had
retired into Spain, the crisis was over. The Principal remained at
the Council Board, to talk much impracticable and mischievous stuff,
but to do little positive harm. When the invasion was past Wellington
could afford to disregard him.
[477] See Soriano da Luz, iii. p. 142. For text of it his
_Appendix_, vii. 178-9. The answer was only written on Feb. 11,
1811, and only got to Wellington in April when the crisis was
over.
SECTION XXI: CHAPTER IV
THE LINES OF TORRES VEDRAS
We have hitherto, when speaking of Wellington’s immense scheme for
fortifying the position on which he intended to bring his enemy to a
standstill, refrained from entering into the details of his plan. It
is now time to describe it in full, and to explain its design.
The character of the peninsula on which Lisbon stands lends
itself sufficiently well to defence. At a first inspection the
country-side offers a rather chaotic expanse of mountain and valley,
whose general features are hard to seize from any one point. On
further examination, it appears that the whole square mass of land
between the Atlantic and the Tagus estuary is nothing more than a
continuation of the ridge of the Serra de Monte Junta, the main
mountain-chain of Estremadura. But from the backbone or central mass
of the highland so many large spurs are thrown out to each side, and
these are themselves so high and steep, that the whole peninsula
seems more like a ganglion of mountains than a well-marked chain.
The two chief joints or vertebrae in the backbone are the Monte
Agraça above Sobral, and the Cabeça de Montechique six miles south
of it, and these form the central points respectively of the first
and second lines of defence which were finally laid out. Besides
the outer defences there was in Wellington’s scheme, from the very
start, an inner ring of works, covering only a small area on the
sea-shore, at the southernmost point of the peninsula, to the west of
Lisbon. This was merely intended to cover an embarkation, if by any
unforeseen disaster the Lines themselves should be pierced.
It remains to speak of the system of defences in detail. In October
1809, Wellington’s plan had embraced no more than one continuous
line of works from Alhandra on the Tagus to the mouth of the Rio
São Lourenço on the Atlantic, with certain redoubts and fortified
camps thrown out in front, at Torres Vedras, Monte Agraça, and other
points. These latter fortifications were not intended to be held in
permanence; but it was hoped that they might defer and hinder the
enemy’s attack on the main line in the rear. It was only the long
delay in Masséna’s advance, which gave Wellington five or six months
on which he had not counted, that led to the ultimate strengthening
of the scattered outer works, and their conversion into a continuous
whole, capable of turning back, instead of merely detaining for a
time, the invading army. Indeed, all across the peninsula, designs
that were slight, isolated, and provisional when first drawn up, were
in the end enlarged, and perfected into wholly different structures.
For the engineers, having unlimited labour at their disposal,
and much more time than had been promised them, could turn their
attention, after the essential works had been completed, to devising
all manner of additional improvements and securities for the chosen
position.
The construction of the Lines was entrusted to Colonel Fletcher,
Wellington’s commanding engineer, who had as his chief assistant
Major John Jones, the historian of the works, and in addition eleven
British officers of the Royal Engineers, two from the King’s German
Legion, and three from the Portuguese regular army. Wellington
himself, after making one all-embracing survey of-the positions in
Fletcher’s company in October 1809, and another in February 1810,
left all the rest to his subordinate, and refrained from worrying him
with matters of detail, being satisfied that his own intentions had
been thoroughly well grasped. The labour available was, firstly, that
of the Lisbon militia regiments, who were brought up by alternate
pairs, and paid an extra 4_d._ a day for their services[478];
secondly, that of hired volunteers from the peasantry of the
district, of whom from 5,000 to 7,000 were generally in hand; they
received 1_s._, afterwards 1_s._ 8_d._ a day[479]; and lastly of a
conscription from the whole of southern Estremadura, for a circuit
of forty miles around. The forced labour was paid at the same rate
as that freely hired. On the whole, only about £100,000 was paid
out between November 1809 and September 1810--so that the Lines of
Torres Vedras may be considered one of the cheapest investments in
history. The militiamen and peasantry were worked in gangs of some
1,000 or 1,500 men, each in charge of an engineer officer, who had
a few English and Portuguese military artificers as his assistants:
only 150 such were available, so short were both armies of trained
men. ‘In some districts a subaltern officer of engineers with a few
English soldiers, utterly ignorant of the language, directed and
controlled the labour of 1,500 peasantry, many of them compelled
to work at a distance of forty miles from their homes, while their
lands lay neglected. Nevertheless, during a year of this forced
labour not a single instance of insubordination or riot occurred.
The great quantity of work performed should, in justice to the
Portuguese, be ascribed more to the regular habit of persevering
labour in those employed than to the efficiency of the control
exercised over them[480].... Indeed, it is but a tribute of justice
to the Portuguese of Estremadura to state that, during many months of
constant personal intercourse, both private and public, the labouring
classes ever showed themselves respectful, industrious, docile, and
obedient, while the governing classes in every public transaction
evinced much intelligence, patriotism, good sense, and probity.
Secrecy with respect to the extent and nature of the works was
enjoined, and it is highly creditable to all concerned that hardly a
vague paragraph concerning the Lines found its way into the public
prints. The French invaders remained ignorant of the nature of the
barrier rising against them, till they found our army arrayed on it
so as to stop their further advance[481].’
[478] Or two _vintems_ Portuguese money.
[479] Or six, and afterwards ten, _vintems_. See Jones, _Lines of
Torres Vedras_, p. 77.
[480] Jones, p. 79.
[481] Id., p. 107.
The total frontage of the southern and stronger series of lines,
those which Wellington originally planned as his line of defence, was
twenty-two miles from sea to sea. The outer and northern series of
works, which was originally only a supplement and outer bulwark to
the other, was longer, extending to twenty-nine miles, for it crosses
the peninsula in a diagonal fashion and not on the shortest possible
line that could be drawn. Lastly, the small interior line round St.
Julian’s and Oyeras, which was prepared as the embarking-place of the
army in the event of defeat, has a circumference of about two miles.
In all, therefore, fifty-three miles of defences were planned--a
stupendous work, far exceeding, when its elaborate details are
studied, anything that had been constructed in modern times in the
way of field-fortification.
It must be remembered that the character of the Lines in no way
resembles that of our own great Roman wall from Tyne to Solway,
of the wall of China, or of any other long continuous stretch of
masonry. It is only on a few points that works of any great length
are to be found. The Lines are in essence a series of closed
earthworks, dotted along the commanding points of the two ranges
of hills which Wellington chose as his first and second fronts
of resistance. Some few of the earthworks rose to the dignity of
fortified camps, armed with many scores of guns. The majority of
them were small redoubts, constructed to hold three to six guns and
garrisons of two or three hundred men only. But even the smallest of
them were individually formidable from their structure: the normal
ditch was 16 feet wide and 12 feet deep, the parapets 8 to 14 feet
thick, and all were properly fitted with banquettes. When it is
remembered that they were well palisaded, and had outer hindrances
of abattis, _chevaux de frise_, and _trous-de-loup_ scattered in
front, it is clear that they were forts requiring a regular attack,
not mere lines of trench and mound. The strength of the whole series
was that they were placed in scientific fashion, so as to cross
fires over all the ground on which an attacking force was likely to
present itself. No practicable point of assault could be found on
which advancing columns would not be cut up by flanking fire for
a very long distance, before they drew near to their objective.
Immense pains had been taken to make the more exposed sections of
the country-side into one vast glacis. Mounds which might have given
cover had been removed to the last stone, hollow roads filled up,
houses pulled down, olive-groves and vineyards stubbed up to the
roots, so as to give a perfectly smooth and featureless ascent up
to the line of redoubts. Greatly to Wellington’s credit (as may be
incidentally remarked) compensation was paid on a liberal scale to
all owners of dwellings, mills, fruit-trees, &c., for the havoc made
by these necessary pieces of demolition. The result was a complete
clearance of cover. ‘We have spared neither house, garden, vineyard,
olive-trees, woods, or private property of any description,’ wrote
the officer in charge of the works to his chief at the end of the
preparations: ‘the only blind to the fire of the works now standing
anywhere is that beautiful avenue of old trees in the pass of Torres
Vedras. The Juiz da Fora and the inhabitants pleaded with me so hard
for the latest moment, lest they might be cut down unnecessarily,
that I have consented to defer it till the day before the troops
march in. As I have trustworthy men with axes in readiness on the
spot, there is no doubt of their being felled in time. The pine woods
on the Torres heights are already down, and formed into abattis[482].’
[482] Major Jones to Col. Fletcher, the chief engineer, then
absent on a visit to Wellingtons head quarters. See Jones, _Lines
of Torres Vedras_, p. 187.
It was not necessary, or indeed possible, to slope into a glacis the
whole of the ground in front of each of the lines of defences. In
many places other methods of making it impassable were used. At the
north-western front of the first line, between Torres Vedras and the
sea, for nearly six miles, a long marsh had been created: the river
Zizandre had been dammed up, and had filled the whole of the narrow
bottom in which it flows. ‘It has overflowed its banks, and in a
short time more than half the valley has become so complete a bog
that no reward can induce any of the peasantry to pass over it[483],’
wrote the officer who had carried out the experiment. Nor was it
possible for the enemy to attempt to drain the bog, for four[484]
redoubts furnished with heavy guns, and placed on dominating
points of the hillside, commanded the bottom so completely that it
was impossible for any party to approach it with safety. Yet the
redoubts were out of the range of field-guns on the slopes beyond the
Zizandre: only guns of position could have touched them, and Masséna
had none such with him. Two similar inundations on a smaller scale
had been caused at the other end of the Lines, by damming up the
Alhandra and Alverca streams, each of which spread out in a marsh a
mile broad, reaching to the foot of the heights above the Tagus, and
could only be passed on the narrow paved high-road from Santarem to
Lisbon.
[483] Jones, _Lines_, p. 26.
[484] Afterwards, when Masséna had arrived, increased to sixteen
redoubts with seventy-five guns. See Jones, p. 113.
In other places a very different method of making the Lines
unapproachable had been adopted. Where the heights were very steep,
but not absolutely inaccessible--a dangerous thing to the defence,
for here ‘dead ground,’ unsearchable by the cannon of the redoubts
above, must almost necessarily occur,--the slope had been cut or
blasted away in bands, so as to make absolute precipices on a small
scale. At one point above Alhandra[485] this was done on a front
of full 2,000 yards. Even this was not the last precaution taken:
at several places ravines ran deep into the line, and up them
columns, more or less under cover, might possibly have penetrated.
Such ravines, therefore, were stuffed, at chosen points, by a broad
abattis or entanglement, mainly composed of olive-trees with all
their chief boughs remaining, dragged together and interlaced for a
depth of many yards. Such a structure could not be crawled through,
nor could it be hewn down without an infinite waste of time and
labour; nor, on the other hand, did it afford any cover, since grape
or musketry could play perfectly well through it. The chief of these
traps was that laid across the long ravine above the village of
Arruda, down the bottom of which flows one of the winter torrents
which fall eastward into the Tagus.
[485] Jones, _Lines_, p. 173. ‘An extent of upwards of 2,000
yards on the left has been so cut and blasted along its summit
as to give a continuous scarp, everywhere exceeding 10 feet in
height, and covered for its whole length by both musketry and
cannon.’
It was fortunate that Portugal was a well-wooded country: there are
regions where it would be impossible to procure the immense amount
of timber that was lavished on the accessories of the redoubts. All,
as has been already mentioned, were palisaded; many had in addition
abattis or entanglements thrown up in front of them, some way down
the hillside, so as to detain the advancing enemy under fire as long
as possible.
The works were divided into eight sections, the first line composed
of four, the second line of three, while the eighth consisted of
the inner retrenchment for purposes of embarkation, at the extreme
southern point of the peninsula. Of the outer or secondary line the
three sections were:
(1) A front of five miles from the Tagus at Alhandra along the crest
of a steep but not very lofty ridge, as far as the great ravine
that overlooks the village of Arruda. This front was elaborately
fortified, as it blocks the great road, in the flat by the waterside,
which forms the easiest approach to Lisbon from the north. In the
five miles there were ultimately constructed no less than 23 redoubts
with 96 guns. Two thousand yards of hillside in one place had been
scarped into a precipice; a mile by the side of the Tagus had been
inundated. The one considerable gap in the line, the ravine at the
head of the valley of Calandriz, had been choked by one of the great
_abattis_ above described. The redoubts required a garrison of 6,000
men.
(2) The second section, from the ravine above Arruda to the left of
the steep Monte Agraça, formed somewhat of a salient angle: it had
a front in all of some four and a half miles, which included the
most lofty and defensible part of the backbone range of the Lisbon
peninsula. One of the four great paved roads entering the capital
from the north, however, passes over the shoulder of these heights,
and they were therefore very heavily fortified from the first, the
large redoubt for 1,600 men, on the top of Monte Agraça being one of
the original outer works ordered for construction in Wellington’s
earliest notes of October 1809. There were in all seven redoubts
mounting 55 guns and requiring a garrison of 3,000 men on this
fraction of the lines.
(3) Quite different in character was the front of eight miles from
the left of Monte Agraça to the pass of Runa, overlooking the upper
valley of the Zizandre and the village of Sobral. The fortification
of this line had not entered into Wellington’s original plan, and
there were only two redoubts upon it when Masséna appeared before it
in October 1810. Such defence as there was consisted in the fact that
the dominating Monte Agraça redoubts overlooked it on the right, and
that the two small works just mentioned commanded the main high-road
from Sobral to Cabeça de Montechique, which goes through its centre.
But there was a clear possibility that the enemy might make a push up
the valley and the high-road, by the village of Zibreira, and this
was indeed the most probable point of attack in the whole 29 miles of
front for the enemy to select. When, at the last moment, the British
Commander-in-Chief determined to hold the outer lines, and not merely
to fall back after having used them for a temporary defence, he had
to cram this point with troops, and to construct new works upon it
as quickly as possible. Four divisions, therefore, more than 20,000
men, were concentrated here. Wellington’s own head quarters were
established at the hamlet of Pero Negro, on the slope above the
high-road, and a very large redoubt was thrown up on the Portello
hill, above Zibreira, with several smaller ones further to the right,
to connect it with the Monte Agraça works. Sobral, the village at
the foot of the heights, was held as an outpost, but abandoned when
Masséna pushed forward to the front, as it was too far advanced to
the north to be treated as an integral part of the position. But the
French, when they had carried Sobral with difficulty, looked at the
main line behind it, and refused to attempt any further advance. The
hillside was as formidable as the Bussaco heights from which they had
only recently been repulsed: it was full of troops and growing in
strength every moment as the earthworks continued to arise.
(4) The fourth section of the outer or northern front was that from
the gorge of the Zizandre (or the pass of Runa, as it is sometimes
called) to the sea. It was about twelve miles long, but of this space
six miles and more was covered by the impassable bog formed by the
obstructed Zizandre, and another mile was formed by the formidable
entrenched camp of San Vincente, above the town of Torres Vedras, the
most complete and self-sufficing of all the works in the peninsula.
This stronghold lay outside the main line, beyond the river, covering
the bridge and the paved _chaussée_ from Leiria to Lisbon, the only
carriage-road on the western side of the Lines[486]. It was one
of the earliest of the fortifications commenced by Wellington’s
engineers, having been started on November 8, 1809, and was placed in
such a conspicuous point, and planned on such a large scale, that it
attracted public attention more than any other part of the works, and
gave its name to the whole in popular parlance[487]. The whole front
on both sides of Torres Vedras and its great fort was so strong and
inaccessible as to offer little temptation to the invader to select
it as a point of serious attack, all the more so because troops
brought opposite to it would be completely cut off from any left in
front of the eastern and central part of the lines. For the geography
of the peninsula at this point is peculiar: north of the gorge of
the Zizandre the great backbone range, the Serra de Barregudo and
the Serra de Monte Junta, extends for a distance of fifteen miles,
without being crossed by a single road practicable for horses, much
less for wheeled vehicles. There are nothing but goat-tracks across
the heights. If, therefore, any considerable body of troops had been
sent to observe or contain the western section of the lines, it
would have been separated by two days’ march from the rest of the
army, and liable to be crushed, ere succoured, by the defenders of
Lisbon, who had good cross-roads across the peninsula, by which they
could transfer themselves from point to point under the protection
of their works. As a matter of fact, nothing but flying parties of
French horse ever appeared in this direction. Masséna had not troops
to spare for any secondary attack, more especially for one on such an
unpromising part of the Lines. Wellington had foreseen this when he
distributed his field army behind the various sections of the front:
to support the garrisons of the twelve miles of redoubts about Torres
Vedras he only placed one division, while there were three behind
the eastern section, and more than four in the partially entrenched
central part[488].
[486] By an astonishing blunder the camp of Torres Vedras is
placed by Napier in his map (and apparently in his text also)
_south_ of the river Zizandre, on the main line of heights,
while in reality it was a great _tête-du-pont_ covering the only
passage from north to south over the stream and its bogs.
[487] See note to that effect in Jones, p. 21.
[488] The third division (Picton) only, behind Torres Vedras.
Behind the Alhandra-Arruda section were the 2nd (Hill),
Hamilton’s Portuguese, and the Light Division; in the central
part the 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th Divisions and three unattached
Portuguese brigades (Pack, Coleman, and Al. Campbell).
Passing on to the second line of defence, from Quintella on the Tagus
to the mouth of the Rio São Lourenço on the Atlantic, we find three
sections of defence, which, unlike those of the outer line, were all
completed by September 1810, and had no central gap.
(1) There was over a mile of impassable inundation at the eastern
end, between Quintella and Alverca. Above the first-named village
was an isolated hill, which was all fortress, for no less than six
redoubts had been placed upon it, to enfilade the high-road across
the inundated lower ground. Then came the Serra de Serves, three
miles of lofty and difficult hills, which had been scarped into
almost perfect inaccessibility. In a sudden dip west of this range
was the pass of Bucellas, through which runs one of the three great
high-roads that enter Lisbon. It was easily defensible, as it lies
between two high and steep mountain-sides, and is only a couple of
hundred yards broad. Redoubts were placed so as to rake it from end
to end, and to flank it on both sides. The _chaussée_ itself was
blocked with successive abattis, and the viaduct leading up to it was
mined.
(2) The second section of the inner line extended from the pass
of Bucellas to the Park of Mafra, a front of over six miles. The
eastern part of this was formed by the towering heights of the
Cabeça de Montechique, the most dominating mountain-summit in the
whole peninsula, almost steep enough to defend itself without
fortification; but three redoubts nevertheless had been reared upon
its summit. But from the pass of Montechique, at the left side of
the summit, down to Mafra the ground was less well marked, and here
the _chaussée_ from Sobral and Zibreira crossed the range. Much
fortification, therefore, was lavished on these four miles, along
which there were nine strong redoubts, connected with each other in
the rear by a military road passing along the southern crest of the
heights. There was a second and formidable ridge behind this line,
where further defence could be offered in the unlikely event of the
enemy forcing his way up the high-road.
(3) From Mafra to the sea, nearly ten miles, there was for the most
part a well-marked line of heights protected in front by the ravine
of the river of São Lourenço, a deep, rugged, and in many cases
inaccessible cleft, only crossed by a single road, that from Torres
Vedras to Mafra. Nevertheless, six redoubts were reared, to cover
this, and the few other points where the ravine was passable. The
eastern part of this section, that along the wall of the Royal Park
(Tapada) of Mafra, was its weakest portion, and for two miles at
this point the British engineers set all their ingenuity to work.
The outlying heights called the Serra de Chypre, in front of the
park, were covered by four redoubts, and turned into a first defence.
The wall of the Tapada itself was loopholed and furnished with a
banquette. The important road which passes its foot was obstructed
with cuts, enfiladed by the artillery of several works, and stockaded
at more than one point. There was another group of redoubts along the
south end of the Torres Vedras road, at the village of Morugueira;
and finally Mafra town, in the rear of all, was turned into a
defensive post by means of trenches and barricades. Altogether, what
was by nature the weakest point in the southern lines was made by
art one of the strongest. This too, in spite of the fact that, being
approachable only from Torres Vedras, it was on the whole not a
probable front on which to expect an attack.
A mere mention must suffice for the eighth section of the defensive
works, the semicircle at St. Julian’s and Oyeras which was intended
to protect the embarkation of the army if the worst should come. It
was strongly entrenched, and could be held by a very few battalions,
while the rest were utilizing the numerous and solid piers alongside
of which the fleet of transports was to be moored.
Having described the Lines, it remains that we should describe the
garrison set to guard them, detailing separately each element,
regular and irregular. The forces at the disposition of Wellington
were materially increased at the moment of his arrival within
the Lines. On October 8 he found at his disposition a brigade of
three battalions newly arrived at Lisbon, the 1/50th, 1/71st, and
1/92nd, all old Corunna regiments which had served in the Walcheren
expedition, and were still none too healthy from their long sojourn
in the deadly marshes of Zeeland. There had also landed about the
same time the 94th regiment, and the Brunswick Oels Light Infantry,
a foreign battalion raised from the refugees who had fought under
the Duke of Brunswick in the abortive North German insurrection of
1809. Moreover, two battalions--the 2/30th and 2/44th--had just been
sent to Lisbon from Cadiz, where General Graham now thought that
the British contingent was larger than was absolutely necessary.
The 1/4th and 1/23rd came out a little later, and do not appear in
the fortnighty ‘general state’ of the army till November 15. Thus
the army was swelled by nine battalions, or some 6,500 men[489]. No
cavalry, however, had arrived.
[489] About 5,800 rank and file, with 250 officers and 350
sergeants and drummers, by mid-winter return.
Wellington used these new arrivals to form a new 6th Division of
infantry, and to complete to full strength the 5th Division, which
had hitherto possessed only one British brigade. He did not, however,
keep the lately landed units together: acting on the principle which
he always followed, of mixing veteran acclimatized battalions with new
arrivals, he formed the new 6th Division by adding Campbell’s brigade,
taken from Cole’s 4th Division, to two Portuguese regiments the 8th
and the Lusitanian Legion, both of which had been hitherto attached
to the 5th Division, and had served with Leith at Bussaco. In the 4th
Division, Campbell’s brigade was replaced by that of Pakenham, taken
from Spencer’s 1st Division, while compensation was made to Spencer,
by giving him the newly landed 1/50th, 1/71st, and 1/92nd, as a new
brigade under Erskine. The 5th Division under Leith got three more
of the fresh arrivals, the 1/4th, 2/30th, and 2/44th as its second
brigade. The 94th was given to Picton’s second brigade,--which had
hitherto consisted of only 2⅓ battalions,--to raise it to average
brigade-strength. The Brunswick Oels Jägers, being a light corps, were
partly divided up into separate companies and told off to different
brigades (as the 5/60th, a similar unit, had already been), though the
head quarters and six companies joined Pakenham’s brigade in the 4th
Division. But when the 1/23rd, the last of the reinforcements, came
out, it also joined Pakenham, while the Brunswickers were transferred
to the Light Division--where they did not long abide[490].
[490] For all these changes see Atkinson’s admirable ‘Composition
of the British Army in the Peninsula,’ printed in the _English
Historical Review_.
Even after allowing for the trifling losses at Bussaco, the British
field army in Portugal was now far larger than it had ever been
before, the gross total of troops in the Lines amounting to 42,000
men, of whom about 7,000 were sick or detached, and 35,000 were
present under arms. This figure does not include the two battalions
of marines who guarded St. Julian’s and the lines around it at the
mouth of the Tagus.
Of Portuguese regulars, Wellington had now under his hand the 24,000
men who had fought at Bussaco, plus the 1,400 cavalry under Fane and
the brigade under Bradford (now consisting of five battalions)[491]
which had been guarding the position behind the Alva on the day of
the battle, together with the reserve artillery of Lisbon. The total
made 27,500 men, of whom 24,500 were with the colours and 3,000 sick
in hospital.
[491] The 12th and 13th line regiments and the 5th Caçadores, not
much over 2,500 bayonets in all.
Of militia there were three brigades and four isolated units more
within the Lines--the Southern Beira brigade of Lecor, three
regiments[492], the Northern Estremaduran brigade of Miranda,
also three regiments[493], and the Lisbon local brigade of five
regiments[494] with two stray units from the north[495], and two from
the south[496]. The numbers of all the regiments ran very low, owing
to the way in which they had been neglected and under-fed by their
government, since they were called out nine months before; many had
died, and far more had deserted. The thirteen corps did not between
them supply more than 8,200 men present under arms, with 1,000 sick
in hospital. In addition there were 3,200 artillerymen improvised
from the ranks of the infantry militia or the Ordenança, making
altogether 12,400 troops of the ‘second line.’
[492] Idanha, Castello Branco, Covilhão.
[493] Thomar, Leiria, Santarem; the fourth battalion (Tondella)
was in garrison at Peniche, as was also a considerable body of
dépôt troops from the line, half-trained recruits, &c.
[494] 1, 2, 3, and 4 of Lisbon, and Torres Vedras.
[495] Feira and Vizeu, properly belonging to Trant’s corps, but
somehow separated from it.
[496] Setubal and Alcaçer do Sul.
As to the Ordenança who had taken refuge in and about Lisbon with
their families, when the whole population of southwestern Beira and
northern Estremadura retired within the Lines, it is impossible to
obtain any figures, save that they supplied the bulk of the 3,000
volunteer artillerymen just mentioned above, and that the picked men
of the Ordenança of the capital itself had been organized into two
battalions of ‘Atiradores Nacionales’ of about 450 men each. The
whole may have amounted to any number from 20,000 up to 40,000 men,
of whom about two-thirds were armed with muskets, the rest, those
from the remoter districts, having still nothing better than pikes.
As most of them were scattered with their families in the villages
where they had taken refuge, or the camps of huts which they had
formed in sheltered situations, they could hardly be considered to be
in a state of mobilization, and certainly were of no use either for
garrisoning forts or for employment in the line of battle.
[Illustration: LINES OF TORRES VEDRAS]
Lastly, in calculating the forces which Wellington accumulated within
the Lines, we must mention the two Spanish divisions from the Army
of Estremadura. Hearing that all was quiet for the moment on the
frontier of Andalusia, the British Commander had asked the Marquis
of La Romana, whether, in accordance with a promise made so long ago
as July, he could spare any troops to assist in the holding back of
the main French army of invasion. The Marquis, with a liberality of
which the Cadiz Regency would have disapproved, if its leave had been
asked, replied that he would bring up his two reserve divisions.
Leaving Ballasteros on the Andalusian border, and another division
under Imaz at Badajoz, in addition to the garrison and Madden’s
Portuguese cavalry, he marched for Aldea Gallega and Lisbon with the
troops of La Carrera[497] and Charles O’Donnell[498], about 8,000
men. On October 25th he had arrived at the cantonments behind Mafra,
on the second line of defence, which his ally had requested him to
occupy. Wellington defended the bringing up of these troops by the
plea ‘that he did not think himself justified in not bringing into
his positions all the force which was at his disposal’[499]. But it
is doubtful whether the advantage of getting 8,000 Spanish troops
within the Lines justified the danger incurred in Estremadura, when
it was possible that Soult might send out Mortier at any moment
to attack the depleted army that covered the approach to Badajoz.
Napoleon thought that he should have done so, and when he heard of
the arrival of La Romana at Lisbon, wrote to censure the Duke of
Dalmatia in the fiercest strain[500]. ‘It was a shame and a scandal
that he had retired to Seville: the 5th Corps had orders to be always
at La Romana’s heels, and to prevent him from moving into Portugal,
so that the news of its return to Seville roused the Emperor’s
surprise and anger.’ There can be no doubt that Napoleon did well to
be angry. The balance of affairs in Andalusia tended to stand at an
equipoise precisely because La Romana’s army was strong enough to
keep the 5th Corps employed. When 8,000 men had been withdrawn by the
Marquis to the Lisbon lines, Mortier was in a position to sweep all
before him as far as the gates of Badajoz, or to execute a raid into
the Alemtejo if that course seemed preferable. But Soult did not send
his lieutenant on this errand on his own initiative, but waited till
he received direct orders to do so from Paris. By that time it was
too late, and neither the disaster of the Gebora nor even the fall
of Badajoz had any influence on the course of events in Portugal.
Masséna was forced to retreat before a single patrol from the Army
of Andalusia had got into touch with his outposts. What might have
happened if Soult had launched his blow at Badajoz in October, and
had appeared on the left bank of the Lower Tagus in December, it is
impossible to say. Probably Wellington would have found some means of
averting disaster, but it is unquestionable that his task of defence
would have been made far more difficult.
[497] Who had now resigned the command of the cavalry, and gone
back to his old infantry division.
[498] The ‘Vanguard’ and 2nd Division of his army.
[499] _Dispatches_, vi. p. 544.
[500] _Correspondance_, xxi. pp. 273, 295.
For the full realization of the meaning of the Lines of Torres Vedras
there are two general facts which must be remembered. Firstly, they
were garrisoned by troops which formed no part of the field army.
Wellington’s sixty thousand regulars were not frittered away in the
garrisoning of redoubts, but were held in masses behind the lines,
ready to reinforce any threatened point, and to deliver a pitched
battle in the open, if the head of the French army were thrust
through the defences at some weak section. The generals of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, who so often built lines, and
were so easily evicted from them, suffered disaster because they drew
out their armies in one attenuated thread, and were therefore weak
at every point, and always inferior to the assailant at the place
where he made his assault. Wellington’s army was (with the exception
of the 3rd Division at Torres Vedras) gathered in two solid masses,
one facing Sobral, on the heights between Monte Agraça and Runa, the
second and smaller behind Alhandra. The one could reach the other in
half a day’s march, for the roads behind and parallel to the lines
had been put in good repair.
The whole of this vast system of redoubts was to be held by the
troops of the second line, and by them only. There were altogether
some 20,000 men of the second line in the fortifications, composed of
(1) the 8,000 (afterwards raised to 11,000) militia infantry. (2) Of
about 800 Portuguese regular artillery, aided by over 2,000 gunners
picked from the militia and Ordenança, trained by the regulars and
incorporated with them. (3) Of some 250 British artillerymen from
the batteries which had been lying in reserve at Lisbon. (4) Of
picked companies of the Lisbon Ordenança (atiradores) drilled into a
state of discipline not much worse than that of the militia. (5) Of
the landing force of 2,000 British marines, partly from the fleet,
partly brought specially from England to garrison the proposed lines
of embarkation at St. Julian’s. (6) Of the dépôts, convalescents and
recruits of the eight Line regiments of infantry raised from Lisbon
and Southern Estremadura--about 4,000 strong.
In all, therefore, there were about 20,000 men, mostly troops of
secondary quality, or 28,000 if the Spanish auxiliaries are counted,
ready to man the Lines, without a man being withdrawn from the ranks
of the field army. The outer lines were calculated to require about
18,000 men for the redoubts, the inner ones 14,000, but clearly both
did not require to be manned at once. If the outer line were broken,
the garrison-troops from the intact parts of it could fall back on
the second. Meanwhile the field army would be engaging any French
columns that might have broken through, and there would be ample
time to arrange for the manning of the second and stronger front.
But it must be repeated once more that it was not on the passive
defence of the redoubts by their garrisons that Wellington reckoned
for success, but on the fighting of the field army, who would tackle
the columns of attack that had committed themselves to the assault
of the section--whichever it might be--that Masséna might select as
his objective. All criticism based on general principles concerning
the weakness of long extended lines falls to the ground, when it is
remembered that Wellington had his army massed for a pitched battle
in and behind his defences, not strung out on an interminable front.
The last point on which stress must be laid is that the most careful
arrangements for the transmission of orders and intelligence from end
to end of the Lines had been made. There were five signal-stations,
with semaphores worked by seamen on (1) the redoubt No. 30 near the
Atlantic, (2) the great redoubt of Torres Vedras, (3) the Monte de
Socorro above Wellington’s head quarters at Pero Negro, (4) the
summit of the Monte Agraça, (5) the hill behind Alhandra on the
Tagus. After some practice it was found that a message could be sent
from one end to the other of the 29 miles in _seven_ minutes, and
from No. 3, the head quarters semaphore, to either end of the Lines
in _four_ minutes. There was a similar line of four semaphores on
the second, or main, series of defences. Military roads had been
opened behind both the fronts, so that troops could be moved along
the shortest possible line. On the other hand, it was fortunate that
there existed no cross-road from sea to sea _outside_ the Lines,
which could be of any practical use to the invader. The only route of
this sort, that from Alemquer by Sobral to Runa, was commanded for
the whole length from Sobral to Runa by the British heights, whose
foot it hugs, while from Sobral to Alemquer it is separated from
the Lines by the steep and pathless ridge of Galaria, across which
nothing on wheels could pass. Nevertheless, here lay the invaders’
best chance--corps placed on this road, and screened by the ridge,
could be moved for some distance to left or right unseen from the
Lines. The road, however, was bad, rocky, and narrow: it is marked as
the ‘Calçada Arruinada’ or ‘ruined road’ in contemporary maps. The
other paved road in this direction, that from Sobral to Arruda and
Alhandra, passed through the line of ground occupied by the British
at two points, and was under fire from the redoubts at short range
for the rest of its course: it was absolutely impracticable.
It only remains to be added that the navy had been utilized for
auxiliary service: not only were its marines under orders to man the
St. Julian’s lines, but its seamen had fitted out all the gunboats
in the Lisbon arsenal. A flotilla of great strength infested the
Tagus estuary, and by the fire of its heavy guns prevented the French
from approaching the shore, or endeavouring to build boats at the
mouths of its creeks. If any attacks had been made upon either of the
extreme ends of the Lines, the columns delivering them would have
been under fire from the sea throughout their operations. But, as we
shall see, the French never contemplated this: the one temptation
which Masséna felt was to assault, far inland, the gap in front of
Sobral between the Monte Agraça and the Serra de Socorro. And there,
as we shall see, at the critical moment, prudence got the better of
ambition, and the invader turned back foiled. The high-water mark of
French conquest in Europe was reached on the knoll by Sobral on the
wet and gusty 14th of October, 1810.
SECTION XXI: CHAPTER V
MASSÉNA BEFORE THE LINES OF TORRES VEDRAS: HIS RETREAT TO SANTAREM
(OCTOBER-NOVEMBER 1810)
On the night of October 10, when Craufurd made his hasty retreat to
Sobral, and went within the Lines, Montbrun had his head quarters at
Alemquer, where he kept Taupin’s infantry brigade, and Lamotte’s and
Sainte-Croix’s cavalry. Pierre Soult’s light horse felt towards their
left, in the direction of the Tagus, and occupied Carregado, where
they failed to find any British outposts, Hill’s corps having been
withdrawn behind the brook which enters the Tagus near Castanheira.
The main body of the army was far to the rear, in one vast column:
Ney’s and Reynier’s corps lay that night in and about Alcoentre:
Junot’s bivouacked around the convent of Nossa Senhora de Maxeira,
a short distance to the south of Alcoentre. All the troops were
terribly fatigued by three days’ movement in torrential rain, and had
no more marching-power left in them.
It was only on the following morning (October 11) that Montbrun
discovered the Lines. His cavalry had been ordered to move forward on
the two roads across which they lay. Pierre Soult therefore pushed
for Villafranca, on the high road which skirts the Tagus; he found
Hill’s outlying pickets at Villafranca, drove them out of the town,
and on passing it came in sight of the line of redoubts and scarped
hillside above Alhandra, which was manned by the Portuguese militia
and backed by Hill’s British infantry. It was impossible to advance
further, so the brigadier, leaving an advanced post in Villafranca,
drew back his three regiments to Castanheira, and sent his report to
Montbrun.
That general himself, with the main body of his cavalry, had
followed the rough road from Alemquer to Lisbon. He drove in some
British dragoon pickets, and then arrived in front of the village
of Sobral, which he found occupied by the infantry outposts of
Spencer’s division. He did not attempt to push further that day,
as his flanking reconnaissance had come in sight of the sections
of the Lines behind Arruda and behind Zibreira, where redoubts and
solid lines of infantry were visible. Sobral itself was clearly
not held in force, nor did it form an integral part of the British
position. But Montbrun feared to attack it, when he had only a single
brigade of infantry to the front, while many thousands of British
troops might issue from the Lines to overwhelm him if he committed
himself to a serious attack. The village on its knoll was left alone
for the present, though it was tempting to contemplate the seizure
of a point which lay so far forward--less than two miles from the
front of Wellington’s chosen position. But Montbrun contented
himself with sending back word to Masséna that he had come upon a
continuous line of fortifications stretching from the Tagus bank to
some point westward, which was not yet discovered. For his furthest
reconnaissances towards Runa and the Upper Zizandre had found the
enemy in front of them, however far they pushed.
Meanwhile Masséna’s tired infantry of the main body had made hardly
any movement: the 2nd and 6th Corps still lay about Alcoentre. Junot
alone with the 8th Corps advanced as far as Moinho de Cubo, half way
between Alcoentre and Alemquer. Thus Wellington was given a whole
day more to arrange his troops in their positions along the Lines.
On this morning he was rather under the impression that the French
attack would be directed upon Alhandra and Hill’s corps, which, he
observed, would be a ‘tough job, defended as all the entrances of the
valleys are by redoubts, and the villages by abattis[501].’ Moreover,
the French ‘positively could not’ get guns up to attack the line west
of Hill, since, in the existing state of the weather, no cannon could
leave the paved roads, and the only path of that description leading
from the Sobral direction to the Tagus bank ran through Arruda, where
Craufurd and the Light Division were now comfortably installed.
Considering it likely, therefore, that Masséna would bring a heavy
attacking force, by circuitous roads from the rear, to Villafranca,
in order to make a frontal attack on Hill along the high-road by the
Tagus, Wellington warned Craufurd and Spencer to be ready to move in
eastward to the assistance of the extreme right wing of the Lines.
In the afternoon, however, he discovered that the force in front of
Sobral (Montbrun) seemed much larger than that in front of Alhandra
(Pierre Soult), and showed more signs of making wide-spreading
reconnaissances. He therefore drew up an alternative scheme, by
which, in the event of an attack on Spencer’s front at Zibreira,
Cole’s and Campbell’s (the new 6th) divisions were to support the
threatened point, and even Picton was to come in from the distant
Torres Vedras[502]. No French troops were reported from this last
direction, and De Grey’s cavalry pickets from Ramalhal (far outside
the Lines) reported that not the smallest party of the enemy’s horse
had been seen west of the Serra de Barregudo or the Monte Junta[503].
[501] _Dispatches_, vi. 502, to Craufurd.
[502] Wellington to Spencer, afternoon of Oct. 11, _Dispatches_,
vi. 505.
[503] Wellington to Craufurd, same day, _Dispatches_, vi. 504.
On the 12th Montbrun made a movement which seemed to justify
Wellington’s first idea, that Hill was to receive the French attack.
He moved Taupin’s brigade, the only hostile infantry which had yet
been seen, southward from Alemquer to Villafranca on the Tagus. This
was done, however, only because the whole 8th Corps was coming up on
this day from Moinho de Cubo by Alemquer to Sobral, which it reached
in the afternoon, replacing Taupin’s small force. Its arrival was
at once reported to Wellington, who saw that his second theory of
the intention of the enemy, not his first, had been correct, and
transferred his main attention to the side of Sobral. That village,
by some extraordinary blunder on the part of Sir Brent Spencer, had
been evacuated by the pickets of the 1st Division during the night of
the 11th-12th[504]. They were put back into it, by the special orders
of the Commander-in-Chief, in the early morning, for Wellington
wished to hold it as long as was safe, on account of the fine view
obtainable from its knoll over the routes from Alemquer by which
the enemy must approach. Hence, when Junot’s advanced guard came up
in the afternoon, there was a collision at Sobral. The troops of
Clausel finally succeeded in expelling the British outposts, which
belonged to Erskine’s and Löwe’s brigade, from the village. The
casualties were few on both sides--nineteen men only were lost by the
British[505]. The retiring pickets did not fall back into the Lines,
but clung to the other side of the ravine which separates Sobral from
the lower slopes of Monte Agraça. They were only 300 yards from the
village.