THE BATTLE OF FUENTES D’ONORO.
1811.
Massena having taken the field again, with the object of raising the
blockade of Almeida, then closely invested by Lord Wellington, the
British commander, determined that this important fortress should not
be relieved, resolved, even on unfavourable ground and with an inferior
force, to risk a battle.
The river Côa flows past Almeida, its banks are dangerous and steep,
and its points of passage few. Beside the bridge of the city, there
is a second, seven miles up the stream, at Castello Bom; and a third,
twenty miles farther still, at Sabugal. To fight with the river in his
rear was hazardous; but Wellington had decided on his course of action,
and accordingly he selected the best position which a district of no
great military strength would afford.
The Duas Casas runs in a northerly course and nearly parallel with the
Côa, having on its left bank the village of Fuentes d’Onoro. It is a
sweet hamlet, and prettily situated in front of a sloping hill of easy
access, here and there intersprinkled with woods of cork and ilex. The
village was a feature of considerable military importance, the channel
of the Duas Casas being rocky and broken, and its banks generally
steep. Fuentes was occupied by the light troops, the third division
were posted on a ridge crossing the road to Villa Formosa, the brigades
of Craufurd and Campbell had formed behind the village of Alameda,
to observe the bridge over the Duas Casas; Pack’s division observed
Almeida closely, and shut in the garrison; Erskine held the great road
that crosses the Duas Casas by a ford, while the guerilla cavalry
were placed in observation, two miles on the right, at the village of
Nava-de-Aver. The position was very extensive, covering, from flank to
flank, a surface of nearly six miles.
The military attitude which the allied commander held, compared with
that of the preceding year, was singularly changed. Then, his being
able to maintain himself in the country was more than questionable;
now, and in the face of those corps who had driven him on Torres
Vedras, he stood with a most effective force.
On the 1st and 2nd of May, Massena, with an immense convoy, passed the
rivers Agueda and Azava, with the intention of relieving Almeida, and
providing it with every means for insuring a protracted defence. On the
3rd, in the evening, the French sixth corps appeared on the heights
above Fuentes d’Onoro, and commenced a lively cannonade, followed up
by a furious assault upon the village. The light companies, who held
Fuentes, sustained the attack bravely, until they were supported by
the 71st, and, as the affair grew warmer, by the 79th and 24th also.
Colonel Williams was wounded, and the command devolving on Colonel
Cameron, he remedied a temporary disorder that had been occasioned
by the fall of several officers, and again restored the battle. The
ground for a time gained by the French was inch by inch recovered;
and, probably, during the Peninsular conflicts, a closer combat was
never maintained, as, in the main street particularly, the rival troops
fought fairly hand to hand.
The French were finally expelled from the village. Night was closing;
undismayed by a heavy loss, and unwearied by a hardly-contested action,
a cannon--as it appeared to be--being seen on the adjacent heights,
the 71st dashed across the rivulet, and bearing down all resistance,
reached and won the object of their enterprise. On reaching it,
however, the Highlanders discovered that in the haze of evening they
had mistaken a tumbrel for a gun; but they bore it off, a trophy of
their gallantry.
The British regiments held the village. The next day passed quietly
over, while Massena carefully reconnoitred the position of his
opponent. It was suspected that he intended to change his plan of
attack, and manœuvre on the right; and to secure that flank, Houston’s
division was moved to Posa Velha, the ground there being weak, and the
river fordable. As had been anticipated, favoured by the darkness,
Massena marched his troops bodily to the left, placing his whole
cavalry, with Junot’s corps, right in front of Houston’s division. A
correspondent movement was consequently made; Spencer’s and Picton’s
divisions moved to the right, and Craufurd, with the cavalry, marched
to support Houston.
At daybreak the attack was made. Junot carried the village of Posa
Velha, and the French cavalry drove in that of the allies. But the
infantry, supported by the horse artillery, repulsed the enemy and
drove them back with loss.
A difficult and a daring change of position was now required; and Lord
Wellington, abandoning his communication with the bridge at Sabugal,
retired his right, and formed line at right angles with his first
formation, extending from the Duas Casas, towards Frenada on the Côa.
This necessary operation obliged the seventh and light divisions, in
the face of a bold and powerful cavalry, to retire nearly two miles;
and it required all the steadiness and rapidity of British light
infantry to effect the movement safely. Few as the British cavalry
were, they charged the enemy frequently, and always with success; while
the horse artillery sustained their well-earned reputation, acting with
a boldness that at times almost exposed them to certain capture.
At one place, however, the fury of the fight seemed for a time to
centre. A great commotion was observed among the French squadrons;
men and officers closed in confusion towards one point where a thick
dust was rising, and where loud cries and the sparkling of blades and
flashing of pistols indicated some extraordinary occurrence. Suddenly
the multitude was violently agitated, a British shout arose, the mass
was rent asunder, and Norman Ramsay burst forth at the head of his
battery, his horses breathing fire, and stretching like greyhounds
along the plain, his guns bounding like things of no weight, and the
mounted gunners in close and compact order protecting the rear.
The infantry, in squares of battalions, repelled every charge; while
the Chasseurs Brittanique kept up a flanking fire, that, while
the retrogression of the British was being effected, entailed a
considerable loss on the assailants who were pressing them closely.
The new position of the British was most formidable. The right appuied
upon a hill, topped by an ancient tower, and the alignment was so
judiciously taken up that Massena did not venture to assail it.
While these operations were going on, a furious attack was repeated on
Fuentes d’Onoro. Infantry, cavalry, and artillery, all were brought
to bear, a tremendous cannonade opened on the devoted village, and
the assault was made at the same moment on flanks and front together.
Desperate fighting in the streets and churchyard took place. The
French feeding the attacking troops with fresh numbers, pressed the
three regiments that held the upper village severely, but after
one of the closest and most desperate combats that has ever been
maintained, a bayonet charge of the 88th decided the contest; and the
assailants, notwithstanding their vastly superior force, were driven
with prodigious slaughter from Fuentes, the upper village remaining
in possession of its gallant defenders, and the lower in the silent
occupation of the dead.
Evening closed the combat. Massena’s columns on the right were halted,
and his sixth division, with which he had endeavoured to storm Fuentes
d’Onoro, withdrawn, the whole French army bivouacking in the order in
which they had stood when the engagement closed. The British lighted
their fires, posted their pickets, and occupied the field they had
so bravely held; and both parties lay down to rest, with a confident
assurance on their minds, that the battle was only intermitted till the
return of daylight.
A brigade of the light division relieved the brave defenders of
Fuentes, and preparatory to the expected renewal of attack, they threw
up some works to defend the upper village and the ground behind it. But
these precautions were unnecessary; Massena remained for the next day
in front of his antagonist, exhibiting no anxiety to renew the combat.
The 7th found the British, as usual, under arms at dawn, but the day
passed as quietly as the preceding one had done. On the 8th, however,
the French columns were observed in full retreat, marching on the road
to Ciudad Rodrigo. Massena, with an army reinforced by every battalion
and squadron he could collect from Gallicia and Castile, had been
completely beaten by a wing of the British army, consisting of three
divisions only.
With that unblushing assurance, for which the French marshals have been
remarkable, of changing defeat into conquest, Massena did not hesitate
to call Fuentes d’Onoro a victory. But the object for which the battle
was fought was unattained--he failed in succouring the beleaguered
city, and Almeida was left to its fate.
In a close and sanguinary contest, like that of Fuentes d’Onoro, the
loss on both sides must necessarily be immense. The British had two
hundred killed, one thousand and twenty-eight wounded, and two hundred
and ninety-four missing. The French suffered much more heavily; and it
was computed that nearly five thousand of Massena’s army were rendered
_hors de combat_. In the lower village of Fuentes alone, two hundred
dead bodies were reckoned.
In the conduct of an affair which terminated so gloriously for the
divisions engaged, the system of defence adopted by Lord Wellington was
very masterly. Every arm of his force was happily employed, and all
were well combined for mutual protection. Massena had every advantage
for arranging his attack, for thick woods in front enabled him to
form his columns unseen, and until the moment of their debouchement,
none could tell their strength, or even guess the place on which they
were about to be directed. Hence, the French marshal had the means of
pouring a mass of infantry on any point he pleased, and of making a
serious impression before troops could be moved forward to meet and
repel the assault.
His superiority in cavalry and artillery was great. He might, under a
cannonade that the British guns could not have answered, have brought
forward his cavalry _en masse_, supported by columns of infantry, and
the allied line, under a masked movement of this kind, would in all
probability have been penetrated. Or, by bringing his cavalry round the
right of the British flank, and crossing the Côa, he might have obliged
Lord Wellington to pass the river under the greatest disadvantages.
Indeed, this was apprehended on the 5th, and there was but one
alternative, either to raise the blockade of Almeida, or relinquish the
Sabugal road. The latter was done. It was a bold measure, but it was
not adopted without due consideration; and it received an ample reward
in the successful termination of this hard-fought battle.