The greatest factor in Britain's reviving belief that France could be overthrown on the battlefields of the Continent was its new-found faith in Wellington. His Fabian warfare had produced results which scarcely anybody—even the most sanguine—had expected. Here, in "our Nelson on land" as Scott called him, was a man of genius and talent not deterred by obstacles or fettered by prejudices.2 Even the French admitted him to be the first captain in Europe after Napoleon. -Instead of being chased out of Lisbon and off the Continent as almost every one had predicted, his troops were herding the victors of Austerlitz across the stony hills of Portugal like sheep.
All this increased the Tory Government's prestige and lowered the sinking stock of those pessimists who wished to make peace and let Napoleon have his will of Europe. The Opposition leaders, with their expectations that Wellington wras about to be flung into the sea and their explanations that Massena's withdrawal was only a ruse, had been made to look uncommonly foolish. "How happy his retreat must make Lord Grenville," wrote Southey on the day before Sabugal. The Whig argument that, because Bonaparte had conquered Europe, he must conquer the Peninsula had been given the lie: "a child," wrote a triumphant Tory, "must see the cowardice and error." They had not been so easy to see a few months before.
One sign of the Government's growing strength was the return of the Duke of York to the Horse Guards. On May 25th he resumed his old office as Commander-in-Chief, an Opposition motion.against his reinstatement being defeated by 296 votes to 47. The Army was delighted to be freed from what Charles Napier dubbed the offensive oppression of Sir David Dundas; during the next few weeks "Old Pivot's going to pot!" was the toast of many a Mess both in England and the Peninsula. The change was welcome, too, to Wellington, whose attempts to adapt the time-honoured administration of his army to the necessities of warfare had been consistently thwarted by the rigid old Scots martinet. On the eve of Massena's advance
1"Saturday.—Dispatches from Lord Wellington. Park and Tower guns firing—a complete flight ... a great number of the enemy taken and destroyed, very many guns spiked and left behind, ammunition blown up, villages burnt, roads covered with dead men and horses, hot pursuit."—Paget Brothers, 148, 159.
2Croker, I, 32; Scott, II, 480; Gomm, 224; Granville, II, 362; Simmons, 183.
he had been driven to complain that, though directing almost the largest British army that had taken the field for a hundred years, he had not the power of making even a corporal. He was constantly distracted by the tyrannical stupidity and lack of elasticity of the bureaucratic mind at home. No man was ever a greater practical
administrator than Wellington; none ever more conscious of the necessity of meticulous attention to every minute detail: to what he described as tracing a biscuit from Lisbon into the man's mouth on the frontier and to remembering that "a soldier with a musket cannot fight without ammunition and that in two hours he can expend all he can carry." But he was therefore all the more critical of the kind of administration—so dear to little minds—which obscured clear and simple organisation by a mass of needless paper.
"My Lord," he wrote to the Secretary of State, "if I attempted to answer the mass of futile correspondence that surrounds me, I should be debarred from all serious business of campaigning. . . . So long as I retain an independent position, I shall see no officer under my command is debarred by attending to the futile drivelling of mere quill-driving from attending to his first duty, which is and always has been so to train the private men under his command that they may without question beat any force opposed to them in the field." ····«
The victorious spring of 1811 brought Wellington strategic as well as administrative problems. He had liberated Portugal, but in doing so had immensely increased his own difficulties of supply. His army was now operating two hundred miles from the sea and everything it needed—food, ammunition, equipment and replacements—had to be brought up by mule and bullock-cart over the mountains.. Since its dual devastation, first by his own orders and then by the French, there was nothing to be got from the country— a wilderness in which vultures and foxes now lived their lives almost undisturbed. Though six French armies of comparable size were operating in the Peninsula, the allied force numbered only 40,000 British and 32,000 Portuguese, of whom fifteen per cent were normally on the sick list. Nothing could be looked for in the open field from the Spaniards—" that extraordinary and perverse people," as Wellington called them. His was the only army in the Peninsula capable of withstanding the French in pitched battle.
But though the strategic initiative theoretically remained Napoleon's, Wellington intended to keep the tactical initiative he had won. It still lay in Ins mighty adversary's power to return to Spain in person or to reinforce his troops on the Portuguese frontier with one or more of the armies operating against the guerrillas of the north, east, south and interior. But the British Commander-in-Chief knew that, if he did so, two things must happen. First, that those armies, by concentrating in a desert, would be faced with starvation, while his own force, supplied from the sea, would be able to exploit the defensive strength of the country until they were compelled to disperse. Second, that the foes they had left behind, both in Europe and Spain, would take advantage of their absence to raise the standard of liberation, harry their communications and attack their rear. From the enigmatic Czar in his palace on the Neva to the dispossessed peasant in his hiding-hole in the Asturian rocks, Wellington's lonely and outnumbered army had secret sympathisers and allies in every corner of Europe. "I am glad to hear such good accounts of affairs in the North," he wrote that spring of a rumoured quarrel between Napoleon and Alexander; " God send that they may prove true, and that we may overthrow this disgusting tyranny. Of this I am very certain that, whether true or not at present, something of the kind must occur before long."1
For by continuing to resist, the Anglo-Portuguese army and the Spanish guerrillas between them had made the French fight in a land where they could not maintain themselves. Inch by inch, they were draining Napoleon's man-power and money. Sooner or later they would force him to draw on the resources of France itself; when that happened Wellington wrote, the war could not last* long. England must therefore be patient and persist, for her own sake and that of the world. The price, however great, was well worth paying.
In the meantime his policy remained what it had always been: to avoid needless risks and husband every man and weapon until they could be used offensively. "If we adhere strictly to our objects," he wrote, " and carry on our operations in conformity to directions and plans laid down, we shall preserve our superiority over the French, particularly if they should be involved in disputes in the north of Europe."2 Portugal was still to be the coping stone of his strategy; nothing was to be based on Spain and her unpredictable leaders. The army must rely on the Tagus, the Mondego and the Douro for everything it needed. Only thus could it maintain itself in a barren and chaotic Peninsula or be able to strike, when the hour was ripe, across the plains of Leon at the French life-line froni Madrid to Bayonne.
Yet so long as Almeida and the Spanish frontier-fortresses of
1 To Liverpool, 23rd May, 1811. Gurwood. 2 To Charles Stuart, 21st*April, 1811. Gurwood.
Cuidad Rodrigo and Badajoz were in the enemy's hands, Wellington's base for the future was insecure. Without them he could not advance into Spain, as he had done in 1809 and his predecessor had done in 1808. With the French in Badajoz dominating the Guadiana and the southern road into Alemtejo, he could not strike at their northern communications without exposing his own in the south. The temporary loss of Cuidad Rodrigo and Almeida had been allowed for in his original plan. He had sacrificed them to draw the French into his trap. He had also planned their early recapture—a feat which, in Massena's exhausted state at the end of his big retreat, would have been well within the power of a British-Portuguese army of nearly 60,000 men.
But the unexpected surrender of the great southern fortress at the moment when his projects were coming to fruitio
n had thrown out Wellington's calculations. "It is useless now," he wrote sadly, " to speculate upon the consequences which would have resulted from a more determined and protracted resistance at Badajoz." Because of its loss he had had to divide his army and send 22,000 troops, including two British divisions and a brigade of cavalry, to Estremadura. This left him, even after reinforcements had come up from Lisbon, with only 38,000 in the north—a force insufficient to reduce Ciudad Rodrigo before 'Massena could reinforce and re-equip his army.
. The only remedy was to recapture Badajoz before its fortifications could be repaired. Yet so long as Massena held Almeida—the key to northern Portugal—Wellington could neither reinforce his southern army for this purpose nor lead it in person. A hundred and forty miles of villainous, winding mountain-track separated Badajoz from his headquarters on the Coa, and none of his lieutenants in Portugal were fit to direct major operations. Rowland Hill, Cotton, Leith and Craufurd were all on sick leave in England, Graham was at Cadiz. Sir Brent Spencer, the senior divisional commander in the north, lacked nerve in any independent situation and could not be left alone for more than a few days. Beresford, who in Hill's absence had been appointed to the southern army, was a fine administrator and trainer of men but had had comparatively little experience in the field and was only a mediocre tactician. And the situation before Badajoz, if it was to be retrieved in time, called for genius.
It did not get it. Beresford succeeded in recapturing the little fortress of Campo Mayer, taken four days earlier after a gallant stand bv its Portuguese garrison, and forced the 11,000 troops left behind by Soult to retreat hastily into Spanish Estremadura. In a skirmish with their rearguard outside the town on March 25th two hundred men of the 13th Light Dragoons routed three squadrons of French horse and chased them for seven miles right up to the walls of Badajoz, riding over the enemy's siege-train on the way. Had they been supported by the rest of Beresford's cavalry, sixteen invaluable heavy guns would have fallen into their hands with incalculable consequences to the rest of the campaign. But, as Wellington complained, there was hardly an officer in the Army who knew how to handle two cavalry regiments together. The Dragoons' charge, he pointed out in a stinging, order of the day, was merely the indisciplined stampede of a rabble galloping as fast as their mounts could carry them; he even threatened, if they ever behaved in such a manner again, to take away their horses.1
Meanwhile the fortifications of Badajoz were being rapidly restored under the energetic direction of its Governor, General Phillipon. All hope of a speedy coup vanished when it was found that the Spaniards, in spite of repeated warnings, had allowed the only regular bridge of boats in the allies' possession to fall into enemy hands. As a result Beresford was unable until April 6th to cross to the south bank of the Guadiana—the essential preliminary to a siege. By that time the fortress, provisioned for several months, was sufficiently strong to withstand anything short of a full-scale attack by experienced sappers and heavy battering-guns. And Beresford had neither.
Nor had Wellington. The British Army, being designed for colonial and amphibious operations, had never been equipped or trained for the elaborate business of reducing Continental fortresses. It relied for this on its allies. No siege-train had been sent to Portugal, which the Government looked on as a purely defensive theatre of war. The only heavy guns in the country, apart from a few which had been landed from the Fleet to hold the lines of Torres Vedras, were the antiquated cannon in the Portuguese fortresses. A number of the latter were laboriously brought up during April from Elvas, the great frontier fortress of Alemtejo, fifteen miles away. Meanwhile Beresford followed Mortier's rearguard into southern Estremadura, recapturing Olivenza and advancing along the Andalusian highway as far as Zafra. His cavalry even penetrated to Llerena, seventy miles north of Seville.
At this point Wellington arrived from the north to study the situation. Calculating that Massena was in no state to resume the offensive for some weeks, he left his headquarters at Villa Fermosa on April 16th and reached Elvas on the 20th, wearing out two horses
1 To Sir W. C. Beresford, 30th March, 1811. Gurwood.
on the way and losing two dragoons of his escort in a swollen stream. On the 22nd, while reconnoitring Badajoz, he was all but captured himself by a sudden sortie. During the next two days he drew up detailed instructions for the siege, and arranged for the support of 15,000 Spanish troops in the neighbourhood. Then, on April 25th, after giving Bercsford discretion to fight or retire should Soult—as he expected—advance from Seville to relieve the fortress, he set off again for the north on receipt of disquieting news from Spencer.
For Wellington had underestimated both the obstinacy of Massena's injured pride and his army's capacity for recovery. Re-equipped from bases in Leon and reinforced by drafts from Bessieres's Army of the North, the French were ready to take the field again within three weeks of their arrival at Salamanca. It-was an achievement which could have been accomplished by no other. Behind it was the certain knowledge of the grim old Marshal—born of twenty years of revolutionary politics—that, unless he redeemed his misfortunes quickly, it would be too late. His only chance of deflecting Napoleon's wrath was to take the offensive at once.
His capacity to do so turned chiefly on the retention of Almeida, If the 1300 troops left there under General Brennier could be re-provisioned, the northern door into Portugal would remain open, and, with Badajoz also in French hands, Wellington would be in a cleft stick. To guard both entrances into Portugal he would then be forced to divide his inadequate forces permanently. Massena's problem was to relieve Almeida in time. Lacking the means fo breach its walls, the British could not storm it. But in the chaos of the French retreat little provision had been made for victualling the place, and it could only hold out for a few weeks. Already the British sharpshooters had driven its few cattle from their only pasture on the glacis,1 and the garrison had been reduced to half rations. Every effort, therefore, was made at Massena's headquarters to prepare a convoy for its relief at the earliest possible moment.
It was this which brought Wellington hurrying back from the south. Knowing Spencer's limitations, he had given him orders not to contest the passage of the river but to retire, if pressed, westwards. Yet, with Badajoz still to be regained, Wellington now knew that the early reduction of Almeida was vital. If Massena moved to its relief, he would be compelled, at whatever risk, to fight. For unless he could cover it until famine had done the work of his missing
1 Kincaid, 72-3. 423
siege-train, Napoleon would still be free to renew the invasion of Portugal.
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By an immense exertion Massena had assembled 42,000 infantry and 4500 cavalry beyond the Agueda to escort the convoy. Wellington, with two of his eight divisions absent in Estremadura, had only 34,000 foot and 1800 horse. Of these not more than 26,000 were British. His troops, cantoned over an area of twenty square miles, hailed his return on April 29th with considerable relief. It was not that they feared the odds, but, having tasted victory, they had little wish to revert to the dreary, familiar tale of blunders, retreats and evacuations. With "Old Douro," as they called him, they felt safe. The sight of his long nose in a fight, Johnny Kincaid said, was worth a reinforcement of ten thousand men any day.1
His first act on rejoining was to order an immediate concentration. It increased the difficulties of feeding his troops, but there was no alternative. Had Almeida been covered by a dominating hill position like Bussaco, his numerical inferiority would have given him little anxiety, especially as he had forty-eight guns to the thirty-eight which was all his adversary had been able to horse. But the beleaguered fortress stood just outside the mountains, on the high rolling plateau to the east of the Coa where Massena's cavalry—borrowed mostly from Bessieres's Army of the North— were bound to prove dangerous. Having to fight in the open, Wellington chose the best position he could find. He withdrew his troops from the more exposed Agueda to within five or six miles of Almeida. Here, with
his left, entrenched among the woods and rocks in front of the town, he disposed the army along a line of low hills behind the narrow gorge-of the Dos Casas. With a clear field of fire before them he felt complete confidence in the ability of his well-trained infantry and artillery to hold up any frontal attack.
The weak -point was on the right, five miles to the south, where the main road from Ciuadad Rodrigo into the Portuguese hinterland crossed the Dos Casas at the village of Fuentes de Onoro—the Fountain of Honour. Behind it on rising ground Wellington posted the best part of four divisions—Spencer's 1st, Picton's 3rd and the newly-formed 7th, and, when it came in after covering the withdrawal, the Light Division as a reserve. The village itself he picketed with 28 companies of light troops—British, Portuguese and German. The stronger ground on the left was held by the 5th and 6th Divisions alone. With his usual skill Wellington concealed his men in such a
1 Kincaid, 73-4. See also Random Shots, 168; Gomm, 215.
way that it was difficult for Massena before attacking to discover their stations or strength.
The French crossed the Agueda on May 2nd, 1811, by the bridge of Ciudad Rodrigo, the British rearguard retiring before them all day in skirmishing order across the Espeja plain. Early on the 3rd they came up against Wellington's position. After examining it Massena decided to throw his whole weight against Fuentes de Onoro in the hope of breaking his adversary's line and driving him into the Coa. To this end he concentrated five of his eight infantry divisions opposite the British right, and at one o'clock in the afternoon launched them against the village—that is, at the precise point where Wellington was expecting them. They came forward in the usual way, in three dense columns, and, after a hard fight in which they lost heavily, gradually forced the allied sharpshooters back through the narrow streets. Then, before they could recover breath, Wellington launched his counter-attack. Two battalions of the 1st Division —the 71st or Glasgow and the 79th or Cameron Highlanders—with the 2nd battalion of the 24th in support were ordered to advance in line and clear the village. The men were hungry, having received no bread ration for two days. But Colonel Cadogan of the 71st addressed them with a cheerful, " My lads, you have no provision; there is plenty in the hollow in front, let us down and divide it!" They went forward at the double, with their firelocks trailed and their bonnets in their hands; when they came into view of the enemy, their Colonel cried again, " Here is food, my lads, cut away! Let's show them how we clear the Gallowgate!" At which the Highlanders waved their bonnets, gave three cheers and, bringing their firelocks to the charge, went about the business without another word. While the French officers broke into a frenzy of exhortation, the only order heard in the Scottish ranks was an occasional, "Steady, lads, steady!"1
Years of Victory 1802 - 1812 Page 59
