Loe raamatut: «The Story of Wellington», lehekülg 8
CHAPTER XII
The Lines of Torres Vedras
(1810)
“France is not an enemy whom I despise, nor does it deserve I should.”
Wellington.
Pasquier, who had the privilege of knowing most of the generals of the Revolution and of the Empire, says of Masséna that he was “France’s first military commander after Napoleon.” Neither Pichegru, Moreau, Kléber, nor Lannes gave the Chancellor “as completely as Masséna, the idea of a born warrior, possessing a genius for war, and endowed with all the qualities which render victory certain. His eagle eye seemed made to scan a field of battle. One could understand, on seeing him, that the soldier under his command never believed it was possible to retreat.”
Masséna’s first important operation in the Peninsula was the siege of the Spanish fortress of Ciudad Rodrigo. Although Wellington was in the neighbourhood he was not to be enticed away from his immediate objects, which were the defence of Lisbon and the thorough organization of the army for service when action became absolutely imperative. Notwithstanding a splendid defence for over two months on the part of Governor Herrasti, the garrison of Ciudad Rodrigo was compelled to surrender on the 10th July. In August, Masséna crossed the frontier preparatory to beginning the siege of Almeida, near the river Coa, next to Elvas the strongest place in Portugal.
On the 24th July, Craufurd and his famous Light Division—not Light Brigade as some would have it—had a fierce tussle with Ney’s corps of 24,000 men. Craufurd, who had only 4000 troops at his disposal, entertained no wild notion of preventing the investment of the place, but as he was suddenly attacked he was obliged to fight. Had he been a more cautious soldier he would have crossed the Coa before Ney came up, as Wellington had suggested on the 22nd. Indeed, so early as the 11th, the Commander-in-Chief had said, “I would not wish you to fall back beyond that place (i.e. Almeida), unless it should be necessary. But it does not appear necessary that you should be so far, and it will be safer that you should be nearer, at least with your infantry.” He delayed too late, and thereby lost over 300 men. While the last of the soldiers were crossing the bridge which spanned the swollen river, for it had rained in torrents the previous night, a lanky Irish lad of nineteen years, named Stewart, and known by the 43rd as “The Boy,” positively refused to pass over. “So this is the end of our boasting! This is our first battle, and we retreat! The Boy Stewart will not live to hear that said,” he cried, and turning back he slashed at the oncoming French until he fell dead. Even more courageous was the conduct of Sergeant Robert M‘Quade, five years Stewart’s senior. He happened to catch sight of two French soldiers with levelled muskets awaiting the British to ascend a bank. A boy of sixteen, afterwards famous as Sir George Brown (Colonel-in-Chief of the Rifle Brigade) was on the verge of being shot by them when the sergeant pulled him back from the fatal spot. “You are too young, sir, to be killed,” he cried as his own body received two bullets and fell in a lifeless heap at the feet of the youth.
That Colonel Cox, who was in charge of the fortress, would have stayed Masséna’s advance for a considerable time is extremely likely, but unfortunately he was not given the opportunity to display his prowess. The powder-magazine blew up, almost destroying the town and necessitating immediate surrender. The pursuit of Wellington, “to drive him into the sea,” seemed a comparatively easy task until the advance showed that the British General had caused the country to be stripped almost entirely of provisions. Thus Napoleon’s policy of making “war support war” by plundering and raiding the enemy’s country, completely broke down. “In war all that is useful is legitimate,” he says, and Wellington had followed the maxim, after having obtained permission for the destruction of provisions from the Portuguese Regency, which included Mr Charles Stuart, the British Minister at Lisbon. What Wellington’s measures meant to Masséna’s army is summed up in a single sentence by Sir Harry Smith, who carried a dispatch to Lord Hill through territory occupied by the enemy. “The spectacle,” he says, “of hundreds of miserable wretches of French soldiers on the road in a state of starvation is not to be described.” Nor was this all. Not only did the place resemble a desert in the difficulty of obtaining means of sustenance, but the majority of the inhabitants had fled, some seeking the fastnesses of the mountains, others the larger cities such as Lisbon and Oporto.
As Masséna advanced so Wellington retreated towards the celebrated lines of Torres Vedras, upon the construction of which thousands of peasants, under the direction of British engineers, had been busy for six months.
These magnificent defences are thus described by one who knew them.58 They “consisted of redoubts and field-works of various kinds; according to the ground they were to defend, and all connected with each other by entrenchments, etc., so that, when occupied by the army, it would almost be impossible to force them. But, even supposing this first line of defence should be carried by the enemy, there was another, much more contracted, to retreat upon, where a very small force could hold out against the French army and cover the embarkation of the British, should Lord Wellington be at last forced to quit Portugal. I cannot help considering this retreat to the lines, and the pertinacity with which he held them in spite of every difficulty, and the remonstrances of the Government at home, which was seized with alarm, as the greatest proof of a master mind and genius that could be given, and proved Lord Wellington to be superior to any general the French had, except Napoleon; in short, that he was, next to Buonaparte himself, the first general of the day. And I am further convinced that, had he the same opportunities that Napoleon had, he would have proved as great a general, as his capacity and powers of mind would have strengthened and expanded in proportion to the vastness of his views and the obstacles to be surmounted.”
An officer of the 60th Rifles, who served behind them, furnishes a more detailed pen-sketch. “The line of defence was double,” he writes. “The first, which was twenty-nine miles long, began at Alhandra, on the Tagus, crossed the valley of Armia, which was rather a weak point, and passed along the skirts of Mount Agraça, where there was a large and strong redoubt; it then passed across the valley of Zibreira, and skirted the ravine of Runa to the heights of Torres Vedras, which were well fortified; and from thence followed the course of the little river Zizandre to its mouth on the sea-coast. The line followed the sinuosities of the mountain track which extends from the Tagus to the sea, about thirty miles north of Lisbon. Lord Wellington’s headquarters were fixed at Pero Negro, a little in the rear of the centre of the line, where a telegraph was fixed corresponding with every part of the position. The second line, at a distance varying from six to ten miles in the rear of the first, extended from Quintella, on the Tagus, by Bucellas, Montechique, and Mafra, to the mouth of the little river S. Lourenço, on the sea-coast, and was twenty-four miles long. This was the stronger line of the two, both by Nature and art, and if the first line were forced by the enemy, the retreat of the army upon the second was secure at all times. Both lines were secured by breastworks, abattis, stone walls with banquettes, and scarps. In the rear of the second line there was a line of embarkation, should that measure become necessary, enclosing an entrenched camp and the fort of St Julian.” As many as 120 redoubts and 427 pieces of artillery were scattered along these lines. “Lord Wellington had received reinforcements from England and Cadiz; the Portuguese army had also been strengthened, and the Spanish division of La Romana, 5000 strong, came from Estremadura to join the Allies;59 so that the British commander had about 60,000 regular troops posted along the first and second lines, besides the Portuguese militia and artillery (which manned the forts and redoubts and garrisoned Lisbon), a fine body of English marines which occupied a line of embarkation, a powerful fleet in the Tagus, and a flotilla of gun-boats flanking the right of the British line. It was altogether a stupendous line of defence, conceived by the military genius of the British commander, and executed by the military skill of the British engineer officers.”
Wellington continued to fall back until he reached “Busaco’s iron ridge,” north of the Mondego. Here he determined to offer Masséna battle, for three principal reasons. First, there was a growing discontent amongst the rank and file of his army by reason of lack of active warfare and the fall of Ciudad Rodrigo and Almeida, and a victory would put an end to this growing despondency. Second, also a military consideration, the orders he had given for the laying waste of the districts about Lisbon were not yet fully carried out. Third, from a political point of view it was necessary because it would show that he was not about to lock himself up within the lines of Torres Vedras because he was incapable or afraid of Napoleon’s legions. In a word, it would “restore confidence,” a matter of first importance. It is quite incorrect to term Busaco a “useless battle” as some historians have done.
“On the 25th and 26th,”60 says M. de Rocca, “the French corps arrived successively at the foot of the mountains Sierra de Busaco, whose summits they found occupied by the Anglo-Portuguese army. At six o’clock, on the morning of the 27th, they marched in column against the right and centre of that army, in the two roads leading to Coimbra, by the village of San Antonio de Cantaro, and by the convent of Busaco. These roads were cut up in several places, and defended by artillery. The mountain over which they pass is besides encumbered with steep rocks, and is very difficult of access.
“The French column which attacked the right of the English advanced with intrepidity, in spite of the fire of their artillery and light troops. It reached the top of the eminence after sustaining considerable loss, and began to deploy in line with the greatest coolness, and most perfect regularity. But a superior force again assaulted it, and compelled it to retire. It soon rallied, made a second attack, and was again repulsed. The French battalions, which advanced against the convent of Busaco, where the left and centre of the English divisions joined, were also driven back, a little before they reached that post. General Simon, who had been struck by two balls during the charge, was left on the height, and a great many wounded officers and soldiers.
“The position occupied by the English and Portuguese on the brow of the hill, formed the arc of a circle, whose two extremes embraced the ground over which the French had to advance. The allied army saw the least movements made below them, and had time to form to receive any powerful body before it arrived. This circumstance materially contributed to the advantage they obtained....
“Marshal Masséna judged that the position of Lord Wellington could not be carried in front, and resolved to turn it. He kept up an irregular fire till the evening, and sent off a body of troops by the mountain-road, which leads from Mortago to Oporto. The English and Portuguese, in consequence of this movement, abandoned their position on the mountain of Busaco.”
The attack on the British left was led by Ney, and it succeeded in driving in the sharp-shooters. The French had practically reached the summit, as Rocca states, when Craufurd’s division, concealed in a hollow, gave them the full benefit of their fire. “The enemy,” says Sir Charles Stewart, who fought on this memorable day, “unable to retreat, and afraid to resist, were rolled down the steep like a torrent of hailstones driven before a powerful wind; and not the bayonets only, but the very hands of some of our brave fellows, became in an instant red with the blood of the fugitives. More brilliant or more decisive charges than those executed this day by the two divisions which bore the brunt of the action, were never perhaps witnessed; nor could anything equal the gallantry and intrepidity of our men throughout, except perhaps the hardihood which had ventured upon so desperate an attack.”
Reynier’s two divisions, 15,000 men in all, attacked Picton’s 3rd division on the right. The troops of Generals Hill and Leith, moving rapidly to Picton’s aid, decided their fate. “The right of the 3rd division had been, in the first instance, borne back,” says an eye-witness, “the 8th Portuguese had suffered most severely; the enemy had formed, in good order, upon the ground which they had so boldly won, and were preparing to bear down to the right, and sweep our field of battle. Lord Wellington arrived on the spot at this moment, and aided the gallant efforts of Picton’s regiments, the fire of whose musketry was terrible, by causing two guns to play upon the French flank with grape. Unshaken even with this destruction, they still held their ground, till, with levelled bayonets and the shout of the charge, the 45th and 88th regiments, British, most gallantly supported by the 8th Portuguese, rushed forwards, and hurried them down the mountain side with a fearful slaughter.”
“This movement,” writes Wellington, “has afforded me a favorable opportunity of showing the enemy the description of troops of which this army is composed; it has brought the Portuguese levies into action with the enemy for the first time in an advantageous situation; and they have proved that the trouble which has been taken with them has not been thrown away, and that they are worthy of contending in the same ranks with British troops in this interesting cause, which they afford the best hopes of saving.
“Throughout the contest on the Serra, and in all the previous marches, and those which we have since made, the whole army have conducted themselves in the most regular manner. Accordingly all the operations have been carried on with ease; the soldiers have suffered no privations, have undergone no unnecessary fatigue, there has been no loss of stores, and the army is in the highest spirits.”
The total British and Portuguese losses, according to the official figures, were 197 killed, 1014 wounded, and 58 missing. Masséna reported casualties to the number of 4486 men, including five generals. Anything but a kindly feeling existed between the French Commander-in-Chief and Ney previous to the battle; the result merely deepened their unfriendliness, a pitiful contrast to the cordial relations of Wellington and his colleagues.61
It is both delightful and pathetic to know that, after the last roll of the guns had echoed through the valley, the British and the French put aside their weapons and worked side by side in the humanitarian task of searching for the wounded. It was the final scene of the tragedy, acted after the curtain had fallen. It is recorded, as one of the incidents, that a German officer serving with Napoleon’s colours, who had a brother in the British 60th Regiment, asked a sworn enemy of an hour ago if he knew what had happened to his relative? He answered his own pathetic question by finding the soldier’s corpse.
Books may tell of its story,
But only the heart can know
How war is robbed of its glory,
By the brave ones lying low,
CHAPTER XIII
Masséna beats a Retreat
(1810–11)
“There will be a breeze near Lisbon, but I hope we shall have the best of it.”
Wellington.
Owing to the failure of one of Wellington’s officers to occupy the Boialva Pass, Masséna was able to turn the British position, with the result that his advanced guard appeared in front of Coimbra on the evening of the 30th September.
When the Commander-in-Chief saw the French army defiling across the mountains “he seemed uneasy,” according to one who watched him, “his countenance bore a fierce, angry expression, and, suddenly mounting his horse, he rode away without speaking.”
No attempt was made to attack the enemy, Wellington considering it more prudent to leave the ridge, cross the Mondego, and retreat towards Lisbon. This resolution was come to on the 28th September, and on the 1st October the last man of the rear-guard had evacuated the town. “Although I could not save Coimbra,” Wellington writes, “I have very little doubt of being able to hold this country against the force which has now attacked it.”
The place was immediately occupied by Masséna’s famished troops, who found it not entirely destitute of eatables, as seemed only too probable judging by previous experience, although much of the food had been destroyed by Wellington’s orders. They had merely to help themselves to what they could find, for most of the population had followed in the wake of the allied army. “The inhabitants of the country have fled from their houses universally,” the Commander-in-Chief writes to the Earl of Liverpool from Alcobaço on the 5th October, “carrying with them every thing they could take away which could be deemed useful to the enemy; and the habits of plunder which have been so long encouraged in the enemy’s army prevent them from deriving any general advantage from the little resource which the inhabitants may have been obliged to leave behind them.”
It is the straightforward utterance of a straightforward man. Wellington seldom indulged in picturesque language; he had neither the natural ability which commands a delicate choice of language nor the time for vivid diction. His mind was cast in a sterner mould; he craved for exactness, for cold, matter-of-fact calculations, for ungarnished essentials.
For graphic details we must turn to such an authority as Sir Charles Stewart, who writes with the fluency of a gifted war-correspondent permitted to ride with the officers and obtain a view of everything of importance. “Crowds of men, women, and children,” he says,“—of the sick, the aged, and the infirm, as well as of the robust and the young—covered the roads and the fields in every direction. Mothers might be seen with infants at their breasts hurrying towards the capital, and weeping as they went; old men, scarcely able to totter along, made way chiefly by the aid of their sons and daughters; whilst the whole wayside soon became strewed with bedding, blankets, and other species of household furniture, which the weary fugitives were unable to carry farther. During the retreat of Sir John Moore’s army numerous heartrending scenes were brought before us; for then, as now, the people, particularly in Galicia, fled at our approach; but they all returned sooner or later to their homes, nor ever dreamed of accumulating upon our line of march, or following our fortunes. The case was different here. Those who forsook their dwellings, forsook them under the persuasion that they should never behold them again; and the agony which such an apprehension appeared to excite among the majority exceeds any attempt at description.... It could not but occur to us that, though the devastating system must inevitably bear hard upon the French, the most serious evils would, in all probability, arise out of it, both to ourselves and our allies, from the famine and general distress which it threatened to bring upon a crowd so dense, shut up within the walls of a single city. At the moment there were few amongst us who seemed not disposed to view it with reprobation; because, whilst they condemned its apparent violation of every feeling of humanity and justice, they doubted the soundness of the policy in which it originated.”
Leaving a meagre force to guard the wounded and sick at Coimbra, Masséna started off in pursuit of the enemy as soon as the most primeval of creature comforts had been satisfied. Six days after his soldiers had left the place, namely, the 11th October 1810, Wellington’s men entered the lines of Torres Vedras, but so rapid had been the French advance that they began to appear on the following morning. La Romana had crossed from Estremadura with several thousand Spanish troops, thereby adding to Wellington’s forces, while Portuguese militia threatened the enemy’s communications.
Masséna dared not attempt to retreat for fear of incurring Napoleon’s displeasure. His only hope, as he repented at leisure, was that the supplies of the defenders might fail, or that the Emperor, in response to urgent dispatches, would speedily send reinforcements both of men and of arms. The news that Coimbra, its garrison, and its invalids, had fallen into the hands of militia under Colonel Trant merely added insult to injury. As regards “starving out” the British and their allies, it was far more probable that their own food would run out, for while Wellington held the Tagus a constant supply of the necessaries of life was secured from incoming ships. Hunger did indeed eventually drive Masséna from Santarem, a town some thirty miles from Wellington’s lines, on which he had been forced to fall back in November. The place, perched on the summit of a height between the rivers Rio Mayor and Aviella, was admirably suited for defensive purposes, but after the surrounding country had been stripped there was nothing to do but retire. The Marshal was fortunate in finding a district which the Portuguese had not laid bare. It sounds almost incredible, but it is recorded that when Masséna succeeded in crossing the frontier his men were so famished that one of them consumed no less than seventeen pounds of native bread. The French General awaited with feverish anxiety the coming of Soult to his relief for nearly four months, but that worthy was fighting battles and besieging Badajoz, which the Spaniards surrendered on the 10th March 1811, five days after his colleague had been forced by sheer necessity to begin a retreat across the mountains towards Ciudad Rodrigo.
The author of “The Journal of an Officer,” a reliable eye-witness, thus describes the town after Masséna had left it: “I have been for some weeks in view of Santarem, and saw at last with pleasure some symptoms of the French abandoning it. The first was setting fire to one of the principal convents in the upper town, and part of the lower town; the volume of smoke was immense for three days. On the fourth morning some information to depend on reached us, and the bugle of attack roused us from our pillows. The haze of the morning clearing up, we could easily perceive the out sentinels were men of straw, and quite passive.62 In fact, a better managed retreat was never executed. Not a vestige of a dollar’s worth remained. Being at the outposts with the 11th Dragoons and the 1st Royals, I entered with them, and three miserable deserters, who had hid themselves with one too ill to move, were the only enemies to be found. Such a scene of horror, misery, and desolation, scarce ever saluted the eye of man. Smoking ruins, the accumulated filth of months, horses and human beings putrefied to suffocation, nearly caused to many a vomiting. The houses had scarcely a vestige of wood—doors, windows, ceilings, roofs, burnt; and where the sick had expired, there left to decay! The number thus left were great. Every church demolished, the tombs opened for searching after hidden plate, every altar-piece universally destroyed, and the effluvia so offensive as to defy describing.
“In some gardens, the miserable heads, undecayed, stuck up like scarecrows; in some wells, a body floating.
“Down a precipice to which we were invited by prospect to look, the human and animal carcases … repulsed our senses, and shudderingly vibrated the soul at the savage, horrible, diabolical acts of a French army. Greater spirits, better discipline, and more order, never attended an army than this. But to see the country, is to weep for the horrors of war. Such horrid excess I never saw before. Every town, village, or cottage destroyed. The growing nursery and the wild grove, each havocked for destruction’s sake. The pot that refined the oil broken, the wine-press burnt, for burning’s sake; the grape vines destroyed as noxious weeds; the furniture unburnt thrown from the windows, and with carriages, etc., made a bonfire of; the large libraries strewed over the land in remnants of paper; the noble convent in ashes, and the poor, unhappy, aged inhabitants, unable to flee, hung around as ornamenting the walls, ten or twelve in a place!”
Wellington, who had now received reinforcements, moved his headquarters to Santarem on the 6th March, anxious to overtake the enemy with the least possible delay. He received the usual conflicting accounts of the direction taken by them and their probable destination. Oporto was suggested, which the Commander did not believe, “but they are in such a state of distress, that it may be expected that they will try anything, however desperate. But I follow them closely; and they will find it difficult to stop anywhere, for any purpose, till they shall draw near the frontier.” He detached two divisions under Beresford, hoping that he might be able to relieve Badajoz, and with five others continued to keep “close at their heels,” to use his own expression. Unfortunately the place fell before it was possible for Beresford to reach it. Had the Governor held out, Wellington was of opinion that “the Peninsula would have been safe,” and the relief of the south of Spain practically certain.
“Affairs” with the enemy were frequent during Wellington’s pursuit, but by forcing them to evacuate the various positions they attempted to occupy, such as Pombal, Redinha, Cazal Nova and Foz d’Aronce, any designs they might have had against the northern provinces were prevented, notwithstanding the fact that the country afforded “many advantageous positions to a retreating army, of which the enemy have shown that they know how to avail themselves.”
In writing to the Earl of Liverpool, Wellington remarks that “their conduct throughout this retreat has been marked by a barbarity seldom equalled, and never surpassed.” He tells a moving story of plunder, the burning of houses, a convent, and a bishop’s palace. “This is the mode,” he adds in a burst of indignation, “in which the promises have been performed, and the assurances have been fulfilled, which were held out in the proclamation of the French Commander-in-Chief, in which he told the inhabitants of Portugal that he was not come to make war upon them, but with a powerful army of 110,000 men to drive the English into the sea.
“It is to be hoped that the example of what has occurred in this country will teach the people of this and of other nations what value they ought to place on such promises and assurances; and that there is no security for life, or for anything which makes life valuable, excepting in decided resistance to the enemy.”
The difficulties of the chase were many and oftentimes almost unsurmountable. Boats and bridge-building materials were scarce, and caused delay in crossing rivers. Shoes wore out rapidly on account of the bad quality of the leather, and many of them were too small. Endless trouble was caused by the Spanish muleteers, who absolutely refused to attend the Portuguese troops, some of whom Wellington was obliged to leave in the rear owing to the scarcity of provisions. For instance, two brigades of infantry had to make nine days’ provisions, consisting chiefly of bread and a little meat supplied by the British commissariat, last for twenty-four days. “This is the assistance I receive from the Portuguese Government!” the Commander-in-Chief writes, and one can imagine his grim face hardening as he pens the words. There were the usual grievances against the rascally army contractors. The boots sent out were of bad quality, “in general too small.” We find him ordering 150,000 pairs of boots and 100,000 pairs of soles and heels at a time.
The most serious action during Masséna’s retreat was fought at Sabugal, on the Coa, on the 3rd April. “We moved on the 2nd,” Wellington says when giving details of the engagement to Beresford, “and the British army was formed opposite to them; the divisions of militia, under Trant and Wilson, were sent across the river at Cinco Villas, to alarm Almeida for its communication. Yesterday morning”—he is writing on the 4th inst.—“we moved the whole army (with the exception of the 6th division, which remained at Rapoula de Coa, opposite Loison) to the right, in order to turn this position, and force the passage of the river. The 2nd corps could not have stood here for a moment; but unfortunately the Light division, which formed the right of the whole, necessarily passed first, and the leading brigade, Beckwith’s, drove in the enemy’s piquets, which were followed briskly by four companies of the 95th, and three of Elder’s caçadores, and supported by the 43rd regiment. At this time there came on a rain storm, and it was as difficult to see as in the fogs on Busaco, and these troops pushed on too far, and became engaged with the main body of the enemy. The light infantry fell back upon their support, which instead of halting, moved forward. The French then seeing how weak the body was which had passed, attempted to drive them down to the Coa, and did oblige the 43rd to turn. They rallied again, however, and beat in the French; but were attacked by fresh troops and cavalry, and were obliged to retire; but formed again, and beat back the enemy. At this time the 52nd joined the 43rd, and both moved on upon the enemy, and to be charged and attacked again in the same manner, and beat back. They formed again, moved forward upon the enemy, and established themselves on the top of the hill in an enclosure, and here they beat off the enemy.
“But Reynier was placing a body of infantry on their left flank, which must have destroyed them, only that at that moment the head of the 3rd division, which had passed the Coa on the left of the Light division, came up, and opened their fire upon this column; and the 5th division, which passed this bridge and through this town [Sabugal], made their appearance.
