History of the war in the Peninsula and in the south of France from the year 1807 to the year 1814, vol. 3

by William Francis Patrick Napier

CHAPTER IV.

On the 16th the allies halted, partly because the Ceira was swollen and unfordable, partly from the extreme exhaustion of the troops who had suffered far greater privations than the enemy. The latter, following his custom, carried fifteen days’ bread; the allies depended upon a commissariat, which broke down under the difficulties; not from any deficiency in the chief (Mr. Kennedy), who was distinguished alike for zeal, probity, and talent; but from the ill conduct of the Portuguese government; who, deaf to the repeated representations of lord Wellington and Beresford, would neither feed the Portuguese troops regularly while at Santarem, nor fill their magazines, nor collect the means of transport for the march. Hence, after passing Pombal, the greater part of the native force had been unable to continue the pursuit; and the brigades under general Pack and colonel Ashworth, which did keep up and engaged daily with the enemy, were actually four days without food of any sort. Numbers died of inanition on the roads, and to save the whole from destruction, the British supplies were shared with them. The commissary-general’s means were thus overlaid, the whole army suffered, and an imperative necessity obliged lord Wellington to halt. Nevertheless he had saved Coimbra, forced the enemy into a narrow, intricate, and ravaged country, and, with an inferior force, turned him out of every strong position; and this, by a series of movements, based on the soundest principles of war. For, noting the skill and tenacity with which Massena and Ney clung to every league of ground and every ridge defensible, against superior numbers, he seized the higher slopes of the mountains by Picton’s flank march on the 13th; and again by Cole’s on the 14th; and thus, continually menacing the passes in rear of the French, obliged them to abandon positions which could scarcely have been forced: and this method of turning the strength of the country to profit is the true key to mountain warfare. He who receives battle in the hills has always the advantage; and he who first seizes the important points chooses his own field of battle.

In saying an inferior force, I advert to the state of the Portuguese army and to Badajos; for lord Wellington, having saved Coimbra, and seen that the French would not accept a general battle, except on very advantageous terms, had detached a brigade of cavalry, some guns, and a division of native infantry, from Condeixa, to the Alemtejo. He had, therefore, actually less than twenty-five thousand men in hand, during the subsequent operations. In the night of the 13th, also, he received intelligence that Badajos had surrendered, and, feeling all the importance of this event, detached the fourth division likewise to the Alemtejo, for he designed that Beresford should immediately retake the lost fortress: but, as the road of Espinhal was the shortest line to the Tagus, general Cole, as we have seen, moved into it by Panella, thus threatening Massena’s flank and rear at the same moment that he gained a march towards his ultimate destination. Meanwhile, Trant and Wilson, with the militia, moving up the right bank of the Mondego, parallel to the enemy’s line of retreat, forbad his foragers to pass that river, and were at hand either to interfere between him and Oporto, or to act against his flank and rear.

Such were the dispositions of the English general; but the military horizon was still clouded. Intelligence came from the north that Bessieres, after providing for his government, had been able to draw together, at Zamora, above seven thousand men, and menaced an invasion of Gallicia; and, Appendix, [No. II.] Section 9.although Mahi had an army of sixteen thousand men, lord Wellington anticipated no resistance. In the south, affairs were even more gloomy. The battle of Barosa, the disputes which followed, and the conduct of Imas and Mendizabel, proved that, from Spain, no useful co-operation was ever to be expected. Mortier, also, had invested Campo Mayor, and it was hardly expected to hold out until Beresford arrived. The Spaniards, to whom Ibid.it had been delivered, under an engagement of honour, entered into by Romana, to keep it against the enemy, had disloyally neglected and abandoned it at the very moment when Badajos fell, and two hundred Portuguese militia, thrown in at the moment, had to defend this fortress, which required a garrison of five thousand regulars. Nor was the enemy, immediately in the British front, the last to be considered.

Ney withdrew from the Ceira in the evening of the 16th, and on the 17th the light division forded that river with great difficulty, while the rest of the army passed over a trestle bridge, thrown in the night by the staff-corps. The French were, however, again in position immediately behind the Alva and on the Sierra de Moita, and they destroyed the Ponte Murcella and the bridge near Pombeira; while the second corps moved towards the upper part of the river, and Massena spread his foraging parties to a considerable distance, designing to halt for several days. Nevertheless the first, third, and fifth divisions were directed on the 18th, by the Sierra de St. Quiteria, to menace the French left, and they made way over the mountains with a wonderful perseverance and strength, while the sixth and light divisions cannonaded the enemy on the Lower Alva.

As the upper course of the river, now threatened by lord Wellington’s right, was parallel to the line of Massena’s retreat, that marshal recalled the second corps, and, quitting the Lower Alva also, concentrated on the Sierra de Moita, lest the divisions, moving up the river, should cross, and fall on his troops while separated and in march. It then behoved the allies to concentrate also, lest the heads of their columns should be crushed by the enemy’s masses. The Alva was deep, wide, and rapid, yet the staff-corps succeeded in forming a most ingenious raft-bridge, and the light division immediately passed between Ponte Murcella and Pombeira; and at the same time the right wing of the army entered Arganil, while Trant and Wilson closed on the other side of the Mondego.

Massena now recommenced his retreat with great rapidity, and being desirous to gain Celerico and the defiles leading upon Guarda betimes, he again destroyed baggage and ammunition, and abandoned even his more distant foraging parties, who were intercepted and taken, to the number of eight hundred, in returning to the Alva: for lord Wellington, seeing the success of his combinations, had immediately directed all his columns upon Moita, and the whole army was assembled there the 19th. The pursuit was renewed the 20th, through Penhancos, but only with the light division and the cavalry; the communication was, however, again opened with Wilson and Trant who had reached the bridge of Fornos, and with Silveira, who was about Trancoso. The third and sixth divisions followed in reserve, but the remainder of the army halted at Moita, until provisions, sent by sea from Lisbon to the Mondego, could come up to them. The French reached Celerico the 21st, with two corps and the cavalry, and immediately opened the communication with Almeida, by posting detachments of horse on the Pinhel, and at the same time Reynier, who had retired through Govea, occupied Guarda with the second corps.

Massena had now regained his original base of operations, and his retreat may be said to have terminated; but he was far from wishing to re-enter Spain, where he could only appear as a baffled general, and shorn of half his authority; because Bessieres commanded the northern provinces, which, at the commencement of the invasion, had been under himself. Hence, anxious to hold on to Portugal, and that his previous retreat might appear as a mere change of position, he formed the design of throwing all his sick men and other incumbrances into Almeida, and then, passing the Estrella at Guarda, make a countermarch, through Sabugal and Pena Macor, to the Elga; establishing a communication across the Tagus with Soult, and by the valley of the Tagus with the king.

But now the factions in his army had risen to such a height that he could no longer command the obedience of his lieutenants; Montbrun, Junot, Drouet, Reynier, and Ney were all at variance with each other and with him. The first had, in the beginning of the retreat, been requested to secure Coimbra; instead of which he quitted Portugal, carrying with him Claparede’s division; Marcognet’s brigade was then ordered for that operation, but it did not move; finally, Montbrun undertook it, and failed in default of vigour. Junot was disabled by his wound, but his faction did not the less shew their discontent. Reynier’s dislike to the prince was so strong, that the officers carrying flags of truce, from his corps, never failed to speak of it to the British; and Ney, more fierce than all of them, defied his authority. To him the dangerous delay at Pombal, the tardiness of Marcognet’s brigade, and, finally, the too-sudden evacuation of the position at Condeixa, have been attributed: General Pelet’s Notes. See Vol. xxi. Victoires et Conquêtes des Français.and it is alleged that, far from being ordered to set fire to that town on the 13th, as the signal for a preconcerted retreat, that he had promised Massena to maintain the position for twenty-four hours longer. The personal risk of the latter, in consequence of the hasty change of position, would seem to confirm this; but it is certain that, when Picton was observed passing the Sierra de Anciao by a road before unknown to the French, and by which the second corps could have been separated from the army, and the passes of Miranda de Corvo seized, Ney would have been frantic to have delayed his movement.

At Miranda, the long gathering anger broke out in a violent altercation between the prince and the marshal; and at Celerico, Ney, wishing to fall back on Almeida, to shorten the term of the retreat, absolutely refused to concur in the projected march to Coria; and even marched his troops in a contrary direction. Massena, a man not to be opposed with impunity, then deprived him of his command, giving the sixth corps to Loison; and each marshal sent confidential officers to Paris to justify their conduct to the emperor. From both of those officers I have derived information, but as each thinks that the conduct of his general was approved by Napoleon, their opinions are irreconcilable upon many points; I have, therefore, set down in the narrative the leading sentiments of each, without drawing any other conclusions than those deducible from the acknowledged principles of art and from unquestioned facts. Thus judging, it appears that Massena’s general views were as superior to Ney’s as the latter’s readiness and genius in the handling of troops in action were superior to the prince’s. Yet the duke of Elchingen often played too near the flame, whereas nothing could be grander than the conceptions of Massena: nor was the project now meditated by him the least important.

From Guarda to Zarza Mayor and Coria was not two days longer march than to Ciudad Rodrigo, but the army of Portugal must have gone to the latter place a beaten army, seeking for refuge and succour in its fortresses and reserves, and being separated from the central line of invasion: whereas, by gaining Coria, a great movement of war, wiping out the notion of a forced retreat, would have been accomplished. A close and concentric direction would also have been given to the three armies of the south, of the centre, and of Portugal; and a powerful demonstration effected against Lisbon, which would inevitably bring lord Wellington back to the Tagus. Thus the conquests of the campaign, namely, Ciudad Rodrigo, Almeida, Badajos, and Olivenza, would have been preserved, and meanwhile the army of the north could have protected Castile and menaced the frontier of Portugal. Massena, having maturely considered this plan, gave orders, on the 23d, for the execution; but Ney, as we have seen, thwarted him.

Meanwhile the English horse and the militia, hovering round Celerico, made, in different skirmishes, a hundred prisoners, and killed as many more; and the French cavalry posts withdrew from the Pinhel. The sixth corps then took a position at Guarda; the second corps at Belmonte; the eighth corps and the cavalry in the eastern valleys of the Estrella.

Ney’s insubordination had rendered null the plan of marching upon the Elga; but Massena expected still to maintain himself at Guarda with the aid of the army of the south, and to hold open the communications with the king and with Soult. His foragers had gathered provisions in the western valleys of the Estrella, and he calculated upon being able to keep his position for eight days with his own force alone; and, independent of the general advantage, it was essential to hold Guarda for some time, because Drouet had permitted Julian Sanchez to cut off a large convoy destined for Ciudad Rodrigo, and had left Almeida with only ten days’ provisions. Lord Wellington’s ready boldness, however, disarranged all the prince’s calculations.

The troops had come up from Moita on the 28th, and with them the reinforcements, which were organized as a seventh division.

The light division and the cavalry then passed the Mondego at Celerico, and, driving the French out of Frexadas, occupied the villages beyond that place: at the same time, the militia took post on the Pinhel river, cutting the communication with Almeida, while the third division was established at Porca de Misarella, half way up the mountain, to secure the bridges over the higher Mondego. Early on the 29th the third, sixth, and light divisions, and two regiments of light cavalry, disposed in five columns of attack on a half circle round the foot of the Guarda mountain, ascended by as many paths, all leading upon the town of Guarda, and outflanking both the right and left of the enemy; they were supported on one wing by the militia, on the other by the fifth division, and in the centre by the first and seventh divisions. A battle was expected, but the absence of Ney was at once felt by both armies; the appearance of the allied columns threw the French into the greatest confusion, and, without firing a shot, this great and nearly impregnable position was abandoned. Had the pursuit been as vigorous as the attack, it is not easy to see how the second corps could have rejoined Massena; but Reynier quitting Belmonte in the night, recovered his communication with a loss of only three hundred prisoners, although the horse-artillery and cavalry had been launched against him at daylight on the 30th. Much more could however have been done, if general Slade had pushed his cavalry forward with the celerity and vigour the occasion required.

On the 1st of April, the allied army descended the mountains, and reached the Coa; but the French general, anxious to maintain at once his hold of Portugal and the power of operating either on the side of Coria or of Ciudad Rodrigo and Almeida, was in position on the right bank of that river. The sixth corps was at Rovina, with detachments guarding the bridge of Seceiras and the ford of Atalayon, and the communication with Almeida was maintained by a brigade of the ninth corps, which was posted near the ford of Junça. The second corps was on the hills behind Sabugal, stretching towards Alfayates, but having strong detachments at the bridge of Sabugal and the ford of Rapoulha de Coa. The eighth corps was at Alfayates, and a post was established at Rendo to maintain the communication between the second and the sixth corps. In this situation, the French army was disposed on two sides of a triangle, the apex of which was at Sabugal, and both fronts were covered by the Coa, because Sabugal was situated in a sharp bend of the stream: by holding Alfayates, Massena also commanded the passes leading through St. Martin Trebeja to Coria.

Along the whole course of the Coa, which is a considerable river, the banks are rugged, but the ravine continually deepens as the stream flows; and, during the first two days of April, the allies occupied a line parallel to the enemy’s right, which could not be attacked. Meanwhile Trant and Wilson, passing the Coa below Almeida, penetrated between that fortress and Ciudad Rodrigo, as if the passage of the river was to be made on that side. Lord Wellington’s aim was, however, against the other flank, and, to protect the left and rear of the army, he placed the sixth division opposite the sixth corps, and a battalion of the seventh division at the bridge of Seceiras.

At daylight, on the 3d of April the cavalry under general Slade, being on the extreme right, was directed to cross the Upper Coa; the light division was ordered to ford a little below; the third division still lower; and the fifth division, with the artillery, to force the bridge of Sabugal; the first and seventh, with the exception of the battalion at Seceiras, were held in reserve. The English general having thus, ten thousand men pivotted on the fifth division at Sabugal, designed to turn Reynier’s left, to separate him from the eighth corps, and to surround him before he could be succoured by the sixth corps. One of those accidents which are frequent in war marred this well-concerted plan, and brought on the

COMBAT OF SABUGAL.

The morning was so foggy, that the troops could not gain their respective posts of attack with that simultaneous regularity which is so essential to success; and in the light division no measures were taken by sir William Erskine to put the columns in a right direction: the brigades were not even held together, and he carried off the cavalry and the third caçadores without communicating with colonel Beckwith. This officer, who commanded the first brigade, being without any instructions, halted at a ford to await further orders, and at that moment a staff officer rode up, and somewhat hastily asked, why he did not attack? The thing appeared rash, but with an enemy in his front he could make no reply, and instantly passing the river, which was deep and rapid, mounted a very steep wooded hill on the other side. Four companies of the ninety-fifth led in skirmishing order, and were followed by the forty-third regiment; but the caçadores and the other brigade, being in movement to the true point, were already distant, and a dark heavy rain setting in rendered it impossible for some time to distinguish friends or foes. The attack was thus made too soon, for, owing to the obscurity, none of the divisions of the army had reached their respective posts. It was made also in a partial, disseminated, and dangerous manner, and on the wrong point; for Reynier’s whole corps was directly in front, and Beckwith, having only one bayonet regiment and four companies of riflemen, was advancing against more than twelve thousand infantry, supported by cavalry and artillery.

Scarcely had the riflemen reached the top of the hill, when a compact and strong body of French drove them back upon the forty-third; the weather cleared at that instant, and Beckwith at once saw and felt all his danger; but he met it with a heart that nothing could shake. Leading a fierce charge he beat back the enemy, and the summit of the hill was attained, but at the same moment two French guns opened with grape at the distance of a hundred yards, a fresh body appeared in front, and considerable forces came on either flank of the regiment. Fortunately, Reynier, little expecting to be attacked, had for the convenience of water, placed his principal masses in the low ground behind the height on which the action commenced; his renewed attack was therefore up hill; yet the musketry, heavy from the beginning, now encreased to a storm; the French sprung up the acclivity with great clamour, and it was evident that nothing but the most desperate fighting could save the regiment from destruction.

Captain Hopkins, commanding a flank company of the forty-third, immediately ran out to the right, and with admirable presence of mind seized a small eminence, close to the French guns and commanding the ascent up which the French troops turning the right flank were approaching. His first fire was so sharp, that the assailants were thrown into confusion; they rallied and were again disordered by the volleys of this company; a third time they endeavoured to form a head of attack; when Hopkins with a sudden charge increased the disorder, and at the same moment the two battalions of the fifty-second regiment, which had been attracted by the fire, entered the line. Meanwhile, the centre and left of the forty-third were furiously engaged and wonderfully excited; for Beckwith wounded in the head, and with the blood streaming down his face, rode amongst the foremost of the skirmishers, directing all with ability, and praising the men, in a loud cheerful tone.

The musket-bullets flew thicker and closer every instant, but the French fell fast, a second charge cleared the hill, a howitzer was taken, and the British skirmishers were even advanced a short way down the descent, when small bodies of French cavalry came galloping in from all parts, and obliged them to take refuge with the main body of the regiment. The English line was instantly formed behind a stone wall above; yet one squadron of dragoons surmounted the ascent, and, with incredible desperation, riding up to this wall, were in the act of firing over it with their pistols, when a rolling volley laid nearly the whole of them lifeless on the ground. By this time however a second and stronger column of infantry had rushed up the face of the hill, endeavouring to break in and retake the howitzer which was on the edge of the descent and only fifty yards from the wall; but no man could reach it and live, so deadly was the forty-third’s fire. Meanwhile two English guns came into action, and the two battalions of the fifty-second charging upon the flank of the assailants, vindicated the right of the division to the height. A squadron of French cavalry, which had followed the columns in their last attack, then fell in amongst the fifty-second men, extended as they were from the circumstances of the action, and at first created considerable confusion, but it was finally repulsed.

Vol. 3, Plate 10.

MASSENA’S RETREAT
Combat of Sabugal
1811.

London Published by T. & W. Boone Nov^r 1830.

Reynier, convinced at last that he had acted unskilfully in sending up his troops piece-meal, put all his reserves, amounting to nearly six thousand infantry with artillery and cavalry, in motion, and outflanking the division on its left, appeared resolute to storm the contested height. But, at this critical period, the fifth division passed the bridge of Sabugal, the British cavalry appeared on the hills beyond the enemy’s left, and general Colville with the leading brigade of the third division issuing out of the woods on Reynier’s right, opened a fire on that flank, which instantly decided the fate of the day. The French general hastily retreated upon Rendo, where the sixth corps, which had been put in march when the first shots were heard, met him, and together they fell back upon Alfayates, pursued by the English cavalry. The loss of the allies in this bloody encounter, which did not last quite an hour, was nearly two hundred killed and wounded, that of the enemy was enormous; three hundred dead bodies were heaped together on the hill, the greatest part round the captured howitzer, and more than twelve hundred were wounded; so unwisely had Reynier handled his masses and so true and constant was the English fire. Although, the principal causes of this disproportion undoubtedly was, first, the heavy rain which gave the French only a partial view of the British, and secondly, the thick wood which ended near the top of hill, leaving an open and exposed space upon which the enemy mounted after the first attack; yet it was Official Despatch. no exaggeration in lord Wellington to say, “that this was one of the most glorious actions that British troops were ever engaged in.”

The next day, the light division took the route of Valdespina, to feel for the enemy on the side of the passes leading upon Coria; but Massena was in full retreat for Ciudad Rodrigo, and on the 5th crossed the frontier of Portugal. Here the vigour of the French discipline on sudden occasions was surprisingly manifested. Those men who had for months been living by rapine, whose retreat had been one continued course of violence and devastation, passed an imaginary line of frontier, and became the most orderly of soldiers; not the slightest rudeness was offered to any Spaniard, and every thing demanded was scrupulously paid for, although Appendix, [No. IV.] Section 2.bread was sold at two shillings a pound! Massena himself also, fierce and terrible as he was in Portugal, always treated the Spaniards with gentleness and moderation.

While these events were passing at Sabugal, Trant crossing the Lower Coa with four thousand militia, had taken post two miles from Almeida, when the river suddenly flooded behind him. Near fort Conception, there was a brigade of the ninth corps, which had been employed to cover the march of the battering train from Almeida to Ciudad Rodrigo; but ere those troops discovered Trant’s dangerous situation, he constructed a temporary bridge and was going to retire on the 6th, when he received a letter from the British head-quarters, desiring him to be vigilant in cutting the communication with Almeida, and fearless, because the next day a British force would be up to his assistance. Marching then to Val de Mula, he interposed between the fortress and the brigade of the ninth corps. The latter were already within half a mile of his position, and his destruction appeared inevitable; but suddenly two cannon shots were heard to the southward, the enemy immediately formed squares and commenced a retreat, and six squadrons of British cavalry and Bull’s troop of horse-artillery came sweeping over the plain in their rear. Military order and coolness, marked the French retreat across the Turones, yet the cannon shots ploughed with a fearful effect through their dense masses, and the horsemen continually flanked their line of march: they however gained the rough ground, and finally escaped over the Agueda by Barba del Puerco; but with the loss of three hundred men killed, wounded, and prisoners. The prince of Esling had reached Ciudad Rodrigo two days before, and lord Wellington now stood victorious on the confines of Portugal, having executed what to others appeared incredibly rash and vain even to attempt.