The Story of the British Army

by Charles Cooper King

The stores and magazines having been destroyed, and the horses killed, the non-combatants and all the guns except nine six-pounders embarked. The regiments, too, would have followed, but Soult prepared for attack, and the army faced him, with backs to the sea.

Soult’s attack was purely frontal, and designed to drive back the supposed demoralised British army on the town. A strong force of cavalry was on the extreme left, next to which was a heavy battery, and on the right three heavy columns descended the ridge, covered by clouds of skirmishers to force the division of Baird and Hope. The 50th again distinguished itself by a vigorous use of the bayonet, and the ensigns bearing the colours fell, to be carried then by the colour-sergeants; while Major Charles Napier, of whom we hear more, later, in Scinde, was wounded and taken prisoner. Baird, too, was severely wounded by a grapeshot, and the 42nd, being short of ammunition, were falling back, when Moore himself led them forward with the stirring appeal, “My brave Highlanders, you have still your bayonets. Remember Egypt;” and so doing fell from his horse with his shoulder shattered by a cannon ball. None the less, he watched the victorious advance of the 42nd into the shambles of Elvina village, which was the key of the fight, until it was necessary to carry him to the rear on a blanket supported by sashes, and soon he breathed his last, with the hope, amply fulfilled, that his country would do him justice.

From the outset, he was despatched with almost certain failure in view. The wide dispersal of the Spanish armies, their notorious want of cohesion and experience, were alone serious dangers; but if there be added to this, a force too small for the purpose, a most indifferent commissariat, and an ill-supplied military chest, the task imposed on Moore was hopelessly impossible. Still, whatever the errors made in the plan of campaign and in the disastrous retreat, Corunna more than compensated for them, and Moore, the guiding spirit of it all, was laid to rest in one of the bastions of the citadel, “with his martial cloak around him,” after the embarkation which followed. On the night of, and morning after, the battle, and when the 23rd Royal Welsh Fusiliers were the last to quit the shore, the French, with chivalric courtesy, kept the tricolour half-mast high, and fired the parting salute of cannon over the grave of Sir John Moore. But the well-known poetry, descriptive of the hero’s funeral, written by Wolfe, is not strictly accurate. There was no need for the “lanterns dimly burning,” as it was already daylight.

The troops engaged were the Grenadier Guards, the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 9th, 14th, 20th, 23rd, 26th, 28th, 32nd, 36th, 38th, 42nd, 43rd, 50th, 51st, 52nd, 59th, 71st, 81st, 91st, 92nd, and Rifle Brigade; but as if to give the crowning touch to the sufferings of the campaign, the fleet was scattered by a storm on the way home, and many ships were wrecked.

Military operations on a large scale ceased in Portugal after the return home of Moore’s army. Soult had stormed and occupied Oporto, and a strong army was nominally under the command of Joseph in Madrid and to the west, while Lapisse was at Salamanca and Victor near Talavera.

On the resumption of hostilities, Sir Arthur Wellesley landed with an army at Lisbon. The somewhat disorganised Portuguese troops were to be “wheeled into line” by Beresford, an officer already of some experience, who had recently commanded the rearguard at Corunna, and who soon proved the value, militarily, of his selection as chief in command, though the rank and file were mutinous (and suffered for it) at Braga; and Portugal did not like, to say the least of it, the filling of most of the leading commands by British officers.

Soult had already been somewhat isolated. In front of him were Portuguese levies, with Wellesley at their back; behind him the country swarmed with guerillas; his line of communication with Madrid and the main army by Amaranthe on his left was closed by the Portuguese under Silviera; on his right lay the sea and British ships of war. He had no resource but to abide events, and these came under the personal conduct of Wellesley, though meanwhile Soult had himself freed his line of retreat by defeating Silviera.

Guarding the approaches from Spain by detachments at Abrantes, Santarem, and Alcantara, the English general marched against Oporto; directing Beresford to cross the Douro higher up and threaten the French line of retreat by Amaranthe. After some skirmishes he reached the south bank of the river, where the pontoon bridge had been destroyed, and all the boats removed to the north bank. He decided on effecting the passage of the Douro, en plein face of the enemy, and the tactics adopted are typical of such an operation. He menaced the mouth of the river, where gunboats were collected, as if with the intention of transferring his army by these means to the north bank of the estuary; he despatched Murray to turn the Oporto position at the ford of Avintas, a short distance up stream; he selected a re-entrant bend which was covered by a commanding artillery position at the convent of Serra; he recognised the tactical value of a seminary on the north bank, opposite the re-entrant, and, utilising some boats discovered by Colonel Waters, one of the staff, the troops embarked, and the seminary was occupied. But it must be noticed that “it was not until Sir Arthur had become aware of Murray’s passage higher up the Douro at Avintas,” that he gave the order, “Well! let the men begin to cross.” Then the French awoke, but it was too late. Desperate fighting occurred at the seminary gate, but the artillery on the Serra hill was too powerful, and the enemy began to withdraw from the town, whereupon the Portuguese passed boats across to Villa Nova, immediately opposite the city, where the pontoon bridge had been. There the guards, under Sherbrooke, crossed, and the French retired in haste by the Amaranthe road, to find that place occupied by Beresford; so that Soult had to continue his retreat in disorder, and that by a more circuitous route, pursued by Sherbrooke and harassed by guerillas.

It is interesting here to record that a little later, when Colonel Waters was taken prisoner, he effected his escape when guarded by four gens d’armes, owing to the mere speed of his horse, and this notwithstanding that “he was on a wide plain, and before him and for miles behind him the road was covered with French columns. His hat fell off, and, thus marked, he rode along the flank of the troops; some encouraged and others fired at him, and the gens d’armes, sword in hand, were always close at his heels. Suddenly he broke at full speed between two of the columns, gained a wooded hollow, and, having thus baffled his pursuers, evaded the rear of the enemy’s army, and the third day reached headquarters, where Lord Wellington, knowing his resolute, subtle character, had caused his baggage to be brought, observing that he would not be long absent.”[35]

But danger from the main French army, under Victor and Lapisse, threatened the southern part of Portugal. Hearing of Soult’s disaster, the French fell back again on Talavera, where, facing them, was the ill-disciplined Spanish army under Cuesta. With the latter Wellesley proposed to co-operate and advance against Madrid. So he marched, after making arrangements for the defence of Oporto, by Abrantes and Placencia, where the concentration with the other Portuguese forces available was effected, to Oropesa. There he was joined by Cuesta, an old man of crabbed temper and of great self-conceit, and the combined army advanced on Talavera.