A history of England

by Charles Oman

SPAIN & PORTUGAL
1803-1814.

The English cabinet had resolved not to abandon Spain and Portugal; when Moore's regiments returned to England many of them were sent back to Lisbon, and placed under Wellesley, the victor of Vimiero, whose trial had ended in a triumphant acquittal. In April, 1809, began that wonderful series of campaigns which was to last till March, 1814, and to bear the English standard in triumph from the Tagus to the Garonne. Fettered by timid instructions from the home government, linked to rash and jealous allies, and starting with no more than 20,000 British troops, Wellesley was bidden to hold his own in the Peninsula, where more than 200,000 French troops were still encamped. He showed the rarest combination of prudence and daring, and brought his almost impossible task to a successful end, in spite of the tiresome stupidity of his Spanish confederates, and the inefficient support which the home government gave him. At any moment, during the first three years of his command, a single defeat would have caused the cabinet to recall him and withdraw his army from the Peninsula, but the defeat never came, and Wellesley at last won the confidence he merited, and was given adequate means to carry out his mighty schemes. The story of the war is the best proof of his abilities. A calm, stern, silent man, with an aquiline nose, clear grey eyes, and a slight, erect figure, he inspired implicit confidence, if his taciturnity and hatred of display or emotion prevented him from winning the love and enthusiasm of his troops as many lesser generals have done. "The sight of his long nose among us on a battle morning," wrote one of his veterans, "was worth 10,000 men of reinforcements any day."

Soult driven from Portugal.—Battle of Talavera.

While Napoleon was engaged in his Austrian war of 1809, Wellesley easily held his own in the Peninsula. He defeated Marshal Soult at Oporto, and drove him out of Portugal with the loss of all his artillery and baggage. Then, turning southward, he marched against Madrid in the company of the Spanish general Cuesta. But he found his allies almost useless. Cuesta was perverse and imbecile to an incredible degree, and his wretched provincial levies fled at the mere sound of the cannon, unless they were ensconced behind walls and trenches. At Talavera the allied armies beat Marshal Victor and King Joseph, but all the fighting fell on the English. Cuesta's troops, sheltered in the town of Talavera, refused to come out of their defences and left Wellesley's 20,000 men to repel the assaults of 40,000 French. After this experience of Spanish co-operation the victor vowed that he would never again share a campaign with a Spanish army (July 28, 1809).

Wellington retires to Portugal.—The Walcheren expedition.

The news of Talavera brought the French armies from all sides to aid the defeated marshal, and, beset by 100,000 men, Wellesley was obliged to retreat on Portugal. He got back in perfect safety, but his imbecile colleague Cuesta was caught and crushed by the pursuers. The result of the fighting at Talavera had given the English troops confidence, and the king conferred on the victor the title of Viscount Wellington. He would have preferred to receive reinforcements rather than honorary distinctions, but the cabinet had decreed otherwise. They had sent all the available troops in England, some 40,000 men, on an ill-judged expedition against Antwerp, which was too strongly fortified and lay too far inland to be readily taken by an army of such a size. The general placed in command was Lord Chatham, Pitt's elder brother, a dilatory commander who moved slowly and allowed himself to be detained in the siege of the minor fortresses which guarded the way to Antwerp. The army landed on the swampy isle of Walcheren and beleaguered Flushing for three weeks, but in the trenches the troops were smitten with marsh fever, and succumbed so rapidly that the expedition had to be given up, when 11,000 men were simultaneously in hospital. Flushing was destroyed, but the troops had to return to England, and had exercised no influence whatever on the fate of the war (July to August, 1809). If sent to Wellesley, they would have enabled him to crush King Joseph and take Madrid.

Battle of Wagram.—Marriage of Napoleon.

Meanwhile the Austrian war had ended in the triumph of Napoleon at the battle of Wagram (August, 1809), though the gallant efforts of the Archduke Charles, and the insurrection of the patriots of the Tyrol and Northern Germany, had seemed at first to shake his power. The Emperor of Austria was forced to cede all his Illyrian coast-line, that Napoleon might make his blockade of English goods the stricter, to surrender half his share of Poland, and to give—the bitterest drop in his cup—the hand of his daughter Maria Louisa to the conqueror. This unhallowed union was only made possible by the divorce of Josephine Beauharnais, the wife with whom Napoleon had lived for the last fourteen years (October, 1809).

The "Lines of Torres Vedras."—Masséna's retreat.