Freed from the Austrian war, and with his "Grande Armée" once more unoccupied, Napoleon resolved to make an end of the Spanish insurrection. He gave 70,000 fresh troops to Masséna, the ablest of his marshals, and bade him drive Wellington into the sea and conquer all Spain and Portugal. The English general had foreseen some such assault from the moment that he heard the news of the defeat of Austria. He spent the winter of 1809-1810 in constructing a triple series of fortifications across the peninsula on which Lisbon stands, the famous "Lines of Torres Vedras." When Masséna advanced against Portugal Wellington retired slowly before him, wasting the country and compelling all the people to take refuge in Lisbon. He turned at Busaco (September 29, 1810) to inflict a sharp check on the heads of Masséna's columns, but finally withdrew into his formidable lines. The French were brought to a stand before the unexpected obstacle, for they had no knowledge that Wellington had so strengthened his place of refuge. The position, armed with 600 pieces of artillery, and defended by 30,000 English, and the whole of the militia of Portugal, seemed too strong to be meddled with. Masséna lay in front of the lines for four months, sending in vain for reinforcements to Spain. But his colleague Soult, occupied in the conquest of Andalusia, and the sieges of Cadiz and Badajos, would not come to his aid. Masséna's army suffered bitter privations in the wasted and depopulated country, and at last, in March, 1811, he was fain to draw back and retreat from Portugal, after having lost more than 20,000 men by sword and famine. Wellington followed him, perpetually harassing his retreat, and took post again on the borders of Spain, from which he had been forced back six months before.
Battles of Fuentes d'Onoro and Albuera.
The triumphant defence of the lines of Torres Vedras was the turning point of the whole Peninsular War. The French were never again able to invade Portugal, and Wellington, strongly reinforced from England after his success was known, was for the future able to undertake bolder strokes and no longer forced to keep to the defensive. The last offensive movements of the French were stopped by two bloody actions fought in May, 1811, within a few days of each other. In the north Masséna attacked Wellington in order to try to save the beleaguered fortress of Almeida; but he was repulsed at Fuentes d'Onoro (May 5), and was shortly afterwards recalled in disgrace by his master. In the south Marshal Soult marched to relieve Badajos, which was being besieged by Lord Beresford, Wellington's second-in-command, aided by the Spanish general Blake. Beresford met the French at Albuera, and almost lost the battle, partly by his own unskilful generalship, partly by the sudden flight of his Spanish auxiliaries. But the day was saved by the celebrated charge of the "Fusilier Brigade," in which the 7th and 23rd Fusiliers, only 1500 strong, stormed a precipitous hill held by 7000 French, and forced Soult to retreat. This was the bloodiest fight which an English army ever gained. Beresford lost 4300 men out of 7500, yet his indomitable troops won the day for him (May 16).
EUROPE IN 1811-12.
Further Annexations by Napoleon.
The years 1810-1811 were the last years of Napoleon's ascendency in Europe. They are marked by his final attempt to make the Continental System effective, by the annexation of almost the whole coast-line of Central Europe. He had already taken Rome and Central Italy from the Pope in 1809. Now he expelled his own brother Lewis from Holland, and appropriated that country. He next added to his dominions the whole north coast of Germany as far as the Baltic, including the Hanseatic towns and the realms of four or five of his vassals, the princes of the Confederation of the Rhine. These wild and arbitrary seizures, which made the coast of France extend from Rome to Lubeck, were to Napoleon mere episodes in the struggle with England. The Dutch and Germans would not enforce the blockade against English goods as stringently as he wished, and so he annexed them to make their secret trade with England impossible. The Continental System was now in full swing; it was working in all Napoleon's own dominions, in France, Italy, and Illyria, in the lands of all his vassals—the German states, Poland, Denmark, Naples, Prussia—in Sweden, where one of his marshals, Bernadotte, had lately been made heir to the throne, and even in the territories of his reluctant allies the emperors of Austria and Russia. Yet, in spite of Napoleon's many assertions to the contrary, England was neither ruined nor likely to sue for peace.
Perceval and Lord Liverpool.—War policy of the Tories.