A history of the Peninsular War, Vol. 1, 1807-1809

by Charles Oman

This hill Wellesley had chosen as the key of his position: on it were placed the two brigades of Fane and Anstruther, seven battalions in all. The high ridge running from behind it to the sea was held by the brigades of Hill, Bowes, Catlin Crawfurd, Nightingale, and Acland. That of Ferguson lay behind Vimiero, astride of the valley of the Maceira. Trant’s four battalions of Portuguese were near Ferguson, on the lower heights north of Vimiero, ready to act as a reserve to Fane and Anstruther. The handful of cavalry, 240 English and 260 Portuguese sabres, were in the low ground on the banks of the Maceira, close under Crawfurd’s position. Of the three batteries which Wellesley had been able to bring with him, six guns were on the projecting height with Anstruther, eight were on the high mountain south of Vimiero, and four were with the reserve.

A glance at this order of battle shows that Wellesley expected to be attacked from the south, up the valley of the Maceira, and that he thought that the enemy’s plan would be to force his right-centre. Little or no provision is made against the plan which Junot actually adopted, that of assaulting the British left-centre and simultaneously turning their extreme left flank, while leaving the right unmolested. But the whole position was so short—it was less than three miles in length—that there was no difficulty in shifting troops rapidly from one end of it to the other, and, as the event showed, no risk whatever was run.

Wellesley was busy arranging his line of battle, when to his bitter disappointment he received the news that he was superseded, a calamity which he had been expecting to occur at any moment. Sir Harry Burrard had arrived from England at the tail of Acland’s convoy, and was now on board the sloop Brazen in Maceira Bay. Sir Arthur at once went off in a boat to greet him, and to give him an account of the condition in which affairs stood. Burrard heard him out, and then placed a strong embargo on any further offensive movement. He had learnt that Sir John Moore, with the division from the Baltic, was now off the Portuguese coast, and was resolved not to stir till those troops should have been landed. Being, as it seems, a leisurely sort of man, he resolved to sleep on board his ship for one night more, and to come ashore next morning—a resolve which cost him that chance of commanding a British army in a pitched battle which so many generals have in vain desired. Wellesley went back through the surf charged, for a short fifteen hours more, with the destinies of the army of Portugal[220].

The French cavalry had been hovering around Vimiero all through the twentieth, and knowing that Junot was not far off, Sir Arthur had taken all precautions against being surprised. General Fane, in charge of the outposts, had pushed pickets of riflemen into the wooded heights that faced the British position on the northern bank of the Maceira[221]: vedettes of the 20th Light Dragoons were thrown out three or four miles to the front, and especially watched the Torres Vedras road. About midnight they began to hear the approach of the enemy; the rumbling of his guns and caissons over the wooden bridge of Villa Facaia travelled for miles through the still night air. In half an hour Wellesley was warned that the French were drawing near, and sent the order round all his brigades to be under arms and in line on their designated position an hour before daybreak[222].

But the enemy was late in appearing: Junot had halted on the near side of the bridge of Villa Facaia, four miles away, to rest his men after their night march and to allow them to cook their breakfast. It was not till nearly nine in the morning that dense clouds of dust rolling along the Torres Vedras road bore witness to the approach of the French. They were indistinctly visible, among woods and rolling upland, as they advanced with a broad front on each side of the village of Villa Facaia—a regiment of cavalry in front, then Loison on the left and Delaborde on the right side of the road, finally Kellermann’s grenadiers, the reserve of artillery, and the bulk of Margaron’s cavalry. The English were surprised to note that the columns showed as masses of dust colour, not of the customary dark blue. On account of the hot weather they had been provided with white linen frocks, and were wearing their uniform coats folded and buckled over their knapsacks[223].

Wellesley had been expecting to see the great column swerve to its left, and approach him along the valley of the Maceira, by Cunhados and Sobreiro Curvo. But instead of so doing Junot continued his progress northward, till he had completely marched past the English right wing, and only fronted and deployed when he had got on a level with Vimiero. After driving off the small pickets of English riflemen who still lay out in the woods a mile in front of Fane’s brigade[224], the French began to form a line of battle whose southern end was opposite Wellesley’s centre. But at the same time the cavalry advance-guard was noted riding far away to the north, toward Carrasqueira and Praganza, and it was clear that infantry were following them. Obviously there was going to be an attempt to turn the English position at its northern end, on the comparatively gentle slopes along the Lourinhão road.

Junot after reconnoitring the British position in a somewhat perfunctory fashion, had resolved to leave alone the formidable heights occupied by the right wing, and to try to storm the low hill in front of Vimiero with his main body, while he turned Wellesley’s left with a secondary column. This detachment was composed of the 3rd provisional regiment of dragoons, and Brennier’s brigade, the same four battalions which had fought so handsomely at Roliça. But the moment that Wellesley had seen that his right flank was safe, and that his left was about to be attacked, he rapidly changed his line of battle. Ferguson, from behind Vimiero, started to march north. Behind him followed three of the four brigades which had occupied the hills above the sea. Only Hill was still left on the crest to the south-west of Vimiero; Bowes, Nightingale, and Acland—six battalions in all, taking with them six guns—dropped down into the valley of the Maceira, crossed it behind Vimiero, and marched along the Lourinhão road parallel with Brennier’s movement on the opposite side of the valley. In rear of these troops, and nearer the sea, Catlin Crawfurd and the Portuguese also moved northward, and took up a position near Ribamar, where they covered the flank of the other corps and were in a good position for preventing any movement of the French on the extreme north-west. Junot caught a glimpse of the extensive transference of troops to the left which his adversary was making, and struck with a sudden fear lest Brennier might be overwhelmed, sent off another brigade—Solignac’s of Loison’s division—to support him. He would have been much wiser had he kept these three battalions in hand to support his main attack, and merely directed Brennier to demonstrate against the British left without pressing his attack home. His last movement had divided his army into two halves, separated from each other by a gap of nearly two miles: for the main attack he had only kept eight and a quarter battalions, three regiments of cavalry and seventeen guns, while seven battalions, one regiment of cavalry, and six guns had gone off on the turning movement. How long their flank march was to be he had not calculated, for, not discerning the steepness of the ravine at the foot of the British position, he had not realized that Brennier and Solignac would have to take a vast sweep to the north in order to cross it. As a matter of fact they got completely out of touch with him and, what was worse, with each other. Their diversion did not begin till the main battle was nearly over[225].

Meanwhile the French general deployed the second brigades of his two divisions, Charlot’s of Loison’s, and Thomières’ of Delaborde’s, only four and a quarter battalions in all, as a first line for the attack on Vimiero. Kellermann’s four battalions of grenadiers in a second line were for the moment held back, as was the cavalry and the reserve artillery. But seven guns went forward with the first line. The French came on in their usual style, a thick line of tirailleurs, supported by battalion columns close in their rear. Fane and Anstruther were very comfortably placed for repelling the attack: the latter had drawn up the 52nd and 97th in line on the slope of the hill, partly hidden by a dip in the ground and largely covered by vines and brushwood: the 9th and 43rd were in open column to the rear, ready to act as a reserve. Fane had got most of the riflemen of the 60th and 95th out in front, at the foot of the hill, in a very thick skirmishing line: only a few companies of them were in reserve along with the 50th (the famous ‘dirty half-hundredth’) at the head of the slope. In consequence of the order which Junot had adopted, Thomières’ two battalions were opposed to Fane, and Charlot’s brigade to Anstruther on the southern half of the hill. In each quarter the course of the fight was much the same: the French tirailleurs pushed up the slope among the brushwood and vineyards, slowly driving the riflemen before them. Then, as they drew near the crest, the two English brigadiers suddenly let loose their formed battalions upon the assailants. There was one fierce volley from the six guns on the hill top, and then the 97th charged Charlot’s men in front, while the 52nd swerved round and took them in flank. One smashing discharge at ten paces blew to pieces the heads of the columns of the 32nd and 82nd, which crumpled up in hopeless disorder and rolled down to the foot of the hill, pursued by their assailants. A few moments later Fane dashed the 50th and the reserve companies of his rifles against Thomières’ troops, and sent them flying down the slope in equal disorder. They could not be rallied till they had got out of musketry range, and the seven guns which they had brought forward with them were all captured: Delaborde and Charlot were wounded: the commander of the 82nd was killed[226].

Junot’s first attack had failed, but his spirit was not yet broken: he called up half his reserve of grenadiers, two battalions under Colonel St. Clair, and sent them against the hill on the same point, while the débris of the two wrecked brigades were rallied and pushed forward in support. Eight guns under Foy (the historian in after-years of the war), were brought out from the artillery reserve and pushed to the front. The second attack, however, failed even more disastrously than the first: the grenadiers, attacking on a narrow front and a single point, were blown to pieces by the converging fire of the 52nd, the 97th, and Fane’s two rifle battalions, as well as by the battery on the hill, which having no longer any British skirmishers in front of it had a free field. It was here, as Wellesley’s dispatches show, that shrapnell shell, a recent invention of the British colonel of that name, was first used, and with the most effective results. St. Clair’s battalions climbed halfway up the hill, but could do no more, and finally gave way, bearing back with them their half-rallied supports. The fight was rolling down the slope into the pine-wood at its foot, when Junot made his last desperate stroke. His only infantry reserve was now the 1st Regiment of Grenadiers, two battalions under Colonel Maransin. He resolved to throw them into the fight pour en finir, as he said to his chief of the staff, but they ‘made a finish of it’ in a way very different from his intention. This time the assailants, led by General Kellermann in person, made not for the front of the hill, but for the gap between it and the heights to the north, trying to turn Fane’s flank and to penetrate into the village of Vimiero by coasting round the foot of the higher ground. There were at first no troops directly opposed to the column, but soon the grenadiers found themselves under fire from both flanks. On the southern side Anstruther took from his reserve the 43rd, which had not yet fired a shot, and threw it into the cemetery of Vimiero, from whence it descended on the left flank of the leading battalion of grenadiers. On the northern side a new force intervened: General Acland on the heights along the Lourinhão road had been acting as the reserve of Wellesley’s left wing: he was not needed there, and seeing Kellermann’s attack threatening to break in between himself and Anstruther, took action on his own responsibility. Marching a little southward along the ridge, he sent his two companies of the 95th Rifles, and the light companies of his two line-battalions to fall on the right flank of the grenadiers. At the same time he turned upon them the fire of two field-guns which were in reserve near his brigade.

The double flank attack cost Kellermann many men, and brought his column to a standstill, but he held his ground for some time, till the 43rd closed in upon him at the eastern end of Vimiero village. Both French and English were in great disorder, the houses and enclosure-walls having broken up their formation. There was a furious hand-to-hand fight, volleys were interchanged at the distance of five yards, and both sides used the bayonet freely. At last the grenadiers gave way and retired sullenly towards their original position: they had lost many men, but so had the 43rd, who from a weak battalion of 700 men had forty killed and seventy-nine wounded.