Silveira’s levies were not the only force in arms on the frontier. The populous province of the Entre-Douro-e-Minho[270], roused to tumultuous enthusiasm by the bishop of Oporto, had sent every available man, armed or unarmed, to the front. A screen of militia and regulars under General Botilho was watching the line of the lower Minho: a vast mass of Ordenanza, backed by a very small body of line troops lay in and about Braga, under General Bernardino Freire; another multitude was still thronging the streets of Oporto and listening to the windy harangues of the bishop. But none of these masses of armed men were sent to the aid of Silveira. He was not one of the bishop’s faction, nor was he on good terms with his colleague Freire. Neither of them showed any inclination to combine with him, and their followers, in the true spirit of provincial particularism, thought of nothing but defending their own hearths and homes, and left the Tras-os-Montes to take care of itself. Yet they had for the moment no enemy in front of them but the small French garrison of Tuy, and could have marched without any risk to join their compatriots.
Relying on the aid of La Romana, General Silveira had taken post at Villarelho on the right bank of the Tamega, leaving the defence of the left bank to the Spaniards, whom he supposed to be still stationed about Monterey and Verin. On the very day upon which the Army of Galicia absconded, the Portuguese general sent forward a detachment, consisting of a line regiment and a mass of peasants, to menace the flank of the French advance. This force, having crossed the Spanish frontier, got into collision with the enemy near Villaza. Since Franceschi’s horsemen and Heudelet’s infantry had turned off to the east in pursuit of La Romana, the Portuguese fell in with the leading column of Soult’s main body—a brigade of Lahoussaye’s dragoons supported by Delaborde’s division. This force they ventured to attack, but were promptly beaten off by Foy, the brigadier of the advanced guard, who routed them and captured their sole piece of artillery. The shattered column fell back on the main body at Villarelho, and then Silveira, hearing of the departure of the Spaniards, resolved to retire and to look for a defensive position which he might be able to hold by his own unaided efforts. There was none such to be found in front of Chaves, for the valley of the Tamega widens out between Monterey and the Portuguese frontier fortress, and offers no ground suitable for defence. Accordingly Silveira very prudently decided to withdraw his tumultuary army to the heights of San Pedro, a league to the south of the town, where the space between the river and the mountains narrows down and offers a short and compact line of resistance. But he waited to be driven in, and meanwhile left rear-guards in observation at Feces de Abaxo on the left, and Outeiro on the right bank, of the Tamega.
Soult halted three days at Monterey in order to allow his rearguard and his convoy of sick to close up with the main body. But on March 10 he resumed his advance, using the two parallel roads on the two banks of the Tamega. Franceschi’s light horse and Heudelet’s division pushed down the eastern side, Caulaincourt’s brigade of dragoons[271] and Delaborde’s infantry down the western side of the river. Merle and Mermet were still near Verin. As the Tamega was unfordable in most places, the army seemed dangerously divided, but Soult knew well that he was running little or no risk. Both at Feces and Outeiro the Portuguese detachments, which covered Silveira’s main body, tried to offer serious resistance. They were of course routed, with the loss of a gun and many prisoners.
On hearing that his enemy was drawing near, Silveira ordered his whole army to retreat behind Chaves to the position of San Pedro[272]. This command nearly cost him his life; the ignorant masses of militia and Ordenanza could only see treason in the proposed move, which abandoned the town to the French. The local troops refused to march, and threatened to shoot their general: he withdrew with such of his men as would still obey orders, but a mixed multitude consisting of part of the 12th regiment of the line (the Chaves regiment), and a mass of Ordenanza and militia, remained behind to defend the dilapidated town. Its walls had never been repaired since the Spaniards had breached them in 1762; of the fifty guns which armed them the greater part were destitute of carriages, and rusting away in extreme old age; the supply of powder and cannon-balls was wholly insufficient for even a short siege. But encouraged by the advice of an incompetent engineer officer[273], who said that a few barricades would make the place impregnable, 3,000 men shut themselves up in it, and aided by 1,200 armed citizens, defied Soult, and opened a furious fire upon the vedettes which he pushed up to the foot of the walls. The Marshal sent in a fruitless summons to surrender, and then invested the place on the evening of the tenth; all night the garrison kept up a haphazard cannonade, and shouted defiance to the French. Next morning Soult resolved to drive away Silveira from the neighbouring heights, convinced that the spirits of the defenders of Chaves would fail the moment that they saw the field army defeated and forced to abscond. The divisions of Delaborde and Lahoussaye soon compelled Silveira to give ground: he displayed indeed a laudable prudence in refusing to let himself be caught and surrounded, and made off south-eastward towards Villa Real with 6,000 or 7,000 men. The Marshal then summoned Chaves to surrender for the second time; the garrison seem to have tired themselves out with twelve hours of patriotic shouting, and to have used up great part of their munitions in their silly nocturnal fireworks. When they saw Silveira driven away, their spirits sank, and they allowed their leader, Magelhaes Pizarro, to capitulate, without remonstrance. In short, they displayed even more cowardice on the eleventh than indiscipline upon the tenth of March. On the twelfth the French entered the city in triumph.
Soult was much embarrassed by the multitude of captives whom he had taken: he could not spare an escort strong enough to guard 4,000 prisoners to a place of safety. Accordingly he made a virtue of necessity, permitted the armed citizens of Chaves to retire to their homes, and dismissed the mass of 2,500 Ordenanza and militia-men, after extracting from them an oath not to serve against France during the rest of the war. The 500 regulars of the 12th regiment were not treated in the same way. The Marshal offered them the choice between captivity and enlisting in a Franco-Portuguese legion, which he proposed to raise. To their great discredit the majority, both officers and men, took the latter alternative—though it was with the sole idea of deserting as soon as possible. At the same moment Soult made an identical offer to the Spanish prisoners captured from Mahy’s division at the combats of Osoño and La Trepa on March 6: they behaved no better than the Portuguese: several hundred of them took the oath to King Joseph, and consented to enter his service[274].
The Duke of Dalmatia had resolved to make Chaves his base for further operations in Portugal. He brought up to it from Monterey all his sick and wounded, including those who had been transported from Orense; the total now amounted to 1,325, of whom many were convalescents already fit for sedentary duty. To guard them a single company of a French regiment, and the inchoate ‘Portuguese Legion,’ were detailed, while the command was placed in the hands of the chef de bataillon Messager. The flour and unground wheat found in the place fed the army for several days, and the small stock of powder captured was utilized to replenish its depleted supply of cartridges.
From Chaves Soult had the choice of two roads for marching on Oporto. The more obvious route on the map is that which descends the Tamega almost to its junction with the Douro, and then strikes across to Oporto by Amarante and Penafiel. But here, as is so often the case in the Peninsula, the map is the worst of guides. The road along the river, frequently pinched in between the water and overhanging mountains, presents a series of defiles and strong positions, is considerably longer than the alternative route, and passes through difficult country wellnigh from start to finish.
The second path from Chaves to Oporto is that which strikes westward, crosses the Serra da Cabrera, and descends into the valley of the Cavado by Ruivaens and Salamonde. From thence it leads to Braga, on the great coast-road from Valenza to Oporto. The first two or three stages of this route are rough and difficult, and pass through ground even more defensible than that on the way to Amarante and Penafiel. But when the rugged defiles of the watershed between the Tamega and the Cavado have been passed, and the invader has reached Braga, the country becomes flat and open, and the coast plain, crossed by two excellent roads, leads him easily to his goal. It has also to be remembered that, by adopting this alternative, Soult took in the rear the Portuguese fortresses of the lower Minho, and made it easy to reopen communications with Tuy and the French forces still remaining in Galicia.
If any other persuasion were needed to induce the Marshal to take the western, and not the eastern, road to Oporto, it was the knowledge of the position of the enemy which he had attained by diligent cavalry reconnaissances. It was ascertained that Silveira with the remains of his division had fallen back to Villa Pouca, more than thirty miles away, in the direction of Villa Real. He could not be caught, and could retreat whithersoever he pleased. Freire, on the other hand, was lying at Braga with his unwieldy masses, and had made no attempt to march forward and fortify the passes of the Serra da Cabrera. By all accounts that the horsemen of Franceschi could gather, the defiles were blocked only by the Ordenanza of the mountain villages.
This astounding news was absolutely correct. Freire’s obvious course was to defend the rugged watershed, where positions abounded. But he contented himself with placing mere observation posts—bodies of thirty or 100 men—in the passes, while keeping his main army concentrated. The truth was that he was in a state of deep depression of mind, and prepared for a disaster. Judging from the line which he adopted in the previous year, while co-operating with Wellesley in the campaign against Junot, we may set him down as a timid rather than a cautious general. He had no confidence in himself or in his troops: the indiscipline and mutinous spirit of the motley levies which he commanded had reduced him to despair, and he received no support from the Bishop of Oporto and his faction, who were omnipotent in the province. Repeated demands for reinforcements of regular troops had brought him nothing but the 2nd battalion of the Lusitanian Legion, under Baron Eben. The Bishop kept back the greater part of the resources of which he could dispose, for the defence of his own city, in front of which he was erecting a great entrenched camp. Freire had also called on the Regency for aid, but they had done no more than order two line battalions under General Vittoria to join him, and these troops had not yet crossed the Douro. When he heard that the French were on the march, and that he himself would be the next to receive their visit, he so far lost heart that he contemplated retiring on Oporto without attempting to fight. Instead of defending the defiles of Ruivaens and Salamonde, he began to send to the rear his heavy stores, his military chest, and his artillery of position. This timid resolve was to be his ruin, for the excitable and suspicious multitude which surrounded him had every intention of defending their homes, and could only see treason and cowardice in the preparations for retreat. In a few days their fury was to burst forth into open mutiny, to the destruction of their general and their own ultimate ruin.