[147] For a scathing account of the conduct of the Cadiz Junta and its doings see Schepeler, vol. iii. 550-5. Napier very rightly calls it ‘an imperious body without honour, talents, or patriotism’ (ii. 334).
[148] See [Section xix, chapter iv] of this volume.
[149] Miot, ii. 432. Compare Joseph’s hysterical letter to the Emperor (Ducasse, vii. 236): ‘La pacification générale de l’Andalousie sera opérée.... Mais, sire, au nom du sang français et du sang espagnol rappelez Loison, Kellermann, Thouvenot! Ces hommes nous coûtent bien cher!’ It is curious that he, in the same letter, quotes as ‘hommes honnêtes,’ along with Mortier, Suchet, and Reynier, both Soult and Sebastiani, who were plunderers on as large a scale as Kellermann or Loison.
[150] See vol. i. pp. 75, 76.
[151] A student of the War of the Spanish Succession is always surprised to see how much fighting took place on fronts which were left severely alone by the English and French in 1809-12.
[152] See [Map of the Lines of Torres Vedras], in Section xx of this volume, for the environs of Lisbon.
[153] Eliot, in his very judicious remarks on p. 100 of his Defence of Portugal, published just before Masséna’s invasion, sums up the situation with—‘a passage may without any difficulty be forced to the left bank of the Tagus: but then the enemy is as far from the accomplishment of his project as before, the river forming an insuperable barrier if well defended.’
[154] Wellington to Col. Fletcher, commanding Royal Engineers, Oct. 20, 1809 (Dispatches, v. 235): ‘The enemy will probably attack on two distinct lines, the one south, the other north of the Tagus, and the system of defence must be founded upon this general basis.... His object will be, by means of the corps south of the Tagus, to turn the positions which we shall take up in front of the corps north of that river, to cut off from Lisbon the corps opposed to him, and to destroy it by an attack in front and rear. This can be avoided only by the retreat of the right, centre, and left of the allies to a point at which (from the state of the river) they cannot be turned, by the passage of the Tagus by the enemy’s left corps.’
Six days later (Disp. v. 245) Wellington wrote to Admiral Berkeley in similar terms: ‘It is probable that in the event of the enemy being enabled to invade this country in force, he will make his main attack by the right of the Tagus: but he will employ one corps on the left of the river, with the object of embarrassing, if not of preventing, the embarcation of the British army.’
[155] So much so that in Corresp., xx. p. 552, we find him informing Masséna that Badajoz and Elvas need not be touched till after Lisbon has fallen. The first contrary view, ordering a demonstration on the Lower Tagus, appears in the dispatch on p. 273 of vol. xxi.