[102] For details as to all this see Wellington to Charles Stuart, February 10. (Dispatches, vii. 237-8.)
[103] This fear is expressed in a letter to Charles Stuart dated January 16 (Dispatches, vii. 147), on the news that Mortier’s cavalry had seized the bridge of Merida. ‘The passage of the Tagus by Mortier removes to a distant period the danger of Alemtejo; but it shows that we may be attacked at an early period in our positions. For Mortier, supposing him to march by Almaraz, can be on the Zezere in the first days of February, and I think it possible that the battle for the possession of this country, and probably the fate of the Peninsula, will be fought in less than a month from this time.’
[104] All this may be found in Wellington’s dispatch of January 12, 1811, where he details the successive positions which Beresford must try to hold.
[105] For a description of this front see Jones, Lines of Torres Vedras, pp. 43-5.
[106] From a long note by D’Urban in his unpublished diary, dated January 22, 1811.
[108] The best account of this reconnaissance is in the Journal of Sprünglin, pp. 462-3.
[109] There is a good account of this march by Foy in his Vie Militaire, ed. Girod de l’Ain, pp. 127-8.
[110] For details of this see the Diary of Tomkinson of the 16th Light Dragoons. His own regiment alone brought in 82 prisoners between January 19 and February 23. There were some very fine feats of arms on a small scale in this outpost fighting, notably a capture made by Lieutenant Bishop on January 19th, when with six men he charged twenty chasseurs, and took eight with twelve horses.
[111] The best account of this council of war is Foy’s (in his Vie Militaire, pp. 129-32), which is contemporary. It differs largely from Koch’s narrative in his Vie de Masséna. It is quite convincing when compared with Masséna’s explanatory dispatch to Berthier of March 6th, which sets forth his own arguments for the retreat. They are the same which Foy attributes to him in the précis of the meeting of February 18th.