SECTION XXIV
MASSÉNA’S RETREAT FROM PORTUGAL
CHAPTER I
SANTAREM TO CELORICO. MARCH 9TH-22ND, 1811
On the 9th of March Wellington began at last to discover the real position of the various French corps; till their rear was well past Thomar, it had been difficult to divine the main trend of their movements, for the various columns had been crossing each other’s routes in a very puzzling fashion. But it now became clear that Masséna was intending to use all the three lines of communication which lead from the plain of the Tagus to the lower valley of the Mondego. Reynier and the 2nd Corps, after passing Thomar, had taken the bad mountain road by Cabaços and Espinhal, far to the east, and would come down on to the Mondego near the Ponte de Murcella, a little above Coimbra. The 8th Corps had taken the central road, that by Chão de Maçans and Ameiro, which joins the main Lisbon-Coimbra chaussée at Pombal. Loison and his division, having crossed the route of Reynier, fell into the Chão de Maçans road behind Junot. Ney, after holding Leiria till the 9th, with the divisions of Marchand and Mermet, fell back on that day a march along the great road in the plain (the Lisbon-Coimbra chaussée mentioned above), and then halted. In front of him was marching Drouet with Conroux’s division of the 9th Corps, escorting the main train of the army, such as it was; it reached Travaço do Baixo, five miles south of Pombal, on the night of the 9th. Montbrun’s reserve cavalry was all with Ney. Of the three columns Reynier’s was 11,000 strong, that formed by Junot with Loison in his rear had about 16,000 men, that of Ney and Montbrun, with Conroux in front of them, comprised over 20,000 sabres and bayonets. The main fact to be borne in mind by the British general was that Reynier had been sent on an external road, separated by a very difficult mountain chain from those followed by the other two columns, but that Ney and Junot would undoubtedly unite at Pombal, where their roads met, so that a mass of 35,000 men would be collected at that important centre of communication on the 10th or the 11th. But Reynier could not join them till the columns should have got down to the Mondego, some days later[166]. Masséna was, rightly enough, trying to use as many roads as possible, both to avoid overcrowding of troops and trains on a single road, and also in order that wider foraging might be possible, when the army should get out of the devastated region north of Thomar, and descend into the valley of the Mondego, where it was hoped that food would be far more procurable. But the result of the disposition was that Reynier would not be available for several days, if the British threw their main force on to the rear of Ney and Junot and brought them to action.
The road Leiria-Coimbra was moreover both the best and the shortest of all those that led from the position now reached by Wellington’s marching columns to the valley of the Mondego. By following it, and hustling hard the French column that had taken it, the commander of the Allies might hope to reach Coimbra in time to prevent the French from taking up a secure position on the lower Mondego, and establishing themselves in cantonments on its banks. For it was his main object to turn them away from Coimbra and the coast-plain, and to force them up into the eastern mountains and towards the borders of Spain. At first he did not think that the line of the Mondego could be held against the retreating French by the trifling Portuguese militia force that lay behind it—Trant’s seven battalions at Coimbra, Wilson’s four at Peñacova, which did not amount together to more than 5,000 or 6,000 troops of very inferior quality. He issued orders to those generals to retire, without committing themselves to an attempt to defend the line of the river—Trant had better go behind the Vouga, Wilson might retire on Vizeu; both would ultimately join the northern reserves under Baccelar, and co-operate with that general in defending the city of Oporto[167]. But Wellington hoped that matters would never reach the point at which the safety of Oporto came in question, for he thought that he would be pressing the rear of the French so hard in a few days, that they would be thinking of other things than taking the offensive against northern Portugal. He would do his best to thrust them north-eastward, towards the frontiers of Spain. As a matter of fact we shall see that he more than fulfilled his own forecast, for the French were so hotly pursued that they never succeeded in crossing the Mondego or seizing Coimbra. When they had reached its gates, Masséna refused to take the risk of passing the river at a moment when his rear was in such dire trouble that the whole army would have been in danger of destruction, if he had been attacked when the actual operation of passage was in progress.
Meanwhile the original movement of Reynier, Junot, and Loison towards Thomar had caused Wellington to spread his pursuing troops more towards the east than was convenient, when it turned out that only Reynier was taking the mountain road towards Espinhal, and that the other columns were going to join Ney on the Leiria-Coimbra road. Originally only the Light Division and Pack’s Portuguese had followed Ney, and they formed the only body of troops available for the pursuit of what was now detected to be the largest body of the enemy, until the other divisions should come up from the rear, or be marched westward from the Thomar region.
On the 9th Wellington’s total available force, minus the 2nd Division and Hamilton’s Portuguese, now halted about Abrantes and destined for Estremadura, and minus also the regiments just landed at Lisbon, was about 46,000 men[168]. Of these the Light Division and Pack’s Portuguese, with Anson’s cavalry brigade (now under Arentschildt), were at Leiria, in close touch with Ney’s retreating corps. But the 1st, 4th, and 6th Divisions and De Grey’s heavy dragoons were at Thomar, two full marches east of the Light Division; Picton with the 3rd Division was at Porto de Mos on the Santarem-Leiria chaussée, a day’s journey behind the vanguard. The 5th Division and the independent Portuguese brigade of Ashworth were a march behind Picton, about Alcanhede.
If Ney were to be joined by Junot and Loison, as now seemed probable, in the direction of Pombal, it would take one full day for the 3rd Division to join the vanguard, two full days for the rest of the army to come up. It would not be till the 11th that a mass of combatants would be collected sufficient to attack the enemy, if he held the Pombal position. And this concentration had to be carried out for safety’s sake; it would have been insane to bid the Light Division and Pack, the only troops immediately available, to fall upon Ney and Junot and their 35,000 men. Accordingly Wellington directed the 3rd and 5th Divisions to close up rapidly upon the vanguard along the chaussée, while the mass of troops around Thomar was to follow the Chão de Maçans road in Junot’s track and unite with the other column in front of Pombal on the 11th. Only Nightingale’s brigade of the 1st Division was detached, with one squadron of dragoons, to follow Reynier on his ‘eccentric’ line of retreat, along the rough mountain road to Espinhal. Forty-three thousand men out of the 46,000 which formed the disposable total of Wellington’s army were sent in pursuit of Masséna’s main body.
The bringing up of the rear divisions took time. Meanwhile the Light Division with Pack’s Portuguese and the attached cavalry, now united under the temporary control of Sir William Erskine (for Robert Craufurd, the natural commander of such a vanguard, was on leave in England), kept close to Ney’s heels, and on the 10th were at Venda Nova, immediately in front of his position at Pombal. The 4th Division were at Cacharia on the same night, the 1st and 6th at Acentis and other villages near Thomar, the 3rd at Leiria, the 5th at Porto de Mos. All these marches were executed through a country full of scenes of horror: Picton, not a man easily to be moved by sentiment, wrote, ‘Nothing can exceed the devastation and cruelties committed by the enemy during his retreat: he has set fire to all the villages and murdered all the peasantry for leagues on each flank of his march[169].’ The large town of Leiria was burning in five places when the Light Division reached it. The great historic monasteries of Alcobaça and Batalha had been wrecked in mere spite—the former, according to Wellington, by direct order from the French head quarters. Every by-road and ravine was strewn with corpses; a note from Grattan’s interesting journal of the marches of the 88th gives an average picture of what the British army saw. ‘At the entrance of a cave,’ he writes, ‘lay an old man, a woman, and two young men, all dead. The cave, no doubt, had served them as an asylum in the preceding winter, and appearances warranted the supposition that these poor creatures, in a vain effort to save their little store of provisions, fell victims to the ferocity of their murderers. The clothes of the young peasants were torn to atoms, and bore testimony that they did not lose their lives without a struggle. The hands of one were dreadfully mangled, as if in his last efforts he had grasped the sword which ultimately dispatched him. Beside him lay his companion, his brother perhaps, covered with wounds. A little to the right was the old man: he lay on his back with his breast bare; two large wounds were over his heart, and the back of his head was beaten to pieces. Near him lay an old rusty bayonet lashed to a pole; one of his hands grasped a bunch of hair, torn no doubt from the head of his assassin; the old woman had probably been strangled, as no wound appeared on her body. At some distance from the spot were two wounded soldiers of the French 4th Léger, abandoned by their comrades. These poor wretches were surrounded by half a dozen Portuguese, who were taking on them the horrible vengeance common during this contest. On our approach they dispersed and fled: both the Frenchmen were still alive, and asked us to shoot them. We dared not, and when we had passed on, we could perceive the peasants descending from the hill, like vultures who have been scared from their prey, but return with redoubled voracity.’