Before the marching divisions came up from the rear, there was a cavalry skirmish in front of Pombal between Arentschildt’s Light Horse (16th and 1st Hussars of the K.G.L.) and some of Montbrun’s dragoons, which was of little importance as to results, but assumes such a different complexion in the narratives of the combatants on the opposite sides that it is hardly possible to believe that they are writing of the same event[170].
During the hours on the 10th of March, while the English columns were toiling up from the rear to join the Light Division, Ney’s and Junot’s corps remained stationary, the former at the town of Pombal, the latter at Venda da Cruz, five miles behind it, resting, and seeking (mostly in vain) for provisions. Masséna was determined not to move backward before he should be obliged. Montbrun’s dragoons reconnoitred as far as the bridge of Coimbra, which they found with two of its arches broken, and cannon visible on the further side. The small force in sight was the rearguard of Trant’s Militia brigade, which (in accordance with Wellington’s orders) was preparing to draw back towards the Vouga, but held on to Coimbra till a serious attack should be delivered. Masséna thereupon ordered his engineer, Colonel Valazé, to search for a convenient spot below the town, at which a flying bridge might be thrown across the Mondego. On this day Reynier and the 2nd Corps, far off on the eastern mountain road, reached Espinhal, the first village beyond the Serra da Estrella. As that place has a by-road leading to Coimbra, this detached body was getting nearer to a possible reunion with the main body.
On the morning of March 11th the 3rd Division joined Wellington’s vanguard after a toilsome march, and the 4th Division, heading the column which came from Thomar, was reported to be in supporting distance. Ney, apparently having detected the arrival of British reinforcements, then drew back one of his divisions, and left the other (Mermet) in position on the heights behind the town, with a single battalion holding the lofty but ruined castle which dominates the place. Wellington, on perceiving that the enemy was drawing back, ordered Elder’s battalion of Caçadores[171], supported by two companies of the 95th Rifles, to charge across the bridge and occupy the town, while the rest of the Light Division advanced in support, and Picton moved to the left, to cross the stream lower down. The attacking force passed the narrow bridge under fire, cleared the nearer streets and assailed the castle and the small force left there. Seeing his rearguard in danger of being cut off, and noting that Elder’s force was small, Ney came down from the heights with four battalions of the 6th Léger and the 69th Ligne, thrust back the Caçadores and the supporting rifle companies, and brought off the troops in the castle. He barricaded the main street, and set fire to the houses along it in several places before departing; these precautions detained for some minutes the main column of the Light Division, which was hurrying up to reinforce its van. The French were all retiring up the hill before they could be got at, and only suffered a little from Ross’s guns, which were hurried up to play upon the retreating column, as it re-formed in the position beyond Pombal. By the time that the Light Division had disentangled itself from the burning town, and Picton had crossed the stream on the left, the day was far spent; and Ney retired at his leisure after dark, without having been further incommoded. The British followed, and encamped on the further side of the water, ready for pursuit next morning. Ney was much praised for the tactical skill which he had shown in saving his rearguard, and Erskine was thought to have handled the Light Division clumsily. The French losses, trifling as they were, much exceeded those of the Allies—they lost four officers and fifty-nine men, all in the 6th and 69th. The Caçadores lost ten rank and file killed, and an officer and twenty men wounded—the two companies of the 95th had an ensign and four men wounded—a total of thirty-seven, little more than half the French loss.
Late on this day the 4th Division came up, and the 5th, 6th, and 1st were reported to be close behind, so that Wellington had his main body at last collected. He started the decisive operations on the following morning at 5 o’clock, advancing in three columns towards Venda da Cruz, where Ney had been located on the previous night by the cavalry scouts. Picton and the 3rd Division were on the right, Pack’s Portuguese in the centre, the Light Division on the left, with the 4th Division supporting on the high-road, and the rest following behind. But the enemy had retired at an equally early hour, and was not to be found at Venda da Cruz. He had gone back to Redinha, where there is a bridge over the Souré river, forming a defile behind the village, and a high plateau flanked by woods in its front. Mermet’s division formed on the plateau, with Marchand’s in support, while the rest of the French were not far off, Loison’s division being at Rabaçal, three miles to the east, and Junot’s corps at Condeixa, five miles behind Redinha. Drouet, with Conroux’s division, had started during the night on the road for Ponte de Murcella and the Spanish frontier, escorting a convoy of 800 sick and wounded and the small remains of the reserve park of the army. He had orders to clear the chaussée and to get into touch with Claparéde, who was now lying with the other division of the 9th Corps at Celorico. This detachment would have revealed to Wellington, had he known of it, that Masséna was more anxious to secure his line of communication with Spain than to seize Coimbra and establish himself on the line of the Mondego. For a good general, intending to take risks in a general action, does not detach 5,000 men on the eve of the decisive day. It is only second-rate commanders who (like King Joseph at Vittoria in 1813) commit such mistakes.
It is clear that if Masséna had intended to make a serious blow at Coimbra, he ought to have done so at latest on the 10th or 11th, before the English army was close enough to hinder him. Junot’s corps, which was entirely covered by Ney and the rearguard, was well placed for a blow at the city, as it was little more than ten miles from the Mondego and the broken bridge. But Masséna did not march Junot in this direction, but kept him in a position to support Ney, while only some squadrons of Montbrun’s cavalry were sent against Coimbra. That general’s proceedings showed great timidity and feebleness. On the afternoon of the 10th, according to Trant’s dispatch, his advanced guard appeared on the Monte de Esperança, the height opposite Coimbra, and was seen to send down reconnoitring parties towards the banks of the river, both above and below the city, leaving unmolested the broken bridge, behind which were the guns placed in the battery which Trant had thrown up to protect his retreat. Much rain had fallen on the preceding night, the river was full, and Montbrun’s scouts reported to him and to his companion the Engineer-colonel Valazé that they could not find the fords which, as they had been told, were situated at the spots that they had visited. On the following day (March 11th), while the skirmish of Pombal was going on, Montbrun moved in nearer to the city, showing artillery and a cavalry brigade at the Cruz dos Moroiços, and occupying the convent of Santa Clara, which lies less than a mile from the bridge. One of his squadrons tried to pass at the ford of Pereira, five miles below the city, but owing to the strength of the current failed completely, the men who first tried the water regaining with difficulty the bank from which they had started. Nothing more was done by the French that day, and Montbrun reported to Masséna that he had received information that the whole of the brigades of Trant and Silveira were in Coimbra, and that he had seen artillery in position at the bridge[172]. The real force opposed to him was seven battalions of Militia, some 3,000 men, and six guns. This was the last day on which it would have been possible for the French to seize Coimbra, for from the 12th onward Wellington was pressing them so hard that, if they had set themselves to force the passage, and had succeeded, their rearguard, and probably a great portion of their main body, would have been destroyed. For Ney, with all his tactical skill, could not have shaken off his pursuers in such a way as to allow 30,000 men to file over a single bridge, hastily repaired, when the Allies were in hot pursuit. The French engineers, indeed, reported that it would take several days to mend the bridge, even when the Portuguese had been driven away from the further bank. The main comment suggested by all this is that, since Masséna was intending to hold out on the Mondego, and to occupy its northern bank, according to his own dispatch sent to Napoleon, he ought to have taken measures to secure a safe passage many days back—at the first moment when his retreat began on the 5th of March. Part of the mass of troops accumulated at Leiria ought to have marched for Coimbra on March 6th. It was altogether too late to send a mere flying cavalry force to appear in front of the place on March 10th.
On March 12th Montbrun was prowling ineffectively along the south bank of the Mondego, and setting his horse artillery to engage in a futile exchange of fire with Trant’s guns, while a battalion of infantry borrowed from Junot tried to creep upon the bridge, but was detected and driven off by grape. But Ney was already engaged in such sharp fighting at Redinha that he could not have drawn his troops off, or have escaped towards Coimbra, even if the passage of the Mondego had been forced. Wellington, it will be remembered, was advancing towards the 6th Corps in the morning, when he found that it had retired from Venda da Cruz on to another position. His cavalry discovered that not only was he in presence of the 6th Corps, but that another French column was on his flank at Rabaçal (this was Loison’s division). Moreover, the 8th Corps was known to be not far off, for stragglers and sick from it had been picked up upon the preceding day. Seeing therefore that he might be called upon to face some 30,000 men, the British general resolved not to open the fight over hastily. When his three leading columns came up, Pack in the centre, Picton on the right, the Light Division on the left, they were halted in front of Mermet’s line, and deployed; but no attack was made till the 4th Division had reached the front line and joined Pack, while the 1st and 5th were close behind. Then, at two o’clock in the afternoon, an encircling attack was made on Mermet’s rearguard, the wings being thrown forward, while the centre was somewhat held back. The 3rd Division, entering the woods on the French left, the Light Division those on their right, advanced as quickly as they could through difficult ground. Pack and the 4th Division halted beyond musket-range of the centre, but suffered a little from artillery fire while waiting for the flank attacks to develop. After some twenty minutes of hot skirmishing among the trees, Mermet’s flanks were turned by Picton on the side of the hills, and by the Light Division on the side of the plain, and Ney hastily drew back his front line behind the stream and the defile, where Marchand’s division was waiting in support. The retreating battalions were somewhat jammed at the bridge, and lost heavily, while passing it only a few yards in front of the skirmishers of the Light Division. Picton tried to ford the stream higher up, in order to cut off the retreating force before it could reach its supports, but failed, the water turning out too deep and rapid for passage[173].
It took some time to file the Light and 3rd Divisions over the bridge, and to make a new line in face of Ney’s second position on the ridge two miles beyond the stream. But when the two divisions once more went forward, each turning, as before, the enemy’s flank opposed to it, while Pack and the 5th Division formed up again in the centre, Ney gave back without any very strenuous resistance, and, abandoning his second position, fell back upon Condeixa, a village with a defile in front of it, five miles north of Redinha on the great Coimbra chaussée.
The day’s work had been a very pretty piece of manœuvring on both sides. Ney hung on to his two successive positions just so long as was safe, and absconded on each occasion at the critical moment, when his flanks were turned. A quarter of an hour’s more delay would have been ruin, but the retreat was made just in time. The two stands had delayed Wellington for a day, and his army had only advanced ten miles in the twenty-four hours. Yet it is unjust to accuse the British general of over-caution, as Napier and all the French annalists have done. He was quite right not to attack with the first division that came up, and to wait till he had three and a half in line. For he was aware that great strength lay in front of him, and, for all he knew, the troops of Mermet might have been supported not only by Marchand, as was actually the case, but by the whole of Junot’s corps. In that case an early attack would have meant a bloody check, and an enforced wait, till the 3rd, 4th, 1st, and 5th Divisions should have come up. As it was, the French rearguard was dislodged with a very modest loss on the part of the Allies, 12 officers and 193 men, of whom the large majority were in the Light and 3rd Divisions, the troops which had done the work. But the 4th Division and Pack’s Portuguese suffered some casualties, while waiting under cannon-fire for the flanking movement to take effect[174]. The French loss was 14 officers and 213 men, nearly all from Mermet’s division, as that of Marchand was little engaged[175].
During this day the 6th Division, moving apart from the rest of the army, marched north-westward to Souré, and so got upon the western route to Coimbra. It was apparently Wellington’s intention to push this detachment round the western or seaward flank of the French army, so as to threaten with it the right wing of any position that the enemy might take up across the Coimbra chaussée. Indeed, having found no hostile force of any sort in front of it, the 6th Division was able to push in quite close to Coimbra on the next day, and to take up a position at Ega, which menaced Ney and Junot’s march across its front if they should still continue their retreat in the original direction. It was probably the movement of this division which caused the French to believe that Wellington had landed a detached force from ships at the mouth of the Mondego, and was pushing it forward towards Coimbra: an account of the march of this imaginary corps is to be found in several narratives[176].
Condeixa, to which Ney had retired on the evening of the combat of Redinha, is a most important strategical point, since here the chaussée leading to Coimbra is joined by the last crossroad which meets it south of the Mondego, that which runs eastward to the Ponte de Murcella and the Spanish frontier. As long as the French held Condeixa, they were in a position to choose between an attack on Coimbra and a retreat up the south bank of the river towards Almeida and their base. And with Wellington at his heels, Masséna had now to make his choice between the two courses. His dispatch of March 19th to Berthier informs us that he resolved for a moment to offer battle to the Allies at Condeixa, with the 6th and 8th Corps, calling in perhaps (though he does not mention it) the 2nd Corps from Espinhal, which is no more than twenty miles away. The reasons which he gives for not doing so are firstly, that, since the departure of Drouet and his division on the 11th, his whole force was no more than half that of Wellington; as a matter of fact he had still 45,000 men, his adversary just about the same number. Secondly, that the morale of the army was impaired by long privations and short rations. Thirdly, that the stock of ammunition was dangerously low, and the artillery horses could hardly move. Fourthly, that he was hampered by the fact that his lieutenants (he is alluding to Ney in especial) were set on abandoning Portugal, ‘which contributes in no small degree to a lack of that harmony which ought to reign in an army.’ Fifthly, that a defeat at Condeixa would mean the inevitable loss of all his artillery, train, wounded, and baggage, while a success would not seriously injure Wellington, who could always retire on to the Lines of Torres Vedras. Sixthly, that being in the midst of a population roused to fury by the ravages of his army, he found that he could gather in little or no food, and was fast using up the stock that he had brought with him. Taking all these points into consideration, and being informed by Montbrun that, even if he succeeded in seizing Coimbra, its bridge would take two days to repair, he had resolved to avoid a general action, to abandon any attempt to pass the Mondego, and to draw back towards the 9th Corps and the Spanish frontier, where he could find the food and the new equipment which the army needed.