A history of the Peninsular War, Vol. 4, Dec. 1810-Dec. 1811

by Charles Oman

At this moment a new force came upon the scene; Craufurd and the Light Division were at hand, marching along the higher slope of the watershed between the Turon and the Dos Casas, in order to connect with the 7th Division. But Craufurd had not come to form up and hold the ground where Houston was already engaged. Wellington’s orders were that the 7th Division should move to its rear, cross the Turon, and prolong, to the west of that stream, the new line already formed by the 1st and 3rd Divisions. It was to make this movement covered by the Light Division and the cavalry, who were to hold the slope till Houston was well on his way and out of danger. They were then to retire behind the 1st Division. This was a dangerous task for Craufurd and his men, but Wellington had selected them precisely because he knew that they were to be trusted. While Montbrun was busy rearranging his disordered brigades, Houston slipped down the reverse slope of the hillside where he had been lying, crossed the Turon, and finally drew up with one brigade (Sontag’s) on the well-marked heights west of that stream, and the other (Doyle’s Portuguese) in the village of Freneda, a mile further to the right. Thus Wellington had once more an outlying flank-guard, covering the roads which lead to the Coa and the Bridge of Castello Bom. With the exception of the two battalions cut up at the opening of the fight, the 7th Division had suffered very slightly—apparently the French cavalry had not harmed it, but their attached battery had caused some casualties, which came in all to no more than 90 men[408] out of the 3,800 in the seven battalions which had not fought at Pozo Bello.

On the departure of the 7th Division all the peril and responsibility now fell on Craufurd and the already much-tried cavalry, who had to make their way back for a full mile along the open slope of the hillside, to join their comrades in the new position south of Fuentes. Montbrun, though he had failed in his attack on infantry in position, thought that he ought to have better fortune against men retreating over a rolling upland, so urged the pursuit with great energy. Craufurd formed his men in battalion squares, save a few companies of the rifles and Caçadores, whom he threw into thickets and enclosures to the right and left, where he thought them safe against horsemen. The main body retreated in a line of squares, with the cavalry and the battery of horse artillery in the intervals. Whenever the French came forward, the guns played upon them, and the British cavalry charged by squadrons to check the onslaught. So beautifully was the retreat managed, that Montbrun never got a chance to charge the infantry at advantage. ‘The steadiness and regularity with which the troops performed their movement, the whole time exposed to a cannonade, and followed across a plain by a numerous cavalry, ready to pounce on the squares if the least disorder should be detected, was acknowledged by hundreds of unprejudiced spectators (who witnessed it from the heights) to have been a masterpiece of military evolution. ‘We sustained a very trifling loss from the cannonade[409],’ writes one Light Division officer. Another (Napier himself) in more stirring phrases tells how ‘many times Montbrun threatened to charge Craufurd’s squares, but always found them too dangerous to meddle with. They appeared but as specks, with close behind them 5,000 [read 3,500] horsemen, trampling, bounding, shouting for the word to charge. Fifteen guns were up with the French cavalry, the eighth corps[410] was in order of battle behind them, the woods on their right were filled with Loison’s skirmishers, and if that general, pivoting upon Fuentes, had come forth with the 6th Corps, while Drouet assailed the village and the cavalry made a general charge, the loose crowd of non-combatants and broken troops would have been violently dashed against the 1st Division, to intercept its fire and break its ranks, and the battle might have been lost[411].’ But Montbrun knew as well as Craufurd that intact infantry of good quality cannot be broken when it is securely formed in square, and any attempt to molest the Light Division by artillery fire was checked by the self-sacrificing efforts of the British cavalry and guns, who fought their best to keep off the enemy. Bull’s guns were incessantly unlimbering and firing a few rounds in the intervals of the squares, and then retreating rapidly to a new position. On the only occasion when a French battery got close up it was charged in front, with desperate gallantry, by a squadron of the 14th Light Dragoons, who suffered terribly, but won the necessary minutes for the square to which it was neighbour to get out of range[412]. At last the whole retiring force, horse and foot, came into Wellington’s lines, with the French close in their rear, and found safety with the 1st Division. Two incidents marked the last moments of the retreat: at one point occurred an episode which Napier has immortalized, with some inaccuracy of detail, in one of his most brilliant ‘purple passages.’ Captain Norman Ramsay, with two guns of Bull’s troop, had halted, not for the first time, for a shot or two at the pursuing cavalry; lingering a moment too long, he found himself cut off, just as he had limbered up, by a swarm of chasseurs, who rode in from the flank. But he put his guns to the gallop, and, charging himself in front of them with the mounted gunners, was cutting his way through the French when he was brought off by friends. On one side a squadron of the 14th Light Dragoons under Brotherton, on the other a squadron of the Royals, had turned back when they saw the artillery in danger. They fell upon the chasseurs before Ramsay had suffered any hurt, and saved him and his guns, which were brought into the lines of the 1st Division amid loud cheers from all who had seen the affair[413].

A little to the left of the point where this happy escape took place there was an episode of a less fortunate kind. The skirmishing line of the 1st Division was extended along the foot of the slope on which its brigades were arrayed. When the rolling mass composed of the Light Division squares, their attendant cavalry, and the French in hot pursuit, drew near to the position, the officer in charge of the pickets of the Guards’ brigade (Lieutenant-Colonel Hill of the 3rd Guards) directed them to close up into solid order, for safety’s sake: this they did, forming a small square. In this formation they beat off the rather disorderly charge of the French horse; but Colonel Hill then very unwisely extended them again, and thus exposed them in the most dangerous order to a second charge of a French regiment (13th Chasseurs) which came in from the side after the main attack was over. The three companies were taken in flank, rolled up, and very badly mauled, sixty or eighty men being killed or wounded, and Hill himself with another officer and nineteen men being taken prisoners[414]. The rest had time to club together and defend themselves, till they were rescued by the charge of a squadron of the Royals under Colonel Clifton and a troop of the 14th Light Dragoons, which brought off most of the survivors. The total loss was about 100 men[415].

This was only one of several partial attacks made by the French cavalry against the front of Wellington’s new position[416]. Montbrun seems to have thought that he could continue to press the Allies—not recognizing that he had hitherto had to do with troops voluntarily retiring, but had now run against a battle-line which intended to stand. Indeed, he wished to try the effect of a general charge against the front of the 1st Division, and with that object sent orders to his reserve, Lepic’s brigade of Guard cavalry, to come to the front, and head an advance, which the rallied squadrons of his main body would support. Lepic, however, refused to move, saying that personally he was only too ready to attack, but that he had received specific orders not to use his brigade save at the direct command of his immediate superior, Marshal Bessières[417]. While the Marshal was being sought (he was ultimately found, after much delay, behind Pozo Bello), the moment which Montbrun supposed suitable for a charge passed away.

With this episode the advance of Montbrun’s cavalry ended, frittering itself away on the edge of the new position of the Allies. Its total effect had been to roll in the flanking force which Wellington had thrown out, and to gain some three miles of ground. The loss of the British had been appreciable, but can hardly be called severe—under 250 in the 7th Division, about 150 in the cavalry, and 200 in the 1st Division. Montbrun’s squadrons on their side had 359 casualties, to which may be added perhaps a hundred in Marchand’s division of the 6th Corps, which fought in the attack on Pozo Bello. The strategical advantage obtained by forcing Wellington to throw back his right wing, and to leave the roads towards Castello Bom exposed to the possibility of flanking cavalry raids, was considerable. But it was less important than it appeared, since the mere threatening of his communications was useless, unless he could be forced or manœuvred out of his position; and this was not to be done. He himself saw this clearly, writing in his dispatch which describes the battle: ‘I had occupied Poço Velho and that neighbourhood, in hopes that I should be able to maintain the communication across the Coa by Sabugal, &c., as well as to provide for the blockade of Almeida, which objects, as was now obvious, were become incompatible with each other. I therefore abandoned that which was the less important[418].’ He then proceeds to show how his new position still covered the blockade of Almeida, and (by means of the troops placed beyond the Turon) rendered it hard for the enemy to make any real attempt towards Castello Bom—since this could not be done save by an isolated detachment. Indeed, Masséna had still to beat the allied army, and the preliminary operations now ended had done nothing more than thrust it back into its fighting position.

That, according to Masséna’s design, the second act of the battle was to consist in a vigorous attempt to break Wellington’s new line, is clear from his own dispatch. And the point to be pierced was the projecting angle of its centre, in, and to the right of, Fuentes village. Here the attack was to be concentric and enveloping, Ferey’s division and the two divisions of the 9th Corps being intended to storm the village, after which Marchand’s and Mermet’s divisions, supported by Solignac’s, were to assail the heights to its south-west, where Picton and Spencer were now in line. Six of the eight infantry divisions of the French army were to attack on a front of not much over a mile. This was a powerful combination, but the position which it was to assail was also very strong. The village, with its barricaded streets and its tiers of houses trending up the hill, was susceptible of indefinite defence. The hillside above it and to its right was a perfect fighting-ground—with the ravine in its front, fine artillery emplacements along the sky-line, and a flat plateau behind, on which the main line and the reserves could stand sheltered, till the moment when they were required to deal with an infantry attack.

Masséna’s plan was to storm the village first, and then, when Ferey and Drouet should have pushed through it, and have got a lodgement on the plateau, to deliver the frontal attack with the other three divisions. He did not intend Marchand and Mermet to move till the projecting angle of Wellington’s line was turned and broken in by the success of the other attack. For to send forward these two divisions of the 6th Corps for an assault on the fine position opposite them, while it was held by intact troops with their flanks properly covered, would have been to invite a repetition of Bussaco. The plateau was held by a perfectly adequate force, the four brigades of the 1st Division (minus three battalions detached to hold Fuentes de Oñoro[419]), Ashworth’s Portuguese brigade, and the whole 3rd Division, over 13,000 men, on a short front, while the Light Division had now returned to take its place in reserve. Wellington had these troops drawn up in a double line, the 1st Division next the Turon, Ashworth’s brigade in the centre, and the 3rd Division above Fuentes, whose defence it was to feed, if necessary, by detaching battalions from its second line, which was formed by Mackinnon’s brigade. Owing to the numerical inferiority of the French artillery, Wellington had also been able to concentrate a larger number of guns (six batteries) on the critical point of the battlefield than his enemy could bring against him, so that the ‘artillery preparation,’ to maul his line before a general attack, was bound to fail. The French guns were overpowered in the contest.

It must not be supposed that Masséna waited for the arrival of Marchand’s and Mermet’s infantry in front of the position before commencing his attack. The troops opposite Fuentes had been ordered to storm the village when Montbrun’s operations had begun to develop successfully, but ‘sans rien hasarder[420],’ i. e. they were not to move if the attempt to turn the British right failed. But when the cavalry were seen sweeping the hillsides beyond Pozo Bello, and driving the enemy before them, the attack on Fuentes was begun by Ferey’s division, which was already in possession of the few houses on the east side of the Dos Casas brook. The assault commenced at about two hours after dawn, when the combat was already in full progress to the south, by a brisk attack which drove the defenders of the village (the 71st and 79th) out of its lower portion. Two companies of the latter regiment, barricaded in some buildings near the water, were completely surrounded and forced to surrender, after all their officers had been wounded. Ninety-four men were taken prisoners. The remainder of this Highland battalion and of its countrymen of the 71st rallied in the upper end of the village, and when joined by the regiment in reserve (the 2/24th) came forward again, and drove the French into the lower houses by the river. The fight came to a standstill for a moment, Ferey’s division (which had already suffered so severely on the 3rd) being now a spent force so far as initiative went.

But Drouet, who had been told to give Ferey his best support, then fed the fight with three bataillons d’élite, composed of the eighteen grenadier companies of his two divisions[421]. These picked troops, who were mistaken for men of the Imperial Guard by their opponents because of their bearskins and tall plumes, came on with great courage, and cleared all the middle slopes of the village, driving the garrison up to the summit of the double-headed hill, near the church and the rocks. The fighting was very deadly to both sides, but more so to the French, who had to dislodge an obstinate foe from barricaded houses and lines of stone walls. It ended in the establishment of the attacking force on the brink of the summit, but further the grenadiers could not go—the head of the village and the plateau above it was still maintained by the 71st, 79th, and 24th, and Wellington began to feed the defending force by drafting into the upper end of Fuentes, one after another, the light companies of several brigades of the 1st and 3rd Divisions—the same detachments who had defended the village upon May 3—in succession those of Löwe’s German brigade, of Howard’s brigade, of Ashworth’s and Power’s Portuguese, were sent to the critical point. The whole of the 6th Caçadores followed.

But the progress of the attack had been so far encouraging that at this moment—about noon—Drouet resolved to finish the affair by putting in heavy supports from Conroux’s and Claparéde’s divisions for a final blow[422], which should heave the French line up on to the plateau, clear the allied troops out of the last few houses of the village, and definitively break Wellington’s line at its projecting point. Eight or ten fresh battalions charged across the brook in column, through the narrow streets encumbered by dead and wounded, and, ascending the slope, drove their enemies out of the church and the rocks beside it. This was the critical moment of the day—the only one at which Wellington lost possession of the whole of the advanced post which so perfectly defended his centre.