| Men. | |
|---|---|
| The Infantry of the 2d, 6th and 8th corps | 62,000 |
| The Cavalry | 6,000 |
| The Artillery, &c. | 4,000 |
| Total | 72,000 |
To this were afterwards joined two Divisions of
| The 9th corps under Count Erlon | 10,000 |
| The remaining division of this corps under General Claparede | 8,000 |
| The corps of Marshal Mortier which cooperated to the south of the Tagus, | 13,000 |
| Making a total of | 103,000 |
These numbers are the very lowest at which the French army can be calculated. Buonaparte always called the force under Massena alone 100,000 men; and the French officers, before the invasion of Portugal, gave the same account of the numbers with which they were to overwhelm us.
In comparing the amount of the two armies, the description of force of which they were composed should be taken into consideration. The Portuguese had as yet been perfectly untried; and their militia was so defective in organization as to be evidently unfit for the operations of a campaign. Yet Lord Wellington was not alarmed at the disparity of numbers, or the superior organization of the troops of the enemy; he relied upon his own genius to baffle their efforts, and combined his plans with reference to the troops he had to command.
In the latter part of the year 1809, while Lord Wellington was still at Badajos, he had contemplated the possibility of his being attacked in Portugal by a superior force; he had considered the nature of the country he should have to defend, as well as the system of warfare which would most tend to support the contest in the Peninsula: he looked upon the preservation of his own army as the guarantee of the future triumph of the cause he was to maintain: the extension of the enemy, in the occupation of distant provinces, must be a source of weakness to him; the lengthening his communications must add considerably to his embarrassments. Lord Wellington, therefore, fixed upon the heights of Sobral and Torres Vedras, as the best positions in which he could collect his army, and offer battle to the superior forces of his enemy.
With such a determination, he spared no pains in fortifying and strengthening these places; the range of positions connected with them extended from the Tagus at Alhandra, to the sea at the mouth of the Zizandra; the accessible points were occupied with forts; and every resource was employed to make a line of defence, in which so eventful a contest was to be decided, as formidable as art, combined with its natural advantages, could render it. The early decision of Lord Wellington was supported by the events which succeeded each other in the early parts of the year 1810. The great force of the enemy which menaced Portugal, and the total destruction of all the effective Spanish armies which could co-operate with the British in defence of it, confirmed Lord Wellington in the wisdom of his plan of retreat. The French had a force in Spain of not less than 300,000 men; this army was distributed over almost every part of the country; Gallicia, Valencia, and Murcia, were the only provinces that were free, the rest were in the occupation of the enemy. The amount of this force, when collected, was sufficient to overwhelm the small numbers of the allies that were in a state of military organization in the Peninsula; but from great extension, it became unequal to the task imposed upon it. It was employed in completing the subjugation of the provinces that had been conquered; and yet that object was not advancing, although the force was frittered away in seeking to accomplish it. The animosity of the people was working in silence the destruction of the French armies. Every succeeding day brought reports of skirmishes, or individual rencontres, in which the enemy were worsted, and no account represented any part of Spain as diminishing in its hostility, or as being treated with more confidence, or relied upon with greater security, by the French.
The army of Marshal Massena, while attempting the conquest of Portugal, could lend no aid towards the reduction of the people in the Peninsula: as long as it was in observation of the British troops, whether on the Spanish frontier or in the lines of Lisbon, it could as little assist the views of Buonaparte in reducing the country to obedience; the destruction of Lord Wellington’s army could alone enable Massena to fulfil the objects of his Imperial Master. The preventing that catastrophe formed the basis of Lord Wellington’s plans for the campaign. He was neither strong enough, nor had he any wish, to undertake offensive operations: the state of Spain was not such as to make them advisable; they must necessarily be commenced at considerable risk against a superior army; and if they were unsuccessful, the cause of the Peninsula was lost. By the plan which Lord Wellington had determined upon, he promised to preserve his army, to increase its discipline, to augment its numbers, to draw the French into a country where their means of subsistence would be confined, and where their force would not be sufficient to maintain even their communications with the depôts, which must necessarily be placed at a distance from them.
Massena advanced from Salamanca in the beginning of June, to commence the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo; he brought with him a considerable train of artillery, and expected the place would surrender upon being summoned. But it was defended with considerable ability and valour, and was only yielded into the hands of the enemy upon the 18th of July, after the breaches were practicable and the principal defences destroyed. Many persons at the time conceived that Lord Wellington had seen the fall of this fortress with considerable indifference, since he had made no movement to relieve it; but it is only necessary to point out the results of victory or defeat to the different armies, to shew the propriety of Lord Wellington’s determination not to risk a general action. To attack the French he must have crossed the Coa and the Agueda; if he had been defeated, he would have had great difficulty in repassing those rivers, and saving the wrecks of his army; he would no longer have been able to provide for the defence of Portugal with a beaten army; he must have evacuated the country. If he beat the French they would have retired upon reinforcements, and would have been prepared to advance upon him again in a very short time. Lord Wellington would have had to lament the brave men he must have lost in an action, which would but have relieved Ciudad Rodrigo for a short time, as he must afterwards have abandoned it to the superior numbers of the enemy. His army must also have been considerably weakened; and most likely would have been unequal to the task afterwards to be imposed upon it, in the defence of Portugal.
Soon after the fall of Ciudad Rodrigo, the British advanced guard, under Major General Crawford, retired from the fort of La Conception, and was placed in a position under the walls of Almeida. Lord Wellington directed this corps to fall back across the Coa; but, from some misapprehension, these orders were not executed, and it was attacked upon the 24th of July. The French had the whole corps of Ney engaged in this affair; it manœuvred under cover of its cavalry upon the right of Major General Crawford, who did not decide upon his retreat until it had gained his flank. The British and Portuguese troops behaved with great gallantry, but they could not cope with numbers so superior to their own; they retired across the bridge over the Coa, in some confusion, but formed to defend it, and repulsed the repeated attacks of the enemy to gain possession of it. Major General Crawford had been previously, for a considerable time, with his advanced guard close to the French army. During the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo, he had maintained a communication with the place, and had assisted Don Julian Sanches in his successful effort to leave it. This officer, who had for a long time commanded a corps of Guerrillas, and who had been most fortunate in his enterprises against the enemy, was enclosed within the walls of this fortress, by the rapidity with which the French had invested it. Massena was aware of the circumstance, and vowed vengeance against this chief of banditti (as he was pleased to designate him). But Don Julian determined to force his way through the besieging army. He formed his corps in close column, placed his wife by his side at the head of it, and left the town soon after dark. As soon as he was challenged by the French sentries, he moved at full gallop upon them; cut down those that he met with, and continued his course till he had passed through the army. He arrived in safety at the quarters of Major General Crawford, and soon after retaliated upon several of the enemy the vengeance they had threatened to inflict upon him.