The commencement of the siege was most unfortunately delayed by the swelling of the Guadiana on the 24th, and the consequent destruction of the bridge across it, till the 8th of May, when Major-General Lumley completed the investment on the right of that river, Major-General Sir W. Stewart having previously effected it on the left. The means provided for the siege were found very unequal to the undertaking; before any progress could be made, Marshal Soult had collected his army as had been anticipated; on the night of the 15th, the attack of the place was discontinued, and the troops marched to Albuhera, where, on the 16th, Marshal Beresford obtained a signal victory over the French army.
Lord Wellington returned to his head-quarters at Villa Formoso on the 28th of April. Massena had collected his army at Ciudad Rodrigo; it consisted of the 2d, 6th, 8th, and 9th corps, with the cavalry and artillery which belonged to them, and of 1,500 cavalry of the Imperial Guard, commanded by the Duke of Istria. The whole force amounted to 40,000 men, the remnant of the army of Portugal, which, six months before, had counted above 90,000 rank and file.
Lord Wellington saw the approach of the enemy without dismay; the French force was superior to his own,—its object, the relief of Almeida. To thwart this attempt it was necessary to accept a battle; and, from the situation of Almeida, on the right of the Coa, the position to defend the approach to it must necessarily be taken up in front of the town, thus having the river in rear of the allied army. The banks of the Coa are extremely steep; there are few fords at which it can be passed, none in the part of it near Almeida serviceable for an army: the bridge over it, under the guns of that fortress, is extremely narrow, and at the time was nearly impassable. The bridge at Castel de Bom was also a most difficult communication. From Ciudad Rodrigo a road leads to Sabugal, where there is another bridge over the Coa, which, in case of defeat, might have served the allied army to retire over. Lord Wellington (though not entirely from his own conviction) determined to take up a defensive position, covering both the approach to Almeida, and the road to Sabugal. He perceived, from the beginning, that this double object was more than the forces he had with him might be able to maintain; the extension to the road above mentioned weakened his position; whereas, he was persuaded that, by confining himself to the protection of Almeida alone, he could bid defiance to the enemy. The object, however, of defending the entry by Sabugal into Portugal, and of securing a second road to retire upon, was not without mature consideration to be given up; and Lord Wellington felt convinced, that if the necessity of so doing should arise, he could always withdraw his army to the more concentrated position.
With these views Lord Wellington took up the ground along the Duas Casas. He placed the fifth division on his extreme left, near the fort of La Conception, to defend the great road to Almeida, which crosses the river at a ford immediately in front of that fortification. The light and sixth divisions he placed opposite to the village of Almada; the first, third, and seventh, were placed in rear of Fuentes d’Honor, with the light infantry of the third division and of the brigades of Major-Generals Nightingale and Howard occupying the village, supported by a battalion of the German Legion, the 2d battalion of the 83d, and the 71st and 79th Regiments. A Spanish corps, under Don Julian Sanches, was posted on the extreme right, at Nava d’Aver. Brigadier-General Pack, with a brigade of Portuguese infantry and the 2d British or Queen’s Regiment, blockaded Almeida.
Massena advanced from Ciudad Rodrigo on the 2d of May; and our troops having retired from the Agueda, he arrived, on the 3d, opposite to the position occupied by the allied army. In the evening he made a desperate attempt to carry the village of Fuentes d’Honor; but after a severe contest, most gallantly maintained, his troops were totally repulsed. Defeated with considerable loss in his first attempt, he spent the whole of the 4th in reconnoitring our position. Lord Wellington penetrated his intention of attacking the right of the allied army, and in the night moved the seventh division to Porco Velho, the only ford at which the enemy could cross the Duas Casas, and where the banks of that river opposed but a trifling obstacle to his advance.
On the morning of the 5th, the eighth corps was discovered opposite to this village, and preparing to attack it; Lord Wellington moved the light division to support the seventh, while he directed the first and third divisions to occupy some high ground between the Turon and Duas Casas rivers; thus observing the sixth and ninth corps of the French army, which had made a movement to their left, and had approached the ground occupied by the eighth corps.
Massena began the action of this day by an attack on the advanced guard of the seventh division; which, overpowered by numbers, was obliged to retire, giving up the village of Porco Velho. The French cavalry, under General Montbrun, (which had already driven Don Julian Sanches from Nava d’Aver) charged with a very superior force the cavalry of the allies, and though (in the first rencontre) its advance was driven back, yet it afterwards succeeded in penetrating to the infantry, which, supported in the most gallant manner by the artillery, received the French cavalry and repulsed it with considerable loss. At this moment Lord Wellington decided to withdraw his army into the more concentrated position, to which from the beginning he had felt inclined to confine himself.
He directed the light and seventh divisions, supported by the cavalry, to retire and to take up the ground extending from the Duas Casas towards Frenada, on the Coa. This movement, as bold as it was decisive, was executed with the greatest precision; the enemy could make no impression on the allied columns while on their march, and the new position, at right angles with the old one, was taken up with perfect regularity. Massena declined making any attempt on the troops now formed on their new alignement; he confined his efforts for the remainder of the day to successive attacks, made by the sixth corps, upon Fuentes d’Honor; the contest was most severe in this quarter, and lasted till night, when, with great loss on both sides, the allied troops, having completely repulsed the enemy, retained possession of this most obstinately disputed village.
So terminated this memorable action, the only one throughout the whole war in which the enemy had to boast of a momentary success against the allies; the ground at Porco Velho, from which the advance of the seventh division was obliged to retire, afforded no decisive position, and if the French infantry had been attacking at the moment of the charge of cavalry under General Montbrun, our loss in the retreat to the new alignement might have been considerably greater. Not such, however, as the French officers assert; the novelty of an advantage to them was so great, that on our change of position they predicted the entire destruction of the allied army; and although these hopes were so blasted, that they dared not afterwards make a single movement in attack upon us, yet they still persuaded themselves, that if the proper moment had been seized, we were in total confusion, and must inevitably have been defeated.
The British army can seldom be calculated upon to verify such predictions; if the French had attempted to pursue, they would, as on other occasions of the same nature, have had more to repent than to boast of[[4]]. The message of General Foy to Buonaparte, before the action of Waterloo, “that in the whole war in the Peninsula, the French had never once beaten the British infantry,” would have been as true in its application to any attack made at the moment above alluded to, as it proved to be in the tremendous battle of Mont Saint Jean.