Memoir of the early campaigns of the Duke of Wellington, in Portugal and Spain, / By an officer employed in his army

by Earl of John Fane Westmorland

A short time before the victory was decided, Sir Harry Burrard arrived from the frigate, on board which he had remained during the night; Sir Arthur Wellesley was preparing to follow up the advantages he had gained; and had already brought up Brigadier General Bowes’ and Major General Ackland’s brigades, (who had as yet been in the reserve and unengaged) with which he had intended to pursue the enemy. He had also directed Major General Hill to be ready to move from his right along a road which he was in possession of, and which led by the nearest line to Torres Vedras. But Sir Harry Burrard, conceiving that such a movement would be attended with risk, desired Sir Arthur Wellesley to discontinue the pursuit, and to rest satisfied with the advantages that had been gained.

Sir Arthur Wellesley remonstrated on the field against the order to halt, but it was of no avail; the decision was not to be changed or modified; the enemy retired at his leisure; our light troops even were not ordered to attend his movements, and a part of the rear-guard remained upon a hill within a short distance of our position till the following morning.

Without wishing to cast any reflection upon the conduct of Sir Harry Burrard, admitting that (called upon to take the command of an army already considerably advanced in the operations it had undertaken, and so nearly in contact with the collected force of the enemy as to make an action inevitable), he was placed in a situation of great difficulty; yet it is impossible not to regret that the person, in whose mind the plan of the campaign originally was formed, was not allowed to execute it throughout.

The system which Sir Arthur Wellesley had laid down had now been altered in three most essential points. First, the not proceeding on the morning of the 21st to turn the left of the enemy, by the movement he had ordered upon Mafra; thereby changing the operations of the army from the offensive to the defensive. Secondly, the not pursuing the enemy after the victory of Vimiera; and, lastly, the having changed the direction of Lieutenant General Sir John Moore’s corps, from its march upon Santarem to its junction with the army of Sir Arthur Wellesley.

It may not be uninteresting to trace the probable effects which these movements would have produced.

General Junot had taken the command of the whole disposable force under his orders in Portugal (amounting to 14,000 men), at Torres Vedras on the 20th; and presuming upon the boasted superiority of French troops to those of any other nation, he had resolved to attack the left of the British army, thereby leaving it no retreat if defeated, but to the sea-shore, and to its transports, if it could effect its embarkation. With this intention he marched on the night of the 20th by a road leading through a most difficult defile, which brought him to the eastward of Vimiera, near which place he arrived soon after nine o’clock on the 21st. The order which had been issued the day before for the British army was to march at five o’clock, by the road to the Ponte de Roll, and from thence direct upon Mafra. This road was separated about two leagues from that upon which the French army was advancing, and leading in a totally different direction; divided also from it by a woody and almost impervious tract of country; so that if the movement had been executed, the British army would have been considerably advanced towards Mafra, before the enemy had arrived at Vimiera.

If indeed this march had been discovered by the French patroles, it would still have been impossible to arrest our progress, from the difficulty of getting to us; and in all probability, the enemy would have had no other resource than to have returned to Torres Vedras (where the whole of his baggage had remained), and from thence tried to attack us at Mafra, which would have been attempted under many disadvantages; or to have marched in the greatest haste by the Cabeça de Montachique to have covered Lisbon. To those who are acquainted with the country I am speaking of, the difficulty of such movements (with an army which had already been marching since the morning of the 20th), will be duly appreciated: if the attempt to cover the capital had been made, the confusion and hurry with which a position must have been taken up would have bid fair for the success of our attack upon it, which could not have been delayed beyond the 23d; the proximity of Lisbon, which was ripe for insurrection, must have added to the difficulties of the enemy; and upon a review of all the circumstances of the case, together with the great talents which Sir Arthur Wellesley has since displayed, we may be warranted in believing that complete success would have attended his operation; and that the possession of Lisbon would have been effected with a smaller loss, with greater advantages, and at a much earlier period, than it was obtained by the system which was adopted.

The next point to be considered is the effect which would have been produced by following up the enemy after the victory of Vimiera. General Junot had advanced from Torres Vedras by a circuitous road to Vimiera; and after his defeat the corps under Major General Hill, which had taken no part in the action, was in possession of the direct road to that place. The ground about Torres Vedras is extremely strong; and it is the only good pass by which the French army could have retired to Lisbon. Sir Arthur Wellesley was convinced that Major General Hill might have occupied the town before the enemy could have reached it; and that he might have defended the positions about it, till the army which was to have followed the French should have been able to communicate with him.

The great objection that was raised to this project was, that the British army was almost destitute of cavalry, whilst the French had of that arm a force of at least 1,200 men; but Sir Arthur Wellesley relied upon his own genius to provide a remedy to this objection; our infantry was in the best order, and it has too often since been tried in presence of a superior cavalry, to leave doubt in the mind of any British officer, that (if judiciously managed and supported with artillery), it is competent to advance in the face of cavalry. If, therefore, Sir Arthur Wellesley’s intentions had been carried into effect, the probability is, that General Hill would have taken the enemy’s baggage at Torres Vedras; that pursued by the British army, General Junot would have been unable to force the positions about that town; that he must, consequently, have retired by some other road, and his army have been subjected to considerable loss.

There remains only for us to consider the effects produced, by bringing the corps under the orders of Sir John Moore to Marceira Bay, instead of allowing it to proceed to Santarem.