On Sir Arthur Wellesley’s arrival in Lisbon, he found that Soult was in possession of Oporto, and Victor in Estremadura. He promptly resolved to attack them in detail; and, making Lisbon the base of his operations, he requested the Spanish General, Cuesta, to watch Victor’s movements, while he himself should march to the north against Soult. The moral effect of driving the French out of Portugal would, he felt, be very great—all the more so as his arrival had produced a sudden hopefulness among the Portuguese, which it was desirable not to disappoint.
Accordingly, on the 1st May, he moved his head-quarters to Pombal and Coimbra, and found himself in command of an army which, after deducting the sick and absent, numbered Napier. 20,653 rank and file, with 30 guns. On the 9th he left Coimbra with the main body, and arrived on the Douro, opposite Oporto, on the 12th, after a march of eighty miles To D.-A.-G. Oporto, 14 May, 1809. over infamous roads. “But,” wrote General Howorth, “neither difficulty nor danger impedes Sir Arthur: he is all fire, and establishes confidence in the troops.”
On the 10th, the left column of the army, which marched from Aveiro, fell in with the enemy at Algabaria Nova. A slight affair ensued, in which the Artillery and Cavalry were chiefly engaged; and the enemy was repulsed with the loss of a gun. On the 11th, the right column, which marched on the Vouga, came up with the French between Algabaria Nova and Grijon, and an engagement followed which lasted two hours, ending in the retreat of the enemy. On the arrival of the English at Villa Nova, opposite Oporto, it was found that the French had destroyed the bridge across the Douro, and removed every available boat to their own side of the river. It was of the utmost importance that the English troops should cross, so as to co-operate with Marshal Beresford, who, having crossed the river higher up, was now menacing the left and the rear of Soult’s army. The crossing was effected in a gallant, and yet singular and romantic way, whose details, too long for reproduction here, render the passage of the Douro one of the most interesting episodes in the Peninsular War. Wellesley saw a building on the other side of the river—here three hundred yards wide—called the Seminary, surrounded by a walled yard, capable of containing two battalions. Close to where he himself stood was a rock, called Serra, from which artillery would well command the passage of the river, and where he therefore desired General Howorth to place eighteen guns. The guards on the other side seemed few and negligent. Soult expected no danger on the part of the river above the town, and had posted himself to the westward; if, therefore, boats could but be obtained, Wellesley resolved to cross. A small skiff was found, and Colonel Waters, a staff officer, crossed, and found three large barges, which he towed back to the Villa Nova side of the river. The men were ordered to embark, and, in the face of an army of ten thousand men, the passage was effected. Very few, however, had crossed ere the alarm was given, and the French troops poured down upon the Seminary. The alarm acted in one respect favourably to the English; for some of the citizens hastened to unmoor some boats, and cross to Villa Nova, thus facilitating the embarkation and passage of the troops. All this time the fire of the Royal Artillery from the Serra told with great effect; and, as it completely swept one side of the Seminary, it soon limited the attack to the other. The gallantry of the Infantry was unrivalled. General Sherbrooke had crossed the river a little lower down, and was now in possession of the town of Oporto, and pressing, with the Guards and 29th Regiment, on the rear of the French troops as they poured out towards the Seminary. The Buffs and their comrades in the enclosure rained showers of bullets on the disorganized French; and in a short time they were Napier. in full retreat, “the artillery, from the Serra, still searching To D.-A.-G. 14 May, 1809. the enemy’s columns as they hurried along.” General Howorth, in describing the battle, said that he never saw anything like the gallantry of the English troops. Their firmness was irresistible; nor could the French make any impression; and, from the position which he occupied, he was able to form a good opinion, as he could see everything. To Lord Castlereagh, dated Oporto, 12 May, 1809. Sir Arthur, in his despatch announcing the victory, after enumerating the various officers who had especially distinguished themselves, said, in describing the services of the regiments engaged: “I had every reason to be satisfied with the Artillery.” That his satisfaction was also extended to the previous operations and to the severe march of eighty miles over most difficult country, may be gathered from General Howorth’s words. “I have reason,” he wrote, “to believe that Sir Arthur is perfectly satisfied with the Artillery; and, it must be owned, never was Artillery put to such trial.” The French ordnance captured at the recovery of Oporto included 56 brass guns and 3 brass howitzers. A considerable supply of ammunition was also taken.
The pursuit of Soult’s army was undertaken by Sir A. Wellesley with as little delay as possible, although not with sufficient promptness to satisfy the demands of certain military critics, who are ready to find fault, but slow to acknowledge difficulties in the way of armies. That it was sufficiently prompt to ensure the success of the English General’s purpose, may be gathered from the fact that on the 18th May Soult and his army crossed the frontier into Spain, having been driven out of Portugal with the loss of artillery, stores, and baggage, and of no fewer than 6000 men; while of those who remained, many were without arms Napier. and accoutrements, the majority without shoes, and all utterly exhausted and miserable; and, further, that the English army did not delay in the pursuit from any effeminate ideas of comfort or luxury, may be gathered from the following letter from General Howorth: “The extraordinary To General Macleod, dated Oporto, 24 May, 1809. rapidity of events in this country, which have been accompanied by a succession of the most triumphant operations against the enemy, left me no leisure to communicate them as they occurred. However, I am at last returned here, after passing eight days in continued marches over the worst roads I ever saw, through incessant rain, a depopulated country, quartered in uninhabited houses, and with no supplies whatever, but what was scantily provided by the Commissariat Department. During the greater part of this march the luxury of a bed, or a change of clothes, which were always wet, was unknown to me.... We pursued to Montalagree, where the enemy turned short to the left, over the mountains, and took the shortest way into Galicia.”
During the pursuit, the English overtook Soult at Salamonde, and his rear-guard being in a confined space, some guns were brought to bear on them with fearful effect. Napier. “Man and horse, crushed together, went over into the gulf; and the bridge, rocks, and the defile beyond were strewed with mangled bodies.” The furious peasantry also turned on the French troops, and rendered their retreat—which has been compared with that of the English on Corunna—infinitely more horrible.
Wellington Despatches.
As Soult sacrificed artillery and baggage in order to move more rapidly, it was but natural that he should outmarch an army which had not so disencumbered itself. But this pursuit has an importance to the Artilleryman in being a text on which much useful argument was hung by General Howorth and others, in favour of greater mobility than had yet attended the brigades of Field Artillery employed in the Peninsula. The 3-pounder brigade was the only one which was able to march with the army during its more Dated Oporto, 24 May, 1809. rapid movements; and therefore General Howorth made a demand for additional brigades of that nature, suggesting, with the assistance of Colonel Robe, various improvements in the equipment. Among other changes, he recommended double instead of single draught, both for guns and waggons; and that the brigades should be of four guns instead of six, the howitzers being dispensed with, and a liberal supply of spherical case being issued for the guns. Another very suggestive recommendation was made by him: “to have a small forge with each brigade of four guns; the forge to be placed on the frame of a small limber waggon; it can then follow the brigade, which is not the case with the present one.” The absence of a forge on the line of march must at times have sadly crippled the batteries. He also suggested that the span of the wheels should be narrowed to 4½ feet, and (to prevent liability to upset from this cause) that the gun should be lowered on its carriage by adopting a bare iron axletree. His next recommendation reveals a starvation of equipment which would account for almost any shortcomings on the line of march. He urged the authorities “to have spare shafts, wheels, axles, spokes, felloes, and pintails supplied, none having been sent with the present brigades, and now much needed.” He also made suggestions which would ensure greater mobility to the heavier brigades of 6-pounders. The Artilleryman may therefore date to the campaign of the Douro some of the most valuable lessons taught in the Peninsular War, and can trace to it that change in the opinions and experience of the military authorities, which resulted in so extended a use of Horse Artillery in the Peninsula, and in so marked an improvement in the brigades of Field Artillery before the conclusion of the war.
Marshal Victor, on hearing of the disastrous termination of Soult’s operations, fell back on Almaraz and Torremocha; so that Sir A. Wellesley, who had commenced his southward march through Traz-oz-Montes, resolved to halt at Abrantes, and to commence a thorough reorganization of his army, Wellington Despatches and Supplementary Despatches. now sadly undisciplined. The correspondence of Sir Arthur at this time reveals what one is apt to forget in reflecting on the glories of the Peninsular campaigns. The military genius of the Duke of Wellington and the courage of English soldiers are too often considered to have been the only necessary causes of success; but a study of the appeals made by him at Abrantes to officers and men,—of the strict orders, on even the smallest matters, which he found it necessary to issue,—and of the letters to ministers and friends, in which he never failed to tell the truth about the army, however unpalatable,—reveals another most necessary element in the success which attended him in all his operations. As the first thought in his own mind always was duty, so the first and last thing which he held before his troops, as that without which they would be worse than useless, was discipline. The arguments he used have a value for all time, and a special value for England at a time when she possesses an armed force of Volunteers, who might possibly consider that drill, instead of discipline, is the chief end of a soldier’s life; but whose discipline, on the other hand, if thorough, would be nobler than that of regular troops, in being more self-imposed, and less dependent on a penal code. As for the Duke of Wellington’s remarks on the discipline of the Spanish troops, they apply in a singularly exact way to the To Lord Castlereagh, dated 25 Aug. 1809. armies of Spain in the anarchy of 1873. “In Spain,” he wrote, “the business of an army is little understood. They are really children in the art of war; and I cannot say that they do anything as it ought to be done, with the exception of running away and assembling again in a state of nature.... The Government have attempted to govern the kingdom in a state of revolution by an adherence to old rules and systems, and with the aid of what is called enthusiasm; and this last is, in fact, no aid to accomplish anything, and is only an excuse for the irregularity with which everything is done, and for the want of discipline and subordination of the armies. People are very apt to believe that enthusiasm carried the French through their Revolution, and was the parent of those exertions which have nearly conquered the world; but if the subject is nicely examined, it will be found that enthusiasm was the name only, but that force was the instrument which brought forward those great resources, under the system of terror, which first stopped the Allies.” In his correspondence with Marshal Beresford, who found great difficulty in organizing the Portuguese troops, he laid down Dated Badajoz, 8 Sept. 1809. what may be considered a military creed. “They want the habits,” he wrote, “and the spirit of soldiers,—the habits of command on one side, and of obedience on the other—mutual confidence between officers and men: and, above all, a determination in the superiors to obey the spirit of the orders they receive, let what will be the consequence; and the spirit to tell the true cause, if they do not.” Poor Marshal Beresford had, indeed, need of support and sympathy Supplementary Despatches of Duke of Wellington, vol. vi. p. 362. in his task. Long habits of disregard to duty, and of consequent laziness, made it impossible for the senior officers to pay any regular or continued attention to the duties of their situations, and neither reward nor punishment would induce them to bear up against fatigue. By replacing these by younger officers, or English officers detached from the various regiments, he ultimately succeeded in making the Portuguese contingent a most valuable force; but this was only done by impressing on them the necessity of discipline and unhesitating obedience. More than sixty years have passed away, and the same lesson, though more difficult to learn, is not the less vitally necessary. The spirit of criticism spreads with the growth of education, and considerably out of proportion with it. The reasoning obedience which a soldier should yield is, perhaps, confused with an obedience which requires to know the reason of an order, instead of that which is readily yielded in the belief that what may be unintelligible in detail is necessary for the general plan. That such obedience is not easy always to give may be true enough. The possession, with a strong will, of but pigmy power, is undoubtedly trying; but the self-denial which is demanded stands among the highest of all military virtues, as it is the very alphabet of all military training. He only is fit to rule who has first learned to obey.
Reference has been made to the association of English officers with the Portuguese forces. The appointment of Captain—afterwards Sir Alexander—Dickson, to the Portuguese Artillery, which took place after the Douro campaign, was productive of so important results, that it deserves detailed notice. As Captain Dickson, he had acted as Brigade-Major to General Howorth during the recent operations. He had, however, come to Portugal with the intention of obtaining employment in a higher local rank with the Portuguese Artillery, and had only been deterred by difficulties which had arisen as to the status and pay of officers so attached. On the 4th June, he quitted Oporto with General Howorth, who had been indisposed for some time, and proceeded to Abrantes to join the army, and also to speak to Marshal Beresford on the subject of employment Captain Dickson to D. A. Gen. 3 July, 1809. with the Portuguese troops. Fortunately, on his arrival, he found that Captain May, then in command of a division of Portuguese Field Artillery, was on the point of resigning, in accordance with instructions from England; and Marshal Beresford readily appointed Captain Dickson as his successor,—Captain May, in exchange, assuming the duties of Major of Brigade. So far all was well; but Captain Dickson soon found that he had no pleasing position. The local rank of Major, which had been conferred on his junior officer, Captain Arentschild of the King’s German Artillery, was refused to him by Marshal Beresford, who had been irritated by contradictory orders from the English and Portuguese Governments; so that he found himself under the orders of his junior. The Portuguese officers were also very jealous of their English comrades; and the seniors, without incurring any risk themselves, made every difficulty in their power, when any suggestion was made which they disliked. Letters from the British to the Portuguese officers on official matters, and all applications for supplies, were left unanswered; and yet “these same men,” wrote Captain Dickson indignantly, “are embracing you as often as they meet!” He would gladly have given up his new appointment, had he not felt bound by his promise to Lord Chatham to retain it; so he set to work, in a true soldierlike spirit, to perfect the two 6-pounder Portuguese batteries which had been placed under his charge, and of which, even at the beginning, he was able to write in terms of the warmest approbation. As this narrative will show, he was rewarded for remaining at his post. The local rank was given to him ultimately; and by its means he found himself commanding many brother officers, much senior to himself regimentally, and ultimately at the head of the Artillery of the armies of the Duke of Wellington, while only a Captain in his own Corps.
It is now necessary to follow the movements of Sir Arthur Wellesley. The English Government continued to overrate the value of the Spanish armies; and the pressure brought to bear upon the English General was such as he could not resist. He therefore proposed to the Spanish General, Cuesta, to co-operate with his army against Victor’s forces, and ultimately against Madrid. Cuesta, whose treatment of Sir Arthur Wellesley was, on all occasions, of the most obstinate and boorish description, had an army of 33,000 men. Napier. Sir Arthur’s army, when he quitted Abrantes, numbered 20,997 men of all arms, with 30 guns. The advance of the united armies against Madrid by the valley of the Tagus had been foreseen by Napoleon, and he had ordered Soult, at the head of a powerful army, to concentrate his forces in such a manner that, on the advance of Wellesley, he could pass by his left rear, and cut him off from the base of his operations,—Lisbon and its surrounding country. The English General was far from correctly informed either of the strength or position of Soult’s army; he was urged by the English representative, Mr. Frere, and by his own Government, to take the offensive; the vacillation of Joseph Buonaparte tempted him to march on Madrid before further union could be effected among the French armies; he was further assured of the courage of the Spanish armies, the enthusiasm of the peasantry, and the abundance of supplies. On the 27th June, therefore, he broke up his camp at Abrantes, and marched towards Oropesa, to effect a junction with Cuesta. The farther he advanced, the more doubtful did he become of the sincerity of the Spaniards—a doubt which exhibited itself in the pertinacity with which he demanded from Cuesta and the Junta solemn promises to keep the English army supplied, during any farther advance, with the requisite transport and supplies. The reader does not require to be reminded how shamefully these promises were broken;—how thwarted Wellesley was, alike by the intrigues of the Junta and the conceited obstinacy of Cuesta;—nor how faithful he was, amid all his difficulties, to the duty which England had imposed upon him. Standing beside Cuesta like a better angel,—and receiving the treatment not unfrequently bestowed on such,—calm under insult, his judgment never heated by an indignation which would have been righteous,—he ultimately succeeded in placing the united armies in the very position in front of Talavera which he had selected, when he saw that a general action with the combined forces of Victor and Sebastiani was inevitable, if not, indeed, desirable. But not until the morning of the 27th July, nor until Cuesta’s folly and rashness had courted and received, at Alcabon, a well-deserved defeat, did the English General succeed in placing the Spanish forces in Gurwood’s Despatches: Selections, p. 278. the position he had chosen. The quiet irony of the memorandum of Sir Arthur Wellesley on the battle of Talavera cannot be seen without remembering the defeat just mentioned, and a disgraceful panic which seized on the Spanish troops at the appearance of some French cavalry, on the afternoon of the 27th, when 10,000 Infantry and all their Artillery fled, terror-stricken, to the rear. Part of these were recovered before the following day; but the Spanish contingent was weaker by the greater part of its Artillery, and 6000 of its Infantry. With such troops as allies, no wonder that Sir Arthur wrote: “The position of Talavera was well calculated for the troops that were to occupy it. The ground in front of the British army was open; that in front of the Spanish army was covered with olive-trees, intersected by roads, ditches, &c.” In other words, the offensive part of the battle was to fall on the British, while a masterly and imposing inactivity was reserved for the Spaniards.