Marshal Massena, finding it impossible to cross the Sierra de Busaco by either of the two direct roads, while such an enemy lined the heights, but being resolved to press on to Coimbra, turned the position by its left flank,—Wellington continuing the retreat which he had varied by so noble an episode. Massena reached Coimbra just as the English rear-guard quitted it; and his troops were there guilty of the grossest licence. The English army continued slowly to retire to the lines which its prudent commander had prepared for it; and when Massena came up he found it in a position which was almost impregnable, while his own communications were interrupted, and his flanks and rear annoyed by levies of Portuguese Militia. The lines of Torres Vedras were an emblem of military sagacity and of engineering skill. Seated behind them the Allied Army received a training which proved fruitful in the campaign of the following year; the Portuguese contingent was made more efficient; and the folly of the Portuguese Government received repeated rebukes from the mouth of a General whose prudence and determination were never more clearly shown than in the history of Torres Vedras and Busaco. Croakers, as he wrote, might include the latter among useless battles; but an encounter, which made each Portuguese soldier feel himself a match for a Frenchman, was the best assistance which fortune could throw in Lord Wellington’s way. Having realised the value of this beforehand, his next task was to ensure it independently of fortune.
CHAPTER XVII.
Barossa, Badajoz, and Albuera.
Leaving Massena in front of Torres Vedras, the reader is requested to turn towards Cadiz. Here Spanish pride had long resisted offers of English assistance, hoping without foreign aid to raise the siege of the city; but here the English Government thought it very desirable that some demonstration should be made. In 1810 the presence of a British contingent was at length tolerated; and the Artillery Vide page 269. element has been detailed in the preceding chapter. Major Duncan and the companies under his command had originally embarked for Gibraltar; but the opening in Cadiz General Macleod to Major Duncan, dated 23 April, 1810, and 8 May, 1810. led to their proceeding to that city instead. Their arrival having been reported, steps were immediately taken by General Macleod to equip them for service in the field; and with this view, three batteries of six guns each, with the necessary equipment, were despatched from England, and a small supply of horses, seventy-four in number,—to form a nucleus of a larger establishment.
D.-A.-Gen. to Major Duncan, 13 May, 1810.
It had been intended that Colonel Framingham should be the officer to command the Artillery at Cadiz, as soon as the Spaniards should deign to admit any. Fortunately for Major Duncan, it was found impossible to spare that officer from the head-quarters of the army; and at the urgent request of General Graham, who commanded the English troops at Cadiz, the command of the Artillery with his force was left in Major Duncan’s hands, and remained so until 1812, when he was accidentally killed by the explosion of a powder-mill at Seville.
In the records already given of the services of the companies of the 10th Battalion, reference has been made to the duties of the Royal Artillery at Cadiz. In this chapter it is proposed to describe a battle which was fought by General Graham’s force, and in which,—it has been said, the Artillery General Graham to Lord Liverpool, 6 March, 1811. covered themselves with glory. The gallant General stated that Artillery had never been better served; but it may be added that it had never been better handled than by him. His contingent was but small—ten guns—but it was never idle, and always in the right place. The circumstances which led to the battle of Barossa may be summarised as follows:—An attempt had been resolved upon by the Anglo-Spanish leaders in Cadiz to raise the French siege, the opportunity being favourable, as the besieging force did not at the time exceed 12,000 men. The English had 4200, and the Spaniards nearly 10,000. To facilitate matters, General Graham consented to serve under the Spanish General La Pena, although the event proved that there never was a man less fitted to hold a command. The plan of action was to transport the allied force to Tarifa, disembark there, and effect a junction with another Spanish force; and then countermarch the whole on the rear of the besieging force at Chichlana. Inclement weather prevented the first part of the scheme from being carried out; and the Cust’s Annals. landing was effected, not at Tarifa, but at Algesiras. The whole army, however, effected a junction at the former place on the 28th February, 1811, and, driving the French before them, reached a place known as the Vigia de la Barrosa, or Barossa, at noon on the 5th March. Here they were encountered by the French Marshal, Victor, who had been warned of the expedition, and who promptly availed himself of the numerous openings which the blunders and incompetency of the Spanish General offered. The tale of these is too long to reproduce in a merely Regimental history; suffice it to say that, owing to them, General Graham found himself in an extraordinary and embarrassing position. Having been ordered to march from the height of Barossa, which was the key of the whole position, and to proceed to Bermeja through a difficult pine-wood, he obeyed, but with regret. Assuming that the important point he had just quitted would be occupied by the Spaniards, he left his baggage with a small guard. To his amazement, he soon learned that no such precaution had been taken; that the French Marshal, detecting the omission, was already ascending the height; and that his own baggage-guard was in extreme and imminent danger. Retracing his steps as rapidly as the nature of the wood would admit of, he arrived in time to see the enemy in complete possession of the height,—himself face to face with the French, and utterly unsupported by the Spaniards. By what has been called by Napier an inspiration—but such an inspiration as never comes to the short-sighted or ignorant—he realised that retreat would be folly, and that his only hope of success lay in immediately assuming the offensive. Massing his Artillery, he desired Major Duncan to keep up a powerful fire, while he organized his force into divisions for the attack. Of this fire Napier writes that it ravaged the French ranks. As soon as the Infantry had formed, General Graham advanced his Artillery to a more favourable position, whence, as he afterwards wrote, it kept up a most destructive fire on the French columns now advancing. The right division of the English, under General Dilkes, and the left, under Colonel Wheatley, encountered respectively the French divisions under Generals Ruffin and Laval. The Infantry regiments engaged were the Guards, 28th, 7th, 67th, and 87th,—the flank companies of the 1st Battalion 9th Foot, 2nd Battalion 47th, and 2nd Battalion 82nd, besides part of the 20th Portuguese Regiment. Where all behaved with gallantry, it may seem invidious to select any particular regiment for notice; but, at a most critical moment, the defeat of General Laval’s division was completed by a magnificent advance of the 87th Regiment. Both the French divisions were borne backwards from the hill; and, uniting, attempted to reform and make another attack. But their attempt was frustrated by the fire of the Artillery, which from being terrific, as Napier termed it, became now Napier, vol. iii. p. 446. “close, rapid, and murderous, and rendered the attempt vain.” Marshal Victor, therefore, withdrew his troops from the field, and the English, having been twenty-four hours under arms and without food, were too exhausted to pursue.
In this battle, which only lasted one hour and a half, over 1200 were killed and wounded on the side of the English, and more than 2000 on the side of the French. Six guns and 400 prisoners also fell into the hands of the conquerors. Of the conduct of his troops generally, General Graham wrote to Lord Liverpool that nothing less than the almost unparalleled exertions of every officer, the invincible bravery of every soldier, and the most determined devotion to the honour of His Majesty’s arms in all, could have achieved this brilliant success, against such a formidable enemy so To Admiral Sir C. Cotton, dated Cadiz, 7 March, 1811. posted. Sir Richard Keats, the Admiral on the station, who had superintended the transport of the troops to Algesiras, wrote that the British troops, led by their gallant and able commander,—forgetting, on the sight of the enemy, their own fatigue and privations, and regardless of advantage in the numbers and situation of the enemy,—gained by their determined valour a victory uneclipsed by any of the brave achievements of the British army.
The special expressions used by General Graham in his despatch with reference to the services of the Royal Artillery on this occasion are well worthy of a place in the records of the Corps. “I owe too much,” he wrote, “to Major Duncan and the officers and corps of the Royal Artillery, not to mention them in terms of the highest approbation: never was artillery better served.” He recommended Major Duncan for promotion, and the brevet rank of Lieutenant-Colonel was accordingly conferred upon him.
The losses of the Artillery at Barossa were as follows:—
Died of his wounds, Lieutenant Woolcombe.