For two months General Junot had been isolated in Portugal, separated from Spain by the insurrection of the frontier provinces, menaced by a similar rising of the Portuguese nation, already chafing under the foreign yoke, and sure of soon seeing England hasten to the succor of her faithful ally. He understood his danger, and, assembling around him his troops, recalled General Kellermann from Elvas and General Loison from Almeida. The insurrection already commenced around them, when Sir Arthur Wellesley set foot on the Portuguese soil. The French did not hold more than four or five towns. The entire people was in insurrection. But General Junot still occupied Lisbon; his forces were unfortunately diminished by the garrisons left in the forts, and by a corps of observation that had been detached under the orders of General Delaborde. After a courageous resistance, this vanguard of the French army had been already beaten when the English advanced on Vimeiro. Junot marched against them with an army of twelve or thirteen thousand men. The English numbered about 18,000. The arrival of Sir John Moore with his brigade was announced.
An unfortunate respect for the rights of seniority had placed Sir Arthur Wellesley under the orders of Sir Henry Burrard, and the latter under the command of Sir Hew Dalrymple, who had already left Gibraltar to place himself at the head of the army. The instructions of Wellesley obliged him to wait at Vimeiro for the arrival of Sir John Moore. General Junot wished to anticipate the reinforcements, and attacked the English on the 31st August, in the morning.
Sir Arthur Wellesley occupied the heights of Vimeiro; behind him were precipices, and all retreat was impossible. The access to the rocks was difficult; a strong artillery protected all the positions. When the French advanced to the assault of this natural fortress, they could not at first reach the English lines. General Kellermann alone succeeded in scaling the steep slopes which led to the enemy, and was received by a deadly fire, which forced him to retire. Our cavalry superior to that of the English, was useless in this difficult attack; its only duty was constantly to protect the corps of infantry, repulsed one after another. The English army had not moved. At noon, General Junot ordered the retreat. Sir Arthur Wellesley, always on watch on the heights, was already on the move to follow and crush those who had been unable to make him lose an inch of ground; but Sir Henry Burrard had arrived, and the command passed into his hands. He was opposed to all thought of pursuit. Junot took the road to Torres Vedras. Sir Arthur Wellesley listened with mingled respect and impatience to the arguments of his chief, and, turning towards his staff, "After this, gentlemen," said he, "we have only to go and shoot the red partridges."
General Junot had comprehended better than his adversary the danger which threatened him; he felt the impossibility of maintaining himself in a country suddenly become hostile, in face of an English army already superior to his own, and soon to be reinforced by excellent troops. General Kellermann was charged to treat, at first for an armistice, then for the convention bearing the name of Cintra, which provided honorably for the evacuation of Portugal by the French generals. The conditions accorded were so favorable that public opinion in England accused the negotiators of it as a crime, of which the obloquy weighed some time on Sir Arthur Wellesley. He had not, however, been too favorable to it. "Ten days after the battle of the 21st," he wrote to Lord Castlereagh, "we are less advanced than we might and ought to have been on the evening of the battle." The Emperor Napoleon had, for his part, manifested some discontent at the convention, which brought back to France all his troops free from engagement, and possessing their arms. "I was going to send Junot before a council of war," said he; "but, happily, the English have been before me in sending their generals, and have thus spared me the mortification of punishing an old friend." The confidence of Napoleon remained, however, shaken with respect to his officer. "Everything which was not a triumph he looked upon as a defeat," said the Duchess of Abrantes in her memoirs.
It often happened to Napoleon to judge unjustly of men and things, because he appreciated them exclusively from a personal and selfish point of view. Thus, he accused of treason the Marquis de la Romana and his brave companions. After the battle of Friedland, the Spanish battalions wrung in 1807 from the shameful terror of the Prince de la Paix, were sent by Napoleon to regions which would appear the most fatal to the temperament and habits of southern people. They had been confided to the King of Denmark, and charged to protect from the English his little kingdom, hitherto so cruelly oppressed by them. The health of the troops was, however, excellent when the news came to them of the general rising which had taken place in Spain, and the unforeseen success of the national resistance. They immediately conceived the thought of returning to their country, to join their efforts to those of their countrymen. An English squadron, under the orders of Admiral Keith, appeared suddenly on the coasts of Jutland, at the entrance to Niborg, in the island of Funen. Immediately the Marquis de la Romana, with difficulty warned by secret advices, seized the fishing-boats, which were numerous on the coast; then, making himself master of the citadel and port of Niborg, and crossing two arms of the sea, he assembled around him all those of his companions-in- arms who were within reach. He arrived at the English fleet, and sailed towards Gothenburg, from which place he put to sea for Spain. Several regiments far in the interior of the land could not be warned in time, and remained prisoners of war. One of them, having by chance heard of the enterprise of their comrades, succeeded in rejoining them at the exact moment of their embarkation, after a march long even for Spaniards. In the middle of September, they at last landed in Galicia amidst the joyous acclamations of the people.
At Vittoria the unhappy King of Spain continually received one after another news which damped his courage and convinced his reason of the futility of all attempts to support his throne. On the 9th of August he wrote to the Emperor Napoleon: "I do not think it possible to treat with the insurgent chiefs; all their heads are turned; no one has sufficient direction of affairs or influence enough upon the masses to lead them in a determinate manner. On the supposition that France will gratuitously spend her blood and treasure to place and maintain me on the throne of Spain, I cannot hide from your Majesty that I cannot endure the thought of any other than your Majesty commanding the French armies in Spain. If I become the conqueror of this country by the horrors of a war in which every individual Spaniard takes part, I shall be long an object of terror and execration. I am too old to have time for repairing so many evils, and I shall have sown too much hatred during the war to be able to gather in my last years the fruit of the good that I may be able to do during peace. Your Majesty sees, then, that even by this hypothesis—that of the conquest and establishment of the monarchy—that I should not desire to reign in Spain…. This nation is more concentrated in its sentiments than any other people of Europe; it has something of the character of the peoples of Africa, which is peculiar to itself. Your Majesty cannot form an idea, because certainly no one has ever told you, in what degree the name of your Majesty is execrated. This, then, is what I desire: to keep the command of the army sufficiently long to beat the enemy, return to Madrid with the army, because it left with me, and from this capital put forth a decree to the effect that I renounce reigning over a people I should be obliged to reduce by force of arms; and I return to Naples with wishes for the happiness of Spain, and the desire to effect the welfare of the Two Sicilies. In resigning to your Majesty the rights I hold from you, you will make of them whatever use your wisdom will indicate. I beg, then, your Majesty to suspend all operations relative to the kingdom of Naples. The means will not be wanting to your Majesty for compensating the prince you wished to place on the throne of Naples; for the rest, exact justice and affection plead in my favor in your Majesty's heart." And two days later he wrote: "It would take 200,000 Frenchmen to conquer Spain, and a hundred thousand scaffolds to maintain the prince who should be condemned to reign over them. No, sire, you do not know this people; each house will be a fortress, and every man of the same mind as the majority. I repeat but one thing, which will suffice as an example; not a Spaniard will be on my side if we are conquerors; we cannot find a guide or a spy. Four hours before the battle of Rio-Seco, Marshal Bessières did not know where the enemy was. Every one who speaks or writes differently either lies or is blind."
On the 15th of July the kingdom of Naples had been solemnly conferred on "Prince Joachim Murat, Grand Duke of Cleves and Berg." The haughty obstinacy of Napoleon, his habit of conquering, and the growing want of the prestige of victory, did not permit him to admit for a single instant the modest pretensions of King Joseph. He was already preparing to pass into Spain, counting upon success as soon as his presence should inspire his generals with foresight and boldness. Other cares had till this time detained him from this expedition, which became more necessary every day. Already, for a long time, Napoleon had nourished suspicions of the loyalty of Austria. On several occasions he had, not without reason, accused her of making armaments and hostile preparations. The occupation of Rome and the events of Spain had, on the other side, increased the distrust and irritation of Vienna. The Archduke Charles, usually favorably inclined towards France, exclaimed, "Well, if we must, we will die with arms in our hands; but they shall not dispose of the crown of Austria as easily as they have disposed of the crown of Spain!"
Napoleon had scarcely arrived at Paris, returning from a long journey in France, when a great fête had assembled around him all the diplomatic body (15th August, 1808). His anger broke out against Austria, as it had previously broken out against England in his celebrated interview with Lord Whitworth. The frequent menaces of Champagny had not intimidated Metternich, at that time Austrian ambassador in Paris. The emperor advanced suddenly towards him: "Austria wishes, then, to make war against us? She wishes to frighten me?…" And without listening to the pacific protestations of the prince, "Why, then, these immense preparations? They are defensive, you say. But who attacks you, to make you think so much of defence? Is not all peaceful around you? Since the peace of Presburg, has there been the slightest disagreement between you and me? Have not all our relations together been extremely amicable? And yet you have suddenly raised a cry of alarm; you have put in motion all your population; your princes have overrun your provinces; your proclamations have summoned the people to the defence of the country; your proclamations and measures are those which you used when I was at Leoben.
"You are well aware that I ask nothing from you, and make no claim upon you, and that I even regard the preservation of your power in the present state of affairs as useful to the European system, and to the interests of France. I have encamped my troops to keep them fit for marching. They do not camp in France, because that costs too much; they camp abroad, where it is less expensive. My camps have been distributed; none of them threatens you. In the excess of my security I dismantled all the places of Silesia. I am ready to remove my camps, if that is necessary to your security.
"In the meantime what will happen? You have raised 400,000 men; I am about to raise 200,000. Germany, who was beginning to breathe after so many ruinous wars, is about to see again all her wounds reopened. I shall reconstruct the places of Silesia, instead of evacuating that province and the Prussian States, as I wished to do. Europe will be all up in arms. Soon the very women must become soldiers.