With Moore at Corunna

by G. A. Henty

So far did he carry this that the British general, finding that in no other way could he get the Portuguese to advance with him, proposed that they should follow behind him and wait the result of the battle, to which Friere at last consented. The Portuguese, in fact, had no belief whatever that the British troops would be able to withstand the onslaught of the French, whom they regarded as invincible. Colonel Trant, however, one of our military agents, succeeded in inducing Friere to place 1,400 infantry and 250 cavalry under the command of Sir Arthur.

The addition of the cavalry was a very useful one, for the English had with them only 180 mounted men; the country was entirely new to them, scarcely an officer could speak the language, and there was no means, therefore, of obtaining information as to the movements of the enemy. Moving forward through Batalha, and regaining the coast road at Alcobaca, the British forces arrived at Caldas on the 15th; and on the same day Junot quitted Lisbon with a force of 2,000 infantry, 2,000 cavalry, and ten pieces of artillery, leaving 7,000 to garrison the forts and keep down the population of the city. His force was conveyed to Villa Franca by water, and the general then pushed forward to Santarem, where he found Loison, and took command of his division.

The British advanced guard, after arriving at Caldas, pushed forward, drove the French pickets out of Brilos, and then from Obidos. Here, however, a slight reverse took place. Some companies of the 95th and 60th Rifles pressed forward three miles farther in pursuit, when they were suddenly attacked in flank by a greatly superior force, and had it not been that General Spencer, whose division was but a short distance behind, pressed forward to their assistance, they would have suffered heavily; as it was they escaped with the loss of two officers and twenty-seven men killed and wounded. Their rashness, however, led to the discovery that Laborde's force had taken up a strong position in front of the village of Rolica, and that he apparently intended to give battle there.

The next day was spent in reconnoitring the French position. It was a very strong one. Rolica stood on a table-land rising in a valley, affording a view of the road as far as Obidos. The various points of defence there, and on the flank, were held by strong parties of the enemy. A mile in the rear was a steep and lofty ridge that afforded a strong second line of defence. By the side of this ridge the road passed through a deep defile, and then mounted over a pass through the range of hills extending from the sea to the Tagus, and occupying the intermediate ground until close to Lisbon. Laborde's position was an embarrassing one. If he retired upon Torres Vedras his line of communication with Loison would be lost, if he moved to meet Loison he would leave open the direct road to Lisbon, while if he remained at Rolica he had to encounter a force almost three times his own strength.

Trusting in the advantages of his position, and confident in the valour of his troops, he chose the last alternative. Very anxiously, during the day, the British officers watched the French line of defence, fearful lest the enemy would again retreat. By sunset they came to the conclusion that Laborde intended to stay where he was, and to meet them. The French, indeed, had been so accustomed to beat the Spanish and Portuguese, that they had not woke up to the fact that they had troops of a very different material facing them.

"We ought to have easy work," Major Harrison said, as the officers gathered round the fire that had been built in front of the colonel's tent; "the people here all declare that Laborde has not above 5,000 troops with him, while, counting Trant's Portuguese, we have nearly 14,000."

"There will be no credit in thrashing them with such odds as that," Dick Ryan grumbled.

"I suppose, Ryan," Major Harrison said, "if you had been in Sir Arthur's place you would have preferred remaining at Leirya until Junot could have gathered all his forces, and obtained a reinforcement of some fifty thousand or so from Spain, then you would have issued a general order saying, that as the enemy had now a hundred thousand troops ready, the army would advance and smite them."

"Not so bad as that, Major," the young ensign said, colouring, as there was a general laugh from the rest; "but there does not seem much satisfaction in thrashing an enemy when we are three to one against him."

"But that is just the art of war, Ryan. Of course, it is glorious to defeat a greatly superior army and to lose half your own in doing so; that may be heroic, but it is not modern war. The object of a general is, if possible, to defeat an enemy in detail, and to so manoeuvre that he is always superior in strength to the force that is immediately in front of him, and so to ensure victory after victory until the enemy are destroyed. That is what the general is doing by his skilful manoeuvring; he has prevented Junot from massing the whole of the army of Portugal against us.