CHAPTER XII
The Lines of Torres Vedras (1810)
“France is not an enemy whom I despise, nor does it deserve I should.”
Wellington.
Pasquier, who had the privilege of knowing most of the generals of the Revolution and of the Empire, says of Masséna that he was “France’s first military commander after Napoleon.” Neither Pichegru, Moreau, Kléber, nor Lannes gave the Chancellor “as completely as Masséna, the idea of a born warrior, possessing a genius for war, and endowed with all the qualities which render victory certain. His eagle eye seemed made to scan a field of battle. One could understand, on seeing him, that the soldier under his command never believed it was possible to retreat.”
“You are too young, sir, to be killed!”
Thomas Maybank
Masséna’s first important operation in the Peninsula was the siege of the Spanish fortress of Ciudad Rodrigo. Although Wellington was in the neighbourhood he was not to be enticed away from his immediate objects, which were the defence of Lisbon and the thorough organization of the army for service when action became absolutely imperative. Notwithstanding a splendid defence for over two months on the part of Governor Herrasti, the garrison of Ciudad Rodrigo was compelled to surrender on the 10th July. In August, Masséna crossed the frontier preparatory to beginning the siege of Almeida, near the river Coa, next to Elvas the strongest place in Portugal.
On the 24th July, Craufurd and his famous Light Division—not Light Brigade as some would have it—had a fierce tussle with Ney’s corps of 24,000 men. Craufurd, who had only 4000 troops at his disposal, entertained no wild notion of preventing the investment of the place, but as he was suddenly attacked he was obliged to fight. Had he been a more cautious soldier he would have crossed the Coa before Ney came up, as Wellington had suggested on the 22nd. Indeed, so early as the 11th, the Commander-in-Chief had said, “I would not wish you to fall back beyond that place (i.e. Almeida), unless it should be necessary. But it does not appear necessary that you should be so far, and it will be safer that you should be nearer, at least with your infantry.” He delayed too late, and thereby lost over 300 men. While the last of the soldiers were crossing the bridge which spanned the swollen river, for it had rained in torrents the previous night, a lanky Irish lad of nineteen years, named Stewart, and known by the 43rd as “The Boy,” positively refused to pass over. “So this is the end of our boasting! This is our first battle, and we retreat! The Boy Stewart will not live to hear that said,” he cried, and turning back he slashed at the oncoming French until he fell dead. Even more courageous was the conduct of Sergeant Robert M‘Quade, five years Stewart’s senior. He happened to catch sight of two French soldiers with levelled muskets awaiting the British to ascend a bank. A boy of sixteen, afterwards famous as Sir George Brown (Colonel-in-Chief of the Rifle Brigade) was on the verge of being shot by them when the sergeant pulled him back from the fatal spot. “You are too young, sir, to be killed,” he cried as his own body received two bullets and fell in a lifeless heap at the feet of the youth.
That Colonel Cox, who was in charge of the fortress, would have stayed Masséna’s advance for a considerable time is extremely likely, but unfortunately he was not given the opportunity to display his prowess. The powder-magazine blew up, almost destroying the town and necessitating immediate surrender. The pursuit of Wellington, “to drive him into the sea,” seemed a comparatively easy task until the advance showed that the British General had caused the country to be stripped almost entirely of provisions. Thus Napoleon’s policy of making “war support war” by plundering and raiding the enemy’s country, completely broke down. “In war all that is useful is legitimate,” he says, and Wellington had followed the maxim, after having obtained permission for the destruction of provisions from the Portuguese Regency, which included Mr Charles Stuart, the British Minister at Lisbon. What Wellington’s measures meant to Masséna’s army is summed up in a single sentence by Sir Harry Smith, who carried a dispatch to Lord Hill through territory occupied by the enemy. “The spectacle,” he says, “of hundreds of miserable wretches of French soldiers on the road in a state of starvation is not to be described.” Nor was this all. Not only did the place resemble a desert in the difficulty of obtaining means of sustenance, but the majority of the inhabitants had fled, some seeking the fastnesses of the mountains, others the larger cities such as Lisbon and Oporto.
As Masséna advanced so Wellington retreated towards the celebrated lines of Torres Vedras, upon the construction of which thousands of peasants, under the direction of British engineers, had been busy for six months.