The battles of the world

by J. Douglas Borthwick

“Spain has proved untrue to her alliance because she is untrue to herself;” “and until some great change shall be effected in the conduct of the military resources of Spain, and in the state of her armies, no British army can attempt safely to co-operate with Spanish troops in the territories of Spain.”

Having arrived at this conclusion, Lord Wellington soon withdrew his army from Spain, retired into Portugal, and began to concert measures for the effectual defence of that kingdom. At home, party spirit, as usual, led to injustice. The opposition in the British parliament questioned the whole of his conduct of the past campaign. Sir W. Napier tells us, that “his merits, they said, were nought; his actions silly, presumptuous, and rash; his campaign one deserving not reward but punishment. Yet he had delivered Portugal, cleared Galicia and Estramadura, and forced 100,000 French veterans to abandon the offensive and concentrate about Madrid!”

He now calmly submitted to the British government his views of the defence of Portugal. He assigned to Marshal Beresford the organization of the Portuguese army; he required only 13,000 British troops to be permanently maintained; and with this force he expected to be able to defend Portugal, at least until Spain should be thoroughly subdued by the French; so as to allow of the concentration of their whole force on the work of subjugating Portugal.

The wisdom and expediency of this employment of English troops and English revenues in foreign war, was abundantly evident. For, when the Continent should have been wholly conquered by Napoleon, he would then, as he plainly declared, attempt the invasion of England. Hence, to keep his armies employed in the Peninsula, was the way plainly pointed out by common sense, as likely to postpone or wholly avert a French invasion of the British islands. To defend Portugal, therefore, was Wellington’s first object; for Portugal had become a sort of outwork of England.

The Spanish government, meanwhile, with equal imbecility and self-sufficiency, chose to rush into inevitable defeat. They had starved the English army; which, in a whole month, got only ten days’ bread; and which lost 1000 horses from mere want of provender; and had thus forced Lord Wellington to retire into Portugal. They now choose, with an army of 50,000 men, to give battle to the French at Ocana; where, on the 12th of November, they sustained such a total defeat, that ten days after the battle not a single battalion kept the field. No fewer than 20,000 of the Spaniards laid down their arms, and the rest were utterly scattered and dispersed.

At the opening of 1810, Napoleon resolved to complete the conquest of the Peninsula. He augmented his armies in Spain to 360,000 men. One army, consisting of 65,000 men, under the command of Soult, was charged with the subjugation of Andalusia; and another, of 80,000 men, under Massena, was to move to the west, and reduce Portugal. Now, therefore, must Wellington’s plans for the defence of Portugal be brought to the test.

The actual force of Massena’s army in May, 1810, is shown by French returns given by Sir W. Napier, to have been 86,847 men.

On the 1st of June the French commander invested Ciudad Rodrigo, which capitulated on the 11th of July. Almeida surrendered on the 26th of August, and thus the road to Lisbon was opened to the French army. Wellington would gladly have fought a battle to save these fortresses; but if he engaged 80,000 French, with 32,000 English and Portuguese, and did not signally defeat them; what would then have become of Portugal? Still, when on Portuguese ground, and engaged in the defence of Portugal, he thought it right, on September 27th, to make one stand at Busaco; where he inflicted on the French a loss of 4500 men, at a cost, to his own army, of only 1300. Massena then began even to think of retreating into Spain; when a peasant informed him of a mountain-pass by which he might carry his army into a position from which he could threaten Wellington’s left. This compelled the English General again to make a retrograde movement; and on the 15th of October the whole British and Portuguese army was collected within the lines of Torres Vedras.

These now famous lines, which Wellington had long been silently constructing, were so little thought of either in England or in France, that military instructions were actually given in England commencing thus: “As it is probable the army will embark in September.” And the French commander on his part, found his way suddenly stopped by an insurmountable obstacle, of the existence of which he had never before heard.