The Victories of Wellington and the British Armies

by W. H. Maxwell

RETREAT TO TORRES VEDRAS.

Massena’s flank movement occasions Wellington to retire from Busaco.—Proclamation to the Portuguese.—It meets with general obedience.—Beautiful order of the retreat.—Trant captures the French hospitals at Coimbra.—Massena’s supposed ignorance of the lines.—Position of Torres Vedras.

Massena had suffered too heavily in his attempt on the British position, to think of attacking the Sierra de Busaco a second time. Early on the 28th he commenced quietly retiring his advanced brigades, and in the evening, was reported to be marching with all his divisions on the Malhada road, after having set fire to the woods to conceal his movements, which was evidently intended to turn the British left. Orders were instantly given by Lord Wellington to abandon the Sierra; and at night-fall, Hill’s division was again thrown across the river—the remainder of the brigades, defiling to their left, moved by the shorter road on Coimbra, and resumed the line of the Mondego on the 30th.

The celebrated proclamation to the Portuguese nation was issued by Lord Wellington previous to the commencement of his retreat. Determined to destroy any hope the French might have entertained of subsisting their armies on the resources of the country, the people were emphatically desired, on the approach of the enemy, to abandon their dwellings, drive off their cattle, destroy provisions and forage, and leave the villages and towns deserted of inhabitants, and devastated of everything which could be serviceable to the invaders. Generally, these orders were obeyed with a devotion that seems remarkable. Property was wasted or concealed[118]—and the shrine and cottage alike abandoned by their occupants—the peasant deserting the hearth where he had been nursed, and the monk the altar where he had worshipped from his boyhood. The fugitives accompanied the army on its march,—and when it halted in the lines, one portion of the wanderers proceeded to Lisbon, while the greater number crossed the Tagus, to seek on its southern shores a temporary retreat from those who had obliged them to sacrifice their possessions, and fly from the dwellings of their fathers.[119]

Nothing could surpass the fine attitude maintained by the British in their retreat on Torres Vedras, and every march was leisurely executed, as if no enemy were in the rear. By the great roads of Leiria and Espinal the receding movement was effected; and, with the exception of some affairs of cavalry, and a temporary embarrassment in passing through Condeixa, occasioned by a false alarm and narrow streets, a retreat of nearly two hundred miles was effected with as little confusion as attends an ordinary march. No portion of the field equipage—no baggage whatever, was captured—and still more strange, a greater number of prisoners were taken from the pursuers than lost by the pursued—a fact, in the history of retreats, without a parallel.

Whether the severity of the weather by which the roads were dreadfully cut up, or the privations which his army experienced in traversing an exhausted country, repressed his activity, Massena certainly did not press the British with the vigour that might have been expected from an army so immensely superior in its numbers, and particularly in cavalry, an arm so effective in pursuit.

The French had formed an imperfect estimate of the magnificent position upon which Wellington was retiring. In their rear, the allies had abundant supplies—while the French advance led through an exhausted district, an unfriendly population behind, and a host of irregulars around, waiting an opportunity to become actively aggressive. In the rear of the Prince of Esling, Trant, on the Coimbra road, had five thousand militia—Wilson was at Busaco, in similar strength—while from the north, Silviera was advancing with fifteen thousand men, and Bacillar with eight thousand.

The French marshal soon felt the activity of these partisans. Supposing that Coimbra was safe from aggression, he had left his hospitals there, as he believed, in perfect security, protected by a company of marines attached to the Imperial Guard. Trant, by a sudden and well-executed march, threw himself between Coimbra and the advancing army, and captured the entire of the hospitals and stores, with the marines left for their defence.[120]

It was said that the French were quite ignorant both of the position of the lines and the extent of their defences—and that they were unprepared for finding themselves totally barred from farther effort by works, embracing eight leagues of country, and stretching from the Tagus to the ocean. But that such an undertaking as fortifying Torres Vedras—a herculean task requiring the labour of thousands to effect, and an enormous expenditure of money and stores to carry on—that this could have proceeded to its completion, without its progress being reported to the invaders, is nothing but a mere romance, and cannot for a moment be credited.[121]

Massena, after a three days’ reconnaissance, and under the advice of his chief engineers, abandoned all hope of forcing this singular position—and when Torres Vedras is described, it will be admitted that the marshal’s decision was correct.