History of the war in the Peninsula and in the south of France from the year 1807 to the year 1814, vol. 1

by William Francis Patrick Napier

4º. A night march is the most obvious mode of effecting such an enterprise, but not always the best in circumstances where expedition is required; and great generals have usually preferred the day-time, trusting to their own skill in deceiving the enemy while their army made a forced march to gain the object in view. Thus, Turenne at Landsberg was successful against the archduke Leopold in broad daylight, and Cæsar in a more remarkable manner overreached Afranius and Petrieus near Lerida. Nor were the circumstances at Vimiero unfavourable to sir Arthur Wellesley. He might have pushed a select corps of light troops, his cavalry, the marines of the fleet, the Portuguese auxiliaries, and a few field pieces, to the entrance of the defile of Torres Vedras before daybreak, with orders to engage the French outposts briskly, and to make demonstrations as for a general attack. There is no doubt that such a movement if skilfully conducted, would have completely occupied the enemy’s attention, while the main body of the army marching in great coats, and hiding the glitter of their arms, might have profited from the woods and hollows through which the by-road to Mafra led, and gained such a start as would have insured the success of the enterprise.

Let us, however, take a view of the other side; let us suppose that Junot, instructed by his spies and patroles, or divining the intention of the British general, held the masking division in check with a small force, and carrying the remainder of his army by the Puente de Roll, or some other cross road (and there were several) against the flank of the English, had fallen upon the latter while in march, hemmed in as they would be between the sea and the mountains, and entangled among hollows and torrents. What then would have been the result? History answers, by pointing to Condé and the battle of Senef. It must however be confessed, that it could be no ordinary general that conceived such a project, and, notwithstanding the small numbers of the opposing armies, success would have ranked sir Arthur high among the eminent commanders of the world, if he had never performed any other exploit. “The statue of Hercules, cast by Lysippus, although only a foot high, expressed,” says Pliny, “the muscles and bones of the hero more grandly than the colossal figures of other artists.”

5º. So many circumstances combine to sway the judgment of an officer in the field which do not afterwards appear of weight, that caution should always be the motto of those who censure the conduct of an unfortunate commander; nevertheless, the duke of Abrantes’ faults, during this campaign, were too glaring to be mistaken. He lingered too long at Lisbon; he was undecided in his plans; he divided his army unnecessarily; and he discovered no skill on the field of battle. The English army having landed affairs were brought to a crisis, and Junot had only two points to consider. Could the French forces under his command defend Portugal without assistance? and if not, how were its operations to be made most available for furthering Napoleon’s general plans against the Peninsula? The first point could not be ascertained until a battle with sir Arthur had been tried. The second evidently required that Junot should keep his army concentrated, preserve the power of retreating into Spain, and endeavour to engage the British troops in the sieges of Elvas and Almeida. If the two plans had been incompatible, the last was certainly preferable to the chance of battle in a country universally hostile. But the two plans were not incompatible.

6º. The pivot of Junot’s movements was Lisbon; he had therefore to consider how he might best fall upon and overthrow the English army, without resigning the capital to the Portuguese insurgents during the operation. He could not hope to accomplish the first effectually without using the great mass of his forces, nor to avoid the last except by skilful management, and the utmost rapidity. Now the citadel and forts about Lisbon were sufficiently strong to enable a small part of the French army to control the populace, and to resist the insurgents of the Alemtejo for a few days. The Russian admiral, although not hostile to the Portuguese, or favourable to the French, was forced by his fear of the English, to preserve a guarded attitude, and in point of fact, did materially contribute to awe the multitude, who could not but look upon him as an enemy. The Portuguese ships of war which had been fitted out by Junot, were floating fortresses requiring scarcely any garrisons, and yet efficient instruments to control the city, without ceasing to be receptacles for the Spanish prisoners, and safe depôts for powder and arms which might otherwise have fallen into the power of the populace. Wherefore, instead of delaying so long in the capital, instead of troubling himself about the assemblage of Alcacer do Sal, instead of detaching Laborde with a weak division to cover the march of Loison; Junot should have taken the most vigorous resolutions in respect to Lisbon the moment he heard of the English descent. He should have abandoned the left bank of the Tagus, with the exception of Palmela and the Bugio, which were necessary to the safety of his shipping; he should have seized upon the principal families of the capital as hostages for the good behaviour of the rest; and he should have threatened and been prepared to bombard the city if refractory; then leaving nothing more than the mere garrisons of the citadel, forts, and ships behind him, have proceeded, not to Leria, which was too near the enemy to be a secure point of junction with Loison, but to Santarem, where both corps might have been united without danger and without fatigue. General Thomieres, in the mean time, putting a small garrison in Peniché, could have watched the movement of the British general, and thus from eighteen to twenty thousand men would have been assembled at Santarem by the 13th at farthest, and from thence one march would have brought the whole to Batalha, near which place the lot of battle might have been drawn without trembling.

7º. If it proved unfavourable to the French, the ulterior object of renewing the campaign on the frontier was in no manner compromised. The number of large boats that Lisbon can always furnish, would have sufficed to transport the beaten army over the Tagus from Santarem in a few hours, especially if the stores had been embarked before Junot moved towards Batalha, and the French army, once in the Alemtejo with a good garrison in Abrantes, could not have been followed until the forts at the mouth of the Tagus were reduced, and the fleet sheltered in the river. Thus, long before the British could have appeared in force in the Alemtejo, the fortress of Elvas would have been provisioned from the magazines collected by Loison after the battle of Evora, and the campaign could have been easily prolonged until the great French army, coming from Germany crushed all opposition.

The above is not a theory broached after the event. That Junot would attempt something of the kind, was the data upon which the English general formed his plans; the intercepted memoir of colonel Bory de St. Vincent, treated such an operation as a matter of course, and Junot’s threats during the negotiation prove that he was not ignorant of his own resources; but his mind was depressed, and his desponding mood was palpable to those around him. It is a curious fact, that Sattaro, the Portuguese agent, who, for some purpose or other was in the British camp, told sir Arthur Wellesley before the battle of Vimiero, that Junot would willingly evacuate Portugal upon terms.

8º. When the French, being fourteen thousand in number, occupied Torres Vedras, that position was nearly impregnable. Seventeen thousand British could scarcely have carried it by force; but they might have turned it in a single march by the coast road; yet Junot neither placed a detachment on that side nor kept a vigilant watch by his patroles. Now, if sir Arthur Wellesley’s intended movement had not been arrested by orders from Burrard, it must have Thiebault. succeeded, because Junot was entangled in the defiles of Torres Vedras from six o’clock in the evening of the 20th, until late in the morning of the 21st. The two armies would thus have changed camps in the space of a few hours without firing a shot: Junot would have lost Lisbon, and have been placed in the most ridiculous situation.

9º. In the battle, the duke of Abrantes showed great courage, but no talent. His army was inferior in numbers, yet he formed two separate attacks, an evident error that enabled sir Arthur to beat him in detail without difficulty. And it was the less excusable, because the comparatively easy nature of the ground over which the road from Torres Vedras to Lourinham led, and the manner in which the English army was heaped to the right when the position first opened to the view of the French general, plainly indicated the true line of attack. Junot should, with all his forces concentrated for one effort, have fallen in upon the left of his opponent’s position; if victorious, the sea would have swallowed those who escaped his sword. If repulsed, his retreat was open, and his loss could not have been so great in a well-conducted single effort, as it was in the ill-digested, unconnected attacks that took place.

10º. The rapidity with which the French soldiers rallied, and recovered their order after such a severe check, was admirable, but their habitual method of attacking in column cannot be praised. Against the Austrians, Russians, and Prussians, it may have been successful, but against the British it must always fail, because the English infantry is sufficiently firm, intelligent, and well disciplined, to wait calmly in lines for the adverse masses, and sufficiently bold to close upon them with the bayonet.