“Flank marches within reach of an enemy are rash and injudicious.”
These maxims of the greatest of all generals have been illustrated by many examples; Senef, Kollin, Rosbach, the valley of the Brenta, Salamanca, attest their value. Now, Massena violated all three, by his march to Boyalva, and some peculiar circumstances, or desperate crisis of affairs should be shewn, to warrant such a departure from general principles. Sir Joshua Reynolds, treating of another art says, “genius begins where rules end.” But here genius was dormant, and rules disregarded. Massena was not driven to a desperate game. The conquest of Oporto was open to him, or a march by Viseu upon the Vouga, which, though demanding time, was safe; while in that by Boyalva, he threw his whole army into a single and narrow defile, within ten miles of an enemy in position; and that also (as I have been informed by an officer of marshal Ney’s staff) with much disorder: the baggage and commissariat, the wounded and sick, the artillery, cavalry, and infantry, mixed together; discord raging amongst the generals, confusion amongst the soldiers, and in the night season when every difficulty is doubled. His “army was not, then, in a condition to fight.” He was making “a flank march within reach of an enemy in position,” and he was “abandoning his line of communication without having established another.”
7º. Lord Wellington was within four hours march of either end of the defile, through which the French army was moving. He might have sent the first division and the cavalry (forming with Portuguese regular troops, and Trant’s militia, a mass of twelve or fourteen thousand men) to Sardao, to head the French in the defile; while the second, third, fourth, fifth, and light divisions, advancing by Martagao, assailed their rear. That he did not do so, is to be attributed to his political position. War is full of mischances, and the loss of a single brigade might have caused the English government to abandon the contest altogether. Nevertheless, his retreat was more critically dangerous than such an attack would have been, and in a military view the battle of Busaco should not have been fought: it was extraneous to his original plan, it was forced upon him by events, and was in fine a political battle.
8º. Massena’s march, being unopposed, was successful. The allied army could not cope with him in the open country between Busaco and the sea, where his cavalry would have had a fair field; hence lord Wellington, reverting to his original plan, retreated by the Coimbra and Espinhal roads. But the prince of Esling was at Avelans de Cima and Milheada on the 30th, the allied cavalry and the light division being still on the right bank of the Mondego, which was fordable in many places below Coimbra. Had the French general, directing his march through Tentugal, crossed at those fords, and pushed rapidly on to Leiria, by the route sir Arthur Wellesley followed, in 1808, against Junot, the communication with Lisbon would have been cut: terror and confusion would then have raged in the capital, the patriarch’s faction would have triumphed, and a dangerous battle must have been risked before the Lines could be reached.
9º. When the allies had gained Leiria, and secured their line of retreat, the fate of Portugal was still in the French general’s hands. If he had established a fresh base at Coimbra, employed the ninth corps to seize Oporto, secured his line of communication with that city and with Almeida by fortified posts, and afterwards, extending his position by the left, attacked Abrantes, and given his hand to a corps sent by Soult from the south; not only would the campaign have been so far a successful one, but in no other manner could he have so effectually frustrated his adversary’s political and military projects. Lord Wellington dreaded such a proceeding, and hailed the renewed advance of the French army, as the rising of a heavy cloud discovering a clear sky in the horizon beneath.
Appendix, [No. VII.] Sect. 2.
Even at Coimbra, the prince was unacquainted with the existence of the lines, and believed that, beyond Santarem, the country was open for the usage of all arms. It is strange that, when Junot, Loison, Foy, and many other officers, who had served in Portugal, were present, better information was not obtained; but every part of this campaign illustrated Massena’s character, as drawn by Napoleon:—“Brave, decided, and intrepid; dull in conversation, but in danger acquiring clearness and force of thought; ambitious, filled with self-love, neglectful of discipline, regardless of good administration, and, consequently, disliked by the troops; his dispositions for battle were bad, but his temper was pertinacious to the last degree, and he was never discouraged!”
10º. It appears that the French reached Coimbra at the moment when the fourteen days’ bread, carried by the soldiers, was exhausted, and it is worthy of consideration that French soldiers are accustomed to carry so much bread. Other nations, especially the English, would not husband it; yet it was a practice of the ancient Romans, and it ought to be the practice of all armies. It requires a long previous discipline and well-confirmed military habits; but, without it, men are only half efficient, especially for offensive warfare. The secret of making perfect soldiers is only to be found in national customs and institutions; men should come to the ranks fitted, by previous habits, for military service, instead of being stretched as it were upon the bed of Procrustes, by a discipline which has no resource but fear.