4º. From Bucellas (the pass of which was difficult and strongly defended by redoubts on each side) a ridge, or rather a collection of impassable rocks, called the Sierra de Serves, stretches to the right for two miles without a break, and then dies away by gradual slopes in the low ground about the Tagus. These declivities and the flat banks of the river offered an opening two miles and a half wide, which was laboriously and carefully strengthened by redoubts, water-cuts, and retrenchments, and connected by a system of forts with the heights of Alhandra, but it was the weakest part of the whole line in itself, and the most dangerous from its proximity to the valleys of Calandrix and Aruda.
There were five roads practicable for artillery piercing the first line of defence, namely, two at Torres Vedras, two at Sobral, and one at Alhandra; but as two of these united again at the Cabeça, there were, in fact, only four points of passage through the second line, that is to say, at Mafra, Monte Chique, Bucellas, and Quintella in the flat ground. The aim and scope of all the works was to bar those passes and to strengthen the favourable fighting positions between them, without impeding the movements of the army. These objects were attained, and it is certain that the loss of the first line would not have been injurious, save in reputation, because the retreat was secure upon the second and stronger line, and the guns of the first were all of inferior calibre, mounted on common truck carriages, and consequently immoveable and useless to the enemy.
The movements of the allies were free and unfettered by the works. But the movements of the French army were impeded and cramped by the great Monte Junta, which, rising opposite the centre of the first line, sent forth a spur called the Sierra de Baragueda in a slanting direction, so close up to the heights of Torres Vedras that the narrow pass of Ruña alone separated them. As this pass was commanded by heavy redoubts, Massena was of necessity obliged to dispose his forces on one or other side of the Baragueda, and he could not transfer his army to either without danger; because the sierra, although not impassable, was difficult, and the movement, which would require time and arrangement, could always be overlooked from the Monte Agraça, whence, in a few hours, the allied forces could pour down upon the head, flank, or rear of the French while in march. And this with the utmost rapidity, because communications had been cut by the engineers to all important points of the Lines, and a system of signals were established, by which orders were transmitted from the centre to the extremities in a few minutes.
Thus much I have thought fit to say respecting the Lines, too little for the professional reader, too much, perhaps, for a general history. But I was desirous to notice, somewhat in detail, works, more in keeping with ancient than modern military labours, partly that a just idea might be formed of the talents of the British engineers who constructed them, and partly to show that lord Wellington’s measures of defence were not, as some French military writers have supposed, dependent upon the first line. Had that been stormed, the standard of Portuguese independence could still have been securely planted amidst the rocks of the second position.
To occupy fifty miles of fortification, to man one hundred and fifty forts, and to work six hundred pieces of artillery, required a number of men; but a great fleet in the Tagus, a superb body of marines sent out from England, the civic guards of Lisbon, the Portuguese heavy artillery corps, the militia and the ordenança of Estremadura furnished, altogether, a powerful reserve. The native artillery and the militia supplied all the garrisons of the forts on the second, and most of those on the first line. The British marines occupied the third line: the navy manned the gun-boats on the river, and aided, in various ways, the operation in the field. The recruits from the depôts, and all the men on furlough, being called in, rendered the Portuguese army stronger than it had yet been; and the British army, reinforced, as I have said, both from Cadiz and England, and remarkably healthy, presented such a front as a general would desire to see in a dangerous crisis.
Vol. 3, Plate 8.
LINES of Torres Vedras
1810.
Published by T. & W. Boone 1830.
It was, however, necessary not only to have strength, but the appearance of strength; and lord Wellington had so dealt with Romana that, without much attention to the wishes of his own government, the latter agreed to join the allies with two divisions. The first, under his own command, crossed the Tagus at Aldea Gallega on the 19th of October, reached head-quarters the 24th, and was posted at Enxara de los Cavalleros, just behind the Monte Agraça; the other followed in a few days: and thus, before the end of October, not less than one hundred and thirty thousand fighting men received rations within the Lines; more than seventy thousand being regular troops, completely disposable and unfettered by the works.