His political and military reasons for seeking a battle have been before shewn, but this design was always conditional; he would fight on advantage, but he would risk nothing beyond the usual chances of combat. While Portugal was his, every movement, which obliged the enemy to concentrate was an advantage, and his operations were ever in subservience to this vital condition. His whole force amounted to nearly ninety thousand men, of which about six thousand were in Cadiz, but the Walcheren expedition was still to be atoned for: the sick were so numerous amongst the regiments which had served there, that only thirty-two thousand or a little more than half of the British soldiers, were under arms. This number, with twenty-four thousand Portuguese, made fifty-six thousand sabres and bayonets in the field; and it is to be remembered that now and at all times the Portuguese infantry were mixed with the British either by brigades or regiments; wherefore in speaking of English divisions in battle the Portuguese battalions are always included, and it is to their praise, that their fighting was such as to justify the use of the general term.
The troops were organized in the following manner.
Two thousand cavalry and fifteen thousand infantry, with twenty-four guns, were under Hill, who had also the aid of four garrison Portuguese regiments, and of the fifth Spanish army. Twelve hundred Portuguese cavalry were in the Tras Os Montes, under general D’Urban, and about three thousand five hundred British cavalry and thirty-six thousand infantry, with fifty-four guns, were under Wellington’s immediate command, which was now enlarged by three thousand five hundred Spaniards, infantry and cavalry, under Carlos D’España and Julian Sanchez.
The bridge of Almaraz had been destroyed to lengthen the French lateral communications, and Wellington now ordered the bridge of Alcantara to be repaired to shorten his own. The breach in that stupendous structure was ninety feet wide, and one hundred and fifty feet above the water line. Yet the fertile genius of colonel Sturgeon furnished the means of passing this chasm, with heavy artillery, and without the enemy being aware of the preparations made until the moment of execution. In the arsenal of Elvas he secretly prepared a net-work of strong ropes, after a fashion which permitted it to be carried in parts, and with the beams, planking, and other materials it was transported to Alcantara on seventeen carriages. Straining beams were then fixed in the masonry, on each side of the broken arch, cables were stretched across the chasm, the net-work was drawn over, tarpaulin blinds were placed at each side, and the heaviest guns passed in safety. This remarkable feat procured a new, and short, internal line of communication, along good roads, while the enemy, by the destruction of the bridge at Almaraz, was thrown upon a long external line, and very bad roads.
Hill’s corps was thus suddenly brought a fortnight’s march nearer to Wellington, than Drouet was to Marmont, if both marched as armies with artillery; but there was still a heavy drag upon the English general’s operations. He had drawn so largely upon Portugal for means of transport, that agriculture was seriously embarrassed, and yet his subsistence was not secured for more than a few marches beyond the Agueda. To remedy this he set sailors and workmen to remove obstructions in the Douro and the Tagus; the latter, which in Philip the Second’s time had been navigable from Toledo to Lisbon, was opened to Malpica, not far from Alcantara, and the Douro was opened as high as Barca de Alba, below which it ceases to be a Spanish river. The whole land transport of the interior of Portugal was thus relieved; the magazines were brought up the Tagus, close to the new line of communication by Alcantara, on one side; on the other, the country vessels conveyed povisions to the mouth of the Douro, and that river then served to within a short distance of Almeida, Ciudad Rodrigo, and Salamanca. Still danger was to be apprehended from the American privateers along the coast, which the Admiralty neglected; and the navigation of the Douro was suddenly suspended by the overheated zeal of a commissary, who being thwarted by the delays of the boatmen, issued, of his own authority, an edict, establishing regulations, and pronouncing pains and penalties upon all those who did not conform to them. The river was immediately abandoned by the craft, and the government endeavoured by a formal protest, to give political importance to this affair, which was peculiarly vexatious, inasmuch as the boatmen were already so averse to passing the old points of navigation, that very severe measures were necessary to oblige them to do so.
When this matter was arranged, Wellington had still to dread that if his operations led him far into Spain, the subsistence of his army would be insecure; for there were many objects of absolute necessity, especially meat, which could not be procured except with ready money, and not only was he unfurnished of specie, but his hopes of obtaining it were nearly extinguished, by the sweep lord William Bentinck had made in the Mediterranean money-market: moreover the English ministers chose this period of difficulty to interfere, and in an ignorant and injurious manner, with his mode of issuing bills to supply his necessities. His resolution to advance could not be shaken, yet before crossing the Agueda, having described his plan of campaign to lord Liverpool, he finished in these remarkable words.
“I am not insensible to losses and risks, nor am I blind to the disadvantages under which I undertake this operation. My friends in Castile, and I believe no officer ever had better, assure me that we shall not want provisions even before the harvest will be reaped; that there exist concealed granaries which shall be opened to us, and that if we can pay for a part, credit will be given to us for the remainder, and they have long given me hopes that we should be able to borrow money in Castile upon British securities. In case we should be able to maintain ourselves in Castile, the general action and its results being delayed by the enemy’s manœuvres, which I think not improbable, I have in contemplation other resources for drawing supplies from the country, and I shall have at all events our own magazines at Almeida and Ciudad Rodrigo. But with all these prospects I cannot reflect without shuddering upon the probability that we shall be distressed; nor upon the consequences which may result from our wanting money in the interior of Spain.”
In the contemplated operations lord Wellington did not fail to look both to his own and to his enemy’s flanks. His right was secured by the destruction of the forts, the stores, and boats at Almaraz; for the valley of the Tagus was exhausted of provisions, and full of cross rivers which required a pontoon train to pass if the French should menace Portugal seriously in that line: moreover he caused the fortress of Monte Santos, which covered the Portuguese frontier between the Tagus and Ciudad Rodrigo to be put into a state of defence, and the restoration of Alcantara gave Hill the power of quickly interfering. On the other side if Marmont, strengthened by Caffarelli’s division, should operate strongly against the allies’ left, a retreat was open either upon Ciudad Rodrigo, or across the mountains into the valley of the Tagus. Such were his arrangements for his own interior line of operations, and to menace his enemy’s flanks his measures embraced the whole Peninsula.
1º. He directed Silveira and D’Urban, who were on the frontier of Tras os Montes, to file along the Douro, menace the enemy’s right flank and rear, and form a link of connection with the Gallician army, with which Castaños promised to besiege Astorga, as soon as the Anglo-Portuguese should appear on the Tormes. Meanwhile sir Home Popham’s expedition was to commence its operations, in concert with the seventh Spanish army, on the coast of Biscay and so draw Caffarelli’s divisions from the succour of Marmont.
2º. To hinder Suchet from reinforcing the king, or making a movement towards Andalusia, the Sicilian expedition was to menace Catalonia and Valencia, in concert with the Murcian army.