WELLINGTON’S PREPARATIONS FOR DEFENCE

As far back as September 1809, while his army still lay at Badajoz and the Talavera campaign was hardly over, Wellington had foreseen the oncoming invasion of Portugal, which did not actually begin till August 1810[165]. Writing to his brother, then on his special mission to Seville, he had laid down his conclusions. Bonaparte would, in consequence of the cessation of the Austrian war, be enabled to pour unlimited reinforcements into Spain. The British army, even if raised to 40,000 men, would not be strong enough to cover both Seville and Lisbon. Considering the temper of the Spanish government and the Spanish troops, he thought it would be most unadvisable to commit himself to the defence of Andalusia. But he was prepared to undertake the defence of Portugal. He implored the British Ministry not to sacrifice its strong position on the Tagus in order to embark upon a hazardous campaign in the South[166]. His views as to Portugal were simply the development of those which he had drawn up for Castlereagh’s eye on his first sailing for the Peninsula[167]. Portugal though ‘all frontier’ might be defended against any French army of less than 100,000 men, if its resources were placed at his disposal, and he were given a free hand to utilize them according to his own plan. The Portland Cabinet, though much doubting whether Wellington could carry out his pledge, and though reluctant to abandon the idea that Andalusia might be defended and Cadiz made[p. 168] secure by British troops, finally yielded to the General’s appeal.

But on December 2, 1809, the Portland Cabinet gave place to Spencer Perceval’s new administration, and Wellington had to reiterate the arguments which he had used to Castlereagh and Canning to new correspondents, Lord Liverpool and Lord Bathurst. Fortunately the incoming ministers resolved to adhere to the promises made by their predecessors, and to persist in the defence of Portugal. It was of immense value to Wellington that his brother Wellesley soon replaced Lord Bathurst at the Foreign Office, so that he could command in this Ministry a supporter as firm as Castlereagh had been in the last. Nevertheless his position was not entirely fortunate: the new administration was being fiercely assailed by the Whigs over the general policy of risking British armies on the Continent. The calamities of the Walcheren expedition supplied a text on which the Opposition could preach interminable sermons. The men who were not ashamed to allege, for party reasons, that Wellington was a rash general, and that the Talavera campaign had been a disaster, were continually harassing the Ministry, by their suggestions that when the French Emperor marched in person to Spain the British army in the Peninsula must inevitably be destroyed. It was probably to aid them that Napoleon kept inserting in the Moniteur articles in which it was asserted that the maintenance of the incapable ‘Sepoy General’ at the head of the British forces was the thing which France must most desire. In Lord Liverpool’s correspondence with Wellington it is easy to see that the idea that it might be necessary to evacuate Portugal, when the French attack was delivered, almost preponderated over that of preparing for the defence of that realm. While Wellington’s whole mind is set on working out the details of a campaign from which he hopes great things, his correspondent is always thinking of the possibility of a disastrous embarkation at the end of it. The General could not pledge himself that Portugal might be defended against any odds whatever: it was possible that the Emperor might lead or send against him an army of absolutely overpowering strength, though he did not think such a contingency probable. But since he could not say that his[p. 169] position was impregnable, he was being continually worried with suggestions as to all the possible contingencies that might occur to his discomfiture. The ministers dreaded that the Peninsular venture might end in a fiasco, like the Duke of York’s Dutch expedition of 1799, and thought that such a failure would lose them their offices. Hence they were nervous about every false rumour that reached them from France concerning the Emperor’s approaching departure; and the more certain information about the immense numbers of troops that were passing the Pyrenees filled them with dread. It required all Wellington’s robust self-confidence to keep them reassured. He had to be perpetually repeating to them that all his preparations for retreat and embarkation, if the worst should happen, had been already thought out—they might make up their minds that he would do nothing rash. But he was inclined to think that there would in the end be no need to depart. ‘I shall delay the embarkation,’ he wrote, ‘as long as it is in my power, and shall do everything that is in my power to avert the necessity of embarking at all. If the enemy should invade this country with a force less than that which I should think so superior to ours as to create a necessity for embarking, I shall fight a battle to save the country, and for this I have made the preparations.’ He did not think he could be beaten; but if, by some mischance, the fortune of war went against him, he had still no doubt that he could bring off the army in safety. ‘If we do go, I feel a little anxiety to go like gentlemen, out of the hall door (particularly after all the preparations I have made to enable us to do so), and not out of the back door or by the area.’

It is curious to find that in this most interesting dispatch to Lord Liverpool Wellington distinctly asserts that his worst enemy was the ghost of Sir John Moore[168]. ‘The great disadvantage under which I labour is that Sir John Moore, who was here before me, gave his opinion that Portugal could not be defended by the army under his command. It is obvious that the country was in a very different situation at that time from what it is at present, and that I am in a very different situation from that in which he found himself ..., yet persons who ought[p. 170] to be better acquainted with these facts entertain a certain prejudice against the adoption of any plan for opposing the enemy of which Portugal is to be the theatre. I have as much respect as any man for the opinion and judgement of Sir John Moore, and I should mistrust my own if it were opposed to his in a case where he had had the opportunity of knowing and considering. But he positively knew nothing about Portugal, and could know nothing about its existing state[169].’

The most vexatious thing for Wellington was that ‘the persons who ought to have known better,’ yet were perpetually uttering melancholy vaticinations as to the approach of disaster, included some of his own senior officers. I have seen a letter from a general in Portugal to his friend in England containing such phrases as this: ‘I most strongly suspect that before many months are over our heads there will be no opportunity for this employment (that of a cavalry brigadier) left to any one, on the Continent at least. The next campaign will close the eventful scene in the Peninsula, as far as we are concerned; for I am decidedly of opinion that neither (Marshal) Wellington nor (Marshal) Beresford will prevent the approaching subjugation of Portugal.’ Or again: ‘I am quite surprised at Lord W.’s pliant disposition. I suspect he feels himself tottering on his throne, and wishes to conciliate at any sacrifice[170].’ The frequent complaints in Wellington’s correspondence as to the sort of letters that were going home to England in the spring of 1810 sufficiently show that these down-hearted views were not uncommon among his subordinates. If the generals on the spot foresaw disaster, it is no wonder that the ministers in London felt anxious, and refused to be comforted by the confident dispatches of the Commander-in-Chief.

[p. 171]

The preparations which Wellington was making during the winter of 1809-10 and the ensuing spring, for the reception of the inevitable French invasion, may be arranged, in the main, under three heads. We must first treat of the complete reorganization of the Portuguese military forces, not only the regulars but the militia, and the old levée en masse of the Ordenan?a. Second come the elaborate plans for the construction of enormous field-works for the protection of Lisbon, the famous lines of Torres Vedras, and the fortification of certain other, and more advanced, points. The third, and in some ways the most important of all, was the arrangement of the great scheme for devastating the country-side in front of the invader, and fighting him by the weapon of starvation, a device new to the French, but not unprecedented in the earlier history of Portugal.

The Portuguese regular army had taken hardly any part in the campaigns of 1809. The only sections of it that had been under fire were Silveira’s two regiments, the four battalions that marched with Wellington to Oporto in May, and Wilson’s Loyal Lusitanian Legion, which had fought with more valour than success at the bridge of Alcantara and the Pass of Ba?os[171]. Beresford, with the greater part of the troops that were in a condition to take the field, had been out on the border in July, and had remained for some days in Spain, on the side of Coria and Zarza Mayor, but he had never been in contact with the enemy[172]. The fighting power of the reorganized Portuguese army was still a doubtful quantity.

The field-strength of the Portuguese regular forces should have been, according to its establishments, 56,000 men. In September 1809 there were only 42,000 men with the colours[173], and of these much more than half were recruits, who had recently been thrust into the depleted cadres of the old army. There were many regiments which had been practically destroyed by the French, and which showed, when Beresford first marched out to the frontier, only 200 or 300 men instead of their normal[p. 172] 1,500[174]. Many others had less than half their complement. The first thing that required to be done was to fill up the gaps, and this was accomplished during the winter of 1809-10 by a stringent use of the conscription law already existing. The line regiments in the Bussaco campaign showed, with hardly an exception, 1,200 or 1,300 effectives present—i.e. if the sick and ‘details’ are added they were nearly or quite up to their establishment of 1,500[175]. The cavalry was less effective: the number of men could be filled up, but horses were hard to find, and in the end Wellington sent four of the twelve regiments to do dismounted duty in garrison, and served out their mounts to the remaining eight, which nevertheless could never show more than 300 or 400 sabres present, out of their nominal 594. Portugal is not a horse-breeding country, and the British cavalry was competing with the native for the small supply of remounts that could be procured. The artillery, on the other hand, was high in strength and very satisfactory.

Mere numbers are no test of the efficiency of a host. The weak point of the old national army had been—as we mentioned in another place—the effete and unmilitary character of its body of officers—more especially of its senior officers[176]. The junior ranks, filled up since the French invasion with young men who had taken up the military career from patriotic motives, were infinitely better. By the second year of the war there were many admirable officers among them. But it was men capable of handling a battalion or a regiment that were wanting. We saw how Beresford had been forced to introduce many British officers into the service, though he was aware that the personal pride of the Portuguese officers was bitterly hurt thereby. His justification may be deduced from a confidential[p. 173] memorandum written for him by his chief-of-the-staff, Benjamin D’Urban[177], which is well worth quoting:—

‘There are yet among the field officers, captains, and older subalterns a number of incorrigible officers of the old school, who are a dead weight upon their respective regiments, and mischievous in the way of example. Whenever it may be thought expedient, from time to time, to get rid of them, there will be no difficulty in finding excellent young men to replace them from the ranks respectively below.... But I feel it incumbent upon me to give it you as my decided opinion, resulting from a close investigation into the causes of the defects of the Portuguese, that it will be utterly impossible either to make a regiment fit for service, or to preserve it when made so, without giving it an English commanding-officer and at least two English captains.

‘The Portuguese soldier is naturally indolent. He falls with the greatest facility into slouching and slovenly habits, unless he is constantly roused and forced to exert himself. But many a Portuguese officer, if not constantly spurred and urged to do his duty, is at least as indolent as his men. Nothing (I am persuaded by experience) will counteract this, and create activity among the officers and consequent diligence and care among the men, but the strictness, energy and vigilance of an English commanding-officer.

‘Even supposing a sufficient energy of character in the native officer, he does not and will not, if he be not a Fidalgo himself, exercise coercive or strong measures to oblige one of that class to do his duty. He is aware that in doing so he makes a powerful enemy, and all the habits of thought in which he has been educated inspire him with such a dread of this, that no sense of duty will urge him to encounter it. Thus, whenever a regiment is commanded by a non-Fidalgo, it never fails to suffer extremely: for the noblemen are permitted to do as they please, and afford a very bad example, for they are at least as indolent as the ordinary Portuguese.

[p. 174]

‘The English captains will be found invaluable, especially in the hands of an English commandant. Their example is infinitely useful. The Portuguese captains are piqued into activity and attention, when they see their companies excelled in efficiency by those of the English, and they do from emulation what a sense of duty would perhaps never bring them to. There are a variety of by-paths and oblique means by which the parts of a Portuguese corps are constantly, and almost insensibly, endeavouring to return to the old habits that they are so much attached to. To nip this, from time to time, in the bud, it is necessary to be aware of it: without the faithful surveillance of English subordinate officers (who, ever mixing with the mass of the men, can’t well be ignorant of what is going on) the commanding-officer can rarely be warned in time.’

Beresford replied that all this was true, but that ‘the national feeling required management,’ and that to place every regimental or brigade command in British hands would provoke such fierce jealousy that he was ‘compelled to humour the prejudices and satisfy the pride of the nation.’ His device for doing this was to make a general rule that wherever a Portuguese officer was in chief command he should have a British officer second in command under him, and vice versa[178]. When a brigade was given to a Portuguese, he managed that the two colonels of the regiments forming it should be Englishmen; similarly, if a Portuguese commanded a regiment his senior major was always an Englishman. By this means it was secured that a fair half of the higher pieces of promotion should be left to the native officers, but that every Portuguese placed in a responsible position should have a British officer at his back. In addition there were from two to four British captains in each battalion, but no subalterns; for, to encourage good men to volunteer into the Portuguese service, it was provided that all who did so should receive a step of promotion, and a British lieutenant became a Portuguese captain on exchange, and a British captain a Portuguese major. The system seems to have[p. 175] worked well, and with far less friction than might have been expected[179]. The better class of native officers were piqued into emulation, just as D’Urban had expected; the worst was gradually eliminated[180]. It must be noted that to every battalion there were added one or two British sergeants, whose services were needed for the drilling of the men in the English exercises, which now superseded the old German system left behind by La Lippe, the last reorganizer of the Portuguese army. For the whole drill of the infantry was changed, and the British formations and man?uvres introduced. Dundas’s ‘Eighteen Man?uvres’ were translated, and became the Bible of the Lusitanian no less than the British officer[181]. The employment of the two-deep line, the essential feature of the system, was made the base of all Portuguese drill; at Bussaco it justified itself. The Ca?adores were trained on the ‘Rifle Regulations’ of Coote Manningham, and their uniform was modified in cut, though not in colour, to a close resemblance of that of the British rifleman[182]. The net result of all these changes was that for the future the British and Portuguese units of Wellington’s army could be moved by the same words of command, and in the same formations, and that all the disadvantages resulting from the coexistence of two different systems of drill disappeared.

Two principal difficulties still remained in the administration of the Portuguese army. The first was, what to do with the few senior officers of undoubted patriotism but more doubtful capacity, who were too important and influential to be placed upon the shelf, yet might cause a disaster if placed in a critical position of responsibility. The most notable of them was Silveira, who had acquired much popularity by his obstinate, if ill-managed, resistance to Soult in the spring of 1809. Wellington, with many searchings of heart, placed him in com[p. 176]mand of the Tras-os-Montes, where it was most unlikely that any serious irruption of the French would take place[183]. He had a large force placed under him, but it did not include a single regular regiment, and, with militia only at his disposition, it was hoped that he would be discouraged from attempting any hazardous experiments. Moreover, he was given a British second-in-command, first John Wilson and afterwards Miller, to curb his eccentricities so far as was possible. Baccelar, another officer of doubtful merit, but more dangerous from torpidity than from rashness, was given charge of the militia of the three northern provinces, so that Silveira was technically under his orders—though the nominal subordinate would seem to have paid little attention to his superior. The most important post, however, assigned to a Portuguese officer was the governorship of Elvas, the strongest fortress of Portugal, and one which would stand in the forefront of the battle if the French made the subsidiary invasion south of the Tagus, which Wellington was inclined to expect. The command of this great stronghold and the 6,000 men of its garrison (of whom half were regulars) was given to General Leite, an active and ingenious officer, and (what was more important) a man who obeyed orders. Of all the Portuguese he was the one whom Wellington most trusted; every British narrator of the war who came in contact with him has a word of praise in his behalf. Of the other native generals, Lecor, in command of a division, and Fonseca, in command of a brigade, were with the field army. Miranda was given charge of the militia of Northern Estremadura, who were likely to be in the thickest of the trouble. But the other Portuguese units of the allied host were under British officers: Pack, Archibald and Alexander Campbell, MacMahon, Coleman, Harvey, Collins, and Bradford[p. 177] had charge of the regular brigades of the field army. The native generals, save those above mentioned, were placed in administrative posts, or in charge of those sections of the militia which were probably destined to see no service.

The second point of difficulty in the organization of the Portuguese army was the commissariat. In the old days it had been a purely civilian branch of the service, non-military intendants dealing with contractors and merchants. For this had been substituted a Junta de Viveres mainly composed of officers, which proved as ineffective, if not as corrupt, as the body which had preceded it. The British government had taken over the responsibility of paying half the Portuguese army[184], but not that of feeding it, and despite of the handsome subsidies that it paid to the Regency for the general purposes of the war, the native troops, especially those quartered far from Lisbon, were often in a state of semi-starvation. ‘The Portuguese corps ought to have a commissariat attached to them, and I believe each brigade has a commissary,’ wrote Wellington, ‘but they have no magazines and no money to purchase supplies[185].’ One main difficulty arose from the fact that the Junta de Viveres shrank from the heavy expense of organizing a proper transport train, and tried to make shift with requisitioned carts and oxen, which were difficult to get (since the British army was competing with the Portuguese for draught animals) and still harder to retain—for the peasant driver always absconded with his beasts when he found an opportunity. Another difficulty was that the Junta tried to feed the troops with requisitioned corn, instead of paying for it with money down; hence it got grudging service. ‘I know from experience,’ observes Wellington, ‘that the Portuguese army could not be in the distress under which it suffers, from want of provisions, if only a part of the food it receives from the country were paid for.’ And he suggested as a remedy that the British ministers should earmark part of the subsidy for use on the commissariat and no other purpose[186]. It was long before this[p. 178] matter was set to rights. Beresford’s correspondence in 1810 bristles with complaints as to the inefficiency of the Junta de Viveres[187].

If the regular army was badly fed, so that desertion and sickness were both too prevalent in some corps, it was not to be expected that the militia would fare better. Wellington had ordered, and Beresford had arranged for, the embodiment of every one of the 48 militia regiments of the national establishment. They should properly have given 70,000 men, but such a figure was never reached. Some of the regimental districts were too thinly peopled to give the full 1,500 men at which each was assessed. In others the officers placed in charge were incapable, or the local magistrates recalcitrant. Many regiments could show only 500 or 600 bayonets in 1810, few over 1,000[188]. The total number under arms at the time of Masséna’s invasion may have reached 45,000 bayonets. Of the 48 regiments eight belonged to the lands south of the Tagus, and were never brought up to the front; they furnished the garrisons of Elvas and Campo Mayor, and a corps of observation on the lower Guadiana, destined to watch the French in the direction of Ayamonte and the Condado de Niebla, lest any unexpected raid might be made in that quarter[189]. The five regiments from the district immediately round the capital were at work on the ever-growing lines of Torres Vedras. One regiment was in garrison at Peniche, two at Abrantes, three at Almeida. The main force, consisting of the remaining units contributed by the[p. 179] North and the Beira, was divided into five corps, destined partly for active operations against the enemy’s flanks and rear, when he should enter Portugal, partly for the defence of Oporto and the Tras-os-Montes, if any assault should be threatened in that direction. These divisions stood as follows:—three regiments under Lecor were left in the Castello Branco country, to protect it against raids from Spanish Estremadura. Seven under Trant, all corps from the coast-land between the Douro and the Mondego, were to cover Oporto from the south, or to operate against the rear of the invading army, if it should leave that city alone and keep on the direct road to Lisbon. Six under Silveira guarded the Tras-os-Montes, and watched the French detachments in the northern part of the plains of Leon. Eight under Miller lay around Oporto, ready to support either Silveira or Trant if occasion should arise[190]. After the campaign began, and Masséna’s intention to leave the North[p. 180] alone became evident, half Miller’s division was placed under John Wilson (who had originally been Silveira’s chief-of-the-staff and second-in-command) and sent south into the Beira to co-operate with Trant. Finally, four regiments under the Portuguese brigadier Miranda lay at Thomar, apparently for the purpose of aiding Lecor or strengthening the garrison of Abrantes. This division ultimately retreated into the lines of Torres Vedras.

All these troops were entirely unfitted for a place in the line of battle; Wellington refused to mix them with the regular brigades, save in the garrisons of Almeida, Abrantes, and Elvas. He directed the brigadiers never to risk them in battle, even against a much inferior force of the French. Their sole purpose was to cut lines of communication, to render marauding by the enemy’s small detachments impossible, and to restrict his power of making reconnaissances far afield. They were told that they might defend a pass or a ford for a time, so as to delay the advance of a hostile column, but that they were never to commit themselves to a serious combat with any considerable body. Convoys, stragglers, small detachments, were the game on which they must prey. The programme was not a brilliant one to lay down before an ambitious officer, and more than once Silveira, Trant, and Wilson disobeyed orders, and tried to withstand a full French division in some chosen position. Such experiments almost always ended in a disaster. It was not surprising, for the militia were not troops from whom much could be expected. The best men in every district had been taken for the regular army; all the trained officers were also needed there. The militia cadres were composed of civilians who had to learn their duties just as much as the privates whom they were supposed to instruct. All the patriotic and energetic young men of the governing classes had sought commissions in the line; the less willing and active were driven into the militia. Service therein brought neither much credit nor much promotion. If the Regency half-starved the regulars, it three-quarter-starved the militia, which was normally in a state of destitution of clothing, shoes, and food. Hardly a regiment was provided with uniforms; as a rule only the officers showed the regulation[p. 181] blue and silver. As long as the corps was in its own district it was fed somehow, but when moved to some strategical point in the rugged mountains of the Beira, it was liable to go wholly to pieces from sheer privation. Fortunately the Portuguese peasant led a frugal life at all times, and expected little; the desertion, though large, was not nearly so great as might have been expected. The fact was that the men were essentially loyal, and hated the French with a perfect hatred. They might be very poor soldiers, but they were very bitter personal enemies of the invader. Nevertheless, they were liable to panics on very slight provocation. ‘At the best they are a very daily and uncertain sort of fighting people[191],’ remarked one of their leaders. Another wrote in a more forcible language, ‘Scripture says, Put not your trust in princes—I say, Fool is the man who puts his trust in a damnable militia.’ Each of these sentences was indited the day after a disastrous and wholly unnecessary rout.

Over and above the regular army and the militia, the Portuguese military system contemplated the utilization of the whole levée en masse of the nation under the name of the Ordenan?a. This was no foreshadowing of the modern idea of universal service, but a survival of the mediaeval practice which, in Portugal as in England, made every freeman liable to be called out in time of extremity, at his own cost and with his own weapons. Every peasant between sixteen and sixty was theoretically supposed to be enrolled in one of the companies of 250 which each group of villages was supposed to possess. The organization had been effective enough in the old mediaeval wars with Castile: it had even proved serviceable in the ‘War of Independence’ that followed the successful rising of 1640. But against modern regular armies it was comparatively useless; when called out in the war of 1762 the Ordenan?a had not justified its old reputation. Little could be expected of mobs armed with pikes and fowling-pieces, save that they should cut off a few convoys and stragglers, or occasionally obstruct a defile. A French officer who deeply studied this forgotten campaign[p. 182] wrote that, ‘whatever the Spaniards may say to the contrary, this war of the peasantry is by no means important, except against ignorant and undisciplined troops[192].’

When Wellington resolved to call out the Ordenan?a in 1810 he was ignorant of none of these facts. Nevertheless, he insisted that the Regency should issue the old royal ‘Ordinance’ to call out the levy. His object was threefold: from the political and moral point of view it was necessary to take this measure, because it was the ancient and established method of proclaiming that the country was in danger. It was so understood by the peasantry, in whose memories the traditions of the Spanish invasions were still fresh; they expected to be summoned, and would have doubted the imminence of the emergency if they had not been. The call was at once an appeal to their patriotism, and equivalent to a proclamation of martial law. Secondly, Wellington ............