SANTAREM TO CELORICO. MARCH 9TH-22ND, 1811

On the 9th of March Wellington began at last to discover the real position of the various French corps; till their rear was well past Thomar, it had been difficult to divine the main trend of their movements, for the various columns had been crossing each other’s routes in a very puzzling fashion. But it now became clear that Masséna was intending to use all the three lines of communication which lead from the plain of the Tagus to the lower valley of the Mondego. Reynier and the 2nd Corps, after passing Thomar, had taken the bad mountain road by Caba?os and Espinhal, far to the east, and would come down on to the Mondego near the Ponte de Murcella, a little above Coimbra. The 8th Corps had taken the central road, that by Ch?o de Ma?ans and Ameiro, which joins the main Lisbon-Coimbra chaussée at Pombal. Loison and his division, having crossed the route of Reynier, fell into the Ch?o de Ma?ans road behind Junot. Ney, after holding Leiria till the 9th, with the divisions of Marchand and Mermet, fell back on that day a march along the great road in the plain (the Lisbon-Coimbra chaussée mentioned above), and then halted. In front of him was marching Drouet with Conroux’s division of the 9th Corps, escorting the main train of the army, such as it was; it reached Trava?o do Baixo, five miles south of Pombal, on the night of the 9th. Montbrun’s reserve cavalry was all with Ney. Of the three columns Reynier’s was 11,000 strong, that formed by Junot with Loison in his rear had about 16,000 men, that of Ney and Montbrun, with Conroux in front of them, comprised over 20,000 sabres and bayonets. The main fact to be borne in mind by the British general was that Reynier had been sent[p. 132] on an external road, separated by a very difficult mountain chain from those followed by the other two columns, but that Ney and Junot would undoubtedly unite at Pombal, where their roads met, so that a mass of 35,000 men would be collected at that important centre of communication on the 10th or the 11th. But Reynier could not join them till the columns should have got down to the Mondego, some days later[166]. Masséna was, rightly enough, trying to use as many roads as possible, both to avoid overcrowding of troops and trains on a single road, and also in order that wider foraging might be possible, when the army should get out of the devastated region north of Thomar, and descend into the valley of the Mondego, where it was hoped that food would be far more procurable. But the result of the disposition was that Reynier would not be available for several days, if the British threw their main force on to the rear of Ney and Junot and brought them to action.

The road Leiria-Coimbra was moreover both the best and the shortest of all those that led from the position now reached by Wellington’s marching columns to the valley of the Mondego. By following it, and hustling hard the French column that had taken it, the commander of the Allies might hope to reach Coimbra in time to prevent the French from taking up a secure position on the lower Mondego, and establishing themselves in cantonments on its banks. For it was his main object to turn them away from Coimbra and the coast-plain, and to force them up into the eastern mountains and towards the borders of Spain. At first he did not think that the line of the Mondego could be[p. 133] held against the retreating French by the trifling Portuguese militia force that lay behind it—Trant’s seven battalions at Coimbra, Wilson’s four at Pe?acova, which did not amount together to more than 5,000 or 6,000 troops of very inferior quality. He issued orders to those generals to retire, without committing themselves to an attempt to defend the line of the river—Trant had better go behind the Vouga, Wilson might retire on Vizeu; both would ultimately join the northern reserves under Baccelar, and co-operate with that general in defending the city of Oporto[167]. But Wellington hoped that matters would never reach the point at which the safety of Oporto came in question, for he thought that he would be pressing the rear of the French so hard in a few days, that they would be thinking of other things than taking the offensive against northern Portugal. He would do his best to thrust them north-eastward, towards the frontiers of Spain. As a matter of fact we shall see that he more than fulfilled his own forecast, for the French were so hotly pursued that they never succeeded in crossing the Mondego or seizing Coimbra. When they had reached its gates, Masséna refused to take the risk of passing the river at a moment when his rear was in such dire trouble that the whole army would have been in danger of destruction, if he had been attacked when the actual operation of passage was in progress.

Meanwhile the original movement of Reynier, Junot, and Loison towards Thomar had caused Wellington to spread his pursuing troops more towards the east than was convenient, when it turned out that only Reynier was taking the mountain road towards Espinhal, and that the other columns were going to join Ney on the Leiria-Coimbra road. Originally only the Light Division and Pack’s Portuguese had followed Ney, and they formed the only body of troops available for the pursuit of what was now detected to be the largest body of the enemy,[p. 134] until the other divisions should come up from the rear, or be marched westward from the Thomar region.

On the 9th Wellington’s total available force, minus the 2nd Division and Hamilton’s Portuguese, now halted about Abrantes and destined for Estremadura, and minus also the regiments just landed at Lisbon, was about 46,000 men[168]. Of these the Light Division and Pack’s Portuguese, with Anson’s cavalry brigade (now under Arentschildt), were at Leiria, in close touch with Ney’s retreating corps. But the 1st, 4th, and 6th Divisions and De Grey’s heavy dragoons were at Thomar, two full marches east of the Light Division; Picton with the 3rd Division was at Porto de Mos on the Santarem-Leiria chaussée, a day’s journey behind the vanguard. The 5th Division and the independent Portuguese brigade of Ashworth were a march behind Picton, about Alcanhede.

If Ney were to be joined by Junot and Loison, as now seemed probable, in the direction of Pombal, it would take one full day for the 3rd Division to join the vanguard, two full days for the rest of the army to come up. It would not be till the 11th[p. 135] that a mass of combatants would be collected sufficient to attack the enemy, if he held the Pombal position. And this concentration had to be carried out for safety’s sake; it would have been insane to bid the Light Division and Pack, the only troops immediately available, to fall upon Ney and Junot and their 35,000 men. Accordingly Wellington directed the 3rd and 5th Divisions to close up rapidly upon the vanguard along the chaussée, while the mass of troops around Thomar was to follow the Ch?o de Ma?ans road in Junot’s track and unite with the other column in front of Pombal on the 11th. Only Nightingale’s brigade of the 1st Division was detached, with one squadron of dragoons, to follow Reynier on his ‘eccentric’ line of retreat, along the rough mountain road to Espinhal. Forty-three thousand men out of the 46,000 which formed the disposable total of Wellington’s army were sent in pursuit of Masséna’s main body.

The bringing up of the rear divisions took time. Meanwhile the Light Division with Pack’s Portuguese and the attached cavalry, now united under the temporary control of Sir William Erskine (for Robert Craufurd, the natural commander of such a vanguard, was on leave in England), kept close to Ney’s heels, and on the 10th were at Venda Nova, immediately in front of his position at Pombal. The 4th Division were at Cacharia on the same night, the 1st and 6th at Acentis and other villages near Thomar, the 3rd at Leiria, the 5th at Porto de Mos. All these marches were executed through a country full of scenes of horror: Picton, not a man easily to be moved by sentiment, wrote, ‘Nothing can exceed the devastation and cruelties committed by the enemy during his retreat: he has set fire to all the villages and murdered all the peasantry for leagues on each flank of his march[169].’ The large town of Leiria was burning in five places when the Light Division reached it. The great historic monasteries of Alcoba?a and Batalha had been wrecked in mere spite—the former, according to Wellington, by direct order from the French head quarters. Every by-road and ravine was strewn with corpses; a note from Grattan’s interesting journal of the marches of the 88th gives an average picture of[p. 136] what the British army saw. ‘At the entrance of a cave,’ he writes, ‘lay an old man, a woman, and two young men, all dead. The cave, no doubt, had served them as an asylum in the preceding winter, and appearances warranted the supposition that these poor creatures, in a vain effort to save their little store of provisions, fell victims to the ferocity of their murderers. The clothes of the young peasants were torn to atoms, and bore testimony that they did not lose their lives without a struggle. The hands of one were dreadfully mangled, as if in his last efforts he had grasped the sword which ultimately dispatched him. Beside him lay his companion, his brother perhaps, covered with wounds. A little to the right was the old man: he lay on his back with his breast bare; two large wounds were over his heart, and the back of his head was beaten to pieces. Near him lay an old rusty bayonet lashed to a pole; one of his hands grasped a bunch of hair, torn no doubt from the head of his assassin; the old woman had probably been strangled, as no wound appeared on her body. At some distance from the spot were two wounded soldiers of the French 4th Léger, abandoned by their comrades. These poor wretches were surrounded by half a dozen Portuguese, who were taking on them the horrible vengeance common during this contest. On our approach they dispersed and fled: both the Frenchmen were still alive, and asked us to shoot them. We dared not, and when we had passed on, we could perceive the peasants descending from the hill, like vultures who have been scared from their prey, but return with redoubled voracity.’

Before the marching divisions came up from the rear, there was a cavalry skirmish in front of Pombal between Arentschildt’s Light Horse (16th and 1st Hussars of the K.G.L.) and some of Montbrun’s dragoons, which was of little importance as to results, but assumes such a different complexion in the narratives of the combatants on the opposite sides that it is hardly possible to believe that they are writing of the same event[170].

[p. 137]During the hours on the 10th of March, while the English columns were toiling up from the rear to join the Light Division, Ney’s and Junot’s corps remained stationary, the former at the town of Pombal, the latter at Venda da Cruz, five miles behind it, resting, and seeking (mostly in vain) for provisions. Masséna was determined not to move backward before he should be obliged. Montbrun’s dragoons reconnoitred as far as the bridge of Coimbra, which they found with two of its arches broken, and cannon visible on the further side. The small force in sight was the rearguard of Trant’s Militia brigade, which (in accordance with Wellington’s orders) was preparing to draw back towards the Vouga, but held on to Coimbra till a serious attack should be delivered. Masséna thereupon ordered his engineer, Colonel Valazé, to search for a convenient spot below the town, at which a flying bridge might be thrown across the[p. 138] Mondego. On this day Reynier and the 2nd Corps, far off on the eastern mountain road, reached Espinhal, the first village beyond the Serra da Estrella. As that place has a by-road leading to Coimbra, this detached body was getting nearer to a possible reunion with the main body.

On the morning of March 11th the 3rd Division joined Wellington’s vanguard after a toilsome march, and the 4th Division, heading the column which came from Thomar, was reported to be in supporting distance. Ney, apparently having detected the arrival of British reinforcements, then drew back one of his divisions, and left the other (Mermet) in position on the heights behind the town, with a single battalion holding the lofty but ruined castle which dominates the place. Wellington, on perceiving that the enemy was drawing back, ordered Elder’s battalion of Ca?adores[171], supported by two companies of the 95th Rifles, to charge across the bridge and occupy the town, while the rest of the Light Division advanced in support, and Picton moved to the left, to cross the stream lower down. The attacking force passed the narrow bridge under fire, cleared the nearer streets and assailed the castle and the small force left there. Seeing his rearguard in danger of being cut off, and noting that Elder’s force was small, Ney came down from the heights with four battalions of the 6th Léger and the 69th Ligne, thrust back the Ca?adores and the supporting rifle companies, and brought off the troops in the castle. He barricaded the main street, and set fire to the houses along it in several places before departing; these precautions detained for some minutes the main column of the Light Division, which was hurrying up to reinforce its van. The French were all retiring up the hill before they could be got at, and only suffered a little from Ross’s guns, which were hurried up to play upon the retreating column, as it re-formed in the position beyond Pombal. By the time that the Light Division had disentangled itself from the burning town, and Picton had crossed the stream on the left, the day was far spent; and Ney retired at his leisure after dark, without having been further incommoded. The British followed, and encamped on the further side of the water, ready for pursuit next morning. Ney was much praised for the[p. 139] tactical skill which he had shown in saving his rearguard, and Erskine was thought to have handled the Light Division clumsily. The French losses, trifling as they were, much exceeded those of the Allies—they lost four officers and fifty-nine men, all in the 6th and 69th. The Ca?adores lost ten rank and file killed, and an officer and twenty men wounded—the two companies of the 95th had an ensign and four men wounded—a total of thirty-seven, little more than half the French loss.

Late on this day the 4th Division came up, and the 5th, 6th, and 1st were reported to be close behind, so that Wellington had his main body at last collected. He started the decisive operations on the following morning at 5 o’clock, advancing in three columns towards Venda da Cruz, where Ney had been located on the previous night by the cavalry scouts. Picton and the 3rd Division were on the right, Pack’s Portuguese in the centre, the Light Division on the left, with the 4th Division supporting on the high-road, and the rest following behind. But the enemy had retired at an equally early hour, and was not to be found at Venda da Cruz. He had gone back to Redinha, where there is a bridge over the Souré river, forming a defile behind the village, and a high plateau flanked by woods in its front. Mermet’s division formed on the plateau, with Marchand’s in support, while the rest of the French were not far off, Loison’s division being at Raba?al, three miles to the east, and Junot’s corps at Condeixa, five miles behind Redinha. Drouet, with Conroux’s division, had started during the night on the road for Ponte de Murcella and the Spanish frontier, escorting a convoy of 800 sick and wounded and the small remains of the reserve park of the army. He had orders to clear the chaussée and to get into touch with Claparéde, who was now lying with the other division of the 9th Corps at Celorico. This detachment would have revealed to Wellington, had he known of it, that Masséna was more anxious to secure his line of communication with Spain than to seize Coimbra and establish himself on the line of the Mondego. For a good general, intending to take risks in a general action, does not detach 5,000 men on the eve of the decisive day. It is only second-rate commanders who (like King Joseph at Vittoria in 1813) commit such mistakes.

[p. 140]It is clear that if Masséna had intended to make a serious blow at Coimbra, he ought to have done so at latest on the 10th or 11th, before the English army was close enough to hinder him. Junot’s corps, which was entirely covered by Ney and the rearguard, was well placed for a blow at the city, as it was little more than ten miles from the Mondego and the broken bridge. But Masséna did not march Junot in this direction, but kept him in a position to support Ney, while only some squadrons of Montbrun’s cavalry were sent against Coimbra. That general’s proceedings showed great timidity and feebleness. On the afternoon of the 10th, according to Trant’s dispatch, his advanced guard appeared on the Monte de Esperan?a, the height opposite Coimbra, and was seen to send down reconnoitring parties towards the banks of the river, both above and below the city, leaving unmolested the broken bridge, behind which were the guns placed in the battery which Trant had thrown up to protect his retreat. Much rain had fallen on the preceding night, the river was full, and Montbrun’s scouts reported to him and to his companion the Engineer-colonel Valazé that they could not find the fords which, as they had been told, were situated at the spots that they had visited. On the following day (March 11th), while the skirmish of Pombal was going on, Montbrun moved in nearer to the city, showing artillery and a cavalry brigade at the Cruz dos Moroi?os, and occupying the convent of Santa Clara, which lies less than a mile from the bridge. One of his squadrons tried to pass at the ford of Pereira, five miles below the city, but owing to the strength of the current failed completely, the men who first tried the water regaining with difficulty the bank from which they had started. Nothing more was done by the French that day, and Montbrun reported to Masséna that he had received information that the whole of the brigades of Trant and Silveira were in Coimbra, and that he had seen artillery in position at the bridge[172]. The real force opposed to him was[p. 141] seven battalions of Militia, some 3,000 men, and six guns. This was the last day on which it would have been possible for the French to seize Coimbra, for from the 12th onward Wellington was pressing them so hard that, if they had set themselves to force the passage, and had succeeded, their rearguard, and probably a great portion of their main body, would have been destroyed. For Ney, with all his tactical skill, could not have shaken off his pursuers in such a way as to allow 30,000 men to file over a single bridge, hastily repaired, when the Allies were in hot pursuit. The French engineers, indeed, reported that it would take several days to mend the bridge, even when the Portuguese had been driven away from the further bank. The main comment suggested by all this is that, since Masséna was intending to hold out on the Mondego, and to occupy its northern bank, according to his own dispatch sent to Napoleon, he ought to have taken measures to secure a safe passage many days back—at the first moment when his retreat began on the 5th of March. Part of the mass of troops accumulated at Leiria ought to have marched for Coimbra on March 6th. It was altogether too late to send a mere flying cavalry force to appear in front of the place on March 10th.

On March 12th Montbrun was prowling ineffectively along the south bank of the Mondego, and setting his horse artillery to engage in a futile exchange of fire with Trant’s guns, while[p. 142] a battalion of infantry borrowed from Junot tried to creep upon the bridge, but was detected and driven off by grape. But Ney was already engaged in such sharp fighting at Redinha that he could not have drawn his troops off, or have escaped towards Coimbra, even if the passage of the Mondego had been forced. Wellington, it will be remembered, was advancing towards the 6th Corps in the morning, when he found that it had retired from Venda da Cruz on to another position. His cavalry discovered that not only was he in presence of the 6th Corps, but that another French column was on his flank at Raba?al (this was Loison’s division). Moreover, the 8th Corps was known to be not far off, for stragglers and sick from it had been picked up upon the preceding day. Seeing therefore that he might be called upon to face some 30,000 men, the British general resolved not to open the fight over hastily. When his three leading columns came up, Pack in the centre, Picton on the right, the Light Division on the left, they were halted in front of Mermet’s line, and deployed; but no attack was made till the 4th Division had reached the front line and joined Pack, while the 1st and 5th were close behind. Then, at two o’clock in the afternoon, an encircling attack was made on Mermet’s rearguard, the wings being thrown forward, while the centre was somewhat held back. The 3rd Division, entering the woods on the French left, the Light Division those on their right, advanced as quickly as they could through difficult ground. Pack and the 4th Division halted beyond musket-range of the centre, but suffered a little from artillery fire while waiting for the flank attacks to develop. After some twenty minutes of hot skirmishing among the trees, Mermet’s flanks were turned by Picton on the side of the hills, and by the Light Division on the side of the plain, and Ney hastily drew back his front line behind the stream and the defile, where Marchand’s division was waiting in support. The retreating battalions were somewhat jammed at the bridge, and lost heavily, while passing it only a few yards in front of the skirmishers of the Light Division. Picton tried to ford the stream higher up, in order to cut off the retreating force before it could reach its supports, but failed, the water turning out too deep and rapid for passage[173].

[p. 143]It took some time to file the Light and 3rd Divisions over the bridge, and to make a new line in face of Ney’s second position on the ridge two miles beyond the stream. But when the two divisions once more went forward, each turning, as before, the enemy’s flank opposed to it, while Pack and the 5th Division formed up again in the centre, Ney gave back without any very strenuous resistance, and, abandoning his second position, fell back upon Condeixa, a village with a defile in front of it, five miles north of Redinha on the great Coimbra chaussée.

The day’s work had been a very pretty piece of man?uvring on both sides. Ney hung on to his two successive positions just so long as was safe, and absconded on each occasion at the critical moment, when his flanks were turned. A quarter of an hour’s more delay would have been ruin, but the retreat was made just in time. The two stands had delayed Wellington for a day, and his army had only advanced ten miles in the twenty-four hours. Yet it is unjust to accuse the British general of over-caution, as Napier and all the French annalists have done. He was quite right not to attack with the first division that came up, and to wait till he had three and a half in line. For he was aware that great strength lay in front of him, and, for all he knew, the troops of Mermet might have been supported not only by Marchand, as was actually the case, but by the whole of Junot’s corps. In that case an early attack would have meant a bloody check, and an enforced wait, till the 3rd, 4th, 1st, and 5th Divisions should have come up. As it was, the French rearguard was dislodged with a very modest loss on the part of the Allies, 12 officers and 193 men, of whom the large majority were in the Light and 3rd Divisions, the[p. 144] troops which had done the work. But the 4th Division and Pack’s Portuguese suffered some casualties, while waiting under cannon-fire for the flanking movement to take effect[174]. The French loss was 14 officers and 213 men, nearly all from Mermet’s division, as that of Marchand was little engaged[175].

During this day the 6th Division, moving apart from the rest of the army, marched north-westward to Souré, and so got upon the western route to Coimbra. It was apparently Wellington’s intention to push this detachment round the western or seaward flank of the French army, so as to threaten with it the right wing of any position that the enemy might take up across the Coimbra chaussée. Indeed, having found no hostile force of any sort in front of it, the 6th Division was able to push in quite close to Coimbra on the next day, and to take up a position at Ega, which menaced Ney and Junot’s march across its front if they should still continue their retreat in the original direction. It was probably the movement of this division which caused the French to believe that Wellington had landed a detached force from ships at the mouth of the Mondego, and was pushing it forward towards Coimbra: an account of the march of this imaginary corps is to be found in several narratives[176].

Condeixa, to which Ney had retired on the evening of the combat of Redinha, is a most important strategical point, since here the chaussée leading to Coimbra is joined by the last crossroad which meets it south of the Mondego, that which runs eastward to the Ponte de Murcella and the Spanish frontier. As long as the French held Condeixa, they were in a position to choose between an attack on Coimbra and a retreat up the south bank of the river towards Almeida and their base. And[p. 145] with Wellington at his heels, Masséna had now to make his choice between the two courses. His dispatch of March 19th to Berthier informs us that he resolved for a moment to offer battle to the Allies at Condeixa, with the 6th and 8th Corps, calling in perhaps (though he does not mention it) the 2nd Corps from Espinhal, which is no more than twenty miles away. The reasons which he gives for not doing so are firstly, that, since the departure of Drouet and his division on the 11th, his whole force was no more than half that of Wellington; as a matter of fact he had still 45,000 men, his adversary just about the same number. Secondly, that the morale of the army was impaired by long privations and short rations. Thirdly, that the stock of ammunition was dangerously low, and the artillery horses could hardly move. Fourthly, that he was hampered by the fact that his lieutenants (he is alluding to Ney in especial) were set on abandoning Portugal, ‘which contributes in no small degree to a lack of that harmony which ought to reign in an army.’ Fifthly, that a defeat at Condeixa would mean the inevitable loss of all his artillery, train, wounded, and baggage, while a success would not seriously injure Wellington, who could always retire on to the Lines of Torres Vedras. Sixthly, that being in the midst of a population roused to fury by the ravages of his army, he found that he could gather in little or no food, and was fast using up the stock that he had brought with him. Taking all these points into consideration, and being informed by Montbrun that, even if he succeeded in seizing Coimbra, its bridge would take two days to repair, he had resolved to avoid a general action, to abandon any attempt to pass the Mondego, and to draw back towards the 9th Corps and the Spanish frontier, where he could find the food and the new equipment which the army needed.
Map of the combat of Redinha

Enlarge  REDINHA

Accordingly, on the early morning of March 13th the decisive step which committed Masséna to a retreat towards Celorico and the 9th Corps was taken. The 8th Corps was marched off, covering the train, along the road which leads by Miranda de Corvo to the Ponte de Murcella and the upper Mondego, instead of toward Coimbra, now only eight miles away. To cover its flank Loison’s division was moved from Raba?al, where it had lain on the day of the combat of Redinha, to Fonte Cuberta. Ney remained behind at Condeixa with his two old[p. 146] divisions, to cover the fork of the roads, and to detain the Allies as long as possible, while Junot and the trains were toiling along the bad and mountainous road towards Miranda de Corvo. The 2nd Corps was still kept at Espinhal, where it was observed by Nightingale’s brigade, which had dogged its steps at a cautious distance since the 9th.

These arrangements did not work very well, for Ney was turned out of the Condeixa position, much earlier than he or Masséna had expected, by Wellington’s skilful man?uvres. The movement used against him was much the same as at Redinha; the 3rd Division marched by a mountain path to turn his left, while the 6th Division, coming in from Souré by a wide sweep, appeared at Ega, almost behind his right wing, and threatened to get between him and Coimbra. Meanwhile the 4th and Light Divisions, with the rest of the army behind them, were halted on distant heights in his front, ready to attack when the turning movements should become pronounced. Ney was, very properly, anxious about his retreat, for he could not any longer (as at Pombal and Redinha) give back to his rear, but was forced to take a side direction, in order to follow the 8th Corps on the Miranda de Corvo road. The moment that he saw Picton making for this road, to cut him off from the rest of the French, he set fire to the town of Condeixa and moved off in great haste, just avoiding Picton, to Casal Novo, a village five miles east of his first position, where he formed up again at dusk. The day’s operations had been almost bloodless; nothing more than a few musket shots were exchanged by the skirmishers of the two sides. But they had been of the highest strategical importance, since they ended in the complete abandonment of the attempt to reach Coimbra by the French.

Incidentally, the rapid fashion in which Ney had been evicted from the cross-roads at Condeixa nearly led to disaster some of the outlying fractions of the French army. Masséna himself had halted at Fonte Cuberta, six miles to the south-east, with his staff and Loison’s division, which was escorting the reserve artillery of the 6th and 8th Corps. He was intending to cover Ney’s left from any wide turning movement by the British. The road on which this village lies falls into that from Condeixa to Miranda de Corvo about three miles from the first[p. 147]-named place. Ney, when preparing to evacuate Condeixa, sent an aide-de-camp to advise the Commander-in-Chief that he was about to retire. But the officer charged with the message lost his way, and only arrived at Fonte Cuberta late in the afternoon with the dispatch[177]. By this time Ney had already reached Casal Novo, some distance beyond the point at which the Fonte Cuberta road fell into his line of retreat. Masséna and the division in his company were therefore cut off from their proper route for retiring on to the main army. Within a few minutes after the arrival of Ney’s messenger, a patrol of the German hussars arrived at the village, and nearly rode into Masséna and his staff, who were dining in the open air under a tree outside its entrance. There was a mutual surprise; the Marshal’s escort of fifty men ran to their arms, while the hussars halted, not understanding what they had come upon. If they had charged, Masséna might have been taken or slain, as several French narrators assert. He mounted and galloped back in haste towards Loison’s infantry, who were camped in and beyond the village. The hussars went off to report to their squadron commander that Fonte Cuberta was still occupied—it had been with the object of obtaining information on this point that the reconnaissance had been sent out. Masséna hastened to put Loison’s men under march for Casal Novo, by a very rugged side-track, called up Clausel’s division to cover him, and got off in the dusk unhindered, save by a few flank skirmishers belonging to Picton’s division, who came upon him in the dark and were brushed away with ease[178].

[p. 148]This incident led to a furious quarrel between Masséna and Ney, for the former asserted, as it seems, that the latter had promised to hold Condeixa for a whole day or more, and had moved off at noon out of mere malice, so as to leave his chief in an exposed position. If we may believe the narrative of Masséna’s aide-de-camp, Fririon, he asserted that Ney had deliberately wished to get him captured, and had executed his retreat ‘clandestinement’[179]. It was impossible to persuade him to the contrary, and he saved up his wrath for the next occasion when he should be able to convict Ney of open disobedience, and not of mere errors of judgement. There can be no doubt that he was doing an injustice to his lieutenant in suspecting him of such a monstrous plot: Ney was a man of honour; Masséna had himself such a doubtful record for probity that we can well understand his suspicion of others. In truth, what happened was that the younger Marshal had promised to defend Condeixa longer than was really possible, when Wellington (as on this day) was in his happiest mood, and man?uvring with a skill which made a long resistance impracticable.

But Loison’s division was not the only French force which was in serious danger on March 13. Montbrun had lingered in front of Coimbra, till his retreat also was imperilled by the loss of Condeixa and its all-important bifurcation of roads. At eight o’clock in the morning he had made his last vain attempt to win his way into the city—this time by negotiation. He sent a parlementaire on to the broken bridge, with a demand that Trant should give up the place, and a promise that the citizens should suffer no harm, and the garrison should be allowed free[p. 149] egress. This last was really not his to grant, for during the night Trant had removed everything from the city except a battalion of Militia and the two guns at the bridge. The sergeant in command of these pieces (a certain José Correia Leal, whose name the Portuguese have very properly preserved) adroitly wasted time by detaining the French officer. He told him that he must wait till an answer came from Trant, whose absence he kept concealed, and then, after some hours, said that his commander had gone to visit a distant point of the river defences, from which he would not be back till the next morning[180]. Meanwhile, if any attempt were made to attack the bridge, he had orders to blow up several more arches, which were mined. Time drifted on, and meanwhile Montbrun received at noon the news that Ney was forced to give up Condeixa[181], i. e. that there was no more prospect of using Coimbra as a crossing-point. Moreover his own retreat was in danger, if an English detachment should march straight from Condeixa towards the bridge, a distance of only eight miles. The French general was obliged to abscond, and the only route open to him, since the chaussée was lost, was a rough path which, after coasting along the south bank of the Mondego for some time, turns up into the valley of the E?a[182], and so reaches Miranda de Corvo. After blowing up many of his wheeled vehicles, Montbrun hastened to take this track, and escaped by it, though he was discovered and pursued by some of Wellington’s cavalry patrols, who pressed his rearguard and made many prisoners. But the division of dragoons, with the infantry battalion attached, and the two horse artillery batteries—their caissons had to be destroyed because of the badness of the road—ultimately reached Miranda with no great loss.

This was a truly important day, the most critical in the whole campaign, since at its end Coimbra was safe, and the whole[p. 150] French army had been turned on to the road towards Spain. Wellington was satisfied, and had no reason to be otherwise. The accusation made against him by many critics of over-caution, which is said to have prevented him from destroying Loison’s and Montbrun’s detachments, seems unjustifiable. The cardinal fact that he was not superior in numerical strength to the army that he was pursuing is too often forgotten; indeed, the French writers from Masséna down to to-day have nearly always credited him with 50,000 or 60,000 men, whereas he had barely 45,000, of whom only 32,000 were British, and the Portuguese were still in great part untried troops; for though those of them who had passed the test of battle (Pack’s and Power’s[183] brigades, the Ca?adores in the Light Division, and the artillery) had done admirably hitherto, there were still four whole brigades which had never been in serious action since they were reorganized in 1809[184]. Nothing was to be risked, and partial attacks by unsupported vanguards were to be eschewed, when (as Wellington remarked in his dispatch of March 14) ‘the whole country affords advantageous positions to a retreating army, of which the enemy has shown that he knows how to avail himself. They are leaving the country, as they entered it, in one solid mass, covering their rear on every march by one (or sometimes two) corps d’armée, in the successive positions which the country affords, which corps d’armée are closely supported by the rest.’ A general action against equal or superior numbers ranged on a strong hill-position was clearly inadvisable, and the plan of man?uvring the enemy out of each line that he took up by a short flanking movement was infinitely preferable. Flanking movements take time, and unless the enemy is very slow or very rash, have effective rather than brilliant results. But Wellington never ‘played to the gallery’; he was no vendor of bulletins; he had a small army which it was difficult to reinforce, and he could not afford to waste his precious men in hazardous combats. It would have been of little profit to him if he had[p. 151] destroyed a division or two of the enemy, and had then arrived on the Spanish frontier with an army diminished by 10,000 men. The enemy had unlimited supports behind him; he had practically none. For when he had taken out his field army, and had detached Beresford to Estremadura, there were no regular troops left in Portugal save the newly formed 7th Division, which was coming up from Lisbon to join the main body.
Map of the combat of Casal Novo

Enlarge  CASAL NOVO

That Wellington’s system was sound was sufficiently proved by an incident of the next morning’s march, when the army suffered the only check which it was destined to meet during the campaign, and lost more men than on any other day of this eventful month. At early dawn on the 14th there was a dense fog; notwithstanding this, Sir William Erskine, who was commanding the vanguard, composed of the Light Division, Pack’s Portuguese, and Arentschildt’s cavalry brigade, thought fit to march straight at the enemy, his orders of the preceding night being to stick to Ney’s heels. The French rearguard, Marchand’s division, was holding the village of Casal Novo[185], a strong post on a rising ground, surrounded with stone walls and enclosures, while the rest of the 6th and 8th Corps were defiling along the road to Ch?o de Lamas and Miranda de Corvo. The Light Division, heading the advancing column, ran into the pickets of the French, whereupon Erskine ordered out three companies of the 52nd and sent them forward to clear the way. They were soon heavily engaged, for Marchand was in force. When the fog lifted daylight showed the five battalions of the Light Division clubbed on the road, under the front of the enemy’s line of a battery and eleven battalions, ranged on the height of Casal Novo. Pack’s Portuguese and the 3rd Division were some distance off, coming along the defile which leads from Condeixa. The Light Division had to extend and fight hard in order to keep its ground, while the main body was coming up and developing a flanking movement against the French. It lost heavily of necessity, and was only released from a dangerous position by the movement of Picton and the 3rd Division to the right, which forced the French to abscond. Marchand’s division then f............