GUARDA AND SABUGAL.
MARCH 22nd-APRIL 12th, 1811

At noon on March 22nd, the day following that on which the French head quarters had reached Celorico, Masséna issued a new set of orders, entirely contradictory to those which he had been giving during the last fifteen days. Though on the 19th he had stated his intention of ‘falling back closer to his base of operations on the fortresses [Almeida and Rodrigo], and giving the army a rest after its fatigues and privations[220],’ he now proposed to plunge back once more into the mountains, and to swerve aside from his places of strength and his dép?ts. The commanders of the corps received the astounding news that it was the intention of the Commander-in-Chief to turn south-eastward, towards the Spanish frontier and the central Tagus, with the object of taking up a position in the Coria-Plasencia country, from which he would threaten central Portugal on a new front. This necessitated a march from Celorico through the mountains of Belmonte and Penamacor, and then across the Sierra de Meras, into the thinly-peopled plateau of northern Estremadura.

Supposing that the centre of the Iberian peninsula had been a fertile plain resembling Lombardy or Flanders, there would have been something to say for this plan. Still more might it have been advisable if the French army had been a fresh and intact force just opening a campaign. Pelet, Masséna’s chief aide-de-camp, tries to justify the proposal by saying that ‘it was more conformable to the general rules of strategy; we should have connected ourselves with the 5th Corps in Estremadura, with the Army of the Centre, and the general pivot of operations at Madrid; we should have brought Lord Wellington back to the position that he had quitted; we should have kept the results of the advantages recently won in Estremadura, which were so soon to be lost;[p. 174] we should also have had the means to menace once more Central Portugal and the Lines of Torres Vedras[221].’ This is all very plausible, but it omits the crucial facts that the Army of Portugal was tired out, destitute of munitions, and almost destitute of food, and that it was proposed to lead it across two difficult ranges of mountains full of gorges and defiles, into a region which was one of the most thinly peopled and desolate in all Spain, where there was not a single French soldier, much less a dép?t of any sort. This was the same district in which Victor had starved in 1809, and in passing through which Wellington had suffered so many privations on the way to Talavera. It had been visited in February by a flying column under Lahoussaye, sent out from Talavera, which had got as far as Plasencia and Alcantara, and then retired, because it was absolutely impossible for 3,000 men to live in it.

Masséna’s maps were very bad—the actual set used by his head-quarters staff is in existence, and can be seen at Belfast[222]. But his intelligence department must have been worse than his maps, if he was unaware of the character of the country on the border of Portugal and Spain, and of that lying beyond, in northern Estremadura. He might have asked information about it from Reynier and Ney, who had both crossed it, but he did not. Most striking of all, however, is the ignorance shown in these orders of the physical and moral state of the French army. If it had ever reached Plasencia, it would have got there without a gun or a baggage mule—the caissons and carriages were almost all gone already. A single set of figures may serve to show the situation: the artillery of the 8th Corps started from Almeida in September 1810 with 142 wheeled units—guns, caissons, waggons, &c., and 891 horses. It got back to Ciudad Rodrigo on April 4, 1811, with 49 guns and caissons drawn by 182 horses, having lost 93 vehicles and 709 horses. Forty-one of the caissons and waggons had been destroyed before the commencement of the retreat, the rest had been dropped between Thomar and Celorico[223]. There were left at the end of March only 24 guns[p. 175] with 25 caissons of ammunition, to draw which required all the horses remaining. How long could this artillery have fought with only one caisson of ammunition per gun left? How many horses would have been alive after another hundred miles of mountain roads? Even if some guns had got to Plasencia, how long would it have taken to get them ammunition from Salamanca or Madrid, the nearest dép?ts? The same question would be no less forcible with regard to infantry ammunition, which was depleted to an equal extent with that of the artillery.

But it is even more important to remember that the Army of Portugal was also in desperate straits for boots and clothing. In many regiments a third or a quarter of the men had no footgear but ‘rivlins,’ or mocassins made every few days from the hides of cattle. The uniforms were in rags; many soldiers had nothing that recalled the regulation attire but the capote that covered everything.

Yet the main thing of all was the moral aspect of affairs. The army would fight when it was its duty, as French armies always have done, but it was discontented, sulky, angry with the Marshal, to whom it attributed its miseries—though its indignation might have been more justly reserved for the Emperor, who had set his lieutenant an impossible task. The rank and file had sunk low in discipline, as must be always the case when troops have been living by daily plunder for six months. And this same want of discipline was most evident among the generals, who, now that Masséna had failed, openly criticized him before their staffs, and often neglected his orders. Masséna suspected Ney, Junot, and Reynier alike of intending to denounce him to the Emperor as a blunderer. It will be remembered that he had already detected Reynier in a trick of this description[224]. Ney had been girding at his orders with fury ever since the retreat began, and was telling all who cared to listen that a hasty return to Spain was the only possible policy, and that the dream of holding out on the Mondego or the Alva was absurd.

[p. 176]It was probably not on mere strategic grounds, but because he was determined to assert himself, to prove that he was master of his own movements, and that he was not yet a beaten man or a failure, that Masséna issued orders on the 22nd for the 2nd Corps to make ready to move southward, not northward, from Guarda, and for the 6th and 8th to prepare to follow on the same route. This provoked an explosion of wrath on the part of Ney, who in the course of four hours of the afternoon wrote three successive letters to his commander, in terms of growing irritation. In the first, which was sent off before receiving the detailed orders for the new movement, he merely set forth all the objections to it, and inquired whether Masséna had the Emperor’s leave for such a general change of plans. In the second, after he had received and read the orders, he protested formally against them, and said that, unless positive instructions from Paris authorizing the new scheme had been received, the 6th Corps should not march. He gave many arguments, and they were incontestably true. ‘The army has need to rest behind the shelter of Almeida and Ciudad Rodrigo, in order to receive the clothing and shoes which are absolutely necessary, and which must be brought up from the magazines. Your Excellency is mistaken in thinking that food can be got in abundance in the region of Coria and Plasencia. I have marched through that country [during the attempt to cut off Wellington’s retreat from Talavera in 1809], and it is impossible to exaggerate its sterility or the badness of its roads. Your Excellency will not get one single gun so far, with the teams that we have brought out of Portugal. Moreover this man?uvre, so singular at this particular moment, would entirely uncover Old Castile, and compromise all our operations in Spain. I am fully aware of the responsibility which I take upon myself in making formal opposition to your intentions, but, even if I were destined to be cashiered or condemned to death, I could not execute the march on Coria and Plasencia directed by your Highness, unless (of course) it has been ordered by the Emperor[225].’

Within two hours of the second letter Ney sent in the third, which was no mere protest, nor even a mere refusal to move, but[p. 177] an open declaration of his intention to march back to Almeida. ‘I warn your Excellency that to-morrow I shall leave my positions of Carapichina and Corti?o, and échelon my troops from Celorico to Freixadas, and on the day after they will be between Freixadas and Almeida. This disposition is forced on me, in order to prevent the whole force from disbanding, under the pretext of searching for the food necessary for its subsistence, for food is now absolutely lacking.’

Unless he was to surrender his authority altogether, and obey his subordinate, Masséna had now to strike. Ney had put himself absolutely in the wrong in the way of military subordination, though he was as absolutely in the right in the way of strategy. And the Commander-in-Chief had every technical justification when he formally deposed him from the command of the 6th Corps, and directed him to leave for Valladolid without delay, and there await the orders of the Emperor. Loison, the senior of the three divisional generals of the 6th Corps, was ordered to take over its command next morning. Several of Ney’s partisans urged him to refuse obedience, to seize the person of Masséna, and to declare himself Commander-in-Chief of the Army of Portugal. We are assured that he would have been backed in the step by the whole of his own corps, and would have met no resistance from the others, for Masséna was universally disliked, and every man wished to continue the retreat on Almeida of which Ney was the advocate[226]. But he shrank from levying open war upon his chief, and departed among the tears of the whole 6th Corps, of which he knew every officer and many men by sight. It had been under him, without a break, since he first formed it at the camp of Montreuil, near Boulogne, in 1804.

Masséna started off his aide-de-camp Pelet for Paris next day, with orders to get to the Emperor without delay, and explain the situation before Ney could tell his tale. This his emissary succeeded in doing, and his representations to Napoleon were backed by those of Foy, who had borne Masséna’s earlier message[p. 178] of March 9, and was still in Paris. The Emperor seems to have approved of Masséna’s stringent dealing with his subordinate, and even to have expressed his satisfaction with the new plan for marching the Army of Portugal to the middle Tagus[227]. He also declared that corps-commanders of the type of Ney and Junot were a mistake, and that to avoid further friction he would cut up the whole army into divisions, and abolish the corps altogether. But at the same time he allowed Ney to return to Paris, gave him a mere formal reproof, and then continued to employ him in posts of the highest importance. Next year the Marshal was to win his last title of ‘Prince of the Moscowa’ under his master’s eye, on the field of Borodino.

Ney having been superseded and banished, Masséna could carry out his wild plan for a march towards northern Estremadura through the midst of the Portuguese mountains. On the 23rd the 6th Corps was brought into Celorico, and its artillery moved forward as far as Ratoeiro on the Guarda road. The 8th Corps left Celorico and moved in the same direction, with its cavalry at Ponte do Ladr?o in advance. Drouet with Conroux’s division had already gone back towards Almeida, with the sick and wounded of the whole army; he was ordered to[p. 179] take post at Val-de-Mula on the Turon, between Almeida and Ciudad Rodrigo. His other division, that of Claparéde, was sent from Guarda to join him on the same day. Drouet, according to some versions of the events of this critical week, had moved back of his own accord without waiting for Masséna’s orders. But it is clear that there was absolute necessity to tell off some covering force for the frontiers of Leon, if the main army was to be drawn away to the central Tagus, lest Wellington should send off a detachment to attack Almeida and Ciudad Rodrigo, and find nothing to hinder him.

For the next five days the march southward and eastward was continued. After a rest of only two nights at Guarda, the 2nd Corps moved on the 24th of March by two bad parallel roads through the hills, and encamped with its first division at Sortelha and its second at Aguas Bellas: a flanking detachment of cavalry occupied Belmonte, further to the west, in order to keep a look-out on the valley of the Zezere. The 8th Corps took up the position which the 2nd had evacuated at Guarda: it is recorded to have lost many of its already depleted stock of horses in climbing the steep ascent into that town, which stands on the very summit of the Serra da Estrella, at a height of over 3,400 feet above sea-level. No other town in Portugal lies so high. The 6th Corps followed the 8th, but halted short of Guarda, to cover the slow progress of its artillery, which had to be dragged up the defile with doubled teams, so that half the guns and vehicles had to wait at the bottom, while their beasts were assisting to draw the first section to its lofty destination.

The 25th saw the head of the 2nd Corps at Val de Lobos on the road to Penamacor; the main body painfully trailed along behind. Junot and the 8th Corps left Guarda, but took, not the path that Reynier had followed, but an equally difficult one leading to Belmonte. But the guns could not proceed with the infantry divisions. They had to be left at Guarda, the Belmonte road being pronounced absolutely impracticable for them: this was a serious check to Masséna, who had counted on using this route for the whole corps. Of the 6th Corps one division (Marchand) entered Guarda, a second (Loison’s old division, now commanded by Ferey) halted at Rapoulla, at the foot of the[p. 180] great mountain on which that town lies. The other division (Mermet) had taken a flanking turn, more in the plain, and lay at Goveias, fifteen miles north-east from Guarda, with a rearguard at Freixadas on the road to Almeida.

On the 26th, the last day on which it can be said that Masséna’s insane scheme for marching to Estremadura was still being carried out, the whole 6th Corps closed up on Guarda; the 8th Corps at Belmonte sent out reconnaissances towards Covilh?o, Manteigas, and the Zezere; but the 2nd, which was heading the column of march, was completely stuck in the mountains between Sortelha and Penamacor. It must have seemed a bitter piece of irony to Reynier when he received orders ‘to profit by his stay in his position to collect grain, and bake bread and biscuit[228],’ for he was in an almost entirely uninhabited country, on the watershed between the sources of the Coa and the Zezere, with the Sierra de Meras, the frontier-range between Spain and Portugal, in front of him.

Next morning (March 27) Reynier, though he had the example of Ney’s fate before him, was driven by sheer necessity into sending an argumentative dispatch to the Commander-in-Chief, who had now got as far as Guarda. He begged him to give up his great plan: ‘no food could be procured for the whole way from Guarda to Plasencia; if the corps ever got to the latter place, it would find no resources there, for the Coria-Plasencia country does not grow its own corn, but is fed in ordinary times from the valley of the Tietar and other distant regions.’ This Reynier knew from his own experiences in that region, when he had been observing Hill in the preceding summer. He also warned Masséna that he was taking the army into an impasse, for the Tagus is a complete barrier between northern and southern Estremadura, and could not be crossed save at the ferry of Alconetar, where there were now no boats, the bridge of Alcantara (now broken), and that of Almaraz, where there was only a flying bridge of pontoons[229].

At the same time Junot was writing from Belmonte to say that he could go no further; not only had he been forced to leave all his guns behind at Guarda, but ‘les troupes meurent[p. 181] de faim, et ne peuvent pas se présenter en ligne.’ He had scoured the country as far as Covilh?o with his cavalry, in search of food, with the sole result of ruining the few horses that were still in passable condition.

In short, the game was up—it ought never to have been begun—and Ney’s remonstrances (though not his insubordination) were completely vindicated. On March 28th Masséna reluctantly conceded that a prompt retreat into Spain was the only course possible. But he chose to base his change of plans not on the true ground, viz. that he had ordered the army to perform an impossibility, but on two other facts. A report had just been received from Drouet; that general, on reaching the neighbourhood of Almeida, had sent word that the fortress was in the utmost danger, for it had only fifteen days’ food[230], and, if the 9th Corps had to retire, it would fall from starvation in a fortnight. The state of Ciudad Rodrigo was little better. He therefore besought the Prince of Essling not to expose these two all-important places, by carrying the Army of Portugal off to the valley of the Tagus. This gave a strategical reason for surrendering the new scheme of campaign, but there was also a moral one. ‘Lassitude reigns in the Army of Portugal: many of its regiments were in the expeditions of the Duke of Dalmatia [Soult’s Oporto campaign of 1809] or that of the Duke of Abrantes [Junot’s Vimeiro campaign of 1808]. The officers murmur, and, as I must again repeat, the army must have two or three months of rest to recover itself. I was the only soul who was determined to hold on in Portugal, and unless I had set my will to it in the strongest fashion, we should not have stopped fifteen days therein.... The troops are good, but they need repose. Living by marauding, even though it was organized marauding, such as we have been compelled to authorize, has in no small degree weakened discipline, which is in the greatest need of restoration[231].’ All this was very true, but it had been equally true on March 22nd, when Masséna gave his orders for the march on Plasencia. The root of his failure lay[p. 182] neither in the state of Almeida, nor in the demoralized condition of the army, but in the fact that he had directed his troops to execute a movement which was impossible without magazines to live upon, or roads to march upon[232].

On March 29 Masséna gave the orders which marked the abandonment of his great plan, and commenced his retrograde movement towards Ciudad Rodrigo. Reynier and the 2nd Corps, abandoning the mountain roads, came down by a lateral march to Sabugal in the upper valley of the Coa: they were to stop there till Junot and the 8th Corps, coming in from Belmonte, should have reached them and passed behind them. The 6th Corps meanwhile was to halt at Guarda till the 8th Corps had extricated itself from the mountains, but it was ordered to throw back one division (Ferey’s) to Ad?o on the Sabugal road, eight miles to the south-east, as the first échelon of its forthcoming movement of retreat towards the Coa. Masséna himself and the head quarters of the army moved from Guarda on the morning of the 29th to Pega, a village some miles nearer the Coa than Ad?o.

On this morning the British army, of which Masséna had heard practically nothing for eight days, put in its appearance in the most forcible fashion, falling upon the enemy just as he was in the midst of a complicated movement, with his three corps separated from each other by distances of some twenty miles.

Wellington, it will be remembered, had halted about half of his army on the Alva upon March 20th, for sheer want of provisions, sending on only the two light cavalry brigades and the 3rd, 6th, and Light Divisions to pursue Masséna on the Celorico road. He had no doubt that the enemy was about to retire from Celorico and Guarda towards the Spanish frontier with the smallest delay—the policy of Ney and of every one else in the French army save Masséna himself. On the 24th, Slade’s dragoons occupied Celorico, and reported that the enemy had left it on the preceding day; two columns were traced: the larger [6th and 8th Corps] had gone towards Guarda, the smaller [Drouet with Conroux’s division of the 9th Corps] had taken the[p. 183] high-road towards Freixadas and Almeida. There was nothing yet to indicate to Wellington Masséna’s intention of proceeding in the direction of Estremadura and the middle Tagus. He wrote on the 25th to General Spencer, ‘The French have retired from Celorico, and appear to intend to take up a line on the Coa. Their left has gone by Guarda, apparently for Sabugal’—and to Beresford, ‘The French have gone towards the Coa: their left will cross at Sabugal, I should think, and their right about Pinhel and Almeida[233]’.

On this day (March 25) the first convoy of provisions from the new base established at Coimbra reached the camps on the Alva, and Wellington was at last able to set the 1st and 5th Divisions and Ashworth’s Portuguese in motion[234]. They started on the Celorico road, and reached Galliges that night. No news had yet come in of the southward movement of the French from Guarda, which had begun on the preceding day. The vanguard of the army had now established itself in Celorico, which was reached by the Light and 3rd Divisions on the 25th-26th: they had come up very slowly, being sadly distressed for food, and therefore forced to make very short stages. Only one ration of bread had been given out in the last four days.

On the 26th the cavalry pushed out from Celorico[235], Arentschildt’s brigade took the Almeida road, Hawker’s (this colonel was in temporary command of the 1st and 14th, while Slade managed the whole vanguard) pushed towards Guarda. Each swept the villages on the flanks of its route. The result of the exploration was to show that a very large body of the enemy had retired on Guarda, and a very small body on Almeida. A patrol of the 16th Light Dragoons hit on Mermet’s rearguard and took an officer and eighteen men from it. The reports of the following day came to much the same—it began to be clear that almost the whole French army must have gone to Guarda,[p. 184] and at last Wellington began to have the first news of Masséna’s southward movement, though he did not yet grasp its meaning. ‘The French appear to stick about Guarda,’ he wrote to Beresford, ‘and yesterday they had some people well on towards Manteigas: but I have heard nothing of them from Grant [the famous scout and intelligence officer] and I conclude they were only a patrol.’ Now Manteigas is at the source of the Zezere, near Covilh?o, and this ‘patrol’ was nothing less than Junot’s flank cavalry, exploring out from Belmonte, which the 8th Corps had reached on the preceding day. But so little did Wellington guess what was running in Masséna’s mind, that he wrote on this day that he was proposing to take a short turn to the Alemtejo to supervise Beresford’s operations (which were hanging fire in the most discouraging fashion), as soon as the French were over the frontier[236].

Meanwhile Wellington made up his mind that, since the enemy persisted in lingering at Guarda, he must man?uvre them out of that lofty city. But imagining that two, if not three, corps were concentrated in its neighbourhood, he would not attack till his rear had come up from the Alva to Celorico. This did not happen till the 29th, when the 1st Division reached that place, with the 5th close behind. But on the previous day he had already started off Picton to cross the Serra da Estrella by the mountain road by Prados, and the Light Division with Arentschildt’s cavalry to take the longer route on the other bank of the Mondego, which goes to Guarda via Baracal, Villa Franca, and Rapoulla. A flanking detachment, composed of a wing of the 95th Rifles, came upon a small rearguard left behind by Mermet at Freixadas, and turned them out of the village, taking a few prisoners (March 28).

On the 29th the Light Division and the two cavalry brigades moved in upon Guarda from Rapoulla, while Picton closed in from the west, on the side of the higher hills, and General Alexander Campbell, with the 6th Division, advanced between the other two columns, by the road on the east side of the Mondego which passes through Ramilhosa[237]. The three converg[p. 185]ing columns appeared upon the heights around Guarda within a few hours of each other, Picton being first on the spot. The French had hardly any warning, for the cavalry screen had kept the British hidden till the last. Picton found Mermet’s and Marchand’s divisions on the plateau of Guarda, with Ferey’s at its foot on the eastern side, already starting on its march for Ad?o, which was to be the commencement of the general retreat that Masséna contemplated on the next day. It seems clear, from French sources, that Loison was practically taken by surprise. Fririon, the chief of the staff of the Army of Portugal, says that, visiting Guarda to see how the 6th Corps was arranged, he found Maucune’s brigade encamped in a ravine dominated on all sides, with only one battalion on the hill on which Picton appeared a few minutes later, and the rest in a position where they were perfectly helpless. There was no other covering force at all out in front of the town. Hence, when the British closed in, Loison got flurried, and, seeing the Light Division threatening to press in on his rear, absconded at once without fighting. As his force was still nearly 15,000 strong, and Wellington had as yet only three divisions, of no greater numbers, in front of the formidable hill of Guarda, it seems that the flight of the 6th Corps from such a position was somewhat ignominious. Ney would undoubtedly have fought a brilliant detaining action with his rearguard[238].

Loison went off in great haste on the two roads open to him, both leading south-east towards the Coa: one by Ad?o and[p. 186] Pega towards Sabugal, the other by Villa Mendo and Marmeleiro to Rapoulla da Coa. The British infantry could never come up with him. The cavalry pressed his rear, and made many prisoners, mainly foraging parties which were straggling in to join the main body. A patrol of the 16th Light Dragoons captured 64 men in one party, and took 150 sheep and 20 oxen[239]. The total number of prisoners was between two and three hundred. But the French rearguard of three battalions of infantry kept well together, and was in too good order to be broken by unsupported squadrons of cavalry. The main body of the 6th Corps marched all day towards the fords of the Coa, but had not reached that river at nightfall. One of its columns encamped at Pega, the other at Marmeleiro.

On the next morning (March 30) Masséna was in a very dangerous situation: his three corps were still unconcentrated, and Junot was lingering at Belmonte, from which he only moved that morning towards Sabugal. If Wellington had known of the isolated position of the 8th Corps, he might, by pushing down a column from Celorico, have cut off its line of retreat towards the Coa, where the 2nd Corps was awaiting it. But by ill-luck no reports came to hand about Junot, and Wellington was under the impression that two, and not one, corps had been holding Guarda when he attacked it[240]. He was aware that Reynier was at Sabugal, but did not apparently receive any information which demonstrated that there was another heavy column in this direction, now commencing to move straight across the front of his own advanced guard. Junot was able to extricate himself by two painful marches over villainous cross-roads in the mountains, from Belmonte to Urgueira (March 30) and from Urgueira to Sabugal (March 31). He was only able to win salvation because he had left all his artillery behind him at Guarda, and was therefore able to go wherever infantry could[p. 187] climb. His guns had been given in charge to the 6th Corps, and formed part of the column under Ferey that marched by Pega to the Coa.

Meanwhile the 6th Corps had to complete its retreat to the line of the Coa, and reached it in the afternoon, harassed but not seriously damaged by the two British cavalry brigades, of which Hawker’s followed the column on the northern and Arentschildt’s that on the southern of the two parallel roads on which Loison was moving. All accounts agree that General Slade, who was directing both brigades, showed over-caution, and missed several fair opportunities of attacking the enemy’s rearguard, in open ground very favourable to cavalry and horse-artillery tactics[241]. He only picked up a few stragglers, and the enemy was safely across the Coa by nightfall, Marchand’s division at Ponte Sequeiro, Ferey’s and Mermet’s at Bismula, seven miles further to the south, where they were now only eight miles from Reynier’s right wing at Sabugal. The British had not yet detected Junot’s flank march, which was hourly bringing him nearer to safety.

On the 31st the 8th Corps escaped from its dangers, reached Sabugal, and, passing behind Reynier, pushed on ten miles further to Alfayates, where it halted for a much-needed rest. The troops were reduced to the last extreme by exhaustion and hunger. At Alfayates, within three miles of the Spanish frontier, and only two marches from Ciudad Rodrigo, they at last began to receive regular provisions, and had nearly got out of the mountains into the rolling upland of southern Leon.

Why Masséna, the moment that he knew that Junot was safe, did not continue to retreat on to his magazines it is hard to say. But he remained for two days more behind the upper Coa, and thereby exposed himself to continued danger, for his army was strung out on too thin a line, watching twenty miles of the river.[p. 188] Apparently he thought, from seeing no British infantry on the 30th and 31st, that Wellington had halted at Guarda, and did not intend to continue the pursuit on Sabugal. His own forces continued in their old positions throughout the 1st and 2nd of April, save that all Montbrun’s reserve cavalry was sent to the rear, to the valleys of the Agueda and the Azava, to rest and recover itself, the larger proportion of the surviving horses being quite unserviceable. The corps-cavalry of Reynier, Junot, and Loison also sent back many dismounted men, and hundreds more whose mounts were incapable of use for the present, so that the brigade of light horse attached to each was reduced to a few hundred sabres, many of the regiments having only one efficient squadron left, and none more than two[242]. The retreat from Santarem had practically disabled the French cavalry.

Wellington, meanwhile, having discovered by the explorations of his horse, that the enemy was standing firm on the Coa, resolved to dislodge them from their last hold on Portugal. To do this he required his whole force, and the 1st and 5th Divisions moved onward from Celorico to Freixadas on the 31st, to come up into line with the 3rd, 6th, and Light Divisions. With them there was now present the long-expected 7th Division, which reached the front at the end of the month, though incomplete. For the light brigade of the German Legion had arrived at Lisbon more than a fortnight late, and only four battalions in the British service[243] and five of Portuguese[244] were at present allotted to the newly formed unit. But in addition several newly landed battalions[245] came up and joined the old divisions, so that nearly 6,000 infantry in all were added to the army. After deducting many men left behind from sickness or exhaustion[246], during his advance over the wasted regions of Beira, Wellington had now about 38,000 men with him, a force very[p. 189] nearly equal to that of the enemy, which on the 1st of April had sunk to 39,905 including officers, if the 9th Corps, now in the vicinity of Almeida, be omitted.

The plan which Wellington evolved for the final eviction of the French from Portugal was to turn their left wing on the side of Sabugal, while containing their right wing (the 6th Corps) on the central Coa. Occupation was at the same time found for the 9th Corps, as Wilson’s and Trant’s Militia brigades were directed to cross the Coa near its confluence with the Douro, and to threaten Almeida from the north side, a move which could not fail to have the effect of keeping Drouet pinned down to his present position, since his special task was the protection of that place. It is a little difficult to make out why Wellington chose to break in upon the French left rather than their right. From the strategical point of view it would have been preferable to cross the Coa north of the flank of the 6th Corps, and to throw the whole weight of the British army so as to drive the French southward, towards Sabugal and Alfayates. For they would thus be separated from the 9th Corps, thrust into the barren and nearly roadless mountain district of the Sierra de Gata and the Sierra de Meras, and cut off from Almeida and even from Ciudad Rodrigo, which they were desirous of covering. Whereas to turn their left wing would only have the effect of pushing them back on their natural line of retreat towards Rodrigo, and would press them towards rather than away from the 9th Corps. The British general’s course seems, however, to have been guided by tactical rather than by strategical considerations. He thought that he had a good opportunity of catching the 2nd Corps at Sabugal in an isolated position, and crushing it, before the 6th or the 8th could............