With the year 1808 began the great struggle in the Peninsula, which, directly and indirectly, led to the long peace. Its immediate cause was the seizure by Napoleon of the Iberian Peninsula, the establishment on the Spanish throne of his brother Joseph, and then the determined rising of the people against this uncalled-for foreign usurpation.
This practically gave us a cause for interference, and for again joining issue with our ancient enemy. We were rarely so well prepared. We had under arms about 300,000 men, with 80,000 in India, 108,380 militia, and 200,000 volunteers. An army, not large, for it numbered but 30,000 men in all, but of excellent material, was equipped and placed under the command of Sir Hew Dalrymple, with Burrard as second in command, and the two divisional leaders were Sir Arthur Wellesley and Sir John Moore. The force comprised the 3rd, 18th, and 20th, with, later on, the 10th and 15th Light Dragoons. The line regiments were the 2nd, 4th, 5th, 6th, the 1-9th, 2-20th, 1-28th, 1-29th, 32nd, 36th, 38th, 40th, 43rd, 45th, 52nd, 60th, 71st, 79th, 82nd, 91st, 92nd, 97th, with some light battalions, the King’s German Legion, and a full proportion of guns.
It is somewhat difficult to group the operations that continued from this date to 1814; but it may be convenient to deal with them generally in two groups. 1. From Roli?a and Vimiera to Torres Vedras. 2. From Portugal to France, or from Busaco to Toulouse.
A glance at the map will show that there are only two174 good roads by which Spain can be approached from France. The western pass is the Bidassoa, by which the Bayonne road reaches Madrid; the eastern, that of De Pertus, carrying the Perpignan road by Saragossa to Madrid. Furthermore, the great central plateau is traversed by a series of more or less parallel mountain ridges running east and west; so that while movement laterally is comparatively easy, that from north to south is difficult. Such was the terrain which was to see so much hard fighting; a land held by a keenly patriotic and high-spirited people, possessed of great tenacity of purpose, and especially qualified for that guerilla warfare for which such a land was peculiarly suitable. Throughout, the contest, as far as the French and their immediate opponents, the Spanish and Portuguese, are concerned, was accompanied by circumstances of the greatest barbarity. French orders to shoot patriots and destroy villages in which risings against the foreign rule had occurred, tended largely to the formation of those bands of guerillas and partisans, in the minds of every member of which was but one thought—revenge. Not unfrequently these bands degenerated from patriotic francs-tireurs into mere hordes of banditti, a terror indiscriminately to the armies of both the combatants and the civil population.
This, then, broadly speaking, was the state of affairs when Great Britain determined on siding actively with the enemies of France, and up to this time, at least, matters had not improved, as the hostilities became more and more prolonged. One decisive success only, that of the defeat and capitulation of Dupont at Baylen, had hitherto attended the Spanish arm, and at this battle England was represented by one English officer, Captain Whittingham, as military attaché.
The first of the groups into which the whole campaign may, for convenience, be divided, practically resulted in the deliverance of Portugal. The first division under Wellesley landed at the mouth of the Mondego, and the first skirmish at Obidos resulted in the retirement of the French advanced troops, and then Laborde was defeated at Roli?a, a victory which was all the more important as175 being the first success that had been gained by the British army in Europe since the campaign in Egypt and the affair of Copenhagen. In it the 5th, 6th, 9th, 29th, 32nd, 36th, 38th, 40th, 45th, 60th, 71st, 82nd, 91st, and the newly-formed Rifle Brigade took a distinguished part. But instead of rapidly following up the success gained, Burrard, much to Wellesley’s disgust, decided on waiting till the second division under Moore, which had reached Mondego Bay, should have joined the headquarters of the army. But Junot, who commanded in chief the armies in Portugal, anticipated this by advancing against the first division, which was in position on the Vimiera heights near the Maceira River, and somewhat inferior in strength to the assailant.
The attack was delivered with the greatest boldness, but checked by fire, and especially by the Shrapnell shells, which were first used here, and then by the determined charges of the 50th (the “Blind Half Hundred,” owing to the prevalence of ophthalmia in the regiment in 1801, or the “Dirty Half Hundred,” from the men smearing their faces with their black cuffs), the 43rd and the 71st (then known from the number of Lowland Scotsmen in their ranks as the “Glasgow Light Infantry”) the French fell back beaten. One instance of bravery, worth recording here, is that of a piper of the 71st, who, though his thigh was shattered by a musket shot, played on bravely, sitting on his knapsack, exclaiming, “Deil hae me, lads, if ye shall want music!”
Again, owing to Burrard’s want of dash, the final counter attack was checked, and the French withdrew in fair order; but though Crawford’s brigade had hardly been engaged, and a vigorous pursuit was rightly urged by Wellesley, Dalrymple again determined to await the arrival of Moore, and so the chance was lost. For this battle the regiments already mentioned as being engaged at Roli?a, as well as the 2nd, 20th, 43rd, 50th, and 52nd, bear the name of Vimiera on their colours.
But though the English army thus delayed, Junot thought the game was up. He entered into negotiations176 for the abandonment of Portugal, and by the “Convention of Cintra” the fortresses were to be given up, and the French troops transported to France in the vessels of the Russian fleet for a time blockaded in the Tagus by a British fleet.
Meanwhile Moore, landing at Maceira Bay, had joined the army, the whole of which finally marched to Lisbon.
The convention was bitterly condemned in England, though Napoleon thought she had concluded a good bargain. By it Portugal had been temporarily freed, and a good base of operations, with good harbours, was obtained for further efforts. None the less both Dalrymple and Burrard were practically retired, and the supreme command was now open for the future Duke of Wellington when the time came. But scapegoats were wanted, if only to please the irresponsible and irrepressible home critics.
“But when Convention sent his handywork, Pens, tongues, feet, hands, combined in wild uproar; Mayor, aldermen, laid down the uplifted fork; The bench of bishops half forgot to snore; Stern Cobbett, who for one whole week forbore To question aught, once more with transport leapt, And bit his devilish quill again and swore With foe such treaty never should be kept. Then burst the blatant beast, and raged, and roared, and slept.”34
For a brief space, matters were quiescent. But Napoleon fully recognised the gravity of the situation, and saw that a Spanish rising might become a grave menace to France. He even induced his ally, the Czar, to address King George a letter, asking him to make peace “in the name of humanity”! It was like “Satan reproving sin,” and produced no result; so he himself therefore took the matter in hand. He re-invaded Spain to re-instate Joseph on the Spanish throne. He defeated the Spanish armies, to be met by the advance of the army under Moore, who had succeeded to the command after the Convention of Cintra, had landed at Lisbon, and was to be reinforced by Sir David Baird, who had reached Corunna with a force of some ten thousand men.
177 It was arranged that the two divisions should concentrate at Salamanca, but there were many difficulties in the way. The point of union, or concentration, was too close to the enemy to be safe. There was Spanish and Portuguese opposition, want of money on the one hand; on the other, a country to traverse which was ill provided with roads, and those of the worst character. Hence Moore still further subdivided his command. The cavalry and artillery and heavy baggage were to move by Elvas on Salamanca, whither Baird was also directed; the remainder in two columns, one by Almeida, the other by Alcantara, and thence by Ciudad Rodrigo to Salamanca; while, in addition to this separation, the columns themselves were further subdivided into sub-units, separated by intervals in the columns of march, thus greatly increasing their depth and lessening their power of concentration for battle. Moore’s difficulties increased rather than lessened as the advance continued. The Spanish, profuse of promises of assistance, were slow in fulfilling them. The transport was notoriously insufficient and inefficient. The inhabitants themselves, strangely enough, were by no means enthusiastic to their allies and would-be deliverers. The Spanish armies had been successively beaten, and were much disorganised. There was nothing for it but retreat really, though Moore made a last desperate effort to retrieve matters, trusting to the glowing but untrue reports as to the enthusiastic resistance the Madrile?os were prepared to make, and continued his advance to Madrid. The idea was more than risky. The capital was already in French hands; Lefevre had already, by a movement towards Talavera, seriously endangered his retreat to Portugal. The weather was most severe, the local supplies of the smallest.
Still he attempted to engage Soult, whose corps was somewhat weak and the bulk of whose cavalry were about Sahagun. Baird was directed on Mayorga; Moore himself moved on Salda?a, and the 10th and 15th Light Cavalry, by a night march, engaged the enemy at Sahagun, the latter regiment won the right to carry the name on its178 battle-roll. It is the only cavalry regiment so distinguished. This fully roused the energies of Napoleon. He determined to attempt the complete destruction of the British force. Soult from the north, through Astorga, Lefevre from the south by Talavera, and the main army under his own command by the Escurial Pass, were to close in and surround Moore.
The celebrated “Retreat to Corunna” commenced. Moore was to change his base from Lisbon to Corunna, and began by falling back on Castro Gonzalo (at Benevente) and Baird was retiring on Valencia (towns on the river Esla) to unite with him at Astorga; and at both Mayorga and Castro Gonzalo skirmishes occurred with the French cavalry which were highly creditable to the British. Napoleon pursued as rapidly as the state of the weather, with deep snow, would permit; but, recalled to France on the 1st January 1809, he left to Soult the task of “driving the leopard into the sea.” While in supreme command, the emperor had infused his own boundless energy into the army, and had marched a force of fifty thousand men over snowclad passes and in bitter weather some two hundred miles in ten days! Many brilliant skirmishes were carried out by the English cavalry at Mayorga, Benevente (where General Lefebvre Desnouettes was taken prisoner), and at Constantine, and notoriously that by the 10th Hussars at Calcabellos; and an attempt was made to induce the enemy to attack at Lugo, but it only resulted in a skirmish and not a battle, and the dismal retreat was continued by Betanzos on Corunna. By this time the army was completely demoralised. Repeated orders had been issued, but seem to have been of little effect. At Bembribee, for example, the men broke into the wine vaults, and drunkenness reigned; shops were broken into and plundered there and elsewhere. The sufferings were extreme. Soldiers, women, and children lay down in the snow by the line of march to die. It being winter, fords were deep, and men had to cross them, and march in their wet clothes under storms of rain, wind, and sleet.
179 Guns had to be abandoned, and, like the military chest on one occasion, thrown over precipices to avoid capture; and horses were shot, as there was no food for them. The “stars in their courses” fought against Moore. Even the precautions taken at Lugo to carry out a night march failed, for the wind blew down the bundles of straw that had been placed to mark the roads, and bridges that should have been destroyed were left standing.
Little wonder then that the troops hailed the sight of the sea at Corunna with cheers, though it was three days after their arrival under the walls of the little fortress before the transports dropped anchor in the harbour. But the retreat was over, and the army stood at bay. With all their unquestionable indiscipline and insubordination on the march, those who were left had not lost the fighting spirit. It was either victory, or capitulation, or a most disastrous embarkation; and the army played for the first and won. Soult had twenty thousand men flushed with the feeling of success to engage the remnants of Moore’s army, barely fifteen thousand strong.
The stores and magazines having been destroyed, and the horses killed, the non-combatants and all the guns except nine six-pounders embarked. The regiments, too, would have followed, but Soult prepared for attack, and the army faced him, with backs to the sea.
Soult’s attack was purely frontal, and designed to drive back the supposed demoralised British army on the town. A strong force of cavalry was on the extreme left, next to which was a heavy battery, and on the right three heavy columns descended the ridge, covered by clouds of skirmishers to force the division of Baird and Hope. The 50th again distinguished itself by a vigorous use of the bayonet, and the ensigns bearing the colours fell, to be carried then by the colour-sergeants; while Major Charles Napier, of whom we hear more, later, in Scinde, was wounded and taken prisoner. Baird, too, was severely wounded by a grapeshot, and the 42nd, being short of ammunition, were falling back, when Moore himself led them forward with the stirring appeal,180 “My brave Highlanders, you have still your bayonets. Remember Egypt;” and so doing fell from his horse with his shoulder shattered by a cannon ball. None the less, he watched the victorious advance of the 42nd into the shambles of Elvina village, which was the key of the fight, until it was necessary to carry him to the rear on a blanket supported by sashes, and soon he breathed his last, with the hope, amply fulfilled, that his country would do him justice.
From the outset, he was despatched with almost certain failure in view. The wide dispersal of the Spanish armies, their notorious want of cohesion and experience, were alone serious dangers; but if there be added to this, a force too small for the purpose, a most indifferent commissariat, and an ill-supplied military chest, the task imposed on Moore was hopelessly impossible. Still, whatever the errors made in the plan of campaign and in the disastrous retreat, Corunna more than compensated for them, and Moore, the guiding spirit of it all, was laid to rest in one of the bastions of the citadel, “with his martial cloak around him,” after the embarkation which followed. On the night of, and morning after, the battle, and when the 23rd Royal Welsh Fusiliers were the last to quit the shore, the French, with chivalric courtesy, kept the tricolour half-mast high, and fired the parting salute of cannon over the grave of Sir John Moore. But the well-known poetry, descriptive of the hero’s funeral, written by Wolfe, is not strictly accurate. There was no need for the “lanterns dimly burning,” as it was already daylight.
The troops engaged were the Grenadier Guards, the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 9th, 14th, 20th, 23rd, 26th, 28th, 32nd, 36th, 38th, 42nd, 43rd, 50th, 51st, 52nd, 59th, 71st, 81st, 91st, 92nd, and Rifle Brigade; but as if to give the crowning touch to the sufferings of the campaign, the fleet was scattered by a storm on the way home, and many ships were wrecked.
Military operations on a large scale ceased in Portugal after the return home of Moore’s army. Soult had stormed and occupied Oporto, and a strong army was nominally181 under the command of Joseph in Madrid and to the west, while Lapisse was at Salamanca and Victor near Talavera.
On the resumption of hostilities, Sir Arthur Wellesley landed with an army at Lisbon. The somewhat disorganised Portuguese troops were to be “wheeled into line” by Beresford, an officer already of some experience, who had recently commanded the rearguard at Corunna, and who soon proved the value, militarily, of his selection as chief in command, though the rank and file were mutinous (and suffered for it) at Braga; and Portugal did not like, to say the least of it, the filling of most of the leading commands by British officers.
Soult had already been somewhat isolated. In front of him were Portuguese levies, with Wellesley at their back; behind him the country swarmed with guerillas; his line of communication with Madrid and the main army by Amaranthe on his left was closed by the Portuguese under Silviera; on his right lay the sea and British ships of war. He had no resource but to abide events, and these came under the personal conduct of Wellesley, though meanwhile Soult had himself freed his line of retreat by defeating Silviera.
Guarding the approaches from Spain by detachments at Abrantes, Santarem, and Alcantara, the English general marched against Oporto; directing Beresford to cross the Douro higher up and threaten the French line of retreat by Amaranthe. After some skirmishes he reached the south............