Then came the opportunity: the French, pulling themselves together, were preparing to rush up the last twenty yards of the ascent and to run in upon the guns, when Craufurd waved his hat to the battalions lying in the road behind him, the appointed signal for action, and (it is said) called to the men behind him ‘Now 52nd, revenge the death of Sir John Moore.’ The crest was at once covered by the long red line, and the fronts of the French brigades received such a volley at ten paces as has been seldom endured by any troops in war. The whole of the heads of their columns crumbled away in a mass of dead and dying. The centre and rear stood appalled for one moment; then Major Arbuthnot wheeled in three companies of the 52nd upon the right flank of Simon’s leading regiment, while Lloyd of the 43rd did the same upon the extreme left, so as to produce a semicircle of fire[435]. It was impossible to stand under it, and the French broke and went hurtling down the hill, the wrecks of the front battalions carrying the rear ones away with them. So steep was the slope on their left that some are said to have lost their footing and to have rolled down to the bottom of the ravine before they could stop. The Light Division followed as far as Sula, and beyond, not stopping till Loison’s people had taken refuge in the wooded ground beyond that village, and the French guns by Moura had begun to play upon their pursuers. The rush had carried away the whole of the enemy, save one battalion upon Ferey’s extreme left, which had moved so far down in the slope of the ravine that it had become separated from the rest. This solitary column, pressing forward, came to the sky-line not in front of Craufurd, but at the very head of the ravine, below Cleeves’ battery. Here it was dealt with by the leading unit of Coleman’s Portuguese brigade, which was standing in line near the chaussée. The 1st battalion of the 19th regiment, under Major McBean, charged it and rolled it back into the cleft, down whose bottom it hastily recoiled, and joined the rest of the flying division.

This made an end of Loison’s two brigades as a serious attacking force. They reeled back to their original position, under cover of the 25th Léger, which Mermet sent out to relieve them. But later in the day they pushed some skirmishers up the hill again, and bickered with Craufurd’s outposts. Wellington, seeing that the Light Division was fatigued, sent the light companies of Löwe’s German brigade and A. Campbell’s 6th Caçadores, from the reserves, to take up the skirmishing. It stood still about Sula, but the French got a few men into the village, whom Craufurd had to evict with a company of the 43rd.

Loison lost, out of 6,500 men used in the attack, twenty-one officers killed and forty-seven wounded, with some 1,200 men. His senior brigadier, Simon, was wounded in the face, and taken prisoner by a private of the 52nd. The loss of the Light Division was marvellously small—the 3rd Caçadores and the 95th, who had fought through the long skirmish up the hill, had seventy-eight and forty-one casualties respectively, but the 43rd and 52nd had the astounding record of only three men killed, and two officers and eighteen men wounded. McBean’s Portuguese battalion lost one officer and twenty-five men: the German light companies had nearly fifty casualties, but this was later in the day. Altogether, Loison’s attack was repelled with a loss of only 200 men to the allies.

It only remains to tell of one more section of the Battle of Bussaco; it was entirely independent of the rest. When Ney started Loison to his right of the deep ravine, he had sent forward Marchand’s division to his left of it, along the great chaussée. On turning the sweep of the road beyond Moura, the leading brigade of this column (6th Léger and 69th Line, five battalions) came under a terrible artillery fire from the three batteries which Wellington had placed at the head of the ravine, those of Cleeves, Parros, and Lawson. They, nevertheless, pushed along the road till they came level with a small pine wood on their left, which was full of the skirmishers of Pack’s Portuguese brigade—the whole of the 4th Caçadores had been sent down into it from the height above. The flanking fire of these light troops was so galling that the French brigade—apparently without orders and by an instinctive movement—swerved to its left, and went up the hillside to turn the Caçadores out of their cover. After a sharp bickering they did so, and then emerging from the wood on to the smooth slope of the height below the convent wall, got into a desperate musketry duel with Pack’s four Line-battalions, who stood in front of them. They were now in disorder, and their brigadier, Maucune, had been wounded. But they made several attempts to storm the hillside, which were all beaten back by the Portuguese musketry and the fire of Lawson’s artillery on the right. The second brigade of Marchand (that of Marcognet) pushed as far along the road as the preceding brigade had gone, but stopped when it came under the fire of Cleeves’ and Parros’s guns, to which that of Ross’s (from across the ravine) was also added, when Loison’s attack had been beaten off. Seeing that Marchand was making no headway, that Loison had been routed, and that Reynier’s corps was out of action, Ney called back his column, which fell back behind Moura. Maucune’s brigade had suffered severely—it had lost its brigadier, the colonel of the 6th Léger, and thirty-three other officers with some 850 men. The rear brigade (Marcognet’s) had suffered less—its casualty list, however, was fully 300 killed and wounded. There had been a little skirmishing meanwhile opposite Wellington’s centre, for during the main attack Ney had sent forward some voltigeur companies from his reserves to occupy the line of skirmishers at the foot of the heights, which Spencer’s 1st Division had thrown out. These two thin screens of light troops paired off against each other, and contended all the morning with some loss, but no appreciable advantage on either side[436].

Masséna still had it in his power to attack again, for Mermet’s division of the 6th Corps, and the whole of Junot’s 13,000 infantry had not yet advanced and had hardly lost a man. But the result of Ney’s and Reynier’s efforts had been so disheartening that the Marshal refused to waste more lives on what was clearly a hopeless enterprise. He could now see Wellington’s army concentrated on the two points that had been attacked. Hill’s heavy column of 10,000 men had now lined the heights on Leith’s right: Cole had edged the 4th Division close in to Craufurd’s left, and Coleman and the Germans were visible in the rear. If Masséna had still 20,000 fresh infantry, the English general had 33,000 who had not yet come up into the fighting-line. It was useless to persist. Accordingly, the skirmishing along Ney’s front was allowed to die down in the afternoon, and the French divisions retired to their camps.

The total loss of Wellington’s army had been 1,252 officers and men, of whom 200 were killed, 1,001 wounded, and fifty-one missing. No officer over the rank of a major had been killed: and the only senior officers wounded were the Portuguese brigadier Champlemond and Colonel Barclay of the 52nd. Of the casualties, 626 were in the ranks of the British, 626 in those of the Portuguese regiments—a strange coincidence in the losses of the two allied armies. The Portuguese line, indeed, had done their fair half of the fighting, as the return showed—in no instance with discredit, in some with high merit. If the 8th and 9th Portuguese had broken before Foy’s attack, it was under severe stress, and when attacked by superior numbers. On the other hand, Pack’s brigade, Coleman’s 19th, and the Caçadores of the Light Division won the highest praises from their commanders, and had taken a most distinguished part in the victory. Wellington now knew exactly how far they could be trusted, and could estimate at last the real fighting value of his army—at least, for a defensive battle in chosen and favourable ground. It would be another matter to calculate how far the allied host was capable of taking the offensive.

The total loss of the French, as shown by the return—which was not quite complete—presented to Masséna on October 1, was 4,498, of whom 522 were killed, 3,612 wounded, and 364 missing (i.e. prisoners). After his usual fashion he represented it to the Emperor as being ‘about 3,000[437].’ One general (Graindorge), two colonels, and fifty-two other officers had been killed, four generals (Maucune, Foy, Merle, Simon) were wounded—the last was also a prisoner; five colonels and 189 other officers were wounded. The 2nd Corps in all had lost at least 2,043 officers and men, the 6th Corps at least 2,455[438]. It may be remembered that of all the battles in the Peninsular War this was the one in which the proportion of officers to men hit on the French side was highest, one to sixteen—the average being one to twenty-two in ordinary engagements. The excessive proportion of casualties in the commissioned ranks bears witness to a desperate attempt to lead on the men to an impossible task, in which the officers sacrificed themselves in the most splendid style.

Masséna must not be too much blamed for his experiment. He had still to ascertain the fighting value of Wellington’s army—and estimated it too low, because of the extreme prudence which his adversary had hitherto displayed. He was handicapped by the impossibility of using his artillery effectively, and the position in front of him was strong—even stronger than he guessed, because of the road of communication along the rear of the plateau—but not too strong to be forced, if the defenders did not fight well. Moreover, it was immensely long—nine miles from end to end, so that two blows delivered with a corps each in the centre might have pierced the line before the enemy’s distant reserves could get up. Favoured by the fog—as we have seen—Reynier actually won the heights for a moment, though Ney never got near the crest. The mistake lay not so much in making the trial as in under-rating the warlike efficiency of the enemy. Strokes like Wallace’s charge with the 45th and 88th, or Craufurd’s masterly advance with the 43rd and 52nd, are beyond the common experiences of war. Masséna put forty-five battalions[439] into his fighting-line—they were repulsed by twenty-four, for that was the number of Anglo-Portuguese battalions which engaged more than their light-companies[440]. This could not have been foreseen. But the lesson was learnt. Before the lines of Torres Vedras, a fortnight later, Masséna refused to take any more risks of the kind, and the campaign assumed a very different character, because the invader had learnt to respect his enemy.

(1) NOTE ON THE TOPOGRAPHY OF BUSSACO

I spent two days in April 1904 and two days in April 1906 in going very carefully over the field—save that of its nine-mile length I did not investigate closely either Cole’s position on the extreme north, or Hill’s on the extreme south, no fighting having come near either of them. The ground is so minutely described in the preceding chapter that only a few additional points require notice.

(1) The ravine which lay between Pack and Craufurd, and between Marchand and Loison, is a feature which no map can properly express, and which no one who has not gone very carefully over the hillside can fully picture to himself. It produces an absolute want of continuity between the two fights which went on to its right and left.

(2) The Mondego is not visible from any point of the line of heights till Hill’s position is reached. It is sunk far below the level of the upland.

(3) The San Antonio-Palheiros road is a mere country track, barely deserving the name of road, though practicable for artillery and vehicles. The chaussée Moura-Bussaco is a high-road of the first class, admirably engineered. The paths across the Serra at Hill’s end of it are wretched mule-tracks, not suitable for wheeled traffic. So is the track from Sula up the slope to Craufurd’s standing-place.

(4) The view from the summit of the Serra is very extensive, embracing on the one side all the slopes of the Estrella as far as Guarda, and on the other the whole coast-plain of Coimbra as far as the sea. But in each direction there is so much wood and hill that many roads and villages are masked. The French army, both in advance and retreat, was only intermittently visible. But enough could be made out to determine its general movements with fair precision. When it reached the foot-hills before the Serra every detail of its disposition could be followed by an observer on any part of the crest, save that below Sula woods in the bottom hide the starting-point of Loison’s division.

(5) In the chapel by the side of the chaussée, just behind the sky-line of the English position, the traveller will find a little museum, including a very fine topographical map, with the position of the allied troops, and more especially of the Portuguese regiments, well marked. There are a few errors in the placing of the British battalions, but nothing of consequence. The French army is only vaguely indicated. But the map is a credit to the Portuguese engineer officers who compiled it.

(6) As I have observed in the next chapter, the ground to the north, along the Serras de Alcoba and de Caramula, is not so uniformly lofty, or so forbidding in its aspect, as to cause the observer to doubt whether there can be any pass across the watershed in that direction. Indeed, the first idea that strikes the mind on reaching the summit of the Serra, and casting a glance round the wide landscape, is that it is surprising that any officer in the French army can have believed that the Caramula was absolutely impracticable. Moreover it is far less easily defensible than the Bussaco ridge, because it is much more broken and full of cover. The beauty of the Bussaco position is that, save on the Moura-Sula spurs, it is entirely bare of cover on the side facing eastward. The smooth, steep slope, with its furze and heather and its occasional outcrops of rock, makes a splendid glacis. The reverse space would be a far worse position to defend, against an enemy coming from Coimbra and the coast-plain, because it is thickly interspersed with woods.

(7) With the possible exception of some of the Pyrenean fighting-grounds, Bussaco gives the most beautiful landscape of any of the British battlefields of the Peninsula. Albuera is tame, Talavera is only picturesque at its northern end, Salamanca is rolling ground with uninteresting ploughed fields, save where the two Arapiles crop up in their isolated ruggedness. Fuentes d’Oñoro is a pretty hillside, such as one may see in any English county, with meadow below and rough pasture above. Vimiero is dappled ground, with many trees but no commanding feature. But the loftiness, the open breezy air, the far-reaching view over plain, wood, mountain, and distant sea, from the summit of the Bussaco Serra is unique in its beauty. It is small wonder that the modern Portuguese have turned it into a health-resort, or that the British colony at Oporto have fixed on the culminating plateau as the best golf-course in the Peninsula.

(2) NOTE ON THE CRISIS OF THE BATTLE OF BUSSACO

While there is no point of dispute concerning that part of the Battle of Bussaco in which Craufurd, Pack, and Coleman were engaged against the 6th Corps, there was bitter controversy on the exact details of the repulse of Reynier’s corps by Picton and Leith. Picton, and following him his subordinates of the 3rd Division, thought that Leith’s part in the action was insignificant, that he merely repulsed a minor attack after the main struggle was over. Leith and his officers considered that they gave the decisive blow, that Picton’s line would have been broken and the battle perhaps lost, if Barnes’s brigade had not arrived at the critical moment and saved the situation. All that Picton would allow was that Leith ‘aided the wing of the 45th and the 8th Portuguese in repulsing the enemy’s last attempt.’ Grattan, who wrote an admirable narrative of the defeat of Merle’s division by the 88th and the neighbouring troops, denied that the 3rd Division was ever pressed, says that he never saw Leith’s men till the action was over, and points out that Barnes’s brigade, out of 1,800 bayonets, lost but 47 men altogether, while the 45th regiment alone lost thrice, and the 88th more than twice, as many killed and wounded out of their scanty numbers (150 and 134 out of 560 and 679 respectively). Other 3rd Division officers suggest (see the letters in the Appendix to Napier’s sixth volume) that Leith fought only with a belated body of French skirmishers, or with men who had been cut off from the main attacking column by the successful advance of Wallace. On the other hand Leith (see his letter in Wellington, Supplementary Dispatches, vol. vi, p. 678) speaks of coming on the ground to find a large French column crossing the Serra, and the Portuguese 8th and 9th broken, and about to recoil down the rear slope. His aide-de-camp, Leith-Hay, and Cameron of the 9th bear him out.

Napier has failed to make the situation clear, from not seeing that there were two completely separate attacks of the French, divided by an appreciable interval. He thinks that Foy was on the Serra as soon as Merle, and calls his column (iii. p. 25) ‘the French battalions which had first gained the crest,’ while as a matter of fact they had only started after Wallace’s repulse of Merle was long over.

The real situation is made clear when Reynier’s and Heudelet’s dispatches in the French Archives and Foy’s diary are studied. From these it is clear that there were two occasions on which the French got to the top of the Serra, the first during Merle’s attack, the second during Foy’s. I have quoted Foy’s narrative on p. 377 above; but it may be well to give also his note showing the starting-time of his column. ‘La première division (Merle) a gravi la montagne en se jettant à droite. Mais à peine les têtes arrivaient sur le plateau, qu’attaquées tout à coup par des troupes immensement supérieures en nombre, fraîches et vigoureuses, elles ont été culbutées en bas de la montagne dans le plus grand désordre. Ma brigade s’était portée au pied de la montagne, devant soutenir le 31^e Léger. Au moment de l’échec de la 1^re division j’ai fait halte un moment pour ne pas être entraîné par les fuyards.’ It was only at this instant, when the fugitives from Merle’s attack were pouring past him, that he got his orders from Reynier to attack, and started to climb the slope. There must, therefore, have been an interval of more than half an hour—possibly of an hour—between the moment when Wallace thrust Merle off the plateau, and that at which Foy crowned it, only to be attacked and beaten by the newly arrived Leith. For it took a very long time for the French 17th and 70th to climb the slope, and they only reached the top with difficulty, the skirmishers of the 8th and 9th Portuguese and of Meade’s wing of the 45th having fought hard to keep them back.

Reynier’s dispatch is equally clear as to his corps having made two separate attacks. He adds that some of Sarrut’s men were rallied in time to support Foy, a statement for which I find no corroboration elsewhere.

Napier then has failed to grasp the situation, when he makes the French crown the crest above the pass of San Antonio and the crest opposite Wallace, 900 yards further north, at the same moment. And the statement that Leith’s charge was directed against the other flank of the same mass that was beaten by the 88th and 45th is altogether erroneous.

Leith’s narrative of the business, in short, fits in with the French story, and must be considered correct. Picton cannot be acquitted of deliberate belittling of the part taken by his colleague in the action. Foy’s attack, though made by only seven battalions, while Merle had eleven, was the more dangerous of the two, and was defeated by Leith alone, after the small fraction of Picton’s force in front of it had been broken and thrust back.