[434] Viz. British: Mackinnon’s 1/88th, 1/45th, 74th, Barnes’s 3/1st, 1/9th, 2/38th. Portuguese: Champlemond’s 9th Line (2 batts.) and 21st Line (1 batt.), with the 8th from Leith’s division (2 batts.). Spry’s brigade and the Lusitanian Legion from Leith were never under fire, and did not lose a man. Picton’s left brigade (Lightburne) was never engaged, save that the light companies of the 5th and 83rd, far down the slope, lost eight and four men respectively. The Thomar militia bolted before coming under fire.

[435] A passage of Napier’s account of the movements of the Light Division (iii. 27) has puzzled many readers. ‘Eighteen hundred British bayonets went sparkling over the brow of the hill. Yet so hardy were the leading French that every man of the first section raised his musket, and two officers and ten soldiers (of the 52nd) fell before them. Not a Frenchman had missed his mark!’ This passage looks as if the whole French division had been conceived by Napier as moving in a single column with a front of only twelve men. An eye-witness, Sir John Bell, of the 52nd, who owned the copy of the book which I now have before me, has written Bosh! in the margin against the words. Of course the enemy was advancing with each battalion in column of companies, with a front of thirty at least. What Napier seems to have had in his head was an anecdote told by his brother George (Autobiography, p. 143). ‘My company met the very head of the French column, and immediately calling to my men to form column of sections, in order to give more force to our rush, we dashed forward. I was in front of my men a yard or two, when a Frenchman made a plunge at me with his bayonet, and at the same time received the contents of his musket under my hip and fell. At the same instant they fired upon my front section, consisting of about nine men in the front rank, all of whom fell, four dead, the rest wounded.’ But this does not imply that the French column was only twelve broad.

[436] Sprünglin, Ney’s aide-de-camp, gives an account of his being detached with these voltigeurs, on p. 450 of his diary. He lost 142 men. It must have been in contending with these companies that the 1st Division (excluding the German brigade, occupied elsewhere) got the 89 casualties returned by Wellington, as also the 5/60 their 24 casualties. The only one of the British battalions in this quarter which had an appreciable number of men hurt was the 1/79th. Its regimental history says that its light company was almost cut off at the commencement of the day. The captain was taken prisoner—being the only British officer captured that day—with six men, and there were over 40 other casualties. Stopford’s brigade lost two men—Lord Blantyre’s seven.

[437] This too in a dispatch to Berthier dated Coimbra, Oct. 4, three days after the returns had been placed before him.

[438] For these returns, see Appendix, no. xiii. They are certainly incomplete, omitting (1) losses of the cavalry of the 2nd Corps (where Martinien’s invaluable tables show that three officers were wounded), (2) losses of the 8th Corps, which caught a few shells as it stood on the heights by Moura and had (as again shown by Martinien’s tables) six officers hit, which must imply some hundred men. (3) Some casualties in the infantry omitted in the returns, for while the report accounts for 253 killed and wounded officers, Martinien names 275. Deducting the cavalry and 8th Corps losses mentioned above, there are still fifteen officers (and therefore presumably 250 men) too few given in the reports sent in to Masséna; e.g. for the 2nd Léger the report has eighteen officers hit, Martinien gives the names of twenty-two.

[439] Viz. all Reynier’s Corps, save the 47th, twenty-two battalions; Marchand eleven battalions, Loison twelve battalions—total 26,000 men. See Tables in Appendix.

[440] Viz. the brigades of Mackinnon and Champlemond of the 3rd Division: the 1st, 9th, 38th, British, and the 8th Portuguese of Leith, Craufurd’s five battalions, Pack’s five battalions, three battalions of Coleman—total 14,000 men. See Tables in Appendix.

[441] As a matter of fact, the modern railway from Coimbra and Pampilhosa to the upper Mondego does not use the pass of Bussaco, but goes north of it, round the left flank of Wellington’s position, by Luso, far south of the Boialvo road to Mortagoa.

[442] The firing commenced soon after 12 noon. See Tomkinson, p. 44.

[443] This was imagined to be the case by some observers, who overrated Masséna’s loss, and thought he had 10,000 casualties on the 27th.

[444] See, for example, Fririon, pp. 55-6, Toreno, ii. 164. Thiers, and even Napier, iii. 32-3.

[445] Dispatches, vi. 460. Had he proposed to blast away sections, so as to make it impassable for wheel traffic, as he did with the Estrada Nova?

[446] Dispatches, vii. pp. 306-7.

[447] See Tomkinson, p. 44, and von Linsingen’s Diary, in Beamish, i. 292. Fririon and the other French narratives speak of the difficulties of transporting the wounded, but do not mention that any were abandoned.

[448] Unless some of Reynier’s rearguard cavalry may have looked in at Bussaco on the 30th, when Craufurd had gone. This is possible. Trant’s Portuguese were back in the place on Oct. 4.

[449] This seems proved by the ‘Table of Damages committed by the French Army in 1810-11,’ published by the Coimbra authorities in 1812, which gives the number of houses burnt and persons killed in each rural-deanery (arcyprestado) of the bishopric of Coimbra. Omitting the rural-deaneries south of the Mondego, where the damages were mainly done during the retreat of the French in March 1811, and taking only those north of the river, where no hostile column appeared after October 1810—the district having been protected by Trant and Wilson during Masséna’s return march,—we find the following statistics:—

The figures for the deaneries south of Mondego (Soure, Arganil, Redinha, Miranda do Corvo, Sinde, Cea) are enormously higher. See Soriano da Luz, iii. 203.

[450] I cannot resist quoting here Trant’s account of the engagement. He was a man of quaint humour, and the all too few letters from him to General J. Wilson, which have come into my hands by the courtesy of Wilson’s representative, Captain Bertram Chambers, R.N., inspire me with regret that I have not his whole correspondence. ‘I have once more been putting my fellows to a trial—my Caçadore battalion did not do as it ought, and had about thirty killed, wounded, and prisoners, without making scarcely any resistance—a pleasant business. On the 30th I was still at Agueda (Sardão and Agueda are one village, properly speaking, but divided by a bridge), though I was aware that the French principal force of cavalry was at Boyalva, only a league from Agueda, and I was completely cut off from the army. On that morning I had withdrawn the infantry to the Vouga, but placed my dragoons close to Agueda to observe the French, with the Caçadores at a half-way distance to support them. I put them in the most advantageous possible position, protected by a close pine wood, through which the French cavalry must pass. I had been from three in the morning till one o’clock, making my arrangements, and had just sat down to eat something, in a small village on the left of the Vouga, when a dragoon came flying to inform me that the French were coming on with two columns of cavalry in full speed. My coffee was not ready, and remained for the French to amuse themselves with. I had only time to get the Penafiel regiment over the bridge when the French arrived—five minutes sooner and I had been nabbed! I drew up in a good position, but the French did not cross the Vouga, and I returned to Oliveira without molestation—but not without a damned false alarm and panic on the part of the dragoons who were covering my rear. They galloped through the infantry, and carried confusion and all the comforts of hell to Oporto! Lieutenant-Colonel ‘Bravoure Bombasto,’ who commanded the Caçadores, ordered his men to fire, but thought that enough for his honour, as he instantly left them to shift for themselves, and never looked behind till he reached Oporto. I put this fellow, with four of the leading dragoons, into the common dungeon of this place, and am about to inflict some divisional punishment, for I daren’t report such conduct to the Marshal (Beresford), who does not punish by halves! My regiments of infantry—this is the brighter side of the picture—showed no agitation, notwithstanding the attack on their nerves. The enemy’s force, I now ascertain, was 800 cavalry, two pieces, and two infantry regiments. The cavalry alone would have done my business if they had crossed the Vouga! But they contented themselves with driving in the dragoons and the Caçadore battalion from Agueda. God bless you. N.T.’

[451] Tomkinson, p. 47.

[452] Lord Londonderry, ii. p. 12.

[453] See Beamish’s History of the King’s German Legion, i. 293-4, and Tomkinson, p. 46.

[454] De Grey’s brigade, though it had no regular fighting, lost five prisoners and one trooper wounded in this same retreat. The total loss of the cavalry that day was thirty-four men.

[455] Colonel Noël’s Souvenirs Militaires, pp. 120-1.

[456] The authority for this statement is the Portuguese renegade General Pamplona, who served on the Marshal’s staff. See p. 155 of his Aperçu sur les campagnes des Français en Portugal. Pamplona adds that Ney refused to take the present of a large telescope, which Masséna sent him as a propitiatory gift. A less certain authority says that the Marshal caught in the street a plunderer with a barrel of butter, and another with a chest of wax candles, and let them off punishment on condition that they took them to his own quarters! Soriano da Luz, iii. p. 198.

[457] Fririon, in his account of these debates (pp. 72-3), forgets that the existence of the Lines of Torres Vedras was still unknown both to Masséna and his subordinates. So does Delagrave (pp. 93-4). But Pelet, Masséna’s confidant, is positive that they were first heard of from prisoners taken at Pombal on Oct. 5, two days after the advance had recommenced.

[458] Foy’s minutes of his conversation with the Emperor on Nov. 22, sent by him to Masséna, in his letter of Dec. 4. See Appendix to Foy’s Vie Militaire by Girod de L’Ain, p. 348.

[459] So Guingret, of the 6th Corps, who mentions that his own regiment received notice that no garrison was to be left, only just in time to enable it to pick up its slightly wounded and footsore men, who would otherwise have remained behind. (Memoirs, p. 79.)

[460] The best summing up of the Marshal’s resolve may be found in Foy’s minute presented to Napoleon on Nov. 22: ‘Le prince n’a pas pu se résoudre à faire un fort détachement lorsqu’il devait livrer sous peu de jours une bataille décisive à une armée déjà victorieuse et deux fois plus nombreuse[!] que la notre. Les dangers que couraient ses malades ont affligé son cœur, mais il a pensé que la crainte de perdre l’hôpital ne devait pas arrêter la campagne.’ (Foy’s Vie Militaire, Appendix, p. 348.)

[461] Though Slade’s brigade had the rearguard on the 7th, and was engaged on the 8th also, Anson’s only was in touch with the French on the 4th-6th, and again on the 9th-10th.

[462] This was the case with Picton’s division, despite its splendid services and heavy loss at Bussaco, only ten days back. Leith’s British brigade and the Lusitanian Legion are also specially upbraided for straggling. See General Orders for 1810, pp. 173-4.

[463] The brigade was not complete, the Feira battalion having—somehow or other—got to Lisbon. But Porto, Penafiel, Coimbra, Aveiro, Maia, and a combined battalion of light companies were apparently present.

[464] See Trant’s dispatch to Beresford in Soriano da Luz, vii, Appendix, p. 221.

[465] As for example Delagrave, p. 197, and Fririon, p. 75.

[466] Trant delivered nearly 400 British and Portuguese wounded, whom Wellington had been obliged to leave behind at Coimbra, as non-transportable.

[467] Sprünglin writes, under Oct. 7, in his Diary: ‘Lorsque le sort des malheureux abandonnés à Coimbre fut connu dans l’armée, on murmura hautement contre le Prince d’Essling. On qualifia de coupable entêtement et de barbarie sa conduite à Busaco et l’abandon des blessés à Coimbre. Il faut avouer que le maréchal Ney, le général Reynier et le duc d’Abrantes ne firent rien pour faire cesser ces murmures. Dès lors l’armée perdit de sa force, parce que le général-en-chef n’avait plus la confiance de ses soldats.’ Cf. Guingret, p. 79.

[468] ‘Rather a new style of war, to place guns in a village and the troops protecting them a mile in the rear.’—Tomkinson, p. 51.

[469] Readers interested in cavalry work should read Beamish, i. 298-301, and Tomkinson, 52-3, who have admirable accounts of this rearguard fighting.

[470] For this reason the dismal picture of the situation drawn by Napier (iii. 38-9) must be considered exaggerated. The French main army was further off than he imagines; it had not passed Alcoentre. The cavalry could have done nothing against the heights, and Taupin’s brigade would have been crushed if it had endeavoured to enter the gap. But it never came within ten miles of the exposed point on the 10th and 11th, not having passed Alemquer. The Light Division diarists do not treat seriously the position which Napier paints in such gloomy colours. See Leach, p. 172, and Simmons, p. 111. The Light Division countermarched from Sobral to Arruda and reached their proper post long before midnight. There they picked up a detachment of 150 convalescents and recruits from Lisbon, who, had been waiting for them. Among these were Harry Smith and Simmons, who have accounts of the arrival of the division ‘after dark,’ and of its relief at finding large fires already lighted and provisions prepared by the draft.

[471] For Sousa’s arguments, see Soriano da Luz, iii. pp. 130-44. That author thinks the Principal’s arguments weighty, and sees no harm in the fact that he set them forth in public and private. Cf. Wellington, Dispatches, vi. 430.

[472] See Wellington to Charles Stuart, Sept. 9, and to Lord Liverpool, Sept. 13, 1810, Dispatches, vol. vi. pp. 420-30.

[473] See Soriano da Luz, iii. 90-9, for a list of them, and Wellington’s Dispatches, vi. 433, for the protest against the deportation; also ibid. 528-9.

[474] Dispatches, vi. p. 493.

[475] Dispatches, vi. 521. ‘When they have got mules and carriages, by injudicious seizure, they do not employ them, but the animals and people are kept starving and shivering, while we still want provisions.’

[476] Ibid., vi. p. 506.

[477] See Soriano da Luz, iii. p. 142. For text of it his Appendix, vii. 178-9. The answer was only written on Feb. 11, 1811, and only got to Wellington in April when the crisis was over.

[478] Or two vintems Portuguese money.

[479] Or six, and afterwards ten, vintems. See Jones, Lines of Torres Vedras, p. 77.

[480] Jones, p. 79.

[481] Id., p. 107.

[482] Major Jones to Col. Fletcher, the chief engineer, then absent on a visit to Wellingtons head quarters. See Jones, Lines of Torres Vedras, p. 187.

[483] Jones, Lines, p. 26.

[484] Afterwards, when Masséna had arrived, increased to sixteen redoubts with seventy-five guns. See Jones, p. 113.

[485] Jones, Lines, p. 173. ‘An extent of upwards of 2,000 yards on the left has been so cut and blasted along its summit as to give a continuous scarp, everywhere exceeding 10 feet in height, and covered for its whole length by both musketry and cannon.’

[486] By an astonishing blunder the camp of Torres Vedras is placed by Napier in his map (and apparently in his text also) south of the river Zizandre, on the main line of heights, while in reality it was a great tête-du-pont covering the only passage from north to south over the stream and its bogs.

[487] See note to that effect in Jones, p. 21.

[488] The third division (Picton) only, behind Torres Vedras. Behind the Alhandra-Arruda section were the 2nd (Hill), Hamilton’s Portuguese, and the Light Division; in the central part the 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th Divisions and three unattached Portuguese brigades (Pack, Coleman, and Al. Campbell).

[489] About 5,800 rank and file, with 250 officers and 350 sergeants and drummers, by mid-winter return.

[490] For all these changes see Atkinson’s admirable ‘Composition of the British Army in the Peninsula,’ printed in the English Historical Review.

[491] The 12th and 13th line regiments and the 5th Caçadores, not much over 2,500 bayonets in all.

[492] Idanha, Castello Branco, Covilhão.

[493] Thomar, Leiria, Santarem; the fourth battalion (Tondella) was in garrison at Peniche, as was also a considerable body of dépôt troops from the line, half-trained recruits, &c.

[494] 1, 2, 3, and 4 of Lisbon, and Torres Vedras.

[495] Feira and Vizeu, properly belonging to Trant’s corps, but somehow separated from it.

[496] Setubal and Alcaçer do Sul.

[497] Who had now resigned the command of the cavalry, and gone back to his old infantry division.

[498] The ‘Vanguard’ and 2nd Division of his army.

[499] Dispatches, vi. p. 544.

[500] Correspondance, xxi. pp. 273, 295.

[501] Dispatches, vi. 502, to Craufurd.

[502] Wellington to Spencer, afternoon of Oct. 11, Dispatches, vi. 505.

[503] Wellington to Craufurd, same day, Dispatches, vi. 504.

[504] Wellington to Chas. Stuart, Dispatches, vi. 506. D’Urban’s invaluable diary has the note. ‘Oct. 11: ’Tis difficult to account for all this, which must be vexatious to the Commander-in-Chief, who, aware of the importance of the heights in front of Sobral, must have wished to keep them for the present.... Oct. 12: In the morning the enemy was no more to be seen, and what we should never have given up, we were fortunately permitted to re-occupy. But at nightfall the French, with about six battalions, retook the height and town of Sobral.’

[505] Of the nineteen casualties, nine belonged to the newly-landed 71st, four to the German Legion, six to the company of the 5/60th attached to Erskine. See Return in Record Office.

[506] Sainte-Croix had been the Marshal’s chief-of-the-staff during the Wagram campaign, and was generally reputed to have been responsible for some of the boldest moves made by Masséna’s army during that period.

[507] That Fririon is correct in dating Sainte-Croix’s death on the 12th, and Delagrave and others wrong in placing it on the 16th, is proved by an entry in D’Urban’s diary of Oct. 15, stating that it had just been discovered that the general killed in front of Alhandra was called Sainte-Croix. Clearly then he was dead before the 16th.

[508] For his dispositions for resisting the suspected attack see Dispatches, vi. pp. 507-9 of Oct. 13. The line running from right to left was (1) Pack’s Portuguese in the great redoubt facing Sobral, (2) 1st Division between the redoubt and Zibreira, (3) Picton touching Spencer’s left, (4) Cole touching Picton’s left, (5) Campbell (new 6th Division) on Cole’s left, reaching to the Portello redoubts. Each of these divisions had one brigade in reserve. A separate general reserve was formed by Leith behind the right, and Coleman’s and Alex. Campbell’s Portuguese behind the left.

[509] I find in the note to Gachot’s excellent editions of Delagrave’s Campagne de Portugal that the losses of the French on this day were 157 men, those of the allies 139. The last statement, one sufficiently probable in itself, cannot be verified from any British source that I have found: Wellington, annexed to the document on page 511 of vol. vi of the Dispatches, gives the loss of Cole’s British brigades in detail—they amount to twenty-five men only. But he does not give details of Hervey’s Portuguese, though he mentions that the brigadier was wounded, and that the two regiments (Nos. 11 and 23 of the Line) distinguished themselves. They may well have lost the 124 men mentioned by Gachot, but I have no proof of it. Vere’s usually accurate ‘Marches of the 4th Division’ gives no figures for this day, nor does D’Urban’s Diary. Wellington remarks that ‘the attack of this day on General Cole’s pickets near Sobral was without much effect.’ It is certain, however, that the British lost a little ground in front of the heights. Martinien’s Liste des officiers tués et blessés, which I so often find of use, shows that Junot’s corps lost two officers killed and seven wounded. This, at the usual average, would imply 150-180 casualties.

[510] For his position and character, see p. 209 of this volume.

[511] This figure is, of course, a ludicrous exaggeration. Masséna had still more than 50,000 men. Even on Jan. 1, 1811, after suffering two months more of untold privation, the Army of Portugal was still 44,000 strong, plus sick and men detached.

[512] Pelet’s Appendice sur la Guerre d’Espagne, p. 323 of vol. xxi of Victoires et Conquêtes.

[513] Delagrave, p. 100.

[514] Of the sixty-seven British casualties, thirty-eight were in the 71st, the rest in the neighbouring brigades of the 1st Division. Noël—who had charge of the battery at Sobral, estimates the French loss at 120—very probably the correct one, as Martinien’s lists show one officer killed and six wounded, all in Ménard’s brigade. This should mean 120-150 casualties. Delagrave gives the higher figure of 200 killed and wounded, probably an overstatement.

[515] Masséna was clearly seen from the British Lines. Leith Hay, a staff-officer of the 5th Division, noted ‘a crowd of officers on horseback, dragoons with led horses, and all the cortége of a general-in-chief’ (Narrative, p. 249), and saw the Marshal dismount by the windmill above Sobral. He was watching from Pack’s redoubt, on the hill just opposite, through his telescope, about 2,000 yards from the French front. It is Jones who, on p. 40 of his Lines of Torres Vedras, gives the anecdote about the Marshal’s salute.

[516] See Foy’s Vie Militaire, Appendix, p. 343.

[517] Wellington to Craufurd, Dispatches, vi. p. 517.

[518] D’Urban’s Journal, under Oct. 15.

[519] For the miseries and dangers of life in Rodrigo, see the Memoirs of the Duchesse d’Abrantes. Her letter to Junot, intercepted by Wellington, tells the same tale: it is to be found in D’Urban’s collection of documents.

[520] See Correspondance, vol. xxi. pp. 262, 280, 338, &c.

[521] See Fririon, pp. 57-8.

[522] See above, p. 277.

[523] Ferey’s brigade, which had already faced Craufurd at Bussaco.

[524] According to Fririon, p. 98, the morning state of Nov. 1 showed only 46,591 men effective. But the figures of that officer are always a little lower than what I have found in the official documents.

[525] The first morning note of D’Urban’s diary in November is nearly always ‘more deserters arrived.’

[526] See Wellington to Lord Liverpool, Dispatches, vi. 554.

[527] See especially the longer dispatch of Nov. 3, on pp. 582-3 ibid.

[528] Loison, to whom Ferey’s brigade belonged, had gone to the rear with his other brigade.

[529] The whole dispatch may be found in Fririon, pp. 96-7. That officer quite saw the danger of the position: see his comments on pp. 99-100.

[530] Wellington also, on Lobo’s report, thought (Dispatches, vi. 604) that Foy’s and Montbrun’s object had been to seize the bridge of Villa Velha.

[531] Only part of Claparéde’s division had as yet even reached Salamanca. Foy to Masséna, Nov. 8, from Rodrigo.

[532] échauffourée.

[533] This is the order in Correspondance, 17,097. It goes on to give Drouet detailed orders as to what he should do ‘aussitôt que les Anglais seront rembarqués.’

[534] This had been sent off the day before Foy arrived, Nov. 20, it is Correspondance, 17,146.

[535] Correspondance, 17,172, dated Nov. 28.

[536] Berthier to Soult, Dec. 4, 1810.

[537] See above, p. 458.

[538] See pp. 201 and 284 above.

[539] See the above-quoted conversation with Foy, in the latter’s Vie Militaire, p. 109.