[1] Dispatches, vii. pp. 23-4, from Cartaxo, December 2.

[2] Also to Lord Liverpool, Cartaxo, December 29.

[3] De Grey’s brigade at Valle, with the Light Division; Anson’s on the left at São João; Slade’s at Porto de Mugem on the right, near the Tagus.

[4] Wellington to Liverpool, December 29. ‘Whatever may be Masséna’s opinion of his chance of success in an attack on the allied army, I am convinced that he will make it, if he receives orders from Paris, whatever the amount of the reinforcements sent to him.’ Dispatches, vii. p. 84.

[5] See vol. iii. p. 462.

[6] The first hint of this occurs in a letter to Lord Liverpool, from Cartaxo, December 21, in which Wellington ‘thinks it not improbable that a large part (if not the whole) of the French army of Andalusia may be introduced into the southern part of this kingdom [Portugal].’

[7] These arrangements are taken from the unpublished diary of D’Urban, the Quarter-Master-General of the Portuguese army.

[8] Wellington (December 8) sarcastically thanks Stewart for sending him plans for an attack on the enemy, but utterly scouts them. Dispatches, vii. pp. 36-7.

[9] See pp. 269-79 of vol. iii.

[10] Mentioned in Wellington’s dispatch of December 10 to Lord Liverpool, but the date December 4 is fixed by D’Urban’s diary. For exploits of Fenwick in November and December see Tomkinson’s Diary, pp. 58 and 66.

[11] The next messenger who got through was Major Casabianca, who started on January 21st with 400 men, and safely reached Rodrigo. See Fririon’s Journal of the Campaign of Portugal, p. 129.

[12] For a description of this see Lemonnier-Delafosse’s Mémoires, p. 95.

[13] ‘Les détachements se subdivisent à mesure qu’ils s’éloignent: et il en résulte que les hommes isolés des chefs se livrent à toute espèce de rapines et même à des cruautés sur les pauvres paysans,’ says Noël (p. 128).

[14] The story of the marauding sergeant ‘Maréchal Chaudron’ and his band, given by Marbot (ii. pp. 418-19), is probably exaggerated by that lively narrator—the scale is too large. But there was undoubtedly some foundation for the tale; see Lemonnier-Delafosse, Mémoires, p. 103.

[15] Guingret, pp. 124-6.

[16] See Colonel Noël’s account of his food-getting and his stores, Souvenirs militaires, pp. 128-9.

[17] See Lemonnier-Delafosse, Souvenirs, pp. 106-7.

[18] See vol. iii. pp. 470-1.

[19] See vol. iii. pp. 450-1.

[20] See vol. iii. p. 462.

[21] For details see D’Urban’s diary, January 1, 4, and 5, 1811. The French batteries on the first day shelled Carlos de España’s cantonments across the river, but with no effect.

[22] So Fririon in his Campagne de Portugal, p. 128.

[23] There is a description of the meeting in the diary of Ney’s aide-de-camp Sprünglin, who was in command of the party which actually met D’Erlon’s dragoons, p. 460.

[24] See vol. iii. p. 481.

[25] Napoleon to Berthier, November 3 and November 20, Correspondance, 17,079 and 17,141.

[26] ‘Qu’il rouvre avec un gros corps les communications avec le prince d’Essling, mais que je compte, du reste, sur sa prudence de ne pas se laisser couper d’Almeida.’ Napoleon to Berthier, November 20.

[27] ‘Il est donc important qu’il ne fasse point de petits pacquets.’ Ibid.

[28] See vol. iii. p. 276.

[29] These dispositions are given in D’Urban’s unpublished diary.

[30] For Wilson’s movements I have his letters to Trant and D’Urban of January 3, 1811—the one in D’Urban’s correspondence, the other in the Trant papers lent me by Captain Chambers, R.N.

[31] Wellington to Hill, Dispatches, vii. p. 86, Dec. 30, 1810.

[32] Chaby, ii. p. 272, gives January 5th as the date of the combat of Villa da Ponte, but all the other authorities place it on the 11th.

[33] According to Thiébault, then commanding at Salamanca, Claparéde’s rather wild excursion was due to mere desire for plunder; he accuses him of having raised, and put into his private purse, great contributions at Moimento, Lamego, and other towns which he occupied for a few days. (Mémoires, iv. 422-3.)

[34] Date uncertain, perhaps January 22, as Wellington knew he was there on January 26.

[35] The Emperor to Berthier, September 29, no. 16,967 of the Correspondance de Napoléon.

[36] Not in the Correspondance, but in the form of a letter from Berthier to Soult, which Soult answers at great length in his Dispatch from Seville of December 1.

[37] ‘Le 5^e Corps, au lieu de suivre La Romana, et par là de menacer la rive gauche du Tage vis-à-vis de Lisbonne (pour empêcher les Anglais d’avoir toutes leurs forces sur la rive droite), s’est replié honteusement sur Séville.’ Correspondance, no. 17,131.

[38] Soult to Berthier, no. 24 in Appendix to Belmas, vol. i. p. 472.

[39] The total of the troops available against Mortier in December would have been, giving net totals, with sick and detached men all deducted:—

Mortier had in the 5th Corps 11,500 infantry, 1,200 cavalry, and about 700 artillery in his 7 batteries.

[40] Soult to Berthier, December 1, 1810, from Seville.

[41] This dispatch of March 29 (Nap. Corresp., no. 17,531), which must have reached Soult about the end of April, when Masséna had long retired to Spain, told him that he should have withdrawn all the 4th Corps from Granada save the six Polish battalions, and have drawn in Godinot’s brigade from Cordova, i. e. have abandoned the whole eastern half of Andalusia, and have tried to hold nothing but the siege lines of Cadiz and the city of Seville. But this was ‘wisdom after the event.’ In December Napoleon was harping upon a diversion with 10,000 men to Montalvão and Villaflor, not ordering the evacuation of the greater part of Andalusia.

[42] January 25, Napoleon to Berthier, ‘Il est nécessaire d’écrire au duc de Dalmatie qu’après la prise de Badajoz il doit se porter sur le Tage, avec son équipage de pont, et donner les moyens au prince d’Essling d’assiéger et prendre Abrantès.’ Correspondance, no. 17,295.

February 5, Napoleon to Berthier, ‘Écrivez au duc d’Istrie (Bessières, now commanding the new “Army of the North”) ... que tout paraît prendre une couleur avantageuse, que si Badajoz a été pris dans le courant de Janvier, le duc de Dalmatie a pu se porter sur le Tage.’ [Unfortunately Badajoz did not surrender till March 11, and Soult was extremely lucky to get it so early.] Correspondance, no. 17,335.

[43] Napoleon to Berthier, March 29, Correspondance, no. 17,531.

[44] Soult to Berthier, from the siege lines in front of Olivenza, dated January 22.

[45] He calls it ‘la détermination que j’avais prise sur de simples avis indirects.’ To Berthier, January 25.

[46] For the explanation of all this see Soult to Berthier, already quoted, from Seville, December 1, acknowledging the receipt of the imperial orders of October 26th.

[47] Belonging to that division of the Army of the Centre under Dessolles which Soult had borrowed for the conquest of Andalusia, and which King Joseph, despite of many demands, could never get back.

[48] Certainly not with the loss of 1,500 men as Gazan alleged, still less with that of 3,000 as stated by Napier.

[49] By far the best account of this wild excursion is to be found in La Mare’s account of the Estremaduran Campaign of 1811-12 (Paris, 1825). Toreno exaggerates the losses of the French, which cannot have been heavy, as Martinien’s Liste des officiers tués, &c., shows only two or three casualties in Gazan’s division.

[50] Soult reports eighteen guns surrendered: but Herck says in his dispatch that only eight were serviceable.

[51] The original garrison was Voluntarios de Navarra, 1,150 bayonets properly belonging to O’Donnell’s division, which was at Lisbon with La Romana. The reinforcements thrown in at the last moment were four battalions, 2,400 bayonets, from the regiments Merida, Truxillo, Barbastro, and Monforte—the two former part of the original army of Estremadura, the two latter part of Del Parque’s old army from the north.

[52] Herck’s miserable exculpatory dispatch may be found in Chaby, iv. pp. 200-1.

[53] The regiment sent back with the prisoners was the 63rd, the one borrowed from Victor: it had not been at the siege, but supporting Latour-Maubourg at Albuera. The garrison left in Olivenza was one battalion of the 64th.

[54] Except the two nearest the river, San Vincente and San José, which are a little lower.

[55] Wellington, Dispatches, vii. p. 98, dated January 1st, to Charles Stuart reports that from Cadiz advices of December 23 he is aware that a concentration is taking place at Seville, though Mendizabal knows nothing of it.

[56] Wellington’s covering letter to La Romana’s dispatch is in Wellington Dispatches, vii. p. 99.

[57] Wellington, Dispatches, vii. 143.

[58] Ibid., vii. 165, where a letter to Henry Wellesley fixes the resolve to send off these troops to ‘yesterday,’ i. e. January 19th.

[59] Viz.

[60] Wellington calls the disease ‘spasms of the chest’; the Spanish authorities term it an aneurism.

[61] See especially Wellington to Liverpool, January 26th, in Dispatches, vii. 196-7. The corresponding letter to Mendizabal is less important, because it is written to a Spanish correspondent.

[62] See vol. i. pp. 371-4.

[63] See vol. iii. pp. 6-7.

[64] Ibid., 40.

[65] See Wellington, Dispatches, vii. p. 115, for note as to libels published by ‘a vagabond named Calvo.’

[66] See vol. iii. p. 325.

[67] This is ‘Memorandum to the Marquis of La Romana,’ to be found in Wellington, Dispatches, vii. 163, with date January 20, three days before that of the death of the Marquis.

[68] The French put into action six battalions of the 34th and 40th of Phillipon’s brigade [two in trench-guards, four in reserves], and one each of the 28th Léger, 64th, 88th, and 100th. The total force of these was, according to Belmas’s figures, well over 5,000. Carlos de España had apparently six battalions of his own, and two or three more from the other divisions, very much the same force in mere numbers. But quality had also to be taken into consideration. La Mare gives the French loss as 6 officers and 48 men killed, 25 officers and 337 men wounded.

[69] This remark, a very just one, is made by Arteche in his great History, ix. p. 193.

[70] Valladolid, Osuna, Zafra, and La Serena now became part of the garrison, with a strength of about 2,000 bayonets.

[71] 3 officers and 48 men killed and wounded according to La Mare, Siége de Badajoz, p. 58.

[72] Three battalions each of the 34th, 88th, and 100th Line.

[73] Thirteen squadrons of the 4th, 14th, and 26th Dragoons, the 2nd and 10th Hussars, the 21st and 27th Chasseurs, and the Spanish light cavalry regiment of Juramentados.

[74] See his pathetic letter in Wellington, Supplementary Disp., vii. p. 67.

[75] The statement that only a few men escaped into Badajoz is disproved by the figures of the surrender-rolls of March 11th, which show 1,108 men of La Carrera’s division, 554 of Virues’s division, and 995 of battalions of Garcia’s division which had not been told off to the regular garrison, as laying down their arms.

[76] There escaped into Portugal, beside the cavalry, the greater part of the regiments La Union from Garcia’s division, Rey and Princesa from that of Virues, Vittoria from that of La Carrera, and fragments of Zamora, and 1st of Barcelona. The whole, reorganized into new battalions, made a weak brigade of 1,800 men under Carlos de España in April.

[77] ‘Depuis la mort du Général Menacho l’ennemi avait éprouvé un certain découragement, dont l’effet se faisait connaître par l’absence de cette force morale qui fait agir les hommes et qui donne le mouvement et la vigueur. Il n’osa plus nous attaquer dans nos batteries, dans nos tranchées, afin de détruire en quelques moments l’œuvre d’un jour. Il ne profita pas des moyens de chicane et des subtilités que la nécessité et l’industrie font inventer.’ La Mare, p. 98.

[78] For all these interesting details see the verbatim report of the Council of War in the Appendix to Arteche, vii. pp. 544-7.

[79] ‘Hallarse la guarnicion en una total decadencia’ (opinion of Col. Ponce de Leon of 1st Barcelona). The garrison ‘no es de la primera classe en general’ (opinion of Col. Zamora of the Zafra regiment). ‘El soldado, cansado ya de la mucha fatiga, trataría de salvarse’ (opinion of Col. Hernandez of the Majorca regiment).

[80] See Soriano da Luz, iii. 337-8.

[81] D’Urban (Beresford’s chief of the staff) has in his diary under March 8th: ‘At 3 o’clock the Marshal crossed the river (Tagus) at Torres Novas and had an interview with Lord Wellington. The immediate relief of Badajoz, whose danger becomes imminent, has been judged desirable, this to be done with the 2nd and 4th Divisions. The Marshal returned at 8. Orders sent to Punhete to throw the bridge of boats over the Tagus at Tancos for the re-passage of General Stewart (2nd Division) and the passage of General Cole (4th Division). The troops still on the south bank of the Tagus are thrown into march upon Portalegre [near Elvas]. Orders to Mr. Ogilvie, the commissary, to take measures for supplies southward. General Menacho’s last sally, in which he is unfortunately killed, has probably saved the place by gaining of time, even if but for a few additional days.’ On the evening of the 9th March the movement was stopped, on a false rumour that Masséna was offering battle near Thomar, but news of it had been sent to General Leite at Elvas, who passed it by semaphore from Fort La Lippe to San Cristobal, which safely received it. It was not till the 12th that the 2nd Division was ordered to Crato in the Alemtejo, and Beresford reached Portalegre only on the 20th, nine days after Badajoz fell. Wellington says (Dispatches, vii. 360-1) ‘the Governor surrendered on the day after he received my assurances that he should be relieved, and my entreaty to hold out till the last moment.’ Cf. ibid., 367.

[82] Arteche (ix. 229) says that they used the breach, but La Mare, an eye-witness, says that the Trinidad gate was the point of exit. Soriano da Luz, using some Portuguese source unknown to me, says that only some Spanish sappers came down the breach slope, and they with difficulty.

[83] This was known to Wellington and Beresford on the 14th, or the night of the 13th, as is shown by Wellington, Dispatches, vii. p. 359.

[84] Less two battalions left in Badajoz as garrison, and the 100th of the Line also left with Mortier.

[85] I find in D’Urban’s diary under January 13: ‘Concurring testimony of deserters, &c., announces some general movement on the part of the enemy. Lord W. inclines to imagine that this will be a retreat, and that the retreat will be by the Mondego; to this he is inclined by Claparéde being ordered to take post at Guarda. But I have my doubts if anything like retreat has yet entered the head of Masséna.’ This is borne out by Wellington to Beresford of same day. (Dispatches, vii. 138.)

[86] Lord Liverpool to Wellington, February 20, 1811.

[87] Lord Liverpool to Wellington, September 20, 1810.

[88] Hansard for 1811, vol. xix. 397.

[89] Plumer Ward’s Diary, i. 406.

[90] Note that Perceval and Liverpool inherited the paper currency of Pitt, and were not responsible for its creation.

[91] For some curious anecdotes as to the dearth of silver change see Lord Folkestone’s speech quoted in Yonge’s Life of Lord Liverpool, i. 368.

[92] ‘How can you expect that we can buy specie here [London] with the exchange 30 per cent. against us, and guineas selling at 25 shillings?’ Huskisson to Wellington (private), 19th July, 1809. Wellington MSS., see Mr. Fortescue’s British Statesmen of the Great War, p. 254.

[93] For notes on this see Walpole’s Life of Perceval, ii. pp. 207-8.

[94] To Charles Stuart, Dispatches, vii. p. 462.

[95] To Admiral Berkeley, Dispatches, vii. p. 415.

[96] ‘The recent augmentation of your force must be considered as made with reference to the present exigency.... We are very anxious, not with a view of abandoning, but for the purpose of maintaining the contest in the Peninsula for an indefinite time, that when the present crisis shall appear to be over, you should send home the excess of your force, after keeping 30,000 effective rank and file for Portugal, and a sufficient garrison for Cadiz, selecting of course those regiments to be sent home which are least efficient, and consequently least fitted for active service.’

[97] Mr. Fortescue writes: ‘This was unfair. Perceval and Liverpool had deliberately turned their backs upon Pitt’s old policy of spasmodic efforts all over the world, in favour of a steady and persistent feeding of the war in one quarter—the Peninsula. Wellington himself had approved the change in his letters of 1810, had named the amount of money that he wanted, and fixed the figure of the reinforcements that he asked. But in 1811 he never ceased to ask for more men and more money, till Liverpool was obliged to remind him very gently, that he was going far beyond his own estimates.’ He had got to the stage of writing that Government having embarked on the contest, and chosen the best officer they could find, must give him the largest army they could collect, and reinforce it to the utmost, without asking precisely how many men were wanted, and for what precise objects. It was Mr. Fortescue who indicated to me two important passages about Liverpool which are omitted from the printed version of Wellington’s letters to Pole of January 11 and March 31, 1811, in Supplementary Dispatches, vii. pp. 40-3 and 93.

[98] See especially Wellington to Dudley Perceval (the premier’s son), June 6th, 1835, a protest against Napier’s wild misrepresentations.

[99] See Wellington to Beresford from Cartaxo, February 12. (Dispatches, vii. 253.)

[100] Ibid. ‘The cause of the state of deficiency is the old want of money to pay for carriage.’

[101] Their names, San Miguel, Loulé, Candido Xavier, and Manuel de Castro, are given by Fririon (Masséna’s aide-de-camp) in his diary. Major Leslie tells me that he cannot identify them in the Portuguese army-list of 1810, and thinks that two of them at least were only Ordenança officers.

[102] For details as to all this see Wellington to Charles Stuart, February 10. (Dispatches, vii. 237-8.)

[103] This fear is expressed in a letter to Charles Stuart dated January 16 (Dispatches, vii. 147), on the news that Mortier’s cavalry had seized the bridge of Merida. ‘The passage of the Tagus by Mortier removes to a distant period the danger of Alemtejo; but it shows that we may be attacked at an early period in our positions. For Mortier, supposing him to march by Almaraz, can be on the Zezere in the first days of February, and I think it possible that the battle for the possession of this country, and probably the fate of the Peninsula, will be fought in less than a month from this time.’

[104] All this may be found in Wellington’s dispatch of January 12, 1811, where he details the successive positions which Beresford must try to hold.

[105] For a description of this front see Jones, Lines of Torres Vedras, pp. 43-5.

[106] From a long note by D’Urban in his unpublished diary, dated January 22, 1811.

[107] See pp. 77-9.

[108] The best account of this reconnaissance is in the Journal of Sprünglin, pp. 462-3.

[109] There is a good account of this march by Foy in his Vie Militaire, ed. Girod de l’Ain, pp. 127-8.

[110] For details of this see the Diary of Tomkinson of the 16th Light Dragoons. His own regiment alone brought in 82 prisoners between January 19 and February 23. There were some very fine feats of arms on a small scale in this outpost fighting, notably a capture made by Lieutenant Bishop on January 19th, when with six men he charged twenty chasseurs, and took eight with twelve horses.

[111] The best account of this council of war is Foy’s (in his Vie Militaire, pp. 129-32), which is contemporary. It differs largely from Koch’s narrative in his Vie de Masséna. It is quite convincing when compared with Masséna’s explanatory dispatch to Berthier of March 6th, which sets forth his own arguments for the retreat. They are the same which Foy attributes to him in the précis of the meeting of February 18th.

[112] ‘Bientôt viendrait le moment où on serait forcé de se jeter sur l’une ou sur l’autre rive; et alors on pourrait trouver les têtes-de-pont entourées par une contrevallation de l’ennemi, ou bien l’armée se verrait forcée à recevoir bataille avec un fleuve au dos, en voulant se porter sur la rive droite.’ Masséna to Berthier, March 6.

[113] It is interesting to see from Masséna’s dispatch of March 6 that he was aware of the existence both of the Setubal and the Almada fortifications.

[114] Foy, present at the council, where he was asked to comment on the Emperor’s last orders, which he had brought himself, renders Masséna’s decision in his diary as: ‘Que faut-il donc faire? Tenir ici le plus longtemps que nous pourrons: voir d’ici là ce qui se passera dans l’Alemtejo: puis, si rien n’est changé, nous transporter sur le Mondego, en laissant un corps d’armée à la rive gauche de cette rivière.’ [Vie Militaire, p. 131.]