SECTION XIII: CHAPTER II

PORTUGAL AT THE MOMENT OF SOULT’S INVASION: THE NATION, THE REGENCY, AND SIR JOHN CRADOCK

Soult’s vanguard crossed the Portuguese frontier between Monterey and Chaves on March 9, 1809: it was exactly five months since the last of Junot’s troops had evacuated the realm on October 9, 1808. In the period which had elapsed between those two dates much might have been done to develop—or rather to create—a scheme of national defence and a competent army. Unhappily for Portugal the Regency had not risen to the opportunity, and when the second French invasion came upon them the military organization of the realm was still in a state of chaos.

During the autumn months of 1808 the Portuguese Government had been almost as sanguine and as careless as the Spanish Supreme Junta. They had seen Junot beaten and expelled: they still beheld a large British army in their midst; and they did not comprehend the full extent of the impending danger, when the news came that Bonaparte was nearing the Pyrenees, and that the columns of the ‘Grand Army’ were debouching into the Peninsula. It was not till Moore had departed that they began to conceive certain doubts as to the situation: nor was it till Madrid had fallen that they at last realized that the invader was once more at their gates, and that they must prepare to defend themselves.

There were still two months of respite granted to them. Portugal—like Andalusia—was saved for a moment by Moore’s march to Sahagun. The great field army which Napoleon had collected for the advance on Lisbon was turned off northwards to pursue the British, and on the New Year’s day of 1809 the only French force in proximity to the frontier of the realm was the division of Lapisse, which Bonaparte had dropped at[p. 197] Salamanca to form the connecting link between Soult and Ney in Galicia, and the troops under Victor and King Joseph in the vicinity of Madrid.

But the danger was only postponed, not averted, by Moore’s daring irruption into Old Castile. This the Portuguese Regency understood; and during the first two months of 1809 they displayed a considerable amount of energy, though it was in great part energy misdirected. Their chief blunder was that instead of straining every nerve to complete their regular army, on which the main stress of the invasion was bound to fall, they diverted much of their zeal to the task of raising a vast levée en masse of the whole able-bodied population of the realm. This error had its roots in old historical memories. The deliverance of Portugal from the Spanish yoke in the long war of independence in the seventeenth century, had been achieved mainly by the Ordenanza, the old constitutional force of the realm, which resembled the English Fyrd of the Middle Ages. It had done good service again in the wars of 1703-12, and even in the shorter struggle of 1762. But in the nineteenth century it was no longer possible to reckon upon it as a serious line of defence, especially when the enemy to be held back was not the disorderly Spanish army but the legions of Bonaparte. When there were not even arms enough in Portugal to supply the line-battalions with a musket for every man, it was insane to summon together huge masses of peasantry, and to make over to them some of the precious firearms which should have been reserved for the regulars. The majority, however, of the Ordenanza were not even supplied with muskets, they were given pikes—weapons with which their ancestors had done good service in 1650, but which it was useless to serve out in 1809. The Regency had procured some 17,000[220] from the British Government, and had caused many thousands more to be manufactured. Both on the northern and the eastern frontier great hordes of country-folk, equipped with these useless and antiquated arms, were gathered together. Destitute of discipline and of officers, insufficiently supplied with food, the prey of every rumour, true or false, that ran along the border, they were a source of danger[p. 198] rather than of strength to the realm. The cry of ‘treachery,’ which inevitably arises among armed mobs, was always being raised in their encampments. Hence came tumults and murders, for the peasantry had a strong suspicion of the loyalty of the governing classes—the result of the subservience to the French invader which had been displayed by many of the authorities, both civil and military, in 1808. Orders which they did not understand, or into which a sinister meaning could be read by a suspicious mind, generally caused a riot, and sometimes the assassination of the unfortunate commander whom the Regency had placed over the horde. In Oporto the state of affairs was particularly bad: the bishop, though a sincere patriot and a man of energy, had drunk too deeply of the delights of power during his rule in the summer months. After being made a member of the Regency by Dalrymple, he should have remained at Lisbon and worked with his colleagues. But returning to his own flock, he reassumed the authority which he had possessed during the early days of the insurrection, and pursued a policy of his own, which often differed from that of his Regency at large, and was sometimes in flagrant opposition to it. His position, in fact, was similar to that of Palafox at Saragossa, and like the Aragonese general he often practised the arts of demagogy in order to keep firm his influence over the populace. He was all for the system of the levée en masse; and summoned together unmanageable bands which he was able neither to equip nor to control. He praised their zeal, was wilfully blind to their frequent excesses, and seldom tried to turn their energies into profitable channels. Indeed, he was so ignorant of military matters himself, that he had no useful orders to give. He ignored the advice of the Portuguese generals in his district, and got little profit from that of two foreign officers whom the British Government sent him—the Hanoverian General Von der Decken and the Prussian Baron Eben. These gentlemen he seems to have conciliated, and to have played off against the native military authorities. But if they gave him good counsel, there are no signs in his actions that he turned it to account. All the British witnesses who passed through Oporto in January and February 1809, describe the place as being in a state of patriotic frenzy, and under mob law[p. 199] rather than administered by any regular and legal government[221]. The only fruitful military effort made in this part of Portugal was that of the gallant Sir Robert Wilson, who raised there in November and December his celebrated ‘Loyal Lusitanian Legion.’ This was intended to be the core of a subsidiary Portuguese division in British pay, distinct from the national army. When Wilson arrived in Oporto the bishop welcomed him, and forwarded in every way the formation of the corps. In a few days the Legion had 3,000 recruits of excellent quality, of whom Wilson could arm and clothe only some 1,300, for the equipment which he had brought with him was limited. He soon discovered, however, that the bishop’s zeal in his behalf was mainly due to the desire to have a solid force at hand which should be independent of the Portuguese generals. He wished the Legion to be, as it were, his own body-guard. Sir Robert was ill pleased, and being unwilling to mix himself in the domestic feuds of the bishop and the Regency, or to become the tool of a faction, quitted Oporto as soon as his men could march. With one strong battalion, a couple of squadrons of cavalry, and an incomplete battery—under 1,500 men in all—he moved first to Villa Real (Dec. 14), and then to the frontier, where he posted himself near Almeida and took over the task of observing Lapisse’s division, which from its base at Salamanca was threatening the Portuguese border. Of his splendid services in this direction we shall have much to tell. The unequipped portion of the Legion, left behind at Oporto, was handed over to Baron Eben, and became involved in the tumultuous and unhappy career of the bishop[222].

Meanwhile Lisbon was almost as disturbed as Oporto, and might have lapsed into the same state of anarchy, if a British garrison had not been on the spot. The mistaken policy of the[p. 200] Regency had led to the formation of sixteen so-called ‘legions[223]’ in the capital and suburbs. These tumultuary levies had few officers and hardly any arms but pikes. They were under no sort of discipline, and devoted themselves to the self-imposed duty of hunting for spies and ‘Afrancesados.’ Led by demagogues of the streets, they paraded up and down Lisbon to beat of drum, arresting persons whom they considered suspicious, especially foreign residents of all nationalities. The Regency having issued a decree prohibiting this practice [January 29], the armed levies only assembled in greater numbers next night, and engaged in a general chase after unpopular citizens, policemen, and aliens of all kinds. Many fugitives were only saved from death by taking refuge in the guard-houses and the barracks where the garrison was quartered. Isolated British soldiers were assaulted, some were wounded, and parties of ‘legionaries’ actually stopped aides-de-camp and orderlies carrying dispatches, and stripped them of the documents they were bearing. The mob was inclined, indeed, to be ill-disposed towards their allies, from the suspicion that they were intending to evacuate Lisbon and to retire from the Peninsula. They had seen the baggage and non-combatants left behind by Moore put on ship-board; early in February they beheld the troops told off for the occupation of Cadiz embark and disappear. When they also noticed that the forts at the Tagus mouth were being dismantled[224] they made up their minds that the British were about to desert them, without making any attempt to defend Portugal. Hence came the malevolent spirit which they displayed. It died down when their suspicions were proved unfounded by the arrival of Beresford and other British officers, at the beginning of March, with resources for the reorganization of the Portuguese army, and still more when a little later heavy reinforcements from England began to pour into the city. But in the last days of January and the first of February matters at[p. 201] Lisbon had been in a most dangerous and critical condition: the Regency, utterly unable to keep order, had hinted to Sir John Cradock that he must take his own measures against the mob, and for several days the British general had kept the garrison under arms, and planted artillery in the squares and broader streets—exactly as Junot had done seven months before. The ‘legions’ were cowed, and most fortunately no collision occurred: if a single shot had been fired in anger, there would have been an end of the Anglo-Portuguese alliance, and it is more than likely that Cradock—a man of desponding temperament—would have abandoned the country.

His force at this moment was by no means large: when Moore marched for Salamanca in October he had left behind in Portugal six battalions of British and four of German infantry[225], three squadrons of the 20th Light Dragoons (the regiment that had been so much cut up at Vimiero), one of the 3rd Light Dragoons of the King’s German Legion, and five batteries, only one of which was horsed. From Salamanca, when on the eve of starting on the march to Sahagun, Sir John had sent back two regiments to Portugal, in charge of his great convoys of sick and heavy baggage[226]. To compensate for this deduction from his army he had called up a brigade of the troops left in Portugal; but only one battalion of it—the 82nd—reached him in time to join in his Castilian campaign[227]. The net result was that seven British infantry regiments from Moore’s army were left behind, in addition to the four German corps. Two more had arrived from England in November[228], and a fresh regiment of dragoons in December[229].

Thus when Sir John Cradock took over the command at[p. 202] Lisbon on December 14, 1808, he had at his disposal in all thirteen battalions of infantry, seven squadrons of cavalry, and five batteries, a force of about 12,000 men[230]. But not more than 10,000 were effective, for Sir John Moore had left behind precisely those of his regiments which were most sickly, when he marched for Spain. He had moreover discharged more than 2,000 additional sick upon Portugal ere he began field operations: they were encumbering the hospitals of Almeida and Lamego when Cradock appeared. The 10,000 men fit for service were scattered all over Portugal: the two battalions, which had just come back from Spain, and the two others which had been too late to join Moore, were in the north, at Almeida and Lamego[231]. One battalion was in garrison at Elvas[232]. Six lay in Lisbon, as also did the whole of the cavalry and guns[233]: two were on the march from Abrantes to Almeida[234].

Such a dispersion of forces would have appalled the most enterprising of generals, and this was a title to which Cradock had certainly no claims. The two obvious courses between which he had to choose, were either to concentrate his little army on the frontier and make as much display of it in the face of the French as might be possible, or to abandon all idea of protecting exterior Portugal, and collect the scattered regiments in or about Lisbon. Cradock chose the second alternative. He argued that he was too weak to be of any effectual service on the frontier, and moreover found that there would be a vast difficulty in moving forward even the Lisbon garrison, for nearly all the available transport had been requisitioned for the use of Moore’s army, and had been carried off into Spain. Neither of these pleas is convincing: with regard to the first, it is merely necessary to point out that Sir Robert Wilson, with 1,500 men of the Lusitanian Legion, not yet three months old, made his[p. 203] presence felt on the frontier, checked Lapisse, and kept the whole province of Salamanca in a state of unrest. Ten thousand British bayonets and sabres could have done much more. As to the food and supplies, Cradock was arguing in the old eighteenth-century style, as if a British army was bound to move with all its baggage and impedimenta, its women and children. If he had chosen to ‘march light,’ and to take the route through the fertile and well-peopled Estremadura, he could have reached Abrantes or Almeida or any other goal that he chose.

The fact was that the reasons for refusing to adopt a ‘forward policy’ were moral and not physical. Cradock, in common with Sir John Moore and many other British officers, believed that Portugal could not be defended, and was thinking more of securing himself a safe embarkation than of exercising any influence on the main current of the war.

When Moore’s army had passed out of sight, and was known to be retiring in the direction of Galicia, it seemed to Cradock that his own position was hopeless. Even if granted time to concentrate his scattered battalions, he would be forced to fly to the sea and take shipping the moment that any serious French force crossed the frontier. He had not sufficiently accurate information to enable him to see that both Lapisse at Salamanca, and the weak divisions of the 4th Corps which lay in the valley of the Tagus, could not possibly move forward against him. It would have been insane for either of these forces to have attacked Portugal—the one was at this moment less than 10,000, the other about 12,000 strong—they were without communications, and separated by 100 miles of pathless sierras. Moreover the troops in the valley of the Tagus were fully occupied in observing the Spanish army of Estremadura. At the opening of the New Year, therefore, Cradock was in absolutely no danger, and might have gone forward either to Abrantes or to Almeida in perfect security. In the first position he would have menaced the flank of the 4th Corps: in the second he would have exercised a useful pressure on Lapisse. In either case he would have encouraged the Portuguese and lent moral support to the Spaniards.

But Cradock was possessed by that miserable theory which was so frequently expounded by the men of desponding mind[p. 204] during the early years of the Peninsular War, to the effect that Portugal was indefensible, and would have to be evacuated whenever a strong French force approached its frontier[235]. It was fortunate for England and for Europe that Wellesley had other views. The history of the next three years was to show that a British general could find something better to do than to pack up his baggage and prepare to embark, whenever the enemy came down in superior strength to the Portuguese border.

No doubt Cradock would have had to take to his transports if the French had possessed on January 1, 1809, an army of 40,000 men available for the invasion of Portugal, and ready to advance. They did not happen to own any such force; and till he was certain that such a force existed, Cradock was gravely to blame for ordering every British soldier to fall back on Lisbon, and for openly commencing to destroy the sea-forts of the capital. It is true that the dispatches which he received from home gave him many directions as to what he was to do if the enemy appeared in overpowering strength: he was to blow up the shore batteries, destroy all military and naval stores, and embark with the British troops and as many Portuguese as could be induced to follow. But this was only to take place ‘upon the actual approach of the enemy towards Lisbon in such strength as may render all further resistance ineffectual[236].’ To commence these preparations when the nearest troops of the enemy were at Salamanca and Almaraz was premature and precipitate in the highest degree. Till the French began to move, every endeavour should have been made to encourage the Portuguese and to maintain a show—even if it were but a vain show—of an intention to defend the frontier. If Lapisse[p. 205] had heard that Cradock was at Almeida he would have been nailed down to Salamanca: if Victor had heard that he was at Alcantara, or even at Abrantes, he would never have dared to pursue Cuesta into southern Estremadura.

Cradock, however, drew into Lisbon every available man: Brigadier Cameron, with the troops from Almeida and Oporto, started back on a weary march from the north, via Coimbra, bringing not only his own four battalions, but 1,500 convalescents and returned stragglers from Moore’s army. Richard Stewart, with the two battalions that had been at Abrantes, also came in to the capital, and all the British troops were concentrated by the beginning of February, save the 40th regiment, which still lay at Elvas. Having thus got together about 10,000 men, Cradock, with almost incredible timidity, began to draw them back to Passo d’Arcos, a place behind Lisbon near the mouth of the Tagus, from which embarkation was easy. When Villiers, the British minister at Lisbon, remonstrated with him on the deplorable political consequences of assuming this ignoble position on the water’s edge, Cradock replied, “I must object to take up a ‘false position,’ say Alcantara, or to occupy the heights in front of Lisbon, which would only defend a certain position, and leave the remainder [of Portugal?] to the power of the enemy, one which we must leave upon his approach, and seek another, bearing the appearance of flight, and yet not securing our retreat. The whole having announced the intention of defending Lisbon, but giving up that idea upon the approach of the enemy, for positions liable to be turned on every side cannot be persevered in by an inferior force.”

On the day [February 15] upon which Cradock wrote this extraordinary piece of English prose composition, whose grammar is as astounding as its argument, the nearest French troops were at Tuy in Galicia, Salamanca in Leon, and the bridge of Arzobispo on the central Tagus, points respectively 230, 250, and 240 miles distant from Lisbon as the crow flies, and infinitely more by road. Further comment is hardly necessary.

At this moment Cradock might have had at his disposal 2,000 more British troops, but he had chosen to fall in with Sir George Smith’s hasty and unauthorized scheme for the[p. 206] occupation of Cadiz[237], and had sent off to that port a whole brigade[238], under General Mackenzie. He also dispatched orders to Colonel Kemmis of the 40th to hand over Elvas to the Portuguese, and march to Seville. The battalion moved into Andalusia, and placed itself at the disposition of Mr. Frere, who found it as useless as the force which Smith had drawn off to Cadiz. It was several months before the 40th rejoined the army of Portugal.

Influenced by the remonstrances of Mr. Villiers, and somewhat comforted by the fact that the French armies had nowhere crossed the Portuguese frontier, Cradock was at last persuaded to give up his position at Passo d’Arcos; he fixed his head quarters at Lumiar, left 2,000 men in garrison at Lisbon, and cantoned the remainder of his army at Saccavem and other places a few miles in front of the city. This was better than leaving them on the sea-shore; but the move was no more than a miserable half measure. It was almost as indicative of an intention to depart without fighting as the retreat to Passo d’Arcos had been. In short, from January to the end of April the British army exercised no influence whatever on the military affairs of the Peninsula. Yet by March it was beginning to grow formidable in numbers: early in that month all the troops which had been drawn off to Cadiz were sent to Lisbon, and by the addition of seven good battalions to his corps[239] Cradock found himself at the head of over 16,000 men. There were but 800 effective cavalry, and of the six batteries only two, incredible as it may seem, were properly horsed, though three months had passed by since the general had begun his first complaints on this point[240]. But 16,000 British troops were a force not to be despised, and if Wellesley or some other competent officer had been in command, we cannot doubt that they would have been[p. 207] turned to some profitable use. Under Cradock they remained cantoned in the suburbs of Lisbon for the whole time during which Soult was completing his conquest of Oporto and northern Portugal, and Victor executing his invasion of Estremadura. It was not till Soult’s advanced guard was on the Vouga [April 6] that Hill and Beresford[241] succeeded in inducing the general to carry forward his head quarters to Leiria and his outposts to Thomar[242]. Fortunately his tenure of command was at last drawing to an end. On April 22 Sir Arthur Wellesley arrived in Lisbon and took over charge of the troops in Portugal. How startling were the consequences of this change of generals we shall soon see: ere May was out the whole Peninsula realized once more that there was a British Army within its limits—a fact that might well have passed unnoticed during the last four months.