SECTION XIV: CHAPTER II

WELLESLEY RETAKES OPORTO

On arriving at Lisbon, Wellesley, as we have already seen, was overjoyed to find that the situation in Portugal remained just as it had been when he set sail from Portsmouth: Victor was still quiescent in his cantonments round Merida: Soult had not moved forward on the road toward Coimbra, and was in the midst of his unfruitful bickerings with the army of Silveira. Lapisse had disappeared from his threatening position in front of Ciudad Rodrigo, and had passed away to Estremadura. All the rumours as to an immediate French advance on Badajoz and Abrantes, which had arrived just as the new commander-in-chief was quitting England, had turned out to be baseless inventions. There were reassuring dispatches awaiting him from the English attachés with the armies of Cuesta and La Romana[382], which showed that Galicia was in full insurrection, and that a respectable force was once more threatening Victor’s flank. Accordingly it was possible to take into consideration plans for assuming the offensive against the isolated French armies, and the defensive campaign for the protection of Lisbon, which Wellesley had feared to find forced upon him, was not necessary.

Within thirty-six hours of his arrival the British commander-in-chief had made up his mind as to the strategy that was incumbent on him. He resolved, as we have already seen, to leave a containing force to watch Victor, while he hastened with the main body of his army to strike a blow at Soult, whose corps was clearly in a state of dispersion, which invited attack. The Duke of Dalmatia was operating at once upon the Minho, the Tamega, and the Vouga, and it seemed likely that a prompt stroke might surprise him, in the midst of the movement for[p. 313] concentration which he would be compelled to make, when he should learn that the British were in the field.

The forces available for Wellesley’s use consisted of some 25,000 British[383] and 16,000 Portuguese troops. Cradock, urged on by Hill and Beresford, had advanced with the main body of his army to Leiria and lay there upon the twenty-fourth, the day upon which he received Wellesley’s notification that he had been superseded and was to sail to take up the governorship of Gibraltar. But four or five newly arrived corps still lay at Lisbon, and more were expected. The army was very weak in cavalry, there were but four regiments and fractions of two others available[384]. Of the infantry there were only present five of the battalions[385] which had served at Vimiero and knew the French and their manner of fighting. The rest were all inexperienced and new to the field, and the majority indeed were weak second battalions, which had not originally been intended for foreign service, and had been made up to their present numbers by large and recent drafts from the militia[386]. Even at Talavera, six months after the campaign had begun, it is on record that many of the men were still showing the names and numbers of their old militia regiments on their knapsacks. The battalions which had joined in Moore’s march into Spain only began to reappear in June, when Robert Craufurd brought back to Lisbon the 1/43rd, 1/52nd and 1/95th, which were to form the nucleus of the famous Light Division. The remainder of the Corunna troops, when they had been rested and recruited, were drawn aside to take part in the miserable expedition to Walcheren. When Wellesley first took the field therefore, these veterans of the campaign of 1808 were only represented[p. 314] by the two ‘battalions of detachments’ which General Cameron had organized from the stragglers and convalescents of Moore’s army.

The Portuguese troops which Wellesley found available for the campaign against Soult consisted entirely of the line regiments from Lisbon and the central parts of the realm, which Beresford had been reorganizing during the last two months. The troops of the north had been destroyed at Oporto, or were in arms under Silveira on the Tamega. Those of the south were garrisoning Elvas, or still endeavouring to recruit their enfeebled cadres at their regimental head quarters. But Beresford had massed at Thomar and Abrantes ten[387] line regiments, some with one, some with their statutory two battalions, three newly raised battalions of Cazadores, and three incomplete cavalry regiments, a force amounting in all to nearly 15,000 sabres and bayonets. Though Wellesley considered that they ‘cut a bad figure,’ and that the rank and file were poor and the native officers ‘worse than anything he had ever seen,’ he was yet resolved to give them a chance in the field. Beresford assured him that they had improved so much during the last few weeks, and were showing such zeal and good spirit, that it was only fair that they should be given a trial[388].

Accordingly Wellesley resolved to brigade certain picked battalions among his English troops, and to take them straight to the front, while he told off others to form part of the ‘containing force’ which was to be sent off to watch Victor[p. 315] and the French army of Estremadura. The remainder, under Beresford himself, were to act as an independent division during the march on Oporto.

Five days of unceasing work had to be spent in Lisbon before Wellesley could go forward, but while he was making his arrangements with the Portuguese regency, drawing out a new organization for Beresford’s commissariat, and striving to get into communication with Cuesta, the British troops were already being pushed forward from Leiria towards Coimbra, and the Portuguese were converging from Thomar on the same point, so that no time was being lost. It was during this short and busy stay at Lisbon that Wellesley was confronted with the conspirator Argenton, who had come up to the capital in company with Major Douglas. He did not make a good impression on the commander-in-chief, who wrote home that he had no doubt as to the reality of the plot against Soult, and the discontent of the French army, but thought it unlikely that any good would come from the plot[389]. He refused to promise compliance with Argenton’s two requests, that he would direct the Portuguese to fall in with Soult’s plans for assuming royal power, and that he would bring the British army forward to a position in which it would threaten the retreat of the 2nd Corps on Leon. The former savoured too much of Machiavellian treachery: as to the latter, he thought so little of the profit likely to result from the plot, that he would not alter his plans to oblige the conspirators. The only information of certain value that he had obtained from the emissary was that Soult had no idea of Victor’s position or projects. All that he granted to Argenton was passports to take him and his two friends, ‘Captains Dupont and Garis,’ to England, from whence they intended to cross into France, in order to set their friends in the interior on the move. Great care was taken that Argenton on his return journey to Oporto should see as little as possible of the British army, lest he should be able to tell too much about its numbers[p. 316] and dispositions. He was conducted back by Douglas to the Vouga, by a circuitous route, and safely repassed Franceschi’s outposts[390].

On the twenty-ninth Wellesley at last got clear of Lisbon, where the formal festivities and reception arranged in his honour had tried him even more than the incessant desk-work which had to be got through before the organization of his base for supplies was completed. On April 30 he pushed forward to Leiria, on May 1 to Pombal, on the second he reached Coimbra and found himself in the midst of his army, which had only concentrated itself at that city during the last five days.

All was quiet in the front: Trant, who was holding the line of the Vouga with 3,000 disorderly militia and some small fragments rallied from the line regiments which had been dispersed at Oporto, reported that Franceschi and the French light cavalry had remained quiescent for many days. The same news came in from Wilson, who, after pursuing Lapisse to Alcantara, had come back with part of his troops to the neighbourhood of Almeida, and had a detachment at Vizeu watching the flank of the French advance. Silveira reported from Amarante that he was still holding the line of the Tamega, and had at least 10,000 enemies in front of him. All therefore seemed propitious for the great stroke.

Wellesley’s plan, as finally worked out in detail, was to push forward his main body upon Oporto with all possible speed, while sending a flanking column under Beresford to cross the Douro near Lamego, join Silveira, and intercept Soult’s line of retreat upon the plains of Leon by way of the Tras-os-Montes. If he could move fast enough, he hoped to catch the Marshal with his army still unconcentrated. His design, as he wrote to Castlereagh, was ‘to beat or cripple Soult,’ to thrust him back into Galicia; he doubted whether it would be possible to accomplish more with the force that was at his disposal, but if any chance should occur for destroying or surrounding the enemy he would do his best. Rumours that the Marshal was preparing to evacuate Oporto were in the air: if they were true, and the French were already making ready to retreat, it was unlikely that they would stand long enough to run into danger.

[p. 317]

The detailed arrangements for the distribution of the troops were as follows:—

It was first necessary to provide a ‘containing force’ to hold back Victor, in case he should make an unexpected move down the Tagus or the Guadiana. For this purpose Wellesley told off one of his brigades, that of Mackenzie, together with two regiments of heavy cavalry and one of infantry which had lately arrived at Lisbon, and were now on their march to Santarem. With these four battalions, one field battery, and eight squadrons, Mackenzie was to take post at Abrantes, and behind the line of the Zezere[391]. There he was to be joined by the larger half of Beresford’s reorganized Portuguese army—seven battalions of line troops, three of Cazadores, five squadrons of cavalry, and three batteries[392]. He would also have three regiments of militia at his disposal, to garrison the fortress of Abrantes. His whole force, excluding the militia, would amount to 1,400 British and 700 Portuguese cavalry, nearly 3,000 British infantry, 6,000 Portuguese infantry, and four batteries. These 12,000 men ought to be able to hold back any force that Victor could detach for a raid along the Tagus: for, having Cuesta’s army in his front, it was absolutely impossible that he could march with his whole corps into Portugal. If the Marshal moved forward south of the Tagus, that river should be held against him, and since it was in full flood it would be easy to keep him back, as all the boats and ferries could be destroyed, and it would be useless for him to present himself opposite Vella Velha, Abrantes,[p. 318] or Santarem. If he advanced north of the Tagus, the line of the Zezere was to be maintained against him as long as possible, then those of the Nabao and Rio Mayor. But the main army would be back from the north, to reinforce the ‘containing force,’ long ere the Marshal could push so far. As an outlying post on this front Wellesley ordered Colonel Mayne, with the part of Wilson’s Lusitanian Legion that had not returned to the north and a militia regiment, to occupy Alcantara. He was to break its bridge if forced out of the position.

Victor being thus provided for, Wellesley could turn the rest of his army against Soult at Oporto. For the main operation he could dispose of 17,000 British and 7,000 Portuguese troops present with the colours, after deducting the sick, the men on detached duty, and one single battalion left in garrison at Lisbon. He divided them, as we have already stated, into a larger force destined to execute the frontal attack upon Soult, and a smaller one which was to cut off his retreat into central Spain.

The flanking column, 5,800 men in all, was entrusted to Beresford: it was composed of one British brigade (that of Tilson) consisting of 1,500 bayonets[393], a single British squadron (the 4th of the 14th Light Dragoons) with five battalions[394], three squadrons[395], and two field-batteries of Portuguese. These troops were originally directed to join Silveira at Amarante, and co-operate with him in defending the line of the Tamega. But on May 3 there arrived at Coimbra the unwelcome news that Loison had forced the bridge of Amarante, and that Silveira in consequence had retired south of the Douro and was lying at Lamego with the wrecks of his army, some 4,000 men at most. This untoward event did not cause Wellesley to change the direction of Beresford’s column, but rendered him more cautious as to pushing it beyond the Douro. He ordered his lieutenant to pick up Sir Robert Wilson’s small force at Vizeu[396], to join[p. 319] Silveira at Lamego, and then to guide his further operations by the attitude of the French. If they tried to pass the Douro he was to oppose them strenuously; if they still clung to the northern bank and had not advanced far beyond Amarante, he might cross, and occupy Villa Real, if he thought the move safe and the position behind that town defensible. But he was to risk nothing; if the whole of Soult’s corps should retreat eastward he was not to attempt to stop them, ‘for,’ wrote Wellesley, ‘I should not like to see a single British brigade, supported by 6,000 or 8,000 Portuguese, exposed to be attacked by the French army in any but a very good post[397].’ If Loison alone were left on the Tamega, Beresford might take post at Villa Real and fight: if, however, Soult should appear at the head of his entire force, it would be madness to await him: the column must fall back and allow him to pass. ‘Remember,’ added Wellesley in another letter[398], ‘that you are a commander-in-chief and must not be beaten: therefore do not undertake anything with your troops if you have not some strong hope of success.’ Beresford’s column was sent off a day before the rest of the army, in order to allow the flanking movement time to develop before the frontal attack was pushed home. He left Coimbra on May 6, was at Vizeu on the eighth, and joined Silveira at Lamego on the tenth; all his movements passed completely unobserved by the enemy, owing to the wide sweep to the right which he had been ordered to make.

The infantry of Wellesley’s main force, with which the frontal attack on Oporto was to be made, consisted of six brigades of British, one of the King’s German Legion, and four picked battalions of Portuguese who were attached respectively to the brigades of A. Campbell, Sontag, Stewart, and Cameron. Of cavalry, in which he was comparatively weak, he had the whole of the 16th, three squadrons of the 14th, and two of the 20th Light Dragoons, with one squadron more from the 3rd Light Dragoons of the King’s German Legion. The artillery, twenty-four guns in all, was composed of two British and two German field-batteries.[p. 320] No horse artillery had yet been received from England, though Wellesley had been urging his need for it on the home authorities, at the same time that he made a similar demand for good light infantry, such as that which had formed the light brigade of Moore’s army[399], and for remounts to keep his cavalry up to full fighting strength. The army was not yet distributed into regular divisions, but the beginnings of the later divisional arrangement were indicated by the telling off the brigades of Richard Stewart and Murray to serve together under Edward Paget (who had commanded Moore’s reserve division with such splendid credit to himself during the Corunna retreat), while those of H. Campbell, A. Campbell, and Sontag were to take their orders from Sherbrooke, and those of Hill and Cameron to move under the charge of the former brigadier. The cavalry was under General Cotton, with Payne as brigadier; the senior officer of artillery was General E. Howorth[400].

[p. 321]

It will be noted that of the total force with which Wellesley was about to assail the 2nd Corps, about 16,400 were British troops and 11,400 Portuguese. Considering that Soult had at least 23,000 sabres and bayonets, of whom not more than 2,200 were in his hospitals, and that over three-eighths of the allies were untried and newly-organized levies, it cannot be denied that the march on Oporto showed considerable self-confidence, and a very nice and accurate calculation of the chances of war on the part of the British Commander-in-chief.

On the very day on which the vanguard marched out from Coimbra upon the northern road, Wellesley received a second visit from the conspirator Argenton, who had returned from consulting his friends at Oporto and Amarante. He brought little news of importance: Soult had not yet proclaimed himself king, and therefore the plotters had taken no open steps against him. The French army had not begun to move, but it appeared that the Marshal was pondering over the relative advantages of the lines of retreat available to him, for Argenton brought a memorandum given him by (or purloined from) some staff-officer, which contained a long exposition of the various roads from Oporto, and stated a preference for that by Villa Real and the Tras-os-Montes[401]. He had a number of futile propositions to lay before Wellesley, and especially urged him to make sure of Villa Real and to cut off the Marshal’s retreat on Spain. The traitor was sent back, with no promises of compliance; and every endeavour was made to keep from him the fact that the allied army was already upon the move. Unfortunately he had passed many troops upon the road from Coimbra to the Vouga, and had guessed at what he had not seen. On the following day he passed through the French lines on his return journey, and by the way endeavoured to spread the propaganda of treason. One of the infantry brigades which lay in support of Franceschi’s cavalry was commanded by a general Lefebvre, with whom Argenton had long served as aide-de-camp. Knowing that his old chief was weak and discontented[402], the emissary of[p. 322] the malcontents paid a midnight visit to him, revealed to him the outlines of the conspiracy, and endeavoured to enroll him as a fellow plotter. He had misjudged his man: Lefebvre listened to everything without showing any signs of surprise or anger, but hastened to bear the tale to Soult, and arranged for Argenton’s arrest on his return to Oporto upon the following morning. Confronted with the Marshal, the traitor held his head high, and boasted that he was the agent of a powerful body of conspirators. He invited Soult to declare against the Emperor, and deliver France from servitude. He also warned him that Wellesley had arrived at Coimbra, and told him that 30,000 British troops of whom 3,000 at least were cavalry, would fall upon Franceschi that day. Thus, owing to his conference with Argenton, Wellesley lost the chance of surprising Soult, who was warned of the oncoming storm exactly at the moment when it was most important that he should still be kept in the dark as to the force that was marching against him [May 8].

Soult sent back Argenton to his prison, after threatening him with death: but uncertain as to the number of the conspirators, he was thrown for a moment into a state of doubt and alarm. He probably suspected Loison and Lahoussaye of being in the plot against him, as well as the real traitors—possibly Mermet also[403]. Feeling the ground, as it were, trembling beneath his feet, he began to make instant preparations for retreat: orders were sent to Franceschi to fall back on Oporto, and not to risk anything by an attempt to hold off Wellesley longer than was prudent. Loison was informed that he must clear the road beyond Amarante, as the army was about to retire by the Tras-os-Montes, and he would now form its advanced guard. Lorges at Braga was directed to gather in the small fractions of Heudelet’s division which had been left at Viana and other places in[p. 323] the north, and to march in their company upon Amarante by the way of Guimaraens. The Marshal saw, with some dismay, that these isolated detachments would not be able to join the main body till the fourteenth or fifteenth of May; it was necessary to hold Oporto as long as possible in order to give them time to come up.

Next day Soult contrived to extort some more information from the unstable Argenton. Receiving a promise of life for himself and pardon for his fellow conspirators (which the Marshal apparently granted because he thought that accurate information concerning the plot would be worth more to him than the right to shoot the plotters), the captain gave up the names of all the leaders. Much relieved to find that none of his generals were implicated, Soult did no more than arrest the two colonels, Lafitte and Donadieu, leaving the smaller fry untouched[404]. He kept his promise to Argenton by hushing up the whole matter. The colonels suffered no harm beyond their arrest: Argenton escaped from custody (probably by collusion with the officer placed in charge of his person)[405], and got back to the English lines the day after the capture of Oporto[406]. Some months later he secretly revisited France, was recognized, captured, and shot on the Plain of Grenelle[407].

At the very moment when Soult was cross-examining Argenton, issuing hurried orders for the concentration of his troops, and preparing for a retreat upon Amarante, Wellesley’s advanced guard was drawing near the Vouga and making ready to pounce[p. 324] upon Franceschi. Two roads lead northward from Coimbra, the main chaussée to Oporto which runs inland via Ponte de Vouga and Feira, and a minor route near the coast, which passes by Aveiro and Ovar. Five of Wellesley’s brigades and the whole of his cavalry marched by the former route. Moving forward under the screen of Trant’s militia, which still held the line of the Vouga, they were to fall on the enemy’s front at dawn on May 10. The five squadrons of the 14th and 16th Light Dragoons under Cotton led the advance: then followed the infantry of Edward Paget—the two brigades of Murray and Richard Stewart. Sherbrooke’s column marched in support, ten miles to the rear. It was intended that the whole mass should rush in upon Franceschi’s pickets, and roll them in upon his main body before the advance from Coimbra was suspected. Unhappily Soult had already warned his cavalry commander of the coming storm upon the ninth, and he was not caught unprepared.

Meanwhile the remaining two infantry brigades of Wellesley’s army, those of Hill and Cameron, were to execute a turning movement against Franceschi’s flank. Orders had been sent to the magistrates of the town of Aveiro, bidding them collect all the fishing-boats which were to be found in the great lagoon at the mouth of the Vouga—a broad sheet of shallow water and sandbanks which extends for fifteen miles parallel to the sea, only separated from it by a narrow spit of dry ground. At the northern end of this system of inland waterways is the town of Ovar, which lay far behind Franceschi’s rear. Hill was directed to ship his men upon the boats, and to throw them ashore at Ovar, where they were to fall upon the flank of the French, when they should be driven past them by the frontal advance of the main body.

If all had gone well, the French detachment might have been annihilated. Franceschi had with him no more than the four weak cavalry regiments of his own division[408], not more than 1,200 sabres, with one light battery, and a single regiment of infantry. But not far behind him was the rest of Mermet’s division, eleven battalions of infantry with a strength of some 3,500 men. One regiment, the 31st Léger, lay at Feira, near[p. 325] Ovar, while Ferrey’s brigade was five miles further back, at Grijon.

On the night of the ninth the British advanced guard reached the Vouga: after only a few hours’ repose the cavalry mounted again at 1 A.M., and pushed forward in order to fall upon the enemy at daybreak. The night march turned out a failure, as such enterprises often do in an unexplored country-side seamed with rocks and ravines. The rear of the cavalry column got astray and fell far behind the leading squadrons: much time was lost in marching and countermarching, and at dawn the brigade found itself still some way from Albergaria Nova, the village where Franceschi’s head quarters were established[409]. It was already five o’clock when they fell in with and drove back the French outlying pickets: shortly after they came upon the whole of Franceschi’s division, drawn out in battle array on a rough moor behind the village, with a few companies of infantry placed in a wood on their flank and their battery in front of their line. General Cotton saw that there was no chance of a surprise, and very wisely declined to attack a slightly superior force of all arms with the 1,000 sabres of his two regiments. He resolved to wait for the arrival of Richard Stewart’s infantry brigade, the leading part of the main column. When Franceschi advanced against him he refused to fight and drew back a little[410]. Thus some hours of the morning were wasted, till at last there arrived on the field Lane’s battery and a battalion of the 16th Portuguese, followed by the 29th and the 1st Battalion of Detachments. Like the cavalry, the infantry had been much delayed during[p. 326] the hours of darkness, mainly by the impossibility of getting the guns up the rocky defile beyond the Vouga, where several caissons had broken down in the roadway. It was only after daylight had come that they were extricated and got forward on to the upland where lies the village of Albergaria.

Wellesley himself came up along with Stewart’s brigade, and had the mortification of seeing all his scheme miscarry, owing to the tardiness of the arrival of his infantry. For at the very moment when Franceschi caught sight of the distant bayonets winding up the road, he hastily went to the rear, leaving the 1st Hussars alone in position as a rearguard. This regiment was charged by the 16th Light Dragoons, and driven in with some small loss. Under cover of this skirmish the French division got away in safety through the town of Oliveira de Azemis, which lay behind them, and after making two more ineffectual demonstrations of a desire to stand, fell back on the heights of Grijon, where Mermet’s infantry division was awaiting them.

The whole day’s fighting had been futile but spectacular. ‘I must note,’ says an eye-witness, ‘the beautiful effect of our engagement. It commenced about sunrise on one of the finest spring mornings possible, on an immense tract of heath, with a pine wood in rear of the enemy. So little was the slaughter, and so regular the man?uvring, that it all appeared more like a sham-fight on Wimbledon Common than an action in a foreign country[411].’ The picturesque side of the day’s work must have been small consolation to Wellesley, who thus saw the first stroke of his campaign foiled by the chances of a night march in a rugged country—a lesson which he took to heart, for he rarely, if ever again, attempted a surprise at dawn in an unexplored region.

An equal disappointment had taken place on the flank near the sea. Hill’s brigade had marched down to Aveiro, where the local authorities had worked with excellent zeal and collected a considerable number of boats, enough to carry 1,500 men at a[p. 327] trip. During the night of the ninth-tenth the flotilla was engaged in sailing up the long lagoon which leads to Ovar. It was quite early in the morning when the brigade came to land, and if Franceschi had been driven in at an early hour he would have found Hill in a most threatening position on his flank. But the French cavalry was still ten or twelve miles away, engaged in its bloodless demonstration against Cotton’s brigade. Finding from the peasants that there were French infantry encamped quite close to him, at Feira, and that the English main column was still at a distance, Hill kept his men within the walls of Ovar, instead of engaging in an attempt to intercept Franceschi’s retreat. He was probably quite right, as it would have been dangerous to thrust three battalions, without cavalry or guns, between Mermet’s troops at Feira and the retiring columns of the French horsemen. Hill therefore sent back his boats to bring up Cameron’s brigade from Aveiro, and remained quiet all the morning. At noon his pickets were driven in by French infantry: Mermet had at last heard of his arrival, and had sent out the three battalions of the 31st Léger from Feira to contain him and protect Franceschi’s flank. The voltigeur companies of this force pressed in upon Hill, but would not adventure themselves too far. The afternoon was spent in futile skirmishing, but at last the retreating French cavalry went by at a great pace, and the English Light Dragoons, following them in hot pursuit, came up with the 31st Léger. Hill, seeing himself once more in touch with his friends, now pushed out of Ovar in force, and pressed on the French voltigeur companies, which hastily retired, fell back on their regiment, and ultimately retired with it and rejoined Mermet’s main body on the heights above Grijon. The skirmishing had been almost bloodless—Hill lost not a single man, and the French infantry only half-a-dozen wounded[412].

On the morning of May 11, therefore, Hill’s troops on the left and Cotton’s and Paget’s on the right lay opposite the posi[p. 328]tion which Mermet and Franceschi had taken up. Sherbrooke was still more than ten miles to the rear, having barely crossed the Vouga, while Cameron had not yet sailed up from Aveiro. Wellesley had therefore some 1,500 cavalry and 7,000 infantry under his hand, with which to assail the 1,200 horse and 4,200 foot of the two French divisions. The enemy were strongly posted: Grijon lies in a valley, with woods and orchards around it and a steep hillside at its back. The French tirailleurs held the village and the thickly-wooded slopes on each side of it: behind them the fifteen battalions of Mermet were partly visible among the trees on the sky-line of the heights.

Wellesley was anxious to see whether the enemy intended to hold his ground, or would retire before a demonstration: he therefore threw the light companies of Richard Stewart’s brigade into the woods on each side of Grijon. A furious fire at once broke out, and the advancing line of skirmishers could make no headway. Realizing that the French intended to fight a serious rearguard action, Wellesley refused to indulge them with a frontal attack and determined to turn both their flanks. While Cotton’s cavalry and the two English battalions of Stewart’s brigade drew up opposite their centre, Murray’s Germans marched off to the left, to get beyond Mermet’s flank, while Colonel Doyle, with the battalion of the 16th Portuguese which belonged to Stewart’s brigade, entered the woods on the extreme right. Hill’s brigade, a mile or two to the left of Murray, pushed forward on the Ovar-Oporto road, at a rate which would soon have brought them far beyond the enemy’s rear.

The meaning of these movements was not long hidden from the French: the 1st and 2nd battalions of the King’s German Legion, led by Brigadier Langwerth, were soon pressing upon their right flank, while the Portuguese battalion plunged into the woods on the other wing with great resolution. Wellesley himself was watching this part of the advance with much interest: it was the first time that he had sent his native allies into the firing line, and he was anxious to see how they would behave. They surpassed his expectations: the 16th was a good regiment, with a number of students of the University of Coimbra in its ranks. They plunged into the thickets without a moment’s hesitation, and in a few minutes the retiring sound of the[p. 329] musketry showed that they were making headway in the most promising style. This sight was an enormous relief to the Commander-in-chief: if the Portuguese could be trusted in line of battle, his task became immeasurably more easy. ‘You are in error in supposing that these troops will not fight,’ he wrote to a down-hearted correspondent: ‘one battalion has behaved remarkably well under my own eyes[413].’

Mermet and Franceschi did not hesitate for long, when they saw their flank guard beaten in upon either side, and heard that Hill was marching upon their rear. They gave orders for their whole line to retire without delay: the plateau behind them was so cut up with stone walls enclosing fields, that the cavalry could be of no use in covering the retreat, so Franceschi went to the rear first at a round trot. Mermet followed, leaving the three battalions of the 31st Léger to act as a rearguard[414].

The whole British line now pressed in as fast as was possible in the woods and lanes: the infantry could never overtake the enemy, but two squadrons of the 16th and 20th Light Dragoons, galloping along the high road, came up with Mermet’s rear a mile beyond the brow of the hill. Charles Stewart, who was leading them on, was one of those cavalry officers who thoroughly believe in their arm, and think that it can go anywhere and do anything. He at once ordered Major Blake of the 20th to charge the enemy, though the French were retiring along a narrow chaussée bordered with stone walls. Fortunately for the dragoons their opponents were already shaken in morale: the three battalions were not well together, isolated companies were still coming in from the flanks, and the colonel of the 31st had completely lost his head. On being charged, the rearguard fired a volley, which brought down the front files of the pursuing cavalry, but then wavered, broke, and began scrambling over the walls to escape out of the high road into the fields. There followed a confused mêlée, for the English dragoons also leaped the walls, and tried to follow the broken enemy among thickets and ploughland. Of those of the French[p. 330] who fled down the high road many were sabred, and a considerable number captured: indeed the eagle of the regiment was in considerable danger for some time. But the British had no supports at hand; they scattered in reckless pursuit of the men who had taken to the fields, and many were shot down when they had got entangled among trees and walls. However, the charge, if somewhat reckless, was on the whole successful: the dragoons lost no more than ten killed, one officer and thirty troopers wounded, with eight or ten missing, while the French regiment into which they had burst left behind it over 100 prisoners and nearly as many killed and wounded[415].

For the rest of the day Mermet and Franceschi continued to fall back before the advancing British, without making more than a momentary stand. At dusk they reached Villa Nova, the transpontine suburb of Oporto, which they evacuated during[p. 331] the night. The moment that they had crossed the bridge of boats Soult caused it to be blown up, and vainly believed himself secure, now that the broad and rapid Douro was rolling between him and his enemy. The total loss of the French in the day’s fighting had been about 250 men, of whom 100 were prisoners. That of the British was two officers and nineteen men killed, six officers and sixty-three men wounded, and sixteen men missing. Nearly half the casualties were in the ranks of the two squadrons of dragoons, the rest were divided between the light companies of the 1st Battalion of Detachments, the 1st and 2nd battalions of the German Legion, and the 16th Portuguese[416].

On the night of the eleventh-twelfth, when Mermet and Franceschi had joined him, Soult had collected in Oporto the main body of his army: he had in hand of cavalry Franceschi’s four regiments, and of infantry fifteen battalions of Mermet’s division, seven battalions of Merle’s (forming Reynaud’s brigade), and seven of Delaborde’s, a force in all of about 10,000 bayonets and 1,200 sabres. Only a few miles away, at Baltar, on the road to Amarante, were Caulaincourt’s dragoons and the remaining regiment of Delaborde’s division, an additional force of somewhat over 2,000 men. With 13,000 men at his disposal and a splendid position behind the Douro, he imagined that he might retreat at leisure, maintaining the line of the impassable river for some days more. He intended to hold Oporto long enough to enable Loison to clear the road to Villa Real, and to allow Lorges and the belated troops from the north time to march in to Amarante. He was somewhat vexed to have received no news from Loison for four days, but, when last heard of [on May 7], that general was moving forward into the Tras-os-Montes, with orders to push on and open a way for[p. 332] the army as far as the Spanish border. Silveira having retired to the south bank of the Douro, the Marshal had no doubt that Loison would easily brush away the Ordenanza, and open for the whole corps d’armée the passage to Zamora and the plains of Leon.

Meanwhile the only danger which the Marshal feared was that Wellesley might send forward the fleet of fishing-boats which had carried Hill to Ovar, bring them to the estuary of the Douro, and use them to pass troops across its lowest reach, just within the bar at its mouth. Accordingly he told Franceschi to patrol carefully the five miles of the river that lie between Oporto and the sea. The infantry was comfortably housed in the city, with pickets watching the quays: every boat on the river, as it was supposed, had either been destroyed or brought over to the north bank. Wellesley would, as Soult calculated, be compelled to spend several days in making his preparations for passing the Douro, since he had no means of pushing his army across the broad stream, save the fishing-smacks which he might bring round from the lagoon of Ovar.

The Marshal therefore was quite at his ease, even though he knew that Wellesley’s vanguard was at Villa Nova in force. He imagined that he could count on ample time for the evacuation of Oporto, and began to make arrangements for a leisurely retreat. His first care was to send off eastward all his convalescents, his reserve ammunition, and his wheeled vehicles, of which he had collected a fair supply during his seven weeks’ halt at Oporto. These were to march, under the convoy of Mermet’s division, during the course of the morning. The other troops from Merle’s and Delaborde’s divisions, together with Franceschi’s horse, were to watch the lower Douro and check any attempt of the British to cross. The Marshal was himself lodged at a villa on the high ground west of the city, from which he commanded a fine view of the whole valley from Oporto to the sea: the view up-stream was blocked by the hill crowned by the Serra Convent, where the river makes a slight bend in order to get round the projecting heights on the southern bank. So thoroughly were both Soult and his staff impressed with the idea that Wellesley would endeavour to operate below, and not above, the city, that while the lower reaches of the Douro were[p. 333] watched with the greatest care, a very inefficient look-out was kept on the banks above Oporto: there would seem to have been but a single battalion placed in that direction, and this small force was lying far back from the river, with no proper system of pickets thrown forward to the water’s edge. Yet the opposite bank was full of cover, of thickets, gardens and olive groves, screening several lanes and by-paths that had led down to ferries. Such of the boats as had not been scuttled had been brought over to the north bank, but they were not all protected by proper guards. All this was inexcusably careless—the main blame must fall on the Marshal for his parti pris in refusing to look up-stream: though some must also be reserved for General Quesnel, the governor of Oporto, and for Foy, the brigadier whose battalions were in charge of the eastern suburb of the city. But the fact was that none of the French officers dreamed of the possibility that Wellesley might make an attempt, on the very morning of his arrival, to cross the tremendous obstacle interposed in his way by the rolling stream of the Douro. That he would deliver a frontal attack on them in full daylight was beyond the limits of the probable. They had no conception of the enterprise of the man with whom they had to deal.

There was this amount of truth in their view, that the British General would not have made his daring stroke at Oporto, unless he had ascertained that the carelessness of his adversaries had placed an unexpected chance in his hands. By ten o’clock in the morning Wellesley had concentrated behind Villa Nova the whole of his force—the three columns of Paget, Hill, and Sherbrooke were now up in line. They were kept out of sight of the enemy, some in the lateral lanes of the suburb, but the majority hidden behind the back slope of the hills, where orchards and vineyards gave them complete cover from observers on the northern bank.

While the troops were coming up, Sir Arthur mounted the Serra height, and reconnoitred the whole country-side from the garden of the convent. He had with him Portuguese notables who were well acquainted with Oporto and its suburbs, including several persons who had come over the river on the preceding day, and could give him some notion of the general disposition and emplacement of the French army. Sweeping the valley with his[p. 334] glasses he could see Franceschi’s vedettes moving about on the heights down-stream, and heavy columns of infantry forming up outside the north-eastern gates of the city. At eleven o’clock this body moved off, escorting a long train of wagons—it was Mermet’s division starting for Amarante in charge of Soult’s convoy of sick and reserve artillery. On the quays, below the broken bridge, many French pickets were visible, ensconced at the openings of the streets which lead down to the water. But turning his glass to the right, Wellesley could note that up-stream matters looked very quiet, the rocky banks above the deep-sunk river were deserted, and nothing was visible among the gardens and scattered houses of the south-eastern suburb. It was possible that French troops might be ensconced there, but no sign of them was to be seen.

Many intelligence-officers had already been sent off, to scour the southern bank of the river, and to ascertain whether by any chance the enemy had overlooked some of the boats belonging to the riverside villages. In a short time two valuable pieces of news were brought up to the Commander-in-chief. The large ferry-boat at Barca d’Avintas, four miles above the city, had been scuttled, but not injured beyond the possibility of hasty repairs. It was already being baled out and mended by the villagers. Nearer at hand a still more important discovery was made. Colonel Waters, one of the best scouts in the army, had met, not far south of the suburban village of Cobranloes, an Oporto refugee, a barber by trade, who had crossed over from the north bank in a small skiff, which he had hidden in a thicket. The man reported that the opposite bank was for the moment unguarded by the French, and pointed to four large wine-barges lying stranded below the brink of the northern shore, with no signs of an enemy in charge. Yet the position was one which should have been well watched: here a massive building, the bishop’s Seminary, surrounded by a high garden wall, lies with its back to the water. It was an isolated structure, standing well outside the eastern suburb, in fairly open ground, which could be easily swept by artillery fire from the dominating position of the Serra heights. Waters had with him as guide the prior of Amarante, and by his aid collected three or four peasants from the neighbouring cottages. After[p. 335] some persuasion from the ecclesiastic, these men and the barber consented to join the British officer in a raid on the stranded barges on the further bank. It was a hazardous undertaking, for one French picket had lately been seen to pass by, and another might appear at any moment. But the necessary half-hour was obtained; Waters and his fellows entered the barber’s skiff, crossed the river unseen, got the four barges afloat, and returned with them to the southern bank. They turned out to be big clumsy vessels, capable of holding some thirty men apiece. The explorer had noted that the Seminary buildings above were perfectly empty.

On receiving this intelligence, Wellesley resolved to take the chance which the fates offered him. If the French had shown themselves alert and vigilant, he could not have dared to throw troops across the river into their midst. But they seemed asleep at high noon, and their manifest negligence encouraged him. His mind was soon made up: he ordered Murray with two battalions of his brigade[417], two guns, and two squadrons of the 14th Light Dragoons, to march hard for Barca d’Avintas, cross on the ferry, and seize a position on the opposite bank capable of being defended against superior numbers. But this (as the small force employed sufficiently demonstrates) was only intended as a diversion. The main blow was to be delivered nearer at hand. Wellesley had resolved to endeavour to seize the abandoned Seminary, and to throw his main body across the river at this point if possible. The local conditions made the scheme less rash in fact than it appears on the map. The east end of the Serra hill completely commands all the ground about the Seminary: three batteries[418] were quietly pushed into the convent garden and trained upon the roads leading to that isolated building—one along the shore, the other further inland. If the place could once be seized, it would be possible to protect its garrison by fire across the water. There were only two artillery positions on the French bank, from which the Seminary could be battered: one, close to the water’s edge, was completely under the guns of the Serra convent. The other, on the[p. 336] heights by the chapel of Bom Fin, was rather distant, and could not be used against boats crossing the river, as they would be invisible to gunners working on this emplacement. Cannon placed there might do some damage to the Seminary buildings, but could not prevent the garrison from being reinforced. Realizing all this at a glance, Wellesley hurried down Hill’s brigade to the water’s edge, and the moment that the leading company of the Buffs had got on board the barges, bade them push off. In a quarter of an hour the first vessel was over, and a subaltern and twenty-five men rushed up into the empty enclosure of the Seminary, and closed the big iron gate opening into the Vallongo road, which formed its only land-exit. The men from the other barges were just behind: they set themselves to lining the garden wall and to piling up wood and earth against it, in order to give themselves a standing-place from which they could fire over the coping. The barges went back with all speed, and were again loaded and sent off. Meanwhile Wellesley and his staff were looking down in breathless anxiety on the quiet bend of the river, the silent suburb, and the toiling vessels. At any moment the alarm might be given, and masses of the enemy might debouch from the city and dash in upon the Seminary before enough men were across to hold it. For the best part of an hour the Commander-in-chief must have been fully aware that his daring move might end only in the annihilation of two or three companies of a good old regiment, and a check that would appear as the righteous retribution for recklessness.

But no stir was seen in Oporto: the barges crossed for a second time unmolested: on their third trip they carried over General Edward Paget, whom Wellesley had placed in command of the whole movement. More than half the Buffs had passed, and the Seminary was beginning to be adequately manned, when at last some shots were heard outside the gates, and a few minutes later a line of French tirailleurs, supported by three battalions in column, came rushing down upon the enclosures. A full hour had passed between the moment when the first boatload of British soldiers had been thrown across the river, and the time when the French discovered them!
The Douro above Oporto

WELLESLEY’S PASSAGE OF THE DOURO.
N.B. The trees on the cliff to the right are close outside the enclosure of the Serra Convent: the roof of the Seminary is just visible over the crest of the hill on the other bank. In the background are the low slopes above Avintas.

The fact was that the enemy’s commander was in bed, and his staff breakfasting! The Duke of Dalmatia had sat up all night [p. 337]dictating dispatches, and making his arrangements for a leisurely flitting, for he intended to stay two days longer in Oporto, so as to cover the march of his other divisions towards Amarante and Villa Real. His desk-work finished, he went to bed at about nine o’clock[419], in full confidence that he was well protected by the river, and that Wellesley was probably engaged in the laborious task of bringing up boats to the mouth of the Douro, which would occupy him for at least twenty-four hours. The staff were taking their coffee, after a late déjeuner, when the hoof-beats of a furious rider startled them, and a moment later Brossard, the aide-de-camp of General Foy, burst into the Villa shouting that the English had got into the town. Led to the Marshal’s bedside, he hurriedly explained that Foy had just discovered the enemy passing by boats into the Seminary, and was massing his brigade for an attack upon them. The Marshal started up, sent his staff flying in all directions to warn the outlying troops, ordered all the remaining impedimenta to be sent off on the Vallongo road, and dispatched Brossard back to Foy to tell him to ‘push the English into the river.’ He was hardly dressed and on horseback, when the noise of a distant fusillade, followed by heavy artillery fire, gave the news that the attack on the Seminary had already begun.

It had been only at half-past ten that Foy, riding along the heights by the Chapel of Bom Fin, had been informed that there were boats on the river, filled with red-coated soldiery. It took him wellnigh three-quarters of an hour to bring up his nearest regiment, the 17th Léger, and only at 11.30 did the attack on the Seminary begin. The three battalions beset the[p. 338] northern and western sides of the Seminary, and made a vigorous attempt to break in, while some guns were hurried down to the river bank, just below the building, to fire upon the barges that were bringing up reinforcements.

Wellesley, from his eyrie on the Serra heights, had been watching for the long-expected outburst of the French. The moment that they came pressing forward, he gave orders for the eighteen guns in the convent garden to open upon them. The first shot fired, a round of shrapnel from the 5?-inch howitzer of Lane’s battery, burst just over the leading French gun on the further bank, as it was in the act of unlimbering, dismounted the piece, and by an extraordinary chance, killed or wounded every man and horse attached to it[420]. A moment later came the blast of the other seventeen guns, which swept the level ground to the west of the Seminary with awful effect. The French attack reeled back, and the survivors fled from the open ground into the houses of the suburb, leaving the disabled cannon behind them. Again and again they tried to creep forward, to flank the English stronghold, and to fire at the barges as they went and came, but on every occasion they were swept away by the hail of shrapnel. They could, therefore, only attack the Seminary on its northern front, where the buildings lay between them and the Serra height, and so screened them from the artillery. But in half an hour the 17th Léger was beaten off and terribly mauled; they had to cross an open space, the Prado do Bispo, in order to get near their adversaries, and the fire from the garden wall, the windows, and the flat roof of the edifice, swept them away before they could close.

Meanwhile the English suffered little: the only serious loss sustained was that of General Edward Paget, whose arm was shattered by a bullet. He was replaced in command by Hill, who (like him) had crossed in one of the earlier barges. The number of troops in the building was always growing larger, the Buffs were all across, and the 66th and 48th were beginning to follow.

After a short slackening in the engagement, General Delaborde came up, with the three battalions of the 70th of the line, to[p. 339] support his brigadier. This new force executed a far more sustained and desperate attack on the Seminary than had their predecessors. Hill in his letters home called it ‘the serious attack.’ But it had no better fortune than the last: a thousand English infantry, comfortably ensconced behind stone walls, and protected on their flanks by the storm of shot and shell from the opposite bank of the river, could not easily be moved. So well, indeed, were they covered, that in three hours’ fighting they only lost seventy-seven men[421], while the open ground outside was thickly strewn with the dead and wounded Frenchmen.

Soult was now growing desperate: he ordered up from the city Reynaud’s brigade, which had hitherto guarded the quays in the neighbourhood of the broken bridge. His intention was to make one more attack on the Seminary, and if that failed to draw off in the direction of Vallongo and Amarante. This move made an end of his chances; he had forgotten to reckon with the Portuguese. The moment that the quays were left unguarded, hundreds of citizens poured out of their houses and ran down to the water’s edge, where they launched all the boats that had been drawn ashore, and took them over to the English bank. Richard Stewart’s brigade and the Guards who had been waiting under cover of the houses of Villa Nova, immediately began to embark, and in a few moments the passage had begun. The 29th was first formed up on the northern bank, and dashed up the main street into the city, meeting little or no opposition; the 1st Battalion of Detachments and the Guards’ brigade soon followed. In half an hour they had come upon the flank of the French force which was attacking the Seminary, and had taken in the rear and captured one of Soult’s reserve batteries, whose horses were shot down before they could escape along a narrow lane. As the British went pouring through Oporto the whole population, half mad with joy, stood cheering at the windows and on the roofs, waving their handkerchiefs and shouting Viva. The rabble poured down into the streets, and began to attack the French wounded, so that Sherbrooke had to detach a company to protect them from assassination[422].

[p. 340]

When Soult found himself thus attacked in the flank, he saw that there was no more to be done, and bade the whole army retreat at full speed along the road to Vallongo and Baltar. They went off in a confused mass, the regiments all mingled together, and the artillery jammed in the midst of the column. Hill came out of the Seminary and joined in the pursuit, which was urged for three miles. ‘They made no fight,’ writes an eye-witness, ‘every man seemed running for his life, throwing away their knapsacks and arms, so that we had only the trouble of making many prisoners every instant, all begging for quarter and surrendering with great good humour[423].’

The French army might have been still further mauled, and indeed almost destroyed, if Wellesley’s detached force under Murray had been well handled by its commander. The two battalions of the German Legion, with their attendant squadrons of the 14th Light Dragoons, had crossed the Douro at the ferry of Barca d’ Avintas wholly unopposed. It was a slow business, but the detachment was over long ere Soult had abandoned his attack on the Seminary. Advancing cautiously along the river bank, Murray suddenly saw the whole French army come pouring past him in total disorder on the line of the Vallongo road. He might have made an attempt to throw himself across their path, or at least have fallen upon their flank and endeavoured to cut the column in two; but thinking them far too strong for his small force, and forgetting their demoralization, he halted and allowed them to go by. When all had passed, General Charles Stewart, who had been sent in search of Murray by the Commander-in-chief, came galloping up to the force, and took from it a squadron of the 14th[424], with which he made a dash at the enemy’s last troops. The French had now formed a sort of rearguard, but the dragoons rode into it without hesitation. The French generals were bringing up the rear, and trying to keep their men steady. Delaborde was unhorsed and for a moment[p. 341] was a prisoner, but escaped owing to his captor being killed. Foy received a sabre cut on the shoulder. The infantry broke, and nearly 300 of them were cut off and captured. But the dragoons also suffered heavily; of about 110 men who took part in the charge no less than thirty-five men were killed and wounded. Murray, who watched the whole skirmish from his position on a neighbouring hillside, gave no assistance to his cavalry, though the intervention of his two battalions would have led to the capture of the whole of Soult’s rearguard. It was to infantry of Sherbrooke’s division that the dragoons turned over their prisoners before rejoining their other squadron[425].

So ended the battle of Oporto, daring in its conception, splendidly successful in its execution, yet not so decisive as it might have been, had Murray but done his duty during the pursuit. The British loss was astoundingly small—only twenty-three killed, ninety-eight wounded, and two missing: among the dead there was not a single officer: the wounded included a general (Paget) and three majors. The casualties of the French were, as was natural, much greater: the attacks on the Seminary had cost them dear. They lost about 300 killed and wounded and nearly as many prisoners in the field, while more[p. 342] than 1,500 sick and wounded were captured in the hospitals of Oporto[426]. The trophies consisted of the six field-pieces taken during the fighting, a great number of baggage wagons, and fifty-two Portuguese guns, dismounted but fit for further service, which were found in the arsenal. Soult had destroyed, before retreating, the rest of the cannon which he had captured in the Portuguese lines on March 29.