SECTION XXI BUSSACO AND TORRES VEDRAS (SEPTEMBER–DECEMBER 1810) CHAPTER I

MASSéNA’S ADVANCE TO BUSSACO (SEPTEMBER 1810)

After the fall of Almeida Masséna waited much longer than Wellington had anticipated. The reasons for his delay were the usual ones that were always forthcoming when a French army had to advance in the Peninsula—want of transport and penury of supplies. The Marshal had just discovered that the country-side in front of him had already been depopulated by Wellington’s orders, and that the only inhabitants that were to be met would be the armed Ordenan?a, who were already shooting at his vedettes and attacking his foraging parties. He was inclined to treat them as brigands; his Provost-marshal, Colonel Pavetti, having been surprised and captured along with five gendarmes of his escort by the villagers of Nava d’Avel on September 5, he caused the place to be burned, shot the one or two male inhabitants who could be caught, and issued a proclamation stating that no quarter would be given to combatants without uniforms. This provoked two stiff letters from Wellington[394], who wrote to say that the Ordenan?a were an integral part of the Portuguese military forces, and that, if they wore no uniforms, the Marshal should remember that many of the revolutionary bands which he had commanded in the old war of 1792-7 were no better equipped: ‘vous devez vous souvenir que vous-même vous avez augmenté la gloire de l’armée Fran?aise en commandant des soldats qui n’avaient pas d’uniforme.’ If Ordenan?a were shot as ‘brigands and highway robbers’ in obedience to the proclamation of September 7, it[p. 342] was certain that French stragglers and foragers would be knocked on the head, and not taken prisoners, by the enraged peasantry. At present the number of them sent in to the British head quarters by the Portuguese irregulars proved that the laws of war were being observed. Masséna replied that Pavetti had been ambushed by men who hid their arms, and ran in upon him and his escort while he was peaceably asking his way. His letter then went off at a tangent, to discuss high politics, and to declare that he was not the enemy of the Portuguese but of the perfidious British government, &c., &c. Finally he complained that the Arganil and Trancoso militia, whom he had sent home after the fall of Almeida, had taken up arms again; if caught, ‘leur sort sera funeste’[395]. The last statement Wellington denied; he said that the capitulation had been annulled by the French themselves, when they debauched the 24th regiment, and detained 600 of the militia to form a battalion of pioneers, but stated that as a matter of fact the militia battalions had not been re-embodied. The French continued to shoot the Ordenan?a, and the Ordenan?a soon began to reply by torturing as well as hanging French stragglers; Wellington forbade but could not prevent retaliation.

In his dispatch to Berthier of September 8[396], Masséna explains that the depopulation of the district in front of him, and the fact that the Ordenan?a had taken arms throughout the country-side, have compelled him to make an enormous provision of food for his army. Since the land has been swept bare, he must collect fifteen or twenty days’ rations for the 6th and 8th Corps. ‘Each day demonstrates the necessity of this more clearly, but each day makes it more evident that we are not obtaining as much as our activity deserves. The small amount of transport available, and the destruction by the Spanish brigands of several convoys of corn which were coming up from the province of Valladolid, have occasioned delay in the accumulation of the stores. An additional vexation is that while it was reported that we had captured 300,000 rations of biscuit in Almeida, there turn out really to be only 120,000 rations.’ But it was[p. 343] the loss of draught-beasts that was the most serious trouble; to his great regret Masséna had to cut down the artillery of each division from twelve to eight guns, for want of horses, with a similar reduction of the caissons. Every animal that could be procured was given over to the train, yet it could not carry even the fifteen days’ food which the Marshal considered the minimum that he could afford to take with him. There was also a deficiency in cartridges for the infantry, for whom 1,200,000 rounds were only procured by setting the artificers of the train to make up as many as was possible from the powder captured at Ciudad Rodrigo. Finally Masséna explains that the losses in the two late sieges, the necessity for garrisoning Almeida and Rodrigo, and the effects of a sickly summer, have reduced the two corps and the reserve cavalry under his hand to 42,000 or 45,000 men, so that he must incorporate Reynier with his main army, in order to get a sufficient force concentrated for the invasion. When this has been done, he will have no force to leave behind to guard his communications, and Kellermann and Serras are too much occupied to spare a man for that purpose. The Spaniards will press in between the army and Salamanca the moment that the troops have entered the Portuguese mountains. He will advance, therefore, on September 15, but only with grave apprehension for his rear, and he begs that at all costs a division of the 9th Corps should be brought up to Salamanca. He had been promised long ago that this should be done, but no signs of Drouet’s arrival were yet visible.

Reynier accordingly was called up, at last, to join the main army; he left Zarza and Penamacor on the 10th of September, crossed the Pass of Perales, and on the 12th was at Alfayates, with cavalry in front at Sabugal. Hill, always vigilant, perceived Reynier’s movement as soon as it had taken place. On the 12th his corps quitted Sarzedas, leaving nothing behind in the Castello Branco country save Lecor’s Portuguese at Fund?o, who were ordered to follow, unless Reynier should send back any detachments to the south side of the Sierra de Gata. Leith started from the banks of the Zezere three days later, and on the 20th the two divisions were drawing near to Wellington’s rear in the valley of the Mondego, Hill being at Espinhal that day, and Leith (who had less distance to cover) a march further[p. 344] to the front, at Foz d’Aronce. Wellington’s concentration on the Alva must obviously be completed before the French could strike.

On September 15, 1810, Ney and Junot broke up from the encampments in front of Almeida, while Reynier drew in close to the main body by marching up from Sabugal towards Guarda. It was clear that the attack of the French was to be delivered along the line of the Mondego, but whether by its southern or its northern bank Wellington could not yet be sure, though he was under the impression that the former would be the chosen route, since the chaussée from Almeida by Celorico and Ponte de Murcella is good for a Portuguese road, while the mountain track by Trancoso and Vizeu is abominable. Yet one of the three columns of the French pointed from the first towards the north bank: while Ney took his way by Freixadas and Alverca towards Celorico, Junot was reported to have turned off from the main road at Valverde, and to be marching by Pinhel westward or north-westward. What Reynier would do after reaching Guarda remained yet to be seen.

The total force which Masséna had drawn together for the invasion was 65,000[397] officers and men. He had left behind a regiment of dragoons and four battalions of infantry to take care of Almeida and Ciudad Rodrigo. In the latter place he had also deposited his siege-train, with the considerable body of artillerymen belonging to it. Brennier and Cacault commanded at the two places respectively. They had between them some 3,500 men, a force which perceptibly diminished the army of invasion, yet was insufficient to do more than to hold the two fortresses. Gardanne, with five squadrons of dragoons, was to maintain touch between them. Not a man would be available from the garrisons for service against Spanish or Portuguese insurgents—indeed both Almeida and Rodrigo were practically under blockade from the moment that the main army went forward, and were destined to learn nothing of its[p. 345] doings for many days. Wellington’s cordon of Ordenan?a proved perfectly efficient[398].

On the evening of the 15th the 2nd Corps had reached Guarda, from which it drove out a picket of the 16th Light Dragoons, who retired towards the Mondego. The 6th Corps bivouacked at Freixadas, having pushed back from it two squadrons of the 14th Light Dragoons and the German Hussars. The 8th Corps, which had to come up from the Azava, passed Almeida and slept beyond the Coa. In its rear was Montbrun’s reserve cavalry division, and behind this again the reserve artillery of the whole army. This column, therefore, was by far the longest and (owing to the amount of guns and caissons) the most unwieldy of the three masses in which the French were marching.

On the 16th Wellington hoped to see Masséna’s designs unmasked. But it proved a day of continued doubt: Reynier left Heudelet’s division at Guarda, and moved on with Merle’s and the cavalry to Celorico. Here he met Ney, who had marched from Freixadas to Celorico, and had pushed his light cavalry through it in advance. One body of horsemen took a hill road high up the side of the Serra da Estrella, and reached Linhares, another followed the great chaussée as far as Carapichina, and detached a squadron or two from that point to seize the bridge of Fornos d’Algodres, over which passes the bad side-road from Celorico to Vizeu. Was the enemy about to turn aside on this path, or to pursue the more probable policy of continuing along the chaussée to Ponte de Murcella? Nothing could yet be deduced from Junot’s movements: his heavy column only reached Pinhel that day: from thence he might either come down to Celorico (the most probable course), or make a move towards Oporto, by the high-road Pinhel-Marialva-St. Jo?o da Pesqueira, or (what seemed least likely) follow the very bad mountain-road from Pinhel by Povoa d’el Rei to Trancoso and Vizeu. Meanwhile Wellington ordered[p. 346] the continuation of the retreat of his army towards Ponte de Murcella and the position behind the Alva. The 1st, 3rd, and 4th Divisions retired at their leisure along the great chaussée, by Sarago?a and Chamusca: the Light Division moved parallel to them by the mountain-road Gouvea-San Martinho-San Rom?o. The appearance of Ney’s cavalry at Linhares on this track made the Commander-in-Chief anxious to have it watched, since it was possible that the 6th Corps might use it. The cavalry, keeping the rear well guarded, lay this day at Pinhan?os on the chaussée and San Martinho on the hill-road. Head quarters were at Cea, on the latter line. The only troops now left north of the Mondego, on the route which Junot might possibly follow from Pinhel, were a few cavalry-pickets, wherefore the Commander-in-Chief, conceiving it just possible that the 8th Corps might be intending to make a dash at Oporto, while the other two kept him in check, sent urgent letters to Trant, the officer in charge of the militia of Northern Beira, and to Baccelar, who lay at Oporto with the militia of the Entre-Douro-e-Minho, to take precautions against this movement. Trant, from Moimento de Beira, was to feel for Junot’s front and flank: Baccelar was to send out some picked battalions, under J. Wilson, to the line of the Vouga, and to get into touch with Trant on his left.

On the 17th Masséna’s intentions at last became clear to his adversary. The cavalry of the 6th Corps crossed the bridge of Fornos, which it had seized on the previous night, and the leading division of infantry followed it to Juncaes, on the Mondego bank: nothing came along the chaussée, all the French columns turning off it at Carapichina, and pursuing the cross-road. Ney’s rear was still at Celorico, to which place the whole of the 2nd Corps also came up that day. In the evening the head of the cavalry of the 6th Corps was near Mangualde, many miles along the road north of the Mondego. It seemed probable therefore, that a transference of the whole French army to the right bank, over the bridge of Fornos, was about to take place. This became almost certain when the simultaneous news arrived that Junot had marched that day from Pinhel not towards Celorico, nor on the Oporto road (that by Marialva and St. Jo?o da Pesqueira), but by the abominable cross-road by Povoa d’el[p. 347] Rei to Trancoso. The 8th and 6th Corps therefore were showing a tendency to converge on Vizeu. If so, they must be aiming at reaching Coimbra without touching Wellington’s chosen position of Ponte de Murcella, where he had hoped to fight. This deduction once made, the British commander had to recast his plans. ‘The 2nd and 6th Corps came to Celorico yesterday,’ he wrote to Leith that evening, ‘and a part of them crossed the Mondego at Fornos. More have crossed this day, while no part of the enemy’s army has moved this way [i. e. along the great chaussée south of the river]. It is generally understood that their whole army is between the Douro and the Mondego, and that they are about to move on Coimbra. I shall have troops in Coimbra to-morrow[399].’ All the divisions were ordered back at once, so as to be ready on the Lower Mondego to resist the French, when they should appear from the direction of Vizeu. Only cavalry were left at Sampayo and Gouvea, to watch the passage of the Mondego by the French army, and to make certain that its rear (i. e. Reynier’s corps) might not be about to use the main chaussée, a move which was even yet possible.

Masséna’s resolve to use the route by the north bank of the Mondego surprised all British and some French observers at the time, and has been censured by most historical critics. He left a good for a bad road: he imposed two extra marches on his army at a moment when it was short of provisions. He gave Wellington ample time to call up Hill and Leith, and to select a new position for battle to replace that of Ponte de Murcella. The Bussaco hillsides, where the clash was to come, were as formidable as those behind the Alva. But these considerations were less obvious to Masséna in 1810 than they appear to the critic of 1907. It must first be remembered that his maps were abominable: the actual case of plans used by the staff of the Army of Portugal is preserved[400]: it is that issued by Lopez in 1778, which in the remoter parts of Portugal[p. 348] not only offers a mere travesty of the natural features, but actually marks as existing roads that never had been made, and omits others that were actually available. It shows, moreover, no distinction between chaussées, country roads, and mere mule tracts. Places of considerable importance are misplaced by several miles, e. g. Almeida is placed on the Coa instead of two miles from it: Vizeu is much too far north, as is also Bussaco. As far as this map goes, the physical difficulties in the way of an advance north of the Mondego look no greater than those on the southern bank. But, it may be said, Masséna should have supplemented the use of the map by collecting oral information, and by sending reconnaissances in every direction. He did so, so far as was in his power. But exploration far afield was only possible with large bodies of men, since the Ordenan?a blocked every road to the isolated staff-officer, and the only oral information which was forthcoming was defective. Masséna asked for it from Alorna, Pamplona, and the other Portuguese officers on his staff—there were no less than eighteen of them in all. They were absolutely ignorant of their own country,—a normal thing in the military men of the old Portuguese army. Even Pamplona, whose estates lay in the neighbourhood of Coimbra, gave hopelessly erroneous information about the routes leading into that town. But, from natural amour propre they avoided confessing their ignorance, and, when taken into council by Masséna, gave him copious but wholly misleading details. They assured him that the roads Pinhel-Trancoso-Vizeu and Fornos-Mangualde-Vizeu were no worse than other lines of communication, and that the great chaussée by Sampayo and Ponte de Murcella was crossed by so many torrents and climbed so many slopes that it was not preferable to the routes north of the river. The news that a formidable position behind the Alva had been entrenched had reached the French head quarters; hence Masséna had fair reasons for taking the route that he selected, so far as strategy went. It undoubtedly enabled him to turn the line of the Alva. Moreover, on it lay a large town—Vizeu—from which it was hoped that much food would be procured, for the invaders were still ignorant of the thoroughness with which Wellington’s plans for devastating the country before them had been carried out. Even[p. 349] after Celorico and Guarda had been found empty of inhabitants, they hardly believed that such a large place as Vizeu, a town of 9,000 souls, would be deserted.

Masséna’s mistake became evident to his soldiers on the first day on which he ordered his columns to quit the main-roads and take to the by-paths. The infantry could still get forward, but the artillery and waggon-train began to drag behind, to lose horses, and to see vehicle after vehicle broken, disabled, or abandoned. On the 18th the infantry of the 6th Corps got as far as Mangualde on the north bank of the Mondego, but the artillery was so much delayed in the defile after passing Juncaes that it could not catch up the rear of the marching troops, and had to be parked at night not many miles beyond the bridge of Fornos. The 2nd Corps on reaching this spot found the road blocked, and bivouacked with one division beyond the Mondego, and one still in the rear of the bridge. But the troubles of this column were nothing to those of the 8th Corps on the miserable road from Pinhel to Vizeu. The journal of the commandant of the artillery of Junot’s first division, Colonel No?l, may be quoted as giving a fair description of the marches of the 17th and 18th September:—

‘After passing the little town of Trancoso, with its battlemented wall, all the country-side is mountain and rock. There is no road, only a stony narrow dangerous track, which the artillery had all the pains in the world to follow without meeting accidents. It is all steep ups and downs. I had to march with a party of gunners ahead of me, with picks and crowbars to enlarge the track. As each arm only looked out for itself, the artillery soon got left to the rear, and deserted by the infantry and cavalry. We only arrived at our halting-places late at night, utterly done up. The guns were almost always abandoned to themselves; we did not know what road to follow, having no one to give us information but a few infantry stragglers, who had themselves lost their way. At noon on the 18th I halted with my two batteries after two hours of incessant uphill, to find myself at the crest of a mountain, with a precipitous descent before me, and beyond that another ascent winding upwards, as far as the eye could reach. We were so exhausted that it was useless to go[p. 350] further that day, but on the 19th, with a party of gunners always working in front to enlarge the road, we moved over hill and vale, completely out of touch with the army. I had to ride out with four mounted men to hunt for any trace of it. At last, in a deserted village, we found an old peasant who pointed out the road to Vizeu. But it was only on the 20th that we got there.’ No?l’s batteries, it may be remarked, were moving all the time between the infantry, which was ahead, and the Grand Park which was behind them, with Montbrun’s cavalry bringing up the rear. Yet they were absolutely lost and had to shift for themselves without orders or escort[401].

The Park fared even worse; when nearing Sotojal, on the 20th, it was unexpectedly beset by Colonel Trant, who had come down from Moimenta with a brigade of his militia and two squadrons of Portuguese regular cavalry. The Park was escorted by one company of grenadiers, who marched at its head, and a battalion of the Irish Legion, who were far to the rear, while Montbrun’s immense cavalry column was quite out of sight. Trant had a great opportunity, for the long file of vehicles and guns, caught in a narrow road, was almost helpless. But he failed to do all that was in his power; his cavalry charged the company at the head of the column and was repulsed. He then filed his battalions along the hillside, opened fire on the horses and men of the train, and, descending into their midst, captured and destroyed some caissons and took some eighty prisoners. But when the escort-battalion came hurrying up from the rear, his levies were stricken with panic and hastily retired, though they were strong enough to have held off the five hundred Irish, and to have smashed or rolled over the precipices the greater part of the guns and waggons. Montbrun’s cavalry did not get up till all was over, and would have been perfectly useless on the precipitous road, even if they had arrived earlier. If Trant’s foray had been properly carried out, Masséna might have lost his reserve artillery and most of his provisions—a disaster which might have forced him to turn back to Almeida. He deserved such a punishment for having marched his all-important[p. 351] train on the extreme flank of his army, with an insufficient escort[402].

Though Junot’s infantry divisions reached the deserted walls of Vizeu on Sept. 19th and there met the corps of Ney, the divisional artillery did not arrive till next day, while the reserve artillery, the trains and the heavy cavalry were struggling in upon the 21st and 22nd by detachments. For Montbrun had halted the great convoy after Trant’s attack, and parked it, fearing that the Portuguese might come back in greater numbers and give more trouble. When he started it again, on the 21st, he took care to give it better marching arrangements, and to attach cavalry escorts to each section. But this caused much delay, and meanwhile the 8th Corps waited at Vizeu ‘marking time’ and unable to move. Even the 6th Corps remained there two days, waiting while its gun-carriages and cannons were being repaired; for the Fornos-Vizeu road, though infinitely less rough than that which the 8th Corps and the park had followed, was still bad enough to shake many vehicles to pieces. The Intendant-General reported that nineteen caissons carrying 2,900 rations of biscuit belonging to the 6th Corps broke down and had to be burnt; the food was distributed among the regiments as they passed, with much consequent waste[403]. All that Ney could do between the 18th of September, when he reached Vizeu, and the 21st, was to push forward an advanced guard to Tondella, fifteen miles down the Vizeu-Coimbra road, with an infantry division in support at Fail. Meanwhile the 2nd Corps, following in the wake of the 6th, had also made its way to Vizeu. The bulk of Reynier’s force took the Fornos-Mangualde-Lagiosa route, as Ney’s had done. But an advanced guard of all arms descended the great chaussée south of the river as far as Taboa, driving in the pickets of the English cavalry, and then crossed the Mondego at the bridge of Taboa, and fell into the rear of the rest of the corps beyond Mangualde. This apparently was intended to keep Wellington uncertain, as long as possible, as to whether part[p. 352] of the French army was not intending, after all, to follow the chaussée and present itself before the position on the Alva[404]. But it was executed by so small a force that the British general was not for an hour deceived[405]. He was at this moment in a cheerful frame of mind; Masséna had made a mistake in choosing his route, and was merely wasting time when time was most precious. ‘There are certainly many bad roads in Portugal,’ he wrote, ‘but the enemy has taken decidedly the worst in the whole kingdom’[406]; and again, ‘I imagine that Marshal Masséna has been misinformed, and has experienced more difficulty in making his movement than he expected. He has certainly selected one of the worst roads in Portugal for his march[407].’ Owing to the necessary delays of the enemy Wellington was now in a position as strong as that on the Alva; his head quarters were at the convent of Bussaco, his divisions, including Leith and Hill, so placed that they could be concentrated on the Serra de Alcoba, right across the Vizeu-Coimbra road, long before the French could descend from Vizeu. ‘We have an excellent position here, in which I am strongly tempted to give battle[408],’ he wrote on the evening of the 21st, foreseeing six days ahead the probability of the engagement which was to make Bussaco famous. There was a road by which his position might be turned, but it was doubtful whether the enemy would discover it, and ‘I do not yet give up hopes of discovering a remedy for that misfortune[409].’
Map of the Mondego Valley

Enlarge  THE MONDEGO VALLEY

Masséna, meanwhile, was chafing at his self-imposed delays, and writing querulous letters from Vizeu to Berthier. ‘The grand park and the baggage,’ he wrote on the 22nd, ‘are still in the rear, and will only get up to-morrow. It is impossible to find worse roads than these; they bristle with rocks; the guns and train have suffered severely, and I must wait for them. I must leave them two days at Vizeu when they come in, to rest[p. 353] themselves, while I resume my march on Coimbra, where (as I am informed) I shall find the Anglo-Portuguese concentrated. Sir, all our marches are across a desert; not a soul to be seen anywhere; everything is abandoned. The English push their barbarity to the point of shooting the wretched inhabitant who tries to remain in his village; the women, the children, the aged, have all decamped. We cannot find a guide anywhere. The soldiers discover a few potatoes and other vegetables; they are satisfied, and burn for the moment when they shall meet the enemy.’ The plan of devastation was already beginning to work; Masséna had exhausted seven of the thirteen days’ provisions which his army carried, and it was not with the potatoes gleaned in the fields of Vizeu, or the ripe grapes of its vineyards, that he could refill the empty store-waggons. He must push on for Coimbra as fast as possible; this, no doubt, was why he made up his mind to march on that place, not by descending from Vizeu to Aveiro and entering the coast plain, but by taking the direct road by Santa Comba Dao, Mortagoa, and Bussaco. Even Lopez’s faulty map shows the ridge of Bussaco as a serious physical feature, but the Marshal does not seem to have reflected for a moment that Wellington might choose to defend it. The orders drawn up on September 24th for the march on Coimbra presuppose an unobstructed progress[410]. Having met no active resistance as yet from the Anglo-Portuguese army, Masséna wrongly took it for granted that he might count on the prolongation of this good fortune.

Before moving on from Vizeu the organization of the French army was slightly modified. Junot’s corps contained a number of fourth battalions, belonging to regiments whose three senior battalions were serving in the 2nd Corps. The two corps had never met till both lay at Vizeu. Masséna then ordered the fourth battalions of the 36th, 47th, 70th of the Line, and the 2nd and 4th Léger to join their regiments in Reynier’s corps; this reduced the 8th Corps by 2,850 men; in return, however, Reynier was ordered to make over to Junot two regiments of old troops, the 15th and 86th of the line (each of three battalions)[p. 354] making in all 2,251 bayonets. Thus the two corps were somewhat equalized in quality, the 2nd receiving five battalions of recruits, while the 8th (in which there were too few veterans) got in return six battalions which had served in Spain since the commencement of the war. The net result was to make the 2nd Corps a little stronger (17,024 men) and the 8th Corps a little weaker (15,904 men)[411].

On September 21st the advance of the Army of Portugal was recommenced, though the train and heavy baggage was not yet prepared to start, and some of its rear detachments had not even reached Vizeu. But on that day the advanced guard of the 6th Corps advanced from Tondella, and found in front of it some light cavalry and two Portuguese regiments—the first hostile troops that the French had seen since the campaign began. The whole of the 2nd and 6th Corps followed behind, and bivouacked that night at Casal-de-Maria, Tondella, Sabugo?a and other villages on the steep downward road from Vizeu to Coimbra. The 8th Corps still remained at Vizeu, guarding the belated reserve artillery and train. On the 22nd the 2nd Corps, passing the 6th, which had hitherto taken the lead, crossed the Criz and drove in the British outposts, who retired on Mortagoa. But Ney and the 6th Corps remained stationary, and the 8th did not even yet make a start. These delays seem extraordinary, but Masséna was still paying for his evil choice of roads; the infantry had to wait for the guns, and the guns could only creep forward as the sappers enlarged and improved the roads for them.

Wellington, meanwhile, was recasting his dispositions at his leisure. When Masséna’s march on Vizeu had become certain, the British Commander-in-Chief thought at first that the enemy would take the good chaussée Vizeu-Aveiro, so as to descend into the coast-plain and attack Coimbra from the easiest side. He therefore, on the 18th moved the 1st Division back from Ponte de Murcella to Coimbra, where it was joined by a new brigade from Lisbon, composed of the 1st battalions of the 7th and[p. 355] 79th, newly landed. A. Campbell’s and Coleman’s Portuguese also moved to the same point. The 3rd and 4th Divisions remained at Ponte de Murcella in the entrenched position, with the Light Division and Pack’s Portuguese in front of them at Venda do Porco and Sampayo.

But on the 20th, when Ney’s advanced guard began to come out from Vizeu on the Santa Comba Dao road, not on the Aveiro road, Wellington discovered that it was on the mountain of Bussaco, and not on the plain in front of Coimbra, that he would next meet the enemy. Accordingly Pack’s Portuguese and the Light Division forded the Mondego below Sampayo, as did the light cavalry, and a detaining force was thus thrown across the Vizeu-Coimbra road. The Portuguese brigade took post behind the Criz torrent, Craufurd’s men a little to the rear at Mortagoa. At the same time the 1st Division and the troops attached to it moved out from Coimbra to Mealhada on the Aveiro road, a point from which they could easily be called up to the Bussaco position, if no French columns were discovered coming down the Aveiro road, as now seemed probable. This day, Leith’s division, to Wellington’s intense satisfaction, arrived at San Miguel de Payares behind the Alva, and so joined the main body. Hill was reported to be a day’s march only to the rear, at Foz d’Aronce. Thus the whole of the Anglo-Portuguese regular forces between Douro and Tagus were neatly concentrated. At the same time Trant was told to bring the militia of Northern Beira down the Oporto-Coimbra road to Agueda and Sard?o, and Baccelar was directed to support him with Wilson’s militia brigade, in case Masséna should have some subsidiary operation against Oporto in his mind.

On the 24th the first skirmish of the campaign took place; the 2nd Corps, advancing into the plain in front of Mortagoa, found Pack’s Portuguese facing them on the right, and Craufurd’s division on the left, with a screen of cavalry in front. They pushed in the horsemen upon the infantry, but halted when artillery opened upon them, and made no further advance. On this day the belated 8th Corps, with the reserve cavalry, at last started from Vizeu. Next morning Reynier pressed on in force with two heavy columns each formed by a division, and Craufurd was ordered by Wellington to retire, which he did with some[p. 356] reluctance by alternate échelons of brigades[412]. The 95th and 43rd had some sharp skirmishing with the French van, and made a stand by the village of Moura under the Bussaco heights, before retiring up the high-road, and taking position upon the crest of the great ridge[413], which they did at six o’clock in the evening.

While the advanced guards of Reynier and Ney were driving in Craufurd and Pack, the Anglo-Portuguese army was assembling on Wellington’s chosen fighting-ground. Picton and Cole, with the 3rd and 4th Divisions, had already taken up their quarters on the Bussaco ridge on the 21st, the first across the road from San Antonio de Cantaro to Palheiros, the second across the chaussée, behind the spot to which the troops of Pack and Craufurd were retiring. Leith, who had been brought over the Mondego by the fords of Pe?a Cova on the 23rd, moved up on to the southern tract of the Bussaco heights on the 24th. Hill, who reached the line of the Alva on the 22nd, followed in Leith’s wake, and on the 25th was at Pe?a Cova waiting for orders to cross. The 1st Division with Campbell’s and Coleman’s Portuguese alone were still absent, though not far off. They had started from Mealhada, when it became clear that no French force was coming by the Aveiro-Coimbra road, but on the night of the 25th were still some eight miles away, and did not get into position between Cole and Picton till between nine and ten o’clock on the morning of the 26th.

Nevertheless, nearly 40,000 men, composed of the Light, 3rd, 4th, 5th Divisions and their Portuguese auxiliaries, and of Hill on their flank, only four miles away, were concentrated on the night of the 25th, when Reynier’s vanguard deployed in front of the heights. Before ten o’clock on the following morning Spencer had arrived, and Hill was over the fords and encamped along the rear slopes of the heights. There seems to be no truth whatever in the allegation that the British army was in a[p. 357] somewhat dangerous position on the evening of the 25th, for the French had only their vanguard up, and there were less than two hours of daylight left when Craufurd retired from Moura, and Reynier and Ney obtained their first view of the British position. Before the enemy could have collected in strength sufficient for an attack, night would have set in.

NOTE ON THE SITUATION ON SEPT. 25

Napier wholly misrepresents the state of affairs in vol. iii. pp. 22-3. He writes as follows: ‘Before 3 o’clock 40,000 French infantry were embattled on the two points (the chaussée and the San Antonio de Cantaro road), their guns trying the range above, while the skirmishing clatter of musketry arose from the dark wooded chasms below. Ney, whose military glance was sure, instantly perceived that the mountain, a crested not a table one, could hide no great reserves, that it was only half occupied, and that the allies were moving with the disorder usual on the taking of unknown ground. He wished therefore to attack, but Masséna was ten miles to the rear, the officer sent to him waited two hours for an audience, and then returned with orders to attend the Prince’s arrival. Thus a great opportunity was lost, for Spencer was not up, Leith’s troops were only passing the Mondego, and Hill was still behind the Alva. Scarcely 25,000 men were in line, and with great intervals.’

Almost every statement here is incorrect.

(1) The French did not reach the ground in front of the heights till 5 o’clock: they were not up at 3 p.m. [D’Urban’s Diary: ‘At noon, the heads of the French infantry columns having reached the lower falls leading from the Mortagoa Valley, he pushed forward his cavalry and began to skirmish with our pickets. It not being Lord Wellington’s intention to dispute this ground, but rather to entice Masséna to follow and attack him in his position of Bo?aco, the Light Division was gradually withdrawn, the 95th and 43rd covering the retreat and Ross’s artillery playing upon the enemy’s advance from hill to hill, till at 5 o’clock they were halted by the fire of the 43rd before the village of Sula. At about 6 the firing ceased, and our advance (heretofore at Moura and Sula) took up their ground (as well as General Cole’s division) upon the heights of Bo?aco.’] This diary, written that same night, cannot be wrong as to the dating of the hours. D’Urban was riding with Beresford at Wellington’s side. Napier was writing from memory twenty years after.

(2) Ney did not ‘perceive the mountain only half occupied, and wish to attack,’ on the evening of the 25th. His reconnaissance was made on the morning of the 26th, and it was then that he expressed his wish to attack, when Wellington had every man in line. This is conclusively proved by the following note of Ney to Reynier, dated at 10.30 on the morning of the 26th, from his advanced posts, which lies in the French archives:—

[p. 358]‘Je re?ois à l’instant, mon cher général, votre lettre de ce jour. Je pense qu’une grande partie de l’armée anglo-portugaise a passé la nuit sur la crête des montagnes qui dominent la vallée de Moura. Depuis ce matin l’ennemi marche par sa gauche, et semble diriger ses colonnes principales sur la route d’Oporto. Cependant il tient encore assez de monde à la droite du parc, qui couvre le couvent de Minimes appelé Sako, et montre une douzaine de pièces d’artillerie. Le chemin de Coimbre passe tout près de ce couvent. Si j’avais le commandement j’attaquerais sans hésiter un seul instant. Mais je crois que vous ne pouvez rien compromettre en vous échellonant sur la droite de l’ennemi, et en poussant ses avant-postes le plus possible: car c’est véritablement par ce point qu’il faudrait le forcer à faire sa retraite.’ What Ney had seen, and wrongly took for a general movement of the English army towards its left, was Cole taking ground to the left on the arrival of Spencer, who came up between 8 and 10 that morning, just before Ney was scribbling this hasty note to Reynier.

(3) The stretch of mountain opposite Ney and Reynier was not ‘crested’ but ‘table’—so much so that Wellington took two squadrons of cavalry up to it, for use in the battle. The British general never took up a position where he had no space to hide his reserves.

(4) The time when Ney sent an officer to Masséna to ask leave to attack was the morning of the 26th, not the evening of the 25th. How could Ney have hoped to get the permission to fight and carry it out, when the time when he reached Moura was 5 o’clock, and dusk falls at 6.30? The messenger had twenty miles to ride, to Mortagoa and back. See Fririon’s note in his ‘Aper?u sur la Campagne de Portugal’ in Victoires et Conquêtes, xxi. 320.

(5) Leith’s troops, so far from being ‘only passing the Mondego’ on the afternoon of the 25th, had passed it on the 23rd [Journal of Leith Hay, aide-de-camp of Leith, i. 228]. On the night of the 22nd-23rd Wellington wrote to Hill, ‘Leith’s, Picton’s, and Cole’s divisions are now on the Serra de Busaco’ [Dispatches, vi. 462]. Hill was not ‘behind the Alva,’ but massed at the fords of Pe?a Cova, only four miles from the battlefield. He crossed at dawn on the 26th, but could have been in action within two hours of the first shot, if the attack had been made on the 25th.

(6) Wellington, including Hill’s division, had therefore 40,000 men, not 25,000. But the latter number would have sufficed, for Ney and Reynier had only their advanced guards up, and in the hour and a half before dusk could not have brought up their whole corps by the bad and narrow roads from behind. The Diary of the 6th Corps mentions that only the vanguard division (Loison) bivouacked in front of the heights. The rearguard was as far back as Barril that night.

(7) The exact moment of the arrival of the British 1st Division may be gauged from the fact that it passed Luzo, the village behind Bussaco, at 8 a.m. on the 26th—Diary of Stothert (3rd Foot Guards), p. 188. There is only two miles from Luzo to the position taken up by the 1st Division.