The peninsular war, p.15
The Peninsular War, page 15
We rapidly approached the field of battle, and found a difficulty at first getting within range. The hills on which the enemy were posted were high, and too perpendicular to attempt a direct ascent. Our staff officers, however, discovered certain chasms or openings, made … by the rain, up which we were led … the enemy playing upon us all the time … Our Colonel … said, ‘Charge’; we did so, but I could go no further, having received a wound in my leg … Captain Culley … was wounded in both legs. Serjeant Hill … was … wounded in the head.7
Roliça, though, was a mere overture, albeit one that gave cause for reflection. In the words of a soldier who arrived in the Peninsula some time later:
The personal enmity to Napoleon, and the violent party prejudices in England, were so great, that the most absurd stories of the want of order and valour of his troops gained immediate credence there, and many of the English army believed that they had but to show themselves, and the French would fly. The bravery with which their attack was met … was a matter of great surprise.8
Much more serious was the battle that took place at the coastal village of Vimeiro on 21 August. Wellesley had come down to the sea to pick up two brigades of reinforcements, and it was here that Junot chose to attack him in the hope that his army could be trapped and destroyed. In this, he was to be disappointed. By the time that the French attacked, the reinforcements had already disembarked, and Wellesley had posted his troops on several hills that encompassed Vimeiro and were in part protected by a deep ravine. It was a good position. In the words of one participant:
The village of Vimeiro stands in a valley … at the eastern end of a high mountainous range which extends westwards to the sea. In front of the village is a hill of inferior altitude, terminating in a plateau of considerable extent … On the left is another strong ridge of heights, stretching to the eastward, and terminating on the right in a deep ravine.9
By 1808, meanwhile, a British army on the defensive was no laughing matter, a series of measures having been taken that were designed to take the edge off French assaults. How the latter were delivered varied considerably, but a common feature was their employment of a very heavy screen of skirmishers – infantrymen who fought spread out in open order, made such use as they could of cover, and took their time with regard to loading and firing. Such men could inflict heavy losses on a defending force and spread confusion by picking off key officers, but were very difficult to deal with by traditional close-order troops. Realising this, the British had greatly increased the number of skirmishers which they could deploy themselves. Thus, by 1808 in the guards and line infantry each battalion possessed a light company that was specifically trained for skirmish operations, and every ‘centre’ company a number of sharpshooters. Several battalions were also armed with rifles rather than muskets and two regiments of light infantry supposedly could fight in their entirety in open order.* As yet the system was not developed systematically or to its fullest extent, but already the basic idea had sunk in: French attacks were to be confronted with a strong force of skirmishers that could keep their light troops away from the defending line and slow down the progress of the attack, thereby exposing the attackers to the ravages of long-range artillery fire for a longer period (not that the British were strong in this respect: for logistical reasons, until late in the war their cannon were fewer in numbers and much lighter than those of the French).
Nor was this an end to the matter. However strong, gallant and well-trained, no skirmish screen could possibly hope to hold out for ever. Sooner or later, then, the French would come within musket range of the defenders who would invariably be arrayed in a two-deep line (despite misconceptions to the contrary, the British also sometimes used columnar formations, just as the French sometimes used line, but in the British army it was very rare for any other formation than the line to be used on the defensive). According to the traditional account, what then happened was that the attackers would be struck down by a hail of musketry, the British infantry firing volley after volley until the French were brought to a halt and forced to flee, but it is now thought that the preferred technique was rather to fire a single volley, cheer and then charge forward with the bayonet. Yet in the last resort the result was the same: the British infantry had evolved a series of procedures that, when coupled with Wellesley’s habitual use of the reverse slope of hills to hide his troops till the last minute, made them an exceedingly dangerous enemy.
Outnumbered as he was, Junot’s only hope was probably to stake everything on a single massive assault, but he instead chose to split his forces, sending some of his troops to circle round the British position from the east whilst himself assaulting Wellesley’s left flank, which rested on the village of Vimeiro. To reach the latter, the French had first to conquer the isolated hill in front of the village. However, covered with vineyards and pine trees and held by some of Moore’s best troops, including all his riflemen and light infantrymen, this proved a difficult objective. In the words of one rifle officer:
The night before the battle I belonged to a picket of about 200 riflemen … We were posted in a large pine wood … About eight o’clock in the morning … a cloud of light troops, supported by a heavy column of infantry, entered the wood, and, assailing the pickets with great impetuosity, obliged us to fall back for support on the Ninety-Seventh Regiment. As soon as we had got clear of the front of the Ninety-Seventh … that regiment poured in such a well-directed fire that it staggered the resolution of the hostile column, which declined to close … with them. About the same time the second battalion of the Fifty-Second, advancing through the wood, took the French in flank, and drove them before them in confusion. On the pickets being driven in, I joined my own brigade, which was on the left of the Ninety-Seventh. Here the business was beginning to assume a serious aspect. Some heavy masses of infantry, preceded by a swarm of light troops, were advancing with great resolution … In spite of the deadly fire which several hundred riflemen kept up on them, they continued to press forward … until the old Fiftieth Regiment received them with a destructive volley, following it instantly with a most brilliant … charge with the bayonet, which broke … in utter dismay and confusion this column.10
Two attacks were beaten off with ease in this fashion, and the French suffered heavy casualties: ‘I saw regular lanes torn through their ranks as they advanced … and we pelted away upon them like a shower of leaden hail.’11 At the same time, a desperate attempt to outflank the hill was put to flight by a number of units that had been in reserve, the discomfiture of the French being completed by a sudden charge by Wellesley’s handful of dragoons (although, in a fault typical of British cavalry throughout the war, the latter proceeded to get out of control and ride into the very midst of the French position where they were in turn crushed by Junot’s cavalry reserve).
Whilst the defenders of Vimeiro and its hill had thus been standing firm, Wellesley had been marching most of the rest of his troops across their rear to counter Junot’s turning movement. Ascending the heights in the British commander’s left rear at two different points, the troops concerned – a mere two brigades – therefore ran into overwhelming numbers of redcoats and were routed after a sharp fight whose most notable element was again the British use of ‘shock’ tactics rather than firepower. Short of mounted troops, the British were unable to derive all the profit from their successes that they might have done, but even so more than two thousand Frenchmen had been killed, wounded or taken prisoner, whilst Junot had also lost over half his cannon.
Secured at the moderate cost of only 720 casualties, Vimeiro had been a fine achievement, which had been strongly suggestive both of Wellesley’s skills as a general and the potential of the British infantry. To Wellesley’s fury, however, a much greater triumph was thrown away. The French were in total disarray and Junot, whose behaviour in the action had been so odd as to give rise to charges that he was either drunk or suffering from a touch of the sun, in a state of moral collapse. Had a general advance been ordered the result must have been total disaster. But Wellesley’s period of grace had run out, for the reinforcements had been accompanied by Sir Harry Burrard. Not landing until after the action had begun, the latter made no attempt to interfere in the repulse of Junot, but an advance was a different matter, and, despite Wellesley’s pleas, he refused to sanction the slightest forward movement, believing, first, that Wellesley was a distinctly rash commander who had only risen to prominence because of his political connections, and, second, that the French were receiving reinforcements.
Thanks to Burrard, Junot was allowed to get off in good order. Yet the French situation remained extremely serious: the army was badly shaken; the British were known to be expecting further reinforcements; the insurgent forces were closing in; and the Lisbon crowd was restive and excited. Although the British still failed to move, on 22 August Junot therefore resolved to try for a capitulation on terms that would see the French returned home by sea. Whether Junot was actually expecting to be able to brazen things out is not apparent, but the fact is that his ploy was astonishingly successful. The day after the battle, Dalrymple had also appeared. Mistrustful of Wellesley and angry at the terms of his appointment, he was also discouraged by the army’s transport problems, inclined to downplay the effects of Vimeiro, and convinced that the French could hold their own. Thus it was that Dalrymple vetoed the march on Lisbon proposed by Wellesley – a march which incidentally stood a good chance of trapping Junot’s beaten army – and greeted the arrival of the French emissaries with some relief (according to Madame Junot, the general sent to open negotiations even heard him whisper to Burrard, ‘We are not in a very good situation; let us hear him’).12 Thus it was, too, that, after a lengthy series of discussions, the main points of the French proposals were all accepted. Junot and his men were to be embarked for a French port in British ships and allowed to depart without having to lay down their arms even in form, whilst they were permitted to take with them their cannon, baggage and personal possessions. Their civilian supporters and collaborators – both French and Portuguese – were guaranteed life, liberty and property and permitted to take ship with Junot if they so wished. Included in the capitulation were not just Junot’s field army and the garrison of Lisbon, but also the forces holding Almeida and Elvas. All that the French had to promise in return was to leave the fortifications they occupied intact, to leave behind any cannons they had seized from the Portuguese army, and to free all their prisoners.
Known as the Convention of Sintra, these terms caused considerable controversy. Already smarting at the fact that the French had been granted an armistice without any reference to their own representatives, the Portuguese were infuriated by the generosity of the terms Junot had been granted, matters being made still worse by the French interpreting ‘personal property’ as including a wide variety of loot, and in general adopting the most arrogant of attitudes. For example:
I proceeded to Lisbon … where I saw the French army … An extraordinary sight it was, for they had their standards displayed in the square of Belem with as much sangfroid as if they had been the victorious army, and had dictated the agreements.13
Setting aside these issues, even the military aspects of the convention were questionable. No attempt was made to stipulate that Junot’s troops should not be employed again in Spain or Portugal, for example, or to insist that they should at least be deprived of their much needed horses and draught animals.
Sintra, in short, was a serious embarrassment: despite frantic attempts to force the French to disgorge their plunder, the Portuguese were furious, Porter, for example, writing of how they ‘stood staring at each other as if uncertain of whether a mine or one of their old earthquakes had sprung under their feet’, and Warre that ‘the mob would have … destroyed the homes of everybody connected with the French, and even now, if a French deserter or spy … is found, the cry of “He Frances” is enough, unless some English are near, to have him murdered’.14 Nor was the army much better pleased: according to Morley, the convention ‘crushed every hope and withered every laurel’.15 Yet there was little doubt that it was in principle defensible. In the wake of Dalrymple and Burrard’s blunders, indeed, sensible observers recognised that it was genuinely attractive. As Leach wrote:
The aspect … of affairs was totally changed … when the flag of truce came in. The enemy then had possession of all the defensible positions between us and Lisbon, independent of the citadel and different forts near the capital. This would have enabled General Junot to protract the contest for a length of time, whilst the game of the British clearly was to root out their opponents with as little delay as possible … not only on account of the lateness of the season, but because the presence of our army would be desirable in Spain.16
Such, however, was not the way in which the agreement was seen in England. In the wake of Bailén, what was expected was great victories, whilst the first news that had reached the country gave the unfortunate impression that Junot had surrendered altogether. The result was a storm of protest. From the king downwards, almost every sector of public opinion was appalled at the opportunity that appeared to have been thrown away, and on 21 September Dalrymple was recalled to London to account for his conduct (Burrard, by contrast, was allowed for the time being to remain in Portugal as caretaker commander, though he too went home once Moore had arrived to replace him). A few days earlier, meanwhile, an equally disgusted Wellesley had himself sailed for home on the pretext afforded by the death of his deputy in the post of Chief Secretary for Ireland.
In view of the furore it might have been thought that this would have been the end of Wellesley’s career. In a bitter denunciation of the convention, for example, the poet, William Wordsworth, wrote that he was ‘utterly unworthy of the station in which he had been placed’; that ‘he magnified himself and his achievements’; and that ‘here was a man, who, having not any fellow feeling with the people he had been commissioned to aid, could not know where their strength lay, and therefore could not turn it to account’.17 To make matters worse, Dalrymple had done his best to imply that the convention was in large part Wellesley’s responsibility, whilst the Wellesley clan’s many enemies were determined to exploit the situation for all it was worth. Disappointed though they were, however, Castlereagh and, rather less willingly, Canning upheld his cause, whilst he was also warmly received by George III. As for the court of enquiry that was convened by the government, the report that it issued on 22 December could be read as exonerating him altogether. In consequence, Wellesley survived the crisis in good enough order to have hopes of another army. Not so Dalrymple and Burrard, both of whom were damned with such faint praise as to make it clear that they could never be offered a command again, the former in addition being severely reprimanded by the government.
Despite the controversy, the Sintra affair posed no threat to continued British involvement in the Peninsula. In so far as the situation there was concerned, by 18 September the bulk of the French forces in Portugal had taken ship for France, the only exception being the garrisons of Almeida and Elvas, which, blockaded by Portuguese forces on the one hand and Spanish ones on the other, had to be rescued by detachments of British troops. Also dealt with was the Russian squadron, which surrendered on terms that saw its men sent back to Russia, and its ships impounded in Britain. Meanwhile, Lisbon had been occupied amidst scenes of general rejoicing:
At length, when … the national flag of Portugal once again waved on the citadel … there was such a combination of vivas, sky-rockets, ringing of bells, singing, dancing, screeching, crying, laughing … embracing in the streets … as must render every attempt at description hopeless.18
In control was a new regency created from three members of the original council left behind by João, two representatives of a list of possible substitutes drawn up by the prince, and two representatives of the Portuguese resistance movement, including the Bishop of Oporto. As for the British army, it had now been swelled by the troops of Sir John Moore, who had also replaced Dalrymple (who had left for London on 3 October).
With Portugal settled, the British could once again turn their attentions to Spain. Contact with the new Spanish government had established that a British army would now be welcome, but autumn had brought a change to British attitudes to the Peninsula. On the one hand Sintra had shattered the political consensus of June 1808, for Whigs and radicals were naturally inclined to make use of it as a means of overthrowing the Portland administration. On the other the government had become increasingly irritated with the Spaniards. Not least of the reasons was the ever more importunate demands of the Spanish missions to London. To these petitions the British had responded with considerable generosity – the Asturians alone received £350,000 in specie, 9,000 shirts, 10,000 pairs of shoes, 6,000 packs, 26 cannon, 20,000 muskets, 14,000 pikes, 12,000 swords, 1,600 pistols, 1,080 barrels of powder, 2,752,155 musket cartridges, 18,600 artillery charges, and 2,500 camp kettles, whilst the total of the money sent to the various juntas amounted to £1,100,000 – but the various liaison officers and military missions which they had dispatched to the Peninsula or otherwise succeeded in attaching to the Spanish armies had begun to send back news of a most alarming sort. If the various juntas that headed the Spanish revolt could not be faulted in their commitment to the struggle, it was all too apparent that they tended to regard it in a most parochial fashion, their sole concern being the protection of their own provinces. Thus, such levies as they managed to raise were often kept at home, while in many cases attempts were also made to lay hands upon such forces of the regular army as happened to be found within their borders. As for the aid supplied by the British, it, too, was being hoarded for the use of the provinces in which it had been disembarked. To make matters worse, the juntas were experiencing considerable difficulties in organising any sort of war effort and imposing their authority.
