Part 1

This ebook (originally published in 1820) was created in honour of Distributed Proofreaders 20th Anniversary.

MEMOIR

OF THE EARLY CAMPAIGNS OF THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON, IN PORTUGAL AND SPAIN,

BY AN OFFICER EMPLOYED IN HIS ARMY.

LONDON: JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE-STREET.

1820.

London: Printed by W. CLOWES, Northumberland-court.

A MEMOIR, _&c._

The following sheets pretend to no merit in composition, the writer pretends to no reputation as an author; the subject must be interesting to every British reader, and if the events are faithfully recorded, the work will deserve some attention.

Unaccustomed for a series of years to any great or continued exertion upon the continent, the people of England almost doubted their power or means of supporting one. The genius of Lord Wellington, the bravery of British troops, have removed this doubt.

To the detail of the brilliant exploits by which the early campaigns in Portugal and Spain were distinguished, this work is dedicated. The author has undertaken it, emboldened by the consideration, that from the opportunities which he enjoyed of observing the transactions in the Peninsula, in most of which he was personally engaged, he has the means of relating them correctly.

In the summer of 1808 the first deputies from the Asturias arrived in England; they were so rapidly succeeded by others from every part of the Peninsula, that after a very short time there remained no doubt that the great people, whom they came to represent, were determined to struggle for independence.

The British ministers did no more than echo the sentiments of the nation when they decided to give every support to this people; and Sir Arthur Wellesley, who had been appointed to the command of a corps destined for a different service, was selected to lead the first armament which should carry assistance to Portugal and Spain.

The force under his orders sailed from Cork in the beginning of July; Sir Arthur Wellesley himself proceeded in a single ship to Corunna. The state of things upon his arrival at that port was unfavourable to the Spaniards. The Gallician army under Blake, and that of Castile under Cuesta, had been defeated by a French corps commanded by Marshal Bessières, in the neighbourhood of Rio Seco; and there appeared no obstacle to the march of the enemy to Corunna. In this situation of affairs Sir Arthur Wellesley hinted to the Junta, that if a request to land his army for the protection of Gallicia should be made to him, he would not hesitate in acceding to it. The Junta, however, actuated by a feeling of pride and jealousy which has so often brought the affairs of Spain to the brink of ruin, neglected to make this proposal. Sir Arthur consequently proceeded to the coast of Portugal, and arrived in Mondego Bay on the 26th of July. Leaving there the expedition he commanded, he went to the mouth of the Tagus, to procure information, and to combine his operations with Admiral Sir C. Cotton. When these objects were accomplished, he returned to the Mondego, determining to land his troops as soon as the corps which he expected, either from Cadiz, under General Spencer, or from England, under General Ackland, should have arrived. The former joined on the 2d of August; and Sir Arthur Wellesley immediately disembarked his army. At this moment three-fourths of Portugal were in insurrection against the French. Junot, who had entered the country in the November preceding, had commanded a corps of 40,000 men, of which about 10,000 were Spaniards; Oporto was occupied by a part of the Spanish troops, the rest of them were at Lisbon.

At the commencement of the revolution in Spain, Junot entertained so great a suspicion of the Spaniards in that capital, and in its neighbourhood, that, under pretence of sending them to other quarters, he succeeded in surrounding and disarming them, and afterwards in placing them as prisoners on board ships provided for that purpose in the Tagus. As soon as the intelligence of this event reached Oporto, the Spanish garrison seized the few French officers who were in the town; invited the inhabitants to follow the example of Spain, and resist the French; and themselves marched off to join their companions in Gallicia.

The Portuguese had, however, before this time, raised the standard of their prince. The Bishop of Oporto assumed the government of the northern provinces of Portugal; and General Frere and other persons took the lead in the insurrection in the other parts of that country. The old soldiers, who had been disbanded by the French, were called to arms; and in a short time three armies were formed; one at Oporto, another at Coimbra, and the third at Viseu. Officers had already been despatched from England to ascertain the state of the Oporto and Coimbra corps; and Sir Arthur Wellesley sent an officer to Viseu to report to him the state of the force assembled there under General Barcellar. It is needless to observe, that an army formed as the Portuguese had been, could not be very effective; such as it was, however, it was hearty in the cause of its country, and most anxious for an opportunity of revenging the wrongs which had been inflicted upon the nation.

The corps of Oporto was joined to that of Coimbra, and was destined to act with Sir Arthur Wellesley. The corps of Viseu was sent to Guarda; whence, in conjunction with some Spaniards under the orders of the Marquis of Valadares, it was directed to march upon Abrantes, and from thence co-operate in the meditated attack on Lisbon. There was also a corps of Spaniards of some force collected at Badajos under General Galluzzo, which it was hoped might have given some assistance to these combinations, by a simultaneous operation in the Alemtejo.

Such was the state of the allied force when Sir Arthur Wellesley first landed his army on the banks of the Mondego. The French were in possession of Lisbon, and the country north of it as far as Leyria, which had been recaptured from the Portuguese by a force under the orders of General Margaron. On the entry of the French into this town, they committed the most atrocious acts of cruelty[1]. As an instance of the brutality of a superior officer, the —— of —— related of himself, that upon entering the town, he met a woman with a child at her breast, that the appearance of the infant excited his pity, but “_se rapellant qu’il était soldat_,” he pierced the two bodies with a single thrust of his sword. When the English advanced guard arrived there, it found in one of the convents the dead bodies of several Monks, who had been killed by the French soldiers; some of whom had dipped their hands in the blood of their unfortunate victims, and had daubed with it the walls of the convent.

Footnote 1:

The cruelties committed by the French army in this instance, and throughout the whole of its campaigns in Portugal, had their origin in the nature of the war in which it was now for the first time engaged. Till this period, wherever the French soldiers had established themselves, whether by the defeat of the armies which defended the country invaded, or otherwise, they found the people submitting to their rule; when, in Portugal, therefore, the nation rose in hostility against them, they considered such resistance as rebellion, and looked upon the inhabitants taken in arms, as disturbers of the public peace, and therefore entitled to no mercy or consideration. The officers also hoped, by inflicting vengeance on the patriots, to arrest the progress of an insurrection which menaced their total overthrow. It would not be fair to argue, from the conduct of the French in Portugal, that in other situations they would be led to adopt similar proceedings.

To the southward of the Tagus, the French had been unable to retain any part of the Alemtejo.

About the end of July, Junot detached a corps, under the orders of General Loison, to repress, in the first instance, the insurrections of that province; next, to give whatever assistance might be wanted by the garrison of Elvas; and, lastly, to return by Abrantes to the north of the Tagus, and to wreak a signal vengeance upon Coimbra. General Loison, in execution of these directions, marched to Evora, where the Portuguese had collected the force of the provinces, and, assisted by some Spaniards, resolved to defend the town. General Loison attacked it, and after meeting with a considerable resistance, entered it, and delivered it over to pillage. The inhabitants, threatened with indiscriminate massacre, endeavoured to shelter themselves in the churches and convents, where they had been accustomed to look for protection; but this was of no avail against their merciless enemies; thousands of them were drawn from their places of refuge, and fell victims to a licentious soldiery, excited by the unrestrained desire of plunder and revenge.

From Evora, General Loison marched to Elvas, and from thence returned by Abrantes to Thomar, where he was arrested in the further execution of his instructions, by the news that Sir Arthur Wellesley had landed, and was at Leyria, upon his march towards Lisbon.

During this period Sir Arthur had prepared for the campaign he was about to undertake.

He had 13,000 British infantry and 300 cavalry; he selected 5,000 of the best Portuguese troops that were assembled at Coimbra, and with an army so composed, determined to move forward. He was in daily expectation of a corps of 5,000 men from England, and he was also apprized that the body of men who had been under Lieut.-General Moore in Sweden, had received orders to proceed to the Peninsula.

The Commissariat, under Sir Arthur Wellesley, was defective; an army just landed must necessarily be without the means of transport; it was, therefore, evident that it must depend entirely upon its communication with the shipping for its support throughout its operations: Sir Arthur Wellesley upon these considerations determined to advance by the road nearest the coast; by that movement he secured to himself the advantages of being able to receive his reinforcements at any time they should arrive; and in addition, he was not cramped by any line of communication which it would be necessary for him to maintain, or which he must have defended, had the enemy (as was once contemplated) made any demonstrations upon his rear.

Before he quitted the Mondego, he left instructions for the corps under General Ackland to proceed along the coast to join him. He also left a statement of the information he had obtained, and of the opinions he had formed, to be delivered to Sir John Moore upon his arrival. Sir Arthur Wellesley recommended, that the corps under that officer should be landed in the Mondego, and marched to Santarem, so as to operate to the southward of the Tagus, if necessary, and to prevent the enemy from retiring through the province of Alemtejo, in case he should be beaten by the force which Sir Arthur was leading against him. Other objects were in contemplation, but these were the principal.

This proposed system of operations was afterwards subjected to considerable discussion; it was objected to, and set aside. The mind, however, which conceived it, would have executed it with success, though in other hands it might appear impracticable. The battle of Vimiera, in which only half the force under Sir Arthur Wellesley was engaged, proved the correctness of his calculations, and warrants a belief that if the whole campaign had been directed according to his views, the result would have proved more advantageous than it did under a different arrangement.

On the 9th of August, Sir Arthur Wellesley made his first movement from the Mondego, and reached Leyria on the 10th; he halted two days to make the necessary arrangements for his advance, and to bring up the Portuguese who were at Coimbra. On the 13th he moved to the ground about Batalha, where a patrole of French, from the corps under General La Borde, at Alcobaça, was first discovered. General Frere, who commanded the Portuguese, here made an objection to advance any further, stating, as his reason, the improbability of finding provisions. Sir Arthur Wellesley was not disconcerted by this defection: after attempting in vain to alter General Frere’s determination, he decided to move forward, taking with his army a detachment of 1,600 men, from the force under that officer’s command, which he placed under the orders of Colonel Trant, and which Sir Arthur undertook to provision. These arrangements being made, he advanced to attack the corps that occupied Alcobaça; the enemy had, however, abandoned it in the night, and the British army took up its position upon the heights beyond it. The next day the army moved forward to Caldas; the advance, under Brigadier General Fane, to Obidos; where some skirmishing took place between the light troops under his orders, and the French rear.

On the 17th Sir Arthur Wellesley moved to attack General La Borde, who had not as yet been joined by the force under General Loison, which was marching by Alemquer, to effect that object. General La Borde was posted at Roliça, in a strong position upon some heights which covered the road from Obidos to Lisbon.

Sir Arthur first formed his army in columns of battalions, behind Obidos, from thence he detached the light troops, under Brigadier-General Fane, supported by Major General Ferguson’s brigade, along some heights which led to the right of the enemy’s position. The rest of the army passed through Obidos, and advanced along the plain towards Roliça.

The enemy was first discovered, drawn up at the foot of the hill, and in front of the position; but upon seeing our advance he retired to the heights.

Sir Arthur, upon a close examination of the ground thus taken up, and wishing to prevent the possibility of General La Borde’s retiring upon the fortress of Peniche, determined to advance the right of his army as well as the left, and thus to attack both flanks of the enemy’s position. The attack on the enemy’s left was led on by the brigade under Major General Hill, while the 45th and 29th Regiments under Major General Nightingale were ordered to advance upon the centre; Major General Ferguson’s brigade was brought from the heights on the left into the plain, to support this movement; by continuing however its original direction, that corps might have rendered more essential service, since it would have fallen upon the French right, and in conjunction with Brigadier General Fane’s corps, would have decided the fate of the action sooner: but some mistake having arisen in an order delivered to it, this advantage was not obtained.

The 29th Regiment ascended the hill, by a hollow way which led to the summit, and encountered a most determined resistance on the height where the enemy was formed. The path along which the regiment moved was so narrow, as to admit but three or four men abreast; so that when it had reached the ground upon which it was to deploy, the soldiers were exposed to the fire of the French corps which occupied the vineyards, while they were unable to form any front, from which to return it; the grenadier company, however, charged that part of the enemy which was upon the open, and by that act of heroism, (although it was afterwards driven back by the fire from the vineyards), gave time to some of the companies behind it to form, and to maintain the ground they had got possession of. In the mean time, the light troops, under Brigadier General Fane, had got upon the right of the position, and Major General Hill had ascended the hill upon its left; so that the enemy was obliged to abandon his first line, and retire into the village of Zambugera in the rear.

From this he was driven by a most gallant charge under the direction of Major General Spencer, which terminated the action.

General La Borde continued to make some resistance upon a height beyond the village, only for the purpose of collecting, and forming his troops in the plain behind it, which he executed with considerable ability. After having formed them, upon two lines he retired, filing from his left upon the road to Torres Vedras.

Such was the first battle fought by British troops in the great cause of the Peninsula: it cost us some valuable lives, among whom Colonel Lake, and Captain Bradford were the most distinguished; but it gave a sample of that bravery and good conduct which have since marked the progress of our arms, and have raised the military renown of England to the glorious eminence on which it at present stands. The advantage which resulted from this action was great. General Loison was marching to join General La Borde, in the position of Roliça; his columns, the next day, were distinctly perceived in the direction of Torres Vedras, to which place he was forced to retire, in consequence of the action of the preceding morning; but if the two corps had been at the battle of Roliça, the British loss must have been considerably greater, and the general operations of the campaign proportionally delayed.

The following day, the 18th, Sir Arthur Wellesley marched the army to Lourinhal, for the purpose of bringing supplies from the shipping, as also to receive the reinforcements which were understood to be upon the coast from England.

The 19th he moved to Vimiera, on which day, the brigade under the orders of General Anstruther, landed, and on the morning of the 20th marched up to the army. Sir Arthur Wellesley had during the last two days supplied his army with provisions, had received part of his reinforcements, and directed the rest which were in the offing, under Major General Ackland, to land in the course of the night; he determined, therefore, to move forward to Mafra, and the orders to that effect were given.

The enemy was known to have collected his force at Torres Vedras; his cavalry had patroled about the British army during the preceding days, without being opposed; the superiority of numbers in that arm was decided.

But Sir Arthur Wellesley conceived that by moving along the coast road to Mafra, he should turn the position which the French occupied, and by that operation force them to retire upon Lisbon. He was also of opinion, that from the rapidity of his own march, he should arrive in the neighbourhood of that town, before the enemy would be able to occupy, with advantage, the ground which would defend it, and upon which he should force them to give him battle. On the evening of this day, however, a frigate, on board which was Sir Harry Burrard, arrived in Marciera Bay; Sir Arthur Wellesley immediately waited on that officer, to receive his orders, and to communicate to him the plans he was about to pursue. Sir Harry Burrard disapproved of them, directed counter orders to be issued to the army, to prevent its march in the morning, and determined to await the arrival of the corps under the orders of Sir John Moore. Sir Arthur Wellesley represented that the French army was now so near, that it was impossible to prevent an action; that the corps under his orders was equal to the contest with it; that the army of Sir John Moore would be of infinitely more service by marching upon Santarem; and that the greatest disadvantage would arise, from our changing at once from an offensive to a defensive line of operations. Sir Harry Burrard remained, however, fixed to his first intention; the counter orders were given, and a messenger was despatched to Sir John Moore, to direct him to move down in his transports, to Marciera Bay. Thus was the whole system of our campaign changed in a moment. With the enemy collected within three leagues of us, we were directed to remain stationary, till a corps of which we had, as yet, no tidings, should arrive.

The event, however, proved what Sir Arthur Wellesley had foretold. At nine in the morning of the 21st, our advanced posts were attacked, and the glorious battle of Vimiera evinced that the British army was worthy of the confidence which its General had reposed in it, in the discussion of the preceding evening.

Early on this day, Sir Arthur Wellesley had been to the advanced posts, and had returned to his quarters, when the first shots were exchanged with the advance of the enemy, who had passed from Torres Vedras, through the defile in front of it, and had been marching during the whole of the night.

Sir Arthur Wellesley had posted the light troops and the 50th Regiment, under Brigadier General Fane, upon a height near a windmill, in front of the village of Vimiera. Brigadier General Anstruther was upon the right of this corps, but a part of his brigade was detached during the action, to occupy Vimiera; the left of the army was placed upon a ridge of heights, which run eastward into the country, and across which the brigades of Major General Ferguson and Major General Nightingale were placed in position. The rest of the army was in reserve, upon heights in rear of Vimiera, which in reality formed the position, the one in which the action was fought being only the advance of it. The French army was divided into two divisions, under Generals La Borde and Loison, and the reserve, composed of the grenadiers and light infantry, together with the cavalry, under General Kellerman.

Junot separated his army, to attack the positions of our right and left at the same moment, connecting his two wings by the force under General Kellerman; they were, however, at too great a distance from each other, and their attacks were unconnected.

The left column was first engaged with the brigade of Brigadier General Anstruther; it attempted to turn his right, but after a contest of some duration, in which the superiority of the British fire, in the first instance, and afterwards of British bayonets, was completely proved, the enemy was repulsed with great slaughter, and forced to abandon his undertaking. The right column (which had moved to the left of the British) began its attack upon the brigades of Major Generals Ferguson and Nightingale, at the time that the left had been beaten by Brigadier General Anstruther. It commenced with considerable vigour, but the steadiness with which it was received, soon stopped its career; in less than half an hour the column was beaten, and pursued beyond the heights; General Bregnier and six guns taken. A French regiment afterwards rallied near the village of Ventoso, at the extremity of the hill, and made an attack, in column of mass, to recover the guns; but it was completely routed, with great loss. The attack upon the village of Vimiera, as the decisive effort, was made by the reserve, in close column, supported by artillery, but was most gallantly resisted by the 50th and part of the 43d Regiments, who charged the flank of the column and totally defeated it. Two squadrons of the 20th Regiment of cavalry moved upon it when broken, and cut down and took prisoners a considerable number of those composing it, who were escaping from the infantry.

A short time before the victory was decided, Sir Harry Burrard arrived from the frigate, on board which he had remained during the night; Sir Arthur Wellesley was preparing to follow up the advantages he had gained; and had already brought up Brigadier General Bowes’ and Major General Ackland’s brigades, (who had as yet been in the reserve and unengaged) with which he had intended to pursue the enemy. He had also directed Major General Hill to be ready to move from his right along a road which he was in possession of, and which led by the nearest line to Torres Vedras. But Sir Harry Burrard, conceiving that such a movement would be attended with risk, desired Sir Arthur Wellesley to discontinue the pursuit, and to rest satisfied with the advantages that had been gained.