Worlds Best Histories France Vol 7 by M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt

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"I am convinced," wrote the English general to his government, "that the
honor and the interest of the country require us to remain here to the
latest possible moment, and, with the aid of Heaven, I will hold on here
as long as I can. I shall not seek to relieve myself of the burden of
responsibility by causing the burden of a defeat to rest upon the
shoulders of ministers; I will not ask from them resources which they
cannot spare, and which will not contribute perhaps in an effective manner
to the success of our enterprise; I will not again give to the weakness of
the ministry an excuse for withdrawing the army from a situation which the
honor and interest of the country compel us to guard. If the Portuguese do
their duty, I can maintain myself here; if they do not do their duty, no
effort in the power of Great Britain to make will suffice to save
Portugal; and if I am obliged to retire, I shall be in a situation to
bring away the English army with me."

It was with this firm and modest confidence in a situation that he had
prudently chosen, and of which all the resources had been multiplied by
his foresight, that Lord Wellington awaited the attack of Massena, and the
seasoned troops who were deploying before his lines. The soldiers were
exasperated at this unforeseen obstacle raised by the hand of man, and of
which no one had penetrated the secret. "We shall succeed, as we should
have succeeded at Busaco, if we had been allowed to," said the troops.
Massena judged otherwise.

On the 10th of October the marshal with his staff-officers examined with
care the enemy's lines; one discharge of a cannon, one only, resounded in
their ears, and the wall upon which the telescope rested was overthrown.
Massena looked at his lieutenants. "The only thing to do is to occupy both
shores of the Tagus, and keep them and Lisbon blockaded," said he: "we
will wait for reinforcements, and when the army of Andalusia shall have
arrived we will see if, behind those cannons there, there are other
cannons and other walls, as the peasants say."

In their rigid simplicity, the conceptions of Lord Wellington had taken
little account of the sufferings of the Portuguese nation. Resolved upon
defending Portugal to the last extremity, he had left Lisbon exposed to
cannon-balls, and the country a prey to the systematic depredations of the
French. Massena decided upon constituting a military establishment in face
of the enemy's lines. Everywhere the resources of the surrounding country
were stored in the magazines; an hospital was prepared; General Eble, old
and fatigued, but always inexhaustible in resources, was preparing boats
in order to form a bridge. Effecting a movement in rear, Massena and his
lieutenants occupied all the positions from Santarem to Thomar, eager to
instal themselves upon the two shores of the Tagus, to seize upon
Abrantes, and to invest the English each day more closely in their lines.
Already discontent was great in Lisbon, where provisions arrived with
difficulty. Wellington urged upon the regency of Portugal the devastation
of the country districts, and especially that of Alemtejo, the natural
resource of the French army; the Portuguese authorities resisted. "Deliver
Portugal, instead of famishing it," said they.

This was repeated in England, where the Prince of Wales had just assumed
the regency, in consequence of a decided relapse into madness of King
George III. The opposition thought itself returning to power; it had long
sustained against the ministers of his father the policy of the heir to
the throne; it now pleaded the cause of peace. The dangers to which the
army of Portugal was exposed, the evils it might have to undergo, formed
the subject of the debates in Parliament. The Prince Regent did not hasten
to change his cabinet, but the violence of the recriminations in the ranks
of the opposition affected the Marquis of Wellesley; he pressed his
brother to make an effort to relieve England from the enormous weight that
was crushing her. "I know it will cost me the little reputation I have
been able to obtain, and the good will of the population that surrounds
me," said Wellington; "but I shall not accomplish my duty towards England
and this country, if I do not persevere in the prudence which can alone
assure us success." Marshal Massena had sent the eloquent and adroit
General Foy to Paris, charged with representing to the Emperor the
difficulties of the situation of the army, and the absolute need of a
supreme effort in its favor.

The general arrived at Paris at the moment when new complications were
preparing. The harshness of the proceedings of Napoleon, the violence
which he had displayed towards the small independent princes whose
territories he had confiscated, the yoke of iron under which he claimed to
place all the commercial interests of Europe, had, little by little,
effaced the remains of the youthful admiration and confidence with which
his brilliant genius had inspired the Emperor Alexander. Personally
wounded by the sudden abandonment of the matrimonial negotiations, the
Czar experienced serious uneasiness at the insatiable ambition which
threatened to invade the most distant regions. He had made some
preparations for defence, of little importance in themselves, and simply
manifesting his fears. Napoleon took umbrage at it; the mad passion for
conquests was again roused in his mind; he already meditated a new
enterprise, bolder and less justifiable than all those which he had
hitherto accomplished, necessitating efforts which became every day more
difficult. No resource would be neglected; no reinforcement could be
detached for Portugal and Spain from the armies which were being prepared
in France and Germany. The intelligent ardor of General Foy, his loyal
pleadings on behalf of Marshal Massena, did not completely succeed in
enlightening Napoleon as to the situation of affairs in the peninsula; he
understood enough of it, however, to order new dispositions of his troops.
The corps of General Drouet, in Old Castile, and the fifth corps of the
army of Andalusia, commanded by Marshal Mortier, were to proceed to the
aid of Marshal Massena. The emperor recommended the latter to occupy
without delay the two shores of the Tagus--to throw a couple of bridges
across, as formerly over the Danube at Essling, in order to assure his
communications whilst waiting for the reinforcements, which would permit
him to attack the English lines with 80,000 men, perhaps to seize them,
and in any case to inflict such sufferings upon the Portuguese population
and upon the English that the latter should be obliged to retire. "The
policy of the English Government inclines to change," added Napoleon; "my
grand and final efforts will at last bring us the general peace." He
commenced at the same moment his preparations for the Russian campaign.

"Everything depends of the Tagus!" Such was the watchword sent back to
Spain by General Foy, and the tenor of the correspondence between Major-
General Berthier and the leaders of the armies in the Peninsula. General
Drouet began the march with his army reduced to 15,000 men, which Napoleon
reckoned as 30,000. In consequence of the delay of the operations, only
one division of 7000 men was effectively at the disposal of the general
when he took the road from Santarem. General Gardanne, sent forward in
advance, had become alarmed through the report of a movement of the
English, and had promptly fallen back upon Almeida, leaving to the
soldiers of Massena, and to the general-in-chief himself, the wretchedness
of a hope deceived. The instructions sent to General Drouet still gave
evidence of the obstinate illusions of the Emperor Napoleon as regards the
respective situation of the two armies in Portugal. "Repeat to General
Drouet the order to go to Almeida," wrote Napoleon to Marshal Berthier,
"and to collect considerable forces, in order to be of use to the Prince
of Essling, and to aid in keeping open his communications. It will be
necessary that he should give to General Gardanne, or any other general, a
force of 6000 men, with six pieces of cannon, in order to reopen the
communication, and that a corps of the same force should be placed at
Almeida, to correspond with him. In short, it is important that the
communications of the army of Portugal should be re-established, in order
that during all the time that the English remain in the country the rear
of the Prince of Essling may be securely guarded. Immediately the English
have re-embarked he will make his headquarters at Ciudad Rodrigo, my
intention being that only the ninth corps should be engaged in Portugal,
unless the English still hold it; and even the ninth corps ought never to
let itself be separated from Almeida; but it ought to manoeuvre between
Almeida and Coimbra."

When General Drouet, collecting all his forces, arrived at length with
8000 or 9000 men at Thomar (January, 1811), Marshal Massena had been
struggling for five months in complete isolation against a situation which
became every day more critical. He had successively seized Punhete and
Leyria, constantly occupied in preparing for that passage of the Tagus
which Napoleon was recommending to him without fathoming the enormous
difficulties of the task. The soldiers had been organized into companies
of foragers, from day to day obliged to go out further from the
encampments in order to be sure of some resources, exposing themselves in
consequence to attacks from a population everywhere hostile. Marauders
often detached themselves from their regiments, living for several weeks
by veritable pillage before returning under their flags. The officers
suffered still more than the soldiers, for they did not pillage. Money and
rations failed them; their clothes were worn to rags; courage alone
remained inexhaustible; discipline grew feeble in every rank of the
military hierarchy. The lieutenants of Marshal Massena did not experience
the same confidence in him which sustained the soldiers. The bridges at
length reached completion, thanks to prodigies of perseverance and
cleverness; bitter discussions arose every day as to the most favorable
point for the passage, when the approach of General Drouet infused joy and
hope into the entire army. General Gardanne, who commanded the vanguard,
announced the arrival of all the straggling divisions of the ninth corps,
and the orders sent to Marshal Soult for the movement of Marshal Mortier.
Money as well as reinforcements was about to rain upon the army. The
instructions of the emperor were precise. The English were to be speedily
dislodged from their famous lines; and, if it was necessary still to
blockade them for some time, the Tagus once crossed, the troops would no
longer want for resources. The plain of Alemtejo would be open to them;
the fine season was approaching; all efforts would become easy. Confidence
and cheerfulness spread through all the encampments.

Marshal Massena alone remained sad and uneasy. He had read the despatches
which General Drouet brought him; he had smiled bitterly at the hopes and
counsels of the Emperor Napoleon; he comprehended that the reinforcements
were insufficient, and that the attempt at resistance was in advance
condemned to failure. General Drouet had the order to maintain
communications between Santarem and Almeida; already the insurrection had
closed up all the roads behind him, and new skirmishes were necessary to
open a passage. Only the corps of General Gardanne was destined to remain
in the encampments, and that corps did not amount to 1500 men. Massena
resolved upon keeping General Drouet near himself; not without pain did he
arrive at this conclusion. Discouragement was already penetrating the
army, with a true knowledge of the situation and of the notorious
insufficiency of the succors. General Foy had just arrived, accompanied by
a small corps of recruits or convalescents, which he had formed at Ciudad
Rodrigo. Before quitting that post, he had written to Marshal Soult,
continually occupied in Andalusia: "I beseech you, Monsieur le Marechal,
in the name of a sentiment sacred to all French hearts--of the sentiment
which inflames us all for the interests and glory of our august master--to
present at the soonest possible moment a corps of troops upon the left
bank of the Tagus, opposite to the mouth of the Zezere. It is scarcely
four days' journey from Badajoz to Breto, a village situated opposite
Punhete. The English are not numerous on the left bank of the Tagus; they
cannot dare anything in this part without compromising the safety of their
formidable entrenchments before Lisbon, which are only eight leagues from
the bridge of Rio Mazac. According to the decision that your Excellency
may arrive at, the army of the Prince of Essling will pass the Tagus, hold
in check the English on both banks of the river, will fatigue them, will
prey upon them, will keep them in painful and ruinous inaction, will form
between them and your sieges a barrier likely to accelerate the surrender
of the towns; or, on the other hand, this army, failing to effect the
passage that has become necessary, will be forced to withdraw from the
Tagus and from the English in order to find sufficient to eat, and by the
same movement will give the day to our eternal enemies, in a struggle in
which till now the chances have been in our favor. The country between the
Mondego and the Tagus being eaten up and entirely devastated, there can be
no question as to the army of Portugal having to make a retrograde step of
about five or six leagues. Hunger will follow it even into the provinces
of the north. The consequences of such a retreat are incalculable. It
appertains to you, Monsieur le Marechal, to be at once the saviour of a
great army and the powerful instrument in carrying out the ideas of our
glorious sovereign. On the day when the troops under your orders shall
have appeared on the banks of the Tagus, and facilitated the passage of
this great river, you will be the true conqueror of Portugal."

When Marshal Soult received this eloquent and truthful summing up from
General Foy, already forestalled by the formal orders of the emperor, he
was personally in a grave embarrassment. Like Massena in Portugal, he was
disposing in Andalusia of forces less considerable than Napoleon estimated
them in France. General Suchet, after having brilliantly accomplished his
enterprise against Tortosa, which was reduced on the 2nd of January, had
immediately commenced the difficult siege of Tarragona, which occupied
almost all his forces. General Sebastiani with difficulty sufficed for
guarding Granada; Marshal Victor was detained before Cadiz, where the
Cortes had solemnly assembled on the 4th of September. The resistance was
to be long, the place being manned by good troops, and constantly
revictualled by the English vessels. Generals Blake and Castanos had
collected their forces, and ceaselessly harassed the corps occupied by the
sieges, as well as the armies which kept the country. Marshal Soult had
just asked for important reinforcements from Paris, when he received the
order to attempt the difficult enterprise of an expedition into Portugal.
He thought he had the right to comment on the instructions sent to him,
and whilst urging the obstacles which were opposed to his prompt
obedience, he announced his intention of proceeding to the aid of Marshal
Massena, by reducing the hostile towns found upon the road to Portugal.
The sieges accomplished, nothing more would hinder the march upon
Santarem. He advanced then, with Marshal Mortier and the fifth corps, to
the attack of Olivenca, which did not oppose a long resistance. On the
27th of January he invested Badajoz.

The place was strong, protected by the Guadiana and by solid ramparts; it
communicated by a stone bridge with Fort St. Cristoval, built upon the
right bank, and defending the entrenched camp of Santa Engracia. At the
moment when Marshal Soult approached Badajoz, the corps of the Marquis de
la Romana, formerly occupied in Portugal in the service of the English,
and recently recalled by the Spanish insurrection, took possession of
these entrenchments; its indefatigable chief had just died at Lisbon. It
was in presence of these hostile forces that the fifth corps commenced the
work of a siege destined to detain them for several weeks. A successful
attack on a little detached fort permitted the marshals to attempt the
passage of the Guadiana, then much swollen by the rains, and to give
battle to the Spanish army. On the 19th of February, in the morning, upon
the banks of the Gevara, the corps of the insurgents were completely
defeated, without having been able to succeed in establishing themselves
in the entrenched camp of Santa Engracia. Marshal Soult was now in a
situation to hasten the taking of Badajoz, and to push forward into
Portugal before the Spanish army could be re-formed. He does not appear to
have conceived this idea, and resumed with perseverance the work of the
trenches. "I hope that Badajoz will have been taken in the course of
January, and that the junction with the Prince of Essling will have taken
place before the 20th of January," wrote the emperor, meanwhile. "If it is
necessary, the Duke of Dalmatia can withdraw troops from the fourth corps.
I repeat to you, everything depends upon the Tagus."

The cannon of Badajoz were heard at Santarem and at Torres Vedras, and the
hearts of the two armies beat with uneasiness and hope. Upon the arrival
of General Foy, in presence of the insufficiency of the disposable forces,
the question lay between a retreat upon Mondego and an attempt at the
passage of the Tagus. The wish of the emperor strongly expressed to Foy
himself, the patriotic honor which animated all the generals, even the
most dissatisfied, had made the balance incline in favor of a prolonged
occupation. It was necessary, then, to attempt to cross the river; the
distress which reigned in certain divisions, absolutely reduced by famine,
did not permit of hesitation; the shores of the stream were reconnoitred
with care. For a moment the idea was entertained of making use, as a
guiding mark, of the isle of Alviela, situated in the midst of the river,
as the isle of Lobau was found placed in the midst of the Danube. The
materials of the bridge were collected at Punhete, but horses were
wanting. General Eble opposed an attempt, the advantages of which were to
be too tardily recognized. The passage from Santarem to Abrantes offered
the inconvenience of an immediate attack from the enemy in possession of
that town, recently fortified by General Hill. It was resolved to wait for
the arrival of Marshal Soult, or for the reinforcements which he had been
ordered to send into Portugal. Massena had never believed, and did not
believe, in the promises which had been made him on this side; he
consented, however, upon the advice of all, to retard for a few days a
retrograde movement which became necessary, the impossibility of
attempting alone the passage of the Tagus being recognized. The enemy had
occupied the isle of Alviela; all the local resources were exhausted; the
reserve of biscuit assured still fifteen days' provisions to the army. The
weeks passed without news: the wind no longer brought the sound of the
cannonade; the soldiers felt themselves abandoned at the end of the world;
the anger of the generals no longer permitted them to reanimate the
failing courage of an army famished and without hope. Massena commenced
the skilful preparations for his retreat upon Mondego. Under pretext of
effecting a concentration of the corps necessary for the passage of the
Tagus, he detached Marshal Ney towards Leyria, with a view of cutting off
from the enemy the roads to the sea, in order to form afterwards a rear-
guard. The wounded and the sick had been taken on before. On the 5th of
March, at the end of the day, the whole French army was on the march, sad
and gloomy in spite of their joy at quitting the places where they had
suffered without compensation and without glory. The materials of the
bridges, prepared with so much care by General Eble, were burnt. General
Junot pressed forward, in order to occupy Coimbra and the Mondego--a
rallying-point indicated beforehand to all the corps.

Lord Wellington issued forth from his entrenchments on learning the
movements which announced to him our retreat. His accustomed prudence kept
him from precipitating the pursuit by an effort that might become
dangerous; the well-known character of Marshal Ney protected the rear-
guard no less than the valor of his troops. He ranged his forces in order
of battle before Pombal, which obliged Wellington to recall the troops
which he had detached for the succor of Badajoz. But the hurry of the
retreat had resumed possession of the mind of General Drouet, ever haunted
by compunctions for his disobedience to the formal orders of Napoleon. Ney
was not in a position seriously to defend his positions against the
English; after a brilliant skirmish, he fell back upon Redinha. His
division of infantry had constantly fought under his orders in all the
campaigns of the six previous years; it disputed the land, foot to foot,
with the 25,000 English, who followed the French army, without letting
itself, for a single moment, be troubled or pressed by the superiority of
the enemy. The least offensive movement of the English columns was
responded to by a charge from our troops, which soon re-established the
distance between the two armies. Massena, who was present at the
manoeuvres of Marshal Ney, admired them without reserve, beseeching his
clever and courageous lieutenant not to abandon the heights, in order to
give the other corps the time and space necessary for the continuance of
their march. A last engagement, which took place upon the banks of the
Soure, in front of the position of Redinha, permitted Ney at last to cross
the river, and gain the town of Condeixa.

The position was strong, and Massena counted on the energetic resistance
of his rear-guard, in order to hinder the English, and leave time for the
different corps to reassemble at Coimbra. Marshal Ney on this occasion
failed to realize the just hopes of his chief; after a slight skirmish, he
abandoned Condeixa, and overtaking in his haste the corps that his
movement had exposed, he fell back upon the main body of the army. A
position at Coimbra became impossible, as Lord Wellington was following
closely on our divided forces. Massena gained the Alva by a series of
clever manoeuvres, constantly thwarted by the want of discipline in his
lieutenants. Marshal Ney had let himself be surprised at Foz d'Arunce by
the English; General Regnier extended his camp to a distance, without care
for the safety of other corps; the position of the Alva was no longer
tenable. Massena, exasperated and grieved, continued his march towards the
frontier of Spain; re-entered it without glory, after having displayed,
during six months, all the resources of his courage, and the energy of his
will in a situation which had been imprudently imposed upon him by
peremptory orders. He led back an army inured to fatigue and privations,
but disorganized by an existence at once idle and irregular, directed by
chiefs soured and discontented. The consequences of this state of things
were not long in bursting forth; scarcely had the troops taken a few days'
rest in Spain, when Marshal Massena conceived the idea of assuming the
offensive by descending upon the Tagus by Alcantara, in order to re-enter
Portugal and recommence the campaign. Marshal Ney frankly refused to
follow him without the communication of the formal orders of the emperor.
In consideration of this act of revolt, twice repeated, Massena took from
Ney the command of the sixth corps, which was confided to General Loyson.
Ney obeyed, not without some regret for his conduct; the ill-humor of all
the chiefs of the corps rendered the resumption of the campaign in
Portugal utterly impossible: the army was cantoned between Almeida, Ciudad
Rodrigo, and Salamanca. The emperor had just confided the general command
of all the provinces of the north to Marshal Bessieres; the latter had
promised much to Marshal Massena, who still nursed the hope of a great
battle. Lord Wellington, following the French, had entered Spain.

The situation of affairs became critical, in spite of the _eclat_ of the
taking of Badajoz, which had been at length reduced to capitulate, on the
11th of March, on the eve of a general assault. Marshal Soult now found
himself pressed to fly to the assistance of Cadiz. Marshal Victor was
threatened in his positions of siege by the Spanish general Blake, and by
an English corps recently embarked at Gibraltar. But already the energetic
defence of Victor had triumphed over the enemy in the battle of Barossa.
The assailants had retired, but remained in a threatening attitude. The
army of Wellington, formerly kept immovable by Massena at Torres Vedras,
became every day a danger for those who had not been able, or who had not
been willing, to go to the aid of the expedition in Portugal. Our forces,
everywhere dispersed, were everywhere insufficient. Marshal Soult, justly
uneasy, demanded reinforcements from all sides. General Foy had returned
to Paris, in order to explain to the emperor the retreat of Massena.