Years of Victory 1802 - 1812 (77 page)

When day broke a cold autumnal mist lay over the hillside. But there could be no doubt of the enemy's intentions: long before

¹
Scott, II,
403.
He fought by their side next day as a volunteer.

dawn their drums and fifes could be heard sounding the advance. The British listened to that distant, swelling rub-a-dub-dub with a thrill of expectation. The sight of Lord Wellington, riding with matter-of-fact unconcern along thei
r ranks, heightened their con
fidence: "as each soldier took his place in the lines," wrote Captain Grattan, "his quiet demeanour and orderly but determined appearance was a contrast to the bustle and noise which prevailed amongst our opposite neighbours." A few straggling shots along the brow of the mountain added to the sober sense of expectation.

Disregarding the lessons of Vime
iro, Corunna and Talavera, Massena launched his attack against the long British line in dense columns. He disposed his assault-troops in two massive fists timed to strike successively. The 14,000 infantry of Reynier's two divisions were drawn up in serried battalions on a single company front astride a low outlying spur opposite the centre of the ridge. Here, where a rough country track climbed over a low saddle between the villages of San Antonio de Cantaro and Palheiros, they were to drive in two columns over the pass and, descending the far slope to the Coimbra highroad, wheel northwards round the rear of Wellington's position. As soon as they had reached the summit, two divisions of Ney's 6th Corps were to swarm up either side of the chaussee from Mortagoa and break what Massena took to be the centre of Wellington's line at the Bussaco Convent. The third division of Ney's Corps and the whole of the 8th Corps were held in reserve on the Mortagoa road to complete the rout when the British centre had been surrounded.

The weakness of tins plan, apart from its underestimate of Allied fighting capacity, was its assumption that by striking at the centre of the ridge Reynier could roll up Wellington's flank. Over-confidence in the rapidity of his own dispositions and a complete absence of reconnaissance had blinded Massena to the fact that Hill's two divisions from the Alcmtejo were in position beyond what he supposed to be the extreme right of the British line. Thinking of the British in terms of the Flanders campaign of 1793, he had failed to realise their new efficienc)'
^-
.

Starting shortly before dawn in a thick mist and preceded by a cloud of
tirailleurs,
Reynier's two divisions started up the hillside at high speed. But the precipitous gradient and indented, rocky ground quickly broke them up into small breathless crowds climbing diagonally and straggling. Merle's division on the right took the lead, driving in the British skirmishers by its numbers and infiltrating in the mist nearer and nearer to the crest. Then suddenly the swirling vapour lifted and the
voltigeurs,
"with all the characteristic activity, alacrity, firmness and
incessant progress of a French
attack," could be seen in the bright sunshine swarming up the rocks and loading and firing their muskets as they advanced.
¹
To the right the British artillery, quickly opening up, drove lanes of shot thr
ough the struggling masses of He
udelet's division and, supported by the fire of a mixed British and Portuguese brigade, brought it quickly to a halt. But farther to the north Merle's division, 6500 strong, struggled to the top, more by accident than design at a point in the long drawn-out British line where there was a gap of nearly three-quarters of a mile between two battalions of Major-General Picton's
3rd
Division.

The one weakness in Wellington's position was its extent; with the limited fire-power of the time a front of nine miles was too much for 52,000 men to hold easily. But the gaps were more apparent than real, for from their commanding height the defenders had ample time to foresee where an attack was impending, while behind their lines a lateral track, running just below the skyline out of sight of the enemy, made it easy to transfer troops quickly to any threatened point. Only the morning mist had enabled Merle to reach the summit before the British' could arrive to repel him. Already the 45th and 88th Foot and two Portuguese battalions were hurrying from different directions to the spot. As the French were reforming on the little plateau and recovering their breath, the 88th suddenly appeared on their right advancing towards them in column, supported by four companies of the 45th.

The 88th were a tough crowd from the bogs of western Ireland with a bad reputation for filching Portuguese chickens and goats. But they were born fighters and their Scottish colonel—Alexander Wallace—had made them one of the crack regiments of the army. Looking them full in the face with his steady, cheerful countenance, he addressed them as they stood to their arms before forming column: "Now Connaught Rangers, mind what you are going to do; pay attention to what I have so often told you, and, when I bring you face to face with those French rascals, drive them down the hill—don't give the false touch but push home to the muzzle! I have nothing more to say, and if I had it would be of no use, for in a minute or two there'll be such an infernal noise about your ears that you won't be able to hear yourselves." As the Rangers bore down with the bayonet, and Wallace, throwing himself from his horse, placed himself at their head, the enemy hastily opened fire. " All," wrote an officer, " was confusion and uproar, smoke, fire and bullets, officers and soldiers, French drummers and French drums knocked down in every direction, British, French and Portuguese mixed

1Leith
.iv,
1,
236.

together, while in the midst of all was to be seen Wallace fighting— like his ancestor of old—at the head of his devoted followers and calling out to his soldiers to press forward."
¹

Had the French been allowed longer to recover their ranks, they might have established themselves on the summit in the centre of the British line. But Wallace's promptitude and the fiery valour of his men saved the situation. Within a few minutes, aided by the fire of a Portuguese battalion and two guns which Wellington had galloped up from the left, eleven French battalions, including one of Napoleon's favourite regiments, were being bundled down the hillside. They left behind them nearly 2000 dead and wounded. At that moment of triumph Charles Napier, riding among Wellington's Staff, was struck by a musket ball on the jaw and thrown to the ground. Borne in agony past the Commander-in-Chief, he waved his hat and cried out, "I could not die at a better moment!"

Half an hour
later, though the bulk of Heude
let's division remained halted among the heather by the fire of the British and Portuguese above, a single brigade under General Foy, serpentining through the rocks, reached the summit at the same spot. The scene was thereupon repeated! This time it was not Picton's division that cleared the ridge but Leith's, moving along the lateral track from the right to strengthen the threatened centre and left. Scrambling up the crest, the
9th
or East Norfolks, supported by the
38th
and the Royals, appeared on the ridge in front of the French, and, deploying, opened a terrible fire from a hundred yards. Then, with General Leith riding beside waving his plumed hat, the regiment bore down with fixed bayonets. Sooner than await that avalanche of steel, the enemy turned about and raced for the slope and, tumbling headlong down the hill, left it strewn with blue-clad bodies.

The sun was now climbing high in the heavens, and, though a further attack was developing on the left, a feeling of exaltation prevailed in the allied lines.
²
On either side of the steep chaussee which wound up the hillside to the convent Ney's two divisions were struggling through the gorse and heather. The going was even harder than in the centre, and the riflemen of the Light Division and the shrapnel of Captain Ross's troop of Horse Artillery did much execution in the toiling ranks. But the French continued to press on with great gallantty. A little to the right of Craufurd's men, who were holding the ravine up which the highroad ran, Wellington calmly reconnoitred the advancing foe through his field-glass regardless of the bullets spattering around him.

¹
Grattan,
33.

²
Leith Hay, I,
237
.

A few hundred yards to the left Craufurd was standing at the edge of the hill watching the Rifles and the Portuguese contesting every foot of ground with Loison's column. Yet it was not on the skirmishers of the 95th and the ist Cacadores among the heathery boulders below that Craufurd was relying. Drawn up in the sunken roadway behind him, out of sight of the enemy, were the eighteen hundred bayonets of the 43rd and 52nd. Just as the French drums were beating for the final charge and their officers, capering up and down like madmen, were waving their hats on their swords and urging their men to rush the last twenty yards and seize Ross's guns on the skyline, Craufurd turned to the two famous regiments lying behind him and shouted, in a high, screaming voice that cleft the uproar, "Now 52nd, revenge the death of Sir John Moore!" With a great cheer the men rushed forward and poured such a fire from the crest into the astonished French that the whole six thousand were dashed in a few minutes to the bottom.

Though firing continued for the rest of the day Massena made no further attempt on that high, defiant ridge. Of the 40,000 infantry he had thrown into the attack more than a tenth had fallen or been taken prisoner in two hours, including five general officers. The British and Portuguese who, with 33,000 fresh troops still unengaged, had suffered only a quarter of the French casualties, remained complete masters of the field. Twenty-four battalions had repelled and put to flight forty-five. And of the allied units engaged nearly half had been Portuguese. The latter were naturally immensely elated; they had proved themselves men on the open field and taken heavy toll of the hated invaders. "It has given them," wrote the Commander-in-Chief, " a taste for an amusement to which they were little accustomed."

The objects for which Wellington had given battle had been achieved. His allies had learnt their strength and his countrymen had been heartened. But neither he nor Massena were men to be deceived for a moment as to the true situation by a single inconclusive engagement, however exhilarating or depressing. Both were cool, experienced hands in the bloody business of war. Almost before the battle was over the French commander had begun to seek a way round the British position; he realised that he had underestimated his enemy and must be more patient. Moving into the mountains of the Serra de Caramula early on the 28th, his cavalry patrols found a rough track leading to the coastal plain some thirteen miles to the north of Coimbra. Wellington, who knew of the road's existence, had ordered Trant to try and hold it with his militiamen, but the latter, handicapped by their lack of discipline,

was unable to reach it in time. Sooner than run any risk of being cut off from the crossing of the Mondego at Coimbra or of being being hustled in his retreat to his chosen position before Lisbon, Wellington gave the order to retire. "When we do go," he.had written of his plans for evacuation, "I feel a little anxiety to go like gentlemen out of the hall door, particularly after the preparations · I have made to enable us to do so, and not out of the back door or by the area."

So it came about that on the night of September 28th, 1810, the British marched down from the cold, misty mountain and vanished into the south. The troops, in high spirits after their victory, were naturally surprised at the withdrawal. To the Portuguese, rejoicing at their unexpected reprieve, it seemed utterly unaccountable. They now became sure that Wellington meant to abandon them. The earlier scenes of mass evacuation were now repeated; at a few hours' notice the inhabitants of Coimbra were hustled out on to the highroad with their goods piled on the few carts the army had left unrequisitioned and bearing pitiful bundles on their heads and in their hands. Within a day the pleasant old university town became a solitude. "Plow would you like," wrote Colonel Colborne to his sister, " to see your piano, writing tables, chairs and things heaped together at the south end of Sloane Street to impede the enemy?" The road was thronged with thousands of helpless creatures, many of them bare-footed and in rags, trudging between the retreating columns or trailing disconsolately across the adjoining fields. The sight put an officer with classical memories in mind of the flight from Troy.
¹

Yet neither the wailing of old women calling on the saints in wayside oratories nor the frantic expostulations of the Portuguese Government could make any impression on Wellington. " I should forget my duty to my Sovereign, to the Prince Regent and to the cause in general," he informed the War Minister at Lisbon, "if I should permit public clamour or panic to induce me to change in the smallest degree the system and plan of operations which I have adopted after mature consideration."
²
As there was no position south of the Mondego on which he could stand until he reached his prepared lines, a further seventy miles of country had to be wasted. Meanwhile the Light Division and the cavalry of Anson's brigade, retiring at their own pace, kept the French at a safe distance. Not till October ist did the last British troops march out of Coimbra. As