The Peninsular War by Charles Esdaile

Author:Charles Esdaile
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781466892361
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

12

Torres Vedras

THE DEFENCE OF PORTUGAL, JULY 1810–MARCH 1811

The stench hung heavy in the air. In the rubbish-strewn streets nothing moved except a few emaciated dogs who snarled at one another over the corpses lying everywhere. As the British troops moved into the village, they looked at one another in horror. Hardened veterans though they were, nothing they had seen had prepared them for this. The entire population, it seemed, had been massacred. Most of the houses had been reduced to blackened shells whilst the few that had not contained still more bodies, many of which showed signs of torture or rape. In the churches what could not be burned had been smashed, whilst the very tombs had been flung open, and their contents strewn about or propped up in a variety of mocking attitudes. As for food or items of value, there were none, the French having stripped the place bare. All around, meanwhile, the smoke rose from other ruined villages, whilst to add to the horror there began to appear haggard skeletons desperate for food and shelter.

If these sights were shocking, however, they were also the mark of Allied victory. Implicit in the savagery visited on the unfortunate inhabitants of such towns as Venda Nova, Pombal and Leiria in March 1811 was a winter of suffering that had broken Marshal André Masséna’s Army of Portugal, and put an end to a campaign that had seemed to offer the hope of victory. To understand Wellington’s triumph, we must return to 1809. As the British commander realised, Austria’s defeat at Wagram would almost certainly mean the invasion of Portugal. But for Wellington such a prospect held no fear, for he was convinced that, unless the French came in absolutely overwhelming force, such an invasion could be thrown back. (His political masters, by contrast, were less sanguine, but, as they could not simply abandon Portugal, they left Wellington to act very much as he wished.) In essence, his plan started with the integration of the Portuguese troops and his own forces to allow him to do battle with the invaders and throw them back at an early date, to which end a number of obvious defensive positions along the roads from the frontier were strengthened with redoubts and other fortifications. Should the French prove unstoppable, however, then the defenders would fall back on Lisbon, which he planned to cover with an impregnable system of defence works – the famous Lines of Torres Vedras – whilst at the same time stripping the countryside of its resources and mobilising a guerrilla war. With the French brought to a standstill and restricted in their foraging, victory was assured. Though convoys of food and reinforcements might with some difficulty be got to them from the border, it was unlikely that enough men could ever be brought up to allow the French to break through. Even if they did, the entire field army would be available to fling them back as Wellington planned to garrison his forts solely with militiamen.

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