Wellington's Army, 1809-1814

27 September 1810

Battle of Bussaco

CHAPTER III

For a long time in 1809–10 Wellesley had to assume a defensive attitude. It was not till 1811 that it at last became possible for him to think of taking the offensive, nor was it till 1812, the glorious year of Ciudad Rodrigo, Badajoz, and Salamanca, that the dream reached its realization. Hence came it that for a long time he was regarded only as a cautious and calculating general, a master of defensive warfare. This conception of him was wrong; as events showed, in 1812–1813, that he could be a very thunderbolt of war, when propitious chance gave him the opportunity, could strike the boldest blows, and launch his army upon the enemy with the most ruthless energy. But, in the earlier years of his command, he was always hopelessly outnumbered, and forced to parry rather than to strike. He had to run no risks with his precious little army, the 30,000 British troops on whom the whole defence of the Peninsula really depended: because if it were destroyed it could not be replaced. With these 30,000 men he had covenanted, in his agreement with Castlereagh, when first he sailed to take command at Lisbon, that he would keep up the war indefinitely. If by taking some great risk he had lost 15,000 or even 10,000 men, the government would have called him home, and would have given up the struggle. Thus he had to fight with the consciousness that a single disaster might ruin not only his own plans, but the whole cause of the allies in Spain. No wonder that his actions seem cautious! Yet even in 1810–1811 he took some serious risks, such as the offering of battle at Bussaco and Fuentes de Oñoro. When even a partial defeat would mean his own recall, and the evacuation of Portugal, it required no small resolution even to face such chances as these. But his serene and equable temper could draw the exact line between legitimate and over-rash enterprise, and never betrayed him.

CHAPTER V

Of fights between cavalry and cavalry, when the two sides were present in numbers so fairly equal as to make the struggle a fair test of their relative efficiency, there were comparatively few in the Peninsular War. In the early days of the war Wellington was too scantily provided with horsemen, and could never afford to engage in a cavalry battle on a large scale. He had only six regiments at Talavera in 1809, only seven in the Bussaco campaign of 1810. When he divided his army for the simultaneous campaign in Beira and in Estremadura in March, 1811, he could only give Beresford three regiments, and keep four for himself. Nor could the deficiency be supplied (as was done in the artillery arm) by using Portuguese auxiliaries. The cavalry of that nation was so weak and so badly mounted that it is doubtful whether there were ever so many as 2000 of them in the field at once. Many of the twelve regiments were never mounted, and did garrison duty as infantry throughout the war.

CHAPTER VI

The description sounds like that of a benevolent old squire, rather than that of a distinguished lieutenant-general. Nevertheless, Rowland Hill was a very great man of war. Wellington liked him as a subordinate because of his extraordinary punctuality in obedience, and the entire absence in him of that restless personal ambition which makes many able men think more of opportunities for distinguishing themselves than of exact performance of the orders given them. Wherever Hill was, it was certain that nothing would be risked, and nothing would be forgotten. His beautiful combination of intelligence and executive power more than once brought relief to his chief’s mind in a critical moment, most of all on the march to Bussaco in September, 1810, when it was all-important to Wellington’s plans that his own detached force under Hill should join him as soon as Masséna’s similar detached force under Reynier should have reached the main French army. Hill executed a long and difficult march over a mountainous country with admirable speed, and was duly up in line on the day before the battle of Bussaco, which could not in common prudence have been fought if he had been late.

CHAPTER IX

The most notable of these changes was that he made up his mind to revert to his old plan of April, 1809, for mixing the Portuguese and British troops. It took a new form, however: instead of placing battalions of each nationality side by side in his brigades, he attached a Portuguese brigade of four or five battalions to most of his British divisions, as a distinct unit. This system was started with the 3rd and 4th Divisions on Feb. 22, 1810. A complete Portuguese brigade consisted of two line regiments (each of two battalions) and one caçador or rifle battalion. The latter was always employed for the brigade’s skirmishing work; when joined by the four light companies of the line battalions, it gave a very heavy proportion of light troops to the unit. This Wellington considered necessary, because of the untried quality of the whole Portuguese Army, which had not yet taken a serious part in any general action. In the autumn they justified Wellington’s confidence in them at the battle of Bussaco, where all of them, and especially the two caçador battalions attached to the Light Division, played a most creditable part.