[Gutenberg 56812] • A History of the Peninsular War, Vol. 4, Dec. 1810-Dec. 1811 / Massena's Retreat, Fuentes de Oñoro, Albuera, Tarragona

Excerpt from A History of the Peninsular War, Vol. 4: Dec. 1810-Dec. 1811; Massena's Retreat; Albuera; Fuentes De Onoro; Tarragona

When Massena finally evacuated Portugal in March 1811, forced out of his cantonments by vvellington's skilful use of the sword of famine, a new stage in the war began. The French had lost the advantage of the offensive, and were never to regain it on. The Western theatre of war. All through the remainder of 1811 it was the British general who dealt the strokes, and the enemy who had to parry them. The strokes were feeble, because of Wellington's very limited resources, and for the most part were warded off. Though Almeida fell in May, the siege of Badajoz in June, and the blockade of Ciudad Rodrigo in August and Sep tember, were both brought to an end by the con centration of French armies which Wellington too weak to attack. But the masses of men which Soult and Marmont gathered on the Guadiana in June, and Dorsenne and Marmont gathered on the Agueda in September, had only been collected by a dangerous disgarnishing of the whole of those provinces of Spain which lay beneath the French yoke. They could not remain long assembled, firstly because they could not feed themselves, and secondly because of the peril to which their concentration exposed the abandoned regions in their rear. Hence, in each case, the French commanders, satisfied with having parried Wellington's stroke for the moment, refused to attack him, and dispersed their armies. That the spirit of the offensive was lost on the French side is sufficiently shown by the fact that when their adversary stood on the defensive upon the Caya in June, and at Alfayates in September, they refused to assail his positions.

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