I n November 1807, a 25,000-man French army under General Junot had marched into Portugal unopposed, as the population viewed any attempt to resist Napoleon’s imperial French army as futile. Less than three years later the situation had changed markedly. The French were no longer seen as invincible and even Marshal Masséna’s mighty ‘Army of Portugal’ had been badly mauled. The army had three corps, each of which had two or three divisions, each division having several brigades. Each French line or light infantry regiment usually had five battalions (four service and one depot), and on paper the regimental establishment totalled 3,908 men including 78 officers. In practice, battalions were much weaker (see Orders of Battle. page 90). The grenadier companies were often grouped into temporary battalions of elite shock troops such as those that attacked the village of Fuentes de Oñoro.
General of Division Jean-Gabriel Marchand (1765–1851), He commanded a division in the 6th Corps of Masséna’s army.
Dragoons formed an important element of Masséna’s cavalry and they performed with much bravery at Fuentes de Oñoro. According to a decree of 8 March 1807, a dragoon regiment had four squadrons each of two companies, each company totalling 108 dragoons. On paper, the regiment had 1,044 officers and men with 1,055 horses. The realities of the Portuguese campaign were vastly different, with cavalry companies and squadrons drawn from various regiments to form weak brigades. Monbrun’s cavalry reserve, made up of detachments from six dragoon regiments, numbered 1,187 officers and men, barely more than a regiment at establishment strength. The same was true of the hussars and chasseurs à cheval with Masséna’s army. Elements of Napoleon’s Imperial Guard cavalry joined the army before the battle of Fuentes de Oñoro but were not engaged. Of the many deficiencies of Masséna’s French army by the end of the campaign, perhaps the most serious was a lack of artillery. This translated into a lack of firepower that was to have a telling effect in the last and most important battle of the campaign, which saw the Allies with a third more guns than the French.
Wellington and his staff, c.1811. He was ‘an immortal Mind – Who Pomp repell’d, and Pageantry of Show, And scorn’d the Homage, which from thence did flow; Simply attir’d, he sought th’ embattled Plain’ according to the author of the humorous Military Adventures of Johnny Newcome (London, 1816), who was obviously a veteran of the Peninsula. It was illustrated by T. Rowlandson.
Major-General Sir Stapleton Cotton, later Viscount Cumbermere, commander of Wellington’s cavalry. (Print after Pearson)
For all its endurance and martial qualities, the French ‘Army of Portugal’ had a terrible record with regard to what are now termed human rights. There are always such incidents in war but the depredations and inhuman behaviour by many of the officers and soldiers of that army in Portugal were so widespread that they had a decisive effect, not only on the course of the campaign by the French but also on the perception many in Europe had of Napoleon’s army. To many, the soldier-champions of ‘liberty, equality and fraternity’ had become ruthless tyrants.
By the autumn of 1810, the British army in Portugal was a well-seasoned force. It amounted to nearly 46,000 men, of which 34,000 were on the effective strength at the Lines of Torres Vedras. The men’s morale was high after Bussaco and they were confident they could stop the French and chase them back to the border. This confidence can only have been boosted by the arrival of another 2,300 infantrymen to form the 7th Division. With more artillery and amply supplied, the main weakness of Wellington’s British contingent was its lack of cavalry; fewer than 3,000, and these had numerous commitments, so that there were only 1,800 troopers at Fuentes de Oñoro. The army was sub-divided into divisions, brigades and regiments; the latter mostly represented by one battalion of variable strength, each infantry battalion having ten companies including one of elite grenadiers and one of light infantry. The infantry was armed with the dependable India Pattern musket with which it delivered, according to the French, the deadliest volley fire in Europe three times a minute. The infantry tunics were generally red, hence the famous nickname ‘redcoats’, but the artillery and the light cavalry wore blue, the rifle units dark green. The uniforms were often in tatters after a few months, as many campaign chronicles attest. However, on the whole, the British were much better supplied and paid than their French enemies.
Brigadier-General Andrew Hay (1762–1814) commanded a brigade consisting of the 3/1st, 1/9th and 2/38th regiments of Foot in the 5th Division from the fall of 1810 and was present at Fuentes de Oñoro although not heavily engaged. (Print after Raeburn)
There was no conscription in Britain so the men were, in theory, volunteers although their reasons for enlisting varied greatly. They were, in general, a rough and ready group of individuals with many heavy drinkers. Their generals often found them an unsavoury social group; Picton once said of the 88th – which greatly distinguished itself at Bussaco and Fuentes de Oñoro – that they were ‘the blackguards of the army’, echoing Wellington’s comment that his soldiers were the ‘scum of the earth’. It was thought that only by a most severe discipline could they be turned into effective troops. Very few of their infantry or cavalry officers had benefited from a specialised military education, but they had usually received a good general education and were keen students of their profession. Artillery and engineer officers had special professional training and were equal to any comparable corps in Europe.
The British army had a sizeable staff and service corps structure. Wellington and his generals were often frustrated by the bureaucracy of these departments, Wellington’s particular ‘bête noire’ being the Commissariat. This was a branch of the Treasury rather than the War Office, and in fairness was under great strain ensure supplies of food and even money. In 1810–1811, the Commissariat had to provide enormous amounts of rations to the troops behind the Lines of Torres Vedras and also to many civilian refugees but, on the whole, the challenge was met. In the field, Commissariat officials were not always well liked and there was an instance when either General Picton or General Craufurd threatened to hang a commissary officer if he did not bring up the rations to his division. The injured official went for redress to Wellington, who replied: ‘did he say that? Then you may depend upon it he will keep his word.’4
From the time Beresford took over command as marshal in March 1809, the Portuguese army was fundamentally transformed. Massive administrative reforms were brought in to allow it to operate without difficulty alongside the sizeable numbers of British units that were in Portugal. The efficiency of the country’s draft system was greatly improved so that the number of regular troops soared. Between a third and half of Wellington’s army consisted of Portuguese units, usually integrated within the British divisions. The drill used was now similar to the British army’s and command words were taught in English so that, on the battlefield, Portuguese and British units brigaded together would have as few communication problems as possible. Intensive training brought about a proficiency in volley fire and field manoeuvres. The artillery, which had been mainly used for garrison duty, became a large and efficient force in the field alongside the British batteries.
Mamelukes of the Imperial Guard, c.1805–12. A detachment of ten officers and 69 troopers was in reserve at Fuentes de Oñoro. (Print after Myrbach)
The battle of Bussaco, fought on 27 September 1810, proved that the Portuguese regulars were as steady and dependable as their British comrades. British and French accounts often attribute the sudden improvement in the quality of the Portuguese army to the many British officers that were attached to it. There is no doubt the influence of the 300 or so British officers that served in the Portuguese army during the Peninsular War was a contributory factor to the army’s excellence. However, it is also clear, if less often stated, that the replacing of a large number of older, less-inspired gentlemen with more than 2,500 keen, bright young Portuguese officers had a tremendous impact in transforming the force. Britain provided massive numbers of arms and uniforms and paid some 30,000 of the 45,000 Portuguese regulars. The Portuguese army was not perfect – its cavalry, for example, was weak and ineffective as a shock force. The administrative corps were often deficient and, starved of money from an empty Portuguese treasury, there were often shortages of food and supplies, which the British commissaries occasionally had to supplement as best they could.
(1st Polish) Lancers and Chasseurs à cheval of the Imperial Guard, 1811. Some 30 officers and 340 troopers of the lancers and 13 officers and 222 troopers of the Chasseurs were in the reserve at Fuentes de Oñoro. (Print after Phillipoteaux)
Trooper of the Chasseurs à cheval of the Imperial Guard in campaign dress. (Print after Détaille)
The militia and Ordenanza played a very important role during this campaign, acting either as reserve and garrison troops with Wellington’s army in the defences of Lisbon or as quasi-guerrilla troops in the north. Nearly all the militia were mobilised and many others formed. Some were well equipped and uniformed, such as the Sobral Ordenanza Artillery, while others often lacked proper arms. Those in the south garrisoned the forts but relatively few of the men saw action. By comparison, the levies in the north of the country were well led by Silveira, Trant and Wilson and considerably hampered the French. Rarely if ever taken into account by British, French and even Portuguese historians are the hundreds of Portuguese officers that led the thousands of irregulars on the northern frontier.5
On the whole, Wellington considered the Portuguese component an integral part of his army, expecting it to perform just as well as his British troops if the army was to be effective. On 1 May 1811, writing to Lord Liverpool, he felt ‘confident that they [the French] have it not in their power to defeat the [Anglo-Portuguese] Allied army in a general engagement’, demonstrating his faith that the Portuguese units could stand their ground with British regiments in battle, which they did for years to come. It was quite an achievement.
Officer of the 12th Chasseur à cheval in summer dress. Many Chasseurs officers had white hussar-style uniforms made of lightweight material in the Peninsula to wear on informal occasions. (Print after M. Orange)
General La Romana’s Spanish troops at the Torres Vedras lines amounted to about 8,000 men. They were drawn from generals La Carrera’s and O’Donnell’s divisions. The divisions were not complete as some of their units remained in southwest Spain. The Spanish army, having suffered repeated defeats, was in a pitiful state at that time, and Romana’s corps probably represented the best of the remaining troops. ‘The white Bourbon uniform had entirely disappeared’ well over a year earlier so that by 1810, most Spanish infantry wore brown, although blue and grey were not uncommon, or indeed whatever they could get. Wellington was more concerned with the quality of their weapons than uniforms. However, weapons must have been deficient too, as in January 1811, he ‘retained 4000 stands of arms and sets of accoutrements … to be delivered to the Spanish troops late under the command of the Marques de la Romana’. Nevertheless, Wellington was pleased to have these reinforcements.6
As the Anglo-Portuguese army approached the Spanish border in the spring of 1811, it came into contact with the guerrilla bands of Don Julian Sanchez, Oliveria and El Frayle which operated in the areas of Ciudad Rodrigo and Salamanca. Their numbers were estimated at about 700, with the most important being Don Juan Sanchez’s band of about 500 lancers on the plains of Leon. He joined the Allied army at Fuentes de Oñoro on 3 May 1811 with an unknown number of his men, but these irregulars could be of little assistance when the French cavalry moved against the Allied’s southern flank two days later.
4 As quoted in Arthur Griffiths, The Wellington Memorial (London, 1897), p.235. There were good reasons for some suspicions of commissaries and paymasters on the part of the serving officers. They seemed to prosper rather well adding weight to the notion that the office of paymaster could provide ‘ample opportunity for self-enrichment’ – John Stuart Omond, Parliament and the Army (Cambridge, 1933) p.117. The Commissariat was not always a sterling example of administrative excellence. Suffice it to say here that the Deputy Assistant Commissary-General in the Peninsula was court-martialled and dismissed for fiscal embezzlement in 1812.
5 A rich field of study would consider not only the fighting these troops did – still a largely unexplored subject – but also the logistics, command and control with which they operated. Their discipline must have been fairly good as, in general, the wanton killings and inhumane savagery commonly directed at French prisoners by the Spanish guerrillas was relatively rare in Portugal.
6 Lieutenant-Colonel. Gurwood, ed., The Dispatches of Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington (London, 1838), VII, 204.