The third and final French invasion of Portugal thus ended, as had the others, in failure for Napoleon’s armies. Portugal was liberated and its fine army won many more victories fighting alongside their British comrades until the struggle ended with Napoleon’s abdication in 1814.
Their homeland, however, was ravaged. Portugal had been a relatively wealthy country in the 18th century, but the effects of the French invasions on the country’s economy were disastrous. The worst scenario, the starvation of countless refugees behind the Lines of Torres Vedras, had been averted thanks to stocks of food previously brought into Lisbon or sent from Britain. To alleviate the misery, the British Parliament voted £100,000 in assistance, and this was nearly matched by £94,000 raised by public appeals for aid for the Portuguese civilians. Another two million cruzados were sent from Brazil. As welcome as they were, such sums – huge by the monetary standards of the day – could only give relief and not even begin to address the issue of reconstruction. Tens of thousands of farms were in ruins. Countless businesses were in ashes. In the autumn of 1811, the Portuguese government compiled surveys which contained stunning figures on the extent of the devastation. Towns such as Castelo Branco, Crato, Aveiro and Pinhel rated a ‘1’, which meant they were practically in ruins. The bill was estimated at a staggering forty million reis. Even in towns such as Leiria and Pombal rated with a ‘3’, which meant they had relatively minor property damage, the figures were tragic. What capital that had not been seized by the French had gone to Brazil or to other lands promising high returns on investments. Certainly, prospects for a reasonable return were poor in Portugal where part of the business infrastructure had been shattered. Portugal’s trade and commerce had decreased by about two-thirds at the war’s end and did not improve substantially in the following years. The country’s political and social structure was consequently much affected.
But the human cost was even higher. The first and second French invasions had included enough examples of massacres and outrages by the French troops. The 1810–11 invasion was, if anything, even worse. Personal memoirs and surveys made afterwards chronicle atrocities against the weak and defenceless that make many modern outrages seem to pale by comparison. True, a few French soldiers met unpleasant ends at the hands of crazed peasants but this, in contrast to what went on in Spain, was exceptional in Portugal. Indeed, after reading of the horrors they suffered, one wonders how the Portuguese managed to remain civilised until one realises that, like the British, they sought a military victory rather than a blood bath of vengeance. And yet, after this third invasion, cities that had been occupied by the French were depopulated. Before the 1810 invasion, the population of Leiria was some 48,000 souls. In late 1811, it was only 16,000. Some 32,000 of its inhabitants had vanished. Pombal declined from a population of 7,000 to 1,800. And the list went on. The total number of dead or missing civilians came to an incredible 200,000 people.24
That the British were able to open a significant front against the French in the Peninsula was very much due to the sacrifice and indomitable spirit of the Portuguese people and the Portuguese army. Equally, the Portuguese would not ultimately have been liberated from the French nor developed an army that could stand up to Napoleon’s troops, had it not been for the outstanding British help in funding, supplying and training the reborn Portuguese army. With a leader such as Wellington, British and Portuguese soldiers were now ready to march into Spain and challenge the French grip on that suffering nation.
24 The figures on aid, damage and population losses are given in detail in Luz Soriano, III.