First contact with the French was on 22 July and Wellesley wanted a full attack the following morning whilst the Allies had a great superiority in numbers. Cuesta would not agree to this and when they advanced two days later, the French, having realised their inferiority, had retired. Cuesta then pursued them alone, coming up against the reinforced French army near Toledo. The Spanish were forced into a rapid retreat and were back at Talavera on 27 July. Fletcher remained with Wellesley at Talavera but was keeping his officers busy. On 25 July, Lieutenant Richard Mudge RE was sent forward to reconnoitre the Alberche and Mulcaster was sent to the Tagus at Arzobispo and Almaraz. Mulcaster was impressed by the bridge at Almaraz saying ‘It is forever to be lamented that as fine an edifice should have been ruined’. He also recorded that the bridge of pontoons put in place by Cuesta depended on dry weather.⁴⁰ The following morning Mulcaster returned to Arzobispo and, hearing accounts of a defeat the day before, rushed back to Talavera but arrived too late to take any part in the battle.

On the morning of 27 July, the Allied army was now facing a stronger French force than expected and the supply system had failed, with the British troops already on half rations. Jones recorded that after Wellington and Cuesta had discussed the situation, at around 11 a.m. He was ordered to construct a redoubt for ten guns in the centre of the Allied position. This was carried out using 200-strong working parties from the British brigades.⁴¹ This redoubt was to play a vital part in the battle the following day.

The French attacked unexpectedly that night but after some confusion were driven back. Boothby, who was on General Sherbrooke’s staff and had been with him during the day, found a billet in Talavera and then as the firing continued into the evening rode out to find his general who was ‘glad of [his] timely arrival’ as few of his staff were present. Boothby was used to convey orders and as darkness fell, he found himself out in front of the British line as the French approached: ‘It instantly struck us both that in the confusion of night the fire would spread down the whole line in which case we should be blown to pieces … I found myself galloping up into an interrupted sheet of fire [when] I was struck in the leg by a musket ball, which brought me to the ground.’⁴² General Sherbrooke found Boothby later and ordered him carried from the field where he had to wait until the 29th for his leg to be amputated. His book goes into graphic detail of the process of amputation. Boothby was one of the wounded captured by the French when Cuesta abandoned them after the battle. He received good advice from fellow engineer Henry Goldfinch who had been captured at Oporto; ‘You must cry out “Capitaine Anglais” and you will be treated well’. This proved to be true although Boothby remained in captivity until the middle of 1810.

The main battle was on 28 July, where several French attacks were repulsed but not without significant Allied casualties. Fletcher, with his new adjutant Rice Jones, remained at Wellesley’s side throughout the battle with Jones recording he took messages to the Allied cavalry on the left flank of the army. Lieutenant Stanway was wounded ‘in the belly’ whilst serving on General Mackenzie’s staff, the two other engineer officers, Goldfinch and Forster, being unhurt. Forster was thanked for his services in the general orders of the 4th Division. There was also another unexpected casualty amongst the small group of Royal Engineer officers. Lieutenant Edward Fyers had become unwell with mental health problems. Burgoyne described finding him on 2 August at Oropesa ‘with a fever and insane’. Mulcaster commented that ‘Fyers had got off’ on 9 August. Fyers, who was the son of Colonel William Fyers RE, was eventually committed to a mental asylum in 1819 but still held his rank in the Corps up to that time, including promotion to captain in 1813.

The day after the battle Wellesley was faced with failing rations for the troops and around 4,000 wounded. Believing he was safe, he remained on the battlefield, unaware that Soult was descending on his rear with superior forces. Soult arrived at Plasencia on 1 August, seizing Wellesley’s stores and then advanced to attempt to take the crossing-points over the Tagus at Almaraz and Arzobispo, thereby cutting Wellesley’s communications with Portugal. Wellesley, still believing that Soult only had a small force with him, set off to intercept him on 3 August, leaving his wounded in the care of Cuesta. The reality of the situation was then discovered and Wellesley chose to retreat, rejecting Cuesta’s preference to again face the French. The British passed over the Tagus at Arzobispo on the morning of 4 August, leaving the Spanish in possession of the crossing-point. Wellesley also ordered Craufurd’s brigade to reinforce the Spanish holding the crossing at Almaraz as its loss could once again threaten the retreat. They arrived there on 6 August with Fletcher visiting on the next day and marking out additional batteries to defend the crossing. Jones commented ‘we were a little disturbed by the firing of the enemy’ from the other side of the river. Captain Chapman, who had arrived from Lisbon on 30 July, was sent the following day to construct the batteries. On 8 August, the French took the crossing at Arzobispo from the Spanish. The next few days the armies faced each other across the Tagus, the French finally recognising that the Allied armies had evaded them. Wellesley was able to retire unmolested back to the Portuguese border around Badajoz. Whilst the British government tried hard to sell Talavera as a great victory, many were unconvinced, reading of a British army retreating before a French one for the second time in a year. Wellesley, now Viscount Wellington, had learnt the same hard lessons as Sir John Moore. The Iberian Peninsula was a difficult environment in which to move and feed an army, operations with the Spanish were fraught with difficulties and if the French could concentrate their forces they were too strong to resist.

During the retreat after the Battle of Talavera, it is interesting to note that within days of receiving a report from Chapman,⁴³ both Fletcher and Wellington had separately written home mentioning the defence of Lisbon.⁴⁴ Chapman, who was now with the army, dated his report 18 August 1809, so it was probably completed whilst the army rested at Truxillo. The options were clearly being discussed as the troops retreated westward. On 10 August, Canning, in a letter to Marquess Wellesley (Sir Arthur’s brother), the newly-appointed ambassador to Spain, had also posed the question, could Portugal be defended? Wellington’s view was outlined to Castlereagh, Secretary of State for War and the Colonies:

My opinion is, that we ought to be able to hold Portugal, if the Portuguese army and Militia are complete. The difficulty upon this sole question lies in the embarkation of the British Army. There are so many entrances into Portugal, the whole country being frontier, that it would be very difficult to prevent the enemy from penetrating; and it is probable that we should be obliged to confine ourselves to the preservation of that which is most important, the capital … However, I have not entirely made up my mind upon this interesting point. I have a great deal of information upon it, but I should wish to have more before I can decide upon it.⁴⁵

Wellesley had held his positive view on the defence of Portugal since his first visit. When he wrote his Memorandum of the Defence of Portugal for the British government in March 1809 he clearly stated ‘I have always been of the opinion that Portugal might be defended, whatever might be the result of the contest in Spain … The French would not have been able to overrun Portugal with a force smaller than 100,000 men’.⁴⁶ Although his argument must have been at least partially accepted by the government, Fletcher, like most others, was more pessimistic:

The practicability of defending the Capital to the last extremity and of afterwards embarking the British troops I confess I have always doubted. Sir Arthur Wellesley is naturally anxious to combine these two objects, but I believe that he now begins to feel that the doing so, would be certainly difficult if not altogether impossible. The ground is in itself unfavourable and a very long line must be established to save the retreat of the army … Even admitting that the city of Lisbon, as a fortified position were tenable … I should imagine that a population of perhaps three hundred thousand souls cannot be long supported in a town without magazines … These ideas generally, I have continued to submit to the consideration of Sir Arthur Wellesley, who now seems to be of the opinion, that these are almost insuperable difficulties opposed to the measure of defending Lisbon to the last extremity, and then embarking the British troops.

Fletcher finished his letter saying: ‘He [Wellington] however means to revisit that place in a short time to determine what steps can be taken.’⁴⁷

Once the army was safe and settled, Wellington’s primary task was to make this decision. One of the few advantages the Allies had at this time was the inability of the French to concentrate their forces. There were a number of reasons for this. Firstly, the French marshals were not good at working together, their egos and characters often making co-operation difficult. Secondly, Napoleon tried to conduct the war from a distance, never giving overall command to any one of his subordinates. This made formulation of an overall strategy almost impossible. Thirdly, the resistance of the Spanish population required the use of large numbers of French troops to keep order. This meant these troops were not available for field operations. Finally, the presence of islands of resistance across the Iberian Peninsula meant the French had to spread their immense resources thinly. There was not only Lisbon, but Gibraltar, Cadiz, Tarragona and Alicante, all of which needed to be watched and could launch attacks with little warning. This factor was a key component in Wellington’s thinking on the defence of Portugal.

Whilst the army settled into winter quarters, there was no let-up for the engineers in the reconnaissance work. Fletcher continued to receive a flurry of surveys from across central Portugal and Spain, all of which will have added to Wellington’s knowledge of the operational area. Many of these were based around the route of the retreat with surveys of the Guadiana, the border roads and towns and the routes back to Lisbon. Goldfinch, Mulcaster and Stanway were principally involved in this work.

On 7 October, Wellington invested Sir John Sherbrooke with the Order of the Bath. Mulcaster succinctly described the event as a ‘grand let off and dance in the evening with ugly women and bad singing’.⁴⁸ The following morning Wellington left Badajoz for Lisbon, the primary purpose of the visit being to decide on the defensibility of Portugal. With him travelled the engineers Fletcher, Chapman and Rice Jones. The planning for the following year had started.