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LIII.

1808.

CHAP. sula. Indeed, the actual force under the standards of Wellington seldom exceeded thirty, and was generally for the first three years not above twenty-five thousand English sabres and bayonets. Still this force formed the nucleus of an army which, with the addition of the Portuguese levies of equal amount, disciplined and led by British officers, soon became extremely formidable; and from the position which it occupied, backed by the sea, the true base of British military operations, and on 1 Nap. i. 47. the flank of the French armies dispersed through the Peninsula, became more than a match for double the amount of the enemy.1

Foy, i. 203,

204.

31.

position of

troops.

Its fortunate central position in Portugal, resting on Fortunate what became, under the tutelary genius of Wellington, the British an impregnable intrenched position in front of Lisbon, afforded to a commander of talent a favourable opportunity of striking serious blows at the enemy before their dispersed forces could collect from different quarters. If they did so, the insurrection burst forth again in the provinces they had evacuated; if they remained long together, famine, in an inland country so largely intersected by arid plains or desert ridges, soon paralysed any considerable offensive operations. The truth of the old saying of Henry IV., "If you make war in Spain with a small army, you are beaten-if with a large one, starved," was never more strongly evinced than in the Peninsular campaigns. Though Wellington frequently experienced this difficulty in the severest manner, when he advanced into the interior of the country, yet his army, in the general case, from its comparative vicinity to the sea-coast of Portugal, or the water-carriage of its principal rivers, was more abundantly supplied with provisions; and though he was in general inferior in number to the enemy, sometimes to a very great degree, 2 Napier, i when he hazarded a battle, yet the discrepancy in this 204. respect was never so great as the extraordinary difference in the sum-total of the regular forces which

47. Foy, i.

the two nations had in the field might have led us to CHAP. expect.

LIII.

1808. 32.

force of

mencement

test.

The military establishment of Spain, when the contest commenced at the signal of the French cannon in the Military streets of Madrid on the 2d May, was by no means con- Spain at siderable. It consisted, in 1807, of eighty thousand the com troops of the line, besides sixteen thousand cavalry and of the conthirty thousand militia; but the ranks were far from being complete, and the total effective force, including the militia, was under a hundred thousand men. From this number were to be deducted sixteen thousand under Romana in Holstein, six thousand in Tuscany, or on the march thence to the north of Germany, and the garrisons of the Canary and Balearic Isles. Thus the troops that could be brought into the field did not at the utmost exceed seventy thousand, of whom twenty thousand were already partially concentrated in the Alentejo and Oporto, and the only considerable body of the remainder, about ten thousand strong, was in the lines of St Roque, at Gibraltar. The composition of this force was still less formidable than its numerical amount. Enervated by a long Continental peace, the soldiers had lost much of the spirit and discipline of war; the men, enrolled for the most part by voluntary enlistment, and only in case of necessity, and in some of the provinces, by conscription, were sober, active, and brave. But the officers were, in most instances, extremely deficient, both in the knowledge and proper feelings of their profession; and the proportion which they bore to the common men, as in the French army previous to the Revolution, was altogether excessive. The common men were ill fed and clothed, and habitually cheated by their officers in their food and equipment. The navy was 1 Fov, ii. in a still worse condition: it was reduced to thirty-three 216, 219. Nap. i. 46. ships of the line and twenty frigates, of which only six Jom. ii. 51. ships of the line and four frigates were equipped and fit 270, 273. for service.1

Like the land forces, the navy was devoured by a host

1

Thiers, viii.

LIII.

1808.

33. Character

and habits

cers.

CHAP. of supernumerary and useless officers, who did nothing but consume the funds which should have gone to the sailors' support. They were, indeed, for the most part, men of family—a certain proof of descent being necessary of the offi- to obtaining commissions in two-thirds of the military offices at the disposal of government. But the restriction afforded no security either for extended information or generous sentiments in a country where four hundred thousand hidalgos, too proud to work, too indolent to learn, loitered away an inglorious life, basking in the sun, or lounging in the billiard-rooms or coffeehouses of the great towns. From this ignorant and conceited class the great bulk of the officers of all ranks were taken; not more than three or four of the high nobility held situations in the army when the war broke out. Leading an indolent life in towns, sleeping half the day in uncomfortable barracks, associating indiscriminately with the common soldiers, many of whom were superior in birth and intelligence to themselves, and knowing no enjoyments but idleness, gallantry, and billiards, they were as deficient in the energy and vigour which the Revolution had developed in the French, as in the sentiments of honour and integrity which the habits of a monarchy tempered by freedom had nursed in the English army. It was easy to foresee that no reliance could be placed, in a protracted struggle, on this debilitated force. Yet such is the importance of discipline and military organisation, even in their most defective form, in warlike operations, that the only great success achieved in the field by the Spaniards during the whole war was owing to its exertions.1

1 Foy, ii.

216, 221. Nap. i. 46.

Jom.. 52.

34. Military force and

Though Portugal had a surface of only 5035 square geographical leagues, or 40,000 square geographical miles, being not quite half of the British islands, and a popucharacter of lation of somewhat above three millions, instead of the Portugal. twelve millions which were contained in Spain, yet it pos

physical

sessed in itself the elements of a more efficient military

LIII.

force than its powerful neighbour. The invaluable institu- CHAP tion of ordenanzas, or local militia, had survived the usurpation of Spain; and during twenty-seven campaigns 1808. which followed the restoration of the independence of the country in 1640, it had rendered more important services to the state than the regular army. By the Portuguese law, every person, from the age of eighteen to that of sixty years, is legally obliged to join the battalions arrayed in defence of the country. These battalions consist of two hundred and fifty men each, under the command of the chief landed proprietors of the district; and such is the native strength of a country so defended, that, with a very little aid from England, it had enabled the Portuguese for two centuries to maintain their independence. The physical peculiarities of the country rendered it singularly well adapted for the active operations of an irregular force of this description. Intersected in many directions, but especially to the north of the Tagus, by lofty sierras, terminating in sharp inaccessible cliffs, which rise, even in that favoured latitude, almost into the region of eternal snow; destitute for the most part of roads, and such as do exist perpetually crossing rivers without bridges, or ravines affording the most favourable positions for a defensive army; covered with Moorish towers or castles perched on the summits of rocks, or villages in general surrounded by defensive walls; inhabited by a bold, active, and independent peasantry, long habituated to the use of, arms, and backed by impregnable mountain-ridges washed Brun, vii. by the sea, Portugal presented the most advantageous i. 26, 27. fulcrum which Europe could afford whereon to rest the 1-80. military efforts of England.1

1 Malte

487. Nap.

Foy, ii.

But these advantages were all dependent on the phy- 35.

corruption

sical situation and natural character of the inhabitants, or General the consequences of the former and more glorious epochs and abuses of their history. At the period when the Peninsular in the mili war broke out, no country could be in a more debilitated lishment.

tary estab

LIII.

1808.

CHAP. state, as far as either political vigour or military efficiency is concerned. Corruption pervaded every department of the public service, to such an extent as to be apparently irremediable. The army, ill-fed, worse paid, and overrun, like that of Spain, by a swarm of titled locusts who devoured the pay of the soldier and did nothing, was both an unpopular and inefficient service. Forty thousand men, including eight thousand cavalry, of whom the troops of the line nominally consisted, might have furnished an excellent base whereon, with the addition of the militia and ordenanzas, to construct a powerful military establishment. But such were the abuses with which the service was infested, and the ignorance of the officers in command, that hardly any reliance could be placed on its operations ; and it was not till they were recast in the mould of 1 Foy, ii. 1, British integrity, and led by the intrepidity of British officers, that the Portuguese arms reappeared with their ancient lustre on the theatre of Europe.1

88. Napier, i. 27.

36.

quality, and

of the French

army at this period in Spain.

In the disposition of his force when the contest commenced, Napoleon had principally in view to overawe and disposition secure the metropolis, conceiving that Madrid was like Paris or Vienna, and that there was little chance of the country holding out for any length of time against the power in command of the capital. The Imperial Guards, with the corps of Moncey and Dupont, were assembled in that city or its immediate neighbourhood; and as this concentration of above fifty thousand men in the heart of the kingdom exposed the communication with the Pyrenees to danger, the Emperor was indefatigable in his endeavours to form a powerful corps of reserve at Burgos and Vitoria, under Marshal Bessières. With such success were his efforts attended, that by the beginning of June this able officer had twenty-three thousand men under his standards. At the same period the troops under Duhesme, in the fortresses of Barcelona and Figueras in Catalonia, numbered above fifteen thousand men, sufficient, it was hoped, to overawe the discontented in that province.

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