LIV. CHAP. Hoc principium simul omenque belli, ut summæ rerum prosperum eventum, ita haud sane incruentam ancipitisque certaminis victoriam Romanis portendit." * 1808. 64. advance to Vimeira. Aug. 19. On the following morning orders were, in the first The British instance, issued for the continuance of the pursuit; and it was universally believed in the army that the enemy would be pursued, at the point of the bayonet, to the Rock of Lisbon. But at noon accounts arrived at headquarters of the arrival of Generals Anstruther and Ackland, with their respective brigades from England, off the coast; and, at the same time, that Junot had marched with all his disposable force out of Lisbon to bring matters to the issue of a decisive battle. Orders were, therefore, given to suspend the pursuit, and the line of march was directed by Lourinha to VIMEIRA, where headquarters were established on the 19th, in order to be near the sea-coast to take advantage of the reinforcements which were at hand. On the other hand, Junot, having by great exertion collected all his disposable force, and formed a junction at Torres Vedras with the retiring division of Laborde, found himself at the head of only fourteen thousand men-including, however, twelve hundred horse and six-and-twenty pieces of cannon: so heavily had the necessity of occupying many different points in a hostile country weighed upon and divided the twenty-five thousand which still remained at his disposal. On the 19th, General Anstruther's brigade was landed, and on the 20th General Ackland's; and these reinforcements raised the English army to sixteen thousand fightFoy, iv. 319, ing men, besides Trant's Portuguese and two regiments 183, 190. which were with Sir Charles Cotton off the Tagus.1 It had, however, only eighteen guns, a hundred and eighty Aug. 20. 1 Gurw. iv. 89, 93. Lond. i. 137. 320. Thiéb. quently to be awarded to the writers of the Celtic, the credit to honest and trustworthy narrative is in general due to the historians of the Gothic race. "The loss was nearly equal on both sides. This first and portentous engagement in the war presaged ultimate success, but was not less ominous of the desperate and sanguinary strife by which it was to be attained.”—LIVY, book xxi. c. 29. LIV. British, and two hundred Portuguese horse; so that the CHAP. superiority of infantry was nearly counterbalanced by the advantage of the enemy in the other arms of war. 1808. 65. lesley's overruled Accurately informed of the nature of the country through which he was to advance, Sir Arthur proposed, Sir A. Welon the 21st, to turn the strong position of Torres Vedras plans are and gain Mafra with a powerful advanced-guard; while by Sir H. the main body was to move forward and seize the adjoining heights, so as to intercept the French line of retreat by Montachique to Lisbon. But Sir Harry Burrard, Sir Arthur's superior in command, who had now arrived off the coast, forbade any such hazardous operation, as endangering unnecessarily part of the army, when the force already in hand, and still more the powerful reinforcement approaching under Sir John Moore, rendered ultimate success a matter of certainty without incurring any such risk. The troops, therefore, were concentrated at Vimeira, and every arrangement made for a decisive 89, 93. Sir battle on the morrow; while Junot, having mustered ley's Evid. every man he could collect at Torres Vedras, set out soon after nightfall, and advanced, through tedious and difficult 142 Nap. defiles, to within a league and a half of the British out- Foy, iv.319, posts, where he arrived by seven o'clock on the following 183, 195. morning. 1 * The ground occupied by the British in front of Vimeira, * The road by which Sir Arthur proposed to have advanced from Vimeira to Mafra was near the sea-coast; that by which Junot actually came up from Torres Vedras to Vimeira was farther in the interior, but nearly parallel to the former. If, therefore, the design of the English general had been carried out, it would have brought the two armies into a position similar to that of the French and Prussians at Jena; they would have mutually turned and crossed each other in their march, and when they came to blows, Junot would have fought with his back to Oporto and his face to Lisbon, and Wellington with his back to Lisbon and his face to Oporto. But there would have been this essential distinction between the situation of the two armies, after having thus mutually passed each other—that Junot, cut off from all his reserves and supplies at Lisbon, would have been driven, in case of disaster, to a ruinous retreat through the insurgent and hostile mountains of the north of Portugal; whereas Wellington, backed by the sea, and having his fleet, containing powerful reinforcements, to fall back upon, would have fought in a comparatively advantageous position. There can be little doubt that, in these circumstances, 1 Gurw. iv. A. Welles Ibid. iv. 181. Lond. 1. 137, i. 207, 209. 323. Thiéb. LIV. 1808. 66. of the field Vimeira. Atlas, Plate 51. CHAP. though not clearly defined as a military position, was yet of considerable strength. The village of that name stands in a beautiful valley, running in a westerly direction Description from the interior towards the Atlantic, with the clear of battle of stream of the Maceira glittering over a pebbly bottom in its bosom, at the distance of about three miles from the sea. Hills rise on either side, especially on the northern, where a range of abrupt heights overhang the little plain. Over the summit of these runs the great road from Lisbon, through the hamlets of Fontaniel and Ventosa to Lourinha; while on the south-east is a kind of high table-land, covered in the ravines with myrtle, in the open part bare, over which the approach from Torres Vedras passes. still loftier mass of heights overlooks these in the rear, and lies between them and the sea. On this rugged ground the British army lay in bivouac on the night of the 20th, the village of Vimeira being occupied by a strong Foy, 324. detachment, and a few pickets stationed on the heights towards Torres Vedras, to give warning of the arrival of the enemy. Aug. 20. 1 Nap. i. 208, 212. Thiéb. 192. Gurw. iv. 93, 94. 67. A The first information of their approach was obtained at midnight, when a horseman in haste rode up to Sir Arthur taken up by with the account that Junot's whole army, said to be Positions the two armies. twenty thousand strong, was approaching. Shortly before sunrise, a cloud of dust was seen to arise in the direction war. defeat to Junot would have been attended with decisive consequences, and that Wellington was pursuing the plan of an able commander in throwing himself in this manner upon his enemy's line of communication without compromising his own; the great object and most decisive stroke which can be dealt out in At the same time it is not surprising that Sir Harry Burrard, who came in on the broadside of the affair, and could not be supposed to appreciate, so clearly as the commander actually engaged, the vital importance of not delaying an hour the proposed night-march between the sea and the hills, should have declined to plunge at once into so perilous an operation. His real error consisted in interfering at all with an important and delicate military operation, at a time when it was on the eve of execution by an able and experienced general; and the chief fault lay with the government in subjecting the army, at such a critical time, to the successive command of three different generals, who could not be supposed properly to enter into, or thoroughly understand, the operations in the course of execution at the time when they successively assumed the direction. LIV. of the road leading from Torres Vedras to Lourinha- CHAP. column after column were soon after discerned through the morning dawn, to cross the sky-line of the opposite 1808. eminences, and it was evident that the French were bearing down in great force on the British left. After they descended from the heights on the opposite side, however, the direction of their march could no longer be distinctly traced, and the advanced guards were upon the English videttes almost as soon as they were perceived. But Sir Arthur, concluding from the line of the road on which they were moving, that the left was the principal object of attack, had meanwhile ordered four brigades successively to cross the valley from the heights on the south to those on the north of the stream, and before the action began that part of the line was secure. Observing the rapid concentration of troops on the English left, the French accumulated their forces on their own right. Laborde's division, six thousand strong, led the attack. That general himself, with one brigade, advanced against the centre; while Brennier with another moved against the left of the British; Loison, whose division was about five thousand strong, supported each attack with a brigade; and the reserve under Kellermann, with the cavalry led by Margaron, in all about three thousand men, was ready to support any point where their aid might be required. Generals Ferguson, Nightingale, and Bowes commanded 1 Lond. i. the English left. Ackland united the left to the centre, Nap. i. 208, which, strongly grouped together in the valley in front of 212, Foy, Vimeira, was formed of the brigades of Anstruther and Thieb. 192, Fane; while, on the right, Hill's brigade, in a massy iv. 93, 94. column, rested on the summit of the heights which formed 229, 230. the southern boundary of the valley.1 140, 142. iv. 324, 333. 194. Gurw, Thiers, ix. Vimeira. The action began with the head of Laborde's column, 68. which, advancing with the utmost impetuosity against Battle of the British centre, first came in contact with the 50th regiment. Its light troops were driven in with great vigour, and the French mounted the hill to the south-east VOL. VIII. 2 L Aug. 21, LIV. 1808. CHAP. of Vimeira with loud cries and all the confidence of victory. But when they reached the summit, they were shattered by a well-directed fire from the artillery, disposed along the front of the English line on the edge of the steep; and their troops were arrested by the effect of the shrapnel-shells, then first used against them, which, after striking down by a point-blank discharge whole files of soldiers in front, exploded with all the devastation of bombs in the rear. While yet breathless with their ascent, they received a discharge within pistol-shot from the 50th, and were immediately charged with the bayonet with such vigour, that ere the rush took place they broke and fled.* At the same time Fane's brigade repulsed, with equal success, an attack on the village of Vimeira in the valley, and, after a desperate contest, seven pieces of cannon were taken in that quarter; while the few horsemen with the army who were there stationed broke forth among the retreating lines with great execution. But pursuing their advantage too far, they were assailed when in disorder, by the superior troops of the French cavalry, and almost cut to pieces. Kellermann's reserve of grenadiers now advanced to the attack, but these choice troops, though at first successful, were, after a desperate struggle, repulsed in disorder by the 43d.1 1 Nap. i. 212, 213, Gurw. iv. 93, 95. Thiéb. 195. Foy, ii. 230. Thiers, ix. 230. 69. While these successes were achieved in the centre, a Desperate most severe conflict was going on in the hills to the left, conflict on where the road to Lourinha traverses the steep heights to the north of Vimeira, Brennier commanded in that the left. * Colonel Walker, of the 50th regiment, finding his battalion, which had only 700 bayonets in the field, unable, by a direct resistance in front, to withstand the assault of above 2000 men in column, whom Laborde led on, most skilfully drew it up obliquely to their advance, with the left, against which they were directed, thrown back. The effect of this was to expose the flank as well as front of the French column to the British fire, almost every shot of which told on their crowded ranks, while a small number only could return the discharge, and the numerous ranks in rear were perfectly useless. When the command to charge was given, the British regiment in line came down in compact order on the French column, partly on its front and partly on its flank, and in the attempt to deploy and form line to withstand the levelled steel, they almost unavoidably broke and fled. This method of resisting the French attack in column, was very frequently afterwards employed by Wellington, and |