Wellington vs. Masséna in Portugal

To set the stage with the key events preceding Tim Saunders' Masséna at Bay 1811, paramount is the bloody battle of Wagram fought in July, 1809 which had decisive ramifications, most significantly the Treaty of Schonbrunn which cemented Napoleon’s imperial grip on Europe. The British belated response, the feebly concocted and ineptly executed Walcheren expedition led the Tory government under Portland to seek something to relieve domestic concern over the litany of defeats, and cultivated the illusion that the Iberian Peninsula was not a military sideshow and that Arthur Wellesley’s costly and transitory victory at Talavera warranted his elevation to the peerage as Viscount Wellington. Wellington promptly then presented, somewhat petulantly, a 2500 word letter in August to Castlereagh, secretary of war – just as his army was in retreat and in dire straits, despite Talavera -- a case for abandoning Spain to its own military fate. This letter ought to be seen in the English speaking world as the pivotal document instrumental in consigning the Spanish empire to the ash heap of history. In this screed, which reads more like a plaintiff’s wail and a xenophobic one at that, Wellington bemoaned his army’s maltreatment by Britain’s ally Spain and basically committed himself and his army and, ipso facto, Britain – as there was literally no credible alternative general with equivalent political clout – to under no circumstances undertake joint operations with Spanish armies even if he were assigned as Commander-in-Chief. For the next twenty months this was so, to the chagrin of Spain, his ally.

Meanwhile, Napoleon tightened the economic noose of the Continental system over Britain and, adding further insult to injury, sent in April, 1810, almost as an afterthought, a very reluctant Marshal André Masséna, newly dubbed the Prince d’Essling, with reinforcements to Spain and the mission of ousting the English from the continent. Napoleon, it should be noted, did not deign to go himself, as he was enjoying his battle won conjugal rights with the young Marie Louise and overseeing what would become the Code Napoleon, while mostly disapproving everything that Masséna would subsequently do. That was then, and ever since British historians have dedicated themselves to the unabashed hero worship of Arthur Wellesley.

Tim Saunders has dutifully followed suit in his work Masséna at Bay 1811. In October, 1809, Wellington opted for a more comfortable Fabian strategy exclusively devoted to retrograde maneuvers back into the confining geography of Portugal, a good portion of which was laid to waste by scorched earth tactics, on his orders, and entirely dependent on British officered elements and buttressed by the fabled lines of Torres Vedras.

To put Saunders’ work and the much ballyhooed exploits of Wellington into proper perspective: from August, 1809 to April, 1811 when the Viscount finally condoned his army’s cooperation with the Spanish, the following Spanish cities and fortresses fell: Gerona, Lerida, Tortosa, Astorga, Ciudad Rodrigo, Seville, Cordoba, Granada, Malaga and eventually Badajoz. More detrimental even than those losses were the consistent defeats of regular forces pitted against Napoleon’s that would prove positively cataclysmic for the future of Spain. After Talavera, Spain still fielded large armies thanks to the Central Junta – later the Regency – employing levees en masse, a means of last resort, tried and tested by the French Revolution and which Wellington, Tory that he was, pooh-poohed as merely ‘enthusiasm.’ During this period, despite many pleadings by the Spanish for Wellington’s assistance, French marshals systematically whittled down Spanish armies starting with the battles of Almonacid, Ocaña, and Alba de Tormes, until reverses were inevitable and the Spanish, by 1813, became nothing more than fairly active guerrilla bands. All the while Britain duplicitously supported Spanish insurgencies in South America – Miranda and Bolivar in particular – and sought trade concessions which undermined Spanish financing for defense, forcing them to beg for handouts from Britain, which were never sufficiently forthcoming. All this while the Royal Navy totally dominated everywhere there was sea water.

Masséna at Bay, 1811, never really questions Wellington’s egregious decision to abandon Spain, but does indulge in his adulation. This praise is justified when it comes to Wellington’s outstanding foresight in ordering engineer Lt. Col. Sir Richard Fletcher, in October 1809, to construct the lines of Torres Vedras; a series of what would be well defended redoubts stretched across the throat of Portugal that eventually did what they were intended. Masséna’s three corps would indeed end up corralled in an impossible position, as Wellington anticipated. However, they lingered around Santerem longer than he expected. The lines required Portuguese laborers, militia, guns, and a fleet ready to embark Wellington’s army at a moment’s notice. This was done at great expense and an odd contrast with the paltry amounts Britain gave to the Spanish fighting the bulk of Napoleon’s forces in Spain. It should be added by contrast that Napoleon’s commitment to Spain, although massive, was almost entirely paid for by bleeding Spain dry of revenue.

This work does a fine job bringing to life the period with photos of reenactors uniformed and accoutered as contemporaries would have been on a nice day. The accompanying maps follow the KISS principle a little too closely but do serve a good purpose in aligning place names with the text. Of special note are the paintings of obscure officers such as Juan Sanchez, and landscapes from the past, such as Coimbra. Compared to Sir Charles Oman’s two volumes dealing with Masséna’s time in the Peninsula, and his rigorous penchant for resolving inconsistencies, it is understandable that Tim Saunders settles for some easier explanations. One disputable point that Oman belabors, but Mr. Saunders does not, is the issue regarding the planned retreat of Masséna. Mr. Saunders puts too much stock in the assertions of a Captain Noel, an artillery officer, who claimed that Ney deliberately foiled Masséna’s plan to move north of the Mondego River and remain in Portugal. This is refuted by Oman in detail citing, most importantly, Masséna’s report to Berthier in which Masséna’s reasons for dismissing Ney never once mentions the latter’s refusal to retake Coimbra, the main crossing point on the Mondego. This is a classic case of not giving due credit to the Portuguese militia brigades. British Captain Nicholas Trant, a Portuguese brigadier general, took Coimbra and held with some 4,000 Portuguese troops the entire time Masséna was in southern Portugal at Santarem, unable to attack the lines of Torres Vedras, which thus denied the French marshal the operational option of moving north.

As is usual, Spanish and Portuguese militia brigades under Trant, Wilson, Miller, Juan Sanchez, and Silveira are dismissed in the tally of forces opposing Masséna. To give them their due, the French, on occasion, had to peel off entire divisions to deal with these formations which adds luster to Masséna’s record for hanging on as long as he did, when adding these militias into the odds.

The battles are handled well, but certain engagements, such as the complex cavalry maneuvers at Fuentes de Oñoro (spelt differently on several maps) are still in need of unraveling. Perhaps Edward Charles Cocks, the most outstanding of intelligence officers, ought to be the baseline for doing so, with due regard for Julian Sanchez’s lancers. It is always a find if there are original eyewitness accounts and the one that is most interesting is that of Mainwaring and the burning of the colors.

One last error that is a pet peeve, is the inflated numbers of killed in the village of Fuentes de Oñoro. These seem to have been taken from Oman and actually include killed, wounded, and missing. Otherwise, Masséna at Bay, 1811 is a splendid addition to any Napoleonic library.

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Note: Masséna at Bay, a volume in the Pen & Sword “Peninsular War Battlefield Companion” series is also available in several e-editions.

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