Wellesley entered Obidos on 16 August 1808, and from its church tower, he could see that Delaborde had taken up a strong position with his 4,000 men at Roliça, about eight miles away. On the 17th, Wellesley launched a well-planned attack, with three columns moving up to fix Delaborde in front of the village while two others felt for his flanks. Delaborde, however, was too experienced a campaigner to fall for that, and pulled back to an even stronger position south of Roliça, where Wellesley tried to repeat his ploy. Unfortunately, Lieutenant Colonel the Hon. G. A. F. Lake, commanding 1/29th, attacked the French centre and found a gully that took him into the heart of the French position where he was killed and his battalion cut to pieces. This provoked Wellesley into launching a general attack before the flanking columns were in position, and Delaborde conducted a skilful fighting withdrawal, though he had to abandon three of his five guns. It was hardly a crushing victory but it was certainly a promising start, and stands as an early rebuttal of the myth that Wellesley was simply a defensive general.
There were now reinforcements off the coast, and on 18 August Wellesley sent orders for them to proceed to the Maceira estuary, fifteen miles south-west of Roliça, and marched his army there to cover the landing. His army was now 17,000 men strong. Burrard – Dalrymple’s second-in-command – had also arrived, and on the 20th, Wellesley met him aboard his ship. Burrard, with a better idea of French strength, ordered Wellesley to keep the army where it was until it was joined by Sir John Moore’s force, which was to land in Mondego Bay. Wellesley rode back to the army, drawn up astride the Maceira on two long ridges with the village of Vimiero to their front.36 In the small hours of 21 August, he heard that Delaborde and Loison, now united under the command of Junot, were approaching not from the south, but from the east, and after dawn he shifted troops from the western ridge to reinforce those on the eastern, and threw two brigades forwards onto the flat-topped Vimiero Hill, just south of the village.
The first French blow fell on the brigades on Vimiero Hill. They were drawn up with four companies of 2/95th and the whole of 5/60th, all armed with rifles, on the forward slope of the hill, forming a strong skirmish line, with the other five battalions further back, three just behind the crest and two deeper, in reserve. The hill was attacked by two large French columns, each about thirty men broad and at least forty deep, marching behind a screen of skirmishers and supported by field guns. The French skirmishers were checked by the British riflemen, who did not fall back until the main columns came into play. It was not until the riflemen retired that they unmasked the British guns, which had time to get off only a round apiece before column met line.
The first battle on Vimiero Hill that morning was a microcosm of what was to happen elsewhere that day, and on a dozen other dry, red-earthed Peninsular battlefields over the next few years. The northern French column encountered 1/50th drawn up in a line two deep, so that every one of its 800 muskets could bear. The first volley crashed out at 100 yards, and was followed by repeated volleys at 15-second intervals as the range shortened. As the firefight went on, the flanks of the 50th gradually edged forward, like a rather flat letter U, to enfold the head of the column. The slightly convex curl of the slope meant that the 50th had been engaged neither by skirmishers nor by artillery before the column arrived. Columns, whatever their nationality, could indeed break lines that were already weakened and disconcerted before the column came up to administer a shock, which was as much psychological as it was physical. But an intact line was another matter and faced with this one, General Thomières, the French brigade commander, attempted to deploy from column into line to meet fire with fire. The drill movement was a familiar one, but this was neither the time nor the place to carry it out, with soldiers out of breath from toiling up the hill, galled by the fire of skirmishers and artillery, and now under sustained close-range musketry. It is no reflection on French bravery to say that they could neither deploy nor stand, but broke away down the hill with the riflemen running out to shoot at them as they fell back.37
Successive attacks, spreading out against the whole of Wellesley’s eastern flank, were just as gallantly launched, but fared no better, and now British guns, firing shrapnel for the first time in Europe, were reaching out to rake columns long before they came into contact with the line. Rifleman Benjamin Harris of the 95th, busy with his Baker rifle in the skirmish line, saw ‘regular lanes opened through their ranks as they advanced, which were immediately closed up again as they marched steadily on. Whenever we saw a round shot go through the mass, we raised a shout of delight.’38 As one of the attacks ebbed back Wellesley, on hand at the crucial spot, as was so often the case, launched the 20th Light Dragoons and some Portuguese cavalry in a counter-attack. Sergeant George Landsheit charged with the 20th.
‘Now, Twentieth! Now!’ shouted Sir Arthur, while his staff clapped their hands and gave us a cheer, the sound of which was still in our ears when we put our horses to their speed. The Portuguese likewise pushed forward, but through the dust which entirely enveloped us, the enemy threw in a fire which seemed to have the effect of paralysing altogether our handsome allies. Right and left they pulled up, as if by word of command, and we never saw more of them till the battle was over. But we went very differently to work. In an instant we were in the heart of the French cavalry, cutting and hacking, and upsetting men and horses in the most extraordinary manner possible, till they broke and fled in every direction, and then we fell on the infantry.39
The 20th cut their way through the fleeing infantry but were soon checked by a wall of fresh infantry and, worst of all, two fresh regiments of cavalry. The regiment lost almost a quarter of its strength before reaching the relative safety of the British lines. Amongst the dead was Lieutenant Colonel Taylor, shot through the heart. Benjamin Harris, lying exhausted amongst the dead and wounded, was almost killed as the Light Dragoons thundered past. ‘I observed a fine, gallant looking officer leading them on in that charge,’ he wrote in his Recollections.
He was a brave fellow, and bore himself like a hero; with his sword waving in the air, he cheered the men on, as he went dashing upon the enemy, and hewing and slashing at them in tremendous style. I watched him as the dragoons came off after that charge, but saw him no more: he had fallen. Fine fellow! His conduct indeed made an impression on me that day that I shall never forget.40
Wellesley was less favourably impressed. His dispatch to Burrard reported that the 20th Light Dragoons had met French cavalry ‘much superior in numbers’ and been badly cut up. But pride of place went to the 36th Regiment. ‘I cannot avoid adding that the regular and orderly conduct of this corps throughout the service, and their gallantry and discipline in action, have been conspicuous,’ he wrote.41 Wellesley felt his cavalry had made a bad start by galloping off in pursuit of their enemies after an initial success, and he was to see the same thing happen again, most notably in the action at Maguilla in June 1812, which prompted him to complain of:
the trick our officers of cavalry have acquired of galloping at everything, and their galloping back as fast as they gallop upon the enemy. They never consider their situation, never think of manoeuvring before an enemy; so little that one would think they cannot manoeuvre, excepting upon Wimbledon Common; and when they use their arm as it ought to be used, viz., offensively, they never keep nor provide for a reserve.42
Although Wellesley had never been a real cavalry officer, despite his brief passage through the Light Dragoons, he was a keen foxhunter and had led the decisive cavalry charge against Dhoondiah Waugh – when he himself had no reserve – and so knew from personal experience just how hard it was to keep control of excited horsemen. It was precisely this lack of control that was the basis of his dissatisfaction with the cavalry. He prized those qualities of order, regularity, and thus reliability that he had praised in the 36th Regiment. He could never maintain the same control over his cavalry, and in his dispatches he not only paid them less credit than they deserved (the fine outpost work carried out by h
ussars and light dragoons in the Peninsula often went unremarked), but also gave ample ammunition to historians who did not bother to look further.43
By midday the battle was won. All the French attacks had failed, with the loss of about 2,000 men and at least 13 guns to Wellesley’s loss of 720 men. Junot’s army was in no state to resist a co-ordinate counter-attack. Sir Harry Burrard had arrived on the eastern ridge, and generously left the conduct of the battle to Wellesley. But if Junot was to be pursued, it could only be Burrard’s decision. Wellesley galloped across to him, and said:
Sir Harry, now is your chance. The French are completely beaten; we have a large body of troops that have not yet been in action. Let us move on Torres Vedras. You take the force here straight forward; I will bring round the left with the troops already there. We shall be in Lisbon in three days.44
But Burrard would have none of it, and ordered the army back to its bivouacs. He was himself superseded by Sir Hew Dalrymple, who arrived from Gibraltar the next day.
Neither contemporary public opinion nor subsequent history has dealt kindly with Dalrymple and Burrard, and we must not let the fact that they came close to prejudicing Wellesley’s career as gravely as their own induce us to write them off as amiable old buffers. Dalrymple had been commissioned in 1763 at the age of thirteen, but had not been on active service until the Flanders campaign of 1793. He had made the best of a difficult job as governor of Gibraltar despite the intricacies of Spanish politics and lack of clear orders from the government. Burrard, commissioned into the Coldstream Guards in 1772, had exchanged into the 60th Regiment to serve in North America, and transferred to 1st Foot Guards on his return. He sat sporadically in parliament for the family seat of Lymington, served in the Flanders campaign, commanded a brigade on the 1799 Helder expedition, and was Cathcart’s second-in-command at Copenhagen. Both felt uncomfortable with arrangements. Dalrymple had not been formally replaced at Gibraltar, and had been given the Portuguese command ‘for the present’. Moreover, in a personal letter, Castlereagh urged him ‘to make the most prominent use’ of Wellesley, who ‘has been for a length of time in the past in the closest habits of communication with His Majesty’s Ministers …’ Dalrymple suspected that ‘something seemed to lurk under this most complicated arrangement:’ he might be superseded himself, possibly by the Duke of York, or blamed if anything went wrong.45
Burrard was even more uneasy. He arrived off the coast to find Wellesley determined to take on the French, and feared that if Junot was able to unite his forces, he would outnumber the British. ‘I begin to be apprehensive,’ he wrote after Roliça, ‘that if he [Wellesley] should meet with a superior force he will have nothing to fall back on.’ He himself had been captured in 1798 when his brigade, landed on the Flanders coast as part of a large-scale raid, was captured when the surf rose, preventing the navy from evacuating it. He had good reason to mistrust operations against an aggressive enemy across a difficult coast. When Wellesley had met him aboard HMS Brazen on the 20th, as we have seen, Burrard took counsel of his fears and ‘decided that the army should halt’ until Moore’s corps could join them from the north and guarantee their superiority. He wrote to Moore, ordering him to re-embark at Mondego Bay and land at Maceira: it would take time, but risk nothing. He was rowed ashore on the morning of Vimiero, and met on the beach by a messenger from Wellesley who told him that battle had been joined. He arrived on the field in time to see the French repulsed, and ‘directed him [Wellesley] to go on with an operation he had so happily and so well begun’. But nothing he saw altered his decision not to advance.
When Dalrymple arrived on the 22nd, he met Wellesley on the beach, superintending the embarkation of his wounded. Sir Arthur immediately began ‘to represent to him the necessity for an immediate advance’, leading Dalrymple to suspect that he was trying to circumvent Burrard, and inducing him to point out that he had only just arrived and was in no position to make a judgement. Dalrymple rode up to Vimiero, past carts bringing the wounded down to the beach and houses that had been converted into temporary hospitals. A meeting with Burrard, to which Wellesley was eventually invited, emphasised the army’s logistic difficulties, for ‘future supplies … depended on the victuallers, and the victuallers on the weather’. No decisions had been reached when word arrived that the whole French army was advancing, and Dalrymple ordered Wellesley to take up his earlier defensive positions. However, at about 2.00pm a French patrol reached the outposts of the 50th escorting General François Etienne Kellermann with a flag of truce. He had come to suggest an armistice.
Junot had concluded that his position was impossible in the long term, and hoped to negotiate the evacuation of his army from Portugal. The three British generals regarded this as a favourable outcome for the campaign, all the more so, in Wellesley’s case, because the chance of inflicting a major defeat on Junot had now passed. The British discussed terms amongst themselves, and then negotiated with Kellermann. Dalrymple was later to argue that ‘Sir Arthur Wellesley appeared to me to bear the prominent part in this discussion’, something Wellesley always denied. Kellermann eventually dictated the fair copy of the agreement, and, probably recognising that Wellesley’s personal reputation and high standing with the government would make it hard for Britain to repudiate the agreement, suggested that Wellesley, his equal in rank, should sign it.46 Wellesley, waiting in another room, was called in by Dalrymple, who asked him whether he had any objection to signing the instrument. Wellesley said that he would sign anything Dalrymple wished him to sign, observed that it was ‘a very extraordinary paper’, but proceeded to put his name to it.
The Convention of Cintra, which elaborated the terms of the original armistice, was a triumph for the French. They were to be returned to France by the Royal Navy without becoming prisoners of war, and were to take with them ‘their arms and baggage, with their personal property of every kind’. The Russian squadron at Lisbon was to sail unmolested, and no reprisals were to be taken against Portuguese who had supported the French. In these latter respects, the British generals were clearly acting beyond their powers, and Wellesley was unhappy enough with the Convention to write, the very next day, to beg Castlereagh not to blame him for it, for it had been negotiated by Dalrymple. Although he agreed that the French should evacuate Portugal, he felt the terms too generous. He spent the rest of the summer dealing with the French evacuation, but felt that he had ‘been too successful with this army ever to serve with it in a subordinate situation, with satisfaction to the person who shall command it, and of course not to myself’.47 After declining a suggestion that he should go to Spain to formulate plans for its defence, on 5 September 1808 he told Castlereagh that ‘it is quite impossible for me to continue with this army’ and asked to resume office in Ireland, to be given an appointment on the staff, or simply to remain unemployed.48
Wellesley’s worst fears about the Convention of Cintra were realised. The French achieved a very generous definition of private property. In Junot’s case this included a bible from the royal library, which his wife later sold for 85,000 francs, and Junot’s paymaster general removed £25,000 from the Portuguese treasury. In England, initial press reports had paid handsome tribute to Wellesley’s achievements at Roliça and Vimiero. But when news of the Convention broke in early September, the mood changed. Castlereagh thought that there must be ‘base forgery’ in his copy of it, and the prime minister found the terms so poor that he thought it ‘impossible that any English officer could have sanctioned them.’49 Wellesley came in for the lion’s share of the blame, and the efforts of his Tory friends to help simply attracted the fire of the opposition and its friends in the press, who, fresh from their attacks on Richard, now assailed Arthur too. The Chronicle begged that ‘if the Wellesleys must be employed, for God’s sake, let it henceforth be in regulating the police of the City of Dublin, or in enforcing the residence of the Irish clergy’. There was even a squib mocking:
This is Sir Arthur (whose valour and skill
Who beat the French, who took the gold
That lay in the city of Lisbon …
Lord Byron caught the mood of the moment, declaiming in Childe Harold how ‘Britannia sickens, Cintra! At thy name.’ The City of London’s Court of Common Council demanded a public enquiry, and the government promptly recalled both Dalrymple and Burrard (Wellesley had already returned), giving command in the Peninsula to Moore. On 1 November 1808, it announced its intention to hold an enquiry.
A board of seven general officers appointed ‘to enquire into the Convention &c in Portugal’ met in the great Hall of the Royal Hospital at Chelsea on 14 November under the presidency of General Sir David Dundas. The board examined a mass of written documents and heard evidence from witnesses. The proceedings became, as Michael Glover observed, ‘a duel between Dalrymple and Wellesley’, and on 22 December, the board presented its findings to the king. Wellesley’s operations were ‘highly honourable and successful’, and given the ‘extraordinary circumstances under which two Commanding Generals arrived from the ocean and joined the army, the one during, and the other immediately after a battle, and those successively superseding each other, and both the original Commander within the space of twenty-four hours …’ it was not surprising that victory at Vimiero was not followed up. The board was then pressed to elaborate its views in more detail, and although three of its members affirmed that they disapproved of the Convention, the majority approved of it.
This concluded official proceedings. The government saw off a political assault, first ensuring that Wellesley was awarded the thanks of parliament for Vimiero and then voting down an opposition move to censure the Convention. Dalrymple was not helped by the fact that he was a Scot, and there was a marked anti-Scottish feeling in London, a legacy of deeper eighteenth-century undercurrents but given recent momentum by the impeachment of Henry Dundas, Viscount Melville, for ‘gross maladversion and breach of duty’ at the admiralty in 1805. And by now the public was losing interest, for there was fresh news from the Peninsula. Sir John Moore had driven deep into Spain, but was opposed by superior forces under Napoleon himself, and had made a painful retreat in the depths of winter, reaching the port of La Coraña on 11 January 1809. Moore was mortally wounded in a battle outside the town, and his survivors were evacuated by the Royal Navy. The opposition hailed him as a victim of governmental incompetence, and the heat was off the Wellesleys.
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