These elaborate works had been constructed in the course of a year by thousands of Portuguese labourers, directed by Colonel Fletcher of the royal engineers, upon a plan carefully thought out and laid down by Wellington himself. The first and principal chain of fortifications stretched for nearly thirty miles across the whole promontory between the river Tagus and the sea, about twenty-five miles north of Lisbon. The summits of hills were crowned with forts, their sides were escarped and protected with earthworks, their gorges were blocked with redoubts, a small river at the foot of them was made impassable by dams; in short, the utmost advantage was taken of the defences provided by nature, and these were supplemented by artificial entrenchments. Portuguese garrisons manned the greater part of the batteries, armed with guns from the arsenals of Lisbon; British troops were to occupy the most vulnerable points of attack. There was a second and third range of fortifications behind the first, in case these should be forced, but no such emergency arose. When Masséna had carefully inspected the stupendous barrier reared in front of him, his well-trained eye recognised it as impregnable: he paused for some weeks under semblance of blockading the British forces, while he was really scouring the country for the means of feeding his own; but in November he began to retreat upon Santarem, Almeida, and Ciudad Rodrigo, with a half-starved and dispirited army, greatly reduced in numbers during the campaign.47
The year 1811 was perhaps the least interesting, yet the most critical in the history of the Peninsular war. Wellington had not escaped criticism at home for allowing Masséna to remain so long unmolested near Santarem. He described himself in a private letter, written in December, 1810, as "safe for the winter at all events". More he could not have said, knowing, as he did, that Soult was in force before Cadiz, and might at any moment join Masséna. This, in fact, he did; leaving his fields of plunder in Andalusia under the positive orders of Napoleon, he defeated the Spaniards at the Gebora on February 19, and captured Badajoz, as well as Olivenza. In his absence, Sir Thomas Graham, who commanded the British troops at Cadiz, sailed thence with La Peña, the Spanish commander, and a combined force of about 12,000 men, to make a flank march, and attack the French besiegers, under Victor, in the rear. A brisk action followed at Barrosa, in which Graham obtained a complete victory, but the Spanish troops, as usual, remained almost passive; the beaten army was not pursued, and the siege of Cadiz was not raised. This city was still the seat of the Spanish national government, but the feeble junta had been superseded by a national cortes, fairly representative of the nation, which passed some liberal measures, and dissolved the so-called regency which assumed to represent Ferdinand.
FUENTES D'ONORO AND ALBUERA.
The two great frontier fortresses of Spain, Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz, were now in the hands of the French. Masséna had regained the Spanish frontier in March, after frequent combats with the pursuing enemy, and with heavy losses in men and horses, though he saved every gun except one. This retreat involved the evacuation of every place in Portugal except the fortress of Almeida. Wellington's pursuit would have been still more vigorous, but that his Portuguese troops were half-starved, and had lost discipline under intolerable privations. His next design seems to have been the recapture of the fortresses, but he was not without ulterior hopes – all too premature – of afterwards pushing on to Madrid and operating in the eastern provinces of Spain. He first invested Almeida, and, leaving General Spencer to continue the blockade, proceeded to Elvas in order to concert measures with Beresford for the siege of Badajoz. Thence he was suddenly recalled northward to repel a fresh advance of Masséna, strongly reinforced, for the relief of Almeida. The battle which followed at Fuentes d'Oñoro, south-east of Almeida, was among the most hardly contested struggles in the whole Peninsular war. It began on May 3, and, with a day's interval, concluded on the 5th. The British remained masters of the field, and claimed a somewhat doubtful victory, which at least secured the evacuation of Almeida. The garrison of that fortress blew it up by night, and succeeded, by masterly tactics, in joining the main French army with little sacrifice of life.
Wellington returned to Badajoz, only to meet with disappointment. General Cole, acting under Beresford, had retaken Olivenza; but Soult, with a force of 23,000 men, was marching to succour Badajoz, when he was encountered by Beresford at Albuera. Beresford's force was numerically stronger than Soult's, but only 7,000 men were English, the rest being mostly Spanish. Measured by the proportion of losses to men engaged on both sides, this fight on May 16, 1811, must rank among the bloodiest on record. In four hours nearly 7,000 of the allies and 8,000 French were struck down. The decisive charge of the reserve was inspired and led by Hardinge, afterwards Governor-General of India; the French were routed, and Soult was checked, but little was gained by the victors.48 The siege of Badajoz, indeed, was renewed, but its progress was slow for want of proper engines and artillery, and it was abandoned, after two futile attempts, on June 11. By this time, Marmont had succeeded Masséna, and was carrying out Napoleon's grand plan for a junction with Soult's army and a fresh irruption into Portugal. With marvellous audacity, Wellington offered battle to both marshals, who, happily ignorant of his weakness, declined it more than once. In truth, he was never more nearly at the end of his resources than when he went into winter quarters at the close of 1811, having failed to prevent Marmont from provisioning Ciudad Rodrigo, and having narrowly escaped being overwhelmed by a much superior force. His army was greatly reduced by sickness, he was very ill-supplied from England, and he received no loyal support from the Portuguese government. Moreover, the French had apparently extended their hold on Spain, both in the eastern and northern provinces, while it was reported that Napoleon himself, not content with dictating orders from afar, would return to complete the conquest of the Peninsula.
At this juncture, he must have been cheered by the arrival of so able a lieutenant as Graham from Cadiz, and by the brilliant success of Hill against a detached body of Marmont's army south of the Tagus. There were other tendencies also secretly working in favour of the British and their allies. Joseph Bonaparte, as King of Spain, openly protested against the extortions which he was enjoined to practise on his subjects, and went so far as to resign his crown at Paris, though he was induced to resume it. Again the broken armies of the Spanish had reappeared in the form of guerilla bands under leaders such as Mina; they could not be dispersed, since they had no cohesion, and were more formidable through their extreme mobility than organised battalions. Above all, the domination of France over Europe was already undermined and tottering invisibly to its fall. The Tsar Alexander had, as we have seen, been deeply offended by the preference of an Austrian to a Russian princess, as the consort of Napoleon, and still more by his imperious annexation of Oldenburg. Sweden, following the example of Russia, had begun to rebel against the continental system. A series of internal reforms had aroused a national spirit, and stealthily created the basis of a national army in Prussia, and the intense hostility of all North Germany to France was thinly disguised by the unwilling servility of the Prussian court. Napoleon, who seldom laboured under the illusions propagated by his own manifestoes and bulletins, well knew what he was doing when, in August, 1811, he allowed himself to burst into a storm of indignation against the Russian ambassador at the Tuileries. From that moment he clearly premeditated a rupture with Russia, and soon he withdrew 60,000 of his best troops from Spain, to