The Regent João and his ministers had sought to walk a tightrope with a view to alienating neither Britain nor France after war between those two countries resumed in 1803. Pressure from French emissaries combined with that of the Francophile party in Portugal led to the reduction in size of the Portuguese army following Dom António de Araújo’s appointment as Minister for War in 1804. By 1806 there was widespread recognition of the need for further reform and an internal reorganisation was commenced in order to streamline the command and logistical supply of an army that contained perhaps 10,000–15,000 effectives; though in theory it was made up of 24 regiments of infantry, 12 regiments of cavalry, 4 regiments of artillery and 43 regiments of militia.65 However, little had been achieved when Junot led his forces into Lisbon in November 1807; and the small gains were swept away in his subsequent dismemberment of the Portuguese army. Nevertheless, the seeds had been sown and when the time came for Beresford to institute reform and rebuild the army he was to find in Forjaz an enthusiastic and able architect for change.
The nature and size of the challenge facing Beresford as well as the Portuguese and British armies in Portugal in early March was immense. Soult was on Portugal’s northern border, while Victor was on the Guadiana with the French 1st Corps and Sebastiani with the 4th Corps in the region of Salamanca, with the Spanish armies in disarray. Immediately Beresford had been appointed to command the army he had to face the invasion of Soult. Intelligence of Soult’s movements was obviously fairly good, for he was able to tell Brigadier General Charles Stewart on 17 March that the French had tried unsuccessfully to cross the Minho near its embouchure but had now crossed the river higher up and were attacking through Trás-os-Montes, where Silveira was retreating in what Beresford felt was a bad start. However, he sent two officers north to see what might be done, rather plaintively hoping the French might be pressed for provisions.66 He was obviously very concerned about the extent to which he might be able to organise the Portuguese regiments at short notice.67
Soult’s troops arrived at Porto and captured the city on 29 March, following a difficult march through northern Portugal during which they had been continuously harassed by Portuguese regular and irregular forces.68 Beresford declined a request to send Portuguese troops to defend that city on the basis that in their present state it would merely result in the loss of men and arms. He was aware that the city was in a state of ‘the greatest anarchy and insubordination and by the latest accounts the population entirely govern the civil and military’.69 His decision was almost certainly justified by the chaotic and vicious defence of Porto which followed the massacre of a number of Portuguese leaders, including their commander Lieutenant General Bernardim Freire and Brigadier Luis de Oliveira by fellow Portuguese.70 Beresford discussed the question of aid to Porto with General Cradock, passing on a request for help from the Regency. While recognising it was a decision for Cradock, he urged the latter to advance a British force as far north as Leiria in an effort to dissuade Soult from attempting to march on Lisbon. In response, Cradock did advance troops from his growing army to Óbidos and Rio Maior, moving his headquarters to Leiria.71
Both Beresford and Cradock realised that Lisbon was the key to Portugal and that it would be important not to allow Soult join with Marshal Victor’s corps, which was in Spain threatening the Portuguese frontier to the east of Lisbon. To that end Beresford directed the dispatch of 2,500 troops with Sir Robert Wilson to support the Spanish under General Cuesta on the Guadiana.72 Victor, however, advanced towards Badajoz and Cuesta suffered a bad defeat at Medellín on 28 March and was attempting to regroup. At the end of the month of March 1809 the Allied position appeared perilous. Cuesta’s defeat had opened up Andalucía to the French and the capture of Porto by Soult threatened to suffocate the rebirth of the Portuguese army, with the possibility that Soult would move on Lisbon in accordance with Napoleon’s orders. While some Portuguese regular troops and a considerable force of largely untrained militia had escaped across the Douro at the time of the fall of Porto, there was disagreement as to whether the Allies should try and hold the country between the Douro and the Mondego or merely concentrate on the defence of Lisbon.
With its wonderful natural harbour, Lisbon was recognised as the key to the country, but there was considerable unease amongst the Portuguese at the prospect of the abandonment of rich and fertile countryside and its population, and concern as to the intentions of the Portuguese Regency, as well as the British political and military establishment. General Silveira expressed his reluctance to leave the people and country north of the Douro, notwithstanding Beresford’s instructions that it was more important to maintain his force in retreat.73 The issue of whether to attempt to defend Portugal on its frontiers or to withdraw to a defensible position with the objective of making the defence of Lisbon the priority was one which was to raise its head repeatedly during the next few years.
The difficulties faced by Beresford at this time are exemplified by the experiences of the Irishman, Colonel Nicholas Trant, a British officer in the Portuguese service since 1808. Trant was at Coimbra when the news of the fall of Porto came through. He advised Beresford he had barely 1,100 militia and 200 students from Coimbra at his disposal, the first in the worst possible state, never having fired a blank cartridge, the latter in no way as enthusiastic as he had anticipated. His first action on arriving in Coimbra on 28 March had been to imprison the police guard corporal who had accompanied him from Lisbon, because he had shot a courier from General Miranda on the road from Pombal. Trant had hoped to march north but this would not be possible due to a lack of preparations and he opined the levée en masse would be of no assistance, and there was much despondency amongst all classes of the population.74 Trant determined to try to hold the line of the river Vouga and his little force was augmented by those who had escaped from Porto. He ordered the destruction of the bridge over the Vouga but was doubtful of his ability to check the French at the river if the enemy moved forward other than with reconnoitring parties. There were almost daily skirmishes along the rivers Vouga and the Ovar. Trant put the situation succinctly to Beresford. He explained that even after retreating southwards from Porto a forward movement with a force inferior to the enemy was required to assuage the fears of the people of the country and to inspire confidence in his own troops, who were by no means at his disposal following recent events, and a move forward was needed to calm their suspicion of ‘every movement of mine’. Clearly Trant was concerned that his own troops could turn on him and his officers if he retreated further, a not unsurprising fear given recent events prior to and during the siege of Porto.75 A mutiny by artillery sergeants required them to be treated as prisoners. Trant was clearly in a difficult position.
The position regarding the assembling of the ordenança was even more dire than the problems Beresford and his commanders faced with the army and the militia. Once again we have Trant’s opinion, this time that the levée en masse was of no assistance. The ordenança would assemble to defend their own village but were not inclined to form a disposable force. The Inspector General of Ordenança north of the Mondego had fled at the first approach of the French, and when Lieuteneant General de Mello ordered Major Albuquerque to join Trant with 8,000 ordenança, only 2,000 arrived. Desertion meant that only 200 remained a day after their arrival and this number had been reduced to 50 on the following day. Trant, however, found Albuquerque a most zealous fellow and made him an Inspector General. He also found time to praise other Portuguese officers.76
Trant may have been proposing to take on the French under a disadvantage, but he clearly did not lack initiative and even confidence in these early days for he sought Portuguese cavalry from Beresford in the beginning of May with a view to delivering a left hook around the back of the French as Soult advanced south from Porto.77 He even envisaged trying to take Porto by a coup de main.78 A year later, when Trant was threatened with removal from the Royal Staff Corps unless he returned to Britain, Wellington intervened telling Liverpool that ‘there is no officer the loss of whose services in this country would be more sensibly felt by the government and the people, and Marshal Beresford and myself, than those of Col. Trant’.79 Wellington