The Victory at Talavera and the Victor’s Reward
This signal victory was followed by another on July 27, 1809, when Wellesley, with 20,000 British soldiers and about 40,000 Spanish allies, met a French army of 60,000 men at Talavera in Spain. The battle that succeeded lasted two days. The brunt of it fell upon the British, the Spaniards proving of little use, yet it ended in the defeat of the French, who retired unmolested, the British being too exhausted to pursue.
The tidings of this victory were received with the utmost enthusiasm in England. It was shown by it that British valor could win battles against Napoleon’s on land as well as on sea. Wellesley received the warmest thanks of the king, and, like Nelson, was rewarded by being raised to the peerage, being given the titles of Baron Douro of Wellesley and Viscount Wellington of Talavera. In future we shall call him by his historic title of Wellington.
Men and supplies just then would have served Wellington better than titles. With strong support he could have marched on and taken Madrid. As it was, he felt obliged to retire upon the fortress of Badajoz, near the frontier of Portugal. Spain was swarming with French soldiers, who were gradually collected there until they exceeded 350,000 men. Of these 80,000, under the command of Massena, were sent to act against the British. Before this strong force Wellington found it necessary to draw back, and the frontier fortresses of Almeida and Ciudad Rodrigo were taken by the French. Wellington’s first stand was on the heights of Busaco, September, 1810. Here, with 30,000 men, he withstood all the attacks of the French, who in the end were forced to withdraw. Massena then tried to gain the road between Lisbon and Oporto, whereupon Wellington quickly retreated towards Lisbon.
Wellington’s Impregnable Lines at Torres Vedras
The British general had during the winter been very usefully employed. The road by which Lisbon must be approached passes the village of Torres Vedras, and here two strong lines of earthworks were constructed, some twenty-five miles in length, stretching from the sea to the Tagus, and effectually securing Lisbon against attack. These works had been built with such secrecy and despatch that the French were quite ignorant of their existence, and Massena, marching in confidence upon the Portuguese capital, was amazed and chagrined on finding before him this formidable barrier.
It was strongly defended, and all his efforts to take it proved in vain. He then tried to reduce the British by famine, but in this he was equally baffled, food being poured into Lisbon from the sea. He tried by a feigned retreat to draw the British from their works, but this stratagem failed of effect, and for four months more the armies remained inactive. At length the exhaustion of the country of provisions made necessary a real retreat, and Massena withdrew across the Spanish frontier, halting near Salamanca. Of the proud force with which Napoleon proposed to “drive the British leopards into the sea,” more than half had vanished in this luckless campaign.
The Siege and Capture of the Portuguese Fortresses
But though the French army had withdrawn from Portugal, the frontier fortresses were still in French hands, and of these Almeida, near the borders, was the first to be attacked by Wellington’s forces. Massena advanced with 50,000 men to its relief, and the two armies met at Fuentes-de-Onoro, May 4, 1811. The French made attacks on the 5th and 6th, but were each time repulsed, and on the 7th Massena retreated, sending orders to the governor of Almeida to destroy the fortifications and leave the place.
Another battle was fought in front of Badajoz of the most sanguinary character, the total loss of the two armies being 15,000 killed and wounded. For a time the British seemed threatened with inevitable defeat, but the fortune of the day was turned into victory by a desperate charge. Subsequently Ciudad Rodrigo was attacked, and was carried by storm, in January, 1812. Wellington then returned to Badajoz, which was also taken by storm, after a desperate combat in which the victors lost 5,000 men, a number exceeding that of the whole French garrison.
Wellington Wins at Salamanca and Enters Madrid
These continued successes of the British were seriously out of consonance with the usual exploits of Napoleon’s armies. He was furious with his marshals, blaming them severely, and might have taken their place in the struggle with Wellington but that his fatal march to Russia was about to begin. The fortress taken, Wellington advanced into Spain, and on July 21st encountered the French army under Marmont before the famous old town of Salamanca. The battle, one of the most stubbornly contested in which Wellington had yet been engaged, ended in the repulse of the French, and on August 12th the British army marched into Madrid, the capital of Spain, from which King Joseph Bonaparte had just made his second flight.
Vittoria and the Pyrenees
Wellington’s next effort was a siege of the strong fortress of Burgos. This proved the one failure in his military career, he being obliged to raise the siege after several weeks of effort. In the following year he was strongly reinforced, and with an army numbering nearly 200,000 men he marched on the retreating enemy, meeting them at Vittoria, near the boundary of France and Spain, on June 21, 1813. The French were for the first time in this war in a minority. They were also heavily encumbered with baggage, the spoils of their occupation of Spain. The battle ended in a complete victory for Wellington, who captured 157 cannon and a vast quantity of plunder, including the spoils of Madrid and of the palace of the kings of Spain. The specie, of which a large sum was taken, quickly disappeared among the troops, and failed to reach the treasure chests of the army.
The French were now everywhere on the retreat. Soult, after a vigorous effort to drive the British from the passes of the Pyrenees, withdrew, and Wellington and his army soon stood on the soil of France. A victory over Soult at Nivelle, and a series of successes in the following spring, ended the long Peninsular War, the abdication of Napoleon closing the long and terrible drama of battle. In the whole six years of struggle Wellington had not once been defeated on the battlefield.
His military career had not yet ended. His great day of glory was still to come, that in which he was to meet Napoleon himself in the field, and, for the first time in the history of the great Corsican, drive back his army in utter rout.
The Gathering of the Forces at Brussels
A year or more had passed since the events just narrated. In June, 1815, Wellington found himself at the head of an army some 100,000 strong, encamped around Brussels, the capital of Belgium. It was a mingled group of British, Dutch, Belgian, Hanoverian, German, and other troops, hastily got together, and many of them not safely to be depended upon. Of the British, numbers had never been under fire. Marshal Blücher, with an equal force of Prussian troops, was near at hand; the two forces prepared to meet the rapidly advancing Napoleon.
We have already told of the defeat of Blücher at Ligny, and the attack on Wellington at Quatre Bras. On the evening of the 17th the army, retreating from Quatre Bras, encamped in the historic field of Waterloo in a drenching rain, that turned the roads into streams, the fields into swamps. All night long the rain came down, the soldiers enduring the flood with what patience they could. In the morning it ceased, fires were kindled, and active preparations began for the terrible struggle at hand.
The Battlefield of Waterloo
Here ran a shallow valley, bounded by two ridges, the northern of which was occupied by the British, while Napoleon posted his army on its arrival along the southern ridge. On the slope before the British centre was the white-walled farm house of La Haye Sainte, and in front of the right wing the chateau of Hougoumont, with its various stout stone buildings. Both of these were occupied by men of Wellington’s army, and became leading points in the struggle of the day.
It was nine o’clock in the morning before the van-guard of the French army made its appearance on the crest of the southern ridge. By half-past ten 61,000 soldiers—infantry, cavalry, and artillery—lay encamped in full sight. About half-past eleven came the first attack of that remarkable day, during which the French waged an aggressive