6

not lie at Masséna's door. Sent to accomplish an impossible task,' he had done more than Napoleon could reasonably expect. The final causes of the failure were Napoleon's refusal to make a single commander-in-chief supreme over all the French armies in the Peninsula and his persistence in attempting to direct the war himself from Paris. He kept on issuing orders based on data already three weeks out of date when they were framed, and six weeks or more behind the times when they reached their destination. As Prof. Oman pertinently asks (p. 29), ' of what value to Soult on January 22 were orders based on the condition and projects of Masséna on October 29?'

Some of Napoleon's partisans have sought to make Soult the scapegoat for Masséna's reverses. Prof. Oman shows clearly how unjustifiable this is. The co-operation of the Army of Andalusia formed no part of the original project. Bussaco had already been fought when Napoleon first proposed to draw Mortier's Fifth Corps into Estremadura in order to prevent la Romana from joining Wellington. The suggestion that Mortier ought to have followed la Romana to Torres Vedras reveals its author's utter misunderstanding of the situation in Estremadura and Andalusia. In the end Soult did, quite on his own initiative, invade Estremadura in January 1811 with 20,000 men, collected by a dangerous reduction of the force holding down Andalusia. His invasion met with uncovenanted mercies.' Mendizabal's miserable tactics gratuitously sacrificed the Army of Estremadura at the Gebora, perhaps the most disgraceful of the Spanish reverses (p. 54). Yet this was eclipsed by the shameful action of Imaz in surrendering Badajoz when the fortress was far from being untenable and when he knew relief was on its way. No more fateful shot was fired in the war than the cannon-shot by which the original governor of Badajoz, the resolute and resourceful Menacho, was killed on March 3. Had he survived, Soult would never have taken Badajoz, certainly not in time to make it defensible before Beresford could come up. And, once in French keeping, Badajoz was a millstone round Wellington's neck which hindered all his movements for over a year. The pusillanimous Imaz was responsible for the carnage at Albuera, for the three British sieges of Badajoz

and for the necessity in which Wellington found himself of leaving quite a strong portion of his force in Estremadura. Soult had done much, but his operations had not helped Masséna, who had begun his retreat a week before Badajoz fell. But, had Masséna held on longer, Soult could have done no more for him. Already he had been too long absent from Andalusia. He left Mortier behind in Estremadura, but Mortier had to recoil when Beresford pushed forward across the Guadiana and besieged Badajoz. To save Badajoz Soult once again stripped Andalusia of troops, but, though his advance raised the siege, the desperate conflict of Albuera, the most honourable of all Peninsular blazons on a regimental flag,' was a real defeat for him. It was a soldiers' battle, but Beresford hardly deserves the savage and sweeping censures of Napier (p. 398). The 'real hero of the fight' Prof. Oman finds in Lowry Cole, whose dispositions for the decisive advance of the Fourth Division were as skilful as his determination to deliver that stroke was daring. And while Blake was slow in altering his position, the Spaniards of Zayas' division did admirable work. Napier has been as unfair to them as to Beresford.*

Albuera did little for Badajoz. Three days after the battle Wellington had started for Estremadura with two divisions. He could do this because Almeida was in his hands, and on May 3 and 5 he had inflicted on Masséna a reverse which nearly equalled Bussaco. It speaks well for Masséna that within a month of Sabugal he was able to bring the disorganised Army of Portugal to the front again, but his tactics on May 3 suggest that he had learnt little from experience. The attack on Fuentes de Oñoro was reminiscent of Bussaco and was repulsed with equally disproportionate loss to the assailants. In the second day's fighting Massena drove in the Seventh Division, which Wellington had posted wide on his flank. However, renewed attacks on Fuentes failed to wrest it from Wellington, and until it was captured an assault on the strong main position to which Wellington had withdrawn his exposed wing offered little prospect of success.

As a matter of simple arithmetic it is difficult to arrive at Napier's *1800 unwounded men, the remnant of 6000': there were over 9000 British in the battle, among whom there were just 4000 casualties,

In his discussion of Wellington's tactics at Fuentes (pp. 343-8) Prof. Oman is excellent, showing how unconvincing many of Napier's criticisms are when the facts are thoroughly investigated. Undoubtedly Houston's division was driven in, but it only lost 250 men and was never in danger from the French infantry, while the ineffectiveness of the French cavalry against steady infantry was never so clearly displayed as in this day's fighting. To talk, as Napier does, of what Napoleon would have done in Marmont's place is really futile. Wellington knew what he had against him, and it is absurd, on the strength of what did not happen, to represent the battle as a French victory. If Imaz had not surrendered Badajoz Wellington would not have been without the Fusiliers and the Die Hards' of Albuera. One might bandy 'ifs' for ever. After all, it was more in his great strategical combinations than in tactics that the Emperor's special strength lay.

His

If beaten at Fuentes, Masséna had at least the satisfaction of knowing that the garrison of Almeida had escaped. For this, which was a great vexation to Wellington, Mr Oman fixes the responsibility on the author of many another mishap, Erskine, a subordinate whom political interest had inflicted on his chief. But the old Marshal had seen his last battle in Spain: on May 10 Marmont arrived to supersede him. Of Marmont Prof. Oman gives an excellent portrait (pp. 358-60). military capacity has been undervalued; a skilful strategist, a talented organiser, a better colleague than most of the Marshals, his weak point lay in tactical execution; the critical moment often found him lacking in resolution. But in his first months in command of the Army of Portugal he showed wonderful energy and not less remarkable readiness to subordinate his own chances of distinction to the good of the French arms as a whole. By June he had not only reorganised his command, re-equipped and clothed his men, but had restored their morale, so that it was a most efficient force which he led across the Tagus into Estremadura. His presence there was urgently needed, for Wellington was pressing Badajoz hard, and Soult was too weak to raise the siege. Marmont was only just in time. Hampered though Wellington was by the weakness of his siege

train (p. 419) and by his engineers' mistakes, Badajoz was nearing starvation. Philippon had actually resolved to imitate Brennier at Almeida if help did not come soon, when, on June 10, Wellington resolved to raise the siege, fell back before Soult and Marmont, and took up a position astride the Caya, in which he could offer battle with every confidence. One of his flanks rested on the fortress of Elvas, the other on mountainous country. By this time he had been joined by the divisions left on the Coa, which had moved south parallel with Marmont; and thus his force was within a few thousands of the 60,000 men whom the French concentration had brought together. Napier calls the moment one of the most dangerous of the whole war,' and says 'a great battle was in the interests of the French' a very doubtful verdict. As he himself says, 'the blood spilled at Albuera still reeked in the nostrils of Soult's soldiers.' Neither Marshal fancied attacking Wellington in a position of his own selection; they were content to hold him in check. The offensive spirit had passed from them to him.

Moreover, as usual, there was a price to pay for concentration. Badajoz delivered meant trouble elsewhere the Asturias evacuated, Bessières' Army of the North fully occupied with the guerillas, Andalusia endangered, for Wellington had already despatched thither Blake and his Spaniards. The diversion fulfilled Wellington's anticipations (p. 445). Soult had to hasten off to Seville, leaving Marmont too weak to do anything but retire to the Tagus valley, where he spent July and August, his troops widely dispersed and in great straits for food. The French had now lost the initiative, they had to wait on Wellington's movements and be satisfied if they could thwart him. Thus what brought Marmont into the field again was another fortress in danger. On returning from Badajoz to Beira (August) Wellington had blockaded Ciudad Rodrigo, and to assist Marmont to relieve it Dorsenne had to collect half the Army of the North, with the usual corollary of letting territory lapse to the guerillas. This episode was marked by one of Wellington's rare slips' (p. 572). Instead of promptly retiring to his selected position Wellington left his advanced divisions, Picton's and Craufurd's, perilously near the enemy, and only the admirable conduct of the

Third Division at El Bodon extricated them. Even then had Marmont attacked in force at Fuente Guinaldo, he would have caught Wellington with under half his army. But once again he shrank from attacking Wellington. Bussaco and Fuentes had instilled into French minds a belief well summed up in the opinion attributed to Montbrun, 'The English position is impregnable; what proves it is that Wellington is offering battle upon it' (p. 576). It was not, then, wholly to fortune that Wellington owed the safe passage of this crisis. He had calculated on being able to bluff the French, and had not calculated wrongly. But Graham's ' But Graham's very pretty-but spun rather fine' expresses one's feelings.

The real criticism is that no adequate object was to be achieved by running the risk.

With the revictualling of Ciudad Rodrigo and the dispersion of Marmont's and Dorsenne's armies into their old cantonments, the operations of 1811 ended, save for one episode-Hill's brilliant surprise of Girard at Arroyo des Molinos (pp. 596-8). Confined as a rule to the rôle of observation, Hill was an 'executive officer of the highest merit,' capable of planning and conducting most difficult operations, and this blow, which filled Soult with apprehension and for a time severed his communications with Marmont, is a proof of Hill's brilliancy as well as his prudence. On a smaller scale it resembles the stroke Wellington was even then carefully preparing the sudden dash on Ciudad Rodrigo, with which 1812 opened. For Prof. Oman's account of that and of the subsequent operations of the great Salamanca campaign we must wait for his fifth volume.

Two interesting questions suggest themselves. How would Napoleon's presence in Spain have influenced the course of events? Why did he never return thither? To discuss what never happened might seem superfluous, but some cautions may be urged against the hasty assumption that Napoleon had only to cross the Pyrenees to dissipate all the obstacles to the French conquest of the Peninsula. His presence would have substituted a single will for quarrelling Marshals, each intent on his own immediate success, but the stony narrow track' from Pinhel to Vizeu would not have smoothed itself out because Napoleon was using it; the barren valley of the