lington has been criticised for missing opportunities of falling on isolated detachments of the French during this period: he might, for example, have destroyed Junot at Sobral, but he knew Masséna was as anxious to be attacked as he himself had been to see Masséna run his head against the Lines. Cut off from all communication with Spain-Trant's militia re-occupied Coimbra and captured 5000 French sick and wounded three days after Masséna moved forward thence, and the only messengers who got through had to be escorted by whole battalions -in ever greater straits for food, unsupported by any of his colleagues, Masséna's only hope lay in inducing Wellington to attack his well-chosen position. But Wellington knew that a merely partial success would not be worth the cost, since, if he waited, starvation would achieve his purpose; he calculated that a real success would mean 10,000 casualties, a higher price than he was prepared to pay, especially as, in Mr Fortescue's words, 'success would probably have meant the raising of the siege of Cadiz and the transfer of Soult's army to Portugal.' Prof. Oman takes much the same view. Though criticising Wellington's conduct of the pursuit to Santarem, he admits that the destruction of a French corps or division would not have fitted in with Wellington's plan of letting the Portuguese winter do his work for him. As Mr Fortescue suggests, a defeat which caused the French to evacuate Portugal in November would have harmed them infinitely less than did their long endurance at Santarem.

With Masséna's retreat to Santarem Mr Fortescue's narrative ceases for the present, so that for the campaign of 1811 one has not the advantage of comparing his version with Prof. Oman's latest volume, which covers the events of that year. In this volume Prof. Oman surpasses his own high standard. He handles his material even more skilfully; his criticisms and conclusions are even more convincing; and the narrative moves on no less lucidly or briskly. Barrosa, Fuentes de Oñoro and Albuera give him a splendid theme: his treatment is worthy of it.

Masséna's tenacity in unexpectedly remaining at Santarem till March 1811 must have given Wellington some anxious moments before it finally broke down. There

was always the fear that reinforcements might come through, and had Wellington been more fully informed that one general action must empty the French cartridgeboxes, he might well have struck sooner. But he was waiting for the reinforcements which enabled him to complete the new division which he had formed in October and to add yet another, and he was actually planning an offensive when Masséna withdrew. Indeed, it was because he was thus occupied that the pursuit was at first a trifle slow. Of the closing stages of Masséna's stay at Santarem, the alternatives before him, and his reasons for retiring by the line of his advance, Prof. Oman gives an excellent description (iv, 77 ff.). To cross the Tagus and retire through the undevastated Alemtejo seemed preferable; but, with Wellington ready to meet it, the attempt to cross would probably have produced disaster, and, even had the French been so lucky as to get across, they would have been losing their communications. Moreover, Masséna certainly intended to stand on the Lower Mondego; he never expected to be pursued so closely as to have to retire directly to the frontier. Wellington's pursuit has been criticised as over-cautious, but it kept Masséna on the move till he reached Celorico, and it left his army in a sorry plight. Moreover, Wellington had little numerical superiority, and there was nothing to be gained by premature attacks on well-posted rear-guards. Prof. Oman analyses in masterly fashion the actions which accompanied the retreat. The French thought of them as a series of successful checks to the pursuers; English writers represent them as the hunting of the whole French army from position to position by the unaided advance-guard of the British. But, as Prof. Oman says, 'all rear-guard actions begin with a check to the pursuers, they end with the retreat of the defenders. Ney's handling of the rear-guard covered him with credit, while the Light Division added to their laurels in every engagement, even if their temporary commander, Erskine, was less fortunate. His maladroitness was most conspicuous in the combat of Sabugal, where, but for his blundering, Reynier's corps might have been destroyed.

With Masséna's retreat from Sabugal, which left Wellington free to blockade Almeida, the invasion of Portugal ended. The responsibility for its failure does

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.

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). His 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