The Last Cartridge
Battle of Fuente Ovejuna
7th September 1810

A Tale of the Napoleonic Wars
Based on a True Story

Another Battle

by Richard "Rifleman" Rutherford-Moore

Another tiny battle had been fought out on the Cordoba road the same day. The guerilleros had ambushed and fired on the officer d'ordonnence and his escort but had failed to stop it. The sole result of this minor engagement on a dusty Spanish roadside had been the loss of three horses, two Chasseurs and one partisan; the message about Morillo's excursions got through to French Headquarters at Cordoba late that night - Colonel Bony with the 51eme Regiment was sent at first light on a rescue mission to Fuente Ovejuna. The French counteroffensive from Seville met and forced back La Romana's offensive manoeuvre; stout old Mortier was sent by Marshal Soult - the French military ruler of Southern Spain - and Mortier soundly beat the Spanish army once again at Fuente de Cantos, when La Romana was caught between the two advancing French forces. The Spanish Army was in danger of falling apart on the subsequent retreat back towards Badajoz; the Portuguese cavalry did their best to halt the French pursuit by turning and advancing, taking some prisoners but most of all buying precious time for La Romana to reach safety. La Romana threw part of his army into Badajoz as he marched past it, hoping the fortress he was leaving behind him would stop Mortier from pursuing him. The last Spanish army stood at bay, under the guns of the fortress of Elvas in Portugal. Into the void in Andalusia left behind by the French army pursuing La Romana, the guerilleros poured in and caused complete and utter insurgence once again in all the former settled areas. Andalusia despite all their care, was a hotbed of revolt against the French army once again. In the north, the Anglo-Portuguese army had given Massena a very bloody nose during the retreat after he had sent the French army up an un-reconnoitered mountainside at Busaco and found Wellington's army at the top; that night the French settled into very uncomfortable bivouacs at the base of the mountain, having been repulsed all along the line riddled with bullets and suffering heavy losses. Massena followed Wellington down the road towards Lisbon, quite content to allow them go home, back to England. He didn't want another Corunna.12 Marshal Massena had then discovered the Lines of Torres Vedras. Sending General Saint-Cyr on a reconnaissance, a message came back to Massena that he had been cut in two by a cannonball whilst looking at the Lines through his telescope. Where had all these fortified hills with cannon come from? Why didn't they know about them? His staff said Wellington had built them - Massena erupted "Damn it! Wellington can't manufacture Mountains!" There was no weak spot to attack. Wellington had walled himself in, twenty miles from Lisbon. There was to be no return to England. The Lines were manned with Portuguese auxiliaries and the regular army stood ready behind them ready to reinforce any threatened sector. The bases at Lisbon daily sent up to the Lines more food and ammunition than any Napoleonic soldier had ever seen in one place at one time, unloaded from countless vessels bringing England's mighty manufacturing capacity to the Peninsula in a constant flow. It was the best-kept secret of the war. [11] Massena - the 'Spoilt Child of Fortune', as Napoleon would call him later - sat in front of them for seven months until his skeletal soldiers had almost starved to death on the scorched earth at the very end of their lengthy supply lines; then he went back to Spain. Marshal Soult came up himself from Seville and besieged Badajoz in January 1811. After many attempts, with the Spanish garrison vigorously defending the fortress, their brave commander was killed during a sortie from the fortress walls. A man named Imaz succeeded to the command; he promptly surrendered the fortress in March on terms extremely favourable to the French, for a sum of money. It was a terrible blow to Spanish hopes. In the south, Cadiz - however hard the French tried to take it - still held out. Wellington had drawn the line in Portugal, but no Frenchman stepped over it - the French were never again to come so close to victory in the Peninsula. The war in Spain and Portugal moved on into the stalemate of 1811. In 1812, Napoleon invaded Russia; Wellington captured both the frontier fortresses of Cuidad Rodrigo and Badajoz, and in July that year crushed Marshal Massena's successor, Marmont, and the French Army in a decisive battle at Salamanca. For the French people; as Wellington with the combined Anglo-Portuguese army and the Spanish army, the Prussians, Russians and Austrians gathered along their frontiers; the once brightly burning star of Napoleon was dimming. In forgotten Fuente Ovejuna, poppies grew tall from the freshly turned earth. Epilogue Capitaine Cyr Billot and eight survivors were exchanged from a prison camp in Portugal by a special arrangement by the Spanish 6th Light Infantry - one of the regiments Billot found against at Fuente Ovejuna - and rejoined the 51eme Infanterie de Ligne. On May 22nd 1811, Cyr Billot - still limping badly - was honoured for the defence of Fuente Ovejuna and given the cherished Croix de Legion de Honneur . They had held the Spanish for thirteen hours, losing them two days march and exhausting their sparse food and precious ammunition, and knocking them up so badly that Morillo's once 2000-strong division were of little use in the rest of the campaign; although in later campaigns Morillo himself became one of Wellington's Divisional commanders. The French counterattack swept up from Seville and Cordoba - passing through Fuente Ovejuna - and onto the flank of La Romana, who had to retreat in haste; many French soldiers and commanders wanted to take a terrible revenge for Billot's company. Cyr Billot himself had many more adventures - finally in 1815, he found himself standing with his old comrades in the Emperor's Grande Armee again, on a dark, wet ridge at Mont St Jean in Belgium, near a small village named Waterloo. Footnotes [1] Tio Pepe - 'Uncle Joe' - the Spanish nickname for King Joseph, Napoleon's brother on the throne of Spain; by the Cortes, the more liberal-minded Spanish politicians who formed Joseph's Government. They soon found him to be an inspired reformer and head of state; but unlike his brother, an inept soldier. In older provincial Spanish bars, you sometimes see a dark bottle of 'Tio Pepe' lurking on a dusty top shelf. [2] The 'Dos de Mayo' immortalised by Goya in his 'Horrors of War'. The French soldier was supposed to be at war only with Britain and its oldest ally, Portugal - in reality little difference was applied to the different populations, particularly along the frontier. [3] You still see these enormous claypot silos dotted around Spain today, enormous empty earthenware containers that defy movement by a single rifleman! (I climbed into one on the Medellin hill at Talavera). Nicknamed 'Lightning' by his troops, Junot had certainly made fast work of the Royal Palace at Lisbon - he had all their linen and silk tablecloths run up into shirts. [4] A Hungarian word in origin meaning a military cap; often tall and unwieldy, giving protection from heavy blows coming from above but mostly to make a man look taller than he actually is. [5] Many soldiers become good linguists overseas - it is all to do with obtaining women, drink and food. The only Portuguese Billot probably learned was "Alimento, obrigado; ovelha, gado; garo - vinho." Roughly translated, this means "Food, please - mutton or beef - bread and wine." It just about sums up what Portugal could offer in Billot's opinion. [6] Depending on whose 'league' you use - English, French or Spanish - somewhere between nine and thirty miles. [7] Spanish roads and poor forage were the death of horses. French aides reckoned on doing twenty miles per day on their poor grass-fed remounts; English aides mounted on their oat-fed thoroughbreds reckoned on doing eighteen miles per hour. Wellington himself once rode seventy miles in one day on a round trip to visit an outlying post, and did not consider it an extraordinary feat. [8] Napoleon's infantry were derogatively nicknamed Invincibles in the early days of the Peninsular War by the British soldier. [9] Company orders that were pasted up at the evening meal, which was invariably 'soup'. [10] A military term meaning any obstacle that causes you to alter the formation of your line of march, like a 'bottleneck' - i.e. a bridge, a river ford, a mountain pass. [11] Wellington's retreat to the Lines was made more remarkable in that he took more prisoners on it than Massena did advancing. The Lines of Torres Vedras are three 'lines' of fortified hills and enhanced or engineered obstacles that stretch across from the Atlantic Coast to the river Tagus. The first line was only meant as a temporary 'holding' defence - in actuality it was held by the Portuguese militia in the face of the French who showed no inclination to attack them whilst the Anglo-Portuguese army stood ready to march to any point the French chose to threaten, which they did only once. That they were completely unknown to the French before they bumped into them - literally, and got a severe shock when they did - was possibly Wellington's greatest achievement and are certainly his largest monument. They still exist for explorers to find today. [12] The terrible retreat/pursuit over snow-covered mountains in December 1808 - January 1809 which ended in a battle between the almost worn-out armies at the coastal town of Corunna. Sir John Moore was killed but the French under Marshal Soult were desperately held at all points of attack. The British army left for home on the ships of the Royal Navy and the almost wrecked French army struggled down into Portugal to Oporto to lick their wounds and recover from the effects of the campaign. [13] At least Napoleon asked - he didn't wait for permission before the first French soldiers had already crossed the frontier. [14] The cruel reprisals of the Dos de Mayo after the uprising can be seen commemorated by Goya in his "Horrors of War"; the Spanish Royal Family were Bourbons, the same as Louis XVI of France who had been guillotined during the Revolutionary Terror. Their removal was nothing to do with the ideals of the Revolution - just Napoleon dynasty-building through military politics. [15] Sir Arthur Wellesley became Arthur, Viscount Wellington after this battle - he got his promotion before the British Government found out he'd retreated afterwards and not captured Madrid, and his Spanish allies under Don Gregorio Cuesta were destroyed by the French pursuit; Wellesley marched back to Portugal with his half-starved army and said he'd never trust Spanish armies as allies again until he was in command of them. He eventually did both. [16] Napoleon's maxim - "Morale is to the Physical in the ratio of Four to One" - roughly translated into verbatim this means that the upkeep of the soldiers' morale is three-quarters the Art of War. [17] The 'Eagle' presented personally by Napoleon was the personification of the regiment and their soldiers' pride - no shame was attached to this incident when it was lost to the enemy as the soldiers defended it to the death. In a strange twist of fate, the British 51st Regiment burned their Regimental Colours during the battle of Fuentes D'Onoro in 1811 to prevent capture by the French - their colonel was later sent home in ignominious shame for it. [18] The Marques de la Romana - a picturesque character who had been serving with Spanish troops as part of Napoleon's army in Holland. When the news about Spain reached them 1n 1808, the Royal Navy were sent in reply to Romana's secret request for repatriation - the Navy lifted La Romana and all his troops out from under the noses of the French and took them back to Spain. La Romana served with Sir John Moore in the first advance into Spain, and suffered horribly on the Retreat to Corunna. Acknowledgements With acknowledgements and grateful thanks to : Msr Jean-Pierre Reverseau, Musee Des Invalides, Paris Lte.-Col. Bodinier, Archives Commision, Armee du Terre Sergeant Richard Ransome and Soldat Neil James for advice and helping with translations from manuscripts Fuente Ovejuna More Last Cartridge Last Cartridge: Introduction Last Cartridge: French 51st Regt Last Cartridge: Preparations Last Cartridge: First Attack Last Cartridge: Crisis Last Cartridge: Last Defense at the Church Last Cartridge: Another Battle Last Cartridge: Authors Note Back to Table of Contents -- First Empire #50 Back to First Empire List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2000 by First Empire. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com