On 18 October 1807. General Junot led a French army of some 25,000 men into Spain en route for Portugal. Just thirtyone days later Junot reached Lisbon. His forced marches had left most of his troops straggling miles to the rear and the French general arrived before the Portuguese capital with scarcely 2,000 men.

Soldier of the Guard of Porto Santo on the island of Madeira, 1805. The all blue uniform was piped and faced with yellow.

Lisbon was a city of 800,000 people garrisoned with 14,000 regular soldiers [1] yet not a shot was fired in its defence and the capital meekly succumbed to Junot's ragged and footsore columns.

Though the Portuguese Army had not dared to oppose the French invasion Junot ordered its disbandment which was effected by the Maruis d'Alorna. the Inspector General of the Army on 5 March 1808. [2] The Marquis was invited to raise a corps of Portuguese troops for service with the French Army to which many of the more able officers and the best of the other ranks enlisted. These troops were lost to Portugal returning to their country only as invaders or prisoners branded as traitors.

Although French rule was far from popular Junot was under no threat from a general rebellion in Portugal. The Royal Family and most of the leading men of the country had fled to the Portuguese colony of Brazil. The kingdoms only major arsenal and store of muskets and powder was at Lisbon. safely under Junot's control. Deprived of the resources of the capital the Portuguese could never hope to drive out the French by armed insurrection without outside assistance.

The uprising in Spain in May 1808, however, changed the situation completely. Junot's communications with Madrid were severed and in the country districts in the north of Portugal the first signs of organised resistance were becoming increasingly evident. The French commander realised that he could not hope to hold down the entire country and so he concentrated his forces at Lisbon leaving garrisons only in the important fortresses of Almeida, Elvas and Peniche.

The Portuguese rebellion eventually centered on Oporto where a "Supreme Junta of the Kingdom" was elected with the Bishop of Oporto at its head. The Junta called out the militia and reconstructed some of the regiments of the old regular army. The dismissed troops were called back to the colours along with their officers and altogether 5,000 infantry and 300 cavalry were raised, and four Line infantry regiments, a battalion of Cacadores and three cavalry regiments were formed.

This was all the Junta achieved in the seven weeks before the arrival of Sir Arthur Wellesley and the first contingents of the British Expeditionary Force sent to help liberate the Peninsula. It was arranged that the Portuguese regiments which were under the command of Bernardino Freire at Coimbra would combine with the British but Freire demanded that Wellesley should provide rations for the Portuguese troops.

As the British were solely dependent upon the Royal Navy for their supplies it was impossible for Wellesley to feed all the Portuguese. Finally it was just 260 cavalry of the 6th. I I th and l2th Regiments 562 men of the 6th Cacadores and 1.514 infantry of the 12th, 21st, and 24th regiments of the Line, which accompanied the British in their advance towards Lisbon. [3]

The first serious clash between the allies and the French was at Rolica. Wellesley attempted to turn the French position with the Portuguese under Colonel Trant, a British officer in the Portuguese service forming the right wing. The French managed to disengage and retreat without suffering any considerable loss. The Portuguese were not engaged at Rolica but at Vimeiro four days later the cavalry were given their first opportunity to win glory. As the defeated French columns withdrew Wellesley ordered his cavalry to charge the retreating enemy. Together 240 men of the British Light Dragoons and the 260 Portuguese troopers moved from behind Vimiero. But after a few hundred yards and on coming under fire the Portuguese broke and fled to the rear. It was the first of many embarrassing displays from the Portuguese cavalry.

Following their defeat at Vimeiro the French were obliged to evacuate Portugal. This gave the Portuguese a chance to reestablish their military organisations. The Regency Council. which the Prince Regent had formed to govern the kingdom in his absence, was re-convened and the Oporto Supreme Junta was dissolved. The Regency ordered the complete restoration of the regular army as well as the militia and the armed bands of the Ordenanza.

Such a task, however, proved to be beyond the means of the Portuguese authorities and in February 1809 they asked for British help in re-building the army.

The man that the Portuguese wanted was naturally enough, Wellesley. But Sir Arthur with greater ambitions in mind, declined. Instead the offer was passed on to Major-General William Carr Beresford who took up the post of commander-in-chief of the Portuguese army with the local rank of Marechal do Campo, in March 1809. Beresford had served as Governor of Madeira and had some knowledge of the Portuguese language.

The old Portuguese army had been organised into three regional Grand Divisions and each regiment was permanently based in its own recruiting area, this district or town usually being named in the regimental title. This helped to give the regiment a strong local identity and it meant that in times of war all available men from the district with previous service in the ranks could be quickly summoned to the colours.

In theory the twenty-four Line infantry regiments. the six Cacadores (light infantry) battalions, the twelve cavalry regiments, and the four artillery regiments together should have totalled almost 51,000 men. [4]

However the army had been seriously under-establishment for decades and by November 1808 only 22,361 infantry, 3,422 cavalry and 4,031 artillery had been mustered. [4] To bring the regiments up to full strength the old conscription laws were enforced. It was the responsibility of the Captain-Major of the Ordenanza of each district to select and collect recruits from all the able-bodied young men who could be removed from their lands with the least inconvenience to local agriculture. The militia were recruited in much the same way from those men not selected for the regular army. The few old men and boys that remained in the district after the regiments of the army and the militia had been completed formed the Ordenanza. In this way almost every male in the country capable of bearing arms was a soldier of some description. [6]

There was one other important irregular force that was raised at this time, the celebrated Loyal Lusitanian Legion. Formed around a cadre of Portuguese officers who had fled to England following the French invasion, the Legion was recruited at Oporto in November of 1808 under the command of Sir Robert Wilson. Within a few days 3,000 men had been enlisted but initially Wilson was only able to arm 1,300 with the equipment that he had brought with him from England.

At its height the Legion comprised three battalions of infantry, each of ten companies, three incomplete squadrons of cavalry and a brigade of artillery with four-pounder cannon and two howitzers. The actual effective strength of the Legion was around 2,000 men.

The Legion performed magnificently around the Beira frontier during the winter of 1808-9 and in May, 1809 fought a brilliant rearguard action delaying the advance into Portugal of Victor's entire corps of over 11,000 men. After the Talavera campaign the L.L.L. operated with the main Anglo-Portuguese army fighting at Bussaco and Albuera. In 1811 the Legion was disbanded with the three battalions becoming the 7th 8th and 9th Cacadores.

The return of the old troops to their regiments and the trickle of new recruits to the depots created further problems. Junot had confiscated and destroyed most of the store of weapons of the old army and in September 1808 the authorities were able to arm and equip only 13.600 men. Vast quantities of muskets were imported from Britain between August and December and by the beginning of December there were 31,833 troops fully equipped for service in the field including 2,052 cavalry. [7]

There were still some 1,400 cavalry without mounts and the lack of horseflesh in Portugal was also a severe handicap to the mobility to the artillery. Portugal was not a horse-breeding country and with the British cavalry also competing for the limited supply of remounts it was not possible to procure sufficient horses for all the regiments. As a result four of the twelve regiments were sent to perform garrison duty in the country's fortresses and their mounts were distributed amongst the remaining eight. [8]

Having mustered and equipped the various regiments they now had to be turned into a cohesive fighting force. For this to be accomplished each battalion and squadron had to be furnished with the correct number of efficient and experienced officers. The officers, like their men, had been recalled and most reoccupied their former posts, but few possessed the military knowledge or ability to lead their commands effectively.

The Portuguese officer corps was notoriously unprofessional and many of them were far too old to remain on active service. One-third of all the officers were selected from deserving sergeants of the Line regiments. The other two-thirds were chosen from cadets who accompanied the regiments to learn the profession of arms. Only members of the nobility (Fidalgos) were eligible to be cadets. One of the problems with the existing army was that where a regiment was commanded by an officer who was not a Fidalgo the regiment suffered as the commanding officer dare not force any Fidalgo under his command to do his duty in case he made a powerful enemy. As a result the Fidalgos did as they pleased.

Berseford therefore decided that the only way to bring the army up to British standards of discipline and training was to draft British officers into every regiment. Beresford though, had to be careful not to injure Portuguese pride and patriotism, for to simply remove all the senior officers would have appeared a gross insult.

His way of solving the problem was to make a general rule that wherever a Portuguese officer was in command of a regiment or a battalion he should have a British officer as second in command under him and similarly, if a British officer was the regimental or battalion commander, his second in command was Portuguese. If a brigade was given to a Portuguese then the two colonels of the regiments that formed the brigade were both British. In addition it was intended that there would be from two to four British captains in each battalion but no subalterns, which meant that there would still be openings in the junior ranks for the patriotic young Portuguese.

To encourage ambitious British officers to transfer to the Portuguese service they were offered a step in rank upon joining the Portuguese Army. So a British lieutenant became a Portuguese captain, and a British captain became a Portuguese major, and so on. They retained their rank and seniority in the British Army and they received the pay from both their British and Portuguese commissions. Many of the old or incompetent Portuguese officers were either dismissed or given relatively unimportant administrative posts to make way for the influx of the British officers.

Between 15 March and 4 July 1809, 108 Portuguese officers were retired, most of whom were captains or lieutenants, and in July a further 107 were dismissed from the service. Despite the offer of promotion few British officers were willing to transfer to the Portuguese Army, especially as their date of commission into the Portuguese service usually meant that they were junior to the Portuguese officers of the same rank. Nevertheless. by the end of October eighty-four officers had Joined the Portuguese Army and at the end of May the number had reached 107. [9]

Whilst the Portuguese struggled to re-build their army. the French were preparing to invade the country once again, and on 9 March 1809. Marshal Soult's II Corps crossed the Portuguese frontier, exactly five months after the last of Junot's troops had evacuated the country. In its wars against Spain in the previous century it was the armed peasants of the Ordenanza that had successfully resisted the invaders and it was to these ill-disciplined mobs that Portugal looked once again for its defence. Effective though the Ordenanza had been in defending the mountain passes over fifty years earlier, it could never hope to stand against a professional army of the 19th Century. Much time and money was wasted by the Portuguese government in reviving and arming the Ordenanza instead of channelling all its woefully slender resources towards the re-building of the regular army.

The force that was sent out to stop Soult consisted of the 12th and 24th Line Infantry regiments, the militia battalions of Chaves, Villa Real, Miranda, and Braganza, some 200 troopers of the 6th and 9th Cavalry regiments, and some 1000 Ordenanza armed with little more than pikes and agricultural implements. [10]

This force was unable to offer anything other than a token resistance and Soult soon reached the outskirts of Oporto. The city had been extensively fortified and there were some 30,000 men under arms to defend the northern capital, including seven battalions of Line Infantry, a battalion of the Luisitanian Legion? and some men of the 12th Cavalry regiment. Soult had only 16,000 men but he skillfully penetrated the defences and drove the Portuguese down to the banks of the River Douro where they perished in their thousands. [11]

It was at this time that Wellesley returned to the Peninsula to take command of the British and Portuguese forces. His first objective was to retake Oporto and once again clear the French from Portugal. For this he had some 23,000 British and almost 15,000 native troops.

Although the Portuguese regiments in the north had been destroyed at Oporto and the southern regiments were still forming, Beresford had managed to assemble ten Line infantry regiments, six battalions of Cacadores, and three cavalry regiments at Thomar and Abrantes. The Line infantry regiments were theoretically to comprise two battalions of five companies. Each battalion contained four companies of Fuziliers; and one of Grenadiers. The total complement of a regiment was twenty officers and 750 other ranks per battalion which, with the regimental staff, gave a total of 1550 men of all ranks. The Cacadores were single battalion formations consisting of five companies, four of which were Cacadores and one of Atiradores, or sharpshooters. In 1811 three more battalions were formed from the disbanded Loyal Lusitanian Legion and later that same year the force was increased to twelve battalions. The cavalry regiments were supposed to contain four squadrons, each of two companies. Theoretical strength was seventy-two men per company which, with a regimental staff of twenty-one, gave a figure of 597. In practice, however, these figures were never achieved. Some of the infantry regiments at this time could only muster a single battalion and the cavalry rarely fielded more than two or three weak squadrons. [12]

It was obviously impractical for Beresford to retain the brigading structure of the old divisional system and so on 29 September 1809 a General Order revised the pairing of the Line regiments. This new structure remained almost unaltered throughout the war. [13]

A great deal had been accomplished by Beresford in the six months since his appointment. The Portuguese infantry had retained the old Prussian system of formations and manoeuvre introduced into the Portuguese Army in 1762. For the Portuguese regiments to be able to integrate with the British on the battlefield their entire drill had to be changed to the British pattern. This job was entrusted to Major-General John Hamilton who was appointed Inspector-General of Infantry.

Hamilton ordered the British drill books to be translated into Portuguese and one or two good British sergeants were added to each battalion. Both battalions of a regiment fought together in the field giving a ten company formation allowing exact replication of the manoeuvres of a British ten company battalion. The Cacadores were trained in the "Rifle Regulations" of Coote Manningham and the cavalry and artillery likewise adopted British drill.

Though Wellington was far from impressed with the appearance of the Portuguese regiments Beresford attested to their improved condition "...they had applied of late so much ardour in their military education that some were already fit to take the field" observed Lord Londonderry "and it only required a little experience to put them on a level with the best troops in Europe. There was one brigade under General Campbell (the 4th and 10th regiments), which struck me as being in the finest possible order: it went through a variety of evolutions with a precision and correctness which would have done no discredit to our own army." [14]

Welleley therefore decided to brigade some of the more proficient regiments with the British divisions to form the main striking force in the attack upon Oporto. Some of the remaining regiments were organised into an independent division led by Beresford himself, whilst the rest formed part of a "containing force" which was to observe the movements of Victor's French army in Spanish Estremadura. [15]

It was intended that whilst the main force under Wellesley attacked Oporto, Berestord's column would cut off Soult's line of retreat. Beresford's division included one British brigade, one battalion from the 1st Portuguese Line regiment, two each from the 7th and 19th Line plus three squadrons from the 1st Cavalry regiment. Wellesley remained unsure of the capabilities of his allies and he advised Beresford to be extremely cautious. "I should not like to see a single British brigade supported by 6,000 or 8,000 Portuguese, exposed to be attacked by the French army" Wellesley warned Beresford, "in any but a good post." [16]

Wellesley was soon to revise his opinion of the Portuguese. As the main body of the Anglo-Portuguese army closed upon Oporto the French rearguard made a stand at Girjon. Instead of committing his troops to a frontal assault Wellesley planned to turn the French flank. Involved in this manoeuvre was a single battalion of the 16th Portuguese Line which was to attack through a wood on the right of the position. The 16th plunged into the trees without faltering and drove the French before them. Wellesley saw all this for himself and he was pleased to be able to agree that they had "behaved themselves remarkably well." [16]

Wellesley took Oporto and Soult was forced into a precipitate and costly retreat, being compelled to abandon almost all his artillery and baggage. With Portugal temporarily freed from the threat of invasion, Beresford could continue his work with the army and it was during this period, throughout the winter of 1809, that the real improvement in the effectiveness of the army took place. Depots were established in each province to accommodate and train the new recruits. They were situated at Lisbon Peniche, Elvas, Evora, Chaves, Viseu, Vianna and Oporto and each regiment was assigned to a particular depot. [18]

Although some men volunteered for service large numbers had to be conscripted, and as a result many absconded before they reached the depots. Initially the minimum height requirement was five feet four inches but in order to fill the ranks this was eventually reduced to just four feet, seven inches providing that the men were in good health. [19]

It was inevitable that the French would make another attempt at conquering Portugal and in the Spring of 1810 Beresford moved five brigades of infantry from their quarters around Thomar and Abrantes to join the British army on the frontier near Ciudad Rodrigo. The Spanish fortress was under siege by the French IV Corps which was part of Marshal Massena's "L'arm6e de Portugal". Ciudad Rodrigo capitulated on 9 July and ten days later the third invasion of Portugal began. Wellesley, now Viscount Wellington, had no intention of fighting the French army on the frontier. He had prepared a chain of earthwork redoubts at the Ponte de Murcella on the main highway to Lisbon and it was here that he planned to bring the invaders to battle. In case he failed to stop the French at Ponte de Murcella, Wellington had also constructed two strong lines of field fortifications near Lisbon - the famous Lines of Torres Vedras.

As the French advanced, so Wellington withdrew, but instead of taking the main highway Massena led his 64,000 men along an inferior road which by-passed Ponte de Murcells. This road however crossed the high steep ridge of the Serra be Bussaco. Here Wellington placed his army and waited for the French. He had added a Portuguese brigade to each of the 3rd and 4th Divisions and two to the recently formed 5th Division. The 1st and 3rd Cacadores were with the Light Division and Hamilton's Portuguese Division was attached to the 2nd Division. In addition there were four independent Portuguese brigades, each composed of two Line infantry regiments and one battalion of Cacadores. There were also four regiments of cavalry with the army, brigaded together under General Fane, and seven brigades of artillery, totalling forty-two guns drawn from all four artillery regiments. [20]

Out of Wellington's 52,274 men 24,429 were Portuguese.

In the ensuing battle the French were soundly beaten, the Portuguese playing their part to the full. Massena concentrated his forces on just two narrow points in the hope of penetrating the Anglo-Portuguese line with overwhelming strength. At the southern point of assault around the San Antonio pass, the first attack of the French II Corps was stopped by the steady volleys of the 9th and 21st Line Regiments and heavy salvos from the guns of Arentschildt's detachment of the 4th Artillery Regiment. The climax of the fighting in this area was reached when Foy's Brigade almost broke through the allied position.

Officer, Portuguese Militia Cavalry, 1807

As Foy approached the summit of the mountain only the 9th Portuguese Line, a single battalion of the 8th Line and the Thomar militia regiment stood in his way. The militia regiment broke and ran but the two Line regiments held their ground long enough for reinforcements to reach the Pass and drive the French back down the steep slopes of the Serra. Over to the north of the battlefield the 3rd Cacadores had been placed with the 95th Rifles in and around the village of Sula in front of the allied position, with the whole of the 4th Cacadores deployed on the hillside above the village. As the French IV Corps advanced the Cacadores were slowly pushed backwards and the Ist Cacadores were sent down to support the skirmish line. Despite this reinforcement the French broke through the light infantry and pushed on towards the summit only to be beaten back down the hill-side with the help of the rest of the Light Division.

Only one French regiment remained on the hillside, the 32nd Leger, which had become separated from the rest. This solitary regiment reached the skyline only to be met by a volley and a bayonet charge from the 19th Portuguese Line.

The 32nd met the charge of the 19th Line and some of the Portuguese "got so wedged in amongst the French that they had not room to use their bayonets. They turned up the butt ends of their muskets and plied them with such vigour that they promptly cleared the way. [21]

The 32nd Leger had met their match and they too were driven down the hill. The Portuguese followed the retreating Frenchmen until they were stopped by the artillery of the VI Corps. The 19th "reformed, faced to the right about, and as if manoeuvring on a parade, regained its original position amid the acclamations of all the left of the British Army who were spectators of the conduct." [22]

The Portuguese had proved themselves for the first time in a major battle. So well, in fact did the Portuguese fight at Bussaco, the French refused to accept that they had been beaten by Portuguese and they firmly believed that they had been engaged with British troops dressed in Portuguese uniforms! [23]

Further evidence of the part played by the Portuguese in the victory is demonstrated by the fact that both the British and Portuguese suffered exactly the same number of casualties. Wellington wrote of the battle to Lord Liverpool, "It has brought the Portuguese levies into action with the enemy for the first time in an advantageous situation; and they have proved that the trouble taken with them has not been thrown away; and that they are worthy of contending in the same ranks with British troops." [24]

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