The Bussaco campaign, calculated Sir Charles Oman, marked the turning point of the Peninsular War. It was, he wrote, "the beginning of the end" for the armies of Napoleon. [1] If indeed the Portuguese campaign of 1810-11 turned the tide of victory against the French then the single most significant action of the war was the defence of the San Antonio Pass.

In the Summer of 1809, following the Battle of Wagram, the Emperors of Austria and France agreed upon an armistice which was to lead to a period of relative stability in central Europe. Peace between these two Powers allowed Napoleon to reduce the strength of his forces on the eastern front. Large contingents of the Grande Armee began to march southwards, through France and over the Pyrenees. The third French invasion of Portugal was soon to begin.

That Napoleon intended to direct a powerful attack upon Portugal was fully anticipated by Viscount Wellington who commanded the Anglo-Portuguese army at Lisbon. "You may depend upon it", he advised the British Government in August 1809, "their first and great object will be to get the English out". [2]

Consequently Wellington had already begun preparing Portugal for the inevitable invasion. "I have always been of opinion that Portugal might be defended, whatever might be the result of the contest in Spain", he had informed Lord Castlereagh, "and that in the meantime measures adopted for the defence of Portugal would be highly useful to the Spaniards in their contest with the French. My notion was that the Portuguese military establishment ought to be revived, and that in addition to these forces, 20,000 British troops should be employed, including about 4,000 cavalry. My opinion was that, even if Spain should have been conquered, the French would not be able to overrun Portugal with a smaller force than 100,000 men." [3]

As well as re-organising the regular army and re-arming the militia, Wellington improved the fortifications of the strategically important fortresses throughout the Kingdom and constructed a line of earthwork redoubts where the main road from the north of Spain to Lisbon contracted into a difficult defile at the Fonte de Murcella on the River Alva. Here Wellington intended to "Fight a battle to save the country. " [4]

But Wellington was not going to simply chance everything on a pitched battle. "I have fought battles enough", he told Sir Charles Stuart, "to know that even under the best arrangements the result of any one is not certain." [5] The position on the Alva could be turned from the south by an invading army crossing the Tagus. So although Wellington hoped to be able to stop the French at Ponte de Murcella he had to find further defensive positions below the point where the Tagus could not be crossed. Wellington was prepared to give up the rest of the country to the invaders in order to "confine ourselves to the preservation of that which is most important - the capital." [6]

Wellington's last stand would therefore in all probability be in front of Lisbon, and some twenty miles north of the capital were built the great range of defences known as the Lines of Torres Vedras. Though they were the most important and elaborate feature in Wellington's strategical plans, the Lines were only part of a completely integrated policy, which included calling out the Ordenanza.

At times of extreme national emergency every peasant between the ages of sixteen and sixty not conscripted for the regular army or the militia was supposed to be enrolled in one of the companies of the Ordenanza. Throughout Portugese history this call to arms had alwaysbeen accompanied by the order to the whole population to evacuate and devastate the land ahead of the invaders. Wellington expanded and improved this "scorched earth" policy to include the destruction of bridges, the blocking of roads, the dismantling of mills and ovens, and the removal of "carts, mules, and other means of conveyance... of which the enemy might use." [7]

All boats on the major rivers were registered and placed under the jurisdiction of the local authorities, and all the roads that the allies might require for their own concentration were repaired and improved.

The invasion, when it came in the Spring of 1810, was not made with the overwhelming force that would have made certain for the French. The expedition was entrusted to Marshall Andre Massena with "L'Armee de Portugal". This army consisted of some 83,000 men in three infantry corps (2nd Corps - Reynier; 6th Corps - Ney; 8th Corps - Junot) with a reserve cavalry division and a reserve artillery park.

The frontier fortresses of Ciudad Rodrigo and Almeida fell to Marshall Ney's 6th Corps in July and August, and in September 1810 Massena began his march upon Lisbon.

Instead of following the main road south of the River Mondego the French took an inferior route through Viseu. This move by Massena was quite unexpected as not only were the roads considerably more difficult but the route was also far longer, adding two days onto the march. The route through Viseu, however, meant that the French would by-pass Wellington's prepared positions at Ponte de Murcella. But Wellington was not dismayed by this turn of events for the road beyond Viseu led to an even more formidable position "one in which I am strongly tempted to give battle." [8]

Wellington was writing from the mountain of Bussaco.

More San Antonio Pass

Introduction
Bussaco
5am Advance
Leith to the Rescue