V Battle of Fuentes de Honoro (May 3 – 5, 1811) the British-Portuguese army under the command of Lord Wellington thwarted the attempt of the French army of Portugal under the command of Marshal Andre Massena to liberate the besieged Almeida.

Background

In 1810, Massena followed the Anglo-Portuguese forces back to Lisbon before reaching the Torres-Vedras lines, but was determined to avoid storming the vast double line of communicating fortifications. After a hungry winter outside Lisbon, the French withdrew to the Spanish border in pursuit of the British-Portuguese army.

Wellington secured Portugal and then set about capturing the fortified border towns of Almeida, Badajoz and Ciudad Rodrigo. While Wellington laid siege to Almeida, Massena reshaped his defeated army and went to liberate Almeida’s French garrison. Wellington decided to stop his army in the small village of Fuentes de Onoro, blocking all possible routes to Almeida. He believed that the risk was justified, because the French had supplies for no more than a few days, while he had much more. The Anglo-Portuguese army had 36,000 infantry, 1,850 cavalry and 48 guns. The French had 42,000 infantry, 4,500 cavalry and 38 guns.

Organization of troops

French Army of Portugal

Massena’s army was divided into four corps and a cavalry reserve. Louis Henri Loison’s VI Corps had three divisions, led by Jean Gabriel Marchand, Julien Auguste Joseph Mermet and Claude Francois Ferrey. There was only Jean-Baptiste Solignac’s division in Jean Andoche Junot’s VIII Corps. The IX Corps of Jean-Baptiste Drouet included the units of Nicolas Francois Conroux and Michel Marie Claparede. Louis-Pierre Montbrun led the cavalry reserve. Jean Rainier’s second corps was positioned in the northeast, threatening Almeida with two divisions under the command of Pierre Hugo Victoire Merle and Etienne Adelay de Biere.

The battle was also attended by 800 cavalry troops under the command of Marshal Jean-Baptiste Bessiere, which included squadrons of elite grenadiers of the Imperial Guard. Grenadiers a Cheval and the Empress’s dragoons. Bessieres’ reinforcements were almost symbolic, although Massena demanded that he bring his entire army corps into battle.

British-Portuguese Army

Wellington commanded six infantry divisions, Charles Ashworth’s independent Portuguese brigade, and three cavalry brigades. Brent Spencer commanded the 1st Division, Thomas Picton in the 3rd, William Houston in the 7th, and Robert Crawford in the Light Division. Stapleton Cotton commanded the cavalry brigades of John Slade and Frederick von Arenchildt. Edward Howorth commanded four British and four Portuguese batteries of 6 guns each. William Erskine (5th Division), Alexander Campbell (6th Division) and 300 Portuguese cavalrymen under the command of Count Barbassena were formed separately, facing the French II Corps.

Battle

On May 3, Massena launched a frontal attack against the British-Portuguese outposts in the barricaded village, while simultaneously firing heavy artillery at the allies in the heights east of the village. French soldiers from the Ferey and Marchand divisions clashed with the British infantrymen of the 1st and 3rd divisions in the center of the village, and their battle continued all day.

At first, the Allies were thrown back by a powerful French attack, but the counter-offensive made it possible to reclaim the streets and buildings lost earlier in the day. At sunset, the French withdrew, and the village remained in British hands, and the loss of the French amounted to 650 people against only 250 for the British.

Both sides spent May 4 recovering from the previous day of fighting and revising their options and battle plans. French intelligence showed that Wellington’s right flank was very weak and held by a guerrilla force near the village of Poco Velho.

Location of French and Allied forces on 5 March

The battle continued at dawn on 5 May. Wellington placed the 7th Division on the right flank. Massena launched a powerful attack on him, in the vanguard of which were the dragoons of Montbrun, supported by the infantry units of Marchand, Merme and Solignac. Two battalions of the 7th division were immediately defeated by the French light cavalry. This forced Wellington to send reinforcements. Only through the efforts of the light division and the cavalry of the British and the royal German legions was it possible to save the 7th division from destruction.

On the dangerous right flank of the Allies, an elite light division, supported by cavalry and artillery, staged an exemplary withdrawal in battle. To reduce losses, they covered the retreat of the 7th Division, after which they retreated to a more advantageous position chosen by Wellington. During the retreat, when the French artillery dared to get too close, the British cavalry attacked or pretended to attack. This allowed the infantry to retreat from the firing zone in time. When the French horsemen, using their numerical superiority, began to press against the British cavalry, the Anglo-Portuguese infantry lined up in squares and drove off the French with volleys. At this point, Montbrun appealed for help to the cavalry of the Imperial Guard, which were present, but had not yet participated in the battle.

Time was of great importance, and Massena immediately sent one of his adjutants, Charles Oudinot, son of the Marshal of the Duke of Reggio, with orders for the Guards cavalry to advance. Young Oudinot set off hastily, and Massena looked impatiently at his watch, believing that a cavalry attack would be decisive in this battle. To the chagrin of the entire French headquarters, Oudinot returned without any cavalry. As soon as he saw him, Massena shouted furiously from afar: „Where is the cavalry of the guard?" Oudinot explained that he could not bring her. He clashed with the second commander of the Guards cavalry, General Louis Lepic, who sharply refused to surrender his men, stating that he recognized as his commander only the Duke of Istria (Bessieres) and that without an explicit order from his commander, the grenadiers and dragoons would not strip their swords. Bessieres was absent from the battlefield at that moment, unnecessarily inspecting the trenches in the place where the French army had passed a few days ago. Massena could not find the guard commander in time and was forced to admit that the opportunity was missed.

Everything went well for the Allies, despite two unpleasant incidents. One of these occurred when the British 14th Light Dragoon Squadron attacked a French artillery battery and was repulsed with heavy casualties. In the second case, the French cavalry engaged in a firefight with several companies of the 3rd Infantry Guards Regiment, which resulted in the loss of 100 men.

Massena, however, continued to focus primarily on the conquest of Fuentes de Onoro. He sent forward columns of infantry from Ferey’s division. The village, dotted with low stone walls, provided excellent cover for the British line of infantry and riflemen, while the French were heavily cramped in the small narrow streets. Initially, the French achieved some success, destroying two companies of the 79th Mountain Regiment and killing the commander of the regiment, Lieutenant Colonel Phillips Cameron. But a counterattack drove Ferey’s people out of the city.

Drouet launched a second attack on the city. This time it was led by three battalions of grenadiers from the IX Corps. With their old-fashioned bear-hair hats, the grenadiers were mistaken for the Imperial Guard. The British retreated again. Drouet launched into the attack about half of the battalions from the divisions of Conrue and Claparede, capturing almost the entire city.

In response, Wellington counterattacked with units of the 1st and 3rd divisions, as well as the Portuguese 6th Casadore division; leading the attack was the 88th Connaught Ranger Infantry Regiment. This stopped Drouet’s attack and the situation began to change. Due to a lack of ammunition, the French were forced to resort to bayonet attacks in a vain attempt to push the British back. One group of 100 grenadiers was trapped and killed. Faced with deadly volleys, the French halted and retreated to the Dos Casas River, abandoning the wounded. By sunset, the morale of the French had fallen sharply, and in many units only 40% of the soldiers remained.

French artillery attempted to bombard the British positions, but Wellington returned fire. Finally, the French artillery ammunition came to an end, and with them the shelling. During the evening, Wellington’s people grew stronger. After standing for the next three days in front of the British positions, Massena gave up further fighting and retreated to Ciudad Rodrigo. He was furious because Bessieres refused to deliver ammunition from the citadel.

Consequences

Wellington repulsed the attack of the French army of Portugal, inflicting great damage on it, and was able to continue his siege of Almeida. The number of casualties varied according to various sources, from 2,200 to 3,500 French versus 1,500 for the Allies, while another historian stated that casualties were 2,800 French and 1,800 British and Portuguese. However, Wellington acknowledged how dangerous the situation was, later saying, „If Boney were there, we would have been smashed." Indeed, Russian historian Oleg Sokolov noted that Wellington made a serious strategic mistake by following the French into northern Portugal, and that this decision could have dire consequences for the Allied army. Wellington himself did not believe he was victorious in this battle; he also noted that he had sprayed his troops too much, endangering the 7th and light divisions.

Two nights after Massena left, Almeida’s French garrison of 1,400 men, under the command of Antoine Brunier, made their way through the British-Portuguese encirclement during the night. About 360 Frenchmen were captured, but the rest fled when their pursuers encountered a French ambush. Erskine and others were blamed for this fiasco. Wellington wrote: „I have never been so saddened by any military event as the flight of even one person from them."

Upon reaching Ciudad Rodrigo, Massena was recalled to Paris by an enraged Napoleon to explain his actions (although Napoleon had ordered him to return before the battle). He was replaced by Marshal Auguste Marmont. Massena went to France with a huge amount of gold mined in Portugal and Spain. The defeated French marshal complained that Wellington „did not leave him a single black hair on his body – I was all gray."

This battle also included a famous example of friendly fire, when a French infantry unit mistook its allies, the Hanoverian Legion, for an English battalion and opened fire on them. The unfortunate Hanoverians hastily retreated behind the village, leaving more than 100 dead. The confusion arose from the fact that the Royal Hanoverian Legion wore red overcoats, and in the smoke and heat of battle, the small details of the form, by which they could be distinguished from the British infantry, were invisible.

The bloody stalemate was not at all what was expected after the expulsion of Massena from Portugal. In the spring of 1811, the Torres-Vedras line strongly influenced his confidence and moral authority, and Wellington intended to go on the offensive, for which he actually received permission from his political masters in London, where talk of a significant reduction in the size of the army occupied in Portugal, gave way to promises large reinforcements. Supply difficulties, illness among the troops and the lack of siege artillery prevented large-scale operations, but there was hope that Almeida, Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz could be recaptured, which opened the way for lightning strikes against targets such as Salamanca or Seville. In the case of the events described, however, success was extremely limited, and the remainder of 1811 was essentially a history of failure and disappointment.

In fiction


Cornwell, Bernard, Sharpe’s Battle, HarperCollins, 1995, ISBN 0-00-224307-5. The book covers most of the events of the battle and contains a description of the retreat of the British right wing under the command of Robert Crawford. The novel features several fictional characters, but also includes real-life historical figures such as Wellington and Massena.