Battle of Bussaco, 1810: Wellington's ridge stops Masséna

In 1810 Napoleon sent Marshal André Masséna to drive the British out of Portugal. His Army of Portugal began the invasion at the start of September 62,000 strong, in three corps under Reynier, Ney and Junot. Wellington did not mean to fight a decisive battle on the frontier. His plan was to fall back on the fortified Lines of Torres Vedras and let hunger defeat the French in front of them.²

Wellington abandoned his forward position at Guarda and retreated down the Mondego valley. He expected the French to take the southern bank of the river and had prepared positions on the Alva, but on 17 September Masséna's men began to cross to the north bank, onto a road Wellington called the worst in the whole kingdom. That road crossed the ridge of Bussaco, a position so strong that Wellington could not resist defending it.³

A ridge made for defense

The Serra do Buçaco runs northwest from the Mondego as a long, narrow ridge with steep sides, rising to about 560 meters near the convent of Bussaco. The main road to Coimbra climbed towards what looked like the highest point and then had to turn and run below the crest before crossing it. The line was nine miles long and thinly held. Wellington had 52,000 men, just under 27,000 British and about 25,500 Portuguese of Marshal Beresford's newly retrained army, still largely untested in a great battle.⁴

He kept most of them behind the crest, out of sight. According to Nathan Jensen, Masséna wrongly assumed that he faced only a rearguard, and his attacks went in without proper coordination. HistoryOfWar.org stresses another mistake: Masséna did not realize that the allied right reached all the way to the Mondego. He sent Reynier's 2nd Corps up a minor road from San Antonio de Cantaro in the belief that it would turn Wellington's flank, while Ney was to attack along the main road once Reynier had reached the crest, and Junot stayed in reserve.⁵

Reynier in the fog

The morning of 27 September was foggy. Reynier's two leading divisions, 14,500 men, toiled up the steep, heather-covered slopes and broke up into a mass of battalion columns. Heudelet's division was stopped by artillery and by the British 74th and the Portuguese 21st. Merle's division drifted to its left and reached the top of the ridge in a gap of three quarters of a mile between the 88th and the 45th Foot, just before the allies could fill it.⁶

Colonel Wallace of the 88th Foot saved the position. As the four battalions of the French 36th Line reached the summit, still winded from the climb, his men, with parts of the 45th and the Portuguese 8th, charged them in the flank and drove them down the hill, sweeping away two more French regiments in the rout. Picton, who had arrived just before the charge, gave the credit to Wallace. Reynier then sent in Foy's brigade, which for a moment won a foothold on the crest, but Leith, seeing no attack on his own front, marched his division to the left, and the 9th Foot drove Foy back down the slope. Merle and Foy were both wounded.⁷

Ney and the sunken road

Ney's attack on the allied left began as Merle's men reached the crest. Loison's division climbed towards Craufurd's Light Division, first fighting through a screen of 1,300 British and Portuguese light troops and then making for a battery that seemed unprotected. In fact 1,750 men of the 43rd and 52nd Foot lay hidden in a sunken stretch of the road. When the French were about ten paces away they stood up and fired a volley that is said to have swept away the heads of the columns; companies then wheeled forward around the French and drove them down the hill. Loison lost 1,250 of his 6,500 men.⁸

On the other side of the road Marchand's division came under fire from three batteries and from Pack's Portuguese brigade. Its leading brigade tried repeatedly to storm the Portuguese line and fell back after losing 850 men, and Ney recalled the rest.⁹

Aftermath

HistoryOfWar.org gives French losses of 522 killed, 3,612 wounded and 364 missing, against 200 killed, 1,001 wounded and 51 missing on the allied side. The official returns showed 626 casualties each among the British and the Portuguese, proof that the Portuguese had done their full share of the fighting.¹⁰

The day after the battle Masséna's cavalry found a road nine miles to the north that turned the ridge, and Wellington resumed his retreat into the Lines of Torres Vedras. There Masséna found the allies in an even stronger position and did not attack them. For Wellington the battle's most lasting result was trust: Bussaco convinced him that he could rely on his Portuguese troops, who would play a major part in the last three years of the Peninsular War.¹¹