Battle of Vimeiro

• 1. Introduction

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  On the 21st of August 1808, near a village called Vimeiro outside Lisbon, a French army marched straight into rows of British muskets. The French had organised their men into deep columns, dozens of ranks crammed behind a narrow front. Across the fields stood a British line only two or three men deep, but stretching wide. By the end of the day, the French general Jean-Andoche Junot had lost 2,000 men and 13 cannon. The British, under General Arthur Wellesley, had lost about 700. Junot retreated toward Torres Vedras, and the first French invasion of Portugal was over. Yet the most surprising thing about Vimeiro is what did not happen next. The man who won the battle was pushed aside before he could chase the beaten enemy. The victory would be followed by an agreement so generous to the French that it sparked an outcry back home. Why did a winning commander get superseded in the middle of his own triumph? Why was the column so helpless against the line? And how did a clear defeat turn into a public scandal for the victors? Those questions sit at the heart of what happened on that ground near Maceira Bay.

• 2. The Armies On The Field

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  Wellesley arrived at Vimeiro with roughly 20,000 men, built around eight independent infantry brigades. They were led by Rowland Hill, Ronald Craufurd Ferguson, Miles Nightingall, Barnard Foord Bowes, Catlin Craufurd, Henry Fane, Robert Anstruther and Wroth Acland. Supporting them were 17 cannons and a small mounted force of 240 light cavalry under C. D. Taylor. About 2,000 Portuguese troops under Nicholas Trant rounded out the total. Junot brought a smaller army of 14,000 men, split into two infantry divisions and a cavalry division under Pierre Margaron. Henri François Delaborde's division held brigades under Antoine François Brenier and Jean Guillaume Barthélemy Thomières. Louis Henri Loison's division carried brigades under Jean-Baptiste Solignac and Hugues Charlot. François Étienne de Kellermann commanded a 2,100-man reserve of four converged grenadier battalions. These were formed by stripping the grenadier company from each of Junot's infantry battalions and combining them. The French marched in with 23 cannons, six more than Wellesley fielded. That reserve of elite grenadiers would later be thrown at the village in a last bid to break through.

• 3. A Beachhead To Defend

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  After the Battle of Roliça, fought four days earlier, Wellesley had set up a position near Vimeiro. By holding the village along with some ridges to the west, he covered a beachhead at Maceira Bay just beyond. That bay mattered because his reinforcements were coming ashore there, and most had arrived by the 20th of August. With his army gathered, Wellesley intended to push south toward Lisbon. Junot had other plans, and his army arrived first. The French commander aimed to send the brigades of Thomières, Solignac and Charlot directly against Vimeiro. Meanwhile, Brenier's 4,300-man brigade and some dragoons would swing wide to seize an empty ridge to the northeast of the village. Wellesley spotted the flanking move and shifted Nightingall, Ferguson and Bowes onto that northeastern ridge. Once Junot saw British troops on the high ground he wanted, he diverted Solignac's brigade rightward to support Brenier. Then, instead of waiting for the wide manoeuvre to mature, the French commander chose to attack the town at once.

• 4. Column Against Line

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  Thomières led the first assault with a 2,100-man brigade, backed by three cannons and screened by skirmishers. His men advanced as a column of companies, a formation roughly 40 files wide and 48 ranks deep. The lead company of 120 men stood three deep, giving a front rank only 40 men across. French doctrine said the companies should peel off left and right to form a wide firing line three files deep once the enemy was found. In practice, French commanders often pushed the attack home while still in column, trusting their skirmishers and artillery to do the shooting. Fane countered the screen by detaching four companies of riflemen from the 60th Regiment of Foot and the 95th Rifles. These outshot the French skirmishers, who fell back to the sides of the column. Stripped of cover, the column blundered into the 945 men of the 50th Regiment, formed two deep. At 100 yards the British opened fire, and several companies of the 50th wheeled inward against both flanks. Caught in that enfilade and unable to deploy, the French infantry bolted, abandoning their three cannons. The same trap closed on Charlot's brigade, which struck a hidden battalion of Anstruther's and was taken in flank by a second.

• 5. The Grenadiers And The Cavalry

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  Seeing the fight turning against him, Junot threw in his grenadier reserve. The first two battalions hit the same ground as the earlier attacks and were thrown straight back. Kellermann then swung the final two grenadier battalions wide to the right and managed to break into Vimeiro itself. Units from Anstruther and Acland counterattacked, and even these elite troops fell back. Colonel Taylor's 20th Light Dragoons pounced on the retreating grenadiers and routed them. Then discipline failed. Excited by the easy success, the British horsemen charged on out of control. They ran headlong into Margaron's French cavalry division and were routed in turn. Taylor was killed, and the British lost about one man in four. The collapse showed how quickly a victory in the saddle could curdle into disaster. While this played out, the wider battle still hung on the northeast ridge, where Solignac and Brenier were closing in.

• 6. The Ridge In The Northeast

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  Solignac reached the northeast ridge after Brenier's men were delayed by a longer road around narrow ravines. He changed tactics, deploying three battalions abreast in an attack formation. Even so, each battalion stood as a column one company wide and eight companies deep. If they meant to form line once the British position appeared, they waited too long. They walked into the volley fire of Nightingall and Ferguson's brigades before they could spread out, and Solignac's men fled. Brenier's brigade arrived next, marching to the sound of battle on four battalions abreast. At first they surprised and drove back two British battalions that had let down their guard after beating Solignac. Pressing on in column, the French then ran into the 29th Regiment standing in line, which stopped them cold. The two scattered battalions rallied and rejoined, and the combined volleys of three British battalions routed Brenier's men. General Brenier himself was wounded in the attack and captured by the 71st Highlanders.

• 7. The Convention Of Cintra

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  Wellesley won the battle but never got to finish it. Command had passed over his head during and just after the fighting. Sir Harry Burrard arrived during the battle, and Sir Hew Dalrymple soon after. When Wellesley urged a pursuit of the beaten French, Burrard declined to interfere with their retreat, so Junot's army slipped away intact. Dalrymple then went further, granting the French terms far better than they could have hoped for. Under the Convention of Cintra, the British navy carried the defeated army back to France, complete with its loot, guns and equipment. Back in Britain, the agreement caused an outcry. An official enquiry exonerated all three commanders, yet both the military establishment and the public blamed Dalrymple and Burrard. Both men received administrative posts and never held a field command again. Wellesley, who had bitterly opposed the deal, was returned to active service in Spain and Portugal. The general who had defeated Junot at Vimeiro would carry that career forward to become the Duke of Wellington.