Chapter 26
With the 58th Regiment in Portugal
July 1809 – April 1810
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Captain
John Gomersall arrived in Lisbon,
with the 2nd Battalion, 58th Regiment on July 3rd 1809,
where it was camped for two weeks at Alcantara which
today is the dock area of Lisbon just at the point where
the modern suspension bridge crosses the Tagus river.
No doubt the troops would relish the fine weather, fresh
food and drink after so long at sea in cramped troop
ships.
In a memorandum from Wellington’s Adjutant General,
Stewart, dated 9th July 1809, Major General Lightburne
is directed to minutely inspect the second battalions
recently arrived from England so that they may be:
“..brought
forward into such a state of discipline as will render
them more capable of taking the field with credit and
honour..”.
They were to be exercised
each morning at daybreak and at sunset and
“..he (Wellington)
hopes the greatest exertion on the part of the officers
will be used to render these different battalions in
all respects fit for field services.”
On the 17th July 1809,
Wellington wrote to General Beresford
“..I have
ordered General Lightburne and the 2nd Battalion 5th
Regiment, and 2nd Battalion 58th Regiment, to be prepared
to obey any orders which they may receive from you.
Having been in camp for a fortnight at Alcantara, I
conclude that they are now prepared to move…”
According to Sir Charles
Oman not a shot was fired by any of Wellington’s
troops between the 20th August 1809 and February 27th
1810 and this seeming passivity was the cause of much
criticism both in England and Portugal, however, that
did not mean there was a lack of activity. Beresford
was busy reorganising and equipping the Portuguese Army
which he did in part at least by placing
British Officers into Portuguese Regiments and against
the wishes of Wellington giving each officer a step
up in rank (Captain John Gomersall therefore became
a Major in the Portuguese Army in May 1810). His justification
for this being that otherwise there would be little
incentive for capable officers to apply. If the Colonel
of a regiment was Portuguese then the Lieutenant Colonel
would be British and vice versa and this was repeated
in the lower ranks. From 1810 Beresford set up a depot
at Peniche on the coast where
the Portuguese recruits were trained in the same drill
and manoeuvres as the British and orders were issued
in both languages. William Carr Beresford had been made
Marshal of the Portuguese Army in April 1809 and remained
throughout the Peninsular campaign one of Wellington’s
most trusted Generals. The Portuguese Army was transformed
from an ineffective fighting force to a position just
over a year later in 1810 when they were praised for
their performance by Wellington at the battle of Busaco,
where the French were comprehensively beaten. It provided
between one third and one half of the troops in the
field army as well as the militias. In addition, in
October 1809, Wellington gave the order for the construction
of the defences known as “The Lines of Torres
Vedras” with the purpose of protecting Lisbon,
which apart from anything else was a strategically important
deep water all weather harbour for the British navy.
The hills north of Lisbon rise to a height of 400 to
600 metres and are close together |
separated by steep
sided valleys and gorges. These and other natural features
were used in creating the 'Lines', with fortified redoubts
on the most prominent hills, low lying areas deliberately
flooded and valleys blocked. There were three lines,
stretching between the Atlantic and the river Tagus
with the first about 20 miles north of Lisbon and the
second about 5 or 6 miles behind. A third line was built
around the peninsular of St Julian at the mouth of the
Tagus to provide a last line of defence in the event
that the British army had to be evacuated. The officer
given this monumental task was Colonel Fletcher who
was later killed at the siege of San Sebastian. A memorial
column, to him and to all those who built these defences,
stands on a hill overlooking the Tagus at Alhandra,
where the first line meets the river.
Up to this time, British involvement in the Iberian
Peninsular had met with mixed success. In October 1807
Marshal Junot had invaded Portugal with a combined
Franco-Spanish army causing the Portuguese Royal family
to sail off to Brazil until such time as the crisis
passed. Following the Spanish rebellion against French
rule in May 1808 and appeals for assistance from the
Galicians and Asturians, Sir Arthur Wellesley was dispatched
in July 1808 with a small British army of 10,000 |
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men intent upon collaboration
with Spanish forces. However, when he landed at Coruna,
although the Spanish were friendly, they declined the
support of British troops, so Wellington sailed on to
Oporto and eventually landed at the port close to Coimbra.
The Government meanwhile sent reinforcements along with
more senior Generals to take over the command from Wellington.
After some 5,000 reinforcements had arrived but before
the Generals took the command from him, Wellington managed
to defeat the French at the battle of Vimeiro. The subsequent
peace treaty with the French by which their troops were
returned to France in British ships (the Treaty of Cintra)
was extremely unpopular in England and Wellington and
the other Generals had to return to England to face
an enquiry, leaving Sir John Moore to command the British
army in Portugal and to deal with Napoleon's first and
only visit to the Peninsular. Moore was ordered to take
the 23,000 men under his command and march into Spain,
there to provide support to the Spanish army. He was
to be joined by 10,000 others who were to be landed
at Coruna under the command of Sir David Baird. At the
same time, Napoleon, at the head of an army of 150,000,
advanced into Spain, defeated two Spanish armies in
his path and by early December had taken the capital,
Madrid. This lack of Spanish resistance left Moore with
little option but to retreat, however, before doing
so he thought there was an opportunity to attack Marshal
Soult who was within striking distance and in inferior
numbers, at Valladolid. Unfortunately, news reached
him that Marshal Ney had left Madrid on the 20th December
with 35,000 men and was heading in his direction. Moore
then began a rapid retreat over the mountains to Coruna
which in the middle of winter |
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and without good
equipment and provisions, took a heavy toll on the troops,
many of whom would have preferred to stand and fight.
When Napoleon realised he was unlikely to catch Moore
he returned to Paris leaving Marshal Soult to continue
the pursuit. On the 17th January 1809, Moore’s
army got away, leaving behind 6,000 dead and wounded
and the great General himself who was killed in the
final rear guard action. This unsuccessful campaign,
demonstrated the unreliability of the Spanish army as
an ally but it did have the benefit of diverting the
effective part of the French army into the northwest
of Spain, instead of being a threat to Lisbon and thereby
it laid the foundation for subsequent British successes
in Portugal. Napoleon, safely back in France, ordered
Soult to advance into northern Portugal from Galicia
ignoring the harsh terrain and lack of decent roads.
Soult finally arrived at Oporto in March 1809 causing
panic amongst the local population. The British Government
in response, dispatched another army under Wellesley
which landed in Lisbon in April 1809. This time he was
appointed Marshal General of Portugal by the Regency
government, |
thereby
putting him in charge of both British and Portuguese
Armies. Dispatching some troops to safeguard the eastern
frontier, he advanced with 18,000 men north to remove
Soult from Oporto, this he accomplished
by a secret daring crossing of the Douro River, forcing
the French to abandon their artillery, baggage and plunder
and flee back over the border into Spain. Wellesley
now sought permission from his government in England
to take the offensive against the French and enter Spain.
This he commenced in early July 1809 from a base at
Abrantes in central Portugal. Whilst Soult and Ney were
still reorganising their troops in Galicia in northern
Spain, Wellington planned to join forces with the Spanish
General Cuesta to face Marshal Victor and King Joseph
(Napoleon’s brother) west of Madrid. Eventually
on the 28th July the French and |
allied armies faced
each other at the battle of Talavera de la Reina, which
despite many setbacks and more than 5,000 casualties
was declared a victory in England and Wellesley as a
consequence made Viscount Wellington of Talavera and
Baron Douro. Another consequence of the battle was that
since collaboration with the Spanish had proved almost
impossible, Wellington resolved never to rely on the
Spanish in future and to concentrate his efforts solely
on the defence of Portugal.
John Gomersall’s arrival in Lisbon
on the 3rd July 1809 coincided with Wellington’s
(actually Sir Arthur Wellesley at this time) advance
into Spain but since his Regiment was just landed and
not yet trained to join the field army, was not involved
in the last (as it transpired) battle of 1809 involving
the British army.
During the next few months (August – December
1809) there is evidence that the 58th Regiment was stationed
at Abrantes which is a Portuguese
stronghold on the Tagus river northeast |
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of Lisbon as, for
instance, on the 27th October three deserters from the
58th Regiment were caught in Lisbon and returned to
their regiment there. The regiment was recorded as still
there on the 28th November but on 24th December was
ordered to March from Abrantes to Coimbra
and then from Coimbra to Celorico
where it arrived on the 6th January 1810 . Celorico
later in the year was to become Wellington’s headquarters
in eastern Portugal. The 58th was now for a short time
part of the 4th Division under the command of Major
General Cole which by the 24th January 1810 was at Trancoso,
(Trancoso later became the headquarters of Marshal Beresford
who was awarded the title Conde de Trancoso), but on
the 23rd February it was transferred into the 3rd Division
under the command of Major General Picton. From the
end of April to the beginning of |
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June, Lightburne
moved his Brigade into three villages about 20 miles
east of Trancoso, namely Pala, Granja
and Evras Tenras.
However, in April, John Gomersall joined the Portuguese
Army, as a Memorandum from the Adjutant General’s
Office dated 14th April reads
“Captain
Gomersall, 2d Bn. 58th Regiment, and Lieutenant Waldron
of the 5th Regiment, will place themselves, under the
orders of Marshal Beresford.”
No doubt John Gomersall would have had much to do during
his first 9 months in Portugal, training and organising
his men, and studying the language, customs and local
terrain but it is likely that it was as nothing compared
with the following two and a half years up to October
1812 which was a period of unrelenting campaigning interspersed
with monumental sieges and battles which must have tested
the bravest and the fittest. |
Maps
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